2.27 Think Fast

Finally home, Finley settles in to write about Bridgeport's recovery efforts.

Reisa frowns at the pictures Finley brought back. "Wow, that is a lot of hot dogs."

The return home reminds Junpei his mother is dead and her gravestone sits near the mausoleum, visible just over the hill there.

Little Reve needs some reassurance that he's not going to up and disintegrate into a gray ghost form for no apparent reason.

"You will someday," Junpei tells him. Then he frowns. "Oh, um, not soon."

 "What if I get turned into a vampire? How much time do I have then?"

"You aren't being turned into a vampire, Reve."

"I can if I want to!"

"No. Bad. Bad child."

"You're not my father," Reve says casually, "you can't tell me what to do."

"How long have you been waiting to use that line?"

"A while," Reve sighs. "We don't argue much, so a good opportunity never comes up."

Reve's uncle has been more of a father to him than his biological one, and Reve knows that... "Umm. Sorry."

"Yep."

"Are you mad?"

"Nah."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"You got really good at closing off any thoughts you don't want me to see. So I can't tell... at all... and it weirds me out." And it makes it impossible to troll for reactions.

Junpei thinks about this, then opens his thoughts for the kid a bit, allowing Reve to see at least that he is not upset. "Sorry, Revvy, I've just had a lot to think about lately."

"Grieving Gramma. I know. Me too."

Hidden Springs is as the Archers left it. The snow shows no sign of stopping. White is the new green. The entire sector is locked in an eternal battle to keep its roads passable.

"Think fast!" Timmothy lobs a football at his brother.

Leslie turns around and holds his hands up defensively. "Wha'!?" The ball manages to land in the vicinity of his hands. He holds onto it tightly. "Tim? Is that you? The f***. You scared me."

Timmothy stares blankly as the snow falls around them.

Leslie shakes his head, drops the ball in the snow and walks into the store. On his way in he sees Paulette Lho rolling a giant snowball, just to get some of the snow out of the way.

Timmothy considers picking up the football. He watches it for a while. It's discarded there in the snow, just like him. Disappointingly, it just lays there. It doesn't sprout legs and run away, or start talking, or explode. Soon it's covered in snow. Out of sight, out of mind, or so they say, damn them, so Timmothy turns around, only to almost walk right into-

"Are you a hallucination?"

Finley's face flushes red. "Don't think so. Just here for..." Bubble bath soap. Don't say that. "...Groceries." She ought to turn around and run, escape, but she hasn't seen Timmothy in so long, she finds herself staring at his face and searching for... she doesn't know what.

He frowns solemnly. "I'm sorry about your mother."

He reaches out to stroke her arm, catches himself, stops. Her face is unreadable. She looks into his own face and he'd swear to you she can see into whatever's in his soul and level judgement. Her palm is unconsciously turned up, receptive to a gesture that's never completed. Neither of them notice it.

Timmothy is surprised, though not more than Finley is, when she grabs onto him tight and starts to cry.

Accalia photo-bombs wonders what Finley thinks she's doing.

A phonecall from the office interrupts whatever was going on here.

She's going to tell me to get away from her and then she's going to walk away, Timmothy thinks. And it's too cold to just stand here and die, so before Finley notices, he decides he will walk away himself.

"Making things up again," he says to himself, when he's out of earshot of anyone. His ex-girlfriend couldn't have possibly hugged him. Not after what he's done. Not after all the lies they said he said, not after all the medications and the unreality and the world trapped in ice.

He is gone by the time she's off the phone and turned around.

She knew he would be. She could have stopped him.

It's for the best she didn't.




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Etc.: Sorry, short chapter, I've been trying to fix my legacy save and make it more playable. It's been freezing (no pun intended) and glitching. I've been considering moving all residents to a fresh copy of Hidden Springs, but that might be more trouble than it's worth. To fix an interface glitch, I had to switch households for a sec. Junpei immediately sought "employment" and turned to a life of crime..