A Solid Core of Alpha (17 page)

Anderson nodded and didn’t say anything else. C.J. would have thought he was asleep, but the knee of C.J.’s spiffy, non-regulation coveralls with the little holo-sparkles all over them was becoming wet and briny, and quiet sobs shook Anderson’s shoulders well into the night.

Chapter 9

Late for the Launch

T
HE
doc was back from her visit planetside, and she came knocking on C.J.’s door first thing in the morning. C.J. awoke from his spot on the couch, hazy and bleary-eyed, and he and Anderson bumped heads as Anderson sat up to let him up.

They looked at each other for a moment, sleepy and vulnerable, and C.J. felt Anderson’s breath—ripe from sleep—hit his cheek in a hot burst. He actually startled like an infant when the pounding on the door came again.

“Coming!” he muttered as he stumbled over to hit the door seal.

Michelle Leighton was a stocky, no-nonsense fifty-ish woman with a sturdy smile and a comforting aura. “Hear we’ve got some long-term space weakness to start pounding out. Are we ready to get our ass worked, kid?”

Anderson literally peered at her from over C.J.’s shoulder, and when C.J. turned around, there was that big-eyed look again and those lips so very close to his own.

“You’ll be fine,” C.J. reassured him with a smile. “Michelle’s awesome. I broke my arm two years ago, and she barely hurt me at all when it healed.”

“Ha, ha, C.J.,” Michelle said dryly. “You were so out of it I could have danced the cha-cha on your ’nards in stiletto heels and it wouldn’t have hurt.” She directed a kind look at Anderson. “I’m a big believer in lots of good drugs when any pain is involved. Don’t worry, kid, we’re just going to talk vitamins and workout regimens and maybe another pass with the sonic wand to make sure everything is all smooth. Can you handle that?”

Anderson looked at C.J. again, and C.J. found his hand with a minimum of fumbling and gave it a squeeze. “Yeah, sure,” Anderson said softly. “I need to go change into my coveralls again, okay?”

C.J. winced. “Anderson, hey, Anderson, how about you raid my drawers, okay? We’re about the same size. Find something you like, and we’ll run the coveralls through laundry, okay?”

Anderson brightened and turned to C.J. with one of those blinding grins. “
Really
? Because I love your clothes. I’d
love
to wear something different…
excellent
!”

C.J. chuckled and watched him disappear into the bedroom, then turned around to find that Michelle was looking at him soberly.

“This,” she said with deliberation, “is not a good idea.”

C.J. winced. “I’m just being friendly,” he muttered, moving into the kitchenette to get Anderson something to eat. “He just needs a buddy, you know? I’m not going to take advantage.”

Michelle grunted. “I didn’t think you would, C.J. It’s not him I’m worried about!”

C.J. sighed. “I know, I know, there’s all sorts of damage and shit, but he just needs a friend.”

Michelle shook her head. “Well, you enjoy that ‘friendship’, C.J., because when you get attached to him and he can’t return it, you’re going to be devastated.”

C.J. popped some toast in and got Anderson a glass of fruit juice and then felt ready for the cavalier shrug. “I know better,” he said, and Michelle sighed and flopped onto his couch.

“Can I have a cup of that?” she asked. “Because if I’m going to have to listen to you bullshit yourself, I need something to make it go down easy.”

“Michelle? He trusts me. If I’m the first actual live person he’s known since he was a kid, I’m not going to dodge out on him now. Get off my fucking back, okay?”

Michelle sighed. “Great. I still need some fruit juice, C.J., but now I’m gonna season it with tears.”

They heard the bathing recycler start up, and C.J. looked distractedly around the little kitchen. Everything was cooking. Nothing was ready.

“Michelle, I’m meeting my sister in two hours to see how this kid’s life got destroyed. Is there any way we could pretend this conversation didn’t happen?”

“Do I get my fruit juice?”

“Yeah, you get your fucking fruit juice.”

“Then I won’t even say ‘I told you so’ when you completely self-destruct.”

C.J. tried a smile, but he’d barely slept, and the memory of Anderson’s big dark eyes—with a fringe of long dark lashes as well—kept making the breath stop in his chest. “Michelle, have you ever known me not to land on my feet?”

“Yeah,” she said, taking the fruit juice from him with a nod of gratitude. “Once. I spent six hours operating on your arm so you could hand me a goddamned cup of fruit juice.” She shook her head. “This kid’s history has so many built-in landmines here, C.J., I don’t know if putting you back together is going to be as easy.”

The toast popped and C.J. tended to it. He asked about Michelle’s mother, who’d been ill planetside, and she rolled her eyes at him. He ignored her, and by the time Anderson came out, looking hidden in C.J.’s clothes, which (contrary to C.J.’s predictions) didn’t fit him at all, C.J. had a little plate to dish up, and he sat Anderson down and made him eat it.

Before they left, he pressed a credit disc into Anderson’s hand.

“It’s Marshall’s money. It’s my work account. Make Michelle take you to the employee services ring and buy some clothes. There’s a couple of shops there, spend as much money as you want, and get
whatever
you want, you hear?”

Anderson’s face went blank, and C.J. could tell he was processing the information slowly, afraid to actually verbalize what it really meant. When the entire room brightened from that blinding smile, C.J. knew he got it.

“Can we burn the jumpsuits?” he asked excitedly, and C.J. grinned back.

“We can put them in the recycler, how’s that?”

“I might save one to burn for when I finally get planetside. Will you help me make a bonfire?”

“Absolutely!” He meant it. He really did. As that knowledge landed uncomfortably on his shoulders, Michelle looked at him with a pained, sympathetic expression.

“Bye, C.J.,” she said wearily. “I’ll try to have him back by the end of your shift.”

“He’s not a prisoner,” C.J. said, although the idea of Anderson, here, in his quarters, when he got back was so very… warm. “Anderson, try not to get lost, because that could be really disorienting, but come back whenever you please. You can leave the clothes here if you like and go exploring on your own, but….”

Anderson was shaking his head, and he reached out the hand that wasn’t holding the disc to squeeze C.J.’s hand as it gestured. “End of your shift, C.J. I won’t make you worry. I promise.”

“Thank you,” he said, his heart in his throat, and then Anderson blushed and ducked his head.

“C.J., could you… I mean… I need a favor.”

It was embarrassing how badly he wanted to do Anderson a favor. “Yeah, sure, what do you need? Sizes, a guide, a gamma bird of your very own, what?”

Behind Anderson’s shoulder, Michelle’s expression turned dry, but Anderson himself was abruptly very sober. “In my quarters… in my room, really, there’s a last little memory cache. It’s… you’ll see it. You can download that to public record if you want, but… I’d really like that back, if it’s okay.”

C.J. swallowed. God, he’d lived in that ship for ten years, and they weren’t letting him back on. The weight of that decision, of Anderson’s easy understanding of it, seemed to press him a little deeper into the brown and tan carpet.

“Yeah, not a problem, if I have to wrestle my sister to do it.”

Anderson’s smile wasn’t blinding and whole. It was little and broken, but he gave it anyway, obviously just to please C.J., and then he gestured for the doctor, a courteous gesture, probably learned as a child, and he followed Michelle through the door.

The seal went whoosh as it closed, and C.J. flopped exhaustedly onto his couch.

By the seven moons of Ariadne-Omega, what did he think he was doing?

C
ASSIE
asked him the exact same question, only in a different context.

“Jesus Christ, Cyril, it’s the boy’s quarters. What in the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Her voice was shrill as it came in from the bridge outside the house, and he had a moment to think that maybe he could do
his
work from the holodeck to get away from her.

“He’s a grown man, Cassidy, and he made a perfectly reasonable request. Now hang on a minute, he said….”
You’ll know it when you see it.

Anderson’s—and, presumably, Alpha’s, although no one had yet seen the elusive Alpha—room was… masculine. The work desk was made of the same red-tinted wood, as was the end table. The walls were painted that bright, sunny yellow, but with the darker furniture, the dark green and brown rug, and the
real
and utilitarian obviously makeshift cot, the whole thing felt… male. Not perky and young, but male. C.J. looked around and thought that maybe Anderson really did like C.J.’s living room, and then he saw it.

He swallowed before walking around the cot to the end table and picking it up.

It had been jimmied to sit propped up—there was a plastic piece of cannibalized ship furniture duct-taped to the back of it—and basically, it was a child’s electronic school tablet, the kind that held their homework and their journals and the textbooks they were using and whatever else a pre-university kid could need.

This one had been set on a permanent photomontage, and as C.J. held it, heart pounding painful, singular beats in his chest, it showed him the very last bit of data that had yet to be downloaded into the station.

The main picture showed a family. Mom had fair hair, much like her son’s, and green eyes. She was smiling spontaneously at her husband, as though he’d said something when the digital image had been taken that made her laugh, and even blushing a little—she was happy. Dad was fair too and had brown eyes very much like his son’s.

The children were… well, less than perfect. There was a teenager with a hip-length braid of blonde hair and green eyes like her mother who was holding a plump toddler with chocolate cake in her white-blonde hair. The toddler was reaching for something off-camera and threatening to overbalance her sister, and the expression on the girl’s face was a very adult exasperation. There was another girl, probably nine or so, who looked for all the world like she was giving directions to her brother, who was in the midst of shoving a truly tremendous piece of chocolate cake into his mouth and was eating it with swollen cheeks and a winsome expression that said the lure of the cake had just been too much for him to bear.

Anderson’s smile, even through the cake, was as blinding and as hopeful as C.J. had always suspected, and it held so much promise that C.J.’s stomach hurt.

C.J.’s hands started sweating as he spun through the rest of the photos—one of Anderson sitting at the homework table, one of his sister, jaw clenched in concentration, about to take off from the mark at a track meet. The littlest girl grew in front of him, from Anderson holding her as a baby to a shot of her naked, the other sister chasing her through the house, both of them with mouths open as they apparently squealed in joy. Dad, sleeping with a baby on his chest, and then a different one, holding a toddler in one arm and a baby in another. A secretly taken one of mom, looking tired and happy, sitting in the front room of a house that had probably never been clean.

He swallowed, hard, and checked the data banks to see if there was anything else.

There was.

Mom had tried—not always successfully—to have the family write letters once a year, apparently to put into the shuttle archive in case of a disaster.

It was a common practice in the outer colonies—everyone was aware of their vulnerability—but C.J. looked as the letters scrolled before his eyes and had to swallow hard, and again, and still couldn’t stop his eyes from blurring.

Dear Mom, you said we had to write a letter for Melody’s birthday. Can we ask the shuttle to make her not so bossy because she keeps telling me I can’t bring frogs to the party, and I know she likes frogs….

Dear Mom, if we read this in ten years, is it okay if Anderson knows what a pain in the ass he is? He threw worms in my hair last week, and I almost killed him. I think he should know that it was mercy alone that spared his life….

Dear Mom, I’m really glad you had another girl this year. Little brothers suck. I’m just saying….

Dear Mom, next time could you try for a boy? That’s three sisters, Mom. I’m starting to think you don’t like boys and Dad was a mistake.

Dear Mom, Anderson and Melody
never
shut up. Thank you for a little sister who will play dolls with me. I will make a fort with baby Mandy, and we can ignore those other poo-poo heads and play.

Dear Mom, can Jen really tell me to shut up and stop fighting with Mel? She’s only eight!

Dear Mom, if this is supposed to be a time capsule, you should know that I had a chance to kiss a boy today. I didn’t, because he was mean to Anderson. The first boy I kiss has to respect that the only one who gets to whale on Anderson is me, and that’s because I know what’s best for him.

Dear Mom, if Mel gets to read this in ten years, she needs to know that I almost dumped worms in her hair today while she was making out with Mike Saunders, who is actually not a bad person. I need her to know that if it had been with that scumbag Austen, she would have been wearing worms for a hairnet, and she might not be a total loss if she has decent taste in men. By the way, Mom, Bren keeps bringing me new stylus covers for holidays and stuff. Does this mean he likes me? I’m only asking because I think I like him, but no one is going steady in our grade yet, so maybe we’ll just keep playing after school. And he’s the kind of boy who will help me keep that bucket of worms full, in case Mel loses her mind and decides to kiss Austen instead.

Dear shuttle archives, I’m writing this upon the birth of our fourth child, Amanda Chrysanthemum Anderson-Rawn. Forgive us for the incredibly long, involved name, but James wanted to keep up the tradition of giving the girls flower names in the middle, and we’ve got Melody Rose, Jennifer Violet, and we were going for Amanda Rue, but Anderson complained that he didn’t have any say in having a little sister, so he might as well have a say in her name. We told him he could pick the middle name. We assume that naming his sister Chrysanthemum is a way to continue the incredible boy versus girls rancor that has made our home such a joy since he was born, but since his sisters are his family and he’s stuck with them, he’ll have to make his own peace with them. I know James and I are very much going to enjoy having a front row seat.