Rating: R
Words: 10,662
Disclaimer: John McClane, Matt Farrell, sundry other characters, and the Fire Sale come from the Die Hard movies, with a focus on the fourth. Cameo madness: Curtis Lemansky and Tavon Garris have been carried off AU-style from The Shield, and I have no intention of returning them. You get a cookie if you know where John's superintendent, with a slight name change, came from.
Note: This fic is a sequel to Point B.
John had pretty much conquered his fear of flying years ago. What your parents didn't tell you when you were a kid was that it helped to kill what you feared. Just as well, considering how many animals made kids' lists--dogs, squirrels, ferrets... (John's was seagulls, who knew why, so maybe airplanes were a natural progression). Not something you wanted to go around promoting, but it was true. Irrational though it was, about the time John blew up a 747 with a pocket lighter, flying had stopped bothering him so much. He still didn't fly unless he had to, he still used the little relaxation techniques he'd learned before and after a flight, but it didn't keep him up the night before, or force him to down half a bottle of Pepto to keep his dinner where it should be.
What he hadn't gotten over, it seemed, was his fear of other people flying, especially if they were doing so without him, especially if they happened to be Matthew Farrell.
Matt's suitcase sat open on his bed. He took a sweater out of it for the third time and frowned at it. "It's gonna be cold, right? I mean, it's London in December. It's all Dickens and 'boy for sale' over there, now, right?"
"It's about ten degrees warmer there than here," John said for the fourth time, not needing to check the World Weather widget on Matt's desktop. "But you're still gonna be cold, so if you really need all that other stuff--"
"I can't show up for a network security consultancy job without the right gear--they'll never take me seriously."
"Then if it's overweight, just pay the charge. How much's it gonna cost if you get pneumonia?"
"Good point." Matt put the sweater back in. He poked at the other contents, fluffing up clothes around delicate items--computer peripherals and blank DVD-Rs. Then he nodded to himself, zipped up the bag and hauled it off the bed. "Oof," he said. "That feels like a hundred pounds, not fifty. What do you think?"
John grabbed the handle with his left hand and hefted it aloft. He weighed it thoughtfully. "It's not a hundred. Might be over fifty, though."
"He says, holding it one-handed," Matt said wryly. "It's okay, I don't feel inadequate. I can write a firewall in half an hour that protects against everything automated and still doesn't block your file-sharing programs. Aaaand, you have no idea what that means, but if you did, you'd be impressed."
"I'm impressed, I'm impressed," John chuckled. "C'mon." He carried the suitcase out into the living room and Matt trailed after him, mumbling lists of things he was supposed to pack and adding "check" or "kinda-check" or "goddammit, I'm not looking again," after each item.
He broke off after, "snacks--you better fuckin' believe it." "John, why are you barefoot?"
John glanced back at him, then down at his feet. "Oh, that?"
"Yeah, that," Matt said, one eyebrow raised, an amused smile on his face. "It's December, in case the Christmas lights on the lampposts hadn't tipped you off."
John set the suitcase down by the door and turned to face him. "It's a stress-relief thing I picked up from somebody," he said. "Helps with the fear of flying. What you do, see, you make fists with your toes in the carpet." He demonstrated.
Matt watched him, eyebrow ratcheting further.
"What?" said John.
"That has to be the dorkiest thing I've ever seen you do."
John shrugged. "It works."
"If you say so. But you're not flying. Unless you changed your mind about coming?"
John shook his head. "When you go to Texas, I'll think about it--ten degrees ain't worth the trip."
Matt gave him a soft look. "It's safer than driving."
Says the kid who's terrified of flying, John thought. "Yeah, yeah," he said. He scrunched another toeful of carpet. All night he'd been thinking of that Christmas seventeen years ago, with Holly on a hijacked plane, and him running wild a thousand feet below. What were the odds, really? That kind of shit couldn't happen twice, could it? No one, not even John McClane, was that unlucky. But of all the thousand things that could go wrong on an airplane, next to none of them could be solved from the ground. Definitely not from New York, when Matt's plane was a thousand miles out over the Atlantic.
The kinda shit John had been envisioning had him feeling queasy; it wasn't anything he could mention to a guy who hated flying himself when he was about to board a plane.
John wasn't sure whether it counted as an irrational fear when it'd happened to him before, but he just kept picturing Matt, cowering in his seat as some masked asshole with a machine gun stalked down the aisle, all nerves and trigger finger, just waiting for someone to jump up and play hero, and then the Matt in his mind got that glint in his eye--
"Just in case your plane gets hijacked--don't do anything stupid."
Yeah. If he said that, it would happen.
What happened to the twelve steps, John? You don't tell him to look both ways before he crosses the street, do ya?
"Sure you don't want me to drive you to the airport?"
"I'm not taking you away from serving and protecting just for a ride. Besides, then I couldn't kiss you good-bye."
"Why not?" John asked. Matt gave him an amused look as he stepped in and put his hands on John's chest, leaned up to kiss him. He leaned away again too quickly and took the handle of the suitcase.
"I'll take it down," John said.
"You're not even wearing socks, John." Matt grinned. "It's got wheels. I'll make it."
"Yeah. Right."
Matt looked around, patted his pockets and the pockets of the laptop case slung over his shoulder. "Guess I've got everything," he said. He looked at John. "You're not gonna eat TV dinners and order pizza while I'm gone, right?"
"Eh..." John said, noncommittal.
"I put something in the fridge for you."
John's eyebrows rose. "Which of us is the kid, here?"
Matt smirked. "If I come back and find the trash stuffed full of mac and cheese boxes, we'll know, won't we?"
"It might still be better than what I make," John said.
"Cook, McClane. I promise I'll make it up to you when I get back."
"I'll hold you to that."
Matt smiled and nodded. "Oh, right, and don't forget to swap out the bowl under the sink in the mornings, or you'll have a flood on your hands."
"I got it," John sighed. He needed to remember to leave a third message for the super about that.
"All right, I'm heading out." Matt opened the door and maneuvered the suitcase out into the hall. "Take care of yourself, John. I'll be back soon."
"Yeah, you, too," John said. Matt stepped out into the hall. The door was half closed when John said, "Hey, Matthew."
Matt turned to look over his shoulder. "What?"
"I love you."
Matt turned to face him. John hadn't realized until that moment that he hadn't said it before, although it was obvious enough, or so he thought.
Matt stepped back inside, slid his bag off his shoulder and threw his arms around John's neck. "I love you so much. You know that, right?"
John cupped Matt's face with one hand and kissed him. Matt pressed closer and sighed into the kiss, twined his tongue around John's. John turned him away from the door, pushed him up against the wall. He tugged Matt's shirt out of his waistband, slid his hand up over Matt's chest.
"John," Matt whispered as they broke for air.
John touched his forehead to Matt's, his hand resting over Matt's heart. "Just wanted to touch you before you go."
Matt kicked the door shut. "I'm early," he breathed. "I got time."
Matt slumped against the wall, face flushed and hair tousled. "God damn it, McClane," he groaned as John gave him a final stroke with the damp towel and tossed it away. "Come with me."
John met his eyes and Matt sighed, tucked himself back into his jeans. "I know you can't, but..." He reached for the front of John's pants. "At least let me--" John caught his wrists and Matt huffed. "John..."
"You'll just have to come back."
"Jesus, John, you're really starting to make me nervous. You don't know something about this flight, do you?"
John frowned. "Wouldn't let it take off, if I did."
"I'll be fine," Matt said. He turned his face aside when John leaned in to kiss him. "One more and I won't make it out the door." He hugged John tightly, pressed his face into John's neck and inhaled deeply.
"Okay," he said, exhaling gustily as he stepped away. "I'm out." He scooped up his laptop and paused in the doorway. "I'll be home for Christmas."
"Be home before that, won't you?" John asked.
"Yeah, I just always kinda wanted to say that. Mostly, I like the part about being home."
"Get the hell outta here before you miss your flight," John growled.
Matt grinned and ducked out. He closed the door behind him.
John walked back across the carpet, curling his toes hard in the worn nap. Then back once more for luck.
There was a big sheet of butcher paper on the wall of the station break room, with a two-column table drawn in black marker. The months from October 2007 through December 2008 were written on the left side (although someone had added a few smaller lines at the bottom in ball-point and added January 2010 and August 3000) and, on the right, the names of nearly everyone who worked at the station or came through on business, including one of their repeat-offender drunk and disorderlies. Sitting on the little table under the chart dedicated to condiments and coffee additives was a locked wooden box marked, by means of a reversed traffic ticket form taped to the top, "West Virginia Power Hub Pool." Someone had added a caret between "West" and "Virginia," and added "by God." Someone else had scribbled "Fuck" before the "West."
It cost fifty bucks to enter, twenty for each hedged bet you wanted to add, and the pot had to be pretty sweet right now. Every time the lights flickered out and the blue emergency lights came on, someone slammed their hands on their desk, stalked into the break room and stuffed a twenty into the slot to write their name lower on the table. John had his money, at Matt's suggestion, on November 2008, though he was beginning to wonder if Mr. 3000 was going to walk off with the pot.
As John got his coffee that morning, he looked over the list, as had become his ritual, to see who had added their name where since the day before. He got a sadistic kick out of watching people's bets come up. It was only the third, though, so Lem, his partner Tavon, and everyone else betting on December '07 had another twenty-eight days to hope.
As he was perusing the December names, John noticed a second list posted next to the Power Hub Pool. This one was just a sheet of letter paper, split in half by a thick horizontal line. On the bottom were months, from December 2007 to June 2008, with names on the right, just like on the Power Hub sheet. On the top were listed: Girl, Inheritance, Retirement, Lottery, Dog, Goat, and The Pipe. There were names by each option except Retirement, though not as many as on the older, larger sheet. The heading at the top of the sheet was, "MGM Pool."
John ran a few acronyms through his head, but came up with nothing convincing. He shrugged and headed into the bullpen. The station was an old building, pre-dating all the cheap and ugly government office construction in the sixties, and although it was suffering from lack of upkeep, it was still a handsome building on the inside, with stone floors and wooden pillars with the emblem of the New York City Police carved into the scrollwork at the top of each. The only downside of the spacious, high-ceilinged room where John had his desk, with its large windows near the ceiling keeping the place lit by day even when there was no power, was that all the other precinct detectives had theirs in there, too, and the problem with detectives is, they can't turn it off. You might think any room you shared with fifteen people would be low on privacy, but you didn't know what no privacy was until you'd shared space with detectives.
Mid-morning, John went out to question some friends and family of the people behind the October power station bombings who'd gotten away. When he returned after lunch, there were raised voices in the bullpen.
"This is bullshit," O'Connell was saying as McClane came in, jabbing her finger into Lem's chest. "You started it now because you knew it was already over, and no one would bet on December!"
"Hey," said Lem, holding up both hands. "I had no idea. I just--" He noticed the expressions of the detectives facing the door and turned around. He grinned widely. "Oh, hey, McClane!"
John looked at him, then around at the group of men and women clustered around his desk--the one next to John's. They avoided his eyes and dispersed to their own desks, leaving Lem and Tavon behind. McClane gave the pair a narrow look as he passed them to get to his seat.
His ass had barely hit the seat when Tavon's hit his desk and Lem, perched on his own desk, swung his legs around to lean over the edge of John's.
Curtis Lemansky and Tavon Garris had transferred together from a vice squad in L.A. five years earlier. They were in their thirties, but both could've passed for college students with the right props. Both were well over six feet, and built for shouldering down doors.
Lemansky was what happened if you bred a golden retriever with a St. Bernard and pinned a badge on the puppy. Huge, with scruffy blond hair and a face that ruined him for poker, Lem was a solid good guy who'd gotten through eleven years on the force, four of those in vice, with his morals, ideals, and optimism about the job as shiny new as the day he graduated the academy. Despite his size, or maybe because of it, he had a gentle, almost bashful way of speaking--schoolboyish--that put people at ease. He was precisely the right guy to talk to scared young people and worried mothers. He threw people off with his size and manner, because he didn't look like he oughta be a detective, didn't sound like he was sharp as a tack and good at puzzling out the big picture.
Tavon was the opposite. Black, model-handsome, hair and goatee immaculately groomed; he looked like be belonged in an expensive three-piece suit, behind a huge desk in a Manhattan office, plying some trade that favored the silver-tongued. He could talk people into a trance with the kind of low, smooth voice people shut up to listen to, a calm even tone, and diction that betrayed a pricier education than most cops had. He was hard to ruffle, knew when and how to dial up the pressure, and was inspired when it came to deductive leaps no one else would make.
The gentleman and the puppy detectives made a hell of a team. And a hell of a pain in the ass if they were interested in your business.
John raised his eyebrows at Tavon.
"So, she left you, huh?" he said.
"I hate to break this to you," said John, "but you're about ten years late on that one. Losin' your edge, there."
"Not Gardner," said Tavon.
"Yeah, we know all about that," said Lem.
"Good for you," said John. "We done?"
"O'Connell's right, isn't she?" Lem said to Tavon. "It's already over."
Tavon gave John a considering look. "Mm-hm. I think so. But there's still the reason."
John looked at them each, watching him like he was a key witness. Then he scowled. "MGM," he said, pushing his chair back and folding his arms. "McClane's Good Mood."
Lem threw his head back with a dramatic huff. "See, I told you it was too simple!"
"Maybe it wouldn't be if you hadn't been dribbling on about pod people a couple months ago," said John.
"See, that's the problem with detectives," Lem said to Tavon, gesturing at John.
"You're telling me," said John.
"There's still the reason," Tavon repeated. "She left you, didn't she? Lemme guess--FBI? I know you were involved in that Fire Sale business. Pretty lady in a nice suit? I'm a sucker for the long hair and the hard attitude. I get it? Am I close?"
"I'm not sure which pisses me off more," said John, "the goat, or retirement."
Lem raised his hands. "Those were gambler suggestions. Mine were lottery and inheritance."
"My money's on the girl," said Tavon. "I believe in you, John."
"Yeah? Your name was on December."
"Uh..."
"That's when I'm supposed to blow it, huh?"
"Well, not blow it," said Lem. "Just--"
John sucked his teeth and nodded. "What's the bet?"
The partners looked at each other. "Twenty to enter, five to hedge," said Lem. "Hey, McClane, it was just for fun. I mean--"
"I saw ten names, some repeats." John stood up. He pulled a twenty out of his wallet and slapped it into Lem's chest. Lem smacked John's hand away, but grabbed the twenty. "I could use two-hundred and twenty bucks."
"You can't enter, now," Tavon said. "The bet's over."
"Who says it's over?" said John.
"Don't take Sherlock Holmes to see you're in a shitty mood today, McClane," said Lem, holding out the bill.
John didn't take it. "That's for sure," he said, "and this ain't helping. But the reason ain't over."
Lem and Tavon sat up straight.
"So which is it, mood or reason?" John asked.
They looked at each other. "It's a girl," said Tavon. "Makes more sense to bet on when she leaves him--no offense, John."
Lem made a thoughtful moue. "I was really just betting on the mood. And I oughta win, I mean, look at 'im."
They did.
"No fun if the bet ends the day after it starts."
"True."
"Okay, John," said Tavon, "it's when the reason ends. But that means we're gonna need your word on it."
"Alright," said John. "I'll tell you when. You're on your own for the rest." He started toward the break room.
"Hey, McClane," Lem said. John turned. Lem was frowning at him, worried. "Are you sure you wanna bet? That's really bad luck, don't you think?"
"No," said John, one corner of his mouth turning up. "I know exactly when it'll be over. But I gotta add a line. That okay?"
Lem's face fell. "Yeah, sure, man, okay."
"Shit," said Tavon quietly, as John moved away. "That's about the most depressing thing I've ever heard. Maybe she's leaving town, and that's why he knows the date... "
"He didn't say it was a girl," Lem said miserably.
John returned a moment later, sat down and opened his notebook. The two younger detectives' restraint lasted all of fifteen seconds before they slid off the desks and jogged into the break room.
"Oh, what the hell?" he heard Tavon say. "That doesn't count! Was it him who added it to the Hub Pool?"
Tavon came out looking cheated, but when Lem sat down, he gave John one of those smiles he gave teen runaways when he told them their parents really loved them. (The kids always went home.) He kept it up until John looked at him. "I hope Tavon's right about the reason," he said, "but you're right about the date."
John held his gaze a few seconds longer. "You SOB," he said, cracking a smile. "You're not gonna get it outta me."
"Wait, what? It's not like that! You're such a cynic, McClane!"
John shook his head, chuckling. "Motherfuckin' MGM Pool..."
* * *
The answering machine light was blinking when John got home. He hit Playback and hung up his coat.
Matt's voice sighed grainily out of the ten year-old tape. "Y'know, John, if you actually carried that phone I gave you, I could've gotten hold of you during the day. Of course, then it'd probably ring while you were crawling through an air duct in the middle of some super-criminal's lair, and you wouldn't know to have it on vibrate, and then you'd get shot... Y'know, I was kidding when I started that sentence, but I'm not, anymore. Fuck the phone. I don't want you to carry it. Don't, okay?" John smiled. "Hey, look, John," Matt continued, "Call me back when you get this? I'm at the--" The machine beeped and the message ended.
"Thought the tape was longer than that," John said to himself. It was all right; he knew where Matt was staying, so it'd be easy enough to find his number. Before he could move on that, though, the machine beeped again.
"Hey, hi, it's me, again. Sorry about that. I called from the airport. I'm not sure how much money I put in that stupid payphone, but clearly it wasn't enough. Figured I'd wait till I got here--the hotel, I mean--where I'm sure they'll be happy enough to let me talk as long as I want, and ass-rape me on the tab. Well, the joke's on HSBC, 'cause they're paying for the room. Suckers. Anyway, my number's 44-207-498-2135." John jotted it down. "So, uh, call me. If you want. Don't worry about the time difference. I'll be up."
John went into the kitchen and took the cordless off the wall, dialed, and held the receiver between his shoulder and ear as he opened the fridge. There were two tupperware containers marked "Dinner" and "Dessert" with sticky notes. John raised an eyebrow as he pulled out "Dinner." "Cute," he said, reading the fine print.
"Hello?" Matt answered, sounding muzzy.
"So," John said, "I'm not supposed to eat dessert until I've finished my vegetables, huh?"
Matt laughed. "And drink your milk."
John pulled the note off and popped the container in the microwave. "You've got quite the pair on you, kid."
"My audacity increases in inverse proportion to my proximity to the person who might wanna thump me for it."
"You could've said direct proportion to your distance from the person, but that'd be too simple, right?"
"Mm, John, don't talk math to me when you're an ocean away, that's just cruel."
John chuckled. "Thanks for leaving me dinner."
"Just doing my job," said Matt.
John got out a beer, flipped off the cap with his thumb, and leaned against the counter by the microwave. "Speaking of which, did you eat?"
"Uh," said Matt, "not since the plane, now that you mention it."
"Go get something. You got money?"
"Yeah, but it's one a.m. here..." There was the sound of a drawer opening. "Room service's closed already, too."
"Order something in. They must have a few numbers in there somewhere."
"Um..." There was silence for a minute, but for Matt moving around, then, "Hey, you're right! How'd you know?"
"I'm a man of the world, what can I say?"
"You really are. But, then--"
"I'll call you back. After what you said to me about pizza, I expect to hear you got something adult and responsible."
"From take-out?"
"Go on."
"Okay, but... You will call back, right? It'll only take a couple minutes to call, so..."
"I'll give you five." John hung up and set down the phone. He transferred his food to a plate and moved to the dining room table. Matt had left John his current favorite among his specialty dishes, a sort of cream sauce pasta casserole... thing... and, as the note had suggested, a heap of baked vegetables. "Beats the hell outta TV dinners," John said. He started on his food, finished half his beer, and called back.
"Hey, John."
"Food coming?"
"Yep. Delivery kebabs. How crazy is that?"
"Hm."
"There were vegetables on the side." Matt sighed. "I deserve this, don't I?"
"Uh-huh. Dinner's good, by the way."
"Thanks," said Matt. "I like feeding you."
"Lucky for me. How was your flight?"
"Eh," said Matt. "It didn't crash."
"That much fun, huh?"
"I got stuck in the middle seat. The guy at the window kept falling asleep on my shoulder. The guy on the aisle was crazy or something, because he muttered to himself--no joke--the whole seven hours. And he made these creepy smacking sounds." Matt gave an audible shudder. "He wasn't asleep, either; he was wide awake. I was too weirded out to ask him to let me by to use the bathroom, so I ended up waiting like three hours till he finally broke down and went."
"Nice."
"Yeah. On the up-side, there was a networked trivia game that everyone on the plane could play, and I whooped ass."
John chuckled. "Congratulations."
"The hotel room's pretty nice. I didn't really see much on the taxi ride here, but I guess I'll have time to sight-see later. I've never been out of the country before, so I guess I should."
"Really. Not even Canada?"
"Nope. You?"
"Couple times. We had a class trip to Paris my senior year of high school--saved up for it since the ninth grade. Saw the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre and all that shit."
"The building housing the Mona Lisa is 'all that shit'?"
"No, 'all that shit' came after the Louvre. Keep up, genius boy." Matt laughed, made an encouraging hum, and John went on. "My friends and I took a road trip to the other side of Niagara Falls one winter, and in college I went to Italy. It was an educational thing--history in action." He'd taken the class because he'd seen Holly signing up for it, and he'd been on the verge of saying so to Matt, then stopped. In his experience, there were two kinds of new girlfriend--the one who hounded you mercilessly about your ex, and the one who all but stuck her fingers in her ears and started singing when you mentioned her. As far as John could tell, the only difference was that the latter knew what she wanted. He had no reason to think a boyfriend would be any different.
"So what was the verdict?" Matt asked.
"I'll let you decide for yourself," John said. "When you get back, I'll tell you all about it."
"Aww."
John wondered if it was bad that he was picturing Matt's face, now, imagining the pout he could hear in his voice, wishing he were there to kiss it away. Jesus, McClane. He hasn't been gone twenty-four hours.
"You've got your first meeting with the suits tomorrow, don't you?" John asked. "You gonna be all right stayin' up?"
"I crashed for a few hours when I first arrived. Now I'm jet-lagged and me-lagged. I'll swing it."
"Nervous?"
"Little bit. Been a while since I put on a suit and brushed my hair back. What?" he asked when John laughed.
"Nothing, I was just picturing it. It doesn't fit."
"What? I clean up nice."
"I know you do. It's just that your street cred as an anti-establishment rebel's going straight down the shitter, kid."
"Awww, no!" Matt groaned. "My street cred! Soon I'll be listening to classic rock and wearing khakis." He let out a whoosh of breath and John heard the creak of bedsprings. "John," said Matt, "this phone call's gonna cost an arm and a leg, isn't it?"
"Nah," said John. Matt's finances were looking better every week, but John didn't want him worrying about paying anything back.
"Really?"
"It's fine. Don't worry."
"Is it okay for you to stay on, then?"
"Yeah. You okay, Matt?"
"Yeah. Yeah." Matt paused. "So, I was thinking about the tri-state power distribution scheme..."
When Matt's food came, John held the line. They talked about some more of Matt's ideas for reconstruction. They hadn't had much success getting heard by anyone who counted, yet, but Matt wasn't giving up. The legitimacy of the bank job--"Wow, does that sound misleading"--might just help.
Finally, Matt's stream of talk began to wind down and he started to sound tired.
"Get to sleep, hack boy," said John. "You're not gonna start raking in the big bucks if you walk in there tomorrow like the living dead."
"Mm." Matt yawned. "Bastards scheduled it for nine a.m. sharp. Don't executives ever meet in the afternoon?"
"Only for golf or sex with the secretary."
"Heh. Okay, I think I will catch a few hours before that... Thanks for keeping me company, John."
"Any time. Knock 'em dead, Jersey."
Matt laughed. "I will. Don't let New York burn while I'm away."
* * *
John scowled at his cell phone. It glistened sleekly back. John had never known a machine--with the possible exception of a parking meter--to look smug, but this one did. It was about as thick as two stacked saltines, gleaming black, and contoured like a sports car. It had an LED at the hinge, which had been flashing purple every couple seconds since John had dug the thing out of his night stand and turned it on that morning. This was accompanied by a quiet beep.
"Hey, is that a Tweak? Nice."
John glanced up at Lem, who'd just installed himself at his desk. He turned the phone upside down. Whaddyaknow, it was called a Tweak. Stupid name for a phone, if you asked him, but hey, he was no marketing major.
"Never figured you for a gadgets man," said Lem.
John gave him a blank look. "It's a phone."
"Slash mp3-player, slash video-player. It can go online to download music or check e-mail and update its own software automatically. It has a wireless connection capability, so you can play games with someone else nearby who has one, or you can play with other people online--"
"What are you, selling these things?"
"Nah. I kinda wanted one."
John huffed. "How much do they run?"
"Four hundred. Oh," he said, when John huffed again and shook his head. "It was a gift. Tavon's right, isn't he? She gave it to you."
John half-smiled. "Has it ever been that easy for you?"
Lem grinned. "Couple'a times." The phone beeped and flashed. "You've got a message."
"Is that what its problem is?" John asked. "I've been fucking with buttons and menus and couldn't get anything out of it."
An excited gleam entered Lem's eyes. "Want me to set it up for you? I can show you how to use it."
"If you can get it to shut the hell up, be my guest."
Lem grabbed the phone from John's outstretched hand and flipped it open. "Lessee," he said, clicking keys like he was born doing it. "You want it on silent, then?"
"Yeah."
"You want vibration?"
"Excuse me?"
"It can vibrate instead of ringing, when someone calls or texts you."
John thought back to Matt's message on the answering machine. He was sharp enough to just turn the stupid thing off if he was somewhere noise would get him shot, but he had a thing--it wasn't exactly superstition, more like the belief that if someone gave you a warning, and you ignored it, the thing was twice as likely to happen just because you'd look like a jackass. Jackass's Law. "Can you make it completely silent?"
"Yep, you can have it so a light flashes, instead. What color you want?"
"Thrill me."
Lem clicked some more. "Okay, blue's for ringing. Purple's voice mail waiting--I can change it, if you want."
"It's fine."
"Here, look." Lem pushed his chair over so John could see the screen and walked him through a bunch more menus. John doubted he'd have any use for most of the features, but since Lem was doing him a favor, he let him give the grand tour. By the time they were done, John could check his station e-mail or his Tweak address--analoghero@tweak.net, apparently--on the thing, knew how to check his mail or texts with the touch of a button, how to call or e-mail anyone in his address book (which only comprised six entries at the moment: Matt, Lucy, Jack and the station, all of which Matt had entered, the last of which he'd labeled "The Big House," and now Lem and Tavon's cell numbers) using keys or voice commands, how to use the Tweak web browser, and, just in case he ever lost his mind, how to play an online game.
"There's loads more," said Lem, reluctantly standing to pull his chair back to his desk, "but if you play around with it, you'll get it."
"The basics'll do me," said John. "Thanks."
"No problem. Man, I really want one, now, though. You know," he began, then grinned and shook his head. "Nah, never mind."
John raised his eyebrows, but Lem didn't volunteer anything further, so John shrugged and turned back to his desk. On the one hand, Lem must have noticed the only non-family name in the address book, and if he'd memorized the number, a reverse look-up would settle which Matthew Farrell it was; on the other, well, John wanted to check his damn messages.
He did.
The time stamp was from the previous morning, a couple hours after Matt had left the apartment.
"Hey, John." Matt's voice, subdued. "I'm waiting for boarding to start. You... probably aren't gonna get this, are you?" He sighed. There was a subtle tremor to his voice that could have been fear, or anger, or just fatigue; John knew he'd barely slept the night before. "Well, whatever," Matt said. "I'd forgotten... which was stupid, really not like me, but I hadn't been on a plane since I got on the list."
Son of a bitch.
"Yeah, so... security really wasn't any fun. They stopped short of a cavity search, but that's about all I can say for the experience. Nice way to start a trip. Fuck this, I may need to rethink the whole traveling consultant idea if it's gonna be like this every time. Funny how there's two places where they can forget about your Constitutional rights completely: Guantanamo Bay and the motherfucking airport. Nothing I like more than getting strip-searched by a couple of trolls with a combined IQ lower than the temperature. I hope they're not record-sharing on the other side... Ah, hey, they're calling my row. I'll call you when I get there."
"Motherfucker." John stood.
"McClane?" Lem asked.
"Anyone asks, I'm outside making a call. Back in a minute."
John strode out to the parking lot, found a corner shielded from the street, and punched in the number.
"Hello, this--"
"Put Bowman on," John said. You'd think after you saved the country, the man whose job that should've been would give you his direct number, but no, it was the goddamn front desk.
"May I ask who--"
"Don't be coy with me. I know who I'm calling, and you know who's calling, now go get your boss."
"Just a moment."
At least there wasn't any hold music.
About thirty seconds later, the phone picked up. "McClane, what can I do for you?"
"Bowman. Nice to see you're not too busy to take a call from an old pal. And I know you're busy. All that reconstruction, plugging up those nice big holes Gabriel left for you, getting transport back online... So busy you forgot to take the guy who saved your ass off the goddamn FBI watch list."
"I didn't forget," said Bowman calmly.
"That's not what it sounded like from the reception Farrell got at JFK."
"I didn't forget," Bowman repeated, "because I had no intention of doing it in the first place. You're lucky I'm ignoring what he's doing now."
"I'm lucky?" John said.
"Yes," Bowman said. John could feel the self-satisfaction condense against his cheek. FBI guys. They all acted like it was news they knew shit about you. Like a detective of John's tenure was gonna say, "You're spying on me? But that's... unconstitutional!"
"I'm lucky you're ignoring his efforts to fix the infrastructure you let Gabriel blow to hell?"
"He should technically be in prison for his part in the whole thing--"
"An unwitting part--"
"So he says."
"--which he more than made up for by stopping Gabriel. I couldn't have done it without him, and I didn't see your guys getting anything done. The whole country would be in the same shape as the east coast right now, or worse, if it hadn't been for his part."
"It doesn't change that his history bars him from involvment in anything related to government computer systems--"
"Even if he could do a better job fixing them."
"Yes, even if that were so. There's no proof of that. Just because he was in the right place at the right time--"
"That wasn't an accident, Bowman, he found all the right places."
"It doesn't matter. He's not the good kid you think he is. You had a gun to his head; what was he going to do?"
Matt was right. He'd expected this reaction from John, but John had spent two days running, sweating and bleeding with him, and you got to know things about a guy that way. But everyone else in law enforcement was going to see him for his record, and everything he did would be colored by it.
"I gave him the chance to stay behind in Baltimore," John said. "He came with me because he knew I couldn't do it alone. He saw his duty and he did it."
"It doesn't change anything. If I start making exceptions, we'll have another Thomas Gabriel on our hands. They're two of a kind. Think they know best for everyone, and because they have the power, they get it into their heads that they were chosen to use it. His type is dangerous, McClane."
John shook his head. "You deserved Gabriel. Damned shame the rest of the country had to suffer for your mistake, but you and your buddies got exactly what was coming to you. And your type always leaves the clean-up to someone else. My type. And Matt Farrell's type. You've been in law enforcement, what, ten, fifteen years? All tapped into everybody's secrets, and you still don't have the instinct for people god gave a brick wall.
"You honestly think Farrell's the next Tom Gabriel? Fine. Don't listen to him about reconstruction. Whaddo I know about it. But you know he doesn't deserve to be treated like a common criminal after the service he did this country. Whatever you think about his motives, you know it was worth that much. You owe him that much respect."
"McClane, it's not my--"
"Get him off the list, Bowman." John clicked the phone shut. "Just not as satisfying without a receiver," he muttered, and pocketed the thing.
* * *
The next Tom Gabriel. The same breed. Bowman was so far off it was a wonder he'd ever cracked a case. Even on paper, Matt couldn't have looked like a guy who would lay waste to a country to line his own pockets, or because he thought he knew better than everyone else. Then again, Matt had that not-exactly-closed file from his minor days, while Gabriel had no priors--just that little incident with NORAD for which he'd never been charged.
Matt had said once that all programmers had a god complex. John had seen Matt high on the success of a program, the thrill of pulling chaos into order, but Matt was too interested in the human condition to want to control people the same way. He was much too careful of others to back a plan that would hurt so many, much less put one in motion, himself. But, hell... Maybe only John was in any position to know that. He'd liked Matt after the Fire Sale, but he'd still called him a criminal. He knew such intimate aspects of Matt's personality now that it was hard to recall their earliest interactions without that lens, but those had only been five months ago. John himself was more capable of the cruelty another Fire Sale would inflict on the nation, but maybe you had to live with the kid to understand.
In mid-November, John had returned home one evening to find an unmarked grey van parked across from his building. As he walked up the sidewalk, a man in a nondescript grey uniform, devoid of logo, got out of the driver's side carrying a courier's bag over one shoulder. John stopped at the steps and waited. The man made a beeline towards him across the empty street and stepped up onto the curb. "Detective John McClane?" he asked, the last syllable turning into a puff of steam.
"Hi," said John.
The man frowned as if common English greetings fell outside the scope of his training. "Can I see some ID?"
"You know who the fuck I am, or you wouldn't be here."
"I can't give it to you unless I confirm your identity."
"What if I don't want it?" John asked.
The man blinked. "You have to take it."
"Then you don't need my ID."
"I can't give it to you unless I see it," the man repeated. He was a young guy, early thirties at a guess. Despite the temperature, sweat was beading along his hairline and upper lip.
John sighed and pulled out his shield and ID. The man leaned forward, pale eyes darting back and forth as he examined it. He nodded and stepped back, opened the flap of his bag and drew out a thick, brown envelope. It was stamped "FYEO" in red ink. It had no other markings. "Do you accept--"
"Do you really wanna ask me if I do?" John asked.
"I--" the man started. He tugged at his collar with two fingers. Two clouds of steam escaped his lips without turning into words.
"Gimme that," John growled. He snatched the envelope out of the man's hand and turned around. "Thanks," he said from the steps, just to fuck with the guy. "You drive safe, now." He almost added, "Give my love to your mother," but decided to take pity on the man, who was stuttering something from the sidewalk. John let himself in and closed the front door before he'd managed to get out anything intelligible.
Matt was preoccupied, muttering command lines and whole strings of code over dinner. He disappeared into his room as soon as the dishes were cleared. John decided to take a shower before he opened his mail. Then he made coffee and took Matt a cup. Matt thanked and kissed him distractedly. Two of the three monitors on his desk were lit up and solid with code. It made John's head spin to look at it, so he left. When he caught himself peering into one of the boxes stacked in the dining room, he decided there was a limit to how long he could procrastinate. He'd been waiting for this delivery since July, even if he'd kinda hoped they might forget, this time. He refilled his coffee mug and sat down on the couch. He pulled the envelope off the side table where he'd left it and switched on the stand lamp adjacent.
Inside the envelope was a thick manila folder with string ties holding it shut. The same FYEO stamp had been applied to its front and back covers. "For Your Entertainment: Opera," John muttered. "Friends You Eat Out with. Or just eat out." He'd have liked to pretend he didn't know what it stood for, but he was twenty years past that.
He'd just begun reading when the lights flickered. John sighed. Shame the generator was filled and efficiently wired into the apartment circuits--a blackout would've made a good excuse to put off his reading till the next day. The growl from Matt's room indicated he shared the feeling, if not the reason. He came stalking into the living room a moment later.
"Stupid California and their stupid twenty-four-hour power... Just wait till the big one hits and you're all buried in a zillion tons flyover highways..." Matt turned a petulant expression on John. "You doing anything important?"
"Well--"
"That requires light, I mean."
"Well..."
"Okay, then I'm turning it all off." Matt grumbled his way past the sofa to the closet near the front door that housed the generator. "'Blackout Boy,' she called me... The bitch. Stupid California and their stupid Governator..." John turned and watched as Matt disappeared into the closet, denim-clad ass the only thing protruding. It was a nice enough ass that he didn't say anything. Besides, on cue, Matt sighed and said, "I know you're reading something." The lights blinked off in the dining room and the hallway, but remained shining in the living room and kitchen. Matt had wired the generator so they could power parts of the apartment at a time. John smiled. He liked that Matt couldn't manage to be rude for more than a few seconds at a time. Not language-wise--Matt had no hang-ups about cursing--but he couldn't maintain a serious show of inconsideration towards anyone, especially John. It actually stressed him out to try.
Matt emerged from the closet, the coats dragging at his hair. He ducked into the kitchen and turned out all the lights, then came back to the living room and stepped on the switch on the power strip behind the television. The LEDs on the equipment massed around it blinked out. "You can get the overhead, too," said John. He nodded at the stand lamp. "This's enough."
Matt did so, then flopped down on the couch next to John with his arms folded. A second later, he leaned his cheek on John's shoulder. "I'm sorry."
"Mm-hm," John said. He kissed the top of Matt's head and closed the file, revealing the big red stamp. Matt twisted to look at it.
"Should I split so you can read it?" he asked.
"Technically," John said. Matt rearranged his limbs to haul himself out of the grip of the sagging sofa, but John put a hand on his chest. "It's your business, too. You're not cleared to know the details, but you won't tell, will ya?"
Matt settled again, leaning warm against John's side. He threaded his arms around John's left. "Sounds heavy. What is it?"
"My post-Fire Sale care package from the FBI."
"Hm? They debriefed you months ago."
"Yeah, this is..." John breathed out through his nose and opened the folder, flipping past the opening letter with its injunctions of secrecy, instructions to eat the file once he'd read it, and so forth. On the first page of information, Thomas Gabriel's face sneered up at them, cocky and secure in his own superiority. "The information on everyone I killed."
Matt shivered. He stared at the page a minute. "Geez," he whispered.
"Yeah," said John. "I don't know whether it means someone at the Bureau likes me or hates me, but I've gotten one after every major fuckup I've been involved in. Nakatomi, General Esperanza, the Federal Reserve heist. It takes a few months for them to declassify the information enough for me to see it--and really, I don't have the clearance, but I guess they decided I oughta know--and then I get a brown envelope by unmarked courier."
"Wow."
John grunted in agreement and turned the page. The next one had several paragraphs blacked out in marker. The following page was the same. The one after that had a picture of Mai Linh--so ninja chick had a last name.
"Why?" Matt asked. "What's it for? Comfort? Penance?"
John shook his head and pushed his tongue into his cheek. "I don't know, kid. Some reason, it's shit they feel like I should know. Or that I might wanna know. Who knows which. For some reason, I can't help reading it."
"You are a detective," Matt said.
"Huh." The corner of John's mouth flickered. "Yeah." He hadn't thought of it that way. The detective in him ought to want to put the pieces together, to figure out what had brought him and these people together. Maybe there was some satisfaction in that, but that wasn't really why he read them, instead of just locking them away unopened. A long time ago, he'd thought only people that deserved to die should. That you ought to know a man well enough to kill him before you pulled the trigger. The files let him try. He read them hoping to justify that last twitch of his index or turn of his wrist beyond "it was him or me." Most of the time, he could.
John waited for Matt to pull away, avoid this side of John and what had happened. Instead, his grip on John's arm tightened and he moved closer, settling his head against John's shoulder where he could see. Some of the tension in John's chest relaxed. He'd never had anyone to share these files with before. "You wanna start with Gabriel?" he asked. Matt nodded against his arm, and John turned back to the first page. Matt nodded as he finished each page, and they went on to read about Mai--an MIT graduate in computer science and three time Mixed Martial Arts tournament champion with no prior criminal record. Born in Hong Kong, immigrated to the US when she was twelve. Trey Archer, a year out of his Master's at CalTech, headhunted by Apple, Google, and just about everyone else in IT--no priors, either.
"The hell was wrong with them?" Matt said quietly. John shook his head and grunted. "Think they believed him? Bought that shit about it really being for the good of the country? Forced restructure?"
"I don't know. Maybe they were sick of what it paid to be geniuses, too. Maybe they were as nuts as he was. Maybe they were assholes."
"You can't really tell from this, can you?"
"Nah."
The other men under Gabriel had more crimes to their names, and a variety of backgrounds. Some of them had ties to radical groups in Quebec, others were part of fringe militia from the Midwest, some--including Juan Emerson, the guy Matt had shot three times and missed three more--were mercenaries, apparently on vacation Stateside after fucking around in Pakistan and central Africa. Emerson's file wasn't here. Despite all the lead Matt--and Lucy, for that matter--had put in him, the surgeons had saved him. Bullets just agreed better with some people than others. The FBI had him ferreted away somewhere where they weren't too strict about habeas corpus.
John turned another page from Rand Laffolay--the Cirque du Soleil reject from Wood Lawn--to Abe Douglas. "You didn't kill him," Matt said.
"What?"
"That guy..." Matt said. "You didn't kill him. I did."
John narrowed his eyes at the photo, trying to place the man. "Oh," he said. He remembered him. Standing at the open elevator doors inside the power hub, shooting at John in the role of fish in a barrel.
"I hit him with a pipe," Matt said. John turned his head to look at him. Matt was frowning at the page, eyes intent enough to burn a hole through it. "He fell down the elevator shaft. Must have been, like, fifty feet."
John was silent a moment, watching Matt read Douglas's bio rather than reading it himself. "You want the file?" John asked.
Matt considered. "Yeah," he said. "Please."
John paged through the next couple sheets to see where the next file started. Douglas's was just two pages long, with no censorship marks. He handed them to Matt, who unwound one hand from around John's arm to take them. He disengaged completely and sat up, eyes on the first page.
"Uh," said Matt, "I'm gonna go..." He jerked his head in the direction of his room. John nodded. Matt stood, and John watched him leave, strides stiffer than they had been since he got the brace off his leg. Matt rounded the corner into the hall, and a couple seconds later, his door closed.
The other three incident files were in the back of the bottom, locked drawer of the metal filing cabinet in John's closet, behind some insurance and inheritance paperwork. John slid the new one in front of the file on the Federal Reserve heist of 1995. He thought of Zeus, seeing that one. He remembered slotting that file in, eleven years ago. He'd run his fingers over the previous two, not opening them but thinking of Al, the man whose voice had seen him through hell. He'd wondered if he should call him. And decided not to.
John looked up at the closet wall, adjoining Matt's room. This fourth file was incomplete in a couple ways. By the time he'd put the second and third files away, Al and Zeus Carver had been out of his life. Al had been a real friend for a while, but Zeus had been a companion only for that brief time they had to work together. His partner for the fourth debacle was in the next room, holding the missing pages from this folder. Holding the neatly typed summary of the first life he'd brought to an end. Probably without a clue how to deal with it.
John slid the drawer shut and spun the combination lock. He grunted as he got to his feet. It was always during the aftermath that he felt his age. An adrenaline rush could take off fifteen years when you needed to throw yourself out of a speeding car, but it always deserted you when you needed to lay out the details of why your wife's move across the country had hurt you, or explain to a twenty-six year-old kid that he was never going to forget what he'd done or how he felt about it, but it was alright to try. John didn't want to be the expert on the subject. He liked the idea of Matt seeing him that way even less.
John shut off the lights in the rest of the apartment before knocking on Matt's door. "Come in," Matt called.
John eased the door open. It was dark in there, too, but for a candle burning on the windowsill, set in the coffee mug John had brought in earlier. Matt lay on his side in bed, facing it, with the covers pulled up to his armpits. The flickering orange light splashed across the pages pinned loosely to the blanket by his right hand. "Before you ask," Matt said, "this isn't a candlelight vigil or any whacky spiritual shit like that. I just didn't see the point in turning the power back on in here. Which is also why I'm in bed, not 'cause I'm an emo teenager. It's just fucking cold."
John shut the door behind him. "Can I get in with you, then?"
"Sure."
Matt moved closer to the window, pushing the papers between his body and the wall. John shucked off his slippers and slid in beside him. He hesitated to get too close. He wasn't sure how much space Matt needed versus how much reassurance.
"You're gonna fall off, if you don't get friendlier," said Matt.
John was hanging off the side of the mattress. He moved in, pressing the length of their bodies together. He put an arm around Matt's waist to pull them closer, until they just fit. He set his chin on Matt's shoulder and waited.
A minute went by before Matt said, "I'd do it again. He was trying to kill you. You weren't just the guy who'd saved my life, right then, you were the only one with a prayer of saving the country. If you sent me back to that moment, I'd do it again."
"Good," said John.
"Why's that good?"
"Regrets cause ulcers."
"Oh. Okay." Matt was quiet a while. John had come to know his silences--contented, concentrated, frustrated, perplexed. This was one of his thought-gathering pauses, where thoughts were chasing each other around his brain so quickly his voice couldn't keep up. When Matt tried to talk through these, his thoughts leapt ahead, and his sentences jackknifed each other. He stopped, started, eventually growled and clamped his mouth shut until he'd arrived at something he could say without tripping over himself reaching for the next thought.
Finally, Matt said, "I didn't think about him at all till now. I killed him four months, a week and three days ago, and in all that time, I worried about everything else: My apartment, my gear, you, my future, my program, the economy... Not the fact that I killed someone--and let you take the blame."
"You didn't need it on your record," John said. "You don't have to worry about that part." He couldn't say that one more didn't make a difference; as high as his tally was, every count in it was significant.
"I read the file. Didn't sound like he was a nice guy. Former member of a private, religious-affiliated militia in Montana, who left because he was too nutty even for them. Involved in a couple ugly riots and suspected of a few contracted gang hits... apparently just freelancing. He had a wife and two kids in Montana, but they hadn't heard from him in five years--didn't say whether they were sad about it. Other than that, there's a few lines about where he worked and went to church before he went off the deep end. A small plastic plant, and some Christian splinter-sect I never heard of." Matt sighed. He lifted the two pages and flapped them briefly before letting his hand fall again. "That's a small space to leave your whole legacy on." John gave a short 'mm' of agreement. "I'd do it again, I just don't... I don't even support the death penalty. Ending someone completely, sending them out into... nothing. I always thought life in prison would be much better. At least you could read. Twenty, thirty, fifty years, there's a lot you could think about in that time. A lot of laps around the prison yard, a lot of adrenaline you could push through your system, a lot of orgasms you could have if your cell mate's considerate. Anything our system has to offer'd be better than just ending. I'd thought all that through years ago, I don't know how many times I argued it out, and when I was a little scared, I picked up the nearest blunt object and threw it all away. And Emerson? I was trying to kill him, too. I shot six times because I didn't think one would do it. Turns out I was right."
John hugged Matt closer. He spread his hand over Matt's chest.
"John, I would always choose you, over anyone. It's just that I don't think anyone ought to be making that choice. I didn't want to make it."
Matt fell silent. After a moment, John realized he was finished. Not done thinking about it, but done speaking about it, at least for tonight.
"Matthew," John said, "thank you for saving my life."
There was a pause. Matt released the papers and slid his hand over John's. His fingers curled around John's palm and gripped tight. "You're welcome."
* * *
Matt's note on last night's dessert had pointed John to the freezer, where he found six more tupperware containers stacked among the frozen vegetables. He was torn between being insulted Matt didn't trust him to cook for himself and pleased at the care he'd taken. He was eating the one marked Tuesday when he called Matt.
"I hoped you'd call around now," Matt said. "I brought my dinner home, so we can eat together."
"Heh."
"You think that's stupid, don't you?"
"Works for me," John said. "Am I really supposed to eat these in order?"
Matt chuckled. "Yeah, otherwise it upsets the balance of the universe and the sun explodes."
"Good thing I'm eatin' Tuesday, then. How'd your meeting go?"
"Ah, it was okay. I met the VP and all the guys I'll be working with--systems admin, database programmers, a couple section heads who need to be walked through changes before implementation. The programmers seem okay, but the sysadmin's kind of a douchebag. That tends to go with the territory. It should be bearable. It's gonna slow me down to have to explain what I'm doing to three guys and get okays from twelve o'clock flashers every step of the way, but it'll work out."
"What's--?"
"A twelve o'clock flasher? Someone whose VCR, microwave and car clocks flash twelve all the time, because they don't know how to set the time."
John glanced into the living room at the VCR.
"Yours was set," Matt said, a smile in his voice. "It just wasn't adjusted for Daylight Savings. Not quite techno-illiterate, just techno-lazy. I fixed it for you."
John grunted. "Guess that's right. I got one of the younger detectives to figure out that cell phone for me."
"Oh?" Matt's voice changed. "I woulda shown you, you know... You should've asked."
"I wasn't planning on using it, at first. The Department made a push for all the detectives to carry them a while back, and I'm not crazy about 'em. Managed to give mine back."
"Oh, good," Matt said wryly. "So what changed your mind?"
"I was curious about your message."
"Oh... So, did you get it?"
"Yeah."
"Mm. Sorry. I was still kinda ruffled when I left it."
"Don't give up on your job because of it."
Matt sighed. "I won't. Although that's easier to say when I'm not being manhandled by gorillas in a cold room, wearing a lot less than I like."
John's jaw clenched, and his eyes narrowed. He swallowed once.
"Well, whaddyagonnado, right?" Matt said. "When I'm rich enough to make these trips on my own private jet, the joke'll be on them."
"There you go," said John. "So, you see any of London, yet?"
Matt snorted at the gear shift. "Little bit. I went by Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey after work, but I couldn't go in. If I'm gonna be a good tourist, I need to go during the day. Since they've got me working during most of the daylight hours, I'm not sure I'm up to it."
"You'd pretty much just slid in the door when I called, huh?"
"Just about."
"Don't go working yourself to death when I'm not there to peel you off the floor."
"I won't. Probably."
"You're eating during the day, too, right?"
"Now who's babying who?"
John grunted. Just like with the plane, and with airport security, he hated the thought of something happening to Matt where he couldn't reach him to do anything about it. You couldn't always keep the people you cared about within arm's reach--he'd had to learn that as a parent--but it was easier to fool yourself into thinking you were always close enough to help when you were at least in the same country. "It's not because I don't think you can handle yourself," he said.
"Well, likewise..."
"Mm."
"It's funny how used to things you can get in five months, huh?"
"Yeah," John agreed.
--December 9, 2008
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