Twenty Five Pairs

Twenty-Five Pairs by T.S. Severe

Chapter Fifteen Myanmar - Baltimore - Harden 2019

They were everywhere. The bodies. Inside their bamboo homes and out. It wasn't supposed to be like that and I stumbled, over the root of tree, or someone's arm, I didn't know which. I couldn't force myself to look. I couldn't see and I couldn't wipe my eyes. I wanted to take off the hood and wipe my eyes so I could see them and punish myself in that small way.

"We need samples." Marco was saying and I sat down heavily.

I saw his shadow, dark and bleary and I was afraid to look up.

"Jen, are you hurt? Are you sick?" He asked me.

"No." I coughed and shook my head.

"Get up, we need to get the samples and get out of here." He reached for my hand and pulled me up slowly.

"Why are they dead?" I asked dumbly. "They're not supposed to be dead."

Marco had no answer for that and he didn't say anything.

Bravo Company of the US Army 32nd Special Engineer Battalion was there. They were from Fort Dietrich, the ones who cleaned up other people's messes. As soon as Marco and I had examined a body, taken what we needed from it, they took it away. I imagined I could smell the bodies burning, but I couldn't.

Thirty-six hours after we'd arrived, you'd never know the village had ever been there. A hole had been dug and covered over, filled with ashes and gone forever. The hilltop was planted with bushes and trees and those seven families were only a memory now. I watched the place disappear beneath the helicopter, wondering what those three boys who'd left just before my arrival that fateful day would think when they came back home. =-=-=-=-=-={25}=-=-=-=-=-=

"I can't do it anymore." I said, holding a cup of coffee in my cold hands.

"You don't look well." Mr. Fox frowned as we sat together in the kitchen, back on the farm.

"I'm so tired." I closed my eyes. "But I can't sleep."

"You've been working too hard for too long, Jennifer." Mr. Fox looked up as Renee put a cup of tea in front him.

"Stay with us, Jennifer." The woman said, touching my shoulder. "Dana will come for a visit, she has a baby now."

"I don't know." I rubbed my forehead. "I thought I knew what I was doing. I was so sure of it."

Renee left us.

"What was the cause?" Mr. Fox asked and I looked up sharply.

"I sent you the report."

"I read it." He picked up his spoon, dropping sugar into his tea slowly. "Now I want to hear it."

"I think..." I cleared my throat. "...The vaccine migrated into the pigs. They were infected and the virus mutated and was passed back to the villagers. Their immune systems were already compromised and..."

"I see."

"I didn't run that." I bit my lip. "I didn't check to see what would happen. I didn't think of pigs and I...There were too many variables."

"Yes, there were." Mr. Fox tapped his spoon gently on the rim of his cup.

"I'm done." I sat up straight. "I'm going to...I don't know."

"Everyone suffers failure." Mr. Fox sighed. "It just took you longer than the rest of us, so you're having a harder time with it."

"Failure?" I blinked at him. "I killed a village. Those people, they didn't do anything. They didn't hurt anyone."

I was crying again and I wondered where all those tears were coming from. I hadn't been able to stop for more than five minutes at a time and I ached. God, I ached all over, like I was dying and wishing I were.

"I knew I would kill someone." I swallowed thickly, wiping my eyes and Mr. Fox neither smiled nor frowned. "I knew, someone would die. I accepted that. I said, 'Well, this many others will live. So it's...Fair.' You know?"

"Yes." He nodded and he did know.

"But it isn't fair." I started shaking. "None of it is."

"You'll stay here." Mr. Fox told me. "Until you're well again. I'll have your things brought down."

"I don't ever want to be that well again." I closed my eyes and he left me, leaving his tea untouched but for the sugar inside it.

=-=-=-=-=-={25}=-=-=-=-=-=

I didn't stay. I left the next morning, going back to Bethesda and my office at Horace Tufts. I went through my notes carefully, pulling pages for the shredder and deleting files from my computer. I'd been insane, the way only a person who's never failed can be. Mr. Fox had gotten that much right. I'd thought I could do anything and I'd never been more wrong in my life. I'd felt like God.

"I need to see you." I said into my phone and I think General Palmer had been expecting that.

"You should take some time..." He started saying and I shook my head, standing in his office because I was too nervous to sit down.

"We need to destroy the samples." I told him.

"That's a year out of your life." The man said, taking off his thin reading glasses. "A brilliant year, Jennifer. There are other applications..."

"No." I shook my head, pacing like a caged animal. "I've already destroyed my notes."

"I see." He sat back slowly. "The work you did could benefit other research. Nobody needs to know where it came from, if that's what you're worried about."

"Don't talk to me like I'm Oppenheimer, okay?" I stopped, staring at him. "The only application here is death."

The General pursed his lips and perhaps he was torn between trying to dissuade me and doing what he knew to be right. The samples, just by their existence alone, put us on the edge of the abyss. He'd been reviewing the data, trying to find out where we'd gone wrong. Where I'd gone wrong.

"Someone will do it, you know that." Palmer said. "You're five years ahead of everyone else, maybe ten, but eventually..."

"That's five more years to live, Jeff. Five years to have children and..." I shrugged, lifting a hand, "...watch baseball. Five more years to stop it from happening."

"They won't forget about it." The General said softly. "Or you."

I blinked at that and it was the crux of the argument. I was ahead of everyone and eventually someone, somewhere would try and do what I'd done, but without Chromosome-25...That what's what nobody knew, not even my friend the General. The protein I'd discovered and put to such a terrible use wasn't synthetic, it was very real and I'd taken it from my own DNA. Nobody could rebuild PK or a vaccine for it without me. It wasn't just in my head, it was in my blood.

"Please?" I sat down finally, leaning on his desk, pleading with him. "Help me."

"Okay, Jen." He nodded slowly. "And afterwards, you rest."

"I will." I nodded, letting out the breath I was holding.

=-=-=-=-=-={25}=-=-=-=-=-=

"Jen!" Dana was there when I returned to the farm, smiling and all grown up now.

"Hi." I smiled weakly as I got a hug and kiss on the cheek.

"Come on!" Dana giggled, like she was still fifteen, taking my hand and pulling me towards the stairs. "They told me you were here and I got here and you were gone!"

"Yeah, I had to go to Baltimore and..."

"Look!" Dana whispered, smiling and there was her baby on her old bed, between two pillows so it couldn't roll off.

"Oh!" I smiled and looked at Dana. "You're a mommy."

"Yeah!" She nodded happily. "Come here and say hello. His name is Steven."

"Steven." I sighed, approaching the bed and he was so small. "How old is he?"

"Four months." Dana said. "Pick him up, go ahead. He needs to eat soon anyway."

"Oh, my my my." I sighed, sitting down on the bed and I just touched him, touching that round little tummy with my fingertips while he slept.

"John's a fireman down in Richmond. That's my husband." Dana said. "I sent you an invitation..."

"Yeah, last year. I got it." I nodded, pursing my lips. "I was in, uh...God where was I? Africa."

"Africa?" Dana laughed and she'd grown up pretty, with her auburn hair and green eyes, and still smiling brightly.

"Working." I shrugged. "And now you have a baby. Come here..."

I picked Steven up carefully.

"He's heavy!" I laughed. "God! He's fat! Look at him."

"I know, yeah." Dana sat down next to me. "All he does is eat and sleep."

"His eyes are opening." I looked at those small blue orbs, looking around sleepily, his bottom lip tucked in under the top one.

"Isn't he beautiful?" Dana asked and I nodded.

"Yeah. He is."

=-=-=-=-=-={25}=-=-=-=-=-=

"You ever see him?" Dana asked and she'd just walked into my room, like she used to. The girl had changed very little growing into a woman and I was glad.

"Ron?" I was holding his snow globe, staring into it as it swirled slowly. "No. I haven't seen him since..."

"Mr. Fox took him." Dana nodded. "Me neither."

We were quiet and it was getting late. Dana had been there for two nights and in the morning she was going back home. I wondered what that was like, having a home, a husband and a baby. It must be pretty nice, I thought and I was happy for her.

"I keep looking though." Dana said. "You know, like maybe I'd see him just...Standing there or something."

"Yeah." I nodded because I did that too.

"How about Josh?" Dana asked with a teasing smile. "You still in love with him?"

"Oh yeah." I grinned. "More than ever."

"Good for you then." Dana agreed. "Well, I better get my stuff ready."

"Okay."

I sat there and I didn't know what I was doing. I was just twenty-two years old and already one of the best virologists in the world. I'd had several significant breakthroughs in viral genetics, discoveries that would have gotten me serious consideration for a Nobel Prize, had I worked in almost any other field. If my work wasn't so sensitive that I'd be dead by the time it was ever declassified and published anywhere.

I was the child prodigy of my parents and even if people didn't know exactly what I'd done, what I was doing, I was still a star in the medical world, a bright one. If I chose to walk away from Horace Tufts...If I could walk away...I could go anywhere. Do anything. I could put my failure behind me and move on. Maybe. If I could stop crying. All I had to do was pick up the phone.

So I did.

"Where you going?" Dana was sitting in the kitchen the next morning, nursing Steven at her breast.

"Oh." I blinked at her and it was very early, the sky still dark but turning grey. I'd wanted to slip out, like a ghost.

"Utah." I nodded. "I'm gonna go see Josh. Surprise him."

"That'll be good." She smiled and Dana looked tired, but so happy with her baby.

"I have something." I put my suitcase down on the kitchen floor, opening it awkwardly. "I wanted to give it to you before, but...I never did."

"Really?"

"Yeah." I laughed, feeling foolish. "It's...I don't know. It's nice."

I opened a little zipped up bag I used for stuff, the odd thing that I'd collected here and there. I dug through it, pulling out my diamond tennis bracelet. I'd only worn it once and I kept telling myself to give it to Dana, but I'd always been busy, or gone. Or I'd forgotten, like it wasn't important and that had been careless of me. I knew that now.

"Oh, jeeze." She widened her eyes and gave me a funny smile. "Are those real?"

"Yeah." I nodded. "It's real. It's, uh, kind of special in a strange way."

"What do you mean?"

"Hold out your arm, let me put it on you." I said. "This, ummm...Oh. It's not important, uh, the why. It just is."

"Okay." Dana agreed slowly and watched me put the bracelet around her wrist. "John's going to think I have a boyfriend now."

"It looks good on you." I decided and I knew why I'd kept it. It was the weekend I'd traded to Amir, so I could find out the truth about Ron. I could let it go now.

"Thanks, Jen. Wow. Diamonds." Dana giggled and lifted her baby, putting him over her shoulder.

"Have a girl next time, okay?" I said. "Then you can pass it down when she's old enough."

"Yeah." Dana nodded. "I missed you a lot."

"I missed you too." I bent over, giving her a hug and smelling her baby, that warm rich smell like no other. The smell of life.

"You got my number right?" She asked and I nodded. "You're the only sister I ever had. You better call me sometimes. I worry about you."

"I will." I kissed Dana's cheek. "I promise."

=-=-=-=-=-={25}=-=-=-=-=-=

"Hi, is Josh there?" I asked, plugging my other ear because the telephone booth didn't have a door and the phone was bad.

"He's in the yard, do you want to hold?"

"The yard?"

"The lumber yard." The woman said, like that explained it. "I can get him if you want to wait, might be a few minutes."

"Can you just give him a message...Tell him to meet me at the Dairy Queen."

"Meet you at the Dairy Queen, huh?" The woman sounded like she was laughing. "Any particular time?"

"No." I shrugged. "I'll be here all day."

I didn't have anything else to do.

"Okay, uh...Who are you?" The woman asked.

"Don't worry, he'll know." I smiled.

Twenty minutes later Josh was pulling into the Dairy Queen. I was sitting on a picnic table, with my feet on the bench, holding my teddy bear and eating a Dilly Bar. I smiled as he got out slowly, walking across the gravel and jingling his keys. Josh was grinning and nodding, like he should have expected this and it was all I could do not to leap into his arms.

"Hey new girl." He said, stopping a few feet away, crossing his arms and looking at me.

"Hey boyfriend." I said softly, taking another bite of my ice cream.

"What are you doing here?" Josh asked.

"Eating ice cream." I shrugged. "You wanna lick?"

"Yeah." He nodded. "I think I do."

"Kay." I held my ice cream out. "Come on, before it melts."

I watched as Josh leaned forward, dragging his tongue across my half-eaten Dilly Bar.

"Good, huh?" I sucked it into my mouth.

"Yeah. Come on." He jerked his head.

"Where?" I hopped off the picnic table.

"I'm gonna show you the house I'm building." Josh said and he pointed at my suitcase. "That yours?"

"Uh-huh." I nodded.

"I see ya brought your bear." He smiled, picking up my suitcase. "That's good."

"Why?" I giggled.

"Cause it means you plan on staying awhile." Josh sighed and he was happy.

"Yeah." I said and I was trying to be happy too.

We drove a ways in silence and finally stopped in the middle of nowhere it looked like, just flat grassland with some poplar trees, some brush here and there. An unkempt field of something growing across the dirt road.

"Where's my house?" I wondered, looking around.

"Right there." Josh grinned. "Come on."

I left my bear in the truck and started getting out, then I had an idea and I tilted the back of the bench seat forward, smiling as I saw Josh's old blanket, folded up and smelling oily. I grabbed it and Josh smiled, but he didn't say anything.

"I figured I'd put a front porch right here..." He was pointing at the ground. "...Put the parlor over there..."

"A front parlor?" I laughed.

"...Kitchen, little dining room maybe..." Josh was nodding.

"Where's the bedroom gonna be?" I asked, pursing my lips.

"Uh, well, I figured right here...Except up on the second floor, you know." He shrugged. "Get that morning sunlight in your hair."

"Hmmm..." I nodded. "...Right about here?"

Josh chuckled as I started spreading that blanket on the grass.

"Yeah." He nodded. "That'd be it."

"Come here." I said, sitting down and hold out my hands for him. I pulled Josh down when he took them and we hadn't even kissed yet.

He took me in his arms, which was what I wanted more than anything else, and Josh was going to kiss me, but I stopped him.

"What's wrong?" He asked softly, searching my eyes.

"I killed...People." I closed my eyes and it all gonna come out at once.

"What? Come here." Josh didn't know what I was talking about, he just hugged me while I talked and sobbed against his chest.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." It was all I could say and it wasn't enough.

I was ugly, with my swollen, red-rimmed eyes and my snotty nose. My hair damp and matted to my face and neck. My mouth was limp and I was so weak. Shaking and pathetic and small. I was as ugly outside as I was inside.

And still he loved me. Somehow. Josh listened while I told him everything and he didn't try to tell me it was okay, or it wasn't my fault, or any of that. He just listened and that was what I needed. He forgave me, because that's what love does, and how much of what I said, Josh understood, or even believed, I couldn't know. It would be a long time before I could love myself enough to find forgiveness in my own heart, but this was where it started.

Josh saved me.

=-=-=-=-=-={25}=-=-=-=-=-=

"The hell are you doing here?" March Sinclair stared at me and he was old by then, and frowning. He'd been old my whole life.

"I figured I'd come by and cook something." I said, sticking out my chin a little. "You look skinny."

"Shet." He grinned and then I had no choice but to surrender to the man. "We been starving around here!"

He hugged me tight, real tight and we'd always gotten along good.

"Yeah right, Pops." Josh gave his father a friendly slap on the back. "Let my girlfriend go before you embarrass yourself."

"How ya doing, March?" I sighed and I didn't really want to let him go.

"Better now." He chuckled and for being near seventy he was still strong, big and barrel chested, and I imagined he'd looked a lot like John Wayne as a young man. He still did.

"You look good." I decided, stepping back as he let me go. "Any complaints?"

"Don't you go doctorin' me none." He grinned. "Ain't nothing wrong a little Viagra won't fix."

"Pop...Jesus." Josh was digging through the refrigerator. "I got Pepsi and Pepsi and...Water and..."

"Pepsi." I smiled.

"Hell, I don't even need Viagra now that I'm looking at you, Jenny." March grabbed my arm. "Sit down here now, where the hell you been?"

"Uh, Maryland mostly." I shrugged, taking a seat at the kitchen table. "Just working, you know."

"That's more than my boy's been doing." March frowned, looking at Josh as he sat down with us. "All he does is look for you."

"Yeah, that's why I spend ten hours a day at the mill, Pops." Josh rolled his eyes. "Cause Jen mighta been hiding behind the two by fours."

"Well, I hope ya make an honest woman outta her soon." March looked back at me, smiling and holding my hand. "He's lucky his momma ain't around, see him treat a lady like this."

"He treats me fine." I promised. "I'm the one keeping him dishonest, I'm afraid."

"Shet." The man laughed and he had those same brown eyes as his son, wonderfully warm and inviting.

"Jen's gonna stay for awhile, Pop." Josh said. "So, uh...I figured I'd just sleep on the couch and..."

"Boy, how dumb do you think I am?" March frowned. "Sleeping on the couch with this woman upstairs in your bed?"

"He's just trying to protect my reputation." I giggled.

"From me?" March laughed and stroked the back of my hand. "He starts sleeping on the couch and you come find my bed..."

"Pop!"

"...I'll mind your reputation, Jenny." March winked at me and I laughed.

I cooked up a dinner and that was fun. I hardly ever cooked and I wasn't very good at it, but the men didn't care. I don't think they even tasted the food and it was such a delight just to be with them, Josh and his father, listening to them go back and forth. March was a terrible flirt and they were both endless in their attentions. I was spoiled with affection and it was a balm for my soul.

"Josh..." I whispered and he was almost asleep after making love to me.

"Hmmm..." He sighed.

"I'm gonna go tuck your dad in." I giggled.

"Huh?" He opened his eyes in the dim light, silvery with a clear full moon outside his window.

"I'll be right back, okay?" I kissed him.

"Oh Christ." Josh chuckled softly. "I'll never hear the end of it."

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"Up to you, but..."

"What?" I grinned at him.

"Don't come crying to me if he starts asking you to marry him."

"Heh!" I stuck my tongue out and slipped off the bed and into the old bathrobe Josh had found for me.

I'd never done this, but I'd thought about it before and Josh knew. I'd teased him plenty of times and it made my heart go faster, my stomach tighten a bit. I loved March, like a father, and Josh was happy about that. His dad had been alone a long time too, almost twenty years after Josh's mother had died.

"Hey." I said softly, kneeling on the floor and working my head and shoulders under the covers, waking the old man up with my gentle hands.

"Eh?" He was stirring slowly and I found March's loose boxers and his flaccid cock inside. "Jenny?"

"Yeah." I breathed and I was pushing my hand inside, feeling him warm and wrinkled, all soft on a bed of wiry pubic hair.

"The hell you think you're doing down there?" He asked me.

"Tucking you in." I giggled.

"That ain't the way I learnt to do it." He chuckled. "You best get back to your bed before Josh wakes up."

"He's already awake, March." I laughed and I was working the man's cock slowly, coaxing him to life. "Come on...You can do it..."

"Shet." March sighed and he was growing hard. "I was just, uh...All that talk, you know, that was just talk and..."

"Uh-Huh." I kissed his stomach through the cotton of his t-shirt and moved my head lower, under the warm sheets until my lips found his semi-hard cock.

"Jenny...Oh..."

"Mmphhh?" I gave him a muffled giggle as I took my boyfriend's father into my mouth, sucking the old man softly.

I used my tongue, a lot of tongue, and March seemed to like that a great deal. His hands were in my hair, petting me while his cock stiffened pleasantly into a full and surprisingly large erection. My lips were stretched around him and I bobbed my head up and down slowly, wanting to make it last because it was an incredible turn-on for some reason.

My own cock was throbbing and the muscle between my creamy thighs so swollen I found myself reaching down to jerk myself off. I was keeping it a secret though; March didn't need to know about that. I liked the way he talked about having grandchildren someday and I didn't want to disappoint him.

"Jenny...Now I know why that boy's so crazy about you." March was breathing hard and I was taking almost all of him, making it good for the man.

I'd suck the smooth glans for awhile and then drop my mouth halfway down the shaft quickly, flicking my tongue beneath him and then drawing my soft wet lips up slowly. I swallowed spit and precum and I let a lot of it run down to my fingers as I gripped the base of March's dick in my fist. Once in awhile I'd pull my mouth off and kiss and lick him all over, teasing the old man until he was pushing at my head, guiding me once more to take him into my hungry mouth.

He lasted five minutes, maybe a little more, but it was five minutes of heaven and I moaned deep in my throat as I felt March stiffen in his bed. He gasped and pushed my mouth down until the knob of his prick was at the entrance to my throat and then his cock spasmed eagerly, his sperm, hot and thin and rich with a salty flavor filled my mouth to overflowing.

I swallowed quickly, sucking and squeezing his cock with my hand, stroking the man off so I could get as much of his ball juice into my tummy as I could. This was the sperm that had made Josh, I was thinking, and I loved him so much. I ate every bit of cum I could find, spending a few long minutes cleaning March's softening cock and then putting it back into his shorts with a kiss and a giggle.

"Thank you for that." March was panting and smiling at me in the dark. "I can die in peace now."

"You better not." I sighed, licking my lips and bringing my face close to his. "You stick around for awhile; we might have to do this again."

"Jenny...One time was probably too much, but I do love you." He sighed. "You take care of my boy and..."

"You're not dying." I laughed. "That was an orgasm."

"Oh..." March chuckled. "...Hell, I knew that. It's just been awhile, you know."

"Goodnight, March." I kissed him lightly on the cheek.

"Night Jenny."

I returned to Josh and he was waiting for me, the bedside lamp on now as he held my snow globe, turning it slowly in his hands.

"Hey boyfriend." I giggled, shedding my bathrobe slowly and my cock was hard as steel, pointing right at him.

"Hey...Uh, what did Pop say?" Josh set the snow globe down and looked at me.

"He was sweet." I grinned, walking towards the bed, swinging my hips and making my cock sway from side to side.

"Yeah, but..." Josh licked his lips. "...What did he say, you know. Was he..."

"I'm not gonna kiss and tell." I laughed. "Come here..."

"Hmmm...Looks like he got you all excited though." Josh moved towards the edge of the bed and I reached for him, cradling his head in my hand and drawing him closer.

"Yeah...He did." I nodded. "Now you get to finish what your daddy started."

"Oh Jen..." Josh sighed as he opened his mouth, taking my thick eight inches into his too small mouth and I really did wish my mom hadn't been quite so generous. About six inches would have been perfect, as it was Josh could only get half of me inside, but that still felt pretty darn good.

"Suck it, boyfriend...I know you love my cock." I smiled, pushing with my hips, just a little, and enjoying the sight of Josh with his face full of my hard dick.

"Mmphh..." Josh agreed and looked up at me with his big brown eyes.

"Such a little slut for my big cock, huh?" I stroked his hair and Josh was playing with my balls.

Josh nodded slightly, but mostly he was working my cock nicely inside his warm, willing mouth. A lot of that was because he did love me, more than anything else in the world, and it wouldn't matter what I had between my legs. Another part was that Josh was seriously addicted to my sperm, which seems funny, but mom was right about that and I'd seen her notes on the subject. There was a protein in my semen that she'd played with, one that triggered a response in the brain, or stimulated the hypothalamus, to be more accurate. The sex center of the human mind...That funny protein rubbed it like a magic lamp, calling a genie who made good sex better, and great sex fucking fantastic. And like all good feelings, Josh wanted it every chance he got.

My mom was a witch and so far ahead of everyone else it wasn't funny. Even right then with Josh, some seven years after her death, the rest of the world was still playing catch up. Mr. Fox had once called her the Mozart of genetics, taking dictation from God himself, and it hadn't been flattery. The old man had meant it and if that was true, what did it make me? I didn't have all of her data, not yet, but I had enough to do my own research, to follow in her footsteps. But where my mother had created me, I'd created PK from those same building blocks...I could do better. I had to do better.

So it was that getting a blowjob from Josh, while I thought about my mother, put me on the phone with Lois Ashton a few days later, making arrangements to see her in a month.

=-=-=-=-=-={25}=-=-=-=-=-=

"You don't have to go." Josh said, and not for the first time.

"Yeah." I sighed. "I do. They have a office with my name on the door."

"Where's that at?" March wanted to know and he was cooking up some pancakes for us, since I'd tried it once and just about burned the house down.

"Harvard, up by Boston." I nodded.

"That's a long ways away." March frowned.

"I'm going to do some genetics work." I said. "Alzheimer's I think. I'd like to do something...Practical."

"Alzheimer's?" March laughed. "What are trying to say?"

"I don't want you forgetting me." I giggled.

"Shet." March shook his head. "I might forget what day of the week it is, Shirley, but I ain't never gonna forget that weekend in Vegas!"

"What?" I laughed.

"Don't listen to him." Josh shook his head.

"See? That's what I'm talking about." I rolled my eyes. "The things I did with that man last night..."

"I don't want to know." Josh frowned playfully.

"Hell, I do." March said. "Tell him what you told me this morning, Jenny. Go on..."

"Pops...What is it with you?" Josh asked his dad.

"I'm not telling." I laughed.

"She said I oughta get 'BULL' tattooed on my belly." March grinned at Josh. "What you think of that?"

"I didn't say that!" I gasped.

"Oh, she'll deny it now." March gave me a wink. "But it was in her eyes, boy."

"She gave you one blowjob, Pops." Josh looked at his watch. "I gotta get to the mill."

"I love you." I said, pulling Josh to my lips as he leaned over.

"I love you too. Think about staying, okay?" He asked. "You know, we got a hospital right here in town."

"Yeah, I know." I nodded, but I was already committed and the next day I had to leave.

"Be back this afternoon." Josh said. "Be nice, Pops!"

"Yeah, yeah...Don't break my lumber mill, boy. I only loaned it to ya." March grinned at his son. "And fill up your gas tank, I heard it was going up again. Stupid Arabs...How can a barrel of oil cost three hundred dollars? That's what I wanna know."

"I don't know." I shrugged. "Maybe they're running out."

"They got that geo-thermal plant going here now, but I'll be damned if it's any cheaper." March said. "Gotta pay for itself, they say...Shet. Paid for itself after a month, I bet."

"Sit down here and eat with me." I smiled at him.

"Bet you got one of those plastic cars, huh?" March grinned at me. "Drive thirty miles an hour and plug it in at night?"

"Me?" I laughed. "When I need a ride, I just...Call my uncle in Washington."

"Uncle, eh?" March chuckled. "He must be doing alright if he can afford thirty bucks for a gallon of gas."

"Yeah." I sighed. "He does alright. He's picking me up tomorrow."

"He's driving here?" March narrowed his eyes. "Then all the way to Boston?"

"No." I giggled, pouring syrup on my pancakes. "He's got a jet."

"Well..." March looked at me. "...Shet. What the hell you do for him at night?"

"Anything he wants me too." I laughed.

=-=-=-=-=-={25}=-=-=-=-=-=

"You weren't kidding, huh?" March was looking at the small Gulf IX jet sitting on the runway. Mr. Fox had a bigger one, but the airport just outside Harden was pretty small.

"Nope." I smiled, but I was looking into Josh's eyes as he held me close.

"I'm gonna start building that house pretty soon." Josh said. "You might wanna come back out this way and see it."

"I will." I promised. "I'm not going that far away. Not anymore."

"Just take care of yourself, alright?" Josh sighed.

"I love you." I told him. "Don't forget about me."

"Heh." He shook his head. "As if I could? I love you so much, Jen."

"Okay." I cleared my throat and I didn't want to cry just then.

He kissed me, a bunch of times and then I had to let him go. March hugged me too, one armed cause he was holding my bear, but tight just the same. He kissed my cheek and then I kissed him on the mouth with a giggle and I did cry, so Josh had to kiss me again. It was hard leaving and I took my teddy bear out of March's arms reluctantly.

"I always liked that young man." Mr. Fox said as I sat down on a sofa next to him. "He's good for you."

The inside of the plane looked like a well appointed living room more than anything else and a steward was right there to give me a glass of wine. I needed it and we didn't even have to buckle our seat belts, if there even were any. I didn't see them. The people who flew Mr. Fox prided themselves on the on being the best and it was going to be a smooth ride.

"Harvard is a good choice for you too." He continued. "You'll get some exposure up there."

"I just don't want to kill anyone." I sighed, looking out the window at Josh and March, still standing just outside the small building that served as terminal, control tower and fire department all in one.

"I received your report with General Palmer's endorsement." Mr. Fox cleared his throat. "I should say I'm disappointed."

"With me?" I looked into the man's cold grey eyes and he shook his head.

"Never with you, my dear." Mr. Fox told me. "Only with missed opportunity."

"There are no opportunities there." I said. "My report made that clear, I thought."

"As you say." Mr. Fox shrugged and seemed to change the subject. "I've arranged a house for you, darling. I hope you don't mind."

"I do need a house." I shrugged, looking out the window as the jet turned slowly at the end of the runway.

"I have something else for you." Mr. Fox said. "You asked me once for your mother's laboratory..."

"Yes?" I looked at him.

"It's there." Mr. Fox nodded. "I don't pretend to understand all the details, but I'm assured you'll have the same access Elsa had, even more I think."

"Thanks." I nodded and I realized he hadn't changed the subject at all.

"It's the least I can do, my dear." Mr. Fox smiled and then we were pushed back gently as the jet accelerated, the nose lifting after a bumpy ride and suddenly we were floating on silk as the world fell behind.

End of Part 15

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