Rating: PG-13
Words: 7,440
Disclaimer: Characters and the initial scenario come from Die Hard 4.0
Two weeks later, Scalvino relented and put John back on active duty. Further streets had been cleared, but not all of them. The power hub was going to take months more to rebuild, but the backup measures had become more reliable, the blackouts fewer. (John had tracked down a generator to buy two days after that outing to the diner, however, so the refrigerator and Matt's gear were now more or less dependable.) The streetlights, at least, had been backed up on multiple local generators, so the complete blackouts were over. There was still plenty for the NYPD to deal with, including a huge backlog of reports and cases that had been back-burnered while the state of emergency was higher.
It was tiring and frustrating work, but a damn sight better than sitting around at home. When John returned each evening, or in the small hours after the graveyard shift, Matt popped out of his room and switched on burners, pulled bowls from the fridge, put the final touches on a meal. He poured forth details of how his program was coming, most of which John didn't understand, though he was alarmed to find that some of the vocabulary had worked its way into his head and begun to make sense.
Matt kept upbeat about the reconstruction after that one night. John could tell sometimes by the way Matt's lips compressed and his eyes narrowed that he was guarding against letting deeper feelings show, but he seemed to be doing all right, especially once they'd gotten the generator, at focusing his energies on what he could do rather than dreading the future.
A week and a half after John returned to work, he came home one evening and was immediately hailed.
"McClane!" Matt called. "C'mere, quick!"
John lobbed his jacket at the sofa and went to join him. Matt was perched on the edge of his chair, clutching the seat with both hands. He had a wild look in his eyes and a wilder look to his hair--which was trying to escape his scalp in all directions at once--and his clothes, which he'd been wearing since the day before. John had seen him in there working when he left for the station in the morning and been assured he was about to turn in. So much for that.
"What's goin' on?" John asked.
"Take a look," Matt said breathlessly. He scooted back from the desk to give John a better view of the computer screen and ran a hand through his hair, which did little to order it. He pointed to the screen, where IceFloe was open, running a dozen windows that read "Intrusion Attempt Detected" followed by lines of details. More windows popped up as they watched, announcing what actions the program was taking to neutralize the threat, then coming up with an All Clear in the icy font of the logo. "That's WARL10CK trying to hack me. To test the program," he explained, when John looked surprised. "He's been at it for an hour."
"Is that good?"
Matt grinned. "It's very good for a beta. You don't know how good he is."
John snorted. "He's cocky enough."
Matt's gaze returned to the screen, the scrolling lines of computer actions reflected in his eyes, his lips parted slightly. More and more windows opened, hiding the previous layer of neutralized threats.
"It's on auto-pilot," he said. "It's deciding how to respond to each attack on its own. There's a manual mode, too, but the idea is it should work almost exactly like I was controlling it. Man, I can't believe it's taking him this long. There's no way I got it on my first--"
An electronic bleat of distress issued from the speakers. The most recent window to open, near the top-right corner of the screen, had turned red and was displaying a fire icon.
"Ah, shit," Matt muttered.
A rotund, red, bat-winged cartoon gargoyle three inches tall flapped down to the center of the screen. It leered out at John and Matt, turned, mooned them, and then, with a series of snorts and grunts, proceeded to jerk itself off, spraying the screen with runny white globs.
The gargoyle gave a high-pitched cackle and flapped away off the top of the screen. The virtual spooge on the screen melted the IceFloe windows layer by layer, till just a splatter pattern was left on the desktop. Then that blinked out to a blank white screen with a tiny line of text near the middle: Apple sucks my balls.
Matt looked up at John, whose face was fixed in an expression of bemused disgust. "Uh," said Matt.
"What is it about you hackers that makes you such a vulgar bunch of S.O.B.'s?"
Matt laughed weakly. "We don't get out much."
"Huh," John said emphatically.
"Vulgarity aside, it was a good test. Now I just gotta go back and figure out what I missed to let him through." Matt reached for the keyboard.
"Can you do it later?" John asked.
"No time like now."
John looked at the kid critically. "Do me a favor and stand up for a minute."
"Huh?"
"Just do it."
Matt frowned up at him, confused, but stood. He collapsed into John's waiting arms. "Oh. Shit," Matt said faintly.
"Yeah, that's what I thought," John said.
Matt looked up at him, groaned and let his forehead fall against John's chest.
"C'mon, let's get some food in you." John pulled Matt's arm over his shoulder, grabbed him by the waist and half-carried him into the living room. "I thought there weren't enough cans and wrappers in there. When'd you last eat?"
"Uh..." Matt said. John poured him into a dining room chair and he slumped over the table. "Dinner yesterday. I didn't make anything today," he added as John went into the kitchen.
"Don't sweat it."
Matt giggled tiredly. "'Don't sweat it'? Who even says that? Oh, man, I think I'm gonna hurl."
"Hang in there." John had a new appreciation for his twenty-four-hour-functional fridge as he pulled mayo, mustard, cheese, lettuce, tomato and sliced roast beef from it in edible condition. He grabbed a plate, constructed a quick but respectable sandwich, and laid the plate next to Matt's head where it was pillowed on his arms. "There ya go."
Matt's fingers crept out from beneath his left arm and pulled the sandwich back under with them. "Thank you," he said fervently.
"Gonna need to sit up to get it in your mouth."
"I might have to take this slow. Crust first. I haven't done this in a while. I... don't feel so good."
John brought him a glass of orange juice. "Try this first."
Bleary eyes appeared over the top of Matt's stacked arms. He raised his head enough to slurp from the top of the glass, waited a moment, then propped himself up on his elbows and drank properly. Once he'd finished, he put his head down again next to the untouched sandwich. "I'll be able to eat it... in a sec."
John returned to the kitchen to make himself a sandwich and grab a beer. He returned with both, and the orange juice carton to refill Matt's glass.
Matt pushed himself up again and took a bite of the sandwich, chewing slowly as if he expected to encounter fragments of glass. He swallowed and looked up at John with the big cat-eyes.
"What?" John asked, disconcerted.
"Sorry," Matt muttered. "I got distracted 'cause I was so close to finishing."
"What're you apologizing for? You're the one who feels like a tequila hangover."
"You said I could stay if I cooked."
John blinked. "That? Forget it. You're working, too."
Matt's gaze fell to the table, giving him that droopy-eared look. John thanked god Jack had never learned it, or John never would've survived his kids' elementary years. "Yeah, but McClane..."
"John," said John. He hadn't decided on this before, so he was mildly surprised to hear it coming out of his mouth.
"Really?"
"Yeah. 'McClane' is what I hear all day at the station."
"John," Matt said slowly, as if trying the name on for size. He nodded and smiled hesitantly. "What's wrong with you, John?"
"Huh?"
"You're not an asshole like every other adult male I've ever met."
"Thanks a lot."
"I'd pretty much figured there was something in the water up till at least 1970 that turned everybody into a selfish, hypocritical asshole out to make life difficult for everyone else."
John looked at him. Matt averted his eyes, abashed. "You're all right, though," he said.
"'Cause I made you a sandwich?"
"'Cause you made me a sandwich."
"I had to do a lotta legwork to get you this, McClane."
At his desk at the station, John clicked his pen in then out again and adjusted the receiver resting between his shoulder and ear. "Legwork?" he repeated.
"The databases with the birth records, property records, marriage licenses, or any of that info are all offline while they beef up computer security--meaning I can't get at 'em remotely, Mr. Stone Age. I had to go down to City Hall myself and dig through the filing cabinets. Dust up to my eyeballs. Eighty-thousand records under every letter."
"Sounds more like handwork," said John. "Maybe a little forearm."
"I had to get down there, didn't I?"
"On foot?"
"The nearest parking space to Camden City Hall must be a mile away."
"You poor bastard. You gonna make it?"
"Yeah, asshole. You owe me for this."
"Let's hear what you found before we decide that." John drew a quick squiggle on a notebook page to make sure the pen was working. "So shoot."
"Parents are Luke and Alice Farrell. Were married when he was born; now divorced. Luke's a real estate agent, home address in Camden. Alice kept the name after the divorce. She's a shrink, lives and works in Newark, not too far from you." He read out the addresses and phone numbers for John to copy down. "I can go pay the husband a visit if you want. That's outta your jurisdiction."
"Nah," said John. "I'll start with the wife, Mitchell, thanks. I do owe you one."
"Only one?"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever y'want." John tapped the hookswitch twice, punched in the Newark area code, then paused. The attentive, staticky silence ceded to an annoyed busy signal. John hung up, stood and grabbed his notebook and jacket as he headed for the door.
"You out for the day, McClane?" Detective Lemansky called from the breakroom door.
"Yeah. Got a lead to follow in Newark."
"Better you than me."
Alice Farrell's apartment was in an expensive section of Newark. To say it was a nice neighborhood would have implied that Jersey had them, but it was as well-located as you could manage across the Jersey border. The building had twenty floors, a well-polished grey stone exterior, an attractive modern entryway with glass doors and a concierge. John had to flash the shield to get upstairs, which didn't thrill him, since he wasn't on anything close to police business, but sometimes you just used the keys available to you.
Alice lived in a corner apartment on the eighteenth floor. Pretty good, but then Mitchell had said she was a shrink, and that seemed to be the way to rake it in easy these days. There were neurotics by the truckload in the metropolis, all so desperate for one person to sit through their whining that they'd pay for it. Good gig if you could listen to that nine to five without wanting to blow out your clients' brains or your own. John couldn't recall any cases like that, so apparently it worked for some people.
"'Course," John muttered to himself, "these poor assholes are taking advice from someone who threw away her own kid. Someone oughta make a PSA."
John frowned at the door. "What the hell did you come out here for, John?" On some level, he hoped there was a misunderstanding at work, that maybe the rift wasn't as deep or permanent as Matt thought it was. Parents and kids had that--big fights, harsh words, too much stubbornness to make it up. It was possible Matt'd heard "don't come home" when it wasn't what his parents were saying.
John wasn't feeling too optimistic on that front, though. There's a kind of kid who doesn't want to call home for help, but knows he can, and another who knows that if he does, they'll hang up on him. Lucy, no matter how much she held John's absentee father rap sheet against him, knew who to call for help. John was grateful for that. She and Jack could resent him all they needed to, but if there ever came a time when they couldn't trust him, when they weren't sure he'd come when they called, then he really would have failed. Holly was the same way; there was nothing she wouldn't do for the kids, and they knew it. John knew other kinds of parents existed, but there was no understanding them.
So if John was right, and there was no reconciliation to be had here, he wanted, at least, an explanation.
He rang the doorbell.
There was a pause, then a male and a female voice discussing the pros and cons of opening or ignoring the door. Maybe Farrell was working. Recent events were bound to have sent mobs of neurotics crying to the leather couch, so business must be booming. Mitchell had given him a different address for her office, though, so maybe not.
A man opened the door. He was a few inches taller than John, wide-shouldered, heavy in a way that suggested youth body-building which had now ceded to fat. He had a plain, square-jawed face, clean shaven, blue eyes and a head of thick, straight, dark brown hair shot through with grey which he wore combed back. "Yes?" he said.
"I'm John McClane--" John stopped himself from adding, 'NYPD.' "I'm here to see a Mrs. Alice Farrell."
"Are you one of her patients?"
John snorted. "Like hell."
The man's eyes flicked up and down, sizing John up as John had done him, and he frowned. "I'm her husband," he said.
Mitchell hadn't mentioned a second marriage for either Farrell. "This is in reference to her son," John said, falling back on professional language.
"Matthew?" said the man. His face went from a mild frown to a glower. "I'm his father."
"Luke Farrell?"
"Yes--?"
"I thought you and Alice Farrell were divorced."
"We were," said Luke, and the creases in his brow said he was about to ask what the hell John knew about it and what business of his it was when he was interrupted by a female voice saying, "We are."
Alice Farrell appeared behind her ex-husband in the doorway. "But we're going to remarry." There was the missing part of the genetic puzzle. Her hair was light brown and curly, but otherwise she was so like Matt you could have mistaken them for each other at a quick glance. About the same height as her son, she had the same large, deep brown cat eyes. Apart from a softer and rounder jawline, the shape of her face and the arrangement of her features were almost identical to Matt's. The result was a strikingly pretty woman, who looked younger than John knew she was. She had the same earnest gleam to her eyes that Matt had; John could see why she'd done well as a shrink. She looked like someone you could trust with your secrets.
She turned that earnest look on John now, with a questioning tilt to her head. "You wanted to see me?"
"It's about Matthew," said Luke.
Alice's eyes opened wide and John almost smiled. The next words out of her mouth would be, 'Is he all right?'
"What's he done now?" she said.
John looked at her for a moment, then had to wipe the what-the-fuck-lady expression off his face. "Nothing," he said. "It's nothing like that. He's been staying with me since he lost his apartment--"
"You a social worker or something?" Luke asked.
What was it with this asshole? John had felt like he was in a pissing contest from the moment the door opened, and without many words being exchanged, John's opinion of the man had already plummeted. "Somethin' like that," John answered after a slight pause. Social workers and police were both employed by the city, after all. "He's been through a rough time lately--"
"I'm sure he has," Luke snorted.
"Excuse me?" said John, who'd had about enough of being interrupted.
"I'm not surprised to hear he lost his apartment during the Fire Sale," said Luke. "Probably because he was involved and something went wrong."
"Involved?" John repeated. "You think your son was behind this?"
"It wouldn't surprise me, Mister--?" Luke paused, but John remained stone-faced, so he continued. "You don't know Matthew. He's already been incarcerated once for an offense of this nature."
"Is that right," said John. He shot a look at Alice, who was nodding, her face stricken with sadness.
"Hacking," said Luke, mouth contorting as if the word tasted bad. "But he wasn't the type of child to learn his lesson. He was stubborn and destructive. A destroyer, not a builder. So if he's gotten himself in trouble again--"
"Ma'am," John cut across him, and Alice's big eyes flicked up to his face. "You believe this?"
She looked away, pressing her lips together in a familiar gesture of conflict, then looked back at John. "I don't know where we went wrong," she said. "But he lost our trust a long time ago, and if he's staying with you, I... would have to warn you to be careful."
"Warn me?" John said, with a short laugh. "He doesn't weigh but a buck-twenty-five on a good day, and he did a little digital graffiti, not a damn bank heist."
"Watch how you speak to my wife--"
John quelled him with a glare. "Shut up, Luke." He looked at them both. "A lotta people got hurt a month ago," he said in the quiet tone that made people fidget and shift in their seats when he questioned them. "You weren't even curious whether your son was okay?"
Luke drew himself up straighter and looked pointedly down his nose at John. "Matthew chose to abandon this family when he left behind the values we taught him. He is no longer our son."
John's eyes narrowed. He wanted to clock this sonuvabitch. Better yet, he wanted to get Luke to hit him so he could haul him back to New York in cuffs and let him think about fatherhood in the cell with the backed-up toilet all night. John had never been that kind of cop, nor, in recent memory, had he ever been so tempted to make an exception. He took a deep breath and pulled out the badge, as much to remind himself of what it meant as to give Luke Farrell the warning he had a legal right to. "I'm a cop," he said, and sneered at Luke. "That's somethin' like a social worker. No, shut up. You listen.
"I've seen a lot of tough motherfuckers, and I've been to their homes to bring 'em in. Murderers, drug-dealers, goodfellas. I've met the parents of criminals whose rap sheets make Tarantino look lazy, and the one thing I can count on is that they always cover for their children. Doesn't matter if we have a video of the perp in flagrente, Ma will swear Junior was in playing dominoes with her that night. Mom and Pop'll scream at cops with cocked guns that their kid's a good boy, never hurt a fly, while the bastard crawls out the back window with a bloodstained shirt. You can threaten the parents with conviction as accessories, deportation, anything, and they will never give up their child. We hate it. It makes the job a hell of a lot harder when a triple-homicide manages to put an innocent Mom-and-Pop act between himself and the law, but I get those parents. I feel sorry as hell for them. It's gotta hurt like a bitch to think your parenting created a monster, but I get it. Monsters or not, they would never betray their children." John snorted, shook his head, got his words under control again. "And here your son did a little fucking around on a computer, pissed on somebody's virtual lawn as a kid, and you're trying to give him up to the first comer, before I even said who I was. For fuck's sake," he said. "The other ones I get. At least they're still human."
John took a slow route home. It wasn't hard, since even over a month later, not all the New York City streets were open, and those that were were so gridlocked he could've strolled home over the car roofs in less time than it took to drive.
Standing outside his door, John could faintly hear the bassline of a rap song--he'd warned Matt that the upstairs and downstairs neighbors would be home after five o'clock and would take exception to having their eardrums blown out. It was good to know he'd paid attention; neither Lucy nor Jack would have. John let himself inside.
The music was coming, at an entirely reasonable volume, from Matt's room.
"I'm havin' nightmares, homicidal fantasies.
"I wake up stranglin', tangled in my bed sheets.
"I call the nurse 'cause it hurts to reminisce..."
John cracked a smile for the first time since he'd left the station. "I didn't think kids your age could hear music at a normal volume," he said.
There was a screech of chair legs from the other room and the song cut off. Matt came swinging into the room on his crutches, grinning. "Hi! Welcome back! Heh, sorry. I didn't know when you'd be back, or I would've had it off... rap probably makes guys your age melt." He looked at the ceiling and held up his hands, hanging onto the crutches with his elbows. "Aaahhhh, what a world!" he warbled. "Oh, my beautiful classic-rockness!" He saw John's nonplussed expression, snickered to himself, and swung into the kitchen.
John threw his jacket onto a hook behind the front door and followed Matt into the kitchen. "2Pac," he said, leaning on the counter. "'Only God Can Judge Me.'"
"No way," Matt said. He turned around, grinning, to hand John a beer. "Don't tell me you listen to 2Pac."
John flicked off the cap and lifted his beer towards Matt before drinking. "I'm fulla mysteries, what can I say?"
"Oh, come on." Matt pulled two covered pots from the fridge and set them on the stove, setting the burners alight.
"I came back from a few years on the LAPD around the time the whole East Coast-West Coast feud was getting hot. You remember that, or are you too young?"
"Uh, yeah," said Matt, pulling a face. "I was in middle school. How young do you think I am?"
John shrugged. He knew exactly, now that he'd had his birth certificate looked up.
"I don't believe you actually know what the East Coast-West Coast feud is. I thought you stopped following pop culture in the sixties."
"Pop culture? We had to break up street fights where the kids actually thought that feud was a valid excuse."
"Ohhhh," said Matt.
"Yeah, 'oh,'" John said, shaking his head with a half grin. "Genius."
"Hey." Matt smiled and shrugged. "Why do you know individual songs, though? Research?"
"I packed a couple of my son's CD's by accident when I moved, so I used to play 'em in the station just to piss off some of the younger cops. Some of the kids we hauled in really hated hearing 'em, too, and it's always useful to have something around that makes it unpleasant for your suspects to prolong questioning."
Matt laughed. "Okay," he said. "That fits." He pulled out a skillet, melted butter into it, then laid on two thick steaks. The aroma of cooking meat filled the kitchen, mingling with something else unidentifiable but appetizing coming from the two pots as they warmed, reminding John's stomach how long it had been since the slice of pizza and coffee he'd had for lunch.
"You're gettin' pretty good at this," John said.
Matt bounced himself over to a cabinet and pulled out spices that John knew he had never bought. "I know, huh?" Matt grinned over his shoulder, then returned his attention to seasoning the steaks and the concoctions hidden in the pots. John thought his nose detected potatoes of some kind, among other things. "I never bothered with it much before, but shit, I'm a genius. If I can code a PacMan clone in fifteen minutes, I can follow a few stupid recipes. And there's loads online."
John drained his beer. Before he could move to throw it away, Matt had turned, snagged the empty from his hand, and was rinsing it out for recycling.
"You want another?"
"Nah, I'm good." John blinked at the kid, who looked positively sprightly as he worked his way around the kitchen, despite the crutches. "You're looking... high blood sugar."
"Wired to the gills, my friend."
"Sleep?"
"Six consecutive hours. Crazy. Must be your wholesome example."
John grimaced. "I'm the wholesome example? You're in trouble, kid."
"You're not so bad."
John snorted. "Sure, if you say so."
"Well, also, I'd been up a long-ass time, and I crashed after putting the site online."
"Your program. It's ready to go?"
Something in the lift to Matt's shoulders and the sound of his voice told John the kid was beaming fit to ignite things, but he stayed facing the stove. "WAR10CK tried to hack me for like... eleven hours straight last night."
"'Like' eleven?"
"Eleven hours, thirty-two minutes and forty seconds," said Matt, his voice radiating glee. "Then he gave up. He gave up! I tightened up one last line of code, put the whole thing live and shot off emails to some software reviewers around ten this morning. I thought I wouldn't be able to sleep waiting for the first download, but I practically rolled outta my chair into bed."
"Good thing it's so convenient."
"Yep," Matt chuckled.
"So, how soon are you gonna know anything?"
Matt shook his head and turned off the back burners. "I'm trying not to think about it. Otherwise I'll end up in front of the computer hitting refresh every two seconds on eighty different review sites until something happens, who knows when. How do you like yours?"
"Medium rare."
"Theeeeen, we are done." Matt slid over to another cabinet, pulled out a pair of plates and arranged the food quickly, but quite presentably, on them.
"I got it," John said, as Matt reached for the plates. "Go on."
Matt shrugged, looking a bit chagrined, as if it was his duty to balance plates over crutches. He grabbed the silverware and a couple paper towels--neither of them appeared to be the napkin-buying type--and started for the table. "Oh, drinks--"
"I'll get 'em," said John. He followed Matt out, set down the plates, and returned for another beer and a can of Dew.
"Thanks," Matt said, again giving him that sheepish I-should-be-doing-more look. John sensed a wrong move could initiate an ugly round of no-thank-yous, so he nodded and gave Matt a half-smile as he lifted his beer bottle.
"To your program."
Matt smiled back, popped the tab on his soda can and lifted it. "To IceFloe."
They drank, then appetite kicked in and they both set to the meal before them. John went straight for the steak--perfectly done--so it was a couple minutes before he sampled the potatoes. They had been mashed... or whipped... or something. There was cheese involved, and a combination of spices John would have been at a loss to identify if he'd cared to try.
"These are great," John said. "You kept this recipe, right?"
"My invention," said Matt. "I thought I'd improvise a little."
John shook his head appreciatively. After years of take-out and microwave dinners, any home-cooked meal was a good one, but Matt really was developing a flair for the culinary. "All the comforts of home," John said.
Matt smiled and looked down, concentrating on his food. Something about the softness of his mouth when he did made John think of Alice Farrel, and his mood soured again. John went back to cutting his steak with greater than necessary force.
"What's up?" Matt asked.
John raised his eyes to see Matt watching him with a friendly, solicitous look on his face. "Huh?"
"You looked a bit on edge when you came in," said Matt. "Now, too."
"Oh, yeah?" John said, sarcastic, thinking it might shake off the question. But Matt had been learning over the month they'd spent together, and John's subtler bits of more-macho-than-thou intimidation weren't getting him as far with the kid as they once had.
"Yep," Matt said. "You don't have to tell me; I just wondered..."
"It's your folks," said John, half before he'd realized he was going to talk. "I looked 'em up."
Matt's smile faded. "They're all right, aren't they?"
"Yeah, they're fine. It looks like they're getting remarried."
Matt's eyebrows rose. "Both of them? To who?"
"Each other."
Matt's eyes widened and his eyebrows climbed higher. "Huh," he said. Then, to John's surprise, Matt started to smile again. "Wow. I don't believe it." He shook his head, hair swinging from side to side. "That's... good. I'm glad."
John watched him. He hadn't been able to predict Matt's reaction, only had a feeling he ought to tell him.
"Huh," Matt said again. He poked at the vegetables on his plate. "Of course, it doesn't mean I can go home."
John relaxed a bit. He'd thought the idea might occur to Matt, and he didn't want to have raised false hopes just to have to break it to the kid that his parents still thought he was fucking Damien. "You think so, huh?" John said.
"Yeah." Matt gave a small, rueful laugh. "I can picture what went down. This was the perfect disaster for them, really. They probably got together and bonded over how computers really are the devil, and I'm the hacker antichrist."
John winced at his accuracy. Matt knew his parents, all right.
"No," Matt said quietly, "they don't want me back. That's... okay, though. I'm happy for them. I didn't think anything could mend their marriage."
"It's their loss."
"Yeah." Matt laughed softly.
"No shit," said John. "You'd be a son to be proud of even if you hadn't helped save the country. And my daughter. And me, when it comes down to it."
Matt raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, alright," he snorted.
John shrugged and went back to his food. He had really lost the knack for bigging up young people with self-esteem issues, if he'd ever had it to begin with. That was probably why they never gave him any promising junior detectives to mentor at the station. That, and maybe they were afraid his luck was contagious.
After a minute or so, Matt said, "How'd you know about it, anyhow? I looked them up as soon as I got my hands on an Internet connection, to make sure neither of 'em were in the hospital or... anything. Nothing about a new marriage license... Unless it was more recent than that, but I..."
"I paid your mother a visit."
"Oh..."
"Your father was there."
"Oh, shit. What happened?"
John frowned. "Who said anything happened?"
Matt bit his lip. "My father's an... Uh. You're exactly the type who brings out the worst in him."
John sensed a whole slew of stories down that line of questioning, but decided to let them lie for the moment. "Nothing happened," he assured Matt. "I just talked to them."
"But," Matt said, his brow creasing, "what were you doing there?"
That's a good question, John thought. Always said he was a sharp kid. How 'bout it, John? "I was curious," he said.
"Curious."
"Yeah." John frowned harder. Matt was giving him a bewildered, slightly worried look, with all the benefit of the huge cat eyes in play. Man, it made him feel guilty fast. Maybe Matt wouldn't be so bad behind an interrogation table. "After what you said about them kicking you out. I was curious."
"Geez, why?"
John sighed. "I thought you might be wrong."
"About?"
"Them really wanting you out. I thought it might be a misunderstanding. Believe it or not, I've known parents to have those with their kids."
Matt snorted. "So, Detective?"
John opened his mouth, then shut it. It felt wrong to reiterate that Matt's parents wanted nothing to do with him. It would also be wrong to repeat any of what he'd said to Luke Farrell. Your blood was your blood. Even if Matt himself thought his father was an asshole, it would hurt to hear him criticized by an outsider.
"No misunderstanding, right?" Matt surmised.
"No."
Matt pressed his lips together, the corners of his mouth turning down, and nodded. He closed his eyes for a second, then puffed up his cheeks, blew out a gusty breath, and stood. "I'm gonna be torturing myself all night wondering about IceFloe," he said, bringing his empty plate into the kitchen.
John looked after him. It was kinda strange having someone else pull the sharp-left-turn-before-emotional-conversation-topic when John was usually the one spinning the steering wheel. But if Matt did it first, it saved John the trouble. He assessed what was left on his plate, decided he could manage it in one mouthful, and shoveled it all in.
John had been visiting Holly and the kids at the beginning of the summer when Lucy was getting her college decision letters. She and John had been having an ambivalent patch; Lucy didn't exactly hate him, but she didn't know what to do with him, either. One morning, she stalked into the guestroom with an armful of mail and dumped it on John's bed. "I can't open these," she declared, and sat down on the chair in the corner, arms folded, and stared at him--it wasn't exactly a glare, but definitely a challenging look.
"You're right," John said. "Explosive materials should only be handled by trained professionals. I'm not as hooked into the LAPD bomb squad since Al retired, so I guess it'll have to be me." This earned him a reluctant smile from Lucy, accompanied by the eye-rolling required by law from a teenager confronted with a Dad-joke, but still, a smile. "Why do I pull all the dangerous assignments, huh?" John quipped, and started sorting through the envelopes.
There were a variety of postmarks. Lucy had been saving her mail for at least a week. She must have gotten up early to intercept the mailman as he arrived, too, because Holly never would have let her wait if she'd known the decisions had arrived. The fact that Lucy was giving John first crack at this was an olive branch heavy enough to brain Goliath--he didn't miss that.
John went quickly through the envelopes, opening and scanning the contents with a perfect--if he did say so--poker face as Lucy watched tensely.
There were three rejections, two acceptances and two spots on waiting lists as well as some useless promotional material that had made the pile look more daunting. So he gave her the good news first, followed by the medium and the bad.
Lucy blew out a huge breath she'd been holding, then smiled. "Thanks, Dad." Her top choice was one of the ones that'd waitlisted her, but the accpetances were from good schools, including Rutgers, where she had ended up going.
"Any time. You know me, Luce, if there's one thing I'm good at, it's taking a bullet."
This time, she laughed.
It was a short-lived peace between them. Not long afterwards, John had been back in New York, and Lucy refusing to take his calls. But John thought of his children in terms of the good spots--the periods of sullen silence, he didn't count. You did what you could and you took what you could get.
John blinked out of his recollection as Matt returned and asked if he was done. "I got it," said John. He followed Matt back into the kitchen with his dish and gently pushed Matt away from the sink. "I could look for you," he added, as he rolled up his sleeves.
"At what?" Matt asked. He sighed as he gave up the dish soap and grabbed a dishtowel instead. "Fine, I'm drying, then."
"Your website."
"To check if anyone's downloaded IceFloe yet?"
"Yeah."
Matt gave him an appraising look. "Hm... Are you sure you can touch a computer without it blowing up?"
"Your computer's the one that went nuclear, and it did it with no help from me."
Matt winced at the memory. "Still," he said, accepting a wet plate from John, "you seem like the type who can cause fatal errors and hard drive meltdowns just by looking hard at a computer."
"I once defused a time bomb with a pair of toenail clippers and a toothpick, on the phone with the bomb squad. How hard could it be?" John handed Matt a pot.
"Jesus Christ," said Matt. "You don't fuck around when you have a bad day, do you?"
"It's 'cause I'm bald."
"Huh?" Matt paused in the act of stacking dishes in the cupboard, stretched somewhat precariously between crutches and the shelves overhead. His hair fell into his eyes as he looked at John. John reached to brush it away, but his soapy hands stopped him before he got far. Matt tossed his head to throw the hair back. "What?" he asked.
"Other people can just have a bad hair day." John flicked his eyes up to indicate his smooth scalp and shrugged. "I don't have that option. On my bad days, shit blows up."
Matt looked at him for a second. A sound distinctively like a giggle escaped his lips. He let the dishes settle in the cupboard with a clatter, still watching John with an odd brightness in his eyes. He covered his mouth with one hand to stifle another spurt of laughter. His eyes crinkled at the corners and his shoulders began to shake. "Because..." he quavered, then burst out laughing.
John was at a loss. He couldn't remember the last time he'd earned more than a cynical, macho "heh!" with a joke of his, much less the kind of unguarded laughter that had Matt swaying on his crutches and practically weeping.
"'Cause you're... bald!" Matt gasped. "Oh, man... Shit..."
"Whoa, easy there." John grabbed Matt's right shoulder, steadying him as the crutch on that side wobbled dangerously.
"Ohh, shit," Matt sighed. "I'm okay, I'm okay, just..." And he dissolved into laughter again.
John waited till he was sure Matt was steady before letting go to rinse his hands. He snagged the dishtowel from Matt's unresisting hand and shook his head incredulously. He found himself half-smiling, and a little embarrassed to have produced such a reaction with such a lame joke. Pleased, too, though, a little. There was something powerfully endearing about Matt's face now, openly happy and helpless with laughter. "Hey, kid," he said finally, patting Matt's shoulder as Matt took wheezing breaths and tried to hold the laughter back. "You gonna make it?"
"Mm..." Matt took a deep breath that came out in a string of chuckles. He pulled the sleeve of his plaid button-down over his wrist and wiped at his eyes. "Ohh, god. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sorry. It's just..." He put his fist to his lips to stifle another chuckle. "I dunno, but you're a lot funnier when we're not being shot at."
"That'd be easy money on most people."
"You may be onto something." Matt sighed deeply, getting it out with only one small giggle. "Um, yeah. If you would check my site stats... I'd appreciate it."
"Sure," said John. "Soap on you," he added, swiping the suds off Matt's shoulder with the towel. "Just tell me what to do."
Matt waited outside the doorway, back against the wall, as John entered his room. "In case it really does explode," he said.
"Gee, thanks," said John.
"It happens, sometimes, with technophobes. Okay, the browser's up there, right?"
"Yeah." John did use a computer at the station occasionally, to check his email or use the State or Police Department databases.
"Do you know how to use tabs?"
"Uh... no."
Matt talked him through how they worked--multiple browsers in one window; let's hear it for the ADD generation. "So, just go through the ones I have up and press refresh on each one. See if there's anything about IceFloe, and then on the server stats page, just see if there are any downloads."
"Okay, got it."
"And don't make my computer explode."
"Makin' no promises." John clicked through. He had to do a bit of looking on the review websites to make sure he'd covered them, as he wasn't familiar with their layouts, but the site statistics page was easy enough to read. John emerged from the room with his poker face.
Matt looked up at him sidelong, face scrunched up as though John himself might combust. "So...?"
"Good news or bad news first?"
"Bad," Matt said earnestly.
"No press yet," said John, "but you made a hundred and fifty bucks since this morning."
"Wha... really?"
"You said three bucks for the full version, right? Fifty of those were downloaded. Three hundred and four of the free version."
"Oh, my god," said Matt.
"Is that good?" asked John.
"It's good, it's good," said Matt, a smile spreading slowly across his face. "The site hasn't had time to be indexed by search engines yet, so this is just from word of mouth spreading from the newsgroups and blog where I posted about it. It is good for less than twelve hours. I can't believe people bought the full version already. This is great!" He grinned up at John, eyes gleaming. "This is really going to work!"
"That's great, kid," John said, smiling back.
Matt looked fit to burst, like he would've done a victory dance, or a victory lap around the block, but for the cast. "John," he said, "if I hug you, will you clock me?"
John blinked, caught off-balance by the question. "No...?"
"Good," said Matt. He threw his arms around John's neck and hugged him close. Without thinking, John wrapped his arms around the kid and returned the embrace. Matt was laughing triumphantly and John found himself chuckling, too, infected by his elation.
All the comforts of home, John thought again. The warm, solid body pressed against him; the memory of physical affection called out across the years from happier times. Someone to share joy with: home. Familiar, but from so long ago. John squeezed tighter for a moment before releasing Matt. Matt leaned away, his laughter subsiding into a contented smile. His brown eyes met John's and John reached for his face with both hands. He touched the cool, smooth hair at Matt's temple and realized what he was doing, changed course subtly and ruffled Matt's hair until the kid ducked away, protesting, "Hey, hey, no fair assaulting the injured!" John moved aside to let him grab his fallen crutches and escape into the living room.
"I'm injured, too," John offered as Matt disappeared, not missing a beat.
"You just get more dangerous when you're hurt--it doesn't count."
Matt went on that he planned to hang out with John for a while, as he needed to keep himself distracted from checking server stats.
John answered absently and hung back in the hallway for a moment, wondering what his hands had been doing before he noticed them. Reaching to tilt up Matt's face, was what, and for just a second, every part of John but his brain had been anticipating a kiss.
"That's new," John said under his breath, frowning.
"Hey, there's a James Bond on!" Matt called.
John shook his head to clear it of short circuits or crossed wires, or whatever the problem was. Then he went out, dropped down onto the sagging sofa next to Matt, and took rightful control of the remote.
--Utopian Trunks
December 30, 2007