Chapter Text
NINE YEARS LATER
There are two little boys playing on the front lawn of their house. They're no more than five years old, gambolling wildly around each other, brandishing wooden swords in a fierce duel. The crack of the swords and their gleeful cries of gallantry fill the summer evening air.
"You can't come in, evil person!"
"Why? We need to work together, or Darth Maul will invade your city! I'm a Jedi!"
Crack, thud, shrieks of laughter as they circle the grass, clashing swords.
"Because I am the guard of Tatooine and I say no!"
"Well then...I shall have to fight you to the death!
At this point, the guard of Tatooine looks like he might be regretting his earlier decision, but grits his teeth and stands his ground to defend his life against the dark (bath)robed assailant.
The two brothers are the same age, the same height and (to everyone except their parents, who were determined to work at it) share the same features - deep brown eyes, dark blond hair and defined cheekbones with a smattering of freckles now it's summer that, if you're desperate, you can use to tell them apart. Both boys wear silver bands embossed with the word 'IMMUNE' in capitals.
They're engaged in their space duel so deeply, sometimes shouting intergalactic threats, other times giggling so much they can barely keep hold of the swords, certain that they are protecting their city against an invisible threat, but I know something they don't.
I am hiding in this tree on the lawn. And I have a lightsaber.
I leap down from the tree, fiddling with the buttons on the lightsaber until it makes a sudden whoosh-sound and lights up scarlet and launch myself at the small intergalactic defenders, shouting:
"Be very afraid, Jedi! I come to take your city! Stand ground, if you dare!"
"Aghhh!" They both scream and whirl on me, swords raised, but Tatooine's guard seems to think better of it and starts to run towards the safety of the tree den. His brother, not having any of it, grabs his arm:
'No, Alby, we have to fight!"
Alby looks at my lightsaber, somewhat sceptically, and I raise my eyebrows at him and say:
"Come on, brave Jedi knight. Defend your realm."
He glances at his brother and seems to regain some bravery in the face of the flashing lightsaber, giving me a flash of a smile. "Okay', he says, "But you'll be sorry you ever landed in Tatooine!"
"A-ha! Attack, young Jedi!"
I crash the lightsaber against their swords, spinning to fight both of them at once, throwing a few gambols in for added theatre. They laugh and strike at me with the swords, the intergalactic threats turned on me now.
"You will never defeat me, Jedi knights!" I shout and the bathrobed assailant cries:
"Haha - but we have a secret weapon! Yoda!" He turns back to the house and the open front door to scream this, but nothing stirs from inside. He shares a confused look with Alby. "Yoda!" They shout together. Nothing.
Eventually, the secret weapon emerges in the form of a three-year old girl with dark brown hair, the eyes of her older brothers and a wounded expression.
"Mama, I don't want to be Yoda." She complains, making her way across the grass to me. "I want to be an Ewok, Arlo!"
The bathrobed Jedi - Arlo - rolls his eyes and sighs dramatically. "Sylvie, this isn't Mama, this is Darth Maul and we need Yoda to protect the city!"
Alby, ever the peacemaker, puts his lips to Sylvie's ear and whisper-yells. "It's almost the same thing, Sylvie."
She doesn't seem to agree, wrinkling her nose and shaking her head. "Ewoks are like teddies. Yoda's green, Alby."
Arlo casts a worried glance at me, concerned that Darth Maul might not leave them much more time for negotiation and just take the city anyway and hisses, "But you need to be fierce."
"I can be a fierce Ewok." Sylvie challenges, getting ready to stare down her older brother, but he gives in, not willing to lose a stare-off.
"Okay. You can be a fierce Ewok, Sylv."
She grins, triumphant, her russet eyes sparkling. It's all looking pretty bleak for Darth Maul as the kids turn their weapons on me, but just then, a gasping shout comes from inside the house.
"Sylvie! Alby! Arlo! Help, help - I'm bein' attacked by a vicious beast!"
The siblings look at each other, their present battle forgotten, then shout, "Daddy! Daddy!", already running back into the house. I follow them more slowly, and dissolve into laugher at what I find in the living room.
Newt is lying on the carpet with baby Peter balanced on his chest, thrashing as much as he can without Peter sliding off. Peter is shrieking, reaching out to tug on the pockets of Newt's T-shirt - a new game - as Newt yells between gasps of laughter. "Help, help, guys - a vicious beast!"
The twins are already giggling, happy enough to watch the duel between Dad and baby, but Sylvie can't take her father's torture.
"I'll save you, Daddy!" Sylvie dives to the floor and puts her arms around Peter's stomach, pulling him back, and I jump forward but Newt's already averting disaster.
"Gently, Sylvie!" He says, taking Peter back from her arms and folding him into his. "Don't pull him like that, love - thank you, ma'am, you saved my life and I'm forever in your debt."
Peter seems remarkably unbothered by the duel, happily looking around the room and smacking his hands together as Newt straps him back into the baby bouncer on the carpet. "Right." Newt claps his hands and gets to his feet. "Pyjama time, I reckon, lady and gents!"
"But we haven't saved the city yet - Darth Maul was attacking!" Arlo protests, pointing an accusing finger at me. Newt raises an eyebrow at me with a grin.
"Was he?"
I nod and pull Arlo into my arms while he giggles and struggles to escape. "It was a vicious and terrifying battle, wasn't it, young Jedi?"
"Yes, yes!" He shrieks and I ruffle his hair, freeing him.
"Well," Newt says, tapping a finger against his lips. "Isn't this lucky, guys? I happen to have an agreement with Darth Maul - no attacking my allies. Which means the city is saved - well done, my young friends."
Alby and Sylvie cheer, and Arlo nods, going along with it, even though it isn't a fight to the death.
"Now then," I say, smiling at my band of miscreants. "City saved, who can put their pyjamas on fastest? Race back here, then we can pick a story. Ready, steady...go!"
The kids pelt off towards the stairs, stumbling as they go and almost knocking over Savannah Davenport, who's coming down them with her suitcase. She's stayed with us for the week to do some work experience with Newt at the theatre and is just about to catch the bus to see her friends in the city.
"Whoops, watch out tiger! Does anyone know what time the next bus is?" She calls into the kitchen as she trips over the galoshes on the bottom step. "I didn't look at the clock!"
"Er..." Newt is pulling baby bottles out of the steriliser, so I stop and lean over to the notice board. "7:00 - so about five minutes? Have you got everything?" I ask, my mom instinct kicking in.
Savannah laughs breezily, still trying to force the end of a scarf into the bulging suitcase. "Almost certainly not! I'll text you." She jerks upright suddenly, something remembered. "Ooh, Mom texted me to ask you what days you'd be free to come round for dinner next week?"
"Blimey, I'd totally forgotten about that!" Newt says, "Agh, that'd be lovely, but next week's buggin' chaos, Vannah."
"But when is it anything else?" I smile as Newt slides the plastic bottles across the sideboard to me. He tilts his head to one side, acknowledging the point.
"True, true. Well, we can't do Monday 'cause the twins have that play, right, Lilybird?"
I nod. "Yep. 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears'. Don't worry, we'll work it out for one of the days - gosh, is that your bus, honey?"
A white double decker is crawling down the street, not looking very energetic in the heat of the evening, but the sight has the opposite effect on Savannah, who leaps up and throws her arms around each of us at lightning speed.
"Ooh, yes! Yes - gotta go! Love you both madly, thank you, thank you! Say goodbye to the others for me. Bye, baby!" Savannah leans down to stroke Peter's hair and Newt frowns, catching her hand at the door.
"You sure you don't want us to call a taxi, Vannah? Or I could drive ya'?"
She grins, already halfway out of the door, signalling at the bus to stop its crawl for a few minutes. "I'm fine, Dad," She teases. "I've caught buses before - I'll text you guys when I get there."
And she is gone, flying down the road after the bus. For a couple of rare seconds, the house seems very still after the mania and the noise of the week that is coming to an end. Everything seems to be winding down as Newt spins back to me and laughs, shaking his head.
"Bloody hell, that girl is gonna get somewhere, even if she has to build her own buggin' rocketship to do it."
A few days after Newt got out of the Rehab Centre back in 2072, we went to see the Davenports - there were a lot of tears that day, from all sides. By now, Savannah and her sister Isla are regulars at our house - film nights, babysitting or family dinners - and it's lovely that the Davenports have given us a hand in watching them grow up. Isla has matured into quietly determined twenty-one year old, studying Animation in Los Angeles and checking in on her sister through video calls and pages of texts, and Vannah - kind, boisterous, wild and talented - has already grown up into a real force of nature, not to be reckoned with.
"I know!" I reply, "She's a firecracker, alright. When she's a world famous superstar we can obviously sell all her Christmas cards and make millions."
I started scooping the baby formula into the plastic bottles as Newt adds fondly:
"You should have seen her at the theatre - nothin' stopped her! Who's that? Oh, so-and-so, the director, and she'd be straight off to talk to 'em." He chuckles, as he pours the water into a plastic jug. "When can we see them, though? Next week is buggin' crazy. Tuesday, I've got that rehearsal to sort and that'll go on all hours, Wednesday - that's the day we're goin' to see Ol and Jax, isn't it, to look at wedding stuff. How about Friday?'
"No, no. Karl's got that promotional thing at work, and I promised I'd be there. Gosh," I sigh. "I'm so proud of her but there's no way I'd want to do that five months pregnant."
Newt shakes his head and says, "Honestly, I don't think Min's all that hot on her doin' it five months pregnant, but he doesn't dare stop her...I don't know, thirty years of laid-back-don't-care attitude vanished with a sonogram."
I laugh. "Which one are you talking about?"
It's certainly true though. Karly and Min haven't exactly had the smoothest relationship ever, doing exactly the same in adulthood as they did when we were teenagers - breaking up over tiny things, seeing other people for a while, making things exceptionally awkward in our shared apartment and then realising that there really was nobody else on the planet that understood them in quite the same way. Karly held my hand through all three of my pregnancies in the last six years, all the time not certain that she could ever do the same thing, because she wasn't sure that Min would ever be serious and knuckle down to their relationship. But, he proposed a couple of summers ago and they got married last year, which was confirmation enough and - as much as we tease them - all of us are ridiculously excited about it.
"Still," I say, glancing up at the photos of us on the walls, including one of me at Halloween about a month before the twins were born. I barely moved all night, because my back hurt and N had sat next to me all night, making me laugh until I forgot about it. "I would not want to do that again."
"Nope!" Newt grins. "All the discovering nappies and formula and not havin' a clue about absolutely buggin' anything."
I reach across and rub his shoulder, saying. "Hey - we did a pretty good job though." We both look across to the stairs and the trail of shoes and lightsabers leading up to it.
"The best." Newt pushes the jug towards the bottles and moves behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist and leaning his head against the top of mine as I start pouring the water into the containers and swirling them. "You know - minus the kids, 'cause they transcend this stuff - you're my favourite person in the whole world, right? I love you so buggin' much."
I laugh. "I'm sorting sterilised baby bottles!"
"And your point is?"
"That you pick weird moments, buster."
I can hear the smile in Newt's voice as he replies. "No - I was just thinkin' that there is nobody in the whole world I would rather be sterilising baby bottles with."
I shake my head, but I twist around in his arms to kiss him, before turning back to the never-ending bottle task. "I love you too - so much."
As I do so, my gaze catches on the simple gold band on the ring finger of my left hand, the one that N wears an exact copy of. And I look at the white scars, still as thick and raised as they were nine years ago, twisting their way across his hands and up his arms. It has been hard sometimes - in our heads we'd built it up to getting out of the Rehab Centre, but there was a lot that came after that, for all of us. A lot of difficult conversations. A lot of guilt. A trip back to Denver with Will. Multiple times where Newt felt phantom twinges in his head and dropped everything and ran if he was with somebody else and we'd have to call him to find out where he was and go to a Contagion drop-in centre, who would always give us the all clear. Even now, there are nights when I dream myself back there and have to wake up Newt just to see the clarity in his eyes, days when he'll have a flashback so vivid he just has to stop moving until it's over. It's been hard, just like we knew it would be. And it has been worth it a thousand times over.
"Can you imagine if someone had shown us that picture in the Maze?" I ask, pointing to one of the six of us on Sylvie's birthday this year that's hanging on the wall. Charlie took that photo - not long before she had to run off back to the vet school for her exam revision - she lived with us for a long time after the Maze and, even now, came back in the holidays sometimes. The photograph next to it is from our honeymoon, sitting on the steps in Hyde Park in London, both of us laughing in the sunlight. "Or that one?"
I feel Newt nod behind me. "Bloody hell, you'd laugh 'em out of town, wouldn't ya'? It's like a dream sometimes, all this. Like it's too good to even be buggin' possible - how can we be so bloody unlucky and crazy lucky in the same lifetime? Surest way to feel eighteen and eighty at the same time thinkin' 'bout all that."
Newt kisses the top of my head just as a small thud sounds from the stairs and a little voice calls up. "Mama?"
I look down, and Sylvie is standing there in her stripy pyjamas, clutching a book to her chest. "Can we have "Nora the Space Captain?"
Newt has crossed the room and picked up Peter, pulling a clean onesie from the box under the counter and setting him down on the carpet to wriggle him into pyjamas too, as I answer Sylvie.
"Sure thing, honey, you won! Where are the boys?" Arlo is usually the first - and the noisiest - in anything involving a competition and Alby is never far behind him, but Sylvie just smiles up at me.
"They saw a fox in the garden and they're watching it. I seen the fox then I wanted to pick the story so I ran really quietly and they don't know."
A burst of laughter comes from the other side of the living room. "Distraction!" Newt says, as Peter giggles too, kicking his legs. "Clever girl, Sylv."
"A-Team? I call up the stairs. "Are you in pyjamas yet?"
The calls of "Yes, Mama!" and "Coming!" mixed with frantic rustling and shuffling sounds that float down to us from their bedroom tell me that nobody upstairs was in pyjamas. The twins eventually bump down the stairs, all the while chattering about the fox near the bushes, and rush over to the couch to claim their usual spots, giving in happily enough to Sylvie's book choice. I take a warmed baby bottle out from the pan and set it on the coffee table, leaning down to take Peter from Newt's arms. The baby mewls in protest, grizzling and screwing up his face now it's time for food and I stroke his downy hair back from his forehead, kissing him gently.
"Okay," I tell him as I sit down in the armchair and adjust his position in my arms, popping the lid off the bottle with one hand - yes, little victories - and holding it to his lips. "Here you go then, darling."
"Daddy?" Sylvie calls from her position on the sofa. "Can I colour your arms, please? I'll be gentle, promise!"
I smile as Newt gives a long-suffering sigh and fishes the washable markers out of the top drawer, grinning at Sylvie as he sits down in the middle.
"Ah, I guess so, love. As long as you help me wash it off, okay?"
Sylvie nods vigorously, clapping her hands, but I suddenly remember something.
"Oh, N? Watch out for that scar on your shoulder. It was splitting a bit last night."
That is a problem with the Flare scars: they're so thick and so widespread - and being scar tissue, they don't stretch at all - so it's infuriatingly easy to pull the wrong way and split the skin around one even now, if you don't keep the skin hydrated enough. Newt pulls a face and moves the collar of his shirt to one side, craning his neck around to see said scar.
"Ooh, yep, you're right. Bloo- bunny rabbits," He says, catching himself. "I'll remember to put the gel on before bed."
But Sylvie has already scrambled up from the sofa - a favour for a favour. "I'll do it!" and she runs into the bathroom, coming back with the moisturising gel. "Start, Daddy, and I'll put it on you. Aren't you being Space Captain, Mama?"
She shoots me a slightly disappointed look from the couch, but Alby's got my back.
"Mama can't be Space Captain - she's feeding Peter so he sleeps." Alby says calmly. On cue, Peter makes a tiny spluttering sound and I take the bottle out and prop up his head until he opens his mouth again. But then Alby spins round to Newt, a new idea written on his face. "Or we could move to Mama? If we sit on the floor, she can see the book and feed Peter!"
"Good idea, honey," I smile at him and he beams back. "Come and sit by me then."
Alby bounces over and leans against my knees, Newt on my other side with Sylvie in his lap so she can have full access to both his arms and the picture book and Arlo puts his head on the shoulder that Sylvie hasn't wiped the moisturising cream all over. With a final pat, she asks him:
"Better, Daddy?"
"Much better - thank you." Newt kisses her forehead with a smile before twisting around to me. "Right, you ready, Mama? Opening lines!"
Newt holds the book up so I can see it and I start to read:
"It was a pretty wild morning up in Outer Space when Nora the Space Captain looked out of her window..."
And the story goes on smoothly, N filling in all the other characters with various voices and is quickly reprimanded by the kids when he uses the wrong voice. The obvious problem comes when we reach the end of the double page spread - Sylvie is happily colouring in the gaps between Newt's scars as she listens, pinning his arm down.
Newt shifts a little. "I can't turn the pages like that, Sylvie, just let me - good job, you're on it, Arlo."
Arlo soon recognises the problem and pushes the page over and the story continues. As Nora goes on her epic quest through space with her crew, I can't help but look at our children, crowded around us. Our children, who will never know what it feels like to be no more than pawns in a scientific facade, will never be forced to surrender control of their bodies, who will never live in a world where even going outside could kill you. Our children, who - so many times - I wasn't sure would ever be reality, who are beyond everything we'd ever imagined.
It was only in the last five years, when I held the twins in my arms for the first time - so tiny, with their shocks of almost white blond hair, flailing and catching errant strands of my hair in their fists - that I understood what my mother must have felt the day WICKED took me away and why she let me go, what my Dad felt, watching me there, why Sylvia, Newt's mother, kept fighting her husband even though he was so much stronger, even though she could never win. I knew that day that I would do anything to protect them - and that feeling goes beyond reason, beyond instinct, beyond everything.
Arlo has a thumb in his mouth, his eyes following the magic of the brightly-coloured pages and Sylvie is drawing tiny spiders between N's scars, much to his distaste and amusement. Alby is still listening, glancing back at the book every once in a while, but reaching up with one hand to let Peter grab his fingers as I gently sit him up and rub his back in circles until he burps - causing a break in the story for the great hilarity that triggers.
They know some things - they know we've all been together since we were very young, they've seen all the photos from WICKED. They know that Daddy's scars mean he was sick, but also that he was very brave. They know that Alby's name, Arlo's middle name, Winston, and Peter's middle name, Charles, are all for good friends that we lost - good friends who were very brave too. One day they'll learn that not everyone's parents have writing on their necks, not everyone's Daddy has scars that you can colour in between. One day we'll tell them the whole story. But right now, all they need to know is that we love them - they are safe, and this is home.
"And, with the dragon's egg safely delivered, the crew gave a huge cheer-" Everybody whoops on cue, clapping hands. "-and all got back on the ship, to prepare for the next adventure." I finish and Newt closes the book, gently extracting his arm with its newest sleeve tattoo from Sylvie's grasp.
"Right, everybody, hugs for Mama!" Newt cries, jumping to his feet and the kids jump too, deciding some kind of unofficial affection order.
"Gentle hugs because of baby - goodnight, Mama, love you!" Alby says as he wraps his arms around me as lightly as he can and kisses my cheek, patting Peter on the head before jumping back to let Sylvie scramble up my legs to follow his example, hugging my neck as tight as she can, but arching her body to avoid squashing Peter. Arlo opts for a sneak attack, standing on a footstool and hugging me around the back of the armchair and I laugh and stretch one arm behind my head to hug him back.
"Goodnight, goodnight - sleep well, love you!" I cry as N leans over to kiss me.
"For what it counts," he says. "I love you too."
I smile as Arlo shakes his head at Newt, like he's wilfully ignored a crucial part of bedtime protocol. "But you're coming back!" He points out.
Newt chuckles and admits, "Yeah, I am. I'll come back, love."
You always will. He pats my head too and I roll my eyes as he disappears up the stairs after our space captains, his turn to make sure they're in bed.
With the living room quiet, I lean back in the armchair with a sigh, looking out of the window at the far end of the room. It isn't anything like dark yet, but pale pinks and yellows are just starting to ebb into the blue sky outside, lighting up the aeroplane trails from all directions like floating streamers. A hot air balloon from somewhere in the parks is bobbing over the trees not far from the house, the light from its flames blazing every couple of minutes, adding even more colour to the sky.
Peter snuffles softly on my chest, one of my hands resting on his back to keep him there, the other gently brushing his dark brown hair back from his face. His tiny fingertips grasp at my lizard pendant as he sleeps and I feel a rush of love so strong it makes my eyes prickle. I can hear my husband's low voice through the open bedroom door, telling the twins about the fox's den and the man in the moon - my husband, who had been so nervous about being a father, so determined he would never be what his had been - and hear their whispered questions in response, and I can picture them, kneeling up on Arlo's bed, looking out of the circular window at the garden.
WICKED stole homes from hundreds of children - they made sure we never had one in name, only existing in a series of numbered rooms, locked within their schedules, but the funny thing is that they created them too, or allowed us to create them, because homes are people. And this is what life is - it isn't fame or perfection or money or manipulation, it's love. I'm sorry that you have read almost fifteen years of our lives, just to hear 'all you need is love' at the end of it, but that is almost always true - human beings cannot survive without it. Homes are made up of the people you love and, in that case, all of us: Harriet and Sonya, Gally, his new girlfriend Emily, Clint and Dahlia, Olly and Jax, Thomas and Brenda, Jorge, Charlie, Karly and Minho, Newt and I had been, and would be, home - inevitably home - for a long, long time.
THE END