Episode 107: Lost Time (Zero)

Zach stumbled into the apartment, his feet tumbling over one another. Drunk.

“Did you have a good evening?” Zero asked.

He walked across the room and shut the abandoned, open, front door to the apartment. He moved a vase closer to the center of its table, so the next passerby wouldn’t tug it free of the stand and shatter it.

The vase had been shattered and recast a dozen times, and each time Indy claimed to love it more.

He found it symbolic of her life – pieces she would always find a way to refuse.

Zach turned back. “What? Yeah.”

Zero nodded, his son grown and drunk and just as tall as him. 

He moved toward the entrance to his office. It was better to get straight to the point, while alcohol stunted his inhibitions. “Are Ella and Jax yours?”

Zach’s eyes narrowed and his brows scrunched together, “They’ve never even met me.” He turned to continue down the hallway toward his temporary room.

Aadya was busy, but someday she would make an apartment for Zach and his girlfriend, Emily. Ella and Jax would hasten the project, if she found out. Zero wasn’t sure how he felt about it; Zach joining the congregate of family Talise was forming. 

Zach’s shoulders fell as his eyes relaxed. His hand found a wall for balance. Defeated. Zero knew a lot about lost time with family, about not being known by your own child. It was a chance, more than offering Sam’s assets, for them to connect. To connect with Rhyss, the man his Zach had become.

“Do you remember me? From childhood?” Zero asked.

Zach – Rhyss – stared back at him. 

Zero waited. As he did, Jinx padded over and ran her body beneath his hand. Zero rubbed the space between her ears and her shoulder blades then the tuff above her tail. She circled around to repeat the process. “They won’t remember not knowing you, at this age,” he stated.

In a familiar way, Rhyss’ hands stretched down his pants. “How did you know?”

“Spence isn’t my son and they have Lavesque traits,” he stated. A series of facts he knew were not true on an emotional level, but added up to the conclusion he had drawn: Jax had the Lavesque stony demeanor, the same Rhyss had. He looked like Rhyss, far more than he looked like the Alandrials or Spence. 
Ella had the same eyes – color and shape – as he and Rhyss and his brothers shared. The same lips too, and jawline. 

That wasn’t enough though, what clarified the situation was Talise. “And, Talise isn’t very subtle.”

Rhyss laughed. Zero regretted the difficulty of the situation, but he was glad to have a way to relate to his son. He hadn’t expected to elicit a laugh for a long time, if ever, and there it was. 

“No she isn’t,” he said, a smile spread too far across his face. He ran his hand over his forehead as his mouth fell. “Ali.”

Zero didn’t laugh – he had trained himself to hold his tongue, especially with Sawyer around. It drove him insane with pride when he saw the messes and shenanigans Sawyer got into. 

In this case he held it back because he knew Rhyss wouldn’t appreciate finding out – or being reminded – that Ali was Talise’s code name for guys she flirted with, a few years prior.

Part of him didn’t want to laugh either, because of what it might have meant for Rhyss and for Spence. 

“How long did you date her?” he asked.

“A couple months about. My… Nora burned her hands and it got infected and I knew if I left her at the hospital someone would get her so I stayed too, and Ali thought I disappeared.”

Considering he lived in Sylem, he didn’t blame Talise.

Zero fought the urge to tuck his hands into his pockets. This conversation mattered, and he didn’t want to come off as trying to shrug away from any part of it. He wanted to find a way to connect to Rhyss and build something new. He had missed too much time as it was.

“Neither of us can change the past,” he began, about his choice for Zach and about Talise. A lot of good had come from losing his son, and he suspected Rhyss would find his own good here. His kids and some form of a future with Emily. He was living in the regret of not saving Zach, just as he suspected Rhyss regretted sitting at the bedside of his mom – especially now that she had rejected him with Sam back in her life. 

“Even if it feels in some way wrong now, it was what you believed in doing at the time.”

Rhyss met his eyes for a moment, “Yeah. I know.”

They both glanced elsewhere, despite Zero’s tendency to not look away – especially when it was Mallory asking for something. Spence caved for her as it stood. He didn’t know why she bothered trying.

Spence. Niels. The whole thing was a mess, with Rhyss sandwiched in the middle. He had her ultrasounds in his office, compiled so Rhyss could take a copy of them with him if he wished. Her pregnancy had been a trial for her, which ended in her admitting her feelings for Niels despite trying to hide from them, despite bringing him to every ultrasound, and despite allowing countless headlines to be written about them. 

“She didn’t just fall for Niels.” he said. He opened the office door, “She was pregnant and determined to only date fairies after you. For most of the pregnancy.”

He held the door open for Rhyss, who entered the office and moved toward the hallway door. Zero followed him inside and shut the door.

“I painted Sam’s house,” Rhyss said.

Zero laughed, then switched the monitor on. Naomi’s painting gene was something unique. Indigo had it, Rhyss, and Spence. Spaden had a version of it but his art was more anatomy drawings; they were worthy of praise.

He thought back to Sam’s mansion: it was large enough to seem like it was compensating for something, but Zero knew was just flaunting. It was too clean to seem like a place to raise his daughter, Jill. As bad as Clovercrest was, at least Rhyss grew up with color.

“Good. Last I saw it, the hospital was less sterile.” 

His hand reached for the monitor and he pressed the power button. While the screen warmed up, his least favorite component of the machine, he found the remote and moved toward the back of the room. “I found my records of their ultrasounds. Konrad has other footage of their lives.”

The screen filled with the grainy grayscale images, the first ultrasound he had of Ella and Jax. Their small gummy bear bodies moved in the empty space of their first home. It was his favorite part of the job: seeing new life. After losing Zach, the observation of a flickering new heartbeat was a welcome job.

Zero waited while Rhyss watched the videos. He could see the breathing in Rhyss’ back change as the babies grew into familiar people with thumbs they sucked on and toes they played with. He had more up to date machines and some of the grainy images were mixed with tan three dimensional ones.

“Wow,” Rhyss said, once the screen went black on the last ultrasound and the screen paused on Ella’s chubby cheeks and Jax’s foot.

Zero stood and turned the light on. “Ella was born first. On our old couch.” 

He could remember Indigo’s response to the incident like it was yesterday, complete – faked – devastation followed by a new couch arriving the next day. That night was the biggest give away to Talise’s babies being Rhyss’.

“I don’t think she remembers, but that was the last time that movie was on. The Western.”

Rhyss laughed, and Zero knew this was going to be a good thing, for their relationship. Something to break the ice.

“She’s… is she okay now? Happy?”

Not because she wanted to be, but because Niels had relentlessly proven he was the perfect match for her. There wasn’t a single voice in the kingdom, aside from the ones that wanted her for themselves, that saw a weakness in their union. He was human, but no one cared. He had a dragon and magic and he had proven himself. Even Zero felt more of an outsider to the kingdom than Niels acted.

“I believe she is. It took her a long time to get there.”

“She says the girl, Ella, is particular, and the boy is cuddly? Jax.”

Jax. Another X at the end. It was amusing that the name scheme of his own family was following Rhyss despite probability. His mom had told him, before they stopped talking, there was magic in their names. 

“Those are both true,” he replied. Leave it to Talise to pick the most opposite and extreme traits of the kids to describe them. Ella was much more than her tastes, and Jax was something intense waiting to burst. “They’re both incredible people,” he summarized. He wanted Rhyss to explore who they were without being led there too much. It would mean more to discover their personalities for himself. “She’s a good mom.”

Zero opened the cabinet and found a grenade drink to remove all alcohol from Rhyss system. He wanted Rhyss to remember the night. 

He turned and handed it to Rhyss before he shut the cabinet. Rhyss took it and opened the lid with a raised eyebrow..

“For the alcohol,” Zero told him.

Rhyss held it in his hands for a moment and watched the liquid swirl in the bottle. “When I was a kid, I used to pretend I had a familiar. I named it Bella.”

Once Rhyss looked up again, Zero sale, “Would you like a familiar?”

It was one more thing he could give Rhyss, to start a new relationship with his son.

Rhyss’ hands tensed, tight little balls beside his body. “I don’t know. I was just thinking about names.”

He drank the potion, and Zero could see the change in his resolve from intoxicated to sober. Not only did his expressions change, but worry lines formed and he sank into a chair. “I never did that before.”

Zero chuckled under his breath. “Did you enjoy it at all?”

He couldn’t recall the first time he had been drunk. It wasn’t in his youth, when he was taking care of his brothers. It had to have been in college, towards the end.

“It helped me calm down enough to paint, but then I had too much.”

Zero sat in his rolling chair so they would be at eye level again. “Did Nora keep you from magic?” he asked.

“I didn’t go to school. I learned some stuff, like how to make travel pouches. She had books.”

If she hadn’t practiced magic, the books were as good as useless. He had missed so much time. The benefit was that Rhyss was in Elesara, in a place where he had thousands of years to be anyone he wanted to be.

“I can’t change time,” he said, for the second time as far as sentiments went. “But I can give you time now; teach you, if you want.”

“Sure, thanks,” Rhyss said. It was a bit eager underneath the attempt at being passive. “I have some questions too, if you have a minute.”

“I have one last thing to show you, but your questions can come first.”

“Are you sure?”

He wanted to show Rhyss his collection of life energy, from lives saved since he had discovered how to capture the essence. He wanted to explain his passion and life’s work, and why pregnancies was an acceptable use of his time the past twenty years.

“Yes,” he replied. Rhyss could go first.

“Why do I keep having twins?”

Twins from Talise, and soon twins from Emily. The first was easy to explain. “Three theories,” he stated. “First, Talise will always have twins as long as she is a legitimate member of the Dragon line. Indigo comes from a family with twins as well. It could be a coincidence.”

Rhyss nodded.

“Another theory is that you were meant to be with Talise, and some form of magic changed that. In that case, you may always have twins because of her.”

His skin turned subtly more pale at that though, followed by a glow. For someone without much family, Zero could see the desire underneath the potential uncertainty. 

“The third theory is that your death caused it, the way Sam brought you back,” he finished. He didn’t go into detail, but there was a chance Sam had done something with the spell. He would have to talk to Sam to find out, and with two stronger probable answers he didn’t want to bother. 

He explained the odds to Rhyss, who took a moment to process them then switched his attention to another line of thought. “What’s it like, the body thing with Indigo?”

“Difficult. There is overlap, that she doesn’t acknowledge. She’s both her old self and her new self at once,” he explained openly, without thinking.

Zero cleared his throat. “That stays in this room. Spence noticed, but no one else has a reason to think of it.”

Rhyss rolled his eyes, “Spence notices everything.”

“Unfortunately,” Zero laughed. The thought brought him back around to Sam. “Talise raised Ella and Jax to know Sam.”

“I’m not going to mess up whatever’s normal for them.” Rhyss spewed out, as though he cared far more than he thought he had the rights to care. 

He would need time to show him just how understated that was. He had as much say as he wanted; they were his kids. Though, he hoped in time he would see that Sam had saved his life and cared for family. If Sam was a poor grandparent, Spence would have brought it up. His silence spoke more than any words he could have come up with.

“You’re their dad,” he did point out. “You’re allowed to mess up whatever you want.”

“Yeah, so I say ‘No, I don’t want you around that guy’ and that just makes them more interested. I know how it works.”

“That’s true. Though, I’ve heard he favors Emma, for herself, and Fort, for his position,” Zero pointed out. Spence may not have said things, but Talise had and it had come back around to the house through Indigo’s Spence-like ability to observe. 

“He’s still ambitious?” Rhyss asked.

“Subtly.” He met Rhyss’ eyes, because he suspected something was at play beyond coincidence with Talise’s birthday. “For most, it’s hard to want anything else. Being a king is a lot harder than it looks. Talise struggles with the pressure. Fort acts twice his age.”

If Rhyss had any chance of being the king, he needed to hear what Zero could fit into conversation now.

Rhyss exhaled. “She never even told me she had kids.”

That part was easy to explain, after the humility she had endured at school for being the pregnant, irresponsible, heir. 

It had been notably worse once Spence had come out as Ach’s boyfriend. Even before then, there were rumors.

“I think she was afraid of what you would think. Of losing you to this life. Her dad killed himself, for the kingdom. Her mom has had at least five men father her children. She’s waiting for her thing. What it will cost her.”

“Maybe she won’t have a thing,” Rhyss hoped.

It didn’t matter to Talise; if she thought she would have a thing, she would find a thing to have. Self fulfilling, but potentially guidable.

“You could try telling her that,” Zero suggested.

“I can,” Rhyss said. He ran his hands down the front of his pants then stood. “She wants to be friends still. And I bet Niels is good for her.”

“He is. What about Emily, for you?”

A smile crept across Rhyss’ face, probably the same smile Zero got when he thought about Indy. 

“Yeah. She is.” He looked up at the picture on the wall, of his Echelon before he refurbished it, like an x-ray of a car, the skeleton. “What about your other thing?”

Zero led Rhyss through the apartment to the art room. It was quiet; everyone was asleep. He moved a few paintings and drew a pattern on the floor. The latch revealed itself and he opened it. “After your death, I discovered how to save life energy without harming people. By helping them.”

He lifted the floor and put in the pin – Rhyss’ birthday – and pulled the life energy out. I understand the difficulty of all of this, it’s hard for me too.”

Rhyss looked at the liquid and slid his hand across the top of a canvas. “Yeah, I kind of figured that out tonight. Seeing it from both sides.”

Zero set the liquid back in and closed the vault. It vanished beneath the layers of spell.

“You’re allowed to be overwhelmed and to drink. Just let us know what we can do, and when. We both want to get to know you.”

Zero didn’t want to overstep with Rhyss. He had already grown up; he didn’t need the same things some of his kids needed, but he needed something. Zero was trying to figure out what that was, how to be there for Rhyss now. His life had been about breaking down relationships, and now he was looking to strengthen one. 

“I know. I do too. So tell me if there’s stuff I should be doing, because I don’t always know. I’m not really used to living with other people.”
“What did you enjoy doing at home?”

They moved back toward his office while they talked.

“Video games, painting. Taking care of the house, that was about it. Someone, this kid I knew, made me go to a club for my birthday once. That was how I met…Talise. But usually I stayed home. My mom, even before she burned herself, couldn’t be left alone for too long. When I was a kid and Jill was still around, I used to ride my bike, play in the park. Emily was kind of the neighborhood fierce kid who looked out for everyone.” He laughed, and the smile returned. “She broke the hydrant one summer. Her mom’s a mess too.”

If Zero had to pick for Rhyss, if he had any say in it, at that moment he would have chosen Emily. It pushed his desire to find her even more, to find her and help her establish a home with Rhyss. 

“We will get her back.”

Aadya was dating the father of two boys the group had, so he added for Rhyss, “She’s not the only one they have. It’s a priority for the kingdom, not just us.”

“Yeah,” Rhyss said with a nod. “Spence said, or maybe Aadya did.”

Zero wasn’t sure how to handle where Aadya was, with her divorce and the new man.

“Would you like a familiar?” he asked again, for lack of anything better to say in response. The ingredients were prepared.

Rhyss laughed and looked at the workspace. “Bella, you mean? Yeah, thanks.”

Zero finished the spell and asked for a piece of Rhyss’ nail. He set the liquid on the floor as it bubbled into the form of a familiar: A moose.

Zero smiled, “Another forest dweller.”

The moose’s head was able to rest above his and Rhyss’s. Her shoulders were close to the ceiling, and her head was arched a bit down for comfort. She was big.

“Wow, she’s… wow. Big.”

Bella huffed hot air into his face and ran her snout against him.

Zero turned back to his workspace to make a spell to shrink her from her full size. He told Rhyss, after he expressed concern over the door.

Then he stopped. “Do you want to try?”

There wasn’t much to mess up; the spell was simple.

Eager, again, Rhyss moved closer. He clenched his fists with nerves but Bella nudged him closer. He almost fell against the counter.

“We need these,” Zero said. He pulled down the spellbook and opened it for Rhyss, then pulled the ingredients out and set them in order. The language used in the spellbook and the symbols would be new to Rhyss. He would help him through it, every step. 

Rhyss followed the recipe diligently, then held in his hand a jar of white glitter. He looked at it, surprised. “Now I just… sprinkle it on her?”

Bella arched her nose toward the container and blew air into it. The glitter flew out and coated her face. She sneezed, and in that sneeze she shrunk just enough to be able to follow Rhyss around the palace, through doorways.

“Good job,” Zero said. 

Rhyss laughed, his face full of this Emily smile, which Zero suspected was in his in love smile. He ran his hand down Bella’s body and bonded to her for a moment.

Zero cleaned up the workstation then moved toward the door, to give them space.

He looked toward Rhyss before leaving. He hadn’t made a familiar in a long time. Long before the schools implemented their own tradition, parents always grew the plants for the spell and made it together, alongside their child.

He would do that with Mallory and Sawyer, if Indigo stuck to her ban on Sylem.

“I’m glad I met you,” Rhyss said.

Zero let his hand fall from the door. “I’m glad Sam saved you. I should have, and I’m sorry I didn’t.”

He may have known about the spell to save Zach before Sam had to step in, if he hadn’t had to teach himself magic. Rhyss wasu his son, in every way his life had gone. Self-taught, going by a different name.

Rhyss’ neck moved with his swallow and he refused to meet Zero’s eyes this time. “I wouldn’t have either.”

Zero stepped closer to him and hugged him. “I love you, Rhyss.”

Someday, he would tell Rhyss about his life and his own might make more sense. For now, he let his son go. 

“Yeah,” Rhyss replied, “I think I do too. I think that’s why I hated you so much at first.”

“I cured your cancer. I should have given you the evidence of the cure, not Sam’s assets.”

It had taken most of the past twenty years to find the cure. He had the time, though, and the resources. Nell procured anything he couldn’t get on his own.

“Well I was kind of a jerk that day. And you weren’t expecting me.”

“You’re my son; you’re allowed to be a jerk.” It was his favorite part of being a parent – seeing individuality develop. 

Rhyss laughed. “I’ll be sure to let Sawyer know that one.”

“He’s abusing it without knowing.”

He held the door open for Rhyss and Bella. For a moment, things felt good. It was the calm before war, the same eerie good that he felt before the last war. This was his good. He would fight to keep it, and fight to help his family keep it.

“Good night, Rhyss.”

Rhyss looked back from the hallway, “Night. And thanks.”

Zero nodded and headed to bed, to his Indy. He had time to make up with Rhyss and time to not waste with her, and somewhere in the mix, a war to prepare for.

<- Episode 106 | Episode 108 ->