Chapter Ten

Arthur was used to the cold. He'd grown up in these bitter winters, but that didn't mean he ever liked them. Faded grass, brittle with ice, crunched under his feet as he marched up the hill of the cemetery. He couldn't actually remember what had been picked out for his father's headstone. Those few days were all a little blurry. He did have a vague memory of steering his mother away from having anything overtly religious carved into it.

He stopped at the top of the hill and looked back at the view his dad would not have given a shit about, then down at the stone laid neatly into the grass. It had his father's name and dates. The words Son, Father, and Husband. At the bottom was also his old army unit. That must have been his mother's addition when he wasn't paying attention. A battered little flag was stuck in the earth by the headstone. It looked like it had been there since Veterans Day, probably courtesy of the local VA.

He took a deep breath, and then another. He was alone and cold and let the grief and anger fill him. There was no reason not to. There was no one to be strong for or put on a performance for. The feelings that he had stomped on or simply ignored for months rose up and tried to choke him. Well, here he had it, a moment to feel. He let out a single choked sob and finally felt himself begin to settle.

"Hi, Dad." He felt stupid talking to a patch of grass and a smooth lump of rock. "I… I miss you, I guess. It's Christmas. Checked in on Mom. You know how I always said Coach Edwards would look her over in church? Well, guess who just so happened to stop by to 'help' make Christmas cookies." Arthur made little air quotes with his fingers and felt incredibly stupid. "Not like you care because you are dead and can't hear a word I'm saying and I'm only talking to frozen grass."

He closed his eyes and tilted his head back to the gray sky. "Checked in on Hanh and the girls as well. Yvette still hates me. Your grandkids look healthy. I even went to midnight mass and got Mom fucking pissed at me so you're welcome there."

He pulled a bottle of beer out of his deep winter coat pocket, popped off the top, and took a large swig.

"You know how you were always asking me if I had someone special? Well, I do now. He was actually at your funeral. His name is Martin. He's a secret agent and so am I, by the way." Arthur giggled a little to himself and took another sip of beer. "I love him. Took me forever to tell him that. I should tell him every day, but I didn't exactly have much of a role model on that front. Doing my best, though."

Arthur sat down, knowing all he would get was wet pants and a numb ass.

"I came so close to losing him before I even had a chance to tell him… anything. He calms the parts of my brain that always seem to be spinning too fast and in the wrong direction. He fills up the bits of me that I didn't know were empty. And if that isn't the fucking sappiest shit ever to come out of my mouth. Doesn't matter though because you are dead and there is no one listening but the grass."

Arthur took a final sip of beer before emptying the rest of it over the grave in front of him.

"Merry Christmas, Dad."

Martin tipped the driver of the town car generously, even though it was not strictly necessary. He was on retainer with the law firm that managed his holdings and was well paid. Still, a request to drive slowly and gently was not the usual one, especially around the holidays, but the physical sensory pressure of New York City took adjustment that neither the subways nor a standard cab ride provided. The driver took the fifty. "Merry Christmas."

"Happy New Year."

The driver smiled and Martin worked on his smile back. The doorman took his luggage. His nice suits would be waiting in his room. Maybe he should have postponed the trip for a few days and asked Arthur to join him from the start. He'd set his arrival for the middle of the night to lower the potential of a migraine, and his lawyer arranged things so he'd have to interact with as few people as possible.

He was given his room key and stepped into the waiting elevator that whisked him smoothly high into the cold winter night and high above the streets that were still whispering at this late hour. The doors opened directly into the penthouse. He wanted to fall instantly into bed, but he could feel the grime of air travel on his skin. Since the 'incident,' as it was officially called, where he'd been left for months in filth, he'd found himself particularly sensitive to being dirty. Not quite enough for it to count as a full trigger, but less tolerable than it had been.

When he was fully cleaned and changed, he found sleep would not come, despite exhaustion pricking at the edges of his mind.

Breathe. He brought Arthur's voice to mind. Close your eyes and breathe. Five counts in, seven out. I'm here. Except he wasn't.

He picked up his phone.

I have arrived in New York.

It was late where Arthur was. He would be asleep or should be. His phone pinged one minute later.

Good. Miss you. See you soon.

Martin closed his eyes and slept.

"Mr. Abram." Martin held out his hand. His lawyer stared at it for a second before taking it and engaging in a brief handshake. It wasn't that Martin disliked shaking hands, although there were some days where the touch of another person's skin did make him shudder, but on days that weren't like those, shaking hands was something he simply forgot about until there was an empty hand in front of him and an awkward silence.

"I have known you since you were 10 years old and have officially been your lawyer since you were sixteen and I do believe that is the first time we have ever shaken hands."

"I've been working on some things." It was more like undoing. He'd spent years forcing a high level of self-discipline on himself. Hiding every twitch or flinch or fearful glance at the nearest door until he'd gone a bit too far, locked himself a bit too tight. The Agency didn't care if he forgot to smile or shake hands as long as he kept a perfect list of active counter agents in his head, but for his future plans he'd have to loosen up a bit, keep people more at ease. So, every Thursday night, social skills with his therapist. On many levels, the trauma therapy was easier.

Martin sat down and Mr. Abram followed. The hard leather chair with brass studs that Mr. Abram's predecessor had sat in like a throne had been traded out for a contraption made of mesh and plastic that was probably designed for optimized ergonomics.

"So, when did you get married and adopt thirty children?"

"That did not occur and is an exaggeration."

"No, but going by these changes you want made to your trust, will, and various assets, it sure is easy to believe that. So, who is this Arthur?"

"My friend."

"Don’t lie to your lawyer."

"He-"

Is the name I put on form B-837.

"Is someone who accepts me exactly as I am and has my heart for it."

Mr. Abram dramatically put a hand to his chest. "Well, that very nearly melts the ball of ice that is my little lawyer heart. Do I get to meet him?"

"Why would you want to?" Martin asked. He was sure it was not legally necessary.

"You don't have family."

"I am aware."

Mr. Abram sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose for a second. "Your aunt's husband was a stone-cold bastard and I was too young, ambitious, and too far down the totem pole to care about the damage he was doing. Then I had to watch your aunt destroy herself and there was nothing I could do about that either. And after that, when you sat in this office and I laid out the empire you had just inherited, you didn't say a word except to ask if you could go back to school. Not the response most of the trust fund Manhattan brats I deal with would have given me. And then after Alice…" Mr. Abram fell silent for a moment before taking a deep breath. "I have been managing that empire for you while you went off and did… something. Now you waltz back in shaking hands and putting a bunch of kids and some guy I've never met on your paperwork. Yeah, I want to meet him."

"Did you love my aunt?" It was something he always wondered. Something about the way Mr. Abram's voice always changed slightly when mentioning her.

"That was your takeaway? I was fond of your aunt. I had a greater fondness for my law license and my job as a junior associate when I met her."

Martin had few detailed memories of his aunt, despite living with her for several years. "She was beautiful, I think."

"She was stunning. And when she was sober, she was funny, intelligent, and caring."

"I don't remember that."

"You wouldn't have." There was a silence that hung between them for a long moment. "Okay, you don't want to talk about the boyfriend, let’s talk about the kids."

That was easier. He took from his bag a large collection of file folders.

"Assuming the annual statements are correct and no one has been taking funds without my knowledge, I should have no problem paying the tuition to the selected schools."

"Okay. However, I see two problems. One, you have to get them into the schools; and two, their parents need to sign off on it."

"I am working on the second one. I calculated necessary school 'donations' into the first."

"You’re going to bribe them in?"

"It should not be necessary as all excel academically, but you may recall when I started at Trinity, I was only marginally literate and still found electricity deeply suspicious. Considering you were writing the tuition checks, I assumed you smoothed out the application process."

Mr. Abram let out a particularly long sigh. "You'll still need parental permission, and you won't be able to do what I did."

"And what did you do?"

"Put the form in the middle of a bunch of other stuff your aunt needed to sign and that I knew she wouldn't read because she was already self-medicating pretty heavily by then."

"I will handle it." Some of the parents had already signed, leaping at the chance to send their children into the possibility of a brighter future to break the cycle of 80-hour minimum wage work weeks. There were others who were deeply suspicious and would need careful handling to convince. And there were a few who would gladly sign just to have one less mouth to feed.

"Okay. If you can make it happen, I'll make sure the money is there. I mean, you've got enough to do this ten times over."

"With any luck, that is precisely what I will do."

"Can't take it with you?"

"Something like that."

"Now, before we get into signing all the stuff that needs to be signed for the year, I have something for you." Mr. Abram put the children’s files to the side, opened a desk drawer and pulled out a standard white envelope with a handwritten address. "It's for you. Arrived 'care of' about three months ago. Considering everything, I've debated even giving it to you. I know I need to but…"

Martin turned the envelope around in his hands. There was no return address. "What does it contain?"

"That… That farm, cult, whatever your mom was a member of, one of the kids is trying to track everyone down. I did some digging and they're legit." Martin felt a tremble start in his hands. "All these years, I know it's probably the one thing we never really covered—"

"Why?" Martin managed to force the word out, but he could feel his throat already tightening.

"I don't know. I made contact, but they only want to speak to you. I did do a bit of snooping and there is currently a property dispute over the land the farm was on, or rather is still on."

Martin knew what it felt like to get kicked in the chest. The shock of pain, the stuttering of the heart and lungs. He glanced down at himself without control, expecting to see a boot print. "What?" His voice was hardly more than a whisper.

"The buildings are still there. Someone's been renting them out as 'Rustic cabins and farm experience vacation' but I guess the local aquifer goes 90% under the land and there's a push to put in a bottling plant near the local town, but it's tied up in court and water rights people and the EPA are getting involved."

Martin's hands were shaking violently. He opened his mouth to say something, to scream maybe. The thought that the farm was still there, that someone, maybe someone he had known, was still living on it; it was too much. The place where his mother had died, where she was probably buried. Where the police had come in the night, pulling him from his bed in the children's room, asking him questions he didn't understand. It was still there. Nothing came out. He wasn't sure if he was even breathing. His fingers were going numb even as his hands shook beyond any control.

"Shit," he heard Mr. Abram say over the rushing of his pulse. "Shit, shit, I'm sorry."

His eyes dropped. He still couldn't make a sound even though he wanted nothing more than to scream. His eyes fell on the swirl of the desktop wood grain. He followed a knot around and around as it looped back on itself. He felt a warm weight across his shoulders and was marginally aware of the room becoming dim. He felt something heavy, cold, and metal slip into his hands, and he gripped on tight.

Eventually, his breath began to settle and the urge to scream faded. He looked down at his hands. They were flipping the object around without conscience thought. It clicked as he turned it inside out, over and over.

"What is this?" He managed to choke out holding up a strange cube.

"Fidget toy. Infinity cube. My daughter has a dozen of them, they help her calm down."

Martin flipped the strange little cube around in his fingers for a few more minutes focusing on the little clacks and infinite twists.

Mr. Abram put a glass of water in front of him. "Do you want me to call anyone?" His voice was soft and gentle. "This Arthur guy, maybe?"

Martin shook his head. He wanted Arthur by his side more than he could explain in that moment. A simple call would not be enough and would only leave Arthur worrying.

He took breaths as long and deep as he could manage, shifting the soft, heavy blanket that had been draped across his shoulders at some point. Dr. Francis had offered him medication for situations like this, but once you were on medication for anything that wasn't completely physical, your access to certain things at the Agency changed. Not officially, but there was a lot at the Agency that wasn't official.

"I'm sorry. I should have eased you into that letter a little more gently."

Martin shook his head again, before taking a sip of water. "Neither of us could have anticipated an intense physiological response to things that happened decades ago."

"Considering how long I've known you, I should have. How about if I type up a response of 'uninterested' and send it for you?"

"No. I'm… No, let me think about it." He had too many questions. Who? Why? Why now?

"Okay, but don't stress yourself sick over it. You've got a husband and twenty kids to take care of now."

"You are still exaggerating the numbers."

"Only slightly. Drink your water, take your time, it'll be okay."