Todd Revisited: Waiting (Chapter 9)

He sat, in the dark of The Sun's main office, behind the desk, and in the moon's light that came in through the window, he got the eerie feeling of the past sneaking up on him like an unexpected wave of nausea.  The place had changed, in many ways, but he found himself leaning back, feet up on the desk, as he might have done in the past, when it was his office; Blair walking through the door, her skirt moving in sway to her walk; Kelly bickering by the window with him; Gabrielle putting her hooks into his sensibilities; Dorian with a huge-brimmed hat; Moose flying in the window.  He was overwhelmed with these mind-pictures, as he waited for him.


He rubbed along his temples, one hand still holding the gun, in case he needed protection.  Under his shirt, the bullet-proof vest he borrowed from his old friend Agent Kent felt slightly heavy against his skin.  Still reeling from what he had just seen, he scanned his thoughts.  Blair.  She had been next to him, in the crook of his arm, right there, and he could not touch her or tell her anything.  How he had left off with her in 2003 was muddled and sketchy to him still, but something in him told him it was not all hearts and flowers.  The voices, spun and swirled around his mind, and he shut his hands over his ears to stop the noise.  He'd rather think back, further, if he had to think at all.  He closed his eyes, waiting for The Impostor to come and meet him.


It was night.  He was again at the brink of the foggy glen, the blonde woman with the child across from him.  This time, he was determined not to let it end the same way; he wanted to know her, find out what drew him to her in all of the dreams he had conjured up in his time away from the world.  Today was going to be different.


This time, he watched her lilting across the mist, as if she had no feet.  She appeared confused, lost, and he wanted to cry out to her, but did not know what to say to her.  His throat seemed parched, and no words would come.  Instead, he decided to cross the glen to get to her.  He knew, from the other dreams, the repetitious images of his mind as he lay away from the rest of the world, that soon the shots would ring out and he would see her drop the child and fall.  He saw his arm reach out in front of him, and felt himself moving closer.  She turned to him this time, facing him head on.  Her face was one of recognition and love.  She began to hold the child out to him and he had almost reached the halfway point of the glen, when behind her, he appeared.


It was the man.  The tall, frightening man, who grabbed her around her shoulders from the back and held a lighter to her face in threat.  She screamed and dropped the child again, and this time, it dropped and rolled to the side, a lifeless doll.  The man sneered and belittled her fear with taunts he could barely hear. 


He was almost to her, and to the man.  A courageous dread came over him; he knew that he wanted to run away as much as he wanted to save her.  Almost upon them (his feet were moving painfully sluggish, as if in slow-motion), the man threw her to the side and held out the lighter.  He stopped short and almost toppled over into the haze.  


The man held the lighter out in front of his eyes, grabbed his hand and said, "You wanna try your luck, boy?"


He jolted awake with a scream in the bed by the window in the cabin that Aman and Lilly had brought him to.  Lilly scurried across the room as fast as her legs would carry her.  In her panic, she turned over a bowl on the table, spilling peeled potatoes onto the wooden floor.  "Aman!  Come quick!  He's awake Aman!  I see his eyes!  I see his beautiful eyes!"


Back at The Sun, his eyes flipped open in immediacy as he heard a noise at the office door.  There, at the door, was The Impostor, shrouded in moon blue, with the most blank, confused but shaken look he had ever seen.