Andrew Cress
April 31st, 2032
It was past midnight when Andrew finally caught up with Jen. She hadn’t stopped crying for almost an hour. Andrew held her close and told her that everything would be fine—that Jake was okay and that he’d find a way to let them both know as such. He had a hard time convincing himself of it, but reconciled that it wasn’t the first time they thought Jake had perished, so eventually Jen was able to calm down.
“I...I won’t give up until I see a body,” Andrew said. “He’s resilient. And there’s no way Matt would go down like that.”
“A body...” Jen repeated, thinking back to when she had thought she had seen his body be shot—when she thought that was the last she would see of him—he still came back She turned back to Andrew and steeled herself. “The note, I want to see it.”
“It’s right here,” he handed it to her and then sat down on the sofa, eyeing the glass sphere that contained the explosion that accompanied the letter. The glowing amber sucked in his gaze until Jen was tapping on his shoulder.
“Hey, I’m sure we could find some googly-eyes and you can marry that thing if you want.”
“Huh...oh,” Andrew shook it off and looked back to her. “Sorry. I was just thinking...”
“It’s nowhere near as condensed as...the other one,” she said. “But it’s still concerning now we have two of these things to worry about.”
“We’ll only have one,” Andrew said. “I can bring this one out to the bay and I should be able to set it off there—away from any people.”
“Not Guardia Bay you’re not! Think of all those fish that wouldn’t see an explosion like that coming.”
“No, not Guardia.” Andrew shook his head. “Closer to Buffalo.”
“Oh...” her eyes went to the floor.
Buffalo was one of the cities hit the hardest nineteen years ago when the government first went under. It’s come a long way since then and just by looking at the city itself you couldn’t tell that it was ruined so long ago, but the wildlife never fully recovered like the people did. Chautauqua Lake was a prime example of a water-wasteland.
“I guess...it wouldn’t hurt as much there.”
“It’ll have to be after I meet up with our dear sender here,” Andrew pointed to the letter. “I don’t think I have the choice of turning them down.”
“Well, then I’m going to come with you. Someone crazy enough to stuff bombs into their letters isn’t going to be safe to meet up alone.”
“You sure? You free?”
“Of course,” Jen said. “Even if I wasn’t I’d clear my schedule. Besides. I’m going to give them a piece of my mind—if I don’t kill them first.”
“It won’t come to that. You know I wouldn’t let it.” Andrew said. “Question, then subdue. I’m not a fan of enduring a near-life experience either, but they seem to know something we might like to.”
She groaned. “I hate it when we need bad people.”
I silently agreed with her. “Okay, well, we’re not going to be doing anything productive right now. You hungry?”
“Nah, I drowned myself in chicken earlier. I’d burst if I had anything.”
“You sure?”
“You can’t cook, so anything you could offer would be fast food. Like I said, I gorged myself.”
“Okay...” Andrew said. “And I can cook, I’m just...not too familiar with any recipes anybody would like.”
“Right, so can’t cook it is.” She said. “No, I’ll just crash on the couch and you can wake me around nine.”
“Wake you?” Andrew asked. “Since when have I ever been the one to wake you up? If I recall you always acted as my personal alarm clock.”
She sat down beside me, kicked off her shoes, and stretched. “Yeah, well now you get to pay back the favor, El Presidente.”
Andrew rolled his eyes. “Okay. I’ll set the alarm for nine. If you need anything just holler and I’ll fetch it.”
She nodded, and then scooted me off the couch so she could stretch out. Andrew turned to walk back into his bedroom, but was stopped when Jen called him.
“Yes?”
“Do you need anything?” she asked.
“I...” he hesitated. “Having someone else in the house helps. Thank you.”
She nodded and closed her eyes. He looked on her for a minute longer before retiring to his own room. This place had been his home for a few years now, and it had certainly felt like it, but he felt there was always something missing. He was the only one that stayed here through the days, so whenever he came back to it he felt the loneliness hang around the building like a ghost.
Andrew found his bed and melted into his sheets as his head hit the pillow. For the first time in a long while he didn’t dream of Lindsey. He wasn’t sure if what replaced her was any better—in fact he was sure that it wasn’t.
He dreamt of Aria.
There was a stinging pain in his heart and knew that it was a dream—that it wasn’t real, but the fact was that he missed her. He missed Lindsey too—both of them were people he grew to love, and both of them were no longer with him. It...had been a long time since he had thought of Aria, though. A few years at—
That was when it hit him and he woke up staring at the ceiling. The last time that he dreamed of Aria...he knew exactly when that had been. It was three years ago. He was at The Continental Inn with Lindsey, Sarah, and Jay on their way to track down John. The night Lindsey killed herself he dreamed about Aria—then it must have been the first night he had in five or six years at that point. They didn’t talk about it the next morning—Andrew had plenty of other things on the front burner he needed to focus on. But what if he had talked in his sleep? She has told him that he did that in the past—even if he never had any idea of when he did it.
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Could it have been the fact that he had been thinking about someone else that she decided to do the deed? He didn’t think it was the only reason—they’d talked about Aria enough to the point that she was a person that he had loved—and she wasn’t insecure enough to get jealous at the fact that he had loved someone before her...but there was still something there that ate away at him. It might not have been a trigger, but it must not have sounded like what you wanted your husband to say in his sleep while you were going through some seriously tough shit.
He drew in a breath and closed his eyes. He would give anything to bring the both of them back—but he hesitated. No, not anything. That kind of thinking was what made you like Jack. He quite literally did give everything—including those that were not his.
No. The best he could do was to try his best to keep those that he loved safe. He spent enough of his life hurting them as it was. He thought of Jen out in the other room and didn’t have to wonder how she was feeling. He was going to be there for her just as she was for him, and that was that.
He drifted off once again and his dreams were merciful this time.
Morning came softly and Andrew woke with a start. The damn alarm didn’t go off! But as he sat up the phone by his side hummed and he only blinked at it absently. That’s happened way more than should logically be possible.
He swung his legs out from under the covers and silenced the phone. He yawned heartily and stretched, letting the morning sink in. He opened the door and found Jen sleeping still on the couch. He looked at her and she seemed to be resting peacefully. He hoped that all of her sleep was like that—and not only the result of nightmarish fits exhausting her body further.
For all of the garbage that Jack did...without him at the very minimum I wouldn’t have met Jen. That wasn’t a justification for any of Jack’s actions, but he reconciled that there was always something good to take from a shitty situation.
Lindsey was out of pain. That was something good, even if he didn’t like to admit it.
He decided that he’d let her sleep a few more minutes while he took a shower—he was sure they’d be fighting over it if he did wake her up like they were kids—ownership be damned. The thought was tempting to bring some humor to the situation, but humor wasn’t what she needed right now. She needed time to sort through her own feelings, but most importantly she needed rest. He remembered how much he overworked himself in the year following Lindsey’s death. He slept maybe eight hours a week—and to give credit it was work that needed to be done to get where they were now, but he could have as easily delegated more and focused his own duties. It was Jen who helped him step back. It was also part of the reason why he had let Jake and Matt take the case in England.
Andrew decided it was time that he help to repay the favor and he stepped back into this room and closed the door, working off his clothes. When he slept alone he rarely changed into pajamas—a fact Lindsey used to poke fun at him for.
He picked out a nice suit from his wardrobe and hung it on the top of his door. This one would be perfect. He stepped into the bathroom and entered the shower after letting it settle. The water coursed off his skin and provided instant relief. He held himself as the heat beat out the remnants of his dreams.
He wasn’t really surprised that Aria had returned to his dreams. It was a shock that he had kept to himself that he was working with her brother—the elusive Matthew Avery.
When Andrew was back in Elysium ten years ago he had heard Aria talk about her past while she lived in London. She never met her brother—never believed that he knew she even existed. He was supposed to have been killed when she had been discovered by an outsider—the laws in London were very strict about how many children were allowed to be born per family.
He never confronted Matt about the situation. They haven’t been on such personal terms—it had always been about the job. But that didn’t mean that he didn’t wonder.
He finished cleaning and exited the shower. Taking in a deep breath he vowed that when he next saw Matt he’d work up the courage and ask him about it—offer to tell him about the sister he allegedly never knew. It was selfish holding back the information and if he wanted to help, that was the key.
He dried his hair and wrapped the towel around himself and retreated back to his room, changing into the nice suit. It was a dark blue with pressed dress pants and a vivid red tie.
He stepped outside and saw that Jen was still fast asleep on the sofa. He pulled up a chair and sat down beside her. Andrew placed his hand on her shoulder and shook her gently, “Hey, welcome to the new universe where I wake up earlier than you.”
Her eyes opened slowly and she made a small sound of confusion.
“Wakey wakey,” he said, sitting back in the chair.
She looked at Andrew and then her eyes found the floor. “I dreamt about Jake.”
“I had a feeling you would.”
“It just doesn’t feel real.”
“Well we won’t know until we do some legwork of our own. Now come on—we’ve got about an hour and a half until we’ve got to go.”
She sighed and rolled over. “You mean an hour for me to sleep and half an hour to rush to get ready.”
“And what have you done with Jen, alien doppelganger?”
She smirked. “You know I’ll never understand how you can just shower and get dressed and have that be it.”
“Just got that natural beauty in me,” he said.
“Pfft, the only thing natural here is the air.” She sat up slowly. “Thanks for letting me stay the night. I appreciate it.”
“Anytime,” he said. “You go on and get ready and I’ll see about making something for breakfast.”
“I’ll see if I don’t end up hurling it up.”
“I’ll take that as a pending compliment.”
~...~
When everything was said and done and the both of them were ready, they took one final look out toward the view from Andrew’s front porch. He didn’t know what about that moment there told him that he wasn’t going to be coming back, but he thought it was a mutual feeling between the both of them. Something about this whole situation didn’t feel right, and he started to get a similar feeling to just before the battle in California—that similar fear of something big going down hung in the shadows.
Andrew felt his grip tighten against the steering wheel. There was a certain...fear that hung tight in his chest. He looked in the back seat and swore he saw a shadow. Was it...Lindsey? Or...was it Aria? Part of me thinks it was a little bit of both. I swallow hard and return forward as the passenger side door opens and Jen slides in. The door shuts and with the shadow creeping behind me I take up the ignition and we head off.
"Do you have the sphere?" Jen asked.
"It's in the back. I don't have a good idea about bringing it to the talk. But I do want to get rid of it as soon after as I can."
The ride was a quiet one. The radio is kept to a low—just to keep the deafening silence at bay. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Jen resting her head on her arm. The sun outside hangs high in the sky—unaware to the stresses of the world. In a way I was almost jealous.
Laixley came quick. Not too many people were out at this hour, but what few seemed to depend on the cafe that the small town provided. Andrew found a spot to park in—always without other cars on either side. Ever since he was much younger he had a paranoia about coming too close to others when parking. Even now more than a decade of driving he still felt that tightening up whenever he came close enough. he turned back to see the shadow gone, an action not unnoticed by Jen.
"Expecting someone?"
"Been having bad dreams myself. Feeling like an omen."
She looked over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder, "Yeah, I get what you mean. Feels like we're clinging on the edge of the cliff and once we head in there we're gonna be kicking off the side and leaping."
He nodded slowly. "If anything goes south I'll keep you safe."
"I know. But I don't think anything will go directly south here. Don't think they would have chosen so public a place if this was where it all ended."
"That's true. Unless they're really crazy."
"Guess we'll just have to see for ourselves," she says. She unbuckled and opened her door.
Andrew did the same, and they looked up at the early morning sun above them and stood in a contemplative silence. After a moment they looked at one another and walked toward the café.