Life Continues to Confuse Me

Part 7

The tension in his features increased. "What do you mean?" He asked me.

"What are you feeling?" I asked him sharply.

He looked at me as if I was crazy. "I'm... Nervous."

Nervous? It would make sense, considering that Shadow was searching a house with it's occupants still present. "There is no doubt anymore. Shadow is you." I said and successfully managed to confuse even myself.

"All the more reason that I should leave. I can't- I can't be the reason..." He trailed off. I stopped him.

"Who's to say that he isn't here to stop you from leaving? This time travel thing is really complicated." I muttered under my breath. "No, leaving won't help anybody, and most certainly not you. I need you here, you have always been my greatest ally."

For a moment, he appeared to be... Well, I'm not entirely sure what to call it. It's not very often that a peculiar emotion blankets the features of my Second-in-Command. The strange expression was as noticeable, and as short-lived, as a mid-western rain storm. It was there, and then it was gone like it had never really occurred.

"Fang? What is it?" I asked, somewhat concerned.

"I am your ally?" He asked softly, not looking at me. "I am your right hand man? Your second in command? Is that all that I'll ever be?" And he stopped short, took a breath and stood up from the bed. "Is that the reason I shouldn't leave? Because I'm your ally?" He asked and started to walk away.

"Fang!" I exclaimed. What can I say, that boy can seriously twist your words. "You're my best friend. I need you." I said staring at his back.

"No, I'm not your friend. Right now, I'm a risk. One that you can't afford to take." He said and shook his head. Before I could say another word, he turned to me. "I think you better leave my room, Max."

He was so cold, so inhuman at that moment that I couldn't even associate the words with his presence.

"What?" I asked, sounding like an idiot.

"Go, Max. Just go." He said, this time I smelt that strange scent of smoldering wood.

"No." I said firmly, and I prepared for him to challenge me. To my surprise, he didn't. Instead, he stormed to his closet and pulled out the ancient, beat up book-bag that he'd used in our travels. I watched and he went through his drawers and pulled out various articles and stuffed them into the bag. The last thing he grabbed was his laptop. "Fang, what are you doing?" I asked him.

"What's best for everyone. I have to leave. There's no telling how much I'm endangering you guys. You said it yourself, I can't even be trusted with passwords because I'm the threat." He said as he zipped the bag up.

"Fang, no!" I said trying to make him stop. "That isn't what we meant."

He looked at me pointedly. "Max... It's for your own good."

"Screw what's good for me. I need you. I don't care if you hand me over to Shadow and whatever deluded conspirators he may have, I'll still need you." I insisted.

He shook his head and slipped on his shoes. "Max, I'm leaving." It wasn't a threat, it wasn't a plan; it was a fact.

"Not without me, you aren't." I said and grabbed his shoulders, forcing him to sit on the bed again. "Listen up and listen good. What part of I need you here don't you get? If you leave, I'll just pack a bag and hunt you down. Then you'll really be up crap-creek." I say in my "Master and Commander" voice.

He rolled his eyes. "No, you'll stay here and keep everybody safe. I know you. You won't risk the flock for me." He said with hint of sadness. "That's what I can count on. You won't follow me, you won't be endangered by me, or Shadow."

"Your logic is perfect, and yet so flawed." I replied darkly. "You are just as much in danger as I am. Haven't you noticed that? Look what happened the other night? Fang, you were attacked. Why? I don't know. You are obviously as equally at risk as I am right now." I say and look him in the eyes. "What makes you think that I wouldn't come look for you? What makes you believe that I would so easily be deterred by the fact of my better good? And furthermore, who are you to say that you, presently, aren't the only reason I'm here at all." I stopped short of saying something really embarrassing.

Once again that boy managed to turn my words into my own bindings. "You're right, if I hadn't opened my big mouth, you'd be off looking at property. I should have left a long time ago." I stared at him moth agape. How did he do that? How could he wrap my own words around my limbs to ensnare me?

He pulled on a jacket and went to the window.

"Fang?" I pleaded.

Fang stopped for a second and suddenly turned to me. He stormed over to where I'm standing and looked me in the eyes. "I can't stay, Max." He said softly. "I can't do it." Then he reached into his right hand pocket, pulled something out and offered his closed hand to me. I reached for it, only to have his left hand grab the back of my neck and draw me closer to him. His lips crushed and bruised mine in a desperate and furious kiss. Suddenly he stopped, forced the object into the palm of my hand. "Use it." He whispered in my ear and took off out the window.

When my mind started to function again, I opened my hand to find the familiar key-chain. "Fang, you jerk!" I yelled out the window, but it was of no use. His figure was retreating into the horizon. Only the dark, silent night heard my shout. Only the shadows heard my muffled sobs.

Once again, the flock was broken, but this time I wasn't just going to pretend everything would be okay. I curled up in a ball on his bed and sobbed into the pillow that smelt of his hair.

"Um... Max?" I heard come from the door. "It's Iggy..." He sounded really awkward. "Can I come in?"

I fiercely dashed the tears away. "Yeah, come in." I said, trying to sound as if I was really okay.

He opened the door and closed it behind him. Cocking his head to the side he listens to the room. "He left?" He asked me. I only shake my head, my voice unsteady. He comes over and throws an arm around my shoulder. "I'm sorry." He said with a heavy sigh.

"What am I going to do?" I said with an unsteady voice.

Iggy drew me into a close brotherly hug. "First, you're going to cry on my shoulder for a few. Then you're going after him." He said with a knowing grin.

"How do you know?" I asked him.

Iggy smirked and tapped the side of his head. "Empath. I felt everything that went on over here." He said kindly. "It's just a matter of time."

"A matter of time till what?" I asked him.

"Till you two figure it out for yourselves." Iggy said and smirked.

"What?" I ask him.

"All he cares about is you, Max." Iggy reminds me. Seeing as how I am not going to cry on his shoulder, he stands up to leave. "It's true you know."

I roll my eyes. "He's not that self-absorbed!" I insist.

"Maybe so, but he still cares about you." Iggy said and sauntered out of the room. "Where is he?" I asked myself. Only one thought came to mind. I ran into my room and dumped out my latest book-bag. I left a pile of binders, notebooks and pencils sitting in the middle of my bed as I threw a few supplies into the bag. After double checking everything, I took off out the window.

Once I got out of the city limits I threw it into Sonic Speed. I was at the cave within an hour and a half. Now all I had to do was wait in the darkness for him to arrive. That's one double-edged benefits of sonic speed. You may get there way fast, but it's a guaranteed wait once you're there.

Twenty minutes of silence later a dark lanky figure landed at the edge of the cave. Even with my night-vision, I could barely make the figure out. I sat silently, waiting to make my ever so dramatic entrance. The figure pulled the left over store of wood into a pile and proceeded to light the fire. The glowing fire cast a soft light in the cave and I was able to see the dark skinned figure. I was about to open my mouth to speak when the figure turned their head.

It wasn't Fang. It wasn't Shadow, either.

"Calypso." I hissed in shock.

She smiled and turned to me. "That would be correct, Max."

I stood up, preparing for an attack.

"Chill. I'm not here to hurt you." She said in a dismissive tone that reminded me of my clone. "I'm here to set the facts straight."

"What did you do to Fang?" I demanded.

"Nothing. Well... He's been delayed, but no harm will come of it, if that's what you meant." She said as an afterthought. "We need to have a talk."

"I have nothing to say to somebody who is trying to kill me." I hissed, this time in anger.

Calypso shook her head. "I don't think you understand the gravity of the situation. If we don't talk, right now, you're going to die."

I squinted my eyes in suspicion. "Who are you?... What are you?" I ask.

She looked surprised and grinned. "Ah, now you ask a very good question. What am I? I'm the genetic concept of your future daughter. I was created to save your life, Max." She said pointedly.

"By coming back and trying to kill me?" I ask.

For a moment she seemed offended. "No. By coming back and keeping you from getting yourself killed. I could see where you've developed your hostility, but I assure you, everything that has happened has all been according to a very detailed plan. One that you are personally responsible to sending to hell in a hand-basket, might I add."

I rolled my eyes. "Sure, you're trying to help me. Do you think I'm really that stupid?" I asked sarcastically. "If I died, how could you be a clone of my future daughter, huh?" I demanded triumphantly.

"I never said I was a clone." Calypso said with a sigh.

"Then what are you, again?" I asked mordantly.

"I am a statistically probable genetic match of a child that you and Fang could have if you were to live." Calypso rattled off. "Basically I'm a genetic model."

"Test tube baby?!" I query.

She gave me a scathing look. "You know, I could say the same thing about you, Max."

I shook my head. None of this was making any sense. "Okay, you're a genetic model, or whatever, but that still doesn't explain why you exist. Why would anyone create you if I was dead? And... how?"

Calypso shrugged in a way that reminded me strangely of Fang. "I was created by Jeb. Who knows his reasoning on anything he does? All I know is that he dropped me on Shadow's lap when I was a couple of months old. Shadow raised me." She said distantly.

"So you weren't created to come back?" I asked.

"I don't know. I only recently found out I could go back." Calypso said softly. "I've never seen Shadow so hopeful. The day I told him about going back a couple of hours to write that paper for class, was the first time I saw him... Well... Alive." She said looking at me from the fire. "Do you mind coming over here? I hate having to rotate my head like this."

I nod mutely and shuffle along the cave wall. It would get me closer to the exit should anything go wonky. I wasn't about to argue with that.

"Anyway, the plan was this: We were going to come back and destroy your car, making it impossible for you to show up at the gym. Then Fang went and loaned you his car, something even Shadow wasn't expecting." She said with a sigh. "That meant we had to go even further back and make sure that one of us was going to be Jameson's 'Champion.' What we weren't expecting was Fang to get all hell-bent on hunting down the guy who trashed your car. He showed up at the gym the same time that Shadow was dropping off the tape. I couldn't just let him walk in and ruin everything, again, so I jumped out of the bushes and threw a few punches. Fang just doesn't know when to give up... And... Well... I had to hit him with his own car to get him to change his course." She said in a combination of annoyance and embarrassment.

Like an idiot, I just stared at her. If she was telling a load of B.S. , it was creepily fitting B.S. "Then what?" I asked.

"Well, we decided that this called for extreme measures. Because I was all kinds of bent out of shape, we needed a delay... So... Ella." She said awkwardly. "The plan was only to delay you, not permanently injure you. We certainly weren't plotting your death."

"I figured that. Then Fang's ability kicked in, right?" I asked.

Calypso sighed in relief. "Yeah. We don't know how, or why, but Fang's already diverted from the normal time-line. He's developed a power that Shadow still didn't have when I was created. He can redirect kinetic energy, if you were wondering."

I felt my face twitch and then asked softly. "If that wasn't his power... What powers did Shadow have?" I asked curiously.

She shook her head. "Can't tell you that. I'm already tossing monkey-wrenches into the fabric of time and space as it is. To tell you anymore would be completely reckless and irresponsible."

I rolled my eyes. "It's becoming obvious that Fang raised you." I muttered.

Calypso let out a small chuckle. "That's not a bad thing." She said with a smile.

Now curiosity was getting the better of me. "Did you like being raised by him? Did you have a mom?"

Calypso stopped and jabbed at the fire with a stick. "Shadow was a great parent. We weren't exactly the best example of a father/daughter relationship, but we held a mutual fondness for each-other. Completely understandable. I'm sure it would have been a lot better if I'd actually been born to you guys. And no, I never had a mom. Until I was six, he told me that you were my mom... That you'd died when I was a baby." She said with a soft sadness. "He didn't want me to feel like some sort of freak. That's the kind of guy who raised me." She smiled softly. "Every year on your birthday we brought flowers to your grave."

A knot formed in my stomach. "But... Why did I die in the first place."

She looked at me and grinned. "That, I can answer. Nice choice of words. I couldn't answer "How did I die?" But, you were killed by a man, Jameson, who is trying to hunt down any surviving subjects of ITEX and make them join, or kill them. You weren't about to join them, so they killed you. Nobody knew what was happening, so you were alone... They found your body a week later." She said wearily.

"Wow, it's kind of weird ... You know... Talking about my body and death and what not." I say in a whisper.

"You think this is weird? Imagine what it's like for me! I get to have a discussion with my mom who was never my mom. You try figuring out how to feel about that!" She exclaimed.

"I built that bridge! Been there, so done that." I say with a laugh.

She nods. "But there's more to this then what I mentioned. " She said guiltily. "We were supposed to get Angel to send you false visions of the future, just like how Jeb did it. That was going alright... until we realized that the visions you were having weren't the visions she was sending."

"So you mean... ?"

"We don't know." She said. "Basically, we were hoping to strengthen your pre-existent bond, so you wouldn't be alone when this all comes down. Fang has some serious guilt issues. At the moment, we don't know what's going to happen now? We're stuck here." Calypso said with a grunt.

"I see." I whispered. "Is that all?" I ask.

"All that I can tell you. Fang and Shadow should be here any minute now." She said looking at her watch.

"Shadow?" I squeak.

"Chill. Jeez. Think about it this way, if I'm still here, Fang is still alive. If Fang was killed, I would have been raised by someone else, and wouldn't be here now." Calypso stated. Then in a typical me-like move she said, "I think..."

I stared off into the fire and Calypso went to sit on the ledge. Time passed as I stared into the flickering flames trying to mentally digest everything I'd just learned. Suddenly I felt the weird prickly sensation on the back of my neck. I gasped and turned around. Three pairs of identically brown eyes stared at me curiously. Woah... Creepy.

"OKAY ENOUGH OF THE STARING! You guys are creeping me out." I exclaim.

Shadow is then consumed in a hushed conversation with Calypso, leaving Fang to look at me in the strangest way. "Max?" He asks. I suddenly can't stop the tears from forming and I run into his arms. He tosses his bag down and wraps his arms around me.

"Dude! The laptop. Come on man!" I hear Shadow exclaim, but he's ignored. Right now, we're doing what Iggy has always accused us of; drowning everyone else out.

"Don't leave." I whispered.

"I won't." He said and hugged me tight.

"That's what you said last time." I say in a sort of uncontrollable sob.

"I mean it." He replied and brought his hand up to my chin. "I mean it."

I smiled and kissed his cheek. "I'm glad you're back." I said and leaned my head on his shoulder. We stood there, unwilling to let go for a few minutes. Slowly I started opening my eyes, never taking my head off of the warm shoulder. I could see Shadow looking at us sadly, longingly. Calypso put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a soft smile. Shadow lowers his gaze and nodded softly, returning to their conversation.

It's then that I realized just how much he'd missed me. How much he's gone through for me. I felt a knot in my throat and hold Fang even tighter. In a way, I was hugging Shadow too, trying to sooth his pains as well.

Mentally, I was praying that everything is going to be okay. It has to be, for all our sakes...