Haunt

DISCLAIMER: AEON FLUX ISN'T MINE.

I saw an ad for the movie last week, immediately decided I needed to watch it. So I hunted it down, fell in love. And this came forth.

Last year I challenge myself to write in as many fandoms as possible. This is a part of that project, so excuse me if I find myself distracted and leave this hanging. It won't be more than maybe 5 chapters long, pretty short and simple. Aeon isn't a big fandom on here, so I don't expect much of a reaction, but that's perfectly okay with me. This is written to satisfy my own whims.

Probably AU, as it is a major plot change in the grand scheme of the movie. Never seen the show, so no references there.

Trevor/Aeon, movieverse.

-XXX-

The second he saw her there, splashing in the fountain in the middle of the public park with another dark-haired girl just a few years younger, he knew. "Of course," Trevor Goodchild acknowledged, "it was no certainty." There would be no way to know. And it simply could not be her. Impossible. Improbable.

Yet…

All of the features combined…oh, she was…. So, so close. It wasn't the face, or the eyes, or even the sharp and humored lines of her mouth. Her stance, a firm and fluid posture, was identical to the woman's who haunted his dreaming. Katherine had shown him a few childhood photos with him those 400 years ago- - - that certainly helped the recognition. Closing his eyes, Trevor let memories flood his senses.

Like a home movie, the scenes ran through his mind. Their meeting- - - "Will I see you again?" Late nights reading. The ceremony, his wife dressed in white. Hours and hours of just talking as the sun passed through the windows of their home. Dancing in the kitchen, both doubled over with painful chuckles. Dabbing his forehead with a wet cloth when he contracted the flu only a few months after they had met. Hands on her hips, viewing her plainly burnt attempt at...well, some sort of dinner. Watching her across the room, stretching as she settled into bed. Kissing her eyelids, coaxing her awake sweetly. Painting the walls of their, their new apartment a buttery yellow. The university galas, Katherine in a slinky gold evening gown, raising a crystal flute to her husband's success, laughing. Laughing as she was now.

He could not be sure, of course, if it was truly her. At least, not until she grew into more defined features. Which might be a while yet. Observing her snub of a nose and plump limbs, Trevor estimated her age to be somewhere around five to seven years old. Practically an infant. Nearly fifteen years his junior, then.

"Young."

The chairman swallowed. If it were true, she was so, so young,

For nearly 400 years, the Trevor Goodchild line had been celebate. There had been wives a few times, yes, but these women were illusions used to explain away the birth of each generation's next set of heirs. Women of flesh and blood, they were vessels, surrogates, actors, simple and loving women who raised the pair of boys until they were young men ready to assume responsibilities. But not a one performed wifely duties beyond that. Each Trevor was too haunted by a foreign dedication to a women they'd never met; love, relationships were simply impossible.

The seven generations had never bore children beyond the two clones, either. There had never been any purpose to.

But now, looking at the collection of babes and toddlers, Trevor had an irrational desire to…to….

"To what?"

Be a father? He'd only ever fathered himself. As of right now, the sixty-five-year-old Trevor was currently the sixth generation clone mentoring a twenty-year-old Trevor. Old Trevor was all too ready to pass on his chairmanship to his young counterpart-in five year's time. He had father himself to the best of his ability. This time, Oren and Trevor the Seventh were nephews of the chairman, Oren's sons.

After Trevor-the-younger assumed chairmanship his predecessor would retire to a small corner of Bregna, presumably continue his research, perhaps take up gardening. And, then, he would die peacefully at the approximate age of seventy-seven. As all the others had. As he, Trevor the Seventh would.

Five years from now, that little girl- - -"Not Katherine," he told himself, "Not Katherine, Oren said it was impossible…" - - -would be an almost-teenager, perhaps. He would be twenty-five. Still too young to be a father. The Trevor line, his next generation, would not begin until he was at least 40, possibly older.

But five years…fifteen years…

He would know her. He must.

Twenty minutes of observation, it was unmistakable. Or, perhaps, his imaginings of particular features were being fed by his hope. Maybe he was projecting. Imagining what wasn't there.

Trevor found he didn't entirely care.

Somehow, he would known her. He would visit the old man in The Relicle, check the records. Oren had to have been wrong. There was no other way around it. He, Trevor, was a scientist. DNA can be saved. He'd said it was corruptible, but how? How could Katherine's have been destroyed? Might it have been possible for the old man to have saved something?

He did not care. Not now. He would find out later. Trevor merely wanted to absorb the quite realization of his wife's recovery.

In the park's fountain, the child slashed her sister. The younger girl shrieked with laughter, then rushed to chase her sibling. They ran and laughed and splashed, soaking up the sunlight like tiny daises. A ways away, a couple watched the children with reserved smiles. "Parents?" They looked older. Perhaps the girls were late-in-life "gifts?" It was not unheard of.

He did not exactly know how he was going to find her again. "Come back to the park," he supposed. Best not to alert old Trevor to the possibility. He daren't share his discovery. There would be no telling in his reaction. They might share the same mind, same genetic coding, but Trevor-the-younger wasn't that insightful. Not yet. So, he would not tell his elder of this discovery. No, he would come back, day after day, until…until….

"Aeon, Una!"

The babes, like a pair of startled kittens, paused to stare ahead, their tussle paused.

"Time to go," the woman said gently, extending a hand.

Together, the children rushed forward. The younger was swept into her mother's open arms. Katherine-"Aeon,"-was lifted carefully to her father's shoulders.

Come back? No, he's have no need now. He could insert her name into the database, keep a constant stream of her activity, watch her. Now Trevor would observe her from afar. No need to disrupt her life. Not now, anyways.

"Careful, Aeon," the man warned as his daughter wriggled from her post.

Thinking back to his Latin studies, Trevor smiled. Aeon. Life. It suited her, suited her well.

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