Disclaimer: do not own Continuum.

Written for: Writerverse (LJ com).

Prompt: write about a mom; at-least 250 words.

Notes: [denotes Alec talking over CMR], "regular conversation."

She thinks of calling in sick, of throwing herself into memory and getting lost for the day. She takes what she can get from her CMR, what Alec managed to salvage. She closes her eyes and relives. Sam is smiling, laughing, against the backdrop of open sky and building tops. She is enchanted with the heat from his body in her lap and the texture of his hair against her cheek.

They are discussing blueberries in cereal, in freezing milk into cubes just for something different, and what to eat for breakfast Saturday when Greg has been assured a day off.

He is her son, and for the first time in eight years she won't be greeted by the cards and flowers of a mother's validation, that which had been chosen first by Greg's careful hand and then by Sam's exuberance. She won't clasp hands around her son in morning's light and wonder at this turn her life had taken, won't kiss her husband in the dark of night between sheets and reminisce.

She is alone; alone in a room she still won't, can't call home and she is so very, very far from them.

She thinks of calling in sick, of throwing herself into memory and getting lost for the day. It would be a day of nothing, though. Wasted time better spent active, of hunting down the tools of hope and reunion. She wants to go home, home to her son; home to her husband and her house and her life in 2077, but home mostly to her son.

She gets up and goes to work and willfully ignores the happy gossip and lighter talk and the suddenly popular text-mugs of #1 Mom. She ignores Carlos' raised brow and hesitant concern, because he doesn't know. Can't know.

She ignores Alec as well because, she thinks, you know better than this and this is all your fault, but not really knowing where to direct the hot bitter anger flashing though her and so keeps her tongue.

She stays quiet, does her job, and just as she pushes away from her desk to –finally– retreat back to an impersonal room and very personal memories, Kellog proves himself a bastard with roses.

The only thing that saves him from physical harm, or swift revenge of requesting a massively depleting and uncorrectable credit-hack from Alec, is their light pink color and the small budding shape. She had thought it a secret, her love of flowers. Had thought their antiquated language and expressions were a secret kept even tighter. But there they are, adored with baby's breath and housed in an elegant vase.

Sympathy, morning, respect. Youth, childhood.

It cuts, the meaning and their presence in her life and the man behind them. She signs for them all the same, because doing opposite would bring too many wrong questions, and she just wants this day to be over. Still, the florist blanches and scurries backward after delivery so she knows her ire isn't quite contained.

But really, she thinks, doing her best not to glare at the flowers, what gives him the right?

"Secret admirer?" Asks Carlos with some kind of wry half-smile and lifted brow, as if it's just another day and someone was foolish enough to court her at work.

[Is there a tag?]

"No," she answers Carlos while glancing down at the thick card of hand-pressed paper and its message in calligraphy. Indents of a heavy hand into high-count fiber, the loop and swirl, the quality ink, they all point to personalization and her implant cross-references handwriting. She doesn't need it, not at all, no one else it could be. She checks because Alec asked and because she is felling vindictive.

99.9893762905% match found: Matthew Kellog.

- It's not what you want, but applies nonetheless. -

[What would - Oh, oh damn. Kiera. Kiera, I'm sorry.]

"From your…" Carlos trials off and she can hear the implied 'boyfriend' or 'husband' or whatever the polite term exists for romantic partner in 2012.

[What can I do?]

"No." It's forceful, that single word, pressed through teeth and stiff lips. Then, she lies: "Contact at Section Six. His idea of a practical joke, always delivers right on the money."

[Section Six, practical joke. Right. On it. I think.]

"Right. And he would be?"

"Agent K. It's an anniversary, of sorts. Knows I hate them."

[Uh, was that intentional? Also, got Kellog's accounts. What am I doing, specifically, or is it up to me?]

"Agent K," and the dip in his voice has her looking up and away from the scratch pad and her written: boating license. "Seriously, Agent K?"

"Anything else is classified. And this stays between us."

"Of course. Anything else would require a memory wipe."

"A what?"

[Relax. Pop culture reference. Series and franchise, starting with a movie. Men in Black. We can't actually do that.]

"Where you grew up, you did have something called a television, right?"

"Yes." No. No television, but they did have vids. The Academy even had a course on identifying cultural trends and stereotypes through a hundred years of visual media. It had been an elective though, and one she had replaced with Contemporary World Literature.

She recognizes the irony.

[And done. Kellog won't be able to legally move across any coastal or international water ways without serious flags being raised. He won't be able to buy any boats either, nor rent. Actually, he probably couldn't even walk a wharf without the Coast Guard being called. Want me to report his house-boat as stolen?]

"You know, I think I'm done for tonight."

[Gotcha.]

"Your flowers."

She looks back to her desk and the vase. Takes them.

"And here I thought it was anniversaries you disliked. Can't believe you don't like flowers."

"Good night Carlos," is all she says.

She's back in the impersonal room, with the wrong colors and textures and scent. She tosses the crumbled greeting card into the small trash bucket by the door, the flowers she had already dumped on the night clerk at the front desk. She moves into this space with quiet precision; almost she thinks, almost.

[Kiera?]

"What Alec," and it's not so much a question as it is a demand. It might be a dare, too.

[I. That is, I'm.]

She looks into the bathroom mirror, face pale and eyes shadowed. "What, Alec?"

[I don't really know if it's appropriate. I mean, I think we're close – that's to say, closer than you and, well, and I just wanted to say, I mean.]

Her fingers are going over the curves and angles of Sam's little toy soldier. That tiny figurine is all the tangible proof she has of her son's existence. Vainly, she hopes it means she hasn't messed up. That despite Liber8, despite her presence in 2012, and despite Alec's knowledge and involvement, Sam is creeping up on a birthday in 2077 and she is still a mother to a child who is alive and hale and hers despite everything.

[I just wanted to say, happy Mother's Day, Kiera.]

She doesn't depress the button for the soldier's weapon, because she knows this toy like she doesn't know the shape and size and contour of her own CPS implant. It's not even a near thing, when fingers tighten around the toy at Alec's words.

It's hard to hear, but she finds it bearable, somehow.

She hasn't looked away from the mirror, but now she leans in close and stares directly into her own eyes. "Thank you." She means it.

There is a relieved sigh from the kid who will own the world.

"Night Alec."

[Good night, Kiera.]

She lays in bed, under covers that don't feel right with a pillow that's too stiff. She closes her eyes and throws herself into memory.