Episode 40.6: The Others

The silence in Waldo’s car was uncomfortable for everyone. It was punctuated by the hiss of the rain against the frame of the car. The engine was unusually silent. He glanced at Sally in the passenger’s seat. She looked furious and guilty. Waldo was used to feeling that way, and so empathized with her better than he had with anyone in months. And he knew that the cure for him was always a distraction. But he didn’t know what had her feeling that way, so he had to think very hard for what would be a good distraction.

Sally was staring ahead, at the road. She didn’t know what to do, at all. She wasn’t used to not knowing what to do. Her family hated her. Her lies had come out into the open-all of them. Joe was dead. All of the agents of the Department of Extranormal Affairs were dead. Her family hated her. Dawn was never going to trust her again. Mina was some sort of zombie. Jennifer was back. Her family hated her. It all came back to that fact, that her family hated her. Everything she had done over the last ten years had been for her family. And now it had all blown up in her face.

Marty and Jack did not hate Sally. They knew this. They thought that she understood it too. Oh, they were angry at her, no doubt about it. Hell, they could tell that she was angry at herself. That made it better, somehow, knowing that she knew she had done it wrong. Jack had already gotten to the point where he had accepted that his wife had been trying to do the right thing, and while he would be short with her, he would not be giving her the silent treatment.

Marty and her mother had never gotten along perfectly. After Dawn’s coma started, Marty got depressed. She became rebellious and reckless. There’s a lot of psychology about attention and parenting and All Kids Are Like This and probably some Oedipus or Elektra complex in there. Really, Marty was just scared. And Sally was scared too. They ended up at odds with each other. But not so much that they ever stopped loving each other. And this was just another one of those instances. Sally didn’t know that.

Waldo took a glance in his mirrors at the three family members staring angrily out their windows. He couldn’t stand it any longer, and brought up what he hoped was the most harmless topic.

“So, Mina, huh?” Jack cringed, and Sally began to turn to glare at Waldo. Marty slouched. Waldo didn’t notice. “That was pretty amazing, what she did.” Silence filled the car again, and Waldo ignored the uncomfortable looks. “And when she came out with all of you. She didn’t have a scratch on her.” He waited again. He glanced at the clock; it read 4:00. “Too bad, isn’t it?”

“You should have told her, mom,” Marty said suddenly. Sally’s eyes softened and she looked back to the window.

“You don’t know what it was like,” she said quietly.

“I know damn well what it was like. I… We went through just as much as you did. But none of us went through what Dawn did.”

“You didn’t know what was happening!” Sally burst, tears beginning to fall from her eyes. “You don’t know what I had to do to find the answer!”

“You could have told us,” Marty said coldly. “We could have helped. We love Dawn at least as much as you do.”

“I was sworn to secrecy.”

“You were sworn to secrecy? About what? What were you doing that we couldn’t know about? It was all for Dawn, wasn’t it?”

“It’s more complicated than that, Marty. I joined the DEA so that I could save Dawn. But they needed me to do other things! There are weirder things out there than you know of! I have slain vampires, Marty! I’ve locked up Werewolves! I have stopped alien invasions!”

“But you couldn’t tell us what you were doing about my big sister? About your eldest child? And then you couldn’t tell her what had happened?”

“What?” Waldo said loudly. He was becoming more bewildered by the moment.

“It would have driven her insane! She may have fallen back into catatonia!”

“Honey, your mother was trying to do the right thing,” Jack said softly. “If she hadn’t kept her job secret from us, they would have kicked her out. Dawn might never have woken up.”

“That doesn’t excuse not telling Dawn…! That doesn’t excuse making us lie!”

“It made sense when she woke up, Marty. She always lived her dream in a haze; it was easier just to convince her that she had been in a coma for a few months, and that it was messing with her memory. It really was too dangerous to her to tell the truth.” Sally smiled faintly at her husbands words. “But that doesn’t mean it was right.” The smile faded. Jack turned to look at his wife. “It was a mistake, not telling her the truth. She deserved to know. She may have figured other things out. She’s a strong girl, Sally. She would have survived. You screwed up-but we helped you.”

Sally began to say something in her defense, but then decided against it. Marty knew from looking at her father that it was unwise to continue asking. Jack had nothing more to say. The three of them returned to sulking.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Waldo asked loudly and almost squeakily. He glared at all of them during a moment when he felt that he could look away from the road. They ignored him.

“What the hell?” he repeated. No one answered.

* * *

Sylvie gripped the steering wheel of her sleek car fiercely. She glared at the tail lights of ugly van through the rain.

“What are you doing?” Elli asked after about twenty seconds, a gentle chuckle in his words.

Sylvie blinked. “I’m not really sure,” she admitted, giggling a little.

“Well, stop. It’s really creepy.” She turned and smiled kindly at him-not her usual seductive smile, but an honest, caring smile. Elli smiled back at her.

After a moment, Elli spoke again. “I guess that wasn’t it.” Sylvie laughed despite herself.

“All of us made it out!” She squeaked her voice with surprise. “You thought that we were going to charge in and die, didn’t you? Your life flashed past your eyes!” She added a dramatic flair to it.

“Actually, just about every time I’m near you, my life flashes past my eyes. Remember the time you pushed me out the window?”

“Hey, there were bars to catch you there!”

“You pushed me through glass!”

“Oh, you were fine.”

“Funny, that. Not a scratch on me. But that was just dumb luck. Now Mina? How’d she do that?” They sat and thought for a few seconds.

“You don’t have any idea either, do you?” Elli asked.

“Not a clue.”

“I’m glad she survived.” He looked in the backseat. “I’m also glad that she gave me her rifle."

“I’m sorry I’m so cruel,” Sylvie said suddenly. “I’m sorry that I’m always trying to seduce everyone, I’m sorry most of all for hurting you.” Elli tried to say something, but she spoke too quickly for him to interrupt. “That was the worst. Because I wasn’t even trying to seduce you. I was really trying to comfort you. But you thought, and rightly so, that I was being my usual self. So, I’m sorry.” She paused, and before Elli could start to speak, said softly, “And I’m sorry about your family.”

All Elli could say, with a certain softness in his voice, was “I’m sorry too.” They sat in silence for a minute before he said “Thank you.” Sylvie reached out her hand to him, somehow doing it differently than she usually did, making it clear that it was just so that he would have something to hold. He took it and squeezed it. She squeezed back.

There was only sorrow and friendship in that car just then.

* * *

“Okay, everyone’s obviously stressed out,” Waldo said a minute after the seventh time he tried to get a member of Dawn’s family to explain to him what they were talking about. “We need to pull over and sleep.”

“We’ll need shelter,” Sally said automatically.

“We don’t have time,” Waldo stifled a yawn. “Sylvie and Mina haven’t slept for twenty hours; they’re liable to pass out at the wheel.” Actually, though he would never admit it, he was worried that he would fall asleep at the wheel. He hadn’t slept for over 44 hours, and much of that time awake had drawn adrenaline out of him.

“Oh. Well, we could sleep in Jennifer’s van.” No one could have missed the way that Sally spat Jennifer’s name.

“Right. Let’s pull over and talk about it.” Waldo put on his turn signal and pulled to the side of the road. Jennifer’s van idly followed without a turn signal. Sylvie rapidly followed suit, ignoring the turn signal herself. Mina pulled over right behind her.

Everyone piled out of the cars. Waldo and Sally were first, and advanced quickly to the space between Sylvie and Mina’s cars. Waldo was careful to stand near Sylvie’s door. Sylvie sighed at him from within her car and opened it. Elli got out too, and stood next to Sally. Jack and Marty caught up to the group just as Mina and Dawn climbed out of Mina’s car. All looked up and took a smiling note of the fact that the rain had stopped.

“Why’re we stopping?” Elli asked, leaning against Sylvie’s car.

“Everyone’s tired,” Jack replied. “Some of us are almost at each other’s throats. We need to sleep.”

“What about shelter?” Sylvie asked.

Marty stifled a yawn. “Too tired to look much.”

“Jennifer’s van is best,” Waldo said. “Todd said that they have blankets in there anyway.”

There was silence for a minute.

“Where are Todd and Jennifer?” Mina asked.

“Dammit!” Sally yelled. She dashed towards the front of Jennifer’s van, Waldo matching her speed on the other side. Mina and Dawn were directly behind them, and the others followed quickly, albeit they weren’t quite sure why.

Sally prepared to rip open the door, but first looked in the window. Waldo mimicked her actions precisely. Both of them stared. Mina and Dawn skidded to a halt right behind them. When the others caught up, they gathered around the front of the van to join in the staring.

There was silence for a minute.

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t see that coming,” Mina said. For the first time that she had seen Jennifer in ten years, she sounded more confused than afraid.

“She has really nice legs,” was all Dawn could think to say.

“His aren’t bad either,” Sylvie offered.

“They do look strong?” Elli’s voice squeaked a little. He did his best not to look at anything specific, but his voice betrayed just whose legs he was talking about.

“He’s hairier than me!” Waldo burst-quieter than his usual bursts. He folded his arms and looked straight ahead, forcing himself to think only of Sylvie.

“Only on his legs, far as you know,” Marty snickered. She was enjoying the whole sight.

“Let’s be glad we can’t see much more,” Jack chuckled, almost approvingly. He ducked out of the way of a flying sock.

“Yet,” Dawn and Marty added together. The latter picked the sock up from behind her father and tossed it back into the van.

“Does he know how old she is?” Sally grabbed the car door again.

“I told him,” Mina said distantly.

“I didn’t know Todd liked older women,” Dawn said awkwardly.

“I just knew Todd liked women,” Waldo said in his usual level tones.

“Did anyone else notice how hot she is?” Elli said urgently.

“Todd did. Obviously.” Jack chuckled approvingly again.

“As much as I hate her,” Sally referred to Jennifer with the same disdain again, “If it weren’t for the two of them, none of us would be here.”

“Mom’s right,” Marty said. “I think we should let them sleep in the van tonight. Well, by sleep, I mean…”

“Yes, we know what you mean,” Sylvie said.

Everyone froze. Another sock flew out; Elli caught it and tossed it back through the windshield.

“Well. They’re slowly squeezing into the back.”

“How many blankets did Todd say there were?”

“He didn’t.”

“We’d better check.”

“There goes her shirt.”

“I hadn’t expected quite a plain bra.”

Everyone paused for another minute.

“We should leave them two blankets.”

“Yeah, let’s get around the back.”

Everyone hesitated for a little longer, and went around to the back. Dawn and Elli were last.

“You know,” Elli confided to the other seven as they unloaded some of the blankets, “This is what Todd’s always wanted. Do you know what that means?”

“That he’s really lucky?” Waldo suggested.

“Not so much,” Elli retorted. “Didn’t any of you ever watch that show Lost a few years back?”

“The bizarre one with the polar bears and that space ship?” Sylvie asked.

“That’s the one.”

“The one where nothing made sense?” Jack asked.

“Exactly.”

“The one where an episode or two after someone got what they wanted and had their past resolved they got killed off?” Marty asked.

“Bingo,” Elli said morosely. Everyone froze again, mid unpacking of the blankets.

“I’ll take first watch,” all eight said in unison.