Author: Meg Freeman
Series: OS with minor NS xover
Rating: PG/PG-13 (for some unpleasant images and described violence)
Summary: There are bad men and there are good men and sometimes they're one in the same.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Tomorrow People. Roger Damon Price, Tetra, Thames, ITV, Nickelodeon and any other unmentioned copyright holders do. Additionally, "The Wasteland" is written by T.S. Eliot and quoted without permission. No copyright infringement on either of these was intended.
Author's Notes: Thank you to Tigger for requesting a fic in the first place. [] - denotes telepathy. Parentheses with a quote inside of them denote a flashback or memory. This piece is meant to be read as a continuing whole and while there is a split between part one and part two, that is only so that the story can be posted to the list. So if the ending of part one makes no sense, it's because the story doesn't divide evenly in any one spot, so a spot had to be chosen. Enjoy!
I. April, 1975
Sophians accuse the humans of Earth of possessing an unbearably strong odor. An unpleasant one. John took no less than twenty baths in the first five days that he was on Sophia. Hot baths, cold baths, baths with oils, baths with soaps, baths with perfumes. They even tried technology to modify his sweat glands.
Nothing helped. They came to tolerate him, because the Sophians were like that. They could learn to adjust, to mold themselves around things that they couldn't solve outright. But they still made faces.
There was just something on him that the Sophians could smell. When he walked in their cities, they parted away from him. They kept their distance. Whenever he'd shake someone's hand, they'd immediate go to bathe themselves.
And the Sophians were not the most hygenically obsessed race that John had ever met, either. They were positively filthy compared to the Braireans.
John couldn't smell a thing. But if he had to guess what it was that had the Sophians so nauseous, it would probably be this smell.
The smell of London, in the deadest part of the night, hours away from any sunlight. London in the swell of the summer, when the stink of unwashed people and their wastes and the garbage that they eat all broils together. But even worse than that is because there is just the tiniest hint of blood, of metal in it.
It's not really a physical scent, probably. The Sophians were terribly sensitive, telepathically speaking.
Violence must smell like this to them. Like being shoved face first into a garbage bin and made to inhale in big breaths of rotten food and wet cardboard and stale, standing water full of oil and unmentionably revolting things. All the things that were picked apart and destroyed and consumed by people until nothing useful or pleasant was left.
It is the smell of a peaceful man with a weapon.
John is not a man of weapons. His is a civilized man in the truest sense of that word. He believes in justice, he believes in peace.
Nevertheless, he carries one. A stun gun. Mostly harmless and mostly painless. It is still a weapon. They are not above weapons, not yet.
John would change this if he could. John would bring peace if he could.
It's been nine years since he found out he was a Tomorrow Person, since that first terrifying jaunt that left him curled up in a corner of his bedroom, shaking in the darkness and listening to the rain howl outside like a demon coming for his soul. John did not uncurl his body and relax his muscles until he woke up to the dim relief of gray light, in the puddle of his own sweat, unaware that he had slept at all. Terrified of remembering any dreams he might have had.
There is a part of him that has never relaxed since that day. Deep inside of him there is a fist that will not open.
A fist that will swing and aim for solid flesh and hope to knock it out, if he finds himself in a dark enough place with dark enough people.
Shameful, but it's the truth.
Which is why he's come here. To remind himself of something.
People misunderstand John. Stephen has decided that he's the youngest grumpy old man he's ever met. Liz knows better, but because she understand responsibility. And even she pities his inward dourness.
If Liz accuses him of being intolerant it is only because there are certain things he will not accept.
None of them, not Carol, not Kenny, not Liz, not Stephen. Nobody who knows him now remembers him when he was wild, wicked young thing. When he was all anger and fists and rebellion. When he spit and cursed and tried furiously to hit anything, to make things move, to change them. When he was so frustrated with the world and his own ability to make peace with it that it drove him nearly mad.
When he was garbage.
John knows he's in the right spot when the stink reaches a fever pitch. He doesn't see what he came seeking for a long time until he moves.
"This is mine! You may not have it, or so help me, I Jedikiah will strike you down so you never get up!"
John puts his hands in his pockets for fear of touching anything. He already is mentally preparing himself for a long, scalding shower complete with the strongest antibacterial he can find on short notice.
"I didn't come for your spot," John tells him, sounding very bored.
"You!"
Trash cans topple and garbage spills out into puddles and in the thin light of a streetlamp, a figure who is just a dark cut out shape moves to the other side of the alley. Climbs up to someone's fire escape.
"I imagine the people who live there won't fancy you outside their window," John warns him.
Jedikiah merely grunts.
"I'll destroy you all," Jedikiah laughs. He jumps off of the fire escape all together. He stumbles and falls into a puddle. John cringes to think how filthy the water is. Jedikiah shakes like a dog and John backs up lest any of the water hit him.
He's considering burning his clothes when he's through.
"No, you won't."
"I own this alley," Jedikiah. "I am king of this alley. I'll build an empire from my alley. Just you wait. Oh, they've tried to take it from me, but I am Jedikiah. That which I strike down does not rise up."
John narrows his eyes. Takes a step forward. "If I find out you've hurt anyone, things will get much worse for you."
Jedikiah laughs like a mad, howling thing. A thing. Not a person. Not an animal. Nothing living makes a sound like that.
"What? You'll kill me. Oh please, please, come and kill me, John. Kill me kill me kill me. Beat my head with a rock and shoot me and run me through and through and through."
John lets out a very short, quick breath.
"Have you gone completely mad, Jedikiah?"
"A madman on a mad world in a mad alley with a mad hat and a mad cat. What are you doing here, John?"
John lays a sack down on top of a trash can.
"I'm here because I'm a much better man than you are."
It's comforting to know that it's true. In every way. Physically, mentally, economically, genetically. John is better than this and can walk away from it. Jedikiah will toil in his mire and never leave.
Jedikiah creeps up to the top of the trash can and looks up at John. He snatches the sack away. Laughs.
"No you're not! You can't stand that you've won, can you?" Jedikiah seems terribly amused while he tears the paper sack open. "You want to believe that you are not like me, but what peaceful, tolerant being would have created such a glorious punishment, sent a living, sentient thing to such hell? If I had won, I would not come to you bearing bread."
"Which is why I'm better than you."
John turns away.
"Go on! Out of my alley! I, Jedikiah command you to be gone! I will destroy this world, I will rule all the alleys and all the dark places and these filthy beggars will be my army and we will eat you alive and you will bring us bread! You cannot save this world."
John has his stun gun drawn, unsure of whether Jedikiah is mad enough to try striking him from behind. John shudders to think that he might be knocked down and touch the ground.
II. April, 1985
"Do not bring me anymore bread," Jedikiah pleads.
He tries to push away John's gift, wrapped in a paper bag. But John sets it down in his lap.
His hands tear it open, his mouth eats. He can't help it.
"Why not?" John asks.
"I know that you cannot kill me," Jedikiah answers. "But you do not have to save me. I only ask death. You've brought me bread and medicine and I have been too weak to refuse them."
John looks surprised. "I shouldn't call that weakness. It's perfectly natural to want to survive. It's part of being alive. Even the animals want to live."
"The animals live better than this," Jedikiah says, in a voice that wavers and breaks. "When they're too sick to live, something comes to take them and it's over. They lay down and don't get up. When is this over?"
John sighs. "This is your punishment, Jedikiah. You knew this."
"Then why do you come down here, to watch me suffer? Does it satisfy you?"
John looks away, across the filthy, overgrown lot. He squints. "No, it doesn't."
"I wanted to rule this world once, but now I'm much wiser. Who would want to rule this?"
John shrugs. "John Milton once said better to be a king in hell than a slave in heaven."
"He was a fool."
John nods. "It depends on what you think of Paradise Lost. It wasn't particularly my cup of tea, but some people think it's great literature."
"Why does anyone want this?" Jedikiah asks John.
It is the first time John has ever heard Jedikiah speak so softly.
"Well, you wanted minerals and wealth."
"There are things here not meant to be seen by human eyes, but they're done by human hands. I don't understand it. It was terrible, what I saw. She screamed and she screamed, and nobody listened but me. I sat there and I listened to even though I didn't think I could. He broke her arm and she screamed. He tore all her clothes off and she cried. And then he pushed a knife into her and she passed out."
John looks alarmed. "If something had happened, you could have come to us. We would have helped."
"It was five years ago. You were not on this planet. You're rarely on this planet. You've just gone away. Besides, what would you have done? Brought her bread."
Jedikiah finally stops eating. He crumbles up the bag and sticks it underneath his coat.
"We would have helped. Called the police, located the man who did it," John tells him. For a moment, he almost reaches out to touch Jedikiah, but the fear of filth stops his hand before it gets too far. "That's what we're here for, after all. To bring peace."
"From out there?"
Jedikiah points to the sky.
"There's a lot of resources, technology and knowledge that can benefit Earth. Especially from the Trig."
Jedikiah shakes his head. "You can't save this place. Nobody can. I think it's time you let me go. You've punished me. I am sorry."
"That's not enough."
"What is?"
"When you reach it, I'll let you know."
John stands up. Jedikiah calls after him. "No more bread!"
Jedikiah limps away from the bench with the bread being squashed in the paper bag under his arm.
He sees a street girl he knows – she just goes by Candy. She's fourteen and sells her body and men like her because she's skinny and doesn't scream. Her shoes don't have any soles on them and her feet hurt so she sits against a building and keeps a watch out. When she sees a man coming, she stands up. He tears off half the bread and hands it to her before she can make him an offer.
"Eat it all," he says. "Make sure there's nothing left. Eat it so I won't."
She doesn't understand what he's saying. Or why he gives another piece of bread to the other girl who works the street. But she appreciates that it's breakfast and she was eleven the last time she had that.
III. April, 1995
John, per Jedikiah's wishes, does not bring bread. He thinks about it, about giving him food even if he himself wants to die. After all, wouldn't allowing him to die be the same as killing him?
But, Jedikiah is a mostly rational man who can decide if he wants to starve to death.
Besides, John hasn't got enough time to go find some cheap bread before he leaves for the Trig again. He just felt he ought to check up before he left, because it seems like the next session is going to last a long while. He might not get back to Earth for some time.
Not that he particularly misses it.
"Why, John, you've got gray in your hair," says Jedikiah. John turns around and sees him standing there in a ragged coat to keep out the chill spring misting.
"A side affect of being human," John replies.
"You're not young anymore," Jedikiah muses.
"Apparently not," John agrees. "I haven't got a great amount of time."
"Neither do I. It's lunch time," Jedikiah answers. "Although I'm rather surprised you didn't bring any bread. It would've been nice to have something to share."
"If I recall, you begged me not to."
Jedikiah nods, sits down next to him. "Of course. I remember. Although I was very different person then, it was a very different world. I'm glad I don't live there anymore."
John crosses his legs. "Really? So what's changed?"
Jedikiah pulls out a paper sack. "Would you be offended if I ate in front of you?"
John shakes his head and waves his hand. "No, go ahead, by all means."
"Thank you. Well, first, I've got a job. I work as a cleaner. I clean buses and windows and houses and buildings, whatever needs cleaning. I clean it," he says, proudly, as though his announcement were a shiny new Christmas present that he wanted to show the world.
"Very good," John says and he smiles. "I knew you'd eventually learn to get along."
Jedikiah wipes peanut butter from the corner of his lip. "Yes. You were right to do what you did. I can't fathom how I would have learned any other way. Would you like some pretzels?"
John refuses Jedikiah's offer of several very broken pretzels inside a ziplock bag that had quite obviously seen much better days.
"So you're cleaning, that's marvelous. Well, it was nice catching up." John stands up and tied the belt around his coat.
Jedikiah suddenly flaps his arm and holds up a finger and pointed to his mouth. He swallows as fast as he can.
"Oh, John, there's something I've meant to tell you!"
John sits back down on the bench. "What?"
"We've seen more of yours down here," says Jedikiah.
John narrows his eyes. "What?"
"Yes. Mervin saw it, about three years ago. He was out taking Mervin Junior for a walk – just gotten a new leash that day, Mervin broke the old one - and he saw this young boy getting off a bus and then later on there was all this fuss about another little boy disappearing off a bus and the government was all about. But we figured that the boy was one of yours, since he disappeared like that. We kept an eye out for him, but he never came back. We've been keeping an eye out for any of yours, just in case."
John nods. "Oh, you mean the Wilson boy? Yes. We knew about that."
"Oh, good, then you've fixed it."
"No, we didn't. We couldn't."
Jedikiah seems shocked. "Well that doesn't make any sense."
John takes a long breath. "I haven't got a long time to discuss it, but there were reasons. We couldn't interfere, otherwise we would have."
Jedikiah gives John a knowing look and a wizened nod. "Of course. Well, we'll continue to keep an eye out for them."
There was silence between them. John continued to sit on the bench. He checked his watch. He had plenty of time. Jedikiah continued to eat.
"I think I may have misunderstood, but you said Mervin keeps his son on a leash?" asks John, in lieu of anything important to say.
"You mean Mervin Junior?" asks Jedikiah.
"Yes."
Jedikiah laughs. Not in the same empty, horrible manner he had when John came bearing bread twenty years ago, but something more human. "Oh, heavens no. Mervin Junior's his turtle."
John blinks. A lot. "He keeps his *turtle* on a leash?"
"I should hope so. I mean, turtles don't have terribly keen sense of direction. Mervin Junior could go wandering into the street and then where he be?"
"Of course. And Mervin Junior broke his leash?"
"Well, he's a very spirited turtle, you see," Jedikiah replies. John nodded and tried not to think too hard about it, although he suspects that it will probably nag at him and distract him all the way through the council debriefing. "The children really like Mervin Junior."
"You have children?" John asks, boggling and trying to figure out exactly what type of woman Jedikiah would attract.
Jedikiah laughs. "No! Of course not. The children that I take to the playground. You see, a lot of the girls who live in my building they don't have anywhere to take their children. So they stay with Mervin and I for a while. We take them to the playgrounds while we clean them – we try to clean as many as we can at night, so they're ready in the morning. He takes Mervin Junior along. Mervin Junior's good with children."
"Do you think it's proper?"
"Proper?" asks Jedikiah. "What do you mean?"
"Well, leaving children with two strange men."
"We're not strange. Well, all right, Mervin's a bit peculiar, but he wouldn't hurt a fly. Not even a fly. As for me, well, it's only appropriate. After all, I know what kind of things out there would hurt those children. I used to be one of them. So who better to keep them safe? It seems like it's not nearly enough, sometimes. But it's the best I can do. I can keep the playgrounds clean, I can keep them in my house, I can give them bread and bedtime stories. You can't save the world, John, but you can save the people in it. I think."
IV. April, 2005
John waits for an hour. He'd sent a letter to Jedikiah's home address. It's half past five. Jedikiah is nowhere to be seen.
A sick and suspicious feeling curls up in John's stomach.
He stays until a quarter to six. And as he is about to leave, a man with a turtle on a leash comes slowly walking towards him.
"Mervin?" asks John, standing up. "You're a friend of Jedikiah?"
Mervin gives him a strange look. "Ohh, y'mean Jed? Right-o. I didn't know his full name was Jedikiah. Wot an odd name to give a child. I would've named him Edgar or Philbert or something, but wot's done is done."
John nods and reminded himself that he still has time. "I suppose that's Mervin Junior."
Mervin shakes his head and puts his hand over his heart. "No. God rest Mervin Junior's soul. This is Mervin the third, his heir apparent."
John looks down at the turtle. "Well, hello, Mervin the Third."
Mervin the Third opens his turtle mouth and sticks out his tongue a bit and then stares for a while.
"You haven't heard about Jed, then, have y' mate?" Mervin inquires.
"No, I'm afraid not, I was supposed to be meeting him."
"Where've you been? Jed's in hospital," Mervin tells him. "Poor bloke. He couldn't help himself I guess. Did what he had to, but the other bloke was bigger."
John sits down on the bench and feels disappointed, felt hollow. "So he's violent again. I suppose I should have expected it."
Mervin cocks his head. "Well, I would've been violent, too. He's a hero, y'know. A real hero. If he hadn't. Well, I shudder to think, I do."
"What?"
"Yeah. This weird chap, name's Crabby, used to hang around the playgrounds. Mervin the Second never liked him. Bit him twice. Tried to warn us. And I still think it was him killed Mervin the Second. Upset all the children."
Mervin stops talking and John waits until it becomes clear that Mervin is finished.
"Yes, of course, it's a terrible tragedy. What happened to Jedikiah?"
"Oh, right, then. So Crabby was hangin' about and he didn't do no harm so we let him stay. Took all these pictures and we just thought he was some nutsy art student. Then one day we can't find little Jake, the kid with the gimpy leg. We thought he'd gotten himself stuck in a tree or in one of the statues in the park, y'know the funny ones that ain't supposed to be of anything, the ones the kids crawl all in and out of?"
"Yes. Continue, please"
"Well, then, we couldn't find Jake. So Jed went to find Crabby, see if he'd seen anything. The door wasn't locked and Jed heard Jake's voice and in he went. Mate, what was happenin' was somefing God didn't never intend. I'll tell you that. Jake didn't have no clothes on."
Mervin gets very quiet. Tears come to his eyes.
"And?"
"Jed saved him. Crabby would've killed him. Little Jake, with the gimpy leg, just killed him. He was a nice boy! He didn't hurt nobody and he liked Mervin the Third and he got stuck in trees because he liked to climb them and he let the other kids play with his braces and Crabby would've just killed him." Mervin's tears turning into gritted teeth and an angry grunt. "Well, Jed just wouldn't stand for it. He gave that bastard what was coming to him. Jake limped all the way down to the playground, naked and bleedin' and cryin'. And can you believe it, a little boy with a bad leg was naked and bleedin' and screamin' and not one person stopped to help him. I gave him my coat and when we got there, Crabby was gone. Jed was just layin' there. Doctor's say there's nothing for it. If I ever get my hands on Crabby, so help me, he'll wish Jed had killed. He'll wish his *muver* had never been born!"
John hugs himself against the cold. He can't remember April ever being this cold before.
"What hospital?" asks John. Mervin tells him. "Thank you, Mervin. I'm glad I know what happened."
"You'll help him, then?"
"I'll see what I can do," says John.
John arrives at the hospital at twenty to seven and had TIM look up Jed's patient record so he won't have to bother asking a nurse. Once TIM gives him the room number. John finds a quiet, deserted restroom and jaunts.
The room smells so starkly clean that it knocks John back. So starkly clean it is disgusting. It smells of alcohol and medicine and plastic and hospital disinfectants and startchy hospital sheets.
John looks over Jedikiah, who is lit only by the television that is muted by the person on the other side of the curtain. He reflects pale, pale electric blue. He is thin and old and completely white haired.
("Why John, you've got gray in your hair")
Jedikiah does not open his eyes, but he speaks. His voice is thin and rough as the sheets when he says, "Mervin?"
"No. It's me, John."
Jedikiah takes three and four and five breaths that don't sound like breathing at all and then says, with fierce urgency despite the whisper quiet tone of his voice, "You've got to help, John. He'll hurt other children, he must be stopped. Please. I know you hate the world, John, but you must. Crabby will hurt the children. It doesn't matter about me anymore. Help them."
John pulls a chair up and it scratches against the floor so loud that he winces. He sits down.
"Mervin told me everything," John says. "Crabby will be taken care of, I can promise you that."
Again, Jedikiah breathes, but certainly easier than he had before. He breathes like air is beginning to get through. "Thank you."
John sits there for a moment, and isn't precisely sure where it comes from or why – which is strange because John is such a deliberate person - but he says, "We have the technology to heal you, restore you fully."
Jedikiah smiles. "There was a time when I wanted to be king and then I wanted to die. I still think I'd like to be king."
"Some things don't change, I suppose."
"If I was king, I'd fix the world so it didn't need to be saved. The playgrounds would always be clean and the children would climb on those statues and never fall and when they do that John, they're like flowers, popping their heads out and laughing at me. Like flowers. If I was king, they'd grow...I think I want to stay. To see how they grow up and turn out and to clean things up, because the world is so dirty and I don't think anyone but Mervin and I and you know and who will clean it up? I think I want to stay, John."
He stops and coughs.
"I'll talk to the others and see what we can do."
"You think they'd agree, after everything?"
"You're a different man, Jedikiah."
"But I am still Jedikiah. I am still the man who did those things. They may not want me to live."
"I don't see why."
"It would be one less mess. Which I have always thought was a good thing."
John jaunts away. He finds Liz, Tricia, and Andrew in the newly finished Lab, playing cards.
John gets the feeling that Andrew was winning. They turn to him, all of them smiling.
"Want to play the next round?" Liz asks. "Someone's got to teach Andrew a lesson."
John shakes his head. He sits down on the stairs in front of the jaunting pad and puts his hands in front of his face like he's praying. He tells them, "Jedikiah is dying."
They put their cards down. Their emotions roll over him and he expects sympathy, surprise, sadness.
But there is a sour edge of satisfaction to their thoughts. He can sense it. They are satisfied.
"Well then, we'll have some sherry," says Tricia.
John stares at the floor. "I think we should save his life."
He stands up again and looks at them. They look around amongst themselves.
"What for?" Andrew asks. "He's dangerous."
"Not anymore. He's a different man now," John says. "He was badly beaten trying to save a child's life. I think he's earned it."
"Oh really," Tricia says, standing up. "And since when did your heart start bleeding all over the place? I happen to remember that he would have killed us all, god knows what he would have done to the people of this world, to other worlds. He has to pay for that, John. Don't you dare help him now just because you feel sorry. He deserves every bit of this."
("Then why do you come down here, to watch me suffer? Does it satisfy you?") John blinks away the memory, tries to pay attention, but can only think that his answer is that he is not at all satisfied. And it is, appropriately, Liz's voice that brings him back.
Tricia is still talking. She's about to say "He is -"
But Liz interrupts her and finishes her sentence. "John's responsibility. We've stayed out of it. None of us took him bread and none of us kept up with him, so it's hardly fair that any of us gets to decide his fate. Yes, he was dangerous, and yes he tried to harm us. But we stripped his power and sent him out into the world. We're not victims anymore. We've gotten our justice. It's not up to us."
"Elizabeth!" Tricia protests.
"It's John's decision," Liz says. She touches John's arm gently. "He'll do what's right."
John nods.
"So what are you going to do?" Andrew asks.
John steps onto the jaunting pad. "I'll tell you once I've decided."
John goes back to the bench where he'd met Mervin earlier that evening. He stares into nothing and he thinks.
He thinks about Jedikiah when he was evil. He thinks about the vicious, mad man who taunted him and was king of a filthy alley way. He thinks about the man who begged for death and refused bread and the man who cleaned playgrounds and the man who wanted to save a lame child.
Then he starts to think about himself.
He starts to think that once upon a time, he was young and vicious and nearly mad like Jedikiah. Once upon a time, he was very dangerous.
John is lucky. He was a Tomorrow Person, so he hasn't done any true damage. Only smashed a few lamps and run away once or twice.
And then John thinks the most peculiar thought he'd ever had.
What if he'd been a robot and Jedikiah had been a Tomorrow Person? Because they are not so different. John may not understand cruelty or killing, but he does understand the rage that comes with refusing to be helpless, refusing to accept things the way they are. He understands the need to have power - for different reasons than Jedikiah's were, but power nonetheless.
John walks until he finds an alley way to duck into and for a moment thinks about the fact that not thirty years ago, Jedikiah used to live in alleys. That perhaps there is another Jedikiah hiding behind the trash cans, eating garbage.
He jaunts into the empty stairwell between floors in the hospital and races down towards the floor where Jedikiah is. When he gets there, the room is empty. The man on the other side of the curtain still has the TV on mute.
John pushes aside the curtain.
"What room have they moved him to?" askes John.
The man who has his arms and his legs in a cast flips the channel and says, "Oh, sorry, mate. He passed on not twenty minutes ago. Quite a show. They took his body down to the morgue."
John puts the curtain back and stares at the empty bed for a moment. Then he jaunts back to the Lab.
Andrew, Tricia, and Liz all look at him with expecting eyes.
"Jedikiah is dead," says John, walking away from them.
For the first time in a long time, John feels the fist inside of him clench so tight that it hurts.
V. April, 2015
John thought that lilies were especially appropriate, considering that it was Easter and that they were abundantly cheap and that they were peace lillies.
He lays them down on Jedikiah's grave. The headstone reads Jedikiah Smith. Smith had been Mervin's idea.
John is about to walk away when he notices a woman, wearing a black shirt and a white blouse, carrying white roses, coming towards Jedikiah's grave. She says nothing when she lays the flowers down. She stands beside him.
Then she says, "It seems like it ought to have ended better."
John agrees. "I suppose so. But this is how it ended."
"I think we met once, at a fundraiser," says the woman. John can't recall having seen her until he thinks for a moment. "Mr..."
"Call me John," he says.
She extends her hand. John shakes it. "Right. John. I'm on the board of trustees for the Jedikiah foundation. You know, for someone who donates so generously, you don't stick around much for the free food."
John smiles just a little. "If I did, then it really wouldn't be free food, would it?"
"Guess not. So, you were a friend of his. It's hard to believe a guy who cleaned building and windows for a living had so much money, but he turned it into a goldmine. I guess he just had a way of getting wealthy, huh?"
"Yes, he did."
The woman's voice lowers in tone. It isn't so bright or formal. "But it was more than that."
"How well did you know him?"
"Pretty well. See, there was this girl once and she was a street girl and one day Jed gave her bread and that was the day she finally stopped doing that, went to a shelter, got back into school. And then, when she had to go to classes and work two job, he took care of her son. And when a child molester came after her son, Jed saved his life. "
John frowns to remember. "Horace Crabapple."
"And then, when he died he left so much money that someone with business know how had to manage it, had to make sure it got used right."
"So, is this woman a friend of yours."
The woman smiles, sniffled and says, "I guess I should reintroduce myself. I'm Candy."
John nods. "Of course."
"I need to get going," Candy says. "It's nice to know that Mervin and I aren't the only ones who remember him."
John nods. Candy walks off and eventually John walks towards his car. He sits inside and doesn't start the car for a long time. Because inside, he can feel that clenched fist start to unclench just a little.
John starts the car.
[TIM, tell the Trig ambassador that I won't be returning to Mortang with him,] John telepaths, slowly making his way out of the cemetery.
[Oh, really? And what explanation shall I give him?]
[Tell him that I'm going to stay on Earth for a while, see if I can clean things here up a bit. Oh, and see if you can track down those two boys from the bus back in 1992. I think we have a lot to discuss.]
- END -