“While no additional charges have been filed against UDP leadership or members beyond the alleged direct assassins in the three weeks since election day, the investigation into the attempt on Senator-elect Graham continues……”
Outwardly, Brett didn’t sigh in frustration. He was attempting to enjoy the beautiful fall day in the park William had forced his developers to include when he purchased and began building several of the surrounding blocks near the Paragon Center. This “block” had been one of the more elaborate and costly gentrification projects, and the one where Oliver Smith had “purchased” a third level condo, the highest level in this section, and a corner one at that. Brett didn’t know how much profit the entire area was generating the section of William’s company that dealt with real estate, nor did he really care. What he did understand was that it was relatively full, that even many of the other blocks had more rent controlled spaces for various incomes, and that all of them included open grassy areas or “nature” to some extent. All of which led to Brett to conclude that there was no doubt that William was human, with a great big beating heart inside whatever his body was made of, regardless of how much he annoyed him sometimes, and also especially regardless of what William thought of himself quite often. Brett often wondered, privately of course, whether his own bruised soul could ever be able to generate half as much kindness.
“No comment has been made by Silver Spider or any member of the Alliance about the other Homecon team who appeared on the scene at the pub to rescue then Commissioner…….”
The loud pop as the rugby training ball collapsed under the strength of his fingers brought his mind back to the situation at hand, especially when combined with a half whine, half shouted, “Daaaaad!”
“Sorry,” he yelled back, before bending over and grabbing the other ball at his feet and tossing it towards his 
daughter twenty meters away. Fortunately, on this relatively cool day, at least to normal humans, nobody was out in the park as dusk neared.
“Just awesome, we have to play with the weighted ball now?” she complained.
“I’ll get a couple more tomorrow. Besides, its good for you to….”
“Yea, yea, builds strength, hand-eye coordination, yadayadayada….I know Dad. This is supposed to be for fun!”
As he caught the pretty accurate toss from his daughter, even with the weighted ball, he yelled back, “Want to go for a run instead?”
“Nooooo……but can we go scuba diving tomorrow again?”
“Sure, I can go into work in the afternoon instead.”
“Cool,” she said, throwing a lame duck pass all the way to the right, “but we can race to the apartment. Now!” and she was off…..knowing he wouldn’t leave the ball behind.
Laughing, he picked it up and then paused again, something tickling at the edge of memory, a familiar scent, but he couldn’t quite place it although he opened his mouth, letting the scent play over the forked tongue, ‘tasting’ a dry electronic scent, like burnt lightning, although he never really could describe the smells he was now used to getting, years after having been transformed. He looked around, but couldn’t see anyone, and jogged to the building and up the stairs to the dinner he could smell waiting on them.
When the screams echoed through his mind, he woke from yet another nightmare. What the screams came from was almost irrelevant, because screams, horrors and death always interrupted his sleep, the little sleep that he could ever get.
As he shuddered awake, he reached for the woman laying curled up beside him, and for a moment the blonde hair distracted him, thinking he remained in the dream state, but then her scent wafted across his tongue, along with the more distant scent of his daughter in the other bedroom. He stilled for a moment, searching his senses to determine if something had woken him other than the recurring horrors, but it had been nothing, or at least nothing more than ozone of the television in Olivia’s room finally shutting off from its timer.
He glanced at the clock on the night stand, which reflected a 3:35 AM, and for once, he had gotten almost 
three hours of sleep. Whatever Amelia was doing was having a benefit, but as he rolled towards the edge of the bed, she woke, rolling over and reaching out a hand towards him, with a murmured, “Brett?”
“Its nothing, just another dream. Go back to sleep, I am going to go for a run.”
He could tell that she continued to gaze at him as he quickly dressed in workout gear, and even then he strapped on concealed shoulder holster with a light jacket over it. He was going to sweat no matter what, and people still feared a gun more than the Homecons, plus a gun represented a known quantity and was actually less likely to get the police called, even in California.
Any kind of workout let him relax, probably more so than meditation. Nothing of course relaxed him more than being in the zone on the range, but……
He’d been annoyed with his brothers earlier. He’d gone to them for advice, which of course had been idiotic. He was the older one, he should be the one to offer advice, not search it out from a couple of knuckleheads who didn’t know shit. Bryce just floated from one partner to another, and Brant acted like a god damn fucking martyr monk, apparently not having consummated his lust with Whitley and having fucked up his relationship with Henri. So why in the hell he’d asked them for advice on somehow fixing his god damn mess with Shawna and Amelia at the same time was beyond stupid. Asking Henri was off the table, William was a mess, so frankly that left Whitley and, well, he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear what she had to say. Bryce’s asinine “You can only be ‘in love’ with one woman” proved the point that he was no god damn help. He loved two women, was ‘in love” with two women, who shared amazing fucking similarities like toughness and loyalty and, well, “Fuck…” he screamed into the night, before continuing running. He had even suggested that he retire to raise his daughter. He knew then the idea was impossible but he floated it, thinking he owed Amelia and Olivia more of a life than being isolated on yet another god damn army base, this one with absolutely nobody to interact with and an even bigger target on them.
As he came back to awareness, he realized that he had ran the five miles to Henri’s neighborhood in less than thirty minutes. Not only her neighborhood, but her building. It couldn’t hurt to make sure she was…..ok. And alone.
Hell, even if he hadn’t been a past master at infiltration, or a generic human anymore, he also had installed the damned security system. So it really didn’t take much to sneak onto the balcony/deck combination. He’d argued against her keeping the panoramic view out the back, but why listen to the security expert. In theory the motion lights and the cameras installed would pick up any intruders, but….well, he knew where they were and he wasn’t an infiltrator, not technically. Lastly, he had the override codes. But all that were subliminal thoughts.
Henri hadn’t been home much in the last few weeks, he knew that. As a result, her scents, especially outdoors 
had become muted, especially in comparison to……her. He watched as she pounded away at some urban combat game on the big screen television they had installed a couple years ago, one that he didn’t think Henri had ever actually used. How she was dressed at around four in the morning, and a half empty Johnny Walker Blue bottle on the coffee table in front of her drew him like the proverbial moth to the flame.
He almost, almost, knocked. Ever worse, he almost forced his way inside. Her scent drove him wild, the site of the tumbled black and purple hair, the familiarity of her ranting at the video game, until conscious thought reminded him that he had already fucked up that relationship, with no way forward to recover. Absently he thought that she had gotten him to almost the same amount of nightly sleep as Amelia had recently, until he lost her again, lost her long before he betrayed her loyalty, their love. He didn’t know how to explain it to either Shawna or Amelia. Not really. Perhaps if he’d studied mythology and the old legends more, but they were both warrior goddesses. Strong, violent when necessary, passionate. If they differed from there with Amelia adding the kindness and caring of a healer and mother, Shawna continuing to draw on the fire of entertainment, song and grape, what did it matter? He was ashamed that he wanted them both, wanted them to share him, to both be in his life. That he wanted to somehow be worthy of them both, and still raise a daughter he thought lost to him for years. That down deep, deep inside, as much as he feared the future and the danger to anybody related to him, that he wanted more children, with them both as mothers. That had not been how he had been raised, nor did society approve and yet he knew what he wanted. Buried deep in his subconscious was the hint of a thought of the next generation of superheroes, bound by powers and familial ties, led by the fearless Red Widow.
In the distance he heard a scream, a slight scream, and he turned in that direction to see if he could isolate it. He might not be a true hero, but hearing a woman scream meant he had least had to look. Of course, the scream hadn’t been “real” but his troubled mind was having problems distinguishing fact from fiction, and he ran in the direction his senses discerned, the faint ozone of burnt electricity in the air.
When he returned to Oliver Smith’s apartment that night, he spoke a greeting absently to Officer Whitaker and her fiancée, Aliyeah something or other as they ran by.
He knew they lived in the complex a couple blocks away. He’d been annoyed at the Alliance meeting, on edge because it meant being in the same room as her. He deserved her anger, her hatred even, regardless of what he felt. Lots of questions bedeviled him when he couldn’t sleep, and frankly any time he was awake that Olivia and her energy, and his joy of being around her, didn’t distract him, or Amelia in a host of other ways. And yet he was angry at Shawna too, as irrational as it probably was. He knew he shouldn’t be, but frankly, if he ever had been able to be cold and logical, rational in the face of threats, he no longer had such control. He bounced from emotion to emotion, even if is face remained stoic, his actions and words no longer did. He’d lost her to those fucking clowns, then to that god damned Experion and alternate timeline, or whatever it was since it might as well have been magic. To discover that she and that fucking Guggenheim might even have been a couple, he thought he had gotten over that. But then again with the fucking witches. Would of it mattered if she hadn’t been in a coma when he was trying to reconnect with Amelia, to get access to his daughter? He didn’t know, and he damn sure hadn’t been able to have that conversation. He knew it was his fault, and yet it didn’t matter. Anger and guilt are never rational. He’d argued that he and his family should live elsewhere, that maybe the Alliance would be better off if his family had a more normal life if he left, and was there to protect them. At least he thought he did. Even Shawna had expressed disdain at that.
When he got home and walked in the door, it would have been obvious to an idiot that Whitley had been there, and regardless of how on edge he had been, he really wasn’t an idiot. Not really. It had been a foregone conclusion, one which he had even acknowledged before they came back to the apartment. It had taken a long time, well, not really, but it sounded better for him to bow to the logic Amelia presented to him. It’s not like he remembered ever really being in control of his life, whatever he may have thought when he was a teenager, why argue now.
When they went back to the base on Friday, he was still arguing against the parade though, something kept bothering him about the sudden public affirmation. And he took it out on Shawna, and everyone with his obstinacy and arguments. And yet sat patiently while Whitley explained to everyone, but especially Amelia that he couldn’t make a damn decision to save his life, except under the threat of combat.
They had clothes and furniture to move back, but it didn’t really matter, as they stayed at the base that night, one of the barracks rooms for him and Amelia, one for Olivia with everyone agreeing they should come back, even a bitter Shawna agreed for the kid, and that he should build more living quarters away from the rest. So, isolated and not. For once Olivia was even subdued but excited with whatever Brant had told her while the adults argued.
Whatever night activities Amelia normally contributed to his sleep success, Friday night he slept less than thirty minutes. When he finally gave up from the horrors of the machine apocalypse and burning bridges across San Diego in his dreams, he got up and sat alternatively watching his daughter in one room, his former fiancée in another, and wishing that a third was there as well.
He’d known the parade had been a horrible idea. Why wouldn’t it be? When the explosions echoed across the bridge, the brief gouts of flame triggered some sort of memory, one he didn’t have time to check on. By some miracle they rescued everyone, from the blimp, from the bridge, from the panic of the parade when someone realized it had all been a very deadly distraction or ruse.
When Titan broadcast the surveillance video to their various streaming devices, the video display in the “sunglasses” he had donned rocked him.
Now he knew what had been bothering him, or at least aggravating his already troubled soul. The burnt electronics scent, the burning battles, the monstrous machines from what he had thought to be his traumatized mind and past…..Experion had returned, and no one, no memory, no person, no family, no love…..was safe. Anger burned as he realized that his black moods had made him miss the signs of a returned threat once again. He couldn’t lose Bryce again, but he’d come to realize that there were more important people that he couldn’t lose. Not and have any remnant of sanity and peace within.
Last Dreams 