Explanations

Who: Dean, his parents and a tiny appearance by Lullaby
Where: England
When: Morning

The flight had been long, and Dean had got exactly no sleep - the general, albeit quiet, hubbub of humanity around him had been enough to keep him awake. Allowing for time differences, he landed back in Britain at largely the same point of the clock as Sophie had woken him up the day before. Losing five hours, he decided, was a mind-fuck as he zombied his way through passport control and customs and was near enough mugged by his father, who was the appointed parent to come collect his son from arrivals at sparrows fart of a dark morning.

He'd excused himself to his room as soon as he'd got home. Scott was still about and he wanted to talk to his parents without his brother listening in, so 'unpacking' had seemed a good way to go until the brat went off to school. That had, at least, been the plan until he'd hefted his case up to his room.

Or... What had been his room. Now - now he didn't know what it was. His bed was gone, the wallpaper - everything had been painted, the furniture completely replaced. Looking round, suddenly it didn't seem like his parents had sent his Lego and all his other toys and bits over to be nice, but because they'd wanted to turn their eldest son's room into a guest room. That had been a shock to the system. And one not alleviated that much by the realisation, as he sank down onto the kingsized bed that now took pride of place in his former haven, that the bed he had to sleep in now would be a damn site more comfortable than the small twin one he'd had before he left.

That had been a couple of hours ago now. He'd sat up there. He'd got used to the strangely decorated, familiar-shaped environment that had once been his room. He'd texted Thia to say he'd arrived. He'd waited for Scott to piss off and go to school. He'd even taken a shower, changed, shaved. And now - now he'd walked downstairs to talk to his parents.

He'd never been so nervous in his entire life. So much rested on this. He'd gone over it time and time again in his head.

It took him a while to actually be able to get his parents sitting and serious in the same room. There'd been lots of 'catching up' and 'questions' - things that they cared about but which he just knew he had to get through. There'd been cooing over his hair, his general appearance, over the fact he'd apparently grown an inch or two (which, in such a short time, he thought was laughable, but his mother was convinced). Other things he was sure were just in their imaginations. There'd been questions about his schooling, information that he knew he had to, eventually, thank Sophie for, because he could tell from random things they said that she'd been preparing the groundwork for him coming home, even if they didn't seem to realise that. But, eventually, he got them sitting and listening.

Dean looked at his parents for a minute, before he started. "I need to talk to you about something," he began, making himself talk slowly and trying to sound mature and responsible. It helped that this subject meant a lot to him – it gave the whole thing a gravity that he really needed right now. "And it’s probably going to be complicated, but I need you to listen to me."

Dean’s father took on a slightly worried look as he frowned, wondering what he was about to hear. Because being sat down by your eldest son when he’d just returned from living in another country and being faced with... whatever this was – something serious at the very least, looking at his expression and countenance – well, that didn’t exactly bode well.

"It’s okay – it’s nothing bad," Dean reassured them, hastily as he saw the looks on both their faces. He passed, took a breath and went on. "You remember Thia?" he asked, first and foremost, though he doubted he’d get a negative response to that one.

"Your friend, the one who died," his mother confirmed, as confused and cautious as her husband right now. "Yes, of course we do – did they ever find out who killed her?" she asked. That had been awful for her son – she remembered the day he’d called. So young, shot. Truly terrible.

"Yes, we found out who killed her," Dean confirmed, nodding as he leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, propping himself up in one of his habitual position.

"Are the police involved now?" Keith, Dean’s father, asked, raising an eyebrow. Was that what this was all about? The death of the girl, a murder investigation.

Dean shook his head. "No – no, the police aren’t involved," he admitted, quietly, his eyes flicking between his two parents.

"Whyever not?" Vicky, his mother, asked, sounding surprised about that. That seemed to be the natural thing to do and she couldn’t understand why the police hadn’t been called if they knew who had killed her. She wondered if her son was in some kind of trouble, that he’d not want proper justice for his dead friend.

"Because we don’t know where the guy is," Dean told them, figuring that this was going to have to be the way in. He just hoped he could handle it right. He sat up a little straighter. "Because she was murdered – or, it might be more accurate to say she was assassinated. Someone was paid to kill her," he explained through the shocked looks of his parents, finding that he was remarkably calm about all of this, when it really got down to it. "Her father had her killed," he ended, stopping there, because he anticipated that wasn’t going to go down too well.

"What? Why? What makes you think such a thing?" Keith exclaimed in disbelief. He couldn’t imagine it – what father would ever wish harm on their child? Let alone want her dead? That made no sense and he looked again at his son. His son who had returned home looking, sounding, acting so differently – who’d seemed to have grown up so much in the past few months. But, right now, Keith began to question all of that, if the boy would make such wild accusations.

"Because he admitted it," Dean told his father, seriously, not backing down at all, continuing on in the same calm manner. He felt almost detached right now, relaying the truth, the little potted version of events. It was strange, odd, but there was no room for fuck ups here. No place for his usual brand of garbled half-sentences and snap reactions. He’d been planning this for too long. "And why? Because at some point in her life. We don’t know when. Without her knowledge. Without her consent. Without her request or involvement in any way. Thia’s father cast a spell on her."

"A spell. Magic?" Vicky asked, somewhat sceptically. She didn’t know how much she believed in magic.

Dean turned to his mother. "Yes. Magic," he confirmed, disappointed at her response, really. He’d hoped... Well, he’d hoped that given everything, his parents would be rather more open than that. "Is it that hard to believe?" he asked, setting the lights of the room to flickering for a moment or to, then looking pointedly round. "You already know there’s lots of odd things in the world. So, yes – magic."

Keith shared a look with his wife, still unsure about whether this was just a tall tale or not. It seemed unbelievable, but then again, a lot of what they’d seen from their eldest child seemed that way, but that didn’t make it any less true. "Why would he cast a spell on her and then kill her though?" he asked, taking over the conversation from his wife.

"Because the spell he did on her needed her to die for it to become active," Dean said, knowing they were drawing very close to the point of this whole thing.

"What did it do?" Keith asked, unable to imagine what the motivation behind all of this. He was still mostly stuck on the idea that someone would kill their child. What kind of a monster killed their own child?

Dean took a breath, his heart hammering as he reached the point of no return. He sent a silent prayer to whoever or whatever might just be listening, before going onwards. "It made her immortal," he said, simply. Okay, so it wasn’t strictly the truth, but it was a simplified version of the truth and Dean figured that keeping things simple where he possibly could right now was a good plan.

Vicky caught on to what Dean was saying before her husband died. "...She’s not dead." It was a statement. Definitely a statement as Dean watched some of the colour fade from his mother’s cheeks. "But... You went to her funeral."

"I know – I know I did and I thought she was, did for days, but – no, she’s not dead. She’s alive and living and breathing – but everyone thinks she’s dead," Dean told them, still praying that this would go alright.

"But – why?" Keith asked, frowning.

The look Dean gave his father was almost pitying, though he reined that in. "Because people don’t rise from the dead. Not without having to answer a whole host of questions and be faced with a barrage of people who don’t understand," he told them. "For the same reason we never told anyone about what I could do."

"People don’t understand, Keith," Vicky said, quietly, considering this. She didn’t know if she understood either, but she was trying. She’d seen what happened when people blindly refused to accept what was before them. Her sister, Sophie’s mother, had been one such person and she’d lost a daughter over it. Vicky wasn’t going to be losing her son, and if understanding what he was telling them was what was needed to prevent that, then she was going to understand.

"Yes - but we’re not talking about being able to turn off a light switch – we’re talking about a girl who came back from the dead!" Keith protested. This was just all too much to get his head around.

Dean turned his attention to his mother, cluing into the fact that she was doing better with this whole thing than his father was. His dad seemed to be on the verge of having a minor mental breakdown over it, which really wasn’t a good sign.

"They don’t understand," he agreed with his mum. "And what they don’t understand is that she’s still the same girl. I know her, I really do – and then, now, she’s still her. Inside, it’s still her. And she still looks the same and – she’s still the same girl. She just... There’s more there now." He turned to his father, hoping he’d get support from his mum in this now, because he figured he was going to need it. "She’s still her," Dean reiterated. "She’s still her and none of that has changed. When she died, when he had her killed, she became what’s called a fade..."

"There’s a name for it?" Keith asked, again surprised by that, but it seemed he was generally going to be surprised by everything at the moment.

"Yes, there’s a name for it. There usually is," Dean said, biting back a momentary irritation at that. "Like there’s a name for what I am, I discovered. I'm a Disruptor. Most people who can do other things - there's names for all of them. And Thia's a fade - because one of the things she can do is just that. She can fade - into shadows, or just generally with some concentration. It's just an ability she has," he explained, trying to make it sound commonplace, nothing too special or anything they should be overly surprised about. He decided that this was a good time to sell up some of the more positive points as well and continued on before either of them had a chance to say anything more. "She can do lots of things now - like... Like, she can heal people. Properly heal people. If I'm hurt, she can take my injuries from me, so I'm all better," he told them, which garnered a look of surprise from his father and one of pure interest from his mother. "It's - it's not that simple. Nothing's ever that simple," he admitted. "She - she takes them herself, so, like - if I, say, fell and broke my arm or something? She could mend it - but she'd end up with a broken arm..."

"Well - that's no good then, is it?" Vicky pointed out, shaking her head. It seemed a rather pointless thing to be able to do, something that could have been so good, but with such side effects...

Dean smiled a little. "That's what I keep trying to tell her, but she's kinda decided that it's worth it," he said, his expression softening a little as he shared that little part of their relationship with his parents. "...She takes care of me," he explained. "In... so many ways. It's..." he ducked his head a little and coloured slightly.

As he looked away, his parents shared a look, a silent moment of communication as they both realised what this was about. And acknowledged that their son was right - things weren't simple. Especially not with that look on his face as he talked about a girl who by all rights should be six feet under right now. But neither of them said anything to Dean, letting him continue on at his own pace, wanting to know what he would say about this situation.

"...We take care of each other," Dean continued. "She's my best friend, but..." And here came the lie - the one he really wished was true, that he hoped maybe one day would be true, but it was still a lie. "...It's more than that. We started dating a while ago. And - really, she's lovely, you'll adore her I know you will," he told them, smiling a little wider this time as he looked across.

"Well, maybe, one day you can bring her over," Vicky reassured her son, thinking that she'd sit him down over the next few days and have a nice long chat about things, when he was feeling more relaxed and less jetlagged and they could have a proper talk.

Here goes nothing, Dean thought to himself as he took a breath. "Well, I actually wanted her to come and stay now," he told them, seriously, looking from one to the other to catch their reactions.

"...now?" Vicky asked, stepping in there before her husband, who had actually opened his mouth to speak. "But - she... Sophie didn't say anything about it. And there was only you on the flight, right? There wasn't..."

"No, no," Dean reassured them, quickly. "And Sophie didn't say anything because I asked her not to - we thought it best if I talked to you about everything first, rather than just, y'know, well, yeah. It's - it's not easy to explain and, so, yeah. But - Thia's been living with us for a few months now, so she's still with Sophie and Oz, but - I'd like her to come over. Please?" he asked, looking hopeful.

"You've been living with your girlfriend?" his father asked, finally getting a word in there. If that was the case, that certainly put a different spin on things. He wasn't sure what kind of a spin that was, but he definitely wanted to meet the girl if they were that serious - and for heaven's sake, his son was only sixteen! Surely he was a little young for that kind of commitment.

"Erm..." Dean wondered how to answer that question. Would it make a difference? After all, yes, he was living with her - but not in that way. But then again, she wasn't really his girlfriend either, so it would just be compounding the lie and he was okay with that if it accomplished his ends. "Yeah, I guess," he told them. "So - can she come stay then?" he asked, moving on to try and get back to the subject at hand.

"We'll have to see - I assume she's got money for a plane ticket?" Vicky asked, wondering on the logistics of this. But, at least they'd have some time to sort things out - it would have to be booked and she'd have time to talk to Sophie and really find out what was going on here. In fact, ringing her niece was high on her list of priorities for the day now.

"Well, no," Dean told them. "But - that's... See..." Possibly he should have addressed this topic earlier. But, too late now. He pressed onwards. "You see, the thing is that you know I was talking about abilities earlier on? And that she can fade into shadows and stuff? Well, it's a bit like that - she can fade into mirrors as well, but - she can use them to travel. Like, from one mirror to another," he explained, thinking that he could be making this clearer. The one thing he didn't really want to get into was trying to explain about the inbetween.

His parents looked at him, blankly and he caught that, taking a breath and trying again. "You could think of it like teleportation, I suppose," he told them. "She can move from one place to another. Mirrors are, for her, like gateways - an instant travel from one mirror, to another." He reached into his pocket and pulled out the small, compact mirror she'd given him. "She just has to know where she's going." He opened the mirror and set it down on the coffee table, facing them. "So, I have this one. And when I call her and tell her that it's okay, she can use this mirror to travel here."

Keith looked at the tiny mirror, then up at his son. "But - how? It's... Nobody could fit through that," he pointed out. That just wasn't possible, unless his son was dating Thumbelina.

"Just - it's like magic. She fades. I don't know exactly how it works, but she can do it," Dean told them, honestly there. It was just something she could do.

"And... so she could appear through that any time?" Vicky asked, warily, her eyes fixed on the mirror. "And that's it?"

"No - no. She's back in Marquette. I was going to text her to let her know how things have gone here. Then - if you say it's okay - then she'll come over," he told them, wanting this to be okay with them. They were his parents, it was important he had their permission. "And she can't do it easily. It doesn't take her long, but it takes a lot out of her," Dean explained, which garnered a look from both his parents. "Mirror travel takes energy," he told them, realising he was entering another phase of explanation. There seemed to be so many of them. "Thia - she gets her energy from a different source now. You and I - we get it from food, sleep, whatever. She uses a different energy source. In fact, it's the same source as I use for what I can do," Dean said, wanting to link that in as quickly as possible, so they would hopefully think it less entirely freaky. "I found that out. There's a source of energy in the world which we can't see. It's called negative energy and it comes from all over the place. From bad moods and things going wrong, battle grounds, accidents. And I use it to do the things I can do - I channel it to form my abilities. Well, Thia uses it to keep her going. And mirror travel takes up a lot of it. So - when she gets here, she's going to be tired," he explained, continuing on as he saw he was on the verge of losing his parents to utter confusion. "Last time she did it, she was unconscious for several hours..."

"Is it safe?" Keith asked him, looking concerned and sitting forward at that. "For her, I mean - if it knocks her out, it doesn't seem very safe to me." Anything that ended in someone unconscious didn't seem like a good plan and he didn't understand why someone would risk that.

"Yes, yeah, it's safe - it just takes a lot out of her. So she - she needs to rest when she does it. We've taken every precaution we can to try and make sure that she's out for as little time as possible, but yeah." He paused and took a breath. "So, erm - well, you see.... You know what I was saying about how I use the same energy for what I can do with electrics? Well, the thing about that is that the reason that I can do that is that disruptors - people like me. We attract negative energy, it always surrounds me. You and mum - you'd generally only have negative energy around if you were, say, in a bad mood, or having an argument or something. But me - I'm always surrounded by it. And if I use it, then it immediately gets replaced - I can't get rid of it," he explained. He missed out for now that that was what had always made him sick. He'd like to come back to it, because then he could tell them how Thia had been helping him with that, but it would be off track now. And anyway, he'd waited long enough. He wanted her here now. "But that means that because she needs negative energy to give her energy, if she needs to, she can get it from me - and that doesn't have any effects on me at all, because it just immediately gets replaced anyway," he told them, hurrying to add that last part in before they could in any way think anything even vaguely negative about the effects such a thing could be having on their son.

Vicky watched as her son talked his way through a long winded explanation and decided that she was on the verge of information overload. "Stop," she said, holding up a hand. "Okay, so - let me get this straight." She decided to ignore the whole 'dead and alive' thing. That, she decided, was something she'd take Dean's word on - at least until she'd had a chance to talk to Sophie, but there was no suggestion there that what he was telling them wasn't the truth - at least the truth as he saw it. And there was obvious affection, and she didn't think that Sophie would have let the girl move in if there was any kind of danger there. Not that she didn't have a whole host of questions to ask her niece, but still. That could wait and right now it wasn't the most important thing. What seemed more pressing was the fact that Dean clearly wanted his girlfriend to come and stay - and come right now. As in today, as in with no further warning. That was what she was focusing on. "You want Thia to travel here. I assume this morning. And... What? You're going to text her, she's going to leave Michigan and arrive here instantaneously, but that's going to make her unconscious, for hours probably. But you can help her restore her energy?" she asked, wanting to know whether she had got that right.

"Yes," Dean said, simply, breathing a sigh of relief that he'd been understood. That was something. "So, I'm going to have to stay with her when she first gets here. Until she wakes up. I was thinking - I mean, I figured the bedroom..." My bedroom, except it's not my room any more, is it - what did you do to my bloody room??? He wanted to ask that, he wanted to ask why they'd redecorated, but he didn't - this was more important. "I'd call her here, but - I think she'd prefer, and, well - I don't think..." He could feel himself beginning to lose the thread and made himself stop, think and start again. "I don't want the first time for you to meet Thia to be seeing her collapse," he told them, keeping a grip on himself. "I'd prefer to summon her upstairs, alone, then I can lie her down and stay with her and she can sleep for a while. Then when she wakes up, I can introduce you." Did he sound mature? Sensible? He was really trying for that right now.

Vicky and Keith looked at each other and Keith looked back at his eldest boy. "Can you give us a minute?" he asked Dean, nodding towards the door. He really wanted to talk this over before they agreed to anything.

Dean nodded and stood, his heart thundering with nerves. "Sure - I'll, I'll be outside," he told them, before leaving the room, closing the door behind him.

His parents had never worked out about Dean's hearing issues. It wasn't surprising, really, since Dean had never made a thing of it, never told them, never explained. He'd always made an effort to keep it to himself, not thinking that anyone would understand. It wasn't like he was deaf, after all. And to tell people that your hearing was better than normal, well, that seemed to be too much like boasting to sit well with someone like Dean, who couldn't even accept a compliment in the general scheme of things and rarely thought well of himself.

But, it also meant that they had no idea that when their son would leave the room to give them privacy it didn't in any way mean that he couldn't just sit on the stairs and listen to their conversation anyway. He didn't catch it all, they were obviously talking quietly, but he could hear from their tones even when he didn't get whole words that it wasn't all plain sailing. He was worried at one point that he was going to get a flat-out refusal. He didn't know what he'd do if he did. He wanted to be home, he felt better, being home. Sure, there were issues to deal with, but he didn't feel like everything was going to be horrifically compounded by some entirely new piece of crap any second. But he didn't want to be home without her. He didn't want to be sitting here, thinking of her in Marquette, worrying about her. He needed to be able to let go for a while and to be able to do that, she needed to be here.

He wasn't sure what to think as the conversation drew to a conclusion. He listened to it wrapping up and the one thing he did know was whatever they'd decided, they were both definitely in agreement over it as he was called back into the room.

"Go," Vicky told him, standing up as Dean entered. "Go and call your girlfriend. We weren't expecting anyone else, but... Okay. Just - leave the explanations with Scot up to us, okay? He doesn't know anything about this and we'd like to keep it that way." She trailed off as she saw the sun break out on Dean's face.

"Sure - sure!" he said, having to make himself not immediately run out of the room. He stooped down and grabbed the mirror from the coffee table. "Sure - i didn't figure you had and, whatever you want - we don't generally go round telling people anyway, so - none of my friends know either. They never even knew she died, so - yeah. Far as anyone's concerned, she came on a later flight, so, yeah, fine - great." He gave his mother a hug, which surprised her, but she hugged him back, the smile contagious, before Dean let her go and he disappeared up to the bedroom.

He sat on the side of the bed, placing the mirror on the bedside table next to him. Pausing, he undid his boots and shucked them off, pushing them under the bed as he pulled out his phone and typed in a message. good2go. m&d fine. mirror set. -D.

Lullaby had been waiting for the text. It felt like it was for ages, that she'd been waiting, and when she finally got it, it actually startled her a little bit--and then relief flooded through her. She realized that she'd actually been kind of thinking that he'd been going to text her and tell her that she wasn't allowed to come. That he'd get back to her soon, or something. So, when that didn't happen, she pocketed her phone after texting 'On my way.<3thia', smiled at Billy, gave him an abrupt, tight hug that she let go before he could twitch--and off she went. God she was nervous, hoping it all worked. That she didn't say....randomly get lost forever and ever. Let this work.... she thought as she walked through the full length mirror they'd brought to the orphanage, the one she'd been studying while she waited so she knew how to get back to it. Then, everything went dark.

Dean caught her as she fell, one of the bags she had been carrying narrowly missing his foot as he swung her round onto the bed and crawled up next to her. He rested her head on the pillow and got her somewhat comfortable, pulling off her shoes and letting them drop to the floor before he just did what he'd done last time - he lay down next to her and began his wait for her to wake. Hey, maybe he'd even get some sleep himself. It felt like far too long since he'd last slept.