Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2017 12:26:31 -0600 From: M. R. Masterson Subject: STARBOUND Chapter 2 STARBOUND By M. R. Masterson Chapter 2. DISCLAIMER IF YOU ARE EASILY OFFENDED BY OVERT DEPICTION ALTERNATIVE SEXUALITY, ANYTHING TABOO, OR ROMANCE AND ESPECIALLY SEXUALITY BETWEEN CONSENTING MINORS DO NOT READ THIS FICTIONAL WORK. ALMOST EVERYTHING, APART FROM SOME HUMAN EXPERIENCES DESCRIBED, AND SOME PLACES MENTIONED IN THIS BOOK ARE FICTIONAL AND RESEMBLENCE TO ANY REAL PEOPLE IS ENTIRELY COINCIDENTAL OR BASED ON SUBCONSCIOUS EXPRESSION BY THE AUTHOR. THE AUTHOR STATES FURTHERMORE THAT ALL ELEMENTS OF THIS THREAD ARE, ACCORSING TO THE AUTHORS KNOWLEDGE AND INTENT, COMPLETELY ORIGINAL, SPAWNED FROM THE WARPED MIND OF THE AUTHOR. Don't forget to donate to NIFTY if you enjoy reading this thread, so that they can continue bringing this and other wonderful literary art to you, the reader. ***Note From The Storyteller. *** This story was originally entitled and archived under the name From Day One after some changes in plot and scope of the project, the title Starbound made more sense for greater impact and a larger project. I hope you enjoy, and if you had already read the previous incarnation of this story, you may want to re-read chapter 1 as a few details changed. Notably this chapter contains some events of a traumatic nature. ** ** ** ** ** ** Chapter 2 An awakening to the Impossible. Now... From the first Chapter of this story, we know that Jay and Alex were born attached to each other. No...Not as conjoined twins... well not as PHYSICALLY conjoined twins... but mentally, emotionally and psychically conjoined individuals, with no blood relation, from two different wombs, on the same day, in the same place, at the same hour. It is, however, even little stranger than that. One might think that their attachment to each other is a little dramatic, but when you are 15 years old, there is a lot in life that feels like the end of the world, even for a so called normal teenager. As we know, the two boys happened to be in the same place, at the same time, both with blank slates, teaming with potential. Whether or not you believe in destiny, the fact remains that something extraordinary transpired. If you were to ask me personally, I would tell you that something in the vibrational pattern of the world that day managed to sync these two to the same wavelength of consciousness, and that something more extraordinary had attuned their developing minds to the consciousness of a multitude of channels of psychic, multisensory, multidimensional perception and abilities. As we will find out, there is a whole world of people out there who are dealing with similar phenomena. Perhaps it is akin to jumping the evolutionary process ahead a couple thousand years, certainly that would make them at the very least, mutants, but if we think of it in mystical terms, perhaps they are just a pair of reincarnated lovers from a previous life, who happen to be in possession of unusual talents. Perhaps they will find some of the answers they are looking for very soon, from an unexpected new source. Now that we've established that there is strangeness afoot, Let's discuss the effect that separating two young people who are attached to each other by strange forces will have on them. Take them 336 miles away from each other, ( A five to seven hour drive, through rough mountains passes and generally involving bad weather or road construction at some point, and not uncommonly accompanied by motion sickness on the passes.) That sort of reckless sudden separation tends to make those teenagers a bit unhappy, to say the least. They are teenagers after all, and prone to being perturbed by almost anything. If those individuals are also between the ages of thirteen and sixteen, well, that's a whole new box of drama flakes poured into the mixing bowl. Combine the stress of being a horney homosexual teenager in a conservative "Red state" to the mix, and you get a perfect storm of depressed teenage despair and drama. To put it in simpler terms, this chapter will talk about the consequences that came from separating two creatures who are bound together by whatever force does the binding. Much of this chapter will leave more mystery than answers, but that is okay, it's not the end of anything. This chapter also shows some of the perspectives of the people who know these two best, besides each other. One of the characters in this chapter knows more about what is going on than they are letting on, and I'll leave that to the next, even stranger chapter featuring that character. Now, onto the actual events. ** ** ** ** ** ** For Jaysen, the immense pain caused by being separated his best friend had the usual effect losing one's life long best friend might have. Added to that upsetting and life altering change was the teasing and tormenting that ensued when he'd started using hall passes at school to sit alone during classes and cry in a bathroom stall, and the tendency to turn up his Ipod up as loud as he could and drown out everything out. There were plenty of rumors going around Hamilton High including that, that he was Masturbating, A LOT. Typical of the kind of explanation the minds of teenage boys would produce for why another teenage boy spends an abnormal amount of time absent from class. Even the teachers begun calling him a "space cadet" because he was never mentally present even when he was there. Jaysen had been marked absent several times during roll call because he seemed to be, indeed, for all intents and purposes, absent from the world of the living. After he developed extremely noticeable weight loss due to chronic nausea, caused by anxiety, depression, and the effect of being physically separated from his other half, a second crude rumor developed, more likely from the brains of the teenage girls and some concerned staff members. This rumor was that was that Jaysen Blayne was anorexic and had to go throw something up every time he left class. If he were honest with himself, he only really lost ACCESS to his beloved best friend, as they never changed in their emotional closeness. However, the supernatural extrasensory bond that existed between them was beyond what even most Twins could experience, and when this bond was stretched and stressed it caused adverse effects on them both, and being hopelessly romantic and madly in love with each other was definitely a factor too. This situation, which they were neither trained nor prepared to deal with, could very well have ended terribly for both of these boys, and for their families, however, when they both got to the point when they decided that trying to end their lives was the answer, they both got some intervention from well-meaning friends and relatives who were there, and were the proper support they needed, though there would be an awful close call for young Jaysen Blayne, that would awaken them all to the possibility that there was more going on, and much work to be done to fix the problem. ** ** ** ** ** Jaysen Blayne started out as a beautiful, well adjusted, well rounded and overall the healthier of the two boys. However, his physical and mental health deteriorated quickly after he was separated from the thing he loved most in the world. I would guess because Alex had kept busy working with his parents to make ends meet, he was distracted from his misery more, and thus the effect was less if only slightly less dramatic on him, Jaysen was also predisposed to some nasty side effects of depression and separation anxiety, which were hereditary in a way, as his mother had not taken well to having to spend time away from her twin brother in her teen years either. She had some of the same side effects. Jaysen also had a chemical reaction going on in his body that was part of his natural development, but was being suppressed, and we will learn more about that later. For a time, before they knew the extent of Jay's former depression, his father had nicknamed him "weed" because he was growing tall and spindly quickly. He wasn't putting on much weight, just spreading out over a bigger skeletal structure...and because he rolled out of bed and tumbled along his daily routine like a tumbleweed (with no particular ambition or direction) and looked nearly as unkempt and disheveled as a tumbleweed. He and his mother never bothered to chastise Samuel for his observational humor, despite the ominous signs that these developments would be if this was not a family that was slightly overconfident in the wellbeing of their youngest member. Not even Jay seemed to be worried about the change he was going through. By the arrival of his 15th birthday, Jay hardly had any memory of the last several months because he'd been vacantly going through the motions of life on auto piolet just trying to keep his eyes dry and his breakfast down, if he could even eat at all. His doctors put him on medications, and on supplements, that helped him health-wise, but only superficially. After all, they were treating a body with a broken heart, a tortured mind, and a shattered soul. Seeing Alex on his birthday had given him bit of a lift, certainly their romantic tryst that weekend had made him feel whole and alive again, if only for a day or two. Alex having to leave again, after having made a real loving connection with him, had plunged Jaysen Blayne deeper and darker into his inner abyss than he'd ever been. He was miserable and afraid to face people at all. Their scrutinizing eyes, and their asking if he was okay every time he showed pain was not helpful because the explanation was never going to make sense to them. They didn't and couldn't understand. None of them had a bond like he and Alex had. Most of them had never even known true love of the kind he felt. He wanted desperately not just to have Alex back in his life, but to give himself to Alex and share a life with him. That isn't something a lot of teenagers, or even young adults, and specifically not serial monogamists would understand. Jay could blame it on the strange bond they had always had if it simply hurt to be away from Alex, as it had before. Now there was that new feeling, of wanting to belong to him, to belong in his arms, and to call that place next to his loved one's heart home. As this part of the story is hard to tell, and harder I am sure to read, I'll try and describe the events in a matter of fact manner, rather than spending too much time on how the events of that day made people feel. Jaysen was barely mentally present at all on his darkest day, when he swallowed several aspirin tablets to make him more likely bleed out quickly, and then ripped at his arms repeatedly with a box cutter. The consequences of his actions were chiefly that he almost died and would spend months recovering from the physical wounds. Also, he would be under greater scrutiny from everyone, and would have to assure them repeatedly that he was not going to do something that desperately hopeless again. That was a long road ahead, but he would get through it. It also somewhat changed his personality, because afterward he became a very sarcastic and somewhat less friendly version of himself. He was disenfranchised with the world, sick of society, sick of seeing and dealing with people. Even Alex would notice that he was never as positive or as upbeat toward life as he once was. The consequences for others were intense too. It was Teresa's client, Nicholas, who had found Jaysen lying naked and covered in blood, leaned up against the wall in the shower of the downstairs bathroom with the water running down his body. Nicholas was there to see Jaysen for some reason, but the reason was not important once he found him. Nicholas would see that sight over and over again in his head, however he did what he could, all that he could do. Jay never responded when he tried to wake him, his eyes were open but he was in a cold vacant state, there was no one home, and from time to time when things got bad later in life, he would return to that cold vacant state. Nick carried the beautiful young man, whom he barely knew, up the stairs and into Teresa's home office where she would see what is understandably every parent's worst nightmare. Luckily, Teresa had told the 911 operator his blood type, as she remembered that detail from tests they'd had done to see why he was so sickly and tired and weak all of the time. For her part, Teresa would always wonder what she had missed, why she had missed it, if there was something that she could have done. For her, the consequences shook her to the core of her being as a mother, but also as a human being. She would never again be confident or feel assured that her son was okay unless she checked with him, and payed close attention. Sam and Terri refused to tell Walt and Sharon Wall anything until they knew for sure if Jay was going to make it or not. When they would finally tell them, either way, it would change the way they paid attention to their own young man. Before you continue reading, I will warn you that something impossible was about to happen. I will assure you that this story is one about extraordinary things, so what appears to be, is not the case. ** ** Doctor Harold Russell had already recorded time of death of Jaysen Connor Blayne, after trying for an hour and a half to close his veins and keep enough blood in him, they thought they had him close to stable condition at one point. Then his heart stopped and they couldn't keep it started again for long enough to keep oxygen going to his brain, and finally as happens in such cases, they had to give up rather than doing more damage than was necessary to what they now considered a deceased individual. As the doctor did his final paperwork and examinations, and they were cleaning him up and preparing to tell his parents some very upsetting news, the doctor noticed that they had left Jaysen on the respirator machine after having given up on his heart, which I suppose turned out to be a lucky mistake, though not a very professional thing to do according to his gruff adherence to practicality and procedure. "Angie you can go ahead and take him off that ventilator now," Dr. Harry Russell said. Before she did so, Nurse Angie noticed something impossible, that the boy lacked the usual signs of biological death. His blood oxygen levels, and the color of the skin on his extremities were normal. His blood pressure was too low to measure, but he had to have some kind of circulation going for any of these things to be true. "Umm, Doctor Russell," Nurse Angie said, "This can't be right, the instruments are showing a blood O2 level of 95%... and... look at his fingers and toes..." The doctor looked the boy over puzzled by both instruments and his own eyes apparently being impossibly mistaken, and then Harry decided to check Jaysen's eyes for a pupillary response, surely he would find no response, and thus would check his equipment again, and find the problem, and he would conclude that what appeared to be something impossible happening was indeed just a strange spectacle of two overtired Medical professionals imagining things. Doctor Russell had seen a lot in his day, he'd been on battlefields, and read up on all the possible strange phenomena that could befall the human body. What he was about to see and experience was new to him. "WHAT THE..." he muttered noticing that the eyes of this body he was examining still had normal pupillary response, which meant significantly, that he was probably not severely brain dead, which after 20 minutes without a pulse, was impossible. He took the temperature of the body... "That is weird"... he said, and checked the ambient temperature of the room. "Nurse, he said decisively, please leave the room, I have a confidential phone call to make, and, not a word about anything you have just seen to anyone, or you won't have a job in medicine again." Said Dr. Russell sharply. Thinking to himself as he acted against logic but according to some instinct, his mind was forming the question: What the fuck would make a deceased human body drop BELOW room temperature? It should reach room temp and stay there shouldn't it? he thought, calling an associate of his and putting the phone on speaker. As he spoke, the doctor snapped into action, doing what his counter-logical instinct propelled him to do, which was the oddest feeling for a logical man like himself. Harry began giving Jaysen chest compressions, and then he used the defibrillator on him... which resulted in his heart starting to beat again. Doctor Russell might have retired right then and there, he certainly figured he'd seen everything at that point, but he'd figured that same thing many times in his career only to see more bizarre things. "Doc T. Here" answered a voice on his phone after about 20 rings. "Yeah um, Doctor T. This is Harry Russell down at the Hospital ER here in Hamilton Montana, I hope you are in the area. I have a code WTF...no...not a fucking joke T. I wouldn't waste your funds calling your satellite phone for a damn joke... Get down here ASAP." "On my way." The voice responded. 20 minutes later, the heart of Jaysen Blayne was still beating, a young-looking, handsome, dark-auburn-haired man walked in, and looked at the medical chart long enough to see the name of the patient, which he recognized immediately as the name of his own nephew. He took a deep breath, raised his head from the clipboard and addressed his old friend Harry Russell. "What have we got here Harry?" asked Doctor T, trying not to betray his surprise about being called in for a "WTF" consultation in a case related to his own nephew. "This kid died Tash... Doctor Russell said, looking up from the chair he was sitting in with a bewildered expression. "Clinically fucking dead... he had no pulse for 20 minutes but his blood kept circulating... don't fucking ask me how... you know as well as I do that blood does not circulate without a beating heart. "We were about to take him off the ventilator, but the instruments showed no signs of biological death, which is impossible if the heart is still not beating after...twenty minutes." Harry said slowly, making sure Dr. Tashrael Allston heard every word he was saying and registered the impossibility of the situation. "I checked for pupillary reaction, and that was normal, so there was likely according to that detail, no significantly life threatening brain death either... after 20 minutes!" "Brain death starts at 6 minutes after cardiac arrest in most cases, but that is due to lack of blood flow... but you know that." The veteran ER physician said throwing his hands up in surrender to the situation. "I did chest compressions, used the defibrillator on him and his ticker started right back up... the heart muscle and brain should have started dying shortly after cardiac arrest, his blood pressure was too low to register but his blood somehow circulated!" He wiped sweat off his brow. "I have practiced medicine for over 30 years, and have never seen anything like this." "Neither have I, Harry," Tash replied, "It is quite impossible for blood to circulate... without a beating heart... At least in all creatures who have blood, and hearts." Tash scratched at the irritating facial hairs that grew at the corners of his mouth, which his cheap electric razor always missed. One more detail. I'll ask you because reality seems to be screwing with me today, Tash, when a deceased body sits in a room with a constant ambient temperature, is it normal or possible for that deceased body to drop to a temperature BELOW the ambient temperature of the room? "Not on this planet, or in this universe... but I'm guessing you are about to tell me that that is what this former corpse and now living boy did?" Harry have him a look that said it all. Tash knew what this meant, and so did Harry, this was a case that was never going to really be solved, and such, Tash took over the situation and Harry would be going to have several strongly alcoholic beverages and try to forget the impossible recovery, but he would ponder it until it likely drove him mad, which was just as well, because no one would believe him anyway. Harry turned to walk out of the room, nothing more could be said or done by him now. "Have a few drinks for me Harry" Tash called out behind him. "Mr. And Mrs. Blayne." Harry said on his way out, "Your son has a pulse, he is breathing on his own now, but he appears to be in a stable condition, >From what I can tell, he doesn't appear to have life threatening brain damage based on what I've seen, but I'm not sure what more I can actually say at this point, another doctor will be tending to him for the remainder of the evening, he will have more details once he's run some tests." Dr. Russell said trying hard to word things truthfully but not to say more than he ought to. Terri Shook his hand and said "Thank you doctor." He wanted to respond with "Don't thank me, I nearly sent him to the morgue!" but he just walked out of the building. ** ** 2 hours later, Terri Saw, her own brother, Tashrael, of all people, walking toward her from the doors to the cardiac ICU, and waving her back. He nodded to the nurse to let her in. Terri was puzzled, she knew he had some medical training and a degree in psychology, but didn't know he was back in the country, much less working at the hospital. "OK Tash, what the hell is really going on with my son, and why the hell didn't you tell me you were back in the country, I have missed you!" She said smacking him on the shoulder and then hugging him, with tears in her eyes. "It's all very complicated." He said. "Oh really, how so?" Terri asked, her patience short. "I was called in from my little hideaway, mind you I arrived by helicopter, because there was a medical emergency coded "WTF" by one of the best physicians in the state, who happens to be an ally of mine, and knows that I deal with impossible situations." "I arrived to find my OWN bloody NEPHEW... literally bloody, and barely alive mind you, with this epic physician explaining to me in a fluster about how it was impossible that he was not in fact dead..." "And I agree, the details are quite Impossible, and I'm going to keep it off the record because that's what I do with impossible situations." "I don't care how impossible it is...as long as it happened." Terry said. "Is he going to be okay?" "I wouldn't bet against him at this point, after all he's shown himself capable of being impossible. Haha... That certainly runs in the family. He should be coming around soon, just try and be understanding and gentle with him when he does. There are CLEARLY things going on here that he doesn't understand any more than we do." "Thanks Tash, and really, I don't know what is going on. I thought I lost him for sure." Terri said. "Well, you have me to lean on now, said Tash, we are going to get through this together, the three of us, whatever it takes, maybe he will talk to another guy easier than he will his mother about some things," he said, "but I'll let you see what you can find out first." "I understand that he misses his best friend, and he has been getting tormented at school pretty brutally, he is so upset he has been making himself sick, and damn it, and I thought he was getting better, why did they have to move away, those boys can't handle being apart, they never have." She said, rambling in a manner not making sense to her long lost brother whatsoever. She continued, "It isn't normal but it is them, and this shit happens in OUR family, nothing is EVER normal, Tash," She rambled clenching her fists. "Teresa I have never seen you this worked up..." Tash said "Start from the beginning." Terri told him the whole story all about the boys' birth story, and about how Walt, Sharon and Alex had had little choice but to move, their recent visit, and how things spiraled downhill from there. "Teresa, as it happens, I am starting a program for kids like Jay and Alex, out in the Bitterroot Wilderness, sort of an academy for people like us, you know, multi-natured people with extra senses and abilities." He said trying not to be overheard or say anything suspicious. "When Jaysen is released from the hospital, you need to come and visit me at the homestead, just you and Jay, and we will discuss the stranger side of things." "I'd like to get him up there as soon as possible so I can start figuring this all out." Tash said. Jay started to wake up, he saw his mother in the room and started to realize what had happened. "Mom, I'm sorry, I, I couldn't handle it anymore... I don't even remember much, I wasn't really there, I haven't been, I don't know where my mind has been." "I know son, I know more than you think I do." Teresa said. "I know about Alex and you being unable to cope with being apart. I love of both you boys like I know that we have to get you back together so whatever it is between you becomes a strength instead of tearing you apart." "So, what exactly you know about me and Alex?" Jay started. "I know you can't be apart from him, and I know he's just as miserable without you, I think its something real and powerful that we shouldn't mess with." She said as Tash looked over his wounds and checked his vitals and everything. "I love him mom, not in a normal way for a best friend." He said, "It isn't normal, I know, but we can't help it..." "I know honey, it's okay, you two have something miraculous going on between you, it's been there since birth, it's nothing new." Teresa said, interrupting what is was trying to get the nerve to say. "No mom you DON'T know EVERYTHING" he snapped "because we didn't want you to, it IS definitely different now." He said, I was terrified to tell you or dad before, but there's no point in hiding it now." " When he came to visit us, he was sleeping on the floor while we watched a movie down stairs, and I couldn't help it, I needed to know if it was even a possibility. I kissed him, on the lips, and he freaked out. " Teresa interrupted him again. "That's okay son, I don't have a problem with you two experimenting, or even if you are gay, or if he is, I love you, and I want you BOTH to be happy." Terri said hugging her son. "I'm sorry if he didn't feel the same way honey, it's okay, I hope you are still friends." Jaysen tried to stay calm, but was frustrated. "Mom, please, Stop interrupting me and Just let me finish, it is hard enough to talk about without the interruptions " Jay said "The you can be as Fucking understanding as you want, once you have the facts." He continued. He had never spoken to his mother that directly and harshly before. "Alex didn't reject me, that's not what this was about. He was only surprised and scared of getting caught. He was afraid you and dad and his parents would never let us see each other again. He wasn't mad that I kissed him." Jay said. "He was terrified what our parents would do if we got caught." "We talked about it, and then we tried it again, he kissed me. All the doubt and confusion disappeared. We let ourselves admit how we felt, and there is no going back from that, not for either of us." Teresa just sat, listening letting it sink in that her son was in love with someone who actually understood him and loved him back, she didn't care who it happened to be. "When he had to leave again, It hurt so bad seeing him leave again after letting myself admit what I'd been denying for so long, and realizing it was real and he felt the same way, it is stronger than both of us now." Jay said. Mom, "You need to make sure he is okay. Jay added, I can feel his pain in my head and in my heart. I have always been able to, The doctors can't treat the fact that I feel HIS pain too by putting chemicals in MY body." Terri and Tash looked at each other, sharing a moment of understanding. Tash spoke up. "Don't worry Jaysen, WE believe you. We can't explain why here, there are too many patients and nurses who could overhear, but we believe you... after you are out of here, your mother will bring you to my home, and we will discuss The Connection further. I am a friend of your family who knows about things of this nature. I'll explain more about that later, you have things going on that aren't explained by medicine or science." "Okay, but you have to check on Alex, NOW this all has to he having an effect on him too. Before he left, he told me his heart was staying with me, even if the rest of him had to go. This thing goes both ways." "I'm going to go call him NOW" Terri said. You guys keep talking his mom said Tash said, "In addition to this, odd psychosomatic connection you two have... Jaysen I am observant, I can tell that you REALLY fucking love this guy, but I want to hear it from you, so YOU tell ME." Jay actually thought about it. Maybe at first they simply needed to be together because of the strange energy that connected them, it hurt to be apart. He had also grown to know every part, every emotion, and every thought that made Alex who he was. Jay loved Alex, he loved that soul for the unique person he was, not because of a damn psychic connection or whatever this this energy was. He decided to answer the kind looking man who was asking him what was in his heart, even though he wasn't sure who he was or why he cared. "If it ONLY hurt to he away from him it would be one thing. When he was here... it wasn't just sexual tension or lust or some unknown energy drawing us close, it was everything we'd wanted and needed express for a long time. I LOVE that guy, I p9ce hos heart and soul. His body is pretty precious to me too, I mean, Yeah, I'll be honest Doc, we did some sexual stuff, and it felt good, but that was just extras compared to what admitting we were in love with each other really meant to us. What is killing us both, is knowing we both want the same thing, and can't GIVE each other what we need. It isn't so much about HAVING each other, that is shallow in comparison. It is about wanting to GIVE myself to him, and what I am willing to do to express that, and feeling like there is the entire world between us that is what really kills me." "Wow," Tash said, "That pretty much says it all, you two are the real deal." He paused thinking about how beautiful that was. "I just wanted to know that you WANTED to be with him, not just that you had to, but everything you said was right on the money. You got a good head on those scrawny shoulders kid. I have never really known love like you talk about. I've had a lot of... Fun in my day, but nothing remotely like wanting to give all that I am to somebody." Tash said. "So, who are you, not to be rude, but how do you know my mother?" Jaysen asked. "I can't tell you that right now, because nobody here knows who I really am, and I can't afford having the wrong ears to hear my name or how I know your family." Tash said. "So, tinfoil hat time?" Jay joked, getting a smile out of the serious stranger. "Jay, you listen to me, if being with him makes you happy, then that's what you have to do. I will try and help you make that happen, I promise. We have to get you healed up first, we have to get you strong enough to handle the road ahead, you aren't alone Jaysen." He said. "I have a little business trip to take, but I'll be home in about a week, and we will talk then. You focus on feeling better." Tash said as he left the room sending his mother back in. Jay seemed to think the guy looked familiar, but he didn't know why. Teresa went back in to sit with her son, letting him know that Alex was okay and was going to stay that way, and that she hadn't told him the extent of the situation, just that Alex knew he was recovering from an injury. Jay needed to be the one to talk to him about what actually happened when he was ready. Jay didn't say much, his head was a little dizzy from the medication Tash had pit in his IV before he left, and as Terri talked on the phone, he drifted off to sleep. She called Sam and let him know it was okay to come visit, he had to go home and take care of some phone calls for the business. She also called nick to let him know that Jay was going to be okay, he sounded relieved, that poor kid had seen a lot of death and been through a lot lately, but he was strong. Terri liked Nick, it there was anyone she'd like to see Jay be friends with, it was a sweet honest supposedly normal kid like that. Terri watched her son sleeping. She hadn't done that since he and Alex used to fall asleep on the living room floor after watching movies all night long on weekends, usually one of them would end up using the other as a pillow. Those boys were more or less each other's security blanket or teddy bear their whole lives. To her, nothing had ever really changed, but she knew that their feelings had, and that their families and friends would have to adjust somewhat, but really for her, it just meant that they would all have to be one big family again, and she couldn't be happier about that. Teresa had always hoped that both boys would find someone who understood their friendship, and who loved them even half as much as they loved each other, how could it get any simpler than that? Jay was turning into a man. He had a ways to go, but his strawberry blonde hair and light denim blue eyes he got from his dad were striking, and his thin face, squared nose and already manly Jawline would make any guy or gal melt once he was able to smile again. He got his wide shoulders and thin hips from her, he'd never have to worry about having a gut because his frame would carry his weight and spread it out. His legs were long, and eventually would be muscular, as would his arms, but right now he was underweight and thin and gangly. He was her sweet beautiful son, and she was going to fight for him and for Alex if she had to. She felt lucky to have them both, her son and her godson, and if they got married some day, that wouldn't change how she felt either. She laid her head down on the side of the bed and started to fall asleep herself. ** End Chapter 2 **