After Before and After

Phase 4: Fifteen

Fifteen

February 12th 1993 marked the last day Dana Barnes would present her testimony against Luke Armstrong in the the case of Simon Bennett's death.

February 12th 1993 also marked another noteworthy occasion; the day Ralph Langley turned fifteen.

That Friday evening after court, the Langleys packed their bags with their weekend necessities, took a cab to the Savannah Hilton Head International Airport, and boarded a round-trip flight to Casper, Wyoming. Casper was the city Laurie's parents relocated to when Ralph was somewhere around kindergarten or first grade. As Diana and Benjamin Prescott were getting older, the number of trips they made out to Georgia grew less and less, which meant the number of trips the Langleys made out to Wyoming grew more and more.

Ralph sat in the window seat on the flight to Wyoming the evening of his fifteenth birthday. He spent the majority of the day sitting in court listening to people who knew his former squad member, Luke, well forced to speak ill of him in a stuffy, aggressively brown courtroom. It wasn't the best birthday Ralph ever had, but surprisingly it wasn't shaping out to be the worst.

His thirteenth birthday rightfully held that title.

It was a mere two weeks after the rescue, less than half a dozen days after he did his Flag State interview in the FBI's office in Georgia. Ralph had woken up on his thirteenth birthday with the sun, because it was what he did on the island. But it wasn't one of those sun peaking through the blinds with the gentle rub of one's eyes kind of morning. It was Ralph waking up screaming in a cold sweat as he dreamt yet again that he was still on the island, being hunted for blood by the hunters. He couldn't stop picturing his own head on Jack's hunting stick. He hadn't even realized he woke his mother up until she'd been holding and rocking him for a good twenty minutes. He spent the rest of his thirteenth birthday shaking, sweating, crying, and wishing he hadn't missed Christmas and New Years and any chance at enjoying his teenage years.

Two years later, he looked out the window of the plane and watched America from thirty thousand feet above the ground. He was exhausted from the long day in court, and really wasn't in the mood to turn fifteen. Nonetheless, he was still looking forward to seeing his grandparents and his Aunt Alison, who had her first daughter, Stephanie, back in October. Ralph hadn't gotten the chance to meet little Stephanie yet, on account of all the trial preparations and of course, the trial itself. Granted, they were only headed to Wyoming for the weekend, but it was better than not at all.

He may not have been excited about turning fifteen, but he was excited to be fifteen hundred miles away from Savannah, even if only for forty hours.

About five hours after boarding, the Langley family landed in Wyoming. And a good half hour after that, Ralph was giving hugs to every relative he hadn't seen in well over six months. The hugs and hellos didn't last long given that the Langleys arrived in Casper just before one in the morning. Diana, Benjamin, and Alison wished Ralph a happy birthday and promised he'd get his gifts in the morning before the whole family headed off to bed.

Ralph awoke suddenly, only to discover it was still pitch black outside. Then he discovered the reason he was jolted awake after a long day that ended with a five hour flight. He tip-toed through the house until he found the room the crying of baby Stephanie was coming from. Her mother was nowhere to be found. Perhaps Alison was in the bathroom, Ralph guessed. When baby Steph saw him in the doorway from across the room, she suddenly stopped crying. Ralph could only see her faintly against the light of the little nightlight glowing from the outlet on the wall. Stephanie started whimpering, so Ralph brought himself over to her crib and lifted her up and out. He held her as she whimpered for a few seconds, but then the tired four-month-old got quiet and rested against him. By the time Alison came back, her daughter was sound asleep.