The Curran Sea

Father Ibrahim

When she had pronounced them fit to stay, Judah ran the vote again. Ibrahim maintained that a house near the sub bay would risk exposure. Liam stubbornly insisted that his smelters needed room, in case of an accident. They were at an impasse.
   Then hurry up and make with the new body! Liam snapped.
   It was up to Judah to break the tie, as the third Ibrahim.
   "We are still figuring out where to build the house," he said. The rest was lost in cheering, and hugging, and many, many tears.
   And then the Smiths began singing a song that he thought was heresy, but Shawn insisted that their Sunday school teacher had found hilarious:

   "Father Ibrahim had many sons,
   Many sons had father Ibrahim.
   I am one of them, and so are you..."

   That was where they flailed at each other, Judah, and Jonah, and fell down laughing.
   "I see that it is so," Orla said slowly. "Every child, and clone, of the Isles is, in a way, a child, or grandchild, of Ibrahim."
   Judah asked quietly if she truly thought of him as a child of Ibrahim. She blushed. "I would not say 'child'... You did, however, come from his blood; more directly, even, than his children."
   For some reason, the Smiths thought this was the funniest thing they'd heard in ages. They could almost forget that, as far as they knew, he was dead.

   When she returned to her fiancé, Saoirse informed him that they didn't truly believe that he was dead. They felt that he was hidden away somewhere, like their mother said he should.
   "'Should'?" he asked.
   "Your... ex?"
   "Not... precisely..."
   She hid a smile. "Their mother ingrained it in their minds, from too young an age, that you must remain dead, as far as the world is concerned. Those specific words." Her eyes grew sad. "This was after the outburst with the boat. It had already done damage. I believe that she planted that small grain of doubt in their minds, to mitigate her own guilt."
   Tears shimmered in his eyes. It showed how much he had healed, that little Emmett did not react to them. They moved her, as well, but she dared not reach out for comfort.
   "If you have no further need of me tonight, we should rest. Tomorrow will take much time, if that doctor drew your line out as far as you say."
   If he hadn't already been sitting, he would have dropped into the nearest chair. Weariness, clear down to his soul, overcame him, every time he thought of those lost children. He grieved their loss, but also the way they had been created. He had great compassion.
   She had been told of the early days, when he would visit them on a weekly basis. This was before the insanity at the lab, and the aliens demanding... what his grandfather now demanded.
   She grieved for him. The dad genes were strong. Perhaps too strong.
   She whisked a kiss across his brow, and left before temptation grew. Neither would get any rest, and baby Emmett could falter, if she stayed.
   He did not falter through the night. His vitals had remained steady, ever since his father's fiancée had healed some small part of his recent traumas. Ibrahim even regained the notch they'd lost the day before, bringing his home that much closer. He wondered if they could raise the lab a full Curran.
   That measurement of depth had begun as a joke. He made a mark on the rock wall, in the early days, every time he felt the pressure change.
   "Imagine our surprise, when it turned out to be a consistent measurement," he said to his tiny son. He talked to baby Emmett as often as he wished. It was no longer his own ears who heard his words.
   "I'd sensed, with my body, the same number of feet down, with no instruments at my disposal. Some of them, I think, find it eerie.  Others see the practicality of it."
   He tried setting Emmett on a padded blanket, inside of what had been a box for supplies, to see if he would tolerate being separated from his sort-of father for any length of time. A fresh, warm blanket tucked around him, so he wouldn't get cold.
   For a few minutes, he did. Ibrahim took the opportunity to bathe, in the sink a few feet away. He was an old hand at using the bathroom while holding a child of any size, but bathing was more difficult. He couldn't exactly ask his fiancée for help, without risking... everything, if this body only had eight months left.
   He had begun to accept the inevitability. Could no longer deny the pain, when muscles tugged on the crater. One, or both, tore, in some small way. While some tearing was always possible, consistent breakage would cause muscle loss, maybe even permanent damage. Paralysis was a constant concern; particularly with his fractured vertebra. He never knew when, or if, that might happen. Most of the damage had healed, but the odd ways he had to move, now, were causing twinges in his old injury.
   He looked at his hands, with their age spots. Nobody else has them, he said. Is that true? I never looked. But they, and the greys, were too new. There hadn't been anyone else to compare himself to. Had this fifteen year old body taken from its stores of youth, to try to heal his wound?
   There was much to think on. He couldn't help but come around to his faith, once again. He asked the Big Guy what any of it meant.
   Emmett began to fuss.
   "That's awfully vague," he grumbled.