Obsolution ✔

Chapter 14

Ty and Damon struggled to keep their tones even, but it wasn't working.

Jenn sat at the kitchen table, straining to hear what they argued about. She heard snippets every so often, with her name mentioned frequently. What she couldn't hear was the depth of their disagreement over her presence.

Damon wanted to send her to the camps. Although Ty had been of the same mindset minutes before, he was presently against the idea. It took time, but Ty built a case for his new wife, using Sam as a basis of comparison. Saying her name (over and over) changed Damon, and he appeared pained at the knowledge of her permanent disappearance.

"You cared about her?" Ty sounded surprised.

"Of course I cared for the damn thing!" Damon wiped the sweat from his forehead.

Ty didn't begrudge his brother's prejudice or his referral to Sam as a "thing". He could tell Damon didn't mean it. Not like Crendan had.

Damon jumped to the next subject that most upset him, the removal of the 3D printer. He chided Ty for allowing the agents to take their private property. Thanks to Ty, they possessed Damon's modifications for building human composites.

"C'mon, they already knew how to do that," Ty protested.

"Not fuckin' flawlessly, they didn't, ya putz!"

"What do you mean by flawlessly?"

Damon sheepishly enlightened his brother on how he had tinkered with the printer yet again, solving the twelve-year lifespan dilemma.

The realization of what he'd done hit him hard, and he stumbled slightly, sinking down on the bed. "Why would you do that?"

Had Damon imagined printing another version of Sam, one that could live for years and years? He had cared for her more than he had admitted.

But Damon shared a smearing of reality: "I did it because I could, because it was a problem I could solve."

The State had complete control over a powerful technological tool, one Damon had perfected for them, and they had shut the public out.

Ty didn't care. He wanted to put his hands on his wife. He wanted to see she was real, know she loved him like he loved her. He left Ty to do just that.

Jenn had questions, but he ducked them all. Instead of answers, he gave her kisses. She responded, but she drew back from him after awhile. It was going to be different with (new) Jenn. Affection and sex wouldn't cover the grave so easily. I'll tell her tomorrow, Ty promised himself. Not today. I want today.

So, they had lunch, and they ate dinner, and they pretended to be a family again. Damon went along with it, for lack of anything better to do. He kept his eyes on Jenn, waiting for her to collapse on the floor, or start throwing things around like a maniac. He didn't trust her, and he wasn't sure if he ever could. Though she was like Sam, she was still a composite, and he trusting her with Helia seemed extreme. Later, Damon planned to talk with Ty. She couldn't stay. He watched her wipe snot from Helia's nose, and playfully pinch Ty's ass as she walked by. Strange. Like watching a circus animal.

Ty's initial reaction against (new) Jenn was fading fast. When she pinched his ass, his distrust of her dissolved completely. She was Jenn. She was back. And he loved her.

Everyone went to sleep in a state of limbo. No one knew what came next.