You're Always You

Chapter Nine

David Minett

"Oh, sweetheart."

David tried not to react too viscerally as his mother grasped his face and started to kiss it as mothers were prone to doing. Normally he wouldn't mind so much, but he was not in the most patient of moods, and she was kissing him like she hadn't seen him in seven years.

Apparently she hadn't.

"I've missed you, Davie," she said, patting his face with a bit of scathing firmness, before shooing him inside.

At least this wasn't different, his mother's residence at his childhood home. At least he didn't get lost coming here. David sighed as he wandered into his old home, plopping himself onto the couch and leaning forward, rubbing at his face. He looked up when his mother sat down beside him and wrapped her arm around his shoulders comfortingly. "What's wrong, honey?" she asked softly, rubbing his back. "You look terrible."

"Didn't I just...come back from deployment?" he questioned, not even sure of that himself.

"Well yeah," she conceded. "But....No, something else is up. I know you, Davie, even though I haven't seen you. You're my baby. You're still predictable, unlike the other two...."

David furrowed his brows. He supposed he could use his apparently recent deployment as a cover for his ignorance. "Two?" he repeated. "What do you mean? What's wrong with Monica?"

Mom sighed. "Well. You know Brett's in prison. He's been beating people up, dealing....Real gangster type stuff," she murmured woefully. "And Moni, she's....Well she's struggling. She still can't decide what to major in, if you can believe it."

If David had been gone all this time, he certainly could believe it. When Monica was in high school, he had been the one to help her discover what she really liked to do. He had been the one to encourage her to do fashion design, since that seemed to be her calling, and kept her straight even during his actual and only deployment seven years ago. But, if he hadn't been there for her....

No wonder she was still struggling.

"Yeah, I can see that...." David mumbled, rubbing at his neck guiltily.

"Your dad and I keep trying to help her, but...she's just pushing us away," Mom fretted. "I think....Well, I think she's doing awful things to make ends meet, Davie...."

....

"Awful things?" he repeated, frowning. Awful things sounded a lot like body-selling, if you asked him. Or something else equally as repugnant to make ends meet.

Mom hummed, nodding her head. "Before Brett went away again, he said he found her at a...a club."

David raised a brow. "A...club?"

"You know what kind. The kind with...." Mom glanced around, as if someone would persecute her if they heard her whisper, "...poles."

Jesus fucking Christ.

David let out a long sigh, closing his eyes. "Christ...." he muttered, shaking his head. "I'm...so sorry, Mom. I should've....I should've been here."

"Oh honey," his mother responded, rubbing his back again. "It's okay. You don't have to apologize. You did what you wanted with your life, and nobody blames you for that. You served our country, Davie. Brett and Monica, they....They just didn't have that focus, y'know?"

I know. I was their focus.

David hadn't just helped Monica into fashion school, he'd helped Brett stand up to a bunch of bullies through high school, and taught him how to be the bigger person, which inspired him to become a cop. Dave's guidance was what had brought them both to their occupations.

....In the real world.

Apparently in this one, he'd gone straight into deployment after joining the Army, instead of spending his first four years in school and thus closer to home. He didn't...remember any of these things, but once again his first guesses felt right, as if he was supposed to remember, somewhere deep in his psyche.

This shit was weird.

"Right...." David ended up murmuring, shaking his head. "What about Dad? How's he been?" He sincerely hoped his being gone hadn't affected his parents as much as it did his siblings. They were divorced, but since Dad left the Army too, the thing that had kept them apart, they were more-or-less back together.

"He's alright," Mom replied, nodding with an easy smile. "It's been nice, y'know....I think it's funny you two left at the same time. Maybe now we can be a family again."

Phew.

At least that was familiar. Thank god.

Davie managed to smile at that, at something finally today, and nodded his head. "Yeah, Mom," he said confidently, reaching for her hand and squeezing it. "We will. Everything....Everything will be alright. I'll take care of it."

She beamed at him, and kissed his cheek. "Such a good boy, Davie~," she praised, rubbing his cheek happily. "Brett and Monica....They'll listen to you. I know you'll set things straight."

If only she knew.

David just hoped that his siblings still listened to him. For all he knew, they hated him now. He didn't know anything anymore. For all he knew, Brett and Monica felt like he'd abandoned them for war, like Dad...kinda had, and were pissed at him.

However, he would say that his mother's confidence that they still would listen definitely helped. She knew her kids, even when it felt like she didn't at times, and she wouldn't have said it if it weren't true.

All this talk of him not being around, however, the realization that he was deployed this whole time, made him think;

It...made sense. Because he'd only left the Army in the first place to focus on his family, to marry Lydia.

Lydia.

Lydia, who was gone. "Mom," David spoke up, frowning softly. "...Where's Lydia?" The fact that his ring was gone implied to him that in this universe they...weren't married anymore. Or, were never married. He didn't know. But, he needed to. Brett and Monica weren't the only broken things here. Lydie was gone too.

He had to fix that too.

His mother made a slight face. "...Sweetheart," she murmured. "Who's...Lydia?"

....

Never married.

Good to know.

"...Nevermind," the man mumbled, rubbing at his face. Right. So. Now he had to somehow get Brett out of incarceration, Monica back into fashion school and off the stripper pole—Christ Almighty—and he had to find Lydia and win her back again.

Then, he had to find...the assbag that did this. Whoever that was. Wherever he was. And he would put everything back to normal.

That was the plan.

That was the hope.

Having a to-do list was good. It made David feel better. And first up was to figure out what the fuck to do with his brother.

"Where did you say Brett was holed up again, Mom?"