The Fighter

Chapter Five

"Jeremy?! What the hell?!"

"I'm sorry for scaring you, but I needed you to understand that the accident wasn't supposed to happen."

"Understand what? That my brother, even if he hadn't been killed, would have faked his death?! How am I supposed to deal with this information?" Jeremy takes a long breath and I wonder what he is thinking until he runs a hand through his hair and looks me dead in the eye, his brown eyes holding pain and shining with the un-shed tears of years worth of secrets.

"He never wanted you to know, but Bear told me something that I can't ignore and I thought it would be better if you knew the truth about your brother. He never wanted you to be alone, but he knew that there would come a time when he would need to leave so that he could protect you. The plan, I found later, was written in one of the journals here and he never did anything or wrote anything without thinking about you and I; he was afraid for us. He was planning on causing an accident while either in the field or in the shop, something that nobody would question too much.

"He left me this as a goodbye note, but it came too soon. I broke down completely because I realized that he would have never put you and your mother in danger for any reason. Bear and I think that there is someone on the inside that is giving information to The Kings but we can't figure out who, all of the men seemed to be very loyal to your brother and I but I could have been wrong. I know that this is difficult to understand, but you need to know."

"You do realize that either way, my brother would have been dead? This time line just ensured that I wouldn't be pissed at him if he ever showed up again." I pull out the CD and look at it longingly. "Did you get any pictures from the CD?" He nods. "Good."

Without saying anything else, I pull out my mini torch that doubles as a lighter and burn the disk on the concrete floor. As I watch the disk burn, I let a few stray tears fall and I feel Jeremy standing behind me.

"He was going to leave me willingly. Why would he do that to me?" My voice breaks as I ask him such a complicated question and he pulls me around to face him.

"Listen to me," he says while holding my face as a brother would, "Jer would never have left you unless he was absolutely forced to. Trust me when I say that there was no way around their threat, he had every right to be terrified about what was going to happen."

"What was--" I am cut off by J's walkie-talkie going off and him having to go back up the stairs.

"I have to go, take your time down here and explore what he was making. We're closed tomorrow and Friday so you can work upstairs if you want to." I nod to him and watch as he goes up the lift.

Turning back around toward my brother's work space, I pick up a photo of the three of us hanging out and let a few more tears fall. It was the day that we had gone to the farmer's market during Christmas and Santa hadn't shown up, they had to improvise for me and I forgot all about Santa as they held a mock snowball fight with noting but the foam-snow on the ground. My brother, obviously, was on my team and we were trying to get Jeremy, of course we won so the night went as planned for them. We had gotten the photo taken after the war and apparently my brother had stolen a kiss on J's cheek which had caused his smile to grow wider than the photo that I have of the event. Flipping it over, my brother has written something.

The two loves of my life. Not even death will do us part.

"Not even death," I laugh a bit at the statement. "You're damn right, death only delays you for a while."

Looking around the shop, I see little trinkets and robots laying around; many of them are half finished with their guts splayed out around them. He thought he was going to come back to them, I think solomly, but he never did. Going around his work area, I find a metal rosebud fitted with silver and a touch of gold; picking it up, I examine it and find a small indenet in the shape of a small feather.