Chapter Text
The day went by slowly, with clouds looming overhead and a day full of slowly learning how to cook small meals in the room’s kitchen with the limited supplies that the hotel had. While some would consider it a drag, finally being free to do what limited things he could do without….him constantly in his mind was like Michael had been given all the free ice cream in the world. Never had he felt so free before and he was cherishing every single second of it. With Regan’s gentle patience, Michael had also been reading and catching up with everything that had happened in the world since the Cold War in 1963.
Even though he had only been here for a few hours, Michael managed to write down his own schedule. It was the only way he could keep things in order in his mind. He would read in the mornings (both things recommended by Regan as well as his own choices) and have a small healthy lunch before meeting with Mr. Dent and Sheriff Meeker as well as other investigators.
“—will that be alright with them?” Regan gently inquired as she spoke on the phone, twiddling with the phone-line. Her soft, lovely face was pinched with worry and concern as she bit her lower lip and nodded hesitantly “Okay, we’ll see them then.” With that final assertion, she hung up the phone, looking faintly worried as she bustled around in the kitchen “Michael?”
“Yes?” One of his eyebrows raised as he looked up from his book, quietly observing her.
“Your nephew and niece are coming to visit this afternoon,” The revelation took him by surprise and made his mind spin. Deep within his mind’s eye, he could remember the little girl with dark hair and dark, solemn eyes who would always try to calm him through everything going on and the wary young boy who kept his distance from him, fiddling with his fingers (the same boy Wynn had tried to corrupt and make into a second Shape). At the same time, he couldn’t help but remember the little girl from before, during his childhood, the little girl with the purple dress, dark curls (before her hair lightened but even after that, he still recognized Cynthia as she sang on the sidewalk), and the stuffed lamb who had a worried look on her round, innocent face.
Before that worry from her childhood turned into the hatred of adulthood for everything he (and Wynn) had done to her and her friends….
They were his baby sister’s children, his nephew and niece, the last members of his family alive. For all he knew, this could be the last chance he could have to truly connect with the last members of his family, to have a normal, healthy connection with them….
“Are you okay with that?” Regan’s question broke through his line of though, she was furrowing her eyebrows. It was almost like she could see right through him if she really tried and the mere thought of that unnerved him in a way he had never felt before.
“What if I mess this up?” Michael couldn’t help but blurt out, fiddling with his hands nervously. A habit he had developed ever since he was freed. He couldn’t help himself—the mere thought of distancing himself further from his nephew and niece scared him in a way he had never thought before.
He didn’t want that.
He wanted to meet them, to be able to connect with them and mend their relationship (especially with John, the sweet little boy who had looked so much like himself as he swung on that swing-set) and to be able to meet them officially for the first time. He didn’t want any supernatural elements, even if the bond between them played a big role in everything, he just wanted to meet them face-to-face and heart-to-heart for the first time.
“You won’t,” Her soothing voice did only so much to calm the raging storm of emotions within his heart. She began to cook them some form of an early lunch-late dinner in the kitchen, looking back at him. The confidence in her eyes took him by surprise (he wished he had that much confidence) but at the same time, it soothed the storm in his heart “I know you won’t, Michael. They did everything they could to save you, you won’t mess this up.”
The moment that his eyes landed on his tiny nephew and niece for the true first time was like something he had never felt before. Both of them were still in their costumes, behind them were two older man (one looked like he was from the noir Batman books with a trenchcoat), a younger man who looked like he could’ve been the grizzled man’s son with a uniform similar to Sheriff Meeker’s, and the Carruthers girl who had bandages around her and looked slightly better.
“I…..” His chest felt heavy, a strange kind of heavy, as his eyes felt strange as he stumbled clumsily towards his nephew and niece, his legs felt nothing short of stiff as emotions he couldn’t quite identify. His lips trembled from the sheer force of the emotions “…..Jamie….Johnathan…..”
While his niece’s face lit up like a beacon and she ran towards him, her arms held out as she hugged him (the hug also taking him by surprise but making warmer feelings spread across his body), his nephew timidly stood by the Carruthers girl, gazing up at him with a conflicted, lost look on his young, face. The wary look in his eyes tugged at his heart in a way that Michael had never felt before and the knowledge that he put that look on his nephew’s face for two whole years only made that knowledge weigh even harder.
“Johnathan….” He breathed out softly, turning to face his nephew. His nephew who had grown so much in the past two years (he could still remember the twinge of something painful inside of him when he caught sight of his nephew swinging on that swingset) and the horror he felt when realizing what Wynn had in mind. The same look on his little sister’s face was now on his nephew’s face, they looked alike in that way “I…..I’m so sorry….”
Gazing back up at the Carruthers girl one more time, his nephew surprised him when running towards him and hesitantly taking him into a hug. Much like his sister before him, Johnathan also buried his face into his neck and clung onto him tighter. His nephew and niece, they both felt so tiny in his arms….
And yet, their hugs meant everything in the world to him.