"I haven't even told you I love you."
I never forgave myself for your death, Fred. And for not telling you sooner how I felt.
Did you hear those last words? Were they imprinted in your memory as you died? What was eighteen years of death like?
Contrary to what you think of me, I'm not a good person. I've done many things which have gained me enemies. Then there's what I've done to you, though you do not think of it that way.
Do you think of it? Of what must have occurred in order for you to live again?
Sometimes I think I've done neither of us a favor in bringing you back.
But some needs are just too strong....
Reanimation: Second Chances
by K.Huntsman
released 18th April 2000
"Open your eyes," Ralph said. Fred obeyed.
"A piano?!" he asked, stunned at the sheer beauty of the baby grand in the spare room.
"Happy birthday, Fred," Chris said, smiling as his friend went over to the piano and caressed it with reverent hands. "Try it."
Fred sat at the bench and looked up at the father and son. "I can't promise I'm any good," he said with a grin. "I haven't played in eighteen years, after all."
"You'll do fine," Chris assured him.
Fred looked away from Chris and Ralph and ran fingers over the black and white keyboard. Sometimes... sometimes he got the oddest feeling that nothing had changed between him and Chris, even though so many things had.
The notes the piano gave him were rich and true. He didn't want to think about how much this gift must have cost, even though Chris was easily able to afford such a trifle. Fred smiled to himself and closed his eyes, letting his fingers slip into Bach.
Chris had always liked Bach.
* * *
Fred pivoted the chair around before sitting down on it, staring at Chris, waiting for the man to look up from the computer at him.
"What is it, Fred?" Chris asked without doing that.
"Where's his mother?" Fred asked.
Chris looked at him. "Ralph's mother?"
"Yeah." Fred nodded.
Chris leaned back in his chair, gazing upward at the ceiling. "Jane is currently in Paris. She's due back next week and will be taking Ralph for a few days then. They get along splendidly."
"You're not married?"
Chris shook his head. "We never were. Ralph was conceived one night at a party just after we'd gotten into college. We'd both had too much to drink and ended up in bed together. We never dated, though we became friends. When Jane discovered she'd gotten pregnant from that night, I agreed to raise Ralph if she'd have him. So I became a father at eighteen."
Fred propped his head up on one fist. "Your first time?"
Chris looked at him, emerald green eyes and blond hair. "My only time," he replied. "I became too busy with my life after that night to repeat the experience, even had I wished to." He looked back at his work, fingers returning to the keyboard. "I assume Ralph is in his room, studying?"
Fred nodded. "Yeah."
"Don't you have homework as well?"
Fred nodded again. "Yeah." He went up to get to it before Chris could pull age on him and try to act like his parent, which Chris wasn't. He paused at the door to the laboratory, though, to look back.
/Chris... why does it feel like you're shutting me out?/
Chris sighed after the door closed safely behind Fred. He took his glasses off and rubbed at his temple. "This is harder than I thought it would be," he said to himself. He glanced wryly at the closed door the sixteen-year-old had left through. "Fred."
/I thought it would be so easy to ignore what I felt for you. I'm twice your age now, after all. I've lived so much more than you have. I hoped that in your second chance, you'd love Ralph..../
/But I can't stop wanting you for myself, no matter how different I am now from the boy who was your friend./
/I never told you I loved you./
/And I never stopped loving you./
Fred finished the homework in record time. He wasn't as smart as either Chris or Ralph, but he wasn't really challenged by the work either. He never had been by school.
After shutting down the computer, he went to the music room and turned the lights on, going over to the piano. His fingers drifted across its smooth black finish.
Inside the bench was sheet music. Some of the pieces were his old favorites, others ones he'd meant to learn or never even heard of.
He took out one from an old movie and propped it up on the stand.
Soon, his fingers were working on the strains of "As Time Goes By."
He played that old, familiar song once or twice, then segued into something of his own making, something of Bach and Beethoven and the Moody Blues. Chris had never played piano, and apparently still couldn't. Neither did Ralph.
/I may not be that bright, but I wouldn't trade music for all the science in the world,/ Fred thought wistfully, letting his fingers play out his feelings. He dealt lightly on the keys; he'd never been heavy-handed with anything.
Unlike Chris' father, who had been a perfectionist and set unreasonably high standards for those around him.
The memory of a blue-yellow-purple bruise blossoming on Chris' cheek set a sour chord into Fred's music.
He hastily corrected it, taking a deep breath and letting himself push that away. It was done with, long done with and gone. It was in the past and Chris was an adult now, able to protect himself and his son from Mr. Anderson.
He'd hated being so helpless to interfere, to stop Chris' father from hurting him.
Fred didn't stop in his thinking, his playing, when someone else entered the room.
Chris couldn't resist Fred's music. He never had been able to, even when he was just a boy listening adoringly as his older friend expressed himself in a medium Chris couldn't master.
"What are you thinking?" he asked quietly as he sat down on the sofa, tome heavy in his hands.
"I was remembering how your father used to hit you, and how I hated it," Fred replied in a soft voice.
Chris clenched his teeth. That wasn't a good memory. He watched Fred's back, listened to the music, and wished he understood what feelings it was portraying.
Funny, most people had assumed that he was the artistic one and Fred the practical one....
/You don't even know why he hit me, Fred. Only that he did, and that was enough to let you hate Father./
"When Ralph was born, I swore to myself that I would never be like that, never hurt him," Chris said. He opened the book and flipped through it. "I wanted to be a better father than the one I'd had."
"What happened to your father?" Fred asked. His music was soft now, soothing.
"He died several years ago, before I graduated from high school."
"I'm sorry," Fred said. His tone belied that.
Chris studied his childhood friend's back. /No you're not. You've always felt more with the heart than with the head. But you're polite and would never admit to anything else./
* * *
Fred pushed open the front door and let Ralph precede him into the house, both of them dumping bookbags in the entryway. "We're home!" he called out.
"We're in the living room," Chris' voice replied.
"'We're'?" Fred wondered aloud.
"Mama!" Ralph practically zoomed around the corner.
Fred raised an eyebrow. The guest, then, would be Jane... Ralph's mother, Chris' lover. He straightened himself up and followed around the corner.
Ralph was held tightly in the embrace of a very beautiful woman. Voluminous blonde curls fell well past her hips; ivory cream skin molded delicate features and soft pink lips under lightly arched golden-brown brows. Her eyes opened, long lashes and crystal blue irises.
/She looks like an angel,/ Fred thought. Then he looked at Chris, who was gazing at him with a slight smile on his lips and something unreadable in his eyes.
"Jane, may I introduce you to Fred Turner?" Chris asked, his glance falling to the beautiful woman as he gestured towards Fred. "Fred, this is Ralph's mother, Jane Chandler."
"I'm pleased to meet you, ma'am," Fred said politely, with a half-bow.
She smiled at him. "And it's a pleasure to meet you at long last, Fred Turner. Chris has spoken often of you to me over the years. Thank you for taking such good care of him, and of our son."
"It's my pleasure, ma'am," Fred replied. "If you'll excuse me, though, I won't intrude on your family reunion."
"Of course," Jane Chandler granted with a slight nod of her head. "Doubtless you have schoolwork to complete. I hope to be able to get to know you better during my visit."
Fred bowed once more and made good his escape.
* * *
"I'm sorry about Fred," Chris apologized, late that night. He'd left off work for her visit and sat with Jane at the kitchen table, shirt sleeves rolled up as they drank coffee and chatted.
"Oh, don't be. He's a teenage boy, and it's an awkward situation he's been placed in," Jane dismissed. She sipped at the coffee Chris had made, and remembered when his coffee had tasted like watered mud. It had vastly improved in the intervening years. "So how have things been with him?"
Chris shrugged, an elegant rolling of his shoulders. "Well enough. He seems quite fond of Ralph and is a good protector."
She smirked. "I had noticed you'd finally enrolled our boy in public school."
"Aah." Chris bowed his head.
Her coffee cup lowered to the table. "And you, Christopher? How have you been dealing with Fred?"
Green eyes flashed up to her, then looked away. "Well enough."
She waited.
"Jane, he's half my age!" Chris protested, sounding less convincing than he probably wanted to.
"Don't give me that," she warned. "I know precisely how you feel about that boy, how you've always felt about him."
"Jane...."
She trumped him. "You want Fred, don't you? You, who have never wanted anyone or anything."
His golden head dipped once in acquiescence.
"Tch. And you're letting this age difference matter?" She leaned back in her chair. "Men."
"He's a child," Chris protested.
Her eyes met his. "A child who went through death and came back."
Unable to sleep, Fred had gotten out of bed and gone to the piano.
In his first life he'd played whenever he hadn't been able to sleep and no one had minded. But now he tried to keep it silent, not wanting to disturb Chris and Jane as they talked in murmured tones in the kitchen.
Fingers drifted randomly for a moment, then picked out a long-dead pop tune.
Jane cocked her head at the soft dream of notes that floated through the kitchen.
"Fred," Chris said as an explanation.
She tried to place the tune. "He plays well," she remarked.
Chris shrugged. "He's always been gifted."
Jane stood abruptly and left the room, heading towards the source of the music.
"Jane!" Chris hissed, following her.
She didn't go inside the music room, but rather hovered outside the door at an angle invisible to the player within.
She smiled as the name of the piece finally came to her. She'd danced to it at her senior prom. "Your Wildest Dreams," she murmured, feeling triumphant. She smiled at Chris. "And you think he doesn't love you, silly boy," she chided.
"What?" Chris' face was adorably blank.
"Once upon a time / once when you were mine / I remember skies mirrored in your eyes / I wonder where you are / I wonder if you think about it / once upon a time / in your wildest dreams," she sang softly to him. Her blue eyes studied his green ones. "If his age is all that's holding you back, I think you'd better get past that, Chris. He certainly seems old enough to me."
Chris gaped at her and couldn't think. He had never been into pop music except for when Fred played it, and certainly couldn't so easily recall lyrics as Jane. But Fred could.
Fred would know what he was playing, and equally know that Chris wouldn't.
Jane smiled sweetly. "Your face says I've hit the mark," she observed. "Well, I'm going to bed. Please make a good choice, Chris. You've been lonely too long." She vanished down the hallway and left Chris standing alone before the door to the music room.
Fred had changed over to Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time" when the door was opened. He looked up automatically, but it took the sight of who it was to still his fingers on the smooth keys.
"Did I disturb you...?" he asked.
Chris shook his head. "No, I was having coffee in the kitchen with Jane. She's gone to bed now; I thought I'd join you... if you don't mind?" His tone was hesitant.
Fred shook his head. "Why should I mind?" His fingers drifted back to the keys and he found he couldn't remember where he'd been in the song. He blinked and started again from the beginning.
Chris sat on the sofa to the pianist's right and just looked at Fred. "Do you remember," he asked, "all the sleepovers we had at each other's houses?"
"Remember the tree fort your grandfather built for us?" Fred countered.
A smile tugged at Chris' lips. "Remember... the time you tried to show me basic scales?"
Fred grinned. "Remember the time I blew up your lab?"
"Remember the hiking trip?"
Fred's smile faded. "Yeah," he said quietly. "I remember."
Chris took off his glasses and toyed with them for a long minute. "You died too soon. I couldn't let you go. There was so much I hadn't told you...."
The notes of the piano died away. "Is that why you really brought me back?" Fred asked, voice soft.
Chris looked up, startled. "I'm that transparent?"
With half a disturbed smile on his face, Fred faced his friend and reanimator. "I had a dream... a long dream... while I was dead. I didn't want to leave you, either. And I kept hearing your voice. You kept saying...." Fred shook his head and turned violently back to the piano, hands coming down soundlessly on the white keys. "Never mind. It's not important."
Chris stood and slowly moved towards the teenager. "You heard me...?" he asked. "You heard what I said?"
"It was only a stupid dream," Fred replied. "It doesn't mean anything."
"Are you so sure it was a dream?" Chris said, closer still. "'Fred, you can't die'," he softly quoted himself from a memory of years ago. "'If you die, I'll never forgive myself. I haven't even told you yet that I love you'...?"
It was a moment before Fred spoke. "That's why you really brought me back, isn't it?" he asked.
"Yes," Chris answered, fingers resting lightly on the baby grand.
/I knew it,/ some part of Fred said. "So what happens now?" he asked aloud. "Things have changed from when I died. You're an adult and I'm still a kid."
"I'm a horribly lonely adult," replied Chris. "Something which I don't admit to often. After all, I have Ralph and I have my work...."
Fred turned suddenly on the bench, his blue eyes looking into Chris' green ones. "And is that enough?" he asked. "Are your son and your work really enough for you, Chris?"
"No," Chris admitted in a low tone. "They're not. While my work was you, I thought that it was, but now...." He shook his head.
"So what do you want?" Fred asked.
Chris' emerald gaze shied away from Fred. "I don't know."
Fingers whispered across smooth keys as Fred took a minute to think. /I've always loved Chris. But that was when we were the same age. Now... do I still love him now, when he's so much older?/ Hands fell into instinctive patterns of playing across keys. Fred didn't pay any attention to them and their silent movements as he thought. /I haven't changed... has he, really? I mean, he's still Chris, isn't he? He said he was lonely. I guess... without me there, was there anyone who dragged him out of his lab? Miss Chandler, maybe, but she hasn't always been here for him./
/It must have been so horrible for Chris when I died and he was left all alone..../
Fred looked down at his hands, which suddenly seemed disconnected from the rest of him. He watched the silent pattern they made, then smiled as he recognized it. /"As Time Goes By"./
He stopped their movement and pressed down one single key, listening to the note which reverberated out of the piano's body.
It caught Chris' attention too and he looked up.
Mind made up, Fred smiled at his friend in a dark, fey way. "There was something I never told you either," he said. "'I love you, Chris'."
Now it was Chris who was unsure. "It... can't work," he said, looking away again. "I'm too much older."
"And the dead can't be brought back to life, either," Fred said. He waited until Chris looked back at him. "I don't see that it can't work. Why shouldn't it be able to?"
In the face of Fred's determined gaze, Chris was less sure. "Because. Because...."
Fred smirked. He pushed back the piano bench and slowly stood up. He caught Chris' chin in his and slowly applied one mouth to the other, watching as Chris' eyes slid shut and he gave in. A long moment passed before the kiss ended. When it did, Chris' eyes were full of wonder. "You're sure?" he asked.
Fred nodded.
Chris smiled.
Two figures, in a room. One sits on a comfortable sofa, listening, while the other plays music just for him. The future is open, unwritten, for the reunited two. But the future is not all that matters. Sometimes the past, a childhood shared with a friend dearer than life, shapes a person and refuses to let go until the part that one lost is returned to him and the stolen chance becomes a second chance, the two starting anew.
Author's Note: The song Jane was singing and Fred was playing is "In Your Wildest Dreams" by The Moody Blues.
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