SquidgeWorld Archive

No Ordinary Siblings
by Pirate Turner

        She paused just outside the bedrooms in which she and her brother had spent some of their most private moments growing up. She could still hear the adults talking downstairs, but at least her parents no longer sounded angry or scared. She wondered if they had been truly cajoled or if they were just playing a game with the government, just letting them think that they were accepting the facts being laid before them lest they anger the very people who could destroy them all.

        Her heartbeat raced as she remembered her mother's visions of the future. They had all been so desperate to keep any one outside of their family, Katie, and George learning their secrets, and yet the feds had learned of them any way. She wondered how they had done it and remembered the painstaking loss she had taken to protect her family. The love of her life had not given them away; he knew nothing of their secrets any longer. And yet the government still knew.

        They had still come after them to use them against the very enemies that they had already been aiming to stop, the very criminals that the feds knew they could not stand alone against without being completely destroyed. Despite herself, Daphne's lips twisted into a partial smile that hovered on a smirk. Only her family could stop the bad guys, and even the government knew it.

        For a moment, voices raised downstairs again. Her father's anguished voice was gentled by her mother's compassionate tone. The raise in emotions only lasted for a brief moment, but it had done its job. Daphne again remembered the danger they were all in and the fact that they'd already been warned both strongly and clearly that the government would not take kindly to any denial to help them, and yet once they saw what her family was capable of, Daphne knew that Big Brother would never again let them rest.

        Her smile gone, she gave a sigh. She knew that they were in a no-win situation, and if she let herself, she'd be terrified right now. However, she had a job to do, something much more important than waiting around for her parents to come and get herself and JJ and tell them what they had decided, rather they were going to help the government or run like the wind to some pit hole in a foreign country somewhere. Maybe they could go to Paris, Daphne thought. She'd always wanted to see the Eiffel Tower and eat a baguette in a fancy, little cafe with a cute, French waiter serving her.

        This time, when she smirked, the expression was self-depreciating. She knew better than to have hopes and dreams of ever living a semi-normal life again. Of all the lessons their powers had taught her, that had been the second hardest to learn, the first being that she could never allow any one outside of their family and her parents' trusted friends to come close to her. She pushed her own whirling thoughts and mixed emotions aside, opened her brother's door, and stepped quietly inside his room. She was needed, and it was time she stopped thinking of herself.

        JJ looked up from the advanced chemics book he was pursuing as easily as he had flipped through comics only a little over a year ago. His brown eyes lit up with expectation, and he immediately put the book down and swung over to the side of his bed. "Did you hear anything?" he asked.

        She shook her head. "Nothing . . . Nothing," she offered again with a slight shrug, "that really told me anything concrete either way. JJ . . . " She looked at him with the scrutinizing but caring gaze of the older sister she was and yet had foregone playing the truly important role of for most of their teenage years. "Are you okay?" she asked.

        He looked at her. "Why wouldn't I be?"

        "Oh, I don't know," she said gently, easing her way closer to him lest she frighten or anger him away. "Maybe because you took a life today?"

        His face flushed with anger, and he glared at her with such venom that she was taken aback. "I did what I had to do!" he exclaimed. "I killed him to save Mom and Dad!"

        "You saved us all," she told him, remembering what their father had said and agreeing whole-heartedly with it. "He would have killed us all if you hadn't stopped him." She shook her head and gave a little grin at the memory of how expertly JJ had thrown the syringe straight into the jerk's eye. "You were fantastic!"

        JJ blushed, and his eyes dropped from hers. He wasn't accustomed to being complimented by his sister. "Thanks," he said sheepishly, and then they both looked up at the sound of a motorcycle roaring down the street. JJ looked from his window to his sister and saw the frozen, paled, and heartbreaking expression upon her face. "Daphne?" he questioned gently, raising to his feet.

        She forced herself to shake off the memories and the other thoughts that came with hearing the sound that she knew meant the only person she'd ever really love had just been outside her home . . . again. "I'm okay, JJ," she assured, but her little brother noted that her reassurance came just a tad too quickly.

        "Are you . . . "

        She nodded swiftly, biting back tears and the cry that welled from her heart surging into her throat. "I'm fine," she said tightly. "I just . . . " She shook her head, sighed, and shrugged her shoulders. "I just can't figure out why he keeps riding down our street when he lives way over there."

        JJ smiled sadly. Like his sister, he had known instinctively that the motorcycle they'd heard belonged to her ex-boyfriend, but unlike her, he'd not been aware that Chris had been making their street a repeat journey. Still, he wasn't surprised and knew automatically the reason why. "He's looking for you," he said.

        "He . . . He can't be," Daphne stammered, shaking her head and slipping her hands into the pockets of her jeans. "He doesn't even remember me."

        "You took his memories," JJ agreed, "but that doesn't mean that there isn't something laying deep down inside of his subconscious cranium that remembers just a tad bit about you and what you meant to him."

        "If I meant so much to him," she asked before she could stop herself, "why'd he forget all about me?"

        He looked up at her again, and his heart broke for her as he saw the tears welling up inside of the eyes of his big sister who always struggled to be so smart and cool in every one else's eyes. He had to force down his own answering tears as he walked to her, his hands out to his sides and palms turned up. "Maybe because when you were first really getting to know each other, he was already suspecting that there was something different about us. After all, he somehow knew to get that syringe to help his father, and then when Dad brought his father down, did you really think that Chris would think he could do it without powers?"

        "N-No . . . " Daphne answered slowly, her face and lips quivering. "I . . . " She brushed a tear away and turned from him. "I guess I didn't stop to think about that."

        "Or it could be that when you told him to forget about us, about your family, he forgot about you, too, because you are a member of our same familial unit."

        "JJ, please, don't science me . . . "

        He caught her hand and pulled her around to face him. "I'm sorry, sis," he said, "but I just . . . I know Chris wouldn't have forgotten about you on his own free will! He was crazy about you, and it wasn't just because of your powers!"

        "But he forgot about me!" Daphne nearly whimpered.

        "You could help him remember, you know," JJ told her. "Just go up to him and tell him that he remembers you, just you, not your powers or our powers, or us, but just you and how he feels about you."

        Daphne sighed heavily, and her head hung. "I've thought about that," she admitted, "but then we'd get close again and he'd start figuring things out again." She shook her head, and her big, brown eyes peered up at her brother in a desperate search for understanding. "Don't you see, JJ? Nobody can get close to us without figuring out that we're different and, sooner or later, the reason why. I don't want to endanger our family, but I also don't want for him . . . to . . . hum . . . " She searched desperately for a way to put into words what she was feeling. " . . . to have to use him again," she finally blurted out.

        "You didn't use him," JJ answered in surprise.

        She smirked. "Hmph. Maybe not, but I definitely wasn't very nice to him. I kept making him forget things to keep us safe. I kept erasing his memories, playing with his mind!" She threw her head back as a wail of sorrow finally escaped her, "You can't imagine how it feels like to play around with the mind of somebody you love, how awful it makes you feel inside, how dirty, how cruel, how -- how evil!"

        JJ threw his arms around his sister and held her tight as she started to cry. He stroked her long hair and held her tenderly and protectively in his arms, remembering the nights that she had held him when they had been younger and he'd been scared of thunderstorms. They were far beyond thunderstorms now, but their lives continued to have one storm after another clash into them. He'd thought her to be pass the particular storm of Chris, but now he realized that she never would be. She had given the greatest sacrifice, that of letting go of the love of her life, in order to protect their family, and yet the government had somehow learned about them any way.

        He'd find a way, he decided as his sister sobbed out her broken heart in his arms. He'd find a way to bring Chris back to her and make Daphne happy again if they survived this next storm with the super criminals. No, he changed his mind as Daphne sobbed again. He'd find a way any way, he vowed. He'd find a way to reunite Daphne with her beloved Chris. He'd make his sister happy, no matter how long or how short a time they had on this Earth!

        Daphne finally let go of the emotions she'd been keeping pinned inside for weeks, her hands burying into her brother's shirt as she clung tightly to him like the weakling she'd finally realized herself to be. She wasn't in the same league with their parents or even with her brother any longer. Sure, she had telepathy and mind control, but she wasn't handling her powers or the responsibilities that came with them anywhere near as well as the rest of her family was.

        She wasn't handling them, because they'd forced her to have to let go of her soul mate. Sure, her parents thought her feelings for Chris were only puppy love, but Daphne knew better. Puppy love didn't hurt this badly or leave one feeling so completely empty inside when it was over. Puppy love let go and let a girl move on with her life. True love, and the feelings she felt for Chris, did not. She would always love him, always miss him, and never again be completely happy or whole without him in her life, loving her and letting her love him!

        She sobbed into JJ's shaggy hair, her wall of bitter self control having crumpled completely, and kicked herself silently even more for doing this to him when she'd come to him to help him . . . even if he hadn't needed her. If there was one thing their powers had taught her, it was that their lives were one constant surprise after another. She'd not expected for his teacher to be killed today. She'd not expected for Dr. King to turn out to be so evil and to almost kill their father. She would never have thought that the government would show up with such deceptive calm on their front door step, and she definitely would never have thought that having their powers, no matter how cool they were, would cause her to have to let go of the greatest prize she'd ever won, to have to let the love of her life walk away from her and turn her back to him. She also hadn't expected to come to her brother to comfort him after he'd taken another living being's life, another shock, only to have her own self fall apart and he wind up comforting her.

        Yes, their lives were now one surprise after another, the siblings thought, but no matter what, they'd be there for each other and hang tight together. They heard the parents walking up the steps and turned together. They shared a secret look as Daphne wiped her eyes clean and JJ smiled compassionately at his sister. Their parents were right outside his door now, and they both knew that whatever news they were about to give them would bring another shock that would yet again change their lives forever. Silently, they reached out and took hold of one another's hands. They squeezed each other's hands, a silent message of their love that they still refused to voice, and faced the door and their future side by side. They were no ordinary family, but they would stand together through whatever came and, together, they would survive.

The End