Lost in Limbo
By Lori Bush
Disclaimer: The seaQuest and its crew belongs to Amblin Entertainment and the SciFi Channel. Please don’t sue me; I’m not making any money here as it is.
Rating: PG
Violence: None
Sex: Nope.
Setting: A little while after “Weapons of War”
This is the first Tim story I wrote that didn’t include Katie. It bothered me how sad and disillusioned he had become in the third season, and I wanted to write something where he had to deal with it.
I am not Catholic, so I may have gotten some of the theology wrong here. I spent a lot of time referring to the Catholic Encyclopedia while writing this, but I still was not totally sure about certain things. I hope I didn’t offend anyone with gross errors.
Thanks Raye, for editing this. Thanks Cari, for doing the continuity thing with it (when I wrote it originally, I hadn’t yet seen WOW).
Lost in Limbo
By Lori Bush
“Doctor, we’re losing him,” the nurse called, desperately.
“Give me the paddles,” Dr. Perry cried. “Clear!”
He felt his body thump on the table, but he didn’t feel it, all at the same time. He felt like he was slipping away, just sliding out of the shell that he was now above and looking down upon. “Flat line,” the nurse yelled. He saw tears on Beth Perry’s face, yet couldn’t feel any emotion about that. He turned and headed towards the beckoning light, just behind him. He thought he should be curious, but couldn’t summon the emotion – he couldn’t summon any emotion.
“So this is how it feels to be dead,” Tim O’Neill mused. “I wonder when I get to meet God?” And he entered the brightness that awaited him.
It had been a perfectly normal day on the seaQuest – pretty much like hundreds of others Tim had lived through in his career. They were examining a portion of the ocean that had once held a large defensive installation that had been built by the former Soviet Union many years before. It was an empty shell now, long ago having been abandoned and then partially dismantled by the post-Cold War Russian leadership. The Macronesian forces had been quiet lately, and the tension on the seaQuest was at a post-Hyperion low. There was no clue that this base was anything but what it appeared to be.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, Tim picked up a signal. “Captain, I'm showing incoming. I have no known profile – they are unmanned and highly explosive, it appears. They came out of thin air, sir.”
“Time to impact, Mr. O’Neill?” the captain snapped.
Tim grabbed his console to steady himself, calling out “NOW!”
The power in the boat surged as it rocked hard with the shock. Tim felt like he was on fire, and looked down at his own hands, blue electric sparks running up his arms. He tried to pull away, but the electricity in his body had frozen his hands in place, leaving him helpless as he realized that the current would go straight to his heart, stopping it instantly. He managed only a word or two of his prayer before everything went black.
Now, looking around this place – he couldn’t tell if he was indoors or outdoors, or where the space began or ended – he wondered what he had done to deserve to die so easily. He knew that Miguel had died in the battle on Hyperion, and it was probably a painful thing. Brody had suffered; he knew that from what Lonnie had finally shared with him. He had felt pain, but it was minimal. He’d been hurt worse before – thanks to Mariah, a lot worse.
He found himself beginning to feel his emotions again. He felt bad for his friends still on seaQuest. He had to stop, though, and wonder who were his friends that still remained. There was Lucas, of course. They had become close lately, even though they had known each other for some time. He and Ford had never had that luxury, although Ford would mourn him if only because they had worked together for so long. Lonnie would miss him – she had become a good friend. Tony would be troubled, too. Tony tried really hard to hide the fact that he cared about anyone, but he and Tim had had some good times together, and sometimes Tony would talk to O’Neill about things that bothered him. Besides, he had – if not helped, at least not hindered – Tim in his desire to reach Kimura. Dagwood liked everybody, and had already seen enough death to understand the sadness and finality of it. And of course there was Darwin, who Tim sometimes saw as his closest and most understanding friend. He remembered how surprised he was when he first discovered that dolphins were sentient creatures, their lives surely as valuable to God as his own, and that he could communicate with Darwin in his mind. It was a struggle fitting that into his framework of faith, but Tim had prayed over it and wrestled with it, and finally come to terms with it. Perhaps Darwin would truly miss him – the others would get over it soon enough.
He almost smiled when he realized that even Hudson wouldn’t be that thrilled to be rid of him. As much as Tim figured the captain disliked him, Hudson knew he was capable of far more than the average UEO communications officer, and he would be hard to replace. Probably serves him right, Tim thought. Kimura would probably be downright relieved to see him gone, though. He was the constant reminder of her past; a bother, perhaps, although he was sure she felt no guilt. He was surprised that this thought saddened him – he thought he cared as little for her as she did for him. Too late to worry about that now – love of that sort doesn’t matter anymore. Not that I would ever get the chance to know, even if I still were alive.
His family had already given him up for dead while he was gone for ten years – they never did really get comfortable with his return. This would just ease their troubled minds, make it unnecessary for them to shuffle awkwardly around the subject on the rare occasions they saw him.
He looked down at himself, half expecting to see his usual dark blue uniform covering his body. Instead, he was wearing a fitted white shirt and white linen pants, looking a little like his dress white uniform, but much more comfortable. He noticed movement out of the corner of his eye, and turned to face it. As he did, he became aware that he wasn’t wearing his glasses, but he could see just fine. A young girl stepped from the – was it mist? He hadn’t noticed any mist before – and as she approached, he felt the stir of recognition. “Marie? Marie Claire”?
She looked exactly the same as she had when he’d been so in love with her. The rich, full, wavy brown hair, the deep green eyes, even the gap between her two front teeth because she had refused to wear braces. They had met in Catechism class when they were both still in elementary school, and ignored each other, as boys and girls will do, until they reached junior high. They were in the eighth grade, he gawky and gangly; she, to his eyes anyway, the most beautiful creature on earth, when that changed. He was the favorite altar boy of the parish priest, and as such, spent more time at the church than most. Her mother worked in the church office, and Marie was an only child, so she hung around there most days after school. They were often the only two young people in a world of sacred mystery, and it was only natural they gravitated towards each other. They spent hours talking, always in French, because Marie’s family had moved to Michigan from Alsace, and the language of her homeland was comforting to her. She had the most adorable accented English, but he was willing to talk to her in whatever tongue she chose, sometimes teaching her words and phrases from the other languages he was studying at that time.
He would never forget the day she first kissed him. He thought his heart would stop, right then and there in the small robe closet off the sanctuary. It was so pure and innocent, he realized now, but it was one sin he never could bring himself to confess. Kissing in the church – he knew it must be the ultimate sacrilege. Now, having seen sacrileges few could even imagine, he wondered if it weren’t instead the ultimate act of worship. They continued to meet secretly, although never again within the church, and they would kiss each other, their bodies aware of the desire for more, but their hearts too young and untainted to ever take those hints. One day, she arrived in tears – her father had been transferred, and they would be returning to France. He held her in his arms, and knew he would die before he knew love like that again. He supposed he had.
“Hallo, Timothy,” she said to him, in that sweet accent of hers. “It’s nice to see you again.” Everyone else had called him Timmy, but she had declared that that was a “little boy” name, and always insisted on calling him by his full Christian name. In return, he never called her just “Marie”, but always “Marie Claire”. As he moved towards her, he remembered something else. His mother calling him at the Academy to tell him that Marie had died in an avalanche while on a winter trip with her family.
He smiled shyly. “Bon jour, Marie Claire.” He was afraid to touch her. If he was where he supposed he was, she might be just ethereal – a spirit, not a form.
“Ah, Timothy, but you are, too,” she responded, answering his thoughts. “We can touch.” To prove it, she took his hand in hers, and he realized that she was no longer a fourteen-year-old girl, but a young woman the same age she had been when she died. She was, if possible, even more beautiful. “You know, Timothy, I loved you to the day I died. I always thought that once you graduated from the Naval Academy and I from college, I would come back and find you again. You were my first love, just as I was yours. You could still find someone to take my place, Timothy. Don’t let love die just because it hasn’t come again to you yet. It is too late for me, now.”
“But isn’t it too late for me, too, Marie Claire? I’m here, just like you are.” He shook his head, confused. “I am dead, aren’t I?”
She laughed, throwing her head back, the sound music to Tim’s ears. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she whispered into his ear, “Not quite, my love.” And she kissed him, not in the childish way they had shared so many years before, but deeply and passionately, making his head spin. She pulled back slightly, and whispered again, “I’ll let J.J. explain.” Then his arms were empty, and he thought his heart might break all over again. Was this heaven, or hell he had entered?
“Actually, neither, O’Neill,” a crisp, military voice informed him. He spun around, following the sound, to face Lieutenant J.J. Fredericks. “You’re a good Catholic boy - you’ve heard of limbo.”
“Limbo?” Tim searched his brain for the memories of his Catechism classes and the things the priest and his mother had shared with him about their faith. “Isn’t that where people who have certain sins still to atone for are sent until someone prays them into heaven?”
“As usual, the living get a lot of the details about death all fouled up.” Fredericks half smiled. “Limbo is a common concept to many religions, both Christian and non-Christian. It is a place where those who still have ties to the real world go – some to go forward to their final destination, some to go back to where they were. It’s nearly always up to the person on the edge which direction they choose.”
“So,” O’Neill struggled, “why are you here? And what about Marie Claire?”
“We are guides, to help you make the decision. Everyone who comes here gets them – people whose lives, or deaths, are significant in some way to the choice to be made. We come in order of importance in your life – the least significant to the most. I was quite surprised that I wasn’t first, but I suppose it’s because you still feel responsible for my death that I ranked higher than Marie.”
Tim still felt hazy on this whole idea, but was more than willing to listen. He seemed to have all the time in the world.
“First of all, what happened to me was not your fault, O’Neill. It was my time. For God’s sake, Lieutenant, I was a fighter pilot. It’s not an occupation that has a reputation for aiding longevity. What you did for Kimura was the bravest thing you have done in a long time, and you did it for the right reasons. Don’t regret that.”
Tim felt his anger rising – the same feeling he always had when he thought about what Kimura had done, and what it had cost. “Right reasons? She was using me, J.J. I was stupid and gullible, and I let her walk all over me. I wasn’t brave – I was a fool.”
She placed her hand gently on his arm. “Don’t forget what Marie told you, Tim. Love really is the most important thing, and something you shouldn’t give up on. What Kimura did may not have been completely right, but who’s to say that in the same circumstances, you or I wouldn’t have done the same thing? I think she told you the truth when she said no one was that good a liar. She just didn’t know how to back away from what she had started once she realized you were more than a means to an end. You might want to give her another chance, O’Neill.”
“That’s assuming I go back. I still haven’t made up my mind, you know.” Tim was getting over the surreal feeling that he began with, becoming comfortable with the idea of talking with his dead colleague about whether he would join her permanently or not. “My career is down the tubes – I’ll probably be a Lieutenant, Junior Grade, the rest of my life. That is, if Hudson doesn’t drum me out soon, and I even have a career with the UEO. Bridger thought I was good, but I can’t satisfy Captain Hudson. I’m not sure it’s worth trying.”
She smiled. This was what she was really here to talk about. “Do you know what Oliver told me about you once? You reminded him a lot of himself when he was first in the UEO. He was sensitive and idealistic and a perfectionist, just like you are. Face it O’Neill, you were a perfect peacetime naval officer – more interested in the scientific exploits of the seaQuest than the military ones. You went into communications because it had the least chance of you ever having to fire a weapon on anyone, ever.”
“Well, that and I am pretty good with languages,” Tim corrected her mildly.
“Conceded. But you had other talents, too, and you know it. You could have done any number of things, but you didn’t want to put yourself in that kind of position. But this is a time of war, O’Neill. There’s no place left for people who can’t cope with that in the UEO. Since Hudson started pushing you, you’ve stepped outside your comfort zone a few times, haven’t you, into areas you would have never gone before? How about rescuing Lonnie from Macronesia? The peacetime Tim wouldn’t have done anything like that. You were brave and focused. How about standing up to Brody when he and Lonnie argued about going after those submarines instead of blowing up the base, like you were ordered to? You never would have done any of that under Bridger.”
“I never would have had to, under Bridger,” Tim snapped.
“But if you had to, could you have? I don’t think so,” she snapped back. Her voice softened. “You are one of the two people on board that Hudson feels has the potential to command that hasn’t yet been developed. Ford is already molded and set. Oliver wants to give the UEO an officer he feels he has helped make worthy of leadership.”
“Two,” Tim mused. “Lucas?”
Fredericks grinned, an expression Tim couldn’t recall ever having seen on her before. “Who else? But he has the balls to stand up for himself that you’re only beginning to develop. You need to know when, without going as far as insubordination, to challenge something you feel is wrong. Even Bridger told Hudson that he led by the courage of his convictions. You have to be able to do that, too. You and Lucas both have enough of the old school, the caring compassionate scientific UEO, to temper the warrior blood that will rise in the current environment, but still have the ability to do what must be done, if the situation calls for it. Don’t give up that chance, O’Neill – you’d be a damn fine captain some day.” She stood back and gave him a precise salute, which he sharply returned, and then she was just gone.
He idly wondered who he would see next. He didn’t have to wait to long to find out. “Timmy,” the comfortably familiar voice called from the not-really-fog. “Look at you!” He opened his arms, taking the small wiry woman in, and holding her close.
“Hello, Mama.”
“I’ve missed you, son. I’m sorry I couldn’t wait for you to come back. Imagine my surprise when I got here, and you weren’t here yet. Your father kept telling me you weren’t dead, but I didn’t believe him. I think you must have gotten that psi ability of yours from that man.” She pulled from his embrace, straightening her hair and clothing in her precise way.
“I won’t keep you long, Timmy. There are others still waiting. Oh, don’t look so shocked,” she chided, watching his face, “it didn’t surprise me a bit to fall where I did in the lineup. Your friends and crewmates have been your real family for a long time, more than we ever were. You love us, I know that, but they give you your purpose and validation. We never were a very easy family to love, you know.”
He smiled at that, ruefully. As an only child of intellectual parents, he was expected to “grow up” at a very young age. Most of his free time was spent with his parent’s friends and co-workers, and since they both worked in highly technical fields, these were extremely knowledgeable and articulate people. His English vocabulary was huge by the time he was ten, and he had already mastered three foreign languages by that time, with two others under study. It really wasn’t until he reached puberty that he realized how different he was from the other children, and by then he had already been labeled. It didn’t help that physical affection was rare in his home, as was frivolous entertainment. He never played his first computer game until he went to the Academy. He was extremely uncomfortable with even a friendly touch, unless, like Marie, he had known the person very well before they laid a finger on him. Between his intellectual maturity and his emotional stagnation, his family had managed to turn out a total basket case, unsuited for the real world.
His roommate during his Plebe year in the Academy took it upon himself to introduce Tim to the less intellectual pleasures of life, discovering within the studious young man a wicked sense of humor and a constantly ignored but passionate imagination. Tim learned to play video games and hold his liquor; he even lost his virginity. The balance that year brought into his sheltered life made it possible for him to find the inner strength to overcome his claustrophobia in order to serve as a submariner, and the well-rounded character to outshine the many other candidates who applied for the position of Communications Officer on the new seaQuest. Not that he didn’t still have his share of complexes – he just dealt with them better.
His mother nodded, following his inner conversation, blanching just a bit when he mentally reviewed his first year away from home. But, smiling again, she admitted, “We did our best to make you an emotional cripple, didn’t we, Timmy? We really never meant to, you know. By the time we had any idea of what we were doing to you, it was much too late to undo it. So, please forgive your father and the rest of the family for the way they act around you now. It’s as much the changes you had already undergone before you went away that bother them as the fact that they had given you up for dead, and you weren’t. In many ways, they’re all very proud of you, really.” She looked at her watch, crisply efficient and in control, just as she had been in life. “I really do need to go, now, dear.” She stepped up on her toes as he crouched down a bit, and she kissed him on the cheek. By the time the feeling of her lips on his skin had disappeared, so had she.
He wasn’t totally surprised when Jim Brody materialized before him. He had pretty much figured he was due sometime soon. “Yeah,” Brody cracked, “you got it all figured out – even your death is predictable now, huh?” Tim started, not sure if he should be offended or not, until Brody laughed openly, and O’Neill joined him. Brody caught his breath, and went on. “You know, I often wondered why the Hyperions put you and me and Tony in that bar together. Tony, I could sort of figure – he and I both tried to hide what we were feeling with an act, and that place was the type of stage we would play on. But why you? And the more I thought about it, the more I realized – I didn’t know you any better than anyone knew me. For all I knew, that could be just your kind of place. You hid so much inside, never quite a part of it all, but doing a great job of convincing even yourself that you were. Is seaQuest just a boatload of strangers to you, too, Tim? Who would know any of your secrets if you should decide to stay here? Would they learn all about you when they cleaned out your cabin? Would they be surprised at what they learned? I’m betting they would.”
Tim physically stepped back, the words hitting like a blow. His first year there on seaQuest, he had friends – real friends. They were all close, then. Even after they returned to the new boat, he felt close to Miguel, and he and Lonnie had worked out their differences, in time. But now Lonnie had so much she was trying to sort through, and Miguel was gone, and even his friendly feelings for Beth Perry held nowhere near the affection he had felt for Kristen Westphalen or Wendy Smith. The only people he really felt knew him were Darwin and Dagwood, and neither would go to the others if they felt Tim was in need of help, unless of course his life were in danger. But maybe it was, and he deliberately chose friends who couldn’t quite see his emotional bankruptcy. He looked up, his dark eyes panic stricken as he stared into Jim’s.
“Don’t die alone, Tim. Open back up – it’s worth it. Take a few chances – let loose a little. Don’t forget that your crewmates need a friend too.” And Brody, like the others, was gone.
A friend – it could only be… “Hola, mi amigo. Bienviedes!” Before he even got a good look at his stocky Cuban friend, he was wrapped in a powerful bear hug.
“Miguel!” Tim cried out, returning the hug with a force he had never felt comfortable with using while his friend was alive. He had always been uncomfortable with his friend’s easy physical affection, Tim still being too hung up and self-conscious about that kind of touching between men. It wasn’t until Hyperion, when his world fell apart and he returned to life without the benefit of his closest friend that Tim realized how much he needed that kind of tactile connection to help keep him sane. He hadn’t realized how hungry for physical interaction of any kind he had become.
“Yeah, from what I hear, outside of getting thrown from your chair, you haven’t had anybody touching you since I left.” Ortiz pulled back and ruffled Tim’s hair. “You know better than to cut yourself off, amigo – you used to complain that Ford lived in a shell, away from the rest of us. Now, he’s crawled out, and you seem to have taken up the space he left behind.” Miguel’s face grew serious. “Are you aware of what it would do to the others if you stayed here?”
Tim couldn’t hold back the thought that he had earlier, that few would care for long. Miguel’s face grew dark. “Bull! They need you as much as you do them. Lucas is nineteen – nineteen, man – and has already lived through being abandoned by two fathers and seen far too many of his friends die too young. Now, he finally starts to get close to you, and you want to do this. No way, pal. How about Lonnie, Tim? She’s got a soft heart, and it’s already broken over losing Brody. He didn’t get this choice, any more than I did. We would have fought to get back there if we had. You have friends, Tim; it’s been you pushing them away. What about Piccolo, huh? Why do you think he comes to you with his troubles? He trusts you, O’Neill, and that isn’t an easy thing for him. Don’t give up on them – they haven’t given up on you.” Ortiz put his arm around Tim’s shoulders and began to move him towards something not quite visible. “You are going to go back, aren’t you?”
Somewhere, maybe a million miles away, or else right in his ear, he heard Lonnie’s voice, choked with tears. “Tim, please don’t leave us. Dr. Perry says it’s all up to you now. Please come back.” He heard the others, some just murmurs, other voices clear, all talking to him, clearly not expecting answers.
He looked into Miguel’s dark eyes, still the slightest bit uncertain. “I guess I should, huh?” The Cuban nodded, then stopped walking.
"Here we are, compadre – the moment of truth. Do you turn and go back with me, or should I take you back to seaQuest?” Tim looked down, seeing his body lying in Medbay hooked up to what seemed to be yards of wires and tubing. He looked at Ortiz again, then squared his shoulders and nodded towards his own still figure.
“Let’s go.”
“Remember, they need you as much as you need them. Give a little.” Miguel’s last few words were vague in Tim’s mind; almost drowned out by a soft hum and the steady rhythmic beeping that had gradually risen in volume. He opened his eyes, blinking and attempting to focus on the ceiling above him. He turned his head to the side, noticing a khaki figure beside him. He felt hands gently pushing his glasses onto his face, and looked up into the sparkling eyes but serious face of Oliver Hudson. Muffled through the observation glass, he heard Piccolo’s voice, shouting, “He’s awake!” to someone.
“Captain?” Tim’s voice almost squeaked out, rusty from lack of use. “What are you doing here?”
Hudson’s eyes smiled even more, although his face remained set. “Had to find out where my whole senior bridge crew was disappearing every day after duty, so I followed them here. It’s a good thing you're finally conscious. You’ve been disrupting morale, just lying there like that.” Tim managed a weak grin; pretty sure the captain was joking, but not quite confident enough about it to laugh.
His eyes drifted past Hudson to the glass behind him, where he was startled to see almost everyone he knew, and a few people he wasn’t even sure he did know. Piccolo and Lucas were in the front, Tony making faces at him when he noticed Tim was looking. Lonnie was right behind them, and Ford behind her, holding her shoulders for support – hers or his own, Tim wasn't certain. The ensign who usually ran the communications board on night watch, whose name had escaped him at the moment, was beside Henderson, and he saw a couple of faces in the back that were blocked from clear sight. Towering above the rest in the back row was Dagwood, that funny half smile on his face. And off to the side, alone and pretending not to care that she was, stood Kimura, her body language a mixture of concern and indifference, but her eyes clearly troubled. He caught those black eyes, and smiled gently, obviously confusing her even more. Then he turned his gaze back to the others, raising his hand with difficulty and managing a weak wave. Through the glass he heard them all cheer, and even Kimura smiled. He let his arm drop, and returned his attention to the captain.
“We almost lost you a couple of times, O’Neill, and I have a feeling the doctor isn’t going to be in any hurry to get you out of here, but we miss you on the bridge. Take your time and get better, but don’t be too long about it, lieutenant – that’s an order!” Tim raised his arm again trying to salute his superior, but Hudson gently pushed it back down to the bed. The arm sank easily, feeling like it was made of lead. In fact, Tim realized, his whole body felt that way – no real pain, but no energy, either. “Save it ‘til you’re back on the bridge, Tim.” And the captain really smiled at him, turning afterward and leaving the room.
Tim watched wearily though the window as he saw Dr. Perry dispersing the crowd outside. He saw Lucas waiting, pulling her aside as the others were leaving. He spoke earnestly to her, and she nodded and replied. Then she entered the room.
“How are you feeling Tim?” she asked kindly.
“Like somebody drained all my life-forces and left me with just my brain in working order,” he said tiredly.
“Well, your body had quite a shock. Your heart stopped twice, and we had a hard time getting it going again the second time. From what you just said, I'm suspecting there was no brain damage, but I’ll run a couple of tests when you’re feeling a little better, just to make sure.” She checked monitors and fiddled with dials as she talked.
“So you’re saying I was dead,” Tim said slowly.
“Clinically, and only for a few minutes,” she answered, watching his face. His only response was a deliberate nod. Waiting a moment more, she went on. “You still need a lot of rest. Your body has a lot to recover from. We’ll start physical therapy tomorrow, but today I want you to take it easy. I wasn’t going to let anyone visit you today, either, but Wolenczak put up a pretty good argument, so he’s going to come in for just a few minutes. If you get too tired, send him away – promise?” She held Tim’s gaze until he nodded again, and then she left.
Lucas entered cautiously, practically tiptoeing to the bed. Tim grinned at him. “Hey, Lucas, it’s okay. I’m not going to break.”
The ensign smiled nervously. “I just had to see for myself that you’re okay. You were out of it for so long that…”
Tim interrupted. “How long was I out, anyway? Everybody keeps acting like it was forever.”
The boy swallowed, not sure if this was something Tim was supposed to be told. He finally answered, “You were in a coma for a week, Tim. Dr. Perry said that if you didn’t come out of it today or tomorrow, you might never. You really scared us all.” Tim watched Lucas waving his arms nervously as he talked, finally snaking his own arm out and managing to grab one of the young ensign’s hands as it flew past. Lucas stiffened as if he had received a companion of the electric shock that had disabled Tim, and his blue eyes grew wide. O’Neill recognized the reaction as the same he had any time Miguel had touched him intimately – serious discomfort. He almost laughed aloud, and couldn’t help but wonder if anyone had touched the young man this way since Bridger had left the boat. We’ll work on this problem together, my friend, O’Neill vowed mentally. He squeezed Lucas’ hand and released it, watching his friend visibly relax.
The ensign ran his hands through his hair, and regained his composure. “Anyway,” he joked to cover his discomfiture, “You sure put on quite a light show. Fried your board completely, too. Lonnie and I have both worked on it, but it doesn’t respond the same to anyone but you. There’s some glitch in it right now that’s making McGath sound like Mickey Mouse. It was pretty funny at first, but it is getting annoying now.” Tim did laugh out loud this time. “I’d better go, or Perry’ll run me out. I’ll come back tomorrow.” The boy paused at the door, and turned back. “By the way, Darwin really misses you.”
Tim waited just a minute for the familiar feeling that slipped into his mind, and he smiled. “I know. Thanks.” After the door closed, Tim settled back into the pillows - not really sleepy, but not really able to do much else yet, either. As he began to drift off, another voice spoke to his mind.
“Tim, amigo,” he heard Ortiz say, “We’re all glad you made the right choice.”
Almost asleep, he mumbled softly, “Me, too.”
=30=