"Anything else you want to know?" Hutch asked of Julian as they finished their dinner of braised short rib stew and fresh-baked rosemary ciabatta.
"I still don't believe you," Julian replied, somewhat breathlessly as he stared down into his empty bowl. "All these years I thought he'd just made it up to help me cope. I never thought any of it was true."
"Isn't it better this way, though? Knowing that he's never lied to you?" Hutch questioned, while soaking up the last bit of broth in his bowl with the last bit of his bread.
"It's just… it's a lot to come to terms with," Julian admitted, quite harshly.
"No one is asking you to do that overnight, Jay," Celina remarked as she stood and began to gather the empty dishes. "Take however long you need."
"Here, let me help with that," Hutch said, popping the last of his bread into his mouth.
As he went to stand, Clara grabbed him by the wrist and stopped him from standing.
"You're the guest," she reminded him before reaching across and grabbing his empty bowl. "Besides, there's a cake hidden in the pantry I normally help with. It's a whole tradition. She does it every time he comes home. The only real surprise is what kind she made."
"Ah," he replied, nodding as she got up and grabbed Casimir's bowl also, before heading into the kitchen behind Celina.
There was something heartwarming about the way the family interacted, and watching Celina and Clara in the kitchen brought a sad smile to Hutch's face. Had he'd realized how much his emotions were showing, he would have tried to conceal them, but it was too late, Casimir had already noticed.
"You doing alright?"
Hutch nodded. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. It's just, I miss it, you know?"
"I do," he replied, sitting forward, arms on the table, chin resting in hand. "You have no idea how envious I was every time you got to go home to your tribe. As wary as they were of the rest of us, they were no less welcoming or kind. And the rare few times I visited, Kahlala made me feel at home."
"Kahlala? Who's that?" Julian asked, looking up from the top of the pop can he was now holding.
"My xalgar," Hutch replied, doing his best to hold back the pain of hearing her name and having her complimented by Casimir. "She disliked it when I would call her wife, always said it wasn't the equivalent of a xalgar, but here, that's what she would be."
"Sounds like you'd rather be there than here," Julian commented, as he flicked at the pop tab.
"No question."
"Even knowing that you're the only human?"
"Even so. Because there, I'm not the only Moahaba."
"Aren't you one of them too?" Julian asked his father.
"No. I'm Shikkashii. Different tribe."
"Did you ever want to go back?"
"Never," Casimir was adamant in his statement. "My home has always been with your mother. That's why I know that home for Hutch, is wherever Kahlala is."
"Then is that why you're here? To find a way home?"
Hutch glanced at Casimir, who gave him a nod of approval, before he looked back to Julian and answered his question. "It is. When I found myself back here, I also found what remained for the amulet that both of us believe is responsible for our…"
"Planetary escapades," Casimir jumped in, "as well as our lack of aging situation."
"Alright!" Celina declared as she came around the corner from the pantry carrying a platter with a white log cake displayed on it, Clara beside her with a handful of forks and a stack of dessert plates. "Who wants cake?"
Casimir raised his hand before she'd even set the platter down. "That looks incredible, my dear. I can't wait to try it."
Dessert was as delicious as it had appeared and the conversation had returned to more normal topics, which included a mention of Ren. Both Celina and Clara remembered him fondly, and once the dessert was finished, and the dishes cleared, Celina excused herself to arrange things with Iosat as Casimir had promised him.
"And that is our que to get to work also," Casimir remarked, even as he hesitated to get out of his chair; not that Hutch could blame him, he too, was completely stuffed.
"Don't worry. He's not actually going to make you do anything on your first night. Dad just likes showing off his collection," Clara commented as they got up from the table.
"Not coming with?" Hutch wondered.
"No thanks. I've got enough to do without following you around and listening to another of his lectures. Julian on the other hand…"
"Leave me out of this," he remarked, pushing his chair back. "I'm got my own stuff to do."
"We'll leave you both to it then," Casimir said, patting at Hutch's shoulder. "Come on. Shoes and coats, then off for a walk."
"A walk sounds nice. I could use the exercise," Hutch muttered, following Casimir back to the side door they'd come in from. "So, how long have you had this place for?"
"We bought it a few months after my return," Casimir explained as they readied themselves to head outdoors. "I couldn't handle being in the city. I struggled to find my footing there. Kept having the same nightmares, which lead to me wandering the city at night. Celina nearly lost her mind over it. She would be so angry with me when I'd come home, even when I'd left her a note saying I'd be back."
"Thought you'd disappeared again, huh?" Hutch asked as he picked up the box and they headed through the breezeway and into the back yard.
"That and she was worried about me being on the streets at those hours. Her concerns were completely understandable. I wasn't the man she remembered me being, and I didn't remember being that man at all. I thought the only option was to leave her, to let her find someone that wouldn't let her down as I had, and I began to search for properties away from everyone else. Then I found this place for sale. It was rundown and the entire property was in disarray. The pasture in the front was an old apple orchard, but the owner, who was in a care facility at the time, hadn't been able to look after it for decades. It was overgrown and the trees themselves were well past their prime. Anyways, I could see the potential, and I just knew that this was what we were missing. I bought it on the spot and started the renovation on the house the day after closing. It took me two months to get it back to being livable, and I gave the keys to her as a gift."
"Was she thrilled or pissed that you'd done all of that behind her back?"
Casimir chuckled as they walked along the stone path towards a building with white metal siding and a blue roof. "I would say she was more surprised than anything, since we had never talked about moving from the penthouse. However, the moment she saw the house, she called it our home, and it was like we were back to how we were when we were first married. We've renovated again since then. We, added the breezeway, put the extension on the right side of the house along with the patio and pool. Cleared out the pasture, planted the apple trees along the driveway, evergreens along the road, and built the entranceway. A few years later we added the two barns you saw to the left, as well as this building and the greenhouse behind it."
"And I thought I was doing well by replacing my front porch," Hutch muttered, as Casimir typed a code into the security keypad next to the door.
Opening the door, Casimir stepped inside, and turned on the lights as Hutch followed him in.
The inside was a well-organized laboratory, filled with the type of equipment Hutch had only seen in science-fiction movies or the popular crime scene investigation shows on TV. It was well ventilated, lite, and insulated, and had a secondary door in the opposite corner from which they had entered that lead out into the greenhouse. There were three windows on either side of the building, each covered with a blackout curtain secured to the metal framing with magnets. Along the ceiling, were rows of pipes, some were connected to sprinkler heads, while others were marked compressed air and gas line, and the entire thing was monitored by a state-of-the-art security system located in the small office they passed through once they had entered.
"I've had twenty-six years to get to this point, Hutch. And I stared out older, highly educated, and with a whole lot more than you. If you want to get somewhere on your own, I won't try to stop you. But I would like to help with more than just this, if you'd accept it."
"I appreciate the offer, but let's see how this goes first," Hutch replied as he followed Casimir further into the building.
Stopping next to a large microscope, Hutch set the box onto the table, and pulled out the bag of myrrget handing it to Casimir.
"If this isn't what we think it is, I can't see a reason for us to ever see each other again. I certainly have no intention of being indebted to you or begging for handouts. You paid my medical bill; I think we can call it even for whatever misguided sense of heroism Celina's attributed to me."