A Friend In Need...

He’d already fallen in love a total of three times today. The first was with a woman who happened to be three times his height. She’d fallen in love immediately as well, but her husband hadn’t been too thrilled with that prospect.

The second one had been just his height, but she’d been a bit too young. Still in high school, in fact. Davy liked young girls and wanted to keep his youthful image, but decided that going with a high school girl was not in his best interest. Besides, there had been something about her that he hadn’t trusted.

The final girl was a mystery. He’d caught her eye as she was walking out of the library, but when he’d looked away for a half-second, distracted by something out of the corner of his eye, he’d turned back to her, she was gone.

There was something strange about her, indeed. Something that had intrigued him greatly. But she’d been there for such a short time that he couldn’t figure out what.

Now he was heading back towards the Pad, girl hunting time over for the day. He’d seen several other girls since that last one that could have been prospects, however he’d been too caught up thinking about his mystery girl to fully devote his attention to any of them.

There was a honk from the side of the road, and he noticed a big, red car pull over to the curb.

“Hey Davy, want a ride?” Mike called from the driver’s seat.

“Sure,” Davy replied, hopping over the passenger side door (which had ceased working lately). “Heading back home?”

“Yep,” Mike replied. He gestured towards the back seat, indicating a few grocery bags in there. “Came home, saw Micky leaving and decided it’d be a good idea to make somethin’ easy for us tonight.”

“’E’s going out again?” Davy asked. “Wow. I guess they must be getting serious.”

“I don’t know,” Mike replied. He paused the car at a red light and glanced at his watch. “I’ve gotta go pick up Thomas,” he reported. Davy nodded.

“He stayed at the vet’s?”

“Yep. I told him he could hang out there for a bit and I’d be back at five thirty, since that’s when they close for the day. I hope I’m not late.” The light changed, and Mike stepped on the gas again. The car reluctantly came to life and moved forwards.

“’Ow’s Petah doing?” Davy asked, realizing that he hadn’t asked before.

Mike shrugged. “They found he’s got some sorta bacteria or somethin’ in him that his body ain’t fightin’ for some reason or another and they’re puttin’ him on some antibiotics,” he reported.

Davy nodded. “Are they worried about ‘im?” he asked.

Mike shrugged again. “I’m not sure. A little, I guess. They haven’t seen this particular sorta disease before. I guess they’ll worry if the antibiotics don’t work or somethin’,”

“Yeah, I would be, too,” Davy agreed. Mike turned down a suburban street and parked the car in front of a modest looking, one story building.

“Here we are,” he announced as he turned off the ignition. Then they both got out of the car.

Joel met them at the door. “I hope I’m not late,” Mike apologized.

“Nah, no problem,” Joel replied. “We had a bit of an emergency and used his help anyway,” he added.

“Emergency?” Mike asked.

“’Elp?” Davy repeated.

Joel noticed the worried looks. “Oh! No! Nothing like that!” he said, hastening to calm them down. He grinned nervously and waved his arms. “The emergency was just with a little poodle that came in with a broken leg. She seems to be okay now.”

Mike relaxed. Davy heaved a sigh.

“Oh…Joel, this is Davy. Davy, meet Joel,” Mike introduced. “Davy’s a friend of mine. Roommate actually,” he added with a slight grimace.

“I’m not that bad, really,” Davy replied, punching his roommate in the arm. “You’re the one that’s a slob.”

“Am not!” Mike challenged back. “That’s Micky!”

“Well, you’re a close second,” Davy replied.

Mike sighed, realizing they were probably embarrassing themselves.

Davy must have realized it, too. “Um…I’ll go find Thomas,” he excused himself. “Is that alright with you?” he added to Joel, realizing he might not be permitted to walk around a vet’s office aimlessly.

“No problem,” Joel replied with a lazy grin. “Just down that hallway and the first door on your left.”

Davy nodded and headed towards the hallway. Once he was out of sight of Joel and Mike, he frowned slightly to himself.

‘Something here that seems weird…’ he thought to himself for the second time today. He didn’t sense danger, however, so he figured whatever the “weird” thing was couldn’t be harmful.

He reached the door in question, which was shut. He knocked once and then opened it. “Tom? You in ‘ere?” he asked.

Thomas was, indeed. He was sitting in a chair next to a table, on which the large golden-haired “dog” was laying. “Don’t call me Tom,” he warned in a low voice.

Davy grinned. “Okay, Tommy,” he replied mischievously. “We gotta get going.”

Thomas nodded, standing up. “He’s sleeping, now,” he informed Davy in a whisper.

“How’s ‘e feeling?” Davy asked. Thomas followed him out the door, and he shut it behind them.

Thomas shrugged. “Weak, tired, exhausted, ill. But better than he was.”

“Hey Tom, ready to go?” Mike asked when they had entered the main lobby area again. Thomas nodded, ignoring for once the nickname that he disliked so much.

“Where’s Theresa?” he asked Joel.

“Still in surgery,” the man replied. “I’ll tell her you said good-bye.”

Thomas nodded. “Tell her I said thanks, too,” he said. “For letting me stay here all day.”

“Don’t mention it,” Joel replied. “You were a help, anyway.”

Thomas nodded with a slight smile and the three headed out, saying their goodbyes as they went.

“’Ey Micky,” Davy called as he came in the front door of the Pad, carrying some burger bags. “You’re going out again?” he asked, seeing the drummer dressed in a black suit and tie.

“Yeah,” Micky replied with a grin.

“Better watch out,” Mike commented, shutting the door behind them. “He’ll rival your position as the town’s Casanova.”

Davy frowned to himself and Micky laughed aloud.

“Nah, I’m sticking with one girl,” he replied with a grin, patting his friend on the back. He stepped past his friends and grabbed his dress coat from where he had laid it on the couch.

“Oh?” Mike asked. “Does that mean what I think it means?”

Micky couldn’t help blushing slightly, and Davy laughed.

“Are you really, Mick?” he asked. “That’s great!”

Micky shrugged, fingering something within his jacket pocket. “It depends on her, ya know,” he mumbled quietly.

Mike nodded in agreement. “Yeah, but I think she’ll say yes,” he encouraged his friend. Micky shrugged.

“Is that why you’re dressing up?” Davy asked, observing the elegant suit and tie, and even formal shoes.

Micky nodded. “Yeah,” he replied. “I told her we’d go out some place fancy tonight. I think it’ll be the best place to pop the question.”

Davy and Mike both nodded their agreement, and voiced their congratulations to their friend. Then they headed into the kitchen to devour their burgers, leaving Micky to go off to try to determine his future – and whether or not it would be spent with a woman he believed was the woman of his dreams.

A few hours later, Davy yawned, finding himself falling asleep in front of the television. “Man, I’m tired,” he said to Mike, who was sitting at the window seat again, writing diligently on a notepad. “I can’t believe you’re still working.”

“Gotta get this finished tonight,” Mike replied, turning over his pencil and erasing furiously. “Otherwise I’ll loose the idea.”

Davy nodded sympathetically and glanced at his watch. “I wonder how things went with Micky,” he commented. “It’s almost midnight. I guess that means it went okay.”

Mike shrugged and scribbled some more. “Or it could be the opposite,” he pointed out. “It could be that she turned him down and decided to take a walk or something to straighten it out.” He paused momentarily in his writing to think. “I hope he didn’t do anythin’ drastic,” he thought aloud, worry showing in his voice.

Davy frowned. “Nah,” he replied. “I would ‘ave sensed something by now.”

Mike shrugged. “Then I guess it did go okay,” he decided, turning back to his writing. “’G’night Davy.”

“’Nite, Mike,” Davy replied as he headed to bed.

Thomas watched from his window as the lights in the house next to his slowly went out, one by one. The downstairs lights had gone out shortly after 12:30, and Davy’s light had gone on briefly and then out again shortly before then. Mike’s bedroom light had stayed on until one am, but it, too, was out now.

Micky had come home a little before one in the morning, and his light, too, was out. All the lights in Thomas’ house were, of course, off, including his own, but he wasn’t asleep. It was now nearly two am, and he still wasn’t tired.

Not that he wasn’t tired. He was. It was just that he wasn’t able to sleep. Something was bothering him. Something serious.

At first, Thomas had thought that it was his father’s current condition. That was enough to make anyone worry. But, after careful thought and consideration, he had determined that it was not the problem he was currently loosing sleep over.

No, Thomas determined. He was not worried about his father. That isn’t to say that he wasn’t worried. He was worried. Just now worried as much as he thought he had been.

His head began to spin as he thought about it.

For some reason or another, he felt like the house was the worst place for him to be in at the moment. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt almost…claustrophobic. In fact, very claustrophobic.

Thomas decided to go out.

For a normal kid, this would have been difficult. A normal kid would have to sneak down the stairs as quietly as possible, attempting not to awaken his sleeping parents. But, as Thomas so keenly was aware of in even his earliest memories, he was not a normal kid.

So, instead of slipping down the stairs and avoiding the creaking boards in the kitchen floor, Thomas changed calmly into a warm outfit and opened his second-story window. Then, with the skill one can only get with practice, he climbed out the window and sat on the ledge. He tested the air temperature and decided it would be worthwhile to get a jacket, so he reached back into the room and grabbed his light jacket from his bed post. Then he slid off the window sill.

He hovered in midair for a moment as he put on his jacket and then shut the window from the outside. He looked around to make certain no one was watching him, although he would have sensed anyone who had been in the area. The neighborhood was dark, however, and he smiled slightly, pleased of this.

Then, using only his inner sense of direction as a guide, he shut his eyes and flew out over the ocean.

He flew for a good ten minutes at a relatively fast pace, barely tiring as he sped above the mighty ocean. It was calm tonight, but that might change at any moment.

After a short while, he stopped, uncertain precisely why, and hovered in the middle of the ocean. He glanced back towards the shore, but it was visible only as lights in the distance. He laid on his back, relaxing as much as one might when they are using their energy to hover over the ocean, and stared up at the stars.

Ever since he was a child, Thomas had found the stars to be fascinating. All the things above the Earth’s atmosphere were, really, but lately he found the stars the best. Out here on the ocean he could see them clearly, without having to stare over the neighbor’s garage light.

He wasn’t sure why he felt such a strong connection. Originally, he had been attracted to them because they were stable and constant. The stars didn’t really change. At least not very much. They were always there.

Later, he had found them curiously entertaining. A small telescope that had been his birthday present the year he turned eight was later replaced by a more professional looking one the year he turned ten. Both were prized possessions kept in his room, and he would have guarded them with his life. He had learned the fascinating star patterns of the Milky Way, he had viewed the “oceans” on the moon, he had studied the constellations.

Recently he had begun turning to the stars for a combination of those reasons. He felt like there were answers that could be found only in outer space, whether they were answers to his past or answers for the entire universe. He found comfort in that idea.

But the stars were not what was troubling Thomas tonight. No, Thomas was worried about his father.

Not his father, specifically, but his father. The one who had actually fathered him.

“The truth is, Thomas, that that man who kidnapped you…the one we thought was your real father…isn’t.”

“Then who is?”

There was a long pause. “We don’t know.”

Thomas stayed out on the ocean for a long time. A very long time. When he saw the sun begin to rise, he knew he had to go back. So he turned to head back to shore.

As he did, the rising sun shone at him and something from under the water glinted in the light.

Something shiny under the water.

Thomas wanted to pause, to check it out, to see what it was. But he didn’t have time.

’Tomorrow night…er…morning,’ he promised himself as he flew home.

Mike groaned as the bright red numbers on his digital clock assaulted him. It wasn’t even six yet. He had been trying to sleep all night, but to no avail. He sighed and rolled out of bed.

’Might as well try to get somethin’ done, since I can’t sleep,’ he thought to himself.

He glanced out the window, enjoying the calm of early morning, even if he was exhausted. The flowers were blooming, the paper boy was riding down the street, Thomas was trying to slip into his bedroom window unnoticed, the people across the street were starting to leave for work, the...

Wait a sec.

Thomas? Sneaking into his bedroom window?

‘What on earth was he doing out?’ Mike wondered to himself...

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Back to part six.

On to part eight.