A Cup of Kindness

By the Virtual Season staff

 

It's strange how memory works, you know? New Year's Eve in London reminded me of a high school English assignment, one I actually did, for once, probably because it involved a drinking song. Back then, I was always up for anything that'd make Aunt C cringe a little. But she helped me look up the translation and everything....

When I barged my way through the half-drunk crowd in the pub we'd had dinner in, desperate to get out, away from that pitying, sad look in Bobby's eyes, and the guilt in Claire's, Auld Lang Syne was still ringing in my ears.

Which is what made me think of that old school assignment. Auld lang syne... in olden days. At 36, I guess I can't claim to have much experience with 'olden days.' But the past has a funny way of catching up with you, even so.

The old 'acquaintance' who'd just barged back into my life and turned it upside down all over again was the last person I'd raise a glass to, unless I was at his wake. Thinking about all the ways Arnaud De Fohn has made my life miserable the last five years isn't the way I would have picked to start off a new year, but it looked like I wasn't going to have much of a choice, at least until the gland in my head finally killed me.

There are some things worse than death. The past is one of them.

Should old acquaintance be forgot,

and never brought to mind?

Should old acquaintance be forgot,

and auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear,

for auld lang syne,

we'll take a cup o’ kindness yet,

for auld lang syne.

And surely you’ll buy your pint cup!

And surely I’ll buy mine!

And we'll take a cup o’ kindness yet,

for auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my dear,

for auld lang syne,

we'll take a cup o’ kindness yet,

for auld lang syne.

We two have run about the hills,

and picked the daisies fine ;

But we’ve wandered many a weary foot,

since auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my dear,

for auld lang syne,

we'll take a cup o’ kindness yet,

for auld lang syne.

We two have paddled in the stream,

from morning sun till dine (dinner time) ;

But seas between us broad have roared

since auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my dear,

for auld lang syne,

we'll take a cup o’ kindness yet,

for auld lang syne.

And there’s a hand my trusty friend !

And give us a hand o’ thine !

And we’ll take a right good-will draught,

for auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my dear,

for auld lang syne,

we'll take a cup o’ kindness yet,

for auld lang syne.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[January 1, 12:45 am, London time]

The wind that came off the Thames must have swept straight across England from the iciest depths of the North Sea. It scattered snowflakes over half the country, heralding a frosty January first. New Year's revelers wandered the streets of London, ignoring the cold to raise a bottle or noise maker in celebration. The year 2005 had begun, a year full of the promise for new hopes, old dreams and better prospects.

The door of the Fox and Hounds was still swinging shut when Darien Quicksilvered, slipping out into the midst of the celebrating Londoners. A flurry of snow swirled around his invisible form, outlining him in a frozen luster, but few of the drunken partiers took any notice of the odd sight.

Darien walked blindly, moving faster and faster until he was running, vainly trying to escape his future and the specter of his own death. If he could just get away from the Agency, Claire's dire predictions, Hobbes' sympathy and the curse that his brother and that dipwad, Arnaud, had left him with, maybe he could think. Maybe he could live.

When he finally stopped running, Darien didn't know where he was or how he'd gotten there. Shaking off the Quicksilver, he looked around, trying to orient himself. It was a frigid night, snow falling from the London sky. Whatever stars might grace the night were invisible behind the cloud cover. It didn't matter anyway. It wasn't like he could navigate using the North star. The Underground would probably be much easier--and faster. The only problem was finding one of the now familiar red and blue circle-and-bar signs.

Darien shivered, rubbing the thin sleeves of his Union Jack t-shirt to generate some heat, missing the coat he'd left behind in another world, another time... perhaps all times.

The memory of draping it over Rose's pretty shoulders came back to him, along with the crazy meeting with her boyfriend, the Doctor. That had definitely been one of the weirder encounters of his life, and he'd encountered some fairly peculiar people. Best not to think about the whole thing too long or his head would explode, and Darien was already exhausted, mentally and physically. Not to mention lost and cold with nowhere to go, in a city where he didn't know a single native.

Claire didn't count; she hadn't lived in England in years. Fear warred with the anger and betrayal that churned his belly. How could she? How could any of them?

He turned onto a side street and froze, figuratively and literally, letting the Quicksilver coat him once again in the blink of an eye. Two British cops stood on the corner, discussing the late night crowds. Darien had no reason to fear the London constabulary, but old habits died hard. There were many years when he would have loved the cellophane coating of invisibility to hide his illegal activities. Now he was mostly concerned with Hobbes and Claire coming after him, although he doubted that they'd call the police. Not when Claire was still an undesirable alien in her homeland.

His former compatriots were the last people on Earth Darien wanted to talk to. Just thinking about the way Claire had screwed him made his belly clench with anger. He had to find somewhere safe to think and figure out his options.

So what was he doing in the middle of London without his passport, any extra clothes or a place to stay? Darien sidled past the cops and made it to the corner where he spied an Underground logo one block further down.

For a second, he felt his spirits lift about an inch from their current belowground level. The tube meant money. How much did he have? Ducking under the awning of a closed off-license shop, London's version of a liquor store, Darien let the Quicksilver go and checked the contents of his jeans pockets. Rose had returned the cell phone that had been in his leather jacket pocket--and right on cue, it rang. He'd ignored the three previous calls, knowing exactly who was trying to contact him.

Sure enough, Hobbes' name showed up on the little screen.

"Crap," Darien snarled, tossing the whole phone into a trash bin.

Let them stew--hell, let them try and find him. He'd be long gone, somewhere far, far away... like... as if in answer to all his questions, Adam's face came to him. Adam standing on a Caribbean beach, dressed in retro '60s surfing shorts with a boogie board and a fake tribal tattoo on his left deltoid--at least Darien had hoped it was a fake when he'd pulled up the picture on his e-mail the day before he'd left for London.

A small, out of the way island in the Atlantic. Warm and tranquil, with the added bonus of the one person on the Earth he cared to talk to.

He'd had a ten pound note and change in his jacket pocket, which was apparently now on its way to the Dafur Protectorate, wherever that was. British currency was most probably not accepted on the outskirts of the galaxy.

Darien wasn't quite sure he totally believed that the witty guy with the probing eyes and ratty leather jacket that was a twin to his own was really an alien from another planet. He'd sounded like any other Brit as far as he was concerned. But then, who was he to question? He'd met Bigfoot and a woman trapped in another dimension in the last five years. As far as Darien was concerned, a Doctor from another planet was just as logical. Even one with two hearts.

He patted himself down and found the keys to the miniature car parked near Paddington station in his back pocket. Now there was something he had that Claire and Hobbes didn't. The knowledge gave him grim satisfaction. All their suitcases and documents, including their passports, were in that car.

Combining all the various coins from his jeans pockets, Darien managed to scrounge five pounds. The British pound coins were heavy in his hand, clinking against one another as he entered the tube station. The tube was running all night to accommodate the New Years' festivities, and there were far more people coming and going than he would have expected for one a.m.

Darien dropped the correct change into a machine to purchase a one-way ticket from Embankment Station to Paddington station and used his remaining one pound fifty to buy salt and vinegar crisps and packet of Callard and Bowser chocolate toffees.

He found a seat in a fairly empty car and sat with his back to the rest of the riders, remembering the seizure he'd had the last time he was in the Underground. Luckily, this time, he didn't start shorting out like a light bulb with a broken filament, and opened his meager snack with a sigh. Chips and candy did not a nutritional meal make. He was going to have to find something more substantial once he got more cash.

After examining the multicolored map of the London Underground, Darien let himself marginally relax. If he read the green line correctly, he had at least 10 minutes before his stop, and no one knew where he was.

The chocolate toffee felt smooth, dark and rich on his tongue. He rolled it around in his mouth, savoring the flavor before biting down on the hard candy.

Pain shot up through his jaw, setting off a cascade of side effects. Quicksilver flickered across his limbs like a severed electrical wire arcing in the rain. He shivered, trying to breathe, but for a couple of seconds, nothing in his body seemed to work correctly. Darien tucked his arms close to his body, waiting out the seizure, but it didn't last nearly as long as the last one had. Gulping air, he sagged against the wall, probing the original pain with his tongue. He could feel something loose in a back molar and worked it free with his finger. A filling or something.

His vision was still wonky, colors strobing brightly, the contrast between dark and light too sharp to focus well on both. Darien had to close one eye to see the tiny thing he'd pried from his tooth.

Crap. Crap. Crap.

His first impulse was to toss the miniscule transmitter to the floor, but on second thought, he clutched it in his hand, cursing. Damned Agency, they'd lo-jacked him! And Claire had been the one who'd inserted the tracking device. He remembered distinctly wondering why she'd taken up dentistry along with all her other chores after his stint in the desert around Palm Springs. He had no doubt that it was Borden who put her up to filling his tooth with a mini GPS. Inevitably, it also made him wonder what else the 'Fish might have talked her into doing.

Anger and resentment for all he'd endured churned his belly, tensing every muscle and nerve. The hell with them all--they wanted to know where he was so badly, he'd let them find him. Or think they had.

When he stepped off the subway car, Darien tossed the microchip, still attached to filling amalgam material, onto the tracks of the Paddington Station and grimly walked away.