Staggering, Liam Kincaid pulled himself to his feet, swaying dangerously against the dizziness that threatened to send him down again.

Where was he?

A passing car caught him in the eyes with its headlights, and a flash of memory, confusing and convoluted, assaulted him.

~Heather North. The cold little cell with the bright light that shone in his face whenever the little window on the cell's door was opened. Sandoval. 3380. Augur. ". . . can't feel anything . . ."~

Liam shook his head, and winced as his headache protested against the move.

They must have drugged him.

Swaying, Liam took a few unsteady steps.

Uneasy and repulsed eyes watched him, then looked away.

I must look drunk . . . Liam realized. I feel drunk. I feel like I'm drunk and have a hangover at the same time.

Another car flashed by, and again the sudden light in his face brought the memories to the surface. Thankfully, they faded away faster than they had the last time.

~". . . can't feel anything . . ."~

Liam took a few more desperate steps, then stopped to steady himself.

I need to get out of here, he realized. I need . . . I need to . . . I need to go somewhere safe.

And with that somewhat orienting thought, Liam took a few more steps, slowly gaining coordination as he proceeded, and let his body carry him away without direction from his dopey mind.

Liam looked around.

So, this was where his feet had brought him.

No surprise, really.

He had always felt the safest here. Here where he had been conceived. Here where one of his fathers had died. Here where he sometimes still went when he felt the loneliness and deceptions and depression become to much for him. Here where he came to climb to the roof and look at the stars, and search for his mother's.

Stepping into the lift, Liam closed his eyes and leaned against the door as it carried him downward to the Lair, away from the hallowed silence of St. Michael's.

The lift stopped with a slight jolt and Liam pitched out of it. He made his way to "his" room, and collapsed on the bed, shivering as a coldness began to settle around him.

He still kept some things here; things he had never bothered to take out once Augur had left.

Augur.

~". . . can't feel anything . . ."~

Liam lurched to his feet and tore his black jacket off. He couldn't do it right now. Couldn't pretend.

Desperately, he stripped, then curled back up on the bed, snuggling his trembling body against the warm blankets.

Tears slipped out from under his closed eyelids.

God, he missed him. He missed them both, Augur and Lili. Both of them were gone, and he was alone. Hiding behind a shield of arrogance and aloofness to protect himself from the world.

Liam forced himself to sit up. Clutching a quilt around his bare shoulders, shaking more violently now, he got off the bed and shuffled over to the closet. Opening the door and reaching inside, he pulled out some old, comfortable clothes.

He couldn't walk around naked.

After he pulled the old tee-shirt over his head, he ran a hand through his ruffled hair and dug his global out of the pile of clothes that he had abandoned on the room's floor.

Doing his best to look calm, he forced his teeth to stop chattering.

He needed to call Renée.

Seated on the stairs, Liam brought the spoonful of chicken soup up to his mouth and swallowed it, enjoying the feeling of the warm liquid slipping down his throat. The shaking that had plagued him since his arrival at the Lair subsided slightly.

Renée had shown up soon after he had called. Storming into the Lair, she had shoved the soup at him, ordering him to eat and to tell her everything.

Now, she was typing at one of Augur's computers, and Liam couldn't help but smile as he ate the soup.

'Earth's one and only true cure-all,' Lili had said once, laughing. 'Well, this and hot-chocolate.'

Still smiling, Liam let himself be pulled away in the flood of memories that swept through his mind.

Curled up on the Lair's couch, Liam shivered under a blanket.

Augur watched him with a grin. The four-month old really did look his age, body hidden to the ears in a fluffy blanket, nose red, and eyes holding a slightly bewildered look at his sickness.

The young hybrid had come into the Lair, hacking up a storm. Through the coughing interruptions that had burst forth at odd intervals, he had managed to tell the cyber wizard and Lili that he had spent the last seven hours in Alaska, and that for six of those hours the heating had been broken in the facility, but that the A/C had been on, and that he didn't feel too good.

Augur suspected that the boy's cold also had something to do with the previous night that he had spent, in the rain, on the church's roof, gazing up into the dark clouds and then at the misty stars as the late-spring rains had dissipated, but didn't say anything.

Liam loved the rain, he loved the stars, and he loved his mother. He had only started to really smile again the week before, three weeks after Lt. Beckett's death, and Augur didn't want to say anything that would send the boy back to his depression.

As if sensing that his friend was thinking about him, Liam looked over at Augur.

"Oh, no," the eccentric man said, holding his hands up on front of his face as Liam slipped into another bought of coughing. "You breathe in another direction, buddy. I just got over a cold, and I don't need another one, thank-you, very much!"

It was true. The week before, the cyber guru had been plagued by a scratchy throat, the sniffles and violent sneezes.

Liam had found the sneezing, in particular, to be fascinating. He had watched, entranced, as the older man had had his entire upper body jerk forward, as if it was all trying to escape through his nose.

Augur hadn't been to fond of this enchantment.

"Damn alien! Go find someone else to ogle at!" he had yelled at Liam, who had known that he hadn't really meant anything by the remark, and then proceeded to sneeze some more.

Speaking of sneezing, a most peculiar feeling was coming over Liam. His head felt like something was trying to force it's way out of it and his nose was twitching. The outward pressure was changed to an inside one, and Liam, certain his head was going to implode, brought his hands up to his face just in time. "Ah -CHOO!"

Surprised, the hybrid raised his head blinking. "What was that?" he had time to ask before he was engulfed in a rapid-fire bought of sneezing.

Lili laughed as she came over, her hands holding three large mugs of something that steamed and smelled good. "That, Liam," she told him with a smile, "was a sneeze."

Liam blinked. "Oh."

Augur laughed. "Not too fun, is it? At least now you don't need to watch me whenever I do it." Turning his attention to Lili, he grabbed one of the mugs from her. "Ah, soup!"

"Chicken noodle," Lili told the 'men.' "Here, Liam," she held a mug out to Liam who took it gingerly.

The young hybrid sniffed it, and raised his eyebrows at Lili.

"It's good," the brunette laughed, "really. It's Earth's one and only true cure-all. Well, this and hot-chocolate."

Gingerly, Liam nodded, and raised the mug to his mouth. But, before he could take a drink, he sneezed again, much to amusement of Lili and Augur.

"Bless you," Lili grinned.

Another memory replaced Liam's own.

"Bless ye, Siobhan," Moira Beckett said to her young, wet, and sneezing daughter. "Although, I don' know why the Good Lord should bless ye when it's ye own fault tha' yer in this mess."

Wet red hair plastered to her head, Siobhan Beckett raised her head and smiled up at her mother. "Bu' I love the rain, Mum."

"I know ye do, Darlin'," her mother laughed, "bu' playing for three hours in it is as good a way as any ta get yerself sick!"

Siobhan smiled at the memory of her playing. Rolling down endless emerald hills, splashing in the muddy puddles, catching the cool, pure drops on her tongue, the same drops running down her cheeks as she stood, face towards the clouds, screaming and laughing with simple joy.

Nothing could make her regret the fun she had had. Not even a cold.

Seeing the stubbornness and potential argument building in her daughter's bright green eyes, Moira Beckett quickly shoved the bowl of soup at the child. "Here ye go, Sweetie. Eat up, an' chase tha' cold away."

And Liam's grandmother's face was swept away and replaced with another woman's.

Here you go, Sweetie," DeeDee Sandoval smiled at her husband.

"Thank-you," Ron croaked, his voice a raspy squeak.

DeeDee couldn't help but grin at the picture before her.

Clothed in his thick, woolly housecoat and fluffy cow slippers, and clutching the overly-large teddybear-santa mug that was filled to the brim with chicken noodle soup, which she had just given him, the man seated in the rocking chair looked very little like the imposing FBI Agent who had suffered from a claustrophobia attack the night before, and had left the car windows open throughout an entire December stakeout.

"What are you smiling at?" he asked her sulkily, suspecting that her amusement had something to do with him.

DeeDee just grinned wider, and leaned over to kiss the top of his head. "You are such a baby sometimes," she laughed.

And was replaced by Liam's original memory.

"You are such a baby, Liam!" Lili laughed as he gave the soup another suspicious sniff. "Just take a sip!"

Obeying her order, Liam carefully took a sip from the warm mug. A delighted smile lit up his boyish features, and he took another, longer, drink.

"See," Lili laughed, "I told you it was good."

Liam just arched his eyebrows at her over the rim of his mug. He was taking another drink.

Augur spoke up. "Chicken noodle soup," the cyber guru told the young hybrid with an air of majesty, "is most possibly humanity's greatest invention. It's comforting, it makes you feel good, it's easy to make, and, unlike most miracle cures, it tastes good!"

"Does it really cure everything?" Liam asked.

Lili took a sip from her own mug, then smiled at him. "Not really," she said, "but it sure makes you feel better. And it's probably the best thing for fighting away colds."

"When taken with liberal amounts of cough syrup," Augur added, throwing a bottle of said substance at Liam, who caught it one-handed. "But it does help. I bet not even the Taelons know why, though."

Lili and Augur and the spring night faded away, leaving Liam sitting on the Lair's steps, swallowing a large spoonful of Renee's soup as the last of his shivers faded away. That's because the Taelons are incapable of knowing, the young man thought to himself. Chicken noodle soup is like . . . I don't know. A hug coming from the inside. Taelons don't hug, they don't show enough emotion, or probably even have emotions strong enough, to hug.

"Eat it all," Renee told him. "Not even the Taelons know why, but chicken soup works."

"I'm not gonna get sick!" he told her, sounding for a moment like the child he was, then finished his previous thought. Their loss, and swallowed another spoonful.

Back to AKimera
Back to the SFA