Chapter Text
Courtland Gentry is ten years old when his mother coaxes him onto the hospital bed to sit next to her, smoothing back his dark blond hair with delicate fingers. He takes the doting attention with grim reverence. He doesn't squirm to retreat only because his father is downstairs in the cafeteria. His father isn’t there to witness the way she presses a kiss to his temple like he's just as small as the twins in her lap. Like he’s just as much her baby as they are.
He's an older brother now. He stares down at Ryland, tucked in against his mother's right side, and Colton, who is cradled on the left side. He had watched the nurse as she swaddled them, so he knows there are matching white hospital tags wrapped around their ankles to identify them. At first glance, nothing about one seemed different from the other, even if Ryland's ID band said TWIN A and Colton's ID band said TWIN B.
From this close, with his mother content to let him scrutinize the new arrivals as closely as he likes, he takes careful note of each twin. He traces a light fingertip down Ryland's nose, who doesn't seem to notice, and then Colton's nose. His little red-cheeked face scrunches up, and he makes a grunted squeak that seems to be indignation. He did not like that.
"They have the same nose," Court tells his mother gravely. That makes it harder to distinguish them; it’s terrible news to him.
"Just like you and your Daddy," she agrees. Court’s frustration simmers down back to idle curiosity.
His brothers are twins, but a part of them looks like a part of him.
Like part of their father.
The twins have the same delicate curve to their cheekbones, he finds, his finger trailing down to the line of their jaws and prodding at their little mouths. It's the same soft skin and smooth bone structure. Ryland takes the wandering pokes with nothing more than a brief sigh. Colton grumbles and grunts at him with every touch, no matter how brief, but he never breaks out into a proper crying fit.
When Court reaches up to adjust the crooked slant to Colton's blue-knit cap, his brother cracks open his eyes and stares at him with bland observation. His eyes are slate-gray with a blue rim around the pupil. Court glances at Ryland to compare them, but he's dozing contentedly in the crook of their mother's arm.
"They like you," their mother beams.
It doesn't feel like they notice he's there at all, really, but he gives her a tight, practiced smile. "I like them."
A gruff voice cuts through the reverie. “Good.”
Court takes the arrival of his father as steady as a cuffed blow to the back of his head. He drops his eyes and studies the way his mother's slender fingers keep the twins tucked in close. Her knee is pressed against his as a silent point of contact. He pulls away first and gets off the bed before his father decides that his presence on the bed makes him as delicate as his mother and younger brothers.
He has to be strong. In the hospital parking lot, before he was ushered upstairs to visit, his father had taken his elbow into a harsh grip and warned him that he was an older brother now and he had no reason to cry like a baby anymore. His touch had hurt as it always does, but Court hadn't cried to be let go.
He had learned much earlier in his life that any escaped whimper or shine of tears would only encourage greater reprimand in turn. Men don’t beg for mercy.
"All my boys," his mother smiles. It strains at the edges in a way that he will not notice until he's older.
His father doesn't smile at all.
Courtland Gentry is eleven years old, and the twins are celebrating their first birthday.
Their mother's face is lined with evidence of a bone-deep exhaustion that she carries around as a shroud. Ryland will cry every night for hours in a nerve-racking, shrill pitch and spend the following day fussing if he isn't being rocked and soothed. Colt has the uncanny ability to squirm his way out of his swaddle and tugs at his own clothes until he distresses himself to tears, and there are too many instances to count where he pulls off his diaper and smears a mess around his crib.
Court makes sure his father never notices these things. He surprises his mother with breakfast in the morning, and she softens at the sight of cereal set aside for her in her favorite bowl. He takes care to rush into the twins' room the moment Ryland starts to fuss and rock him until his arms are aching and his brother falls into a drowsy haze. He makes sure to double-check every zipper and button on Colt's clothes and invents a way to distract him from undressing with a game of blanket peek-a-boo.
Still, his father looks impassive as they gather in the kitchen for dinner. His mother keeps her back to him as she stirs the spaghetti, but Court is too distracted with carrying the twins to their high chair to guess her mood. It becomes increasingly difficult to read her moods.
Most days, Court is convinced that not even his mother knows what to feel anymore.
Ryland's little fingers tug at the hair on the nape of his neck hard enough to sting, and Court makes a face at him. Colt notices first and giggles, babbling in a way that could be Court's name but is likely nothing more than gibberish. Court doesn't mind the pain that follows or the way it draws a laugh out of his baby brother.
His father, though. His father sets his glass on the table with a little more force than necessary, startling Ryland enough that he yanks at his fistful of Court's hair.
Court stares at his father. He's already looking at Colt in the high chair across the table.
"Gettin' too old to be talking like that," he says. "When are you gonna speak, boy?"
When Court dares a glance at his mother's back, he notices that she's standing frozen, her wooden spoon half-raised to stir the pot. She's listening, but she isn't intervening. Her back is straight with the same tension a hunted animal harbors. Court knows that instinct well; it's the same wariness that burrows into his skin like a living animal.
It’s an urge to flee that he won’t recognize until much later.
"Better not be somethin' wrong with you," his father grumbles on. His eyes cut over to Ryland, still wrapped up tightly in Court's arms, and he gives off a sharp scoff. "At least that one knows what to call his old man."
Court doesn't tell him that Colt does speak. Two weeks ago, in the dead of night, when Ryland finally settled into a fitful doze, he had peeked into Colt's crib to check he was still wearing his pajamas and was rewarded with a bright smile and a soft coo of, "Kot, Kot."
"You're Colt," he had whispered back. "I'm Court."
"Ba," Colt had agreed. His smile was a wild, unrestrained thing, even dimly illuminated by the nightlight on the dresser. His father hated having the light on in the bedroom, but Court always made sure to unplug it before he noticed. His father didn't think babies needed light when they should be still and silent in their beds.
Court didn't really care what he thought of it because it was far easier to check on them when he could see them, at least with a little light. More and more, lately, Court has found himself caring less and less about what their father thought.
"I've been reading to them," Court offers. Ryland lays his head down on Court's shoulder, almost as if he's sleepy, but the white-knuckled grip he has on Court's hair dissuades him from that line of thought. He's seeking comfort, not lulling himself to sleep. Court can't blame him when their father gives him that snarl-like grimace of annoyance.
"You'd think they'd pick it up faster, then," his father mutters.
Just as quickly as he snapped at Colt, so sudden that Court chokes back a relieved sigh, his father turns to where his mother still stands at the stove, unmoving. "Is it ready or what?"
The acknowledgement lights back up her spark. "Yes, just adding the sauce to the pasta!"
Dinner is a tense affair from then on. Court makes sure to keep his chair positioned in the space between his father and the twins. His mother eats practiced bites of her spaghetti and doesn't look up, not even when Colt picks up a noodle with his whole hand curled into a fist and flings it at Ryland. It incites a shocked cry instantly, and Ryland’s mouth falls open in offense.
He looks to Court to see if he witnessed the whole thing, still looking utterly baffled. It’s the same look Court gives one of the twins when they do something strangely wonderful or awfully annoying.
"Trouble, that one," his father mutters. His fork scrapes loudly on the plate, but Court busies himself with wiping off the smear of sauce on Ryland's cheek. Colt watches on with a dangerous gleam in his blue eyes. Trouble indeed.
"All done," Court tells Colt firmly. He knows that mischievous look all too well.
"Da," Colt echoes.
The sharp grating of fork tines sliding across a plate stills. His father focuses on Colt with a startling intensity. Court doesn't think he's looked at either of the twins in that way since the day they were born. Maybe not even then. "What was that, Colton?"
"Da," Colt says. He looks pleased to be addressed. Court eyes him, then his father carefully, but his father looks impassive as ever. At least, until Colt says, insistently, "Da, da, da."
Court is proficient in twin-speak as a second language at this point. He knows it's not meant for his father, it's just Colt echoing his version of 'all done' back at Court to be coy.
But his father, who hasn't gotten up to change a diaper or feed them a bottle during the night hours in over ten months, smiles. He doesn't know them the way Court does.
He doesn't care to.
"Finally," his father says. There's begrudging approval in his face. "There you go, son, why didn't you say that sooner? Trouble, I tell you."
Court stuffs a mouthful of tepid-warm spaghetti into his mouth to stifle the awful retort crawling its way up his throat. He tastes nothing.
Courtland Gentry is twelve years old, and the twins are going through something his mother calls their 'terrible twos'.
At the time, before he truly knows how horrible it will turn out, it's the worst year of Court's life. He runs home from school with the stomach-wrenching fear that he'll find the boys lying in their beds with blood sticky on their little faces and bruises flourishing on their ribs.
He remembers being young, so very young, and rolling himself up in a blanket to stifle his wheezing cries before his father noticed his distress. He would take his own blood-spotted shirt and run it under the bathroom faucet to wipe away the blood stuck to his nose and lips. The slaps were flash-bright starbursts of pain, but they faded after the initial burn. The punches took more consideration to handle. His cut lip or his bloody nose would need cold water and careful prodding to check for damage.
He spends his every waking moment in class with his stomach turning painfully at the thought of what his father would do to his brothers. There is so much for him to do. Everything he is capable of that Court knows from firsthand experience, and everything he might conceive of now that he has two new targets.
The hits to stun, the words spat out like venom, the feeling of his knee pressing down on Court's back to stifle his lungs to painfully shallow breaths. Punching, swearing, choking, and it's worse, knowing that most of those methods don't leave wounds dark enough to see upon first glance.
Court comes home from school and immediately retreats upstairs to check on the twins in their room. They are always curled up on the same bed, either Ryland's or Colt's, and both of them perk up the moment they notice his quiet tap-tap-tap knock on the door before it opens. He never wants to open a door to find them staring at him with the same fearful anticipation they reserve for their father.
They never do, though, because he always knocks and comes right over to drag them in a tight hug. Ryland clutches onto him like a man cast out at sea. Colt tolerates it for a full half-second before he begins to squirm in his arms like a man kept hostage.
"You're wet," Colt giggles out. Court shakes out his rain-slick hair like a dog shaking its fur just to make him laugh again. He does, unrestrained with mirth. "Ew!"
"Ew? You're ew." Court releases him to press his hand to his blond locks and give a rough tousle of his hair. Colt tries to scramble out of reach, but Court has him cornered up against the wall, so all he can really manage is a helpless whine of complaint. Court doesn't mind, really, because he used the excuse to ruffle Colt's hair to check for bruising and tenderness and found none.
He gives Ryland the same search-teasing pat of the head, and he endures it easily, burying his cheek deeper into the rain-speckled fabric of Court's coat. The contact grinds into Colt's ribs like a jab because he can't tell if it is a Ryland-affection thing or a Ryland-hurting thing. Both of those options are quiet declarations, and one of them could mean that their father raised his hand to his little brother.
Court can't stomach the very thought. He wants to tear into his own chest cavity and pull the ache out of the sinew with his bare hands. "You good, Ry?"
"Uh-huh," Colt chirps up. "Ry good!"
"I'm asking him," Court says without heat. His arm is still slung over Ryland's shoulder, and he lets it slowly droop down, his fingers skating over his brother's side in search of a flinch. Ryland doesn't move, but he's relaxing in increments, letting his cheek rest on Court's side rather than hiding his face from view.
Court can't see his expression, but Colt clearly can. He springs up on the bed to huddle closer to them, pressing his cheek to Court's other side to be eye to eye with Ryland.
"He's sad," Colt cries. He pats Court’s knee insistently. “He’s sad!”
"No," comes Ryland's wobbly voice. He sounds like he's crying.
It lands a precise hit to Court's ribs. It hurts far more deeply than his father's boot aimed at his side ever has. He scoots back on the bed, wrapping an arm around each twin to drag them along, and he lets Ryland curl into him like a flower seeking the warmth of afternoon sunlight.
"Ry," Court shushes softly. "You're alright, we're right here, Ry."
"Here, here," Colt agrees in a sing-song. None too gracefully, he wiggles and kicks at Court's shin until he is able to climb over him to hug Ryland. Court curls over them both protectively, running a hand over Ryland's blond hair to smooth the bangs out of his eyes.
His father knows too many ways to land a blow without leaving a mark. Court feels his abhorrence rankle within him like wildfire. He wants to stomp to his parents' room and fling the door open and hit his father, over and over, until he feels just as hurt as Ryland does. He wants his father to curl in on himself like a dried leaf, crumbled and dead.
It's the first time he wishes for his father to be dead.
The thought had never occurred to him before. His father had always seemed like a fixture in life, like the rising of the sun over the horizon. He had seemed an indisputable fact of life itself; his father existed just as surely as the trees and the birds did, and he would always be there with a lashing hand and a stern rebuke.
But Court cannot bring himself to imagine anything else but his father's body splayed on the ground before him and his brothers safely tucked away out of harm's way.
Courtland Gentry is thirteen years old, and the twins are three, and his mother leaves in the dead of night.
He hears the front door open and close while he's lying on the floor of the twins' room, both of them burrowed in his side as little chicks huddled next to a hen. He hadn't heard her pack up her clothes or check in the living room for their baby pictures as mementos. The house looks undisturbed in the morning, and Court takes the twins out to sit in the backyard and listen to them complain about bugs.
Colt pretends to be a ninja, rolling around in the grass until he finds a bee or a butterfly and screams in terror and runs back to his older brother. Ryland sits silently next to Court and lets his fingers worry away at the patch of grass beneath his bare feet. He wiggles his toes in the dirt and tries to rub away the smudge on his foot without luck, and he gives a distrustful whine when he unearths a worm by accident.
Court stares at the back door and wonders why the hell she left without them.
He wonders, later, if she would have stayed had she known what was going to happen next.
Courtland Gentry is fourteen years old, and the twins are four, and this is the worst year of his life.
He lives it out in flashes: his father drinks deep into the night and rages into the early morning. His father grabs him out of bed and drags him to the living room to scream at him, and Court stares resolutely up at him to avoid glancing past him at the cracked door of the twins' room. He doesn't sleep in there with them anymore, even if Ryland cries about it before bed, because he hopes they do not notice what happens to him.
He bleeds from each blow quickly enough and bruises even quicker. He cuts his hair with scissors in the sink one afternoon when his father is deep in a drunken coma and can't stop him. He is grateful for it later, even as his father darkens the skin over his ribs to black-blue, because it gives him less grip to haul Court around by the hair.
He takes the twins to the library during the summer break every morning after their father passes out on the couch. His father never even opens the door to the room he used to share with his wife. Court hopes his father chokes on his vomit and dies in his sleep, but he never does.
Instead, Court comforts himself by lying on the floor of the library’s children's room and letting Ryland read aloud to him. He has the feeling that Ryland is just guessing most of the story based on the pictures, but he has a steady, almost professional tone that makes Court feel like a student listening to his teacher. That is, if the class was covering topics about a big red dog or a monkey living in a city.
Colt likes to pull out books with ugly bugs or animals and show them off to his brothers. Court gives an appropriate 'yuck' when prompted, and Ryland tries to find some compliment to counteract their combined disgust. Eventually, even Colt gets bored with that and settles in to stare at pictures of dinosaurs and make Court give them different growling sounds. They sit there for hours until the librarian silently flicks the lights off and on to remind them of closing time.
They leave without checking out any of the books because their father has never found it useful for a man to have his nose stuck in a book, so they have no card to rent with. Ryland puts back every book with a lingering touch to its spine, his eyes bleary with a weight Court feels just as heavily.
This is no life for them, and Court has an answer for this problem they live with, but he cannot execute it. He feels like the biggest piece of shit older brother in the history of the world for even thinking it.
Yet he still brings them home at the end of the day. He still feels them watching, right through the crack in the bedroom door, as their father rains blow after blow upon him.
Much later in the year, closer to Thanksgiving break, the twins' preschool teacher figures out that Ryland is farsighted and gives their father a recommendation for an eye doctor appointment. His father never takes him in for a fitting, but when Court takes the twins to the library on Saturdays, he makes sure to read any book Ryland hauls over to their corner. Even the boring ones about botany, oceanography, astronomy, and any other subject with words that Court has to use a dictionary for to be able to describe them all to Ryland.
Life is a living hell, but reading to Ryland makes his face brighter with youthful wonder. Even Colt half-listens from where he makes a tower with the stack of books. It seems like it could be enough, for now.
This ends up being the worst year of his life, though, right at the end.
On Christmas break, when Court is curled up under his father's foot, all of his weight pressed to Court's ribs with punishing force, Colt opens the door to the twins' room wide open. It is an unmistakable attempt to become an interruption.
Court groans out a warning that his father doesn't care to notice. Colt tips his chin back defiantly. His blond hair is haloed by the night-light that Court left plugged in on their nightstand. What a stupid fucking mistake for Court to make in such a helpless fucking urge to crush some of Ryland's fear of the dark.
Court should’ve known that it wasn't the dark his brother hated. It was the monster that lurked outside their room every night that scared him, not the shadows.
"Get off him," Colt demands. He is four years old, but he stands tall and stiff like a soldier sent to war.
Even on the floor and half-blind from pain, Court can see the awful smile that curls across his father's face. It's a sneer of disbelief. As if he had never suspected that the boys he raised his hand to would ever turn around and tell him to fuck off.
Probably because Court had always been too much of an over-cautious coward to do so himself.
The caution had been for nothing. He weathered every punch and every word of vitriol to spare them from the very moment their father stiffens and turns all of his drunken rage onto them. Even drunk, he's quick. Much quicker than a four-year-old, especially when Colt tries to move out of the doorway, and Ryland grabs the back of his pajamas in a vice grip to keep them together.
Court remembers dragging himself up to his knees, then his feet, and staggering over to intercept them.
He remembers his father's hand reaching down to curl into the collar of Colt's shirt.
He remembers the blue dinosaur print wrinkling in his hand and Colt's little face tilted up with patient defiance. No trace of fear, no trace of regret to put his path right in front of their father’s.
He remembers Ryland lashing out first, his little fist reaching up to hit his father directly in the eye, and the stark terror flashing across his expression when their father reeled back with an enraged scream.
He remembers everything right up until he grabbed his father's shoulder to pull him back, moving too slowly to dodge the fist aimed straight for his temple.
By the time he came to, hazy with the adrenaline-laced confusion, it had been late morning, and their father was already sprawled out on the couch in untouchable slumber. Ryland had his head on Court's chest, rising and falling with every breath.
Then there was Colt, standing between his brothers and his father as if he had been there all night, ready for a fight. There is a bruise on his cheek that lashes across his nose like a stain. His right eye swells at the lids from taking a glancing blow. Court feels that pain as an echo throughout his own bruised face.
Court had decided, that very morning, how he was going to kill their father.
Courtland Gentry is fifteen years old, and the twins are five when his father dies very, very quickly.
The gun is still smoking in his hand when the door to the twins’ room creaks open slowly. It doesn’t sink in what he has done and would do again in a heartbeat, until Ryland bursts into tears and rushes over to wrap his arms around Court’s leg in a hug.
Colt only stands in the doorway, haloed by that nightlight, and stares down at all the blood.
Courtland Gentry is sixteen years old, and the twins are six when he writes them a birthday card.
It makes him feel like a kindergartner in his brothers' class to write it out and decorate it as such, but he wants them to know he cares. He wants them to remember that he's more than one night with their father’s blood soaking into the carpet. He wants them to peel open the envelope and giggle at his stupid drawings.
He wants them to see his name signed at the bottom and feel a surge of love for him instead of horror in his memory.
The card comes back undelivered. There is no public record of a Ryland Gentry or a Colton Gentry to receive it. Court tucks it carefully under his pillow and punches the wall hard enough to split his knuckles.
Courtland Gentry is seventeen years old, and the twins are seven, and he misses them fiercely.
There are no visitors to see him. Part of him wonders if his mother knows what he has done now that the trial is fading from the public’s news cycle. Mostly, he just wants to see two blue-eyed faces peering up at him through the glass to say hi.
Anything to replace his last memory of their distraught faces when he was cuffed and thrown into the back of the police cruiser.
Courtland Gentry is eighteen years old and has been upgraded to the adult prison.
Every card he sends out to his brothers comes back to him, even the stupid solar system one he made for Ryland's eighth birthday without knowing if he even cared about astrology anymore. It doesn’t seem fair that Court has to remember the speed of light and types of rocks because of those stupid books Ryland insisted he read.
Colt's birthday card had a dinosaur drawn on it that looked more like a deformed monster. Is eight too old for dinosaurs? He doesn't know. Every time he closes his eyes, he remembers their father’s blood-streaked fist curling into the collar of Colt’s blue dinosaur pajamas in preparation to throttle him.
He gets into a fight with another inmate and spends his time in solitary confinement staring up at the ceiling and imagining the stars from that stupid library book.
Courtland Gentry is nineteen years old.
Every card comes right back to him.
Courtland Gentry is twenty years old.
He keeps every failed card under his bed and breaks his cellmate's nose when the guy makes a move to sort through them for their worth.
Courtland Gentry is twenty-one years old and has a prison rep.
His mother would be so proud, he thinks wryly, if she cared enough to know what the fuck happened to him.
Courtland Gentry is twenty-two years old and decides he should have made his father suffer more. Just a little.
There are too many cards under his pillow, so he takes to tucking them into his mattress. Most prisoners hide drugs in there. He guards those cards as if they were just as valuable. His cellmate knows better than to pry.
Courtland Gentry is twenty-three years old, and his fairy godmother gives him a chance to leave, and he thinks, he lets himself think for the first time in years, about his brothers. In his head, they are still five years old with their blue eyes wide with terror, and his bloody fingers are carding through their hair to comfort them.
He says yes, of course, he will go, with one stipulation.
Fitzroy agrees with the condition that Courtland Gentry is killed, and Six comes to life instead.
Sierra Six is twenty-four years old and trains to kill for the CIA, and cannot bring himself to send out a birthday card to Ryland and Colt Grace out in New Jersey.
Their adoptive parents are straight-laced people, Fitzroy had told him. Six had scanned through the dossier like a man possessed. The father works for an engineering firm and the mother is a schoolteacher. They go to Sunday Mass most of the time. The thought of Colt kicking his feet and lamenting about the services for over an hour amuses him. Ryland would probably make a good little show of being interested until he decided he would rather be crouched in the dirt studying the grass or something and start getting restless.
The dossier has information such as the Grace residence’s address and its floor plan, right down to the room the boys share. It tells him that Ryland excels in all his classes, but Colt is the only one who can run a mile in just under 5 minutes in their grade. There are school ID pictures in the file: Ryland has wide-rimmed glasses stuck high up the bridge of his nose, and Colt grins with the same gleam of trouble shining in his eyes that he had as a toddler.
Everything in the dossier is destroyed after he reads it. With it, Fitzroy fulfills his end of the bargain and strikes out any mention of Courtland Gentry from public record. With it, he erases Ryland and Colton Gentry so that only the Grace twins thrive in its wake.
Their father can no longer stain their past. Courtland’s crime no longer hangs over their heads like an executioner’s axe poised to strike down through their future success.
Anything Sierra Six does cannot lead back to them for retaliation or blackmail.
He doesn't send out the birthday card he bought at a floral shop in Mykonos, but he spends their birthday in Turkey and scrounges up a slice of bisküvili pasta to celebrate in their honor. It tastes like nothing.
Six is tasked with assassinating a minor dignitary in Chile, tracking the whereabouts of a foreign spy in Wales, and infiltrating an underground car theft ring in Ukraine.
Courtland Gentry notes that his brothers are the same age now as he was when he killed their father and severed their lives apart.
Six takes that grief and uses it to cushion the weight of the next red-eye flight he's scheduled to undergo. He stays awake the entire flight and stares out the window at the city lights sprawled out far below. From this high up, they look like stars spread across a nebulous galaxy.
Six must be a year older by now.
He lives it out in flashes that wipe from his mind the moment he turns away.
Another job, another target, another fitful handful of hours stolen for sleep he loathes.
He dreams of blue dinosaur pajamas and little arms clinging to his leg. He wakes up with their names in his mouth and brushes his teeth so harshly he spits pink-tinged foam back into the sink when he’s done.
Another job, another target, another year.
On and on and on.
“Ew!”
He catches a glimpse of ruffled blond hair in the corner of his vision and turns about so quickly that Fitz’s hand goes to the gun hidden in his coat. The little boy looks nothing like the twins. He’s all gangly limbs and dark brown eyes. He gives Six a wary look that all children give strangers as he rushes by to go to his exasperated mother.
He’s holding onto an ice cream that melts over his fingers in a hopeless mess. He makes the same disgusted wail that Colt always did when Court would flick rainwater on his cheek.
Six has no brothers. According to the records, Courtland Gentry has nothing and no one left. That gives both halves of his identity enough common ground to straighten his back and return to work.
No brothers, no weaknesses, no liabilities. Just as he insisted all those years ago. It was for the greater good, for both him and the twins.
Fitz aims a strange look at his back but says nothing. He’s seen the dossier and knows what Six used to be. It’s not too hard to imagine that a flash of blond in a crowded square would distract him.
Not too hard at all.
“What kind of name is Six?”
“One through five were taken.”
Claire has the same shimmer of impishness in her eyes that Colt always did. When she stands in the doorway of her room, staring wide-eyed at the body lying at Six’s feet, she has Colt’s awed terror in the face of evidence of his abilities.
Six suffocates the part of Court that wants to draw her into his arms and soothe away the fear in her eyes. There was always a reason he used to knock before he went into the twins’ room.
There is also a reason why he left and never let himself look back at what was behind. He ushers Claire back into her room and gets to work.
Another job, another target, another year.
On and on and on.
“I want to start,” Fitz says carefully, “by saying that I was waiting for you to get back so I could tell you the news in person.”
Six can feel his exhaustion coil and weigh heavily in the line of his shoulders like a cape he can’t discard. He rolls out his muscles and sighs. He was looking forward to a long shower and an even longer nap.
“Your niece again?”
“Let me tell you the story without being interrupted. Sit down and listen.”
Six sits down. He listens.
Colt Seavers is the stage name of the one and only Colton Grace, a stuntman from California who grew up practicing martial arts to get out all of his energy. He was in Australia filming a new movie after a recovery hiatus from an accidental fall nearly two years prior, when he was caught on camera leaving the scene of a murder. He was wanted for questioning as the main suspect. Not long after, the boat he was steering drove headfirst into flammable containers and caused an explosion.
“He was presumed dead,” Fitz says. “Until this morning.”
Six stares at him and says nothing. He was ordered not to interrupt. His lungs feel too constricted to manage a single word, never mind an overflow of questions. He just hears the words 'presumed dead' rolling over and over in his mind like sea tides washing ashore.
“As it turns out,” Fitz continued, “he faked his death to escape from Tom Ryder’s people, who were attempting to murder him and stage it as a suicide to frame him. He’s alive and well. The international news feed hasn’t caught up yet. I didn’t need you seeing it from them. I wanted you to hear it from me.”
A beat, then he sighs. “Go ahead and speak, son.”
“He’s a stuntman?” Court demands. “What was the accident two years ago? What about Ryder’s people?”
“Yes, he broke his back from a failed rigging, and they are going to be dead very soon.” Fitz looks mildly pleased by that last tidbit. “I’m sending you to New South Wales to clean house.”
The next question is all too easy. “When?”
Colt Seavers has the same arch to the bridge of his nose that Court has. His face looks scruffy and needs a proper shave. He has his arm around the shoulders of a beautiful woman, and he’s grinning just like he did when he was four and bounding over to show off a picture of a brontosaurus to Court and Ryland. There’s a measure of elated pride in that gesture. Look at what I found, don’t you see how fortunate I am?
I see, Court thinks. He’s smiling enough to hurt his face by the time he makes it to exfil and returns to work.
Six works methodically for this job, then the next, then the next. Just another target.
The next time he meets with Fitz, he has to know.
“What about Ryland?”
It’s getting late enough that the old man has his chin resting in his palm as he looks out the window. They’re in a safe house in northern Spain that’s far enough from the city lights that the sky has more stars than usual. They split a bottle of whiskey, but the part of him that has Six's sharp eye for detail thinks that Fitz had drunk more than he did. Maybe. The memory is pleasantly fuzzy at the edges.
“Ryland Grace,” Fitz says, like he’s testing the vowels out. When he looks over at Court, his eyes soften with the fleeting will of the drinks and plain fondness. “Doctor in molecular biology. Teaches science at Grover Cleveland Middle School in Jersey. No partner or pets.”
“What grade?” Court asks. He's leaning in closer, now, to catch every word.
“Eighth.”
He imagines two dozen little faces staring up at his little brother as they learn about life on the planet, right down to the rocks and plants. He thinks about them learning about the same stars he showed off to Ryland. He remembers Ryland’s little face lighting up with joy as Court pointed out diagrams in his library books and read them aloud.
“He was always a nerd,” Court says softly. He’s smiling into his glass of whiskey. “He liked nature and all that crap.”
“Now he teaches it to the next generation,” Fitz muses. “Seems ordinary compared to what else he could have been up to.”
“Good,” Court says. “Let one of us be boring and ordinary. Better that than Colt going on a suicide mission every morning to crash boats for a living.”
Fitz smiles. It’s softened at the edges the way it does when he’s going to say something that breaks Court’s heart. “Perhaps all three of you live in a way to serve others. You just can't help it. If Ryland teaches young minds about the ways of the world and Colton steps in to protect his fellow actors… well, you can’t blame them for their services to humanity.”
“Services to humanity,” Court repeats. Part of him wants to tell humanity to shove it and let his brothers live without owing a debt to others. A larger part of him warms at the thought that they are growing into such kind, selfless men.
“A nerd and a troublemaker,” Court mulls over that for a moment. “Saving humanity one fun fact and one dumb stunt at a time.”
“Sounds damn familiar,” Fitz agrees. He only laughs at the look Court gives him in turn.
“I suppose we could use more of that,” Court says solemnly. Fitz tops off both their glasses and they 'cheers' to one another with a soft clink of the rims.
They spend the rest of the night admiring the view outside and the stars beyond. Court even tells him all the dumb facts he picked up from reading the same five books about astronomy to Ryland. Fitz knows some of it, but mostly he listens with a tilted head and drink-hazy interest. They only turn in when the bottle is long dry, and Fitz waves him off as being too old for an all-nighter.
Court falls asleep and, for the first time in years, dreams of nothing at all. He wakes up feeling refreshed in a way he hasn't felt since he was a teenager sleeping on the floor with his little brothers.
Another job, another target, another year.
Six hears whispers of a new task force being assigned to address the problem with the sun. He doesn't really get it, the science part, but that's not his job anyway. Fitz points him in a direction, and he takes off on the hunt like a dog set loose on a foxhole.
A new job, a new target, a new year.
He sees his brother's face plastered across a news program in Taiwan when he's walking past a store display and nearly gives away his position to the man he's trailing. He has to keep walking without stopping to investigate. He goes by too quickly to tell if it is Colt on the screen or Ryland.
He decides it must be Colt because Ryland is a boring science teacher for middle school kids who has no business appearing on international broadcasts. Colt is reckless enough to do something crazy like stage his death to promote a new movie.
He only finds out he's wrong when he's on a flight to Bangkok and sees a new headline trailing across the front page of the paper his seatmate is reading with his little brother's name glaring out on the page.
AMERICAN MICROBIOLOGIST DR. RYLAND GRACE NAMES SUN-KILLING PARTICLES 'ASTROPHAGE'
Court decides he's going to have to make a phone call the moment this job is over, and looks away before the burn behind the back of his eyes betrays itself as a shine in his eyes. He doesn't need to attract attention from strangers by crying on a plane.
He's just so god-damned happy to see that the picture of his brother on the front page has him wearing those stupid glasses with the same ruffled hair he had as a kid. He has the same nose as Colt and Court and their long-dead father, but the nervous little smile he gives the camera is all his.
Court needs to know what the hell his brother is getting himself into with this task force. Fitz could tell him, surely, because Six doesn't trust Carmichael not to bury a knife in his back just to watch the spreading patch of red for the sheer joy of it.
He won't give any indication he cares for anyone to that man. Not after he worked so hard to cover his ties to the twins. Later, with Four's body at his feet and the necklace curled tightly into his fist, he's sick with relief that he never gave Carmichael their names or locations.
Except everything is going to hell, and he has no time to ask Fitz if his brother needs any help.
Then Fitz is dead, and there's no one else to call about it.
Six watches the news every morning. He eats standing up in the middle of the kitchen, methodically spooning cereal into his mouth as he takes in the headlines. He starts with the American news outlets, then the Chinese news, then the Russian news, and finally the German ones.
"You understand all of that?" Claire asks. She pushes her spoon around the bowl with grim determination, watching her cereal grow soggy. Six isn't much of a cook, and she doesn't have much of an appetite. Yet she watches him watch the news with a raised brow. "How many languages do you speak?"
"That's confidential," he tells her seriously. He's still staring at the television, but the news changes from a Project Hail Mary update to a fire in Potsdam, and he mutes the broadcast.
"Are you like, obsessed with stars or something?"
"Eat your breakfast," he says instead.
"It's all soggy."
"Who's fault is that?"
It takes time to unravel the web that Ryland is entangled in, and it's delicate work when he's hauling around a kid with a pacemaker and a blossoming teenager’s shifting attitude.
He wasn't there when the twins grew throughout puberty. The last time he had seen them, they were just learning how to read. It's a precious memory in his mind that he rarely examines. He knows that they have grown up without him. They have their own lives and experiences separate from him.
That doesn't help him with managing a finicky girl with PTSD and no other living family to support her, but he tries his best. She tries her best, in turn, to annoy him in every way possible. Like blasting the top U.S. Billboard 100 hits on the entire drive from the airport until he’s certain he’s going prematurely deaf.
Court finds the Grace family's old residence fairly easily, now long since sold after the death of the parents. There's a towering oak tree in the front yard with an aged tire swing hanging from one of the branches. He can imagine a younger Colt running through the grass to fling himself onto the rubber seat and wiggling around enough to propel himself up higher. He can imagine a reluctant Ryland sitting on the front porch with a book in his lap, pushing his round glasses up his nose to see better as he glances from the page to his twin and back again.
"You lived here?" Claire asks suddenly.
She's still slouched in the passenger seat with her feet propped up on the dashboard. She didn't seem alarmed when Court warned her that a car crash could snap her legs in half by the time the airbags deployed. She had merely given him a look like he was an idiot for even suggesting such a thing could happen.
Now, though, she looks intrigued as she takes in the modest ranch-style home on a quiet residential street. There's even a white picket fence along the front yard. It's such a picturesque scene of unburdened childhood that Court isn't sure if he wants to laugh or sob.
"No," he finally says, shortly.
"Looking to buy real estate? 'Cause I think someone already lives here."
"No," he says again, softer this time. "I'm just following a trail."
"Okay," she says in a tone that means she thinks he's being weird. "So where is the trail leading you?"
Court drums his thumbs against the steering wheel for a moment, then shifts the car into drive and starts back down the road. "Grover Cleveland Middle School."
"It's never too late to go back and get your degree," she tells him solemnly.
"No, I was going to drop you off to let you mingle with the other teenagers. Maybe you can paint your nails or play video games or something."
"I don't need to be babysat," she grumbles. "I'm old enough to help."
"You're helping me?" He asks, baffled, and she leans over to punch his arm with a scowl. He pretends to rub at the ache there as she turns the music back up and preens happily in the passenger seat. He makes a mental note to schedule time to train her how to use a gun, because she won't win any fights if she punches like that.
"Trouble," he mutters under his breath. When he tries to reach out and turn down the volume, she raises a hand up in warning for another hit. He makes a hasty retreat from his brave mission immediately.
"I heard that!"
Visiting the school does not offer much help for the sort of information he's searching for.
He learns that Mr. Grace is the cool science teacher that every kid wishes for, and they miss him desperately. Claire briefly goes missing in a crowd of teenagers and resurfaces looking vaguely distressed.
He's convinced she's on the verge of another artificial heart malfunction, but she waves him off with a promise to update him later. Court talks to the principal and the other eighth-grade science teacher, who both give him the same name: Eva Stratt. That's not much help considering her name and face are plastered across the world as the head of Project Hail Mary, but it gives him more insight into the reason why Ryland seems to be her second in command.
Stratt came here during a school day for him specifically, and one day, he was gone mid-class, and she gave the school distinct notice of his hiatus for the foreseeable future. It reminds him of Donald Fitzroy reclining back in a prison visitor's chair, offering him the chance to escape the four walls around them. When it came down to it, there wasn't much of a choice at all.
Was that how Ryland felt when Stratt brought him on to study astrophage? Did he truly have a choice at all?
Even now, was he acting as her second with full faith in their mission to save the world?
Court mulls it over in his head. He's silent when Claire makes idle observations about the buildings or traffic around them. He stops at a diner when she complains she's hungry, and they sit crammed into a corner booth. He sips at a mug of black coffee as she pokes around at a plate of pancakes.
"I thought you said you were hungry," he says disapprovingly.
"Now you wanna talk?" She gives him an impressively dark glare. She furrows her brow and downturns her chin at just the right angle to look threatening. He sips his coffee to hide a smirk at that.
"Really," she says, "I know this Grace guy is working to save the world, but why are you so obsessed with him? Is he evil? Do you have to… kill him?"
She whispers that last bit. The diner is mostly empty between their breakfast and lunch rush, and Court chose a booth in the corner for distance and tactical advantage, but she's quiet about it all the same.
He schools his expression to stern contrition. "That's confidential."
"I'm serious, Court!"
"So am I."
He takes another sip and gives a pointed look at her plate of untouched pancakes. She makes it a point to stab a piece and put it into her mouth. He watches her chew and swallow, then he sighs. "I'm going to find him and check on him."
Claire pauses with her fork halfway back down to the plate for another bite. "Oh, my god. Are you a super fan or something?"
"Keep eating," he tells her. "I'll keep talking if you eat and listen. No interruptions."
She shoves another bite into her mouth and stares at him wide-eyed. She is chewing slowly on purpose, he thinks wryly, but he doesn't have the heart to scold her for it. It's easier to stare out the diner's window as he tells her about that little house in Florida with a ghost for a mother and a monster for a father. There's an elderly man walking by with a little dog on a leash. A bicyclist swerves to avoid a car that cuts him off, and he responds with the middle finger. A mother pushes a stroller with two baby carriers set side-by-side while cooing down at her twins.
Court trails off when the waitress comes back with a refill for his coffee and another glass of orange juice for Claire. She leaves the check at the edge of the table with a reminder for them not to rush and heads back to wipe down the counter.
Claire pointedly takes another bite of her pancake. Half of it is gone by now.
"There's not much else to say," Court warns her with a shrug. "We separated after my father died. I went with your uncle,as you know, and they were adopted here in New Jersey by the Graces."
"Ryland Grace is your brother?" She's forgotten all about breakfast now. "What about the other one? Colt?"
"He works in Hollywood," Court grimaces. "A stuntman, I guess. He was in that new Metalstorm movie."
"Wow." Claire settles back in her seat, eyes sparkling with wonder. "They're both pretty famous. What happened to you?"
He stifles a laugh and sips his coffee to hide it. "Finish your breakfast so we can get going."
After that, Claire asks questions with reckless abandon. She's smart enough to do so when they are alone in a rental car or huddled on one of their hotel beds to eat dinner. Tonight, it's takeout pizza in a hotel in Bristol.
British takeaway is not as good as the place they had dinner at in New Jersey, but he isn't complaining as much as Claire is. She loves to complain. He takes it in stride like a true soldier seasoned with unorthodox torture methods.
"Was Colt always putting himself into stunt mode?"
Court thinks about Colt rolling around in the grass like a ninja and making up his own sound effects for his punches. Then there’s Colt sitting in a highchair with sauce smeared over his mouth, telling their father 'all done' with smug insistence. Then, Colt wearing blue dinosaur pajamas with the halo of a nightlight shining behind his head, warning their father off from hurting Court anymore.
He thinks about the dossier from all those years ago that gave him a brief overview of statistics: runs the fastest mile of his peers, enrolled in martial arts, and grew an inch taller than Ryland.
"He was always a little reckless," Court says. "I was surprised he faked his death, though."
Claire's hand shoots out to poke his side. He flinches at the unexpected tickle crawling across his ribs and gives her an offended look.
"You didn't tell me that!" She accuses.
So he does.
She makes him rent Metalstorm on the hotel's pay-per-view service. It costs him nearly twenty U.S. dollars for a one-night rental. The movie is terrible, but they both get a kick out of pointing out all of the stunts Colt performed. Claire asks around a hundred questions about how they set him on fire without killing him.
Court is just as mystified as she is. He's more adept at the act of actually setting someone on fire, not making sure they survive the process.
"I'll ask him myself," Claire finally says, rolling her eyes.
"You're not meeting Colt," Court says instantly. "Just Google it, or something."
"Uh-huh," she says in that way that makes him feel like an idiot. Fucking teenagers. "Then I'll just ask Ryland when we find him."
That gives Court pause. The entire point of this - their international globe-trotting adventure through dozens of different countries - is to find Ryland and check if he's okay. He knew he wanted to get to Ryland face-to-face and see for himself if he was there of his own volition.
He hadn't considered that Claire would have to be there, too.
"Just don't embarrass me," he tells her gravely. "I have a reputation to uphold."
She throws a discarded slice of pepperoni at his head. It leaves a smear of sauce on his cheek.
"All done," he warns her, snapping the pizza box lid shut. She just sticks her tongue out at him, but they manage to put away the leftover pizza and get ready for bed without any more food-related incidents.
Court wakes up the next morning long before Claire does, as usual. He takes a moment to circle around her bed, checking the rise and fall of her blanket mound to measure her breathing, before peeking out the curtain at the cityscape below. It's just before dawn, and the street is not nearly as busy as it will become in the next few hours.
He takes a slice of cold pizza from the fridge and chews on it for breakfast as he switches on the hotel T.V. for the news. The headline strikes him like a bullet to the ribs.
EXPLOSION REPORTED NEAR PROJECT HAIL MARY LAUNCH SITE
He ignores the fact that Claire is still asleep and turns up the volume. His feet carry him closer to the screen as if he can physically move past the camera's view of the smoke rising in the distance to investigate himself. The words filter through to him in a haze: a sudden detonation of a key research building, with possible fatalities. No victims confirmed as of yet. Project Hail Mary's figurehead, Eva Stratt, has yet to make a statement.
Court can hardly breathe. He waits for the next blow.
His brother's face never appears on screen, and though it could mean he was among the victims and not yet accounted for, Court is so relieved he leans in and presses his forehead to the screen, eyes fluttering shut. He doesn't care if half of this report is sheer speculation. Ryland is not confirmed dead. It's still possible to save him if he wants an escape from the madness.
They check out of their hotel room shortly afterwards. He's running out of time.
He can feel it like a noose tightening around his neck.
Dani Miranda meets him in a hotel in Kyzylorda, a city only three hours from the Baikonur Cosmodrome where his brother and Project Hail Mary are stationed. Court paces the length of the room and checks his watch over and over. He rushes to the door the moment she knocks.
"You look like shit," she deadpans as he opens the door.
"You're ten minutes late," he shoots back. She pushes past him roughly. He spares a glance in the hallway to make sure she wasn't followed. Satisfied, he locks it behind him and sizes her up.
They haven't spoken face-to-face in months, but she looks far better than he does. There's a keen sharpness to her eyes like a hunting dog sent upon a mark. Her hair is longer, twisted up into a bun, and her suit is nicely cut to distract from the gun holstered to the small of her back.
"Hey to you, too," Claire pipes up from the bed. She's sprawled out on her stomach and flipping through a magazine to pretend to look busy, but she eyes Dani with interest. "That's a cool outfit."
"Hey, kid," Dani softens. "Are you ready to go?"
Claire sighs. "I still think I should go as backup."
"So you've said," Court agrees dryly. "Now hurry up before I miss the shift change."
"Always a pleasure, Six," Dani says. She shoves a backpack into his arms. "42 regular, per your request. Don't die."
"Seriously, no dying," Claire reminds him. He nods back at her. He's not surprised when she gets up to give him a rib-crushing hug. He thinks about little Ryland clutching at his leg despite all the blood and the stench of gunpowder.
"Just another Thursday," he assures her. He gives her a pat on the head and watches Dani take her away with a roiling nausea in his gut. He's doing this as a temporary measure to make sure his brother is staying safe. Yet it feels like he's severing half his heart and choosing one sibling over another.
After this job, he's going to need a good drink and a long, long night's sleep. Then he's booking a flight to California to see if Colt can explain to Claire how to survive being set on fire because that's been bothering him, too.
He has three days to make contact with Ryland to check on him before launch. The noose tightens around his neck with every passing hour.
It's a highly secured international military operation in one of the most remote places on Earth, designed to house the greatest exploit in human history: saving the Sun from early extinction.
Sierra Six is remarkable at looking utterly unremarkable. The uniform Dani got for him fits perfectly. He manages to snag an officer's identification badge to move through clearance checkpoints. It's almost insultingly easy. These are the people tasked with protecting his brother and saving humanity?
He doesn't get overconfident. He simply walks with purpose and slides his badge through doors and gates. He swaps badges for a higher clearance when he notices the colors and inscriptions stop matching the one he currently has. He gives uncompromising nods to the men who notice him, and he stops for nothing.
He can't find Ryland.
Six finds a mess hall and idles for a moment near the restrooms, listening. He catches a snatch of conversation here and there, a mix of languages jumbling together like a landslide. Russian, Chinese, German, Norwegian, English. His heart pounds against his ribs like a wild animal.
He's running out of time.
It takes some mingling, another stolen badge, a uniform change, and a long-winded conversation with an American scientist who clearly needs therapy before he finds the Soyuz launch pad. Around here, security is tighter. He manages with the same blazing confidence that brought him this far.
He knows the whispers around him speculate about the explosion that rocked the base so little time ago. He's sick with relief when he catches names that aren't his brother's, mourning for scientists he never met and never cared for. Baikonur is in lockdown for a media blackout, but that doesn't stop Six from catching sight of a familiar red-haired figure cutting across the tarmac towards one of the trailers.
He knows her. He sees her face in his nightmares when he thinks about Ryland rushing out of the middle of class and never coming back to his apartment. He left milk rotting in the fridge, and there were still dishes lying dirty in the sink. A life left abandoned.
Six follows Stratt to the trailer and takes note of the exits. Only two. Uniformed men stand at each doorway, and he chooses the one who looks bored to switch shifts with. The other man shrugs and mutters something in Russian about taking a smoke break. Six leans against the wall and waits.
More figures wander past him without a second glance, heading down the hall to the same room Stratt disappeared into. It must be a meeting room. Just when Six is wondering if his brother is already in there and he missed it, the front door opens again.
Doctor Ryland Grace steps in hurriedly, clutching a manila folder stuffed with papers to his chest, brow furrowed in concern. His eyes under his wide-lens glasses are shadowed by the weight of sleepless nights and stress-filled days. They are still so blue, even all these years later, that Court can only stare as he rushes past to the meeting room. His blond hair is ruffled from the wind. The cut of it matches Colt's the same way it did when they were still just kids. Even now, even here so many miles apart, he carries the resemblance like a torch through the night.
It's just a resemblance, though. Court knows him down to his bones that this is his baby brother, Ryland, and nobody else, not even the twin he shares identical DNA with.
The meeting room door closes behind Ryland, dissipating the spell shrouding Six's mind. He blinks and stiffens back up into soldier-sharp focus. By the time the other guard comes back from his break smelling like smoke, Six has a plan all laid out.
He just needs a little more time.
Six tracks the guards' rounds, timing their loops down to the second, and he's prepared to switch uniforms and take advantage in the gap of their routine when Ryland comes rushing out of the front door.
He's alone, his face drawn and pale under a black knit cap. He hardly notices Court slowing down to watch him as he hurries towards one of the research buildings. Six follows after him instantly, winding past guard rotations with a dismissive shake of his head when they look at him strangely. He just points to his brother and says, "Risk management for Doctor Grace."
They look sympathetic. He hates that he has no clue why.
Ryland leads him towards a stairwell to the building's roof. Six decides this is as good a time as any and clasps his hand over his brother's mouth to stifle his shocked cry. His other arm wraps around his torso and hauls him up the stairs before anyone notices. The only camera he noticed was at the front door, likely to keep the research secret from possible media exposure, but no one will notice the two of them going up the stairs.
His brother squirms, his breath shallow and fast against Court's fingers, but he isn't stronger than Sierra Six. He does aim a kick at Six's shin that hurts like a bitch, though, and Six grimaces.
"Ry, you're fine," he whispers against the shell of his brother's ear. Ryland is trembling as they reach the top of the stairs and open the roof's door. It's a wide, flat space with satellites positioned at various angles for communication, but there's no guard. A good spot for thinking. An even better spot for him to talk to his brother for the first time in years.
Panic curdles in the pit of his stomach. He's rehearsed what he will say for weeks now. Hell, he's known what he wanted to say to the twins ever since the day he was cuffed and escorted away for murder. But his mind and his heart are two different beings, with Six looking to the logistics of kidnapping one of the most famous men in the world and Court wanting to clutch his brother to his chest and cry.
He settles for holding Ryland tight, less like a restraint and more in a silent plea.
"Ryland," he says softly. It comes out like a plea, too. "I need you to listen to me carefully."
Ryland makes a muffled whimper. His glasses were knocked askew from Court's sudden wrangling, but Court doesn't trust him not to scream if he tries to let go and fix them. He just needs to make him understand.
"I'm not going to hurt you. I just need an answer from you."
Just like that, Ryland goes painfully still, his hands falling from their grip on Court's forearm to dangle at his sides. Something wet smears across Court's fingertips. With a jolt, he realizes that it's from Ryland's tears. The back of his eyes is burning in response, too.
Reluctantly, he peels back his fingers. Ryland drags in a ragged breath, but he doesn't scream. Court still has an arm around his waist to keep him steady. It's just enough tactical advantage for Six to restrain him if he tries to scream or run.
"I thought I had four hours," Ryland chokes out. He's definitely crying in earnest now. "I-I just need a little time. I'm not going to jump off or anything."
Something cold and hollow spreads across Court's chest. It's dread. He hasn't felt dread like this since the night Colt nudged open the bedroom door and told their father to stop. Nothing in his search for Ryland's past and his work with Project Hail Mary warned him that his brother was suicidal. Was that the reason those guards looked at him with pity? Did they think he drew the short straw on the ‘Ryland Grace Suicide Watch’?
"No," he cuts in roughly. Ryland sniffles the same way he did when he was three and skinned his knee on the sidewalk. "I came here to ask if you want to be here."
A long pause. Ryland sniffles again, then asks, "What, on the roof?"
It's now or never, but Court still hesitates. If he lets Ryland go and exposes his identity… what would he say? The last time they spoke was so very long ago. Court has done things that would make an eighth-grade teacher shrivel up in horror. He has hurt people who would make little Ryland shake in his boots.
That was so long ago. Would he even recognize his older brother's face? They have the same nose, the same blue eyes, but Court wears their shared features with a sharpness that holds no warmth.
The part of him that is Six knows there's an advantage in keeping his identity secret. He's been doing it for years. The larger part of him is an older brother who wants to step between his little brother and the trouble he's getting himself into.
He lets Ryland go. Confused, Ryland shuffles a few steps away and turns quickly on his heel to stare at Courtland. He has his arms wrapped around his torso protectively. He doesn't seem to notice his crooked glasses or the wind battering at his back. He just stares at Court like he's a madman.
"Look," Ryland blurts out. His voice is still choked up, and the gleam in his eyes is all fearful wariness. "I'm sorry, I really didn't mean to set off an alarm, or something. I just came here to think. I can leave - "
"No," Court interrupts. Ryland falls into a startled silence. There's a redness around his eyes from crying, but that hurts far less to see compared to the way Ryland glances nervously over Court's shoulder to the stairway door. He feels cornered, and he wants to leave.
He has no idea who I am.
Court is a fucking idiot. He hisses out a breath and raises a hand to pull off the guard hat, running a hand through his dark blond hair. He feels exposed in an enemy’s territory. He has no other choice.
"It's me, little brother," Court tells him. Ryland blinks back at him, but Court can see the slow understanding dawning in his face. He was always too smart for his own good. "It's Courtland."
"Oh my goodness," Ryland says faintly. He looks paler now than he did before they escaped up to the roof. "You're crazy."
Erasing Courtland Gentry from the public record involved killing him. Quickly and totally, with little to no fanfare. An unfortunate accident with one of the other prisoners, and the guard intervened too slowly to save him.
"It's me," Court says calmly. "Your favorite book at the library was the Eyewitness Book about fish because you liked the colors. You always got offended when Colt called some ugly, but there were some ugly fish in there."
"No," Ryland whimpers. He's still crying, tears dripping down his cheeks to trail down his stubble-lined jaw.
"Yes," Court assures him. "It's me, Ryland."
Killing Courtland Gentry meant that there was a neat little box filled with his meager belongings. Inside the box were the clothes he was arrested in, sealed in a plastic bag, along with a dog-eared copy of Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle and a stack of birthday cards.
"Okay," Ryland says. "Okay. Okay."
He scrubs at his face with both hands. Clearly annoyed by his glasses, as if reminded that they exist, he hangs them down over his chin. It's such a peculiar, ridiculous sort of idle habit that Court chuckles to himself.
"Don't laugh," Ryland sulks. Then he looks even more upset. "Great, now I'm talking back to the ghost. I'm officially nuts."
"You're not," Court says gently. He makes a move to step closer. He pauses abruptly when Ryland flinches. He cannot stomach the thought of either of them flinching because of him. He gives his brother the space he needs to start pacing, watching every fevered step carefully.
Just as suddenly as he started, Ryland comes to an abrupt halt and stares at Court.
"If you're here," Ryland says in a rush. "Can I ask you a question?"
Reaching next of kin was another matter. With his father dead and his mother missing from Florida's public record for so many years, the facility gave the box its required thirty days of holding before it was all destroyed to make room for the next dead prisoner.
"Anything," Court says instantly.
Despite his initial bravery, Ryland falters and looks away from Court's burning gaze, then starts slowly, "If you were given a choice to do something dangerous to save all of humanity, would you do it?"
"No," Court lies. "There is always another way."
"No, there isn't," Ryland whispers. The wind nearly steals the confession away. "Not much of one anyway."
"There is," Court assures him. "You're smart. You know there must be."
The Graces never talk about Courtland, and they give each other concerned little frowns when one of the twins brings it up. Eventually, Colt stops remembering that night with the loud bang and the blood and the way Court stood blankly in the middle of it all. He spends more time sleeping without the nightlight and stops scurrying over to sleep in Ryland's bed when their adopted father walks past their door.
Eventually, Ryland stops remembering, too. He still sleeps with the nightlight on until he's sixteen, though. He only stops when Colt's new girlfriend teases him for it, even though he never sees her again after that. Colt doesn’t even speak her name and shrugs it off if Ryland references her.
“Who the hell are you talking about?” Colt would say. “It’s just you and me, Ry. We don’t need anything else but the two of us.”
"Um," Ryland blinks. The tears have stopped falling, but he still looks like he's reeling from the initial shock. Court doesn't really blame him. He feels a swoop of nausea in his gut like he's falling from a great height. "Okay. Right. Okay. I'm going to… work it out. I guess."
"You never answered my question," Court says. It's not an accusation, just a plain observation.
"What is it?" Ryland still has the same wrinkle in his brow when he frowns as he did when he was little. Everywhere Court looks, he sees the shadow of a younger brother in the echo of this older, troubled one. It aches like a wound infested with its own septic infection.
"Do you want to be here? On the project?"
There had been a long time where it was only Ryland and Colt. They lived longer as the Grace twins than they had as two-thirds of the Gentry brothers.
But there had been a time when there were three of them, not just two.
"I need to be here," Ryland says immediately. It's so rehearsed that Court feels his expression twist into a wince against his better judgment. As predicted, Ryland goes on the defensive. "This is humanity's only hope to find a way to stop astrophage from eating our sun. Literally, it's our 'Hail Mary'!"
"Stratt says she needs you," Court relents. "I didn't ask what she fucking thinks. I asked if you want to be here, Ryland."
"My kids can't inherit a future apocalypse," Ryland tries.
Court thinks about the dozens of young faces outside of Grover Cleveland Middle School who told him that they missed Mr. Grace and his trivia lightning rounds. He thinks about Claire with her feet up on the dashboard, dozing off with her head leaning against his shoulder, so he’s stuck in one position for over an hour. He thinks about two little boys sitting on either side of him on the library floor, marveling at his reading like he was all there was to listen to. Trusting him to teach them, protect them, and guide them.
It's not much of an argument at all for Ryland's point. The children he would do anything for are now grown men, and right now, one of them needs him in a way he could be useful for.
"There are other scientists to help Stratt," Court dismisses. "You could just go."
"It doesn't work like that," Ryland snorts.
"It can," Court says easily. "Come with me."
"It doesn't work like that," he repeats. "I've worked on this project too long to leave. They need me here."
I need you to be somewhere safe and boring.
It's right on the tip of his tongue. He swallows it back like choking down bile. It burns just as harshly.
"You have a choice," Court finally decides. "I'll be around after the launch. The minute you want to leave, just come here and find me. I'll check up here every damn day."
Ryland nods slowly, his eyes drifting slowly over Court's face, then the stolen guard uniform. He huffs softly. "You look kind of silly."
"It got me where I needed to be, kid," Court replies. Ryland's smile is a little strained at the edges, but he nods in acknowledgement and wanders over to sit near the edge of the roof. Then he buries his face in his hands and sits like that for a long, long time.
Court stands guard at the door, and he wishes he could be the impenetrable wall between his brothers and the world beyond just as easily.
There had been a time when Ryland could roll over and find Court staring up at the ceiling, already awake. Colt would be snoring on the other side of their brother, but Ryland wasn't worried about waking him up.
"Court?" Ryland would whisper.
"Ry," he would answer just as softly.
"You look silly on the floor."
"I'm right where I need to be, kid. Go to sleep."
Ryland gets up after an hour and a half and stops just an arm's length away from Court. They take in one another carefully, down to the same bridge of their noses and the blond shades of their hair. Ryland is slightly taller than Court. Not by much, probably just an inch or so, but it's enough to make Court's breath catch in his chest.
Not so little anymore, his little brother Ryland.
That doesn't stop Ryland from leaning in for a tight, rib-seizing hug. Court gives their hug just as much weight, his fingers curling into the back of his brother's head to haul him in closer. They clutch onto each other for a long time. Ryland is warm against his body. It's comforting in its strange familiarity, like he fits in perfectly there, like he has belonged there all this time.
There isn't enough time.
There isn't enough time, not for what's coming, but Court lets him go when Ryland finally makes a move to retreat. He doesn't know it then.
He doesn't know fucking anything.
Courtland Gentry just lets Ryland walk past him down the stairwell with the promise to be waiting there for him when Ryland is ready to go. He lets the door click shut between them without a single word of complaint or a single plea for reconsideration. He thinks his brother is mature, if not a little overzealous, but he can find a way to convince him to leave before Stratt gets prosecuted for her red-tape cutting. Every mission needs a fall guy, and Stratt could drag his little brother down with her if he doesn't step in quick enough.
He walks to the edge of the roof and looks out to the Soyuz launch pad. He thinks that he has the time to find the right words. The Hail Mary is not due for her voyage for five days, but he has heard rumblings among the grounds that there's a preliminary launch in two days. Something about crew pre-flight checks.
It should be enough time. Now that he's here, he thinks, he will not let his brothers go again so easily. Without Sierra Six haunting his every step, he can begin to piece together his own fractured life.
He imagines a dinner night with the twins, Claire, and maybe even Jody, the director that Colt is so sweet for. Perhaps he'll make spaghetti and endure the ribbing he'll get for his undercooked noodles and jarred sauce just to see that table full of faces smiling together.
Yeah, he thinks, smiling to himself. The sun, despite its fading temperature, is warm on his upturned face. He's got the time.
He just has to wait for Ryland to give him the signal.