Edison World of Darkness: Attrition - [Randy Edison] Christmas Break

[Adrian Moss]

Randy waited at the airport nervously. It was a sensation he thought had faded from his life. It was fear. He wasn't afraid of his visitor, but of the memories she would bring back. He would see her, his Sister, in her face. He would remember his last words to her. He would remember the emptiness he had felt at her graveside. They were phantoms he had buried for ten years. In a way he hoped they would stay buried forever, despite the cost.

Then he saw her coming through security. She looked like her. She was his half-sister, but she bore a very close resemblance to his dead Sister. Maybe that was because his father had married a woman that was the closest replacement to the wife he'd lost. She saw him and waved.

'Too late to run now,' he thought. He didn't know what to do. How did he break the ice?

She pre-empted him. She ran up and swung her arms around his neck and pulled him close. She kissed him on the cheek and hugged him tight.

"I know you would look like this," she whispered to him.

Randy stroked her hair,

"You're a lot different than I remember you, Autumn. You're not a kid anymore."

Autumn stepped back and gave him a play-slug in the upper arm.

"Well, yeah. Ten years will do that to a girl."

She stared up at him and a tear began forming in her eye.

"Come on," Randy said calmly. "Let's get your bags. I have a car. Are you sure your stuff will arrive in the mail?"

"Don't you trust the government agencies to do the right thing?"

Randy stared at his sister with mock shock.

"Having been in the government's pay, I can attest to the fact that there is nothing the government can't screw up," he said.

Autumn grinned, her eyes still watery.

"I'll take your word for it."

"So, how many bags are we getting?"

"Three," she grinned. "Big ones."

"Great. Did you pack for deployment."

"Kind of, yes. I'm not going back under my own power, that's for sure."

"We probably will end up broke and on the street you realize."

"Gar, it so beats the alternative. It really does."

Autumn wrapped her arm in his and they walked toward carousal.