Awakening (Book 2 in the Original BOC Series) ✔

Chapter Twenty-Six

It had been four hours since the team had made it to a greenbelt neighborhood with grand expensive houses; all of the same color, white. The houses all looked the same with their neatly trimmed hedges lining the front walls, the green grass was mowed perfectly without a strand sticking out of place, and the white picket fence that ran around the house looked freshly painted. The front of the large white house looked simple and the team informed the group that the entire neighborhood was vacant.

"You mean there's no one here?" Rory asked, looking around him at the now creepy street. Carter grinned, shrugging as he walked hand in hand with Jane up the pathway to the house they'd be staying in.

"It's paid for by the city for our missions. And so these houses are imitations of real houses that are somewhere else." The group blinked, glancing at one another before filing into the house that looked so plain, but its interior made their previous 'home' look rather pathetic.

There were two fireplaces; one in the living room on the first floor, and the other on the second floor in another living room. The furniture was all made of oak. It was freshly polished and placed perfectly in each spot to make the rooms look more spacious than they already were. There were picture frames on the just as white walls of the house; the smiles of the families gave a hint of the loving life they lived at that moment the camera caught them.

When Mrs. Henry had walked in with Lily's arm linked through hers, she held her fingertips to one of the frames of a blonde boy with big blue eyes pressing his cheek against the one of a brown haired girl with hazel eyes. The children smiled back at Mrs. Henry; their rosy cheeks making her smile back at them. She didn't turn when she asked out loud, "Are these real?" She continued to stare at the smiling children and Porcali's voice was the one that answered.

It had sadness in it when he replied, "Yes, Mrs. Henry... those are real."

Mrs. Henry frowned at the tone of his voice and lifted her fingers to touch the glass of the picture. "Who are these people?"

Her eyes wandered away from the children to the other picture frames hanging on the wall. There was a black and white photo of a woman with dark hair and eyes, her white smile so wide there were crinkles beside her eyes. Her head rested against her arm propped arm and the camera caught her in the middle of a laugh.

There was another picture with the dark haired woman and the two children embraced in a tight hug. There was a man in the middle of the hug with his back to the viewer's eyes. The other three's faces beamed as they wrapped their arms around the man, like he'd been gone for so long and they had rushed over to see him.

Mrs. Henry's fingers numbed, turning around to look at Porcali when he sighed with a grim smile, "My family."

Everyone had stared at Porcali watching the man let his eyes carry themselves up the wall of the pictures and gaze at each one longingly. He could still hear his children giggling and calling for him, 'Daddy! Daddy, we missed you!' and he could hear his beautiful wife laughing so loudly it echoed off the walls as she'd crook her finger at him with a teasing grin, 'I've been waiting for you...'

The silence from the others reached his ears and Porcali blinked a few times, shaking his head as he looked at them all. They stared at him, not sure if to ask or not about what happened. Porcali's lopsided grin had him nod as he looked around again. He looked at the others holding out his arms to the side in a presentational manner.

"This was home."

Ben had gone searching for Porcali when he'd gotten his family situated in the bedrooms the wide house offered. There were so many for the number of people that had lived in it before, Ben had thought. And Ben wondered if maybe Porcali had been a rather wealthy man when he 'existed'. He had found Porcali in the master bedroom located at the back of the house on the first floor, sitting on the edge of the mattress staring down at a picture he held in his hands.