The server gave me a warm smile as she led me to my seat. My family’s usual table number is 9. A redhead immediately stood up and rushed me. She half tackled me, half crushed me as she jumped into my arms. The other gave me a lazy wave. “Ah! You are late!” Cheryl pouted, as she rubbed her face into my neck. I didn’t have to see her to know how cute she looked. Cheryl hummed as she recharged her affection batteries before sliding off. Her hands ran through her trademark fire red hair. She straightened it out so cascaded over her left shoulder. I laughed as I offered my arm, and she hooked her arm through mine, her fingers intertwining with mine. Her face was a bright smile as she snuggled into my side. Something felt odd about this. It was enough to draw tears to my eyes, and we both laughed as she wiped them away. “Allergies?” Cheryl asked as she grabbed my hand again. “Yeah…” I leaned into her, relishing in her warmth. “Ah! You’re late!” Carmen accused as she rammed into us both. Her tiny frame hugging us for everything she was worth. Once she was happy with the long hug, she grabbed my other hand and tugged me towards our table. The simple wooden table number 9 could seat six. Mother and father were already seated. They waived as they ribbed each other. It was inevitable that mom fell to a dad joke, and he looked extra proud. I knew that mother was contemplating taking out her gun and ending the man. As they always said, what were a few gunshot wounds between lovers? Harvey waved at me while digging into his burger. Harvey… didn’t I come in with him? How was he already sitting there? A fuzzy memory surfaced, but I could not pin it down. “Did you bring my present?” Carmen pouted as she sat down before her burger. Her eyes bore into mine as she tried the old puppy dog look. I always said it wouldn’t work, but I often fell prey to it. “Yeah,” I nodded. I had the… the… thing on me. What was it again? Red and black. A gun? Gun part? Trigger? “Don’t worry about it. Just dig in!” Cheryl urged as she pushed me into my seat before taking her seat at my right. I smiled and licked my lips. The burger looked fresh from the kitchen. The soft bun, the moist meat, and seeping various condiments. Steam rose from the fries and side gravy. I swallowed a mouthful of drool and swept my eyes across at everyone. I had to wipe away a few more stray tears. Almost everyone was staring at me. Other than Harvey, no one else had eaten. They were waiting on something? They were all staring at me. I stared back. Mom and dad had warm smiles. Carmen was a mix between cheerful and annoyed. Cheryl was a deep smile that promised a ton of cuddling. More if we could get some alone time. I stared at Harvey. He hadn’t made eye contact at all. Harvey… something about him kept stabbing at my mind. An echo about how he looked. How I didn’t want him to look. “Hey Harvey,” I wanted to ask him did he feel it, too. The oddness. The repressed need to not know? Harvey waved but didn’t look up as he kept eating. How odd. I stared. His burger only had two bites, but he had been eating for a while. “Harvey,” I commanded. It was a captain’s voice. A leader’s voice. Harvey looked up against his will. His unique hazel eyes stared back at me. Then I saw him. I saw all of them. Their dual forms flickering like a poor tv image. Life during life and at the moment of death. Right. Harvey died a long time ago. Six bloody bullet holes dotted his chest. The red was spreading into his sweater. He was missing an eye and had an extra hole in his cheek. Memories returned of that day. Of the return fire that gunned most of us down. Along with Sargent Dick. Harvey grinned and snorted at my shocked face. He looked back down and the image returned to his cheerful, non-bloody self. His less-than-ideal situation didn’t stop him from eating his unending burger, though. I looked over to mom and dad. Their blue faces stared back at me. Suffocation from when electronic fires sucked away all oxygen. They found their uninjured bodies days after the invasion. I gave them full military funeral rites. Cheryl smiled at me. Blood from dozens of shrapnel leaked blood across her face and a few from random bits of her body. A third of her head was missing. I cremated her with our squad. She also got full military rites. She still smiled at me. That soft, smitten smile. It made me smile too, seeing her cheerful even here. I finally turned to Carmen. She was the worst off. A literal meat Popsicle. She had taken the fringes of a Stark micro-missile then hugged by sixty tonnes of rock. She held out her arms for a hug, and I moved in response. The squelch brought tears to my eyes. A tragedy that I had killed to ensure that it would never get repeated. Everyone else knew what the risk for Third Service was. Death on duty. The ultimate sacrifice. The greater good prepared all of us since birth for this eventuality. I stared down and saw my exploded chest. I was not immune to a touch of death, either. It made me chuckle. My amusement died as I looked back up to Carmen. Yet Carmen… she was supposed to be safe. She was supposed to have been in a bunker for protection. “I miss you all so much,” I squelched her to me. It was morbid how cute we both were. Ruined bodies and everything. “We miss you too, big bro,” Carmen hugged me back harder. Her ravaged body was gone. As if I had only imagined it. “I… I need to go back. I can’t stay,” I whispered as loud as I could. Apart of me didn’t want to leave. They were all here. Yet a Supreme Leader had duties that weighed on me still. I couldn’t stay. Did I not become the Supreme Leader to prevent tragedies like Carmen? I could throw away thousands, but they were soldiers. First-class citizens who knew the weight of their service. All for a future we would never see. To plant a tree that would shade the children of tomorrow. I let go of Carmen. I needed to get to my car and drive out. To return even if it meant I ended up in some crazy desolate limbo. “Yeah,” Carmen snagged me in one last hug. She squeezed hard enough that it broke every bone in my body. Death’s physics made little sense. “We are proud of you, son,” Dad smiled at me. “Eat well. I didn’t like how you were starving,” Mom frowned at me. I blinked at her, as that was not even my fault. Her smirk told me she knew that I knew that she knew. “Take care of Candy, yeah?” Harvey smiled as our eyes met. He held up his eternally half-eaten burger and used it in a lame wave. I wasn’t sure if he was greeting me or shooing me away. “Return Kori’s feelings. As a fellow redhead, I am cheering for you both!” Cheryl moved forward to give me her own bone-shattering hug. How did my body break twice? She gave me a kiss. It was hot and cold. Soft and hard. Then she settled down to hug me like she always used to. Carmen moved in from the other side. Carmen half hugged and half-buried into me. No bone-breaking power, but somehow stronger. “You can stay, ya’ know? We could train you with lots of cool things. It’s here for you to take.” “You know I can’t,” I smiled and wrapped an arm around her as well. No gifts came without a price. I didn’t have the time, and I knew the consequences were often heavy. Carmen sniffed and held up a bullet. She pulled out her old worn gun and slid that bullet into the chamber. She spun it and flicked it close. A trick she had practiced day and night to get right. “One special bullet, because you were super cool then. When you shot at Iron Man and Thor,” Carmen whispered as she slid her customized gun into my holster. Red and black. A ladybug special. “I love you all,” I said with a smile. I needed to get free and run to my car. Only Death knew how much I desired to stay here. Carmen and Cheryl shared a look and giggled. I blinked as they hugged as hard as they could. My body liquefied, and my gooey body fell backward. They waved goodbye, blowing me kisses in sync. An oddity that always had me questioning who was corrupting who. I fell through the floor. Then I was breaking through the sky when I saw her. Where the server stood, now a lady with a skull stared at me. She was larger than life and I wasn’t sure if I was falling away or towards her. It didn’t matter. Not in her realm. “Thank you, Lady Death,” I looked into those blue fires that formed her eyes in that pristine white skull. “This moment means more to me than I can ever express.” Lady Death did not move, nor did she speak. The cold air whipping by me did warm as I passed her and fell further down. Was that approaching floor land or water? I did not fear for I knew that I was going somewhere. Thoughts of home, and the people warmed as I hit that floor. Then I splashed into water that formed a trillion colors. Some I could not even describe, and I knew I would never see them again in the land of the living. I sank into the odd, warm waters. I surrender to it and it held me in return. It pulled me down into its depths. Deeper and deeper into the darkness. — I blinked and opened my eyes. My body felt weak and my limbs stiff. I tried to move my head, but it was slow. The dim light was nice, but I realized I was thirsty. So thirsty. My mouth felt like sand and I moved like a snail. The effort to raise my arms was annoyingly hard. They taped needles and connecting tubes into place on both my arms. The rhythmic beeps of various machines filled the air. Memories of Bangkok returned, and the aftermath. The hospital stay wasn’t long, and my recovery was swift. I felt those fuzzy and haunting memories. Candice growled a lot from her own hospital bed. [CRACK!] [Thump!] I looked up in a panic. Light flooded in and I tried to look for a weapon. I was under attack minutes after waking and I was figuratively, and literally, naked. “JOHNNY!” the monster cried, and the world vanished into the darkness. The assassin had me in a full-body hold as they tried to break me into bits. It was a lot like what Carmen and Cheryl had done. From the warmth and size of her, I deduced it was a sobbing Kori. She had settled her full weight onto me, forcing me backward, as I didn’t have the strength to stay upright. “JOHNNY!” another woman screamed and latched onto my other side. Kara sobbed as she crushed Kori into me. There was a sound of feet pounding against the polished tiles of the infirmary. They moved around the metal door that had gotten torn from the wall and discarded. Inside, they heard a voice they had hoped to hear for a long time. My limp consoling arms were notable in the tangle of bodies. “JOHNNY!” a pair of ladies cried out and hurried into the room. Since they lacked the power of flight, they were slower to reach the bedside. Candice and Sue saw that the other two were already piled on top of me. They exchanged amused shrugs before also piling in. My groans of pain were music to their ears. ———— Chapter 56: Family Reunion