Come on, oh my star is fading

And I see no chance of release

And I know I'm dead on the surface

But I am screaming underneath

And time is on your side

It's on your side now

Not pushing you down

And all around, no

It's no cause for concern

Three weeks had passed since the climax of the serial killing case in Eaeshore. Isaiah gingerly touched the gauze still plastered on the side of his head, covering the bullet wound that had healed somewhat. He was discharged from hospital two weeks earlier with a clean bill of health- his doctor had proclaimed him a miracle case, noting that he had suffered no permanent brain damage of any kind, besides the occasional motion-sickness even when he was rooted to the floor, akin to the floating sense of vertigo even when his feet were firmly planted on the ground. Lynn had freaked out when he had collapsed on her but the doctor found the bleeding to be from a superficial wound, most likely inflicted when he banged his head against the car window as Stern was swerving sharply into the small, side road to the factory which almost became his brother’s burial ground.

Almost.

The paramedics had successfully revived Elijah and his brother was in ICU for a week before he was transfer to the normal ward. Noting the injuries that Elijah had meted out on himself, his doctor had actually suggested very gently to Isaiah that Elijah might need some sort of psychiatric help, especially after the trauma of his torture. Isaiah would not deny that he harbored the hope that Elijah would wake up from his wounded stupor and morphed back into what Isaiah remembered him to be before- the innocent, passionate Lijah who cared, cried and laughed. Yet, such instant recoveries were made only possible in Hollywood. When Elijah regained full consciousness after drifting in and out of the limbo between death and life for a few days- his massive loss of blood a huge contribution to his critical stage-, he remained impassive and severely taciturn.

In fact, the first person he spoke to was Gray Man and he only asked Gray Man one question.

Gray Man had refused to answer and Elijah did not press on. He simply stopped talking afterwards- no words escaped from the dried, discolored cracked lips- almost as white as the ashen face. Whatever trauma the torture was supposed to induce must have paled in comparison to what he had suffered through before. His soles hardened by the rough, abrasive ground he walked on, such an episode did nothing to change his demeanor or emotional balance.

For nights, Isaiah stayed by his brother’s bedside, facing nothing more than a block of wood. He talked about his life- his first high school sweetheart, the first time he went diving, which was in Mauritius, and joked about his college life where he was an absolute social zero. But Elijah just kept staring into space and there were times when Isaiah almost thought Elijah had turned into a marble statue. He asked Elijah questions too about his experiences and the only response he received that told him the sculpture was listening was a slight smirk at some points- mocking its originator.

Isaiah had called Howard again to enquire about the progress of the search and Howard gave him a negative reply, saying he needed more time. Somehow, Isaiah knew it was money that was the problem and since Gray Man gave him a long vacation to rest his mind, knowing he could just slip into another bout of melancholic blues, he thought he would search for Elijah’s past himself but still Howard on the job. He would start with Elijah. He would rather hear it from Elijah.

"I want to talk about it now." Elijah’s soft drone jolted Isaiah away from his thoughts. It was the second sentence he had spoken to Isaiah since he divorced himself from speech. Elijah was weird, to say the least. He simply decided to just speak and Isaiah could not see the trigger to the speech.

But he decided not to fuss over Elijah, not to allow his emotion to get the better of him. It was perhaps better to just treat Elijah normally because to Elijah, he was as normal as he could be.

"About her?"

"No, not our mother. She died, didn’t she? What’s there to talk about? I only wanted to see where she buried herself and then, I’ll be satisfied with the knowledge."

It was Isaiah who had suggested that they visit their mother’s grave together. He had hoped the trip would draw them both closer together and there might be an opportunity to bond when he bring Elijah to the little, sleepy town of Angel’s Spring where he and his mother finally found some peace after running away from his father for many years since they escaped his clutches- moving from ghettos to rundown towns, hopping across states in hope of covering their tracks or at least, arranging their footprints in a haphazard mess that would complicate his father’s search. Their track record was five changes of addresses in a month and it was only after Daniel Raily died five years after they flew from the cage he locked them in, that Isaiah and his mother breathed in peace in the nondescript town of Angel’s Spring where Isaiah attended high school and finally made some friends that he did not have to bid farewell to after only a few weeks.

Angel’s Spring, in Northern Idaho. That was where they were headed for.

Elijah had made no reply when Isaiah had hesitantly asked him what he thought about the trip. In a way, Isaiah hoped to fulfill his mother’s wish- to find Elijah. He had found him and he would bring him to see her. She died when Isaiah was 20, still in NYU, and left him heartbroken and orphaned.

Two days after Elijah was discharged, or rather, after Elijah discharged himself by simply walking out of the hospital, heedless of the nurses’ protests, took a cab and went back to his own apartment still dressed in his hospital garments-he turned out at Isaiah’s apartment, passed Isaiah an air ticket and announced blandly, "We’re going to her grave now."

Isaiah threw some clothes hurriedly into an overnight bag and drove them to the La Guardia where they would take a flight to Idaho Falls and from there, drive down to Angel’s Spring. Lynn was in his apartment then helping him out with the reconstruction that had to be done. She had revealed to him that it was Elijah, in a mad bout of rage, who caused the damage and implored Isaiah to not be angry at his brother. But he was not angry, he could never be. He was just saddened by some losses, like the violin. However, if destroying his house would make his brother happier, maybe even allow forgiveness to finally have a chance to mend their relationship, then so be it.

Lynn promised she would house-sit for him till he returned so cockroaches would not takeover his apartment.

"So, what’s the ‘it’?" Isaiah asked, smiling gently as he turned to face his brother who had the window seat.

Elijah turned his shaven head away and gazed out of the window, his sight fixed on the cottony clouds and clear blue sky. There was a scarred patch where Benedict Olson had yanked out a huge chunk of his hair from but Elijah was making no efforts to hide it, unlike Isaiah who had taken to wearing a cap until his wound healed as best as it could and, hopefully, hair would grow in the affected area.

Being bald simply made Elijah’s features more startling- impressive in their impassiveness. Many people from both sexes had given his brother admiring looks before frowning slightly at the scar. Elijah simply dismissed them, even when, as they were queuing to pass Customs, a pretty, pink-hair girl about 18 plucked up the courage to approach the ice only to walked away, humiliated because Elijah did not even bother to acknowledge her presence.

"The case. I need you to tie up the loose ends for me."

Isaiah looked around, very much chary now with what happened in Eaeshore. Network agents getting bugged by a waitress was extremely embarrassing news if the rest of the organization got to hear it. Gray Man had laid down strict policies on the secrecy of this error, threatening his agents with a 5 years stint of shuffling between Israel and Palestine though he made a mental point to warn all agents about this pitfall. Isaiah had to suffer through two days of ranting before Gray Man let him go on the vacation. Though he knew that he was in the wrong-he should had been careful- Gray Man could be too nagging for comfort.

"We’ll talk on the road-trip." Isaiah promised and Elijah nodded, still looking out of the window and the rest of the flight was in silence.

Two hours odd later, they were out of the Idaho Falls and driving down to Angel Springs. It was about 70 degrees F when they arrived at about 11 a.m. but Isaiah knew the night would get much colder. Famous for its potatoes, Idaho was also home to the greatest stand of white pine trees with its landscape morphing from subalpine into desert; granite mountains into fertile farms; lakes and waterfalls into canyons and gorges. New York City it was not. In fact, Isaiah had left Idaho because he felt the pace a little too slow and, liking New York after immersing himself there during his college days, he decided to relocate.

And though he was glad he did, he still missed the wilderness, the simplicity and the quietness of Angel Springs.

"So, can we talk now?" Elijah asked when they were barely off the road. Isaiah raised a brow, understanding his brother’s obsession with a case that still had loose ends to be tied but regretting the fact that they were not talking about something more personal to the both of them.

"The case. Yes. Carter’s being held over at our headquarters for interrogation because we have reasons to suspect that the PolSci Inner Sanctum is more than just a normal political discussion organization where members sit down and have tea over Marx and Mill. The Network now suspects that PSIS is actually a cell group for the recruitment of members for an even larger outfit behind which we have yet to determine what. Carter went insane and is now blabbering rubbish about being God and stuff. I think he had veered very much off track from what he was supposed to accomplish. We don’t know why the killings took place, could be some ideas from Carter’s warped mind or the need to immerse their members into some religious ritual to further deepen their faith and thus, manipulate them to the outfit’s own means. Brainwashing them and given them a routine to follow, as nightmarish as it may be. We found the receiving radio for the bug they planted on us in the white Honda which belonged to Alicia’s mother. She reported it missing a month ago and somehow, the police never found it, until now. Alicia was very influenced by Ben and we suspect, to aid in the brainwashing, Carter gave them some drugs. We know Danny uses Rophynol to drug his victims and from what Alicia divulged, it was Carter who gave it to him. Nonetheless, for the hypnotic sedative Carter used on his followers, we have no…"

"No idea." Elijah finished for Isaiah dryly. "How delightful. The miniature receiver they found on Danny, the unnamed hypnotic drug, a banned drug, training, the cell groups. So, are we raiding PSIS… no… wait, for an intelligence agency, we’re pretty stupid on this matter." Elijah insulted the Network in his own dull drone. Isaiah shook his head, no longer feeling giddy as he did so.

"Their cells are not as easy to find because they are not registered. It’s just a group that comes and go and Carter won’t talk. We will make progress soon but, for now, it’s out of my hands and yours."

Elijah’s lips tightened a little but soon, his mien relaxed to the old equilibrium of null expression.

The drive to Angel’s Spring was a little more than 3 hours and again, after the update, Elijah was silent again and Isaiah was not in a mood to banter with himself. When they reached the quaint town after a drive through acres of undeveloped land, Isaiah felt his heart lightened when he saw familiar buildings. It was a town trapped in time for nothing had changed, not even the paintworks.

"This is where we stayed…" Isaiah pointed to a humble but presentable three-story apartment block. Painted white with dark brown beams, it had that allure of something pure and simple, the design uncomplicated but pleasing. Isaiah would love to pull up and say hello to old neighbors but the uninterested look on Elijah’s face doused the candle flame of excitement at the pseudo-homecoming in Isaiah. He sighed and drove on.

They passed the town square which was just a gathering of some shops, a meek excuse for a mall and a theatre with only two screens. The population could not support anything more than that but the citizens seemed happy. There were one or two small office buildings and a small little Methodist Church. The high school was a little tight for budget but Isaiah still managed to excel in his studies despite the lack of facilities in the school. He had a staunch belief in the motto, "With the Drive to Learn, Anyone can have an Ivy League Education Anywhere." It was good to be back but Isaiah would never come back here to stay for good. Angel Springs made the young restless and if they did not step out of it soon, the energy would wither away to inertia and most likely, if one did not leave Alice Springs by the age of thirty-five, one would most probably never go.

And that was why Isaiah fled to NYU on his scholarship. Madeline had encouraged him to do so anyway. When she had cancer, he had wanted to come back but she refused, quelling his protests with her stoic words of love. She insisted that he continue with his studies so he could make a mark for himself and lay to rest the awful past as quick as he could. He did return, however, to spend two months with her, until she died, holding on to his hand, making him promise he would bring Lijah to see her one day. His auntie had stayed with his mom while he was in college to look after her. There was a secret in Aunt Lydia’s eyes, a sad secret which he often pried but got his hands slapped instead. After the funeral, they had sat down to talk about the past but Lydia still remained silent on what she termed, ghosts of the past.

She left town without telling him and he never saw her again. She was one of the three women he had asked Howard to find.

The town’s cemetery was just behind the church and, discounting the gravestones, it could be easily mistaken for a meadow, with its pine trees and yellow flowers. Grass somehow grew well in that area- soft and a moist shade of green. Isaiah pulled up close to its entrance and the two brothers exited from the car, with Elijah following a step behind Isaiah. The dark-haired man looked up to the sky then, noting the diminished sunlight. Engorged, gray clouds had partly hidden the sun and with the slight gust of wind blowing, it seemed like rain was imminent.

He led Elijah to their mother’s grave, some distance away from the entrance to the cemetery. He knelt down and brushed away some pine needles that had fallen onto the granite steps at the foot of the grave with a Cross carved onto it. Lovingly, he traced the name inscribed on the grave and closed his eyes, spelling each letter with touch. His mother’s name. For all her mistakes, she was really a gentle woman- God-fearing and simple in nature with a history marked by violence and substance abuse out of despair. Nevertheless, everybody had a history. It was what they did with the present and the future that would matter more. She loved her sons and Isaiah knew, deep inside, she loved Elijah dearly despite the fear that kept her from going to him.

"I still don’t know anything about you, Elijah. And I’ll admit, I’m curious to the core." Isaiah asked with his eyes still closed. He always thought he could sense better than he see, and when faced with nothing to look at, he could listen more attentively.

Elijah was standing up and while Isaiah could not see him, he could imagine the expressionless eyes perhaps blinking once. A slight rustling of the grass was heard and he felt a presence gathering next to him.

His brother hand knelt down beside him.

"I will have thought your PI, Howard, would have told you everything." Elijah spoke and Isaiah’s shot open as he turned to face his brother abruptly.

"How… how did you…" Isaiah stammered, a little peeved with Howard’s skills that he led Isaiah to believe was pretty competent.

"I caught him tailing me once while I was still in Yale. A reflection gave him away and so, I thought I would greet him and introduce myself properly. You know, Isaiah, some things are better left buried."

Isaiah could not decipher the hidden emotion behind the monotonous drawl though indifference would be a natural conclusion but he thought Elijah soul’s well ran deeper than what he wanted people to believe. No one could be entirely unfeeling- a human could not just morph into an android. Somewhere inside, there must be something- maybe forgotten or repressed- but still something.

"Li… Elijah…" Isaiah had no idea what he wanted to say, only that he had volumes of thoughts and regrets that needed words to set them free, words that would not come easily. Tongue-tied, Isaiah took to staring at the grave again, reading the inscribed words out of the need to keep his mind occupied, otherwise, the realization of his ineptness would hit him again and the force would be unbearable to say the least.

The first few drops of rain splashed down to Earth then, forming random patterns with wet blotches on the grave stones. A few pelted down on Isaiah and, out of childish habit, he glanced up at the sky with an upturned palm, only to be assaulted by a most timely torrent.

Rain barraged into his eyes and he had such trouble just keep them opened.

"We should go!" Isaiah patted Elijah’s shoulder to emphasize his point and stood up with some effort, his legs a little numbed from the kneeling and his eyes squinting as rain dripped from his fringe into the sensitive green gems. Elijah shook his head gently, making no move to leave.

"You go. The rain’s not good for you."

Neither it is for you! Alright, if you want to stay, I’ll go get an umbrella…"

"We’re already drenched, tasting rain as we speak. What’s the use of trying to keep dry when you’re already soaked to the bones? Elijah asked him, tilting his head to face Isaiah with those mirror eyes of his and Isaiah saw himself shrinking in those azure irises, diminishing with each spoken, cutting word of the piercing message.

"I’ll stay too. I’m not leaving you." Isaiah was about to kneel down again when Elijah sighed and shook his head, raising a hand to stop him.

"I’ll go with you."

Isaiah smiled a little and stretched out a hand to pull Elijah up but Elijah ignored him, struggling up by himself and the dark-haired young man saw his younger brother clutching his side briefly, the side of his torso that was perforated by a bullet colder than him. The two brothers then ran back towards the rented Toyota, in a hurry to seek protection from the thunderous skies and hammering downpour, or rather, that was what Isaiah did. He made a mad dash with a palm pressing against the gauze, knowing the wound had closed but still wary of keeping it clean. It was only after a while, when a sense washed over him, when the sounds of the heavy rain retreated into his mind’s background, that he became conscious of Elijah’s retreated footsteps- the patters of footfalls in soggy grounds growing fainter.

He spun around then and saw Elijah a distance away from him, looking at him dumbly with rain-glazed eyes.

"NO!" Elijah yelled suddenly, his features crumpling into each other as his tears mingled with the torrential shower. He cradled his head.

"NO!"

"Elijah! Come over here… the rain’s too heavy!" Isaiah felt a stitch at his side from stopping too abruptly and started to jog slowly towards his brother, holding on to his waist. "We can always come back tomorrow!" He hollered as his pace quickened, straining to be heard over Nature’s clamoring for attention.

His brother shook his cradled head slowly while still looking at Isaiah with those disquieting blue eyes now wet with hot tears, looking very young and yet, about to burst from the secrets that he had to squeeze into one tiny luggage, too small and weak to take the pressure exerted on it from the inside. Taking a few steps backwards before he whirled around on his heels and sprinted towards Madeline’s grave, Elijah frenetic footfalls splattered mud all over the place in his hysterical race to explode with something destructive. Isaiah could not keep up but from behind, he could see Elijah bend down at one point when he was near his destination.

"Lijah!"

Too late. His brother had scooped up a handful of dirt and flung it on the cold, gray grave. The mud smeared the tombstone but was soon washed away back to the ground by the opposing rain. He could hear Elijah’s angry growls of frustration even with all the crashing sounds around him. Irritated growls because the rain was thwarting his efforts to vandalize the grave of the woman who was supposed to protect him, cuddle him and love him.

The woman who left him behind in the vulture’s nest.

"Lijah!" Isaiah screamed, unable to watch Elijah’s terrible rupture of sorrow and anguish. He finally reached his brother and grabbed his hand before he could hurl another blob of mud at the grave. "Lijah!"

"LET GO! I HATE HER! I HATE YOU!" Elijah hollered and with the strength of a madman, he jerked his torso and shook Isaiah roughly away, sending Isaiah teetering backwards before falling onto the drowning grass.

"Please… Lijah…" Isaiah pleaded from his fallen stance, stretching out a hand in a useless gesture of reaching out to his brother. Elijah was now pounding his fists against the immovable stone- the rain tricking down like his mother’s tears shedding because her little boy had returned at last. But those were not tears of joy; those were tears of helplessness because she could no longer comfort the angry, broken spirit that she, in her inaction, had helped created.

"Why did you leave me with him? You knew! You always knew what he’ll do eventually! But you chose to be blind! I’m your son! I’m your damn son! Why did you only take one? Why can’t you take both? You don’t love me, you never wanted me, do you?" Elijah accused the stone and then stopped assaulting the granite form that symbolized the woman who had abandoned him in her fear. He raised his head up into the heavens and yelled, screaming to be heard.

"DO YOU?!"

Elijah then slouched over and gripped the top of the grave so tightly that even with his vision blurred by the rain and his own sadness, Isaiah saw the whiteness of the knuckles marred with liquid crimson that disappeared only to reappear again as the injuries from those futile punches would not stop bleeding- new flow of blood challenging the rain to wash it away after the old stream was vanquished.

Elijah hunched over as his body quivered with those heart-rending sobs.

Isaiah picked himself up and tottered over to his brother’s side, kneeling down close to Elijah, putting an arm around the defeated statue. He stroked his brother’s back, feeling the jutting bones, hoping to bring comfort through his touch but knowing the injuries in Elijah’s soul were too serious to be healed with just one display of brotherly love. Yet, Isaiah did not know what to do. He had, in all those years, dreamt up many scenarios of reunions and all of them were happy and sweet, bringing him peace in those sleepless nights. Now, he heard the screams emitting from Elijah’s soul and knew his brother’s throat was permanently raw from the cries of long ago.

Cries that nobody responded to.

Elijah jerked his head sideways to look at Isaiah then and just stare at Isaiah with knitted brows and teary eyes. Out of instinct- the instinct of love for his brother that could never go away- Isaiah pulled Elijah into a fierce embrace and felt Elijah weakly holding him back.

"I’m sorry… but it’s ok now. It’s ok now. I hear you… I hear you, little brother." Isaiah murmured as he soothed Elijah’s back.

His brother’s breathing stilled from the raggedness that the wrecking spasms of anguish induced and laid his head on Isaiah’s shoulder, his hands falling limply to his sides. The battered suitcase had finally burst and all the contents inside, compressed for many years spewed up, expanded in mass as they spewed out from their prison. Elijah’s mind, a human’s and not a robot’s, became too heavy for himself to carry- all the terrible memories and conflicting personalities too massive a weight for him to bear alone. Isaiah was only too happy to share the load, even take it all even. Joy at the relief that perhaps Elijah would finally allow him to be the elder brother he was before surged through him and a weight, much heavier than that of the overwrought soul he had to support right now lifted away.

Though the reunion was poignant, Isaiah felt lighter than a drizzle.

The rain crashed upon them but it no longer mattered. For one brother was unconscious to the world while the other was not aware of anything but his beloved sibling need for rest. And he would provide the strength for the both of them. It shall be enough.