Macy sat in her condo reading over the papers she had printed out from the F.B.I. files. Chief Munson had pretty much told her everything they contained. There wasn't any more information she could squeeze from them. 

She stood and stretched. She glanced at the time and was relieved to see that it was almost time to go meet with the others. She was anxious to tell them what she had discovered about Jackson. She was hoping Tya would take her for another visit. Macy smiled to herself. It gave her chills to think that it was only because of her deep connection with Jackson that Tya was able to use her to find him. 

She checked Max's food, fed her fish, and grabbed her keys and purse. She trotted out the door and locked it behind her. Her little Miata was waiting for her in her parking space. She got in and started the engine. She couldn't help but wish she were flying with Jerome instead of driving.

The address they had given her didn't take long to find. Macy was amazed by the beautiful old hotel. It was in an old neighborhood that seemed to be well kept for its age. The hotel was nicely preserved. She parked in the back lot where Anthony had told her to park and got out. She found the service door she had been told to use and rang the bell.

After a moment, a young man opened the door. He gave her a warm smile and stepped aside to allow her entry. "You must be Detective Grey," he said as she walked past him. "You look just like everyone described you."

"Oh?" She arched an eyebrow at him as he closed the door behind them. "I hope that's a good thing."

"Very!" He seemed to be flirting with her which caused her face to heat up.

"Who might you be?" Macy asked him.

He looked to be around 22 or 23 and his hair was blonde with a greenish hue. He was dressed in brown jeans and a green t-shirt. His eyes were a very light brown and she could see flecks of gold glinting in them in the low light. He was slender with well-defined arms and his shirt didn't hide the muscles in his chest and back. He was a good-looking guy. Unusual looking, but cute.

"My name is Jordan," he said, flashing her a smile. "I'm the plant-life expert."

"And what does that mean, exactly?"

He didn't say anything. Instead, he reached around behind her back and when he brought his hand back around there was a small sprout in his palm. It seemed to have taken root there. She watched in amazement as the sprout twisted and grew in front of her eyes. A small bud formed and then blossomed into a little pink flower. It unfurled its petals and then was still. Macy gasped as Jordan handed her the tiny blossom.

She took it and held it up in front of her. Her blue eyes were wide with wonder. "How did you do that?" she breathed.

"I told you. I'm the plant-life expert. I grow plants. All kinds. Any plant already alive? I can make it grow bigger. Any seed I have in my pouch...?" He patted a small pouch that she hadn't noticed before that hung from his belt. "I can make grow into a full plant. I can have plants do my bidding. I just talk to them. I know their language. They are usually happy to oblige. You'd be surprised how much more polite and helpful plants are than people."

"I-I didn't realize plants had a language," Macy whispered. She was completely mesmerized by her new friend.

"Oh, most certainly!" he exclaimed. "It isn't so much a spoken language, though. More telepathy than anything else. They communicate via roots and pollen and all sorts of things. One blossom might send a message to another by way of a honeybee or butterfly. They even use our human emotions to communicate."

She gave him a puzzled look. "Why... how would they do that?"

"Well, say you are feeling down. Sad. You are in a room where there's a houseplant growing in the corner. When you carry your sadness into another room where another plant grows, a message might be relayed from one plant to the other using your emotions. Human emotions can carry communication between plants."

Macy wasn't sure she understood the concept, but she decided to take his word for it. He was, after all, the "plant-life expert". She looked back down at the blossom in her hand and raised it to her nose intending to smell it. She jumped and let out a squeak when the blossom leaned up and hugged her nose with its soft petals. She looked up at Jordan with wide eyes and a big smile. He gave her a wink and gestured toward the hall. "After you, my lady," he said.

He took her to an elevator. They got in and he pressed the button for the top floor. They were both quiet for the ride up. She kept smiling at her little flower. It was beautiful and she couldn't believe it actually had intelligence of sorts. She was amazed to realize that all of her life she had been around plants and flowers and had never known they communicated with each other, or that they had any kind of minds of their own.

They reached the top floor. Jordan led Macy down the hall and stopped in front of the last door. He opened it and stepped aside to let her pass. It was one of the hotel's gigantic penthouse suites turned into an office/ meeting room. Everyone was there except for the female member Macy hadn't met yet. She was probably seeing to Natasha.

Anthony stepped forward and took Macy's coat and purse. "So glad to see you again, Macy," he said with a smile.

"Yes, I am happy to see you guys, too. I have a lot to tell you." Macy pulled the papers out of the folder in which she was carrying them and placed them on the large table where everyone was seated. "These papers explain a lot of why Jackson is being hunted down by those people." She looked around at their expectant faces. "He isn't normal."

Tya nodded her head. "I had a feeling he was suppressing something." She spoke evenly. "I've never met a normal person who could block me the way he does. Although, I am fairly certain it isn't intentional."

"There is a lot of information here." Macy indicated the stack of print-outs. "But it isn't everything. There is some information that has been omitted. I don't know. It's kind of like a puzzle that is missing some very important pieces. At any rate, we need to help him. He's been the victim of some sort of experimentation. He could be in a lot of danger. Not just from the people chasing him, but perhaps from the side effects of whatever they did to him."

Anthony looked at Jerome. Jerome was stone-faced. His thoughts and feelings unreadable. No one said anything for a few minutes and Macy began to fear they might back out of their offer to help. She couldn't blame them. They needed to protect themselves and their organization. The whole situation could be devastating for all of them.

Finally, Anthony spoke up. "We need to formulate a plan. It would probably be best if we all met up with Jackson. Tya? Would you and Macy care to pinpoint his location again? I think once we know where he is we need to make our way out there."

Macy breathed a sigh of relief. She had serious doubts that she could do anything for Jackson without the help of her new-found friends.

................

Jackson's head swam and he felt close to losing consciousness again. He felt his body sway and then he felt the support of his sister as she came around the car and put her arm around his waist. She held him up by placing her shoulder underneath him. She steadied him long enough for the dizziness to subside. 

"Why don't we go inside, big brother," she said, once he'd regained his composure. "We can talk in there and I'll get you something to eat."

Jackson just nodded and allowed her to lead him into the building with her arm still around him. No words could describe the feelings and emotions coursing through him. She's alive! he thought to himself. They told me she'd died instantly. They told me she hadn't made it. She's alive!

Jackson was feeling ready to strangle someone. What was going on? He couldn't believe the amount of information he had already been hammered with and now this?

Lillian led him to a small kitchen just inside the entrance and sat him at a little kitchenette table with four chairs around it. He stared at her. She turned and started making coffee. He stared at her more. She went to the refrigerator and appeared to be pulling out sandwich fixings. He still continued to stare at her.

"I think you should quit bustling around in here like you didn't just awake from the dead, Lill," he finally said, his voice low and even.

She had her back to him but she stopped what she was doing. He noticed the slump in her shoulders. Was she in on all of this? Did his own sister play a part in the deception he had obviously been dealt?

Finally she turned to face him and he saw the tears welling up in her eyes. "Jackson, I didn't have any choice. It was either step back and stay quiet, or they were going to just kill me and do it anyways. They only gave me a choice because they preferred to have my knowledge and expertise in case they needed it."

"You didn't have any choice about what?"

"About allowing you to believe I was dead. About not contacting you. About any of this!"

He fought to keep his emotions under control. She had been coerced into going along with some huge conspiracy that had him at the center, completely unaware. He gazed at her with his eyes hooded. His mind was doing its best to wrap itself around the situation.

"What am I?" he asked after a moment.

Lillian walked over and placed her hand on his shoulder. "You are my brother. You are amazing. You are a wonderful man and none of this is your fault. A lot of your memories have been... deleted. Memories of the abilities you possess. Memories of the circumstances which led up to all of this. Your abilities have been suppressed. You are only able to use time alteration when you are awake as Father Time. You are still able to record, subconsciously, the past and future of other people when you touch them, but that information can only be accessed when you are him."

"Him? We are talking about him like he's somebody else!" Jackson slammed his fist on the table. "He is ME! I have been waking up at night as someone I don't remember being, and I have gone out and killed people without remembering having killed them!"

Her tears flowed freely, now. She looked down at him with what seemed like helplessness. He wanted her to explain to him how all of this happened to him. He wanted her to undo it.

"Jackson, I know how all this must be hitting you and I wish I could somehow make it easier for you. In a way, I feel like I'm responsible for it because it's due to my work and my research that they became interested in you. They showed interest in my work, first. Then they somehow got wind of my gifted brother. You are unique. There is no one else who can alter time. You are the only one that anyone knows of. That with your ability to see people's pasts and futures by touching them... well, it made you a prime subject for their experimentation. They became frustrated, though, because they couldn't turn you into the monster they wanted. You are too good. Because of your morality and your good heart, they couldn't make you into the super soldier spy that they were aiming for. They've since been working on a way to fix that. So far, mostly because I send them in the wrong direction every chance I get, they have been unsuccessful."

Jackson stood up, abruptly, causing her to step backward. She looked up at him and he could see pain deep in her eyes. She had been living with this for a year now. He had already mourned her and accepted her death, but she'd had to watch as they did what they did to him. She had to watch without telling him. Without letting him know that she was alive. He couldn't imagine if it were the other way around.

With a growl he swept her into his arms and held her against him as tightly as he could without crushing her. His body shook, the tears threatening to overtake him, and he buried his face in her hair. She smelled the same as she always did. Like heat and autumn leaves. Her arms wrapped around him and she turned her face into his chest.

"I thought you were dead," he whispered into her hair. "I thought I'd lost you."

All she did was let out a sob and hold him tighter. He allowed all of the confusion and all of the craziness to dissipate so that he could take a few minutes to just revel in the knowledge that his sister, the only family he had, was still alive.

 Edited.

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