Taylor had taken Natalie out to a nearby park, after telling her he wanted her to meet some 'friends' of theirs. They'd been waiting possibly ten minutes before Taylor started checking his watch.
"He normally doesn't take this long, I promise," Taylor looked a little embarrassed, stroking the squirrel that had appeared on his lap.
"He should be here anytime."
Natalie
Natalie nodded.
"That's fine," she assured him.
She looked down adoringly at the squirrel. So cute! Natalie was certainly curious about these friends Taylor wanted to introduce her to.
Taylor & Kirk
Taylor soon heard footsteps behind them, and turned to see who it was.
"Hey," he grinned.
"Damn," Steel whined, "I was trying to sneak up on you."
"Sorry," Taylor chuckled as Steel made his way around to the front of the bench.
"How are you these days anyway man? Oh, forgive my rudeness..."
He took Natalie's hand and kissed it.
"Pleasure to make your aquaintance, Miss Bryant," he grinned.
Natalie
Natalie giggled.
"And a pleasure to make yours, Mr... uhh..."
She looked from Steel to Taylor for a name.
Taylor & Kirk
"Call me Steel," he offered, "it's good to finally meet you. Heard quite a bit about you... seen you around a lot..."
Taylor cleared his throat.
"Sorry Tay," he chuckled, "congrats on the engagement though."
Natalie
"Thanks," Natalie replied, smiling. "Steel."
Interesting name. She wasn't yet sure what to make of Steel yet, except that he seemed nice enough.
Taylor & Steel
"You're very welcome," Steel grinned.
"Is Chloe around?" Taylor asked.
"She might be, she might not be," Steel shrugged, "she could be held back at the base for a bit. Something was up with some teenagers picking on a senior citizen and they wanted to get that... 'resolved' in the next couple of hours."
"So your hospitality not only stems to Dathrians then?" Taylor's eyebrows rose.
"I didn't say anything about her being human."
Natalie
Natalie's eyebrows raised as she looked between Taylor and Steel, feeling like she was missing something.
"Is Chloe someone else you wanted me to meet?"
Taylor & Kirk
"Yeah she is," Taylor nodded, "I've no doubt you'll meet her eventually."
"Neither have I," Steel smiled again.
"How's Sheldon?" Taylor asked, a hint of worry in his voice.
"Sheldon's fine. Settling into his new life perfectly. He might start writing to you sometime, he's sick of nto having anyone he knows."
"Sheldon also has Tongue," Taylor explained to Natalie, "we used to work together at the conventions and things."
Natalie
"Ahh," Natalie grinned. "Yes, I've met Sheldon. Numerous times. Usually when I chose to go through his entrance instead of yours because I was too nervous about meeting one of my favourite band members."
She giggled.
Taylor & Kirk
"You know him?" Steel's eyebrows rose.
"He was in a bit of trouble recently," Taylor explained, "so Steel had to ah... put him under a sort of witness protection. I haven't heard from him in months."
"For his own good," Steel amended, "until the guy who's after him is brought down, it's safer this way."
"Steel is sort of... forgive me if I get this wrong," Taylor began, "someone who's into absolutely everything, if you get my drift. If you need something, he'll help you out."
"You could call it a different form of policing from what the YIRAAS do," Steel shrugged, "we're more there to assist people who maybe couldn't ask for their help for some reason. We take care of the underdog."
Natalie
Natalie nodded.
"Cool," she replied. "And well, I said I met Sheldon, not that I know him. If we ever met again, I doubt that he'd remember me. Of course, since he's in witness protection, then I doubt that would happened, but yeah."
Taylor & Kirk
"Well hopefully he'll get to meet you eventually," Taylor said, "any word on Chris?"
"Don't worry about him, he's doing fine," Steel insisted, "so I've heard anyway. He's doing an art class and has literally started painting the walls of his room."
Taylor chuckled.
"But he's making some friends, which is a good thing," Steel added.
"Unusual for him," Taylor nodded, "no word on contact? When I can see him?"
"You'd probably have better luck asking someone like Tanya for that," Steel shook his head.
"Ok."
"So congrats again," Steel changed the subject so as to not leave Natalie out, "on the soon-to-be new arrival. What do you hope it is, girl or boy?"
Natalie
"I don't know..." Natalie admitted. "I think I'd like a girl, but as long as its healthy, I really don't mind. I would like to have one of each."
She paused and glanced at Taylor.
"One day," she added.
Taylor & Kirk
"Yeah, hopefully not twins straight off the bat," Taylor's eyebrows rose.
"Maybe in a few years when we're better organised."
"Do you need a house?" Steel offered.
"No," Taylor shook his head, "Nat will be staying in Georgia until the baby is born. After that she'll move to Tulsa. And well... thanks for the offer, but I kinda want us to buy our own."
Natalie
Natalie giggled.
"It's not every day someone offers me a house," she mused.
Taylor & Kirk
"We found one for Taylor and Jane when they were engaged. Granted they also needed boyguards..."
"Not anymore," Taylor insisted.
"And hey, congrats to you too," Steel punched him in the shoulder lightly, "treatments finally over, hey?"
"Yes," Taylor grinned, "thankyou. Though Tanya couldn't have done it without Nat."
Natalie
Natalie blushed.
"Well, I would say you could have done it without me... but it would have taken a lot longer for you to do it all by your lonesome," she smiled.
Taylor & Kirk
"A lot longer," Taylor emphasised, "because originally Tanya said it would take a year, and then a heap of other stuff happened and basically had to start all over again..."
"I see," Steel nodded thoughtfully, before extending his hand to Natalie, "well thank you for helping him. Mind if I call on your services in the future?"
Natalie
"I, umm," Natalie began, somewhat surprised at the question, "Sure."
She took his hand.
Taylor, Kirk & Chloe
"Be prepared for 3am phone calls from him swearing he'll make it up to you," Taylor joked.
"I'm not that bad," Steel promised, "besides, that's only in emergencies."
Taylor shrugged, "I'm just saying. I know how... 'prepared' you can be."
"Hey guys!" they heard a voice behind them.
Taylor looked over his shoulder and saw Chloe making her way over.
"This is Chloe," Taylor quickly said to Natalie before standing up to greet her.
"Hey, how are you?" he smiled.
"Not as well off as you apparently," she grinned, giving him a hug, "congrats!"
"Thanks," he smiled, "and this is my fiancee, Natalie."
"Lucky girl," Chloe winked, leaning down to hug her as well, "congrats to you too!"
Natalie
Natalie smiled and hugged Chloe back, standing up.
"Thanks," she said. "It's great to meet you."
Chloe
"I've heard quite a bit about you," Chloe grinned, sitting down beside Natalie on the bench.
"You're a masseur, right?"
Natalie
"Yep," Natalie replied. "Although, I'm not sure for how much longer after Baby comes."
She looked down at her still-flat stomach.
Chloe
"Awww," Chloe crooned, "I'm sure you can get back into it. But it'll be worth it anyway, right?"
Natalie
"Oh, yeah," Natalie agreed. "No, I was just thinking because I'll probably be busy raising my - our - little one, so... So probably it'll just be a friends and family thing, rather than commerial."
She shrugged.
"But definitely worth it."
Taylor, Chloe & Kirk
Taylor grinned almost triumphantly, giving Natalie a sideways hug.
"She's planning to move to Tulsa after the baby's born," he began, "so you'll see a lot more of her."
"Does she know yet?" Chloe asked suddenly.
"Know what?"
"Under what grounds we met," Chloe shrugged.
Taylor froze up for a second, before shaking his head.
"No, no. Not yet. But there's really no rush for life stories."
Natalie
Natalie raised her eyebrows.
"Is this something I should know? Because if you were going to wait until later, you've already got me curious."
Taylor & Kirk
"It's kind of a big deal, I don't know if I want to burden you with it yet..." Taylor began.
"Have you heard of Christian Thomas? Better known as the Spider's heir?" Kirk asked straight out, figuring Taylor would beat around the bush and annoy the hell out of his fiance.
Natalie
Natalie considered for a moment.
"I've heard of the Spider, of course. He's dead, isn't he? I can't say I'm familar with Christian Thomas... although the name does sound familiar. What about him?"
Taylor, Kirk & Chloe
"Yeah, he's dead," Steel affirmed, as Chloe began to look a little forlorn.
Taylor was trying to hide the glare on his face.
"What you probably didn't know, was that it was Avery - Taylor's sister - who got into a telepathic fight with him and won. But that's not the issue here. The issue is Christian and the fact that I met both he and Taylor on a special occasion over two decades ago."
Natalie
Natalie raised her eyebrows. Avery killed the Spider? My goodness!
"Okay..." she said slowly.
She wondered if this was going to be any stranger than finding out that Saku was Zac's child with an Egyptian cat goddess... nah.
Kirk & Taylor
"I'm not sure if Taylor told you, but my power is duplication," Steel began to explain as Taylor shook his head.
"I need to be touching whatever I'm cloning for it to work. Now, when I was seven years old, I wanted to see if I could duplicate a human. So I found some random family who'd taken their kids to the park, and found a baby in a pram and went to work. That baby was the Taylor you're sitting next to."
Natalie
Natalie would have raised her eyebrows... if they weren't already.
"You mean you... you cloned Tay? There are two of him walking around?"
Taylor & Kirk
"No, no, no," Taylor shook his head.
"Not quite," Steel amended, "see, there was a problem in the initial cloning process. I was interrupted by Isaac."
He took a deep breath, thinking of how to explain it.
"When I was almost finished, somehow I ended up touching Isaac. So quite a substancial amount of him went into the clone. For example, he doesn't have Taylor's power - only Isaac's. And even now his eyes are changing colour from Taylor's to brown."
"That clone was Christian Thomas," Taylor said straight out, "he's... he's the one I've been trying to reach in rehab."
Natalie
Natalie blinked.
"Okay, so let me get this straight. Christian Thomas, criminal currently in the YIRAAS Rehab centre, is really a genetic merging of yours and Isaac's DNA? And here I was thinking this couldn't be any weirder than the story of Saku's existance," Natalie paused. "Actually... it isn't weirder, but it sure is a close second."
She shook her head.
"I guess that kinda makes him family to you, huh?"
Taylor, Kirk & Chloe
"Biologicially I guess," Taylor shrugged it off, "but we didn't exactly get off to a great start."
"Christian shares few traits with the Hansons," Steel gave a small smile, "but hopefully rehab will do him good and keep him safe for a while. Let him decide what path he needs to take in future."
"He's the reason I was under house arrest," Taylor shrugged, "because I couldn't tell the YIRAAS what I knew."
"Very few people know about this," Steel quickly added, "Tanya, Leroy, the Hansons and a few of my people. That's about all."
Natalie
Natalie nodded slowly.
"And now me," she said.
Taylor & Kirk
Steel nodded.
Taylor shifted uneasily for a moment, then turned to her.
"Is this off-putting at all yet?" he asked awkwardly.
Natalie
Natalie shook her head, more in denial than in the negative.
"It's a little overwhelming," she replied. "But I'm glad that you feel you can trust me enough to tell me."
Taylor & Kirk
Taylor couldn't help but smile at that.
"I love you," he said straight out, "of course I trust you."
Steel cleared his throat, making Taylor give him a subtle glare.
"There is a couple of other things surrounding that," he added reluctantly.
Natalie
Natalie looked between them, and settled her gaze back on Taylor. There was more?
"What?" she asked.
Taylor
"I can't remember if I've mentioned anything remotely relating to it," Taylor shrugged awkwardly.
"But have you heard of the 'Little Raider' legend? About how Marshall Guffery sells child alien slaves and twelve of them got away?"
Natalie
Natalie nodded.
"I always thought it sounded like one of those stories parents tell kids to scare them into behaving," she mused. "You be good or Guffery will get you."
She looked between them.
"Let me guess," she said. "You know one of the kids who became a slave? Or you know one of the ones who got away. Or better yet, you know who Little Raider is. Or one of you is one of those options?"
Taylor & Kirk
"Christian is. The Little Raider, I mean," Taylor nodded.
"He's not very open about it as you can understand though, Guffery is still after him. And he did get him too, last year. I was part of the rescue party."
"He's evaded him a few times. The very thought makes me so proud," Steel grinned, "most of the others who got away have either been reclaimed by Guffery or killed. But there's still a couple of them out there."
"Sheldon was also one of them," Taylor added, biting his lip.
Natalie
Natalie raised her eyebrows. She sure was doing that a lot.
"Okay," she said slowly, "I'm getting the impression I've just stepped into a huge... I don't know... conspiracy theory or something. I can see there are going to be some interesting times ahead."
Natalie had a feeling that the enormity of everything they were telling her was not going to hit until later.
Taylor & Kirk
Taylor chuckled.
"Well at least you know the half of it," Steel shrugged, sharing a glance with Chloe.
"Christian was also the 'Chris' I mentioned on my last day in court for Blakesley," Taylor admitted, "he was the one who was in there with me. Blakesley was fascinated by us because he either couldn't work out cloning or... we were different or something. I never quite figured it out."
Natalie
Natalie nodded.
"How far do you go back?" she asked.
Taylor, Kirk & Chloe
"Not far," Taylor insisted.
"It's been a few years," Steel added, "I believe it was... March of 2003 that Taylor and Chris first met each other by accident. Christian was recruited by The Spider to kidnap Avery and Taylor got in the middle of it and was held captive by them for about a month. Christian came back into the family pretending to be Taylor for a while, so you can understand their hard feelings toward him."
"But he's changed," Taylor added quickly, "he's no longer under Craig's juristiction. And when he's doing he's own thing, he's a good guy to get to know."
"Of course that only changed once Taylor realised who he really was," Chloe couldn't help but glare at Taylor a little.
"But it wa sonly a few months after," Taylor added defensively.
Natalie
Natalie looked at each speaker in turn, and then grinned at Taylor.
"So, a bit over two years. Fast friendship... but then, I guess ours was too," she mused.
Taylor & Kirk
Taylor shrugged nervously.
"Guess I work fast," he almost blushed.
"It was a bit hard for them to not form some sort of bond," Steel added, "being they were so... I don't know how to explain it."
Taylor just shook his head.
"The only way we ended up bringing Blakesley down was because Chris gave himself up while pretending to be me," Taylor explained, fiddling with his fingers, "he was able to bring him down from the inside. We kinda... Chris and I just, tend to help each other out when we're needed, is all."
Natalie
Natalie nodded.
"He sounds like an interesting guy," she said.
Taylor & Kirk
"Interesting is deifnitely the word for it," Taylor agreed.
"Heck, want to know how we first met?" Steel offered.
"Oh no," Taylor hid his face, embarrassed.
"We were in a car crash. Head on collision. I almost killed the guy," Steel grinned.
"Almost killed me? I was only in hospital a day," Taylor brushed off.
Natalie
Natalie giggled.
"Well, obviously you're all right, given that you're here," she said. "My... that's certainly an interesting way to meet someone. Are you sure it wasn't a little excessive?"
Taylor & Kirk
"It was just rib fractures," Taylor brushed off.
"It probably was excessive," Steel looked a little sheepish, "but hey, it worked. I never really knew he existed until then. Well I knew 'Taylor Hanson' existed of course but I'd never gotten a close look at him. And that was when I made the connection between him and Chris."
"It took months for me to believe him," Taylor added.
"Took Chris until he met you face to face on good terms to believe me. If he even does now."
Natalie
Natalie chuckled.
"Well, you have to admit the idea of having a clone - even a partial one - is a kind of freaky idea. I mean, I have no idea how'd I react if I ever discovered I had a clone."
Taylor, Kirk & Chloe
"It was very freaky," Taylor nodded in agreement, "especially with... who he was."
"It was like an evil twin/good twin kind of thing," Steel chuckled.
"He's not evil," Chloe scowled all of a sudden, "he's a good guy. He was just misled and he's working his way back now."
"Yeah I know," Steel insisted, putting an arm around her shoulder, "of course he is. He has been for a long time. Since even before Craig died."
Taylor watched them in silence for a moment, then leant over slightly and took one of Natalie's hands in his.
"Still think I'm a catch?" he raised his eyebrows with a smirk.
Natalie
"Aww," Natalie replied, "you don't become less of a person just because you have a clone who is, umm... who was brought up in the criminal element."
Natalie refrained from making a derogatory comment about Christian, even in jest (although, she wasn't overly inclined to anyway, seeing as how she didn't even know the guy). Mostly because she didn't want to upset Chloe.
Taylor & Kirk
"Not even if we're the only people in the world he has to depend on?" Taylor raised an eyebrow, somewhat nervously.
"I think what he's trying to ask, or point out," Steel added in seeing Taylor's confusion, "is that we're more than likely going to stick by Chris, no matter what he does or where his life path takes him. If that happens to dip a little to the dark side, ar eyou willing to live with that?"
"This is purely hypothetical," Taylor said to Steel, "because it really depends on Chris as to whether or not our relationship continues the way it is."
Natalie
"Well, on the surface I don't think it'll be a problem," Natalie said. "Having said that, no one can really predict how they'll react in situations. For one thing, I haven't actually met Christian yet. But then I know you ended up under house arrest for awhile because you were protecting him. I don't know... but we have years of married life together to figure things out. If it starts to become a problem for me, I'll let you know, and we can work things out then."
She shrugged.
"Sorry I couldn't give you a more definite answer."
Taylor, Chloe & Kirk
"That's probably the best answer I could hope to get," Taylor smiled assuredly, squeezing her hand a little, "thankyou."
Steel looked between them and just shook his head.
"I'm still getting used to the idea of you two getting married," he chuckled, "though I guess it'd be freakier if it were Chris I was looking at."
"What's wrong with him getting married?" Chloe demanded, more amused than anything.
"Nothing, I'm just saying," Steel shrugged, "besides, he'd need a girlfriend first."
Chloe pursed her lips and said nothing. Taylor noticed her body language and bit his lip to stop himself chuckling.
Natalie
"I think I'd be freaked out if it were Chris you were looking at too," Natalie joked. "I'd be wondering what happened to Taylor."
She grinned.