Fic: With Intent To Stay 1/2

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With Intent To Stay - Part 1

First contact comes at 6:32 pm on a Thursday.

The signal is not first intercepted by the space station still orbiting Earth or by NASA or any of the multitude of countries with similar organizations with different names but the same purposes.

The signal, the transmission that heralds the arrival of visitors from another world, is first heard by an early warning system set in place by the 442 aliens that have called Earth their home for going on 20 years.

*

He gets notified of the signal, he has his own programs set up to run and track anything incoming, there are 442 of them on Earth, 441 of them are known to each other, only 4 people know the identity of all 442.

He sits there, in front of his computer and there’s panic racing through him. It takes him a moment, takes him almost 67 seconds to calm down enough to start formulating a plan.

He has a face that will be known, the documents that he has, the lone image of his father and mother; he’s almost the spitting image of his father, there will be no doubt in anyone’s mind whose child he actually is.

That he’s not dead and that a member of the royal family survived.

He needs to make himself unrecognizable and there’s very few ways to do that within the slim margin of time that he has available to him.

He writes a letter, four paragraphs and leaves it folded on his kitchen table; then he makes three phone calls, two of them are planned for times when he knows they’ll go directly to voice mail, those messages will reach three people and they’re brief.

He indicates that he’s going out of town, that he’ll contact them when he comes back. He doesn’t go into any detail and he’s sure they wouldn’t want to know the details anyway.

The third is just as brief, though that call is planned for a time when he knows that there will be someone on the other end. He just names a time and a place and he looks around his home and bites his lip. Winds his fingers together.

He can’t take anything with him.

There’s a picture beside his bed, they all look so happy in that picture and half of them are still happy, the other half is just paddling along trying to get the edge of happy and cling to it with their fingers and toes so they don’t drown under the despair of getting what they wanted but finding out too late that it actually wasn’t.

He’s alone now; he should probably have been alone all along.

*

It fells Nick first, but that’s mostly because of all of them Nick has the weakest immune system.

He has seventeen pills he has to take on a daily basis, he takes them in a specific order, they don’t have to be taken in any specific order, but Nick is all about systems and order. Kevin thinks he does it by color, lightest pills to darkest pills, smallest to largest.

Kevin is staying with their parents; Danielle got the house and, well, pretty much everything in the split. Kevin’s okay with it, Danielle had lasted longer then he’d thought she would. And as long as Kevin got to keep his family and enough money to maybe start over again he’s counting it as a win.

His mom sits besides Nick’s bed and Kevin hovers in the doorway, Joe isn’t there because their mom sent him out to get Gatorade and flavored ice 20 minutes prior to stop him hovering in the doorway.

“Kevin why don’t you go get me another cool washcloth,” his mom says. She doesn’t make it a question and Kevin knows he’s being sent on an errand to get him out of the way. When he turns his mom is leaning close over Nick, hand pressed to his forehead.

He hopes that they don’t all get whatever illness has obviously befallen Nick, he loves Nick, he does. That doesn’t mean that he wants to be sharing a sickroom with him.

*

William is curled up on his side, he’s trying to not breathe too harshly because it seems to jar something deep within him that sends spirals of acute pain down his back and up through his neck to his head.

Sisky lays a damp cloth over the back of his neck and William makes a noise that he hopes expresses his thanks and gratitude, he’s pretty sure it just sounds like he’s dying and really would love it if someone, anyone, would put him out of his misery.

He doesn’t need to look to know that the rest of his band is hovering in the doorway, he’d send them away but he thinks turning to glare and yell might expend what energy he has left and he kind of doesn’t want to be unconscious at the moment.

He needs to get them out of the room though, needs to get the door closed and figure out where he dropped his cellphone one of the many times that he’d run for the bathroom.

“Are we having a party without me?” he hears Gabe’s voice in the doorway and William closes his eyes, Gabe will send them all away.

Gabe will take care of things.

There’s a quiet hum of talking in the door; Gabe’s voice then Mike’s then back again and William just lays there and tries his best to not look like the pathetic dying lump of a man that he currently feels like.

He hears the click of the door being shut, a few seconds later the bed dips and he can feel the warm press of Gabe’s body against the length of his.

He allows himself a moment to lean back into the warmth and doesn’t snuggle, they don’t do that anymore, though he does relax minutely while he waits for Gabe to say something.

“One of the Jonas brothers is down, couple of the others, you,” Gabe says, his face is pressed into the curve of William’s neck and William can feel the movement of his lips against his skin.

“What do we know?” William asks, he doesn’t close his eyes and he doesn’t jump to conclusions. Just because whatever this is has felled Nick, well he’s the weakest of the brothers… it doesn’t mean anything.

“We think the illness is being caused by a biological agent that was somehow introduced to those of you that got sick, probably trying to force us out into the open; also one of the parents called, early detection picked up a signal,” Gabe’s arm goes over his body, tugging William tighter against him, like he can protect William, protect all of them with his arms and legs and fierce determination that nothing will happen to them while he’s breathing.

“A signal,” William says dully, he can feel dread pooling in the pit of his stomach, it also might be the nausea that’s been his constant companion for the last four hours but he’s pretty sure he can tell the difference between ‘fear for his life’ and ‘run to the bathroom now’.

“Yeah, couple of days out, good visuals on at least two ships, maybe more behind them,” Gabe says.

“Remind the parents that hospitals aren’t an option,” William says, they all know this already, but panic and fear will cause people to do things they know are unwise, it doesn’t hurt anything to reinforce the fact that unless they wanted to be dissected on an operating table…

Gabe nods and William knows that he’s probably already done that.

“It could be just some bug,” Gabe says, he doesn’t sound like he believes it, though he does sound like he’s hoping for it to be the case.

Their parents have run before; William loves his parents, he doesn’t want to be his parents.

And he’s not running, this is his home, this is the only home that he’s ever known and he won’t give it up without a fight.

“Do we have anyone we can send?” William asks. Because first things first, protect their future.

Somewhere on this planet, hidden far away from all of them, might be their crown prince, the last of their royal line. They have no idea where he is and there’s a possibility that he might actually be dead, might never have even made it here.

He’d always thought… but that was insane, because he’s seen baby pictures and he’d had friends growing up and all the facts that they’d been able to find pointed to the fact that their princeling had been murdered before he’d even got to his 1st birthday.

That the transport that he and his guardians had been on had been destroyed prior to making it to their destination.

He’d never been an infant on this planet.

They all have hope though, still.

And it doesn’t change the fact that Ryan Ross is also the spitting image of their long dead King, Gabe has been telling him for years that everyone has a twin somewhere; apparently their maybe still alive princelings’ is a failed guitar player.

Barring finding that their princeling is indeed alive and not ash in space, they’ve always got Kevin.

They need to make sure that nothing happens to him.

“Kevin’s protected, his parents are part of the old guard, they’ll keep him safe and under wraps,” Gabe says.

“Send someone anyway,” William says.

They can’t afford to take any chances.

*

He wears sunglasses and a hat, a sweatshirt and faded jeans and sneakers that are held together by a wish and a prayer. He has his cellphone in his pocket and it’s been buzzing steadily as those two messages that he left are listened to, then responded to, then responded to again because he’s not called them back as fast as they evidently think he should.

He doesn’t listen to the messages that are left in return, maybe he can in a couple of days, but if they’re screaming at him through voice mail he doesn’t want to hear it right now.

He’s got other things he has to worry about.

He turns off the phone on the plane, curls up in his seat and faces the window. Nobody approaches him. He closes his eyes but he doesn’t sleep, can’t.

His mind is focused on the signal that was picked up and he knows that by now the rest of his people have found it, tracked it, realized that they’ve been found.

He wonders how many of them will run again, will power up ships long since dormant and run to some other planet where they’ll maybe be safe for another generation before they’re found again; how many of them will flee instead of staying and fighting.

When the plane lands he pulls his carry-on from the overhead compartment, makes sure his laptop case is secure. He walks with the bustle of people toward baggage claim and makes his way outside to the line of cabs.

The motel that he named is a run down, mess of a place. But he’s only meeting someone there, not actually staying there.

*

Alicia surprises him, they arrive at the hotel after a show and Gerard goes off by himself, either ignoring or completely oblivious to both Mikey and Frank’s disapproval of his doing that, to meet whoever had called him that morning and Mikey walks into his room to find his wife standing there.

She beams when she sees him and practically flies into his arms, there’s a tingle of foreboding angling its way down his spine though he ignores it, bites his lip and hugs her back.

He hopes the foreboding is for Gerard and whoever he’s meeting, when he pulls away enough so that he can look down at her he sees her eyes flash, going dark then white then normal again and he pushes her away.

She stumbles and he goes for his bag.

“I don’t think so, love,” she murmurs and flies at him again, hands going around his neck. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mikey manages to gasp out, he pulls at her arms, nails raking down bare skin and she snarls at him, “where’s my wife?”

“I’ll give you three guesses,” she leans in close, lips moving against his cheek. “The first two don’t count.”

“I’ll kill you,” he snaps.

“That’ll be interesting to watch seeing as how I’m the one with my hands currently around your neck,” she says sweetly. “I scented him here, did I beat him? Because that would be fucking awesome,” she beams at him, hands tightening around his neck, he can feel his vision fuzzing, black and white and he struggles, kicking out a leg viciously.

He wears the heavy boots for shows because having Frankie stepping all over his feet was getting beyond painful, now they cause her to stagger back and release her hold a bit.

He wheezes in a couple of breathes and pushes at her, then kicks at her legs again, trying to get her down and away. He wants to hit her, hurt her, she’s still wearing his wife’s face though and he couldn’t punch a girl anyway.

“Mikey, what’s all the…” he hears Frank’s voice before he sees him and her head snaps up as the door opens.

It’s a distraction which is what he desperately needed, she goes toward the door and he goes for his bag, it’s on the bed and as she’s pulling Frank into the room he gets the laser in his hand and a shot off before she manages to get him in front of her as a shield.

She makes a noise and falls back against the wall.

He thanks god that Gerard had decided that now would be the time for them to do something road warriorish and that they pack their own bags so no one questions why they’re carrying replicas of their lasers with them.

“Dude,” Frank says, he’s backing away, right into the door, eyes flickering back and forth between Mikey and Alicia. “You just…”

He sounds a little freaked out and Mikey keeps the laser in one hand as he turns her over, he can see the small bracelet on her left wrist, something that his wife has never worn and he runs his fingers over until he finds the controls.

He turns it off and the body wavers and turns from Alicia into a young man, maybe around Mikey’s age. Maybe even younger, they train them up young now.

“What the fuck,” Frank says.

“Shapeshifter,” Mikey says.

“I know that it’s a shapeshifter,” Frank says the, ‘moron’ is unspoken but Mikey hears it anyway, “What the fuck is it doing here?”

“It tracked someone here,” Mikey says, he closes his eyes as it sinks in, presses a hand to his eyes and breathes. He can feel Frank’s hands settle on his shoulders, squeezing once before he tugs on his arm to stand him up and move him away.

If the shapeshifter is here, wearing Alicia’s form, then…

“They could just be holding her,” Frank says softly, he touches the side of Mikey’s face gently.

“How often does that happen,” Mikey says, he can feel tears in his eyes and he presses his fingers against them, keeps them closed because he’s not going to break down.

Not right now, there’s not enough time.

There are only two people on this planet that would be interesting enough to the ship on its way and the shapeshifters that normally precede them. Kevin Jonas is completely protected and if Mikey knows William and Gabe they’ll have additional guards on their way. That only leaves…

“Mikey what’s going on?” Gerard appears in the doorway and right over his shoulder, looking sad and pale and worn and so totally not dead is their crown Prince.

“Gerard why is Ryan Ross standing behind you?” Frank asks, he looks and sounds like he’s forcing himself to stay standing by gritting his teeth and clenching his hands into fists, when Mikey knows that realization of who Ross is, well that’s trying to force him to his knees.

Mikey knows all this because the laser is digging into his hand as he clenches it to try and keep himself on his feet.

Ryan brushes past Gerard and stands over the shapeshifter, Gerard makes a sound of protest when he squats right next to its head.

“It took Alicia,” Mikey says, his voice sounds faraway even to himself and Ryan looks up at him.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” he says and he knows, like Mikey knows, that if this thing took Alicia’s form that Alicia is dead.

“Oh Mikey,” Gerard is there, right in front of him, pulling him into a tight hug and Mikey clings to his big brother, lets the tears fall and tries to muffle the sob that escapes against his shoulder.

*

“Ross is missing,” Gabe says, William’s got his knees drawn up to his chest because he doesn’t feel like throwing up, as much, when he’s curled as close to a fetal position as he can manage.

“Missing?” William breathes out, he uncurls just enough to look up at Gabe as he sits on the edge of the bed, he closes his eyes when Gabe’s hand brushes against his forehead.

“He left a message for Spencer and Brendon and one for Jon Walker, and he left a note on his kitchen table for anyone that decided to come by for a visit.”

“Tommy made it there then,” William says.

“Yesterday afternoon, he was already gone.”

“Do we know where he went?” William asks. It had been his decision to send Tommy to California, appearances being what they were, even if Ross wasn’t their missing princeling, he looked enough like what the young man would look like that those invading alien bastards would shoot first and ask for proof of identity later.

“No,” Gabe answers after a brief pause, William forces his eyes open and looks at him, he looks thoughtful and like he doesn’t like where his thoughts are going all at the same time. “Grapevine says that a new tech just joined My Chem on tour though.”

“That’s…” interesting, William thinks. The Way’s had been older then old school; their parents had been part of the Royal Guard.

Before war had erupted and the Royal family had been assassinated there had been whispers in the air prior to that; rumor had it that the Royal family had hedged their bets, sending their youngest princeling away, replacing him with an infant shapeshifter; supposedly two of the Royal Guard had been sent with him. Those guards had never been seen again, were believed dead and they’d been the only ones that had known, if those rumors were to be believed, where exactly the princeling had been stashed.

It would figure that the Way’s would be the ones that would find him. Though William thinks it gives him points at least that he’s almost always believed that Ross and their missing princeling and now this new tech are all one in the same.

“Send Tommy to them,” William says, he breathes.

“They’ll refuse.”

“Then force the issue, your parents were Royal Guard too,” William mutters. “Ross needs to be behind a barrier of guards and next to My Chem’s stage is just not going to work. That’ll be the first place they go.”

*

Ryan’s a really awful tech; he can admit it, if only to himself. But it was the only position that would keep him stage side when the band itself was on stage.

Gerard doesn’t like the thought of Ryan wandering around by himself and there’s still enough of the little fanboy in him that standing side stage and watching My Chem on-stage still gives him a thrill.

He wants to snap pictures and e-mail Spencer and he wants…

He wants things that he can’t have. He bites his lip and focuses on winding wire.

“Ross,” he hears from behind him and he stiffens slightly but doesn’t turn.

That’s not his name, his name is Jeremy Drake and he releases a breath, he has a distorter like the ones that the shapeshifters use around his wrist and when and if he turns to acknowledge the fact that Tommy Conrad is standing behind him he knows that he won’t look anything like Ryan Ross.

*

“Conrad’s here,” Mikey breathes into Gerard’s ear.

“What? Why?” Gerard is on his feet and moving out of the bus before he even thinks about it. Conrad could only be there for one reason and that’s because William and or Gabe don’t believe that Gerard can handle this.

He can handle this, he’s been handling this. He’s kept Ross safe and alive since he found out about him. Gabe and William hadn’t even been looking for him.

“My guess, they don’t believe that Ryan standing side stage is in actuality protecting him,” Mikey says. He’s right behind him.

“Well he wouldn’t let me shove him into a safety deposit box so we’re doing what we need to do for the moment.”

*

Frank’s the one that finds him; probably in the first place that they should have looked once they found out Conrad had left without Ryan in tow.

He’s curled up in the corner of the couch and he’s got a book that Frank recognizes as one of his own in his hands. He’s not reading it; he’s just turning it around in his hands.

He sends off a quick text to Mikey; got him, and then slides his phone back in his pocket.

“How’d you get Conrad to back off?” he asks, he stands in the doorway, hands gripping the sides. It’s the only thing that’s keeping him from going to his knees and he’s been in rooms with Ross before he knew who he was; he’s not sure what’s different now, except for the fact the he knows, and he wonders if just the knowing is enough for him to want to bow his head and fall to his knees, when he hasn’t ever wanted to before.

“I convinced him I wasn’t the droid he was looking for,” Ryan says, he doesn’t look up from the book and Frank can’t tell if he’s serious or being sarcastic. Having Ryan and Mikey on the same bus is going to be awesome amounts of not knowing what the hell either one of them is feeling or thinking at any given time.

“You have some freaky Jedi mind powers going on that we don’t know about?”

Ryan snorts and looks up, there’s a quirk to his lip that Frank takes to mean that he’s amused.

“If I had freaky Jedi mind powers don’t you think I would have used them so that I wouldn’t lose all my friends when it became apparent how things were going to play out?”

“You could have been saving them for a rainy day,” Frank says, he manages to force one hand to uncurl from the doorway and flexes his fingers. His hand hurts now.

“I’m just like you, and Mikey and Gerard and the other 438 of us that managed to find homes here.”

“Not really, I mean we’re all from the same place but you’re not exactly like the rest of us.”

Ryan hmms at him and bites his lip.

“You don’t have to stand in the doorway,” Ryan says, Frank still can’t tell from his voice if he’s amused or anything, but his eyebrows are arching.

“I kind of don’t want to end up on my knees again,” Frank admits and Ryan looks at him for a moment before he flushes a bright shade of red.

“Why didn’t you say so, I didn’t… Mikey and Gerard weren’t having any problems so I thought…” Ryan’s eyes close for a moment and the… whatever… eases up and the need to be on his needs and prostrating himself on the floor before his Prince sort of pulls back, it doesn’t disappear, just kind of fades so Frank can still feel the idea buzzing around in the back of his mind.

He could go to his knees if he wanted to, but he doesn’t need to.

It’s kind of relief to know that he’s not going to look stage left and make eye contact with Ryan and end up outing their Prince to their enemies.

*

“Tommy,” William is actually sitting up in the bed which he counts as a win at this point. He was able to move around for 37 minutes this morning before he had to run for the bathroom.

“They’ve got a distorter around his wrist,” Tommy says. No pleasantries or how you doings or nothing, straight to the point.

“And you think that’ll be enough?” William asks, he tilts his head back and stares at the ceiling.

“No, but it’s enough for now, no one besides us is looking for him. I badgered at him for almost an hour and he never broke cover. If it hadn’t been for the clamoring at the back of my head demanding I go to my knees I probably would have thought you were nuts.”

William releases a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. He looks over at the doorway and Tommy is standing there, arms crossed over his chest.

“Are you going back?” William asks, he raises an eyebrow at him and Tommy rolls his eyes.

“I’d kind of like to not get my ass kicked by 3/4 of My Chemical Romance if it’s all the same to you,” Tommy mutters. “Gerard is in mother-hen mode and he’s not going to let anyone or anything at Ryan unless Ryan says its okay.”

“I still think…” William starts.

“He went to them,” Tommy says, he comes in through the doorway, stands at the end of William’s bed and bites his lip. “He didn’t come to any of us, hell he didn’t trust any of us to even tell us who he was to us. He told Gerard or Gerard found out on his own and confronted him, Mikey knows but that’s probably because Gerard knows and Frank Iero knows probably for the same reason.”

“They’re not protecting him,” William says stubbornly. “He’s standing to the side of the stage and anyone could get to him while they’re on stage. It’s not enough.”

He needs to have guards surrounding him and possibly be locked somewhere with no windows or doors or access to anyone besides them.

“So you want me to go back.”

“Just… we have one shot at this,” William says. “If we lose him we’ve got Kevin but Kevin’s not, he would have been like seventeenth in line for the throne, his parents haven’t even given him any of the basic knowledge he would need to lead us.”

“I’m charging you for the hospital visit, and you’re paying for my therapy,” Tommy grumbles.

“While you’re there find out why he’s not answering his cell phone or returning any phone calls.”

*

The techs don’t really let him do anything. Whether they think he’s accident prone or stupid or both he’s not sure. He makes a good show of trying though, he’s kind of bored and it’s different being on someone else’s tour then being on tour himself. He’s not doing it again if he can help it.

None of the techs are one of them, but they all know that there’s something off about him.

They probably think he’s fucking one of the guys in the band.

He’s waiting, he’s sure at some point someone is going to say something or confront him. He figures it’ll be one of the other tech’s, instead Ray corners him after a show.

“They’re all married,” he says and Ryan blinks at him.

“Happily married,” Ray stresses and Ryan nods.

“Yes, I’m aware,” he doesn’t mention the fact that Alicia is most likely dead. “The wedding bands mostly gave it away.”

Ray’s not one of them. He’s trying to protect his friends and his friends’ happiness and Ryan finds that kind of loyalty commendable. At some point in the not so distant future he might even be able to do something about that loyalty.

But now…

“Okay,” Ray nods and Ryan leaves it at that, watches Ray go rejoin his band and he suddenly, violently misses Spencer (and Brendon and Jon). There would have been a time that Spencer and Brendon would have protected him like that, but not since he ruined things.

He pulls his phone out of his hoodie pocket, he’s been traveling with My Chem for almost two weeks now and he thinks he’s maybe; finally ready to listen to whatever messages the others had left for him.

He fiddles with the controls and presses in his security code and almost drops his phone when he hears the ‘you have no new voice messages’.

They’re not here yet, they’ve still got at least a week before the advance party shows up and why they would be interested in voice mails any way is beyond him.

*

“Look, it’s not that we don’t think you can protect him,” a voice says when he walks through the door; he has his laser out as soon as hears the first uttered syllable.

Some of the crew is making fun of the fact that he doesn’t go anywhere without it, but the lasers are the only thing that they know that will take down a shifter and with Ryan here…

“I think we’re doing a fine job of it,” Gerard says, Tommy Conrad is sitting on the couch, knees drawn up to his chest.

“You’ve already been tracked by one shapeshifter, you think as soon as the advance ship gets here that more aren’t going to be following in its footsteps?” Tommy shrugs at him. “They’ve got his scent; it’s only a matter of time.”

“So what do you want us to do? He won’t let us lock him away anywhere, we’ve tried. We’ve asked and begged and ordered, Mikey even pulled out the sad doe eyes that makes us hand over the last of the coffee… he won’t hide and he won’t run and he refuses to have guards following his every move…” Gerard wonders if he sounds as frustrated as he feels.

He’s on tour; the last thing he wants to be worrying about is if he’s going to manage to let his Prince get assassinated while he’s on stage.

“It’s just me, he knows me, I can put a shifter bracelet on and no one will be the wiser, at least that way someone is with him side stage instead of him standing off there by himself with a big old fucking target painted on his back.”

Gerard sighs and opens his mouth, then closes it again when the door behind him opens. His mind is racing trying to come up with a plausible explanation as to why Tom is on their bus.

When he turns Ryan is standing there, bracelet still on so the only reasons that he knows that it’s Ryan is because he knows what Ryan’s shifted form looks like and because there’s a little, tiny spark at the back of his mind demanding that he pay homage to his Prince.

For his part Ryan does nothing more then blink, then holds out his phone, Gerard looks at it then back at him with what he’s hoping is a questioning expression and not a completely confused one.

“There’s something wrong with it,” Ryan says, waving it back and forth. “There should be messages from…” his eyes dart over to Tom and back to Gerard. “And they’re gone, nothing, nada, and my address book is blank and…”

“I changed out your phone,” Mikey says, he touches Ryan’s back and Ryan shifts, allowing Mikey and Frank in.

Frank closes the door behind him, seals the lock and secures it.

“What? Why would you…?” Ryan shakes his head at him.

“Your phone had a bug, I changed it out with a different one that looked the same, but I didn’t have time to transfer your address book.”

“I should still be able to access my voicemails.”

Mikey shakes his head. “The phone was bugged,” he repeats. “I had the other one turned off, and got you a new one,” he waves a hand at the phone in Ryan’s hand.

“I had messages,” Ryan says. “Ones that I hadn’t listened to yet.”

“Trust me,” Mikey says, he sits on the corner of the couch that Conrad is sitting on. “You didn’t want to listen to them.”

Ryan looks at him, then down at the phone before sighing and shoving it into a pocket. “They were mad?”

“Mad is probably an understatement,” Mikey says.

Ryan nods, the expression on his face indicates that he’d really expected nothing less, though Gerard thinks that he’d probably hoped for something else.

“Don’t do it again,” he says and Mikey arches an eyebrow at him, “I had contact numbers on there that had nothing to do with them that I’ll need to recreate from memory now.”

“I can…” Mikey starts and Ryan shakes his head. He looks at Conrad and then back at Gerard.

“I don’t need a babysitter,” he says.

“No, you need a bodyguard,” Conrad answers. “It’s good, I’ll give you that, he actually looks slightly shorter then he does in real life, a little heavier too.”

“Are you saying I look fat?” Ryan glares, hands going to his hips.

Conrad blinks at him. “Um, no?” He doesn’t sound sure and his eyes fly to Gerard, who’s studying the ceiling intently, then to Frank, who’s running a finger over a tattoo on his arm like he’s never seen it before, over to Mikey who’s rolling his eyes and tapping his fingers on the arm of the couch.

“I’m going to get something to eat,” Ryan states. “So I can apparently manage to look even fatter.”

Frank gets the door unsealed and open before Ryan just storms through it.

“I didn’t…” Conrad looks completely baffled but he still gets himself off the couch and darts after him.

“Did you really listen to his messages?” Frank asks, “because dude, that’s kind of…”

“I didn’t listen to his messages,” Mikey shakes his head and looks at Frank; he’s twisting his wedding ring around his finger, Gerard doesn’t think he’s even aware that he’s doing it. “He had it secured down like he had government secrets on it,” he looks at the door. “It’s kind of gratifying that he thinks that I’m good enough that I could though.”

“Well then, we’ll be sure to not tell him about the time that you blew up the toaster oven.”

*

William gets daily updates from Tommy on Ross’ status.

The revolving theme seems to be that Ross is alive and that he’s getting really, fucking tired of having Tommy follow him around.

“Tell him to suck it up,” William advises, Gabe is sitting on the end of the bed. His phone is turned off and sitting on the dresser, he has one hand wrapped around William’s ankle. “At least he’s alive.”

“He’s frustrated,” Tommy says. “And he has his own alert system built into his laptop so he can see how close they are and he knows that we don’t have the first idea of a plan.”

“Keep Ross alive,” William says. “Don’t manage to get any of us killed in the process.”

“A shifter took Alicia’s form,” Tommy says. “Mikey’s holding it together for the moment, having Ryan to worry about is good for him but it’s going to hit eventually that his wife is more then likely dead and we might want to think about having another guard in place for when it does.”

“I could send Gabe,” William says, Gabe arches an eyebrow at him. “Whatever they poisoned us with seems to be wearing off now that we’re not in direct contact with it.”

He wonders how they knew who to target, or if they just put it somewhere in the water or food supply so that it couldn’t be missed.

“I’ll broach the subject,” Tommy says. “But I think if we introduce anymore new people to this tour there’s going to be talking and we can’t afford to have anyone talking.”

“People will just assume that he’s there to fuck with Mikey or maybe Gerard, can never tell how the fan bases will react.”

“Do you really want Pete to go crazy and kill Gabe? Because you know that he called dibs years ago and its pretty much only Alicia and Ashlee that have kept him from doing anything about it.”

*

They get daily alerts as to how close the ships are, Gerard’s been scanning the news, waiting for the moment when someone, somewhere is going to notice them.

So far it hasn’t come and it’s setting them all on edge. There’s the possibility, and it’s not even a slim one, that there’s an advance party here already.

That they’re keeping things quiet while they wait for the moment when the ships will float into Earth’s orbit and keeping things quiet will no longer be an option.

Seventeen spaceships, all roughly the size of Texas, are going to be pretty fucking hard to hand wave away.

Ross goes more and more quiet and regardless of what he says and how frustrated he sounds when he says it, he sticks fairly close to Tommy or Mikey or Gerard or him.

He’s not voiced it, but Frank thinks that Ross is terrified.

He’s the last surviving member of the royal family. And if he’s found here, if those aliens coming in their seventeen huge ass spaceships realize that he’s here, he’s worse then dead.

They’ll torture him and then if he’s lucky they’ll only make an example of him.

Tommy is making his daily not so secret call to William and Gabe to advise them on the current situation and their status; Gerard, Mikey and Ray had an interview that Frank had begged off of. There’s high odds that it’ll end up leading to a rumor that he’s leaving the band or dying, it’s a crapshoot sometime and entirely dependent on what reason Gerard uses as to why he’s not there as well as his body language when he says it.

“Is your family safe?” Ross asks, he’s twisting his shifter bracelet around his wrist absently. He never turns it off anymore; Frank thinks he’s scared to.

Frank nods. “As safe as we can make them,” he says, Jamia had fought him, but the thought of something happening to one of his girls, he needs them to be safe and alive and there for him to come home to.

They’re in hiding with Lindsey and Bandit, and they’re as cloaked to detection as Mikey could make them.

They could already have tails though, could already be known to their enemies.

“Do you remember before?” Ross asks.

“Barely,” Frank says, he flops down on the couch next to him. “Sometimes I have dreams, I think. I’m not actually sure if they’re real dreams or just what my brain imagines our world would have looked like from the stories that Gerard tells.”

“I don’t remember anything,” Ross says.

“You were just a baby, if you remembered anything I’d be really surprised.”

*

Part 2