Justin cursed when he couldn’t find the key. It had been a long shot; Brian took security to a freakish level. Get robbed one little time and you think of your place like Fort Knox.

Gus was getting heavy in his arms; he was still the smallest in his class according to Lindsay. Carrying him around seemed to be a little harder than it had the previous night when he carried him around Times Square while Brian bitched about his shirt. Justin had laughed because Brian had looked at his only child like a monster with his grubby hands and dirty clothes, he was such a fashion princess.

A sound caught his attention. “Who the fuck is out here?” a very familiar voice snarled.

Justin didn’t even turn around before he sagged in relief. Brian must have come home early, maybe his flight to Chicago was cancelled. Spinning around he walked past Brian not even looking at him. “I’m not in the mood for your attitude tonight, Brian. You have no idea what kind of hell of a night we had. I think I might have a concussion, even if I don’t, we need to get Gus looked at.” He strode past a new desk. Brian must have reorganized in the year he’d been in New York. “We were carjacked. Can you believe that? As much as I hate the idea to leave as soon as we got here Gus really should be seen by a doctor.” He laid Gus down on the couch, it was new too. “Damnit, did you have to get an entire new living room. You would think you were having a midlife crisis or something.”

Standing up he cracked his back which was hurting. “Justin?” Brian asked hoarsely.

Justin laughed. “I know, I look like the creature from Black Lagoon with all this dirt and sweat. How about this, I get a shower and changed, and you grab a change of clothes for Gus.” He was glad some of his things were still here. “I guess we’ll call the cops from the hospital about the carjacking. You were right, we should have just flown. It’s been a complete nightmare.”

The bedroom looked very different from it always had before. More solemn if he had to give it a name. Opening the closet, he started going through the clothes. He couldn’t find any of his. “Jesus, Brian, did you think my clothes were infecting yours or something?” Justin turned around but Brian wasn’t there. Walking towards the door he saw him by Gus looking down at him. “Brian?”

Brian’s head shot up and Justin was knocked back with shock. Brian was old. More grey hair than brown, a greying beard on his face and weathered skin. What the hell was going on? It was then he noticed Brian was crying.

“What’s wrong, Brian? And why do you look different?”

“Why don’t you? Or him? You look exactly like you did that night. You’re still wearing the clothes you were.”

“What night? What are you talking about? You saw us this morning. What’s with the getup? Are you in a play?”

“It’s happened. Michael and Ted always said it was going to happen, but I didn’t believe them. I’ve completely lost my mind. I’m sorry to say if I get both of you back, I welcome insanity, I should have gotten it years ago.” Brian reached out and touched Justin’s face.

“You’re starting to scare me, Brian. What’s with the look? Why are you back from Chicago?”

“Chicago?”

“Yeah, Brown Athletic. What is going on with you? I feel like I’m missing something here. Is Emmett throwing a costume party? It that why you’re dressed like a BeeGee or something?”

Pounding on the door interrupting their conversation, well his conversation and Brian’s staring.

“Brian, I know you’re in there, let me in,” Michael yelled.

Justin rolled his eyes, of course Michael would know that Brian cancelled his trip. Brian didn’t move so Justin headed to the door and slid it open.

“What the hell, Brian, Jenny just- “Michael cut off as he stared at Justin.

Justin stared right back; it was a costume party. Michael was wearing some padding around his waist and his jet-black hair was now streaked with white. He looked older too, much older. Who was doing their makeup? It was really good work.

“Hey Michael, you look really good. I would never have guessed you two wanting to look older though,” he said, laughing at how times changed.

“What?” Michael said, looking faint.

“You see him too, right?” Brian asked, coming up from behind him. “It’s not just me, you see him and Gus too.”

“Gus?” Michael asked, walking into the loft and looking around wildly before his eyes landed on Gus on the couch. “But…”

“I know, they look exactly the same,” Brian said.

Justin started to realize something was very off here. “What’s going on?”

“Justin, how did you get here?” Michael asked.

“When I woke up after being carjacked a nice lady let me call a cab from her phone. What’s the big deal?”

“You and Gus disappeared seventeen years ago, well it will be seventeen years in a few days,” Michael told him.

Justin laughed. “Very funny, it’s a stupid joke. Is that why you two are in the makeup? I’m feeling like I hit my head harder than I thought. We need to go to the hospital and get checked out and then make a police report about my car.”

“Your car was found in the woods sixteen years ago,” Brian said quietly.

“What’s going on?” Justin demanded.

“You and Gus were declared dead ten years ago. You’ve been missing for seventeen years.”

Justin felt light headed then it all went dark.

The waiting room at the hospital was cold, they needed to turn up the heat. Several cops were talking quietly in the corner and giving him odd looks every so often. The FBI were on their way too. Justin and Gus were going through every test made known to man behind those doors. It had taken Michael seeing them for Brian to realize it wasn’t his mind completely snapping. When Justin passed out, they called an ambulance and when they found out Justin was dead according to the state, they called the police.

Now they had been there for five hours and hadn’t gotten any word about Justin or Gus. Mel, Jenny, Emmett, Ted and Debbie were all in the waiting room with him. They had lost so many in the past seventeen years. Carl had a massive heart attack on his seventieth birthday. Ben had stayed healthy right to the end, which was a car accident just before Jenny’s fifth grade graduation. Blake fell off the wagon hard at forty and disappeared. Drew left Emmett for a newer model and took off to sunny Cali. Then there was Lindsay, his sweet and caring best friend had gotten eaten up with hate.

She never stopped believing Gus was kidnapped by Justin and killed. No matter what anyone said, she never thought anything different. It got too much for Mel who asked for a divorce and moved in with Ben and Michael until she got on her feet. They still saw Lindsay every so often, she would go on some television show to speak out against letting boyfriends of deadbeat dads take their kids anywhere.

“It’s like the Twilight Zone, they looked like they did when they disappeared,” Michael was saying to Mel.

“So, Gus is still six years old?”

“Yeah, he was really tired, but he said, ‘I love you, Daddy’, before they took him back,” Brian cut in.

“I just want to see him and hug him,” Mel cried, Jenny wrapping her arms around her mother.

Brian couldn’t agree more, he wanted them back now that they were here. He didn’t know why they hadn’t changed a day or why they were still in the same clothes. All that mattered was they were here now. Jennifer was a few hours out, Molly even further. After their disappearance and being declared dead Jennifer moved to Colorado and Molly had gone to college in Ireland, met a man there and got married. She hadn’t been back to the states in about ten years. They both cried when he told them they were back; he hadn’t shared that they were exactly the same as they were when they went missing.

“This is crazy,” Emmett said.

“No shit. My boyfriend is supposed to be forty but instead is twenty-three. My son is supposed to be twenty-three and instead is six. I have no idea what they’ve been through and it scares me that they have no idea either.”

Before anything more could be said something caught his attention outside the door. Several men and women in dark clothes walked by the door, the cops waiting outside following them into a door labeled ‘Private’.

“You think that was the FBI?” Jenny asked.

“Are you kidding? With this kind of thing happening. CIA, gotta be,” Michael replied.

“I feel fine. When can we leave?” Justin asked, clutching Gus to his chest. They had taken so much blood and scans of them it made him uncomfortable.

Then there was the ‘thing’ with not letting Brian in with Gus. They had worked some legal mojo and said because Gus was an adult according to his birth certificate Brian wasn’t allowed in the area. Justin had told them that if Gus was separated from him for more time than to run one test, he wouldn’t consent to anymore testing. That backed them off a little.

“Mr. Taylor, we have questions. Questions you don’t have answers. Like where have you been for the last seventeen years? Why does it look like you two haven’t aged a day?” a female doctor said. She wasn’t with the hospital; she had come in with the people in suits.

“Listen, I’m done. You have all said that we are healthy. That means we are going home. If you have a problem with that, call my lawyer.” He was sure Brian had one on retainer.

“You can go anytime you want. But because Gus is an adult but unable to make decisions for himself, we have to find the best place for him.”

“He’s not an adult, he’s six-years-old child, any moron can see that.” Gus whimpered in his arms, so he lowered his voice. “All the tests confirmed that he is, and doesn’t have some kind of condition, not that I thought he did. As I told you all since you arrived. I left my apartment in Chelsea yesterday evening after Brian left for LaGuardia airport. There is a big chunk of last night that I don’t remember but when we woke up, we got help and came home.”

“You didn’t think about calling the police?” the woman asked.

He didn’t like the thought of calling the police when he didn’t have anyone else there. Technically he had no legal right over Gus, he thought they might have caused a problem if he was far out of Pittsburgh.

“I just wanted to get Gus home.”

“His mother is on her way; she’ll take custody of him.”

He breathed a sigh of relief. “Which one, Mel or Lindsay?”

“His mother Lindsay, she had made it clear he is not to be released to Melanie Marcus or Brian Kinney.”

“I thought he was an adult. Let Brian take him home.”

“That’s not really appropriate at the moment.”

They were working some kind of angle. As much as he loved Lindsay, she wouldn’t see the manipulation they would play on her. Mel and Brian both were sharks.

“If you let Brian take him, I’ll stay for whatever tests you want.”

That seemed to stop them. He didn’t like the gleam in their eyes. But to get Gus away from these vultures he would do anything. Since they both were gone for the same time, they didn’t need Gus. “Anything?”

“Yes. But I want it in writing that you’ll release Gus to Brian’s care and not try and use him as a pin cushion again. He’s out of this. Any tests run them on me.”

“Fine but we’ll need to observe for at least two weeks without outside factors.” That he understood, he’d be their prisoner for the next few weeks.

“Agreed, I’ll do it as soon as you release Gus to Brian.”

Brian was doing everything in his power not to yell at Lindsay. As soon as she arrived, she started in on saying the worst things about Justin. This had put him in the clear in everyone’s mind except hers apparently.

“Lindsay, you need to calm down,” he said for the tenth time.

“CALM DOWN! CALM DOWN! My baby was found after all this time and he’s the same age as when he left. What did Justin do to him?”

“Do you hear the crazy coming out of your mouth?” Emmett asked. “No one can cause someone to stop aging. There is some outer world thing going on here.”

“I swear if you start spouting your ET theory again, I will beat you with your own arm,” Brian growled.

Ever since Emmett and Ted, who had settled down together in a platonic way in their old age, had gotten there had been unbearable. All he wanted was to hold his son in his arms again, see Justin with his own eyes. Take them home and never let them leave again.

“I’m just saying, aliens are the only explanation. My Great Aunt Lula,” Emmett started.

“If the rest of that sentence is ‘got abducted by aliens’, you should start running now,” he said, biting his tongue to stop from hurting the man. He wasn’t ready for this. There were too many people around and not the two he needed.

The door opened to the waiting room and a very stiff looking woman walked in. The cops in the corner seemed to take notice too. “Mr. Kinney?”

“Yes, that’s me,” he said, rushing to where she was standing.

“I’m willing to release your son into your care,” she said, her face grim. She wasn’t happy about this.

“What about Justin?”

“Mr. Taylor has agreed to go with us for further testing. If you argue with us, we can take both of them.”

He didn’t know if that was possible, but they were the government. If Justin made a deal to get Gus released, which he was sure he did, it would be stupid of him to ruin it. “Thank you. Can I talk to Justin before we leave?”

“For a few moments but it will be under guard.” She was done playing nice.

“He doesn’t have custody of Gus, I do,” Lindsay screeched.

“Ms. Petersen, whatever arrangement you had went out of date the day you had your son declared dead and collected his life insurance, at least according to the law. But you can go ahead and start a new case, right now though he will be going with his father.”

“Why?”

“Because I like him more than you,” she said before walking off, his heels clicking hard on the floor. At the door she waved Brian in, he wasn’t about to cause anymore problems. If he played this right, he would be taking his son home and then he could work on getting Justin home.