The Way Home: Chapter Seven

Title: The Way Home
A Shelter Fanfic
Author: Jessica (sam_cdn )Rating: NC-17
Summary: This story opens a little over two months after Shaun, Zach, and Cody have moved to Valencia. This will be a multi-chaptered story, telling the tale of what happens next. There will be plenty of happiness, sappiness, and general domestic bliss. There will be some hotness and some smuttiness. There will also be some angst, some anger, some sadness, and some pain. There will be some attempts at humor, but I'm not promising you'll laugh. Hold on tight, I've got a lot of story to tell!
Disclaimer: I do not own and did not create the film Shelter. I am making no profit off of this.

Zach liked driving at night. Even when there were plenty of other cars on the road, Zach felt a kind of peacefulness as they glided on into the darkness, unable to see much beyond the lit highway. The calming sensation was just what Zach needed right then, because the closer they got to Laguna, the more nervous he felt.

In less than half an hour, they would be arriving at a house that had been familiar to Zach for most of his life, but returning there with Shaun and Cody, with the prospect of facing Jeanne looming in the near future, made this visit completely different from any other. It was strange for Zach to be coming back to San Pedro and Laguna after everything that had changed since he had been there last. It felt a little like going back in time. He half-worried that by returning there, his life would go back to the way it was almost a year ago, before Shaun. He knew, of course, that it wouldn't, but his common sense knowledge did nothing to dissipate his fears.

"Cody's totally passed out," Shaun said quietly from the passenger's seat beside him.

Zach glanced in the rear view mirror to see a slumbering Cody in his car seat. "Yeah, it's been a big day for him."

"Mm hm," Shaun said, looking out his window.

"Guess we'll put him straight to bed when we get there." Shaun didn't say anything. "Hello?" Zach said, reaching over and giving his leg a squeeze.

"Huh?" Shaun said, jumping a little. "Oh, sorry. What did you say?"

Zach looked at him quickly. "Are you OK?"

"Yeah, totally," Shaun said, but Zach wasn't convinced.

"Dude, you're just as nervous as I am, aren't you?"

"What?"

"Yeah, you're totally freaking out right now."

Shaun chuckled. "All right, you caught me. I guess I'm freaking out a little."

"You're not alone."

Shaun let out a deep sigh. "This is stupid, right? I mean, it's Gabe we're seeing. When have either of us ever been nervous about seeing Gabe?"

"I know," Zach said. "It's just ... it's totally weird, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, I guess it is. Well, I'm sure it'll all feel normal in no time."

Zach rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right."

They arrived at the mansion in Laguna at a little after ten o'clock. Zach carried the sleeping Cody in his arms, while Shaun fumbled to find his keys and to disarm the security alarm. The house was dark and quiet, no sign of Gabe in sight. Shaun helped Zach bring Cody to the guest room that was across the hall from his room. As Zach laid him down on the bed, Cody half woke up and looked around him. "We're at Shaun's old house, buddy," he said. Cody mumbled something unintelligible, so Zach just said, "See you in the morning," before he and Shaun left the room.

After closing the door, they headed to the stairs, but before descending, Zach hesitated. "Think we should wake him up?" he said.

"Why would we do that?"

"Because," Zach said, "he's going to wake up in that room alone with no idea where he is or where we are. Maybe we should make sure he knows where to find us."

"No, he'll be fine, Zach. He'll know where he is--he's been looking forward to this trip for weeks. And he's been here before--he knows this house."

Zach shrugged, still uncertain. "OK, I guess."

They descended the stairs silently, Zach following Shaun. As they reached the bottom, Zach spotted some movement out of the corner of his eye. Before he had a chance to say anything a light was flicked on.

Everyone let out a shocked yell, before bursting into laughter as they all realized what had happened. It was Gabe, of course, who had turned on the light, and he had no idea they had arrived.

"Jesus Christ!" Gabe said. "What, did you guys sneak in like a couple of thieves?"

"Sorry," Shaun said, laughing, "we were putting Cody to bed. Where were you?"

"Outside. Well, shit, how are you guys?"

"Good," Shaun said, and then there was the expected greeting, with Gabe giving hugs and pats on the back to each of them.

"C’mon," Gabe said, “let's get some cold ones and chill out back."

Zach followed the brothers through the house to the kitchen where they each got themselves a beer. Zach realized as they went out onto the back porch that he was grinning and had been since he had hugged his best and oldest friend. Weirdness aside, it was damn good to see Gabe again. It felt like a lifetime since they had last hung out. The last time they had seen each other hardly counted with everything that was going on between him and Shaun.

They relaxed on patio chairs, looking out toward the Pacific. "So," Gabe said after a silence.

"So," said Zach, suddenly at a complete loss for words.

"You get your key from the Robinsons OK?" Shaun asked.

"Oh, yeah," Gabe said, "it was no problem. Got here last night."

"You have a good drive down?" Zach said.

Gabe nodded. "Oh yeah, great. Good weather."

"Yep”.

They were silent again. Zach couldn't believe it: was this really all they had to say to each other? He knew that wasn't completely true: he did have things he wanted to ask Gabe, things they could talk about, but nothing seemed safe anymore. He wanted to ask if he had seen any of the old gang, but that could lead to discussion about what their reception of he and Shaun might be like, and he wasn't ready to go there yet. He wanted to ask about Tori, but not right away, and not with Shaun sitting right there. For some reason, it felt strange to ask Gabe about his sex life, especially if it could lead to any form of discussion about his own sex life.

"So," Gabe finally said, "are we seriously going to be this awkward around each other for the next two weeks?"

Zach had to laugh. Leave it to Gabe to say it like it is. "No," Zach said, and Shaun followed with: "Definitely not," immediately after.

"Aw," Gabe said, looking at them, "that's so sweet. You two are already finishing each other's sentences."

They all laughed. As strange as it felt to Zach to have Gabe calling him and Shaun "sweet", he was seeing the Gabe he had always known and loved, and that felt good. "Fuck off, man," he said, still chuckling.

"Well, I'm just glad you guys could make it down. It would've sucked spending Christmas here alone."

"You could've come up to L.A.," Shaun said.

"Fuck L.A."

"It's not so bad," Zach said. "Anyways, we live in Valencia. It's totally different from L.A."

"Well, at least it isn't San Pedro."

Zach chuckled, although he didn't quite agree with Gabe on that one; he never had. Gabe always saw San Pedro as an ugly, boring, working class town that no one really wanted to be in. As hard as his life had been there, Zach actually loved San Pedro. The town had rough, urban edges that he saw beauty in, and a community that had gotten him through some difficult times.

When they went to bed, Gabe wished Zach and Shaun goodnight as the couple retired to Shaun’s room together. For Zach, there was something surreal about being back in this house where the love between him and Shaun had blossomed, back in this room where so much had happened. But the fact that Gabe was there with them made everything different, reminded him of how much things had changed. To have his best friend wishing them goodnight with no secrets between them was something that, Zach thought, he could get used to.

*          *            *

Everyone agreed that Shaun, Zach, and Cody’s first day back in Laguna should be spent on the beach, so the four of them loaded up the Volvo with towels, boards, wet suits, and food and headed out. They spent an hour fooling around with Cody in the water before returning to their towels for sandwiches and chips. Shaun and Cody had set to work on one of their famous sand castles when Gabe said, “Hey, look.”

Zach looked in the direction Gabe was pointing to see a group of four people making their way toward them on the beach. He recognized all of them: Steve, Billy, Greg, and Tori.

Zach suddenly felt extremely hot. He was aware of the fact that he was nervous, and though he tried to reason with himself that freaking out wasn’t going to help anything, he couldn’t slow his pounding heartbeat. He glanced at Shaun, who was engrossed in the moat he was currently digging.

“Awesome,” Gabe said, oblivious to Zach’s nerves. “I knew there’d be people to hang with.”

At Gabe’s words, Cody looked up and immediately spotted the approaching group. “Tori!” he said, jumping up.

He ran right into her arms as they arrived. “Hey, little man!” she said, scooping him up and giving him a big hug. “How’s it going?”

“Shaun and I are building a sand castle!”

“Cool. You guys must be getting really good at that.” She smiled at Shaun. “Hey.”

Shaun smiled. “Hey, Tori.”

By that time, Zach and Gabe had stood up and were greeting the rest of the group. Everyone acted enthusiastic and eager to see each other, but that’s all it felt like to Zach: an act. What did these guys know? What should he say? What shouldn’t he say? Why was he obsessing about this so much?

After greeting the guys, he gave Tori a warm smile. “Hey, Tor,” he said, opening up his arms. The hug came naturally to them and held none of the awkwardness that Zach had felt with the others. He had to resist the urge to call Tori “monkey.” He suspected that Greg wouldn’t like that too much.

“When’d you get in, man?” Greg asked as he watched his girlfriend pull out of the hug with Zach.

“Last night,” Zach said.

“Cool.”

Zach was aware of the fact that other than Tori, no one had said hi to Shaun, and was wondering what he could (or should) do about it, when Billy spoke up, “It’s Shaun, right?” he said, looking down at him.

Shaun nodded, and started to stand. “Yeah. How’s it going man?”

“Good,” Billy said quickly, looking away from Shaun before he even had the chance to extend his hand to shake it.

Zach suddenly went from hot to cold as he witnessed the brief exchange. He looked at Shaun, who appeared to be more amused than offended by the blatant rudeness.

“So,” Gabe said loudly, before anyone had the chance to do or say anything else, “you guys bring your boards down, or what?”

“Fuck yeah,” Steve said. “You want to go for a session?”

Gabe, Zach, Greg, Steve, and Billy all decided to go out for a surf. Shaun said he’d stay back and hang with Cody and Tori, much to Zach’s surprise, said she’d stay with them.

Zach was completely refreshed by the surfing. He had not had the opportunity to do very much surfing this past fall and it felt amazing to get back into familiar waters again.

He was finally feeling like one of the guys again as the four of them made their way back up the beach again and talked about the session they’d just had, when two bikini-clad women came walking past them. Steve not so subtly whistled, and Gabe said hi to them. They greeted him back with a giggle, but kept walking.

“I wouldn’t mind getting some of that,” Billy said.

Greg snorted. “I don’t think any of us would.”

At first, Zach was too distracted by his annoyance that Greg would say something like that when he was in a relationship with Tori to notice that conversation had stopped. He glanced at Gabe who, he realized, had been looking at him and cut his eyes quickly away. Of course, the moment Greg had said that, they had all realized that there was one of them who wasn’t interested in “getting some of that.” Greg obviously thought that he had said something he shouldn’t have, and everyone agreed. Zach, on the other hand, didn’t have any problem with the other guys expressing their usual appreciation for the opposite sex—it was what he expected when he hung out with them. Why should the revelation of his sexuality change any of that? It’s not as though he was ever the type to join in their blatant whistling and flirting.

But, of course, it was different now—everything was. The guys wouldn’t be treating him like he was one of them anymore. In their eyes, he wasn’t.

When they met back up with Shaun, Cody, and Tori, everyone decided to go to the Shack. Gabe, Tori, Greg, Steve, and Billy headed off right away, but Zach, Shaun, and Cody were stuck back picking up everything they had brought to the beach. Once they got to the car, they had to deal with loading it up again, and getting Cody secured in his car seat. Cody was excited to eat at a restaurant, but Zach could tell he was already getting tired and would be crashing early that night. They would have to go back to the mansion right after eating. Maybe they could play a game or something—he wondered if there was a Monopoly game lying around somewhere.

When they finally got to the Shack, everyone was already seated. They hadn’t left three seats next to each other—not even two next to each other, so Zach had to get a few people to rearrange themselves so that he could sit next to Cody.

“I want a Fisherman’s Platter,” Cody announced once they were finally seated.

“No, Codes, that’s way too much food for you,” Zach said, scanning the menu for himself.

“No it isn’t! I can eat it!”

Zach flipped the menu over. “Why don’t you order from the kids’ menu? Oh wow, this looks so good! They have crab cakes, and fish sticks, and—”

“No!”

Zach forced himself to not get annoyed. He could hear Gabe and Billy next to him, discussing how many pitchers of beer to get, and where they were going to get drunk that night. “I’m telling you, Cody, this kids’ menu looks really good—”

“Are you going to order from it?”

“No, but—”

“Uh-oh,” Billy said, cutting into their conversation, “he’s got you there, man. If the kids’ menu is so good, why aren’t you ordering from it?” Billy seemed to find this hilarious.

Zach glared at him, then looked back at Cody. “Come on, Codes, I know you like the crab cakes. Remember how good they were last time?”

“I don’t want crab cakes!” Zach had been right: Cody was getting tired and cranky already.

“Cody,” Shaun called down from the other end of the table, “listen to Zach.”

Cody pouted for a while longer before Zach finally convinced him to order off of the kids’ menu. When the waitress arrived at their table, he hadn’t had the opportunity to decide what he wanted for himself, so he ordered popcorn shrimp because it was the first thing he thought of.

Zach barely spoke for the rest of the meal, and when he did, it was usually to Cody. He couldn’t bring himself to getting involved in Gabe, Steve, and Billy’s conversation about the drunkest they had ever been. At the other end of the table, he could see Greg and Shaun talking to each other, and Tori listening with interest. At one point, Zach caught her eye and they smiled at each other. He drew pictures with Cody on the paper tablecloth with the provided crayons.

Zach could hardly believe that he was the same age as Billy, Steve, and Gabe. How was it that the biggest concerns in their lives were passing their midterms and where they were going to spend spring break, while the biggest concerns in Zach’s life were whether he was a good parent, whether he was going to get to continue to be a parent, how much longer his father could live on his own and what he would do once he couldn’t. Feeling like an outcast was nothing new to Zach: he had always been different. He was the poor kid, the kid with the knocked up sister, the kid with the dying mother. In the past, though, Zach had always managed to blend into the group, and find the right things to say and the right way to act in order to make everyone forget how different his life was from theirs.

This wasn’t like that, though. Being a father made him stand out not so much because it made his life harder, but because it made him older than his friends. And although he was happy raising Cody, and being with Shaun, and living the life he was, he felt, at that moment, jealous of his friends. He wanted to be like them: he wanted to be drinking beer, and wondering where they would party that night. He wanted to be going to college and for college consume his life, not only be one thing to juggle amongst many. He wanted to talk about everything they were talking about with enthusiasm and without worrying about a hundred other things in the back of his mind.

Zach was pulled out of his reverie by the sound of raised voices. He turned his head and saw that Tori and Greg seemed to be in some kind of an argument: Greg said something about never having time with his friends anymore and Tori told him that was a load of crap. He could see that Tori was getting worked up. Her usually fair skin was flushed, and the fingers on her right hand were curled in. Tori always closed her right fist when she was getting pissed off.

Everyone else at the table was trying very hard to pretend they had no idea what was going on, immersing themselves in riveting conversations about the weather and the last movies they saw, while occasionally cutting their eyes to the arguing couple.

“You know what?” Tori said, standing up suddenly. “Do whatever the hell you want. Just don’t expect me to be happy about it.”

“Where are you going?” Greg asked.

“Out. I need some air.”

Zach didn’t even need to think about it. He stood up immediately and followed Tori. He hated to see her in pain, and for years, it had always been his job to cheer her up when things weren’t going so well. It came as second nature to him to take care of the people he loved.

He followed Tori out of the Shack, through the parking lot, and onto the boardwalk that lead to the beach. “Hey,” he called gently.

She turned around suddenly and looked at him. “Oh. Hey. What are you doing?”

“Following you. I just … I wanted to—” Now that he was out here with her, he realized that he wasn’t entirely sure what he was doing. All he knew is that he needed to be there for Tori. “I thought you might want to talk.”

Tori smiled with one side of her mouth. “Thanks, but I’m fine. Just … stupid relationship stuff.”

Zach nodded. “Well, can I walk with you?”

She shrugged. “Yeah, sure.”

They walked together in a comfortable silence. Zach was happy to learn that after everything they had been through, they could still have comfortable silences. The sun had almost set, but they could see well enough to make their way along the path. They moved toward the gentle crashing sounds of the waves, interrupted only by the occasional cry of a gull or the distant sound of voices.

When they reached the sandy beach, they continued down toward the water, where the tide was starting to come in. They took their sandals off and hung them off their fingers as they strolled through the moist sand. They stopped when the water crashed just above their ankles.

“So, how are things between you and Greg?” Zach asked.

Tori had been looking down at the sand between her toes, but she looked up at Zach’s question. “Good. It was just a little … nothing. It wasn’t even a fight, all right?”

“Tori, you don’t have to get defensive with me. I just wanted to make sure that you’re OK.”

Tori blinked at him, and seemed to unclench. “Yeah, I’m fine, Zach. Seriously, it’s good between Greg and me. I just get frustrated when he wants to spend so much time with his friends.” She shrugged. “I guess I’m just being the possessive girlfriend.”

Zach tilted his head as he looked at her. “That’s never been you, Tor.”

“I know. What’s wrong with me?”

They both laughed. Zach took a moment, wanting to say something to reassure Tori that he could see she was happy. “He seems to have changed,” he said. “Greg, I mean. I think he’s changed for the better. He must really love you.”

Tori smiled a little. “It’s only been a couple of months.”

“A lot can happen in a couple of months.”

Tori met Zach’s eyes. “Yeah.”

They were quiet for a moment, before Tori said, “So really, how are things between you and Shaun?”

“Really good,” Zach said. He didn’t want to hurt Tori—he just wanted to be honest with her.

“Good.”

Zach’s smile faded a little as he remembered what he had been thinking about at the restaurant. If there was anyone he could talk to about that, it was Tori. He began to trace designs in the sand with his toes. “I mean, it’s good,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “but it’s weird being back here, you know? I guess I just … I hoped we’d come back here and it would be the same as it’s always been.”

He looked up at Tori, and was taken aback by the look on her face. It was the look he’d seen on her face in the restaurant, when she was arguing with Greg. She was angry.

“Tor—”

“How could you think that?” she said, cutting him off. “How could you think that you’d come back here and everything would be the same? Of course it’s different Zach. You’ve come back here with Cody and Shaun, and suddenly you guys are one big happy family, and you expect everyone to treat you like you’re still living with your sister and working at the diner?”

“Tori, why—”

“Take some responsibility for the choices you’ve made, Zach. I’m not saying they were bad choices, just don’t try and deny how they’ve changed things. Don’t insult me by saying that you hoped it’d been the same.”

Zach opened and closed his mouth, completely at a loss. “I’m sorry,” he said, not really sure what he was apologizing for.

Tori nodded, and Zach saw there were tears in her eyes. “Listen, just … I need some time alone.”

“No, Tori, let me—”

“Go away, Zach. I don’t want to be with you right now.”

Zach hesitated for a moment, before finally conceding.  He gave Tori’s shoulder a squeeze and started to trudge slowly back toward the Shack.

Zach was still confused as to what had sparked such anger in Tori, but he knew she was right about one thing: everything had changed.