Best Left Unfinished Read online

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  He could have done more; he could have done better. Those words haunted Elliot Hall every day of his life. He was used to it; he had learned to live with it. He might have been haunted by them, but he didn’t let that get to him. He might have thought them first thing every morning. They might have been the final thought that passed through his brain before he fell asleep, but Elliot’s definition of haunted might differ greatly from how others would perceive it. He didn’t lose any sleep over it and didn’t seek to change the way he did things. He didn’t dwell on what he might have done differently, and, perhaps most importantly, he did not make any move to place himself back in the line of fire.

  He might spend each day of his life knowing that there was more to be done, but that failed to motivate him to step outside the comfortable little life that he had set up for himself.

  He had accomplished, mostly, what he had wanted to accomplish in the beginning. Most of the children had spent their childhoods in places that weren’t the never ending lab experiments that the Society’s board had eventually settled on as the most efficient (and controlled) method for raising the children that they had planned and plotted for without having any long range plans for what to do with them after they got them.

  That had been his part, and it was completed. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t gone out of his way for them; he had. They had not, strictly speaking, been his responsibility. He had stepped in for a myriad number of reasons (not the least of which was his own personal comfort that had been fairly nonexistent any time the little ones had been brought to his attention). The board had accused him of being overly sentimental and too soft hearted to make necessary decisions; he wondered if it had ever occurred to any of them that what he really was was far too stubborn and self-involved to even consider that the rest of the board might have been correct after he had decided they were wrong.

  That hardly mattered now.

  He was finished -- retired if you would like to refer to it in those terms. He had a nicely put together little life that revolved around his hobbies and staying far, far away from anything Society related. That his life could have been very much different if he had been a little more willing to take chances was not a fact which was lost on him.

  He thought about it sometimes -- that it might have been nice if he had done something differently where Serena was concerned. She was the one point upon which he would admit that he occasionally did dwell. He took care of her. He was the reason that she had become involved in the first place, therefore she was his responsibility (and he accepted responsibility for her in a way that it never occurred to him to do when it came to any of the children). He kept a watch and moved her whenever he felt that there was a chance of her coming back on their radar (and once just because it was making him nervous that nobody had been looking).

  She, bless her, always followed his instructions despite the fact that he knew good and well that she had a plethora of reasons for distrusting him or ignoring him altogether. He never spoke to her directly (which might, in other circumstances, have made the way he knew where she was and what she was doing seem a little stalkerish in nature, but it was all for her personal safety). That there had been an eight year time frame since there had been any Society overtures in her direction might have been an indication to an outside observer that it was time to let the vigilance come to an end, but Elliot (as he reminded himself whenever the thought that he should give up his close watch on the woman occurred to him) knew that while the Society itself may have realized that her information was no longer an efficient resource to pursue, the children themselves would be grown up now and potentially looking for answers.

  He had been proven right in that. It had left him with a decision to make -- did he arrange another move for Serena? Did he keep her away from them as well? In the end, he had not. He had let them find her (and had a small moment of laughter at the Society’s expense at how relatively quickly Cecilia Murray’s exiled “inferior” child cut through layers upon layers of identity protections to do so). He had given the briefest of fleeting thoughts to wondering how she had ended up in the midst of the situation before moving to erase any traces of them finding traces of Serena. He might have allowed them through, but he wasn’t about to let someone follow in their wake.

  They were drawing plenty of attention to themselves, and the Society would (in his opinion) very shortly have back their nearly completed set. What they did from there was anybody’s guess. He had bought them time and a childhood away from the indoctrination -- that was more than he had gotten. Whether they threw in with the philosophy they would be presented with, or they decided to try to thwart it was of little concern to him (except, of course, for the little part of him that never quite got over being a rebellious teenager and enjoyed watching, from a spectator’s position, anything that got in their way and made their plans have to be reworked).

  He was content with his models and puzzles and occasional freelance design work. He had Serena to check up on and periodic reviews of where the Society’s progress was leading them. He was tucked safely away where no one that he didn’t want to see would ever find him; he needn’t be bothered with the outside world if he didn’t care to be.

  If he had days where he let thoughts of a less simple life intrude, what of it? If he thought about the what ifs involved if he had taken Serena and the last two children with him (and what life looked like if you had a sweet, caring wife and two beautiful, brilliant children to take care of and dote on if you were always looking over your shoulder and moving from place to place to keep them from being found), then that was nothing more than the passing fancy of an aging man who upon occasion found himself to be lonely. If it made a pretty picture with its days at the park, conversations at the dinner table, and telling the tales of the constellations sitting out under the star lit sky, then that was nothing more than the proverbial grass is greener syndrome that befell all human beings at one time or another in their lives.

  He, he told himself often enough, would not have wanted that life with its uncertainness and nearly constant anxiety. It would have been chaotic and miserable, and he liked steadiness, routine, and comfort. That was all. The children might have resented growing up that way. Serena might not have wanted him. He, most assuredly, would have ended up resentful for the loss of the quiet life that he could have had. It wasn’t worth the effort of thinking about.

  Better it could have been, maybe, but probably not for him. Like all the other thoughts of decisions and actions on which he could have taken a higher road, the thoughts may have been haunting, but he didn’t let himself be concerned with their presence.

  He settled back in his comfortable armchair looking out over the spectacular view from his floor to ceiling windows and let his eyes drift closed as he drifted off for a nap. Naps and quiet, solitude and time for all of his hobbies -- that was his life, and he liked it that way.

  Someday, things might go a little differently. Someday, there might be someone with a little more fire. Someday, there might be someone a little feistier. Someday, there might be someone who was willing to go the extra mile instead of settling for personal comfort and safety. Then, the Society might find itself up against someone who was willing to do the dirty work of giving them the taking to task and upheaval of all of their projects that it was likely they deserved.

  Elliot would enjoy seeing it; he would make a point of watching it happen even, but it wouldn’t be him doing the doing. He had stepped out of the realm of spectator once before, and he had no inclinations toward doing it again. Being involved was messy. Being involved got you all caught up in other people. Being involved was unpleasant and time consuming -- all of those things in life that he studiously avoided. Being a spectator was the better option by far. All other thoughts and considerations aside, he had chosen his course of action (or inaction) well.

  He fell asleep with the view of the ocean before hi
s eyes and the strains of one of his favorite orchestra arrangements in his ears with a peaceful, untroubled demeanor and only the conviction that contentedness was a wonderful thing in his head.