Ithil’s eyes were trained on Jack’s seeing the familiar green that reflected in her own. With his pencil thin mustache and facial structure he reminded her so much of her husband that her eyes misted over slightly.
Had she found him at last?
Walking the streets aimlessly had finally paid off as she took a hesitant step forward. Her mouth wished to speak but it took her several attempts before she could even form words.
“My..My child..?”
Jack’s eyes widened. “Y-your … um …”
For a moment, even his impressive brain couldn’t process that. Unlike many of the other blue people, the artist had almost no memories of his lost home planet. He remembered meeting Vycter, months ago, and how that had triggered a brief image of being placed in his pod as an infant. Now, as he looked at the green-eyed woman more closely …
“I …” Jack gulped. “… I th-think I might be.”
As was his habit when he was unsure, he dropped eye contact and looked down at the ground – and saw the bulldog furiously sniffing the woman’s boots. “Stella, hey! Leave her alone!”
When eye contact was broken and deciding to peer down to see what the matter was, Ithil merely smiled. The shock was beginning to wear off with Jack’s words and she crouched down to coddle the little bulldog. “Well hello sweetie,” she greeted as Stella licked her cheek. “It is a pleasure to meet you.”
Still her eyes strayed back to Jack to take him in – to see what her child had become; a grown man. And how it sent her heart soaring. “Forgive me..for appearing so suddenly. I just..I’ve been searching for a long time for you – on many planets..the shock must be quite intense for you.”
She wasn’t as shy as people thought, her stare intense yet gentle on his features as her eyes roamed the contours of his face to soak up every little detail.
Under her gaze, Jack could only fidget in silence. Those green eyes, and that face … they brought only the faintest images to mind, like memories from a long-ago dream. The voice stirred something too, but he couldn’t remember what it might have said in the past.
He did remember her, but by images and feelings only. He didn’t know her name, and he barely associated the idea of “mother” with her. When he thought of that word, Bonnie Maple was the person who came to mind, just like Aloysius was who he always thought of as “father”. Meeting Vycter hadn’t changed that.
“Y-you could say that,” he admitted, with a nervous chuckle. “But you … you’ve been looking for me?"
He wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
Jack Maple 