Work Text:
Joseph Stern was tired. Kepler was a lovely town, and the Monongahela was beautiful, don’t get him wrong. He was excited for this assignment, really, he was! But he knew he’d been the one sent to investigate a lead on the string of disappearances attributed to Bigfoot by the Department of Unexplained Phenomena because he was one of the only agents there who actually believed in any of the legends of otherworldly creatures.
It was draining at times, listening to his colleagues rag on his degree - most of them had gone to school for things like criminal justice and forensics, but Joseph had graduated college with a Master’s in folklore, focused on American myth. He’d always been interested in the stories people told, how they formed and changed through time and affected people’s perceptions of the world around them. Sure, some seemed unbelievable at first, but the more closely you looked at a story and its contemporaries, traced where they came from and what else they were related to, the more convincing many of the stories became.
Not everyone agreed, though, and so Stern was assigned to learn everything he could about a viral Bigfoot video and whatever else he could find in Kepler, West Virginia. His colleagues would stay and work on the more exciting, actionable cases the UP had ongoing. Not every case they had was a dead end leading only to a cryptid, a lot of their cases involved crimes being covered up or framed as the work of cryptids and local legends, and their investigations enabled them to help a lot of people. It was fulfilling work, truly, and Joseph did like it, if not necessarily all of the people he did it with.
All that to say that Joseph Stern was tired when he walked into Amnesty Lodge. He did his best not to let it show, it wouldn’t do to appear unprofessional, but he was exhausted and it took him longer than he would have liked to recognize who else stood in that lobby. It wasn’t until he had pulled out his badge and the young woman in front of him froze, for just a second, that he recognized her.
Aubrey Little, his niece, whom he hadn’t seen in four years, not since the days following his older sister’s funeral, acted as though she didn’t know him. But he’d seen her pause as he held out his badge and explained, knew there was no way she wouldn’t recognize his name. She didn’t move to say anything else though, so he turned to Mr. Chicane, the man he’d come here to find, and continued.
His niece tried to keep him from staying there, citing something about bed bugs, but she knew him, knew he was always prepared for travel, for any kind of living situation, and she also knew he didn’t exactly make a ton of money or get a huge budget from the department, so most of the nicer resorts near town were out of the question. Still, he could see the panic flash across her eyes, so he slightly arched a brow at her but left it alone, finishing his brief conversation with Ned Chicane and taking his leave for the time being.
Joseph runs into his niece twice more that evening, and each time, she carefully acts as though they’ve only just met today. It worries him, and he wonders if she’s gotten herself into some trouble that could take a turn for the worse if people find out she’s related to a federal agent. He doesn’t want her to get hurt, so he remains neutrally pleasant with her and the others, greeting them in the lobby after his soak in the hot springs and later seeing them running down the hall with a hurried explanation of coyotes. Well, Amnesty Lodge is set further away from the town and into the forest than much of the rest of Kepler, so it would make sense that coyotes might be braver and creep closer than they might otherwise. And the forest really is a relaxing and beautiful place, Joseph knows he could get lost in his thoughts and lose track of time and distance in a place like this, get lost in the familiarity, if he had lived here as long as some of the other residents.
It’s as he’s working through organizing case notes from one of the disappearances that he gets an email, from an address he hasn’t seen in his inbox for some time now.
The email is from Aubrey, and she tells him she can’t explain things right now. He knows he’ll still worry over her, even as he reads the words promising she’s safe, and she’s really happy here. Attached to the bottom of the email is a picture of Dr. Harris Bonkers, PhD, clad in a knitted vest, caption telling him it had been made for him by Dani. Joseph smiles as he saves the photo to his phone. It’s been a few months since Aubrey last contacted him, so he’s glad to hear that she’s doing okay.
He sends her an email back, tells her he’s happy she’s doing well. He tells her he won’t pry or make her tell her friends the truth about him if she doesn’t want to, but that he’s here for her and he hopes she’ll let him know if she ever needs anything. She doesn’t send another email, but unless he was the one to share some news with her first or clearly asked something needing a response, she usually didn’t. Joseph wished she would contact him more, but he knew she was still struggling with everything that had happened four years ago and that she needed space.
They don’t really acknowledge each other for weeks.
Ned Chicane, frustratingly, straight up ignores his every attempt at a talk until he finally just goes to the Cryptonomica and gets what information he can from the kid working there, Kirby, and it seems like most of the residents of Amnesty Lodge tend to avoid him when they can. Not blatantly, but if he’s already sitting in the lobby working on a crossword in the Lamplighter, or enjoying a brief soak in the hot springs, they’ll simply keep walking instead of staying. Most of the time, though, Stern is out working, interviewing residents of the town, hitting the library and city hall to look through old newspapers and records, checking out areas of the forest when need be.
He knows he makes the residents of the lodge uncomfortable, so he tries not to pester them anymore when he can help it. It’s not that big a deal for him to start taking his meals in the kitchen, eating alone and unobtrusive at the far end of the island, while the rest of the residents fill the dining room and lobby. Joseph’s never been much of an extrovert, so he’s okay with the quiet, truly. Barclay originally shot him concerned glances every time he tucked himself between the end of the island and the far counter for every breakfast and dinner, but has grown used to his presence in the kitchen as he prepares coffees or washes up for the night. Sometimes he’ll eat his own dinner there, too, and they’ll often chat about their days.
It’s rather nice, having someone to talk to again.
Joseph is sitting at the end of one of the couches in the lobby, working his way through a lamplighter with a mug of coffee on the low table in front of him, when he feels something brush up against his leg. Glancing down, he sees white fur, and leans down to run his fingers through the rabbit’s coat. Dani, seated nearby, looks up from her sketchbook at the movement.
“It’s nice to see you again, Doctor, but I’m afraid I don’t have any treats for you at the moment.” Joseph tells the rabbit sniffing curiously at him. He must have woken from his nap in the bed kept under one of the coffee tables for him when Aubrey or Dani brought him to the lobby with them.
“Again?” Dani asks curiously.
Joseph looks up, internally cursing his slip up, but externally, only shrugs. “I’ve seen him around the lodge with you or Aubrey, and I ran into Aubrey walking him once, properly met the little guy.” He smiles softly at the memory of the first time he’d met Dr. Harris Bonkers, PhD. Aubrey had been so excited to get the rabbit when she turned eighteen, her first big adult decision and a companion she’d always wanted. “My niece always had a fondness for rabbits, and I guess that’s rubbed off on me a little. I know a lot about them, but haven’t had much chance of meeting any before coming here.”
The woman at the piano, Moira, pauses in shuffling through a folder of sheet music and tilts her head curiously. “You have a niece?”
Stern is surprised at the question, not expecting it, but he supposes the other residents of the lodge have been getting more comfortable around him, if in small ways, at least to the point where they could peacefully coexist and not bother each other in the communal spaces in the lodge. And this may be some of the first non-FBI related information they’re learning about him.
A sad smile crosses his face as he notices someone else enter the lobby on their way to the front door. “Yeah. She left home to make her own mark some time ago. We don’t talk much anymore, but I hope she’s found her place in the world.” Aubrey’s face remains impassive as she passes the seating area, but Joseph knows that hitch in her breath.
Joseph’s been staying at Amnesty Lodge for a couple months when he returns from a day spent examining the trails of the Monongahela national forest to find a lone figure curled up on the swinging bench on the porch. It’s late in the evening and cold outside, the only light coming from the soft lighting of the lobby shining through a nearby window. He wants to go inside and take a hot shower and get some rest, but one look at the shaking figure and he’s sitting down beside his niece, slipping an arm around her.
Aubrey curls into him as he sits, one leg pulled up comfortably and the other resting on the ground to keep the bench swaying slowly. It’s a little awkward a position to sit in in his suit, but he ignores that, focused on his niece as she bursts into hiccuping and choking sobs against him. He runs a hand gently back and forth along her back, letting her break down against him. It’s been a long time since he’s seen her like this, and he just holds her in the quiet of the night.
When Aubrey finally calms enough to speak, she sits back slightly, wiping at her face. “I almost- Duck almost got hurt and Ned nearly died today.”
Joseph is surprised. He’d heard about the collapse of the sign, and the grocery store, and that someone had been hurt but would be okay when he stopped by the ranger station on his way back from the forest, but he hadn’t yet heard who. Small town gossip and news traveled fast. “Everyone’s okay now.” He soothes, smoothing some of her hair back from where she must have been running her hands through it earlier.
“It’s not okay. I- I was there, and I didn’t do anything, I didn’t help.” Aubrey starts to get more frantic as she continues, voice breaking. “I made it worse, it’s my fault Ned got hurt and-”
“Ned’s okay, Aubrey. The rangers said the paramedics guessed their patient would be out of the hospital by tomorrow.” He cuts her off, voice soft. “It was a freak accident, but everyone’s okay now. Everyone’s safe. The only thing that can’t be fixed is some produce and a bunch of other sundries. You’re not going to cry over some squished tomatoes, are you?”
That startles a laugh out of her, and she says, “Maybe those tomatoes were really important to me.”
Finally calming down, the two of them sit in silence for a few moments, before Aubrey lets out a yawn. She stands, but before wandering back inside, she speaks quietly, voice broken. “I can’t… I can’t watch someone I care about die again.”
Joseph remains seated as she enters the lodge, mulling over her words as the lobby light clicks off. He understands what she means, and mentally comparing what it must have been like to watch her friend get hurt, unable to do anything about it just as she’d been unable to do anything during the accident that killed her mother, it breaks his heart. He never wants to see her looking like that again.
Letting out a long breath, Joseph gets up, straightening his suit jacket as he heads inside the lodge. He might just skip that hot shower and go straight to bed. He’s stopped by a hand on his arm, and he sees Barclay, exiting the kitchen. The only light comes from the moon shining through the window over the sink.
“Thank you.” Barclay says quietly. Joseph tilts his head in confusion. “For comforting Aubrey. I was keeping an eye on her from in here, but I didn’t really know how to help. I was going to go bring her inside if she stayed out in the cold much longer, but you did a lot more than I would have been able to.”
He sighs, running a hand through his hair as he steps past Barclay into the kitchen. He begins the process of brewing a pot of coffee before he speaks. “She looked exactly like my niece did when my sister died.”
It’s clear Barclay doesn’t really know how to respond to that, so they’re both quiet as the coffee finishes and Joseph pours himself a cup. Barclay silently passes him the sugar and pours a cup of his own, letting him gather his thoughts as his cold hands clutch the warm drink like a lifeline.
“My older sister died a few years ago. There was an accident, and… it devastated my niece and I.” He keeps the details vague, for Aubrey, but Barclay doesn’t need details to feel sympathy for him. Barclay isn’t much taller than Joseph, but he is sturdier built than Stern’s own thinner frame, and one of his arms presses comfortably against his own as he steps over to stand beside him as he continues.“Life had gotten busy, for all of us, and we’d begun to grow apart, but as soon as I got the call from the hospital that my niece and my brother in law were in, I dropped everything to take a flight out. When she was released, she stayed with me at the hotel I’d gotten a room at, and we didn’t leave each other’s sight at all throughout the rest of my brother-in-law's hospital stay and the funeral.”
“You must have been close.” Barclay guesses.
“Yeah. My sister was a lot older than me, and I loved her as a sister, but I was several years closer in age to my niece. I’ve always seen her as a baby sister more than anything else.” He runs a thumb absently across the rim of his mug. “I stayed with them for a week and a half after the funeral, before she decided she needed space from everyone and everything and went out into the world on her own. She was already planning to leave home before the accident, so she already had everything she planned to take with her packed and ready to go. I’ve kept an eye on her where I could, and she sends me an email or text every few months to let me know how she’s doing.”
Joseph sighs as he looks toward the doorway to the lobby. “She’s too young to have to deal with things like this.”
Barclay’s voice is sad when he responds. “We don’t get to pick all of our battles in life.”
Taking one last sip of his coffee, eyes still locked on the lobby, Joseph says, “Don’t I know it.” Then he rinses his mug in the sink and places it in the dishwasher, shooting Barclay a tired, thankful smile which the man returns as he heads toward his room to get some rest.
A couple days after he’d found Aubrey on the porch, Joseph starts finding notes from the girl. He finds them slipped under the door, in his car, and even a few in his suit jacket’s pockets.
He thinks he should be worried about how she’s managing to slip him the notes without anyone else noticing, sometimes not even noticing them himself, even when they’re in his jacket, but, well. He can’t find it in himself to care when it means she’s talking to him again, though his worries about what she’s been getting up to do spike again when he hears a member of the Hornets say she threatened to kill him, but it doesn’t come up again after that so he tries to forget about that particular conversation. He thinks Ned Chicane may have noticed the notes once or twice, but the man never says anything about it, staring after Aubrey with a slightly troubled look every so often when he thinks no one else is looking at him.
All of the notes are written in code, from way back when he’d first gotten to college and had taken several linguistics classes, interested in how they worked and where they were similar and different. Aubrey had still been a kid, barely ten when they first started devising the language, but had thrilled at having a secret to share with her older brother. (Joseph had smiled so hard the day that she first accidentally called him that instead of uncle.)
So Joseph starts leaving notes for her to find, too. He tucks them under her playing cards when she (clearly trying to distract him from something else happening at the lodge) shows him card tricks, slips them into the pockets of the vest she likes to leave lying around in random places, and sneaks them under the flower pot on the patio of her first floor room. Most of the rooms have some kind of outdoor space, his is on the second floor and has a small balcony. The notes don’t really say much, but it’s a relief and a comfort to be able to interact with her, and to see her getting better again after that day that had shaken her so badly.
And then Ned’s on tv.
Joseph’s hurt that Aubrey didn’t tell him, didn’t trust him to listen to her, and the guilty looks she shoots him when she arrives at the archway immediately melt into a small, panicked shake of her head when she sees his own face morph into fear and surprise when he catches sight of her leg. Even after all of this, she’s still trying to shut him out. He swallows hard, looks away, and tunes back into the conversation he had been having with a few of the people from the Sheriff’s station. He wants to go to her, but unless she keels over, he’ll give her the space she so desperately wants.
And then she comes over to him.
“Aubrey, um. It’s- it’s good to see you. Are you doing okay?” He asks worriedly. She squares her shoulders and he can already see the fight she’s gearing herself up for.
“You know what? No. I’m just gonna go ahead and say no to that one,” Aubrey tells him, turning to the Sheriff as she continues, “because I would argue, Sheriff, if I may, no disrespect. There is a third option that you’re not considering, which is that we are the alien world who is about to attack them.”
Stern’s mind begins to race, because he’d always believed in the myths and stories, and at least some of the creatures of legend had to have possessed human-level intelligence. Learning about another world was a bit of a shock, but he’d been able to accept it easily enough. He wants to believe her, it does make sense, people are bad and people are good, but. He knows her. He knows things are more complicated than they seem. He also knows that she shut him out for months when he could have helped, could have done something, and now everything has gone to hell.
“Aubrey, I… am this close to finding out what’s happening here in Kepler, and it is my job. It is my sworn duty to keep our country safe.” He tries to be gentle as he says it, but he can see the defiance in her eyes. “And if this is where I need to be to stop that, then I… I’m afraid I just can’t agree with you. Sorry, give me a second.” Some of the Hornets have started shouting, and with tensions running high as they are, they don’t need anyone here getting beat up.
He’s still trying to settle the Hornets, keeping an eye on his niece from the corner of his eye when she takes off sprinting. His head snaps up to watch her, and even as terror grips his heart when the gate lights up and she disappears, he can’t help the twitch of his lips at her rude gesture back at the crowd. There’s the niece he knows and loves, despite everything.
Not long later, Ned Chicane himself shows up, and while Joseph doesn’t really know what to think about the man between everything happening and his niece’s clear care about him, he’s grateful that his bullshit announcement gets Hollis to send away some of the gang, effectively settling them. No one does much of anything other than talking for a few minutes, and the uneasiness of it all causes dread to curl in his gut.
And then a white sarcophagus just appears , and everyone is on their guard. He and the Sheriff both move forward to investigate, and Ned pulls out the craziest, most colorful toy gun he’s ever seen and points it at the sarcophagus. “If you don’t mind… would you leave? Just go somewhere that is not here, so that I don’t have to shoot you with this gun that I keep shooting people with even though I’m pretty much a pacifist, but not lately?”
Most of the town’s residents back away at the threatening way Ned waves the gun, and the somewhat desperate and done tone in his voice. Something tells Stern that it’s more than a toy. He’s also not even sure where the man was keeping the thing. Dear lord, just what was Ned Chicane getting his niece into?
“Now, Ned, I don’t know what that crazy contraption is, but um, you need to just take it easy, alright? We don’t know what this thing-”
“Nope.” Joseph keeps one eye on Ned and the Sheriff trying to get him to put the thing away, and one eye on the sarcophagus. He doesn’t know what it is and doesn’t want to give it a single distracted moment to do anything. “Well, I don’t think it knows either, so how about not, y’know, ruining my move here, okay big guy?
“Listen. Everybody just do me a favor. Back off, because when I shoot this thing…” Ned raises his voice as he continues, looking back at the sarcophagus. “And I will shoot you! I’m not exactly sure what’s going to happen, but you all need to back off just in case there’s some kind of unpleasantness that occurs when I shoot it. And I will shoot it!”
Stern’s hand goes to his hip warily as everyone else backs even further away from Ned and the sarcophagus. Sheriff Owens doesn’t move forward, but he doesn’t move back, either. “Ned, I’m gonna have to ask you to lower that thing, alright? I don’t want anybody getting hurt, and I don’t know what kind of wild gun that is, so I need you to-”
“What do you think this giant, threatening, white sarcophagus - do you think it’s a good guy?” Ned demands, grip on the gun unwavering even as his voice fluctuates. “This is one of the bad guys. This was in the place where I got zapped over to. This is in league with the shape shifter thing. This is in league with the thing that’s been opening rifts all over town and been attacking people and killing people. This is not some goodwill ambassador! Put your fucking gun away!”
A look of shock passes over the sheriff’s face, and a pall of terror sets over the crowd. Stern is rooted in place, hand frozen in worried anticipation over his own handgun, mind whirling. There’s already been a lot of new information today, but this, this is dire news in a dire situation, and-
It all happens in a blur.
The sarcophagus flashes and disintegrates, and Stern barely has his gun halfway up and pointed at it before a shot rings out and everything stops. There is a single second where no one does anything, time seeming to stop before resuming once more, going even faster. Barclay pulls the feral woman who’d been inside the sarcophagus off of Ned, who thrashes and struggles in his grip, dragging her away from the clearing and back towards the lodge. Stern barely has a second to think isn’t that Aubrey’s girlfriend? before one of the Hornets faints and Madeleine Cobb starts gesturing frantically to Sheriff Owens, who runs for help.
Having been fairly close after moving to inspect the sarcophagus, Joseph drops to his knees, tearing off his suit jacket as he goes. He says nothing to Madeleine as she drops down across from him, pressing the fabric to the hole in the man’s steadily darkening shirt. He remains silent as she speaks to Ned, then starts yelling, focusing only on staunching the blood.
But there’s nothing he can do. Ned is losing blood too quickly, and there is a steadily growing pool of red underneath him from where the bullet exited his body.
When Aubrey comes back through the gate, Joseph doesn’t even notice. He doesn’t realize she’s back until she’s knelt on the ground across from him beside Mama, and pushes his hands back to place her own over Ned’s chest. He barely registers that her hands are glowing as nothing happens and Madeleine sets a hand on her shoulder as she begins to break down. Joseph closes the man’s eyes.
“No, it’s not - this is - we won, right? Like, we stopped it, because - this can’t - Ned can’t be dead, Mama, because I- I-” She chokes over the words as they come out. “Mama, I told him to leave. I was…”
“No.” A few of Kepler’s residents have gone by now, fleeing, terrified, but those in earshot look up at the agent as he stands with a soft growl. “This isn’t anyone here’s fault. People were scared, and it was an accident. You didn’t cause this, Aubrey.”
She looks absolutely shattered, but before anyone can say anything else, an unnaturally cool breeze snakes through the trees and into the clearing.
The last Joseph sees of his niece is her back as runs supernaturally fast toward the ruined mountain, leaving the rest that try to follow far behind.
If he’s being honest, though, he’s not trying to find her very hard.
She may not have let him in on any of this, but he trusts her to do what’s right and do what needs to be done to protect people.
Over the following weeks and then months, Joseph manages to leave a few coded messages for his niece. He tucks them under the furthest bottle back of her favorite juice at Leo’s General Store when he volunteers for errand duties for the compound, under the flavor nobody in their right mind actually likes, slips a few into the little free library outside city hall. He can’t get much information to her, just enough to tell her that he can’t risk text or email in case they monitor his communications, but he thinks they still have Mama held somewhere at the compound. He’s not sure, as he’s frustratingly being kept out of the loop on that end, but he’s doing what he can to mitigate the damage to the town, its residents, and the forest.
Aubrey leaves him her own notes, which he reads and leaves near where he found them. No point bringing a secret code into the FBI compound and raising suspicions if anyone were to catch sight of it. She pastes them to the corners of storefront windows on the main drag, slides them under his windshield wipers when he makes his way into town. She doesn’t tell him anything, in an effort to protect the people his department is looking for, but assures him she’s safe and everyone is relatively okay.
He really should have expected this, sooner or later. Wishes he could have had some kind of advance warning, even though he knows that it was too much of a risk to have let him know before. As it is, he just sighs as he stares at the group through the window into the decontamination chamber.
“I… figured. I figured it was you. What are you doing here?” Stern asks.
“Uh, saving the world. Open the goddamn door.” Aubrey says.
He loves his niece, he does, but things are so wildly out of control and he doesn’t know what to do anymore. The gate hasn’t done anything since that night, and he can’t think of what reason they need to get through right now. “Anybody else want to try and take a different tact with that?”
“Um, I mean, we’re… we are here, um, to save the world. That’s accurate.” Duck Newton says. “And opening the door would be… hellaciously rad of you. Uh, but that’s just kind of a nice way of saying what Aubrey just said. Uh, listen- we need Mama, and we need your help. We- we’ve got like, a razor thin chance of keeping earth on the rails, here, and if you could do us a solid here, just get on board, it would be… you always seemed pretty cool. Uh, it’d be real helpful.”
Aubrey cuts back in. “Yeah, uh… to extend what I was saying earlier, uh… the world is about to be invaded by a force that was killing the world it was in. And if we don’t stop it, it will kill this earth. And we’re the only ones who can stop it, and we need to go through the gate, and we need Mama to do that, and we need you to make sure everyone’s kind of guarding this side of the gate, or…” She starts counting on her fingers. “Let me check my calculations… tick tick tick tick tick… everyone’s gonna die. ”
Aubrey’s upset and he gets it, he would be, too, in her position. He no longer knows if he’s trying to stop them because it's his job or because he doesn’t want to see any of them get hurt. But he’s frustrated enough himself, as is. With the lies, with Aubrey keeping things from him, with Barclay apparently being in on it, with the FBI and with Hanes keeping him out of the loop, too. “You all have known about this stuff for… the whole year I’ve been here with you. You’ve known about all this, right?”
Guilt crosses Aubrey’s face. “Yyes.” Duck answers the same.
“And you kept it… from me… why? I could’ve helped. I could’ve done something.” Stern says. “We could’ve stop- we could have stopped Ned, the mountain, everything.”
“Hey, bud?” Duck asks. “Like, nothin’ personal, right? But look around you. This is the reality where the government knows what’s going on. Right? Like, you have proven, withholding information from you was the one hundred percent right path. ‘Cause this is the reality we were trying to avoid.”
Aubrey’s voice is angry as she speaks next. “Mama has been, let’s be honest, kidnapped by y’all. And our friends have been put in danger, because you have locked them away from their home, Amnesty Lodge. And you have basically locked down the entire town, and put the inhabitants at risk, and turned this into a literal federal case.”
Joseph is caught off guard at that, for a moment, but he can feel his own temper rising. He pushes it back down, now is not the time to be angry. Aubrey can be stubborn and defiant, but so can he. They’ve both got the Stern stubborn streak, the same one made the rest of the family pull away from his sister when she eschewed their traditions and expectations, and Joseph, while introverted and usually unobtrusive in everything, has never been one to back down.
“I suspected you all knew more than you were letting on. And, because I got to know you, I assumed that you weren’t using that information for… any ill intent.” He looks at Aubrey. “I just… I just wish you’d told me. That’s all.”
Stern sighs when he sees the look on her face. Even with their shared stubborn streak, he’s never been able to say no to her. There’s a reason they get along so well. They care about the same kinds of things, share the same morals and refusal to back down from doing what’s right. “I apologize. I know that- I know that apparently, we’re under time constraints. It’s just- this has been my entire life for years, and there’s- I feel like there’s still so much that I do not know.” He looks over to Barclay, who stands nervously at the back of the group. He’d thought there might have been something beginning between them, but now… “And, I mean, Barclay, I didn’t expect this from- from you.”
Barclay glances worriedly at each of the others, before looking back at Stern. His hand fiddles nervously with the hempen bracelet he always wears. “Ah, what the fuck.”
Joseph’s hands fly to his mouth as he steps back. Barclay is no longer standing behind the group, no, instead, Bigfoot looms behind them. “What? Really? What? What? This whole- what?”
Manic glee crosses Aubrey's face, and he knows that when this is all over, she’s going to tease the hell out of him. “That’s right! Your best friend has been Bigfoot the whole time.”
It takes him a moment to gather himself, but when he does, Stern turns off the communication and lets them through. “You better hurry,” he says, gesturing toward the large metal door. He looks at Aubrey’s friends. “Um, I’m probably not gonna be an agent after they find out what I just did, so, um… I’m just Joseph now.” He laughs nervously.
“Alright, Joseph, listen.” Aubrey says. “We’re gonna go through the gate. On this side, you have to get your people ready, because shit will come through. Shit is going to happen. And they are going to need a voice of reason. They are going to- because what we don’t want is panic, or wildfire, or anything like that. We want everybody to stay, you know, head on a swivel, have some idea of what’s going on. And you’re gonna be that voice of reason, alright? You’re going to be the one who, y’know, if it breaks bad, get people out of here. But like, hold the line as long as you can. Do you understand?”
He’s nervous but he trusts his niece and she’s not asking him to do much more than he would have on his own. They don’t have long before whatever it is happens, so he asks them to let him try to do the talking when they go through, see if he can talk down his colleagues.
Of course it has to be Agent Hanes on the other side of that door. He’s got a rifle pointed at them, Madeleine Cobb bound in a chair in front of him, and he’s between them and the gate. Still, he has to try. “Agent Hanes, we need to let these people through.”
Hanes responds about as well as he thought he would, and the rifle never wavers. Aubrey’s got more tricks up her sleeve than he realized though, and soon his superior is incapacitated by their group. He goes over to retrieve the man’s rifle and looks back up just in time to nearly have a heart attack when he sees Barclay lift one of the crates stacked near the gate.
“Hey- oh god, careful! Careful! Oh my god.”
They get a barrier set up, though how well it’ll actually work remains to be seen, considering it’s made of empty crates. Better that than a wall of explosives, though. And, he’ll admit, it does make him feel just a tiny bit safer when red mist pours out of the gate. He can hear the others yelling, but it's like he’s underwater, and he can’t make out the words. He keeps the rifle raised as if that’ll help when he can’t see anything.
The mist clears quickly enough, and Joseph sees the remains of what appears to be a melting giant centipede. “Didja- did you all- you all took care of it, then? You all-“
“Yep. It’s dead.” Aubrey says. “It’s dead. Put the gun down, Joseph. Gun down, please.” He doesn’t know how she’s as calm as she is about this. Sure, he’s always believed in myths and legends about cryptids, but those are mainly singular entities. Not giant, evil red bugs that came from an alien world to kill him. God, what the hell has life become?
Stern makes a snap decision he hopes he won’t come to regret later. He wishes desperately that there was something he could do to protect his niece and her friends, but he knows when he’s out of his depth. He retrieves one of the cases from the filled crates, and brings it to Aubrey. He tries to make light of the situation with a joke, but inside, he’s terrified of what it could mean if they have to use the explosive while they’re on the other side. She hands it off to Duck, to be careful, and then they go through.
He wonders if this will turn out to be the last time he’ll ever see her.
Joseph, Barclay, and Mama fight hard on the Kepler side of the gate. There’s no time to talk or to coordinate before more red mist pours through the gate and creatures start coming out of it. It’s not all encompassing this time, and he can actually see what’s he doing, so Stern uses the rifle until it runs out of ammo, and then he wields it like a club, snapping the tusk of a red skinned boar.
A flying creature snatches the rifle from his hands as it swoops down at him, but misses its target when it tries to clobber him over the head with it as Barclay slams into its side, throwing it out of the sky. He shouts his thanks as he dives to the side to avoid the charging boar, and snatches a discarded baseball bat one of Kepler’s citizens must have left behind earlier off the forest floor.
When the red mist finally clears, they’re all a little bruised and battered, but overall okay. Mama’s got a little bit of a hobble going on, and there’s some red matting Barclay’s fur that could either be blood or evil red creature goo, Joseph doesn’t really want to contemplate it, and he’s sporting a good few bruises and small cuts, himself.
He blinks to clear his eyes as he looks around, and finds himself standing near the gate. The moon is shining overhead at this point, and light ripples across the surface of the gate. Mama walks over to him and shoves a bit of what looks like wool into the inner pocket of his suit jacket, then nudges him toward the gate. “We don’t know what it’s going to look like on the other side. Keep your guard up.” She tells him. Across the clearing, he can see Aubrey’s girlfriend, looking much better off than the last time he saw her, and a tall, bald woman covered in striking tattoos arrive and make their way toward the gate.
Joseph nods and steps through the gate, baseball bat held up and at the ready.
“Hear me, voices of evil! Your- oh.” Joseph cuts himself off as he takes in the world on the other side of the gate. All around, people are picking themselves up off the ground, checking each other over for injuries, and beginning to recuperate. “Oh, is it done?”
“Yeah.” Aubrey deadpans, amusement clear on her face. Joseph begins to step in his niece’s direction.
“Oh, y’all were gone for a while. I thought maybe we could come- we should come help.” He says.
“Do you have a KIND bar?” Aubrey asks. And she looks - not great, beat up and exhausted and a little bloody - but breathing, alive, okay.
Mama laughs as she steps away from the gate after him. “Yeah, I think you… You missed your hero window there, bud.”
There’s an even more amused look on Aubrey’s face as Joseph goes a little red, but he’s just glad everyone seems to be okay. His niece gives him a small, relieved grin, and then it stretches into a bright, blinding smile as Dani spots the girl and runs at her for a tackled hug. Joseph’s own smile turns softer at the sight, and he hangs back beside Barclay as he looks around to take in everything.
When the very tall, very buff woman starts charging through the crowd, Duck hot on her heels, Joseph runs after them with the others. They get to the gate and he tries to stutter out a worried warning, but there’s no time to try to make any other kind of plan. Aubrey’s hands catch fire.
And the world goes white.
Joseph’s not out for long, fortunately. Maybe a minute has passed by the time he wakes, and when he comes to, Barclay’s carefully carrying him further from the gate and the debris surrounding it. They stop at the doors to the palace, and the other man helps him sit up against the wall beside Dani as he takes stock of the situation. The gate is gone, bits of stone rubble smoking in its place. But it’s not the only thing that’s disappeared.
His niece is nowhere to be seen. Looking around, Joseph can’t spot Duck, or Madeleine, Thacker, or the tall, buff woman or the goat man, either. He begins to panic, but Barclay distracts him, lifting a bit of wet cloth to his forehead. He hisses as it gently touches a cut he hadn’t even realized was there, and starts to calm as Barclay bandages his head and then a deeper cut on one of his arms. He returns the favor by helping patch his friend up, but Barclay has fewer injuries needing attention.
Not really knowing anyone around them other than Dani, and not much at that, Joseph lets Barclay take the lead in speaking to a few of the people around them to try to figure out what had happened to the others and what they should do now. When Barclay sits down next to him with naught for answers, there is nothing else left to do but wait. And hope.
They’re given a single chance to decide whether to remain in Sylvain or return to earth. For Joseph, it’s not even a question, but his heart clenches when he sees the way that Barclay hesitates.
Relief floods his veins when his friend chooses the home he’s built for himself over the past years. Madeleine comes back with them, and a handful of the lodge’s residents give tearful goodbyes before taking the opportunity to return home to Sylvain.
Aubrey chooses Sylvain. Some part of Joseph knew his niece was going to end up there, and he wishes she’d stay, but he knows that she’s her own person and that she’s all grown up, now, and can make her own decisions. She’ll always be family, always be his little sister, his niece, but she’s found a place she truly belongs. And it isn’t on earth.
The only one not completely surprised when Aubrey pulls Stern into a bear hug, tears in her eyes, is Barclay, who had seen him comfort her that night, all those months ago. As she pulls away and picks up her bags, she sets a hand on his arm. “Give ‘em hell for me, okay?” He laughs.
“I thought the fighting was all over now.” He responds.
Aubrey shrugs. “The FBI could still use a kick in the ass or two, and you know our family could use several. Someone has to do it if I’m not there to get it done.”
“I’ll keep them on their toes.” He tells her.
“You better.” Aubrey smiles at him one last time before turning to Dani, the girl’s own bags slung over her shoulder.
As the last of the people returning to Sylvain step through the rift, Barclay slides his hand into Stern’s, fingers intertwining, and the last remaining portal to the other world closes.
Agent Stern takes over the now decommissioned compound on Cliffside, and as the seasons pass, the facility gets smaller and smaller, until only a skeleton crew remains to keep an eye on the dormant archway in the woods. Joseph knows it’s wasted effort. That archway will never activate again.
Amnesty Lodge reopens for business, and Joseph Stern becomes one of its permanent residents. He spends his days monitoring the defunct archway, going over research and case notes for colleagues, and becoming more of an active member of Kepler’s community. Slow going on the last front, though, as he never was as extroverted as Aubrey, but he gets along pretty well with the other residents, after everything. Occasionally, Sheriff Owens will call him in for some advice or an extra pair of hands for something, and that’s enough for him.
Barclay invites Joseph to the reunion when it’s set up, but he politely declines. He instead spends the evening reading in the cozy lobby of Amnesty Lodge, heading up to his and Barclay’s room when he grows tired. He doesn’t want to intrude on the event, not when he hadn’t really known Ned at all, and he’ll have time to see his niece tomorrow.
After all, they have all the time in the world now.