# Chapter 9: Greenbow Alabama
The void dropped them on a dirt road.
Tim landed on his feet this time. Alex beside him, steady, neither of them stumbling. Twenty four years of being alive in various forms had apparently improved their landing reflexes.
It was summer. Hot and thick and green in the particular way of Alabama summers, the air sitting heavy on everything, cicadas loud in the trees lining the road. A farmhouse visible in the distance. Dirt under their feet and the smell of cut grass and something frying somewhere.
Tim looked around.
Alex was already looking at the farmhouse.
"We're here" she said.
"Yeah."
"Greenbow."
"Yeah."
She was quiet for a moment. Tim watched her process it the way she processed everything — still, methodical, running through what she knew.
"Jenny" she said.
"We have time" Tim said. "We're kids. Whatever happens to her happens over years."
"I know." Her jaw was set. "Doesn't mean I'm waiting around."
Tim looked at her for a moment. Then nodded.
"Okay" he said. "We find Forrest first. Jenny comes through Forrest."
---
They found Forrest Gump sitting on his front porch trying to teach himself to tie his shoes.
He was maybe six years old. Slight. Focused on those laces with the complete absorption of a person for whom one thing at a time was the only way the world made sense. He looked up when Tim and Alex came up the porch steps and regarded them with those clear uncomplicated eyes.
"I'm Forrest" he said. "Forrest Gump."
"Tim" Tim said. "This is Alex."
Forrest looked at them both seriously.
"You new?"
"Just moved in" Tim said. Which was approximately true in the sense that they had just arrived from a void via a cosmic cat but the specifics seemed unnecessary.
Forrest nodded and looked back at his shoes.
"I been trying to tie these for an hour" he said.
Tim sat down on the porch step beside him.
"Here" he said. "Loop it like this."
Forrest watched his hands with complete attention.
Alex stood at the porch rail looking down the road toward the neighboring property. Tim didn't need to ask what she was looking at.
---
Jenny Curran lived three fields over.
They met her two days later on the road between the properties, coming back from wherever she'd been with bare feet and her hair loose and eyes that were already carrying more than a six year old's eyes should carry.
She stopped when she saw them.
Alex crouched down to her level immediately.
Tim watched Alex look at Jenny with those eyes that had spent twenty four years seeing everything clearly and felt something settle in his chest.
*She's got her* he thought. *Whatever comes Jenny's got her.*
"Hi" Alex said. "I'm Alex. What's your name?"
Jenny looked at her for a long moment with the careful assessment of a child who had learned to read adults quickly.
Whatever she saw in Alex's face made her relax by degrees.
"Jenny" she said quietly.
Alex smiled.
"You want to walk with us Jenny?"
Jenny looked at Tim. Tim gave her the same steady look he'd given dinosaurs for seventeen years — *I see you and you are not in danger.*
Jenny fell into step beside them.
Forrest came running up from behind a moment later, shoelaces finally tied, and inserted himself into the group with the complete naturalness of a person who had never once questioned whether he belonged somewhere.
"Hey Jenny" he said.
"Hey Forrest" Jenny said.
And that was that.
---
Mrs. Gump took them in without much discussion.
Tim had expected more questions. Where did you come from. Where are your parents. What's your situation. But Mrs. Gump had the particular quality of certain Southern women who assessed a situation quickly and acted on what they found rather than the paperwork around it.
She looked at Tim and Alex on her porch that evening.
Looked at Forrest standing beside them.
Looked at the way Forrest was already standing slightly closer to Tim than he stood to most people.
"You eaten?" she said.
"No ma'am" Tim said.
"Then come inside."
That was the extent of the conversation.
---
The first time Tim's bone claws came out was an accident.
Three weeks in. He was helping Mrs. Gump with something in the yard when he caught his hand on a fence nail and reacted before he thought about it — the claws sliding out with a sound like a knife being drawn, three on each hand, bone white and sharp.
He retracted them immediately.
Looked around.
Forrest was staring at him from across the yard with those clear eyes.
Tim held his gaze.
"Don't tell anyone" Tim said.
Forrest thought about it with the seriousness he applied to everything.
"Okay" he said.
And that was the end of it.
Forrest Gump was, Tim was discovering, one of the most trustworthy people he had ever met in any world.
*TBC*