CHAPTER 9 - MOTHER KNOWS BEST

One year before River’s birth...2499AD

“Big boys don’t cry Simon...” Reagan soothed as she held her five year old son in her arms, while kneeling on the floor in the very same spot, where she had found him not ten minutes ago, crying like his little heart was breaking.

Ignoring his mother resolutely, Simon sniffed loudly in defiance and wiped his nose on his sleeve, despite his mother’s hurried insistence of pushing a tissue into his hand.

“Don’t do that sweetie...” she scolded even as she pushed his hair off his forehead and kissed it, “It isn’t nice manners...”

“I hate him...”

Reagan grimaced, “You don’t mean that.”

“I do! I hate him!” Simon bounced up angrily in her arms, “He’s mean!”

Reagan shushed him and wondered with disbelief at the way her usually well-behaved son was taking the first harsh word he had ever gotten from his father. The day Reagan told her husband that they were going to have a son, was the finest day of Gabriel Tam’s life. What greater gift could a wife have given, to a husband who wore his noble lineage like a badge of honour, than to present him with a healthy son and heir, to carry on that proud family name?

Gabriel might have been called, at worst, an indulgent father. He simply adored Simon and tended not to deny him anything which was within his power. As a consequence, he allowed his son the greatest freedom in most things, but Simon’s little foray into Gabriel’s office had caused such damage to his source box that Gabriel had lost all patience and shocked Simon (who was by all accounts the most resilient of children) into actual tears.

And now, here Reagan was, cleaning up the messy aftermath of the first father-son battle.

“Your father loves you Simon...” she spoke into his hair, as he clung to her in a way which he had never done so before, “ Now,” she pulled him away from her a little and said with a cajoling grin, “How about we go get an ice planet?”

Simon pressed his hot little cheek agains