More condolences. More pitiful looks, more apologies and anecdotes and stories of his parents. They talked about his younger brother a lot, too. Enough that, if Laurence had been able to feel, he might have been jealous.

Always the favorite son. They loved him when he was there, when he was gone. He had lost all chances of ever hearing that they were proud of him. Of ever feeling like he'd been wanted, or loved.

He'd tried so hard.

He recalled that the inheritance left him everything, and perhaps, for a second, he felt that spike of jealousy.

He was sitting at a table, stirring his fourth cup of coffee. His eyes were heavy lidded but he was awake enough that when the thought first popped into his head, he imagined it with such startling clarity that he felt oddly motivated.

If that was his younger brother, the traitor turned White Moon, who would be the favorite then, if he took him into the Negaverse? If he called his General, paraded around his prize. What praise would be given to him then, to recover his fallen kin?

For a time, he daydreamed about how he would be praised--to turn in his brother, to prove his loyalty to the Negaverse. Would he be rewarded with his own lieutenants? Would he be granted power, acceptance?

...Love?

For a time, he imagined it, but the illusion was always short lived. Praised for a day, but then emptiness. His mind lingered on the Negaverse for a while longer and it struck him, couldn't anyone just pretend to be his brother? Approach him and cry that they missed him, wearing a different face, using what information they could scrape up from media reports and his personal file.

He stirred his coffee intently, but he'd already taken care of it.

He hadn't disclosed his favorite pizza to anyone, because he'd never gone there with anyone but his brother.

And, it was the only place he would have ordered a Hawaiian pizza.

If it was an imposter, they would order wrong, and Laurence would have his answer.

Honestly, he should have thought of it before, that the Negaverse would play a trick on him, to see if he knew what happened to his brother. It seemed right up their alley. If he'd fallen for it, they could punish him, reprimand him.

...He'd been keeping secrets from them all this time, though. His loyalty was to his brother, his family. Ah, to Gale.

...He didn't want to leave her, to lose her. But she was so sweet, so honest. He'd have known if she was in the Negaverse, and she was such a kind soul he couldn't imagine that she was in this war at all. Karone would kill him, she'd been courteous but there was something off about her. Something colder, more work oriented.

He figured she was getting agitated that he wasn't meeting the goals. First his brother went missing, then his parents died.

...And he was such an ineffective agent. He still hadn't pulled a starseed.

She was sitting across from him and Gale; he was holding Gale's hand under the table.

He was going to have to make a decision, soon. He had ties in the Negaverse, and ties outside of it.

If this stranger he'd met turned out to be an imposter...

Maybe he'd pull his first starseed.

But if it was his brother?

Maybe he'd never pull one.