"Do you know which sea animals are clever enough to serve as scouts or messengers? Do you have a way to persuade them to do so?"

"Dolphins are pretty smart. Octopuses, too, but they're less mobile. Most fish are pretty dumb. And, uh, not really," he admits. "All I can do is talk to them; I can't make them do anything they don't want."

"Well, we can pay them if we need to. I'll recommend you be transferred to the Marines, and since you don't remember Phase 1 Training you should re-do it with the unit you're transferred into."

...well, he doesn't actually have a pressing reason not to do that.

"Yes, sir. But...could I have some leave time in between? I—my foster father died, in my world, and..." He trails off, not wanting to talk about his feelings with a superior officer he's only just met. 

"As a new warped, you are entitled to four weeks without duties in order to adjust, but you are also to be kept under observation in case you are concealing dangerous traits. A relatively small number of warped have started hunting and eating people after initially seeming normal. You may spend the four weeks in Cardiff and it will be possible for your family to visit you there or for you to visit your family under escort."

"Eating people?!" Arthur repeats, wide-eyed.

"Yes," he says after a moment, "I can see why you'd want to be careful. And, yeah, I'd—like to see my dad. That sounds good."

The rest of Peterson's unit, who Arthur doesn't know but who seem to know him, see him off.

He probably won't get a chance to get to know them better, since he's being transferred after his four-week leave. Oh well.

Off to...Cardiff? A place he's never actually been, according to his memories, but Peterson apparently has. It's less than an hour's drive from the town of Caerleon, where Derek Peterson and his daughter Casey live. The army would probably have fits if he wanted to spend any of the four weeks actually staying in Caerleon, wouldn't they? 

He can't have an escort for a whole week. He can have one for up to three days.

Three days is probably longer than the Petersons want to host the person who's possessed their real relative. 

He should probably call ahead to check whether they want to see him at all. Their number is in Peterson's records; he calls it from the base in Cardiff. 

"Peterson residence. Hello?" To someone who spent nearly eighteen years living with Thomas Curry, Derek's voice is almost as familiar as his face. Only the Welsh accent stops it being identical.

"...Hello? Someone there?" 

Holy hell he thought he was ready for this but he really wasn't. 

"Uh...hi," he begins awkwardly, hyperconscious of his American accent now it's been brought into contrast by Derek's. "I'm...Arthur. Arthur Curry." He stumbles through an explanation of the circumstances, both grateful for and terrified by Tom's habit—and, apparently, Derek's—of saying as little as possible and giving people space to dig their own graves. 

"...and I have four weeks of leave before my next posting, so I thought, uh, we could maybe spend some time together? I can get an escort to come to Caerleon for three days, or you can come to the base, I think. I, uh. Apparently the escort is because Warped sometimes. Eat people." 

"You planning on eating us, boyo?" 

"Well, no, I guess..."

Damn it, his dad always does—did—does this. Took one small piece of your argument and turned it into the butt of a joke, then used it to wave away the rest like so much cigarette smoke. 

"Well then," Derek says, as though that settles the whole thing. "Now, how soon can you get here, and how long are you gonna be staying?" 

...yup. Every time.

They hash out the details. Arthur gets an escort for his maximum three days, and Derek insists that they'll be staying with the Petersons. 

He gets through all the preparations, all the bureaucracy which seems to be universal. Gets through the journey itself, staring out of the window at a stream of unfamiliar landmarks. He doesn't falter for an instant until he's on the steps of a house he's never seen before, about to ring the doorbell. 

An upstairs window opens, and a young woman with red hair leans out. 

"You're not going to stand there all day, are you, little brother?" she calls down. 

"I'm not exactly the little brother you remember," he responds. "But I guess I'd better come in anyway." 

He rings the bell. 

Arthur spends three days with the Petersons, learning the subtle ways Derek differs from Tom and getting to know Casey for the first time. He's never had a sister before, and it's a new experience. At the same time, the two of them are learning, or relearning, how to relate to the not-quite-stranger who's replaced their son and brother. They don't seem to resent him for taking their Arthur away from them. If anything, Derek seems to be grateful. 

"We didn't part on the best of terms, my Arthur and I," he explains at some point. "Off he went to army training, and I thought that might be the last we'd ever see of him. But then you came along, and perhaps you're not quite my Arthur, and I'm not quite your da, but we're close enough for government work, isn't that the saying?" 

Arthur laughs. 

When he leaves to go back to Cardiff at the end of the three days, he carries the memory of that moment with him.