This is a oneshot story, an immediate continuation of season 3's The Night of the Simian Terror. I wanted to do a character study of the Buckley family, and more particularly of Aaron, and I also wanted to explore the idea that perhaps Caleb was still alive following Dimas's attack. No one found his body before the episode ended, nor was he shown at all following the attack, so I decided to save his life. I would have liked to have saved Benjamin too, but that was one thing I couldn't find possible.
(Although I do have an idea for a missing scenes story where Aaron is struggling with horror and grief during the night following Benjamin's death, and Senator Buckley tries to get Dr. Liebeg to agree to experiment on Benjamin and bring him back to life. Liebeg refuses, especially in light of the lifelong experiment with Dimas that ended up resulting in Benjamin's death.)
Jim and Arte are in this story, but the focus is mainly on the Buckleys. One of the most fun and interesting tasks was developing all of them, using what the episode showed us.
Senator Buckey is a complex, tragic figure, a mixture of political ambition and honest love for his children. While he did not see how he could raise a "different" son, I believe he never would have given Dimas to Dr. Liebeg if he did not truly believe Dimas could be helped.
One thing that was never addressed in the episode is what happened to Mrs. Buckley, so for my story I had it be that she died giving birth to the quadruplets, and that her death was also a factor in Senator Buckley's decision. Raising Dimas without her was a challenge more overwhelming than he felt he could face.
Senator Buckley usually comes across fairly mild, but judging from his violent attack on Arte, he can be dangerous. In the story, after learning that Caleb is still alive but near-death, he snaps and screams at Aaron for keeping the news from him and accuses Aaron of not caring about Dimas. Later, he breaks down in grief. He's mostly upset with himself, not Aaron, and blames himself for the family's downfall.
Aaron is the protector of the group. Although the boys are all the same age, in the episode Aaron definitely seems like the oldest, and certainly the leader. Everything he did in the episode was to protect the family, and in the story, when he's faced with telling their father that Caleb is alive but dying, he determines to keep that secret too. After all, Senator Buckley is already shattered from both Benjamin and Dimas being dead, and he believes Caleb is already dead, too. Aaron cannot bear to reveal the truth and then have their father experience a complete mental breakdown if Caleb also dies. Underneath everything, Aaron is afraid: afraid of failure, afraid of losing what's left of their family, afraid of it being his fault.
Caleb was the most difficult to get a handle on. While both Aaron and Benjamin have clearly developed personalities, Caleb does not seem to. Perhaps he is the quiet one, willing to allow Aaron to command the majority of their decisions and simply follow. In the story, I had him crack a joke near the end, as I was trying to figure out his character. In retrospect, it would probably be Benjamin who would be more likely to joke.
(After watching the episode again, however, I determined that no, I was right the first time: Caleb would be more likely to joke. Benjamin is much too serious to joke.)
Benjamin is the fearless one, the impulsive, brash, and reckless one. He clearly acts as though he's the youngest of the family. Always wanting to prove himself, he insists he isn't afraid of Dimas, and finally Aaron caves and requests that Benjamin destroy the family records in the church, when they decide that someone needs to go out and do so. That decision, directly leading to Benjamin's death, haunts both Aaron and Caleb afterwards.
In the story, Benjamin appears to Caleb along with their mother, and says he's going to apply for a permanent position as the family's guardian angel. It's a bittersweet moment, and the best I could come up with for Benjamin's fate. Perhaps I'll write a future story where he visits with Aaron and Caleb as their guardian angel.
Dimas, as Arte says in the story, was raised with an animal and chose to behave like one when he was denied his inheritance. Arte argues, what could he have really known of right and wrong, in his twisted existence? Dimas's ultimate fate is unknown, but their mother tells Caleb not to worry about him. Senator Buckley chooses to decipher this as meaning that there will be hope for Dimas one day, in spite of the deaths he caused.
And then we come to Naomi, Senator Buckley's ward and adopted daughter. One of the biggest puzzles of the story was how to portray her relationship with the brothers. In the episode, all we have to go on is from her point-of-view. She gives a mostly negative picture of her role in the household, saying that a ward doesn't have much status and she is excluded from the family council on Dimas because of that. But is the situation truly that cut-and-dry? I'm not so sure.
The boys are "clannish", as Arte puts it, and Naomi remarks that it's not unusual, since they're triplets. We don't know when Naomi joined them, but they were likely close-knit almost from birth. And perhaps not always really meaning to, they excluded Naomi because she wasn't "one of the boys".
But that doesn't mean they don't love her, or she them. There's episodic evidence that hints at some deeper relationship than Naomi initially implies. Notice how protectively Senator Buckley holds Naomi during the climax. He very likely thinks of her as his daughter, in spite of her "ward" status.
And Naomi is absolutely devastated over Benjamin's death. She's so distraught she can't even attend the funeral and has to go sit in the church with a young friend. Later, after Dimas has announced that he's going to kill all the Buckleys, Naomi becomes completely hysterical, screaming that Jim has to stop him! He has to stop him! Would she really have such strong reactions if there wasn't any love between her and the boys?
Perhaps the real reasons she was excluded from the family council is because, not being a blood Buckley, she simply wasn't in the same danger from Dimas. And perhaps the boys know she dissolves into hysteria if any of them are hurt, and did not want to expose her to discussing the Dimas situation and how they could all end up dead.
One could argue that the brothers didn't go looking for her when she went missing following the funeral. However, Arte knew Jim had gone after her, and he probably told the whole family that it was likely a trap and they should stay at home and let Jim handle things. And who knows, when Aaron organized the townspeople into a beast hunt, perhaps he was fed up with waiting and was either hoping they would find Naomi along the way or fearing she was already dead.
In the story, I explore these ideas to some extent and she and Aaron interact at length. She and Aaron seem fairly close, and she is devastated while speaking with Caleb, who is at death's door. Naomi is overjoyed along with everyone else when Caleb is going to recover. She's an important part of the family too, and will continue to be so.