"Roger, do you think it's possible for anyone to be too happy?"
"If it is love, then I'm in big trouble.."
Tara lay in the guest room bed unable to think of anything else but those words spoken just two days ago. Just two days before when her whole world was absolutely perfect, when she was so happy she thought she'd burst from it. Her much wanted, much anticipated baby was alive, well, and beautiful. Her handsome, sweet, loving husband over joyed at being a father. Her friends and former co-workers, calling every few minutes to offer congratulations to the new parents. And herself, so happy, so relieved that everything was well with the baby, the thought of endless years of continued happiness stretching out before her as she pictured her baby girl growing up and Tara and Roger growing old together, never to be parted until old age took it's inevitable toll.
That was the natural order of things. That's how it was supposed to be. But two days later, this day, this very day, a single bullet to the heart by an unknown murderer, tore her dreams of happiness to shreds. Her beloved husband now lay in a morgue eighteen miles away, never to come back to her, never to tell her again how much he loved her.
She didn't cry. She had already cried for what seemed like hours, unable to stop the tears of pain and grief. She'd still be crying now except Steed had had a doctor come by and sedate her so she could sleep. But she fought off the sedative. She didn't want to sleep. Sleep only meant waking up again to face the truth over again. The sedative left her feeling groggy and strange, as if she were outside her own body looking in at the turmoil around her and in her. She felt nothing this way. Oh if only she could stop feeling forever. But she couldn't. She knew the sedative would wear off eventually and she'd start feeling the pain again.
Elizabeth. Sweet, tiny, beautiful Elizabeth. Not even two weeks old. She would turn two weeks on the day of the funeral if they didn't postpone it because of the murder investigation. Oh God! How was she to explain to her little girl later that her daddy had been murdered before she could even focus her eyes? She would have no memories of him, nothing to think about as she grew older. No one to compare her potential loves with when she started to fall in love. Tara had lost her own mother when she was fourteen years old, but she still had sweet memories to relive when she missed her, pictures of them together, tangible objects she had given her for various reasons. Elizabeth would have none of that, or very little anyway.
Where was Steed? Tara thought she could hear his voice talking low on the phone, but she couldn't be sure. Everyday sounds were nothing more than a light buzzing in her ears right now. She wanted him so desperately to come in to her and say it was all a mistake, that Roger wasn't dead after all, only wounded slightly or even seriously if it meant that he would recover and be all right. Maybe that's what he was talking about on the phone. Maybe someone was telling him just that, that it was a mistake and then Steed would come bounding in, shaking her awake, laughing and apologizing for scaring her. And she would forgive him. She would be understanding and she would be forgiving and then she would ask him to take her to the hospital where she would see Roger laying in a bed, bandaged, bruised, sore, but smiling at her. And she would cry and then go to him and hug him gently and then kiss him as never before and he would tell her it would be all right, that he loved her and had no intention of leaving her before they both grew old.