What Love Is: Part 1
By Morganperidot
1
John McBain stood at the edge of the roof of his building and looked out at the night sky over the city of Llanview. The sky was clear, devoid of stars and the moon, and the air was chilly. John wasn't the type to contemplate suicide, but in that moment, looking down from that height, the pain of the loss he had suffered tearing him apart, he could understand why other people did.
John sighed and walked back over to where he had set down the 6-pack of beer that was now half empty. He opened another bottle and drank, even though the alcohol wasn't taking any of the edge off his pain. He still felt the same agony he had when he had first learned the terrible secrets that Natalie had kept from him for months while he built castles in the air based on the fake foundation of a family that was nothing but a brittle batch of lies.
Natalie had slept with Brody.
She had a paternity test done.
The baby was Brody's.
She knew it for months.
She was never going to tell him.
When he'd heard it all and understood the implications of all of it, John had been furious. He had said every cruel thing that came into his mind and called the woman he loved, the woman who should have been his wife and the mother of his child, everything from a liar to a whore. And when she had stood there, looking at him with that baby in her arms and tears pouring down her cheeks, and said over and over again that he was the one she loved and he was the father of their baby in every way that mattered, he had said nothing, just turned and walked away.
Now, as the cold night air penetrated his black leather jacket like the dagger of pain that penetrated his heart, John was no longer angry. All he felt was a black hole inside himself that threatened the destruction of his entire being.
2
Natalie Banks had moved back into Llanfair, but she found no real solace with her family. There was no way that they could comfort her, and as much as she loved her son, it hurt every time she looked at him, because John wasn't with them. She knew she had made innumerable mistakes in not telling John the truth, but she had kept hoping that somehow things would work out without exposing a one-time mistake that held no real bearing on the future. No matter what some piece of paper said, John was Liam's father, and he always would be.
"Natalie?"
Natalie turned and looked at her mother. "Sorry, I didn't know you were there," she said. She laid Liam back down in his crib. "What's up?" she asked.
"I thought you might want to talk," Viki said. "I can understand why you would want to keep to yourself after everything that happened, but it might help to discuss some of it."
"I don't think anything will help," Natalie said. She shifted her long red hair and looked back at Liam. "Everything is ruined," she said. "I ruined everything."
"That isn't true," Viki said. "You have a beautiful son, and no matter who that child's biological father is, you will always be his mother. And he will always be the light and love of your life."
Natalie smiled sadly and looked back at Viki. "I know," she said. "But he doesn't have a father because of me. He doesn't have John as his father."
"You don't know what John will…"
"I know John," Natalie said firmly. "He will never forgive this." She shook her head to reinforce her words.
"He loves you, Natalie," Viki said.
"He loved something that doesn't exist," Natalie said, "and he knows that now." She held back the tears that threatened to start flowing again. She had already shed too many. "It's over between us," she said.
"I'm not so sure I believe that," Viki said. "I don't think he'll be able to let you and that baby go so easily."
A tear slipped out, and Natalie wiped it away with her hand. "I wish that were true," she said, walking back over to Liam. "But I'm sure he's already put both of us behind him."
3
When John arrived at the door to his apartment he found one of Viki's daughters waiting there, but it wasn't the one he might have expected. "Jessica?" he said.
"Try again, Lieutenant," the blonde said in a playful tone.
"Tess," John said. Under other circumstances he might have called Viki or Brody about Jessica's alter, but he had no interest in doing that now. "Why are you here?" he asked.
Tess smiled, and John had a moment to take in her un-Jessica-like, low-cut, tight flower-patterned dress. "Why am I out, or why am I at this location?" she asked.
"Why are you standing here?" he asked, not in the mood for games.
Tess held out a bottle of whiskey. "I thought we could have a drink and chat," she said.
"I'm not interested," John said.
"Really?" Tess said. "Do you have something better to do, like work with your fiancée or take care of her baby? I could have told you that Natalie is nothing but a duplicitous little schemer. After all, her lies destroyed my life too, and she killed my love." Tess paused for a moment and then added, "Don't tell me we don't have plenty in common, John. C'mon, have a drink with me."
"If you think you can get back at Natalie for being with Brody by sleeping with me, that isn't going to happen," John said.
Tess laughed, a sharp bark that was without joy. "Don't flatter yourself," she said. "And I couldn't care less what Natalie did with Brody. He's always just been nothing more than a weak substitute for Nash. As far as I'm concerned they've both gotten what they deserve."
Something about Brody losing his family did finally take the edge off of John's own pain. He glanced over at the whiskey bottle. "All right," he said. "But keep your hands to yourself." He opened the door.
"Of course, Lieutenant," Tess said as she followed him inside.
4
Natalie couldn't sleep, so she put a robe over her nightgown, took the baby monitor, and went down to the library to read. When she opened the doors she was surprised – and more than mildly annoyed – to find Brody inside. She turned to go but stopped when he said her name. After a moment of hesitation she turned and went inside, closing the doors behind her. "You shouldn't be here," she said.
"I keep hoping Jessica will come back," Brody said. It was clear he had been drinking, and Natalie couldn't stop herself from remembering that night they had commiserated together and wound up in bed. She kicked herself mentally for the millionth time; not for what happened, because she had thought she and John were done, but because she had never taken one of the many opportunities John had given her to come clean about it. It would have been bad in the beginning, but things might have been reparable if she had told John before she had known she was pregnant or even after, before Liam was born and everything had exploded in her face.
"I'm sorry about what happened between you and Jessica," Natalie said. Her sister's life had imploded as well, blowing apart her family. At a time when she and Jessica should have both been happy, sharing the joy of their children with their husbands, there was nothing but devastation everywhere Natalie looked, including inside of her and surely Jessica as well, wherever she had run off to. "You were good together," she said.
"Like you and John," Brody said. "I'm sorry about that too. If I could change what…"
"But we can't," Natalie said. "We can't change what we did or what happened because of it. I kept hoping and praying that if I just pretended that Liam was John's child for long enough eventually it would just be true. It should have been true; that was all that I wanted."
"I know," Brody said. "And I won't…make any claims to Liam. I know you want to work things out with John."
"There's nothing to work out," Natalie said. "John and I are done. He doesn't want anything to do with me or Liam."
"Give him some time, Natalie," Brody said. "I have to believe there is enough time for Jessica and me to fix what went wrong with us."
"There may be," Natalie said. "But it doesn't matter if I wait until the end of time; there's no future for John and me." She opened the doors and walked out of the room.
5
"Hard to believe Natalie would live in this place," Tess said, walking through the apartment and looking around. "What does the police department pay you anyway? Don't you have enough to live somewhere better?"
John didn't respond. He set down his nearly empty glass and looked at the bottle of whiskey. Beside it on the table was his cell phone, and despite the fog that was starting settle over his thoughts, the urge was still there to pick it up and call, to make that connection and fix what was broken. He felt a fresh pang of heartache. Dammit, he missed Natalie…and Liam.
"I still think about Nash all the time," Tess said. "We were supposed to have a life together and a real family. I know what it's like to lose that. Jessica too, though she would never admit it. A family with Brody wasn't what was meant to be. It was Nash and me; he promised…" She drifted off. John looked over at her, expecting tears, but there weren't any. She just looked back at him with hard eyes. "Natalie took him from me, and she deserves to lose the love of her life forever," she said. "She deserves to know what it's like to never be able to get that back, no matter what she tries. She deserves to break apart, just like I did." Tess walked around the sofa, picked up the bottle, and screwed on the top. "Congratulations on giving my sister her due, John," she said. "It's been a long time coming and well past time. Losing Jared was bad, but she never loved him like she loved you." She took the bottle and left the apartment.
Tess's dark, brutal words continued to ring in John's thoughts for several minutes, especially that terrible line, "She deserves to break apart." Did Natalie deserve that? He reached for the glass on the table and saw that his hand was shaking. Then he looked back over at the phone.
6
Natalie was crying again. As much as she didn't want to do that around Liam, she couldn't stop the tears. There was an emptiness in her, an emptiness that would never be filled. What she had said to Brody was true; this was a wound that no time would ever heal. She wouldn't have the man she loved, and her son wouldn't have the father he needed. And the latter of the two was perhaps the greatest tragedy of all.
"I'm so sorry, sweetheart," Natalie said, looking at her sleeping son. "I tried so hard, but I made too many mistakes. I'm just so sorry." Silent tears traveled well-worn paths down her cheeks, as Natalie turned away, left the nursery, and went back to her bedroom to make another futile attempt at sleeping. She tossed her robe on a chair but before she could get to the bed her cell phone started to ring. Her first impulse was to let it go to voicemail, but she knew she had to answer it – it could be Jessica. She pulled it out of her purse and was frozen for a moment by the name on the screen: John. John? "John?" she said. "Are you OK?"
"No," he said quietly.
When he didn't say anything more, Natalie said, "I'm sorry about…"
"I love you," John said. "I love our…I love Liam."
"I know," Natalie said. "We love you too. I wish I could fix this." There was silence for several seconds, and Natalie had to check to make sure the call was still connected.
Finally John spoke again, and what he said truly shocked her. "Could I come there tomorrow and see him?" he asked.
At first Natalie couldn't speak, and then she forced herself to. "Yes, of course," she said. Then she added, "I don't have to be here…"
"I want to see you too," John said softly.
Natalie looked over at the bed, because she was afraid she was dreaming. But her dreams since breaking up with John had never been this good. "OK," was all she could say.
"Good night," John said.
"Good night," Natalie replied. The call was over, but she continued to hold the phone tightly in her hand until she could finally pull it away from her ear. Then she looked at it like it was something she had never seen before, still squeezing it enough to crush it. Without thinking, she set it down on the nightstand and got into bed, certain she would never sleep, as the conversation played over and over again in her mind until she was almost convinced she had made it up. She picked up the phone and looked at the recent calls. John, it said. John. She didn't know how it had happened, but it had, and maybe, just maybe, there was a reason to hope for more.