Summary; just bought and watched the entire first and second seasons of Tru Calling. That's it? Nnnnnnhhhhhhhh! They can't end it there. Christ, if I like a TV series it inevitably seems to get cancelled, Dark Skies, Space; Above and Beyond, Angel (ok, 5 seasons is a good run but I'd say it was good for another year at least). Anyway, barring them giving a TV movie to wind things up (why don't they do that? They make movies of the week, why don't they link it to series with a guaranteed audience? And we'd all buy the DVD) here's how I think it all works out. The pressure of her 'Gift' drives Tru to drugs, prostitution and suicide. (Don't worry, you know me, happy ending as ever). This also works as a 3rd part to my Tru Calling trilogy which you can find at http/adultfan. T, suicide, drug abuse, sexual talk
Disclaimer; all belongs to Fox and naught to I, purely a free story for Internet distribution.
Timing; now
Feedback; Calling

"Plesubis Hominai"
She had worked here a week before noticing it, written above the door of every room. She'd never taken Latin and she hadn't had the nerve to ask so she'd looked it up in the college library.
"To please men"
Just in case any of them forgot why they were here.
"And what about our pleasure?" she'd once asked Madame V.
"For that we have each other" she'd replied kindly without missing a beat. Tru had to admit, it was a hell of a good comeback.
She stepped out of the shower and into the changing room, drying herself with a scarlet coloured towel. A scarlet woman indeed. It didn't occur to her to even attempt to cover her naked body. She had no secrets from the other girls, they'd shared more than she could ever have imagined together. She sometimes smiled when she thought of how shy she'd been in the school showers.
She finished drying herself and sat down at the dressing table. God, she looked terrible, tired and wan, eyes bloodshot, her beauty gradually being eroded by her constant burning the candle at both ends. The pressure of her work at the morgue, medical school and rewind days inevitably wearing her down. She'd go on the sunbed tomorrow, take a sick day from the morgue and just sleep, sleep long and hard.
For tonight she needed to stay awake. But she had an answer for that too.
"See you later Tru" one of the twins said, stroking Tru's damp chestnut hair as they walked past.
"See you" Tru responded, happy at this casual display of affection but glad to be left alone. She watched them go, one dressed in a skimpy white teddy with matching stockings and suspenders, the other dressed in a mirror image black lace lingerie outfit. She gave up, admitting she couldn't tell them apart with their clothes on. Naked, she knew that Terri had a certain beauty mark Sherri lacked. And she knew how she liked to be kissed on it.
The sisters walked hand in hand as always, unconsciously intimate. No wonder all the guys freaked for them. She'd heard a rumour that they'd been spotted on a TV show by an Arab Sheikh who'd had Madame V approach them on his behalf. They'd kept saying no and she'd kept on offering more money until they'd said yes. They were truly gorgeous, fairytale blondes and Tru knew from personal experience that they were utterly sensational together, in complete sync with one another.
But watching them all Tru could think of was how much she missed Meredith.
How long since she'd spoken to her sister? Or Harrison? Dad kept him so busy nowadays. She'd long since lost touch with Lindsay. Her study group at medical school didn't even bother to ask her to spend time with them any more, they'd know she'd always turn them down. She and Davies barely spoke to one another outside work now. He had a new assistant now, grooming her to be a new Tru?
Thank god for the twins, for all the girls here. She was always welcome in their arms.
She put the towel on the rack, it's deep crimson matching the elegant surroundings. No filthy back street hovel, this place would put the Ritz to shame, all top class.
Top class whore.
Because that's what she was. A whore, a prostitute. She sold her body for money, had sex with strangers for cash. No different to the disease riddled wretch selling oral sex for $20 a shot in some filthy back alley to pay for her crack. Or the high-class courtesan in her penthouse apartment bedecked with jewels and furs. A whore was a whore.
She smiled slightly when she remembered watching Gigi with her mother and asking her embarrassed parents what a courtesan was. Crack whore was something girls said to each other at high school as an insult, it took a long time for her to learn what it was but she pretty much knew it was an insult from the way they said it.
She whistled a few bars from 'Thank heaven for little girls'. Huh, write that song nowadays and they'd lock you up.
She began putting on her makeup in huge quantities to try and hide the stress and sadness that her face spoke of. Now she understood the expression 'painted whore'. To be fair she'd never wear this much when she used to date, this was for work only. She was absolutely a different person in her other life. She practised her work face in the mirror, a bimboish combination of passion, submission, devotion, lust and obedience. It was largely based on game show hostesses, some cheerleaders she'd met at college and some of Harrison's less cerebral girlfriends. She called it her 'contented milkmaid' look.
She was looking old. She knew she was always her worst critic, most women were, but she could see the ravages of her lifestyle beginning to bite. But she didn't see any way out. She'd never asked for this, never asked for any of it, it had found her. She had no choice but to go on.
How much longer would her beauty last? How much longer until she was the girl passed by the customers on the line up and be crestfallen that she hadn't been picked. How much longer could this go on?
She gave one last look around and reached for her cigarette case. She carefully measured out the white powder and divided it into lines on the mirror using the razor blade. She never snorted with a rolled up dollar, that was one cliché she avoided. She used a jewelled cocktail straw a client had given her as a present.
All top class.
She was running low. She'd have to get some more tomorrow. She knew cocaine was progressively addictive, that you gradually craved more and more, not like heroin where you could only take so much before you OD'd. She knew exactly what it was doing to her. But she simply couldn't get through the day without it.
It had just been so easy to get into. Started with stimulants to help her stay awake. Coke had been a natural progression.
Her nose started bleeding. She grabbed a load of tissues and stopped it by tipping her head back. She knew that this was the least of her problems. Take enough and it would burn a hole in your nose, destroy the septum leaving you with one big ugly nostril. It had already taken away her nose hairs making her susceptible to colds and flu's, she had one more or less all the time. Eventually it would burn out her kidneys, give her blood clots, raised blood pressure, chest pains. Then there were the mental effects, the paranoia, as if Jack wasn't enough. The constantly being on edge, the restlessness, the feeling of your skin crawling all the time. It was hellish. Thank god she was beautiful enough to pay for it this way, that she didn't yet have to steal to feed her addiction. But she knew that eventually that day would come.
But what alternative did she have?
"Madame V will chuck you out for that" Tara pointed out handing her some more tissues. Tru nodded, wiping the coagulating blood from her nose.
"I'm snorting, not injecting" she replied, embarrassed to have been caught. She rapidly cleared her kit away as Tara rifled through the drawers. "What are you looking for?" she asked, glad to change the subject.
"Extra condoms" Tara responded finding a large pack.
"Sailors?" Tru asked, wondering if the fleet was in town.
"Japanese businessmen" Tara replied skipping from the room in her red lingerie. Tru watched her go. It was Tara who'd introduced her to this life. When she'd needed money for the drugs she'd gone to her old friend from the frat boy poisonings rewind. Tru had been surprised how much she'd enjoyed stripping at the club, the dancing, the attention and adoration, the sisterhood of the girls. And the money of course. She'd had to buy a huge new Prada purse just to carry all the tens and twenties she collected in her garter every night. But it had all taken up so much time and with rewind days, study and her shifts at the morgue she just couldn't keep it regular. The brothel was more casual, a lot of the girls from the club sidelined there. You turned up when you wanted to.
When you needed to.
She looked in the mirror. She was as good as she was going to get. Her body was still voluptuous but she was beginning to lose weight at an appalling rate. The coke acted as an appetite suppressant, one of the reasons so many models used it. She sometimes forced herself, struggled to keep the food down. It was like no other agony she could imagine. She pretty much lived on vitamins nowadays because if you didn't your gums would start bleeding and your teeth would fall out. She'd already noticed a few grey hairs. God, she was still in her twenties! It was just the most appalling spiral.
It would have been healthier for her to just hit herself over the head with a hammer.
Davies noticed. He always asked and she always had an excuse for him. Rewind days had made her an accomplished liar even before she'd become a junkie.
Because that's what she was. A junkie. A junkie whore.
It was worse than that though. The drugs blocked the endorphin receptors on her frontal lobes, destroyed the areas that allowed her to feel emotions. Destroyed her ability to love. People sometimes wondered how junkies could bear to steal from their family's or even hurt or kill the people they loved to feed their habit. But with the drugs you just didn't care anymore, didn't care about anything but your next fix.
How would this end?
She banished such thoughts and went through the rack, trying to decide what to wear tonight. Naturally there was every sort of lingerie know to man. White lace for the virgin/whore look, black lace for the whore/whore look, red silk for the insatiable/whore look. The whole place was always kept stiflingly warm so that the girls could parade around in two handkerchiefs and prayer which must have been tough on the domestic staff and Madame V. It didn't bother the customers though. They never kept their clothes on for long.
How about a costume tonight? The schoolgirl was always a favourite, Britney Spears had a lot to answer for. She'd pretty much perfected her dance moves to 'Hit me baby one more time" and they always had CD of the song to hand in case a customer requested it. 'Spank me baby one more time' was probably more appropriate. She put it on and looked at herself in the mirror before rejecting it. She turned around and raised the micro-skirt to reveal her pert ass, still red and tender from her last spanking. No, she needed time to heal, her body was weakened by the drugs and that made it take longer. She sat down again and unbuttoned her knotted cut –off blouse, working her black high heels and white knee socks off as she did so.
She'd been quite shocked when she'd learned how much she enjoyed light S&M. It wasn't just the physical sensations, wasn't just the intensity of it all. She figured at the back of her mind she was glad she was being punished, felt guilty about what she was doing. When she was chastised all the guilt went away. She liked bondage for the same reason, when she was tied up, when she was handcuffed she felt so helpless and vulnerable that she didn't have to feel bad about enjoying herself.
It made her feel alive once more. And little did nowadays.
As she stripped off her wonderbra she thought back to when her mother had spanked her and Meredith as children. Dad had always rapped Harrison's knuckles with a ruler when he'd deserved it (which seemed pretty much all the time, even then) but he'd always left it to mom to put the girls over her knee. She wondered what her mother would say if she saw her now?
But maybe she would understand. She'd had the gift too, understood how it affected you, the sacrifices it entailed. Sometimes she wondered if she hadn't in some way welcomed her murder? That finally it would all stop.
She was naked again. She looked down the rack for another outfit.
Cheerleader?
Her attitude to them had always been a mixture of despising and envying at the same time. But then that had pretty much been her attitude to strippers and whores before she'd become both. She understood exactly why guys went for both the cheerleader and schoolgirl, it was always the same type. Always the nerd who'd lusted after his high-school crush from afar but never had the nerve to ask in all truthfulness never had a shot anyway. Now his brainpower, his nerdiness had made him money and he wanted to revisit his lost youth, get the girl he always thought he'd deserved. Tru smiled to herself as she remembered her own crushes. You could never go back, not really, but the illusion was nice.
"So we beat on, boats against the current…"
That and the virgin/reproductive prime thing. But a virgin around here was rarer than a straight man at a 'Sex and the City' fan club. Men were deluded, they believed what they wanted to believe. Yet so did women, yearning after the same unobtainable mixture of Hugh Grant and Arnold Scharzeneger. Men trying to find a replacement for the mother figure in their lives, women for their fathers. But no one could ever measure up to that ideal everyone experienced as babies in their parents arms.
French maid? Always a classic, cleaned for you, cooked for you, had sex with you, didn't speak a word of english, pretty much most guys ideal woman. Problem was some customers actually mistook her for a real maid and asked her to fetch them drinks or take their coats for them.
Nurse? God, men were so cliched. But then so were women, still waiting for James Bond and Prince Charming to whisk them away. The outfit she had here was lot racier than the real nurse's uniform she'd stolen whilst trying to help that soldier. It was safely stashed at the back of her wardrobe along with her little black lacy number in case any future boyfriend was an especially good boy.
She paused for a second. Boyfriend? Would she ever have a boyfriend again? No, she had decided, she just couldn't risk another. The cold unemotional sex she had here would sustain her physical needs, the affection of the other girls her emotional side.
And there was always the coke.
She had already decided never to have children. It was a lot to give up but she didn't want to pass this gift on, would never wish to inflict it on another. She sometimes felt resentment to her mother for doing just that to her. She occasionally wondered why her and not Meredith? She was the first born after all? Maybe the corpses had spoken to Meredith? Maybe she'd just chosen not to hear them.
Or maybe she got the gift as she was physically closest to her mother when she died.
Her slightly pensive mood was lifted by the sight of her Wonder Woman costume. She'd loved hers as a kid so much she'd used to try and sleep in it (Meredith had always been The Princess, a costume they also had here. Harrison had been Spiderman which they lacked). Lynda Carter had obviously made a big impression on a lot of little boys who'd carried that over into adulthood. She knew if she wore that she'd be fighting the men off. Which they would also probably get turned on by.
No, she didn't have the energy tonight, even with the effects of the coke kicking in.
Stewardess? "Would you like anything with your coffee? Cream? Sugar? Me?"
Hot cop? "Hands were I can see them buddy! Let me cuff you while I do a strip search"
Dressing up was one of the more enjoyable aspects of the job, she understood now why actors loved their craft so much.
Her dominatrix outfit also appealed. She loved how powerful it made her feel, the tight PVC clinging to her skin (with suitable amounts of talcum powder of course), the towering spiked heels on her thigh boots making her feel like a true Amazon. If the naughty schoolgirl appealed to her masochistic side, her black PVC number fed her sadistic fantasies, venting her frustrations on others rather than herself.
She could never get over the men who loved being dominated. Politicians, heads of companies, senior military officers, invariably men who wielded great power in everyday life. But that was the whole point, you were in your fantasy life what you weren't in real life. If you used to be the school nerd, if you felt powerless, you wanted to feel powerful, to dominate. If you really WERE powerful you wanted to take a break from it, to feel helpless for a while, to be dominated rather than dominate for once.
A lot of the girls really hated the men and took full advantage of the S&M games to vent that fury. Tru didn't, she considered them to be just as screwed up as the women who pleasured them. She never failed to be shocked by the variety of customers she had. Handsome men, men who you'd never think of having to use prostitutes. Charming men, men who you would fall for in an instant if you met them outside. But outside they wouldn't be the same people, would live in fear of rejection and wouldn't be half so confident as they could be when they knew you were a sure thing.
Ugly men, deformed men, crippled by war , disease and accidents. Really Tru didn't care, she'd close her eyes and they'd all be the same to her in the darkness. Shy men who could never think themselves worthy to even speak to a beautiful woman in real life. Bored men. Nice men. Cruel men. Tired men with no more energy for the dating game. Lonely men. Obese men. Men who wanted a girl they considered totally out of their class. Men who wanted to do things they could never ask of their wives and sweethearts. Men who couldn't speak enough english to seduce ordinary women. Old men reliving their lost youth. Young men, desperately intent on losing their virginity. Tru's favourite client would invariably be a rich middle aged drunken businessman who was proud of himself if he could do it twice. Tru's least favourite was some high-school senior or college freshman who was intent on getting his money's worth and thought nothing of six times a night.
Some guys were impotent. Some higher sex drives than their wives/girlfriends. Some were just plain unhappy. Tru had once suggested ice cream to one such man but inevitably he'd ended up licking it off her naked body. She'd been sticky for the next 2 days.
Gay men came here to try and prove to themselves or their buddies or their famillies that they were straight. One guy was bisexual and his purely gay male lover who would come with him to the brothel and chat to the girls whilst he satisfied his womanising instincts.
'Plesubis Hominai'.
If she wanted pleasure for herself she only had to go to another of the girls, they knew her almost better than she knew herself.
Some men just wanted to talk. Some cried in your arms. Some wanted to call you mommy which freaked Tru out. Equally she was OK with mistress and master but refused to play the 'daddy' game.
One girl had recounted the story of going to a client's room and being horrified to discover her equally aghast brother. Tru wondered that it had never occurred to him it would always be someone's sister in that room? Men were such hypocrites. No, in fact, people generally were such hypocrites.
It was always men. Now and again you'd get a couple who wanted a girl for a threesome and Tru would be happy to oblige but you'd never get a woman here by herself, it just didn't happen. As she always thought of it there were prostitutes who were lesbians but no lesbian prostitutes. Women just lacked that kind of dog in heat desperation men seemed to possess. When she'd danced at the strip club Tru had always shared the mixed feelings of the other girls about lesbian night. On the one hand it was a far nicer atmosphere, she'd actually let the women touch her in a manner she'd never dream of letting male clients do. But they never made as much money, women simply weren't the suckers men were.
Here and at the strip club they could feel as they'd always wanted to feel, adored, admired, surrounded by worshipping females who they supported through their money, their virility. Like a caveman long ago, wanting to be the star of his tribe, the big hunter whom all the women swooned over and wanted to bear his children. Madame V had once posed a riddle for her "What two times in his life is a man fawned over by women and then have a pair of breasts shoved in his face?"
The first answer was easy, at the strip club or the brothel. The second took her a little longer, when he was a baby in the cot. "But girl babies have that happen to them too!" she'd objected.
"And when we hit 13 we get a pair of our own breasts to play with" Madame V had countered "And we get adoration and affection form other females all our lives"
She abhorred the married men. Some of them were suitably ashamed, hiding the tan lines of the wedding rings they'd carefully removed. Others were boastful, insisting on talking about their wives whom they were cheating on. Did they really think that she wanted to know? Did they think it impressed her?
. It made it easier that some of the girls were the same. Bored, lonely, married women who craved adventure and to be adored by men in a way that their husbands no longer could provide. Some even had kids. One had once told Tru that she didn't consider it cheating because there was no emotional involvement. It was a lie, if Tru had ever caught her boyfriend with a prostitute it would have been just as bad as if it had been with a lover.
The girls here were as varied as their clients. Some were the stereotype that Tru expected, women who had either been abused as children or starved of physical affection in their youth. She'd hooked some of them up with a psychiatrist Davies had recommended and several had left this life never to return. She sometimes wondered if Madame V knew what she had done? She suspected she did. After all, it wasn't as though she had any shortage of volunteers.
Some genuinely were schoolgirls although Madame V always insisted they were all over 18 with documentary proof to go with it. The authorities and the public tolerated this place but there was a limit Madame V was quick to adhere to. One of those rules was no drugs. Tru wondered how much longer she could hide her addiction from this sharpest of women. Yet she was also one of the gentlest people Tru had ever known, a surrogate mother to them all. One of the girls had once told her that her sink had been blocked and she'd turned to Madame V because she could think of no one else. But Madame V had the scariest eyes anyone had ever seen, they looked like horror movie contact lenses, her pupils tiny dots against a sinister blue/grey colouring. The devils eyes.
You could never judge by appearance.
As far as Tru had been able to discover her real name was Megan Forrester. The story went that she'd come into this life when her car had broken down one night and she'd come to this place to use the phone. A customer had picked her out thinking she was a working girl and she'd been too flattered to refuse.
She reminded Tru a great deal of Kristine, red hair instead of brunette but she had the same vibe. Kristine who was on the other side of the world, helping the Tsunami victims rebuild their lives. How Tru ached for her sometimes.
Some girls were aspiring models and actresses who thought this a lot better than waiting tables and hoped to make contacts. Apparently it wasn't unknown, Demi Moore and other Hollywood stars had allegedly once worked as escorts. Some girls married their clients, Pretty Woman was rare but it did happen occasionally. Tru had had two proposals from men who could keep her in diamonds and caviar for the rest of her life. She'd gently turned both down.
A lot of the girls were just greedy. This was some of the easiest money you could ever earn. The younger ones would come in dripping of Gucci clothes, Tiffany jewellery and strutting around in the their Jimmy Choos. Many were students like Tara, paying off their loans. One had told Tru she was saving up to travel across Europe. Another used the money in order to keep her pony. Others used the money to support their families, to put children and siblings through schools and college.
Lots were bored or just experimenting. Sowing their wild oats. Tru didn't think that was wrong, no one would think it wrong for men to be promiscuous, why was it any different for women?
Secretaries, nurses, airline stewardesses. Even a cop. You could always tell what people did for a living because they never wanted to play that character when it came to role-playing
. Because here you were the person you weren't in real life.
Tru Davies would never work in a place like this. She was a good girl who would never have anything to do with this sort of thing.
But Butterfly would.
Here you could be as feminine as you liked, here it was accepted, it was nothing to be ashamed of. Here Tru Davies modern independent woman didn't exist but Butterfly did.
She turned to the mirror and inspected her tattoo on her thigh, a little blue butterfly. In some ways she thought it tacky, as if she was a branded horse or something. In other ways she thought it cute, a sign she had been accepted into the sisterhood here. It was a sign that not only did she belong to someone but that she simply belonged.
All the girls had them. The twins had the star-sign Gemini. Tara a crystal of Turquoise, her stage name. Robin had a little Robin. Others ranged from a sailing ship to a little kitten. Madame V's was just a plain V.
Why had she chosen the butterfly? Because it signified femininity? Maybe because it was ephemeral and didn't stay long? Maybe she just wanted to fly away?
Here, in this place she wasn't Tru Davies, didn't all the responsibilities of the rewind days. Here she could just let herself go, detach herself from reality. It was like having a split personality, one face she showed the world, one face she kept to herself here. If those two sides were ever to meet she felt she would simply meltdown. She needed this all more than the drugs.
She finally selected her outfit, a crimson, vampy, slinky evening dress she often wore that reminded her of the one she'd worn at Lindsey's beauty pageant. God, it seemed so long ago. Of course with that dress she'd actually worn some underwear.
The sound of the gunshot tore through her reverie.

She didn't run. What was the point?
In any other circumstance it would almost have been funny. The cop was weeping in Madam V's arms. The nurse was staring on in horror, looking as though she was about to faint. Leaving it to the French Maid and the Cheerleader to perform CPR
But then the French maid was actually a nurse and the cheerleader was really a cop.
"Tru help me stop the bleeding!" Robin instructed, trying to plug the gaping whole in the businessman's chest with one of her pom-poms.
No, it was too late. She'd seen so much death she knew when someone would make it and when they wouldn't. She took careful note of the scene, taking especial care to remember the bullet whole in the window and the broken glass scattered across the carpet signifying he'd been shot from outside.
"He's dead" the French Maid announced, giving up on compressions. Tru bent down and took his hand. She waited for the inevitable.
His eyes spring to life again.
"Help me"
"Here we go again" she thought resignedly as the day reset itself.

"Tru did you hear what I said?" Davies thundered down the phone.
"Yeah, yeah I heard" all she could think about was getting another fix. Of all the days for the cops to bust her dealer this was the worst. It felt like a corkscrew grinding away at her insides. The agony of withdrawal was almost more than she could stand. She had to find another source but where?
"Tru it was his business partner, he killed him because he'd discovered he was embezzling. He shot him at the brothel because he figured they'd try to cover it up,"
"I've got to go" she snapped back, turning off her cellphone.
"TRU!" Davies roared.

He was dead.
She'd failed. Not because of Jack. Not because of circumstance or anything else. She'd failed because of her own failings. She'd failed and a man was dead. Dead because she'd been out looking frantically for a fix when she should have been saving him. Her drugs had become more important to her than saving people's lives.
What had she become?
Well it was time for a change.
She walked out on to the balcony of her apartment.

She walked into the morgue checking her cheeks for the last traces of lipstick. Problem with resigning from a whorehouse was everyone wanted to kiss you goodbye, from Madame V right down to the cook. And whores tended to wear a LOT of makeup. It had taken her about five minutes to scrub it all off.
Her coke had gone down the toilet. She didn't need it any more. Meredith was flying in tonight and she'd agreed to sponsor her to her first few Narcotics Anonymous meetings. Cold Turkey had been hell but now she and her sister would go through it together. She felt it would bond them closer than ever. And she hadn't had a nosebleed all day.
She was on time. Hell for once she was actually early. Tonight she would meet her study group and they'd finish their report together. And then they'd all go to dinner, her friends from college, Meredith, Harrision, Davies, everyone. Her appetite was returning, she would eat, eat real food again. So what if she put on a few pounds? She could always start running again. And tomorrow she would phone Lindsey and see how married life was treating her. Then she would sit down and write a long letter to Kristine asking if she could come and visit her in the college holidays.
She opened the door. Davies was sitting there on his stool as always. She opened her mouth, wanting to apologise to him as to how she'd been behaving.
He beat her to it. "You're fired" were his first words to her.

"No, not like that" Davies rolled his eyes. Amanda quailed. "It's ok" Davies reassured her "Everyone screws up on their first day" He wasn't mad at her, not really. He was mad at Tru whatever the hell had happened to her. He felt like he didn't know her at all nowadays.
A fresh body was brought in. Well, there was no teacher like experience.
"Ok, now watch me, body appears to be that of a twenty year old white female who has suffered some form of blunt force trauma to her head, possibly from a fall. First of all we take her personal belongings…."
Amanda cowered in the corner as Davies let out an anguished half-animal scream as he recognised Tru's corpse.

Tru stared at Davies, trying to comprehend what he had told her. "I DIED?"
Davies nodded. " Suicide. And you asked for help. In the end you wanted to live, you weren't done yet"
"Who did I ask?"
Amanda stood in the corner, still utterly confused and terrified about what was going on. She timidly raised her hand.
"I've got your replacement" Davies announced. "I've taught you everything that I can about medicine and I don't think you need the money from working here any more?"
Tru shook her head. No, she didn't. Without having to afford the cocaine and with all the money she'd earned from whoring she could easily put herself through college AND have enough to practically buy and equip Kristine a new free clinic for her disaster victims.
"What about Jack?"
Davies took her to the mortuary. Jack lay there, stiff and stark, the top of his head blown away by the bullet he'd put through his own skull.
"He didn't ask" Davies explained simply.
She was grateful when Davies covered him up again. She wondered if Jack had had any more choice in this than she'd ever had?
"I can still help" she offered.
Davies shook his head. "You've done your share"
She took him in her arms and kissed him long and hard. "I love you" she whispered softly into his ear.
"I love you" he responded in turn.
She turned to Amanda and kissed her too, feeling this shy, timid girl go rigid in her arms as she did so. "If it ever gets too much, if you ever need anyone to talk to, just call me" she told her. Amanda nodded.
She walked out of the morgue, never to return.Harrison and Meredith waited outside, giving her the few minutes she requested before coming to visit their father. He looked so much smaller and less impressive in his prison clothes.
"Hello daddy"
"Hello kitten"
"What made you turn yourself in?"
"It's a long story. Call Harrison and Meredith in and I'll tell you all together"
In the few seconds of privacy they had left he put the flat of his hand against the bulletproof glass of the visitors cubicle that separated him from his daughter.
Tru stretched hers out and put her palm on the glass opposite his.

The End