The Fact of the Matter
------------------------------------------------------------
Summary: When Karen returns from a trip to the city with her mother to find Rick convinced that she plans to leave him, it doesn't take her long to track down the source of the rumours. And make it suffer.
------------------------------------------------------------
"...And I thought that the hotel was perfect, great location, clean, comfortable, spacious, but next time we should try a different place for supper."
Karen stifled a yawn and pasted on a pleasant smile as her mother continued to chatter, from across the table in her parents' living quarters behind the Supermarket, about her plans for their next trip to the city.
She adored her mother, had dreamed since her early childhood of growing up to be half so calm and cool-headed, not to mention intimidating and able to reduce grown men to sobbing children with a single warning glare.
But the they had just spent a solid week at close quarters, first on the bus ride to the airport, then on the plane trip to the city, then in the hotel room, sight-seeing adventures, shopping, and spa-day that Sasha had acquired from the girl at the front desk by suggesting, Angry-Eye already flashing into existence, that eye-rolling and huffing through a conversation with potential customers, just because aforementioned customers had not noticed the tiny little Hot Springs Temporarily Closed For Maintenance sign planted behind a big bush, was not particularly polite.
And a good, solid week at close quarters with anyone will inevitably take its toll on the most social of people, and Karen was far from that.
Not to mention, she was tired.
Up at four, on the plane ideally at six and actually at nine, after a late night at the opera that Sasha was determined to treat her daughter to at least once.
Not tired; more like exhausted.
And coming to the uncomfortable realization, after seven days with no contact with her husband, that she had been deluding herself when she thought complacently that she would never be as reliant on the special man in her life as Mary and Elli and Popuri seemed to be. She wasn't exactly sure how she could have the simultaneous needs for alone-time and Rick, but was quickly classifying this as the burning need to spend some time alone with Rick.
Therefore, when her mother yawned hugely and exclaimed in surprise over the hour, Karen eagerly took her opportunity, bid her parents goodnight with a hug and a kiss, and set off to the south side of the town. As she rounded the corner by the library, she snickered a bit at Gray and Mary's light still burning, the blinds drawn, two shadowy sillouettes nevertheless making it quite clear what was going on in the room within.
Almost unaware of the little smile of anticipation curving her own lips, Karen pondered the possibilities for the rest of the evening: she could either sneak up behind Rick and jump him, capture his full attention with her best approximation of a striptease, or give him a big hug and fall asleep on his shoulder.
Sleep was starting to look pretty good; there was always tomorrow morning for the other stuff. Or, worst case scenario, she might wake up late and have to wait until tomorrow evening.
And so, with the appealing thought of a warm welcome and a bit of pampering from her husband drifting through her mind, Karen hurried toward the Poultry Farm, and stopped short when she noticed the decided lack of friendly, welcoming light beaming forth from within.
The cottage across the street was lit, and she could dimly make out Lillia's dainty profile and mass of soft wavy hair through the window, so everything was fine on that front.
So, where the hell was Rick? And wherever he was, why the hell had he bothered to turn off all the lights before he left, when he knew she was coming home tonight?
A little disappointed and more than a little worried, her step quickened as she crossed the farmyard. Until, that is, it came to an entire halt as her foot caught on some mysterious obstruction and sent her pitching forward to the ground. Her yelped profanity filled the air in time with a pained squawk, and when she managed to drag herself back up again, she was staring down a decidedly annoyed chicken.
"Okay, what the hell?" she muttered, absently carrying the abused little mass of feathers into the coop and hunting up the rest of them before sprinkling a bag of feed on the floor, wondering at the back of her mind if this was Rick's influence, a growing fondness for the one animal that she'd never been able to stand before.
The forefront of her mind, however, was completely occupied with the many disastrous possibilities that could lead Rick to completely forget about his work.
By now at a run, she peered up at their bedroom window, trying to make out a shape.
"Rick!" she called sharply, closing the door intentionally noisily behind her.
"Hey, Karen," a quiet voice called back. "How was the trip?"
"What are you doing?" she demanded, hurrying over to the shape hunched miserably over the kitchen table.
"Just thinking."
She crossed her arms.
"In the dark?"
He looked up, startled.
"It's dark already?" Climbing stiffly from his chair, he moved toward the nearest light switch. "Sorry, Karen; you're probably hungry. You want to go rest while I get you something?"
"No," she retorted. "I want to know why my husband is moping in the dark."
"Okay, but please hear me out. I know about your other boyfriend in the city. No, Karen, just wait a minute," he hurried on, borderline stern, as she began to protest, outraged. "It doesn't matter who told me about it, because they were only doing it for your own good anyway. I'm not going to try to stop you if you want to leave to be with him, or go back to your parents' until you can arrange something else. You'll get half of the total assets, even though you might have to wait until I can sell off some things. When I think about it," he added with a painful litlte laugh, "with business dropping off like it has lately and so long since we've been able to do some repairs, this was kind of a pathetic home to bring any wife, especially a girl who deserves mansions and galas and screaming, adoring crowds."
Karen surveyed him coolly, arms crossed.
"Are you done?"
"Well, there's a lot more to figure out--"
"It can wait." Rick stared, nervous and uncertain, as she fixed him with a stony glare. "First of all, you're wrong: it does matter who told you about my imaginary city-boyfriend, because they were clearly talking out of their ass. Now, why the hell would you believe it?"
"Come on, Karen, he's been telling me all summer about this amazing, handsome, young, world-renowned music professor you're seeing in the city, and the next thing I know, you're there for a week."
"Who's he?" Karen demanded shrilly, dragging her husband over to the couch before the fireplace and shoving him down to sit. "And what would some world-renowned professor want with some goofy little townie whose idea of a social experience is getting drunk in the bar with her husband and best friend for about two decades, instead of at home, yadda-yadda-yadda?"
Rick's smile was equal parts sadness and adoration.
"You're amazing. You're beautiful, and talented, and...amazing. Anyone in his right mind would be glad to have you."
Karen nearly whimpered with the effort to maintain her outraged head of steam. Damn him, making her feel guilty about taking a strip out of him for believing stupid lies, by turning all sweet!
"But I wouldn't be glad to have him," she said, voice growing soft in spite of herself as she settled in next to the sandy-haired young man. "I've got the only guy I want. I have a thing for cute, and smart, and hard-working, and snuggly, and softer hair than mine, and cute glasses."
Rick leaned back into the soft cushions lining the back of the couch, and gave a heavy sigh.
"Karen...I don't think you should settle for less, just to spare my feelings. You're a great person, and I kind of thought you might tell me it wasn't true. But think about it: the guy's a brilliant musician. He probably wants to help you learn to make the most of your voice, too. I think it could be a great thing, for you and for him."
"Even though he doesn't exist," Karen huffed, throwing her arms up in exasperation. "Imagine that. Did you get a blow to the head or something?"
"Uh...no," Rick replied, frowning thoughtfully. "Why?"
"Because I could've sworn that you just accused me of suffering in silence. Come on, Rick, have I ever suffered in silence about anything?" She waited for a moment, one eyebrow quirked, until a small smile of agreement gradually crept into existence. "Believe me, if I wanted to leave, you'd know. If I was unhappy with you, you'd know. Whenever I'm unhappy with anything, you do know. The whole town does."
"I like that," he admitted with a cautious little grin. "I don't catch on very well to signals."
"Yeah, neither do I, apparently, if someone's been hammering stupid lies into your head all summer and I didn't notice," Karen grumbled. "Look, I just remembered something I forgot at Mom and Dad's. We'll talk more when I get back."
And with that, mouth set with grim determination, she stormed from the farmhouse, leaving a bewildered, exhausted, young man in her wake, sagging in relief at the sensation that the crushing weight resting on him for the better parts of the season had finally been lifted.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Let it never be said, Elli thought, that my job is boring.
"Um...Karen," she began hesitantly, staring in bewilderment as her closest friend (that she wasn't married to, at least) burst past her into the Clinic, dragging a yowling little pasty-skinned adolescent male in after her by the back of his droopy pants.
"I think he's got a broken arm," Karen announced grimly.
"I think you're right," the little nurse agreed. "And a dislocated shoulder. Karen, what happened?"
"Look, can we talk about that later?" the blonde huffed impatiently. "Go get your hubby to fix him up."
Sneaking a suspicious look over her shoulder as she ran, Elli hurried upstairs to fetch Dr. Cuthbert, and within moments, the boy's yowls had been reduced to whimpers as the painkillers began to take effect to facilitate the setting of multiple fractures.
"Karen, did you really just happen past and find him like that?" Elli asked, carefully quietly, as the younger girl tapped her foot impatiently in her uncomfortable little waiting room chair.
Karen, whose expression had been growing more thundercloudinous by the second, glared sharply at the little brunette busily hunting up some forms that the doctor would need for referral to the injured party's doctor in the city, detailing the extent of his injuries and the work done at the Mineral Town clinic.
"Of course I didn't find him like that," she retorted in the angriest whisper Elli had ever heard. "I've been out of town for a week, we just got back about an hour ago, and all I really want to do is go to bed."
"Oh, Karen, I forgot!" Elli lamented, leaving the forms and hurrying over to give her friend a sympathetic hug. "You've been travelling all day, you must be exhausted! If you just want to go home, I'll understand. But I will need a little bit of information first."
"Go ahead."
"W-well, first of all, do you know the young man's name?"
"Oh, geez, I think it's Matt. You know, he's that kid who's been following Kai around all summer, says he's here to enjoy the beach and the fresh air but mostly just hangs out inside the Seaside Snack Shack and plays some stupid hand-held video game."
Elli nodded thoughtfully.
"Right, Ann told me about him. She said he's been kind of annoying everyone."
"I don't have his last name."
"That's okay. I suppose we should probably wait and get it from him. But if you want to go home--"
"Elli," Karen interrupted, eyeing her friend sternly. "You're practically bouncing with curiosity. I know you want to ask, so go ahead."
"What did you do to him?" Elli asked immediately, in a whisper, leaning closer.
Karen gave a grim little smile.
"What does it look like I did? I busted his arm and dislocated his shoulder, at least."
"On purpose?"
"Yup."
Elli sighed.
"Oh, Karen, are you sure you weren't overreacting?"
"Stop looking at me like that, Elli," she snapped. "You don't even know why."
"I'd like to," Elli prodded gently.
Karen sighed heavily and slumped down in her chair, crossing her arms, flipping her hair away from her face, and strongly resembling a goddess as she did so, Elli thought wistfully. As much as she knew that Tim loved what Grandma called her "sweet china-doll prettiness", pixie-haircut and all, sometimes it would really be nice to be model-beautiful like Karen.
"I didn't go hunting for him right away, you know," that same Karen was meanwhile huffing, jolting her out of her admiring, envious reverie. "After I had some coffee and snacks with Mom and Dad, I went straight home. The lights were all out, the chickens were running around the yard and they hadn't been fed, and Rick was sitting at the table, in the dark, with his head down. I asked him what the hell he was doing, and he started rambling about my boyfriend in the city, and divorce papers, and how he didn't blame me because I deserved better."
"Oh, no," Elli sighed, something beginning to make sense about Rick's woebegone expression for the past few days.
"I told him he was crazy; if he hadn't noticed, I spent every free second molesting him, so when did he think I had time for an affair? Eventually, I got it through his thick skull that I don't just marry guys for the hell of it, and I tend to stick with them when I do."
"And...then you went and hunted down Matt?"
"No," she corrected. "Then I went to Lillia's across the street, and asked if she had any idea why her son was acting like a moron. She said it was just something Rick would have to work through in his own time, and I should stand by him in the meantime. That wasn't a lot of help," Karen added with a tiny grin, "so then I went to the Inn, to find out from Ann who the hell was putting stupid ideas in Rick's pretty little head. She told me it was that tourist kid, they'd all heard him spewing insults, and he'd been doing it all summer, following Rick around and shouting garbage at him about his hair, and his clothes, and his glasses, and his job. And then he started telling Rick that I had another boyfriend in the city, he knows all about it because he knows the guy. Because, y'know, the city's such a small place that it's only natural he'd coincidentally be best buddies with the imaginary guy I'm sleeping with."
"Well, this Matt doesn't sound like the brightest of children," Elli agreed with a guilty little laugh.
"Yeah, no kidding," Karen snorted, before glaring sharply at the little nurse. "And by the way, I owe all of you a big thanks for doing absolutely nothing to spare me all this grief by maybe, oh, I don't know, telling Rick that little parasite is full of it."
"Karen!" Elli protested. "We did! We tried, anyway. Ann and Doug gave him free drinks until he told them what was wrong, and then they gave him more free drinks to try to cheer him up. Then Ann came to get Mary and me, and we all caught him in a big group-hug, and I told him he was wonderful and sweet and you loved him so much that you were probably turning yourself inside out right that moment missing him."
Karen gave a dry, twisty sort of smile.
"Idiot probably thought I was just faking it as a cover all those other times, jumping him and tearing at his clothes the second he put my suitcase down."
Elli giggled softly.
"That sounds an awful lot like Rick. Mary tried to tell him that, reminded him that you're possibly the least subtle person on the planet, and if you were unhappy with your marriage, you would have told him very clearly, not snuck around behind his back finding new boyfriends. Popuri tried too," Elli added glumly, shivering a little at the memory of the resulting shouting match, "but she got annoyed when he wouldn't believe her right away, and said that if he was going to be so stupid and insecure, maybe you were better off with some imaginary guy in the city. Even Kai tried to talk some sense into Rick, and said that he's known Matt for ages, and Matt's just bitter that girls like you go for nice, hard-working guys like Rick instead of lazy, spiteful, video game obsessed little wombats trying to compensate for the cocktail weenie in their pants by trashing everyone else."
"Ah, that's Kai," Karen sighed, grinning and shaking her head. "Always the picture of class."
"I think he was the closest to actually getting through to Rick. Rick just gave him a big hug and said that Popuri was in good hands, and he didn't know why he couldn't see it before."
Karen stared, incredulous and just a little bit terrified.
"Okay, that's just freaky."
By now unable to contain the foremost question in my mind any longer, Elli waited until Karen was done sighing and huffing and wiping the blood spots off her shorts and then piped up nervously.
"Um, Karen, I know you're really mad at this boy for upsetting Rick and ruining your evening--"
"Elli, for Christ's sake, my evening has nothing to do with it!" she exploded, and the little brunette shrank back as Karen ran a hand angrily through her hair and continued. "I found Rick all but ready to sign divorce papers, or jump off a bridge, or something. This kid's been at him all goddamn summer, and he's got him actually believing this crap. And you know how easy it is to change Rick's mind once he gets an idea."
"I know, Karen, but still--"
"Don't worry, I think he's fine now. And he'd better know that I'm not letting him go, even if he wants to."
Elli stared adoringly for a moment, then blinked furiously as she began to tear up. Karen shook her head and hunted up a crumpled Kleenex.
"God, you're a sap," she grumbled.
Elli sniffled and smiled.
"I'm not the one who spent the evening beating up teenagers to defend my true love's honour. Now, go home and claim your marital rights. Tim and I can handle the forms."
---------------------------------------------------------------------
And much later, when the doctor emerged from the Clinic's tiny operating room to announce that Matt was sleeping more or less peacefully and he thought it was about time that we do the same...well, Elli would maintain until the end of her days that she was just so proud of my best friend for standing up for Rick that she just had to tell her own husband about it as soon as the bedroom door closed behind them.
"Hold on; you said Karen did this to him?" he demanded, stopping short in the act of unbuttoning his shirt.
"W-well, yeah," Elli shrugged.
He sighed.
"That's not good. I think we should alert Harris in the morning. I know she's your friend, Elli," he hurried on before his adoring wife could gently suggest that perhaps he had lost his marbles somewhere in the process of repairing three cracked ribs, a dislocated shoulder, a fractured wrist, and a sprained ankle. "But I don't know that grievously injuring the summer tourists is exactly what Thomas would call being a good representative of the town."
"Ha-ha, Tim. Can I at least tell you why she beat him up?"
"Well, you might as well," he agreed reluctantly, pulling his undershirt up over his head and turning his bride into a staring, drooling Elli-zombie. She thought hazily that he was probably trying very hard not to smile, although she was far too occupied with thinking dirty thoughts to look. "Elli? You were telling me why?"
"Oh, right," she laughed sheepishly.
And despite getting distracted once or twice more as her husband climbed into bed next to her with only those snuggly flannel pants that she had often declared made him so wonderfully jumpable (well, more so) and immediately pulling her closely against his chest and stroking her hair gently to distract her just a little bit more, she managed eventually to get the whole story conveyed. The boy hounding Rick all summer, Karen's extremely badly timed trip to the city, the many failed attempts of all the girls at making him see reason, and Karen's corresponding fury when she returned home to find a basket case where her husband should have been.
Tim was silent for a long moment, mulling the story over in his head and drawing absent little patterns over the soft, smooth skin of Elli's back where her nightgown was sliding up with only minor assistance on his part. She could nearly hear him thinking that the boy had deserved it, could almost hear him imagining how he'd feel in that situation. He would probably never get it through his head, she thought with a tiny sigh, that he was the only man in the world who would happily give up the chance of finding a beautiful, brilliant, elegant, and sophisticated woman in favour of a pleasantly pretty little nurse with a knack for cuddling and good chicken soup.
But apparently, his imagined scenario was very vivid, because his arms tightened around her, and she shivered as his lips brushed her forehead.
"There are a lot of different ways for a clueless, overconfident little city-boy to injure himself around town," he announced quietly, lips curving up into a slight smile. "And being beaten up by a woman he was previously trying to seduce from her husband is hardly something any adolescent male would brag about. I don't think we need to bother Harris with this story, after all."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
End Notes: And that's that.