Iced Heart

Chapter 2

"He found you?" Viki wasn't so much asking as confirming. The two walked onto the porch to enjoy the winter sun. Téa had come clean at last, for the first time in a very long while, and it felt good. She stood with her hands on her hips, her face to the sun. A weight had been lifted, and yet, her heart ached as much as it did the moment she realized Todd had kidnapped their daughter. Things were so complicated. Walker was probably wooing Blair as sure as the sun's rays touched her skin.

"Yes," she said, turning to Viki. "I was living my life. I had recovered from his abandonment of me on that… island. I was working in Florida, in Orlando's district attorney's office and loving it. I had an apartment. I was a hop, skip, and a jump from Puerto Rico and my grandmother." She sighed in recalled happiness, a soft smile that quickly faded. "I don't deny I was lonely." She remembered the simple pleasure of her little apartment. She remembered turning the key and liking the quiet, the tick-tock, the oooh-ahhh of the refrigerator, and the hushed noise of the street coming through the bathroom window.

"No romance?" Viki reached and held Téa's hand for a moment, surprising Téa.

"No. Nothing felt right. I tried… a couple of times. I chose not to continue the relationships." That was all code for one-night stands that went nowhere. She'd take them home, or go home with them. She'd toss them into the dark or steal away before the night's fog dissipated.

"So how did Todd find you?"

"I wasn't hiding. He told me he knew I'd be practicing law so he checked every state bar in the country. From there it was a matter of the white pages," she chuckled. "I came home one evening and there he was, waiting at the door. He had new scars on his face from the beating he'd gotten from Mitch's bodyguards. He was… skittish. More than that. I reached to touch him and he flinched. A door slammed and he jumped. I stepped back, afraid to move, completely shocked. He then walked toward me, and just held me. For so long we stood that way, on the walkway to my apartment."

Birds flew past and intertwined in the garden and Viki watched them. Clouds drifted, making shadows on the concrete deck, a few looking like rain.

"Mitch...," Viki sighed, beginning a thought.

"Mitch broke him. He never quite recovered. He tried so hard. We had our beautiful daughter, Sierra, after that. We were… okay. We had a nice little life together. For a while."

"But something made it less so."

"Yes. A newspaper." Téa looked at Viki, willing the information to pass through to her. It did not take long.

"Of course. He saw the execution."

"Exactly. We'd been talking about returning to Llanview so he got a hold of a paper and there in black and white was the story of 'Todd Manning' being executed for murder. All the progress he made at getting back a semblance of a life after what Mitch had done to him was destroyed. He was still so fragile but I didn't know. I didn't realize it! This… thing that Walker did meant something so much more than just a con job. Something deep was triggered and he… imploded. Showed me how fragile he was by taking my daughter on some...insane..." Téa gritted her teeth, her hands tightened into fists, her brows knitted with tension.

"A journey into madness," Viki concluded, sounding more familiar than observational.

"Yes. Four months he kept her."

"My god..."

"Four months I was in agony. I finally got a phone call and the next I knew my beautiful child was in Puerto Rico and he was gone. Off the face of the earth. I hated him for what he did. Once the hatred passed though, I searched for him, finding nothing. Not a trace. Maybe he killed himself, I wondered. But something told me otherwise. Something told me… he needed to come alive again and was searching for that… fire… or experience… or..." She shrugged, at a loss for words.

"Like Frankenstein...needed a shock."

Téa smiled, "Yes, maybe. His escape was just that… an effort to come to himself. And it failed. That's when I decided to come here. To assess the damage. Maybe if I rebuild his kingdom… it will be what he needs. The thing to draw him home. Maybe the killing of Walker will be the fire he needs."

"But not a literal killing."

Téa shrugged.

"How are you going to do this without Todd himself? Walker...is Todd. This is going to be quite the trick. DNA evidence won't do it. They're identical twins." Viki paused at that thought. Identical twins. She turned away again. Looking in the distance, saying softly... "Such a trick to perform."

"A confession maybe? I don't know. Walker needs his life broken down, his possessions weakened. His sense of self rocked. He needs to be confused."

Viki agreed. But how does one rock this perfect world Walker had created? How does one confuse… the un-confuse-able?

Téa looked up from her meditation upon her brown shoes, pointed delicately, strong… leather… shoes.

"He needs to be broken, Viki. Broken to the point of madness."


From beneath the heavy covers of his bed, he spied a mostly naked woman heating water for tea on his miniature stove in his miniature kitchen. The only word out of his mouth was, "shit," in true-blue English.

"So, American Man, Thar, God of Thunder, you are shy the morning after?"

That's right, he reminded himself, he wasn't Todd anymore. He left that fragmented, twisted asshole behind in Alaska the moment he put his precious angel on a plane to Puerto Rico. The moment he hung up the phone after telling Téa where Sierra was. Yes, he was someone else now. Someone who was charming yet crass, hardened and enlivened by Icelandic water and vodka. Thar loved dark-haired women, American music and the brotherhood that came from northern fishermen. Thar had no cuts within him that reached an ocean's depth. No, Thar was beautiful and free. He'd be slapping the girl's ass and fucking her again right at that miniature stove, tea cup and sugar in her hands.

Todd Manning however...was very much in the bed. "Yes," he whispered, sinking deeper into the covers. Shyness was far better than what was ticking inside of him. "Please go."

Bjorn snorted in disbelief. "Oh come on, Thar… let's take advantage of the boats being grounded." She closed the gap between them, slithering under the covers next to him. Her hands stroking his head, his rough beard, his shoulders. He squirmed at her touch, trying not to be Todd. Her hands slipped down his chest and grabbed onto soft betraying flesh. He jerked at her violation of his space and battled the snapping of civil restraint. She pleasingly hummed as his body reacted instinctively to her touch, believing his quickened breaths and violent twitches were that of delight rather than revulsion. Her dark hair smelled of the sea, her skin of female sweat. Their bodies clashed together, a disaster of misunderstanding, but he could not pretend anymore and at last grabbed her arms with unleashed aggression. The tightness made her yelp in pain. He moved her away from him, shoving her to the side. The silence in the room deafened her as she looked directly at him, seeing something indescribable in his face. Her mouth slacked in humiliated shock.

"I asked you to leave. I asked nicely." Todd's voice came through much too much on that one and Bjorn moved off the bed. Shivering now with bubbling indignation, she covered her body with her arms.

"I'm sorry," she said, her tone cold. "I thought you liked what we did. I thought you were… like all other men." She grabbed her clothes and began dressing. She watched out the window at the snow coming down and began to think maybe she was lucky in getting away with mere embarrassment. She squinted and eyed the clock on the wall. "I do have business to attend in a few hours." She yanked her boots on, huffed as she put on her coat. The tea kettle began shrieking. She did nothing to stop it.

Swallowing hard and trying to reach Thar inside of himself, trying to be that nicer person, he sat up, and pushed down the covers to slide towards the edge of the bed. He was exposed in the muted morning light. Scars snaked across his body in all directions and he saw Bjorn's eyes move along his skin. He felt her inquisitive gaze as deeply as if she'd been scratching him with a jagged knife. Within he cringed. Countering his instinct, ever attempting to be Thar, he sought her hand. He grabbed her wrist and kissed it.

She let him… feeling she had no choice. She dared not move lest he decide to be unkind again.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, resorting to quiet in order to hide his true self. He felt her trembling and it filled him with guilt. "I'm a grouch in the morning... to everyone. Last night was nice. More than nice." Even if he could hardly remember it.

Bjorn pulled away from him, unsure now if he was just a bastard, a serial killer, or hung-over fisherman. Deciding he was just a bastard, she pushed him back, laughing to herself at his nakedness, at the obvious vulnerability of men in general. One well-aimed punch would cut down that arrogant lion quick. They all had that in common. As if he could read her mind, he covered himself. She shook her head. "It's okay," she said. "We got what we wanted. You needed company; I did too." She turned off the heat on the small stove to stop the yell of the kettle. When she opened the door, unforgiving cold seeped into the room, sending Todd well under the covers.

She paused at the open door, turning to look at him once again. "By the way, Thar, my name is not...Téa. It is Bjorn. When you're fucking a woman, it's always better to use her name, and not the name of another." The bed shook with the slammed door.

He was alone now. As it should be. The wind whipped up outside and he wished for the sun to come out again. Iceland had crazy weather - he knew this blizzard of sorts wouldn't last all day. By the afternoon, the temperature would rise, the snow would settle. How the hell did Bjorn end up in his bed? He could not recall the vodka-infused night. He remembered drinking, losing at dice, drinking, then winning, then drinking some more and laughing with his fellow crewmen.

Skál! Cheers!

Everything after was blurred. Not that he was surprised. It happened before. Drinking to oblivion followed by finding a stranger in his bed. A dark-haired stranger willing to touch him, willing to please him. Willing to be used. He rolled his eyes and flopped back to stare at the exposed wooden beams above. Every morning after was also the same. He woke up angry and territorial over his space. This time he had called her name out. That he hadn't heard before. That was new.

"Téa. Téa..."

He wanted to talk to her again. He wanted to see Sierra and talk to her, too. He remembered their life together. The sweetness of it. He remembered being unable to stay, their hard-won life slipping through his fingers like sand. Numb. Paralyzed. He looked at a stack of papers on the dresser. There was a Llanview paper in a large manila envelope there. He'd called the Banner two weeks ago and had it sent. The operator thought it was funny to hear a request from so far away and he simply gave the story of being on a world tour and missing home. She had laughed and said she'd send a few papers. He got the papers and there they sat. Untouched. Unread.

The last time he'd looked at a paper, he'd broken into pieces. His grasp on reality simply ended. Sierra had been his only connection to humanity. He swept her in his arms and walked out the door. He walked and walked and did not recognize the sound of his own voice. He'd ask Sierra over and over, "Do you know who I am?" Yes, you're my daddy. He'd smile and she'd kiss him thinking he was playing a game. But he wasn't.

Mitch had torn him to pieces and Walker took over his real life. Todd was alive in Llanview… so who was this person with Sierra? He'd look in the mirror and see the scars and broken nose and broken cheekbones and he did not know himself. So he quieted and watched time pass as he and Sierra made their way across the country into the icy land of Alaska. He listened to his Sierra talk, her voice a tether to his soul. She grew accustomed to his silence and odd questions. Alaska had been exciting for her. She was anxious to see the icebergs and the polar bears. He knew she had to go back to Téa when he could no longer fight the desire to simply lie down in the ice and never speak again.

"Téa ...Téa ...Delgado. Ahhhhh..."

Clearing his throat, he tried again.

"Viltu dansa við mig?" Will you dance with me? Thar had a fine, fine voice.

To be continued...