The rhythmic squeaking of the swing lulls Saraphina into a dull since of calm. She had thought her heart would burst with joy when she saw HIM standing there. He'd grown so much, from the beautiful young boy into a tall, powerful, and handsome man. He had always looked good. She rests her head against her hand and heaves a sigh. It hadn't been as hard as she thought it would, seeing him for the first time in twelve years.
They had only been children then, and a child's memory can be faulty. She had tricked her self into believing the the fluttering in her chest and the heavy feeling in her belly that she remembered from that time so long ago were just a child's falsification. When she had stepped out of her limo, a woman now and so different than she'd been back then, and her eyes landed on his tall muscular form her heart had stopped.
He isn't the Teddy she remembers, with his bright carefree smiles and the twinkling light of mischief in his pale blue eyes. Had she done that to him? Was it her fault he and Christian were barely civil to one another? She rocks herself gently on the swing and writes yet another sad song in her head.
Elliot had built the play-scape for the children when his oldest daughter had still been a baby. The kids had spent countless hours swinging from the monkey bars, pushing one another on the swings, and hiding from their parents in the fort that stood on the very top. Well, Phina had never been in the fort. Her crippling fear of heights had made her the butt of a lot of jokes.
Ted had thought it the height of hilarity to sneak up behind the unsuspecting girl and give her a push on the swing. Phina would hold so tight to the chains her knuckles would turn white while she begged him to stop, she didn't want to go high. Sophie had giggled at her sisters frantic squealing until her sides hurt and soda poured out her nose. Phina didn't think it was funny. She sighs again and slumps in the swings.
"It isn't good to sit out in the dark at three A.M. and think such heavy thoughts." Her head pops up and she spins the swing. Wrapping the chain, to see Ted standing behind her. Her mouth goes dry and all of her heavy thoughts float away on balloons when she sees the pain and sorrow in his beautiful eyes. "Want a push?"
"No thank you." Her voice is a raspy whisper. What happened to the beautiful voice that enthralls millions of people around the world? Phina can't seem to dig deep and find the strong, brave woman who stands on stages and bares her soul to sold out crowds. With Teddy she is just the brat; a sacred and lonely little girl with a silly crush.
"I promise to play nice. You still afraid of heights?" Phina hesitates before nodding. She has flown around the globe, several times, yet she still cant mange standing on a chair to reach something from the top shelf. Given their past she isn't sure revealing any weaknesses to Ted is a good idea.
He twirls a finger in the air, "Turn around." It isn't a request. Christian Grey is a domineering control freak who expects his every word to be obeyed, it is only natural that his son and heir apparent have that same lord of the manner way about him. She does as instructed, and thought she is expecting it, the feel of his warm palms pressing against her back is a shock. She sucks in a breath and lifts her feet off the ground. "I haven't pushed anyone on a swing in a long time." he says idly.
The swing sways gently, back and forth. He gives her a gentile nudge every few moments and they stay like this for a long time, readjusting to each others company. "I was thinking about how you used to torment me with under doggies." She says finally. He chuckles and it is a warm happy sound that washes over her like a balm to her soul.
"It wasn't all bad. Was it?" Phina shakes her head slowly and plants her feet on the ground, his hands come to rest on he shoulders. Phina's head is down, those dark curls form a curtain around her pretty face.
"I'm so sorry Teddy." She says this so softly he is hardly sure he heard her right. He CAN'T have heard her correctly. This innocent girl who's life he destroyed with his adolescent idiocy could not be apologist to him! Ted grabs the chains and spins the her back around to face him. He falls to his knees before her.
Phina's gaze locks with his, her big brown eyes shining with unshed tears. "It is all my fault. Oh Teddy, I'm so sorry." She buries her face in her hands, but not before he sees one glistening teardrop slid down her cheek. He holds the chain to the swing with one big strong hand and with the other gently pulls her hands away.
"Hay, look at me. It wasn't your fault, none of it was your fault. If any one should be apologizing here it should be me." He releases her hands to run his own through his already disheveled hair. "Shit, I should have manned up and taken responsibility. I shouldn't have let my father say those things to you. None of it should have happened." She shakes her head vehemently, her tears flowing like a river now.
"It was my fault." She tells him adamantly. Ted releases the damn swing and it snaps around, jarring Phina. He is in front of her again in a heartbeat. Pulling her from the swing and into his arms. Phina doesn't resist, she never could resist him. Wrapping her arms around him she buries her face in his neck and lets the huge shuddering sobs rake her body. "Teddy!" She hiccups.
Ted sits on the ground, his back against one of the play-scape's posts, and pulls her into his lap. "Shhh baby, it's OK. It's all gonna be OK." He croons in her ear while rocking her from side to side and stroking her soft hair. Neither one of them wants to say it out loud but each understands what the other is blaming themselves for:
"I saw you with her last night." Phina says, sliding out from the shadows in the corner of his room.
"how did you get in here brat?" Ted demands even though he knows damn well that she has climbed the garden trellis outside his window; it's the same way he sneaks out of his room to see her sister.
"I know you two are having sex." She hisses the s in sex, drawing it out like it is the dirtiest word in the world. In this case it is a very dirty word.
Ted refuses to look the brat in the eye when he says, "You don't know what your talking about. Get out of my room brat." He hopes he sounds calm, cool, and unaffected, because inside he is a mess. It is true that he is sleeping with Sophie. Despite his being only eighteen and her twenty six. They had been doing it since she got back from collage three years ago.
"I was hiding in her closet watching you. I'm going to tell my daddy," She threatens. Ted wants to shout at her that she can do that, both he and Sophie would be in deep shit. "And then I'm going to tell your daddy."
"O.K.! What do you want from me Phina? Money?" He asks desperately.
"Nooo." She hakes her head and those Shirley Temple curls bounce around.
Ted takes a deep calming breath ,lets it out, and looks into her dark brown eyes. "What do you want from me Saraphina?" A impish smile spreads slowly across her pretty little face. She looks like the cat that got the canary.
"You." She says and the meaning of that one word hangs in the air between them. Ted doesn't want to know where she thinks she is going with this. Phina is only thirteen years old, five years younger than him and the same age as his youngest sister. He won't even consider what she is implying.
"Choose something else Phina, I'm not for sale." Phina shrugs and heads for his open window. "Wait, where are you going?"
"To get my daddy." She says matter-of-factly. Ted jumps from his bed where he had been reclining and grabs her by the shoulders.
"You can't do this Phina!" He is panicked.
"Can and will." She informs him, still grinning like the Cheshire cat. He pulls his hands away from her and tugs at his hair. She loves watching him do that, and longs to be able to touch his hair herself.
"We can't do what your asking for Phina, it's not legal."
"I wont tell if you wont." Where had she heard that? Since when had the innocent little brat he loved to tease and thought of as a little sister become a sexual deviant?
"Sex Phina? You want sex?" He asks just to clairifie things. She nods her head vigorously. "are you a virgin Phina?" He is pretty sure she is but he has to ask. She nods again. "Shit!" He is tugging at his copper locks again. "Sex hurts girls the first time Phina, do you understand that?"
"Not if your gentile and do it rite." She protests.
"I don't know what kind of smutty romance novel trash you are reading, but no matter what the man does, it is still going to hurt!" Her face pales a little, she hasn't been expecting that. Ted gives her a little smile, thinking he has got her where he wants her when she throws him for a loop.
"Well if it only hurts the first time we are just going to have to do it more than once!"
Phina is still shuddering in his arms, sucking in a little air at a time and trying to get her emotions under control. Twelve years, he had waited twelve long years to drag out into the light their dark past together. Ted wants to curse himself, he could have let her tattle and taken the cost of his and Sophie's actions as their due punishment. As two consenting adults their parents would have been disappointed in them but it would not have hurt them nearly as much as his actions had hurt Phina.
"Oh, baby I'm so sorry." He is crying now as well. How had he let her suffer alone for the past twelve years? How had he managed to suppress his own pain and moved on with his life while she was hurting so much. His mind flashes to that day, when she stood in the driveway, one arm wrapped around herself, the other raised in a little wave as he watched her disappear from is rear view mirror.
"It was all my fault, I was so je-jealous of what you and Sophie had." Phina hiccups. "I wanted you so bad!" It is nearly a wale.
"No baby, none of it was your fault. Don't ever think that again." He admonishes, but gently.
"I blackmailed you like the little brat I am, and I hurt you. Now you and your dad don't talk." He strokes soothing circles across her back and continues to rock her in his arms. She seems so small and fragile, someone to be protected, yet he had abandoned her.
"My father and I disagree on a lot of things Phina, our relationship has always been strained. What is going on between us has nothing to do with you." It is a blatant lie but at this point he'll say anything to get her to stop crying. Phina lifts her head, her now bloodshot eyes boring into his very soul.
"Don't you lie to me Theodore Raymond! I am twenty five years old and I know damn well when some one is trying to force feed me a crock of shit!" Ted ducks his head, feeling shame fill his chest. Somehow she has turned him from a thirty year old man trying to give comfort to a younger woman, to a child who had lied to his mother.
"Yes ma'am." He responds, keeping his face turned down to hide his reluctant smile. He'd take angry Phina over crying Phina any day!