Devils and Angels
Part 3 of 3
By S. Faith, © 2008
Words: 11,982 (this part: 3,233)
Rating: T / PG-13
Notes: See Part One.
aftermath
It had all been a big mistake. He'd been wrong all along. As he went from room to room in his house, looking for Bridget, and seeing that she was nowhere to be found, the dread that filled him increased, and he kept telling himself: He'd been wrong all along.
She wasn't here. And when he had encountered their parents, her friends, teary-eyed and staring accusingly at him, all clad in black, he knew why he couldn't find her. She hadn't survived.
It's your fault, they all said with their glares.
He was filled with confusion and grief. Had her surgery, her recovery at her parents' house, all been a dream? He turned and found himself face to face with a casket, a closed casket surrounded by a wall of roses of every shade. There was a small bronze plaque at the foot that he was too afraid to look at; he knew instinctively what it said. He backed away from the gleaming golden-brown wood, trembling all over. He raised his hands to his head, wove his fingers into his hair, trying to scream but no sound came out—
With a great gasp, he awoke, still shaking, his forehead beading with sweat. Still panting for air, he immediately turned to his side. To his great relief she was there, slumbering but very much alive, breathing with the long, slow, steady rhythm of deep sleep.
Jesus, he thought, fighting the instinct to pull her against him; there was no need to wake her, and he didn't want to risk hurting her with the sort of embrace he was likely to need. Instead, he rose from the bed, pacing a bit before deciding to go downstairs.
He knew Colin Jones still kept scotch in the house.
He was startled, however, to find that Pam Jones was in the kitchen, tending to the kettle, waiting for it to boil. "Mark, whatever is the matter?" she asked, turning to look at her with obvious alarm. "Is it Bridget? Is she all right?"
"She's fine."
"You look so pale and scared," she said. "I thought maybe…"
"She's sleeping like a baby. I, on the other hand…" He drifted off, not sure about confiding his nightmare to her.
"Oh, Mark. Bad dream?"
He blinked in disbelief.
Pam continued, "Have some tea with me."
He glanced to the clock. It was one in the morning, give or take a few minutes. "Were you having trouble sleeping too?" he asked her.
"I haven't slept well since the accident," she said matter-of-factly, as she got a second cup down for Mark, placed a tea bag into each cup, then poured the boiling water on top of them. "I know she's going to be all right, but there are some things that a mother just can't turn off." She looked to him, her eyes wide and quite piercing. "I can't imagine what this is doing to you."
As she slid his cup towards him, he wrapped his hands around the cup. "I dreamt that Bridget was—" His teacup went blurry before him. "Dead. And everyone just… the looks of disgust…" He trailed off.
He felt her hand strong on his shoulder, squeezing reassuringly. "Mark, you're not to blame."
"But if I hadn't been so irritated and upset about having to set aside work to make the drive…" he went on, trailing off. "I don't care a lick for work now."
Pam pulled him tight to her, her arm around his waist, her hand fixed on his elbow. "It was an accident. Everyone knows that," she said quietly. "Everyone also knows that foremost in your mind is Bridget's health and safety. Nothing could ever distract you from that, not even irritation or anger."
"But—"
"No buts," she said curtly. "You said you looked to Bridget in the car?"
"Yes."
"And the bulk of the damage was on the passenger side?"
"Yes."
"So you were looking practically directly where the deer hit and you still couldn't avoid it? Do you think you would have reacted better, faster, if you'd been looking straight ahead?"
He had no answer to that.
"Now it'd be another story altogether if you'd seen the deer and aimed towards it…" she added, striving for levity.
He felt himself smiling despite his nightmare. "Thank you," he said softly.
"Oh, heavens, Mark, that's what mums are for," she said brightly. "Have your tea, have a couple of sugar biscuits, and get back to bed. I have a feeling you'll need your strength as she starts to feel better."
He took his hands from the teacup and turned to give Pam a hug, to let her know the depth of his appreciation. "Yes, ma'am," he said quietly.
Mark drank his tea, ate a couple of biscuits, and felt considerably calmer and sleepier as he finished. Pam sat with him and drank her own, and they spent the time in easy silence. He had never considered Pam Jones as a beacon of reason, but he was discovering more depth to her than he ever imagined.
"Well. Off to bed with me then." He rose, taking his teacup to the sink. "And yourself?"
"I'll be going back up in a few," she said, still staring down into her own cup.
It occurred to Mark that perhaps Pam still considered herself somewhat to blame for the accident—after all, it was her party they had been on their way to. Logic applied to others did not always apply to oneself. Mark knew this from his own experience. "Pam," he said tenderly. "It could have happened on any day, on any country lane—it could have just as easily happened on the way to my own parents' home. Don't hold yourself to blame, either."
She glanced up to him, her eyes shining with unshed tears, then smiled and nodded, sniffing. "Good night, Mark. Sleep well."
Mark headed back to the room he was sharing with Bridget, but stopped at the door. There was someone in the room with Bridget. As his eyes adjusted, he realised it was her father, sitting on the bedside, gazing down at his daughter. Mark smiled.
At that moment, Colin turned to look at Mark, as if startled by a sound behind him. "Oh, Mark," he whispered, getting quickly but quietly to his feet. "I heard a sound, and got up to make sure she was okay. Sorry."
"Don't apologise."
Colin glanced to Bridget. "She'll be okay, I know. Doesn't mean I can't get the thought out of my head that such an awful thing happened to you two."
"Yeah," said Mark. "She'll be okay." He clapped a hand on the older man's shoulder. "Why don't you gather your wife up and get back to bed? We'll all need the sleep—I think Bridget's feeling better already," he added, echoing Pam's thoughts.
Once Colin had gone, Mark got back into bed, and curled as close to his wife as he could, bending to kiss her at the temple before settling into his pillow. When he fell back to sleep, he had no more bad dreams that night.
………
It wasn't until they were back in London, driven back by Bridget's father, that the dreams returned, only variations on the theme—that she was still in hospital, paralysed or in a vegetative state, or even that she was trying to get away from him, shouting accusingly at him that she didn't want him to hurt her again. He would wake, sweating and shaking, not sure who to turn to, who to confide in.
He certainly couldn't confide in Bridget. He didn't want to add to her worries.
Attempts to rationalise to himself that the accident was only that—an accident—had no effect on the dreams. His frustration in this was, unfortunately, expressed in an overprotectiveness. He knew he was doing it, but the accident underscored how delicate and tenuous life was, how everything could change in a moment. He was not about to stand down his guard.
It was little wonder that his frustration would express itself in this way, after all; as her bruises faded and her cuts healed, her acceptance of the doctor's recommendation of rest at home went as far as not going to work. She did not seem to grasp that it did not mean shopping excursions with Magda or lunch with Shaz and Jude over a bloody Mary, which he forbade her to do, much to her increased irritation. He decided to work from his home office just to make sure she was staying in and recuperating.
Even still, there was also the matter of the physical impossibility of being in two places at once. It was a comment from Jeremy that set his mind to thinking:
"So, Mark, when shall we expect a happy announcement from you?"
Mark had no idea what he was talking about.
Jeremy continued: "You... Bridget... surely you're thinking of children. I mean, after her recovery of course."
Ah, he thought, the logical follow-up to the age-old 'when are you getting married' query. "We—" He stopped short. Jeremy had three children of his own. Jeremy might be able to solve his dilemma. "—haven't talked about it since the accident," continued Mark smoothly, "but I'm doing a little research on my own. Logistics and so on. I keep meaning to ask you, actually, if you have a baby monitor I might borrow for a little while. To do some testing with broadcast ranges in my house."
He could hear the smile on Jeremy's face as he said, "You bet. I'll ask Magda and have her bring it by."
"No," said Mark quickly. "I mean, I'll run 'round your place and pick it up. You're doing me a big enough favour as it is."
"If you insist," replied Jeremy. "If you're sure you want to leave her alone for that long..."
He wasn't sure that he did, but not for the reason Jeremy was likely thinking. He didn't want her friend showing up with it; he wanted to install it surreptitiously. "I'm sure," he said. "It's kind of a surprise, so tell Magda not to say anything to Bridget."
"Righty-ho," said Jeremy. "Let me ring Mags up. I'll call you back when she's found it."
"Great."
Jeremy called back within a half-hour, and with the excuse that he had to go and sign a paper at the office, he went out to retrieve it. "Why don't you try to nap?" he suggested.
She nodded. "Think I will."
When he returned, she was fast asleep, which gave him the chance to get the receiver in place near the sofa. He set up the monitor on his desk. He was pleased when a few minutes later, he heard the rustling of the blanket, heard her yawn. He smiled smugly, then continued on with his work. She couldn't even turn over on the sofa without his knowing.
………
The sub rosa surveillance of Bridget from his office had been in place for most of the week; he was already feeling less stressed regarding her whereabouts, though his being there to help her every time she left the sitting room to use the loo must have made him seem downright psychic.
The dreams, however, did not abate.
He was in the midst of working when his phone rang, startling him. Three o'clock already. Time for phone conference with Jeremy and Giles. He heard her pushing back her blankets, some rustling—pages of a book. She had decided to read again. Excellent, he thought.
It was in the middle of discussing case strategy that he heard a mobile ringing loudly.
"Mark?" asked Giles, stopping mid-sentence. "Is that yours?"
"Um," he said, fumbling to find the volume control on the monitor. He could not locate it. "It's, uh, Bridget's actually."
"Is she in your office with you?"
Jeremy, however, began to laugh, just as Bridget's voice sounded loud and clear through the monitor, greeting her friend Jude.
"Yeah," continued Bridget, "still under the watchful eye of the health dictator." He heard her sigh loudly.
Jeremy was veritably howling with laughter now. "Research, my left eye! You're using—"
"Jeremy, let's get back to—"
"—that monitor to listen to your wife!"
There was a terrible crashing sound, followed by a "What the bloody hell—"
He found the volume at last and turned it down. Giles at this point was laughing too.
"You'd better go, Mark," said a breathless Jeremy. "Something tells me you have some explaining to do." His two colleagues disconnected him from the call.
The only reason he hadn't told her was because he knew she would not understand. He was right.
"Mark," she said as he approached her in the sitting room. She was standing in her pyjamas, holding the receiver up by its power plug. She looked shocked... and angry. "What is… this?"
His reply wasn't the full truth, but was it neither a lie: "I wanted to make sure I heard you if you needed anything."
"Bollocks," she said, dropping the monitor; Mark feared for its structural integrity. "Especially since you made certain not to tell me about it!" She leaned back wearily against the arm of the sofa. "Mark, not even my mother would be this iron-fisted with me, secretly keeping dibs on what I'm doing with a baby monitor," she said with a frown. "If I need anything, I can get up and get it for myself. I can use the loo on my own. You don't have to watch me twenty-four hours a day like I'm a helpless child or like I might make a run for it."
"If I thought you would sit back and watch movies on the telly all day while I was working, I wouldn't have to." He moved to stand near the edge of the sofa beside her, held out his hand, and took hers in his own. "Why can't you just accept the doctor's recommendations that you rest and allow yourself to heal? I don't want you doing anything to compromise your recupera—"
"I know," she interrupted. "But why are you smothering me? I know what my limits are. It isn't as if I'm going out jogging or trying out for Cirque du Soleil."
"You've been out of hospital for fewer than two weeks."
"And?"
"And, you're hardly fully ready for return to your regular life."
"I'm not trying to!" she said in exasperation. "For God's sake, you've had a bloody baby monitor set up between me and your office! Don't you think that's a little extreme?"
"No," he said, "I don't."
She looked up at him, blinked thoughtfully, searching his eyes with her own, which became softer the longer she was silent. "Mark," she said at last, the timbre of her voice sombre. "What is this really about? Tell me what's wrong."
He bristled. "Nothing's wrong."
She pursed her lips.
"Nothing's wrong," he said again, lifting his chin. "I'm going back to work."
He turned on his heel and was about to walk away when she said quietly, "You're doing it all over again."
He froze in place, turning back to her. She was right. He was turning his frustration and annoyance (this time, at his feelings of helplessness) against the one person who deserved it least.
"I know what this is about," she continued, pushing herself with a wince up off of the arm of the sofa. She walked to him, grasping his upper arms, fixing her gaze upon his. "Mark. Listen to me. It was an accident. It was nothing you meant to do, nothing I hold you responsible for, and while I appreciate you love me enough to try to keep me safe, I'm not in any more danger than I ever was. Things just happen sometimes."
"Yes, things do just happen sometimes, and if I can prevent them from happening again, I will," he said, his jaw clenching as he tried to quell the emotion. "I hope you never know the terror I went through that night…" He trailed off, looking away, trying to compose himself again.
"Of course you hope that," she said tenderly, "and I pray you'll never know it again, but really, we can't stop living for fear of dying. You know?"
He looked down to her, to her bright blue eyes; her face was back to its porcelain hue, only marred by a few remnant scratches; through her flaxen hair he could still see the quickly fading scar on her head. He knew she was right. It was just so hard not to be afraid.
He closed his eyes and decided not to be afraid anymore.
"I keep dreaming," he said in a hushed, hesitant voice, "that reality, your recovery, is the dream, that you were actually very badly injured, paralysed, rendered just this side of brain-dead…" He looked at her again. "Worst of all, in a sense, are the ones where you're afraid to be near me, avoiding me, for fear of my hurting you again."
"Oh, Mark," she said, taking him in her arms. "It's just a dream. I'm here, I'm fine, and I'm not going anywhere."
"I see these things and they terrify me," he went on quietly. "You're still recovering and I didn't want to bother you—"
She pulled quickly back. "Bother me? Are you kidding me?"
He felt sheepish; even as the words had left his mouth they sounded ridiculous.
She continued, "How is my sensing something being wrong with you, being worried about it, and not being able to do anything about it helping me to heal?"
He looked at her in disbelief.
"Oh, yes," she said. "I could tell you weren't yourself. I knew though that if I asked you'd deny it." She smiled. "Stop thinking I can't handle my own healing and yours, too."
Overwhelmed with love for her, he bent to kiss her ever so gently on the lips.
"Now, hotshot," she announced. "I want you to march into that office, put your work away—hell, give it to your co-conspirator Jeremy for that matter. I'm banishing you to the bedroom with me for the rest of the day."
She was still recovering, only two or so weeks into mending a broken rib, so their time together on their bed was tame by most marital standards: curled up with her, holding her close, plying her with tender, gentle kisses and her returning them in kind. He combed his fingers into her hair as she drifted off to sleep in his embrace; he too fell to sleep and was not plagued by terrible dreams.
He awakened to the sensation of her fingers tracing delicately along his own healing head injury. "Poor Mark," she said fretfully. "You had no one to take care of you."
"I was in very capable hands," he murmured.
"That isn't what I meant."
"I know," he returned. "Actually," he added, "that isn't true. Your mother was wonderful."
She stared at him as if he'd just announced he was voting Labour. "My mother. Pam Jones. Pickles on toothpicks. That Pam Jones."
He chuckled. "Yes. Your mother."
"Hm," she said, pulling up a corner of her mouth. "Will miracles never cease?"
He laughed low in his throat, then cradled the back of her head with his hand; mindful of her binding, he pulled her to him. I sure hope they don't, he thought.
The end.