o()o
Author's Note: Hope all of you in PCLand are having a great weekend! A couple of dear friends got me a new keyboard this weekend, so now all I want is new sheet music to learn. Have any you want to share:)
Nifty Fact of the Day: In case you don't remember from before, galya is Gaelic for baby, or little one. It's been Connor's nickname for Sasha throughout both WG and GoC.
o(7)o
"Mah?" The voice was high enough to echo through the hallway and into her room. Maire looked up at the sound, smiling as she rearranged the blanket over her knees.
She picked up the small stuffed kitten and brushed golden fur out of its blue button eyes. She and Murphy had spent almost an hour in the hospital gift shop this afternoon trying to pick out the perfect gift.
"I wish I knew what to get her," She had said, reaching out to touch things that had caught her eye; a ceramic angel, a stained-glass sun catcher, a lollipop bouquet. "What kind of a mother doesn't know what her own daughter likes?"
Or can't even remember her?
Murphy had touched her arm, stopping her search, and ducked to look her in the eyes. "Maybe one that's been in a coma for half a year?" he'd replied.
Now, Maire put the stuffed animal down as Connor cracked her door and peered around the doorframe, offering her a warm smile. "Are ye ready?"
The nicely smoothed blanket was back in her hands, the fabric wrinkling as she twisted the hem. Catching her lower lip between her teeth, Maire nodded.
"Me!" the voice was clear and strident from the other side of the door.
"All right," Connor conceded, his voice muffled. "You open it for us, then."
Grabbing the handle, Sasha turned and gave it a hard push, the door obliged, opening easily, and the baby tumbled into the room.
Sitting up on the floor, the baby looked up at him tears welling in her eyes and Connor looked down toward his knees, his eyes crinkling. "Come on, galya," he said, picking her up and dusting her off. "Ye're all right."
Seeing Sasha was like looking into a mirror, same unruly fair hair, same gray eyes, same funny upturned nose. Clinging to Connor's hand, she peered around his leg, her other thumb corked securely in her mouth.
She was a masterpiece.
The words popped into her head unbidden and unfamiliar, and Maire paused, grappling for the meaning behind them. But it was no good; the phrase had slipped through her fingers like water.
Connor looked down at the little girl, the corners of his mouth quirking. "Are ye goin' ta tell your Ma hello?" he prompted, ruffling her hair.
Sasha shook her head, removing her hand long enough to point up and him. "Kree!"
Maire offered Sasha a wide smile and was rewarded with a shy wave. "She's perfect."
Scooping Sasha into his arms, Connor planted a kiss on the top of her head, grinning as she giggled, hands going to her hair. "That she is, and don't think for a second that she doesn't know it."
"I have something for you," Maire offered, producing the stuffed kitten.
Sasha turned in Connor's embrace to look at her, one chubby wrist wrapped around the dark collar of his tee-shirt, playing with the mysterious strand of beads that Connor wore around his neck.
"Kidi!" she announced with a delighted squeal. "Hee Kidikidikidi!"
"Let's give mommy your gift too, all right?" he whispered loudly, giving Maire a broad wink.
"No!"
Connor rolled his eyes and shook his head. "T'is her favorite fuckin' word right now. Ye should see her and Murph argue."
Maire giggled at the thought of the darker-haired MacManus engaging in a heated debate with her two-year-old.
She wondered who won.
Connor bowed his head, whispering into the baby's ear. Sasha listened, gray eyes wide and then giggled, holding out her arms toward Maire for a hug.
Connor eased the little girl into bed beside her and Sasha climbed into her lap wrapping tiny arms around her neck before settling into her arms, toying contentedly with the stuffed kitten.
And Maire's heart exploded.
The thousands of memories that tried to surface in her mind were blurry, like pictures that were out of focus, but the emotion that flooded through her was crystal clear. It was pure and powerful, and Maire knew, without a doubt, that she would do anything, anything, for the child in her arms.
"Hi baby," she whispered, burying her face in the unruly silk of Sasha's hair. The little girl's unique smell, the sound of her breathing, it was all so familiar.
"Are ye all right, Maire?"
Swiping at her eyes, she looked up at Connor, giving him an unsteady smile and a nod of her head.
"Are ye ready ta give your Ma her gift now, galya?" Connor asked, using a single finger to rub Sasha's shoulder.
Sasha looked from Maire to Connor to the stuffed kitten in her arms and nodded. "'Kay."
Reaching into his pocket, Connor produced a slightly mangled crayon drawing. He offered the picture to the little girl, who clutched it to her chest, beaming at Maire.
"Go on," he urged quietly.
Sasha grinned. "Hee!" she said, pressing the paper against Maire's chest.
The paper was folded in half and Get Well Soon had been carefully outlined in neat block letters along with several stars, flowers, and smiley faces. Sasha must have used every crayon in the box to color it in; the effect was extravagant and chaotic.
She had never seen anything more beautiful.
"We made it for ye the other day," Connor said, a blush crawling out of his collar. "I thought that ye'd like ta have somethin' from her."
Maire's eyebrow's shot toward her hairline. Try as she might, she couldn't see Connor, in black shirt and torn jeans, with a crayon held in his tattooed hand, carefully outlining letters and drawing smiley faces. Grinning she opened the card, inside the same fastidious black lettering had been covered by the same bold, colorful scribbles.
We love you.
The words crashed through her and tears prickled behind her eyes. It didn't seem fair that these people loved her so much and she didn't know anything about them.
She had no memories of Connor or Murphy with all their kindnesses and concerns. She couldn't remember her daughter.
There were no fond memories being pregnant or giving birth. No happy stories about her little girl's antics. She didn't know Sasha's middle name or even who the father was. She couldn't remember her baby's first birthday and had slept through the second . . .
Wait.
Maire paused, catching her lip between her teeth. One of the blurry memories in her head suddenly came into focus. "September twenty-third," she murmured, smoothing the unruly silk of her daughter's hair.
Connor looked up at her sharply, brow furrowing. "What?"
Grinning, Maire kissed the top of her daughter's head, the memory was suddenly there as if it had always been. It was her first real recollection of her life before the coma.
Her fingers moving of their own accord to search for a ticklish spot her body alone recalled and a delighted squeal rewarded her efforts. "September twenty-third," she repeated, "is her birthday. I remember."
"You . . ." he broke off laughing, "You remember?"
Still tickling the little girl, Maire nodded laughing with him. It was one memory out of millions lost, but that made it all the more precious.
The kiss was sudden and sweet, Connor's mouth ghosting over hers, his hand brushing her shoulder before he pulled away, eyes wide.
"Ah Christ, Maire, I didn't fuckin' mean ta do that," he muttered, jamming his hands into his pockets, blue eyes sliding away from hers. "I didn't even fuckin' think."
Maire could only stare at him, her mind reeling and her cheeks burning. It had certainly felt like he'd meant it.
"Kiss?" Sasha inquired from her arms.
Absently Maire nodded, staring at the satin hem of the hospital blanket
"Me too!"
Her smile was unsteady and she couldn't meet Connor's eyes as they both leaned in to plant a kiss on each of Sasha's cheeks.
o()o
The courtyard was designed to be peaceful, isolated from the rest of the hospital, a private place for visitors to go to collect their thoughts. It was perfectly landscaped with ornate concrete benches a large fountain at the far end. A chilly breeze blew, making the clouds overhead ripe with the promise of snow.
Pausing in his furious pacing long enough to cup his hand around the end of a much needed cigarette, Connor swore around the filtered butt and flicked his lighter to life.
The nicotine curled through his veins, steadying his hands and soothing his ragged nerves. He finished in a few deep drags and reached for another, continuing to pace the length of the courtyard.
Jesus, the look on her face after he had kissed her . . .
He sighed, rubbing at the headache that threatened to blossom behind his eyes. What the name of Christ on a fucking bicycle had he been thinking?
" Conn?"
Connor looked up, offering his twin a taut smile and the package of cigarettes. "Did ye get her home all right?"
Murphy nodded, pulling a smoke from the pack. "Valerie sent us cookies."
Chuckling, Connor shook his head. "That woman bakes more than fuckin' Betty Crocker."
In addition to a beautiful two-year-old, Sasha's foster parents had apparently taken in two grown Irishmen. Since meeting Valerie Hawkins, Connor and Murphy had never found themselves wanting for baked goods.
"I don't see ye complainin'."
"Fuck no, Val's cookies are fuckin' amazing."
Murphy snorted, clapping him on the back. "I've got ta have a piss, I'll meet ye."
Connor nodded, watching his twin's retreating form before flicking his half-smoked cigarette away and getting to his feet. Maire would be asleep for a while yet, it almost seemed like the doctors were inventing new tests to do to her anymore, but he wanted to be there when she woke up.
He owed her an explanation.
He stopped outside of the room as a flicker of movement inside caught his eye. There was only one other person that would be skulking around her room like that, hovering over her like some perverted guardian angel.
Whitlatch.
As if the day couldn't have gotten any fucking worse.
The bastard had to have balls of fucking steel to show his face around here after the article he had published for the Globe. And after taking Connor's threats and throwing them out the window the way he did.
He had to admit, grudgingly, that the article in the Globe was a good one. Whitlatch had turned Maire's waking up into a triumph of hope and the human spirit over the violence and apathy of everyday life; award winning shite, really. Even Murphy had agreed.
But to Connor, the article was a written accusation of how he was responsible for everything that she'd had to endure, of how wretchedly he had failed her.
Connor scowled at the reporter's silhouette, curling his fingers into a tight fist. . For all that he was a weaselly little prick, Whitlatch couldn't be described as any sort of 'evil'. Connor knew he wouldn't hurt the other man.
But a good shaking and a boot in the arse had never hurt anyone as far as he was concerned.
Squaring his shoulders, Connor stepped into the room. "What the fuck, Whitlatch, have ye not exploited the girl enough alread --"
The shadow looked up from where Maire slept, startled, and Connor noticed the syringe in its hand, only a scant centimeter away from Maire's I.V.
That wasn't Whitlatch.
"What the fuck?"
There was a clatter as the syringe fell to the floor and the shadow bolted for the door, shoving past Connor as it raced into the hallway.
Connor sprinted after it, nearly knocking his brother down as Murphy rounded the corner.
"Check her!" he hissed to his twin, ignoring Murphy's bewildered look and trusting his twin to understand.
Navigating the hospital hallways easily, the stranger exploded out of the double doors and into the courtyard. He stumbled and Connor fell onto him, pressing a forearm against his throat.
The stranger was a man, ginger hair neatly gelled into place, his hazel eyes wide and panicked as he struggled to draw in a breath around Connor's arm. He looked like the kind of man that played golf on Saturdays and read business section over a grapefruit in the morning.
"What the fuck were ye doin' in her room?" Connor snarled, using his weight to press down on the stranger's windpipe.
The man gagged in response, clawing at his forearm, and kicking feebly.
Connor freed the man's throat, only to slam the back of his head against the unforgiving concrete of the courtyard's walkway. "How did ye get into her room?"
Choking and coughing, the man gasped in a breath that sounded like it was laced with broken glass. "I pay attention," he wheezed.
Wrong answer.
"Do not," Connor spat the words, "fuck with me or I swear ta Christ I will break every bone in your fucking body before I kill you."
The man shook his head frantically, hazel eyes widening. "I waited until security was on their round and the nurses took lunch," he clarified.
That explained why nobody had followed them out here.
Yet.
"What the fuck were ye doin' in there?" he demanded, reintroducing the man's head to the concrete.
There was the sound of familiar footfalls behind him and Murphy called his name. Turning to look at his twin, Connor made the mistake of taking his eyes off the man underneath him.
The blow was vicious and unexpected, catching his temple and sending him sprawling into the perfectly landscaped grass with stars sparkling along the edges of his vision. There was the unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked and the stranger scrabbled to his feet, aiming a 9mm at Murphy.
"Move and I'll splatter his brains all over this place," the man warned, rubbing at his throat and slowly backing away.
Murphy uttered a vile oath, body tensing, and the stranger took a step toward him, swinging the gun between them both.
"No funny stuff, man. I'm serious."
Murphy met Connor's eyes, exchanging a long glance, and Connor gave a minute nod, acknowledging what was going to happen, even as he sprang.
The man got a single shot off, the silencer on the barrel reducing the blast to a sound no louder than a champagne cork. Murphy dropped to the ground and Connor collided into the shooter with brutal force, sending them both sprawling back on the ground, narrowly missing one of the concrete benches.
He wrenched the gun from the other man's hand, a savage smile twisting his face as he heard a grotesque, gratifying snap, followed the shooter's agonized howls. He tossed the gun away, toward his twin and raised a fist.
He wasn't acutely aware that he was striking the other man, landing unforgiving blow after unforgiving blow until Murphy grabbed him by the back of his collar, hauling him away from the now incapacitated shooter.
"Enough, Conn!"
Digging his fingers into Murphy's shoulders hard enough to bruise, Connor fought the urge to fall back onto the man, to kill the bastard with his bare hands.
He could do it. He knew he could. He could hear the sound of the breaking bones and the little shit's dying screams.
It was a sensation that he hadn't felt in a long while, not since last summer, not since . . . he shuddered . . . not since Maire had been shot.
"Maire," he grated out the word, desperate to focus on something other than the tantalizing, terrifying images flashing through his brain.
"She's all right." Murphy shoved the abandoned gun into his waistband, covering it with his shirt. "She didn't even wake up. Jesus, Connor, ye're fucking shaking."
"I'm fine."
But he wasn't fine. He was back in an alleyway with a drug dealer's brains splattered over him. He was in a hotel lobby bathed in blackening blood, dead Street Priests all around him. He was standing in a flooded bathroom, beyond grieving, beyond insane, with a gun pressed against his brother's head.
The memories sent another shudder skittering up his spine and drained the murderous fury from his body, leaving him shaken. Unconsciously, his hand went to the rosary around his neck, fingers curling around the crucifix.
He wasn't that man any more.
"What now? We can't just leave him out here." Murphy ran his hand through his hair then over his face, staring down at the prone figure, which was starting to stir.
The question jolted Connor out of his dark thoughts and he followed his twin's gaze. The answer was simple, really. It had been seared into his brain, embedded into his skin, and etched into the very core of his being. It was the same answer that had governed his life for the past five years.
Evil men: dead men.
He hadn't spoken aloud, but Murphy stilled just the same meeting his eyes and exchanging a long look.
"Aye," he breathed at last. There was no other option.
"Not here," Connor said slowly. "Maire can't know."
Murphy nodded, worrying his thumb between his teeth, and Connor knew that his twin was thinking of Danae.
"Neither of them can know," he amended.
"Aye."
Moving to kneel before the shooter, Connor sucked in a breath as the movement ignited into pain. He pressed his hand against the raw burn that was spreading over his ribs, swearing.
" Conn?"
Jesus. Fucking Jesus that hurt. Connor extended a hand out to his twin, grimacing. "A little help here?" he asked.
"Jesus fuckin' Christ!" Murphy exclaimed, eyes wide.
Connor looked at his hand. His fingers were coated in blood.
"Bullet must've caught me," he muttered, wiping his hand on the manicured lawn, leaving red streaks on the green grass. The adrenaline that had sparkled through his veins was quickly fading away, replaced the by the disturbingly familiar burn of being shot.
Murphy grabbed his forearm, hauling him to his feet, and caught him as he stumbled. "Haven't ye learned to fuckin' dodge those things yet?"
"Fuck ye." Connor groaned, clutching at his side, blood slick between his fingers.
"How bad is it?"
Turning away from his twin, Connor lifted his shirt to examine the wound. There was a deep furrow across his ribcage. It was angry and swollen, the flesh around it already beginning to bruise. It hurt like a bitch, but it wasn't going to kill him anytime soon.
He lowered his shirt, pressing the fabric into the wound to staunch the blood and buttoned his coat. "Just a nick," he said, turning back around. "We can take care of it after we get him out of here."
"That's a lot o' blood for just a nick." Murphy's eyes were narrowed, his expression daring Connor to lie to him.
"I said I'm fine. Now let's get this bastard out o' here before someone decides to call security and we're up to our eyeballs in shit."
"Too late" Murphy inclined his head toward the one of the large windows where a polyester-clad security guard was making his way toward the courtyard.
When the guard opened the door, he was greeted by the sight of Connor and Murphy, alone, side by side on the concrete bench, arguing heatedly.
"Any trouble here boys?" the guard asked, his hand going to the walkie-talkie clipped to his belt.
Connor shook his head, "No trouble here, just a little scuffle with my eejit brother."
"Aye," Murphy echoed the nod. "Ye'd think he'd fuckin' know by now that I'm always right."
"The fuck ye are!"
The guard shook his head, rolling his eyes skyward. "Just try to keep it down, okay? We had a couple of patients complain the noise and I'd hate to have to escort you both out of here."
"Yes sir," they chorused as the guard walked away.
Once the courtyard doors were closed and the guard was safely out of sight, Connor blew out a breath. "Jesus that was close."
Murphy got to his feet, revealing the hapless shooter that had been stuffed under the bench, unconscious again courtesy of his fist.
"Let's hurry up and get this over with." He reached into his pocket and closed his fingers around two pennies, polished to a meticulous shine. Connor never carried more than two with him, but he was never without them.
Pulling them out of his pocket, he offered them to his twin, only to find Murphy mirroring the action, two gleaming pennies in his own palm.
Despite the burning wetness in his side and the unconscious stranger at his feet, Connor snorted.
"Ye fuckin' eejit."
Murphy snorted, shaking his head.
"Let's go."
o()o
