TOUCHED

Chapter 12

Rating: K+

Author: AlyshebaFan2

Song: Feelin' Good, by Charlie Robison. No, I'm not making this a songfic. I don't generally like songfics (the rest of the story has to be exceptional for me to like them). Mainly because I don't know most of the songs, and have never heard of half the bands. That's what happens when you're stuck in the 1980's. Frankie says relax, and he means it!

Anyway. This is kind of a filler chapter, but stuff ended up happening that I didn't really plan and so it actually moves things along better than I really expected. Or least I hope it does. If I hunker down, I can probably get chapter thirteen written before bedtime, but I make no guarantees.

Thanks for all the great reviews, by the way. Publishing stories online is scary!

"Good morning, Beverly Hills!"

Alexandra's eyes popped open and she looked around, then smiled at the sunlight pouring into the room and listened as her husband launched into a random-neural-firing morning drive radio show.

"It's gonna be a bright, sunshiny day today here in Southern California, with temperatures in the upper eighties – in the Northeast, that's called a heat wave; in Llano, Texas it's called a friggin' cold front – with winds out of the south at about ten miles an hour. Good visibility, low haze, pollen count high, and no rain in the foreseeable future. In local news, Congressman Herbert Plumbpot denied being intoxicated at his ethics charges hearing, but could not explain his nudity. In national news, President Obama blamed the Bush Administration for his poor showing on the golf course yesterday, and would have given a lengthy, inspiring speech on the matter, but his staff couldn't find extension cords for his teleprompter, so he gave the press corps iPods with his best speeches preloaded on them instead. Also, a PETA spokeswoman was going to talk to us live from Anchorage about the vital importance of protecting the furry denizens of Alaska's National Wildlife Reserve, but unfortunately she was eaten by a bear. In entertainment news, grumpy Australian actor Russell Crowe drove his Stingray into a clot of French journalists, much to the delight of onlookers. And now, we cut to Lady Alexandra Murdock with sports!"

She rolled over and peered down at him from over the edge of the bed. He was still lying on the floor, arms folded behind his head. "I don't know anything about sports!" she informed him. He was on his feet immediately – so quickly, it was almost frightening – and stared at her, hands on his lean hips, an indignant expression on his face.

"Nothing? Nothing at all? What about racing? Car racing, motorcycle racing…I've even done some chopper racin', back in Iraq. Beat those Navy SEALS all to hell, lemme tell ya, and I was flyin' a medieval medivac to boot… How 'bout horse racing?"

"I usually only know who won the Derby each year. It's sort of a law that we British know that." She brushed her flyaway hair back with her hands and twisted it into a ponytail.

"Super Saver. Maria's Mon, out of Supercharger by A.P. Indy. A lucky Derby winner – he had Calvin Borell on his back, so how could he not've won?"

"I mean the real Derby," she said haughtily, and snickered at his narrowed eyes. "Workforce won the real one!"

"Yeah, yeah…but y'all pronounce it wrong." He shrugged and went into the bathroom, smacking the door shut. She heard the shower start and got out of bed, straightening the sheets and quilt, and then stood up straight, horrified. She had left her underwear and stockings in there on the hook, drying, on full display!

As if intending to embarrass her further, James opened the door, a cloud of steam rolling into the room, and snapped her panties to her like a rubber band, twirled her bra like a lasso before throwing it to her, and finally dropped her stockings into the chair by the door. She only caught a brief glimpse of his utterly male smirk before he shut the door again, and she heard it lock. Oh, like she would barge in there to have a good look!

Well…maybe. Try as she might, Alexandra couldn't deny being a little curious. But the bloody door was locked. She lifted her chin, hoping to at least appear dignified, and went about straightening the room, picking up his blanket and sheet and folding them neatly, placing them on the bed. She snatched up his pillow and caught his scent – some sort of light, woodsy cologne that suited him perfectly. She stood there for several moments, holding his pillow and breathing in that comforting aroma. Simon had worn a heavy, overbearing scent she had never liked to begin with, and now whenever she smelled it, it made her stomach flip and her skin turn cold as ice.

Nick came bustling into the room, bright eyed and still flushed with sleep. "Where's James? He's not in his room, and that mean old man is downstairs!" He had still not decided on what to call his great-grandfather, and the best he'd managed, in his childish attempts at tackling long or complicated words, had been 'Fanner', and Alexandra was glad to see he had not fallen for Sir Henry's attempts at buying his affection. She touched her son's face and smiled at him, falling more in love with her baby every minute of the day – the nurse at the hospital in Solvang had told her that you don't just love your children – you fall in love with them, and she had been utterly correct. Until her son, she hadn't even really liked children.

Still, Nick was so serious, and that worried her. He was so quick to take things far too hard, and to not snatch as much joy and crazy out of life as he could until he grew up and had to deal with the world. She looked at the shower door and supposed no one was better suited to teaching her son how to have fun than James Murdock. She could hear him in there, singing, and listened for a moment.

Well I got strings that sound as pretty as the ocean
Gonna sit up in the dunes
And wonder what became of undying devotion
I'll just play a tune

Freedom's comin' soon
Play another tune

Play it to the moon…

He kept changing pitch, testing his voice against the tile walls of the shower, going from bass to a nice tenor as he beat out the song. She smiled to herself, and shook her head.

"He's taking a shower, Peanut. Let's get you dressed – and I promise, no more silly suits, at least not until you start dating, God save us all. Your usual shorts and T-shirt today, all right?"

"'kay. James told me we'd fly the Boffeater again today."

"The what?"

"The Beaufighter!" James yelled from the bathroom. Alexandra glared at the door – he had apparently finished showering, and was probably shaving and trying to get his hair settled down.

"Come on, sweetie," she said, taking her son's hand and leading him to the door. "We'll have peanut butter and jam sandwiches…"

"Jelly!" James called from behind the door. "Ow…damn razor…bleeding…towel…where's a towel?"

She stuck her tongue out at the bathroom door.

"I saw that!" James shouted. "Ah, Band-Aids! I found the Band-Aids. Don't worry 'bout me. I'll just bleed to death here on the Spanish tiles!"

It took almost an hour's worth of grumbling, contradictory orders, a harried chauffeur, and Murdock's hip injury feeling like he'd taken that bullet yesterday for Collingwood to finally get loaded into the limousine and drive away. Once the old man was definitely by golly finally gone, Murdock limped back into the house, putting a curse on Sampsonite manufacturers and hoping Alexandra would make him some PB&J sandwiches. He was delighted to see that she had indeed done just that, and sat down with Nick at the table by the pool, eating and watching the boy fiddle with the Beaufighter.

"My friend Face flew one of my airplanes – my toy airplanes – into a wall one day. Broke it all to smithereens."

"Were you mad?" Nick asked him, looking a little worried.

Murdock laughed. "Oh…a tad, I suppose." He had whipped out the Zippo and punished the conman by burning his hand, when he had been distracted by some skin flick on Cinemax. Boys will be boys, Hannibal had said, but he had told him not to pull that kind of thing again. Murdock looked at Nick, and knew he'd never dish out that kind of punishment for even the worst behavior by the kid. Maybe a smack or two on the butt for backtalk or outright defiance, if necessary, or no SpongeBob for a few days. He remembered the punishments he'd received, living with the Beasts. People wondered why he went nuts when he smelled ammonia, and if he were so inclined – which he never was – he would give them ample reasons as to why. "I kinda doubt he did it on purpose. But remember to be careful with that thing, okay? Have fun with it, though. It's yours."

Nick smiled at him – he smiled with his whole face, his dimples showing and his wide blue eyes shining happily. He looked a lot like his mother, except for the dimples and his fair hair. Murdock figured the kid's hair would darken, though. He had been blond as a child, too, and his mother had told him many times that he looked like his father.

Murdock had, among his meager possessions, a wedding photo of his parents. His father had been tall and lean, too, possessing strong muscles and a deep farm hand's tan, with serious brown eyes above a humorous mouth, while his mother was a slim, graceful, sylph-like creature of barely seventeen at the time, green-eyed with smooth, silky skin - eyes from her Irish immigrant grandfather (born dirt poor on the wild western Irish coast and eventually married to a rich Protestant landowner's daughter, just like in Far and Away) and skin inherited from her Cherokee maternal grandmother, who had been so beautiful that six men had vied for her hand at the same time, according to family lore.

Once, he had showed Face the picture, guessing the conman would have some ribald comment, and he'd been right: he had looked down at it, grinned and said that Alice Quinn Murdock was a hottie.

He sat back in the chair and watched Nick fire up the Beaufighter. The plane hovered, wings waggling a little but otherwise admirably steady with a four-year old at the controls. Kid'll be a great flyer, he decided. He had good instincts, and didn't overdo things. Murdock knew he overdid stuff all the time – like this morning's live radio show in Alexandra's bedroom, but he had wanted to…what was the word? Bolster her? Buck her up, maybe? Get her ready to cope with the old man, who had been just as awful as he had expected him to be, shouting orders and just basically being a big, nasty jerk to everybody, particularly Alexandra. He had wanted to see her smile, and to get her day started off right, before she had to go downstairs and contend with Collingwood.

Ah, hell, if he had really wanted to get her day started off well, or least get his own day started on a good note, he would have joined her in the bed and played hide the cannoli. From the way she had been looked at him last night, as they were washing the dishes, it had seemed like the lights were green and all systems were pretty much go. And it had seemed that maybe her Italian wasn't quite as spotty as she claimed – she had appeared to understand at least some of what he'd said to her.

Italian was the perfect language for saying stuff like that – French was just too obvious, in his opinion, and a bit too frou-frou for his tastes anyway. He had said the right things to a few women, over the years, in various languages, but usually those women hadn't spoken those languages and so had had no idea what he was saying and just thought he was loco. Colleen Garrity, however, had liked it when he spoke Russian to her, just like Jamie Lee Curtis in A Fish Called Wanda. He had sung all of 'Back in the USSR' for her one night, in Russian, while they were holed up in her flat in Mannheim. She had been indeed been a Naval officer, and thus her later, surprising visit to Iraq and the rekindling of their affair. Spoke several languages, too, but mainly Russian and German, and after three days of almost constant sex she had declared him to be quite the cunning linguist himself.

Face would have been shocked to know that Murdock wasn't nearly as innocent as he often pretended to be, and that he had had some success with the opposite sex, though not a lot and he had always been extremely picky and very, very discreet. It was just that Colleen had actually been the last woman he'd bedded, and that was eight freaking years ago. It had been best, lately, to just act like he was more or less uncertain about women – and to a major extent, he still was - and was too loony to take a stab at another relationship or fling or affair or love life of any kind. He remembered how nervous he had been when he had first met Alexandra. She had rattled him. Still rattled him. He wanted her to rattle him a little more, though. A lot more. Shake my nerves and rattle my brain…break my will…but what a thrill…

Sighing in frustration, he went back inside to find his deck of cards and returned to the table, setting up for solitaire and keeping an eye on Nick as he flew the plane around and around the edge of the pool, testing its speed. A couple of times, the little plane buzzed Murdock, but he didn't flinch. He lost four games in a row and finally gave up. He told Nick to take a break and go watch some TV for a bit, to improve his mind. The boy obeyed him, if a little reluctantly, and went inside. Murdock packed the toy plane in its box and trailed into the house. He fought the remote and beat the TV into submission, hunting down Nicktoons and finding Penguins of Madagascar. He sat down and watched King Julien Conga-Ga the chimps crazy, but one ear was tuned to the kitchen and Alexandra, who was muttering spells over pots and bowls of things that smelled fairly good as she whipped up lunch. But that didn't exactly mean it would taste good – she was English, after all.

"Who the bloody hell am I, Bridget Jones?" she asked, staring down at the pink soup.

She had used pink string to tie the leeks and celery together, not even thinking for a moment that the dye would bleed into the soup itself. And now, her leek and scallion soup was the color of cotton candy and she could hear her husband coming into the kitchen, obviously overcome with curiosity. Quickly, she turned around and put her back to the stove, ready to defend her position and her reputation for competency by way of another kick to the shin, if necessary. The other shin.

"Hey, good-lookin', whatcha got cookin'?" he asked. He was wearing jeans and a red T-shirt with the iconic picture of Che Guevera…except that Che had a bullet hole between his eyes, with the words 'Coward and Murderer' written underneath the picture. He tried to peer over her head at the soup, but she gave him a determined little shove, hands on his chest, but that was as effective as a mouse trying to push Westminster Abbey down, and his muscles were rock hard – he might be thin, but he was fit. She looked up at him, her hands still on his chest, and contemplated his mouth again.

When he moved, she stood on her toes and met him halfway, gasping softly when his mouth made contact with hers. The kiss was soft and sweet and perfect, and it made her feel like she was melting and then turning to a frothy cream, in one place in particular. He didn't even have to apply pressure to get her to part her lips – she just surrendered and put her arms around his neck, kissing him back for all she was worth, curling his hair around her fingers and moaning when she felt his hand slip down to her behind, pulling her closer, against his middle. Oh, God, that feels so good…

"What are you doing?"

James whirled around and looked at Nick, who was standing in the doorway, staring at them. Alexandra, once she had managed to reboot her brain, peeked around his shoulder and ducked back behind him, glad James was rather wide. She turned around to look at her pink soup, which now matched the color of her cheeks.

"Uh…we were…uh…hey, wanna learn how to play…er…cards? Poker?" He ran his hand through his hair and she heard him mutter 'Poker?'

"Yeah, but what were you doing?" Nick asked again, apparently not satisfied just yet. "I've seen people do that on TV. It's icky."

James cleared his throat. "Uh…well, you'll think differently about that in about ten or twelve years."

"Ew!"

Alexandra kept her back to them, and continuing stirring the soup and thinking, her heart pounding, her brain sending unfamiliar and alarming and wonderful sensations to her entire body. She thought about his hands, and his mouth, and his hard body and his rough-cut, silky dark hair and how good that had felt. How good last night had felt. How she surely had a fever of about four hundred degrees. And how on earth was she ever going to live down pink soup? James left with Nick, and she only vaguely heard him telling him something that made her son laugh.

The oven timer dinged, and Alexandra got a mitt and pulled out her specialty – shepherd's pie. Only something was wrong. The oven didn't feel hot – usually, when she baked anything, opening the oven door nearly singed her eyebrows off. She looked up at the timer, brow furrowed in confusion. She opened the oven again, peeking inside, and nearly fainted – the damned thing wasn't on! She had forgotten to turn it on! She looked at the uncooked dish, back at the oven, then at her pink soup.

"Who wants pizza?" she yelled, clapping her hand to her forehead, Lucy Ricardo-style.

"You mean to tell me," Murdock said, slowly chewing on a breadstick from Domino's. "That you forgot to turn the oven on?"

"I'm afraid so," Alexandra muttered back. "And my leek soup also didn't work out quite…right."

"Mummy's not a very good cook," Nick offered helpfully. Off his mother's icy look, he only shrugged and continued, undaunted. "She burns stuff all the time, and one time she made cherries bumblebee…"

"Jubilee," Alexandra corrected miserably. Murdock had to pinch himself in the stomach to keep from bursting into laughter.

"…and we were findin' cherries everywhere for months. There was even cherries stuck on the ceiling," Nick informed Murdock in his usual grave, practically deadpan manner.

"Bright flash, really bad smell…kinda like a chemistry experiment gone horribly wrong. I apparently used too much alcohol."

"Well, cooking is actually a chemical process. Blending the right ingredients to produce the right flavors and textures. And being where I'm from, the process is also supposed to produce something comforting. I grew up on chicken fried steak and okra, and catfish, and so forth, plus Tex-Mex and barbecue. Typical Southern fare. I s'pect I can teach ya a thing or two."

Their eyes met across the table, and Murdock forgot all about that kind of chemistry. He was still reeling from that kiss in the kitchen – it had been like being hit by lightning, and in a pretty damned good way. Now, he was trying to figure out what to do with Nick so that he could get her upstairs for a discussion about the current state of their marriage, followed by negotiations, ending with détente, wherein both of them were naked and performing their own little chemistry experiment. Hm. Flavors and textures, indeed.

"I…I suppose you could," she said softly. Gotcha, he thought. She stood up, gathering up used paper plates and closing the empty pizza box. Alexandra had determinedly kept him out of the kitchen, but he sensed that she wasn't upset about the kiss, but about whatever had happened with her cooking. To hell with that – not everybody can cook, and she was damn good at a lot of other things, so what did it matter?

"Need any help?" he asked her hopefully. He glanced at Nick, who was slurping down his milk and oblivious to his parents' behavior toward each other. Thank God for that, he thought. He didn't need to know about that for a long time, and he would kill anybody that tried to tell him about it. Kids should be allowed to be kids.

"I'm fine," she answered, and went back to the kitchen with her load. Nick finished his milk and flopped on the couch, watching TV. Murdock drummed his fingers on the table, and finally snatched up the cups still on the table and went into the kitchen. She was back in front of the stove, standing there with her arms crossed, chewing on her lip and apparently defending a helpless soup pot. He raised his eyebrow and waited.

"Okay. Fine. It's pink. So when you see it, don't say 'It's pink', because I know it's pink and I don't need to hear that it's pink. All right?"

"What's pink?" he asked, confused. He knew they were pink, or sometimes a dusky rose color. Glorious colors, either way.

She turned, picked up the pot, and held it out. He looked inside, and before he could stop, he looked at her and said, "It's pink."

"I know!" she snapped, and he had to turn away so she wouldn't see him laughing. But his shoulders were shaking so hard that it was hard to imagine she thought he was doing anything else.

After pulling himself back together, he turned back to face her, forcing himself into deadpan, Bob Newhart-style. "How did leek soup end up pink?"

"I used pink string," she wailed. "I didn't know it would…that it would bleed. I couldn't find any other string!"

"Ah, hell, Alexandra, it's not a big deal."

"It is a big deal. I took cooking courses in Switzerland, and after three days they told me to leave and to please for the love of God and all His angels, never come back again. I mean I didn't aim to set the instructor's shirt on fire. It was an accident, and I should point out that all charges were dropped!" She gestured with her hands as she talked, and all he could think was that she was just about the cutest thing he'd ever come across.

"I suppose it's best that the main course didn't work out, either. It's the only thing I can cook – shepherd's pie."

Shepherd's pie? That was the clincher. Shepherd's pie was why they didn't need guns in England! Murdock started laughing. Laughing until his sides hurt and he had to sit down. He laughed for a long time, until finally he wound down and, after a few deep breaths, looked at her again. She looked more stricken than angry, though he doubted she enjoyed hearing him laugh at her. "Listen, you do everything else well, so why worry that you can't cook? I can't…hm…I can't…um…I'm a terrible sailor, and I can't tie knots to save my life – Face has to tie 'em, or our captives get away. I hate being on boats of any kind. I get seasick, and if anybody was dumb enough to put me at that…that wheely thing, I'd run right into a sandbar, or an iceberg."

"And your last name is Murdock?" she asked.

"Huh?"

"It means 'mariner'," she said, smiling. "I looked the name up one night. Out of curiosity. It might also mean 'sea warrior'."

"Oh. Really? Ironic!" He had never thought to look up his family name's meaning. "I hate the sea. Hate it. Hate all the stuff that can be in there. I don't even really like seafood much. I hate boiled shrimp, because I can't stand to eat anything that still has a face." He stood up. "And I'm also prone to ramble on endlessly, and I get manic and sometimes I get depressed to the point that I can't get out of bed, and sometimes I just go totally bonkers. Not being a good cook won't trump that."

"What causes it?" she asked him. "The…the…you know, bonkers?"

"Stuff. Smell of ammonia. Other scents. Other stimuli. Or if I forget to take my meds, of course."

Sex was now out of the question, he thought. He tried to convince himself that it was for the best. The earth and the stars had to be lined up perfectly, for that to happen, and they weren't. Not that one particular part of his anatomy agreed with that conclusion. It was practically screaming 'Party! Party! Party! and he knew another cold shower was on tonight's schedule. He would have to go back to his own room to sleep, too. No way would he get a wink of sleep on her floor, with her just a few feet away, looking like a cross between an angel and a temptress. A perfect combination, and one his imagination took off with at a fast gallop. He hadn't ever gone for the dark stuff, when it came to sex. He was, as far as he knew, pretty normal, but the ideas he was having now were not exactly prim and proper.

He was saved from his self-inflicted misery by the doorbell ringing. He had called the airport at eight-thirty, to check if Collingwood's flight had taken off, and had been informed that it had, with the old man aboard and terrorizing the flight attendants. So he knew it wouldn't be him again. Murdock sighed and went out to answer, but Nick beat him to the door and cheerfully greeted Face and Charisa Sosa.

Murdock shook his head. This was going to be a long day.