Baby Steps
He's here because he's promised, but he hates that he can't be there—where the light's better, where it there's no lingering smell of disinfectant, where there's that magical feeling of holding three of a kind on the way to a full house.
Where he can put down a bet and feel something more than the self-hatred that's coursing through him right now.
But all it takes is a good, long look at that picture well-creased from his wallet, the one Bones gave him—his two girls—and he knows that if he can't do it for himself right now, he's got to do it for them. To keep them.
For them. For them. For them. For them. For. . . .
He listens to the names as introductions ring the circle until it comes to him and he hesitates, the flight in his flight or fight reflex damn-near kicking in and he opens up his mouth just barely to get out the anchoring words that hold him to this spot for the next forty minutes: "I'm Seeley and I'm addicted to gambling."
oOo
Working the program means working the steps and he knows he's wavering so much he's like a flag on a windy day. So when the leader—Gerald was it?—asks him if he wants to say something—there's only 7 people in the fellowship tonight—he wants to wave him off, but that damned wind blows back his way and he opens up his mouth and stuff just pours out: "I'm pretty shaky right now. . . ."
oOo
He grabs a cup of muddy water in a Styrofoam cup and notices a few bills stuffed into another cup and wonders if it's enough to get him back into a game when the woman comes up behind him and asks him if he wants to go get some of the real stuff with the others at a coffee shop down the street and he's almost glad Aubrey's waiting on him because he's thinking of charming this woman out of some cash so he can walk inside to the game and take on Phillips and MacKenzie and show the world that he has some control and. . . .
"No," he says, the coffee sloshing over the rim as he sets it down on the table. "I've got to be someplace." But his legs don't quite move and he stands there listening to this woman whose own story that night was just as dark as the color of her eyes.
oOo
Once he carried a boy miles through a forest, miles as his shoulders burned and his legs felt like rubber and he barred any idea of laying down and letting the animals find them or the men kill them or just dropping the boy and finding his own way out. He carried the boy for miles as the boy's voice grew fainter and his own resolve had put him in a race with the blood dripping from Parker's wounds, the endpoint always over the next ridge, always past the next bend.
He's in that race again.
This time, he's sitting outside the place where he's been inside for the past few weeks, the place where he spiraled deeper and deeper into his addiction, spiraled deeper and deeper out of control as his thoughts spun around and around until he was sure he was in control when he was in the midst of losing everything.
And despite everything, he's fighting back the urge to just let it take him when he there's a knock on the car's window.
For just a moment he hesitates before rolling down the window.
"Didn't know if you had any dinner yet, so I brought you some Thai food because your wife said that's your favorite on stakeouts. Plus the large, economy size Thermos of coffee from the diner to keep you alert."
Aubrey's doing his best to be annoying and helpful, he doesn't know which, but he takes the food, his stomach welcoming the intrusion. "Told them it was for you and they threw in some extra dumplings and some of that vegetable tempura."
The man's hesitating outside the vehicle and while Booth would much rather be alone to do battle with his own demons, he cocks his head as a silent invitation and Aubrey scrambles to the passenger side.
The demons don't retreat because someone else is here. "Your wife also said that you like to talk while you're on stakeout."
He's opening a carton when he corrects Aubrey. "I like talking to Bones while I'm on stakeout."
"Yeah, well," Aubrey says, eyeing the food in Booth's hands, "she's not here."
He hands over the extras—certainly meant for Bones—and listens as the eating machine starts crunching on the tempura before making almost obscene sounds around the dumplings.
The night is cool and clear and he figures they've got an hour or so to kill before the first of the gamblers inside pack it up for the evening.
". . . And I just thought that was what they call in the program, 'stinkin' thinkin'' and I couldn't allow you to. . . ."
He lets Aubrey rattle on with periodic pauses as the man sucks down something else from the collection of cartons. In his own mind he's repeating the stories of the evening, the lost fortunes and the lost souls interwoven with the voices in his head that are warring with a sense of duty and a sense of daring, a streak of honor battling a streak of luck waiting to start with the next hand, when Aubrey nudges him.
"Is that. . .?"
"No." Stooped shoulders and a backward glance only indicate the first loser of the evening, not their prey. The man takes off east into the night.
"You think it's the woman who enticed Ryder, put him at ease and then Phillips cracks him over the skull?"
It's positing a scenario, a game he still likes to play with Bones, but now he's thinking of other games. He practically offers to bet Aubrey on his scenario, but fights back the urge. "Does it matter?"
A mouthful of food doesn't stop the man from making a comment. "I'd think it matters a great deal." He pauses long enough to swallow. "A guy like Ryder, ex-military, he'd probably be put at ease with a woman. Maybe she cries, puts on an act and then, wham, Phillips pops him on the head, they tie him up and pop him in the trunk until they can dump his body, but he wakes up, bim, bam and then. . . ."
Between mouthfuls—and sometimes not—Aubrey paints a portrait of the last few moments of Ryder's life and he should be listening, but he's not. He's dissecting the Serenity Prayer, word-for-word, trying to rekindle the inner peace that has deserted him. Maybe that he's deserted.
Aubrey's crackling something in front of him. "Gummy bears?" He begins to tear into the package. "It's not the best dessert for Thai, but in a pinch, it'll do. You seem to be the kind of guy who would like the red ones."
"You should go."
The younger agent has done his duty, fed him and made sure he didn't go inside, but as good as Aubrey can be, he has no idea the war zone going on inside the ex-Ranger's head. Booth checks his watch as a way to sell the suggestion. "You should go. They could come out at any time."
"Yeah, yeah," Aubrey agrees as he starts to gather the empty containers. "You know your wife's worried about you?"
"Why are you talking to my wife?"
Aubrey's arms are full as he backs out of the car. "Someone's got to, Agent Booth. Someone has to."
oOo
He should talk to her, should tell her a few things, but as he tries to compose texts to his wife he finds it hard to say anything. He writes that he misses her on the stakeout, writes that he's gone to a meeting, talked to his sponsor. He asks her to forgive him, asks her to kiss Christine goodnight. He writes that he loves her.
And he erases all of them.
He stares at the entryway to the poker palace, the place where he started back down the road to an obsession that's so damned hard to kick and he wonders if he'll ever make things right again. The human body has 206 bones and his Bones has at least half that many emotions and moods that he's dealt with over the years.
Yet he doesn't know how to talk to a disappointed Bones.
oOo
As tedious as the waiting is, it ends almost too quickly—Phillips (he could have bet that it would have been MacKenzie) first takes offense at his accusations of cheating before MacKenzie emerges from the shadows and levels a gun at him.
He has a healthy respect for guns.
The plan calls for Aubrey to wait in the shadows, wait for an opening, and as Phillips and MacKenzie herd him to their car, he's wondering if the younger man understands the urgency of the situation when he sees a third player slipping from the darkness: Dahlgren.
And he has a gun to Aubrey's head.
oOo
Author's Note: First, thank you to everyone who has reviewed or favorited or followed or just read this story. I appreciate the comments and the encouragement.
Second, please read some other fine writing from the likes of razztaztic whose Roots and Wings is a welcome respite from the angst of this story, but who also offers up a boatload of angst in Almost Forever; or FaithinBones who is probably the most prolific of writers and can be counted upon for a story or two daily; or CovalentBond who writes with a richness of language that I can only hope to emulate one day.
Third, if I disappear for a bit here, it's because my computer needs to be repaired, and my job is one of those deals that demands 48 hours of my life crammed into 24 hours.