~ Chapter Twenty-Five ~

Peter sat idly on the arm of the chair in the comfort of the solarium, though the sunlight was fading and he wouldn't be able to see the pages he flipped through any longer. Each page of the book was devoted to a single face. Mary Mickleson. Bane of his dreams. He woke each morning with her image burned on his eyelids and this was the only way to purge it. One page she stood smiling, the light soft against her skin, her eyes bright with merriment and another showed her almost devoured by shadow, her eyes sharp as flint, her throat and arms bearing bruises as she stood defiantly despite her state of undress, the next was her in profile, sleeping against a chest notable by the wide suspenders though the remainder of The Jon was not in the picture.

Two months and as many weeks. Halloween was swift approaching and the promise he'd made to himself to be fine by then was looking to be as fruitless a vow as his promise to be fine in a week, or by Labor Day had been. He could hear the band practicing, their voices blending in beautiful harmonies that drifted through the glass.

"...I don't want to live my life alone

I was waiting for you all my life ..."

He chuckled at the thought and hummed along with the chorus, his eyes drifting closed, letting the words be a prayer of sorts. A plea for release. Set me free, my Honeybee ... He found couldn't think of her as a bee though. She wasn't the sort to flit from flower to flower. For a moment he let his mind turn on what she was if not a bee. Instantly, he pictured a firefly. A light in the darkness, elusive and bright and small. The words he knew well and he lifted his voice faintly to follow along.

"Hello, Goodbye t'was nice to know you

How I find myself without you that I'll never know.

I let myself go..."

He reached up and brushed his hand over his unshaven jaw. Wasn't that the truth? He didn't really seem to have a reason to get all spruced up nowadays.

"Hello, Goodbye I'm rather crazy

and I never thought I was crazy,

but what do I know?"

"Oh, I'm sure you know quite a bit, actually."

He opened his eyes and frowned, embarrassed about being caught so vulnerable. He looked over at his brother, standing with his arms crossed, smirking as he leaned against a support post.

"What do you want, Pete?" He flipped the sketchbook shut and gave his brother a dirty look. He had to admit though, while he himself had gone to pot, Pete had never looked better. He'd gotten a bit of sun and while he couldn't tan, he had become merely exceptionally pale instead of ghostly white. Though he'd lost the blue tint almost completely from his lips, his hair retained highlights of an azure so deep one had to see it in full sun to note the difference from the surrounding ebony.

"Me? Nothing. The question is, what do you want, Peter?" He pushed off the post and walked over, dropping into the wicker chair across from him. "As if I don't know the answer already. You've been pouting since she left."

Peter frowned. "Yes, she left. She chose to sneak out in the middle of the night and not even give the common courtesy of saying goodbye. It's more than obvious she doesn't give a damn about any of us."

"No? Then where did I get this?" He held up a note card and began to read. "Dear Colonel Walter. I write to let you know that at last I have earned enough to begin paying you back. Enclosed you will find ten dollars, and my promise that I will send more whenever I can until I feel I have repaid my debt to you. Though it remains obvious I wronged you unforgivably when I left, I promise I have not forgotten what I owe. Please give my sincere and affectionate greetings to all your family, Mary E Mickleson."

Peter snatched at it and his brother flicked his wrist to keep it out of reach. "ah-ah-ah, Mr. Grabby-hands. Ask nicely." He grinned but on his brother's next attempt, he let him have it. "Want the envelope?" That too handed over. "There's no return address, we looked."

Pete sank down in the chair and read and re-read the words. "She warned me." He couldn't help but smile faintly. "She told me and I didn't listen."

"Told you what?"

"That she was obstinate. That she liked her own way." He ran his thumb's pad over her name. "She is bound and determined to believe that she's got to pay us back."

"Well, if it makes her feel better. It isn't as if we couldn't use the money."

"Don't be a jackass, Pete. "

"I'm not. I just know that some people don't like any kind of charity. She pays us something, enough to satisfy her imagined debt, and she'll feel on even ground with us."

"I suppose that makes sense." He nodded, his thumb brushing along the pages of his book not needing to open it to see her face swarming before him. "She's very proud, not in the bad way though. She has stood on her own feet a long time. "

"And you wanted to sweep her off of them?"

"Sur...Wha... No!" he stammered.

"So exactly how long have you been in love with her?" He asked, setting his chin in his palm.

He frowned at his brother who was looking back expectantly. "I am not now, nor have I ever been, in love with Miss Mickleson."

"Oh, for God's sake, Peter! Everyone knows. I knew the moment I saw you with her at dinner that last night. Hell, Rabbit knew even before that."

"What does Rabbit know about it?" He pushed his drawing pad between his hip and the side of the chair. "He tears out pictures of toasters from the Sears and Roebuck."

"True, but that doesn't change the facts, Peter."

"Even if I were, and I am not saying I am, there's nothing I can do about it. Nobody knows where she is."

"What if I said that I know where she is."

Peter frowned, a surge of jealousy spiking through him. "Where?"

"I'm not telling you unless you admit it. Out loud."

"Pete stop being such a ..."

"It's not a secret, Peter. " He crossed his arms. "The only one not saying it around here is you."

"Fine." He grit his teeth. "I ... I have feelings for her, yes." He found that saying it actually lifted some of the weight off of his chest. "She's all I think about."

"Thank you!" He said, throwing his hands up and leaning across the table to take the note card and turn it over to sit face down on the table. "I told you there wasn't a return address. Never said there wasn't a clue on the card. She probably never noticed it."

Peter looked at the back of the card. It was blank except for a small red circle with a crown in the center. He knew that logo. He just couldn't say from where.

"Figures..." Pete sighed in frustration and opened his jacket. He removed an invitation from his pocket and laid it down on the table between them, facing his brother. Peter recognized it. It was an invitation to the University Club All-Hallows Eve Ball. His eyes widened when he saw the same crown at the top of the invitation. He snapped it up and read to the bottom, muttering as he did. "Saturday October twenty-eighth ... Seven in the evening, Hotel del Coronado Ballroom..." he felt a flush of some warm wild thing inside of his chest. Hope, perhaps. "Thanks, Pete." He sprang up, intending to go over there and ... what? He sank back down, feeling as if he was going all directions at once.

"What am I going to do, Pete. Drive over there and ... do a room-by-room search?" He stood again and snatched up his notepad, walking toward the doorway in in frustration.

Pete swung out of his seat and caught up, walking beside his brother as he moved toward the stairs. "Think about it, Peter. How would she afford a room?" He said it gently, because he didn't mean what he said to be insulting. "She is working there more than likely. A maid or in the kitchen maybe." He jogged up the stairs beside him. "All you have to do is find someone else who works there who knows her and then you can find out where she works, when she works, and when she's off. Maybe even where she's living." Peter went into his room, flicking the light on, and Pete took a lean against the doorway, watching his brother looking for something in his armoire. "What are you looking for?"

"This." He removed a steel lock-box and moved to his bed, a key removed from his bedside table. The box unlocked and he began rifling through, tossing things out onto the bed. Pete drifted in and sat down on the edge of the bed, looking over the booty. It was mostly papers. His diploma from High School, his dual degrees in engineering and fine arts, a picture of the family when they were boys, taken at the World's Fair. A lumpy paper package picked up, he opened it to reveal the pale white roots. "What's this?"

"Hmm? Oh, um... Madam Adjaye gave it to me. she said it was called..." he racked his brain a moment. "Gondolosi. Said it was a wedding ... gift." he looked at his brother who was laughing. He had his face screwed up in mirth, but he was making no sound at all. Pete finally sucked in a deep breath at last with a braying sort of noise, his face red and his eyes tearing as he guffawed for several minutes more. "What?" Pete paused his searching while his brother had his mental breakdown. "Seriously, what is so damned funny?"

"This..." He lifted the packet. "This for um..." He blinked. "Potency and ... a more ... enthusiastic and long-lived um..." he gave a slight head bob and eye drop to his lap then waggled his brows in a way that made it impossible not to put two and two together. Peter snatched it out of his hand and tossed it into the box with a grumble. "Hey, don't be insulted, Peter, I'm sure she meant well. It also enhances fertility so as wedding presents go, it's not that bad."

"Shut up, Pete." He smirked a bit though, figuring that for a woman like Adjaye, that was an appropriate gift to give someone. "Ah, got it." he pulled out a small pill box and opened it. His face was serious as he sat down on the other side of the bed. Pete leaned over to see what it was and blinked in surprise. "Peter, that's mom's."

"She left you the ruby earrings so don't complain. Though, frankly they'd clash with your hair now." He smirked at his brother and lifted the ring from the box, the glint of sapphire surrounded by tiny pearls catching the light, the gold smoothed by an antique sort of patina that glowed with warmth and richness that a new shiny ring couldn't touch. He turned it in the light before he set it back inside. "I've been holding on to this for twenty years, Pete,. I almost hocked it a dozen times but I never could. I always felt I couldn't do it because it wasn't mine really. I was right. It's hers. I've just been holding it for her."

"Mom?" Pete sounded confused.

"No, you idiot. Mary." He smiled softly and put it back, closing the case. "I have lived without her for two months and twelve days. I never want to go that long without her again."

"Good Lord you're sappy." Pete chuckled. He stood up and stretched a bit. "So, we need a plan." He walked a slow path between the bed and the armoire. "We need to do a little... what's the word? Not spying exactly but..."

"Espionage!" Rabbit's voice chirped helpfully from the hall.

"Shut up Rabbit! You're going to get us caught!" A hissed whisper followed.

"I believe the word that comes closest is snooping, actually." A sage and low murmur.

Peter and his brother both stood and faced the door, tapping their foot in identical cadence. Within a few moments, the robots stepped around the corner of the door. The Spine looked contrite, Rabbit looked puckish and The Jon was just happily smiling. "What are you three doing out there."

"Hellooo? We were eavesdropping." Rabbit rolled his eyes.

"That was rhetorical, Rabbit." The Spine muttered from the corner of his mouth.

"Really? It sounded a lot like English. Where is Rhetorica anyway?

"No, rhetorical means asking a question that you already know the answer to."

The Jon turned to Peter with his eyes wide. "You can read minds?! What am I thinking right now, huh huh?!"

Peter huffed. "Sandwiches?""

Jon's jaw dropped with a clank and he lifted his hand, shaking as he pointed at Peter.

"Hush" Pete crossed his arms, trying not to laugh. "You are always thinking about sandwiches, The Jon. Peter is just a good guesser. The point is, eavesdropping is rude, lads."

"If we didn't eavesdrop, we would always be a step behind." The Jon nodded to his own words as he dropped his hands to his sides. "We want to help. We miss her too."

"Fine. Let's make a plan then." Pete looked to his brother, noting he too felt keeping them out of it would be nigh to impossible . "Who has any ideas?"

Three hands shot up instantly and Pete turned to walk back to sit down on the bed. He placed a hand on his brother's shoulder, muttering as he passed. "It's going to be a long night."