Chapter 50: Leaving My Heart
"So, how long are you planning on staying?" Patrick asked me during breakfast. Lydia, as usual, was still in bed, sick with an incurable disease and Madeline was cleaning up the toys she had been playing with in her room. I took a deep breath and looked into Patrick's recognizable eyes.
"As soon as I find out a way to fix this." I motioned to his living arrangements and Patrick frowned.
"Sarah, you can't fix this. You can't fix any of this. I can't fix any of this. Hell, the god damned Justice League couldn't fix this."
"First of all, there's no way in hell I'm going back to the Justice League let alone calling them for back up. They know that I broke out of Belle Rev, and who knows where they think I am now. Plus, they probably wouldn't want to see me again unless I was on the other side, which I'm not quite sure if I am or am not."
"I suppose that you haven't been reading the newspapers then?" Patrick said, grinning slightly. I rose my brow and questioned him.
"I thought you weren't keeping up with the news?" Patrick smirked and sat down, tossing the newspaper he had just picked up from the counter onto the coffee table in front of me for me to read. I rose my brow, barely glancing at the thin, grey paper.
"I wasn't. Not until last night, anyway. The baker on the edge of town owes me a few favors, this is one of them." He motioned toward the newspaper, a smile splaying across his lips. "But back to the point, The Justice League sure as hell might not want you back, after all that shit you pulled when you were there. A.K.A. kidnapping Roy Harper and letting the accusations against you build up, as well as others allegations, if you were aware. But, on the bright side, Roy's been petitioning for your release all along, in secret, that is. No way that boy would do anything that dangerous in a public setting, when his identity is completely vulnerable and whatever he says can and will effect everyone in his life."
"Roy? Petitioning? For me? Wow, you can make anything sound true." I said, laughing slightly. There's no way in hell that Roy would forgive me for the shit I did two years ago. I mean, who would. After all, I risked not only his life, but the whole teams, and if I remembered correctly, he had stated a billion times when I first moved in with Dinah and Oliver that if I hurt anyone in the Justice League or the Team, he'd been on my ass for the rest of my life, knife in hand and blood ready to be drawn.
"Sarah, don't deny the fact that you didn't see this coming. After all, what would you do if you didn't have such a strong pull on men of all ages?" His expression was light-hearted, and I almost wanted to crack under the pressure of seeing him happy again, but his words were hard and almost serious, as if this was an issue that the both of us knew had to be resolved.
"You can't be serious, Patrick. Roy saw the whole damn trial. He was there the whole time, listening to me confess my own family tree. Hell, he listened to me confess to more than just a simple first-degree murder. Roy probably hates me. He probably wants to slit my throat because of all the stupid ass lying I've done from the time I met him, to this day, even. Come on, please tell me that you don't buy whatever shitty news people are selling."
Patrick just stared at me, his bright eyes almost laughing at me for either my stupidity of naïve nature. I couldn't tell which.
"What the hell happened back there?" Patrick suddenly said, his expression and voice deepening in a serious state. I stared at him, a knot forming in my throat as I stumbled across words in my head. "What's going on with you and Roy? He'd never act like this unless-"
"Like you'd know anything." I suddenly said, feeling threatened by what I thought to be Patrick's accusations against me. "You haven't seen him in what? Five years? So who are you to question his actions? Or me, for that matter?"
Patrick was quiet, as if regaining not only his composure, which I could tell he was loosing drastically with the pissed off look glazing his eyes, but also regaining his words, which I suspected he lost during my sudden outbreak in words.
"Did you sleep with him?" He asked, his voice so quiet I could hear Lydia snoring loudly in the background. "Please. Don't lie to me." Patrick's physical and mental vulnerability meant more to the both of us than just some temperamental argument we seemed to be having behind the curtains. I had never seen him so vulnerable since I was sixteen, when we had first met and I had evidentially changed his life with nothing more than my own presence. I swallowed.
"No." I croaked, chocking up on my own voice as if I were drowning. I stared at him, his bright eyes beaming into mine with a sign of relief. I was telling the truth, and he believed me. For some reason, I found it to be impossible, seeing our last conversation had been laced together with disbelief and distrust. "No. I didn't sleep with him."
"Did you... want to?" He asked, and suddenly, this conversation became a whole lot more awkward.
I shook my head as if on cue, and I could see more relief glaze Patrick's eyes almost immediately. "No. I didn't. And I still don't."
The room became, once again, quiet and Lydia's snoring soon stopped, a sign that Lydia was awake and ready to see Patrick walk in with her daily medicine and breakfast, though I had yet to be convinced that Lydia wasn't going to have a heart attack when I walked in with him.
"I should go check on..." His voice trailed off as I shook my head, noting that I understood that it was time to check on his mother, and perpetually introduce myself once again. As the undead.
Standing up and walking to the kitchen, I watched carefully as Patrick threw eggs and bacon onto a paper plate and began preparing his mother's first meal of the day.
"Do you..." Patrick's voice trailed off again as he pointed to the stairs that led to Lydia's room. I shook my head.
"I think I'll wait until you bring it up. The last thing I need is to kill someone so... special." By special, I meant close. When Patrick and I had dated, Lydia was the only one approving of our relationship, Patrick's father had denied and questioned and hated the fact that we were a couple, and still to that day, I had no idea whether it was our age difference during that time of my life, or if it was just personal. Plus, Lydia had been like a mother to me. And I had needed that role in my life, though it came a little too late seeing that I was eyebrow deep in stuff I had yet to understand.
Patrick nodded and we walked up the stairs, me trailing behind and practically hiding out of view as Patrick opened Lydia's door and walked in, breakfast in one hand, and pills in the other.
"Good morning." He spoke softly, his voice filled with love and compassion for his dying mother. I could make out a familiar muttering from Lydia, which I knew too well to be a response to his presence. Their early morning conversation went on for sparsely ninety seconds before Patrick began the bringing up of my presence.
"Uh, you know that girl I dated a few years ago? You know, the blonde one who Dad hated?" I could imagine Lydia's head nodding in recognition.
"She died two years ago." She said, and for a moment, I was surprised to hear how strong her voice was getting and that she knew how long Patrick had thought me to be dead.
"Yeah, well, there was a miscommunication on my terms..." Patrick's voice trailed off and I could hear Lydia's breathing speed up slowly, as if she knew exactly where the conversation was going.
"Is she...?" Lydia's voice was soft again, and I could imagine Patrick nodding in response.
"Sarah..." Patrick said softly, and I knew it was now time to walk in there. Sighing, I straightened my stance and walked in, noting that Patrick was now right by the door, prepared to leave at any moment. Lydia just stared at me when I saw her, her eyes watering and her hands shaking. I gave her a sad smile and walked to the bed, sitting down at the edge when Lydia raised her arm to touch me, as if she couldn't believe her own eyes. Being in the sick state that she was in, her arms and strength were amazingly strong and she embraced me in a tight hug. I closed my eyes, feeling her shiver on my shoulder, evidence that she was crying, and relaxed into the embrace, not wanting to let go.
Lydia had evidentially felt the same way as her hand cupped the back of my head, her embrace telling me that she didn't want to let me go, no matter what was happening. Our hug ended, too soon for both of us, and I pulled away regretfully, glancing towards the door where Patrick stood awkwardly. His hands were stuffed into his pockets, and for a tiny sliver of a moment, I recognized the childish Patrick I used to know. The one I fell in love with when I was sixteen, and had yet to regret anything that happened between us before the breakup.
"I'm going to go check on Madeline. You two... do whatever..." And with that he was gone and I looked back at Lydia, her familiar and motherly green eyes flashing brightly, even with the tears and streaks running down her face.
"Sarah..." She muttered, as if out of breath. "You're alive..." I nodded, and not until then did I notice that a tear had slipped down my cheek, which Lydia had wiped away with her finger as she had the day all hell seemed to break loose nearly five years ago.
"Alive and well." For now anyway. Lydia was in a fragile state, and learning that I was alive was too much to ask for. The last thing I needed was to break Lydia again by telling her that everything was not okay, and that any day I could be killed by one in a million of my enemies. Including my father.
"Oh my God... You've changed so much... You're hair..." She ran a hand through my jet black hair, her fingers combing through one long piece and then trailing to my uneven bangs, moving them away from my eyes.
I couldn't stop smiling. My heart was racing, and for once, it was in a good way. Laughing suddenly, I hugged her again, feeling the warmth and kindness of the only person I knew to be innocent inside and out.
Soon enough, I left, leaving Lydia to take her pills and eat her breakfast in silence as she watched the sun continue to rise outside her window. Downstairs, Patrick was gone, out of sight, and I was left with Madeline and her three stuffed animals - the only ones that Patrick allowed her to have with all the moving they were being forced to do. The though made me cringe. It was all my fault. It was my fault that Patrick had to drag Madeline and Lydia away from civilization just to be safe. It was my fault that they were forced to move every two weeks. It was my fault that Madeline was probably going to become a troubled child, not being able to make friends or have a social life. It was all my fault. And nothing could change that.
I just watched as Madeline smiled and ran around, a teddy bear clutched in one hand and a small blanket in the other. Setting them down, she handed me her other two stuffed animals before running away, bear and blanket in tow, her imagination running wild with her personality. That's when I noticed it. Her stuffed animal. I recognized it as if I had seen it yesterday.
It's color was no longer faded, the black and red hues replenished with a new bursting image. The eyes were replaced where they were supposed to be, the old buttons I remembered sewing on gone and new more visual eyes replacing them. The collar, leathery and bright red, was fixed, the ripped state no longer ripped and the leather refurnished into an almost brand new look. A dog. My stuffed animal. The only thing my grandparents had ever given me that wasn't taken away. One of my only good childhood memories.
My breath was taken away by the fact that it was now Madeline's. That the stuffed animal I had left Patrick to remember my best by, was now given and owned by none other than his daughter. I smiled.
"She loves it, you know." The deep voice startled me and I looked up to see Patrick smiling. "She might not show it, but she can't sleep without that thing. It's like she understands and can feel her mother's presence and memory."
I couldn't take much more of Patrick's eyes as he stared at me, so I stood up, stuffed animal in hand as I set it on the counter. But Patrick wasn't letting me down that easy, so it seemed, as I felt his fingers delicately move my hair to one side and his breath tickle my neck. I was at a loss for words, and it made me feel sixteen again, instead of twenty-one.
"But Madeline isn't the only one feeling it." He said softly. I couldn't look him in the eye, I just couldn't. The pressure, the pressure of knowing that I had to leave again, that made me hurt. A lot. "For two years, I thought you were dead. And to be honest, I've been lost ever since you showed up last night." For a moment, I felt like turning around to see where Madeline was, but from the distance of her voice, I could tell that she was now in with Lydia, her grandmother. "I love you, Sarah. And that will never change. But I need to know. Do you love me?"
I had known where this was going, but nothing could prepare me for the question I had been asked a hundred times by, most of the time, people I didn't even care about. The scary part was that I felt the same way. I loved him, and that was dangerous. Dangerous for him, though I was already head deep in the danger I had been placed in from the beginning. I choked on my words, but I hadn't said them out loud.
I turned around slowly, the pressure of the question eating me alive. My eyes met Patrick's and the walls protecting my heart and soul crumbled to the ground, my vulnerability showing more of my that anyone had ever seen. Anyone other than Felicity.
"Yes." I muttered, a tear falling down my cheek as emotions and warmth flooded my cold, rigid heart. "I love you."
With that, our lips met, and I was suddenly against the wall, Patrick's hands crawling to my waist and mine around his neck. The emotions were raw and I knew that this was dangerous, and potentially heart-breaking. But I didn't care. I was living in the moment.
I was loosing breath, the carbon dioxide in my lungs burning for a release. I broke the kiss and gasped for breath, my eyes trailing down slightly and a tear running down my face before I began to explain what was going on. But my explanation was being cut short, and a need I had barely ever experienced crept up into my heart.
"I can't..." I muttered, still out of breath. "I can't do this. It's too dangerous. I'm sorry." Patrick's eyes widened as I ran, leaving him in awe as I threw open the door and closed it just as fast. I could hear Patrick's voice calling out to me before the door closed, the steel and metal muting most of the noises from inside. I ran to my car, my body and mind not being able to get out of there fast enough.
Soon, I was gone. Away from town. Away from Madeline. Away from Lydia. Away from Patrick. Away from the heartbreak I saw in his eyes as I looked back one last time, my mind still remembering the pain and awareness that I still had a choice to go back. But it was too late. I left everything there. Madeline, Lydia, Patrick. My memories. The heartbreak that came with keeping people away from danger. But that was not all I had left there. Alone with the people and the feelings, I had left one important thing I could never get back. I left it with Patrick.
I left Patrick my heart.
