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Ancillae
Chapter Four: Pensive and Faltering
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Normally the anemia is a good excuse for work, when I simply do not want to go. Things aren't normal, however. I'm still tired and I'm still stuck with Megan and Horatio.
"Caelyn wants to see you everyday for the next week."
How the hell does she do that? I've been awake thirty seconds and she's already pouncing on me, "She can want something. Doesn't mean it's gonna happen."
She raises an eyebrow at me.
"Is it not enough that I'm going tomorrow?"
Dependable Meg. I'll get an argument from her.
Horatio cuts in as she parts her lips to speak, "I'll make you a deal."
"I'm listening."
"If you agree to keep all your appointments with Caelyn for the next month, the I will get you back into the lab." I can tell he really doesn't want to do so, but is trying to toss me a peanut. It is very hard for him to get used to the idea that he can't fix this. I wonder what he does when Gabriella does something, because there is no ordering that child around the way he does us.
"What's the catch?" There's some flaw in what he is bargaining. I can sense it.
"You'll be confined to the lab and someone will be with you at all times."
"Why don't you just lock me in a padded room?"
"I would, but I can't find a place that sells as much fabric as we'd need." He deadpans.
For the first time in my life, I actually, truly mean what I'm about to say, "I'd rather stay home."
"No, you'd rather run away. But with us here, you can't." Damnit, Megan. Shut the fuck up.
My nails are digging into my palms. A warm liquid trickles into my knuckle-white fists. She is still talking. I am not hearing her.
A variety of emotions are filling me like water fills a glass. Anger, happiness, sadness, contentment. Love. Warmth runs down my spine. My hands relax, and the crimson spills onto the jeans I'd changed into after we'd returned from CSI. After an indeterminable amount of measurable time has passed, I lift them and stare at the gouges in my palms.
The skin has been torn into harshly and deeply. I think I nicked something. Little rivulets of quick flowing red liquid pool in the center, and, once I tilt them at a neat angle, down to my fingertips and drip to the floor.
"Tim."
Her voice enters my mind and the warmth recedes. The emotions flicker away, one by one.
"Give me your hands."
I hold them out, numb now in more ways than one.
They are captured at the wrist. H approaches and cleans away my job's focus with rubbing alcohol. I know he's trying to avoid adding to the stinging pain I have caused on myself, but with every dab, my palms burn. Not that I mind.
Too soon, the now-blood-soaked gauze pad moves away. He begins layering on the Neosporin gently, before covering his handiwork with bandages.
My best friend releases my appendages, "You smiled." Her mouth is slightly agape.
"I felt." I shrug. I am not about to tell her that I only smile when I feel something to smile about. I felt happy…because they are both here taking care of me.
"Felt what?"
"Many things I haven't missed." It's a reply I trained myself to say when this began. There have been precious few who have found out, and that one little statement seemed to always sum it up for them.
"Speed, do you want…"
"No." Talking is already stretching my nerves, discussing my unhealthy habits aren't going to make it any better.
"Calleigh and Eric called while you were napping." H says after a second of silence, and makes his watch visible so I can see that is now three in the afternoon, "They cancelled their dinner reservations."
I sigh, my heart squeezing impossibly tight within the confines of my chest, "Please, don't let them come here."
"Why?" She is thoroughly confused.
"I look…bad. I don't want to be seen like this." My brain is going too slow. I can thing about each thought. I don't like doing so.
"They really want to apologize, Timmy. And they know you aren't yourself right now." She reaches for my hair and tugs a piece. It is an affectionate gesture, one with no real meaning anymore.
Sighing, "Doesn't matter to me." I mumble and move my hands to the cushions. They kneed the fabric before I rise, stumble into the study.
Books will help. They always help.
"Sit down before you hurt yourself." The 'more' remains unsaid by my boss.
I quickly find my desk chair, ironically at my desk. 'Magine that.
"What one do you want?"
"Solitude. Isolation." I grumble.
"Sorry, I don't see those titles here." He jokes, pawing through the tomes.
"Black one. Third shelf from the top. The pine by the window." I look up, "Poe."
"The heavy book with gold-edged pages comes down from its place between The Lord of The Rings trilogy and several old volumes of The Journal of Social Psychology. The thin, frayed gold ribbon is stuck in the middle of the book, marking where I'd last left off.
I ignore the fabric and flip the pages to Annabel Lee.
"I like that poem too." He lisps, sitting down on the battered loveseat I'd gotten at a yard sale just for this room. I had thought I was quite brilliant putting it so close to the desk, at the time. Now I curse what I did. Having people read over my shoulder isn't something I enjoy.
"I don't like it. It just reminds me of someone."
"Who?"
"A friend. From long ago." My Annabel Lee who graced away from her childhoods without a goodbye, without a last word at all.
"Oh." He's giving me a look.
"She's still in New York." She never ran from her family. She had more honor and integrity than I ever did.
"A girlfriend?"
"Almost a sister." He understands what I'm saying, "Like Megan."
"Oh." I can tell he's trying to figure out what to ask next.
"She left me too." I'm not sure why I say that. I tend to be doing a lot of that lately – speaking before my mind can catch up, that is, "I'm hungry." Diversionary tactic. Which works for once. Normally he sees right through them, probably does now but he's letting it go.
Horatio walks out of the room, whispering to himself.
I'm finally alone again. Not for long.
Meg comes in, her sunglasses hanging from her neck and a Cosmo in her hands.
"You two really don't trust me, do you?"
"No." She stares at me as though I should already know that, "You hurt yourself in front of us. You realize he's not going to let you back into the lab now."
"Obviously." My voice drips with sarcasm, something I didn't know I still possessed.
"I'm going to have to find an apartment, so we can go out tomorrow." It tumbles from her lips, "Horatio took today off, but he's got to be there at six in the morning."
"Just me and you?"
"Yes." She's staring at me through shocked eyes.
"What?"
"It's nothing." Megan turns away, when the aforementioned man returns.
How to tell the difference between them – she cooks, he microwaves. "I guess Gabbie makes dinner?" I'd always assumed by the few meals I'd had at their house, but I never said it.
"Yep. I make breakfast and that's all I can without poisoning us."
If he says anything else, I don't hear him. Suddenly, the chicken noodle soup catches my eyes and I take it from him. I greedily slurp it. Before my listening skills reappear, the entire substance has found its way to my gullet.
I look up. My best friend is staring at me.
My eyes roll, "What now?"
"Oh, you're never hungry." She's working on teasing me as Horatio has – she doesn't do it well. He says smart-alecky comments, she drips sarcasm.
"Fuck you." The Tupperware bowl is thrown at her feet and I rise unsteadily to my feet. Somehow I manage to get out into the adjoining room. She follows, looking angry, but fails to say anything to me. He is behind her.
I curl up on the couch, hugging my knees in the classic position everyone takes when the whirlwind starts to drag them off as well.
God, what have I done with my life? A thirty year old who never goes out, avoids talking to my parents at all costs, and barely knows his own brother, for Christ's sake. I've burned nearly every bridge I've had, and pushed Meg away like she were nothing. She swears she's here for me, because she wants to be, but I doubt the validity. She could be here out of some sense of loyalty to me. It doesn't matter. No matter what she says she will be gone.
My head droops, hot tears grazing streaks down my tired face.
"Tim?"
They're both trying so hard. It will be for naught in the end, but maybe I have a few who genuinely care. They will plan and attend a wonderful funeral for the person I wasn't. My family won't go. They'll visit two months down the line and tell everyone how they didn't see this coming, that I loved Miami and didn't really want to leave my friends. That I was sick.
I wonder if my father will admit that he thought something was wrong, yet refused to ask, as I would snap at him about asking such inane questions. Or if my mother will cry when she chokes around her words. Jude will stand by, the grieving brother who will never know why I left and hate me for it when he grows to be my current age.
"Tim?" Horatio again. The last two days have brought a new measurement of respect for him. He is a stubborn individual, more levelheaded than anyone on the team, "Hey." His hand slides under my chin and forces me to look up, "Hey, buddy."
That's new. "Hi." It's weak and croaked. Still, I manage to slap a lifeless smile on my face and hope I don't look too pathetic.
Meg's fingers appear from the edge of my vision with a napkin wrapped around her pointer, and she wipes away the tracks on my skin. The molten, burning ones etched into my soul remain.
"Why don't you tell me a little more about your friend?" She's taken aback when he asks this question, but a thinly perceptible nod of his head puts to bed any fight she had in her. She has given up control of the situation, though I think she did it unconsciously the instant she called him.
"Annabel or Matthew?"
"Either. I don't know much about him or her." He sits back against the arm of the couch, with my best friend leaning her head into his chest. I don't know if I should classify this act under 'teenage regression' or 'parental behaviors'.
"Anna was Anna. There isn't a way to talk about her. We met at a hospital when my brother was born. Her older sister had given birth earlier that morning and she'd gotten so bored that she had started to wander around the floor." I remember that day. Every time I see an X-Men comic, I think of Annabel, "We talked about life while I waited for Mom to get released. I think I laughed when she told me that she was named after a poem by a dead guy." I choke, close my eyes tightly to forget everything I am going to say, "She had this condition…polycythemia. Her body made too many red blood cells, and it caused her to have some blood clots. Usually in her legs. They had her on blood thinners and every few months they'd remove cells. When we got older, it came out that she could potentially get one in her heart or her brain, and one of those could kill Anna. But we were still teenagers.
"She married up a few days after she turned twenty. It was a beautiful, small, secret wedding. Neither set of parents knew. There were no rings."
I can hear the intake of breath from the woman. She knows what I'm going to say, since she's heard all this before.
"When Matt died, she was just as brokenhearted. I wanted her to come with me, but Anna just couldn't leave her family. I found out later that she had been pregnant." I paused, and think of the day when Pam's ex-husband, Vincent, sat me down to tell me that Annabel's little baby boy had been premature, but was surviving as his father had, "When I turned up here, her mother called to tell me that she'd had a stroke. We were nearly twenty-two so I thought Natalie was going to say that she was fine.
"She hadn't made it to the hospital in time, but her son had been delivered."
"Where was her husband?" The confusion in his eyes is priceless.
"Miami."
I think it takes him a minute to realize what I was saying, "I said the marriage was secret. Her parents liked me, but I was too different for their tastes. I'd proposed once and we broke off the engagement when they threatened to disown her." Shrugging, I look away again, "My son was strong, lasted a few months. But his lungs weren't large enough to support him, even with the steroids he'd been put on. And as time went on his medical problems piled – infections, defects, an operation. In the end, I named him, and buried him beside her."
"What was his name?"
"Blaise." I laugh lightly, "Because he blazed into my life for a little while then blazed his way out of it. Blaise Patrick Noren-Speedle."
I can't believe I just let all that come out. Jumping off the furniture, I edge into the corner. Safe here, protected. I can't believe I did that. Fuck.
"Speed. It's alright." They say it in unison. Odd.
"I was lying. All lies. Not true." I mutter it. I want him to forget every word I just said.
"No, you weren't. She existed. Remember? You told me Annabel was the only reason you didn't ki…commit suicide. Because you didn't want to leave her alone." Megan's approaching with soft footfalls, "I'm sure she'd be proud of you."
For what? Spending my entire life doing what I told berated her for? She wouldn't be proud. She'd be so fucking ashamed…ashamed that I lied to her, ashamed that I couldn't help our son, ashamed that I ran from my family. No, she'd have abandoned me like I deserve.
I search through my apartment visually, looking for something – anything – that could end this. Anything. My eyes are tearing again, and I can feel my breathing accelerate. I won't lose it. I won't.
My boss has joined the brunette woman. Don't come closer please. Let me go. Let me out of this place. It's shrinking…
Bursting past them, I flee to my balcony. The rush in my ears is not the typical euphoria, but the reaction of my heart to what I'm about to do. My hands grab for the railing. I feel the warm metal beneath the pads of my fingers, and begin to leap up when I am tackled to the ceramic tiled floor.
I punch, kick, spit, and bit at whoever it is, not caring if Meg is the person.
"Speed. Tim." It's masculine, I can tell now that the blood is slowing, "Timothy Speedle!" Horatio yells, an inch from my face, and I stop struggling. It's pointless. I'll be hospitalized now, without a doubt.
"Why won't you just let me die?"
"Because you're my friend." He replies instantaneously, "Megan?"
She appears with handcuffs. Whether they are mine or H's, I can't tell. Doesn't make any difference to me. As she places one cuff on my right wrist, he begins to shift his weight to stand. Maybe I still have a chance.
Then she puts the other on the redhead and I realize I'm thoroughly screwed. I can kill myself. I won't take someone with me.
Somehow we get up, and he has to drag me into the bedroom, where the bandages are once more waiting. It is difficult for him to work with one hand bound to me, but she picks up the slack and, by the time he's done with my arm, she has re-dressed my thigh, stomach, and chest wounds. She moseys to the armoire, wiping her face with the back of her sleeve, while withdrawing a pair of lounge pants.
We don't talk. He lifts me off the mattress while she unbuttons, unzips, and strips me of my jeans. Royal blue boxers save me from embarrassment, and she still doesn't speak as Meg pulls the clean article of clothing up my thin legs.
He guides me through the door, into the main room, then into the hall. I know somewhere inside of me that I should be fighting this, but I just can't muster any energy to do that. We stop outside my front door and I don't ask why. I don't have to because she comes out a minute later, her car keys dangling from the edge of her purse.
Strange.
"You know where we're going, right?" He asks me, rubbing my shoulder.
"Yes." I snag his sight and he knows that I'm not going to go against them.
I've given them my submission. I don't know if that's a good thing – because, now, my fate is in their hands.
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*v* Cassie Jamie *v*
cj.1@cassie-jamie.com