TITLE: THE ONE CONSTANT
AUTHOR: MINN
DISCLAIMER: I don't own nothin' - mores the pity - just playing. No character was really harmed during the typing of this nonsense. The creators of Third Watch are, of course, gods. And so are the actors who portray the characters!
CHEERS! To all the kind folks who said such nice things about my maiden outing "Grace", and about the follow-up-story-that-isn't-really, "The Replacement".
EXPLAINATION: This here tale gets into the nuts and bolts of how Gracie came to be. If you have no idea who Gracie is, it might pay you to have a wee looksee at my other stories "Grace" and "The Replacement", which basically lead up to this here offering.
FORGIVE ME!: Everything I write I can guarantee is the work of my own sick and twisted little mind - but if anything I write does resemble something that's gone before I can assure you it's pure coincidence - (hangs head in shame) because I don't actually READ much fic (sorry to all the wonderful authors on this site!) But I have had occasion to catch up with a few stories recommended by others and have enjoyed them immensely. (Can I stop greasing now?) Also, if you see a phrase or a word that seems a bit odd it's because I'M FOREIGN!!! New Zealand English is a WHOLE different animal - but I've tried to be careful.
SOMETHING ELSE TO NOTE: Season Four of Third Watch hasn't started screening in New Zealand yet so I haven't actually seen the 'new improved' Fr*d or The Anti Cruz. I promise I will do rewrites the MINUTE I do get the opportunity to see them, but in the meantime I beg your collective indulgence on this - if these two characters sound a little "off" in this fic, don't worry - I'll fix the blighters eventually! And so on with the show...
********
There's only one thing better than character torture...and that's reader torture! There MIGHT be a warm fuzzy in here...then again, there might not. You're just gonna have to read and find out!
THE ONE CONSTANT
Part 8
They were late.
It should have come as no surprise to Faith that they would be. For all the years she had known them Lisa and James had never managed to turn up on time to anything, not even their own wedding.
Faith cast another glance at her watch and settled back to stare out of the window of the small restaurant.
It had seemed such a nice idea at the time. Get out, take your mind off your worries. Catch up with old friends, who, despite their tardiness, were always guaranteed good company. But the hoped for respite from her concerns had so far failed to eventuate and Faith found herself preoccupied with her troubles yet again.
"Why couldn't you have trusted me enough to deal with it Faith?"
The memory of the hurt and disappointment etched in every line of her husband's face stung her as strongly now as it had the night Emily disappeared.
Fred had stood before her on the verge of tears holding the note their daughter had hastily scratched onto the back of an old envelope.
"I'm sorry Dad," it had said. "I can't be here any more. I love you - Em."
That had been a month ago.
Emily had been officially listed as missing the required 48 hours after her disappearance, but despite endless searching and inquiries and the goodwill of so many people, nothing had been sighted of her. The parents of the youth Faith had seen Emily with in the bar that day hadn't seen or heard from their tearaway son in over a year and gave Faith the distinct impression they could not have cared less if they had.
"We've been through this with Matt before," the father had told Faith with a shrug. "He disappears then turns back up when it suits him."
"If the no good bastard don't wanna be found, he won't be," the mother had added, chillingly.
"Why didn't you trust me, Faith?"
She remembered standing there before her husband, in despair at the pain and anguish in Fred's eyes. Then, as now, she had no good answer for him.
"I was angry, Fred. I just reacted," she recalled herself saying.
"I was angry too, Faith. But I know Em. I know her well enough to know that going off at her and grounding her wouldn't achieve anything. I asked you to leave it with me Faith. Why couldn't you? Why couldn't you trust me?"
"I should have listened to you Fred," she had answered.
"Yeah Faith, you should have. I wish you had. But you didn't, did you? You never have. Because you always know best, don't you Faith? Or at least you think you do."
There had been no anger in his tone, just deep hurt. Without further word he headed for their room and shut the door.
Things had been tense between them ever since, but not angry. Feelings of hurt, sadness, deep disappointment and fear hung between them like an invisible barrier, always there, never seen but impenetrable.
The unrelieved tension between them had begun to affect Charlie too. He had become increasingly withdrawn and uncommunicative ever since his sister's disappearance. That worried Fred even more and in turn stirred in Faith concerns about the effects of it all upon her husband's health.
"...you always know best, don't you Faith?"
Fred had needed her to show her trust in him as a husband and a father. Instead she had treated him with contempt and it had cut him to the core. Just as it had when she had gone ahead with her decision to abort their child.
"Oh god," she whispered.
Faith knew in her heart that the shadow of that decision loomed large in their lives once more, an historical wound reawakened by the deep pain Fred felt over Emily's disappearance and his wife's apparent lack of respect for his views, for his judgement.
Faith almost wished Fred would be angry with her, fight with her, clear the air so they could get back to the business of relating. But the feelings of sadness and deep hurt Fred clearly struggled with were like a wound that wouldn't heal, one there seemed to be no ready cure for. The agony of not knowing Emily's fate tracked them both through their every waking moment and into their dreams.
Faith sadly watched the passing parade of people on the sidewalk outside the restaurant. Couples with their arms wrapped lovingly around each other seemed especially taunting. She reflected sadly at how quickly and how profoundly things had gone wrong in her world. Things between she and Fred during and after his recovery from the heart attack had been nice, real nice. Yet she'd seemed intent on looking for trouble.
Last night they had made love...or at least tried to. It had been little more than a dutiful or even fanciful attempt to bond while the issues between them simmered and made any real connection impossible. Memories of how sweet their sex life had been before made it all the more heartbreaking.
Faith's preoccupation with her own miserable internal dialogue had been taken by Fred as a sign of disinterest in him and their faltering attempt at passion had ended abruptly. She had glimpsed an expression of intense hurt on his face as he'd turned away from her and she found herself wondering what she had done to warrant it. But instead of broaching the subject she had let it be. Having long since reached the point of doubting her ability to express her concerns in a way that could heal Faith had resorted to the relative safety of silence. But now she regretted it.
Faith cast another glance at her watch.
The sort of disrespect she had shown Fred the day she had grounded Emily for the bar incident was like poison in a marriage, emotional black ink poured across the pages of their lives. Fred accepted her apologies quietly, but the look of hurt in his eyes told her there were many obstacles for them to overcome yet.
But it was another piece of the complicated puzzle that was her life Faith realised had the most potential to make things worse.
Bosco.
He had been amazing from the moment he heard Emily was a runaway, even calling on people he'd worked with in the ACU to keep an eye out for her. He had gone the extra mile and then some, accompanying Faith to places where they thought someone might know something. His support, his concern had been invaluable, especially in those moments of despair she had endured after repeatedly coming to dead ends in their search. But it became increasingly clear to Faith that Bosco had his own troubles, his own worries and concerns to deal with, things he did not feel he could share with her.
There were rumours. Rumours about Bosco and his involvement with Cruz. There was something going on there and Faith didn't like what she'd been hearing. It made her anxious for him, even though worrying about Bosco was the last possible thing she needed on top of everything else that was happening in her life. But worry she did.
He's just the man you work with, murmured the voice.
No. I consider him a friend.
Friends don't do what you do in those fantasies of yours...
Faith could better understand the allure of her make-believe world given the agonising lack of connection that existed between she and Fred. Dreams of passion and romance, she realised, were like a drug to a sad heart. But the fact that the fantasies had made their presence felt a long time before this continued to disturb her.
Faith reasoned, intellectually at least, that she had built a fiction around the way Bosco had looked at her once upon a time, with trust and deep affection. No pity. No disappointment. No hurt. They had no intimate history together, the memory of which could impinge upon her passionate make-believe and remind her that the myth of romantic love was just that, a myth, and that it bore no resemblance to reality. Faith had seen too much sadness in the world and had experienced one too many disappointments in her own life for her to believe in happy ever after.
"It's a beautiful thing to watch someone evolve into the potential you've glimpsed in them. But that's what you're most afraid of, isn't it? That Maurice Boscorelli will some day become someone you will no longer be content to keep at arms length..."
Faith shifted uncomfortably and snatched another glance at her watch.
For so long she had needed to see Bosco as someone who was inferior to her, someone she would never dream of getting close to. He had made that such an easy task so often but as she got to know him better over the years Faith began to see glimpses of something else in him.
Taking the attitude that Bosco was not her equal, that she was somehow above him, had kept him at a safe distance. It had enabled her to avoid the sort of messy complications, the hurts and resentments that affairs and clandestine entanglements always trailed in their wake. But it had also kept her safe from the fear of being used and rejected by him, something she had watched happen to a steady stream of others. That had given her good cause to deny the unfathomable attraction she felt.
But there was something else. Maintaining an attitude of contempt for Bosco had, more than anything, kept her from confronting the pain of realising that Fred was not, and never had been, the man of her dreams. Fred had just been...there.
Faith squirmed.
How can a short, stroppy, in-denial abuse survivor with a superhero complex be the man of your dreams? demanded the voice scathingly.
"But sometime, somewhere you have had a glimpse of some other side of him, some potential..."
In her mind's eye her gaze was held once more by intense blue eyes that watched her with unspoken adoration. Sitting there alone and lonely in a crowded room, her eyes began to brim with tears as the feelings she held for him rose up from their place of banishment and flooded over her. She made no attempt to drag her errant imagination away from that place in her mind where her wayward partner was everything her sad heart could desire.
Faith sat staring at the table in front of her, taking a moment to compose herself. She shut out the hustle and bustle of the place, the comings and goings of strangers, and let her tired mind focus on the feelings inside of her.
Eventually something made her look up.
Bosco stood before her, watching her from the sidewalk outside. She had not seen him at all during the week and was surprised at how tired and jaded and he looked.
She rose from her seat and left the restaurant to join him.
"You OK?" he asked quietly.
"Just..." she shrugged. "You don't exactly look on top of the world yourself."
It was his turn to shrug. "Tough week. You waitin' for someone?" he asked, indicating the restaurant.
She nodded. "I was. But I've kinda lost my appetite. Too much on my mind."
"No news about Em?"
She shook her head sadly.
"Can I give you a lift somewhere?"
Faith hesitated for a moment. "Yeah. Thanks," she said eventually.
Bosco led off, jamming his hands into the pockets of his jacket. He walked with his head down and didn't seem interested in making polite conversation.
The car was parked up a small side street. Faith watched him closely as Bosco unlocked it, his face a picture of sad preoccupation.
"Bos, is everything OK?"
He didn't respond immediately, just looked up and gazed at her sadly.
"When has everything ever been OK in my life, Faith?" he asked softly.
Faith looked away briefly and nodded. "Your life sucks, my life sucks. Look at us - we're the perfect couple," she murmured.
The pained look he gave her almost broke her heart.
Standing alone together in the small gloomy alley, they stared wordlessly at each other and felt something intangible pass between them.
Slowly, tentatively, Faith took a few steps towards him. Without a word Bosco reached out and enfolded her gently in his arms.
**********
TBC - heh heh heh...I can too leave it there!
AUTHOR: MINN
DISCLAIMER: I don't own nothin' - mores the pity - just playing. No character was really harmed during the typing of this nonsense. The creators of Third Watch are, of course, gods. And so are the actors who portray the characters!
CHEERS! To all the kind folks who said such nice things about my maiden outing "Grace", and about the follow-up-story-that-isn't-really, "The Replacement".
EXPLAINATION: This here tale gets into the nuts and bolts of how Gracie came to be. If you have no idea who Gracie is, it might pay you to have a wee looksee at my other stories "Grace" and "The Replacement", which basically lead up to this here offering.
FORGIVE ME!: Everything I write I can guarantee is the work of my own sick and twisted little mind - but if anything I write does resemble something that's gone before I can assure you it's pure coincidence - (hangs head in shame) because I don't actually READ much fic (sorry to all the wonderful authors on this site!) But I have had occasion to catch up with a few stories recommended by others and have enjoyed them immensely. (Can I stop greasing now?) Also, if you see a phrase or a word that seems a bit odd it's because I'M FOREIGN!!! New Zealand English is a WHOLE different animal - but I've tried to be careful.
SOMETHING ELSE TO NOTE: Season Four of Third Watch hasn't started screening in New Zealand yet so I haven't actually seen the 'new improved' Fr*d or The Anti Cruz. I promise I will do rewrites the MINUTE I do get the opportunity to see them, but in the meantime I beg your collective indulgence on this - if these two characters sound a little "off" in this fic, don't worry - I'll fix the blighters eventually! And so on with the show...
********
There's only one thing better than character torture...and that's reader torture! There MIGHT be a warm fuzzy in here...then again, there might not. You're just gonna have to read and find out!
THE ONE CONSTANT
Part 8
They were late.
It should have come as no surprise to Faith that they would be. For all the years she had known them Lisa and James had never managed to turn up on time to anything, not even their own wedding.
Faith cast another glance at her watch and settled back to stare out of the window of the small restaurant.
It had seemed such a nice idea at the time. Get out, take your mind off your worries. Catch up with old friends, who, despite their tardiness, were always guaranteed good company. But the hoped for respite from her concerns had so far failed to eventuate and Faith found herself preoccupied with her troubles yet again.
"Why couldn't you have trusted me enough to deal with it Faith?"
The memory of the hurt and disappointment etched in every line of her husband's face stung her as strongly now as it had the night Emily disappeared.
Fred had stood before her on the verge of tears holding the note their daughter had hastily scratched onto the back of an old envelope.
"I'm sorry Dad," it had said. "I can't be here any more. I love you - Em."
That had been a month ago.
Emily had been officially listed as missing the required 48 hours after her disappearance, but despite endless searching and inquiries and the goodwill of so many people, nothing had been sighted of her. The parents of the youth Faith had seen Emily with in the bar that day hadn't seen or heard from their tearaway son in over a year and gave Faith the distinct impression they could not have cared less if they had.
"We've been through this with Matt before," the father had told Faith with a shrug. "He disappears then turns back up when it suits him."
"If the no good bastard don't wanna be found, he won't be," the mother had added, chillingly.
"Why didn't you trust me, Faith?"
She remembered standing there before her husband, in despair at the pain and anguish in Fred's eyes. Then, as now, she had no good answer for him.
"I was angry, Fred. I just reacted," she recalled herself saying.
"I was angry too, Faith. But I know Em. I know her well enough to know that going off at her and grounding her wouldn't achieve anything. I asked you to leave it with me Faith. Why couldn't you? Why couldn't you trust me?"
"I should have listened to you Fred," she had answered.
"Yeah Faith, you should have. I wish you had. But you didn't, did you? You never have. Because you always know best, don't you Faith? Or at least you think you do."
There had been no anger in his tone, just deep hurt. Without further word he headed for their room and shut the door.
Things had been tense between them ever since, but not angry. Feelings of hurt, sadness, deep disappointment and fear hung between them like an invisible barrier, always there, never seen but impenetrable.
The unrelieved tension between them had begun to affect Charlie too. He had become increasingly withdrawn and uncommunicative ever since his sister's disappearance. That worried Fred even more and in turn stirred in Faith concerns about the effects of it all upon her husband's health.
"...you always know best, don't you Faith?"
Fred had needed her to show her trust in him as a husband and a father. Instead she had treated him with contempt and it had cut him to the core. Just as it had when she had gone ahead with her decision to abort their child.
"Oh god," she whispered.
Faith knew in her heart that the shadow of that decision loomed large in their lives once more, an historical wound reawakened by the deep pain Fred felt over Emily's disappearance and his wife's apparent lack of respect for his views, for his judgement.
Faith almost wished Fred would be angry with her, fight with her, clear the air so they could get back to the business of relating. But the feelings of sadness and deep hurt Fred clearly struggled with were like a wound that wouldn't heal, one there seemed to be no ready cure for. The agony of not knowing Emily's fate tracked them both through their every waking moment and into their dreams.
Faith sadly watched the passing parade of people on the sidewalk outside the restaurant. Couples with their arms wrapped lovingly around each other seemed especially taunting. She reflected sadly at how quickly and how profoundly things had gone wrong in her world. Things between she and Fred during and after his recovery from the heart attack had been nice, real nice. Yet she'd seemed intent on looking for trouble.
Last night they had made love...or at least tried to. It had been little more than a dutiful or even fanciful attempt to bond while the issues between them simmered and made any real connection impossible. Memories of how sweet their sex life had been before made it all the more heartbreaking.
Faith's preoccupation with her own miserable internal dialogue had been taken by Fred as a sign of disinterest in him and their faltering attempt at passion had ended abruptly. She had glimpsed an expression of intense hurt on his face as he'd turned away from her and she found herself wondering what she had done to warrant it. But instead of broaching the subject she had let it be. Having long since reached the point of doubting her ability to express her concerns in a way that could heal Faith had resorted to the relative safety of silence. But now she regretted it.
Faith cast another glance at her watch.
The sort of disrespect she had shown Fred the day she had grounded Emily for the bar incident was like poison in a marriage, emotional black ink poured across the pages of their lives. Fred accepted her apologies quietly, but the look of hurt in his eyes told her there were many obstacles for them to overcome yet.
But it was another piece of the complicated puzzle that was her life Faith realised had the most potential to make things worse.
Bosco.
He had been amazing from the moment he heard Emily was a runaway, even calling on people he'd worked with in the ACU to keep an eye out for her. He had gone the extra mile and then some, accompanying Faith to places where they thought someone might know something. His support, his concern had been invaluable, especially in those moments of despair she had endured after repeatedly coming to dead ends in their search. But it became increasingly clear to Faith that Bosco had his own troubles, his own worries and concerns to deal with, things he did not feel he could share with her.
There were rumours. Rumours about Bosco and his involvement with Cruz. There was something going on there and Faith didn't like what she'd been hearing. It made her anxious for him, even though worrying about Bosco was the last possible thing she needed on top of everything else that was happening in her life. But worry she did.
He's just the man you work with, murmured the voice.
No. I consider him a friend.
Friends don't do what you do in those fantasies of yours...
Faith could better understand the allure of her make-believe world given the agonising lack of connection that existed between she and Fred. Dreams of passion and romance, she realised, were like a drug to a sad heart. But the fact that the fantasies had made their presence felt a long time before this continued to disturb her.
Faith reasoned, intellectually at least, that she had built a fiction around the way Bosco had looked at her once upon a time, with trust and deep affection. No pity. No disappointment. No hurt. They had no intimate history together, the memory of which could impinge upon her passionate make-believe and remind her that the myth of romantic love was just that, a myth, and that it bore no resemblance to reality. Faith had seen too much sadness in the world and had experienced one too many disappointments in her own life for her to believe in happy ever after.
"It's a beautiful thing to watch someone evolve into the potential you've glimpsed in them. But that's what you're most afraid of, isn't it? That Maurice Boscorelli will some day become someone you will no longer be content to keep at arms length..."
Faith shifted uncomfortably and snatched another glance at her watch.
For so long she had needed to see Bosco as someone who was inferior to her, someone she would never dream of getting close to. He had made that such an easy task so often but as she got to know him better over the years Faith began to see glimpses of something else in him.
Taking the attitude that Bosco was not her equal, that she was somehow above him, had kept him at a safe distance. It had enabled her to avoid the sort of messy complications, the hurts and resentments that affairs and clandestine entanglements always trailed in their wake. But it had also kept her safe from the fear of being used and rejected by him, something she had watched happen to a steady stream of others. That had given her good cause to deny the unfathomable attraction she felt.
But there was something else. Maintaining an attitude of contempt for Bosco had, more than anything, kept her from confronting the pain of realising that Fred was not, and never had been, the man of her dreams. Fred had just been...there.
Faith squirmed.
How can a short, stroppy, in-denial abuse survivor with a superhero complex be the man of your dreams? demanded the voice scathingly.
"But sometime, somewhere you have had a glimpse of some other side of him, some potential..."
In her mind's eye her gaze was held once more by intense blue eyes that watched her with unspoken adoration. Sitting there alone and lonely in a crowded room, her eyes began to brim with tears as the feelings she held for him rose up from their place of banishment and flooded over her. She made no attempt to drag her errant imagination away from that place in her mind where her wayward partner was everything her sad heart could desire.
Faith sat staring at the table in front of her, taking a moment to compose herself. She shut out the hustle and bustle of the place, the comings and goings of strangers, and let her tired mind focus on the feelings inside of her.
Eventually something made her look up.
Bosco stood before her, watching her from the sidewalk outside. She had not seen him at all during the week and was surprised at how tired and jaded and he looked.
She rose from her seat and left the restaurant to join him.
"You OK?" he asked quietly.
"Just..." she shrugged. "You don't exactly look on top of the world yourself."
It was his turn to shrug. "Tough week. You waitin' for someone?" he asked, indicating the restaurant.
She nodded. "I was. But I've kinda lost my appetite. Too much on my mind."
"No news about Em?"
She shook her head sadly.
"Can I give you a lift somewhere?"
Faith hesitated for a moment. "Yeah. Thanks," she said eventually.
Bosco led off, jamming his hands into the pockets of his jacket. He walked with his head down and didn't seem interested in making polite conversation.
The car was parked up a small side street. Faith watched him closely as Bosco unlocked it, his face a picture of sad preoccupation.
"Bos, is everything OK?"
He didn't respond immediately, just looked up and gazed at her sadly.
"When has everything ever been OK in my life, Faith?" he asked softly.
Faith looked away briefly and nodded. "Your life sucks, my life sucks. Look at us - we're the perfect couple," she murmured.
The pained look he gave her almost broke her heart.
Standing alone together in the small gloomy alley, they stared wordlessly at each other and felt something intangible pass between them.
Slowly, tentatively, Faith took a few steps towards him. Without a word Bosco reached out and enfolded her gently in his arms.
**********
TBC - heh heh heh...I can too leave it there!