TITLE: THE ONE CONSTANT
AUTHOR: MINN
DISCLAIMER: I STILL 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!
I'M STILL foreign, so cut me some slack if I use a phrase or two that don't make no sense.
GREETINGS and huge thanx to Angie (you're right, it is cruel and unusual punishment! Forgive me!), Helena, Juls (Happy ending? Hmm, now there's a thought...nah...*cackles evilly*), DreamLoveBreathe (What's this 'happy' you folks keep talking about...), Winterwolf (warm fuzzies? Is that the same as 'happy'?...), Lifesaver55 (I'm hurrying, I'm hurrying!), Kate Anderson (You need help! Man, so do I! Let's invent a 12 step program for ficaddicts...), Ljae, Deliani, Meeko, mauriceboscorelli, and AnnaDelAmico (You're welcome! And aw, shucks, you're making me blush!) for taking the time to review so kindly - please forgive me if I've missed anyone. And to everyone else who's enjoying this as much as I am writing it - Cheers!!
I COULDN'T bear to torture you by leaving it like that, so here's another offering just to keep y'all going...
THIRD WATCH, the fourth season, starts here in New Zealand on Sunday 16th! WOOOOOHOOOOOO!!! God bless you TV2!
BACKGROUND MUSIC: see if y'all can get a hold of a copy of The Eagles "Desperado" (D. Henley/G. Frey) (Copyright 1973 Cass County Music/Red Cloud Music ASCAP, P: Elektra/Asylum Records from the album "Desperado".)
-----
THE ONE CONSTANT
Part 16
"I'm gonna shoot the little bastard right between the eyes with his own fucking gun!"
Sgt. Cruz's jarring tones echoed down the corridor towards Faith as she made her way towards the briefing room.
Quietly she approached one of the police detectives who stood slumped against the door watching and listening wearily to the dispute going on inside.
"Hey Beth," Faith said softly.
"Hey Faith, how's things?" the woman answered though by her tone Faith knew Beth wasn't too concerned about anything she had to say.
"What's goin' on?" Faith asked, nodding her head at the gaggle of ACU, FBI and assorted others cluttering the room.
"Major crap," Beth replied, shaking her head.
Faith noted Cruz was in a complete rage.
"I take it things didn't go well today?"
Beth snorted disdainfully. "Didn't go well? Nearly a years worth of work and planning down the f..." she paused and tried it again, "down the toilet."
"What happened?"
"What happened?" Beth eyed her cautiously. "Maurice Boscorelli, that's what happened."
Faith swallowed hard and unconsciously ran one hand over her now heavily distended abdomen.
"He did what he was always good at - he blew the operation apart. Only THIS time, he wasn't on our side. I'd have shot him myself if I had the chance - and I'm not alone there." Beth shook her head. "Jesus, I could use a cigarette right about now."
She noticed Faith was staring fixedly at the floor, lost in her thoughts.
"I know he was your friend Faith," she said quietly, "but he's turning out to be one bad little son of a bitch."
Faith looked up briefly and then away again.
"He made another one of Cruz's guys today Faith - poor bastard nearly didn't get out alive. Seems Boscorelli knew about him for months and was setting him up. Means we can't trust any of the information the guy gave us either."
Faith nodded sadly.
Beth gazed at her, not unsympathetically. "Not long now?" she said, indicating Faith's bump.
"Seven weeks to go," she murmured absently.
"Hope it all goes well for you Faith, I really do."
Faith nodded her acknowledgment and listened as another detective tackled Cruz on the matter.
"You SAID you had someone in there keeping an eye on things!"
"I do...I did..."
"Did?"
Cruz ran a hand through her hair in exasperation. "We haven't had contact for a while..."
The detective gazed heavenwards in stunned dismay. "In other words, this whole damn exercise was pretty much screwed from the beginning!"
"If Boscorelli's gotten to him too, which I think he has, whatever information my guy had for us was probably nothing but smoke and mirrors!" Cruz snapped back.
"Meantime, while we've been pissing around being led a merry trail by that no good son of a bitch, one of the city's smarter operations goes along on its way safe in the knowledge that WE'VE trained up it's best form of defence!"
"I'll handle it!" Cruz snapped irritably.
"Like you have so far?" the detective snorted derisively.
"You always said Boscorelli had potential, Sarge," said one of her colleagues disparagingly.
Cruz's face darkened measurably. "I made a bad call, alright? We all did." She noticed Faith standing in the doorway. "Some of us more than others."
Faith bristled. She left quickly and headed for her desk, knowing that if she didn't she was in danger of mashing Cruz's smug face into the linoleum.
Easing herself into her chair, Faith stared absently at the wall opposite. Happier memories of the man everyone else was now intent on demonising sprang involuntarily to her mind and Faith discovered she had neither the energy nor the incentive to stop them.
As much as she didn't want to believe it, the increasing evidence suggested Bosco was indeed the no good lost cause everyone said he was. Faith knew the sensible thing to do would be to accept that fact with as much grace and dignity as she could muster and get on with her life. But she couldn't.
Faith gazed down at her swollen abdomen and placed her hand where she could feel some movement. "I knew him when he was a better person, Gracie," she said softly. "It's kinda my fault that he isn't any more."
While she longed to believe she carried her husband's baby, a small nagging voice in the back of her mind had all but convinced her that the little girl growing inside her was Bosco's. Faith assumed it was some sort of protective motherly instinct rather than any lingering sense of loyalty to Bosco that prevented her from openly condemning the father of her child. But the continued reports of Bosco's descent into the shadows had become as burdensome to her as the hidden truth about her baby's paternity.
Her home life by contrast, was a pool of calm in her sea of turmoil. Even Emily had gone some way to lifting part of the burden Faith carried by beginning a pattern of not so regular phone contacts with her father. They had managed to trace her last call to a payphone in New Jersey.
"She's coming home," Fred had murmured. "You'll see. She'll come home soon. Maybe in time to see her sister born..."
Fred had remained overjoyed at the prospect of being a father again, and he credited his excellent recovery from the health scare he'd had to the purposeful outlook impending fatherhood gave him.
"I wasn't there for you as much as I could have been when Emily and Charlie were babies," he told her. "I want to make up for that with this one."
Fred's unwavering care and attentiveness had the strange effect of easing Faith's cares yet increasing her burden of guilt at the same time. Their relationship was more beautiful than it had ever been and Faith's agony at deceiving the man she loved caused her many sleepless nights.
Earlier on in her pregnancy, and at Fred's urging, Faith had switched to daytime hours and reluctantly assumed desk duties. Her colleague's kept her in the loop about goings on on the streets, Ty and Sully especially providing her with regular updates on Bosco.
A small movement in the doorway behind her drew Faith's attention away from her thoughts.
Sgt Cruz stood there watching her with arms crossed, the expression on her face hard and full of contempt.
"When you think about it," she said coldly, "I suppose we really have you to thank for what happened today."
Faith frowned. "How do you figure that?"
"I mean, must have been a real blow to be dumped for the white trash husband..."
Faith glared at her, but kept her cool. "Was there something you were wanting?"
Cruz took a step forward and leaned closer. "Loverboy's head on a platter," she stage-whispered. Straightening up, a sly smile played across her lips. "If you've had contact with him recently and you're not telling us..."
"I haven't seen Bosco since he was fired," Faith answered sourly. "He hasn't contacted me and I haven't tried to contact him."
Cruz snorted disdainfully. "Well that's not quite true, is it Yokas?"
Faith stared at her.
"You went to his apartment a couple of weeks after he had his sad ass kicked out of here," the woman crooned, and smiled at the vague look of surprise on Faith's face. "But he wasn't there, was he?"
"He was under surveillance?"
Cruz gave her a "what do you think" look.
"I was worried," Faith murmured.
"How sweet," Cruz drawled.
"Go to hell."
"And then two months later you went back - only to find Boscorelli had been kicked out of his apartment and didn't leave no forwarding address."
"Is there a point to this?" Faith demanded.
"Just this...mommy. If he contacts you - and given your...history...he could - we wanna know about it, OK? You know. Do your bit for the cause...try undo some of the damage..."
Faith glared at her.
Knowing her words had had the right effect Cruz smiled and swaggered away.
-----
That night Faith stood staring out of the window in her apartment watching as a steady stream of rain pelted the glass outside. The words of a familiar song playing on the stereo provided a poignant backdrop to her troubled thoughts.
"Desperado,
Why don't you come to your senses?
You've been out riding fences, for so long now,
Oh you're a hard one,
But I know that you got your reasons,
These things that are pleasing you, can hurt you somehow..."
Memories of Bosco flicked across the screen of her mind. Every so often one would linger long enough for Faith to savour it before the voices of condemnation intruded to remind her of the present.
"...now it seems to me some fine things,
have been laid upon your table,
But you only want the ones you can't get...
Desperado..."
Fred entered the room quietly and watched his wife for some moments. He felt his chest tighten at the sight of the despair in her expression.
"Great song," he murmured as he approached her side.
Faith nodded.
He took her in his arms and placed a soft kiss upon her neck. "I think I remember making love to this," he said tenderly.
Faith turned and leant against her husband, but made no effort to dismiss the memories of Bosco. She continued to stare fixedly into the distance.
"...and freedom, oh freedom, well that's just some people talkin',
You're prisoners walking through this world all alone..."
"Coming to bed?" Fred murmured.
Faith nodded, but didn't move. He pulled her closer and began to gently sway in time to the music.
"...Desperado,
Why don't you come to your senses?
Come down from your fences,
Open the gate,
It may be rainin', but there's a rainbow above you,
You better let somebody love you
(let somebody love you)
You better let somebody love you...
Before it's too...late..."
They held each other close for some time after the song had ended.
----
Faith was three weeks away from giving birth. Exhausted and impatient to have it over and done with, she lay in her darkened bedroom early one evening, dozing fitfully. Through the thin veil of drowsiness that had settled upon her she heard the sound of a heavy knock on the door of the apartment.
Struggling into a sitting position Faith reached for her robe and listened. Fred's voice, raised in astonishment, called a name. She slung the robe about her and heaved herself to her feet.
Fred stood beside the couch, his arms wrapped protectively around Emily's slender form. He seemed to be trying to shield her from someone else Faith could not see from where she stood, and Emily seemed intent on cowering from that person.
"I DON'T wanna see you there again, Emily! Ever!" a familiar voice raged.
Faith could tell by the tone that the speaker meant every word.
"Next time you and that shitbag boyfriend of yours mightn't be so damned lucky. You understand me?"
Still cowering, Emily nodded mutely.
Astounded, Faith inched slowly forward, her heart pounding heavily.
"You better. I'm warning you, Em. If I see your skanky ass hangin' around that joint again..."
When Bosco saw Faith standing there he froze in astonishment. As his eyes travelled over her, for the briefest of moments the blazing anger in them softened, was replaced by a look of bewilderment and then finally, despair.
It took every ounce of willpower Faith possessed not to go to him.
Fred looked on in quiet anguish as he saw something unspoken pass between his wife and her former lover.
After moments of tortured silence, Bosco turned suddenly and fled.
"Bos!" Faith cried out, lurching forward. Fred grabbed her by the arm.
"Where are you going?"
"I need to talk to him..."
"Faith, Emily's home," Fred said, his eyes imploring her to remain with her family.
Faith stared at her daughter who stood clinging to her father.
"I thought he was gonna beat me up too," Emily murmured, clearly disturbed by what she had experienced.
"Who?"
"Bosco."
Faith shook her head vigorously. "Bosco would never do that to you Emily."
"You didn't see what he did to Matt!" her daughter yelled.
"Matt probably deserved it..."
"Faith!" Fred's tone told her he meant business.
Faith felt herself tear up. "I'm sorry," she whispered, stepping towards her daughter, "Emily I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, for everything..."
Hesitantly Emily went to her mother. She said nothing but dissolved into tears as Faith enfolded her in her arms.
Fred hugged them both to him as they cried.
----
Grace Eve made her entrance into the world with a minimum of fuss one bright sunny afternoon. She was not big but she was healthy, and from the outset she gazed upon her world in wide-eyed wonderment.
Fred was ecstatic. His face was a picture of utter delight as he held the little girl in his arms for the first time, totally enamoured of her as Gracie wove her magic over him. Charlie too was thrilled to finally meet his little sister, and even Emily seemed to fall under Gracie's spell.
Later that day Emily sat beside her mother's bed watching as Faith breastfed her newborn. Fred had taken Charlie to the hospital cafeteria to find something to eat.
Emily was intrigued by the far off look of sadness on her mother's tired face.
"Uncle Bosco's changed," she said suddenly.
Faith looked up sharply.
"Remember?" Emily reminded her. "You said whenever I was ready to talk about what happened, you'd listen?"
"You wanna talk about it now?" There was a note of surprise in Faith's voice.
"They reckon Uncle Bosco's crazy," Emily announced. "I think they might be right."
She held her mother's gaze and watched carefully for a reaction.
"Who's 'they'?"
"People on the street," Emily shrugged.
Gracie whimpered softly and Faith returned her gaze to her new infant.
"I thought he was going to kill Matt," her teenager murmured softly.
"Why? What did Matt do?"
Emily looked down and fidgeted in the chair she sat in. "He just shoved me a bit."
Faith looked up, horrified. "Did he have a habit of doin' that?"
Her daughter refused to meet her mother's gaze and shrugged. "He was yelling at me a lot..." She shrugged again. "I don't think he was going to do anything worse, but then Bosco turned up and started laying into him."
"You don't THINK he was going to do anything worse?" Faith said, amazed. "Maybe you should be thanking Bosco for not leaving you to find out."
Emily fixed her eyes upon her mother. "People are scared of him, mom," she said tersely. "I know I am. I don't think we should have anything to do with him any more."
Faith stared down at the tiny girl in her arms and desperately fought back the tears that suddenly pricked her eyes.
"He's made his choice, Emily. I don't think we have to worry about Bosco bein' in our lives any more."
Emily nodded mutely, but she couldn't help wondering at the look of anguish in her mother's sad eyes.
-----
TBC - now this definitely is the last one till after the 22nd...but I'm taking parts 17 and 18 with me to work on when I'm not lazing in the sun on the sand or in the surf. So there might just be a whole lot of goodness to look forward to...then again...half nekid surfie gods might distract me...hell, I sure hope so!
AUTHOR: MINN
DISCLAIMER: I STILL 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!
I'M STILL foreign, so cut me some slack if I use a phrase or two that don't make no sense.
GREETINGS and huge thanx to Angie (you're right, it is cruel and unusual punishment! Forgive me!), Helena, Juls (Happy ending? Hmm, now there's a thought...nah...*cackles evilly*), DreamLoveBreathe (What's this 'happy' you folks keep talking about...), Winterwolf (warm fuzzies? Is that the same as 'happy'?...), Lifesaver55 (I'm hurrying, I'm hurrying!), Kate Anderson (You need help! Man, so do I! Let's invent a 12 step program for ficaddicts...), Ljae, Deliani, Meeko, mauriceboscorelli, and AnnaDelAmico (You're welcome! And aw, shucks, you're making me blush!) for taking the time to review so kindly - please forgive me if I've missed anyone. And to everyone else who's enjoying this as much as I am writing it - Cheers!!
I COULDN'T bear to torture you by leaving it like that, so here's another offering just to keep y'all going...
THIRD WATCH, the fourth season, starts here in New Zealand on Sunday 16th! WOOOOOHOOOOOO!!! God bless you TV2!
BACKGROUND MUSIC: see if y'all can get a hold of a copy of The Eagles "Desperado" (D. Henley/G. Frey) (Copyright 1973 Cass County Music/Red Cloud Music ASCAP, P: Elektra/Asylum Records from the album "Desperado".)
-----
THE ONE CONSTANT
Part 16
"I'm gonna shoot the little bastard right between the eyes with his own fucking gun!"
Sgt. Cruz's jarring tones echoed down the corridor towards Faith as she made her way towards the briefing room.
Quietly she approached one of the police detectives who stood slumped against the door watching and listening wearily to the dispute going on inside.
"Hey Beth," Faith said softly.
"Hey Faith, how's things?" the woman answered though by her tone Faith knew Beth wasn't too concerned about anything she had to say.
"What's goin' on?" Faith asked, nodding her head at the gaggle of ACU, FBI and assorted others cluttering the room.
"Major crap," Beth replied, shaking her head.
Faith noted Cruz was in a complete rage.
"I take it things didn't go well today?"
Beth snorted disdainfully. "Didn't go well? Nearly a years worth of work and planning down the f..." she paused and tried it again, "down the toilet."
"What happened?"
"What happened?" Beth eyed her cautiously. "Maurice Boscorelli, that's what happened."
Faith swallowed hard and unconsciously ran one hand over her now heavily distended abdomen.
"He did what he was always good at - he blew the operation apart. Only THIS time, he wasn't on our side. I'd have shot him myself if I had the chance - and I'm not alone there." Beth shook her head. "Jesus, I could use a cigarette right about now."
She noticed Faith was staring fixedly at the floor, lost in her thoughts.
"I know he was your friend Faith," she said quietly, "but he's turning out to be one bad little son of a bitch."
Faith looked up briefly and then away again.
"He made another one of Cruz's guys today Faith - poor bastard nearly didn't get out alive. Seems Boscorelli knew about him for months and was setting him up. Means we can't trust any of the information the guy gave us either."
Faith nodded sadly.
Beth gazed at her, not unsympathetically. "Not long now?" she said, indicating Faith's bump.
"Seven weeks to go," she murmured absently.
"Hope it all goes well for you Faith, I really do."
Faith nodded her acknowledgment and listened as another detective tackled Cruz on the matter.
"You SAID you had someone in there keeping an eye on things!"
"I do...I did..."
"Did?"
Cruz ran a hand through her hair in exasperation. "We haven't had contact for a while..."
The detective gazed heavenwards in stunned dismay. "In other words, this whole damn exercise was pretty much screwed from the beginning!"
"If Boscorelli's gotten to him too, which I think he has, whatever information my guy had for us was probably nothing but smoke and mirrors!" Cruz snapped back.
"Meantime, while we've been pissing around being led a merry trail by that no good son of a bitch, one of the city's smarter operations goes along on its way safe in the knowledge that WE'VE trained up it's best form of defence!"
"I'll handle it!" Cruz snapped irritably.
"Like you have so far?" the detective snorted derisively.
"You always said Boscorelli had potential, Sarge," said one of her colleagues disparagingly.
Cruz's face darkened measurably. "I made a bad call, alright? We all did." She noticed Faith standing in the doorway. "Some of us more than others."
Faith bristled. She left quickly and headed for her desk, knowing that if she didn't she was in danger of mashing Cruz's smug face into the linoleum.
Easing herself into her chair, Faith stared absently at the wall opposite. Happier memories of the man everyone else was now intent on demonising sprang involuntarily to her mind and Faith discovered she had neither the energy nor the incentive to stop them.
As much as she didn't want to believe it, the increasing evidence suggested Bosco was indeed the no good lost cause everyone said he was. Faith knew the sensible thing to do would be to accept that fact with as much grace and dignity as she could muster and get on with her life. But she couldn't.
Faith gazed down at her swollen abdomen and placed her hand where she could feel some movement. "I knew him when he was a better person, Gracie," she said softly. "It's kinda my fault that he isn't any more."
While she longed to believe she carried her husband's baby, a small nagging voice in the back of her mind had all but convinced her that the little girl growing inside her was Bosco's. Faith assumed it was some sort of protective motherly instinct rather than any lingering sense of loyalty to Bosco that prevented her from openly condemning the father of her child. But the continued reports of Bosco's descent into the shadows had become as burdensome to her as the hidden truth about her baby's paternity.
Her home life by contrast, was a pool of calm in her sea of turmoil. Even Emily had gone some way to lifting part of the burden Faith carried by beginning a pattern of not so regular phone contacts with her father. They had managed to trace her last call to a payphone in New Jersey.
"She's coming home," Fred had murmured. "You'll see. She'll come home soon. Maybe in time to see her sister born..."
Fred had remained overjoyed at the prospect of being a father again, and he credited his excellent recovery from the health scare he'd had to the purposeful outlook impending fatherhood gave him.
"I wasn't there for you as much as I could have been when Emily and Charlie were babies," he told her. "I want to make up for that with this one."
Fred's unwavering care and attentiveness had the strange effect of easing Faith's cares yet increasing her burden of guilt at the same time. Their relationship was more beautiful than it had ever been and Faith's agony at deceiving the man she loved caused her many sleepless nights.
Earlier on in her pregnancy, and at Fred's urging, Faith had switched to daytime hours and reluctantly assumed desk duties. Her colleague's kept her in the loop about goings on on the streets, Ty and Sully especially providing her with regular updates on Bosco.
A small movement in the doorway behind her drew Faith's attention away from her thoughts.
Sgt Cruz stood there watching her with arms crossed, the expression on her face hard and full of contempt.
"When you think about it," she said coldly, "I suppose we really have you to thank for what happened today."
Faith frowned. "How do you figure that?"
"I mean, must have been a real blow to be dumped for the white trash husband..."
Faith glared at her, but kept her cool. "Was there something you were wanting?"
Cruz took a step forward and leaned closer. "Loverboy's head on a platter," she stage-whispered. Straightening up, a sly smile played across her lips. "If you've had contact with him recently and you're not telling us..."
"I haven't seen Bosco since he was fired," Faith answered sourly. "He hasn't contacted me and I haven't tried to contact him."
Cruz snorted disdainfully. "Well that's not quite true, is it Yokas?"
Faith stared at her.
"You went to his apartment a couple of weeks after he had his sad ass kicked out of here," the woman crooned, and smiled at the vague look of surprise on Faith's face. "But he wasn't there, was he?"
"He was under surveillance?"
Cruz gave her a "what do you think" look.
"I was worried," Faith murmured.
"How sweet," Cruz drawled.
"Go to hell."
"And then two months later you went back - only to find Boscorelli had been kicked out of his apartment and didn't leave no forwarding address."
"Is there a point to this?" Faith demanded.
"Just this...mommy. If he contacts you - and given your...history...he could - we wanna know about it, OK? You know. Do your bit for the cause...try undo some of the damage..."
Faith glared at her.
Knowing her words had had the right effect Cruz smiled and swaggered away.
-----
That night Faith stood staring out of the window in her apartment watching as a steady stream of rain pelted the glass outside. The words of a familiar song playing on the stereo provided a poignant backdrop to her troubled thoughts.
"Desperado,
Why don't you come to your senses?
You've been out riding fences, for so long now,
Oh you're a hard one,
But I know that you got your reasons,
These things that are pleasing you, can hurt you somehow..."
Memories of Bosco flicked across the screen of her mind. Every so often one would linger long enough for Faith to savour it before the voices of condemnation intruded to remind her of the present.
"...now it seems to me some fine things,
have been laid upon your table,
But you only want the ones you can't get...
Desperado..."
Fred entered the room quietly and watched his wife for some moments. He felt his chest tighten at the sight of the despair in her expression.
"Great song," he murmured as he approached her side.
Faith nodded.
He took her in his arms and placed a soft kiss upon her neck. "I think I remember making love to this," he said tenderly.
Faith turned and leant against her husband, but made no effort to dismiss the memories of Bosco. She continued to stare fixedly into the distance.
"...and freedom, oh freedom, well that's just some people talkin',
You're prisoners walking through this world all alone..."
"Coming to bed?" Fred murmured.
Faith nodded, but didn't move. He pulled her closer and began to gently sway in time to the music.
"...Desperado,
Why don't you come to your senses?
Come down from your fences,
Open the gate,
It may be rainin', but there's a rainbow above you,
You better let somebody love you
(let somebody love you)
You better let somebody love you...
Before it's too...late..."
They held each other close for some time after the song had ended.
----
Faith was three weeks away from giving birth. Exhausted and impatient to have it over and done with, she lay in her darkened bedroom early one evening, dozing fitfully. Through the thin veil of drowsiness that had settled upon her she heard the sound of a heavy knock on the door of the apartment.
Struggling into a sitting position Faith reached for her robe and listened. Fred's voice, raised in astonishment, called a name. She slung the robe about her and heaved herself to her feet.
Fred stood beside the couch, his arms wrapped protectively around Emily's slender form. He seemed to be trying to shield her from someone else Faith could not see from where she stood, and Emily seemed intent on cowering from that person.
"I DON'T wanna see you there again, Emily! Ever!" a familiar voice raged.
Faith could tell by the tone that the speaker meant every word.
"Next time you and that shitbag boyfriend of yours mightn't be so damned lucky. You understand me?"
Still cowering, Emily nodded mutely.
Astounded, Faith inched slowly forward, her heart pounding heavily.
"You better. I'm warning you, Em. If I see your skanky ass hangin' around that joint again..."
When Bosco saw Faith standing there he froze in astonishment. As his eyes travelled over her, for the briefest of moments the blazing anger in them softened, was replaced by a look of bewilderment and then finally, despair.
It took every ounce of willpower Faith possessed not to go to him.
Fred looked on in quiet anguish as he saw something unspoken pass between his wife and her former lover.
After moments of tortured silence, Bosco turned suddenly and fled.
"Bos!" Faith cried out, lurching forward. Fred grabbed her by the arm.
"Where are you going?"
"I need to talk to him..."
"Faith, Emily's home," Fred said, his eyes imploring her to remain with her family.
Faith stared at her daughter who stood clinging to her father.
"I thought he was gonna beat me up too," Emily murmured, clearly disturbed by what she had experienced.
"Who?"
"Bosco."
Faith shook her head vigorously. "Bosco would never do that to you Emily."
"You didn't see what he did to Matt!" her daughter yelled.
"Matt probably deserved it..."
"Faith!" Fred's tone told her he meant business.
Faith felt herself tear up. "I'm sorry," she whispered, stepping towards her daughter, "Emily I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, for everything..."
Hesitantly Emily went to her mother. She said nothing but dissolved into tears as Faith enfolded her in her arms.
Fred hugged them both to him as they cried.
----
Grace Eve made her entrance into the world with a minimum of fuss one bright sunny afternoon. She was not big but she was healthy, and from the outset she gazed upon her world in wide-eyed wonderment.
Fred was ecstatic. His face was a picture of utter delight as he held the little girl in his arms for the first time, totally enamoured of her as Gracie wove her magic over him. Charlie too was thrilled to finally meet his little sister, and even Emily seemed to fall under Gracie's spell.
Later that day Emily sat beside her mother's bed watching as Faith breastfed her newborn. Fred had taken Charlie to the hospital cafeteria to find something to eat.
Emily was intrigued by the far off look of sadness on her mother's tired face.
"Uncle Bosco's changed," she said suddenly.
Faith looked up sharply.
"Remember?" Emily reminded her. "You said whenever I was ready to talk about what happened, you'd listen?"
"You wanna talk about it now?" There was a note of surprise in Faith's voice.
"They reckon Uncle Bosco's crazy," Emily announced. "I think they might be right."
She held her mother's gaze and watched carefully for a reaction.
"Who's 'they'?"
"People on the street," Emily shrugged.
Gracie whimpered softly and Faith returned her gaze to her new infant.
"I thought he was going to kill Matt," her teenager murmured softly.
"Why? What did Matt do?"
Emily looked down and fidgeted in the chair she sat in. "He just shoved me a bit."
Faith looked up, horrified. "Did he have a habit of doin' that?"
Her daughter refused to meet her mother's gaze and shrugged. "He was yelling at me a lot..." She shrugged again. "I don't think he was going to do anything worse, but then Bosco turned up and started laying into him."
"You don't THINK he was going to do anything worse?" Faith said, amazed. "Maybe you should be thanking Bosco for not leaving you to find out."
Emily fixed her eyes upon her mother. "People are scared of him, mom," she said tersely. "I know I am. I don't think we should have anything to do with him any more."
Faith stared down at the tiny girl in her arms and desperately fought back the tears that suddenly pricked her eyes.
"He's made his choice, Emily. I don't think we have to worry about Bosco bein' in our lives any more."
Emily nodded mutely, but she couldn't help wondering at the look of anguish in her mother's sad eyes.
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TBC - now this definitely is the last one till after the 22nd...but I'm taking parts 17 and 18 with me to work on when I'm not lazing in the sun on the sand or in the surf. So there might just be a whole lot of goodness to look forward to...then again...half nekid surfie gods might distract me...hell, I sure hope so!