A/N: Well, I'm heading into the home stretch with this thing – just one more chapter left! – so hopefully you can all excuse the long length of this update (4200 words!), the repeat appearance of RacHell, and the unabashed descent into Cordano sappiness by the end of the chapter.
Title comes from the Bonnie Tyler song I was listening to while writing this chapter. I confess, I'm an 80's girl at heart. :)
Reviews still appreciated… many many thanks to all of you who have been weighing in for the past few updates, although I haven't said so in awhile.
Chapter 19. Eclipse of the Heart
Elizabeth wasn't quite prepared to have Susan answer her knock at the door of her old house.
"Hey, Elizabeth," she said after a taut pause, obviously aware of Elizabeth's discomfort.
"Hi," she said. "Erm…"
"Mark told me you were coming to see Ella," Susan said. "Come on in."
Elizabeth followed Susan into the family room and looked around with a hard, dry swallow at her home. It hadn't changed much. Even the pictures on the mantel were almost the same – except one new picture at the far left. She recognized Susan's smiling face next to Mark's.
"How is Ella?" she asked.
"Well, Mark probably told you she had a little fever yesterday, but it was gone by the time I put her to bed," Susan said. "I bet she'll be happy to see you, though."
Elizabeth smiled. "I'll go get her."
"She's up in her crib." Susan headed into the kitchen. "I made some coffee," she said, "how do you like yours?"
"One sugar," Elizabeth called softly from the stairs.
When she came back down cradling a sleepy Ella in her arms, Susan was in the family room with two cups of coffee on the table. Elizabeth sat, kissing Ella's forehead. She remembered thinking of the child as a bit of a nuisance during the worst part of her marriage to Mark – now it felt like the greatest gift to be able simply to hold her daughter in her arms.
"How is everything?" she asked Susan.
"Mark, you mean."
"I haven't seen him since Ella's birthday."
Susan nodded, understanding. "Well, after the last Gamma treatment he really wasn't doing that well, but we upped the meds and he doesn't suffer too much anymore."
"Oh," Elizabeth said a little emptily. Anymore. That was a word of finality.
Ella suddenly wriggled a little and said, "Ma-ma!"
Elizabeth snuggled against her. "Yes honey, mama's here," she murmured, kissing Ella's face several times. To Susan she asked, "How is the talking going?"
"She says ba-ba now when she's hungry," Susan said.
"Really? That's lovely."
"And she calls me ga-ga," Susan said. "I can't figure out what that means."
"Evil stepmother?" Elizabeth joked.
Susan grinned. "Out of the mouths of babes."
"Exactly."
"Well—" she stood. "I am supposed to go to work at some point today, so I should go home and check on my sister. Chris is coming in a little late since you're here, but she should be here by nine or so."
"Does she stay here all the time?"
"Whenever I'm not here," Susan said. "She was only too happy to increase her hours. Economy's kicking her butt, along with everyone else's."
"I can imagine."
"When you see her, will you tell her to call me at the hospital so we can iron out tonight's schedule?" Susan said.
"Sure."
"Bye, Elizabeth."
She smiled. "Have a good day."
~
"Mark?"
Mark groaned.
"Mark?"
He recognized Elizabeth's voice, coming from far away, without quite waking up. "I don't want to get up yet," he mumbled.
"Mark, it's me," she said, and behind closed eyelids he listened to her footsteps padding towards him on the carpet of their bedroom. "I came to visit Ella before work."
"No, you don't have work today," he argued, opening his eyes and trying to focus his blurry vision on his fiancée. "You have to get ready for dinner. I'm going to take you out to a restaurant! I have it all planned."
Her eyes were so blue, and so dark with sadness. "Mark, you told me to visit because Ella isn't feeling well," she insisted.
Finally he noticed that she had a child in her arms. "Wait, visit who?" he asked, still confused. "Why aren't you dressed to go out? We have reservations at eight."
"I'm visiting you," she said with a soft, sad calmness, reaching down to feel for fever. Her hand was cool on his forehead.
Something jarred in his mind. He bolted upright. "Wait. … What time is it?" he demanded desperately.
"Six o'clock in the morning." She leaned close to him, speaking intensely as her resolutely calm expression finally quavered. "Mark, I don't live here anymore. Do you remember?"
He stared at her, aware that his face was covered in frightened confusion. Remember, remember, remember. Elizabeth. Rachel. Ella.
Susan.
Mark took an unsteady breath and the fleeting present returned to him. "Yes. Yes, of course I remember. I was just – dreaming."
"Are you always altered when you're tired?" she asked quietly.
He blinked, reaching for his glasses on the nighttable. Elizabeth noticed his groping search and put them on his face herself. His vision shimmered into clarity, and with it his memory. "I'm fine."
"I can call Susan in her car. She only left a couple minutes ago."
"No, don't do that. I just woke up. I get it now."
She nodded, biting the inside of her lip again. "You told me to wake you up when I got here."
"I know." He looked up at her. "How long are you hanging around for?"
"Till Chris gets here. I only have an elective procedure today, and it's not till the afternoon."
"It must be nice to take it easy for a day," he said.
"And tomorrow," she sparkled, "I take over."
"The world?" he kidded her.
"Close. The surgery department."
"Oh, that's right!" he said, remembering after a moment. "Romano's leaving."
"County is soon to become a far easier place to work."
He fell back against his pillow, exhausted from sitting up for so long. "So life's treating you well?"
"Very well." Her voice grew softer. "You?"
"Well… better than last week."
"I'm glad," she said with that lovely, sympathetic smile still on her face.
"Yeah." He turned on his side to face her. "I've missed you, you know. I've missed that smile."
"I've missed you, too."
"I mean, we made the right choice—"
"Definitely."
"It's just…"
"…I miss being friends."
They laughed warmly; they'd never finished each other's sentences before, never been that well in sync.
"Yeah," he agreed. "We didn't have a bad time, did we? Not until the end."
"No," she said. "We were lucky to have each other when we needed each other."
Mark said slowly, "I didn't want to do the dramatic good-bye thing with everyone, maybe because I'm a coward. I couldn't face the idea. But I should have talked to you a long time ago."
"You don't have to," she said, shaking her head uncomfortably. Elizabeth was like that; she didn't want to hear these things, these difficult, painful, honest things.
"Yes I do. I need you to know what I – or – how much you mean to me. You, Ella, our family. Such as it was." He wanted to say more, but an enormous yawn cut him off. He fought to keep his eyes open through increasing weariness.
"I know," she kept assuring him quietly, as he yawned again and sank back into a deep sleep.
~
When Mark woke up, Elizabeth was gone and Chris was holding Ella in her arms at the door, with the cordless phone from downstairs in one hand. "Dr. Greene?" she said as his eyes opened. "It's your daughter's school."
Groggily he reached out for the phone, and Chris approached to give it to him. "Hello?" His voice was scratchy.
"Is this Mark Greene?"
"Yes?"
"This is Ronnie Smith calling on behalf of Chicago P.S. 147. It's about Rachel."
He was fairly sure he already knew where this was going.
"Can you come in to speak with me?"
"Look, uh…" He sighed. "If you could do it on the phone… this is not the best time."
"Yes, I understand – there are – circumstances."
"Right." Circumstances, he thought sardonically. Tactful lady. "So, what did she do?"
"Truancy. She was found on the grounds smoking marijuana when she was supposed to be in her history class, and speaking to her other teachers revealed a pattern of unexcused absences from class."
"Oh."
"She's been suspended for one week, and she'll be on probation till graduation."
"Permanently?"
"That's how we do things. Substance abuse is a serious offense."
"Right, of course."
"She can be sent home on the school bus if you like, since it comes in an hour."
"That'd be fine."
He was sitting in the family room when Rachel came home, already with that look in her eyes as if they were just waiting to be rolled up to high heaven at the first word he said.
"Hi," he said.
"Hi," Rachel answered rather sourly. She paused at the door after putting down her almost-empty backpack, and they stared at each other for a few seconds.
"Cutting class, huh?" Mark said, breaking the silence.
"It was one history class," she said. "The teacher's stupid anyway, he just shows us movies about, like, Abraham Lincoln all the time, and how he's so great, and he's this big hero. Or Thomas Jefferson, or whoever. The kids who do show up just take naps on their desk. Even Mr. Grossman can't stay awake."
"At least they're not getting stoned," he countered.
Ah, yes, there it was, the eye-roll. "That was the other kid with me. I was just there."
"Rachel, I may have a brain tumor, but my head hasn't entirely stopped working."
She blinked.
"You're using," he said. "I don't know what or when or how often or how long, but I was a kid once too."
"Sure, Dad, I'm just this kid who has no idea what I'm doing, I'm out of control, I'm on drugs…"
Mark heard the hurt in her voice, finally, after hearing nothing but the outward anger for a long time. He'd given up on her – and she'd noticed, when he thought she simply didn't care.
The thought presented itself unexpectedly in Mark's mind, that Susan would never give up on her family. She never left Chloe to battle life out for herself, never allowed herself to believe that it wasn't worth loving her.
With new resolve, Mark made an attempt to stand, but decided failure wouldn't be worth the effort and fell backwards. "All right, Rachel," he said. "Come here."
She looked ready to stomp upstairs, but must have decided that it was a cheap shot to run away when he couldn't even get up; so she settled for stomping to the couch instead. "Yeah?" Arms crossed, she waited pugnaciously.
He leaned forward, fixing her with his eyes. "I've made too many mistakes as a father," he said. "I was going to give up, but I love you. I won't give up on this. On being a dad."
"Yeah, whatever."
Good thing he hadn't expected her to melt into tears of gratitude; this revelation, this epiphany was for him only. "Okay," he said. "Since you're such an adult, you tell me. What kind of punishment do you think you deserve?"
Rachel stared at him in annoyed confusion; she wasn't going to play this game. Mark had no idea what he was doing, but he was beginning to think parenting was like that. The best he could offer might not be perfect, but it might just be enough.
~
"Well," Edson said as he left Elizabeth's office, "Good night."
Elizabeth was in too grumpy a mood to return the sentiment very affectionately. "Good night," she answered crisply. She couldn't believe she had just made him her associate chief; there had been something so smug in that round face when he learned about his little promotion. His was the last career she wanted to have a hand in improving.
Well, she'd do to Edson what Romano had done to her. Saddle him with all the unpleasant tasks and watch him suffer quietly in the hopes of making chief himself at some later date. But with a little more human decency. And without all the inappropriate workplace flirtation.
Her own indulgent laugh at this thought startled her. Oh, that man had gotten into her head! And clearly, he no longer wanted to be there. Last week she'd found out that his mother had died several days previously; he'd been at the funeral when she found out, and so she'd been reduced to sending him a card (so hypocritical, since all she knew of the woman was that he had never gotten along with her; she'd written "I know how much she meant to you" and felt like a fool). She'd told him she was sorry in a short, awkward conversation the next day. His face marked more by puzzlement than sadness, he'd thanked her the way a man thanks a stranger in the reception line at a funeral.
Since then, they'd barely spoken. Robert was stubborn and, at this point, also very confusing. She'd started to miss even his rambling conversations about no discernible topic as they performed procedure after procedure together in starkly professional calmness. And she definitely missed that bubbly feeling she'd had at the museum, when they were just Lizzie and Robert, without all the barriers of real life and real history between them.
With Edson out of sight Elizabeth checked her watch and realized, with a shock of real panic, that Robert could be gone at any minute. Could already be gone. Unceremoniously she stood up and walked briskly to his office.
The door was open. She stood outside for a moment, watching Robert staring pensively into one of the small cardboard boxes sitting open on his desk. Finally, realizing that she was almost spying, she said from the doorway, "Having second thoughts?"
He looked up with an almost-smile when he heard her voice. "Not quite yet. But I am having second thoughts about waiting to move all these things till the last day."
"Can I help?" She made her voice lighter. "Unless it would hurt your male ego to allow it."
"Lizzie, watching you in surgery is much more humbling than any more menial tasks could be." He closed the flaps of the box he'd been staring aimlessly into. "Go ahead, help away."
She surveyed his desk with a critical eye. "You're not even done packing."
"When I said 'help,' did you hear 'narrate'?" he queried.
"I didn't hear 'thank you,'" she retorted.
"Then your ears are working," he said. "Intermittently, at least. Would you do me a favor and get the rest of the books on the shelf into that box?"
"Whatever you say, Robert," she grumbled.
He laughed suddenly.
"What?" she said, taking out a few heavy volumes of the leather-bound Encyclopedia Britannica and plopping them into the box.
"Well, you said the exact same thing – wait, not those, they're from '99. Northwestern will get me a new set, you can just throw these out." Elizabeth sighed and moved the encyclopedias back to the shelf. Romano continued, "You said the same thing on the phone the other day, if I recall correctly."
She winced. "Oh, that."
"Yeah." He was enjoying this. "That."
"I called you from the pub," she recalled slowly.
"You certainly did," he said, containing his smile. "Quite a conversation."
"It was?" she said, slightly nervous. She did vaguely remember talking to him, and asking him … what was it? … something about that kiss at the museum.
And telling him she wasn't a lady. Elizabeth remembered that quite clearly. But much of the rest had blurred into mere impressions, sight and touch and sound blending indistinctly. The taste of beer; the smell of smoke; the bad oldies station playing in the background.
"Yeah," he said. "It was hard to understand through all the slurring, but there was a lot of raving about how well I kiss."
"Really?" she said, horrified. She had entertained quite a few lucid thoughts on the subject, but… "I don't remember saying anything like that."
He grinned. "That's because you didn't. I was making it up."
"You're horrid."
"Now, that's nothing like what you told me on the phone," he said in mock sadness.
Elizabeth decided that this conversation was getting too humiliating and returned her attention to the rest of the books on the shelf. "How are you going to carry this box all the way to the car?" she said eventually. Granted it was only a small box, six inches deep at most. But filled with books…
"Well, what do you think I do with my gym membership card, use it to spice up my wallet?"
Ooh, touchy, she thought with amusement. They fell into a silence easier than their usual heavy pauses, and Elizabeth settled into an easy rhythm of lifting each book with one hand and putting it in the box with the other. She filled two cardboard boxes, and only then did her knees begin to feel sore from crouching on the ground. Elizabeth checked her watch; half an hour had passed.
She turned to say something to Robert, but when she saw him standing at his desk in perfect motionlessness she hesitated, not wanting to interrupt the moment. His eyes were fixed on a drawer open in front of him.
"Robert?" she ventured after a few indeterminate seconds had passed.
He looked up and snapped the drawer shut as if ashamed of his reverie. "Yeah. You almost done?"
"I'm finished," she said, standing on stiff limbs. "All packed."
She looked around the room. It was so empty now, just a bookcase without books, and a wall without paintings, and that bare satinwood desk. Her office, her desk, now. She would sit here tomorrow, and she would think of him.
"Time to go," he said.
Elizabeth looked at him questioningly. "How many trips will it take you to get all these to your car by yourself?"
He smirked. "You offering some … womanpower?"
"Why not?" she said.
"I see," he nodded. "You're just dying to get rid of me as fast as possible."
"Well, how else would I have gotten such a nice office?"
They traipsed in and out to his car twice, each cradling a cardboard box, and bantering with at least an appearance of casual amusement the entire time. After the last trip, Robert went back inside to get his briefcase. A little out of breath from exertion, Elizabeth walked by his side back to the office.
Standing at his desk, he snapped his briefcase shut and hauled it onto the smooth desktop surface before turning to face Elizabeth, who was leaning against the wall by the door. She was physically tired from the work of bringing that last box of books outside, but she knew why she was really having trouble standing. There was an easy escape beckoning, and as usual her instincts were begging her to make use of it, to let him make the move of leaving without trying to talk him back into her life.
Romano's eyes softened as he saw her gnawing at the inside of her cheek. "Thanks for your help," he said matter-of-factly.
"It was nothing," she said with a small sigh.
He nodded, his face infuriatingly enigmatic. Elizabeth felt sick; his eyes were like rocks, hard and unflinching. He was giving her nothing. "So I guess this is it," he said.
"You'll keep in touch, won't you?" she said; not quite a casual remark, but not much more than the insincere entreaty of one colleague to another.
"Of course," he said, with the same air of a polite colleague.
Well, at this rate they'd never get anything said. "I don't want this to be over," she said in a low voice. "Whatever it is."
"Over?" he said, passing close by her to get to the door. "You never even let it start."
For a second Elizabeth was too numb to react, until he'd leaned over and kissed her hastily near her mouth. Then she started fuming at that last sentence and, at the same time, regardless of anger and estrangement and fear, turned her lips to seek his.
He drew back. Of course, she thought, of course he wants to blame me and he wants an excuse to keep from ever getting close to anyone and he kissed me, and now – "You'll be a good chief, Lizzie," he said, half in mocking condescension and half deadly serious. "Knock yourself out."
Before Elizabeth had found her voice he was gone, and she spluttered a few curse words at the closed door before her anger faded and left her feeling, almost, like crying. Taking a look around at the barren surroundings, she made her way over to the desk and sat behind it, as if to experiment; to figure out how life would look from this new angle.
Pretty good, she decided.
(But it would have been better if Robert were in it.)
She laughed at herself, a little, and then a flash of color caught her eye from inside the top desk drawer, which Robert had left open a crack. An earthy orange. She pulled the drawer open further and found a book of poetry. He must have forgotten it.
Elizabeth examined the small paperback curiously. What on earth was Rocket Romano doing with a volume of Pablo Neruda in his office? The man had secrets certainly, but she certainly never imagined quite such a sensitive side to her onetime antagonist.
Almost unconsciously she opened it, thinking to dip into the volume, to see what kind of taste he had. She'd heard of Neruda, of course, but rarely had enough spare time to educate herself in the ways of contemporary poetry. Instead she saw the front cover, with its scrawled inscription.
"My God," she murmured to herself with a broad smile, seeing her name and then the inscription – "best wishes" – what could that mean? – a parting gift? – and then the date.
It was from her birthday.
She realized several things at that moment. The first was that he might still be around, and the second was that she was going to go look for him even if he'd left. As she hurried out the door, she nearly bumped into Shirley and gasped, "Did Romano leave?"
Shirley frowned in contemplation. "He was talking to Weaver at the desk a minute ago."
Elizabeth thanked her, but when she checked at the surgery reception desk it was deserted. Neither Weaver nor Romano was anywhere to be found. "Damn," she muttered, switching directions and walking at an undignified pace towards the elevators to get to the parking lot.
By the time she got there, she was desperately impatient, and she fairly flew out of the elevator and towards the spot where Romano had been parked.
"Robert!" she called when she spotted him fiddling with the keys. Her voice echoed in the lot, and he jumped and stared at her as she forced herself to walk in a reasonable, adult fashion over to him.
"Lizzie. Couldn't let me leave?" he flirted lightheartedly.
She was still holding the book. "I found this."
His face changed. "I left that?"
"You didn't mean to?"
"I was about to get rid of that when you – well, never mind. No. I didn't mean to leave it. It was leftover from a long time ago anyway."
"From that day you were going to take me to dinner," she said softly.
"That's right." Robert's jaw was clenched so tightly he looked like he would burst a vein. Gesturing impatiently to his car, he said, "Well, I'm not taking it back now. I hope you enjoy it." He threw the last sentence at her with almost vicious sarcasm.
"Robert," she protested as he slid into the front seat, about to close the door.
Closing his eyes in resignation, he stopped moving exactly where he was and said, "Yeah?"
"Can I… have a ride home?"
He rolled his tongue inside his lip, pretending to consider this; but she could see in his eyes that all of this had been decided in spite of himself a long time ago. Then he jerked his chin in the direction of the passenger seat and said gruffly, his jaw set, "Door's unlocked."
Well, she'd take what she could get in the way of politeness, because that look told her everything she needed to know. Hiding a smile of pure, premature happiness, she went around to the passenger side and got in, snapping the seat belt emphatically in so that the metallic click reverberated in the grim silence. Robert maneuvered the Jag out of a tight parking space, backing out rather more carefully than she'd expected him to drive, without directing a word or a look in Elizabeth's direction.
The minute that it took to back out felt like twenty. Elizabeth breathed a sigh of relief when they were clear of the other cars, as if being free on the open road could literally make things more open between them. Only when they were completely out of the space and about to start driving out to the street did they hear the squeal of tires coming around the corner and see a Mercedes convertible driving rapidly straight towards them.
