Notes and disclaimers in part one

Circle Unbroken

Part 8

They were standing in the graveyard, just a short walk from the church, Tim standing close behind Calleigh as she shook hands with the last of the mourners who had come to pay their respects to her father. She was holding up well he thought, her pleading eyes as he'd tried to sit in the pew behind her notwithstanding. Since they'd exited the church though, she seemed calmer somehow, more at peace with herself, and she didn't look to Tim as if she was keeping anything back, as if she was just holding on. She looked like his Calleigh, the Calleigh that he saw every day in Miami, and he didn't realise how much he'd missed her until just now.

When the last mourner had left, Tim stepped to her side, reaching an arm around her waist, squeezing her lightly. He received a tired smile for his efforts, her head going to his shoulder for a second, one hand resting lightly on his chest. "I'm fine," she whispered, an answer to his unspoken question, and he fought back a smile.

"I know," he replied, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

She straightened up when Frank came over to her, his hands in his pockets. "We've organised lunch at Violet's…" he said hesitantly, his eyes darting from Calleigh to Tim and back again. "I know you're staying there…can we expect to see you?"

Tim looked down at Calleigh, meeting her eyes, shrugging one shoulder, indicating that it was fine with him. He wasn't sure though, that she would want to go there while the whole town was gathered there. She nodded, looking back at Frank. "We'll see you there in a little while," she told him. "I just…I need…"

"I understand," Frank told her, stepping towards her, his arms open. Tim immediately dropped his arm from around her waist, allowing her to meet Frank in a hug. He was still standing close enough that he would hear Frank's soft words, a plea to his big sister. "Just make sure you come Min…for me?"

Calleigh stepped back, giving him a smile. "I promise," she whispered. "Go."

The other three brothers had already left, Tim could see them waiting at the gate of the graveyard, and he stood watching as Frank met them, saying something, then all four men walked in the direction of the church. When he looked back at Calleigh, she was standing beside the open grave, looking down into it, glancing then at the myriad flowers laid around it. He wanted to say something, anything to her, but he couldn't think of anything except the most inane small talk, something he hated at any time, all the more at a time like this. The silence was eventually broken by a sigh from her, and she turned to face him, holding out her hand. He took it gladly, and she smiled, glancing around for one last look at the grave. "Goodbye," she whispered softly, before nodding once at Tim, and they walked hand in hand out of the graveyard, back towards the church, and their car. 

When they got there, he opened the passenger door, waiting for her to get in. "Where should we go?" he asked, because he knew that she didn't want to go to Violet's, not yet at any rate.

Her face was completely clear, almost serene as she looked up at him. "There's someplace I haven't taken you yet," she said, and that was all she needed to say.

"Let's go then."

He followed her directions, finally pulling in on a side road, frowning as he looked around him. There were no buildings for miles, and she had him pull in beside a gate, which lead into a field, where the grass was neatly cut, no crops there. He wanted to ask her what they were doing here, but she'd already hopped out of the car, had gone over to the gate and had climbed up on it, standing on one of the middle rungs, her hands gripping the top as she looked out over the fields. He got out of the car too, standing with his arms folded on the roof watching her as she reached behind her, pulling her scrunchie out of her ponytail, allowing her hair to blow loose in the breeze, a blonde curtain rippling around her. She turned to look at him then, smiling, and he grinned in return, taking off his jacket and throwing it in the back seat, his tie going in the same direction, unbuttoning the top two buttons of his shirt as he walked towards the gate. When he got there, he rested his arms on top of it, looking up at her, not used to her being taller than him. "You want to explain this 'Min' thing to me?" he asked, enjoying the flush of red that crept up her cheeks.

"It's silly," she demurred, shaking her head, and he laughed.

"Now you've got to tell me," he ordered, and she sighed.

"Frank started it…back when Joshua was, what? About two? Momma wasn't doing so good then; it was the first time she'd really gone downhill - there were a lot of ups and downs to come. Anyway, I kinda took over taking care of him, and the rest of them…I mean, someone had to…" Her voice trailed off and she tucked a strand of hair behind one ear. "I was about fourteen, Frank was about eleven…and he started calling me Mini-Mom as a joke. Joshua heard it so often and since Calleigh was a bit of a mouthful for him, he started calling me Min. And it stuck…family nickname I guess."

"Ah," he nodded, understanding now. "And…why are we here?"

She flashed him a wicked grin. "Come on and I'll show you." With that, she climbed up over the gate, quite a feat in that skirt he noted, leaving him no choice but to follow her as she walked through the field. It was getting quite hot out there, and he rolled up his sleeves as he walked. She was quite a few steps ahead of him, and she turned around, walking backwards, watching him, a grin on her face that was positively feral. "My, Timothy…" she drawled. "Don't we look handsome?"

Not that he was adverse to hearing those words from his lovely girlfriend's lips, but coming less than an hour after they'd buried the father that she hadn't seen in eleven years, Tim wasn't quite sure what to make of them. "You're feeling better," he observed mildly, and she shrugged her shoulders.

"I really am," she agreed, turning her back on him, continuing on her way. She didn't stop until they got to a tall structure in the corner, something that Tim hadn't noticed when he'd pulled up, so intent had he been on her. "This is why I brought you here," she said, looking up and crossing her arms, as Tim tried to make sense of what he was seeing.

He'd seen photos, had heard of them, but he'd never actually seen one before. "Is this a water tower?" he asked, amazement in his voice, and she nodded, eyes flicking to him briefly.

"Yep," she confirmed, walking around until she found the ladder, climbing up the first couple of rungs, looking at him as he looked at her in amazement. "Coming?" she asked, and he just stood looking at her, mouth agape.

"You're climbing up a water tower? In that dress?"

She rolled her eyes, pausing in her climb. "After three inch heels and a formal dress, this is nothing," she told him dismissively. "Come on."

Swallowing hard, Tim followed her, remembering the old adage about not looking down, and he didn't, not until they were standing on the ledge, leaning on the rail, looking out over the fields. Tim had to admit that it was quite a view, because they could see for miles, but he was still basically stuck on the whole formalwear issue. "Three inch heels?" he asked, smirking over at her, and she smiled right back, shrugging.

"It was prom night," she said, as if that made everything all right, and he lifted both eyebrows, blowing out a surprised breath.

"Mike said you were fearless," he murmured, and that made her turn surprised eyes on him.

"So you and Mike have talked about me, have you?" she asked, lips turning up in a teasing grin.

"This and that," was all he would tell her.

"What else did Mike tell you?" was her next question, and he frowned, trying to remember.

Then he remembered, a comment that had aroused his curiosity from the start. "Something about your father wanting to run him out of town on a rail for defiling his daughter?"

He expected her to laugh, at least to smile, but if anything, her face grew sad, almost melancholy. "Yeah," she sighed. "That was about prom night too."

"You want to talk about it?" he asked, when she didn't say anything else and she nodded, turning her gaze out across the fields.

"When Daddy was drunk," she said slowly. "He would hit us…his belt, his hands, anything he could get his hands on. We got good at running away, finding all kinds of places to hide. This was one of mine. I used to come out here all the time…you'd be surprised how easy it is to sleep up here in the summertime."

An image of Mike laughing suddenly danced across Tim's mind, something that he'd said the first time that Tim had met him, about Sally wanting Calleigh to come to dinner. "I come home and tell her you're in town and that I didn't ask you for dinner, I'm sleeping at the water tower tonight." That made sense to him now.

"Mike joined you?" he asked dryly, not even close to keeping the hint of jealousy out of his voice.

"No," she said, reaching over to touch his hand briefly. "Not like that. We did date, he was my date for prom, but nothing like that happened. Not until we were at Tulane together, during one crazy night in the French Quarter… but that's neither here nor there. I told you before about my father…that he was a racist. As you can imagine, he did not take kindly to my taking Mike as my date. He barely tolerated the fact that I was friends with him."

"I can imagine," Tim murmured, his hand reaching out, closing over hers on the rail.

"I never told them who I was going to prom with…Momma wasn't really in a state to care, and Daddy, well…" She paused. "We did the usual teenage stuff I suppose, dancing until dawn, and then we all came out here, a big gang of us, and had our own little party. Stayed out all night. I didn't think anything of it…not 'til I got home." Her voice trailed off again as she looked down. "Evidently, someone had told him about my being elected Prom Queen…and about how I looked dancing with Mike." Her eyes closed, and Tim knew that she was years in the past, reliving that morning. "I'd just changed my clothes when the door to my room flew open, and he came in…he was furious Tim, I'd never seen him so angry. He was drunk, I could smell the liquor on his breath, and I didn't know if it was from the night before, or from that morning…and I wanted to get away from him, but he was blocking the door, and I couldn't get by him…"

Her breath was coming faster and faster, her words more and more rushed, and Tim's stomach was churning, suddenly terrified at what she was going to say next. "He was screaming at me, asking me how I could do this, what was I thinking, didn't I know that the whole town was talking about me. Then he asked me why I was out so late, what I'd let Mike do to me…the things he said…" She looked away from him, but not before he saw the pain in her face, in her eyes. "I was almost relieved when the beating started."

"It didn't stay that way for long…he'd hit me before you know, but this was the worst it had ever been. I just remember lying there, on the floor, watching him walk out… Joshua was there, he was only eight, and I remember so clearly him asking what was wrong with me…Daddy told him that I'd drunk too much at the prom and that was why I was sick… I think that Joshua had seen him like that so much that he didn't question it."

"I don't know how long I stayed there like that, but I remember how much it hurt when I got up…and I waited, until I knew that he was gone out, and I got to the phone, and I called Mike, asked him to meet me here." A bitter smile twisted her lips. "It was the first time that I didn't climb up here, because I couldn't. Mike didn't know that at first, because Daddy hadn't hit me where people could see it, not on my face…Mike joked about it at first, then he saw that I'd been crying…that I was moving stiffly, and he made some quip about the effect of three inch heels…then he realised that I wasn't laughing, and he lifted up the back of my T-shirt…saw the marks."

"I'd never seen him cry before, but he did, when he asked me how come I hadn't told him. He knew that things were bad at home, but not that bad. He refused to let me go back there that night, took me back to his place, gave me his bed. I know he told his mom everything, not that she was surprised…nor any of his family I think. I stayed there for a couple of days, then I went home. Tried to stay out of my dad's way, not that that was hard because he didn't want to talk to me anyway. He never spoke to me again after that night. And I never spoke to him. That was when I knew I had to get out of there, had to leave. And when I went to college, that's exactly what I did."

"Mike and I…I never planned to become involved with him, though he told me later that he'd had a crush on me all the way through high school. He never said anything because he knew I didn't feel the same way. I don't know what changed once we got to college, but something did…he was my best friend, and then he just became something more." She turned to him with a smile. "Sounds familiar huh?"

He had to force a smile to his face, not because of the similarities, but because he was sickened by what she'd just told him. "Kind of."

"I think he knew before I did that we weren't going to work long term," she told him. "He decided that he didn't want to be a lawyer, that he wanted to go back home…that was the last thing I wanted. He knew that too. He told me when we were breaking up that he wanted me to come with him…that he'd protect me, keep me safe…but that he knew he couldn't ask me to do that. He knew I'd never be happy. So we split up, but we stayed friends…he's about the only person I kept in touch with from here."

She stood up straight then, turning to him, shrugging her shoulders. "So now you know everything. Why I left. Why I stayed away."

He shook his head, having visualised every word as she spoke them, unable to believe that anyone could be capable of something like that, though he supposed that since he'd seen her mother, he shouldn't really be surprised. "Why did you come back?" he asked, because if he'd been in her position, he wasn't sure that he would have.

"I don't know," she told him honestly. "Because I thought I should? Because I wanted to face my ghosts…maybe I thought I wouldn't believe it if I didn't see it for myself. All I knew was that I had to come. So I did."

"Mike was right about you," Tim told her, reaching out with one hand to cup her cheek. She closed her eyes, leaning into his touch, a small smile about her lips. "You are fearless."

"I'm not," she replied with a small chuckle. "There's no way I could have got through this without you."

"Yes you would," he said simply, because he knew it to be true, knew the strength of the woman he was dealing with.

She shook her head, but she didn't contradict him. "Then I'm glad I didn't have to," she murmured, stepping close to him, slipping her arms around his waist. She held him like that for a moment before she stepped away from him, setting her hands on the rail again, looking out across the fields. Tim stepped up behind her, sliding his arms around her waist, resting his chin on her shoulder. "You know," she breathed, "I used to come up here all the time. No-one ever knew about it, it was my hiding place. My secret. And I would come up here and I would look out at the fields, and I would dream about running away. Getting out of here and never coming back…getting away from everything, and everyone…I wanted that so badly. I was out of here the first chance I got, never came back…but it never felt like I stopped running. Not until now."

That did surprise him, and he looked at her askance. "Now?"

She turned her head to meet his gaze, smiling up at him. "Yep…and I didn't even realise that I had…just looked around me, and there I was."

They were the very words that he'd said to her the previous day, and he smiled, knowing what she was trying to tell him. "So," he surmised, wanting to make sure. "You don't want to run away any more?"

"No," she said simply, pressing her body back against his, not taking her eye away from his, tilting her head up in unmistakable invitation. He took it, lowering his head to hers, her words just before they met sending his heart soaring. "I'm already home."

end