Standard Disclaimer
Freedom
They had put her up in some hotel, not a complete shithole, but certainly nothing of real comfort. Not that Victoria really cared. She was too damn depressed to care, and made even moreso by the fact that she couldn't be alone.
Unless she locked herself in the bathroom, and that idea was not appealing.
There were three men there, each one in a suit, all seeming to mind their business. One close to the window, one close to the door, the third a floater, manning the phone, mostly, which, if it ever rang, was always for one of them.
They were as good as invisible, for all the comfort their presence afforded. In the small room, it was a tight fit. She stuck to the bed, but that just didn't seem...proper. Finally, as soon as the sun had set, she told them all she was going to bed, and turned off as many lights in the room as she could reach. A few moments later, they were turned on again for various reasons - magazines, cel-phones, whatever.
There was a knock at the door. Something to do with the last phone call, she was sure, as the reply had been, "Sure, go ahead." The floater answered it with the door-man at an angle of his shoulder, just in case.
The woman from the station came in. Small in stature, slender, long straight black hair, medium-tone African American. Victoria sat up in the bed, showing her impatience.
"I'm sorry, did I wake you?" the woman asked as she crossed to the foot of the bed.
"No, it's only nine, who's asleep now?" Victoria shot a glare around the room. "I just didn't have anything else to do."
The woman gave her a half-grin. "Don't worry, you'll be out of here, soon. Vincent is going to testify. We don't need to hold you."
Victoria looked up at her. "I'm sorry, who are you again?"
"Annie Farrell. I'm working the Felix case, district prosecutor." Annie would have extended a hand if a bed hadn't been between them. She glanced around. "Can we talk over here?" She jerked her head toward the two chairs and the table between them. Shooting a good glare at the floater who had just taken a seat, she got him to move, and motioned for Victoria to take the other. Throwing back the comforter and sliding out, having to use sweatpants for pajamas, as it was the only thing the tiny little store downstairs had, Victoria joined her, albeit reluctantly.
"Victoria Potter...you used to be a doctor, once upon a time."
Not a good way to start the conversation. Instantly the hackles on the back of Victoria's neck rose. "Yeah, what about it?"
"I know how you lost your license. What happened was a travesty, and I'm going to do what I can to correct it."
Victoria gave her a distinctive look. "And why would you do that for me?"
Annie gave a half-shrug. "I hate to see a good doctor go to waste. My sense of justice. Take your pick."
"Well, considering-"And then she stopped. What was she going to say? "Considering the father of my baby tried to murder you, I wouldn't be offended if you didn't try to help me." No, that was a mistake. So far she'd managed to hide her pregnancy and didn't want to take the chance of it backfiring in her face. And she sure as hell couldn't use the word "boyfriend" when it came to Vincent. He was certainly not that.
"Considering?" Annie asked, waiting.
"Nothing. I just think you have the wrong idea about Vincent and me. He told me I was his hostage...I wasn't."
"I know."
Victoria blinked. "That obvious?"
"He wants you put into Witness Protection as part of his deal for testifying against Felix," Annie said. "He's concerned about your safety. Kidnappers don't do that."
Victoria considered these words for a long moment, letting herself soak them up. When it came to Vincent, her memory pretty much ended in the bathroom, when he'd told her he loved her. It was like he'd died after that moment...there simply wasn't anywhere else to go that could ever be as good, as important, as special.
"Why do I need Witness Protection?" she asked, finally.
"Well, Felix is very well connected. I mean, he managed to get information on all the other witnesses before we went to trial, and no doubt he'll do it again. But you, on the other hand, are a pressure point - if Felix wants to get to Vincent, he might try using you."
"Wonderful," Victoria muttered.
Annie smirked. Obviously she wasn't saying what she was thinking. "So we want you to disappear. We'll take care of everything. Until your medical license comes back, how about Medical Technology? They pull down a decent salary."
"Where?" Victoria asked. "I mean, do I get a choice?"
"Not really. We can put you in Indianapolis, Indiana. There's a big hospital there, St. Vincent's," Annie struggled not to smile at the irony, "and we can get you in without a problem. The rest is up to you."
"Wait a minute," Victoria said, leaning forward. "That's it? I just...vanish? I don't have to do anything? I don't get it...what's the catch?"
"Vincent's paying the catch," Annie said, an edge to her voice. "He's lucky he's only doing that."
Victoria shook her head. She wanted to ask why, but she knew why. Vincent loved her. He'd told her he loved her. He was doing this to protect her. He was sacrificing himself for her freedom.
The thought squeezed her throat so hard her eyes watered. She put a trembling hand up to her mouth, pressing her lips against the back.
"You okay, Victoria?" Annie asked in a soft voice.
"Why do you care?" Victoria whispered.
Annie gave a very gentle shrug. "I don't know. I guess you and I have something in common. We both stumbled into very unconventional relationships and we're just trying to survive through them. Or in them." She looked away, uncomfortable.
Victoria felt like she was going to explode. The kind of eruption that comes from battery acid eating through its case. She grasped the chest of her shirt, as if somehow that might make the terrible, horrible ache that suddenly gripped her less painful. She wished, so much, that Vincent was there...just for a moment. She wished she could speak to him once more.
But no...that would undo everything. He hadn't told her what he was planning because he knew she'd never go for it. He knew she was going to leave him, so he let her, and then did the rest on his own. She hadn't known he had it in him. It just didn't seem like the kind of thing Vincent would do. The depth of the nobility, the selflessness...she gasped a dry, heaving sob, her lungs rattling painfully.
She'd wanted to be angry at him for letting her leave him. She'd wanted, somewhere inside, for him to fight for her, for him to give in about the baby, to do anything she wanted as long as she didn't leave him. But no, Vincent loved her even more than that.
"Victoria?" Annie whispered.
Pressing her fingers against the corners of her eyes, she looked to Annie. "When...when do I leave?"
8888888888
Vincent sat in his cell, legs propped up, back resting against the uncomfortable, straight stone walls. At least, they felt like stone. Probably concrete, the way people could carve into them so easily. He'd already amused himself, reading all the sayings, and then making up little stories for them in his head.
It wasn't a free ride that he was getting. The Attorney General was not happy about giving a man who had murdered seven people, possibly more, in cold blood, a free walk. Especially a man who seemed to be quite able to do it again.
Vincent really didn't intend that. If he lived past this whole thing - which he didn't really expect, as there were many very adept contract killers out there who could probably get to him, even as guarded as he was - he wasn't going to go back to killing. The most obvious reason being, his reputation was completely ruined. He'd have to change his face and his name if he ever wanted to work again, and then he'd have to start at the bottom, as he would lose any credibility he'd had previously. That didn't appeal to him.
Plus, he'd just lost his taste for it.
Maybe it had something to do with Victoria being pregnant.
He tried to tell himself that was a ridiculous thought. Many times he succeeded, but it always crept back to him, in an unguarded moment, few as they were.
It beat the other thoughts that paraded through his head. It beat the incessant voice asking him, again and again, how in the hell he'd ever allowed this to go this far.
The night he'd met Victoria, he didn't understand how he could be so impressed by someone he'd met once. People didn't stay with him long, but she lingered. He found himself looking forward to meeting her again. That night on the train when he'd been shot by Max, the renegade cabbie, his only thought had been, Now I get to go see Victoria.
How incredibly stupid.
It started out so simple. He needed fixing. The bullet was gone, he was healing, he could have done the rest on his own. But no, stupid him, he'd stuck around, enjoying her company, relishing his excuse to be in her presence. He should have left. He should have walked out the next morning, gotten a new flight and disappeared back into the cracks from whence he came. It was dark and lonely there, but safe. He knew it, he understood it. He could navigate that life with his eyes closed. It was everything to him.
Stupid, stupid bullet hole. Sometimes he still scratched at the scar. It ticked vaguely, mostly when he thought about Victoria. As if she'd put the wound there, making herself a permanent part of him.
If he'd left when he should have, they would have killed her, those men who were looking for Marcus Shakespeare. Or Claudia would have caught up with her and killed her, or maybe not, maybe she would have been safe, been paid a lot of money by Shakespeare to disappear, keep his secrets.
No, those men definitely would have killed her, he decided. And the thought of her being dead...it was too painful to even entertain for more than a second. He pushed it away.
Victoria was smart. Smart enough to know, at first, not to get involved with him. But then her ex-husband had gotten killed and she fell apart, and he couldn't bear to see her suffer like that. So he'd comforted her.
That was probably the big mistake. It had all fallen apart from there. He tried to tell himself, for the longest time, that he'd simply taken advantage of a situation, that he'd let his own weakness and hers get the best of them. Then he tried to convince himself that she was using him. But no one ever used him, not even her. Then, when it was all over, and he was going to leave, to finally leave and get on with his life, satisfied that she was going to be safe and everything could return to normal, he'd open his big mouth, which he never, ever, as a rule, did, and told her the truth.
One big mistake could be compensated for. Two was the point of no return.
He put the walls up high at first, thinking she would get the message, that she would come to her senses and realize she was so in the wrong place, with the wrong man. He didn't give a single inch for her, but amazingly enough, she bent. She accepted. She rolled. And slowly, like an iceberg, he'd begun to move. So subconsciously that sometimes even he didn't see it. Only at night, when he was lying awake, as he always did, with her sleeping warm and soft beside him, did he see how she was changing him.
Three mistakes was a Greek tragedy. Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Rwanda. His world was exploding around him and he couldn't do a damn thing to stop it.
She was pregnant.
Vincent tried to break off his thoughts, temporarily allowing himself to be distracted by the television that the guard was watching. Some old Vincent Price movie...he watched for a few minutes, seeing if he could identify it. The bright color of red was sort of a giveaway, it was an Edgar Allen Poe flick. Price was always so fond of Poe. This one was The Mask of the Red Death. Price's prince was in the middle of attempting to educate a young woman in the ways of the world - they'd never outwardly say the word "sex" in these movies, but they dripped of it, the perversion like a smell in the air. He remembered this one. The girl would break down, slowly, little by little, eaten up by despair, by the corruption around her, and give in, only to have Price, at the very last minute, send her away, to go meet with her good and noble peasant boyfriend and run away from the town, which was completely inflected with a plague that was killing everyone. He would be on the verge of consuming her innocence, and then let go, finding some spark of goodness in himself that knew love, that knew how to sacrifice.
Vincent looked away. He didn't know what made people like their names. He knew he was a Vincent, but Price was also very much a Vincent, and he had never been able to see anything alike between them before. Unless, of course, he was that prince, who at the last moment had let the innocent maiden run from his evil.
He had to smile. Victoria was many things, but innocent wasn't one of them. Not anymore. He'd been too late with her, she'd already been tainted by the cruelties of the world. Yet she still managed to keep her nobility.
She wanted that baby. He could see it in her eyes, how happy she was, way deep down, that she was going to give birth, she was going to be a mother, and that it was of his child.
He couldn't take that away from her. So he let her go, knowing it was the only way out.
Dammit, he was that evil prince. Well, at this moment. He'd drift off for about an hour, wake up refreshed, and get on some other line of thought. He'd always be so fond of mocking people who played it so safe, doing everything the same, ten years, twenty, thirty, then life is over. He had always been fond of realizing that he never knew where he'd be in even ten minutes from that moment. And maybe it was because for him, of all God's creatures, it was actually true.
At least he could live with knowing that he practiced what he preached. There was something redeeming, almost comforting, in that.
8888888888
It would take a lot more than time to fix things.
Within a week, Victoria was handed a whole new life. She was given a new name - Sarah Lancing. She didn't care too much for it. She didn't think she looked like a Sarah. But it was all right, as she wasn't planning on responding much to the name, anyway.
Within a month, she was in Indianapolis, getting ready to start her new job. Medical Technologist. The person who handles all the testing, takes the blood, carries the cups of urine. It wasn't a glamorous job, but it was something. She missed the idea of working with patients, she missed being able to talk to the people whose lives passed through her hands, but it was enough. She wasn't feeling particularly social.
She found a doctor within six weeks of her agreement with Annie. The baby was a good three and a half months along - fourteen weeks, to be exact. She had twenty-six to go. And a boy.
A boy. She wondered what she would name him. There just weren't enough good boy names in the world. Sure, there were the standard, romantic ones - Michael, Nicholas, Gabriel...She considered Louis, briefly, but didn't like how Louis Lancing sounded.
It did flutter through her mind to name the baby Vincent. But she couldn't. Something wouldn't allow it.
Finally, the name that stuck with her was Charles. Charles Lancing. She'd call him Charlie, maybe his friends would call him Chuck. It personally didn't appeal to her, that last nick name, but boys were funny. And Charles Lancing did have such a nice ring. A sophisticated name for a boy to grow into and be a man.
But not like his father.
There was a terrible mixture of anticipation and dread as she moved through her pregnancy. Being alone caused difficulties to arise. What would she do after maternity leave? The thought of a daycare raising her child appalled her. She didn't want to part from the only thing in her life that she loved.
Then came the good moments - the baby's first kick, the weird cravings, the gallons of milk and apple juice that filled the fridge, picking out baby clothes...
Money would never be a problem, though - she never told anyone about the money Vincent had left her. She kept it hidden, sifting it through her monthly pay to take care of any loose ends. It would be a while, but soon, she would get at least half of it into some kind of trust fund for Charles, so that when he grew up, he could go to any college he wanted, start a good life, want for nothing. The other half she would use to raise him, keep him happy, healthy, and most of all, wise.
There were nights she couldn't sleep, she missed Vincent so badly. It was amazing to think that someone who had passed through her life in only a matter of months had made such a dent that his absence was like a wound. To comfort herself, she would sometimes bring her CD player to bed and play the only Miles Davis CD she could find. Sometimes she'd put the headphones on herself. Sometimes she would put them on her belly for the baby. Charles would kick lightly, stimulated by the sounds. It helped sometimes. Sometimes, though, it only made her hurt worse, and she had to push it all away, and lie on her side, her arms wrapped around her swelling belly, concentrating on the only good thing in the world - her son.
Watching the news and reading the newspapers only made her depression worse. His testimony was headlines for weeks on end. Sixty minutes did a huge piece on him. Barbara Walters wanted to interview him. It churned her stomach...they just didn't know. He was a dead man walking.
Every time she saw his face, it was painful. He was growing thinner, not eating right. He tried to hide it, set his face in stone, but she could tell that he was miserable and bored. She could only imagine where he was staying - he was far too dangerous to go to a regular safe house, they had to keep him locked up, most likely in a wide, comfortable cage, but a cage nonetheless. She found herself wondering if they were letting him listen to his jazz. He'd had such a collection - she doubted anyone could run out and buy half of those CD's.
The doctor chastised her on a continuous basis - make sure she slept enough, ate enough. Don't let yourself wallow, get out and walk around. She did all these things, but felt like a robot obeying a program. She didn't gain a lot of weight. The doctor told her to eat more, gave her a special diet. She never, in her whole life, would have thought she'd be chastised for being too thin.
She had casual friends through the hospital, caring people who wanted to make sure she had enough support, being a single mom. She told everyone she was a widow. Her husband had died only a few weeks before she'd come to Indianapolis. She was grieving and gestating a new life - not an easy combination. It won her a lot of sympathy that more than made up for the lack of real friendship ties. The doctor chastised her again, warning her that grieving and being pregnant were not a winning combination - she would have to choose.
She always chose Charles, above everything. In the end, she quit her job at the hospital, claiming she'd been saving most of her salary. She opened the trust fund for Charles, kept the rest of the money in a safe in her apartment and lived quietly. She had plenty to keep herself afloat for the next few years. And Annie Farrell seemed to be as good as her word. Within three months of her moving to Indianapolis, her medical license was reissued to her under the name of Sarah Lancing.
She never told anyone at the hospital, not even after Charles was born. He came, safe and whole, all ten fingers and toes, a thick full head of black hair, green eyes, her nose and mouth. Charles was her life now. Everything else was secondary.
He was a quiet baby, mostly. He didn't know how to sleep. She couldn't help but wonder if that was genetic. He would get tired and fuss and cry, but didn't know how to go to sleep. She had to rock him, continuously, until he just...passed...out. One time she had him perched on her thigh, which continuously moved up and down, the classic "shakey-leg syndrome." He suddenly slumped forward, unconscious. He was simply asleep. She wondered if he would ever sleep on his own.
Being a single mother wasn't easy, but for the first time since being with Vincent, she was happy. And there wasn't any guilt mingled with her joy over Charles. She was a mother. It was her right to take joy in her son.
Especially when it was the only joy to be had.
8888888888
A/N: No, this isn't the end of the story. But I've got a dilemma. I'm not sure if I have enough story to do a trilogy, but there is a big time gap that starts right here. So I was thinking of doing a third story, but as I said, I don't have enough plot. Unless I really want to torture everyone by keeping Vincent and Victoria apart for a very long time. I had an idea, but it was really, really angsty, and I don't know if all of you could take that, or if I could even handle writing it. So give me a few days, keep reviewing, and I'll see what I come up with. Share any opinions you might have in the meantime. :)
LunaGrrrBack023: To answer your question, Claudia is currently rotting in a Mexican prison with half her face blown off. As to what's next for her? I really don't know, it just seems too cliche for her come back a third time. But who knows? Heh heh heh...
firegoddess164: Oh, yes, you are a romantic. :) But that's okay. And I hope you're satisfied with the name and gender of the baby.
Warm Mittens and SweetTreats: You know, I really wondered what the hell had happened to you two! But knowing you're together makes me shudder. THe crazy factor has got to be overwhelming. LOL. Now, you think you can just come back and give me one big long review and it's all better? There are ten other chapters to review, kiddies. Get to work! LOL. As to whether the story will be a happy ending? Well, you'll just have to breathe, make SweetTreats take her medication, and wait and see. And as for what Vincent did to Claudia? It was too graphic for me to describe. But he got her to talk and tell them where Ray was. Don't ask how.
SweetArwen: Hope that song finally left your head! I hate that song but it totally fit. And I hate it when songs get stuck in your head. Don't worry, no lethal injection for Vincent, but as for what the future holds...I'm still trying to figure it out.
Hopefully I'll post again this weekend. Until then, take care!