POCKET CHANGE 3: HIDE and SEEK
by Sharon R.
Chapter Twenty-Two
"Where did these come from?" Bob asked as the others gathered around to see what had spilled from Amanda's vest.
"I don't know," the little girls answered. "I've never seen them before."
"I pulled on the vest," said an observant Alex. "It tore. See?" Holding the vest up that Amanda had dropped, it was obvious that the hem on the bottom had come open. "Are those diamonds?"
"Sure looks like it, son." Bob took the vest and carefully ran his fingers up and down the seems, just in case. "This was your mother's vest, Princess?" A very serious Bob asked his daughter. "I went through all her things, and she was wearing her vest when she was… This isn't hers."
"No. But she had one just like it." Her childlike fantasy now uncovered, Amanda's smile faded with the admission to herself that, once again, what she pretended to be a gift from her mother, really wasn't. "I pretend it was hers."
"It was mine," Carter offered. "Amanda found it at my house and I let her have it."
"And how did you get it?"
"Ah…" Carter felt mildly uncomfortable, as though he was being interrogated, but only because he had to talk about things in front of Anna. Actually, just talk about them in general. "Colleen and I went on, um, a mission - I guess you could call it - across the border. You know…," he baited Bob not wanting to get into explicit detail.
"I remember well. If I recall correctly, that was when I had to hunt you two wayward brats down. Never did tell me exactly where you were."
"Wish I knew. All I know is that she took me to a rebel and his people who needed medical help. We ended up prancing around government soldiers to get them to a hospital. Emile gave me his vest..."
"Emile? Emile…?" Bob fished for more.
"Dia Wamba. Emile Dia Wamba." Carter knew that with Bob's skill he'd know who the guy was.
"You knew Dia Wamba?" Bob snarked. "Uh-huh."
"Yeah. And his sons. They're the ones who took me back to Jules' encampment when I was looking for Luka. I crossed the border, mentioned his name, mentioned mine, and poof…"
Bob gathered the spilled goods up into his hands and sat on the picnic bench. "Well, no shit Sherlock. I'm impressed Carter. Do you know who you were dealing with?"
"I didn't then."
"Still doesn't explain how these got in the vest. And the camera…"
"Mommy had a secret place in her backpack for it. She showed me last year."
"I have to admit," Bob spoke quietly to Carter, "I wasn't as thorough as I should have been before I gave that to Amanda."
"What's going on?" Luka stepped out onto the deck with a beer. "Where'd the Ugandan beer come from in the fridge?"
"Ah, something I thought you'd appreciate," Bob said with a sly grin.
Luka screwed up his face after taking a slug from the bottle. "I remember it tasting better than this."
"You remember not having anything else to compare it to, my friend."
"Whoa…" Luka's eyes popped out of his head at the sight of what was laid out in front of Bob on the table. "Are those…?"
"You bet." Bob gathered everything up and started for the door. "Amanda, bring your mother's camera inside. Let's take a better look at those pictures on the computer and see who we recognize."
With the pictures loaded onto the computer, Luka, Carter and Bob moved in for a closer look. First the pictures at the museum. Carter and Luka both agreed that it was the same man who masqueraded as a Chicago Police detective.
"That's his M-O," Bob huffed. "Loves to play cop. Gotta admit - it works for him." He gently stroked Amanda's hair as he contemplated something sinister. "Right under my nose and all I smelled was roses." For such a determined man of confidence, the slip in his voice was all too obvious to Carter and Luka.
"Who?" Luka asked. "What is he to you?"
"How about this one?" Bob asked, ignoring Luka's question. "This looks like it was taken that last night at the encampment outside of Mbandaka."
"That's the campfire picture," Amanda spoke up from over Bob's shoulder. "There he is. See? Do I know him, Daddy?"
As her little finger reached in and pointed at a group of men sitting together next to Jules, Bob sat up straight and grabbed the mouse, editing the shot until that corner was enlarged enough to make out the faces.
"I know him," Carter said quite assuredly as he pointed at an African sitting to Jules' right.
"I've met him before too." Luka's arms were crossed in front of him, his eyes cast down at the computer. "But not in Africa."
"Wait a minute," Carter said, confused. "He's a doctor I met on the road to this place. He was treating Jules' rebels."
"From Rwanda, I know. I met him at a refugee camp in Macedonia a few years ago. He's the one who talked me into coming to the Congo." Luka stretched his neck and checked the picture again before making another assumption. "And this guy next to him - that's the UN guy - Bongala, who got us out of the Congo..."
"…and who helped me get back into Uganda after my little trip with Colleen," Carter finished for Luka. "I thought you arranged for him to get me, Bob."
"I thought I did too - the first time." His laugh was just a chuckle at first, then built to raging laughter as Bob stood up and walked to the refrigerator to get a beer. "Twenty-three fucking years in this business, years trying to identify Jules' co-conspirators and all it takes is my ex-wife's camera, two nosey doctors and my ten year old daughter. It all makes sense now," he said taking a large gulp. "I cannot believe that shit-head did this to me," he grunted between his teeth as he flicked the bottle cap into the sink. Clink.
"Bob, the kids…" Anna quietly reminded him.
"Foul times call for foul mouths," Amanda announced. "That's what my Grandma says."
"Way cool." Alex was finally impressed. "Does that mean I can say mother fu-"
" -NO!" Sam was quick to cover her son's mouth, having just rounded the corner into the living room. "Come on kids," she announced, "downstairs. Foosball and then bed." She marched them to the stairs then stood at the top until they were out of sight before going back to Luka's side.
"Time's up, Bob." Carter finally got himself a beer and sat down on a chair next to the computer. "What do you know?"
"Okay. This guy that has been following you is actually my immediate superior at the agency - Ellington. He's the one who has been telling me about the terrorists in the middle east who are out to get me. At least the information comes from him and his people. But only them. It was his idea to place me in Africa far from the states and to keep me from the states, all for my own safety and Amanda's - so he says." Bob kept going through the pictures on the computer until he got to one in particular that showed Jules, with Ellington, the doctor, Bongala, and one other white man. "The Rwandan doc we knew had ties to Jules. He was a bumbling idiot that talked too much. God help his patients."
Carter had seen the man's handy work up close and personal. Bumbling idiot was probably too kind. He'd seen med students do better work.
"Now Bongala - he's new information. The first time you met him he was probably the one who handled the transfer of money from the Carter Foundation to Jules - keeping a little for himself I'm sure - and no, I didn't send him after you Carter this last time. I suspect he was watching you and got you out of there because Colleen was with you. He wasn't protecting you. Now this guy here," he said pointing to the unknown white man in the picture, "kind of pieces things together and makes our little game here much more complicated. Anybody recognize him?"
"We should know him?" Luka asked.
Nobody said anything as they each took turns moving in for a closer look.
"Can you enlarge it?" Carter asked, his eyes super focused on the screen. Something caught his attention. "Bigger?" As Bob enlarged it to the point that the pixels didn't distort the image, Carter's face drew down, his jaw nervously jutting to the left and right.
"John, what is it?" Luka asked.
"I know him. He knows me."
"I'm sure he does," Bob interjected savoring what he already knew. "Friend of the family's?"
"No, not really. He's a corporate dog, owns a huge conglomerate of mostly media - print, radio and TV. His family has more influence on government, police agencies and media all over the world than the super powers. We know of each other, but my family has been at odds with his for years."
"And knows your personal wealth I bet," Anna said.
"Now you're beginning to see the bigger picture." Bob smiled as the pieces of the puzzle came into focus. "This guy you're talking about - Douglas Arkwright - has been in and out of our radar for years as one of the western corporate big wigs using resources in Africa - and elsewhere - illegally to fund their own interests. When the media was deregulated in the U.S., greed became fashionable. Most of the large media outlets, be they newspapers, television or radio, are owned by the same few people all with agendas. The problem with that is it has become a game of one-upsmanship. Mr. 'X' owns fifty markets - Mr. 'Y' fights to get fifty-one. But it costs money - big money, millions, if not billions. The fact that he and Ellington were working with Jules makes a whole lot of sense. Together with a third piece to the puzzle that makes him one powerful man."
"Third piece?" Luka asked, but Bob chose to ignore him yet again.
"But Jules is dead," Anna reminded him. "What could they possibly want from Amanda?"
"Exactly what was in the vest: African blue diamonds." Bob turned out the large cache of interesting diamonds, most raw and uncut, onto the desk and mindlessly pushed a few around with his finger. "I bet Colleen was a mule for Jules. You see, diamond mining in Congo is a bloody sport - everyone wants a piece of it - and the blue diamonds are the most valuable and sought after fetching up to more than half a million dollars per carat. Mbuji-Mayi is the hub of the country's diamond industry. Jules home-fronted in Mbadaka on the border. Half way between those two points is Ikela." As he spoke, Bob watched Carter's and Luka's widening eyes as they grasped the unfolding secrets. "While you two were tending to patients at the clinic there, Jules and his boys were smuggling diamonds through the region and trading them for cold hard American cash with our western corporate whores. While the government is so busy ferreting out the dirty African smugglers, who would suspect a red headed American media beauty with a famous name of carrying these rare diamonds?"
"What about the drugs Colleen was stealing?" Carter asked.
"The handlers getting them from one region to the next don't use currency. There are too many nationalities and currencies to make any useful, but drugs can always be traded. To Jules the drugs were his payroll, but the diamonds were his crop. The question is, what was Colleen doing with these diamonds and how did they get in Carter's vest?"
"They were put in my vest," Carter easily added. "The night she was in my room supposedly planting the Demerol she also probably put the diamonds in my vest for safe keeping."
"Three points - nothing but net," Bob awarded Carter. "Now, what was she doing with them? Holding them for Jules? Doubt it. My guess is that she was muling them and each time keeping one for herself either for profit or blackmail insurance. After her death Ellington and Jules must have done a quick inventory with the rest of their pet cronies and found that whenever Colleen had the diamonds in her possession, the count came up one short. They ransacked my compound and didn't find them. The next logical place for them would have been her daughter."
Sam reached in to touch the diamonds, but pulled back as she comprehended the shear enormity of the situation. "These must be worth…"
"Millions," Bob answered for her. "Many, many millions. What's almost worse is that she crossed them and in their demented minds, someone has to pay."
"But… Bob," Carter started as he sorted out the information, "I understand your connection to this Ellington guy - your CIA superior, but how do you know Arkwright? How would you, as an agent with the CIA, know this guy who is Mr. Corporate America, especially since you've spent most of your career in the Middle East."
"Wait," Anna said putting her hands on her head, "I'm confused here."
"You're not the only one," Luka agreed.
Bob sighed. "Okay. Here we go. Cliff notes version: there are four players here besides Jules who's dead. Look at this picture taken the night that Colleen and Jules died. I assume by the way these pictures were taken off kilter that she wasn't taking them with this camera as part of her agreed upon publicity. She was probably told not to take pictures of these guys at all. That's why only one media person was allowed by Jules. I can only suspect that she took them as part of her insurance program to save her ass should anyone catch on." Bob tossed the empty beer bottle in the garbage and retrieved another cold one. "Two people on each side of Jules. Two Americans, two Africans. What we've pieced together is a couple years ago or so Kovac had contact with the Rwandan doctor at a refugee camp in Macedonia. He convinces Kovac to volunteer at a clinic in Ikela. About the same time, Jules fronted money for that clinic to stay open with the understanding, I assume, that doctors would volunteer to the Alliance specifically for that clinic. Right Kovac?"
Luka nodded and leaned back in his chair with the knowledge that Jules' mind games with him began a long time ago, thousands of miles away. "An excuse for his people to be there. Those families covered for Jules and his men and we were the reason the government turned a blind eye. They trusted us."
"Fast forward to last year in Ikela. You two were working diligently at the clinic. Unbeknownst to you, on Jules' people for the most part. When it became too unstable to run the diamonds through there, the clinic had to shut down. Carter's wealth is well known and this is when Jules fell back on his original occupation: kidnapping westerners for ransom. Some hobbies you just can't give up." Carter squirmed uncomfortably in his chair and raked his hands through his hair. "This whole time my superior, Ellington, had me set up in Uganda believing, as I had for the previous couple years, that terrorists I had uncovered in the Middle Aast were after me and my family, and Uganda was the safest place. Now I know they had other reasons to keep my mouth shut."
"What reasons?" Carter asked.
Bob wasn't telling all and shook his head at Carter before continuing on his terms. "He and Jules together with mystery American number two, Arkwright, were fencing smuggled diamonds possibly by that time with the help of Colleen. Carter family pays up, Bongala under the guise of the UN transfers ransom to Jules and escorts you two out of the country. The only wrench in this well oiled machine is your reappearance three months later in Pakwach. Jules sends Colleen to keep you at bay and help herself to some drugs. You meet Bongala again, Carter, when you and Colleen cross the border. She used you there to get close to Emile - Jules' nemesis. Bongala then escorted you back to Uganda to keep her pretty little ass and diamonds she was smuggling safe. But that last night they were all together - these four and Jules - something big was supposed to happen."
"Well it did," Carter answered, finishing a beer and putting his hand out to Bob as he attempted to replace the empty bottle with a new one. "One's enough. My yearly allotment."
"My, my - how my Colleen got herself mixed up in such dirty deeds."
"Bob," Luka interrupted, "That third piece to the puzzle. What is it? And is there more to this CIA Ellington guy?"
"Daddy," a small voice inquired, echoing among the beams of the cathedral ceiling, "was Mommy really like that?" Amanda was at the top of the stairs in a short purple nightgown, one hand on the banister, the other playing with a lock of red hair.
As Bob's hard edge camouflaged by years of pretending, acting and professional misinterpretation softened, he let out a sigh of defeat only his daughter could impose.
"Come on Luka," Sam encouraged, her arm on his shoulder, "let's go play Blood Sugar Bingo."
"We'll, um, go take a walk on the beach." Anna made eyes at Carter, the testosterone, as usual, slow to pick up on the hint.
"Don't go far," Bob alerted them. "I only have one surveillance team left and they're in that boat just off shore."
"Thought you guys traveled in packs," Carter joked.
"Well the current administration took care of that, and in their wise youth cut resources in intelligence. Paying off, eh? Besides I suspect that by now Ellington has painted me to be a turncoat within the guts of the agency."
Sam hung back on the first landing not so innocently listening in on Bob and Amanda.
"Come here, Princess," Bob said, holding his arm out to Amanda to sit on his lap. "Your mother loved you very, very much. What she did on the job never changed that."
"Did she really help the bad guys?"
"I'm afraid so, but we don't know everything yet. She did a lot of wonderful things for you and me, for our country and people of the world. I don't know how or why she got involved with these people, and we may never know."
"Is that why you got divorced?"
"No, baby. Sometimes two people can love each other very much - so much that it hurts," he said, bringing his hand to his chest, "but they just can't seem to live together."
"So you loved her, even after you were divorced?"
"Of course I did, and she loved me - in her own way. Our magical love is what created you, and we wouldn't have traded that for anything." Amanda wrapped her arms around her father and held him tight - tighter than he held her, if that was possible. "You did a good thing, Princess, by telling me about those pictures. I'm sorry you had to learn about your mom like that, but by showing the faces of those men to me, you helped solve a mystery I've been working on for years." Reaching in his pocket, he pulled out a play coin. "I want you to have this. A friend of ours in Africa named Mbuto gave it to me a couple months ago after I helped get some injured refugees to the camp. It's something you give to someone who has done a good deed, and you've done just that. Hold onto it, okay?" She nodded and smiled, then gave him a kiss on the forehead as he had done to her so many times before. "Now, get to bed." As Bob watched his daughter go down the stairs to her bedroom, he caught sight of Sam on the staircase. Throwing his head back and stretching his neck in several directions, he sighed. "That was fun."
Sam smiled at him as she went to the kitchen.
"Eaves dropping?"
"Lot to this, huh?" she asked, slightly mocking his earlier snipe.
"What?"
"Kids." She winked and got a glass of juice from the refrigerator before heading back downstairs herself.
----------
The moonlight hovering above the ocean cast a haze around Anna's silhouette, her strapless summer dress casting an outline of her voluptuous form. As Carter came up behind her on the beach, a breeze swept her blond hair across her back and laid it gently over her tanned shoulder. He had to stop short to keep from caressing the bare back of her neck with his hand - to replace his hand with his lips. His eyes flew back open with the returning wayward ocean breeze as the tips of her hair stroked across his face - he was that close.
"Cold?" he asked, taking her sweater he stopped to grab from a hook by the carport door and draping it across her shoulders.
"Thanks. I love being down here at night. Nice to be alone in my thoughts."
"Even with those guys out there watching you?" Carter asked, nodding out towards the small boat anchored off shore. "And they're probably not alone."
"Mmm. Thanks for reminding me."
The two stood next to each other, Anna holding her sweater at the shoulders, Carter with his hands in his pockets.
"If you want to be alone I can find something else to do," he finally said. "I don't want to intrude on your… thoughts."
"That's okay. I'm thinking about you."
(Song lyrics omitted. Original chapter can be found at LUKAFIC)
"That's what I was worried about." Carter instinctively distanced himself from Anna and walked towards the surf, bending down and grabbing a handful of tiny shells that had appeared at low tide. One by one he threw them far back into the ocean, the crash of the surf covering up any splash they may have made.
Anna slipped her arms into the sweater and crossed them in front of her to keep the cool breeze from peeking through the light fabric of her sundress. "You know, you don't have to tell me anything. You don't owe me explanations."
"You already know a little of everything," he said putting his hand back down into the sand for more ammunition. "Aren't you curious about the details?"
"Doesn't mean I expect you to tell me."
Carter threw the whole fist full of shells and sand deep into a breaking wave, putting his whole body behind it, not really hearing Anna's answer - maybe not wanting to. "I got the victim thing going - a standing appointment with a shrink, and meds," he tried to humorously poke fun at. "That's enough to scare anyone away."
"Not me."
"Scars from the stabbing, addiction to pain pills, members of my family gone - either dead or hiding from reality in some far off location. Kidnapped and tortured in the Congo by the most feared war lord in Africa - more scars. I'm responsible for Todd's death, maybe Joseph's, Sean's… It's partly my fault that Jules was replaced by someone even more evil than him. And if it weren't for Bob I probably would have pulled the trigger myself on Jules. Didn't think I was capable of that, did you?"
"Everybody has scars, John. You can't always see them."
"Yeah? You should see mine."
Anna wanted so much to put her arms around him, to let him know he wasn't alone, to let him know that he was loved, but drew them back in afraid she'd push him away. "When I woke up this morning you were sleeping on the chaise. How come you got out of bed? We only talked… we didn't..."
"I can't…" He turned and looked at her in the face, her eyes shining, her satiny skin looking so chaste. As she reached up and pulled an errant strand of hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear, Carter closed his eyes and took a deep breath. To taint her with those damn details would plant seeds of fear and suspicion in her head. Or so he thought. "Good night," he gave her as he turned around and walked up the stairs, his white button down shirt untucked and flapping in the night breeze, the moonlight just once bouncing off the ridges of a shiny scar for a scant moment.
Those aren't the scars that define his pain anymore, she thought.
(Song lyrics omitted. Original chapter can be found at LUKAFIC)
Everyone had gone to bed, the trip up the stairs to the top level dark and silent. Carter padded his way through to the kitchen, the ceramic tile cold on his bare feet. The light from the refrigerator blinded him for a second as he opened the door and mindlessly looked through for a snack, but what he really wanted wasn't in there.
"The stronger stuff is usually kept in a decanter," a voice called out from the very dark living room. "I've looked everywhere but can't find anything stronger than mouthwash."
"Everyone's in bed, Bob," Carter answered no longer startled by Bob's sudden appearances. "Might as well join them."
"No thanks. Got work to do."
Carter closed the refrigerator door, beer in hand. It was cold, easy to drink, and so tempting, but back in it went as rational thought kicked in.
"What aren't you telling us?" Carter asked as he went to the large windows and watched Anna walk back up the boardwalk towards the house.
"Plenty - and nothing. A game of hide and seek," he riddled. "That's what undercover intelligence is: hide and seek."
"No, actually, that's life."
"But like tic-tac-toe there's never a winner, is there?" Bob threw open a sliding door and stood in the thresh hold to smoke a cigarette. "Gotta tell you, Tut, Emile Dia Wamba isn't who you think he is."
"I know. I watch the news."
"You watch Arkwright's news. Dia Wamba is just what Congo needs. He's not a bad guy, at least to the world. He and his people are native to Congo. They protect the legitimate diamond trade and make sure that a good portion of the money goes to rebuilding their country and educating the children."
"But he was in Darfur -"
" -Ahh, cunt cranking bullshit. Arkwright spits out a memo and it becomes 'news'. Dia Wamba in power is counter productive to his little diamond hustling business. It's a tightly controlled industry with the mines excavated by only a few government approved corporations, none of which are Arkwright owned, or even owned by westerners. He'd do anything to discredit Dia Wamba with the international community. Easier to over throw him that way. You actually did us a favor."
"Somehow I don't feel like it."
"There's never a winner, remember? Welcome to my world."
Carter went back down to the second level and paused on the landing, Luka's and Sam's voices together in her room giving him a half smile. He sat on his bed and turned the TV on, flipping through the channels not really paying attention but getting a chuckle out of the call letters for the one local TV news channel: WAVY. He turned it off and fell backwards on the bed staring up at the ceiling not sure where his head was anymore. Dia Wamba, Jules… Arkwright. How many times had he sat in a board room with him? How many times had they spied each other at a social function but never traded words? That beer… and there were more…
Each step back up the stairs he struggled to re-think his need for that beer. Nobody would know, Bob wouldn't care… At the top of the stairs, though, a light shone under Anna's door. He hadn't even been in that room, hadn't been in Anna's personal space. Pushing the unlatched door open and walking over to her at the large sliding door, Carter was once again standing behind Anna, only this time he reached out to her, tenderly stroking her bare arm from her shoulder to her elbow.
She saw his reflection in the glass but, still, a shiver pierced through her as the tips of his fingers traveled down her arm barely touching her skin. "I… I like to sleep in the fresh air, hear the surf," she explained as though telepathically connecting with Carter as he stiffened slightly at the cool breeze that came through the screen.
"You have a fireplace," he answered, his voice deepening, breathing faster.
"Gas. I like to lie down on the shag carpet there and read sometimes," she said still with her back to him.
Carter leaned forward and gently kissed the back of her neck, then reached around and, with his hand on her chest just below her neck, pulled her into him allowing his lips to reach further to her ear, down the side of her neck pausing as he lingered on her pounding pulse. His hands met hers at her waist and he intertwined their fingers forcing them to remain tightly joined at the hips. But as he opened his eyes and looked ahead out that window, the small light off shore reminded him of their situation. "I'll answer any question you have. Tell you anything -"
" -Shhh." Turning around quickly, Anna put a finger to his lips, then slowly unzipped her dress down the side of her hip and stepped out of it revealing only a slim pair of white panties atop her soft curves.
"I can't," he tried to say between kisses. "It's been a long time…"
"Don't tell me you've forgotten how," she teased.
"Um… not really." Her hands slid up the front of his shirt and taunted his nipples, playfully stroking them until he laughed. "Really ticklish. Really."
She laughed along with him and tried to unbutton the shirt, finally letting him take the quick route and pull it over his head. The surgery scars from years ago had faded and provided nothing more to her than a dividing line of where to equally place her kisses.
In the cool sea air pushing through the room, her lips felt warm, almost hot, as they raked over his chest down his abdomen where they stayed as she unbuttoned his pants and pushed them down to the floor. She stayed on her knees for what seemed like an eternity before finally removing the last of his clothing and letting her lips resume her passion. For John Carter, it was a dream in the making, a lust of mind come to life. His legs finally started to weaken and he moved backwards to the bed sitting down and drawing Anna up on top of him feeling her curvaceous breasts, taut nipples and moist desire through the satin, which he removed with one hand, the other occupied in the depths of her yearning.
The cadence of the surf crashing on shore matched the throes of passion undulating raw and unmasked atop the soft feather mattress and countless pillows. They lost track of time through the night as the moon shone first in front of the window, then traveled far to the right out of sight. Exhausted, Carter rolled onto the bed, face down, and moaned as his back cramped up on him, unaware that this was the first time Anna was seeing his severely scarred back from the kidnapping of the previous year. "No, it doesn't hurt."
"Yeah - I wouldn't think so."
"Sorry - seems to be the question of choice when someone sees it."
"Numb?"
"Here and there. Sometimes the tingling drives me crazy," he said into the pillow. "I miss the people at the camp, the freedom I had to just practice medicine and basic human kindness without first having to fill out a form in triplicate and get someone else's approval."
"Why don't you go back?" she asked as she softly stroked his sore back.
"Once naïve, twice stupid, third time would be foolish."
"Jules is dead."
"Too many bad dreams." Carter drifted off to sleep with Anna draped over him, their naked bodies exuding the lingering heat of passion.
(Song lyrics omitted. Original chapter can be found at LUKAFIC)
The early morning sun was just breaking the darkness when Carter awoke on the shag carpet in front of the fireplace where he had secretly retreated to during the night with his pillow, but he wasn't alone. Anna fit perfectly as they spooned, her hair smelling sweet under his nose. Giving her ear a loving nip, Carter closed his eyes, forgetting why he was even there.
"You woke up once last night," Anna whispered, "or maybe didn't actually wake up. Cried out kind of."
"Did I hurt you?" he finally asked back.
"What? Of course not. Why would you?"
"These dreams are so real. I've done things to a couple people in my sleep… hurt them…"
"You didn't hurt me, John." Turning on her other side, Anna kissed him on the lips and cradled his face in her hands, gently wiping away a stray lone tear with her thumb. "We just woke up together and you didn't hurt me."
(Song lyrics omitted. Original chapter can be found at LUKAFIC)
The blinds against the wall of glass and sliding doors rattled in the wind waking Carter from a deep sleep. He squinted against the rude morning sun, comforted by Anna's soft, exposed form still in his arms. Rubbing his eyes, he soon realized they weren't quite alone.
Lyrics, How Love Should Be
Chris Botti CD, When I Fall in Love
(omitted from fanfiction site as per guidelines)