Devil's Due

The End

Olivia's fingers trace my wrist, dancing across the watch I wear out of habit. I barely look at it anymore because time is more and more my enemy with every passing day. "Where's Trey?" She asks softly, her voice barely audible over the gentle conversation of the water and sand.

"He's with Sean." I arrange the dark curls of her hair over her forehead as she sighs softly in exhaustion. "They're looking for crabs in the rocks down the shore, remember?"

Her half-smile lights up her face, illuminating the fine lines around her eyes even as it makes her seem younger. "Darling can you see them?"

I brush my fingers across her cheek and turn my gaze down the beach. Sean is a spot of color against the dark sand of the beach. His red shirt bends down to scoop up his little brother, and I imagine the little boy shrieking with laughter as his brother takes him into the water. "They're fine sweetheart."

"Good." She turns her head in my lap, and I take her hand into mine, trying not to worry as her grip tightens suddenly. "I'm so glad they made it in time."

I lean down to kiss her eyelids, laughing softly to reassure myself that she's just being foolish again. "None of that now."

"I have you darling." Olivia's eyes stay closed, but she smiles up at me. She has to know how much it means to have her here with me. "Having our children with us is almost too much to ask for."

"Sometimes we get lucky." I remind her as I watch Sean chase his brother back up the beach towards the treeline.

Opening slowly, her eyes look too bright to be so tired. "Darling, I think you make your own luck."

Slowly I get to my feet and help her up, feeling my heart melt as she kisses my cheek. "I wasn't alone."

Covering her mouth as she giggles, Olivia lets herself fall into my arms. "Took you long enough to figure that out.

"Why are you trusting me?" I wonder aloud as I lead her from the car. "I could be taking you anywhere."

"You wouldn't hurt me." Olivia replies with quiet certainty as she lets me wrap the black cloth over her eyes. "You remind me of the way Gregory was once- when he was young."

Taking one of her hands, I smile as she rests the other on my arm. "How is that?"

"He was kind." She lets me take her bag without a word of protest. I don't think she'd care if she didn't have anything more than the clothes on her back. "Decent and really very sweet, the way you are."

I chuckle, she'd feel differently if she knew my secret. Tobias looses all his sweetness when he becomes just another one of my games. "I think you'll find him changed when you see him again my dear. Facing your own death does that to a man, even one like my nephew."

"We never see it coming do we?" I move her hands to the railing of the flight up stairs up to the plane. "We just wander innocently through life, blissfully unaware of our own mortality until it's too late." Olivia reaches out for my cheek, kissing it as my blood turns to ice in my veins.

Too late? I don't have time to answer the question.

"Thank you." She whispers as she pulls away and turns back towards the plane and her future. "You've been so good to me."

It's funny to think that in Olivia's mind she's kissing someone else, to feel the hesitation because she kisses me differently than she kisses any other man. "Safe journeys Olivia, safe journeys."

I nod to my pilot, and he helps her up the stairs. Tobias gets back into the car and rips off his face and costume. I can't help remembering how much more fun the back seat of a car is when she's with me. I tear off my costume and wince gratefully when I realize it's the last time I'll have to wear it. The makeup remover smells like her as I soak a handkerchief with it and feel the spirt gum melt off my face. I can't figure out why until I remember I stole it from the master bedroom. I have to keep myself from hurrying. Giddiness only causes mistakes. Mistakes I can't afford.

When I finally step out of the car I'm fully Gregory again. Throwing the bag of costume and makeup away is cathartic. I'm free. Olivia's coming with me and I'm free. Caitlin can have Cole if that's what she wants. My contacts should have Trey in Olivia's hands before the end of the month.

She took her own precautions. From what my attorney told me as I packed, Olivia was nothing but thorough in her request. All the money she possessed, the Deschanel Jewels, the beach house are to be held in trust for our children. Bette was an interesting choice for a guardian but she'll be fair with Olivia's money now that she has AJ's to squander. I should start sending her catalogues.

Did she know she would beg me to take her away? Was she planning on coming to find me herself?

I slip through the pilot's cabin, slipping past him to watch Olivia as she sits demurely at the edge of the of the seat lining the wall. Her feet are flat on the ground and her hands in her lap. For some reason she left the blindfold on. I expected her to rip it off and be looking for me as soon as she got inside. The carpet of the cabin swallows my footprints and from her stillness I imagine she hasn't heard me.

She's beautiful, hair held back by the black blindfold into soft curls just behind her ears. Her skin's still too pale. Stress? Exhaustion? Her lips are perfect, just like I remember. Soft, pink and full of so much emotion. No more pain Olivia. No more pain.

I reach my hand out towards her folded ones on her lap. She catches it part way and searches it for my wedding ring. Did she know how good it felt to put it on again? Olivia gasps when she realizes it's there. It's my hand. I'm there. I'm real to her again.

I reach for her face, cupping her cheek as the moisture stars to bead up beneath the cloth over her eyes.

"Oh God." She whispers with little breath, trying to pull back in surprise even as her hands beg me to move closer. "You're here." She doesn't need to see me. Olivia knows my hands and the way they move over her body.

I rock forward, my knees taking my weight as I turn her chin closer to my lips. "I'm here." I've always been here. Her breath is barely coming now because she knows.

"Oh God-" I can feel Olivia's shudder as she lets go. The lights of the cabin dim as the engine's roar to life. I leave the floor to take my place at her side.

"Shhh..." I take her shoulders into my arms as I reach for the knot on the back of the blindfold.

"I had to find you." Olivia rests against my shoulder, too choked up to even bother looking at me as I drop the blindfold to the floor. "I thought it was a dream when we were together. I thought- I thought- I made up it. I missed you so much and I missed our children. You're all I have left." Her forehead is a spot of heat against my cheek. "When I woke up and you were gone-"

"It's all right Liv." The engine roar becomes all we can hear until the plane kicks us back. Olivia slides up into my lap, but I hold on.

"I wanted to die." She admits grimly as the plane starts to level. "I didn't have anything left. I just wanted to die." Her voice is lower than I've heard it and her tears are wet against my neck.

My eyes are still dry. I never doubted I'd have her again. No matter what stood in my way. "Not today."

For some reason that puts her over the edge, and it's a full minute before she can speak again. When Olivia finally manages to use her voice, she sounds so lost. "Gregory-" So small.

"I'm still here. Can't really go anywhere on a plane."

No laugh, but I earn a pause that could be mistaken for one.

"I have to tell you."

I lift her head, asking her to look me in the eye. "Tell me what?"

"I went to the doctor. I'm-" She gasps, losing control for a moment before trying to finish her thought. "I'm-"

Sean lifts Trey up on the dock so he can run to the end and wave at Caitlin as she stands on the bow of her boat. Cole guides it in and she jumps off onto the dock to tie off. Letting Cole know where Olivia and I are has taken some getting used to. No matter how many times Caitlin vouches for him and professes her love I can't trust him. Not when I know he slept with my wife.

Olivia leans against my shoulder, smiling softly as our daughter scoops up the little boy she's been wanting to raise as hers. We have an uneasy truce. Trey loves the island. The house, the beach he loves all of it and we love him. He makes Olivia smile in the way I fell in love with so many years ago.

Sean pulls the knot tight on the end of the dock and runs up to hug his sister. He's been giving me a hard time all morning, and he's decided to keep it up as Caitlin and Olivia take Trey up to the house.

"You should let her go." He whispers angrily. "Let mom go with Cate. She could get help in Australia, New Zealand- they have hospitals."

I grab his shoulder roughly and pull him away towards the water. "She won't go. Don't you think I've tried to convince her?' I can feel my heart tighten in my chest. "She won't go without me."

"Then go with her!" Sean pulls away, his fists balling in disgust. "Who cares if you end up in prison-"

"You certainly don't." I hiss with more hatred than I've let into my voice for months.

His fist lashes out but I catch it before it impacts anything more dangerous than my palm. He lashes out again, but he's collapses against my chest instead of fighting me. I've never seen Sean cry. I don't even know what to do because this hasn't happened. Not since he was a little boy.

"You can't let her die." Sean gasps into my chest, anger and terror mixing into bitter tonic. "I don't give a damn about you. You can rot in prison. You should rot there!"

Did my father feel his stomach grow cold when I looked at him that way?

Sean rips his way out of my arms, threatening to hit me again as I put up my hands to defend myself. "Just let her go."

"I'm not leaving." Olivia startles us both and she puts herself between us, ending our fight. "Death is the same wether it's here or in some hospital in some strange city without your father." Pushing me away, she takes Sean's shoulders and tries to find herself in his eyes. "I'd rather be with him than be anywhere else in the world."

She kisses his cheek and looks wistfully at Trey in Caitlin's arms. "I remember holding you when you were that small and wishing you would grow up happier than I did. I wanted-" I take her hand and she smiles at me. "We wanted you to have everything we didn't and we wanted you to grow up up and fall in love."

She's tired, but she's used to digging for the remnants of her strength. "Not ordinary love, but the heart pounding, weak-in-the-knees, can barely breath kind of love."

I kiss her forehead and pray I remain worthy.

"You can't walk away from that Sean. You can't shut it off because you're in danger, or you're making the wrong choices." Olivia brushes a lock of hair back over his forehead. "My life is with your father. I'll always, always love you, but I need to stay with him."

"Now go on, get your bag and get on the yacht before your sister and Cole leave without you!" Olivia laughs and Sean's in tears as he hugs her goodbye.

He still has trouble looking at me, but a nudge from Olivia gets him to extend his hand. "Write me?" He asks softly. "Tell me you're okay?"

"Your father would love to." Olivia offers for me as we head to the dock. We can't hug yet. Maybe next time I see him during his semester break. Cole and Olivia shake hands. She has ways of forgiveness I'll never learn. Maybe next time.

Caitlin hugs me with Trey in her arms. "See you soon." Trey waves at me and kisses Olivia's cheek in that sloppy toddler way.

Olivia wraps her hand around my arm. Her head's on my shoulder and I can't help feeling it belongs there. I hold her tight with an arm around her as Sean and Cole shove off.

I wave and Trey waves back until he's distracted by the promise of the waves outside the cove of the island. Olivia laughs as he toddles from one end of the boat to the other, torn between looking for dolphins and waving to us until he can't see us any more.

She sinks to the beach and I settle into the sand next to her. Her mouth curls in a half-smile of apology. "I'm sorry darling."

I move behind her, letting her lean against my chest. "No apologies. We'll stay down here as long as you want." I run my hand through her hair, enjoying how long it has gotten. "My life is with you."

Olivia turns her head and closes her eyes as she relaxes against my neck. "Where else would you rather be?"

She knows the answer. We both do.