I'm looking to the sky to save me

Looking for a sign of life

Looking for something to help me burn out bright

I'm looking for a complication

Looking cause I'm tired of trying

Try to make my way back home when I learn to fly

Foo Fighters

THE LEGACY – CHAPTER 16

"Hey RC" Gary called out as the girl walked in the door "think you could handle the paper today? I was kinda needing some couple time with Toni."

Ruthie just froze "you mean solo" she asked, all goggle eyed?

"Yes I mean solo, you can handle it kiddo, you've been doin great these last couple of weeks, you don't need me to hold your hand any more."

"You sure Gary, that's a heck of a load."

"Do you think you can handle it" he asked.

She thought dispassionately for a moment "yeah" she said finally "I think I can handle it. No" she amended "I'm sure I can."

"Here ya go then kiddo" Gary said, handing over the paper "what needs to be done?"

Ruthie started flipping through the Sun-Times, after a couple of minutes she said "pedestrian killed on the corner of State and Chicago; and a suicide, a lady jumps off of the roof of the Amberson Hotel on Rush street."

"Anything else?"

"Yeah, there's a fire but no one's injured, I figured call 911 early and say I smelled smoke. Oh and here's another 'Hell freezes over as Gary Hobson takes time to go on a date with his wife'. Satan quoted as saying "who knew it was possible."

Gary just looked at the girl nonplussed as Marissa almost fell off her seat laughing.

"I'd believe that last one" Toni's voice said from the doorway. Gary started to say something, then threw up his hands in defeat when he realized he was totally outgunned. Laughing at her husband, Toni Brigatti sauntered over and sat down in his lap. She gave him a brief but intense kiss and then leaned back "a date with my husband, what a novelty". Then she leaned in and kissed him again.

Both Ruthie and Marissa were starting to feel uncomfortable so they got up and left with as little fanfare as possible; although Marissa thought a bomb could go off in the next room and they wouldn't notice. As the two of them sat down in the bar, Marissa leaned over to the younger woman and asked "you sure you're going to be OK?"

"Yeah" Ruthie said "I'm a little freaky about talking to the jumper, but the pedestrian should be no problem. Plus I've got the number here and Gary's cell if things get too hairy."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

A COUPLE OF HOURS LATER

Marissa felt her Braille watch "you're on in less than an hour Ruth, you'd better get going."

"Thanks Marissa, I won't let you down."

"I know you won't" the woman softly said as Ruthie left the bar.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Andrea walked to the edge of the roof and looked down. She didn't know if what she was doing was right or not, and she really didn't care. What she did know was that one way or another, the pain would be over. Not physical pain; that she could and had dealt with; but emotional pain, gut ripping emotional pain. She was alone in the world, and it was no one's fault but her own that it was only her; stupid, silly, weak her. She looked again, that really was a long way down. She closed her eyes and saw them again, Mike, Milly and Emma; her husband and her babies, all dead now because of her. Taking a deep breath, she opened her eyes and looked down again, that was indeed a long way. 'Focus dammit' she thought to herself, 'there's a reason you want it to be a long way down, you want to be sure you're dead'. Nodding to herself she approached the edge of the building, but then she heard a voice, soft but compelling "that seems like an awful waste".

Andrea took a step back and looked around; there not ten feet away was a young woman, sitting on the edge of the roof and dangling her legs over the side. "What's a waste" she asked the girl.

"Taking your life, it's a waste."

"You don't know me" Andrea replied "my death wouldn't be a waste, because I'm already a waste; I'd just be making room for someone else, someone with a better shot."

"You sure about that, you seem like someone with a lot to offer, not a waste."

"What do you know about me, you don't know me" Andrea said bitterly.

"Well, I know you're a teacher, and I'd be willing to bet your students love you, and I know you're hurting because you've lost someone close."

"How could you know I'm a teacher?"

"There's chalk on the cuff of your blouse" the young woman answered, as for the loss, that's a guess but one I'd bet on."

"Why did you guess that?"

"Because present course of action aside, you seem to be too smart to get involved with the usual suspects, drugs, gambling, affairs, that kind of stuff; that leaves loosing someone."

"You couldn't even begin to understand."

"Try me" the dark haired girl replied. "Have a seat and tell me you're tale, I'm not gonna grab for you or anything, just talk to me. What have you got to loose?"

Andrea thought for a moment, the girl did have a point; she was going to kill herself, what difference would a few minutes make. Carefully she sat down, making sure to keep a good distance between herself and the girl. "I killed my husband and daughters" she said without preamble.

She looked at the girl, and was surprised to see that there was no shock or anger, only sorrow and sympathy.

"How did you manage that" the girl asked, surprisingly not making it sound like an accusation. "I figure if you'd done that you'd be in jail right now, and from the way you're acting, you would welcome being in a place like that."

"It was a car accident."

"Were you driving drunk?"

"No, of course not."

"Did you hit them or something?"

"NO, I could never do anything like that."

"Was it an accident that only you walked away from?"

"No, I had a flat tire."

"Yeah, and"

"And I called my husband because I couldn't loosen the lug nuts to change the thing. He puts the girls in the car and comes to help me, and a truck runs a red light. I'm standing there calling and calling and getting mad because he's taking so long, and he's dead and I don't even know it. Finally I call 911, and they send a car around. I told the officer my name, and I could hear the breath catch in his throat. That's when I knew it was bad, but I didn't know how bad." Andrea's voice never changed or caught, but tears were pouring down her face.

"I didn't believe it you know, not until I had to identify the bodies. You see, I was the only one that could do it, both Mike and I were orphans, we were all each other had. So I had to go down and identify my husband and my daughters. I didn't want it to be them; I wanted it to be some horrible mistake, or a hoax or something, anything other than what it was. But it was them and they were dead, and I never got to say goodbye, or tell them that I loved them one last time, or hug them or watch them sleep or feel their hearts beat, everything that made my life good was gone."

Ruthie took a quick look at her watch, she had to leave in another twenty minutes to make the hit and run on time, but the story about the jumper hadn't changed; at least not yet. She carefully got up and made her way over to the woman and sat down and held her. Andrea flinched for a moment, but then just collapsed into the young woman's arms. Ruthie just held her, knowing that this was the right thing to do. "I can't imagine what that must have been like for you, the agony of your loss" she said. "Especially without family, you must be an incredibly strong person."

Andrea pulled slightly away and looked at the dark haired girl "how can you say that, knowing what I'm going to do."

"All I know" Ruthie replied "was that I would have done it right after leaving the hospital if it had been me."

"How do you know I'm not, for all you know the accident could have been yesterday?"

"True" Ruthie acknowledged "but judging by what I can guess about you, I'm betting that it was before Thanksgiving, and that you got through the holidays, but it kept getting tougher and tougher, then when school started again, all you saw was your daughters in every girl student. I'd bet you tried counseling, but talking to some twit in a brown sweater didn't help. So now here you are, at the end of your emotional rope, and just wanting the hurt to go away."

"How could you possibly know all that" Andrea asked, amazed at the accuracy of the girl's predictions.

"Because of my brother Simon; he killed a friend of his by accident, and about two months later, after the family thought he was on his way back, I caught him with a gun. No one else in the family knows about it, and I never told anyone, but that's what he said, he said he just wanted the pain to stop. That he was tired of fighting; tired of acting normal around everyone when he wasn't normal anymore. He felt guilty for grieving, like he was letting everyone down."

"So what happened to him?"

"He works here in Chicago, as an actuary. For Christmas two years ago I gave him a bullet, just to remind him of what he almost missed out on, the life he would have never known if he had actually used that gun."

"How did he make it?"

"One day at a time, and he talked to someone who could understand what it was like to be responsible for taking a life, someone who could identify with what he was feeling. With friends and prayer and a lot of hard work, but ultimately he made it one day at a time. I want you to talk to someone; someone I think would be able to help you."

"Who's that" Andrea asked, suddenly wary.

"My boss, a guy named Gary Hobson, he might not be able to understand exactly where you're coming from, but he knows the guilt over losing someone he felt responsible for. He's dealt with it."

"Is he a psychiatrist or something?"

"Nope, he's a bar owner, but his partner has a degree in psychiatry."

"You really think he could help me?"

"I don't know if he can or not, but is it really worth ignoring the possibility" Ruthie said, nodding at the building's ledge.

"It's so hard."

"I know but life is hard at times, that's when you need others; that's a lesson I've learned lately."

"Really"

"Yeah, I'd spent my life as 'Little Miss Independent' but that just meant that when the chips were down, I really didn't have anyone I could count on. In the last year I've figured out how badly I needed other people to get by. Let others help you, it doesn't make you weaker, it means you're strong enough to admit that you can't handle everything. That's an admission that's never easy to make."

"So where is this guy?"

"A bar called McGinty's, down on the corner of Franklin and Illinois."

"Could you come with me?"

Ruthie checked her watch, her heart sank; the pedestrian was already dead so what did it matter if she took some more time. "Sure, I'll take you there."

Together the two of them walked down off the roof and off to McGinty's. Ruthie knew she had done the right thing helping Andrea, but the cost was so steep that she wasn't sure if it was worth it.

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Ruthie showed up about half an hour later with Andrea. The entire time she had tried not to burst into tears, both at Andrea's story and at the fact that she had failed her first time out. A person was dead because of her, and she didn't quite know how she'd cope. As the pair of them walked in, she spotted Gary at the bar with Toni, they were debating on which team was the worst in Baseball, the Cubs or the Tigers. Ruthie walked right up to Gary, "someone needs to talk to you Gary, about a couple of teenagers."

Gary blanched at the memory of what he considered a failed save, and saw how the woman who was with RC was barely holding on to herself. "Sure" he said "let's go back to the office for some privacy." He escorted Andrea back to his office, and as soon as the woman was out of sight, Ruthie collapsed sobbing on the bar.

Fortunately Toni was immediately there and led her over to a booth. "What's up RC" the detective asked.

"I failed" the girl all but wailed, "Gary trusted me and I failed."

"How did you fail sweetie" Toni asked as gently as possible.

"I had two saves and I could only make one" the girl replied between sobs. "I talked to her, but the story wouldn't change, not until after the pedestrian was supposed to be killed."

"Have you checked the paper?"

"No, why would I need to?"

"Because sometimes it works in really strange ways, making one save sometimes effects the others. Trust me, just look."

Ruthie opened the paper and looked, there was no story about the hit and run; it was gone. The young woman was incredulous "how the heck did that happen?"

"My guess is that somehow the suicide would have re-routed traffic and caused the accident. Change one, change em both."

"But if that hadn't been the case, someone would have died because of me."

"True enough RC, would you be able to handle it if they had died?"

"I don't know" Ruthie replied.

"Well if you're gonna keep doing this, you better figure that out, cause sometimes you just miss, for no good reason. Sometimes you just have a bad day. What Gary does, and what you're helping with, is kinda like what a trauma doc deals with; you make your decision and go with it. I got this story from Marissa, Gary doesn't know I know; one day he had two saves at the same time. One was this little girl who was gonna be hit by a car and die because she got lost in the shuffle at the hospital, the other was a plane crash that would kill about a hundred and fifty people. Gary took the girl and sent Chuck and Marissa to stop the plane somehow, but they got stuck on the El. They called him and told him what was happening, but he didn't leave the girl. Marissa is convinced that somehow he could have stopped the plane if he left the girl, but he just couldn't do it; he made a decision and stuck to it even though it meant that a lot of people died."

"How did he live with that" the girl asked.

"He didn't have to, thank God, it turns out that the girl was the pilots daughter, once Gary got her noticed, the hospital called the family, and he turned around, so no plane crash. The point is that he just couldn't leave someone to die like that, someone he had promised to help, just like you couldn't today. You said your brother's a doc, right."

"His wife is too."

"Then ask him sometime what the ER rotation was like for him. Sometimes you've only got bad choices, so go with your gut and do the best you can; that's all any of us can do."

"I'd bet it's the same thing when you're a cop, sometimes every option is a bad one, but you can't waste time second guessing yourself, you just have to learn from the mistakes that will happen."

The detective smiled at her young friend "that's it exactly RC, you learned a hell of a lesson today, don't ever forget it; use it and become better for it."

Ruthie got up from the table and hugged Toni "thanks for being here, I really needed you today."

"You're welcome RC" the older woman said, clearly flustered, aand also realizing how hard an admission that was for theartist"hey you know I'm not much for the touchy-feely stuff, so can we ease up on the PDA."

"Sure" Ruthie said, she let goof the detectiveand went looking for Teressa.

Toni was amazed; the girl had saved a woman, but had totally ignored that fact because she had thought she had lost one as well. The good work she had done hadn't even crossed her mind; and that reminded Toni of a certain dark haired bar owner she knew. Gary had mentioned before that he wondered if Lindsey was really the right choice, Toni thought that she was, but acknowledged that RC was something special too.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Ruthie had found Teressa and filled her in on what had happened that day and what she had learned from it. Teressa said that she would have done the same thing had she been in Ruthie's place, and that made the dark haired girl feel better. Teressa went on to make a couple of suggestions about what to do if that kind of situation ever arose again, things that Ruthie hadn't even thought about. She wrote them down and thanked her friend profusely, and the joy she had seen on Teressa's face because Ruthie had listened, made telling the younger girl about the paper seem more and more the right thing to do. The two would have continued chattering away, except Gary picked that time to come out of the office with Andrea. The woman looked a lot better than she had the bone deep sadness wasn't there anymore. Ruthie could see that the woman was still hurting, but felt that she had turned a corner. "Thank you" was all she said, but her tone said so much more, and then she left.

"You did good RC" Gary said to his young protégé.

"You do know I didn't have a chance to save the pedestrian, right?"

"Yeah" Gary replied "I know; tell me something, would you have done anything differently if you had to do it again?"

Ruthie thought for a moment "no, nothing different."

"Then you've learned a lot kid" Gary said "you've learned a lot."