"Mr. Richards?" One of the paralegals jogged after him and caught him just before he escaped from the courthouse. "Oh Mr. Richards, I'm sorry to bother you." The young man caught his breath as he tried to finish his thoughts. "It's just that Judge Waterhouse needs you to sign your affidavit."
Gregory barely resisted the urge to strangle the young man. "Can I do it tomorrow morning?"
From the way the young man's face fell in disappointment he realized that wasn't an option. "Judge Waterhouse-"
"Would very much like me to do it today." Gregory finished for him. "All right. I'll come with you but I need this to be quick. I have to get back to the hospital."
"It's just the one thing." The assistant insisted brightly. "It shouldn't take that long."
When he finally freed himself from the courthouse the roads were still a mess. Most of the stoplights weren't working. Police officers stood at the busy intersections and waved people through. Gregory felt time slow to a crawl as he waited for a blasting crew to remove some of the rubble between him and the hospital. He couldn't remember what route he'd taken that morning. Ricardo had driven and he didn't note what roads were open.
He hit his hand against the steering wheel and tried to force himself to stop worrying. Olivia was all right. She'd been asleep when he left. Peaceful. Even angelic.
His hands were sweating again. Wiping them against his trousers in frustration Gregory tried to place his feeling of anxiety. Olivia was all right. He inched forward towards the intersection. Of course she was all right. They would have called his cellular phone if anything had happened to her.
His line of traffic stopped to let a car from the other direction pass. The phone sat on the seat next to him. He reached over and lifted it from the seat. In black capital letters the phone politely announced its' condition.
"NO SERVICE"
The hospital couldn't call him. The car in front of him finally moved and he slammed his into first gear. The Jaguar whined at the abuse but it slipped through traffic as he left the main road. The back roads were more cluttered, but he drove easily through the mess. It didn't matter. Olivia mattered. Getting to the hospital mattered.
The car came to a stop in the back of the parking lot. He pulled the keys out of the ignition and stuffed them into his pocket. Not taking the time to lock the door he headed into the chaos of the hospital. The emergency room was still full as he made his way to the elevator. The space in front of the elevator was crowded with people so he gave it up in favor of the stairs.
Panic was an unfamiliar emotion for him, but it had been dominant since the accident. When Bette had forced him to shower, Olivia's blood had been on his shoulder. It had soaked through his shirt and dried on his skin. He'd scrubbed the spot on until his skin was pink. He touched it absently as he opened the door into the third floor. There wasn't going to be any more blood. She'd be awake and waiting for him. She'd turned her head, smile faintly and say-
"Gregory- honey-" Bette stood up as he walked into the waiting room. Her eyes were bloodshot and there was something wrong with the way she left her chair. An unfamiliar man sat next to her but he didn't get up.
"Where's Olivia?" He asked immediately panic sent ice through his stomach in shards of pain. "Why aren't you with her."
The other man, a doctor, stood up but he didn't extend his hand. "I'm Dr. Stebner, I was just telling Bette about Olivia's operation."
"An operation? What operation?" His eyes drilled into Bette and she melted under his gaze. A tear hung liquid on her eyelashes before cascading down her chin.
It was only the first. "Gregory, listen to the doctor." Her voice was too calm. Too dead of emotion.
"What happened?" The growl tore out of his throat and his hand caught her shoulder. "Bette-"
"Mr. Richards please-"
He ignored the doctor and his fingers dug angrily into her shoulder. Bette didn't wince. She didn't look away. Instead, she let him watch the tears run rampant down her face. "Livie took a bad turn this morning. She had to go back to surgery." Her mouth moved but the sound stopped. Bette screwed her eyes shut for a moment before she found the strength to finish. "Her heart stopped-"
Gregory dropped his hand as if she had burned him.
"They couldn't get it started again." Finishing in a sob she wiped desperately at her eyes. "They couldn't-"
"No." His voice was soft, like the first whisper of thunder. "No, there must be some mistake. She was-"
"Fine when we left." Bette finished as she caught his shoulders. "I know honey. God, I know. But she couldn't-"
"Handle another surgery. There was just too much trauma." Dr. Stebner could have been God and Gregory wouldn't have heard his apology.
"No Bette- It didn't happen. She couldn't-" He tried to pull out of her grip, but Bette forced him down into a chair. When had she gotten so strong?
"No-" The storm rumbled through his heart but he couldn't feel it. He couldn't feel the tears on his face, or the way his hands wouldn't move.
She knelt down in front of him but he couldn't focus on her face. His eyes weren't functioning.
"The doctor told me she didn't feel anything-" Her whisper echoed from miles away from him. Wherever it was that she was still touching him. Was she touching him? Did he even still have a body? "It was quiet."
Her breath caught and she fought to keep herself from falling into hysteria. Bette had to hold herself together because he couldn't. Gregory's eyes found hers but they were dead. Glass mockeries of life that had refused to die when his heart died. "I can't-" His mouth moved without him. "No..."
Rolling forward as he collapsed into her, Gregory's shoulders lost their strength. the indomitable will, the force unassailable that had been Gregory Richards was gone. Evaporated into the void. People came and went around them. Time moved the hands on the clock face on the wall. Bette cried her eyes dry and the hole in her heart bled pain. Pain that filled every place in her body. Pain replaced life. It chased warmth from her body. Leaving a chill behind that threatened to take up permanent residence in her body.
Gregory felt nothing. Not the growing wetness on Bette's neck from his tears. Not the desperate, empty shaking of his body. Nothing. the void of her absence consumed him and left a shell of a man. A shadow left alive by accident when all light was gone.
Sean heard the phone ringing before he even woke up. It integrated itself into his dreams, mixing in with the strangled terror of his nightmares. He was still half-asleep when he pulled the hotel phone to his ear. "Sean?" The voice on the other end sounded mechanical. Like a robotic version of his father. "Sean-"
"Dad?"
The other end of the line was silent. Had he lost the connection?
"Dad are you still there?" something rustled as Sean sat up in the dark hotel room. The curtains were shut and he wasn't sure if the green digital clock meant seven in the morning or evening. Had he slept a day away?
"Cutie-" The voice was Bette's and as soon as he heard her, he knew the world had come to an end. His father couldn't talk to him. His father couldn't speak. Sean dropped the phone from numb fingers. AJ's car keys were in his pocket. He woke the older man as he dug for them.
AJ's surprise faded as he realized someone was on the phone that hung limply over the side of the bed. Letting Sean keep his jacket, AJ took the phone. It spoke to him for a moment before he replaced it on the base. In the darkness Sean couldn't see his face. In the silence between them AJ's gasp was an explosion of suffering. Sean hit his knee on the edge of the table, but he continued to the door.
He couldn't speak to AJ. He couldn't hear AJ trying to break the news to him in the elevator. He didn't hear the sound of the engine as the car open. Sean heard his father. The hollow voice that had replaced what he knew. The ghost was his father now and he was all he had left.
Bette hugged him as she she'd never let him go when they walked into her beach house. Sean just watched the stairs, waiting for his mother to come down from the bedroom and explain it was all a misunderstanding. Bette's aching eyes continued to cry with him and he waited.
His father looked through him as if he were a pane of glass. He reached for him, but Gregory just stood there.
"Dad?" He ventured softly, feeling his grief settle over him like a shroud of blackness.
Gregory's face cracked like a marble statue. "I want you to know I love you."
His throat rasped painfully but he continued to speak. "I can't remember the last time I told you. But I want you to know that I'm proud of you." His eyes were devoid of expression. Free of the restraint he always had when he looked at his son. "You have your mother's heart."
He ruffled Sean's hair as if he were a little boy again. "Never let anyone take that from you. You have her passion and her strength. No matter what I've said in the past, I am now and will always be proud of you. You're going to be a better man than I and I couldn't be happier."
Then he retreated to the balcony. As if speaking had taken all that was left of his strength. Sean watched him as the night grew dark around him. His father faded into it and let it take him away.
Caitlin waited in the tiny sidewalk cafe. The early morning sunshine was still a shock to her jet-lagged eyes, but she let it warm her. Cole waved as he took Trey down to see the ducks in the canal. He'd been so good to her. He hadn't asked her to explain about her father. He lay next to her in the quiet of their first morning in France and told her he loved her and their son. That love was all that mattered to them. Love was everything.
She finished writing out the check as Annie came around the corner of the winding street. She slipped into the chair across from Caitlin and let the waiter bring her coffee.
"Picked a remote enough part of France, didn't you?" Annie asked as she brushed dust from her shirt. "Took me nearly a day just to get here."
"It's safe here." Caitlin explained with apology. It was a new world in France. No one knew her. No one knew she'd faked her pregnancy and no one knew her son was her little brother.
"If you say so." Annie sipped her coffee and looked unconvinced. "I guess I never realized safety was so dull."
Poking at her omelet uneasily, Caitlin forced herself to smile. "You don't have a family." She finished her bite of breakfast and pushed the check across the table towards Annie. "That's it. The entire contents of my trust fund. It should be enough to let you start a new life. Cole and I don't need it."
"You're not going to either." Annie declined a menu and stuck to her coffee. Her hands wrapped around the cup and she looked up at the other woman with dread. "It was the last thing I heard before I left Sunset Beach. i'm sure Sean will try and find you to tell you-"
Narrowing her eyebrows suspiciously, Caitlin tried again to read Annie's expression. "Tell me what?"
"I don't want to be the one to have to tell you this, but-" She leaned back into her chair and finished the last of her coffee before tucking the check away into her purse. "You're going to be receiving a substantial check, fairly soon I imagine."
Tilting her head in confusion, Caitlin wondered. "A check? For what?"
"Your mother's estate." Annie flagged down the waiter for another cup of coffee. "I'm sorry for you Caitlin. I know how hard it is to lose a parent and not get a chance to say goodbye-"
Her own cup clattered against the table as it fell from her fingers. "What are you saying?"
"I know I never liked her, but I am sorry, for you," She corrected quickly and took a deep breath. "Olivia's dead." Annie fished her money out of her purse and left a few Francs on the table as she got ready to make her escape.
"My mother's dead?"
Annie stood up and started to back away from the table. "Her injuries from the car accident were more serious than they thought-"
"She's dead?"
"They rushed her back to surgery." Annie folded her arms across her chest and sighed. "I guess some things can't be fixed. I am sorry Caitlin. I know you liked her-"
"She was my mother." Caitlin pushed her chair back from the table and nearly knocked it over. "My mother-" She looked desperately in the direction Cole had disappeared in. "Oh my god. Oh my god-"
Annie looked at the table as Caitlin left the cafe at a run to find her husband. Someone needed to pay for Caitlin's meal. She reached into her purse and dumped a few more Francs to cover the breakfast she wasn't going to finish. "I am sorry Caitlin. I just couldn't go to jail. Not because of that btch and her brat that everyone seems to want so much."
She replaced her sunglasses over her eyes and swung her purse over her shoulder. "Never saw what was so great about her anyway. Bet no one's even realized I'm gone yet and St. Olivia's being mourned on the five O'clock news." She had enough money to start a new life. Enough that she'd never have to return to Sunset Beach again. Ever.