Stand By Me

Chapter Ten

Maggie found the invitations to the reopening of Zach's casinos—or, rather, legally, Kendall's casinos—in the mail slot when she was ready to go drop off the play yard. Pulling the thick envelopes open, she tugged out the invitations, reading the elegant black script and absorbing Zach request for her and Jonathon to join them at the reopening and, with a an odd sort of amusement, she read the offer to bring a guest.

Jesus, was there anything Zach Slater didn't know?

Slipping them into her bag, she hefted the play pen to her shoulder, heading out of the apartment and to the car. Her calls to Bianca had gone unanswered and she'd finally decided to stop worrying about stealing a few minutes with the Munchkin. She was in a sour mood and Bianca ignoring her calls wasn't helping.

By the time she reached Bianca's place, she was barely able to hear above the pounding in her ears of her heart beat, a roaring drumbeat that made her breathing come quicker than it should and, it was amazing how apprehension of seeing Bianca and wanting Bianca could make her react in such similar ways…

Her hand, curved into a fist, hesitated above the door, and she bit her lip… and, with a sudden surge of strength, she thought back to her face in the mirror, thought back to the certainty with which she had made her decision… talking a breath, she knocked once, a sharp rap of knuckles before leaving the door and Bianca and Miranda.

She was drowning, thrashing as she kicked at the hand around her ankle, watching blonde hair swirl beneath her with the movements, ripple and shift with each desperate kick to get to the surface, fill her lungs with air and get a hold of herself, some grasp on the little pieces that were missing.

She couldn't get away… she couldn't escape from the begging… Babe's pleas to keep her lies and keep her secrets… it hadn't been all that hard to keep her head over the surface, water that was black and hard, beating across her in waves that grew rapidly more forceful. She'd stayed away from the something beneath her, something that clawed at her ankle.

"I can't lose my son… I can't go through that… please Bianca…"

But then she had gone under and had found herself completely helpless, a cacophony filling her head as that something finally got her, locked around her middle with raw strength and, by the time she'd gotten away from that hold, she'd been too deep under to get back up…

Again, she felt that hand above, a brush of fingertips through fingertips and she felt a thrill of excitement until she was dragged down again and panic filled her, tightening around her and making her ache… when she got up enough to reach again, there was nothing to reach for and she grasped at emptiness, fingers sliding through the water and closing in defeat.

"Babe… JR won't know from me…"

It was a crushing weight on her, inside her, something that made it so hard to fight. What was the point now? She remembered Kendall's face, the look in her eyes when she'd snapped to get the Hell out of her condo. The only time Kendall acknowledged her was when she came by to see Miranda.

Kendall saw something and knew Bianca too well and she could see it in her older sister's eyes, see it in the sharpness there. Bianca was hiding something and Kendall knew it… the fact that Bianca had been dumb enough to defend Babe during their argument had made it even worse and Kendall had exploded, startling Zach out of his silent watch of the two women—

Something woke Bianca from her sleep, jerked her into full awareness and she choked on her next breath, staring up at the ceiling before sitting up on the sofa, eyes searching for Miranda and finally spotting the sleeping shape before her, laid out on her mat. Realizing the noise that had woken her, she pushed herself up, headed to the door and opened it, peering out.

Pausing on the threshold, she could hear the noise of footsteps fading away down the hall and stepped out but there was nothing and she rubbed her face, trying to ignore the slight touch of something deceptively soft and feminine in the air. She recognized it, very easily, after so long living with her and knowing what kind of different things she wore.

Even without spotting the folded play yard, Bianca would have known who it was and, working to ignore the slight effect it had on her, she turned away from where Maggie had raced off, away from her scent. Lifting the gift, she stepped back into her place, closing the door behind her.

Bianca was still drowning, even with the gift in her hands and with her daughter before her… she was still drowning and had no idea what to do about it.

Most of her stuff unpacked and her stomach filled with food, Amy headed across the wet grass, fingers nervously picking at the end of her bright pink scarf, one she'd gotten for her sixteenth birthday from her favorite Stone girl. Passing between the stones, she thought about how ironic it was that the weather could clear up just as she had entered the cemetery.

She was still wired from the entire incident at the Martin house, at trying to sort out the entire twisted Chandler/Cortlandt/Martin family and also trying to understand how a woman who had gone off a cliff almost three years before could suddenly pop up looking happy and healthy and extremely motherly.

More unnerving than that was how easy most of the giant group had taken the news. If somebody suddenly ran into her at one of these places and started telling her that he was her long-lost father, yeah, Amy doubted she'd handle it that well. It was just a hunch but still…

When she finally spotted the stone with then name "Stone" on it, she gave a twisted snort at yet more irony… Frankie would have laughed her ass off at that, smirked and chirped that it was just further proof of her end purpose in life. A Stone buried under a big hunk of stone… god, what a world.

Amy hesitated where she stood, staring down at the grass before her feet; she finally went around it, hoping she wasn't stepping on Frankie as she did. Wouldn't want to walk all over Frankie, would she? It felt strange, and it finally sank in when her fingertips touched the smooth rock, brushed the words and watched more droplets roll down to pool beneath.

There was a bouquet of flowers at the foot of the grave, and, dropping her hands to her knees, she bent down, noticing the surprising freshness. Must have been there just before the rain started, huh? She was hesitant to touch them. She knew way too much about how energies in a cemetery were sacred but her curiosity got the better of her and, with a slight wince, she finally lifted them up, studied the bundle of flowers

Frankie would have had a ball bragging about these, she mused with a sad sort of twinge inside her chest. Laying it down quickly, she straightened, laying her palms flat against her thighs and offering a slight smile to the rock. "You can probably tell that I'm not really sure why I'm here."

She stared down at her feet for a few minutes, watching the way the wet grass glittered. It was beautiful, the perfect day for a nice outdoors ritual but she was too drained, and too confused to try anything like that… she had learned not to mess with those when she felt like this.

"Somebody brought you flowers. Isn't it funny how people only care about you when it's too late for you to remind them that they were total jackasses before? It's like some great cosmic joke, right?" Frankie didn't answer, of course she didn't, and Amy dropped back onto her ass, not caring how the rain soaked into her jeans.

"I just didn't want you to think that I didn't care at all. You and I didn't get along and I wish we had, for Maggie. I think it hurt her, you know, us fighting over her all the time. Stupid now, because, clearly, you only had so much time with her and I keep wondering if I stole it… did I steal it, Frankie?"

There was only a silence and she stared down thoughtfully, studying her fingernails and aware of how shockingly quiet it was around the grave, where the remains of Frankie were laying under all that dirt like she was some kind of cheap fertilizer… it felt wrong to Amy and she bit her lip.

"She's a good listener."

Amy turned, and then blushed slightly as Maggie took the last few steps toward the grave and nodded at the stone. "I called up Joe and he said you had asked for directions to the cemetery." She looked at Amy, crinkled her eyes slightly. "My brilliant mind connected the pieces and I came here and, what do you know, I was right." She paused, cocked her head. "Do you realize your ass is going to be soaked?"

"You're a true genius, Maggie, really… You grace me with your presence," Amy laughed and the blonde nodded to herself, eyes straying back to the stone and the name carefully engraved. For long moments there was silence, Maggie staring at the marker and Amy peering up at the surviving Stone twin.

"Did something happen at the Martin house? I mean, Joe sounded kind of shaky on the phone." Maggie turned away from Frankie's grave, crouched in front of Amy and studied her intensely, the amusement in her gaze dampened by the remains of the young woman so close to them.

"Pine Valley is as exciting as you said it was."

Maggie raised her eyebrows and Amy finally blurted out, "Do you know Dixie Cooney? Blonde, blue-eyed, short as you are but with a better figure… do you know her?"

She got a slightly annoyed look as Maggie set her hands on her knees, looking thoughtful as she shifted her attention towards the distance. "I knew her. Her son was one of the last people to see Frankie alive. She wasn't bad. Sometimes she could be a bit saintly but she was good people."

"She showed up a few hours ago at Mr. Martin's house with her daughter and her son. Everything went wonky and Tad Martin, he's Mr. Martin's son, started muttering about how people in this town has Lazarus-it is and then Ms. Cooney started going on and on about how everything was still foggy and that she wanted her daughter to stop climbing the walls. And then Micaela showed up to visit me and JR said that if another person came into their reunion that he hated, he'd run off and hide in Switzerland with Ms. Cooney—"

"Amy!" Maggie cried and she suddenly had a hand clapped over her mouth, and found that, at some point, Maggie had fallen back onto her ass. Huge brown eyes stared at Amy as she babbled some things that she couldn't understand. "Amy… if this is a joke, it is not funny."

All she could do was mumble against Maggie's hand, shaking her head and giving her a slightly annoyed look.

"Oh my god…" Maggie whispered softly and then she suddenly jumped up, yanking up Amy with her, and not even seeming to notice the yelp of pain when her arm was nearly ripped out of its socket. "Maggie—"

"Come on!" she simply shrieked and broke into a run and the only thing that kept Amy from falling flat on her face was the fact that her legs were just a little longer than Maggie's. "We have to go if this is true! I have to see it for myself!" And before she knew it, Amy had been shoved into Maggie's car.

Nova Scotia…

He slid his fingertips along the brim of his baseball cap, leaning forward in his seat to focus when the front door opened and she stepped out. Bare feet scampered down the sidewalk and her robe, open, revealed a fine figure clad in tank and shorts, long legs striding easily; red hair hung in a loose ponytail, open strands framing her face.

At his side sat the information he had gleaned from long hours in the library, gathered up into notes and notebooks, all sitting in one perfect stack. His eyes remained on her though, watching her bend down and crouch, seize the paper at her feet and straighten, studying it.

And then she was gone, shutting her door behind her and he sighed, dropping his head back and rubbing his forehead thoughtfully. Had she called him back to her home or had he come by pure instinct? Either way, it had immediately become more difficult and he drummed fingertips along the steering wheel.

Finally, with a lethal noise low in his throat, he started the car, pulling away from the curb and heading away from Erin Lavery's door, keeping himself from looking over with only his strongest willpower. The plans had been altered, just a bit, the slightest bit but they weren't changed, not by a long shot.

"So you head back in a few days?" Erin asked, entering the kitchen and dropping the paper in front of Jonathon before passing him to open the door of the fridge. Wearing his clothes from the night before, with pillow marks still across his face, he started flipping through the paper.

"And you and that guy are coming back with me."

"Yeah… that guy," Erin muttered, feeling an insane surge of dislike at even the mention of Ken. Pulling out the eggs and the cheese, she moved to the stove, unhooking a pan from over her head and setting it down. The stove went on and she focused on whipping the eggs with a fork, listening to the rustle of paper behind her.

"Erin." The sharp quality in his voice caught her attention, pulled it away from the eggs cooking in front of her and she turned half-way, finding him staring at her. He jumped up, and she found a page shoved into her face. "Erin… who's this woman?"

"That?" She knew the face immediately, recognized it from the news and she pulled the paper out of his hold, turning back to the stove. "That's the problem, Jonathon…"

"Maybe he had nothing to…" He trailed off and she didn't need to see his face to know it had finally gone blank and she continued to tease at the eggs, listening to him back up, lean against the table and she heard his sigh. "We need to tell Ryan—"

And the anger was there, the only real hate she had in her system, the only real fury that was connected to someone. She spun, biting back a shriek as she did and pointed at him with the plastic spatula. "No… we don't tell him, you don't tell him… he doesn't care, Jonathon. He doesn't give a damn!"

"Erin—" She loved him, she loved Jonathon more than life itself, she would die for him if it ever came to that and they both knew it, and they both knew that it went both ways, knew that he would give his life for her. But he was wrong, he was wrong about Ryan. When she spoke again, her voice was hollow, tears shining in her eyes as she desperately bit back the anger.

"Ryan does not care. He left us to defend for ourselves. He left a little boy to protect a little girl and then he comes up to you and grins and laughs and says 'sorry about that' and you forgive him! You love him if you want, go ahead, I get that you do but, please, Jonathon, don't you dare defend him to me… not you."

She turned away as fast as he could, gripping plastic in her fist and noticing with annoyance that her eggs were burning… quickly going back to her cooking, she focused on them, on keeping them useful as she reached up and pulled a plate down, dumping the eggs onto the plate. She snatched the pan off the stove, set it aside and shoved the food at Jonathon, fleeing the kitchen.

"Erin…"

But she ignored him, stalking up the stairs to her room and locking the door behind her… it didn't matter anymore…