LEGACIES AND LOLLIPOPS 19

by MAGDALA

Part nineteen - FIRST DRAFT

Mark was caressing the gun.

"You know I've always hated guns up to now. But look, it's so elegant. A death delivery system which sits comfortably in the hand. It feels good, Stacy, it's heavy. They say this handgun is so reliable. Funny isn't it guns are reliable and people aren't. I'd call that ironic what would you call it Mrs. Warner? You do remember you are Mrs. Warner don't you, Stacy." He said. Oh God, how could I forget.

"Mark. Please put it down." I tried to say evenly.

"Please. Please? Remembered your manners now have you? Please put the gun down? I didn't hear you say 'Please' before you picked up with your lover again. I didn't hear a 'please' before you tried to wreck our marriage."

"Mark I didn't wreck our marriage you did. You physically abused me. You hurt Dr. House in the car park so badly you could've killed him."

"Oh yes the brilliant Dr. House. With your help he turned me into a cripple. What I did to him was only fair. My friends can't understand why I'm prepared to forgive you. They don't think you deserve forgiveness but I have told them I have decided to let you come back." Mark had practiced this line I could tell.

I felt a moment of pity and then I remembered how Wilson had said about my husband "I don't think he's mad. I think he's bad."

"I'm not coming back to you, Mark." I realised I would rather he shoot me and that empowered me.

"But you've got to come back. I've told our friends you are coming back." He was pleading. For the first time I saw Mark as repulsive.

"No you told your friends. My friends wouldn't want me to go back to you." I knew I was gaining control. I wondered why he hadn't actually pointed the gun at me. I thought suddenly that it was possible that it was not loaded.

"Then I suppose I will have to shoot you" he said and then as though he had read my mind he pointed the gun at me. I just looked at it. The ugly, heavy, phallic symbol. Our fore-fathers foresight deserted them in this regretable item of our constitution 'the right to bear arms.' The domestic killer and the weapon of a criminal. It was ridiculous and so was Mark to even consider it necessary.

The stupidity of it all made me smile. I stood up and walked across the room to Mark. He looked confused, maybe he thought I was coming back to him. I drew back my hand and slapped the gun out of his hand. It hit the floor and discharged. Then the window that lead to the balcony shattered. I would never forget that moment and the realisation that the gun had been loaded.

My body moved before my mind. I shoved Mark and his wheelchair out of my way and rushed out of the door.

"Call security. There's a man with a gun in room 1203!" I yelled as I ran past the doors, which opened a cautious fraction, as I headed down the corridor to the lift. Seeing Mark wheel out of my room I decided on the stairs.

Two at a time I went up the two stories and left the stairwell running for Tink and Julians suite. I banged desperately on the door. Julian opened the door with a smile.

"What's the fuss?" He asked.

"Call security. Mark, my husband, he's here he has a gun." I explained and Julian's smile vanished.

Julian picked up the phone "Security. There is a man on the twelfth floor with a gun. Room ..."

"1203" Tink and I answered together.

Tink looked at me. "Bathroom" She opened the door and guided me inside. "After I go out lie in the bath. You will be safe there."

"But what about you?"

"I have Julian. Do as I tell you Stacy."

I did. I realized then that I was shaking. Mark had hidden in my bathroom waiting for me. I kept seeing the gun and hearing it go off and the sound of the window shattering. I grabbed a couple of the thick white bathsheets and wrapped myself up in them as I lay down in the bath. Then absurdly I fell asleep.

There in curled up in the bottom of an empty bath I slept through it all.

My husband was arrested and shackled and wheeled out to the hotel to a squad car. Tink under the watchful eyes of two detectives cleared as much as she was allowed to of my belongings out of my room which was now covered in glass fragments from the shattered window. With the assistance of a maid everything was hung up and put away in the new and far surperior room the hotel had provided.

The detectives made noises about keeping my laptop computer but Tink simply refused. Julian contacted Wilson and told him what had happened and after speaking to Greg the men decided their course of action.

Tink came into the bathroom and woke me because the police were ready to talk to me. I gave the two detectives a statement and twenty minutes later they were gone. I noticed the bowl of fruit and asked if I could grab a peach.

Tink and Julian explained that the hotel was very embarrassed that they had allowed Mark in as he was the only person they had been told could not be allowed in. They thought I would have flowers and fruit waiting in my new room.

There was a knock at the door and Julian admitted Wilson. He immediately headed for me sitting down beside me on the sofa and placing an arm around me. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine really I am" I said but my hand shook as Julian handed me a glass of Champagne he had just poured.

"I won't have one thanks, I need to help get House settled." said Wilson

"You mustn't tell Greg about Mark if he gets stressed it will increase the pain." I said, "I'll come up to the hospital later tonight."

"We've checked him out of the hospital. Stacy."

Tink explained I had been busy with the police.

"But he can't go to that flat of his." I said.

"It's alright, Stacy," said Tink "He is here staying at the hotel. He wanted to look after you for a change."

"Why isn't he here now?" I asked.

Julian looked hard at me. "He is in a wheelchair. Stacy. He knew that Mark had threatened you from a wheel chair, he didn't want to frighten you. And besides he has done too much today the nurse we've hired is getting him into bed and making sure he is comfortable."

"I want to see him now." I was worried. "Surely he shouldn't be out of hospital yet?"

Wilson laughed. "There are three doctors in this room House is a doctor too. Stacy there's a nurse with him and the room service menu is better than anything the hospital can offer. And of course he's in television heaven. Stacy he is fine."

"Don't you understand Mark will make bail tomorrow" I said. "I only upset him, he hates Greg"

"There's a very large cop out in the hallway. He's already thought of that Stacy. Says he gave you and Cuddy a police escourt to the hospital when House had his last surgery. Says House saved his wife's life."

"He prayed for Greg" I said.

"I believe you both have a body guard."

The cop's name was Cliff I introduced him to everyone. He didn't want to go into see Greg he had seen him when Wilson brought him in and thought he look tired and ill. Cliff simply assured me that he or one of his friends would be watching the corridor. He was pleased that we were all on the same floor and happy to learn tht Greg and I had separate but connecting rooms. He was an old fashioned guy but he had seen enough of my husband to know I should never ever think of returning to him. "He's a killer, Stacy. He might not 'ave killed yet but he will. Besides Dr House looks like he needs looking after."

Tink told Greg later that she fell in love with Cliff when he said he had organised some friends and they would spend their off-duty hours watching over Dr House and myself. Greg laughed saying there was a time when Cliff had threatened to punch his lights out. I told him that Cliff had prayed for him since then. Cliff had been right. Although Greg was lying in apparent comfort in the large hotel bed he looked tense and his breathing was shallow.

"Greg?" asked Tink.

"Seven" he answered.

Wilson was ready with a syringe "Roll over" he directed. But Greg was reluctant to move his right leg which the nurse had elevated using carefully positioned pillows.

"Use my arm, Wilson" he said. Wilson looked at Tink for direction and Tink nodded. Greg's arm was easily accessed as he was still dressed in one of those awful hospital gowns.

Once I had promised to call roomservice for food the others agreed to leave. The nurse asked if there was anything else he needed.

"I need to pee" as she prepared to help him I realised there were a few things I had to do "have I got time for a quick shower?"I asked Greg smiled at me and I went tthough the adjoining door to my room. And headed for the bathroom.

Seven minutes later I went back to Greg's room clad only in a towelling hotel robe and Greg's favourite perfume. "How is the pain?" I asked.

'It's not so bad. You can get in," he said lifting the sheet and blanket on his left side. He was not wearing the hospital gown which was now folded on the chair at the writing desk. The nurse must have helped him out of it before leaving. I slithered out of the towelling robe and moved under the cool white sheet to Gregs left side

"I just want to feel your skin against my skin." He said as I snuggled into him. Feeling his shuddering intake of breath I pulled back thinking he was in pain but he was feeling something deeper and more profound. Something that brought tears to his eyes.

"Oh God, Stacy. He could have killed you."

Then it hit me. Everything that had happened. Again I saw Mark looking at me with that cold-eyed madness and the gun being pointed and it hitting the floor and discharging. It was like looking at freeze-frames on a video and I started shaking, Greg held me to him as I sobbed. I could feel the warmth of his skin against mine, I pressed closer and closer to him until I felt I was part of him. How had I ever left him? Why had I ever left him? Yes he was 'the one' he would always be 'the one.' I felt the

velvet softness of his beard as he laid his face against mine.

I had survived. I hoped that big cop Cliff was praying for me an Greg because I needed all my courage to ask Greg the question that mattered more to me than life itself.

"Greg?"

"Yes?" He said kissing my forehead.

"Are we still a couple?"