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Chapter 20
Somewhere in the middle of the night she started thrashing about, mumbling words over and over again.
"I can't do this again, I can't go thru this again. I can't," she said those words over and over for a good twenty minutes as he woke to them. He tried calming her down with pulling her closer but that didn't seem to work this time like it did in the cabin. He pulled his mouth close to her ear and tried whispering slowly into it that he was here and that everything was going to be all right when her words calmed a bit, they weren't completely gone. She still mumbled them as his hands from behind rested themselves on her stomach, she almost instantly calmed. He nuzzled his nose in her neck as he fell back to sleep.
"Hey, you're up early" he told her as he woke to see her sitting in the chair next to her bed; she was fully dressed and hadn't bothered to put the light on. He sat up in her bed and looked at her.
"What do you want to say?" he asked her, she just looked at him, how did he know she had something to say, something important to say.
"I... I...I have to go away for a while" she told him and he got out of bed, he walked over to her.
"Whats this about? Why?" he asked as he stared into her eyes.
"I just need to, things... us ... were moving to fast for me, I'm not comfortable with it, there's other stuff too, I just need some time, some space to maybe work things out, don't be mad" she told him and she got up from the chair, she brought her hand to his face, she smiled at him.
" You are too good for me John McBain," she told him
"No, I'm not I wish you would stop saying that" he told her as it felt like she was saying goodbye forever
"How long will you be gone?"
"Don't know," she said and he started to get a bit teary.
"Just stay, don't go, I won't say those words again, I promise," he told her and she smiled weakly
"I wish it was those words that were the problem," she told him and she kissed him gently on the cheek
"Lock up for me when you leave, I've already told my uncle I won't be around for a while" she said and she started walking out the door.
"Natalie... do--" he was starting to say as she walked out the door but he stopped, she was going, for what ever reason she was leaving and he only hoped she wouldn't stay away to long.
Two weeks later
"Hey Johnny, how are ya? You want to come hang out with me and Marcie tonight, maybe have some dinner?" Michael asked as he came into John's office at the station.
"Nope Mikey, not tonight, maybe another night okay?" he asked and Michael closed the door of John's office.
'You here from her yet?" he asked and John shook his head no
"You know where's she at?" he asked and John shook his head yes.
"AC, been there for the past few weeks"
"You got someone watching her?" Michael asked knowing the answer
"Yeah an old friend from the department" john answered as he and Michael looked at each other.
"Why don't you just go see her, you're miserable, the two of you have a lot to talk about" he said and John looked on confused.
'What?" john asked having a feeling Michael might know something he didn't.
"Just you look bad John, she's probably just as bad. The two of you need to talk, work this out, what ever it is out. You're both obviously in love with each other, just go, go see her," he told John covering his butt, hoping that if John went to her. He could get thru to her, get her to come back to Llanview.
"I'm fine Michael, and I can't go there to get her, to talk to her, she has to come to her own conclusion, she has to want to come back, for me, to me" he told him as he got up from his desk.
'I've got a lot of work Mikey, I'll call ya, Okay?" he told him and escorted him out the door. John returned back to his seat, he brought his hands to his face and held it as he closed his eyes tight, just hoping to see her face in his mind, to see her laugh in his mind.
"When the hell are you coming back Natalie, and why did you feel you needed to leave in the first place," he said out loud as he heard a small voice at his door.
"Hi John" Julia told him and he looked up from his hands and he smiled.
'Hey Julia how are you? " He asked her and the small girl smiled, he went over and bent down to her eye level.
"I good, me and mommy came to see uncle Bo, we gonna get pizza, pepperoni is my favorite" she told him and he smiled
'I remember" he said as he stood and saw Jessica walk in looking for Julia, she smiled at John.
"Julia could you go ask uncle Bo if he wants to come to lunch with us" Jessica asked Julia, the child waved goodbye to John and walked into the other room.
"How are you John?" Jessica asked
"Why does everyone keep asking me that, I'm fine?" he said as he walked away from her over to his desk.
"I don't know you very well. We haven't had the opportunity to get to know each other well but... but I know Natalie, she'll find what ever it is she is looking for. Whatever it is she is doing and when she does, she'll come back to us, to you. She loves us, she loves you, even if she never admits it out loud." she told him, he smiled weakly
"Just remember she does, cause I know its hard to sometimes but she hasn't had an easy time of things growing up and she hasn't even shared a lot of stuff of me that I suspect she's shared with you, she loves you John and she'll be back, I know she will"
"I know she loves me, even if she can't admit it. I just miss her, isn't that a bit funny? We haven't known each other that long and I feel as if my heart has been ripped out for the past two weeks that she has been gone." he told her and Julia ran into the room, saying she was hungry. Jess just smiled at John, they all said goodbye and they left.
AC
It had been two long weeks alone in a dingy hotel in AC, she came here to think, to process things and all she seem to be doing is torturing herself by being away from him, away from her family even. She had been thinking non-stop about the situation, about the baby growing inside her. She was a little over three months pregnant now, almost thru her first trimester, she was taking care of herself and the life growing inside her, but it didn't seem real to her. She was afraid for it to be real, to feel real, she was afraid to even feel anything. If she felt something and she lost it again, it would be ten times worse for her, even worse. This time she had things, this time the timing could even be right for having a baby, for having something to love... but... she couldn't let herself go there. She couldn't think about all the good things, couldn't bring herself to envision herself with a child, a baby, and with him.
Him... she thought another thing she wanted so desperately not to think about but how could she not, she was in love with him and she might have his child if things went well, if things didn't get messed up this time. If things were right this time.
She pulled out a piece of paper and her phone.
"Hey, its Natalie Buchanan, did you get the info I asked for?"
Two hours later Natalie was walking into a diner on the outskirts of Ac, she looked around, what a dive, she thought, and she looked back behind into the kitchen to see a man, he was doing dishes, he looked strung out, a junkie she thought, no she knew, she could tell, part of her job was to observe and she knew this sleaze ball was a junkie among other stuff.
"Chuck Harris" she called out to the Junkie behind in the kitchen doing dishes. The man looked up and smiled a bit.
"Yes, what can I help you with gorgeous?" he asked and she was repulsed with his very words.
"Nothing, nothing at all" she said as she walked out of the diner, she got in her car and drove toward the cemetery, she stopped first for flowers and walked up to there grave stones.
"I'm sorry I haven't been here in so long, I use to come here all the time to feel close to you," she said and she stopped, she placed the flowers down on the sites. She stood silent for a few minutes.
"I'm pregnant again, but you both already know that, not sure how this one is going to turn out, not sure how all of this is going to turn out, there's a guy, a good guy, he's helped me a lot, I think I L--, feel for him, but I just don't know how to express it, and... and I still have all this guilt, he's been trying to help me with that, he did help me with that but it didn't go completely away, being pregnant brought it back for me," she sat down on the grass, she started pulling up some grass, little bits of grass.
'Its so peaceful here isn't it? " She said as she just sat back in silence for a few minutes and looked around.
"Peace, I wish I could find peace, peace with myself for all that had happened to me back then, I wish you could help me find it, find it again like you did all those years ago, I wish you could give me a sign, anything that it's going to be okay." Natalie was crying, the wind started to blow for a few minutes but she didn't notice it. She felt the rain, soft, cooling rain but she didn't move, she sat there getting wet. She felt it wash over her, it was cool rain but somehow, someway it warmed her. She heard the thunder, she didn't flinch, she sat, she heard it again, it was getting closer, but she didn't move. She saw the lightening, the bolt not that far away and it was as if she was seeing them in it. The two of them, and they were smiling, she stood, she heard the last crackle of thunder, she felt the rain begin to stop.
"I love both of you" she said as she started to walk away from their graves, she got in her car, she started to drive, home, she drove as she came into another storm, a thunderstorm and she wasn't afraid.
Llanview
"No Michael I'm fine, yes I'm fine, I had dinner at the diner and now I'm just finishing up paperwork, could you please stop being such a mother? Good bye Michael, talk to you tomorrow I have work" John said as he hung up the phone in his office. He was sitting at his desk and he twisted the chair away from the desk a bit. He put his elbows on his knees and held his face in his hands. He took a deep breath in and after a few minutes he sat up straight and looked instantly to his office door. There she was, he shook his head, was it really her? Was she back?
"Long day?" she asked as she slowly walked into his office, she saw him stand but not move, she wondered how this was going to play out, he was a patient man but... but was the time she was away, was that to much to ask. The awkward silence went on for almost five minutes as they studied each other.
She was here; he said to himself inside, she was back. Two long weeks, the longest weeks of his life and she was now standing in front of him. She was a mess, her hair was all damp looking and knotted, her clothes seem to also be wet but she was the most beautiful mess he had ever laid eyes on, she always was.
"When did you get back?" he asked her after a few more minutes.
"Just now" she told him as she moved a bit closer, he still stood in his spot, his ground, he knew she needed to be the one to come to him, she was the one that left, she needed to be the one to come back.
"You look like you've been in a storm?" he told her and she smiled a bit.
"I have, the most beautiful thunderstorm of my life," she answered and he grinned a bit, he didn't know why, her words just made him grin. She took another step closer to him, she was close this time, standing within a few feet from him, more silence came as they could each just about feel the others heat.
"A beautiful thunderstorm Huh?" he asked and she shook her head
"Not afraid anymore, ... of the storms" he asked her as he watched her mouth and then stared into her eye's looking inside.
"I'm still afraid," she told him and he let out a disappointed breath, he broke eye contact and started to walk away a bit when she grabbed his hand before he walked to far.
"But... I'm not going to let it run me. I'm not going to run and hide. I'm still scared John, but... but not so much when I'm with you, I barely feel it when I'm with you" she told him and he closed his eye's. She was back, he told himself excited inside, he grinned with closed eyes and then opened them, and she was grinning to. She started to close the distance between them and he stopped her for a minute. She got a confused look on her face as he walked away from her.