Chapter 19

Tiptoeing quietly into the bedroom, Sully sank himself wearily into a chair beside the bed and next to the cradle. Michaela was still on the other side of the bed, but her face was turned toward him and he could see the tear tracks as they lay exposed to him like open wounds. Michaela was ill now. He knew that as surely as he knew he was the cause of it. She was not ill in a way that could be cured by medicine or rest, though he was sure there were treatments for what ailed her that incorporated such things. He knew though, that those simple things wouldn't fix it.

He knew that something was broken inside Michaela, something perhaps Cloud Dancing couldn't even fix, though he would seek out his friend in the mountains of Montana if his wife didn't improve in the days to come. Sully hesitated to go to Montana, however, because it would mean being away from Michaela and the children again and he feared that they would not believe him if he said he would return from this second absence. The children would become withdrawn again and Michaela, well Michaela might just go to a place where it wouldn't be safe for her to stay with them anymore and he couldn't let his wife, and the love of his life, go like that. He had promised her he would take care of her, stand by her, and he vowed that would be enough to keep it from every being suggested that she should ever be sent away, and if it came to that, Sully vowed not to let them take her. He would care for her all of his days, in sickness and in health. It didn't matter now whether she said that she wanted him gone and it wouldn't until he was sure that she was in her right mind, Right now, he wasn't going anywhere no matter how much she begged or pushed him away.

The babies began to stir again and Sully knew that he would have to wake his wife once more for feeding. That meant seeing her undressed once more. Sully dreaded Michaela's reaction to him in their bedroom and worse yet, a further continuation of the reaction she'd had when nursing before, but the children were hungry and their mother desired to feed them.

Sully knew something else as well. When Michaela had been in the midst of her tirade she had said something that he could have sworn was close to the sentence, "I love you too much to let you stay with a whore," which really meant staying with her. He hadn't understood the meaning of the words until sitting in the chair. But as he gazed over at his wife for a moment, thinking about the best way to awaken her, he realized their connection was still there, but buried under psychosis, melancholia and guilt, all of which could be attributed to both parties at one time or another during their argument. Sully only hoped that he could use his wife's love as a gentle coaxing tool to get her to open up to him about what had happened, about what she wanted from him, about the letter and about who had hurt her so deeply as to convince her that she was someone he didn't even recognize. She was not whore. She was his enthusiastic, loving wife, the best mother one could ask for, and a skilled doctor who could heal with medicine and compassion. Those were the things that she was, to others, to the children, to Sully and, most of all, somewhere deep in her heart, to herself. He just had to remind her of that if he could.

Sully crossed to Michaela's side of the bed and lightly touched her shoulder, whispering ever so gently, "Chaela, the babies are hungry again." Sully had hoped that by using the term of endearment, he could show his wife he still held her in the most intimate part of his heart and that she need not be afraid that he was going to take advantage of the love which had once given him the right to freely use such an expression. He only hoped that she wouldn't take offence.

"Sully?" she murmered sleepily, "What are you still doing here? I told you to get out," her voice was soft and still sleep-filled, but Sully knew that when she more fully awoke, She would fight him and he would be direct with her in his refusal of her command. He had to be. He would be gentle but adamant, as any healing he and his wife attempted to experience would not be come by pushing the other away. He did however, want to respect her desires and so he was careful to state his reasons for remaining in objective terms.

"The babies still need to be fed, Michaela, and you need my help to do that, remember?"

"Yes," she mumbled embarrassed, tears springing to her eyes," I do." She slowly sat up, eyes downcast as she winced at the pain in her body. Sully noticed the wince and helped her to sit by placing his arm around her back and underneath her legs. Michaela registered her protest at this action by looking her husband in the eye, but she said nothing, knowing on the most basic level that for her children's sake she could not demand that he leave her for her own reasons or for his protection. The babies were what mattered now. When she was comfortably seated on the pillows, Sully went to the twins cradle and lifted Charlotte from it carefully, trying not to jostle Josef as he did so.

Charlotte opened her eyes and focused on her father with an intense stare, a stare that reflected contentment and security. As he saw this, Sully cuddled his daughter closer, as he brought her to her mother, relishing for a moment that he could make at least one of his girls feel such satisfaction and safety merely by being held in his arms. When Sully had placed Charlotte in her mother embrace, he sat on the bed in front of Michaela and waited. Again the two parents did not speak during Charolotte's nursing, but Sully knew instinctively when Michaela need to stop and rest. Her eyes would cloud over with tears and though she would try to hide them and her facial expressions, Sully would quickly take Charlotte from her so that the pain of the act of nursing would not overwhelm her and cause her to scream like she had when Katie had run into her hours before.

After several breaks, Charlotte had finally drunken her fill and Sully brought Josef over to nurse. Josef was smaller than his sister and so Michaela didn't need as much help holding him, but he tended to drink faster than his sister, causing Michaela much more pain. She was in so much pain that she continued to cry softly throughout the nursing of her son, even though Sully made sure they took a break as often as they could, without stopping completely. However, what had been an hour process with Charlotte became a three hour process with Josef, a process which halfway through it had to again include Charlotte as she demanded to be nursed again every hour and a half to two hours.

By the end of the night, Michaela was sobbing openly from the sheer torture. There was the pain in her mind and all throughout her body. Sully took a chance and, covering her up with a blanket quickly so as to respect her modesty, drew her gently against his chest and wrapped his arms around her. Michaela did not protest, partly because she needed Sully's hold,it helped ease the pain of what she was, helped her forget how useless she was to everyone around her and somehow it eased the pain in her body as well.

As the night came to a close and Sully took her into his arms for what was the fifth time in those wee hours of the morning, she looked up into his eyes, tears reflecting in her hollow ones, all the fire gone, and simply said, "Thank you." Before letting go of him quickly and sinking back on her pillows to sob herself to sleep. Sully stayed by her, but didn't know whether to touch her or not, as the small personal contact they'd had had been to him been a miracle. He didn't want to ruin it by pushing it too fast. Instead of holding her, he merely sat on the bed again in front of her, watching her sleep. Her blouse was still open and so he hastily pulled up the covers to hide it from his and her own view, as the marks on it and the exposure of her body would surely make her sob harder than she already had. About 6 a.m., the time that Sully would have arrived at the homestead from the lean-to, Michaela fell into a fitful sleep and Sully went downstairs to make breakfast.


Two weeks later, Sully found himself waking to the sound of birds and the rustle of the trees outside his lean-to. He turned over just on the verge of wakefulness but fighting it. He was having a nightmare, but he desired to see how it ended before he awoke.

"What will he do without me?" Snowbird breathed, drawing in a shaky breath, one Sully was sure would be among her last. She had not told Cloud Dancing that she loved him and yet he knew, he knew without words, just as she knew the feelings of his heart without having to say them. Suddenly, the body on the ground was not Snowbird's any longer. It was Michaela's. She was dying, just as Snowbird had, but her last words were not the fulfilling ones of her friend, but rather ones of intense pain.

"He is better off without me. He will be free to do what he wants when I am gone. Do not worry Cloud Dancing. Look after the children for me and see that Sully is happy. That is all I ask." Michaela then shut her eyes and ceased to live.

Above her words, Sully had been shouting, "Michaela, I'm here. Don't go. I'm not better off without you. Please come back, "he had cried sobbing. The scene shifted yet again and Sully struggled to hold onto his dream a while longer. This time it was he who lay in Snowbird's place with Cloud Dancing above him and Michaela at his side. "What will she do without me?" Sully choked out, feeling his life leaving him.

Cloud Dancing gave the only reply he could to Sully's question in his even and wise tone. He answered simply, "Her spirit will die as well."

Sully awoke with a start, screaming in fear and confusion as he realized that he indeed still was at the lean-to. Without thinking he pulled on his buckskin and raced from the site to where his horse stood tied to a tree. He untied his mount and with his heart racing he galloped to the homestead, not thinking about what he would say or do when he got there, only knowing with certainty that Michaela needed him, if not at the moment, then soon. I new that the representation of Cloud Dancind that was in the dream had spoken the truth and he wondered for a moment if his blood brother had sent him the dream on purpose so as to warn Sully about what would happen if he did not reconcile with his wife.

Sully's heart continued to pound as he neared the homestead an hour and a half later. All seemed calm around it, but its serenity looked almost ominous as though fate were taunting him with his own comfort level. He didn't know whether his fear was justified, or if he was just being paranoid, but he knew the dream meant something and he had to find out just what. Sully dismounted his horse and tied him up in the corral before racing towards the stairs and starting up them. Halfway up the stairs though he realized that he couldn't just tell Michaela about the dream. In the last two weeks they had grown further apart than they had in those first two days after the twins birth. "Perhaps," Sully thought, "that wasn't quite accurate. " The only reason they'd been close after the twins birth was because they had to be, and Sully had to admit that it had been only a matter of time before the awkward situation became too much for one or both of them. Sully though back to a few weeks ago with an ache in his heart at the reality of the turn which the situation with his wife had taken.

Michaela had asked Colleen and Andrew to move into the homestead for a while because she had told her daughter that it wasn't fair to make Sully to stay in a place where he didn't feel comfortable and that it wasn't fair to force him to take care of a woman he didn't love. They had discussed all this without Sully's knowledge and he had come home to find Colleen and Andrew moving into Colleen's old bedroom when he came in for supper. Colleen still refused to speak to him, but Michaela had announced their daughter's and son-in-law's decision to everyone at dinner. Per she and Sully's agreement, she did not mention that this would mean that Sully would be sleeping elsewhere, although the three older children knew that that reality was what prompted such a move.

Matthew was relieved. He had found in difficult to maintain his distance from Sully in the past few weeks, part of him desiring to scream at his father further, and another part of him desiring to tell Sully how much Sully's disappearance hurt him. "Now," Matthew though, "I won't have to deal with him. He'll be gone. I won't have to see that look in Ma's face any more. And" he reminded himself, " won't have to deal with the pain Pa caused me." With a smug smile on his face, he shot Sully across the dinner table, communicating his acceptance and pleasure at the removal of his father from the tense situation.

Brian, on the other hand, didn't want his father to leave. After that night, Sully had comforted him like a small child, Brian had realiezed he loved his father and didn't want him to live anywhere else but with them, and though he behaved in a completely adult manner around the family, he knew that his Pa knew his vulnerability and it felt good not to have to be on guard all the time for fear of letting his own insecurities slip. Brian knew, though, that his mother was unhappy having his father in the house and this hampered Brian's desire for his father not to leave. "perhaps if Pa stayed away for while Ma will get her confidence back and pa can slowly start to prove to her that he loves her again." Brian knew that his mother no longer believed this and knew that the thing which had destroyed his mother had something to do with love and giving it to her husband and to others. He prayed that this seperation would show his mother that she needed to give her love to his father in order for them to be completely full and happy.

Katie was oblivious to the ruse, though, and was simply glad to have her sister and brother-in-law in the house for her to play with. The observant little girl didn't catch her father's devastated eyes or her mother's empty look this time. For Matthew had already distracted her with a game of find the bunny, a game that Katie loved to play with her favorate stuffed toy and her "bestest oldest brother in the whole wide world."

As soon as Matthew had returned to his house in town, Colleen and Andrew had retired up to their bedroom for some sleep before Colleen had to get up with Michaela and the babies in a few hours, Sully had read his youngest daughter a bedtime story and tucked her in for the night before going to say goodbye to Michaela and heading to the lean-to. As he approached her, she moved to keep him at a distance, and so he stood five feet away from her, practically having to stand against the bedroom door for her to be comfortable with being in the room with him.

"Sully," she said too calmly for his comfort, "I think it's time that I discuss divorce proceedings with Matthew. I know it will be hard to have our own son draw up the papers, but it will save us some money, Sully, and right now we need all the money we can get for the children. Brian is starting college in the fall and we'll need more clothes for the infants because we have a son and daughter now needing baby clothes, rather than just one child. Katie with also need proper school attire and…"

Sully cut her off, "I'll pay for whatever you and the children need, Michaela. I always promised to take care of our family, and I always will."

"That's just if, Sully. There's no 'ours' anymore. It's yours and mine and we each have to do an equal and separate share of the work. After all, we won't be sharing financial burdens any more once the divorce is finalized I…"

"Who said I agreed to any divorce" Sully shouted, for a moment not caring if he woke the children or if they found about Michaela's plan to disentangle her life from his. "I love you. I want to be with you. I always have. I always will. Why can't you see that? I will not give you a divorce. I told ya I'd respect ya but this is going beyond that."

"You think that yelling at me is going to tell me you love me? You don't love me Sully otherwise you would never have left. You're lying to me now. For what reason, I don't know, but it's a lie, Sully, and I'm releasing you from having to stand by me without loving me. If you love me, the look would still be in you eyes and the tone would still be in your voice. It hasn't been there for months Sully. Perhaps it was never there. Perhaps I imagined it. Maybe I was just a beautiful woman to you, whatever the reason that you stayed here with me and the children, whatever the reason for Katie and Charlotte and Josef's existence, I release you from the confines of that decision now. I know you don't love me, Sully. I know it as surely as I know I don't love you."

Sully was taken aback by the words, but they didn't sting him as much as the ones in her letter had because he could detect the overwhelming falsehood that enveloped them. She was lying now, just as he had lied before, but he had obviously done a better, or worse job of it depending on how one looked at it, because his wife had bought his untruth whole-heartedly. He had also known that at that moment, he had no other option but to leave, and yet he had to say one last thing before he left. He raised his head from the lowered position that it had occupied throughout the conversation they'd just had and entreated in the gentlest voice he had ever used, "Please Michaela. Don't file the papers yet. Give it a few days. Please just think it over. Please don't do this to us, not yet. If you don't think it over for me, please just do it for the children. They wanna see us lovin' each other Michaela and they have a right to that."

Michaela looked angrily into his eyes and began to say, "How dare you tell me what my children need…" but she had stopped abruptly in mid-sentence. as though caught in the limbo between knowing the truth of Sully's words and needing to deflect them back at him.

For a moment, all she did was stand in silence, her voice having left her after the word "need" and then, a moment later, she'd given an almost imperceptible nod of assent to Sully's plea.

As he recalled the conversation from where he stood on the porch two weeks later, his mind reeled from the force of the conversation and the words of his friend in his dream. Something was about to happen and he knew that whatever it would be would be painful for both he and Michaela, but he knew in his soul that he had to try to use the meaning of his brother's words to save his marriage and his wife from ruin. He couldn't just stand by and watch.


This is my first fan fiction and I would appreciate any and all feedback, so please feel free to review the chapter and any subsequent chapters if you think they are of interest either here or be orginal and comment on the "Stand By Me" thread of the fanfiction section of the Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman forum The link to the thread is: http/forum.drquinn.us/viewtopic.php?t3949

Thanks, Corinna