Chapter 13: White Hot

Packing the two four-foot tall shipping containers was tricky, especially when the two people packing them weren't speaking to one another. Not that their silence was out of anger, quite the opposite. Neither truly knew what to say after the evening before. It had been an uncomfortable continental breakfast, and uncomfortable drive to the shipping warehouse, and since they rented a pickup to haul the crates back and forth, the only comfortable moments they had were by themselves in separate vehicles.

Sydney spent the drive talking aloud and cursing at herself for ruining her friendship with the one person that had grounded her during this whole ordeal to whom she wasn't related. Her guilt was also horribly compounded by the fact that her mom has been right. She'd seen something in the two of them before even they did, and that drove her crazy.

Michael had similar rantings in the truck, the Prius leading the way as he called himself every name in the book for 'taking advantage of Sydney in her broken emotional state', and other such sentences, most with far more curse words than he thought he'd remembered. Worse even, he was trying to figure out how he was going to face Laura when they got back. Sure he was a lawyer, but Laura Bristow could shrink anyone down into a little ball of tears with merely a gaze, and she always knew when someone was lying.

Now that the trash was out, Michael taking the first part of the day to get the bags in the dumpster, they set to packing up the essentials and anything Sydney wanted for the boys or for herself. Her phone rang around lunch time, Sydney in the back of the closet in the master bedroom pulling out the box of her maternity clothes.

With a breathy voice she fumbled a greeting into the phone pinched between shoulder and ear, Jake's voice making her smile, relaxing for the first time all day. "Mommy!"

"Hello my sweet boy. I've missed you so much! Are you being a good boy?"

"Yep! Is Michael there?"

Sydney frowned with an incredulous look on her face. "Ummm…yeah. Why?"

"I need him to favor me."

She traveled out of the bedroom and into the hallway, Vaughn in the children's room packing a trash bag full of their clothes and stuffed animals. She paused for a moment at the door and watched as he bent over to pick up a dropped bear. Chastising herself for looking at his backside, she didn't stop looking but did clear her throat.

"Hey…ummm…phone for you."

He turned with a sweaty brow and flashed a smile before taking the cell from her hands. She waited not only because she was hoping that Jake would want to talk to her after talking with Michael, but because she was truly curious about the boy's favor.

Vaughn spoke into the phone as he wiped at the sweat on his brow, his sleeves rolled up to the crooks of his arm but not really helping against the heat that was built up in the upper floors with no air conditioning running. "Hello?"

"Michael, it's Jacob. Can I have you favor for me?" Michael's smile was infectious at the boy's voice and Sydney found herself grinning at his reaction to her son calling to speak with him.

"Sure, buddy. What do you need?"

"I had a birfday present for my mommy in my room – it's hiding. I made it for her at my school, and I wanted to gift it, but we left it there. Can you bring it like a secret?" His heart swelled and he felt tears prick at the back of his eyes.

'How the hell could anyone have hurt this little boy?'

Vaughn turned to see Sydney still standing curiously in the doorway, and he pulled the phone away for a moment. "Guy stuff. Could you…give me a minute with him?"

"Don't let him hang up, okay?" He saw the desperation in her eyes to speak with her son and promised as she left the doorway, having to convince herself to go all the way back to the master bedroom and continue sorting through her clothes when all she wanted to do was eavesdrop on the secret conversation.

"Alright pal, where did you hide it?"

"It's in my toy box, inside the fire truck." Michael lifted the lid on the box and saw infinitely more toys he'd probably have to pack up. Digging around a bit he found the fire truck hidden near the bottom of the pile. Grabbing it he looked inside the cab and found a crumpled piece of folded paper.

"Is it a letter?"

"It's a picture."

"I've got it. I'll put it in my pocket, okay? It'll be a secret and you can surprise her with it when we get back tonight, okay?"

"What if I'm sleeping?" Michael heard the worry in the little boy's voice and nodded, pretty sure their flight would be in for a late dinner time and by the time they got to the house it would be well past his bedtime.

"I'll tell you what. I'll come up and tuck it under your pillow. That way you'll have it in the morning. Deal?"

"Thanks, Michael. You're my best friend."

Once more the boy managed to kick him right in the heart as he smiled. "Okay. I'm gonna give the phone back to your mom, okay? She really wants to talk to you. I'll see you soon, okay?"

They said their goodbyes and he walked the phone to the room spying Sydney struggling with a large box of clothes. "Trade," he ordered, the phone going into her outstretched hand as he pulled the box up with ease and carried it from the room and down the steps.

"Hi sweetie. How have you been?" Her voice was soft and Jake proceeded to tell her all about the few days they'd spent without her at home. Noah wasn't taking it well, the little boy grouchy and crying for most of her trip, and apparently the only person he wanted to hold him was grandma, but other than that everyone was happy and they ate pancakes every morning for breakfast. His observations swung the gamut, but his detail was impeccable and she thanked him from her spot on the bed with one leg folded up as the other dangled off the end.

"Okay honey. You be good for grandma and papa, and I'll see you tonight, okay?"

"Even if I'm sleeping?"

"Even if you're sleeping I'll come in and give you a kiss and tuck you in. Promise," she wiped at a tear that had escaped, avoiding the desperate want to ask him what his conversation with Michael had entailed.

Packing the remaining items into the crates was trying, Michael sweating hard and putting all of his weight on the plastic flaps on top trying to get them to close. Thankfully they finally snapped into place, though it happened despite the fact that his thumb was in the way. He cursed loudly and jumped back, his foot missing the couch he'd used as leverage and he fell with a thud onto the floor as the wind left his lungs in a rush.

He lay on the floor in a cloud of fog for a moment, his hand cradled against his chest as one leg sprawled up against the crate and the other rest on the cushion of the couch. He closed his eyes as he tried to compartmentalize the pain, his eyes only reopening when he felt a soft hand against his cheek. Sydney knelt above him concern deep in her brown eyes.

He could see her lips moving though couldn't quite make out what she was saying for a moment, sound finally broke through as he regained a normal breathing pattern from the short pants he was taking. She was calling his name. It was like an angel was speaking – she even had a little halo of light around her sweaty face, one bead rolling down her neck slowly and he couldn't stop his eyes from focusing on it for a moment. It followed the line of her throat until it dipped down and met her collar bone, disappearing into the soft cotton of the v-neck shirt she was wearing.

"Michael!" She raised her voice as both hands cradled his face and turn his eyes until they met hers. "Are you okay?"

"I just – slipped."

She let out a relieved breath of air and reached a hand back to his neck. "Is your neck okay?"

"Yeah…yeah. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare the shit out of you." He sat up with a wince, her arm reaching around behind his shoulders and pulling to help. "Goddamned box," he groused as he looked at the raised pinch filled with blood on his right thumb.

She pulled his hand close with a wince, "We have a first aid kit, hold on." Standing quickly he had a moment to get his bearings as she ran into the kitchen, appearing a moment later with the object in hand. Flipping it open she grabbed out the ice pack, breaking the seal inside and feeling it cool instantly against her palm. She knelt next to him once more and picked his hand up between her palms pressing the ice pack against the pinched skin. Her eyes were focused on her task but Michael's were free to wander her features once more. He'd been avoiding it all day, but in this moment he couldn't get his mind to listen to reason.

He saw the bags under her eyes, the sweaty sheen to her skin, and the permanent frown marring her mouth. But he also saw the worry, the want to make things right, and the lovely angle of her jaw as it clenched while she looked at his thumb.

'She has a way of sucking you in,' he heard Laura's warning in his mind and boy was she right. Almost anything Sydney did Michael found fascinating

A loose strand of hair was hanging down and without thinking he reached out and tucked it behind her ear, his fingers brushing her neck for a moment until the hand fell back down to his lap and his eyes closed against the bright light.

"You are so beautiful. I - I don't think you've been told that enough." He paused, looking away for a moment at the surprise that flashed across her features, seeing her relax a bit as tension left her jaw. "Thank you for picking me up off the floor. I - I think I got it from here," he strained as he reopened his eyes and found her looking at him, offering an apologetic nod and a soft smile before she placed the ice pack into his hand and stood, taking the stairs to grab the last bag of things to go into the other container.

…

They walked silently through the airport after a silent flight and a silent ride from the shipping company to the terminal, dropping off the rental car before making their way to the gate.

They made their way to the curb as Bill Vaughn smiled and waved. "Your dad couldn't make it; he's stuck in NYC after the conference. Good to have you two back." Hugging both adults and shepherding them into the car, Michael spoke to her for the first time in hours offering her the front seat.

She didn't have the energy to refuse and let him open and then close the door before he walked around to the driver side and slid in behind his father.

"I'm sorry that things happened the way they did, Sydney."

"Thanks, Bill. To be honest, I think it'll make moving on a lot easier."

The rest of the drive was silent, but Michael was determined to memorize every single one of her features before they dropped her off. His father was finalizing all of the paperwork, and after getting Rick's death certificate from the hospital in a day or so, their work with Sydney on her divorce and the other paperwork involved would be completed fairly soon. He didn't know when he'd see her again, if at all.

She was asleep midway through the drive, Bill meeting his son's eyes in the rearview mirror. "We'll have a chat after we drop her off apparently?"

"Yeah. Thanks for picking us up, dad."

The house was quiet but the lights in the front were on. Laura opened the door and waved at them from the top step before moving out to help. She grabbed the suitcase and was surprised when Michael walked them to the house, Sydney mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted and half asleep as she walked the stairs to the bedrooms automatically.

"I promised I'd leave something for Jake, could I go up?" Laura had noticed a forced coldness between the two young adults but chalked it up to frayed emotions and the fact that they'd packed a whole house in two days.

"Of course," she gestured, handing him the two suitcases and letting him lug it up the steps. He dutifully left them at the top turning left into the boy's room rather than chancing a glance right into Sydney's. Jake was curled up in bed purposefully leaving half of his pillow exposed for Michael to access if he was true to his word.

He pulled the crumpled paper out of his pocket and slid it under his pillow before brushing the boy's hair away from his forehead and retreating back to the hallway.

"Michael, thank you for everything. You went above and beyond for my family, and I don't know how we'll repay you." Walking him to the door he flashed a bright but tired smile.

"My pleasure. Take care, Laura."

She followed the lights of the car until it was down the driveway and out of view, only then moving back into the house to close and lock the door. Silence greeted her and she realized that Sydney must have stayed upstairs. She found her daughter asleep on the bed still fully dressed missing only her shoes and jacket. Pulling a spare blanket from the closet in the corner she draped it over her body before turning off the light and closing the door to the room for the night.

…

A line of light finally reached the point in the sky that seemed to break past the window coverings across the room, beaming through and traveling across the pillow and then her cheek, and now finally her right eye making her groan into wakefulness.

Flipping to her back, Sydney realized that she apparently had slept in her clothes, the jeans and t-shirt twisted around her body and wrinkled. Lifting her head just high enough to read 10:17 on the alarm clock, her head flopped back down and she stretched contentedly with a yawn. Her lower back was killing her and she had a persistent cramp in her right side. She chalked it up to the laboriousness of packing almost an entire house in one day, all without doing a single stretch before or after.

Grabbing a towel from the hall closet she padded into the bathroom across the hall intent on washing away every single bit of Los Angeles from her body with a long soak in the tub. She chanced a look at her appearance and saw a rumpled figure before her, but gone were the bags under her eyes and for the second time in weeks her stomach wasn't doing flips and her face wasn't pale.

'Odd. Is morning sickness is just granting me a vacation or something? Whatever it is, I'll take it.'

Running the bath, the amazing claw foot tub regally sitting in the windowed nook of the elegant bathroom, she heard a scampering of feet and looked to the closed door as Noah fumbled with the knob.

"Momma," he cried giving up on the round brass and settling with pounding his little hand on the wood.

She rolled her eyes with a smile realizing that since she'd slept in she would have to take a shower instead and killed the water to the tub. Moving across to the enclosed shower she flipped it on and let the steam build up for a moment before she opened the door for her toddler. He ran face-first into her legs as he continued to cry, Laura in the hallway with an exasperated look on her face.

"Hi mommy." Jake waved, his hand firmly in his grandmother's palm.

"Hi, little roo," she smiled sweetly and made her way out into the hallway, hefting Noah against her hip as she leaned forward to pull Jake against her chest and plant a wet kiss to his cheek. Her back and side protested, the wince not going unnoticed by her mother. "Mommy's going to take a quick shower and then I'll pay with you both all day, okay?"

"You okay, honey?"

'Mom never misses a thing, does she? Eyes like a hawk.'

"Yeah, I think I just pulled some muscles and tweaked my back a bit moving yesterday. It'll go away."

Noah wasn't having any of it, and Sydney let her elder son head off with his grandma while pulling Noah into the bathroom with her. Filling the tub with a little bit of warm water and bubble bath soap, she tossed in his toys and stripped him quickly. The moment he realized it was a playful bath time he forgot how upset he was that his mother was ignoring him and she watched him through the glass of the shower walls as she washed her hair and body before exiting.

He threw a fit when she rinsed him off and began to drain the tub, but she wrapped him in a fuzzy towel blowing raspberries into his stomach in an effort to distract the grumpy child. It worked and she set him on the edge of the sink against her stomach to brush their hair. He wrapped her hair tie around his hands until she slipped it on her wrist and, making sure the towel was tied around her body before picking him up in her arms, she flew him with airplane noises into the boy's bedroom to pick up his essentials before leading him to her room so she could dress as well.

"No put on!" The moment he was free he bolted, Laura scooping him up as he hit the door, a naked wet wriggling mass of two-year old. He tried to fight but couldn't and gave in to the diaper and the clothes Sydney wrestled over his frame while his grandmother held him in place.

Jake ran in and dove onto the bed with a giggle and a bounce, a tattered piece of paper crumpled in his hand. "Mommy, I made this for you for your birthday."

"That was weeks ago, sweetie." She grinned and pulled at the towel around her waist, moving around the room and picking out a comfortable outfit of pajama pants and a fluffy sweater.

"Well, I made it for you at school but forgot it at home. But Michael secreted it here and left it under my pillow just like he promised."

She now knew the subject of their secret conversation while they were packing in L.A., and the pang in her chest was twofold – she did miss the Michael Vaughn's presence, more than she thought she would, and the other was love growing even stronger for her little boy.

"Let me see," she reached for it after slipping the sweater over her body sliding in next to him on the bed.

It was a picture of stick figures, but the smaller one was sideways in the sky with a billowing red cape flying behind its neck and clouds around its head – clearly flying. In the small figure's arms, rather standing on the arms was a larger figure with long brown hair. The bottom of the picture was a crudely drawn house but she could clearly decipher it as their small townhouse below the figures as they flew over.

"It's wonderful; could you tell me about it?"

"That's me, and that's you, and that's our old house."

"Okay, but what are we doing? Are we flying?"

"Mmhmm. I'm your hero, and we're flying away from the house. I'm taking you to grammy and papa's house forever."

Tears welled up and she looked at the picture with a completely different pair of eyes. "Oh, Jakey, I love it. You are my hero," she sniffled and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

"Noah and I are gonna go play with trucks. Loveyoubye!" With that he was gone, grabbing his brother's hand and leading him from the room past Laura as she leaned against the doorframe.

"He's a good little boy, Sydney. You raised him well."

"I called him my hero after I woke up in the hospital. He…he'd been the one to call 911." Instead of feeling the pang of guilt and shame that typically accompanied that memory, she felt a sense of ease wash over her. "He'll always be my little hero."

Gingerly setting the rumpled drawing on her nightstand she stood and saw tears on her mother's cheek. "It's all done, mom. We don't have to cry anymore." The same twinge hit her from before, her lower back making her stretch and grumble.

Sydney pulled Laura into a strong hug before letting her go and pressing a kiss to her forehead. "I'm starving though, is there any breakfast down there?"

Laura nodded and wiped at her cheeks as the two made their way downstairs. "You actually want breakfast?"

"It's weird. Both yesterday and today I haven't had any morning sickness and I've just been hungry all damn day. Maybe this kid will be a little more gentle on me," she laughed and skipped her tea prep as her stomach didn't need it.

"I was going to take the boy's to the playground today, do you want to come with us?"

"Honestly? I'd love to not leave this house once today. Plus I need to unpack my suitcase and the extra one I brought with me, do a bunch of laundry…you know. Mom stuff. But you guys should go and have fun!"

Jake ran in, "when are we going to the playground, grammy?"

"Whenever you two want. Your mommy is going to stay here and unpack, but we don't have to stay for that boring stuff, do we?"

Sydney ate a re-heated breakfast as Laura got the kids ready for the park, Jake slightly upset that she wasn't coming, but when Sydney said he could stay with her only if he helped clean and do chores, he decided it was best to go play with his brother in the park.

"Your father should be home in about an hour, just so he doesn't surprise you. We'll see you in a bit!"

And with that the house was hers. She sat in the kitchen and closed her eyes, smiling at the silence that greeted her. She stood to grab a second helping of bacon and sausage, a cramp in her lower right side making her stop and press her hand against her back and push back against her kneading fingers.

'I may actually have to do stretches today, this is just killing me.'

Placing the food in the microwave she moved back toward to the table as a sharp, white hot burst of pain slashed across her abdomen causing her to crumple at the waist. She groan was caught in her throat as another pierce made her vision blur, and she reached for the back of the closest kitchen chair as he knees began to buckle. A third burst of pain made her eyes roll back and she fell, the side of her head knocking against the seat of the chair as she fell unconscious to the floor.

…