2/6/2011 - Happy 100th Birthday Ronald Reagan!
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Here is the 64th Chapter of Double Take.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans and I do not profit from my writing on . I do however, OWN THE PLOT. Mine... mine, mine, mine.
Why stress the 'I own the plot'? Well, I do, it's my intellectual property and it has in it stories 'inspired from true events' from my life. No, I'm hardly a princess; I've worked in the ER, I've worked in hospice, I went to Penn, and I've ridden and owned horses.
So when a new fanfic'er recently plagiarized this piece, I was floored. The character list was nearly the same (although Kori was a doctor rather than a PhD prepared Nurse Practitioner) and so were major plot points, even minor ones and lines. I know it happens, it just shocked me that someone would do it so blatantly, especially on an AU piece. The story was pulled quickly. I'd like to thank those who reviewed that piece, pointing out that the storyline was stolen. No apology was sent, not that it would be expected. Because the writer was young, an apology would be accepted.
Arrghh, I hate stuff like that.
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Double Take
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Chapter 64
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Alfred's eyes followed Dick as he left the room, watching the young man close the door behind it. At least has hasn't broken anything, well not yet at least, the older gentleman thought. Alfred shook his head and let out a weary sigh, mumbling, "Removing Miss Kori's things and changing this room will not help you forget the love of your life."
Before Alfred did anything, he knew it was best to discuss it with Bruce. He had a feeling that packing up Kori's things and having them returned to the Embassy wholesale would not go well with Galfore, no matter how much the Tamaranean Ambassador was unhappy about his niece residing in Wayne Manor, or rather, under the same roof as her boyfriend.
Whether or not he would comply fully with Bruce's instructions if they were to match Dick's was another matter entirely.
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Kori sighed, looking out at the blue ocean. It was so inviting that she decided to take a swim and realized that even during this retreat, she spent very little time in the water, which was so unusual for a Tamaranean.
Having grown up on an island – even one large enough to be its own country – the ability to swim strongly is a priority, and children because babies can swim from birth, they are encouraged to do so. Generally, that evolutionary throwback is lost once a child is able to move well on land, but parents encourage children to spend time in the water, becoming as competent in water as they are on land. Of course, this is more important to the people who lived near the shoreline or whose families worked in fishing or would dive for oysters or other livelihoods that required extended time in the water or on a boat.
Kori had always loved the freedom she felt when she swam. Swimming in the ocean brought back even more memories, the saltiness of the sea and additional bouncy, the waves and currents, the pockets of cooler water as she swam. Being physically fit, she had easily gone out 4,000 meters before p. As she lay on her back floating, she thinking about whether to continue further or return to shore, she thought a moment about Richard. The following day would be mail day, and maybe he would write, but even if he did, he would not have gotten her letter yet, but would certainly have gotten her phone message. She was unaware that he had destroyed his phone and hadn't replaced it. She was concerned that Alfred had come across the ring cleaning up, but reasoned that it would be fine: there was no reason that Alfred would think it was anything more than an oversight. Alfred understood how Kori felt about Richard. Kori knew that Richard would be upset if he saw the ring just sitting there and knowing how he could be, he would likely do 'the jumping to conclusions'.
Kori was not ready to head back to shore, but realizing that no one knew that she was swimming and that was never prudent to be out in the water with no one aware, she paralleled the shoreline back and forth, taking a sweeping zigzag pattern to shore. She was sleeping poorly since she remembered the ring, and she thought that exhausting herself physically would help her sleep that night.
Finally tiring, she stopped to float on her back again, and then bolted upright at an upsetting thought: if she her to drown, or otherwise meet an unfortunate end, would Richard care? She tread water as she tried to shake the thought. She was not that morbid of a person, and Richard's pushing her away had been more of the 'I'm not good enough for you' and 'I don't deserve you' rather than the 'I'm done with you' scenario. Unable to resolve her feelings, to shake her negative thoughts, she tried to escape them, and began to swim quickly and directly to shore, alternating her strokes from crawl to butterfly to breast to help recover her muscles faster, and to swim at a high rate of speed without a break.
Her butterfly stroke was fast, faster than she had ever moved in the water and she stuck with it after rotating stroke a few times. Still, she was unable to clear her mind, to escape the foreboding that something terrible was happening between them. More and more she knew something was wrong. Something permanent. She already had her plan in place and she would make the most of her remaining time away from DC. She would be a diplomat; she would further her personal knowledge and perhaps her research by visiting hospices in the nearby Mediterranean Countries; and she would contact Bruce once on the mainland and arrange a trip home.
As she hit the breakers, her body was spent and she stumbled on the battered shells at the tide's edge, ignoring the scrapes and cuts on her elbows, knees, and to a lesser extent, hands and shins. She crawled toward where her journal was, and reviewed her plan again in her head.
And whether it was from her spent body, cramped and full of lactic acid from the overexertion of her muscles, or when reviewing her plan the fact that she hadn't even considered contacting Richard when she returned to the Mainland, with little warning, she began to vomit. Was he no longer a priority to her?
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Alfred decided that there was no time like the present to find Bruce. As luck would have it, Bruce was reading in his study, a room which offered total privacy. Bruce called it his work cave. It shared a duct with a rafter in the attic and once or twice a bat meandered in, much to the surprise of the bat and Bruce. Dick had dubbed it the bat cave when he was younger, a name that really didn't stick. Not his man cave, that was a separate room elsewhere in the manor. This was his work sanctuary, complete with soundproofing for keeping noise in or out of the room. All he had to was shut the door, and what happened in Bruce's office, stayed in Bruce's office.
Alfred rang a bell provided because knocking the closed door wouldn't be heard and Bruce appeared quickly. "Pardon me, Master Bruce, I hate to disturb you, but I need to discuss a matter of utmost importance with you."
Because Alfred handled most things that were trivial, and he had said that this was important, Bruce asked Alfred to join him in his office and closed the door. Bruce sensed Alfred's uneasiness. "Scotch, Alfred?"
"I rarely imbibe at this point of the day, Sir, but I will make an exception." Bruce poured about a jigger into a rocks glass of the amber liquid over ice and handed it to Alfred.
"Cheers, although I fear that this is not a cheerful occasion."
"Ergo the double shot Alfred."
"Indeed Sir, you read me well." Alfred steeled himself. He knew there would be an outburst, and he hoped that it would, a) not be too bad and b) aimed at Dick and not at himself. "I might as well just come out and say it: Master Dick has asked he to pack up Miss Kori's items and have them returned to the Tamaranean Embassy."
"What?" Bruce shouted and stood from his chair and paced back and forth the length of the room a single time. He returned to his leather chair, now fully composed. "Specifically what transpired Alfred and when."
"The 'when' part of it Sir, was within the hour. What transpired was that Master Richard came upon the ring that he had given Miss Anders."
"Which ring? The one that was his mothers?"
"Yes. That very one."
"I see. That is upsetting. I hadn't gotten the impression that she was breaking off the relationship when she left for Greece."
"Nor did I. The truth of the matter was that Kori had left Master Dick a note concerning other jewelry that he had given her, a necklace and bracelet, and why she left them, and that she wanted them put in the safe for her until her return. They had been left on her chest of drawers.
"The ring, however, was left with no note on her dressing table."
"So you believe that she left the ring by accident?" Bruce asked.
"I do Sir. Plus, it would not be Miss Kori's style to be that cruel to Master Dick."
"That's for sure. And where she is, it would be very difficult to contact us."
"What should I do about her items, Sir?"
"They stay where they are. You can organize them if you want to, she did leave quickly and was worried that she was leaving her room messy, but I know that she was still hopeful that they would work something out."
"Very good, Master Bruce. Master Dick also asked that I redecorate the room. Shall I go ahead with that?"
"Oh really? No."
"Very well."
"Thank you Alfred. Do you know where Dick is now?"
"I believe he is on the sun porch with Miss Barbara at the moment."
"Could you ask him to meet me up here Alfred?"
Alfred smirked a very un-Alfredy smirk. "It would be my pleasure, Sir."
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"You seem to be doing well, Dick. No pain today?" Barbara purred, surprised and ever so pleased that Dick was letting her lean against her as they sat together on the love seat.
She was pretending to read a book and he was reviewing some numbers from the foundation. Babs was seeing what she could get away with, rubbing his forearm on his good side, and then gently resting her hand on his thigh. She dropped her head onto his should, making sure that he breast brushed his upper arm. He sighed, but then rolled his shoulders.
Barbara looked up at him, concern on her face, "Are you stiff darling? Should I rub your shoulders?"
Yeah, I'll be getting stiff if you keep it up Babs. "Sure."
Dick was happy for the attention. He knew what Babs was up to and he wasn't going to stop her. Why should he. Kori was done with him. She left her preengagement ring, ran off to Europe and stayed there. Dick was done with Kori. He had plenty of other women that would happily spend time with him, keep him sated. Maybe Kori wasn't a tease on purpose, but even with there past, he deserved a more physical relationship. He kept going over it in his head. She probably hit thirty and decided that she needed to get married. I was just the lucky – or unlucky – guy that was there at that time.
"Sit on the floor in front of me Dick so I can work on your shoulders first."
Dick sat with his back to the front of the sofa and Babs sat behind her. Still flexible from years of gymnastic, she could spread her legs obscenely wide. Her crotch was touching the back of his neck. She leaned down and started kneading his shoulders, and as erotic as this position was, as their proximity was, Babs couldn't get an adequate angle to do much with his lap. It became a brief battle in her mind: her enjoyment and likely his as they held this position, or have Dick lean forward so she could properly access his back.
"You better lean forward, Dick, so I can get to more of your muscles."
Dick chuckled. "I guess you're right, but there are advantages to this position."
"Oh yes, but we can revisit that sort of thing later. Let's get you comfortable and go from there."
"Sounds like a plan."
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Barbara was finished working on Dick's back. Shaking off the images of the time that Kori had worked on his back and how much better it was, how much more arousing it was, even with it being a therapeutic massage. He felt a longing for Kori, a feeling that he should let her explain before he jumped into bed with Barbara, something that he would certainly do within the next few days. Gingerly sitting up and easing himself back onto the sofa with the help of his good hand, he looked down at the other redhead in his life and decided that he might as well go for the sure thing. Kori wasn't there, Babs was - end of story.
Soon, Dick's casted arm was propped up on the back of the sofa and his good hand massaging her breast, Barbara was acting like she was about to wiggle out of her clothes. Dick wondered if she was really that worked up or if it was an act. He decided not to care – again, she was a sure thing.
And that was when Alfred walked in. He cleared his throat. Because she was facing the door, Barbara gave him an annoyed look, "Can't you see, we're busy?"
"So it would seem, Miss Gordon, however, it is most urgent that Master Dick see Master Bruce in his office."
Dick said nothing and basically pushed Babs off of him and rose, leaving her at first stunned and then angry. She 'hmffed' and then whined, "What about me, Dick?"
"I've obviously got something to attend to."
"What should I do?" Babs complained.
"Stay here, go home,I don't care," Dick said evenly.
Babs bit back an angry comment. She knew this side of Dick, but knew that she had to just wait around and he'd either come around or just continue to remain impassive. At least he wasn't throwing her out. "I'll see you later," she replied in an upbeat tone, a smile on her face as she settled further into the sofa.
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Dick had no idea what awaited him. He certainly wasn't expecting Bruce to come at him full force. It had been a while since he had seen this side of him.
"Let me get this straight, you decided that Koriand'r's things should be returned to the Embassy."
Confused and defensive, Dick replied, "Yeah Bruce, so?"
"Don't take that tone with me Dick, you aren't a sullen 15 year old anymore."
Dick just blinked and waited for Bruce to say something.
"Do you understand what might have happened if Alfred would have sent Kori's things back to the Embassy?"
"It wouldn't have been an Act of War, Bruce."
"Sarcasm now, Dick?"
"Okay, I guess I don't understand. She left me, I'm sure she won't come back here so I thought I'd expedite things and get her things back to her home."
"Dick, it's not your decision. She is my guest, my responsibility. Did you already forget the paparazzi and the press hounding the both of you, but her in particular? She is here because of that, not because of you and the relationship you have with her-"
"We don't have a relationship-"
"She left the ring here by accident."
"Really? Where's your proof?"
"I don't need proof. Kori wouldn't do that to you."
"But she did. Even if she just forgot it, she obviously didn't remember right away, so it means nothing to her."
"Maybe she was a bit preoccupied with her thoughts about you and Barbara."
"Leave her out of it!" Dick shouted.
"Why, you aren't?"
"This discussion is over!"
"No, it isn't Dick. Kori is staying here as long as she needs to. It was arranged with Galfore."
"Galfore only arranges engagements," Dick growled.
"Dick, she was practically child and that is their culture's way. She didn't marry the guy. Get over it. Plus, Galfore did fix you and Kori up."
"I was already planning to ask her out."
Bruce returned to the subject at hand. "Kori will return here as my guest, and leave when she wants, if she wants. If you have a problem with it, perhaps you are the one who should move out."
"Seriously? I'm supposed to move out because my ex can't deal with a little notoriety?"
"She's your ex now? Are you sure about that?"
"She made sure about it."
"She wasn't the one cheating."
"No, she was the one teasing me. If she's staying I'm leaving. I'll start looking for somewhere to stay this week."
Bruce couldn't help but become a bit more paternal. "I won't hold you to that Dick. You can do whatever you want, and I know it's none of my business, but when you and Kori were together, before all this business with Barbara going to rehab and you being her support person, you were happier than I have ever seen you. Try not to throw that away before talking to her, Dick."
Dick realized Bruce might have a good point, but shrugged it off. "I'll think about it."
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to be continued...
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