Resolutions – 33
Not a Bang, But a Whimper
by MMB
Crystal swam hard against the dark flow that kept driving her down, down, towards nothingness. Her chest hurt — it felt as if a ton of rocks was sitting on her, making it hard to breathe. And she was so tired — so very, very tired. It was hard to summon the strength to continue to fight against the strong tide pulling her backwards and down into that deep darkness. But something kept urging her to try, to continue fighting. Finally she was able to feel the hand holding hers tightly, although she could do little to move the fingers within that grasp.
She must have done something, though, for the grasp tightened, and then she could feel the sensation of someone stroking her forehead and cheek gently. She took in a deep breath that ached more than any other she'd taken as yet, and she moaned softly. "That's it," a gently accented voice urged her anxiously. "That's it. You can do it. I knew you were stronger than anybody thought."
She swam harder against the dark flow now, struggling to get to the voice that was calling her by name now. Another achingly painful and deep breath, and she was able to flutter her eyelids. As the darkness receded, she could catch glimpses of light, and finally her eyes cracked open just a little.
"There you are," Sydney sighed in relief. His fingers resumed the rhythmic stroking of her cheek that had begun the moment he'd felt her fingers twitch in his. Outside it was already daylight — but he'd not paid attention to anything but the pale face in front of him. Behind the bed, the heart and blood pressure monitor measured Crystal's bodily functions silently, and the intravenous tubing snaked down into the crook of her right elbow. Hanging from the rack were a plastic bag of whole blood to replenish her severely diminished system into which the nurse had injected medication several times over the time he'd spent at her side.
Crystal blinked slowly once more to try to clear her vision and then moaned and tipped her head toward the voice and the gentle stroking. Whoever it was sitting next to her was nothing but a blur. She blinked again, and the blur began to resolve itself into Sydney's worried face.
"Shhh…" he soothed the moment he saw that she'd recognized him, stroking her cheeks and forehead again very gently. "You've been through a very tough time, and you need to rest and get better now…"
"Wha…" Why couldn't she get her lips to form proper words? Her forehead creased with the effort.
"You're in the hospital," Sydney told her gently. "You just came out of surgery. It's OK for you to be groggy right now — you need your rest so you can heal."
Her fingers tightened in his grasp just enough to show her desperation. She concentrated and finally got her lips to move more coherently. "My… fa…"
"You're safe, sweetheart," he soothed again. "He'll never be able to hurt you again. Don't think about him right now. Think about getting better…"
Her mind flew back to the last thing she could remember clearly — her father pointing a gun at her and the sensation of being shoved back in the chest, hard. He'd shot her, she suddenly realized. She should be dead! Finally her eyes cleared to the point that she could see just how worried Sydney was as he sat next to her, and from the pain in her chest began to connect the dots. Summoning her almost non-existent strength, she whispered, "I'm… not…going… make… it… am… I?" When Sydney's face folded in grief and frantic worry, she took a more shallow breath to avoid the ache. "Tell… me… truth…"
The chestnut eyes came up to meet hers with a sudden burst of fierce resolve. "You've been surprising them all night long, sweetheart — there's no reason you can't keep on surprising them. Sometimes people do beat the odds."
"I… wish…"
"What?" Sydney asked in choked voice. It was like he could feel her beginning to slip away from him again, and he was ready to use anything at all to keep her there, keep her fighting to live. "What do you wish? Tell me…"
Her dark eyes studied his face wistfully. She'd known this man such a short time, and yet come to cherish his friendship. What an irony! She pulled in another shallow breath. "Known… you… long… time… ago…"
"Don't you do that! You stay with me," Sydney demanded roughly, picking up her hand and holding it tightly between both of his. "I know it hurts, and I know you're tired. But you need to stay with me now…"
"So… tired…" The word was nearly inaudible. The dark eyes fluttered closed and stayed that way.
Sydney frantically reached his fingers to her pulse and looked up to the monitor behind the bed to find that the steady rhythm of her damaged heart hadn't faltered. She had only fallen asleep again. Well, she'd said that she was tired…
"Sydney?" A hand landed on his shoulder, and he turned around to see Zeke Cavendish standing behind him.
"Zeke," he breathed. "What time is it?"
"After eight-thirty," the old man said quietly. "I thought I'd come in and spell you — you look absolutely exhausted."
"She was just awake for a little bit and has dropped off again," Sydney related tiredly. "I honestly don't think they expected her to make it this far."
"You go on now, and I'll watch over her until you come back." Zeke pushed on Sydney's back to urge him out of the chair. "She won't wake up alone, I promise."
"Thanks." Sydney sighed and reached for his crutches, which were leaning against the small cabinet to the side of the bed. "Call me if there's any change — no matter when. I'll be back as soon as I can."
"I'll call if there's any news." Zeke promised and gazed at his colleague as Sydney pulled himself to his feet. "You shouldn't drive, though, in your condition," he observed pointedly. "You'd just end up back here in worse shape than you already are."
Sydney halted on his slow departure, thought about it for a moment with a mind almost too tired to do any thinking at all, and then nodded. "I'll call and have someone come in to pick me up," he conceded.
Zeke nodded his agreement and then sat down where Sydney had been. He took up Crystal's hand in his just as Sydney had been holding it and began chafing it between his own gently.
Satisfied that Crystal was safely under the watchful eye of someone else who apparently cared for her too, Sydney walked out of the ICU and looked around blearily for a phone booth. Then he remembered and thrust his hand into his pocket and came out with his cell phone and punched a button.
"Hello?" Missy's voice came over the line.
"Hi there," he answered tiredly.
"Syd… You sound awful! Oh God, is she…"
"She's alive — although the doctor's weren't holding out much hope she'd make it this far," he repeated his report. "But Zeke just came in to sit with her so I could get some rest, and suggested that I shouldn't drive…"
"Have you been awake all this time?" Missy sounded surprised. "You must be ready to drop!"
"I know better than to get behind the wheel again, that's for sure," he assured her. "I'm afraid I'll need to bother someone for a chauffeur…"
He could hear conversation on the other end of the line. Then: "Jarod will drive in to… no wait…" The background conversation surged and then declined again. "I'm taking some time to be with the kids this morning — so Jarod and Maggie can drive in and Maggie will drive you back in your car."
"Whatever," he sighed, contented with whatever arrangements she could make for him. "I'll probably be out like a light in the front lobby…"
"They'll find you," she promised, then couldn't resist. "I love you."
Sydney frowned at the strange tone of voice she'd used. "Is something wrong?" he asked quickly, "one of the kids…"
"No, no, nothing like that," she reassured him. "I just… we'll talk about it when you've gotten some rest."
"All right," he replied, a little confused. God, how tired he was getting of being perpetually out of the loop. "I love you too, ma petite."
"Talk to you later, Da… Syd," she said and disconnected.
Sydney tucked the phone away and started making his way to the front lobby where he said he'd be. Parker must still be tired herself after all the excitement the night before — she had been on the verge of calling him something other than her stock nickname for him. Well, Hell, how could he complain — he was just damned tired in general himself right now.
The lobby was already filling with people waiting for one thing or another, with a lively set of toddlers giggling and playing with their toys in strollers. Sydney found a relatively quiet spot near the door to sag into a much more comfortable seat, then put his crutches carefully out of harm's way against the nearby wall. It was a half-hour drive from Blue Cove into Dover. Maybe he could stay awake that long — he wasn't quite sure.
"Are you sure you want to do this today?" Kevin asked Deb as she picked up their coffee cups and put them in the dishwasher.
"Daddy called me last night before everything went south," she told him, "and said that he'd talked to the doctor and had something to tell me that he didn't want to tell me over the phone. I suppose if we're going to be hearing bad news, we might as well get all the news out and over with — waiting isn't going to change anything or do any good."
"I thought you were going to have Miss Parker go in with you," he reminded her.
"I have you," she smiled at him bravely from across the kitchen. "And I'm a big girl. Any problems Daddy has with Grandpa or Miss Parker belongs between them — maybe once we've settled things between us, he won't be quite so upset with them. They really don't need the hassle right now…"
"Yeah." Sydney had been gone when they'd gotten up this morning — leaving a note explaining where he was going and why and telling them not to expect him back for a while. "Well, I'm in it with you, so I might as well face the music with you too."
"I love you," Deb said gently and leaned over his back and hugged him from behind.
He turned his head and collected a kiss. "I love you too. How soon we leaving?"
"Let me leave a note for Sydney — in case he gets home while we're gone. Considering everything, we don't need to worry him needlessly when nobody's here when he gets back…" Deb straightened and reached for the note pad near the telephone and Sydney's crossword puzzle pen.
Missy looked up from the newspaper as she felt Ginger sidle up to her at the kitchen table and begin to huddle again. Both children had been quite clingy since she had arrived and taken over from Maggie. "What's the matter, Sprite?" she asked gently and pulled the girl into her lap.
"Bad mans shoot at you," Ginger said, leaning. "Why?"
"He was very angry at me, baby girl, and sometimes people get so angry that they forget how they're supposed to behave."
"Did you do something to him, Mom?" Davy inquired from the kitchen doorway of his old home. He'd been wanting to hover too — the sight of the blood all over the hallway and living room of his new house had been quite upsetting, especially considering that a good deal of it was Sam's.
"He was involved in some business dealings with the Centre that I put a stop to," she answered simply yet truthfully. "He wasn't happy that I told him we wouldn't work for him anymore, and decided I was to blame."
"What happen him now?" Ginger asked. "Him go jail?"
"That's right," Missy cuddled her girl. "We don't have to worry about him anymore — that's what the policeman told me."
"Are lots of people mad at you?" Davy followed his sister's line of thought and earned himself a sharp glance.
"That's what happens when I'm the boss at the Centre, Davy. Decisions are made that make some people unhappy, and I'm the one who ends up getting the blame or credit. But I tell you what…" She reached out an arm and dragged him closer to her too. "The things that I did, I'd do over again. The things I put an end to NEEDED to be stopped because they weren't helping anybody."
"Are they going to clean up all the blood in our house before we go home again?" he asked next.
"Yes, I'm going to call and have some of our Centre people come over and do that for me. We'll be staying here for a little while, until that's done."
"This Mommy house too?" Ginger piped up, feeling a little more reassured.
"Yes, this is where I lived with Davy before you and Daddy came to live with us. This was your Grandma's — my Mommy's — special place. She came here to paint and rest." Missy cuddled her new daughter and leaned a cheek against the top of a dark head. Davy had been full of questions at this age too.
"You aren't going to work today?" Davy pushed in closer. "And I'm not going to school?"
"I thought I'd stay home with you both — at least for this morning — so that we could talk about what happened last night and make sure that you two aren't still scared or having bad dreams about this." She looked down at each child in turn. "Did you have bad dreams last night?"
"Me not want s'eep 'til me be with Gamma," Ginger replied cryptically.
"Huh?"
"Grandma let us climb into bed with her when we couldn't get to sleep," Davy explained patiently. "I wasn't sleeping either. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Sam with all the blood and…"
"Mommy! How Sam this morning?" Ginger suddenly remembered the man she'd helped nurse the night before —a Big Man who didn't seem quite so scary anymore. "Him OK?"
"You know, I'm not sure," Missy answered and shifted Ginger back down to the floor. "How about I call up the office and ask Mei how he's doing?"
Ginger smiled and bounced on her feet a little while Davy just looked expectant and hopeful. "He wasn't hurt too bad, was he?" he asked.
"I honestly don't know, little man. I'll have to ask Mei." Missy picked up the telephone and dialed a familiar number — then blinked in surprise. "Xing-Li? Where's…"
"She's stayed home with Sam, Miss Parker, and Mr. Tyler thought the he'd go ahead and handle your appointments for you today. He figured you might want time with your family, since it was your home that got broken into…"
Missy smiled. "Is he busy, or can I talk to him?"
"He's waiting for your first appointment," the secretary answered confidently. "Just a moment, I'll get him for you."
"Hey!" Tyler answered the moment he picked up the telephone. "I heard about your excitement last night — you OK?"
"I'm fine — thanks for stepping in for me while I take a little time here to…"
"Don't even think about it. Will you be in today at all?"
Missy glanced guiltily at the children looking up at her so expectantly. "After lunch sometime, I'd imagine. I'll have to wait until Jarod gets back — I don't want to leave the kids alone today."
"Have you seen the today's paper yet?"
"Not exactly," she replied. "I was just on the front page when I got interrupted. Is there something I need to see?"
"Page three," Tyler told her mysteriously, his hand coming to rest on the folded copy sitting in front of him.
"Good or bad?"
"Whatever you told that reporter fella — it worked," Tyler's voice was contented. "He sure put the ducks in the rows they belong in."
Missy relaxed and sighed. "I'll read it after a bit. I'm trying to reach Mei for a status report on Sam."
"Tell her to give him my best, will you?" Tyler asked immediately. "If they need anything, just call in and I'll take care of it after work tonight. Have you had any word on the girl?"
"Syd says she's still alive, but that's about it."
Tyler nodded. Such a horrible thing to happen to a sweet kid. "Thanks. I'll talk to you later then…"
She disconnected and dialed another number. "Atlee residence," Mei-Chiang's quiet voice answered the telephone.
"Mei, it's me…"
"Miss Parker, good morning. I'm sorry I didn't call you directly…"
Missy held up her hand. "Whoa. I just called to see how Sam's doing this morning."
"Oh." Mei-Chiang glanced over her shoulder at the stairs, down which she was hoping Sam wouldn't even try to come that day. "He's asleep right now, Miss Parker — I gave him another pain pill this morning."
"What did the doctor say?"
"He said that he was lucky — the bullet didn't break up as badly as it did in that girl, Crystal?" Mei-Chiang stumbled over the name. "Still, it ripped a lot of muscles — he's not going to be able to use the arm for quite a while."
Miss Parker winced. Sam was a strong man — losing the use of an arm for any length of time would be difficult for him. "Well, you tell him that he's got two kids over here asking about him and worrying about him, will you?"
Mei-Chiang began to smile. "TWO kids?"
"Yeah," Missy looked down. "Ginger feels very concerned because she tried to help him before the ambulance came."
"I'll tell him," Mei-Chiang answered. "Thank you so much for calling."
"I'll see you tomorrow?"
"If Sam's doing better," she promised. If he wasn't, there was no way that anybody was going to be able to drag her away from his side.
Missy said goodbye and hung up the phone. "OK, I talked to Mei. Sam's asleep right now, and his shoulder is pretty badly messed up — but he'll be OK."
Ginger's face relaxed a little and Davy nodded. "Can we go draw in the studio, Mom?" he asked next.
"Sure," Missy nodded. "Let me get you set up… maybe we could all see what we can draw. Or we could make Sam some get-well cards…"
"Me like do that!" Ginger nodded firmly and caught up Bear from where she'd left him on the couch. "Can Bear send him card too?"
"I'm sure he can, if you help him do the drawing…"
"You didn't have to do this…"
Margaret simply shook her head and opened the back passenger door to stow the crutches behind Sydney. "Quit complaining. You'd think I was helping you out of another man-eating sofa. Missy said you needed a chauffeur, and heaven knows it would be better not to leave your car in the hospital parking lot…"
Sydney held his tongue as Margaret slipped behind the wheel of his car and began adjusting the seat and mirrors. He really was grateful for her help — although he would have been more than happy to leave the Lincoln in Dover and catch a ride home with Jarod. "I'm sorry — I'm overtired… I don't mean to bite your head off…"
"You don't have to apologize," she told him with another shake of the head. "How's Crystal?" she asked, turning the key in the ignition and backing out of the parking space carefully.
"Still alive," was the best he could report. "At least she was when I left her in Intensive Care. She was in surgery for over five and a half hours."
"Poor child." She guided the car back onto the street that would take them to the highway south without needing any instructions. "And you sat up with her after that?"
He nodded. "She woke up for a very brief time before Zeke Cavendish came to sit with her while I went home."
Margaret took a good look at him while sitting at a red light. "You DO look all in. Why don't you put the seat back and take a nap. I know the way home, and I don't have to have company for the whole half hour."
"If I fall asleep, I might as well stay asleep in the car," Sydney grumbled testily, then relented when he realized that she really didn't deserve his poor attitude. "Honestly, Maggie — I'm afraid that if I drop off now, you won't be able to wake me when we get to the house…"
"Sydney," she replied as she guided the car into the southbound lane of the highway smoothly, "trust me. If I need to wake you up, I'll be able to wake you up."
With his head tiredly back against the headrest, he studied her face. Considering everything, the reason he didn't want to fall asleep was that he had no way of knowing if this would be one of those times when one of his fast-moving nightmares would swoop in on him. Those always left him feeling rattled and vulnerable — and he was overtired, which was a sure-fire way for those dreams to get at him.
She glanced over at him and found him watching her. "You're not napping."
"You noticed," he replied.
She turned back to watch her driving with a wry twist of the lips and a shake of the head. "You're a stubborn man — even more stubborn than Charles used to be."
"I have my reasons, I promise," he answered tiredly, although perfectly content to just watch her. She was interesting enough in her own right — maybe enough to keep him awake…
"What reasons are those?" she asked bluntly.
He blinked in surprise and then considered if he wanted to answer her. Try as he might, he couldn't think of a good reason not to — and knew that at least trying to keep a conversation going might help keep him awake until he hit his daybed. "Nightmares," he said simply. "I don't need to scare you out of your wits and get us into an accident when I get one of those and then wake up rather abruptly… or loudly…"
"Jarod used to have lots of nightmares," she reminisced gently. "It took a while before he finally started to talk about them to us — and after that, they slowly went away."
"That's not surprising," he replied before he could think, automatically dissecting the situation as she had given it to him. "Nightmares are often a psyche's way of airing issues and problems that the waking mind is having trouble dealing with. Very often, just discussing the dream with another person can help the dreamer put the issue or problem in perspective and then resolve it."
"Spoken like a true shrink," she quipped, turning to grin at him mischievously for a brief moment before turning back to watch the road.
"I knew those letters after my name were there for some reason," he quipped back.
"At least now I know that your getting overtired doesn't mean that your sense of humor takes a holiday."
"Oh, now this is not fair," he said, straightening slightly and then turning in his seat so that he could rest the side of his head against the cushioned headrest and watch her more openly. "I'm too tired to be able to banter properly."
"I'm not heading home quite yet," Margaret said with a sideways glance. "I'm sure we'll have plenty of opportunities to banter back and forth before then."
"What about after?"
That surprised her, and she gave him a long glance. So he hadn't forgotten that fleeting moment in the doorway after all, even with the excitement of the evening. "What about it?"
"We'll just have to banter long-distance, I guess," he followed his own tired reasoning to its obvious conclusion, then yawned.
For some reason, the idea of long-distance banter seemed to please Margaret immensely. The car filled with a comfortable and companionable silence between them, and Sydney slowly dropped off watching the way her face reflected her thoughts. A remarkable woman, he agreed with his previous estimation of her now even more than ever before as his eyes fell shut of their own volition — Maggie Russell was a very remarkable woman indeed.
"Deb," Broots smiled at his daughter as she came into the room, and then grinned a little wider. "Kevin — I didn't expect to see you today…"
Deb bent to give her dad a hug and a kiss, then did a double-take. "That's right, you got your cast off!"
Broots extended a hand for Kevin to shake. "Yeah – and I bet I smell a lot better than last time you were here."
"Dad…" Deb sat down in the chair with Kevin hovering close by behind her. "So what was it you wanted to tell me?"
Broots gazed evenly at the young man standing very protectively behind his daughter. "Kevin, do you think you could give me a few minutes here?"
"Daddy," Deb shook her head. "Part of the reason Kevin came in today is because we have something to tell you too." She blushed a little and then took courage from Kevin's hand landing gently on her shoulder. "Do you remember what I told you a while back about Kevin and me?"
"About your feelings for him?" Broots asked, confused. "Yeah. But what…"
"Daddy — when the time is right, we've decided we're going to get married."
Broots stared, first at Deb, and then at Kevin. "That's… great… I guess…" he stammered. "It's a little soon, isn't it?"
"Not really, sir," Kevin answered with far more poise than he was feeling inside. "Our relationship has been getting closer for quite a while now — ever since Deb came to stay with Sydney."
"Deb, honey, are you sure? I mean, you're just getting over everything that happened to you in California…"
"I told you before, I need Kevin to do that, Dad," Deb announced very calmly and gently. "He keeps me balanced when I have a nightmare. He's so good to me, Daddy — I wish you could see…"
Broots looked hard into his daughter's face and saw nothing but utter sincerity in her gaze. When she looked at Kevin, the love in her eyes was unmistakable. "I know…" he started, then paused. "How soon do you intend to get married, then?" He turned to her earnestly. "And what about your schooling?"
"We won't get married right away," Kevin informed him carefully. "I'm wanting Sydney to retrain me properly as a Pretender — and then I can work at the Centre doing what I do best and make enough to support Deb as she goes to school."
"And Grandpa is keeping an eye on us, helping us work out any hitches in the relationship," Deb told her father with a cautious smile. "He wasn't too thrilled with the way things developed, but he's working with us now…"
"What was it that bothered Sydney?" Broots asked suspiciously. "Syd's got a good sense of judgement about him — I've learned not to question him very often, you know…"
"Well," Deb hedged. Kevin moved closer, as if knowing that she was going to tell her father what was really going on now and needed the moral support to get through it. "Daddy, Kevin and I… we're… kinda… living together now…"
"You're WHAT?" Broots' eyes bulged in shock and dismay. "And Sydney is LETTING you do this — in his house?"
"It happened when he was gone a day or so," Kevin admitted quickly and fearfully. "He was furious when he found out…"
"I don't think I've ever seen Grandpa quite that angry before," Deb remembered with a wry look on her face. "He's scary when he gets really angry."
"That's beside the point," Broots sputtered. "I trusted him with your welfare — he was supposed to help you get over… I should have called him when you told me that Kevin was coming into your bedroom…"
"Daddy," Deb stepped close and took her father's hand. "Grandpa has been so much help with the California…"
"But he sure has been a piss-poor chaperone," Broots growled, truly angry. "What the Hell were you thinking, Deb?" He threw his arms up in the air. "What was I thinking, not calling Syd and raising hell for getting comfortable with the idea of you two being in a bedroom together?"
"Sir," Kevin stepped forward to defend Deb.
"Don't think I'm not holding you responsible too," Broots barked at the young man, shaking a forefinger in his direction. "Here I am, stuck in this damned hospital where I can't keep track of my daughter, and her own adopted grandfather lets her shack up with…"
"Daddy, stop it." Deb's voice had a measure of anger to it that it had never held towards her father before. "We're telling you this so that you'll understand what the situation is with us. We're not asking your permission — although I'd like to think that you'd give us your blessing eventually."
"Why the Hell didn't Sydney tell me this himself?" Broots demanded of nobody.
"I told him I wanted to tell you myself," Deb replied quietly. "I asked him not to say anything until I'd talked to you."
"What about Miss Parker? What did SHE say about this?"
"She wasn't a whole lot happier about it than Grandpa — both of them chewed us out pretty thoroughly for a couple of days."
Broots turned inquiring eyes to Kevin, who merely nodded and added, "I'm sure there's nothing that you could say that Miss Parker and Sydney haven't already thrown at us."
"Daddy, please, be happy for me," Deb cajoled, taking her father's hand and holding it tightly. "You always told me that the day would come when I knew the person I'd want to spend my life with — well, there he is. I love him and he loves me, and we're working on starting a life together."
"You might as well get married then," Broots said in defeat, "and make it official."
Deb's smile was incandescent. "You do give us your blessing then?"
"I don't have a lot of choice in the matter, now, do I?" Broots asked begrudgingly, but then squeezed his daughter's hand. "I just want you to be happy and have a good life, SweetPea. If you say that marrying this guy is what will give you those things, then I'm not going to stand in your way." He glared at Kevin briefly. "I would have preferred that you had waited until AFTER getting married for starting to live together…"
"Understood," Kevin replied with some chagrin.
"And if you EVER hurt her, you'll answer to me — and then whatever I leave will have to face the rest of them!"
Kevin nodded, understanding completely. He'd already faced Sydney's anger over his fumbling of the relationship once — there was no way he wanted to face it again.
"Now, what were you going to tell me?" Deb asked, grateful that the full truth was now out so that she didn't have to feel like she was hiding anything from her father anymore. "It's your turn to hand out the news…"
Broots blinked, having a quick spate of difficulty moving from the topic of his daughter's now full love life to his own disability. "I start physical therapy later today," he told her gently, "to build up the strength in my upper body so I can handle a wheelchair…"
"You aren't going to be able to walk?" Deb asked, aghast at the idea of her father permanently trapped in a wheelchair.
"One of my legs is numb — I can't tell it's there, SweetPea. The doctor is hoping that this is temporary, but there's a chance that I'll have to use crutches and a brace from now on." His heart swelled when he saw Kevin put a comforting hand on Deb's shoulder in an attempt to be there for her. The young Pretender was making all the right moves, and certainly seemed sincere. "I'm stuck here in the hospital, anyway, for at least another week or two while they run tests and get my therapy moving along. Then we'll see how much they can bring back for me as time goes on."
"A couple of weeks yet?" Deb sounded disappointed. "I thought…"
"I can't come home until I have a way to get around and do things at least a little for myself, Deb," Broots told her. "Believe me, although I'm happy to be out of that damned cast so that I can actually scratch the itches, I'm in no shape to be home."
"What are you going to do when you do come home?" Deb worried. "You can't manage the stairs in a chair…"
"We could set your Dad up the same way we've had Sydney set up while HIS leg was healing," Kevin suggested. "Do you have a den or a family room…"
Deb was already nodding. "Yeah…"
"I'll do just fine," Broots soothed. "You won't have to worry about me…"
"Yes, we will do just fine," Deb told him firmly, "And we will worry about you. That's part of the contract, remember?"
Kevin looked confused, but Broots had to smile at the inside joke. "Darn that fine print anyway, right?" Deb chuckled. The balding man in the bed thought for a while, and then extended a hand to the young man still standing a safe distance away. "You're going to take good care of my little girl, aren't you?"
"Absolutely," Kevin replied without hesitation and took the hand of the father of his beloved Deb. "I swear to you, sir, she's the most important person in the world to me."
"Fair enough then." Broots looked back and forth between the two, shook the hand firmly and then let go. "Fair enough then. Mind you, I still intend to have a few choice words with your Grandpa when I get the chance…"
"It wasn't Grandpa's fault, Daddy," Deb insisted. "He was pretty firm on keeping us apart — but something happened to him, and he was gone for a few days, and that was when…"
"You took advantage of the situation?" Broots looked up at Kevin accusingly.
"Kevin didn't take advantage of the situation, Daddy, I did," Deb corrected her father's perception. "I was the one that pushed. Don't blame Kevin, and don't blame Sydney. This is something I started." She looked down at her father unapologetically. "And I'm not sorry I did."
Deb's defense of her grandfather finally penetrated. "OK," Broots crossed his arms over his chest and looked at her skeptically. "So maybe you should explain to me why I shouldn't hold your Grandpa responsible for falling down on the job as chaperone."
"Do you remember me telling you that something had come up about the Nazis?"
Broots stared at her, not wanting to remember how just a hint of Sydney's past in a Nazi concentration camp had knocked his old friend for a loop. Deb had hinted at this before — he just hadn't made the connection. "Yeah?"
"Well…"
"I ran across some files while we were looking through the hardcopy archives," Kevin added to the story, "and they were in German, and I don't read German…"
George Canfield tried to ignore the stares of the security men in the office building as he walked through the lobby and over to the elevator. /Yes/ he answered the questions in their eyes in his mind, /I'm one of the ones who were arrested today. I'm one of the ones who'll be the next scandal to play out in an Ethics Committee hearing room. But no, I'm not the one that went postal and killed his wife, daughter and tried to take out the Chairman of the Centre — he's locked up in the psychiatric ward of the jail under observation./
Canfield snorted. /If they knew what I was thinking, I'd be under lock and key and observation too. Good thing I know enough not to go off my nut and run around with guns./ The elevator door closed him into the tiny space, and he leaned heavily against the metal railing that ringed the car.
It was over. He'd spent the better part of the last day being debriefed — looking at Phil Baldwin's cryptic notes in the margins of the group's ledger and deciphering some of it. Hopefully he'd done enough that the agents could continue the deciphering job by themselves. He'd explained the hierarchy of the conspiracy as a whole and drawn up a flowchart to explain how the money moved through the various layers, as well as how the influence was either enhanced or controlled. He'd been a part of the group long enough to know most of the secrets — certainly enough of them to make sure that everyone netted would serve long sentences behind bars for their complicity.
But of the three Senators, he had been the one to be released last. Neither Burns nor Jackson had been willing to talk to the Justice Department agents or the FBI, so it had been up to him to fill in all the blanks. He was tired — bone tired and world-weary.
The elevator disgorged him into the hallway in front of his office door. As he pushed through, his secretary looked up at the interruption, startled. "Oh! Senator Can…" she paused. "Is everything OK?"
"Take a break, Sally," he ordered tiredly. "Go somewhere and have yourself a nice, early lunch — take your time coming back."
She wasn't buying it. She was an old campaign volunteer who had made herself indispensable to him while stumping for office and had ridden his coattails — and his campaign bus — into D.C. "Senator — George — what is it?"
"Go on, Sally," he reiterated. "Everything will be fine — I just want to spend some time alone, no calls, no interruptions. Pretend this is a holiday."
"I don't know…"
"Sally, get out." Canfield's limited hold on his patience was running low. "You'll be needing to make arrangements to head back to Montana anyway pretty soon — you'd better get at it."
The middle-aged woman who had mothered him for the last three years gasped as if he had struck her, then gathered up her purse out of her desk and hurried from the office with a choked sob. Canfield hung his head and regretted deeply the need to hurt such a good friend so badly. But she didn't need to be here right now. More than that. she didn't need to be dragged down with him — he owed it to her to save her that humiliation.
He walked to the door and locked it, and then walked over to the door to the inner office and locked that one behind him too once he was safely in his lair. He sighed deeply and walked over to the window. It was a pretty morning — an Indian summer morning. He gazed out at the grass and trees and cars and pedestrians below for a long and quiet moment.
Then he walked resolutely over to his desk and seated himself. Steeling himself, he opened the drawer and took out the box that he'd hidden away about the time he started to wonder what he'd gotten himself into. Steady fingers lifted the hinged lid, revealing the small handgun within, and the cartridge of bullets. He lifted the gun and calmly slid the cartridge into place, and then chambered a round.
A few moments later, the gun went off — and then all was still again.
Margaret steered the Lincoln into the driveway and hit the garage door opener. She steered the car to the side she hoped was the normal place for the big sedan, stopping expertly at a safe distance from the wall, and then turned off the engine. Finally she turned and looked at her passenger more closely than she had before, appreciating the opportunity to do so while unobserved, even by the subject of her study.
Sydney's face was grizzled and in desperate need of a shave, and he was pale — his knee must be bothering him again, she guessed. Relaxed and in slumber, his face had a careworn appearance, with deep creases between his brows that told of the burden of worry and guilt that he'd carried around with him for years. And yet there were crow's feet at the corners of his eyes that told her that he laughed and laughed often. She'd heard him laugh — had laughed with him. He had a nice laugh.
Her left hand lifted from the steering wheel and hovered for a moment as she debated touching his face or shaking a shoulder. She was tempted — touching his face would be far less expected of her and far more likely to rouse him from his slumber, but it was an intensely intimate gesture. Shaking the shoulder would be far safer.
"Sydney," she called gently, pushing on his shoulder, "you're home." He took a deep breath, but didn't awaken. She pushed at the shoulder a little more roughly. "Sydney, wake up. Time to go into the house and go to bed." He took another deep breath and hummed discontent at her, but still didn't awaken. She looked at him — he'd warned her that if he fell asleep in the car, he'd be tempted to just stay there. Then she smiled — and she'd warned him back that when the time came for him to wake up, she'd be able to do it.
Intimacy be damned — he was exhausted and needed to be resting someplace that wouldn't give him a stiff neck later. Her hand cupped a grizzled cheek gently and then patted it a few times. "Sydney, dear," she called again, "Time to get up."
He took another deep breath, but this time shifted slightly in his seat and then finally opened his eyes, only to find himself staring into brilliant blue eyes that danced with satisfaction and mischief. "Mich… Maggie?" he mumbled sleepily, not entirely awake yet and not entirely sure what he was doing awakening to gaze into a woman's eyes – much less those of Maggie Russell. "Where… What are you doing here?"
"I told you I could wake you up when the time came," she said, removing her hand and reaching for the door handle. "You're home — time to get you horizontal."
Sydney turned his head and then blinked several times in an effort to pull himself from the darkness of a rare spot of peaceful slumber. "You let me fall asleep," he said, reaching up in a childlike gesture and rubbing an eye.
"Not exactly," she replied saucily. "What I did was not keep you awake." She moved around the car and pulled open the back passenger door to retrieve crutches. "C'mon. Up and at 'em, Tiger! I'm not going to let you sleep in the car any longer than you already have."
"Good God!" he moaned as he shifted in the car seat and reached for the door handle. His knee had stiffened up and didn't want to cooperate at all, and his back and neck could definitely feel the consequences of having stayed in one position for too long.
"Need a hand?" she asked as the door swung open and he was moving very slowly getting his feet from the running board of the car onto the cement slab of the garage. "Cars can be almost as bad as man-eating couches…"
"This time I'm afraid I will," he said apologetically, reaching out to her and feeling her hand land beyond his elbow so as to get a good grip on him. "I've been on my knee too much — and I forgot how uncomfortable sleeping sitting up can get."
Once she had him balanced on his feet, she handed him his crutches and then stood back to make room for him to move. "Where are your pain pills?" she asked, closing the car door and then walking ahead of him to get the kitchen door open. "You look like you could use one…"
"Just get me into the den," he replied, shaking his head. "Those damned pills put me down for too long — I'm going to want to drive back into Dover later today."
"Sydney…"
"She's got nobody, Maggie — nobody but me and another broken-down old shrink named Zeke."
"I'm not debating that," she shook her head.
"Then don't try to talk me out of driving back later today," he grumbled at her as he drew close. "She has so many things stacked against her right now – I want to make sure she knows that there are those who care for her who want her to fight to stay alive. She needs someone there when she wakes up to show her that she matters enough to be worth a person putting themselves out for her."
"Let's get you some decent rest first," Maggie hedged, letting him move past her into the house. "Then we'll see what shape you're in later on…" Crystal was a very lucky young lady to have Sydney so determined to see to her welfare, she had to admit. "You aren't going to be any use to her if you're falling apart at the seams yourself, you know…"
"Deb? Kevin?" Sydney called, and then picked up the note that was sitting propped up on the kitchen table. He sighed to himself. "I should have waited for them — they went in to see Deb's father… No, on second thought…" he caught himself – he was glad he hadn't waited. Even exhausted, he enjoyed Maggie's company – and he wouldn't have liked to sit around that lobby any longer than he'd already done waiting for a ride. He let the note flutter to the table and moved slowly and painfully toward the doorway to the den.
"I need to call Missy, tell her we're back," Margaret said and headed for the telephone without waiting for an answer from the den.
"Yes?" Missy answered evidently in the middle of a chuckle – and Margaret could hear the sound of happy children's voices in the background.
"Just wanted to let you know that I'm back – and Sydney's on his way to lying down and getting some sleep," she reported. "I know you were saying that you were going to want to speak to him – I suggest that you get over here and be here when he wakes up. He intends to drive right on back to Dover."
"Do me a favor and ask him not to take off before I can talk to him?" Missy asked with a note of pleading.
"Is there something wrong? Maybe I can…"
"No, no," Missy shook her head firmly. "This is something that I need to tell him face to face – it just wouldn't do to tell him over the telephone or when everybody's in a hurry."
"OK," Margaret said, still not entirely sure what it was to which she was agreeing. "I'll tell him." She exchanged goodbyes and hung up the phone, and then walked into the den. "Missy wants me to tell you not to take off for Dover until she has a chance to talk to you about something."
"Oh yeah," Sydney mumbled as he settled himself on the couch in an infinitely more comfortable posture. "She mentioned something about that earlier…"
She gazed down at him and could see from the way he was trying to move that his knee was causing difficulties. "Can I at least talk you into taking a couple of Tylenol then? Just something to take the edge from your knee so that you can sleep?"
Tired chestnut eyes gazed up at her. "You make a pretty effective mother hen – did anybody ever tell you that?"
"I hear it quite often," she admitted and then lifted her head. "Did anybody ever tell you that you prove the old adage that doctors make the worst patients?"
Sydney chuckled and nodded. "Like you, I've heard that quite often lately."
"Well, what about that Tylenol?"
He sighed and closed his eyes. "If nothing else, it will help YOU feel better…"
Margaret's lips twitched. "So, you poor, long-suffering man, where do you keep them?"
"In the bathroom here," Sydney gestured with a hand. "And I owe you for that one. You're taking advantage of my exhaustion here…"
"As someone said in the car a little while ago, 'you noticed.'" She tossed at him as she walked past him toward the bathroom. "I have a feeling that with you, I'll need all the advantage I can get."
Sydney opened his eyes and watched her approach him again, tablets and a water glass in hand. "That sounds like a challenge." He waited until he'd taken the tablets and was handing her the glass back again before catching at her hand and holding her in place. "I don't usually turn down challenges," he told her in that lower registered voice.
"Promises, promises," she retorted with a slight blush.
He only smiled and pulled her hand to his lips for a brief moment, and then rested their joined hands against his chest. "Sit with me for a while?"
"For a while," she promised and watched the small smile grow a little. She wasn't at all uncomfortable sitting here with her hand in his possession. "Only if you promise to go to sleep," she said gently, bringing up the other hand to smooth back some of his mussed silver hair.
The chestnut eyes seemed lit from within for a moment. Yes, they were indeed playing with fire – both of them. He tightened his grip on her hand. "Anything for you," he purred and watched the blush deepen slightly.
"Maggie said that you were coming," Kevin said as he opened the door and let Missy into the house. "Is everything all right?"
"Fine." Missy smiled at the young man reassuringly. The get-well cards from two kids and a teddy bear were sitting in her car to be delivered when Mei announced that Sam would be up for visitors. Her afternoon, once Jarod had returned to the summerhouse and the family had had a quiet lunch together, had been spent at the Centre reading the three contracts that were pending. Xing-Li had been quite efficient at clearing her calendar for the rest of the day, so the moment she'd come to decisions on the contracts and sent them over to Tyler's office, she had called it a day and driven straight over.
Now she came into her father's house with Charles Parker's journal under her arm. The time had come to put an end to a very large secret. "Is he awake yet?"
"He's upstairs, showering and changing," Kevin announced and headed back toward the living room and all the files he was still slowly reading his way through. "He said he'd be down in a minute…"
"Ah, you're here." Sydney commented from the head of the stairs and then slowly worked his crutches and made his way down the stairs. "I was hoping that you'd get here soon, so we could have the time to talk before I need to take off for Dover." He tipped his head at her. "So what is it we need to talk about?"
"C'mon," Missy said, gesturing toward the den. "No disrespect, Kevin, but I need to talk to my… Sydney alone."
"No problem," the young Pretender said as he watched Sydney walk ahead of Miss Parker toward the back of the house.
"Now," said Sydney as he settled himself on the edge of the daybed, "what is this all about? You've been acting a little strangely…"
"I know," Missy admitted, and sat down next to him on the couch and handed him the journal. "And this is the reason why."
He stared at the name embossed on the cover and then looked up at her, startled. "Parker – where did you find this?"
She stared back. "You knew about this?" Her stomach twisted painfully. No! Please don't let him have lied to her about this…
"I knew about it, but I've never actually seen it," Sydney told her. "Catherine told me once that Charles kept a journal and wrote in it sporadically, but that she'd never ever been able to find it to read it herself. She always believed that it held any number of secrets that she would have given almost anything to uncover."
Missy breathed out in relief. He HADN'T known. Well, he would now… "I found it in Mr. Parker's desk – I hadn't cleaned it out, and evidently neither had Mr. Raines. When I was looking for a good place to keep my gun, I just stuck it in one of the two locking drawers – and finally noticed this when I was getting out the gun to protect myself last night."
"And you've read it." It wasn't a question – she looked as if she was aware of what was within.
"You need to read the first entry."
Sydney watched her face for a moment, hoping to get some clue as to what information she'd found that she'd thought so important that she had to share it with him so immediately, and then opened the journal. The date at the top of the page surprised him, and he looked into Missy's face again, only to find her grey eyes serious and watching him back. He looked back down at the tight and pointed script and read… and read…
Missy could tell the moment he'd hit the fifth paragraph, because suddenly her father's eyes widened and he looked up at her with pure anguish. "Read the rest of it," she urged quietly. After rubbing beneath his nose to try to stop the tears that were suddenly floating in his eyes from falling, he followed her instructions. Finally he'd read all he could, and he let the book fall into his lap closed.
"Daddy," was about all she managed to say before she had been gathered into his arms and embraced tightly.
He kissed the side of her head over and over again, finding it hard to believe that after all these years – years in which both of them had been forced by a truly twisted man to live a lie – he could claim his daughter as his own. "My God!" he finally whispered into her ear. "Catherine always suspected that something about her pregnancy wasn't right. Then she put it down to the fact that it was a twin pregnancy, and the little boy had died…" He opened his eyes suddenly. "My God!" he repeated. "Angelo…" His son.
"I'm changing my name," she told him firmly, hanging onto her father with all her might. "I told Jarod, and now I'm telling you: I will never answer to the name Parker again. My name is Melissa – Melissa Green."
"Does Jarod know?" He didn't want to let her go – it was as if he'd never really held her before in his life.
"He knows," she answered with a smile. "He told me that my name change would take some getting used to – but my name wouldn't be Parker much longer anyway, so that's not much of a problem…"
"What about Davy?"
She shook her head against his chest. "Davy already calls you Grandpa – this just gives you the right to the name over and above any that we agreed to before." She snuggled. "I'm just glad to know that the man that hit me and… well…" No, she didn't need to tell him that part. "I'm just glad that he wasn't my real father – that my real father always DID treat me with love and respect…"
"I didn't know," Sydney said softly and sadly, "and I didn't protect you from him. If I had known…" He tightened his embrace. "I failed you as badly as I failed Jarod. I always knew there was a tie between us – one that was more than just your being the child of one of my best friends and my patient."
"What's important is that we know now," Missy replied, "and we can stop with the idea that we have to pretend to be related. I can claim you as my father – and I intend to."
"I wish your mother had known."
"Maybe she did." Missy thought about it. "Maybe that was why she always trusted you, even when it was dangerous at the Centre to trust anyone. Maybe that was why she told you to take care of me before she faked her death – that even though she thought that I was Mr. Parker's child, she knew deep inside that I was yours…"
Sydney simply shook his head and held her close – his daughter. This was a moment beyond precious, one that he would remember and hold close in his heart to his dying day.
"You don't mind – my taking your name?"
"Are you kidding?" He let her go so that he could take her face between his hands. "Nothing would make me happier than that." He kissed her forehead again and pulled her back into his arms. "My daughter. Mine!" He could still hardly believe it. "My God!"
Missy held her father back and smiled contentedly. Slowly the lies that had been controlling her life for so long were unraveling, leaving behind them a truth that was at times disconcerting and painful, at other times uplifting and comforting. It was long since time to find a resolution to all the lies and deceit that had ruled their lives. She soaked up her father's unconditional love and hoped that finally, at long last, that day of resolution was at hand.
Crystal pushed back against the darkness and forced herself back into wakefulness. The heavy load on her chest hadn't eased, but the darkness was not longer quite so insistent on keeping her removed from the world. She stirred and moaned, and then opened her eyes.
The last three times she had awakened, she'd been amazed to find Doctor Cavendish sitting with her. His gentle concern had sustained her and surprised her – she knew that he'd become a little fond of her because she'd been willing to listen to a lonely old man spin stories, but had no idea how deep that fondness had evidently gone since her confrontation with her father. But this time, when her eyes finally agreed to open a little, it was Sydney's face that slowly swam into focus. "Sydney…" she whispered, glad to have him there with her again.
"Zeke told me that you'd been awakening off and on," he smiled at her and caught up her hand. "I was hoping you'd wake up for me once while I was here – before they throw me out for the evening."
"What… doctor… say?" It still hurt like Hell to talk, but she had to know… "Tell… me… truth…"
Sydney smiled a little more widely. "You just keep doing as you have been, sweetheart, and you'll walk out of this place. You're doing much better than you were even this morning. Your doctor is thrilled with you."
"Not… gonna… die?"
"No, cheri, you're not going to die." He patted her hand. Not if he could help it, by God!
"My… mom…"
Sydney's face grew sad. "The police told Missy about her, and she told me. I'm so sorry…"
A tear fell onto the snow-white cheek. "All… alone… now… for… real…"
Sydney's hand tightened on hers and was joined by his other hand. "No, sweetheart, you're not alone. You have me, and Zeke, and Xing-Li – all of your friends… You're not alone, and you'll never be alone again. I promise. I told you that you belonged at that family celebration, didn't I? I wasn't lying."
The dark eyes were swimming. It hurt so much to breathe, and yet the words he'd said were what she was clinging to desperately. Still… "Don't… deserve…"
"Shhhh…" he soothed softly and reached out to smooth dark hair back from her face. "Whether you do or not isn't important. You just get well now, OK?" The nurse at the ICU station rose to her feet and gestured to him with one flat hand laid atop a vertical hand like a football referee's signal. "Look, they're going to want to kick me out for the night so you can get some uninterrupted rest. But I'll be back to see you tomorrow – and I want you to call me whenever you feel like talking. Get them to hold the phone for you, OK?"
"You'll… be… back?" The dark eyes were filled with a tenuous hope.
"Zeke says he'll be in to see you in the morning," Sydney told her as he struggled to his feet, "and I'll be in tomorrow afternoon and into the evening. I promise. Maybe you'll be awake a little more, and we can visit longer." He bent over her and kissed her forehead. "Sleep well, ma petite. Get better. We're waiting for you to come home."
He could feel her gaze follow him as he made his way out the door, then paused, turned, and waved at her. Her fingers lifted from the blanket weakly and waved back at him.
Sydney's heart was light as he made his way out of the hospital and across the parking lot to where he'd left his car. He had his family — and it really WAS his family — waiting for him in Blue Cove, along with a woman he was finding it more and more difficult not to think about in quiet, private moments. And now, with Crystal slowly turning the corner and moving away from death's door, he had something genuine to smile about.
The future looked brighter than it had in a very long while. Sydney climbed into his car and turned the ignition. It was time to go home.
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