Chapter Twelve

Part One

Execution

Rusty took his time closing the door to his room, Isabel walking in before him. He lingered in the doorway, looking back towards the elevator with a long stare. He sighed heavily. It was going to be a long night, and he had a job the next day. Damn.

Damn Lily for calling Isabel.

Damn Isabel for her horrible, horrible timing.

Damn Danny for starting all this.

Damn.

Isabel made herself at home, smiling broadly at him. "Did I interrupt something?"

Rusty ran a hand over his face. "No," he muttered through his fingers. "No, you didn't." He was almost as good a liar as Lily was. Almost.

Her smile disappeared. She had missed him. She had hated him for making her miss him, but she had. There was no denying that seeing him now, in his element with all his strategic brilliance, brought out certain emotions in her that she rather would not have felt towards one Robert "Rusty" Ryan.

"You didn't know I was coming?" Isabel asked, puzzled why he wasn't as excited to reunite as she was, although she was hiding it fairly well. He had been the one to call her nonstop. He had been the one to beg her to come back. And now he wouldn't stand within four feet of her.

"No, I knew." Rusty decided that if he kept his answers short and to a minimum, then he could buy himself some time to think of what he wanted to do.

He loved Lily, he knew that.

But he also doubted it.

He trusted Lily. Fully trusted her. Even if she had lied to him in the past, it was really her just trying to protect him. He knew that much. But the question was, did he trust her too much? Had she told him one more protective half-truth than he was aware of?

She had said that Rusty was really in love with Isabel. Was he? He was still unsure. If he did, he certainly didn't love her in the same way he loved Lily. The way he loved Lily… he could never love anyone the way he loved Lily.

The room started spinning, and Rusty took the opportunity to take a seat. Isabel stood, seeing his distress. She approached him, making the first move. She reached out to touch his eye, now a deeper purple but less protruding. "What happened to you?" She reached out to him, but he dodged her touch.

"Nothing. Really, Isabel, I'm fine." He grunted, swerving away from her.

Isabel stopped, stepping backwards. "You never call me Isabel anymore."

Rusty realized that treating the problem like it didn't exist wasn't going to make the whole thing disappear. He took Isabel's hands in his, pulling her into a friendly hug. "I missed you, Izzy." Missed. Past tense. Used to miss. But there was something. A tingly feeling. "The thing is," he explained over her shoulder, "you did interrupt something. See, we're in the middle of planning a job which is going to be executed tomorrow night and…"

Isabel shrugged away from him. "I get it. It's okay. I just thought that… what with what happened and all…"

Rusty placed his hands on his hips. "What did happen, Isa… Izzy." He would have to be more careful with what he said.

"I was mad. You were always away on some job, selling yourself and your 'services' out to the highest bidder just to make a quick buck. It seemed like our time together was costing you," Isabel frowned, sinking back down onto the couch.

Isabel had always been something of a rebel, a firecracker. She was usually lively, even when emotionally inferior. It was a personality trait that Rusty admired about her to no end. She could be yelling at him, screaming until her face turned purple, and then be smiling ten minutes later.

Now, however, when he looked at her sitting on the couch, her hands folded in her lap and her eyes directed towards her knees, he felt like the person sitting in front of him was a complete stranger. Sure, they had shared a home, a bed, but Rusty had never knew that she was capable of looking so vulnerable. He knew how she liked her coffee and that she hated it when he was out too late or out for long periods of time without calling, but he never saw her retreat so far within herself.

That was a lie. He had seen it every time he came home from a job and would rather sleep than make love to her. He had seen it every time he had picked a fight over nothing, just to get her to leave him alone for a while.

And then he realized.

He felt a fondness towards Isabel. She was a prize, a trophy at the end of a grueling chase game. He had won the prize, and nothing else. He could know all the small details of her life, but if he couldn't recognize the emotion of complete devastation on her face then he couldn't have possibly loved her.

True, he had missed her. But he hadn't missed her, he missed her company. He missed that there was someone out there that was missing him. He missed having someone that made him feel like he belonged in the world. He missed having someone pick up the pieces when he was too tired, or too frustrated to even concentrate. He was so used to doing it for everyone else, he missed that there was someone willing to be a "Rusty Ryan" type towards him for a while.

And all that fondness, that affection, went away when he figured out that Lily was the one he wanted to miss him. She was the one he wanted to go home with, not to. She was the one that he wanted to help him. Not just fix his problems, but really help him.

He cared for Isabel. He really did. Just… not as much as she cared for him. It wasn't fair to her, and he had figured that out subconsciously. That was why he had stopped calling. That was why he was so emotionally crippled when Danny used the words "settle down". That was why his blood started pumping when he tasted or even smelled a strawberry.

"I'm so sorry, Izzy," he sighed.

She smiled, reaching her hands out towards him. He let her take his hands, leading him towards her on the couch. She held his hands, staring into his eyes. "Thank you, Rusty," she accepted. She had misunderstood his apology, though, thinking that everything was on the mend.

Rusty, not knowing what to say or do, did not correct her. Instead, stating that on the pretense that he was not comfortable with himself in the situation yet, Rusty offered Isabel the bed while he slept on the couch.

- - - - - -

The sky opened up mercilessly later in the evening the day of the job. Lily stood in the lobby to her building, marveling at the downpour spilling out onto the New York streets. The brownstone which had been converted into a three-floor apartment building seemed to cower under the heavy drops.

Linus stepped up behind her, his approach able to be recognized by his openmouthed gum-chewing habits. "Hey," he uttered, marveling at the sight of the weather.

"Hi, kid," Lily responded, feeling only slightly embarrassed in his presence. She had kept her distance after their last encounter, thinking she had made a bad impression. "Ready?" she asked, trying to keep their conversation simple and to the point. She was prepared - as prepared mentally and physically as she was going to be - and wanted to keep her frame of mind the same way. "Did you get the tape made for me?"

Linus reached into his pocket, pulling out a digital tape recorder. "Not exactly. I took the sound recordings from the tape recorder you had before and digitally stitched together the dialogue to get Hollings to sound like he's saying the code for his vault. He didn't change the code yet, right?"

Lily stuffed her hands in her pockets. "Found it in his jacket this morning while he was busy practicing his putting stance. The code doesn't get changed until nine tomorrow morning."

The elevator bell rang behind her, and Lily knew that it was her father standing behind her before he spoke. "Everything okay at the bank today?" he asked, throwing his arm around her.

Lily watched as the rain, dark clouds rolling farther over head. The storm was going to last for a while. "Fine. Business as usual," she responded.

"Except?"

Lily watched Linus turn and walk away, sensing a father-daughter conversation coming on. "Except…" she hesitated, not wanted to upset her father. "Except… Hollings was really jumpy today. I mean, I know Rusty and Linus were supposed to get the operation rolling… God knows Hollings was getting a little too comfortable on his duff. So much so I never thought he would be going on 'vacation' …."

"Lily," he interrupted.

"Sorry, rambling."

"So, what's wrong?"

Lily paused. "I just don't have a good feeling."

Danny grimaced, hugging his daughter. He liked to keep some solace in Lily's intuition, but there was 300 million dollars involved.

And then there was the fact that it was his last job… or so he promised Tess. He was planning - hoping, more like it - to keep his promise for a while, and his share of the 300 million was going to take care of everything they needed.

"But otherwise, everything's okay?"

"Except for this damn rain, yeah."

"And…. Rusty?"

Lily stepped away from her father, glaring at him as she crossed her arms in front of her. "I haven't talked to him since Isabel came to visit. Let's not talk about that now."

Danny noticed her tone, but chose to ignore it. "Remember, Lily, you called her. Not Rusty…"

"Danny!" Tess scolded, Isadora bouncing in her arms. Danny held his hands in the air, then curled them around his youngest daughter as Isadora was shoved into his arms.

Lily closed her eyes, letting out a sigh of relief as Tess linked arms with her. "Thank you," she whispered to her father's wife.

"That's what I'm here for, doll," Tess laughed, watching her husband's distress as Isadora kicked. "He just wants you to be happy, you know?"

"Yeah, but he's only making me more miserable."

"As most fathers do," Tess smiled. "Are you okay, though? I saw your face when Isabel…"

Lily, serious about not wanting to talk about it, did her best to lie. "I'm fine."

Turk and Virgil, always seeming to be there at the right time, pulled up the van in front of the building and honked twice. Danny handed Isadora back to Tess, nodding towards his oldest daughter. "Ready, Lil?"

She managed a smile, curling her fingers over the digital recorder Linus had handed her. She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs, but just then was not the right time. "Ready, Dad."