Tegan Chronicles

Intuition and Lies 25

After having no luck in getting Tegan to eat Janet called Maggie. After the third ring she picked up.

"Hello?"

"Maggie it's Janet."

"Janet, what can I do for you?"

"You said last night that if I needed any help to let you know."

"Yes, and I meant it. Anything I can do to help you or Tegan."

"I was wondering if you'd mind sitting with her this afternoon so I can run to the grocery store."

"I don't mind at all. What time?"

"Whenever is good for you. I might be gone a while, the cupboards are pretty bare."

"No problem, I can come over around noon."

"Thanks, I really appreciate it." Janet said goodbye and hung up.

At twelve o'clock the door bell rang and Janet pushed off the chair. Tegan was on the couch with her eyes closed and Galahad curled up on her stomach. When Janet had asked her about lunch half an hour earlier she'd kept her eyes closed and pretended to sleep. Now Janet wasn't sure she hadn't drifted off. She opened the door and invited Maggie in. "I think she's sleeping."

Tegan knew this place, the large oak tree, the cloudless azure sky, the grassy fields and the purple-blue mountains. She'd been here before. She looked around expecting to see Shadow. Was this a dream? Had it always been a dream? She wanted to believe her Nana really was an ascended being out there somewhere and had come to see her in her time of need, but if that had been real then what was this?

A sultry bluesy voice floated on the air; "Summer time and the living is easy."

Tegan looked around until she spotted a redheaded woman off in the distance.

"Fish are jumping and the cotton is high. Oh, your daddy's rich and your momma's good looking. So hush little baby don't you cry."

She knew that redhead, she'd seen pictures of her. She looked like her even from this distance, though Tegan knew in her heart her eyes were blue. Her heart jumped into her throat, and she took off in a sprint toward her.

"One of these mornings you're gonna rise up singing. Then you'll spread your wings and you'll take to the sky. But til that morning, there ain't a nothing can harm you, with daddy and nanny standin' by."

The closer she got the less clear the woman appeared. Her arm hurt, but it didn't matter, she had to get to the woman. She ran faster, pushing herself harder even as the voice faded; "With your daddy and 'nana' standing by."

And she was gone.

"Mom!" Tegan yelled out.

Maggie looked over the word find she'd been working on as Tegan jerked awake on the couch. She pushed Galahad to the floor and moved over to the couch. "Tegan?"

"I'm fine." Tegan looked away, her heart still beating like an ape banging away on a pot. Her arm throbbed with each agonizing beat.

"You had a dream, that's all." Maggie assured her.

"Yeah," Tegan mumbled. "A dream."

But she didn't believe it was a dream. A vision? A visitation? She wasn't sure, but it wasn't a dream. What was that song? She knew it. She'd even sung it. But what was her mom trying to tell her.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Maggie inquired even as Tegan was committing every detail to memory.

"No. It was nothing."

Maggie knew it was rare that Tegan even mentioned her mom, and now out of the blue she'd called out to her in her sleep. It was more than nothing, but if Tegan didn't want to talk about it Maggie wasn't going to push the issue. "You should take something for pain."

Tegan looked at the clock. "It's not time."

"An hour isn't going to matter."

"Where's Janet?"

"She needed to run some errands."

Tegan sat up as Maggie stepped back. She reached for her prosthesis.

"Wait until Janet gets back."

"I – " Tegan started to argue and stopped. "Sorry."

"For?"

"I don't know." Tegan shook her head. "I need to go to the bathroom."

"That I can help you with."

"I can make it on my own." She pointed out.

"At least let me walk beside you."

"Fine." Tegan nodded.

After using the bathroom and washing her hand it hit Tegan just how weak she was. She couldn't even make it over to sit down on the toilet seat, she just leaned on the wall and melted into a puddle on the floor.

"Tegan?" Maggie had heard the toilet flush, the water in the sink turn on and off. She'd waited several minutes for the door to open, but it hadn't.

"Yes?"

"Are you ok?"

"Yes." She was hot, really hot, her arm hurt, and she couldn't get off the floor at the moment if her life depended on it; But she was ok.

"Are you sure?"

No, but she'd locked the door behind her so for now she'd have to be ok. There was no need to worry Maggie. What she was going through was perfectly normal after everything she'd been through. "Yeah."

Maggie stood on the other side of the door listening for any indication of what was going on inside. It was quite.

Tegan leaned her head back and closed her eyes. If she didn't get cool soon she was going to vomit and considering she hadn't eaten, that wasn't going to be fun.

"Maggie?" It came out more as a moan.

"Yes."

"In the kitchen, in the cabinet of drawers, the second one down there's an ice pick." She didn't imagine the eternal fires of hell could be much hotter than she was currently feeling. "Get it."

A few seconds later Maggie returned to the door. "I've got it."

"Good." Tegan sighed. "It's time to test your lock picking skills."

After a couple jiggles Tegan felt the movement of air.

"You don't look so great." Maggie decided not to ask her why she'd lock the door, or lecture her.

"Yeah, it hit me all of a sudden." Tegan opened her eyes and looked up at the concerned look Maggie was sporting. It made her heart ache for something she'd missed in her childhood and until that exact moment she'd never really knew she'd missed it. "I've got to get outside."

"Where's your coat?"

"No coat, just outside." Tegan held her hand out and pulled herself up with Maggie's help.

Maggie assisted Tegan from the bathroom to the back deck where Tegan pushed her self to the railing just before she expelled a stomach full of acid over the side. When she finished she sat on the bench.

"I thought I could avoid that by coming out here."

Maggie nodded. "What can I get you?"

Tegan shook her head.

"I'll be right back."

Several minutes later Maggie returned with a glass of water, a paper cup with green mouth wash in it, and a wet rag. She wiped Tegan's face off and then handed her the paper cup. Tegan wondered where the mouth wash had come from, but remembered Maggie had been staying there with Cassie. She rinsed her mouth out and declined the glass of water.

She almost expected Maggie to sit next to her, or to say something; What she wasn't sure, but something, something a mother would say. She was relieved when she didn't. She just looked out at the tree line and let the silence between them settle.