Well, it's been a really long time for this, but I needed something to do today. So, without further chit-chat from your favorite procrastonator...

Chapter 21

The next few minutes were utter chaos. There were loud sounds behind me and everyone seemed to be moving, but I couldn't. I was rooted to the spot, clutching the picture frame in my arms. Finally things seemed to still and Ross was standing in front of me. He didn't say anything, just looked at me with anger in his eyes. I wasn't sure why he was angry. It wasn't his story Del had told to everyone with two working ears, after all.

"Breathe, Moncrieff," he ordered and I sucked in a ragged breath. "Keep doing that."

I had a couple more lung-fulls of air before he broke eye contact with me for something on my left.

"Pass?" Two-Bit was suddenly in my line of vision, looking at me like someone had shot my puppy.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Ross snapped, glaring at his friend.

"Dal –" he tried, but Ross was mad and on a roll.

"I tell you to keep an eye on her and look at what happens. What were you doing, standing there with your mouth open like a fool?" Ross demanded and Two-Bit's mouth flapped like a fish out of water.

He had a point. He was there and he didn't do anything. So was Davy. Greg was the only one who said anything and he was just trying to keep things calm in the bar room.

"You know, if I hadn't run into that Davy kid in the parking lot, I'd still be out there bullshitting with Shepard," Ross growled. "At least he was smart enough to come find me."

Ross had a hand gripping my arm sharply, turning me towards the doorway of the bar. Del was lying on the floor and both Buck and Greg were standing beside him. Greg was rubbing one of his fists like he had punched something. I put two and two together much more slowly than I usually would have and I hoped his hand didn't hurt too much. I knew how hard headed the boys in the Winston family were. They had steel jaws, too. He must have hit Del a few times to get him down and out on the floor like that.

Davy was standing beside the man who had offered me a ride to the Curtis' over a week ago. He didn't look half as slick and charming at the moment. If I understood Ross right, that was Tim Shepard. Davy was looking at me worriedly. I thought it was easier to just look at my shoes. They were scuffed and worn through, but they were easy to stare at.

"Get him out of here," Ross growled, kicking Del's unconscious frame. "Idiot."

I wasn't sure who that was directed towards. Ross could have meant either of us, seeing as how we'd both worked to piss him off tonight. I know, I hadn't done a single thing, but that meant nothing in Ross' books since I was his problem when Del screwed up, and Del was his problem when I screwed up. It was a strange cycle.

"What the hell are you all staring at?" Ross growled and everyone looked away, shuffling their feet uncomfortably.

Ross tugged me along up the stairs and to the end of the hall. That was where his room was, the room I had been staying in. He let me go when we were behind closed doors and paced the length of the room for a moment. He did that a lot when he was thinking.

"Why the hell do you let him do that to you?" He demanded finally, glaring at me like I was the one who had started everything down in the bar room. "I need him on talking terms. How do you think he's going to act after that?"

I had no idea how Del would act. That was the thing about Del – he was unpredictable, and because of that, he could be dangerous.

"The only good part about any of this is that it was the hulk behind the bar that hit him and not me," Ross continued on with his train of thought. "If I didn't need him later..."

I was barely taking in what he was saying. Ross seemed to notice that. He shook my arm and glared at me.

"Hey. I'm talking to you."

I just kind of blinked at him and he dug his fingers into my arm, making me wince.

"You are not nine years old anymore. You can't pull this shutting down shit. Talk. Say something."

I honestly tried to say something, but there was nothing to say. There were no words in my mouth. I looked down at where my arms were still looped around the beat up brown picture frame and hoped Ross would get annoyed enough with me to just go away.

"Say something!" He growled, tugging the picture away from me and glancing at it.

He seemed to pause then, looking at it more closely, before setting it face down on the dresser. He tugged me towards the bed and sat me down.

"Fine. Sit there. But you don't leave this bar, get me?" He asked, but didn't bother waiting for a reply before he was storming out of the room.

I watched him go, not feeling anything either way about him leaving. Truth be told, I wasn't in Ross' room in Buck's bar. I was back in New York where I grew up. I never thought about it and most of the memories I had were so warped that I probably wouldn't recognize the place if I ever made it back to our neighbourhood in Queens...or was it Brooklyn? The same could be said for what I remembered about my family, my history. But Del had forced me to relive that night and now everything I had worked so long and hard to forget was coming back without my permission.

The house. As silly as it was, I remembered the house for the first time in forever, and what I remembered was probably wrong. It was painted brown and the windows made the house look like a baby chicken. No, it wasn't the windows; it was the little roof that was over the doorway. The house always looked like it was chirping. I always knew we were home when I saw it. The house was small for the seven of us, and because there were only three bedrooms, I never had my own room in all my born days. I was sharing with Marlene and Samantha when our family died. It was a small room. I didn't spend a lot of time in there. My favourite spot was the main closet. No one bothered me there, and I could watch the world go by through the slats on the doors. I had been in that closet the night it happened. I always hid away there when my mom and dad were fighting.

That night, they were really fighting. I couldn't remember ever hearing them fight more than they had that night.

Mom's voice. I would always remember how shrill it was. It was cracking with how loud she was. Dad was shouting back just as loud, the yelling going back and forth.

Suddenly, there was no more yelling. I would always remember there was a noise louder than they both had been. It had made me jump. And after that, the house was utterly silence as the gunshot resonated.

Dad stumbled down the stairs, sobbing and clutching the wall, catching himself every time he missed a step or two. The gun scraped against the wall as he drug his arm along it...

I closed my eyes, clutching Ross's blankets, in Ross's room, in Buck's bar, in Tulsa Oklahoma. I was not in our house. It was not eight years ago. I had not just heard my mother and sisters die. I was not that little girl hiding in the hall closet. Even though I told myself that, I couldn't stop thinking about that night. So I tried to think about anything else. What came to mind was when Ross was six and fell off the counter in Granny's kitchen. There was a huge bump on Ross's head and my Aunt Sue, Ross' mom, was crying harder than Ross was. Dad came rushing in to take a look, but Aunt Sue won't let him near Ross. Dad looked hurt, his pale blue eyes radiating with it...

Our eyes met through the slats of the door and he sobbed harder, looking devastated, like someone had just died in front of him...

I shook my head. That was not helping. I got up to pace, feeling caged, feeling jumpy and fidgety. But mostly, I was alone and I didn't want to be.

It was three big steps to the door. I made it in four little ones, yanking it open and nearly walking right into Davy. He had his hand poised, ready to knock, obviously coming to check up on me. I had never been so glad to see him.

"I was going to come to see if you're alright, but after what that jerk did to you downstairs, there's no way you're alright." Davy lowered his hand, looking like he was worried. "So I'm just checking to see if you need some company."

I moved to make room for him to come in, going back to my pacing as he shut the door softly. Davy watched, looking like he was going to burst any moment if we kept this silence up. I didn't mind if he talked. Right then, I still had no words.

"I caught some of what Del was telling everyone in the bar, but I missed most of it. So I can't hope to understand what Del said to you or what's going through your mind right now, but if you need to...well, talk about it...I'm not half bad at listening." He shrugged helplessly at the end, obviously overwhelmed and out of his league.

I paused for a moment, looking him over. He looked like he was hanging by his fingertips off a tall tree branch. It was comforting. It was calming to have someone in the room as lost as I was, offering to listen, but not to force me to talk. He and Mr. Christ would have gotten along well. They'd never have spoken a word between them, but they would have got on just fine.

"So, I'll just sit on the bed and...I'll be...here," he offered, sitting down and straightening out the blankets so he would have something to do.

"How much did you hear?" I finally asked and he sighed.

"Just that you were a death angel and your Granny died in front of you. I kind of took off outside to see if I could find that shovel Buck had the other day. I ran into Dallas first," he offered.

I bit my lip and reached over to where Ross had set the picture frame down on the dresser. I didn't look at it as I held it out to Davy and waited. The sit-down portrait was one of the better pictures we had of the family. No one made faces, no one looked less than their best, and my mother was practically beaming because she had accomplished that feat. It was taken months before they died and I think it was the one that they put in the paper. I could be fuzzy on that, but with all the copies Mom had made, it was likely that was the case. Judging from the frame, I knew this was probably Aunt Jenny's copy and Del took it from whatever shelf his mother had it sitting on.

"They all died?" He asked and I nodded. "It couldn't have been your fault."

"I survived." I shook my head and crossed my arms protectively. "I always survive."

"Yeah, you do," Davy offered with a bit of a smile.

I just shook my head and paced a little more. The words were gone again.

"This is your father, right?" He asked and I nodded, feeling like my throat was swelling up with emotion. "If I didn't know any better, I would say he was Dallas' older brother."

I frowned, moving so I could see the picture, too. Dad and Ross had the same eyes and the same coloring. The grin he was wearing in the picture looked like the same one Dallas forced sometimes when he was facing off against his father – confident, challenging, and a total lie. Aside from that, they both were lean and tough looking. I could see where Davy would make the comparison. Dad could very well have been what Dallas would look like when he hit...how old had Dad been? Maryann was sixteen that night, so I would imagine Dad was either in his late thirties or mid-forties. Either way, he died too young.

"The men in my family all have the light coloring," I told him, pointing at my dad as an example. "They get that from Grandpa Floyd."

"What about Del?" Davy asked.

"Del was Aunt Jenny's son. The girls took after Granny Winston. All my aunts were brunettes."

"So Dallas' father looked like your dad?" Davy prompted and I shook my head.

"Sort of. Jebb is the spitting image of Grandpa Floyd. He's more spindly. He's practically skin and bone and his eyes are set differently than Ross and Dad. His mouth is wider, too."

"We had him in the diner a few times, right?" Davy asked and I nodded. "Well, I'll be damned. Your dad looks more like Ross than his own father."

I nodded. "Ross and Dad are nothing alike. Ross is nothing like his dad, either. He's his own person. That matters more than looks."

"I know, but the resemblance is just uncanny." Davy shook his head and patted the bed beside him hopefully. I sat down gingerly, looking at the picture again.

"I didn't think there would be such a gap between you and your sisters." I frowned and Davy flustered a bit. "I mean age wise."

I still frowned, but Davy was looking earnest, trying to keep the noise going. Davy wasn't one for awkward silences. He was right, though. There were big gaps between us, age wise being one of them. Maryann was sixteen, Brianna was around fourteen, I had to be nine, and then Marlene and Samantha were barely in school. It was a wide range of ages for one family.

"Sorry. I guess awkward silences just make me nervous. You don't have to tell me about your family."

"Thanks, Davy," I told him, leaning my head on his shoulder. "I miss them."

"I know," he comforted, laying a hand on my shoulder and squeezing.

Then he brought the gun to his head and tried to give me a watery smile before the gun blasted in the room, and Daddy hit the floor...

I shivered. The thing was, Davy didn't know. He could never guess what it was like to hear everyone around you die, leaving you completely and utterly alone. He hadn't heard death, had to see it more times than anyone ever should.

But he was a good person because of that, and right then I just wanted to sit with him and soak it up before he figured out I wasn't a good person – not anymore. Every person in that photograph was dead. What was left wasn't something I wanted to think about.

We sat like that for a long time before I finally managed to close my eyes for a while. When I opened them again, I was curled up in the bed and Davy was nowhere to be found. That didn't really bother me. I hadn't expected him to show up at all, let alone stay with me. Still, the room bugged me. It was far too warm. Ross liked it warm like that. He kept the heater on high and left it like that all the time. I'd lived out on the streets for too long – I was more used to the cold than I ever would be of the heat. So that was how I ended up out in the hallway, feeling the early morning light on my shoulders. I didn't know quite where I was wandering, but it was better than sitting in Ross' room.

There was a door at the end of the hall labelled 'Manager'. I assumed that was Buck's title. Willing to take a chance, I knocked softly. The door swung open, revealing a set of stairs. Curious, I followed them up and pushed open the door at the top.

I wasn't sure what I expected. From what I knew about Buck, and what I'd seen of the rest of the building, I expected it to be pretty bare and maybe not very tidy, but that wasn't it at all. The walls were covered in plaques, pictures, and there was a clock in the middle. The main room had a couch and a recliner facing a TV. On the other side of the room, there was a kitchenette that was kept neat and tidy. The whole room was tidy. There were three doors off the main room, and from the snoring, at least one of them was a bedroom and Buck was asleep. I didn't mind. It was cool up here, and I wasn't all that interested in human company, even if I didn't really mind Buck.

I sat down on the couch, tucking my legs under my butt, and looking closely at the pictures on the wall. There was a wedding photo of a man and a woman that looked quite old. After that, there were several of a little boy who looked like Buck, then later of that boy all grown up with little boys of his own. I was sure that whoever put that wall together, it wasn't Buck. It wasn't like him to add a lot of personal touches to things, if the bar was anything to go by.

I sat there for quite some time, watching the sun move across those pictures. Finally, there was movement in the other room, and finally, Buck emerged, still buttoning up his shirt. He shuffled across the room to the coffee pot, setting it on the stove to heat up. He watched the water heat, the coffee starting to brew, and finally pulled it off so he could pour it into a white coffee mug. He took a long drink for it, obviously not bothered by the heat, and then filled it again. He finally turned around, glancing over at where I was sitting.

He grunted to himself before making his way over and sitting down on the couch beside me. We didn't speak as he sipped at the coffee, slowly waking up.

"Hi, Pass," he offered. "Enjoying my couch?"

"It's very loud in here," I told him.

"Oh yeah?" he prompted, sipping his coffee.

"This is where all the stuff is hiding."

Buck snorted a bit, glancing around the room. "I suppose it is. I find it a might cozy."

"But you live here."

"I do. I suppose you don't keep much with living on the road and all."

I shook my head. "Not a lot."

And what I did keep never brought up memories like last night's crash.

"If you want, you can put things up here. Lord knows a bit more junk won't hurt anything," he offered.

I blinked at Buck, wondering where that had come from. He looked uncomfortable, like it was something he knew he shouldn't have said, and yet, he'd still offered. I didn't know how to reply. I was going to be leaving soon. There really wasn't any point in storing anything when I would never be back for it.

"Listen, about last night," Buck started after we'd sat in silence for a while. "I didn't hear all of your story, but I do know what it's like to lose your family. It's not something anyone should put on display the way Del did."

Buck was staring at his coffee mug, looking half sad, and half something else I couldn't place. Whatever it was, it was something I could relate to. I guess I never thought much about Buck, beyond the fact he let Ross live here. He was just kinda here all the time.

"You're an orphan?"

"As good as," Buck replied, getting up for another cup of coffee. "We're kinda like your family. It has to be a very unique occasion to see any of 'em, and then you can't wait for them to get gone."

"You got a Del?"

"Nah, got a Jebb, though."

I watched Buck lean against the counter, sipping a new cup of coffee. I wasn't sure he knew a lot about Ross, but apparently he knew enough. I wondered if Ross had ever been sitting in my place, spilling his woes to this man missing his front teeth. Speaking of Ross...

"Where's Ross?" I asked.

"Sleepin' it off." Buck gestured at one of the doors, probably a spare room. "No matter what, you never believe that kid don't give a hang about you. I've seen him drunk over less, but I've never caught him up here over it."

I blinked at Buck, not knowing what he meant, but feeling a bit better regardless. The way he said it made me believe it. The only thing I wanted in the world was to know Ross cared about me as much as I cared about him. It was tough to care about a tough guy. And it was even worse when the last thing you needed was to care about anyone.

Any comments at all are welcome, and flames accepted.

See ya in the funny papers!

Tens