Chapter Ten

"Didn't I raise her all alone, didn't I?"

Nathan hated Christmas. The holiday began to pester him shortly after Thanksgiving. Once it was December, he felt like he was under siege. Although he no longer went to malls and was therefore saved the garish displays, he did listen to the radio. The stations were mysteriously compelled to blast Christmas songs all about Christ being born and Jack Frost nipping at noses. This had nothing to do with his bloody job or loneliness. He had always been this way. Marni had been the one who made it bearable for him. She threw herself into the holiday, decorating every inch of available space and cheerfully singing every sentimental ditty about Christmas she could remember. He might have hated the holiday but he loved her. Anything that made her happy made him happy.

Once Marni had died, there was no one around to decorate or cook or sing. The only thing he'd done for Christmas with Shilo the last sixteen years was exchange gifts. It seemed wrong to deprive her of that. She'd never expressed much curiosity about the holiday and it was a calm, uneventful time for the two of them. Things would be different this year. Olivia's presence guaranteed a difference. One day he suspected he would come home from work and find a tree by the stairs. Naturally he would lose any argument he had with her about Christmas since he didn't actually have a good reason for not liking it besides the fact that it got on his nerves. Aside from that, he wanted to avoid arguing with her at all cost.

Nathan had no idea what had come over him when he'd fought Olivia about the sex issue. He had felt so flustered and unsure about the whole thing. Then she'd said he was sexually dead. He winced even now as he recalled her tone. If not for the way he'd seen her react to him, he would have believed she meant it. God knew Nathan had begun to believe he had none of those feelings anymore. They both knew better than that now.

It was only later when he was working, cutting open a man on the street to remove his kidneys, that he realized exactly what had come over him. Repo Man had taken the reins of his control and acted only as a savage would. When he worked he recalled all the perverse thoughts that had streamed through his head when he had Olivia against the wall. Chaining her down, showing her just how 'sexually dead' he was. It pleased the Repo Man but stunned Nathan.

Years ago he'd learned that he had to find a way to distance himself from what he did for a living. Repossessing organs was not a business for a sane man. So Nathan had taken all the instincts of the Repo Man and sealed them away, to be released only on his victims. Shilo could never see what her father was. Somehow Olivia had provoked those instincts. He didn't know how or why it had happened. There was also the matter of how she'd reacted. It was as if something had shifted inside her as well. The fierceness of her single blue eye had never been so blatantly carnal. Without any answers, Nathan simply had to wonder.

Then, finally, the tree happened. He'd known it was coming but he was surprised by how soon after the 'incident' she'd brought it out. Nathan came out from behind the fireplace, immediately confronted by a tall, artificial Christmas tree with the lights already on it. He stared at it a moment before hurriedly closing the fireplace. He was lucky he hadn't opened it while Olivia or Shilo was in the room. No, his timing had been excellent. Only a few seconds later the women in his life came down the stairs, holding strings of popcorn.

"I can't believe you ate unbuttered, unsalted popcorn," Olivia was saying. Shilo just grinned.

"It tasted good to me," she said casually. Olivia shook her head. When she saw him she paused on the stairs, all expression leaving her face. It had been like that when he'd opened the door for her that day, although he hadn't noticed a tree nearby. She must have slipped out to get it once he'd gone. He supposed she either wanted to surprise him or avoid an argument. If her lack of facial expression was anything to go by, he was pretty certain she didn't want to do something nice for him anytime in the near future so it probably wasn't an attempt at a pleasant surprise.

"Hello, Nathan," she greeted him coldly. "We didn't hear you come in the door." Shilo's greeting was considerably warmer.

"Dad, look at what we've been doing!" she called, holding up the strings of popcorn. He smiled at her.

"You've been working hard."

"No, I mostly ate the popcorn. Livvy did the actually stringing part," Shilo admitted. She looked so much like her mother there with that slightly guilty but pleased smile. It was almost painful.

"I thought you might be a Christmas enthusiast," Nathan told Olivia, hoping for maybe a little emotion. She merely shrugged.

"It's a nice enough holiday. I prefer Halloween." The two of them finished their walk down the stairs and Olivia set Shilo to work on stringing the popcorn around the tree. Nathan almost interceded, knowing that Shilo had never decorated a tree before and couldn't know the right way to do it. He stopped himself when he realized just how much it pleased Shilo to be given this task to do on her own. A few months ago the correction would have been automatic. He wouldn't have paused to think about it. Olivia was getting to him.

"Dad, check out the decorations Livvy brought!" Shilo said, looking over her shoulder at him with a glowing smile. Olivia picked up a medium-sized cardboard box that had been sitting next to the tree.

"I wasn't sure what sort of tree ornaments you had, if any, so I brought mine," she explained. He accepted the box from her and took a seat on the stairs to peruse its contents. The first thing he noticed was that every ornament was handmade. Crisp crochet angels, stars, Santas and miniature wreaths in a variety of colors filled the box. "My grandmother made them." He glanced up at her.

"These are remarkable," he murmured. So few people put forth the effort to create things anymore. The old works of simple art had been dumped out in favor of technology. Nathan felt privileged to see this treasure.

"Remarkable," Olivia echoed. "I suppose so." Something had changed in her face. It no longer looked blank. He had the distinct impression that she was in pain. Her mouth was in a tight, thin line and it looked as though her jaw was clenched.

"Is this all of them?" he asked carefully, unsure how to find out what was wrong with Shilo barely a yard away. Olivia nodded.

"Those are all of my grandmother's things. My mom made a lot of decorations. There was this train set she made out of yarn and these plastic square things. I wish I remembered the name. Anyway, most of them were destroyed," she finished flatly, only the tiniest flicker of guilt in her eye. Nathan frowned.

"By what?" Olivia glanced at Shilo, who was cheerfully humming under her breath. She turned back to him.

"Grief." Nathan understood immediately. She hated Christmas, too. Olivia turned to Shilo with a light smile. "Hey, kid, I'm going to pop some more popcorn for you. Tree decorating is hungry work."

"Thanks, Livvy." The woman made an abrupt retreat to the kitchen. "Why don't you help her out, dad?" Nathan blinked. Shilo's friendly suggestion was exactly the excuse he needed to find out a little more about Olivia.

"Good idea, Shi. We'll be back in no time."

"I am lost without you here."

Olivia had woken up crying last night. She hadn't woken up crying for a long time and it put her in a bad state of mind. The holidays were rough but that wasn't new. They'd been rough every since her mother died. It had happened around this time of year, too. December was just a bad month overall. However, the last five years hadn't been all that awful. She had begun to feel like she'd pulled herself together and made a life without warm things like trees and decorations and family dinners. It worked for her.

Shilo was getting to her. She was, in a way, family and Christmas with family was not something she'd expected to have. Olivia had tried to put a little distance between her and the Wallaces. With Nathan it worked fine. With Shilo, there was no hope. She couldn't keep from loving her. That was what had happened, no matter how hard Olivia had fought. She loved Shilo. The girl was sincere and innocent. It was impossible not to love her. She was even feeling a little more paranoid about the things they did together. She worried that Shilo would wear herself out or faint or fall down the stairs or set fire to the kitchen or… She closed her eyes as the popcorn popped in the microwave. All she needed was a pair of dark-rimmed glasses and she could be Nathan.

"Olivia?" She turned at the sound of his voice. "Shilo thought you might need a hand." She lifted a brow questioningly.

"With popcorn?"

"Well, yes," he said, sounding a little hesitant now. He'd probably realized just how strange it was for Shilo to think she needed help with popcorn. Olivia just shook her head.

"She's been like this for the past few weeks. I don't really want to talk to her about it but it's getting harder to avoid." He frowned. She saw that he was confused although she wasn't sure why. It was blatantly obvious that Shilo was trying to set them up. The kid was so organized that she probably had complex blueprints about Operation Hookup.

"I'm sorry?" he asked. This time Olivia frowned. There was no way he'd missed what Shilo was doing. Just no way. Was there…?

"Come on, Nathan. Popcorn?"

"I-I don't know what you mean." He was stuttering. He really didn't know. All men really were thick.

"She's trying to get us together," she told him slowly. He stared at her blankly in response. Olivia tried not to roll her eyes. "Remember the whole sexual health issue? She brought it up because she wants the two of us to do the Nasty, fall in love, get married and maybe give her a brother or sister."

"She wants what?" he demanded, eyes widening.

"You heard me."

"That's not possible." Nathan was shaking his head and leaning against the wall as if he needed the support. "She knows better. I'm still… I'm not…"

"I know that," she told him gently. "You still love your wife. But Shilo doesn't." Nathan's expression went sharp.

"Of course she loves her mother. How could you say that?" Olivia did roll her eyes then.

"I said it because it's true. Shilo does not love her mother. She doesn't even remember the woman." Nathan stalked toward her.

"You don't understand anything," he snarled. Olivia felt too dead inside to care about Nathan's outrage. Her grief had affectively strangled the attraction that had once been there when she looked at him.

"I understand very well. Shilo resents her mother for passing on her blood condition. She resents her for being so perfect. Most of all, she hates that when you look at her you see Marni." It was as if she'd sucked the air right out of his lungs. He looked shocked, devastated, hollowed out.

"She thinks that?"

"Yeah," Shilo confirmed from the doorway. Olivia didn't know how long she'd been standing there. The grief and aching went away when she looked at Shilo. She suddenly felt intensely guilty for talking about her with Nathan. She'd betrayed her trust in a way.

"Shilo, I'm sorry," she said, quickly going to her. She was so quick she bumped into Nathan as he headed to do the same thing. Shilo just shook her head.

"It's okay. It was just the truth." Olivia didn't think Nathan could look any more shattered. She was wrong.

"Shi," he whispered, the nickname sounding like a plea for forgiveness. "You have to know I love you."

"I know that, dad. But sometimes I feel like I'm not enough. I could never make you really happy by being me. I had to be my mother and I'm… I'm not." Her voice broke. This time Olivia restrained herself before she enveloped Shilo in her arms. That was Nathan's place. He hugged his daughter tight against him. It looked as if he was about to cry, too. Olivia leaned against the counter. Even her eyes were stinging, threatening tears. The holidays were hell.

"You were right." Olivia realized Nathan was talking to her. She watched the Wallaces as they dealt with what she'd done to them. She really was poison.

"I'm sorry," she whispered again. Shilo turned to look at her in her father's arms. The tears in the teen's eyes shattered Olivia's heart just a little more.

"You knew because you loved your mother," Shilo said quietly. "You could tell that I didn't. If I could cover up my face, I would so I could be me. But you loved your mom so why…?" Olivia knew what Shilo was offering. It was a trade. She'd given Shilo's secret to her father. Now she deserved a secret in return. She was willing to accept that offer if it would at all repair the damage she'd done or at least put them on a more even plain of suffering.

"The right side of my face doesn't look like my mother, Shilo. When my mother was murdered - "

"She was murdered?" Nathan asked. She nodded, wishing she didn't have to share this with him. Telling Shilo anything would probably be the same thing as telling Nathan now that she was trying to fix them up, so what difference did it make?

"Repossessed." Her eyes went to Shilo so she didn't see Nathan's eyes freeze over. "I tried to stop what happened to her… her attacker threw me through a glass door and the shards…" She gestured at her face. Shilo had gone pale. She hadn't known what she'd been asking Olivia to reveal and it shocked her.

"Why didn't you get a skin graft or something?"

"It would be like pretending I didn't fail," Olivia replied, trying to adopt a lighter tone but it just sounded brittle. Shilo left her father's strangely limp arms and hugged Olivia.

"I'm sorry," she whispered so only the scarred woman could hear. "I didn't know. I'm sorry." Olivia stroked the kid's shoulder.

"Not your fault."

"I'm sorry." It was Nathan saying it now. His expression wasn't one she understood in the least. It was almost like anguish and… guilt? No, that was silly. He had nothing to feel guilty about. She smiled at him weakly before resting her head on top of Shilo's. The comfort of a hug was one she never wanted to take for granted again. She barely heard Nathan's whisper. "Oh, God, I am so sorry."

She didn't know that her mother's killer was apologizing.