Chapter 56- Love Comes Softly

"He's there again isn't he?" Skipper looked up from his maps seeing Danni. He expected her at high noon.

"Like clockwork. So are you going to tell me what happened?"

Skipper sighed, folding his hands over the map he was studying. He let some silence pass between them as he gathered his thoughts.

"In every family you have the good son and the bad son…"

"Which were you? The glorified big brother?"

"Quite the opposite; my old man used to beat me mercilessly and Geo…he always covered for me in school, with friends, with the concerned neighbors. He used to fix me up when dad wasn't looking, bringing me ice packs and sneaking me dinner."

"Where was your mom?" Danni asked concerned.

"She had a substance abuse issue, some kind of Japanese drug…when dad ran her off and she filed for custody, dad won the case. She had visitation rights, but that was it."

"I still don't understand why he's so concerned with Gel's attempted suicide."

As thunder rolled across the sky and lightening flashed, Skipper balled his hand into fist and continued, "One night I just snapped. There was a news announcement about some kind of virus killing off old folks and my dad seemed real nervous. He opened up a bottle of whiskey and passed out drunk."

Danni smiled, "So you saw an opportunity?"

He nodded, "I had enough of being a punching bag! That night Geo and I packed a bag and left."

As he continued telling Danni the story Skipper let his mind wander back to that specific night.

It had been dark and a light drizzle of rain had picked up as Skipper and Geo made their way down a narrow alleyway.

"I'm hungry," a nine year old Geo whined as they walked. Eleven year old Skipper ignored him and continued to walk in angry silence. He wasn't even sure where they were going he just knew he was never going back to his father's home.

"Where are we even going?" Geo asked.

Skipper shrugged, "I don't know okay, just shut up!"

"We can go to mom's place," the younger boy offered.

"That's the first place dad would look idiot!"

"I don't care, I'm hungry and cold so I'm going to mom's," Geo said defiantly turning right as they approached the end of an alley.

Skipper knew he was right. Their mom may've had a chemical dependency, but she would take care of them. Besides the rain had begun to pick up and they needed to sleep. "Fine, we'll go to mom's but only for the night."

Geo's face lit up. As the youngest he had always been the momma's boy. He loved her whereas Skipper had always held a disregard for her. He blamed her for leaving them with a monster, but even still he couldn't hate her. So he took his brother's hand and they marched off towards their mother's apartment.

"It was a good plan," Skipper came back to present looking again at Danni, "but she was dead when we got there."

He could still smell the damp apartment as he and Geo sloshed across the carpet towards the bathroom where they found their mother lifeless in the tub. The water was still running.

"Geo was devastated. He screamed for me to call for help, he wanted me to revive her…to do anything that would save her."

"But you couldn't?"

"Of course I couldn't! I couldn't save her just like I couldn't save myself from my dad. Geo resented me for it for a long time as if it were somehow my fault because he always had to take care of me! Hell he's always taken care of me and I hate myself for it…"

Danni seemed confused, "He seems well rounded to me."

"You of all people should know how well it is to put on a mask that goes unnoticed every day."

She glared, but simply replied, "Touché."

Silence fell between them, both thinking too much about the past and the present. It was a long time before Danni spoke breaking the silence. "If his visits to her are therapeutic, I'll let him alone. But if she freaks out, I'm going to have to put an end to them."

Skipper nodded and watched her leave. His mind however was not at ease because Geo could never leave well enough alone; He was going to try and fix Gel .

He was always trying to fix people when he himself needed the healing.

~0~

Geo hovered around the infirmary like a fly does the trash. He needed to see her; to see that he had actually saved her life.

When Danni went on her lunch break that's when he went in to study Gel. It had already been two days, but the young girl was still not right in the head; Tai-San made a special sedative out of coconut milk and a few odd roots and plants to keep Gel calm until she was better.

Sitting beside her bed Geo watched her sleep. She was still pale from nearly drowning, but it was more of a natural pale now, like a girl in need of a tan. And she looked quite peaceful as she slept; she looked angelic even.

He found himself gripping her seemingly lifeless hand, but he did so with immense pain of a memory from long ago; one he would never forget.

He gripped her hand tighter like he had gripped one several years before and let his mind play a movie of a repulsive night.

It was a night that played over and over in his head. He had only been nine years old when he and Skipper found their mother drowned in her tub. He remembered how it felt to grip her cold, soggy hand as he screamed for Skipper to call the ambulance.

"She's gone Ian, c'mon, we gotta go!"

Geo looked up at his brother like he was crazy, still gripping his mother's lifeless hand, "We can't leave her like this, she's our mom Anthony!"

"I understand that, but when the medics arrive, if they find us here…" his brother ran a hand through his hair, still wet from the rain, "I just…I can't go home, not to dad!"

He looked at his brother first with anger then sad realization. Their mother was dead and as far as they were concerned their father was dead to them as well. As he heard the sirens getting closer he looked back and forth from his mother to his brother before finally letting go of her hand and following Skipper back out into the cold rain.

It was a night Geo had tried to put behind him, but it unwillingly kept coming back to the front memory of his brain, every time he encountered a dead body or especially in Gel's case a half-drowned one.

~0~

Salene grumbled as she heard the familiar sound of the key in the lock. Her key that Bray had taken to make sure she remained holed up in her room per doctors Tai-San and Danni's bed rest orders.

"Oh good you're awake," he grinned as he entered the room balancing a tray in one hand.

She rolled her eyes, "This is torture!"

He chuckled, "Oh cheer up, it's raining horridly and Trudy still made it to the Cafe to prepare breakfast."

"She probably spat in mine."

He chuckled, "So she didn't take the news of you being pregnant with my child well but neither did you."

"That's different. She acts as if I planned this."

Bray shook his head, carrying the tray over to the bed and setting it beside her, "I think you're overreacting. No one thinks ill of you for being pregnant."

"I think ill of me," Salene said as her stomach churned; a response to something on her tray. "I've ruined things between you and Kyra, things are tense between you and Amber and…" she paused, fighting back the nausea, "we're not even a couple."

Bray still had a smile playing on his lips as he studied her with amusement. "We could fix that last part."

She rolled her eyes, "We already had this talk…"

"No you talked and I listened."

"Obviously not well enough…" she froze mid-bite, racing to the restroom. It was the darned pineapple. She used to love pineapple but now that she was pregnant she couldn't stand its sweet smell.

She couldn't protest as Bray followed her and held back her hair that was longer than normal, as she heaved over the toilet. His free hand rested upon her back throughout the whole sickening thing. It gave Salene a small yet comforting chill that she tried to ignore; it had felt nice having that hand there. When she was done he handed her a wet rag and disappeared back into the main living space of the small hotel room.

When she returned to the room she sat on the bed and noted the tray was void of the remaining pineapple. In its place were a few largely squared crackers resembling saltines.

"They're a Patsy and Éowyn creation," he responded before she could ask, "Not as good as a saltine cracker, but should settle your nausea."

"Thank you," she murmured before shoving one in her mouth.

Salene had never noted this kind of kindness from Bray. He had always been kind but in a distant way. Like when he first entered the mall, handsome and a loner, coming and going without notifying anyone, but always returning with something that was needed.

It was initially what she had liked about him. He was the strong, silent type, he was handsome, and he had paid her attention. That same attention was now somewhere in between melting her heart and suffocating her. Being stuck in her hotel room had made her claustrophobic and having Bray there only made it worse.

"I need to get out of this room!" she said with a mouthful of another cracker.

"I believe the doctor's orders were bed rest, but I knew you'd miss your little spot in the lobby, so I took the liberty of borrowing this from Josh," he pointed towards the far left corner of the room.

She hadn't even noticed the wheelchair sitting there before. "I'd rather walk, but if it gets me out of this room, I'll take it."

"Good because I've got a surprise for you," he grinned.

With hesitancy she sat in the chair and braced herself for the surprise.

~0~

Salene's mouth went slightly agape when Bray wheeled her into the hotel lobby. The indoor jungle had been replenished of its flowery vines, the water fountain that jutted out of a wall was running, and the large, circular aquarium in the middle of the lobby was now clean and filled with fish.

"Surprise!" Lottie squealed stepping from behind one of the large columns that adorned the lobby.

"How did you?...when did you? I can't believe it!"

"Lottie wanted to do something special for you for saving Gel. She orchestrated this whole clean-up. Ebony, Slade, Jack, Lottie, Ruby, Liv, May, and I pulled together and got things done," Bray said.

Salene was in awe. It had been raining for a few days and yet they had managed to fish and gather healthy flower vines that would continue to grow and flourish with the right maintenance. She was overcome with joy and a few tears escaped their ducts.

"I know how much you like this place," the younger girl said, "even if we're leaving Fleur Isle, it'll be a nice lobby for future business."

"It wasn't light work either, that's why I had to keep you holed up in your room, though you do need the bed rest," Bray smirked.

"It's beautiful. I love it! Thank you."

Lottie beamed from ear to ear as she quickly embraced Salene from her perch in the wheelchair. Then she skipped off down the hall disappearing presumably into the Infirmary to see Gel.

Bray and Salene sat in silence in her absence. He watched her, studying her silent joy, and she watched the fish tank trying to ignore the burn of his stare. Each of them was at war with themselves over their current situation. Bray was almost certain everything happened for a reason and that this child was destined to be born to him and Salene; to unite the two of them. He didn't understand why Salene didn't have the same viewpoint. But if there was one thing he had learned from his past relationship with Amber and later Kyra, it was that love came softly. Salene would come around eventually and when she did perhaps these confused feelings he had growing for her would be clearer to them both.