My muse is in a mood tonight and refused to follow where I was trying to lead her, so I gave up on control and let her have her way. Hope you guys enjoy and will share your thoughts! :D

Chapter Twenty-Two

Jason felt like he had just fallen asleep when he heard her scream. Bolting up right, Jason didn't take even a moment to get his bearings, simply rushed headlong up the stairs. The sound of the front door slamming against the wall barely registering with him.

"Elizabeth?" Jason asked fearfully.

"Sorry…it's nothing, just a bad dream. They happen to me sometimes. Sorry I woke you." Elizabeth said contritely.

"No, it is fine; I didn't mean to fall asleep. Do you want to talk about it?"

Before she could answer the door to the room was shoved open again and there stood Francis, panting as his eyes scanned the room for a threat.

"Hi…" Elizabeth said, feeling like an idiot for causing such problems. "No, nothing to really talk about, whatever it was I was dreaming is gone." What a way to make an impression…she thought sadly.

Both men looked at her askance but she just laid back down, turning her back to them.

Francis, he took the hint, again hating the reason he couldn't force the issue but knowing her trust was more important that information.

Jason on the other hand, went to the other side of the bed, toed off his boots and lied back. "Whether you want to talk or not, I don't feel right leaving you alone right now. It seemed to work well before, want to snuggle?" It was said in a joking way but both could feel the intent behind the offer.

Elizabeth paused briefly before scooting into his offered arm. She didn't want to talk about the man that had been haunting her dreams for as long as she could remember but Jason was right, that was the first time she'd fallen asleep and not been assaulted by this nameless person. Perhaps tomorrow she'd tell Jason about him, draw him…maybe they'd know who he is and why he haunted her.

XxXxXxX

As the plane set down, the two men confidently stepped from the plane. What could have been an irreversible screw up now had a plethora of chances to turn out right.

"Is it weird being back here?" He asked.

"Not really, what went down before has no bearing on anything. Because of what he did, he screwed up not only my life but yours as well. Do you really think we would have turned out this way if his actions hadn't caused this?" The second man said. "I don't suppose we will ever know but I am grateful that you have been by my side the entire way, that you didn't let her browbeat me into forgiving and forgetting. As they say, 'a child for a child' and I will have his child before I take my last breath. He cost me everything…"

"Just because you get revenge doesn't mean things will work out. I hate to play devil's advocate but her death and his pain won't bring back your child or the woman you loved. You've lived in this limbo for so long, I worry that you've built everything up to be a fix all…nothing will be fixed brother." He said softly.

"Everything will be fixed!" The second man said in refusal, unwilling to admit that nothing could undo what was done. "I will have my revenge and he will know what it feels like to lose not only the woman he loved, which I still say we should have alerted him to long before now and then…he will know the pain of his child dying, gasping for that last precious breath…Vengeance will be mine."

He understood his brother's reasoning, to an extent but the vengeance he had been seeking and thought out of his grasp, was also turning him. Everything that used to be good and honest about his brother burned out when he discovered his love was dead and so was the unborn child he hadn't gotten to know of, until too late.

It wasn't often that he got scared but he was scared, not only for his himself but for his brother too. If vengeance was so easy, 9/10ths of the world would be exacting it. Although, if he could get his hands on that little bitch that had evaded them this long…He could still see the complete innocence of the child he used to visit. Perhaps it was wrong of him to covet one so young but there was something so pure, he often wondered, late at night, alone in his bed, if she was the one who could have redeemed the blackness from his soul…and since discovering that she hadn't died, his desire for her had quadrupled.

What could he say; he was a sick, sick man and had never been happier that his lost little lamb had found its way back into his life.

XxXxXxX

Mac awoke and just laid there. He could hear the absolute stillness of his house and wondered if Felicia was going to make this harder than it needed to be. He hadn't always done what was right for the sake of what was right but he had grown as a man and a person and didn't think that allowing her to waffle back and forth in his life was in his best interests.

Not only did the girls deserve better but so did he. A new daughter would have put a kink in his marriage…perhaps the old saying, 'all things happen for a reason' had more weight that he once believed.

Life hadn't been easy, especially with everything that went down with his brother and his wife and then with his niece but despite the sense of loss he had been feeling, things seemed like they were beginning to look up.

The one thing he vowed was to find out why Dominique never told him she was pregnant and why he was only just finding out about his daughter. He had been denied twenty years with her, and any and all who had a hand in that, would rue the day they crossed him. With that thought in mind, he quickly left the warmth of his bed and tossed his emergency leave notice in the trash. Booting up his computer he drafted his letter of resignation. Whatever the future held, it would be done as an average citizen with a great background. It was his background he was going to have to call on, if he had any hope of protecting Elizabeth from whoever wanted her dead. He supposed he could be called a man on a mission and this was one mission he was not going to fail at.

The mayor would probably raise holy hell for his short notice…but he wasn't willing to leave Elizabeth in just a mobster's care.

Wide awake and unable to shut his mind off, Mac quickly dressed, left a note for the girls and one for Felicia if she showed up, before getting back into his car.

Twenty minutes later and a stop at the local Starbucks, Mac was caffeinated and entering the Towers.

XxXxXxX

"Do you ever feel like your life is spinning out of your control and you are left chasing your own tail…if you had a tail?" Elizabeth asked.

"More or less, my grandmother…she used to tell me, especially when I was so angry, that life was about living, you had to live through all the little and big moments, wishing and hoping things were going to change, wasn't going to help. I guess she was right, but at that time, it felt like such a stupid thing to say." Jason said.

"Sounds like a smart woman." Elizabeth offered. Wanting to get her mind off her nightmare and the possible minefield that they as boy/girl man/woman had, Elizabeth started to talk. "You know, when Piph saw me with that silly bird Maggie, she screamed at me for ten minutes. Lecturing me on diseases and being pecked or clawed to death but you know, from the moment I met the bird, I wasn't afraid. Nothing about my life was normal but here was this bird, and suddenly, I didn't feel so alone. You should have seen her the one day, I was sitting outside with Cleo and Maggie swoops in and lands on my knee and there is cat and bird, looking at each other, one as lunch the other, I swear, the bird was taunting her and before I can decide how to handle the situation, Cleo comes running. I think my heart was in my throat for longer that it took for the moment to play out but damn…the cat runs right on by the bird, mere inches and the bird looks at the cat like 'ya, that's the best you got…' it was surreal and frightening."

"Why'd you name her Maggie?" Jason asked when he managed to stop laughing.

"Well, see, I still don't know if it was a girl or a boy. I was going to name it Mags but Maggie just kept popping out of my mouth when she/he was around. Maggie…magpie…I don't know at the time, it seemed to work. Now that I have seen Moana, I know I should have called her Hey Hey." Elizabeth said with a smile.

Jason was completely lost, he didn't watch much TV and when he did it was travel shows and documentaries. He was about to respond, say something, when he saw Elizabeth yawn and like a switch being flipped, she buried her face deeper into the crook of his neck and was fast asleep. He had never seen someone fall asleep so quick. For a few minutes he just watched the rise and fall of her chest, when he was satisfied that exhaustion and not something else was the reason, Jason released his held breath before allowing himself to relax into sleep.

XxXxXxX