Ghosts That Haunt—Epilogue
Three and a half years later. . . .
Casey let himself in the house as quietly as he could. It felt good to be home, and he looked forward to crawling into bed with his wife for the first time in nearly four weeks. As he relocked the door and reset the security system, he thought he might look in on Victoria before he joined Riah.
He didn't bother with lights as he moved silently through the living room. Some habits died hard, he thought, a small smile curving his lips as he headed toward the stairs. From above he heard a door open. Small feet thudded down the hall toward him, and he watched the slight figure barrel down the staircase. He dropped his bag and caught his four-year-old daughter when she launched herself at him with six steps to go, marveled at her certainty that he would catch her even as he felt the urge to reprimand her for risking her neck on a dark staircase. "Daddy!" she cried in a loud whisper. He crushed her against his chest, and she wound her arms around his neck and squeezed right back. He breathed in the welcome scent of clean girl and kissed her cheek. She lifted her head and smacked a kiss on his mouth.
"Where's your mom?" he whispered.
"Asleep," she said.
"Which is where you should be," he told her, held back a grin as she grimaced.
Victoria heaved a heavy sigh, and he leaned down to catch hold of his bag before he started up the stairs, shifting her weight to his hip.
He asked if any of the family was there yet, and she whispered no. Most of their family were coming to them for Christmas this year. He slipped her back in her bed, tucked her in, and kissed her forehead. "See you in the morning, kiddo."
"Night, Daddy," she whispered.
Riah had finally learned to sleep with the bedroom door closed. Casey smiled at the memory of being interrupted by their daughter early one morning while he made love to his wife. It hadn't amused him at the time, but it had led to Riah agreeing it was time she got used to shutting the door. He eased their bedroom door open and slipped inside. He moved around the room quietly, undressed, showered, brushed his teeth, and returned to the bedroom.
When he finally slid between the sheets and up against his wife, she breathed in deeply and mumbled, "My husband is due home any moment."
He grinned and kissed the nape of her neck. She moaned and pushed back into him. "Yeah?" He ran a hand over the bare skin of her stomach and kissed along her neck toward her ear.
"Mmmmm," she said, moving to accommodate his mouth and hand. "He's usually heavily armed."
"I think I can take him," he assured her, kissing along her bare shoulder.
"I'd rather you took me." Riah rolled around and faced him. He took her mouth, and she kissed him back, slowly but with growing heat. Her arms slid up and around him as he rolled her onto her back. He could see her outlined in the moonlight from the window, and he thought again how very lucky he was that her overprotective father had sent her to him—even luckier that she had fallen in love with him.
"How did it go?" she asked.
He told her, told her it went well, but then he confessed there had been one of those moments where it had all nearly gone south. He had gone out on the hunt with Walker and Bartowski. The whole thing had been something from their early days: bad guy steals nuclear secrets, bad guy tries to sell secrets, overture is made to bad guy, buy goes bad, Bartowski put in jeopardy, Casey cleans up the mess. Only this time the bad guy had more than nuclear secrets for sale—he had Chuck's identity as the Intersect. Casey still couldn't believe that after nearly six years more people didn't know that one.
Riah pulled him down for a kiss when he finished, and he slid his body against his wife's. He had noticed she was naked when he climbed in with her. He took his time appreciating Riah's thoughtfulness, and afterward, he asked, "How were things here?"
She told him things had been fine. He asked if she was alright. It had only been a little after nine-thirty when he arrived home, and it was unlike her to be in bed asleep that early. "I'm really tired," she mumbled. He nearly asked why, but he was pretty sure she had spent the last couple of days cleaning and cooking before their families arrived. When he left right after Thanksgiving dinner, she had been happy her family and his were planning to come to them for Christmas. Alex would be in California with her mother, but his oldest daughter had promised to come for New Year's. Otherwise, they should have most, if not all, of their family with them.
He asked when everyone was coming. "Christmas," she murmured. That wasn't much of an answer, but he could hear sleep creeping into her voice.
Casey rolled on to his back, and she followed. Normally, she would talk to him for quite a while when he came home from an absence. Instead, she appeared to have drifted off to sleep, her hand over his heart. He covered it with his, and softly ran the other up and down over her upper arm and shoulder. He was disappointed she didn't want to talk, and he was a little worried. It simply wasn't like her to be this exhausted. He pressed a kiss against her forehead, and relaxed, glad to be home, glad to be in his own bed with his wife, and glad to have their daughter safely asleep down the hall.
For some reason, that made him think about that first Thanksgiving he had spent with the Bartowskis and how Woodcomb had started that stereotypical sharing of the things they were all grateful for. He had passed, unable to think of what he was thankful for that sweet John Casey, Buy More appliance salesman, might be thankful for as well. If he were back in that moment, he would be thankful for his wife and daughter—both daughters, he thought, thinking of Alex.
His older daughter was in graduate school at Georgetown, and this time she had the luxury of not having to work to support herself while she studied. Law school, he mused. He shouldn't have been surprised, he decided, but what had surprised him was Riah quietly insisting they needed to pay her expenses for her. Riah's sister Emma, who had done an internship with an Illinois senator, had suggested Alex take over her apartment when she left to return to Chicago this past spring, and Alex had agreed. Emma, it turned out, had owned the apartment, and she told Alex no rent was necessary since she didn't want it to sit empty. All she asked was that Alex pay the utilities. Alex had balked at first, but she had finally given in.
Casey was glad to have her close by, glad she and Riah got along, and glad that Victoria adored her. Alex seemed to feel the same on all counts.
He shifted to a slightly more comfortable position and kissed his wife's forehead again before settling in to sleep.
The next morning the sound of bare feet running in the hall woke him. Riah was still completely dead to the world. He untangled himself and went to see what got Victoria up so early.
As usual, he found her in the den in front of the television. He bit back a crack about the leftist indoctrination Sesame Street provided, mainly because Riah had yelled at him for the better part of an hour the last time he'd said something like that to Victoria. His wife had lectured him about the fact that at least the program had educational value, unlike some of the other options suitable for children. He suspected she simply couldn't take another moment of the mindless drivel of most cartoons, though he noticed Riah had a taste for Warner Brothers cartoons.
He asked his daughter what she wanted for breakfast and wasn't in the least surprised that she asked for pancakes. It was their thing, though this time it reminded him of Ellie Bartowski. As he got what he needed and started, he wondered what the female Bartowski, her husband, and their daughter were up to in Chicago. He and Riah usually saw them when they went to visit Riah's sister. They both seemed happy, though Ellie missed her brother. Sometimes she bemoaned the Midwestern winters, but she loved her job.
Over breakfast, he considered how tired Riah had been the night before, and he realized it was a couple of hours past the time when she would normally be up and functioning. He worried, and while he was tempted to pump Victoria for information about her mother, he resisted. Riah obviously needed the rest, so he suggested his daughter go get ready while he cleaned the kitchen. When she asked why, he told her he would take her Christmas shopping for her mother.
He cleaned the kitchen, cleaned up himself, dressed, and left Riah still asleep when he herded Victoria out to the Vic.
"Daddy, we should get Mummy something really special," Victoria's voice piped.
Casey looked down indulgently at his daughter. He had planned on it. His wife had saved his sanity and his life, as had the little slip of a girl holding on to his hand. "What do you suggest?" he asked.
Victoria squinted her blue eyes and thought. "I don't know," she said at last. "She likes everything.
He snorted at that. Not everything, he could have told his daughter. Riah hated surprises, though she had gotten used to the fact that life was a little more interesting with surprises in it. He, of course, had done his best to make sure the surprises she got were mostly of the nice kind. She didn't like strangers, didn't like diamonds, though she hadn't complained about the few he'd given her—especially not her engagement and wedding rings—didn't like extreme heat and humidity, and really didn't like the man he saw ahead of them on the sidewalk.
Neither did he, when it came down to it. The other man had seen them, though, so Casey walked grimly on. "Kavanaugh."
"Casey," the other man said. "You must be Victoria," he said, smiling down at the little girl.
Victoria tucked herself behind her father's leg. Like her mother, she had learned to be wary of strangers, and in this case, Casey had to admit there was cause.
"Shopping?" Kavanaugh asked.
If he'd been alone, Casey would have just grunted, but he said, "Yeah."
"Where's your lovely wife?"
Casey felt his teeth grit. "Riah's having a day off, so I thought I'd entertain Victoria and let her have some quiet." Kavanaugh didn't need to know that Casey had been gone for three and a half weeks, and he had decided to let Riah sleep in while he and Victoria Christmas shopped for her mother.
Kavanaugh leaned closer and asked, "You know D'Angier?"
His senses went on alert. Napoleon D'Angier, whose real name was Robert D'Angier, was a Basque separatist. There were rumors he was in the States to meet with several terrorist groups who might help his people with their recognition problem, especially since ETA had decided to go IRA and stopped their armed resistance, had chosen to work through diplomatic and political channels. D'Angier was wanted for killing two CIA officers four years ago. "Yeah."
"If you see him, call," and Kavanaugh walked off.
Victoria came out from behind her father. "Who was that man, Daddy?"
"Someone your dad used to work with," he told her absently.
Apparently, that satisfied her, and Casey started walking again, mindful of keeping his strides as short as he could to accommodate Victoria's much shorter legs. She was getting old enough she didn't want to be carried much. He headed for a jewelry store. He always gave his wife jewelry for Christmas. Her father gave it to her for her birthday, but Casey was a creature of habit and tradition. He'd given Riah her engagement ring for their first Christmas when he proposed to her. He stopped outside and looked at the display in the windows.
"Let me see!" Victoria demanded, and he reached down to lift her. He settled her on his hip, and she wrapped an arm over his shoulder to steady herself as she leaned over to study the items in the window display. He loved holding his daughter. He'd been a little upset when she had become more independent this year, so he breathed in and hugged her a little.
His daughter was also single-minded. Riah said she got that from him, but he'd often seen his wife be what she dismissed as "tightly focused" when he had shot the accusation at her. Victoria pointed a tiny finger at an emerald pendant and asked, "Do you think that would make up for you doing unspeakable things to her?"
He stared at her in disbelief, his shocked blue eyes meeting her serious ones. Unspeakable things? Where on earth had Victoria gotten that idea? He had never abused his wife, never mistreated her—if he didn't count having to pack up and leave her at a moment's notice, sometimes with no notice until after the fact. He supposed what had happened the year before they got married qualified, but Riah didn't hold that against him. She'd forgiven him for not telling her about his brief life as Alexander Coburn, so he didn't think that had anything to do with what his daughter had just said.
"Victoria," he aked carefully, "what do you mean I do unspeakable things to your mother?"
Her eyes were bluer than her mother's, whose own blue eyes shaded to gray; Victoria's were more like his, and they were solemn as she told him, "That's what Grandpa always says when you and Mummy go to your room for a long time."
He relaxed. He might have known. V. H. had long been uncomfortable with Casey's intimacy with the man's daughter. "Does he, now?" he asked in a low, soft voice Riah would have recognized as the one he used when he was plotting revenge.
"Sometimes he just says you're doing things to her he'd really rather not think about," she added helpfully, "but he says it's okay because you love Mummy very, very much, and she loves you."
"I do love your mother," he told her. "I would never do anything to her she wouldn't like."
Victoria made a face at him. "I know that, Daddy," she said, a little exasperation creeping in, and Casey got that feeling he sometimes had around his daughter that she was four going on forty. She spent too much time with grownups, and he decided there was one grownup in particular she might need to spend a little less time with. "Grandpa says someday you'll know what it's like."
She turned her attention back to the window display, and Casey had one of those moments that came more frequently as Victoria had become more verbal and more distinctly her own person. He suspected he would, and he had a rare sense of solidarity with V. H. as he thought about Victoria grown up with a lover or husband and having to sit and wait for them to finish whatever they were up to. He knew what he got up to with Riah, and he really didn't want to think about any man doing those things with either of his own daughters—it was bad enough he'd had to listen to Alex and Grimes more than once. Perhaps V. H. had a point, he conceded. He, however, intended to have a long discussion with his father-in-law about appropriate topics of discussion with his granddaughter while the man was there for Christmas.
When they entered the store, Victoria still on his hip, he recognized the man at the far counter talking to a tall Hispanic. He slid his phone out of his pocket and sent a quick text to Walker, who would pass it on. "Daddy?" Victoria asked.
He dropped a kiss on her forehead and said, "Nothing, kiddo, just a message for Aunt Sarah."
"Are she and Uncle Chuck coming for Christmas?"
"Doubt it," he said, eyeing the man he knew was D'Angier. "Your aunt Ellie would be very disappointed if they didn't go spend the holiday with her." He smiled, thinking about how the Bartowski family had become his and Riah's family at some point, even Captain Jockstrap, he supposed since the man had married Ellie. Casey still had some guilt for having ruined Devon's mother's dream wedding, but four and a half years later, Ellie still occasionally confessed that she would never admit to the Woodcombs she had been secretly pleased to get the wedding she'd really wanted.
He and Victoria studied the cases, and he smiled at the saleswoman who came to assist them. He remained aware of D'Angier, so it was Victoria who spied the sapphires and said, "Those would look good on Mummy."
Casey looked down and saw what she pointed at. They weren't the deep, impenetrable navy blue so many sapphires he saw were, and they were obviously not manufactured, either. They were set in platinum, and shaded a little toward a clear blue. The setting looked like antique filigree around the teardrop-shaped stones.
"Present for your wife?" the saleswoman asked. He nodded. "Lucky woman."
Her smile was seductive, but he wasn't moved by it. He knew he was the lucky one, not Riah. He watched the saleswoman take the earrings out of the case and set them on top in front of them. Riah had reminded him what it felt like to be human, to love, and even when she believed he had betrayed her early in their marriage, she had found a way to forgive him. Bartowski may have started the process toward teaching Casey to be human, to not run away from love, but it was Riah who had finished it. "What do you think?" he asked his daughter.
Victoria gave a decisive nod.
"We'll take them," he told the woman behind the counter, thought that maybe he ought to invest in platinum to see if he could get some of the money he spent on jewelry for Riah back. He shifted Victoria to his other hip so he could reach his wallet. He had been about to set her down, but he saw Kavanagh sidling into the store followed by two other agents. Every instinct told him to just walk out with his daughter, but doing so might tip off D'Angier. He hoped neither Kavanaugh nor D'Angier did anything stupid he'd have to explain to his wife.
"Daddy?" Victoria whispered as the woman walked away with the earrings and his credit card.
"Yeah?"
"You're squishing me." He relaxed his grip on his daughter. "Isn't that the man you were talking to?" she asked.
Casey looked over and agreed quietly. He told Victoria it was important to be quiet and to do what he said in the next few minutes. He had reason to be glad once more that Victoria was an obedient child. Kavanaugh, the moron, had drawn his weapon and demanded D'Angier surrender. The Hispanic to whom the Basque talked reached beneath the counter and extracted a sawed-off shotgun. Casey dropped to the floor and rolled Victoria between him and the solid bottom of the display case, telling her not to say a word and to be still. The glass case above him exploded, and he heard his daughter whimper, frightened.
He had a gun in an ankle holster, but he had promised a long time ago not to draw in Victoria's presence unless she was in mortal danger—or he or her mother was. He'd never been in this particular position before, out with his daughter, watching an operation go wrong, and knowing he couldn't let D'Angier go free. On the other hand, Riah would never forgive him if he let their daughter see him get hurt or killed, or, more likely, if Victoria saw him kill someone.
As it turned out, he didn't have to draw his weapon. D'Angier ran past him, and Casey grabbed a pant leg and let momentum do the rest. Luckily, Kavanaugh was right behind him and tumbled on top of the Basque, so he didn't have to do anything for which Riah would give him that disapproving look of hers when he got home and Victoria told her mother what had happened when Daddy took her shopping. Of course, she'd give him that terrified look first. She had never quite gotten over her fears from her own childhood, and she was still afraid something would happen to Victoria because of her past or because of Casey's.
Casey had waited patiently for Kavanaugh and his men to do cleanup. He and Victoria had had to wait until he could be interviewed. To keep his identity intact, it had to appear he had been an innocent bystander. God, he hated operations in public places. Victoria was getting as cranky as he was before he was told he could go after an interview that was more talking to another agent about what an idiot Kavanaugh was and answering questions about Riah than an investigative interview. He gave them the information they needed, and they let him go. The white-faced saleswoman handed him his credit card and the slip for Riah's earrings. He signed it, thinking how incongruous the whole thing was, and took the bag she handed to him.
He took Victoria to a McDonald's. He was already going to be in enough trouble with Riah, and Victoria begged. He had a hard time resisting his daughter's pleas under the best of circumstances. At least he made her order milk and apples instead of a soda and french fries. Riah would complain less about what he'd fed her if their daughter had something that he could at least argue was good for her. His wife couldn't abide fast food, but his daughter loved it—so did he, in moderation, if he was honest. He had already figured out he was stuck with apples and milk, too, and he agreed with Riah as he looked at the burger he'd ordered.
Casey watched his daughter as they ate. She was a little quieter than usual, but the adventure in the jewelry store didn't seem to bother her unduly. He wondered if he should tell her not to say anything to her mother. He could do so on the pretext that Riah might find out about her Christmas present, but he didn't want to make Victoria think it was alright to deceive her mother. He knew he'd have to tell Riah anyway, because sooner or later someone would, so he decided not to say anything to his daughter.
Victoria, though, looked up at him and said, "Mummy's going to worry when she finds out, isn't she?"
He was suddenly nostalgic for his bachelor days when life was a lot simpler. He didn't think he was ever going to get a complete handle on this parenthood thing. Looking across the table at Victoria's face, so very like her mother's, and those solemn blue eyes, though, he knew he wouldn't trade having her for all the excitement in the world. "Yeah," he agreed, "she is."
Victoria's gaze fell to the table, and Casey was about to tell her it wasn't her fault when she sighed and said, "Aunt Julie said Mummy needs to not have any stress right now."
Casey frowned. Why had his youngest sister said that to Victoria? "Why not?"
"She told Aunt Dena that the stress was making Mummy sick, and Mummy's been really sick lately."
He went cold. Riah had been in bed early, had looked pale and exhausted when he got home the night before. It had been one of the reasons he'd gotten up when he heard their daughter stirring this morning and suggested to Victoria over breakfast that he take her shopping for her mother's Christmas present. He'd left his wife a note telling her where they were. "What do you mean your mom's been really sick?"
Victoria looked uncomfortable, and he could tell she didn't want to say. "I was being sneaky, Daddy, and I overheard them talking." He raised a brow but chose not to berate her for spying. Riah had nearly had apoplexy the first time Victoria had been caught eavesdropping and announced at a play date that she was just pretending to be a spy like her mummy and daddy were. Sneaky had become the synonym of choice. "Mummy's been tired and barfing a lot. Aunt Julie said it's because of the boy."
Boy? Casey tried to figure out why a boy would make his wife sick. "What boy?" he asked carefully.
"Aunt Dena told Aunt Julie that Mummy's getting a baby, and Aunt Julie said it was a boy because it's making her sick."
Casey felt the blood drain from his face and heard a roaring in his ears. Riah had wanted more children, he had wanted more children, but they hadn't been so fortunate. She had had very little morning sickness when she'd been pregnant with Victoria, but she had told him that the year before when she had miscarried she had been sick often.
"—but I haven't seen a baby, so I don't know why Aunt Dena thinks Mummy's got one," Victoria finished, and Casey realized he had missed something. He decided not to ask questions. He didn't think he could bear the disappointment if Victoria had it wrong.
"What have we told you about listening to other people's conversations?" he asked.
"Not to," she mumbled, and then she looked up at him through her eyelashes, and he was sunk. Some day she was going to do that to some boy, and Casey was going to have to figure out how not to kill him when he came to take her out.
They went home, and on the drive, Casey tried to think of a way to casually ask his wife if she was pregnant. Riah was out of bed and lying listlessly on the couch when they entered the house. She didn't look well, and he wondered as he leaned down to kiss her if there wasn't something more seriously wrong with her. He sent Victoria off to play before he dropped down next to Riah, stretched out, and pulled her to him. "Thanks for taking her," she said. "I needed the sleep."
He cradled her closer to him. "Before you find out," he began after he had kissed her.
She stroked a hand down his cheek. "I saw the news." She smiled wanly at him. "I told you once you tend to attract trouble." Casey grinned, remembered the circumstances under which she had said that. It had been their wedding night, and he had just found her thigh holster beneath her wedding dress. She lifted her head and gave him the look he had dreaded. "They're spinning it as a robbery," she said. "I take it Victoria didn't see her father do anything she shouldn't have seen?"
He kissed her again, long and slow and gave his truthful denial. She snuggled closer to him, and he stroked a hand over her back. "Our daughter told me something interesting over lunch," he said.
"Mmm?" she said sleepily.
"She said you've got a boy, and he's making you sick." Riah's eyes snapped open, and he had a moment where he enjoyed her confusion. He also saw when she figured out what Victoria meant. He slid a hand over her abdomen. "Is it true?" he whispered at last.
Her smile was radiant. He lived for that smile. "Maybe not the boy part," she said, "but the sick part certainly is."
"Have you seen the doctor?"
She nodded. "I was waiting to tell you tonight," she said.
He smiled. "When?"
"End of July, maybe early August."
He remembered how adamant she had been about Victoria's due date, so he smiled at her fuzziness this time. He gathered her closer and kissed her, thought about taking her to their bedroom, and then he remembered what else Victoria had told him. He lifted his head and said, "I think V. H. needs to spend a little less time with his granddaughter." He proceeded to tell her what Victoria had said about how her grandfather claimed he did unspeakable things to her mother.
Riah, damn it, laughed.
"You do do unspeakable things to me," she said softly, and despite his irritation, he liked the way her eyes sparkled when she grinned at him, "and I like them." She reached up to draw his mouth to hers. Her kiss was soft, sweet, and he thought of several unspeakable things he could do to her that they would both like—not to mention a few she could do to him that he was pretty fond of.
Casey snorted. "You don't mind if I have a conversation with your father, do you?"
She smiled again. "Just promise me you won't hurt him."
They told Victoria after supper that night that her mother was going to have a baby. Casey was stunned into stupidity when his daughter turned to him and asked how her mother was getting the baby. Riah held her arms out to their daughter and took her on her lap. His wife grinned across at him, and he knew he was in trouble even before she said, "It's because your daddy does unspeakable things to me."
He didn't find that funny at all. Victoria gave him a perfect version of her mother's disapproving look and said, "You told Mummy what Grandpa always says."
Riah then proceeded to explain to her that she and Daddy loved each other, loved her, too. It was because they loved each other that her daddy helped her get the baby. Victoria was obviously confused. Riah tried again. "When your daddy and I go to bed, sometimes we do what your grandfather calls unspeakable things."
Victoria frowned and said, "Sometimes he says they're things he doesn't want to think about."
His wife's lips twitched. "No, I imagine he doesn't," she agreed, "but they're really very nice things."
"Riah," Casey said, a hint of warning in his voice. "Are you sure we should be explaining this this way?"
"Anyway," she said with a pointed look in his direction, and he recognized it as his cue to leave her to finish her explanation, "sometimes when grownups who love each other do those things, the woman gets to have a baby."
Their daughter looked at her mother suspiciously. Casey couldn't wait to see where this would go. "Then where's the baby?"
Riah took Victoria's hand and put it on her abdomen. "Here."
He could see the skepticism on her little face followed by disgust. "You ate it?"
Casey covered his lower face and tried hard not to laugh. He had a feeling his wife would leave him to finish explaining babies if he laughed. Riah doggedly continued, explaining that the baby was very tiny, but it would grow inside her for a while before it decided to come out. Victoria looked skeptical once more. "So Daddy planted some kind of baby seed in you, and it's going to grow." Riah nodded, and Casey nodded cautiously as well when Victoria turned to him for confirmation. His girl was smarter than her mother thought, though, and Casey didn't stop the laugh when she demanded that her mother explain how if the baby seed was inside her tummy it could get the sunlight it needed to grow. His laugh earned him a glare from Riah, and Victoria turned an expectant look on him.
"Babies don't need sunlight to grow until they're born," he said. "Your mother just has to eat food that's good for it and get lots of rest."
Victoria thought about that a moment, and then she asked, "Is that how you got me?"
He smiled at her. "Yes, Baby, it is."
"Will I still be your baby when the new one comes?"
He could hear a little wobble in her voice, and he tossed his napkin on the table and walked around to where she sat on her mother's lap. He knelt down beside Riah's chair and cupped his daughter's cheek. "You'll always be my baby," he said softly before he leaned in and kissed her other cheek, "but you're getting to be a big girl now, and your mom's going to need you to help her." Victoria turned her head and looked up at Riah who nodded. "It's hard work growing a baby," he continued when she looked back at him, "and your mother's going to be very tired. Sometimes she's going to be a little sick while it grows." Victoria nodded, and her little face had a tinge of relief to know why her mother, as she had put it, barfed a lot and was really tired. "The new baby won't be able to do things for itself when it comes, not like you can, and your mother and I will have to do a lot for it. That doesn't mean we don't still love you, Victoria, but it does mean we might not have as much time for you until the baby doesn't need us as much."
"Tommy's mum had a baby," she said. "He says the baby cries all the time, and it makes his mummy mad."
Riah's arms tightened on her. "Not all babies cry all the time," she said. "You certainly didn't, and even when you did, it never made me angry."
Victoria turned and hugged her mother. "Ours will be a better baby than Tommy's."
Casey snorted and his lips quirked. Riah gave him a warning glance. "We love you, Victoria, and we always will," she said, leaning in to kiss their daughter's forehead.
"I love you, too, Mummy." With that, Victoria slid out of her lap and said, "May I be excused?"
After she ran off to play a while before bedtime, he stood and started gathering plates. He had put them in the sink when he heard Riah start to laugh. Turning, he looked at her, wondered what she found so funny. "'Our baby will be a better baby,'" she quoted faintly, laughing. "My God, John, she's you all over!" She continued to laugh.
Riah felt better the next day, and Casey did what he could to help her get ready. She took a nap in the early afternoon, and Casey was glad to see she still felt well as their family began to arrive that evening. He got up with her early Christmas morning and helped her as much as he could before their mothers shooed him out of the way and took charge. Since Riah looked as though she didn't feel well again, he hoped she let them do most of the work.
They told their family Riah was pregnant as they finished Christmas dinner. Emma, Julie, and Julie's partner Dena were the only ones not surprised. Casey and Riah were congratulated, and after the celebration died down a bit and the women started to clear the table, Casey suggested his father-in-law, who had not arrived until an hour or so before dinner, join him in his study.
After he closed the door, he picked up the scotch bottle and looked a question at V. H. The other man nodded agreement and dropped onto the leather sofa across from Casey's desk. He brought the older man a glass and a cigar. "It's the only room Riah lets me smoke in," he said sheepishly.
He took a seat on the opposite end of the sofa from V. H., and when they both had their cigars going, he said, "So I do unspeakable things to your daughter."
It was gratifying to hear the other man choke on his cigar. "That was supposed to stay between Victoria and me," he said quietly. "How did you find out?"
"I already knew—after all, as Riah pointed out, I do do unspeakable things to her." He paused, considered telling the man he sometimes did them to her where they sat, but self-preservation kicked in. He drew on his cigar. "She was kind enough to say she really likes them, though."
"If you're going to say things like that to me," V. H. grimaced, "I'm going to need more scotch."
"You know where it is," Casey said mildly. He watched V. H. return with the bottle. He let the silence stretch a little. "I think we need to talk about appropriate topics of conversation for my daughter."
"I take it telling my granddaughter her father does things to her mother I'd really rather not think about is not one of those appropriate topics."
Casey put his feet on the coffee table in front of him. "Glad you reminded me. Victoria mentioned that one, too." He drew on the cigar again. "I appreciate you telling her it was alright for me to do those things because I love her mother."
V. H. puffed on his cigar a moment. "Mind telling me where you had this conversation?"
"Outside a jewelry store while we were shopping for Riah's Christmas present. Victoria informed me we should get her mother something really nice and then asked if the emerald necklace in the window would make up for me doing unspeakable things to her mother." This time, when V. H. choked, Casey was sure it was because he was laughing.
"That would be the jewelry store that was supposedly robbed but where really that idiot Kavanaugh nearly let D'Angier escape again?"
Casey's face hardened. "That would be the one." He had spent an hour or so that same night and again the previous night distracting his daughter when she woke up after a nightmare about that morning. He lifted his glass and made himself relax. "By the way, you should have heard the way your daughter explained to her daughter how she got pregnant." He grinned unrepentantly and raised his brows. "It started with how I do unspeakable things to her." His grin widened when the other man choked once more and sprayed good whiskey in shock. He crossed to the bathroom off his study and came back with a clean hand towel he tossed at his father-in-law.
"My granddaughter's only four," V. H. growled.
"And she was pissed that I told her mother what you had been telling her." He raised his cigar. "I suppose you could say that came in handy for trying to explain where babies come from, but I would appreciate it if you quit telling my daughter that something healthy and pleasurable is unspeakable. In fact, I would appreciate it if you stopped discussing our sex life with her at all." He gave V. H. his Death Glare to reinforce his wishes. "You might think it's funny, but children get some interesting ideas that hang over into adulthood from what the grownups they trust in their lives tell them. Riah's case in point, and I won't have my daughter thinking there's something wrong with sex when she grows up."
Adderly sat up straight then and looked at him in mock surprise. "You intend to let Victoria have sex?"
"Don't think I'll be able to stop her," he said darkly. He took a healthy swallow of scotch. "I have, though, been trying to decide how to kill the little bastard when it happens." He looked at V. H. "So many choices, after all." He sighed. "But she'll probably love him, and I'll have to let him live so she's happy."
"Ariel told her you'd probably castrate him and leave him to bleed to death while you dragged Victoria off to a convent for the rest of her life."
He grunted, the one Bartowski used to call number seventeen—thoughtful contemplation, which was surprisingly redundant for Chuck. "Hadn't thought of that one." He lifted a brow and wondered if he would have to have a similar conversation with his mother-in-law. "When did Ariel tell her that?"
A wry smile curved V. H.'s lips. "That first Christmas in Newfoundland after you got married when you dragged my daughter upstairs—right after midnight church services, I might add—and did things to her I'd really rather not think about."
He grinned at the memory, despite how that night had ended. "For the record, Riah dragged me upstairs." Her father grimaced. "Is that when you first started telling my daughter I do unspeakable things to her mother?"
"No," V. H. said. "That would have been a few weeks before when you took Mariah upstairs to say good bye and left me to mind my granddaughter."
Casey finished his cigar and ground out the stub in the ashtray on the coffee table. He splashed a bit more scotch in his glass before he sat back and studied his father-in-law.
"What did you mean about Mariah being a case in point?" V. H. asked.
"Your daughter had some interesting hang ups when I met her," he said. Most of them had come from Ariel, but he figured it would do V. H. good to squirm a bit. The other man looked so stricken, though, that he let him off the hook a bit. "Part of it was because of the things that happened to her, but part of it was what well-meaning—or maybe not so well-meaning—adults told her when she was a child. There are several reasons she was a twenty-nine year old virgin in an era when most girls don't seem to keep it intact by the end of high school. Not the least of which was that apparently all men are suspect and couldn't want her for anything other than what she knew and could be manipulated into telling."
He sipped his whiskey and let that sink in. Given the look on V. H.'s face, it was a little cruel, but Casey knew it was true, and it was a lesson reinforced by Gray Laurance. He wondered if he should apologize, but then he decided he wouldn't. He didn't want his own daughter growing up with skewed notions of what relationships should be like. His with his wife had had its share of bumpy moments early on because Riah hadn't mastered her fears and because of the lessons that had been drummed into her early, some of which she'd learned from her father's cluttered romantic life. Casey was sure V. H. and Ariel had been well-meaning, but as Riah had once put it, she had been seriously fucked up by some of those lessons.
Truthfully, Casey had had his own problems with trust and with intimacy, mainly from experience, but he wanted something very different for his daughter. As a result, he told his father-in-law, "I don't lie to my daughter, and I made her mother some very specific promises when I married her and when Victoria was born, since then, too. Riah wants—and I do, too—our daughter to have as normal a childhood as we can give her. I don't think it's normal for her grandfather to tell her that her father does unspeakable things to her mother."
"Have you considered not doing unspeakable things to my daughter?"
Casey snorted. V. H. had obviously regained his equilibrium. "You wouldn't have a second grandchild on the way if I did."
"There is that," he agreed. He emptied his glass. "I have this odd compulsion to thank you for doing things I'd really rather not think about to my daughter now. Victoria's a lovely child." V. H. poured for them both. They clinked glasses and sipped their scotch. After a moment, Adderly said, "Diefenbaker."
"Gesundheit," Casey said, even though he knew where this was going.
"Funny," V. H. deadpanned. "I do recall quite clearly that when you and Mariah told us you'd decided to name your unborn daughter after your car and that idiot president of yours that you promised she could name the next one. I believe she suggested Diefenbaker."
In the interest of family harmony, he let the insult to President Reagan go. "We didn't name her Victoria after the car," he groused. "Besides, I only agreed to Diefenbaker if it's a boy and then only as a middle name. Even then I only agreed because she was threatening Trudeau."
Adderly laughed. "You know what Diefenbaker's first name was, don't you?"
Casey frowned. "Do I look like the Encyclopedia Canadiana?" He did know: John.
Someone knocked on the door, and Casey recognized the sound of his daughter's small fist on the wood. He called out to her, and she came in, made a face at the smell of the cigar smoke. "Were you and Grandpa doing unspeakable things?"
He grinned broadly, not daring to look at V. H., and said, "No, kiddo, I only do those things with your mother."
"Grandma Ariel said to tell you to come out of hiding so we can open presents," she announced. V. H. snorted.
"Be right there," Casey said, and she rushed back out of the room.
"That's a woman I regret doing unspeakable things to."
"Not me," Casey said without thinking. V. H. looked at him. That's when he realized what he'd just said and the implications of it. "If you hadn't done things I'd really rather not think about with Ariel, Riah wouldn't exist, and neither would Victoria. I'm grateful every day that you did unspeakable things to that woman."
When he sat down next to his wife in the living room, Riah went green and bolted for the bathroom. He followed her, but her retching correlated with his proximity. She finally panted it was the smell of the cigar smoke. He stripped and stepped in the shower while she went out and explained the delay. He took his time, made sure he got any hint of cigar off him before he dressed in clean clothes. He checked his voice mail and made a quick call to Walker before he rejoined the others. V. H. looked a little damp when he re-emerged, and he wondered who had made him shower and change, too.
Riah burst into tears when she saw the earrings, and Victoria nearly did so as well, thinking her mother didn't like them. Riah whispered something to her daughter, and Casey heard Victoria say quietly, "I don't think you should grow this baby if it makes you cry."
He kissed his wife thoroughly when he opened his own package to the groans of most of the rest of the family. He wondered which government official had helped her circumvent the rules to purchase the piece of weaponry he found inside the steel case. V. H. had to have been involved since the SR-21 could only have come from ISI.
Casey pulled Riah to him while her mother and Emma began clearing away the discarded paper and ribbon. He wasn't sure when Riah fell asleep, but his mother smiled gently and suggested they go into the den and let her sleep. He eased her onto the couch, and her mother covered her with a light blanket she retrieved from the linen closet.
He passed the rest of the day needling his sisters and his father-in-law while he mostly ignored one of the football games and played several games of Chutes and Ladders with Victoria. Over supper, he took his sisters' teasing for having gone to check on his wife before taking his seat. When she came in as they finished eating, he rose and led her to the table while his mother fixed her a plate. She ate slowly, and he knew she was worried whether or not she could keep it down. After supper, his sisters began packing up children and husbands and taking their leave.
After most of their company left, Casey's favorite time of the day came. Riah bathed their daughter, and while she cleaned up afterward, he took Victoria to her room and tucked her in bed before reading a story to her. When he finished, he leaned in to kiss his daughter. "'Night, Daddy," she said sleepily.
"'Night, Baby," he told her.
Riah was about to get in bed when he joined her. He slid his arms around her and pulled her against him. "Tired?" he asked.
She nodded and wrapped her own arms around him. "Not too tired for you to do unspeakable things to me, though."
He laughed softly. "How close is your father's room to us?"
"Two doors. Why?"
Casey kissed his wife. "Too far away to make you repeatedly scream my name so he can imagine what I'm doing to you without waking the others up."
Riah's fingers began releasing the buttons on his shirt, and then she looked up at him through her eyelashes. He was sunk. "Make me scream your name anyway," she leaned into him and whispered.
His wife was disappointed the next morning when they went down to the kitchen to start breakfast. There was a note from her father propped on the table. Riah read it quickly and handed it to Casey before she turned to make coffee. It was brief, saying only that duty called, he loved her, and he would be in touch. Casey dropped it on the table and held his wife.
Later that morning he went to his study to see whether Beckman had decided what he was doing next. He had begun thinking about taking the promotion and the desk job they had dangled in front of him recently. He wanted to be at home more, and he wanted to be with Riah in case she needed him now that she was pregnant again.
In the middle of his desk was a piece of paper with a bullet standing on it. Casey went on alert until he stepped close enough to recognize V. H.'s handwriting. He snorted when he read the message:
I know you did unspeakable things to my daughter again last night—on purpose, I might add. Apparently, you've taught her to do things I really don't want to think about to you, based on the way I heard you moaning her name when I left.
As a result, I needed to take your unopened bottle of Macallan to scrub the images those sounds created out of my brain. Because the smell apparently makes Mariah sick, I've also taken the last two Cubans—I should have turned you in to the ATF for even possessing those. They're hardly adequate compensation for the mental distress of thinking about what you might have been doing to my girl.
Sadly, she loves you, you big bastard, so I can't kill you because I want her to be happy.
Remember that when it's your turn.
He sat at his desk and booted the computer. When he had logged on, read and responded to the messages he needed to, he wrote his father-in-law an e-mail:
I think you'll find that they're pre-revolution Cubans and perfectly legal. Your daughter gave them to me. You're welcome to them and to the scotch if it helps you adjust to the idea that my wife didn't need much teaching to do very pleasurable things to me. Take it up with her aunt for giving her that sex book of hers before we got married.
He stared at the screen. If he had any sense, he'd delete that and let it rest, but if he did, he'd never hear the end of it. He thought a moment and added:
I love her, and I don't plan to stop it.
Live with it.
It might be ill-considered to wave a red flag in front of the man's face, but Casey sent the message anyway. Their friendship had survived his seduction of Riah and his marriage to her, but it hadn't stopped the relatively good-natured sniping about his relationship with V. H.'s daughter.
He once more turned to work matters, and when he rejoined his wife and family for lunch, he leaned down and kissed Riah, who looked better than she had since he had come home again. She returned the kiss and smiled happily at him. His whole world sat at that table—his wife, his daughter, and the members of their family who hadn't left for their own homes yet—and he remembered again how glad he was her father had sent her to him. V. H. had trusted him to take care of her, and he had done his best to do so. She took care of him in return, and in the process, she had recalled him from the cold, lonely place he'd found himself. Without a thought for the others, he scooped her up and carried her to their room. He didn't even care that Victoria sighed loudly and announced that her daddy was going to do unspeakable things to her mummy again.
Author's Note:
This concludes your regularly scheduled story.
Thanks again to all who commented—especially phnxgrl, bettyq, and Skateaway. Thanks to Sunshineali who convinced me to post it here.