Welcome back, everyone who stuck around from Analeptic! For everyone who's here and new, feel free to jump back and take a peek - it'll make Malum that much more enjoyable.
Giant shoutouts to nattiebroskette (Go read her stuff! Seriously! Go now!), shieldgirl, psion53, warblerwings, mom2, everyone I'm sure I'm missing, and everyone I'm hopeful has stuck around. Here we go...consider this one setting a stage...
Dave had them both wait in the SUV until he returned with room keys. He didn't want anyone to approach Randy and by proxy, scare Meg. Once everyone had a key in hand, both men turned to look at Meg, who looked back at them, perplexed.
"What?"
Dave started, gently. "Well...hon...how do you want to do this? Elevator, stairs, on your own? We don't know what works. Or doesn't work."
Randy could see the storm cross Meg's face, and he was having none of it. He was too tired, too hungry, and too concerned with getting her to the room, making sure she was safe – whatever safe meant – and debating the best way to do it was not on his list of things to do. "Meg, stop. We're all tired, just tell us what you want. Tell us if you don't know what you want. It's fine either way. At the end we all just need to be in the room."
Meg looked down at her hands and sat, thinking, for several seconds. When she spoke, her voice was thin and quiet. "I don't know what I want. I'm sorry."
Randy shrugged and reached inside the SUV, slid her along the seat, helped her down from the edge, and shut the door behind her, making sure her feet were firmly on the pavement. He kept his arm around her waist as they walked in the hotel and took an elevator to their floor. Inside the boxcar, he made sure to stand away from her, thinking of Jackson and the bruises on her back from the elevator railing. He watched her walk out past him, and waited until she was several steps ahead before following her to their room. Once she was in front of their door, he stayed to the side, remembering how she reacted at the doors of the clubhouse.
Shakily, and with a sidelong glance at Randy, Meg managed the key in the slot and pulled the handle down. The door was heavy, and she knew her leg was going to bark from the effort, but she forced herself to get it open on her own. 'Meg...don't be dumb. It's Randy, not...Fuck, Meg, get a grip.' She shook her head and started across the room, looking around as she went. The room was beautiful, and Meg trailed her fingers across the surfaces and edges of various tables and chairs as she moved, sinking into the thick carpet.
"Is it okay, Meg? You like it?" Randy sounded hopeful.
Meg settled into a couch near the window, looking out into the night sky. "It's...too much. It's perfect. Throw me a blanket. I'll shower once you and Dave are done."
"You're not staying on the couch, Meg."
"Didn't say I was. But the view from here...look." She pointed outside, waving Randy over to her side. He had to admit, the scenery was spectacular. Crouched next to her, he couldn't believe the number of stars visible against the clear sky on the outskirts of Tampa. Birds cut across the face of the moon, and the trellises framing their balcony were covered in hibiscus and honeysuckle. The bay, distant but still an omnipresent part of the city, carried sailboats in clusters of jeweled lights. Dave banged through the door, and again Meg jumped, bumping Randy and clutching at her collarbone. "Jesus, Dave. Like a bomb in a bull in a china shop. Sorry about that, Randy." She touched his arm, a vague look of concern crossing her face.
"It's fine, Meg. Not like you're going to knock me over."
Out of sheer stubbornness, Meg pushed at him harder. Playfully, Randy gave an exaggerated topple backwards, landing with an an audible grunt. He yanked a pillow off the couch to throw at Dave, hitting him squarely in the face.
"The fuck was that for?"
"Because you made her knock me over."
"You two are such children. I'm taking a shower. One of you figure out room service." Dave tugged his suitcase into the cavernous main bathroom, locking the door heavily behind him. Meg shrugged and looked at Randy.
"You handle it. I'm not hungry."
"Meg, you need to eat. Even if it's something small."
She sighed and rolled her eyes. "Okay. You order what you want, and I'll pick off of it. Really. I haven't had much in...well...really, since I was checked into the hospital. Before it, I guess, too."
Randy perused the menu. "What about...soup?" He immediately regretted the words. 'Dumbfuck. What did she have with Joe, the night Jackson threw her into that mirror? Good choice, you goddamned idiot."
Meg was nonplussed. "That...actually sounds good. Pick something out for me?" With that, she stepped gingerly from the couch to the bed, opening the box Joe left for her. "Wow. Asshole couldn't even fold things. I'm going to throw most of this away." Meg lifted out a few badly-wrinkled tank tops, some pajama bottoms, pawed through some loose items at the bottom of the box, and then sighed heavily, her hands sinking into the contents. "It's not even in here, that fuck. Of all the things to keep, why..." Meg's voice caught on the end of her question, and heard her fingernails scrape against the cardboard inside the box.
"What's not?"
Meg's face was blank, but her fingernails kept grinding, her eyes looking at a memory not in the room.
"Meg? Hey...Meg? What's not in the box?" Randy sat down on the corner of the bed, careful not to crowd her.
Meg snapped back to reality, her mind struggling to come up with a response. "Oh...uh...my iPod. It's pretty sad that everything I own is shuffled between this and a suitcase. I don't even know where to start."
"Nah, Meg. You're just one of us. Everything you own in a couple boxes, and you better hope the airline doesn't lose your luggage, or you're fucked." Randy wasn't sold on her answer, but he didn't press.
Meg laughed, and again it sounded like it had to come from a distant place before it emanated from her. "Oh my God. Remember that time that half the women on the roster had their luggage shipped to San Angeles instead of Los Angeles? I felt so bad for them! It's not like you can share some of that stuff..."
"That's why it pays to drive. And," he added, leaning over to lift her hands from the box, "You don't have to do all of this tonight. It'll be here in the morning." He moved closer to her on the bed, holding her hands, the space between them comfortably quiet. 'Tell me you understand I'm going to be here for you, like you were for me.' Meg's small smile was all the reassurance he needed. From his angle, he could see her bright green iPod in the tangle of debris in the box, and wondered what, exactly, she was looking for.
Dave's shower finished, Randy's begun, and room service delivered, Meg struggled through a bowl of minestrone from her position on the sofa. 'He remembered – I only like it if it's got the little noodle thingies in it.' Not wanting to be ungrateful, Meg pushed herself to keep working through the bowl, knowing full well Dave was watching her and Randy would have expectations about her meal once he got out of the shower.
"Two down, one to go." Randy stepped out in a cloud of steam and something that reminded Meg of his cologne. "When you're done with your soup, that is. I did say I'd buy you dinner."
"Yeah. I'll shower later." 'Please don't push the issue. Please. I know I need to, I eventually will. Just stop.'
Randy gave her a dour look, but left the topic alone, instead laying out on the bed. Dave looked from Meg back to Randy, picked up his book, and announced he was going to the other bedroom. Meg started to stand up, but Dave was gone before she could mount any sort of real protest, vertical or otherwise. Randy and Meg looked at each other from across the room. "Meg... Randy began, trailing his fingers across the quilt, "I don't know where to start. But...can you please not sleep on the sofa? I want to know for at least one night, you're comfortable, safe and in a bed. Everything tomorrow is up for negotiation, but tonight...I'll take the couch, okay?"
"No. You're going to fuck up your shoulders if you do that."
"Oh my God, Meg, please. Not tonight. Any other night but not tonight." Randy buried his face in his hands. When he looked up again, it was in time to see the bathroom door close behind her. He heard the water turn on in the shower, and was thankful she listened to him for at least that much. "Meg...what the fuck am I going to do with you?" Sliding off the bed, he wandered to the back of the suite and knocked on Dave's door.
"S'open, Randy."
He let himself in, leaning heavily on the door frame. "She's showering, but I want a game plan before tomorrow. She's going to be an argument every step of the way, and I'm not just...turning her loose. She has nowhere to go."
"Oh, she does." Dave turned another page of his book, only half-invested in his conversation with Randy.
"Uh, and that is?"
"She's going to stay at my apartment. I'm traveling with you idiots and the company all the time; someone has to keep an eye on my place. Meg can do that for me. I can justify giving her enough money for food and utilities in exchange for her keeping things clean and organized. She'll balk, but I'm not giving her an option. Her LPN lapsed; Oechsner made that much perfectly clear to me. Until she can get a job, she can't afford anything else."
"And when were you going to let me in on this little plan? You know she's going to flip."
"You were going to find out at the same time I was. Which, apparently, is now." Meg had appeared behind Randy like a ghost, silent and ominous, and oddly for the heat, buried in a heavy bathrobe she had pulled from the hotel's closet. Her expression, rather than angry, was simply hurt. "You really think I can't take care of myself. I can live through Jackson, I can live through all that bullshit with the car – and that should have killed me, Dave – but I can't find a fucking apartment? Thank you. Thank you so very much." She turned as quickly as her aching, reconstructed bones would allow her, and limped off to the main bed.
"Pretty sure we fucked that up, Dave."
"Nah. She's hurt, but she knows I'm right. There are some things she can't do right now; this is one of them."
"So let me guess. It's 'Go figure it out' time for me, right?"
"Nope. Just go to bed. And don't sleep on that fucking sofa; I'm not putting your shoulders back in joint when you get up. She can sleep where she wants." He tossed his book to the side of the bed, and waved Randy out of the door. "See you in the morning."
Randy, flummoxed, simply backed out of the doorway and went back to the main room of the suite, where he found Meg standing as though she were lost, out in the middle of the floor.
"Please, tell me you didn't plan that with him." Her voice was wild with hurt, and she didn't bother to face him before speaking.
"Meg, how could I know? He was on a plane all day. Have I ever lied to you?"
"Randy," Meg said, flatly, "Do you know how many people have said they've never lied to me?"
'Great fucking job, Orton. Wonderful. Anything else you want to say or do to bring up Joe?'
"I'm sorry. Look...when you did this shit for me, you were just...better at it than I am. I'm gonna fuck up, Meg. But I'm trying, okay? I'm trying."
"Go to bed, Randy."
He threw his hands in the air, stomped to the bed, and threw himself on it. Meg moved to the sofa, laid down with her back to him, wrapped herself in a blanket, and prayed sleep would come easily.
Which, of course, it didn't. Meg changed tactics and began pretending to page through a magazine. Randy had been unable to keep himself awake, and as soon as Meg was positive he had drifted off, she moved to the door and checked to be sure it was locked, then slid the eyebolt over as well. 'Meg, he's dead. Nobody's coming. The police told you he was dead. You were in the same car he was in. Stop it.' Backing away from the door, she moved to the bathroom, where she had every intention of leaving the door open behind her, but somehow closed it, pushed the privacy-lock on the doorknob, then turned the deadbolt as well.
Meg untied the knot in the sash on the bathrobe, and let the front fall open. All she could find to sleep in was a wrinkled, lacy tank top from the box Joe had smashed together, and a smallish pair of cotton shorts she salvaged from the room above the bar. For the sticky Florida weather, the attire was comfortable, and for the company she was in, perfectly appropriate. The bathrobe was pure overkill, but she was miserable in her skin and wanted it covered. Meg was normally pale as sin, but she was now even more wan from her time in the hospital. Normally one to make jokes about being near-transparent, she was in no mood to crack wise. She had long – and in some places, wide – mauve scars across her sickly-white body.
Stripping the tank top off, standing in front of the mirror in a worn, cottony bra, she traced her fingers up her left side, along each dot left from the screws and wiring that anchored her ribs, and the scar from the incision right alongside it. Under her collarbone on the left was a similar line; more screws, more wires. 'I remember seeing that sticking out,' Meg thought, trailing her fingers along the scar. Her leg was the worst of it; somehow it had slipped out from under her and been crushed by the dashboard against the edge of her seat while the car rolled. Thus, the side of her lower right leg had been opened rather haphazardly in the ER in order to try to save what could be saved. 'I should be thankful. I'm angry that it's ugly, that I don't look the way I'm supposed to. No. I look the way I'm supposed to. I did an ugly thing. I was supposed to die, too.' She had other breaks, fractures, and things that were problematic, but they were things that could be set, splinted, and cast, or things that could be fixed via the incision near her ribs. Meg hated hospitals; the scars Oechsner left on her – and in her – hadn't done anything to improve her opinion.
Randy managed to sleep, but the room became unbearably warm after only a few hours. 'Dammit, I forgot to set the air conditioner. Oh well. I can check on Meg.' Rolling from the bed, he stripped off his shirt and turned to face the sofa, which was empty. Randy spun, wildly, looking around the room for her but seeing nothing until it registered that light was coming from under the bathroom door. 'This is more and more like that night with Jackson. Except tonight, if I have to take that fucking door off the hinges, I will.'
Approaching the door, Randy called out to Meg, trying to get her attention before he knocked. 'Please, please just open the door.'
"Randy...give me one minute. Just one. I'm fine."
"What are you doing, Meg?"
"I don't know."
Randy rattled the doorknob; her answer terrified him. 'Whatever was listening to me earlier, please be listening to me now and let her be okay.' "Meg, girly, open the door. I swear, I'm not going to touch you, I'm not going to lecture you, I just want to see that you're okay. I'll go right back to bed."
Tank top again in place, robe wrapped tightly around her, scars covered, Meg slowly reversed the locks and opened the door, trying to let her eyes adjust to the darkness of the main room. It was the medallion dangling around Randy's neck that caught her attention, and she put her hands on his chest as she leaned up to peer at it.
"You had it?"
"Please don't be mad; I still have the chain you had it on, I can put it back, it's just that it didn't fit right for me and I didn't want to break it if I-"
"No...Ran, that's really...just...you had it?"
"That's what you were looking for, wasn't it?"
Meg looked up at him, a sheepish half-smile on her face. "Yeah. How'd you know?"
"Your bright green iPod kinda sticks out. Even in a box full of stuff."
Her hands, frigid, hadn't left his chest; they framed the medallion and sent chills through him. She lifted the tiny emblem from his skin, peered closely at it, then pressed it back against him, frowning. "You should keep it."
"Meg, he's yours. Isn't that your guy? You said he's, what, patron saint of wanderers, the circus, murderers, entertainers...and besides, he was a gift from your professor. This is sentimental for you."
At his words, Meg's fingers flexed against him; Randy watched her entire countenance shift and lock down unpleasantly. He brought his hands up over hers, unbidden, and she shook him off. "No. No, no. It's yours. I don't want it." 'He knows. He knows what I did, he knows, that's why he doesn't want the stupid little necklace charm. You're dirty, Meg. You're fucked up ugly dirty.' Meg watched his tattoos crawl toward her, his arms too close, the skulls looking, blinking, smiling at her, and pushed past him back to the sofa, pulling the blanket tightly around herself. She stared at the wall ahead of her, where she saw the same skulls, still moving, Jackson, still moving, the car, still moving, until she crushed her eyes shut, wrapped her arms around her knees, and forced her head down, not sure if she would scream or vomit if she kept watching.
Randy, frozen at the doorway to the bathroom, had no idea what he had done or said. Sighing, he reached into the bathroom to turn off the lights, then went back to the bed to lay down. 'You being you, Orton. Like always.'