"Shorty?" Todd looked towards the doorway at his daughter.
"I thought maybe you'd be up. I'm on California time." She whispered, making her way into her parents bedroom. "Where's mom?"
"She fell asleep with Meredith in Hope's bed." He smiled sadly before gesturing to the pile of papers surrounding him. "I thought I'd go over some things. Peanut finally stop talking your ear off?"
"I love every minute of it." She swallowed before climbing onto the mattress next to him. "Is this.. the thing?"
"This is the timeline." Todd inhaled slowly and exhaled with a nod. "I'm adding details of Vicki's conversation with Allison and what happened with your mom and Cole."
"That's a lot of notes."
"It's important we remember every word we can." He rubbed his face. "Words are very important."
She picked up the small stack of papers with her daughters picture paperclipped to the front, flipping through it.
"I still can't believe it sometimes." Starr smiled, tracing the picture. "That she's alive. I spend so much time pretending she's not." Todd watched his daughters lip tremble. "She keeps asking me if I'll take her to the Zoo while I'm here. If we can go to the park. She's a hostage here."
"I'm sorry about that."
"I understand why." She shook her head. "You, Hope, Uncle Victor, Tommy.." She grabbed her cousins file the photo showing him as a bright eyed baby next to him now. "Dad, Meredith has never even left this house."
Todd pressed his lips together and tried to come up with something to say only to be interrupted by a yell.
"Mommy!" Hope's voice called loudly. "Mommy where are you?"
"I'm in Grandma and Grandpa's room." Starr called back as the small footsteps came closer.
"You snuck away from me!" The little girl pouted, as Todd began to move some of the files out of the way.
"You should be sleeping!" Starr laughed as she clambered onto the bed, looking at the photo her mother was holding.
"That's Brian." She told Starr brightly pointing her finger at the earliest picture.
"No Silly, that's your cousin Tommy." Her mother smiled, Todd's brain started churning.
"No." Hope shook her head in the rude dismissive way she'd developed lately and pointed to the other picture. "That's Tommy." She pointed back at the baby. "That's Brian."
Starr started to correct her but Todd reached for the picture, pulling it off and showing it to Hope.
"How do you know Brian?" The name was familiar, buried somewhere deep in his files he was sure, but he couldn't remember why.
"He was at the hospital." Hope's voice held an air of superiority, like she couldn't believe how stupid her grandfather and mother were. "With me and Grandad."
Todd opened his mouth to question her further when his phone started to ring. His head snapped around as his mouth slipped open at the number on the screen.
"This can't be good." He grabbed it. "McBain? Now?" He looked at his watch again. "It's four in the morning? Yeah. Of course.." He rubbed his face as he hung up.
"What's wrong?" Starr pulled her daughter to her chest.
"Anna Duvane needs to see me. Now."
…...
"We need to talk to you alone." Anna looked around the living room, her eyes drifting up the stairs to where Starr stood, holding a sleeping Hope in her arms.
"We can use the media room." Todd nodded.
"Alone Manning." John repeated. "This is classified information."
Anna watched Todd's eyes shift, before he cocked his head to the left and called upstairs.
"Shorty, take Peanut back to your room. If your mom wakes up before I'm back let her know I'm in the basement with McBain."
"There's a basement?" Starr asked in mild amazement.
"Starr." He huffed.
"Sorry yeah.. Basement okay…" She mumbled carrying her daughter back towards the west wing doors.
"Come with me." He gestured to Anna, walking back out into the main lobby and to the elevator they had accessed from the garage. Todd entered a code into the panel and it started to move.
"This building is really quite amazing." Anna's soft British accent tapped out. Manning grinned.
"Never can be too careful." He looked at McBain. "You really should get better security for Llanfair."
"Three cops live there." McBain snorted. "It's pretty secure."
The elevator stopped and the doors remained closed. Todd keyed in another code and the swished forward, revealing a small room. Duvane thought it looked like a prison cell. She half expected to find Manning's enemies chained to the beds. The elevator doors closed as they stepped off and a steel door came down in its place.
"What is this?" She asked following the men into a side room set up like a living quarters complete with a kitchenette. This area was almost like a family cabin, she looked left to see a bunk room, before joining them in what seemed to be an office.
"This is a safe house." John rasped. "You know, incase the fortress isn't enough."
"You're the fourth person to know it exists." Todd looked at her pointedly, before sitting at the desk. "Mazel Tov. Now that you have me all secure can I resume my official roll of intelligence asset and know what the hell is going on?"
"Anna was reviewing our conversations with Allison, and she may have made a discovery." Manning made a face at John and looked between the two of them.
"I've been over it a dozen times and I didn't see anything." He shook his head.
"That's because you've never heard of Project Orpheus." Anna said softly.
"Orpheus?"
"Greek God. Played the lute." John supplied helpfully.
"Ah, right to the nymphs." Todd recalled Allison's rant, he stopped to rub his face. "So we're here in my secret lair's, secret lair to talk about Perkins' taste in music or-."
"Five years ago my ex husband was involved in illegal medical project called Orpheus. He brought at least six people back from the dead." She said bluntly, watching Todd Manning's head snap up. "I thought you might find that interesting."
…
"Wake up." It was midnight in Tahiti and as usual Todd was on video chat.
"Lords don't sleep." Victor growled, running his hand over his head.
"I need you to do something for me." Todd cut to the chase. "I can't tell you why."
"This again? I thought you were done playing James Bond?" His brother smirked.
"They can't get enough of me." The other man grumbled.
"What are my orders. Boss?"
"I need you to make a list." His brother touched the screen. "I'm already starting it in my head. Of all our relatives that have allegedly died, but could numerically still be alive."
"What?"
"Like start at the top, Dear old Dad. Already returned from the dead once. Probably couldn't still be alive, he'd be like what? 110? Besides I don't know if you remember I had a nice little cuddle session with his corps. It was pretty legit."
"God, why would you-?" Victor gagged a little. "You know I don't even like thinking about your good memories, you asshole."
"Okay. We had an aunt, she seems pretty dead, Vicki's mom.. Seems like she's the type to stay dead. Clayton Powell, gonna go with dead.. All's good there." Todd ignored them. "Moving on. To our generation."
"Vicki." Victor shrugged.
"Alive. Only technically dead the once and Dorian had her eyes on her the whole time. Next?"
"Merrie."
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure she's actually gone. Too bad, I think I'd have really liked her." He sighed heavily. "Then Tina-."
"No." Victor shook his head. "The other guy. The first, first born son."
"Huh? Oh right. Our cousin who turned out to be our cousin and our sibling." Manning chewed on his lip. "Damn our father was disgusting. Sleeping with his daughters friends and his wife's relatives."
"Didn't you have a thing with Kelly?" Victor asked absently, trying not to think too hard about his father, visions of his corps dancing across his Todd memories.
"No God. No! You had a thing with Kelly. Christ. YOU!" Todd looked like he was going to gag now. "Jesus."
"Oh, that's right." Victor shrugged. "That was me."
"Ew." Lord chuckled at his brothers reaction. "Can we focus on our big bro here? Jesus."
"Tony." Victor supplied. "His name was Tony. He died on location for a story with the Banner. Body never found."
Todd nodded, moving back to the table and typing something in. A photo of the man and an article covering his death popped up on the screen.
"He'd be what? 70?"
"Yeah probably little bit older." Victor sighed.
"Probably?" His twin groaned.
"He's been dead for like 30 years Todd, I don't think I've sent him a birthday card."
"What the hell do we know?" Todd whispered. Victor tapped at his computer until he had what he needed.
"Nothing, he left a widow. She left town along time ago. Never really bonded with Vicki or anything. He had a kid he never knew, kid died in a hit and run not long after he found out about him." Victor read from the notes he had in front of him before sending it over to Todd. Manning looked at them half interested, until his eyes fell on the word he'd been searching for. "Looks like his name was Brian."
…...
"There you are." Blair stood watching her husband, his fingertips scrolling across the screen in his hand. "Our bed hasn't been slept in."
"Yeah well…" He sighed.
"Lord's don't sleep." She finished. He looked up at her taking in her disheveled appearance.
"I don't sleep well without you." He said instead, shrugging his shoulder.
"Sorry." She exhaled slowly. "I couldn't let her go."
"It's okay. I had early morning visitors anyway."
"What?" Her body felt the familiar hot rush of terror.
"McBain brought Anna over this morning."
"Did you go to the basement?" She asked carefully, he nodded and she swallowed hard, looking at the floor before backing up out of the room. "I should check on the kids."
"Hey." He called after her, tossing the iPad he was working on and following her into the common area. "Stop, Blair." He grabbed her arm and carefully pulled her back to his body. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere okay?" She pressed her lips together tightly and he rested his head against hers. "I promise."
"I-." She balled his shirt up in her fists. The night she spent away from him in New York had been enough to cause every drop of anxiety to find its way to the surface. The nagging fear that something would take him away again, as it had time and time before, was something they were both all too familiar with.
"I know." He stopped her, taking a shuddering breath she felt him fight to lift his head.
"Come lay down with me." She told him softly.
"What about the tiny terror?" He smirked.
"Jack has her." She brought her hands up to frame his face, caressing his cheeks with her thumbs. "Apparently he and Sam are the only ones who slept last night. Come on."
He nodded, letting her lead him towards the east wing and through the double doors to the master suite. She turned her body, pressing her palms against his shoulders until he sat, and then finally laid on the bed. Blair pulled off each of his shoes, stopping to squeeze the pads of his feet as hard as she could. Her husband rubbed his eyes with his bawled fists, whatever this was, it was big. She crawled up the bed to him, tugging his arms away and kissing him soundly.
"Blair.." He sighed pushing the curtain of her hair away from her face. "I don't even know where to start."
"Is this thing going to come crashing through our lives in the next five hours?" She asked, her voice low and serious.
"I don't think so." He gulped.
"Then sleep." She ordered, laying her head on his shoulder. "You can tell me later."
He took a long, loud, slow breath, wrapping his arms around her as she dropped her weight against him.
"I love you." He voice was high and soft. She clutched at his biceps. "I need you."
"I'm here." She promised, kissing his throat at the edge of his collared shirt. "Sleep."
….