Title – Kjaere
Author - black_dahlia63
Characters – Nick Stokes, Greg Sanders, various OC’s
Spoilers - Fannysmackin'
Rating – PG
Warning – Serious angst, but hey…people kind of expect that from me by now, right?
Disclaimer – not mine, don’t sue.
AN: The story covers the time span of a year, and will update by one month every week. When I posted a recent fic called “A Time to be Born”, several people asked if there’d be any more Emily stories…so she’s in this new fic, but there’s also a repeat visit from another character that my long term readers may well recognise. This tale follows canon up to the attack on Greg, but then things take a different path – not sure if that counts as AU or just plain “what if the ep had ended this way?”. Huge thanks must go to the fantastic bflyw, both for linguistic help and for helping me to hammer out the bare bones of this story over a meal at Gatwick Airport earlier this week…missing you already, hon!

November 29th, 5.50 p.m.
“You’re pulling!” Emily said, her voice rising in pitch as she squirmed on the edge of her bed. “That hurts!”

“I’m sorry, sweetie,” Nick replied, and he drew in a deep breath before returning to the task at hand. A minute or so later, his daughter’s thick red hair was lying between her shoulder blades in a slightly uneven braid, and he tied a black and white spotted ribbon around the end. “Okay now?”

“Greg does it better than you,” Emily said in a soft, mutinous voice, and she stared down at her knees. “When’s he gonna get home?”

“As soon as he can,” was the answer, and Nick leaned down to plant a kiss on top of Emily’s head. “You ready to go?”

************

“- and Miss Jane said I get to have the goldfish this weekend,” Emily said. “Well, he’s not a proper goldfish, ‘cause he has a black spot on his tail, and that’s why we all named him Spot,” she went on. “Jack had him last week, and his little sister nearly flushed him down the toilet -” Almost without drawing breath, she went on to recount a lurid tale about how she wasn’t Madison’s friend any longer, because Madison had splashed paint on her on purpose during art time that morning – and Nick, sitting with his daughter in his lap as she prattled away, felt his throat tightening until it was difficult for him to breathe.

The cuts and bruises on Greg’s face had healed long since; it was the injury that hadn’t been outwardly visible, the swelling of his brain following one of the many blows meted out on that dreadful night, that had left him unmoving and unresponsive for over a month now.

“The doctor told me Greg can hear us, even if he doesn’t act like he can right now,” Nick had told Emily before bringing her into this room for the first time. “So if we keep talking to him, he’s going to know we’re here, and he’ll try really hard to wake up and come home.” Of course, that hadn’t been all the doctor had said; the previous day he’d said that Greg could wake up tomorrow, Mr. Stokes, but it could take a lot longer - the undertone of these words being that the mere fact that Greg had been unconscious for this long wasn’t a good sign. But Emily had taken Nick’s words as gospel, and every day the four year old had sat next to Greg’s bed chattering about everything under the sun; topics of conversation had ranged from what had gone on at kindergarten to things that were stage whispered in Greg’s ear - “Nick dropped his keys down the garbage chute, Greg, and I heard him use a really bad word,” she’d said four days previously, and this had made one of the nurses laugh so much she’d earned an irritated stare from the doctor who’d just come into the room.

“And you know what, Greg?” Emily was saying now. “Nick can’t fix my hair like you do - he pulled almost all of it out before we came here.”

“It wasn’t almost all of it,” Nick said, somehow managing to smile as he spoke. “It was about half of it,” and he reached forward to squeeze Greg’s left hand as it lay motionless against the pale green hospital blanket. A silver band graced the ring finger, and Nick thought back to the first time he’d brought Emily in to visit Greg; some of the wounds had still been visible on his face then, but it hadn’t been these which had caused Emily distress. “He’s not wearing his ring!” she’d cried out. “The bad people took it, Nick!” Despite Nick’s assurances that the people who were taking care of Greg must have locked it away somewhere safe, Emily had fretted until a sympathetic nurse had retrieved a brown paper envelope containing the ring – and now, the first thing she always did upon entering the room was to check that the silver band was still where it belonged.

“We need to go, G,” Nick said, raising Greg’s hand to his lips and kissing it. “Someone needs to start getting around for bed.”

“Not yet,” Emily protested. “I didn’t finish telling him…”

“We’ll see Greg again tomorrow,” Nick said. “You can tell him then, okay?” and he lifted Emily towards the bed. “Say goodnight, kiddo.”

“’Night, Greg,” Emily said, planting a noisy kiss on Greg’s cheek – exactly the way she’d always done at bedtime, Nick told himself, and the image was so painful it rendered him powerless to move for what seemed a long time. Eventually, he forced himself to set Emily down on the floor, and he leaned over the motionless form in the bed; he whispered love you almost silently against Greg’s mouth, smoothed back hair that was getting far too long – then he stepped back, breaking the connection, and took his daughter’s hand to lead her from the room.

*********

8.10 p.m.

“Are you fixing the cereal?”

“Just as soon as you get your jammies on,” Nick called from the bedroom, and there was a shrill “Okay!” in response.

Their little family had created traditions, some of them fairly unique ones; one of these had been invented by Emily for what she called “no-school-no-work” nights, when nobody had to be up early the following morning. They would all get into their pyjamas, and they would sit at the kitchen table to eat a bowl of cereal before going to bed – Emily’s rationale being that if they ate breakfast early they could all sleep in until almost lunchtime the next day.

And it was hard for Nick to maintain this now that there were only two of them there, because he could never take his eyes off that third chair - but as long as Emily wanted to carry on doing it, he would indulge her.

“You need to take your cue from her,” the play therapist at Desert Palms had told him; she was a strawberry blonde named Ginny, and she and Emily had been spending time together while Nick talked to Greg’s doctors. “She’s going to be up one morning and down the next,” and she’d fixed her gaze squarely on Nick’s face. “She may want to stop coming to see Greg every day, and I know that’s going to be hard for you to accept, but you’ll have to respect it…”

Sighing gently, Nick removed his clothes and put on his pyjama bottoms; he moved to the window and closed the blinds that would shut out the daylight a few hours from now, and once he’d done this he left the room and padded barefoot along the hallway that led to the kitchen.

He took down two bowls from the cupboard – and even this small thing hurt him immeasurably – before filling them with Cheerios and carrying them to the table, where Emily waited expectantly; he retrieved a carton of milk from the fridge and a pair of spoons from the drawer next to the sink, and then he pulled out his chair and sat down opposite his daughter.

“What shall we do tomorrow?” he asked, once they’d been eating in silence for a minute or so. “You want to have lunch at McDonalds and then go to the zoo? We haven’t seen those parrots for a while -” and then his spoon fell from his hand when he saw Emily’s face crumble; shoving his chair back, he moved to kneel in front of her and took hold of both her hands. “Em?”

“Greg always comes to see the parrots with us, we can’t go without him,” Emily said, and big tears rolled down her cheeks to make tiny circles on her pyjama top. “He -” and her chest heaved with sobs, making it difficult for her to speak. “He’s still asleep, Nick, and I’ve been talking to him every day…”

“I know,” Nick said. “I know you have,” and he lifted her down off the chair to cradle her in his arms; he stroked her hair, murmuring softly in her ear, and eventually she lay limp against his chest. “He can hear us, sweetie, it’s just taking him a long time to wake up,” he told her, and then Ginny’s words were at the forefront of his mind again. “Em, look at me,” he said softly; after a long pause, his daughter lifted her head - and red-rimmed eyes, still swimming with tears, held a silent plea to make everything better again. “It’s okay if you don’t want to go and see Greg with me every day,” he went on softly. “I don’t want it to make you sad like this.”

“If I don’t go every day, he’ll forget me,” Emily said, her voice wavering, and fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. “He’ll wake up and he won’t remember he’s got a little girl.”

“No, he won’t,” Nick said, suppressing his own tears by sheer force of will. “He won’t ever do that,” and he kept one arm securely round Emily as he continued speaking. “Remember what we told you about how we got you? Alison had you here,” he said, gesturing towards his stomach, “and when she gave you to us, where did we have you?” and he watched Emily lift one hand to place it over her heart. “That’s right,” he said quietly. “Greg’s always got you there, just like I have, and that’s never going to change – it doesn’t matter what those people did to him, okay?” he continued. “We’ll see what we feel like doing when we wake up tomorrow, how would that be?” and he received a tearful nod in response. “You want any more cereal, or shall we get you to bed?”

*******

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow, mom,” he said. “Yes, I’ll give her a kiss for you – love you,” and he ended the call. Scrubbing a hand through his hair, he walked back into the kitchen and took a Snickers bar from one of the cupboards; he set it on top of Emily’s place mat on the table, knowing that she would look for it when she woke up. “Saturday candy,” one of Greg’s childhood traditions that he had passed on to their child – and Nick knew that when he got up Emily would be watching cartoons, her mouth smeared with chocolate.

Almost as though everything was normal.

He turned off the lights and walked along the hallway, pausing to glance through the doorway of Emily’s room; the Disney Princess lamp threw flickering light over the figure sprawled in the bed, illuminating what was clutched in her outstretched hand.

It was a photo, crumpled from repeated handling, taken at Emily’s fourth birthday party two weeks before the night that had changed all their lives; Emily was blowing out the candles on her cake, while Nick and Greg were standing either side of her and grinning into the camera. She never went anywhere without this picture now, even setting it on the bathroom sink when she brushed her teeth – as though, by carrying it, she could have everything back the way it had been.

If only it was that easy, Nick thought, his heart aching, and he made his way into his own bedroom. He climbed beneath the covers, wondering whether this would be one of the nights – and they were becoming more frequent – when he would wake up and find Emily curled up next to him…then he turned off the light, and now that he was alone he finally allowed himself to shed tears.

December 14th.

Dear Nick –
Thanks so much for sending me Emily’s school photo – she sure is growing up fast, isn’t she?

I have big news from Louisiana – Jim and I are expecting a little brother or sister for Cassie! She’s real excited about being a big sister, and I think she’s told everyone in the neighbourhood at least twice already. I’m not even due till April, and she’s acting like it’s going to happen tomorrow! It’s kind of weird when I think about how much I’ve changed in four years – I’m married, I’m assistant manager at the salon and I’m going to be a mom again. Who’d have thought it, right?

I can’t tell you how sorry I am about what’s happened to Greg - I hope those kids get sent to jail for as long as possible, I really do. We’re all thinking about the three of you, and please will you let me know as soon as you get any news? Good or bad? I’m sure Greg’s going to be okay, though – I know how much he loves you and Emily, and he’d never leave the two of you without a fight.

Look after yourselves – you’re all in our prayers.

Love to the three of you

Alison

X

Desert Palms, December 18th – 9.10 a.m.

“We’re flying out at three tomorrow afternoon,” Nick said. “I tried letting Emily pack her own suitcase, but she ended up with one pair of socks and all her Beanie Babies,” and he tried to smile but didn’t quite succeed as he squirted shaving foam into his left palm. “Told you she had her first sleepover last night, didn’t I? She went to Madison’s house, I’m supposed to pick her up once I leave here. Yeah, I guess they’re friends again this week -”

Leaning over the bed, he slowly lathered up the expressionless face resting against the pillows, and now he smiled although it hurt terribly to do it. Greg’s eyes would sometimes blink open now, and the doctors had told Nick that this was merely a reflex – but what if it wasn’t?

“Your folks arrive this afternoon,” Nick went on once he’d dried his hands on the nearby towel. He removed the safety cover on the disposable razor, his throat tightening as he thought of the dark blue Gillette Mach 3 that lay drained of power on the top shelf of the bathroom cabinet back at the apartment. “I’m going to make supper, and then we’ll all come and see you before Emily goes to bed,” he said, drawing the razor down Greg’s chin. “I figured I’d do pot roast, what do you think? I know your mom likes that…”

These visits had become so engrained in Nick’s life that he couldn’t remember a time when they hadn’t taken place. It was as though everything before the night when Greg had driven down that side street had somehow not happened, leaving everything that had come afterwards to take over Nick’s entire world.

He had work, he had his daughter, and he had what was in this room.

He would come here every morning once he’d dropped Emily off at kindergarten, her Bratz backpack dragging from one hand and the photo clutched in the other. On days when there was no school, he would take her to Angie’s house on the pretext of “running errands” with the promise that he would be back as soon as he could – and the sight of Emily’s face pressed against the sitter’s kitchen window as he drove away, almost as though she feared she would lose him too, sliced another layer away from Nick’s soul every time it happened.

Nick would come into this room to shave away the stubble that had sprouted on his lover’s face, and the same memory would hit him each time. He would recall a Saturday morning, he couldn’t remember how long since, when he’d looked round the bathroom door and seen Greg standing in front of the bathroom mirror with a towel slung low around his hips. He’d turned towards Nick, the grin on his face making his intent obvious as he’d set his razor down; Nick had protested no, G, we can’t, because Emily had been watching cartoons just down the hall – and Greg had simply pulled him into the bathroom before locking the door and whispering well, you’ll have to be quiet, won’t you?…

It hurt Nick more than he would have thought anything could to think about this, to remember Greg the way he had been and to look at what he’d become now – but he still came here every day, and as he shaved Greg’s stubble away he would talk to him. He’d recount the previous night’s shift, he’d talk about what Emily had said while he’d been driving her to school…he would keep pouring words into that silent, sterile room even though he never got a response, and he would keep doing it no matter how much pain it caused him.

The doctors could talk all they wanted about a persistent vegetative state, about how every day that passed with no change meaning that whatever eventual outcome there was would not be a good one – but Nick always put these words in the back of his mind, where he put all the other things he’d been told lately that made him want to scream until his voice gave out. Accepting them meant giving up, admitting that this motionless shell in the bed was all he would ever have of the man he’d loved for what felt like his entire life; and because he couldn’t face the fact that he might never have Greg’s warm weight draped over him in the small hours of the morning, might never catch another smile as they passed each other in the corridor at work, might be left alone to raise the child they’d waited so long to have, he had to believe that if he came here every day and tried hard enough he would prove the doctors wrong.

“- and I’ll call every day while we’re in Dallas,” he said, beginning to ply the razor against Greg’s right cheek. “Just to make sure you’re okay – and we’ll be back on the twenty-third, like I told you,” and as he continued what he’d come here to do, Nick talked about what they ought to buy Emily for Christmas. Given the amount of gifts she received from their relatives every Christmas and birthday, Nick and Greg’s present to their daughter was never a sizeable one, but a great deal of thought always went into it nonetheless.

The previous Christmas, Emily had wanted what she referred to as “the purple Beanie”; it had been made to commemorate the death of Princess Diana, and Angie – herself an avid collector, which was where Nick suspected Emily had acquired the habit from – had received one as a gift from a pen friend in England. Nick and Greg had tried their best to explain to Emily that the purple bear was hard to find, and had asked her if there wasn’t another bear she’d like instead; but even at the age of three, Emily had remained resolute, and after combing the city without success Greg had resorted to eBay. Emily had been ecstatic when they’d presented her with the bear on Christmas Day, thanking them repeatedly while hugging them tightly; and unlike the rest of her bears, which had all had their tags removed and currently lay in a heap on her bedroom floor after being dumped out of her suitcase, “Diana” sat on Emily’s dresser – still in the plastic display box in which she’d been shipped – and nobody was allowed to touch her.

“She’s been wanting a CD player,” Nick said now, and he gently patted Greg’s face dry as he spoke. “I figured we could get her one of those ones where you can lock the volume button, so at least she wouldn’t go deaf,” and then he fell silent. He was going to have to do the Christmas shopping on his own this year; there would be no Greg to carry Emily on his shoulders when she got tired, to follow Nick round the malls and say you’re not getting your mom any more sweaters or I think Sam’s a bit old for Duplo, Nicky or why are you buying your sister that? Don’t you want her to like you?

Tears filled Nick’s eyes, but he took a deep breath and blinked rapidly until they’d disappeared again. Leaning over the bed, he took hold of Greg’s right hand and kissed it before letting it rest against his face; as he did this he prayed, the way he did every morning, for a flicker of movement or a spark of recognition from those sightless eyes – but eventually he was forced to admit that this would be denied him again, and he laid Greg’s hand back down on the bedcovers before lowering his head so that his lips were level with Greg’s right ear.

“I don’t care what they’re trying to tell me,” he said in a whisper. “I know you’re still there,” and he planted a gentle kiss on Greg’s lips. “We’ll see you this evening, okay?” and he left the room without looking back, steeling himself for the coming evening when he would be here again.

**********

10.45 a.m

The girl opening the door couldn’t have been more than fifteen, but her cut-off Emily Strange T shirt revealed a navel ring; jet-black hair, obviously dyed, fell across her face, and she flipped it back to look at Nick with dark-rimmed eyes.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m Emily’s father,” Nick said. “I came to -”

“Mo-om!” the girl bawled, her voice at a deafening pitch. “Emily’s dad’s here!”

“Well, would you let him in, Jessica?” a voice called back, making the girl roll her eyes and step aside to allow Nick into the house; seconds later, Madison’s elegantly-dressed blonde mother emerged from the kitchen, wiping manicured hands on her apron. “I see you’ve met my stepdaughter, Mr. Stokes.”

“It’s Nick,” he said with a smile, and he turned his head towards the stairs at the sound of thundering feet; it was Madison, still dressed in her pyjamas, who waved shyly at Nick as she came down the stairs to stand next to the teenage girl.

“Hey, brat,” Jessica said, obvious affection in the words as she ruffled Madison’s hair. “Go tell your little friend her dad’s here, okay?”

“Nick! Nick!” a shrill voice called out, and Emily came running out of one of the bedrooms. Taking the stairs at an almost alarming speed, she wrapped her arms round Nick’s waist and hugged him fiercely before grinning up at him; and this was one of the increasingly rare occasions these days where Nick found himself laughing, because his daughter’s eyes were expertly outlined in black while her fingernails were painted the same colour and her lips were dark red.

“Jessie did it,” Emily said proudly. “What’s an emo?”

“Go and get dressed,” Nick told her, trying to keep a straight face. “We need to go and buy groceries before grandma and grandpa get here.”

“And you can clean her nails and get that stuff off her face, young lady,” Madison’s mother told her step-daughter, provoking more eye-rolling as Jessica led the two little girls back upstairs. “Can I offer you some coffee, Mr. – Nick?”

“That’d be good,” Nick said gratefully, and he allowed himself to be escorted into a kitchen that was easily three times the size of the one back at the apartment. “How was she? Really?” he asked as he sat down. “She never slept over anywhere before – well, except for her cousins’ houses,” he added somewhat sheepishly. “I kept expecting you to call me and say I had to come and pick her up.”

“She was an absolute angel,” was the reassuring answer. “I can always tell when a little girl’s been brought up properly,” and a mug of coffee was slid across the table towards Nick. “We’d be glad to have her back any time,” and Madison’s mother suddenly snapped her fingers as she turned back towards the kitchen counter. “I almost forgot to give you this!” and when she joined Nick at the table she had the tattered photo of Emily’s party in her hand. “She left this in the car when we picked her up from school yesterday -”

************

Dallas - December 19th, 6.00 p.m.

A great many phone calls had gone back and forth before this visit, and even though it was so close to Christmas it was going to be kept low-key. Nick’s sister Meg and her family were going to drive over from Fort Worth for supper the night before Nick and Emily flew back home; the rest of the time would be taken up with riding the horses, sleeping, eating and trying to relax - rather than emphasising the fact that Christmas was coming in less than a week and Greg wasn’t here to share it with them.

“Are we nearly there?” Emily asked now.

“Nearly,” Nick replied. “Keep looking out of your window, and when you see the McDonalds sign that means we’re going to turn onto the road that gets us to the ranch,” and he looked in the rear view mirror of the rental car to watch Emily press her face against the window; the car’s radio, tuned to a local country station, was quietly playing a Kenny Rogers song, and Nick drove the final few miles to the ranch in silence.

He thought about the previous afternoon, when Greg’s parents had been at the apartment before checking into the hotel where they would spend the next eight days. Emily had been delighted to see them, chattering away in Norwegian, and this had made Nick go to the kitchen - on the pretext of making coffee – where he had stood valiantly trying to stave off tears; because he had recalled all the moments when Greg would whisper something to Emily in his native tongue and make her laugh, all the nights when they’d curled up on the couch while Greg read to Emily from the book that had been his own favourite as a child…

They had all gone to Desert Palms after supper, and when they had arrived outside the door of Greg’s room Emily had hung back. “Don’t wanna,” she’d whispered, and when Greg’s mother had opened her mouth to speak Nick had shaken his head before a word had been uttered. “I’ll wait out here with you,” he’d told his daughter, and the silent gratitude in Emily’s eyes had brought a lump to his throat. He’d sat with Emily on the uncomfortable plastic chairs outside the room while Greg’s parents had gone in to see him; when they’d emerged again, Greg’s mother’s eyes red and puffy from weeping, Nick had asked Emily whether she wanted to go in and say goodnight to Greg – and when she’d nodded silently, he’d led her in and watched as a kiss had been placed on that pale, unmoving face.

“I see it!” Emily cried, breaking into his thoughts. “Turn here, Nick!”

*******

December 20th, 8.05 a.m.

“Good morning.”

“Hi, mom,” Nick said, kissing his mother’s cheek before sitting at the kitchen table and rubbing his eyes. Emily had crept out of her bed and made her way into her father’s somewhere around midnight, something she hadn’t done in a while; and while she was still sleeping soundly, Nick had put up with being kicked in the small of the back for long enough and had decided to get up.

“I don’t need to ask if you could use some coffee,” Jillian Stokes said, smiling fondly at her youngest son, and she reached for a mug from the kitchen cupboard; once she had filled it and handed it over, she sat down opposite Nick. “We didn’t really get to talk last night, did we?” she said. “I can tell by your face that something’s wrong,” and she reached for his free hand. “You want to talk about it?”

“Emily’s got this photo,” Nick said. “Of the three of us, at her last birthday party,” and he stared down into his mug. “Ever since what happened to Greg, she’s taken it everywhere with her – and I mean everywhere,” he said. “School, the bathroom, the grocery store, you name it.” A long silence followed, and it was only after half-emptying his mug that Nick spoke again. “She had a sleepover two nights ago, and when they collected her from school she left the picture in their car – they gave it to me when I went to pick her up,” he went on. “She hasn’t asked me where it is, and the night Greg’s folks arrived she didn’t want to go in and see him,” he said softly. “She never did that before, mom, and I’m not sure how to deal with it,” and when he looked up his eyes were troubled. “It’s like she’s giving up.”

“She isn’t giving up,” his mother said. “She’s four years old, Nick, and I remember how your sisters were when they were that age,” she continued. “They’d have a fight with someone in the playground and they’d come home swearing they hated them, they were never going to speak to them ever again – and then a week later they’d be saying mom, can Julie come over to play after school?”

“She does that too,” Nick said. “But Greg’s her father, not some kid in the playground -”

“Little girls don’t think the way their parents do,” Jillian said. “They see today, and that’s as far ahead as they think. She wasn’t carrying that picture for you, Nick, she was carrying it for herself, and just because she might not want to do it any more doesn’t mean she loves Greg any less - she’s having fun with her friends, and that’s what’s keeping her going,” and she squeezed her son’s hand gently. “What’s keeping you going, sweetheart?”

“Not having time to stop,” Nick replied, the words delivered in a strained tone. “I need to go to the mall today, mom, I haven’t had time to do any Christmas shopping yet – can you keep an eye on Emily for me?” and seconds later, Nick cringed at the excited voice several feet behind him.

“The mall? I wanna go too!”

********

1.45 p.m

Nick had spun breakfast out as long as he could, and he’d insisted that Emily take a bath before she got dressed – hoping that by the time he was ready to leave, his daughter would have found something to interest her at the ranch rather than accompany him. It wasn’t until his mother had said that she needed someone to help her make the Christmas cookies, and Emily had negotiated the right to lick the beaters after the frosting had been made, that Nick had been allowed to leave the ranch on his own; now, after jockeying for a parking space for ten minutes and finally securing one in the ‘S’ section of the parking lot, he was making his way through the crowds in a glass-domed structure that was plastered with artificial snow and ornately-decorated trees.

He’d never been fond of malls, even when he’d gone to them with Greg, and this was why he hadn’t wanted to take Emily with him today – so that he could do what he needed to do and then get out as quickly as he could – but the enormous amount of people with the same idea was going to make this impossible.

The piece of paper in Nick’s pocket had roughly two thirds of the names on it crossed out by the time the urge to sit down became too strong to resist; one hand clutching a paper cup of coffee, the other with enough carrier bags looped round the wrist to nearly cut off the circulation, he walked through the food court looking for a place to sit down and spotted a vacant space at the end of a bench. Bags heaped between his feet, he sat waiting for the temperature of his coffee to drop to a manageable level as Christmas carols played in a seemingly endless loop – and that was when his eyes were drawn to the display next to Macy’s a few yards away.

A picket fence surrounded a small forest of Christmas trees that had been sprayed white and liberally doused with glitter; a wooden throne sat in the middle of this forest, and a sizeable queue of children were lined up for an audience with its red-suited occupant. Nick sat taking this scene in, the piped music seeming to fade into the background, as his mind went back to the previous December when the three of them had gone shopping two weeks before Christmas.

“You want to go see Santa, Em?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“How come?” Nick asks, bending down to the three year old’s level. “Don’t you want to sit on his lap and tell him what you want for Christmas?” and he looks up as a snicker erupts from his companion’s lips. “You’ll be getting coal if you’re not careful, G.”

“What’s coal?”

“It’s what naughty people get from Santa,” Nick tells Emily, still looking at Greg, and the words produce a giggle. “You want to give me a little help here?” he murmurs as he straightens up. “We won’t see mom this year, and I wanted to send her a photo.” He watches Greg crouch down in front of Emily, speaking in Norwegian, and whatever he says first provokes a vehement “nei!” – but the next sentence results in a nod and a smile before Emily allows herself to be led towards the queue to meet Santa, and half an hour later it will emerge that Greg promised Emily an ice cream sundae of such proportions that she will be sick in the Denali on the way home…

…and Nick sat frozen in pain, wondering whether this was what a broken heart felt like, as crowds of shoppers milled around him; he would have cried if he could, but he was barely able to summon the strength to breathe – and in this moment, finally faced with the impact of what had happened, he was terribly afraid that whatever he tried to do to save his family wasn’t going to be enough.

********

“I took care of it myself, you don’t need to worry,” the man in the faded jeans and the Harley Davidson T shirt said as he stepped out of the elevator. “He wouldn’t say hello or kiss my ass by the time MTV called back,” and he grinned broadly at the elderly woman who tutted as she caught the tail end of his remark; he’d never minced words, that had been one of the few useful things he’d learned from his father, and he had no patience for people who didn’t behave in the same way.

“No, I’m flying back to Daytona tomorrow afternoon,” he went on, catching sight of yet another No Smoking sign at the entrance to the food court; he shook his head resignedly, and not for the first time he vowed that he was going to give up the damn Marlboros because the government was making it so difficult for him to light them up these days. “I’m having a big party on Wednesday – no, a family party, wiseass. I have to hit a toy store and get stuff for my sister’s kids, any way I can write that off on expenses? Well, if you don’t try, you never know, right?” and he followed the words with a chuckle. “I haven’t figured out what I’m doing yet, can you believe that? Yeah, we will, definitely – I’ll call you tomorrow when I get home. You take care,” and he snapped his phone shut before scanning the booths in the food court; what he really wanted was to be sitting on the patio of the Regatta Pub with a beer and a swordfish steak, but for now he was happy to settle for a burrito. Then his eyes came to rest on the man sitting at the end of a nearby bench – his shoulders hunched, his hands clasped round a takeout coffee cup – and it didn’t matter how much time had passed, there was still something that sparked a jolt of recognition.

That’s Nick.

****

Nick didn’t know how long he must have been sitting on the bench, but when he finally lifted the paper cup to his lips he realised the coffee was stone cold. He knew he still had four more gifts to buy, he knew that if he didn’t get back to the ranch soon Emily would worry; but he felt tired, empty, as though it would take more strength than he possessed to get up again –

“Nick Stokes? It is you, right?” The man standing in front of him wore faded jeans and a T shirt, had short hair that looked almost jet black – and Nick had the strangest feeling he’d seen him before, but the fog in his mind was too thick to look back through and remember where.

“Do I know you?” he asked, and he was answered by a lift of the man’s right eyebrow; something penetrated the fog then, a long-ago memory of sun beating down and a voice saying

“Don’t y’all drink beer in Texas?”

“Luke?” he said, setting down his cup and half-rising to his feet as his hand was clasped and the world came back into focus. “My God, it is you,” he said, and he managed a smile. “You look different on TV -”

“Yeah, how much is it they reckon it puts on you? Ten pounds?” was the man’s response, and teeth that were white and even enough to signify expensive dental work flashed in a broad grin. “How the hell are you, man?”

“I’m good,” Nick said, and some far-off part of his mind hated lying; but people close to him had no idea what was going through his head at the moment, so he wasn’t going to unburden himself now. “I’m just up here visiting mom – what about you?”

“I just opened another franchise,” was the cheerful reply. “Had a damn TV crew following me all morning, but I’m off the hook now – got some Christmas shopping I need to take care of,” and Luke sank down into the vacant spot next to Nick. “Thought I’d get something to eat, you want to join me?” but before Nick could answer, his cell rang; he removed it from his pocket, and his heart sank at the sight of the familiar number on the display.

“Hello?”

“How much longer are you likely to be, sweetheart?” his mother said. “I know the mall must be crowded, but I’ve got a little girl who’s worked herself into a state here,” and Nick could hear Emily crying in the background. “Are you almost done?”

“Four more names on the list,” he replied, reality sinking in again. “Let me speak to her, mom, okay?”

“N-Nick?”

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” he asked, oblivious to the crowds and to the man watching him. “I’ll be home soon, I promise.”

“I can’t find my p-p-picture!” Emily sobbed. “I don’t know where it is, and I need it!” and Nick pinched the bridge of his nose between the thumb and forefinger of his free hand as he recalled what he’d said the previous evening.

“It’s like she’s giving up…”

“I’ve got the picture,” he said in what he hoped was a soothing tone of voice. “It’s in my wallet, sweetie, you left it in Madison’s car – you can have it when I get back, I won’t be much longer -”

“No! Now!” Emily shouted, before dissolving into fresh floods of tears. “I want it now!”

“Okay,” Nick said, the numbness setting in again with a vengeance. “Okay, sweetie, put grandma on again – mom? Just keep her calm, I’m coming back now,” and he ended the call, cramming the cell back into his pocket before bending to grab the carrier bags. “Luke, I’m sorry, I have to go.”

“Are you okay?” Luke asked, although now he’d been looking at Nick for a minute or two he hadn’t seen anyone look less “okay” in a long time. Nick’s face was that of someone who had gone without sleep for what looked like weeks, but it wasn’t only the dark pockets of exhaustion beneath the man’s eyes – it was the expression in the eyes themselves, and the last time Luke had seen this expression he’d been part of a group gathered in a Daytona church nearly twenty years previously. He’d looked at the face of a young widow clutching a child, had seen the loss and grief in her eyes and vowed he’d never get close enough to anyone to hurt that much…

…and before he could say anything else, Luke was looking at Nick’s retreating back as the Texan pushed his way through the crowds of shoppers. Sighing, he started to get to his feet, and that was when he noticed a bright blue paper bag on the ground; picking it up, he pushed the tissue paper aside and found himself looking at a portable CD player that was an almost painful shade of pink – and as he looked at it, he remembered the tension that had been on Nick’s face while he spoke on the phone moments before.

“Mom? Just keep her calm, I’m coming back now.”

Wife? Child?

Who was he talking about?

What’s he been doing?

Don’t get involved, a little voice said. Whatever’s going on, you don’t need to be part of it - but whatever that voice was telling him, Nick was going to need that CD player back.

“Damn it,” Luke muttered softly, and he stood up with the bag in one hand while his other hand foraged in the pocket of his jeans for his cell.

“Marty?” he was saying, a few moments later. “I need you to fix me up with a car, I have to go somewhere. Yes, now – I know, but I can’t, something’s come up,” and as he pressed the button to summon the elevator there was a tug on his sleeve.

“Are you the guy on the bike show?” A small boy with white-blond hair, probably no more than five, and Luke hoped to Christ this kid hadn’t watched the episode they’d filmed in Sturgis during Bike Week.

“That’s me,” he said, smiling despite his desire to get the hell out of the mall and see what was wrong with Nick. “What’s your name, kiddo?”

“Toby,” the little boy said, his face bearing an awestruck expression that Luke still couldn’t quite get used to, even though it was happening more often now the show was in its second season. “Please can my mom take our picture?”

“Of course she can,” Luke told him, looking at the woman who stood nearby holding a camera, and he flashed a grin that brought a visible crimson flush to her cheeks. “You stand in front of me, and let’s give your mom a big smile -”

********

3.15 p.m

Eyes almost swollen shut, Emily lay on Nick’s bed with the photo clutched tightly in her hand; there were no more tears, but her chest was still heaving visibly, and with every breath a soft whimper escaped her lips and broke Nick’s heart a little more.

“I’m sorry I was gone for so long,” he whispered, drawing his daughter against his chest. “You know I love you, right?” and he felt an arm wind round his neck as he stroked Emily’s back and those soft whimpers continued to echo in his ears. “I do,” he said, and he began repeating the words that had been used since the day they’d brought Emily home as an infant. “You’re the best little girl in the world…I love you…Greg loves you…” and he continued to recite soothing nonsense until the grip on his neck relaxed slightly; drawing his head back, he saw that Emily’s eyes had closed completely, but even though she was asleep he wasn’t going to leave her.

Shifting onto his side, he kept one arm round Emily and let his head rest on the pillows; he closed his eyes, because he was too weary and heartbroken to do anything else, and when sleep tackled him he didn’t fight it.

********

6.00 p.m.

“My goodness,” Jillian Stokes said as she studied the figure on the front porch. “Luke, how are you?”

“I wasn’t sure you’d recognise me,” Luke said. “How long has it been now?”

“Ah, but you’re a celebrity, aren’t you?” Nick’s mother replied. “I see you on television when any of my grandsons are visiting, and they never believe me when I tell them I know you – well, come in, for heaven’s sake, don’t stand out on the porch,” she went on with a smile, and she held the front door open wide enough for him to enter the house. “I’d ask why you’re so far from home, but I’m not sure where your home is these days.”

“Well, my mail goes to Daytona, so I suppose that’s home,” Luke told her; he could smell something in the nearby kitchen that made his mouth water, and he was fairly certain that whatever he’d be eating once he got back to his hotel wouldn’t taste half as good. “I opened a new shop today, I’m flying back to Florida tomorrow -”

“You’ll stay for supper, won’t you?” Jillian said, leading the way into the kitchen. “It’s just about ready, we’re going to eat as soon as Nick wakes up.”

Wakes up? Why’s he asleep this early?

“I don’t want to be a…”

“You won’t be a bother,” Jillian interrupted. “I always cook too much, anyway,” and she crossed the kitchen to take a covered dish out of the oven. “You’re not a vegetarian, are you?”

“I thought that was illegal in this state,” Luke said, his remark provoking a soft laugh from Nick’s mother – and then he took a deep breath before asking the question that had been bothering him all afternoon. “Jillian, is Nick all right?”

“He’s fine,” a voice said, and when Luke turned round he saw Nick standing in the kitchen doorway. However long he’d slept, it hadn’t made much difference to the expression on his face or the tense set of his shoulders – and there was a child standing next to him, a little girl with masses of red hair who hid her face against his side at the sight of a stranger in the kitchen. “What are you -?”

“You left something behind at the mall,” Luke said. “I thought I’d bring it back,” and he pushed his chair back to hand over the bag. “Listen, man, I really should go.”

“Did mom ask you to stay for supper?” Nick said, stowing the bag on top of the fridge. “If she did, I’d do it, because she never takes no for an answer,” and while he was doing this the little girl was peeping around his side with blue-grey eyes; there was something in one of her hands, but she hid it behind her back when she saw Luke looking at it.

“Hello,” Luke said softly, bending down to look her in the face. “Who are you, then?” but his efforts were rewarded with a shake of the little girl’s head as she hid her face again.

“Come on, sweetheart,” Nick said, bending to place his arm round her – and while there was real affection in his voice, the smile on his face looked as though it had been nailed there. “Cat got your tongue? He’s a friend of ours, you can tell him what your name is,” and once the little girl’s shoulders had been squeezed reassuringly she spoke in a voice that was tinged with Nick’s Southern accent.

“Emily Sanders Stokes,” she said, and then she looked up at Nick. “Is he gonna stay for supper?”

**********

8.45 p.m

They had eaten supper – chicken casserole, followed by an apple pie that easily rivalled anything Luke’s mother had ever made – and then Emily had asked if she could watch a DVD. This hadn’t prevented her making appearances at the door leading out onto the deck where Luke and Nick were sitting, checking that they were still there, but these appearances had become fewer as time had passed – then, eventually, Nick had gone into the house for more coffee and returned with the news that his daughter had fallen asleep on the floor of the den.

That had been when Nick had finally begun to talk, his hands clenched around his mug as he spoke; he hadn’t looked at Luke until he’d finished his story, and that strange stilted smile had still been on his lips.

“There you are, Luke – that’s how I am.”

“Jesus,” Luke said, almost under his breath, as he lit a cigarette with shaking hands. “Tell me they caught these kids, at least.”

“Oh, we caught them,” Nick said, and there was a grim set to his lips. “One of them goes on trial the week after Christmas, I’m supposed to make some kind of victim impact statement,” he went on. “I feel like saying follow me around for a day, see what this has done to our daughter, that’s your statement -” A long silence followed, and then Nick sucked in a deep breath before turning towards his companion. “I don’t know how many times I’ve given evidence now, but doing that…”

“What’s he like?”

“Greg? He’s – well, he acts like a smartass, but he’s not,” Nick said softly. “Not underneath, and that’s why I know he’ll get out of this, because he’s stronger than everyone thinks,” and he half-emptied his mug before he continued speaking. “We’d been seeing each other for a while, and we’d been to meet his folks,” he went on. “I – well, he asked when we were going to go up to Dallas, and I said…I said that’s not a good idea, you don’t know how my dad is. So he asked me what I meant, and I told him what Cisco said the day I finally came out -”

“What did he say?”

“He said I might still be his son, but I was never going to bring my lifestyle under his roof,” Nick said. “That’s why I never really saw anyone for more than a month or so – I guess I backed off before they got too close, you know? I couldn’t imagine loving someone and not having them be part of my family, so I said I didn’t do relationships, that kind of thing – and I said that to G when he brought the Dallas thing up, I remember that,” and that strange smile twisted across his lips again. “He said we’d been seeing each other for nearly six months, and wasn’t that a relationship?” he went on. “I hadn’t even realised it had been that long, I’d just – I’d gotten used to him being around, I guess - and he looked at me across the table, we were in Denny’s after a shift – and he said we’re not going to live out there, Nicky, I’d just like to meet the parents of the man I care about.” Another pause, another sucked-in breath. “We’d never really talked about it, you know? Where we were going? And he said – he said if it’s just your dad we’ll get through it, but if you’re ashamed of me it stops here -”

“He’s pretty direct, isn’t he?”

“Always,” Nick said, tilting his head back to stare up at a sky that was almost black. “I thought about what he said, about it stopping, and I didn’t want it to,” he said after another lengthy pause. “I told one of my sisters once that all I wanted was to be happy, like our parents were, but I didn’t think there was a guy who could handle the amount of baggage I had – and she said there was one somewhere, if I didn’t manage to scare him off,” he continued. “She was the first person in my family who met him, and she told me if I let him get away she’d kill me herself – and he was standing behind her, she didn’t realise it, and he said – he said there’s no chance of that, Meg, he’s stuck with me now,” and when Nick turned towards Luke his face was taut with suppressed pain even though he was still trying to smile. “That’s why I know they’re wrong about him not coming back,” he said. “He even got through to my father eventually, so he can beat this,” and a bitter laugh escaped his lips. “Bet you’re sorry you ran into me today now, aren’t you? We don’t see each other for twenty years, and then…”

“Screw what I think,” Luke said, once he’d taken a deep drag on his cigarette. “Are you talking to anyone about this?”

“You mean a shrink?”

“I don’t think you’re nuts,” was the immediate response. “But you’ve got all this to deal with, you’ve got a kid -”

“I haven’t got time to see anyone,” Nick said, staring down at his knees. “I’ve barely got enough time to keep everything together as it is.”

“Will you take some advice? Even though we haven’t seen each other for twenty years? Make time,” Luke said. “I didn’t think I needed a therapist either, but I don’t think I’d be here if I hadn’t seen one – what?” but before Nick could answer the door behind them creaked open.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Nick said, the tension on his face softening visibly but not nearly enough. “Come here,” and he set his mug down at his feet. Emily padded across the deck and climbed into his lap, her left thumb plugged securely in her mouth while the fingers of her right hand were still clutching whatever it was she’d hidden behind her back in the kitchen.

“Is it time for me to come in?” Nick asked, and there was an indistinct mumble as his daughter pressed her face against his shirt; he lowered his head, planting a kiss on the tangled red hair, and only looked up when he heard Luke’s chair scrape back. “Let me get her settled, and then…”

“No, man, I really ought to get going,” Luke said, getting to his feet. He had turned his cell off before getting out of his car, and he didn’t doubt there would be more than a dozen missed calls waiting when he turned it back on; it wasn’t only this that was making him want to leave, though, but he couldn’t have articulated the other reason now if he’d tried to. “Will you do something for me?”

“Sure,” Nick said as he stood up with Emily draped over his right hip. “Name it.”

“My email address is on here,” Luke said, fishing a business card out of the pocket of his jeans. “Phone number too, and I’m going to get yours from your mom and chase you up if you don’t keep in touch,” and he tilted his head enquiringly. “What did I say?”

“The others,” Nick said. “The rest of the team, they still go and see him, but they don’t know what to say to me any longer – I just figured you’d be the same -”

“Well, I’m not them,” was the blunt response, making a smile rise unbidden to Nick’s lips. “Are you going to keep in touch?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” Luke said, reaching to ruffle Emily’s hair. “And you’re a witness, young lady -”

“You shouldn’t smoke,” was the little girl’s answer, delivered around the thumb that was still in her mouth. “It’s bad for you.”

“I know,” Luke told her, biting back a smile. “My doctor tells me that too, sweetie,” and he led the way through the kitchen into the hall just as Jillian bustled through from the living room.

“Are you on your way, Luke?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Luke said, taking Nick’s mother by the hand and kissing her on both cheeks. “Thank you for supper.”

“You’re very welcome,” Jillian said. “I’ll let these two see you out - give your parents my best, won’t you?” and she had made her way back into the living room by the time the front door was open.

“I meant what I said,” Luke said as he retrieved a set of car keys from his pocket. “About keeping in touch, and talking to someone.”

“I will.”

“You’d better,” was the answer, and Nick’s free hand was squeezed firmly. “Goodbye, Miss Emily,” Luke went on gravely, chuckling when the little girl hid her face against her father’s shoulder; he unlocked the car, climbed into the driver’s seat, and moments later Nick and Emily were watching taillights disappear at the end of the driveway.

*********

Bernie’s Icehouse - 10.55 p.m

Almost eleven o’clock, and the noise in the bar was at a near-deafening level.

The owner of the new franchise and the five men who would be working for him had come here to celebrate the official opening of the shop, and Luke had joined them because it was part of the ritual he’d enacted five times now. He’d go to a bar with the newest members of his team, he’d put a couple of hundred bucks on the tab; he’d sit at the bar, giving the men their space but occasionally joining in with the banter – and nobody had ever caught on that there was never anything more than club soda or Pepsi in his glass.

Tonight, most of that couple of hundred bucks was already gone. There was a small forest of empty glasses almost covering the two tables that had been pushed together; Pete, the man who’d bought the franchise, was in the middle of a Polish joke he’d started telling about ten minutes ago, resulting in hoots of laughter from his companions whenever he had to break off and start it again. None of them had noticed that for almost half an hour now, Luke had been sitting at a small table out back where he was smoking a seemingly endless stream of cigarettes and staring into the empty glass that sat in front of him.

He’d received a call from his mother one night in Daytona, when he’d been in the middle of turning his apartment upside down for the one receipt his accountant needed - “Luke, have you got the news on? It’s Bill and Jillian’s youngest boy, can you believe it?” she’d said, and he’d switched channels before sitting dry-mouthed and frozen in front of the screen. The story had been practically nation-wide over the days that followed, and when he’d looked at lurid tabloid headlines such as Buried Alive!! and Psycho Blows Himself To Bits he’d told himself he ought to call – just to see how Nick was doing, their parents were friends after all – but he’d stopped himself from doing it.

There’d been another call, just over four years ago now, when his father had told him about Bill Stokes passing away – “The funeral’s on November twenty fourth, Luke? Can you make it? It’d mean a lot to Jillian and the family if you could,” he’d said, but he’d understood when Luke had explained about a trip to New York to talk about opening another shop…not knowing that his son had agonised in the days following that phone call about whether he should reschedule his trip, but had finally decided to leave things the way they were.

Luke’s shoulders sagged while he lit another cigarette from the tip of the previous one, and as he exhaled a thin stream of smoke he thought about the summer he’d been twenty-two, having to copy a key to sneak into his parents’ house because they’d all but disowned him. He’d done this one Friday afternoon, knowing that his mom and dad were at a wedding and figuring he’d be alone to have a shower and wash his clothes and sleep in a comfortable bed…but there’d been this guy there - this kid, really, Bill and Jillian’s youngest boy, not quite eighteen then. His eyes and his shy smile had hit Luke hard, despite everything in him saying that he shouldn’t touch this kid with a ten foot pole – because if he’d been caught, “disowned” wouldn’t have been close to what his father would have done, he’d have been more likely to be crucified…

He’d been Nick’s first lover, and he’d never managed to forget him.

He’d moved to Daytona a week after that night, and he’d thought that throwing himself into the job his buddy had offered him would take his mind off the kid with the Southern accent and the shy smile, but it hadn’t. He’d asked Nick to come and join him, had said as long as Nick wanted to be with him they’d get past the fact that they had no money to speak of; Nick had said yes, he’d do it, and there’d been something in his voice that told Luke he meant it – and even now, Luke couldn’t forget how it had felt to sit in his fleapit apartment in Daytona, waiting for Nick to get off a bus and realising that it wasn’t going to happen after all.

The job had turned into a chain of six shops and a TV series, the fleapit apartment was now a townhouse in Daytona and a waterfront condo in Massachusetts; although he’d been discreet, there had been more guys than he wanted to think about, mostly because he couldn’t remember any of their names – and God damn it, all this should have been enough to erase the memory of a single night, but it wasn’t…

“Hey, Luke!” a voice slurred behind him, breaking into his thoughts. “We’re gettin’ a game of pool together, you want in?”

“Yeah, I want in,” he replied, summoning a smile, and he stubbed out his cigarette and rose to his feet. “I just hate taking your money, that’s all,” and he managed to laugh as he slung a companionable arm round Pete’s shoulders. They walked back into the bar, and the image of Nick’s taut, pale face was dispelled; but Luke knew instinctively that when he was alone in his hotel room and trying to sleep, it would return with a vengeance.

*********

December 25th, 10.40 a.m

“Thank you!” Emily cried excitedly as she unearthed the CD player from its nest of wrapping paper. “Thank you, Nick, how did you know I wanted one?”

“You only told me about a billion times you wanted one,” Nick said, ruffling his daughter’s hair and making her giggle. “You going to say thank you to Greg too, sweetie?”

“Thank you, Greg,” Emily said, rising on tiptoe to plant a noisy kiss on the left cheek of the silent figure in the bed. “Can I open the present we made him, Nick?” and when her query was met with a nod she began to shred the red tissue paper that surrounded a small, flat package.

“It’s a calendar,” Emily told Greg, holding it up over the bed. “It’s got pictures of all of us, and I’m going to put it on the table next to your bed,” and once she had done this she remained motionless and silent for a long time as she studied Greg’s face; eventually, though, her shoulders drooped almost imperceptibly, and when she turned back towards Nick her lower lip was quivering. “Can we go, Nick?”

“Yes, we can,” Nick told her, drawing her into a hug and kissing the top of her head. “You go wait out in the hall with grandma and grandpa, and I’ll be there in a minute, okay?” and he waited until Emily had left the room, her CD player clutched in one hand, before he leaned over the bed. He took hold of Greg’s hand, the one whose ring finger bore a silver band, and he pressed it tightly between both of his own; he looked down at his lover’s expressionless face, the way their daughter had done moments before, and words failed him until he was about to leave this room and rejoin what remained of his family.

“Please, G,” he whispered. “Please,” and sorrow mushroomed in his chest and throat until he feared it would choke him; but he managed to swallow it as he kissed Greg’s mouth, remembering all the times when he’d done this and tasted coffee. He let go of Greg’s hand, placing it gently back down against the bedcovers, and then he left the room; he felt his hand grasped, heard Emily ask whether she could play a CD when they got home, and he was so numb that whatever he managed to answer sounded as though it was coming from someone else.

January 2nd, 11.00 a.m

If someone had asked him to tell them how many times he’d been in the courthouse over the years, Nick would not have been able to tell them – but he knew that this morning was going to stick in his memory for the rest of his life.

He’d worked the previous evening, spending much of his shift outside; it had rained for most of the night, and Nick was grimly certain that he was going to come down with a cold before the day was out. He’d stopped at the sitter’s house to see Emily, where he’d assured her that he’d be back to get her real soon and that yes, he’d remembered she needed to go and pick out a new coat before school started again the following morning. Somehow he’d managed to eat the hefty wedge of carrot cake that Angie had put in front of him without asking him, which now lay in an unmoving lump at the pit of his stomach; he’d been to Desert Palms to shave away Greg’s stubble, and he’d done this mostly in silence because he was so nervous about what was coming next that he couldn’t think of anything to say.

And now he was here.

He heard his name called, the voice appearing to come from a great distance; he heard Warrick whisper go on, man, we got you, and felt his hand squeezed briefly for support as he rose to his feet. The walk to the witness stand, a journey he’d made more times than he could count, seemed to take a lot longer than usual; when he reached it, he stood clinging to the polished wood for a few moments, and then he took a deep breath.

“One of the most vivid memories I’ve got before all this happened is the afternoon we had our daughter’s fourth birthday party,” he said. “There was a whole crowd of us at Circus Circus – Greg’s parents, my mom, some of the guys from the lab – sitting there eating pizza, pink balloons everywhere, kids screaming,” and he pulled in another breath. “I guess it’s pretty ordinary to most of you, but I had all the people I care about around me – everything I ever wanted, because I had my own family, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever get that.

We exchanged these nearly eight years ago,” he went on, holding up his left hand to display the silver band on his ring finger. “The first time I took our daughter to see him in hospital, she noticed Greg wasn’t wearing his and she raised Cain until one of the nurses found it – she might only have just turned four then, but she still knew how important those rings are to us,” and Nick swallowed down the lump in his throat before he continued speaking. “We adopted her just after she was born, and I can’t tell you how long it took us both before we gave up going in her room a dozen times a night because we couldn’t believe we really had her.

I had to finish my shift before I could go and see Greg the night he was hurt, and it was the longest few hours of my life - I knew he’d been stabilised, and even though I knew what had happened to all those other people that night I guess I was kind of hoping that by the time I made it to Desert Palms he’d be sitting up in bed. He was still in surgery when I got there, though, and I realised right there that it wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought.

It’s hard to know how to begin telling you what this has done to all of us,” he said. “Greg’s parents didn’t come to this trial at all, because his mother’s finding all this too hard to face up to – he’s the only child she was able to have, and it was a long time before he told her he was working out in the field, because he knew she’d say it was too dangerous. We’ve got nieces and nephews who want to know when he’s going to get better, and I have to figure out what to tell them too,” he went on. “I told our daughter that if we spoke to him every day, he’d know we wanted him to wake up and come home – and she still goes to see him nearly every day, because she told me she’s worried that if she doesn’t he’ll wake up and forget he has a little girl.” There was an audible sob from someone in the courtroom, and Nick guessed it was Sara, but he knew that if he looked at her he wouldn’t be able to carry on, so he kept his gaze focused on a spot on the wall at the back of the room.

“People are trying to help, but Emily and I still have to go home every day without him, and nobody knows what that feels like unless it’s happened to them. We’ve got a Norwegian children’s book that was Greg’s when he was a kid, and he isn’t there to read it to Emily…I had to learn how to braid her hair properly, because she always said Greg always did it better than I did…every night I’m not working she usually ends up sleeping in my bed, and she never did that before this happened…and whenever I’m late picking her up from the sitter she’s crying because she thinks something happened to me too.

The doctors have told me that since Greg’s been unconscious for this long, it isn’t going to be a perfect outcome whatever happens. He’s probably going to have to learn to walk and speak and feed himself again once he wakes up, but we’ll get through it,” and Nick closed his eyes tightly for a second or two. “We’ve managed to get through everything else, and we can do it now too,” he went on. “They’ve also said he might not recover, that he might just stay the way he is now, but I’m not going to even think about that – because if I do that, it means I’m giving up on him, and when we gave each other these…” and he paused to raise his hand again, looking at the ring through a mist of tears which he blinked away. “We said we were going to be together until the day we died, no matter what happened,” Nick said, and for the first time he looked down at the two people who sat stone faced and book-ended by their attorneys. “Yeah, there are days when I wish I didn’t have to get up and go through all this, because it’s killing me, but if I give up and leave him there it means you and your friends have won – and I waited for this family for too long to ever let you do that. Ever,” he finished, and somehow he managed to mumble a thank you, Your Honour before stepping down and making his way back to where he’d been sitting.

“Come here,” he whispered to Sara, whose face was hidden in her hands; he placed an arm round her as she wept steadily, and the urge to cry himself had never been stronger – but he managed to swallow it, because he was afraid that if he started he would never stop, and then he looked up as the judge began to speak.

************

Desert Palms, 12.15 p.m

“Here you are,” Angie said with a smile as she opened the door. “How did it go?”

“Nick!” Emily shouted, before he could answer the question. “Nick, Nick, Nick!” and she came hurtling out of the sitter’s living room to jump into his arms and hug him fiercely before drawing back to study his face intently. “Did the bad people go to jail?”

“Yes, sweetheart, they did,” Nick said, and he saw the lines of anxiety on his daughter’s face smooth out.

“Can we go and tell Greg?”

“If you’d like to,” Nick told her. “Are you ready to go?”

“I need to pack my bag.”

“Go do it, then,” he said, managing a smile as he set Emily down on the floor, and moments later the door to the bedroom where she slept closed behind her. He leaned back against the front door, suddenly exhausted - and before Angie had time to repeat her question, a familiar figure emerged from the other bedroom.

“Oh, honey,” the sitter said, her cheeks turning pink. “We have company, can you put pants on?”

“It’s not company, it’s Nick,” Angie’s husband replied, scratching his belly - and Nick reflected that it didn’t seem to matter how long you were away from New York, there was always a bit of the attitude that seemed to stick with you. “Well?” he asked, fixing penetrating grey eyes on Nick. “What did they get?”

“Seven years each.”

“God damn it, that’s not enough,” the older man responded. “If this had happened back in New York…”

“Well, it didn’t,” Angie told him pointedly, nudging him into silence as the bedroom door opened and Emily emerged. “Will you stay for coffee, Nick? There’s chocolate cake.”

“I won’t,” Nick said. “Not today – we have to buy this one a new coat for school tomorrow, don’t we?” and he looked down at Emily, who nodded enthusiastically. “Are you going to say goodbye, Em?”

“’Bye, Angie,” Emily said, rising on her toes to wrap her arms round the sitter’s ample waist. “’Bye, Max,” and then she shrieked with laughter as Max lifted her off the ground and blew a resounding raspberry against the side of her neck. “Come on, Nick,” she said when she was released. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go -”

*********

8.15 p.m

“I want a cookie.”

“You brushed your teeth already,” Nick said, looking up from where he sat at one end of the couch; the TV was on, but if he’d been asked he wouldn’t have been able to say what was on the screen. “Have a drink of water and go back to bed.”

“I don’t want a drink of water, I’m hungry,” Emily retorted. “My belly’s gurgling, listen.”

“You should have eaten your supper, then,” Nick told her, his temples throbbing, and he pushed himself upright – hoping, as he headed for the kitchen, that there was still some Ibuprofen in the cupboard over the sink, because he’d been getting these headaches more and more lately. “Go back to bed, sweetie.”

“I’m hungry, Nick,” Emily whined, and the tone of her voice began to grate on his ears. “I need a cookie -”

“You’re not getting one,” he said, opening the cupboard and taking down the Ibuprofen bottle – which, blessedly, contained two more capsules. “You should have eaten your meatloaf when you had the chance,” and he took a glass off the drainer before turning on the faucet. “Now, when I turn round, you’d better be on your way back to bed.”

“Greg would let me have one,” Emily said, her voice low and rebellious, and the glass fell out of Nick’s suddenly numb fingers to shatter in the sink. “Greg wouldn’t let me be hungry all night,” and that was when everything suddenly became too much.

“Well, he isn’t here,” Nick said, turning round abruptly as the battle to control his emotions was finally lost. “Now go to bed, right now, before you get your behind paddled.”

“I wish he was here!” Emily shouted, bursting into tears. “I hate you!” and she ran out of the kitchen – and as Nick stood next to the sink, numb and drained, he heard his daughter’s bedroom door slam shut.

*********

“Emily?”

“Go ‘way,” a wavering, tear-clotted voice said, but Nick ignored it; stepping into the room, he navigated the heaps of books and toys before kneeling at the side his daughter’s bed. The only light in the room was the dim glow of the Disney Princess night light that had been given to Emily when she’d been born, and as his eyes accustomed themselves to this semi-darkness he could make out a huddled form beneath the bedcovers; he reached out a hand, pulling the covers away, and his eyes took in a face made blotchy by crying.

“Sweetheart, I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I wish Greg was here too, and I wish I hadn’t made you sad - come on over here, okay?” but when he tried to take Emily’s hand she shook her head, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks. “Emily?”

“I’m all wet,” the little girl sobbed. “I had an a-a-accident!”

“Oh, baby, come here,” Nick said, his heart breaking all over again, and he drew her down into his lap. He rocked her in his arms, her furious weeping almost drowning out the sound of the phone ringing in the next room – and when her sobs finally tailed off, he wiped her face gently with the sleeve of his shirt. “Do you want to come sleep with me?” and there was a nod in response. “Come on, then,” he told Emily, kissing the top of her head, and he rose carefully to his feet. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

*********

Once she’d had another bath and changed into a fresh pair of pyjamas that were really too small for her now, Emily had hardly been able to keep her eyes open – but she hadn’t wanted to be left alone, and so once she’d picked up the tattered photo she’d followed Nick as he’d walked to the kitchen with an armful of bedding.

“Madison says only babies wet themselves.”

“Well, Madison doesn’t need to know about this,” Nick told her as he closed the door of the washing machine and pressed a switch. “It’s none of her business, and you’re not a baby,” and he wrapped his arms tightly round his daughter. “You’re sad, and when we’re sad things are different,” he said. “Shall we go to bed?” and an almost-inaudible yes was muffled against his chest; he felt Emily’s arms go round his neck as he stood up, and he walked the few yards that brought him to his bedroom.

“I’m just going to go and change, okay?” he said once he’d placed Emily on the side of the bed where Greg usually slept, and the four year old’s eyes were already closing as she nodded. He slipped into the bathroom, where he shed his clothing in favour of a pair of pyjama bottoms; by the time he returned to the bedroom, Emily was sound asleep, and she did not stir when he climbed into bed and drew the covers over them both. He lay down before turning off the light, and the last thing he saw before he closed his eyes was the red light blinking on the answering machine next to the bed; but he was too tired, and whoever it was could wait until the morning.

“Nick? Hey, man, it’s Luke – you didn’t think I’d forget about chasing you guys up, did you? I called your mom and got your number, but I guess you must be working tonight – anyway, she said they sentenced a couple of those kids today, and I was wondering how it all went. Anyway, get in touch some time – and give that little girl of yours a hug for me."

February 10th, 6.45 p.m

“Nick -”

“What is it, sweetie?”

“Will you help me with these?” Emily asked, looking up from the heap of Valentine cards that was scattered in front of her on the kitchen table. “My fingers are getting tired.”

“Not a chance,” he told his daughter, not looking up from the letter he was reading. “Your friends at school want to see Emily written on those cards, they don’t want to see Nick.”

“No!” Emily said, a rare smile on her lips. “You have to write my name!”

“Do you know what forgery is?” Nick asked, looking Emily straight in the face with mock severity, and he watched his daughter giggle through her fingers. “You wouldn’t be laughing if you did time for it, young lady.”

“What’s time?”

“Never mind,” was the resigned answer. “Give me a few of them,” and there was an expression of triumph on the four year old’s face as she slid more than half the cards across the table towards him; for the next few minutes they were silent as Nick signed the cards with his daughter’s name and then gave them back to her to put rows of kisses on them – but every so often, he would see Emily glance up as though she wanted to say something, and finally she spoke.

“Did you give Greg a card?”

“When?”

“So he knew you liked him,” Emily said. “Madison says you have to give a boy a Valentine’s card so he knows you like him.”

“Your little friend thinks she’s got all the answers, doesn’t she?” Nick said with a smile. “It might work like that when you’re in kindergarten, but when you’re as old as I was when I met Greg it’s a bit different.”

“How did he know, then?” Emily interrupted, and Nick sensed from the expression on her face that another ‘story’ was in the offing; she had always liked hearing little anecdotes about her family, and since Greg’s injury these requests had become more frequent – almost as though she was trying to hang on to the way things had been “before”, Nick thought, and the image made his throat tighten.

“Well, I didn’t make it easy for him,” he said. “I liked him for a long time, but I didn’t tell him.”

“Why not?”


“Well, because I didn’t think he’d be interested in me,” Nick said. “I guess I was shy,” and the words were rewarded with another smile. “What’s so funny about that?”

“You’re not shy,” Emily told him. “You catch all those bad guys, you can’t be!”

“That’s not the same thing,” he said. “Some people want to meet someone and stay with them all their lives and have a family -”

“Like you did.”

“That’s right,” Nick said, and he realised that Emily had dropped all pretence at ‘work’; her chin was resting on her steepled hands, and the look on her face said that she was hanging onto his every word. “But not everyone does, and I didn’t want to let Greg know I liked him in case he didn’t want what I wanted -”

“How come you liked him?”

“Well, because he was funny,” Nick said. “Remember I told you how he sometimes wears funny hats at work and makes all those jokes?” and there was a solemn nod. “We used to go running together after work, and whenever I knew we were going to do that I’d feel really happy -”

“Well, when did you tell him you liked him?”

“I didn’t,” Nick said, and although there was a lump in his throat he was smiling at the memory. “I didn’t say anything at all, and then one morning when we were all going home he followed me to the parking lot – and he stood in front of the driver’s side of my truck so I couldn’t get in,” and another giggle erupted from his daughter’s lips. “And he said…”

“What?”

“He said was there anything I wanted to tell him,” Nick said. “I told you he was smart, didn’t I, kiddo? He knew I liked him even though I hadn’t said anything.”

“Is he gonna remember that, Nick?” Emily asked, and her little face grew solemn again. “When he wakes up?”

“He might not,” Nick said carefully, and the advice the play therapist had given him was at the forefront of his mind. Don’t give her a big lecture, Ginny had said. If she asks you something about what’s happening, just answer that question, and the strawberry blonde woman had smiled. Kind of like the birds and the bees talk you’ll have to go through in a few years…“We might have to help him figure out a few things,” he said, and he watched Emily’s face fall. “He won’t forget you,” he said firmly, and he knew Ginny would probably frown on this white lie - but damn it, he was at least going to let Emily have this bit of comfort. “Where are you?” he asked, and he watched his daughter place a hand over her heart. “That’s right,” he told her. “That’s where Greg’s got you, and he’s got me there too, so when he wakes up he’ll still remember us,” and he reached across the table for Emily’s hand. “And he’ll figure the other things out too, even though it might take him a while.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because he’s stubborn,” Nick said. “Just like you,” and his heart lightened when he saw a tentative smile reappear on Emily’s face. “Now then,” he went on, “you know what tomorrow is?”

“Saturday.”

“That’s right,” Nick replied. “And I don’t have to be back at the lab until tomorrow evening, so what’s tonight?”

“I don’t want cereal before bed any more,” Emily said quietly, looking down at the table, and Nick squeezed her hand. He had maintained the ritual of a bowl of cereal before bed on Friday or Saturday nights when nobody had to be up early the following day, even though it had hurt him to look at the empty chair on one side of the kitchen table – but he had always been prepared for the fact that one day Emily might feel the same way, and it seemed that it had finally happened.

“Well, we don’t have to have cereal if you don’t want to,” he told his daughter. “Should we do something else? What about…” and he was silent for a moment or two before an idea occurred to him. “What about driving to the diner where we sometimes have breakfast? We could have a snack there, and then you can come back here and go to bed.”

“In our pyjamas?”

“Well, we’d have to go by the drive through and then eat in the truck -”

“Yes!” Emily said, her face brightening. “I want to do that! Can we get hash browns? I like those.”

“Not right before bed,” Nick said. “They’re too greasy, you’ll get a bellyache – what about a piece of pie?”

“Okay,” was the immediate response, and Emily let go of her father’s hand as she scrambled down from her chair. “Come on, Nick.”

“What about those cards?”

“You can finish those with me in the morning,” Emily told him. “We have to go get our jammies on,” and before Nick could come up with an answer he was looking at his daughter’s retreating back.

********

February 11th, 9.30 a.m

Nick’s eyes blinked open to the sound of Emily’s voice, and he yawned as he sat up in bed. The covers were thrown every which way, a mute testament to the fact that at some point during the night his daughter had climbed into bed with him – but he had been so exhausted by a combination of work and what was happening outside work that this hadn’t even woken him.

Climbing out of bed, he padded barefoot along the hallway until he was standing in the living room doorway; the TV was on, and Emily – unaware of her father’s presence - sat cross-legged on the floor with the phone in one hand and a half-eaten Snickers bar in the other.

“- and I asked Nick, but he says it’s all full up,” she was saying. “He said maybe after the summer there’ll be room,” and when Nick cleared his throat she looked round. “He’s awake now,” she said into the phone as she got up. “I’ll let you speak to him – ‘bye, grandma, I love you,” and she walked to the doorway to hand Nick a phone that was decorated with chocolate fingerprints. “It’s grandma Jillian.”

“Thank you, sweetie,” Nick told his daughter, but she had already redirected her attention to the TV. “Hi, mom.”

“Ballet lessons?” Jillian said in an amused voice. “My granddaughter’s growing up.”

“It’ll be something else on Monday once she gets back to school,” Nick told his mother as he walked back towards his bedroom. “It’s one of her friends, that’s where she got the idea from – last week it was a TV in her room, the week before that she wanted to wear nail polish -”

“It might not be a bad idea,” was the answer. “Unless the class really is full,” and Nick sighed inwardly.

“Mom -”

“If it’s a question of money…”

“Mom, we’re fine,” Nick said, and he reflected ruefully that at least when he said this now he was telling the truth. He and Greg had both taken out disability insurance policies, even before they’d become parents, but since Greg’s injury Nick had found out that it was a great deal easier getting an insurance company to take money from you than it was to get them to pay it out – and there were two thick folders of letters that had flown back and forth between the hospital and Nick’s attorney and the insurance company to bear this out.

He’d lost count of the number of times his family – not only his mother but his siblings too, especially his sister Maggie who was an attorney – had asked him if he was all right, and although they hadn’t added the word financially it had been implied nonetheless; and because he’d been determined to retain some small measure of control over his life, he’d always told them that yes, he was all right. In reality, though, he’d been dipping into his savings to pay the sitter, even though Angie had said he could wait until the insurance company cheques started coming in; and after a shift, when Emily was at school and Nick should have been asleep, he’d tossed and turned fitfully as the spectre of having to move to a smaller apartment crept into his mind.

“It isn’t the money,” he told his mother now. “It’s – well, the classes run on a Saturday morning, and if I’m not working I’m usually asleep,” and he sighed as he sat on the edge of the bed. “The sitter would have to take her more often than not, and that isn’t the way we planned to do things -”

“Sweetheart, neither of you planned on this happening, did you?” Jillian told her son. “What would you have done if it hadn’t? One of you would have taken her while the other one went to bed, wouldn’t you? You’ve just got to do things a bit differently now.”

“I’m just missing out on so much with her now,” Nick said. “Angie’s really good, we’re so lucky we found her, but we always said -” and he paused, lowering his head and pinching the bridge of his nose hard. “We didn’t go through what we went through to get Em just so someone else could do our job for us, mom – it feels like I’m giving up -”

“Shall I tell you something, Nick?” his mother said. “You’re a lot tougher than you think, and not just over what’s going on now – after what happened to you when you were nine, I never thought you’d leave that little girl with anyone else, and nobody would have blamed you if you hadn’t. When you have children, you learn to do what’s best for them even if it doesn’t seem like the right thing at the time – and no but, mom, Nicholas Stokes,” she added, and Nick managed a shaky laugh. “You let that little girl have her ballet lessons, and she won’t care that you don’t take her there all the time,” and the next sentence made Nick blink back tears. “She knows you love her, you and Greg, even if he can’t show it right now, and that’s what matters.”

********

11.20 a.m

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see when we get there,” Nick replied. “It’s a surprise,” and he studied the sheet of paper that bore the directions he’d scribbled down an hour and a half ago. “You want the radio?”

“Yes!” Emily cried, and at the flick of a switch the truck was filled with music that made her face light up; she began singing along in a slightly off-key voice, and for a brief instant Nick’s world was normal again.

“I fell into a burning ring of fire…”

********

“Are we here?”

“Yes, we are,” Nick told his daughter. “Undo your seatbelt and out you get.”

“Where are we going?” Emily asked as she scrambled out of what she scornfully called her ‘baby seat’, but before she received an answer a smile wreathed her face when she spotted a familiar figure. “Look, Nick, I see Jessie! Jessie!” she bellowed at an ear-splitting level, and Nick had to bite his lower lip to suppress a smile as the fifteen year old hurriedly let a cigarette fall from her fingers. “Come on, Nick, come on!” Emily said, tugging on her father’s hand, and the two of them crossed the small parking lot to reach a two-storey red brick building.

“Hi, Jessie!”

“Hello, trouble,” was the answer, and Jessica smiled down at Emily; lengths of bright red wool had been woven into her hair, and she wore a Coheed & Cambria T shirt over a pair of black jeans. “Mom’s getting her nails done, she’ll be back in an hour,” she told Nick, and apprehension crept into her eyes. “Are you gonna tell her you saw me -?”

“That’s between you and your mom,” Nick said, still managing – just barely – to keep himself from smiling. “Where’s your sister?”

“The brat’s inside changing,” Jessica said, and she pushed open a door. “Come on, I’ll show you where you have to go.”

“Where are we going, Nick?” Emily asked again, still clutching her father’s hand as they entered the building; piano music was audible through a nearby door, and when it was pushed open Nick saw his daughter’s eyes widen as she saw a dozen little girls wearing leotards.

“Nick!” Emily stage-whispered. “Look! It’s Madison!”

“Hello there,” a voice said before Emily could speak, and a statuesque black woman with her hair in cornrows was smiling warmly as she approached them. “I bet you’re Emily,” she went on, bending down to Emily’s level. “I’m Miss Alicia - is this your daddy?” and the four year old nodded shyly. “Well, I spoke to him on the phone today, and he told me you’d like to try some ballet lessons – is that right?”

“Yes’m,” Emily said in a near-whisper, once she’d been nudged into answering, and then she looked up at her father. “Nick, I don’t have the special outfit.”

“Well, that doesn’t matter right now,” Miss Alicia said reassuringly. “You’ve got sweatpants and a T shirt on, and that’s going to be fine for today – and if you think you want to come back next week, your daddy can take you to buy the special outfit before then. How about that?” and once she’d received an enthusiastic nod in response she straightened up to look at Nick. “You can stay and watch if you like, but most of the parents don’t,” she said, and brilliantly white teeth flashed in a smile. “These little girls can get very squeaky – there’s a diner down the block, you might want to kill some time there -”

“What do you think, sweetheart?” Nick asked, crouching down to look his daughter in the face. “Shall I stay, or will you be okay if I leave?”

“You can leave,” Emily said, prompting laughter from the ballet teacher – and before Nick could stand up, arms were flung round his neck so tightly that he could hardly breathe.

“Thank you for my lesson,” Emily whispered. “I love you, I love you, I love you -”

*********

Pickering Wharf - February 18th, 10.15 p.m

He didn’t get here nearly as often as he would have liked to, and so the visits he did manage were sacred – as the people who worked for him, directly or indirectly, were told whenever he managed to escape. “Unless it involves dialling 911, it can wait till I get back,” he’d said, more times than he could remember. “If I get a call in Salem for some bullshit reason, you’ll get busted lower than buck private in the army,” and after he’d fired a hapless trainee who’d gotten him out of his hot tub to ask where the spare set of keys for one of the bikes was, the warning had been heeded.

He’d bought the condo just after he’d signed the contract with MTV to do Road Trip; his search for what he called his “weekend place” had taken several months, and just when he was starting to think he’d driven every real estate agent in Salem completely nuts, one of them had shown him round the Pickering Wharf place. “I know it’s a little over your budget, Mr. Morrissey,” she’d said, “but I remember you telling my boss you wanted a waterfront view,” and as soon as he’d stepped out onto the deck Luke had known he had to have the condo, no matter what it cost - if I was straight, I’d kiss you, honey, he’d said, and the diminutive woman had blushed scarlet.

While his townhouse in Daytona always seemed to have other people in it, nobody else had ever been to the Salem place, and that was the way he liked it. There was a TV, but it was hardly ever turned on; when Luke was here, a great deal of his time was spent sleeping in the antique sleigh bed or sitting on the patio of the Regatta watching the world go by – but he would have had to admit, if anyone had asked him, that what he enjoyed most was sitting on his balcony with its lakefront view.

There had always been something about looking out at water that had soothed him, whether it had been during childhood vacations or during escapes from the increasing pressures of work where he would sit on the deck with a drink – either the one beer he occasionally allowed himself, or a club soda crammed with ice and a squeeze of lime juice. He’d let himself tune in to the gentle sound of rippling water, and little by little the outside world seemed to slip into the distance.

This was exactly what he was doing now, despite the chill in the air; he lay stretched out on a teak lounger, a Marlboro slowly turning to ash between two fingers of his right hand and an empty glass on the deck at his left side. His ears picked up conversation and laughter from somewhere nearby – probably the Regatta, he guessed – along with the sound of water lapping against the shoreline and against the boats moored below the building…

…and just as his eyes were closing, drops of water began to fall on his face.

Well, enough fresh air for one night, he told himself as he scrambled out of the lounger and grabbed his glass along with his pack of Marlboros; he crossed the deck and stepped back into the condo, sliding the door shut just as the rain began to come down in earnest. He kicked off his shoes and lit a cigarette before padding across the living room and sitting at one end of the couch; reaching for his laptop, he booted it up and then logged in to MSN – and it wasn’t long before a small window flashed in one corner of the screen

Hi, Uncle Luke!

Shouldn’t you be in bed? he typed, a smile spreading across his face. It’s after eleven where you are.

It’s Saturday, came the reply from his fourteen year old nephew in Wisconsin. Are you at home?

I’m in Salem – just taking a break from work.

When can me and Ben come to Daytona again?

Ben and *I*, Luke typed in response. I’ll speak to your mom and dad, maybe we can do something over spring break.

OMG! came the instant response. Dad just busted me, got 2 go! and seconds later Luke was looking at a message telling him that MaxieD was no longer online; he was still chuckling softly when a soft ‘ping’ alerted him to a new email, and in the next instant his smile faded.

Luke -
I know it’s been a while since you rang and left that message, and I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to answer and let you know what’s going on.

There’s no real change in Greg – he got an infection around the incision they made to insert his feeding tube, but the doctor told me that’s about par for the course the first few months, and when I went in this evening his fever was down at least. God, “first few months” – I almost feel like I’m getting used to this now, all these medical things, you know?

Emily’s fine at school, she’s fine when she sleeps at the sitter’s or her friends’ houses, but when she’s at home she’s like a different kid. Like those whiny, scratchy ones you see at the grocery store - G and I always used to look at those kids and laugh and say that if our kid was ever like that she wouldn’t sit down for a week, but it’s different when there’s a reason for it. I just wish I could be sure I was doing enough to help her, you know? She’s too little to really talk about what she’s feeling, and sometimes she won’t speak at all – I feel like it’s my fault somehow, because I told her that if we went to see Greg and talked to him he’d wake up and come home. She won’t go and see him every day any longer – it’s down to a couple of times a week – but she always draws a picture for me to take in when she doesn’t want to come with me, and they’ve practically covered half a wall now.

I know this probably isn’t the kind of news you were hoping to get, and I know how you feel – it’s been four months now, give or take, and I thought he’d at least be awake by now. I haven’t given up, though, even if it looks like everyone else is starting to – it’s hard for the rest of the team to come and see G now, especially Sara, and I can’t actually remember the last time she was at the hospital if I’m honest.

I did listen to you about one thing, though – I see someone every week to talk about all this. He looks like Jerry Garcia in a suit and tie, he’s the last person you’d see on the street and peg as a shrink - but he lets me rant, and that’s helping. Not very much yet, but I suppose this kind of thing takes time, right?

I know I’ve rambled a bit here, and I’m sorry – but if you meant what you said about keeping in touch, I’d like that, because it’d be nice to hear from someone who’s not the hospital or work or my family once in a while.

Either way, give my best to your folks, and take care.

Nick.

March 30th, 7.45 a.m

Luke stretched, yawned and threw back the covers before climbing out of bed; he grabbed his cigarettes and his battered Zippo from the nightstand, and then he walked across the room to open the sliding door that led out onto the balcony.

The balcony floor was already warm beneath his bare feet as he shook a Marlboro from the pack and lit it; there was a light mist out on the water, but years of living here had taught him that this would have burned off in another hour or so. He inhaled deeply, and as he exhaled a thin stream of smoke over the railing his thoughts turned to the two people who were sharing his house with him for the next five days.

And then his mind was filled with an even earlier memory, of a church that was only ten miles from here...

"How long are you here?"

"There's a bus leaving tomorrow morning," the young woman replies. "Seven thirty," and she hoists her baby to a more comfortable position over her hip. The little girl in the pink dress has cried herself into a runny nose and her mother's face is completely devoid of expression, pouches of exhaustion beneath her eyes that are so dark they look like bruises.

"Julie, no," he says softly. "Not a Greyhound, not with Morgan," and he reaches out to place a hand on the back of the baby's head. "Please let me buy you a plane ticket, honey."

"We'll be fine," Julie tells him. "You don't have to."

"I want to," he replies, struggling to keep his emotion under control. "I want to help you - please."

"I know you do," is the answer, "but you can't, Luke, 'cause you can't bring him back," and a tear slides down the young woman's right cheek. "I wasn't here for him, but I still loved him, and I'm never going to love anyone else like that," she continues, her voice cracking as she rubs the heel of her free hand across her eyes. "I left him alone when he needed me, and you can't help me with that -"

A low, shaky sigh echoed in the still, early-morning air, and then Luke took another deep drag on his cigarette. It hurt him to think about what had happened to Rich, even now, and he couldn't help but think that the numb, vacant expression that had been on Julie's face in that church was almost exactly the same one that had been on Nick's face the previous evening.

Why did you ask them to come here? a small voice asked in the back of his mind. What the hell do you think you can do to help in five days?

I'm not doing anything, he told the voice silently. He's a friend, I invite friends here all the time.

A friend? the voice asked. Before Christmas, you hadn't seen him in over twenty years - what kind of friend is that? and Luke stubbed his cigarette out viciously in the ashtray before walking back into his bedroom. He was halfway towards the door that opened onto the landing when he remembered that he had company, and so he returned to the armchair that sat opposite his bed and served as a way station for clothes he was too lazy to put away; picking up a pair of faded Levis that had more holes than denim, he slipped them on over his boxer shorts and was still buttoning the fly when he emerged onto the landing.

The door of the room to the left of the stairs remained closed, but the door near the elevator was partway open, and as he walked past Luke caught a glimpse of red hair out of the corner of his eye; stopping in his tracks, he turned round, and eyes that were almost as blue as his own stared back at him.

"Good morning, Miss Emily," he whispered, waving at her, and the little girl eyed him solemnly from around her bedroom door. "Did you sleep well?" and after a lengthy pause he received a nod in response. "Do you want to come and have a look at my house now? You fell asleep before Nick could bring you downstairs last night," but he was none too surprised when, after a glance at the closed bedroom door across the landing, Emily shook her head. "Well, I'll tell you what - if you change your mind, you walk down these stairs - just down to the next floor, OK? - and I'll be in the kitchen," he told her. "It's a big white room, you'll see it," and he made his way towards the stairs without looking back.

************

Damn, he told himself as he scanned the shelves of his fridge before removing a half-empty carton of orange juice, he really did need to go grocery shopping. He walked to one of the cupboards, found two glasses - one of them actually a plastic cup, a souvenir of one of the many McDonalds outings he'd accompanied his nephews on - and decanted the juice into them before pulling up one of the stools to the kitchen island. Angling himself so that he could see the hallway reflected in the glass door of the stove, he pulled his laptop towards him and opened it; the twenty five unread emails awaiting him made him roll his eyes, because he'd checked his email before going to bed just after midnight - damn it, didn't people ever sleep?

He wasn't sure how much time had elapsed before a small figure was reflected in the glass door, and Luke forced himself not to give any sign that he'd noticed Emily as she padded across the white tile floor. She was still wearing the clothes she'd obviously gone to sleep in, her hair was a tangled mess, and whatever she'd been holding the previous evening that she hadn't wanted him to see was clutched in her right hand; spotting the table several yards away in the breakfast nook, she headed straight for it and stood looking at it for a moment or two before her shoulders sagged. A split second later, quiet sobs reached Luke's ears, and it was impossible for him to remain detached any longer; sliding down off the stool, he padded across to where Emily was standing, and he crouched down so that their faces were level.

"Emily?" he said cautiously, his heart in his throat. He'd never had much to do with little girls, because his sisters had only given birth to boys, and he'd certainly never been around a child as emotionally fragile as this one was - and so, while he wanted more than anything to be able to say the right thing to Nick's daughter now, he was fairly certain that whatever he came up with would make the situation worse. "What's the matter?"

"I want to go home," Emily managed to say as big tears rolled down her cheeks, and she sniffed loudly before wiping her nose on her sleeve. "Nick didn't leave me my candy."

"Your candy?"

"Yes!" Emily replied. "He always leaves it on the table for me, and he forgot it!"

"Candy before breakfast?" Luke asked, lifting an eyebrow and trying to make light of the situation. "Nick really lets you eat candy before breakfast?"

"My Saturday candy," was the answer, and now Emily was sobbing in earnest. "Greg always used to have it when he was a little boy, so I do it too -"

Foot in mouth, Luke - nice one.

"Oh, honey, I'm sure Nick didn't mean to forget," Luke said, his throat tightening at the little girl's distress. "He's just been really tired, and when you're tired you sometimes forget things," and he reached out to place a hand on her shoulder, only to have it shaken off. "We can go out and get you one later -"

"No! I wanna go home and have my Snickers!"

Oh, thank Christ.

"He didn't forget it," he said, following the words with a smile that wasn't returned in kind. "Come with me," and he straightened up before leading the way to the fridge; opening one of the drawers in the freezer section, he retrieved something that had been there for five months and held it out to Emily. "See?"

"Why's it all cold?"

"Well, Nick knew it gets really hot in Florida," Luke told her, reflecting wryly that this was by far the smallest person he'd ever fed this much bullshit to, "so I guess he asked me to put it in here in case it melted before you woke up."

"Thank you," Emily said in a tiny, wavering voice, her blue eyes still swimming with tears. "I'm sorry I yelled."

"Don't you worry about that," he told her. "Now, what about finding you some cartoons?"

*********

11.00 a.m

When Nick finally opened his eyes, sunlight was streaming in through the window; the first thing he did was roll over in bed, and he was surprised to find that not only was the bedroom door still closed - but he was alone.

He felt as though he could still do with another day's sleep, but at least his headache had gone.

Once he had climbed out of bed, he delved into his suitcase for a T shirt, which he put on before leaving the bedroom; he walked across the landing to where Emily had spent the night, but when he pushed the door open there was nobody in the room.

As he began his descent of the stairs, he could hear voices coming from direction of the room where he had admired the vintage jukebox the previous evening - and a few moments later, he was seized by the weird impression that part of his life back in Vegas had somehow been transported here.

Emily was curled up at one end of the leather couch, her mouth smeared liberally with chocolate, while a half-empty glass of orange juice sat on the coffee table a foot or so away from her; the huge wall-mounted flat screen TV had been turned on, and a small pink dog that Nick had seen on many Saturday mornings was running across the screen carrying a little girl in a rocking chair.

"I wanna go to the candy store! I wanna buy a new toy! I wanna watch TV! I wanna go to the zoo!"

"Hey, you," he said softly, leaning over the back of the couch, and Emily's face brightened as she twisted round on the couch to hug her father. "How long have you been awake?"

"A long time," Emily told him pointedly. "Can we go to the beach now?" and she pointed towards a sliding glass door a few yards away. "It's right outside there."

"Of course we can," he said. "Just as soon as I get dressed, okay? Where's Luke?" and Emily pointed in the direction of the sliding door again, her attention already diverted back to the TV; crossing the room, Nick pushed the door open and stepped outside.

A pair of teak loungers sat several feet apart on the balcony, and Luke was stretched out in one of them; one of his bare feet hung over the side of the lounger, and a lit cigarette smouldered between two of his fingers. His head was turned to one side, so his face couldn't be seen, but the dragon tattoo that covered most of his shirtless torso was clearly visible - and as Nick looked at it, he was transported to a Massachusetts back yard as a voice teased yeah, I bet your daddy keeps you away from people like me, doesn't he...

"I'm awake," a voice rumbled as Nick took a step back towards the living room. "Just resting my eyes," and Nick watched Luke sit up and stub out his cigarette. "How'd you sleep?"

"Pretty well," Nick replied - although in truth he would have liked nothing more than to go back to bed, because it felt as though he'd tossed and turned the entire night - and then he jerked his head back towards the balcony door. "How long's she been up?"

"About three hours, and I had to talk her out of going home without you," was the answer. "You're just lucky I had a Snickers in my freezer - even though it's from last Halloween, so she's probably getting food poisoning as we speak," and Luke flashed a smile. "What did I say?"

"I never forgot her candy before," Nick said as he let himself sink down into the other lounger. "I forgot her damn car seat too, I'm beginning to see why Grissom told me to take some time off -"

"Did he, now? You never mentioned that," Luke said, swinging round so that he sat facing Nick. "Well, someone finally got through to you, at least," he went on. "You need to just stop, man."

"I can't," Nick said. "Like I told you last night, there's too much I need to do."

"And like I told you last night, not while you're here," Luke retorted. "If someone's offering to make things easier, let them, that's my motto," and he broke off abruptly when the balcony door slid open. "Hello, Miss Emily - is that cartoon over now?"

"Hey, you," Nick said with a smile as Emily approached; before he could sit up she had climbed into his lap, draping herself across his chest and letting her head nestle into the spot where his neck met his left shoulder. "Luke says you've been awake for a long time - did you thank him for finding your candy bar?" and there was a muffled "mm" around the thumb in his daughter's mouth.

"What about some food?" Luke asked. "I have to go grocery shopping, because there's nothing in the fridge, so you guys need to tell me what you want to eat while you're here," he went on. "What do you like, Miss Emily?" and he watched the little girl mumble something against her father's neck.

"No, sweetie, tell him yourself," Nick said encouragingly, stroking Emily's tangled red hair, and after a lengthy silence the little girl lifted her head.

"Lucky Charms," Emily said, and a gentle nudge was delivered to her shoulder by her father before she added, "please."

"Okay, I can find those," Luke said with a smile. "But you know what? It's nearly lunchtime," he told her - and while he'd been planning to take his guests out, something was telling him to postpone it. "Do you like hot dogs? I could get some of those too, and we can cook them on the barbecue," and he was rewarded with a nod. "What about juice? What kind of juice do you like?"

"Apple," was the whispered response, and then Emily's face was pressed against her father's shoulder again; after a second or two, though, she turned her head to one side to peek at Luke - and although Luke managed to smile at her, there was a lump in his throat. He remembered how his nephews had been when they were four - noisy, inquisitive, taking every opportunity to escape their parents' surveillance - and he'd have been willing to bet that Emily had been pretty much the same five months ago...and although she wasn't his kid, he still wanted to grab the assholes who'd done this to her family and beat them to a pulp.

"How about you, Nick?" he asked, once he was sure he could speak evenly. "Anything you won't eat?" and Nick shook his head. "Well, you two hang out here, I won't be long," Luke said, and he made his way indoors to find a shirt and a pair of shoes.

*******

As he picked up the latest issue of Rolling Stone and added it to the contents of a cart that was two thirds full, he caught sight of something on a nearby shelf; approaching it and picking it up, he found himself looking at a Barbie doll swathed in more pink fabric than he'd ever seen in one place - and he was poised to toss it into the cart when something stopped him.

She'd like it, he told himself, and he thought back to the last time his nephews from Wisconsin had been here; he'd taken them grocery shopping and been unable to resist buying each of them a digital camera, provoking good-natured accusations from his sister that he was spoiling them. It's only twenty bucks, you've spent more than that on Max and Ben in here before -

They're your sister's kids, a little voice replied. Emily's just a house guest - and after a few seconds, Luke placed the box back on the shelf and headed for the checkout.

************

"Hey, guys," he called out as he set the first armload of bulging grocery bags on the kitchen floor, "you want to come and give me a hand bringing this stuff in?" and when there was no answer he walked into the living room; making his way to the partway-open balcony door, he looked round it, and he was none too surprised by what he saw.

Nick and Emily were exactly where he'd left them, and the only difference was that they were both asleep now; Nick had one arm round his daughter, and while Emily was still sucking her thumb the fingers of her free hand were grasping a handful of Nick's T shirt. Luke remained motionless for a long time and watched them, despite the inner voice telling him that he should either wake them up or go away and leave them alone - then the decision was taken out of his hands when the phone rang, making him sprint towards the kitchen in an attempt to silence the ringing before it woke his guests.

"Hello?"

"Hey," a familiar voice said. "Wasn't sure I'd catch you in on a Saturday."

"I'm easy to catch if you know where to find me," Luke replied, and a smile twitched the corners of his mouth upwards - because the voice at the other end of the line was not only familiar to him, but would also have been familiar to any regular TV viewer. They'd been introduced at the bash following the last MTV Movie Awards show, and they'd quickly discovered that - despite the actor's squeaky clean image - the two of them had more in common than an interest in bikes; and although the man was more than fifteen years Luke's junior, Luke had still managed to wear him out during a four-hour stint in a motel room. "How you doing, man?"

"I'm just outside Jacksonville," was the response. "Have been for five days, we've been shooting a couple of episodes for the new season - we just finished up, and we don't fly back until tomorrow," and the voice at the other end of the line was lowered a notch. "Wondered if you felt like hooking up - if you don't have any other plans."

"You know what?" Luke replied. "Hooking up sounds like a great idea, J, but I have company here till Thursday. What about a rain check? I'm bound to be in California some time soon."

"Sure," the voice told him. "I gave you my cell number, right?"

"You did, and I'll use it," Luke said. "I mean that." Seconds later, he hung up - and simultaneously, the little voice that only seemed to speak to him when he least wanted to hear it was whispering in his ear again.

What the hell did you just do? "I have company here", what kind of bullshit excuse is that? Jacksonville's not that far from here the way you drive, you could easily meet him at a motel if you wanted to. You heard how he sounded on the phone, you've got him on a plate - and by the way, remember those big-ass hands and that thing he can do with his tongue? Just tell Nick you made plans, all he's doing is sleeping anyway -

then a shadow fell across the floor in front of Luke, and when he looked up Emily was standing in the kitchen doorway.

"Where's Nick?"

"He's still asleep."

"Did you want to come and help me bring the groceries in?" Luke asked; for a long time Emily didn't answer, her eyes travelling from Luke to the living room and back again, and finally she nodded. "Come on, then," he told the little girl, and she followed in his wake as he headed out of the kitchen.

********

"Those go in this cupboard right here," he said, and he watched Emily place the cans of soup in a neat line on the shelf; she had carried her cereal upstairs while he'd struggled with the other four bags, and she had spent the last ten minutes silently helping him to put the groceries away. "There - we're just about done," he told her. "Thank you very much, Miss Emily."

"Greg drinks that," Emily said, her eyes on the package of coffee that still lay on the counter. "We don't buy it now."

Shit, Luke thought. Shit, shit, shit - and for once he prayed that Nick would wake up, because he had no clue how to handle this himself.

"The bad people hurt him," Emily continued, speaking so quietly that Luke had to crouch down in front of her to make out the words. "He tried to stop them hurting someone, so they hurt him really badly," and she twisted her fingers together before she spoke again. "They kicked his head, and he had to go to the hospital," she went on, staring down at the floor. "He hasn't woken up yet, and it's been a long time - Nick said if we went and talked to him he'd wake up and come home, but he still hasn't."

"I know," Luke told her. "I bet you miss him a lot."

"I want him to wake up so Nick won't be sad any longer," was the answer. "He cries when he goes to bed," and Emily lifted her head, her troubled eyes level with Luke's. "I hear him when I get up to go to the bathroom, so I get into bed with him and hug him every night," she said. "And sometimes he gets a bad headache because he's so sad, and I don't want him to do that -"

"I know you don't, honey," Luke said. "But it's okay for him to be sad."

"But big people aren't s'posed to cry."

"Yes, they are," Luke told her. "Some of them don't like everyone else to know they do it, but it's true - and I bet you that if you ask Nick, he'll tell you he and Greg cried when you were born," and he smiled gently at the doubtful look in Emily's eyes. "I'm not kidding," he said. "People can cry when they're happy, and that's okay too - and you know what?"

"What?"

"I bet it's hard for Nick to talk to you about what he thinks, but I'm sure he wouldn't want you to be so worried about him," and Luke was choosing his words with even more care now, because he had seen something that Emily had not - a figure that had appeared in the kitchen doorway behind her and then retreated again. "I know he goes to see someone to talk about how sad he is -"

"Doctor Jack," Emily said, nodding in agreement. "We saw him in the mall one day - he has a big belly like Santa."

"Well, Doctor Jack went to school for a long time to learn to help people who are sad," Luke told her, suppressing a smile at the little girl's directness, "and I think Nick goes to see him so you won't have to worry about him so much, because little girls shouldn't be worried all the time."

"I'm not little," Emily said gravely. "I'm nearly four and a half," and this time Luke was unable to prevent himself from laughing out loud.

"You're a pistol, honey, you know that?"

"Juan at the ranch said that too, last time we went to see grandma Jillian," Emily replied. "Can I have my breakfast now? I'm hungry."

"Shouldn't we wait for your papa to wake up?" Luke asked her, and then he looked up to see Nick standing in the kitchen doorway again. "Well, hello, Sleeping Beauty."

"No!" Emily said, looking round at her father and then muffling giggles behind her hands. "That's a girl!" and the ice between Luke and his youngest guest was finally broken.

**********

The barbecue on the balcony had been fired up, but then Emily had rejected the hot dogs because they weren't the kind she ate at home. "We always buy Albertson's," she'd said. "Oscar Meyer hot dogs are gross!" Waving away Nick's apology for the four year old's behaviour, Luke had gone back into the kitchen and fixed a bowl of cereal, which Emily had carried to the far end of the balcony; the bowl had been emptied long since, and Emily was carrying on both parts of a conversation between her new Beanie Baby and one of the old ones that had accompanied her in her suitcase. Luke had busied himself throwing a couple of steaks onto the grill, adding two skewers of vegetables when the meat was half-cooked, and doing all this without a word; when the food was ready he slid it on to a pair of plates, and it was only when he'd set one of them in front of his guest and sat down again that Luke finally spoke.

"Tell me if I stepped on your toes in there," he said. "I don't know how much you heard -"

"I heard enough, and you didn't," Nick said wearily, wondering how he could sleep so much and not feel as though it had made any difference. "I just - well, I thought she was getting into bed with me for her, you know?" and he sliced off a chunk of steak; he didn't really feel much like eating, but something told him he wouldn't be able to get away with leaving his food untouched. "I didn't think she needed to see me crying, that's all," he went on, once he'd managed to chew and swallow the mouthful of food. "She's only four."

"Nearly four and a half," Luke replied with a smile, using Emily's words. "But she looks pretty smart for nearly four and a half, and if you want my opinion - hell, you're getting it," he said. "I think she's probably figured out that things aren't as cut and dried as you told her they would be," and he saw emotion sparking in Nick's eyes. "I'm not saying you lied to her, man, I know you wanted him to wake up sooner than this," he said. "Just be honest with her - let her know you're upset, because I think it'll be easier on her if you tell her it's okay for you to cry rather than do it once she goes to bed like it's something you're ashamed of," and he slid the vegetables off the skewer before capturing some of them with his fork. "There - your Daytona shrink has spoken, the bill's going to be in the mail on Monday morning," he said around a mouthful of food. "What do the pair of you want to do for the rest of the day?"

"She'll be happy down on the beach," Nick said, looking out over the balcony. "I think I will too, actually - are you sure you didn't have anything else planned?" and he tried to summon a smile. "We'll be fine on our own."

"Well, I did get invited to something tonight," Luke said, the words out of his mouth before he could stop them. "Some damn MTV thing, and I didn't even give them a yes or no on it," and what the hell was he lying for? Why didn't he just say I have a date? He and Nick were both adults after all...

"Call them and say you'll go," Nick told him, and his smile was slightly forced this time. "You did say you'd stay out of our way if we wanted you to, right?"

**********

6.45 p.m

"I like this beach," Emily said, wiggling her bare toes in the sand. "I wish we had one near our apartment."

"I don't," Nick told her with a smile. "Because you'd never want to go to school - you'd just sit and play on the beach all the time," and his heart lightened a fraction as he heard his daughter giggle; putting an arm round her, he drew her against his side and held her close. They had spent several hours walking up and down the beach, stopping every so often to examine something that caught Emily's attention - and now they sat with their backs against a sand dune just below Luke's house, looking out at the ocean and a sky that was slowly turning orange.

"Greg would like it too," Emily said, just as Nick was starting to doze off. "He could surf here, right?"

"Yes, he would like it," Nick told her. "I'm not sure he could surf, though, because the waves don't look big enough."

"He was going to teach me."

"Yes, he was," Nick said, stroking Emily's hair gently before kissing the top of her head. "And he still will, as soon as he gets better," and then before he could say anything else, he heard his name being called from several yards away.

"Okay, guys, I'm off now," Luke said, once he'd climbed down the dune to join them; besides shaving, he'd dressed in a newer pair of jeans and topped them with a black T shirt and a battered leather jacket. "The place is all yours - there's a fridge full of food, so just take what you want," he went on. "And there's a hot tub on the balcony outside my bedroom, Nick, if you want to use it once this one goes to bed - I'll see you two later," and he made his way back up towards his house; a short while later, Nick's ears picked up the rumble of the Hummer's engine, and the sound quickly faded into the distance.

"Some MTV thing"? Nick thought. He was dressed pretty casually for that, wasn't he? - but he didn't give the thought time to linger.

"Should we go and see about getting some supper?" he asked his daughter. "It's after six o'clock, and you'll need to get ready for bed soon."

"I don't need to go to bed yet," Emily said, but she allowed herself to be pulled to her feet, and she kept hold of her father's hand as they headed back towards Luke's house. "Are there alligators here? Miss Jane says Florida's full of alligators."

"Well, I don't see any right here," Nick told her. "I know a place we could go if you want to see some, though - it isn't far from here, and I bet Luke would drive us there if we asked him to."

"He's got a tattoo," Emily said. "Right here," and she pointed at her chest. "It's a big dragon," and Nick bit back a smile, because he was pretty sure what was coming next - and he wasn't disappointed. "Can I get one?"

"You know how they do tattoos?" Nick asked, and his question was met with a shake of Emily's head. "They use needles."

"Like at the doctor's?" Emily replied, a look of alarm creeping onto her face when Nick nodded. "I don't want one," she said, and then she changed the subject with the adroitness that only a small child could get away with. "Can I have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?"

*********

8.30 p.m

Several miles off the highway, the motel wasn't part of a chain, but was run by a mom and pop team who both looked as though they were at least eighty years old and were so short-sighted they probably wouldn't have recognised the Pope himself if he'd checked in. Cash only, no questions asked, and that was exactly the way he liked it - which was why this wasn't the first time Luke had been here.

He'd driven as far as the shop, where he'd switched to a battered Honda that had come with the auto repair place and which he'd decided to keep. The Hummer had featured in several photos that had appeared in various magazine articles, and he didn't want to run the risk of it being recognised by someone with better eyesight than the Black Cat Motel's owners while it was parked outside one of the rooms there.

It was a good six months since he'd last been here, he reflected as he pulled off the road, but the place hadn't changed - an office with one of the two windows broken, a row of ten rooms and a one-storey house just behind the office that looked as though Norman Bates probably had his mother stashed there.

There were two other vehicles in the lot - a white van with half the Dyno Rod logo scratched off the side that was parked on a slant next to the garbage cans, and a red Toyota Corolla that sat neatly in the space outside room 7. Luke pulled up in the space next to it and jumped out, making sure that his phone was turned off before cramming it into his jacket pocket and locking the car; probably wouldn't matter if he didn't bother, all the way out here, but you never knew.

He could hear the TV inside room 7 as he knocked, and then the volume was abruptly lowered. "Who is it?"

"Housekeeping."

"Get in here," the voice told him; moments later Luke was inside no. 7, and as soon as he'd turned the key that was in the lock he moved round so that he was facing the room.

His eyes took in cheap carpet, a dresser that looked as though it would fall apart if he breathed on it, an ancient colour TV showing something with a canned laugh track - and the bed that seemed to take up half the room, with a shirtless young man sprawled at its centre.

"Didn't even have the chain on, did you?" Luke said, shrugging off his jacket as he approached the bed; there was a lop-sided grin in response as the young man propped himself up on one elbow, catlike eyes fixed on Luke through messy dark hair. One large hand rested over the waistband of his jeans, long fingers angled towards the prominent bulge tenting the faded denim - and seeing this, Luke remembered that it wasn't only big hands this guy had. "You should be more careful," he went on, the words coming from a mouth that had suddenly gone dry. "I could have been an axe murderer."

"You always talk so much?" was the answer; in a single fluid movement, the young man had risen to his knees on the bed and reached out to grab the waistband of Luke's jeans, and Luke closed his eyes as knowing fingers worked his belt loose.

**********

9.50 p.m

Nick climbed out of the hot tub, relaxed to the point of feeling as though every one of his bones had melted; towel round his waist, he walked in from the balcony and moved through Luke's bedroom until he was out on the landing again.

A quick glance through the right hand bedroom door revealed that Emily was asleep in exactly the position she'd been left in; the floor next to the bed was littered with coloured pencils, because she had insisted on beginning her holiday journal before she would let Nick turn the light off. "But Miss Janet said I'm s'posed to write it every day, and we forgot last night," she'd protested, and so Nick had waited for her to complete a drawing of the beach and the sunset before he'd written down what she dictated to him.

We went on a plane and came to Florida to see Luke. He has a really big house right on the beach, and my room has a picture of skeletons on the walls. I had cereal for lunch, and then me and Nick went for a walk on the beach. Luke gave me a new Beanie Baby, and her name's Ariel.

Making his way across the landing to his own room, Nick turned on the TV before reaching under the pillows for his pyjama bottoms; he put them on to the accompaniment of a rerun of Whose Line Is It Anyway, and then climbed into bed. He turned off the light, leaving the room in semi-darkness, and he attempted to focus on the screen - but it was as though the act of lying down had sapped all his strength, and within minutes he was asleep.

************

1.35 a.m

The air conditioning units at the Black Cat had always seemed to be purely decorative, and opening the window had made no difference. The air in the room - a room which now looked as though a tornado had blown through it - was motionless, humid and full of their scent as Luke lay staring up at the ceiling; a leg rested over his hip, the breath of the man lying behind him warmed his neck, and while this would have normally been enough to send him to sleep - if only for a short time - it wasn't working tonight.

His previous visits here had always followed the same pattern. He and whoever he'd brought with him would attempt to christen every surface of the room until they were so exhausted they had to stop; then one of them would wake up for a cigarette or a can of warm soda from the malfunctioning drink machine outside, and they'd start all over again...finally leaving as dawn broke, in separate cars and in different directions, without much chance they'd see each other again - so he supposed that tonight's companion had been lucky to get a second shot, hadn't he?

Damn it, what's the matter with you?

"Are you staying?"

"I can't," he said, trying to summon the strength to move and eventually finding it from somewhere; he sat up, swinging his feet down onto the floor, and reached for his T shirt as a soft chuckle echoed behind him.

"I wore you out this time, huh?" his companion said, in a half-asleep, satiated tone of voice that his younger fans would probably never have imagined him using. "I don't think your company's gonna get anything out of you when you get home."

"Wiseacre," Luke said, twisting round and delivering a swat to the younger man's ass. "It's not like that," and although he'd smiled and tried to act casual as he spoke, it didn't work - because there was no more banter as he found the rest of his clothes and put them on, and it wasn't until he'd laced his boots and turned back towards the bed that the silence was broken.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he said, unsettled by the concern in the other man's eyes, because he - and his partners - had always kept any kind of emotion as far from these evenings as it was possible to keep it. "I just need to stop inviting people back to my house and feeling like I have to baby-sit them, that's all," and he delved into his pocket for his car keys before resting one knee on the edge of the bed and leaning over the man he'd spent the last five hours with. "You behave yourself," he said, lowering his head and darting his tongue between his companion's lips; the kiss was over almost as soon as it had begun, and then he was outside the room with his keys in his hand. No goodbye, no mention of meeting up in California - because they'd both known that wasn't really going to happen - and what Luke still couldn't figure out, as he got into his car and lit a cigarette before peeling out of the patch of dirt that served as a parking lot, was why he'd changed his mind and come here tonight after all.

*******

It was just past three when he brought the Hummer to a halt in his garage, and as he climbed out and made his way into the house he felt bone-tired. "You're too old for this shit," he told himself in a whisper, closing the door behind him and heading for the elevator; he rode it to the second floor, where he grabbed a carton of milk from the fridge and drained it without turning on the kitchen light. As he was consigning the carton to the garbage can, he caught a flash of movement outside out of the corner of his eye; he stepped silently towards the closed balcony door and looked through it, squinting against the darkness.

Nick stood with both hands on the railing, his head lowered - and just as Luke was about to slide the door open and joke about night owls, he saw the other man's shoulders heave convulsively.

He's crying.

What's the matter with you? Go out there.

It's not your problem. He's got a therapist, let them sort him out. All you did was invite him here for a vacation - bet you're sorry you did now, aren't you?

- and before the voice could say anything else, Luke turned away and left the kitchen. Taking the elevator to the top floor, he got out and then locked it before going into his bedroom - where he showered for what felt like hours before falling asleep the second his head hit the pillow.

***********

Emily's journal - March 27th

Luke took me and Nick to House of Blues for brunch this morning. I had sausage and biscuits with gravy, and key lime pie for dessert. It was very good. Some people were singing while we were eating, and I started dancing because the music made me feel happy inside. Nick said it's called gospel music, because it's songs all about Jesus. This afternoon me and Nick went on the beach again, and I found three seashells. Tonight we're going to sleep on the balcony outside Nick's bedroom so we can look at the stars. Luke's job is making special motorbikes, and tomorrow he's taking us to see where he works.

*************

March 28th, 9.15 a.m

"Are you two ready?" Luke asked from his seat at the kitchen counter, without turning round, as he heard footsteps behind him; he hadn't gotten nearly enough sleep, but there was too much to do at the shop for him to stay in bed any longer. "I'm never on time, but I kind of figured I'd make an effort today."

"You'd better go without us," a voice said, and Luke turned round to face the speaker; Nick's face was the colour of chalk, and he was practically swaying on his feet.

"Jesus, Nick, what's wrong? You look like shit," Luke said, before he could check himself, and he was relieved to see that Emily was nowhere in sight.

"It's a headache," Nick managed to say, sinking onto one of the other stools. "I get them sometimes, the doctor says -" and there was a pause while he swallowed convulsively, giving the impression that he was about to be sick, "- says they're stress related."

"What are you taking for them?"

"Forgot to bring it," was the muttered response. "I'll just sleep it off, I'll be fine by this afternoon," and Nick tried to smile but failed miserably. "Go on, you'll be late for work."

"Not before I've found something for your headache," Luke said, opening a drawer and rummaging through the contents before producing a small plastic bottle; he struggled with the child-proof cap and shook out two white tablets, which he placed on the counter next to Nick before taking a glass from the draining board and filling it with water. "Okay, you're taking these - and before you say anything, it's Vicodin," he went on, as a doubtful expression washed across Nick's face. "I threw my back out lifting boxes in the shop, I got a prescription - see?" and he held out the bottle so that Nick could see the label. "I'm not in that line of work any longer, man, I've changed a lot since Massachusetts."

"'M sorry," Nick managed to say as he fought back the urge to vomit, and he picked up the glass of water before swallowing the tablets one after the other, allowing some time to pass between them to make sure they would stay down.

"Now they'll knock you out, I'm warning you, so you'd better just go back to bed," Luke told him - and as he spoke, he could just make out hysterical sobbing from the next floor that made him quail inwardly. "What's up with Emily?"

"I told her she'd have to stay here," Nick said, squinting against the light. "She had - well, I'll stick her in front of the TV -"

"What, all day?" Luke asked, raising a brow. "With you passed out in bed?"

"No," Nick said, guessing what was coming, as he pushed himself to his feet. "You're not taking her by yourself."

"Why not?" Luke asked, cocking his head on one side. "Don't you trust me?"

"Yes, but she won't go with you," was the answer. "Not without me, it's just how she is at the moment," and Nick made his way slowly towards the stairs. "Just go - I'll manage."

Let him do that. Just leave them be. Don't get involved.

"Watch and learn," Luke told him, taking the stairs two at a time and knocking on Emily's bedroom door. "Hey, Miss Emily -"

"Go 'way!"

"I thought you were coming to work with me today," Luke said through the closed door, as the sobbing continued. "Can I come in?"

"No!"

"Emily Elizabeth Sanders Stokes," Nick said, raising his voice as much as he could despite the wave of nausea that threatened to engulf him, "you open that door this minute." After what seemed like a very long time, the bedroom door was drawn back to reveal Emily, who was clutching an armload of Beanie Babies and whose face was bathed in tears.

"Aren't we going to see those motorbikes?" Luke asked, only to be met with a vehement shake of the little girl's head. "Why not?"

"C-can't," Emily sobbed, wiping her nose on her sleeve. "Nick doesn't feel good, and we have to stay here."

"Emily," Nick said quietly as his daughter's entire body heaved with sobs, "Luke says you can go with him on your own if you want to."

"No," Emily said, turning tear-filled eyes towards her father. "You'll be by yourself," and as Nick considered his response he thought back to the morning after he'd arrived here. " If someone's offering to make things easier, let them, that's my motto," Luke had said, and Nick was too tired and too close to collapse to ignore the advice any longer.

"Yes, I will," he said, bending down to his daughter's level. "But you know what? I'm going to be sleeping, because I took something to make my headache better," and he saw Emily look warily at him before turning her gaze towards Luke. "Sweetie, it's okay for you to go if you want to," he said, his voice gentle and encouraging. "I'll be fine by the time you get back, and we can go to the beach again."

"But there'll be strangers there."

"Yep," Luke said matter-of-factly, but he was smiling. "Four of them, but they're all nice people, and I'm not going to let anything happen to you - and if you really want to come back here, I can bring you," and he favoured Emily with a conspiratorial wink that had been the downfall of grown men. "What do you say, kiddo?"

"Can I bring my journal?" Emily asked after a long silence. "It's for school."

"You bring whatever you want."

"Wash your face and putting a clean T shirt on as well," Nick said, placing a hand on the nearby wall for support as he straightened up and everything tilted sideways, and then a thought penetrated the fog in his brain. "Luke, she hasn't had any breakfast yet."

"We'll grab something on the way," was the answer. "You like McDonalds, Miss Emily?" and there was a nod in response as Emily sniffed back the last of her tears. "Well, give your papa a kiss and let him go to bed, and then you've got five minutes to get your sh - your things together."

"'Bye, Nick," Emily said, wrapping her arms round her father's waist and hugging him fiercely before drawing back and studying his face closely - as though seeking an excuse that would keep her here instead of leaving him.

"You heard what Luke said," Nick told her, reaching down to ruffle her hair. "You've got five minutes," and he watched the four year old head back into her bedroom before he turned towards Luke. "Listen, thank you for this," he said. "Bring her back if she -"

"She'll be fine," was the response, as Luke pointed at a half-open door across the hall; Nick made his way through it with the last of his strength, collapsing face-down onto the bed, and he was asleep before his daughter peeked round the door three and a half minutes later.

*********

"Here we are," Luke said, pulling the Hummer into a spot that bore a sign reading The Boss, and he turned round to look at his passenger. Emily sat in her booster seat, clutching the paper sack that contained her breakfast; she hadn't said a word since telling him what she wanted to eat as they'd pulled into the McDonalds drive through, and as he looked at her face Luke wondered what the hell he'd been thinking when he'd offered to bring her here without Nick. "You ready to come in?" and there was a nod. By the time he'd jumped out and approached the rear door, Emily had unbuckled her seatbelt; she climbed down when he opened the door, her breakfast in one hand and an Albertson's carrier bag containing her journal and pencils in the other, and as she trotted silently beside him Luke was thinking if she lasts ten minutes before she asks to go back, it'll be a miracle.

"You're late again," a voice called out over the loud music and the noise of the assorted machinery in the cavernous workshop. "Said you'd be here by nine thirty."

"Didn't say which day, though," Luke retorted cheerfully. "Jonah, this is Emily - she's at my place with her dad for a few days."

"Hello, chere," the hulking man with the blond dreadlocks said as he bent down and extended a bear-like hand towards Emily, who immediately took a step backwards. "Where are you from?"

"Vegas," Luke said when Emily didn't answer. "You going to come in my office and eat your breakfast before it gets cold, Miss Emily? She'll warm up," he said, looking back over his shoulder at Jonah. "Don't all the ladies warm up to you eventually?" and laughter followed him until it was cut off when his office door closed again.

"He talks funny."

"Who, Jonah?" Luke said, as he watched Emily sit cross-legged on the floor and begin to set out her food. "That's a Cajun accent, he doesn't talk funny."

"What's Cajun?"

"It means he comes from Louisiana," was the answer - and then before Luke could say anything else, the office door was opened with such force it struck the wall. "Well, good morning to you too," he said, looking up from his desk. "Aren't we a happy bunny today?"

"I need to take tomorrow afternoon off," was the answer. "My upstairs neighbour left her bathtub running last night, half my kitchen ceiling's come down, and my puto of a landlord -"

"Back up, back up," Luke said, suppressing a smile. "Gotta watch the language today," and he reached over his desk to point down at Emily, who was clearly fascinated by the newcomer - a petite girl with olive skin, dark hair tied back in a bandana and every exposed piece of skin below her neck covered in tattoos. She wore engineer boots, a pair of jeans so tight they looked as though they'd been sprayed on, and an equally close-fitting T shirt that read Latinas do it better. "Miss Emily, didn't you want to meet the person who painted those skeletons at my house?"

"But it's a girl," Emily said, her Egg McMuffin poised a few inches from her mouth. "You said one of the guys at the shop painted them."

"That's right, I did," Luke told her, "and Solis one of the guys at the shop. She paints all the neat pictures on the bikes, and she painted my car for me as well - and maybe she'll let you watch her working later on, if you stay out of the way."

"She yours, boss? No, she can't be," Sol said with a grin. "She's too cute," and she winked at Emily, making a tentative smile hover on the little girl's lips. "Hey, kid, are you going to eat both those hash browns? I didn't have time for breakfast -"

*********

3.15 p.m

Nick's face was still mashed into the pillow when he woke up, a sign that he must not have moved since he'd closed his eyes; slowly pushing himself upright, finding out as he did so that the blinding pain in his head was now gone, he looked at his watch and blinked. I've been asleep for six hours? he asked himself - and the next thing to hit him was that the house was completely silent.

"Emily?" he called out, getting to his feet, but there was no answer; a check of his daughter's room revealed it to be empty, and when Nick made his way to the ground floor he saw no sign of the Hummer in the garage. Riding the elevator back to the top floor, he re-entered his own room and located his cell before retrieving a business card from the pocket of his jeans.

"Hog Heaven, Luke speaking."

"Hi, Luke, it's -"

"Hey, he's awake," Luke said on the other end of the phone. "How are you feeling?"

"Better," Nick said. "Thank you - how's Emily doing?"

"Well, I married her off to some redneck who came to collect his bike this morning," was Luke's response. "She should be about half way to Tennessee by now - no, man, she's fine."

"Seriously?"

"Yes, seriously," Luke said. "She didn't say a whole lot to begin with, but she's got all my guys wrapped round her little finger now - you wouldn't believe the work that's not getting done round here."

"Well, listen, bring her back," Nick said. "I don't want her getting in the way there."

"Let me just go and ask her about that," was the answer, and there was a clattering noise at the other end of the line; Nick heard Luke shouting, "Hey, Miss Emily, are you ready to go back to the house now?" and an indistinct high-pitched answer followed before the phone was picked up again. "She says she's not done yet," Luke said cheerfully. "I was planning on leaving in an hour and a half, anyway, so it's no big deal."

"Luke, I didn't come up here to make you baby-sit my daughter -"

"I know you didn't, and I wouldn't have offered to take her with me if I hadn't wanted to," Luke said. "And if you're feeling guilty about abandoning her, then don't," he went on. "Go soak in the hot tub, lie on the beach, do something you want to do while you've got the chance," and Nick tried - and failed - to remember the last time he had actually done this. "That's an order, Nick, you hear me? We'll see you soon," and before Nick could come up with an answer the line had gone dead.

*********

5.20 p.m

He was stretched out on the couch, a glass of iced tea in one hand and the TV remote in the other as he flicked lazily through the channels, when his ears picked up the sound of the door opening downstairs. "Emily!" he called out, turning off the TV, and footsteps thundered up the stairs. "Where's my girl?"

"Nick! Nick!" Emily shouted as she appeared in the doorway, grinning from ear to ear; her hair had been fastened into a ponytail on top of her head, and the carrier bag in her right hand seemed to be fuller than it had been that morning. "I had a good time today!" and she ran across the living room to jump into his lap before he could even get up. "Is your headache gone now?"

"Yes, it is," Nick told her, wrapping his arms round her and kissing her cheek before drawing back to smile at her and seeing the relief in her eyes. "What have you been doing all day?"

"We went out for lunch," Emily said. "Me and Luke and everyone from the shop," and she retrieved something from the carrier bag - a paper crown decorated with cacti and sombreros. "I had rice and beans and a margarita."

"Everyone else had those," a voice called from the kitchen. "You had a watermelon slushie - Nick, you want coffee?"

"That'd be great," Nick called back. "Did you draw in your journal, sweetie?" he asked his daughter, and there was an enthusiastic nod. "Can I see?" and the contents of the carrier bag were dumped on the couch before Emily picked up her journal and opened it. "You never drew this, did you?"

"Sol drew it," Emily said proudly. "It's me, look!" and she pointed at a page that was a riot of colour; it was bordered with hearts and flowers, and at its centre was an angel with big blue eyes and a face that - despite being a caricature - was unmistakeably Emily's.

"I drew these," Emily said, pointing to the next page, which contained a line of five stick-like figures. "You have to help me write what I did today, Nick."

"Can I have my coffee first?"

"No! Now! Or I'll forget -"

I went to Luke's work today by myself. It's very noisy there, and I put my fingers in my ears sometimes. I met Sol, Jonah, Zack, and Andy. Sol paints the bikes, and Jonah and Zack put the special pieces on them. Andy's a

"Luke, what's Andy's job?" Emily called towards the kitchen. "I forgot."

"He's the trainee, honey -"

trainee, and he cleans the shop and makes coffee for everybody, but he got me a Coke from the 7 11 on the corner. We all went to lunch at Mama Rosita's, and the food was really good. I watched everyone working and stayed out of the way.

************

Hog Heaven - March 29th, 9.00 a.m

"So you're this little one's daddy," Jonah said. "Pleasure to meet you," and Nick's hand was shaken enthusiastically. "Where are you two headed today?"

"We're going to see some alligators," Emily piped up. "Nick says we can watch them wrestling with people."

"Oh, you're going to Gatorland?" Jonah asked. "Keep your windows rolled up when you're driving there," he murmured, grinning broadly at Nick. "Didn't they film Deliverance round there somewhere?"

"What's Deliverance?"

"Nothing, chere," Jonah told Emily, while Nick bit back a snort of laughter. "Go say hello to Sol, okay?" and the two men watched Emily skip across to where the petite Hispanic girl was sitting on an upturned packing crate drinking a cup of coffee. "You two here for much longer, Nick?"

"Two more days," Nick replied. "I've had some time off work, but it's got to come to an end somewhere, right?"

"Hey, Jonah!" Luke called out from his office doorway. "You want to come here and explain this invoice?"

"Oh lord, he's started early," was the murmured response, and when Jonah flashed a grin Nick caught a glimpse of a gold tooth. "I'll be right back - coming, boss!" he shouted, and Nick was left alone.

He glanced round the shop, already a hive of activity even at this early stage in the day; music was coming from the nearby boom box, and coupled with the noise from the machinery Nick could see why Emily had put her fingers in her ears the previous day. He let his eyes rest on his daughter, who was sitting cross-legged as she watched Sol preparing to paint the gas tank of a Harley Panhead; then he caught sight of something nearby, and took a few steps towards it.

A small ledge was fastened to the wall next to Luke's office door, holding a votive candle that had almost guttered. A framed photo was positioned above it, showing a man in his mid-twenties with scruffy blond hair and a beard to match; he had his arm round a young dark-haired woman, who was holding a child that looked to be only a month or two old, and the two adults were grinning into the camera.

There was no inscription, nothing even indicating the names of the people in the picture, but the guttering candle was a mute testament to the fact that something had shattered this little family; as Nick looked at the photo, he was reminded of the one that even now sat in the pocket of his daughter's jeans, and his heart sank - because no matter how relaxed he might feel now, no matter how much Emily had brightened while they'd been here, in two days' time they were going to have to go home.

"You two ready to go see some gators?" a voice said behind him, and when Nick turned his head to see Luke standing a foot or so away he realised he must have been looking at the photo for some time. "I've got a supplier coming in at eleven, so I ought to drive you guys up now if that's okay."

"Who's this in the picture?"

"I'll tell you about them tonight," was the answer; although Luke was smiling, something flickered in his eyes and was gone again before it could be defined - and Nick vowed silently that if the story was not forthcoming that evening, he wasn't going to ask for it a second time. "Miss Emily!" Luke shouted. "Are you ready, or is your papa going to Gatorland by himself?"

"I'm ready!" Emily shouted back, getting to her feet and exchanging high fives with Sol before running to join the two men. "Come on, we'll miss it!"

***********

Emily's journal

Me and Nick went to Gatorland today. We went on a little train that takes you all round the park, and we could get off whenever we wanted to look at the animals. There were a lot of flamingos on an island, and they were really pretty. We watched an alligator show, and I saw a really big alligator jump up in the air to get some food. After the show I got my picture taken with one of the alligators, but it had tape round its mouth so it didn't bite me. They have a water park, and I put my bathing suit on so I could play in the sprinklers. There's a special place where you can go and birds come and sit on your shoulder. I got to feed one of them with some stuff in a cup, and it pooped on my T shirt while Nick was taking my photo. Greg would really like the birds, and Nick said we can go back there with him when he gets better.

***********

March 30th - 7.55 p.m

"Hey, Emily!" Nick called out. "Come on in, it's time for your bath!" but the small figure sitting a few yards away didn't move; shoulders sagging slightly, because he had expected that this might happen, Nick stepped out onto the balcony and approached his daughter.

Emily sat with her hands clasped round her knees, her head lowered so that her hair hid her face; she didn't look up when Nick sat down next to her, and when he placed a hand on her shoulder she attempted to shrug it away.

"Sweetheart, what's the matter?" he said, although he was pretty certain what the answer would be. "Didn't we have a good day today? How many games of checkers did we play down on the beach? And then you built that big sandcastle by yourself -"

"I don't want to go back home," Emily said, finally lifting her head - and while she was not crying yet, the tone of her voice said that tears weren't far off. "I want to stay here longer."

"Oh, honey," Nick said, a lump rising in his throat, "we can't do that, you know we can't," and he reached for Emily and lifted her into his lap. "You have school, I have work," he went on, drawing his daughter's head to rest against his shoulder. "And we need to get back to Greg, don't we?"

"But you'll be sad again," Emily said. "You haven't been sad here," and she looked up at him for a long time before speaking again. "What if Greg never wakes up? You'll be sad for ever then," and she sniffed back tears valiantly for several moments before they finally spilled down her cheeks; feeling as though a knife had been plunged into his heart, Nick wrapped his arms tightly round her and let her cry until she rested unmoving against his chest.

"Emily," he said gently. "Emily, honey, look at me," and he waited until red-rimmed eyes were fixed on him before he continued speaking. "You know how much I love you, right?" and there was a tearful nod. "And I'm always going to love you, whatever you do, because you're part of my family," he went on, brushing tears away from Emily's face with his sleeve. "Well, I love Greg that much too, even though he's still not awake, and I'm always going to - and I think you do too, don't you?"

"Y-yeah," Emily sniffled. "But he can't read to me, and he doesn't look like his picture any more," and her lower lip quivered. "Do you really think he's gonna wake up?"

"Yes, I do," Nick told her, managing to smile. "It might take longer than the doctors told me, but I really think he will - and you know why?"

"Why?"

"Because he loves us both very, very much," Nick said, and he kissed Emily's forehead. "How would you like to sleep outside again tonight?"

"Yes, please."

"All right, then," Nick told her. "Come help me get the blankets out, then -"

************

10.30 p.m

He went into Emily's room without turning the light on, and navigated the litter of Beanie Babies and coloured pencils before looking out onto the balcony. All the bedding from Emily's bed had been dragged outside, and two sleeping figures lay on top of it; Emily was curled against her father's side, the fingers of one hand clutching a handful of the grey T shirt he was wearing - and Luke stood watching them for a long time before he stepped away again.

Something caught his eye as he passed the bed, and before he could stop himself he had picked it up; turning it over in his hand, he realised it was the photo Emily had been carrying ever since she'd arrived here on Saturday evening.

Emily was lowering her head to blow out four candles on a cake that was an almost painful shade of pink. She stood between two men who had their arms round each other's shoulders; one of them was Nick, the other - who was obviously Greg - had messy brown hair and ears that stuck out a shade too far, and they were both beaming at the camera. Luke had no idea how long he studied the picture, feeling as though he was intruding into his guests' lives, but he couldn't make himself look away from it - because he was thinking about another photo, the one that hung on the wall of the shop and which he still couldn't walk past without it hurting him. "I'll tell you about them tonight," he'd said to Nick the previous day; but he hadn't been able to, and Nick hadn't pursued it...

He doesn't need to hear about them, the little voice told him. Crucify yourself if you want, but don't hang him up there with you - and the photo fluttered from Luke's hand before he left the room.

****************

March 31st, Daytona International Airport - 11.55 a.m

"Call me when you get back, yeah?"

"I will," Nick said, as the three of them stood near the Starbucks booth where Emily had kicked and sobbed in her father's arms five days since. "Listen, Luke, I - well, thank you," he said. "It's been -"

"Don't mention it," was the answer, and when Nick stretched a hand out Luke pressed it firmly between both of his own. "You two hang in there, okay? And keep in touch, or I'll chase you."

"Yeah, I know you will."

"Nick," Emily said urgently, tugging her father's sleeve, "they're calling our flight, Nick, we'll miss it."

"Better listen to the young lady," Luke said gravely, and he crouched down to the four year old's level. "Thank you for coming to see me, Miss Emily," he said, and in the next instant the little girl had flung her arms round his neck. Startled, he patted the space between Emily's shoulder blades, and as he disengaged himself and straightened up he felt something tightening in his gut. "Have a safe flight home, you two," he said, and moments later he was watching his guests pass through the security gate; he watched them until they disappeared from view, and then he turned away to head for the exit.

May 7th, 6.15 p.m – Ponce Inlet, Florida

“Do you need the flight numbers again?”

“No, I got all that in your email,” Luke said as he sat in a lounger on the balcony with his feet propped on the railing. “It’s stuck on my fridge - are you faxing me back the consent form?”

“You have to stop putting my kids on your show, you know,” the voice at the other end of the phone responded, and there was a gurgle of laughter that brought a smile to Luke’s face. “Do you have any idea how many calls we were getting from girls wanting to talk to Max the last time they were up there?”

“Wasn’t it about fifty?” Luke responded. “That’s what he told me.”

“It was more like fifteen,” his sister replied, and there was a distant “Mo-om!” at the other end of the line. “Max, go finish packing, okay?” and after a short silence she spoke again. “Seriously, Luke -”

“I won’t go over the top,” he said. “You know that, Faith, I’ll look after them like they were my own.”

“I know you will,” was the answer, delivered in a slightly softer tone. “You need some of your own, though – I mean it.”

“What do you want me to do? Fly out to Malawi and buy them?” but despite the jovial tone in which the words were delivered, there was a tightness in Luke’s chest, because he and his sister had had this conversation more times than he could remember. “That’s fine for some people, but -”

“Why couldn’t you adopt? Plenty of people do, people with a lot less money than you,” Faith told him. “I see how you are with my two, you’re so good with them -”

“I get to give them back, though,” he replied, shaking another Marlboro from the pack and pausing to light it. “I’d need someone with me if I had my own, because I’ve seen -” and he swallowed hard. “You can’t raise a kid on your own, sis.”

“Get someone with you, then,” was the uncompromising answer. “You know what I think about that, all those – pickups of yours -”

“Yeah, and I get to give them back too,” he told her. “Face it, I’m over forty now - I’m not going to change, am I?” and before he could continue speaking there was a shrill beeping at the other end of the line, which was quickly followed by a cry of, “Mom! Ben burnt a Pop Tart in the toaster!”

“Go on,” Luke told his sister. “Go sort those no-good boys of yours out.”

“Smartass,” was the affectionate response. “I’ll call you tomorrow once they’re on the plane – love you, baby brother.”

“Back atcha,” Luke said, and once he’d ended the call he swung his feet down to the floor; stubbing out his cigarette, he rose from the lounger and headed back indoors.

There was a wall in the living room that was almost full of framed newspaper clippings, magazine articles and photos. Some of the photos were black-and-white, slightly fading shots of family members who had died before Luke had gotten the chance to know them; there were pictures of his parents, pictures of two of his sisters and their children, scattered randomly among snapshots of Luke with the Hog Heaven team and with the various celebrities he’d encountered while filming Road Trip. He’d never been the type to fill albums with photos, but he liked this wall; he could look at it and track his entire life, from a grainy photo of a small boy to the man that boy had become.

Standing in front of the wall now, he shoved his hands in his pockets and studied the display for some time. Eventually, his eyes were drawn to a photo he had added five weeks previously; it had been one of a series he’d burned to a CD and given to Nick and Emily to take home with them, and for some reason he’d printed a copy of this picture and framed it.

It had been taken on the day when he’d brought Emily to the shop with him; she was sitting on an upturned packing crate, half her hair free of its ponytail, leaning forward with an intent expression on her face as she looked at something – and, from the heavily-tattooed forearm that appeared in one corner of the picture, Sol had been showing her whatever the something was.

Looking at this photo now, Luke thought about the phone call he’d received just over a month ago; he’d been stressed and tired after a week where he couldn’t remember sitting down for more than five minutes at a stretch, and when his cell had rung for what seemed like the thousandth time he’d barked, “What?” without looking at the number. A split second later, though, he’d seen Nick on the display, and an apologetic Southern accented voice had said sorry if it’s a bad time, but she wouldn’t get ready for bed until I let her call everyone and tell them - and then the little girl’s shrill voice had half-deafened him.

“Luke! Luke! Greg held my hand!”

There had been no more calls since then, but emails had gone back and forth between them on a regular basis – and the messages from Vegas had done nothing to bear out Luke’s hope that Nick’s little family would come out of this unscathed.

He looked at us today – really knew we were there.

Hardly any movement on his right side.

He keeps trying to speak, but he can’t manage more than one or two words I can understand.

Emily’s back to sleeping with me at night - and it had been this that had brought a lump to Luke’s throat, because he’d recalled an afternoon when he’d returned from the shop an hour earlier than planned. Nick and Emily had been down on the beach, unaware of his presence, and he’d watched from the balcony outside his room as Emily had shrieked and giggled when her father had chased her – and the cloud that had been lifted that afternoon was now wrapped round them like a blanket.

And no matter how much Luke might want to help them – as the unwelcome little voice kept reminding him – it wasn’t his business, but listening to the voice was becoming harder to do with every day that passed.

*************

Desert Palms – May 12th – 5.00 p.m

“Hi, G,” Nick said, leaning over the bed; brown eyes focused on him and he felt his stomach lurch, exactly the way it had done the first time he’d ever seen Greg at the lab. “How are you?” and when the confused expression in his lover’s eyes changed to one of alarm Nick felt something clutch painfully at his heart.

“No, you’re okay,” he said softly, placing a hand on the bedcovers and feeling Greg’s fingers clench tightly around it. “It’s Nick, you’re safe,” because the doctor had talked to him about the “constant need to re-orientate Mr. Sanders” - for Christ’s sake, Nick had wanted to tell the man, can’t you just say we’ll need to keep telling him the same thing over and over?, but he had managed to bite his tongue. “Look, I’ll show you the calendar,” and he stretched his free hand out towards the bedside table.

“See?” Nick said, holding the calendar in front of Greg; eleven days had been neatly crossed out, and the picture this month showed Emily as an infant - dressed in a tiger striped sleeper with a hat bearing a pair of pointed ears, nestled in the crook of Greg’s right arm. “It’s Thursday,” and he saw Greg’s eyes rivet themselves on the picture.

“Em.”

“She’s at Angie’s,” Nick said. “Remember? I have to go to work this evening, but I wanted to come and see you first,” and he set the calendar down before reaching into the Albertson’s carrier bag he had brought with him. “Look what I brought you,” he went on, managing to smile as he retrieved a small carton of ice cream – Haagen Dazs chocolate chocolate chip, which was one of the few things Greg would eat willingly. Initially, he’d refused to eat anything at all, but when the doctor had raised the spectre of the feeding tube being re-inserted into his stomach he had complied; and although he’d been unable to speak at all at this stage, the mutinous expression on his face when he’d seen the plastic cup of Jello the nurse had brought in had been enough for Nick to know that the stubbornness that had attracted him to Greg was still there.

“Shall I help you sit up so you can have some?” and when there was a mm in response Nick reached towards the button that was pressed to elevate the top half of the bed.

And sitting next to the bed, helping Greg to hold the spoon in his almost-useless right hand so that he could scoop ice cream into his mouth – all Nick could think of was an afternoon when they’d been supposed to be asleep following a shift and Emily was still at school, when Greg had brought a pint of ice cream back to the bedroom and they’d wound up feeding it to each other with their fingers. The ensuing lovemaking had lasted long enough for them to have to scramble madly for their clothes and pray they wouldn’t hit any red lights during the drive to collect their daughter – and the first thing Emily had said after racing to hug them both was, “How come you have ice cream in your hair, Greg?”

He knew what the specialists had told him – that recovery was a gradual process, that Greg might try to do things and find that his body wouldn’t co-operate – but the reality of seeing the expression in those brown eyes, only being able to guess at the frustration and anguish behind them, hurt even more than what had come in the months preceding this day. But Nick swallowed this pain, the way he’d swallowed everything else over the past six and a half months; as he sat next to the bed he kept up a soothing flow of chatter – about what Emily had done at school, about the impending visit of Greg’s parents – and all the while he was aware of Greg’s eyes devouring each word.

“Just remember one thing,” one of the nurses – a middle-aged woman with greying hair, who Nick had often seen buying coffee from the wagon outside the hospital – had said a week previously, when she’d come into the room just as Nick had been telling Greg for what felt like the hundredth time in a row that it was Tuesday morning. “All this is going to drive you nuts, but he’s still the guy you love,” and this thought was foremost in Nick’s mind as he set the empty carton down and gently plucked the spoon from Greg’s hand.

“Time for me to go, G,” he said, taking a Kleenex from the box on the table and wiping Greg’s mouth. “They’ll have my ass if I’m late.”

“Em.”

“I’ll bring her tomorrow after school,” Nick replied. “And we’ll bring some of your CDs in too, how about that?”

“Yeah,” Greg managed to say, flexing the fingers of his left hand – and, seeing this, Nick reached to grasp that hand between both of his own. “N -” His eyes darkened in frustration as his mouth worked silently – and although it broke Nick’s heart to do it, he sat in silence and held Greg’s hand while he waited for the word to emerge. “Nick -”

“Right here,” Nick said, his voice faltering, and he leaned forward to kiss the corner of Greg’s mouth. “I love you,” he whispered. “I love you, and I’ll see you tomorrow,” and he let his forehead rest against Greg’s for a moment or two before carefully disengaging his hands; and then, because he knew that the longer he stayed like this the harder it would be to leave, he straightened up and left the room without looking back.

************

May 20th, 8.25 p.m

“Would you like a drink, Martin?” Nick asked. “I have a few beers in the fridge.”

“Beer would be good, thank you.”

“Julie? Tea for you?”

“Thank you, Nick,” was the response, and Nick rose from his seat on the couch with a sense of foreboding lodged in his gut. The conversation that had flowed with its habitual ease during supper had flagged since Emily had finally been persuaded to go to bed – the deal cemented by her grandmother’s promise to read a chapter of Mormor og de åtte ungene i skogen - and for the last quarter of an hour the three of them had been reduced to stilted comments on the weather and how work was going.

Something’s up, he told himself as he set about boiling water and getting two beers from the fridge. He set these on a tray, along with a cup and saucer and the honey he knew Julie liked in her tea – and once he had thrown two teabags into the teapot and poured boiling water on top of them, he carried the tray back into the living room.

“Listen, whatever’s on your mind, I think we should talk about it,” Nick said once the drinks had been dispensed, and when he saw Greg’s parents exchange glances his heart sank. “You’ve hardly said a word since Emily went to sleep, so I know something’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong, Nick,” Julie said, setting her cup and saucer down on the coffee table. “We just – well, we were wondering whether you’ve managed to get anywhere with the insurance company about rehab facilities yet.”

“Oh, don’t start me,” Nick said, almost managing to smile. “The places they will pay the full cost of I wouldn’t put my dog in, and the good ones…”

“What do you think about this?” Greg’s father asked. “Julie heard about it from some friends of ours - their daughter-in-law works there,” and a slim folder appeared in his hand as if by magic before he held it out to Nick. “They have apartments for the patients, they’d send someone here to evaluate Greg -”

“Hold on,” Nick said, and his chest was squeezed so tight that for a second or two he found it hard to breathe. “Hold on a second,” and as he looked at the glossy cover of the folder everything on it seemed to blur except for two words.

Encino, CA.

**********

10.45 p.m

He lay in bed, and although he’d just worked a week of nights Nick was unable to sleep – because what had happened earlier that evening would not leave his mind, and try as he might he couldn’t close his eyes and forget it.

He’d sat on the couch, trying to tell himself that he wasn’t hearing what he thought he was hearing; but he’d soon realised that he was, and disbelief had rapidly turned to anger.

They want to take him away.

They knew he was doing the best he could, that’s what they’d told Nick as his beer sat forgotten on the coffee table in front of him – but they knew how hard it must be, what with Emily and work and all, and why didn’t he just think about this? That was all they wanted him to do, think about it. Martin had shares in his business that he could sell, so funding care wasn’t going to be a problem; and Julie was home all the time, she could be with Greg as much as he needed her…

“What about us?” Nick had said, pitching the words at a low hiss because his daughter was sleeping just down the hall and didn’t need to wake up and hear this. “When would we be with Greg? Every other week or so, when I have more than one day off in a row and we can drive four hours each way? Or do you want to take Emily as well?” he’d continued. “Don’t you think I’m doing a good enough job with her either?” This had been when Greg’s mother had begun to cry, and although this had made Nick feel like a complete asshole he’d kept going – because all he could think of was the way that brochure had just jumped into Martin’s hand, and it seemed that Greg’s parents had been doing a hell of a lot more than just thinking about this.

“I didn’t do this to him,” he’d said, tears smarting behind his eyes, but damn it he was not going to cry now. “Those kids did it, none of this is my fault, and you’re not splitting my family up,” and before either of Greg’s parents could say anything Nick had asked them to leave. He’d sat frozen on the couch, watching them collect their coats, and once the apartment door had closed he’d fastened the chain and the deadbolt before turning off the light and walking down the hallway – and now he lay in bed, staring into the darkness, and when his cell rang in the pocket of his jeans a few yards away he ignored it the way he’d ignored the phone ringing in the kitchen as he’d turned the light off half an hour previously.

The bedroom door creaked open, sending a thin sliver of light into the room, and Nick pushed himself up on one elbow as a small figure approached the bed.

“What is it, sweetheart? Couldn’t you sleep?” and Emily shook her head. “Come on up here, then,” and Nick lay back down as his daughter climbed up onto the empty side of the bed. She curled up against his side as he put an arm round her, and within minutes she was asleep – but Nick continued to stare up at the ceiling, and it was a long time before he allowed his eyes to close.

June 10th, 7.45 p.m

“What kind of story do you want?” Nick asked as he sat cross-legged next to his daughter’s bed. “One of mine, or one out of a book?”

“I want to tell you one,” Emily said, lying with the covers pulled up to her chin and a black cat that was one of her favourite Beanie Babies sitting on her pillow. “I made it up myself.”

“Did you?” Nick asked with a smile, and there was a solemn nod. “Well, I’d like to hear it.”

“You have to come up here if you want to listen,” Emily told him; she shifted to allow Nick to climb onto the bed and wedge himself between her and the wall, and once he’d draped his arm over her she began speaking.

“Once upon a time, there was a princess -”

“Was her name Emily?”

“Ssh! I’m tellin’ it,” was the authoritarian response. “Once upon a time, there was a princess called Emily, and she wanted a horse because all the other princesses had horses. So she went to a place where they had a lot of horses, and she looked at all of them, but she didn’t see the right one – and then right when she was going to leave and look in another place, she saw a brown horse lying down in a stable all on its own, so she went to have a look,” the four year old continued. “And when she petted the horse it had really soft fur and didn’t bite her or anything,” and Nick suppressed a smile as he recalled an encounter Emily had had with a new horse at the ranch some months since, “so she told the horse man she wanted to take it home,” and then Emily’s voice became gruff. “You don’t want this horse, the horse man said. He had a bad owner who hurt him a lot, and now he can’t walk, so nobody can ride him, and he can’t eat very well,” she went on. “So the horse man said to the princess, look at that big horse over there, isn’t he nice? You can have him for - um, um - twenty dollars, but the princess wanted the brown horse, so she told the horse man if he didn’t let her have it she was gonna tell the king to put him in jail.”

“Sounds like she was pretty stubborn.”

“Well, she wanted the brown horse a lot,” Emily went on, the sarcasm missing her completely, “so the horse man said she could have it for nothing, because he didn’t want to go to jail. And the princess had to get a big truck to put the horse in, ‘cause it couldn’t get up by itself, and she drove a long way in the truck until she got to a place called Dallas, Texas – and know who lived there?”

“Who?”

“Cowboy Bill, silly,” Emily said. “And the princess took the horse to him and asked if he could make it better, and he said -” and after a pause Emily continued, trying her best to use the same tone of voice Nick used in the stories he told her. “He said well, your majesty, he’s pretty sick, and it might take me a long time, but the princess said that was okay. And the horse was sad, because it didn’t want to be at Cowboy Bill’s ranch without the princess, so the princess came to visit it every day even when she had to go to school too – then one day she went there to give the horse its breakfast, and know what?”

“What?”

“The horse was standing up and eating all by itself,” was the answer, followed by a yawn. “And it was all better, so Cowboy Bill said the princess could take it home – so she rode it all the way back to the castle, and everyone lived happily ever after. The end,” and Emily twisted round to face Nick. “Was that a good story?”

“It was a really good story,” Nick said, managing to smile as he spoke despite the lump in his throat. “And you know what? I know Greg would like to hear it too, so I think we should go out tomorrow and buy a notebook so we can write it down before we go to see him again,” and he saw Emily’s face light up.

“Can we? Can I draw pictures too?”

“As many as you want,” Nick told her. “Right, missy, time for you to go to sleep,” and he climbed off the bed before bending down to kiss Emily’s forehead. “Goodnight, sweetie.”

“Goodnight,” Emily replied, her eyes already half-closed. “Can you leave the door open a little bit?”

“You got it,” Nick said. “Sleep well.” He crossed the room, pausing in the doorway to blow his daughter a kiss, before backing carefully out into the hallway and pulling the door almost all the way closed.

*********

Salem, Massachusetts – 8.15 p.m

He closed the door behind him, stepping into dimly-lit coolness that was miles removed from the heat outside, and he was conscious of his shoes squeaking against the floor as he made his way further into the building.

“The prodigal son returns,” a voice said several feet away; the words were followed by a chuckle as the speaker stepped out of the shadows, and moments later Luke was the recipient of a firm handshake. “Didn’t know you were in town again.”

“Nobody does,” Luke said. “I thought you might be able to use this,” and he reached into his pocket. “I read the update on the website, and I saw you were raising funds for the outreach programmes,” he went on, handing the envelope over. “I figured you could – I don’t know, raffle it off or something. I was just going to mail it, but I was here for the weekend, so…”

“Meet the stars of a hit TV series,” the other man read aloud, once he’d unfolded the sheet of paper the envelope contained. “Return flight to Daytona International Airport for two people, accommodation at the Daytona Beach Hilton - and a day with Luke and the crew at Hog Heaven, base of the latest TV reality show Road Trip,” and he looked up at Luke. “This is very generous of you,” he said, and the words were followed by a smile. “I’m almost tempted to buy all the raffle tickets myself.”

“You know you never need an invitation,” Luke said. “Might be good if you did come out there, actually - they’d probably watch their language if you were around the shop, and so would I,” and he managed a smile of his own. “Well, I should get going,” he said. “You’ve probably been trying to leave here for hours.”

“Only two and a half,” was the answer as the two of them walked back towards the front of the building. “How long are you here for?”

“Couple of days,” Luke told him. “Or until someone screws up and I have to go back – I just needed to get away, you know?”

“I know,” the man replied. “Anything in particular you’re getting away from?”

“Life in general,” and although Luke tried to smile he supposed he hadn’t managed it too well, because his companion raised an enquiring eyebrow. “I’m fine,” he said. “Honestly, Alan, I’m just tired, it’s been a rough week.”

“Well, at least join me for coffee before I go home tonight,” Alan told him. “I know how it goes - you drop in for a weekend and then we don’t see you for months,” and he grinned broadly. “There’s a Starbucks at the end of the block, and we can even sit outside so you can smoke -what do you say?”

“Won’t Beth wonder where you are?”

“She’ll leave the light on and go to bed if I don’t make it back by eleven,” was the answer as Alan pulled a bunch of keys from his pocket and locked the door. “We’ve been together fifteen years now – what’s that saying about accepting the things you can’t change? She knows I’m a night owl – come on, Mr. Celebrity, you’re buying,” and the two of them headed down the sidewalk past a sign reading First Church of Salem – Rev. Alan McKenzie, Minister.

**********

He hadn’t intended to tell Alan anything about what had really been going on, but then the family had walked past their table – hugely pregnant young woman, the man at her side carrying a blond-haired boy on his shoulders who was protesting that it wasn’t time for bed yet – and Luke had been unable to hold it all in any longer. He’d sanitized the story as best he could – because despite the fact that Alan wore jeans and a Chicago Cubs shirt beneath his robes during his services, allowed people to call him by his first name, the remnants of a Catholic upbringing were telling Luke that this was a priest for Chrissakes – but he’d still been unable to look his companion in the face by the time he’d finished telling it.


“You’ve got yourself in a bit of a situation,” the minister said, looking up over the rim of his second mug of coffee; Luke’s first mug, which had gone cold long since, sat on the table between them along with an ashtray containing a small mountain of cigarette butts – something that, in itself, was a mute testament to how much stress he was under. “You don’t need me to tell you that, do you?”

“No, I don’t,” Luke replied. “I just started out wanting to help him, I honestly did. I mean, we hadn’t seen each other for more than twenty years, we hadn’t kept in touch - it’s not like we’re doing anything behind anyone’s back -”

“I believe you,” was the answer. “Despite the fact that you cuss more than a twenty year navy man on shore leave, you’re a good person,” and there was a warm smile on Alan’s face as he spoke. “I think having them to stay with you in Daytona might have been a mistake, though,” he went on, and Luke’s head came up sharply. “You meant well, I know,” the minister added quickly, “but I think it may have started trains of thought in your head that you didn’t need.”

“It was nice not to come home alone for once, that’s all,” Luke said, staring down at his hands again. “It’s not like I’m a family person, I’m not cut out for it, but -” and he paused, swallowing hard as he thought of how it had felt to sit at House of Blues and watch Emily dancing. “I don’t know why I’m all screwed up like this, Alan -”

“Can I give you a suggestion?” Alan asked, and Luke nodded without looking up. “Keep being his friend, because people in his situation need all the support they can get. Email him, call him every once in a while to see how he’s doing – but don’t see him again. Don’t go to Vegas, don’t have them come to Florida – because you haven’t crossed any boundaries yet, but you’re not far off.”

***********


June 3rd, 10.40 a.m – Desert Palms

“So she rode it all the way back to the castle, and everyone lived happily ever after. The end,” Nick intoned as his daughter pointed to the last picture; it showed one of her usual spindly figures, this one with a yellow crown and a pink dress, standing next to a horse that looked more like a brown spider minus a few legs.

“Did you like my story, Greg?” Emily asked as she nestled against his side with his good arm draped round her shoulders. “I worked really hard.”

“Yeah,” Greg replied, the single word making Emily’s eyes light up, and he attempted to raise his right hand. “I -” He grimaced in frustration when the hand fell back after he’d managed to lift it an inch or so away from the bedcovers, and his eyes darted from Nick to the drawing and back again. “Nick -”

“Right here,” Nick said, from where he sat in a chair next to the bed. “What is it?” and he leaned towards Greg. “Looking at the picture?”

“Yeah,” Greg said again. “Em…”

“She drew it, that’s right,” Nick told him. “It’s Princess Emily with the king and her new horse. She was awake at six this morning drawing all these pictures on computer paper - she wouldn’t even wait till we could go and buy her a notebook,” and Nick smiled as he locked eyes with Greg. “She’s impatient, just like you.”

“No, I’m not!” Emily retorted in mock indignation. “I’m the patientest little girl in the whole world!” and she darted her tongue out, making Nick suppress a grin. “Know what, Greg? I’m going to Madison’s birthday party tomorrow afternoon.”

“Huh?”

“She’s my best friend ever,” Emily said patiently, because she’d become used to the fact that she often had to tell Greg the same thing she’d told him the day before. “She goes to my school, and she lives in a big house, and she has a housekeeper called Selena – and her mommy doesn’t go to work, but her daddy’s a – um – he’s a doctor for ladies, but it’s a funny word -”

“Gynaecologist,” Nick murmured, and when he saw the corners of Greg’s mouth twitch upwards his heart leapt.

He is coming back. I knew it.

“- and we’re all gonna sleep at Madison’s house after the party,” Emily was saying. “Her mommy and daddy have someone coming to do magic tricks, and a clown, and Madison’s having a High School Musical cake,” and she looked across the bed at Nick. “We have to go buy her present, Nick.”

“We will,” Nick told her. “Right after we -” and he broke off when he saw Greg looking at him quizzically. “What’s up, G?”

“Car.”

“Car?” Nick echoed, puzzled. “No, we came in my truck,” and he saw Greg shake his head. “What do you mean?”

“Car,” Greg said again, looking down at himself. “This,” and as light dawned in Nick’s head he had to swallow hard before he spoke.

“No, you weren’t in a car wreck,” he said gently, the way he’d answered this question several times of late, and he got up to sit on the edge of the bed so that he could place an arm round Greg and Emily – because none of these previous explanations had ever taken place when their daughter had been in the room. “It happened while you were working – someone hurt you.”

“Who?”

“Kids,” Nick replied, struggling to remain calm. “We caught them, man, it’s okay.”

“Two of them went to jail,” Emily interjected, her little face pinched with anxiety, and there was silence as Greg looked from Nick to their daughter and back again.

“J -” and Greg’s brows drew together as his mouth worked to form the word. “Jail?”

“That’s right,” Nick told him. “They’re not gonna hurt you.”

“When?”

“We’ll talk about that later,” Nick said, his heart in his throat, because he’d given this answer several times too – and each time he’d done it he’d known he was only buying time, because sooner or later Greg was going to be alert enough not to be fobbed off any longer. “You just take it easy.”

“When?” Greg repeated with a little more emphasis, staring directly at Nick, and the ensuing few seconds of silence seemed to stretch into hours before Nick found his voice.

“Eight months ago,” he said, and he watched Greg’s mouth drop open before closing again, the lips pressing together in a thin line; the two of them looked at each other without speaking for an age, and then Greg’s lower lip quivered as tears brimmed in his eyes before trickling down his cheeks.

“No,” Emily said, her voice wavering at this sign of distress. “No, make him stop crying,” and she screwed her face up in a valiant attempt to stem tears of her own. “Please, Nick -” and as Nick wrapped his arms tightly round them both, the brief bubble of happiness having burst, all he could think about was two words.

Encino, California.

************

“Right,” Nick said as he pulled the truck into a spot outside Toys R Us and killed the engine. “Let’s go pick something for Madison.”

“I don’t want to,” Emily said quietly. “I wanna go back and see Greg.”

“We can see him again tomorrow before you go to the party – there’s plenty of time.”

“I don’t want to go to the party, and you can’t make me.”

“That’s right, I can’t,” Nick said. “But Madison’s going to be sad if you don’t turn up, isn’t she?”

“I don’t care,” Emily said stubbornly, and she made no move to unbuckle her seatbelt. “I need to go and see Greg, because you made him cry.”

“Wait a second, what?” Nick asked, his temples pulsating with the beginnings of a headache. “I did not.”

“Yes, you did!” his daughter said. “You told him he’d been in the hospital for a long time! How come you told him that?”

“Because he asked me to,” Nick replied as he fought to keep a lid on his emotions. “I wasn’t going to lie to him, sweetie.”

“Why not?” Emily asked, her voice rising in pitch and volume; a second or two later, Nick’s cell phone rang, and the Dallas area code he saw when he snatched it from his pocket was the final straw.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake -”

“That’s a swear, Nick!”

“Shut up!” he shouted, his temper finally snapping as he crammed the phone back into his pocket without answering the call; he turned the key in the ignition as Emily began to cry, and he was dimly aware of a small voice sobbing I hate you! as he peeled out of the parking lot, blinded by tears.

***********

He brought the truck to a stop in its usual spot under the apartment building, and then he drew a deep breath before unfastening his seatbelt and turning round.

Emily had cried herself to sleep, and lay with her head tilted to one side and her thumb in her mouth. Nick sat looking at her for a long time, and then he pressed his sleeve against his eyes before he climbed down and walked back to the rear passenger door; he opened it almost silently, and as he was unfastening Emily’s seatbelt she stirred and blinked before fixing red-rimmed eyes on him.

“I yelled at you,” he told his daughter. “I used a bad word, and I shouldn’t have done that,” and he reached up towards Emily’s tangled red hair, only to have her shrink away from him. “Honey?” he said, a lump rising painfully in his throat as he saw the wary expression on the little girl’s face. “Can I give you a hug?” He held out his arms as Emily slid down from her seat - wanting more than anything to hold her and tell her he was sorry, that everything would be all right – but they fell to his sides again, heavy as lead, when she stepped carefully around him before walking towards the elevator without saying a word.

July 10th, 9.30 p.m

He should have been asleep in bed long since, but it was as though all the strength had evaporated from Nick’s body and left him powerless to move. He lay on the couch he’d collapsed onto after he’d checked on Emily and found her asleep; he was staring dully at the TV where Conan O’Brien was making his audience laugh uproariously, and so many things were occupying his mind - but foremost among them was the way Emily had sat in Greg’s lap the afternoon before Madison’s party, giggling as she told him about something that had happened at Angie’s house.

She didn’t giggle very much now. Unless there was something she couldn’t manage on her own and she needed Nick’s help, she hardly even spoke; when she did communicate she was whiny and clingy, having seemingly regressed two years in a matter of weeks, and three nights previously Nick had resorted to putting a waterproof sheet back on her bed.

He’d tried to be positive for so long now, to tell himself and Emily that there was going to be a happy outcome – but with every day that passed, this seemed to be further away than it had ever been.

Because at least while they could see Greg every day there was hope, but this was not going to continue for very much longer; Greg was going to need to be moved soon, and the insurance company had remained implacable. And what scared Nick more than anything were all the times when he’d lain awake and thought that maybe it would be easier to send Emily to Dallas, just for the summer -

Not both of them, he told himself silently. I’m not losing both of them, and that was when the phone rang; and because he knew that Greg’s parents wouldn’t be awake this late at night, Nick got up and walked into the kitchen to lift the phone from its cradle on the wall.

“Hello?”

“Well, there you are,” a familiar voice said. “You’re difficult to get hold of – I was starting to think your answering machine wasn’t working.”

“Hi, Luke,” Nick replied, pulling a chair out from the kitchen table and sinking down onto it. “Yeah, I’m sorry, man, I’ve been meaning to call you, but -”

“No big deal,” was the answer. “How are you guys? Everything okay?” and the casual question made Nick’s heart ache – because it must have been the best part of a month since he’d been in touch with Luke at all, and where the hell would he even begin to explain how far from okay everything was?

“Nick?”

“Sorry,” he said. “I’ve just come off a week of nights, I really ought to be in bed,” and he didn’t much care that he was lying. “We’re fine, honestly.”

“You sure?” was the immediate response. “Better not be bullshitting me here.”

“Wouldn’t dare,” Nick replied. “You’d call my mom,” and the thought that he hadn’t talked to her himself since – well, he wasn’t sure how long – made his throat tighten.

“Bet your ass I would,” Luke said immediately. “When I ask someone to keep in touch, I mean it.”

“I’m sorry,” Nick told him, squeezing his eyes shut to stem the tears that were never too far off these days when he was alone. Luke meant well, but what would he be able to do to help? “How about an email tomorrow, and I’ll catch you up on everything?”

“I’m holding you to that, you know.”

“I know you are,” Nick said. “Tomorrow, I swear – yes, I’ll tell her hello,” and he hung up – then, leaning against the kitchen wall, he cried until his chest hurt.

***********

July 17th, 3.30 p.m – Hog Heaven, Daytona Beach.

There had been no email the following day as Nick had promised, or the day after that – and now, a full week after he’d made that call to Vegas, there was still no news.

He knew it wasn’t his business, that he should stay the hell out of whatever was going on, but it didn’t stop Luke from worrying.

The door of his office had remained closed all day, with instructions that he was not to be disturbed – and this had included lunch, leaving him to exist on mugs of coffee while the others had gone to the Mexican place on the next block. He sat at his desk, surrounded by a drift of paperwork that had barely been touched, trying to tune out the music coming from the shop – Slipknot, which meant that the damn trainee had won the coin toss after they’d returned from lunch – and he was in the process of lighting yet another cigarette when there was a knock on the window. He ignored it, not even looking up to see who it was, and in the next instant the door opened.

“Jefe, I gotta talk to you.”

“What part of ‘leave me the fuck alone’ didn’t you understand?” Luke asked, still not looking up as the door was closed and the music reduced to a barely tolerable level again.

“None of it,” Sol said. “You’ve been like a bear with a sore ass for too damn long now – what’s wrong with you?”

“I’d tell you if I wanted you to know, wouldn’t I?”

“Is it something to do with her?” came the response, and when Luke realised that he was holding the photo again he jerked his hand away as though he’d burnt himself.

“It’s none of your damn business, is what it is,” he replied. “Was there anything else?”

“Yeah, there was,” Sol snapped back. “Look at me when I’m talking to you, damn it,” and Luke was so startled that his head came up sharply. “It might not be any of my damn business, but you’re going to go wherever you need to go to take care of it before I lock you out of the shop.”

“Oh, it’s like that, is it?”

“If it needs to be,” was the answer, and although Sol’s arms were folded uncompromisingly there was a softness on her face that made the backs of Luke’s eyes prickle with tears. “How long have we been friends, jefe? Long enough for you to bust my ass when you think I need it, right? Well, now it’s my turn,” and she stepped forward to perch on the corner of the cluttered desk. “Is it Emily?”

“I don’t know,” Luke said, running a hand through his hair. “Nick told me they’re fine, but – well, I just had this feeling he was bullshitting me, and I haven’t heard from him in a week,” and he crushed his cigarette out in the overflowing ashtray. “I should just forget it,” he said, trying to shore up a wall that was close to being broken down. “It’s not my problem if he doesn’t want to tell me the truth.”

“If you’re worried about them, you should go out there,” Sol told him. “If you get bawled out for it, so what? Not like that hasn’t happened to you before.”

“All right, I’ll call the airline when I get home,” Luke said wearily. “Happy?” but the expression on the Latina’s face gave him all the answer he needed. “What, you want me to do it now?”

**********




July 17th – just after midnight.

“I don’t know how long I’ll be,” Luke said, the phone cradled between his ear and his shoulder as he crammed clothes back into his overnight bag. “I’ll let you know once I get there, Marty, okay?”

“What about the calendar shoot?”

“We can reschedule it if we need to.”

“What the hell are you going to Vegas for, anyway?” the voice on the other end of the phone asked, and a chuckle echoed down the line. “Just tell me this isn’t one of your hook-ups -”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what it is,” Luke replied, something burning in the back of his throat at the one question his PA had no right to ask. “I’ll tell you all about it when I get back,” and he snapped his cell phone shut again, ignoring it when it rang a few seconds later and Marty’s number showed on the display. He finished packing the overnight bag that was already bulging dangerously, and once he’d zipped it shut he carried it into the living room where he dropped it on the floor before walking back out onto the balcony; he sank down into the lounger again, but his hands were shaking so badly it took him four attempts before he managed to light a cigarette.

“Don’t go to Vegas, don’t have them come to Florida,” Alan had said, “because you haven’t crossed any boundaries yet, but you’re not far off” - and Luke knew the minister had been right, but damn it, he couldn’t just let this go.

You don’t have to fly out there, a little voice said. Nick doesn’t even know you’re coming - so you can just rip that E ticket up and nobody’s any the wiser, right? and Luke’s only response was to sit on the balcony, lighting one Marlboro from the tip of the previous one in a steady stream, until the pack was almost empty and the taxi honked its horn out on the street an hour and a half later.


**************

July 18th, 11.00 a.m – Las Vegas

The flight had been delayed by half an hour, and a baby had screamed almost incessantly two rows behind him - what the hell was that kid’s mother doing taking it on a plane that early, anyway? he’d asked himself irritably – ensuring that he’d gotten hardly any sleep during the eight-hour flight. The first thing he’d done once he’d checked into his hotel was to order a pot of coffee from room service and to drink the entire thing; once he’d done this, leaving himself feeling jittery but at least able to keep his eyes open, he took his cell from his pocket and dialled a number his mother had given him.

“Hello?”

“Good morning, Jillian, it’s Luke – how are you doing?”

“I’m very well, thank you, Luke. What can I do for you?”

“Well, I’m in Vegas on business and I have some time to kill,” Luke lied, “and I was hoping you might tell me where I could find that son of yours – if he’s not working, of course,” and when an almost inaudible sigh echoed down the phone, the hairs on the nape of his neck rose on end.

“I can tell you where to find him,” Jillian said. “Do you have a pen?” and when Luke assured her that he did, she dictated an address which he scribbled on a sheet of hotel notepaper. “I couldn’t tell you if he’s at work or not, though, because I’m afraid we haven’t spoken in a while,” and there was a short silence. “How much has he told you about what’s been going on over the last two or three weeks?”

“Not enough,” Luke told her as he recalled the phone call that had taken place less than a week previously. “Maybe you’d better fill me in.”

***************

12.20 p.m.

Scanning a double column of buzzers next to the lobby doors of the building, he finally spotted one labelled Sanders/Stokes - and once he’d taken a deep breath, he abandoned his last chance to stay out of the situation and pushed the button.

“Hello?”

“Knock, knock,” Luke announced, and a second or so later his smile finally faded completely.

“Luke – hi,” Nick said, and the flat way in which the single word was delivered told Luke that he’d been right to come here. “What are you doing here?”

“Candy gram,” Luke replied. “You going to buzz me in, or are we going to talk through this thing all day?”

**********

“You want some coffee?”

“That’d be great,” Luke said, although he was fairly certain he’d already exceeded the FDA recommended amount of caffeine for about the next week, and he sat down at the kitchen table. “Cream, no sugar if you have it.”

“What are you doing in Vegas? Finally opening that shop?”

“I came to see you,” Luke said, no longer caring about what boundaries he was about to cross. “I haven’t heard from you in a week, and you’re not answering my calls,” and his ears picked up an exasperated sigh. “What’s going on, Nick?”

“I’ve been busy,” Nick replied wearily. “And nothing’s going on, just bullshit with the insurance company, but I’m dealing with it,” and he walked to the fridge, where he took out a carton of milk. “Please tell me you haven’t really come out here just to see us -”

“I was worried,” Luke said, and then he saw movement out of the corner of his eye; turning his head towards the kitchen doorway, he saw a mass of red hair surrounding a pale face, and he wiggled the fingers of his left hand. “Hey, Miss Emily,” he said with a smile, but the little girl – who was still wearing pyjamas - merely stared at him for a second or two before disappearing down the hallway.

“I wouldn’t,” Nick said wearily, setting two mugs down on the table as Luke pushed his chair back. “She isn’t exactly talking much at the moment,” and Luke recalled a long weekend in April when Nick and his daughter had chased each other along a stretch of Daytona beach; Nick had been tired then, but what was happening now was obviously something much worse.

“Dealing with it?” he murmured softly, standing up and turning to look at Nick’s stricken face. “The fuck you are – no, you just stay there,” and he made his way along the hallway.

********

He rapped softly on the half-open door that bore pink wooden letters spelling out Emily, and when there was no answer he looked into the room.

“Can I come in?” he asked quietly, and when there was a nod from the figure bundled up beneath a bright pink comforter Luke stepped into the room and closed the door. “What are you doing in bed?” he asked as he crouched down on the floor next to the bed. “It’s nearly lunchtime, isn’t it?” and there was a whispered reply that he didn’t catch. “What did you say?”

“Don’t feel good,” Emily said around the thumb that had found its way into her mouth. “My belly hurts.”

“Do I need to go and get Nick?” Luke asked, and when Emily shook her head he remembered a story his sister had told him about a tactic her six year old had used to try and get out of going to day camp. “You know what?” he said, shifting closer so that he was leaning against the bed. “I wonder if your belly hurts because you’re sad about something?” and during the silence that followed he saw Emily’s eyes brimming with tears. “Can you tell me what it is?” but Emily shook her head. “How come? I thought we were buddies -”

“I don’t want Greg to go to Encino,” Emily whispered, and she sniffed loudly. “I heard Nick talking on the phone about it when I woke up one night, and I asked Angie where Encino is – and she said -” and her face screwed up before tears began to roll down her cheeks. “She showed me in a book where it is, and I won’t see him every day if he goes there!”

“Oh, honey,” Luke said, “come here,” and he rose on his knees to lean over the bed and put his arms round Emily, who struggled briefly before giving in. She cried for what seemed like a very long time, her hands clutching at Luke’s T shirt; and when her sobs eventually tailed off into hitches of breath, Luke drew her down onto his lap.

“You wait here, okay?” he said, something clenching in his chest as he looked at Emily’s tear-stained face. “I’m going to go and talk to Nick -” but he broke off when the little girl shook her head in apparent alarm. “Why not?”

“’Cause he’ll know I heard him on the phone,” Emily whispered, her eyes almost swollen shut. “He’ll get mad, and last time he got mad he used a swear -”

“Well, here’s what we’ll do,” Luke told her, reaching to smooth her hair down. “Can you get dressed for me?”

*********

The expression on Luke’s face when he’d returned to the kitchen had brooked no argument, and so Nick had put on his jacket and fetched Emily’s booster seat from the hall closet before the three of them took the elevator down to where Luke had parked his rental car.

Emily fell asleep with her thumb in her mouth almost as soon as the car started moving, and she didn’t stir when they reached the underground parking lot at Luke’s hotel; Nick scooped her up into his arms and allowed Luke to shepherd the two of them into the elevator, which they rode to a floor where Nick thought he and Warrick had once investigated a case.

“Okay,” Luke said eventually, once Emily had been tucked into an immense bed and he and Nick were sitting at either side of a dining room table in his suite, “you tell me what’s really been going on, and I don’t want any bullshit – because that little girl in there’s told me more than you have,” and Nick – face to face with his inquisitor, finally unable to protest that he and Emily were fine – obeyed. He talked for almost a quarter of an hour, staring down at his hands as he spoke and willing himself with the last of his strength not to cry; he didn’t look up once he’d finished speaking, and after what seemed far too long a pause Luke cleared his throat.

“Jesus, you’re in a mess, aren’t you?” he asked softly. “Have they talked about getting a lawyer involved?”

“Who? G’s parents? No, they -”

“Don’t tell me they wouldn’t,” Luke said, and something in the tone of his voice made Nick’s head come up. “I’ve seen it happen, Nick,” he went on. “You want me to tell you about the guys I know who got flown home when they developed full-blown AIDS? Didn’t matter how long they’d been with their boyfriend, didn’t matter how cool their folks had always been with having a gay son – when it came down to it, mom and dad were the ones who knew what was best. You guys aren’t married, you know, you’ve got no real say in what happens – and if you don’t get them on side, you’re fucked.”

“Who’s on my side?” Nick hissed fiercely, finally looking up. “His parents want me to see him every week or so because they’ve got money for a good rehab facility that our insurance won’t pay for, my mom wants the three of us to move back to the ranch,” and he clenched his hands into fists so tightly that his knuckles turned white. “This is where we live, this is where our apartment is, it’s where our life is, and nobody gets that,” he said, a dull hopelessness in his eyes. “You tell me how you’d fix it for us, Luke, because everyone else has got an idea.”

********

He’d driven them home, after promising to come and take them out for lunch the following day – and now he was standing at the window, watching the fountains but not really seeing them as he tried to think about what he was going to do.

Pack a bag and come back to Daytona with me, just for a few days; that had been the first thing he’d wanted to do, to take them away and just let them put themselves back together. But then he’d thought of the raw pain that had been in Nick’s eyes, about Emily’s distress -

This is where our life is, and nobody gets that.

She showed me in a book where it is, and I won’t see him every day if he goes there!

- and he’d known that it wasn’t about what he wanted, it wasn’t about what he might feel even after all this time, it was about what Nick and Emily and Greg needed.

And Christ, he was wondering why he’d come here and gotten into this, but he wasn’t backing down now.

He couldn’t.

August 12th

“Is it today?”

“It’s five thirty in the morning, sweetie,” Nick groaned once he’d lifted his head from the pillow to look at the clock on the nightstand. “Go back to bed for a little while, okay?”

“But is it today?”

“Yes, it’s today,” Nick told his daughter, and when Emily’s eyes lit up he was unable to prevent himself smiling. “But it’s not for a little while yet, so why don’t you go back to bed?”

“I can’t,” Emily replied, hopping from one foot to the other. “I’ll go back to sleep and you’ll go without me.”

“How could I do that?” Nick said, fighting the urge to yawn. “Come on, get in here,” he went on, flipping back the covers. “You can wait with me,” and less than five minutes after Emily had climbed into bed with him she had fallen asleep again; but Nick remained awake, one arm round his daughter as he thought about everything that had happened during the past few weeks.

Luke had turned up at the apartment as promised the day after he’d arrived in Vegas, and he’d taken Nick and Emily up to his hotel suite for lunch. Emily had poked listlessly at the cheeseburger and fries she’d ordered, while Nick had done little better with his steak; but Luke hadn’t said anything, merely gathering up their plates and putting them at one end of the table. He’d escorted Emily to the huge bedroom, sitting on the bed and going through the pay per view menu with her – and left at the table, fighting sleep and worry, Nick had still managed a smile when his ears had picked up a little voice saying, “No, I want Hannah!”

A scant ten minutes later, once a check on Emily revealed that she’d fallen asleep in front of ‘Hannah Montana’, Luke had ordered up a pot of coffee and the questions had begun. They’d been subtle, couched between anecdotes about the shop that were peppered with enough obscenities to make Nick glad that his daughter wasn’t awake – but after a while, the coffee had rendered him lucid enough to realise that something was going on.

And when he’d figured out what it was, the first word from his lips had been


“No.”

“Why?” Luke asks, looking at Nick over the rims of his half-glasses; he’s been making notes on a sheet of Bellagio notepaper, something Nick’s only just noticed. “Give me one good reason.”

“He isn’t going to be able to work for – well, we don’t know if he ever will again right now -”

“You’re not answering my question.”

“You think I’ve got that sort of money?” Nick says dully, and his hands shake so badly as he lifts his cup that half the coffee spills. “We wouldn’t be in this situation now if I did.”

“You think I’m offering you a loan?” Luke asks, and there’s a long silence. Nick stares at him across the table, his lips pressed tightly together; tears well in his eyes, dripping down onto the table, and he shakes his head.

“Don’t be so fucking stubborn, Nick,” Luke says. “Please, just – let me help you,” and that’s when Nick finally breaks. Letting his head drop down onto his folded arms, he cries as though everything inside him is tearing loose; and when a hand touches his arm, he reaches for it and hangs on like grim death.

Things had started to happen very quickly after that; Luke had ended up staying in Vegas for a week to help Nick take care of things, to provide moral support when he phoned both his and Greg’s parents to start rebuilding fences that had become perilously fragile. The story Nick had given, which had been accepted by both sides, was that the insurance company had finally seen the light; Nick had been worried about what Luke would say about this, but he hadn’t needed to be. “There’s a lot of stuff I do that nobody really knows about,” Luke had told him. “If I help people I do it because I want to, I don’t need publicity for it,” and he’d reached across the table to refill Nick’s coffee cup. “You tell them whatever you want to tell them, okay?”

Emily had spent most of the week at Angie’s, because Nick had been concerned about her overhearing something before the arrangements were finalised and having her hopes dashed. She’d accompanied Nick to Luke’s suite for supper on several evenings, though, where nothing had escaped her attention –

“Luke’s smoking on the balcony, Nick.”

“Luke used a really bad swear on the phone while you were in the bathroom, Nick.”

and while Nick would have normally given her a talking to about what his mother would have called ‘tale-bearing’, he didn’t...because it hadn’t escaped his attention that while Luke had been here Emily had very slowly begun to emerge from her shell.

He’d waited until they’d waved Luke off at the airport before telling Emily what was going on – and no matter how tired he’d been by then, he’d know he was always going to carry the memory of that Friday evening in his mind.

“Emily, come here – I need to talk to you before we go out for pie.”

“I don’t want pie,” and the four year old’s face is stubborn. “Want to go and have ice cream at the hotel.”

“We’re not going to the Bellagio for ice cream now Luke’s gone home.”

“Why?”

“I told you why,” Nick tells his daughter. “Because that was a special treat that someone else bought for you – now come over here for a second, okay?” and he lifts the little girl into his lap. “I need to talk to you about Greg, sweetie,” he says. “You remember we talked about how he has to go to a different place to get better now?”

“Yeah,” Emily says, and her lower lip quivers. “I don’t want him to go to Encino, Nick, it’s too far away.”

“He isn’t going to Encino,” Nick replies, and even though he’s smiling there’s a lump in his throat. “There’s a hospital that’s much closer than that, and you’ll get to see him every day,” and a small whimper escapes Emily’s lips before she bursts into tears. “Oh, pumpkin,” Nick whispers, wrapping his arms round her and holding her close. “It’s okay, it’s okay now,” and he allows himself to shed tears as well – because finally, after so long, he believes it.


***********

Daytona, 9.15 a.m

“Yes!” Jonah said triumphantly, replacing the quarter in his pocket before rummaging through the box of CDs on the shelf; selecting one, he slotted it into the player, and moments later the shop resonated with ‘Send Me On My Way’ – and even Luke was humming along as he stepped into his office to take care of the phone messages that always seemed to build up overnight.

“Not too bad,” he said aloud when the answering machine told him there were twelve messages waiting. Lighting a cigarette, he pressed the ‘play’ button – and as he grabbed a pen out of the jar on his desk, a familiar voice emerged from the speaker.

“Luke, hi – it’s Nick.”

“And Emily!”

“I just wanted to call and let you know that Greg’s moving to the rehab facility today. I guess we’ll probably be on our way there by the time you get this message, and I – we wanted to say thank you,” and there was a short silence. “You don’t know what this is going to mean, and I – well, listen, call when you get time and I’ll bring you up to date, okay? Take care.”

“No, wait, Nick! I wanna -” and there was a beep as the message cut off.

“Second message...”

Luke pressed the ‘stop’ button and took another drag on his cigarette before crushing it out in the already overflowing ashtray; once he’d done this, he sat motionless for a few minutes before reaching into his pocket for his cell. Opening it, he scrolled down the list of numbers until he reached one listed simply as ‘M’ – although, in reality, most of the numbers in his cell would have served the same purpose.

“It’s me,” he said when the phone was picked up at the other end. “You busy tonight? Ten o’clock, same place? Yeah, okay – I’ll see you then,” and he snapped his cell shut.

************

“He needs his pictures up,” Emily said. “The ones I made for him,” and she held out the overstuffed grocery bag she’d been holding. “And he has to have his calendar too, ‘cause he needs to remember what day it is.”

“Wednesday,” Greg said as he tugged at the bedcovers with his left hand because the right one was still fairly weak. “Nick -”

“I’ll do it!”

“You know what, honey?” the nurse told Emily. “I think your papa can do that on his own, can’t he?”

“But it’s hard for him -”

“Yes, it is,” the young woman replied with a smile, winking at Nick over the little girl’s head. “But you want him to learn to do things by himself so he can come home, don’t you?”

“Ye-es -”

“I tell you what,” the nurse said. “Why don’t you come with me, Emily, and we’ll see if we can find you some juice,” and as Emily allowed herself to be led from the room Nick heard her say, “Well, I actually like Dr. Pepper -”

The room was certainly miles removed from the sterile atmosphere of Desert Palms. Each of the residents at the centre had their own suite of rooms, designed to get them used to a home environment again, and Nick had brought in bedding from the apartment; resisting his own urge to help Greg, Nick watched him grit his teeth as he managed to tug the dark red comforter into place.

“I think you’ll be okay here, G,” he said as he removed the calendar from the grocery bag – this month’s picture showed Emily in Angie’s living room, manhandling the sitter’s elderly but tolerant cat – and set it on the nightstand where Greg would be able to see it. “What do you think?” he went on, sitting on the edge of the bed and taking hold of Greg’s hand. “It’s better than the hospital, isn’t it?”

“Wanna -” and Greg’s mouth worked silently, his eyebrows drawing down in frustration. “Wanna – home.”

“I know, baby,” Nick replied, leaning close enough to wrap an arm round Greg and allow their foreheads to touch. “I know you do,” and he tilted his head so that he could plant a kiss on Greg’s mouth. “We’ll get you there.”

September 4th – Las Vegas

Dear Grandma Jillian –
We went to see Greg this afternoon. I like the new place where he lives, because it has a kitchen and a bathroom just like our apartment, but I still want him to come home soon. We took some Dr. Pepper and some of the coffee that Greg likes and put it in his fridge, so when we go and see him we can all have a drink. He goes in a big swimming pool with one of the nurses, and Nick says that’s going to help his arms and legs get better. There’s a man called Ben who works at the hospital, and he helps people who’ve hurt their heads to learn to speak properly again. He asked me to bring some of my old books in, and me and Nick read them with Greg because they’re easy for him to understand. He doesn’t say all the words right yet, but Ben said that if we all help him he’ll learn to. Nick goes to special lessons with Greg so that he knows what to do to help him when he comes home. Sometimes Madison’s sister Jessie comes to babysit me while Nick’s at the lessons if Angie’s busy. Jessie has a real earring in her belly button, and I told Nick I want one too but he says I have to wait till I’m forty five.

Will you come and see us soon?

Love

Emily xx

“Are you happy with that?” Nick asked, once he’d read the letter back to his daughter, and when he received a nod in response he pressed the ‘send’ button. “All right, missy, it’s time we got you into your jammies,” he went on. “You have ballet class tomorrow morning, and we need to go out for our snack, don’t we?” and he lifted Emily down off his lap, keeping hold of her hand while they headed for her bedroom.

“Nick -”

“What, sweetheart?”

“When’s Greg gonna come home?”

“Not for a little while yet,” Nick replied, retreading ground that was visited at least once a day. “He has to learn to do a lot of things before he can come home,” and he stood in the doorway as Emily pulled her Barbie pyjamas from beneath her pillow and quickly put them on. “When you’re asleep for as long as Greg was asleep -”

“You said it’s a coma.”

“Well, when you’re in a coma for as long as Greg was,” Nick said, reminded once again that Emily was almost five and didn’t miss much, “lots of things don’t work very well when you wake up again. You know how your foot falls asleep when you sit like a frog in front of the TV?”

“Uh huh.”

“Well, because Greg didn’t use his legs for so long they fell asleep too, but a lot worse than your foot,” Nick continued. “That’s why he has to go in the pool and do all those exercises in the gym.”

“He doesn’t like the exercises,” Emily said. “He makes a face, ‘cause it hurts him.”

“I know that,” Nick said, stepping into the room to put one arm round his daughter. “But pretty soon the exercises won’t hurt him so much, and that’s going to mean he’s getting better.”

“Will he be home for my birthday?”

“No, honey, he won’t,” Nick said gently. “There’s a lot of things we need to do before he comes home -”

“What things?”

“Well, he’s going to have to do the exercises for a long time,” Nick replied. “The doctors have to make sure he can do things like wash himself, dress himself -”

“Make breakfast?”

“That’s right,” Nick said, tickling Emily and making her giggle, and the sound warmed his heart. “You’re always thinking about your belly, aren’t you? And we have to make sure he can manage in the apartment, because even when he comes home he might not be able to do everything he could do before he was hurt.”

“What if he can’t manage?”

“Well, if he can’t,” Nick told her, sitting on the bed and drawing Emily onto his lap as he spoke, “we might need to move somewhere else,” and he held his breath as the two of them looked at each other in silence. When the social worker at the rehab centre had visited the apartment she’d been up front with him about the fact that it was going to be hard for Greg to continue living there, even with the best possible prognosis – and while Nick knew he had put off talking to Emily about it long enough, he was still apprehensive about her reaction to more upheaval.

“Would I have to have a new babysitter?”

“No, you’d still go to Angie’s house,” Nick said with a smile. “We wouldn’t move very far.”

“To a new apartment?”

“Well, maybe a house,” was Nick’s response. “Just a small one, with no stairs or elevator,” and he studied his daughter’s face closely. “What do you think about that?”

“What colour would my new room be?”

“We can paint it whatever colour you want,” Nick said with a smile. “How does that sound?”

“Red and black,” Emily told him, her face brightening. “Just like Jessie’s,” and she scrambled down off his lap. “Can we go for our snack now?”

*********

September 29th - Burlington, Vermont – 6.45 p.m

“You look tired,” Faith said as she opened the oven and took out a chicken that had been roasted to perfection. “When did you last get a break?”

“Don’t ask,” Luke told his sister. “You need a hand with anything?”

“You can go tell the boys to wash up,” was the answer. “Paul said we should start without him, he’s at a partners’ meeting and he said it might run late.”

“How far’s the lap dancing club from his office?” Luke said with a grin, dodging the oven mitt that was aimed at his head and heading into the hallway; he ascended the curved staircase two steps at a time, his ears picking up the sound of a television being played far too loud, and pushed open a door that bore a sign showing a smiling cartoon rabbit accompanied by the words School prepares you for the real world which also sucks.

“Hey, you two, your mom says to wash up for supper.”

“We gotta finish watching this first,” Ben replied with the nonchalance only a six year old could muster. “It’s about a witch, and she goes in little kids’ rooms -”

“You shouldn’t let him watch stuff like that, Max,” Luke told his oldest nephew. “He’ll get nightmares.”

“Dad lets him watch it too,” Max replied without looking round, and it was only then that Luke focused his attention on the screen.

“But if dad went after it, why is it still breathing air?”

“’Cause it got away.”

“Got away?”

“Yeah, Sammy, it happens...”

- and Luke’s mind was suddenly filled with an image of a young man with messy dark hair and green eyes, sprawled on a bed in one of the rooms at the Black Cat and then rising to his knees...

“Turn that shit off,” he said, something clenching in his chest. “Supper’s ready.”

“You swore!” Ben crowed. “That means you have to give us a dollar!”

“Geez, bitch much?” Max muttered under his breath. “What’s your problem?”

“Just get washed up,” Luke said tersely, and he left the room without looking back.

**********
October 10th, Las Vegas – 5.00 p.m

“Greg!” Emily shouted, a delighted smile appearing on her lips, and she ran across the room to scramble up into Greg’s lap as he sat in the wheelchair. “You’re out of bed! Can we go for a walk?”

“Sweetie, take it easy,” Nick said as he caught up with them and leaned down to kiss Greg’s upturned mouth. “Remember -”

“’S all right,” Greg said, enunciating the words carefully. “Coffee?”

“Yes, boss, I’ll make it,” Nick said, lowering his head for another kiss, and then he walked into the spotlessly clean kitchen. As he set about making a pot of coffee he tuned in to what was happening in the room behind him – and he was unable to stop smiling.

“What day is it?”

“Monday.”

“Shall we read one of my books?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, what’s that?”

“Car – red car.”

“That’s right! And who’s driving the car?”

“Cat.”

“No, it isn’t a cat,” and there was patience in Emily’s voice. “He says ‘woof woof’ -”

“D – dog.”

“Yes!” and there was the sound of a noisy kiss. “You did it!”

“Nick!”

“Yes?”

“Coffee?”

“It’s coming,” Nick called back. “Emily, tell him to stop bossing me around!” and the sound of Greg and Emily laughing in the other room made a lump swell in Nick’s throat – because there had been so many times over the last eleven months when he’d never imagined having his family back again.

**********

October 19th - 2.00 p.m

“How old are you now?” the nurse asked. “Twenty one?”

“Five!” Emily said, giggling, as she tore open the box that held the newest addition to her collection of Barbie dolls, which Nick and Greg had chosen the previous week during a trip to a nearby mall.

They had been going on outings, accompanied by one of the nurses, for over a month, but the trip to the mall had been the first one they’d made by themselves. Although he’d been to countless sessions which had prepared him for what he would need to do as Greg’s primary carer, Nick had still been nervous about taking him out without anyone else along to help – but the afternoon’s events had told him he needn’t have been. After their shopping trip they’d stopped at a restaurant for lunch, where Greg had ordered pizza because he still found it easier to eat with his fingers than use a knife and fork; he’d been getting a little tired, which had made him slur his words a little, but he’d had no trouble making himself understood when it had counted.

“Are you finished there?” asks the waitress, a young woman with perfect teeth and blonde hair swept back in a ponytail. “Dessert, sir?”
“No, thanks,” Nick says, slightly irritated that the questions are automatically directed at him because he isn’t the one in the wheelchair – but he’s been warned that this might happen, so he grits his teeth and smiles. “I’m fine.”
“How about your friend?”
“Coffee,” Greg pipes up, and as he smiles at the waitress his right hand – which is still weak, but getting better – reaches across the table to grasp Nick’s wrist. “Thank you.”

“I’m sleeping at Madison’s house tonight,” Emily was telling Greg. “We’re going to go out to Circus Circus for supper, and Jessie said she’d paint my nails and do my makeup -”

“We’ll see about that,” Nick said, winking at Greg as he spoke. “Oh, Emily, look – what’s Joanne got?” and the two men watched the little girl’s face light up as one of the nurses walked out onto the lawn with a cake frosted in pink and decorated with sparklers. “Come on, G, help me out here -”

“Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday, dear Emily
Happy birthday to you...”

**********

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Emily said, standing on her toes to kiss Greg’s cheek and hug him. “Nick, can I go and say goodbye to Joanne?”

“Yes, but don’t disturb her if she’s busy,” Nick told her, and he watched her leave the room before turning back to Greg. “Hey,” he said softly, seeing tears welling in the other man’s eyes, and his throat tightened; he’d known for some time that Greg’s mind was basically intact, and he couldn’t imagine how much pain Greg must be in at the realisation that he’d missed so much of Emily’s last year. “It’s okay,” and as the tears spilled down Greg’s cheeks Nick bent down to brush them away with his fingertips. “I’m coming back tonight, remember?” he whispered, and he planted a gentle kiss on Greg’s lips just as a small figure reappeared in the doorway.

“Come on, Nick! We’ll be late!”

**********
9.45 p.m

“Do you need anything?”

“’M fine,” Greg replied, watching from where he sat propped up in bed, and Nick moved to the window to draw the blinds closed.

This was another step towards normality, towards things being the way they had been – and as Nick turned off the overhead light, leaving the room lit only by the lamp on the nightstand, he felt something prickling behind his eyes at the knowledge that it had been almost a year since he’d done this.

He drew back the red comforter and climbed beneath it, turning on his side so that he could look at Greg; their eyes met, and the slightly lop-sided smile on Greg’s lips unlocked the tightness that had squeezed Nick’s heart for far too long.

“You want to turn the light off?”

“Mm-hmm,” and Greg reached out slowly towards the nightstand; moments later, the room was plunged into darkness.

Nick shifted closer to Greg, placing a hand carefully on his hip, and a few moments later he felt the familiar and never-forgotten pressure of a head resting against his shoulder.

And it didn’t matter that they were in the rehab centre instead of the apartment, it didn’t matter that this was just for one night and that Nick would go home the following morning – because they’d fought harder for this than they’d ever believed they’d have to, and the moment when Greg really came home was getting closer with every day that passed.

December 15th, 11.15 a.m - Las Vegas

“Tell me again how I got roped into this,” Jonah said as Luke parked the rental car in front of a one-storey house with a front yard the size of a postage stamp. “There’s just over a week till Christmas, and I haven’t even started my shopping yet.”

“Because you’re a good person, and I knew you’d want to help,” Luke told him, flashing a smile. “And besides, we get to hit the casino at the Luxor tonight.”

“You know Molly and I don’t see eye to eye about me gambling, cher,” Jonah said, trying unsuccessfully to hold back a smile. “She said -”

“Got you by the short hairs, doesn’t she?” Luke retorted, the familiar banter between the two men resuming. “I’ll bet you get led round on a leash at home,” but before Jonah could respond there was a knock on the driver’s side window. “Look who it is!” he said cheerfully, opening the door – and as soon as he had stepped out onto the sidewalk, Emily had jumped into his arms and hugged him.

“You really came!”

“Well, of course I did,” Luke said, setting the five year old down again. “And see who else I brought with me?”

“Jonah!” Emily cried out, and she shrieked with delight as she was swung up and set on the Cajun’s shoulders. Luke followed the two of them up the path and onto the front porch, his eyes registering the ramp that had been set up in place of steps, and as he stood on the threshold he took a deep breath.

He really shouldn’t have come here, but once he’d offered to help Nick and Greg move into their new house he hadn’t felt able to renege on it; and this, although he was never going to admit it, was the real reason he’d brought Jonah along with him.

*******

“I know you,” Greg said, once Nick had introduced him to Luke in the kitchen which was empty except for a kettle on one of the countertops. “You’re on TV.”

“Guilty as charged,” Luke said with a smile. “How are you doing?”

“’M okay,” Greg said, managing a lopsided smile of his own as he gripped his walking frame. “Day at a time, you know?” and then there was the sound of a horn outside which was followed by running feet from the back of the house.

“Nick! Greg! Our stuff’s here!”

“Okay, you can go outside, but don’t run into the road,” Nick said, and once the little girl had dashed out of the house with Jonah in tow he turned towards Greg. “You coming outside, G? We can put a chair on the porch for you.”

“I’ll come outside,” Greg said. “Don’t need a chair on the porch,” and he looked straight at Nick. “I’m not an old man.”

“No, but you’re stubborn,” Nick said, leaning forward to plant a quick kiss on Greg’s mouth, and the glance that passed between the two men made Luke’s throat tighten. “Come on, Luke, we’d better get started.”

*********

“Remind me again how I got dragged into this on my day off.”

“Probably the same way I did,” Gil replied as he removed the keys from the ignition of the U Haul. “Nick caught you at the end of a shift, and you said you’d help him move because you were too tired to think of a reason not to.”

“Pretty much,” Warrick said, yawning, and as he was unfastening his seatbelt something outside attracted his attention. “Oh, man, is that who I think it is?” and an instant later he’d opened the passenger side door and jumped down into the street; Gil followed, the keys in his hand, and by the time he reached the sidewalk Warrick was talking animatedly to a hulking man with blond dreadlocks who was standing next to Nick.

“Griss, this is Jonah,” Nick said, stepping forward and indicating the blond man. “Jonah, this is Gil Grissom,” and he waited until the two men had shaken hands before he nodded towards another man who’d been standing a foot or so away with his hands in the pockets of his threadbare jeans. “And this is Luke.”

“Hello, Luke,” Gil said, extending a hand and catching a glimpse of something tattooed on the other man’s left wrist; eyes that were almost turquoise in colour met his for a split second, and then the contact was broken.

“Okay, guys,” Nick said, “shall we get started?”

***********

By half past two the van was just about empty, the furniture having been manoeuvred into place. Warrick and Grissom were bringing the last few boxes in, and the others were all stacked in the living room to be unpacked later. Nick had made one exception, opening a box marked kitchin in a child’s stick-like printing and retrieving mugs and a jar of instant coffee. He’d apologised for not having any milk, but nobody had minded; and as the four other men sat around the kitchen table, Luke was making conversation and wondering how soon it would be before he and Jonah could leave.

“Nick,” Emily said, appearing in the kitchen doorway “I can’t find my Beanie bears.”
“They’re in one of the boxes,” Nick told his daughter. “We’re going to unpack your stuff later, remember?”

“I need them now,” Emily replied, her voice becoming more high-pitched. “I don’t have anything to play with.”

“You have your Barbies,” Nick said, and the weary expression on his face said that he’d been waiting for this to happen. “Just play with those for now.”

“No!” Emily shouted, stamping her foot, and she burst into tears. “I want my bears now! I don’t like this stupid house, and I want to go home!”

“Oh boy,” Nick said, almost under his breath, as he started to push his chair back. “Emily, you stop that -”

“Emily,” Greg said softly, laying a hand on Nick’s arm to hold him back, “Komm her over, kjaere.”

“Nei!” Emily sobbed. “Jeg vil – gjerne – ga hjem!”

“Sorry about this,” Nick said, the expression on his face changing to one of embarrassment. “I kind of figured she’d wait until y’all had gone.”

“They never do what you want,” Jonah said. “I’ve got two at home, I ought to know,” and he and Nick chuckled softly. On the other side of the table, Greg had managed to catch hold of Emily and pull her towards him; he spoke softly to his daughter, running a hand slowly up and down her back to calm her down, and even though Luke couldn’t understand what was being said he felt something tightening inside his chest.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, once he’d forced himself to finish his mug of coffee, and he stood up. “Going outside for a smoke, okay?” and he kept a smile on his face until he was out of the kitchen. He flattened himself against the wall as the last few boxes were carried past him, and then he made his way outside; leaning against his rental car, he removed his Marlboros from his pocket, but his hands were shaking so much it took several tries before he managed to light one.

**********

“The van’s empty now,” Gil announced, once he’d put the last of the boxes in the living room and returned to the kitchen. “Shall I take it back for you, Nick?”

“Be great if you could,” Nick replied, nodding towards Emily who was sitting in Greg’s lap with her face buried in his T shirt. “Someone’s a bit tired -”

“I’m not tired!” came the muffled response. “I wanna go home!”

“I’ll take care of it,” Gil told him. “Do you need anything while I’m out?”

“Some milk would be great,” Nick said, delving in the pocket of his jeans, but his attempt at finding money was waved away. “Wait a second, how will you get back?”

“I’ll ask Luke to follow me in his car,” was the matter-of-fact response, and Gil had left the kitchen before anyone could say anything else.

************

Luke was leaning against his car, a cigarette balanced between two fingers of his left hand. His right arm was folded across his chest, as though he was trying to curl in on himself – and as Gil looked at him from the porch, what he’d noticed over the previous three hours made sense.

He’d seen Luke darting glances at the little family putting itself back together inside the house – glances so subtle most people would have missed them, not recognised them for what they were, but Gil had been studying people for too long.

“Luke,” he said, stepping to the edge of the tiny front yard, “do you think you could do me a small favour?”

“What do you need?”

“I have to take this back,” Gil said, gesturing at the U Haul. “I wondered whether you’d be kind enough to follow me in your car and give me a ride back here.”

“Sure,” was the response, after a few seconds during which Gil strongly suspected that Luke had been looking for a way to say no. “Wait there,” and he jogged the few yards up onto the porch. “Nick!” he shouted into the house. “I’m going to the U Haul place with your boss, I won’t be long!”

*******

Thank god, Luke thought as the door of the U Haul office opened and Nick’s boss came down the steps. I can drop him off at Nick’s, and Jonah and I can get the hell out of here. They could hit the casino, he could get laid if he was lucky - there had to be someone from around here whose number he’d saved – then tomorrow they’d be back in Daytona, and everything would return to normal.

“Sorry,” he said, suddenly aware that Gil had been speaking to him. “What was that?”

“I said, there’s a Denny’s over there,” Gil replied, a smile playing across his lips. “Would you like to stop for coffee before we go back?”

No, I wouldn’t, Luke wanted to say. I want to take you back and then try and forget I was here - and something must have shown on his face, because Gil went on, “You look as though you could use some coffee – it’s been a busy day for all of us, and you’ve come a long way,” and since Luke didn’t want to look like an asshole in front of Nick’s boss he agreed that coffee would be good.

**********

By the time they’d been there for over an hour, the waitress had left the coffee pot on the table and the topic of cars had come up; it appeared that Gil had a passion for old cars, having restored several himself, and Luke had grabbed this topic of conversation with both hands. It was something that interested him, for one thing – but it was also preventing him, to some degree at least, from feeling as though he was one of the bugs under Gil’s microscope.

“So tell me how you know Nick and Greg,” Gil had said, almost as soon as they’d sat down, and it wasn’t only the question but the tone of voice it had been asked in that was still pissing Luke off even now. He’d told Gil about the Stokes and Morrissey families knowing each other from way back, which was true enough; then he’d added that he’d happened to run into Nick in Dallas and decided to help him once he knew what had happened, which was also true.

The only trouble was that he’d left a lot of other things out, and he suspected that somehow Gil knew this.

Luke’s cell rang, and he raised a hand to put a hold on what Gil had been saying before digging into his pocket and retrieving it. “Hang on one second, Gil – yes, what?”

“You guys get lost, boss?”

“No, we didn’t get lost, wiseass,” he retorted. “We stopped for coffee, okay? We won’t be long,” and he snapped the phone shut again. “That was Jonah,” he said, in response to the enquiring eyebrow raised by his companion. “Wanted to know where we were.”

“We have been here for a while, haven’t we?” Gil replied. “Maybe we ought to head back,” and he rose from his chair. “And Nick wanted some milk, so we’ll need to make a stop somewhere.”

For fuck’s sake, I’m not an errand boy, Luke thought, but what he said aloud was that sure, he’d find a 7-11 or something; removing his wallet from his pocket, he took out a ten dollar bill and left it beneath his empty mug on the table.

*******

He unlocked the rental car and slid into the driver’s seat, fastening his seatbelt before grabbing his Marlboros from the glove compartment and putting one in his mouth – and he was reaching for his lighter when his passenger cleared his throat.

“I’d rather you didn’t, if you don’t mind,” Gil said quietly, and Luke was rendered speechless. Screw you, he wanted to say, this is my car, but the little voice in his head reminded him once again that this was Nick’s boss; gritting his teeth, he dropped the cigarette back in the pack and turned the keys in the ignition, telling himself that in fifteen minutes he’d be able to do whatever the hell he wanted.

********

“It was good to meet you,” Luke said, shaking hands with Greg. “Get Nick to bring you to the shop if you guys are ever in Daytona,” and then he looked round at Nick, who was standing at the counter making more coffee. “You look after yourself, you hear?” he said, not quite looking at Nick as he spoke, and before he could do anything he found himself enveloped in a rough hug.

“We will,” Nick said, stepping away and smiling – a real smile now, not one that was masking stress. “Have fun in town tonight.”

“You bet,” Luke told him, and he made his way outside where Jonah was deep in conversation with Gil in the front yard. “Hey, Du Four, you planning on staying the night?” he said, mustering a smile from somewhere. “Let’s go.”

“I enjoyed meeting you, Luke,” Gil said as Jonah moved away and headed for the car. “When do you fly home?”

“Tomorrow morning,” Luke replied, and then - simply because it was what he always did whenever he met anyone, because he’d already done it with Warrick inside the house - he delved into the pocket of his jeans and retrieved one of his business cards. “Listen, hang on to this,” he went on. “If you’re ever in Florida, stop in and say hello -”

“I will,” was the answer, and Luke’s hand was shaken warmly. “Take care.”

********

“Are you hungry?”

“I’d kill for a steak,” Jonah replied as Luke – who’d already lit a cigarette - guided the rental car away from the sidewalk, both men waving at Emily as they did so. “You want to get changed and go eat?”

“Sounds like a plan,” was the answer. “Listen, thanks for coming with me.”

“Don’t mention it, cher,” and several minutes of silence elapsed before Jonah spoke again. “What the hell were you talking to Nick’s boss about for all that time?”

“Don’t ask,” Luke said ruefully. “I’m just glad you rescued me,” and he lit another cigarette from the tip of the first one. “He thinks he can tell me not to smoke in my own fucking car, though.”

“Brave man,” Jonah replied, grinning broadly. “Come on, boss, floor it. I’m hungry.”

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