| Subject: Chapter 220 - Part 1 |
Author:
KatherineG.
|
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
Date Posted: Monday, December 05, 07:01:26am
In reply to:
KatherineG.
's message, "Dreams in the Dark (203 > )" on Monday, October 03, 07:35:40am
Extra note: This will be the last part for this year. As you can probably tell, this story insists on continuing for one more Act (even if it's probably gone through about 50 already). Sorry. Still, I want to follow it till it's done. :) I should be back with more next year. Happy Holidays and New Year's, y'all! :)
Dreams in the Dark (220/?)
by Katherine Gilbert
By the next afternoon, the forces of good around Michael and Nikita had gone into action, all of them doing what they could to aid them. As the woman who had gone through so much terror and pain the night before rested in her deeply-sedated sleep, the man who loved her constantly by her side, the events of the night before were cleaned up, made so that they would never have happened in the public mind. To the world at large, the woman had collapsed from mere exhaustion--and Madeline, defeated as she was, could hint at nothing to the contrary.
The world, then, was falling into the orbit that Hollywood had proclaimed it should take once more. Even by the wee hours of the morning, they were helped by those who had once threatened them--Jones's men erasing all trace of the attack from the couple's home. Not only was Jamie back safely--if not entirely happily--at his father's house, but Hillinger's body had been left in some alley to be discovered by a traumatized waitress and her employer, as they had come in for the early-morning rush at their diner. While the police who saw him had identified him immediately, among themselves, they had listed him without question as a John Doe. And everyone in town with any knowledge to the contrary had sense enough not to speculate too loudly over what might have happened.
Such a public disposal of the body might seem more open than necessary, but Jones had seen nothing to hide in such a case. No one would come to claim the man; no policeman would truly investigate. And the businessman had let it be known, through the circles in which such men moved, that he held none of his rivals responsible, assumed that the gunman's ways with women had simply come back to haunt him. It was a believable enough story, among anyone who might care enough to ponder it. The man's body would end up in a pauper's grave without his name--and no one on earth would mourn him at all.
The couple he had once so threatened--the man whose previous fiancée he had killed and the woman whom he had tried to make into his permanent victim--were primary among those who would never grieve for his loss. If they decided to return to the house which had witnessed such horror last night--a question which had yet to be answered, given Nikita's lack of consciousness since--they would even discover new carpeting in their bedroom, all blood stains removed. Nothing in the room would ever show that such a scene had taken place--the wall where the woman had taken a warning shot at her brother now even replastered. There would never be any hint on earth that the gunman had ever lived.
This was comforting, for everyone involved, but it had yet to solve all the couple's problems. While they were physically safe, Madeline's plans in fortunate ruins, there was much discussion to be done between the pair to try to begin their healing; Michael sighed, staring at his still-sleeping wife. But that couldn't even be attempted, until she was awake once more.
He bided his time, then, as he had for much of the day, knowing such things couldn't be rushed--praying to God that he would be able to see her through this at all. He was just fortunate that the hospital knew enough about the workings of this town to not have told the truth about what they had seen--Nikita's shock quite serious, when she had first been admitted. Still, when a star appeared looking more than the worse for wear, you were a fool if you asked why. Only the truly naive were ever going to go up against a studio in this town.
This truth protected the pair, had allowed them to be left alone, aside from occasional visits from a nurse or a friend. Fortunately, too, Nikita's clinical shock had been reversed in time, not doing any lingering physical damage that the doctors had found; it was one of the few bits of solace Michael had, the night--and all its possible horrors--still torturing him much too strongly. It would just have been far too ironic, if he had lost her, after all the dirty work against them had been done.
He continued to stare at her lovingly for another few moments, hoping that all could go well once she was with him once more, before he forced himself to look away, gazing down, half-blindly, to the paper in his hands. Helmut had brought it by earlier, along with whatever news he knew of to report. The studio might not be happy at their absence, but Madeline knew there was nothing to be done about it yet. For now, they were safe; he sighed, staring at the page. It was all they could ask for, at the moment.
He decided to read the article the man had pointed out to him, then--the one he more than suspected the banker's helpful hand in--trying to bide his time, until his beloved awakened. More than ever before, his wife needed her rest. Once she was conscious, there would be far too much to deal with; his sigh lingered. He could only pray that they would be able to manage it as one.
He tried not to think such disturbing thoughts, the news he focused on yet another column by Hedda; it was short but worked--quite fortunately--entirely to their favor. It read:
Big news, faithful readers! While you might have heard that that darling Kitty Ward was admitted to the hospital last night, suffering from overwork, Hedda has found out a little secret for you. Just months after her marriage, the news is wonderful. It looks like, in just another eight months or so, the stork will be doing his work for Mr. and Mrs. Michael Samuelle. Yes, your favorite couple are expecting their first baby! How's that for "overwork" for you? We should all be as lucky as these two, lovely kids.
He had to laugh, if somewhat dimly, at this typical effusion but was relieved, nonetheless. In just one, short paragraph, the woman had done them a world of good. Now, the terrible trauma of last night would never be questioned by the world--all focus elsewhere. It was masterful. For once, he had to be thankful to the woman for her work on their behalf.
He still didn't entirely know why the gossip maven had taken their side so thoroughly again, but he was grateful--and he did have his suspicions. Having been one of the first to announce the pregnancy--that fact having been suspected last night by the doctors, who were in the process of seeing whether the poor rabbit in question agreed--she could also gain exclusive coverage of all future baby news. But it was a small price to pay for her aid here. After all they had gone through, they couldn't exactly stand too much more scrutiny now.
Still, this wasn't the only reason he suspected that the woman had played along--Helmut probably having some sort of word with her; he wasn't even certain he wanted to know what it had been. The man had put himself out for them so often, had even gotten himself into an unpleasant position with that moral abyss, Bauer, in the process. He didn't want to know that he was endangering the banker--or any of those people the man so assiduously protected--yet again.
Still, he was thankful for these major reasons for Hedda's current malleability, wherever they might lead them--but there was probably another, far less pleasant, one behind it. The very proximity of Hillinger's death to Nikita's collapse, both of them happening on the very same night--even to someone who didn't know all the details--would have to be considered suspicious, if you had any sort of deeper knowledge about this town. Still, the columnist wasn't fool enough to question the death of the gunman, would be happy to give the party line in such a case, were she forced to acknowledge it at all, which wasn't likely--Jones not a man to knowingly anger. And it would all aid them, in its terrible way. Any suspicions she might have would make her all the more willing to play along.
These facts, oddly enough, comforted him--any protection of Nikita and her reputation acceptable, just now; something within him seemed to drop. But there were other issues which worried him still--and none of them even addressed the whole problem of needing to aid his beloved through her pain.
He put off this last need, his wife still deeply unconscious, his loving eyes taking her in, as he thought. But what worried him most now were his own failings last night. *He* was supposed to be the one to protect--he the one to make certain she was safe. Instead, he had let her go home alone, had forced her to face what could well have been a very ugly death without him; his sigh went deep. And she alone had been the one to hold off her assailants, while he had had to look on in silence.
This very fact disgusted him, his absolute impotence in the face of her desperate need far too much to accept. He wasn't even certain how to make it up to her, how he could ever begin to apologize. As beautiful as she was in her strength, as proud of her as he always was, there was no forgiving *him*. He had failed, just as he had failed Simone and so many others before her. The fact that she was alive lay solely to her own credit now.
This fact was almost too much to take. While he was relieved to his very soul that she was at least physically well, his inaction had already eaten away at him greatly. Perhaps it was just that he had prepared himself for the assault for so long, had steeled himself to kill in her defense. Perhaps it was just some masculine need to protect the woman he had mated with. He wasn't certain. But he did feel less manly, less whole, having failed her; he had to close his eyes. None of it seemed forgivable at all.
All of these torments didn't even take in the fact that he was still astounded by Jones's apparent change of heart, was still uncertain why the man had bothered, when he had gone to all the trouble to blackmail Fain to begin with. But it just brought him back to his own, terrible inadequacies. It seemed too likely that the "businessman" was under the impression that Michael alone had handled the situation; he somehow didn't imagine Jamie easily confessing to the murder of his father's lackey. But such, terrible praise wasn't due him at all.
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
| |
Feedback: 