*****051:

She set Richard up in a room facing the ocean on the ground floor of her new house, near the kitchen and great room, so he could hear Danny playing, and see her if she was cooking or preparing his herbal cocktails. And after the first day home, when a nurse had been brought in, Tracy called Richard's mother, Louise Mann, to come help out. He was essentially trapped.

Louise was a farm girl, but in her youth, she'd been a dancer and taught also. That made sense, seeing as Richard was an accomplished dancer as well. She hustled and bustled around, organizing and cleaning. She bowed to Tracy's herbal knowledge and eventually Richard's desire to use it. But it meant a strict regimen of pills and shakes; therapy after the swelling went down.

Tracy had re-written the film schedule, with very little real deviation, just the shots that required Richard's presence were put off for a later time. Living together in the same house meant that all talk was shop talk. This was of interest to all but Louise, who finally stayed out of their way when they ventured to congregate in Richard's rooms. Tracy used oils to massage into Richard's skin to open it up and release the toxins it was holding. He did a lot of throwing up the first three days, and it had nothing to do with his leg.

He was an irascible patient, ungrateful, unappreciative, loud, obnoxious, and dissatisfied. He complained incessantly, till his mother pulled on his toes hard and caused him to scream, thereby ending the loud and obnoxiousness.

Tracy--- up at the crack of dawn, came to him every morning, ran lines, read scriptures, because he knew he was disrupting her normal routine, and he bitched about it the whole time, but wouldn't think of having her stay upstairs. She practiced meditation, and therefore he began to as well, it not being something he'd ever thought of. She did yoga, and he began to utilize what poses he could, dragging his pain-wracked body from bed to floor and back, once the chills and sweats were gone.

Danny came in to find his momma, playing with her, doing yoga with her, and being generally entertaining. Richard at first had thought that he might be annoying, but he was not an annoying child. He was quiet and absorbed in his Voltron guys. He also played the piano. How could he not, with Tracy McCaffrey for a mother?

And he didn't whine. He did sometimes get boisterous--- but that might have been egged on. He sat on Richie's bed to watch his cartoons. They developed a rapport.

He soon found out that she really didn't sleep. She played her piano at all hours of the night, and wrote incessantly. And she came into his room in the middle of the night to talk.

He'd dozed. When he opened his eyes, the only light was from the huge windows overlooking the sea, the blinds had been raised, and the sheer curtains pulled back. She was standing there, in a longer diaphanous gown--- shapeless, and nearly sheer. It had been unseasonably warm, her hair was piled on top of her head, and only a few stragglies wisped down. She'd softly opened the glass door, and with one hand on it, and one on her stomach, was watching the waves come in.

Through the moonlight, he imagined or thought he could sense the curve of hip and waist, the swell of breast, the slant of shoulder, and the enticing softness of her back. He swallowed hard. It wasn't the first time he'd caught her in here, but it was the first she'd come in dressed in anything but her sweats and ugly t-shirt. She did her best to be unappealing.

"How are you feeling?" She didn't turn, but had sensed the difference in his breathing.

"Like shit." His standard answer.

"As much like shit as you did last week at this time?"

"No." Again the standard answer.

"Two more days." She finally turned and came to the bed, reaching out to lay her cool palm across his forehead, as she leaned, he sniffed appreciably. She smelled like roses and jasmine, alternately, depending on her conditioner.

"Till what?" He allowed her to minister to him, fluffing his pillows, and straightening the thin blankets.

"Till we go to Egypt and go scuba diving. Oh--- that's right--- you can't go, you broke your leg playing daredevil on the slopes, oh, and the little matter of the war in the middle east. Yeah, I guess that rules out Egypt. Never say it was me that wigged." She sat on the edge of the bed, and finally scooted closer and leaned up against his pillows. He wondered not for the first time where she'd learned this familiarity. It hadn't showed up until recently--- but she'd become completely free with his person, and pretty much with her own around him too. He didn't understand this aspect of her. Almost like a walking contradiction. One moment uber modest, the next filling his senses with erotic womanliness.

"Egypt?"

"You asked me to go to Egypt and go scuba diving with you, don't you remember?"

"No." He smiled. "You're making it up."

She wriggled in close to him, actually laying her head on his shoulder, her hand on his t-shirt covered chest. "The first night you were here, totally gagging and sick, and out of your mind in pain. You don't remember?"

"I remember wanting to die." He held her fingers over his heart and reveled in her proximity. "How are you justifying this in your mind, pray tell, almost married madam."

She sighed, a very deep and heartfelt sigh. "I'm not. I shouldn't be here."

"Yes, you should." He held her there, held her close as she would have got up to leave. "I need you."

"You don't need me. Austin said he knows you better than me, and that you're dangerous, and not to be trusted. I guess you guys have shared a past like I have with my band."

"I've known him a long time, and we've had some good times, that's for sure. But he's a whole new man, investigating God and all that." Richard smoothed the skin of her wrist and arm, drawing circles from unseen freckle to unseen freckle. He knew her freckles now like the back of his own hand.

"He says he came in here the other day, or came to the door and thought he heard us kissing."

Richard grunted. "Wishful thinking, that."

"He said when he came in I was on the bed as we studied, and you were looking down my shirt."

A quiet snort accompanied the chuckle this time. "I was, and it was a very enticing display if I do say so myself."

She leaned back, one hand pressed to her chest. "Keep your eyes to yourself."

"Did he also tell you he thinks I'm his sick, throwing up, gagging, smelly, whiny baby friend who constantly calls for water?"

"That's a given." She nestled back beside him. "You make a very poor patient."

"I am the exemplary patient. Having to sit here while you go off to the set with him every day, knowing that very soon will be the scene when he actually does get to kiss you--- and it will be his dream come true, and I will be a jealous green-eyed monster."

"I'm not at all sure I can do that scene, in all honesty, Richard." She said seriously and sat up. "Maybe I should stay home more and take care of my invalid patient."

"There will be no using me as your excuse, dear. What do you mean you can't do it? Austin says the filming is going better than he planned. You only need two to three takes per scene, versus fifteen. He says you are a dream to work with."

She snorted now, scooting away from him, catching her shirt beneath her and pulling it tighter across her chest. The arm holes were long, and she wasn't wearing anything beneath it. He swallowed harder, watching the undulating reflection of moonlight on that very tantalizing skin.

"I'd like to get you up." She said.

He cleared his throat. "Oh, no problem. I'm up." He stated wryly, and then closed his eyes and looked at the ceiling. "What I meant to say was that my mom already got me up quite a bit today, and I'm exhausted. I'd rather just lay right here and listen to you."

"I'd like to see you walk to the door and back."

"I've had enough for today." There was no way he was getting up and showing off his blatant display her close proximity had caused.

"Is this Richard I hear, or one of his characters?"

"Is that Nastya I hear? She's rather bossy."

"She is, isn't she? It's harder to lose her than you think. She sort of grows on you."

"What will you do with her while you're on stage next weekend with Casey and the gang?"

"Oh, I'll have to be Tracy again and pulverize her, be the rocker girl I always am deep inside." She eyed his guitar leaning against the wall beside the door. "You want to play?" She went and got it, and perched on the foot of the bed, playing a pretty ditty, then broke into a bluesy rocker, her head nodding to the imaginary drum beat, her lips pursed. Richard had no choice but to admire her.

It was no use asking how she did that. She was that talented. It just came.

Just as suddenly she put down the guitar and pulled up the sheet covering his cast and his other leg. She stared at his legs critically while he grew warm at her perusal, abstractedly covering his more private parts with a nonchalant hand. She sighed in relief and then went to the bathroom and came back with the bowl and cloth she used to massage him with essential oils to rid his skin of pollutants. He sat forward, hunched over his stomach gratefully.

"You have no idea how good that feels."

"I think I do have at least some idea."

"When I'm back on my feet, I'll give you a massage you won't forget."

"Okay."

"That was pretty quick. I mean, for you. That answer was too quick."

"Got a lot on my mind."

"Well, focus, I want you to have me on your mind right now."

Tracy laughed running her fingers deftly over his still hard muscled frame. Richard was very smooth, no freckles or moles, no zits like Julian had on his back, no hair like Casey had. He reminded her a little of Raine. And that reminded her that they were planning a wedding in just three short weeks. It made other things pale in comparison.

"I'm going to see Raine in three weeks."

"In three weeks you'll be knee-deep in production. Let's see, and I will too."

"I'm going to visit him."

"I believe you." But his heart skipped a beat.

"I think you'll be baptized. I know you've had the missionaries over when I'm not here." It wasn't an accusation.

"Well, we don't want anyone saying that you forced your religion down my throat while I was held captive here." He smiled at her deep tissue attempt. "Actually it was my mother's idea. She is the one investigating your church, because of Zack. She thinks we'll set a baptismal date next week, not next month."

She leaned against his back, having climbed on the bed behind him, "Really? That's very--interesting."

"Don't go getting all mushy on me."

"Mushy is not in my self-concept." She climbed off the bed and started for the door, but he caught her lightweight gown, and she turned. "Richard."

"Are you leaving?"

"I'm going to get a couple hours of sleep before I have to be up for a practice."

"Practice for what?"

"The band, you so kindly reminded me, we have a reunion concert while Casey is still able to play."

"Oh." He looked at her standing there in the funny wavy lights as if the ocean itself pulled the light from her, or toward her. "Tracy, you're so pretty."

She stopped pulling "Richard, don't...."

"What's wrong?"

"Don't become attached to me. I'm going to marry...."

"Did I say anything? I just said you're pretty. It's the truth."

"You tend to compliment me a lot. And even though I like it, I am leery of letting you feel that way. It's going to make it harder when...."

"When what?"

"When you know.... We have to be apart. Austin says...." She took a deep breath. "Austin has noticed that we spend a lot of time together."

"You are tending me while I convalesce."

"I'm going to be gone in a few days. You have therapy. You're getting better. You have such a strong desire now to get off the drugs. It's helping you immensely. You're a lot stronger willed than Jules was."

He looked down. "Yeah. Yeah, you've said that before."

"Well, it's true. I anticipate you being able to say you're cold sober very soon. No cravings, no withdrawal symptoms."

"No shakes?"

"Are you still shaking?"

"Sometimes, wanna feel?" he held out his hand. He clasped her gently and brought her fingers to his lips, his eyes holding hers. "How's the music, girlfriend? Hearing anything unusual?"

She tried to take a step back and faltered. There were so many songs with Richard, so many ways the music swirled around her when he touched her. And that feeling of rushing, as if a motion in her that raced around all day, suddenly stopped and found release. Found a way to share itself.

"Stop making me hear it."

"I know you like hearing it."

"But it isn't right... I've made other choices."

"Unmake them. Come explore with me."

"No."

He kissed her fingers, pulled her wrist up and kissed her there too, feeling the warm beat of her pulse. "Our flick, the part we are in together, in a month, I'll be back on my feet by then. There are a thousand things for us to explore together. I'm sober, Trace, it'll be epic."

"You want some Nervine?"

"No. My leg isn't hurting right now."

"I should go."

"But I have things... issues I need to talk about."

"Now?"

"Um hmm." He watched her in the semi-light.

"You want me to stay that badly? You'll bare your soul?"

"I trust you. It's time. I need to get it off my chest."

She turned and pulled up the recliner his mom had slept in the first two nights he was home. He could see the resignation in the set of her shoulders. She pulled her feet up as well, and curled into a partial ball. He'd been hoping she'd sit on the bed again. But he knew when he'd pushed her hard enough.

"There are rules about talking to me." She said. "I'm not your Bishop. You can't just confess everything and expect to be forgiven by God."

"Are you saying there are things you think you'd rather not know?"

"I'll let you be the judge of that." She said warily. "But I'm not a psychologist either. I may have taken a few classes, and thought it was my major once upon a time, but that doesn't give me a license to counsel."

"Okay, that's fair." He took a deep breath. "Once upon a time.... There was a prince. He was a pretty good prince as prince's go, he minded his mother the Queen. However, his father, the King, sort of bothered him, but whose father, the King, doesn't right? They all let that slide. The other princes and princesses were not as well behaved as this prince, and sometimes the heir apparent was downright naughty. But of course, the prince loved the heir apparent, he was after all his big brother. And everything he did seemed glamorous and cool."

As Richard told of the conditions he'd grown up in, Tracy got a visual image of him trying to be like his big brother, Shawn. But as Shawn got older he got into more and more rich kid, affluent trouble. At first, he tried to save Shawn from himself. But he wanted to be a part of Shawn's life very badly. There were bad things they'd done back then.

Richard couldn't see Tracy's eyes to know what she was thinking, but he had not heard her breathing change, and felt she was still very calm.

He told her in a quiet, rushed, clipped monotone, of how he and Shawn and some friends ran together in a pack. They broke into people's homes and stole things, they beat up neighboring groups, and they ditched school and smoked pot. They stole a car, they dealt drugs, and took them. And finally, they had kidnapped a seventeen-year-old girl, tied her up, kept her in a trailer in the woods with very little food and drink, and no association for a month, at least, and repeatedly raped her. He hadn't been the main instigator, and Shawn being over eighteen at the time had spent quite a bit of time in prison for that.

He expressed his own horror and guilt. He cried.

And Tracy sat there, stoically trying not to judge. Her own tears smarting behind her lids, her heart withdrawing from him anyway.

He went on to tell about cruelty to animals he and his gang had committed, drugs and night long drug parties, and the senseless and thoughtless acts of gang mentality. They'd been a gang in every sense of the word. They fought with other gangs. They stole things and covered up for each other. Eventually, they'd been caught.

At three he came out of his self-imposed reverie and looked over at her. He could see her eyes glistening in the darkness.

Finally, she unfolded herself from the chair. He hoped she would come to him, put her arms around him, and tell him she understood the mistakes of youth.

She stood there, her knees visibly shaking. "I'm going to bed."

******