This one isn't as 'happy' as the last chapter. You can yell at me if you like.
Don't forget to vote with the STARS, and comments and emails are always appreciated.
I would say enjoy, but that wouldn't really be accurate.
The next year goes by quickly. Nic and Lizzy talk about once a week, but usually it's texts. His initialisms are still frustrating. WGF – wicked great fuck. WTPSYITN – went to porn site, you're in trouble now. NYN-need you now. Just random shit that she has no idea what it means, so she has to ask him. Of course, she could just let it slide, but that's against her nature. She needs to solve puzzles. He knows this, so that's why he keeps doing it.
We meet maybe once a month. Sometimes he sneaks into her apartment, sometimes they get a hotel room, a few times they didn't make it out of the parking lot. They avoid his place because they never know when it's being watched. The weeks between the rendezvous get harder and harder to endure. Sometimes she just wishes it'd get out. Let the chips fall where they will. She doesn't like lying to her family or friends.
Lizzy's sound asleep when the phone rings. It takes two rings to locate the source and identify the annoyance waking her up. Uuuuugggghhhwlalalalalwlwlal. She swipes the phone on, noticing that it's Malachi disturbing her at 2:14 A.M. "What?" There's no rule that says you have to be nice to family when they wake you up at two in the frickin' morning.
"Liz. Wake up and listen." He sounds nervous. It's not obvious, but she can hear it under the calm he always projects. Malachi never sounds nervous. "Papa's been shot. They're taking him and Young to New York-Presbyterian. Do you understand this?"
Her first thought, hope, prayer, is that this is a joke. But no one in a cop's family would joke about this. There has to be another explanation. "LIZ! Do you understand this?"
She focuses on the phone again. It's so hard to speak. "Ahhh. Yeah. Presbyterian."
Malachi is in charge, do what Malachi says. Just breathe. "Get up. Get dressed. Grab your things. Go to the hospital. Do it now Liz." He waits for my response. When none is heard he shouts her name again and repeats the instructions.
"Yeah. I got it. I'll meet you there." Her body is numb as she tries to get out of bed. She stumbles into the bathroom and stares at the reflection in the mirror. Get it together girl. A fleeting thought; she wants to call Nic, but can't. She dresses hastily and grabs her stuff and begins to make her way to the subway stop. In the haze, she sees red and blue lights. A police unit pulls to a stop in front of her. Without a word she walks toward it. The officer opens the back door and she climbs in. No words are spoken and the identity of the officer is lost in the fog of her mind. Papa's been shot. She doesn't see or hear anything as the squad car drives her somewhere. Papa's been shot.
Turning the corner, the large hospital is brightly lit in the distance. She can see Aiden and Liam jumping out the back of another squad car and bolting into the hospital. Cops are everywhere. Two traffic lights until her escort turns into visitors entrance. She jumps out before the car stops.
All eyes turn toward her. She feels lost, like she can't breathe. An officer comes up and takes her arm. Hallway. Swinging doors. Elevator. Screaming baby. Hallway. Potted plant. More cops. Cops everywhere. Nurses. Door.
The tears start to fall as Liz sees her mom and Peggy Young, the wife of her papa's partner, sitting together on an ugly orange sofa, hands clasped, foreheads pressed together. Grampa, Rogan, and her brothers all look lost, sitting or pacing in the large waiting room. Jim's two boys are clinging to their mother's legs. Their grandma is holding the baby, only 4 months old. "What happened?"
Liz sinks to her knees at her mother's feet. The story comes from everywhere at once, by bits and pieces. Papa and Jim both got shot sitting in their squad car at a traffic light. Motorcycles pulled beside them and lit them up through the open windows. Civilians flooded the area, forming a protective ring around the squad car. Civilians flooded the area, ruining any evidence. Nurses gave aid until paramedics arrived. In surgery now. Two bullets to the chest. Four bullets to the chest. Five bullets to the chest. A whole clip. No one knows much. Papa got shot. Papa's in surgery. Please. Please let him be OK. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Time stops. Minutes crawl by. Hours fly by. Nurses come in and give updates. She doesn't know if they're talking about papa or Jimmy. Lung collapse. Lost a lot of blood. Ruptured spleen. Removed a kidney. Lacerated aorta. One time a doctor came in; he was splattered with blood. He says stuff, but Liz doesn't comprehend them. Peggy Young starts screaming. Mom is sitting alone on the sofa. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
A doctor comes in; he's spattered with blood too. "Neila Bryne?" He looks toward her mom. "I'm sorry Mrs. Byrne, but the extent of the injuries was too great, we couldn't save your husband." He's still talking, but she can't hear his words. She can't hear the screaming, or the crying, just a dull ringing in her ears.
The following days go by in a surreal jumbled stupor. Choosing the casket, and combining the two funerals. Cops, thousands of cops arrive to pay their respects to Quinlan Byrne and James Young. Liz almost loses it at the 21-gun salute. She clings to her grampa and he clings to her; it's the first time she's ever seen him cry.
That night she goes home, for the first time since she got the call. Her own bed. Silent and alone she enters and stands there in the dark. Now what? Papa's gone. She won't hear his voice anymore. She won't get him his favorite aftershave for Christmas. He won't give her any more sage advice or really horrible jokes. She'll never laugh as he shouts at the football games on TV. Papa's gone.
She drops to the floor and cries. A whole week's worth of pent-up tears flow freely in the darkness. An hour later she's still on the floor. The tears have stopped, but she doesn't have the strength to move. A soft knock on the door. She ignores it. Again the knock, only a little louder. There's some scratching sounds and the light from the hallway floods in as the door opens.
The door hits her feet and the silhouette of head peeks in the crack. The door pushes the rest of the way open; Liz lets it push her across the floor instead of moving. It closes and darkness surrounds her again.
Strong solid arms embrace her. She smells him first. Nic calms her and soothes her. She focuses on the deep sultry tones of her lover's voice, letting him hold her together. During the long night, he picks her up, showers her, dresses her, and gets her to bed. Somewhere along the way, he convinces her that the world hasn't ended, that she's strong enough to survive.
She awakes early in the morning and her heart stops. She just stares at the beautiful peaceful face of the man lying in her bed. Lizzy runs her hand across his face to prove that he really does exist. Sleepily he turns toward her and smiles a little smile. He's real.
"Thank you, Nic. I feel better just knowing you're here. I don't know why, but it makes me feel better."
His hand caresses her face as he kisses her forehead. "Your heart was breaking, so I gave you mine. I'll always be here for you Lizzy."
She kisses him. She can't help it. "Please make love to me. I need something to make me feel alive. Please, Nic. Please make me feel alive again."
He's wanted to hear her beg for so long, but not like this. This just breaks his heart. For the next hour he brings her to the edge of bliss. One after another, orgasms crash down around her, drowning out her pain. He tells her how strong she is. How brave she is. How proud he is to know her. He tells her she will survive this, and she believes him. His words and his touch help her find her strength again. It's hard, but she knows she'll make it through this. Life goes on. Her life will go on.
They're lying in bed together, her head resting on his chest. His fingers are gently massaging her scalp. "I've been following the news, but they're not releasing much information. What happened?"
It takes a long time to answer. "We leap-frogged any and every camera we could get our hands on until we found clear shots of the shooters unloading the cycles from a truck. They were Soviet military originally, but they've been East Coast hit men for the last decade or so. Thanks to the CIA we know what banks and what aliases they use, so we're tracking the money right now. We haven't found the shooters yet. Or who paid them. But we will."
"The CIA is helping you?"
"Well, technically it was an anonymous CIA tip. We have a few 'black sheep' in the family who became firefighters, military, and feds, including the CIA. We even have a baker! Muffins, pies, tortes, and cakes. No doughnuts. No doughnuts ever." It feels good to laugh. Lizzy tells Nic about the 'pie-nuts'. The first week that Maggie's bakery was open, all the cops bought a pie, ate out the center, and started shouting 'pie-nuts' in the store. Maggie was getting so angry with everyone.
"It's getting early. I should go." He glances at the first light coming through the window. "Do you need anything?"
A hundred things cross her mind. Ask him to find the shooters. Ask him to offer a reward. Ask him to stay. "I think I'll be fine. Thank you for last night. I felt so lost."
"It was my pleasure. I'll always be here if you need me." He climbs out of bed and gets dressed. "Do me a favor though. Eat something. You look pale and malnourished." Lizzy just nods that she will. A short kiss goodbye and Nic has to leave. He can't be seen around her apartment.
As promised, she has breakfast. Well sorta. Hot Pockets aren't technically breakfast food, but after more than a week-long absence, not much else was salvageable in the kitchen. The morning is spent with nervous activity; a shower and shave, cleaning windows and floors, vacuuming, laundry, etc. Lizzy is not sure that if she sits down, she'll get back up again.
After her place is spotless, she takes the bus to her mom's house. A small smile crosses her lips as she enters. She is her mother's daughter. Mom is cleaning her house as well. They sit and chat, eating bowl after bowl of chicken noodle soup well into the night.
Even though everyone has two weeks off for bereavement leave, updates still find their way into the Byrne household. Carlos checks up on her daily, and most of her information comes from him, she expects the others are getting similar check-ins from their squads.
Everyone is floored when the threads start to come together. A lawyer. A fucking lawyer paid for the hit men to murder two cops. His two entitled snot nosed brats got caught with almost a kilo of pot in their car. Apparently the kids convinced Mr. Genius lawyer that if the arresting officers were not able to testify, the case would be dropped, and they could follow in his footsteps and become lawyers. How fucked up is that!
Reporters swarm us and ask offensive questions trying to get exclusive sound bites for their station. Grampa says we can't shoot them, although she saw him on more than one occasion cleaning his gun and staring at the reporters through the window. The lawyer hires the best defense attorney, and we all dig in for the long judicial process to begin. Even though we have the names and aliases of the shooters, we still can't find them. They could be anywhere.
Mom and grampa go to every hearing and every motion. Anything to do with the case that they are allowed to attend, they're there. The rest of us go as we're available, sometimes for the whole day, sometimes for a part day, and sometimes for a lunch hour. The lawyer and his two sons never even look at any us. The courtroom fills with cops every time.
