Mason

"Now what?" Toni asked herself as the realization that she was in love with Mason sunk in. She was scared and happy? Was she happy? She wondered. Scared for sure, "Ok Toni." she said to herself, "Let's talk about this."

She kicked off her shoes and slipped her feet into the purple bunny slippers wiggling her toes in the softness of them. Deciding that she was hungry, she went to the small apartment sized refrigerator to see what Mason had cooked up for lunch. Sitting on top of each other were two containers each containing what looked like clam chowder. On a hunch, Toni decided to call Mason and see if he was free, it didn't seem fair that she would get lunch and he wouldn't. Mason answered his cell on the first ring.

"Toni? Is everything alright?" he asked before he even said hello.

"It's fine." Toni replied. "Are you still busy?"

"It's slowed down enough that I could take a quick lunch break." he replied. "I'll meet you downstairs in five minutes."

Reluctantly, Toni took off the comfortable bunny slippers and put her shoes back on. She gathered the containers of clam chowder and made her way to the doctor's lounge where Mason was already waiting. As soon as he saw her, he stood up and took the containers of soup from her while greeting her with a smile. They stood by the microwave together and waited for the food to heat.

"How's your night going?" Mason asked.

"Better than yours I imagine." Toni replied as she gathered the napkins and spoons for their meal.

"Well, as I said, things are calming down. Hopefully the rest of the night will be quiet. How's Jamie?" Mason asked.

"Good and wondering when he's going to get to read that book with you." Toni replied.

"I know. I talked with him just before my shift started and we made tentative plans for tonight if you're up to it."

She should have been irritated that Mason made plans with Jamie without asking her first but she wasn't, it felt natural, as if this was the way it was supposed to be.

"What are you thinking about doing?" she asked as Mason took the chowder out of the microwave and checked to see if it was hot enough.

"Miniature golf is out but we could go out for ice cream and maybe one of the evening ocean cruises." Mason suggested.

Toni thought about it, "That's sounds like a plan, six?" she asked.

Mason's pager went off just as they finished eating. Mason glanced at it and grimaced.

"I'm sorry but I have to go, I'll see you tonight." Mason said touching Toni's hand.

Toni cleaned up the trash from their meal and headed back to the sleeping room. Once again she kicked off her shoes and put on the bunny slippers, it was time to finish that conversation that she was having with herself. She made herself comfortable; she had the time since she had already finished her dictation. Toni lay on the cot and looked up at the ceiling and then closed her eyes.

"Ok Toni." she said out loud. "What's the real issue here?" she asked herself. "You're in love with the man, you've admitted that, you don't like the idea of him being with anyone else and there's no one else that's even come close to making you feel the way you used to feel with James. He sincerely likes Josh and your parents and let's not forget that they like him and would be thrilled to no end if you came out with what was happening between you and Mason.

But really, besides the one date and the kiss what's happening? I mean really Toni, did he say that he wanted more? No he didn't, maybe you're seeing more than what's really there. Antoinette Marie Jacobson, stop trying to fool yourself, the man has ingratiated himself into your life over a three year period so just say what the real issue is!" she admonished himself.

But she couldn't, she was too afraid to say the words so she thought them, "what if he dies? What if we get close and he dies? I can't go through that again; I don't think that I could survive that again. "Alright Toni, so what are you going to do?" she asked herself out loud. "Not see him? If you do that, what are you going to tell Jamie? And what about the fact that you love the man?" Toni asked herself.

She was developing a headache, she was over thinking this and she knew it but she couldn't deny that her fear was real. The bottom line was this, they had to talk about whatever this was, she needed to know what he was thinking if for no other reason than Jamie. Maybe tonight after Jamie was in bed, they could talk and start laying their cards out. Toni knew that the whole hospital was abuzz with talk and she was sure that Mike Ellis was now a major contributor and that people would believe him simply because he rarely participated in the rumor mill as he was often the subject of it. Toni sighed; tonight she and Mason were going to have that talk.

*******

After he was paged, Mason rushed back to the psych unit cursing the whole way. The patient causing the disturbance was a sixty something year old man who was a frequent flyer. The man had a nurse trapped in his room but she had the presence of mind to run into the bathroom and close the door behind her. The patient was standing in the doorway swinging a chair at whoever got close, the situation had escalated when someone called security and the patient thought that he was under attack.

By the time Mason made it to the floor, the other patients were in their rooms safely and the patient in question was screaming. There was no way that anyone would be able to get close enough to give the man an injection and not get hurt. "Fuck." Mason swore under his breath. He made a conscious effort not to use compulsion on anyone especially when at work but it looked as though he wasn't going to have too much of a choice.

"Everyone move away." Mason said quietly with his eyes on the agitated and combative patient.

"But..." one of the male nurses said.

"I'll be fine." Mason interrupted, "now go."

Reluctantly the nurse left Mason alone with the patient but didn't go too far away, the others left as soon a Mason told them to leave. Mason looked at the patient and decided to see if he could calm him down by talking to him.

"Franklin," He said using the patient's first name hoping that the man would see him as a friend. "Do you know who I am?" he asked.

The patient looked at Mason and charged at him.

"Shit!" Mason swore as he didn't move as the patient came at him. His dark eyes flashed just once and the patient stopped just a few feet from him.

"Franklin, my name is Dr. Donahue, do you remember me?" Mason asked.

The patient looked confused and tried to move toward Mason. "I guess not." Mason muttered. As much as he wanted to compel the patient to go back to bed, he didn't, things had to appear as normal as possible.

"I need 2 mg of ativan diluted with normal saline no more than a cc and a 21 gauge needle." Mason called out.

"Got it!" the male nurse who was the last to leave called out.

While he waited, Mason continued to talk to the patient even though he really didn't need to but it was all about appearances.

"Franklin, I'm going to give you an injection. It might sting a little but afterwards you'll feel better and you'll be able to sleep." As he was saying this, he was compelling the patient to cooperate but released enough of his free will so that the patient would struggle just a little. When the male nurse came with the injection, Mason asked him to stay.

"I'll hold him while you give him the injection." Mason said thankful that it was the male nurse that responded.

"Shouldn't we have another pair of hands?" the nurse asked.

"No, it'll just agitate him again, once I get a hold on him, give him the shot and make it quick." Mason replied.

Fifteen minutes later the patient was in bed. The combination of the ativan and Mason's compulsion made it easy to get him to bed. Mason tapped on the bathroom door and called in, "You can come out now."

The nurse was still very much shaken when she came out. Mason gave her a few minutes to calm down, he wanted to know how she came to be trapped in the room, any experienced psych nurse knew not to be trapped like that.

"I don't work this floor, they floated me up from the med surg Unit." she replied.

"Were you ever oriented to this floor?" Mason asked.

"No and I told them that I wasn't comfortable with coming here but they said it as my turn to float." she replied.

Mason nodded at her, he knew that she would never make the same mistake again but what would have happened if he hadn't been here? Someone could have gotten seriously hurt; it was time to talk to someone about this. Joyce had tried and failed; now it was his turn to try.

He looked at the clock; it was only four, three more hours to go.

********

Toni's pager went off only twice more during the shift. Both pages were easily handled by phone and both were about orders that she had written, she really had to work on improving her handwriting. For the rest of the shift, Toni thought about Mason and what it could mean for her and Jamie if she decided to see where their relationship went. She had to admit that Jamie was happier and so was she but she couldn't get around the fear of Mason dying on them. Her mother's advice about staying single because she wanted to and not out of fear ran through Toni's mind and she knew that if she turned Mason away it would be out of fear and nothing else. The question was could she get over that fear?

*******

The rest of Mason's shift passed quickly. He finished his dictation in record time and then shot off an email to the Director of Medical services about floating nursing with no psych experience to his unit and requested a meeting as soon as possible making sure to include that it had to be in the evening. The last thing he did before leaving was to call Toni.

"Good morning, how was the rest of your shift?" He asked when Toni answered.

"Quiet, nothing major happened." Toni replied and then hesitated.

"What's going on?" Mason asked sensing her hesitation.

"Nothing really, I think that we need to talk sooner rather than later about... well anyway we need to talk." she said.

Mason wasn't sure of how he should respond and proceeded carefully.

"Sure, would you like to talk tonight after Jamie is in bed?"

"That would be good." Toni replied.

They talked for a moment more and just as Toni was about to hang up, Mason called her name.

"Toni?"

"I'm still here." she replied.

"I.... sleep well." Mason said and then hung up.

******

He was not going to tell her that he loved her over the phone; he wanted to see her face the first time that he told her but that wasn't the only reason. He didn't want to scare her off; he knew what she wanted to talk about but wasn't sure of how to prepare for it or even if there was a way to prepare for it.

He made last rounds making sure to check his orders on the combative patient, checked his work email and headed home. Unable to rest, he sat up watching CNN not really paying attention to what was happening around the world. Now that he had admitted that he loved Toni and Jamie, he was anxious to get this talk over with and to move forward in their lives together. He still hadn't figured out how to tell her that he was a vampire but maybe the best way was just to say it like Ethan had done with Katrina and then deal with the fallout. Then there was Jamie and what they would do about him but there was time for that later he told himself.

Before he lay down on his bed, he decided to see if Jamie was on his laptop. He had been too busy to read with him before his bedtime.

"Hi Dr. Mason!" Jamie said when Mason's face appeared on his laptop after he accepted the call.

"Hi Jamie, I'm sorry that we didn't get to read together last night, I had a very busy night. How are you feeling?"

"Good. Mom says that we're going on a boat ride tonight and then we're going to have ice cream after." Jamie said.

Mason laughed at Jamie's enthusiasm.

"That's the plan so make sure that you wear a jacket it might be cool out on the water." Mason advised.

"Ok, are you going to bed now?" Jamie asked.

"Soon. Try to be a good boy and let your mom sleep alright?"

"I will but I'm at gramma and grandpa's house right now." he replied.

"Oh, ok then be good for them too and I'll see you tonight." Mason said and logged off.

Mason lay down and was up thirty minutes later, he was nervous. There was a big possibility that Toni would decide not to move forward with him but then they still wouldn't be continuing with their evening plans would they? She told Jamie about the plans after she got home. To pass the time Mason baked chocolate chip cookies which happened to be Toni's favorite. When he was finished baking and packaging up the cookies, he surfed the web looking for nothing in particular just trying to pass the time.

As he surfed, he allowed his mind to wander, if he and Toni got married, Jamie would be his son. Would she allow him to adopt him? For that matter, would she be interested in having a child? His child? "Stop it!" he told himself, that was the future that he wanted, after tonight; he would know whether that future was possible.

******

Toni had no better luck at resting than Mason did. She spent the day laying in bed and tying to finish the book that she was more than half way through but she couldn't concentrate. She thought of calling her mother but decided against it, she knew what would happen, Barbara wouldn't and couldn't be impartial. Barbara and Ben had known even before she did or admitted that Mason had feelings for her and she for him. Barbara would try to push her into choosing Mason. Toni realized that this was something that she had to work through alone and that she had better do it soon, it was already noon.

She could no longer say that she didn't know what James would have wanted her to do, he had told her in the disc and even in her dreams but she still felt tied to him somehow and it just wasn't because of Jamie. Toni lay in bed trying to figure out what she needed to do when she had an idea. She jumped out of bed, threw on a pair of sweats and went to her jewelry box. Sitting on the top of the pile of rarely worn jewelry was her wedding band.

Toni looked at it for a long time before she picked it up, was this it? She wondered. Aside from the fear of Mason dying, there was this ring. Although she hadn't worn it for almost three years, was it another thing that she had to let go of? Toni put the ring into the pocket of the sweat pants, grabbed her phone and purse and headed toward the car.

A short time later, she was sitting on the ground in front of James' headstone.

"Hi sweetie." she said not feeling in the least bit stupid. "I'm sure that you know that Jamie had appendicitis but he's alright now. You would have been so proud of him; he was scared but so brave like you were. I guess you also know about your mom and what she did but James, I won't allow her or anyone else to hurt Jamie. It wasn't her place to tell him where and how you died and to be honest with you, I'm afraid that she's going to tell him that he's adopted before he's ready to hear it. Anyway, I've been seeing Mason Donahue and ... James, I love him. That doesn't mean that I didn't and don't love you and that Jamie and I will forget you, that would be impossible. But here's the thing, what if he dies? I know that there are no guarantees but that's one of the things that stopping me. The other thing has to do with us, I've let you go but there still seems to be something that I need to do."

Toni took the wedding band out of her pocket and held it tightly in her hand.

"I think that I need to give this to you. Maybe I'm just being silly but here it is and I want you to know that being married to you was one of the best things that ever happened to me."

Toni kissed the ring and sat it in front of the headstone and started to leave when she remembered one last thing that she wanted to say or rather ask of James.

"I'm sure that you know about Tom Myers. He's suffered so much because he misses you and blames himself for your death, if you could, could you find a way to let him know that it wasn't his fault any more than it was mine? Thank you sweetie and I don't mean just for that, I mean for everything."

Toni left the burial sight feeling a little better; the only thing left was the fear of being with someone and having them die.

*******

Jamie was ready to go and playing clock watcher.

"Mom! He's going to be here soon!" he called into Toni's room.

"For crying out loud, I have fifteen minutes!" Toni called back as she put on her shoes.

She knew the moment Mason arrived because she could hear Jamie's voice.

"I told her to hurry." he said.

She stopped just outside of the bedroom door when she heard Mason's response.

"Never rush a lady, when they take so long it means that she is taking care so that she looks beautiful for us."

"But what if we're late?" Jamie asked.

"Then we plan accordingly so that the lady in question isn't hurried." Mason replied.

Toni could only imagine the confused expression on Jamie's face and smiled.

"Let's take tonight for example," Mason said. "I am here at six but the boat cannot be boarded before seven, we have plenty of time to get there and I have already purchased the tickets so there is no rush. We can leave as late as six-thirty and still have time to spare. Do you understand?"

Toni could tell by Jamie's voice that he really didn't get it.

"Hi." she said walking into the living room. "Sorry I'm late."

"No worries." Mason said smiling at her. "We have plenty of time. I was just telling Jamie that I already bought the tickets."

Mason looked down at Jamie, "see what I mean? Your mother looks beautiful doesn't she? And it was well worth the wait."

Toni blushed, she wasn't quite sure of how she felt about Mason saying things like that in front of Jamie but then, what had he said? Nothing, he had paid her a compliment and that was it.

"Thank you." she said nervously.

Twenty minutes later they were waiting to board the ship. Jamie was beside himself with excitement, he had never been on a boat before.

"If you like it we'll do it again." Mason promised.

He just did it again Toni realized, he had just assumed that there would be a next time for anything. Again, she couldn't bring herself to be angry about it, he fit with them but they still needed to talk.

Jamie loved the cruise and was tickled when Mason bought him a sweatshirt and cap as souvenirs. Afterwards they went to a sit down ice cream parlor where the server came to the table. As soon as the server was at the table, Jamie started to tell her what he wanted. Mason gently interrupted him and asked the server for a few more minutes. When she was out of earshot, Mason spoke to Jamie.

"I know that you love ice cream and that you have been looking forward to this as have I but we'll let your mom order first because she is the lady, if it were just you and I, you would offer to let me go first because I am the elder or the oldest between us. Does that make sense?" Mason asked.

Jamie thought about it and said that he understood.

"Good, and don't worry if you forget, it took me a long time to learn manners and how to treat a lady." Mason said giving Jamie a reassuring smile.

When the server came back, she looked at Jamie for his order.

"Let my mom go first." he said.

He beamed when the server complimented him on his manners.

"Aren't you just the gentleman?" she asked and then took Toni's order.

"Ok handsome, what would you like?" she asked Jamie who then deferred to Mason who then deferred back to Jamie.

"You go ahead and order, I think I'll share with you and your mom." he replied.

Jamie ordered a banana split that he hadn't a hope of eating all of while Toni ordered the same minus the bananas- she hated bananas especially cold ones. After the ice cream they went back to Toni's condo where Jamie insisted on opening her car door for her.