Name by Amy Lane

Prologue

“Coming up close, everything sounds like Welcome Home.”

(Aimee Mann, Coming Up Close)

                                                                      

             It was a quietly gray December day.  The fog had been trapped on the peninsula well into the afternoon, and now at sunset the funky concrete color of the air had deepened to tarmac.  It was the kind of day that she would have filled with muted, secretly laughing colors, but he was afraid he had lost her for good.  He was afraid he'd lost all color from his life.  For good.

            He stood quietly at her doorstep, flowers in his hand, feeling as though he'd come full circle.  As though he'd spent his entire life waiting, his humility in hand, to have her open a door and tumble into his life and make it worth living.  But he hadknown her all his life, and she had made his life worth living, and if he had to hold his hat or his humility or his pride or his life in his hand to see her again, he would.  A dozen overpriced woebegone flowers were really no big loss.

            She wasn't answering the bell.  He sighed and sat down on the step, looking at his watch.  It didn't bother him that she wasn't answering, and he had all the time in the world, he was just checking to see how long he had to wait.   The house was  a huge old monstrosity in San Manuel's most beautiful and prestigious section.  Maddy could bounce around it for hours, wandering from one room to the next, picking things up, moving them to another room and putting them down again.  Colors, textures, scents, moods-- Maddy could experience them all in her quiet, slow way, and then.... just drift away.  He figured he could wait at least another half hour before he would seriously worry about her just drifting out of his life.

            Drifting... he searched her out in his thoughts and saw her, floating around in a gauzy creme thing over black leggings.  She'd changed since the funeral, he mused, and wondered if she'd chosen his favorite outfit from melancholy or from hope.  Her state of mind was muted now... ashes to roses, grayish purplish, flashes of creme and occasional pools the  same sad, lifeless color of the air around him.  The ashes to roses gave him hope.  It was, he recalled, the same color she'd been wearing a nearly two months before…

 Chapter 1


“You grew up way to fast, now there’s nothing to believe in

The re-runs all become our history..”

(Goo Goo Dolls, Name)

 

                                                                      

           

            Two months before, he’d been standing on a different doorstep entirely, and instead of looking to the future in both hope and trepidation, he'd been musing on the past.  A distant, distant past, to be exact, and one he was usually not comfortable thinking about...

            He was ten years old, and his name was Kim.  Those were the two facts that he knew for certain-- the rest was chaos. 

            He'd been raised with his maternal grandparents in a province of South East Asia.  For a while that had been a constant-- the simple hut, the farming village, the desperate poverty-- but the day the American soldiers had come, it had all changed.

            He wasn't sure where they'd kept the letter, but since the death of his mother when he was just an infant, it must have been their most closely guarded possession.  It had taken much groveling (a sore trial on the part of his iron proud grandfather) but the grandparents had finally been able to place the letter-- and eventually Kim-- in the custody of soldiers.  As had been made painfully apparent to him since birth, he was, after all, one of theirs.

            And that's what the letter had said.  Proclaiming Kim to be, in reality Henry Clifford Raitherson III,  it had vouched for the fact that his father had been not just an American GI, but a commanding officer who had been shipped out before Kim's mother had known for sure she was carrying his child.  He'd left the letter to enable them both to emigrate to the United States, but Kim's mother had died before any more soldiers had come through.  Kim had found out later that the year he'd been found-- 1974-- had been the last in which American forces had occupied that portion of South Viet Nam.   At times he'd found himself cursing his luck, that those American GIs had been passing through and his  existence had been discovered, but mostly, especially thinking about Maddy, he thanked all the gods at once.

            He hadn't been flown to America right away.  There had been quarantine and identification verification in Hong Kong first.  He had learned English there-- literally in fact since the peace core volunteer who had tutored him had been from London's lower East side.   So it was that when he had stepped off of the plane at the San Francisco Airport he had been barely ten years old, and spoke almost perfect English-- with the faintest of cockney accents.   When he was being brutally honest with himself, he also acknowledged that he was scared to death.

            While he had been in quarantine he'd been informed that his father had been killed in a traffic accident not long after Kim's emigration had been set in motion.   He had no acquaintance with the  concept of irony then, so it did not strike him as odd that the man had survived two tours of duty in warfare only to be killed within miles of his own home, and having never known his father Kim felt nothing but a deep confusion.  How odd, he thought, to feel like such an orphan, when in fact he was no better or worse off in his family than he'd been with his proud and bitter grandparents.  The news that Kim would be living with  Henry Raitherson's stepbrother, Gregory, and his new wife and her daughter did a little to assuage that confusion.  At least he belonged to somebody.   A name hadn't been supplied for either the wife or the daughter, and years later, Kim would wonder at that fact.  That the most important person in his life had been completely nameless until the moment she had launched herself into his arms.

            She had been not quite four years old, and she'd almost knocked him over as he stepped off the plane.   "Hellohellohellohello…”   She'd chanted exuberantly, her little freckled face delighted and enthusiastic.  "We waited forever and ever and ever and did you know you're my new brother?  My mother said you're the only one I'll get, so I'm not to make you nervous.  Was it wonderful on a plane?  I've only been on one before and I don't remember.  That's what mother said."  If Kim had understood English a little better, he would have noted her use of the word 'mother'-- not mama, or mommy or mom, but mother.    But he had only spoken English for a few short months, and all he could do was stare at the little person clinging to him in wonder.  And that's when he noticed it.  The pain had stopped.

            A tallish, distinguished looking man was speaking to him, and an ice beautiful, swan like blond woman seemed to be making polite noises as well, but, for Kim, the most important thing was that the pain that had been chronic, debilitating, excruciating for nearly two days now, was muted, soothed, and almost gone.  He stared at bemusement at the red headed creature beaming so earnestly at him, and was both horrified and ashamed when she suddenly frowned, tears trickling down her freckled nose, and brushed his back lightly with a butterfly like hand.

            "It hurts."  She whispered, and she looked so frightened, so in pain herself that he had grasped her hand in an effort to comfort her.

            "Not anymore."  He told her softly, and had smiled a  little, willing what was left of the pain in his back to fade a little.  The little girl had brightened immediately, and had turned to her mother.

            "It doesn't  hurt anymore, mother."  She'd stated proudly, and Kim had recoiled at the anger in the woman's voice when she replied.

            "Madeleine, I told you not to say those things in public.  Don't make me ashamed of you, not here."  Her voice was as icy as her appearance, and Kim remembered the sick feeling he'd had, even then, at the prospect of living with her, with only the distant, detached man at her side for protection.

            Then Madeleine had seized his hand and smiled into his face, and whispered "Don't worry, Kim, I'll take care of you."  And Kim had blinked, wondering how she could echo his thoughts so exactly.

             Gregory Raitherson was shaking his hand then and calling him Henry, and when he had blinked in confusion at the unfamiliar name, Madeleine had spoken up again.

            "But his name's not Henry, Mr. Gregory.  His name's Phan Vo Kim."  Her face had become serious as only a four year old's  could.  "He doesn't like it when you call him Henry.  It's not his name."  Kim stared at his little champion yet again, amazed, confused, and, strangely, heartened.  He may not have known her until moments before, but it was clear now that he had a friend.  A friend who, at that very moment was being hauled into her mother's arms and scolded within an inch of her life, he noted sickly, watching as Madeleine's mother made off with his new little sister.  As he listened to the little girl's logical and impassioned protests, his back began to ache again.

              When Gregory Raitherson's friendly, well meaning hand came down on his back, Kim thought he would pass out, but he maintained his impassive face and ramrod straight spine.  He may have been only ten, but he had learned mule stubborn pride from the best, and every now and then it paid off.    When the gang of kids at the refugee camp had caught him and whipped him bloody, he had seen his chance to escape the oppressive camp slipping away from him.  They would not let him fly if he was not healthy-- how many times had he heard that in his long stay?  To Kim, who didn't know the difference between sick and wounded, his only solution had been to bathe and hide his wounds, and to get on that plane if it took his last ounce of strength.  God only knew it wouldn't be the hardest thing anyone had ever done to emigrate to America, but it had cost him.

            And it continued to cost him as he was loaded into the boat like Cadillac next to a subdued Madeleine, and the pain threatened to black out his vision and divest him of his breakfast all at once.  Then Madeleine had  scooted across the back seat and  leaned her little head on his arm, and he had felt comfort.  When he felt her tear drops on his sleeve he had been alarmed, panicked, almost, at the thought of his new champion in pain.  She looked up then, her forehead wrinkled in agony, her eyes awash with it, and had  whispered, her lips touching his ear, "Hush, Henry Kim.  It hurts.  It hurts.  It hurts... but it'll be okay."

            Kim had relaxed with a shudder then, and had wrapped his arm around her little body, and had blocked the pain with his remaining strength.  Later, when they arrived and Kim was settled in the upstairs room, Madeleine's nurse Trudy would come to him and bind his wounds secretly, telling him that Madeleine had believed that he wanted his condition hidden.  She had given him acetaminophen and told him when he could take more, and had urged him to forget his stubborn pride and take it when he needed it, because the person he would be hurting   would no longer be himself.  Kim hadn't needed to be told twice.

            He would remember that moment in the car, both of them huddled, secretly sharing pain from the adults in front of them, for the rest of his life.  Not just because it was the true beginning of his life in America, and the model moment for the rest of his life with Madeleine.  He would remember that defining moment because it was the moment he realized that Madeleine was an empath, and she would suffer any amount of pain for him and expect nothing in return.  It was the moment he realized that there was one human being in the world who mattered more than any other, and that if he had to, he'd die for her.

           

            Kim now stood on the porch steps of a stranger’s house in San Francisco dying a little inside as he heard the sound of the party going on in the house.  He looked at the slip of paper in his hand, making sure he had the right address, and vaguely remembering the name, Angie Hathaway as the name of one of Maddy’s supervisors. Trudy had given him directions to the house an hour before, when he’d knocked on the door of his old home unexpectedly and asked where Maddy was.  He’d been reluctant to drive up to the city at ten o’clock at night, but Trudy, looking at him knowingly, had said flat out that he wouldn’t be able to sleep until he’d seen her, so he might as well pass the time in her company and enjoy himself.   He wondered if Trudy had forgotten so much about his and Maddy’s childhood, but he also knew she was right.  He’d pushed himself non-stop for two weeks for this particular chance to see Maddy, and he couldn’t stop now.

             He'd been home just for Gregory’s funeral, and Maddy had told him that she and her friends in the Social Services department would be having a party if they got hired on after their internships.  This was probably that party, but it didn’t make him any more eager to go in.   He hated parties-- loathed them, as a matter of fact.  He had for so long that it was a part of his personality now, and he'd almost forgotten when it had all began.  But now, as a reflection of a reflection, he found he could be surprisingly honest with himself.  The past was mirrored so many times that it had gained a  detachment that painful memories so often don't have.  It had started, he realized,  soon after he'd been enrolled in school...

            He'd come home that day stoic and reserved, and determined not to let on about his misery to Maddy.  Madeleine had enough to deal with for a four year old, and she didn't need his problems as well.  His resolutions hadn't mattered, though, because she had sensed something wrong as soon as he'd walked through the door.

            She ran up to him at her usual reckless pace, but after she'd hugged his knees in  greeting, she had tugged at his hand, making him kneel down to her level.  Then she'd put her hand on his chest and furrowed her brow in concentration.

            "You hurt."  She said softly, unhappily.  She was only four, and this was not a hurt she knew how to take away.

            "Not anymore."  He answered truthfully.  Her empathic abilities may not have worked on this kind of hurt yet, but  just knowing that he had someone to care for him-- and to care for--  made the hurt go away.  "Besides, you can't say things like that-- you're mother will hear you."

            Maddy assumed a stubborn look that Kim was familiar enough with by now.  "Mother cant' hear me now, and she doesn't know what I'm saying to you anyway."  Then she smiled brilliantly.  "Besides, you'd never tell on me, would you, Henry Kim?"

            Kim had smiled back then-- Maddy being the only human being on earth he'd actually smile for-- and shook his head.  Henry Kim, she called him now.  Henry, because her mother and stepfather insisted that it was his name, and Kim because she knew from him that it was what he preferred to be called.  Over the years it would evolve into H.K., to the extent that all of his colleagues and friends called him H.K., but he never forgot that his sole grip on the place he had come from remained only because a four year old had insisted on clenching it in her own chubby little fist.  "No, little one."  He told Madeleine now, "I wouldn't tell on you ever."

            "Good."  She had answered decisively.  "And you can't let those mean  boys make fun of you.  They're just dumb and I hate them."

            Henry had shook his head then, knowing he'd never quite get used to the way she could simply pick things up from his mind.  Over the years she'd get better at not just blurting out truths that she had found floating around people's consciousness like pollen in a lake, but as a child, she could toss out personal secrets  with the same aplomb she used when naming her  favorite Sesame Street characters.

            "Well,"  he began slowly, wanting to take her mind off this matter before she brought it to the attention of the adults in the house, "When I'm with you, what they say about me doesn't matter."

            "Are you sure?"  Madeleine had pursued suspiciously.  "And whose dirty yellow Charlie anyway?"

            Kim winced.  "It's something stupid people say when they don't like the color of your skin or the shape of your eyes."

            Madeleine had pondered that for a moment, and then had said, "But what's wrong with the color of your skin?"  She'd feathered a light touch across his cheek, and even in recollection he shuddered at the feeling-- like being caressed by a butterfly.  "It's pretty and golden, and your eyes are pretty and golden too.  People are stupid."  She'd been   uncharacteristically grim for a moment, and before he could steer her off the subject of his own school humiliation, she had brightened.  "Well, don't worry about those stupid boys talking to stupid girls, because guess what?"

            "What?"  He answered, mostly for her.

            "Mother and Mr. Gregory are having a party tonight."

            Kim's uncharacteristic smile deepened.  "You've known that for weeks now, Maddy."  She had, too.  Every night as he read her a story (and practiced his English with her) she  had told him that there was to be a party, and that maybe this time she could stay up and see.

            "Yeah, but they told me about it today, and they say we can pass out ordervs."

            "Pass out orders?  Orders for what?"

            "Ordervs.  You know-- snacky things."  She looked so gravely pleased with herself that Kim could only nod and pretend to look pleased as well.  The truth of the matter was that he was already conjuring up pictures of himself in the starched, uncomfortable clothes that he'd seen being set out for him that morning, listening to gossip that he didn't want to hear-- mostly about himself.  He'd heard it before, from fits and spurts of company at brunch and at dinner, and now it would be in full force.  About how unseemly it was that he'd been made a part of the family, and how horrible for Estelle to have him in her household, and how worrisome for Maddy to have to see him on a day to day basis.  About how his kind was the enemy, and he probably didn’t even know how to use running water, and how horrible for his father to have insisted that he be brought home.  And how spineless his uncle was to accede to that wish.

               It was easy for him to hear these things-- the people ignorant enough to mutter them didn't seem to comprehend the fact that he spoke nearly flawless English.   When they spoke to him at all it was in raised voices, as though speaking to a deaf grandmother, and the things they said in these voices were patently insincere.   No, Kim didn't really want to go  to this party, but Maddy thought that it would be wonderful, and after nearly a month of acquaintance, Kim had already established that he'd do anything to please her.  So he braced up the lying place in his mind and smiled and said, yes, he'd certainly love to pass out h'orsd'overes with her, and that he would love to see her dress as well.  But something must have leaked from his private heart into the public mind that he had learned to give her access to, because she had squeezed his hand then, and ever the champion, had said, "Don't worry, Henry Kim, I won't let anyone say bad things."

              He had managed to convey total belief in her  then, but he knew the truth. She could have sooner stopped time than stopped the unkindness that would assault him that night, and that the pain would be worse for them both if she tried.

            The evening was even worse than he feared.  His suit had not fit, and Gregory Raitherson had commented that his father had been a strapping man-- his smallness had obviously come from his mother's side.  It had not been a compliment.  The pitying glances he'd received as he circulated through the crowd with Maddy at his side would have burned hot enough without that comment, thank you very much.  And to make matters worse, Maddy's empathic powers seemed to be heightened by his own apprehension, because she was certainly in top form that night.

            "Hullo, Mr. and Mrs. Creighton,"  She said formally, conscious of her pink crinoline dress with the white satin sash, "Would you like some... (What are these again, Henry  Kim?  she'd whisper.  H'ors D'overes, he'd reply quietly.)...ordervs?"  And just as the Creighton's smiled condescendingly and agreed to take a cracker and cheese, Maddy frowned up into the face of the adults and stamped her little foot.  "That wasn't very nice."  She blurted loudly.  “He's beautiful and he's my brother."

            Henry had blanched in horror and quickly moved her to another knot of people, trying hard to convey reassurance and to convince her that what she heard in another person's mind was not supposed to be public domain.  It was no good.  The third or fourth time Madeleine felt compelled to call someone to task, she had been overwhelmed by it all and had burst into tears.  Henry had picked her up, and, conscious of Estelle and Gregory attempting to cut through the crowd had all but fled the room, cradling her little body close and whispering to her that it would be all right.  But it did no good.

            Before Henry could even clear the door, Maddy had sobbed loudly, "But it was awful-- all those lovely people, and their thoughts were so horrible.  How could they, Henry Kim?  How could they think such ugly things, when they were all dressed up so pretty..."  Henry had comforted her and rocked her, and had even ended up sleeping next to her that night, because Madeleine had been inconsolable.

            The next day they paid the consequences for their spectacular little scene.  Gregory had been disappointed in both of them, Estelle had been glacially furious.  She was magnificent in a rage, and could shame Madeleine with a single snide glance, but Henry refused to be intimidated.  Sensing that this time it was Maddy who needed a champion, he had kept his back ramrod straight and his face impassive, and had broadcast comfort and humor and joy to Madeleine all the while.  Enough so that she even had the audacity to smile once, at one of his more outrageous thoughts.  Estelle caught the smile, and with thoughts angry enough to crumple Madeleine to the floor had turned and stalked out of the room.  Henry had caught her then, and had crooned to her until her sobbing subsided.  He wasn't, however, allowed near her in the evenings for the following two weeks, when, in a move calculated to wound, Estelle had refused to come to the nursery to bid Madeleine good night.

            Henry's room was three doors down from Maddy's.  Technically, he shouldn't have been able to hear anything, because her face was buried in her pillow and she never cried noisily anyway.  But he did.  Every night for two weeks, Henry listened to her heartbroken sobbing echoing through his head, and resonating in his heart, and vowed that if it were up to him, she'd never cry again.

 

Chapter 2


“I’m not supposed to be like this, but it’s okay.  It’s okay.”

(R.E.M. The Wrong Child)

            So, no, he didn't like parties much at all, but, he believed this one would be a little different.  For one thing, it wouldn't be filled with pretty people and ugly thoughts, because Maddy made an effort not to associate with those people-- much to her mother's chagrin and Henry's silent approval.  Of course the effort wasn’t too great, because Maddy didn't attract that sort of person anyway.  There was something very genuine about her, still.  Something that continued to remind Henry of the tiny urchin that had tumbled into his arms when she was only four.  Her boundless energy had been channeled now, into an intense, contemplative nature and a steady drive to do whatever needed to be done, but it was still there, emanating from her body, from her thoughts.

            That energy was a very attractive thing in itself, without the added bonus of her now beautiful exterior, but Henry wondered if any of her would-be suitors recognized that.   He doubted it, and it only made him despise any would-be rival even more.  And there were plenty of rivals.  There was, he thought, suppressing an inward turning bitterness, probably a rival here tonight.  Trudy had told him so when he’d asked where she was, actually.  “Maybe you could give her a ride home,”  she’d suggested, “Since that young man drove her up there.”

            'That young man' he thought bitterly.  Who was it this time?  Another young college student, enthralled by her grace and beauty like a child by a fairy princess?  Another lecherous boss, to be laughingly put off until he stalked away in seething anger?  Or maybe, for the umpteenth time, just a friend?

            To himself Kim snorted softly.  He really shouldn't be worrying about rivals, because the plain truth was,  Maddy was too vulnerable to men to let any one of them in.   All of them had been 'just friends'.  Even the ones that had thought blatantly carnal thoughts just looking at her.   Maddy deflected their desires just as neatly as she deflected self-destruction or despair in any of her cases-- so neatly in fact that Kim honestly didn't think she'd ever experienced the mindless groping that he'd read so easily in the minds of some of her suitors.

            That had been the hardest part, he thought.  That Maddy, the true empath, had just glided across those thoughts, hardly even skimming the surface.  She knew they wanted her, but she didn't know how much-- or even how.  Kim had been reading every lurid detail, every graphic moment in their minds from the day she'd brought Richie-whats-his-name  home to help her study.  He'd known their thoughts for what they were-- simple hormonal urgings, natural and understandable-- still, he'd been tortured, and not just because he really shouldn't have been able to read their minds at all.  But their thoughts had been so open, so close to his own-- and about Maddy.  He'd really had no choice.

            Just as he'd had no choice when Maddy was a child, and Mr. Lee Chandler II, industrial giant and father of two, had made his intentions known as well...

            "Henry Kim, guess what?"  She'd asked excitedly as they'd sat in the back of the town car on the way home from school.  He was nearly fifteen now, and school had become tolerable for him because he was good at it and because, unlike many of his peers who simply assumed that their money and position would earn them a place in life, he actually liked his studies.  Of course, the fact that he and Madeleine now went to school together helped.  It didn't matter that she was six years his junior or that many of his peers were becoming interested in the opposite gender-- Madeleine was his champion.  She was on his side and she loved him, and Henry had had little enough of that through his life to appreciate it now, no matter what form it would take.

            "What?"   He asked gamely, even though he knew.

            "Mother's having another party, and I get to host at this one."  He gave his best impression of a genuine smile at her announcement-- she was so excited.  This was her first party after the debacle of five years before.  She didn't seem to remember the awfulness of that night, or the heartbreak afterwards, but Henry did.  For the last year or so, she had been begging her mother to let her hostess another one of their glittering champagne affairs, and Henry, lightly probing her   public mind, still couldn't fathom why.

            "Wonderful."  He replied stiffly, hoping she didn't notice.  She didn't.  She was becoming more self centered now, as all children do in pre-adolescence, and he had noticed, in a dry, detached sort of way, that it had a gratefully dampening effect on her empathic abilities.  Madeleine's mother beamed icily at her daughter, and praised her for her new found self control, but the more Henry studied psychic phenomena on his own, the more concerned he became about Madeleine as she grew older.   Without knowing any more about sexuality than the dark and delicious dreams that haunted him at night, he had a vague foreboding about his little sister when she finally became interested in the opposite gender-- nothing he could put his finger on, really, but disturbing just the same.

            What did come into play, however, were his own crowd anxieties, intensified tenfold since the disastrous party shortly after is arrival in America.  "I..."  He began delicately, "I don't have to go to, do I?"  Oops-- wrong question.

            Madeleine turned to him with stricken eyes.  "You have  to, Henry Kim-- I can't meet those people all by myself!"  And in her expression he read the first echo of the trauma of years before, as well as his first hint as to why she would be so eager to meet a room full of people now.

            "You can't impress her."  He said softly, wondering if she would understand.  "She's all ice inside, Madeleine, you can't... measure your life next to her.  You'll just end up feeling cold...."  He trailed off, biting his lip.  Her head was bent now, her earlier exuberance gone, and he knew he was at fault.

            "Just be there, please?"  She whispered, and he could feel the trace of the tear as it trailed down a freckled cheek.  He sighed and stroked her hair, as an older brother might do to his much indulged younger sister.

            "For you, Maddy,"  he said lightly, "The world."

            And, if the party was not nearly as awful as their last appearance in the formal scene, it was every bit as bad as he expected.  Too much champagne, too many whispers, too many covert glances.  If he'd been as gifted as Madeleine, he might have recognized that those covert glances were far more complimentary than he believed.  At fifteen he'd reached his full five foot ten, and his shoulders would never be of line backer stature, but he had blithely managed to avoid that ugly, spotty phase that so many adolescent boys are forced to slog through, and his build, though unfinished, was lean and compact.  The width of his cheekbones only seemed to emphasize the planes of his face, and if he was soft and round with adolescence, the promise of a truly astonishing male beauty was there to be read by any appreciative female.  With his intense golden eyes, he caught more than one female glance with sheer magnetism, but he was oblivious to all of them.  His attention was focused on Maddy.

            At nine, she was just a tad too old for pink crinoline, so it was white taffeta on this night.  She had picked up a social grace, somewhere along the way, that would always elude Kim, and he was proud of her as she walked among the adults and played the part of the child hostess.  What was even more important, however, was the self control she had erected over her thoughts.  She wasn't reacting to any of the snide thoughts passing through their guests minds simply because she wouldn't allow herself to read them.  It was  beautiful to sense, Kim thought at first, simply because the self control itself would make her life so much easier, but as the evening went on, he began to realize that  the kind of will Maddy was exerting had its price.

            He was across the room when he noticed her first faltering.  He turned his head then and watched in concern as she stumbled, once, twice, again.  Nothing big or showy-- she still maintained her death grip on her tray of h'or doerves, but just looking at her his eyes started to droop and his arms started to ache in sympathy.  With a start he realized that she was exhausted.  The mental effort she was making simply to maintain her equilibrium in such a  crowd was swiftly decimating all of the boundless energy that a nine year old possesses.  With something akin to panic, he made his way swiftly across the room.  When he saw Maddy stumble again, this time nearly losing her tray, he started shouldering his way past the guests, but he knew with a sinking feeling that he was too far away to help her. 

              He caught his breath in relief when he saw the older man help her to her feet.  With one of his few genuine smiles he reached Maddy's side and helped her up.  When he looked up to smile gratefully at the gentleman, he felt the smile die aborning when he met the gentleman's cold hard eyes.

            "What's wrong, Henry Kim?"  Madeleine asked in a small voice next to him.  Henry looked at her and forced a gentle expression on his face, grateful that she was too exhausted to probe him further.

            "You're tired, little one."  He said softly.  Bending down he picked up the tray that had thankfully made it to the floor intact, and thrust it blindly in to gentleman's hands.  The man was now eyeing Henry Kim speculatively, and Henry put up every mental defense he had.  The man's filthy, oily thoughts were insidious, pervading the space around Kim and Maddy like a foul odor, and Kim had to concentrate on the child next to him before he dealt with them.

            "Come on, love."  He urged her softly.  "You've overstayed your bed time.  Say good night to the guests, and we can go upstairs."

            Even as she sagged against him, Maddy turned entreating eyes to meet his.  "But mother-- she planned to introduce me..."

            "Now how can she do that if you're asleep in the piano when the time comes."  He asked, making her smile.  Still possessed of that innate poise that would awe him forever, she bid her guests goodnight, and even received a gracious handshake from the cold eyed gentleman.  He introduced himself as Mr. Lee Chandler II.  Kim had eyed the man with a barely contained fury, feeling his skin crawl when the man had placed a lingering kiss on the little girl's hand.  Just the thought of it gave him a mental picture of the huge, cockroaches that populated his native land.  Allowing Maddy to give the man her hand at all was the mental equivalent of letting one those sickening insects walk up his bare skin, but he did it, because he knew the consequences of embarrassing them both by making a scene.

            Madeleine protested every step of the way up to her bedroom, her protests growing stronger with every step, and indeed, Kim was tempted to give in.  As he urged her up the stairs, his arm around her waist, he wondered if it weren't his own fatigue making him overprotective of her, because she certainly seemed to be doing better than he did.  His feet became leaden, and his eyelids drooped, and his breathing became labored as they neared the landing, and Kim laughingly made her stop at the top, saying that her complaining had worn him out.  Gratefully, he broke off contact with Madeleine and lagged against the gilt papered  wall, only to watch in surprise as Madeleine crumpled to her feet.

            Forgetting his own inexplicable exhaustion, he reached for her again, this time touching her face tentatively, and felt the shock that traveled between them just before her eyes shot open and she asked him what they were doing at the top of the stairs.  And suddenly he understood, if not in words, then in principle.

            Madeleine was an empath.  Her abilities-- and shielding herself from them-- exerted a tremendous energy.  More energy than even a nine year old child could muster.  Kim loved her, and this ability created a generous abundance of energy.   Madeleine loved Kim, and this allowed her to tap into him, like an energy conduit to a battery.   Touching him, his arm around her, her hand in his, simply made that conduit easier to access.  The implications were, quite simply, staggering, so Kim spent less than a heartbeat dwelling on them.

            Instead, with the unquestioning gratitude with which he had accepted Madeleine into his life, he accepted that he had a purpose in hers.  With nothing more than a smile and an outstretched hand, he helped her to her room and put her in Trudy's capable hands.

            Then, in spite of the fact that he hated parties, and crowds in general, and the guests of his adoptive parents in particular, he went downstairs again.  Madeleine had asked him, very nicely, in her best party manners, to stay and read her a story, but Kim told her no, he couldn't.  He had a big nasty bug that he had to go down and step on before the other guests saw it and screamed and ran away.  Madeleine giggled at the image even as her eyes closed in sleep.  Kim had known the idea would make her laugh-- which is why he'd dared to tell her the truth.

            The cold eyed gentleman was talking to Gregory when Kim made his way back down the stairs.  Gregory Raitherson laughed hardily when he saw Kim, and told him that this was Mr. Lee Chandler II, and told him that if he intended to go into the family business, Kim should get to know Mr. Chandler.  With a conspiratorial smile and a pat on his buddies back, Kim's guardian left him alone with a giant cockroach in a black tuxedo, who eyed the young man in front of him with great speculation.

            "So,"  said the man with great deliberation, "You’re planning to follow in your... uhm... uncle’s  footsteps and be an industrialist?"

            A level eyed moment passed before Kim answered.  "No."  He responded with equal deliberation.  "I'm going to follow my own footsteps and go into medicine.  Surgery, hopefully."  He stretched his long, lean fingered hands and fisted them, in what he hoped was a demonstration in strength.

            Mr. Chandler looked a bit taken back.  "Well,"  he laughed coldly, "Gregory seems  to be under a different impression entirely."

             "My uncle is a kind, weak man whose one moment of strength was taking me into his household."  Kim responded  unflinchingly.  "There are many things he does not know." All of a sudden, Lee Chandler II  was no longer smiling.  His distinguished, fit, middle aged body was now bow string tight, and although Kim's face remained impassive, he could feel the man's menace permeate the air.

            "Is that so?"  He hissed.  "And what sort of things would your uncle not possibly know, boy?"

            Kim later thought that it was a miracle that he could stay so calm and so implacable in the midst of the overwhelming rage he felt boiling through his bloodstream.  But he had known, even then, that the success of this warning would depend on his stone-faced, cold eyed phlegmatism, and the warning's success would mean everything to Maddy.

            "My uncle would not possibly know that you want Maddy in a way that has nothing to do with her reminding you of your daughters.  He could not possibly know that you have a hunger for the young-- the innocent-- the easily frightened.  He also could not possibly know that I've been taking Tai Kwando for three years to complete the training I received from my grandfather in my homeland.  I am quite proficient at it."

            Lee Chandler II was too dignified to splutter, but the outraged, fearful expression in his eyes was all that Kim needed to see.  The man was a coward-- all men of his sort were cowards, and if Kim was in no position to expose the man for what he was, the least he could do was to keep this cockroach away from Maddy.  "Stay away from Madeleine, Mr. Chandler.  Stay away from my stepsister, or I will break every bone in your body-- do I make myself clear?"  Kim hadn't known if he could pull it off.  He was, after all, only fifteen, and he he'd never taken a martial arts class in his life.  He had no idea that his cold eyed implacability was intimidation and adult enough to make even a wise man think twice.  He also couldn’t know that Mr. Lee Chandler II was just one or two steps away from being exposed for his... questionable taste in prostitutes.   He did know, however, that Americans-- especially, ignorant, arrogant Americans, thought that all Asians knew Karate, and to judge from this man's expression, Mr. Lee Chandler II was no exception.

            A moment later,  Gregory Raitherson returned, bringing his old buddy a drink and Kim executed a stiff, formal little bow to his uncle and turned away.  As he left, he could hear the cockroach in a tuxedo striking back at him the only way he could.

             "By the way, Raitherson, did you know that boy plans to study medicine?"

           

Sitting on the porch of the prestigious Gold Hill residence listening to the party inside, Henry chuckled a little to himself.    It had seemed so rational, at the time-- he was Maddy’s protector, and he must keep people like wealthy industrialists with wandering hands away from her.  It had worked too, that time, and a few others, failing only once that he remembered. Anything--  he’d go to any lengths to protect her.  After the incident with the wealthy industrialist, he’d even taken Martial Arts classes-- he still practiced his Kato every morning.  The discipline and the physical exertion had worked off the roundness of his features and honed his already lean body to stone hard, razor’s edge fitness. 

            It was funny, actually, because as he’d  gone to Stanford as a pre-med student, and through medical school itself, he’d worked to make his body and his countenance harder, more assured and less vulnerable.  And while this was happening, Maddy had gone through changes diametrically opposite of his. 

            Henry hadn’t noticed at first--its difficult to notice things that are closest to you... everyday things... earth shattering things...

            “Maddy-- have you seen Ephram?”  Henry was trying not to sound sheepish.  He was packing for the dorms at Stanford, and now, at the last moment, he found it impossible to leave without the brown, sad-eyed stuffed lion that Maddy had bought for him on his first Christmas in America.  He had laughed kindly then, and told her that he really was too old for stuffed animals, but that hadn’t kept him from clutching the gift fiercely to himself that Christmas morning, and from making sure Ephram sat wisely on his pillow every night thereafter.

            Maddy flurried into his room, turning stricken eyes to him.  “You’re not taking him, are you?”  She was twelve now, and was not going to pass through puberty as effortlessly as Henry Kim.  Already her skin was developing spots, her hair was too curly for the current windblown fashion look, and she was cursed with the ignominy of braces.  And on this day, Kim realized with discomfort, her hormones were at a particularly nasty peak.

            He had known she was on the verge of menses months before her first actual menstruation.  If anyone had asked him how, he would have shrugged his shoulders and grimaced, but in his head, he’d developed words for what he felt.  It was like tides... cresting, receding, cresting, receding, building in pressure and intensity until the waves of emotion were as destructive as anything nature could produce.  High tide was fearsome to behold-- once a month Estelle took to her bed complaining of headaches and cramping.  The entire household staff would wander around watching soap operas and sobbing,  and even the oblivious Gregory could be seen downing Pamprin-- with a Bourbon chaser, of course. 

            Only Henry Kim seemed immune to the aura that Maddy seemed to emanate like    a subtle, musky rose incense that seeped through every corner of the mansion and pervaded people’s dreams.  He wasn’t, of course, but after eight years of dealing with Maddy’s gifts, and three of being her conduit and her strength, he had the mental shields to block out the worst physical effects of her tempestuous adolescence.  It was the emotions that threatened to overwhelm him.

            While the rest of the household felt cramped and bloated, Henry felt, in turn, angry, frustrated, melancholy, furious, spiteful, compassionate and... horny.  He knew, of course, that his own hormones were in a tizzy by now, but it wasn’t his incoherent longing that kept him up three nights a month, moving his groin achingly against cotton sheets for an unfulfilling release.  It wasn’t his unawakened need that kept a normally level headed staff fumbling in linen closets with temporary help and walking away dazed and satiated.  It was Maddy’s.  And the thought tortured him. 

            Soon, he thought, too soon, she would realize what these feelings were, and what to do with them.   Most of his peers had been sexually active before high school graduation, and he could see no reason for Maddy to be the exception.  His own scruples and sense of maturity may have kept him celibate and circumspect, but he knew and understood the pressures.  When Madeleine grew older, when her awkwardness passed, she would understand these longings and take measures to ease them.  It was a natural progression for a growing girl in a permissive age.

            Except... Except... the word plagued him at nights.  Especially nights when his own hands roved restlessly along his young body, and the whole house was scented lightly of sex.  It was on these nights, when his hips arched and spasmed for what wasn’t there that he completed the thought.  Except, Madeleine was his. 

            He was waiting for her, and was prepared to wait a whole lot longer until she was ready for him.  He could see, even now, the seeds of the extraordinary woman she was going to be when she grew up, and it was that woman that he wanted in his bed, and by his side, for the rest of his life. 

            Which was, he thought exasperatedly, exactly why he had to leave her now.  She didn’t need him there, meddling in her adolescence, waiting in the wings, praying for an abstinence and an innocence he had no right to ask for.  She needed to fly-- to see who and what else was out in the world for her-- before she was presented with the specter of his want and asked to make a choice.  That was why, he thought nobly, he was currently stuffing all of his clothes into his suitcases and moving to a college dorm that was only twenty minutes away.  And that was also why Madeleine was glaring at him mutinously, making him feel like a traitor and a deserter.

            “You can’t take Ephram! He’s the only part of you I’ll have left!”  She wailed, shaking the stuffed lion at him in reprimand.  Then she burst into tears.

            Henry was stricken.  He’d seen her cry before, naturally, but never this body shaking, earth wracking sobbing.  Madeleine collapsed on the bed, clutching the stuffed lion against her protectively, and Henry reached out awkwardly to pat her shoulder, but the gesture stilled in midair as a book on his dresser launched itself across the room and against the adjoining wall.  Before he could assimilate that action, his suitcases upended, spilling their contents on the floor, and all of the clothes began a slow, whirling circle around the room. 

            In a still shocked effort to stall Maddy’s psychokinetic tantrum, Henry reached out again, and gasped as he touched her back.  As soon as their physical connection was made, the light fixture above them showered sparks, and the curtains hanging in front of the sliding glass door that looked outside tore themselves down, bringing the drapery rod with them, and Henry felt himself growing instantly weaker. 

            As Maddy’s sobbing continued, rising in intensity and hysteria, Henry realized that his touch had facilitated a  firestorm effect in her-- her powers were feeding off of her emotion which was feeding off of him which was feeding her emotion.... ad infinitum... and it was an effect he had to stop, before the whirlpool of detritus on the floor grew any deeper or began to move any faster-- things were out of control as it was!

            Without even trying to reason it out, Henry threw his arms around Maddy’s tiny, shaking body, feeling as though he were embracing a swarm of electric bees.   When that prickle of bees began to trickle through his bloodstream and into his chest, he fought for air, and held on even tighter.  The books on his shelves were no longer hurtling through the air-- they were now simply falling, and the whirlpool was twisting itself slowly, and more slowly, into a high pile of everything in the dead center middle of his floor. 

            Maddy’s sobbing slowly  eased, and Henry, beginning to see spots in his effort to breathe, began letting the bees flow back to her, electric buzz by electric buzz, until the last one prickled down his skin in a little hiccup, and her hiccuppy breathing returned to normal.

            They sat there then, still, just still, in the middle of that intense, befuddled devastation, holding each other and rocking softly, for a time without time.  After many, many moments of silence passed, Henry Kim heard himself whispering softly.  “I’ll stay here a while more, honey.  It may kill me after all, but I’ll stay.”

            Maddy could only whimper into his shirt, and he found that they were both weeping softly.  Trudy found them asleep, still holding each other in the middle of a disaster area, when she came to fetch them for dinner, nearly two hours later.  It was the last time Madeleine’s abilities manifested themselves in such a physical way, but, unfortunately, it was not the last time they played a major role in their relationship.

 

 

Chapter 3 

“Hello, I saw you, I know you, I knew you, I think I can remember your name...”

(R.E.M. Pop Song 89)

“The things you said and did to me seemed to come so easily…”

(Gin Blossoms Found Out About You)

            The Gold Hill residence may have been gaily lighted, but it was October, and this was San Francisco, and Henry was beginning to get chilly.  He looked longingly into the lighted room above him, but he still couldn’t seem to make his legs function enough to get up and go in.   With a sigh, he looked out into the city and watched the fog roll slowly across the bay and under the bridge. 

              He liked the fog-- that’s why, when the fellowship to England had been offered to him, he’d snapped it up in a nanosecond.  If he had to, finally, leave Maddy for a while, he at least could go somewhere with fog, mysterious and masquing, someplace he felt comfortable.  Which was odd, he mused, since the cool, impersonal fogs of the Bay Area and England were nothing like the hot, close, skin clinging mists of his homeland.  A sound behind him made him look up, and a woman emerged from the friendly melee inside.

            She was dressed in a short, skin tight blue sheath, with a low back and a scooped front, with short dark hair artfully cut in wisps around a gamin face.  Henry felt his own features go slack with disappointment, and then he looked twice.  No, this wasn’t Maddy, but she did look familiar...

            “Hullo!”   She said brightly, noting Kim’s quiet presence on the porch, but not really looking at his face.  “Couldn’t stand the crush either?   I’m just out here for a breath of air and a cigarette, myself!”   Suddenly, as if the thought just occurred to her, she took her first good look at Kim  “Oh my God—H.K., Shitfire---I didn’t recognize you at first.   Your hair is longer than it was for Greg’s funeral….”

            “Erin?”  Kim said, a little disoriented.  “Good heavens—my hair’s longer and yours is shorter!  I didn’t know you either.”

            “Yeah,”  The girl said dryly, with something dark in her voice that Kim had never heard before, “You’d recognize Maddy in an ape suit, but me—all it took was a hair cut.”

            “Hardly fair.”  Kim said with his usual quiet almost smile.  With a laugh and a flourish, the girl swung breezily out and sat on the opposite side of the step from Kim, rummaging in her evening bag until she produced both cigarette and lighter with a triumphant little sound in her throat.   “Want one?”  She asked, and then, once again, breezed on without waiting for an answer.  “Oh, I know, Maddy’s been begging us both to quit, but there’s just something about parties, you know...”  She trailed off, meaningfully, finally waiting for a reply, and Kim nodded gratefully into the silence.

            “Thank you.”  He said quietly, reaching for the proffered cigarette and pulling out his own lighter.  “You’re right,”  he said after inhaling deeply and thankfully-- could it be that his nerves needed steadying?--  “It is bad for you, but there are times when it is not an.... unpleasant habit.”

            The girl nodded, and exhaled elegantly into the cool night and Kim drew on his cigarette, noticing that he held it in the European way now.   Had he really been gone so long?  His smile disappeared, and he caught her eyes for the first time since she’d breezed out onto the porch next to him.  “I’m dreadfully sorry about your mother.”  He said soberly.  “I wanted so badly to make the funeral, but by the time I would have gotten there, it was over, and Maddy said you wanted to be alone.”

            Erin gave a short shrug and looked out into the night with bright eyes.  “Yeah, well, you know… she was just so surprised that I was finally  out of college and could take care of her for a change, I think she had a heart attack from the shock.”  She saw Kim’s serious eyes on hers, and shrugged again, trying to smile lightly.  “I appreciated your calls, though, and  your cards were wonderful.  And of course, Maddy helped me through.”

            There was a long, reflective silence, then Erin turned vivid blue eyes surrounded by spiked black lashes to Kim, and narrowed them thoughtfully.   “So, are you back for good now?   Maddy was crushed when you left after the funeral, but she said you were looking for a job out here, so you could move back.  Did you find one?  Where are you working now?”

            “San Manual County,”  Kim said shortly, hardly believing it himself.  As soon as he had known  he had landed a job—any job—near Maddy,  he had put in his resignation at Oxford, knowing that the surgeon he had oriented to take over his fellowship was more than ready.   He had been on a plane for California less than three months after Greg Raitherson’s funeral, and hoped it was soon enough. 

            “Oh, good,” she replied, nodding in satisfaction.  “Maddy’s been waiting for you.” 

            “Highly unlikely.”  Kim answered absently, staring out into the clear San Francisco night.   “She didn’t know I was coming tonight.”

            “That’s not what I meant.”  The tone was unsettling and serious, and Kim looked at the girl sharply.   The flutteriness was gone, and in its place was the serious, level regard of a Monarch at rest, flapping gaily colored wings thoughtfully.    Kim suppressed a swallow.

            “I asked her to.”  He said at last, quietly.  “I hadn’t planned it that way—she was supposed to go find a few more fish, before…”  He broke off and looked away again, hoping his usual implacable, watchful expression hadn’t changed.   Erin was a close friend, but still, he was uncomfortable with anyone knowing what he thought, except Maddy.

            The girl looked at him kindly, and flicked ash with a negligent hand.  “She didn’t really have a choice, you know... not after…-- did you forget, I was there that night too?”

            Kim shook his head, looking pointedly and immovably out at the sky, just as she had moments before.  “No.”  He said softly.  “I didn’t forget.  How could I forget....”   And he trailed off, lost in memory again, his expression hauntingly naked, if only for a moment...

            Erin O’Malley was on scholarship to Maddy’s private high school—her mother was a single factory worker, and she lived in the poorer section of town (On the peninsula this was literally the wrong side of the tracks.)   Erin loved her mother, hated her poverty, and especially hated the spoiled, rich kids at her school who made fun of her shoes and her nose ring, and  of the battered brown Pinto that dropped her off at school everyday.   She practically lived at Madeleine’s.

            Of course, she wasn’t there when Maddy had found out that Kim had accepted the fellowship at Oxford, but, Kim was sure, Maddy would have related the entire scene to her—verbatim.

            “Oh.”   The word, innocent enough, took on a dangerous overtone in Maddy’s painted, pouted mouth.   Absently she twirled a well styled russet curl around a manicured finger, and directed a killing gaze towards Kim. Kim looked levelly back.  At seventeen, most of Maddy’s awkwardness had dissipated as quickly as the effects of that tantrum all those years ago, leaving in its place a stunning beauty and an elegant poise.  The problem was, Kim thought bemusedly, Maddy knew it.  Now that-- finally-- she met her mother’s harsh standards for appearance and social ability, Maddy had great potential to become overpetted and spoiled.   So far, Kim was the only one who had proved capable of keeping her in line, and it galled him to do so.  By all the heavens, he was not her parent, and as her beauty emerged and her identity fought for itself, the role of big brother was one he relished less and less.

            “Madeleine,”  he replied quietly, “You knew I would have to leave sooner or later.  Oxford is a great opportunity-- I’m not going to just let it fade into dust.”

            Madeleine’s  moue of displeasure deepened, and she began to absently gnaw on the cuticle of her thumb.   Kim suppressed a smile.  Small habits like that reassured him—Maddy’s genuineness and truth would survive, because she just didn’t have the ice in her veins required to excise all humanity from her little body.   Abandoning all pretense, she set her hands on the table and looked directly at the man who was now her brother, friend, and confidante.  

            “I don’t know if I can survive here without you Kim.”  She said simply.  “Mother’s at me all day—you know how she can be—and Greg…”  Madeleine trailed off, and Kim knew how she felt.  There wasn’t a mean bone in Greg Raitherson’s body.  Unfortunately, there wasn’t much of a spine either.  In a different world, with a different woman, he would have made a fine father.  As it was, Maddy and Kim played golf with him on Sundays, and tried very hard not to trouble him too much with cold, hard facts about the world. 

            Kim reached out—cautiously—and placed a hand on top of Maddy’s carefully folded ones.  He would only have one chance to say this, so he had to get it right.  “Maddy… little one, you’ve got to learn to stand on your own.  If you lean on me all the time, you’ll never know if you can do it.”  He sighed, and removed his hand.  He couldn’t feel the childish resentment building up in her body if he didn’t touch her.  “Eventually,”  he said at last, “You would hate me for that.”

            Maddy stood up in a swift, controlled motion.  “That’s crap, Kim!”  She said, trying to sound tough.  Her chin was wobbling.  “You just want to get away from me so you can spend more time with Catwoman!”

            “Not likely.”  Kim countered levelly.  “Catherine is staying on at Johns Hopkins.”  The decision to break it off when Kim left had been mutual, with good feelings on both sides.  Kim had made it clear when the affair began that he was not interested in anything permanent, and Catherine,  uninhibited and frankly fascinated with Kim’s truly gorgeous masculinity, had told Kim that she was tired of playing back seat to someone that didn’t exist.  Kim hadn’t tried to explain, and that had served to make the break up final.

            “Then what is it!”  Madeleine said at last, finally sounding like herself and not the sophisticate that she tried to be so much of the time, and her querulous tone pushed past Kim’s level of reserve.  It was so easy, sometimes, for her to get past any defenses he had, he wondered why he bothered to erect them at all. 

            “Damn it, Maddy—you’re going to San Diego State in the fall—did you expect that I’d just sit here like sand in Estelle’s shoe while you go off and grow up?”  The words hung in the air between them for a moment, and Maddy’s eyes grew bright.  Seeing her stricken look, he sighed and stood up, holding out his arms.  Maddy catapulted herself into him and he chuckled a little, kissing her hair.   “We’ll write letters, little one.  You’ll back pack through Europe during the summers and breeze through my life and I’ll be the one missing you.  Don’t worry, Maddy—I’m not going to just fade out of your life like fog.”

            He’d felt a change in her then, but hadn’t been able to identify it.  It was a new emotion for her, a hidden one, and her face was pressed against his chest, so he couldn’t see it.  When he thought about this moment in time, he reminded himself of these things as defense, because the truth was, he couldn’t possibly have known what was to happen next.  After all these years watching Madeleine grow, how was he to know she was capable of cunning?

            He had the dream two nights later.

            The dreams were not a new occurrence.  For about a year, he would fall asleep once a week or so and wake up to the fact that he was not awake.  Then it would begin.  At first, it was just a vague, erotic sensation, like standing in a breeze that caught him just in the right place, then it became more specific.  There would be hazy, beautiful faces in the dream, and bodies.  Impossibly graceful muscular bodies, male and female, with hazy details, and an occasional jigsaw puzzle feel, as though it was just realized that the bodies must be put together in just this specific way.  And then the bodies began to move.  Kim would wake up from these dreams looking hazily around for his girlfriend , and shaking his head against the smell of sex.  He found himself laundering his own sheets often enough to be embarrassed about it. 

            Of course the dreams stemmed from Madeleine. 

            After the firestorm tantrum that had delayed his emancipation from the stifling Raitherson household, the hormonal fierceness that had driven Maddy’s empathic energy off the charts had dwindled, and the odd occurrences that had pervaded the household once a month had receded as well.  A few months after the dreams began, Henry Kim began experiencing the same sensation of ‘tides’ that he had associated with the onset of Madeleine’s adolescence, and again, he understood.  Madeleine’s hormones were still raging—they had just matured a little.  Henry was probably not the only one in the house susceptible to erotic dreams that Madeleine, in her innocence, was projecting out upon the world—he was just the only one who knew where they came from.. 

            He refused to say anything to her about monitoring her dreams.  To his mortification, his cheeks flamed at the very thought.  He was a doctor, soon to be a surgeon—after graduation this summer, he even had the letters behind his name.  He had been telling himself that this time in Madeleine’s life would be coming for many, many years, and he should have been able to approach the problem in a clinical, detached fashion.  But he couldn’t.  This was Maddy for heaven’s sake!  How could he sit down with her over a cup of tea and inform her that he knew what she was thinking when she thought she was alone in her bed at night, and the odds were, half the neighborhood did too?

            So, he tried resolutely to meet Maddy’s eyes over the table at breakfast on certain mornings, and he started spending a lot of nights at Catherine’s little apartment.   Catherine objected, of course—especially the nights that he spent on the couch—but he had no way to explain it to her, and her patience began to wear thin.  The fellowship from Oxford seemed like a shining gateway out of a delicious, forbidden hell, and he had grasped onto it for dear life.  But while he was under the same roof with Maddy,  the dreams continued.

            Two days after their talk about going to Oxford, her dreams—their dreams-- began to change.  The faces and bodies were no longer anonymous.  In his dream, he found himself watching, of all things, the love scene from Top Gun—apparently the X-rated version—because he saw a lot more of Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis than he ever had in the movie itself. 

             It was not just the players in the dream that had changed, either—the tenor had as well.  He heard actual words and thoughts, and could remember thinking (except it wasn’t really his thought) that Tom Cruise was ‘the most righteous babe to step foot in the cosmos’ and that Kelly McGillis was ‘someone to aspire to be after puberty’.  Henry Kim woke up quite confused, and more than a little concerned.

              When he went downstairs for breakfast, he noticed that Erin had spent the night, and both of them were asleep in the family room (a misnomer in the Raitherson mansion if he’d ever heard one).  A copy of Top Gun was on the television, and Kim breathed a sigh of relief.  He must have heard the tape through the walls, he thought, and it had worked its way through his dreams—or Maddy’s dreams—or his and Maddy’s dreams.  Henry shook his head as he turned to leave, feeling his first genuine flash of relief at the thought of leaving Madeleine and her burgeoning hormones.  He’d dealt with her through the worst part, he thought resolutely—let someone else step in and deal with his little empath and her innocent libido.  The thought soured his relief, and his first step in the direction of the kitchen was probably louder than he’d meant it to be.

            “’Mornin’, H.K.” 

            “Good morning, Erin.”  Henry said, turning towards the voice.  He nodded at the television.  “Did you stay up late to watch the movie?”

            Erin nodded, pushing up to her stomach.  “Yeah,”  she answered, pushing her hair back frowzily.  “Tom Cruise is, like, the finest babe to walk the cosmos.”

            Henry blinked, then looked hard at Erin.  For no reason he could think of, Erin looked away blushing, and Henry rocked back on his heels.  A question was forming in his mind, one without proper words, but when he turned away again, his movements were abrupt,  his eyes were narrowed speculatively, and a new watchfulness began to pervade his life.  He didn’t have long to wait before he had something to watch.

             Maddy and Erin had just graduated from high school and been accepted to San Diego state.  As a joke, Maddy and H.K. had bought Erin a toothbrush and a Garfield nightshirt for graduation, because Erin might as well have moved in. Two nights after the Tom Cruise dream, Erin was back in the family room, watching Say Anything with Maddy when Henry Kim got home from the hospital. 

            “Again?”  he asked in exasperation.  “How many times can you watch that movie anyway?”

            Madeleine turned to him, ‘sad movie’ tears dripping down her face.  “It’s soooo good, H.K.”  She sniffled.  “And when she comes back to him, and says ‘I love you.  How many times do I have to say it?”  And he says…”

            “One more time might be nice.”  Kim said smiling.  “Yeah, yeah, I know.  Cinema at its finest.  Don’t stay up too late, ladies.  Remember,  you have to catch the flight to your orientation in the morning.”

            “Is mother taking us?”  Maddy asked, trying too hard to conceal the need in her voice.

            “No, little one,”  he replied gently, “I am.”  There was a silence in the room as Maddy looked determinedly at the movie.  Henry tried to lighten the moment.  “So, be up early—you know the rule—breakfast at the place of your choice before the flight, okay?”         

            Erin peered at Henry Kim somberly over her popcorn.  “You take awfully good care of us, H.K.”  she said, and he blinked.  He’d never seen Maddy’s friend wholly serious before.

            He shrugged, and said lightly over his shoulder, “It’s what I live for.  Good night ladies—sweet dreams.” He didn’t catch the conspiratorial glance they threw each other as he left.

            That night, he was John Cusack in the back of the Malibu, and Maddy was Ione Skye, and they had just made love for the first time.  Even though Maddy was the virgin, it was Henry Kim who was trembling and vulnerable.  He could hear their dialogue in his memory, but it changed as they were speaking, becoming something else entirely—but close, so close to the original.

            “Why are you shaking.” She asked him, smiling tenderly.

            “I’m not shaking.”

            “You are.”

            “It’s not me.”

            “You are.”

            “Maybe I’m just happy.”  And Kim changed this line—made it light and flippant instead of intense, and the girl across from him grew angry.

            “Why do you do that!”  She said, her voice abrupt.  Her hands remained soft and comforting on his body, though, and if anything, the shivering in his dream increased.  “Why do you say the most important things as though they mean nothing?  Do they?  Mean nothing to you?”

            Henry Kim shook his head in denial, wondering again at the knowing hands on his body, the pleasure he shouldn’t be feeling.  “I had nothing,”  he whispered, half to himself, “I had nothing for so long.  If I say anything too seriously, I am afraid the gods will take away what I have.”  And he hated the anguish that crossed his face then, and hated that the girl child clutching him to her had seen him, shaking and vulnerable and happy and afraid in his happiness.

            He awoke, suddenly, as though startled, angry and ashamed, with tears on his cheeks.

            He was closed mouthed and distant the next morning, through getting the girls out of the house and then through the ghastly Denny’s  breakfast that they had insisted on..  Maddy, of course, knew something was wrong from the beginning, but midway through breakfast she asked, “What’s wrong, H.K.?”  And Kim had to swallow his anger at her, and swallow it hard, so she couldn’t read his thoughts and emotions before he did.

            “Bad dreams.”  He answered tersely, staring at his untouched food.

            “Bad how?”  There was a note of alarm in her voice, and Kim felt his teeth clench.

             He met her eyes impassively.  “Bad as in not good.”  He said levelly, and felt sick when Maddy turned away from him, her cheeks red with shame and her eyes unspeakably sad.

            His anger lasted all the way to the airport, when Maddy hugged Kim too fiercely for the parting of a two day trip.  “I’m sorry you had bad dreams, Phan Vo Kim..”  She said softly.  “You’re a good person—you only deserve the good kind of dreams.”

            Against his will, Kim felt his tension ease, but nothing—nothing!-- showed through his stern expression and mental shield.  “I’ll be here to pick you up tomorrow night.”  He said gruffly, nodding at Erin as she returned from the ticket counter.

            “We know you will.” Both girls replied somberly.  As he turned around and walked away, he could feel their eyes, burning holes in his back.

            Nothing was said about the incident when the girls returned, but Kim had no more ‘movie’ dreams, after that.   He did notice, however, that on the nights when Erin slept over, the intensity of Maddy’s own unconscious telepathic projections was much stronger than when Maddy was alone.  Erin was Maddy’s best friend, he reasoned.  He knew firsthand  that the girl was privy to Maddy’s abilities.   Maybe their friendship served Maddy the same way his did—but not as acutely.  Instead of being like a sort of psychoempathic battery, Erin was simply a resonating board for Maddy’s emotions and thoughts.  Maybe that was how some of Erin’s thoughts had been kicked into Henry’s dream.

            What bothered Kim the most, however, was not  how Maddy had gotten into his head and played with his mind, it was that she did it at all.  In fact, (and this idea set Kim’s teeth permanently on edge) the whole incident reeked of Estelle.

            As Kim had noted when he’d first set eyes on the Raitherson family, Maddy’s mother was not the warmest woman in the world, and the longer he lived under Estelle’s roof, the more apt that first impression became.  Kim would have been hard pressed to count more than twenty times that Maddy’s mother had addressed him directly in any given year.  It was  usually “Maddy, darling, tell Greg’s nephew that…”  Or,  “Greg, let your young Henry know where the family is going…”   or, (particularly when Maddy and Estelle were quarreling)  “If you have to bring himinto it….” 

            The truth was, from very early on, Kim was made aware of the fact that Estelle had not wanted him there in her house, and no amount of good behavior would change her mind.  And she had been insidiously trying to make Maddy see her point of view since the moment she’d set eyes on him.   

            He’d never forget the day he came home and found Maddy in tears, because Estelle asked Maddy not to play with Kim after school.  Maddy had looked up at Kim miserably.  “Mother said you’re not my sort of friend, Henry Kim, but I am, aren’t I?”

            Kim had smiled playfully, hiding behind his facile mental shields the anger that came whenever Estelle tried to put Maddy between herself and her least wanted family member.  “Of course you’re my sort of friend, Madeleine!”  He murmured. “Somewhere out there, the gods have friend book, and under my names, there will be a description of my best kind of friend.  It will read  “Small red-headed girl, green eyes, sevenish.  Lots of energy required.”

            Madeleine had giggled, then looked seriously at her brother.  “You don’t think that was a nice thing for mother to say, do you?”

            “No.”  Kim said honestly, but he didn’t elaborate.

            “You have to understand mother.”  She went on, sounding much older than ‘sevenish’.  “She was angry at my real father for a long time because he wasn’t enough of something—I don’t understand what.  And now that she’s married to Mr. Gregory, she thinks he’s not enough of something either, but at least he’s got enough money.”

            Kim inhaled through his teeth.   A person tended to leave childhood behind quickly, with all these adults leaving this detritus around in their minds to read.   He hunkered down, so he was eye level with her.  “Madeleine,”  he said softly, “It is not your job to take responsibility for your mother’s unkindnesses.  You are responsible for your own actions only, and someday, she will be made responsible for hers.”

            Maddy’s lower lip trembled, and Kim had tapped her cheek lightly.  “Who your friends are is your business, Maddy, and if your reasons for wanting their friendship is kindness and warmth and enjoyment of their company, then you have the right kind of friends.  Please—don’t ever let  your mother tell you differently.”

            Maddy had lain her head trustingly on Kim’s chest then.  “You always feel warm,”  she said after a pause, “When you’re telling me what to do.  Mother feels…”  Maddy paused and wrinkled her nose, “Sort of rough and cold, like a broken ice cube.”  She looked at Kim’s face intently.  “I only want to listen to warm people.”  She said at last, and Kim could think of no reply.  To him, what she said made perfect sense. 

            And it had continued to make perfect sense as Maddy had grown up.  In fact, Kim reasoned that it was probably why Maddy and Erin were such good friends.  Erin’s ‘avaunt guard’ appearance and her butterfly demeanor was often a defense against a rough neighborhood and a private school that was not much easier on her.  Maddy, looking for ‘warm’ people, had probably sensed Erin’s big heart and her vulnerability right from the beginning, and had stepped immediately up to be her friend.. 

            Kim gritted his teeth in frustration at the thought of Estelle’s involvement in Maddy’s actions.  Why would Maddy—ever the protector, ever the champion—choose now, when she was so close to being such an extraordinary young woman, to start playing with her abilities in such an ethically cavalier manner?   Unless, of course, Estelle had finally manipulated her into thinking it was okay.

            Lying in bed late at night, looking out through his window to the stars, Kim could hear Estelle’s voice as it had been known to echo around Maddy’s head.  “Start acting like a lady, Madeleine….start talking to the right sort of people, Madeleine…start using your intelligence in something worthwhile, Madeleine….” 

            The only problem with that line of reasoning, Kim thought, in an effort to block out that cultured, scornful voice, was that Estelle had all but beaten Maddy in an attempt to make her forsake her telepathic abilities.  Madeleine’s aptitude at picking up peoples thoughts and relaying her own—to say nothing of her ability to ease people’s pain by drawing it into herself-were a forbidden topic in the household.  The odd episodes surrounding Madeleine’s entrance to puberty had never been brought up—even when Estelle and Greg were going through housekeepers and grounds crew like boys through popsicles.  No one dared mention dreams at the dinner table.   No, Estelle certainly wouldn’t have planted the idea into Maddy’s head—and certainly wouldn’t have encouraged any more intimate contact with Kim.

            Kim sighed to himself many times that summer, trying to reason through Madeleine’s motives, and it wasn’t until his last night under the Raitherson roof that the full reason presented itself to him with all the force of a kick to the stomach.

            He left the next day on a  two o’clock flight, and he and Maddy and Erin had stayed up very late, talking in his room.  The conversation had been about normal things—college, movies, books, boys (from Maddy and Erin), hospitals (from Kim), but the undercurrent of sadness and of parting had been there, making every moment distinct, and every sentence emotionally charged.    They had all started out sitting cross legged on his bed, but eventually Erin had moved down to the floor and stretched out.  She fell asleep in middle of telling them about her favorite Robin McKinley novel, and Maddy and Kim had exchanged drowsy smiles.   Maddy threw a blanket on her sleeping friend, and had tossed a pillow down for Erin to roll onto, then had laid her head on Kim’s stomach while they continued to talk.

            Kim started to talk about his work, trying to put into words all of the wonder and helplessness he felt at holding someone’s life in his hands and sometimes—often—not being able to do enough for that person.  It was a difficult thing for him to talk about—the kind of thing that was reserved for conversations that went long into the night, when the intimacy of a moment made the baring of souls seem inevitable.   He felt Maddy listening, avidly, hanging on to every word like a lifeline.  Then he paused for a moment, and he felt the exact instant when her eyes closed and she fell reluctantly asleep.  He followed her mere seconds later.

            When he awoke to the sensation that he was not awake, a part of his subconscious caught its breath in panic.  These dreams were deliciously overwhelming on any regular night, when Maddy was alone in her bed, four doors down.  They were exquisite torture when Erin was in the house, and the resonating board effect of their combined consciousness made virtual reality look like a game of Atari.   What would the effect be when both girls were in the same room with him—and… ye gods!  Madeleine was in his bed, touching him!  Kim tried desperately to wake up, but he was held there, in dream limbo, by his own exhaustion as well as the exhaustion of the two girls near him. 

            He tried to quiet the panic in his subconscious by reminding himself that the dreams were not always the forbidden kind.  Often they were the run of the mill green rat in a purple house nonsense, or really big tabby cats, or, once or twice, the plot of the book Maddy had been reading unwinding at triple speed.  The reassurance was short lived, however, when the dream began.

            Madeleine entered a wood of some sort—a magical, mystical kind of place, a place found only in fantasy novels.  If he’d been conscious, and the stakes hadn’t been quite so high, he might have been amused.  She was wearing a gauzy, ivory colored romantic dress, and her already delicate, lovely features were put into soft focus and enhanced.  She looked like a Michael Whelan heroine come to life.  It wasn’t until she raised her head from the flower she’d been holding and met his eyes that Kim realized the true extent of his danger. 

            Normally, he was a witness in her dreams—sort of a reluctant voyeur—but tonight, in that dress that highlighted generous curves (slightly exaggerated for effect, those), and with the soft lighting and the romantic setting, Kim suddenly recognized this dream for exactly what Madeleine wanted it to be.  Seduction.  Subconsciously or consciously, it didn’t matter.  There was something she wanted from Kim, and in her dreams, maybe she had a chance to get it.

            “Maddy… no.”  He said gently.  He saw her eyes darken, and, in true dream fashion, he knew her exact thoughts.  “It’s not you—you’re lovely.”  He said quickly.  God save him from teenage girls and their fragile egos—if their friendship managed to survive this night, he would consider himself truly blessed.

            “So are you.  Beautiful, I mean.”  She replied shyly.  Seductively.  In the dream, Kim swallowed.  In real life, he knew, he must be fully erect and aching, because the wave of longing and desire that swept through him was too painful not to be real.

            “Madeleine,”  he said, trying to be firm, “You’re not ready for this.”

            “But I am—really!”  She said eagerly.  “I’ve been looking at books and reading about it all summer….”

            Kim blinked.  This explained a lot, he thought, feeling a bit poleaxed.  God, he knew she was growing up, but apparently she’d done quite a lot of it behind his back!  “That’s not the point!”  He replied, and to his shame, he heard his dream voice squeak.  She was standing before him now, close enough for her breasts to brush his chest, and her mouth looked so incredibly soft…..  But not like this.  Oh, please, he begged, not like this.

            “No.”  She whispered, “This is.”  And  then she kissed him.  And even though it was only a dream, even though he couldn’t really feel her soft lips on his,  urging him to possess her mouth, even though her over-soft curves crushed against his body were just an illusion, even though the sweetness of her breath and the pressure of her small hands against his body wasn’t real… his world exploded.  With a groan, both real and imagined, he pressed her to him and pushed her into the perfect green grass.

            Her response to him was incredible.  Knowledgeable, graceful, womanly, with none of the awkwardness that usually accompanied the first kiss, the first caress, the first baring of bodies.  She arched under him, and he could feel her feeling for him, for his manhood, for the part of himself he’d always kept from her, because she hadn’t been a woman.  Until now.

            “Now…”  she whispered in his ear, “I’m old enough now, H.K.  I’m a grown up now…”   The words were childish, but the sentiment and the images that followed them were not, and Kim felt himself giving in.   It was a dream, right?   And lord, he thought as she insinuated supple hands against his bare chest, was it a good one.  It was every virgin’s dream date, with the wind in the grasses and the fantasy setting and the perfect lover.  It was the fantasy every man wanted to make come true for his love.  It was so beautiful, so goddamned beautiful, it made his body hurt.  It was perfect.

            And there was something wrong with it.  Her body was too lush, her kisses too knowing, her touches too sure.  When he swept back the shoulder of her dress (the dream material miraculously giving way)  he saw, not her body, but the body she thought he wanted to see. Her adolescent insecurity sent him reeling from her, trying desperately to get hold over is own consciousness. 

            “What’s the matter, H.K.?”  He heard her ask hesitantly. “It’s only a dream— its supposed to be perfect.”

            Henry rolled over and groaned.  “Wake up, Madeleine.”  He said softly. 

            “But I only wanted to…”

            “BY ALL THE GODS, WAKE UP!”  Henry roared, and she did.  And so did he.  And so, probably, did half the people on their block.  But while everybody else awoke, rolled over in their beds and went back to sleep, Henry and Madeleine faced each other across the length of a pillow.  Her eyes were hurt, and confused, and frightened, because never, in the fourteen years she’d known him, had she seen such terrible anger in her beloved Kim.

            His breathing was ragged, and his eyes were dilated with both passion and fury, and when he opened his mouth to speak, she expected a roar of rage.  But it never came.  Their hands had become entwined in sleep, and from her touch he felt a sudden wave of compassion and fear, and, deep, deep beyond all that, the kernels of what might, someday, be what he’d been waiting for all along.

            Instead of speaking, he threw his head back for a moment, as though the emotions coursing between them could be denied, then he looked at her over bright eyes, vaguely surprised as his own vision blurred.

            “How could you?”  He whispered hoarsely, and when she opened her mouth to speak, he shook his head in denial again, cutting her off.  “I… I’ve got to get out of here…”  He said.  Ripping his hand from hers felt like the ripping of flesh—on both sides, and as he hurtled across his room and out the glass door into the night, he could hear her sobbing behind him.    A few moments later, as he broke into a panicked run across the property and over the security gate, Erin’s voice drifted over the lawn, and if he could have found a place between fury and pain and love, it would have been laughter.

            “Oh God, Maddy—he’ll be back.  He has to—he doesn’t have any of his stuff.”

 

 

 

Chapter 4 

I’m so afraid to leave, but more afraid to stay…

(October Project, Ariel)

 

            He was here.  Madeleine had squirmed with the knowledge for nearly an hour, and still he hadn’t knocked on the door, or simply come in.  He’d just sat there, outside, thinking about the past and freezing his ass off.  It had made Madeleine want to grind her teeth. 

            On the upside of things, she thought glumly, her bad mood had made her break up with Jason a lot easier.   Oh, God—she hadn’t even known that one was coming!  Sitting in the corner of the couch, listening to the Goo Goo Dolls on the speaker system and watching her friends and colleagues dance and talk and enjoy themselves, she sighed and cupped her chin in her hands.  Kim would probably count that as another sign of her immaturity, she groused, knowing she was being unfair to them both. 

            It was just, she had rationalized to Erin earlier that evening, that she’d had no idea that Jason felt that way about her until that night, when he’d started inching his hand up her thigh on the way to the party.

            “Hello, Maddy!”  Erin had interjected in exasperation.  “I know you’re the one with the psychic powers and shit, and I’m just a plebeian from the wrong side of the tracks, but even I knew the guy liked you!  How do you keep missing this?”

            Madeleine had given an unhappy little shrug, and had met her friends vivid blue eyes with her own green ones, and they had both sobered for a moment.  Madeleine made it a point to never use her empathic abilities for personal reasons such as Jason’s impending crush, and they both knew why.

            Erin blew out a breath that disturbed her carefully feathered hair.  “Madeleine,”  she said gently, baring for a moment the vulnerable, caring woman that very few people knew, “It’s not like you have to pick their brains without their knowledge, or anything, just look at these guys with your heart, for heaven’s sake!  You’re a smart girl—you should be able to spot the symptoms a mile away by now.”

            Maddy shook her head, blowing out her breath just as Erin had.  (They’d known each other for so long that neither one of them was sure just who had started that habit!)  “I can’t see anything, Erin.  Not even if I looked—and I haven’t, since… well, since that night.”  They had been in the bath room, ostensibly redoing their makeup, and Madeleine flopped down on the closed toilet seat in defeat.  “I mean, attraction is a pretty strong emotion, right?   I should have a clue… even an inkling.   Most normal people without these…  extra sensory things I’ve got, they can tell, given a little time.  Well these guys, lately—they’ve been blind siding me.  Every damn time.  If I didn’t know better, I’d think…”  She broke off, chewing her freshly painted upper lip in concentration.

            “You’d think what?”  Erin asked, looking at Maddy in concern.  Maddy almost never talked about the ‘extra sensory things’ that had shaped her life so incredibly.  She must be pretty worked up about this to bring it up in a bathroom at a party, for heaven’s sake!

            “I’d think their thoughts were being sent somewhere else!”  Maddy burst out, then closed her eyes abruptly.  Sleep… she thought drowsily… if only she could just get enough sleep, maybe this whole psychic misrouting thing would not bother her so much.

  Erin, characteristically, noticed what Maddy was feeling and not what she said.  Maddy had wondered sometimes if Erin hadn’t been the empath, because she was incredibly good at it-noticing peoples emotions through their words was what made her an outstanding psychologist.  “Are you okay, sweetie?  You’re looking tired again.”

  Maddy  smiled a little, her mouth barely pulling up at the corners.  “Just the usual.”  She put off.  Erin shook her head decisively.

            “No its not—and you know it.  Maddy, ever since you began your internship, you’ve been like this—going full bore and then, kapow!  You’re knocked on your ass.   Look at you—you’re exhausted.  You need to see a doctor or something!”

            Maddy’s smile got a little bigger.  “You’re right.  I need to see a doctor.  A surgeon, in fact.  One with big fancy credentials…”  Her playful voice trailed off, and Erin looked kindly at her and supplied the ending.

            “And beautiful golden eyes.”

            “Yeah…”  And there was enough wastefulness in Maddy’s voice to break every heart in the overcrowded house.

            “He’s coming for you—you know he is.”  Erin reminded, and she put a graceful, manicured hand on Maddy’s shoulder for emphasis.  “And when he does, don’t you want to be awake to spend time with him?”

            Maddy shook her head, feeling rejuvenated just from Erin’s touch.  “You know me when I’m with H.K.,” she said lightly.  “As long as I’m with him, I’ll be able to leap tall buildings!”  Erin smiled, like she was supposed to, but they both knew she wasn’t fooled.  Ever since Madeleine  had begun work at the county Social Services department, first as an intern, and now as a case worker,  her energy seemed to be tapped at an alarming rate.

            Knowing a party was really no place to discuss the matter of her friends health, Erin grabbed Maddy’s arm and started hauling her out of the bathroom.  Several people had already knocked on the door since they’d begin their stay.  Also knowing that nobody would really listen to what the two girls were talking about, Erin said, to distract her friend, “Now what was that about your radar being beamed somewhere else?”  She asked.

            “Yeah, right.”  Maddy played along, getting into the spirit of the crowd.  “Some poor old widow in Timbuktu is getting all my warnings about guys getting too serious, and looking at her goats with odd suspicions.”

            They had giggled uncontrollably then, but that had been nearly an hour ago, and the girls had gotten separated, and then, right when Maddy was about to doze off in the corner of the couch, he had arrived.

            Erin had gone outside only a few moments before, and Madeleine had felt their reunion through the bottom of her psychic feet.  There had been an odd, forlorn echo to Erin’s thoughts, and Madeleine had bit her lip in pain.  Oh, Erin, I didn’t know.  She thought, surprised yet again by her blindness.  But then, Erin had developed superlative shields against Maddy’s intrusions, by instinct, if not intent.  As had Henry Kim.  Madeleine couldn’t really blame either of them—her powers, at the beginning, had been so damned hard to control that she really should be thanking her lucky stars that she still had them both as friends.  The pain that they had both endured for her sake was as strong a test of loyalty as any that could be devised on purpose.

            Maddy’s thoughts broke off as she caught a flash of something from H.K..  He’s nervous, she thought, feeling a little reassured.  The feeling was mutual.  Then, with the weight of a cannonball, she felt the past ricochet off of Erin and straight to Kim.  Oh, God, Henry…Don’t remember that… not tonight…  But it was too late.  Like a rock through water, Madeleine was dragged through memory to that awful night, when the combined force of infatuation and arrogance had caused her to betray the person she loved the most…

            “It’s okay, Maddy,”  Erin was saying, “He’ll come back.  He has to.  His clothes are still here.”

            Madeleine choked on an hysterical laugh, and she sobbed a little harder into Erin’s shoulder. She thought she had her emotions back under control when Erin asked her what happened.  “The last thing I remember was falling asleep.  What did you say to make him take off like that?

            Madeleine had shaken her head, afraid that if she spoke she’d dissolve into tears again.  “We fell asleep too…”  She whispered, and Erin’s eyes had widened in comprehension. 

            “You didn’t.”  She asked in consternation, catching her breath when Maddy nodded helplessly.  “But, Maddy… he was furious the last time you tried that…”

            “It was different this time.”  She insisted, wiping futilely at her red-rimmed eyes.  “I wasn’t trying to manipulate him, or get him to say anything he didn’t want to.  I just wanted him to be honest with me…”

            “And to fall in love with you.”  Erin supplied matter-of-factly.

            “Is that so wrong?”  Madeleine asked, a little wildly. 

            “No.”  Erin answered, honestly.  “But you know H.K.—if he feels something, he’ll tell you…” 

            Maddy interrupted, shaking her head.  “But he won’t.  Don’t you see, Erin?   When I was little, if I wanted to know something, all I had to do was ask H.K.  What he couldn’t say  was always written here.”  She clenched tense little hands over her heart.  “It was like “The Book of H.K.”  and everything the book said was honest, and all I had to do was to ask Henry Kim a question.”

            “But now?”

            “But now, its like there’s secret chapters of the book, and he won’t let me see them.  I mean, everything in there is still as true as it ever was, but some of it is hidden…”

            Erin crossed her legs on the bed and peered at her friend, trying to make sense of what she was saying.  “How can he hide things from you Maddy?  I thought you could, you know, sense things like that.”

            Maddy shook her head.  “He has shields.  You know, some way of keeping me out.  Don’t look so surprised, Erin—you do it too.  Remember my birthday present?”  Maddy indicated the emerald pendant that Erin had spent two months of her after school job’s wages on.  “I had no idea you were planning on this—you wanted it to be a surprise so badly it was one.”

            Erin’s eyebrows lifted, and she felt her eyes water a little.  Madeleine had been the best friend she’d ever had—loyal, generous, kind.  If it hadn’t been for Madeleine’s friendship( and her and H.K.’s tutoring skills in Science and Math) she wouldn’t be on her way to college in a week, and she had wanted her friend to know how much that meant to her.  “Really?  I thought you were faking, just to make me feel better.” 

            In spite of her misery, Madeleine sensed Erin’s earnestness and put a reassuring hand on her friends shoulder.  “No.”  She said.  “People close to me can keep things out.  I think its like… like borrowing, I don’t know, some sort of psychic energy from me to protect your privacy.”

            “Like what?  What’s H.K. been hiding from you?”  Erin asked, truly curious  Of all the material things that Maddy had and Erin didn’t, the only thing Erin envied about her friend was her friend’s brother.  While Erin’s mother was too busy, and Maddy’s mother too indifferent, Henry Kim always seemed to be there—for both of them.  In spite of grueling hours at the hospital during his internship and residency, when the girls had needed a ride to a club meeting, or to a football game, H.K. had been there.  When their debate team had placed third at the State Finals, H.K. had been the one in the audience, and the one to take them out to dinner afterwards.  When Erin had been denied the first scholarship she’d applied for, H.K. and Madeleine had held her when she cried and taken her out to ice cream as a consolation.  He’d been there in the same way for Madeleine when she’d failed to make the swim team—all three years!  He’d tutored both the girls in Math and Science, and he’d even been the one that Maddy had called to take Erin to the hospital when she’d fallen roller blading and broken her arm.  In spite of the fact that they weren’t truly brother and sister—probably because of the fact, actually—the two of them seemed to be preternaturally close, and Erin wondered what could possibly come between them. 

            “Like that Catwoman person…”  Maddy was saying, still sniffling.  “I mean, he didn’t love her—I know he didn’t!  And I couldn’t figure out why he was going out with her, and every time I probed him, all I got was like this file that said   ‘Madeleine, too young.’”

            Erin tried not to giggle and failed.  “Maddy, its not like we’re…”

            “Twenty-four years old with bodies to die for?  I know.”  There was an  uncharacteristic bitterness in Maddy’s voice, but then Erin could hardly know of the over rounded curves Madeleine had projected in her dream, or of Henry Kim’s almost panicked brush off.  “But… It’s just…”  Madeleine had stopped then, Erin was silent as her friend searched for words.  When she finally spoke again, her gaze was far away, as though she were listening to her heart speak, and relaying the information it gave her. 

  “It’s just that…you know how, this last year at school, everyone was getting ready to leave?  You could almost see it, all of the people who were really good friends were spending all their spare time together, because, odds are, their lives are going to be very different in a few years, and they won’t see much of each other.”

            Erin nodded somberly.  She and Maddy had made plans to attend the same college for that very reason.  At first they had been self conscious about it—they were, after all, supposed to be growing up, right?  But Kim had told Maddy (and Maddy, Erin)  that the truth was, both of them had learned the hard way how hard it was to find love, and that friendship shouldn’t be sacrificed for false pride. 

            “Well,”  Maddy was saying. “I didn’t want Kim and I to grow apart, like that.  And, I guess I figured that if I didn’t want to grow away from Kim, then I would need to grow up for him.”  She swallowed hard, because tears were threatening to overwhelm her again.  “Oh, God, Erin, what If I screwed everything up so bad… what if he never comes back?”  Helplessly, Maddy felt tears began to stream down her cheeks, and Erin could only sit there stroking her back, until Maddy’s sobs subsided, and she fell asleep. She awakened a few hours later, her heart aching with the knowledge that Henry Kim had still not returned.

            At eleven the next morning Kim had still not returned, and Erin and Maddy were nearly frantic.  They had finished his packing and put his bags in Maddy’s car.  Madeleine had nearly broken down again when she saw that he had, indeed,  packed Ephram to take to England with him.  She had kept in control by reminding herself that Kim could walk up the driveway any moment, and she needed to be clear headed to talk to him. 

            Having done all they could to speed his departure, they had gone through his address book, calling every friend he had from his residency.  Madeleine had easily swallowed her pride and called Catherine, but no one had heard from Kim.  Earlier in the morning they had taken the car out and cruised San Manuel, Redwood City and San Mateo,  looking futilely for Kim’s slight figure in parks, on the streets, in coffee shops—anywhere in a five mile radius.  Maddy had called off the search at nine o’clock, positive that Henry Kim wouldn’t jeopardize the fellowship he’d worked so hard for and hoping for his return home. 

            So now it was eleven thirty, and having done everything possible to find him short of calling the police, Maddy and Erin had abandoned all pretense of productivity and were pacing agitatedly in the front room.  The room itself was vast, spacious and airy, but the only thing the girls cared about was its large bay window that overlooked the front drive. 

            “Honestly, Madeleine…”  Estelle said as she left the house on the way to a shopping excursion with a friend, “Don’t you have something better to do with your time?  I thought Greg’s nephew was leaving today— I would have thought you’d be talking to him!”  All of Estelle’s good breeding couldn’t contain her disdain of the prospect.

            “Go shopping, Mother.”  Madeleine said roughly, never taking her eyes from the driveway.  And Estelle left, never asking another question about the incident—or her daughters life, for that matter. 

            At eleven forty-five Madeleine’s  fingernails finally bit through the tender flesh of her palms.  She wouldn’t have left her post at the window, but exhaustion had weakened her control, and Erin had felt the pain as well.  At twelve o’clock, she was back at the window with Band-Aids on her hands, and on her telepathy.  Emotionally, however, she was still open and bleeding.  She did not realize, however, how strongly she was broadcasting, until she heard Kim’s voice inside her head. “It’s okay, little one.  Enough.”

            “He’s here, Erin!”  The girls rushed to the window and stood tensely.  A full five minutes later the cab pulled up.  Madeleine dashed outside, tripping and skinning her knee at the second step, and ran to the waiting cab, pulling up short just in front of a rumpled, hollow eyed Kim.  Erin was several steps behind her, having had the presence of mind to remember that Kim had had nothing but the clothes on his back when he’d left and to grab Maddy’s purse to pay the cab driver.

            “Thank you, Erin.”  Kim said after he and Maddy had stood, looking at each other for an anguished moment.  “He needs a generous tip, as well, for believing me.”

            “Where did you go?”  Madeleine said, when she could find her voice again.  He looked like hell.  His normally golden skin was pale, and he had a faint shadow covering his usually smooth cheeks.  His hair hung lankly in front of his eyes, and smelled of sweat and… fish?  Maddy wanted to hug him more than she had wanted anything in her entire life. 

            “I walked to the beach.”  He said quietly, his shadowed eyes burning and shuttered as they met her red-rimmed green gaze.  Maddy gasped openly, making Erin turn away from her good-natured haggling with the cab driver.

            “Good grief, Henry Kim, that’s over fifteen miles away!”

            Henry smiled faintly, his eyes losing some of their darkness.  “Which is, of course, why I needed the cab.”  His smile faded, and his look intensified.  “I could hear you broadcasting nearly two miles away.  The cabby started talking about a sister he hasn’t spoken to in decades, and the poor man nearly burst into tears.”

            Madeleine gasped again and brought a hand to her mouth.  The cab had pulled away by now, and she turned to Erin, looking horrified.  “Why didn’t you tell me?”  She asked, feeling some of the tension in the air lighten as she did so. 

            Erin shrugged, looking bemused.  “I guess my shields were up.”  She answered, and her look turned serious.  “But they’re not up now.  You guys need to talk.  I’ll be in the t.v. room when you’re ready to go, H.K.” 

            Neither of them turned to watch her go.  After a moment thick with things unsaid, Kim reached out and took Maddy’s hand, turning it up to look at her savaged palm.  Her fall on the step had ripped off the Band-Aid and she was bleeding again.  He smoothed her palm for a moment, and she could feel the healing coming from his surgeon’s hands, and to her surprise the bleeding stopped, and so did most of the pain.

            “A gift from you.”  Kim said quietly, and she understood.  It was that psychic borrowing thing again.

            “Kim, I’m…” She burst out, but he put a graceful finger on her lips.

            “Don’t say it, Maddy.  I know you are.”  With suddenly shaking hands he raised her palm to his lips, the touch throwing little electric shocks all through her body.  He lowered her hand quickly, and looked away.  Maddy was dismayed to realize that she couldn’t read his moods—nothing escaped from his perfected mental shields.  Kim continued.  “I also hope you know that I would forgive you anything.” 

            Madeleine felt relief hit her body like a palpable thing, and Henry Kim had to steady her as her knees went weak.  He gathered her close, as he hadn’t done since she’d been a little girl.

             “I just need to know why, Madeleine.”  He whispered.  “It… was unpleasant, to have you sneaking into my dreams like that.  It wasn’t the way I taught you to behave towards friends.”

            With an effort, Maddy stood on her own two feet and backed up a little, feeling the courage now to look him in the eyes.  “Is that what we are, H.K., friends?”

            A faint twist marked Kim’s mouth.  “Among myriad other things, yes.  We’re friends, and I’m proud of that.”

            “Then what are you hiding from me?”  Maddy asked, surprising him with her fierceness.  “That’s why I did it Kim.”  Her small, freckled hands made a fist, which she placed over his heart.  “I can feel it, right here.  It’s this big pit marked “Maddy Keep Out”.  We’ve never had secrets.  Never.  And now its not enough that I’m going away to school, but you feel like you’ve got to get out of the goddamned country to get away from me.”

            “Maddy, I’m not…”

            “You are!”  She cried.  “I don’t care what you say about getting out of Estelle’s way, the truth, the honest to Pete truth is that you want to get away from me!”  Maddy’s anger slipped, leaving her with the hurt that propelled it.  “I tried so hard to be grown up for you… to think like a grown up, to plan like a grown up, to… to take over your dreams, just to make you want to stay.  And you didn’t want me that way either.”  Tears began sliding down her cheeks with regular ease, and she wondered if she’d cried as much in her entire life as she had in the past twelve hours.  “Why don’t you want me near you anymore, Henry Kim?”  She asked, feeling so alone and so young and so lost that Kim felt his heart break into a thousand pieces.  He opened his arms and she stepped into them, forgetting her anger, forgetting everything but her desire to be comforted by she’d been comforted through her entire childhood. 

            “You deserve more.”  Kim said to her hair, and she stilled her sobbing to listen.  “You deserve a father and a mother and brothers and sisters and a hundred people who love you, but all you have is me.  And every kind of love you have, you’re pouring into me.”  He paused for a moment, and she could almost hear the scales in his head, weighing out whether or not to tell her what he told her next.  “That thing that… almost happened… in your dream last night, Maddy—I can’t pretend it wasn’t… sweet, to imagine… but,”  He stopped, and his discomfiture would have been almost comical, if Madeleine hadn’t felt her entire future on the line.

            “But,”  he continued at last, “It’s a little like having a goldfish bowl.  I may be the best looking fish in the bowl, but I’m also the only one.  Madeleine, there’s a whole ocean out there, and you deserve to see it before you cast your line.”

            Madeleine felt her shoulders tremble, and then a wet giggle burst from her.  “That’s…”

            “The corniest…”

            “Metaphor I’ve ever heard.”  They put together at last, giggling a little hysterically.

            “Maybe.”  Henry agreed, “But its also appropriate.”  He said sobering.

            Madeleine snuggled a little closer to his surprisingly broad chest.  His body had changed, she realized… he had changed… from the boy he had been the last time he had held her like this.  For that matter, Maddy reflected, feeling tingles of excitement course through her body, so had she.  “But what if I go fishing,”  she began, a reluctant smile curving her lips as she continued the metaphor, “And I catch another fish.  And ten years from now, all you and I do is call each other on our birthdays and compare baby pictures.”  A flash of pain so acute it almost made Maddy double over coursed through Kim.  She blinked, startled and dismayed that something could actually hurt her H.K. so badly as to leave his emotions bleeding even now. Before she could ask what, in her harmless little metaphor had inspired such a reaction, he replied to her question, and his voice was so calm, for a moment, she almost doubted her own perceptions.

            “Well, if it comes to that, your Mr. Fish will be a better man than I am.  And you only deserve the best, Madeleine.”  Maddy opened her mouth to tell him that he was lying when Kim shifted in her embrace and looked at his watch.  “Good grief, Maddy—would you look at the time—If I don’t take a shower and pack my stuff, this conversation is moot, cause I’m not going anywhere!”

            Kim released her and took off for the house in one fluid motion, leaving Maddy trailing behind him, belatedly trying to tell him that she and Erin had everything ready, all he had to do was shower.    Thirty minutes later they were speeding towards San Franciso Metro, talking lightly about writing letters and making phone calls as though nothing at all had happened the night before.  Erin told Maddy later, that the whole car ride and the subsequent wait in the terminal was just a bit eerie—like Kim had somehow managed to erase the most miserable few hours of their entire lives just by wishing they had never been.

            It wasn’t until Kim’s plane was being boarded and Erin had hugged and kissed her favorite big brother for all he was worth that the tension flared up again.  Madeleine stepped into H.K.’s hug casually.  Then she looked into his shadowed golden eyes, and some impulse moved her to touch his cheek, and then, just for a moment, his walls came  crashing down.  She gasped softly, putting her other hand on his heart.

            “It hurts, Phan Vo Kim,”  she said softly, wondering how he had managed to keep that much pain from her.

            “Not anymore.”  He lied.  Softly, he closed his eyes and held her hand to his cheek..

            Feeling his defenses down, Madeleine made one last desperate bid to keep him from leaving.  “I’m grown up enough to make that go away.”  She said hopefully, tracing his lips with her thumb, and felt his pain transform itself to irritation in less than a heartbeat.  Without warning, he reached out and cupped her chin, holding her mouth steady as he lowered his own.  Their lips touched, and he released the full, adult force of his frustration and his desire upon her, ravishing her mouth like a tiger ravishes the jungle, powerfully, stealthily, with sure purpose and little heed to the devastation it leaves behind.  He swallowed Madeleine’s gasp of surprise and continued the kiss, reaching his arms around her to press her against his hard body.  For an aching instant, she was conscious of his full, throbbing arousal against her abdomen, and of her breasts, crushed against his chest, heavy and tingling like the rest of her.  The sensations were overwhelming, and when she gave a little moan and wrapped her arms around Henry Kim’s neck, just to hold her body upright, Kim ripped his mouth away from hers and backed up a step.  His breathing was ragged and he looked nearly as surprised as she was, that he had let his defenses down enough for that kiss to have happened.

            “When you are grown up enough for that, Madeleine,”  he gasped at last, “Then you can come to me and talk of easing pain.”  He took one more deep breath, and delved deep to find a goodbye smile for both of them.  “Good bye, ladies.  I intend to keep my promise about writing.”  And then he was gone, leaving Erin to guide a dazed Madeleine to a seat, where she dropped like a puppet with cut strings.

            “Good God,”  Erin said, surprised to her toes, “What on earth was that!”

            “Heaven.”  Maddy whispered, touching bruised lips.  “Heaven, and I have to wait to see it again.”

 

 

Chapter 5 

I see you standing in the smoky entrance/ Giving up your good intentions…

…Leave it all behind you / I’ll know where you’ve gone.

(October Project, Take me as I am.)

 

 

            …Hiya, H.K.--- we’re all settled in here at the dorms.  They’re noisy and chaotic and strange, and Erin and I are enjoying every moment of it.  I never noticed how quiet it was at home,  until you started med-school and weren’t home as much, but now we’ve got all the activity we’d ever dreamed of…

            …Dear Maddy---I visited Stratford Upon Avon today, and was mildly surprised at how small Shakespeare’s house actually was.  It made me feel slightly better about my miniscule flat—right up until the moment I banged my shin on the kitchen table on the way out of the bathroom!…

            …Hiya, H.K.—Can’t write too much, Erin and I are going trolling tonight (smile, H.K.)  Erin has a pair of four inch spike heels—she looks smashing (to use your turn of phrase) but its all for show.  She talks very boldly about taking a man home and ravishing his body, just so one of us knows how it feels, but the truth is, she’s nearly as picky as I am…

            …Madeleine—I looked up Mr. Simms, the man who taught me English in the emigration camp, and I was saddened to learned that he’s passed away.  I wanted so much to thank him for all he’d done for me—did I tell you that he helped me hide that beating, so that I could get on the plane to America?-- and now I’ll never get the chance…

            H.K.—I’m sorry to hear about Mr. Simms—I’d been hoping you would have a friend out there, and I know how much he meant to you when you were in Vietnam… 

…In the area of trivia, I got an A+ on my paper about social reform—I’m sending you a copy of it, because I thought you’d be interested.  The grade finally helped me decide on a major—I’d like to major in sociology, and do my graduate work as a social worker.  I think I am uniquely qualified to handle that sort of thing, don’t you?  Mother choked on her Sunday morning old fashioned when I told her—I wish you had seen it…

            Madeleine…A child died in my arms this morning.  I’m writing because I couldn’t voice what I’m feeling right now to anyone else…

            H.K.—Erin and I are coming out to backpack across Europe this summer—your idea, I know, but a good one… I bought Erin the ticket and the visa for her birthday with money I earned at the student store… she’s been a bit bummed lately, and this helped lighten her mood a little.  I’m telling you this first because I’m overwhelmed by your last letter.  My God, H.K., how do you keep all of that locked inside you?  What do you do when I’m not there to talk to?…

            Maddy… I enjoyed your visit immensely—you’re right, Erin seemed a little depressed, but I’m excited for her about her major.   She will be an excellent psychologist (she’s been practicing for years on the both of us!)  I am getting used to turning around in my flat again without bumping into one of you, but I do miss the sound of your voices…

 

            They had written—lord had they written.   Sitting in the crowded party,   Madeleine could still recite many of Kim’s letters by rote.   Abruptly she surfaced from the pool of memory, wondering how long she’d been gazing into space, moving her lips in time to the phantom letters in front of her.  Looking around her she could see no one looking at her strangely, so she settled back into the chair and reached for her mind to find Erin and H.K.  What was taking them do damned long anyway!

            Madeleine began to squirm with frustration, and hearing an argument in the making next to her she put a damper on her telepathy.  Damn—what was he waiting for!  A sudden, chilling thought assailed her… Kim hadn’t changed his mind, had he?  Madeleine fought the urge to draw her legs up under her and wrap her arms around them like a little girl.  No, no, no… she chanted to herself.   He couldn’t.  She had waited too long, loved him too long to have  him change his mind now… her body started trembling, and suddenly, there was his voice  in her head… Don’t worry little one, I’m here… And the trembling stopped, and, one last time in that long night, they were both jerked into the past, to the closure that had led to this moment.  To that moment, nearly three months before, when she had heard his voice in her head from half a world away, saying those same words…

            …Don’t worry little one, I’m here… Kim was calling, as loud as he possibly could in his head, because half a world away, something was dreadfully wrong.  He lay there in his bed, breathless and shaking, looking at the bright LED letters on his clock that read two-twenty a.m.. Nearly an hour later, the phone rang..

            “H.K.?”  Her voice was shaky and rough, and when she heard Kim’s response, he could almost feel her relief traveling through the wires.

            “What’s wrong, Madeleine?”  He asked gently.

            “It’s Greg… he had a heart attack at the office during lunch… he died this afternoon, H.K.”  Maddy’s voice trailed off, and she sounded lost and alone.  Which she was, Henry acknowledged with a painful thump of his heart.  Maddy and Erin had moved back to San Manuel to complete their graduate work at Stanford when Erin’s mother had first taken ill, and Maddy had reported that with a little effort, she had finally gotten to know her stepfather.  He’s really very kind, H.K., she had written, He’s just so cowed by mother, he has a hard time showing it.  We’ve been golfing every Saturday, and you should hear him go on about you—he’s so proud he could burst.  Do you know that his business partners have seen every picture we’ve had taken?  He calls us his kids, and recites our letters verbatim…  And now Greg, with his vague smile and his passion for golf  and his small, unforgettable kindnesses to Maddy and Kim was gone.

            “I’ll be there right away.”  Kim said roughly, and they had sat there, in the darkness, half a world apart, consoling each other silently through the telephone lines until Kim finally rang off and made arrangements to leave.

            Madeleine was waiting for him at the airport, and when he disembarked she wrapped her arms around him shamelessly and held on for all she was worth.  Through the haze of grief that enveloped both of them, it suddenly struck Henry Kim that her body was softer than it had been when he’d last held her like this, nearly six  years ago.   As they’d walked back to the car and Maddy had discussed the funeral arrangements, it hit him.  Those curves that she’d imagined so vividly all those years ago had finally come to be.  Watching her drive confidently (on the right side of the road, which threatened to terrify him for the full fortnight of his visit) he noted the smooth curve of her breast and the graceful roundness of her arms, and he felt his mouth go dry.  Conscious of the inappropriateness of the occasion, he forced his reawakened awareness to the back of his mind until the day after the funeral.

            He, Maddy and Estelle had been sitting down to a subdued brunch, and Estelle stopped ignoring H.K. long enough to casually mention that she was flying to New York the next day.

            “But Mother…”  Madeleine choked, stunned…  “Gregory…”

            “Is in his grave dear, and doesn’t care one way or another.”  Estelle had said smoothly, and H.K. blinked, stunned a little by her callousness.  Madeleine was not nearly as stunned—but she was furious.

            “He deserves more from you than that, Mother.”  She said evenly.  “He did his damnedest to make you happy, and he deserves at least some time being remembered.”

  Estelle looked away, as if bored, and H.K., who was a little more distant than Madeleine where her mother was concerned, recognized the gesture as one of coping.  She’s not as unaffected as she’d like us to believe,  he thought, and was surprised that Maddy couldn’t see that.

              “I’m going to New York, Madeleine, whether you like it or not.”  Estelle was saying,  “ I would, however, very much like you to accompany me—we have family there, and I was planning to move back there with them as soon as possible.”

  Madeleine gasped in surprise, but, accustomed to Estelle’s apparently abrupt decisions, she quickly recovered her composure.

             “I’m staying here, Estelle.”  She said quietly.  “This is the only home I have, and Greg left it to me in the will.  I’m staying here, and continuing my internship, and getting a job here.  And before I do any of that, I’m going out to the golf course and playing a round of golf, and I’m playing it for Mr. Gregory, because I’m sure he misses it himself.”  Madeleine’s voice shook, and Henry willed her to keep her composure until she could stand up and stalk imperiously away.  She did, but just barely, and he yearned to comfort her, but he had a thing or two to say to Estelle himself.

            Estelle watched her only child walk away impassively, and then, apparently unfazed, poured herself another glass of champagne from the nearly empty bottle.  “I suppose you’re thrilled with that decision.”  She said, apparently to thin air, but H.K. knew the words were for him.

            “Actually, I am.”  He replied.  “Especially the part about playing golf.  Greg always did enjoy a good game of golf, and the weather’s beautiful.”  And it was.  It was early September, and when the fog parted every morning, warm golden sunshine bathed the peninsula, and the ever present salt tang in the air seemed to sharpen, ever so slightly.  But Estelle and Henry were not discussing the weather.

            “You think you have her, don’t you?”  Estelle asked, sounding casual.  “You think my daughter learned all your quaint little domestic lessons and will be that sweet simpering idiot you see all your life?  Don’t be fooled.”  With a regal, swan like turn of her golden head, Estelle turned a gimlet eye to Kim.  “She is my daughter, Henry Clifford.  I raised her to be exactly like me.”

            In spite of himself, Kim felt a smile twist at the corners of his mouth.  “I don’t think so, Estelle..”  He said distinctly.  “I’m not sure what you want out of life—what you’re so bitter about having been denied—but you were out of the nursery too long.  You didn’t raise Maddy—I did.  If you think that Maddy is going to be your revenge on the world—your gift of emptiness for everything you feel inside—you’re sadly mistaken.  Because God was kind, she has gifts you could never dream of.  She’s no more your daughter than I am your son.  A reason for which, if you must know, we are both vastly relieved”  He stood deliberately, and when to join Maddy in getting ready for the links.  “And one more thing…”  He said, not turning around, “She’s mine.”                  

 

            Their golf game was as good a wake as Gregory could have hoped for.  By the third hole they were both misty eyed with remembering, and by the ninth, they had both laughed warmly as well.  They called it quits then, fondly remembering that the only thing they had ever liked about golf was that Greg had liked to play it with them. 

            Instead of going directly home, H.K. had the country club pack them some food to go, and he had Maddy drive them to the beach instead.  They chose an empty little cove a few miles from Half Moon Bay and laid a blanket out by the eroding hills that sheltered the bay from the constant winds.   Their conversation was minimal as they ate their cold sandwiches and soda, and remained so until Henry stretched out on his back, his head pillowed  on his hands.

            Madeleine, with the comfort born of long familiarity, pillowed her head on his hard stomach, and looked out at the sea.

            “I can’t believe Mother’s going to New York.”  She said at last, when the silence had stretched long and comfortably.

            “I didn’t know you had family there.”  He said quietly, just making conversation.

            “Distant cousins, I think.  There was some sort of scandal, I guess, before she married my father.  She’s got it so buried in her mind, the closest I’ve ever gotten is the name “John”, so I’ve left it at that.”

            H.K. grunted non-committally and continued gazing at the perfect blue of the sky.  He could smell her, above the smell of the sea and the sand, like a musky rose, like sweet, feminine sex, and the scent was making him aware of just about everything else about her.  Her plump breasts, the inward slope of her stomach, the flare of her hips, and her graceful legs, bared by the bicycle shorts she’d worn golfing.  His shirt had rucked up and when she turned her head to look at him, her the softness of her russet hair tickled her skin.

            “You’re awfully quiet.”  She said, curiously. “I thought you’d be upset that I’d been prying… It’s just that, Mother’s motivations are so alien to me sometimes, I just wanted to see what was driving her…”

            “I wasn’t going to say that at all.”  Kim responded honestly.  “That was a long time ago, Maddy—you’ve grown up a lot since then.”

            “Then what?”  She asked wiggling a little to turn and face him. “Your shields are up—you’re thinking of something!”  She could barely hide her agitation.  He smelled like sun and sweat and man and his stomach was hard and flat under her cheek.  He was stroking her hair with a brown hand, his tapered fingers soothing through her scalp, and her whole body was beginning to tingle with awareness.  That fact that his shields were up like a freaking force field irritated her to no end.

            “Just appreciating the view.”  He returned easily, propping himself on his elbows and trying not to leer.  Behind his mental shields a part of him was in a panic—not now, it whispered, Jesus, she’s in mourning and your here to comfort her.  The last thing she needs you to be is a raging hard-on. But the best and finest part of him spoke back reasonably.  But she needs me, it said.  And I’m not sure I can survive much longer without her.  With astonishing abruptness, all of his defenses dropped, and Madeleine made a little whooshing sound in her mouth.

            He was on fire.  All of him, with wanting. Every part of her, from the freckles she detested to the wide green eyes that she secretly admired herself, allured him.  The texture of her hair on his skin was torture, and the thought that she should remove it, unbearable.  With a sudden, blossoming ache between her thighs, she knew, with beautiful, excruciating clarity, what it was like to want and be wanted.  With just the thoughts, incoherent, lovely, that were coursing through H.K.’s head, Madeleine could feel her breasts swell and tingle, waiting for his touch.  It occurred to her that if she turned her head just a few inches, she would be right there, on his manhood, in a position to taste what she had only dreamt of touching, and with that thought, she knew that Henry had thought the same thing.  She turned to look at him through his jeans, and could see that he was full and erect, and she could feel that every fiber of his being was yearning for this moment. For her.

            He spoke, and his voice was so normal sounding, in the midst of her sensual confusion, that for a moment she almost didn’t recognize it as his.  “I’d like to come back, Madeleine.”  He said softly.  “I miss you.  I’d like to move back to San Manuel and be with you.  But I’d need to know you were here for me.  Like this.”

            Madeleine turned her head slowly to meet his eyes, and saw them burning, brilliant with desire and caring and want.  “Am I grown up enough for you now, H.K.?”  She asked softly, seriously.  With exquisite tenderness, he brushed his hand over her face, smoothing the russet curls from her eyes, and shuddering at the touch.

            “Yes.”  He said softly, and then he chuckled a little in an effort to break the moment.  ‘If you were any more grown up, Maddy, you’d be lethal.”

            Madeleine didn’t smile.  “Afraid the gods are going to snatch me up as you look, H.K.?”

            She asked, and watched him close his eyes and swallow.  An instant later his shields slammed up with the force of a prison lock down, and his emotions were locked up just as tight.  Madeleine suppressed the sigh of dismay, even as Kim spoke.

            “I would if I were them.”  He returned easily. 

            “You know, H.K.”  She said softly, “If it weren’t for my… gifts… as you call them, I’m not sure if I would know you at all.”

            Kim’s easy smile faded, and he regarded her soberly.  “But you do know me,”  he said after a moment.  “And you know that  if I promise you, that I will be back in this area as soon as I’ve secured a position, and you know me well enough to decide if I’m worth waiting for.”

            It was Madeleine’s turn to smile faintly.  “I never said you weren’t worth waiting for, now did I?”

            And his feelings of relief nearly overwhelmed her…

 

            And that had been all, Madeleine thought, as the opening strains of Name came coursing through Angie’s stereo system.  They had packed up their picnic, and gone home to Trudy, who was waiting with dinner, and to the business of mourning and wills and probate.  When Kim had gotten on the plane a week later, he had said goodbye to Erin and Maddy like the older brother he always had been, and it was only at the last that he had turned to Madeleine.

            “You’ll be here, then?”  He’d asked, and Maddy could only nod earnestly to him across the crowded terminal, saying, “You know I will.”  And broadcast it with all the force she could.  Erin had told her to mind her thoughts then, and he’d been gone.  Maddy had homed in on his presence on the plane, and traced him until he was out of range.

             He had called her twice, since then, but by unspoken agreement, neither of them had written.   When Erin’s mother had passed away, leaving her daughter with both heavy grief and the relief that came from surcease of pain after a long illness, Henry had both written his longtime friend, and called her repeatedly on the phone to help her through her ordeal.  But towards Madeleine, he’d remained silent. 

            It had been, Maddy had explained to Erin, like a test of trust.  Her job was to trust that he’d come back, like he’d promised, and his job was to trust that she’d be there waiting for him.  Erin had told her that they were both insane, and that she wasn’t sure what the name of their psychological malady was, but that it had to be in a book somewhere because their behavior wasn’t normal.   Maddy had reminded her friend that there were many norms of behavior, but, even then, Maddy remembered, there had been a darker edge to her friends bantering.   

            How long,  she wondered, Has Erin been in love with H.K.?  She was more than a little dismayed when she realized that she didn’t know the answer.  That and the fact that her friend was out on the porch with him  still gave Maddy the impetus she needed to vault off the couch and start determinedly for the door.  Keep me waiting for three months and just  sit therelike a bump on a log when you finally come back, will you!  She thought furiously, weaving through party-goers without giving them a second glance.  Her eyes were snapping with irritation, and her cheeks flushed with the courage it gave her when she came to a stop in the middle of the make-shift dance floor in the sunken front room.

             He was there, standing above her on the landing, his eyes crinkling in amused recognition of her ire.  His blue black hair was down from it’s queue, waving slightly from being held back, and his eyes glowed as brilliantly as she had ever seen them.  His shoulders were broad under his leather bomber jacket, and his hips slim in well worn jeans, and in spite of his slight, 5’9” frame, he looked nearly overwhelmingly powerful.   Imposing even at rest, he was even more so just standing there, arrested by her furious progress through the dance floor, looking at her as though she were the sweetest of prey, and he the most elegant of predators.  He took her breath away, and she was sure the rush of desire that flooded her could be felt by the most inebriated person in the crowded house.

            Henry Kim took a slow step down from the landing, and Maddy became aware of the poignant sounds of the song playing around her.  To keep herself from rushing through the crowd to find him, she rooted herself to the place she stood, humming the song quietly to keep her vibrating tension from exploding her body to little pieces.  And you can lay beside me, maybe for a while, and I… won’t tell no one your name…

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 6


I am crossing the bridges of sorrow

Empty with yearning and full of tomorrow…

(October Project, Paths of Desire)

            “Hello, Maddy.”  He said softly, appearing out of nowhere.  Maddy stopped humming, and took a deep breath, then looked into his eyes and smiled in pure pleasure.  God, he looked wonderful.  His broad cheekbones and slanting, almond shaped eyes were exotic and marvelous, and he was standing only inches from her… she could feel the chill of the night air that clung to his clothes, and beneath that, the warmth of his body, and beneath that, the heat of desire.

            “You’re here.”  She whispered, “You came.” 

            Slowly, tenderly, Kim wrapped his arms around her and drew her to him, rocking her faintly to the sounds of the music and his own heartbeat.  She was so small—all of five foot two, maybe, and she fit perfectly under his chin, nestled against his chest.  That musky rose smell that was all Madeleine reached out and enveloped him and he sighed, feeling the tension that had been stiffening his back and his neck seep out of him.

            “Yeah,  I’m here.”  He whispered, oblivious to the stares of those who had witnessed their reunion.  Their rocking turned gradually to a slow, sinuous dance that was not as out of place as it should have been to the rock and roll song.  He leaned back long enough to drink in her features again—the wide green eyes, the pointed chin and upturned nose, and of course, the spray of cinnamon colored freckles.  For a moment, he couldn’t breathe with loving her, and the lightness in his voice when he spoke next was his best and dearest retreat from the emotions that threatened to overwhelm him.

            “After all, I’m working at San Manual County—I should at least have the courtesy to look you up, don’t you think.”

            Maddy punched his side with irritation, burrowing back into his chest when the whoosh of air from his lungs assured her that she had his complete attention.  “God damn it, Kim don’t joke.  Not about this.”  She said fiercely, not even bothering to probe him telepathically.  She would love him until the end of time, but she knew better than anyone that he would let her in when he was damned good and ready.

            Kim buried his nose in her soft russet hair and breathed deeply.  “I’d never joke about this, Madeleine.”  He said soberly, just as his previous words sunk in.

            “San Manuel County—Oh Kim that’s…”  Maddy stopped.  They lived right in between Stanford Medical Center and Johns Hopkins University Medical Center.  H.K. was quite literally a world honored surgeon—what was he doing at county, with its crunched budget and lack of research facilities and complete dearth of experimental services?  “Oh, H.K.”  She said, after a pause, “But you were at Oxford…”

            “Hush, little one.”  He said.  The final driving chords of Name faded out of the room, to be replaced by Clannad,  singing I will find you.  Their bodies adjusted to the rhythm, and the haunting Celtic music began to throb through their feet.  “It doesn’t matter.  A job is a job.”

            “But H.K…”  She whispered in anguish… not for me, she thought… don’t set your career back for me.

            “It’s nothing, Madeleine.”  He said in a voice he had used throughout their childhood to indicate the discussion was over.   Then, as though to atone, he added, honestly for a change, “I was tired of the sterility, Maddy.  Someone dies, and the orderlies clean it up.  Someone hurts, and you leave them to the nurses to help ease it.  I wanted to be a real doctor again—a healer.”  There was a pause, and he felt her hold around him tighten.  “Hey, don’t think too much of me—world class surgeons are a dime a dozen around here—I just thought I’d  go somewhere I could stand out.”

            She spoke into his neck and her voice was muffled by tears.  “Yeah, H.K., you always did enjoy being a big fish in a little bowl.”  They both choked a little on their laughter, but they did laugh, and then a comfortable, comforting silence settled between them as they danced.  A slow tension began to burn in their stomachs, and every touch, every breath seemed to bring them closer together.

            When Henry Kim began to stroke her back, from her buttocks to her shoulder blades, in a slow, drugging caress, Madeleine shuddered and put her hands in his back pockets, feeling the tautness of his backside, and drawing his most sensitive area into closer contact with her abdomen.  Kim shuddered in turn, and began to wish they were in a private place, dancing strictly for each other.  Clothing optional.

            That reminded him, “That thing you’re wearing, Maddy—I like it.”

            “Really?”  She asked, surprised that he would notice the rose colored baby doll dress and the black wool stockings beneath it.  “Thank you—I’ll remember that.”

             Lord, she felt so good in his arms, with no questions, between them.  He wasn’t her big brother anymore, or her surrogate parent.   He was a man, and she was the woman he’d been waiting for all his life.  The euphoria of that thought coupled with their sensual movements ensured that he was hard and aching to possess her.

            “Lets get out of here.”  He whispered, and his lips next to her ear sparked shivers that went straight to the heat between her thighs.

            “Yes please,”  she whispered back, biting his chin playfully.  Without another thought they separated, keeping their hips in contact and their arms around each other’s waists and went walking towards the door.  Erin was standing near the entryway and she gave them a warm, if bittersweet smile as they neared her.  She had reached over to give Madeleine the coat that had been hanging from the nearby coat tree when they heard a voice behind them.

            “Maddy, wait up!” 

            Madeleine groaned—it was Jason, her erstwhile date.  Kim turned towards her questioningly.  “Someone you know?”  He murmured in her ear, the hand resting on her arm deliberately brushing her breast, as though to remind her of the urgency of their situation.

            “A fish I threw back.”  She whispered back, leaning back against him in retaliation.

            “Hey, Maddy—I thought I was giving you a ride home.”  The approaching young man said as he neared them on the landing.  H.K. eyed him critically—over six feet tall, dark blonde hair, hazel eyes, weight lifter’s build.  He tried very hard not to hate the kid on sight.

            “Jason,”  Madeleine was saying, “I thought I told you I’d be going home with Erin.”

            The kid eyed H.K. skeptically.  “This doesn’t look like Erin.”  He said dryly, stating the obvious.

            “No.”  Maddy replied gently.  “This is H.K., my…”  she trailed off, and Kim met her eyes with a wry smile.  “My…”  she tried again, and then gave up with a shrug.

            “Your what?”  Jason asked, looking a little bewildered by the secret joke that seemed to be passing between the two of them.

            “My stepfather’s stepbrother’s son?”  Maddy burst out, the giggles following.  H.K. chuckled into her hair, and even Erin suppressed a smile.  A little line furrowed between Jason’s brows, and H.K. stepped in before he could become aggressive.

            “Let’s just say I’m Maddy’s.”  He said quietly, the accent he’d acquired in Britain more pronounced than usual.  “And if I’m Madeleine’s, then she must be mine, and we’d best leave it at that.”   Madeleine looked warmly at Kim, their laughter still close to the surface, and they nearly forgot about the unfortunate man in front of them until Erin came to their rescue.

            “That’s all right, sweetie,”  she said kindly, coming down from the landing and wrapping red tipped fingers around his arm, “Lets go get a beer and I’ll explain the whole mess to you.  You got an hour?”

            Kim and Madeleine took advantage of the break and hustled hurriedly into the chill night, where he helped her into the blue wool pea coat at the top of the porch.  He came to stand before her while he buttoned the front, and Maddy caught his eyes for a moment, her own expression troubled.

            “Erin…”  She said shortly, not knowing how to go on.

            “I know.”  He responded simply.  “And she wouldn’t want us to know, or she wouldn’t have hidden it for so long…”  He trailed off, and looked away, whispering “So damned long,”  into the crystalline night.  “So we’re not going to say anything until she does.” 

            Madeleine nodded and  clasped his hand in hers, staring at their entwined fingers.  “Tonight, its just us, isn’t it?”  She asked, part of her hopeful, part of her anxious.

            Kim slanted his mouth wryly, and looked at her bent head, and the direction of her gaze.  He was thinking that a lifetime of  ‘just  us’ would hardly be enough.  “For you little one, the whole weekend.”  He said on a half laugh, and Maddy’s clear green eyes met his. 

            “I was hoping for much longer.”  She whispered, begging him to clear that one last question between them.          

            Henry Kim swallowed, terribly conscious that his next words meant a lot to the both of them.  “I was betting my life on it.”  He said honestly, and Maddy smiled.

            They didn’t go home right away.  Instead, at Kim’s direction, Madeleine steered the car towards the same cove by half-moon bay that they had visited the last time Kim had been in town.

            “I don’t want to go back to the house, just yet.”  He said reluctantly, without elaborating, and without reading his mind, Madeleine knew what he was thinking.

            “It’s a lot different now, H.K.”  She said, peering through the coastal fog as she reached the turn-off for Highway 1.  “I cleared out most of Estelle’s stuff and donated it to Good Will—boy were they surprised!  And I decorated most of the rooms with my own stuff.”  She paused for a moment.  “Greg’s old study…”  She said delicately, “I… I put that together for you, H.K.  I’ve got my computer and things in my old bedroom, and  I knew you’d need a den or something…”  She trailed off, not sure what he’d think.

            “Thank you.”  He said simply.  Then he paused a moment, his usual “almost smile”  passing tranquilly across his features.  “I take it my old bedroom is still intact.”  He said at last, and had the pleasure of seeing her blush. 

            “Actually,”  she replied, wincing, “Trudy and I turned it into sort of a… a cat refuge.  We’ve got about fifteen strays who stay there now.  Part of the allowance that Greg left me goes into hiring someone to come take care of them and cart them to the vets and clean up and all…”

            “Cats?”  Kim said, his voice a bit strangled.

            “You know how I always wanted one growing up, right?”  Maddy said in a rush, “And my mother wouldn’t hear of it, and a week after she left, this one orange one started hanging about… and the whole thing just sort of took off from there.  You’re not angry or anything, are you H.K.?”

            “Cats!”  He whooped, letting go at last and truly laughing.  “I’ve been displaced by cats!”

            “No, no…”  Maddy wailed, not sure what to make of his reaction.  “You haven’t been displaced by anything…”

            “Then where,”  Kim asked, suddenly very sober, “Am I supposed to sleep?”   And he could feel the sudden heat welling up from where Madeleine sat, as she flushed uncomfortably and began to shift a little in her seat.

            “Well, uhm, I was thinking the master bedroom.”  She said in a small voice.  “My bedroom… I mean our bedroom… I mean, I decorated it with some of your stuff, and some stuff I knew you’d like…”  Her voice trailed off, sounding small.  “Our bedroom.”  She said much more firmly after a moment.

            “Good.”  He said quietly, looking out the window into the tattered fog beyond.  “That’s actually where I’d been planning to… spend my nights, Maddy.  I think I just needed to hear you say it.”

            She was silent for many moments as she maneuvered the car through the tight turns on the coastal highway.  Finally she found the parking lot overlooking their cove and coasted into it.  With a little sigh of relief, she lay her head back against the rest and closed her eyes.  She didn’t open them when H.K. moved his hand up to the back of her neck and started rubbing gently, but she did accept the caress gratefully, rotating her head and rubbing against his warm hand like a cat.   Kim was so entranced by the sight of her, relaxed, sensual, accepting of his touch, that he almost didn’t hear her low voiced question.

            “Why do you give me so many ways to back out, Phan Vo  Kim?”  The massage at her neck paused until she leaned into his hand insistently and waited for his answer.

            “Because I want you to be sure.”  He said softly. 

            She turned her head and opened a reluctant eye.  “You didn’t believe me the first time?”

            “I did.”  He said softly, emphatically, “And the time before that.  And that whole hormonal nightmare of a summer.  I believed everything you said.”

            “Then…”

            “You are my world, Madeleine.  If you were the least bit unsure, I could leave this whole thing untouched, and be content for you to be my little sister.  I could see you married to another man, and myself playing with your children.  It would be like cutting a hole in my own soul,  but I could do it.  As long as I knew that you were happy, and that in some way, you loved me, I could live with that.  This other… what we’re about to become—there can be no going back from this, Maddy.  I want you to know that right now, because after we get out of this car, and I hold you again, and feel you against me again, I won’t ever be able to walk out of your life again.  You can’t ask that of me, because as sure as I’m sitting here, it would kill me.” 

            As he was speaking Madeleine grasped his hand, and when he was finished, she turned it palm up, and placed an achingly  tender kiss in the center of his palm and watched in wonder at the shudder of anticipation that coursed through his body.

            “It cost you a lot  to leave for England.”  She said, her eyes wide, accepting this fact.

            “Only about two grand for the plane ticket and visa.”  Kim shot back, trying hard to lighten the moment.  “Ouch!  That hurt!”   He added when she bit the pad of his hand—hard.

            “So does your levity.”  She responded primly, but serious all the same.

            “It did.”  He answered at last, chastened.  “But I had to.”

            “So I could be sure?”  She asked, and watched him nod impatiently.  His efforts to block her out were thinning, and she could feel him yearning to be out of the car like a panther would yearn to be out of a cage.  She didn’t care.  For once, in their long association, she had the upper hand in a conversation, and she was not about to give it up.

            “But what if I made mistakes?”  She asked, wondering if he had expected her to wait for him all this time without a word of encouragement from him since that stunning kiss in the airport over six years ago.  She had, of course, but if he hadexpected  her to, well, his arrogance surprised her a little.

            “Actually,”  he said, that self-deprecating “almost smile” crossing his features again, “I counted on it.”  He heard her whoosh of breath, and suddenly she felt the full force of those amazing golden eyes glowing brightly into her very soul.  “I could have handled it if I hadn’t been your first, Madeleine.  To be honest, I almost hoped for it.  Almost.  I could have dealt with not being your first—but rest assured, I planned to be your last.  I still do.”  He added with some of the implacable arrogance that had so markedly colored much of their past, and it was her turn to be discomfited.

            “How incredibly parochial of you.”  She whispered, gazing back at him in awe.

            “Do you mind?”

            “Not at all.”  She sighed.  The moment stretched between them, and she remembered his yearning to be cut loose into the night.  “Should we get out?  It’s getting cold in here already.  I think this is going to be a short visit.”

            The fog that had threatened to roll in during their drive had been blown out to sea again by a contrary cross wind, and up to a hundred yards out they could see incredibly brilliant stars and the liquid shine of the moon on the water.  Beyond that, there was a wall of white cotton that seemed to muffle the sparkle around it.

             It was a little, Maddy thought whimsically, like standing next to Kim on this chilly October night.  She could see him physically, and feel the brilliant warmth of his body, and even see a little into the rich, vibrant tones of his mind, but beyond that there was the wall.  And no matter how she hurled her mind against it, it was a lot like throwing herself against a wall of woolen batting.  She was never bruised, but always rebuffed.

             With a  snort of disgust for her own depressing thoughts, Madeleine gave herself to the freedom of the wind blowing through them, and took off, running lightly through the sand to the edge of the water.  Gracefully she bent and removed her shoes, sticking them in her coat pockets, and then she shrieked softly as the dampness from the sand began to seep through her stockings.

            “Cold?”  Asked Kim, amused.

            “Oh, yes.”  She breathed, dashing out of the way when the tide threatened to soak her feet.  Kim watched her for a few moments, dashing up to the very edge of the water and then shrieking and running back towards him.  He removed his own shoes and was moving to join her at the bottom of the high tide line when he saw the freak wave bearing down on her with terrifying speed.

            “Maddy, run!”  He called urgently.  Maddy didn’t waste breath on a shriek this time, but turned and ran for all she was worth up the beach, in an effort not to get doused—or carried out into the freezing, choppy, October waters.  She was far up the beach when the wave broke, but that didn’t stop the sudden surge of water from drenching her up past her knees, nearly to the hem of her mid-thigh dress.  Kim would have bet that sailors five miles out to sea heard her holler from the cold.

            He made his way to her, laughing from relief and from her furious, verbal reaction to being drenched in freezing water on such a cold night.  “Madeleine, who taught you to swear like that?”  He asked, drawing along side of her.  She shot him a disgruntled look and hauled the delicate rose colored linen gauze up past her hips, looking for wet spots.

            “Erin taught me.”  She said shortly, relieved to find none.  The relief was short lived, however, when she realized that her wool tights were soaking the water up her thighs, and that her dress wouldn’t stay dry for long.  “Oh, shoot, H.K.  Help me to the rocks over there so I can take off my tights.  I don’t want my dress to stain…yaaah!”

             He had scooped her up into his arms and was carrying her over the sand, seemingly oblivious to the her cry of dismay.  After a moment she subsided, realizing that she really didn’t mind being this close to his chest at all.   She was conscious of his muscles rippling beneath her hands, and of the unique smell of him that was part the cologne she had bought him for his last birthday, but mostly just him.

            “This is weird.”  She said softly, then corrected herself at his sharp look.  “Not bad—just weird.  Like, Henry Kim to the third power or something.  Everything about you is the same person I’ve known all my life.  But there’s more to you… ohhhh…”

  Kim had dropped to his knees in front of her and reached up to her waist to roll down her tights.  His fingertips skimmed her skin lightly over her hips, down her outer thigh, down her calves, and gently over the arch of her foot.  Before she could even finish shuddering, he ran his hands back up the back of her legs and cupped them warmly over her cotton-clad bottom..  His movements were slow and worshipful, and Madeleine was surprised when she saw the expression on his upturned face.

            He looked so fierce, so possessive.  It occurred to Maddy that beneath the veneer of polish and reserve that Kim had developed, (developed, hell, she could remember him being polished and reserved at the age of ten!) there beat a primal heart.  The heart of a warrior.  The soul of a jungle cat. 

            “This is me, Maddy.”  He said softly, intensely.  Seemingly without effort, he insinuated his strong, sure hands beneath her underwear, and she felt him shudder from the overwhelming eroticism of her bare skin.  “This is me, wanting very badly to make love to you.  Please tell me you can handle that.” 

            She looked down at him and realized that he was shaking with want, and without warning his mental shields came down.  Maddy gasped, not just from the surge of pure want, both hers and his that flooded her, but from the sensations he was producing with his hands.  Oh, God, his hands!  She could feel them parting her, stroking her, exploring where no one had ever been before. 

            “Can you?”  He whispered hoarsely, and watched her with half closed eyes.  Her head was leaning back against the rocks, and her breasts rose and fell rapidly with the raggedness of her breathing. 

            “Can I what?”  She asked, bemused, reaching to clasp his upper arms as pressure and pleasure began to build in her, searching for release.

            “Can you handle this?”  He asked, and she could feel the slightest bit of wickedness coloring his thoughts.  He was enjoying this!  She realized, shocked and titillated as his fingers worked their magic on and in her body.  He enjoyed feeling her, smelling her, touching her… he wanted so badly to taste her and to be inside of her… his fierce wants nearly overwhelmed her, and she clasped his head to her soft stomach, needing something—anything—to hold on to.

            “Yes.”  She sighed, both in answer and supplication.  “Yes.  Oh, please…”  Without embarrassment or fear she threw her head back, closing her eyes against the brilliance of the stars.  When those stars exploded behind her eyes and her body came undone in his hands she felt him shuddering against her, and as her desire receded, slaked for the moment by his marvelous, knowing hands, she felt something just as overwhelming build in him.

            With a groan, H.K. wrapped his arms around Maddy and pulled her close, shaking with need and desire and something even greater.  “Mine.”  He whispered fiercely against her midriff.  “Mine.  You’re mine, Maddy—remember that.  Mine.”

  She bent and cradled his head against her and clung to him as well.  How had he ever imagined, even in his wildest dreams, that she could belong to anyone else?

Chapter 7


And I will be the one to wipe away your tears (kiss you so hard)

And take your breath away…

 (Sarah Maclaughlin--Possession)

            They couldn’t stay there—not at the end of October, on the beach. 

            “Jesus, Maddy, I’m freezing my ass off.”  He said after a moment, and she was forced to agree with him.  Slowly, as though coming out of a dream, they made their way back to the car and began the long journey home. 

            When they finally pulled up past the security gate and down the long driveway to the garage, Maddy wasn’t sure if she could actually get out of the car and walk.  Henry Kim had left his hand on the bare skin of her upper thigh during most of the journey, and though he had dozed through part of it (even underneath his initial excitement, she could feel the jet lag sapping his energy at an alarming rate)  her skin was hot and skittery before they had even taken the 280 interchange, and by the time they had pulled off 280 to 380 and then taken the El Camino Royale exit, she thought she may have just melted into a boneless puddle of anything on the seat of her car.   When he had sensed the change in the cars motion and awakened slightly, he had begun a slow, absent minded caress on Madeleine’s thigh, using his thumb.  Maddy was surprised she hadn’t run into a light pole right about then.

            After she turned off the ignition, she turned around to look at him and found his head tilted against the seat, as though he were asleep, but his eyes open, and on her.  His gaze was disconcertingly intense.

            “Why did you do that?”  She asked, breathlessly.  “At the beach…”

            “Because.”  He said, his eyes twinkling.  “Just because.”

            Madeleine chuckled affectionately.  “Liar.”  She murmured.  “You just wanted to make sure I was too turned on to back out.”

            “Did it work?”   He really did look wicked, she thought, with those crinkles in the corners of his eyes, and that severe expression on his face.  She loved him in that moment more than words could say.

            “It worked six years ago.”  She said after a moment.  “It’s only gotten stronger since.”

            “No.”  He disagreed.  “You’ve gotten stronger.”  He paused for a moment.  “Do you have any idea how proud I was of you when you chose your career.  Social work is thankless and difficult, and necessary—and you are uniquely qualified for it.  That’s when I think I knew we really would have a chance together, you know.  When I knew you’d go against your mother’s wishes enough to choose your line of work.”

            Madeleine squirmed uncomfortably in the warmth of his praise, and she suddenly understood his urge to make light of things that were important.   “Oh, I understand!”  She quipped impishly, “You only want me for my burgeoning career.”

            “Exactly.”  Kim responded in kind.  “That and your really smashing set of…”

            Shoulders shaking with mirth, Madeleine put her finger over his mouth before he could complete the thought.  “Since you’ve brought those up,  don’t you think we should move this conversation inside so we can explore more of my…”

            “Assets?”  He completed, and they both giggled a little in nervousness.  But the nervousness didn’t stop the perfect accord they shared as they emerged from the car and walked hand in hand into the darkened house through the door in the garage.

            Maddy stopped at the entrance to the dining room, scenting the air almost like a deer. “Trudy’s gone.”   She said after a moment.

            “Really?”  Said Kim absently, finding the light switch and looking around his old home curiously.  “She must have left a note, yes?”

            “Wait—here it is.”  Maddy picked a piece of paper off the kitchen table.  “I thought you two would like some time to yourself.  There’s food (and food and food) in the fridge.  I’m at my sister’s if you need me.  The number’s on your rolodex, remember.   Trudy.”   She looked up at Kim, feeling a little non-plused.   “Why would she think we needed time to ourselves?” 

            H.K. looked up from the bold, forest green drapes with creme colored lace that had somehow installed themselves in the front room.  Maddy had been right—the place was a lot different with her decor.    “Well, don’t we?” 

            Maddy blushed.  “We do, but how did she know?”

  Kim chuckled and stood behind her, enfolding her in his arms and feeling her softness melting against him.  “Maybe because she’s known you since you were in nappies.”

            Madeleine wrinkled her nose.  “Nappies?  You really have been gone a long time.”

            “Mmmm.”  He said, into her hair.  She tucked right under his chin.  He’d known that for years, but he’d only recently guessed that that was why he didn’t mind his own lack of height or bulk.  If Maddy fit him perfectly, then he must have been made perfectly.  “What I want to know is how she’d think we’d be alone here anyway.  As I recall, there were always at least ten people running around here trying to get dust out of the floorboards or something.”

            Maddy was mesmerized by his smell again, because now, after their adventure at the sea, it was mingled with hers, and she’d never realized that something as simple as a smell could make her blood race!  “Mmmm?   Oh, yes, hired help.  Do you realize we didn’t really need all those people?  I asked mother after I found other jobs for about half of them, and she said ‘But Maddy, your domestic help is a sign of status’!  Mother’s so weird!”

            “I knew that.”  Kim said with relief.  “I just wasn’t sure you did.  So, who works here now?”

            “Well, the Peterson’s still have the gardener’s cottage—the grounds really do need a lot of work and his son is starting to help out as well.  And Katie and her daughter still come in once a week and do all the detail stuff—dust, polish, vacuum.  Trudy and I cook, and since we don’t entertain like Mother and Greg did, that’s really all I need.  Oh, yeah—the guy who keeps the cats.   That’s about all.”

            “Good.”  He murmured, wrapping his arms under her breasts and savoring her warmth.  “I’ve finally gotten the hang of doing my own laundry—I’d hate to forget again.”

            Madeleine would have wrinkled her nose, but she was too comfortable and tingly all backed up and cuddled against his strength to bother.  “I never did get the hang of it.”  She admitted unrepentantly.  “The dry cleaner around the corner opened another branch on my account, I’m sure.”  She ended a little breathlessly because Kim’s hands had begun moving.  First they spanned her midriff, then they moved upwards, brushing the undersides of her breasts.  Madeleine whooshed air in her lungs as he cupped a breast in each hand and began a tentative exploration.  Stroking, rubbing… fiddling…  with trembling precision, he found each nipple underneath her dress and her bra and proceeded to caress each one to a frustrated point.       Maddy let out a frustrated little moan, dying for the touch of skin against skin, and was rewarded by the incredible sensation of his lips, touching down right below her ear and trailing down the column of her throat.  She let out a sigh of fulfillment, but the feeling was short lived.

            “Madeleine?”  He whispered next to her ear, and responded to her dreamy ‘hmmm’ in reply.  “Do you realize that you haven’t been wearing anything under that dress since we left the beach?”

            “Umhm…”  She sounded so wicked!.

            “Do you have any idea what that does to a man’s blood—knowing a thing like that for nearly an hour?”

            With an effort she turned in his arms, wrapping herself around him and tilting her face up to gaze into those incredible golden eyes.  “Not first hand, no.”  She said softly.  “And I’ve been waiting a long time for you to do something about that.”

            His breath was too tight in his chest for a moment,  and then, softly at first, he lowered his mouth to hers. His lips were firm, and his tenderness unmistakable as he deepened the kiss, and Maddy sighed and bonelessly melted into his arms. 

            Incredibly, after what had happened at the beach, Maddy realized that this was actually their first real, man/woman kiss in six years.  That one had only melted her bones and changed the orbit of the planets.  This one was much better.  She gave a little whimper and opened her mouth even further for his exploration.  He held her firmly against his chest and explored and tasted and teased, until she was breathless from excitement—and from wanting more. 

            His defenses were down (for the most part) and she could feel in him a leashed passion, a caged strength, and an unutterable yearning to simply crush her to him and ravage her sweetly with his possession.  His self restraint in the matter seemed nearly inhuman, and as inexperienced as Maddy was, she felt a yearning for the same fierceness he was craving—and an incredible frustration that he did not release it. 

            Her breathing was ragged in her chest, and her whole body felt flushed and on fire when she pulled away, and, against reason, dared him.  “That was lovely for a beginning,”  she panted, “But now show me how you really feel.”

            With a little growl, he claimed her mouth again, but this time plundering, fiercely sweeping his tongue inside and caressing hers into helpless surrender.  With a little growl of her own, Maddy returned his passion and more, clutching at his shoulders and practically burrowing under his skin an attempt to get closer to his warm, hard, strong body.  Hungrily, she stripped off his leather jacket and yanked his shirt out of his jeans, insinuating little hands against his skin.  His stomach was hard and muscular, and clenching underneath her rapacious caresses, while the rest of his body was just hard and muscular.  She passed those little hands over his nearly smooth chest, and felt his tight, tiny nipples under her palms.  He shuddered, and to her immense satisfaction, his restrained embrace became crushing, until, without preamble, he swept her easily into his arms.

            His incredible kisses stopped just long enough for him to shoulder his way through the hall and up the stairs to her old bedroom.  He slowed at the door, blinking in confusion.

            “It’s all right.”  She whispered.  “I left my bed in there for all nighters on the computer.”  And was relieved when he didn’t hesitate to open the door and deposit her on the bed. 

            With trembling fingers she worked frantically to undo the little pearl buttons at the cuffs of at her wrists.  When she was done she unhooked her bra and with a brief tussle, pulled it off from under her dress and looked up to see Kim gazing at her with amusement.  His shirt hung all the way open, and he had removed his tennis shoes, socks and jeans, and for a moment all she could do was gaze at him in wonder.  She had always loved him, but when had he become a god?  Muscles, everywhere—from carved thighs and sculpted calves to a truly mesmerizing washboard stomach and what she suspected was a spectacular chest. 

            “What’s so funny?”  She choked, wondering if she would ever feel her age with him.  It would be humiliating to spend her entire life as the little sister when all she wanted was to be his equal. 

            “That thing you did… with your brassiere and your dress… where do women pick up those things?”  The chuckle stilled in his throat when he saw her turn her face away, the moonlight picking up suspiciously bright eyes.

            “You… before, you didn’t like my body…”  She  whispered, and was reassured when his weight shifted the mattress and a warm arm encircled her, the passion checked for the moment.

            He shook his head vehemently, then caught her chin between strong fingers.  “Maddy… Maddy look at me.”  Her wide green eyes were bright with tears, and she could read the compassion in his face at her dilemma.

            “Madeleine, it wasn’t your body.”  He said softly.  “I mean that.  It wasn’t your body.  We were dreaming, and you were beautiful, but you’d eliminated your freckles and put on these Baywatch breasts, and  made your waist Scarlet O’hara tiny… that wasn’t the person I cared about then.  It’s not the person I want to make love to now.”  A small smile of blooming confidence played at the corners of her mouth, and H.K. , in desperation, took that as a yes. 

            The frenzy that she’d tried so hard to inspire was gone, and instead, was replaced by the aching, exquisite tenderness that he had started with in the beginning.  Carefully, he unzipped her dress, placing delicate, trembling kisses down her spine as he did so.   He sat up then, and took her mouth sweetly, running his hands up her thighs under her dress, spanning her bare skin gingerly, because her skin was hot under his hands, and touching her made him even hotter.

             As much as he wanted to see her body, he liked the tease of having it draped in that lovely, rose colored gauze, and the mystery of what it hid.  More to explore, more to tantalize…  in a deliberately teasing motion he passed his hand lightly over her breast.  At her immediate shudder, he did it again and again, each time just grazing her skin until she whimpered in protest.

             “Touch me.”  She begged.   “I’m all cold where you’re not touching me.  Touch me…”

            His caresses became bolder, needier and Maddy responded to that need with fervor, arching against his hand and turning her body to receive more of his touches.  He took her breast in his hand, loving the feel of its weight in his palm, and the tight, swollen pebble that her nipple formed against his thumb.  So good… every inch of her felt so good… Now he wanted desperately to see her… to take her dress off and drink in the sight of the ripeness he’d awaited. He started to raise it over her head, but her self-consciousness  called to her, and her arms stayed locked at her sides, so he took her mouth again, and when he felt her wriggle in restlessness, he asked her what she wanted.

            “I want to touch you.”  She said, determination in her voice.  Always, Kim thought to distract himself from his immediate reaction to her words, always, Maddy was determined.  Of course she would be here, now.  It was one of the things he loved about her.  Another thought followed on the heels of that one, a thought that he’d kept carefully guarded for a long, long time.  Without warning, he slammed his mental shields up, and when Maddy would have demurred, he whispered against her mouth, “Then touch me.  Please, please, touch me back…”

            And she did.  With impatient movements she pulled his shirt off his shoulders and smiled in appreciation.  His chest wasglorious, golden and cut with muscles, smooth save for a tight mat of wiry black hair in the center.  His erotic, almost playful touches of her breasts were nearly driving her out of her mind, so in retaliation she brushed her thumb over an already tight male nipple, watching in fascination as he closed his eyes and shuddered.  Bemused, she realized that Kim’s breath was coming in ragged gasps and there were lines of strain etched at the corners of his mouth.  He was not as in control as he would like her to believe.

            “Maddy…”  he rasped, his hands moving freely under her loosened dress, “Can I take this thing off, please.  Sweetheart, I need to see you…”

            Seeing him, muscles taut, as hungry as she was for touching and caressing, Madeleine realized that he was vulnerable, as susceptible to her touch as she was to his, as naked to rejection as she was, as well.   Feeling sensual and glorious and brave, she pulled the gauzy linen over her head and threw it in a graceful arc to fall over her computer.  Her grand gesture was well rewarded by the reverence in his eyes. 

            “Beautiful.”  He murmured, tracing his hand down her pale breasts, appreciating their cinnamon colored crests.  His normally impassive features softened, looking at her, and she suddenly knew what it felt like to be cherished.  Worshipped.

            “No.”  She managed to choke out, “Not beautiful.  Just me.”

            He rested his forehead against hers, and engulfed her upper arms with his long fingered, surgeon’s hands. Their skin was slick in spite of the chill in the air, and their breathing ragged and nearly past endurance with their incredible arousal.  “Beautiful because it is you.”  He whispered, and through their contact, he could feel the flush that traveled through her body. 

            “Madeleine,”  he whispered, “About this next part…”

            “The actual sex part?”  She returned impishly, “I’m looking forward to it…”

            “It could hurt…”  He began carefully, not wanting to patronize her,  but needing to know what she expected..

            “I took a human sexuality course, H.K.”  She said dryly. “I know what goes where, and what it does when it gets there.” 

            The carefully controlled whoosh of air that followed was Kim’s effort not to laugh.  He was aroused and engorged, and bent over as he was to look into Maddy’s eyes, laughter could very well hurt.  “Do you now.”  He murmured, then pushed her slowly, easily back on the bed, and began a careful pillaging of her soft, pale, freckled skin.   His lips traveled from her chin, down the graceful column of her throat, and lower.  With a remarkable combination of patience and hunger, he lowered his head to draw one, cinnamon colored nipple into his mouth.

             Madeleine arched against him and clutched him towards her as he suckled, and for a moment, she had the oddest sensation—as though he were drawing true sustenance from her body… nourishment for his hungry soul.  And then he moved his mouth to the other breast, and the twin sensations of air drying on one nipple and the things his mouth and his teeth and his tongue were doing with the other had her nearly mindless with wanting.

            “H.K…”  She panted, “Henry… Kim…oh… whatever you’re doing… oh!!!”  Because while lavishing attention to her breasts, he had moved a hand down, between the juncture of her thighs.  Maddy felt her knees come up off the bed and her thighs fall open, because the things he was doing down there were blowing her mind…

            Kim thought so too.  She was wet and hot and waiting—no, begging—for sweet possession.  But he couldn’t—not yet.   No pain, he thought raggedly, his thoughts echoing loudly in Maddy’s open mind, No pain.  Carefully, as if she were made of glass, his fingers entered her and stroked, stretching, readying.  He met her resistance and delicately, so delicately, stretched that as well, and he felt her body clench, for the little bit of pain.   His body shuddered, as though he’d felt the pain himself, and then, as if to make up for it, he found the tiny, swollen, center of her pleasure and stroked that as well. 

            He felt the shudders begin, deep in the core of her sex.  As her body thrashed against the bed and in his arms he had to close his eyes and clutch her to him, knowing that if he didn’t hold on tightly to something, he would spill himself then and there, without knowing the sweet, hot sheathing of her body.  His self control was nearly non-existent, when her shudders subsided, and with one rough, trembling motion he pushed his briefs down his hips and rose above her.

            Her face was flushed, even in the colorless moonlight, and her breathing ragged and her eyes fever bright, and she smoothed tumbling ravens wing hair from his face.  “Don’t worry, love.”  She whispered, “No pain, truly.  No pain.”

            He closed his eyes in shame, knowing that she’d heard him, when he’d wanted so badly to keep that from her. 

            “It’s all right, Kim.”  She murmured, trying to soothe his raw and exposed emotions.  “I just want… I want…”

            “More?”  He inquired, failing to keep the wicked hope out of his voice.  He was poised, right there, and he wanted to move inside of her more than he wanted his next breath.

            “Yes…”  She moaned in frustration, and before either of them knew what she was about, she had arched her hips and taken him forcefully into herself.   She felt… full.  A little sore but mostly… full.  She heard Kim’s harsh breathing into her neck, and suddenly, with their bodies as one, his mind opened to her as well, and she knew the aching in his groin, and the hunger for movement and surcease.  It hurt her, there, to feel what he felt—more than her lost maiden head, more than any fear of movement, his throbbing hunger hurt, and she knew what was needed to ease it.

            Move, she shouted mentally, directly into his mind, please, heavens, H.K., move…. And then he was.  He was moving, fast and sure, thrusting in and out of her in blessed, blessed relief.  She caught his pleasure, his breathless, wonderment and pleasure of being inside, oh, yes, inside, loving… as well as his imperative that she be pleasured as well.  As she opened her mind to him, as well as her body, she could feel an echo of something he still kept under guard, but she was soon too caught up in their spiraling, increasing euphoria to care or even remember.

            Faster.  She begged, shameless in her telepathy as she would not have been with her voice.  Please, please… I want… I want… And then it was on her, that soaring, exploding, shuddering sensation that he had given her twice before.  Only now it was tenfold, because he was a part of it, inside her, and she fed him her pleasure through his mind so that when he groaned above her, spilling his heart and his soul and his seed inside of her, his own release was a natural extension of her own.

           

            They were slow to come back to earth, and when they did, it was merely to wriggle their way under the old comforter on the twin bed and hold each other tightly against the chill in the room.  Not surprisingly, Kim was asleep nearly before she pulled the covers under his chin. 

            She watched him sleep in the moonlight, noticing how the harsh, nearly cat-like cant of his features softened as he slept.  His normally intense, implacable expression was gone, replaced by an almost serene trustfulness—as long as he was asleep, the universe would take care of him.  He looked, she thought, a lot like his late uncle, Gregory. 

            Madeleine blinked.  It was the first time, she realized, that she had actually connected Phan Vo Kim/ Henry Clifford Raitherson with her step-father—with anyone in the household, really.  How odd.  He had always seemed… sort of beamed out of nowhere.  Greg had treated him with the same absent minded regard that he had given Madeleine, and Estelle had simply loathed him from the moment she had realized he was going to be her burden, instead of someone else’s in Greg’s family.  While Maddy had struggled so hard, first to win her Mother’s approval, and then to accept that she didn’t want to be the kind of person that her mother approved of, Kim had simply been.  Displaced, disaffected, by everyone accept Maddy.

            No wonder he’d been so reluctant to change the tenor of their relationship.  He hadn’t been kidding when he’d told her she was his world—if this marriage (for that’s what it was, vows spoken, bodies consummated, ceremony or no) didn’t succeed, he would be truly alone in the world. 

            With a trembling, tentative hand, she stroked strands of sleek, black hair from his face, dusting his cheekbones with a tender thumb as she did so.  The corners of his mouth turned up in drowsy acknowledgment, and he captured her hand and drew it to his chest, where she felt his heart thudding surely beneath her wrist.

           I love you.  She thought, slipping the thought soundlessly into his dreams.  Phan Vo Kim, Henry Clifford Raitherson, Henry Kim, H.K.--every name you have, every part of you, everything you’ve been to me.  There are things you are keeping from me—hard secrets for you to have, I can tell—and I promise you, no matter what they are, I will give everything I have not to leave you alone in the world.

            I’ll hold you to that. He replied, his thought as natural in her head as hers was in his.  She let him hear her mental chuckle, and then closed her eyes.  His surface thought was rumbling on, spiraling down in a lazy swirl of sex and  exhaustion, and she tossed herself in and allowed herself to be sucked down into sleep right along with him.  That night they dreamt that they were watching each other, dreaming in the moonlight.

            Kim was in a field of bunnies, and they were nibbling in his toes.  With an effort, he tried to open his eyes, only to find that he was still too exhausted to wake up.  But the bunnies… they were relentless… dusting his toes with bunny nibbles, rubbing sleek, bunny fur up his shins and along his inner thighs… Hello… what would a bunny be doing touching that… His eyes flew open and  Madeleine’s throaty laughter surrounded him.

            “Bunnies?”  She giggled.  “Bunnies?  Since when have bunnies ever given b…”

  Kim sat up and silenced her before the bedroom crudity could slip out.  “Where did you learn to do that?”  he asked, a little shocked and a little incoherent and a lot aroused. 

            Madeleine looked up from her place, nestled between his legs with her breasts crushed against his inner thighs, and grinned unrepentantly.  “That Human Sexuality class.”  She murmured, bending her head to place a little rabbit like kiss on his very aroused and hardened length.   “It taught me all sorts of things.”  She continued, between those tantalizing little caresses.  “Would you like to hear some of them?”

            “Sure…”  Kim replied, a little bemused by her boldness.  He lay back down and closed his eyes in drowsy pleasure, only to open them wide again when she took his entire length in her mouth.   “Hello!”  He said, and would have sat bolt upright, but Madeleine’s position was precarious at best. 

            Madeleine chuckled again, and her whole, lush torso vibrated against his lower body.  “No, you can’t go back to sleep.”  She informed him, doing wicked, exploratory things with her hands as she spoke.  “You can’t just do that, you know, H.K…. give a woman an earth shattering sexual experience and then roll over and sleep for twelve hours.  I’ve been in agony of anticipation since seven o’clock this morning.” 

            “Twelve hours?”  He squeaked.  Surely a college psychology class hadn’t taught her that.  “Impossible…”

            “Hardly.”  She assured him with serious eyes, still moving wicked fingers.   “Oooh… that’s cool….”  She said, distracted, and then watched his face to see his reaction.

            “Very cool.”  He replied hoarsely, and tried to keep his mind on the subject at hand.  “Maddy—twelve hours, really… oh, God, what are you doing now….”  And he lay back and closed his eyes for an entirely different reason.   He found it very hard to believe that he’d taken this woman’s virginity the night before… no one so inexperienced could know how to do that…

            “Do you like it?”  She asked, her voice naughty and her look salacious. 

            “I find it very difficult to believe you learned this in school.”  He muttered, his hips coming off the bed as the full extent of his arousal finally penetrated his muzzy, sleep clogged brain. 

            “Oh yes,”  she breathed, her breath fanning the damp length of him and giving him erotic shivers, “They even showed movies.”  A trifle awkwardly, she sat up and straddled him, scooting her body up until she covered his hard length with her warm, wet softness.

            “Ye gods…”  He groaned, opening his eyes and fitting his hands around her sleek hips.  “I don’t even want to know…”

            Madeleine leaned down and bit him playfully on the chin, then took his mouth with her own.  She broke off the kiss and sat up, lifting her body to fit him smoothly inside of her.  He was large… as large as the man in the movie, actually, although all of her friends assured her that most men weren’t proportioned that way, and she felt full and slick and ready for him.  She’d spent all morning imagining being filled with him again, the images of their love making the night before making her body throb and her breasts tingle until she couldn’t stand it anymore and began her morning seduction.  Reaching into his passion clouded brain, she pulled out his foremost need and moved… just so, glorying in her power when she heard him groan again.

            “Of course you do…”  She whispered, rubbing her hands on his chest.  He leaned his torso up and captured a tight, cinnamon nipple in his mouth and she gasped, thrilled to her feminine core.

            “Do what?”  He murmured against her breast, before taking her gently between his teeth and teasing her with his tongue.

            “Want to know what I learned in those films…”   It was glorious… she thought, incoherently… absolutely glorious… better than she had expected, more beautiful and heart stopping than she had hoped for…

            “Madeleine…”  He gasped, his patience for their wordplay ending abruptly as he felt her body tense, on the verge of climax, “I think I already know…”   And she shuddered abruptly and violently in his arms.   With a hoarse moan of excitement, he took that as his cue to hold on to her hips and thrust himself into her, hard and fast and sure.   Her tremors seemed to go on forever, when suddenly she gave another throaty cry and buried her face in his throat as her climax peaked.  He shouted roughly against her, and surged once more before spilling himself inside her, shaking with the force of his release.

            He soothed her then, stroking her back and her hair as she lay on top of him and recovered.   Her breathing returned to normal, and her shuddering slowly stopped, and when she could look him in the eyes again, she realized that he was once more hard inside of her. 

            “My God.”  She said,  truly amazed and a little awed.  “Everything I learned in that class told me that this doesn’t really happen.”   She frowned a little and bit her lip.  “At least not that often.”  She amended at his amused look.

            “I’ve needed you forever.”  He said, his voice light, “Don’t think I’m going to consult your psychology professor to see if I fit the current statistics…”  Then he sobered for a moment.. “Unless, of course, you’re sore…”   And to Henry Kim’s amazement, his morning seductress, the unashamedly sensual woman who had, not more than ten minutes before, taken him in her mouth and done wanton things to him, blushed and hung her head to avoid his eyes.

            “Madeleine…”  He said in concern, “Do you want me to stop…”

            “No…”  She muttered,   “I mean… I’m not sore… or I am… but I’d want you to go on anyway, but it would feel good if, maybe…”    She trailed off, and looked away, and then, taking the cowards way out, she inserted a visual picture inside Kim’s head.  And felt him nearly lose control inside her.

            “Its true…”  He said harshly. “The most sensitive erogenous zone is the mind.”  Then he rolled over quickly and began kissing his way down her body.  “Now,”  he said, feeling that glorious, wicked power that had driven her such a short time ago, “Let’s see just how much you learned in that Human Sexuality class, shall we?”

Chapter 8


I had to stop in my tracks for fear

Of walking on the mines I’d laid…

(Sting, Fortress Around Your Heart)

You’re naked inside your fear

Can’t take back all those years….

(Goo Goo Dolls Naked)

            Because it was Saturday, there were no work obligations to drag them out of bed, but they had to stop and eat some time.  Kim, used to wandering around his tiny flat as he pleased, deigned at Madeleine’s stammered apologetic urging, to put on his jeans, and Madeleine wore his blue oxford shirt.  The shirt hung halfway down her thighs, and she had to button it to  the collar to keep from feeling scandalously exposed.  Kim, seeing her wearing his clothing, his scent still clinging to her skin, stopped still in the middle of the kitchen, his eyes intense.

            “What?”  She asked, flushing beneath his scrutiny as though they hadn’t just spent long, luxurious hours in the bedroom of her childhood, doing adult things with their responsive, sensual adult bodies.  “What are you looking at?”

            H.K. raised his eyebrows.  “Don’t you know?” 

            Maddy had the good grace to look embarrassed.  “I don’t look… I mean, I stay out of there unless you give me permission.   If you’re open to me being in your head—like you were before… in bed…-- then I’ll look… but otherwise…”  She stammered on, finding it suddenly very hard to talk about her gifts to the one person who had always understood them.  Of course, she realized candidly, considering some of the images she’d just so casually slipped into her lover’s head, maybe she had reason to be embarrassed.

            Seemingly oblivious to her discomfort, Kim’s superior, almost-smile passed across his strong features.  “Then I’m looking at what’s mine.”  He said, raising his eyebrows, making light of his blatant possession. 

            Madeleine, suddenly breathless, and, unbelievably, wanting more, tried to respond in kind.  “I bet you say that to all the girls.” 

            And, like a god damned prison wall, she could feel his once open mind close to her.   Damn it, Kim, she wanted to cry, I wasn’t even looking—you have no reason to hide from me.

            “No.”  He was saying quietly, strongly.  “I’ve only ever said it to you.”

            “Oh.”  Madeleine said softly, wondering at the unspoken message that she obviously wasn’t getting. 

            “So…”  he went on, as though the conversation hadn’t happened, “We’ve got roast beef, corned beef, or ham—I assume you’ve given up on being a vegetarian?” 

            “Most definitely.”  Madeleine responded lightly.  “Erin kept bringing me pastrami for lunch instead of peanut butter and jelly, and one day, I just folded.”

            “Good for you!”  Kim said, meaning it.  “I don’t think I could have handled sprouts and bean curd for the rest of my life.”

            “I wouldn’t have made you eat it.”  She replied defensively.

            Kim snorted.  “Nope!  Watching you eat it would be enough to put me off my feed for good.”

            Maddy eyed the growing pile of sandwiches in front of him skeptically.  “I find it extremely hard to believe that anything could put  you away from a trough that size.   You didn’t always eat this way, did you?”

            “Nuh-nuh.”  He answered, his mouth full.  He swallowed then, and looked at her sideways from twinkling eyes.  “Something about you, Maddy, definitely makes me ravenous.  And he wasn’t talking about food. 

            Madeleine blushed, and took her time pouring two glasses of cold milk.  “We’ll just see what we can do about that appetite, then, won’t we?”  She murmured.  

  Kim just stood there, leaning against the sink, devouring his sandwich and looking at Madeleine with a combination of arrogance and blatant lust.  His broad shoulders rippled with even the slight movement of bringing his sandwich to his lips, and Maddy’s newly enlightened eyes traced the furry trail of black hair that started beneath his navel all the way down to where it disappeared beneath his only partially buttoned jeans.  Under her startled gaze she  saw proof of the very appetites in question, and drew in a quick breath, nearly choking on a bite of sourdough bread as she did so. 

            When she had recovered her coughing fit, she met Kim’s amused eyes.  “It seems,”  he said complacently, between bites, “That we’re doing fairly well in the appetite department already.”

            Madeleine showed him around the redecorated house, and Kim had to admit he liked the old monstrosity more now than he ever had when he’d lived there before.  Whereas before, it had been done in beiges and oatmeals and tans, Maddy, with her love of color and texture, had added life and personality to the nearly overwhelming blandness of the interior.  Deep greens and burgundies now offset the cream colored carpets in the living room, and the family room was done in varying shades of rose with accents of green.  Madeleine had collected various inexpensive and colorful prints and set them about the house—the likes of Steve Hanks, Michael Parkes and Christian Lassen added color (and more than a hint of surrealism) to the surroundings.  As did, Kim realized the incredible number of knickknacks that Maddy seemed to have set everywhere.

            He watched her, as she took him around the house.  At the beginning of the tour, she picked a small, cobalt blue bud vase off the corner shelf in the dining room, and then, surprisingly, carried it around with her, absently stroking the line of the neck, or feeling the creamy textured glass beneath her fingertips.  When they entered another room, she set the vase down and picked up a many faceted crystal animal.  As they passed into the next room, and sunlight hit the delicacy in her hand, she watched, pre-occupied, as glorious rainbows shimmered from one room to the next.   In the next room, the crystal animal was replaced by a blown glass flower, which was in turn replaced with a heart shaped jade bowl which was, in turn, replaced by a ceramic sea gull set on a small piece of driftwood.

            Curious, and a little amazed at her consistency in this seemingly absent minded habit, Kim used his limited abilities to delicately probe into Maddy’s mind.   And he understood.

            “Sanctuary.”  He said bluntly, loud enough for her to hear.  They were standing in the master bedroom--their bed room, he realized with a trace of awe—and he was looking with appreciation at the royal blue bed spread with it’s tiny sprinkling of pale pink and cream flowers, and noticing how it matched everything she’d brought in there.   She had included his favorite Parkes print—the one with the little girl in the very proper dress walking a tight rope as she kept her nose safely in a book—as well as a boldly beautiful Lassen print on the walls, and everything else in the room had been chosen to match.

            “What?”  She said hazily, putting the sea gull on it’s driftwood perch back on the little light pine secretary where it had been resting. 

            “This house—its your sanctuary.  You’ve managed to get rid of most of the staff, and now, you can be alone here, when you need to.  You’re… recharging your batteries, every time you touch something.”  Kim sighed, and dragged a hand through his disordered hair, trying to express himself coherently.  “It’s like… like when you were a kid, and just to deal with going to school and putting up your shields all the time and that press of minds on your own… you had to come home and just sit in your room and touch something—stuffed animals, old party dresses, anything that was… tactilely satisfying.  It’s like you need to balance everything your cerebrum is doing.”

            Madeleine looked at him thoughtfully, chewing her upper lip as she did so.  “You’re right of course.”  She said at last, a little sadly.  “Doesn’t it ever get old, being right so often?”

            Kim blinked.  “What do you mean by that?” 

            She shook her head.  “Nothing.  I mean, nothing we’re going to get into this weekend.  This weekend is just us.  None of our baggage, none of the things we probably should have talked about but haven’t…”

            He opened his mouth, and she could read the thought coming off his lips before he even said it.  She put up her hand to forestall the unthinkable between them… to keep the lie from being spoken.  

            “Don’t worry.”  She continued, looking down at her bare feet.  “I won’t ask you about your secrets—not right now.”  She pushed away from the desk she’d been leaning on and gave a fleeting, predatory smile.   “Later, H.K.—believe me, I’ll remember for later… “   With a shake of her head her emotions swung suddenly to a totally different avenue.  

            “So,”  She smiled lasciviously, “Have I showed you what I’ve done to the bathroom?”

  A long time later, after she had shown him what she’d done with the bathroom and he had shown her what could be done in a bathroom, (or in a shower, actually,) they lay on the King sized bed with its blue flowered comforter and stared at the dust motes sifting lazily in the sunbeams, and spoke of inconsequentialities.

            After drying off neither of them bothered to dress again, and Madeleine had plenty of opportunity to indulge in her ‘tactile recharging’, as Kim called it. 

            “Roll over.”  She murmured, immediately after he had settled in comfortably.   He grumbled a bit, but, as usual, could deny her nothing, and found himself laying on his stomach while her irresistible little hands made sure strong forays across his flesh. 

  “This is still scarred.”  She said, her voice aching as she passed her hands over the whip marks on his back.  “You never did tell me how that happened.”

            “You were young.”  He murmured.  He rarely thought of those scars now—nobody else had ever been in a position to comment on them. 

            “So were you.”  She returned, and he heard the wry determination in her voice.  “So, since you’re making me ask, how did it happen?  And why didn’t you want anybody to know about it—God, after all this time, that’s probably what I remember most.  Not the pain, but how badly you wanted it kept secret.”

            Kim shrugged, enjoying the feeling of her hands on his skin as he did so.  The memories were not painful—in fact, they hadn’t been painful in a long time.  “There were gangs roaming the refugee camps.  I was Amerasian—back in Vietnam, its not a good thing to be.  I got caught alone, about two days before my flight was supposed to leave.  I guess the thing was, all I’d heard for like six months was that if I wasn’t healthy, I wouldn’t be allowed to leave.  When you’re ten, you don’t make the distinction between disease and skin lacerations.  All I could think of was that if anyone knew, they wouldn’t let me leave.”

            Madeleine bit her lip in sympathy.  “Was it so bad?”  She asked.  “You know, its funny—I know you probably as well as anybody in the world, and those first ten years of your life are… sort of blank.  Like they didn’t exist.”

            He shrugged again, and cocked his head over his shoulder to look at her.  She was naked as the day she was born, but she was caught up in the scars on his back—in him—and didn’t even think to blush under his scrutiny.  He liked that, he decided.  No embarrassment, no qualms about their familiarity.  Just us, she had said, and he began to see the importance of that, for the two of them.  It had always been just us, and in spite of his six years abroad, and the things that had happened to him—some she didn’t even know about--just us was where they began, and was as good a touchstone as any for a relationship.   He realized she was waiting for a reply to her question, and  was disturbed to find he had none to give her.

            “They existed.”  He said tersely.  “But I’m not sure I existed—not the way you know me, anyway.”

            “What do you mean.”

            “When I was growing up, the American GI’s, they were like, gods, but the babies they left behind… not so much, you know?  My grandparents were iron, bitterly proud, impassive people, and they were… unhappy, about my birth, to say the least.  I was the person they expected me to be when I was there.  Subservient.  Invisible.  Second class.  When the GI’s came and they produced that letter—you know, the one from… Henry Raitherson, all I could think of was that finally, I could be someone else.  And for all their faults, Greg and Estelle gave me room to do just that.”

            Madeleine gave an unexpectedly  hard thump on his back and he grunted in protest.  “So you decided to become just like them?”  She said in disbelief.

            “What?”  He flipped on his back the better to look up at her, because he had the feeling something important had changed and he hadn’t been there to see it.

            “Iron proud?  Impassive?  Do any of these things ring a bell, Phan Vo Kim?”  She was angry, he realized in surprise.  She was beautiful when she was angry, but she was angry none the less, and he still had no idea why.

            “I am who I am.”  He said after a moment, troubled and hurt.  “I assumed that if you didn’t like that person, we wouldn’t be here, Madeleine.”

            Madeleine thumped his chest with her little fit, and tried not to feel like a petulant child.  By the gods, her grievance was real!   “I love the person in here, H.K.  I love the person who can see my best friend after three years and tell me exactly what’s been wrong with her and let me know that it hurts you too.   I love the person who can laugh after I told him that his room was turned into a stray cat sanctuary.  I love the person who poured out his soul in letters that traveled thousands of miles, and the person who’s terrified of ever hurting me.   This person who never flinches and never smiles--- I’m not so sure about him, Henry Kim.  Sometimes he scares me.”  Frustrated, she dashed the back of her hand against her eyes.

            Kim gazed at her levelly, trying to assimilate what she said, and reached up to wipe the tears from under her eyes with his thumbs.  “But I’ve been like this all my life, Maddy.”  He said at last, his voice choked.  “From the moment I got off that plane, I refused to let this world in—it was too large and too damned cruel.  Do you think I could watch Estelle rip you to shreds and want myself open to the kind of pain you were forced to endure?”

            “You did.”  Her chin quavered and more tears tumbled down.  “You were always there, and, I’m not sure how, you always managed to take my pain away.  How could you do that, take all of that, for me, and then not let me in?”

            He frowned suddenly, aware that he was hurting her, and not sure how he could stop.  “I don’t understand.  Why does it hurt you now?”  He whispered, feeling nearly frantic with worry, “I’ve always been like this.” 

            “I know.”  And she broke out into a full fledged sob.  When he sat up and wrapped his arms around her, she could feel a panic in him, a terrible, heart wrenching panic, and a worry that he was losing her, and he didn’t have any idea how to hold on.  He’s terrified.  She realized.  I just  practically accused him of having no emotions whatsoever, and he’s terrified of losing me.  Oddly enough, the thought calmed her.  She was not the only one that was vulnerable here.  She was not the only one with something to lose.

            “It’s okay.”  She gulped at last.  “It’s all right, H.K.”  She sniffled a little, and sighed.  “I guess I wasn’t aware of how much I relied on my gifts before, to really know you, and you…     well you’ve developed shields, and I can’t get past them, and… and that scares me.”

            “Why?”  He whispered, still stroking her sunset hair as though he were still soothing her surprising outburst.  Oh, sure, she had it under control now… but that it had happened at all had him truly dismayed.  God, Maddy, you deserve so much, and I’m less sure than ever that I can give it to you now.

            Madeleine shrugged, and tried a rather pitiful laugh in response.  “Maybe you have some sort of secret life, Kim.  For all I know, you were recruited by her Majesty’s Secret Service—I may have been sleeping with James Bond for the last twenty-four hours, and I’d never know.”

            Kim sighed, and tried to still his own hammering heart.  “Ah, Maddy, but you could have that with anyone.  You’re right—you are a little spoiled with your gifts.  Most people have to go through this when they choose a mate—that never knowing, that having to rely on instinct and intimacy to know if they have chosen truly…” 

            He paused for a moment, and went on, being painfully honest.   “I’m sorry that I keep you out… I truly, truly am.  It’s just… and there’s much more to it than this, but this is all I can think to say right now.  It’s just that when you were twelve years old, and your adolescence was invading half the neighborhood, I used to lie awake at night and imagine… you.  You right now, full grown, independent, caring, smart as all hell… and I wanted you.  This… this woman I’m holding now, I’ve wanted to make love to her since before she existed.  I’ve waited for you to grow up so we could be like we are, right now.  And Maddy—that’s not something you want to tell a twelve year old child.  That’s frightening to a little girl on the verge of awakening.  And so I had to keep that out.  Away from you. And there were other things… things that might affect us still, but that I don’t want to go into… and I learned to keep secrets from you.  You see, I had to.  And I’m so used to keeping secrets, its going to take some time before I learn to let them go… do you understand?

            “I’m trying to say that I love you.  I have always loved you.  I’ll give you all of me—everything I have… but… but it might not be enough…”

            And to her chagrin she heard his voice roughen and tears hover there.  Afraid now, afraid that she had destroyed something tenuous and beautiful with her doubts, she took his beloved face in her hands and placed a kiss of benediction on his lips, a prayer, a sweet forgiveness, a sally into the future.  “It’s all I need, H.K.”  She whispered against his mouth.  “Just give me all of you.  It’s all I need…”  And she pulled him over her and let him make sweet love to her in the shadows of the dying afternoon.

  Sunday followed Saturday in a haze of sleep and sex and brief, furtive forays into the kitchen to recharge their batteries.  But Monday eventually had to follow Sunday, and at six sharp, Madeleine’s radio alarm went off, and Seven Mary Three was singing Cumbersome.  Maddy rolled away from Kim’s sleek, hard, warm body and groaned.  She knew just how they felt. 

            With her eyes hardly opened, her feet still knew where to take her as she padded to dresser and pulled out a set of forest green sweats and underwear, and then to her closet as she pulled out her running shoes.  As she sat on the bed to lace them up, she heard Kim roll over, searching for her body, and then groan when he realized that all he could feel was her warmth on the pillow. 

            “Oh, lord… six o’clock already?”  He yawned and sat up, draping an arm over her shoulders and leaning over to nuzzle her tousled hair.  “In England I would have started my kato a half hour ago.”

            Madeleine smiled and stifled a yawn of her own.  “Well don’t let me stop you.”  She murmured, “I’d hate to be the downfall of a body like that because I kept you up too late and…”  She trailed off delicately, not knowing the polite way of phrasing what they had stayed up late doing.

            “Sexed me up?”  Kim asked wickedly, before swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and standing up.  Maddy eyed him appreciatively, from his long, agile toes, up  his muscled calves to his taut, muscular backside.  She felt a sudden, liquid flush invade her body, and was too surprised by the wave of desire to even blush.  She didn’t think she would ever, ever, have enough of him, not in her bed, not in her body, not in her life. 

  Kim turned around, anticipating a reply from her, and caught her staring in blatant lust at his body.  An unexpected, full fledged grin crossed his features, before he made little shooing motions with his hands.  “Go on—go running!  If you don’t leave now you’re going to get some exercise you didn’t bargain for, and then you’ll be late.”

            Madeleine stood up, still looking delightfully frowzy, and smiled.  Without another word, she trotted to the sliding glass door that faced east over the raised porch and slid outside, closing the door behind her.  Kim strode to the bathroom and washed his face and brushed his teeth, and then, still naked as a jay bird, strode to the wide open space between the king sized bed and the dresser and began his taekwando kato, moving his muscles in the practiced patterns surely and effortlessly, emptying his mind of everything but the unity of his body.

            Madeleine walked in on him like that, twenty minutes later, still panting a little from her run around the grounds and down the old sidewalks of their neighborhood.  He was balancing on his palms, which were planted squarely in front of him, his legs spread around them, his body piked to accommodate the position.  Without seeming effort, he moved his legs behind him, balancing the weight of his entire body on the arms and shoulders that shook slightly with the strain.  With a grunt, he straightened his arms and swung his legs up above him, hovering there, completely perpendicular for a moment before tucking into a roll across the carpet that brought him standing up just in front of the bathroom entrance. 

            Madeleine applauded, and delighted in the startled, slightly sheepish look that crossed his features as he realized she’d been standing their for quite some time.  “Very impressive.”  She said sincerely.  “Is that last part really part of your kato?” 

            Kim shook his head, keeping the quirk in his lips that indicated a smile down to a bare minimum.  “No, actually.  But when I realized I could do it, I threw it in anyway.”

            “Well,”  she murmured as she brushed past him to the shower, “Keep it up—I could watch you do that all day.”

            She was rewarded by his throaty laughter as she stripped down and stepped under the spray, and she kept that sound and held it close to her heart as she began her morning routine.

            It was good that they started out so well.  A half an hour later, they stood  glaring each other in the bedroom mirror, and neither of them were laughing. 

            “This is me.”  Madeleine said determinedly, looking defiantly at the dark gray slacks suit that she wore.  It was patterned after a man’s suit, and tailored for a woman, and it looked severe and sexless.  It was exactly what she had been aiming for when she chose her work wardrobe.  Her shortish, russet curls had been gelled and slicked back behind her ears, the ends clipped in a black velvet barrette.  She looked, she hoped, like someone to be reckoned with, and was rather dismayed by H.K.’s reaction. 

            H.K. shook his head in dismay.  “But it isn’t.”  He tapped his fist over her heart.  “Not in here.  Do you really have to do this to yourself to do your job?”

            Against her will, Madeleine bit her lip and shuddered.  “The first week of my internship,”  she murmured, “I dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, like the older women in my department, and the men.  I was propositioned six times.  Three times on the street.”  She was aware that Kim’s hand had come up to brush back her hair, but had stalled at the brittle gel.  He settled for brushing his knuckles against her cheek. 

            “You didn’t tell me this.”  He said quietly. 

            “I know.”  She gave him a game smile.  “I didn’t want you to worry.  I’m okay, really.”  But she wasn’t.  Not for the first time that weekend, Kim felt a sudden pull, rather like he felt when he gave blood, like most physicians and nurses did every six weeks.  Now, watching Madeleine try to fight off an almost overwhelming, suffocating fear in what was apparently an everyday battle, he recognized it for what it was.  And at this moment, he couldn’t deal with it.

            “This ‘family evaluator’ job isn’t good for you.”  He said softly, then made a small, indeterminate sound in the back of his throat. “God—I can know that, and I don’t even really know what you do.”

            “I told you what I do!”  She protested, studying her neatly trimmed nails with interest. The truth was,  she hadn’t told him the full extent of her duties.

            “No,”  he muttered obliquely, “I don’t think you really did.”  Before she could protest, he grasped her hand and grazed his lips across her knuckles.  “But even if you did, tell me again.”  He pleaded quietly.  “Before you leave, so when I have a quiet moment, I can think of you and know how you’re spending your time.”

            “I go to homes and evaluate families with a history of substance abuse and decide if the children are being provided for or if they need foster care.”  She said professionally, citing the job description that went on her resume.  It was deceptively simple.   It didn’t reveal the squalid tenements she ventured into, the smell of urine and vomit nearly overwhelming near the entrance, or the street people she often needed to step over to reach her destination.  It didn’t describe the rooms with the bare floors, or the sinks full of hypodermic needles and blood.  It certainly didn’t describe the children, filthy and poorly clothed, crawling with vermin and often clearly malnourished that screamed disconsolately when removed from the neglectful or abusive people who were supposed to be protecting them.  So no, Maddy’s professional description of her job didn’t reveal the quarter of what she dealt with, but as she had guessed, Kim wasn’t fooled.

            “That’s really dangerous, draining work.”  He said matter-of-factly, looking Maddy over as though evaluating her for the first time.  “And with your abilities—and your sensitivities—it must be absolutely grueling.  Why didn’t you tell me?”  He demanded, and if it hadn’t been for the anguish creeping out of his voice and his mind, Maddy might have been angry at his arrogance.

            “I told you,”  she whispered, already tired from her job before she’d even left the house, “I didn’t want you to worry.”

            “Worry?  Worry!”  He repeated, dismayed when his voice went up and nearly cracked.  “What you didn’t want me to do was come tearing out here and dragging you into the evaluators office at college to get you another goddamned major!  Worry?  Madeleine, did you think I was going walk through the ER at county every day and not wonder if they were going to bring you in next, beaten up by some lunatic high on crack?  What about your abilities…”

            “My abilities help with this job!”  She countered, feeling under attack.  “I can really make a difference, here, don’t you understand!  When other people are making educated guesses as to whether or not the parent has gone straight or is just faking, I know.  When other people are looking for signs of child abuse or neglect, I know.  I was made for this job—what is the use of having powers like this if I can’t help someone with them!”

            “What is the use of having powers like this if they get you killed!”  Kim snapped back, feeling his heartbeat accelerate and his breathing quicken.  She was doing it now, whether she knew it or not.  She was pulling energy from him, draining him of strength.  She had been for two and a half days, and now, before she even went in to work, she was sapping him of any reserve he might have had.   And, he realized in frustration, he wasn’t helping by arguing with her and tapping into her emotional reserves before she even left the house.

             Before Madeleine could answer him, he took a deep breath and calmed himself, and wrapped his arms around her stiff, angry body.  After a moment, she melted into his arms, and he felt like he could breathe again.  “Look,”  he said softly, “I’m not going to apologize for overreacting, because I didn’t.  But,” he added before she could stiffen up again, “I will apologize for arguing with you about it right before you have to leave.  I should not be yelling at you now, when you probably need encouragement more than anything else.”  He felt her subdued little nod, and felt a pain near his heart.  Subdued?  Madeleine?  Oh, damn… 

            “But this isn’t the end of it.”  He said before she could pull away.  “I am arrogant, and I am overbearing, and anything that hurts you hurts me, and we’ll discuss this again when I’m not so floored by the whole thing, yes?”

            Madeleine did pull away this time and turned disgruntled green eyes towards Kim.  “You are arrogant.”  She said, pushing out her lower lip.  “Don’t let anyone tell you different.”

            As a conciliatory gesture, Kim summoned up one of his best smiles from the depths of a heavy heart.  “Why Madeleine, you’re the only one I’d let bring up the subject at all.”

            There was a silence between them for a moment, rather like the silence after a brief thunderstorm, and Maddy pulled out a smile in return.  “So,”  she said quietly, “Now that you know what I’m doing, what’s on your agenda for today?”

            Kim shrugged.  “Not much, actually.  I stop by the air freight office, to see if my life has arrived from England yet, and I stop by the hospital to let them know I’m in town and to see when I’m scheduled.”

            “Where are you going to be?”  H.K. had specialized in internal medicine, but in England he had worked mainly as a trauma surgeon.   The varied experience gave him a wider field from which to choose his specialty—even at county.

            “Trauma again.”  The corners of his mouth quirked, but his eyes remained sober.  “I find I’m a bit of an adrenaline junkie.  I enjoy being in the thick of things—making a difference.”

            Madeleine’s eyes narrowed perceptively.   “It’s easier than dealing with long term patients who might not make it, isn’t it… Ow…H.K.!”  With cold fingers she rubbed her temples, and squinted up at him in surprise.  The explosion of pain in his mind had spilled over spectacularly, but she almost gasped at the emptiness when he slammed up his defenses and grazed her temple with tender fingertips. 

            “My apologies.”  He said, sincerely, but with a distant look in his eyes as he struggled for control.  “You should not have been subjected to that.”  His expression snapped into focus for a moment.  “It will be interesting to see who wins, Madeleine—our demons or us—it will be a bitter fight.”  And a painful one. 

            She didn’t need to be psychic to catch that last thought.  They’d had it almost in tandem.  Before she could say anything else, he lowered his head and kissed her severely painted mouth, leaving her mussed and breathless.  And a pleasurable one.  He thought emphatically, and she would have caught that thought if she’d been dead, much less psychic!

            When she could talk again, she straightened up her suit and tried a professional tack that would let her exit gracefully.  “I’ve got some friends who hang out in the ER.”  She said casually.  “So if you see Bryce or Jack Kristof, tell them I said hi.”  And she could feel Kim’s body go numb at the apparently innocuous question.

            “I know Bryce.”  He said hoarsely, then cleared his throat and tried to speak again, just as casually.  “He hired me.  But I don’t know what his brother would be doing in the ER”

            Maddy wasn’t fooled, but she wasn’t going to let on that she knew how terribly discomfited he was either.   That was the surest way of shutting him down.  “Jack’s a vice detective,”  she said, fixing her lipstick calmly in the mirror, “We work together on a couple of cases—how do you know him”

            Kim nodded, and with obvious reluctance looped a tie around his neck.  He wore jeans and a sport coat in deference to his status as a new employee, but Maddy knew that he’d never liked to dress formally.  “We had,”  Kim was saying, the tremble in his hands as he tied his tie giving lie to his casual voice, “A mutual acquaintance in England—but I’ll be sure to tell them you said hello.”  Then, before she could ask any more questions, he changed the subject.

            “I need to return the rental car today—I was wondering, if you have time, could you pick me up at the airport tonight at around six, and we can go shopping for a car tonight?”

            Madeleine grinned, her first spontaneous, purely joyful expression since she’d shocked him so much with the power suit and prison matron make-up.  For all that Kim decried ostentation, abhorred suits ties, and formality, and would as soon as live in a one room flat as a mansion, he adored a powerful, tasteful, expensive sports car.  It was his one acquiescence to the trappings of the wealth he’d found himself dealing with so unexpectedly at age ten, and yes, she would love to see him go quietly bananas in a Jaguar lot.  She told him so, and was rewarded with another lipstick destroying, knee melting kiss, and then she had to run out of the house because she was late. 

            It wasn’t until she was halfway to the dismal little county office off of El Camino Royale that she wondered if he had chosen the prospect of looking for a car as a lure, to take her off the subject that had obviously caused him so much pain. Well tough, H.K., she thought determinedly,  I’ll be damned if I let this secret sit in your heart and fester like so many others have.  The thought made her raise her chin and smile.  They were a couple now, right?  And that status gave her certain rights and privileges when it came to butting into his business that being a little sister didn’t have.  She intended to make full use of them.  Feeling very  pro-active and powerful, Madeleine practically glowed as she entered her little grayish peach colored office and surveyed her case load.   This could be a really good day.

  .

Chapter 9

Don’t be alarmed if I fall head over feet

don’t be surprised if I love you for all that you are…

It’s all your fault.

(Alannis Morisette, Head Over Feet)

 

 

            “So?”  Erin said excitedly.  They were in the middle of Burger King where they met for lunch, and her vivid blue eyes had been bursting with questions since she had pulled up. 

            “So what?”  Madeleine asked a little distractedly as she shoved her second carcinogenic grease burger down her throat with whole-hearted abandon.  She found that when she had to keep her mental shields in place for long periods of time she seemed to need a tremendous protein/carbohydrate intake to make up for all that energy.  And she’d needed all her abilities to help her cope with her day.

            “So what?  So what!  SO WHAT!”  Erin might have gotten louder, but her voice broke at the end of the last ‘what’.

            “Erin, people are looking at us!”  Madeleine flushed.  Not that it hadn’t been near the top of her mind all day, but she finally connected what she’d been thinking on dreamily to what her friend was talking about.

            Erin didn’t bother to respond to Maddy’s embarrassment.  Instead, she crossed her arms in front of her and fixed her friend with her most stubborn look until Maddy turned an even darker pink and broke.

            “It was wonderful,” she whispered, and turned shining eyes almost bashfully towards her friend.

            “Wonderful?”  Erin asked wistfully.

            “Yeah.  Wonderful.”  Maddy wanted to laugh with the worship in both of their voices, but absurdly enough, she found herself wiping her eyes with her napkin, and saw that Erin’s beautiful turquoise eyes were spilling over as well.  Swallowing past the lump in her throat, she reached across the table and took Erin’s slender hand with its brightly painted nails in her own.  “Why didn’t you tell me, love?”  She asked softly.

            Erin shook her head vehemently.  “What’s to do?”  She tried a Gallic shrug and nearly succeeded, then looked directly into Maddy’s bright, troubled eyes.  “I didn’t tell you because I wanted you to be happy ever after, and you are now, and you owe it to me to tell me all the gory details, so I know what to look for when I’ve found it, okay?”

            Madeleine tried her own Gallic shrug, and found herself looking away.  “It was wonderful, and I’ll give you all the details you want, but…” she swallowed, “But it’s going to take some work to make it happy ever after.”  Erin didn’t say anything, but simply looked understanding, and Maddy found it easier to go on.

            “He’s got… secrets, Erin.  Deep ones.  I mean… I always thought—even before I was sure it was H.K.—I always thought that when I found someone, we’d be… you know, close in our minds.   But H.K.,  his shields are so strong—I guess he’s been protecting me from things for a long time, and a lot of its all built up back there like water in a dam, but there’s something more…”  She swallowed, and recalled the end of their troubling conversation that morning.  “Something really… painful.  And new.”

            Erin frowned.  “How new?”  She asked suspiciously.

            Maddy shook her head.  “I think it was there in August, when… you know…”

            “When you two committed to this.’

            “Right.  But,  you know, about a year before Greg died, there was this time—about three or four months—when H.K.’s letters were really strange…”

            Erin nodded.  “I remember.”  She smiled at Maddy’s shocked look.  “He wrote me too, remember, and you let me read his letters as well.  It was weird.  He always wrote two separate, distinct letters, but for a while there, they were…”

            “Interchangeable.  And stiff, like he was writing to strangers…”

            “Or trying to hold something back…”

            “Or afraid of what he might write if he let himself…”

            “Exactly!”  They exclaimed together, and calmly resumed eating.  They’d been finishing off each other’s sentences for years.  Madeleine shoved the last of her hamburger in her mouth and daintily licked her fingers before starting on her fries.  Erin watched her thoughtfully.

            “This must really be eating at you.”  She said, indicating the discarded sandwich wrappers on Maddy’s tray. 

            Maddy shook her head.  “Actually, when I left home this morning, I’d never felt better.  Even when we were arguing, I felt like I could take on an army.  But my morning — good gravy!”

            Erin nodded sympathetically.  “That bad, eh?”

            Maddy grunted.  “Well,  Napolean Morris went on a bender—I had to begin the paperwork to take the babies.”  She grunted again, angrily.  “His heart’s in the right place—but it was his last chance, and he blew it.   I’ve got a mother who refuses to take the formula coupons from W.I.C.—Gracie’s so thin, but the father, he’s like, so proud… and lord—does he hate me.  I mean, I’m poison in foil wrapped box, as far as he’s concerned.  He tells the baby bed time stories about the evil social worker who’s going to take her away from her mama and papa.”  Erin raised an eyebrow, and Maddy nodded affirmation—yes, she’d heard him thinking that, and smugly, too.  “And to top things off…”

“Oh no…”  Erin knew what was coming.

“Oh yes.”  Madeleine affirmed.  “The Escamilla case again.  She’s finally clean—I mean through and through, I can practically hear her blood cells singing the Hallelujah chorus… but that wackoid boyfriend of hers won’t leave her alone.”

            “Is he clocking?”  Erin asked in her professional psychologist’s voice.

            Her friend nodded.  “Oh, yeah.  He hooked Sandra in the first place.  I don’t want to take the babies away—they’re finally clean and cared for and they’ve got their mom back again… but…”

            “But the boyfriend…”

            “Scares the crap out of me.”  Maddy finished frankly.  “He was skulking around the building this morning… no, nothing I could prove, trust me,  I looked, but I could hear him.  And his thoughts…”  She rubbed her temples, and Erin could suddenly see the translucent circles of exhaustion under her friends eyes, and her delicate features etched even finer with strain.  Not for the first time, Erin felt the tug of worry over Madeleine’s stressful job and her particularly sensitive psyche. 

            “What about his thoughts?”  Erin prodded gently, because Maddy had gone into a distant place all her own, one none too pleasant from the look of it.

            Madeleine shuddered, feeling suddenly queasy.  “They’re violent, and warped, and sadistic… I’m afraid of what he’ll do to Sandra and the babies if she keeps putting him off.”

            “Oh honey!”  Erin was truly alarmed.  “Have you asked Jack or one of the guys to help you?”  Social services had a few sympathetic detectives at the force that they called when a worker felt their person was endangered during a case.  Unfortunately, the police force was overworked and underpaid as well, so the workers, for the most part, called in the cavalry only for the most extreme cases.  As a child psychologist allied with the force, and the DA’s office, Erin was called in whenever a child was involved in a crime, and often she and Maddy found each other working on the same cases. 

            Maddy shook her head negatively.  “No—what would I tell them, Erin?”  She added a little defensively.  “I walk a fine enough line as it is, talking about ‘intuition’ and ‘secondary indications’ and ‘professional instinct’.  I haven’t even seen this guy since Sandra went clean—how am I supposed to convince someone that he’s got it in… he’s a threat to uh… her.”

            Erin’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, and she regarded her friend intently.  Maddy wriggled uncomfortably under her scrutiny, and it flashed through her mind that more than once her friend had actually read her mind.  “You.”  Erin said at last, her expression more than a little angry.  “He’s got it in for you.. He’s got it in for you and he’s a threat to us. That’s what you meant to say, isn’t it.”

            Maddy made a show of looking at the clock over the counter so she could avoid her friend’s eyes.  “Yes.”  She said at last.  “Uhm, not to change the subject, but I really should be going.  I’ve got eight other visits to make today, and I promised H.K. we’d go looking for a car…”  But Erin was unmoved.

            “Have you told H.K. about this?”  She asked levelly, fighting panic.  Situations like this one were a social worker’s greatest nightmare.  For the thousandth time she cursed her inability to talk Maddy out of her line of work.  It was a good and noble profession, but by heaven’s, Madeleine was too damn vulnerable to be walking the mean streets of the peninsula, keeping children safe from the bad guys.

            “No.”  Maddy shook her head vehemently.

            “For Heaven’s sake, why not!  Madeleine, not to state the obvious, but you’re all he’s got in the world—he’s got a right to know what you’re risking.”

            “It’s not that easy!” 

“Well why not—you’ve always been able to count on him before!”

“He… worries enough about me as it is—you didn’t hear him this morning when he…”

“When he what?”  Erin demanded, not sure she wanted to know.

Maddy felt her throat tighten, and knew her eyes were once more suspiciously bright.  She’d never thought of herself as a duplicitous person, but now, in the light of first H.K.’s anger and now Erin’s, the enormity of her ‘tactful omissions’ of the past was beginning to sink in.  “When he found out what I do?”

“Oh good grief!”  The two women stared at each other for a moment, Maddy looking apologetic and Erin looking incredulous.  After a deep  breath, Erin felt ready to speak again, but the disbelief was still evident in every syllable.  “Justexactly what did you tell him about your job, Maddy.”

Madeleine sighed and searched her mind for the exact words she had put in her letters.  “I, oh, let’s see… okay, here.  I told him that ‘I am working in family services’ and I ‘evaluate case files to see who is most in need of aid.’  So you see, I didn’t really lie to him.”

Erin resisted the urge to run a hand through her perfectly sprayed hair.  “You didn’t really tell him the truth either, did you.”  She asked gently.  Maddy shook her head soundlessly, fighting the urge to cry.  “So, I guess H.K.’s not the only one with secrets, is he, Maddy?”

And Maddy was horrified when the tears spilled over.  “I didn’t want to lie to him.”  She whispered.  “I just… I wanted to accomplish something on my own.   I wanted to be someone and do something that didn’t have anything to do with my mother or with H.K.”

In spite of herself, Erin gave a rueful laugh.  “Honey, isn’t that why he left in the first place?  So you could go and do that?  I don’t think he meant for you to go so far to the extreme that you would put yourself in danger.  And you are, you know.  This work—its hard and draining and exhausting on the sturdiest people with the thickest skins.  You have certain abilities and  certain vulnerabilities,  and you should respect that.  Everyone has limits.  Yours are just… different.”

Maddy shook her head and dashed away tears with a resolute hand.  “This is something I just need to do.”  She said, “And he’s going to have to learn to let me do it.”

Erin shook her head as well, and by mutual consent, both young women stood up and made ready to leave.  “I think you’re wrong.”  She said bluntly.  “I think you’re wrong, and you’re doing H.K. a grave disservice, and I think you have no right to expect complete honesty from him when your giving less than the same.  And,”  She added at her friend’s stricken look, “I think you know that I love you enough to say all this and to be here to pick up the pieces if everything falls apart.  But do me a favor, will you, and call Jack when you get back to your cubicle?  I see him tomorrow, so I will know if you don’t.”  At Maddy’s acquiescent nod and relieved smile, Erin gave her friend a casual, one armed hug.

 But as she watched Maddy’s little Geo Metro pull out of the parking lot and buzz towards Redwood City, she fought a feeling of foreboding.  Maddy was in over her head, and she was just stubborn enough to stay that way until she was fighting for her life.

She was late.  H.K. had been pacing in the confined space of the rental car office for nearly forty-five minutes, and he was beginning to worry when he saw her car pull up.  He ran outside and slid into the passenger side with an honest to goodness smile on his face, and then the wave of dizziness hit him. 

“Is anything wrong, babe?”  Maddy asked, turning shadowed eyes towards his.  She’d been feeling dead tired until she’d seen his grin, but now the expression on his face was decidedly… odd.

“No.”  He    responded, forcing his voice to sound normal.  “I’m fine.”  God, he was tired.   Or rather, he amended,she was tired.  He wondered how she had dealt with this sort of crushing exhaustion before he’d been there to lend her his strength, and decided he’d rather not know.  “I was just worried a little, yes?”

Madeleine looked contrite.  “I’m sorry, my day ran a little long.  It does a lot, but I was sure I had a handle on it today.”  She turned a sparkling smile towards him and H.K. decided he was not as tired as he thought, if she was this happy to see him.   “So what kind of car do you want to look at?  Porsche, Ferrari, what?”

Kim chuckled low in his throat.  She hadn’t forgotten his love of powerful automobiles, and her eagerness to indulge his passion was nearly as charming this evening, talking about cars as it had been all weekend talking about more… visceral pleasures.  The memory of their phenomenal weekend together was enough to send an unexpected spurt of energy through his bloodstream, and although he’d been on the verge of canceling their excursion, he found himself saying instead, “After all those years in England, I’ve found I’ve developed a taste for Jaguars—what do you think?”

“Mmm… smooth, sexy, powerful—it fits.”

Kim laughed in earnest, and his (her, their) exhaustion eased just a little.  This could be fun, he thought.

Kim pulled exultantly into the driveway less than three hours later, reveling in the power of his new Jaguar X-J50.  He checked his rearview mirror and saw that Madeleine was right behind him.  She had humored him during their entire visit to the car lot, and her throaty laugh when she saw him touch the fender with a reverent hand had helped him make decide on the one with the racing green exterior with the beige leather seats. 

She had also been the one to remind him that the evening was moving on, and that he should make his decision soon, although whether it was the shadows under his eyes or her own that prompted her, he didn’t know.

God, he was tired.  He knew, logically, that one didn’t simply flit across an ocean and surface on the other side without some repercussions, but he also knew, on some bone deep, psychological level, that there was more to it than that.  Madeleine was exhausted, and the nature of their relationship was such that it was exhausting him.  The signs had probably been there in August, and he probably had felt them then on a low key, subliminal level.  But in August, they hadn’t been lovers. 

The thought acted as a panacea to his exhaustion, and as Madeleine climbed gracefully from her tiny car, he remembered that there were benefits to their relationship as well, and they far outweighed any discomforts brought about by her gifts.  She reached his side and he drew her to him.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m ravenous.”  He said, loving the feel of her along his side, matching his steps as they neared the garage.

Madeleine shook her head.  “I grabbed something on the way to meet you—I’m sorry, I thought you would have eaten by now.”

Kim gave her one of those peculiar side-ways looks, and his lips twitched lasciviously.  “And who said I was talking about food?”

“Oh… well, in that case…”  Maddy laughed shyly, and they entered the once cold, forbidding house feeling happy and warm… and ready for each other.

After a perfunctory shower, they fell into bed together, their bodies still damp and sweet, and Kim took her tenderly, reverently, and just when she felt as though she’d shatter if he continued to treat her as though she were made of glass some of her need seeped through to him, and he began to thrust into her with an urgency and a strength             that was as thrilling as it was surprising.  When their breathing calmed,  they scarcely had the strength to mutter “Good night” before their eyes closed and they slid into a dreamless sleep.

Kim sat up in bed, his heart pounding, sweat running into his eyes.  Maddy… she was gone… no… she was there, next to him, sleeping fiercely in a tight little ball.   Then what had wakened him?  Something warped, surreal, bleeding into his thoughts like grotesque ink in a clear pool…  Maddy stirred next to him, whimpering a little, and he lay down to comfort her, surrounding her with his steel in silk strength, and he felt himself falling back asleep again.   With the bustle of the morning, the moment was forgotten.

H.K. looked around the cramped office.  There was paperwork spilling  off the desk and onto the floor next to him.  In spite of the over-bright, sterile lighting of the rest of the hospital, the room was dim, and sterile was not the name to describe it.  In short, it looked exactly like every nook and cranny office found for every underpaid attending physician Kim had ever met.   He felt right at home.  Sort of.  A voice behind him made him swing around, his body unconsciously assuming a fighting stance.  considering his history with this particular doctor, he didn’t consider the attitude an overreaction by any means.

         “H.K. Raitherson… I’m Bryce Kristof—you probably don’t remember me…”

Kim nodded pleasantly to the handsome young man in front of him, before cautiously extending his hand.  The two men  had a knuckle denting contest before Kim nodded in acknowledgment.  He remembered Bryce, all right, and he said so.  “No—I remember you from the  funeral.”  He said softly, his keeping his expression carefully neutral.  Bryce hadn’t been nearly this pleasant then, but then, neither had Kim.  He saw that Bryce’s striking features were as shuttered as his own, and realized with a flash of intuition that he was not the only one ashamed of his behavior on that day.

       “Your sister spoke of you often.”  Kim added neutrally.  “She was very proud of you.”

          Bryce nodded, his expression lightening, and Kim finally saw the family resemblance between him and Anna.  “Jack and I… I mean I never told you how grateful I was, that you made her last days… easier.   Thank you for being there.  Jack’s starting to come around too.”  Bryce flushed, swore under his breath, and flushed an even deeper red.  “What I mean to say, Mr. Raitherson, is that Jack and I behaved like idiots, and I hope you will accept my apology.  Jack’s still being an idiot, but it doesn’t have to be a family thing.”

         Kim let one of his rare smiles play with his features.  “We all tend to lose our heads when family is involved.  So—are you going to orient me here, or do I need to hunt down someone who didn’t blacken my eye?”

       Bryce grinned.  “Nope—I’d be proud to be your groveling companion for a few days.” 

       San Manuel County Hospital ran on the bare bones of modern medicine.  There were two trauma rooms, and one large examining room cordoned off into six sections by curtains.  The waiting room resembled an empty classroom, filled with folding chairs, health awareness posters in Spanish, English, and Chinese, and a healthy dose of despair.

      “We have the smallest facilities of any hospital on the peninsula.”  Bryce was saying, trying to forestall any negative reaction going on behind Kim’s expressionless features.  “San Mateo, Redwood City—even Colma, all have more state of the art equipment.  Hopefully, though, that’s going to change—especially with the stats I’ve got prepared to present to the board.  Because of our proximity to the waterfront, we get three times the trauma cases of any of the other hospitals, and maybe two thirds of the funding.  We’re reaching a crisis level right now, and that’s where you come in.  Because of your double specialty—trauma surgeon and ER doc, you’re going to be our jack of all trades.  You’ll be on call as a trauma surgeon every other week, and in the ER for five shifts a week.  We’ve got a resident bunk with a shower and lockers that you’re welcome to use—the hours can get pretty damn brutal, but we try to let you have a personal life.”  Bryce  cracked a grin that Kim was sure most women found charming, and he squashed a momentary flash of jealousy that Madeleine even knew this handsome, charming man.  

            At that moment, he unexpectedly heard the sweet, low ring of Madeleine’s voice coming through the ER corridor, and he turned to Bryce Kristof with an expression that even he had admit was triumphant.  “I’m glad you feel that way,”  Kim said mildly, “Because here she comes.”

            “She?”

            “My personal life.”  And without further explanation Kim moved swiftly to Maddy and greeted her with a heartfelt, passionate kiss.

            Maddy pulled away flushed and embarrassed and still grinning from head to toe.  It occurred to her that this was the second time H.K. had ever ‘claimed’ her in public, and that his blatant possessiveness really didn’t bother her at all.  Her grin widened when she caught Bryce Kristof’s  obvious surprise.

            “Hey, Bryce.”  She said happily, “I didn’t see you there—I take it you and Kim have already met?”

            “Yeah,”  Bryce said, regaining his composure, “I was just showing him the works.  What are you doing here?”

            “One of my mothers is taking her drug test today—I’m here to drop off the sample.   And I thought I’d check on H.K. to see how his first day is going.”  She turned to Kim.  “So—are you under lock and key, or can I treat you to the delights of the fine cafeteria?”

            “He gets a break in a minute.”  Bryce interjected swiftly, much to Kim’s surprise. “How about you go take care of what you need to and H.K. will meet you in the cafeteria.”

            Maddy looked in askance at the normally amiable Bryce.  There was something dark and almost angry about his expression, and for the first time Maddy could see the relationship between Bryce and his older brother Jack.  Both of them could look stern and forbidding when they chose.  But before she could ask any questions Kim brushed her cheek with his lips, and she found herself on her way. 

            Kim turned towards Bryce coolly,  as though the man weren’t looking at him with blood in his eye.

            “I wondered about your last name.  So you’re Maddy’s… brother?”  Bryce inquired, his voice betraying confusion only in semantics.

            “We’re not related by blood, no.”  Kim clarified, keeping his anger in check.  He hadn’t been around to protect Maddy, he knew, and he shouldn’t be angry that she had won a champion or two to do so.  His job right now was to make sure Bryce knew that that job was over.

            “And how you’re related…” 

            “Is none of your concern now.”  Kim interjected smoothly.  “Although I’m sure Maddy appreciated it in the past.”  

            Bryce tried another tack.  “I take it Maddy doesn’t know about Anna.” Kim shook his head impassively. 

            “There was no need to tell her until… recently.” 

            Bryce’s eyes narrowed, and he attempted to tower his six-foot plus frame over Kim’s slighter build.  His frustration when Kim didn’t back down was palpable, and his voice was steely.  “So, did Anna know about Maddy?”   He asked, his voice a low hiss, and for a moment Kim’s eyes unshuttered, and his expression was far from impassive.  A floor above them Maddy pressed her hands to her temple and sat faintly down in a nearby seat, and even Bryce felt himself backing down from that release of raw emotion. 

            When Kim spoke, his voice was clipped and impersonal, but with a sick certainty Bryce knew what the effort cost him.  “Your sister made certain requests of me that she would not have if she had not been afraid and alone.  Of course I informed her of the repercussions of her requests before I honored them.” 

            Bryce felt the air whoosh out of his lungs as though he’d been hit, and Kim acknowledged his reaction with a raised eyebrow.  “Now if you will excuse me, Madeleine is waiting.”

            “And Madeleine is all?”  Bryce asked, when he could find his voice.

            “She always has been.”  Kim replied simply before he turned and left without a backwards glance.

Chapter 10

Dreams, they complicate my life…

(R.E.M.  Get Up)

            “What was that all about?”  Maddy asked when she saw him approaching in the cafeteria. 

            “What was what?”  H.K. returned smoothly, setting his tray across from hers and sitting down.

            Madeleine’s eyes narrowed.  “That.  That…thing… I felt happening in your head a few minutes ago… no, don’t get all indignant—you practically broadcast it over the hospital.  And I’ve felt it before.   You’ve been hiding it from me all week—before that, actually.  I think you were hiding it from me in August.”

            Kim regarded her placidly from behind his feline, golden eyes.  “You’re right.”  He said simply.  “There is something I’ve been hiding, and as you’ve probably deduced, it has some connection with Bryce Kristof.”

            Madeleine opened her mouth and shut it, a little stunned—if she had known it would be this easy, she would have asked him during the weekend and had this whole thing out in the open then.  “And…” she prompted when no more information was forthcoming.

            Kim stopped in mid-bite of his sandwich, chewed thoughtfully and swallowed.  Then he said the one thing she least expected him to say in the world.

            “I could lose you over this, Maddy.”  He nodded quickly to forestall the automatic negative coming from her.  “I could.  You’ve got to understand.  I don’t consider myself a selfish man, but asking permission to come back into your life, sweeping into that party and… and all but throwing you over my shoulder and hauling you into… well, into your cave without getting this out in the open was… well it was the most profoundly selfish act I’ve ever committed.  And now that you know that, I have another request, this one equally selfish, but I’ll ask it anyway.”

            Madeleine swallowed hard, and nodded.   Kim’s voice was detached, his expression neutral, but what he was letting her see, underneath all that was overwhelming.  Remorse, apology, and the need, the overwhelming physical and emotional need that had driven him back to her arms against every iron hard principle of integrity that sustained him washed over her and roiled as violently in her own heart as it had been in his, and she realized that knowing this, she couldn’t refuse a request to leap over the moon.  “What?”  She asked quietly.

            He met her eyes, all of his hidden emotions suddenly mirrored there.  “Let it be, for just a little while.  Let me have some more of your peace, your kindness and, most importantly, your love, for just a little while, before I risk everything.  Let us settle a little—love a little more.  I hope I’m not wrong in this, but I’m pretty sure we’re both as committed to us as we could be already.  I know, I am.”

              “Is that all?”  She replied with a wistful little smile.  “I was prepared to join the circus there, for a minute, you were so serious about it.”

            Kim studied her for a moment, and decided that she was shaken but not shattered.  Always strong, his Maddy.  “It’s plenty, Madeleine.  It’s all I could ask for and more than I deserve.”

            “No.”  She whispered, shaking her head.  “You deserve so much more.”

            They talked of inconsequential things after that—about moving his stuff into the house, and about Trudy coming back, and Kim could only be grateful.  He’d been granted a reprieve, he felt.  A time to pull himself together, to bask in her warmth and to heal.   But that was not the best part.  The best part was her faith in him.  He could see it, radiating from her body, making her radiant and stunning.  She seemed to feel that whatever transgression he had committed, they could weather it together.  Watching her, hearing her talk about them, and the things she had planned for them in the next few months, he could only believe her.

            And his optimism grew in the next few weeks, in spite of the frightening emotions and nagging doubts that he always kept carefully in reserve.  Trudy returned after he’d been there a week, but only, to their amusement and secret relief, to pack up her things and move to her sister’s permanently.  She had kissed Kim on the cheek, and patted her patently dyed brown hair into place before telling him “My job’s done, right?  You’re here—she doesn’t need any more looking after.  She hasn’t for years anyway, but…  well, you know, I worry.”  Her last admonition to Kim as she’d pulled away in the cab was to take good care of Madeleine—and not to let her tire herself out.    Madeleine’s response to that had been to pull him close and whisper in his ear that she counted on him to tire her out, and that was really his job.  Kim had laughed and pulled her into the house to take her up on the challenge then and there.

            But everything had not been perfect.  Every morning, Madeleine awoke and put on perfectly tailored clothing that both hid and protected the woman he loved, and he decided that he never would get used to that.  At home, with him, she was soft and whimsical, moving fluidly through the house or the yard in a way that was almost ethereal in its grace.   This was the Madeleine he loved.  This was the Madeleine that would study a poem or a painting or an emotion with narrow eyed intensity for moments before relaxing and accepting it into her sphere of understanding.  This was the woman who would move objects from room to room absent mindedly when she was thinking deeply, or the woman who would blink, and freeze time for a moment when confronted with the unexpected.  The woman at home was his Madeleine, he thought possessively, and as much as he didn’t like the thought of sharing her with the rest of the world, sharing her was better than the alternative.

            And the alternative was the reality.  The reality was that she got up every morning and gelled her beautiful, russet hair down flat to her head to hide both the color and the allure.  The reality was that she spent a fortune on dry cleaning every week to hide both her youth and her gender, and that she seemed to lose something of her soul in the process.  The reality was that when he woke up in the morning next to him, she was Madeleine, and he’d known and loved her all her life, but when she left for work, she more and more resembled her mother, Estelle.  She was icy, and untouchable, and she did it to survive, but he wondered if she realized that even if she could survive this job physically, mentally, she was dying a little every day.

            Or she had been, he amended when he thought about it.  Because as the weeks progressed he realized that little by little she regained her strength, and her ability to smile, even when she was wearing one of her ‘power suits’ as she called it, and that as she did so, he grew weaker and weaker.  Their bond, as old and as comfortable as their skin, had snapped into place, and he was serving as her ‘mental battery’ once again.  But the cost was much higher now than it had been when they were children and he’d wanted to make sure she made it through a party drawing unwanted attention to herself.  Now she was tapping reserves of energy that Kim, in his physically and mentally demanding job didn’t have to give.  And he wasn’t sure what to do about it.

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

            Kim sat up in bed, the sweat pouring off his body freezing in the chill night air.  Automatically he checked  on Madeleine, and she was there beside him, as she had been for the last four weeks.  He took a moment to still his heartbeat and his labored breathing and tried to recall the madness that had awakened him.  He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts, but all he got was the overall impression of insanity, and danger. 

            With a quiet sigh he dragged his knees up to his chest and rested his cheek on them.  His stomach growled, and he realized he was starving, but he wasn’t sure his knees would support him to the kitchen.  He looked at Madeleine sleeping in another fierce, self-protective little ball, and sighed again. 

            She was looking much better than she had when he’d stalked into her life and hauled her off to their cave.  She had gained a little weight, and her features were softer, more vulnerable, and the shadows beneath her eyes had lessened.  He was no longer afraid of hurting her when they made love.  In the darkness his teeth gleamed as he smiled, just a little.  It was a good thing, that—she attacked sex with the straightforward-ness that characterized her life, and would have been insulted if he had ever suggested that she was as fragile as she sometimes felt.  It was good, he reflected, that she was doing better, looking healthier, feeling stronger.

            Because he wasn’t.  At first he had tried to attribute his increasing tiredness to jet lag, but he’d known better then, and as the weeks passed, it had become a weaker and weaker excuse.  His ravenous appetite he could have put down to more intense kato, but as a doctor, he had no excuses for knowing that the slight increase in physical exercise was not even close to producing the kind of metabolism required to wake him up ravenous after the enormous meals he’d been downing at dinner.  And he was still losing weight.

            And, of course, there were the dreams.    Hideous, terrifying, they’d been waking him up more and more frequently—this was his second one tonight, and it wasn’t uncommon to have three or more.  Sometimes, he could swear there were two kinds of power in them, they occurred so frequently—and were so disparate, in spite of their absolutely terrifying implications.  Curiously, for her incredible psychic acuteness, Madeleine never awoke when he did.  Normally he’d be grateful for this if it didn’t frighten him silly.  Because as sure as the sky was blue and water was wet, her psycho-empathic abilities were the beginning and end of all of it. 

            Erin had said as much when she’d been over for dinner two nights before.  Kim had been relieved that their old relationship had been restored nearly without a glitch.  Whatever deeper feelings she may have had for him had either dissipated, or, and this was more probable, were being quietly and heart-breakingly contained for the sake of the friendship they did have.  Kim counted himself fortunate to know Erin at all, much less know that she held him in such high regard, and he hoped fervently that she would find someone to make her happy.  Because as it was, she could make herself old quickly, just worrying about Madeleine.

            “I’m terrified for her, you know.”  She had said over a mouth full of tortilla chips when Madeleine had excused herself to go pay the cat- man.  (A slight, quiet fellow, he did his care-taking job as efficiently as possible and left, allowing Kim and Madeleine to luxuriate in a room full of purring friendly animal.  Kim was deciding there were more benefits to inherited money than just powerful sports cars.)

            “Why?”  Kim had asked warily.  Whatever else he may have meant to her, he knew that Erin was first and foremost Madeleine’s friend.  She would never betray a confidence.

            “Just look at her, H.K.!”  Erin gestured in the direction of the cat-room, trying not to lose a glob of guacamole affixed to her chip.  “She’s exhausted, edgy—she eats like a horse and weighs six ounces.  I hope you’re having better luck than I did convincing her to change careers.  This one will eat her alive, and I don’t know if I can watch that.”

            Kim had nodded silently, and they had exchanged a long, troubled glance.  Then Erin noticed the circles under his eyes, and she whistled softly.  “Oh—no wonder she’s been doing better.”

            Kim looked away.  “I don’t know what you mean.”  He lied softly.  “Everything you said is true—this job is hurting her—with her abilities, she’s like an exposed nerve to every case she has.”

            Erin shook her head.  “Yeah, but now she’s got you to shield her.  Look at yourself, H.K.  I didn’t notice it last week, but it’s getting noticeable now.  She was on the verge of a collapse before you got here.  Now she’s dancing around like an aerobics instructor, and you’re looking like something the cat dragged in…”

            And Madeleine had breezed in then and blessedly interrupted.  “I’ll have you know, my cats don’t drag in anything.  Mr. Cooper just assured me that they’re all healthy, normal, and too fat to hunt more than dust motes.”

            “And my toes.”  Kim said mildly.  He had scratches on his toes from the last time he’d fallen asleep in the overstuffed chair they kept in the room. 

            Madeleine laughed for a moment, and then eyed the two of them pensively.  “What were you guys talking about?”  She asked, suspicion arching her eyebrows.   “Whatever it was, you’re both pretty closed about it now—it must have been about me!”

            Kim surprised the three of them by laughing heartily.  “Not without ego, are you love?”  They had all laughed then, but Erin had caught his eyes in passing and arched one exquisitely wrought brow.  Kim had turned away and pretended no to know what she was thinking, but it was hard to maintain the pretense when the reality was hitting him smack in the chest every day.  And Erin wasn’t about to let their conversation be over.   In that  half whimsical/half whining way that good friends have with each other, Erin  cajoled her friend to go out for ice cream.  No sooner had Madeleine’s footsteps faded from the kitchen as she went out to her car then Erin had pinned Henry Kim with a gimlet glare.

            “What gives, H.K.  There’s something you’re not telling me.”  They had stared stubbornly at each other for a moment before he caved.

            “Someone’s after her, Erin.”

 Erin blinked twice, feeling a more than off balance.  Relationships, yes, she felt qualified to poke her nose into that, but this?  “I beg your pardon.”

            “I can hear him.”  Kim said tautly.  “In fact, I think there’s more than one.  At night, when we’re sleeping, I keep awakening from nightmares--with thoughts that are not mine.  And they’re horrible.  And they’re about her.”

            Erin swallowed audibly.  “Who do you think?”  She asked, having a few suspicions of her own. 

            Kim arched an  eloquent eyebrow.  “You’d know more than I would, don’t you think?”  He shook his head, glossing the question over as rhetorical.  “I’m not sure about both of them, but I was wondering—“

            “Who?”

            “Johnson Breshears.”

            Erin whooshed in a breath, and went pale.  “I hadn’t thought about him in a really long time.”

            Kim shook his head.  “None of us has.”  He said quietly.  “None of us wanted to.  So, you think?”

            Erin gnawed on her lower lip, then tried to chew on a bright red nail.  She wrinkled her nose and  went back to chewing her lip—she had them manicured to keep her from doing that very thing.    “I seem to remember something about him being in prison—but I’ll have to check.  I myself was thinking about one of her cases.  She was talking about ‘hearing’ a wacko thinking about her…”  Erin trailed off at Kim’s thunderous look.

            “I told her to tell you.”  She said defensively. 

            “Why wouldn’t she?”  He’d asked, trying to keep his voice and his emotions under control.

            Erin shrugged.  “She feels like she’s got something to prove—you know Maddy.  She wants the world to know she’s not living for money, like her mother.  Or just, sort of, well, coasting, like Greg.   She wants you to know she’s old enough, and tough enough to handle… well to handle you.”  She directed a probing glance at Kim.  “You know all this, don’t you?”

            Kim shrugged.  “Instinctually, I guess.  I’m not the mind reader, remember?”

            “You could always read Maddy’s mind, remember?”  Erin shot back, concerned. 

            “I’ve been gone for six years, Erin!”  Kim burst out.  “I mean we’d written, and when we’re together, it seems like we can talk about everything, and don’t need to talk about anything, but that’s not always the case, is it?  I knew what her line of work was, but not how dangerous it was.  I knew her reasons for doing it, but not the same reasons you knew.  I know her, but there’s so much she won’t tell me…”  He trailed off and sat down in the nearest chair hard, literally, too weak from his outburst to stand, but too proud to let Erin know that.

            And Erin knew, and knew his pride as well.  She didn’t move to help him, but stood as though gut-punched, leaning against the counter.  There was a silence for a moment, before she murmured, “She says the same thing about you… no, no—if you’ve got secrets from Maddy, I don’t need to be the first to hear them, I know that.  But you two have got to start communicating—the old fashioned way—because this is killing you—both of you, literally.  You  look like shit, and I know Maddy can’t live without you.”

            Kim smiled wryly.  “I’m not so sure about that—she’s done pretty damn good so far.”  

            Kim didn’t even see her move from her relax stance against the kitchen counter, but she did, then she grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him.  “You don’t get it, do you.  You’re ‘hearing’ stuff that’s meant for her--  what do you think that means?”   He blinked.  “It means that she’s too tired to do it alone.  It means that you are her strength, and you are what she leans on, and it means that when you walked into this relationship, you volunteered for all of that.  And it means that if you don’t make her think about what she’s doing, you could go right down with her.”  Erin stopped, panting, and realized that she’d been shouting in his face.  He looked at her hand on his shoulder, and she released him, looking away. 

            “Erin…”  He began, and couldn’t think of a thing to say that wouldn’t sound arrogant, or, worse, condescending.   But he didn’t have to worry—she had too much class to let him blunder ahead.

            “I love you both.”  She said, studying the hardwood counter intensely.  “I love you both too much to watch you destroy yourselves.  If it wasn’t for your stubborn pride—both of you—we wouldn’t be having this conversation.  But I know all about pride, and about having it compromised, and about what a person would do to not get hurt, and I can’t blame you guys at all.  But I can stick my long pointy nose in when it’s needed.  You need each other.  Too much to let psychos or past affairs or whatever get in your way.”

            Kim opened his mouth again, but she overrode him.  He wondered if she knew how few people ever interrupted him out of sheer intimidation, and decided not to fill her in.  Good friends were hard to come by.  “Of course that’s what it is—you think women don’t know these things?  We didn’t expect you to stay celibate, Kim.  Just… interested.”

            A full-fledged grin crossed his features, and Erin met his smile and returned it shakily.  “Interested?”  He said, bemused, “Is that what you call it?”

            “What would you call it?”  Erin asked forthrightly.

            Kim sobered.  “Obsession.”  He said quietly.  “For longer than you can imagine, Erin.  From the moment I saw her when she was a toddler, she was my everything.  I’d die before I hurt her.”

            Erin looked back at him, her own smile gone, and they both listened as Madeleine’s car paused at the safety gate, knowing they had only a moment left before she was back.  “Remember when you did your time in the burn unit?”  She asked softly, taking him off guard.   “You told me and Maddy about it when we were in high school, and I never forgot it.  It was one of the only times you were wholly serious.  You said you’d never go there again if you could help it, because the only way to heal a serious burn was to rip the scab off the burn, again and again, until healthy flesh and skin began to grow.  You said it was excruciating, and that you couldn’t stand that much pain to be around you.  Well, I worked in one of those units when I did my residency, and you’re right.  It was excruciating, and the agony was a thing you could almost see.  I couldn’t cut it there either, but I did learn something.  It hurts to heal, Kim.  And you two need to heal.”     

Kim sat up in bed now, hearing Erin’s words coming back to him, almost mockingly.  Madeleine was almost fetal, next to him, as tightly wound as a hand grenade, and he considered waking her up to tell her… what?  Maddy, a mad man is thinking about you… I know you’re the psychic, love, but I can hear him.   Or how about Maddy, you see, we’ve got this link thing, and you’re getting energy from me… and It’s killing me, honey.  It was killing you, but now it’s killing me, and by the way, you’ve got to quit your job.  Or even better… Maddy, when I was in England, I met this girl—she’s gone now, but, and this is the kicker—I can’t grieve for her without betraying you, but she’s the reason I came back…He strangled a laugh that was half a sob.  God… they’d known each other forever—how had so many secrets come between them?

But even cursing the fact, he knew the reason.  Her mother, coldly beautiful, and so condemning, had all but handed him her job.  You couldn’t be a parent and a brother and a friend and lover without it all getting confused, somehow—without keeping secrets from the child that the woman had to know.     Which was the key, wasn’t it?  If she was grown up now, she had to be grown up enough for all of it.  And he had to let her be. 

Against his will, another laugh/sob slipped through.  ‘Let her be’ grown up?  Like he could stop her!!  This was the woman who went out and slayed dragons for a living.  This woman walked into the lairs of drug dealers to take care of their children, and faced down gang members to get there.   He’d left so she could grow up—and she had, beyond his wildest dreams.  And even beyond his nightmares.

He realized that he was still gnawingly hungry, and sighed.  2 a.m. on a Saturday— there were better times to force an issue, but he couldn’t think of one now.  If he wasn’t prepared to dump the whole lot on her fragile shoulders tonight, he could at least make a start.

“Madeleine…” He said quietly, bending over her on one elbow, “Maddy, love, wake up for a minute.”

“Again…” She murmured, rolling into his body, and even as he stroked her bare arm, he had to smile.  He wouldn’t have minded, actually, but they had other things to do.  “No, love, its something important.”

Her lips nuzzled against the skin of his chest, and he inhaled sharply.  She wanted him, in a sleepy way that had nothing to do with night terrors and everything to do with slow, luminous lov- making.  He found himself stroking her hair as she kissed her way up his torso to nibble hazily on one of his nipples, and the word important became relative.

 He found that the hunger in his stomach was replaced by the desire in hers, and when she kissed her way up to his mouth, he pressed himself against her, full and hard.  Laughing low in her throat, she wrapped her legs around his waist, and he had the intoxicating feel of her bare body pressed against his, before he was inside her.  All of his good intentions fled when she arched up, taking him fully inside herself, swallowing their problems and his needs in one sensuous stroke.  He found himself thrusting, hard, calling her name rawly as she rubbed her hands along the clean lines of his torso and moaned softly in response.  She shivered softly, a sleepy, good natured climax, and he buried his face in her neck and came, violently, as though he hadn’t taken her only hours before.  She was asleep almost before he withdrew damply from her body, smelling of sleepy, almost surreal sex.  He cupped his body behind hers and clung to her, breathing soft, almost hysterical laughter in her ear, thinking about good intentions and lost opportunities, and wondering if they could go back to being friends long enough to stay lovers. 

            The next morning, Madeleine was shaking him awake.  “H.K.—Kim, wake up.  Your beeper’s been going off for 10 minutes.  Kim blinked and shook his head fiercely, glaring at the alarm clock as he did so.  “Shit on toast.”  He mumbled, “Is it really after ten?”

            “Good morning to you too, Mr. Pottymouth.”  She murmured reproachfully, and he turned to her.  The sunlight was coming through the glass door behind them, and her hair tumbled about her face in a russet halo.  Her delicate features were thrown into soft relief by the play of light and shadow, and she clutched a sheet up to her bare breasts.  His breath caught suddenly with wanting, made even more poignant by the knowledge that the beeper next to his bed wouldn’t give him the time he needed to make the fulfill his sudden need for her.

            With hands shaking with sleep and still more exhaustion he grabbed his beeper from the end table and dialed the number flashing on the front. 

            “H.K.?”  Bryce’s voice was disgustingly crisp on the other end, and Kim grunted in response.  “Sorry to get you on a Sunday morning, but there was a helluva crash on 101 about 10 minutes ago.  ETA’s in three, and the sooner you could get here, the better, right?”

            “15 minutes.”  Kim said, knowing that it took eight minutes minimum to get to the hospital.  One minute to shower, one to dress, 30 seconds to grab a cup of coffee and run out the door, and that gave him four and a half minutes to talk to Madeleine about everything under the sun.  Hell.

            “12?”  Bryce said hopefully.

            “14 and a half.”  Kim said, and hung up.  Who needed hot water anyway?  “Maddy…”  He began, but she was there before he was, stroking a quick, cool hand across his brow and kissing his forehead, then rising gracefully, still wrapped in a sheet and digging clothes out of the drawer for him. 

            “I know.”  She said, her smile long suffering and full of complete understanding.  “It’s what I get for being a doctor’s.. uh.. woman.”  Her smile faltered for a moment, and Kim swore again.  In spite of the weakness that threatened to take him out at the knees, he was standing up next to her, completely oblivious to his nakedness, and completely ensnared by their need.

            “That too.”  He said cryptically.  “Maddy—you and me—this is not the time, I know, but we’ve got to talk.  I can’t go into it now because I’ve got… Christ… I’ve got 13 minutes to get there, but… but you’re not safe at work sweetheart.  I know you had paperwork, and visits you were going to catch up on today, but don’t…”  At her disbelieving look, Kim almost groaned.  “Please, Maddy,” he whispered, grabbing her and holding her so tight against him that he could feel her breath and she could feel the trembling in his tired muscles.  “We’ll get married if you’ll have me, but we’ve got to talk first, and this is one of the things we’ve got to talk about and… shit… people need me and I’ve got to go…”

            He felt the resistance fade out of her body and she smiled up at him, looking sweet and irresistible and nothing and everything like the girl he’d left six years before wanting like he wanted his next breath.  “It’s all right, Kim.”  She said softly.  “I’ll be here when you get home—we can talk then.  It’s waited for a month, it can wait another day.”

            Kim buried his face in her hair, drawing strength from her unashamedly, knowing she would be back in bed as soon as he was out the door.   He wasn’t sure where he got the sudden attack of urgency that had taken over him this morning, but he knew that with her reassurance, it was going away.  He sighed, once more, and rained a shower of brief kisses on her face before breaking away and sprinting for the shower.  The water was freezing and he heard her laugh at his good-natured shriek, and he summoned the mental energy for an answering laugh before dousing his head and shouting again.

            When he emerged, twenty-eight seconds later, his clothes were laid out for him on the bed, and after a quick comb and dry, he was sprinting for the door where Madeleine was waiting for him with a spill-proof tumbler of coffee.  They’d practiced this maneuver more than a few times in the last month, mostly for him, but a few times for her, and he was relieved to see that they had it down.  It made him feel even better to know that when it was her turn to go sprinting out the door, he was there with the mug of coffee and the regretful look for her.  But as he kissed her deep and hard, then ripped out of the driveway in his Jag, he thought again that it was a brutal way to live, and that it was taking its toll—on both of them.  Unwillingly and unstoppable came the thought how long can we do this?   Suddenly, in spite of his reluctance of the last weeks, in spite of his fear that the words and emotions would be painful, they could not talk soon enough.

 

Chapter 11 

That same black line that was drawn on you was drawn on me…

(The Wallflowers)

            “Christ, what a day.”  Bryce muttered.  Kim leaned against the sterile green wall of the scrub room, too weary to even look at him, but his silence spoke for itself.  He wanted a bath, he thought out of nowhere.  A long, decadent soak in something that didn’t smell of blood or alcohol or… or death.

            “That was not pretty.”  He said at last, knowing that Bryce needed a sympathetic presence as much as he did. 

            Bryce grunted.  “You see much of that in England?”  He asked, as though generalizing the horror would make it less.

            Kim shook his head.  “No.  They drive much faster in England, and the cars are much smaller.  An accident this size?  Most of it would go straight downstairs.”  Down stairs.  The morgue.  No one referred to it by name.  Kim rubbed shaking hands on his brow, looking up into the OR where the pediatric surgeon was still working.  That had been one case he’d been happy to hand over.  The only survivor of the family, the little boy had been badly injured and as Kim had prepped him for surgery he’d felt his normally serene resolve waiver.  He was so small, and so vulnerable… after five surgeries and two fatalities, Kim had no desire to watch that tiny chest move one last time and shudder to ultimate stillness.   He just couldn’t do it.  The pediatric surgeon was a quiet, capable woman, and she exuded a calm confidence that Kim had been happy to let infuse the room.  He’d been out of his element as soon as the procedure had begun, and had unashamedly bowed out, not embarrassed at all to admit that he was not the expert here.

            “The little boy,”  Bryce said, keeping his voice very, very neutral, “I think he’ll make it.  I…”  and he trailed off, as though wandering through a tunnel.

            “I have to think he will.”  Kim replied.  “He was sturdy, you know.   And babies, they’re amazingly resilient.  Unlike us.”  He added that last with infinite weariness, and heard Bryce sigh an agreement.  Considering the air of quiet camaraderie in the room, Bryce’s next words were unexpected.

            “My baby sister was like that.”

            Kim raised his head like a jungle cat sniffing a hunter.  Cautiously.  Warily.   “Anna…”

            But Bryce went right over him.  “She must have broken her arm three different times in school, but it never slowed her down.  When we  were kids she courted death a thousand times, but we could always pull her out.  When she got sick, Jack just sort of figured that she needed someone stronger to pull her out, so he sent her to the best, and assumed she’d get better.  We never expected her to die alone.”

            There was a pause, and Kim understood the explanation for what it was—a quiet apology, a request for understanding.  He gave the only absolution he could.  “She wasn’t alone.”  He said at last.

“I know.”  Bryce replied, hauling himself to his feet by force of will and heading towards the showers.  “We should have thanked you for that.”  He added as he passed.

Kim watched him go and tilted his head back against the wall again, gathering his strength.  Well, he thought bemusedly, there was forgiveness from one quarter, at least.  And with startling clarity, he realized that Erin had been right.  His affair with Bryce’s  little sister was not a thing that he needed to be forgiven for.  Madeleine would recognize that—Anna had never been a rival, and had known that, even when she’d asked their relationship to go farther than Kim had wanted.  With a sigh, he realized that what terrified him about telling Madeleine was the pain it would put her through.  His pain, Anna’s pain… her own pain.  Anna’s plight in England so very closely mirrored Madeleine’s position when he left her here in the States with only Erin and Greg for comfort.  He had been there for her for most of her life, and then, suddenly, he had just gone.  Would she forgive him for that?  Enough to forgive him for the rest of it?

     Groaning, he pushed himself off the wall and headed for the showers himself, wondering if he could count every disparate muscle in his body, just by the ache.  Only one thing was for certain, he acknowledged to himself as he walked.  Madeleine needed to be told, and she needed to be told about all of it, and quickly.  Their life was complicated enough without truths hanging over their heads like swords of doom.

          

“Rough day?”  Maddy asked sympathetically as Kim walked through the door not long after his conversation with Bryce. 

“Brutal.”  He murmured, dropping the back pack with his dirty clothes in it on the floor and moving to where she sat at the kitchen table. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and inhaled her sweetness, prayed for her strength.  Her own weakness nearly sent him reeling.

“You made visits today.”  He said.  It was not a question, and he was grateful when made it to the chair next to hers.

“Yeah,” she said, putting her hand on top of his, “How did you know… jeez, H.K., you look like hell.  Are you sure you’re not sick or something—you’ve been looking tired all month.”

“Jetlag.”  He mumbled, trying not to choke on the irony of the answer.    “Maddy, I was serious about not going to work—I’ve got a real bad feeling about you there.”

If he hadn’t been trying so hard not to fall asleep then and there, he might have caught the wariness in the look that she sent him.  “You’re trying to tell me that I’m ‘too fragile’ for this work, are you H.K.?”  She asked angrily.  “Because, believe me, I’ve heard it from everyone.  Look, just because I was raised rich, doesn’t mean I can’t work hard and deal with the real world.”

“Whether you can handle the work is irrelevant Madeleine.”  Kim said baldly.  “The problem is, I’m having nightmares that you should be having, and I think somebody out there is after you.”  He worked up just enough energy to meet her surprised stare head on before she put her hand on his again, and he abruptly fell asleep.

Madeleine stared at the figure in front of her in surprise, before shaking his shoulder gently, at first.  “H.K.—babe, wake up… honey, are you okay?”

“No more purple.”  He mumbled, making her smile, but only a little.  She’d had the oddest feeling, when she’d touched his hand—she couldn’t put a finger on it, but it had almost been a sound… like a car, turning over in winter when the battery just wasn’t charged enough.  And this exhaustion was a frightening thing.

            A month ago, before Kim had returned from England, she could remember doing that.  Coming home from work and barely giving Trudy a hello before falling asleep on the couch on her way to the shower.  More than once, Trudy had awakened her there the next morning when her alarm went off, after having slept soundly for twelve hours or more. 

             Among other things, that had changed when Kim had come back.  Funny, she mused, watching his shoulders move evenly under his sweater, how she had never looked back at the weakness that had plagued her for the last year or so.  She had always attributed it to the newness of the job, the hard hours, to the mental fatigue.  Erin had tried to tell her that there was more to it than that, but she’d always refused to listen.

  What did Erin really know about Maddy’s abilities, she’d thought more than once—sometimes a trifle resentfully, but never for long.  Because the truth was, after being friends for nearly fifteen years, Erin knew almost more than Maddy was comfortable with about her gifts.  Erin knew when she walked into a case that she was almost always wide open to ‘receive’ any impressions that would prove worthwhile.  Erin knew that three quarters of the time when Maddy made the decision to take children away from their parents, she only did so after reading the fear and pain that the children themselves had experienced, directly and agonizingly out of their own minds, and that when she made the decision to return a child to his or her parents, it was only after she’d expended tremendous amounts of energy—both psychic and the good old fashioned footwork kind of energy—to make sure that child wouldn’t be abused again.

Now, watching her beloved sleeping soundly on the dinner table, she wondered if there was anything else that Erin knew, that perhaps she, Madeleine, did not.  And her heart shied back in fear of the answer because that would mean… too much to think about right now.  She went forward to wake Kim up, and cursed herself a coward as she did so, but H.K. wouldn’t budge.  

She shook him—hard—and got no response besides a sleepy sort of smile, and then surreptitiously peeked into his mind to make sure he was only sleeping.  Satisfied that he was sleeping, but troubled by the tight, self-protective ball he’d curled his mind into, she sat bent forward and kissed him softly on his cheek, sighing when he didn’t even acknowledge her touch.  Taking the quilt from the couch and putting it on his shoulders felt like giving up, but she promised him she’d be back in an hour when he was less tired, to see if he was ready for bed.  She felt better for having made the promise, but more foolish for talking out loud to someone who was so far beyond tired that he may as well be in another world. 

Restlessly, Madeleine wandered around the house, unable to read or even to watch television, feeling the reproach of the recumbent figure in the next room.  So tired, Kim.  She murmured to herself.   She wondered if he we’re ill—an anemia, perhaps, or worse that would cause his strength to fail so fast, but her breath threatened to stop in her chest at the thought. Besides, he’s a trained physician—he’d know, wouldn’t he?  He wouldn’t just keep going until he dropped… Reluctantly she remembered the scars on his back—proof that if Kim wanted something bad enough he’d endure nearly anything to have it.  But what could he gain from neglecting treatment or even a diagnosis that would make him better?

The answer loomed hideously clear.  Her.  So he was killing himself to have her?  I could lose you over this, Maddy.  The words from their conversation came back to haunt her, but she shook her head.  Instinctively, she realized that although his words may have had everything to do with them, they had nothing to do with this.  But what then?  In desperation she picked up the phone, dialing Erin’s number without even thinking about it.

“So is Kim asleep.”  Were Erin’s first words.  She sounded sleepy, and Madeleine realized that it was past nine.  Kim had been gone for nearly fifteen hours—a long day for anyone, she realized, and felt a little silly.

“How’d you know?”  She asked reflexively.

“Jack just called—Bryce wanted the number of the IDP, and apparently I’m their “Repository of headshrinking information”, as Jack called it.”

Madeleine smiled in spite of herself—that sounded like Jack.  “The Infant Development Program—why?”

“This kid that Bryce and H.K. worked on today—badly messed up in a car accident, and Bryce thought Alta California or the IDP might have some resources he’d need.  He had Jack call me.”

Out of nowhere, Madeleine’s antennae perked up.  “Bryce had Jack call you?”

There was a puzzled pause.  “Yeah—or Jack told Bryce he’d call me—Jack was a little muzzy… but it doesn’t really matter.  What matters is that Bryce was wiped out, and since Jack said H.K. was working with him, I assumed he went right to bed.”

“I wish.”  Maddy said dryly. 

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I wish he actually made it to the bed.  He’s asleep on the kitchen table.”

“That’s not supposed to happen for another thirty, forty years… you know that don’t you?”  Erin said after a pause that was just a tad too long.

“It was weird, Erin.  He looked me square in the eye, told me I wasn’t supposed to go to work today, said something bizarre about someone being after me and having my dreams, and then went to sleep.  I mean, if he hadn’t sounded so lucid, I’d assume he was delirious.”

There was another long pause.  “Maddy—he wasn’t delirious.”

“I’m sorry?”  Maddy felt a little dizzy.  She wasn’t close enough physically to “read” her friend, but she knew her well enough to know that Erin knew something she didn’t.  That in itself was a rarity, but that Erin and Kim had both known—that was cause for real concern.

“Kim told me about it when I was over there on Thursday—he wasn’t sure how to tell you and wanted my advice.”

“Tell me what?  I don’t understand…”

“Maddy, you know how this job just saps your strength—well apparently you’re not strong enough to do it all without him… I mean, I know you thought you were doing fine before, but think about it—you were sleeping 12 hours a day and working the other twelve. And then H.K. came back, and you were doing fine.  But you’re not—you’re just protecting yourself better, and H.K. is picking up the slack.  He’s been having dreams, for like the last few weeks.  He thinks they’re dreams meant for you—like someone is thinking these things about you, but you’re not getting the message.  You and him, you’re so close—you’ve always been so close.  I think he could probably read your mind just like you do, if he really had too—and he loves you, and he just sort of… tapped into what was meant for you, when you were too tired to be there.”

Madeleine’s throat was dry, and her heart was pounding in her temples, because this could explain so much—and it asked still more questions that only Kim could answer.  “Why wouldn’t he tell me this?”   She asked hoarsely.

She heard Erin sigh, and could picture her friend clearly, running her fingers restlessly through her now unsprayed hair and looking for an unmanicured cuticle to chew.  So much of Erin’s image was created to compensate for things she thought she lacked… “Erin?”  She asked, because the pause had gone on far too long.

“Maddy, I think that’s a question you need to ask yourself.  Just remember that he loves you, okay?  There’s nothing H.K. wouldn’t do for you because he loves you.”

“I think I know that.”  She said softly.  Then, loud enough for Erin to hear, “He didn’t happen to mention who he thought was sending these dreams, did he?”

“He couldn’t really tell—in fact, he kind of had a suspicion that there were two people…Maddy, he asked me about Johnson Breshear.”

Madeleine sucked in her breath, and made a desperate effort to reign in the bolt of panic that surprised her.  She could tell by Erin’s voice alone that her friend had to do the same thing to just mention the name.  “I hadn’t thought of him.”  She managed to say, before slamming her mind shut to the multitude of impressions and pains that that name called up.

“Neither had I.”  Erin confessed, “But I had Jack check—the guy’s in prison—he’s got an eight year sentence for rape, but he’s up for parole in a few months.”

Madeleine firmly put her panic behind her and tried to think.  “If he’s the one giving H.K. sendings, then I don’t have too much to worry about right now…” she tried to reason.

“But he’s not the only one that could be doing it, and you know that, Maddy.”  Erin argued back, and exhaled so deliberately that Madeleine frowned with a new suspicion.

“Are you smoking again?”  She asked, feeling a surge of protectiveness in her voice.  Erin was the sister she’d always wanted—no one was allowed to hurt her.  Not even Erin.

“Only when the two of you freak me out.”  Erin shot back.  “I swear, if you guys weren’t the only thing resembling family that I have, I’d let you deal with your own crises.” 

The irritated affection she heard in her friends voice forced Madeleine back into perspective.  Whatever H.K. had been dealing with, and whatever his reasons for keeping it from her, she was not, and never had been alone.  The two of them, H.K. and Erin, would always be there for her, but she wouldn’t do anybody any good by panicking.  “So he thinks I should stay out of the loop—not go to work?”  She said, more to herself than to her friend.  “But what good would that do—its easy enough to find out where I live, and skulking around here, waiting for some psycho to come get me isn’t my idea of ‘woman of action’, you know?”

She heard an annoyed snort on the other end of the receiver.  “Screw ‘woman of action’, Maddy—we’re talking about your life here.”

“Don’t be melodramatic.”  Madeleine returned in her best no-nonsense tone.  “I’ve taken the same self-defense courses you have.  The only way I’d be any safer is if H.K. were with me, and since he can’t be 24 hours a day, I’m just going to have to stay on my guard.”

“Oh, that’s a defensive stand in life, Maddy.”  Erin’s voice was positively arid, and  Maddy found herself wincing just a tad.  “Has it occurred to you that if this guy hasn’t made his move yet it’s because he’s waiting for you to ‘just not be on your guard’?”

“Well what am I supposed to do?”  Maddy let disgruntlement color her voice.  “Can you imagine trying to explain this to Jack?  Or any of the other guys on the force?  No.  H.K. knows, and you know, and there’s not much else we can do about it.  Think about it, Erin.  For both of us, doing our job requires credibility, and telling a cop this would practically shoot our careers to hell.  Besides—this is all third hand information, isn’t it?  For all we know, one of the cats is stalking a mouse, and it all got a little blown out of proportion in dream land, right?”

There was a cold silence on the other end of the line, and Maddy could feel the reluctance of Erin’s concession deep in the pit of her stomach.  “Right, Madeleine.  Whatever you say.”

Unexpectedly, Maddy felt her throat close and tears well up.  “Don’t be like that, Erin.  Please?”  She said.  “H.K.’s keeping secrets, you’re being like a mother hen—I really need you on my side.”

“I’m always on your side, honey.  And so’s H.K.  Just remember that, okay?”

“Yeah.  I do.”  There was a heavy pause, and unexpectedly Maddy felt the air between the phone lines lighten.  “See you tomorrow for lunch?”

“Sure—some place that serves a salad this time, okay?”

“No problem.  And Erin—thanks.”

“Any time, sweetie.” 

And suddenly she was all but alone, the big house echoing around her, and feeling empty and lonely for the first time since Kim had come back.  She shivered, and stood wearily, realizing that it was her bedtime now, as well.  Resolutely, she walked to the kitchen, and shook H.K.’s arm determinedly. He stood up as though shot, looked quizzically at Maddy, and damned near fell down on the kitchen floor. 

“Oh, no you don’t.”  She murmured, taking his arm before he fell and throwing it over her slender shoulders.  “Not this time.  Come on, H.K—we’re just going to bed—we’ve been there a thousand times—think you can make it now?”

He leaned heavily against her, making her stagger, but at the last moment he took some of his own weight and began dragging his feet, one at a time, in sync with hers.  “Hello Maddy.”  He sighed in her ear, and she became aware, as she was always aware in his presence, that his body was warm, and that he had wiry, rippling muscles underneath smooth, taut skin, and that he smelled like a warm, strong man, and that he was hers.

“Hi, H.K.”  She said back, wanting to turn her head into his chest, but afraid to break the rhythm of their step in case he decided to fall down.

He tucked his chin against her hair, and took just a little more weight onto his own legs as she maneuvered him around the living room furniture and up the flight of   stairs to the bedroom hallway.   “I’m sorry.” He muttered, “I’m so sorry.”

“For what, babe.”  She asked gently, hoping they could make it up the stairs without a major disaster.

“For falling asleep.  For not telling you sooner.  For not making sweet, sweet slow love to you.  You smell so good—you smell like warm woman.  My warm woman.  Mine.” 

They were almost to the top of the stairs, and Maddy caught a breathless look at H.K.’s thoughts in free fall.  He was still half-asleep—but he was also fully aroused.  Erotic thoughts, tinged with wanting,  free of the tight clamp he usually put on his mind, on his actions, began floating effortless through her head, and if she’d had any breath left, she would have laughed.  After every emotion she’d experienced this night, every desperation, every hurt, it could still come down to this.  He was hers, and she was his, and they would always, always want, just exactly this badly and this desperately, and there was nothing they could or would do to change that.  She wondered why she even bothered to reason through their relationship sometimes.  Because it would always come to this, and as she caught the tendre of some of his thoughts and felt heat pooling between her thighs, in her breasts, she thought that it wasn’t such a bad thing, really.

“Oh, thank God, the bed.”  She said breathlessly, and, unable to break their fall,  she found herself falling back onto their bed wrapped in Kim’s arms.  She struggled to get up, to at least straighten out the covers or take off his shoes, when she found his arms around her, surprising her with his strength, after his obvious descent into exhaustion. 

“You’re tired.”  She muttered feebly, feeling his hand creep under her sweater and span her midriff, stroking the smooth skin there, and exploring further.

“I don’t actually have to wake up for this.”  He murmured, his breath tickling her ear.  “I want you in my sleep—I knowyou in my sleep.  I could make love to you tied up in a box, a thousand miles away.  You’re mine.”

She wanted to protest, but all that came out was a languorous “Mmmmnnn…” as his skilled, slender surgeon’s hands molded themselves between the fabric of her bra and her small, taut nipple.  She found herself arching her back against him, feeling the bulge of his arousal pressed against her bottom, and his other hand came down, cupping her through her jeans and pressing her back against him.  “H.K….”  she murmured breathlessly, scarcely able to recognize her own voice, “You’re exhausted.  I know that.  You need…”

“I need you, Madeleine.”  He growled in her ear.  With one hand he fumbled with the button-fly of her jeans, and before she knew it, he’d wriggled them off her hips and into a puddle at the foot of the bed.  With the hand underneath her he continued to do intricate and heavenly things to her breasts, teasing her nipples into an agony of sensitivity, while he struggled with the clasp of his jeans with the other hand.  After some breathless fumbling, his jeans and his briefs joined his kicked off shoes and socks at the foot of the bed as well.

“I need you, love.”  He growled again, still behind her.  In a smooth gesture he  moved his hands to the hem of her sweater and pulled it up and over her head as she lay on her side, carrying her unclasped bra with it, and then removed his own sweater as well.  “I need your sweetness, and your life, and your vulnerability and your love and your body… I need your love….”  He chanted as his caresses, no longer smooth and gentle, roused her to a fever pitch, and his erection, pressed against her bare bottom, found her secret place moist and throbbing for him.  “I need you.”  He hissed, as he pushed into her, finding her most sensitive place with a gloriously intrusive hand.  He began to move sinuously, and Madeleine found herself clutching at the hand on her breast, and the hand on her mound, anywhere, so long as she could touch him, feel him, hold on to him as he took her once again to the heights of her body and soul. 

His movements became harder, more frenzied, and she found herself moaning, muttering things against her shoulder that she wasn’t sure she would have  been able to tell him if he’d been looking at her with his serene, all accepting gaze, and to her surprise he muttered back to her, his chin in her shoulder and his mouth and tongue doing absolutely wicked things to her ear.

Suddenly he gave a groan, and a shout, and she felt him shudder, his release folding him around her body as he continued to pleasure her with his wicked, knowing fingers.  Then she was shuddering, drawing more and more deeply into his embrace, wearing his body like a cloak to protect her from the intensity of her climax. 

When they were both spent and still, she turned to him, to tell him that she loved him, to tell him that he  constantly amazed her, and that she couldn’t imagine a more wonderful thing than to be worshipped by his body.   She turned to tell him that she knew of his suspicions, and that she had concerns of her own, about what she was doing to him, to the both of them, and that she’d be willing to compromise, if it meant he’d be all right.  She turned to tell him everything, finding that the words were bursting from her heart, and that her body still trembled with the force of them, only to find that he lay there, holding her, still inside of her body, fast, fast asleep.

Laughing softly, because there was little else she could do, Maddy gently disengaged from him and pulled the cover up and around them to ward off the chill.  Then she snuggled back into his arms, and fell gently asleep.

Chapter 12

Long way down—I don’t think I’ll make it on my own…

(Goo Goo Dolls, Long Way Down)

 

            Kim woke up to hear Maddy in the shower, calling insistently to him.  “H.K.—aren’t you up yet?  I turned the alarm up as loud as I could get it—you don’t have much time.”

            Reluctantly he focused his eyes and swore.  “Oh hell—I’m running late.”  He called back, throwing the covers back and gracelessly clambering out of bed.  He realized he was naked, and searched his memory for the cause on the way to the bathroom.  It wasn’t until he stepped into the steamy shower behind Madeleine that he remembered why.

            “Wow.”  He said, blinking once to clear his head before he took in the vision in front of him.

            “Hello, H.K.”  She murmured dryly, one corner of her mouth quirking up in appreciation of his appreciation.   Her voice was the only dry thing about her.  Hot water was sluicing over her hair, plastering it to her head and revealing the subtle, sweet curve of her neck.  From there it followed the logical path, over her small, taut breasts, swooshing over her stomach and forming a magical, transparent criss-cross over the secret heaven between her thighs.

            “I think,”  He muttered, closing his mouth with an audible snap, “That this shower had better be quick, or its not going to end until tomorrow morning.”

            Maddy smiled ruefully, knowing he was right.  Nimbly, she climbed out of the shower, and stayed in the bathroom.  Hopefully, she thought, they could actually have an honest to goodness conversation, if only there was some sort of physical barrier between them.  Lord knew, from the moment of their first touch in that crowded room nearly a month ago, neither of them had been doing much clear thinking—much less candid conversing.

            “Kim,”  She said, toweling her hair dry, “I talked to Erin last night.”

            “Yes?”  He said over the sound of the water.

            “Why didn’t you tell me about the dreams.”  She flinched as he turned the water off with an audible snap.

            “Why is it,”  He said a moment later as he grabbed a towel to scrub his hair dry, “That we seem to get all of our pertinent information about each other through  Erin, and not from ourselves.”

            “I don’t know.”  She said, trying to sound matter-of-fact, but only sounding hurt.  “You’re the one who would rather make love half asleep and exhausted, instead of talking to me.”

            “Would I?”  He asked, quietly, remembering the other night when he could have said the same thing about her.  They stood there for a starkly honest moment, as stripped bare as they could ever possibly be, and each one of them thought very carefully.  Kim spoke first.

            “There are some things we… I have put off too long.  I’m… I’m sorry it’s just that…”  And he fumbled for words, trying to pinpoint the exact nature of the problem, only to have Maddy with her kind smile and a gentle hand on his chest still his floundering. 

            “It’s just that talking is so easy between us.”  She said softly.  “We forget sometimes, to talk about the important things.”

            His heart thudded in his chest as he looked at that prim little hand resting on his skin.  He swallowed, audibly, more touched by the gesture than he cared to admit.  “Yes.”  He said hoarsely.

            “We thought it would be easy,”  she went on, “Going from what we were before to lovers… but its not.  There’s so much we have to learn…”

            “And relearn.”  He  added wryly, to be stilled by a smooth finger against his lips.

            “And relearn.”  She acknowledged.  “And the being lovers—it gets in the way sometimes…”

            Kim removed the finger from his lips before he gave into the urge to taste it, to kiss it, to throw his career to the wind and drag her back to bed with him.  “It gets in the way because its everything.”  He told her, his eyes stark in their honesty.  “Like I said before, there’s really no going back from this.  What… “  And he put he hand back on his chest, “What I feel in here for you—its all consuming.  These other things—these secrets, as you call them—they get in the way of this.” 

            He was trying to scare her, she realized.  Trying to warn her of something that he was convinced she would be unable to handle.  Smiling reassuringly, and keeping the sneaking doubts he’d successfully instilled to herself, she added her other hand on top of his heart.  “Then we’ll deal with them.”  She said with more confidence than she felt.  “We’ll start with the dreams you’ve been having, and we’ll take care of all the scary monsters, one by one, and we’ll get them out of the way.  And then it will be just us.  Isn’t it about time we gave that a try?”

            “Your faith in me… in us.. is amazing.”  He said at last, humbly.

            “Hey,” she replied with a little smile.  “You’re my Henry Kim.  You  can do anything.  Making this work—it’s a piece of cake.  Besides,” She added, flashing a full wattage smile at him, “If we don’t make this work, we’ll drive Erin right into the funny farm.”

            “Gotcha.”  He drawled.  Forcibly,  regretfully, as though closing heavy wooden doors to themselves, they began to move in the now usual morning rituals, ending that sweet moment of true intimacy.  But they agreed to meet for dinner—Six O’clock sharp, no excuses on this of all days, and moved on feeling better about themselves—and about each other. 

Kim stepped back from the operating table and swayed on his feet.  The patient’s vital sounds beeped reassuringly from the various monitors about the room, and as the nurses wrapped the sutured wounds in gauze and began to prepare the patient to move, he breathed a sigh of relief.  This young man, a college student and victim of a random shooting, would live.  Wryly, H.K. was not sure the same thing could be said for him.  Nodding to the attending surgeon who was assisting, Kim left the OR by main strength, and collapsed on the benches of the cleansing room immediately upon exiting.

He sat, numb and exhausted, watching his vision go from gray to black, thinking in the back of his mind that he couldn’t wait until he had that talk with Madeleine, and so maybe the two of them could make the adjustments that would ease this bone-crushing weariness.  His body hovered there, on the edge of sleep when something flashed behind his eyes.   He could see it, clear as he could see the sterile white walls of the cleansing room walls when he could see:  A street corner with potholes in the street, and a background of the factories of Industrial Blvd.  A rundown apartment building with rickety, rotting steps and peeling paint a nauseous shade of brown.  And there, in front of his vision, a trim figure in a classy gray suit with slicked down hair… Madeleine?  And with the sight of her, the image flickered, warped, until the sky was a hideous shade of green, and Madeleine was a hard-eyed, steel coated cartoon character, with comic book breasts and long, wicked, grasping nails.  And the eyes that saw her, furtive, hidden eyes, narrowed in on her, and planned…

Kim gasped, because he could feel the plan… of luring the bitch behind the building with a few threats against the woman, and the children, of slicing that steel suit from her little body, and maybe a little skin as well… to cold violation and the pleasure of her screams…

Kim’s eyes shot open and his whole body lurched forward, awaking from the vision like a sleeper from a nightmare.  He tried desperately and managed to focus his vision on the painfully bright walls around him.  When he succeeded, he ripped off his gloves, sterile apron, and shoe covers and hurtled forward into space.

Later, he didn’t remember the helter-skelter dash through the hospital or the parking structure, or even speeding down  South Manuel street to El Camino Royale.  He did, however, remember passing Hillsdale Mall heading south, because right after he cleared the traffic and the six thousand traffic lights, he ran a red light turning left.  He hadn’t recognized the street name, but he had recognized the placing of the factories on the skyline.  He turned right on Industrial and kept speeding until he passed the old Marine World parkway.  As soon as he found himself in Redwood City, he screeched to another left… and knew he was there.  There was the old apartment building—one of many on the block, but the only one painted that unpleasant shade of brown, and Maddy’s little teal Geo was parked right outside.

He braked the car  in the middle of the road and sat there panting for a moment, trying to get his bearings.  He was here.  He was exactly where his vision said he was supposed to be to prevent… to prevent the unthinkable.  But where was Madeleine?

Madeleine massaged the bridge of her nose with shaking fingers.  She’d had this headache building all day, and her visit to Sandra Escamilla hadn’t done anything  to make it better.  The children were still clean and cared for, and the apartment was still clean, but Sandra was distracted and sleepy.  Madeleine had probed lightly, and hadn’t seen the frightening, garish mind colors of the drugs that had nearly bowled her over the first time she met Sandra.  But there was something else—something sleepy and insidious, and almost languorous. 

“Sandra,”  Madeleine said bluntly, going against everything she’d been trained to do professionally, “Have you been drinking?”

“No, no, Ms. Raitherson.”  The woman said, giving Madeleine an almost charming, sleepy smile.  “My man—he’s back… I’m just sleepy yes?  The babies, they’ve been up since early.  They don’t sleep well when Martin is here.” 

Madeleine looked at the three children, ages one to four, sitting in front of the television looking dazed and tired.  No, they didn’t look like they had slept well, but their clothes were clean, and the littlest one didn’t have a trace of the horrible blistering diaper rash that had first alerted day-care workers to the neglect that Sandra had treated them with when she was high.  The four year old girl even had braids in her shoulder length brown hair.  Turning a sweetly plumped face to Madeleine, the girl had wrinkled her brows, and  spoken around a thumb that always seemed to be jammed in her mouth. 

“Mama, I don’t like Martin.”  She said clearly.  “I never sleep when he’s here.”  Sandra shushed the little girl, shooting Madeleine an embarrassed, sleepy look over her shoulder. 

Madeleine went to sit next to the little girl, talking to her quietly about comfortable things like cartoon characters and playgrounds, and her favorite lunch.  And as she did this, she quietly probed the child’s mind, looking for the dark and painful touches she found all too often lurking just below the surface of an abused child’s placid exterior.  Thankfully, she found none, but she did feel a surface kind of… creepiness centered around mom’s boyfriend.  Madeleine rubbed the bridge of her nose again, and massaged her temples, remembering Kim’s dreams, and his urgent, totally sincere desire that she not make visits the day before.  It had been that urgency that had kept her from making the very call she was making now, and a shiver of foreboding crept up her spine, followed by the absolutely certain knowledge that someone was waiting for her outside.

Madeleine found herself rising quickly, saying, “Well, Sandra, the kids look great today—you’ve been taking very good care of them, I can tell.”

“Yes, Ms. Raitherson—I’m being a good mother now.” 

“You are, Sandra.  Believe it, and keep up the good work.”  Feeling an overwhelming sense of urgency, Madeleine swept up her briefcase and gave the babies a perfunctory kiss before heading for the door.  “One thing.”  She said before grabbing for that blissful exit in front of her.

“Anything you need, Ms. Raitherson.”

Madeleine took a deep breath, fighting the compulsion to go running out of that apartment building at top speed with every breath of her being.  “Be… careful… of Martin.  I know you care for him, Sandra, but the children—he makes them very uneasy.  I’d trust them in this case.  Sometimes they know something we don’t, okay?”

Sandra’s face had assumed that studied blankness that most of Madeleine’s clients adopted when a figure of authority was telling them something they were not going to hear, and Madeleine suppressed a sigh.  “Just be careful, Sandra.”  She said at last, “You’ve worked very hard—you deserve to be happy, right?”

Sandra nodded sullenly, and Madeleine could only hope she hadn’t ruined months of hard work with one rash suggestion, because the compulsion begging her to leave was creeping up her spine and by golly she wanted to be out of this apartment and into her car NOW.      

Kim thought he’d go insane with waiting.  He saw everything as he had in that frighteningly clear vision that had invaded the numbness between total exhaustion and sleep:  the run down neighborhood, the apartment complex painted that nauseous color of corrosive brown—even the skyline of warehouses and industries that lined the waterfront were there in his line of sight, crystal clear.  He’d circled the building once, but had seen no sign of his adversary.  Only Maddy’s little teal colored Geo Metro parked immediately outside the apartment building kept him from going out of his mind.  She was there.  She was inside—and for now, she was safe.

When he saw her emerge from a second floor apartment and drift lightly down the crooked stairs, he thought he’d choke on his relief.  Leaving his precious Jaguar to whatever fate awaited beautiful cars in desperately poor neighborhoods, he began walking across the street, calling to her to get her attention.  And then he saw him.

The man had probably been lurking in the open doorway of an empty apartment, but he looked as though he had oozed up from the crevices of the sidewalk itself.  His appearance was shabby, but clean—it was his eyes that terrified Kim.  And he had a knife in his hands—an ugly, ten inch kitchen knife, sharpened on both sides, and pointed directly at Maddy.  Without a plan, without a thought besides stark fear that the ugly,           crooked knife would reach her before he did, Kim started to run.

Madeleine felt almost giddy with relief from escaping Sandra Escamilla’s apartment.  But the relief didn’t last long.  She could swear that the pounding, incessant urgings for her to leave the apartment had come from outside her—from her psychic abilities in some way, but the reaching for the subtle, powerful energies that had always seemed second nature to her was thwarted somehow.  She was so focused on trying to channel her abilities, that she almost missed Kim’s call to her as she finished her descent down the stairs.  Although her first thought was of surprise, she was also relieved—H.K. was there, whatever strange tangle her mind had woven could be solved. 

And then he started running.  Bewildered, and a little frightened by the intense, almost terrified look on his face, Maddy could only watch, mesmerized, until Kim launched himself into a leaping kick, fully five feet off the ground, aimed right behind her.  It wasn’t until she turned around to find Kim tumbling to a quick stand that she saw the man with the knife.

He was big—at least 6’ tall, with a chest like a small car, and a reach to match, and seeing him lunge after Kim made something slide into place.  Madeleine tried to touch his mind in a way she had only done once before in another desperate time and place, only to shy away in revulsion.  Whatever had been done to this man’s mind, whatever chemicals had invaded its sanctity, they had rendered him incapable of sane thought—or even of sane coercion.  And for some reason, he seemed fixated on her.

Praying for help, Maddy began screaming.  She saw Sandra poke her head out of the apartment above and begin to scream, then disappear again.  Madeleine hoped fervently that she was calling the police, because she was incapable of leaving the scene.  Kim was in trouble, a part of her brain kept shrieking, and he needed her. 

And he was in trouble.  He was bleeding from at least two deep wounds on his arm—his left, the one that he used to block—and at least one on that same shoulder.  He had a shallow slash on his forehead as well, and was forced to blink blood out of his eyes in order to keep track of his opponent. Whenever he struck out at his opponent, she could only hold her breath, hoping the blows went home, but thinking despondently about Kim’s hands, his perfect surgeon’s hands, praying that Kim survived with not just his life, but also his livelihood intact.  Madeleine watched the two adversaries dance their deadly figures of threat and parry and death, thinking she heard police cars in the distance, knowing that it was too soon to hope for any assistance, and sending fervent prayers for help anyway. 

It didn’t matter, she realized, watching her assailant aim a cunning blow at Kim’s midsection, and holding her breath as Kim ducked and rolled, and kicked a lightening thrust aimed at the man’s groin but crippling his knee instead.  For better or worse, it was going to be over in a very short time, and seeing the blood on the sidewalk, Maddy wasn’t sure it would end in Kim’s favor.

Taking matters into her own small hands, she waited until their fighting circle resumed, and when the back of the bad guy’s head presented itself to her, naked and undefended, she whacked it with her hard leather briefcase.  The blow wasn’t particularly disabling, but it distracted him just long enough for Kim to make his move.

Knowing that he had to finish this, and finish it now or lose everything, Kim went in for the kill.  While the man’s head was turned, he delivered a crushing blow to the  wind pipe, and watched dispassionately as the guy fell to his knees clutching his throat before delivering the knockout punch.  He stood, swaying on his feet, trying to focus through the blood running into his eyes, hearing the cops pulled up behind him.

Maddy reached his side first, touching his shoulder in panic.  “Henry Kim—my God, are you okay… please, say something… are you okay.”

She sounded frightened, and he turned to her slowly, thinking that he never wanted her to be hurt or frightened, and that he must reassure her somehow.  But his arm was on fire, and his shoulder ached dully, and his whole body hurt, and turning to Madeleine to look her in the eye was like swimming through ultra thick Jell-O.

            Concentrating, he moved his mouth to make the proper sounds.  “I’m fine.”  He said slowly, and then he flashed a reassuring grin, because that was what Madeleine seemed to need from him. She smiled shakily back, and then his vision went black and he passed out.

            Madeleine rode in the back of the ambulance on the way to the hospital, praying as she had never prayed in her life.  The paramedics who had arrived at the scene told her that H.K. had lost a lot of blood, but she could see the puzzlement in their faces as they tended to his injuries.  There was more to it than that, she could tell.  In spite of their best efforts as the ambulance careened through traffic on the same route Kim had just blazed to this nondescript section of town, Kim was hemorrhaging life force as fast as blood, and there was nothing they could do about it. 

            When the ambulance arrived at San Manuel General, Madeleine stayed out of the way of the paramedics as they hustled Kim’s gurney into the ER.  Surprisingly Jack and his partner had been the first car on the scene so she was prepared when Bryce came sprinting towards the all too silent figure on the gurney—the only silent member of the party of confusion that made up the ER. 

            As she backed herself into a quiet part of the ER corridor, she saw Jack coming towards her, brandishing the keys to Kim’s car that she had thrust into his hands before she had clambered into the back of the ambulance.  She had asked him why he, in particular, a vice cop had been the first on the scene, and had not received an answer, but on touching his hand had seen a surprisingly vivid picture of Erin, foremost in his mind.  Then, he had promised to drive the car to the hospital, amused by her almost compulsive desire to see Kim’s prized possession safe, because the fate of its owner was out of her hands. 

            Searching for a wall to lean on, she tripped over a foot in a high heeled shoe, and practically fell into Erin’s waiting arms. 

            “What are you doing here?”  She asked vaguely, all of her attention focused on the frantic activity that could be seen through the trauma room window.

            “I was nearby, and Jack called me on the cell phone.”  Erin answered back distractedly.  “Good God, Maddy, what happened?”  She asked in turn, and Madeleine could only shake her head for a moment, as she tried to get a hold of her emotions.

            “Actually, Madeleine, I’d like to know that as well.”  Jack said forbiddingly, before receiving an elbow in the ribs from Erin. 

            “I don’t understand.”  Maddy said, finding the strength from somewhere to speak coherently.  The second ambulance had arrived, and Maddy found herself studying the wall across from her in a desperate attempt to not wish destruction on the criminal who’d attacked her, and who had harmed the man hanging on by a fragile thread in the next room.  “I came out of Sandra Escamilla’s apartment, and H.K. was waiting for me, and then that guy came at me with a knife.   If Kim hadn’t been there he would have…”  Her breath caught in her throat, and she couldn’t make herself voice how close she had come to losing everything—or how close she still was, to losing everything that mattered.

            Jack look hard at her in confusion.  “Then you don’t know who that guy was?”

            “No.”  Madeleine said, watching the activity in the trauma room with haunted eyes.  “I think it might be Martin something—I’ve got his name scribbled down in my briefcase.   All I know is that he’s Sandra’s boyfriend, and I think he hates me because I made Sandra clean up her act.”

            She was so focused that she missed Jack’s bewildered stare.  “Wait a minute—you’re case’s boyfriend is Martin Aguillar, one of the most vicious serial rapists on parole in the county, and you think he might be the guy who attacked you?”

            Madeleine’s head snapped back to Jack Kristof, suddenly feeling very involved in the conversation.  “All I know is that his name is Martin.”  She said numbly.

            “And all I know,”  Jack retorted angrily, “Is that we’ve been tailing this guy for a month, trying to catch him making a move because we know he’s due.  We know who his girlfriend is, so we case her house, and we assumed you knew who her boyfriend is, because I know you guys in Social Service just aren’t that stupid.  We lose the guy a couple of blocks away from Sandra Escamilla’s apartment, and boom—we get a 911 from Sandra Escamilla that someone is trying to kill her boyfriend…”

            “So that’s how you were there so fast…”  Maddy murmured under Jack’s tirade, but he wasn’t finished yet.

            “And you’re saying you had no idea who this guy was?”

            “No…”  Madeleine said in a small voice.  “I never saw him…”

            “Maddy—you didn’t know?”  Erin said, sounding angry.

            “No.”  She repeated, and found herself sliding to the ground in shock.  “I had no idea.”

            “But how could you not know that?”  Erin asked, her voice rising.  “Jesus, Maddy—that’s your job!”

            Jack Kristof looked at Erin in surprise.  Usually, the two women were inseparable—in both their opinions and their friendship.  Bryce had told him of H.K. Raitherson’s attachment to Madeleine, but something in Erin’s voice caught  his attention.  Erin actually sounded angry at her friend, for something that wasn’t really her fault.  “Well, Erin, if she never saw the guy—I mean, mostly, she’d know from wanted posters, but if his name didn’t ring a bell…”

            “But she should have known…”  Erin said again, her voice rising almost to hysteria.  Ignominiously she slid into a boneless heap next to her friend and grabbed Maddy’s shoulder.  “Dammit, Maddy—you should have known…  that’s what you do.” 

            “I know.”  Madeleine said, much to Jack’s surprise—he’d been wrong about that, and he couldn’t understand why the two women were taking his careless statement to heart.  “I know.  I should have known… Oh God, Erin, I should have known and I didn’t and somehow H.K. did and I should have known.”    Madeleine’s voice broke and she buried her head in her hands as silent sobs rocked her body.  Erin, forgetting her anger for the moment wrapped her arms around her friend’s small body, and they sat there, rocking and crying for what seemed like a long time.

            Their sobs had subsided, and the two women were simply sitting, motionless, holding each other, when Bryce emerged from the ER.  He shot a questioning look at his big brother who simply shrugged in puzzlement.  Maddy looked up at Bryce, her eyes burning with hope, only to be met with a bewildered shrug. 

            “He’s stable now, Maddy, and we’ve moved him to a room in Intensive Care,  but there’s not much else we can do right now.  All his lab reports say that he should be just fine, but his respiration’s shallow, and his vital signs are really weak.  I’m not sure why, but about all we can do is give him blood and hope.”

            Madeleine’s mouth formed a soundless oh, and her eyes grew bright again, but she said nothing, so Bryce went on talking.

            “For right now, he should be all right, but this weakness, Maddy, if we don’t find out what’s causing it…”  Bryce trailed off meaningfully.   He was always bad at stating the worst.

“And the other guy?”  She whispered, not really caring.

“He’ll be fine.”  Bryce said, disgust in his voice evident.  “H.K. really did a number on his esophagus, but we gave him a breathing tube.  He’s got a heavy concussion, but he’ll be fine.” And the fate of Martin Aguillar was dismissed in a breath.   “However,”  Bryce went on,  “There is a question you can answer for me—what in the hell was he doing there?”

            “I don’t know.”  Madeleine answered, and it was only partly a lie.

            “Are you sure?  I know he’d just finished in surgery, and suddenly he tore out of here like a bat out of hell—and Jack said he showed up just in time to save your life.  How in the fu… hell did that happen?”  Bryce felt his own emotions rise and tried to put a damper on them.   “I mean, I know you and he have this special relationship and all, but I just can’t explain that…”  Frustration roughened his voice, but, damn it, in the last few weeks he’d found himself liking H.K. Raitherson.  He’d hired him because of his excellent credentials, but, besides being there for his sister when she’d needed someone the most, the man didn’t seem to have an evil bone in his body.  He had a sly, insidious sense of humor, and a serene presence around him that calmed the staff at even the most chaotic of times, and Bryce was suddenly very anxious to know why he was lying in a hospital room as a patient when, by all rights, he should have been there as a physician.

            “I don’t know.”  Maddy said again, looking forlornly in the direction she had seen them taking Kim. “I might, but I’m not sure, and it doesn’t matter…”  Her voice, which had started out weak, now trailed off into thought. She wanted to be with him, she thought hungrily.  She could blame herself until she dissolved into a puddle and melted through the speckled tile under the weight of her own corrosive anger, but that didn’t stop the need.  And as blind as she had been, and as bad as she may have been for him, Madeleine knew without knowing why, that Kim needed her too.       

Suddenly she stood up.  “I need to see him.”  She said strongly, and she felt her need, and her hunger and her love—especially her love—welling up inside of her, giving her voice an edge and a charisma that she had not imagined possessing.

“I’m sorry?”  Bryce murmured, wondering at the switch in her conversation and demeanor.

Urgently Madeleine grabbed hold of Erin’s hand and pulled her friend up beside her by main strength.  “I need to see him.”  She repeated, her eyes burning with something more than just desire to comfort a lover who needed her.  “Erin, its imperative—make them take me to him.”  She sounded like a child throwing a tantrum and she didn’t care.  Her gifts might have failed to protect the man she loved more than her own life, but they would not fail her in this.  Her whole body shaking with intensity, she pinned her best friend with a meaningful stare that had Erin nodding her head in acquiescence even before she fully comprehended Maddy’s meaning.

“Come on, Bryce.”  She said tersely, “Take us to H.K.—trust me, she can only do him good right now.”

Feeling a little railroaded, Bryce nodded acquiescence, and without another word, the little group made its way through the hospital corridor and up the elevator to the intensive care unit.

Chapter 13 

Through a sea of waking dreams I follow without pride. 

Nothing stands between us now, and I won’t be denied. 

(Sarah MacLaughlin, Possession)

 

He looked unbelievably peaceful, was Madeleine’s first thought as, led by Bryce, she, Erin and Jack entered the hospital room.  He had been connected to machines that she couldn’t name, and his face was pale underneath his normally golden complexion, but without consciously trying, she could see an aura of peace surrounding him.  But the aura was getting weaker. 

Without hesitation she moved to sit by his side, taking a still, elegant hand in her own.  She had barely made contact with his skin, when, like a jolt of electricity, she finally felt the bond between them that had existed since their childhood.  She closed her eyes for a moment, and shored up her defenses, then turned a tortured gaze on Erin. 

“Did you know about this?”  She asked roughly, wondering how someone whose life had been built around empathy could have missed something so simple, so obvious.

“Not all of it.”  Erin answered, shifting uncomfortably around her friend’s vulnerable look.  “Mostly, I just guessed when he started looking so tired.”

“How could you—both of you—know what I was doing to him and not tell me?”  She demanded, feeling both betrayed and angry. 

Erin bit her lip, and, oblivious to the lost looks on the faces of the two brothers behind her, answered as honestly as she could.  “He didn’t want you to quit your job for him.”  She replied baldly.  “He wanted you to do it for yourself.  Think, Maddy—of all the people in the world, he most understands your reasons for doing what you do—for putting yourself under that horrible strain.  If he asked you to stop for him, wouldn’t you end up resenting him for not letting you prove yourself?”

“NO!”  Madeleine shouted, as sure of the answer as she’d been  sure of anything in her life.  “Not if the alternative meant this.  Oh God,”  She whispered to herself, “He’s my everything.  Don’t let him die.”

 And in a sudden release of energy, she dropped the barrier she’d established between them and crashed through the one’s that Kim himself had erected, finding herself sliding into his mind with an ease that should have disturbed her but didn’t.  First she felt for his physical pain, and found it underneath a haze of pain killers that she easily bypassed—working with drug clouded minds was, after all, her job.  Once she found it, the simple, excruciating pain that came from physical damage, it was a simple matter to tackle it one area at a time.

She started with his head wound, and in a relieved rush, she took the pain on herself, feeling a wound open itself up on her forehead, and, even as the blood began trickling down her face, she closed the wound, using her own gifts and the surprising psychic strength of the man whose life she would gladly sacrifice her own for. 

As Jack Kristof turned pale, finding himself sliding against the wall to the floor as his vision blacked, and as Bryce Kristof stared in gap mouthed amazement, the wound on Henry Kim’s forehead closed, leaving a faint silvery scar surrounded by removed stitches.  Erin, seeing her friend’s hands begin to tremble, walked up behind her, putting her hand on her shoulder, knowing that Maddy would take the strength as she needed it.

One by one, from scratches and bruises to the three deep, blood draining wounds on his arm and shoulder, Maddy took Kim’s injury on to herself, and then used their combined strength to heal them.  When she was finished, her blood stained shirt was stuck to her skin, and Erin swayed on her feet behind her.  Moaning a little, she collapsed her head onto Kim’s side, utterly spent.  From across the room she could faintly hear Bryce Kristof swear in surprise, and then tell her that Kim’s heart rate and respiration was stronger, and that his brain activity had gone off the charts. 

Collapsed against Kim, smelling his comforting, warm smell underneath the alcohol and iodine that surrounded him, Madeleine managed a weak chuckle at that, wondering how Bryce would explain that on his charts.  Behind her, she faintly acknowledged Jack’s presence as he came and supported Erin to lead her from the room, and she felt Erin’s tug on her shoulder.

“Come on, Maddy.”  She said softly.   “You need come build up your strength after that.”

But, collapsed against her lover, the love of her life, her heart and soul and dreams, Madeleine was not prepared to leave.  She’d crashed through those barriers that had been between them for so long.  She’d taken a headlong rush into his mind, and now that she felt him there, actually conscious inside his own mind, she was more than reluctant to sever that link.

“No.”  She murmured, falling softly into the leisurely whirlpool of his thoughts, “No, he’s at peace now….”  Her voice grew drowsy and lullaby like, “And when he’s at peace, there’s no secrets… none at all… no secrets.”  And then she was with him, three quarters asleep, and one quarter inside his head, just knowing he was there, holding her with phantom arms. 

“Food.”  Erin demanded, her voice thin.  “I need food.”  She was grateful when Jack and Bryce each solicitously grabbed an arm and led her downstairs to the cafeteria.  She found herself in front of a huge plate full of  fried potatoes, two hamburgers, a salad and, wonder of wonders, a large fudge sundae.  She started with the sundae first. 

Bryce and Jack waited until she was done with the sundae and had started on one of the hamburgers before Jack began with the questions.  “What in the hell was that.”  He demanded flatly.  Then, as though conscious of what he’d asked, he looked away.  “Nevermind,”  he muttered, “I’m not sure I want to know.”

“Well I do.”  Bryce said matter-of-factly.  “I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.  Never.  I’m not sure I ever will again.  How did she do that?”

“Madeleine’s an empath.”  Erin said through a mouthful of hamburger.  “She gets like… a psychic link with people… she knows their emotions and stuff.”

“Like a mind reader?”  Jack said dubiously.

“Yeah, but its more complicated than that.”  She looked around for a napkin and shot Bryce a grateful look when he provide her with one, as well as a refill of soda, and a milk.  “She can read surface thoughts, and, if you think verbally, in words, like I do, she can read that, but mostly she reads emotions.  If you think in pictures—like H.K.—she sees the picture and feels the emotion and kind of puts it together.”

“And this… this… healing thing?”  Jack asked, and Erin could hear the doubt and contempt dripping from his tone.

Erin shoved in another bit of food, remembering when Maddy or Kim would do this and she would look on in amazement, then shook her head.  “This is new.”  She said   quietly.  “You see the thing is, what Madeleine does takes a tremendous amount of energy.”  She gestured towards the once full tray of food in front of her.  “I mean the way I’m eating now?  Madeleine eats like this every meal, every day.  And since he’s been back, H.K. has too.”

“What about Raitherson.”  Jack growled, and Erin looked at him in puzzlement. 

“He and Maddy grew up together.”  Erin supplied.  “He’s been…”  She looked down and swallowed, knowing her face was flushed and not caring.  “He’s been waiting for Maddy all his life.”  She looked up, feeling like that was behind her now.  “In fact, that’s what I was talking about—he and Maddy have been… well linking up, I think, since they were little.  They never talk about it, and I don’t think Maddy even knew.  But, well, Bryce said it himself.  H.K. was dying.  And Maddy couldn’t let that happen…”

“He’s been waiting for Maddy all his life?”  Jack asked in disbelief, focusing on the first thing she’d said, rather than the last.  “Does that count his time in England, when he was seducing my little sister?” 

“Your sister?”  Erin asked, feeling blindsided.  “Anna… the one who just passed away…”  And then things began to click.  “Oh?  Oh.  Ooooohhhhhh!!!”   And then she realized that Jack was a very angry man.  “But it wasn’t like that.”  She said, trying to explain things to him.  “H.K. wouldn’t…”

“It wasn’t like that, Jack.”  Bryce interrupted surprisingly.  “Whether you want to admit it or not, we left Anna in a far away country, all alone, to die.  You want to turn a blind eye to that and blame H.K. Raitherson, but I am just relieved to know that someone was with her at the end.”

Jack shot his little brother a venomous look, and Erin put her hand on his shoulder in a gesture that probably shouldn’t have soothed him but did.  “Jack,”  she said softly, “If its any consolation, I think your little sisters death is still tearing him up inside.  You heard Maddy talk about secrets…”  she saw Jack nod, “Well, there you go.”

“But what about the healing…”  Bryce urged, genuinely interested—as well as interested in changing the subject. 

Erin shrugged.  “She’s an empath, Bryce.  She can feel people’s pain.  With enough energy,”  she looked at the now empty tray, littered with food wrappers, “And enough incentive, she can take people’s pain on to herself.  And with everything to lose, I guess we know how far she’ll go, don’t we?”

“I don’t buy it.”  Jack said, his voice still angry.  “If she’s so damned good at reading people’s emotions, how could she not know she was being stalked by a serial rapist.”

Erin bit her lip, and against her will, felt her eyes filling with tears.  “Don’t you get it, Jack?  You know what her job entails.  Imagine, all that pain, and that neglect, and that terror and that abuse, and walking into it every day and experiencingit.  Up close and personal.  Just like it happened to you.  Do you have any idea what that’s been doing to her?”

Jack had the grace to look away, but he wasn’t convinced.  “Then why do it?  And how does this involve Raitherson—and how does it involve you?”

Erin rubbed her forehead, feeling a whopper of a headache coming on, wondering if it were because of the healing she had helped participate in, or Jack’s obvious and constant badgering.  She frowned at the usually helpful detective, wondering how much of her exhaustion and temper she could blame on him, and then patiently decided to answer his question.  “H.K.’s been…lending her his strength—and getting the backlash.  I think he’s been… you know… receiving all those thoughts aimed at Maddy.”  Erin put up a hand to forestall their incredulity.  “He’s been her protector since she was a baby—this is a natural extension of that roll, if you think about it.  But then his job is pretty demanding too—he doesn’t have a huge energy reserve, you know?”

 She stopped, felt a crushing exhaustion pressing her down against the vinyl seat and wondered how Maddy and H.K. had borne it all these years.  Then she felt compelled to go on.  Maybe, just maybe, if she answered all their questions, they’d let her go home to her small, neat, empty apartment and fall apart.  “And me?”  She mused, surprised that she didn’t know the answer right off.  “I’ve known them since the 5th grade.  Maddy and H.K.—they’re my family.  And Maddy’s gifts have saved my life.”

 She saw Jack and Bryce turn to her in surprise, and suddenly she had had enough.  “No.”  She murmured, horrified to feel her eyes overflowing with tears.  “No more questions.  Please.  I’ve… I’ve got to check on Maddy, and then I think I’ll call my office and go home.”  She rose unsteadily to her feet, and then, unconscious of style, she ran her fingers through her hair and followed up by ripping off a perfectly manicured nail with her teeth.  “I’ve got to go home.”  She knew she sounded tired and whiny, but suddenly she didn’t care.  Maddy and Kim were all she had, and she had almost lost them today.  The thought made her blink back more tears, and she shook her head a little as though to rid herself of the pesky things. 

She was half way out of the cafeteria before she realized that Jack Kristof was following her.  “Where are you going?”  She asked in a small voice, hoping he didn’t have any more questions for her.

“I’m taking you home.”  He told her gently, waiting for the inevitable argument.  It didn’t come.

“Oh, thank God.”  She responded, trying to sound practical.  “When you called me I was walking here from the office, and I don’t think I have cab fare home.”  And then she broke down into sobs.  Without warning, she was crying against Jack’s huge chest, feeling his arms wrapping around her like she was a little girl, and she found herself sobbing like she’d never cried before in her life.  And feeling safe.

Maddy was dreaming.  At least she felt as though she were dreaming.  But the dream felt like Henry Kim, and tasted like Henry Kim, and even smelled like Henry Kim, and he was alive, and his mind was open, waiting for her, and if it were a dream, she didn’t want it to ever end.  Aimlessly, she floated around, seeing memories of her as a child, but altered somehow, with H.K.’s perspective.  She was amused to discover that to Henry Phan Vo Kim Raitherson, she had been an extraordinarily beautiful child, and she decided not to disabuse him of that notion. 

There was something else in these memories that did not jibe with what she remembered, but she was, at last seeing the parts of himself that he’d always kept hidden from her, and she was too relieved to take advantage of the situation and pry.  Suddenly she came to a space in his mind that seemed totally unfamiliar.  It was both very, very bright, and heart-breakingly dark, and sensing a door was open that might never be open again, she took a deep breath and figuratively stepped through. 

She found herself in a brightly lit day, and she blinked.  Cherry blossoms, the Arch de Triumph, Paris in spring time?  It must be, she realized, because the Eiffel tower was in the back ground, and she was looking at a small café on the banks of the river Seine.  She recognized the place—H.K. had found it during his travels, and had taken her and Erin during their back pack trip across Europe, and he was here now, in his memory.  But the woman with him didn’t resemble either Madeleine or Erin.

She was tiny—in fact too tiny.  She had passed ‘fashionably slender’, and entered ‘dangerously thin’.  With a gasp of compassion, Maddy realized that she had been ill, and as she zeroed in on the memory, she could spot other tell tale signs as well.  What had first appeared as a head of glossy, thick hair, was in reality, a jaunty wig, and features that had seemed ethereal in their delicacy, now seemed pointed and fragile to the point of being ravaged.  She had been beautiful, Madeleine realized sadly, but not anymore.  The girl—because on closer examination, she was probably a couple of years younger than Maddy—was talking to Kim, entreating him, really.  Her dark, pretty eyes were tremulous and desperate.

“Please, H.K.”  She was saying.  “I know… I know I’m not who you want, or who you’ve been waiting for.  And to be honest, you’re not who I love either.  But I’m…”  She looked away, and Maddy could tell she was trying to keep her composure.  “I’m running out of time.”  She said at last.  “Couldn’t we, just for a little while, pretend we’re young, and in love, and that our whole life stretches out ahead of us, and that we’re in Paris in the spring time?”

He was going to say no.  Madeleine could see him, his face set against causing this poor child pain, and she could feel him, his kindness warring with a sense of duty to… to her.  Say yes, Henry Kim,  she urged silently, not caring that this was just a memory and that she had no say in what happened.  The girl was terrified and alone, and she was dying.  Was it so much to ask, that for a little while, before he came back to be her knight in shining armor, he make the poor child happy?  But he loved Madeleine, and he was going to say no.  And then the girl put her hand on his arm.

“Please, Henry Kim?  I’ve got no one else to ask.”  And Madeleine had a fleeting impression of herself, alone in California, begging him to stay, for her, and of his constant remorse at having to go, for Madeleine’s own good, no less, and she realized he couldn’t do it again.  The thought made her want to cheer.

He let one of his rare smiles cross his features, and he put his hand on top of hers, where it rested on his arm.  “All right, Anna.”  He said slowly.  “I’ve got two weeks vacation, and you have two weeks before your treatment resumes,”  He mused “And I’ve got a hotel booked here in Paris.  Where would you like to go?”

“I’d like to stand on top of the Eiffel Tower.”  Anna Kristof said excitedly, her face lighting up with pleasure, almost looking well, she was so happy.  “And have my picture taken by the Arch de Triumph,”  she looked away from him for a moment, and then back.  “And then, maybe, to your hotel room?”  And Maddy found herself holding her breath, realizing exactly what the girl was asking, and not blaming her for a moment, but feeling a twinge of jealousy just the same.  And still, she silently urged H.K. on.   Why not, she told herself philosophically.  He had made no commitments, said no vows yet.  And Madeleine had not needed him, not at this time.  And this girl did.   She needed him desperately, to realize a dream, to escape the reality that her life was slipping away, ever so gently, and ever so relentlessly. 

In a heartbeat, Madeleine realized that if she had known then what was going on, before Greg’s funeral, before H.K. had come back, promising and delivering on the love that they had always known was theirs, she would have urged him to do the same thing.  For H.K., this was a two week vacation.  For Anna Kristof, this would have to take the place of a lifetime of memories, and Madeleine could not make herself be selfish enough to want to deprive her of that.   And in spite of his worries for his relationship with Maddy, neither could Kim.

“That would be delightful.”  He’d answered playfully, and with a little laugh, Anna Kristof slid right into her roll, sealing their fantasy bargain with a kiss.   Without a doubt, Madeleine knew they would be lovers, and knew that she wept with joy and heartbreak for them both.

Madeleine woke up, her head resting on the side of H.K.’s bed with tears on her cheeks.   She felt a gentle hand cup her chin, and felt the rasp of clean skin as he stroked a tear from her cheek.  “Don’t cry, little one.”  He said softly.  “Please don’t cry.”

She looked up, and found his golden eyes regarding her intently, and she put her hand over the one on her cheek.  “Why didn’t you tell me, Kim?”  She asked quietly.

“About Anna?”

“About any of it.  I would have understood.”  She whispered.  “I’m not as stupid or immature as all that.”

“I didn’t think you were.”  And she could hear the mild reproach in his voice, and felt guilty at once.  “But I didn’t tell you about Anna because… because I felt guilty, like I had been unfaithful.  And because… because she was my friend, and I still miss her, and that made me feel worse.”

She looked him directly in the eyes.  “As far as I’m concerned, this was before we we’re committed.  I would have understood.”  She told him.  “I do understand.”  And then she looked up, at his over bright eyes.  “And you do miss her.  I could have helped with that—I would have listened.”

“Yes.”  He agreed surprisingly, “You would have.  But I didn’t know that when I came back.  For all that I’ve known you all my life, there was much I had to relearn, in the last few weeks.”

Madeleine bit her lip.  “Was this one of the things you were going to tell me… oh lord, I guess that was tonight… it seems much longer…”

Kim eyed her levelly, not sure he was up to the discussion an honest answer would bring about, but knowing he couldn’t lie to her, yet again.  “Among other things, yes, this was in there.  It was about last on the priority list, but yes, it was there.”

Madeleine made her head a little more comfortable on is abdomen and continued to look up at him.  She belatedly realized that she was starving, and that he probably was too, but was too happy to have Kim to herself to break the moment.  “So what was first priority?”  She asked, curious, and was surprised to see  Kim smile wryly.

“Well, I think it’s moot now.”  He said, his voice dry.

“Not completely.”  Madeleine replied, sitting up and looking at him seriously.  “Martin Aguillar—yes, he’s in a security wing, and he’s pretty much out of commission, but as for how you knew, and not me…”

“Has to wait until tomorrow.”  Said Bryce Kristof confidently.  He walked into the room bearing a tray absolutely loaded with high carbohydrate content food, and Maddy realized she was salivating.  She heard a sound coming from Kim, and smiled.  Bryce was right—for the moment, there were more practical considerations to take care of.

“Oh heavens, thank you Bryce.”  She said with feeling.  “ I can’t tell you how much I needed this.”

“I?”  Kim queried, eyeing the tray wistfully.

“You know the drill, H.K.”  Bryce returned sympathetically.  “Nothing but hi-pro Jell-O after trauma work.”

“Trauma?”  He asked, looking puzzled.

“You were injured, Henry Kim.”  Maddy said gently, her mouth full of food.  “Don’t you remember?”

Kim blinked.  “No.”  He said after a moment.  “I thought I just… blacked out… what injury?”

“What injury?”  Bryce looked at the both of them, feeling as though he’d just stepped into another dimension.  “What injury? Two pints of blood, sixty stitches, one artery clamp…”  He began muttering to himself, charting Kim’s vitals on the clipboard in front of him as though by rote.  “The girl just walks in here, rolls her eyes back, and Boom—what injury.”  Sending the two bemused people at the bed a venomous glance, Bryce threw up his hands and stalked out of the room.  “What injury?  I’m in the wrong goddamned line of work.”

Kim stared after him thoughtfully, and then looked beseechingly at Maddy.  “I know you’re going to explain this to me.”  He said, eyeing the three hamburgers on her tray, “But since I’m apparently not the victim of trauma any more—is there any way I could have one of those while you do it?”

Maddy tried not to get to possessive with the copious amounts of food on her tray, and regretfully handed over a burger.  “Since you were actually part of the healing process,”  She conceded, “Sure, no problem.  But once I tell you, you’ve got to promise to get some sleep.”

“Oh my God, Maddy—you’re hurt…”  Sitting up to take the hamburger she was offering had enabled Kim to see the bloodstains on her shirt, and Maddy shook her head through a mouthful of food.

“It’s not my blood.”  She said soberly.  “In fact,”  she added thoughtfully, “I think its yours…”

And as Kim listened with wide eyed incredulity, she began to relate the events that he had missed that day—including the identity of their assailant and how he had been healed by sheer strength of will.  He was still blinking—partially in sleep and partially in disbelief, when the Bryce came back in and told them that Maddy had to go. 

“No special treatment for Psychic Woman and Wonder Boy.”  He said dryly, and Madeleine sent him a hard look.  Promising to see him the next morning, Madeleine kissed him sweetly, and then left, waving wearily at him and Bryce as she did so.  Kim watched her go and then turned to Bryce blearily.

“I don’t deserve her.”  He said in wonderment.  “Did you know that she and Erin saved my life?”

“I know.”  Bryce replied, his voice wry.  “I was there.  And as for deserving her—I’d say the two of you pretty damn much deserve each other, don’t you agree?” 

But taxed to the last of his strength, and satisfied that the woman he loved was safe, H.K. was too fast asleep to answer.

Chapter 14

Scars are souvenirs you never lose.  The past is never far.

 (Goo Goo Dolls, Name.)

            Kim was released from the hospital on Wednesday-- just in time for Thanks-giving, the next day.  He was pronounced in excellent health but in need of rest by Bryce Kristof, and told that he would not be on call until the following Monday. They celebrated quietly, inviting Erin and other “orphans” like themselves with no extended family, including Angie Hathaway and Jack and Bryce Kristof, both of whom were off that day—to come share food and company and thankfulness.   Kim had been relieved when Jack, apparently putting away most of the animosity from the past, had agreed to come.   The food was pot-luck, the plates were paper, and the clean-up minimal, leaving the small party of friends time to sit in the living room talking quietly and listening to mellow music. 

 Kim and Maddy spent much of the evening touching each other, either mentally or physically, and Kim was drawing much quiet amusement and sustenance from their harmony.  He also noticed that even with company, Madeleine’s progress through the house could be charted by her tendency to grab knick-knacks and carry them with her as she moved from guest to guest or room to room.  But it wasn’t until she handed him a smooth stone sculpture about the size of his palm that he truly knew the meaning of thankfulness.  A brown streaked depiction of a Celtic fertility goddess, Kim stroked the trifle absently, watching with much curiosity the by-play between Erin and Jack Kristof, when he actually looked at what he was holding.  At the recognition of the form, a tiny electric charge seemed to travel from the goddess down his arms, straight to his heart.  And he knew.

Wordlessly he stared at Madeleine, watching her move lithely from person to person, making sure every drink was filled and every personality comfortable within her unique sphere of protection, and he thought, in his mind’s eye, he could see the tiny aura glowing inside her.  It was possible, he thought in astonishment.   They had never used protection.  They had never discussed protection.  The step they had taken in their relationship was that irrevocable.  The thought that if they were ready to be lovers, they were ready to be a family, complete with child had passed unspoken between them.  But it had been electric in the silence in their eyes after he’d given her his seed.  He spent the rest of the evening lost in thought, and, perhaps, even happier than he had ever imagined being.

That night after they’d discussed dinner quietly, taking comfort in each other’s presence after their ordeal and on a night when they specifically came together to count their blessings, Kim lay awake long after Maddy’s breathing had softened and evened out.  Did she know, he wondered, or was this yet another example of him being more tuned to her than she was to herself?  Quietly, he put a possessive hand over her still flat abdomen, and felt the spark there that they had created, its presence sending thrilling little shocks all through his consciousness.

No, he decided, she didn’t know.  How could she know something this exciting, and not tell him?  Especially after the conversation they’d had the day before, when she’d chided him, none too gently, about being honest with her!  He had told her about his brief, bittersweet affair with Anna Kristof.  She’d been diagnosed with a rare cancer the year before, and her brother’s in an effort to do anything they could for their beloved little sister had sent her to England to receive a treatment not offered in the States.  As Anna herself had told H.K., they hadn’t meant to send her away to die, but that is what happened, and Kim had found himself once again in the roll of friend/big brother—lover.

Madeleine had touched his hand reassuringly as he’d told the story, even though she knew most of it from what she’d seen in his mind as they’d dozed on the hospital bed that day.  He had kept a few details from her, though, in an effort to make the story easier to hear.  He didn’t tell her of the pain Anna had been in, during their sojourn to Paris, and he didn’t tell her of his terror, their first night together, that he would hurt her as he had inadvertently hurt Anna. There were some things, he mused, that even lovers shouldn’t share—even empathic ones.  However, that didn’t stop him from mentioning the fury of Anna’s brother’s, when they had arrived, grief stricken, to escort their baby sister’s body home, only to discover that she had left instructions with Kim, a stranger, to have her cremated and scatter her ashes many miles off the coast of Dover.

 He also told her about the dreams that had begun to haunt him shortly after he arrived, and had endured her righteous anger over that particular secret.  In the darkness, with his hand covering his woman and his child, Kim smiled.  It had been good to see her angry.  It meant she trusted him enough to be royally pissed—and to not be afraid that her emotions, all  of her emotions, would drive him away.  He hadn’t seen such a genuine display of temper in her since he’d refused to stay in San Manuel when she was seventeen.  When she had apologized for haranguing him for nearly an hour, Kim had simply shrugged and told her he’d endured her temper tantrums since she was four, and he had still loved her—one more wasn’t going to hurt.  She’d thrown a pillow at him then, and they had held each other, laughing, for a very long time.

When they recovered, he also told her about his theory, that because they were so close, and had been so close for such a long time, that he had become a sort of ‘psychic battery’ for her.  She had gazed at him soberly then.  “Why didn’t you tell me I was draining you dry.”  She said honestly. 

He had shrugged then, and said flippantly, “Well at first, I thought it was the great sex…”  But Madeleine was having none of that.

“Don’t.”  She said softly, putting her fingers over his mouth.  “The gods aren’t going to take me away if you tell me the truth, Phan Vo Kim.”

But he’d refused her.  “Haven’t we had enough truths today, Madeleine?”  He asked, and she had looked away.  They had been talking for hours since he’d been home, and they were both fatigued, both physically and emotionally, and the discussion had ended there. 

But now Kim covered their future with the palm of his hand, and regretted not telling her the last secrets of their childhood while he’d had the chance.  She was pregnant, with his child, and he wanted this moment to be unclouded by any questions about their past and about their future.  But the truth was, the future—at least Madeleine’s future—was very much in question.   

As much as he admired her for her determination and her grit, and, yes, her compassion in being dedicated to her line of work, the truth was, she could not continue to do it any more, while nurturing their child in her body.   But Madeleine needed her job.  She needed the security of knowing that her gifts—those wonderful, terrible gifts—that had brought her such misery and such wonder—were being used with a purpose.  She needed to know that her existence was neither shallow nor vain, and her job did that for her as well.  Telling Madeleine that he couldn’t go on, not and survive, while she was using all of her energy just keeping her soul intact could very well be the truth that took her away from him, Kim thought disconsolately

Moving down to where that spark of life was glowing, deep, deep within his lovers womb, Kim gently kissed the soft house of flesh where it rested, and then wrapped his arms around  Madeleine and prayed as he had never prayed before.  He finally had them—the love of his life, his family.  He begged the gods not to take them away, just because they were all he wanted in the world.

Three days later, he thought the gods gave him their answer.

Sunday morning found them still in bed, though not still asleep.  Madeleine’s supervisor had kindly allowed her to spend the holiday weekend without her pager, and without the respective stresses of work,  the two of them had rediscovered the small joy of not having to choose between love and sleep.  H.K. had awakened in the morning electrified by the clean, smooth feeling of her silken skin nestled against his own, and had found his need aroused to fever pitch, just by that one sweet stroke of his senses.  What had followed was slow, sleepy, and delicious, and in the charged aftermath, Kim had tried to read any thoughts about the baby in the silence of Madeleine’s eyes.  He’d found nothing but love for him, and had been somewhat reassured.  They could still tackle this business one hurdle at a time.

As an early winter rain penetrated the fog outside, they lay snuggled together and drew desultory patterns on each others skin for a moment. Then he brought up what he’d been thinking of as ‘the subject’.

“Madeleine,”  he said softly, “I talked to Bridget Walsh when I was in the hospital—do you know who that is?”

“No…”  she murmured languorously into his neck,  “Should I?”

“I thought you would have worked with her, indirectly, perhaps.  She’s with the IDP—you know, the Infant Development Program?”

“Yeah—I’ve heard of them.”  She said wryly, moving a finger up and down his arm.   Funded by a variety of sources, the IDP was an early intervention program for children with disabilities.  Because children who had been severely abused and moved to foster care sometimes needed their services, Madeleine had their number in her rolodex, but didn’t know anybody by name. 

“Well, she was telling me that there are some openings at Alta California.”

“Openings for what?”  Maddy asked flatly, her all too careless caresses stopping at once. 

He turned towards her, noticing how dark her eyes were in the subdued light, noticing how flushed her skin was from their recent love making, noticing everything, but unable to predict what she would say next.  “Placement work—which child belongs in which program, getting parents respite care, that sort of thing.  You’d still be working with children, Madeleine, but they would be well cared for, and your services would improve their lives, not just make them bearable…”  Kim heard the pleading in his voice, and stopped.  In all the years of their varied relationship, he’d never been reduced to this—to pleading with her to do the right thing.  The iron pride that had prodded him into his profession, that had goaded him into leaving her those years ago, suddenly reared its ugly head. 

There was a pause, then Madeleine said slowly, “But I like my job.”

 “No you don’t.”  He replied with an amazingly clear sense of insight.  “It’s penance.  You saw what poverty did to me, and to Erin, and you wanted to change the world.  You wanted to prove to us that you weren’t the type of person who would just sit back and watch it happen, like your parents, and the people they dealt with.  But you don’t like it.”

“How would you know.”  She said angrily, wishing that they could have put this conversation off until later.  She had meant what she’d said in the hospital that day, but now, put to the test, she was afraid.  Afraid of watching her hard fought place in the world disappear.  Afraid of living in Kim’s shadow.  Afraid of watching her adulthood and maturity fade into a lifetime of being Kim’s younger, protected counterpart.  All the sacrifices that both of them had made for so long, and it still came down to a fear that in spite of her gifts, she just wasn’t enough.

“Look at me.”  He growled, taking her chin into his hand.   “Do you think we can be this close and I can’t feel your pain?  Do you think you can walk into this house where I live day after day and not let me know that this job rips you up inside?  Do you think I don’t feel you bleed every time you walk out that door?  Five days ago you saved my life.  Twelve hours before that you were draining it out of me with every breath you took, saving the world.”

And he was right, she realized.  The helpless children, the past-help adults, the drug clouded minds, the pain and neglect and the horror.  All of it.  She knew that other people did her job everyday, and they did it well, and they went home to their families and were whole, but she couldn’t.  But her fear, her fear of disappearing without flaunting her vulnerabilities, without capitalizing on her one weakness resurfaced, prompting her to fight back. “Why aren’t we discussing your job, H.K.?”  She retorted angrily.  “You deal with pain and trauma every day—and don’t tell me it doesn’t hurt you because I know you better than God, and it does.  Why isn’t your job that gets thrown out here?”

“Because my job isn’t destroying us.”  He shouted at her furiously. 

They were both angry, and as they glared at each other, waiting for one of them to concede or apologize, the phone rang.  Madeleine answered it shortly, and as Kim watched in concern her face drained of color, and she reached out blindly for his hand.

He heard her talk numbly about a plane landing, and dates and times, before said a perfunctory thank you and hung up the phone.

            “Madeleine…”  he said gently, realizing that the radiance that she’d been bathed in all morning, even when they were arguing, had disappeared of a sudden.  It seemed to be locked inside of her, or in mourning.

            “That was my mother’s solicitor,”  she said, her voice devoid of emotion.  “My mother died last night—valium and alcohol.  Accidental, they said.  She’s  supposed to be buried next to Greg—the funeral’s on Tuesday.”

            “Oh, God, Madeleine, I’m sorry…”  He began, knowing that it was the truth only because her death was causing Maddy pain.

            “Are you?”  She asked uncannily, not looking at him.  “I could have sworn you were too indifferent to her to care.”

            Kim caught his breath, wondering if she’d meant the words to hurt, or was simply speaking out of numbness and confusion.  Her next words cleared  up matters.

            “I wanted you to be.”  She continued, almost conversationally, her vision still focused somewhere beyond the far wall of their bedroom.  “It was the only way you could have protected yourself from her while you were here.”

            “Maddy…”  He was uncertain now, as uncertain of her mood and her emotions as he’d ever been about anything regarding her, and he had no idea how to proceed.

            Suddenly she looked at him, her eyes bright, and her expression hard.  “It’s all right, I promise.”  She said.  “I’ll be okay with this… I won’t have anyone to piss off continually,”  her voice was wry, but he knew that much of her adult life had been focused on defiance of either her mother or himself, and that the absence would cost her, “But I’ll be okay.   Just promise me one thing, please.”

            “What?”  He asked, ready to grant her anything.

            “Promise me you’ll be there at the funeral.  I need you there.”  And in one sentence she asked of him the only thing he thought he might not be able to give.

            “Oh God…Maddy, I’ll think about it…”  His voice faltered, and in one wave every negative emotion he’d ever had regarding Madeleine’s mother surged through him, and in that instant, he was positive that such a gesture of respect and grief would sicken him beyond endurance.  And before he could put a damper on his emotions, Madeleine read his reactions in his mind and in his eyes.

            “Don’t do me any favors.”  She snapped. 

            “Maddy, you’ve got to give me…”

            “Give you what, Henry Kim—give you you’re pride?  You’ve got enough of that to choke a horse.  Iron proud—isn’t that how you described your grandparents?  Well, I’ve got news for you H.K.—you’re exactly like them.  How am I supposed to have hope for us when you can’t, or won’t, swallow your pride for this one little thing.”

            “One little thing—is that how you see this Madeleine, because let me tell you, it’s a hell of a lot bigger than you think it is… when I think of all the times…”  And he trailed off, because she didn’t know this part.  She didn’t know all the times he felt exactly what she felt when Estelle Raitherson had rained ice on the fragile child she had been.  She didn’t remember all the times he’d lain awake shaken by her silent sobs, four doors down the hall.  She had no idea all the times he’d felt depleted and violated, as she’d mustered enough energy to counter her mother, and to tell her now seemed too damned much like pleading for his comfort. 

            “All the times what, H.K.—all the times you swallowed your pride for my mother—and this one last times going to kill you?”  She asked angrily, seeing him falter and moving in relentlessly. 

            “Iron proud like my grandparents, you said.”  He threw back, unwilling to open his biggest vulnerability up to her now, “Well I’ve got news for you Madeleine—you’re whole life you’ve spent proving to the world that you’re not your mother.  Your friends, your career, your job—me—all of us were just one big fat finger in her face, weren’t we?  Well you know something?  You get up every morning and you put on your sexless suits, and you gel back your hair and you hide yourself inside this suit of emotional armor and day by day, your soul gets a little weaker.  All, this effort to not be like Estelle Raitherson, and every day you are turning out to be exactly like Estelle Raitherson—right down to seeing where a man’s weak using whatever means at your disposal and using that to just kick him in the balls when he’s down.”

            “How dare you…”  She shouted, so hurt now that she couldn’t even begin to fathom what he was feeling. 

            “No, how dare you…” He rode over her, for once so overcome by his own tangle of emotions that he couldn’t read into hers.  “How dare you look into my mind and judge me on feelings I haven’t even had a chance to put into words.”

            “But when do you put your feelings into words, Kim?”  Maddy asked on a sigh of anguish.  “Five days ago I saved your life because you were too damned closed mouthed to tell me that someone was stalking me for crying out loud…”

            “You’re right,”  He responded, “Five days ago you saved my life, and twelve hours before that you were killing me by degrees in an effort to be just like your mother—now who’s talking about pride, Madeleine?”

            “Get out.”  She said, holding the sheet that had only a few moments ago sheltered both of them up against her breasts as protection from the hurt this argument was causing.  “Get out of my house.”

            Swiftly, guided by anger and anguish, Kim slid out of bed and into his clothes, then threw some clothes and a shaving kit into a duffel bag.  “And that,”  he said as he scooped his keys off the dresser, “Sounded just like her as well.”  And then he was gone.

            Madeleine waited until she heard his Jaguar peeling out of the driveway before she allowed herself the luxury of tears.  She cried for an hour in the bed that was still warm with his heat, smelling his scent on her skin.  She cried for twenty minutes in the shower, trying to scrub the memory of his touch off her body, but only succeeding in remembering just how he had touched her and where and how often.  She cried as she got out of the shower and toweled dry, and couldn’t put on make-up because she cried as she got dressed, too.  She went downstairs, and cried when she saw her little Metro in her driveway without the company of his racing green Jag, and looked at the table in the breakfast nook, and cried when she saw that it was set for two, the way it had been in the past month since Kim had come storming back into her life to drag her back to her cave.        

            She cried until there was a knock on the door, and then she flew to the door, a host of “I’m sorry”’s on her lips, and couldn’t help but feel heartbroken to discover that it was only Erin that stood there.  Her hair looked as though she’d rushed out of the shower and let it dry wet, she had no make-up on, and her eyes were red rimmed with tears.

            “For crying out loud, Maddy, put a damper on yourself.”  She almost sobbed as Madeleine opened the door.  “You’re ripping through the neighborhood like a banshee wind—kids are crying, neighbors are fighting—I saw two fender benders just driving here.  Just put a lid on it and I’ll fix it, I swear just make it stop…”  Erin’s breath caught, and Madeleine forcibly put a control on her emotions.  Then when she was positive the whole neighborhood couldn’t hear what was going on inside her head, she held out apologetic arms to her best friend.

            Erin cried for nearly twenty minutes, and when she was done, she told Maddy that she wasn’t sure if she were crying because of aftermath of Madeleine’s broadcasted emotions or because of the pain of watching Maddy and Kim break up.

            “I’m sorry about your mother.”  She asked at last, after Maddy had filled her in and she could talk again.  “I know you two weren’t close, but I’m sorry.  But you’ve got to know you were putting H.K. on the spot when you asked him to go to the funeral.  I mean, I saw how she treated him—that’s tough on a guy’s pride, you know?  I’m sure he would have come around if you’d given him time…”

            “But you didn’t feel what he felt when I asked him, Erin—how am I supposed to have hope for us when he has to swallow this big, iron brick of pride whenever things like this, or my job come up…”

            “Wait a minute—did  H.K. ever tell you specifically that he wouldn’t go with you?”

            “No…”

            Erin gave a frustrated groan and hung her head in her hands.  “Gees, Maddy—you’ve got to remember how the rest of us mortals deal with life sometimes.  You can’t just judge a guy on what he feels when you first spring an idea like this on him.  Don’t you get it—that’s the nature of sacrifice—that first you feel it and then you set those feelings aside.  Was he willing to do that?”

            Madeleine looked away from her friend’s searching gaze, staring fixedly at one of many shredded tissues on the Kelly green couch she and Erin were sitting on.  “I don’t know.”  She said at last.  “We never got to that—he said…other stuff… and I got so mad I couldn’t listen to him anymore.”

            “What other stuff?”  Her friend asked gently.

            “He wants me to quit my job—I know I said I would, but he said it was turning me into my mother… and…”  Maddy looked up, feeling Erin’s unbidden thought before it could be censored.  “And you think so too?”  She asked quizzically.

            Erin winced and nodded.  “Its been hard to watch.”  She said at last, quietly.

            “Why didn’t you tell me?”

            “Because it seemed like something you needed to do—just to prove to yourself that you’re just like the rest of us.”

            “But I’m not.”  Maddy finished for her despondently.

            “It’s a good thing.”  Erin said, patting her friend reassuringly on the knee.  “Really, sweetie, it’s a good thing.”

            “Tell Kim that.”  Maddy said, looking away. 

“I don’t need to.”  Erin replied gently, before looking out the living room window.  The big French styled window faced West—it was the same one they had both paced in front of all those years before when Kim had gone pelting into the night, unable to face the force of Maddy’s emotions.  Now, they sat and watched the sun set, for almost the same reasons.  Only this time, Madeleine thought sadly, she had forced him out because she couldn’t stand the force of her emotions.  It was a depressing difference, she realized sadly as the two of them sat in silence then for a long time.

The sun finally went down, and Erin moved from the couch, coming back in a few minutes with sandwiches and a funny, drippy movie that she had borrowed from Maddy’s extensive video collection, and the two sat in the silence of old friends as they watched.  But hanging between them was the unspoken question, what would happen now.

 

Kim sighed with relief as he stepped under the water in the shower cubicle of the residents’ bunk.  Although he had just finished a grueling night shift, giving Bryce a much needed break, he thought that physically, he felt more alert and healthier than he had for more than a month.  Emotionally, however, he couldn’t remember ever feeling worse. 

His fight with Madeleine seemed to have been looped in his brain and set on permanent replay, and each time it replayed, he looked for a way out.  A way to word it better, a way to state the truth in a way that didn’t hurt.  And he could, usually, find a way, but it always involved a swallowing of the pride that she detested so much.  He found himself wondering if she was right. 

As a child, it had always been of utmost importance that he not let his emotions show.  Culturally, he’d been a pariah—in Viet Nam and in Estelle Raitherson’s house—and he had taken a great deal of pride in the fact that nobody—not even Madeleine-- knew when those barbs, some whispered and some spoken openly hit home.  Was that really what was standing in the way now, he wondered.  He’d thought once, before their argument escalated into the hurtful, angry parting that it had become, that he was close to begging, and that she couldn’t possibly expect him to plead with her—could she? 

But then, he thought bleakly, she’d been brought up in the same household he had, with the handicap of her youth and her fantastical, empowering, crippling gifts as well.  Maybe he hadn’t counted on her pride, the same way she had run roughshod over his.  And she had to have a fair amount of it—working against her mother’s wishes to become something good and noble—not just in her profession, but in her person as well.  All those years in that strange, disconnected household, and maybe, just maybe, it had become important for her to feel real emotions with her gifts—after all, that was the only way she knew if anyone but him cared for her, wasn’t it?

Kim was so pre-occupied thinking and rethinking their past, he almost didn’t notice that there was another person in the bunk as he walked out of the bathroom.

“Aww shit, Erin!!”  He said, dodging back into the shower cubicle covered in a strategically placed towel.  “Give a guy a little warning, won’t you?”

Erin was laughing gently as she gathered a pair of sweats and a T-shirt for him to put on.  “Gees, H.K.—I’m the only other person in the room—you think you would have noticed me before you ran over me!”

“I was thinking about other things.”  He mumbled, pulling the shirt she proffered around the corner over his head.  Hurriedly he wrenched on his sweats and then cautiously rounded to corner to find Erin eyeing the miniscule bunk where he’d spent his last two nights. 

“Not exactly your old place, is it?”

“Nope,”  he said blandly, “But then no one here is asking me to leave, either.”

“She didn’t mean that.”  Erin said, watching as he gathered his shaving kit and began lathering his face in the mirror.

“Sure she did.”  He replied grimly, sliding the razor carefully down a barely stubbled chin.   “She said it twice—I didn’t need a written notice.”

“No,”  Erin shot back, “You just needed to open your mouth and tell her point blank everything she’s done wrong with her life, didn’t you.”

Kim nicked himself and swore, then turned tortured eyes to his friend.  “Well,”  he said slowly, “If she hadn’t been so busy trying to prove to the world that she’s not a cold-hearted bitch, she’d have realized that I wasn’t just thinking about myself, don’t you think?”

Erin sighed, and began to pace the small room restlessly.  “I think she knows that, H.K.”  She said truthfully, spying the small closet and opening it out of curiosity.   She spied the brand new gray suit hanging on the side, with the shiny wing tips below it.  She whistled appreciatively.  “Nice suit, H.K.—I thought you weren’t going with Maddy.” 

A corner of Kim’s mouth twisted wryly.  “I didn’t say I was going with Maddy.”  He amended.  “I’m just going.”  At Erin’s appreciative “Ah-hah.”  He turned and inclined his head.  “Believe it or not, O’Malley, as much as we love you to death, we sometimes can muddle through on our own.”

“It’s a good thing, too.”  Erin said, a bittersweet smile on her face and a catch in her voice, “Because, you know, if you can’t make this thing work, I’d have to throw myself at you to save you from yourself.   And you know I deserve better than to be second choice.”

Kim saw the brightness in her eyes, and put his razor down to move towards her.  “You listen to me, Erin O’Malley.”  He said seriously, throwing a brotherly arm around her shoulders, “When you find the right man, if he doesn’t bloody wellworship the ground you walk on, first I will beat him about the head until his teeth rattle, and then I will have Maddy drag you off and browbeat you until one or both of you come to your senses.  You will never settle for second choice or second best, do you hear me?”

“I gotcha, H.K.”  She told him, swiping her eyes with the back of her hand.  “Now you listen to me.  You and Madeleine, when you’re in the same room together, the rest of the world doesn’t exist.  When you say each other’s names, you can hear the ocean and the thunder and the rain behind it.  When you smile at each other, you can smell roses.  When you are together, everything is right with the world, and when you’re apart, the Universe is ripped asunder.  Do you understand me?  You go to her and you make everything right, or I won’t have faith in anything ever again, okay?”

He nodded affirmatively.  “I hear you.”  He replied.

“Good.”  She said.  “I’ll see you soon.” 

And as she walked out, Kim swore to himself that he wouldn’t let any of them down. 

Greg Raitherson was buried on a rolling hill somewhere between El Camino Royale and 280, in Redwood City.  When he had died, Maddy and H.K. had consoled themselves with the thought that it was only a few miles away from the country club, because they were sure he would have rather been buried on the fairway.  In the interest of appearance, Estelle Raitherson had asked to be buried in the adjoining plot.  And as Madeleine stood in the mist and listened to a pastor that she’d never met mouth words about a woman she didn’t know, she wondered at the irony.  Estelle hated the out of doors.  She hated the trees that whispered overhead, and the Ocean that could be heard nearby, and she really hated golf. 

The day was about as dismal as a funeral in December could possibly get, and as Maddy stood, clinging to Erin’s hand, an unkind smile twisted her features.  Good, she thought petulantly.  It was good that a woman who seemed to have dedicated her life to making other people miserable should spend her hereafter where her second husband would have been happy.  It may not have been kind, but it was justice.

She and Erin were not the only one’s in the mourning party, but she didn’t recognize anyone else.  It figured, she thought, that only strangers would turn out to mourn the woman who'd been mostly a stranger to her own daughter.  No wonder Kim didn’t want to come.  The thought came into her mind unbidden.  She had long ago forgiven him for not being able to come with her to this, especially since the reason she had wanted him there so badly had been simply to prove in front of God and everybody that all her mother had said about her, and H.K., and them together, had been wrong.  His presence there was unnecessary, she realized.  She had been lost to Estelle the moment Henry Kim had stepped off the plane, because Estelle could never accept him, and she, Maddy, couldn’t live without him.

No, she thought miserably, it wasn’t Estelle’s death, or his public show of grief for a woman who had despised him that had caused their horrible, hurtful argument and the consequences.  It was Estelle’s life and its impact on Maddy, that was coming between them now.

All that time with her mother, and she’d never once been let in.  Estelle had browbeaten her, yelled at her, stripped her self-esteem and confidence bare, but not once had Madeleine gotten past her shields of icy contempt to see why a mother would treat her child like this—or why a person would treat another human being in such a way, for that matter.  Madeleine with her precious gifts, had come to rely on them to know that the rest of the world was not that cold.  She used her empathy to know that other people thought about each other, were kind to each other, cared  for each other—and as a child with her new step brother, those gifts sustained her.  She had the confidence to care for H.K. then, she realized because listening in on other people that that was how it worked.  You exchanged courtesy for courtesy, caring for caring, love for love.

And then H.K. had changed.  For whatever reasons, his ability to block her out had become almost as great as Estelle’s, and in spite of all evidence to the contrary, Madeleine began to worry.  When she couldn’t feel him with her gifts, she had to wonder if what he felt for her were real.  In short, like the rest of the world, she had to take his expressions of love on faith and on instinct, with just enough of the paranormal thrown in to let her sleep in his arms at night and not worry too much about their future.  But that wasn’t how it worked in the real world, she conceded.  Because she loved him, she now knew that there were some things a lover had to take on faith.  That was part of  the job description.

And her career… the seemingly simple job that was anything but, for someone of her unique gifts and vulnerabilities… the career that she had been so proud of because serving people for a living was so unlike Estelle… her goddamned, draining her dry, sanity threatening job that had nearly killed them both, what was she to do about that?  But as she asked herself the question, it answered itself.  She couldn’t do it.  Not to the best of her ability, at least not for long.  She had already missed a dangerous connection —not just to her and her loved ones, but to her clients as well.  This job was draining—grueling and painful, even for the toughest, most dedicated professionals.  How could she hope to do it when she literally became the abuse victim whenever she walked into an abusive situation.  Or when she refused to, when she turned herself off in order to preserve her sanity, how was she supposed to do her job well when her whole self, heart, soul and mind, was not functioning as a whole? 

Kim was right, she thought ruefully.  Her pride had put them both in danger—it had nearly killed him, and if he hadn’t come along, it might have been the death of her as well.  Her gifts could be used better elsewhere.  Like, she thought sadly, at Alta California, where he had suggested she apply. 

How could she have gone so wrong, she wondered, feeling her throat tighten for reasons that had nothing to do with the sterile black box under the depressing gray sky.  How could her empathic abilities and her intelligence and her social skills and all the capabilities that she took such pride in have so totally misjudged her place in the world as well as underestimated the man she loved?

Because, a little voice inside of her said, love doesn’t think in the mind or the intelligence or the psychic abilities—love thinks in the heart.  You of all people should know that.   And she nearly jumped out of her skin, because she realized that that little voice inside of her really hadn’t been her voice.  Forgetting about using her psychic abilities, she reached out with her heart instead of her mind, and found…

“Kim’s here.”  She murmured joyfully to Erin.

“I know.”  Her friend replied, “He’s standing by that stand of trees back there.  I thought you would have spotted him by now.”

“Kim’s here.”  She repeated, unable to voice anything else.  And then, for reason’s completely unrelated to the funeral proceedings in front of her, Madeleine began to cry.

Chapter 15 

The ocean sang… you talked about a dream you’re sure that isn’t mine.  I’m sorry.

(R.E.M.  So.  Central Rain)

 

            Madeleine wandered restively around her home, trying to fathom her own mood.  He’d been there—she knew he had.  As she and Erin had ducked into the limousine, she had caught sight of him, up on a ridge above the grave site.  Her breath had blocked in her throat—he was wearing a suit.  Henry Kim hated suits.  For her, if not for the solemnity of the occasion, he’d dressed to the nines and been there for her.  She had wept in hope all the way through the reading of the will that had followed at the solicitors, and then home.  Erin had looked very sincere and told the solicitor and the other beneficiaries— mostly people heading charities—that she was overcome with grief.  Every now and then, she had shot Maddy an ironic look, and then smiled fondly, but said nothing.

            Oh, yes, the reading of the will.  Since my daughter has had no use for anything I’ve ever had to offer her, I leave her only memories.  And mostly bad ones, Maddy had added silently to herself.  Financially, it wasn’t much of a blow—after leaving Estelle a generous allowance, Greg had made Madeleine the only other beneficiary to his will.  Essentially, she was an heiress.  But as she wandered around the house—seven bedrooms, six and two half bathrooms, two sitting rooms, one cat room, a kitchen the size of some of her client’s apartments—she began to wonder at its affordability.  Not is financial affordability—its emotional cost.

            ..I leave her only memories… inside her head she heard Estelle’s Martini dry voice, reciting the words to her solicitor.  Poor man—he’d looked uncomfortable just recounting them to Madeleine.  But it was the truth, wasn’t it?  She remembered being shamed in public when she said inappropriate things (which happened often, before she learned to censor what she heard with her talent), and being subjected to her mother’s cold tantrums when she failed somehow in public.  She remembered her self-esteem being stripped away from her, and her securities, and her confidence.  But she never remembered being given anything—until Henry Kim had come.  Here in this house, where Maddy and H.K. had grown up, with a few fond flashes of Greg showing up at graduations and such, their only good memories had been of each other.  What had she been trying to prove, redecorating this monstrosity and playing house inside?  That she wasn’t her mother?

            Her restiveness took her through her bedroom—the one she shared with Kim—and against her will she saw her eyes straying to her closet.  In real life she wore comfortable, blowsy clothes like the ashes-to-roses thing she had on.  With an involuntary shudder she spotted one of her man-tailored suits in the dry cleaning pile.  And Kim was right again.  Putting it on had felt like donning armor, protecting herself from the pain she would experience every day.  She had protected herself from the pain of her everyday life just like she had protected herself from Estelle’s derision.  How had she not seen that, she wondered in frustration.

            She was an empath.  How could she have been so blind to her own feelings?  In the stark silence that followed her own question, she felt him.  He was, once again, sitting outside, freezing his ass off and he was feeling… desolate. 

            Without even knowing it, she was running, hurtling through the rooms of the vast house, pelting down the stairs to the front porch, where she flung open the front door without warning.

            “Good God, Henry Kim, you’re going to catch cold.”  She cried, half in exasperation and half in pain, and if she hadn’t been so damned happy to see him, she would have laughed as he nearly fell off the porch. 

            He turned towards her and all inclination to laugh disappeared.  He had in his hands a bouquet of drooping flowers, and his face—his dear, dear, beloved face—no longer wore its usual impassive expression.  Instead, he looked very much like a man who had everything to lose.  He looked tentative.  He looked terrified.  And her stomach knotted up to see him like this.    “You were pre-occupied.”  He said quietly, “You didn’t hear me ringing the bell.”

            Madeleine swallowed, unsure of what came next.  Part of her wanted to fling herself into his arms and beg him for forgiveness.  She’d been wrong, horribly, horribly wrong, and prideful in the worst way as she’d accused him of being.  But there was something going on in his mind, in his heart.  She could have felt it if she’d been as clairvoyant as a stone—and she was far more talented than that.  So she merely nodded her head.  “Yes.”  She said, “I was thinking a lot.  Come in.”  She gestured into the house, but he shook his head.

            “You were thinking about your mother, weren’t you?”  He asked, seemingly casual, as though they weren’t having this conversation on the front porch in the drizzling bay area rain. 

            “No,” she replied, “Actually, I was thinking about this house.  I was thinking that I wanted to sell this thing to the next passing millionaire, and move into something a little smaller, maybe.”

            “Madeleine,” he asked, still casually, “Did you know you’re pregnant?”

            Maddy made a strangled sound in her throat and felt her jaw unhinge.  She had known no such thing, but if her brain could only recover from the shock, some things might make sense…

            “I knew.”  He continued, and she realized that mistaking the tone of his voice for casual was like mistaking a smooth-as-glass ocean with a riptide as safe.  “I’ve known since Thanksgiving.  When you were five, and you accidentally sat on your mother’s glasses, my cheek stung for hours after she smacked you across the face.  When I had to carry you out of that godforsaken party, and she totally decimated you the next day, I listened to you cry every night for two weeks.  Two weeks, Madeleine—you were four.  Every night felt like the end of the goddamned world.   When you were nine, and you started using me for strength, I felt everything.  I heard every conversation you had with your mother about being a “freak” and a “disappointment”.    I knew when you kissed your first boy—Jimmy Houston, you were in the fifth grade, he was in the seventh grade and you were afraid to tell me.”

            “I don’t… I don’t under…”  She choked out, still reeling from the little bombshell he’d, quite literally, dropped in her lap.  She was pregnant—and he knew?

            But Kim had started talking, and his expression was anguished, and his mind was seething in fear and turmoil and love… especially love, and she wasn’t going to interrupt him now for the sun and the moon and the rain.

            “Every one of them—every horny little bastard who wanted you—I heard them all, floating through my dreams.  And speaking of dreams—before you decided to torture me with your own wayward dreams, would you like to know what you were doing to me without even trying?”

            Madeleine flashed to her precocious adolescence and active fantasy life, then found herself sitting down, right there in the doorway.  “I really don’t.”  She said in a small voice, but it didn’t matter, because all of the passion, and anger and hurt that he had dammed away for her was unleashed, and even though she knew what was coming, she hung on to every word.

            “I was in hell.  All I could hear were these vague, far away promises, but god… those promises… they told me everything—everything about the woman you would become, about the woman I love now—I was eighteen, when they started, and I loved you, and I was the only person you really had to love and the only person you trusted… and I knew I had so long to wait.”

            “Oh my god…”  That was when he’d first wanted to leave her… when she’d unleashed that psychokinetic tantrum that had both terrified her and enlightened her to the true extent of her powers—and of her need for control.  And he’d stayed.  For her, he’d stayed.

            “And I waited.  It was excruciating, but I waited for you to grow up.  I was going to come back two years ago—I didn’t care if you weren’t done with your college work, I had written my resignation and begun my job search… but…”

            Madeleine closed her eyes.  “But then you met Anna Kristof.”  She supplied weakly.

            “And I finally come back, right into your arms—and you’re wonderful, Madeleine.  Straight out wonderful.   You are kind, and compassionate and determined.  You have good, solid friends who love you so much I had to go through the third degree at every turn.  You have a career that you’re good at—and, most amazing of all—you still want me.”

            She looked up into his eyes, feeling everything his was feeling—had felt—as he relived it, and knew her face was wet from tears that he hadn’t shed.  She read the agony there, in his gaze, and shook her head against it, putting her fingers up to his lips to stop the words, the cleansing, enlightening words that might kill them both before they had a chance to heal.  “And you come back into my life,” she whispered, “And I promise you the moon and the stars and the rain, and every day I put on my power suit and close off my emotions…”  She trailed off, feeling the foundation under her feet rock with disbelief, that the one person she loved most in the world, she had hurt worse than anyone.

            “And you grow farther and farther away.”   He finished.   They stared at  each other, more naked and vulnerable than each had ever been, and she realized that, in all the years she had known him, this was the first time he’d ever looked lost and afraid and desolate, like the orphan he should have looked when he stepped off the plane from a far away land.  Her shoulders had begun to shake with sobs, when she saw a trace of the old arrogance, and in spite of herself, she was reassured.  “But you’re not going to do that anymore.”  He said irrevocably.  “Not with my child growing inside of you.”

            “No.”  She agreed simply, but he didn’t seem to hear.

            “You aren’t going to endanger the both of you, Madeleine.”  And she could see the anger in him, the fury that always surprised her, when it was aimed at her, and she had to steel herself against the sudden storm of his voice and his anger.  “By all the gods at once, Madeleine,” he roared, “You will not take away all I have.”  He stood, hands clenched at is sides, his eyes blazing, looking like a warrior, facing down his worst enemy, or a tiger, sizing up his most challenging kill.  Like a man, who had faced down his worst fear—that of losing her—and asserted his possession of that which was undeniably his.

            “No.”  She said again, simply.  “I won’t do that, Phan Vo Kim.”  Tentatively she reached out and captured his tense hand in her own.  She almost sighed with relief when the physical contact released all of his emotions—the pain, the frustration, the anger—and she absorbed them all, and let them go.  He looked down at her, trembling in the aftermath of the physical release, still standing like a warrior still prepared to do battle—against her own recalcitrant heart, she assumed wryly.   “I love you too much to let the gods take us away from you.”  She said softly, conceding everything to him, and knowing that he’d give it back in return—just like he’d been giving her strength and sustenance of the soul for her entire life.

            She smiled up at him through her tears, and nodded a little, and he moved towards her slowly, as though afraid she would vanish at any moment.  Then she opened her arms wide, and he stepped into her embrace, trembling his intense features wet with his own tears.

            “I love you.”  They whispered at once, and both of them laughed a little, but not awkwardly.  After a moment they became aware of the drizzle and the cold, and by one accord began to move inside.

            The door closed behind them, and they drifted into the warm sanctuary of the once cold home.  “Why didn’t you tell me?”  She asked soberly, without recrimination.  He’d wanted to.  She had felt that with every word of his confession, that hiding the extent of their bond together had nearly destroyed him.           

“You were a baby—you had no one else to turn to.  How was I supposed to tell you all of this?  And let you grow up normally, I mean.”

She turned to him and regarded him gravely.  “That was an awful lot of responsibility to assume.”  She said at last.  “You never had a childhood, did you?  Apparently not in the village you grew up, and not even when you came here.”

“You were my childhood.”  He told her truthfully.  “Which is why…”

“Which is why you had to leave.”  She finished, and the last of her reservations about his time in England flew away.  It had been for her—all of it, had been for her.  And he had asked nothing, except to be in her life.  And the reason for all the chances he gave her to back out became clear as well

 A stillness descended over the two of them, a happy, waiting stillness, that H.K. broke by tracing a gentle fingertip around the curve of her face, ending at her chin to tilt it up.  Then, looking straight into her eyes he said, “So, you’ll marry me, yes?”

            “Did you ever doubt it?”  She answered, her voice husky.  And standing on her tip-toes, she pressed her mouth against his to seal the bargain with a kiss.  She didn’t mind at all when the kiss deepened and his hands began to shape her body as though trying to memorize every curve.  As their movements and their caresses became more and more insistent, they began to move down the long hallway, up the stairs, and to the bedroom—and the journey had never seemed so long.

 “Henry Kim,” She asked at one point, her voice husky and lighthearted at once, “Do you mind if I sell this house?”

            “Anything, love.”  He murmured against her throat, savoring the pulse he found there, and the taste of her skin.  “Just don’t plan on starting on it for another couple of hours.”

            “I quit my job.”  She told him simply as they headed for the bedroom.  “We can have at least a couple of days.”

            His low chuckle echoed throughout the empty house, joined by her husky laugh, and they didn’t make it to the bedroom after all.

 

Epilogue 

If I live without your touch, I die within your reach.  I can’t live without your touch. 

(The Replacements, Within your reach.)

 

            They had a wedding/housewarming.  Their new home was twenty minutes away from Half-Moon bay, and twenty minutes away from San Manuel General.  Maddy’s offices at Alta-California were only a few minutes away from the hospital—sometimes, they even managed to see each other for lunch. 

            Stained pine siding, nestled in a cleft between the rolling hills of the bay area, it was about half the size of the home they had grown up in.  As Madeleine had gleefully told H.K. when they found it, if someone shouted in the back den, you could hear them in the kitchen.  Four bedrooms, a living room, two bathrooms—when they envisioned raising their already growing family there, it seemed vast and all encompassing.   There was also, by necessity, a porch for the cats.

            The wedding was small, but happy.  H.K. was somewhat surprised to note that he could claim at least half of the guest list consisted of his friends as well as Madeleine’s.  Erin was going to be their only attendant, but Bryce Kristof surprised everybody by offering to stand up as best man for H.K., since none of his friends from England could make the trip. 

            The bride wore a crown of baby’s breath around a short veil, with a fitted bodice and a gauzy skirt with a handkerchief hem.  H.K. was so awed by her that he couldn’t speak.  She twinkled a smile at him anyway—everything he wanted to say was there in his face, and in his heart, which was wide open for her to read.

            As they said their carefully written vows, they promised to let each other actually speak, and that each one would give the other the grace of actually listening.  And they promised to have pride in each other—not between each other. The vows made sense only to a few people at the wedding, but as Madeleine Grace Raitherson and Henry Clifford Phan Vo Kim Raitherson stood at the threshold of their home and spoke out loud the promises they had made to each other since childhood, there seemed very little else to say besides “I love you.”