First came the balloons, a bouquet of them in bright Mylar. They coasted into the bare room seeming of their own volition, bobbing to a stop near the window. The balloon brigade was followed by Peter and Caine, each carrying a bevy of flowers. Peter was grinning widely as he pointed out the spicy pink carnations from the 101st, a vase of butter yellow roses from her brother in law Jess, and a delicately lovely bunch of violets that Jordan had selected. Caine gently set down one of the Ancient's prize little bonsais and a creamy potted hyacinth. She exclaimed over them all, but looked a bit worried when it came to the Ancient's tree. "Caine.. I'm not good with plants.."
"Ah... the Ancient said that this is a.. loan. He will come to care for it, and visit, until you are healed."
The relief on her face was comical.
"How are you feeling?" Peter asked, as she shifted position and winced.
"I'll live, if only to hear why the nurses on this floor shudder at the sound of your name."
He gave her his best innocent look and she shook her head, already tiring again. "Kermit?" she asked.
"Finally has gone to change clothing and eat." Caine told her and her sigh was a relieved one.
"Thank gods, maybe he'll nap too. This day.. he must be worn clear through. Did the boys leave also?"
"Oh, yeah, David said to tell you that they were getting a suite at the Winston, would grab some chow, and come back later tonight."
"I've got to call about the loft tomorrow." Jewel thought aloud, and Caine took her hand, brushing the other lightly over her hot cheek.
"Do not concern yourself with this now. Your body, and spirit, need rest." His tender smile coaxed a sleepy response.
"Sleep.. 'knits the raveled sleeve of care' she quoted dreamily, then looked from the kindly face, to his son's handsome, equally friendly smile. "Thanks for coming.. for being here with him." she said softly, and Peter's warm hand engulfed her free one. She was asleep before either of them spoke, and father and son smiled at each other over the sleeping girl.
"Was that me, or you?" Peter whispered.
"It was.. neither of us, my son." Caine replied.
*****
Kermit hadn't gone home. He'd strode out of Jewel's room, knowing that he would never admit his relief in not having to hear her recount the attack to Jody and TJ. He still planned to be there for her, if she needed to repeat and relive it every night for a month, he'd listen and comfort her, but he wasn't ready yet. Kermit had let Caine convince him to go shower and change, but he'd run into Jewel's brothers in the lobby of the hospital.
"Detective Griffin, do you have a key to Jewel's apt?" David asked, "We thought that we might run over and pack some things for her before going back to the hospital tonight but" and he laughed, a little embarrassed, "then I realized that I have no idea where it is, and no way to get in."
Kermit dug in his pocket, "Yeah, I've got.." and he stopped, remembered what the loft had looked like when they carried her out, mentally added the debris of the forensics team, and changed his mind. "Let me give you directions, meet you over there in about an hour."
"Oh, so you don't MMPHFFFH!" Chris shut up as his brother nailed his foot again, all the while taking a pen and small notebook from his breast pocket.
"I'd appreciate that, Detective."
Kermit regarded him from behind deep green glass, and David met that blank gaze without challenge. "Call me Kermit."
They arrived at the loft almost an hour later, Kermit opening the door from a room redolent of Pine Sol. He'd gone straight to the loft, showered and changed into the one pair of jeans and the old shirt he kept there, just in case, and started scrubbing. It wasn't pleasant, but he shut his emotions off, concentrated on cleaning and not thinking<her blood Kermit her blood her life almost wasted almost taken too late Kermit almost too late> while he mopped up. He sent the bloodstained, bagged rugs from the kitchen and doorway hurtling down the chute with a vicious toss and washed his hands just as the doorbell rang. The man Jewel loved couldn't have let her brothers see the horror he had faced, so he had done what he had to do.
Christopher smelled the fresh cleaning solution, saw the damp floor, and realized what the other man had protected them from. Protected? He looked over at Kermit, a little more access able in his old shirt and faded jeans, and felt a little of his stubborn resistance loosen. Maybe the guy wasn't ALL bad. He wandered around the apt, trailing behind David and Kermit, running his hand lightly over the rough stone mantel, the shining wood of the bookcases, the slick white satin that covered her altar table. The place looked like his sister, he thought, although her computer station had grown a bit. * Usual jumble of CDs* he scanned the mishmash of titles with a smile* but when the hell did she start listening to opera?* "Hey, Dave?" Chris hollered, looking for the Box and not finding it, "We should bring her the newest Tape."
"Way ahead of you, big brother, I found her player, but the latest isn't here."
"Must be in the car then," Chris suggested.
"The tape? She's got a stack of them in the car, how would you know which one she'd want?" Kermit asked. He'd never heard Jewel play any of her tapes, her house stereo was state of the art and CD friendly.
"You've never seen the Box then." David laughed, he and Kermit were upstairs in the loft bedroom, and he pulled a cheap black tape box off the nightstand's lower shelf. "Our sister has been making custom mixes since high school, and she saves them all, with the date she started taped on the label. Which ever is most current, it's a sure bet she's wearing it out listening to it. It's the music she really likes, that reminds her of stuff she loves."
"Or hates! Remember the one she made after she dumped Loser Boy?" Chris was laughing too. "Kermit, she dated this really straight arrow FBI type for a while, but she broke it off suddenly."
"Must have been a real loser, if he couldn't keep our little crime fascinated sister interested. And he was good looking, in a starched kind of way." David's grin widened. "He pissed her off though, because that tape was full of all this heavy metal death music, Motley Crue's 'If Looks could Kill' and Alice Cooper's 'Poison' It was wild, and she played it as loud as she could, non stop, for weeks."
"Wouldn't even mention his name." Chris added, then, thinking a bit, "Still doesn't, for that matter. She must have already forgotten his sorry ass."
"Justin?" Kermit asked, a note of disbelief in his voice. "You're talking about Justin?"
"She told you about him? Damn, I guess she IS still stewing. That girl can hold a GRUDGE, that's all I'm saying. Not that I understand this one, she pretty much got what she was looking for.."
Chris hadn't noticed Kermit's face, nor his tone of voice. David had, but was too slow to stop his charge. So the stone fireplace wall served to stop them, when Kermit slammed Chris into it.
"Don't you ever say that again, or I'll break you into tiny pieces. Your sister was a young woman, in her first intimate relationship, and she was NOT out there looking for a partner to brutalize her! Is that clear?"
His hands loosened on the blond man's collar as Chris stared down at him in shock. David, who had been trying to pull him off, sank down on the hearthstone, white faced. "What are you saying, Kermit?" Chris managed after a minute of stunned silence. "That guy, the FBI clone, hurt her?"
"Oh, perhaps you forgot? Jewel hasn't, I assure you. She doesn't talk about it, true. She relives it in her dreams, more nights than I care to count." His icy disdain cut both men to the quick, and, released, Chris slumped down beside his brother.
"Why wouldn't she tell us about this?' David asked in a near whisper.
"I'll kill him." growled his brother, white knuckled fists clenched. "You." he looked up at Kermit, pale eyes bleak and empty. "One of the few things she HAS told us is that you're some kind of computer wiz. So find him!"
"So you can drag it all up again, make her suffer more for your revenge?" Kermit shook his head. "When Jewel told me about him, what he did to her, I wanted to kill him too, Christopher. Had to think of her first, and she's chosen to move with her life. Except for the nightmares, and I can't help much with those."
"You and Julia.." David tried to find a delicate way to ask something not his business, "The two of you.. are intimate?"
Kermit recoiled from discussing this part of his relationship, but saw the need on the dark haired man's sensitive face. The clear green eyes were dark with confusion, and pain. He managed a clipped, "Yes."
"After something like that, it couldn't have been easy for her."
"It wasn't easy for either of us. Jewel.. is special to me. I didn't want to hurt her any further, and my track record with women.. Under all that bluster and independence.."
"She's still strong as hell." Chris muttered and the tension cracked. The three men laughed, short and involuntary. "So let's find the tape, okay?" He was, as usual, the first to bounce back from emotional upheaval, and gave his brother a hand to stand up.
David walked the room, stared up at the bookshelves a long minute. "I have to tell her that we know, Kermit." he said, not looking at the detective. "I don't want to betray her trust in you, but I have to know why she didn't come to me."
Kermit nodded. "I'll tell her how it happened. We've weathered worse."
*****
It was late when they returned to the hospital, but Jewel was still awake, talking quietly with Caine in her now sweet scented room. Chris burst in first, with her tape player in one hand and a double handful of Chinese red poppies in the other. She giggled and he handed her the flowers with an awful grimace. "Poison poppies, my pretty." he croaked, "Now sleep...sleep." She flicked a few drops of water from her glass at him, and he recoiled, sagging to the floor with a heartfelt, "I'm melting.. melting.. oh, what a world.."
David and Kermit stepped over his prone body without comment and came over to hand her an overstuffed gym bag and a spray of coral and cream roses, respectively. A look at David's paler than usual face spared her further painful laughter at her oldest brother's antics. "David, what is it?" He glanced over at Caine who had already stood to depart. She looked apprehensive, but the older man smiled gently at her, nodding his head as he slipped away. David stood staring out the window. Jewel quickly took inventory, Chris still on the floor, watching with a braced set to his jaw, and Kermit standing at the foot of her bed looking.. guilty? "David." she said quietly, and saw tears trapped in his lashes as he turned to her, "David! Talk to me, what's wrong?" His face, his eyes were full of pain.
"How could you not tell us, Julie? How could you not tell me when Justin attacked you? You went through it all alone, by choice, as if we didn't love you. As if you didn't trust us." The melodic voice that could mesmerize a courtroom was ragged and he dropped into the bedside chair, face in his hands.
Her gaze flew to Kermit's face, her eyes meeting his in shocked betrayal. His glasses were off, and he made no attempt to evade her. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. It never occurred to me that you would have not told them, as close as you all are."
Jewel finally remembered to breathe, a long stuttering sound. "So you did it for me? Oh, gods, Kermit." She looked at David, heard the sobs ripping from his throat, over at her oldest brother sitting on the floor with nothing to say, for once, and back up at the man she loved so completely. The room darkened, she plunged into icy water and heard a roaring in her ears, and did the only thing that seemed to make sense. She retreated, under the blankets, refusing to come out until all three of them had left.
The three men had the good sense not to force her to come out. Instead they went in search of the night doctor, who asked the duty nurse to speed up Ms. Adam's sedative and wisely sent the brothers and Kermit home. Jewel let the nurse coax her out, eagerly took the respite from consciousness he offered and gratefully felt sleep overtaking her.
Dr. Schaffer sighed, drinking from her coffee mug and spoke frankly. "She isn't crazy. I've spoken to her this morning about last night. Apparently you gentlemen were upset to learn of an earlier incident in her life. This is not the time to discuss it. Jewel had a panic attack, she nearly passed out from stress."
"She's never done that, Doctor. Julia is a strong woman.." David began, but the red-haired woman in crisp white cut him off with an exasperated wave of her hand.
"Who has just come through major surgery. Mr. Adams, your sister almost died yesterday. You can expect her to experience both physical and psychological scarring from this. She put up a good front yesterday, and I suspect pushed back a lot of residual fear to prevent you from worrying about her. But her emotions are extremely close to the surface and if you intend to put any stress on her at all, I'll have you barred from her room for the time being. That goes for all of you."
"Now see here, Doc, you."
"I can and I will, if you can't control yourselves. I frankly don't care how stressed out you are, gentleman, my concern is for Julia. SHE is my patient, and apparently she cares more for her brothers and her boyfriend than she does for herself. Now, no more. Is that understood?"
Kermit nodded along with the Adams'. Guilt nagged at him, and he saw it echoed in the faces beside him. The irreverent notion that he was bonding in the worst possible way with Jewel's brothers made him smile, albeit a little grimly.
"Come on, gentlemen. Let's try to repair some damage."
"You go ahead, Kermit. I don't want to overwhelm her again." David said low, and Chris grinned at the detective, hostilities buried.
"This way she'll be done yelling when we get to see her." he confided, and Kermit nodded thoughtfully.
"Not as dumb as you look, are you?"
Chris stared, then laughed. "You son of a bitch." This time, it sounded like a compliment.
*****
The room was dim and perfumed ,cool, with soft music playing. When Kermit opened the door, he saw Jewel lying there in the pearl gray light, hand under her cheek, and he couldn't see at first if she was sleeping or not. She didn't look around, and he closed the door behind him, slipping off his shades. At some point, her cassette player had been plugged in and he recognized some Collin Raye song she liked He didn't have a lot of use for country music, but Jewel was always listening to one of Raye's CDs. As he drew near the bed, he heard her sigh. "You awake, sweetheart?"
"Kermit. Yes, I'm up. Pull up a chair?" her voice was soft and tired, and he wanted to hold her, beg forgiveness, promise her anything to take the defeated note out of her speech. Jewel looked at him as he sat, and smiled faintly. The vivid bruising was still a shock every time he looked at the familiar face and he winced. So did she. "That bad, huh?"
"Looks painful."
"It is. I couldn't tell them, Kermit. Are they still speaking to me?"
"They sent me in first, so you could get all the yelling out of your system." he tried to smile, and so did she. "They're pretty much intimidated by you, you know."
"It's an act, and I'm too worn out for a good hissy fit anyway. Last night, I thought I was going to pass out. The doctor said it was from stress, but I feel so stupid, hiding like that."
"She talked to us, too. Some people go nuts if you load them with too much, you made us leave you alone until you could handle it. Seems pretty sensible to me." Kermit desperately wanted to reassure her, and the music kept distracting him. As he did in the car, he reached for the off switch.
"No, Kermit, don't. I'm listening to it. Did they tell you about the Tape when they were looking for it?"
"It's what brought the other subject up. They were laughing about the last tape you made." He felt the anger deep in his heart again. "Laughing! And when Christopher said.." He stopped and she looked worried.
"What did he say? Oh, gods, Kermit, what did you do to him?" Concern rang in her voice, but her eyes looked a bit.. sparkly? Amused, even?
"They were talking about, and I quote, "Loser Boy" and how he must have bored you to death, that you should have expected it, dating a FBI agent. How you got what you.." he choked, and she shook her head, putting a hand on his clenched fist.
"They only knew what I told them, hon. I made him sound like a dweeb. What did you do to him for saying it?"
He looked away, spoke in a low voice. "I jacked him up against the wall, I think I may have scared him a bit."
Jewel swatted at his hand, and didn't bother to conceal her feeble attempts to laugh around her stitches and ribs. "That must have killed him. Chris is such a big guy, and Mr. Tough guy to boot. Did you hit him?"
"I wanted to, but I couldn't. It was obvious that neither of them had known what really happened."
"Well, then, thanks for not beating the shit out of my big brother."
"Anytime, kid-oops. Sorry."
"You're spending too much time with them."
She shifted restlessly on the hard hospital bed, trying to sit up a little. Kermit couldn't stand to just watch, he leaned over and tucked the pillows firmly behind her back. "You know, I was so mad at you this morning." Jewel told him in a conversational tone.
"Until they brought your morning pain killers?"
"After that." She sighed, listening to the soft flow of music for a minute. "I wasn't ever going to tell them, not about him?"
"Why wouldn't you? Why go through that alone, when they obviously love you so much?" He saw shame flicker over her face again, felt the anger surge up inside him.
"They didn't bring me up like that." she said in a low voice, "Not to let a man treat me badly. I've always been their cocky, confident little sister. A hundred years ago, they'd have called me "plucky". If they had known that I let him use me like that, let him go over the edge without dragging his ass into court, or kicking it, they'd never respect me again. They'd be ashamed of me."
"So this is about your pride? About a false image your family has of you?" Kermit was confused, and that concept rubbed him on the raw.
"This is about who I am!!" she hissed angrily, "I'm not some weak pathetic little girl who was afraid of her big bad boyfriend! I mean, if I were afraid of dangerous men, why would I..?" she stopped but he finished the thought.
"Sleeping with an ex mercenary must give you quite the ego boost then. Just think, maybe some night you'll slip and try to cuddle up to me during a particularly vicious nightmare, and I'll try to strangle you too! Wouldn't that just prove how tough you really are?"
They glared at each other, and Kathy Mattea kept singing. ' I heard a siren late last night, you must have felt me shiver. Shaken by a wave of fright, that you calmed with a whisper, and fear gave way to better things and sweeter dreams..'
Stone blue eyes softened, and Jewel inclined her head toward him, as if seeking a familiar comfort spot. "That's you, Kermit. Whenever I need you.." but Kermit was already lifting her gently, watchful of tubes and monitors and broken ribs, stretching out on the narrow bed and bringing her back to lay in his arms against him.
"It's you too, sweetheart. My own personal red-haired teddy bear." He wanted to hear her laugh, and she did, picturing him with a fuzzy wuzzy. " I wake up, from darkness and when you're there.."
"It's like a miracle, isn't it." she said softly, "Not to feel so alone anymore." The woman leaned her head back against his chest, feeling the familiar safety in his strength.
Kermit changed the subject a little by asking, "So, what's the theme of the newest tape?" as Mattea gave way to Madonna's Crazy for You.
"The theme? It's you, me, us.. us together, I guess."
"No death metal?"
She eased a grin onto her sore lip. "Nope. But I put Burning Up on there. You remember, from when I went to Victoria's and bought that peach thing.."
"And Burning Up was playing when you wore for me? Oh yeah."
A moment of respectful silence.. and he asked, "Should I go get the boys?"
She leaned her head back, and kissed him lightly on the jaw. "Oh, I think they can wait, don't you?"
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