Welcome back, my friend. Mick Jagger said, 'you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get what you need.' In this chapter, Church learns that very lesson. He learns that fairy tales are just that. That's not a bad thing though. Reality can be so much better. Let's see how Church handles his dose.
NOTE: I've actually had second thoughts on the rewrite. What I might do is just tell more stories from different periods in the Church and Shawn saga. Would you be interested in a story from Bem's perspective? Maybe Comet or Andy? Is there a story that you'd like me to tell? Write me and let me know. I make no promises, but I love new ideas.
Disclaimer:
If you're younger than 18 or find these kinds of stories offensive, please close up now and have a great day! If you are of legal age and are interested, by all means keep going. I'll be glad to have you along for the journey. Please donate to Nifty. This is a great resource for great stories and a useful outlet to authors like me and readers like you.
Crown Vic to a Parallel World: Stolen Love The third and final installment of the ongoing adventures of Church Philips
46 Time for Us?
One week and an extra weekend later, Shawn and I were on a chartered luxury airplane bound for Epistylium and an appointment with Ars at The HALL. We'd had a delightful time in Litus Descendit, having sex like newlyweds, lounging in the sun, and occasionally venturing out to explore the town.
Shawn and I hadn't been back to the resort in the years since we'd broken up the child sex ring, so we weren't prepared to find the city as it was. In the years since we'd been there previously, the stain and the shame of the crimes the city had witnessed, had been cleansed by the hard work of the locals. The city government had taken massive steps to re-earn the trust of vacationers and to make the resort very child and family friendly. The city burst with vacationing families and happy children, all thrilled to be in the fiercely guarded safety of Litus Descendit.
We also visited with Cherry several times to thank him for his help and to pay our respects to the man who I'd unintentionally shoved well outside of his comfort zone. Shawn was initially surprised how open and honest I'd been with Cherry, about my past and where I came from. He understood once I put our discussions in the context of the way I was feeling at each moment that they occurred. We left Cherry on good terms and with the promise given on both sides to remain in touch.
I had wanted to stay another week, to continue `getting reacquainted,' as I'd started to term our endless liaisons. It wasn't just the sex that I didn't want to let go of. I was worried about losing the time that Shawn and I were getting to spend together. Shawn promised that none of that would change once we went home.
I took him at his word, like I always did on all things, and agreed to get back to our lives. The main issue for Shawn, who was ever mindful of his duty to others, was that we couldn't leave his father under house arrest forever. Shawn was also concerned that we owed our friends and family an in-person thank you for everything they'd done, and put up with, during the four days he'd been missing. Shawn and I made an appointment with Ars for the following Monday.
The other thing that was driving Shawn, was something that he didn't mention. I don't think he didn't mention this thing deliberately. I think it was something that he'd thought about but didn't bring up because his first priority was the meeting with his uncle and all his focus was on that. For me, though, the something that wasn't mentioned was of much greater importance. The something was Shawn's practice and his need to get back to it.
That topic had come up as Shawn and I lounged together on a long low couch that made up one side of the luxury jet we'd chartered to take us first to Epistylium and then home. Opposite our seated position was a picture window. The picture window was basically a clear side of the airplane, through which we watched the blue sky.
As we flew, tens of thousands of feet in the air, between Litus and Epistylium, I noticed that Shawn felt apprehensive. At first, I thought it was because we were on our way to see his uncle, then I realized the feeling was more acute than the way he usually felt before a visit with Ars. I asked him what was up.
"I'm going to have to get back to work tomorrow." He admitted.
I objected to his words. "Yeah...like hell you will."
"I have to."
I objected some more. "Shawn, you don't have to' anything. There is no more have to.' We agreed, it's just you and me and the rest of our lives. There's no more duty, no more solving the world's problems, no more Ars and his bullshit, no more saving the fucking world...DONE!"
Shawn tried to climb in my lap to continue the conversation from the advantage of an intimate position. That felt a bit manipulative, perhaps passively so, but manipulative all the same. I didn't let him on top of me. I held him off and stood up to pace around the plane between the couch and the picture window.
Shawn felt disappointed that I'd avoided his advances, but he stayed seated while I paced. I rounded on him and gave vent to my strong feelings on the matter. "GODDAMNIT, SHAWN...NO MORE! I won't let you. I won't let you, ever again. Never."
"Church." He said in his calm, soothing voice.
I refused to be soothed. "NO!" I shouted. "NO! Abso-fucking-lutely not! I just got you back. That just fucking happened. I'm not letting go of you again. Sorry. Let Met worry about it." I crossed my arms and leaned against the picture window in a deliberate sulk.
"Church." Shawn said again. "I have commitments. It's been two weeks...two weeks and a day. I'm supposed to be back tomorrow. Besides, if I don't go back tomorrow, then when? I have to go back at some point. I'm still a partner in the practice. I'm not quitting, just stepping back from full-time work so we can start a family. I can't just..."
I interrupted Shawn because I didn't believe my ears. "Wait...wait...what was that?"
"What?" Shawn asked.
"That last part, about not quitting. What's that about? You told me you were giving the practice to Met. You said you weren't going back. You said..."
"No, I didn't." Shawn corrected me. "I said I wanted a family. I'm giving the practice to Met so he can run it. I'm still going to be involved."
"That's not what you said!" I accused Shawn.
"Yes, it is." He corrected me. "When we were in the shower..."
"YOU SAID YOU WERE QUITTING!" I screamed in anger and fear.
"No, I didn't." Shawn gently corrected.
I thought back to the conversation. I thought hard about the exact words he'd used. I realized that he was right. He'd never said he was quitting. I'd assumed he was quitting, but he'd never said he was quitting. I'd taken that for granted. I got mad, incredibly angry at what felt like betrayal.
"I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU SAID AND WHAT YOU MEANT!" I raised my head and shouted. "NO! I don't care about anyone else. I don't fucking care." I uncrossed my arms and thumped my fists against my chest. "What about me? I saved this fucking world. I saved it too many fucking times. I saved it in one big lump with the barrier, then we traveled all over it and saved it a bunch more, then we saved all those disaster victims, and you saved all those sick people. I EARNED THIS LIFE! I fought for it. I damn near DIED for it. NO! NO MORE!"
"Church." Shawn said my name again, sharper this time.
I started to panic. I felt my love slipping away again. I felt everything I'd longed for and thought I'd recovered crashing down around me. I felt like I was about to be alone again. I fought against it. I railed against ever being alone again. "You said!" I cried out. "You said...promised me, you said I wouldn't have to be alone again. You said."
I felt the weight of my loneliness, and I hated it. I felt all the negativity that I'd experienced when Shawn was missing, and worse, I felt all the negativity I'd experienced before, when he was married to his work. It fell upon me like sheet lead. The weight of my dread bore me down. I slid along the transparent wall of the plane until I sat on the floor. I drew my knees to my chest and hugged them. "You said." I complained miserably into my chest.
Shawn came to sit next to me. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders. I shrank away from his comforting touch. I didn't want to be comforted. I wanted what I thought I deserved. I wanted my husband like I'd had him for a week in Litus. I wanted all of him, not whatever he had leftover at the end of the day. I didn't want to share him, like a piece of dessert. I wanted to possess him and his time and his life and his love. I wanted all of it for myself.
Shawn tried to reason with me. "Church." He said again to plead for my attention.
I raised my miserable, tear-streaked face to his and shouted at him. "WHAT? GODDAMNIT, WHAT? GO AHEAD! GO AHEAD AND TELL ME! TELL ME WHY I DON'T GET TO HAVE YOU! JUST TELL ME AND GET IT OVER WITH!" I shouted my lungs empty and lowered my head to rest on my knees, my face hidden from his.
I gave myself over to my misery and wept against my knees, my forehead painful against the hardness of my kneecaps. I felt Shawn's emotions as they flurried from concern to fear to surprise to concern and then to pity. Great,' I thought, just what I need is fucking pity.'
Shawn leaned his side into mine, but he didn't say anything. I liked to feel his warmth, but the feeling was a hollow one. I still expected him to tell me why I couldn't have him. What I expected, was not what he said, though.
"I'm sorry, love. I should have...I guess I should have approached this differently. I didn't mean to upset you. I didn't mean to make you cry. I forgot what you went through. I forgot how hard it was for you. I forgot how...how delicate this topic is for you. I'm sorry."
I waited for Shawn to say more, but he didn't. He issued his apology and rested his body against mine, and that was all. I continued to wait, but nothing more came. "Well?" I demanded into the cave I'd formed between my thighs and my chest. "What's the rest of it?"
I felt Shawn's emotions shift again. He became reluctant. The reluctance didn't last. It quickly gave way to determination. "Love, I can't live in your arms like a canary in a cage. I love you. I'm committed to you. I want to spend all the rest of my life with you, but it's still my life, just like yours belongs to you. We're a couple, a devoted couple, married people. I want to be with you, but I can't live inside of you. We will do things together, and we will do things apart.
"I want to give up my full-time work at the practice because it's become too demanding. It's taking up all of my time and my energy. I want to have a family. I want to do it with you. That doesn't mean I'm going to quit and give away what I built. I'm responsible for it.
"I have to make sure it goes on the way I want it to. I need to be certain that the people who come to be treated, will be treated the way I would treat them. I still want to help people. I have a gift. I can heal people. I do it with my natural ability and with the magic power that you gave me. It's my gift and yours. You could say that it's God's gift, like your magic.
"God gave me the gift of healing, then he brought us together, then you shared your gift of magic with me. I have a gift and I should share it. It's my responsibility as a member of the human race to help my fellow man when they need it. It's my responsibility and my joy. It's yours too."
Shawn leaned harder against me like he wanted me to respond to him. When I didn't, he went on with what he'd been saying. "You love to help people. I know you do. You get excited when we're called to a natural disaster. You love to help people with your magic; to rescue them, and shelter them, and take care of them.
"Look at all the good you've done with your foundation, all the people you've helped. You did that, yourself. My mother helped but it was your efforts; all the lobbying you did for those people, the jobs you found for them, working with Andy to place people...you did that.
"I understand why you want to resent those people, and the disaster victims, and my patients, because you think they keep us apart. Some of that is true, but only some of it. I let my practice get out of hand. I let it take up too much of my time. I didn't think about how it affected you. I'm sorry for that. What I'm not sorry for, is for using my God-given gifts to help people in pain. I'm not sorry, and I will do more of that in the future.
"That doesn't mean that you don't get to have me. You get to have me, and I get to have you. What it means is that you still need to find your passion, so when we're apart, you're not miserable. I promise to include you. I promise to talk to you about everything, always. The truth of this whole mess is that it was caused by poor communication. We kept secrets when we shouldn't have and that's why all this happened."
For the first time since Shawn started talking, I felt encouraged by his words. He'd said that I would get to have him. He'd said that, but with modifiers. I wanted to know what that meant. I wanted to understand the modifiers. They sounded like they had something to do with the communication he was talking about. I asked him to explain.
"You didn't tell me about the letters." Shawn reminded me. I started to object to what sounded like blame, but Shawn urged me to let him finish. I shut my mouth and waited for him to have his say. "I understand why you did what you did. If I was in the same position, I might have done the same thing. I kind of did. I did the same thing when I didn't tell you about giving my practice to Met. We kept secrets from each other, love. We shouldn't have.
"It was those secrets that made you sad, and that made me vulnerable. We never should have let things get to that point. From now on, no matter what, no secrets, never. Not even a surprise birthday party. No emotional secrets either. If you're sad, you bring your sadness to me. If you're happy, you bring your happiness to me. I promise to do the same. Only when we're completely honest with each other, can we live the lives we want to live. Agreed?"
"Agreed." I promised Shawn.
"Good, you start then."
He'd caught me short. "Start what?"
"Communicating. Tell me what you're feeling right now. Tell me what's in your mind. Make me understand your fears so I can help you with them."
I was surprised that he needed to ask me what I was feeling. I thought it was plain. "I don't want to be alone again."
"OK," Shawn said, "talk me through that."
I didn't get it. I didn't understand what he didn't understand. I suspected a trick in his speech and called him out on it. "Is that a joke? What do you need explained to you? I spent so much of my life isolated and alone. When I'm with you, I don't have to feel that way, when I'm without you, I'm alone and all that bad stuff comes back. I hate it. Anything I've ever tried to do to fill the time has been nothing but a distraction, a poor distraction at that."
I lifted my shoulders in a miserable and defeated shrug. "Oh, I went to school and got a couple degrees. So fucking what? I could teach, but I don't want to teach. I could debate. I proved that. So fucking what? I don't want to debate."
Shawn interrupted my rant. "What do you want to do?"
"WHAT?" I demanded.
"I asked you what you wanted to do." Shawn replied, reasonable and calm as always. "You need something to do. We both do. What do you want to do? I'm going to work part time at my practice. I'll probably teach a little. Met can't handle everything on his own. He'll need my help. He'll probably have to hire more doctors to maintain. I'll have to help them get acclimated. You'll have to help them expand their capacities.
"There's also my uncle. He's not going away. You know he'll call, and I'll have to do things for him. I've told you that I can't live in your arms. That's a fairy tale. We're a couple but we're two people. We are still individuals. We still have our own lives. What do you want to do with yours."
"I don't know." I sulked and hugged my knees again. "I thought loving you would be a full-time gig." "Would you listen to a suggestion if I made one?" Shawn coaxed me with a sweet tone of voice and honey in his words.
"Yeah, sure." I grumbled.
"Raise our children. Make that your purpose."
I lifted my head and turned it to look at Shawn. I wanted to see if he was kidding. I wanted to see if he had a head injury. He looked back at me, like he always did, calm and placid and completely serious. I asked the obvious question. "Are you out of your God-damned mind?"
"No," he shook his head, "not at all. I'm thinking clearly. I think that's the best suggestion I ever made. Raise our children. Give them your love. Find the surrogate, make the arrangements, take care of the renovations the house will need, arrange the payments, come up with names, bring him or her home and raise them. Then do it again. How many kids should we have?"
"You are nuts." I accused my husband. "Or you're making fun of me. Which is it? I am NOT the one you want raising kids. I'm a fucking mess. That'd be just perfect, a bunch of little Churches running around."
Shawn interrupted me again. "I can't think of anything better."
"You have lost your mind." I accused him again and went back to my sulk.
"Love, you're a wonderful man. You're so full of caring and devotion and love. I can't think of anyone better to raise our children. Look at what fatherhood has done for Bem. Look at how much he's changed. Look at how happy he is. Wouldn't you like to be as happy as him?"
I argued with Shawn. "BUT I'M ALREADY HAPPY WHEN I HAVE YOU!"
"You still have me." Shawn explained. "You'll always have me. We can have more. We can have children to love. You can help bring them into the world and teach them to live in it. You can raise them. You can take care of them."
I still couldn't believe what he was saying. "Like some housewife from the nineteen-fifties?" I asked as snidely as I could.
Shawn paused for a second, I assumed to get a picture in his head from my memories. He nodded. "Yes, like that, but without the skirt."
"You are making fun of me." I accused Shawn. "I'm pouring my heart out and you're cracking jokes. That sucks, Shawn."
Shawn took a deep breath and sighed it out. "I'm not trying to be mean, my love. I'm trying to make a real suggestion. You haven't found your purpose. You don't want to use your degrees to teach, and you don't want to debate. Those things don't mean anything to you. That's understandable.
"What is meaningful to you is family and our friends. You loved it when Andy was young because you could help him grow. I watched you do it. You loved giving him advice and helping him learn things. No one was happier, or prouder, when he had his first successes, not even his own father. You loved watching the twins grow into their magic and embrace their lives here. You loved watching Mary and Bem grow closer together. You love Tobit even though you try to pretend you don't.
"My suggestion is, be a father. What could be better? What could be nobler? What could be a richer experience than raising our children?"
I objected some more. "It feels like you're trying to push me off. It feels like you're trying to push me onto people who don't even exist. `Oh Church, I've got a project for you.'" I mocked. "'Have our kids and raise them. That oughta occupy you for twenty years or so.' Why can't it just be us?"
Shawn rocked back, out of his forward, imploring posture, into a contemplative posture. "OK, love, let's look at it your way. Let's say you get your wish. I come home with you and stay there. What do we do? How do we fill the days? What do we do with all the years we've got to live?"
I thought about that. Shawn and I had never been together for more than a few days to a couple weeks with nothing to do. There had always been a project. In the beginning, it was the mission, then my recovery, then the honeymoon trip that Ars commandeered, then we went to Earth and brought my family back, then we had to get them acclimated, then we built the estate and Shawn opened his practice. There had always been something to do.
During all that time I'd been longing for just me and Shawn and nothing else. I didn't realize that if I'd had that, I didn't know what to do with it. We'd had vacations during that time, escapes from responsibility where we'd gone away or stayed home and had endless sex and reveled in each other, but they'd only lasted so long.
The question Shawn had asked was a good one. If it was just us and all the time in the world, how would we spend it? My memory flashed to Fidum. He'd had that exact situation and he wound up carving a mountain to pass the time. I started to think that maybe Shawn was right, maybe we each did need something to do.
I turned the question around on Shawn. "Let's say I agree to do this kids thing. What do you do? How do you see it playing out? If you think you're gonna go to work every day and come home and I'm going to be there in an apron with a kid on each hip and my hair up in hot rollers, you're wrong."
Shawn's serious face split into a grin. "That's an image." He said and I felt his amusement across our link.
I didn't smile back at Shawn, and he realized I didn't create the image to be funny. His face drew down from a smile into a serious gaze as he considered my question. His serious gaze gave way to one of contemplation as he formulated his answer.
"I want to be partners, love." Shawn said as he thought. "I want to be partners in all things, but all partnerships are uneven ones. Some things you will do more of, and some things I will do more of. We'll be equal partners in life, but our responsibilities will be different. As much as it surprises me to acknowledge it, you seem to be better at domestic things.
"I think you're very sensitive. I think that's why your old life hurt you as much as it did. You're also very practical. You can kiss tears away, but you can also tell someone to pick themselves up and try again. That's why you're the better choice, between the two of us, to be the caregiver to our children."
I wanted to argue with Shawn. I wanted to tell him that he was crazy. I wanted to bring all kinds of facts to bear that would prove him wrong, but I couldn't. When I thought about everything that he'd said, I had to admit that he was right about most of it...maybe all of it. Still, I didn't see myself raising children, not as the primary caregiver. I'd been through years of therapy, but I wasn't fixed. I was so afraid of screwing up, of turning out a bunch of emotional cripples.
I dropped my face in my hands and rubbed it savagely. When I'd inflicted enough pain on myself to chase away my tears and focus my thoughts, I explained my position. "I'll think about it, Shawn. I will. I didn't expect to have this conversation this way. I had a different picture in my head. I thought it would be you and me, holding hands, watching our children play in the sun."
"We'll do that." Shawn rushed to encourage me.
I shrugged. "Sure, well do that. I just thought that would be all of it. I didn't really consider the day-to-day stuff. I didn't consider all the time we have or the gifts you have or your dreams or any of it. I just thought...I don't know what I thought. I thought it would be like the end of a movie where the couple gets to have each other and that's all that they want. I guess it doesn't work that way. I'll think about it."
Shawn wrapped his arm over my back, and I didn't shrink away from him. I accepted his comfort and his presence. "Tell you what," he said to premise an offer, "I should only need two weeks to work off the caseload I have scheduled. After that, I'll take a month off, and you and me can figure it out. We won't go anywhere. We'll stay home and plan. This isn't a decision either of us should make without the other.
"I feel bad for asking you to raise our kids like I was asking you to add a room to the house. That was wrong...thoughtless of me. I'll take the whole month off and we'll talk about everything, maybe like we've never done before. We'll look way, way out into the future and we'll make plans. We'll plan for us and for kids and the whole thing. How's that sound?"
"It sounds great!" I agreed. "I can't wait."
I unwound myself. I let my legs spread out in front of me and leaned my back against the side of the plane. Shawn rested his head on my shoulder and leaned his whole body against mine. I thought I needed to add one closing thought to our discussion. "In the meantime, I'm not letting you out of my sight. That's non-negotiable."
"What about Paul?" Shawn objected.
"Nope." I said to stop any argument. "You said that the last time and I listened and then you got kidnapped. Paul can fend for himself for another two weeks. I'm sure your mother will look after him. We'll check on him, make sure he's OK, but for the next two weeks, you and me are Siamese twins. Nothing anyone can say or do is going to change that."
I let Shawn feel that I was adamant, and he didn't try to persuade me otherwise. I felt his defeat across our link and knew that I'd won the negotiation. With that settled, he and I pulled ourselves off the floor and returned to the couch to relax for the rest of the flight. By the time we did, we discovered we were only a few minutes out from Epistylium.