fanfic_name = The Mistletoe

chapter = 4

author = Dwparsnip

Type = Romance

fanfic =



The phone interrupted Rick as he was about to go into the details of John’s conversation. He looked over at the phone with an annoyance he reserved for things like biting mosquitoes and scientists who refused to talk in plain English. He turned back to Lisa with the intention of ignoring the ringing and continuing with their conversation, but when he saw the melancholy smile on her beautiful face he stopped and knew he was about to get really annoyed.



“We have to answer it, Rick”, she said half-heartedly. “It could be the base.”



He cut off the string of curses he was ready to spew, stood up and walked over to the phone. As he picked up the receiver he saw Lisa stand up and head towards the bedroom. Her naturally graceful walk coupled with that tantalizingly snug dress was getting lost in the seriousness of the evening and that only added fuel to his irritation. “What!”, he yelled into the receiver as a greeting to the caller.



Lisa made it to the door just as Rick yelled into the phone. She ducked inside before she could hear any of the conversation and put her left hand against the wall for support. She raised her right hand to her head and gently massaged her temple. She was shocked and a little hurt by the fact that he thought the letter she sent to him that day might have been a good-bye letter. She had no idea he was that insecure about how much he meant to her back then. ‘It’s going to be a long night’, she thought as she walked to the closet.



Rick hung up the phone a few moments later and walked to the bedroom, loosening his tie as he went. It had seemed to get tighter and tighter by the moment after Vince’s innocent comment sent Lisa into a pretty rotten funk. He stood in the doorway, much as he had done earlier that evening, and watched as Lisa hung her dress in her closet with care. She had abandoned the dress for her favorite pair of pajamas, a nice set of flannel pajamas that she always maintained could go far in keeping her warm during the coldest winters. It’s rose color also went well with her bunny slippers. She ran her hand down the dress as it hung there and sighed a small sigh. Her white robe was lying on the bed. He was pleased to see that she was still wearing her new earrings and necklace.



Rick walked into the room, and after he took off his tie he began to unbutton his shirt. “That was one of Lang’s technicians wondering if I would be in tomorrow to take a look at the Beta specs. I told him I wouldn’t be in.” He took off his shirt and pulled a white t-shirt out of the drawer. He slipped it on over his head and hoped that it did to her tonight what it always did: make her laugh. Rick undid his pants, slipped them down so far and sat down on the bed, carefully avoiding sitting on her robe which would he had learned through experience was tantamount to sacrilege. He pulled them off the rest of the way and pulled on a pair of black sweat pants. He stood up and looked over to Lisa.



She reached down to pick up her robe, and as she slipped it on and did it up she said, “Rick, I don’t want you to skip…” She looked up and broke out in hysterics. He stood there in front of her with that damned t-shirt on, and she couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of it. It was a birthday present from Roy, which said a lot about it. It was a white t-shirt that had on it at chest level a solid black arrow that pointed straight up towards Rick’s face. Underneath the arrow was a grapefruit sized RDF kite insignia, and below that in big, red, block letters were the words, “RDF Poster Boy.” Lisa finally calmed down enough to finish tying her robe’s belt, and when she completed that task she walked over to Rick and placed her flattened right hand against his chest, covering the arrow.



She looked at him with a small smile on her lips. “Thank you”, she said to him. “I needed that.”



He reached up, covered her hand with his right hand and gave it a loving squeeze. “You’re welcome. You were saying?”



She looked confused for a second but then said, “I was saying that I don’t want you to skip work for me.”



“First of all”, he said a calmly, “I want to be with you, which is reason enough for me to skip anything. Second, I’m not going in tomorrow because it’s still the holidays. Third, Lang isn’t even going to be there so what’s the point? Fourth, the Beta specs aren’t going anywhere so they can wait another day or two. Fifth, I want to be with you, which is reason enough for me to skip anything.”



“You said that one twice”, she said as she lowered her eyes to regard their combined hands resting against his chest.



Rick used his free hand to tilt her head up so that he could look into her eyes. “Then I must really mean that one.”



She smiled and gently pulled him towards the door and out into the living room. They made their way hand in hand to the couch and when they reached it Lisa sat down. Rick released her hand to go in and make some tea. He didn’t have to ask her if she wanted it…he just knew.



She looked in through the open kitchen door and wondered if they were doing the right thing by reopening these old wounds. They were together after all…in love and committed to each other. Why bring up the past like this? Why talk about one of the hardest times in her life? The answer was simple when she thought about it. Talking about it was the only way to ensure it would remain a part of their past…to ensure that it would never again be a cause for pain. She thought she had it conquered, the pain that went along with that night, or at the least buried deep enough to keep it from affecting her, but obviously she didn’t.



And what about Rick? He had never brought up that night before now, though she was never sure why. Now however, he seemed determined to get it out in the open and deal with it. ‘Maybe it’s just a sign of his maturity’, she thought proudly. He had come a long way in the time since she fell in love with him. He had moved from being a brash, loud-mouthed pilot to being one of the most respected and competent flag officers of the fleet. His compassion for others had grown as well, and she often marveled at how more in tune with the feelings of others he could be.



Rick glanced out as he made the tea and found Lisa looking at him with a loving expression on her face. He smiled at her and mouthed the words, “I love you”, and she mouthed the same words back to him. He put the finishing touches on their tea and carefully brought the cups out to the living room. He placed one cup in front of her, and as she reached over to pick it up he sat down next to her.



He placed his own cup on the coffee table and sat back, turning so that he could see her. She put the cup to her lips and took a careful sip of the hot liquid, and he could see her relax a little. Tea had an amazing affect on Lisa. Just the smallest amount made her relax and seem to take the edge off of whatever was bothering her.



She replaced the cup on the table and turned to face him. They were close enough to each other to hold hands, and in a sign that they had become more in tune with each other than even they had realized, they reached for each other’s hand in unison. They sat there for a moment with their fingers interlaced, each of them reveling in the physical touch of the other.



“Lisa”, he said uncertainly, “are you sure…”



“I’m sure”, she said forcefully. Her tone left no room for debate, and to further show her determination she reminded him of where he was when they were interrupted. “You left off with John saying that it had started out as a typical Christmas Eve.”



He looked into her eyes, searching for any sign of uncertainty or doubt. He found none. All he found was the love and strength that was at the core of Lisa Hayes, the love and strength that she blessed his life with everyday.



“Yes”, said Rick finally, “a typical Christmas Eve…”

----------------------------------

“Last Christmas Eve started out like any other Christmas Eve”, said John. “It wasn’t hectic but there was always something to do, someone to serve or someone to listen to. People were getting off work early to head home, whether home was around the block or out of town, and some of them stopped at the bar to have a drink with friends or coworkers. Like I said…typical.”



Rick nodded his understanding. His hand hadn’t left the double scotch. He was afraid to take it away for fear that he would begin tapping the bar in anxiety or revert to his childhood nervous habit of biting his fingernails. He didn’t like the way John had started his story by making him promise not to tell Lisa. That was a bad sign if there ever was one.



John leaned forward and placed his elbows on the bar and folded his hands in front of him just in front of his drink. “It started to snow in the afternoon, so people were trying to get in and out pretty quickly, not wanting to get caught in case the weather got bad.”



Rick nodded absently. The snow. It had started just as he began to walk across the tarmac after landing Skull One, and he remembered he thought of Lisa when it began to fall. He had been thinking of her a lot around that time, wondering if she was ever going to forgive him for going to see Minmei when he was supposed to go with her on their picnic. Rick felt something in his stomach, something like butterflies only much worse. He was beginning to think that maybe he wasn’t ready for this. He took a sip of his scotch, afraid to drink too much of it too fast with his stomach already in a state of uneasy flux.



John saw the reflective look on Rick’s face and gave the younger man a second to think. After that second he continued. “By the time it got dark there were only a few people in the bar.” He let loose a little snort of laughter. “There was this one guy who came in, he looked like the abominable snowman. I can remember thinking he must have walked all the way from Monument. Anyway, the place was pretty quiet when Captain Hayes walked in.”



John was truly touched by the light that seemed to shine in Rick’s eyes at the mention of Lisa’s name. ‘Yep, he loves her as much as she loved him back then.’ John took a slug of his own drink and savored the feel of the liquid as it went down his dry throat. ‘Here we go’, he thought.



“I knew something wasn’t right the moment I saw her.” John nodded seriously when Rick’s eyes shot to his. “You see, Captain, usually when Captain Hayes came into the Setup she would stand just inside the door and scan the room. Sometimes she’d come in, come up to the bar, get a drink and go to one of the booths against the far wall as close to the door as she could get. She’d sit there and drink her drink quietly watching the goings on around her. When anyone approached her asking if she’d like some company she’d politely refuse it, although she did occasionally say yes.”





Rick lowered his eyes to his drink. He wasn’t sure what it was he felt about that until he heard what John had to say next.



“Yes, Captain…some of them were men.” John was almost amused by the flare of jealousy in Rick’s eyes.  There was no way for the young man to hide it.



Rick lifted the glass to his mouth and took a palpable hit of the scotch. He was a fool when it came to Lisa. He’d long suspected it and now with those five words it was confirmed. Other men had seen the qualities in Lisa that he now saw in her, but unlike him it didn’t take those guys a catastrophic event to make them see it. He had it right under his nose for years, and he never even had so much as a glimmer of a clue. He looked down at his hands as John continued.



“Other times she’d scan the room, and if it was a slow night she’d come up to the bar and have a seat on one of the stools. She always asked how I was and then we’d talk about whatever was going on out there…and about you.” Rick looked at him again, this time with a look of surprise and shame in his eyes. “Yes, Captain…she spoke of you often. I’ll wager I knew about your promotion to Captain before you did.” Rick smiled ever so slightly at the comment and John grunted a little laugh. “She was as proud as a peacock when she told me that, Captain.”



Rick slowly shook his head in disbelief at what he was hearing. Why couldn’t he have seen it? Why couldn’t he have shared in the pride she had in his accomplishments? Why couldn’t he have seen her for more than he did?



“Of course other times, if the bar was crowded, she’d take a look and leave again.” John’s face easily showed the same sadness that resonated in his voice.



Rick opened his mouth to say something but nothing came out, not even so much as whisper. What could he say? As he again lifted the glass to his lips, he was very grateful that John had poured him a double. He drained the glass, and though John lifted an eyebrow at him in surprise, Rick was doubly grateful when the bartender reached for the bottle. John refilled the glass and placed underneath the bar, and Rick took it as sign that more was coming. ‘Of course there has to be more’, thought Rick his anxiety growing rapidly. ‘He hasn’t even gotten to Christmas Eve yet.’



John settled back onto his stool and sighed. “That night…Christmas Eve I mean…she opened the door and walked straight up to the bar. She sat to the left, put her purse on the bar and when she asked for her drink her voice was…very quiet. She wasn’t her usual self at all.” John reached up to scratch his forehead as he thought about that night. “Come to think of it, she never even said hello.” He sighed, refilled his glass and took a sip. “It was the first time I’d seen her like it, Captain. It was plain to see that she’d been crying and she was upset.”



Rick’s grip around his glass tightened to the point where his hand started to shake, glass and all. He noted without care that he was in serious danger of crushing the glass in his hand. “What time was that, John?”



John leaned back for a second and thought back. He leaned forward again and put his hand on Rick’s forearm, trying to calm him before he did shatter the glass, necessitating a trip to the emergency room at Monument General Hospital. When Rick relaxed he answered the question.



“I assumed she wasn’t long off duty…she still had her uniform on. It was dark outside and the snow was still falling.” John folded his arms across his chest and went on. “Shortly after dinner, I guess. When she sat down she took off her overcoat and placed it on her lap. She was so distant, and after her second drink she asked me to leave the bottle.”



Rick didn’t look up at the comment, he couldn’t.  The thought of Lisa coming by his house to wish him a Merry Christmas and ending up at the Setup drinking because of what she heard was tearing him up inside.



Rick remembered back to that night. He was in his house getting some tea ready. He had decided to forgo dinner…his situation with Lisa was playing havoc with his appetite. She was avoiding him like the plague. He heard the TV report about Minmei being missing and then she was at his door. They talked and she asked if she could stay and he said yes. ‘That was it! That was when Lisa was by. She said that she came by and the door was open…of course!’ Now that he thought hard about it, he remembered hearing something like a door click shut. He had even gone to check on the door to make sure it was closed. Lisa never elaborated about when she was by, but that had to be it. His shoulders slumped at the realization.



“Every time I asked her if she was okay she tried to smile and said she as fine…but it wasn’t a smile. It was…I don’t know how to explain it. It was the type of thing you would see from someone who just lost someone or something important to them.”



Rick closed his eyes and resisted the urge to yell at himself. That was probably exactly how she as feeling. Another slug of scotch burned his throat and he laid the glass back on the bar, his grip once again threatening to shatter the glass. He noted irritably that the scotch was doing nothing to numb the guilt and pain he was feeling at hearing the woman he loved hurting so much. He was beginning to wonder if he really wanted to hear this.



John seriously contemplated stopping his story. He could see that Rick was having trouble, real trouble, hearing about Lisa being in such a way. But it was too late to stop now, and he told the young man that he would tell him what he wanted to know.



“She was halfway though the bottle when she started singing.”



This time Rick couldn’t control what his eyes did. They slowly looked up to John and there must have been a look of incredulity on his face, for when John saw it he nodded, confirming that Rick heard what he thought he heard. Rick shook his head at the thought of Lisa being half drunk singing Christmas carols or something.



Wrong.



“Yep”, confirmed John. “She started singing alright. Not loudly or anything. It was more to herself, though if you were close enough and really listened you could definitely pick out Minmei’s songs.”



Rick was shocked. “Minmei’s songs? She was…singing Minmei’s…oh Lisa.” He brought his hands up and rubbed his eyes, trying in vain to help the alcohol to deaden his mind. He lowered his hands to the bar, picked up his drink and downed what was left. Much to his chagrin, John didn’t refill the drink.



John watched as Rick drank what was left in the glass. His heart was aching for the poor guy, but he decided to wait a couple of minutes before filling the glass again…after all the worst was yet to come. “Minmei’s songs, yes. She started out with ‘We Will Win’ and went through a few of them. She was singing ‘My Time to Be a Star’ when Commander Grant came in.” John smiled as he remembered Claudia. He had known her, along with Roy Fokker, for many years. Theirs was story was almost as epic as Rick and Lisa’s, though ultimately more tragic. He shook himself out of the thought and continued. “Anyway, Commander Grant went over to Captain Hayes and whispered something into her ear… I couldn’t hear what it was, but what ever it was caused Captain Hayes to, well, to shed a few tears.” John needed a sip of his drink for several reasons. One, his lips were dry and his throat was becoming scratchy. Second, the memories of seeing someone like Lisa Hayes in the shape she was in was more than a little unsettling, even to someone who saw that type of thing every night. Third, the haunted look in Rick Hunter’s eyes was drilling into his heart.



He took the sip of scotch and cleared his throat. “The Captain whispered something back to her. All I can say for sure is that Commander Grant said something, kind of like she was repeating it to Captain Hayes to make sure she heard her right. I guess that’s what it was, because a second later the Captain just nodded and downed what was left in her glass. It was the first time I had ever seen her do that.”



Rick couldn’t think of a word that accurately described his state of mind. Flabbergasted, stunned, shocked, floored, astonished and shattered were just a couple that flashed in his mind like a little electrical storm, but they didn’t even come close. ‘Maybe some kind of mixture of some or all of them would come relatively close’, he thought, suddenly a little tired. He couldn’t tell if he was really tired, or if his mind was trying to tell him to start shutting some of it out, or if the scotch was finally beginning to work its little magic.



Rick had a pretty good idea how that part of the conversation went and his mind ran through the scenario. Claudia comes in and sees Lisa in the beginning of a drinking binge. She goes over and asks Lisa what was wrong, why is she so upset. Lisa tells Claudia that Minmei was at his house and she heard him tell Minmei that she could stay with him. Rick almost smiled when he thought of Claudia’s eyes bulging open and asking with disgust if Lisa had said what she thought she said: Minmei!



John looked at Rick and knew he had it figured out. He nodded at Rick who bowed his head, in shame, regret or pain…he couldn’t tell. Rick closed his eyes for a moment but opened them again when John continued.



“Captain Hayes poured up another drink and just sat there, looking ahead like…well, like there was nothing else for her in her life, if I had to describe it. Commander Grant sat down next to her and kept talking to her, but for a while Captain Hayes just sat there saying nothing, or very little.”



“For a while?”, asked Rick in a voice weakened by the tightening pain in his chest.



John gently twirled his glass and watched the scotch as it slowly swished around in the glass. “Yes Captain, for a while.” He stopped playing with the glass and laid it back on the bar. “I’ve seen all kinds of drunk, Captain, as you might well imagine. I’ve seen people drink until liquor came out their nose and it barely made an impact on them, or it turned them into fools. I’ve seen people take one drink and fall flat on their face. I’ve seen people drink for a good time and I’ve seen people drink to try to dull the pain of some unbearable memory or event. But no matter what happened or why you drink, when you drink enough you change…one way or the other.”



Rick understood what John was trying to say. Lisa was drinking to try to forget what she heard at his house and the pain that it caused her. In other words she was trying to forget him.



“Have you ever seen Captain Hayes drunk, Captain?”



The question caught Rick a little off guard. “Have I…what? Drunk? Lisa?” He ran over the hundreds… the thousands…of memories he had in his head of Lisa. He had seen her drink before certainly, but not over drink. The worst he had ever seen her was that night he went to get her at Claudia’s. She was quiet and a little fidgety, but he wouldn’t call it being drunk.



He looked at John and saw that the bartender was still waiting for an answer. “No, John. I never saw…no.”



“I see”, said John quietly. He had on a couple of occasions, usually at the times of the year when one was usually with family or with loved ones. “Captain Hayes was quiet, you see, and when she drank a lot she usually stayed quiet, though she’d become more…emotional. The same pattern was happening on Christmas Eve, but after a little while, oh and hour or so, Captain Hayes began to…how do I put this…well, Captain, she became more outgoing and…well…”



Rick could see the older man was struggling to say whatever was on his mind. While a part of Rick’s mind registered the fact that that probably boded ill for him, the part of him that always wanted to help people kicked in. “It’s okay, John”, he said with an affection that caused John to look at him. “Please tell me.”



John took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. When the breath was totally released, John tried again. “She became more outgoing, which as I said wasn’t the norm, and she began to show an interest, romantic interest, in some of the other patrons…male patrons.”



Rick felt the breath catch somewhere in his chest, and his heart felt like Hercules himself was squeezing the very life out of it. In an oddly imitating gesture, Rick began to squeeze his glass again.



“Commander Grant tried to get her to simmer down, but Captain Hayes could be pretty persistent if she wanted to be.” John laughed and added, “But then again you’d know that more than most I guess. She’d have no part of it and she grabbed one guy as he walked past her, asked him if he was single and, well, she kissed him. Commander Grant jumped in and sent him packing before the poor bugger could even say a word, which didn’t sit too well with Captain Hayes. She shouted at Commander Grant to leave her alone, but the Commander ignored her and sat next to her, talking quietly to her the whole time. I made it a point after that to stay as close to that side of the bar as I could.” John sighed loudly and took a gulp of his scotch. When the liquid made it’s way down far enough for him to speak again he did. “She seemed to calm down a little and she was like that for the next couple of hours. Commander Grant never left her side.”



John took a second to let that much filter into Rick’s mind. “It was Christmas Eve so we were closing earlier than usual, though by that time there was only Captain Hayes, Commander Grant and four or five other people, including the guy she had kissed earlier.”



Rick couldn’t take much more. He released the glass and stood up. He turned around and walked to the center of the room, placed his hands behind his head and took a deep breath. As he released it he turned around to look at John.



The bartender was regarding him with an expression so full of sympathy that it made Rick want to go to him and tell him that he deserved no such thing. He wanted to tell John that that whole night was his fault. He drove her to tears. He drove her to the Setup that night. He drove her to drink. He was responsible. It was…then it dawned on him. John’s look of sympathy wasn’t for the distress that he was going through now listening to John, but for the fact that Rick thought it was his fault.



Rick walked back up to the bar and sat down on the stool again. He lowered his arms and placed both his arms heavily on the bar. He was about to reach for his glass when he realized that John still hadn’t refilled it.



John was enough of a bartender to know when someone desperately needed a drink, and right about now he figured Rick Hunter fit that category as well as anyone could. He reached down, picked up the bottle of scotch and filled the glass. Instead of putting the bottle back under the bar, he put it on the bar in between them.



Rick reached over, picked up the glass and drank until it was half empty. He put the glass down and ran the back of his hand along his mouth to catch a drop that had somehow escaped. When he was satisfied with that he wrapped both his hands around the glass and waited.



“Anyway, I went over and told Commander Grant that I was going to close up, but that she and Captain Hayes could stay as long as they liked.” The corners of John’s mouth turned up as he remembered. “She thanked me and smiled. You know Commander Grant had one of the prettiest smiles I have ever seen. Well, I made the announcement and everyone started to move, except for the Captain and Commander. I just reached the door to be ready to lock it after everyone left when there was a…I don’t know what to call it…yelp I guess, of surprise up by the bar. A lady had fallen as she got up out of one of the chairs. I rushed over and helped Commander Grant to help the young lady up. She was tipsy to say the least. Her friend, another lady came over and put her arm around her shoulder to keep her steady. I walked to the door and opened it, while the friend and Commander Grant helped the lady out. When they reached the door the lady’s friend thanked us for our help and said she could take it from there, so we came back inside. The waitress already left so I locked the door. I just had it locked when I heard the Commander call out the Captain’s name. Her voice was full of panic so I turned around to see what had happened.”



Rick was leaning forward, his hands around his drink and hanging on every word. “What was wrong?”, demanded Rick. John looked into Rick’s eyes, and Rick could see nothing but darkness in John’s gaze.



“Captain Hayes…she was gone.”



State = Continuará/To Be Continue

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email = dparsnipAThotmail.com