fanfic_name = The Mistletoe

chapter = 5

author = Dwparsnip

Type = Romance

fanfic =

“Gone?”, asked Rick quietly. For a moment his heart went into over drive and his stomach took up residence somewhere near his ankles. Then however, he remembered that John was telling him what happened months earlier and that Lisa was fine…she wasn’t hurt, at least not that he knew of and she was safe. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath to try to get his heart to slow down. When it finally did, he looked up to John. “She was…gone? Where’d she go? How did she…”

John held up his hands to try to get the young Captain to calm down. “Easy, Captain, easy. I said I’d tell you what happened that night and I will, but you’ve got to take it easy. The last thing we need is for Admiral Hayes to come back and find you in the hospital with a heart attack or something.”

The soothing nature of John’s voice, along with the impeccable logic of his words, brought Rick out of his little panic fit. Rick noticed for the first time that he had instinctively grabbed the edge of the bar with both his hands, gripping it with a force he was unaware he had within him. He also tried to figure out when it was that he stood up. He couldn’t remember standing up. He managed to finally let go of the bar and reach behind him to pull the stool he was sitting on closer to the bar, but his right hand found nothing but air. He turned around and was surprised to see the stool lying on the floor. He reached down and put the seat where he needed it and sat down on it carefully. He rested his arms on the bar and reached for his drink. His hand was shaking and no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t get it to totally stop. He lifted the glass to his mouth, and in one motion tilted his head back quickly along with the glass, hoping that the rapid intake of alcohol would do something to quell his frayed nerves.

He brought his hand down heavily, placing the glass back on the bar with more force than he had intended. To his immense relief, the glass didn’t break.

When Rick settled down, John took the bottle of scotch and refilled the glass. As he put the bottle back on the bar, he realized that there was a very real possibility that he would need another bottle…or two…before the night was out.

John took a deep breath and let it out as he talked. “As I said, Captain, I looked to where Captain Hayes was sitting and she wasn’t there anymore. Her coat had fallen to the floor by her stool and her purse was still on the bar. Commander Grant was a couple of steps closer to the bar than I was. She froze for a moment and then bolted towards the bar. I was right behind her… well, that is I wasn’t far behind her. I was a lot older than she was you know.” John stopped for a moment, hoping that his attempt at humor wasn’t as feeble as it sounded. The lack of any reaction from the young man was disheartening, but he knew that Rick had to be in an overwhelming sense of shock.

Truth be told, he was impressed with the way Rick was handling everything…so far. Lesser men would have lost control, lashed out at him or taken it out on the furniture. Lesser men wouldn’t have been able to hear what they heard, much less sit there and wait for the rest. He had always respected Rick Hunter for what he did as a pilot, as an officer, but tonight Rick had earned John’s respect as a man.

“Commander Grant stopped at the bar for only a second before she ran towards the ladies room to see if The Captain was in there. I looked around to make sure that, well, to make sure that she hadn’t fallen down or anything like that. I checked behind the bar and all around the bar. I heard the Commander calling the Captain’s name, but I never heard a response. I kept looking out in the bar area and went into the back to see if she had wandered back there. I saw something and called out to the Commander, who came running.”

Rick was literally on the edge of his seat, or stool to be precise. Terrible images flashed in his mind, images like Lisa passed out on the floor, or Lisa doubled over in pain, or Lisa lying in a pool of …’Stop it!’, he screamed at himself. ‘Stop being so melodramatic, Hunter. Nothing serious happened to her. You saw her the next day for crying out loud. She was fine. Emotionally hurt but physically fine.’ He sighed at that last thought. ‘What a stupid thing to think, Rick. You know that being hurt inside can be worse than being hurt outside. God knows you’re hurting bad enough on the inside right now.’

John could see the anguish in Rick’s eyes. “You see, Captain, the back door was open. It’s locked when you’re trying to get in from the outside, but for safety reasons it can be opened from the inside. We stood there looking at the wide open door and the small mound of snow that had already blown in and built up on the floor. I bet it would have looked comical to anyone who would have seen it. We turned at the same time to each other, then turned back to the door and ran towards it. We reached it at the same time and almost got jammed in the doorframe.” John patted his slightly bulging belly as he said, “Luckily Commander Grant was thinner and more nimble than me.” He placed both his hands on the bar and bowed his head. “We rushed outside and Commander Grant went one way while I went the other. It was still snowing heavily enough to cover any tracks she might have left.” John raised his head to see the horror in the blue eyes of Rick Hunter. Rick reached for his drink, and John decided it was definitely time for a slug of his own. He took a healthy gulp from his glass and sat down, keeping the glass in his hand. When Rick turned his attention back to him, John continued.

“For half an hour we searched, but we couldn’t find her…not even a sign as to where she could have gone.” He raised the glass and drained what was in it. He placed the glass back on the bar and picked up the bottle. He poured its contents into his glass, annoyed that it only half filled the glass. “Hunh”, he said with a hint of defiance, more to himself than to Rick. “There’s plenty more where that came from.” He got up and stepped to the back wall behind the bar. He had the numerous bottles arranged exactly as they had been at the Setup so that he could get what he needed blindfolded. He got another bottle of scotch and went back to his stool. He sat down heavily and opened the bottle. He topped up his drink and placed the bottle within easy reaching distance.

“Where was I?”, he asked but before Rick could answer he remembered. “Half an hour with no sign of her, Captain. Commander Grant was, well she was terrified. It was easy to tell over the years that Captain Hayes and Commander Grant were more than friends, I mean I’ve seen sisters who weren’t as close as those two.” John folded his arms across his chest and sighed. “So we figured she was outside in heavy snow without her coat and any ID. Commander Grant decided to take another look out back and head around to the front through the alley to the left. I went around through the alley on the other side and checked the street. I looked in every direction but couldn’t see her, or much of anything for that matter. Between the snow and the late hour the street was deserted. I walked up to the door and just unlocked it when Commander Grant arrived. The look on her face told me everything...she didn’t find her. We were both covered in snow and shivering, so we decided to head in and get our coats. Neither of us was planning on giving up. I opened the door and stepped in, and that’s when I saw her.”

Rick straightened up a little on his stool and his eyes darted up to meet John’s. ‘Saw her? Lisa?’

As if reading Rick’s thoughts, John nodded. “She was sitting in the same stool that she had been sitting in earlier. She must have gotten back in through the back door when we were heading around to the front, or while we were looking for her. When Commander Grant saw what I saw she cursed…loudly.” John shook his head slowly, and with a small smile on his face he added, “Such nasty words should never come out of a creature so beautiful.”

Despite himself Rick smiled. He had seen Claudia at her best when it came to using those nasty words and those times were invariably when Roy was teasing her or something like that. He wanted to prod John into telling him what happened next, yell at John to get on with it and put him out of his misery, but he didn’t dare. Every time he thought about opening his mouth, all that threatened to spill out was a pitiful moan of regret. He lifted what was quickly supplanting Max as his best friend, the glass of scotch, to his mouth and took a considerable gulp. As the liquor burned his throat, he tried to think how this could possibly not be his fault. He tried and tried, but in the end the effort was in vain.

Rick looked at the bartender and saw a sad and angry look clouding his eyes, which it seemed were looking at just about everywhere but at him. “John.” When John looked at him Rick dug down deep and found the fortitude to ask the question. “What did you see?”

John looked down to the bar and took a deep breath. He looked up as he slowly released the breath and found Rick’s eyes. “Like I said she was sitting at the bar, on the same stool as before. She had her back turned towards us, but she looked…I don’t know, she looked different.” John saw the look of confusion on Rick’s face. “I know it sounds ridiculous. Captain Hayes was sitting with her back towards us, but there was something about the way she sat, the way she held herself.” He paused to take a sip of his scotch, and Rick followed suit shortly thereafter.

Rick kept his right hand snuggly around his new best friend and ran his free hand through his hair. The hand found it’s way to his neck where a considerable knot had formed. He tried to rub the kink out of his neck, but like his effort to rid himself of his responsibility for Lisa’s pain he was unsuccessful.

John waited for Rick, and when Rick nodded for him to go on, John explained. “You see, Captain, she held herself straighter than she had earlier in the evening. She sat, well, she sat proudly on the stool, like she accomplished something. Anyway we slowly walked towards her, not wanting to make any noise for fear of startling her, though she had to hear us come in and Commander Grant’s curse. Her hair was soaked and she had it pulled around to rest on her right front shoulder. She never turned to look at us as we approached. All she did was just take a sip of her drink.”

Rick drank what was left in his glass and put it back on the table. John reached for the bottle but Rick grabbed it off the bar first. He refilled the glass and put the bottle back on the bar, a little more roughly than he meant to, and closer to him than to John. ‘The booze is starting to get to me’, he thought tiredly. He was no longer sure that that was what he wanted, especially when he realized that getting drunk wasn’t doing what he had hoped it was going to do: dull the aching pain in his chest that came from holding himself responsible for Lisa’s pain.

‘Poor kid’, was all that went through John’s mind as he watched Rick pour up his drink. “Something else was different too…she wasn’t singing anymore.” At Rick’s perplexed gaze John could only shake his head. “Not a note. Not a whisper. Nothing. Commander Grant and I looked at each other, but I could see that she didn’t know exactly what to think any more than I did. I nodded for her to go ahead and go to the Captain. As she did I headed behind the bar and took out the coffee pot, figuring the Captain was going to need it.”

Rick was nodding, and John was getting the urge to find the coffee pot for him too. After a moment of contemplating that, he turned the idea down. What he was about to tell the young Captain would go a long way towards sobering him up.

“I tried to stay out of the way and Commander Grant took a seat to Captain Hayes’ left. She turned to look at her, but Captain Hayes never even acknowledged the Commander’s presence. Finally Commander Grant spoke to Captain Hayes, and it went something like this…

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“Lisa, honey, are you okay?” When Lisa didn’t respond, Claudia shot John a quick glance and then tried again, a little louder but with the same gentleness. “Lisa, can you hear me?”

“Of course I can hear you, Claudia. You’re sitting right next to me.”

Lisa’s voice was clear, confident and strong, not at all like the quiet and disheartened voice that came from her lips earlier that night. John thought she didn’t seem to be as out of it as she had been.

It didn’t escape Claudia’s attention that while Lisa had responded to her question, she never looked up from her drink giving Claudia the distinct impression that Lisa didn’t want to look at her for some reason. ‘Or maybe she can’t’, thought Claudia. Claudia put her right hand on Lisa’s shoulder, causing Lisa to stiffen her entire body. “Lisa, are you okay? Where were you?”

Lisa took a sip from her glass and cleared her throat. “I…went outside…for some air”, she answered hesitantly.

Claudia looked to John and he looked to her. Neither of them saw her out there. More than that both of them noticed with increasing alarm that Lisa still refused to answer whether or not she was okay.

“We were worried about you, Lisa. We looked for you out there, but we couldn’t find you. Where did you go?” Claudia gently rubbed Lisa’s shoulder, trying to show her that she could tell Claudia anything, and that she was going to be fine.

John noticed Lisa shudder when Claudia touched her, almost as if the touch sparked an electrical current in Lisa’s body.

“I…went outside, that’s all”, answered Lisa a little harshly as she shrugged her shoulder to get Claudia to stop what she was doing.

Claudia withdrew her arm and sighed ever so slightly. She stood up purposefully and walked to the end of the bar. She turned the corner and walked with steady steps until she was in front of Lisa. Claudia reached over and took Lisa’s face in her hands and forced Lisa to look at her.

Claudia almost stepped back at the blank look in her friend’s usually vibrant eyes. “What is it Lisa?”

Lisa shook her head out of Claudia’s hands and said angrily, “Nothing! I just want to be left alone.”

Claudia put her hands on her hips and fixed Lisa with the best ‘you’ve got to be kidding’ look she could muster. “Not a chance”, said Claudia, allowing a little anger of her own into her voice. “You scared the hell out of us, Lisa! The least you can do is tell us if you’re okay.”

“Why do you care?”, asked Lisa harshly.

John could see that she regretted the words immediately, and it was confirmed a moment later when Lisa apologized.

“I’m sorry, Claudia, I didn’t mean that.” She took a deep breath and added, “I’m fine, Claudia.” Lisa’s voice was calm again…controlled and Claudia could see that it was taking a tremendous effort on Lisa’s part to do it too. “I just went out to get a breath of fresh air, okay?”

John could see the suspicion on Claudia’s face. It was easy to see that she wasn’t buying Lisa’s story. He watched the two women, looking back and forth between them. It was like watching the battle between an irresistible force and an immovable object. Claudia kept the pressure on Lisa with her stare, which John realized was more than formidable. Lisa on the other hand, never budged, taking whatever Claudia was giving her.

’Something isn’t right’, thought Claudia as she studied Lisa’s appearance. Suddenly Claudia’s hands dropped from her hips to hang limply by her side. Her mouth opened and closed as if she were trying to say something, though no sound could be heard. Finally, her jaw dropped and her mouth hung open in something akin to total astonishment.

John watched as Lisa looked to Claudia, and when Lisa saw the stunned look of realization on Claudia’s face, her demeanor changed as well. Suddenly gone was the confidence she had displayed after coming back to the bar, and John saw a tear appear and make its way down her left cheek. She folded her hands together on the bar and looked down at them. As she looked down, avoiding Claudia’s gaze, her shoulders began to slump.

Claudia leaned in towards Lisa and put her left hand on the bar. As her right hand reached across to touch Lisa’s shirt she said quietly. “Lisa, your uniform…why is your tunic undone and your turtleneck inside out? How did…oh my God. Lisa?”

Lisa’s head bowed an extra little bit in shame as Claudia continued. “Lisa…why? Who?” Lisa simply hung her head and looked at her hands. “Lisa, talk to me!” Claudia couldn’t keep the shock out of her voice. “Lisa please!”

Lisa finally looked up at her friend. She brushed the hair away from her face and took a breath. “What do you want me to say, Claudia?”, she asked resignedly. “What do you want to know?”

Claudia was at a loss to answer that question. She stood there with both her hands on the bar now, more for her own support than any attempt to intimidate Lisa. She felt like she could have fainted. Claudia didn’t speak so Lisa began to talk to her.

John thought her voice was nearly robotic in speed and inflection, as though she were reading a mundane report to a room full of stuffed shirts.

“The answer to who is the guy I kissed earlier. When you and John were distracted I grabbed him and pulled him out the back door. He had his car in the back and we got inside. I kissed him hard and he kissed me back and…well, we went farther.” The last three words were barely a whisper.

“In a car out back”, repeated Claudia in disbelief. She wanted so badly to wake up from the nightmare this night had become.

Lisa nodded and said softly and with a hint of morbid amusement, “You passed by us twice.” Lisa looked away from Claudia and back down at her hands, still neatly folded on the bar. “Why? I couldn’t take the pain anymore and needed to forget it or replace it. Nothing was working, not work or liquor or anything else.” She took a shaky breath and a few more tears made the downward trek from her eyes to her delicate jaw line. “I didn’t know what else to do, Claudia. I’ve been craving attention from Rick for so long and not getting it that when that guy seemed interested, it made me want to feel…”, she hesitated and swallowed the lump in her throat, “…something. Claudia, I wanted to feel something other than the pain and the heartache, even if it was only for a moment.” Lisa made a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob, followed by, “Is that so wrong?”

Tears were flowing down Claudia’s cheeks as well. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing from her best friend. She couldn’t believe that Lisa Hayes would take a guy, a stranger, to his car and have…it killed her to think about it.

“I’m not proud of it, Claudia”, continued Lisa in a whisper. “I’m not proud of it at all, but…”, she paused as she picked up a napkin off the bar and wiped the tears from her eyes, “…but God help me for a moment, for a second, I forgot about Rick Hunter. And for that one second, I was happy and free.” She placed the napkin on the bar even though her tears were still falling from her eyes. Her gaze fell to her glass again. She reached over and picked it up, slowly lifting it to her mouth. When the rim of the glass touched her bottom lip she closed her eyes and lowered the glass back to the bar without drinking any. She opened her eyes and regarded the glass for a moment and then resolutely pushed it away from her.

Claudia wiped away her own tears and walked slowly around the bar to stand next to Lisa. She looked down at her friend, her beloved friend who had helped her through so much, especially the darkest days of her life when Roy died. Claudia’s heart was breaking and she didn’t know how to help Lisa. She put her left hand on Lisa’s shoulder, and her touch seemed to open the floodgate that Lisa had up to try keep her emotions in check. Claudia moved closer to Lisa and slid her arm over so that she could hug her.

Lisa cuddled her head against Claudia’s chest and let it all go. Years of painfully unrequited love showed in the tears that Lisa cried. Years of unanswered prayers that Rick would see her for the woman that she was came out in the heart wrenching sobs that went with her tears. Years of keeping her feelings to herself came out in the way she threw her arms around Claudia and hugged her tightly.

All the while, years of friendship were seen in the tears that Claudia shed for her friend, and heard in the way she promised Lisa that it would all get better…

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John wiped a tear out of his left eye with his index finger and looked at Rick. The young man was beyond devastated by what he had told him. ‘Of course he’s devastated’, thought John. ‘I would be too. Who wouldn’t be?’

John refilled Rick’s glass, as he had done twice as he told Rick about Lisa and Claudia’s emotional conversation. Rick still held the glass with his right hand and his left hand sat limply on the bar near the glass. The young man had a glazed look in his eyes, and John had seen enough alcohol induced stupors to know that alcohol was not the primary cause for it, though Rick had more than enough to sedate a small elephant. As he put the bottle back on the bar, he felt compelled to fill in the rest for the Captain.

“They stayed there like that for a time…a long time, hugging each other. Commander Grant cried silently while trying to reassure Captain Hayes…” John stopped when Rick winced at the mention of Lisa’s name. When he was sure that Rick was okay he continued. “Captain Hayes, she cried so much. In between breaths and sobs she’d ask what she’d done or say that she was sorry.” He paused to take a sip of his drink and went on. “By the time that Captain Hayes had calmed down, it was nearly two in the morning. Commander Grant took her to the washroom to get her straightened up so they could go home. She did a great job. When they came out half an hour later, Captain Hayes looked like she was ready to go on duty, though I knew she’d have a terrible headache later on.”

John took a deep breath, waiting for Rick Hunter to react to what he had told him, but there was no reaction at all. “I had taken the liberty of calling a cab for them, a cabbie I knew personally and trusted to take care of them. He was waiting outside when they came out of the washroom. I walked them to the door and opened it for them, then went ahead to open the cab door for them. Captain Hayes turned to me and I held out my hand for her to shake. She just smiled and gave me the warmest hug I think I have ever felt. She whispered a thank you to me and kissed my cheek as she pulled back. She got in the cab and Commander Grant gave me a hug as well. She thanked me and I told her that if she or the Captain needed anything, they only had to call. Commander Grant thanked me again and then asked me to do her a favor. She asked me to never talk about that night with anyone. I promised and she got in the cab. A moment later I was standing outside the Setup all by myself.” John grunted in disgust and added, “It was still bloody snowing.”

John finished off the rest of his drink and sighed. “That was the last time I saw Commander Grant. She was a special lady for sure, always pleasant and kind hearted. I miss her. I kept my promise to her, until tonight that is. I figure she wouldn’t mind you knowing now that you and Admiral Hayes are together.” He watched as Rick just sat there, looking down at the bar with eyes that were clouded with anger, fear, pain and utter shock. “I haven’t seen Admiral Hayes since then either. I kept an eye on them covertly, asking a few military people I trusted how they were doing, that is until the attack. When I heard Commander Grant didn’t make it I…well, I didn’t take it well.” John noticed Rick close his eyes tightly. “Are you okay, Captain?”

Rick didn’t hear John’s question, he just tried to keep from wanting to go outside and let a bus run him over. He was so wrapped up in trying to control his anger that he never even felt the glass finally succumb to the intense pressure he had been exerting on it. In fact the only reason he knew that anything had happened at all was John jumped up, grabbed a clean towel and put it over his hand. He still hadn’t realized what had happened even as John opened his hand and carefully started to remove the glass out of his hand. Rick slowly let his eyes drift down to his hand, only faintly aware of the stinging feeling of alcohol in the cuts in the palm of his hand, and totally dispassionate about seeing his own blood stain the towel.

John continued to clean up Rick’s hand and Rick silently watched, not knowing what to say. It was all too much. It was just too much. His mind was such a jumble that he couldn’t think clearly about anything. As soon as a thought would enter his mind and he’d try to focus on it another thought replaced it. It became a vicious cycle, with thought upon thought and feeling upon feeling overlapping, that finally reached its zenith when Rick’s mind, fearing for his emotional health shut itself down. The last thing he remembered was closing his eyes and feeling his head fall forward.

State = Continuará/To Be Continue

feedback = Sí/Yes

email = dparsnipAThotmail.com