Otalia - Heroes & Friends, 6/?
To those who are reading and commenting, thank you! Comments are writer's crack, seriously. It makes me want to keep going.
On with the fic...
Title: Heroes and Friends
Fandom: Otalia
Rating: Mostly PG-13, eventual NC-17 for sex and violence (Not between our girls though…the violence that is…promise. The other? Well…teehee).
Disclaimer: These wonderful ladies and the rest of the town belong to CBS, Telenext, and P&G. I’m just having some fun with them.
Spoilers: I don’t think so. This story picks up at the “no more waiting” gazebo scene and goes off canon.
Summary: Nat gets the shock of her life and it turns Liv’s world upside down.
Warning: Not beta’d so if it sucks, there’s only me to blame.
Chapter 6
Josh ran his hands through his hair as he paced in the kitchen, “Edmund…are you sure?”
Olivia turned from the sink where she had washed her hand and was now putting medicine on her injured palm. She motioned with her head to the small lapel pin sitting on the kitchen table.
“You were there too. You know what the crest looks like. Does it look legit to you?”
“Pretty damn, legit.”
She tossed the bloody piece of cotton into the garbage and replaced the medicine in the cabinet before turning back to Josh.
“Who else could it be but Edmund? Richard’s dead, so…”
“Yeah, yeah. You’re right. I know you’re right. This is just too crazy. I thought Edmund was dead.”
“Guess he wasn’t. From the looks of all the belongings left in the barn loft, he’s been hiding there a while.” She shivered, getting a creepy feeling running up her spine just knowing he had been so close to Natalia all that time, probably even watching her coming and going from the house. She thought about anything else he may have seen, sneaking around the house, and it made her blood boil.
“So, what are we going to do?” Olivia crossed her arms.
Josh spun and looked at her, “We?”
“Yeah, we. I’m going to find her.”
“Find her! Olivia, you have no idea even where he’s taken her, and besides, it’s too dangerous. What if you do find her…and him? What then?”
She banged on the counter, “I’ll kill the bastard! That’s what I’ll do.”
“Not if he kills you first,” Josh muttered and Olivia fought back tears. “We’ll tell Frank. Now that you have evidence, we can let them take care of it. They need to know Edmund’s alive anyway.”
She shook her head, “No. They couldn’t find their own asses with both hands. No, I can’t trust Natalia’s life to those incompetent losers. Look, I’m doing this, and you can help me or not, and I don’t blame you if you won’t. But I’m doing this.”
His shoulders fell and he flopped down into one of the kitchen chairs, “Fine. So where do we start?”
“The storage room at the Beacon,” he looked at her strangely. “That’s where I stored some drawings of the grounds of the castle on San Cristobel, and I’d be willing to bet the Beacon that’s where he took her.”
Josh grabbed up his keys, “Let’s go then.”
************
An hour later, they had the drawings of the grounds spread out over Olivia’s bed. Josh studied and searched for external entrances into the castle, making notes here and there. Olivia stood over his shoulder making comments about things she remembered, secret passages and good hiding spots. She racked her brain trying to think of good places someone could be hidden. Occasionally, she’d point to a spot and comment, and Josh would make a note on the paper.
She finally looked at her watch, “Oh, it’s almost 4 o’clock. I need to get Emma, and I need to stop by Phillip’s on the way. Can you…?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll keep up the search here.”
“Thanks!” She gave him a kiss on his stubbly cheek and left.
Fifteen minutes later, she pulled up to the Spaulding estate and knocked on the door. Hilda let her in and went to find Phillip.
“Olivia! It’s good to see you. Are you…is everything okay?” He noticed how she fidgeted even standing still and knew something was up. “Is Emma okay?”
“Emma’s fine, but it is about her…about all of us, really.”
He chuckled a little, “Oookkkaayy.”
“Can we sit? We really need to talk about something.”
“Sure!” They sat down on the ornate and terribly uncomfortable sofa in his study. She turned to him, thinking about the best way to say this.
“Um, I don’t really know how to say this, so I’m just going to say it. I think Natalia’s been kidnapped. No, no…I know she has and I’m going to find her.”
Phillip shook his head, unbelieving, “What? How…when?”
“Before the barbeque, I think. She never showed up, just disappeared, but there’s evidence to suggest she has been kidnapped…by Edmund.”
“Oh my God…but I thought Edmund was dead.”
Olivia scoffed, “As if that means anything in this town!”
He nodded his head, “Don’t I know it! What about the police? Shouldn’t they be going after him?”
“They’re useless. I’ve tried to convince Frank of what happened, and he won’t listen. I think he’s just enjoying me being in pain.” She sighed and rubbed at the bridge of her nose. “I just can’t let anything happen to her, and I can’t sit waiting for someone else to do their job. I also found out from Rick that she’s very sick. She has diabetes, and she’s not aware of it. No telling if Edmund’s even feeding her, if he hasn’t already killed her. I can’t take that chance. I just…”
Tears welled up in her eyes and she stood, turning away from Phillip. She brushed away the tears as he came up behind her and turned her around to hug her. At first she was stiff and cautious, but eventually it all became too much and she started crying again. If it hadn’t been for Natalia, he’d probably be dead right now and she’d be in jail for his murder. Instead, because of Natalia, she about to do something she never thought she’d do.
She pulled back from him and looked him in the eye, “You have to make me a promise, Phillip. If neither Natalia nor I come back, I want you to raise Emma, but please, whatever you do, do NOT let Alan get his claws in her. Promise me.”
He didn’t know what to say, except what was without question, “I’d kill him before I’d let Alan hurt her.”
She hugged him again then, “Thank you.”
“But you have to know something before you fully commit to this.”
She sighed and stepped away from him, knowing anything with Phillip couldn’t come without conditions, “What?”
“I’m…I’m not well either. In fact, I’ve got an incurable disease. I only have a few months.”
She looked at him incredulous, “What?”
“Nobody knows, except Ed Bauer and now you,” she sat back down, heavily, on the sofa, trying to wrap her head around the situation. “It’s ironic you’d mention custody. I talked to Mel and had her draw up some papers giving Natalia my parental rights. When she didn’t show up at the barbeque, I just assumed you two broke up so I didn’t say anything.”
“This is…that’s…God, Phillip, this is too much!”
“I know,” he sat back down next to her and took her hand, “The bigger question though now is what happens to Emma if none of us make it out of this alive?”
She looked at him, tears on the verge of fallng, “I have no idea.”
“I think I do.”
****************
Ten minutes later, Olivia hung up her phone and turned to look at Phillip.
“Mel will be over at the Beacon with the paperwork ready later this evening. I told her to come late so Emma would be asleep. I don’t want her knowing about this.”
“Ava’s a good option.”
She nodded her head, “Better than Sam. I love my brother but he’s always up and moving all the time. At least Ava’s more settled.”
She ran her fingers through her hair and blew out a frustrated breath, “I can’t believe all of this is happening. Natalia’s kidnapped. Edmund’s alive. You’re dying.”
He laughed, “Feels like we’re stuck in a crazy soap opera, huh?”
“At least in soaps, no one’s ever really dead.” She looked at him sadly, remembering all the good and definitely not good times. “I’m sorry for acting so horrible to you, especially when you came back.”
Phillip had finally told Olivia about Alan being the one to stalk and torment her, all the while pretending it was him. Olivia was furious at Alan but disappointed in herself. She had spent so much of her life assuming the worst in people, and this time her bad habits and the need to protect herself from hurt had pulled Emma away from her father, a father that was now going to die. She fought back the tears again, hating herself for causing Emma to lose this time she’d never get back with Phillip.
He raised his hand, “Don’t. You were protecting Emma, and for that, I’m grateful.”
She threw her hands up, “And now it’s your turn. At least you’ll get to spend plenty of quality time with her while I take care of this.”
He shrugged his shoulders, “It’ll never be enough time.”
“No…no, it won’t.”
******************
When she pulled up to the building of Emma’s day camp, she felt the conflicting emotions of elation and sadness warring inside her. She was excited to see her bubbly little girl, but she feared this could be the last time she’d have with her. She was torn. Part of her knew this was madness to go searching for Natalia with no one but Josh on her side. She put everything at risk, herself and Natalia, and it could leave Emma without any parents at all. The other part of her couldn’t fathom not going to find the woman she loved and bring her home so they could all finally be a family together, the way it was meant to be. It was that feeling that stuck with her. The rightness of their home and family that convinced her that they’d all get through this alive. They had to because if they didn’t, then the rightness she felt now would never be.
She let out a heavy sigh, put on her best game face, and walked to the door to get Emma. All she had to do was get through the next few hours.
“Mommy!!!!” Emma came barreling out of the back room with all kinds of arts and crafts in her hand.
Olivia picked her up and propped her on her hip with practiced ease, “Hey Bean! Whatcha got there?”
“We made ducks out of popsicle sticks! Do you like it?”
She tweaked her daughter’s nose, earning a giggle, “What is it with you and ducks,huh? What about the picture that Uncle Josh brought you?”
“Oh, we didn’t get to that today. We’ll do it tomorrow.”
“Oh, okay. You ready to go?”
“Yep!”
“Cool beanies. Let’s jet, kiddo!”
Once they were settled in the car and on the road, Olivia peeked at her smiling daughter in the rearview mirror. She never prayed, but at that moment, she took a lesson from Natalia and asked God to always let her be this happy…and she made sure to tack on to keep her safe too. God knows what she would have done if Emma had wandered into that barn and ran across Edmund! She shuttered just thinking about it.
“So, baby, what do you want for dinner tonight? Pizza or burgers, and we can have ice cream after we watch a movie?”
“Ohhhh, pizza…definitely pizza! But why movie night tonight? We usually don’t have one during the week, only the weekends.” Her daughter quizzed.
“Well, tonight’s special because I have to leave in the morning to take care of some big, important business, and I won’t be here this weekend.”
“Oh…where will you be?”
Olivia hesitated, not really prepared for a full-blown lie, and eventually picked something Emma wouldn’t think much of, “The Catskill Mountains in upstate New York. There’s an old, historic building that’s been renovated and looks like it would make a great hotel. I was thinking about expanding there.”
Emma shrugged, not really caring about grown up work stuff, “Oh, okay.”
“The good news is that you’ll get to stay with your daddy for a while. What do you think about that?”
“Yayyyyy!!!!” Emma did a happy dance in her seat and Olivia laughed at her antics, thankful that this part of the plan was going off without a hitch.
Olivia carefully pulled out her phone, “Hey Bean, what do you think about Uncle Josh joining us for pizza?”
“Sounds good to me. Wish it was Natalia though. I miss her.”
Olivia swallowed and hit the speed dial button, “I do too, baby.” Several rings later, she heard the familiar, flirty tones of Josh drifting across the line, “Hey! We’re on our way. Think you can put away work for a little while, you know…hide it, and maybe join Emma and I for pizza and a movie? Okay, great! See you then.”
“He said he’d be thrilled to have two beautiful ladies as his dinner dates.” Emma giggled, making her smile.
When they arrived at the Beacon, she shuffled Emma off to the bathroom to wash up, while she called for pizza, and right on cue, there was a knock on the door.
“Well, long time, no see.”
Josh poked his head around, looking for Emma, “She’s in the bathroom.”
“Oh, good. Everything’s hidden in the closet, very appropriate don’t ya think, so don’t let her go in there. How did things go with Phillip?”
She closed the door behind him, “Oh great! The custody talk went off without a hitch, except he’s…” she looked around to make sure water was still running in the bathroom, “dying.”
“What? Really?”
“Yeah, that kind of threw a kink in the plan, but Mel’s coming by later with some paperwork, long after Emma will be in bed so she’ll know nothing about it.” She touched her hand to his, “We’ll talk more after she’s in bed.”
Josh was still a bit shell-shocked but nodded, “Yeah, sure.”
*****************
Natalia struggled to open her eyes. She felt like she had been sleeping for days and probably had. With no light and no windows, she had no idea if it was day or night, and she had lost track of the days. For a while, she had gauged how long she had been there by the number of plates of food that had been passed through her door, but at one point she knew she slept through some of the meals. All she had heard was the scraping of metal on concrete, but it felt like her whole body was full of lead, making her unable to move.
Suddenly, the door to her prison flew open and a bright light blinded her. Almost as quickly her world went dark again as a cover was put over her head and she was roughly pulled up and out of the room. The slightly fresher air was a relief from the pungence of her own quarters and she took it in deeply.
She wasn’t sure where she was being taken, and she tried to make sense of taking lefts or rights and how many steps she walked. Unfortunately, she was being moved so fast and her reflexes were so stunted that she couldn’t keep up. Wherever she was going, she was tripping over debris in the way and once she fell and scraped her thigh deeply.
Eventually, the movement stopped and she was forced to sit in a chair. Her hands were roughly bound behind her. Then a door screeched open and closed again. A long silence followed.
“Hello?”
Nothing.