Life and Breath Part 27
Title: Life and Breath
Author: Pink Rabbit Productions
Fandom: Guiding Light
Pairing: Olivia/Natalia
Part: 27
Date: 9 Feb, 2010
Rating: Personally, I'd call it an R, but some might consider it NC-17 at some point.
Disclaimer: The characters and situations belong to other folks far wealthier, more important (or at least with better lawyers), and hopefully more charitable and kinder than I. They include, but are not necessarily limited to CBS, Proctor and Gamble, and Telenext. The actual arrangement of words, however, remains my own as do any original characters. Meanwhile, there is likely to be all female romantic and sexual activity ahead, so if this is likely to get you, me, or anybody else arrested should you take a gander, please move along. Also, if you find that sort of thing offensive, you really probably shouldn't hang around anyplace I'm posting. Just sayin'....
Archiving: The Pink Rabbit Consortium
Spoilers: Some early scenes definitely, plus anything through the spa trip is fair game.
Timeline: Unlike some folks, I don't have an exact scene where this one takes off. However, it's definitely set after the spa trip, but before Rafe's release from the halfway house. Oh, and it's after Natalia admits she's in love with Olivia to Father Ray.
Earlier Parts: | Part 1 (Prologue) | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 |
Life and Breath
by Pink Rabbit Productions
Frank Cooper was drunk. Not falling down, on the verge of passing out drunk, but definitely deep enough in his cups that words slurred and clear thought was a challenge.
Everything hurt.
He'd thought that the realization that Natalia didn't love him would be the ultimate pain. Then he'd upgraded that to thinking it couldn't get any worse than knowing that she'd chosen yet another woman who couldn't seem to find it in her to love him over him.
But no, the universe had seen fit one more time to use him as its personal whipping boy.
Because now he wasn't just the thrown aside, unwanted lover, he was the fucking idiot who'd thought it was even possible she might have even looked at him twice. At least before he'd been able to fantasize that she cared for him, that if not for Olivia she would have loved him.
Now he didn't even have that much.
Now he was just the way she'd entertained herself before going after her real target. And it wasn't even the pleasure of his company she'd doubtless found entertaining, but rather the joy of making a fool of him.
He wondered if she'd laughed over his stupidity. A vision flashed in his head of that innocent face and laugh, only now it had a wicked cast and a demented timbre.
Teeth gritted, he slammed his hand into the steering wheel of his police issue, unmarked car, that even the biggest idiots in Springfield could see coming a mile off.
The leather binding had long since unraveled, leaving only unpadded plastic with sharp ridges that bruised his palm. He flinched at the pain, then slammed again, hoping maybe one hurt would drive the other out, but like the alcohol, it did nothing to dull the agony.
Another slam, this time hard enough to rattle the dashboard and dislodge the small tape recorder balanced precariously on the smooth plastic.
Frank scrambled, trying to catch it, but slowed by drink, his grab was clumsy and it clattered to the floor, landing on the play switch as it hit.
Suddenly the sedan was filled with the tinny sounds of a phone ringing-the call he'd made the night before-and he found himself clawing at the threat of tears as he remembered how he'd gotten to this point.
He'd thought he was over any hope, but it was humiliating to realize that there'd still been some tiny hidden core of him that couldn't believe she was so rotted, that was sure there'd been a mistake. She couldn't possibly be the creature that Marino described, some foul whore who'd do anything for even a scrap of money. It wasn't possible that he could have been so wrong.
Barron had seen it though, his tone sympathetic when he returned Frank's call. He'd been silent as Frank explained how he'd found Natalia's former employer and how he'd learned that she'd seduced the man, then stolen him blind. Frank had tried to play it cold and formal, the utterly objective cop faced with bringing down a hardened criminal, but he'd been hunting for a way to deny Marino's information, adding provisos that he had no outside proof and commenting that the bar owner seemed like a sleaze.
When Barron finally spoke, he'd gently said, "You still don't believe it, do you?"
Frank had been forced to admit, he couldn't quite. There'd been something so off about Marino. He'd been thrown at first, but as he'd thought about it, he'd resisted the mental image of Natalia ever letting that pig touch her and ten grand sounded like more than that bar could take in in a month, much less how much would be sitting in an easily accessed cash register or safe.
"Y'know, from what you've said, Natalia Rivera...the real one..." Barron had continued carefully, his tone low and oddly soothing, "...she probably still has family...parents or something. Maybe you could contact them and find out something...even get a picture."
Frank remembered shaking his head, resisting the idea.
"Her parents threw her out when she got pregnant at sixteen. I don't think she's talked to them in years."
"Assuming she really is really Natalia Rivera..." Barron had pointed out practically. "...and that's not just a cover story to keep anyone from looking into her past."
Frank had been forced to admit the other man had a point, one that had stuck with him, hanging in his mind long after they'd hung up.
It had stuck with him so thoroughly that when his flight arrived back in Springfield, rather than going home and getting some much-needed sleep, he'd gone back to the station and accessed the police computers. With easy access to government databases, it was simple enough to use the social security number on file at Company to track down the real Natalia Rivera's parents. Easier still to get a phone number.
Making the call, that had been the hard part, and not just because it was later than was usually considered acceptable for making cold calls.
It was hard to think of calling her family, hard to take the risk when there was no good answer, only bad and worse.
But he'd done it, dialing the Chicago number with shaking hands, silently hoping no one would pick up even as he mentally rehearsed what to say.
In the background, he heard the recording click as the phone was picked up, then his own voice as he hurriedly introduced himself and apologized for calling so late. God, did he really sound like that, so freaking pathetic and scared? Then a woman, her voice hesitant and faintly accented.
"Detective?" she questioned, sounding confused and a little frightened. "Why would you be calling here?"
Frank could hear the fear in his voice even through the tiny recorder speaker. Thick and cloying, it made him cringe with shame as he heard the way he'd mumbled and stammered his way through the call. "I'm...uh...working on a case...and I was wondering if you've heard from your daughter, Natalia, recently...or if you could perhaps send a picture? I can give you an email address."
The recorder scratched its way through the long pause that followed, then the tape hiss was broken by the disbelieving question. "Is this some kind of joke?"
As he listened to the woman's voice, he cringed at the disbelief and pain in her voice and the stammering weakness he heard in his response.
"No, Ma'am, she's involved in a case and I just-"
"I don't know who you're looking for, Detective, but it's certainly not my daughter-"
"Ma'am, I assure you, I-"
The fear and pain disappeared from that softly accented voice, replaced by hard anger. "My daughter is dead, Detective. She died nearly ten years ago...a drug addicted prostitute in Tucson, Arizona...so whatever your case is, I sincerely doubt she has anything to do with it."
Frank finally got his hand on the small tape recorder as he heard himself falling all over himself in an attempt to apologize, while still clearly flustered and not really processing what she'd said.
"I'm sorry, I...I didn't...but her son, can you-"
"Now I know this is a sick joke," the woman spat. "Don't ever call here again." She slammed the phone down hard, the sound loud and echoey inside the car.
He finally fumbled the recorder off as the sound of a dial tone echoed through the small speaker.
"Shit." The hissed obscenity did no more to release the poison in his soul than slamming his hand into the steering wheel had.
No questions now. No room left for doubt. The thing he'd simultaneously longed-for, feared, loathed, and raged against was true.
Natalia Rivera really was dead.
The file that had started it all had it right. The woman was long dead, her life destroyed by sex and drugs, her body interred in a pauper's grave. There was no child, no baby to adore, and no young man to inherit.
All there was Emily Sotero and her handsome young lover and Olivia Spencer, finally the victim of someone even more cold-blooded and dishonest with her body than she was. It would almost have been funny if it weren't so fucking pathetic. The town man-eater had finally been brought down...
By an even bigger man-eater.
He had a sudden vision of a comic strip he'd seen once of progressively larger fish eating each other.
In that moment, Frank could almost find the humor of the situation.
Almost.
Unfortunately, he was the smallest little guppy in the line. Nobody for him to fucking eat, and he wasn't even much of a bite. Probably just spit him back out, un-fucking-wanted.
But he was also a good little guppy, and no matter how tempting it might be, he couldn't just walk away.
He had to tell Olivia the score.
He had a sudden vision of the tiniest fish turning and swimming straight into a bigger fish's mouth. The most he could hope to do was give her a little indigestion.
Because the only thing that offered him the tiniest bit of comfort was the notion that once he told her the truth, she'd have some pretty nauseous moments of her own. And if there was a certain satisfaction to be had in the notion of breaking her heart the way she'd broken his, well, he had a right to his bit of schadenfreude after everything she'd pulled over the years.
Maybe he'd finally be able to see the humor when Olivia knew she'd been played for the fool this time.
He snorted softly, a bitter smirk twisting his mouth.
Hell, maybe he'd get really lucky, and La Spencer would go on the warpath. Those two bitches going down with their hands around each other's throats would go a long way toward salving his wounds. That would definitely be worth seeing.
But for now....
He scrambled ungracefully out of the car, leaning heavily against the side of the sedan as he inhaled the cool morning air in an effort to clear his head and wash away some of the alcohol smell. He stuffed the recorder in his coat pocket and grabbed a manilla folder off the passenger's seat.
For now, he had to talk to Olivia.
The guppy had to do his duty.
He barely tamped down the urge to snap his heels together and offer a drunken salute.
Looking around, he noted the very beginnings of dawn on the horizon. Good plan, he thought proudly. Catch her when she was half asleep and he could get a word in edgewise. For all of her seeming confidence, Olivia had plenty of insecurities. He just had to hit those quick to make her listen.
After all, if Natalia Rivera couldn't love him, a man who was, by rights, everything she was looking for-decent, honest, a good father, and an admired pillar of the community-what were the chances of her loving a woman like Olivia Spencer, who'd debased herself, lied, cheated, abused, and manipulated everyone around her for fun and profit. Even without the obvious gender issues, Olivia shouldn't have been anywhere on a good church goer's list of appropriate possible mates.
Olivia might fight it, but she knew her own history better than anyone. She had to know it made no sense for a good and decent person to want to be with her.
Unless the good and decent wasn't really so good and was ready to use the indecent to get her way.
Yeah, Olivia would see it. She didn't do trust. He was certain he could reach her and make her see the truth of Natalia. Just had to say it right.
Running through the speech in his head, he started toward the front entrance of the Beacon, careful to keep his step sure and authoritative despite any drunken tendency to stumble.
Time to get this done...
* * * * * *
TBC
Author: Pink Rabbit Productions
Fandom: Guiding Light
Pairing: Olivia/Natalia
Part: 27
Date: 9 Feb, 2010
Rating: Personally, I'd call it an R, but some might consider it NC-17 at some point.
Disclaimer: The characters and situations belong to other folks far wealthier, more important (or at least with better lawyers), and hopefully more charitable and kinder than I. They include, but are not necessarily limited to CBS, Proctor and Gamble, and Telenext. The actual arrangement of words, however, remains my own as do any original characters. Meanwhile, there is likely to be all female romantic and sexual activity ahead, so if this is likely to get you, me, or anybody else arrested should you take a gander, please move along. Also, if you find that sort of thing offensive, you really probably shouldn't hang around anyplace I'm posting. Just sayin'....
Archiving: The Pink Rabbit Consortium
Spoilers: Some early scenes definitely, plus anything through the spa trip is fair game.
Timeline: Unlike some folks, I don't have an exact scene where this one takes off. However, it's definitely set after the spa trip, but before Rafe's release from the halfway house. Oh, and it's after Natalia admits she's in love with Olivia to Father Ray.
Earlier Parts: | Part 1 (Prologue) | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 |
Life and Breath
by Pink Rabbit Productions
Frank Cooper was drunk. Not falling down, on the verge of passing out drunk, but definitely deep enough in his cups that words slurred and clear thought was a challenge.
Everything hurt.
He'd thought that the realization that Natalia didn't love him would be the ultimate pain. Then he'd upgraded that to thinking it couldn't get any worse than knowing that she'd chosen yet another woman who couldn't seem to find it in her to love him over him.
But no, the universe had seen fit one more time to use him as its personal whipping boy.
Because now he wasn't just the thrown aside, unwanted lover, he was the fucking idiot who'd thought it was even possible she might have even looked at him twice. At least before he'd been able to fantasize that she cared for him, that if not for Olivia she would have loved him.
Now he didn't even have that much.
Now he was just the way she'd entertained herself before going after her real target. And it wasn't even the pleasure of his company she'd doubtless found entertaining, but rather the joy of making a fool of him.
He wondered if she'd laughed over his stupidity. A vision flashed in his head of that innocent face and laugh, only now it had a wicked cast and a demented timbre.
Teeth gritted, he slammed his hand into the steering wheel of his police issue, unmarked car, that even the biggest idiots in Springfield could see coming a mile off.
The leather binding had long since unraveled, leaving only unpadded plastic with sharp ridges that bruised his palm. He flinched at the pain, then slammed again, hoping maybe one hurt would drive the other out, but like the alcohol, it did nothing to dull the agony.
Another slam, this time hard enough to rattle the dashboard and dislodge the small tape recorder balanced precariously on the smooth plastic.
Frank scrambled, trying to catch it, but slowed by drink, his grab was clumsy and it clattered to the floor, landing on the play switch as it hit.
Suddenly the sedan was filled with the tinny sounds of a phone ringing-the call he'd made the night before-and he found himself clawing at the threat of tears as he remembered how he'd gotten to this point.
He'd thought he was over any hope, but it was humiliating to realize that there'd still been some tiny hidden core of him that couldn't believe she was so rotted, that was sure there'd been a mistake. She couldn't possibly be the creature that Marino described, some foul whore who'd do anything for even a scrap of money. It wasn't possible that he could have been so wrong.
Barron had seen it though, his tone sympathetic when he returned Frank's call. He'd been silent as Frank explained how he'd found Natalia's former employer and how he'd learned that she'd seduced the man, then stolen him blind. Frank had tried to play it cold and formal, the utterly objective cop faced with bringing down a hardened criminal, but he'd been hunting for a way to deny Marino's information, adding provisos that he had no outside proof and commenting that the bar owner seemed like a sleaze.
When Barron finally spoke, he'd gently said, "You still don't believe it, do you?"
Frank had been forced to admit, he couldn't quite. There'd been something so off about Marino. He'd been thrown at first, but as he'd thought about it, he'd resisted the mental image of Natalia ever letting that pig touch her and ten grand sounded like more than that bar could take in in a month, much less how much would be sitting in an easily accessed cash register or safe.
"Y'know, from what you've said, Natalia Rivera...the real one..." Barron had continued carefully, his tone low and oddly soothing, "...she probably still has family...parents or something. Maybe you could contact them and find out something...even get a picture."
Frank remembered shaking his head, resisting the idea.
"Her parents threw her out when she got pregnant at sixteen. I don't think she's talked to them in years."
"Assuming she really is really Natalia Rivera..." Barron had pointed out practically. "...and that's not just a cover story to keep anyone from looking into her past."
Frank had been forced to admit the other man had a point, one that had stuck with him, hanging in his mind long after they'd hung up.
It had stuck with him so thoroughly that when his flight arrived back in Springfield, rather than going home and getting some much-needed sleep, he'd gone back to the station and accessed the police computers. With easy access to government databases, it was simple enough to use the social security number on file at Company to track down the real Natalia Rivera's parents. Easier still to get a phone number.
Making the call, that had been the hard part, and not just because it was later than was usually considered acceptable for making cold calls.
It was hard to think of calling her family, hard to take the risk when there was no good answer, only bad and worse.
But he'd done it, dialing the Chicago number with shaking hands, silently hoping no one would pick up even as he mentally rehearsed what to say.
In the background, he heard the recording click as the phone was picked up, then his own voice as he hurriedly introduced himself and apologized for calling so late. God, did he really sound like that, so freaking pathetic and scared? Then a woman, her voice hesitant and faintly accented.
"Detective?" she questioned, sounding confused and a little frightened. "Why would you be calling here?"
Frank could hear the fear in his voice even through the tiny recorder speaker. Thick and cloying, it made him cringe with shame as he heard the way he'd mumbled and stammered his way through the call. "I'm...uh...working on a case...and I was wondering if you've heard from your daughter, Natalia, recently...or if you could perhaps send a picture? I can give you an email address."
The recorder scratched its way through the long pause that followed, then the tape hiss was broken by the disbelieving question. "Is this some kind of joke?"
As he listened to the woman's voice, he cringed at the disbelief and pain in her voice and the stammering weakness he heard in his response.
"No, Ma'am, she's involved in a case and I just-"
"I don't know who you're looking for, Detective, but it's certainly not my daughter-"
"Ma'am, I assure you, I-"
The fear and pain disappeared from that softly accented voice, replaced by hard anger. "My daughter is dead, Detective. She died nearly ten years ago...a drug addicted prostitute in Tucson, Arizona...so whatever your case is, I sincerely doubt she has anything to do with it."
Frank finally got his hand on the small tape recorder as he heard himself falling all over himself in an attempt to apologize, while still clearly flustered and not really processing what she'd said.
"I'm sorry, I...I didn't...but her son, can you-"
"Now I know this is a sick joke," the woman spat. "Don't ever call here again." She slammed the phone down hard, the sound loud and echoey inside the car.
He finally fumbled the recorder off as the sound of a dial tone echoed through the small speaker.
"Shit." The hissed obscenity did no more to release the poison in his soul than slamming his hand into the steering wheel had.
No questions now. No room left for doubt. The thing he'd simultaneously longed-for, feared, loathed, and raged against was true.
Natalia Rivera really was dead.
The file that had started it all had it right. The woman was long dead, her life destroyed by sex and drugs, her body interred in a pauper's grave. There was no child, no baby to adore, and no young man to inherit.
All there was Emily Sotero and her handsome young lover and Olivia Spencer, finally the victim of someone even more cold-blooded and dishonest with her body than she was. It would almost have been funny if it weren't so fucking pathetic. The town man-eater had finally been brought down...
By an even bigger man-eater.
He had a sudden vision of a comic strip he'd seen once of progressively larger fish eating each other.
In that moment, Frank could almost find the humor of the situation.
Almost.
Unfortunately, he was the smallest little guppy in the line. Nobody for him to fucking eat, and he wasn't even much of a bite. Probably just spit him back out, un-fucking-wanted.
But he was also a good little guppy, and no matter how tempting it might be, he couldn't just walk away.
He had to tell Olivia the score.
He had a sudden vision of the tiniest fish turning and swimming straight into a bigger fish's mouth. The most he could hope to do was give her a little indigestion.
Because the only thing that offered him the tiniest bit of comfort was the notion that once he told her the truth, she'd have some pretty nauseous moments of her own. And if there was a certain satisfaction to be had in the notion of breaking her heart the way she'd broken his, well, he had a right to his bit of schadenfreude after everything she'd pulled over the years.
Maybe he'd finally be able to see the humor when Olivia knew she'd been played for the fool this time.
He snorted softly, a bitter smirk twisting his mouth.
Hell, maybe he'd get really lucky, and La Spencer would go on the warpath. Those two bitches going down with their hands around each other's throats would go a long way toward salving his wounds. That would definitely be worth seeing.
But for now....
He scrambled ungracefully out of the car, leaning heavily against the side of the sedan as he inhaled the cool morning air in an effort to clear his head and wash away some of the alcohol smell. He stuffed the recorder in his coat pocket and grabbed a manilla folder off the passenger's seat.
For now, he had to talk to Olivia.
The guppy had to do his duty.
He barely tamped down the urge to snap his heels together and offer a drunken salute.
Looking around, he noted the very beginnings of dawn on the horizon. Good plan, he thought proudly. Catch her when she was half asleep and he could get a word in edgewise. For all of her seeming confidence, Olivia had plenty of insecurities. He just had to hit those quick to make her listen.
After all, if Natalia Rivera couldn't love him, a man who was, by rights, everything she was looking for-decent, honest, a good father, and an admired pillar of the community-what were the chances of her loving a woman like Olivia Spencer, who'd debased herself, lied, cheated, abused, and manipulated everyone around her for fun and profit. Even without the obvious gender issues, Olivia shouldn't have been anywhere on a good church goer's list of appropriate possible mates.
Olivia might fight it, but she knew her own history better than anyone. She had to know it made no sense for a good and decent person to want to be with her.
Unless the good and decent wasn't really so good and was ready to use the indecent to get her way.
Yeah, Olivia would see it. She didn't do trust. He was certain he could reach her and make her see the truth of Natalia. Just had to say it right.
Running through the speech in his head, he started toward the front entrance of the Beacon, careful to keep his step sure and authoritative despite any drunken tendency to stumble.
Time to get this done...
* * * * * *
TBC