No Other One, Chapter 58
Title: No Other One, Chapter 58
Author: Duckie Nicks
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Yelina Salas, Horatio Caine, the whole Caine family
Author's Note: WARNING: SPOILER FOR SEASON 6.
Summary: Almost two decades ago, Horatio made a decision that would change his family forever. Will they ever forgive him? Will he ever tell Yelina how he feels? This is an alternative to the beginning of season 6. A Horatio and Kyle story; H/Y romance in the future.
Previous Chapters: Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 20, Chapter 21, Chapter 22, Chapter 23, Chapter 24, Chapter 25, Chapter 26, Chapter 27, Chapter 28, Chapter 29, Chapter 30, Chapter 31, Chapter 32, Chapter 33, Chapter 34, Chapter 35, Chapter 36, Chapter 37, Chapter 38, Chapter 39, Chapter 40, Chapter 41, Chapter 42, Chapter 43, Chapter 44, Chapter 45, Chapter 46, Chapter 47, Chapter 48, Chapter 49, Chapter 50, Chapter 51, Chapter 52, Chapter 53, Chapter 54, Chapter 55, Chapter 56, and Chapter 57.
Disclaimer: I don't own the show.
“Although every man believes that his decisions and resolutions involve the most multifarious factors, in reality they are mere oscillation between flight and longing.” - Herman Broch
She was both warm and cold, flat on her back with just the thinnest sheet rumpled around her waist. Her hair was… everywhere, curls tickling her cheeks, irritating the back of her neck, and tangling along the swells of her breasts. A leg slung over Rick’s thigh, she could feel one of his rough hands occasionally stroking the soft bit of flesh. His fingertips warm and gentle, it was almost enough to keep the reality of the situation at bay.
But not quite, because, even as she tried not to think about what had happened, it was slowly seeping into her consciousness, into her bones like cold air creeping past thin cracks in a doorway. The chill one she could barely ignore, it took all of her effort not to think about Horatio and Kyle, Ray Junior and what he had done.
And what she had now done.
Yelina intently refocused her gaze on the ceiling. Rick had repainted his bedroom since she had been in it last. No longer the gold and tan tones she remembered, the walls and ceiling had been coated with a brilliant blue color that made her feel as though she were in the belly of a peacock.
Noticing that her gaze was traveling the length of the ceiling, Rick asked, “You like the new color?”
From her peripheral view, she could see him cock his head to the walls. The gesture flowing neatly into the motion of Rick sitting up, he reached towards the nightstand. Grabbing his bright green lighter and a cigarette from the red and white pack, he silently lit up.
“Hmm,” she finally commented in a non-committal tone. “It’s nice.” But in truth, Yelina wasn’t particularly a fan of the shade. Too dark and ominous, it made her feel trapped in the room… although she couldn’t deny that that feeling might have had other origins.
With a distinct click of metal against metal, Rick lit the cigarette wedged between his fingers. A curl of grayish white smoke lazily circling up towards the ceiling, Yelina watched it intently. But even with her gaze elsewhere, she was sure Rick was smirking. “You hate it,” he said knowingly, taking a deep pull from the cigarette.
She shrugged. “It’s very… you.”
In a smoky haze, he let out a throaty, good-natured laugh. “Like I said, Ellie, you hate it.”
Yelina scowled as she turned her head to look at him. “I hate that name, and - ”
“It’s a good name,” he interrupted. “It suits you.”
“No, it really doesn’t.” Her voice was low, her words heavily accented out of annoyance. “It’s a bad name, and I don’t like it. And I don’t like that cigarette,” she added peevishly. “Pulling one out after we’ve had sex makes this seem incredibly… tawdry, and I’m not a fan.”
As if to annoy her further, Stetler exhaled in her direction, making her imagine that the smoke was clinging to her hair. “Baby,” he pointed out in all seriousness. “You come here in the middle of the day with a black eye and a pick up line that any whore on the street corner would have used. I’m pretty sure that, in the scheme of things, my cigarette is hardly a factor.”
She could hardly argue with that.
By her own standards… this was nothing short of trashy. Unladylike in the basest of ways, what she had done was hardly something she could defend. Because, as upset as she was, as horrified by Ray Junior as she was, Yelina couldn’t help but feel that Stetler was right; she’d come here, maybe not knowingly wanting sex, but there’d been no hesitation, no resistance on her part. She’d come to him wanting to escape what had happened, and perhaps that was defense enough. But…
In the process, she could only think that she had acted like a whore.
And now every ounce of her screamed:
Whore.
It was so easy to believe that, Yelina realized. She smelled like him, his sweat having combined with her own and the proof that they hadn’t used a condom wet against her skin. She still felt him, felt what he had done anyways; he’d taken the idea of marking her to heart. And their penchant for screwing one another as hard as they could had pushed the boundaries between them further. Her wrists beginning to bruise from where he’d gripped her as tightly as he could, a litany of teeth marks just starting to darken against her sweaty skin - she could wash him off of her, but she would live with those marks for days.
And regardless of sweat and bruises… there was something deep inside of her that made Yelina feel like the race horses her husband used to bet on. He had a thing for the most inexperienced ones, his affinity for them something she’d never understood - especially when they broke down from the stress so frequently. Ridden hard and then euthanized on the track, they came to mind as she lay next to Rick.
Her mood more than likely visibly faltering, it was enough for Stetler to turn and put the cigarette out. “Aw, come on now, don’t act like that,” he half-teased, half-begged. A hand quickly running through her hair, he moved closer to her, pressed a soft kiss to the strong line of her jaw. “I put it out.”
Frowning Yelina rolled her eyes. “I don’t like the smell, Rick. But more importantly, one of these days, you’re going to fall asleep with a cigarette in your hand.” Her voice sounded tight with emotion, although for reasons that had nothing to do with the idea that he might catch on fire and die at some point in his life. Her mind still focused on what she had done, on what she was doing by being here, it was impossible to keep the unhappy feeling out of her words.
Misreading what she was feeling, Stetler pulled her closer to him. His lips brushed up against her ear as he spoke quietly, “You’re a good girl, you know that?” The condescending compliment made her feel nauseous. “It’s nice to think that if I torch myself to death, you’d be a little sad about it.”
Her eyes, dark and stony, slid over to meet his. “If you die because you set your bed on fire, I will seriously consider spitting on your grave,” she told him sincerely.
He shrugged, his hand moving under the sheet to skim across her hip. “Still means you care, which is nice to know.”
In response she rolled her eyes. “Only you would confuse anger for affection.”
“Baby, I’m sure that argument would have a lot more weight if you hadn’t come here and slept with me,” Rick pointed out.
“I had sex with you,” Yelina argued lightly, as though that somehow disproved his point. Although maybe it did, she considered with a sigh. If she really were a morally bankrupt person for doing this, then she might as well say that she could have sex without any affection or feeling. True or not, it fit in with her actions. And in a moment of brazenness, she lamented, “Thankfully that only requires me to like one very specific part of you.”
Rick smirked into her shoulder before planting a harsh kiss on the expanse of skin. Drumming his fingers along her hipbone, he teased, “Pretty sure there were other parts you liked as well.”
She bit down on her lower lip to stop herself from commenting. As much as she might like to fight the remark, there was no way she could. The conversation was headed, if not already there, into lewd territory, and if she contradicted him, Stetler would have no qualms about proving just how useful his hands and mouth could be.
So she stayed quiet. Her lips pursed together, Yelina truly despised the idea of letting him think he’d won. But she really didn’t have any other choice.
And true to form, he smiled widely in reaction. “My, my. You’re not fighting me on this. Yelina Salas, I think you’re actually agreeing with me.”
“Hardly.”
“Really?” He cocked his head to the side. “Because usually if you have something to say -”
“I would say it, yes,” she agreed irritably. “But as this conversation could best be described as long, tedious, and pointless, I was hoping that, by not responding, you would take the hint that I didn’t want to continue it any further.”
“Fine, we’ll drop it.” Rick was willing to concede, it seemed, but not without adding, “But I just think there’s no point in denying that you have feelings for me. Cause we kissed a couple days ago, and you were all into starting a relationship again. And now we’ve had sex, so…”
“That only proves that my bout of insanity has been a prolonged one,” Yelina retorted snidely.
Not surprisingly he went with it. A hand running along her ribs, Rick drawled out slowly, “And the sudden desire to make out with me at every available opportunity… how much of that has to do with the fact that Horatio now has a little bastard running around?”
The little toad.
He’d probably been thinking that this entire time, that she was just angry with Horatio and that was why she was here.
And even knowing that, he’d had no problem taking advantage of her.
Her lips turning downward into a frown, she was furious - but considered the question nonetheless. Because it was one she was beginning to wonder herself, and it was one she had no real answer to.
Truth be told, Yelina wasn’t sure what her motives were exactly. She’d wanted to escape Ray Junior, her parenting failures, and the reality that was quickly closing in on her, yes. And maybe that was the most pressing reason, the thing motivating her the most. But…
In some ways, Yelina was sure that she would have ended up in bed with Stetler again anyway, even if this hadn’t happened. And whether that was because of Horatio, her own loneliness, or something else, she didn’t know.
She hoped to God it had nothing to do with love.
And even putting her own motives aside, she wondered what Rick’s were. Did he love her? Was he just taking advantage of her weakness or was there something more to it? Was there something insidious about it?
Was he just using her to get to Horatio?
Those too were questions she didn’t have answers to; she never had had them.
So she responded to his query by chastising, “You shouldn’t call him that.”
Rick scoffed. “That kid’s a little asshole - reminds me of myself when I was that age.” As he talked, he reached over and grabbed another cigarette. And when she didn’t tell him to put it out again or complain, he smirked, clearly thinking he had won. “Very manipulative that one.”
Yelina raised an eyebrow. “He’s not.”
Tossing the lighter onto the nightstand, he asked, “You ever meet the kid?”
“I have, yes,” she replied snottily. “He’s a good boy.”
In her heart, she knew she wasn’t just saying that to be contradictory. When she was with him, she could see a goodness inside of him.
But now, Yelina was beginning to wonder if that really mattered. Because… she had seen, could see, goodness in her own son, and she understood now that that had made her blind to all of his flaws; because she loved him and knew that he could be wonderful, she hadn’t seen what he could be really like: jealous, vengeful, violent.
And that made her terrified, because now she couldn’t help but ask herself what everybody else whom she’d given a free pass was capable of.
The thought darker than she liked, she quickly pushed it aside, just in time to hear Rick say, “Well, of course, you would say that.”
She jerked her head toward him suddenly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“There’s no need to be offended,” he soothed ineffectively. “It’s just that… we both know you have a soft spot for anyone with the last name, Caine.”
She shook her head. “That is not true.”
“It is. If it’s related to your husband - or maybe it’s more accurate to say, ‘if it’s related to Horatio,” Rick implied darkly. “You’ll never find any faults.”
Part of her thought he might be right, but she fought him anyway. “Right. I’m completely blind to my family’s mistakes and issues.” Swallowing hard, Yelina said sarcastically, “I thought it was my husband’s finest hour the day he faked his own death and let me to raise his son all alone.”
“You forgave him,” Stetler pointed out. “You dropped everything and moved to Brazil to be with him. So -”
Through gritted teeth, she interrupted, “It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t my choice, Rick.” Yelina shook her head at how naïve she would have been if she had run off with her husband a second time without Horatio’s helping hand.
The thought one that seemed so foreign to her, it was one she promptly shook away. And as an afterthought, she added in a tense voice, “And if it had been, and I had decided to go, it would have been because of my son and his right to know his father - not because I was an idiot blinded by my love for him.”
He laughed humorlessly. “You know what’s funny about that?” Smashing the cigarette out on the ashtray on the nightstand, he explained, “I can’t, for the life of me, figure out why you would think that man was even remotely good for your son. If anything, that boy has to be completely wrecked from -”
“Go to hell,” she snarled, getting out of bed.
Their temporary détente over, permanently, Yelina’s only desire now was to get out of his home. Her eyes darting left and right as she tried to find her clothes, she tried not to listen to Stetler point out, “You wrap your reasons all in the nice little ‘I’m-a-dutiful-wife’ package. And I know you really want to believe that you had no choice in this. But the thing is…” He smirked and chuckled to himself. “We both know you’re not that girl. And we both know, baby, that if you ended up in Brazil, it’s cause you wanted to go.”
Angrily, she pulled her pants up, her fingers fumbling on the buttons. “What I know is that you’re only bringing this up, because you are a jealous, pathetic, little man.” Grabbing her shirt, she argued, “We have sex once, and now you’re thinking of all the other people I’ve had sex with, and -”
“Cause there are oh so many,” he interrupted with a smirk, with the implication that she was a whore.
She wasn’t going to argue.
Not today.
Glancing around the room, she was slow to find her purse. But when she did, she snatched it up. Giving him a pointed look, Yelina stated, although it probably didn’t need to be said at this point, “This was a mistake.”
Not that Rick seemed to agree. Her hand on the bedroom door, she couldn’t miss his remark - “You’ll be back” - muttered loudly as she left.
The comment one she denied to herself, Yelina slammed the front door shut behind her moments later.
She would not come back.
She would not turn to him again.
Because, getting into her car, she realized that… as much as she wanted to escape what had happened:
There was no escaping this, no removing herself from today’s events. Trying to do so just seemed to result in making her feel worse, and worse was the fact that, in this case, it had led her to sleeping with Stetler.
God.
Sex with Stetler.
Putting the car in drive, Yelina couldn’t help but feel itchy, nauseous. She’d had sex with him, with someone she could barely bring herself to tolerate much less actually love. And worst of all, the thing that made everything seem all the more unbearable was the fact that… she had no one to turn to really; there was no one in her life who could provide the relief that she needed. Because everyone fit into one category or the other - either a person who would encourage her to return to her family for more pain or who would tell her that she should cut ties with them.
Both options were equally tempting and sickening, and the fact that she was in favor and contemptuous of both roads made her situation impossible to deal with. Actually, she thought, realizing the path she was on would lead her home, everything she was feeling made the current state of her life seem impossible to understand, much less pick a course of action.
She felt like a schizophrenic, like someone who had absolutely no control over her own life. And though not a stranger to this particular state of mind, Yelina hadn’t felt this way in years - not since Raymond had died - and it was not lost on her that the last time…
She’d had Horatio.
She’d had her son.
But this time…
She wasn’t sure she had anyone to see her through this.
Really, who did she have, she bitterly asked herself. Kyle Harmon? The teenager was easily the person she got along with the most at this point, but he was a child, a boy who had no concept of anything that had happened in this family in the last twenty years or so. If anything, she should have been the one to warn him, the one to ask him to reconsider his plea bargain; right now, she was convinced prison was a better option.
But, as she finally pulled into her own driveway, Yelina realized… she didn’t have the same option as Kyle. He could easily go to the nearest Starbucks and steal a piece of fruit; he could get out and would get out in two or three years by virtue of being eighteen.
Yelina, on the other hand… she was stuck. There was no escape for her, no abandoning her family. Part of her wanted to, with all of her heart, but she couldn’t; some other piece of her just refused to do it.
And that fact was only reaffirmed when she went into the house. Horatio’s car was still out front, but she didn’t see him; the sound of his voice mixed with Ray Junior’s filtered down the hallway, but she had no desire to interrupt the heated conversation they were surely in.
But she did see Kyle.
His battered face buried in the sleeve of his shirt, he was asleep on her couch. His dirty sneakers were still on his feet, she noticed with dismay. But they were dangling off of the sofa, the cushions in no danger of being damaged.
And it was that that made her smile, she told herself. Her lips slightly upturned, she refused to believe, given all that had happened, that she could be as big a fool as Stetler thought she was.
But her conviction was short-lived, promptly dashed when she took a step closer to the exhausted teenager. Her hands carefully grabbing the afghan lining the back of the couch, she easily pulled it down and spread it out over Kyle. Covering him, she couldn’t deny that she… cared.
For better or worse, regardless of what she actually wanted, she cared about him and the rest of her family. As she reached down and slowly slipped the shoes off of Kyle’s socked feet, she realized more than ever that she did want a relationship with them all.
And as she headed towards her bedroom, Yelina couldn’t decide if that made her the most forgiving person on the planet… or the biggest fool of all.
Go to the next chapter
Author: Duckie Nicks
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Yelina Salas, Horatio Caine, the whole Caine family
Author's Note: WARNING: SPOILER FOR SEASON 6.
Summary: Almost two decades ago, Horatio made a decision that would change his family forever. Will they ever forgive him? Will he ever tell Yelina how he feels? This is an alternative to the beginning of season 6. A Horatio and Kyle story; H/Y romance in the future.
Previous Chapters: Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 20, Chapter 21, Chapter 22, Chapter 23, Chapter 24, Chapter 25, Chapter 26, Chapter 27, Chapter 28, Chapter 29, Chapter 30, Chapter 31, Chapter 32, Chapter 33, Chapter 34, Chapter 35, Chapter 36, Chapter 37, Chapter 38, Chapter 39, Chapter 40, Chapter 41, Chapter 42, Chapter 43, Chapter 44, Chapter 45, Chapter 46, Chapter 47, Chapter 48, Chapter 49, Chapter 50, Chapter 51, Chapter 52, Chapter 53, Chapter 54, Chapter 55, Chapter 56, and Chapter 57.
Disclaimer: I don't own the show.
“Although every man believes that his decisions and resolutions involve the most multifarious factors, in reality they are mere oscillation between flight and longing.” - Herman Broch
She was both warm and cold, flat on her back with just the thinnest sheet rumpled around her waist. Her hair was… everywhere, curls tickling her cheeks, irritating the back of her neck, and tangling along the swells of her breasts. A leg slung over Rick’s thigh, she could feel one of his rough hands occasionally stroking the soft bit of flesh. His fingertips warm and gentle, it was almost enough to keep the reality of the situation at bay.
But not quite, because, even as she tried not to think about what had happened, it was slowly seeping into her consciousness, into her bones like cold air creeping past thin cracks in a doorway. The chill one she could barely ignore, it took all of her effort not to think about Horatio and Kyle, Ray Junior and what he had done.
And what she had now done.
Yelina intently refocused her gaze on the ceiling. Rick had repainted his bedroom since she had been in it last. No longer the gold and tan tones she remembered, the walls and ceiling had been coated with a brilliant blue color that made her feel as though she were in the belly of a peacock.
Noticing that her gaze was traveling the length of the ceiling, Rick asked, “You like the new color?”
From her peripheral view, she could see him cock his head to the walls. The gesture flowing neatly into the motion of Rick sitting up, he reached towards the nightstand. Grabbing his bright green lighter and a cigarette from the red and white pack, he silently lit up.
“Hmm,” she finally commented in a non-committal tone. “It’s nice.” But in truth, Yelina wasn’t particularly a fan of the shade. Too dark and ominous, it made her feel trapped in the room… although she couldn’t deny that that feeling might have had other origins.
With a distinct click of metal against metal, Rick lit the cigarette wedged between his fingers. A curl of grayish white smoke lazily circling up towards the ceiling, Yelina watched it intently. But even with her gaze elsewhere, she was sure Rick was smirking. “You hate it,” he said knowingly, taking a deep pull from the cigarette.
She shrugged. “It’s very… you.”
In a smoky haze, he let out a throaty, good-natured laugh. “Like I said, Ellie, you hate it.”
Yelina scowled as she turned her head to look at him. “I hate that name, and - ”
“It’s a good name,” he interrupted. “It suits you.”
“No, it really doesn’t.” Her voice was low, her words heavily accented out of annoyance. “It’s a bad name, and I don’t like it. And I don’t like that cigarette,” she added peevishly. “Pulling one out after we’ve had sex makes this seem incredibly… tawdry, and I’m not a fan.”
As if to annoy her further, Stetler exhaled in her direction, making her imagine that the smoke was clinging to her hair. “Baby,” he pointed out in all seriousness. “You come here in the middle of the day with a black eye and a pick up line that any whore on the street corner would have used. I’m pretty sure that, in the scheme of things, my cigarette is hardly a factor.”
She could hardly argue with that.
By her own standards… this was nothing short of trashy. Unladylike in the basest of ways, what she had done was hardly something she could defend. Because, as upset as she was, as horrified by Ray Junior as she was, Yelina couldn’t help but feel that Stetler was right; she’d come here, maybe not knowingly wanting sex, but there’d been no hesitation, no resistance on her part. She’d come to him wanting to escape what had happened, and perhaps that was defense enough. But…
In the process, she could only think that she had acted like a whore.
And now every ounce of her screamed:
Whore.
It was so easy to believe that, Yelina realized. She smelled like him, his sweat having combined with her own and the proof that they hadn’t used a condom wet against her skin. She still felt him, felt what he had done anyways; he’d taken the idea of marking her to heart. And their penchant for screwing one another as hard as they could had pushed the boundaries between them further. Her wrists beginning to bruise from where he’d gripped her as tightly as he could, a litany of teeth marks just starting to darken against her sweaty skin - she could wash him off of her, but she would live with those marks for days.
And regardless of sweat and bruises… there was something deep inside of her that made Yelina feel like the race horses her husband used to bet on. He had a thing for the most inexperienced ones, his affinity for them something she’d never understood - especially when they broke down from the stress so frequently. Ridden hard and then euthanized on the track, they came to mind as she lay next to Rick.
Her mood more than likely visibly faltering, it was enough for Stetler to turn and put the cigarette out. “Aw, come on now, don’t act like that,” he half-teased, half-begged. A hand quickly running through her hair, he moved closer to her, pressed a soft kiss to the strong line of her jaw. “I put it out.”
Frowning Yelina rolled her eyes. “I don’t like the smell, Rick. But more importantly, one of these days, you’re going to fall asleep with a cigarette in your hand.” Her voice sounded tight with emotion, although for reasons that had nothing to do with the idea that he might catch on fire and die at some point in his life. Her mind still focused on what she had done, on what she was doing by being here, it was impossible to keep the unhappy feeling out of her words.
Misreading what she was feeling, Stetler pulled her closer to him. His lips brushed up against her ear as he spoke quietly, “You’re a good girl, you know that?” The condescending compliment made her feel nauseous. “It’s nice to think that if I torch myself to death, you’d be a little sad about it.”
Her eyes, dark and stony, slid over to meet his. “If you die because you set your bed on fire, I will seriously consider spitting on your grave,” she told him sincerely.
He shrugged, his hand moving under the sheet to skim across her hip. “Still means you care, which is nice to know.”
In response she rolled her eyes. “Only you would confuse anger for affection.”
“Baby, I’m sure that argument would have a lot more weight if you hadn’t come here and slept with me,” Rick pointed out.
“I had sex with you,” Yelina argued lightly, as though that somehow disproved his point. Although maybe it did, she considered with a sigh. If she really were a morally bankrupt person for doing this, then she might as well say that she could have sex without any affection or feeling. True or not, it fit in with her actions. And in a moment of brazenness, she lamented, “Thankfully that only requires me to like one very specific part of you.”
Rick smirked into her shoulder before planting a harsh kiss on the expanse of skin. Drumming his fingers along her hipbone, he teased, “Pretty sure there were other parts you liked as well.”
She bit down on her lower lip to stop herself from commenting. As much as she might like to fight the remark, there was no way she could. The conversation was headed, if not already there, into lewd territory, and if she contradicted him, Stetler would have no qualms about proving just how useful his hands and mouth could be.
So she stayed quiet. Her lips pursed together, Yelina truly despised the idea of letting him think he’d won. But she really didn’t have any other choice.
And true to form, he smiled widely in reaction. “My, my. You’re not fighting me on this. Yelina Salas, I think you’re actually agreeing with me.”
“Hardly.”
“Really?” He cocked his head to the side. “Because usually if you have something to say -”
“I would say it, yes,” she agreed irritably. “But as this conversation could best be described as long, tedious, and pointless, I was hoping that, by not responding, you would take the hint that I didn’t want to continue it any further.”
“Fine, we’ll drop it.” Rick was willing to concede, it seemed, but not without adding, “But I just think there’s no point in denying that you have feelings for me. Cause we kissed a couple days ago, and you were all into starting a relationship again. And now we’ve had sex, so…”
“That only proves that my bout of insanity has been a prolonged one,” Yelina retorted snidely.
Not surprisingly he went with it. A hand running along her ribs, Rick drawled out slowly, “And the sudden desire to make out with me at every available opportunity… how much of that has to do with the fact that Horatio now has a little bastard running around?”
The little toad.
He’d probably been thinking that this entire time, that she was just angry with Horatio and that was why she was here.
And even knowing that, he’d had no problem taking advantage of her.
Her lips turning downward into a frown, she was furious - but considered the question nonetheless. Because it was one she was beginning to wonder herself, and it was one she had no real answer to.
Truth be told, Yelina wasn’t sure what her motives were exactly. She’d wanted to escape Ray Junior, her parenting failures, and the reality that was quickly closing in on her, yes. And maybe that was the most pressing reason, the thing motivating her the most. But…
In some ways, Yelina was sure that she would have ended up in bed with Stetler again anyway, even if this hadn’t happened. And whether that was because of Horatio, her own loneliness, or something else, she didn’t know.
She hoped to God it had nothing to do with love.
And even putting her own motives aside, she wondered what Rick’s were. Did he love her? Was he just taking advantage of her weakness or was there something more to it? Was there something insidious about it?
Was he just using her to get to Horatio?
Those too were questions she didn’t have answers to; she never had had them.
So she responded to his query by chastising, “You shouldn’t call him that.”
Rick scoffed. “That kid’s a little asshole - reminds me of myself when I was that age.” As he talked, he reached over and grabbed another cigarette. And when she didn’t tell him to put it out again or complain, he smirked, clearly thinking he had won. “Very manipulative that one.”
Yelina raised an eyebrow. “He’s not.”
Tossing the lighter onto the nightstand, he asked, “You ever meet the kid?”
“I have, yes,” she replied snottily. “He’s a good boy.”
In her heart, she knew she wasn’t just saying that to be contradictory. When she was with him, she could see a goodness inside of him.
But now, Yelina was beginning to wonder if that really mattered. Because… she had seen, could see, goodness in her own son, and she understood now that that had made her blind to all of his flaws; because she loved him and knew that he could be wonderful, she hadn’t seen what he could be really like: jealous, vengeful, violent.
And that made her terrified, because now she couldn’t help but ask herself what everybody else whom she’d given a free pass was capable of.
The thought darker than she liked, she quickly pushed it aside, just in time to hear Rick say, “Well, of course, you would say that.”
She jerked her head toward him suddenly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“There’s no need to be offended,” he soothed ineffectively. “It’s just that… we both know you have a soft spot for anyone with the last name, Caine.”
She shook her head. “That is not true.”
“It is. If it’s related to your husband - or maybe it’s more accurate to say, ‘if it’s related to Horatio,” Rick implied darkly. “You’ll never find any faults.”
Part of her thought he might be right, but she fought him anyway. “Right. I’m completely blind to my family’s mistakes and issues.” Swallowing hard, Yelina said sarcastically, “I thought it was my husband’s finest hour the day he faked his own death and let me to raise his son all alone.”
“You forgave him,” Stetler pointed out. “You dropped everything and moved to Brazil to be with him. So -”
Through gritted teeth, she interrupted, “It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t my choice, Rick.” Yelina shook her head at how naïve she would have been if she had run off with her husband a second time without Horatio’s helping hand.
The thought one that seemed so foreign to her, it was one she promptly shook away. And as an afterthought, she added in a tense voice, “And if it had been, and I had decided to go, it would have been because of my son and his right to know his father - not because I was an idiot blinded by my love for him.”
He laughed humorlessly. “You know what’s funny about that?” Smashing the cigarette out on the ashtray on the nightstand, he explained, “I can’t, for the life of me, figure out why you would think that man was even remotely good for your son. If anything, that boy has to be completely wrecked from -”
“Go to hell,” she snarled, getting out of bed.
Their temporary détente over, permanently, Yelina’s only desire now was to get out of his home. Her eyes darting left and right as she tried to find her clothes, she tried not to listen to Stetler point out, “You wrap your reasons all in the nice little ‘I’m-a-dutiful-wife’ package. And I know you really want to believe that you had no choice in this. But the thing is…” He smirked and chuckled to himself. “We both know you’re not that girl. And we both know, baby, that if you ended up in Brazil, it’s cause you wanted to go.”
Angrily, she pulled her pants up, her fingers fumbling on the buttons. “What I know is that you’re only bringing this up, because you are a jealous, pathetic, little man.” Grabbing her shirt, she argued, “We have sex once, and now you’re thinking of all the other people I’ve had sex with, and -”
“Cause there are oh so many,” he interrupted with a smirk, with the implication that she was a whore.
She wasn’t going to argue.
Not today.
Glancing around the room, she was slow to find her purse. But when she did, she snatched it up. Giving him a pointed look, Yelina stated, although it probably didn’t need to be said at this point, “This was a mistake.”
Not that Rick seemed to agree. Her hand on the bedroom door, she couldn’t miss his remark - “You’ll be back” - muttered loudly as she left.
The comment one she denied to herself, Yelina slammed the front door shut behind her moments later.
She would not come back.
She would not turn to him again.
Because, getting into her car, she realized that… as much as she wanted to escape what had happened:
There was no escaping this, no removing herself from today’s events. Trying to do so just seemed to result in making her feel worse, and worse was the fact that, in this case, it had led her to sleeping with Stetler.
God.
Sex with Stetler.
Putting the car in drive, Yelina couldn’t help but feel itchy, nauseous. She’d had sex with him, with someone she could barely bring herself to tolerate much less actually love. And worst of all, the thing that made everything seem all the more unbearable was the fact that… she had no one to turn to really; there was no one in her life who could provide the relief that she needed. Because everyone fit into one category or the other - either a person who would encourage her to return to her family for more pain or who would tell her that she should cut ties with them.
Both options were equally tempting and sickening, and the fact that she was in favor and contemptuous of both roads made her situation impossible to deal with. Actually, she thought, realizing the path she was on would lead her home, everything she was feeling made the current state of her life seem impossible to understand, much less pick a course of action.
She felt like a schizophrenic, like someone who had absolutely no control over her own life. And though not a stranger to this particular state of mind, Yelina hadn’t felt this way in years - not since Raymond had died - and it was not lost on her that the last time…
She’d had Horatio.
She’d had her son.
But this time…
She wasn’t sure she had anyone to see her through this.
Really, who did she have, she bitterly asked herself. Kyle Harmon? The teenager was easily the person she got along with the most at this point, but he was a child, a boy who had no concept of anything that had happened in this family in the last twenty years or so. If anything, she should have been the one to warn him, the one to ask him to reconsider his plea bargain; right now, she was convinced prison was a better option.
But, as she finally pulled into her own driveway, Yelina realized… she didn’t have the same option as Kyle. He could easily go to the nearest Starbucks and steal a piece of fruit; he could get out and would get out in two or three years by virtue of being eighteen.
Yelina, on the other hand… she was stuck. There was no escape for her, no abandoning her family. Part of her wanted to, with all of her heart, but she couldn’t; some other piece of her just refused to do it.
And that fact was only reaffirmed when she went into the house. Horatio’s car was still out front, but she didn’t see him; the sound of his voice mixed with Ray Junior’s filtered down the hallway, but she had no desire to interrupt the heated conversation they were surely in.
But she did see Kyle.
His battered face buried in the sleeve of his shirt, he was asleep on her couch. His dirty sneakers were still on his feet, she noticed with dismay. But they were dangling off of the sofa, the cushions in no danger of being damaged.
And it was that that made her smile, she told herself. Her lips slightly upturned, she refused to believe, given all that had happened, that she could be as big a fool as Stetler thought she was.
But her conviction was short-lived, promptly dashed when she took a step closer to the exhausted teenager. Her hands carefully grabbing the afghan lining the back of the couch, she easily pulled it down and spread it out over Kyle. Covering him, she couldn’t deny that she… cared.
For better or worse, regardless of what she actually wanted, she cared about him and the rest of her family. As she reached down and slowly slipped the shoes off of Kyle’s socked feet, she realized more than ever that she did want a relationship with them all.
And as she headed towards her bedroom, Yelina couldn’t decide if that made her the most forgiving person on the planet… or the biggest fool of all.
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