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NEXUS

BY DIVADAISY

 CHAPTER

1



note from the author...

1) Since I started this before TnT2 you need to disregard anything that's happened on the show since the end of 1999.

2) Since I thought the whole re-write on Tea's backstory regarding siblings, (i.e., number and sex) and her family relationships in general was stupid in the extreme, I have chosen to ignore it.

3) The Sam I was working with was the Kale Browne/Labine version. Also, he didn't bring his whole family with him, so don't expect any RappaCameos.

chapter 1

We are swimming with the snakes at the bottom of the well . . . So silent and peaceful in the darkness where we fell. But we are not snakes and what's more we never will be. And if we keep swimming here forever, we will never be free. . .

"Forgiveness" by Patti Griffin from the album Living With Ghosts

~~~~~~~~~~

Jane had stepped over him six times before she ever stopped to look at him . . . really look. The city will do that to you--the city and sometimes just life. It teaches you to look past, even through, the misery around you. After awhile, the only suffering that has any meaning is your own. So the pathetic, drunken slob lying on the pavement for three days straight didn't bother her at all, really. He didn't touch her human heart; he didn't cry out to her divine soul. She wasn't entirely aware she still possessed those things anymore--and if she had suspected, she would have denied it. Hearts that don't exist can't be broken. Deadened souls don't keep you up at night with the sound of their weeping. Janie liked the quiet inside. It had taken a long time to get rid of the voices. Yet, it was his voice that finally made her stop and take notice. It was a whisper really, barely a sound at all, but it sent an arrow of sudden shock and cold misery through Jane's shield of silent numbness.

He was slumped over the heating grate, as he had been for the past three nights, but the narrow sidewalk and his lanky frame caused his legs to jut out into the path of anyone walking by. Not that many people did walk by. A hundred years ago this street was probably filled with people day and night, new immigrants and factory workers taking advantage of the opportunities afforded by the industrial revolution--a new world and a new hope. But not now, not on this particular street. Nobody with hope for a new life in a new world walked down this street anymore. This was the end of the line, not the beginning.

So the drunk had been easy to ignore. He was quiet, nursed a bottle most of day shrouded in a long black overcoat, almost priest-like, that protected him from the late October frost. His long darkish hair hung in his face hiding his eyes and all but obscuring a scraggly beard that was once a neatly kept goatee. At night he curled up on the heating grate between the building and the narrow flight of steps that led down to Jane's six hundred bucks a month basement flat. One room. The roaches were a dying battle, but it was the last building on the block where the squatters weren't at war with the rats for supremacy. It was the end of the line for sure, but there was always room for one more loser. Besides, he was quiet and he hadn't tried to f*#k with her. No need to pull out the Louisville Slugger for this one, she thought. But the voice changed all that.

She was getting home late--almost six in the morning. Her last date took a little longer than she'd expected. He was a talker. She'd only been in the life for a couple of years but it still amazed her how many men wanted to talk. Sometimes the f*#king was just an afterthought. Normally she was very strict about time. Her time, like her body, was her own, and both had a certain monetary value. But Charlie was one of her first customers. He'd become a regular and he always paid extra when it took him a little longer than usual. So, she'd stayed with him awhile longer so he could talk about the wife who didn't understand and the son screwed up on smack. And after, she just felt like walking in the quiet of the dawn, before the outside world woke up and she retreated to the silence of the world she'd made for herself.

When the light began to overcome the darkness she headed home like all good creatures of the night. He was in his usual spot on the heating grate. She stepped over his protruding legs and halfway descended the steps that led to her apartment. She searched her coat pockets for her keys glancing only casually at the dark, wet, but still breathing pile of flesh and cloth she was now face to face with. She stopped there for a moment, suddenly shocked by how young he actually was. Usually he was completely cloaked by that hair and the coat, but this morning the coat had fallen open slightly and the hair was pushed back as well revealing a man in his late twenties, maybe early thirties. Well, Jane thought, there's no rule that winos have to be eligible for social security, and she turned back toward the door. Then it happened. It called out to her, the voice she never expected and yet, seemed so inevitable at the same time. The voice called out in a whispered cry of childlike want, softly, almost imperceptibly, but still like a thunder crack in Jane's head. "Mama, please don't leave me."

She swallowed first to keep a sudden sense of nausea from overcoming her then steadied herself by grasping the rusted railing, before slowly pivoting to look again into his face. His once hidden eyes were now only half-lidded and the hand that previously clutched a 40 ounce like it was the Holy Grail now reached for her through the iron railing that outlined the stairwell. The suddenness of it all was too much for her. Memories came flooding back, things she thought were long dead, long buried. Graves she thought were long ago covered with grass and clover sprang open in her mind. Too many ghosts.

It was all too much and she found herself backing away from him, searching for the solid comfort of the cold concrete behind her. But as she moved away his eyes grew wide, terrified really, and the whisper in his voice became a whimper, a plea, as he called out to her again, "Please, Mama! Please don't leave me alone! Pleeeeeaase!"

His eyelids fluttered briefly then closed again and the hand that had reached out fell like a stone to the pavement. Jane stood for what seemed like ages staring at that hand, closed now, the fingers curled into a fist like a warrior, or an infant. Then, for the first time in a long time, Jane took off the blinders she wore as protection from the world and took a good long look at the stranger who had dropped into her life. The hand that had reached out to her was smooth, strong but uncalloused. The nails were dirty but obviously used to being manicured. The long, black coat was no army surplus; it was Armani couture. She realized that everything about this guy reeked of wealth, not Wild Turkey.

He seemed to have passed out again so she moved cautiously toward him, still only a few steps from her own front door, the key still clutched in her hand, and eye-level to the sidewalk. When he'd reached for her some hair had fallen into his face so she slowly and carefully reached through the railing to push it away, sure that at any moment he was going to grab her wrist. But he didn't wake up. He was out cold this time, and as she pushed the hair away and really studied his features she gasped in astonishment. This was no demon poltergeist speaking through a lost soul. This was a face she had known, once upon a time, in another life, in another world. She brushed more hair from his face and lifted gently lifted his head from the pavement. "I know you," she whispered. "Todd Manning . . . well, well. What brings you to the end of the line, Mr. Manning? . . . And what are we gonna do with you?"

To be continued...
2001 Copyright by DivaDaisy




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