"Not her. Damn it?not her!" He yelled into cool, spring air. People walked in and out of the hospital, acting as if he didn't exist. His words fell silently onto the sidewalk, trampled by the heels of their expensive boots, name brand sneakers and high heeled shoes. They didn't care. Getting himself together, with a burst he barged through the emergency room doors, spinning around, trying to find the admittance desk. He couldn't really see anything in front of him; it was like the room was moving with him. He couldn't focus with all the people moving around rapidly from one place to another, shouting things across the room. It all soared above his head. The words, he couldn't understand the words. He was a nobody.

He reached blindly for a passing nurse and tried to keep the desperation from penetrating into his voice. Normally, she would have ripped his hands away from her adding a few choice words. But his face was soft, confused, filled with pain and something about that made her want to help him. "I'm, I'm trying to find someone and I don't know where to look. I can't find her. Can you help me?"

"Sure," the nurse replied calmly, almost nicely, gently breaking away from his grip, "just follow me over here, and we'll find her for you."

"Yeah, okay," he answered following close behind her. As they walked down the never-ending hospital corridor, he looked at the faces and injuries of those he passed. He heard their moans, some reached out to him, begging for his help. There were trails of blood that led to larger pools around the feet of some. There was no one to clean and those used to such sights, simply stepped over it and continued their trek to wherever. Dark clouds hung invisibly to the evil and he just knew they were going to die. He turned his face away from those, afraid they might sense the same "deadly" cloud hovering over him.

"Look motha fucka, somebody better help my boy out, aight!? I ain't playin' wit' you bitches," said Gang Member #1. Nobody wanted to touch his "boy," nobody wanted to help him. He was "just another one lost to the streets," someone said. His cloud hung low over his head.

"Please, I'm gonna die if you won't help me. Please help me!?" Begged an older woman who was heaving and coughing from a place deep in her lungs. No one helped and Todd saw someone, probably her husband, pleading her case to a nurse who was tending to a young woman who had obviously been beaten.

"Dear Heavenly Father, I am yours. Take me Lord, take me when you want me. I am ready, oh father. I surrender to you, or Lord," said an old man as he took his last breath.

Todd found himself short of breath by the time the nurse stopped at an empty station and asked him to sit down. He tugged at the collar of his shirt, trying to get a little more air. Being amongst the physically ill made him feel sick. Through all of the abuses he suffered and all of the after effects that he had and would continue to experience, the one thing he could say was at least had his health. In hospitals, he felt like he had lost even that. He thought that somehow death might get mixed up and accidentally take him.

"It's a madhouse out there today," said the nurse, unaffected by the scene in the hallway. "Okay, what's the person's name?" she asked, logging onto the empty computer.

"Manning. Or she might be going by Delgado-Manning, or maybe just Delgado. Could you just look all the names up and see what you find?"

"Sure." She briefly looked into his eyes and saw immediately that he was a tortured soul. Experience had taught her that people whose eyes went on forever, the kind where you could see the soul was damaged, those people were the most delicate?the most caring?the most in need. She could see that he was edgy, ready to bolt at any minute. She couldn't stare too long, he was the type that would bolt if he sensed anything out of the ordinary. "Ah, there we go," she said triumphantly, "it looks like we do have someone by that name here. Visitors are restricted to immediate family-"

"It's okay. I'm her husband."

"Oh, okay. Alright then, here you go," she said, giving him a piece of paper with the room number written neatly on it.

"Thanks," he muttered, jumping from his seat and running toward the room on the paper.

*****

He quietly tiptoed into the room, blinking back the tears. It was dark inside and out, he could hear the sound of her shallow breathing. He focused on the machines that surrounded her. The oxygen mask, the heart monitor, the IV that pierced her skin. He wanted to take them all away and smash them against the nearest wall. He was unable to move, his body froze just inside the door.

For several minutes he stood in the doorway, wondering what to say, what to do, if she even wanted him there. He resigned to sit in a chair, in a corner where she could not see him and he could go unnoticed as he watched over her. He silently moved a chair out of her sight and plopped down.

He started to speak for some reason. He hadn't planned on it, but once the words started pouring out of him, there was nothing he could do to stop them. His voice, though he didn't know it, woke Roseanne and she listened to him without interrupting.

"I don't know what's wrong, Tea. Everything is so screwed up right now. You can't leave me alone, you gotta get better and make things better. Aw, I don't know what I'm saying, I just, you gotta get better. I would trade places with you in a minute if it meant that you were going to be okay. You probably don't even want me here but when I found out, I couldn't stay away. I could never stay away from you. I can't explain what I'm feeling, but I know I can't go on like this, without you in my life. You really do make everything better and it's like, right now, I'm about to walk off this cliff and there's no water down there, just the cold, hard ground and if I hit it, I'm just gonna die. I don't want you to catch me, 'cause I know I'm too heavy for you, but I want you to pull me back, away from that cliff. You're so peaceful laying there like that, I could never feel that way. I bet you used to feel peaceful before I came into you life and fucked everything up for you. Damn, Tea, I never wanted to hurt you. Come back to me and I promise I'll never hurt you intentionally again. I promise you that. You'll get better and you'll help me get better and we'll take on the whole world. Just don't die, Tea, I need you. I love you." A couple of tears slipped from his eyes and from Roseanne's too and she lay in bed feeling guilty for listening in on something so private.

He watched over her for hours, determined to stay there until she awakened and kicked him out. So deep in thought, he didn't hear the door open, but he saw the change in light. His jaw dropped as he made out the shape of Tea's body in the darkness.

"What the-"

Tea whipped around in his direction, smiling as she realized who he was. "Hey you. What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same question," he said, walking over to her.

"I'm here to visit my niece. Now answer my question."

"Roseanne? Aw shit," he said, hitting his forehead with the palm of his hand. "I don't believe this."

"What?"

"I called your office and your assistant said you were at the hospital so I assumed this was you."

"Knowing you, you hung up on her before she could tell you.

"Well-"

"Well, you're out of luck Manning. I am perfectly healthy."

"Don't tease like that Tea," he said sadly.

She saw his eyes tear up a bit and felt guilty for his earlier scare. She reached out and took his hand into hers, "I'm fine, Todd. Roseanne had a miscarriage and she had a sort of relapse when she landed in New York. The doctor wanted to keep her overnight for observation, that's all."

Without thought or warning to either of them, Todd grabbed onto her, pulling her close to his body. He held her as tight as he could, luxuriating in the scent of her hair and the rhythm of her breath. They both needed that closeness at the very moment, neither pulled away for a long while. Not until the nurse came back into the room to check on Roseanne. They both looked up at the sound of someone entering, interrupting their moment.

"Hello again Mr. Manning. I came up here to make sure you found your wife." The nurse who had helped in the Emergency Room looked a bit confused.

"Oh, yeah?well?uh?that's not her. I mean, that's her niece. This uh-"

"I certainly hope this lovely woman you were just holding is your wife, otherwise, you're going to have to do a lot of explaining to the real Mrs. Manning," she joked, breaking the tension that filled the room. "I am so glad that you're here to put this man's mind at ease. I thought he was going to tear up our ER trying to find you," she joked. "You're one lucky woman."

Tea smiled at her, ignoring the impulse to shout "don't I know it," through the hospital halls. Todd watched her from the corner of his eyes, trying to anticipate her answer. When she quietly said, "thank you," his heart sunk. He was hoping for something more definitive, something more positive, something that he could "go with." But she said nothing.

"Well, I'm going to leave the two of you alone."

"So, you nearly destroyed the ER looking for me, huh?" Tea asked just as the door closed behind the nurse. She knew that if a significant amount of time passed and they were silent, he would run away. The last thing she wanted was to be left alone again, not on that night.

"Yeah, well, you know how I can be."

"Yeah. You wanna grab a cup of coffee? I mean, it doesn't look like Roseanne's going to be waking up anytime soon and I was thinking about grabbing a cup anyway. We don't have to, it was, you know, a suggestion."

"Yeah, sure."

*****

The cafeteria seemed to be the calmest place in the hospital. Tea saved a small table in an isolated part of the cafeteria while Todd paid for the coffee. As she waited, she watched him struggle to make her cup just the way she liked it. It never occurred to her before, but he obviously paid a lot of attention to her while they were married. She could practically read his lips as he counted the exact number of packs of sugar that she used, the exact number of packs of creamer, poured them in the cup and mixed the ingredients counter-clockwise, exactly as she did it. She lifted her eyebrows, impressed at his attention to the little things. He also remembered that she loved to drink her coffee with a croissant, no butter, with the edges slightly browned. She watched as he rejected croissant after croissant because they were too brown, or not brown enough. When everything was perfect, he brought them over to the table, placing the tray on the middle of the table.

"Can't anybody get anything right?" He complained, removing her things from the tray and placing them on the table in front of her. "Five minutes it took them to make one damned croissant. I tell them lightly toasted, 'cause that's what you like, and they burn it. I tell them lightly toasted again and they don't even get the edges brown. You better appreciate the things I go through for you, Delgado."

"Believe me, I appreciate you more than you know."

As he sat down across from her, he noticed for the first time how tired she looked. Not tired as in sleepy, but tired as in plain worn out. She couldn't hide it under the tough exterior, something was wrong. "Hey, are you okay?"

"Me? Yes, I'm fine. What about you? How are you doing?"

"I'm doin' the best I can. You look exhausted. You sure nothing's wrong?"

She stirred her coffee more giving her hands something to do. If she stopped, he might be able to see the shaking and if he saw it, he would reach out and try to stop it and if he touched her, she would start sobbing and might not ever stop. So she stirred and she looked all over the room, looking for something else to concentrate on. "I have a big case coming up and I cannot stand the client. Roseanne's a mess." As an afterthought, she added, "I'm a mess too," chuckling the entire time.

You're the most perfect thing I've ever seen, he thought. "Drop the client. Roseanne's always been a mess and you?you're the most put together person I know."

She laughed again, wishing his words had a little bit of truth to them. But he didn't know. He didn't know very much about her when it came down to it. He knew there were things that bothered her, but he didn't know to what extent, nor did he know anything about them. If he could only take off those rose colored glasses that he wore when it come to her, maybe he could see the pained little girl that was hidden beneath the surface.

"Hey," he said, lifting her chin, forcing her to look directly into his eyes, "I may be a totally fucked up person, but I am a good listener. If there's anything you need to talk about, I'm always here."

"I know you are and I appreciate it. So, tell me, how have you been since the last time I saw you?"

He pondered her question. Making it through the day was a struggle. Making it through the night was hell. Mostly because he spent the nights running from something or to something, haunted by his dreams or embracing a new high. "I've been breathing."

She tilted her head to the side the way she always did when searching for the hidden meaning behind his words. As if by magic, the answer would be there if her head was at the right angle. If she could have, she would've reached out and stroked the side of his head, letting him lean into the palm of her hand. It always seemed to calm him, her touch, but she couldn't. "Clean air or polluted?"

"Polluted. This is New York, is there any other kind? I didn't know Roseanne was pregnant. What fool would knock her up?"

"Todd," she chastised, suppressing a fit of laughter.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I meant?who would make that mis?er?who would impregnate her? Will or Christian? Christian or Will?" He used his hands as a scale, moving them up and down as he said each man's name. Tea slapped his hands out of the air, giggling.

"Christian. I can't believe you're making me laugh at a time like this."

"I always loved to hear you laugh. You have such a nice laugh, it's like you mean it, you know? You don't hold anything back. You just throw your head back and go at it like a hyena or something."

"Shut up," she slapped his hand again, playfully.

"So what happened? How'd she lose it?"

"She and Chris were arguing and she accidentally fell down the stairs. To make a long story short, she tried to do too much, too soon and ended up here."

"Hmm?sounds like someone else we both know. Doing too much, too soon must run in the Delgado genes."

"M-hm?she gets it from her father."

Time passed quickly between them, the conversation was easy. They were never able to communicate so freely in the past, it was always a struggle. During the lulls in conversation, they would come up with something meaningless to discuss, just to keep their time together from ending.

Todd took notice of how sad Tea's eyes were when she spoke about Roseanne losing the baby. The glistened slightly, but she recovered before any moisture could roll down her face. She sometimes had that look on her face when she thought Todd didn't see her watching him with Starr. She had the habit of standing in some far off corner, smiling with her lips and stifling a cry with her eyes. He'd wanted to ask her about that, why she would look like that when kids were the happiest things in the world.

For her part, Tea wanted so badly to tell him about her own miscarriage. She needed to share that pain with someone instead of turning it in on herself and taking its punishment. The fear was opening up, not just to Todd, but to anyone. It could only end in heartache, she kept repeating to herself.

"Delgado, what's that look for?"

"What look?"

"You look so upset. Did I do something?"

"No, I'm thinking, that's all." Todd felt a slight vibration in his breast pocket. Realizing it was his cell phone, he quickly withdrew it and bellowed a "what?" into the receiver.

"Yeah, it's me. I found that Delgado guy. What do you want me to do?"

"Give me the address and I'll be right there."

To Be Continued..

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