~"Oh I want to be that
In your eyes
I want to touch you like the heat I see
In your eyes…."
Peter Gabriel

~I measure these things by your eyes…
Live

Todd Manning held his wife in his arms until she finally stopped shaking, and when he was sure that she was completely with him, he broke the silence at last.

"Okay Delgado, I know when we did this whole marriage thing, the second time around, we took all these vows and stuff to do the whole 'you take on my junk and I take on yours, for better or for worse and all that jazz' but you didn't have to take it this far. Leave the talent for the ultimate night terror up to me, okay? You can't challenge the master, but I'd say that came pretty close..."

She had gone limp in his arms as her breathing slowly became a little more normal, and his gentle attempt at humor did not get the response he had hoped for. After a few more minutes of silence, she turned into him, wrapping her arms around his neck tightly and burying her face against him. When they were alone, they were much more affectionate with each other than the rest of Llanview would wager on or even venture to guess, but now, she couldn't seem to get close enough to him in a way that was unlike her, regardless of that. It surprised him, and it made him want to take care of her in the same way that he would Starr. She was rarely this vulnerable, almost to the point of being "needy" for his love and reassurance. His heart ached for her, and from knowing the kind of terror that propelled such fear in the dark, he tried to give her the extra assurance she needed. He stroked her hair back from her face with tender hands, brushed away the tears that fell, and whispered soothing words of love with his lips pressed close to her ear, against the softness of her hair.

"Shhhhh…Tea…don't, okay? Don't cry, and don't be afraid…

She finally responded, bending her head to softly kiss the curve of his broad shoulder and then moving her lips close enough to his ear to whisper a plea of her own into it.
"Promise me you'll never leave me. Don't ever leave me, and that you won't stop loving me? Please don't let me go. Hold on tight. Oh God, Todd, please hold on tight."

With the desperation of her words, he almost crushed her to him.

"Tea, you have to stop this and tell me what's up with you. Maybe I can help. Maybe I can't, I don't know, but…I can listen. I can take some of the weight off of these shoulders. And I can hold you when it comes knocking. Look, you nearly broke my ribs running from something in that nightmare. I know what kind of shit drives that kind of junk…the terror and the…the junk. You once told me that my monster doesn't live under the bed anymore. Well yours doesn't either! I won't let it. Yeah, I still have the nightmares sometimes, but not every time that I close my eyes…like before you. That's all you, Delgado. You've been that for me. Let me be that for you now. Look at me. No, look me in the eye." He raised her chin up, to look into her face, and her eyes followed, but they were eyes that looked at him through such shame.

"Tea…what??? Let me take that away. Let me take it all away."

"You can't, Todd. No one can. It's not just one little thing…not like some annoying extra piece of clothing you can shed in a summer's heat. All of a sudden, it's just…everything. Everything I am, and everything I could become, it's just…it's all wrong, don't you see that? " She pulled away from him, pulling the sheets up around herself, suddenly feeling too exposed in front of him in a way she never had before. "I am so afraid of myself, Todd. I'm so afraid of becoming…I'm just so afraid right now, that's all."
"Of what?"
"Of her," she answered so quietly it was almost swallowed by the sounds of the night.
With her answer, things started to fall into place. Todd remembered back to a time that they'd had a late night conversation…one of the first in which neither were decked out from head to toe in armor.
"You're not 'her', Tea. You're not her, and you wouldn't let yourself become like her, anymore than I'd let myself become like 'him', remember? We both know better, and we'll both do better. And it's not like I'm chopped liver or anything, you know?" His voice became soft, teasing aside. "I'm here. You are not alone, and you are never going to be alone, okay?"
Tea looked at him in the darkness lit only by a path of moonlight flooding in through the window, her large eyes filling with so much pain that had gone unspoken for so long.
"What if…" she had to swallow and try again, her voice barely there with the first attempt, "What if I'm not strong enough? What if…I hurt you? There are so many question marks right now, so many risks…I…Todd, I need you more everyday. If you were to go away…or if it were to become too much and I was to go away…"
"Tea, nobody's going anywhere…"
"I hate her for this doubt, and this anger…this confusion she left me with. But how can you hate something, and run from something, but ache for it so bad all at the same time?"
"Delgado, are you sure you know what it is you hate? Are you sure you know what it is you run from? And what you ache for?"
"She left me…she left me and she never looked back. She never even said goodbye. She was my life back then Todd, and as I was growing to love her, to need her, more and more each day, she must have been gearing up for it…to leave me behind…pulling away from me the harder I tried to hold on to her. She never…looked…back. She didn't deserve to be a mother."
"Tea, you're losing me here a little…don't you get it? You're not her. And I'm not her. I'm not going to leave you. And unless I f--k up, which I swear to you I have no plans for, then you don't have to go anywhere either. We've got this, Tea," he said, motioning to the two of them, "You can count on this…you can trust in this."
She brushed her fingers across his lips, and then looked away. When she looked back up, her eyes looked so empty, as she went to some other place.
"My eyes…querido…my eyes are HER eyes, did you know that? These are her eyes…" She motioned to them, and then dropped her head into her hands, so he wouldn't see…so he wouldn't know…
He reached down and he pulled her hands away, and he made her lift her head once again. He took her face in his hands, and he pulled her forward, kissing each of her closed eyelids gently.
"I love those eyes, Tea. I love what's inside them. I love what they see, I love what they know, and I love what they make of the world and everybody in it. I love them when they are laughing at me, and I love them when you look at me and take me in, loving me, and seeing so much more than I ever would have if I'd never met you. You're in those eyes…soft and beautiful, remember? Your soul is behind those eyes. That's you and nobody else. They're just windows, beautiful as they are. It's what they see and what's behind them that I love and that makes you YOU, not her. Forget about Ana. Just put all that junk behind you. You're not her, and you never will be. Bury her. She's gone."
"I know…" He missed the sadness rooted in those two words.
But I'll never know…and so I'm never safe…from the confusion, the sense of being lost, the fear…I'm never safe, no matter how much I want to be
"I won't let you fall, Tea."
He ran his fingertips lightly over her shoulders, and then he gently pulled at the sheets she clutched to herself away from her body.
"It's okay, you know. Even if you don't see you, I see you, I know you…and I love you for what you are…for who you are. We are so alike, Tea. Sometimes I forget…you let me forget because you want to be everything for me, all the time. I can take it…Don't make me sing you a chorus of 'Lean on Me'…it would bring down the house, but with a totally new meaning…"
She smiled at him, touched, but then looked away, frightened all at the same time.
How can you…know me…love me…and oh God, trust me? Right now, I don’t trust me. I'm too afraid, and you should be too. What the hell is wrong with me? How can I be sure that I won't hurt you?
Could she be sure she wouldn't repeat history…a history that was laid out but never with any rhyme or reason…and destroy him, or her own child someday, like her mother had left her…alone…destroyed…and never with any warning or explanation?
"Hey…you…Come back to me. Just let the rest of that stuff all go, okay?"
He pulled her from her thoughts, the heat of his gaze on he body warming her from head to toe. She moved forward, pressing her lips to his in a series of light, almost tentative kisses that told him that she was still unsure.
"Look, Delgado…you can be sure of me. And even when you're not, I'll be sure enough of you for both of us, okay? You've always seen more than anyone else in me, now trust me when I turn the tables on you." He traced her cheekbone down to her chin and lightly brushed his fingers over her lips, but his eyes never strayed from hers.
"No more nightmares for the Mannings tonight," he said with conviction he hoped would insure that she'd relax once and for all that night. He reached out and took her hand in his, and then brought it up to his chest to cover his heart.
"Yours, Tea. No one else's. I'm not going anywhere." He put his hand over her heart, "And I hate to break the news to you but…uh-huh… you're heartbeat is just screaming my name. We're gonna make this right, Mrs. Manning. We're both stubborn, and neither one of us will settle for anything less, not for us."
He kissed her with a fire that took her breath away, and this time she melted into his attention and returned the passion in similar fashion. He felt the tension drain from her finally as she gave herself license to lose herself in him again that night.
His hands lovingly treasured every inch of her body, though his eyes never strayed far from hers, treasuring her soul.

***************************************************************

Todd lay behind Tea, spent and exhausted, but still teasing her neck with the occasional soft kiss. She lovingly ran her fingers along the arms which held her close, and she pressed herself back into his warmth. Eventually, she heard his breathing become even as he drifted off into sleep. Gently, so she didn't disturb him, she disentangled herself from his embrace. Turning to look at him, she felt a surge of love for him so powerful it nearly broke her heart, and she reached down and brushed a lock of hair from his face. It was still rare that he could find such a peaceful sleep, but when he did she would spend the hours watching him in silence, the knowledge that his demons were quiet bringing her own sense of peace.

In spite of his tender lovemaking and the peaceful calm now on his face, she still stared into the night, feeling unsettled. Lately, the feeling just wouldn't leave her for long, as the struggle raged inside her between this desperate need to have her own child continually finding rejection from her body, and the renewed fear of repeating history because she didn't know enough about it to be sure she didn't follow in the same footsteps, making the same mistakes.

Giving Todd's shoulder a final caress, she walked over to the bureau and quietly eased the drawer open. Her fingers began their search for the familiar piece of metal within its contents. Finally her hand closed on the locket bearing her mother's initial. It was the only thing she had that was still a tangible connection…All the nights she'd spent clutching the locket to her trying to feel some small piece of her mother still with her, and praying that it would act as some consolation or substitute for the desperately needed hug that wasn't there, or looking to it for some gentle and loving words of encouragement as if she could pull her mother's voice, her mother's touch, from the cold metal. Lately, as she ran her fingers over the metal, though, it almost seemed to burn in her hand, in the same way the memories burned behind her eyes.

At times she wished that Todd had let it drift to the bottom of the Llantano River after all…with no more reminders, maybe she could convince herself that she hadn't even existed in anything more than dream-like memories, and then her heart would stop crying for her in these times when she needed her so much it hurt. She realized what her mind wanted her to do…

She wanted to deny her mother.

The thought made her sick inside. Especially when memories and feelings she couldn't deny made her feel like, to deny her mother…to write her off as if she'd never existed, was just another betrayal in the cycle.

You deny me, I deny you---Bam! It's over.

But she knew it wasn't that simple. The feelings…she'd tried to make them go away before, and sometimes could bury them so deep she convinced even herself she really didn't care. But then, at times like these, when she wanted nothing more than to be a mother herself, the confusion came back and encircled every part of her life until she felt the only salvation was to shut down. But the more she tried, the more Todd was there to pull her back. Before this, she could throw herself into her work when the emotion resurfaced, and she could count on that to turn her heart back to stone where her mother was concerned. She could believe the worst about herself and no one confused her by trying to tell her otherwise. She would stop feeling entirely until she could get to that next plain where the feelings were buried that much deeper, but now it was different. He wasn't about to let her shut down.

But now there was Todd.

She almost laughed at the irony of the role reversal as he kept her from shutting down and worked with everything he had to try to hold up a mirror for her, and it was she who couldn't accept his vision of herself, fearing that in the end, it would only disappoint him when she proved to be so much less than what he saw, or worse yet, destroyed his trust in the worst way by hurting him in the process.

She shook her head, trying to clear the confusion of it all. Slowly she walked to the window, wrapping a throw around herself and stepping into a patch of moonlight that spilled onto the carpet. Clicking open the locket, she found the one side with the familiar picture of the five year old version of herself, staring out with eyes full of such joy and wonder at everything life was at that age, before everything changed and she was made wiser about the pain that could come with the joy. Her eyes moved to the other panel, and she squinted in the dark into its empty recesses.
Logically, she knew she would continue to find it empty as it always was, but every once in a while she thought that maybe the picture of her Mother that was once on one side would reappear as if by magic.
"Empty…" she whispered into the night.
Almost as if you never existed at all.
Tea stood in that spot for what seemed like an eternity, her gaze lifting from the locket and staring out into the darkness, seeing, yet unseeing. Her memories took her back to another night a long time ago, and she leaned against the cool glass pane and let them take her where they would.

***************************************************************

Tea had a secret. All day long she had sat watching the clock, waiting for her Mother to come home, bursting at the seams. Her brothers, Jose and Enrique were rough-housing all around the small living room, and Del, her eldest brother, kept shooting glances at them as he tried to study for his exam the next day with little success. Then his gaze fell on Tea, sitting so straight in her chair, her eyes darting between the door and the clock, biting her lip with a look of the staunchest level of five year old concentration, and he had to smile.
"Soon, Tea…she'll be here soon."
She flashed a grin full of five year old adoration for him, and giggled as he winked at her. He knew her secret. He was the only one she trusted with it. Enrique and Jose…they were just stupid.
Behind her back, she hid a small tightly wrapped package, and she'd tied one of her hair-ribbons around it to add the finishing touch. It was perfect, just as she wanted it, and now, when she gave it to Mami how happy she would be…how proud of her daughter all grown up and picking out gifts all by herself. Well, not exactly all by herself. She had told Del what she wanted, and he'd taken her shopping in a small shop full of things that sparkled and twinkled when the light hit the gold and the stones. The shop belonged to the father of one of Del's friends, and Del and the shopkeeper promised her that they'd worked something out so that the money in her piggy-bank would be enough to pay for something she picked out. She had to find something just right for her Mom. She had looked so tired lately, and she didn't smile as much as she used to. And she missed her. She never used to work at all, but Papi said one night that "money didn't grow on trees" (Tea had kept her eyes open just in case, and found that he must be right…no money trees in sight) and the next day Mami had gone out and gotten a job cleaning apartments. Papi fixed things in those very same apartments, so at least she wouldn't be lonely.
It had taken a while to find just the right thing, but as soon as she saw it, she knew it was what she wanted. On a small cushion was a locket with the letter A on it. In school she had learned her letters and she recognized it immediately…the other ones around it with other letters on them…they wouldn't do. A was for Ana…her mother's name…this way she'd know it was just for her and no one else.
"That's a locket, Tea." Del explained.
"Then a locket is just what I wanted," Tea answered with a grin, her eyes full of pride.
"It's special because you can put pictures in it. Two…we'll find one of you and one of Mami, and then I think you're gift will be perfect."
"Perfect is just what I was hoping for…and just what Mami is." Del smiled at her, and brought the locket up to the counter where he paid for it with Tea's money and a secret bundle of his own.
And then Del walked her home and helped her with the pictures and the wrapping, until she was satisfied that it was indeed, just right.
Del got up from his chair and went back to the boys room to search for another book. Jose nudged Enrique, and they both sauntered over to where she sat.
"You're sitting there looking awfully full of yourself, Tea. What are you hiding behind your back?" Enrique asked her.
"Nothing…I'm just sitting here waiting for Mommy, that's all."
"What a baby!" He grabbed one of her ponytails and pulled.
"I am not either!! You take that back!" She got up and put her hands on her hips, chin out, shoulders back, and eyes full of fire. She hated him sometimes. He was always picking at her when Del and Mami weren't around, and Enrique liked to watch and to laugh. Sometimes Papi did too.
"Heeeey, lookie here…for me?" Jose had the small package in his hand and ripped the paper off of it, the bow falling to the floor. "You shouldn't have." He tossed the box aside and pulled the locket out…dangling it from his fingers.
"Look Ric…our sister's a thief. You know she can't pay for something like this. I'll just have to hold on to the evidence and take it up with Papi. And then, you're gonna get it."
Tea stood with tears flowing unchecked down cheeks red with anger. Del walked in when he heard her sobs and looked at the other two with his own anger in his eyes when he'd made sense of the scene.
And at that moment of chaos, the door opened, and Ana Delgado walked in, looking drained and exhausted. She took just a moment to take in the scene.
Tea ran over to her and reached up to wrap her arms around her waist.
"Not now, Tea, all right? I don't want to hear about the fighting right now. We'll talk about it later. I just want to lie down for a few minutes before I have to make dinner. It's been a long day, and your Papi will be here in minutes." She walked down the hallway and into her room, closing the door lightly behind her.
Tea stood looking stricken, her gaze running from the remains of her ruined surprise to her mother's closed door. Del grabbed the locket from Jose with a glare, and then squeezed Tea's shoulder.
"It's okay, kiddo…we can fix it."
"No we can't…it's all ruined, and…it was supposed to be perfect…I made her go away…I wanted to make Mami happy and…" she stopped in mid-sentence and took off for the small room she called her own.
She threw herself on the bed and cried into her pillow, her small heart
broken, until sleep grabbed her and pulled her in.

"Tea…Tea…my baby girl," Tea woke up to her Mother's voice and the soothing touch of her hand rubbing her back. It was okay when Mami called her a baby…it was different then when Jose or Ricky said it.
"Look what an angel left on my pillow. The card says it was from my favorite girl." She held out her hand and showed her the locket, as Tea sat up and sniffled.
"I waited and waited for you to come home so I could give it to you, and it was wrapped up all pretty…but the boys ruined it. And then I made you mad…" Ana pulled Tea into her lap and wrapped her arms around her, rocking her slowly.
"No, baby…you didn't make me mad. And Del told me all about it. How'd you know I needed this right now?"
"You needed a locket?"
"I love the locket, Tea…it's one of the best presents anyone's ever given me. But do you know what I love more?" She opened up the locket to the pictures inside. "That beautiful creature right there, who knew how much I needed to know how much you loved me right now without my asking," she added, pointing to the picture of Tea that she and Del had fit in the small opening beside one of Ana.
"Tea, you are my joy, do you know that? I'll cherish this always, as much as I cherish you. This locket is so special to me, but do you know what's even more special?" She smoothed Tea's hair back from her face. Tea shook her head no.
"You are…I love you Tea. I will always love you, wherever I am, and wherever you go in this life. And you will go so far. I know it. Believe that…always."
Tea wrapped her arms around her in a tight hug, as Ana continued to rock her, singing to her softly in Spanish….
Suddenly, it was perfect after all.
Rocking…..

************************************************************

Todd stirred and moved his hand over to pull Tea against him again, missing the warmth of her. His hand met with the coolness of her empty place instead. Lifting his head ever so slightly from the pillow, he saw her standing by the window, lost in some other world, rocking herself back and forth where she stood. He continued to watch her, unseen and unnoticed, and he grabbed the sheet in his hand and squeezed it in a fist of anger. He thought he knew where her mind was, and it killed him inside that she continued to be full of a pain that even he couldn't break through…because of her.

Damn you, Ana. I'll be damned if I'm going to let you keep hurting her again and again in this life.

~To be continued