You guys are the best! You're just the best. I can't thank you enough for the outpouring of kindness that followed my announcement of feeling down. It's incredible. My heart is so full, I feel like it could burst. To Ivan and Don S and Roger and Jer Bear and Sky and John, you've all been more than good to me. It really has made a difference. Thank you all and to everyone else. To thank you, I'll do the only thing that I can do, bring you another chapter. I think you'll like this one!
NOTE: I've actually had second thoughts on the rewrite. What I might do is just tell more stories from different periods in the Church and Shawn saga. Would you be interested in a story from Bem's perspective? Maybe Comet or Andy? Is there a story that you'd like me to tell? Write me and let me know. I make no promises, but I love new ideas.
Disclaimer:
If you're younger than 18 or find these kinds of stories offensive, please close up now and have a great day! If you are of legal age and are interested, by all means keep going. I'll be glad to have you along for the journey. Please donate to Nifty. This is a great resource for great stories and a useful outlet to authors like me and readers like you.
Crown Vic to a Parallel World: Stolen Love The third and final installment of the ongoing adventures of Church Philips
44 Rescue and Reunion
We waited in silence until we heard Paul's voice over the communicator. "Look, young man, look, Joseph," Paul's deep, full voice boomed over the communicator and through the air, "this place looks perfect for our headquarters. How fortunate that we should happen upon it during our vacation."
I couldn't help but smile to myself at the way Paul sounded as he said it. He sounded completely natural. I guessed his acting ability came from all the experience he'd had giving sermons and speaking in public.
Joe's act was just as fluid and his response smooth and natural. "It has more than enough space for the entire organization with room for expansion. Let's have a closer look."
Comet, on the other hand, was as wooden as a porn star who was trying to read the lines to premise the excuse for the sex scene. "Oh...yes...uh...Mister Paul and...uh, Joe...let...us...look...closer." I winced but didn't worry. I figured Paul and Joe could carry the act off, and Comet could be along for the ride.
Once they were well launched in their charade, Neb cued the rest of us. The rescue team, as I thought of us, worked our way up the bank from the street to the parking lot, then made a coordinated dash across the empty parking lot to the back of the building. It was full dark by then, but the lights of the neighborhood provided enough of an ambient glow to see by.
As we ran, I noticed that no cars moved on the street and there weren't many casual strollers. It seemed the abandoned office building was truly at the back of the residential area, and no one had much reason to use that street except those who lived on it.
Cy sank into the shadows at the corner of the building with his weapon drawn and ready for anything. The rest of us continued on. Neb put her hand up to stop Andy and me at a spot she selected for reasons she didn't share with us. Vulp continued for another thirty yards or so until he found a jog in the building to slip behind. Neb pointed at the wall and used her hands to approximate the size opening she wanted.
My heart pounded in my chest as I pointed my finger at the wall and sliced through the glass as quickly as I could have drawn a line on it. I felt Shawn as he hurried through the building to our location. As I finished the last cut and moved the glass aside with my telekinesis, Shawn was there to leap through the opening into my arms.
In a split second, his legs were clamped around my waist and his arms were around my neck. Shawn's tongue was in my mouth before I even realized I'd gotten him back. I let my magic wrap around his body so I could experience all of him at once. It took only seconds for my power to stimulate all his erogenous zones. I quickly changed him from the strong passionate man who'd jumped into my arms, to a desperately needy, whimpering mess, barely able to support himself while he gasped and shivered with erotic pleasure.
If not for Neb's insistent voice that bawled a whispered order to `MOVE' in my ear, Shawn and I might have spent many minutes, or even hours, standing next to the opening I'd made, locked in the throes of reunited passion. As it was, I only set my husband down under extreme duress.
The six of us, Neb, Cy, Vulp, Andy, Shawn, and me, made a coordinated dash across the dark parking lot and scrambled down the bank to where the cars were parked. Vulp jumped behind the wheel of the closest one, Met got in next to him, I got in the back and pulled Shawn in with me. Vulp had the vehicle in motion as soon as the doors were closed, and we sped off into the deepening evening. As we left the area, I heard Neb through my earpiece as she told Paul, Joe, and Comet to `depart immediately and prepare for pick-up.'
I jerked the communicator from my ear and pulled Shawn to me with magic. It was awkward in the cramped back seat of the car, but soon we had our mouths suctioned to each other's and our bodies pressed as tightly as possible given the space constraints. I had my hands under Shawn's yellow shirt and was starting to explore his body when his emotions changed from lusty to worried. He fought me off. "NO!" He cried and pushed me away.
"WHAT? WHY?" I asked as all my fears rose inside me like poltergeists.
Shawn leaned away from me and shoved me off him. As the closest thing I could get my hands on was his left arm, I grabbed that and pulled his hand to my face so I could suck on his fingers. He let me get away with that for a second before he fought me off again. Rancid fear bloomed inside me, terror that in the time we'd been apart, Shawn had decided that he didn't want me. I begged for an explanation.
"I reek." He said and backed as far into the corner of the car as he could get.
Shawn's explanation temporarily allayed my worries. I lunged for my husband and pulled him to me with magic at the same time. I pulled him under me and used my body and my magic to hold him against me, against his protests. I breathed deeply to pull the `reek' as he called it into my nose so I could savor it.
I held Shawn against me, his chest to mine, so I could feel his breath, and his heartbeat, and the warmth of his body, and the vibrance of his life. "You definitely smell," I admitted to him about his four-day-old body odor, "but the fact that it's your smell, makes it the most wonderful smell I could be smelling. Please don't pull away from me."
Shawn used no words but gave into what I wanted. He seemed to melt in my arms, his body shaped itself to fit perfectly with mine. He gave up all resistance, physical and emotional, and let me hold him. He whispered gentle words into my ear as I held him to me. "I knew you'd come for me, my love." Shawn said and let me feel his complete faith. "I was asleep, early this morning, and I felt you. I woke up, crying out for you to find me. I knew you'd come for me today."
I leaned my head back so I could look in his face. I was thrilled that what I thought I'd felt that morning, and what I'd been doubting that afternoon, had really been him. I thought of a million ways I could answer him, but no words seemed right. I didn't want to talk to him anyway; I wanted to experience him.
I flicked my tongue from my mouth and tasted his lips. I licked over his pouting mouth and tasted the salt of his skin. I breathed him in and held him and tasted his lips. His lips parted and I ran my tongue across his smooth straight teeth until he opened his jaw and let me into him. I tasted and savored and sucked on his tongue. I drew it into my mouth so part of him was inside me. I kept my eyes open and swam in the pools of frozen blue that looked back at me.
I drank him in, as much of him as my senses would allow me to experience, in an effort to make him, his physical person, a part of my own. I wanted to join with him, wished we could somehow merge into a single being, so we would never have to be apart, ever again. Even when the car stopped, stopped long enough that I knew we'd reached our destination, wherever that was, I refused to disengage from my husband, my Shawn, my everything.
Vulp opened the door nearest our heads and shook my shoulder with an insistent hand. He crouched down so he could look in my eyes. "Church," the muscle man's rarely used voice bordered on sweet, "you're going to want to see this. You just have to separate for a few minutes...then you can...anything you want."
I pushed my weight off Shawn, and let him slide out from under me, then followed him out of the car. I took his hand and held it. Vulp reached into his pocket and took out a golden key with a heart shaped end. He handed it over and pointed behind Shawn and me. We turned as a unit so I wouldn't have to release Shawn's hand.
What we saw stole my breath and brought a tear to my eye. My reestablished emotional link with my husband told me he was equally affected by the sight. He felt happy and nostalgic and excited and naughty all at once.
We were at the hotel from our honeymoon. The sign on the building reminded me of its name, the Mare Testa, the seashell. Vulp came around in front of us to explain. "Neb did it. She heard your story this morning and called the place after you sent her away earlier. They said the room wasn't available, so she bought the hotel. Don't worry, the people who were using the room were well paid to vacate. They are now enjoying another hotel and an extra week of vacation. The room is yours...as long as you want it."
I snatched Shawn off his feet, half with my muscular arms and half with magic. I gathered him into my arms to hold him to me like he was my bride, and I was going to carry him across the threshold. I spoke to Vulp without looking at him. "Tell Neb...tell her thanks...from both of us...and I'll call her, in a week or so."
The lust that Shawn had so far kept bottled up, burst forth from inside him and slammed into me with a fiery vengeance. I almost staggered at the intensity of it. "I can walk, you know." Shawn gently teased from his position as a bundle in my arms.
"Not when I get done with you." I whispered to him.
He shivered with barely contained erotic energy. "You BEAST!" He breathed.
"You're The Beast," I reminded him, "I'm Harder." I said and carried him inside.
I carried Shawn through the lobby, into the elevator, up to the suite, into the suite, into the bathroom of the suite, and all the way into the shower stall. Shawn went along with the silly joke I was playing out and turned the water on full blast to soak us down in our clothes. I let the water pour over us and looked deeply into his eyes. "I love you and I missed you." I whispered to him over the sound of the falling water.
"I love you and I missed you." Shawn said in the sweet bedroom voice that he kept only for me. "Will you tell me who and why and all those things?"
The fact that he had no idea struck me like a slap to the face. I didn't realize that with no guards and no communication for the entire week, Shawn didn't even know who kidnapped him and why. I felt my jaw clench in anger and felt Shawn's worry rise to match. I released the tension in my jaw and flexed it. I released my anger and hatred and let them run down the drain like sweat off my body. "I'll tell you, but first, I've got something I've wanted to do since Monday night. Can we do that first?"
"Yes...I'll stick to the promise I made then. I'm yours, as much as you want, as hard as you want, as many times as you want. But first, I really need to clean up. You can put me down. I promise not to go anywhere."
I'd forgotten I was holding him. He felt so natural, so right in my arms, that it felt wrong to release him. I knew that I had to, so I lowered Shawn to his feet and helped him off with his clinging wet clothes. He returned the favor and helped me off with mine. "What happened to you?" Shawn gasped when we'd managed to get my shirt over my head.
I looked down at myself to see what he was talking about. Shawn's hand darted to my stomach and traced a slow path from my groin to my pecs. To our mutual surprise, every one of my muscles stood out in sharp relief. I flexed and moved to make them pop. The display elicited pleased noises from Shawn. "Didn't you eat?" He asked.
"I ate like crazy." I admitted and was every bit as confused as Shawn. I thought and thought, then I remembered the magic cloud I'd made to find him. `Must've burned through more mass than I thought.' I reasoned. I gave Shawn a quick rundown of what I'd done.
"FOUR MILES!" He half-shouted. "No wonder you're cut. It looks...wow." Shawn trailed his hands over my body again. "It looks really hot." He spent a moment ogling me, then smirked with the up-from-under look that I loved. "Turn around." He directed, his voice deep and lusty.
I turned. The lust that I felt from him went from a smoldering bed of embers to a conflagration. "Oooooohhhhhhhh...oooooohhhhhhh my." He sighed. He moved against me to kiss and playfully bite each of my shoulder blades while he kneaded my meaty shoulders and worked his hands down my back. When he finished, he kissed and sucked and licked and bit his way down my spine while I shivered and shook under his ministrations.
"Ho-o-oly God...Sh-sha-awn." I rumbled as he teased me.
"This back...this great...BIG...sexy back. Sooooo...so nice. I am going to do depraved things to you and this back." I felt him almost lose control, but his incredible discipline took over. He planted a slap on my ass. "But first, we need to wash."
I grabbed the soap and held it away from Shawn. I stepped under the water to give myself a quick, but thorough wash and rinse. Shawn watched me. He seemed to know that I was up to something and was willing to wait to see what it was.
When I was finished with me, I handed the soap over and shut off all the blasting shower heads except one in the center of the stall. I leaned against the glass wall and slid down to sit on the floor with my legs bent and my knees to my chest in front of me. I rested my arms on my knees and leaned my head against the shower wall.
"What are you doing?" Shawn asked, his head cocked in confusion and his raven black hair plastered down against his head. A plait of hair drooped over his forehead. He reached up to brush it back and tuck it behind his ear.
"I've missed everything about you." I explained. "I hoped you'd let me watch you wash."
Shawn grinned down at me. His smile was half amused-smirk and half seductive-leer. He stepped under the water. "I know what you want." He teased me with his voice and with his actions. He soaped his hands and ran them over his right leg, alternately tensing the muscles of his calf and his thigh as he slicked the smooth skin with soap suds. "I wish I would have thought...when you were busy mauling me on the way here, I could've had Vulp stop to get some oil. Then I could have put on a real show."
Shawn put on quite a show for me, oil or no oil. He let the feedback from our emotional link guide his actions and he rode the waves of my lust as he cleaned himself. His show brought me right to the raw ragged edge of my control. When he was satisfied that he had me where he wanted me, he stepped under the water again to rinse off.
As I watched the shimmering soap rinse from Shawn's flawless skin and run down the drain, I felt a warm swelling of love push through the fiery lust we'd been trading back and forth. I'd enjoyed the lust, but lust wasn't what I wanted. Lust was fun and amazing and a great part of our partnership, but it was love that I needed, love that I craved, love that completed me. It had been love that I'd missed for more than just a few lonely days.
As I experienced that thought, a melancholy stab of grief and fear sliced through me. It pushed everything else aside. I was terrified that after the joy of the reunion that we were in the middle of, we'd go back to the way we were. I was scared that I'd have to go back to spending my days waiting for Shawn, while he spent his time laboring at his medical practice, endlessly saving the world that we'd already saved.
The razor-sharp doubt brought my face, bawling and sobbing, hiding behind my knees with my arms wrapped around them to pull them tighter to me. I feared they would be all the comfort left to me once we went home.
Shawn dropped down next to me, desperate to understand what was wrong. I fought against the sadness and the grief and forced myself to swallow it so I could talk to him. I forced myself to be calm so I could explain. What I needed to say to him, to ask him, was probably the most important thing I'd spoken to him about in a very long time, and I wanted to make sure I got it right.
I raised my head off my knees but couldn't look at Shawn. I was too afraid of what I might see. "I...I really thought I could lose you, Shawn." I admitted with a voice that sounded like mine but that had a terrified rattle in it. "That scared me...but what scared me more was wondering if I even still had you. I tried not to think about that, when I...when we were trying to find you, because it was too much to deal with.
"I've missed you, though...missed you a lot, for a couple years now. I know a lot of my loneliness is my fault...I never found a purpose like you did. I never figured out what to do with myself to pass the time between when you leave for work in the morning and when you get home."
Shawn tried to interrupt, but I stopped him. I needed to have my say. "Since I don't know what to do, I fiddle around. I cook and I clean up and I go up to the mountain and visit with Fidum. I drive around the plains. I waste time and I miss you. I don't want it to be that way anymore. I can't stand missing you. I hate every minute that we're apart. Now though, with you and Met and your practice, even when you're home, I don't really have you.
"I know it's not fair of me to think this way, and I know it sounds silly and cheesy, but I don't know how else to express it. You complete me, Shawn. Without you, I'm a broken toy. I feel like that chimp with the cymbals, but I don't have anyone to wind me up. It's like I don't even start to live until you're with me.
"I asked you once, if you ever got tired of my heart, to stop it instead of leaving it lonely. I know it's not fair for me to lay that on you, but I can't feel any other way. I've tried. I'd rather be dead than alone. That's how it is." I ran out of things to say and turned the floor over to Shawn. "Now you can talk, if you want."
Shawn rested a hand on my head. He combed his delicate fingers through my long, wet hair and brought the hand back to my head. He moved to kneel in front of me and used his soft, delicate hands to cradle my cheeks and my chin and to lift my head to his face. "I don't want to be apart from you either." He said in that same, low, bedroom voice.
I raised my eyes to his when he said it. His words gave me the first little glimmer of hope that made it possible for me to look at him. When Shawn knew he had my attention, he went on. "I did a great deal of thinking the last few days. I've been doing nothing but thinking since I jumped down the steps from our plane to answer that distress call and was stunned and carried off.
"While I was stuck in that building, with nothing to do and no one to do it for, all I could think about was all the people in the world going on without me, because all of them would. My patients, my family, my friends; all of them would somehow go on without me. I knew that out of all of them, there was one person who wouldn't...one person would be frantic and inconsolable.
"It was because of that one person, I didn't worry for myself. I knew, from the time those black hooded men carried me into that other plane to take me away, that one person would move heaven and Earth, to use a phrase I've heard him say, if that's what he had to do to find me.
"Church...my love, I'll tell you what I should have told you in the closet on Monday night. I'll tell you what I should have told you before that, in the garage when you were sad, and even before that. I've given the practice to Met.
"I invited him to join it as a partner because I didn't want to close it. I think the work that it does is important, but I don't want to be the one doing it anymore, not full time anyway. Met has been staying at the estate to spend time around you to increase his magic capacity to match mine. We calculated that soon, he'd have enough capacity built up to take over the day-to-day operation of the office.
"I don't want to be married to my work anymore. I want to be married to you. I was planning to surprise you for our anniversary. I...I think I want children. I don't think it, I know it. I want children. I want to have them with you. I want to have them and raise them, and I want to do it with you."
By the time Shawn was done talking, my heart felt so full I thought it would burst. I was afraid of the idea of raising children, our children, but I quickly decided if Shawn wanted children, we'd have them. I wept again, but this time the tears were joyful instead of desperate sobs of grief and fear. Shawn cried too. He cried that he'd made me feel bad in the first place. He cried that he'd put others between us. He cried because he was overjoyed to know that our hearts still beat as one.
We cried ourselves out, dried each other off, and left the bathroom for the bedroom. We didn't ravage each other that night, like we planned to, or like we had all those years before when we'd been newlyweds in that same room. Instead, we came together, like we hadn't in a long while, and we made love like only two people who are in love can. Shawn didn't slap my ass, and I didn't cry out to him in passion. Instead, we told each other, by word and deed, how much we loved each other, over and over and over again.
That night was a pure and beautiful celebration of the life we had together, and the life we would have. It was a physical and emotional renewal of our complete and permanent dedication to our lives together, and come our inevitable deaths, to continue that love in the hereafter, because for people like us, and a love like ours, such a thing must certainly exist.
I slept in his arms that night, and he slept in mine, and I dreamed of being surrounded by a whole flock of raven-haired children with frozen eyes and sweet serious faces. The girls called me daddy' and the boys called me pop' and while Shawn was their favorite, I was their second favorite, and that was enough for me.