John Francis

Too wired to sleep after Richie left, Jon started making coffee…and lists. He liked lists. They clarified his thinking, sorted out his plans, and gave him a direction to take. He’d usually have two or three filled with his barely legible scrawl before he’d even stop to take a real breath. Which is why he found himself frowning, scowling really, at the blank sheets of paper in front of him.

At first he’d thought of hiring a private detective, but considering that his mother’s hiring of one had started this whole avalanche of fuck-uppery, he was hesitant to go that route. He didn’t have any friends in NCIS to triangulate Amanda’s cell phone signal and even if he did, he’d be hard pressed to convince them this was the emergency he thought it was.

Jon sighed and lit another cigarette.

Fuck.

Shit. Fuck.

Shit. Fuck. Motherfuck.

Even swearing wasn’t helping.

He looked at his watch. Almost nine. He dialed the number he’d stored in his cellphone from months earlier and waited while it rang.

“Hello? Mrs. Adams? It’s Jon Bongio --”

He didn’t even get his entire name out before he was speaking to a dead phone.

Apparently calling Amanda’s mother was working out just as well as he thought it would.

Which was not at all.

~~~

Amanda was up the rest of the night and saw the dawn with eyes blurred from lack of sleep. She had found herself unable to go back to bed, afraid she would dream again. It was bad enough that she kept replaying it over and over as she sat outside, a blanket keeping her warm, a single carafe of wine slowly being emptied.

Dreaming it again and waking to find it was real life would be too much. She would have to sleep, of course, but not tonight. Not if she could help it.

As light gradually brightened her terrace, she stirred from her blanket cocoon and walked into the bathroom. The shower helped her wake up a little more, the water warm and soothing. She dressed for the day, intending to spend it walking as much as she could so that when she tried to sleep that night, she would do so without dreaming.

Please, God, no more dreams.

It didn’t help to know that being awake wasn’t any better.

Amanda had been in Greece for almost a week. It was gorgeous and the people were warm and friendly, yet every day so far had passed in a fog of pain that sleep brought no relief from.

What she wanted was for her love for Jon to die.

Learning what Jeremy had done had killed her feelings for him with one swift slice through her heart. The cords that held her to him had been severed the moment she’d learned that he’d betrayed her in the way that he had. An affair she might have forgiven. Ending their life, her life, as she knew it had not only had ended her love for him, but had changed what she knew thought she knew about herself. About who she was and her place in this world.

Amanda fingered the bracelet on her arm, the tangible reminder of the man known as Jon bon Jovi and that for a brief moment he had been in her life. The problem was that she did not give her heart lightly. She would have been with Jeremy until the end and there would never have been a man named Jon who would have awakened feelings she’d never felt before. She had come to realize over the last few days that while Jeremy was her first love, he was not her true love.

Her true love was a man she would never see again.

~~~

“Richie!” Trish screamed as the big man suddenly hit the floor with a bone-jarring thud. She sent up a silent prayer of thanks for thick carpeting and no nearby sharp edges.

One cold rag later, Richie found himself blinking his eyes and staring up as Trish wiped his forehead as water slowly trickled down and into one of his ears.

“Trish?” he asked, squinting his eyes in confusion.

“Richie! Thank God! Are you alright?” Trish’s hands seemed to suddenly be everywhere as she tried to check that everything was working properly.

Richie sat up, a little slowly as new aches and pains added themselves to the ones he got just a short while ago from his bout with Jon.

“What happened?” Richie asked, looking around, surprised to find himself on the floor.

“I think you fainted,” Trish said.

Richie’s face suddenly reminded Trish of an indignant cat.

“I did not faint. I have never fainted in my life.”

Trish just grinned at him now that she realized he hadn’t been hurt. She watched him stand and only reached out a hand once when he wobbled just a little.

Richie wasn’t sure his legs would hold him up. They seemed to have turned into a curious form of leg-shaped jelly and he willed himself to take several deep breaths.

Trish cleared her throat softly. “Uhm, Richie, do you remember the last thing I said to you?”

He looked at her and it was apparent he was thinking. She knew the moment he remembered when his eyes widened and his mouth formed a soft “O”.

“You’re pregnant,” he gulped and Trish almost smiled as he stated the obvious. “And -- you’re -- triplets?”

Trish nodded with a bemused look suddenly on her face.

Richie started to speak. “Well…” He cleared his throat and tried again. “I think I -- want to sit down.” He matched action to words and sat heavily on the couch.

Trish sat down on the other end of the couch, a bit unsure of herself in light of Richie’s apparent shock at her announcement although she was a little relieved to see she wasn’t the only one who’d had her whole world rocked.

She had always wanted a baby. Maybe even two, three if she had to pick the magic number, but one baby at a time. Just one. Learning she was going to have three at once had been enough to bring her to alternating bouts of laughter and tears throughout the morning. Richie had happened to arrive after one of the crying spells.

Finally realizing he could speak in entire sentences, Richie asked, “What did the doctor say?”

She sighed. The doctor had said quite a lot actually. “Lots of rest. No lifting anything over ten pounds. No vigorous exercise. And he wants me to see a nutritionist.”

Richie nodded along as Trish recited each item. “Good, good, okay, we can do all that.”

They fell into silence then, each with their own thoughts.

Trish finally spoke. “I’m terrified, Richie.”

Richie looked at her, seeing the truth of her words in her eyes.

“You’ll be ok, baby. We’ll make sure of it.”


(*wink* Bayaderra)