Long Time Running

by Foster, Hannah

  "I did this for you" she told her.

  "LIAR! You did this for you. You get to play mommy to my son and play happy families with Eric. All the benefits of being in a committed relationship without actually having to commit. It's the best of both worlds for you." She turned to Eric. "And you - watching me so incredibly twisted with guilt when we talked and you never said a word. I mean you were ready to nail me to the cross for what I did to you but conveniently forgot to mention that you....you....had Jack. The son you never wanted"

  "The son I didn't know about" he snapped. "You're doing a lot of finger pointing Nat but you are forgetting your role here-"

  She shook her head. "Oh but I'm not. I am fully aware of what I have done and it has eaten me up inside," she sniffed. "But I see now it was all needless. The three of you have a happy, complete life with J-Jack. Far be it from me to interrupt that." She turned and angrily zipped her suitcase.

  "You're wrong" Sarah said, finally finding her voice. "This wasn't for me. I love Jack and I won't apologize for it but you and you alone are the one who put me in this position -who put all of us in this position. You asked me to help you and I did - you do not get to accuse me of a hidden agenda. I was at your bed side and I watched you come apart" she reminded her with hot, angry tears streaming down her face, "and I made a decision on what I thought was best for you I had no idea that you would cut me out of your life like you did to everyone else. I love you and I won't apologize for trying to act in your best interests."

  "My best interests?" she scoffed. "I told you what was in mine - and Jack's - best interests. Thanks for proving I was right to cut off contact. I don't need a selfish, heartless liar masquerading as a sister in my life."

  Sarah gasped audibly and struggled to keep her composure.

  "That's enough Nathalie!" Andrew interjected angrily.

  "Damn straight it's enough" she agreed, pulling her suitcase from the bed and moving towards the door.

  "Where do you think you're going?" Eric asked, blocking the door.

  "Home. To Tanzania."

  He shook his head. "Not a chance. If you want to get out of here, fine. Then you and I can go somewhere and talk."

  She smirked mirthlessly. "What makes you think I have anything to say to you?"

  "You have lots to say," he told her. "And so do I. And you owe me."

  Nathalie's eyes glistened with tears unshed and she shook her head. "You're an asshole" she whispered tearfully.

  "Probably," he agreed. "But that doesn't change the fact that you still owe me an explanation."

  He reached for her hand. "We can go to my place, it's not far from here"

  She shook off his hand. "Don't touch me." She kept hold of her suitcase and followed him to the door.

  "Natty!" Sarah called.

  She turned to her sister, her green eyes ice cold. "I have nothing to say to you."

  Sarah watched her sister leave the room and angrily turned to Andrew. "You must be loving this."

  "I'm not" he said quietly.

  "Sure you are - you told us this would happen. So go ahead," she pushed, ignoring the tears, "go ahead and tell me you told me so. It will give you such satisfaction."

  Moving towards her, he took her hand and gently tugged her to him. "I don't want to say it" he told her.

  "Leave me alone."

  "No" he insisted as he wrapped his arms around her.

  "I don't know what to do" she mumbled against his chest.

  He pressed his lips to her cheek. "We're going to go to my office and we're going to talk to Jack."

  "I can't."

  "Yes you can and I'll help you."

  #

  She had been stonily silent on the short taxi ride, not even acknowledging him. As they rode the elevator to his penthouse apartment, Eric snuck a look at her and was secretly pleased to see the determined set to her jaw. She was angry and to his mind that was a good thing. If she still had fight left in her it meant the woman he had loved was in there, underneath all those layers of pain and fear.

  He unlocked the door and she brushed past them. Standing back he watched her as she glanced around the living room. He wondered what she saw, what information about him she took from seeing his place. The large apartment with its high ceilings, hardwood floors and modern furniture was a long way from their tiny apartment in Chicago with its river view and hand me down furniture.

  "I'm going to make some tea" he told her, depositing his keys on a side table and heading towards the kitchen.

  "I'm not thirsty" she replied petulantly.

  "Tough."

  Nathalie walked over to the bookcase and a cold shiver ran through her body as she came across a collection of framed photos of Jack. There was one of him lying on the grass, holding a ball. He could not have been more than six months old. The next photo, he looked to be about three and was dressed in a Yankees shirt that hung to the floor and was sitting in between Andrew and Eric smiling happily. The third photo was clearly from his first day of school. The image of him with his Transformers backpack and his Yankees baseball cap took her breath away. The pain from all the moments she missed, from all she had given up threatened to crush her. She turned the photos face down.

  Returning to the living room Eric made a beeline to the bookcase, he turned up the photos and shook his head. "The sight of your son is that disturbing to you that you have to hide him? You must have been glad to get rid of h-"

  He had not finished his sentence before her open hand landed firmly on his cheek. Stunned by the first slap, he anticipated the second one and grabbed her hand.

  "Shut up" she seethed, tears tumbling down her cheeks. "You have no idea...you just have no idea."

  His face softened. "You're right. I don't and it's time for you to tell me."

  "You don't know what you're asking me" she whispered.

  "That's true but I promise I'll listen and I promise you are safe here. I'm not going to hurt you Nat."

  She smiled sadly as she sank onto the couch. "But I did hurt you."

  Eric nodded. "Yeah, you did." He swallowed thickly before voicing the question that had plagued him for seven years. "Did you really think so little of me - of us- that you had to leave rather than tell me you were pregnant?"

  She shook her head vehemently in response. "The opposite actually. I knew you would stand by me and our child no matter what it cost you." Dragging the back of her hand across her face, she wiped her mouth. "It's ironic, you know? I left....I left because I was terrified of ruining your life. I loved you so much" she told him tearfully, "that I didn't want you to resent me for bringing something into your life that you didn't want. I thought I was protecting you, instead I have wrecked everything."

  "You weren't wrong, you know" he admitted with a bit of difficulty. "I probably wouldn't have reacted well. I had told you over and over again that I couldn't think of anything worse than being a parent. But that was then and this is now and I love Jack. I love him and can't imagine my life without him."

  "He was always very special" she whispered.

  "Yes," he agreed. "Which is why I can't imagine you giving him up. What happened Nat? What happened in that fire?"

  Her green eyes shimmered with tears as she pulled her legs to her chest. She made herself as compact and small as she could almost as though bracing against what was to come. She pulled absently on the cuff of her jeans trying to beat back the fear.

  "Nathalie, if what happened in Tanzania was so bad I don't understand why you would want to go back there."

  "It wasn't Tanzania" she said quietly.

  "I thought...I thought you said you were living in Tanzania."

  "I was. I am. But when I first moved to Africa I was living in the Congo."

  Eric went completely quiet and waited for her to continue. Despite his absolute hunger for knowledge, he wouldn't rush her. If they were going to figure out what was next for them and for Jack she needed to know she could trust him.

  "I moved to Gene
va when I....when I left." Her voice remained quiet and he found himself leaning forward to make sure he heard her. "I had an offer of a fellowship. I was just finishing up the first year when Jack was born. He was big - just over eight pounds." She smiled at the memory. "But just before I went off on maternity leave, I was offered a position with an NGO in southern Congo to help establish a hospital in a village. They had nurses but no doctors and the hospital in Geneva thought I would be the right fit. They assured me that it was a good environment for a baby - the village had lots of children and was very family oriented and so I went."

  Eric tried to quiet the small echoes of resentment growing inside him. He knew it was petty to be jealous of her pursuing a dream they had shared but he was. Exhaling slowly, he silently urged her to carry on.

  "The village was great" she told him. "It was isolated and lacking in many modern conveniences but it was a happy place. The nurses were eager to learn and we worked at setting up a hospital. I delivered a lot of babies in the first two months" she laughed lightly.

  Eric laughed as well. Obstetrics had been her least favorite rotation and she had always sworn she would never go back.

  "I actually got quite good at it" she admitted. "Jack settled in really well and the other children loved him. There was always a line up of young girls who wanted to play with the baby. He didn't lack for attention or love."

  Her tone was one of assurance as though she wanted him to be sure Jack was wanted and she had loved him. She needn't have worried, he had never truly doubted that.

  "But the third month there it all.....it all came crashing to an end." As her hands started to shake, she pulled nervously on her fingers. Her tongue darted from her mouth and swiped at her suddenly dry lips.

  Eric got to his feet and headed to the kitchen. He returned with a glass of water and handed it to her. She thirstily gulped it down before setting it on the table.

  She couldn't quite meet his eyes as she struggled to find the words. "It....it was late" she said softly. "Everyone was asleep when I heard this blood curdling scream. I woke up and looked out the window of my little house but couldn't see anything. And then there seemed to be this burst of light. There were.....soldiers standing in the village. They were calling people out of their homes and when people wouldn't come out they would break down the doors and drag the men outside."

  Eric found he was holding his breath as she spoke, his mind already racing ahead to a hundred horrific possibilities.

  "They were..." her voice trailed off and as she shivered, she pulled her legs closer to her chest. "They were randomly attacking them with machetes. The screams were horrible" she whispered. "And then they started attacking the women." She brought her head to rest on her knees as she clenched her eyes shut.

  "Nathalie," he called to her urgently. He moved closer to her on the couch and gently touched her shoulder. "Were you.....were you...."

  He could not bring himself to even say the words. A knot was forming in the pit of his stomach.

  Lifting her head slightly, she gave a small shake. "No."

  Unable to stop himself, he cupped her face with his hands and pressed a long, lingering kiss to her forehead. "Thank god," he whispered.

  "They found my house though and they dragged me outside with the rest of the villagers - my friends. And they found out that I was a doctor." The tears continued to fall and she could do little to stop them.

  "And so for sport, really, they started hacking at people with the machetes and making me run from person to person and try and fix them. There was so much blood" she whispered. "And I couldn't stop it."

  "Oh Nat," he sighed.

  On his worst day as a surgeon he could not imagine facing something like that. She was shivering uncontrollably and he pulled the throw from the arm of the couch and wrapped it around her shoulders.

  "Then....then they set fire to all the houses. I was so busy trying to bandage people and...and stop the bleeding" she rasped, "that I didn't even think about my house. People were dying and I was frantic trying to save them. And then..."

  Reaching to the table she picked up the glass and drank the remaining water. "And then I heard a scream - a baby's scream. I don't think it was Jack but I stopped what I was doing and I looked over in the direction of my house and it was in flames." The last few words dropped from her mouth like the weight of them was more than could be borne.

  Eric moved to comfort her but she shook her head.

  "I...I ran into the house. There were flames licking at the doorway to his room but I had...I had to get him and so I ran through and grabbed him from his crib. I was running towards the front door when the house kind of groaned." She pulled at the cuff of her jeans again, twisting a stray thread around her finger.

  "The roof?" he asked.

  Nathalie nodded. "A beam holding up the roof broke and fell on top of me. I'm not even sure how I got out," she said quietly. "All I know is I got a few feet from the house and collapsed. The next thing I knew it was a week later and I was in the hospital in Tanzania."

  "Nat, I don't....I'm not sure what to say."

  She shook her head. "There is nothing to say. All but six people died that night. I was in the hospital for about three weeks and then was released. Mylea, one of my nurses from the village in the Congo brought me home with her."

  "There's something I don't understand," he told her carefully. "If you thought it was too dangerous for Jack why didn't you come back to the States rather than give him up?"

  Her eyes met his and she stared for several beats. "I didn't believe I had anything to come back to." Smiling sadly, she gave a small shrug. "But it was more than that."

  "Like what?" he prodded gently.

  "I couldn't....I couldn't pick him up. I couldn't feed him or change him. Every time he cried I would see things from that night and I couldn't go near him. I loved him more than anything" she said hoarsely as tears streamed down her cheeks. "But I couldn't be around him." She gasped for air.

  He rubbed his hand over his face. "Nathalie - that is classic post-traumatic stress."

  "Maybe. All I know is I wanted to care for my son but I couldn't go near him. It was killing me Eric."

  He didn't realize it but several tears were streaking down his cheeks as well.

  "I tried but after several weeks of other people feeding him and caring for him it became painfully obvious that I was no mother to him - no matter if I wanted to be. So....so I called Sarah. After, after I signed the papers transferrin guardianship to her and she left with Jack I fell to pieces. It was only through Mylea's persistence that I got back on my feet at all. So you see, it's not that his pictures on your bookshelf are disturbing. It's just...it hurts more than I can even say to see him. To know what I gave up" she said with a shuddering breath.

  Moving beside her, Eric closed his arms around her and softly kissed her cheek. "I am so sorry" he whispered. He rubbed his hand along her back trying to stem the shaking.

  "I know....I know you have questions" she said against his shoulder. "But I don't think I can talk much more right now."

  "That's okay," he reassured her, kissing her cheek again. "Just stay here and rest, okay?"

  She nodded and let herself be enveloped by his warmth. She had no idea what was to happen next or where either of them stood at the moment but what she did know was being in his arms was the safest she had felt in years.

  Chapter 15

  The room was eerily silent as Eric looked down at her wrapped around him. There had been a quiet, steady stream of tears that dampened his shirt before she drifted off to sleep, in the comfort and shelter of his arms. He softly threaded his fingers through her hair as her head was tucked under his chin. He knew he had yet to feel the full weight of her revelations and he was wrestling with what exactly they would tell Jack, how much detail would they give him. He knew his son and knew his brain was already filled with hundreds of questions. What could they tell him that would satisfy him without traumatizing him?
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br />   "My poor Nat," he whispered as he looked down at her sleeping form.

  He understood now and it was both a relief and a burden to him. Relief at knowing that giving up Jack had been the result of an extraordinary pressure. It was not that he had really doubted it - the woman he had loved for all those years would not give up their child so easily. The problem was as the years passed he had no way of knowing if she was still the woman he had loved with all his heart. But the relief was short lived for him. The idea that she lived through what she did and he had not been able to help her weighed heavily on him.

  She shifted against him, her legs tangling through his and her arm sliding around his waist. He swallowed down a groan as his body reacted to her change of position. The way she felt against him, the feel of her fingertips resting lightly against his waist were all so achingly familiar. It drove home how much he had missed her and how he craved the connection he had with her, one he had not found with any other woman.

  He traced his fingertips along her back and against the small patch of skin where her jeans and t- shirt didn't quite meet. Her skin was still soft to the touch and before he realized it he had slipped his hand under her shirt, stroking her back. She snuggled it further against him and his body responded.

  With a small moan she pried open her eyes and tiredly lifted her head. Blinking in adjustment to the lights, she gave a small start when she didn't recognize where she was. The familiar touch on her skin clued her in quickly.

  "You're okay" he told her softly.

  Meeting his eyes, she smiled tiredly. "I fell asleep on you."

  "You exhausted yourself," he replied.

  Glancing downwards and seeing the tangle of their limbs and the intimate way she was pressed to him, her cheeks burned hotly with embarrassment. "I am so sorry" she said quickly, the words tumbling from her mouth. "I didn't...I didn't realize I had literally fallen asleep on you."

  As she tried to roll off of him, he gently held her in place. "I'm not complaining."