Ethan also noticed something that he’d seen earlier with his wife.
Chris looked like shit.
He was suffering away from Elizabeth, just as much as he was. Ethan understood his pain.
There was this deep, dark hole in his chest, and it threatened to swallow him alive.
“What do you want?” Chris asked. “Slumming it, Director Blackhawk, or are you here to kick my ass?”
Ethan sighed.
“Can we talk?” he asked.
“Am I going to disappear and my body turn up in the Potomac?” he asked.
“Uh, no. Why would you think that, and why the hell would you even say that out loud in front of your child?”
Chris asked because he was scared.
Ethan Blackhawk was at his door, and he no longer had anyone’s protection. Chris Leonard was out in the world alone, and he was having to fend for himself.
“Please? I promise to behave.”
Chris still hesitated.
“Can I at least see Bethe? I miss her.”
The door closed and the chain was removed. As soon as it was, Bethe was smiling at him from Chris’s arms.
“Hey, gorgeous,” Ethan said. “I’ve missed you, little girl. Want a cookie?” he asked, pulling one from his pocket. It was a trick he used with Charlie and the two dogs.
She immediately tried to go to Ethan and the prettily wrapped confection.
“No, Bethe,” Chris said, keeping his child tucked against his body.
“Chris. I won’t hurt her. I don’t abuse kids.”
“Yeah, you only kick the shit out of your family, your wife’s heart, and anyone who ever cared about Elizabeth,” he stated.
The man had a point.
“May I hold Bethe, please? I miss my kids, and this is as close as I’m going to get to them.”
Well, for the next few weeks.
He hesitated.
“Please?”
Chris let her go.
Ethan snuggled the little girl beneath his heavy wool coat so she wouldn’t get cold. Bethe didn’t hesitate to munch on the cookie while she clutched his tie in the other hand.
The yum-yum sounds made him smile.
God!
He missed his family.
“Can I come in? The security will stay outside.”
Chris didn’t know what this was all about, but he didn’t want Bethe getting sick.
“Sure.”
He stepped back, allowing the man to enter.
“You lost weight, Doctor,” Ethan stated. “A lot of weight.”
“It happens when you lose your whole family, your job, and the only stability you’ve ever had in your life. Then you find yourself alone in a house with a toddler all day, and you don’t know what the hell you’re doing.”
Ethan got it.
He was in the same boat just minus the kid. He was alone at Fort Whitefox-Blackhawk, and it sucked.
“I talked to Elizabeth today.”
Chris’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m staying away from her so you two can get back together. If I leave, she’ll forgive you and you’ll be happy.”
Ethan took a seat on the man’s couch. Bethe played with his tie as she drooled all over his shirt, and he didn’t care. It was the happiest moment he’d had the last few weeks.
“But you won’t be happy if you never see her again,” Ethan stated.
“I had her all those years ago. I got my time with her. My days are over, and I have to let her go. If not for me, for her. She needs me to let her go so she can have you. Elizabeth needs your love more than she ever needed mine. I’m the past, and I’m over.”
Ethan got the hurt.
“I was so angry when you both lied to me,” he admitted. “It wasn’t so much that you’d had a sexual relationship with her.”
“Liar,” Chris stated.
“Okay, you have me there. I hate that your dick was in my wife. I can’t even think about it because it makes my one eye twitch, but I get it now.”
“There’s nothing to get. We were friends, it evolved, we broke up, and now we’re just brother and sister. No one seems to believe that. I don’t want in her panties.”
“Ever?” he asked.
“Never.”
“The lies hurt,” Ethan admitted.
“We lied because you’re an asshole when you’re mad. You didn’t give us a choice. You have anger issues, and always have. Let’s call it what it is. We’re both adults.”
Rightfully so.
He absolutely was a douchebag.
“I’m in counselling.”
“I hope it works for you. You should be going,” Chris said, pulling Bethe onto his lap. “Say goodbye, Elizabeth,” he said, kissing his daughter on the cheek.
Ethan’s heart broke.
The little girl had his wife’s name, and he was going to have to leave her life now too.
He knew he had one shot left.
“I came here to ask you to forgive me,” Ethan offered. “I’ve also come here to tell you that you have every right to hate me for what I’ve done to you, and her.”
Chris stared at him. “I don’t hate you. I hate me for lying to someone I love. I did it to protect someone else I love. I did it because she was afraid you’d be angry. I didn’t do it for any other reason than those.”
Ethan got that now.
“By the way, you look like shit too,” Chris stated. “You’ve got gray in your hair, and you look like you haven’t slept in weeks.”
“I haven’t. I’m running the FBI by myself, my wife left me, my husband left me, and a man I love and respected bailed too. Shitty is all I got left.”
“You’re the boss. That’s what you have left.”
Ethan laughed and rested his head on the cushion of the couch. “Yeah, lucky me.”
Neither man spoke.
It was a painful, awkward silence.
“So, this is where you lived all those years ago, huh?”
“Yes. I kept it. I rented it out as a business venture. Last week, I kicked the tenants out so I could bring Bethe here. This place haunts me, but it’s all I have left of a woman I love.”
“Why did you two break up?” he asked, catching Chris off guard. “No lies.”
“I cheated on her.”
Ethan lifted a brow. “Really?”
“She’d been paired up with lots of women partners, and a man here and there. Well, this one rubbed me the wrong way, and I let my imagination get the best of me.”
“Who?” Ethan asked.
“Ray.”
That was all he had to say.
“The man caused shit between us, and one day, she said she was working, and I got suspicious. She was at a bar with him. I know because I followed her.”
“And?” Ethan asked.
“I got mad. I found a woman, and I picked her up that Friday night. Fridays were our happy hour days. When I brought her here to get my revenge, I walked into something I never saw coming.”
“What?” Ethan asked.
“She was sneaking around behind my back all right. She was planning a surprise party for me. Here. I showed up with a woman kissing me, my shirt open, and…”
Ethan got it.
“I’m sorry.”
“I destroyed it. We were fighting a lot more, I was getting angry, and I was scared that I was going to lose her.”
“That sucks.”
“I held on too tight. They say when you suffocate a person in a relationship, it kills it. That’s the truth. I killed us.”
Ethan had done the same thing with his paranoia, suspicion, and anger.
“Our relationship, while a long one, was ending, and I knew it. That scared the hell out of me. Instead of talking to her, I assumed. Then I betrayed her. So, even if I wanted to have a relationship with Elizabeth again, which I don’t, she’d never do it.”
Ethan knew he was right.
“Once you cheat…”
Chris finished for him. “You lose
your chance. Speaking of cheating…”
Ethan knew what he was talking about. “I’m not. She’s a government employee, and I shared a car ride with her.”
“I hope you’re being honest. If you even touched her, and Elizabeth finds out, you’ll never get her back. She doesn’t give men a second chance once they dip their stick in another well.”
Oh, he was well aware.
But this wasn’t about him.
“I can’t believe you cheated on her.”
“I was a fool. Worse, I embarrassed her that night. She left out the back as all of the people we worked with went out the front. She didn’t talk to me for a couple months. She dated some guys, and finally we buried the hatchet.”
Ethan felt bad for him.
But he also felt a million times better. Anyone who had ever cheated on Elizabeth had never been given a second shot. That was her big rule.
He trusted that one rule of hers.
“When she finally did talk to me, it continued to get worse for her. There was Dakota Rakin, she’d been shot, Ray died, and then she was gone.”
Ethan really felt bad.
“When she let me back into her life, Ethan, it was simply as a friend, and it grew to a relationship between non-blood siblings. You went over the edge for no reason. We won’t ever be a couple. We’re family.”
Chris closed his eyes.
“We WERE family. Now I have to stay away. Worse thing about all of this is Bethe misses Charlie.”
The little girl’s lip began quivering.
“Shhhh, it’s okay, Bethe, I promise,” Chris stated. “We’ll make new friends. You’ll have a family one day.” It killed him to say any of that.
They were two orphans wandering the world from here on out.
“Charlie misses you too,” Ethan stated. Then he went with the truth. “Lyzee is dying without you,” he offered.
The man stared at him. “She’s fine.”
Ethan shook his head, and then he pulled out his phone for Chris to see. It was the picture that Callen had sent him the previous day.
Her face was gaunt, her eyes were dead, and she lost a good chunk of weight.
“Oh, Lyzee. That breaks my heart even more.”
“See? That spark is dead, and I caused it. While you feel bad about cheating on her all those years ago, at least you didn’t kill her heart. I did.”
Chris handed the phone back, and he didn’t say anything else. What more could he add to that?
“I wanted to find you to tell you that she needs you in her life. Right now, she’s helping Tori Littlemoon on a case.”
He didn’t understand.
“She got her badge back?”
Ethan pulled Chris’s out of his pocket. “You all never really quit. I pulled some strings. You’re still Feds.”
He slid it toward him across the coffee table.
“I came to say I’m sorry, and to ask for your forgiveness. I want you to be part of our family, and I want Bethe to have her best friend.
“Charlie,” she chirped. “I luv Charlie.”
Chris wiped at the tears on his cheeks with the sleeve of his shirt. It hurt him to take Bethe away from the people she loved.
“Let me get her to Wyler and the kids.”
Chris looked scared. “And me?”
“She’s out in Delta Falls, and it would make her so happy if you popped in to help her. I can’t be there, but you can. I need you to go and help heal a part of her heart.”
Ethan slid a case file across the table. “Here’s the paperwork. I can have Charlie to Salem and you to Delta Falls by nightfall if you’ll go.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’ve lived without you, Elizabeth, Callen, and my kids for four weeks. I hate it. While jealousy was there, and I feared losing her, I pushed her away. I lost her out of my anger, and the only way to get her back is through trust and love.”
“Ethan.”
“Come back to the FBI and be with my wife. She needs her brother. She needs that normalcy back. I can’t be with her until Gabe is back, so be her shoulder to lean on for me. I know I don’t deserve to ask it, but I need her to be happy.”
Chris picked up his ME badge. “You promise you won’t do this again?” he asked. “If you do, she’ll never come back. With Elizabeth, you get one shot. She’s given you a few. In all the years that I’ve known and loved her, I’ve never seen her bend so much, as when it comes to you. Even with Callen, it’s not the same. She loves you so much.”
It took all of this to see it, but he was now aware.
“I know. I see that now. She’s given me more than I’ve ever given her. That’s why I want to give her this. She needs her brother right now.”
“Wyler doesn’t mind?” Chris asked.
He shook his head. “No. I spoke to him before. The kids miss Bethe. They don’t look at her and see a friend, Chris. They look at her as a sister.”
He fought the tears.
“I want to go back.”
“But?”
“What if she hates me?”
Ethan understood. “Do you think she’s possible of that emotion?” he asked. “Do you really think she could?”
He was right.
“No.”
“Then get your things. Elizabeth and Tori are up to their necks in trouble, and she could use your help.”
“I forgive you, Ethan.”
A weight was lifted off his shoulders.
“Bethe, do you want to go home to Charlie?” he asked.
The little girl jumped down, raced from the room and grabbed her bear and blanket. When she came back, she was smiling.
“I GO!”
That said it all.
Sometimes, children were the wisest of them all.
* * * L i t t l e m o o n * * *
Delta Falls
Littlemoon
Investigations
Well, this was going to be interesting. Coming clean to the most skeptical woman in the world wasn’t going to be easy. Tori always looked up to Elizabeth, and she wanted her ex-boss to be proud of what they’d accomplished. The last thing she wanted was crazy looks from her friend.
Tori wanted to hide, but she couldn’t.
It was time.
“Here at ‘Littlemoon Investigations’, most of us have a gift. Mine is likely because of the PTSD. It developed shortly after Julian and I started the business.”
Elizabeth listened.
“When we opened the doors, we met Vivian. She was our first psychic.”
“What does she do?” Elizabeth asked, and then she focused on the woman who had been a cop. Cops were logical, smart, and they didn’t believe in woo-woo nonsense.
Yet this one...
“I have prophetic dreams.”
She didn’t bat an eyelash.
Elizabeth knew Ethan had them too. Only, she didn’t scoff because he was Native. Well, it looked like the white man had some skills too.
“Okay.”
“That’s it?”
“Yep,” Elizabeth stated. “Why don’t you continue, and let me worry about my reaction?”
Tori did just that.
“Then we had a case and met Beckett. He was a sheriff.”
He waved at her.
“Mr. Leather Gloves.”
“When he touches things, he can read the history on them. If there was a violent end, he sees it.”
“Handy.”
“Punny.”
She snorted. “I try.”
Tori continued, “Then I picked up my spirit guide. Her name is Bethany.” Tori called for her in her mind, and she could see the spirits whipping up around her.
The only thing was, they didn’t seem to touch Elizabeth and Callen.
Timothy must have been powerful. They were guarded even after his death, or he was so strong in the afterlife that no one would dare screw with them.
Lucky them.
The dead were keeping their distance.
&n
bsp; Elizabeth could feel the cool chill in the air. Then she could see her breath. She’d been around Avalon Miller enough to know that there were things in the world she didn’t understand.
This was likely one of them.
Then who was she to judge?
She, Ethan, and Callen all heard windchimes, and Wyler talked to his dead father all the time.
“Bethany, this is my best friend, Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth watched as her badge flipped off her belt and landed on the floor. It stood up on one corner against all the laws of physics.
Callen looked freaked out.
She…not impressed.
“Yeah, but can you drive with your knees, put on mascara, and deal with a car full of crazy?” she asked. “That takes skill, Bethany. I’m a mom. Tricks are for kids.”
Julian laughed. “Sorry. It was an Elizabeth reply. I’ve missed them.”
Tori was grateful that her friend wasn’t running for the hills. She really needed her help.
“After I picked up Bethany, we met Nyx. She can channel the dead. She hears them while I see them.”
“Is she alive? I still haven’t met her,” she offered.
“She is, and you will.”
Elizabeth focused.
“The dead speak to both of you, huh? Who’s around me?” she asked.
“No one. You’re protected. I can see the dead space from my peripheral. They are staying away.”
“Timothy,” she stated, pulling a bag from her jean pocket. “He always made sure I had one, and now Wyler does the same.”
Well, that explained it.
Maybe Nyx should get that special blend of herbs. It might help to have that same warding.
“After we met Nyx, we found out that she was channeling my dead brother, Trey.”
She glanced over at Julian. “Would you grab the radio?” she asked.
He did, and he placed it on the table.
Plug and all to show it wasn’t plugged into any walls.
“Trey, say hello to Elizabeth.”
“HEY. THERE. SEXY. LADY. WANT. TO. TAKE. MY. RADIO. FOR. A. SPIN? WE. CAN. MAKE. BEAUTIFUL. MUSIC. TOGETHER.”
Callen sputtered.
Elizabeth wasn’t sure if it was because of what he said, or that the radio was unplugged.
“I’ll pass, Trey, but I really appreciate the offer,” she said nonchalantly.
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