MY HEART IN STONE

PART 23:

Hovering again, a sublime moment, one that in her far off adult world she could no longer replicate, but her childhood body took for granted.  Swing UP and over…balance…hang

upside down!  She was playing once more, the swirl of other children around her, but she

was oblivious…well to all except for Sandy.  She knew that wretched thing was hovering nearby…but somehow she chose to ignore that.

She heard a swoop.  Something silent and sinister landed nearby.  No matter.  She’d swing

up again.  Jump…grab the bars…swing, swing…that moment before her leg hooked.

Bam!  She was picked up and carried through the bars and flown over spaces in between buildings…and there was the absurdity of distance between buildings, but they…it was a

'they' now, she and someone else…crossed with the ease of…ease of…she looked up and

saw Mikol’s angled face…black shadows soaring upward and then dipping down.  He

released her and before she could grab the bar for the securing, his hand punched out,

just like Sandy’s, and hit her throat…

She woke up in mid-tumble, in the flash second before hitting the floor; and she hit the

hard surface with an oof!  The dream fear stiffened into alarm: had Mikol rolled her off

the bed again?

It was several more seconds before she realized her hands were not bound, her feet were

not tied together, that she was laying on her side with one arm bracing herself against the

fall…she could use her arms now!  And Cort was calling to her in panic.

He had been sound asleep, in some deep and dreamless place of exhaustion, when she cried

out with the shock of  hitting the floor.   His eyes flew open, his hand  moving quickly to

touch her where she lay beside him.  But she was not there!  He was still half-asleep, but

a sudden terror leaped through his mind.  Mikol had her!  Then she moaned from beyond

the bed and he scooted across its rumpled surface as fast as he could, calling her name

over and over.  She was huddled on the floor!  My God, what had happened!  Forgetful

of everything but her, he slid off the bed, wrapping his arms around her trembling form.

"I've got you, my darling. I've got you," he murmured, his own voice shaking. "It's all

right, my love, I'm here. I've got you." He leaned close, holding her, his voice continuing

soft and low in her ear. His muscles screamed at him, but he ignored them.  "He's gone,

Rachel.  He can't hurt you.  I've got you.  I've got you now and I'm not letting go."  He

was, however, very near to blacking out from the pain his movement and position was

causing him.  He gritted his teeth, keeping up his murmuring.  "You're safe, my love.

It's all right."

“What are you doing?”  she gasped after a few moments,  forgetting her own  fear  in

seeing him risk his back again to comfort her.  “Get back up into bed!  You’re going to

make it worse!”  She let him lean on her to fall back into the mattress, clucking like a

mother hen, automatically forgetting her dream.  “Cort, I love you dearly, sweetheart,

but don’t do that again!”  She fussed as he settled into a diagonal sprawl.  It was the best

he could do, puffing and panting with pain that he was. 

She knelt on the mattress next to him, leaning over him to finish her admonishment, but

could not.  “Silly man,” she murmured with as much affection as she could put into the

words.  She didn’t really think him silly: how could she when he had done so much for

her?  She began stroking away the pain with her fingertips, his face, his forehead, his

shoulders, neck.  “I’m okay now” she assured him.  “I’m sorry I scared you.”

He was breathing hard, sweating some, but her fingertips were so marvelous that he

lay back, making a little humming sound of contentment, his lips starting to curve in

a slight  smile.  She was here.  She was all right.  Mikol didn't have her.  He did.  He

opened his eyes, looking up at her bending form.  "God, how I love you,  Rachel Keirs,"

he said, putting a hand on the back of her neck, pulling her down close where his lips

could find hers.

Even as he kissed her, though, he saw again her face as Mikol tipped the harness and

he clutched her close.  "I will never let you fall," he said.  "Never!  I promise you, my

love." And he kissed and kissed and kissed her face.

She kept up her attentions, returning kiss for kiss, declaration for declaration until the

pain had subsided to a manageable level and he lay in perfect contentment, looking as if

he were on the verge of purring.  Then, she sat up and began thinking.  The sun must

have been up an hour or two, as light streamed in from the windows, turning the old

stone of the tower to rosy beige.  She heard the coos of a dove on the roof outside, a

crow squawked in the distance.  She could see the far shadow of the forests surrounding Neviditelny and left Cort's side to peer out of the window.  Far below, the tiny courtyard

of the castle was still in shadow.  They might have been there all alone, for all its stillness;

yet a puff of wood smoke floated by and she knew Rollo must be in the kitchen preparing something.

Which brought to mind the fact that she had not eaten since noon the day before.

"Are you hungry like I am?"  She asked Cort, her stomach protesting its emptiness. 

"When was the last time you ate?"  She walked around the room, looking for some bit

of technology to allow them to make contact.  Nothing to show that there was any way

to communicate with those below, not even a phone line.  Mikol certainly knew how to

isolate...

Rachel bit her lower lip to keep rage from surging up now.  She couldn’t think about him

this morning, not when Cort was with her now, not when it was all over and done.  She

looked down at her legs - bruises were already making an appearance and her skirt looked

as tattered as a beggar's.

“I must look a fright," she exclaimed, wishing she could throw off the scruffy clothing. 

"The first thing I'm going to do when I get a chance is take a long hot shower!" Thoughts already buzzing with practicalities,  she inspected the small bathroom that had been

partitioned from the main room of the tower.  A decent-sized tub, plausible plumbing. 

It would do until they were able to get away.

"I need a good washing," Cort grinned, "but don't think I'm much up for getting in and

out of a tub.  You got an...alternative?"  He was watching her as she stood in the bathroom doorway, his eyes sparkling. "Maybe a sponge bath?" 

She opened her mouth to agree, and memories of a similar problem in Redemption sprung

to mind.  Wagging her finger, she began to laugh.

"Oh, no, no, no!  I'm not going through that again!"

"Not going through what?  What do you mean 'again'?"

"You don’t remember that?  Oh, thank God!"

"Well, come to think of it, there's something vague about knocking over a washstand, some-

thing about long-johns. But it's all kinda blurry.  Did I not,  um, cooperate?  I will now." 

He grinned. "Promise!"

Rachel rolled her eyes in exaggerated skepticism.  “Promise, he says, with a Cheshire cat

grin,” she teased.  "You just rest in the knowledge that I still owe you for that bit of

travesty."

A knock sounded from the trapdoor and after a very amused 'come in!' it opened and

Henri's head appeared.  Rachel was expecting him to smile and respond with his own

cheerful greeting, but after directing Vaclav to set a tray laden with food on the table,

he turned to them with a somber look on his face.  It was then that Rachel caught sight

of a tear on Vaclav's face and she returned to the bedside where Cort was already

struggling to sit up.  She had a feeling she knew what Henri was about to announce,

but she needed Cort's hand to brace against it. 

When Rachel had propped Cort up with some pillows, Henri opened his mouth to speak,

found he could not, then sat down on one of the chairs.  After a few more moments, the

doctor raised his head and locked eyes with Rachel.

"No...no...." she was already arguing, even as he began. 

"I made a trip into town early this morning, to the hotel where you were staying, to pick

up your things.  I knew you would need a change of clothes," the doctor began, finding it

easier to choose a safer subject.  "I hope I got everything.  Volos sends his greetings," he

added.

Rachel nodded in reply, her face somber.

Henri took a deep breath.

"I knew Gerta had gone into the construction office," he continued, "and I'd not heard

from her since. So I stopped by there after the hotel. It was all the same, all buzzing along

as usual.   Except in Gerta's  private office."  He moved his eyes  slowly  from  Cort's to

Rachel's. Her chair was overturned, her computer screen broken, papers scattered, file

drawers hanging open." He closed his eyes, remembering. "Then I saw her feet. Behind

her desk.  Mikol had broken her neck. She looked so...small...lying there. It must have been

very easy for him." He inhaled deeply. "Such a little, fragile body she had.  So easy." 

Vaclav returned, bringing up her suitcases and bags, along with a large white box, and after

a brief nod of acceptance of her condolence, he trotted back down the staircase. 

"I've...I've taken care of things," Henri finished, his eyes roaming the floor. "Both for her and...other matters.  She had no family.  So I made arrangements for her." He looked at

his hands.  "Now I have something else to attend to." His face was set and grim. He forced

a smile.  "You two just enjoy your breakfast.  I'll check back later.  Rest.  All right?"

It was a beautiful day, a few puffy white clouds in a blue sky, birds singing as Henri

began his trek around the side of Kamen.  He followed a different path than Rachel had

taken on her first trip to the castle, Henri's skirting the base of the walls much more

closely.  He hated this path, hated what it led to.  The last time he'd been along it was

to check on Dimetri, with Mikol's strict orders to confirm the man's death but not move

the body. 

The smell of it always reached him far before it came in sight. He braced himself, even

his medical training not quite enough for the reality of the place.  He always thought of

it as 'Kamen revealed' because in this one place there was no pretense.  There was no

beauty, no covering of refinement, no false appearance of civilization.  All of that was

ripped away and the truth lay bare, rotting in the sun. Here the end as well as the means

of Mikol's dream of revenge lay open so that it could be seen for what it had become, a pit

of death for humankind.

He passed what remained of Dimetri, deliberately avoiding looking closely at his former colleague.  There.  On his back, curved over a large boulder, arms and legs splayed wide.  Mikol.  Except for the bullet wound in his chest, his front was fairly undamaged, his blue

eyes staring sightlessly up toward the rampart from which he had toppled.  The blood

that had dripped down the rock, though, showed how the back of him had been crushed

upon impact.  "Were you still alive when you landed?" Henri asked the silent form.  "Or

had the serum already done its work and you were dead as you fell?"  There would never

be an answer to that.

Henri just stood there, minute after minute, looking at Mikol.  He had needed to see for

himself that Mikol, that...Roy, was dead.  The emotions that filled him, though, were

some vast mix of both relief and disbelief that the man lived no more, combined with

years of understanding of the how and the why of the journey of Roy as he became Mikol. 

He had actually rather liked Roy, had felt for him in Blade Runner when he had tears in

his eyes telling Pris about the death of Leon, that there were, in all the world only the two

of them left.  Then Pris had been killed and Roy's tears for her were very real.  He was completely alone now, knowing his own death was rapidly coming.  And, in his movie,

when he died, he had saved the life of the man who had killed his friends, his lover, and

he sat there in the rain, speaking softly of the things he had seen that humanity couldn't

even imagine.  He spoke of how all those moments would be lost in time like tears in rain. 

And they had been lost.  Over and over in the loop of the movie they were lost again and

yet again.  Until he had figured out how to break free, until he had emerged from the

dark, wet depths of the city into the light of his freedom and had made himself into Mikol Grovensky.

He was changed, though.  He was through with humanity except for the ways in which

it could now serve his ends.  He squashed in himself that Roy who had loved Pris and set

about in deadly quiet to establish himself in such a way that he could develop his advanced robotics, could imprison humanity the way he had been imprisoned by humanity.  Roy

had saved the "good" man who killed everyone he cared about. Mikol embarked on a

study of good men with the single goal of imprisoning the best of humanity into his

creations.

Now, here he lay.  Henri leaned forward, intending to close the eyes, changed his mind. 

"I'll not deprive you of your staring at the sky," he said softly.  "It's all you have left." 

He blinked rapidly, thinking of the contrast...Roy, his head tipped downward in the

pouring rain...Mikol face-up to the vault of blue.  "It was quite a journey you had," he continued, "but I could not let you continue with it, could not let you take that young

man and do with him what you planned."

He turned to go back up the path, giving one last, long look at the sprawled form. 

"Good-bye, Mikol."  He walked several steps, stopped, looked back once more.  "I'm

sorry, Roy," he murmured, then hurried past Dimetri, his jaw trembling.

"You know, for a minute there," she said to Cort when Henri shut the door behind him,

"I was almost thinking the bad stuff had passed, that today I could really be happy.  But

I don’t think its going to be quite as joyful as I hoped."  She wiped her face even though

more tears followed right behind and wet her cheeks again.  Cort opened his arms and

pulled her into an embrace, even though he winced somewhat because of his ribs.  Rachel

could not help but take him up on this, tucking her head into the crook of his neck and

giving into a selfish need to wrap her arms around him.  After several minutes of silence

and caresses, she looked searchingly into Cort’s face, so many thoughts and feelings

flitting through.  "I’m sorry,” she finally said, sniffling.  “  I think I'm going to need

your strength again today.”

“Never be sorry about that," he said softly, brushing her hair away from her forehead.

"So often it has been your strength that has pulled me through, kept me from slipping

away to some dark place.   It is,"  he added, kissing her brow,  "the way of love, you

know." He was quiet, thinking for a moment. "I didn't get to know Gerta well like you

did. She was good to you, I understand, helped you when you needed it?"

“She was.  She did.  It was…I don’t know…some divine providence, I think, that we

even met,” Rachel began and so told him about wandering the city after her arrival

and sitting in the town square and how she noticed a woman staring at her, who turned

out to be connected to the Grovensky Construction that she was going to try and track

down the next day.  Reminded of why Gerta had spoken up, Rachel got Cort’s frockcoat

and pulled out the star brooch.  “Deidre lent me this.  Said it gave her good luck, and

it was her good luck wish for me…for us.  I’ll have to tell her how true that’s been,” she

added as she sat next to Cort, turning the brooch around so that its gems caught the

sunlight, sending a star-spray of light across her face. 

He reached out, touching the light, tracing it with his fingertip.

"Remember the stars," he whispered, more to himself, actually, than to her. "It was so

lonely," he said, looking at her then.  "When you were...gone."  He sighed, dropping his

hand so that it rested atop hers.  "Half of me was simply missing.  It was worse, losing that,

than any loneliness I ever knew before you came."  Then his stomach growled loudly. Very,

very  loudly.  He laughed  slightly.   "We'd better eat or the half of me that  IS me will

disappear, too!"

Unable to walk away without giving him yet another kiss, Rachel went to the table to

retrieve the tray of food brought in by Vaclav, smiling with delight as she set it on the

bedside table.

“Oh, you are in for a treat,” she exclaimed and held up a pastry.  “This, my love, is a

klobasnek, or a sausage pastry…here, eat up.  And there’s kolaches, cinnamon rolls,

scones, Danish, apple dumplings.  Oh, Henri went to so much trouble!”  Rachel beamed,

hands fluttering in her indecision with what to eat first.  Setting Cort up with a napkin

she also poured some juice for the two of them, and fairly quickly they were eating as

though they had never before seen breakfast or any other meal.

He ate the sausage pastry, an apple dumpling, smiled at the big bowl of scrambled eggs. 

Henri had remembered!  "What's this?" he asked, holding up a rather heavy bit of

triangular pastry.  He'd never seen a scone before.  There was bacon, too, and cheese of

all sorts.  Rachel kept breaking off bits of pastry and popping them into his mouth.  He

was happy to eat anything and just sat there chewing with a big grin on his face.  Some

jelly dripped down his chin, sliding off a bit of some sort of roll Rachel had just put

between his lips.  “You're getting me dirtier," he smirked, "and I'm already, well, you

know."

Rachel already had an idea of where he was going with this.

“I suppose I should do something about that, shouldn’t I?”  She asked, wiping away the

glob from his chin.  She leaned over and gave him a long slow kiss.  “You talked me into

it,” she informed him with a smirk of her own.

"I did? I talked you into it?" His eyes widened a bit now that she had said she was going to

do it. "Um? How?"

Rachel blinked, wondering if she was going to get more than she bargained for, just like

the last time.  She sat thinking for a few minutes, mulling the situation.  It wasn’t going

to be easy for him to move around to begin with, and he was right: he was in no shape to

step in and out of the bathtub; and she knew he would not be strong enough to stand for

any length of time in the shower.  It would have to be the bed or not at all, considering

the nature of his injuries.  There were also the bandages of his scraped leg, belaying

any submersion for a while anyway.  She sighed a bit again, not relishing the idea of

getting the mattress wet, but there was no getting around it. 

“We’ll have to do it the old fashioned way, it looks like,” she said, standing up to put the

tray back on the table and clear their breakfast.  “Bowl of water, a washcloth and soap. 

And you’ll have to move around a bit for me, which may be uncomfortable, but in the

long run, I think you’ll feel better.  Oh!  And then your hair,” she cried, realizing it would

take more than a few swipes with a cloth to care for that part of him.  “Do you think you

could sit in the chair?  I’ll leave it up to you for what we do first, hair first or after?”

"Let's do the hair first. Then if I get tired, we can finish the rest, " he grinned, "in bed.

Does that sound all right?" He began to slide toward the edge of the bed, grimaced just

a bit, hoped she didn't notice and flashed her a quick smile. His earlier mad scramble off

the bed had not helped. He just did ache completely all over, the worst centered in his

left leg and between his shoulder blades. He was eager to be clean, though, remembering

how he'd felt those days in Redemption steadily getting grimier, not to mention the lack

of bathing facilities through most of Gladiator. "What next?"

Drat!  Where was a phone when you needed one?  “Hold on, sweetheart. I think I’m

going to need to run downstairs to get a few things.”  No bowls, and scarcely any towels,

she noted as she looked in the bathroom once more.  Her eyes fell on the white box still

on the table and she opened it, curious.  To her immense relief, clothing filled the box: a

pair of black jeans, two white shirts, a black vest, a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt, and

at the very bottom, a fresh reproduction of his movie outfit, other items, all of it pressed

and neatly folded, with sachets of a woody green fragrance tucked in between layers. 

She took it to the bed for Cort to see.

“I’ll be right back,” she told him, and tried to think ahead of how she could go about

getting items without spending too much time away.

As if Henri knew she was going to come looking, she found a table in the small ante-

chamber when she stepped out of the elevator, with several large bowls stacked, a large

pile of thick towels, along with a bundle of soaps, shampoos, and creams, some razors, a

bottle each of cologne and perfume in a large basket.  A small note on top of the pile of

towels read “ever at your service.”

Rachel reappeared with basket and then towels and finally the bowls.  She pulled the

table close to the bed, arranged the items, and pulled up a chair with its back against

the table’s edge.  Smiling, she beckoned for Cort to try and move from the bed to the

chair.  “I know this is going to be tricky, but I think this will be the best way to do it.”

Deliberately fixing a smile on his face as he moved, he slid again toward the side of the

bed, holding his left thigh with both hands as he settled that leg on the floor. Rachel was

there holding his arm as he stood. He tried letting it bear his weight, but pain shot

through it from his knee to his hip.  "If you can just help me swing around to the chair,"

he said, "I think I can manage with my right leg ok."

The maneuver accomplished as quickly as possible, he settled gratefully into the seat

with a large exhale of the breath he'd been holding. Tipping his head, he smiled up at her

as she made her final preparations. "Thank you, my love. My hair thanks you, too." He

ran his fingers through it, feeling the dust. "It'll be good to have it clean again. What do

you need me to do to help?"

Her own brand of mischief was already flitting through her mind, calculating all sorts

of methods to take advantage of Cort’s limitations.  She filled one bowl with warm water

from the facet in the tub and set it behind him and then gently edged his head backwards

until his head was bent over the bowl, tucking a towel around his neck to cushion it and

catch whatever stray water came down.  She stood very close while she dipped water up

with a cup and poured the water into his hair, coaxing the run off back into the bowl.  She

tried to keep her face neutral, but made a deliberate effort to lean over him, breasts in

full view, massaging shampoo into his scalp and rubbing until a full lather encased his

head. 

“Comfy?”  She stopped one time to ask, all innocence, but let her hand brush along his

chest.

"Mmmm," he murmured. His eyes had been closed, but he opened them just in time to

catch the delicious sight she presented as she leaned over him. His body responded.

Then she brushed her hand down his chest.  His response increased and he gasped in a

sudden, sharp intake of breath, reached up his hand and gripped her wrist as it hovered

over his chest still. His eyes on hers, he raised her hand to his face and began kissing her knuckles. A stray rivulet of lather crept down his forehead toward his left eye. He closed

it, keeping his right on her, waiting to see what she would do next.

“Ah ah ah!” she crooned, wiping away the threatening trickle of soap.  “All customers

must keep their hands to themselves.  No interfering with the staff.”  Placing his hands in

his lap, she took the bowl of water, dashed the contents into the tub and returned with

fresh water to rinse.  “Whoops!  I left the shampoo on that side, didn’t I?”  she gasped,

and reached across him once more, pretending not to notice that her blouse was now

wet.  She gave him a look of suspicion when he raised his hands again.  “Didn’t I tell you

not to interfere?”

"There are," he said, tipping his head slightly to the right, "instructions that can be

obeyed, and then there are," his palm slid gently down the outer curve of one breast,

"those that are...impossible."

Rachel gave a short gasp and firmly took his wandering hand by the wrist and moved

it well away from further temptation. 

"You promised to cooperate!" she intoned, frowning down at him.  "Promised!"

"I am," he smiled up at her, "I AM cooperating.  It's just, well, there are things more,

um, demanding of my cooperation than the spoken word."

Rachel stepped back and crossed her arms, feeling a blush creep across her face despite

her best efforts to take charge.  He was enjoying this way too much.

“Am I going to have to tie your hands to the chair, Mr. Wells?”  She threatened.

He looked in her eyes, trying as best he could not to laugh.  "Why, Miss Rachel! I'm...

shocked!"  He cocked his head again.  "I had ...no...idea...."

“Oooh!  Lean back, mister.  I need to rinse out that soap…and the next bowl of water

may have to be ice cold,” she growled, tipping his chin back and scooping up more water. 

When she had cleared away the suds, she took the towel and wrapped it around his head

to dry. 

But Cort had a mischievous streak himself, and spent all of two seconds using the towel, emerging from it to glance her way, smile, and then shake his head, sending water

droplets flying.  Rachel clenched her fists, not knowing whether to laugh or cry or…

kiss him until he was breathless.  Flashbacks to moments in his movie on the front porch

of the saloon in the pouring rain were wreaking havoc on her own libido.

Several drops of water were running down her jaw, threatening to drip off her chin. He

pulled her to him, parted his lips and softly placed his mouth over them.  Then his eyes

found their way slowly up her face and he asked, "What about the rest of me?"

Now the front of her blouse, already in a bedraggled state from twenty-four hours of wear

and tear, was fast soaking up the water from his hair. She wasn’t sure if the chills she was

feeling was because of the damp material or the warmth of his lips on her skin.

“That’s what the cold water is for,” she replied, hoping her voice didn’t tremble as much

as it felt it would.  She reached for a washcloth, soaked it in the rinse water, and proceeded

to wipe down his face and neck.  She was fast losing the ability to keep her mind on her

original intention of a slow tortuous tease, especially since the next phase required giving

him exactly what he wanted: an unbuttoning of his shirt.

He sat there perfectly still as she slowly moved the cloth down the part of his chest that

now lay bare, his eyes watching her face as she concentrated on what she was doing. In

that stillness, in that gentleness of her touch, the pain had faded completely away. But

then she moved to help him slide his right arm from his sleeve and just that slight twist

sent a small gasp out his lips before he could clamp them. "It...it's all right. Really it is,"

he assured her quickly.  He turned his head toward the bed. "Maybe after the shirt is

off, we can, um, well....I mean, we can, you can...."

She  straightened  to set down  the cloth and then leaned over him,  her mouth centi-

meters from his.

“It may be,” she breathed, “that I didn’t unbutton things all the way.”  The shirt had

gone tight  around his form  because  it had not been completely pulled out,  so she

obliged  and finished  unbuttoning  the rest of the shirt,  which she  then slowly  and

gingerly coaxed completely off him. 

She did not make good on her threat of cold water.  Instead, she returned with a fresh

bowl of steaming hot, which she now used to refresh the washcloth and place in strategic

spots on his back.  She said nothing of the purple bloom of bruises showing up along his

spine.  She kept herself behind Cort so he wouldn’t see the tears brimming in her eyes. 

In between applications, she alternated drying the rest of his hair and kissing the back

of his neck.  In a momentary surge of complete and absolute love, she tossed aside the

cloth and hugged him from behind, burying her face against his shoulder.

“I love you, I love you,” she whispered again and again.

He reached his arm up, wanting to touch her hair with his fingers, his heart so full at

that moment there were no words.  Suddenly the enormity of what he had lost when his

memory of her was gone surged through him, a great shudder took him completely and

he moved his hand from her hair, covering his eyes.

Heedless of damp clothing and damp skin, Rachel stepped into the space between his

legs and knelt down in front of him, careful to embrace him so as not to cause further

pain, but she couldn’t stand it anymore, had to kiss him, had to mingle her tears with his. 

“Part of me is so full of joy,” she murmured, kissing the hand over his eyes, the line of

his jaw, the corner of his mouth.  “I don’t know what to do with it all…and another part

of me is so angry because…because of what happened, I can’t express it as fully as I want without hurting you more.”

He lowered his hand, cupping her cheek with it now, still too full of emotion to speak.

Then he tried to stand and she rose quickly, holding his arm again, guiding him carefully

to the bed.  Bit by bit he settled himself, gingerly stretching out his left leg, then holding

both arms  out to her.   Everything  in his eyes spoke for him.   Come,  they said, silent,

eloquent.  I need you.  I love you.

ON TO PART 24

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