A Yook by Any Other Name

Chapter Two
by Jo Anzalone

Chapter two: Sid Has An Idea

Her hands held a long strip of Napoleonic seacaptain ruffling material. "I'm infected," she pronounced...then she burst out laughing. It might be fun. And, well, she'd never had 26 Russes all here at once. Just wait till Terry got home!

*******************

A light knock sounded on Jocelyn's door. "Come in!" she called and annsmac stepped quietly into the bedroom.

"Hello, Mrs. Crowe," she said, standing in the middle of the room. "Do you...do you...have anything like a deblunter in the house by any chance?"

Jocelyn cocked her head, looking at the young woman. "First off, my dear, please call me Jocelyn, and second...whatever in the world is a 'deblunter'?"

Annsmac rolled her eyes awkwardly toward the ceiling. How to explain? "It's...it's...," she stammered.

"Yes?" Jocelyn urged.

"Well..., it's something that unblunts things that have been painfully blunted."

"Painfully?" Jocelyn repeated, then added the two words annsmac had really, really, really hoped to avoid, "What things?"

"Um...well...just one particular...thing," annsmac explained rather lamely.

"And that would be?"

Annsmac inhaled deeply. "It...it has to do with Terry."

"My son? He needs deblunting?"

"Oh, NO!" annsmac hurriedly replied. "I'm sure he doesn't...not at all!" She blushed deep scarlet as she said that and Jocelyn's left eyebrow arched. "I'm talking about Terry THORNE!"

 

"Ah," sighed Jocelyn, "I thought I had noticed the two of you together."

Annsmac smiled slightly. "We've been together almost 3 years now."

"And he has been, um, somehow 'blunted'?" the older woman asked, her curiosity growing by the second.

"Yes, Ma'am. Terribly so."

Jocelyn studied annsmac carefully. "And you...you somehow unblunt him?"

Annsmac began to rock back and forth from her heels to her toes. "I do," she said quietly. "Many times."

Jocelyn's eyebrow arched a bit higher. "He blunts a lot, does he?"

Annsmac gulped. "Mostly because he's trying to help someone else." She smiled. "That's his nature, you know."

                              

"I do know that," Jocelyn smiled back. She thought seriously a moment about the inventory of the house. "Would a potato peeler do?" she asked. "Couldn't you just shave the blunted parts off?"

Annsmac swayed, almost fell, as a vision of that splattered across her brain, and had to go sit on the edge of the bed. "It...it's not...like that," she stammered, her voice gone a bit hoarse with horror, her face quite white.

"What IS it like?"

Annsmac closed her eyes. All the questions she had hoped to avoid hung there mid-bedroom like giant, bloated amoebas. Getting unsteadily to her feet she mumbled something about being sorry she had bothered Jocelyn and practically dove out the door. Jocelyn sat there in her chair, nodding her head. "Epis," she remarked to herself. "Very, very...unusual." Then she began humming "Havah Nagilah", which just went to show she was a smarter cookie than even her younger son really knew.

                               
Himself had gone back to his bedroom, wanting to talk more with the bedded couple. The others had all by then wandered off to different parts of the house or yard, enjoying the fact that at this time of year there was no deep snow in New South Wales. Jack, waiting for his shirt to regain its former ruffly splendor, followed Himself into the room, his upper torso covered by only his vest and jacket.

Joimus was standing now by the window as the two men entered and she turned, smiling at them. She was terribly fond of the both of them and was glad they had come. Maximus was still propped on the pillows, wearing only his rust-colored tunic... his cape and armor lying on a chair across the room.

Jack paused, looking at the still back-lit Joimus. The woman did have a flair for good lighting! He was a bit surprised by the appearance of her pale yellow gossamer dress. The last he had seen of her in it, the skirt had been torn off at the knees, leaving several long shreds hanging down and the bodice, well, that had seen better days, too...and he remembered them well. He cast his mind back to the very day he had first seen her in this dress, June 17, 2003, when he had managed to complete his climb up the ice-encrusted cliffs of the lower of the two Towers of Pain on Lucilla's Fuegan estate. (See Elder Epi: Lucilla's Party) She had been leaning over the railing, waiting for him...wearing this very dress. He shook his head. Enough of that! His verbal remembrance of the sponge-filled room in Lucilla's tower had cost both her and Maximus' untold (well, actually it HAD been told in Journey Into Jeopardy, now hadn't it?) suffering. And so he merely remarked, "Your gown, Joimus. It looks...new...again."

                           
She ran her hands lightly down the top of her long skirt. "It...it was the waters," she said.

"The...waters?" Himself asked, glad to be getting at last to what he wanted to know.

She closed her eyes a moment, remembering the swirling colors of the deep water, then turned them toward Maximus. Unable longer even to be two yards apart from him, she walked quickly to the far side of the bed, taking his hand in hers, pressing his knuckles to her cheek. "I don't know if you were dead," she said, kissing his knuckles then, "or merely nearly dead." Her blue eyes sparkled with tears, then she turned and looked at Jack and Himself, "but the waters were not...water."

Jack said, "The last we saw, the eagle was plunging through the cloud cover. We saw nothing beyond that."

                              

She nodded, remembering the dampness of the cloud interior on her face. "I was looking only," she added, "at Maximus. I did not see where the eagle was going...only that suddenly we were wet and going down and down. I thought he," she looked quickly back at Maximus, "was dead and that I would shortly drown."

Jack and Himself exchanged puzzled looks. "The eagle kept going, deeper and deeper, then he just...let go...and Maximus drifted away. I put my arms around his neck and we floated along, suspended in some current. Then I closed my eyes...and woke up in this bed with your Mum standing in the doorway, holding a dust cloth." She shrugged. "I know no more than that."

Himself sighed. If she didn't know more, he knew jolly well no one did. So he turned his attention to the General. "And you are...well?" he asked.

"I believe so," Maximus replied. "Maybe just a little weak, but see this!" He pulled his legs from under the covers, revealing shins with no wounds, no scars, well, other than the ones he'd had from earlier years of battle and such. Then he pressed both hands to his torso. "And the ribs are fine, too."

They hadn't actually been aware of his shattered ribcage. He slid his legs around to the side of the bed. "I think I am able to stand." He did so, perhaps a bit too quickly, and swayed sharply. Both Jack and Himself were instantly at his side, steadying him, getting him back to a sitting position on the edge of the bed.

"No hurry, Mate," Himself said. "Take your time with that."

Maximus put his hand up across his forehead, blowing out a long breath. Joimus had gotten onto the bed, crawled across it, and seated herself behind him, supporting his back. He leaned gratefully into her, tipping his head back to rest on her shoulder, letting his lids close. She wrapped her arms around him almost fiercely, closed her eyes, and leaned her cheek over against his temple. Jack and Himself looked at them, again exchanged glances, and walked quietly out of the room, Himself quickly grabbing a red flannel shirt from a drawer, then closing the door softly behind them.

Jack turned, striding out to the side yard, his eyelid twitching. He wanted to be loved like that...to love like...that.

                             
Bunny followed Sid across the pasture, keeping well behind him. Not once did he turn his head to look back, so she knew he was not aware of her. From time to time he would stop, lace his fingers behind his head, and look desperately up at the sky. Once he stumbled over an unnoticed rock, falling hard on one knee. She had to clasp her hand over her mouth to keep from gasping loudly. Then she lost sight of him as he rounded a small, rocky hillock. Quickening her pace until she got to the hillock, she stopped, leaning out slowly to peer around its jagged end. Sid was sitting atop a large rock, his elbows on his knees, his face buried in his hands. Quietly she made her way to within a few steps of him.

Without removing his hands or looking to the side at all, he said, "Hello, Bunny."

                                   
"You...you know it's me?"

"No one else would come looking for me," he replied, finally lifting his face. "Would they?"

She knew it was true, but didn't want to say it. She squatted beside him, resting her palm on his thigh. "Sid, talk to me."

"Is there any use?" he sighed.

Her eyes gleamed with tears. "Maybe," she murmured softly. "Just maybe."

He looked at her, her concern writ so plainly across her face. "It's Maximus," he said, barely audibly.

"I know," she said.

His jaw muscles working hard, he replied, "He almost...left."

"Yes," she affirmed, "he did."

Sid stood quickly, practically knocking her over. "How could he do that? HOW?"

Bunny struggled to her own feet. "I don't think it was his choosing, Sid. You know that."

"That doesn't matter," he spat. "It was happening...and I didn't do it."

"What would it have meant, Sid, if he had...gone."

                                      

His eyes narrowed and every muscle in his face seemed to twitch. "He would not have been perfect!" he shouted, pressing both fists hard into his temples. "Do you not understand? I NEED one...perfect... man. One man who is too strong to be...eliminated." He spat again, his nose wrinkling.

"They die so...easily." He stared at his palms. "With my bare hands I can squeeze the life out of them." He looked at her, his eyes almost wild with inner torment. "I walk the streets of cities and look at them, all so weak, so pitiful, and I want to kill them all just to get them out of my sight!"

"Even me?" she whispered.

He was silent a long moment, breathing heavily, then he turned, cupping his hands around her face. "Never you! You are the only one who," he paused, his jaw working so he could not speak for several seconds, "who...loves me," he finally continued.

He sat down hard into the dirt, pulling her with him, pressing her to himself almost too tightly. Offering no protest, she wrapped her arms about his neck, her tears coursing freely down her cheeks.

After several minutes, he held her back a little more from his chest. "Do you understand how I test him, how I push him, just so he proves to me again and again that he can survive?" She nodded, though she knew there were even deeper layers to his feelings about the General than that. "Sometimes," he continued, "I hate the man so much because he IS so unfailingly noble and good, yet at the same time I need him to prove those very things to me...that his goodness can't be shaken, his nobility turned to something else...something closer to...me." A long shudder went completely through him. "And then, when he proves it, I hate him more because...because...," he squeezed his eyes tightly shut, "I am not...him."

 

She knew this. He had said it to her as they lay in the moonlight together late last summer in the red barn. Jocelyn was so right. Sid was a complicated man. Most people dismissed him as merely evil, not ever knowing how painful it was to...be...him. She felt him stiffen in her arms. "Sid, what's the matter?" she asked, concerned at the change.

He stood, not pulling her up with him, not even dusting the dirt off his usually immaculate pantslegs. Something was wrong! She stood in front of him, looking into his eyes. He didn't see her. His eyes had gone all wide and he had turned deep within himself. She could practically hear his gears whirring. "What is it?" she cried. "What's happening to you?"

Then just as suddenly his body unstiffened and he looked at her, a smile playing about the corners of his mouth. She didn't like the expression on his face. Not at all! "What's going on?" she begged.

His lids half lowered as he replied, "I have an idea."

 

"What?" she cried. "What idea?"

"Good-bye," he whispered, kissed his fingertip then touched it to her lips, turned on his heel and dashed way more quickly than she could ever hope to follow into a clump of trees. She stood there, looking after him, appalled. My God! WHAT had he thought of NOW?

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