The Fourth Life: Chapter 18

"These are the scariest movies ever, Mom!"  Sam said, hiding under his pillow.  Hope had fallen asleep, and Todd had carried her to her room.  He returned to the movie room, and saw them all squished up together, watching.  He snuck in between Blair and Starr, and Blair leaned her head onto his shoulder.  He draped his arm around her and rested his hand on her belly.  It was soon, for them to have another child, but he didn't care.  To him, the more the merrier in his family.  They had no reason not to have another baby, and another baby was life.  More of his and her skin, and eyes and bones on this earth.  More for him to love and protect.  Nothing could have made him happier.  


He hoped she was feeling the same, but he believed she was.  After losing him, and more than once, she had told him that she wanted to keep every piece of him she could and bring their love into the world through these little faces.  Historically, after being apart for long periods, she tended to get pregnant within the first one or two times they made love.  He should have seen it coming, after nearly dying in Ireland and then returning to Llanview to start their lives again.   He treasured her, and all of their family, and for some reason, more than ever, the little one growing in her.


"Well, I think I've had enough," Starr said.


"Goodnight," Todd said.  Blair was sleeping against his shoulder, and Sam was staring at the TV, wide awake.  


"Dad, can we stay up just a little longer, please?"  Sam asked.


Todd didn't want to disappoint Sam, so he agreed.  "Just a few more minutes," he said.  His eyelids were starting to become heavy, but he fought it.  Blair was warm against him, and her breathing was soft and rhythmic.  He rested his eyes, but was really awake, and aware, as Sam watched the ending to The Blob from the 1950s.


Todd woke up, a few minutes later.  Blair was still against him, and Sam was out like a light on the floor, the sugar finally dissipated in his system and he had crashed.  And standing by the door, walking in slowly, was someone he thought he would never see again.  


Robed in brown, with the hood over his face, The Grim Reaper made his appearance, there in his house, with his pregnant wife and son in the room.  Panic overtook him, and he jumped up from the couch and shouted, "No!  You're not going to get me.  You'll never touch my family.  Not again," and he charged.  


So much happened in the next few minutes, no one really could have retold it if they tried.  Blair fell onto the couch with Todd moving away so quickly, and woke up with a start, attempting to get to her feet.  Sam started screaming, watching Todd charge into and wrestle with the intruder in front of him.  Starr, raced down the stairs, followed by Addie, and both were shouting Todd's name.  Blair said, "Oh my God, Todd, stop, no!"


"I'll kill you for what you did to me and I'll be damned before you do it to them!"  She had not heard his voice this way for years.  For a moment, she flashed back to the moment in their bedroom, at the penthouse, when he thought she was sleeping with Cord, and almost....


She got her wits about her and said, "Todd, stop!" and grabbed his arm as he found his way to the neck of the Reaper.  


In the commotion, the figure said, "Dad!  It's me!  Let go!"


Todd stopped, hearing Jack at last.  He dropped his hands and breathing heavily, he backed away slowly.  Blair gasped, "Todd, you didn't know..."


He shook, and all of them could see him.  Starr tried to touch him and he flinched her off.  "No, don't touch me!"  He screamed.  "Blair, get them out of here.  Take them away, Blair.  Keep them away from me!"  He said, turning and running, at high speed, out the back door into the yard.


Finally realizing the impact of what had happened, she looked back to her children.  Sam was hysterically crying, in Addie's arms.  Starr was stunned, and yelling at Jack.  Jack was confused, and shouting back.  Blair looked at Jack again, closely, now seeing for the first time what he was wearing.  "Oh my dear God!  Todd!"  She ran after him, and left Addie behind to help.


Within a few moments, Perzno and the caretaker came running into the house.  The latter had a gun, making Sam scream louder.  Addie said, "No, put that down, it's all right.  There's been a confusion.  We're all right, please.  Go back to your quarters and I'll call you if we need you."  Addie turned and said, "Starr, stop yelling at your brother, right now!"


Everyone got quiet except for Sam, who was crying instead of screaming, and trying to catch his breath.  Jack went and picked him up, and held him over his shoulder.  "Sam, it's okay.  Dad, he just thought I was a bad guy.  He just wanted to save us."


"But he went crazy," Sam said, sobbing.  "He scared me, Jack.  What if he hurts us?  He said he was going to kill you."


Jack said, "No, never.  He would never hurt us, never.  He loves us.  He was trying to protect us.  He thought I was a bad man."   Jack himself was shaking, but he wanted so much for Sam to understand and believe him.


Starr was sick.  She didn't know what to say, or do.  She was most concerned about her father, out there in the dark, and her mother, pregnant, trying to find him.  Then, she had the sense to rush over and turn on the yard lights to help her mother.  


Blair stumbled over her feet, and caught herself from falling.  "Todd, Todd, please?"  She looked all around her.  It was pitch black, and if he got to the woods, she would never find him.  Suddenly, the lights turned on, illuminating the yard fully.  He had designed it so that there could be night sports and swimming for the children.  "Todd?  You didn't know, please?"


She looked frantically around, and then saw him.  He was on the roof standing at the edge, and from his posture and movement, she knew he was losing himself.  "Well, Blair Manning, run."


She turned and went toward the house, as fast as she could.  Coming into the living room, she yelled as she passed her children, "Call Ray Martino, now.  Get Sam out here, Momma, get him into a blanket and get him to the caretaker's apartment.  Don't leave him alone."  She took the stairs in record time, and pushing her way through the halls and into her bedroom, where she momentarily forgot how to open the glass-paned door, and watched him, standing at the edge, the wind blowing his long hair around him.  He was looking down.  


Finally, she got her wits about her and figured out the mechanism in her panic, and opened it, running onto the platform of their balcony.  He turned toward her, and in a low growling voice, he said, "Get away from me.  Stay away.  Get those kids out of here, Blair.  Keep them away.  You know what I'm capable of."


"Yes, I do.  You're capable of great love.  For all of us.  Todd, you didn't know.  You didn't.  You couldn't have.  Neither one of us saw Jack all day.  How could you know what costume he picked for the party?"


"It's not that, I'm not safe to be around, Blair," his voice shattered and raised,  "You have to save them.  You have to keep them away from me.  Get a restraining order, you've done it before, for less than this.  Please."  


She took a step closer.  He was still teetering on the edge of the balcony.  "Get away from me!  I warned you, stay away.  Don't touch me, don't come near me.  I'm poison, Blair.  I hurt people."  He used his intimidating voice, and then faded back again, and either way, she was not afraid.  All she felt was love, and deep, sorrow for her husband.


"Todd,"  she put out her hand.


"Don't.  Don't.  I'll hurt you, I always do.  I'll hurt the kids."  His sobs were gaining momentum.  "I'm not safe to be around, I almost killed Jack.  I'll end up hurting you, I'll kill you, I'll. . . you never know what I'll do.  What if I hurt you, what if I rape you, Blair?   Now, leave me!  Leave!"  he yelled, dropping to his knees.


"No, you won't.  You won't hurt us.  You won't hurt me.  You won't rape me, Todd."  He was weeping now, openly sobbing.  She continued, "You won't rape me or anyone again, because it's happened to you, Todd.  You know it, and you've lived it now, and remembered it all, and you won't hurt us.  That's what you've been running from and enraged over, isn't it?  Peter raped you, and you were just a kid."


"Blair," he pleaded, "I can't do this.  Please."


"You can.  You will.  For us.  For me.  For her," she took his hand and placed it on her belly.  


It was trembling and he fell deeper into sadness.  "I can't."


"You can.  I don't believe anything you said, Todd.  You would never hurt those children.  Your son is down there, trying to explain what happened so that Sam will understand.  He loves you, and he knows you wouldn't ever hurt us."


"But I did, I did hurt him, if you didn't stop me, if I didn't hear Jack, I would have strangled the life out of him, like I want to do to Carlo, like I did to ...like I did to..."


"Like you did to Michael Leona, Todd?  Is that what you mean?  You're not going to rape anyone.  You're angry and hurt because of what he did to you.  You know that."


He tried to gather his breath between sobs, "I can't, Blair.  Don't."


"You can.  You have to.  You thought that was Leona.  You attacked him because you thought he was Leona and you knew what he did to you."


"No," he panicked.


"Yes.  That's what happened.  You thought he was Leona, and you didn't want him to get you, that's what you said.  You didn't want him to hurt you again."


"I can't."


"And you attacked him so that he wouldn't hurt you again or hurt us.  You didn't want him to do those things he did to you, to us.  Why did you attack him?  What were you afraid he'd do?"  She knew his answer.  The hints had been in her face for months.  His dreams, his nightmares.  His fears about remembering.


"No, Blair, I can't,"


"Tell me, or I'll say it for you."


He let out three large breaths.  "He raped me, Blair.  He cut me, he burned me, and he raped me," and he fell against her.  Her response was to also break into tears, but she did so silently, and remained strong against him.  


After a while he said, "For eight years, " and those words dragged out, like an eternity.  "With him, those few days in Ireland, I finally remembered what happened to me.  The day I killed him, he wore that Grim Reaper get up.  His sick idea of a relationship of some kind, I don't know.  When he was being Peter Manning, he was being Peter Manning, and he meant it, full out.  The difference was, over the eight years, I was too drugged up or lost in my head to stop him or remember."  


His voice came down, suddenly, "We fought, and I killed him.  That's how I knew what he was doing to me all those years.  Finally,"  he trailed off.


She rocked him against her, keeping her body as strong and comforting against his sorrow as she possibly could.  She looked up to see Shaun, standing outside the glass wall, on the balcony, about twenty feet from her.  She shook her head no, and he retreated.  She took out her cell phone with one hand, and dialed.  Listening to it, she placed it on speaker.  "Hello, Blair?"


"Yes, Ray, it's me.  I've got Todd with me."


"Todd, I know what happened tonight, this is not your fault," they could hear his voice on the speaker phone, mixed with the sounds of being in a car, driving.  "Todd, can you hear me,"


"Yeah, Ray, I hear you."


"This is not your fault, Todd.  You thought it was Leona, right?  That's what I think happened.  Jack tried to give me every detail he could.  He doesn't blame you, Todd.  He wasn't afraid of you.  You're not a danger to your family.  Todd?"


"Yeah?"


"You with me?"


"Yeah."  Blair wasn't sure.  He was starting to shake uncontrollably, and he felt extraordinarily cold.  


Ray said, "Can you go inside with Blair now?  It's cold out there, way up high in this area. I'll be there soon, I'm not that  far away.  You're closer to me at Unforgettable than you were before."


He didn't answer, he just cried.  Blair smoothed his hair, shushed him gently, kissed the top of his head, assured him.  He was crying less but shaking more.  She said, "Ray, hurry."


He said, "I will Blair, just stay with him and try and keep him talking."  He hung up.


She said, "I love you, Todd.  Please say you love me."


"I love you," he said, in a small voice.


"I'm proud of you.  Maybe now you can move on, really."


"I'm so full of rage sometimes, Blair, I can't see straight.  I try and hide it, and it consumes me.  I have to walk away, or I have to shake it off, and it's so hard."


"I know.  You're very strong."


"Yeah, carrying on like this.  Like a baby."


"Todd, give yourself a break, here.  You've survived.  That's what counts.  Look what you've endured, to be with your family.  To come back to me.  You won't be getting me to leave you, not any time soon."


She continued to rock him, and the wind brushed against them, blowing her tears dry.


Downstairs, Jack and Starr were sitting on the couch.  Jack's hands were shaking, and he still hadn't taken the robe off and he said, "I need a drink."


Starr said, "Oh no, you're not!  Did you see that man break in front of us?"


"Yeah, that's the whole point."


"No, it's not.  The whole point is that he deals with way more than you ever have, and he makes certain he's sober and here for us.  He never drowns himself in alcohol or drugs.  With what he has been through, that would be so easy to do.  You need to grow up and cut it out.  Deal with it, feel it, like he does."


Jack felt as if he had been slapped, but somehow, it felt good.  "I didn't know.  I didn't know the costume would...that's what it was, right?  The costume?"


"Yes, I think that is what it was.  I don't know."


"It's not his fault.  He didn't know it was me.  The way he freaked out, Starr.  He thought he was going to hurt us.  He was so afraid and so strong at the same time."


"Yes, that's Dad.  Welcome to The Manning Family."


The doorbell rang, and Starr got up.  One look at Jack, and Ray said, "Oh my God.  Where is he?"


Starr pointed, and said, "Last room on the left.  He's....just help him, please."


Ray began to ascend the stairs, saying, "That's what I intend to do, and you, Jack, are coming with me."


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