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| Dr Ward, Dr. Jordan and Celeste DiViana-Lord |
Welshport Hope Hospital was once again the scene of a busy lobby. People were scattering everywhere as the press clamored for quotes from the doctors on Jacob's condition following his heart attack outside the courthouse hours before.
Dr. Peter Ward the hospital Chief of Staff, stood in his white lab coat with Dr. Nik Jordan at his side, facing the barrage of questions from the hungry press and brushed off their questions with word salad medical answers in hopes that they'd leave well enough alone.
At least that was the order directed at him from Celeste DeViana-Lord herself.
"But Doctor, you still haven't told us how Jacob Lord is doing? Why is that? Has something happened to him after his arrival?" One reporter asked.
Nik shot Peter a look, that same question had been asked twice before.
Peter sighed, "Mr. Lord's condition is private. I can tell you that he is stable and once we have more information directly concerning his well-being, I will answer it, now will you all please leave, this is a place of healing not a racetrack."
As more questions were shouted out at Dr. Ward, guards provided by the Village at Arms, carefully ushered out the press leaving Nik and Peter standing there slightly shellshocked at the attention this was getting.
Shortly after, Celeste peaked out of the hallway where she met with Dr. Ward.
Her face was pale and frightened, Jacob was so far not in good condition.
"Thank you for that doctor." Celeste said. "I wouldn't want anyone to read something that would say Jacob was on his death bed."
"I understand." Peter replied.
"He's not on his death bed, is he?" She asked, her eyes welling up. "Because I told Rebecca just now over the phone to Tirymor that he was going to be ... fine... and I wouldn't ...want... that to .... " she added unable to complete her sentences without pausing to cry. "...have been a lie."
"Celeste, it’s going to be ok.” Peter said handing her a handkerchief. “We're going to do everything we can for him. I promise."
Celeste and Jacob's relationship was one for the history books. It started off in a dark place, birthed as a twisted affair. He: blackmailing her over a her family’s secret; she: agreeing to be with him only so that said secret could be kept in the dark forcing her to cheat on Filipe. It was unnatural in any other world but Jacob's relationships were always strongest when they were forged from an unnatural way. He thrived in that environment. For him his hold over Celeste was like air to the lungs, water to thirsty desert. For her the secret eventually came out of her brother being half Lord, and yet she stayed with Jacob. It seemed her lungs breathed the same air as his, her desert thirsted for the same water.
After the birth of their son, Celeste began to have actual feelings for Jacob, who in turn really did love her back. They became a team. They became the best of friends despite their cold past, but they'd remained together now for a good part of 4 years, and nothing would tear them away from each other. Not the reveal of the family secret, not the betrayal of the family fortune, not the little white lies they kept from each other.
And certainly not a heart attack brought on by a David Lord Look-a-like.
As Dr. Ward went back into the room where Jacob's lay unconscious, Nik walked Celeste back into a private waiting room that had a view of the large courtyard between the main hospital and the Churchill Green asylum.
Nik made sure Celeste would be alright by herself and said he'd send in a nurse with some tea.
Moments later, Nurse Danielle Holten walked in with a silver tray of boiling hot tea.
"Here you go." Danielle said handing the stoic Celeste porcelain teacup.
Celeste smiled and as Danielle reached into her apron pocked.
"This was sent to the hospital for you and Mr. Lord with some flowers that I left in his room. Knowing Welshport as I do I took the card before someone's nosey nature opened it." Danielle said handing Celeste a note.
"Its from Filipe." Celeste said opening the letter and reading it outload.
"Celeste, stay strong. Hold on to hope because I know how much you need it. Despite it all, I pray Jacob recovers. For you. For Fabian. All the best, FB."
Celeste's heart warmed. She had betrayed Filipe and their 20-year relationship with the affair with Jacob, a relationship they'd had since their teenage years. She had broken vows that, despite not being married, they had taken to be with each other as long as they lived. And she realized then and there that Filipe's kindness was always stronger than his anger towards her. She'd never forget this.
As Danielle turned to leave something came over Celeste. The Lord bride then decided she needed to show kindness in return too to someone like Filipe had. Someone like Danielle, who'd gone above her job to keep this very private letter from prying eyes at the hospital. Celeste quickly grabbed Danielle's hand.
"You should know something." Celeste said.
Danielle turned "Know something?"
"It's about Caspian. He knows the truth. He knows he's your father." Celeste replied.
"What?"
"It all came out at Tirymor. He's going to come and speak to you. I thought about telling you since I got here but everything has happened so very fast. I didn't want you to be surprised when he came by."
"What did he say when he found out?" Danielle wondered.
"He was shocked. Angry -- at Rebecca for lying to him."
"I don’t know what to say. It feel surreal to know he’s alive after all this time. Thank you for telling me." Danielle said.
Celeste lifted a brow as she sipped from her white porcelain cup. "Danielle, be careful going forward.”
Danielle gulped.
Celeste continued “Rebecca will not be happy with how things came out and I'm afraid that perhaps this may make her go back to her old ways. Someone who is very full of vengeance and at times she doesn't think before she acts."
Danielle smiled a nervous reaction to Celeste warning. The kind nurse thanked Celeste and left her in the waiting room and carried on down the corridor down and went up a small group of steps that lead into a different ward of the hospital where more of the patients she was working with awaited medications.
As Danielle continued through the hallway, she saw Dr. Jordan again standing in a patient's doorway checking over a patient's chart.
"Hey!" She said with a big grin. "Are you ok?"
She took a breath and shrugged and looked in to see Dr. Asha Hoffman lying in her bed still in a coma.
"How is she?" Danielle asked.
"Same. Her vitals are great, she just won't wake up. The swelling had to have gone down by now." Nik replied.
"She'll come around when she's ready." Danielle said with a grin.
The two had become good friends since her arrival back on the island. Her whole world was shattered when her mother died believing her father Viktor Holten was dead too. Now that he was alive things were starting to feel different. Strange. She couldn't hold back the tears any longer and she fell into Nik's arms.
"Shh.... you're ok. Everything's going to be ok." He said.
"My father's alive." She whispered.
He pulled her back up from his chest so that their eyes met "I know." he said softly.
"What? How?" She asked.
"I went to Tirmyor to give an update of Johnathon to Celeste when it all irrupted and it wasn't pretty." Nik said.
"I didn't want to hide it from him but I also didn't want it all to come out in such a negative way." Danielle replied.
"I don't think he's angry at you." Nik said. "He's upset that Rebecca tried to keep the truth from him by scaring you away. I think he's very interested in finding out who he was before... before what happened to him." Nik said.
Danielle wasn't sure what that meant. Caspian's past was such a strange topic for everyone to talk about that even Rebecca alluded to something strange happening and if revealed would be something Danielle may be able to handle.
"If I asked you to be honest with me Nik, would you?" Danielle asked.
He looked into her deep brown eyes and felt the warmest feeling suddenly come over him. Danielle needed a friend so badly; someone she could trust someone she could confide in, and she was choosing Nik. He knew what she was going to ask: what happened to Caspian. It was something no one really talked about, something so dark and evil that everyone feared that if they went back into that world again perhaps it -- the monster inside Caspian -- would return.
But Nik knew she needed to hear it from Caspian himself, and he told her so.
"But what if he won't tell me?" She wondered.
"He will. If he wants to find his way back to being Viktor, he'll have to let go of the things that made him Caspian and that will have to be telling you everything. The good the bad and the ... very bad." Nik said.
Danielle saw how kind Nik was. A true friend. A good person. Loyal. Smart.
And handsome.
She thanked Nik for being there for her and then found herself moving in closer and closer. Their eyes were locked, everything around them froze of it time itself had stopped. They studied every little mark on each other's face. There was something between something warm something in the form of passion that could be felt like a ray of light on naked skin.
Now, closer than they had ever been with someone in a long time, their lips touched.
They kissed. Passionately. Her hands quickly running through his hair. His gripping her waist tightly as they both stood in the doorway of Asha's hospital bedroom.
And then there was a stirring.
Asha's hand twitched. Her eyes fluttered while closed. Her lips parted.
She tilted her head to one side then to the other.
Her flingers clenched then she opened her eyes and saw Nik, the man she loved, kissing Danielle.
****
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| Timothy confronts Eden |
As Eden clicked the tiny briefcase locks, he turned his eyes to the office door as it opened revealing his hunch was right: An angry Mayor Timothy Churchill.
"Making a run for it?" Churchill said.
"I have to be at a dinner later." Eden replied.
"Celebrating? What is there to celebrate? You've put me in a bind Sydney."
"I didn't say it was a celebration all I said was it was dinner." Eden replied.
"We asked you here to do a job, Sydney and so far you've shown a very lackluster performance. To think you had a very, very good reference. What gives? What do I need to do to get you to go in like the killer I was told you were?" Churchill asked.
"What did you want me to do? He's a kid! Did you expect me to rip him a new one, right there on the stand? Lockwood is a good lawyer he would have had me eaten for lunch by Judge Banning with objection after objection. If you want a conviction, I need good testimony that is entered into evidence for Banning to decide on. If I ruined that by allowing Lear to constantly object to my questions we'd get nowhere." Eden explained.
"Maybe you weren't asking the right questions? Maybe you're doing it on purpose?" Timothy replied.
"Listen, this is your deal. I'm here to help you but honestly, this whole thing is ridiculous, I've said it before, and I'll say it again. You're really pushing it with this case. No one will remember how this went down, all they'll remember is how you went after possibly very innocent people. The judge will not decide in your favor. Face it Tim, you're fighting a losing battle." Eden said.
Timothy grinned and stepped close to Eden. The desk lamp's light illuminated his face from below casting a shadow over him that made him look incredibly sinister. Eden narrowed his eyes seeing the cold stare of Timothy freeze him over.
"Don't worry about Judge Banning." Timothy replied. "I think he knows exactly which way the tree will fall."
Eden tilted his head. Timothy's cryptic words felt as strange and dark as the face over the lamp light.
He looked at the money and took a deep breath, then a knock came at his office door.
"Come in."
The door slowly to reveal Timothy Churchill's aide Nathan Cramer.
"You wanted to see me your honor?" Nathan asked nervously.
"Yes, thank you for coming so quickly. I need to you take this back to the Mayor."
Nathan swallowed hard seeing an open envelope pass from the judge's hands flop down on the desk.
"Sir, I ...I don't --- " Nathan began before being interrupted.
"You never saw this. I know. Don't worry. You don't need to know anything. Just take it back to the Mayor and tell him I wish him luck." The Judge said.
Nathan nodded and grabbed the envelope. He went back to the office door and turned back to see the judge had turned back around to the view of the village. Nathan noted that the judge was looking beyond the people and homes in his view and out towards the horizon where the sun was sitting almost at eye-line over the sea casting a light blue hue over the sky.
Nathan hurried down back to Timothy's office and pushed passed a stressed secretary who was fielding constant questions from Baxter Murphy who saw Nathan enter in a flurry.
Nathan rolled his eyes and slid through a door into a vestibule that lead into the Timothy's office.
The mayor was back from seeing Sydney, sitting in his seat sipping on brandy as Nathan entered, beads of sweat trickled down the young aide's temple.
"What is it?" Timothy asked seeing his frantic aide.
Nathan reached into his coat pocket and pulled the very familiar envelope. Timothy fumed in his chair and everything he had fighting for suddenly came back into his mind: His hatred of the Lord family and how they'd practically pushed every other prominent family out of the village by buying up land, buildings, blocks and blocks of the village square. How every other first family that settled on the island over 300 years ago were sent to the poor house because of the Lord's monopoly over Welshport. They practically ruled over the small island as if it were their own tiny dukedom.
Timothy's whole life he felt as if he were living under the shadow of the Lord family's power and prestige meanwhile his own family, the Churchills were left with only stories in history that seemed more myth than reality.
"And tell him what sir?" Nathan asked.
"Tell him to call me to the stand first the in the morning. I'm his star witness, and I'm ready to burn the Lord universe up once and for all."
 |
| Aurora finds Caspian in the park |
In the village, Aurora was pushing her grandson Gabriel in his dark blue buggy as they walked along Main Street headed for an area around the park where taxis convened for patrons. She had had a wonderful day with Gabriel despite the terrible trial his mother Evie was going through. Aurora could not bring herself to take Gabriel to court that day and found herself meandering around the village hoping the heaviness of the trial would lift from her body affording her grandson sometime of peace before he someday realized what had happened to Evie during all this time apart.
As she sat on a bench that had been replaced just outside the iron gates of Village Park, and Gabriel sat up in the buggy, he looked at her with a sad face as a woman who resembled Evie walked passed with her daughter hand in hand.
The mother reached down and unwrapped a sweet for the little girl who happily took it and began enjoying its chocolaty flavor.
Gabriel turned back to his grandmother Aurora and frowned then signed "mama."
Aurora's heart broke as she did her best to sign back to him "mama come home soon."
Gabriel signed again "mama, now."
Aurora signed "mama away, come soon. i promise."
"with papa?" the 3-year-old signed.
Aurora gulped "no, no papa."
The little boy's eyes watered. His little pouty lips quivered and then, his tears fell. Silently.
Aurora's heart broke into a million pieces.
As the streets began to darken and the day slipped away, Aurora quickly hurried from the bench to the area near the park to catch a cab back to Bellmore Beach. As she continued on her way with the sniffling and sad Gabriel, she accidentally crashed his buggy into a man coming out of the park.
To her surprise, it was Caspian Casador.
Their eyes locked. The two of them had not been in each other's company in a very long time. She had kept herself away from him while he healed from the fall at the caves and he had let her be too, mostly due to Rebecca's very deep jealousy of Aurora.
But the meeting finally needed to happen. Aurora was desperate to tell him their child was alive, missing but alive.
Caspian seemed off. His mind wondering the whole day on Rebecca's betrayal of his confidence. But Aurora's face soon melted his outer and hardened shell.
"Well, aren't you a sight for sore eyes." he said, as he slowly leaned in for a kiss to her cheek.
"Are you ok?" She asked.
"Fine." He answered brushing her off quickly. "Whare are you two doing out here this evening? I thought maybe you'd be home resting after court."
"We didn't go today." Aurora sighed, looking away as if to hide her shame. "I couldn't bring myself to get down there. I tried, I really did, but the idea of taking Gabriel there and seeing his mother come in with shackles I just couldn't do it. We just walked around town all day keeping busy.”
"Oh, Aurora, I'm sure Evie will understand." Caspian replied.
"She's already told me she wants me to stay away period, but I still feel guilty. Niky has gone more than me, I think today he's working so..." Aurora trailed off.
"So Evie was alone." Caspian finished.
"I'm horrible, aren't I? That's what you're thinking."
"Aurora, you're not horrible. I think we can all understand what you're going though in some capacity. You don't have to hide how you're feeling." He replied.
She smiled sensing his kindness almost as if it was a beam of sunlight warming her skin. "And you? What are you doing out here in the park. Its getting dark." She wondered.
"I had a lot to think about."
She nodded. "That seems to be something we're all going through, a lot of thinking. Which brings me to something I have been holding on to and have wanted to bring up with you for a good amount of time, but your injury and Evie's arrest it's just been a bit haywire. But it's important." She said.
Caspian stepped closer to her, his head starting to feel the strain of one of his headaches again beginning in his temple. He winced with pain and swallowed hard pushing down the feeling in his mind, the splitting feeling that was causing him so much pain.
"What is it." he managed to say.
"Are you ok?" She asked.
"I am. What is it?"
She took a breath and then began the story from beginning to end. How Gregory had felt torn about the baby she was carrying. How he had taken up in a conspiracy with Asha and together they induced her labor and a baby boy, not a girl, was born. How Gregory pressured Asha to take the child and give it to a couple that had yet to be identified and how Gregory lied to Aurora and said the child, a girl, died. How Asha's guilt pushed Gregory to a dark place and he imprisoned her and lied about her whereabouts. How Nik finally discovered their plot only too late. Then the fire and the burning down of the Police station with Asha in it and her falling into a coma as a result. Her mind locked in the fog of her sleep still holding the secret whereabouts of their missing son.
Caspian couldn't believe what Aurora had told him. He was shocked and hurt just as she was with the truth and now more than ever wanted to reconnect with not only his daughter Danielle, but this boy that was out there somewhere in the world. A boy that might look like him by now. A boy that had a name that he wasn't meant to have, a family he wasn't meant to have, a home he wasn't meant to have.
"This is outrageous! How could Gregory have done such a thing? How could Asha? How could this have happened and no one else knew about it?" Caspian said, his fist balling up to the point his knuckles turned white.
Aurora could see the veins in his forehead throbbing. His eyes were bloodshot and his anger filling up. He grabbed on to the iron bar of the park gates, his anger surged, and he shook the fence so hard crows in a nearby tree could feel the vibrations and took flight and circled around them calling to each other to watch for the strong vibrations from the human just below.
Aurora stood back and pulled Gabriel's buggy with her. The little boy pulled himself up feeling Caspian's anger and turned to his grandmother and signed the words for "unhappy" and "scared".
Aurora pulled him out of the buggy and held him close. She signed back "Be alright. Grandma here."
Caspian's headache was back. He turned his whole body around and faced himself away from Aurora in embarrassment at his outburst and looked into the park. Everything was getting blurry. he was starting to feel an overwhelming sense of pain in his right temple and his mouth began to drip with saliva.
He could feel a darkness come over him but then Aurora touched him and it felt like a cool cloth touching his feverish head. He relaxed suddenly.
"Are you ok?" She asked.
"I... I have just been getting these headaches since my fall at the caves." He said.
"Should I call a doctor?" She wondered as passersby glared at them.
"No, no.... I should just go home."
"Caspian, you're not well." She said. "Come back to Bellmore Beach with me and rest than you can go home. There's a cab right there, I'm sure it'll be available for us to take."
Caspian thought about it for a second. He looked at Aurora he sensed her kindness, he knew she had good intentions and agreed. Together, the went back to Evie's beach house where he'd rest and reconcile more of what had happened to their missing son.
 |
| Chris and Sebastian come face to face |
Christopher spent the rest of the day in hiding after what happened at the Court house. He knew it was a terrible idea to finally reveal himself in full to a giant crowd of people including the Lord family. He was apprehensive about it, but Genevieve had convinced him nothing terrible would happen.
How wrong she was.
Once darkness fell, he’d gone stir crazy. A fresh taste of sea air suited him.
As Christopher walked along the dark Welshport docks amongst the thick arriving sea fog, all he could see in his mind was see Jacob's face when their eyes locked. His heart sank to his stomach realizing Jacob's heart attack was because of him.
The dinging of the buoys in the sea finally took his mind off of what happened. A distraction, but footsteps in the night air behind him that echoed up the dock quickly sank the sound of the buoys.
Chris turned towards the steps coming his way. His body stiffened. He could only see the outline of a man in silhouette. Chris wasn't sure who it was. It could be no one. It could be some stranger that would not recognize his face — David's face.
As the fog slowly dissipated over the person's body a wave splashed up against the dock washing over the rocks almost as if the man himself was in control of the moon and its gravity and over how the waves were bursting out of the ocean.
Once Christopher's distraction of the wave vanished, he looked up to see his son Sebastian Lord, now a grown man standing before him,
Sebastian's face was still the same as it was, albeit older, the last time Christopher, then David, saw him. His eyes still the steely blue, his lips still a perfect cherub bow plump and pink.
But his skin, his skin was pale, cold looking and almost translucent to the point Chris could see small veins at Sebastian's temples and just below his eyes faintly giving Sebastian the look of someone who had not slept in decades.
It was the look of a vampire.
"Is it really you?" Christopher asked.
Sebastian nodded his head.
"I can't believe you're really here." The son replied. "Looks like I'm having many reunions with family members lately." He joked, referencing his secret meetings with Jacob one night and Charlotte the other.
"I... I don't know what to say." Chris said. "I've wished for this for so many years and now that it's come I feel as if that perhaps I should have prepared something better to say to you, to explain what I did and where I was." Christopher said. "How did you find me?"
"Charlotte."
"She told you where I was?" Christopher asked.
"Not in the way we think of. It wasn’t like talking, no. She has a gift. Her gift pointed me to where you were and I followed. Why have you come back?" Sebastian asked.
"Would you like me to leave?" Chris wondered, not wanting to push his son into anything regarding him.
"It's just that I know, from Charlotte, that you've gone by a new name. You have a new life free of all of this here. It just feels like you were better off away from all of us than being here facing us. Trust me, I for one know what it's like to want to never come back." Sebastian said.
"You're so different." Chris noted. "Not that you've grown, I expected that, but something else. Something about you tells me you're not the same at all. Not even the same person, and yet you are."
Sebatsian knew it the life within the shadows that was showing on his face. The coldness in his heart from becoming the creature that stood before his father was so obvious and yet Chris did not have the words for it.
"It's been a very difficult time for me since you left and -- well -- I wish I could explain in a simple way but I can't. You're right. I am not the same Sebastian that was here when you left. When I thought you died. The same body holds my heart but that heart is colder. Lost to something you'll never understand." Sebastian explained. "But, I've missed you so much. That -- that never changed."
"I wish I could take back what happened and change your life, Sebastian. I wish I could have saved you from everything that happened in those days but I was weak and I didn't and instead of staying and facing Jacob once and for all I fled. I found a new life I tried to rebuild who I was and I did, I did well in England. But the loss of your mother and the loss of you ruined any hope that I could come back as my old self -- David Lord is dead. I cannot bring him back ever again."
"Cannot or will not?"
Christopher took a breath as the waves continued to crash to his left of the dock. "Will not." He answered.
"I honestly don't blame you." Sebastian replied. "I wish I could have done the same thing you did and just moved out of my old life and into this new one without issue but unfortunately I have a lot old baggage that I can't let go of. I probably will never let go of it."
Chrisopher nodded "Like me? Am I part of that old baggage?"
"Some of it yes. You left me. I know you had your reasons and you were terrified about mother's death but you abandoned me just like that." Sebastian replied.
"Sebastian, you have to understand, it wasn't just being terrified about your mother's death, I thought I had caused it! I thought I did it! Jacob made me believe it was me and for many years I lived with that guilt thinking I took the life of the woman I loved and the mother of my son. Over many, many years I had to trace back my memories of that night and realize that I hadn't done anything! I was innocent but by then I was wanted man and I thought you deserved to at least think I was dead than to come back and ruin your life further by bringing up old ghosts. Your life I was told had been good. You were educated. Your grandmother made sure your part of my inheritance was in a trust and that you'd get your part of the company when you turned 21. If I had returned all of that would have vanished, reversed. I decided that David should remain dead. I don't want any part of that Lord heritage, not anymore. Except, you. I do want you in my life. Especially now that I have a grandson."
Sebastian could not hold any hardness or anger towards his father in truth. He had when he was young but he had moved on many years ago accepting his father's death. He now accepted this man, Christopher Wesley as his own person. Not his fathter.
"We could start over." Sebastian replied.
"How?"
"Christopher Wesley doesn't know Sebastian Lord. We could be friends."
"Friends." Chris replied with a smile. "I think I can do that."
"I'd like it too." Sebastian said. "And soon I'll find you and we'll discuss what's happened to me in the years since my father David's death. That way, Chris, will be up-to-date."
Chris smiled and breathed in a sigh of relief. He turned to the sea happy that at least there was this silver lining in his life, that his son was so far willing to start fresh with him in his new life and when Chris turned back to Sebastian to see when he'd like to talk -- Sebastian was gone.
Only the fog remained floating all around him only leaving him with the feeling that perhaps there was a lot more to Sebastian the man than Chris really knew.
