S6: Chapter 05: Tongue Tied

“Scott is that you?” Vivica asked from the kitchen as she checked on dinner. Wordlessly he walked towards her, pecked her cheek and reached into the fridge for a beer. “How was work Dear?” she asked, stirring the pot of spaghetti sauce.

“Uneventful, quiet as I like but that always means trouble’s brewing.” Scott replied and took a sip from the bottle in his hand.

“Oh you should have a little more optimism Scott! Things could be settling down a bit for now. Think of it as you doing your job successfully; the crime rate is dropping.”

“If only that were true,” he sighed and watched her dance about the cabinets collecting plates, glasses and silverware for their meal. He smiled as a feeling of warmth bathed him in her presence. It had been a very long time since he felt so whole and the longer the two were together, the more happiness he felt. He never imagined being able to find love again after Katrina; never thought it was possible. But here he was, standing in his kitchen with the woman he’d been seeing for a little over a year now; glad that she’d finally accepted his invitation to share households. “How was your day Viv?”

“Quiet and relaxing. I met with Shelly, my distributor, and discussed branching our product to a few of the international markets. I’ll know in a few days if the President accepts my proposal on that.” Vivica had been enjoying her work as the Chief Financial Officer for Maclean Cosmetics but she felt that her job was the same repetitive motions; review product sheet, create new inventory line, sign check, speak with clients. She wanted more from her position and suggested the international trade with her bosses in hopes of getting back into travel as she once did.

“That sounds great Vivica! If your President sees you as the smart and resourceful woman that I do, they’ll jump on that proposal quickly. Although, that means I might see you less,” Scott pouted slightly and swilled his drink. “I don’t think I like that idea much.”

Vivica giggled, pecked his cheek and placed their plates on the dinner table. “It’ll be fine Scott. It’s not like I’ll be gone for weeks at a time. Trips are usually just two or three days to ensure the locations are selected and the product is correct and on time. Really, I think you can manage to find something to do with yourself in that time.”

“It’ll be tough, but I’ll figure it out,” he grinned and bowed his head as she said grace. Almost instantly his thoughts turned to Yvette. He had gone by the house to see his grandbabies and played with them for a few hours after work. But he was actually hoping to confess something to her while there that he stopped himself from doing. 

Sighing as he took a bite of the spaghetti, Vivica eyed him curiously and dabbed her napkin to her mouth. “What’s the matter Dear?”

“I’m just struggling with a decision I made,” he replied sorrowfully and continued taking tiny nibbles of his dinner. Vivica nodded and smiled to encourage him to continue and he again sighed. “I lied to Yvette; first time I’ve ever had to do that. I told her that her father, her real father, was a crazy, paranoid triple agent and shouldn’t be trusted. But in fact what he wrote to her in that letter was all true.”

“Oh? And was there a reason behind your lie, Scott?”

“Of course. I did it for her. I don’t want her to continue pursuing this investigation into her mother’s death. I know where it leads and I don’t want to see the same thing that happened to Katrina happen to her. She has no idea what doors she’s knocking on going through those old case files and reports. It’ll only make her orphan her babies and I won’t sit by and watch her wreck their lives. I told her to just let it all go and concentrate on her family.”

“Now this is just my opinion Scott so I hope you’re not offended. But from what I know about your daughter, she’s a very capable and strong-willed woman. She is able to handle being out in the field and motherhood and from the stories you tell me she is intelligent, skillful and crafty. You raised her to be an amazing young woman and I can see how hard it is for you to let go of her hand and let her walk on her own. But you have to believe that you gave her all the tools she needs to make the right decisions for herself.” 

“Keeping information that you know she’s been seeking since losing her mother is only going to make things harder for her. She’ll have to look deeper into these past missions and case files to find even the smallest of hints of the things you know and it’ll continue to stress her out and drive her crazy. Let her in on it Scott, on all of it. And help her put this painful memory behind her!”

Scott rolled Vivica’s words around his head and chewed on the same bite of spaghetti for a moment. She was right. All this time he thought he was protecting Yvette he was really only compounding the mystery until the point she was going crazy trying to find anything out. Maybe it was time he came clean, about it all. He would just have to trust the fact that Yvette would know danger when she saw it and back away before it ripped her from this world. “You’re right and I know you’re right it’s just…the closer she gets to the end, the more dangerous it’ll become.”

Brett awoke to the sound of a door closing and swiped his hand over Yvette’s side of the bed. Feeling the coolness of the sheets he sighed to himself and pulled up to throw his legs over the edge. She was gone and from the feel of the covers it had been for a while. He rubbed his hand through his hair and eyed the door to the bedroom. A tiny beam of light crept beneath the crack under the door and he knew right then where she had gone. He groaned as he noticed the time on the clock as 3:40 am. Drawing himself from the bed, Brett started forward and entered the twin’s bedroom behind his wife.

Yvette was on the floor of the kid’s room frantically searching through the boxes they’d retrieved from Ethan’s storage unit. Letters upon letters and cards with various holiday stickers scattered the floor amid piles of small gift boxes and stuffed animals. She was reading a letter addressed to her on February 6, 1999; her 13^th birthday. “Yve what are you doing? It’s almost 4 o’clock in the morning, why aren’t you in bed?”

“Can’t sleep. Autumn was crying so I came and fed her and put her back to bed. After that I watched them for a little bit. I can’t keep my eyes closed so I decided to look through some of that stuff from the storage. It’s here Brett, it’s all here. Everything! I mean it’s like a timeline of events; a map,” she giggled maniacally as she rummaged through the papers. “A map into his life!”

“What? What are you talking about Yvette?”

“Ethan! This…stuff, this is all stuff he collected and held on to since he left that summer when I was 7 years old. Birthday cards, Christmas cards, letters about what he was doing and where he was. Travel information about the countries he visited and details about what it would be like to show me how beautiful some of these places were; it’s all here! Every-single-birthday.” She dropped back a little on her knees and Brett knelt down beside her as he scanned the various papers and gift tags laid out before him.

She was right. From 1993 on up to 2002, the year her mother died, there were letters addressed from Ethan to Yvette and also postcards and trinkets from every country he’d visited since leaving her. “He told you that he was there every day until your 16^th birthday; I guess he wasn’t lying.” Brett watched Yvette’s expression and how her gaze dramatically went from the letters on the floor to their children sleeping in their cribs. She was trying to make sense of her life and the man she knew as her father and coming up short. “What’s wrong Yvette?”

“Nothing. He really did love me Brett. And even after everything he tried to be there for me until things got too bad for him.”

“Yeah.” He sighed and rubbed his hand over her shoulders and watched his son stir a little in his sleep. He appeared to be having a vivid dream, as his arms continuously came up to his face in a playful manner. Austin’s leg came out from under his blanket and Brett pulled away from Yvette to go and wrap him back up.

“When I was 12,” Yvette started and pulled her legs into her chest as Brett dropped to the floor beside her. “Every day after school I would go to the little toy store near our house. There was this little dollhouse and matching miniatures in the window hand-carved of wood that I just…loved! It was a whole family, a mother, a father, two children, a dog and a cat. They had this cute little pink house with a blue convertible in the driveway. White curtains in the window, a flower garden in the front yard and each of their faces had huge smiles. I’d imagined life growing up in their little wooden world and how fun it must have been to live as a cohesive unit.”

“One day I passed by the store and I noticed it was gone. Almost immediately I felt a sense of loss; sadness. As crazy as it sounds it felt like someone had come in and taken my family. I remembered thinking whatever kid got that was the luckiest kid alive; their parents really loved them to get them something like that.” Yvette slid the box near her hip towards Brett and nodded to it. “It was Ethan,” she began crying as Brett pulled the lid off the box and peered inside. “It’s dated for my 13^th birthday Brett. All this time! All this time he was there, watching me and trying to be a part of my life but never there! That pretty white box with the glittery pink bow sat in some storage unit until the day you and I rescued it. That tiny little family would have never seen the light of day again!”

Brett rubbed his arm over her neck and she tucked herself against him as she continued crying. He waited until he felt the last of her tears before pulling back to look at her. She was desperate for answers and had been ever since her family was broken apart. Reduced to tears and no longer appearing the tough, willful woman he met, he finally realized how deeply her scars actually cut and how much she needed closure.

Pulling her up from the floor Brett dragged her to the office and shut the door behind her. Yvette leaned against the door as he fumbled through the locked bottom drawer and watched as he retrieved a case file folder which he dropped open onto the desk for her to view. “Yvette, I made a promise to Scott that me and the guys would handle this mission without letting you in on what we were doing. So far we’ve gotten through the first three or four layers of red tape and classified information to find the source of everything but…I can’t keep going, watching you crack more and more from the lack of answers to your millions of questions.”

She stepped forward and eyed the material on the desk. Immediately she recognized it as the Black Veil operational data; her mother’s final mission. “You’ve been working on her last case and never said anything?” She glanced at Brett and he nodded and watched her read through the documents. “How long?”

“Since you were seven months pregnant.” Yvette turned with a scowl and Brett quickly tried to explain. “Scott didn’t want you to stress out and place yourself in the line of fire while you were pregnant Yvette and I agreed. We both know how you are and that you’d have done whatever was necessary to get into this mission. We didn’t want to risk your life or that of the babies.”

“I love you Brett, but you and Scott are both colossal fucking assholes. You say you did this to ‘protect’ me.  What the hell do you think the stress over not knowing was doing to me? If anything Brett, what you and Scott did made things immeasurably worse! I can handle sitting and watching you take down the bad guys! As much as I complained about being stuck in the house and not being able to do my job I did it Brett! For the last 4 months of my pregnancy I barely left the house because opposed to what you and my Dad think about me, I’d NEVER risk my children’s lives over a mission!”

“You’ve had a miscarriage before, Yve.”

Yvette shook visibly from the tears she fought to hold back behind her closed lids and spoke silently to keep her voice from cracking. “That was different Brett. I was on the run for my life and trying to stay one step ahead of the people who wanted me dead while keeping everyone else I loved from having to risk their lives for me. What was I supposed to do? Crawl into a hole and pray no one found me until I gave birth? I had to prove my innocence for me and my child otherwise he would have lived the life of a fugitive and what kind of life is that? If you want to blame someone, blame Alexander Harrison who set me down that path in the first place!”

She turned to leave and Brett caught her by the wrist. “Yve wait, I didn’t mean it like that. I just want you to understand why this decision was made without you.”

She shrunk away from his roaming eyes but never turned to face him. “I understand Brett. And I hope you understand how much it hurts knowing you’ve kept this from me all this time. I get how you think you were doing me a favor, but that is far from how it feels! Now please let go of my arm, Austin is crying and I’d like to go check on him.”

“I’ll go Yve your nerves are too frazzled right now.” She nodded her head and felt his lips lightly tickle her damp cheek as he silently pecked her and headed back up towards the babies’ room. 

Yvette turned her attention towards the desk again and the opened folder sitting on top of it. While on one hand she could understand the reason they kept her out of the loop, he made her question what else they could be hiding. She knew Scott was not being completely honest with her when last they spoke; she knew him too well. Yvette rubbed her hand through her hair and slowly wiped away the remaining tears and as she did, her eyes fell on the small wooden box she’d placed on the bookshelf the day after Ethan was killed.

Inside was the cellphone he slipped into her pocket and a key to the storage they’d visited earlier. When you’re ready, call the number on the top speed dial and enter your date of birth, Ethan’s last words replayed in her mind as she moved towards the box and retrieved the sleek little device. Powering on the cell, she watched as a picture of his smiling face came over the screen. It was an image of them together and the day he taught her how to ride a bike. Yvette skimmed through the contacts list to get to the speed dial commands.

On the ID the number was listed as *REC. Pressing the button to place the call, she waited for the operator on the other end to ask for the pin code and punched in her date of birth. After a short wait and a lengthy beep and static, Yvette found herself listening to the sound of someone breathing heavily against the mic but never saying a word.

She hung the phone up and stared at it. “What the hell are you doing Yvette?” She scolded herself. She had no idea where the line led to or who would even pick up. As she prepared to power the phone down again and shove it back inside of its box, the tiny device vibrated in her palm causing her to jump. Shit, the breather was calling her back. She closed her eyes momentarily and took a deep breath as she regained her nerve.

Pressing the talk button, Yvette brought the phone to her ear again and just listened. It was the same heavy breathing and no words as before only this time the faint humming of an engine could be heard in the background. Yvette swallowed hard and waited for what felt like an eternity for the other person to speak but when it became apparent they wouldn’t she sighed and prepared to hang up.

But in a desperate attempt to get the caller on the other end to speak, Yvette found herself asking a question she was not fully ready to know the answer to. “Is it you Ethan?”

The breathing grew heavier and she closed her eyes waiting to hear the click like before. Moments before she was about to give up she sighed in disbelief and a single tear rolled down her cheek. “Hello Yvie, I’m glad you called.”

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