SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME - THE SUNRISE

PREVIOUSLY

> He was halted by the darkness on the main floor of the Penthouse. Usually the darkness carried with it the memories and the demons from his nightmares. This time something was different. He could almost sense something comforting in the dark tonight….a presence. 

  Even before he saw her, he knew.  Tea sat huddled near the window, one hand pressed to the cool glass, lost in a reverie of sorts. 

  "Delgado….." His voice was questioning, but also full of more relief then he could ever have attempted to cover.

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  (Part II and Part III are based on the legend that when two lovers are caught in the first rays of a sunrise, their hearts are bound together for all eternity……..m&m gal)

"Delgado…"
Todd cringed at the intense relief that accompanied the single word. Tea turned to face him, her eyes full of some deep sadness. Her expression changed for a second to register that she had picked up on his tone of desperation. Before she could comment on it, he decided to cover with classic Todd-ism.
"You trying for membership in NightCrawlers Anonymous? We only accept true-blue insomniacs, not just any ole schmuck. I can let you in on a little secret though….the first step is admitting you have a problem." Impressed by his own wit, he waited patiently for one of her classic retorts. Tea only sighed and turned back to the window. The silence suddenly deafening, he made a second attempt to incite her into the game.
"It takes quite the woman to drive the Sandman away…..Tell me, what's your secret?"
Again, he was met only by silence. He took a tentative step towards her, her defeated demeanor beginning to worry him. He stopped short when she abruptly broke the silence.
"5:15 AM," was all she said, her voice barely a whisper.
"Ok, Delgado…what is going on here? Not only are you as cryptic as a Ouija Board, but you can't tell time either. It's only 4:00…."
Her voice flat, Tea expanded on her previous statement, unsure of just how much she was willing to reveal.
"Twenty two years ago today, 5:15 in the morning, I woke up to a phone call telling me that my mother was dead," she said, her voice breaking. "Please Todd, not tonight, ok? I just want to be left alone."
Todd studied her for a moment, debating. She sounded so much like a lost child, and for just a second, he knew what she must have been like as a seven year old girl when no one was watching her, relying on her, depending on her to be the ever strong Tea Delgado. He recalled how just moments before he had felt lost also, and for this reason he decided to push forward.
"But see Delgado, this is the thing. I came all this way looking for you, cause it's been a while since we last had one of those midnight…uh…4AM chat things…communication, ya know….and I admit---I kind of missed it. So, here I am…." He trailed off, hoping that by using her own game he could intice her into telling him more.
"Can't we just please leave it alone? I don't want to go there Todd, not tonight. Listen, no offense…don't take it personal. I don't like to go there with anyone. Just go do whatever it is you do before the sun comes up. I won't get in your way, ok?"
"Nope. Too late. Can't concentrate with you just vegetating over there like that. Now, last time you got to ask all the 25 thousand dollar questions, so it is my turn to start….Tell me more about that night. How'd she die?" He was relentless. She might have found his willingness to 'share' funny another night. Faced with her own tactics, she found herself annoying coming from Todd.
She made one last attempt.
"Todd…." She pleaded with him. His face let her know that he opted to be stubborn.
"Hey, this in-depth, reveal all your inner crap thing….you started it. You kept at me until I couldn't run from it or you. I didn't want to play either, but you….you made me. I didn't chicken out, take my toys and go home. Play nice Tea…" His voice softening, he pressed on. "Talk to me."
She turned to search his face for a quick moment before turning back to the window. She seemed to weigh her options one last time before she finally began to speak.
"She lost a battle with cancer… I guess she was fighting longer than any of us had known. But then, how could we, her own family have known?" She laughed bitterly, and turned to face him, sitting indian style on the floor. " I was her daughter. You'd think she might have let me in on the secret, ya know? After she left, my mother became a part of my dreams and my imagination….I knew nothing of her life from the night she left without a good-bye to the night the phone rang to politely inform me she was never coming back…" She broke off, her voice cracking with emotion, and she focused her attention on the blind. When she did look up into his face, she was taken aback by the softness she found in his eyes. He blinked and broke her gaze.
"Must have been tough to wrap your mind around that one, huh? You being so young and all."
His face looked puzzled for a second. "Delgado, you've always been so tough, it's hard for me to see you as this young, heartbroken little kid. But that's what you were." He said this as if it were a new revelation. Suddenly he had a clearer picture of what made Tea tick, what made her cry, what had the power to break that ever present resolve of hers.
"I worked my darndest not to let anyone see that. I didn't cry you know. Not in front of anyone. I prided myself on that at times. Others, it horrified me. I sat up nights trying to find my own answers." She tugged at a loose thread on the pillow she held in her arms.
"And?…" he prodded her on.
"There weren't any…not for me." She angrily brushed at the tears that ran down her cheeks. "The mother in my dreams wouldn't have died without telling her kids goodbye. But then, the mother in my dreams wouldn't have left in the first place, leaving her daughter wondering all these years what she had done or why she didn't love me enough…." She stopped and bit down hard on her lip.
Todd had been perched on the arm of the couch, but now he sat on the floor, and he found himself slowly inching closer to her.
"You were just a little kid, Del…Tea. You didn't send her running for the hills, kids don't do that, other stuff does. Maybe she stayed away to protect you, or she just thought you were better off, or some other psycho-babble thing that Viki might come up with. Look, the point is, you need to know that you are not to blame for any of what happened…"
"Neither were you…" she interjected softly, suspecting what must have woken him up from the sleep she had found him in earlier.
"Hold the phone. This isn't about me, Counselor, remember? I object! It is my turn to be the Big Mouse in Delgado's Wonderful World of Crap…" Todd stopped and noticed her fighting back a small smile.
"I envy you one thing Todd. You got to see your mother after…even for a few days. She loved you. That phone call? It took that chance from me. I'll never know…and she'll never know…I can't tell her…." She couldn't continue.
"That you loved her, needed her, and all that other chick stuff. Yep…I get it." However irreverent the method, Todd understood, and he finished her thought when she couldn't. For that, Tea was immensely grateful. She had never gone to this place with anyone, fearing what would happen if she expressed the pain out loud. She felt free, and for the first time, she didn't feel quite so alone.

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A brief silence followed their exchange in which each considered the other. Both were very aware of how much they shared, and they found a unique understanding in each other.
"I was left with so little…they wouldn't even tell us about her death…too painful for such a little girl, they said….they only quieted my questions by telling me it was a peaceful end. But there was always that one thing….. " Todd waited expectantly for her to go on.
"She wanted to live to see one last sunrise. Abuelita told me she never got that last wish. So every year on this day, since that night, no matter where I was, I'd find a way to watch it for her. She couldn't let me be her daughter in other ways…Maybe it's silly, but it's the only way I know to try to make some connection with her." Her voice very small, she turned back to the window.
---Help her drive her monsters away---
The thought came to him like a voice---did fate have a voice? He decided to act now and question later. He began to drag the sofa over to the window. She glanced at him. A question in her eyes. He tried to avoid those beautiful, soulful eyes…old habits…those eyes held such secrets…they held the power to capture his soul and never let go…
"What…what are you doing?" she finally asked as he looked at her expectantly.
"If we're going to watch a sunrise, we might as well have good seats, right? Been a while since I've seen a good sunrise." Truth be told, Todd was the sole witness to more sunrises than he cared to admit, but he saw no reason to fill her in on this detail.
"Come on Delgado, take a load off. " He flopped down on the couch and patted the seat beside him, and after a moment or two of hesitant consideration, she took it somewhat warily. All these years she'd spent this night tucked away in her own grief…craving solitude as the only safe way to express her pain without judgment or the need for justification for losing her usual staunch demeanor. Suddenly she felt that she couldn't do it again, not this year, not without Todd.
Somehow, it was okay with Todd. She was safe. She didn't have to hide. She felt as though two creatures who felt safest in the dark could now come out of hiding and find a new sense of comfort within the company of the other. It dawned on Tea very suddenly…her darkness wasn't so heavy since the day she'd come to be part of his world…such a terribly dark world, so frightening at times.

In the beginning she felt like she had walked into the part of Belle in one of Starr's favorite movies, Beauty and the Beast, only there was no remote chance that her beast's heart would ever thaw. How terribly wrong she'd been! As he sat next to her now, she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, this man who once upon a time she might have written off as all the horrible things the rest of the town had long ago written in stone about him. Temporarily lost in his own thoughts, his eyes lost that heavy veil of cynicism and self-loathing that seemed as natural as the hazel tint within them. He bit down on his lip like a child struggling to understand why the sky is blue or where they fit into the grand scheme of things. Every once in a while, there was such an intense softness about him that it was all she could do not to take him in her arms and hold him until the past was no more than a long lost memory. She longed to tell him that the world could be good again…so very good for both of them, if they could stop fighting the tides of fate and allow themselves, at the expense of everything but also with the promise of so much more, to be drawn into the place that their souls were leading them.
Tea bumped him gently with her shoulder to pull them both back into the moment.
"Todd, this feels….right…um…sitting here like this….with you, tonight…" She stumbled over the words, and her face went red as the perfectly elegant version of that which had formed in her head went by the wayside to make room for the jumble that headed for her mouth.
Todd did not seem to notice. He just returned the nudge and looked up briefly to find her staring hard at the pattern of the couch. He tentatively brushed the lock of hair off her cheek that covered her eyes before pulling back quickly to recover himself.
" Tea, this feels ok to me too. Tonight didn't start off so hot for either one of us, but look, it's almost over…maybe tomorrow will bring…." He trailed off. Imagine Todd Manning starting to say something optimistic, poetic even! She had that effect on him sometimes…she made him feel like he could be so much more than he was. He noticed her looking at him intensely, waiting, hoping for something. He felt his neck growing hot. He dug as deeply as he could for some way to complete what his heart was pounding for him to tell her.
"….ya know…whatever.." That was the best he could do. The words weren't there, not yet. But he gently brushed his hand across her knee in a gesture so slight it could be argued that it was accidental. The look that accompanied it was all the closing argument that Tea needed, however. The pull had them both firmly in its grasp, and turning back was no longer an option. As one, they leaned back against the sofa and tried to contemplate the power of this thing that had such a strong hold over their hearts, and which seemed to be connecting them beyond a shadow of a doubt.

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Next up….Someone to Watch over Me: On the Side of Angels (Part 3)