Lisa Ch. 09a

"Come on, there has to be something. If you died tomorrow, what would you regret not doing?"

"Having killed Earl sooner." Sean said, "Before so many people got hurt."

Jessica nodded. "That's a good one." She said, "But I was looking for something more fun... nice fun." She added when Sean looked at her like killing Earl had been a great hoot. "The kind of fun that makes you laugh and isn't psychologically scarring."

"Like eating twenty burgers in a row without puking?" Corey asked.

"Closer." Jessica said, "But a bit harder to do. Something fun that you would love to do but think you can't for whatever reason."

"Like a bucket list?" Leah asked.

"What the hell is a bucket list?" Corey asked when Jessica nodded.

"Things you want to do before you die. Like, climbing Mount Everest, or going down the Nile." Leah said.

"Why do you need to know that?" Quinn asked, "Do you know something we don't?"

"Yes." Jessica said, "I know that at any time now we're going to run from the clan. From what I've heard, that's not so easy to do. I want us to do all the things we've wanted to do before that... just in case."

"Justine, Amanda and I have always dreamed of being fashion designers." Sara said. "We have notebooks full of designs."

"Excellent." Jessica said suddenly excited and scribbling something next to Sara's name. "Tomorrow you need to go get those notebooks. And whatever else you need to make your designs into clothing."

"You're kidding." Sara said, "We'd need a ton of equipment, material. Hours of labor. For what?"

Jessica beat the pen against her lips. Thinking.

"Jessica..." Corey said.

"For a fashion show. It's perfect!" Jessica said nearly jumping off the sofa with excitement. "You can have the show at the bar. I'm sure Stephen and Lilly will let you. You could sell your clothes and maybe some of the proceeds can go to help support their kids."

"Yeah, right." Sean said, laughing.

"You're serious!" Sara said.

"Very. Can I be one of your models?"

"Duh, yeah." Sara said and laughed. She bounced on her seat, clearly excited.

"What about you?" Jessica asked Leah.

"Mine is silly." Leah said, "and nearly impossible to do."

"What is it?" Jessica prompted.

"Yeah, what is it?" Corey said sliding his arm around Leah and rocking her.

"I've always wanted to go to Paris. I don't know why. I can't even speak French."

"It's romantic, that's why." Sara said in a dreamy voice.

Sean, Corey, Caleb and Quinn looked at Sara, Leah and Jessica, when all three sighed wistfully, like they were insane.

Jessica scribbled Paris next to Leah's name.

"Sean?" Jessica asked.

"I don't have anything." He said.

"Everyone has something." Jessica said, "Maybe you just don't remember right now."

Corey, Caleb and Quinn shook their heads.

Jessica closed her book. "Just think about it, okay?"

"Maybe you should try to sleep now." Sean said when Jessica fell back against the sofa and looked really tired.

"I can't, and I'll wake up the men if I go back to bed." Jessica looked at the door. "Do you want to go jam in the studio?"

"Sure." Corey said. Everyone agreed.

"I'll leave a note for the men." Jessica said tearing a page out of her book. She wrote, 'In studio' in huge letters and left the paper on the coffee table.

Forty five minutes later Jessica, Corey, Sean, Leah, Sara, Caleb and Quinn finished the last word of a song and fell against each other laughing.

"What the hell are you doing?" Riley demanded making everyone jump. Jessica and the others had arranged themselves on the sofa and chairs and had been so involved with one another and the songs they hadn't noticed the men come in.

"Angus, why are you here?" Jessica asked, handing her guitar to Leah and running over into Angus' arms. He looked awful. Beyond awful. "Why aren't you in bed?" She reached up to feel his forehead but he pulled his head back.

"I could ask you the same thing." Angus grumbled, "What did we tell you about leaving in the middle of the night?"

"You need your sleep." Jessica said, "I would have kept you awake."

Angus looked around at Corey, Sean, Leah, Sara, Caleb and Quinn. He nodded but didn't look at all happy.

"I left you a note, on the coffee table..." Jessica said but her voice trailed off when Angus glared at her.

"We should go back to bed." Riley said.

Jessica nodded and leaned in to Angus, pecking him on his lips. "You have a fever!" Jessica gasped when Angus' lips were hot and dry.

"I'm fine. Let's go, come on." Angus snapped and started toward the door dragging Jessica by her arm.

"Angus!" Jim said and moved to block their path.

"Out of the way Jim."

"So you're reliving Jessica's early days are you?" Jim demanded, "And which one of you is supposed to be the one suffering, you or her?"

That brought Angus up short.

"You never would have let Jessica talk to you like you just did to her, much less drag you around like you are doing to her. Eye contact, verbal responses, and most of all obedience. Those were the rules remember? You're breaking them Angus. If you're going to relive Jessica's hell at least do it properly."

Angus looked at Jessica clearly aghast with himself. "I'm sorry Jess. I'm so..." he shook his head. "It scared me when I woke up and you weren't there. For a minute I thought that bringing you home had been a dream. I never want to feel that scared again."

Jessica hugged Angus. "It doesn't help that you're delirious." Jessica said touching his forehead again. "Please let us give you some medicine."

Angus shook his head.

"We gave Jessica medication when she had a fever." Scott said, "Remember?"

Angus looked confused of a moment but then nodded.

Everyone went back to the house. They watched in silence as Jessica fussed over Angus.

"You go ahead." He said when Jessica wanted to help him to the bedroom, "I'll get there eventually. Go Jess, please."

Jessica's face crumpled as she turned and headed down the hallway.

"You do know that you're hurting her don't you?" Leah demanded. "You're suffering on her behalf so she feels guilty, and on top of that, you're rude to her. If this is your idea of making things up to her you really suck at it."

"I didn't mean to hurt her." Angus said looking down the hallway. "I just need to do this and she keeps trying to make me feel better."

"Think about what you just said." Josh said, "And now think about who you're talking about. She's never going to let you suffer no matter how much you may deserve it!" Josh regretted the words as soon as he said them but Angus rebuffed any attempts at apology.

"You're right. The only way this will work is if you distract her for me. Keep her busy."

"There doesn't seem to be a shortage of ways to keep her busy." Sean said, "But I don't think she'll leave you."

"She will if she thinks I'm sleeping." Angus said, "We'll tell her I'm taking the medicine Doc left. I'll stay in the bedroom, she can think I'm recuperating."

"You want us to lie to her?" Riley asked. "Really? After all the shit we give her about honesty and trust?"

"You have to Riley." Angus said and sobbed. "You have no idea how much this hurts." He rambled, "I can't act like it doesn't around her and she'll be upset. Jesus Christ, I don't know how she stood it. This pain, and more of it heaped on over and over. But she did it so I have to too. It's justice..."

"Okay. But Angus, she's going to be mad at us. Really mad." Jim said.

"Let me tell her." Caleb said. "She can be mad at me for a while, I don't mind."

"Thanks." Angus said.

In the bedroom Jessica lay curled up on the mattress. The men arranged themselves around her.

Caleb had followed them in.

"Jess, Angus let me give him some medication. He'll be sleeping a lot for the next few days okay?"

Jessica nodded and wrapped herself around Angus.

"Thanks Caleb." She said.

It seemed like with that worry removed, Jessica fell into a deep sleep.

It was noon by the time Jessica woke up. Most everyone else was up.

No sooner had Jessica sat down at the dining table then Sean was placing a piece of paper in front of her.

"Read this, out loud." He said.

Jessica looked at the paper and began to read, "We promise on our lives that we will be loyal, truthful, and devoted to one another for the rest of our lives. We will never leave one another, under any circumstance. We have nothing to fear from one another. Honesty is paramount and can be practiced without fear of violence or harm. We will be bound by blood and our unity can never, ever be broken. There is no one more important to us then this family. We will protect one another at all costs. To this we pledge."

Jessica looked up when she was done.

"We decided to make a whole new pledge that we would all take." Sean said. "So it's clear to everyone that 'no sauce' is never an option."

"That's Sean's subtle way of saying that he's happier than he's been in a long time." Leah said.

"A fucking long time." Corey added.

"A fucking long time." Leah agreed, "And that he loves this family. And us taking the pledge says that we do too."

"I do too." Jessica said.

"We're not scared anymore," Tom added, "Because of this family. We love it too."

"Yeah!" The boys chanted in agreement. Nathan and Brett wrapping their arms around Jessica and hugging her.

"Then let's do this." Sean said.

Everyone stood in the living room, in a large circle that extended around the sofa.

Looking around at her family, Jessica's couldn't help but get teary eyed.

Jim slid his arm around her shoulder, and Angus had his arm around her other shoulder, Scott, holding him up on his other side. Riley and Josh stood next to Scott. They all looked as moved by the upcoming oath as Jessica felt.

"It is nice to have a family again." Riley said quietly.

"One that cares more about its members than annihilating the government." Angus muttered.

Jessica snuggled into Angus' embrace her heart aching when her other men grunted their agreement.

"Let's begin." Sean said and the pledge was read out loud by everyone in unison. They pricked their fingers, even the boys, and mixed their blood by holding their cut fingers together.

"Technically we don't really need to do this." Jessica said to Leah and Corey, "I already have all of your blood. You're just getting yours back."

"It's the symbolism that matters." Leah said and kissed Jessica on both cheeks.

Afterwards there seemed to be a different energy between people. Jessica was suddenly being petted by everyone. Everywhere she went someone had a hand on her. On her back, on her arm, on her head. She realized that she and the twins seemed to have become everyone's pets. But she didn't mind.

"Let's go find that home for Elsie." Mark said to Jessica after she finally finished her breakfast.

"Mind if I tag along?" Abe asked. "In case Mark needs some meds..." Abe said by way of explanation when Jessica and Mark looked surprised. They agreed because Abe's explanation made sense, but Jessica sensed that the pledge somehow had a hand in it. She didn't know how or why exactly but the pledge seemed to have reversed some of the damage that she thought the whole Earl experience had caused her family. Even Rick, who was the most stand-offish person in the family was smiling at everyone, slapping shoulders, wrapping an arm around the shoulders of Jessica and the girls and giving affectionate squeezes.

Jessica saw Angus to bed and then climbed into Mark's car with Abe and Mark.

"We'll start looking for homes for the animals." Riley said through the driver side window where Jessica sat between Mark and Abe on the front seat. "And don't worry." Riley added when Jessica looked panicked, "you'll get to approve all new owners."

Jessica, Mark and Abe visited over twenty homes in the area. They eventually found one that stood out over all the others. During the course of the day Jessica had explained the bucket list concept and wrote down that Mark wanted to surf in Hawaii and Abe was interested in scuba diving and investigating sunken ships. His dream ship was the Titanic but there was no way anyone would snorkel down that deep.

Mark had seemed fine during the day. A little slower than normal, but otherwise fine. But as they left the second visit to the home they liked, he suddenly seemed in pain.

"Are you okay?" Jessica asked in the car.

"Fine," he said but pulled a black bag, similar to Doc's, from the back seat.

"Let me." Abe said and opened the bag. In it was a syringe and some vials.

Jessica watched Abe inject Mark.

"Is there more of that at home?" Jessica asked.

"What?" Abe asked.

"For Angus, is there more at home?"

"Oh, yeah, yeah." Abe said exchanging a look with Mark. "Doc gave us two bags. Don't worry."

Almost instantly Mark's face relaxed and he seemed okay again.

"We'd better go." Abe said "or the nursing staff will get to Elsie's before we do."

An hour filled with heart wrenching drama later, Elsie was safely deposited in the home. Jessica had insisted on female staff coming to take Elsie. And despite that, it had still been an ordeal.

"I see why you wanted her in a home." Abe said as they drove home, "That place was a dive and she's right out of her tree."

"What the hell?" Mark asked when they walked in the front door of the house. Folding tables were set up everywhere, coat racks littered the living room, rolls of fabric everywhere. Sara and Justine were using a couple of big sewing machines on the new tables. Amanda was measuring cloth.

"Welcome to bucket list hell." Rick said. "Kidding." He added when Jessica pretended to be hurt. Unable to keep it up for long Jessica giggled and stuck her tongue out at him.

"Jessica, come here!" Amanda shouted when she noticed her.

"Just a sec... Angus, are you going to sleep?" Jessica asked catching up with him in the hallway. He'd been on the sofa when they'd come in but he'd looked surprised then worried when Jessica looked at him. He'd gotten up and headed right for the hallway without even saying hello.

Angus nodded his head but he didn't stop, turn around or say anything.

"Wait," Jessica said and moved past him and into his path. "Angus!" she gasped. He looked awful. Pale, in pain, and clammy. "Did you have your medicine?" she asked reaching for his forehead but he dodged her hand.

"Yeah. Caleb just gave it to me."

"Just now?" Jessica asked confused, "I didn't see Caleb in there."

"Well, about ten minutes ago. I'm fine, really, I just have to go to the bathroom... if you don't mind..."

"Oh, okay." Jessica said, stepped aside and watched Angus shuffle into the bathroom and close the door. Something wasn't right. Jessica stood staring at the door. Eventually she moved to it and paused. She heard crying. Jessica pressed her ear to the door. In the bathroom Angus was crying. Jessica reached for the door handle but it wouldn't turn. The door was locked. She was about to call out to Angus when a thought came to her. She froze. The more she thought about it the more likely it seemed. Jessica moved to the bedroom and dialed Doc on her cellphone.

"Hey lass, how are you?" Doc greeted.

"Fine Doc, fine. Um, how many bags of medicine did you leave here?" she asked.

"Just the one. Why, do you need more..."

"Thanks Doc." Jessica said and hung up.

Angus was lying to her. They all were. Jessica went to the kitchen. When Amanda asked if she needed anything Jessica said she was getting a drink. To make it not a lie, Jessica had a mouthful of juice. Mark had put the bag back in the kitchen. As quickly as she could Jessica filled a syringe with the vial marked as a sedative and wrapped her hand around it.

Jessica went back to the bathroom door and knocked.

A muffled "what" came from inside.

"Angus, I'm going to come sleep with you okay?"

"No." he managed. It was muffled but Jessica could tell he was still crying. "I'll come out to the living room. Just go back. I'll be there soon."

Jessica contemplated waiting here for him and sticking him with the needle when he came out but he was too heavy. He'd fall and she wouldn't be able to hold him.

So Jessica went back out to the living room. She watched as Amanda, Justine and Sara's worked and was getting ready to go back to check on Angus when she noticed him coming down the hallway.

She went to the sofa. By now most everyone was there. The boys were fooling around, Sara, Justine and Amanda were sewing, the other adults were seated around the sofa. Only Riley and Scott were still missing, probably still looking for new owners for the animals.

Jessica feigned interest in the game the twins were playing with some toy cars. She barely acknowledged Angus when he sat down next to her. And with no warning, and a lot of satisfaction Jessica turned and stuck the needle in Angus' arm, shooting the substance into him.

"Jessica! What did you..." was all Angus got out before slumping against Corey who sat next to him. Silence fell over the room.

"Did you just..." Don asked.

"Yes I did." Jessica said standing. She looked at Abe and Caleb, "He has a fever, can you bring it down? And for the next few days, until he's better, Angus is staying sedated. Okay?" She looked around at everyone. Jim and Josh were still gaping at Angus' motionless form. "Okay?" she prompted.

People started to nod.

"We didn't want you to worry about him." Jim said when Jessica couldn't hide her feeling of betrayal.

"I know." Jessica said not able to feel the anger that she somehow thought she should.

"He's going to be pissed when he wakes up." Josh said.

"Yes, but he'll be healthy. That's all I care about." Jessica said.

"Let's get him to bed." Abe said.

Jim and Josh took an arm each, Abe and Rick a leg each and carried him to the bedroom.

When Riley and Scott got home an hour later Abe was making dinner. Jessica and Leah were ooing over the designs that Sara, Justine and Amanda were working on, and the other men were out doing chores with the boys.

Riley and Scott kissed Jessica hello, said they had some possible homes to take her to the next day, and moved to the kitchen for a drink.

"Jessica!" Riley said. Jessica turned to see Riley, Scott and Abe standing together in the kitchen. "Did you drug Angus?"

"Somebody had to." Jessica said going into the kitchen and into Riley's arms.

"You should have seen her. It was like watching animal kingdom. Angus was like some poor unsuspecting animal just sitting there, clueless, and the next second bitten by a cobra he never saw coming." Abe said.

"You might want to be careful about making snake analogies with me..." Jessica said in a disgruntled tone.

"Really?" Abe said looking at her in surprise.

"Jess!" Riley said.

"I'm sorry Abe, I didn't mean it." Jessica said giving him a quick hug. "It's just that it kind of sucks being lied to... by everybody."

"Technically only one person lied to you Jess." Caleb said closing the door behind him. "And that was me. Everybody else just kept quiet."

"Hmph." Jessica said crossing her arms and stepping away from Riley and Scott, "I see." She said, "So when everyone else omits the truth it's 'keeping quiet' but when I do it it's a capital crime."

Abe, Caleb, Leah, Justine, Sara and Amanda stood looking between Jessica, Riley and Scott.

After a moment Riley nodded. "It seems to be the case." He said.

"Angus wants to make up for what he did to you." Scott said, "And he did a lot. Doesn't part of you want him to suffer a little? Just for a while?"

"Scott!" Jessica said her jaw dropping. She stared at him in complete disbelief. "How could you think such a thing?"

Scott lowered his head. "Maybe that's how I feel."

Now everyone was gaping at Scott. "I would never have wished this on him to begin with." Scott said looking at Jessica again, "But since he finds himself in this situation... I guess this makes me a monster. I'm sorry. I'll be with the horses."