Brother's Keeper I

Part Nine


Peter made his way through the obstacle course of the squad room, waving greetings to those present and shrugging off the expected jibes. Blake contented himself with a distracted thumbs-up, while Kermit chuckled menacingly as he hurried past, arms full of computer printouts, promising mayhem to come.

Skalany was absent from her desk when he reached it. He stopped and pondered his next move. He wanted to set things straight between them before the personal issues got out of hand, though he had to admit he felt a wave of relief that he wouldn't have to face her immediately. Some topics he didn't want to touch with a ten-foot javelin.

What would he say? "Congratulations"? Too impersonal. "Welcome to the family"? Too trivial. "What's new"? Too contrived.

Perhaps he could ease into it obliquely. "Gee, Skalany, you look really nice today. By the way, I hear you're going to be a mother. Mine." Or maybe he could attempt the charming and witty approach. "How's my favorite step-mother-to-be this morning?"

He groaned in disgust, scratching absently at the bandage left on his chin. None of it worked. She would see through all of those lines in a second and know how embarrassed he was. Well, she would probably know in any case, but he didn't have to broadcast it.

"What's the matter, partner?"

Peter nearly jumped when Jody poked him in the ribs. She grinned at his reaction and continued, "You want Mommy to kiss the boo-boo and make it better?"

He dropped his hand from his chin and rolled his eyes at her. "Very funny. I'm glad you find this so amusing."

She punched his arm, making him wince as she accidentally hit a sore spot. "Lighten up, Peter. It could be worse." She leaned in close. "It could be me."

"Ha, ha." He brushed her teasing aside. "Where is Skalany? I want to talk to her."

"I'll bet you do. You'll have to wait your turn. She's in with the captain right now."

"What for?"

"Beats me. Oops! Here she comes, I guess you can ask her yourself. I'll leave you two alone." She winked and scooted away to her own desk, feigning preoccupation with other business.

Skalany headed his way, her expression none too cheerful for someone who had just cracked a major case and gotten engaged in the bargain. His concern overrode his previous anxiety. "What happened?" he blurted out, all of his possible opening remarks forgotten. "Simms on a rampage?"

She grimaced. "You could say that. She spent the past fifteen minutes chewing me out for irresponsible behavior."

"Irresponsible? You?" Tones of astonishment colored his voice. "I thought you'd get a commendation for bringing in that hitman so quickly."

"Oh, I did. Then I got a reprimand for misrepresenting my relationship to the victim. Simms was not overjoyed to find out that I had proposed to your father; she wouldn't have given me the case if she had known we were that involved. She's yanking me from it and assigning the follow-up to someone else."

"Yeouch," he sympathized.

"That's not all. Unfortunately, the only one with time to handle it appears to be you. She doesn't like that very much either, but she feels it's more important that I learn my lesson."

"Did you?"

"I learned it all right. I'll never propose to someone when I'm trying to arrest the assassin hired to kill him, ever again."

"I'm sure my father will be glad to hear that. He...uh..." Peter noticed Jody leaning toward them unobtrusively to catch their interaction. He gestured at the office Kermit had left temporarily vacant. "Shall we continue elsewhere?"

"Good idea. I don't think he'll mind, as long as we don't touch anything."

They reconvened in the office, but by the time Peter had closed the door securely to prevent idle eavesdropping he had lost the whole flow of the conversation. "So..." he stalled.

"So," she agreed. "I know you must have a million questions for me. I'd worry about you if you didn't. Just start at the top of the list, and I'll give you the best answers I can."

Peter leaned back against the door and crossed his arms so that he wouldn't have to find something productive to do with his hands. "I guess...ah, I guess what I really want to know is...why? Why my father? Why now?"

"Not pulling your punches, are you? Hmm, that's a good question, and I'm not entirely sure myself. Why does anyone fall in love?" She shrugged. "He brings a balance to my life that I had been missing. When I'm with him, everything is right, everything makes sense. My world is in harmony. I imagined losing him--all it would take is one well-timed bullet--and I knew in that moment I could no longer live apart, that my destiny lay with his."

"You really love him?"

"I do. Why do you look so surprised?"

"I never thought you would--I mean, he tends to have that soothing effect on everyone, it never occurred to me that it could be so much more." He reflected back on the times he had seen the two together. The signs had been there, he had simply refused to acknowledge them. "It's hard for me to think of my father that way."

She grinned. "I'm shocked, Peter! Didn't you realize that cute tush of yours runs in the family?"

"Hey!" he protested, fighting against the blush he felt rising in his cheeks.

"Sorry," she amended, though she didn't seem apologetic in the least. "I wouldn't want to give you an Oedipal complex on top of all your other instabilities."

He ignored the dig and pointed out, "How am I supposed to relate to you, after you're married? I can't keep calling you Skalany, now can I?"

"If you called me Caine it would get too confusing, wouldn't it? Besides, that's so impersonal, for family."

"No offense, but...to me, Laura will always be my mother, and Mom is still Annie Blaisdell. I'd use your first name, if it weren't so darn long." He considered the problem briefly. "Do you have a nickname?"

"If you think you're getting away with calling me Pumpkin the way my mother used to, you've got another think coming, buster."

He threw his hands up in a defensive block. "Whoa, nothing like that. I figured maybe you wouldn't mind Maggie or Meg or--"

"Mama."

"I...beg your pardon?"

She cocked her head. "An abbreviation from the first letters of Mary Margaret. It's short, it's respectful, it's descriptive--I like it."

"Mama Caine." He rolled the name around in his mouth. "It's...different."

"Yes?" She raised an eyebrow.

"But catchy." He caught the twinkle in her eye and held out his hand. "Deal?"

She clasped his hand and shook it soundly. "Deal. Now, get to work before we're both in trouble with the captain."

End Part 9

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© 1996 Amparo Bertram. Previously published on KFFIC.