~ Chapter Fifty Seven ~

"Becky, if you're gonna be up here, can you sit still?"  Brian wondered.

"Okay, get down."  Kevin interrupted, grabbing his daughter by the arms and lifting her off the hospital bed. 

"No."  Brian protested, opening his eyes, but not bothering to lift his head.  "She can stay, she just has to quit... bouncing or whatever it is she's doing."

Kevin let Becky stay on the bed, but not before giving her a glare that let the little girl know in no uncertain terms that any movement other than blinking would be followed by swift punishment. 

"She gets it from me."  Karen smirked at Kevin.  "Making beds bounce, I mean."

"Yuck..."  Brian protested.

Kevin couldn't quite decide if he should be annoyed with Karen for cracking jokes like that at a time like this, or if this was something he wanted to think about a while longer.  He'd think about it later, now wasn't exactly the time. 

"Isn't it about time for you to be heading over to the park?"  Brian squinted at the clock on the wall above the television set. 

"Me too!"  Becky shrieked, toppling off the bed onto the floor. 

Kevin hesitated.   He had been sitting for the last hour, watching the clock move closer and closer to game time, and with each passing minute, the feeling that he shouldn't play game seven.  "Wait... hang on just a minute here."  He turned his attention back to Becky.  "Y'all are not going to the stadium tonight.  You're staying here with your mother."

Becky stamped her black patent leather shoe on the floor sharply.  "I want to go to the stadium!  It's no fun sitting here!"

"Don't you raise your voice at me!"  Kevin beamed his hardest glare in her direction.  Becky didn't seem intimidated; her lip just crept out another few centimeters. 

"Kevin..."  Brian started.

"You stay out of this!"  Kevin snapped.

"No, I won't!"  Much to Kevin's surprise, Brian was shouting.  "If she wants to go to the game, take her to the game, Kevin!"

There was stunned silence, Becky and Karen's mouths both hanging open slightly in shock. 

Brian broke the stare-down with Kevin, glancing over at Karen.  "Would you mind..." He asked.

Karen stood in confusion for a minute.  "What?"

Kevin raised his eyebrows at Becky, then tipped his head at the door.

"Oh!"  The light finally dawned in Karen's eyes, and she grasped a handful of Becky's shirt and firmly escorted her daughter out the door into the hallway.

"What are you thinking?"  Kevin spun around to face his cousin.  "She can't go to the game!  She's six years old!  And I don't care what you say, you're not convincing me that Karen is leaving this room, and you're certainly not convincing Karen that she's going anywhere, so what do you propose I do with Becky during the game?"

"She can sit with Kris."  Brian said calmly, leaning back into his pillow.

"Who the hell is Kris?"  Kevin started pacing at the end of the bed.

"Terrance's wife."  Brian gave Kevin a look of amazement.  Terrance Davis was the Mariners left fielder, the big power hitter of the team.  "She owes me a favor anyway.  I convinced Terrance not to divorce her last year."

"Oh... you expect me to send my daughter off with some woman that Terrance was gonna divorce, not to mention, she can't be that bright if she married HIM in the first place!"  Kevin ranted.  "Like I can play knowing Becky is being supervised by her?"  He paused.  "Actually, Brian... I was thinking..."

"No."  Brian snapped firmly.  "You are playing tonight.  If I had the energy to argue with you about it, I would, but I don't.  You are going to the ballpark, and you're playing the game tonight."

"Brian, what good is that gonna do when I'm not even thinking about the game?"  Kevin protested. 

"Kevin, this is the biggest game of your career."  Brian's voiced had dropped and Kevin could barely hear him.  "I already feel bad enough that I don't get to play.  I don't want to sit and think that you didn't get to play either, okay?  Will you just play tonight - please?"

Kevin stopped pacing and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

"Okay."  He agreed reluctantly, only because Brian really did look upset over the entire situation.

"And will you please take Becky to the game?"  Brian finished.  "C'mon - I don't want her looking back on her childhood, and remembering how she got to go to the World Series and sit in a hospital room the entire time."

"Okay."  Kevin said again, choking up a little at Brian's last statement.

 He hadn't really thought about how everything looked to Becky; Kevin had been too busy worrying about Brian.  "I'll take her to the game."

~*~

Nick stepped aside to let Howie and his collection of bats over to the batting cage.  What Nick felt like doing right now was just giving up on the game and going back to bed.  His head hurt, he was starting to get lightheaded, and while he hadn't actually been sick yet, he probably would be before the day was over.  His slightly foggy brain knew one thing for sure, he was giving up on batting practice for the day, and heading back to the clubhouse, hopefully without passing out. 

"Whoa... watch it there..."  Kevin held up one hand to stop Nick from walking into him.  "Nick, are you okay?  You really don't look good."

Usually that would have been an open door for Nick to make a smart mouth retort to Kevin regarding his looks, but Nick's brain wasn't working quickly enough to even bother. 

"I'm not."  He meant it too, much more so than the tone of his voice implied.  He wasn't okay.  He was freaked out to the point of needing a tranquilizer, he was scared about Brian, he was more scared about Stacy, and then to top it all off, his dad was there to try and mess with his head.  Nick couldn't take much more of this.  It had to end sometime. 

"You'd better go see Rich."  Kevin added, reaching over to feel Nick's forehead with the back of his hand.  Nick was so shocked he couldn't even follow up on his natural reaction, which was send a stiff uppercut to Kevin's jaw.  Nick hadn't had someone do what Kevin had just done since he was ten years old. 

"Maybe you shouldn't play tonight."  Kevin added.

"Nah, I'm okay."  Nick started for the clubhouse.  He had to sit down, even just for a few minutes.  Once the game started, he'd be okay.  Then he could ignore everything else for the next three hours, and just pay attention to what was happening on the field.  He'd been doing that for longer than he cared to remember, and he could do it for one more game. After tonight, there wouldn't be another game to distract him from reality.  That was when he really wasn't going to be okay.

"Wait a minute..."  Kevin kept pace with Nick, which didn't take much at the speed Nick was moving. 

"Kevin, just back off!"  Nick snapped.  "Geez, why are you suddenly my new buddy or something?"

Kevin scrutinized Nick's face closely, much the same way he had been staring at Nick's father earlier at the hotel.  "I've been kind of looking at things in a different way the last couple weeks."  He said finally.

He wasn't the only one - Nick had been doing the same thing.  He didn't like the way Kevin was staring at him, it gave him the unnerving feeling that Kevin knew exactly what he was thinking.  Nick turned and headed for the clubhouse, moving as fast as his head would allow.  Kevin didn't follow, thankfully, Nick glanced back at the tunnel opening to check, and saw Kevin still standing on the field, looking distracted as bullpen coach Jared Price stopped to speak to the catcher.

The clubhouse was deserted, all players were on the field doing something, whether it be running, fielding, hitting or more likely, just hanging out around the batting cage and making fun of the hitter. 

Nick fished through his jacket pocket for his cell phone and sat down in one of the plastic chairs ringing the large table in the middle of the visitor's clubhouse.  Right now he really needed to talk to Stacy, even for just a couple minutes. 

She had her phone turned off.  Nick cut off the recorded message that the cell phone could not be reached, stabbing the button as hard as he could with his thumb.  He would have thrown the phone, but he didn't have enough energy.  It was time to just give up, he couldn't deal with it.

Everything was so screwed up now that he didn't even care what happened anymore.