~ Chapter Seventy ~

Nick was half sitting, half lying on the living room couch, his brain not really working, perfectly happy to just sit and zone out.  If his father had been around, he would have been more than furious that Nick was spending his offseason not even really thinking about baseball.  True, Nick had spent several hours out in the batting cage since the end of the postseason, but other than that, he had stepped back from all things baseball related.

It was a nice change.  Ever since he was eight years old, he didn't remember ever taking a break from baseball.  During the season, he hung out at the ballpark, and during the offseason, things had always picked up even more.  From October to February, Nick had his own personal baseball coach. 

It was only November.  Nick would pick things back up before spring training started.  Kevin had already invited him over to the local ball yard, which seemed to be the off-season hangout for the Mariners that stayed in Seattle over the winter. 

Sundays were always slow days.  Stacy could easily spend the entire day looking at the newspaper.  She was still happily reading, all the way to the travel section now.  Nick had long since gone through the comics and the sports section, and that was all he was really interested in looking at.  Even sports were boring in the off-season.  He didn't really follow anything other than baseball. 

Stacy was sitting cross-legged on the other end of the couch, the paper spread across her lap, leaning over it, hair falling down around her face.  As she read, she kept pushing it absently behind her ear, only to have it fall loose again seconds later. 

Nick was trying to decide if he should work up the energy to move across the neatly stacked newspaper and distract her when the phone rang.  He jumped a good three inches up off the couch cushion.  It didn't matter how relaxed he was, sudden loud noises always did that to him.

Stacy didn't even look up, she just laughed at him.  "Well, don't just sit there and pout at me."  She added.  "Answer the phone.  It's right behind you."

Nick pouted at being laughed at for just a moment longer, then grabbed the phone before the answering machine picked up.  "Hello?"

"Baby girl, she's fricking adorable, you'll love her, and... whoops, I gotta go."  The phone went dead in his ear.

Nick hung the receiver back up and ran that sentence through his head a few times. 

"Wrong number?"  Stacy wondered.

"No, it was AJ."  Nick slouched back down on the couch. 

"That was an awfully short conversation for AJ."

"Yeah."  Nick waited a few seconds, knowing perfectly well once the next sentence was out of his mouth, Stacy was going to start hitting him with the newspaper for not saying it right away.  "They have a little girl."  He grinned.  At least that had distracted her from the newspaper.

Stacy stared for a moment, her mouth dropping open slightly.  "Seriously?"

"That's what he said."  Nick shrugged. 

"That's wonderful!"  Stacy crawled over the stack of newspapers until she was kneeling next to him, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him.  "How big is she?  Did they name her?  How's Felicia?"

"I don't know!"  Nick managed to get out between shakes.  So much for a quiet rest of the afternoon.  "Okay, okay, stop... whiplash!  He didn't say! As you no doubt noticed, it wasn't a real long conversation, ya know?"

"All right, then."  Stacy stopped shaking him.  "I suppose she can't be very big, look at her parents.  God, I was so not expecting this.  She wasn't due until the end of the month!"

Nick tipped his head to one side and watched her flip out.  She was the one that always gave him a bad time about being a ditz and being blond.  It really wasn't fair.  When Stacy was excited or happy, she was ten times the ditz Nick was. 

"What's so funny?"

"You are."  Nick reached over, pulling her over into a long kiss. 

"I'm just happy for them."  Stacy protested mildly, leaning up against his shoulder, her face tucked up against his neck.  She did that after every kiss, but even so, it still sent a little chill down his spine. 

"Hmmm..."  He said non-committally in response. 

"What, you're not?"

"No... I mean, yeah.  Yeah, I'm happy for them, I guess."  It never failed.  Whenever something didn't quite make sense in his head, it sounded fifteen times worse when he tried to explain it. 

"You guess?"  Stacy sat up, watching his face now. 

"Yeah... it's... um... I grew up with a Dad in the major leagues." He couldn't really think of a better way to explain it.  He wasn't sure he could explain it.

"And..."  Stacy prompted.

"I don't know.  It's not fair to the kid."  He couldn't explain it.  "There's a lot of messed up big leaguer's kids out there."

"And there's a lot more that aren't."  Stacy pointed out quietly.  He didn't like the way she was looking at him.  It made him feel defenseless in a way.  She knew perfectly well that he wasn't talking generalities; he was referring to himself.

"Maybe."

"Look at Becky."  She pointed out.  "Do you think Becky's messed up?"

He shook his head.  "No... she's a little too with it."

"Exactly.  So what's the difference, here, Nick??"

"Her parents love her."  Judging from the look on Stacy's face, she was just as shocked as Nick that he had just said that.  He chewed on his lower lip, not quite sure if he should trust himself to say anything else.  Where had that come from?  Why didn't he just keep on pretending?  Whenever questions about his relationship with his parents came up, it had always just been assumed that his father pushed him and Nick resented him for that.  It was easier to just go along with that explanation than it was to admit the truth. 

 He could feel tears starting to prick at the back of his eyes.  He was tired of pretending.

"Nick, that's not true."  Stacy said quietly.

"Yes it is."  He said it matter-of-factly, when in reality, he felt like screaming. 

"No, it isn't!"  She smacked her hand on the back of the couch.  "Okay, you don't get along with your parents, maybe your father pushed you too much, but that doesn't mean they don't love you!"

Nick stood up, not quite sure how to react.  This was completely uncharted territory.  However, he had stepped too far out to stop now.  "No, Stacy, this goes beyond all that.  You know who the only person was that ever said they loved me?"  He didn't even wait for her to guess.  "Chelsea.  Guess what - she f------ didn't mean it."  He was amazed how rational he sounded.  Inside, he had just broken into millions of little pieces, and he still sounded like he was discussing pitching match-ups for a road trip. 

"You know how many people have said they were proud of me?  If you don't count my Little League coach, you're the only one, okay?  So don't sit there and tell me I'm wrong."

She opened her mouth again, but Nick didn't wait around to hear what she was going to say.  He just wanted to get away before he fell apart.  It was one thing to realize something and more or less not do anything about it.  It was entirely another to say it out loud.   He spun around and headed down the hallway, shutting the bedroom door behind him and leaning up against it.  Right now he really needed to cry, and he couldn't.

~*~

Stacy heard the door slam as Nick disappeared down the hallway.  How had that happened?  One minute things had been perfectly fine, and the next he looked like he was about to burst into tears, telling her his parents didn't love him.  She absolutely refused to believe that, no matter how realistic he sounded about it.  Still, she felt horrible about challenging him on the subject.  He believed it, and fighting with him over it wasn't going to solve anything. 

Nick had changed so much in the last month and a half.  But when she thought about it, it wasn't Nick that had really changed.  He was still exactly the same, it was just everything around him that had fallen apart.  In a way, she missed the Nick she had first known, the happy Nick, whose biggest problem in life was there was a scratch on his car from a shopping cart.  But then again, most of what he seemed to be trying to deal with wasn't recent; it was problems he had been living with since he was a teenager.  He just wouldn't let anyone see the other side of everything. 

She wasn't going to just leave him alone this time either.  That was a method that had been used too many times in the last month.  Her plan was momentarily stalled when she discovered he had locked the bedroom door behind him. 

"Nick, let me in."  She rattled the doorknob once, then knocked quietly on the door.  There was a long moment where she thought he wasn't going to respond, then she heard the knob unlatch.  

The blinds were still pulled across the window, the room dark except for the murky light shining around the edges of the window.  Nick was sitting on the floor next to the door, back against the wall, knees pulled up to his chin.

"Nick, I'm sorry."  Stacy closed the door and dropped down next to him, reaching over to pull him up against her.  He didn't protest or try to move away, which was a positive sign.  He snuggled up against her chest, and she kept one arm around him, letting the other run through his hair. 

"When was the last time you cried?"  His voice was muffled against her sweater.

"What?"  Hands down, that was the strangest question she had ever been asked. 

"When was the last time you cried?"  He repeated it, a little shakier this time. 

Stacy had to think about it for a moment.  Crying wasn't something she marked on the calendar.  "The post-game show for game seven."  She said finally.  "Why?"

"Just wondered."  Nick's voice was steadily losing volume.  "I think there's something wrong with me."

No kidding was what Stacy felt like saying, but she bit her tongue.  "Why, Nick?" 

"I can't cry."  He twisted around until his face was completely buried in her sweater.  "God, I'm f----- up, Stacy."

She could feel him shaking and she paused, not sure if she really wanted to know the answer to her next question.  "When was the last time you cried?"

He took his time about answering.  "The plane home from LA." 

"Well, you've got me beat."  She pointed out quietly.

"Yeah, but do you know how many times there've been after that where I wanted to?"

Stacy bit her lip, hard.  If this kept up much longer, she was going to start crying.

"I don't know what to do anymore."  He whispered.

Stacy didn't know anymore either.  This was something way beyond what she should handle.  "We'll figure something out, okay?  I promise." 

"Okay."  Nick repeated. 

She pressed her face up against the top of his head, smelling the pina colada smell of his shampoo.  "I love you, Nick," That was something she was going to have to start saying more often.

~*~

"Look what I found!"  Becky pin wheeled into the living room, her socks skidding on the hardwood floor of the hallway. 

"What?"  Kevin craned his head around to look.  If she had dared to bring another worm into the house, he'd have her head, right after he chased her into her room and made her stay there for several hours. 

Becky was clutching something in her slightly sticky fist.  "See?"  She opened her hand, palm flat, allowing Kevin to inspect the small object.  It looked somewhat like a butterfly, but not quite, with almost translucent fabric stretched across a thin wire outline. 

"And what is that?"  Kevin squinted. 

Becky took a deep breath.  "Wings."

"Really?"  Kevin picked them up, turning them over in his hand.  He supposed they were wings.  "Where'd you find them?"

"In that box of stuff you had from Brian's apartment."  Becky clambered up onto the couch next to him.  "I gave them to him for Christmas last year, remember?"

"Yeah, I remember."  He remembered that Becky and Brian had both been ecstatic over them, while Kevin had been more than a little clueless about what was going on, and at the time, didn't really care. 

"I think I'll give it to someone else for Christmas."  Becky sat down, sticking her legs straight out in front of her.

"It's not even mid November yet!  Chill, Becky!"  Kevin laughed. 

"Brian doesn't need them anymore."  She added thoughtfully, running her finger along the gauzy fabric.

Kevin bit his lip.  She was so blunt about it. 

"Do you suppose angels get wings in heaven, or does it not matter there?"  Becky wondered. 

"You think Brian's an angel now?"  Kevin suddenly realized what Becky had meant by not needing the wings anymore.

Becky shook her head.  "No, Daddy.  You don't get it.  He always was."