~ Chapter Seventy Five ~

  The sun was in the process of setting behind the mountains, casting Felicia's room into semi-darkness.  She could have turned the lights on, but she liked the twilight.  It blurred the edges of everything just enough that she didn't feel as if she had to really pay attention to anything going on around her. 

Natalie had left with Nick a little over an hour ago, leaving Felicia by herself in the room yet again.  AJ was no where to be found.  Right now, that might have been a good thing, given the way he had reacted to everything.  AJ always flipped out at first, then he pulled things together - she just wished he would hurry up.    She wished he would show up.  AJ had a way of making her feel safe.

Felicia wasn't sure that being left alone was such a great idea.  Denise would sit with her, but Felicia could only take so much cheerfulness in one day.  Still, being alone let her think too much.  The longer she thought, the more she realized, as a parent, she sucked, no way around it.  How was she supposed to take care of a little baby when she couldn't even get her own life straightened out?

"Hey there."  AJ's head craned around the door.  "You want company?"

She shrugged in response, mentally smacking herself upside the head for that one.  Yes, she wanted company, why didn't she just say that?

AJ perched cross-legged next to her on the bed, resting his elbows on his knees and staring contemplatively at her for a long moment, resembling an owl - if owls had blue streaks in their hair that is.  "Look."  He said finally.  "I'm sorry I blew up at you the other day."

That was all fine and well, but Felicia wasn't just going to accept his apology like that.  She had ended up crying for close to an hour after that fight Sunday.  It hadn't really been a fight.  She considered a fight to be two sided, and AJ had done all the dramatics.  The fact that she had no response had been a good portion of why she ended up so upset over everything.  He wanted to know what she had been thinking to try something like that, she didn't know.  She hadn't thought about Natalie right then, or AJ for that matter. 

"I brought you a friend."  AJ added, interrupting her mental rationalization. 

She couldn't help herself, female curiosity got the better of her.  He was holding the now slightly threadbare rabbit used as a visual aid when he proposed.  According to her calculations, that had been over three years ago.  She reached over to take the rabbit, running her finger over the black ceramic eyes. 

AJ had graduated high school and spent the next two and a half months playing Rookie ball for Tampa Bay in West Virginia.  He had proposed when he got back in August and Felicia's father took one look at AJ, who at the time only had three tattoos, announced he was a loser and if she married him, he would refuse to speak to her ever again.

Felicia married AJ anyway, since her father was all bark and no bite, and they spent the next season living in a tiny little apartment in South Carolina while AJ worked his way through the minor league system.  Her father called every few days, just to check up on things, and partly to see if his worthless son-in-law was still around. 

It had been while they were living in Charleston that she had started getting sick.  Between her working two jobs, AJ's minor league paycheck and the additional money coming in from a rookie shortstop named Raul who slept on the couch in the living room and picked up part of the rent, they could barely scrape by.  The first time she had ended up in the hospital, her father announced AJ would skip out as fast as he could.

AJ didn't.  He had been putting up with everything for two and a half years, just as she had, and he hadn't even come close to skipping out.  He'd gone out of his way in the opposite direction.  AJ always had a mother hen tendency, but it wasn't until that first year in the minors that he really kicked into high gear.  That February, he went into spring training and landed on the AAA team, which for the Devil Rays, was basically the same as the majors, they made so many roster changes.  By mid May he was in the Tampa bullpen, working on the beginnings of an impressive major league record.  When he set his mind to something, the results could be remarkable. 

She tried to smooth down the fuzzy hair on the rabbit's side, watching AJ thoughtfully.  "Why are you so perfect?"  She said finally. 

AJ laughed.  "What kind of hallucinogenic do they have you on?"

Felicia meant it.  AJ was the one that handled everything; AJ was the one that took care of reality so Felicia didn't have to.  He was always the first one to apologize.  "You're always the one that apologizes or backs down first."

"Oh, that."  AJ shrugged, twisting around until he was lying on the bed next to her.  "I just give up easier than you do."

"No, you don't."  Felicia protested.

"Yeah, I do."  He reached over to tip her face towards him with two fingers.  "You don't give up."

"I'm scared."  It was then that she started crying again, for what had to be the third or fourth time in the last two days, barely noticing when AJ reached over to hold her.

~*~

AJ snapped the lights in the hallway on.  If he didn't, chances are he would find the one obstacle in the dark and injure himself.  Accident prone people could never be too careful.  As he had suspected, Felicia was still in Natalie's darkened room, standing at the side of the crib.

"What are you doing?"  AJ wondered from the doorway, whispering so Natalie wouldn't wake up.

"Nothing."  Felicia mouthed back.  "Did you come to check up on me?"  She added, half jokingly, half seriously.  Today had been the first day she had bothered doing her hair and applying makeup.  AJ was taking eyeliner as a sign that just maybe, their life was going to return to at least a semblance of normal. 

"No..."  AJ denied.  "I just missed you, is that okay?"  He supposed he had been checking up on her in a way, but it wasn't something new.  He had always been checking up on her in a way.  There was something about Felicia that knocked him into a higher level of protectiveness. 

"I don't mind if you are."  She pointed out.

AJ scowled.  That wasn't right.  Felicia minded.  Felicia told him to back off when he started hovering too close.  Ever since she had come home from the hospital, not quite a week before, the only time AJ was out of her sight was if she was with Natalie.  Physically, she seemed to be okay again; she wasn't tired, she was sleeping at night, but emotionally, she was scaring AJ a little. 

He stepped over behind her, wrapping his arms around hers and resting his chin on top of her head.  She was so little.  He almost felt as if he could wrap his arms around her twice. 

"Isn't she perfect?"  She leaned forward and adjusted the blankets around the sleeping baby one last time.

"She looks like you."  AJ decided. 

Felicia shook her head.  "How can you tell?  Dark hair and eyes - she could just as easily look like you."

"Well, I figure if she took after me, her hair would be orange or green by now."  AJ smirked, reaching over and unsnapping the barrette that held Felicia's hair back from her face.  This was an unspoken challenge.  If he managed to unfasten the clip before she moved away or, more likely, she smacked him one, then he was the victor.  Tonight, he won, but Felicia didn't put up much of a challenge. 

"Doesn't she look peaceful?"  She was paying absolutely no attention to the barrette or even to AJ, for that matter.

AJ turned his attention to the sleeping bundle in the crib, tiny little first curled up around the green blanket, dark eyelashes resting against her cheek, her mouth hanging open slightly as she breathed.  She did look peaceful.  Babies had it simple in life.

"She depends on me."  Felicia's voice was barely audible.  She leaned back against AJ, her head fitting perfectly against his chest.  "I've always been the one that depended on someone; I've never actually had someone that depended on me before."

It was with that statement, that AJ was finally certain that Felicia was going to fight her way back.  That realization over with, he decided to proceed with what he had really found Felicia for.  In spite of everything that had happened, AJ was still thinking going to Tampa for Christmas was a good idea, in fact, it might even be a better idea now. 

"You know, this is really weird, but I keep thinking about Brian."  Felicia started, as AJ led her over to the rocking chair in the corner, pulling her down onto his lap.

"Brian?"  AJ must have missed a thread of the conversation.

"Yeah."  She shifted sideways, leaning her head against his shoulder and slipping one arm behind him.  "Which is very strange, because I didn't even know him that well.  But, Brian was the kind of person that people were always depending on - and then the other day I started thinking about it, and with everything he was going through, I wonder if it wasn't really the other way around."

"I think Brian was the kind of person that depends on people depending on him."  AJ was rather proud of that observation.   That had almost been, well, deep in a way.

Felicia paused.  "What do you mean?"  She said finally.

"Never mind."  AJ didn't want to try and explain.  "I have something for you."  He shifted in his seat and dug the envelope out of his pocket.

"Christmas isn't until next week."  Felicia reached to take the envelope, her wedding ring catching the light from the hallway. 

"Well, it would be pointless to give it to you then."  He leaned back, rocking the chair slightly as he watched her open the envelope and try to decipher the paper inside, holding it so the light from the hallway fell across the words.

"Shhh!"  He jumped and clapped one hand across her mouth before she could scream, or shriek, or whatever loud noise had been ready to make itself known.  "You'll wake her up."

"Sorry."  Felicia whispered, giggling.  "We're really going to Tampa?"

AJ raised one eyebrow.  "What, you think I print fake airline tickets for the heck of it?  Yeah, we're going to Tampa."  He pulled her back up against him.  "It'll be fun.  Your father will insult me because I'm not a Brave, maybe if I'm lucky he'll chase me with his little foam tomahawk again."  AJ had to laugh as he said that.  Felicia's father was a diehard Atlanta Braves fan.  He loved giving AJ a bad time about playing in the American League.  AJ was planning on giving him his money's worth about the World Series this time.  The Braves hadn't even made the League Championship Series. 

"Oh, he really likes you."  Felicia protested.

"Hell yeah he does."  AJ agreed.  "He wouldn't put that much effort into insulting me if he didn't."

"It's a wonderful present."  Felicia smiled, for the first time AJ could remember in... well, it had to have been a couple weeks. 

"Present?"  He questioned.  "That wasn't a present.  It's not a present unless I spend hours shopping for it.  That was merely a whim.  Present - you ain't seen nothing yet."