TSERIES: Lying In Bed

PART: 4 of 5

RATING: PG-13 (Adult thematic material, language, angst)

PAIRING(s): L/L; SF/RC

DISTRIBUTION: To LW, Myself and FG so far; any other archives are welcome to ask, but disclaimers must be included, my email left intact. send a URL, and provide full disclaimers as well as credit me fully. Please inform me if you are going to submit my work to any sort of search engine.  Please do not submit my work to a search engine that picks out random sets of words and uses them as key words, such as "Google"

 

Please contact me in order for this story to be placed on an archive, or if you want know of a friend who would enjoy my works, please email me their address and I will mail them the stories, expressly for the purpose of link trading. MiSTiers are welcomed! Please do inform me that you'd like to do the MiSTing, however, and send me a copy of the finished product. I'd also love to archive any MiSTings that are made of my work!

CATEGORY: Drama

FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!

SETTING IN TIMELINE: Alternate Canon - Sequel to "I Never Promised You a Pepsi Tree" and "Sins of the Father" (By Shotzette).

SPOILLER/SUMMARY: The Cunningham clan stays with the Kosnowskis while Shirley Cunningham undergoes psychiatric evaluation.

NOTES: Follows "I Never Promised You a Pepsi Tree"; "Sins of The Father".

 

***

 

“LEN!”

 

The shrill cry of his wife signaled horrors untold to Lenny.  He was out of bed and in the spare bedroom within seconds.  “What?”

 

Laverne pointed silently to Davey’s vacant bed.  A sensation of pure dread filled Lenny.  “You don’t know where he is?”

 

“He said he was gonna go find Daddy,” Beth said quietly.  The sight of her guardians in panic made her blue eyes grow teary, and so  Laverne gathered up the little girl in her arms.  They all could hear the wind howling outside - the blizzard Chet Smiley of channel IPX had promised decided to come through after all.

 

“He would run to dad.  He’s daddy’s favorite,” Ricky said shortly, staring at the wall.

 

“No, he’s just weird,” snapped Susan.  “He’s not daddy’s favorite.  Daddy’s only being nice to him.”

 

Laverne put down Beth and whipped the blanket off of Susan.  “Your father loves Davey - just as much as we all do.”

 

“You’re just stickin’ up for him ‘cause you’re weird, too!” Susan cried out.

 

“If you don’t apologize to me, Susan Cunningham,” Laverne said sharply.  “I’m going to send you to live with your Uncle Fonzie.”

 

The girl paled.  Her mother had demonized Fonzie among the children to the point that he took on a near boogeyman-esque proportion in their minds, particularly for the girls.  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” said Susan.

 

“I gotta go find Davey,” Lenny murmured, moving automatically to the hallway. 

 

“Let me go,” Laverne said as she rose.  “I’m strong enough to stand the cold.”

 

“No - you stay with the kids.  They need you.”

 

“Do you hear that storm?” Laverne gestured toward the window, where the wind blew in a gale-like force.  “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost -”

 

He held her tight.  “I got enough sense to walk close to the light posts,” Lenny said.  “You got LAMP training, but I had basic in the army.  I know what to do if,” he choked against her hair.  “I know how to take care of Davy if something bad happened.”

 

The possibility finally stated, Laverne lowed her head, eyes watery with fear.  Lenny kissed her hard.  “You keep praying for me,” he whispered, before dashing off to their bedroom to dress.

 

***

 

Davy sniffled, trying to clear his stopped up nose in the howling wind battering his face.  Maybe he’d never be able to clear his nose again - what if the snot inside had became an impermeable, frozen wall?  Such thoughts panicked a boy who had grown up in California. 

 

He had been walking for what seemed like hours in the same direction, and didn’t recognize any of the houses lining the streets.  Hadn’t for a long time.  Stay close to the light poles, he told himself.  The winds whipped him like a belt, splattering stinging bits of ice against his exposed cheeks.  Davey shuddered - somehow, this didn’t make him feel any warmer.  The drifts were beginning to climb over the tops of his boots, dripping down in icy bits over his socks.  The new winter coat his mother had bought him was made to last, and from neck to knee he felt nothing but warmth.  His feet, face and hands were, however, rapidly becoming numb beneath their woolen covers.

 

Davey forced himself to walk onward, for what felt like a mile, to the end of the block and to the nearest light pole.  When he reached it, Davey wrapped both of his arms around the steel, his cheek smarting as it made contact.  Relieved that his expenditure of energy was worth the effort, Davey closed his eyes, shuddering, wishing he had never been sent back to Milwaukee with everything in his heart.

 

***

 

“Davey!” Lenny hollered into the wind.  Nothing answered him but his own voice and the howling gales.  He gathered his scarf closer to his throat and trudged with determination through the rising drifts.

 

Six light poles from the house, he thought to himself, as he turned a corner.  Two more to the end of the block, he realized, blessing his vacant mind for having counted them one day.  His progress was impeded by something extremely solid and large - Lenny momentarily believed it to be a rock before he saw the bumper of a Ford Mercury.  He scrambled back up onto what he believed to be the sidewalk and continued his progress into the orange-colored night.

 

Lenny shivered against the wind.  The storm was unaccountably severe, and he couldn’t recall having seen a heavier snowfall in his entire life.  Then again, there was that time...he shivered again, this time at the memory.

 

Davy had been conceived in a snowstorm like this one.  His mother had gone into labor and nearly died of blood loss at the Cunningham place nine months to that day in another freak snowstorm just like it - a storm that had dumped a foot of snow on Milwaukee only to melt throughout the following week in the summer heat. 

 

Maybe this snowfall signified something, too.  Maybe it signified something too horrible to comprehend. 

 

Maybe it signified Davey’s death.

 

A light abrupted the foggy haze -a  bright white light that was bearing down on Lenny.  It was a motorcycle, speeding down the whited-out world.  Lenny hoped his scream was manly as he threw out his arms and waited for the impact....

 

Which did not come.  Instead, he head a pair of tires squealing to a stop, inches in front of him.

 

Lenny peered through the dimness, but could not make out the face of the person in front of him.  Suddenly, the street lamp above him brightened, and he recognized the classically handsome features of Arthur Fonzarelli.

 

He had positively no idea what to say.  What could one say to someone he had so greatly deceived?

 

“What the hell are you doing out here?” Fonzie asked.

 

Lenny took a protective step backward.  “Lost kid,” he shouted over the wind.  “Not mine - a Cunningham.  Davey.”

 

Fond emotion flickered through Fonzie’s eyes, but his face betrayed nothing.  “Get on.”

 

“You can’t be ser-”

 

“GET ON, KOSNOWSKI!”

 

Lenny knew that voice - the tone of his high school bully shaking him down for lunch money.  Slipping over the ice, he managed to keep himself upright as he ran over to the bike and straddled it.  Capturing Arthur’s hips with his thighs, he hoped his position wasn’t as fruity as it felt when the bike roared to life, speeding down the street.

 

“Where’d you see him last?” Fonzie asked.

 

“We didn’t see him leave.  He ran away.”

 

“Who was the last person to see him?”

 

“Beth.  She said he’s looking for Ritchie.  I wouldn’t stake a lot on that, though - the kid’s not even three yet.”

 

“Christ.  What’s Red doing to his kids?”

 

“I don’t think it’s Ritchie who’s doing anything to the kids.  Shirley’s in therapy.  They’re at a couple’s retreat.”  Lenny felt a little guilty about revealing all of this, but it was nice to have someone besides Squiggy to share his worry with. 

 

Fonzie’s response was lost in the rushing wind.  He resorted to gesturing with a bounce of his head.  “- think I see something over there!” finally reached Lenny’s ears.

 

Through the blinding drifts, Lenny forced his eyes to focus on a small lump- clinging to a light pole.  The closer they came to it, the more Lenny realized that the lump was both human and still breathing  - and wearing the jacket it had arrived in that morning.  He jumped off of the bike and nearly killed himself on the icy street to reach Davey, who nearly killed HIMSELF throwing his arms around Lenny’s middle.  

 

Embracing the boy, Lenny tilted his eyes skyward, giving silent thanks to whatever God had sent him Fonzie.  He gently pushed Davey away from his legs and knelt to face him.  “Don’t you ever do that again!  Your Aunt Laverne and I were worried that you - “ Lenny choked.  “Just don’t do that again!  What were you trying to find?”

 

“I wanted to see my dad,” sniffled Davey.  “I miss him so much.”

 

Lenny cuddled the boy.  “Your dad loves you and misses you,” your real dad, he thought to himself.  Not the jerk in jail waiting to go on trial for hurting your mom.  “But until he comes back - I can be your dad.”

 

Davey clung to Lenny, wordlessly devoted - accepting his offer without the need for words.

 

“Hey, this is a lovely picture and all,” Fonzie said from his motorcycle.  “But I gotta get back to Pinky, before she calls out the cops.”

 

From behind Lenny’s hip, Davey eyed Arthur Fonzarelli.  He vaugely remembered the man from a meeting at the age of five - the last Christmas trip to Milwaukee.  The man was less imposing than his mother’s tales suggested, and a certain human warmth emanated from him.  Davey felt better already.

 

“Hey, kid.” There was an odd catch in Fonzie’s voice.  “You ever had a ride on a motorcycle before?”

 

“No!” Davey enthused, as Lenny helped him onto the bike, then straddled it himself.

 

“Rule number one - don’t scratch the surface.”

 

“What’s rule number two?”

 

“Hold on!” Fonzie ordered, gunning the motor.

 

Davey’s war whoops lit up the night, bringing cheer to the dead silence of the world outside.

 

***

 

“..And turn right at this pole!”  Lenny clung to the bike and Davey as they took a sharp curve.  “That’s the house,” he said, and Fonzie came to a complete stop before the Kosnowski house - notable on the street because every light in the place was on.  “Thank you,” he said, when he caught his breath.  “You could’ve let me freeze to death.”

 

“Hey, the Fonz don’t go in for murder.  Or manslaughter.” He watched Lenny climb off the bike and shepard Davey up the steps, apparently ready to say more.  Whatever his intentions, they changed along with his expression as he said,  “Laverne.”

 

Lenny noticed that his wife had opened the front door - shaking slightly with the effort to restrain herself from throwing herself into his arms.  Surprise, fondness, relief and disgust warred for control of her features.  “Fonzie,” she said softly.  Then she managed, “thank you.”

 

Fonzie simply grinned, pulling his helmet down over his eyes - a helmet he hadn’t worn at all during the search for Davey.  Lenny noticed belatedly that not even a hair on Fonzie’s head had stirred during the ordeal.  Then all thoughts were obliterated as his wife’s slim body pressed itself to his.

 

It was a long moment before Laverne released him and bent down to embrace Davey.  She gave him a lecture similar to Lenny’s, then guided them into the house, where their sodden overclothes were stripped off and two mugs of Swiss Miss cocoa were pressed into their icy hands.

 

“Go to bed,” Laverne called up the stairs, and Lenny looked up in time to see a group of tiny feet as they dashed back up the stairs.  His wife then busied herself blotting his damp hair with towels and wrapping Davey in a fresh pair of flannel pajamas.

 

“Mama,” came Tatiana’s voice.  “Can I stay up?  I need to tell Davey something.”

 

The boy’s eager eyes said everything, and Laverne could not resist her child’s pleading face.  “Just this once.”  Davey met Tatiana on the stairs, and the two were quickly lost in a world all their own.  “I wanna talk with you alone, anyway,” Laverne told her husband.  She led him into the kitchen, a comfortable distance from the living room and the kids.  Bending her head, Laverne whispered,  “I’ve been thinking about something, Len.  Ever since Davey got here, I’ve been thinking about expanding the family...”

 

His eyes widened.  “You’re pregnant again?”

 

She shook her head.  “You’re such a big dope,” she sighed.  “I think we should...take Davey on as a ward.”

 

“A wart?”

 

“Ward.  That means we’d be his foster parents legally,” Laverne’s voice became lower and lower.  “Shirley and Ritchie are having horrible problems.  Who knows when the trial will be over?  What if Shirley finally goes over the edge?  Marian can’t take him - and even if she wanted to, there aren’t any biological ties keeping them together.  Shirley named us as the legal guardians in her will.  If we talk to Ritchie...”

 

“I’m not tossing Ritchie out of his kid’s life.  They may not be tied biologically.” He lowered his head closer to Laverne’s, watching from the corner of his eye as Davey gave Tatiana a sip of his cocoa.  “They might not really be father and son, but there’s a bond there that’s strong as the one I have with the girls,” Lenny whispered.

 

“I’m not saying we should replace his parents,” Laverne said quietly.  “I want to give him a real home.  A stable one.  Who knows if Shirley ever did that for him,” she looked out the kitchen window, into a drift of snow as it blew up from the hedges outside.  “And if she could then, who knows if she can now?”

 

“Carmine knows a lawyer in Oswego,” Lenny spoke, from a reserve he was not aware he possessed.  “He practices family law, and I guess he could get us a cut-rate deal.”

 

Laverne wrapped her arms around Lenny, all of her weight against his chest.  “I know it’s a lot but...he has Shirley’s eyes.  Whenever I look into them, I see her they way she was that night...”

 

Lenny had noticed the same thing, but did not tell his wife.  “That kid’s been through a lot.  I don’t wanna add to it.  I won’t let Davey suffer anymore,” Lenny vowed. 

 

Laverne wiped away an unshed tear.  “Hey, it’s almost morning,” she said.  “See?  The sun’s coming up.”

 

It was.  Lenny held his wife as a line of orange-red light made the kitchen windowsill glow.  The future was coming in all of it’s threatening possibility, but together they would thrive in the conflict.

To Part 3