SERIES: Underwater and Breathing

PART: 1 of 1

RATING: PG (Adult Content)

PAIRING(s): L/L

DISTRIBUTION: To Myself 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"

 

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CATEGORY: Drama

FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!

SETTING IN TIMELINE: Post-show - AU

SPOILLER/SUMMARY: "It was hard enough trying to reach him now..."

NOTES: A sequel to "Three County Highway", For the Laverne and Shirley Holiday Fic Exchange.

 

***

 

 

She picked up a piece of driftwood between her palms and pulled it, resisting from the sand below.  Icy water trailed from the unearthed tip, dripping down her sock and into her shoe.  An ice-coated breeze slapped her across the face with a high-pitched whistle.  She self-consciously turned up the collar of her sweater and shivered.

 

It was the end of another season on Hyannis, and soon she would be packing up the family and heading back home to California.  She knew that for Lenny the end of the summer couldn't come quickly enough, but she wanted each sun-dosed day to last and last for centuries.

 

A thundercloud threatened to unload itself over her head, and in deference she walked up the beach, and was met instantly by Lenny.

 

"I got as much firewood as I could find..." she looked at his eyes and knew something was wrong.

 

"Sit down," he requested.

 

"Where are Aidan and Aimee?"

 

"They're fine.  It's your Pop."

 

She stared at him, uncomprehending.

 

"He's had a stroke, Vernie.  Your Uncle Fungi called and said it don't look good.  I booked us tickets back home so you can see him."

 

She grimaced.  "I don't wanna."

 

He shook his head.  "It's been ten years, Vernie.  Don't you think you guys should make up?"

 

"No."

 

"Do you want me to cancel?"

 

Her inner good girl won out the battle.  "I guess I owe him a goodbye."

 

**

 

"You don't gotta see him, if you don't want."

 

Laverne nodded her head.  She and Lenny stood in the doorway of Frank's room at Cedars.  "I gotta do this - for me and for Aidan."

 

"Okay, but I'm here if you need me."

 

Laverne pecked him on the cheek before entering the room alone with a bouquet of roses.

 

Frank DeFazio sat among what seemed like a million gardenias - worthy of a bier.  To his daughter's amazement, he looked anything but deathly ill.

 

He put down his paper and eyed her.  "Lookit this," he muttered, staring at Laverne as if she were some alien creature. 

 

"Hi, Pop."  She put down her vase.  "I brought you some flowers."

 

"I gotta almost die for you to come see me.  Thank God it was only a mild stroke, or you would've skipped the funeral!"

 

She bristled.  "It ain't like you made me WANT to come see you."

 

Frank snarled.  "You married that bum two years after Arturo died."

 

"I had my reasons," she said coolly.  "Pop, I came to mend our bridges."

 

"If you wanna mend with me, you gotta tell me what happened."

 

She blanched.  "Pop..."

 

"Tell me what happened, Laverne."

 

She sat down limply beside his bed.  "Do you really wanna know?"

 

"If it ain't another lie."

 

"It ain't a lie."

 

"Tell me."

 

She took a deep breath.  "Arty was into kids.  He raped the girl next door one day, and he tried to kill me.  When they put him in jail, the girl's father killed him."

 

He stared at her incredulously.  "Liars go to hell, Laverne."

 

"I ain't lying," she begged, hysterically, childishly.  "Go on the internet when you get home.  Look up Arty's name and his death records.  Look up his autopsy!"

 

"Get out of my room!"

 

"NO!"  She rolled down her top, grabbed his hand, and ran it across her scar.  Frank stared at her, wide-eyed, numb, feeling the impression beneath his finger.  "I never lie, Pop," she said.

 

Frank forced his mouth to work.  "Why?  Why didn't you tell me when..."

 

"I didn't wanna disappoint you." 

 

"How could I be disappointed in you?  You're my little girl, my bambina..."

 

"Pop," her voice wavered.

 

"I woulda knocked his block off...." Frank coughed, but quickly continued on.  "All these years we wasted!  I got a grandkid that I never met!"

 

"You do."  She opened the locket hanging around her neck.    "This is Amelia."

 

"She looks like you.  Not the bum."

 

"The bum's my love."

 

Frank watched her warily.  "One step at a time."  He held out his arms.  "Come here."

 

His embrace was the sweetest she'd ever felt.

 

***

 

"Are you sure you wanna do this?"

 

Laverne felt Lenny's arms around her.  They were on the beach again.  Her father was playing cards with Amelia, doubling down, laughing at her foxishness.  But her daughter was not her concern.

 

"I been running from the truth.  Not anymore," she brushed his cheek with her lips.  "He's gonna find out sometime, and the best way's from me."

 

"I'm here if you need me."

 

She nodded. 

 

Aidan sat on a shoal, further from his family, listening to the water crash under and over the formations around him.  Bits of current dragged away what had been there for centuries. 

 

"Honey?  I wanna talk."

 

He looked up, took her in, smiled. She sat.

 

The storm clouds closed in...

To Three County Highway