Wind And Water
By Missy

SERIES: Goosebumps!
SUBSERIES: Wind and Water
PART: one of one parts for this arc
Author: Missy
Email: lasfic@yahoo.com
RATING: G
PAIRING(s): L/L; S/C; S/R

DISTRIBUTION: To LW, Kai, and FG so far; any other archives are welcome to ask (Please Email Me), 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!

DISCLAIMER: Laverne and Shirley, of course, not my property and belongs to its creators.

CATEGORY: Epic Drama
CANNON/SPOILERS: Pre-Reunion Show Cannon; set five years after the series' conclusion.
FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!
SPOILLER/SUMMARY: Laverne runs into someone from Lenny's past while trying to run from her present.
NOTES: The first of one chapters in the twentieth portion to this series. For previous chapters, see the Goosebumps! Section at LAS Fic or The Look.

A little homage to one of Ashley's fics here, too...

***

On a bus to St. Cloud, she came to her senses.

Mortification filled her; what would Lenny do when he realized that his wife had panicked, taken their baby, fled?

As if she needed another reminder of how bad of a woman she was...

"Every day, I ride this bus." A woman said from the seat across from hers. "Every day."

Laverne pressed Billie to her chest.

"Every day, it's the same thing; the same places, the same people." Her unraveling violet wool gloves were stripped from her hands. "I climbed on because I thought it would change..."

Laverne shivered. There was something oddly familiar about the woman; her dull, monotone voice...

"My boy...I left him. He was a little older than yours." She snorted. "The pride of a woman can get in the way of what's best for herself. What's best for her family. Her babies."

Laverne's jaw dropped open. "Mrs. Kosnoski?"

The eyes flashed. "How do you know my married name?"

"It's...my married name, too."

The woman looked her over, examining cautiously. "Laverne DeFazio?"

"I used ta be."

"I don't believe it." She chuckled. "You know, girl, Lenny said he would marry you. Three years old, he comes to me and says 'I'm marryin' Vernie DeFazio.'." She shook her head.

"Why'd you leave him?"

"A better question would be: why did YOU leave him?"

"My dad...he died. And I panicked, and I had to get away...I know it's stupid now."

"Frank...a good man." She said idly. "I'll pray for his soul."

"Where have you been for the past twenty years?"

"I told you...this bus." She sighed. "If Lenny's father cared about me, wouldn't he have looked?"

"He had no money; your son...he looked for you every time we'd get on a bus together...he dreamed you'd come home."

"Isn't it better for him that I never do." She shook her head. "I'm nothing. He's a big hotshot guitar player and songwriter."

"Just because you're not rich or famous doesn't mean you aren't important to people-" Laverne's own words smacked her across the face. "Oh God, I wanna go home." She moaned.

"Only two more miles to Saint Cloud. Then three hours back to Milwaukee." Said Lenny's mother, roboticaly.

"You're commin' with me."

"As I said; isn't it better that he not remember? He has a wife...a stepchild."

"This is his daughter."

A wince, but she continued. "If you keep my secret, I'll never bother you."

Laverne didn't know how to articulate the fact that she wouldn't be a bother at all.

***

It was a bright afternoon in Milwaukee when Laverne came home. Lenny wasn't in their apartment. She didn't find him at the Pizza Bowl, which had been draped, in black, presided over by a glum Squiggy.

"Ya wanted to hurt him, and I ain't tellin' ya where he went."

Filled with panic by this point, Laverne combed the city. She needed to be at the coroner's office to pick up her father's body and receive Edna that evening, but she wouldn't go anywhere without Lenny.

In desperation, she returned to St. Michael's. She had prayed here as a child.

She lay her daughter down on a pew and knelt, her hands fastened together by will.

"God?"

She turned her head to follow that voice, relief swamping her when she saw a familiar profile.

"I know I ain't been yer best friend, but if ya took my wife and my little girl I ain't got a way to forgive ya." He choked on the words, moaning softly. "They're all I got, God. Please..."

"Lenny..."

"And now yer makin' me hear her voice!" His turned, following the sound, and saw her...finally saw her.

"I'm real sorry..." She began.

"How could ya do that to me?! Leave me, take the baby..."

"I couldn't stand it, Len! My pop's dead, and I ain't seen him for six months! I don't even know if he ever found out about the baby!"

"Yeah, well, I'm sorry, Vernie. But I tried to help."

She slumped against him. "You ever wish for something? And you wish and wish, but it never comes true?"

"Yeah. I wanted my ma to come back like that."

A flutter of desperate fear raced through her, but she stifled it. "That's how I felt about my Pop." She explained.

"You ain't gotta worry." He insisted firmly. "I'm gonna take care of the funeral.."

"No, I wanna do it. Me and Mrs. Babbish." She held him tightly. "I acted like a stupid kid, thinking running away was gonna solve my problems!"

A little whine from Billie reminded them both that they'd grown up.

"I guess." Lenny said suddenly, as he scooped Billie up. "Prayin's different from wishing."

"Why?"

"Cause I prayed you'd come home. Ya did."


***

"He looks so natural."

Laverne gave her best friend an odd glance. Her father looked like a withered stump of a man. The morticians had carefully patched over the bullet hole in his head.

"He..." Laverne ached to deliver a long, stinging rant about how this form couldn't possibly be the Pop she had idolized for all of her years, but the words wouldn't come. "Are you sure you're all right?"

Shirley shrugged. "They said we can start trying again in a week."

"How does Carmine feel about that?"

"He said that he wants to wait. But he knows that I can't. I feel sort of...empty." She straightened her dress as they seated themselves. "I hope you and Leonard have patched up your differences."

"Yeah." Laverne repressed her thoughts of Mrs. Kosnoski. "We're okay now."

"As okay as you're going to be."

Laverne nodded, sniffling. She had cried enough in Lenny's arms throughout the week.

"The mass was beautiful." Shirley said.

"Yeah; Mrs. Babbish gave a nice eulogy." She had allowed Edna to arrange the services.

"Where is Lenny?"

"Getting the car."

"You have a car?"

"It's Pop's."

"Laverne..." Shirley's voice quavered.

"I know."

The friends clutched each other, weeping, until, finally, Shirley pulled herself away, straightening her hair and fixing her makeup.

"Carmine's waiting for me in the parking lot. I'll call when I get back to New York."

"Okay...be good to Veenie for me."

Shirley managed a nod, stifling another sob before leaving the room.

Laverne stood, pressed her hand to the casket. Her mind flashed through her father's long, sad life; perhaps she was his greatest accomplishment.

"Mamma!"

And there was hers.

Lenny held Billie out to her. "She started sayin' it in the car."

"Ma-ma-ma!" She insisted, stretching her arms out.

Laverne took Billie back into her arms. "Ya see her, Pop? This is your grandkid..."

Lenny peered suspiciously around her. "Uh...Laverne, there ain't ghosts in this place, are there?"

"Nah, Len...I'm sayin' bye to Pop."

"Oh." Lenny waved the thin air and shouted, "Bye, Mister DeFazio."

Laverne grinned, taking Lenny's free hand and following him into the bright light.


To Chapter One of "Learned From Love"
To Chapter One of "Blue Is Your Color"