Bury That Jewel
By Missy

SERIES: Souvenirs
SUBTITLE: Bury That Jewel
PART: 1 of 1
FOLLOWS: "Souvenirs" and "Fire With Fire"
RATING: PG-13
PAIRING(s): L/L
DISTRIBUTION: To LW, Kai, 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: Songfic.
FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!
SETTING IN TIMELINE: California Era
SPOILLER/SUMMARY: Lavene can't change anything but what lies before them.
NOTES: Third fic in a shared universe. Lyrics from the Shawn Colvin song "Diamond In The Rough." Don't belong to me, they belong to Shawn and John Leventhal.

Read the other two fics in this series so it'll make sense.

****

"Where the hell've you been?"

Laverne winced back from the phone, as though it might leap out and strike her.

"Pop, I left ya a note..."

"'Call you from Tuscon!' It says! What the hell is a Tuscon!"

"It's in Arizona, Pop." She glanced over her shoulder; the car was still there. And, morose, so sat Lenny.

"I raise ya for eighteen years! I take care of ya for ten more, and what happens?!"

"I grew up, Pop."

"Ya grew...that ain't what I meant!"

Her sigh crackled over the wires. "Why are you acting like I'm seventeen and begging you to let me move out of the house?"

"Cause the last time I let you alone, that creep mauled you!"

"Lenny's not a creep!" She snapped. "That..."

"What? You gonna tell me he didn't try to rape ya back in Royal Cactus?"

As a little girl I came down to the water
With a little stone in my hand
It would shimmer and sing
And we knew everything
As a little girl I came down

The words slammed into Laverne like a hail of fists. The old lies she'd allowed Shirley to tell in her place, when she had no voice. Well, she had one now. "Pop, Lenny never tried anything with me. Shirley went way over the top in sayin' what happened. She ALWAYS goes over the top. She's a dramatic girl!"

"Shirley Feeney ain't got a lying bone in her body!"

"Did I say she lied? I said she embellished!" She couldn't bring herself to tell him the truth -that they had all gotten very drunk that night on tequila, trashed the room while trying to have a miniature party, and arose with skeletonial memories of the night before.

"Come home."

"No!"

"I SAID COME HOME, LAVERNE!"

"I gotta go, Pop. I'll call back when I get to Texas."

"Wait! You tell Lenny that Squiggy's gone."

"What?"

"You deaf? Squiggy took off. He left Francine a note! I come here to check on you and I find out you're gone, so I go to his place and -"

"Did he say where he's going?"

"Nah; something about not being good enough and going where the cars all run...It makes no sense."

"Pop, my dime's running..."

"Please deposit five cents to continue this call."

"I gotta go; I'll call you tomorrow..."

"I ain't gonna answer the phone if you do! You hear me?! Lav-"

She stared at the receiver for a moment after replacing it in the cradle.

But in a little while I got steeped in authority
Heaven only knows what went wrong
There is nothing so cruel than
to bury that jewel
When it was mine all along
I'm gonna find it

Lenny wiped the Cheez Wiz off of his mouth with the back of his hand when she entered the car. "I got you a hot dog, we can split the chips."

"I'm not hungry." She said roughly, then softened her tone. "Thanks. I'll save it." She picked it up off of the dashboard and cradled it in her lap.

"Guess things didn't go well with your Pop."

"He yelled at me."

"He always yells at you."

She sniffled.

"Aww, Vernie, I'm sorry..." His hand fluttered awkwardly over her shoulder before landing there and squeezing. The tears really began to roll at that point.

"It's so hard, Len. I love him so much, but I couldn't stay."

"He's got Edna. He'll be okay, just like Squiggy's gonna be okay, cause he has Francine."

Laverne's shoulders stiffened.

"Laverne, why're you all hard?"

"I gotta tell you something."

His eyes widened. "Squiggy joined the circus again! Without me!"

"No! My Pop found a note from him today. We don't know where he is."

Lenny shuddered; his entire face became a picture of fear. "We gotta find him..."

"Len!"

"You don't understand, Laverne; he's a little guy. He uses his hands too much, and it gets him in trouble."

"We can't get him, Len. He's a grown-up, too."

Every now and then
I can see that I'm getting somewhere
Where I have to go is so deep
I was angry back then and you
know I still am

"You want me to let him go out and get himself hurt?!"

"How'd he handle himself when you were in basic training? When ya had to be in different places at the same time?"

"He was okay. But this is different Laverne."

"How? He's a tough guy who knows more about the world than you think he does."

"I love him, Laverne. Not in a fruity way or nothing. He's the brother I never wanted."

Lenny said this while staring at the hot pink neon lighting up the wall of the gas station. They were surrounded by cement and trees at the far side of the building.

"God takes care of kids and little animals, Len." The royal blue sky faded to the west.

"Squig ain't an animal."

"I'm sayin' that God takes care of us in our weak moments."

"You believe that?"

"I do."

Silence reigned between them.

The kiss surprised him.

She pulled away from him.

"What was that for?"

"Because you looked all alone sitting there. And you aren't."

His smile glimmered suddenly, brilliant in the twilight.

You're shining I can see you
You're smiling that's enough
I'm holding on to you
Like a diamond in the rough



Fin

To "Fire With Fire"
To "High Sierra"









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