Disgusted, Todd turned his face away, shivering inwardly. He felt a disorienting buzz in his head as time speeded to normalcy again, as the touching spell of his mother's quiet embrace shattered into echoing regret, leaving him bereft and yearning to return to the sanctuary of her arms. He didn't want to look at his father...didn't want to think about what was happening a few feet to his right... What did it matter...? What did he care if the vicious, loathsome little brat squeezed the life right out of the repulsive bastard... Let him suffer... Let him get a good taste...

"Todd...?" His mother's voice played softly around his head, pulling his attention back to her. He met her gaze, eager to ignore the grisly scene to his right. "Do you remember when you were six years old...?" she questioned gently. "The time your grandfather came to visit us...?"

He gazed at her in confusion, surprised that she would ask such a question now. "Grandfather...? I don't remember any...wait..." He stopped, his face shadowing with pained recollection. Thinking back, he reluctantly allowed the long sealed memory to open slowly in his mind...recalling the awe, the total amazement he had felt at his first sight of Edwin Manning...

The man had been huge...slightly taller than Peter and heavier, with a booming voice that carried throughout the house. Todd had been instantly terrified of him, scuttling out of his way whenever possible, preferring the isolation of his bedroom to the scrutiny of the enormous man. He had felt like a tiny, hunted animal every time he ventured near Edwin...like a mouse under the cold eyes of a hawk. Todd shifted his body, glancing furtively at his mother, intensely uncomfortable with the memory...

"Yeah... I remember him..." he answered softly, wishing he could forget all over again. "Why...?" he asked, puzzled, growing apprehension coiling itself around his insides...

"Search your mind Todd..." she implored, watching his eyes expectantly. "Think back... What do you remember about the visit? What happened while your grandfather was there...?"

Todd looked at her, shaking his head, about to say that he remembered nothing...then he stopped, his body stiffening in fear as his mind whirled away to another place and time...back to that awful night so long ago...

He was playing furiously, driving through mazes and canyons made from the comforters and pillows on his bed. He was supposed to be asleep, but as usual, he had only pretended to doze after his mother tucked him in and read him his favorite story. Waiting patiently until she left the room, he had whipped out a hidden flashlight and his hoard of tiny metal cars and had proceeded to build an imaginary landscape in his rumpled bed linens. As he played, deeply engrossed in his comforting fantasies, he began to notice voices penetrating through the growling, screeching sound effects that he was making for his car chase. He concentrated harder, raising his voice slightly, trying to block out the sounds that he knew he didn't want to hear...

Gradually, as the troubling sounds grew louder, he became more and more distracted and uncomfortable--unable to focus on his game. He knew his mother wasn't home. She had explained to him earlier that she was going to some kind of party for ladies at a friend's house and wouldn't be back for a couple of hours. Being alone in the house with his father was always more than enough to set his young nerves on edge, but his distress was compounded this night by the unsettling presence of his newly arrived grandfather...

Edwin Manning had descended upon their home the day before, a veritable giant of a man who had nothing good to say about anything or anyone. His snarling, impatient manner made his ill-tempered son, Peter, seem warm and cuddly by comparison. Todd had been dragged before him and introduced, a moment that he was now working hard to forget. Edwin had skewered him with his ice blue eyes, pinning him motionless under his gaze, like a specimen insect, searching his face and body thoroughly until Todd had wanted to slither under the sofa to get away from his scrutiny...

After appraising him for what seemed an absolute eternity, Edwin had suddenly scooped him up in his arms, then vaulted him to the ceiling, snagging him in a bear hug as he had plummeted to earth. Todd had been terrified, but he knew better than to show it. He had seen the keen, warning stare that his father had trained on him...and he would have died rather than do anything to anger his father. He knew the price he would have to pay later if he did. He had bitten his lip and held his breath, praying that he wouldn't become airborne again...

"Holy shit, Peter!" Edwin had boomed, turning to face his son, still holding Todd in his arms. "What the hell is this? This skinny little thing can't be a Manning...he's way too pretty. You should have picked an ugly one with some meat on his bones...a little tough guy you could turn into a football player..." His laughter had deafened Todd, beating against his eardrums at close range. "I don't even believe you're telling me the truth... This is no boy..." Edwin had seated himself on the sofa, depositing Todd on the floor in front of him. "Look at all that sweet blonde hair," he'd snorted, pulling painfully on a longish stand. "You a real boy, son...?" he had asked softly, leaning in close to Todd's face, a sneer creeping across his craggy countenance...

Suddenly, with no warning, his enormous hand had closed over Todd's genitals, squeezing roughly through the soft cotton shorts that he had been wearing. "Well, I'll be damned!" Edwin had laughed sarcastically. "He is a boy..." Continuing to chuckle, still fondling Todd, he had looked over at Peter for some kind of reaction...

Aside from his acute personal discomfort and embarrassment, Todd had sensed instinctively that he was in the middle of something, that there was grownup stuff going on between his father and grandfather. But he hadn't the slightest idea what it was--or what Edwin had been talking about earlier. The only thing he had known at the time was that he wanted to run...

At that moment his mother had gracefully interjected herself into the scene, inventing a quick excuse to hustle him out of the room. Todd had been eternally grateful for her rescue...for saving him, literally, from the clutches of his overbearing grandfather. Subsequent to that harrowing encounter, he had tried to stay as far away from the man as possible, playing outside and in his room in order to avoid running into him again...

He had tried to block the whole unsettling episode completely out of his mind, erasing the presence of the man by total immersion in his private world of little boy fantasies. But now, the sounds from downstairs were intruding rudely on his avid avoidance of the whole grandfather issue. He was finding it increasingly impossible to ignore what was going on in the lower part of the house...

He could hear brief snatches of loud talk, an occasional shout, and Edwin laughing raucously--a sound that somehow held no trace of real humor. Todd shivered, wondering what was going on. Finally overcome with curiosity, he cautiously slipped out of the bed, tip toeing to the top of the huge, curved staircase...

He could make out little, most of the lights in the house were out, but he could see a glow coming from the game room doorway on the first floor. He quickly pinpointed that room as the source of the voices. The sound of billiard balls clicking against one another floated up to him followed by a string of obscenities. His father was obviously in a foul mood...and losing...

He hesitated, the sound of Peter's voice dampening his desire to play detective momentarily. But the tinkling sound of shattering glass and more laughter piqued his curiosity again, moving him to action. Quietly he descended the staircase, slipping along the wall carefully as he moved towards the open French doors of the game room. Arriving at the entrance, he found one door had been left standing straight out into the room instead of fully opened against the wall, allowing him a hidden vantagepoint. Peering through the crack of the door, right above a handy, face-concealing hinge, he could clearly see the far end of the room where the pool table resided...

His father and grandfather were finishing a game...his grandfather the obvious winner. Todd arrived just in time to see Peter throw his pool cue across the room in angry frustration. There was already a wet, spattered streak on the wall where it hit. Edwin howled in derisive laughter. "You miserable little shit...!" he chortled drunkenly, lurching to the mantelpiece to retrieve his glass of Scotch. "You play like a fucking woman...and you waste good booze..." He turned to face his son, eyeing him with amused contempt. "You've gotten soft since you left home..."

Peter leaned over the pool table, hands gripping the side, head bowed in frustration. "You distracted me..." he growled...

Edwin took a step towards Peter, absently setting his glass down on the mantle again. "What was that, boy...?" he asked softly, his voice rich with veiled menace. "Are you trying to make some kind of point?" He took another step, coming up beside his son...

Peter raised his head and turned to face him, leaning back slightly against the table. "You know what you did..." he snapped accusingly, wiping the back of his hand across his face, his eyes wild and bloodshot from too much liquor. "You just can't stand for me to fucking win, can you...you son of a bitch? You've always got to be on top...!"

Without warning--like a lunging bear, Edwin crashed heavily into Peter, driving his pool cue down across his son's neck, bending him backwards and pinning him with it on the pool table. "Not only have you gotten soft, but you've developed a snotty little attitude to go with it..." Edwin snarled, giving the pool cue a murderous push. "I guess you've forgotten what the punishment is for being a smart ass..."

Todd watched in horror, cowering behind the door, as his father shoved his knee into his grandfather's gut, forcing the larger man to release his strangle hold. He didn't understand what was happening, but he knew they were fighting for some reason. He had never seen grown men fight for real...only on television. The experience was terrifying. He wanted to run and hide, but he was frozen in place, unable to move...

Peter managed to push his way up from the pool table, driving his father back towards the fireplace. Edwin swung the pool cue and broke it across Peter's ribs, eliciting a howl of pain from the younger man. Peter staggered to the side, trying to escape, but Edwin whacked him soundly across the shoulder blade with the butt end of the cue, causing him to lose his balance. As he went down on one knee, Edwin grabbed him by the shirt and hauled him up like he was a small boy, throwing him up against the wall roughly. Advancing on the younger man, he drew back his fist and smashed it across Peter's jaw. Peter sank slowly down the wall, semiconscious and bleeding. Edwin stood over him, breathing heavily, then hauled him up again, pinning him against the wall with his forearm across his neck...

"You miserable little fuck!" he rasped, digging his arm into Peter's neck cruelly. "You may be all grown up, but you'll never be big enough to take me..." Edwin removed his forearm and gripped Peter's jaw in one huge hand, still pushing him into the wall. "It's just like old times...huh, Peter...?" he hissed, moving his face in close. "You never learn...do you, boy? I guess I'm going to have to teach you the rules all over again...teach you to have a little respect for your daddy..."

Todd, still watching from his vantagepoint, had ceased to breathe. He stared in shock as he saw the most powerful person in his world reduced to a limp, spineless coward. He couldn't make out his grandfather's expression, but he could see his father's face clearly...and he was shivering in fear...

"I'm going to have to remind you who's boss...who still runs the show, here..." Edwin continued, grabbing Peter by the shoulders and jerking him around with his face to the wall. Peter twisted wildly, jerking out of his father's grasp, pushing his way to the side and turning to shove the larger man towards the pool table. Edwin, temporarily off balance, recovered quickly, slamming his enormous fist savagely into Peter's gut. The younger man doubled over, sinking to his knees again. Merciless, Edwin hauled him up, pinning him against the wall once more with one hand on his throat. "Don't fight me, boy," he snarled. "Take it like the sweet little girl we all know you are." Whipping his fist back with amazing speed, he punched Peter wickedly across the jaw, snapping his head to the side with a resounding pop. Peter went limp, his knees buckling beneath him. Edwin jerked him up by the shoulders and twirled him around, slamming his chest into the wall. Holding him there, his arm wedged against Peter's neck and jaw--grinding the side of his face into the wood paneling, Edwin slid in close behind his son...

Todd saw his grandfather pause, fumbling with the front of his pants. Then he saw him reach hurriedly around his father, doing something to his father's clothing. He couldn't quite make out what was going on, but he heard his father groan, slowly returning to consciousness. Automatically Todd rose to his feet, a feeling of panic growing in his stomach. He couldn't see what was happening, the pool table blocked part of his view, but he saw his grandfather slam his body against his dad's back, hard... Then he heard a sound he had never heard before...he heard his father scream...a horrible, gut wrenching sound, partially muffled by the huge arm across his face...

Bolting from his hiding place, Todd ran for the staircase as fast as his small legs could carry him. He scuttled up the stairs and into his bedroom, closing the door quickly. Diving under the covers on his bed, he curled up in a little ball and stuffed his fingers into his ears, rocking violently, frantically trying to calm himself...trying to make everything he had just seen disappear from his mind...

Todd jerked as his consciousness returned to the present. His eyes focused on his mother, recognition dawning suddenly. "Damn..." he whispered softly. "I'd forgotten all about that..." His body trembled deep inside as the full impact of the memory hit him. "I must have blocked it out of my mind, because I didn't understand it..." he continued weakly, searching his mother's eyes... "But now...I...I know..." His voice faltered, unable to complete the thought aloud...

A moment of silent understanding passed between mother and son, chilling new comprehension settling over Todd's heart. His mother dropped her eyes as she brushed her hand across his shoulder, smoothing his hair down his back. Taking a deep breath, she met his eyes squarely, a melancholy expression crossing her face. "We're all the same Todd," she said in the softest of voices, her lips near his ear. Slowly she rested her temple against the point of his shoulder, her gaze falling dejectedly on the ugly scene only a few feet away...

Todd followed her lead, allowing his attention to be pulled back to the horror sprawled before them. His mind whirled crazily with half forgotten memories, as he tried to put all the pieces together, struggling to see the whole picture. "Yeah..." he finally whispered, his voice almost inaudible. "A perfect family...full of nice little victims..."

A tear slid slowly down his cheek as he watched his father struggle with the child, a feeling of utter resignation washing over him. A picture formed in his mind, like holding a mirror up before another mirror, of an endless series of identical abuses down through the years, generation after generation, stretching back forever and forward to infinity...

Giving in to the icy sadness of despair, he speculated about his own behavior, wondering if he was doomed, in spite of all his efforts, to continue to commit the sins of his father...and his grandfather before him. Three generations of screwed up perverts...he thought acidly...and who knows how many others before that...and then there's Victor Lord...he reminded himself... God... He closed his eyes and bowed his head in sorrow as more tears streamed down his face...

For what seemed like a long time, he was lost in a bottomless pit of grief. He mourned for his mother--too weak to stop all the sickness, living out her life in an alcoholic blur of remorse and regret, her child stripped cruelly from her arms. He mourned for himself, for the travesties enacted upon him when he was too young to fight back...travesties that had twisted and mangled his soul. He ached for Marty, Nora, Tea and all the other women he had tormented in his miserable life. The pattern was clear to him now. He saw how he had used them mindlessly to gratify the needs of his disease...compulsively acting out the family legacy of abuse that was burned so indelibly into his soul...

He lifted his head and turned to look at the horrible scene playing out next to him... Peter still stretched out his arm, clawing desperately at the floor now...still staring at him in forlorn, sickening appeal. The growling, feral child still gripped his throat unmercifully, squeezing with ever increasing pressure...

As he watched, he suddenly wanted to just get up and walk away, to turn his back on all of it and disappear into the blackness. He was tired to the point of numbness...and he just wanted out...just wanted it to be finished. In the middle of his hopelessness, he felt warmth and gentle softness envelop him as his mother's arms slipped around his shoulders to his chest. She leaned against him and he responded, turning to take her in his arms. She hugged him fiercely, burying her face in his neck. Slowly she lifted her lips to his face and kissed his cheek, then his temple, her touch infinitely delicate upon his skin. "I love you, Todd..." she breathed against his ear. "l've always loved you...and I always will..." She tightened her embrace, holding him with all her strength. "Remember that...and let go of the past... Let go of the pain, darling...and set yourself free..." She relaxed against him, stroking his hair with one soft hand. "What's happening here is a good thing...embrace it...don't be afraid..." She pulled back to study his eyes--a warm, soft glow of joy emanating from her face... "You always have a choice, Todd..." she whispered softly, then nestled her face in his neck again...

He held her tenderly, soaking in the feeling, utterly lost in the moment. "I love you too, Mama," he whispered, his emotions too unstrung for further speech. Slowly, as he clung to her, she softened in his embrace, seeming to diminish. Then...as her lips brushed his cheek one last time...she was gone...

Startled beyond panic, he clutched at the empty air before him frantically. Looking all around, he started up from his position, rising to his knees, not believing his senses, not believing that he was alone. Finally, as it sank in that she was truly gone, an anguished cry tore from deep inside him, his mind collapsing in bereaved shock. He crumpled to the floor, wrapping his arms over the back of his head, shaking and crying out her name...

For long, agonizing minutes Todd lay curled on the floor, too devastated to even care what was going on. He teetered on the edge of delirium, rocking and holding himself, aching deep in the foundations of his soul. Finally, as his brain began to kick in, weakly attempting to sort out the emotional from the rational, he slowly recognized that his mother had never really been there to begin with...that the beautiful image caressing him so tenderly was actually fifteen years in the grave...dead and lost to him forever...

He opened his eyes, staring into the blackness. His senses slowly returned to normal, the spinning disorientation in his mind settling, his emotions calming. Oddly enough, he felt better...better than he had in a long time. At first he didn't grasp the specific significance of that, but it gradually dawned on him. The crazy, splintered madness that had sent him spiraling out of control before was gone. His mind was clear. There were no more prismatic visions, no distorted pieces of painful memories swirling around in his brain. He was still and quiet inside...he was contained. He could think rationally again...

As he contemplated the welcome change in grateful wonder, he was suddenly reminded that even though his mother had disappeared, he wasn't alone. He recognized the hateful sounds, realizing unhappily that the other two were still there...that the horrible struggle was still continuing behind him. Haggard and angry, irritated that this aberrant ugliness still remained to plague him, he raised himself up on his elbows, twisting his body to fix his eyes on the repulsive scene...

As he watched the continuing battle between father and son, which hadn't seemed to progress in time at all, his immediate desire was to simply make a quick exit...to turn his back on the whole thing. He recalled feeling the same way a few minutes earlier and knew that it must mean he was afraid to deal with the vision before him...

It was true; of course...he wanted nothing whatsoever to do with either phantom. But, he also sensed that it was completely useless to try and avoid them anymore. For the first time, he realized that the things around him were starting to make some sense... He was starting to see a pattern. He knew there were meanings to what was going on, that this nightmare was actually leading him somewhere...somewhere that he needed to go...

Reluctantly he rose to a sitting position, his eyes never leaving his father's. He slid closer to the two entangled combatants, stopping just within reach of them. He stared at the scene, looking from one twisted, grimacing face to the other, trying to see the reason...the message contained in the struggle. He watched his father suffer, watched him choke and gag, struggling desperately for breath. He glanced at the child's face, seeing the primal satisfaction, watching the shivering joy that consumed the boy as he worked feverishly to squeeze the life out of his father. Tension began to build in Todd's mind. He began to feel an impulse growing from deep inside of him. He fought it, purposely forcing his body to be still, as he watched the scene unfold...trying to learn more...

Mesmerized by the horror, he let himself sink into his father's strangled fear, feeling the helpless terror of victimhood, reliving the scream in the game room, the screams from his own tortured childhood. He watched the man's blue eyes bulge from their sockets...and lived the gut wrenching emotion with him, letting it carry him away to a place of nameless agony...to a place with no reason and no sanity. A place where physical torture and endless humiliation were living, breathing things...where utter desolation lived and festered...clawing and twisting the mind...

Shuddering, he turned back to the boy, watching as his wild, tortured eyes glazed with satisfaction, rolling slowly back into his head. He felt the child's body tremble with the heady climax of fresh obscenity, the sweetly coupled pleasures of hate and revenge. He felt the boy's sick, reeling rapture, following it back to it's source, to that ugly night so long ago. He saw the fragile love that had touched the child's lonely tormented existence, felt the desperation, the longing. Then he watched, as the one chance he had to be normal was ripped savagely away, ground under his father's merciless heel. He felt the humiliated rage, died the thousand little deaths all over again, and then endured the debasing, unspeakable pain of the final punishment. He witnessed it all...seeing the child sink beyond reach into the abyss of madness...the mindless pit of hell...

His mind reeled in the fallout of the powerful emotions before him. Desolation and darkness...everywhere--as far as he could see and feel. He switched again, experienced his father's secret misery, feeling the depth of his disease, finally knowing him for the first time. As he tasted the uncontrollable, inherited urges that wreaked havoc on a little boy's fragile soul, he finally understood his own role in relationship to his father...the part he had played in the hideous, ongoing legacy of abuse. As he moved back to the boy, his consciousness staggered drunkenly under the crushing weight of rage, shouldering--for the first time--the child's total burden of confused pain and betrayal...the nameless, haunted terror of his isolation and shame...

He matched them together in his mind, weighing the numbing sickness of each soul against the other, point for point. On every side, in both father and son, at every twist and turn he found the same thing...nothing but cold, bitter, heartbreak...laced with insatiable disease. Here, in the dreadful, dark recesses of his mind, they glutted themselves endlessly on each other's filth and wretched pain...

Impulse rocketed up through his nervous system, impossible to deny any longer. The whole horrible, sickening mess had to be stopped. It had to finally be over...once and for all. He lunged forward and grabbed for the child. Wrapping his arms around him tightly from behind, he jerked him back, breaking his strangle hold on his father. The boy screamed and writhed violently, but Todd held him firmly, pulling him into his body, placing his face against the side of the child's neck...

"Let go of me, let go!" the boy screamed, clawing the air with outstretched hands, grasping for Peter. "Let me kill him, let me kill him..." he shrieked in helpless frustration, twisting violently in Todd's embrace. Todd hung on tightly; keeping the child firmly positioned against his chest and abdomen. He watched as Peter recovered, coughing and rising slowly to a sitting position...

"Miserable little bastard," Peter growled, recovering his voice. He looked from the boy to Todd, fixing him with a withering glare. "See what you created, you stupid piece of crap. See the nasty little bodyguard you manufactured in that worthless head of yours." Quickly he moved in, raising his hand, intent on striking the struggling, cursing child. Todd cringed in reflex as Peter came close, feeling the clawing fear awaken in his soul again. Suddenly, he heard his mother's voice in his mind, soft and encouraging... You always have a choice, Todd... The gentle words rippled across his consciousness, opening up new doors, forging new patterns of thought...

Seeing a clear opening, Peter swung, his fist jabbing wickedly toward the boy's jaw. Todd's hand swept up, lightning fast, his strong fingers closing around Peter's wrist. Twisting savagely down and outward, he forced Peter off balance into a submissive, crouched position and held him there using the pressure on his twisted wrist...

For a brief second, he marveled at the change, surprised at his new found ability to control the sickening creature. Then a flood of self-assurance swept through his mind, knocking away all his uncertainty, filling him with a sense of power. Still holding the squirming teenager firmly, he leaned over Peter, his voice cool and devoid of emotion. "I think you've caused enough trouble, old man," he said softly. Peter lifted his eyes to Todd's, surprise filtering through his grimace of pain. "Take your filthy disease and drag it back with you to your grave..." He released Peter's wrist with a snap, folding his arm protectively across the boy, who had quieted into sullen stillness. He stared at his father, seeing a blank expression replace the snarling anger of before. Slowly a satisfied smile spread across Todd's face as he hugged the child tightly to his chest. Raising an eyebrow and shaking his head slightly, he regarded his father with an appraising stare, then whispered softly... "You don't scare us anymore..."

Even as he spoke the words, the image of his father began to fade, dissolving into a silky mist that wafted away into the darkness. Todd stared in shock, amazed that it had taken so little to end the gruesome nightmare. The realization dawned on him that he had possessed the power all along to release himself from his own agony...he was just too blinded by fear and sickness to see it. He finally understood that his mother had been right...that he had always had a choice, a choice to think like a victim and be a prisoner in his own mind, or to deny the sickness and be free. He realized now that he could be that frightened little boy forever, sinking in the quicksand of his memories, lashing out in rage and pain, or he could grow up and embrace the life that he had before him, letting the horror of his childhood slowly fade away...just as his father had faded into the dark...

"Let go of me," a voice growled, snapping him back from his reverie. The boy in his arms twisted against him, seeking release. "You stupid fuck, I could've killed him. I could've finally paid him back," he snarled, straining to get loose. Todd held him fast, keeping his face near the boy's ear, his hold on the child more an affectionate embrace than a serious restraint...

"We don't need to pay him back," Todd said quietly. "He's already suffered just as much as we have..."

The boy gave up the fight and leaned back against Todd, breathing heavily. "You're screwed... You're just a worthless piece of shit! I fucking hate you!" he shouted angrily...

Todd held the child closer, closing his eyes as he spoke firmly in his ear... "You can hate all you want, but you're not going to control me anymore... Those days are over..." The boy quieted again in his arms, listening. "I need you...You're a part of me..." Todd continued, softening his voice. "But I don't need the violence...the craziness..." He brought his lips in tight against the boy's ear. "You've done enough damage for one lifetime, it's time to rest...time to give it up..."

A thin peal of strained laughter broke from the child's lips. "You stupid bastard! You really think you can handle all your shit...and all of us by yourself?" The boy squirmed, fighting to get free again. He pushed violently against Todd's arms, but found no way out of his embrace. Suddenly he quieted again, giving up the struggle... "Just try it!" he hissed in a venomous snarl. He flattened himself against Todd, instantly melting away into his body, disappearing completely...

Todd stared at his empty hands in uneasy amazement, not expecting the apparition to dissolve into his own body that way. He had little time to think about the startling disappearance however, as his head started to spin again. Disoriented, he fell forward to the floor, grabbing at his skull as a fresh crescendo of splitting pain washed over him. He was stunned by a flash of light surrounding him as his senses picked up music playing somewhere near. The hard floor softened under him, cold turning into warmth, as the smell of flowers and scented candles assailed his nostrils. Suddenly his arms were filled with warm, soft flesh and his ears detected the sound of someone crying...

He opened his eyes, the pain clearing, leaving him brutally shaken but otherwise intact. Candlelight danced silently along the walls of the room and the lace bed curtains before him, soft dreamy music playing in the background. He glanced down at the form huddled against him, almost afraid to hope. He recognized the silky brown hair, the soft curve of her shoulder. Sucking in a ragged breath, he broke into thankful tears. Sliding his hand down to rest against the small of her back, he pulled her body into his tightly, shivering slightly at the recovered joy of touching her...

As he moved, she raised her head to look at him, her tear filled eyes searching his. For a moment, she was a stranger, her expression wary and guarded. Then slowly, as she saw his face trembling with emotion, the tears starting to fall, her countenance changed, the light of hope suddenly flaring into radiance. "Todd...?" she whispered, her lips quivering as she formed the words. "Todd, is it you...?"

He found no words to speak, his throat closing in strangled relief. He nodded his head and tilted his face to hers, touching her forehead with his. "Oh, God..." she whimpered breathlessly, beginning to cry again. "Oh God..." She turned her face up to his, searching hungrily for his mouth. He responded hesitantly, still in shock, as she kissed him tenderly, again and again, needing reassurance...needing to give comfort. She buried her face in his neck and slipped her arm protectively around his ribcage, hugging tightly. Time lost all meaning as they nestled together, wrapped securely in the warm comfort of each other's arms, sweet tears of relief intermingling.