Virtual American Gothic - Second Season Episode Fourteen One Day at a Time by Dana and Queri ********************************************* NOT TO BE ARCHIVED TO A WEB PAGE WITHOUT THE AUTHOR'S PRIOR CONSENT. Special guest stars: Illeana Douglas as Sabbath Scott Bakula as Dr. Grey Coleman ********************************************** TUESDAY: The warm sun filtered through broad green leaves, dappling the front porch of the Boarding House. Birds were singing, the smell of roses scented the air. Matt Crower leaned back and let the swing creak just a little. An ice cream would taste good if he had had a quarter to buy one. Another perfect day in Hell. He ran his long fingers through his hair, to stop them trembling. "I'm out of bed, out of my room. And maybe I can stand it for ten more minutes." He closed his eyes and tried to laugh. "Perfect timing Matt, you finally get out of Juniper House and then you go crazy." Sabbath popped her head out of the door. "Crazy kinda day, isn't it?" "Was I talking out loud?" "You were. I heard you. You want a shoulder?" "No, I'm OK." He wiped his eyes, trying to sort himself out. What was he wearing? He didn't quite know. Nothing very clean, that was for sure. "Well, I don't believe you. You look like hell. And I know that look." She sat next to Matt, uninvited. "You could write a book! To Hell And Back, my journey to insanity by Dr. Matthew Crower." "Of course, I already wrote that book," Sabbath insisted, "just change the name." "You want to compare horror stories?" "Sure! You got worse than an acidhead mother ruining her daughter's life by continually searching for hippie haven Utopia?" "I've got worse." Family ghost time hit him like a body blow, time to go back to his little room. He started to get up but a rush of vertigo went through him and he wasn't sure he could stand. "Need a hand, Harvard?" Lucas Buck stood on the porch reaching out for him. Matt collapsed back in the swing and began to hyperventilate. Lucas turned to Sabbath, "Hello Missy, you here to put up the rubber wallpaper?" "Listen, you, whoever you are, we have a crisis here, don't need you smarting off." Sabbath felt Matt grip her hand like a life line. "Oh, you got a crisis all right." He introduced himself, "Sheriff Lucas Buck, I'm the man you need in a crisis. Isn't that right Harvard?" Matt grimaced, "When there's trouble, you're there." "See, we go way back, Matt and me." ----- WEDNESDAY: "If you're not ready. . ." The voices were coming from behind the kitchen door. Loris, calm with the hint that her patience was about to finally give out, Matt, his tone soft but insistent. "I can't live off your charity any longer." "Matt Crower. This is MY house and I say who can live in it!" Sabbath pushed through the door. "Are you getting yourself thrown out now?" "I'm trying to." Matt felt like a new man today, crisp clean clothes, walking upright, just like a real human being. Getting humiliated by Buck had it's positives, there was no place to go but up. "I don't want to leave, but I can't stay like this. I don't even recognize myself in the mirror anymore. I couldn't buy a job with somebody else's money." "Why don't you just ask for your old job back?" Sabbath said. "Everybody says you were a great doctor. I know, I asked them." "My cheerleader." Matt smirked. "You could do worse." added Loris. Sabbath twirled around,"Rah rah rah, both of you." "I wrote a letter weeks ago about my position at the hospital and they replied that there was nothing available." "That's just a form letter." Sabbath scoffed. "You've got to go in person, bat those puppydog eyes and show them you're indispensable." "You mean I've got to show up and beg." "Why not? I've got something that could help." Sabbath dug around in her bag and pulled out a battered deck of cards, bright white backs with a gold sun rising. "Take one." Matt looked flabbergasted. "I'm not Penn OR Teller. These are Tarot cards. "Wait," Matt smiled, "I'm the nut job here." "Shut up and take one, wacko. Trust me." Matt shrugged and touched the edges of the cards Sabbath fanned out in front of him. One seemed to have a slight bend to it. Why not. He turned it over and looked at the image of a shining angel solemnly pouring water from one jar to another. He felt somehow relieved. "The healer." Loris said. "The card says Temperance." Matt noted. "This is more accurate than you know." "I told you to trust me." Sabbath winked, "Now comb your hair and put a tie on. You can do this. You're not alone anymore." Matt put the Tarot card on his mantle in his room. Straightened his jacket, brushed his hair. Maybe this stranger in the mirror wasn't so bad. "How hard could it be to try one more time?" ---- Matt looked around the painted walls of Fulton Co. Hospital. He'd forgotten how much he loved those naive murals. He belonged here, surely they could see this. Damn it, he'd make them see it. Lucas came out of the Hospital Director's office and leaned against the wall, smiling at Matt. He tilted his head towards the door, playfully. "Walk right in, Harvard. I think he's in a good mood." Matt ignored him and walked through into Coleman's office. Lucas hung around outside. This shouldn't take very long, he thought. Kinda like jumping off a building. There's only one way to go. Straight down. Matt came out of the office a whole lot slower than he'd walked in. "No takers?" Lucas remarked. "You made damn sure of that." "Hey, Harvard, I'm on your side." "Since when?" He tried to walk off but Lucas held his arm. Matt could feel the pain rush through him like being pinned by a pitchfork. "Since I got you out of the Nuthouse, Mr Gratitude." "Thank you Lucas, Thank you so much for chasing me with bloodhounds and trying to kill me. It was greatly appreciated, believe me." "All part of my life of public service." He let loose of Matt's arm. "See, you're part of Trinity now, I'm responsible for you." Matt laughed. "A letter from the Sheriff, Hell, a word in the right ear, would be enough to get you back in here, like biscuits in gravy." "I don't need anything that badly." "Oh yes you do. You need something to live for. I help you out, you owe me. That's not so bad, is it?" "Couldn't be worse." "Sure it could, Harvard. Could always be worse." Lucas sauntered off past the front desk nodding at Rita and Stacy coming out of the nurse's lounge. The two women glanced at Matt and then looked away. Stacy was whispering and laughing, and Rita just couldn't seem to meet Matt's eyes. It must show, he thought, being the biggest loser in town must be easy to spot. ------- Back home at the boarding house, Sabbath was waiting for him. "How'd it go?" "If we were scoring with pity I would have won." Loris was folding laundry in the dining room. She could see defeat written all over his body and it was a crying shame. "No job?" "Not a hope." Sabbath sprang to her feet, calling after Matt as she ran up the stairs, "That was only strike one. I have an idea. Don't move. Except, take your shirt off." Matt shrugged, "What is she doing to me, Loris?" "I don't know, Matt, but it's got to be better than the treatment you've been getting so far, time to look for a little home doctoring." Sabbath waltzed back into the kitchen, a little bottle in one hand, a towel and sheet in another. "This never fails." She wiggled the bottle under Loris' nose. Loris smiled approvingly. "Good choices, Sabbath." She grabbed Matt by the arm, hauling him into the back yard. "Lay down up here." She motioned to the picnic table, and covered it with the sheet. The breeze gently washed Matt's back, as Sabbath poured a little of the bottles contents into her palms and rubbed them together. "This won't tickle, will it?" "Only if I make it. Close your eyes." She began with long, slow strokes down his back, tracing the line of his spine with her open palms. --- "Got any 6's." Rose said, scrooging into the corner of the window seat. Giggles were coming through the window with the afternoon breeze. "Go fish." Caleb replied. It sounded like Dr. Matt was humming or crying or something."What the heck are they doing down there?" The two children peeked out the window. "He's gonna get a sunburn laying out there like that. Yankees can't take the sun." Caleb said. "What you doin, Sabbath?" Rose called. "Aromatherapy, Rose." Sabbath shouted up. Caleb poked his head further out, "Ahwat?" "Aromatherapy. Like, medicine that smells good." "Great," cracked Rose, "Now we got TWO crazy doctors living with us!" Caleb smacked her upper arm. Loris called up the stairs." Rose, Caleb, don't you have homework to do?" Caleb frowned, "No." He kicked a pile of school books under his bed. Rose leaned out the window so far she tottered; this was more fun that an ol card game. "Do all hippies take drugs?" "I'm not a hippy." Sabbath smoothed the oil down Matt's thin arms, he shivered a little. "This operates directly on the brain. Geranium for energy and Orange for happiness." "Well, Miss Bridgley at the library says you're a hippy. And she knows everything." "Rose, I am NOT a hippy. I don't take drugs." Sabbath leaned over Matt and put just a drop of oil next to his temples and rubbed it in slowly. "And when you breathe this in, it goes right into your spirit and heals your soul." Matt inhaled deeply -- "my soul. . . " Rose continued her diatribe from the window. "Cuz Elmo's big brother took drugs once, thought he was a lion and climbed into the cage at Charlotte Zoo. He was pacin around the cage and roarin, too, until the other lion came and ate him right up. Didn't even leave a scrap for his family to bury." Matt started to laugh. Loris dashed up the back stairs and into Caleb's room. "Rose, I think you need to pay less attention to school gossip and more attention to your lessons. You bring up that C yet?" "No, ma'am." "Then I suggest you get to work. I do believe Caleb has his books under the bed." Sabbath could now work on Matt's body in peace, enjoying the sunshine on her own back and the smell of the oils around her. Birds were chirping, frogs croaking, she couldn't have paid for a better soundtrack. She smiled at Loris who had returned triumphant to the kitchen stoop. "I don't know if this is anything to do with my soul," Matt murmured, "but that orange smells good. Really, really good." Sabbath had a sudden thought. "Have you had lunch?" "That man hasn't had breakfast." Loris commented grimly. "I could eat something." Matt said, opening his eyes. "Well that's a start, anyway." Loris said, smiling at the little Lightfoot girl. If all this nonsense could get that man eating again, maybe it was worth it. "Lucky I made some soup." --------- THURSDAY: Sabbath and Matt looked up the front steps at the Hospital entrance. "It doesn't look so tough." Sabbath said. "Looks can be deceiving in this town. Still, if my friend wants to sign me up as a surgery assistant on the cases he's attending, the board can't really stop him." They walked up the steps together. "Tell me something. Is there a card with two people falling out of a tower?" "Yeah, it's called the Tower. That took some thinking, huh?" "That wasn't the card I picked yesterday, was it?" They walked into the lobby. "No, you picked Temperance, remember, the one with the angel." "I THOUGHT I had, but this morning . . ." He noticed Selena slowly walking toward them, her eyes fixed on Matt's, completely derailing whatever he had to say. "You've seen a cat taunt a mouse before killing it, right?" Matt remarked as if this had been his theme all along. Confused, Sabbath nodded. Matt continued, "Well, this is the Broadway Version." "Good morning, Dr Crower, Dr Crower's friend. Out looking for work?" "You could say that, yes. Selena." "Matt, I think you could do with some. . .help, if you know what I mean." "Selena, I don't need his help. But thanks for thinking of me." " There's more help in town than just Buck." Selena's lips delicately spit out the sheriff's name. "You'd be working here if Billy were still alive, Matt, and that's common knowledge." "I know," Matt smiled a little, " He would have lent me a hand." remembering his vision of Billy by the river. "I was sorry to hear about . ." " So was I." Silence dropped like a stone. "Hi, I'm Sabbath. Lightfoot. I just moved here. You are?" She stuck her hand out, smiled. Selena smiled back -- with genuine warmth. It had been a long time since a woman with this kind of spirit had seen her as something besides the enemy. "I'm Selena Coombs. I've been here forever." She held Sabbath's hand. "We're on a mission. Matt's going to get his old job back, today, because he deserves it. Sort of....Instant Karma." Selena smiled wider, and squeezed Sabbath's hand before letting go. "Careful. You know what they say; Instant Karma's gonna get ya." "Instant Karma's gonna get ya a job, we hope. So, I'm not afraid." "Don't be fooled, Trinity can be a scary place." "I don't believe it." "Well, there are spots" Selena's eyes twinkled, "where...a girl shouldn't be on her own." "What if we paired up?" Sabbath suggested. "You and me, you know?" "Ready to explore the seamy underbelly of a genteel Southern Town?" "Oh, yeah. There's only so many nights of parcheesi at the boarding house a red-blooded girl can take. No offense, Matt." Matt, barely believing this conversation, just nodded, "none taken." "Well, would you look at this? Dr Crower, you are truly a thorn between two roses." Lucas came out of nowhere to butt into this little girl-talk."You always seem to be hanging around the hospital, Sheriff. You sick?" Matt folded his arms across his chest. "I'm fine, Harvard, but you even SMELL like Fruit Loops now! Maybe I ought to reserve you a room." Sabbath perked up, "It's aromatherapy. Not that you'd know, Crisis Boy." "Aromatherapy?' a grin crawled across Lucas's face. "Hell, have I died and gone to Woodstock?" "Woodstock should have smelled so good." Sabbath flirted right back. Buck leaned deep into her neck. His breath tickled her ear. "Smells pretty good to me right now." Backing off, he grinned at Selena. There was more than one way to cultivate. . .friendship. Selena just stared him down. "Matt's trying to get his old job back." "Really," Buck laughed. "I heard he wanted to be some kinda nurse's aide." He turned back to Matt. "What's up, Doc? Think I should have that little talk with Dr. Coleman, on your behalf? Or do you want to be a candy striper now?" Buck hooked his thumbs through his belt loops, well into his power stance. "We've had this conversation, Sheriff. And the answer's still no. I'm not totally without resources." He walked up the hall, calling after Rita. "Suit yourself, Harvard. Can't say I didn't try." Lucas took Sabbath's hand and kissed it, "Pleasure to meet you again, Woodstock. Peace." He swaggered away. Selena followed along behind him. "Why, Lucas Buck, I never knew you were a nature-lover." "What are you talking about, Selena?" " Eat A Beaver, Save a Tree, darlin." "As Sheriff, I am always happy to do my part for the environment, Miss Coombs." "Hey, hippy," Sabbath called after him softly. Lucas turned from Selena back to Sabbath. "get a haircut." He twitched his lips in a smile and flashed her a peace sign. Matt came back with a bounce in his step. "Rita says they are so understaffed it's tragic. There is a chance I could sign on independently." "Wow, Matt, that's great." There were stars in her eyes, and he was afraid he knew who had put them there. "Sabbath, oh dear. Selena, and, for that matter, the Sheriff...they both have- what you'd call--- REPUTATIONS around here." "What, worse than your reputation, Crazy Dr Crower?" Sabbath nudged him playfully. "No," Matt muttered, "not much worse." "Is that the doctor you're looking for over there?" "Where?" Lucas had Doctor Samuels by the elbow, gladhanding him for all he was worth. They both looked at Matt and nodded, identical smiles on their faces. All the life drained out of him. "Yes, that's him." "Maybe Buck put in a good word for you." "I'm sure he did." ------- FRIDAY: Matt was still curled up in bed, in his old hospital scrubs, when Sabbath knocked. "You decent?" "Give me a minute." When Matt unlocked his door, Sabbath saw him staring at his tarot card. "Temperance takes time," She said, "one day at a time." Matt smiled "That sounds familiar" "Today we stay home, we work on you." Matt stretched, yawned. "Good. I could use it." "Wash up and meet me on the porch. Pronto!" The morning air was cool as Sabbath helped Matt bend his gangly legs into the lotus position. "Is this necessary?" He could hear his knees popping as she adjusted his feet a little higher on his thighs. "Completely. Have I steered you wrong yet?" "Don't make me answer." He smiled. Sabbath put on a tape of 'nature sounds', sat in front of Matt. "Creative visualization, Matt. Ever heard of it?" "Yes." "That's what we're doing today. Just follow me, do what I say. Relax." "I feel like a pretzel." "Live with it. I did this in the Library basement over a week ago and that tornado never touched down. This stuff works." "There never was a tornado, Sabbath. We don't get them here." "That's what I mean. Visualization works." They were working on their deep breathing exercises, concentrating, focussing, when the Buckmobile cruised silently up and past the boarding house. Parking across the road, just out of sight, Lucas took a paper cup from his dashboard and spooned some vanilla ice cream into his mouth. "Matt, are you ready? I'm going to take you to the hospital now, you're going to come with me. Just imagine, see what I'm telling you in your mind." "Okay. I'll try." "Keep your eyes closed, and breathe once more, a deep breath." In the parked car, Lucas Buck closed his own eyes and breathed deeply. "You're in your office at the hospital, all your books and certificates surround you, your desk is covered with studies and notations. Your coat is blinding white, you're sitting up tall in your chair, you're in charge again." Matt saw it all in his mind, vividly. He could smell the pervasive disinfectant, feel the cracked leather in the seat of his chair. "It's a normal day at the hospital, nothing big, but you are busy, helping people, making them well." <<< Suddenly, the intercom on his desk buzzed with static. "Dr. Crower, emergency! Stat!" Matt ran through the hallway following the manic energy of a code blue. Rita passed him in a blur. "Matt, it's Caleb Temple. Something terrible- hit and run. We don't think he'll make it." "He'll make it." Adrenalin poured through his body as he crashed through the double doors into surgery. The beep of the heart monitor was rapid and irregular. "We gave him 10ccs of atropine, he's not responding." "Have you checked his airway?" Everyone looked stunned. Matt opened the boy's throat and carefully guided the instrument down to suction his throat. Caleb shuddered, coughed and resumed normal rhythms of breath and heartbeat. >>> In the car, Lucas opened his eyes, took another bite of ice cream. <<>> On the street, Lucas started the engine of the Crown Vic, drove away. Matt opened his eyes suddenly, as the shock ran through him. Sabbath was kneeling in front of him. "Must have worked, huh? You said, Yes." Matt drew his knees to his chest. "I didn't mean it." He got up, ran up the stairs, into his room. "I didnt mean it! I didn't mean it! You tricked me, Buck! I'm not giving in!" Matt crawled into bed and pulled the covers over his head. The card on his mantle was The Devil. ------ SATURDAY: It was a long night with no rest at all until early morning and then Matt slept like the dead -- for about an hour. Loris pounded on his door. "Matt, it's the hospital. Something about the cases you had before you. . .left." He staggered up, pulling his bathrobe on. "Did they say what?" " No, but it sounds serious." He leaned against the wall near the phone, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. The Chairman of the Board of Directors, Rutherford Hancock was yammering through the receiver. He had come in from Charlotte especially to talk to Crower. Hancock was pulling all the records of all his cases since Crower had started at Fulton Co General. "Can you tell me what you're looking for?" "Dr Crower, I can't discuss this over the phone. I expect to see you in my office today, at your earliest convenience. Matt dressed in a daze. What more could Lucas do to him. He was too tired to care. Just let the blow fall. He glanced at the mantle, the card had changed again -- Judgement. Sabbath ran into him on his way down stairs. "What happened?" "I don't know. Something. Maybe a lawsuit." "I'm coming with you." "Please don't. I have to take care of myself sometime." Matt ran up the hospital stairs two at a time almost colliding into Samuels. His colleague seemed unconcerned and laughed it off. "I'm pulling for you, Crower. Don't you forget that." "Forget what?" Matt was dazed by the unexpected good wishes and reached for the front doors. But they were being held open wide. By Lucas. "You know the way, Harvard." When he walked into Dr. Coleman's office, Hancock, Chairman of the Hospital Board was with him, sitting behind the big desk, his bald brow wrinkled up with thought. He shook Matt's hand with a slight, non-committal smile. "You wanted to see me?" Matt said, hoping his clothes were on straight. The Chairman tapped at a tall stack of hospital records. "These are your cases. I've been reviewing them down to the last detail. I've never seen a record like this." "I'm sure I can explain, if something wasn't quite right. . ." Hancock laughed a little, "You put in more time, on more cases than any doctor we ever had. Dr. Coleman hasn't been with the hospital as long as I have. But I think he's been brought up to date now." He glanced at the young hospital director who smiled ruefully. "Do you know how much good you did at Fulton General, Dr. Crower?" "I tried to do my job." "Well, believe me, we want you back to do just that." "This isn't about my leaving things unfinished?" "Matt, none of that matters now. You're a good Doctor, that's all I care about. We want you back on the team again. Hell, we need you here. Just say yes, Matt." "Yes?" Doctor Coleman piped up. "Thank God you're back." That sounded familiar. "NO." Hancock looked quizzically at him. "I mean, I don't know, I'll have to think about it." He heard the door flung open behind him. Matt turned to see who it was. Lucas leaned on the door frame, "Don't think too long." "You mull it over a little while Matt,"the Chairman of the Board suggested, "then, just say yes." The Director nodded in agreement. When Matt turned back to face them, they were both eating ice cream -- sidewalk sundaes. Big manic grins on their faces. Rita waved at Matt from the front desk as he stumbled out of the head office, "You get the good news?" "I'm not so sure how good. . ." He watched Rita dip her spoon in a paper cup, and lick at the vanilla ice cream. When she smiled, her teeth were sharp and shiny. Dr. Samuels came up and patted him on the arm, "Did you say yes?" "Not yet." "We need you, Matt." Samuel's insisted with a voracious, devouring smile. "No!!" He ran to the front door. Lucas was leaning up against it, licking a cone with great seriousness. "What are you doing to me, Buck?" "It's a hot day, Harvard. You need to cool down." ----- Back up in his room, Matt pulled out his suitcase. He threw open the closet door, lifted his clothes out, threw them on the bed. Slammed drawers, stomped on the floor. He could borrow enough for a bus ticket, open-ended for anywhere --away from Trinity. At the bottom of his suitcase was a well-worn Bible. He lifted it gingerly as if it would bite him. Yellow underlined pages opened. He looked up at the mantle where the card of Judgement seemed to glow. It's all about Judgement, he thought, My Last Judgement. With the Bible in one hand and the tarot card in the other, he watched his bedroom door swing open. Caleb stood there, his face grim. "Dr Matt! What are you doin? They're gonna take you away again!" "I may just check myself in, Caleb." he showed the boy the card. "I've been judged." Caleb took the Tarot card away from him and tore it in two, "You don't need this! It aint helping you!." Matt leafed through the bible looking for something to stop his trembling, but there was no page left un-highlighted. Caleb grabbed the book and threw it out of the room. "You won't need this neither. I'll takecare of you." The boy walked over to the open suitcase. "What you packing up for?" The storm inside him broke with a shout. "Don't you leave me again, Dr Matt!!!" He threw the suitcase off the bed. It bounced against the wall. "And you can't take a gun and shoot yourself, and you can't hop a bus out of town, either" Caleb tore through the room like the storm that had hit Trinity, the storm he'd almost been lost in. Tossing Matt's clothes and belongings around like a cyclone. "My mama, my daddy, my sister, my cousin- you gonna leave me now, too? Just go on then! Go on! I don't need you! You don't want my help, I don't need you neither! Just go on!"" Matt grabbed the little boy running wildly and fell to the floor, holding onto him for dear life, the tears running down both their cheeks, "I won't leave you, Caleb. I wouldn't know how." Matt understood the card of Judgment now, there was only one person left to save, and it wasn't himself. Caleb looked up, sniffled. "You're stayin? For real?" Matt's eyes looked through his tears with 20/20 vision. "I'll need your help, Caleb. We'll need to be strong. For each other. Deal?" "You got it!" Caleb smiled, pure and from the heart. "You want some ice cream, Doctor Matt?" Matt laughed. "Not right now. I need to call the hospital and take my job while I can still get it." "All right!" They walked down the back stairs together, into the kitchen. Sabbath was stirring something in a big pot. Rose was washing her hands in the sink. "What's ya cooking?" Caleb asked. "Lentil Moussaka," Sabbath answered. "Will it work for a celebration dinner?" Matt smiled shyly. "Very nicely." Sabbath leaned over to hug Matt. "Congratulations, Dr. Crower." She kissed his cheek. Rose got on tiptoes and smelled the pot. "Whatall's in there?" "Onions if you'll chop them." Sabbath set down a big onion and a small knife next to the little girl. "My mama says if a person don't eat nothing but vegetables their bones crumble and their blood dries up and they turn to powder and die, then the wind blows them away" Rose chopped like pro, without a tear in sight. ---- In a small room a thick candle glinted at its reflection. Selena blew out the wavering flame, "Little Red Riding Cross get ready to meet the Big Bad Wolf." She picked up the phone and dialed a number she knew by heart. "That Lightfoot girl? Just another Cross to bear. You've left more food on your plate, darlin. I think you need me to clean it up for you this time." Lucas hung up without bothering to respond. ------ The boarding house crew had done justice to Sabbath's Moussaka. Even Rose had cleaned her plate though she'd swore she was going to wait till her Mamma brought her back a chicken fried steak from the Tasty Hutte . "To Doctor Matt back on the job." Caleb raised a tall glass of rootbeer. Glasses clinked all around the table. "I have the second toast" Matt insisted, "-- to strength." He kicked Caleb's leg under the table, and winked. The boy beamed back. "The strength to do what has to be done" Matt's voice was stronger and calmer than Loris had heard since before he been put in that awful Juniper Hellhouse. In fact she had never seen him so serene. She stood and touched his glass with hers. "To the strength that comes from friends." He put an arm around her and sighed. "The best friends a man ever had." Sabbath threw her arms around his back, Caleb and Rose grabbed him around the waist. Everyone cleaned up the dishes and straightened the house as the long summer night crawled in. Caleb curled up next to Matt on the living room sofa and together they leafed through one of Loris's old picture books on Castles until the boy started yawning with every other breath. "Hey, it's time for bed." "I know it," Caleb rubbed his eyes and smiled. "For you, too. You got a big day tomorrow." "Good night, Caleb." Matt sat in the living room as the lights went out one by one throughout the house. Soon, there would only be the night. ----- The house of cards grew slowly. First the Queen of Spades, next, very carefully, the Queen of Hearts, then across them both, Lucas' blunt hand slotted in the Jack of Clubs. It was dark, but it's always dark in Buck's inner office. Some places just seem to swallow up the light. And sounds carry in the blackness of the night. The outer door to the street clicked open. Light footsteps in the hall. Lucas' hand stopped in the air above the fragile structure of pasteboard cards. Without breathing he could almost hear the muffled echo of the human heart. The touch of fingertips on the doorknob. The knob turning. His breath sighed out of him. Almost. One step more. As the door slid open, Matt's hair picked up the slight threads of light that arced across the gloom. His breath was so shallow he felt weightless. Not even the clock ticked. The stillness of Buck's look seemed to stop time. No need even to speak. Yes. There was need. Matt's eyes focused clearly on Lucas's slow curling smile. "Yes." ------ SUNDAY: Matt took his white coat out of the bottom drawer and unfolded it, slowly brushing out the creases that scored the front of the jacket. As he slipped it around his shoulders, he noticed the Tarot card was still sitting on the mantel where he first put it. Not torn in two, not Temperance either. A slender woman in a white dress, her black hair just skimming her shoulders, was holding the jaws of a lion in her tender grasp. And the name on the card was Strength. She looked all too familiar. Caleb and Sabbath and Loris were waiting at the foot of the stairs for him as he came down. "We're going with you." They all piled out of the battered old station wagon in the hospital parking lot. Matt glanced up the stairs that led to the main lobby and shuddered slightly. Deserted. No grinning ghouls today. "You know, you got me this far. I can go up the stairs by myself." "I don't think so." Caleb said and taking Dr. Matt's hand he led him, and the whole crew into the lobby. "Surprise!!" The shout was deafening. From Rita and Stacey, and Dr Samuels, and Coleman. And Ben, and Cecil Perkins and Selena. Everybody he had ever met in Trinity seemed to be packed into the lobby and either hugging him, kissing him, or shaking his hand. Banners were strung across every corner. Silver balloons bobbed in the air. "Welcome Home Matt Crower"; "Matt is Back"; "Fulton Hospital Missed you" "It's like Christmas." Caleb said, his smile shining. "It kind of is, isn't it." Matt replied, wiping his eyes. Lucas strutted in with Floyd who was trucking a case of something heavy. "Hey, Woodstock." He intercepted Sabbath before she could rush off into the let's hug Matt crowd. "Sheriff?" "Lucas." He corrected her. "Whatever, did you plan this?" He shrugged with false modesty. "I told you I'm good in a crisis." "You know, for a cop, you're not bad." Buck swept her up in his arms before she could think twice. He kissed her, and, to her own surprise, she kissed back, hard, serious. "Lucas?" Floyd interrupted, "Where do you want me to put this champagne?" "In the glasses of the good people of Trinity, Floyd!" Champagne corks popped off like a 21 gun salute. The paper cups and samples bottles filled up with Mumms and suddenly everybody got very cheery indeed. Lucas strolled over to Matt. "You throw one helluva party, Doctor." Matt looked at Sabbath still a bit starry eyed after the kiss. "Found a date already, I see." Buck picked up a coffee cup and poured a hefty amount of champagne in it, "You have no idea. This is the gift that keeps on giving." He handed the mug to Matt. "Just fake it, Harvard." For the first time in several days, Matt stared back at Buck without a trace of fear. He took the glass. "Now, what's the toast?" Lucas asked. "You make it." Matt said. Lucas laughed and raised his glass. "Well then, to One Day at a Time." "One day at a time." And Matt drained his mug. END Disclaimer: Any Story/episode that is a part of Virtual AG - Season Two is based upon the television Show, "American Gothic", which is the property of Shaun Cassidy, Renaissance Productions, and CBS... any characters/storyline added to support this concept is the property of the author acknowledged as such...Please, Don't Sue Us!**