Virtual American Gothic - Second Season 
	   Episode Nineteen - Finale

		Back In Black

	by Gayle Dawson, Robyn Russell
	     Rosebuck, Kel, Queribus,
	     Jeff Gilson & Roguewriter

*********************************************
NOT TO BE ARCHIVED TO A WEB PAGE WITHOUT 
THE AUTHOR'S PRIOR CONSENT.

Special Guest Stars: 
Polly Holiday as Mamma Lucy

**********************************************

	"...alone again, 'cept I know you're there, Merly, I can feel 
ya." Caleb Temple sat in the shadows of the tower bedroom, gazing 
at his reflection in the darkened window.
 	"I feel ya," Caleb said quietly. "I feel ya when I feel IT grow
stronger. It makes me fearless, and I don't quite know if I dislike that
or not. Boone and Rose, they's leery of me to begin with after the 
fire 'n all. And, well, Lucas worries 'bout my intentions hisself. After 
that tornado, something changed in me."
	There was no answer from the shifting shadowglass, or from 
Trinity, sleeping dreamlessly beyond it. Caleb's eyes hardened a little.
	"I keep thinking, Merly, if you was outta me, I'd have a better 
chance at harnessing that power..." There was no waver in his voice. 
He was proud of that. "You gotta go, sister. Sit on the sidelines and 
tell me right from wrong if you have to, but I am what I am, and I gotta 
do it my own way."
 	Caleb closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the glass, 
failing to see the shadows move and swirl outside it, coalescing into 
something more solid.
	On the other side of the window, Merly's head mirrored her 
brother's, forming a silent, familial tableau. Tears slipped down her 
cheeks - rain from a cloudless sky.
*********************************************

	The black teakettle shrieked its heart out.
	Lucilla Buck, the grand dame of Trinity's oldest clan, jerked 
the kettle from the element on the back of her stove, slowing the 
piercing shriek to a pained whistle. Her hands were shaking, more 
from anger than fatigue. There would be no sleep for her this night.
	"Damnation," she grumbled, "that was the last one of the crop. 
Time to recycle."
**********************************************

	Light rainfall covered the airstrip just outside Trinity  A 
cargo plane from Sulphur Springs taxied to a halt near an open 
hangar door, where two groundsmen were tucking guidelights back 
into their baggy tunics, heading  inside to get back to an unfinished 
poker game.
	As the pilot and his two-man crew disembarked,clipboards 
and luggage in hand, all three felt the belly of the beast shake. The 
pilot glanced at his navigator, who pinched the bridge of hisnose and 
shook his head as if to clear t. Must be the wind, the nav's face
said, and a moment later, the pilot said the same thing aloud, perhaps 
to make it true in his own mind. Hell, Trinity was always dishing out
something strange in the way of weather. .
 	As they headed towards the shelter of the hangar, footfalls 
squishing on the dampening pavement, there was a deep metallic 
groan behind them. They turned in time to see the plane begin to 
rock and roll, shaking and creaking ominously. The rain grew harder, 
urging the possessed aircraft into faster and faster motion.
	The three flyers spun around and jogged the remaining few 
feet to the warmth and normalcy of the lighted hangar. The two 
groundsmen were coming toward them to investigate the commotion, 
mouths hanging open, cards forgotten in their hands. One of them had 
a spade flush, the pilot saw with curious detachment.
	Undercover in the hangar, the airmen turned once more to 
watch their formerly trustworthy plane shake like a fevered dog.As 
all of them watched, the cargo door burst open, and the corner of a 
long, boxy shape slid into view. Beveled corners. Finished wood with 
a high sheen. A glint of light off a gold handle. It was a coffin. That girl 
that died in the car accident, no doubt.
	The uncanny quaking continued and forced the morbid contents 
of the cargo hold forward. It toppled at an awkward angle onto the 
tarmac, splintering the bottom edge, snapping the locks with an electric 
flash that left after-images burning on the retinas of the watching men for 
several minutes. The rocking subsided. No one said anything.
	The coffin hung at a steep angle, wedged against the underside 
of the plane, its ornate lid open just  enough to allow the long brown hair 
of its occupant to spill out, saturating in the puddles below.
**********************************************

	Dawn. Clean, golden light began mopping up the darkness, 
drying the wet streets......
	Selena Coombs washed her face after her latest bout with 
nausea. Tears fell-hot, acrimonious tears-as she spat once more into 
the basin of the toilet. This illness was affecting her emotions.
	She was so depressed, depressed about losing Kane, for 
cripes sake!
	Her life was in turmoil once again. Kane was dead, and on 
her wedding day to boot. She felt like she was damned to a life of 
sadness, a circular path of misery that inevitably brought her right 
back where she'd started from. Nothing was going right, nothing at 
all. Her nerves of steel, the ones that so rarely failed her when she 
needed them, were snapping like slats in a wooden gate, punching 
holes in her stomach as they splintered and flew in every direction - 
and if she puked one more time she was certain she'd die. 
	Not that that was such a new notion.
***************************************************

	"Shoot." Caleb gazed disgustedly into the barbeque as the 
fire smoldered, guttered and snuffed itself out.
	Standing over the grill in bare feet and his pajama bottoms, 
sleepers still in the corners of his eyes, the dark-headed, dark-eyed 
boy carefully forked out the locket with a stick, placing it on a nearby 
garbage can lid to cool. He was only mildly disappointed - he 
supposed it was asking too much for the same trick to work twice. 
But he was on the right track, he knew it.
	Maybe Mama's magic had been all used up bringing Merly 
back the first time, he thought. Maybe he needed something else this 
time. Maybe something? from his father. 
	Anything Gage might have left him had burnt up with their 
house. Something of Lucas's, then. The badge? Caleb considered it 
and then dismissed it. Heck, Lucas didn't even flash his badge most 
of the time. He didn't have to. It had to be something more important. 
The ring?
	Caleb mulled that over. Yes, the ring might work. 'Course, 
Lucas might not want to part with it if he knew what Caleb wanted it 
for. 
	He thought a moment. He still had the key to Lucas's house. 
Wasn't really breaking and entering if you had a key, now, was it? 
And besides, he wouldn't really be stealing the ring - he'd just borrow 
it for a little while and then put it right back. Shucks, Lucas probably 
wouldn't even know it was gone.
	Caleb took a look at the sun, which was climbing up the sky 
behind the distant trees, to inspect the leavings of the night and the rain. 
He could drop by Lucas's house right after chores, get the ring, and be 
back at the boarding house long before Rose's mama called him in to 
dinner. With Miss Holt and Dr. Matt still in the hospital, there wouldn't 
be anybody missing him. 
	Caleb stooped to pick up his mama's locket, cool now, but still 
untouched by the flames. Was it his imagination, or did her picture look 
disapproving?
	"Don't worry, Mama," he said, reassuringly. "Everything's gonna 
work out fine."
*************************************************

	Selena leaned over the kitchen sink, dry heaves racking her 
body again. She had microwaved herself a little something, just chicken 
broth with some leftover rice dumped in, but still the smell nauseated her, 
and she dumped it all down the Insinkerator. 
	She hoped it wasn't the flu - she couldn't afford to be off her feet 
that long. Teaching class every day was the only thing that was keeping 
her sane right now.
	Lucas's sardonic drawl announced his presence at the kitchen 
door. "What's the matter, darlin? Bite off more than you could chew?"
	She didn't look around at him. "Leave me alone. You've done 
enough."
	"Don't play innocent with me, honey," he said, entering and 
glancing disapprovingly into the sink. "You wanted Kane gone as 
much as I did."
	"I didn't want him dead."
	Lucas shrugged. "Easier this way. Now things can get back 
to normal around here." He moved closer to her, reaching out to 
stroke her face. "Back to normal between us, too."
	Abruptly, Selena shoved him aside and threw up into the 
sink. Lucas watched her spasms with clinical detachment.
	"You think it over," he intoned. "Drop by the house when 
you're feelin' better. We can renew an old acquaintance." He tipped 
her a wink and sauntered out. 
	When he was gone, Selena leaned her head against the 
spigot, feeling weaker than ever. This couldn't go on. She was going 
to have make a trip down to Ascension, pick up something from the 
drugstore to settle her nerves-and her suspicions. 
	Philander, her gray tabby, mewed sympathetically as he rubbed 
up against his mistress's arm.
***************************************************

	Deputy Ben Healy got to work right on time, slacks newly 
ironed and looking sharp, the morning paper folded under one arm, 
only to find Floyd doing something spectacularly stupid - which was to 
say nothing whatsoever was out of the ordinary the morning Ben Healy 
died.
	It took Ben a minute to find the bumbling deputy and determine 
the depths and breadth of his latest stupidity. The main office was empty, 
Lucas's office was empty. Even the head was devoid of Floyd. Then 
there was a crash and a mild curse from the direction of the holding 
cells, and Ben closed his eyes, mouthing a prayer that Floyd hadn't 
locked himself in one of the cells again. At least Lucas wasn't here 
to catch it.
	"Floyd?" he yelled.
	"I'm in Number Two!"
	Ben walked through the connecting door and into the holding 
area. Floyd was standing on a chair in the center of Cell Two and 
looking curiously up at the bare socket where the cell's single lightbulb 
was supposed to be.
	"You didn't shock y'self, did you?" Ben asked, wishing he'd 
be so lucky and thinking briefly of the day the Temple boy had done 
the electric shuffle in the office and almost punched his own clock. 
The thought was gone even before he could consider its almost 
premonitory nature.
	"I think I've got the wrong kind of lightbulb," Floyd said, 
getting down from the chair and examining the 60-watt bulb in his 
right hand.
	Ben walked into the cell, the paper still tucked under his 
arm, fully aware that he hadn't yet had half the necessary morning 
coffee required to deal with Floyd's unshakeable talent for being 
Floyd. "Let me handle this," he said patiently, taking the bulb and 
stepping onto the chair. Without the light, he could barely see the 
socket-Catch-22, he supposed. He reached up to screw it in.
	"I just don't get what I did," Floyd was saying, lifting the 
old bulb in his other hand. "It needs the kind without the metal 
piece, I reckon."
	Ben's hand joined bulb and socket just as he turned his 
head to look - and realized the bulb in Floyd's hand lacked the 
metal piece because he'd broken it off in the socket when he 
was unscrewing it.
	Contact.
	The lights in the other cells blew out simultaneously. The 
holding tank would have gone pitch black, except the newspaper
 tucked under Ben Healy's arm burst almost immediately into flame, 
throwing ghoulish orange light across the brick chamber.
***************************************

	Caleb slipped the key in the lock, but Lucas's door 
swung open before he could turn it.
	 "Well, son, you just about missed me, I was just heading out."
 	Caleb looked up, startled, then looked back down; the ring 
was still on Lucas's finger.  He looked up at him and  wrinkled his 
nose.  "Lookin' like that?  What's that greasy stuff in your hair?  You 
ain't looked this bad since that weirdo was killin' them nurses."
	"What, you don't like it?"
	"Hell no, go wash it out!"
	 Lucas looked amused at his son's sudden interest in fashion, 
and laughed drily.  "Oh, why not?"  
*****************

	Caleb waited downstairs until he heard the shower turn on 
overhead, then sneaked into Lucas's bedroom.  He searched the 
polished top of the old oak dresser to no avail.  Peeking into the 
bathroom, he saw the gleaming gold of the ring reflecting from the 
counter.   As he reached his hand toward it, Lucas's hand suddenly 
popped out of the shower.  Caleb leapt back in surprise, then let his 
breath back out as Lucas grabbed the shampoo.  Caleb snatched 
the ring and hurriedly stuck it in his pocket. 
******************

	Lucilla Buck frowned as she peered out the kitchen window.  
"Something's about to happen, I can feel it in these old bones.  I better 
get my garden up to snuff, just in case I need some fresh....produce."
	She walked down the rickety wooden stairs to the backyard, 
and swung open the heavy door of the fraidy hole where she kept her 
special fertilizer. Shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand, she 
peered down into the darkness of the cellar and slowly made her way 
down the steps.   
	The sun shining in through the open door made a dim light 
by which Lucilla searched through the dustcovered jars and leaky 
sacks until she found her fertilizer.  As she took the bag and turned 
to go up the stairs, a sound made her catch her breath and turn.  From 
under the door at the back end of the cellar, a faint, unearthly glow 
appeared, growing steadily brighter.  
	"Who's there??" Lucilla asked sharply.  She strained to hear, 
and moved slightly closer.
 	A faint voice whispered, "I'm comin' for you.   I'm at the 
door......"
*****************

	Caleb ran straight up to Miz Holt's room at the boarding 
house.  Closing the door behind him, he searched through the dusty 
books on the shelf until he found the one he wanted.  Pulling it down, 
he laid it on the bed and began turning the yellowed, crumbling pages, 
then snapped his finger down onto the page.  "This here is it," he said 
to the room in general.  He pulled out his treasures and  flipped open 
the locket.
	"I'm sorry, Mama, I know you had some problems with ol' 
Lucas, but he's my daddy an' if that's what it takes to get Merly outta 
me, then that's what I gotta do.  So let's go do it quick-like, 
before Lucas figures out what's come of his ring." 
********************

	Ben Healy found himself looking up from the stone floor 
of Cell Two into Floyd's simple, anxious face.  The air still smelled 
like burnt paper, and he could feel that the side of his uniform was 
scorched where his morning  paper had apparently caught fire.
	"Holy jeezum, Ben!" Floyd gasped, and came damned close 
to bursting into tears. "Medic's on their way-I called 'em - but I thought 
you were a goner for sure!"
	I was, Ben thought. And I think I met somebody out there. 
Somebody I've been needing to talk to.
	"You tire me, Floyd," Ben said aloud, and by the time the 
emergency rescue team burst into the holding area, Ben Healy had 
chewed half of Floyd's ass and was working his way out the other 
side.
	Damn, but it was fine to be alive.
***************************************

	Caleb went about the house gathering the items for his 
personal exorcism. It isn't stealing, it's borrowing, he thought as 
went into Ms. Holt's room.  He swallowed and grabbed what he 
needed.
	At the back door he stopped.  Why did it feel like this was 
the most important decision of his life?  "I gotta do it, Merly.  I gotta.  
I gotta be a man.  Stand on my own."
	He ran all the way to the old Temple place.
************************************

	Selena lightly tripped up her front steps, feeling so much 
better now.
	"Been shopping?"
	She froze, her heart skipping a beat. Stay cool, girl. Turning, 
she smiled. "One of my favorite pastimes."
	Lucas pushed away from the wall of her house. "Find anything 
interesting?"
	"A pair of earrings. That new mall in Ascension is more hype 
than anything else."
	His cool gaze traveled over her, from top to bottom. "You 
look like you're feeling better," he observed.
	"You know what they say-why take that awful pink stuff, 
when two little pills will do you?"
	His head cocked to the side, a roguish grin sliding over his 
mouth. "I can think of some things to do with awful pink stuff."
	Selena looked at him coolly. "You may recall that I recently 
lost my fiance."
	"And in a fine display of grief, you went shopping," he chuckled.
	"We all grieve in our own fashion," Selena shot back. "I don't 
recollect Lucas Buck in front of an altar sobbing his eyes out when 
Miss Emory bit the bullet. And that Lightfoot woman? Shouldn't you 
be throwing yourself on her grave?" Chin thrust defiantly at him, 
Selena moved to unlock her door. 
	Lucas grabbed her arm, none too gently. She shook his hand 
off. 
	"Don't push," she insisted, but she wasn't able to look him in 
the eye.
	Lucas smiled wolfishly and let her go. He watched her shut 
the door behind herself, and then he turned and strolled down the 
walk, thinking maybe he'd go home, grab a shower, dress for her. 
He thought about flowers, maybe some of those candles with the 
wax she really liked, the kind that took awhile to cool on the skin 
- and then dismissed it.
	"Don't want to push," he said, and chuckled.
*********************************************

	Rita finally gave Ben a clean bill of health and let him go, 
shaking her head ruefully at the godawful case of the stubborns men 
were given to when they injured themselves in asinine ways.
	Adjusting his belt and relieved to be wearing his own duds 
again. He exited the examination room, slowing his step as he walked 
past ICU. His eyes lighted on the hospital bed that held Matt Crower.
	Ben put a hand on the glass, palm flat, and held it there a 
moment. It was a gesture he couldn't really explain, but when he 
turned and headed out of the hospital, he felt better than he had in 
ages.
	"You hang in there, Doc," he murmured.
***************************************
	Matt Crower was sitting on a white rock beside still waters, 
enjoying the day. The sun felt good on his face. There was something 
wrong, something he was supposed to be concentrating on, but he 
couldn't for the life of him remember what it was.
	"For the life of you is right, Doc," someone said. Matt turned 
to see Lucas's deputy of all people, walking toward him through the 
rushes, dressed in fishing togs and carrying all the tools of the trade.
	"What's that?" Matt asked.
	"Hell of a day, ain't it?" Ben asked, grinning at him and 
squinting up at the sun. "I can't remember a day like this since I 
was a kid. Used to come fishing here with my old man. Drink root 
beer out of green glass bottles. Talk about girls and hot rods. Have 
spitting contests." He shook his head. "Damn! Day like this, you can't 
help but think all's right with the world, can you?"
	He stepped around Matt's rock, crouching by the bank and 
opening his tacklebox.
	"But it's not, is it?" Matt asked. "All's not right with the world."
	"Nope," Ben said, and retrieved a hand-tied lure. He held it up 
for Matt's approval.  "Green-butt skunk," he said, still grinning.
	"Fine," Matt replied. "That's fine."
	Ben deftly baited his hook and started to rise. Then he cocked 
a finger at Matt. "You fish?"
	"I'm fresh out of skunk butts," Matt said lamely.
	Ben held up his spare rod. "Time to make you a fisherman, 
Doc," he said.
****************************************

	Comatose in his hospital bed, Matt Crower's lips curled 
briefly, the faintest ghost of a smile. His EKG readout didn't spike at 
all, and no one on duty noticed it. Why would they - the car wreck 
victim in Bed Six was in pretty severe shape. The airlift earlier today 
nearly put him away for good.
	The men and women who looked after him could do no 
more now. None of them said as much, but as far as they were 
concerned, they were on deathwatch.
	Loris Holt moved slowly into the hospital room where her 
man lay, and sat with him. She ached, oh, she ached, but as much 
of it was coming from her heart as the bruises and cuts she'd 
suffered in the crash. She stroked Matt's hair, and closed her 
eyes in prayer that her good man would pull through.
*******************************************

	With the sun warm on his neck, Matt cast-a long, lazy spin 
that landed his bait perfectly in the deep hole just this side of the far 
bank. He clocked the creel and began to slowly reel in the line, 
grunting in satisfaction. 
	You're standing up to your testicles in a river, Crower, 
wearing nothing more substantial than Levis, he chided himself, and 
you didn't even bother to take your wallet out of your pocket first!
	But he couldn't wipe the smile off his face.
	Ben watched him approvingly. "Not bad, Doc, not bad. You 
done this before."
	"I used to take my little girl," Matt said. "I keep promising to go
sometime with Caleb, but?"
	Ben nodded, reeling in his own line, slowly, teasing whatever 
game fish might be shadowing the bait. "I try to get out with Benji every 
chance I get. Ain't taken many of those chances lately."
	Matt smiled. "Which of us you think has more reason to be 
getting back?"
	Ben glanced at him sharply, then chuckled. "Not real familiar 
with this afterlife stuff, myself" he said, a trifle embarrassed.
	"Me neither," Matt replied. "I sure didn't expect this Isaak 
Walton stuff."
	"Isaac Hayes, maybe," Ben said, and they both laughed. 
********************************

	Lucas drove broodingly, letting his hands guide the wheel, not 
really minding the road flashing away under his tires. That quickly 
scrawled note of Caleb's bothered him some, "Sorry Lucas,
	I had ta leave for you was done, me and Boone got a project 
due on Monday", but he didn't sense anything amiss while he held it. 
Kids are a mystery.
	He had intended to drop by the hospital, check on his 
Number-One Right Arm, make sure Ben hadn't fried his brain a 
little more crispy than Floyd had let on this morning.
	But when he radioed in to give dispatch his 20, Lucas was 
surprised to hear Floyd himself pop onto the box with the news that 
Ben had been released with a clean bill of health. Lucas wondered 
briefly whether Floyd intended to spend the rest of his life right there 
in the station as penance for almost frying his superior, but he decided 
not to bring it up. If Floyd wanted to punish himself, who was Lucas 
Buck to stand in his way?
	"So he's gone home?" Lucas asked.
	"'Spect so, Sheriff," Floyd answered. "Said he was gonna go 
look in on Dr. Crower first."
	Lucas's brows furrowed. He spun the wheel and took a sharp 
left onto Confession Drive, accelerating. Selena could wait. Ben or no 
Ben, it suddenly seemed like a good idea to visit the hospital.
********************************

	Ben Healy was still whistling the theme to Shaft when Matt 
hooked the trout. The deputy hooted and reeled in his own line, 
watching as the young doctor fought the struggling fish, cranking 
grimly.
	"Easy, easy now," Ben cautioned him. "Don't force him. 
He's on his way."
	"Don't know 'bout that," said another voice. "Looks to me 
like you're all wet, Harvard."
	Ben's head snapped around. Lucas Buck was sitting 
cross-legged on Matt's rock, smiling his crocodile smile.
	To Matt's credit, he kept his attention on the thrashing fish. 
"I knew you'd be by sooner or later," he said in an even voice.
	"Ain't you clever?" Lucas asked rhetorically. "Ben Healy, 
you care to explain just what the hell you're doing in the river with 
Doc Bassmaster here?"
	Ben shrugged. "Floyd. Cell Two. Broken bulb in the light 
socket."
	Lucas shook his head, but there was merriment in his eyes. 
"Leave it to Floyd to bring you two fellas together on a day like 
today."
	Matt was still reeling in his catch. "Lucas, you mind piping 
down?" Ben asked suddenly. "You're spookin' the trout."
	Lucas closed his mouth abruptly, and just sat.
	It was a near-miss thing a couple times, but Matt finally 
landed the fish-a rainbow, 17 inches long and beautiful as the real 
thing. 
	"Hot damn!" Ben said. "Didn't I tell you this was some 
day? Three more of those, and you could feed everybody at Miss 
Holt's table tonight, couldn't you?"
	Matt nodded, looking at the fish laid out on the grass below 
the white rock, gasping its last. 
****************************************

	Caleb carefully laid out the paisley shawl on the burned boards 
of his old home. In the middle, he placed the pretty vanity mirror that 
went with the silver-backed comb and brush Ms. Holt kept on her 
dresser. Her mother had handed the set down to her, Caleb knew. 
He felt awfully guilty about it-he knew how much the set meant to his 
guardian. But he'd get it back to her, without a scratch. He knew he 
would. 
	His resolve strengthened, he continued placing the other 
objects he needed according to the old book. Finally, he rested the 
ring he'd stolen from his father's house in the center of the mirror. It 
seemed to hover there, its mirror image floating in space beneath it.
	Pulling Merlyn's locket out of his pocket, he lowered the 
chain onto the arrangement, letting it gracefully twine itself around 
the ring.   While he carefully re read the instructions, stumbling over 
some of the bigger words, he failed to notice the chain knotting ever 
so slightly as it nestled around the ring. He lit some of Sabbath's 
incense with the candles he had taken out of the dining room, and 
he was ready to go. 
****************************************

	When she had finished crying, Selena reread the instructions 
very carefully, blinking away the salt to make sure she followed them 
to the letter. 
	There were some things in the box, some things she needed 
to do this, and she took them out and began. This was going to be 
the longest five minutes of her life, she decided.
****************************************
	The door to ICU opened soundlessly.
	Loris was napping by Matt's bedside, exhaustion having finally 
gotten the better of her. If you listened real careful you could hear a 
little chirpy snore, and Lucas Buck listened real careful. He came up 
to the bed silently and looked down at the pair of them, eyes narrowing 
minutely. 
	He needed to say something to the good doctor's 
unconscious mind that Miz Holt would not be privy to. Damn, 
didn't that woman ever go home? It wasn't as if her boyfriend 
were dying? yet.
	The tips of Lucas's fingers touched Matt's fair hair. Why 
did he have to get this close to mess with Looney Tune's head? 
The question brought another hard on its heels - why hadn't he 
seen Ben's close call coming? Deputy Do-Right needed a driving 
lesson now and again, but that kind of near-miss wasn't the sort 
of thing Lucas liked to have happen without his say-so.
	Hell, too many irons in the fire, he guessed. No sense in 
worrying now.
	"Your debt is about to come due, Harvard," he whispered.
	Crower gasped a bit and turned his head as if to get away, 
but there was no getting away from this. 
	Damn, push that concentration just a bit more. Lucas almost 
started to sweat.
****************************************

	After the first whisper, Lucilla had set up defences as 
quickly as she could.  She'd brewed up something special just in 
case anything happened, and something was most assuredly 
happening.  She ran to her cupboard and yanked down the rack 
she saved for emergencies and poured several dried herbs into a 
pan of boiling water.
	The sound had been getting louder and more confident in 
the past few hours, and the water was getting low.  Soon, she'd 
have to face it or run. She was ready for both.
***************************

	The fish was still gasping on the grass, as beautiful a thing 
as there ever was, Matt thought.
	Then there was a metallic snick! and he looked up to see 
Lucas offering him a slim filleting knife. Matt swallowed. His head 
seemed to fill up with pain all of a sudden.
	Ben, standing in the water, his line forgotten, glanced from 
Lucas to Matt. "You can always throw it back, Doc," he said uneasily.
	"Come on, Harvard," Lucas said cheerily. "It's only a little 
blood."
	Matt looked at Ben uncertainly.
	"It's only a little life," Lucas said.
	Matt faced Lucas defiantly and took the knife from his 
outstretched hand. Crouching, he worked the hook out of the 
fish's mouth, put the blade to the base of its jaw, and cut it open in 
one, swift stroke. As he did so, the pain in his head seemed to 
explode. He closed his eyes against it, groaning.
	"Hell," Ben said, and looked away.
	"That's the spirit," Lucas said encouragingly.
****************************************

	Then his hold broke. Lucas gasped, opening his eyes.
	Loris Holt's hand lay across Buck's fingers like icy fire.
	Lucas could only stare at her. There was a time he would 
have seen that coming.
	"You want to take my man?" Loris said fiercely, her eyes 
equal parts flintand steel.  "You're going to have to go through me."
	"That can be arranged," Lucas said, smiling, but it felt false 
on his face.
	Loris's eyes dropped to Matt's face beneath their hands. It 
had drawn down into a frown, as if he was struggling with something, 
struggling up from the depths.
****************************************

	As he cut the fish open, its lifeblood gushed over Matt's hands, 
and he felt its small body clench like a muscle as it let go of its life. Then 
the moving knife struck resistance and turned in Matt's hand, cutting 
deep into the ball of his thumb. He cried out and dropped his catch, 
which lay on the bloodsmeared grass, mouth gaping, gills flared, the 
gory knife protruding from its guts.
	Matt looked at his hands, at the gash in his thumb, the blood 
sluicing out to mingle with that of the rainbow.
	"It's an acquired art," Lucas said in a patronizing tone - but 
something in his eyes said this wasn't supposed to happen. And Matt
suddenly realized the pain in his thumb had also forced the agony in 
his head into swift retreat.
****************************************

	Loris kept her hand on Buck, over the finger that no longer 
wore his ring. She could feel its absence, and it made her think of 
the day he had taken that particular article of jewelry from his father's 
body. Hiding in the corners of the big Buck house, a mere slip of a 
cleaning girl, she had seen all the hidden things that happened when 
one Buck takes over another. The ring was the first to go.
	"You didn't used to be like this," she said, and the flint 
sparked on steel in her gaze.
	There, it was said, the sentence she had saved up thirty years. 
The one bare memory of two frightened children who had reached out 
to each other in a house of violence. Had she kept it to herself too long? 
Did he have any recognition left of who he used to be?
	Buck took his hand off Matt's head and grabbed Loris's neck 
with it. "You wanta go back to the past? I gotta lot of happy scenes 
you can visit." His fingers tightened. "You want to finish what we 
started as kids? I'm willing. Especially in front of sleepy-boy here. 
They say you can hear every word in coma, honey. Every moan. 
Every scream." 
	Loris gasped as Lucas pulled her body close with iron fingers, 
his mouth a cold breath away. "Trust me," he hissed. "I know comas."
	"Is this a deal?" she whispered.
	Lucas laughed and stroked Loris's neck. "You ain't Gail, Loris. 
You've got a lot more to offer me than a baby."
	She could feel the power her family had carried from Africa, 
through the islands of the Caribbean, the power she herself had 
nurtured and built to a powerful weapon but never dared use. She 
could feel it rising through her to strike out at the man who held her. 
It would kill him, that power, and her along with him, if he dared to 
take it. 
	If it was strong enough.
	"I'll give you everything," she said. "Everything I know and 
everything I am. I'll hand it over to you. Free will, Lucas Buck, how 
about that? Only then you leave me and my man alone. Forever."

	Lucas smiled. It was a horrible thing to see.
******************************************

	Standing alone in the wreckage of the Temple house, Caleb 
was reciting some of the old words scrawled in Loris's book. They 
didn't make a whole lot of sense, but the smoke got thicker every 
time he said another one. 
 	There was a low growl from the burned out timbers. Dog? 
Wolf? A sound of drumming-maybe it was just his heart.
	"Miz Holt," he said in a quavery voice, "if these are your 
ancestors talking, I think they'll understand? and I can use every bit 
of help I can get."
	The smoke was getting thicker. Under its cover, the chain 
of the locket wound itself tighter and tighter around Lucas Buck's 
ring.
***************************************

	"Miz Holt," Lucas said in a voice with all the charm of 
genocide, "you got yourself a deal." 
	His closed lips brushed hers briefly. Loris could smell his 
sweat, and some kind of smoke. It smelled like incense. 
	The change is coming, Lucas, she thought, apropos of 
nothing, trying notto scream.
	Oh my god, the change is coming. 
***************************************

	In the house of the dead, where Caleb stood, the mirror 
cracked beneath ring and locket. 
	The boy heard the sound but kept reading, sweat stinging 
into his eyes, more afraid to stop than to continue.
***************************************

	Matt's breath suddenly sharpened, then sank. There was a 
liquid sound that hadn't been there before. Loris broke Lucas's kiss 
and clutched at his shirtfront. 
	"Hurry!" she gasped. She lay her hand on Matt's heart - it 
was so fast. "Damn you," she snarled, "take what you need and then 
get out!" 
	But still he just stood there, maddeningly.
	The monitor started to beep, a stuttering noise that indicated
fibrillation. Heart failure.
	"Please!" she cried.
***************************************

	Bedlam in ICU. Nurses were rushing in, adjusting Matt's IV, 
checking his blood pressure, shouting for the crash cart.
	"It's getting a little too crowded in here for me, Loris," Lucas 
taunted, as the two of them were brushed aside by the duty nurse. 
The sheriff kept Loris close, moving gracefully with her to a less 
crowded spot in the room, moving like a dancer. 
	"How about this," he purred. "I'll see you later tonight and 
then we'll transact a little business."
	The heart monitor went flat. Loris cried out.
	"Ooops!" Lucas said, eyes saucered. "Think you left it too 
late, honey?"
	Two interns pushed the crash cart into the room, bared 
Matt's chest and rubbed conductive gel for the paddles to take 
hold. Loris watched, hands over her mouth, unable to look away.
***************************************

	With Lucas and Ben watching him, Matt knelt abruptly and 
picked up the split remains of the fish, unmindful of his wounded 
thumb. It didn't hurt all that much anyway. All the feeling seemed 
to be running out of his body, like the blood of the small thing he 
had caught and killed. 
	And yet, there was something?
	"Whatcha think, Doc?" Ben asked encouragingly, leaning 
forward and planting his palms on his knees. Matt could feel Lucas 
leaning in as well, though the sheriff never changed positions on the 
rock.
	Without really knowing what he was doing, Matt began 
kneading the cooling flesh, gently at first, then applying pressure.
	"You dead fellas are out of your minds," Lucas pronounced 
gruffly.
***************************************

	Buck glanced at the monitor. Still flatlined. Loris was 
shaking with grief.
	"Free will?" he growled.
	"Yes!" Loris said brokenly.
	Lucas coughed into a closed fist, and Matt's heart resumed 
its normal beat before the paddles could be charged. Loris gasped 
in relief, slumping against the next bed. Similiarily, Lucas slumped 
against the door jamb, as if the wind had been knocked out of 
him...something was wrong, very ,very wrong.
***************************************

	Caleb's reading was interrupted when the house exploded 
all around him.

****************************************
	Caleb took his hands away from his face, looking around 
timidly, expecting to see angels, or demons, or some other symbol 
of the afterlife the blast of power had surely blown him into? He 
expected to see something other than the unchanged, burnt-out 
husk of the ruined house. Which was all there was.
	"Nothing?" he groaned in disappointment. "Not a damn 
thing?"
	He leaned forward to retrieve the talismans he had brought 
with him, and was mystified to see that the locket was gone. The 
ring lay alone in the center of the cracked mirror.
	Caleb looked into the mirror.
	And Merlyn Ann Temple looked back at him from the 
two jagged halves of the mirror, black eyes boring into his soul.
	"So be it," she whispered.
	Caleb screamed in frustration, pushing himself to stand he 
cursed her.  "Damn you Merly, I want you out, Damn you!!" He 
kicked at the ground near the fires embers, then turned and ran.
	Merlyn's arm emerged from the between the mirror halves, 
feeling around for something to grab onto.
***************************************

	There was a burning sensation in Matt Crower's hands, in 
his healer's hands. The burning sensation began spreading outward, 
seeming to fill up the terrible cold trying to wash through him. 
	But even more to his delight, he could see that the terrible 
wound in the fish's belly was closing up, reknitting itself.
	"I'll be damned," Ben murmured.
	The fish suddenly arched in Matt's hands. Squirming. Alive. 
Its mouth worked wildly, opening and closing in its efforts to negotiate 
this liquidless atmosphere. Matt smiled. He turned on his haunches 
and leaned down to the water. He opened his hand, and the fish 
flipped hard against it and was gone.
	Lucas had his hands clasped against his chin, watching. 
"Finger's still bleeding," he pointed out.
	Matt looked down. The cut in his thumb was still there.
	"You could have healed that too," Lucas said.
	Matt shook his head. "No need," he replied.
	Lucas abruptly unfolded himself from the rock. "Good day, 
Harvard."
	Ben and Matt regarded each other as the sheriff stalked 
away. "Guess I ought to be getting along myself, Doc," Ben said, 
and started after his boss. Then he stopped and looked back at 
Matt, and tipped his head in a friendly way. "We oughta talk more, 
you and me. See you, Doc." And he walked away.
	Matt Crower sat among the rushes awhile longer, looking 
out over the water. He wondered what Caleb was doing, and 
whether Loris was all right, and suddenly it seemed very late in the 
day. 
	He stood up and looked around. Out on the water, his 
trout leaped, a silvery flash exhorting him to get on with what there 
was to do in his life.
	"Got to get a move on," he said to himself, and did.
***************************************

	Matt opened his mouth and said, "I'm never getting into a 
car again."
	And his eyes opened.
	Loris broke into sobs and flung herself on him, kissing his 
face again and again, offering up silent prayers of thanks as his arms 
closed around her and held her tight. The nurse ran for the duty 
station, thinking that once she'd notified the attending physician 
she'd break into the supply closet and raid the Valium. Tonight, 
she deserved one.
	"OK," Matt whispered, stroking his fiance's hair and 
rocking her gently. "It's OK now."
	It didn't occur to Loris Holt to wonder just how much of 
her promise Lucas would-or could-hold her to now. There was 
only Matt's good arms, the reassuring rasp of his laughter.
	For now, for them, the rest could wait.
***************************************

	Selena Coombs stood alone in her bathroom, naked except 
for her wedding veil, regarding her reflection closely, wondering for 
perhaps the first time in her life at the identity of the stranger looking 
back at her. She had been standing here for almost 20 minutes, 
staring into her own eyes, trying to find some touchstone to the 
person she thought she knew there.  
	Her face suddenly twisted with rage. "You bitch!" she 
shrieked.
	But the woman in the mirror changed not at all. She was just 
the same.
	"You fool," she choked, tears flooding her eyes, and she 
looked down at the thing she was holding in her hands. It was the 
small vial from the test kit, two-thirds full of bright, cerulean blue 
liquid. A sound-half sob, half laugh-escaped her.
	"Nothing old," she murmured. "Nothing new." Another 
choked chuckle. "Nothing borrowed-" Her voice wavered, tried 
to break into sobs, and she fought them down, holding up the vial 
to the woman in the mirror, offering it to her like a gift, like a 
sacrifice. "But you got your something blue," she finished.
	There was a sound behind her. Selena turned and cried 
out in shock, dropping the tiny glass tube. It shattered, spraying blue 
water.
	One of her cats was sitting in the doorway-Jezzie, the black 
Tonkinese with the mismatched eyes-and there was a fat, dead 
rabbit hanging from her jaws. An offering of blood to her mistress.
	Selena Coombs regarded the dead rabbit and its killer for 
a long moment. Beneath the tears, a strange kind of hysteria began 
to break across her face.
	"You too?" she asked, and the question became laughter, 
and the laughter became screams.
**************
	The scent of burnt herbs filled Lucilia's kitchen.  She'd turned 
off the fire but was busy making something else.  The whispering 
coming from the basement had become a full voice.  It was a voice 
Mama Lucy hadn't heard in years.  Lucas had taken care of it.
	But what of Lucas?  The Cross line was no longer, his only 
child a pendulum drawn to that Doctor fellow.  And the one person 
he'd strived to put down was back and in her cellar.
	As Lucilla poured the pan of tea down the cellar stairs through 
the crack under the door, she could hear it start to rain outside.
	"Lucilla, he's about to pay for what he's done," the voice 
came, again a whisper.
	"Lucas, my boy, you're slipping."
******************

	Lucas had returned to his office to regain his strength.  It 
was late and overcast, and was about to rain.
	He hadn't expected messing with Harvard to take that much 
out of him, it never had before.  After all, as long as he had his 
daddy's ring--
	His fingers had instinctively gone to the place where the 
ring should be, and it wasn't there.  "'What's that greasy stuff in 
your hair?'"  He ran outside into the pouring rain.
	"CALEB!!!"
*****************

	Caleb ran to the boarding house, his anguished cries 
preceded his movements.   He left everything out there at his old 
house, the mirror, the shawl, the ring.  His heart was beating ninety 
miles an hour, and it only got worse as the rain trickled down and 
got steadily harder.  By the time he'd reached Mz. Holt's house, 
the streets were beginning to flood.
	He swung the door open and didn't notice as Gail the kitten 
brushed up against his leg before heading out.  He ran up to his 
room and burried his wet head under his pillow.
*****************
	There was no light, but Merly was visible.  The rain didn't 
get her wet, but it didn't leave her unchanged.   Her eyes burned 
with a passion and an anger they'd never shown.  From her right 
hand dangled a gold locket, and on her left hand she now wore a 
ring. 

	As the drops of rain hit her, the white dress slowly faded 
to black.

.......The End.

DISCLAIMER: Any story/episode appearing that states it is 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 (apparently).  The characters 
added to support this concept, and the storylines, are the property
of the writers acknowledged as such. PLEASE, DON'T SUE US!!