Prologue Author: Linda Wilson AKA ranapipens4ever (rana pipens = bullfrog–love frogs!) E-mail: linda_31467@msn.com Rated: PG-13–some strong language This was begun as a response to Deb's 2003 Holidaze challenge and was intended to be a prologue to a longer story. The story never got written, but as Suzanne Moore kindly took the time to beta read this brief item and pointed out that we all need a Nick fix right now, here it is. It takes place between "Amends" and "All Is Mended." At the time, Nick's future at F&F was more assured than it turned out to be and he and Lulu had not yet learned that Anne was a DS baby. Since it is, indeed, a prologue to the next chapters in Nick's life, the title seems appropriate. Thanks for the beta read and all the nice things you had to say about this, Suz. --+-- A full moon shone on the Allegheny River as Nicholas Fallin stood on the Seventh Street Bridge. Looking down at the water, Nick jammed his hands into his overcoat pockets. I didn't really want to cheat on Lulu. It just–-happened. I didn't stop loving her because I screwed Suzanne Pell. And it sure didn't make me feel all that great, either. Lulu had moved out after Nick had confessed to assignations with Pell, the social worker he and Lulu both worked with at LSP, and admitted that he was once again downing shots of tequila on a fairly regular basis. So much for honesty, Nick thought. I try to be up front and look what happens. She leaves. Sudden resentment surged through him. As if she's so damn perfect. I'd forgive Lulu if she cheated on me. Who does she think she is? His anger ebbed as suddenly as it had come. She thinks she's going to be somebody's mother. She thinks she's entitled to some commitment. She's right. But I'm never sure where I stand with her. She doesn't want to marry me, but she wants to have a kid with me. She doesn't want to marry me, but she wants us to take on a house with a 30-year mortgage–-a house that's too big and overpriced into the bargain. I try to be honest with her, I tell her I messed up, I put in 30 days in rehab, I try my damnedest to apologize to the people I hurt, and she acts like it's nothing. She leaves. With my kid in her belly. Nick felt himself shrug inside his coat. Well, what's so surprising about that? If I were her, I'd leave, too. She's seen enough single mothers at LSP to know it's hard enough to raise a kid without some damn junkie for a father screwing up all the time. Some damn junkie. Nick caught his breath at the thought. Yeah. Fuller pulled out and took Onyx to Kirk & McGee because he wants a certain kind of lawyer to handle his merger. I know what kind of a lawyer he wants-–a clean one. Well, good luck to him–-half the lawyers over there are using, right in their offices. He snickered, but his amusement was short lived. What does that matter? I'm the one who got busted. I'm the one who's on probation. And I'm the one who hears this siren call. I'm just a junkie. I'm a user and a drunk who abandons my own kid before it's even born. The entire universe seemed to come to a complete stop. "Just a junkie. A user and a drunk." "Who said that?" Nick wasn't aware until he heard his own voice that he had spoken the words aloud. I said it. It's true. I can't stay off this stuff. I can't stay off any stuff. You'd think I'd use when the going gets tough, but I started using–-drinking–-when things were going well. So Lulu turned me down once. That didn't mean I couldn't have asked her again. She wants to have a baby–-my baby. We could have gone forward from there, but I had to screw it up. I always screw it up. Suzanne Pell is nothing to me, but do I tell her go away, I'm spoken for? Oh, no. Not good old Lothario Fallin. Let's play musical beds, just to feel better. Yeah. And let's have a drink or several while we're at it, and let's pop a hallucinogen and trip out and have flashbacks while other people are taking my clients to court and closing my deals and let's really show the world what a great lawyer I am. Nick jammed his hands deeper into his coat pockets. He didn't find the gloves he was looking for, but his left hand touched something and without his consciously instructing it, grasped the object. Nick took his hand out and opened his fist. A small ornate flask lay in his palm. He didn't have to open the flask to know what it contained. He shuddered, not from the cold, remembering his recent feverish voyage on a river of hallucinations, memories–-and the feelings they roused–-launched by a dose of Blue Mystic. He looked at the flask. How did that get there? Never mind how it got there, he thought. What am I going to do about it? What do I want to do about it? Nick continued to stare at the flask. Is the rest of my life in there? he asked himself. I know I'm a good lawyer–-I don't need drugs or booze to win a case. But what do I do if landing a big client, winning a case, making a deal that nobody else ever could doesn't make me happy? What do I do if I never have Lulu again? If I don't have a career? Could I make it somewhere else if the firm wasn't there? It might as well not be—-Dad would rather dissolve it than see me take over, and why wouldn't he? Who wants a junkie to run a law firm? Hell, who wants a junkie for a son? Who wants a junkie for a husband? For a father? Why would anybody want me? I don't even want myself. A breeze unusually gentle for Pittsburgh in December ruffled the water into a riot of tiny cats' paws and then subsided. The river's surface was smooth again, a mirror for the moon. The light wind had died. Pittsburgh's early evening traffic seemed suddenly to have vanished. Instead of the usual city noises–-sirens, horns, tires on pavement, truck gears grinding. bus brakes sighing-–there was silence. It seemed to Nick that he was at the center of a suddenly still, suddenly soundless universe. He himself was as motionless as the world around him, his whole being focused on the flask. It lay in his hand–-a hand that seemed to have been carved of marble, so motionless and cold did it feel. I don't want this. But I can't throw it away. I don't have the power. I don't have the will. I don't have the strength. "Help me." Until he heard the words, Nick was not aware he had whispered them into the stillness. "Help me." The air grew more still. The silence was almost tangible. Nick felt rooted to the spot on the bridge where he stood. "Help me." It was a whisper, barely loud enough to reach his own ears, much less anyone else's, had there been anyone to hear him. Nick continued to stare at the flask, its stoppered end pointed toward his fingertips. Then, as he watched, the flask moved. It did not roll off the side of his hand, but seemed to leap off the ends of his fingers of its own volition. It hung suspended in the still air, for how many seconds Nick never knew, and then turned end over end as it described an arc in the course of its fall. It sliced through the water cleanly and was gone, leaving only concentric ripples that spread outward, flattened and died. The water's smooth, undisturbed surface mirrored the full moon once more. Nick realized he was hearing traffic sounds and saw that cars were going by on the bridge traffic lanes again. He shook his head slightly, coming out of his stupor. Still moving slowly, he turned his wrist and looked at his watch. I can make it to a meeting if I hurry, he thought. And I want to. For the first time in my life, I want to. Suddenly infused with energy, he almost ran to his car. ********** "Well," Phil, the group leader said as Nick came in, put his overcoat over the back of a chair and sat down, "who wants to start tonight?" Invisible wires seemed to draw Nick to his feet. He made no effort to resist them. "My name is Nick, and I am a drug addict," he said. The End--of the Prologue