"Oh my God!" Angie voiced in a relieved voice as she sank to the ground, her legs burning with pain from hitting the ground hard, her arms beginning to ache from the climb she had accomplished.

She looked into Rollie’s eyes and suddenly smiled, as his face mirrored hers. He could see her, at least a little. They held each other tightly as Rollie kissed her a dozen times all over her face and shut his eyes tightly, brimming with tears.

"Mangela…" he said, stiffening as Angie put a hand to her mouth. They stood up and looked down inside the collapsed hothouse.

Police were swarming the ground and foliage. They couldn’t see a thing from their view on the roof. Grabbing Angie’s hand, Rollie went back to the door of the roof stairs. Standing against the door was Lucinda. Her eyes were still tightly shut, her face white, her vibrant lips almost the same color.

"Luce! I’m okay!" Angie told her, hugging her tightly as Lucinda gasped and held on to her. Rollie passed the two of them, his mind now on one thing…he couldn’t hear the chorus or the songline that he knew so well.

They followed behind him, Rollie racing into the penthouse, through the swarm of activity inside reaching the door to the hothouse. He paused, catching his breath as he took in everything in a slow, almost horrified curiosity.

Mira saw him first and came up to him, taking his arm in a tight grip; "He’s dead, must have broken his neck. He fell right into his mother’s body. It’s sorta grotesque, Rol. Don’t look over there!"

But Rollie didn’t care about Gregory or his mother…where was Mangela?

"Mangela? Where is he?" Rollie asked, frantic as he saw a clump of police standing near something on the floor. Angie had arrived with Lucinda and their gaze was drawn to the display of Gregory and his mother.

Mira released her grip and Rollie walked over, shutting his eyes and smiled then. No, they were looking at some sort of strange looking statue. Cops, he thought, with a smile, even in the midst of death and murder- they would tune that out for the obscure things in life. He climbed into the tall jungle-like foliage around what remained of the hothouse plants. Mangela was not to be found.

"Where are you, old man?" he called out, worried, unsure and now thinking he had lost his mind. Mangela had been on that roof as well when it had collapsed!

"Who you calling old?" came the voice, and with it, a flood of voices from the People.

He looked over and saw him, behind Luce and Angie. Mangela was none worse for wear, eating what looked like a turkey leg and smiling.

Rollie smiled, relieved, his mouth opened in utter amazement.

"What? Going to turn me in for rifling through their fridge? Had a powerful hunger, Rol. You didn’t think that I would take that spirit road yet, did you? See you got something back as well, sonny boy…" Mangela was grinning as he pointed the drumstick at him.

Rollie looked at Angie, she at him. They smiled, across the noise, the chaos and the world- they were still there and together.

"No, not Angie. She was never gone, Rol- I mean your sight. Looking at me now, aren’t you? See my face, don’t you? Forgot your blindness and went back into the light, eh boy?" Mangela asked him.

Rollie was amazed. In the last ten minutes of his life, he just hadn’t realized that he was seeing again. He only reacted, he hadn’t been thinking. He looked down at his Aborigine father, seeing that Mangela hadn’t made it down in the fall without some injuries. His legs were cut and bleeding and he limped as he came toward him, throwing the drumstick, neatly chewed down to the bone into the plant jungle.

"Come here, boy! You make a father proud!" and with that, he grabbed Rollie in a tight embrace as Angie came up, joining them.

"Come on, Miss Lucinda- come on in here and let me grab on to you. Without you, we wouldn’t be here alive and kicking!" Mangela told her, sensing her feeling outside and alone.

It didn’t take Lucinda another second and she too, was held in the warm embrace of family.

Mira Sanchez looked over at her friends, probably lost to her now with Vanduran’s ill-fated command that they not notify them of Gregory Lamont’s true identity and the stake-out, a miserable mistake now.

Vanduran was still in a take charge mode behind her with Francis busily following his orders and getting order to the crime scene.

Mira closed her eyes for a second, a tear escaping and she quickly wiped it away as she stepped out of the crime scene into the conservatory. She was away from everyone here, as she sat down in an ornate, Queen Anne chair and stared at the material wealth around her. All this and deranged as hell. What a waste! She smiled and jumped as a hand touched her shoulder.

Rollie touched his friend’s shoulder softly; "Thanks Mira…without you matching up that fingerprint, we would have never known about him being here and what he had done to all the others."

"I’m so sorry, Rollie. I should have just told you as soon as we knew…" she said, looking up at him with her large, brown lovely eyes.

He bent down, hugged her as she sighed; "Don’t worry about it. It all worked out, eh?"

Behind her, stood Angie and as Rollie released her, Angie took over, giving her a hug as well. Then Francis walked in and more hugging was done. From the outside wall, closest to the conservatory glass doors, stood Vanduran. He watched in silence, his face showing his remorse and sadly, the loneliness that was his position. He would never fit into that camaraderie, never be one of them. He sighed and looked back at the bodies of Gregory Lamont and his mother.

In grotesque fascination, he thought that the way they ended up together was only fitting. Gregory’s face rested inside his mother’s abdomen, ripped open probably by Gregory during his rage as he murdered her earlier. The broken neck only added a more bizarre angle to his position to her and due to the force of him falling against her body, her arm had been flung up by that force and landed over his head. She now held him in a deathly embrace of maternal belonging.

"Ewww, that’s what I call a twisted Madonna and child," commented the voice from behind him. He turned quickly, and was shocked to see Lucinda Scott standing there. He would have thought she would never speak to him again.

"You shouldn’t be seeing that!" Marvin told her, pulling her to the other side of the hothouse, away from the investigators and other police.

"Why not? It isn’t that gross! Rollie Tyler has created grosser things for the movies," Lucinda said, unabashed.

He looked at her face, saw the hurt there still and closed his eyes for a moment; "But this isn’t a movie, Lucinda. This is life."

"Um, death, you mean. Life imitates art, they say…or is it the other way around? Who cares? Listen, I know you had your rules to follow. Even though they suck, big time, Marvin- I still want you to know something!"

Marvin Vanduran waited for the words. They were always the same. He braced himself for the finality of it.

"Marvin, you gotta get a life, sweetie. This stuff will kill you before you’re fifty!" Lucinda said, laughing.

His eyes fluttered in disbelief. The words were not what he was expecting. Lucinda Scott had not given him the brush off, just the words that he knew were the truth. She took his arm and smiled at him and in front of God and company, he embraced her, not caring as she eagerly hugged him back.

They walked together inside to the conservatory, ignoring the others for the moment. Anyone who had been in the conservatory at the time, would only remember their banter as they walked out;

"Who said I was closing in on fifty? I’m not even forty! I have two years before that!"

"Marvin, you are already talking like you’re sixty, shut up!"

Angie and Rollie rode back in the pool car toward the set. There was someone there waiting, someone there that Rollie had never seen before. Mangela had begged off going back with them, seeking a ride with Lucinda and Vanduran instead, for a trip to the emergency room for some suturing and clean-up.

Driving slowly, Angie wiped some stray tears from her eyes, happy ones at that as she felt Rollie’s hand on her thigh, seeing his head resting against the back of the seat, eyes closed.

Her prayers were answered. Her family was safe and the world was a little bit safer that day. She didn’t want to even think about Gregory Lamont. She tried to concentrate on Rollie and Aidan. As they pulled up to the front gate of the set, she flashed her badge still hanging around her neck and pulled into the motor pool parking. Turning off the engine, she wiped another tear away. She felt like a fountain today, she thought as Rollie looked over at her. The soft, brown eyes drew hers and she smiled. A hundred words passed between them without a sound. His lips touched hers softly as he smiled and kissed her salty cheeks.

"I’m ready for that close-up with our son now," he said as she laughed, hugging him, running her hand through his wavy hair.

"Oh, he’s the spitting image of you, Rollie. Gonna have all this hair, just like you!" Angie told him, and Rollie put his finger to the little dimples in her cheeks that appeared only when she smiled widely. That finger then went down and traced the small cleft in her chin.

"No, he better look like you, Ange. What an angel you are…"

She rolled her eyes, his words too soft and gushy and he laughed, knowing it. They got out of the car and headed toward the F/X van. No one was there. They tried the trailer next and still, no Aidan or Rolph. Not wanting to panic yet, Angie walked over to the director’s trailer, looking along the route, for Rolph. The set looked almost deserted.

"Where is everyone?" she asked, out loud with hands in the air as Rollie tried to see anything past his new found limited field vision.

"Lunch, I guess…" Rollie said, for it was around noon.

They heard talking inside Bret Eastman’s trailer and knocked softly.

The door opened and Rolph Mer stood there, his eyes flying open wide, as he smiled and let Angie and Rollie in. He looked embarrassed.

"I’m sorry. I am not a good nanny. I looked high and low for someone to help me with your child. He was all wet and crying and I find out that everyone in the movies is not good with the babies…except Mr. Eastman here."

Angie was mortified. This is all she needed now, Bret Eastman taking care of their baby. Now for sure, they would be fired. The delays, the screw-ups and now, bringing a baby on the set!

"Ms. Tyler, Rollie! He’s been a bit fussy but once I changed him and fed him, he settled right down, here in the basket." Bret Eastman said, so formally but yet, he was smiling.

Angie sighed, seeing that Aidan looked perfectly content, asleep and happy.

"Thank you, Mr. Eastman. I am so sorry about this… really, I would like to make it up to you, if…?" Angie began but Eastman put up his hand and shook his head.

"No need, it is Angie? Right? May I call you that? Rolph here, has told me a bit about what’s been going on. I must say, the Tyler F/X company doesn’t seem to have a dull moment!"

Rolph looked over at Angie and then, Rollie- his eyes betraying his ineptness with the situation. He could see that Rollie was focusing and looking beyond him, toward the basket.

"Of course, Mr. Tyler! You want to see your son!" Rolph blurted out, stepping aside as he had blocked Rollie’s view of the basket sitting on the table. Angie stepped back, sitting down with Eastman who watched confused, as Rollie Tyler came over slowly and took his first look at his son.

"I want you to know, Mr. Tyler…I still don’t know what is going on with these people, those ones that killed Eckmiller. The mystery is still there. I feel like such an invader of privacy here. You have been so kind and helpful to me as well but I know that with the retinal restoration and neuro networks reconditioned, the photosensitivity levels responding adequately and acetacholine levels back to normal…"

Rolph was running off at the mouth, gibberish to Rollie. He wasn’t really listening. He was looking down at his son, who had been nestled into a wicker basket, surrounded by throw pillows from Eastman’s couch. He leaned in, taking in the beauty and joy of his child. What a wonderful creation he had made with Angie! And it was Angie he saw in his son, from the light, golden hair, to the cleft in his chin. His lashes were long and dark against his fat cheeks as Rollie touched his curled up little hands and touched his toes. They immediately flared and Aidan startled slightly, his arms and legs flying out and then immediately returning to a clenched, fetal position tight to his body.

"He’s beautiful! He’s so much like you, Angie!" Rollie said, grinning as he wanted to pick him up and just hold him in his arms.

"What do you mean, he looks like me? Take a look at that forehead and that nose. That is pure Tyler. And look at that chest! He’s definitely going to have a long waist and body! That’s you! And his feet! Those are yours, love" and she emphasized the word "love" using his accent.

"They are rather large, aren’t they?" he answered, looking at them critically and then down to his own.

"Big feet, gentle heart…" Angie remarked, and Rollie saw the light filter through Eastman’s trailer window, suddenly. They had opened the skylights from the roof of the building, for the afternoon shoot, needing daylight exposure. He could hear the whooshing sound of the engines controlling the apertures as the light got brighter and brighter inside the trailer. It filtered across Aidan and he saw his son jerk slightly, probably feeling the warmth from the light. His little eyes fluttered opened as son and father looked at each other, both with partial sight focused on each other; both, with the light giving them solace.

FINE