Rollie looked down at his feet and Angie grabbed his arm.

"Listen, Elena…my father is not a dangerous man. He is someone who has a pension for a get rich scheme, you know? Is this drug dangerous?"

"Well, that is not the point here, Rollie. The FDA finds that it is not efficacious but yet the underground advertisements and the label claims it cures something," Elena replied, shaking her head.

"So it doesn’t harm anyone- big deal! That goes for half the stuff on the market today and yet no one screams about those drugs!" Rollie replied, standing up for Dingo, in a way.

"Rollie, it is not FDA approved. There is an alert to all who import that this drug cannot come into the country. But it is getting here and Dingo Tyler is one of the main ways that it comes in. I am no longer in the field. I will however, be sending agents out to find him. I thought you ought to know that."

"Got yourself the chair job now, Elena?" Rollie said, flatly.

"Yeah, it’s nice. Not so much traveling, more management and more time to be at home. Remember that conversation, Rollie?" she replied, snapping as she looked at him, her eyes locking onto his as Angie looked at both of them and then excused herself, pretending she heard Aidan.

Angie could see there was some unresolved feelings there on Elena’s part. She realized now that Elena had come to tell Rollie about his father but also, and probably the main reason was to tell him she was truly available and ready to settle down. She had to admit that there was a pang of jealousy that was stronger than most of his other girlfriends he had seen again. This had started out fun enough, she thought as she peeked in to see that Aidan was fast asleep. She left the room and sat down on their bed. She could see an image of herself in the mirror and stuck her tongue out at herself. She had cut her hair again, not long after the Gregory Lamont stuff. Although it made her feel like her old self again initially, there had been a change to her face.

"I’m not that young thing anymore…" she murmured, checking the slight circles around her eyes, maybe the lines in her forehead were starting to stick around a little instead of just when she frowned.

"You’re still jailbait, Angie," Rollie told her, standing behind her at the door. He was grinning and she had jumped slightly, making a face at him.

"When did you come in?" she asked, beginning to brush her short layered hair roughly.

"Oh, whilst you were busy as the evil queen asking who the fairest was in the land?"

"Hey! If there is an evil queen, she just left!" Angie replied, putting her brush down hard and tried to walk past him.

His arms caught her and she tried to push by him, but he held her firm against the doorframe; "Now Angela…you know that Serrano was a done deal a long time ago…"

"Aha, and that come-on with the time at home stuff now, wasn’t an invitation?" Angie asked, looking up at his surprised face.

"What? You don’t trust me, after all we have been through and said and know about each other?" Rollie asked, his hurt apparent.

"Oh, Rol- I trust you! It’s Serrano! She has a way, you know- like a slithery eel to me...she slides around and then goes in for the kill. She wants you bad, Rol!"" Angie replied, folding her hands across her chest inside his arms.

"Angie, she doesn’t want me, she wants my father! Thought she could come over and get some info from me. Figured I might turn the old buzzard in since she assumed we didn’t get along too well in her eyes."

"No such luck, Rol. I saw her eyes locked on yours. Um, some sack heat there, huh?"

"It was a long time ago, Ange. Besides, you already knew that."

"Yeah, well, it still smarts, you know. I stood back and watched a lot of that while you ignored me."

"I didn’t ignore you, sweetie. I just didn’t know how you felt, well- how I really felt about you. You were my best friend and bloody hell; I’m not going to touch all that again. I am here with you. I have a son with you. I have my life and my eternity with you!"

"How was she?" Angie asked directly, seemingly unmoved by his words and stared at him coolly.

He knew she was going down a path that they had never really gone down together before, in a deep conversation, not a bantering contest.

"Do you want a scale?" he asked putting up his hands.

"No, your words will be good enough," she replied, her eyes burning through him.

"There is nothing to be jealous about, Angela!" he answered, moving away from her.

"I’m not jealous, I’m feeling a tad bit inadequate here though."

"Don’t say that! You not in the least bit inadequate."

"But, I’m not Serrano either in bed, am I?"

"Bloody hell! I don’t remember what she was like, I was sorta into my own thing, you know?"

"Yeah, right!"

"What do you want me to say, Angie?"

Angie knew she had poked him like a sleeping dog too long now. She hadn’t meant to go this far. He loved her, she knew it. He was here with her. She didn’t know why she had just gotten out of hand.

She put her hand up then, and touched his cheek. He jumped slightly at her touch not expecting her to suddenly cool down, change gears on him.

"I’m sorry, Rol. Guess it’s a hormone thing. Ever since I stopped nursing Aidan and went back on the pill, I know I have been a bear. I just feel so unsure about me! God, my body looks like a road map now. I feel beat all the time. I might as well gain fifty pounds and wear a housecoat, watch soaps and eat bon bons!"

He laughed, a hearty laugh and she smiled as he grabbed her in his arms and kissed her softly; "Your body is great. No mom looks like you in the flesh, Angie. You are as buff as ever!"

She looked down and shook her head; "Things are sagging Rollie!"

"Get outta here! If you gained fifty pounds, were wearing your housecoat and eating bon bons, I guess I’d have to join you then, cause I want you- the whole package!"

"Now, about that lunch promise you whispered to me downstairs…" Rollie added, his hand going back to her rump as she smiled.

She whispered in his ear and he grinned, pulling her shirt up over her head as she raised her arms.

"Not a thing sagging here that wasn’t meant to," he told her, flinging her shirt to the floor and undoing the front closure of her bra.

She smiled, her lips locking onto his, as she pulled his glasses from his shirt pocket and laid them down carefully on the dresser. This was the third pair and she wasn’t about to get them broken as well.

They tumbled onto the bed, Rollie’s face against her chest, his hands moving over her breasts as he began to kiss her skin, feel her response in his fingers….

"Your invitation to lunch was much more enticing," Rollie told her later, lying beside Angie, her face almost buried in her pillow as he stroked her back, the curve of her warm hip.

"Thought you might take me up on it when I asked you downstairs in front of Elena…" she murmured as she lifted her face up and smiled at him.

"Well, it was invigorating, definitely calorie free, if not burning a couple…and, makes me want to come back home for lunch again tomorrow," he told her, starting to sit up.

"I want to go back to work, Rol," Angie said, knowing that he had been avoiding the subject since the Lamont affair. At that time, Angie had wanted to just stay home with Aidan. She had felt so violated and ashamed that she had hired him and trusted him. Rollie had finished Derni Magic. He had also worked another film back to back with that one; their bank account starting to grow again but Angie wanted work again. She wanted Aidan with them as well. She didn’t see that it would hinder them, with both of them on the set. Rollie had told her in past discussions that a baby on the set was not good. They always ended their conversation about caring for Aidan like that. She had backed down and he had just left it like that.

"I know you do, Ange. I miss you there. We have to come up with something suitable. Something that both of us will be comfortable with, and not just you working here at the loft on things for me. I know you did a great job while I was gone, all by yourself."

"Oh, never mind, for now…" she moaned, rolling over and then, with a small smile on her face, turned back over and slid her hand over his thigh.

"Angela!"

"I can’t help it! I told you I am hormonally imbalanced!"

"I, well- um, okay…oh God, you are too much!" and he started to lay down, Angie straddling him as he closed his eyes but this time, she made love to him, slowly and in charge….

"We need to get you some work, you’re right," Rollie told her, buttoning his shirt and looking at his watch, "I’m late now! Michael is going to have my head on a platter!" He looked over at Angie who was sitting on the edge of their bed, looking at him like an angel, an innocent one at that.

"So, when are you and Elena going to talk about Dingo’s movements?"

"I’m meeting her at her office- that’s right- her OFFICE, tomorrow. You come with me, if you want. In fact, I want you to…" Rollie said, putting his shoes on.

"Can’t…I have to go over to Sarah’s tomorrow. We have some mom stuff to do together, okay?" Angie asked, smiled and then added; "besides, I think I have sufficiently reminded you that you know I’m your wife, your lover and the chief bottle washer around here."

"Angie, I enjoyed myself today, more than you will ever know, but sweetie, it never was a contest."

"I know…but then again, I just like to have my point driven home now and then," she reminded him, and giggled at her pun.

"Point taken," he replied, kissing her quickly and leaving her there as he rushed down the stairs, grabbing his keys. He grabbed an apple from the counter in the kitchen and rushed out the door, his mind on a thousand things at once. Dingo, Angie, Aidan…and what the hell Serrano was up to now?

Francis returned home late that night. Sarah had his dinner on the stove still, the girls all in bed. He kissed her almost solemnly as he walked into the kitchen. Sarah bent her head and showed him the results of the test. Not only had they lost the case in the hearing today, now this!

As he sat, not tasting his food, but knowing he had to eat something, he stared at the paper. The modern miracle of science was telling him something that he just couldn’t handle right now. Without the results, he could just be depressed and waiting for the miracle. With the results, he had no hope now.

"Oh God, Francis! My little baby!" Sarah cried out, finally letting her composure fall, her tears readily streaming down her face as Francis got up and came over to her. He held her in his arms, kissing her forehead and rocking her back and forth.

"She’s going to be laughed at, she’ll never be able to drive a car…know what it’s like to feel safe again…" Sarah mumbled into his chest.

"Hey, the Dilantin- the other medications…it should control it pretty well, you know. So, she has to wear the helmet for awhile until she gets regulated. We’re going to get through this, okay?"

Sarah looked at him, trying to believe him but with the EEG results and the neurologist’s call that day, she knew more than Francis that this ordeal was just beginning and that regulation sometimes never happened.

They heard a crash upstairs and Sarah was out of the kitchen in a flash with Francis following on her heels. Francis’s two older girls, Rebecca and Ashley were standing over their little sister’s writhing, twitching form in the floor.

"Daddy, make it stop! Make Callie stop it!" Ashley yelled at him, as Sarah sat down in the floor beside her little girl, moving the beds from either side back, giving Callie room. She held Callie’s head protectively inside her lap then, watching her full loss of control and dignity lost.

Francis sat down on the floor as well, near Callie’s feet, making sure they didn’t hit something hard as Rebecca and Ashley clung to his shoulders behind him, peering over and starting to cry in unison.

When the seizure finally stopped, and Callie lay still, stuporous and cold; Sarah wrapped her daughter in a blanket as Francis called for an ambulance. This had been the worst so far, he thought as he knew they would be at the hospital all night. He was supposed to be back in court tomorrow. No one at the precinct knew about Callie and he had hoped to keep it that way for sometime.

His mind preoccupied, the ambulance on its way, he felt useless and having no control whatsoever.

"Daddy…daddy, Callie pee peed on the floor," Ashley was telling him, grasping his shoulder as he came back from his daze.

"It’s okay, Ash- don’t worry about that…Callie had an accident. She’s not going to be punished, okay?" he told his worried little daughter.

His eyes met Sarah’s, her resolve gone now in front of her daughters as she cried bitterly holding onto Callie's head in her lap. Francis grabbed her hand then as he held Ashley's in his other hand. Rebecca got up, hearing the doorbell and let the paramedics inside the house.

 
Once upstairs, they unfolded a blanket, taking Callie from Sarah's arms and putting her on the large stretcher. Francis watched as her tiny body was dwarfed by the stretcher frame. He stood as the lead paramedic called the hospital on radio, Sarah behind him and his other two girls clinging to their parents.