Chapter 37: Our love lines grew hopelessly tangled

Sheridan woke up, and Chanda was gone, leaving him with their newborn daughter, still unnamed. She's on maternity leave, so it's not like she had to rush off to work. Sheridan calls her, demanding an explanation.

"It's not going to work, Sheridan," she says.

"You're just giving up without trying?"

"I'm sorry."

"We can work this out, Chanda."

Chanda sighs, and sobs. "No, Sheridan. Leave me alone!"

He senses she's about to hang up, "Wait, Chanda!" he calls out to her. She hesitates. "The baby. What do you want to name her?"

Chanda groans. "You name her," she says, barely able to speak through her tears, and she hangs up on him. Not satisfied, Sheridan calls again, but she doesn't pick up.

Sheridan takes his rage out on the training dummy. Rex watches his son, and remembers the frustration he often unleashed on this dummy. Of course Rex just suffered from writer's block, his son has issues that run far deeper.

His father interrupts his training to offer advice, talking nonsense about transformation and rebirth, and some crap about the Chinese character for crisis and opportunity. None of that is going to get Chanda back.

"What's her name?" Rex asks when he's done with his spiel.

"Chanda said I should name her," Sheridan says. Rex stands looking at him, waiting for a name. "I'm not naming her. Chanda should do it, she's her mother," he says stubbornly.

"You should have a name, little one," Rex says, holding his granddaughter, "How do you like 'Thessaly'?"

His friend Lane called to tell him he saw Chanda at Bamboo-Zle, so Sheridan rushed out to see her.

"Chanda, come home," he says by way of greeting, "We love each other, we can make this work."

"It's over, Sheridan," she says, her voice slurred. She's obviously had a few.

"I'm not giving up that easily, and neither should you!" Sheridan shouts, "Think of your daughter."

Thinking of her daughter makes Chanda cry. "What - what did you name her?" she asks meekly, sobbing.

"My Dad has been calling her Thessaly," Sheridan says, "But it's you who should give her a name."

"I'm leaving," she says, and walks away.

Sheridan is not letting her go so easily.

"Come home," he whispers, pulling her close to him, "I need you. We need you."

Chanda lets him hold her for a minute. She'd like to be held this way for the rest of her life. But her decision has been made, and every moment she spends with makes it harder to live with.

Chanda pulls herself forcefully out of his grasp and runs from the bar.

"I'm going to get her back," Sheridan promises his daughter, "I'm going to bring your mother back to us."

Demond has rounded up the informant who alerted the cops to their last, failed heist.

"No one squeals on Demond Riley," the vampire says, "Punish him."

Sheridan isn't doing this just for his boss. it's personal. That bust was how Chanda found out about Sheridan's connection to Riley. It's unreasonable to blame his relationship's failure on this man, but Sheridan isn't exactly in a reasonable frame of mind.

Demond keeps his back turned while Sheridan does his dirty work. He's a thief and a criminal, but he abhors violence. And bloodshed; it arouses his deep predator nature that he's striven to suppress as a vegetarian vampire.

Reining in his own urge to attack, to sink his fangs into the informant's throat and suck him dry, Demond thinks about his upcoming date with Teresa Roth.

Trusting Sheridan to get the job done, Demond leaves before his suit gets too dirty. Violence is so messy!

Dulce becomes a young woman.

As much as she wants to avoid Sheridan, Chanda has to come for Thessaly's birthday.

"You look great," Sheridan says, and steals a quick, soft kiss before she can stop him. And this is exactly why she wants to avoid him, he never  gives up and he never backs down. That's one of the qualities she loves in him.

A hint of ink peeks above the hem of his shirt; he's gotten a new tattoo. It's all Chanda can do to stop herself from ripping his shirt off. She misses him far more than she had anticipated.

The family starts gathering for the birthday celebration. Tamsin and Rex are both overjoyed to see what might be the seed of a reconciliation.

Thessaly becomes a toddler.

Chanda politely thanks Tamsin for the invitation. Tamsin insists she always welcome here, anytime, stopping just short of begging the girl to move back in with them and marry her son.

"I'm sorry you couldn't spend more time with her," Sheridan says as puts Thessaly in her crib, "But she's exhausted."

It's amazing how tender he can be, Chanda muses, when he's capable of such violence. She saw what he did to the informant, Dickens. Of course Dickens won't talk, he won't ever say a word against Riley or his crew again, so no arrest was made on that assault. But everyone knows that it was Riley's doing, and that Riley never gets his own hands dirty. It's also well known that Sheridan is Riley's right hand these days.

"Chanda," he growls her name, husky and needful. It shouldn't surprise her, really, that his nature is so two-sided, when she knows she's not all that different. When they brought Dickens in, blooded and broken, she was turned on, knowing it was Sheridan's hand that broke him.

She doesn't try to stop him when he grabs her, tugs a handful of her hair and kisses her with forceful passion.

She doesn't protest when he carries her down to his bed and unleashes his tempestuous, tender love on her. Hasn't she been fantasizing about this since the night she left? Her common sense is powerless against her own desire; she wants him and she will have him.

"This shouldn't have happened," she says, the voice of reason piping up after the desire, sated, sleeps satisfied.

"It happened because we belong together, Chanda," he says, getting up to stop her from leaving him again, arms wrapped tightly around her waist.

Chanda kisses him lightly. "I've devoted my life to locking guys like you up," she says, "I can't help loving you, but I can't live with you."

"I can't live without you," he says, but she's already walking out the door.

It takes all her strength, all her will, to walk out of his house again.

"I'm going to get your mother back," Sheridan says to Thessaly, "She's stubborn, but I'm going to get her back."

In the twilight hours between the end of Chanda's shift and the start of Sheridan's, the meet at the park to watch their daughter play. Chanda prefers meeting somewhere where they can't possibly end up in bed together.

But a bed is not required for him to make a move. Just a touch of his hand against hers is enough to kindle the deep connection between them.

She sighs and leans against him, letting him wrap an arm around her.

"It's not going to work," she tells herself, but she's not listening.

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Challenge Notes:
I feel bad for poor Dickens, SP moves him into my town and the poor slob gets pummeled just because he's there.
I built a room beneath the Red Shed bar (which the Enmity family owns) for that fight scene. Getting Demond to go down there and stay there during the fight was a bitch.
But, Fight number 2 is completed, and for once it isn't Sedrick Moldonado.

Sheridan has maxed his Athletic skill, and he's gotten huge. Not my thing, lol, but I guess Chanda is into it. For his hobby/obsession, he's still working out everyday, and also working on martial arts.

Dulce moved out a little than 24hrs after aging up. But, she didn't start her job during that time, or do anything to help in terms of challenge stuff. And, we bought her a house that cost over 100k, gave her a Bwan Speedster and transferred 20k to her household after she moved. Her boyfriend Duane has aged up two days after her and they immediately married. Dulce went into Journalism, and Duane is a freelance painter.

Again, title is a lyric by Nick Cave.