North (A Robert Downey Jr Fanfic)

"Let it all Go"

"What do you mean?" she asked, knowing damn well what he meant. Her muscles tightened and panic flooded her body. The pot was boiling over.
"The name Tyler. You kept saying it while you were sleeping."

Her eyes began to sting and her chin quivered as she tried desperately to keep everything locked up inside. To no avail, the unwanted tears started pouring and she lost her control. Her deepest secrets gripped her and she found it difficult to breathe. In the dark of her bedroom she paced the floor, trying to figure out how to verbalize all of the swirling thoughts that were crowding her mind. The perverbial can of worms had been opened, the cat was being let out of the bag. She was helpless to stop it.

"Breathe--in--breathe--out--breathe--in--breathe--out," she ran the words through her head.

"Vanessa," Robert said quietly, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
"I never got to say goodbye--she doesn't even know her father! I shouldn't have run--oh my god--I'm a terrible person," her words spewed out in spastic bursts. She was frantic, her eyes wild and scared.
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm not who you think I am," she choked out between sobs, completely coming apart.
He blanched and digested what she said. Was she a criminal? Was she dangerous? No. She wasn't. She was scared, and trying desperately to navigate a scary situation. He stood up and wrapped her in his arms and let her speak, uninterrupted. She was trembling and terrified, he could feel her whole body shaking.

"Penny--She's never going to forgive me," she wailed and pressed her forehead into his shoulder.
"It's ok Vanessa. Just talk to me."

"I'm tired of hiding--I'm tired--" she whimpered into his chest.
"Hiding? From what?"
"Who. It's who, not what."
"You've been hiding from someone? For how long?"
"Since Pen was six," her eyes darted around, frantic and his heart ached for her.
"And is this the first you've spoken about it?"
"Yes."
"Ok, come with me," he said in a gentle voice and took her hand, leading her down to the kitchen.

She sat down at the counter just off the kitchen and he put on the kettle.
"Black or green?"
"Black."
"Brandy or whiskey?"
"What time is it?"
"Doesn't matter. Brandy or whiskey?"
She wearily took off her glasses and rubbed at her eyes.
"I'll take brandy."

He poured her a cup of tea and doctored it with brandy, honey and lemon. She took one sip and it reminded her of the hot toddys that Dorothy used to make for the two of them in the dead of winter.
"Ok Vanessa. First thing. Is Tyler the reason you wake up screaming every night?"

She eyed him cautiously, even though she knew there was no turning back.
"Tyler is my late husband."
He nodded and didn't say a word.
"We used to live in California, Penny and I and him--he was murdered and we had no choice but to leave. Or maybe we did have a choice, I don't know at this point. He told us to leave, before he...died. I watched it happen...a man named Frank," her voice quavered as she relived that night in her mind. Robert reached across the space between them and laced his fingers with hers. She sat quiet and pensive, her mind traveling back to the sequence of events that set her into motion.

"He called me in the middle of the night. I thought he was working. He was panicked-I'd never heard him like that-I didn't know what he was into but it wasn't good. There was a bag in our garage that I didn't know about before, he told me to take it and go. He just told me to go somewhere and that was it...so I went. God I was so stupid," she shook her head vigorously.

"I took my daughter to my friends house on the beach...she was so little. I couldn't just leave it at that though, I went back home to try to find him."
"And you did?"
"I did. They had him tied up--Robert, they were torturing him," the pitch of her voice went high and shaky as she continued, "I tried to sneak in and shoot them but they got to me first. Frank said he'd kill me if Tyler didn't tell him where the money was. He was strangling me...Tyler was badly beaten...so beat up," she whimpered.
"What about the money? That's what started it right?"
"Yes. That's what was in the bag in the garage that Tyler told me to take. Frank was a dealer and Tyler was his driver. Apparently Tyler took a cut from the drugs he muled around and sold them. That's where the money came from, I guess. Frank found out. I don't know how--"
"Then what happened?"
"In short, Frank stabbed Tyler in the chest and I shot him. Tyler died in my arms."