Dark Days

Love Game

©JRF2016

Reid rolls over to see his girl still sleeping. He leans over and kisses her cheek careful not to wake her up before he slides out of the bed. He kept thinking about all the stupid mistakes he made and how close he came to losing her, and the twins. He walks over to the crib to see both of the babies already awake and squirming around. He picks up one in each arm and walks down to the kitchen with them. Darrick had found a breast pump on his last run, Reid smiles remembering the look on Darrick's face as he handed it to Rachel. She had immediately started stockpiling milk for the twins yesterday. "Now you can help feed them, Chief." Reid had smiled at her while deep down he secretly just liked watching her with them. Reid stoops down stiffly as he holds on to his babies and sets them down on a blanket on the floor. He pulls a pot from under the counter and fills it with water and then starts it to boil. As he waits for the water to boil and the bottle to warm he plays with the twins on the floor. They each had a kung-fu grip on his fingers and were sucking on them. "You're really hungry, huh, guys." Reid whispers to his youngest children. Braylon looks up into his daddy's eyes and smiles causing Reid to smile back, Sophia is content to just suck away on his finger. "I could have really messed this up," Reid confesses, "Your mama is an amazing woman. She forgave your daddy for being a complete jackass, you know that?" Braylon cooed and now Sophia looks up at him. The water was boiling now as Reid pulls the babies' bottles out of it and tests it on his wrist. "Perfect," Reid said as he puts one bottle to Braylon's lips and the other to Sophia's. The babies immediately started chugging the warm liquid, "That's what you wanted, huh? That's the good stuff." Reid leans down and places a light kiss on each of the babies' foreheads. "They're really hungry this morning," Rachel said as she sits down behind Reid and slips her arms around his waist kissing the back of his bare shoulder, "Listen at them go to town on those bottles." Reid turns around to face his beautiful wife and places a kiss on her forehead too. "I wanted to let you sleep in this morning since Darrick found that pump."

"Don't worry Chief, I'm well rested." The moment alone was short lived as everyone else in the house was starting to stir. Reid holds Braylon in his left arm and Rachel in his right as she holds Sophia. Reid looks around at the rest of his family and smiles before leaning over to whisper to Rachel. "We are so lucky. Look at our big, happy family." Darrick, Cathy and Jenny were sitting together. Chi and Martha were huddled together on the opposite end of the table and even Conner and Cearra were snuggled together. Charlie comes in last with Gracie and sits down in the center of all of them.

Conner looks over at Riley and he pulls her closer to himself wrapping an arm around his daughter, comforting her. "So what's up with my niece? Am I gonna have to kick some ass or what?" Darrick asks causing Riley to look up at her uncle and crack just a small smile before darting her eyes to Charlie and then back at her feet. Everyone notices but no one says anything. Reid and Rachel sit next to Charlie when Reid puts an arm on the back of his chair and stares at him, waiting for him to speak but he doesn't. Conner stands up, "Well, I gotta get outta here, I promised Mason I'd take him out for some target practice." Cathy nudges Darrick and nods to his brother but Darrick just drops his head. Cearra stands up with him and leans in to give him a quick peck. This time Conner pulls away and gives her a simple half nod as his eyes look at the rest of the group before walking to the door. Riley still sits there staring at her feet as her dad leaves and she recalls everything that happened with Tommy, again. She hasn't been able to stop remembering since it happened, she is so scared of him now but she doesn't want her dad to know that she is still so terrified.

{Riley's full recollection} After Rachel came back without Lisa and they told everyone what had happened, or the version that they needed to know anyway, Tommy had moved in with Rose. She didn't have family anymore either; she was really lonely and jumped at the chance to take Tommy in. He and Rose had instantly bonded because of that one simple fact, they were both missing their families and lonely. I went over to Rose's to see how Tommy was doing. He sat on the bed silent. I sat down at the foot of the bed in his new room and leaned against the wall. Tommy scoots down beside me and started kissing my neck. His hands started roaming my body making me really uncomfortable. I wasn't ready for this so I pushed him off of me. "Tommy, I can't." I told him. He sighed and scooted to the top of the bed leaning against the wall. "Well, then what do we do?" I shrugged and he laid his head on my shoulder smiling up at me. He put his hand on my thigh and squeezed it before running up to my groin. "Tommy stop." I told him pushing his hand back. He buried his face in my neck and sucked. I pushed on him but he overpowered me. He started pulling at my clothes as I pleaded with him to stop. I finally was able to move my leg up hard enough to his groin for him to fall off of me and onto the floor. I sat up on the bed watching him writhe in pain for a minute before I started to leave. On my way out the door though he grabbed my ankle causing me to face-plant on the floor, he crawled over me spewing curses. "Enid was never this uptight!" He now sat on my stomach and cracked his knuckles, "I guess I'm just going to have to teach you how you're supposed to behave. You don't tell me no, when I want something you give it to me." His teeth ground out his words as his fingers dug into my cheeks. He released my face from his grasp and raised his hand up over his head, I closed my eyes tight and braced myself for the blow. Before he could bring it down on me with all his wrath but I felt his weight come off of me as he was knocked backward onto the floor. I heard the sounds but I was too scared to open my eyes and watch what was happening. When I did sit up Charlie was standing over him with Tommy's blood dripping off his fingers. He turned to me, "You okay, Riley?" I nodded as he helped me up. "Let's get out of here. We need to get you cleaned up anyway."