Ghost of a Chance Ch. 11

His mind and vision swirling, his equilibrium shot to Hell and pain stabbing through his brain, Trent staggered backwards as his feet lost their purchase. His legs caught the edge of the roof's side railing and started his tumble.

"NO!"

Tom shouted and got to his feet as fast as he could, but his leg wouldn't allow him to reach Trent in time. Brenda jolted forward, her arm outstretched to grab at Trent's coat, but her weakened condition wouldn't let her get any kind of a solid grip. The fabric slipped out of her grasp, and she screamed in terror.

His arms were flung back, the case of money and the gun flying out of his hands, his legs kicked up from the weight of his body forced by gravity to fall back... and Detective Robert Trent cried out in fright as he tumbled over the side. Tom managed to get to the edge... only to see Trent's body flailing about as a blank, dark, human shaped blob fall to the base of the building, screaming all the way down and with nothing but six stories of air to stop him before he hit the ground with a sickening wet thud.

Brenda couldn't move, couldn't even breathe as she stared at the lifeless form sprawled out on the ground below, the grappling gun slipping from her hand and clattering on the roof.

I killed him, she thought. Oh, God; that's not want I wanted. It wasn't!

Tearing his gaze away from the grizzly sight, Tom focused his vision on Brenda, but the only thing he could see of her was a solid black cut out of her form.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

Brenda just peered over the side... and froze, her bottom lip trembling and with tears oozing out of the corners of her eyes.

"Brenda..."

Still no response.

"Brenda, God damn it; answer me!"

She shook herself out of her trance, gently holding her forearm but couldn't avert her eyes, "I'm... okay. I think... my wrist is broken."

"We have to get down there, right now." Picking up her grappler and reeling it in, Tom started to hobble towards the stairwell, but stopped when Brenda didn't move.

"Brenda?"

She kept staring down... and crying, "...I killed him."

"You were defending yourself... and me," Tom spoke calmer but forcefully, "It was either him or us. Now, we have to get down there before the cops show up."

"But I caused it," she wept, the tears coming faster, "It was my fault!"

Tom grabbed at her form, finding the strap of her bullet proof vest, and pulled her to him, "C'mon!"

She blinked a few time, startled into attention, and began to slowly move away from the edge of the roof. Tom cradled her under his arm, and the two of them helped each other to the access shaft and carefully down the flight of stairs, wincing with every step.

Finally reaching the bottom, the pair of heroes staggered out of the building and onto the surrounding grounds, spotting the case of money along the way to their destination. Reaching the spot of impact, Brenda hung back, too terrified to get any closer, as Tom took in the scene spread out before him.

The view he had was different than the one on the roof, the tinting of the night vision changed. He peeled off the goggles, and saw...

The body was lying at an awkward angle; one leg twisted into an impossible skew, definitely broken. One arm outstretched, the other tangled under the chest with a pool of dark red seeping out from underneath... and the head cranked around and facing in the wrong direction, the face splattered with blood and the eyes wide with shock.

Brenda, seeing the horrid sight, backed away and immediately threw up.

Tom simply dropped to his knees and stared at the horror lying before him, but making sure he took it all into his mind. He realized that he and Brenda had just discovered another attribute of the rings' abilities... and this time, discovered it the hard way.

"The rings don't work," he muttered, shaking his head, "...if you're dead."

For a long moment, all Tom could do was sit there, staring. Brenda, wiping at her mouth, finally found the nerve to approach the nightmare of a scene and touch her partner's shoulder.

"Tom... we have to leave," she whispered, deliberately not looking at Trent's twisted body or his shock frozen face.

Shaking himself out of his thoughts, he nodded to her and leaned over the body. Delicately lifting the one hand still accessible, he removed the ring and muttered its Latin phrase. He slipped the ring on and vanished, leaving only the twisted remains of a police detective in sight.

Now with his partner within his altered sight, Tom and Brenda limped back to their car they had left some blocks away, their masks tucked into their belts and unseen by anyone that happened to be looking.

But there was no one, at least not yet. They heard sirens off in the distance closing in on the civic center and, after a minute or two, police cars and ambulances roared passed the unseen heroes with their horns blaring and lights flashing.

Neither of the pair said a word as they made their way through the dark streets of the city; not because they didn't want to give themselves away to anyone that happened to be walking that time of night, but because there wasn't anything to say.

* * *

Tom stretched, careful not to aggravate his healing wounds, as the sun started lighting up the bed room. He turned his head towards the other pillow, and found the space in his bed empty. Gingerly getting up, Tom slowly sauntered out into the living room and towards the kitchen, following the smell of coffee already brewing.

He was alone in the house, but knew where she was; the same place she went every morning since they got home after the fight with Trent.

After changing out of their costumes that night, the couple drove to an emergency room to see to their wounds. The medical staff wheeled them into trauma rooms and went to work on them, inserting IVs, administering medication and painkillers, and taking X-rays. Once done, the attending doctor asked what happened to them.

Tom and Brenda, already having a collaborating story worked out before they arrived, told him that they were attacked by a couple of muggers. Tom said he got one of them off of him and tried to get the other when he grabbed Brenda, but the punk pulled a gun and shot him in the leg. He then said they got scared and ran off with their wallet and purse.

The cops were called in, took their statements, and said they'd get back to them if they had any leads, but it didn't look hopeful; Tom telling them it was dark and they didn't get a good look at either of them. The ruse worked, and they spent the night at the hospital being kept for observation before being sent home. They were particularly concerned with Brenda, looking traumatized and frazzled, but understood her frightened condition considering what they believed happened.

Three weeks went by as they recovered from their ordeal, taking their medications, changing their bandages (Brenda's wrist wasn't broken; just sprained, so no cast), and taking it easy. The main thing they didn't do was to go out into the night as Ghost and Ghoul, both agreeing that they should take a break from their hero work, given the circumstances.

Tom simply relaxed, hobbling around on crutches for the first week or so, and kept track of the news. It was flooded with reports of the incident at the civic center for the first week, revealing details of what might have happened. All they were sure of was that a major drug gang was gunned down and their operations were halted; the rest was speculation, so far.

The authorities were still probing into the part that Detective Trent played in all of it. They still weren't sure if he was the one who thwarted the gang's deal by taking out their leader and was killed during the incident, or if he was in on it with them and was killed when the deal went sour.

The reports said that the investigation would take months to complete, and the investigators in the case were still gathering information to analyze before they would make any kind of a determination.

There was a rumor circulating that the mysterious Ghost and Ghoul 'vigilantes' were involved as well, but the authorities immediately dismissed and debunked that 'myth', stating that, if any police officers were illegally involved in the drug buy, they made the whole thing up to divert attention away from their activities. Tom had no doubt that they were referring to Trent, but couldn't say 'officially', having no proof yet. That was the only mention of the heroic pair and, from that point afterwards, the news updates on the whole incident were appearing now fewer and farther between.

Brenda did her share of relaxing as well, but she had no interest in the newscasts; she had no interest in almost anything for those three weeks. She just sat in silence, ate very little, slept even less, and would only answer Tom in one or two syllable words, meekly and saddened.

She only did one thing with regularity, and Tom let her go, knowing that it might do her some good. Today, he decided to go talk with her. He left her to herself up until now, figuring she needed some time alone and would probably open up and talk to him when she was ready. But it had been almost a month and he was growing worried; he needed to bring her out of her self-imposed isolation.

Grabbing something out of the cupboard, he walked out the backdoor and into the yard, being mindful of his bandaged leg.

Sitting on an old tree stump that had been worn down over the years and made into a kind of bench, was Brenda. Naked (the only exceptions were the squares of gauze taped to her body) and with her hands resting in her lap (one wrapped in an elastic bandage), she sat with her eyes closed and facing east letting the morning sun warm her skin. Neither she nor Tom, naked as well minus the bandages, was invisible, not bothering the use the rings, for there was no one to see them way out in the countryside.

Tom sat down next to her and quietly said, "Hey."

Brenda opened her eyes and looked at him, weary and drawn, "Hey."

He held out his hand for her, and she surprised him by taking it into hers.

"Did you take your pills this morning?"

She nodded at him.

"Are you feeling better?"

"Pain's almost gone; my muscles aren't stiff, anymore. I can move my wrist again."

Again, she shocked him, for that was the most amount of words she had said in weeks. He laid his hand on her cheek, being careful not to aggravate the healing bruise that marred it.

"Are you okay, now?"

Her lips quivered a bit at his question, and moisture was building up in her eyes. Surprising him again, she slowly leaned into him and wrapped her arms around him. He gently took her in his arms as she laid her head next to his and started bawling. Tom just held onto her, rocking her back and forth and letting her get it all out of her system.

"It's all right, Brenda," he whispered, cradling her shaking body, "It's all right; I've gotcha... I've gotcha."

Brenda hugged him closer to her, afraid to be let go but knowing Tom wouldn't, sobbing into his shoulder.

"My fault," she sniffled.

"Brenda..."

"All my fault."

"Brenda, it wasn't..." Tom started, but she didn't let him finished.

"No!" She lifted her head and glared at him with tear soaked eyes, "It was my fault! God, I didn't mean for that to happen; I didn't!" She was getting hysterical, "I killed him!"

"No, you didn't!" Tom forced in, "It was an accident!"

"I caused it; I caused it to happen! He'd still be alive if I hadn't..."

Tom took her face into his hands and forced her to look at him.

"Brenda, listen to me!" he shouted, but squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself to calm down and lower his tone, "Listen to me: you didn't do it on purpose. You had no way of knowing that was going to happen."

But Brenda kept shaking her head, "If I hadn't hit him in the head... if I'd aimed somewhere else..."

"...we'd both be dead right now," Tom finished.

"But..."

"No 'buts', Brenda. You acted out of self defense and self preservation. If you hadn't done something to stop him, he would have killed us; he definitely would've killed me. You couldn't have known ahead of time it was going to go down the way it did."

Tom let go of her face and took her in his arms, "What happened was terrible; I feel bad about it, too. I didn't want that to happen any more than you did, but it just happened. It was an accident... and that's all. You had no intention of making him fall; an accident, nothing more."

Brenda's lips still trembled a little, but her tears had stopped rolling down her cheeks.

"Come here," Tom whispered, as he held her close to him, her laying her head on his shoulder, "You did what you had to do... and I'm grateful for it, because this time... you saved my life."

Brenda lifted her head up and sat back to look at Tom... and a small smile curled the corner of her mouth.

Tom smiled back, thanking whatever god was listening that she was finally coming around, "Feel better, now?"

She nodded, sniffing away the last of her tears.

"What do we do now?" she asked.

Tom got serious with her and looked her in the eye, "If you don't want to do this anymore, we'll quit... right now; today."

Brenda thought about it for a long moment, but afterwards shook her head, "No... I really don't want to quit. We're helping people... we're helping this city, and I like the feeling I get when we do something good. Because we are doing a good thing," she sighed and shrugged her shoulder a bit, "I guess... I guess I just need to get my confidence back; 'get back on the horse'. I just want to take things slow at first, until... until I'm really ready. Okay?"

Tom flashed a loving smile at the woman he loved and simply said, "Deal."

Her bright smile came back after a long three weeks, and she hugged him with the love that was in her heart. But she had to stop when she flinched at the pain in her side.

"Oh, I'm sorry honey," Tom said quickly, easing her back and steadying her.

"Guess it's not all gone, yet," she said, still smiling, "I think we need more time to recuperate."

"I had a thought about that," said Tom, reaching for the 'something' behind his back he got out of the cupboard earlier, "We need a vacation; someplace nice, someplace far away from all the headaches until we're both ready to be the Ghost and Ghoul again."

Brenda gave him a confused look, "But we're already on 'vacation'... sort of."

"Okay," he replied, bringing out the 'something' and fighting every impulse not to get nervous or back out, "then how about... a honeymoon?"

Brenda's eyes widened when she saw what was in his hand, then her jaw dropped when he opened the small, black velvet box and revealed... a golden ring with a squared diamond topping it.

Tom removed it, took Brenda by the hand, slipped the diamond ring onto her finger nestling it next to the power ring, and a tear fell down his cheek as he looked into her wet eyes.

"Brenda, I love you with all of my heart," he said, taking both of her hands into his, "You're the one I've been searching for, the one that filled the empty spot inside of me, and made me happy again... the one I want by my side."

Her smile got wider and tears wouldn't stop running down her face, this time tears of joy, when he asked...

"Brenda...will you marry me?

...to be continued.