After the Fall Ch. 04

Thank you to YukonNights for editing this chapter. I appreciate the hard work.

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When Michael returned to the house, he didn't feel appreciably better than when he left. In some ways, he felt worse. His anger toward Mariah had faded, but his disgust with himself had grown. He still viewed his decision to move forward with the transmitter as the appropriate response to her headstrong recklessness. He wished he had handled it much differently, though. If he had been more patient, she might have come around.

Allowing her to goad him into performing the procedure himself had been a terrible mistake. If she refused to see reason, he ought to have made her stay in her room until she agreed to take the sedative and let Nate administer an anesthetic. Had he kept control of the situation, the device would have been implanted safely in the comfort and privacy of her room. She wouldn't have had a chance to run off after the procedure. He wished he had at least stayed with her afterward so that he could make sure she had everything she needed and that she didn't do anything that might tear her stitches.

His biggest regret was the ugly, ridiculous threat he made afterward. Thinking about it now, he couldn't understand why it ever seemed like a good idea to tell her that the implant included a device that could be triggered to kill her. It disturbed him that he made the threat, but it bothered him even more that such a thought occurred to him in the first place. He hoped she knew he would never do such a thing, but he had to be sure. He had to tell her, even if she didn't want to talk to him.

He hesitated outside the door to her room. The last time he had barged in, it hadn't gone very well. He tapped on the door and got no response. He eased the door open. The lights were off, but the twilight from the windows was enough for him to see she was in bed. She was laying on her stomach, and all he could see of her from the door was her dark hair against the pillow and her arm tucked up next to her face. He took a few steps into the room to try to see her better, but Henry started snarling at him. He backed out quietly and retired to his own room for a restless night.

When he opened the door between their rooms the next morning, Mariah was already sitting up in bed.

"Michael, you said that door could be closed when I wanted privacy. I would like some privacy."

He closed the door without a word. He went to the kitchenette and made coffee. He thought about bringing some to Mariah, but decided against it. It would only give her another opportunity to tell him to go away. He felt awful about what happened the day before, but he couldn't fix the problem by letting her constantly pull his strings.

He decided to spend the morning in the gym. Maybe she would be more agreeable after she was left to her own devices for a while. She didn't have a way to work on the project without him. She might be more appreciative of his company once she had time to realize that.

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Mariah woke to a damp pillow. She flung it away in disgust. It had been years since she had cried in her sleep, and this was a lousy time to relapse. She hadn't had the chance to make sure her face was dry when she heard Michael opening the door between their bedrooms. Without looking in his direction, she asked for privacy. When the door closed, she breathed a sigh of relief and swung her legs over the side of the bed.

Her back still hurt and the muscles in the area around the incision had gotten stiff, but it didn't feel like any cause for concern. A shower would feel good, but she needed to find a way to keep the incision dry. She splashed her face with cold water to wash away any evidence of tears before she ventured out to the kitchenette. The only sign of Michael was the still-warm carafe of coffee. She poured herself a cup before she turned to finding what she needed for a bandage cover.

When she finished her coffee, she constructed a waterproof bandage cover using plastic wrap, paper towels, and waterproof tape from the first aid kit. What kind of weird rich guy bought a warehouse full of plastic wrap when the economy went off the rails? It seemed like an odd choice. She took an extra bandage from the kit, too. The fat cat who bought up all the first aid kits made a better investment, in her opinion.

Once she taped paper towels to the plastic wrap, it had enough body that she could tape it to her back without the plastic curling over on itself. It wasn't her best work, but it was good enough that she could take her shower. Even though she had to avoid allowing water to hit the bandage cover directly, the warmth of the shower was relaxing. When she took the bandage cover and bandage off after her shower to check the incisions, everything looked fine. She could see the incision she made, but the bruising around the area camouflaged it. Michael didn't know to look for a second incision, and she was confident that he would not notice. After she applied a new bandage, she sewed a pocket in another bra for the transmitter.

After she got dressed, she knocked on Michael's door. She wanted to ask him about the schedule for the day. He didn't answer her knock, so she took Henry outside and had a nice romp in the backyard. When they came back in, Michael still wasn't answering his door.

There was a writing desk in her bedroom, and she found stationery in the drawer. She made a list of people she knew who used to work in construction. The list included notes about each person's immediate family and anything that might affect their suitability to come into the compound. When she finished, she tried Michael's door again. Unless he was in there ignoring her, he must have already left for the morning. Either way, she guessed his purpose was to teach her a lesson. The lesson he intended to teach probably wasn't that he was unreliable when he was angry, but that was what his behavior taught her.

She decided to visit the garden. If she could find Seth, he might teach her about natural pest control methods. She hoped he would let her help with the gardening, too. It would feel good to do something useful. The walk to the garden was enjoyable. The sky was a vivid, cloudless blue and the sun was warm against her face. The sun had dried the dew from the top of the grass, but droplets still clung to the dense growth near the ground. Since the weather patterns had changed, May at the foot of the Rockies in northern Colorado had been marked by prolonged flooding. This year, the floods ended sooner than they had in recent years, and by early May, most of the standing water was gone. Now, at the end of May, the hills and meadows were carpeted in the lush growth that followed the rains.

She had been able to replant her own garden in mid-May, and the new plants would only now be coming up, too late for a full growing season. That was another thing she hoped to learn from Seth. The plants in his garden were already beginning to produce. Even if he started them in the potting shed, or even the greenhouse, how had they survived the flooding? He couldn't have planted them after the flooding. The plants would have been too old by then to transplant without shocking them. He must have transplanted them before the flooding, and found a way to drain the water-logged soil.

Seth was happy to see her. If he thought anything was odd about her showing up by herself, he didn't mention it. He let her help him plant marigolds between the cabbages and other leafy green vegetables to keep the cabbage worms away. After that, he explained his drainage system. The most important feature was the natural geography. The garden was planted on a gentle slope, about 900 feet uphill from a creek running through the bottom of a steep ravine.

French drains were buried beneath the garden. The water they collected was funneled into a single pipe that ran below ground and exited the side of the ravine. The garden was protected from flowing surface water by a large, semicircular berm built uphill of the garden, and by angled ditches dug along the sides of the plot. The ditches weren't even visible now that the grass was tall, but they were enough to guide the flow of surface water away from the garden. It was an ingenious setup, but it couldn't be applied to a spot that didn't have similar physical features. It would be important to plan the new gardens and buildings around geography that was conducive to a similar drainage system.

After Seth explained how the drainage system worked, they went through the rows of the garden to pick anything that was ripe. He had started the seedlings in the potting shed at the end of March, so there were already some tomatoes, summer squash, green beans and lettuce ready to harvest. The first radishes, onions and beets had been collected a couple of weeks ago. Cucumbers, peas and okra would be ready soon. They were just picking the last of the ripe green beans when the radio on Seth's belt beeped. It was Michael, asking if anyone had seen Mariah. Seth looked at her before he responded. "She was here earlier. I think she's on her way back to the house for lunch."

She gave him a quick smile. "I guess I'd better be going. Thanks for your kindness and your company this morning."

"I was glad to have the help, and the conversation. Do you want to use the cart I've got here to get back to the house?"

"No thanks. I'll take a shortcut through the field."

She didn't want to get Seth in trouble, so she hurried back. She came in through the entrance in the west wing, and Marcus saw her when she passed the kitchen on the way to the stairs.

"Mariah! There you are!" Marcus was all smiles, but she saw the signs of worry around his eyes.

"Hi, Marcus."

"Michael's looking for you. He asked me to radio him when you got here."

"Okay. Would you mind if I make a sandwich while you do that?"

"A sandwich? Are you sure you don't want anything else? Everyone else had tapas for lunch, and I've got lots left over."

"That must have been good. Have you ever just really wanted something simple, though? I'd really like to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich."

Marcus smiled. "I know exactly what you mean." He found the bread and peanut butter and jelly for her and let her make her own sandwich. He even poured her a glass of milk. He waited until she was eating her sandwich before he radioed Michael.

One of the drawbacks of living in a ridiculously large house is that it takes a long time to get anywhere. By the time Michael arrived in the kitchen, Mariah was licking the peanut butter and jelly from her fingers. Not very ladylike, she realized, but do you really have to be ladylike when you eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? She finished her milk while she waited for Michael to say something. He didn't look happy.

When she put her glass down, he beckoned her to follow him. She supposed he meant it to seem ominous. So, she trailed behind him like a wayward child being escorted to the principal's office. He didn't say anything until they got back to his private wing. Henry came running up for his hug and kiss, but instead of running off afterward, he stuck close to Mariah. He wasn't growling at Michael anymore, but he was keeping an eye on him.

Michael escorted her to her bedroom and closed himself in with her. She wondered if he was going to try to lock her in. He looked angry enough to do something like that.

"Sit down."

She sat. It would have been ridiculous to do anything else.

"Where were you?" Michael demanded.

"You know where I was."

"Why didn't you tell anyone where you went?"

"It didn't occur to me that I should. Who would I tell?"

"Anyone!"

"Okay, Michael. I'll tell 'anyone' next time I go somewhere."

"You're not going to be going anywhere anytime soon."

"Since you've already put a tracking device in my back, it hardly seems necessary to restrict my movements."

He tried not to cringe at the mention of the transmitter. "It's necessary because you do things like running off without telling anyone."

"And you've got a device to track me down if I do. If you think you're going to keep me locked up, I'm leaving, and as soon as I get out, I'm going to have Dr. Becker dig that thing out of my back."

Michael fumed silently. He had backed himself into a corner again. "I didn't say I was going to lock you up. Take your dress off and lie on your stomach on the bed. I need to check your incision."

He expected her to argue, but she did exactly what he told her. It was disconcerting. He brushed her hair to the side and unfastened her bra strap. Mariah tensed, hoping he wouldn't feel the transmitter sewn into the bra. Her bra didn't cover the bandage, so she hadn't expected him to unfasten it. When she felt the tape around the bandage pulling away from her skin, she breathed a sigh of relief.

As soon as he got the bandage off, he could see that her skin was bruised and traumatized. He felt sick. He had done that to her. The black sutures looked spidery and foreign knotted against her skin. He sat down on the bed beside her. "Please don't make things more difficult than they have to be, sweetheart."

He saw her cringe when he used the term of endearment. He stood back up, angry and rejected. It was no use talking to her.

"I'm not trying to make things difficult. I'm behaving as normally as I can under the circumstances. I knocked on your door three times this morning. You were already gone. I finished a list of people in the construction trade. Since I didn't know where you were, I found something useful to do. Then I came back. I don't think any of that merits being so angry with me."

He didn't have a response. The only fault he could find was that she had left without permission and without telling anyone. She probably knew better, but he hadn't told her that she couldn't. It had certainly occurred to him to do so, but if he told her she couldn't leave the house, she would probably have disappeared every time his back was turned, just to be contrary.

Mariah tried unsuccessfully to hook her bra back together behind her back. She got up and turned away from him to get her bra back on, then left to get a new bandage from the first aid kit in the kitchen.

"Where are you going?" Michael was instantly suspicious.

"To get the first aid kit from the kitchenette. I need to get a new bandage so the stitches don't get pulled when I put my clothes on." She wondered how much of an ass he was going to make of himself before he settled down.

"Lie back down. I'll get it." She laid back down, but she kept her bra on.

"Where can I get more bandages?" she asked when he returned.

"I'll get some more, but from now on, I want you to come to me when you need a new bandage. I want to check the incision, and that way you won't hurt yourself trying to do it behind your back."

She didn't argue. It was probably best if he didn't realize how much she actually could do behind her back. There was less risk of Michael discovering the transmitter in her bra that way, too. She would take her bra off before she came to him for a bandage. When he unfastened her bra earlier, he could have felt the transmitter. In the future, she would wrap a little fabric around it before she sewed it in, so that the edges would feel less distinct.

He kept her with him the rest of the afternoon while he marked a line where the wall would go. It was a long process made awkward by carrying it out in silence. There was some spray paint in storage, but he didn't want to use it up spraying the ground. Instead, he used twine strung between sticks he stuck in the ground. At first, he didn't want any help from her at all, but he eventually started accepting the sticks she found. It went a little faster after that, but it was still slow. Twilight was gathering by the time they finished.

It was time for dinner when they got back to the house. He took her with him to the kitchen, intending to arrange to have dinner upstairs. He didn't get the chance. As soon as Mariah saw Marcus, she told him she was going to eat downstairs with everyone else. He didn't relish the thought of letting Marcus know that he was making Mariah eat upstairs, so he joined her in the dining room.

Throughout the meal, she seemed so cheerful that he hoped she might not be angry anymore. She laughed at the funny stories, made her own contributions to the conversation, and smiled a lot. Everyone was obviously enjoying her company. Seeing her easy friendliness with everyone else drove home his own alienation from her. His mood was too sour to respond to everyone's attempts to engage him in the conversation.

When Mariah left the dining room, he followed her to the elevator. She lapsed into silence as soon as they were alone. He watched her as they rode up. Her smile was gone, replaced by a neutral expression. He tried to start a conversation as they walked down the hall, but all he could get from her were short responses that didn't give him anything to work with.

"For someone who won't string more than a handful of words together now, you sure were enjoying yourself downstairs." He meant to be jocular, but he just sounded bitter.

"Not everything is about you or about me. There's no reason to make everyone else in the house uncomfortable. I was trying to be considerate, and the best way to do that was to appreciate their company."

When she got to her room, she called Henry and Duncan in and shut the door. He tried to watch a movie in the lounge, but he couldn't concentrate on it. He went down to the library, but came back up when he couldn't focus on finding a book. The evening crept by as he bounced around between episodes of Law & Order, Stranger Things, and Tom & Jerry. When it was late enough to try to sleep, he knocked on Mariah's door to bring her to bed with him.

When she opened the door, she stood blocking the opening. "Was there something security-related you wanted to discuss?"

"No."

"Secrecy-related?"

"Mariah..."

"Do you want sex?"

"No!"

"I think that covers my obligations. Goodnight, Michael."

She closed the door. He would have yanked it open and dragged her into his room if he trusted himself not to shake her until her teeth rattled. Sleep was out of the question after that. He went down to the gym for another workout. By the time he made it back to bed, he was no closer to figuring out how to deal with her. As he was falling asleep, he realized that he never told her there was no "kill switch" in the tracking device.

They fell into a pattern over the next week. Every morning, Mariah came to him to get a new bandage. She always asked about plans for the day. It kept the project's progress on track to some degree. They were at the point where they needed a staff meeting to discuss the project, but Michael was in no mood. She found other ways to be productive.

When Michael didn't have Mariah with him, she was usually off doing something with one of the staff. He refused to let her use a computer to look up anything on the Elite Central Database, so she gave him lists of things she needed to research. That was how she got plans for beehives and chicken coops. She and the twins finished the beehives and placed them around the property. The chicken coops had to wait until the location of buildings was decided.

Whenever Mariah disappeared, he found that if she wasn't with a staff member, she had told someone that she had left for a walk, or to pick flowers, or whatever her excuse du jour was for roaming around outside. It seemed she told a different person each time, no doubt her twist on her agreement to "tell anyone" when she went somewhere. Giving her a radio didn't help. She never outright refused to carry it, but she always left it behind. When he made her go and get it, she left it behind again at the first opportunity. He gave up on the radio and started keeping her with him all day long so she couldn't run off.