97 - Hold Me 'Til the Morning Comes

“Daddy?” 

Stephanie’s voice was whispering in his ear, and Jon shook his head at the tickling sensation.  “Mmfh.”  It seemed like he’d just gotten to sleep.  He tried to flip onto his back, but there was something there preventing it.  The warm presence against his front prevented movement in that direction.  He was trapped.

The memories came rushing back.  Petey coming by late last night and saying she killed Daniel.  His arm tightened.  She was the warm presence.  Her back was nestled against his chest, and she was using his right bicep for a pillow.  He lifted the arm that was draped over her middle and wiped the sleep from his eyes.

Taking her to his bed hadn’t been a reasonable option, as he didn’t like the picture it presented to the kids, and leaving her to sleep alone was totally out of the question.  The compromise had been sleeping on the couch, both of them still fully clothed for propriety's sake.

Sleeping on the couch hadn’t been as bad he would’ve expected.  When he finally got up, his back would likely scream in protest, but as for actual sleeping, he’d slept pretty well.

Shouldn’t that scare you a little bit?  Just because she’s with you, sleeping on a couch isn’t so bad?

He ignored the bitchy voice in his head that sounded remarkably like his mother.

“Daddy?” Steph whispered again.  “Mom’s on the phone.  She wants to talk to you.”

He’d never called her back, or tried to track down Tony, last night.

When it rains it pours.

Turning his head as best he could, Jon squinted up at his daughter, who was hanging over the back of the couch.  “What time is it?” he asked, not bothering to check his watch.

“Nine-thirty.”

When he nodded his head, the back of his hair made scratching noises against the leather arm of the couch.  Holding up a hand, he waited for Stephanie to press the phone into his palm, and she promptly disappeared out of his line of sight.  Speaking low so as not to disturb Petey, who still hadn’t moved, Jon allowed an apology to suffice as his greeting. “Hey, Dottie.  Sorry about last night.”

“No big deal,” she said, and he could hear traffic noise in the background.  She was out and around early this morning. “I’ll assume you didn’t get a chance to call Tony?”

“Nah.  All hell kinda broke loose and it got away from me.”  After they'd determined that Daniel wasn't dead, they'd spent the better part of the night talking.  He refused to entertain the idea that Daniel wouldn't captured right away, and he didn't want Petey aware that he'd issued orders to use whatever means necessary to make it a painful capture.  Deadly force had been encouraged, as a matter of fact.

To avoid those topics, he'd asked about her electro-whatever-it-was mind reading.  The details were way the fuck over his head, but it kept her distracted as she systematically worked through the mechanics of it for him.  It was better than the recitations that she'd been starting into.  Those made Jon feel helpless, which he hated.

“I know the feeling about hell breaking loose.  I just left it and your mother.”

Dorothea wasn’t feeling sympathetic this morning.  Tony's taking a powder apparently wasn't sitting well.  He got that, but wasn’t making the connection to his mother.  “What?”

“Never mind,” was Dottie's brusque reply before continuing on matter-of-factly.  “All you need to know is that I’ve threatened to keep the kids away from her if she can’t behave.  I’d appreciate your cooperation and support."

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.”  Why did he feel like he’d come into this scene somewhere around the mid-way point?  It was early in the morning, sure, but it's not like he was dealing with a hangover.  There was no reason he shouldn't be able to follow this conversation.

His rising decibel level roused Petey, who stirred next to him.  Jon inched the arm from beneath her head and carefully rolled over her, wincing as his back contorted into the muscular pretzel he had predicted.  Feet flat on the floor, he gingerly unbent himself while Petey blinked sleepily up at him.  He reached a hand out to touch her shoulder and murmured, “It’s just Dottie, Sugar.  Go back to sleep.”

She nodded her head and burrowed her cheek into the cushion, wincing when it came in contact with the area that was an ugly purple.  She flipped onto her back and ran exploratory fingers over her face, and Jon’s brows knit with anger.

He hoped there was plenty of deadly force going around.  Professor Plum was going to have to cough up some serious-ass retribution for his inability to keep his hands to himself.

“You’re in bed with her?”  Dot was huffing in her own fit of anger.  “You can’t keep it in your pants on the rare occasion that your children are there?  Jesus, Jon!”  The fact that she was pissed at his mother wasn’t doing her disposition, or him, any favors. 

Shuffling off toward the kitchen, he waited until he’d stepped through the doorway before sniping, “For Christ’s sake!  You have no idea what went on here last night, so don’t start jumping on my ass!”

Dorothea grunted with frustration.  “Fine. You're right.  I’m sorry.  Your mom flipped my bitch switch in a major way.  What happened last night?  Why did Petey turn up on your doorstep so late?”

“No.”  Jon blew out a breath and tried get a stranglehold on his inner asshole.  There was no reason to fight with Dottie.  “I’ll tell you in a minute.  First, tell me why you’re threatening my mother.”

Did she just growl?

“Tony told your parents we were seeing each other.  Would you like to hear your mother’s reaction?”

“Not particularly, but you’re gonna tell me anyway, aren’t you?”

“Damn skippy I am.  She wants ‘Anthony’ to stop trying to live your life and get his own woman.”

Jon squinted and turned his head to the side, like a cocker spaniel, trying to figure out what Dottie just said.  It had to have been something besides what he thought he heard come out of her mouth.  “She said what?”

“She would like to see him make an original decision for a change and not settle for your leftovers.  I’m paraphrasing that last bit, but the intent's the same.”

“Lord, God, Jesus,” he muttered, squeezing the bridge of his nose with the beginnings of a headache.  His mother had always offered Jon her undying support, but sometimes she was the consummate stage mother.  

“I told her she didn’t have to like it, but she had to at least pretend to, because I wouldn’t let her poison the kids’ minds with her bullshit.  That’s where I need you.  I don’t care how you feel about me, Jon, but your brother doesn’t deserve that.”

No.  Tony didn’t deserve it.  If Jon had to pin the differences between him and his brothers on one thing – or person – it would be Mom.  She didn’t mean to, but she was always measuring what his brothers did against his accomplishments, even when they couldn’t be measured by the same yardstick.  He loved his mother, but sometimes she could be a little much.

“I’m on board,” he agreed with a sigh of frustration.   Like he didn’t have enough on his plate.  “I’m sorry, Dottie.  I swear to God I don’t encourage this shit.”

Dorothea’s sigh was bigger than his.  “I know you don’t, but you can help dis-courage it.”

“Alright.  Tell Tony I’ll do what I can.  I’ll give her a call when I get a chance, but I have more important stuff to deal with at the moment.”

“I’ll tell him if I ever find him,” he thought she muttered.  “What’s going on with Petey?  Oh, and your mother knows you have a girlfriend now.  Sorry.”

Fuck.

That was a bridge he wasn’t ready to cross yet.  Not that he was going to listen to his mother’s well-intentioned advice, when he already knew it was going to consist of ‘watch out for gold-diggers’.  He didn’t feel like subjecting Petey to that yet.  Hell, he was almost fifty years old.  He was not taking his girlfriend home for Mommy’s approval.

“Whatever.”

He proceeded to inform Dorothea about the circumstances behind Petey’s unexpected arrival last night.  When he’d talked to her on Friday, he had skimmed over a lot of details, including Petey’s specialty electrodes.  That was partly because he didn’t understand it, and partly because it was unnecessary. 

Considering that there was a psycho on the loose who had seen his kids, he no longer considered it unnecessary.  Dorothea had a right to know the whole story if there was even the slightest chance that the kids could be sucked into this mess.

“Don’t you let anything happen to my babies, Jon Bon Jovi,” she threatened him without hesitation.  “I want security at the house until this nut is in custody.  Understood?  And not the bungling idiots who let Daniel in Petey’s apartment.”

Propping his backside against the sink, Jon crossed his ankles and folded one arm over his waist.  “They’re my babies too, Dottie.  I’m not going to let anything happen to anybody.”

“Tell that to Petey.”

This was the beauty of her being an ex-wife.  He wasn’t obligated to listen to her bitching.

“I’ll bring the kids home later, and we’ll discuss the details then.  I’ll even see if I can get in touch with Tony if you’ll put the broom away.”

The other end of the line was silent, without even the sound of traffic or the car’s engine.  She must have arrived at her destination. 

“Tony’s sitting in my driveway, “she informed him coldly, not impressed with his reference to her being a witch.  “I’ll keep the broom.  Security Jon.  Today.”

And then phone went dead. 

Jesus.  Couldn’t he do anything to suit anybody?

“Daddy?”  Stephanie was hovering in the doorway with troubled blue eyes.  How much had she heard?

Fuck again.

“Yeah, Baby Girl?”  He extended an arm and offered her phone. 

She accepted it and tucked it into her crossed arms.  “What happened to Petey’s face?”

“Did you hear me on the phone with your mom?”  Her blonde head bobbed in confirmation.  “How much did you hear?”

“Just the very end.  That you’ve got people looking for some guy.”

“C’mere,” he ordered softly, opening his arms to her.   As mature as his daughter was, it was times like this that reminded him she was still just a kid.  Right now, a scared kid.

As her arms twined around him, he brought her head to cradle against his shoulder.  “You already know Petey is a very smart woman, but she’s more than that.  She’s an actual genius.  The details are over my head, but she invented something that somebody wants pretty bad.  He broke into her apartment last night looking for it, and she wouldn't give it to him.”

“He did that to her?” she asked in a small voice.

His grip tightened in a silent assurance that Daddy would keep his little girl safe.  “Yeah, but she did worse to him.”

“What are you going to do about it, Daddy?”

Facilitate his death.

“I’ll make sure he’s taken care of,” he assured her with a kiss to the temple.  “Nobody hurts me or mine and gets away with it.”

Stephanie put her hands in the center of his chest and leaned back so that two pairs of identical blue eyes reflected off one another in a mirror image. 

“Promise?”

“Yes.”  He gently tapped her on the nose with his index finger.  “I promise.  You don’t have to worry about a thing.  Daddy’s got this.”

If not, there will be a row of heads on a platter.

“Jon?”  Now Petey was hovering in the doorway, looking rumpled, sleepy and battered.  Jon’s heart pinched in his chest and his blood resumed the simmering that it had begun late last night. 

‘If not’, my ass.  I’ll have heads on a platter anyway.

“Your phone was ringing.”  His phone was in her outstretched palm.

Stephanie had twisted around at Petey’s first word and now broke out of his arms to scurry across the kitchen and wrap Petey up in a hug.  “I’m so sorry you were hurt.  Daddy promised that he’ll take care of everything.  He won’t let anything else happen to you.”

Scooping up his phone, Jon offered Petey a tender smile and wink.  Her eyes were enormous, wet pools as her arms tentatively returned his teenager’s hug. 

“Oh, honey, you’re very sweet, but don’t worry about me.  I haven’t looked in a mirror, but I’m sure it looks worse than it feels.”

While Petey reassured Stephanie, Jon inhaled deeply, commanding the rage to subside.  There was no one here that warranted his anger.  What they needed was the polar opposite of anger. 

Tapping the button that would bring up the call log on his phone, he saw that has mother had begun blowing up his phone while he was talking to Dorothea.  No doubt she wanted to make sure he wasn't going to let Dottie keep the kids away.

I'll be returning that call when Hell freezes over.  If she calls back, I'll try and answer, but I'm not calling her.  Sorry Dottie.

He was grateful to see that she wasn't the most recent person trying to reach him.  His security guy had called less than two minutes ago.

Here’s a good place to vent my wrath, he thought bitterly.  Jon touched the screen and dialed back the missed call.

If he doesn't tell me exactly what I wanna hear, he’ll experience Italian temper like he's never experienced it before.