Chapter 9

It seemed to take hours to make the trip back to the front of the house. The front door had been left open for us, so I went in and used my sister's legs to close it behind us. As quietly as I could I walked down the hall to the stairs, climbed up and carried her into my room where Lilly and Peggy were waiting for us. They took one look at me and grimaced in unison. I moved past them and heard the door shut securely as I layed her out lengthwise on the bed.

I stepped back and rolled my shoulders, getting an unpleasant series of snaps and crackles for my efforts.

I headed for the bathroom, but Peggy had beaten me to it, anticipating my intent, emerging with a steaming washcloth in her hands.

She silently pointed to one of the high backed chairs next to the dresser. I changed direction, taking a seat and extending my legs fully, flexing and wiggling my toes.

Peggy gently washed the dried blood off, taking special care not to touch my nose.

"No matter how hard we try not to, we always end up hurting you." she said in a tiny, mournful voice.

"Does seem to be the way things work." I agreed. With my one good eye I shifted focus, watching Lilly remove Isabeau's jacket and boots then returned to see tears falling from Peggy's eyes.

"I think your nose is broken."

"I think you're right. Just do the best you can with it. Won't make much difference; I wasn't very good looking to begin with."

Peggy frowned at me for an instant and then surprise replaced it in a flash.

"You believe that, don't you?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "I know what I see in the mirror. I know what people say when they don't think I can hear them. I know what they feel when they meet me for the first time. I'm a freak of nature Peggy. Always have been, always will be."

She shook her head sadly then climbed up and straddled my thighs, hands on my shoulders for balance. When she had settled in where she wanted to be she took both hands, placed the edges between my eyes and the bridge of my nose.

"This is gonna hurt."

"Damn little in life doesn't. Let's get it over with."

Her palms came together on both sides of my nose, clamped tight and pulled down and out, shifting and sliding the broken ends until the two sections fit back together.

Tears flowed from my good eye, which I kept locked on my tiny little doctor's pixyish face. She wore a mask of determined professionalism, but under the facade I could feel her broadcasting fear, uncertainty ... and pain of her own.

When she'd finished she slumped back and lightly slapped both hands on my chest. I released the deep breath I'd been holding and wiped the tears from my good eye.

Peggy flashed a relieved grin at me. "You're still one of the most devastatingly handsome men I've ever seen. No matter what you think."

I reached out with one hand and cupped her cheek, rubbing my thumb over her soft skin.

"Only one of the most?"

She rolled her head, pressing into my palm and sighing softly.

"Well, Johnny Depp is awfully cute."

I sat up straight and pulled her against my chest, my hands on her back and ribs.

"Thanks Doc."

She shuddered once then started crying like a baby. I looked over the top of Peggy's head and saw Lilly sitting beside my sister's unconscious form, tears running down her face as she watched the two of us.

I put one hand under Peggy's butt and stood up. She locked her legs around my waist as I carried her over to the bed and sat down on the mattress. I shifted Peggy to my right and lifted my left arm. Lilly got up and sat down next to me, pressing her face against my left nipple, throwing her arms around my back as well as Peggy's. The pair of them sobbed and blubbered in unison for a good ten minutes.

There was nothing for me to do but sit there, hold them and wait for the rainstorm to pass.

So there I was ... two women weeping in my arms and another stretched out next to us unconscious.

Once their sobbing subsided to a subdued series of sniffles I took a deep breath thru my mouth, ignored the throbbing pain in the middle of my face and started asking questions.

"When did you three tie yourselves together?"

Peggy tilted her head back to look up at me. "You saw that?"

I should probably explain something here. I talk about seeing things like emotions, rings, links, and many other types of physical items when I'm linked with people. The fact is that I don't actually see anything.

Anyone who's ever worked with their hands knows what it's like to work blind; reaching into a space where you can't use your eyes to remove or install a screw, nut or bolt. You're familiar with the tool, you know the size and shape of the hardware and you can feel with your fingers where it is or has to go. In your mind you see what you're doing, visualizing from experience.

That's pretty much the notion I'm trying to convey here. The images I see aren't physical, but my familiarity and experience with a wide variety of feelings and emotions allows me to visualize. But there have been times I've come across something I had no reference for ... and that's when I end up like the three blind men who had never seen an elephant and tried to describe it having only touched, respectively, the tail, the trunk, and an ear.

"You saw that?" Peggy asked; hope lighting up her pretty face.

I nodded. "Yes, I saw."

"I did it the day after you married Anya and David. Before we all left to go on our date."

"Why? Why would you even think about doing something like that?"

Lilly turned her head to the side and looked across at Peggy. "Peggy and I made some promises to Izzy, before we took your rings and agreed to be with you. The biggest promise was that the three of us would be sisters, and that we would share everything ... including you."

"Ike, a huge part of Izzy's trouble is that she's always felt incomplete. I don't understand it exactly, and neither does Lilly, but for Izzy it's as real as if her arm had been cut off. She told us that first day, after you got hit by the car, that she finally felt complete. We were all so worried and scared and afraid ... so Izzy told us stories about you as a little boy, about how mean she was, about how you grew up alone, feeling unloved. And then she told us about having a twin sister who died at birth, and how when she got older she realized that, in some weird way, both of you were feeling similar things, but for different reasons."

"My sister decided that the two of you were going replace her missing twin? Do you have any idea how bizarre that sounds?"

"Not just us Ike ... you too."

I shook my head. "Yeah, I saw that ... but I don't understand it."

Lilly sighed. "Izzy also told us that day about when you were thirteen. She fell head over heels in love with you. With her little brother. You helped fill the emptiness that she'd always felt. You made her happier than she'd been in her entire life. And more miserable."

"She knew it was morally wrong and illegal." Peggy continued. "As happy as you made her, the desire and love she felt weren't enough to overcome the guilt. She was terrified that you'd hate her for what she'd done. So she did the only thing she could, under the circumstances. She ran away and tried to put her feelings for you behind her. We all know how well that worked out. When she hooked up with Ricky, Izzy was still trying to fill the emptiness. She thought she was doing the right thing."

"Must be genetic." I muttered.

Lilly patted my chest with one hand and lightly brushed her lips across the nearest nipple.

"She was thrilled to death when you came home to free her from that rat bastard prick. But at the same time she was also scared stiff, thinking you'd hate her for what she'd done, and for what she'd let him do to her." Peggy giggled suddenly and blushed. "She told us, in rather explicit detail, about how she begged you to forgive her. You nasty boy!"

Lilly snickered.

"Let's get back to the three of you tying yourselves together, shall we?" I prompted.

"If you insist. So ... let me see. Oh yeah ... so you two were together again and she was happy and you were happy, except that you told her about me and Lilly and she got scared. Part of it was because, even though she knew you loved her and were in love with her, she still felt incomplete, and part was being afraid that we might take you from her. When you brought her to meet us we clicked. Not right off, but as the day went on we got closer and closer. After you got hurt we pulled together as if it were the most natural thing in the world. She admitted to us that the two of you were lovers. I told them about waking up naked with you, and about the spanking you gave me. Izzy really seemed to like that story. Lilly told us about how you sat outside her room and made her feel better, about the woman with post-partum that you rescued, and about the two of you kissing in the basement. We all thought that was very romantic. At first Izzy was in a complete panic; terrified and convinced that you were going to die. But the longer we talked and swapped stories the more relaxed she got, and that's when the three of us..."

Peggy stopped and took a deep breath.

I smiled to myself. Click.

"The three of you made love, right?"

They both nodded their heads.

"I don't really like sex with women very much, but with Izzy and Peggy it seemed right. It wasn't so much sex as it was a way for us to be as close as we could get. More than right, it was important and necessary. I don't know how else to explain it." Lilly said, gaining confidence with each word.

Peggy grinned and wiggled her butt, shifting her legs so they hung down between mine. "I don't know if I liked girls before I woke up next to you, but the first time I saw Izzy I knew I wanted to kiss her all over. I hadn't felt that way about Lilly until the three of us started making out. Now I think that, except for you and maybe Johnny Depp, I only like women."

"Tell me why you tied yourselves together." I said, trying to get their stereophonic monologue back on track.

"Right ... so, we made love and it was right after that she told us about feeling incomplete and her twin who died. She told us that she didn't feel that way when the four of us were together. She said she loved us and wanted us to be sisters. Ike, I never had a family, not a real one. I jumped at the chance. Lilly felt abandoned by her husband and the rest of her family was gone. Izzy told us we'd be our own family. Sisters forever. We talked it out and agreed that if it was okay for one sister to be in love with her brother it would be okay for all three. What was good for one was good for all. We promised that we'd do everything together. Lilly wanted babies, so we agreed to have at least one each. We'd share the man we loved and no one would be jealous of the others. That's why we panicked when you brought Anya home. We were prepared to share you, just the three of us, but even the idea of someone else being in the mix made us freak."

I raised one eyebrow, keeping my facial features as bland as possible. Lilly and Peggy both paled marginally.

"When you married Anya and David we got the idea of creating our own bond, and making our promises to each other permanent. Peggy figured out how you did it and used the sparks in our rings to tie us together the same way you did them."

Click!

"It was amazing! I could tell what Izzy and Lilly felt sometimes without linking to them." Peggy said breathlessly.

"I could tell what Peggy and Izzy were feeling too ... not everything and not all the time, but enough to know that the bond was real."

"But... ?" I asked, drawing the word out, waiting for the other shoe to land.

Peggy frowned and Lilly grimaced.

"The empty feeling came back with a vengeance ... only this time it wasn't just my problem ... we could all feel it." my sister said weakly.

Lilly pulled away and rushed to Isabeau's side. Peggy hopped down off my thigh and raced around to the opposite side of the bed and crawled up next to my sister.

"How're you doing Izzy?" Lilly asked softly.

I rotated around, swinging my legs up and over so that I was facing the three of them. My sister flinched as she sat up and got a look at my face.

I looked at Peggy and smiled. "Told you I wasn't good looking."

"You're going to look like a great big white raccoon." Peggy said, as if it were her fault my nose got busted.

I tried snorting with derision. Bad idea if you have a newly broken nose.

"Ah well, maybe the kids will get a laugh out of it." I said, wincing. "Why do you think the empty feeling returned after the three of you bonded?"

Peggy looked on the verge of tears again. "I messed up." she admitted.

Lilly and my sister shook their heads. "No, sweetie. We messed up. None of us realized what would happen once we were tied together. How could we?" Lilly said soothingly.

Click, click, click!

I may be slow and dense as anti-matter sometimes, but eventually I do catch on.

I held up one hand, as if stopping traffic. "Okay ... I see where this is going."

My sister met my one good eye with her bloodshot pair. "Do you, little brother?"

I exhaled, swung my legs over the edge of the mattress and got up. I started pacing back and forth along the foot of the bed.

"Yeah, I get it. I finally get it. What I don't get is why the hell it always has to be my fault."

"Honey," Lilly said, "it's not your fault. If we hadn't done what we did everything would probably have been fine. We just didn't think."

"I tried to break the link, but I had about as much luck as you did fixing Anya. It's a done deal and we're stuck with it." Peggy said.

"You had your sisterly bond, but I was left on the outside." I said, making a determined effort to shorten the length of my strides.

"We were incomplete... again. And this is where it gets ugly, for all of us. We had committed ourselves to one another, for good. Do you understand what I'm telling you Ike?" my sister asked me.