To Have and To Hold

Chapter 23

When he came back into the room, Lisa was not in the bed, scaring the crap out of him. His heart dropped - crashing his good mood.

"Where...?" All feeling left his toes and his head felt dizzy. This was one adrenaline rush he did not need.

"Oh, she is in the bathroom with another nurse, helping her to clean up."

Holy shit! It's ok, Mike. She's just getting cleaned up. She is ok...She's ok...

The mantra was repeated over and over like a prayer.

Feelings returned to his chest again, loosening the icy grip that had squeezed his heart. God-he was so afraid to take his eyes off her. How in the world would he manage to go back to do a concert? She was so vulnerable.

"Should she be up already?"

The bathroom door opened. Lisa peeked out.

"Yes, she should. And she just got her catheter out and can use the big girl's toilet. So she can the fuck go home."

Michael looked at the nurse. "Can you please tell Miss Presley she just had surgery and needs to be taken care of by professionals?"

The nurse chuckled. "Well, mostly, it's a good sign when our patients want to go home."

"Yeah, tell him. Plus, why'd you say 'professionals' with such 'tude, Michael?"

Lisa slowly walked over to her bed, then decided to sit in the armchair instead. Did she have to act all strong and bad-ass? She needed to lie down, not prance around.

"No reason...Shouldn't you be in bed?" He was not going to get into his suspicions in front of the staff. They seemed nice enough, but he knew there were spies everywhere.

"You are so sweet. Did your wife teach you nursing tricks? - You know," she looked over at the nurse who was collecting charts and was ready to leave the room. "Mr. Jackson here is married to the word's most wonderful nurse. She exceeds in getting her patients to marry her. And she also is a specialist in in-vitro fertilization."

The nurse looked a tad bit uncomfortable. Yeah, he knew the feeling. Debbie always caused him similar discomfort. Which was why she mostly anywhere but with him. She had really only been around for the recent photo-opp on March- and then would join him for more publicity shots in France later in June. Since she basically had forced his hand to sleep with her, he had not been able to stand her around much. Hard to imagine he had once considered her such a close, selfless friend.

The nurse took Lisa's blood pressure one more time and he took the opportunity to wander around the room, looking at the flowers he had sent. Smelling them, arranging them, admiring their beauty. The unique, natural beauty as well as the fragility of their colorful vibrancy once again made him think about how accessible Lisa was to the forces of evil. Like a new, tender bloom, the destructive hail kernels of their misguided hatred could crush her in one clean sweep. Michael knew they hated him. He was well aware that they at first supported Lisa's relationship with him to lure him in- to add him as a feather in their mad-cap. A feather made of green-backs. In their greed they had neglected to notice that he played them just as they thought they were using him. He needed their support to get Danny to back off.

Then, as it became evident to them that he was not going to join their cult, they started to pressure Lisa to get him in- or leave him. At the same time, he started his more subtle campaign to return her to the faith her father supported. Elvis had hated them- called them out for being the bastards after his money he knew them to be. But they were so much more than simple money and power hungry lunatics. Much more dangerous- and not to be underestimated.