ODDS OF LOVE SEASON TWELVE

Episode 41

Gerald arrived in his car outside Andrew and Glory's house at the same time the paramedics were rolling out a stretcher from inside. A stretcher with an unmoving body laying on it with a thin sheet pulled up to the neck.

Gerald sat in the car for just a few seconds as he stared at the stretcher.

Alfred.....

From the moment he had heard the scream on the phone, the moment he became aware that Alfred had not been alone in the house , the moment that he had almost hysterically dialed 911 he had been moving on what he could only call auto pilot.

He needed this man. He couldn't lose him. As he opened his car door and climbed out of the car his eyes never left the stretcher that they loaded into the back of the ambulance.

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Andrew yawned as he tried to focus on the old ancient magazine he was trying to read in the waiting room as Glory was undergoing another radiation treatment. He was not getting enough sleep. He knew that but it didn't matter. What mattered was taking care of his wife and maintaining a sense of normalcy for his children and stepchildren. He could sleep when his wife was fully in remission. When she was better and out of danger. Then he could rest and relax.

As he flipped the pages of the worn out fishing magazine his phone rang. He looked at it. Faith.

" Hello, my surrogate daughter. How are you?"

Faith said in a hesitant voice," Andrew, are you and Glory at home? Have you talked to Alfred ? "

His fingers froze in mid page turn. " We're at her treatment. She's usually tired after so we're going back home when she is finished. I haven't spoken to him recently. He's staying home from work today. Was not feeling up to it today. Very tired. A lot of pain. Why ? "

Faith hesitated before blurting out," Joy and I were having a late breakfast in the kitchen. We have the police scanner on. There's been a break in at your place. Sounds like an assault. A stabbing......"

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Reese Malden's knee was aching. Falling over the damn dog earlier in the year was rebounding on him and his body. But it didn't stop him from jogging through the neighborhood. He needed to keep himself up appearance wise. His face, his hair, his teeth, his body. It was like what his and Rebel's manager Bailey Mullins always said. The minute , the second, you slacked off the fans would lose interest. And them losing interest was the very last thing he wanted or needed them doing.  His sabbatical wouldn't last forever although he was wishing it could. Eventually he had to put himself back out there. The music. The movies. Sometimes he missed being a doctor but there was no going back.

He headed back to his and Eric's house where to his knowledge his niece should be departing for the bus to Barrington. Hopefully she would spend time on the bus studying for classes because those grades of hers weren't all that well. He didn't think he was succeeding at this whole " fatherhood" thing but maybe he was doing better than Rodney, his brother and Willow's father. Rodney only cared about his scientific studies. Family came last to the man.

And Eric was most likely en route to DC and the investigation office. His lips curved as he pictured his husband with his long soft blond hair and laughing blue eyes with their glint of green in them. He loved Eric Fletcher more each day. He couldn't believe he had once wasted so much time worrying about losing him to the perils of police work when he was with the NYPD. Like he had lost his first partner Nick DiMartino. Of course he did not have to worry as much about that since Eric had gone to work with Gaines. No. Their only conflict was about the amount of time Reese spent on the road touring or filming movies. The sabbatical had moved them closer again though.

His eyes spotted something laying near their house's open gate. What the hell was that? , he wondered as he jogged nearer it. He thought it was just a pile of untidy clothes someone had dropped for some reason but the closer he got the more he realized he was wrong.

Very very wrong......

It was not clothes.

It was...... Eric.......

His legs increased movement as he ran even faster to his side. Eric was collapsed on the ground on his stomach. As his shaking hands rolled him over, expecting his husband to have passed out from chest pains or something like that since they were both in their forties now, he realized that a heart attack was not the cause of Eric's distress.

Eric had been stabbed. He was bleeding badly. There was blood all over the ground and his clothes. And next to him there was a note that read " Number Four". His blue eyes were wide open and staring up at Reese but not seeing him. And in his hand Eric tightly gripped a black ski mask........

" Eric ! ," Reese screamed as he both reached out for his unmoving blood drenched husband and his cell phone.

While he dialed 911 he also held his husband in his arms and cried.