Solace

I wish to thank my amazing team. Girlinthemoon, Norafares, Hal, Pixel the Cat, and GeorgeAnderson. Harddaysknight is my mentor and gives me critical review. Sbrooks103x also gives me a pre-post read and I'm very grateful. My team is the best in the business and I love you all.

Author's Note: My friend, Oshaw has written a story called "Grief" that left me an emotional wreck. I felt, when I read it, that I could write a companion piece. This is that story and I dedicate it to my friend. Thanks for the hours of entertainment you have provided readers.

*****

Life with Lucas was everything I ever dreamed it would be. Lucas was my husband. We'd been married for six years. He was my heart. I thought I was happy before I met him. I was happy. I was just out of college, healthy, good job, and I had just moved into the apartment I'd wanted to live in ever since I moved to Santa Barbara.

I was working on a new microchip for Consolidated Silicon Systems. Chips get smaller and faster every day and this was going to be epic. Lucas was part of the software team we were working with. I thought he was hot the first time I saw him. He had this curly mop of dark brown hair, olive skin and the most amazing hazel eyes I'd ever seen. He was huge, probably six-four and very muscular. His arms were massive and he made me hot just looking at him.

I hoped he'd notice me. I'm a little noticeable. My hair is the first thing people usually see. It's very long, about halfway down the back of my thighs. It's very light blonde, almost white, and people usually stop and look. The rest of me isn't bad either. I have nice boobs, not huge but not little either, and they stand up pretty nicely. I work out a lot. I'm five-ten and I weigh 130, so I'm not a small girl. I have blue eyes and pale eyebrows and eyelashes. I hate them so I put mascara on the eyelashes and dye on my eyebrows.

He did notice me, evidently, because after three weeks of working together he asked me to lunch. I cursed inwardly, because that was the one day I couldn't go. I had an appointment with the government contractors for lunch. I asked him if he would give me another chance the next day and he smiled the most beautiful smile I'd ever seen.

"Sin," he said, that's me, Sinclair Buckley, "I'd wait a thousand years to take you to lunch."

I know I blushed. "Thanks, Lucas, but I'll probably be hungry before then," I said.

He laughed. "Yeah, me, too," he said. "Lunch tomorrow, it's a deal."

He talked to me quite a bit for the rest of the day. He didn't just look good, he was a fun guy. He was witty and charming and I wanted to get to know him more every minute I talked to him. He took me to Panera Bread Company and we talked so much we nearly forgot to eat. We were five minutes late when we got back, but no one noticed. We went to lunch three times and he asked me to dinner. It was Friday night and he took me to a club. It wasn't trendy, it was classy, one of those where you had to be a member to get in.

There was a band and a small dance floor and we danced half a dozen times. We sat in comfortable chairs and talked with some of his friends. He introduced me and we had a great time. That was our first date. He took me home afterward and kissed me goodnight. He was a perfect gentleman and I was looking forward to going out with him again.

After three months, we were exclusive and in another month, we wound up in bed. I'll have to confess to not being very experienced. I'd only been with two men up until that point. I wasn't a slut and I needed to be very serious about a man to go to bed with him. My first time had been on prom night my senior year of high school with the guy I'd been going out with for two years. I figured out that night that there was no future in that relationship. It was painful, brief and he didn't give a damn about me feeling good. It was wham, bam, thank you ma'am, and he rolled off and went to sleep. I never went out with him again.

The second was my junior year in college and it went on for a while until he offered to share me with his roommate. He went to the dump, too. Lucas was a different breed of cat. This was my dream guy. He sent flowers the night we finally made love. He picked me up, gave me wine, dinner, dancing, music and more romance. By the time we got back to my apartment, I was like a cat in heat. My panties were soaked and my nipples ached. I pulled him inside at the door and tried to melt him with kisses.

"Lucas, I think I'm in love with you," I told him. "Take me to bed and make love to me."

"Are you sure, Sin?" he asked me. "I don't want to screw this up. I think I'm in love with you, too, and I'm not pushing you into anything."

I pulled up my dress and pushed his hand between my thighs. He had to feel that heat and moisture. "Does that feel like you're pushing me?" I asked.

He laughed. "No, I guess not." He pulled my dress up and over my head, stepping back to look at me. "God, you're hot, Sin," he breathed. "I think you fit your name."

I led him in to my bed. He began stripping off his clothes and he was being too slow. I helped him. When he was down to his boxers, he scooped me up like a baby and laid me gently in the center of the bed. His eyes were burning coals, devouring me, and I was so hot I felt light headed. He climbed up onto the bed, straddling my legs and his body covered me. His lips were hot and wet against mine. He was a fantastic kisser. I've been slobbered on by enough mouth-breathers over the years to know. He was gentle but insistent, his lips crushing mine as his tongue slipped into my mouth. It was a long passionate kiss, scalding me, and driving me wild with wanting him. His hands slipped under me and I felt him fumbling with the clasp of my bra. I arched my back, giving him access and he slipped it off, baring my breasts. My nipples were achingly hard, throbbing and craving his touch. His mouth left mine and I wanted it back. It did other things, nibbling down my neck with a tantalizing slowness, making me shiver as he reached the little hollow of my collarbone. He teased me with his tongue and lips, circling my nipples, just grazing my areolae. I groaned in frustration and tangled my fingers in his hair, forcing his lips onto my nipple.

He sucked it in and sparks flashed through my body. This was what I had been waiting for. All my life I had been waiting for this moment, this man. This was right. He tormented me with his lips, his fingers, his tongue in my sex, driving me over the top, again and again, until he moved up to sink inside me. He felt huge and I groaned out my ecstasy, giving tongue to my pleasure. I cherished my fulfillment, his great weight on me and in me until the night rang with our voices and we slept, twined together, one heart, one soul.

We made love at least once during the week, and on the weekends, we hardly left the apartments. He had a nice place over an art store and we spent a lot of time there, too. We had been making love for nine months when he told me we were going out on a Friday. He told me this was going to be special and that I should dress for a formal occasion. He rang the doorbell and I answered. It was unusual because he usually just used his key and came in. His jaw dropped when he saw me. I had on a midnight blue dress he had never seen before. It was off one shoulder, had an open back and a slit up one side that went dangerously high. I had on stockings and you could see the lace at the top when I moved just right.

"Oh, my God, Sin," he gasped. "You look absolutely gorgeous!"

"Thank you, Sir," I said. "You look very nice, too." He had on a black tux with a purple shirt and a matching bow tie. He offered me his arm and we went out. A limo was parked at the curb and it whisked us off to dinner. It was delicious, but I felt like everyone was staring at me. The limo was still waiting when we finished dinner and we went to a play. It was a farce and we had a blast. We were among the last ones out and we stood in the lobby for a minute. He finally turned me around to face him and I noticed he had pulled on white gloves. He knelt on the floor of the theatre lobby and opened a velvet box. There was a ring inside with a huge sapphire in it, surrounded by four small diamonds.

"Sinclair, will you marry me?" he asked.

It was the happiest moment of my life. We got married on April 20. We had a large wedding. My father gave me away and his mother was sitting there crying tears of happiness the whole ceremony.

We started our married life with a trip to Mexico. It was beautiful. My Dad had lived there for years and he stayed in my apartment while we had his villa in Monterrey. We stayed for two weeks and went home. After a year, we felt like we were financially secure and emotionally stable. I wanted two kids and he wanted three. I wanted to have them early so we would be able to enjoy them for a long time. My parents were older when they had me and my mom passed when I was nineteen. Dad was still in good shape, but I wanted our kids to have parents for a long time.

Life was strange for me. I heard my girlfriends at work talk about their lives and they didn't resemble mine in any way. The talked about cheating on their husbands, going out and getting high, picking up strange men in bars, how exciting their lives were. I just quit hanging out with them. They invited me to "girls" nights and out for drinks after work. I had one thought: going home. If I wanted a night out, Lucas was very happy to provide that for me. If I wanted to go out for a drink, he was glad to go with me. Those women were either married to anal orifices or they were said orifices themselves.

My sex life was amazing. Lucas was an amazingly inventive lover. He was always horny and he took me wherever he found me whenever the mood seized him. I had trouble keeping clothes on around the house because he was always taking them off. I had to go around picking up my clothes constantly where they would be discarded in random places. He could make me come almost by looking at me. When he was actually inside me, it was the closest thing to heaven I ever hoped to find.

I think the man worshipped me. All I had to do was mention something I liked and he tried to make that happen. Once, when a guy wouldn't stop hitting on me at the gym, I mentioned it to Lucas. He went with me the next time. The douche bag was there, working out on the bench.

Lucas walked up and stood by him until he finished his set. "Hey dude, you don't mind if I squeeze in a set, do you?" he asked.

The guy really didn't want to get up, you could tell by the expression on his face. He had been doing sets of three by five with 185.

Lucas loaded four plates on and squeezed out five reps with 405. He sat up and blew for a minute. "Hey baby," he called me over to where they were working. He introduced me as his wife and I could see the guy getting nervous.

"Sin works out here all the time," Lucas told him. "You ever see anyone bothering her, you let me know, okay?"

Dude never spoke to me again. I don't think he even looked at me. Lucas and I started working out a lot together after that. He had always belonged to a different gym, but he joined mine and we ran on the treadmill side by side.

He was my best friend and I was his. We argued and fussed the same as other people but we promised each other the first week we were married that we'd never go to sleep angry at each other. We never did. We made love two and three times a day after we decided to have a baby.

Eleven months later, Jonathon was born. He was a perfect little baby. He had Lucas' skin and my hair. The joy we felt when we held that little bundle of perfection was like nothing I'd ever experienced in my life. I was hardly ever away from him. My job was now in a place where I could mostly work from home. If I needed to go in for some reason, Lucas could stay home that day. His mother came over and got Jonathon every Friday evening and kept him overnight so we could have a date night.

He went through the normal stages of childhood until he was three and a half. I was taking on more of a workload and we were beginning to talk about having child number two. I had a meeting I had to attend in Austin, Texas, and Lucas and Jonathon took me to the airport. I was gone for four days, and they called me every night and talked to me.

"Mommy, I think mine head is broked," Jonathon told me on the phone.

I was coming home the next evening and I couldn't wait to see him. "Daddy probably did it," I told him. "Why do you say your head is broken, baby?"

"It hurts," he said. "Thomas has a broked leg and he said it hurt. That's why I think mine head is broked."

"Well, tell Daddy," I told him. "He'll give you some Tylenol. It will feel better then." We went on to talk about other things and I had forgotten all about it by the time I landed at the airport. He came running and threw himself into my arms as soon as I came out of the gate. I held him and Lucas came to give me a kiss.

I put him down and we went to get my luggage. I noticed he was walking funny. "Why are you walking like that, honey?" I asked him. He had his head turned a little to one side.

"So I can see good," he said. I knelt down in front of him.

I looked in his eyes and I noticed that one of his pupils was huge, dilated much larger than the other. "Lucas, has Jonathon hit his head?" I asked.

"Not that I know of, why?" he asked.

"Look at his eyes," I said. I held my hand up over the normal eye. "Can you see anything, baby?"

"No, just grey," he said. I did the other eye.

"How about now?" I asked.

"Yes, I see Mommy!" he hugged me.

"Lucas, we need to take him to the emergency room," I told him. We grabbed my bags and drove straight to the hospital. They did a bunch of tests and scans and sent us home. In the middle of the morning, the hospital called and asked who his pediatrician was. I gave them the name and number and in about twenty minutes, Chris' office called and told us to come in right away.

She came in immediately when we got there and took us to a meeting room. I'd known Chris and Ricky ever since I was in the fifth grade. Her husband, Ricky, was a surgeon. She sat us down and showed us a bunch of test results and scan pictures.

"Sinclair, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but Jonathon has a brain tumor," she said. My world came crashing down. "I'm afraid it's a Glioblastoma. That's the worst kind of brain cancer he could have. I'm not an oncologist, Sin, but I'm going to refer you to a pediatric oncologist. He'll be able to discuss treatment options and prognosis with you. I want you to go straight there when you leave here. He'll be waiting for you. He'll probably want to hospitalize Jonathon and begin treatments right away."

My mind was numb. It felt like a mental fog had settled over me and I could hear Chris speaking but couldn't actually process what she was saying. My conscious mind rejected it and it only registered subconsciously, casting a pall over everything in my life that had been good.

I looked over at Lucas. He had been leaning against the wall and I saw this powerful, giant of a man, slumped to the floor, sitting with his face buried in his hands, weeping uncontrollably. That shocked me. I couldn't imagine Lucas like that, but there he was. I ran to him and pulled his hands away, kneeling in front of him. I pulled his head to my breast and held him.

"Lucas, we're going to be okay," I told him. "We're going to take care of him. We just have to have faith. We don't know enough yet to know what to think."

He looked at me and the pain in his eyes tore at my heart. "He has brain cancer, Sin. Our baby has brain cancer. What are we going to do?"

"We're going to do everything," I said. "We're going to do whatever it takes. We're going to fight until there's nothing left to fight with. If the worst thing possible happens, we're going to thank God for every day we got to have him in our lives. Lucas, get up and take care of your son and your wife. You can't go to pieces like this. I need you to be my rock. Jonathon needs you. I don't want to have this talk with you again. I love you and I know you're hurting, but we're depending on you. Make this right, Lucas."

I could see the resolve forming in his eyes. Slowly his demeanor changed and he was in control. "I'm sorry, Sin," he told me. "Let's get the information and start planning. I'm okay now. God, you're strong! I love you so much, baby. You can count on me from now on."

I kissed his forehead and we stood up. Chris hugged us and gave us the doctor's name and information. We went and got Jonathon from Lucas' mom's house and drove to the oncologist's office. His name was Blanco and his office was across the street from the hospital. I disliked the man the minute I saw him. He was small, dark, supercilious, and spoke with a French accent. He examined the tests and broke our hearts.

Mr. and Mrs. Davis, I'm afraid that there are very few treatment options at this point," he said. "We will admit him to the hospital right away. I'll schedule him for surgery in the morning. We'll remove most of the tumor but there will be no way for us to get it all. We'll give him radiation treatments and chemotherapy, but we'll only be able to slow the tumor's growth."

"How much will you be able to slow it?" Lucas asked.

"I believe we can get him six months," Blanco said.

I couldn't believe my ears. "How long if we do nothing?" I asked.

"Maybe three months," he said. "This is a very fast growing cancer."

"So you're telling me you're going to cut open my son's head, butcher him, burn him with radiation, poison him with chemo so that he can live a miserable life for three more months?" I asked.

"You're not being reasonable," he said. "This is the standard treatment protocol."

"What's the non-standard protocol?" Lucas asked.

"I'm afraid this is the only option I can give you," Blanco said. "I'll start the paperwork to have him admitted right away."

"Could you give us a moment alone with Jonathon?" I asked. "We need to talk in private."

"Of course," he said. He showed us to a conference room and went out, shutting the door.

"Lucas, there's no way I'm going to let that man do those things to Jonathon," I said. "If he was telling us we had a fifty-fifty chance or something, I'd be all over it. He's going to make our baby's last months on earth a living hell. Let's take him home, get on our computers and find something that offers us some hope. I don't care if it's juice from a bug's ass, water from a spring or faith healers. This guy has nothing for us but torturing our baby for nothing."

"I'm with you," he said. "I've heard about treatments in other countries that aren't approved here. Anything would be better than this. He wants to cut Jonathon's head open, make him really sick for six months and then he dies. Let's get out of here.

I picked Jonathon up and we left. I don't know how long it took them to realize we were gone, but Chris called me in about an hour.

"Sin, what are you doing?" she asked.

"They told us that Jonathon had six months to live if we allowed them to butcher him, burn his brain and poison him," I told her. "Then after all that torment he's going to die anyway. We won't put him through that, Chris. We'd rather see him just quietly slip away."

"I understand," Chris said. "I don't think Blanco does. He'll probably call child services. Sinclair, you didn't hear this from me. If you say you did I'll deny mentioning it. I've heard of a clinic in Mexico that is using a new therapy that is reporting a lot of success with this kind of thing. It isn't approved here and probably never will be. I don't know the name of it, but you can find it on the internet. Check it out and give me a call. I wouldn't stay at home. Child services will try to either force you to take Jonathon to the hospital or try to take him away from you. You should go home, pack up and leave. Go somewhere they can't find you and give me a call."