(no subject)

It is Ted's bruised knuckles that Bonnie notices first, as he passes the salt. A quick look around the table spots the bruise on Turtle's chin.

She wastes no time after dinner taking the two of them into the living room and shutting the door.

"Something you two want to tell me?" she asks, folding her arms.

"About what?" Ted asks, cautiously.

"Why there's a matching bruise on your knuckles and Ted's chin?"

Turtle takes a breath. Ted looks at him, then back at Bonnie.

"Because he's got something to tell you, if he has the guts."

"Ted, can you leave the room please?" Turtle asks. "Bonnie and I need to talk."

Ted doesn't resist that. He shoots a glare at Turtle, then leaves them and closes the door.

Bonnie doesn't stop him. She watches Turtle as he sinks into a chair. She watches as he bursts into tears and sobs into his handkerchief. Eventually she sits down next to him.

"Right. Why are you cryin', exactly? Pretty sure by the end of this that's my job."

Turtle takes a breath and tries to compose himself.

"Because I've ruined everything." He says. "And now I'm going to lose my best friend, my soulmate, or my daughter. Maybe all three."

Bonnie watches him. A few days ago she'd have been the one in tears. Now, no tears are coming. She fixes him with a stare.

"So who's this soulmate?" she asks. "The girl you been cheating on me with?"

"I didn't cheat on you, Bonnie, I cheated with you." Turtle says, explaining how he met Celia at AA and had been engaged to her when he and Bonnie first got together. He'd kept with Celia until he'd found out Bonnie was pregnant, when instead of breaking it off with Bonnie, suddenly found himself needing to marry her.

"Not that it would have made a difference." he says. "You got pregnant when we first got together again."

"I'm afraid it does make a difference." Bonnie says. "You might think that you could get away with seein' another girl when we were only just havin' casual sex, but you had no right to cheat on yer fiancée once, let alone carry on."

"I know. Celia was heartbroken. I had this foolish idea that you and I, with all that history, would fall fer each other. By the time we didn't, it was too late."

"And now it all makes sense." Bonnie says. "The lukewarm reception I got to us gettin' married. You goin' all quiet at the weddin' when Cassandra burst in accusing you of being married - you thought she knew, didn't you? Namin' our kid after Bill."

"Bill was a better man than I'll ever be." Turtle says.

"Ain't gonna disagree right now." Bonnie says. "So you split off with Celia. When did she come back on the scene?"

"After I got shot, she came rushin' to the hospital to be with me." Turtle says. "As a friend. Spent a lot of time with me, there every day."

"And I didn't?"

"I didn't mean it like that."

"Good, because in case you forgot, I was at work, Turtle. I was at work with a bullet wound in my arm pretendin' to be normal so that one of us at least brought in some money to feed the kids and Lucy."

"Sorry. Anyhow, she was there. We just got talking. I couldn't get her out of my head again. A few weeks before Christmas she gave me some panties and told me if I ever decided to leave you she'd take a twice divorced man. I panicked and shoved them in the wardrobe. Then you were rootling around in there fer Christmas presents on the shelf below. I thought you hadn't found them, so I hid them in somethin' and put them in the trash."

"So you were going to just string both of us along?"

"Until I decided what to do, yeah."

Bonnie takes a long sigh. At least now she knows.

"I'm sorry to break this to you." she says, without raising her voice. "But you are no longer in a position to make that choice. Neither am I, really."

"How do you mean?" Turtle asks.

"Because that's not the only thing you've done." Bonnie says. "I am more than aware that our relationship came by accident, that we both got baggage, and you might have thought you could get away with fallin' fer someone else without meanin' to." She looks back at him. "But you've crossed another line. You forced one of my boys, my child, to share yer dirty secret."

"Ted's not a child."

"Oh yes he is!" Bonnie says. "He is sixteen years old and by law he is a child. You had absolutely no right to put yer guilty burdens on him. And worse than that, he hit you and you covered up fer him, because you knew I would want to know why. He's one crime away from goin' back to jail, he has serious anger management issues, you know I'm tryin' to get him seen by a psychiatrist. You should have told me right away."

"I guess yer right." he says quietly. "So what happens now? I know I've messed up our marriage, Bonnie, and I'm so sorry, I really am. But we've been friends for so many decades..."

"Don't ask me that right now." Bonnie says. "What happens now is that you go and kiss Billie goodnight, you pack yer bag, and you get out of my house. In one week when I have calmed down, we will meet at a neutral spot and we will discuss child support, visitation, and alimony."

"You don't seem as cut up as expected." Turtle says.

"You don't seem like a cheatin' idiot who thinks with his penis ahead of his brain." Bonnie says quietly. "Guess things ain't always what they seem."

"Bonnie, I..."

"Go to your 'soulmate'." Bonnie says. "You'll see me again, bringing up our baby. The flame will likely go out with Celia too, one day, and maybe one day I'll forgive you, and maybe I won't. But you won't come back to live in this house. You have bonded with those children, and I will not have that misused, and I will not have you walk in and out of their lives."

She is just about holding it together. She holds a straight expression when he apologises again, and when he walks upstairs to pack and say goodnight to the baby.

"Aunt Bonnie?"

Bonnie looks up, and blinks, from what seems to have been a long time. Stuart and Ted are looking at her.

"I'm real sorry about this, boys."

"You showed him!" Stuart says, sitting down next to her. "Cheating bastard! You don't need to worry, Aunt Bonnie, we can be all the men of the household you need."

"Thank you Stuart. You were listening in?" Bonnie says.

"Not all of it. We heard the cheating penis bit." Ted says.

"For what it's worth." Stuart says. "Your experiences have been a valuable re-education in sex ed."

A few minutes later, there is the sound of the door closing. The kids take themselves to bed early. Lucy comes to sit with her for a bit, and makes her tea. She doesn't manage the tea, and has to make a dash for the bathroom after the first few sips.

"Are you okay?" Lucy asks her, when she comes back out. "I mean, as much as you can be."

"Just the adrenaline." Bonnie says, sitting back down, as Lucy gets her a glass of water.

"It's going to be okay." Lucy says, rubbing her back gently. "I'll find more work. We handled three kids between us before, we can handle four."

"Makes a change at least to lose someone without them bein' in a coffin." Bonnie says, sipping the water. "I knew he was up to somethin'. Almost felt sorry fer him in the end."

"Why?" Lucy asks.

"We weren't really meant to be in a relationship in the first place." Bonnie says. "It just happened because I got lonely and he got carried away. If it weren't fer that one night, he'd be married to Celia, but I'd never have had Billie. He's given me more than I could ever have hoped for. So I cain't completely hate him. Is that stupid?"

"Probably." Lucy says. "But it'll probably make it easier when you next have to see him."

She isn't sure how she gets through the next few days. But she does. She takes off the ring. She gently explains to Terry why Grandpa Turtle isn't going to live there any more. She finally finds a buyer for her latest repair project so the money situation isn't quite so desperate. And though the bedroom is empty at night, there's a picture there that she never did take down, and she finds herself staring at the face of her gentle giant once more.

She runs her finger across the glass of the picture of Bill.

"Guess when you truly love someone, when you hold them dear in yer heart..." she says softly. "They never quite come out again. Does that make me much different from Turtle?"

The picture doesn't reply. But the kind eyes watch over her, unconditionally as always, as she puts the picture on her dresser.