Chapter One: You Can't Go Home Again
The penthouse, close to midnight Blair Daimler hung up the phone with a satisfied, cat-ate-the-canary kind of smile. "Well, well, well, John Sykes. Looks like the police commissioner has a few dark secrets of his own", she said to herself, clipping her earring back on her right ear and mentally composing the upcoming headline for the Sun.
She had just discarded 'Sykes/Sicko' when a demanding knock at the door broke into her reverie. "Who in the--", she muttered, standing up and striding over to the door, glancing at the clock glowing 11:32 pm on her desk. Blair turned the lock, an irritated expression on her face. "This had better be real good; my daughter is asleep upstairs," she snapped, opening the door.
"Our daughter, Blair," said the figure in the doorway as Blair gasped. "Ours. And I'd say this is pretty damn good. I'm baaack. Miss me??" asked Todd Manning, looking at his ex-wife with a sardonic half-grin on his face.
Blair looked back at him, speechless, her mouth wide open, an uncertain and undefined emotion rushing through her at the sight of this man standing in front of her. Then, as she looked at Todd's smirk, her jaw clenched, her eyes narrowed, and her hand flew up to slap him across his smug smile--hard. "You bastard!" she hissed through clenched teeth. "Get the hell out of my house, Todd Manning!" Blair demanded, closing the door and meeting resistance in the form of Todd's Italian leather clad foot.
"You know, Blair, this is getting to be a pattern," said Todd, forcing his way into the penthouse and closing the door behind him. "Me, coming back to Llanview, to my home; you, slapping me in the face. At least this time you weren't rolling around on my floor with a poet. Though last I heard you were more into lawyers than poets, huh?"
"This is not your home, Todd, it's mine. Mine," she mimicked. "You lost the right to call it yours when you skulked out of town two years ago. In fact, you lost the rights to a whole lot of things."
All traces of any kind of smile left Todd's face. "Not my daughter. I made her, Blair; there are no 'rights' to lose when it comes to Starr. She will never stop being my daughter."
"Yeah, well, maybe not, but you certainly stopped being her father, didn't you Todd?" Blair looked at Todd a long moment, then shook her head slightly. "You walked out of Starr's life two years ago, leaving her a 20-second tape recording and leaving me with a little girl who thought her father had left her because she did something bad, a little girl who ran to the door every time it opened for a year hoping it was you. Damn you. Damn you to hell, Todd Manning!" Blair stepped towards Todd until his face was inches from her own. "You were the axis on which Starr's world turned, and you ripped that out from under her without a single glance back!"
Todd stepped past Blair, looking out the window at the moonless night sky so she wouldn't see his face. "I sent her tapes and presents, Blair. I wrote her letters."
"It wasn't enough, Todd. It wasn't even in the same ballpark as enough." Blair laughed sharply, bitterly. "You remember when Starr was sick, and you said 'I want my daughter to be healthy and happy. I want her to play on the swings and get a dog and go to the junior prom. I want her to grow up and go to college and meet some guy who's not anyway near good enough for her and be President of the United States. That's what I want for my daughter. And she'll have all that if I have anything to do about it'? I'll never forget it. And I believed you, you bastard," she hissed, angry tears in her eyes. "I believed you, and then you walked out on her. I believed in a lie, Todd."
"It wasn't a lie. Blair, I meant that," Todd looked at Blair, trying to defuse her intensity, "except maybe the part about the junior prom".
"This isn't a joke, Todd!"
"I'm not joking, Blair! I mean, junior proms, they can be brutal! You ever seen some of the dresses--"
"Todd!" Blair interrupted with a frustrated expression on her face, reaching out to grab his arm.
He moved away from her grasp, and the words burst out of him. "I didn't know what else to do, Blair! I had to--I had to leave her to keep her safe."
The penthouse was quiet for a long moment, reverberating from the strength of their words. Todd turned slowly and started towards the stairs. Blair moved quickly to block his way. "Where do you think you're going?" she demanded.
"I want to see my daughter, Blair." Blair's head began to shake negatively, and Todd spoke up, softly. "I won't wake her, okay? I just--want to see her." He was silent a moment, looking into his ex-wife's eyes. "Please, Blair."
Blair returned his gaze for an equally long moment, not moving. Then, slowly, not dropping her eyes, she stepped to the side of staircase. Todd stood statue-like, his eyes focusing inwards, then with a sigh and slight shake of his head, he moved up the stairs, past Blair. She watched him walk up the stairs, fighting an impulse to go after him, then collapsed on the couch, her head an emotional maelstrom. "My God, Todd," she whispered softly to herself, "you're back."
September 2000
