Anniversary
By Elizabeth Kent
Warnings: Graphic sex
For Halloween 2006. Halloween is a special date for Face and Murdock, but will they survive the celebration?
Comments: Please send them to Elizabeth at lizannkent@yahoo.com
*****
"They're coming."
"They're coming."
"Get ready, sister. Get ready."
"Here they come."
* * *
Face sighed and stretched as he got out of the 'vette. "You sure this is the right place?" he said.
Murdock consulted the slip of paper in his hand. "966 Marine View Drive," he said. "This is it."
"They didn't exactly put out the welcome mat for us, did they?" Face said. "You'd think they could at least have turned on a couple of lights."
Murdock shrugged. "Maybe they're conserving energy. Or maybe they didn't expect us to arrive in the dark when we told them we'd be here at three in the afternoon."
"Yeah, that's probably it," Face said. The landslide on the little-used coast road that caused their late arrival had just about caught them, as it had caught the car just ahead of theirs, sweeping it off the road and all but burying it in thick, sticky mud. Murdock and Face had spent a couple of hours freeing the family trapped inside, getting them to a nearby hospital, and finding their own way around the mess on the road.
Face stamped his feet on the ground to try and knock off the biggest chunks of now-dried mud that clung to his jeans. There hadn't been time to clean up after they dropped the injured people off at the hospital. The weather was only getting worse, and they'd wanted to be at the guest house they'd rented high on a bluff above the Pacific Ocean before the roads became impassable.
Only a few houses lined the road that ran along the bluff, but they were all beautiful old Victorian homes that had once belonged to sea captains and merchants whose businesses were clustered around the small harbor at the foot of the cliff. Face had consulted the friend of a friend of a contact to find this place, and he hoped it was worth the money he'd had to pay for it. It was time for a getaway for him and Murdock, a few days passed with nothing more stressful to think about than what to have for supper. They were going to spend the first night at this guest house, then continue further on up the coast to the bed and breakfast one of his old friends ran in Oregon.
This far north the trees were a riot of color, their orange, red, and yellow leaves rattling in the breeze that was rapidly blowing away the storm clouds to reveal the orange moon low on the horizon. That was temporary, though, as another, stronger front was on its way in.
Yeah, this would be a nice place to celebrate their anniversary. Oh, it wasn't exactly a typical anniversary. Murdock might not even remember it. But Face remembered it like it was yesterday: Halloween night, 1973. It hadn’t been the most romantic kiss ever, but it hadn't mattered to him. Just before sunset Murdock had plucked Face and the others out of the jungle, a daring rescue that no other pilot would even have attempted. That night they'd all been celebrating. All but Murdock. Face had found him sitting back out in his chopper, reading a comic book by the light of a small headlamp. Face had hunkered down beside him, sharing a paper cup full of candy corn that he'd managed to get in for the guys, and they'd talked. They'd talked for hours, then just before midnight, the conversation had waned. And Murdock had leaned close, cupped Face's face between his hands, and kissed him.
Face still couldn't taste candy corn without getting hard.
So he'd brought Murdock up here to celebrate. It had been ten years since that night. And ten-year anniversaries ought to be celebrated in style. There were bags of candy corn in the trunk, a couple of bottles of their favorite wine, and one special night in an out-of-the-way guest house with nobody around to ask, demand, or beg anything from them. All they had, and all they needed, was each other. Well, they needed a bath, too, since they were covered with mud, but that was easily taken care of.
Face hesitated a moment. In the moonlight and with the nearest neighbor fifty yards down the lane, the place didn't look very inviting. In fact, it looked kind of creepy and run down. But the address was right. The owners had said they'd leave a key under the mat, so they might just as well let themselves in.
Face grabbed his duffel bag from the back seat and said, "Well, let's go on inside, then."
Maybe it'd look better in the morning. For now, he just wanted inside out of the cold and into a hot shower and a warm bed with his lover.
* * *
Murdock followed Face up the walkway to the stairs. The Queen Anne style home must have been a beauty at one time, though its once-yellow paint had faded to grey, and a couple of shutters hung crooked, separated from their hinges by several inches. The porch was littered with fallen leaves, and the only sign of life was a large tabby curled up in a faded wicker rocking chair. The cat lifted its head to watch them approach, then leapt from the chair and disappeared into the shadows as they mounted the creaky stairs.
There was no welcome mat, only a ghoulishly carved jack-o-lantern glowing faintly next to the door. Poor design, Murdock noted, peering through the jack-o-lantern's nose at the nearly-extinguished tea light candle. The candle needed more air, and it would burn brightly enough to see from the front gate.
"Where's the key?" Murdock asked.
"I'm not sure," Face said. "Let's look around."
After a fruitless search for a key, Murdock leaned against the door and nearly fell inside when it opened of its own accord. "Guess we don't need the key," he said.
Face shook his head. "I tried the doorknob when I got up here," he said. "It was locked."
Murdock grinned.
"Really!" Face said. "It was locked!"
"If you say so," Murdock said. Face was cute when he was all indignant, and right now in those wet, skin-tight jeans and that mud-spattered leather jacket, he looked good enough to eat. "Let's go in. It's getting cold out here in the wind."
Face picked up the bag he'd deposited in the wicker rocker and followed Murdock across the threshold. "Please let there be lights," he muttered.
* * *
"They're here."
"They're inside."
"I'm hungry. So hungry."
"Patience, sister. Soon. It will be sooooooon."
* * *
The house was cold and smelled like it had been shut up ever since it was built. The lights worked, but the bulbs were a low wattage and cast only a dim light. Oh well, Face thought, he wasn't there to read, anyway. What he was interested in they could do in dim light. Or in no light at all. But it would have been nice if the place had been aired out a little before their arrival.
He didn't think much of the décor. Heavy burgundy velvet drapes hid the windows, and the dark paneling seemed to absorb the already-meager light from the lamps Murdock was turning on, one by one, in the front room. The furniture was old-fashioned but seemed like it would be comfortable enough. The orphanage had had furniture like this when he was a young boy. It had been donated by a wealthy (and very old) patron when the place was built in the thirties and never updated. Face had always pretended it was his great, great grandmother's living room and that he was just there for a visit. A long one. But not every kid could say he grew up in a living room with real Victorian furniture, not even a kid from a real home.
But at the orphanage the dreary old drapes had been removed before Face's arrival and replaced by sheers that let the light in and filled the room with sunshine. The furniture had been covered with a succession of homemade slipcovers in a vain attempt to prevent twenty active orphans from damaging it, but Face had made a habit of lifting up the slipcovers to run his hand over the velvet couch and chair seats, luxuriating in the soft, if threadbare, upholstery. The same sort of furniture, though, looked different in this uninviting room.
Face shuddered at the sensation of a cold finger running down his back. There must be a draft. In a house this old, there were probably plenty of drafts. At least a supply of firewood had been laid in, along with kindling. He knelt in front of the fireplace and busied himself arranging kindling and wadding up sheets of yellowed newspaper that were stacked next to the hearth. He reached up to open the flue, thinking only belatedly to check for infestations when his fingers encountered the sticky mess of spider webs in the chimney. He snatched his hand back and shook it, trying to dislodge both the web and the large, black spider that clung to his ring finger. He finally shook the spider loose but wasn't fast enough to squash it before it scuttled away and escaped into a small hole in the mortar between the bricks of the hearth.
He grabbed a book of matches out of his jacket pocket and quickly lit the fire, nursing it along until it was a respectable size and he could feel a little heat reach him. To either side of the mantel were wall sconces, each holding a trio of tapers. Face lit them, then stood back and looked at the oil painting over the mantel. A three-masted, full-rigged sailing ship foundered in a raging storm and was just about to be smashed to smithereens on massive rocks that jutted into the picture. Lightning snaked long, crooked fingers toward the highest mast, and the tiny crewmen looked to be hanging on for dear life. It was kind of a depressing subject to have hanging over your fireplace, but obviously the owners' didn't share his taste in art. Or maybe they just didn't have any taste. Or maybe it was hiding a crack in the plaster. There were lots of saints covering cracks in the plaster back at the orphanage. He'd thought they looked grim and unfriendly, but as Sister Rachel had said, "They serve the purpose, and that's all they need to do." Sister Rachel was keen on everyone and everything serving a purpose, even small boys who thought they were art critics.
But compared to these doomed sailors, frozen eternally in the moments before their own deaths, the serviceable saints were positively cheerful.
* * *
"This one's mine."
"He's a pretty one."
"He smells good."
"I'll have the other, sister."
"Aye. He's handsome, too."
"Soon, then. Soon they will come to us."
"Yes, soon. They cannot resist."
"They cannot. They will not leave here."
* * *
Murdock frowned as he went through the cupboards in the kitchen. The old kitchen. Vintage, his grandmother would have said. Grandma liked antiques; she had so much 'vintage' stuff in their Texas farmhouse that it had always made the place, and his grandparents, seem older to his childish eyes than they really were. Even now they were only in their early seventies, still spry and active, still haunting antique shops and flea markets, still fixing up old things to sell from the barn-cum-antiques shop that Grandpa had converted when Murdock was still a boy. And nothing, not even his grandparents, was allowed to be called old. It was 'vintage,' or it was 'antique,' but 'old' was bad for business.
Well, this kitchen was extremely vintage. Vintage bordering on ancient. The sink needed a good scrubbing, the counters and tabletop had a layer of dust he could write his name in (and did) and the ice box, which was a real, 'vintage' ice box, not a real refrigerator, was empty.
A doorway led from the kitchen into a darkened pantry. Murdock flicked on the light and investigated the small room. Stacks of tea towels and china were neatly arranged on the shelves. Cookware hung from a rack overhead, but he could find nothing to cook. It was a good thing they'd swung through a fast food place after leaving the hospital. The burgers and fries they'd shared should get them through the night, anyway, and they could catch breakfast on the way up the coast.
This wasn't exactly the kind of spot he'd have chosen for a get-away, but Face had been looking forward to this, and Murdock wouldn't disappoint him for anything. Face liked old houses better than Murdock did. Murdock suspected Face liked soaking up the ambience, imagining generations of families all living happily under the same roof and fantasizing about having been part of it all. Not that he'd been unhappy at the orphanage. His upbringing had been strict, but the nuns had been good to him. He was okay. He was more than okay. He was…splendid. Magnificent. Beautiful. And he was Murdock's. All his.
Face might have chosen Halloween for their quick vacation because there was a lull between cases at the moment, but Murdock remembered that this night was more than a convenient date. It was an anniversary. The ten-year anniversary of their first kiss. A kiss that almost hadn't happened because Face and his unit had been a hairsbreadth from death when he'd managed to get to the LZ. The men had burst from the bushes in a hail of gunfire and run for the copter at full speed with Face, Hannibal, and BA covering them from the rear, the last three to get on board. Murdock had been more shaken by their close call than Hannibal and his team had been. Sometimes their confidence in him scared him. Face had clapped him on the shoulder, whooping with glee as they sped toward base, his mud-covered face split by a huge grin. He'd looked good enough to eat, and Murdock had had to push down a wave of longing and lust to concentrate on flying. Sometimes Face still did that to him.
He'd skipped the celebrations, trying to focus himself and his roiling emotions on a new stack of comics. Then Face had found him, offering him a cup full of candy corn and peppering him with questions about himself, his family, what he liked. Hours had passed, hours in which the thought uppermost in Murdock's mind was that he wanted to kiss those lips and run his tongue along the straight white teeth that methodically severed the candy corns into three pieces, eating first the yellow base, then the orange middle, and finally the tiny white tip. Face did everything neatly.
Murdock turned and passed through a slightly cold spot in the pantry to investigate the other side. A tea towel covered something, and when he pulled the towel away he found a loaf of bread that looked to be older than he was. He poked it with his finger. Solid as a brick. He beat a tattoo on it with his fingers and enjoyed the deep, hollow sound. Maybe he'd just discovered a new instrument. How many loaves of bread in how many different stages of petrification would it take to create the equivalent of one good drum set?
But while his fingers were busy drumming, his thoughts were still back in the copter with Face on Halloween night. When the last candy corn was gone and the conversation petered out, he'd done the only thing he could think of to do. He'd leaned over and put candy-sticky fingers on either side of that beautiful face, focused on those warm, inviting lips, and kissed Face. Kissed him long and hard. And Face had kissed him back, tasting of all three sections of candy corn. And they'd been kissing ever since. There had never been anybody else for either of them.
* * *
"What's this?"
"He doesn't see me."
"Try again. Embrace him. Sing to him."
"I must feed soon. I must."
"You will. We both will."
* * *
Face stepped away from the fire and into a cold spot. Funny how pockets of cold could sit in a room like this till it warmed up. He'd have to ask Murdock about the science of that. Knowing Murdock, though, he'd tell him it was a ghost. Murdock loved that kind of stuff. Now that he concentrated on it, Face could hear the soft hissing sound of moving air, maybe something to do with warming air near the fireplace colliding with the colder air in the rest of the room. The curtains across the room stirred too, not surprising given the age of the windows and the strength of the wind outside. He could hear it moaning around the eaves as it carried in a new storm. Oh well, what was Halloween without a few ghostly noises?
Murdock had disappeared into the kitchen, and Face heard things rattling around. "What're you doing in there?" he called.
"Looking for something to make dinner with. I thought you said they were gonna leave us some groceries."
"Didn't they?"
Murdock came back into the room with the desiccated remains
of a loaf of bread on a plate. "How
long ago did you make the reservation?" he asked. ""Cause this has been sittin' out
for a long, long time."
Face wrinkled his nose. "They didn't even leave any canned food?" he asked.
"Not that I can find."
"I guess we'll have to live on candy corn, then, and wine. I'll go get it out of the car in a minute."
"Mmm," said Murdock, depositing the bread on a side table and coming to the fireplace. "My favorite food."
Face stepped through another cold spot and into Murdock's embrace. "I didn't know you were that crazy about candy corn," he said.
"I wasn't talking about the candy corn."
* * *
"What are we going to do?"
"Call again. Keep calling. They will hear."
"I'm so hungry."
"I know, sister. I know. But they will come. The lure is irresistible."
* * *
"Did you hear something, Murdock?"
"Yeah," Murdock pulled back from the kiss but didn’t take his eyes off those lips. Lips as compelling, as perfectly moist and swollen as they had been ten years ago. "It's probably the cat. Or the wind."
"Or ghosts."
"Maybe. Whatever."
The rooms upstairs had proven to be as cold and musty as the downstairs. Maybe colder and mustier. But they'd kindled a second fire in the fireplace in the master bedroom, this time remembering to chase the spiders out of the chimney first. While Face had gone out to the car for the snacks, Murdock had gathered the bedclothes and taken them outside to give them a good shake in the stiff breeze. They'd thrown open the windows for a few minutes to let in some fresh air, then closed them again when the place smelled a little better. Never let it be said that Templeton Peck and H.M. Murdock couldn’t make a house a home. They specialized in it. Even a house that was anything but homey.
Now they were more or less comfortably settled in the bed, propped up against pillows that were only slightly musty. They'd made pretty good headway through the candy corn and the wine, content to talk like they'd talked ten years ago, each totally wrapped up in the other.
Face studied the picture over the mantel while Murdock clambered out of bed to open the second bottle of Pinot Gris. It looked to be a companion to the picture downstairs except that the rocks were the focus of this picture. Two mermaids, one blonde, one brunette, sat atop the jagged rocks, arms extended toward the struggling ship, parted lips curled up into cruel smiles as they sang the ship toward its doom. Their cruel beauty repelled Face, and he shook his head and turned his eyes toward Murdock, whose straight back and rounded buttocks made a much more satisfying picture as he messed with the corkscrew. It always had to go straight through the center of the cork, and he worked with a careful precision that was amusing unless you were really desperate for a glass of wine because it could take him several minutes to get it just right.
Face felt the bed dip just as Murdock turned back toward him, open bottle in one hand, two full glasses of blood red wine in the other.
"Something wrong, muchacho?"
"Nah," Face shrugged. "I think the wind is just making the house rock a little." He watched Murdock make his way carefully back to the bed. God, he loved that body. The hairy chest that cushioned his head, the hard muscles that shifted invitingly under smooth skin, the long cock that even now jutted invitingly toward him, ready to be teased into fullness.
"Yeah, it's a little like being in the crow's nest up here, isn't it?" Murdock said. "I can feel the breeze, smell salt air," he spread his arms wide, somehow managing not to spill a drop, "hear the siren call of the open sea."
"As long as it's not the siren of a patrol car, I'm good with it," Face said. He got to his knees and reached for one of the wine glasses. "Let's toast crow's nests."
Murdock put the wine bottle on the night table and knelt facing Face. Face shivered delightedly when Murdock brushed the chilled glass across first one nipple, then the other, and his own cock flared to life. Hot and cold, hard and soft, moments of security and moments of deadly peril. Their life together was a study in contrasts, of opposites. But fitted together, the two made a whole that nothing could pry apart. They gave each other sips of wine, nibbled the ends of candy corns till their lips met in the middle, and joined at last in vigorous lovemaking that made the whole room rock, the sounds of their own cries of completion drowning out even the howling of the wind.
* * *
"They can't see me. They can't feel me!" she howled.
"Nor I," cried the other.
"They hear nothing."
They writhed against the men, pressing their cold, naked breasts against the men's backs, thrusting their lower bodies seductively, pressing themselves between the men's legs. Nothing. No response, no reaction at all when sharp, ghostly teeth latched onto sweat-covered shoulders.
"I'm hungry. I'm so hungry." Her scream echoed around the room, unheard by the thrusting, moaning men.
* * *
Sated, they collapsed on the bed, and Face scooted backwards into Murdock's embrace, pulled those long, hard arms about himself, Mrudock's now-flaccid cock nestled softly against his backside, his own resting limply against his sticky thigh. His heart raced, but in a good way. In the way that said he'd just made vigorous love to the man who had been the center of his universe for ten years. Ten years tonight.
"Happy anniversary," he whispered.
"You remembered?" Murdock said.
"Of course I remembered," Face said. "I wasn't sure you would, though."
"I remembered," Murdock said. "It was the day I became a whole person."
"What, like the Velveteen Rabbit?"
"Kind of," Murdock laughed. "I found my missing piece."
Face sighed and shifted closer, felt Murdock's arms hold him tighter. "Mine, too," he said. "Mine, too."
* * *
Murdock slid onto the stool of the tiny, almost empty diner and plucked the plastic menu from its spot between the sugar canister and the paper napkin holder. Next to him, Face scanned the pies lined up in the glass-fronted refrigerator on the other side of the counter.
A middle aged woman appeared from the kitchen and smiled warmly at them. "Good morning, gentlemen. How are you doing?"
"Fine, thanks," Murdock said. "Just looking for a really good breakfast!" They'd had a breakfast of sorts when they'd woken up that morning, and it was sort of filling. Filling enough that he had to be careful how he sat on the stool. Face was perched on the edge of his stool, too, and he grinned at Murdock when he saw how he was sitting.
"Well, you've come to the right place," the woman said. "We've got breakfast twenty-four hours a day here."
"Good. We missed dinner last night."
"You're not locals," the woman said, "so I'm guessing you got caught in that big traffic jam up on the coast road."
"Not exactly," Face said. "We managed to get around the traffic jam, but we had reservations at a guest house up on the bluff, and evidently they weren't expecting us after all because the place looked like it hadn't been opened up in years."
The woman paled. "What guest house?"
"The Captain Howard House," Face said. "One of my friends back in L.A. put me on to it."
The woman shook her head. "Are you sure?"
"Sure I’m sure," Face said. "Why? Is something wrong?" He sure hoped this wasn't a setup of some kind. Had the M.P.s been here after all? He pulled out the Polaroid photo they'd taken of the house just before they left and showed it to her.
"Oh, honey," she said. "This isn't Captain Howard's house. It's Captain Cutler's house." She pointed to the tiny numbers visible on the side of the house. "See, it's 666 Marine View Drive."
"What?" Murdock said in surprise. "It was 966 last night!"
"Well," the woman said kindly, "the weather was pretty bad last night. Maybe your eyes were playing tricks on you. Nobody stays as the Captain Cutler House. It's been closed up for fifty years, ever since the captain died."
Murdock exchanged a look with Face. "It was open when we got there," he said. "There was a lighted jack-o-lantern on the porch and firewood laid out."
"Oh, my," the woman said. "Oh, dear. Well, order your breakfasts, and while you're eating, I'll tell you all about Captain Cutler."
While Face contentedly ate his way through an excellent plate of steak and eggs, and Murdock plowed through a stack of buttermilk pancakes, the diner's owner poured herself a cup of coffee and joined them at the counter. "Captain Cutler built that house on the bluff in the late 19th century when all the other homes up there were built. This was a bustling port at that time, one of the best harbors around. They say the captain was the most successful of the sea captains who sailed out of here. For thirty years he sailed across the ocean and up and down the West Coast and never lost a ship or a man. Then in 1899 his ship ran aground during a storm, and all but a handful of his men were drowned. The captain and the remaining men drifted in a lifeboat for days, and one by one the sailors died until only the captain was left. The real mystery was that there was enough food and water in the lifeboat for the men who hadn't died in the shipwreck, but in spite of that, they died, a man or two a day, and when Captain Cutler was finally picked up by a passing ship, he was stark raving mad."
Face smiled around his coffee cup. It was an entertaining story, probably the same one the locals told all the visitors around Halloween. "So what happened to him?" he asked.
"That's where the story gets even stranger. Men began to die on the ship that had rescued Cutler. One or two a day until the ship finally reached the port. They say Cutler must have been infected with some disease he passed along to others, though he, himself, did not succumb. He kept trying to turn the ship around and head it back out to sea, trying to prevent it from coming back to port, and babbling about an unholy cargo and some kind of evil spirits that were on board. They finally had to chain him up in his cabin so they could get to port safely."
"What kind of evil spirits?" Murdock asked around a mouthful of pancake.
"Nobody really knows," the woman said. "Something that sucked men dry, they say, leaving nothing but dried out husks like old scarecrows."
"Sounds creepy," Murdock said.
"My great great grandmother lived in the town at the time," the woman said, "and I've got her old diary. She says Captain Cutler never left his house again and would never let anyone else in, either. Food and alcohol, lots of alcohol, was delivered to the front steps, and he would appear long enough to bring the food in, then he'd shut himself up again. He spent the rest of his life painting seascapes. He'd leave the paintings outside as a sort of payment for the food and refused to answer any questions about that last voyage. He told anyone who asked that his paintings told the story."
"So what happened when he died?"
"The house was shut up for years. There were rumors that it was haunted. Fifteen years ago it was finally bought by an investor who was going to turn it into a bed and breakfast. He showed up to start renovating, and when his partners arrived the next day to help him, they found him dead, a dried up husk of a man who looked more like a thousand year old mummy than someone who had died only the night before."
"Hm," Face said. "Well, we did find a loaf of pretty dry bread there, but nothing else."
"You're lucky to still be alive, young man!"
Face looked up in surprise. The woman was either totally serious or the best damned liar he'd ever met, excluding himself, of course.
"They say the Captain brought back the spirits of the mermaids who had lured him to the rocks, succubae who seduce men with their beauty and then feed on their souls, leaving them dried up and dead like the Captain's crew and the men in the rescue ship. The house was locked up after the investor's death, and nobody has entered it since." She shook her head and considered Face and Murdock. "God alone knows how you two survived."
Face shrugged. "We seem to be immune to their charms."
"Ah!" The woman nodded and looked at them sagely as if she finally understood. "I see," she said. "I see. Like Captain Cutler."
"What do you mean?" Murdock asked.
The woman lowered her voice. "They say the captain never took a wife because he fancied men."
Face shared a glance with Murdock. How embarrassing to be outed by this woman within less than half an hour of their arrival. Luckily it didn't seem to trouble her that they neither confirmed nor denied her words.
"That's why he, alone, was immune to the siren's call," she continued. "But he couldn't stop them from hitching a ride back on his lifeboat, and he couldn't rid himself of their presence in his house. He spent the rest of his life alone."
That was pretty sad, Face thought, remembering what he and Murdock had shared last night in the man's lonely bed. Whether the story was true or not, the house did have a distinctly creepy feeling at first. But they'd filled up the space with their love, and whatever spirits might have been there seemed to have retreated while they slept. It was the only time he could ever remember when being gay had saved his life instead of putting it in jeopardy.
"So there's the answer to the question," Murdock said.
"What answer?" the woman said.
"What question?" asked Face.
"The way to get rid of the succubae. Turn it into a guest house for same-sex couples. The spirits will either starve or move on, and maybe then you'll be able to redeem the Captain's reputation and his house. Because it would be a beautiful place if it was fixed up, and wouldn't it be nice to fill it with love instead of soul-sucking mermaid ghosts?"
Face laughed. "You're right," he said. Maybe one day he'd come back and look into it when he had time to make soul-sucking mermaid ghosts the focus of his attention instead of handcuff-rattling military police officers.
* * *
"They're gone."
"They're gone."
"I'm hungry. So, hungry."
"Patience, sister. Someone will come. Someone always does."