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disclaimers can be found with part 1

Justice Deferred (6/?)

by: Alex

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The big champagne colored SUV came to a smooth stop at the full service pumps. An over eager teenager came blasting out of the fuel shack, anxious to get a closer look at the big four wheel drive vehicle, with the European luxury car name. He also wanted to see what kind of person went to Mercedes to buy a truck. He was also wondering what CTBS-BB on the vanity plates meant.

The youngster waited for whoever was driving the obviously new SUV to tell him what they wanted. He let his eyes wander appreciatively over the clean graceful lines of the well-made vehicle. Try as he might the kid was unable to see inside the SUV, the tinted windows were too dark. He took a step closer only to jump back a little when the driver's door opened startling him out of his daydream. He was totally unprepared for what he saw, from the status name on the vehicle, the gas jockey expected either some self-important, power-suit wearing executive or a snotty city yuppie, he'd seen enough of both in his short six months employment at the truck stop at the junction of I-35 and M-340. He and his hormones were completely caught off guard when the driver stepped out of the Mercedes.

It was the most amazingly beautiful young woman he'd ever seen. She was short, just barely reaching five feet four, dressed in very short jean cut-offs and red tank top that showed off her very fit yet softly curved body that actually tended toward muscular. She gave the boy a bright friendly smile that would stay with him for days as she asked him to fill the SUV. The golden haired woman with the sparkling emerald eyes stretched out her tired muscles, trying to relieve their cramping from driving since early that morning.

As she watched the hormonal teen filling the gas tank the deceptively young looking woman let her mind wander over the amazing twists and turns of her life till now that brought her to be here going to the one place she swore she'd never return to no matter what. If what she'd learned over the last two weeks was true, someone very special would be there today, and if she stayed on schedule so she could get there on time, a certain gorgeous blue eyed brunette had some very hard questions to answer. If Cheryl was lucky, she would be able to ask one very important question of a certain Ms. Camilla Theresa Brusard.

She was wearing a tight red tank top tucked into a pair of very tight, very short, blue-jean cut offs, and weaing sandals with long black laces that wound a criss-cross pattern up her well sculpted legs to her knees. Her outfit was specially chosen for this occasion. It was her fervent hope that the way it showed off her very fit, while remaining softly curved, body, well enough that a certain lady would find her irresistible.

The top molded to her like a second skin accentuating her full firm breasts, her perpetually hard nipples threatened to tear through the already stretched thin cotton material. The top was molded to her flat hard abdomen curving enticingly into the top of her cutoff that were skin tight showing off her perfectly shaped rear. The cut-offs were so short that part of her beautifully shaped cheeks peaked out the back. Cheryl had worked very hard to maintain herself and was proud of the results of her efforts.

All in all it was an outfit to create thousands of desirable and creative ideas in anyone that saw her. Cheryl was living the good life, as a partner she was guaranteed at least a mid to high six figure salary with bonuses depending on her billings. Not only that, she had a very hefty nest egg in stocks CDs and various investments plus money in the bank, thanks to a litigation that had been handled by the very law firm she was with now. Cheryl had a candy apple red Porsche Boxster and the Mercedes SUV she was driving today, a nice five bedroom six bathroom house in an older but nicer part of the city, as well as a nice little two bedroom cabin in Kirbyville Mo. by the Ozark lakes and the Mark Twain National Forest, on a secluded lot far from the paved road, and civilization.

Everyone that knew Cheryl seemed to like her, helped no doubt by her genuinely friendly attitude. Even though she had just been jumped from associate to partner in less than three years, there wasn't a single one of her former co-workers that had anything bad to say about her. Yeah, Cheryl's life was good; money, job, houses, cars, friends, but it hadn't always been so nice for Cheryl. In fact only a little over four years ago, she was at the lowest point of her life, with no way out that she could see. Just when the little blonde was about to give up on life, believing her dreams were beyond her reach, she was rescued from the most unlikely quarter.

It was the Chillicothe Correctional Center, or CCC, a hellhole and the place that held the other half of her soul

After several weeks the two were allowed to go home to the tiny two bedroom trailer just outside of Cape Gerardo, but within a few months baby Cheryl was back in the hospital. She was diagnosed with a malformed heart valve due to her premature birth. Two years and several operations later the constantly ill child was out of the hospital and well on her way to becoming a normal, healthy little girl.

Her parents were thrilled that their little girl was healthy at last and both were more than happy to work two jobs to pay off the mountains of medical bills incurred to get her that way. Life settled down for the Killian family, they were poor hard working people whose day to day lives had little, if any, impact on the world.

When the baby came early and the medical bills began piling up the Killians still didn't complain. Jason took extra work as a handy man, and his beloved Katie went back to waitressing as soon as she was allowed. By the time their beautiful little girl was healthy, the property and the trailer were mortgaged to the hilt and their medical insurance was max-ed out, and they still had a mountain of bills, but every time they saw their happy, outgoing, sweet loving little girl, the Killians felt like the richest two people in the world.

When she started school Cheryl was the kind of student teachers dream about; smart, friendly, popular, respectful, eager to learn and always happy to help. As things go, life was as close to perfect for the unassuming little family as it could get, but as everyone knows the gods, never allow human perfection to last. One sunny Sunday afternoon the happy little family was on their way home from a day in the country when the combination of an old car, old shocks, used tires, and unpaved roads, sent another twist into an innocent child's life. It was as simple as a sharp rock, a blown tire, a broken tie rod, and the old 65 Chevy was on its side in a ditch and on fire.

Nine year old Cheryl was thrown from the car and flew through the air only to slam into an old oak tree shattering her pelvis and breaking both legs in several places. Unfortunately the girl didn't hit her head, or pass out right away, being unable to move, the small child was forced to lean against the massive oak tree, and listen to the screams of her parents as they burned to death in the old car. It was a sound that would haunt her dreams for the rest of her life. Long after the screaming stopped pain, shock, and exposure finally won out allowing the comforting black velvet curtain of unconsciousness enveloped the tortured little girl. Cheryl woke up two weeks later, alone, her first memory was hearing the agonized death screams of her family.

Then came the waves of unbearable agony, sweeping over her body. She unwitingly, tried to move into a less painful position, she fell back and screamed, as white-hot knives of excruciating pain lanced through her legs, and her shattered pelvis. In response to the child's screams of pain several nurses and doctors came rushing into her ICU room. As the others tried, unsuccessfully, to sooth, and calm the frightened, and tormented child, one of the nurses filled a syringe from a vial of painkilling drugs, and injected the liquid into her IV line. Within seconds, very long seconds, the medication was racing through her little body and within minutes the scared and hurting nine-year- old was in a deep sleep.

All the nurses involved with the case, got together and talked over the girl's condition, and the apparent lack of family, recruiting some of their co-workers to help, the compassionate women decided that from that moment on, one of the off duty nurses would in the room with her at all times, so that Cheryl never had to wake up alone again. Cheryl woke again the next morning, and when she saw the nurse sitting in the chair next to the bed dozing, it made her feel a little better, until she realized that the nightmare, she had convinced herself was just a dream, was all too real. The little girl began weeping, and sobbing uncontrollably; she would fall asleep with tears streaming down her cheeks and would wake up sobbing. For days as the nurses tried their best to console her.

Cheryl grieved horribly for several days, then without warning she stopped grieving and withdrew from everyone.

She would read, answer questions, eat when told to, and later cooperated with her physical therapist, but that was all. It was as if the friendly, big-hearted girl had died in the accident along with her parents leaving a quiet hollow shell behind. After several long months of intense, and excrustiatingly painful therapy, Cheryl was allowed to leave the hospital, and was almost instantly placed with a foster family. The kind and caring older couple tried everything they knew to help the girl come out of her shell, but it was to no avail. The state finally broke down and reached into the meager buget alloted for child welfare, and sent the almost now eleven year old, to a psychiatrist where after four years of therapy the only break through that Cheryl had was when she and the doctor discovered she was gay.

That revelation was more than the older couple could handle and the social services worker was understanding, and compassionate enough, that she placed Cheryl in the home of a lesbian couple that had been together for over twenty years. It was here that Cheryl found a new home. Her new foster mothers spent many hours with the young teen and helped her over come some of the biggest problems she'd faced. One of the most important things the women did for Cheryl was using contacts within the system, that the one women had cultivated, they were able to locate the warehouse, were one of the Killians creditors had stored several boxes with some of the Killian family's personal belongings, that were found, when they had repossessed the family's old trailer.

The couple obtained permission and took Cheryl to the warehouse and spent four days searching through the contents of the huge building, until they located several small boxes of the family's meager possessions. They loaded the boxes into their pickup, and took them home for Cheryl to go through whenever she felt she was able to face the memories contained in those cardboard time capsules. It took her a long time to wade through the repressed emotions each family treasure held for the girl. Eventually the memories of the joy of life her parents had shared with their grealy beloved daughter, and it was these memories along with the knowledge of how she had been taught to handle the adversities of life that helped the lonely frightened and angry youngster to finally listen to the people trying to help her. It was a slow agonizing process, but eventually the old Cheryl began to return.

It was in stages, sometimes excruciatingly small stages but with the love and support of her foster mothers, Cheryl worked her way through her overwhelming grief and her own true nature that was begging to reappear. The once quiet and withdrawn girl became the person she was before the accident.

After that the rest of Cheryl's high school years went by without incident, she was even accepted by many of her classmates as a gay student and when prom time came Cheryl was able to find a girl to take to the prom.

Graduating in the top ten percent of her class, Cheryl received scholarship offers from several diverse colleges, but she chose the pre-law program UMKC, and entered the adventures of her college years with a bright outlook. She did plenty of extra curricular activities and did volunteer work at a local homeless shelter. The generous, compassionate young woman, was a regular poster for the foster care system, their shining example of all the good that is in the system, but beneath the cheerful surface, not everything in the petite golden haired girl's life was so bright and wonderful. No matter how fantastic her life seemed to those on the outside, or how many people she helped, or even all the charity programs, and community service groups she volunteered for, there always seemed that there was something missing inside her. Even those that were closest to her noticed eventually, that it seemed that Cheryl was always searching for something. There was a hole in her life no matter how much or how hard Cheryl tried it would not be filled. It didn't appear that the young woman could find love. She tried relationship after relationship but she wasn't getting any closer.

It would always start out the same, she'd meet some completely wonderful woman, who seemed to care deeply, but no matter how hard they would work at it, or how much they professed their undying affection, to the young woman, the relationship would inevitably fail. Cheryl just wasn't able to find the one true love she was searching for, like the one her parents had or like she had seen daily from Tina and Karen, and she wasn't settling for less.

Sure she cared for every one of the women she went into a relationship with, and she was always faithful, but eventually one or the other would realize it wasn't working, and break it off. Usually it was Cheryl that ended up walking out on the other. She was always nice about it, even when they weren't, but as she told her last college girlfriend, Cheryl refused to struggle and subject herself or anyone else to a loveless relationship simply because she was afraid to be alone.

It was like her life was a giant jigsaw puzzle that was missing one key central piece. No matter how hard she tried to work around it, the picture lacked detail and definition, the was no flavor. Cheryl didn't want to hurt anyone, but she absolutely refused to put herself through the hell, of someone's cold feet on her back, and their hair in the sink, if she couldn't have that deep all- consuming passion for her partner, that her parents had for each other.

Eventually Cheryl simply decided, she was just one of those people, destined to go through this lifetime without ever discovering her one true perfect love, her match, her soulmate. Sad? Yes. Discouraging? Certainly. But as far as Cheryl could see, inevitable.

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END 6

TBC

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