Corpus et Animus
Part 3/ 4 or 5

Disclaimer:  I do not belong the characters or anything else you recognize in this fic.  Passions belongs to NBC, JER and a couple of other people, I'm sure.  I am not making any money off of this.  I write fanfic purely for pleasure, although I'm not opposed to receiving feedback :)

Posted: Sunday, June 16, 2002 (or would have been, if ff.n was feeling well)

 Summary: A spell gone awry leaves both Grace and Ivy acting strangely.  Sam/Grace and Sam/Ivy.

Note: This is my first Passions fanfic.  I hope you enjoy.  It takes place after Grace and John did the DNA test to determine whether or not he was her son, but since it doesn't deal with any of the stuff after Theresa declares herself Mrs. Julian Crane, let's just say it branches off there.  I have, however, messed with the timeline a bit and had Grace's conversation about Kay's feelings for Miguel happen already.

Thank you to andrea (Glad you're enjoying it), JupiterHime (I had hoped that the second part would clear things up, not make them more confusing!  Hopefully this helps a bit.  If not, well all will be explained in the next part or two), AshleyTara (I'm a fan of Sam and Ivy, too, as you may be able to tell), Kathryn (umm . . . same as for AshleyTara) and addie_babie (twice!) for reviewing the second part.

Sorry it took so long to get out.  I was stuck on the same paragraph for about a month until I finally sucked it up, deleted a bunch of what I'd written and tried again.  This time, it worked.

Also note that I have Support Services.  That means that if you want to receive notice of when the next part is out, add me to your Author Alerts.  Even if you don't have Support Services, you will receive an e-mail when I update.

Kay always felt weird when she was home alone. It happened so rarely, especially since their house seemed to have more and more people living in it every day. At the very least, usually her mother was around, cooking, cleaning or doing one of the other ‘motherly’ things Grace loved to do. Technically speaking, Kay wasn’t home alone, but both her parents were still in bed - an oddity considering Sam and Grace were both early birds.

Jessica was over at Miguel’s house, because she and Simone had come up with a “perfect idea” - their words, not Kay’s - for getting Charity back together with Miguel. It had been Kay’s job to distract Charity, which suited her just fine, not being able to stomach the idea of trying to get Miguel back together with Charity. She hadn’t done a very good job. Although she had kept the blonde away from the Lopez-Fitzgerald house, Kay hadn’t been able to command the zombie and she currently had no idea where her creation was. It had been awhile since Kay had been able to control the zombie completely and she was starting to get scared. Her last attempt had flopped, so it seemed. It had been well over twenty-four hours and nothing had happened, and she was sure that if it were going to work, it would have worked by now.

Kay stomped around noisily, quite content with being miserable. Everything was slipping out of her control and she was no closer to getting Miguel than she had been before. The noise must have alerted her mother, for seconds later Grace came waltzing through the kitchen door and into the living room.

“What’s wrong, dear?” Grace asked. There was an odd element to her voice and it took Kay a minute to recognize it: dreamy. Her mom was barely paying any attention to her. Inside, Kay seethed. Wasn’t that typical!

“Nothing,” Kay replied sullenly, crossing her arms.

Grace arched an eyebrow magnificently. All her attention now on her eldest daughter, she commended, “Sit.” Kay was a bit surprised at herself; she obeyed without a single word in protest. She was even more surprised when her mother sat down beside her and her face softened significantly. “So what’s wrong?”

“I told you, nothing.”

Again, her mother lifted her eyebrow. Kay wondered when she had learned such an impressive trick. “Kay, I’m not stupid.” She sighed, then tried another tack. “Where’s your sister and your cousin?” she asked with uncharacteristic insight.

“I have no idea where Charity is,” Kay answered truthfully - well, almost. Although she knew where the real Charity was, she had no idea where her imposter might be hiding. “Jessica . . . she’s at Miguel’s.”

Grace lovingly brushed a loose strand of Kay’s hair back behind her ear. “Miguel’s. And why aren’t you there?”

Kay jerked back. “Don’t start that again,” she said bitterly.

“Start what?” her mother asked in a slightly clipped, no nonsense voice.

“I don’t care that you think Miguel and Charity are perfect for each other. I don’t see why everyone thinks what they have is true love, but what I feel is only a stupid crush. I love him.”

“Sometimes love isn’t enough,” Grace said softly. “I used to think that your father and I . . . ” she trailed off. Kay snapped out of her self-pity and stared at her mother with some apprehension.

“Are you and daddy . . . is everything all right? Are you guys fighting again?” she asked, hating that she sounded like an insecure three year old, but not being able to help it.

Grace seemed to realize that she had said something that she shouldn’t have. “What?” she asked guiltily. “No, of course not. Don’t be ridiculous.”

If she didn’t know her mom didn’t lie, Kay would have thought she was lying through her teeth. “What I meant,” Grace clarified, “is that we’ve gone through some tough times together. We’ve had to work hard to stay together.” Her eyes bored into her daughter. “If you love somebody, you sometimes have to fight to keep them. In a perfect world, love would be enough, but it’s not and it isn’t.”

A cheerful whistling broke the solemn atmosphere and as Grace looked up to watch Sam come down the stairs, Kay knew she had been forgotten and the brief camaraderie with her mother, which had not been so strong in years - if ever - as it had for that conversation, disappeared.

“How’re two of my favourite girls this morning?” he asked, coming into the room. Her mother giggled - giggled - as Sam came over, pulled her off the couch and twirled her around. When he put her down again, they settled in for a long, passionate kiss.

Kay started to think about the best way to escape without being noticed. She needn’t have worried. When her parents finally pulled apart, Sam asked, “So have you given any thoughts to how to spend my day off?”

“I thought we’d already decided that,” Grace said huskily.

“Well, it’s hardly any fun to spend the entire day in the bedroom alone,” Sam said chidingly. “After you left, my plans changed.”

As soon as the words registered with Kay, she gave up subtlety entirely and instead ran - not that her parents noticed her anyway; they were too wrapped up in themselves. She shuddered when she got outside: there were some things that teenagers just shouldn’t see, and watching her parents have foreplay was one of them.

~*~

Grace couldn’t wake from her nightmare. No matter how many times she pinched herself, how many times she closed her eyes and willed it all to go away, she still was in Ivy Crane’s house, wearing Ivy Crane’s clothes, in Ivy Crane’s body. Worst was that no one believed her. Eve had already sedated her twice - Eve! - her supposed best friend, who couldn’t even tell the difference between Grace and Ivy.

The doctor was outside her door, along with a few others. Grace could hear their low voices penetrate the closed door and float through the dark room, reaching her ears even in her semi-drugged state.

“Dr. Russell,” Ethan asked impatiently, “what is wrong with my mother?”

“I told you, Ethan,” Eve said with a touch of impatience herself, “it’s too early to know anything for sure.”

Rebecca’s shrill voice pierced the air; she wasn’t bothering to keep her voice down as the others were. “What’s to know? Ivy finally went off the deep end. We should bundle her up and send her to the loony bin.”

“Mother!” a soft, but clearly mortified voice said. It took Grace a few minutes to realize it must be Gwen.

“Don’t ‘mother’ me, Gwen,” Rebecca said, voice still annoyingly shrill especially to Grace’s hazy mind. “I’m just saying what we all know: Ivy’s gone cuckoo.”

“All I want to know is how you’re going to make her better!” Ethan exclaimed, his voice also rising.

“Ethan,” Eve tried to explain, sounding harassed, “I’m no psychiatrist. I don’t know why Ivy Crane has suddenly started to halluc - ”

“She’s not Ivy Crane! I’m Mrs. Crane!” Rebecca shrieked.

“Mother!” Gwen shouted, clearly embarrassed. “This is neither the time nor the place.”

“Gwen is right,” Eve said firmly. “As long as she continues to be violent, I’ll keep her sedated. At least until we can get a psychiatrist in to examine her. Then . . . ”

Grace never did find out what Eve planned to do with her then because she finally gave into the drugs and drifted off to sleep.

End Part Three