Author's note: the person speaking here is very much kick- ass Joan. As one reader put it (brilliantly!)- this is 'tossing my hair and casually saving your lives' Watson. It's not a voice I've used for Joan before but it works with this story. She's fierce! Hope you like it. -Sef

Let me start out by saying one thing. He is my friend. My best friend. I never met anyone like him before and I don't expect I will again. He drives me crazy. He is impossibly brilliant and ultimately fragile. He is stubborn but generous. He is untidy and yet meticulous. He is tough, strong, capable of cruelty towards his enemies, yet vulnerable, and gentle with the weak and those downtrodden by life. He is amazing.

OK, that's more than one thing. That's a lot of things. They're all true. But I missed the main thing. The thing that's a little hard to say. The thing he waves away as if it doesn't exist. He knows it I'm sure. But it embarrasses him, it shows him, he thinks, in a poor light, and so he ignores it. I guess he doesn't know what to do with it.

Yeah, right. The thing. I still haven't got to it. But I will. I must. Because it's relevant.

The thing is I love him. As a friend. Yes. And as a man. Oh yes. And he cares for me too, in his own way. I suppose he wouldn't call it love. But either way. There it is. We've never done anything with it, just let it sit on the couch with us, among the takeout boxes, in between the locks on the rack, dripping down with the honey from the roof.

And that's how it is when this starts.