Don't own LOCI or it's characters. Just getting dirty in their sandbox for awhile.

It might help if you read the two other stories in this series (see my user profile), titled "Fury" and "Empty".

Enjoy!

"Shame you couldn't talk Goren into a retirement party."

The words don't make sense to her at first – but as her brain finally makes the connection between 'Goren' and 'retirement' she can feel every hair on her body stand on end as she glances over at her partner sitting calmly at his desk like he wasn't keeping yet another secret from his partner.

"He told me he told you," Hannah seethes on her behalf, and she can see the pink flush rise on his pale Irish skin. "That son of a bitch—"

Hannah moves towards the door, focused on Goren – probably about to haul him in to the office to chew him out for not telling his partner that he was quitting – which wasn't exactly a crime, now was it?

"Don't bother."

The words come out wrong – all flat and passive, but she's not angry – she knows she should be because she and Goren discussed this bad habit he has about keeping secrets – big secrets, secrets that partners needed to know about – on multiple occasions and it always seems to go in one ear and out the other.

Hannah looks at her apologetically – even though it's not his fault. Goren is the one who lied – he's good at that, it wasn't Hannah's fault that he'd believed him.

"He came to me three weeks ago with a request to retire… He said he's got just enough time in that his pension fund should cover him if he lives frugally. Considering all the crap he's gone through just to get back here I thought it was a little bit strange but… you and I both know he's on the Brass' black list, so it made sense – as much sense as Goren makes sometimes. He swore he'd talked it over with you. This is his last week."

"He's an adult, he can make his own decisions," She shrugs, and Hannah gives her a funny look. "Thanks for letting me know."

She exits the Captain's office and sits back down at her desk – feels absolutely nothing as Goren perks up at her presence, pushing over some mileage calculations that show that the curator's car should have had a quarter tank of gas left instead of being three-quarters full – which means she had to get gas at some point and that just may lead them to the warehouse full of stolen Iraqi antiquities and the reason that an archaeology student is dead…

The curator crumbles like so much dust two days later after they find the artifacts, and the receipt she had submitted for reimbursement to the museum for the cost of the temperature controlled storage locker out on Long Island… Funny, how someone so smart could do something so dumb.

Goren's been sneaking out a couple books from his desk every night… trying to be clever and cleaning out his desk little by little so no one will notice until Monday when he doesn't show up and his desk is empty.

"Your books are gone," She asks after she returns from processing the curator who had still been muttering that she had only done it to protect the artifacts.

Goren stares at her and for a second he's like a deer in the headlights and she can see him search for some excuse to tell her…

"Oh… they were taking up space… I can – I can get a lot of that information of the internet now, anyways."

He really thinks she's stupid, doesn't he? She wants the anger to come now – she wants to tear him to little pieces for quitting a job she'd worked so hard to get back for him because it hadn't been right and he doesn't even have the balls to tell her – but she doesn't feel anything.

"Nice to see you joining the twenty-first century."

He shrugs and goes back to filling out the closing paperwork – does he feel even the slightest pang that this is his last case? That this is the time they'll work together? That he's a rotten bastard who hasn't told his partner of twelve years that he's leaving her?

She guesses all of this – the job, her – didn't really mean that much to him after all if he thinks he can walk away without so much as a word.

She fills out her half of the paperwork (ugh, financial expense reports, just the sort of thing to made a foul mood worse) until the clock rolls over to a little past six and she signs her last form. She looks across her desk at Goren, who is still frantically scribbling away on sheets – of course, doesn't want to have to come in next week and wrap everything up – doesn't want to have to explain.

She pulls on her jacket, puts her gun and holster back in the locker, taking a little bit more care than she usually does – giving him one last chance to say anything… but he just keeps on working, barely glancing up at her.

"I'll see you around, Goren," She says when she can find no more reasons to stall.

He doesn't even say anything to her as she heads to the elevators.

She spends the weekend taking care of her father, barely listening as he regales her with old war stories from his day on the force that she's heard a dozen times before. To be fair, she's not really taking anything in right now. Goren's departure is like an extracted tooth hours after visiting the dentist. She can feel his absence and the rawness of the wound, but the pain killers have left her so numb that she can't feel the pain or much of anything anymore.

The anesthesia begins to wear off at 8 on Monday morning when she faces an empty desk across from her. She can hear the mutters and the eyes around her, watching. Everyone knows what an empty desk means – everyone knows Goren isn't coming back and they're waiting with baited breath to see her reaction to all this. Goren's always been gossip fodder and she by proxy just by being his partner.

She takes her seat like nothing's wrong, she won't give them the satisfaction – and starts to clear away the old notes on her desk, sorting scraps of Goren's handwriting into piles mentally marked archive and garbage. The important things will need to make their way to the right case file – to preserve some idea of the trail of logic that had lead them to their conclusions – to give someone opening the case ten years from now an idea of just what the hell they were thinking…

He didn't even leave her a goddamn note, an explanation, anything – and she starts to feel the first twinge of pain.

"Eames, my office," Hannah calls to her at 9, poking his head out the door.

She enters his office and watches as he shuts the door and a flips the blinds.

"I would have understood if you took today off," Hannah says, pale eyes evaluating her closely.

"Why? There's still things that need cleaned up while I wait for a new partner…," She shrugs.

"That was what I wanted to talk to you about," Hannah says as he goes over to his desk, pulling a short, thick paperback out of a drawer and handing it to her – a guide to the captain's exam.. .

"I think Moran was right – for once anyway – Eames," He says, leaning back against his desk, his expression intent. "I know that the captain's position in your old vice squad is going to open up in a few months – Cho's finally ready to retire – and I think you'd do great over there. It's not major case, of course, but you'd be the captain…"

"Thank you, but I'd really rather stay…"

"Do you think you're going to be happy with a new partner," Hannah interjects. "Not to knock whoever I bring in, but they're not going to be Goren – no one's quite like Goren. I think you're going to be bored." He smirks. "Besides, managing sixteen detectives is pretty much going to be the same as working with Goren – and I say that as a friend. He's a great guy, be he can cause more trouble than one person should be physically capable of. Promise me you'll at least think about it."

"You really think Chief Moran's going to sign off on that," She crosses her arms over her chest – while she might have been able to technically blackmail her way (and Goren's…) back onto the squad, she was under no delusion that her career was effectively dead in the water now. She'd had her chance for advancement that day when Moran had offered her the captain's spot and she'd let it go by, and she wasn't sorry for it either.

"You let me worry about Moran… you've got friends in the department, Eames. Friends who think you'd make a hell of a great captain."

"Thanks… I'll think about it."

She heads back to her desk, quickly shoving the exam book in a drawer and hoping none of the gossip hounds saw her do it – who knows what sort of rumors they would come up with. Her fingers twitch as she stares at the two organized stacks on her desk – there are hours left to go before she can clock out, and so far it doesn't look like anyone else needs her assistance or they're too afraid to ask her.

She goes through the pile of notes headed for the trash again, just to make sure that she's not throwing away anything important. She hesitates over a few – but ultimately decides that the train of thought detailed on them is just too Goren to be of use to anyone else... She can't figure out what the life expectancy of tsetse flies had to do with the wine sommelier's death – if Goren were here she'd make him explain it – and make sure he documented it in the official case file, but it's too late for that now.

The notes she decides to keep she carries down the archive room, and spends at least an hour filling out the appropriate paperwork to into the closed case files under the file clerk's hostile glare – although what he's complaining about she can't fathom – its only eight cases, not like the time she and Goren had gotten the ultimatum to clean off their desks by Deakins and ended up having information on at least fifteen case files – that incident had marked the last time that Goren was in charge of filing the paperwork. He'd bought her margaritas all night later as an apology.

By the time she gets back to the 11th floor its almost noon and she takes a moment just to appreciate her completely uncluttered desk – for once not being encroached on by the piles of books and paper of her partner that had defied her every attempt to shove them back onto his side.

It is because her desk is clear she finally sees the small piece of paper underneath her pencil mug. She stares it, frozen, as feels a sharp throb of pain at its presence. She reaches at warily, carefully removing the mug as if the whole desk were wired to explode… A post-it note, now that she can see it completely. Twelve years of their partnership and Goren managed to sum it up on one lousy post-it note. She doesn't know if she's impressed at that or furious – she supposes she'll have to read it to find out. She unfolds it, staring at her partner's familiar handwriting for a moment, as she absorbs the seven words that Goren had left her with:

'You were always the best of me.'

She feels last of the anesthesia that has been insulating her from all the pain fade and suddenly all the fury she'd thought had gone missing suddenly erupts inside of her in one large, hot, blast. She feels her skin flush and break out into a cold sweat as her vision is tinged with red and black. Her jaw aches and she thinks she can feel her teeth begin to crack she has them clenched so hard as she crumples the post-it in her fist.

She kicks her chair accidently while she makes for Hannah's office, can hear it clatter loudly against the metal side of the desk, can feel everyone staring at her, but she doesn't really give a damn what they think – hasn't cared for a long time come to think of it.

"I'm taking the rest of the day off," She snaps, her voice louder than intended as she thrusts her head into Hannah's office.

Hannah, who is on the phone with someone, looks bewildered (probably because she's supposed to be the controlled one) but gives her a gesture that she chooses to interpret as the go ahead and she is headed out of the office before he can even say anything. She takes the stairs for once – needing to hear the sound of her heels slamming into the concrete steps and echoing around her – the perfect accompaniment to the throbbing anger in her chest.

She debates for only a few moments when she steps outside of 1PP as to whether she should try driving over to Goren's place before she flags down a taxi. She is far too angry to drive right now – it's for the good of everyone else on the road that she stays out from behind the wheel.

To keep her mind off her lurching stomach (she's the only person she knows who gets carsick whenever she's not driving) she tries to recall what she remembers of the LUDs she'd pulled on Goren when Declan had been on the rampage, silently calculating and comparing the state of her own pension to what she knows of Goren's debts – and realizes that unless he plans on eating cat food for the next ten years or so he's going to have to find full time employment elsewhere – and fast if he wants to keep his creditors off his back. Which means he lied to Hannah – no surprise there.

What the fuck is going through that big brain of his that quitting a steady job that pays higher than anything else out there with his qualifications would seems like a good idea? That nasty part of her wonders if maybe the voices in his head told him to do it – but right now it is the only explanation she can think of that makes any sense.

She throws what is probably entirely too much cash at the driver as he pulls up outside Goren's apartment and throws herself out of the cab before it comes to a complete stop. She's stuck waiting outside for ten minutes – pounding on the door until finally someone passes by so she can flash her badge – which fortunately is all she needs to do to convince them to buzz her in because right now she's not in a mood to be charming –

She takes the stairs two at a time, her chest heaving by the time she makes it to Goren's floor, but she hardly notices as she starts to pound her fist on his door, feeling the shockwave of each strike travel up into her shoulder – it's going to hurt in the morning, she'll probably have a bruise on her hand tomorrow on top of it.

She can hear movement in the apartment – the sound of large feet moving quickly across the space – and when the door cracks open she seizes her chance and wedges her shoe in between the door and the frame – they're no size 13s, but they'll do.

"…Eames," She hears him ask faintly, his voice tired – she must have woke him up.

"Open the door, you goddamn coward," She snarls as she sees he's still got the chain up on the door – Goren's always more unsettled by quiet threats than loud ones – something Ross never learned – and she knows how to pitch her voice now to get Goren's undivided attention.

She can hear him hesitate behind the door, feel his indecision – but he's going to give in, because they both know that she'll stay out here all damn day if she has to.

"I'm… sorry you had to find out this way."

"Hannah let it slip last week – and apology not accepted because you're being a complete asshole. The only reason I 'found out this way' was because of you. Because you were too chicken to tell me you were quitting after eight goddamn cases."

More silence, more indecision – all the more frustrating because she can't see his face – that would at least give her some kind of lead to what the hell he's thinking about – give her a clue of where she needs to strike next.

"I don't know what you want me to say," She can hear a thread of panic in his voice ever so faintly – she's got him on the ropes. He obviously didn't expect her to show up here today, unusual for him since he normally has everyone else's moves planned out before they even know they're going to make them, and she fully intends to work that to her advantage.

"Well, let's start with the truth, for once."

There's a long stretch of silence, and if weren't for the sound of his breathing she'd wonder if she'd lost him – obviously he's trying to come up with another answer to try and appease her, to get her to go away and she can feel her fury rising with each passing second that he doesn't answer her question–

"…I think I'm in love with you."

Well, she'd wanted the truth… and with another seven words he's managed to drain all the anger from her, and she would swear in this moment that she's about to freeze to death as she feels all the heat seep away from her body. You were always the best of me… I think I'm in love with you…

"Jesus Christ, Goren…" She groans dropping her forehead to his door with a loud thunk.

"I'm sorry."

He's in love with her – when had that happened? What the hell was he thinking, falling in love with her in the first place? Why is she even surprised – it's practically the 'Goren' thing to do – after all he's managed to torpedo his career in the most spectacular of ways, really, falling in love with his partner is almost pedestrian in comparison to unauthorized undercover missions to prisons upstate.

"Let me in, this isn't a conversation I want to have in the hall, through a door," She sighs – relieved as the feeling of numbness comes back to her and she can think with more detachment about this whole mess.

"…I – I would but your foot's in the door."

She feels a hysterical giggle burble in her throat – of course, that would make it sort of hard to slip the chain – but she smothers it quickly. She grasps the door knob tightly, twisting so he can't lock it as she slowly slides out her foot from the crack – If he decides to pull a fast one she's going to have to kick down this door, and she's certain that's going to be just hysterical to watch.

She hears the latch drop against the door frame and she pushes on the door before he can have second thoughts. She feels his weight behind the door as he jumps back, hissing as she stubs his toes. As soon as he gets out of the arc of the door it swings wide open, and she looks into the apartment she hasn't seen in years… There are traces of the familiar here and there, but for the most part the place has been stripped bare – a small old ratty couch in place of the comfortable leather one that had set there before. The bookshelves are long gone along with most of the books that were on them – there are a few small stacks pressed against the walls, the sad remainders of a book collection that had once taken up almost half the length of the wall from floor to ceiling. The signed limited edition photographic prints of far off places that once hung on the walls are gone, replaced by small unframed canvases of still-lifes with violet bananas (…hadn't his mother been in art therapy?). Even the television is gone.

He stands before her dressed in a pair of worn out jeans and a rumpled t-shirt… there's at least a few days worth of stubble on his face and bags under his eyes from lack of sleep – at least he's at miserable as she is right now and that seems only fair.

She can barely picture the man who walked in and shook her hand in the Captain's office – back when it'd been Deakins grinning behind the desk like a proud father – and introduced himself to her as Bobby Goren, no really, call me Bobby… He'd been thirty pounds lighter and his dark locks had only shown the first threads of silver. He'd worn clean suits, fastidiously pressed with vibrant silk ties and spit-shined shoes. He grinned back then – wide, toothy, and always vaguely predatory. He'd stood tall– shoulders back and just a shade away from arrogant. There had been an almost palpable aura of electricity crackling around him that intensified every gesture.

Those traits had all been stripped from the defeated man that stood before her – they might have been two different people if you were able to stand them side by side. Except those eyes – the eyes were the same – dark bottomless brown that even back then had been sad and wary. Those eyes were the reason she'd not followed through on her transfer request in the end – when the electricity had exhausted her and the arrogance had driven her to near to madness with frustration it had been his eyes and the knowledge that there was something beyond the irritating know-it-all front that made her willing to keep trying with him.

"You weren't supposed to show up for another four hours," He mumbles, watching her through his eyelashes as he rubs the back of his neck, shifting his weight from side to side in that way that always made him seem like a little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar in spite of his height.

Four hours… four hours would have been the end of her full shift, had she worked it.

"Why, planning to be gone by then?"

"N-no… no… I would have had something better to say…"

"Something to make me go away. A lie I'd believe."

He bobs his head, hand coming away from his neck to dance in the air for a moment in a gesture she translates as, 'that's about right, yes'. He drops down onto the couch, which creaks alarmingly in response. His fatigue is palpable – she feels a hint of exhaustion just looking at him – and she knows that he's not firing on all cylinders – a few years ago he wouldn't have needed four minutes, not to mention four hours plus a whole weekend to come up with an excuse for why he had to leave NYPD. The Goren she'd met in Deakins' office wouldn't have needed four seconds – would never have let her get this close to him in the first place.

She's glad she's not facing them.

"Why didn't you just transfer," she asks, leaving out the 'like a normal person', because Goren, no matter the iteration, has never been normal.

"… to where? With who? No one else would put up with me," Goren mutters, rubbing his hand down his face, as he looks up at her. "You were the only reason I kept coming to work anymore, that's when I knew…knew that I couldn't stay."

"Why didn't you tell me," She asks – demands, because it isn't fair that he can just drop this sort of thing on her. "You just assume you know best and do what you want without even asking what anyone else thinks—" Old acidic rage flares as she remembers walking into the conference room and seeing Joe's case spread along the table and along the walls – pictures that she'd only looked at once because she'd had to and then regretted it every day since because those were her last memories of Joe, dead on the concrete floor of a warehouse instead of him alive, happy – All laid out before her once more in bright Kodachrome color because he knew better…

He looks at her then, his eyes sharp and engaged like he is when he's facing down a suspect in the interrogation room and she feel s cold sweat start to pool down her spine and into the small of her back. She struck a nerve, she knows, and Bobby plays tit-for-tat at an Olympic level.

"What would have been the point," His brows furrow and she can see the loathing in his eyes, and aches because it's all directed at himself. "I won't give you children – can't give you the normal family you want, and you'll never feel the same way about me—"

"You never even asked—"

"There wasn't any point," He snaps, anger finally emerging. "It's not as if you've been protesting – you're mad because I didn't tell you, that I didn't keep you in the loop on something that isn't any of your business – not because you have any secret affection for me…" A small sour laugh spills forth and she watches him deflate into himself again. "Besides, you're still in love with Joe… you always will be."

The blow stings… but not as much as she thought it would.

"Some part of me will always be in love with Joe – but that's the past and I've—"

"Moved on? Really," She can hear the sneer in his voice, and this time it is directed at her. "Why is it, do you think, that all your dates wind up being married losers or creeps—"

"Because I'm the unluckiest girl in Manhattan," She tosses out hoping to distract him, but the sarcasm falls miserably flat as her gut drops in terror – because she was an idiot to think that the first strike was anything but a set-up for what was coming next.

"You pick them – unconsciously – because you know they'll never compare to Joe. You'll never betray him by falling in love with someone else – so you find men who are weak and inferior so you can blame it on them when the relationship inevitably goes south, when in reality you're the one who will never let it go anywhere. You lead them on, lie to yourself and them and say you're over Joe's death – they never know that they're competing with a saint for your heart – never know that the odds are completely stacked against them –"

It hurts – like a knife to the gut and her vision whites over for a few seconds as she rocks with the pain – the salt in the wound is that she can see exactly what he's saying, sees how her behavior could be interpreted that way – worse still thinks that he might be right about it, at least on some level, and feels ashamed of herself.

"I'm sorry, I – I had no right…" She can hear him faintly in her ears and while she is angry that he exposed this part of her, ripped her wounds clean open again without any thought, made her into the bad guy, and there's another part of her that wants to cut him to little pieces for what he's done, what he's made her feel. She knows, though, that if they keep up this game of tit for tat very much longer they'll be nothing but human sieves spilling blood and pain on the floor, and that wouldn't be very productive, not to mention a bitch to clean up when it's all said and done.

"I do this – I – I hurt people – I hurt you… It's too late for me," He's standing now, hovering over her nervously. "You should go – I'll call you a cab."

She could get in that cab, leave him and the hurts he exposed behind – she could go back to her life and pretend that none of this had happened – let him completely isolate himself from her, from everyone – continue to pretend that he wasn't right about Joe – continue her life as she had been living it – not unhappy, but not happy either – he was making it easy for her.

She had never liked easy.

"And go where, Bobby? Home alone again," He blinks at the bitterness in her voice, taking a step away from her. "If it's too late for you, then what hope do I have? Not like I've got a lot people knocking down my doors either."

"Don't – don't say that— It's not the same… you're still young."

The words are a soft, meager protest – but she knows he means them – remembers Declan Gage grasping Bobby's face in a fatherly gesture 'You're still so young'… remembers the aching too-long pause between 'yes' and 'I thought that' when Declan had asked whether Bobby had thought it was his fault that no one in his life came through for him. Knows in her gut that 'I thought that' should have been 'I thinkthat'… that Bobby never turned away family in his life, even when they left him broken-hearted and alone in the end. As much as she loathed Declan as a human being for screwing up his daughter, for screwing up Bobby she had to concede he was right about certain Bobby's life: That whether through mental illness or conscious choice so many people in his life had failed him…

She can't be one of them, not now in this moment when he's finally let her in. If she walks out of this apartment now he'll be gone by the time she comes back and she'll never find him – feels a grim premonition that he'll be dead within the year if she lets him have his way here tonight. Probably not by active suicide – but if there were someone who could will themselves to die it'd probably be Bobby.

She can't leave him, that's a cold hard truth in her heart – but a relationship? She doesn't know if she loves him in the same way he apparently loves her – she's never thought of him that way before. He's been her partner all these years and he knows things about her that even her own family doesn't, but what does it really mean beyond the fact that they've worked together for over a decade? They don't really have any common interests outside of work – he likes jazz and she likes rock, he'd spend days locked away in a library while nothing sounds more boring to her… how could the two of them make it work at all?

What if she stays and it doesn't work out – she'll just be leaving more wreckage in both their lives and the thought absolutely terrifies her because she knows how close Bobby is sinking as it is, knows that she holds the power to destroy him utterly now with a word or a gesture and it is just too much for one person to take on –

Only… the idea of not having him her life at all is just as frightening – he's been her constant companion – one of her longest acquaintances outside of family – they'd been together longer than she and Joe had been married and that scared her too. They were so close at times they could communicate with glances and twitches of fingers –

No obvious choices and no good choices lay before her – break him now and save/hate herself or possibly break them both later. It was like the lady and the tiger only instead of a lady there were just two tigers and she was just going to have to pray that one she picked didn't have a taste for human flesh.

"If we… if we do this, there are going to have to be some rules…" She hears her voice wobble, but she pushes on anyway, ignoring his shocked stare. "The first rule is that you need to get help – we both need to get help. The second rule is—"

"Don't—"

"The second rule is," She plows over the top of his protest. "That if this ends it isn't your fault."

"I don't need your pity," His eyes are wild like a caged animal – her tiger – "Don't do this."

"Good, because I wasn't giving you any," She bites back. "The third rule is that we have to be honest – no more secrets, no more telling each other what we think we want to hear."

"Why are you doing this to me," He cries out in fright, backing away from her. "We both know this only ends in disaster, why are you doing this? You don't love me –"

"Quit telling me what I feel! I don't know! I don't know what I feel about you anymore. We've been partners for twelve years – do we even having anything to talk about when there isn't a corpse between us or a case to solve," She crosses the space he's put between them, her voice rising until she's practically shouting at him. She flinches herself as she watches him cringe before her. "I don't know, Bobby… but I'd like to find out – if we take this slow…," She makes her voice softer, soothing – his strength is so depleted at this point she could probably bully him into doing what she wanted, but she needs him to agree to this mad plan of his own volition if any of this is going to work. "I think we can make it through this."

"I can't give you children – My genes – my genes are cursed, even if they wouldn't end up a monster, they could end up like me or Donny… or my mom… I can't inflict that on someone innocent, not even for you." He whispers, and she's close enough to him that she can feel his body trembling even though they're not touching, smell his terror. "You deserve to be with someone who can give you everything, who can make you happy."

"Why is it," She asks after a long moment, "That men always seem to think that a woman's life isn't complete without a baby." The steel in her voice unnerves him, but she is loathe to temper it – not when he's chosen to make this the sticking issue. "I never needed a man and a relationship to become a mother – It would have been nice to have children – but I don't need a child for my life to be whole – and whenever I do think about it all I have to do is go to a family gathering where there are six of them clamoring for my attention and I get my fix for a month," She takes a deep breath, and lets it out slowly. "So let's just assume that since I haven't had a kid of my own already that I don't want one. So what's your next excuse?"

He stares at her, shaken and utterly vulnerable in a way that she's only seen him with two other people – Declan and Nicole Wallace. She's not going to use it to hurt him like they did – or at least she's going to try not to.

"I—I don't… know…." His voice is soft, and broken – his skin has grown ashen and she knows he's going into shock – hardly surprising considering everything that's happened today.

"Good. The fourth rule is no planning more than a day ahead – no more trying to predict how I'll react and then acting as if I've already done it…"

He stares at her as if she's some alien creature – and she supposes she might just very well be one in his world – and on impulse she leans up to peck him chastely on the cheek as some token of her affection and assurance that this is reality, but he's so damn tall, even slouched over that she only manages brush the underside of his jaw. He shivers violently, but the trepidation is gone… for now at least.

"I'm so tired…"

"Then go to bed."

She half walks, half drags him to his bedroom and puts him to bed – helping him under the covers. She retreats back to his living room once his breath becomes steady and takes a seat on his couch. She pulls the post-it note he'd left her out of her pocket and smoothes the piece of paper out on the milk carton coffee table.

You weren't supposed to show up for another four hours…

You were always the best of me…

I think I'm in love with you…

But for four hours and fourteen words her life would be on the same trajectory it had been on when she had awakened this morning – all the complications and potential tragedies that loomed before her would have been far from her path –

It would have been easier, she admits, but she'd never done easy before, and didn't think she wanted to start now.