I know, I was done but someone asked for this so I thought I would give it a crack.

"Close your eyes." The voice demanded softly. "Relax and let me do the work." It was soothing as was her hands exploring his body and he took a deep breath and tried to let his mind go. It didn't take long until he was completely relaxed and he dug his fingers into her fleshy thighs and lifted her up. Her blond hair was falling across her shoulder and he brushed it away as he pulled her down for a kiss.

"You feel good." He muttered. His mind was finally free of all thoughts and he lost himself for the next hour or so.

"I love you baby." If she felt him stiffen when she spoke she didn't let on and when she fell asleep he rolled away, unable to look at the blond hair right now. He felt sick. Up until the phone calls started he was doing okay, enjoying her company and the sex was good.

He was gone before dawn the next day and she barely acknowledged him when he dropped a quick kiss on her cheek as he scuttled from her bed muttering that he was going to be late for work. He needed to go home and get his work gear, which wasn't unusual, that was his standard escape plan. Somethings never changed.

"You gonna get that?"

"Nope." He rejected the call and slipped his phone back in his pocket. They were having breakfast at a local café. Since he scuttled from her bed like a scared little boy he had avoided her, always having some excuse not to see her. It wasn't her fault, it wasn't even the first time she'd told him she loved him but it felt like a noose was tightening around his neck all of a sudden.

All week the phone calls kept coming and he was staggering under their weight.

"Someone has been calling you a lot lately." She tried to sound unbothered by it but it came out forced. "A new woman?"

He glared at her, his brown eyes darkened considerably. "No." Instantly he softened his voice when he saw the look on her face. "What makes you say that?" He had always been careful to keep his two separate lives well and truly apart. If only she knew the truth she would run a million miles. Everyone would.

One day he contemplated telling someone the truth because the burden was getting heavier with every passing day, he'd hoped by now he would have shed that old skin completely but it was always there, under the surface, clawing at him to get out.

"You seem on edge."

He peered at the blond over the top of his coffee mug. "Only because you keep going on about it."

"Block them."

"Who?"

"The person who keeps calling you but you don't want to talk to." She rolled her eyes. He was getting harder to deal with. The past few weeks had been strange. He was distant, moody or moodier than usual and would disappear for days on end and when he did message her he always vaguely told her he was busy working and tired or he was going riding.

He was always out riding his bike and she hated it, she thought they were dangerous and the only time he took her for a ride she felt he was a little reckless. The one time he convinced her to go with him he took a little too much delight in scaring her. She was pissed. Right from the start though she knew he wasn't going to give it up, it was therapeutic for him. It was how he had always dealt with his 'moments' as he called them when his past came back to haunt him. A past that she knew very little about and he was reluctant to share.

There was only so much he was willing to let out and it was the same every time he did this. Eventually he hoped that one day he'd believe it, that this fictional life he lived would become his reality. Until then he told the same story, lived the same life like it was groundhog day. It was carefully cultivated to prevent people learning the truth but some days the cracks just started to appear out of nowhere.

Apparently losing his parents had affected him deeply, it was true he did miss his parents it was just that he lived the life of an orphan from a young age. When the reality was that he wasn't an orphan, not that he knew anyway and certainly he didn't grow up an orphan but now he may as well have. He felt rudderless, even his shit childhood where his parents hated each other was better than this nothingness. He never let go of the feeling of betrayal he felt when he talked about how his parents were dead.

This crack didn't feel like a hairline fracture though, this was more like a bloody canyon. It unsettled him and for the first time in years he didn't feel confident that he knew how to deal with it. The first time it happened he found himself in a deep hole of depression but it got easier. This time though he felt it wasn't going to be easy and that freaked him out.

She wanted to help him and be supportive and up until recently he seemed to like that, but lately he'd been difficult. Not that they had been dating long, just a few months and she knew she was much more into him than he was into her but that didn't stop her. She liked him, he was a wounded animal and for some reason she liked them. She liked trying to fix people, it hadn't worked well for her in the past but that didn't stop her. He was a little wild and mysterious when they met, kind of untamed and she felt that she was going to be the one to tame him. Initially he responded to her patience and gentle attention but when she started to demand more of him, want more from him he baulked and lately he barely looked like he knew how to even sit still. He used to tell her wild stories from his travels but in the past few weeks he had crawled into his shell a little. He'd get rolling drunk and wanted to party until he fell over, like he had a death wish and it unsettled her and when she told him that he just laughed in her face and ordered another drink.

"I like the calls, it makes me feel loved." Cocking his head to the side he gave her his trademark lopsided grin. Some things never changed.

"I can do that." Running her hand over his thigh it took all his strength not to flinch. He didn't love her, he liked her but he just couldn't let himself fall in love. It was too dangerous.

He felt it; it was creeping up on him again. That urge to flee. Every time he did it he promised himself it would be the last time, this time he would settle down and then he bolted. He was trying hard this time but the phone calls were getting to him, they were incessant and something was telling him it wasn't just a usual check in. It felt more and he wasn't sure he was ready to hear what they had to say. So he tried to block them out, with alcohol and it wasn't working.

It was strange, he was desperate to shed his past and in months in between when he heard nothing he felt good and then he'd have his meeting and he felt alive again for a few days, he felt like he could be him and stop pretending and then he'd crash and burn for a few weeks and one day just dust himself off and get on with it.

His routine had been thrown off and he didn't know how to cope with that. The only thing that made this nightmare tolerable was the pattern and consistency of his yearly check in and the process he went through to deal with it and get on with his life.

"Oh." Amy squealed when her phone beeped and it pulled him out of his headspace. "Anna has had the baby. Oh it's a girl, so beautiful. Look." She showed him the photo and he forced himself to smile. Anna was Amy's sister and it was her second baby. Her and her partner also had a three year old boy, Bobby and he was basically a brat.

"Looks a little weird."

"It's not weird, she's just been born." Amy looked at the photo again. Her biological clock was ticking and initially she thought the guy sitting opposite her might be her guy but the last few weeks had changed her mind. She had fallen hard, he was handsome, he was fun and loved a drink and a good night out. His carefree attitude was attractive in the beginning, then it started to become a drain. "I can't wait to meet her."

He could think of nothing worse, he had made it quite clear, each and every time that he was not interested in having children. He was pedantic about it. There was no way he could consciously bring a child into a world when he wasn't even sure he belonged here. He wasn't real, how could he have a child and teach them to be good honest people when his whole existence was based on a lie.

Being a complete asshole wasn't who he was either so he agreed to go with Amy to meet her niece. She was besotted from the moment she held her. "Do you want a cuddle?" she cooed offering the tiny bundle to him.

"No thanks. I don't do babies."

"All men say that until they have their own and then they are just all gaga." Anna teased him but she could see the look on her sister's face. As much as she had tried to like this guy she just couldn't, he was going to break her sister's heart and by the tension in the room seems like he already was.

"Well I won't have to ever worry about that."

"Why did you say that?" Amy was pissed with him as the left the hospital. He reached for her hand and she pulled it away. "You've made it very clear you don't like kids, can't you just pretend that they are not carriers of the bubonic plague though. You can't catch being a parent from them."

She was watching him and waited for him to say something but he just rolled his eyes.

"Why is it? What happened to you to make you so fucking bitter?"

"Life happened."