Chapter 1: Pleased to meet you… again.
"Hi".
Jennifer Mapplethorpe almost fell head over heels as she saw whose voice had spoken the word, its warm welcoming tone exactly as she remembered it. She stood transfixed on the spot for a moment, gathering her thoughts which were travelling at an intense and mind splitting pace; a feeling of light headedness slowly setting in. Say something, Jen, bellowed the voice in her head puncturing the commotion; it was all she could decipher from the haphazard mess that was her present system of thought.
"Hi" accompanied by a tiny, but genuine, smile was all she could manage right at that moment. How creative! She thought while gradually her headspace began to shift back to its usual intelligent, highly capable and, most importantly, functioning self.
"Jen, have you met Nick?" Emma's voice was a little distant as she hadn't entirely made her way into the kitchen where Nick and Jennifer were awkwardly facing one another, unsure of what to say or do next. Emma had been in the lounge room of the house she shared with her partner Matt. This get together the two of them were hosting was to celebrate Jen's return from a counter-terrorism operation. Jen had obliged without even thinking twice; excited at the prospect of spending time with her beloved "musketeers", and she didn't have anything against Emma, nothing that she could think of at this minute anyway.
"No", replied Jen, a little more hurriedly than she had intended to and hoping she had managed to pull off a convincing tone of voice as the word came soaring out.
"Jennifer Mapplethorpe". Jen's obvious choice of words were spoken with such falsity that she could hardly believe they'd come from her own mouth. She gripped Nick's hand tightly and shook it, trying to make it seem as though this were a hand that had never been offered to her in handshake let alone one which had once been entwined with hers, stroked her cheek even…
"Nick Buchanan". How she loved his voice, she knew it all too well but thought she'd never be fortunate enough to hear it again. Deep down there was always a flicker of hope that it would one day return and speak to her; that he would one day return.