Bonnie was sitting in the waiting area seats when the guys emerged from the "VIP" jetway and their flight from the location shoot from Chicago. She'd been staring at the floor, but looked up as they approached. Mike looked like shit. He said nothing, but he did look her in the eye as he muttered, "Hey, Morris." She was grateful, at least, for that.

Davy nodded a quick hello and managed not to run like hell. Peter offered a pained smile and a "Gimme a call," and Micky dropped a quick kiss on Bonnie's head as he passed. As always, Chip and the other crew members that had taken part in the location shoot were elsewhere, handling the gear and making sure the expensive video and sound equipment made it into the trucks okay. Bob was where Bonnie had been until a short while ago: at the office, working.

"Here gimme that," Bonnie told Mike as she dodged his kiss. He stood still for a moment. "Come on," she urged him, taking his carry-on but leaving the Gretsch for him. "Let's get your luggage and get the hell out of here, okay?"

She had nothing to say as they loaded the stuff into the Rambler wagon, and Mike could see she was wound so tight her head was about to pop off. He wondered if she'd talked to Genie, then realized it was a stupid question. They told each other everything. He didn't ask for the keys, just slid into the passenger side and let her drive.

"Baby," he began after they were on the freeway headed home, "Morris..." but instead of going on he stared at the road ahead, unable to think of what to say next.

"Sshh," she said, "save it for when we get home. This heap isn't big enough to hold what I got to say."

When they got in the house he just dumped his luggage in the front hall and tried to put a hand on her shoulder, but she stepped away.

"I think I need some coffee," she announced and went to the kitchen. When the percolator was bubbling, she turned to face him.

"Okay, dammit, start talking."

He stared at her blankly.

"What?" she snapped. "Suddenly the man with an answer for everything has nothing to say? UPI shoots a wire photo of you making out with some brunette all over the world, while you're shooting on location. What part of the shoot was that, huh? I don't recall any bar scenes in the script."

He still was having trouble gathering his thoughts. "Look, nothing serious happened," he insisted.

Bonnie's eyes bugged out as she went red with rage.

"Nothing serious? Well I don't suppose you could have asked her to live with you because I'm already here! " She shook her house-keys in his face, the ones on the silver armadillo key-chain he'd designed especially for her. "Or maybe you already hired another stained glass artist to replace my window?" She fumed silently for a minute. "So tell me, what 'not serious' did happen?"

He was resigning himself to not having any right answer to her questions, but decided to keep the whole truth to himself for the moment. It was crazy, suicidal even, but he did it anyway.

"What you saw is what happened. A kiss, that's it. I don't know why or how, it just happened."

"A kiss. I don't think so. What I saw was a walking swallow-and-grope, all over the hotel bar. Must have been 'just happening' half the night! And Jesus, Michael, if you don't know how or why..." She trailed off, overcome by the absurdity of it, then strode to the living room and threw herself on the sofa and added in a wounded voice, "And Chicago. For Christsake, why couldn't you have done it in St. Louis, or Cleveland, or anywhere else that wasn't where we started out, you and me?"

He frowned and sat down in the easy chair as if it were made of bone china. "You make it sound like I was trying not to tell you."

"Well you sure as shit didn't try very hard to. God, Nesmith, just rub my face in it why don't you. The press sure did. 'Monkee business in Chicago: Mike Nesmith gets it on with a brunette beauty while his main squeeze slaves away in LA on the show that made him a rich man.' Nice. She was the 'brunette beauty,' and I didn't even have a name. And I couldn't even reach you to ask you about it, you didn't return my messages to the hotel, I had no idea where you were."

"I didn't get it on with her," Mike said simply, praying she couldn't read him as well as she should. The words seemed to fuel her rage , even if she couldn't see through them.

She leaned forward and railed, "Oh, am I supposed to thank you, you bastard? What else didn't you do? You don't have to take your clothes off to get it on, you forget I've been on the road with you guys a time or two."

"NO. Nothing like that, nothing! She was just some extra, a model, we were all partying after the shoot and she was just there. I lost track of who I was and where I belonged, okay? A few minutes, maybe, before I said 'oh shit what is this?' and put on the brakes. But you know the cameras; they cut out all the context. How can I make you understand?"

Bonnie jumped up and stood over him. "Understand! Why the hell should I have to understand any of it! You didn't get it on with her, you didn't run off for the weekend, but you might as well have because now it's all I hear about! Every dark little back-of-my-mind doubt, the ones I don't even talk to you about because they are so absurd, well now they're flung in my face in front of the whole world." She ran from the room and returned with a gossip magazine featuring a glossy black and white of Mike dipping a woman over his knee in the kind of kiss she thought had become hers alone. The bar light wasn't the best, but the picture told its story.

"See, they got your good side again." She threw it at him; the pages cascaded around him on the floor. Then she ran out of things to shout, accusations to make, and so she just leaned down and screamed in his face, "FUCK YOU, Michael, I don't even know what else to say. You didn't get it on with her, big fat deal. You couldn't have cut me any deeper if you did. I suppose I should be grateful you're not telling me 'it didn't mean a thing'. It would be a shame to feel like this about something you thought was nothing, a real damn shame to think you'd do this to us for nothing."

He stared up at her, and finally gave a weary shrug. "What do you want," he said raggedly. "You want me to leave? You want to leave? What?"

"Oh no, you don't get off that easy." Then her voice dropped to a painful whisper. "I don't know." She focused again on his eyes and saw that desperate need to make it right that hadn't made an appearance in a long time, and knew she really had no idea what she wanted.

"I want, I want..." She breathed in, a shaky gasp. "I want it not to have happened. Baby," she said the last word as if she couldn't help it, as if it were dragged out against her will, "I want me to have been enough! I want her to have been a friend, or a memory, or anything, but not something worth risking us for!"

He reached for her hand but she recoiled.

"She wasn't worth that, okay?" he insisted in a near-desperate voice. "That's why I stopped, that's why I left. Nothing and nobody else is worth risking us. I knew the press was around, I know I should have called you right away, but I was scared you'd be gone before I got back, that you'd hate me, that you'd decide all that lame shit and the old lame me is right back again. I thought if I waited I'd think of what to say, or have time to prove it's not true, but I didn't know how, and then it was time to come home and I was even more afraid. Stupid, right? What can I say, Morris, what can I do? I can't undo what's done, I can't. I don't know what to tell you that will make a difference."

She sank to her knees in front of him, and put her hands on his knees. She looked to him like she was begging, and it made him feel sick.

"You know what to do. Tell me you love me. Tell me you love me and mean it, and make me believe it." She was damned if she'd cry. "Or tell me it didn't happen, that the pictures lied, that it wasn't you. Tell me anything but make me believe you're not out grabbing handy ass again because I'm not young enough or wild enough or pretty enough. Make me believe this is about you being stupid and not us being a bad idea."

She couldn't believe she was saying these things, they sounded so weak, but she'd said them to Genie when she told her what was happening, when she was desperate for logic. Genie just hugged her; it was all she could do.

"Oh, man," Mike muttered, appalled at the damage he'd done. "Please, Bonnie, come here, please," and he grasped her arms and drew her to him so she was kneeling between his legs, facing him. She pulled her face back as if she were afraid of his kiss so he tried to reassure her.

"I'm not out grabbin' ass anymore, I don't want to, I love you. I love you, who you are exactly like this, more than my life. It doesn't matter who she was because nobody loves me like you, nobody takes care of me refuses to put up with my shit, nobody saves me from myself and stands between me and being stupid and miserable and lonely like you do." Now he had her face in his hands, firmly holding her close in front of him. "You're wrong," he whispered, kissing her forehead, "Te amo," he repeated and kissed her eyelids, "Te adoro siempre," and he scattered more kisses on her cheekbones, nose and chin.

He kissed her so softly, so gently, he hoped it would draw some of the pain away. At first he felt Bonnie's mouth begin to open against his as her emotions almost overtook her. Then he could actually feel her regain control as she pulled away again.

"I'm sorry," he told her, "I know it's lame, but I'm so sorry, I never want to hurt you, never, I can't believe I did this, you know I'm not looking, you know it, God baby I wish I could undo it but I can't." She relented a little and wound her arms around his neck, reaching up so she was pressed against him.

"You hurt me, you hurt me so bad," she told him bitterly, "I thought you wouldn't come back when I couldn't reach you, that you were gonna stay with her or bring her back with you, and I didn't know why. I trust you Michael, in spite of all that bad past I never thought not to trust you, and maybe you weren't out looking but you found somebody anyway, didn't you? Or she found you like all the others did before, the ones you swear you don't want now, and it was that easy to turn you around. Shit, I can't think any more, I can't. I just need it to stop hurting."

He leaned forward and slid to the floor so she didn't have to reach up. She sat on his legs and slumped against him, as if she had nowhere else to go then raised her head from his shoulder and looked him in the eye. "I know you're sorry, I know you feel like shit, and I know you didn't want to hurt me. But there's no way that doing that couldn't hurt me. I bet that 'brunette beauty' knew all about me, like it was some sort of contest, and you helped her win." She saw his face was a mask of misery and stopped, then touched his cheek and looked at him as if for the first time. "God, how could this beautiful man hurt me to the bone like this?"

Mike kissed her cheek and whispered in her ear, "I love you, you know it, you feel it."

Bonnie sighed as she pulled away again, and shook the tears from her eyes. "I know."

But she didn't say she loved him too. The one thing that might take the edge off of his fear, the words that by now had become as natural as breathing, and she couldn't say them.

The phone rang and they both jumped. Bonnie shut her eyes. "Whoever it is let 'em go to hell."

Mike shifted her off of his lap and got up. So few people had their private number (which still had to be changed frequently to thwart press and fans) it had to be someone they knew. He grabbed the phone then slouched onto the floor again, leaning against the sofa. "Nesmith," he announced flatly.

Then Bonnie saw his expression go blank, almost fearful.

"Genie. Hey. Yeah I'm back."

Bonnie was up and gone in a flash. Let her rip him up, she thought, she'll do a proper job of it.

As for herself, Bonnie was too tired and too hurt and too much in love with him to keep it up much longer... and that scared her more than anything.