Disclaimer: I do not own anything you can recognize.
Claimer: I do own anything you can't recognize.
WARNING: mentions of alcohol abuse, swearing, religious references
"Finding Home Again"
Chapter 2 "Start Over,"
Suzanne had gotten up before the crack of dawn and started to work on fixing up her café. The place hadn't been used in several decades but she was up for the job. Hard work could keep her mind occupied.
She wanted to make a warm home like atmosphere. She had bought warmer more mellow colours for the ceiling and walls. She had put in oak floors and gotten most wooden setting. The counter was made of pine. The food displays, booth seats, cash registers, security system or any of the kitchen appliances hadn't come in yet so it was still very bare.
No matter what she would be working on Lou and Spike would come into it. She decided to just do painting after nearly falling from the ladder. She found herself still drifting but not in a dangerous way. She loved how it was coming together.
She kept her phone in her pocket while she worked but by noon she had nothing else she could do. She had to wait for the paint to dry to do anything more so she ended up locking up and heading home.
Her house was all finished up in two days. She didn't need to renovate too much, luckily. She did need to re-side the house, mow the lawn and fix little things. She knew that the roof would need work but not for a while let. She honestly didn't know what to with all of the space.
Suzanne sat down at her desk in her office. Setting goals, making plans and thinking about the future was part of the new her, she knew that she needed to keep herself on a path were there was no temptation to start drinking again. She had an order to the insanity of life. She had become an adult.
Building a career had been a top priority since she was eighteen but now it was starting a family. She had always loved kids and wanted to have kids but had never really given it a deep thought to it until this past year. Some would say it was a stage but what stage lasts a year. She knew better then to just get pregnant when she didn't have a stable income for herself
Her cell phone ringing woke up her from her thoughts. She fumbled it out of her pocket and opened it.
"Susanne Chevalier, owner of La Fleur Rouge Café," said Suzanne.
"Spike Scarlatti, SRU officer," said Spike.
"Hey, I didn't realise it was you," said Suzanne.
"I just got off of work," said Spike.
"So where do you want to meet?" asked Suzanne.
"No idea," said Spike.
"I have two ideas; at the unfinished La Fleur Rouge Café or my house," Suzanne suggested.
"Okay-uhh," said Spike.
"Never mind, that sounds awkward," said Suzanne.
"There's a coffee shop I know of," offered Spike.
"Okay," said Suzanne.
"Wouldn't it help to know the name and location first?" asked Spike.
"Probably would be helpful so I don't end up Regent Park like last time I didn't get directions," said Suzanne.
"It was quite entertaining when you called up Lou asking him to come get you because you were too scared to pull over," said Spike.
"It wouldn't have been entertaining if you were there," said Suzanne "we are way off topic now."
"It's called Timmy's," said Spike.
Spike gave Suzanne directions to Timmy's. Suzanne had to write it down as Spike was telling her, making him repeat several times to get it all down. She knew she'd get lost at least once just because she had no sense of direction.
"I'll try to be there soon as possible but I might be a few minutes late," said Suzanne.
"Suzy, I think by now I'm used to it. Either your super early, just made it or late by several minutes," said Spike.
"See you soon. I can't drive and talk," said Suzy.
"We established that back in the academy when you crashed a go-cart into the wall when I was trying to talk to you while we were racing," Spike reminded her.
"I can't believe you still remember that! I remember how for the entire day I refused to talk to you because I thought you did that on purpose," she said with a smile.
"Lou forced us to play adventure miniature golf so we would talk and he didn't have to be the mediator. You hit me in the back of the head with a golf ball and I pushed you in the pond before we even talked to each other," said Spike.
"I started it with the golf ball so I should have seen the pond thing coming. When we got back I was soaked and Lou had to get a frog out of my hair," laughed Suzy.
"He had to go put it back in the pond too," laughed Spike.
"We can talk when I get there," said Suzy trying to get hold of herself.
"Fine," sighed Spike.
"No pouting," said Suzy trying not to sound like her grandmother.
"Since when are you my ma?" asked Spike.
"Let's just hang up otherwise we'll just talk and never meet," said Suzy.
Suzy and Spike hung up without another word to each other.
He really must want to see me, thought Suzy.
Finding Timmy's wasn't as bad as she thought it was going to be. She found it with more ease than usual. She had only made one wrong turn and had to back track.
Timmy's was almost empty so it took no time at all for Suzy to find Spike. It hadn't been that long since they last say each other but it had felt like decades to both of them. She just froze; she was terrified of confronting Spike. Luckily, he wasn't as terrified as she was.
"Suzy," said Spike hugging Suzy.
Suzy felt herself caving into his hug and wrapping her arms around him. She tried not to cry but couldn't help it. She felt so weak crying so much.
"Please don't cry," said Spike.
"I can't help it," sniffed Suzy.
"I've missed you so much," whispered Spike.
"I'm soo sorry. I never meant to hurt you," sobbed Suzy.
"Shh, it's alright. I know you didn't mean to," said Spike.
It took several minutes for Suzy to calm down enough to speak. She felt so weak when she cried but after years of holding it back she couldn't help it.
"I owe you a reason for running off. After I got out of the academy I started to drink a lot. I thought my family would have been proud of it but they weren't. That doesn't justify it nor is it an excuse but a reason. I hit rock bottom when my sister overdosed on drugs and when I tried to get support from my family but they shunned me. I wandered into a church begging God for help; a priest overheard me and told me about a rehab program about a year ago. I got my life together, left the police force and opened a café in Vancouver then transferred the business here," said Suzy.
"I wish you would have talked to me," said Spike.
"I was embarrassed to admit how gullible I had been," said Suzy.
"None of that matters. You're here now. We can forget the past if you would like," said Spike.
"Okay, let's say we're back to when we first started our real jobs after the academy," said Suzy.
"Besides you decided not to be a cop," said Spike.
"Sounds perfect," said Suzy.
"Since we are back in time there is something I want to say that I never said," said Spike not making eye contact.
"Go ahead, remember clean slate," she prodded gently.
"I love you and I don't think I ever can stop," said Spike.
Suzy drew a deep breath. She was stunned even though she knew that he did but not to the point he would tell her. She could see that he was telling the truth. She didn't want this to go too fast.
"Spike, I love you too but I want to take it slow, naturally," said Suzy.
"We can take as slow as you want but I don't want for us to let this feeling go," said Spike.
"I don't want to either but I want our friendship to have time to heal first," said Suzy.
"Okay," he agreed.
"Just wait for me," said Suzy seeing the disappointment in Spike's eyes.
"I've waited this long and I can wait a bit longer," said Spike.
Please review. For any returning readers, thanks for sticking around past chapter 1. Huge thanks to TattooedLibrarian for catching the stupid mistakes I make. Stick around for Chapter 3!
