Black Balloon - The Goo Goo Dolls

Maps - The Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Jump into the Fire - Harry Nilsson

Jack and Bennie Ginsberg, otherwise known as Jacqueline and Bernard to their Harvard friends, took a semester off and went home to California. They crashed, as they always did in their friend Anna's guest room. The couple had planned on taking care of their friend who had been to hell and back in the past year.

Anna had moved out of the house that she had been living in last year. She had managed to sell it because the school district was one of the best. Anna was renting a house a few miles away, smaller than the last, and was waiting on the escrow to go through. Anna called her new place the rental.

She couldn't live in a house with all those memories.

So when Jack and Bennie had finally set up in the guest room, they hadn't expected Anna to be so…upbeat. It was a surprise, not an unpleasant one, because they were happy to see Anna moving on. But it was still…it was a surprise.

Jacqueline was not a woman who was thrown easily. She adjusted her five step plan to get Anna back on the proverbial horse. Instead of getting Anna over the moping depression that had been step one, she made number two move up a notch. Getting Anna back into dating.

"I think," Jack said as she set out plates for dinner, "that you should start dating again. Andrew wouldn't have wanted you to stop completely. He'd want you to-"

"I'm seeing someone." Anna interjected as she stirred the pot of spaghetti noodles.

Jacqueline, poised, genteel, brilliant, Jacqueline who had won several beauty contests through high school, lost her grip on the last plate and nearly dropped it.

"Sort of," Anna continued with her back to her friend. "I think."

Jacqueline almost slammed the abused plate on the table and stuttered out a disbelieving and alarmed, "What?"

"We've been dancing around each other for a while," Anna supplied, turning her head just slightly so she could see the stupefied expression Jacqueline wore. "Jack, are you okay?"

The brunette sat herself down at the table because at that moment she couldn't exactly feel her legs, "Peachy."

"That's great," Bennie said enthusiastically. He shot a half hearted glare at his wife, "What's his name?"

Anna bit her lip and turned back to the pot of boiling spaghetti and water, "Charlie."

"Charlie what?" Jacqueline asked suspiciously.

"Crews."

"Oh hell no." Jacqueline said at the same time her husband said, "Well shit."

"The Charlie convicted of murder and sent to jail for twelve years Crews?" Bennie asked, needing clarification. There could be other men in California with that name. The odds were…well he had never been very good with statistics, but the odds were fair.

"The very same," Anna replied. She switched off the burner. "Pasta's ready."

"No," Jacqueline almost jumped from her chair. "No way. No. Not him. I know you like men with issues sweet heart, but god damn." She pressed a well manicured hand to her forehead, "I think I'm getting a migraine."

"Didn't he win a huge figure in the settlement?" Bennie asked trying to see the brighter side. His wife scowled at him. He ignored her, "I know the amount was never disclosed but-"

"Stop being a Jew for five minutes would you?" Jacqueline snapped at her husband. "I don't care how much money he's got." Her hands went to her hips, one jet black eyebrow rose as she watched Anna go about finishing the dinner preparations. She knew how to hit home. "Do you really think Andrew would be okay with this?"

Anna stopped shaking the water from the strainer. "I used to wonder that," she shook the strainer once more then poured the pasta into an empty bowl. She picked up a clean dish towel and began wiping her hands, "I wondered that for a long time actually. Then I realized that Andy would have wanted me to be happy. He would have wanted me to move on." Anna lifted the ceramic bowl of pasta and carried it between Bennie and Jack and set it on the table.

"I'm happy." She said to them, her voice solemn and soft. "Isn't that what really matters?"

For once in her twenty nine years on earth, Jacqueline gave up on keeping her foot down. She wrapped her arms around her best friend of eighteen years, "Course sweetie."

Anna hugged Jack back, "Thank you for caring."

"Aww," Bennie teased, trying to lighten the mood, "Why can't I ever get in on the girl on girl action?"

Anna picked up a few strings of Angel hair and threw them at him, "Pervert."

The tall black haired man grinned at her and threw his arms around her and his wife, "Group hug!"

Charlie had been staring at his phone's contact list on and off for over an hour. Ted eyed his employer, friend and landlord with something between curiosity and amusement. For the third time Charlie closed the phone without hitting dial and set it to the side. The younger man took a few bites of his dinner, set his fork down and opened the cell phone again.

Ted picked up his napkin, wiped his mouth and said, "Just hit send Charlie."

Charlie's voice was distant as he looked at the phone number, "She was sixteen."

Ted, who had been in the middle of chewing, swallowed accidentally and choked. He coughed to dislodge the piece of zucchini that had lodged itself in his throat.

Alarmed Charlie reached over and hit his friend on the back.

Ted coughed a few more times then took a very large swallow of water, then gave a vehement and worried, "What?"

Charlie closed the cell phone again, "Anna was sixteen when I went to jail."

Relieved Ted put one hand to his chest, "Christ Charlie you almost gave me a heart attack."

"Which I think makes me a hypocrite on some level." Charlie looked at his cell phone with a cross of self loathing and annoyance. He wanted to call Anna.

He really wanted to call Anna.

"The age gap between your father and Olivia is over thirty years." Ted supplied, feeling a slight jealous pang when he thought of Olivia. "You're thirty seven. Anna Morgan is twenty eight, maybe twenty nine. Nothing hypocritical there Charlie."

That didn't stop him from feeling like a dirty old man. Which was ironic and terribly funny really. Before Charlie met Anna, he had been slept with a number of women who happened to be younger than her. He was fairly sure there had even been an eighteen year old or two somewhere in the list. Not that he could remember.

He had stopped bringing random women home after the orange grove. Because Charlie had realized when Anna had said maybe it was enough to give him hope. Charlie spun his phone on the counter top.

Hypocrite or not.

Dirty old man or not.

He still, really, really wanted to call Anna.

Ted's hand came down on the black and grey Razor as Charlie had sent it spinning again. "If you don't pick up that phone and call her I swear to God I will throw it in the pool."

Charlie was looking at Ted's hand, but he wasn't really seeing it. "She deserves better."

Ted removed his hand, "But she wants you."

A pale hand picked up his cell phone and scrolled through the contact list again until the highlight was over her name. She did deserve better. Charlie hit send because, in the end, he wanted her too.

A/N: My cousin married a Jewish woman and converted to Judaism for her. Now whenever my cousin starts talking money his wife yells at him to stop being a Jew for five minutes. I think it's the funniest thing ever.

I took Charlie's age from the actor that plays him. I don't remember them ever saying in the show how old he is.

Thank you to the reviewers and those that read.