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Hal removed his dominos from their mahogany box which rested on his white desk by the window. He lifted every domino individually, and with great care, setting it in its particular place in the spiral he was forming. An intricate pattern representing rebirth and second chances. Each small ivory piece, with its button black markings, told a separate story of his struggle to stay clean.

They represented his first two years of sobriety, one of the most utterly difficult and trying times in all of his complicated existence.

Leo had given him the first one the day he'd decided to go cold turkey. He gave Hal a new domino every week there after for more than two years. The day he stopped giving Hal dominoes was also the day that he and Pearl had taken the boards off of the windows. The day they deemed him safe. There were one hundred and ninety dominos in total. Each one reminded him of the strength it took to stay good and stay sane. The struggles he'd endured, and the friends that he had lost. Some times the weight of everything he'd undergone swelled up until they were almost too much for him to bear. It was in times like those that he he'd take out his dominoes, line them up as careful as you please, and then take them down, one by one. It was the epitome of self-control. A trick for staying on top. Even now, without the threat of resurgence, he found himself reaching for the comforting familiarity of his domino set when he needed to think.

Alex... Sylvie... How had he not noticed the resemblance before? It was striking. Not only were their temperaments almost exactly the same, but their physical attributes were also strikingly similar. They had the same sparkling hazel eyes, the same dimpling cheeks and wide, grinning mouth, same stately stature. His hand trembled, nearly upsetting the dizzying rings of his creation. He steadied it.

His attraction to Alex made sense now. His love of Sylvie had remained imprinted with in him, and now, after discovering Alex, he was trying to once again express that love. It was nothing more than that, obviously. Of course it's more than that. The voice was back, whispering in his mind. His conscious? Perhaps. He flipped a domino between his fingers, back and forth, back and forth. The repetitive motion was soothing to his troubled mind.

What did he feel for Alex? It was a difficult question. When she'd been a ghost, he had felt mostly pity, along with a healthy helping of self-loathing. Now that she was alive again, and they were both human... It was hard to say.

There was certainly something there. He had only to think back to the night before to be certain of that. Did she have feelings for him? Almost definitely. He'd seen the way that she looked at him when she thought that he wasn't watching, her eyes tracking the motion of his hands, even as he did something as menial as clean a toilet. Want. There was no mistaking it. He often watched her in the same way. Her small motions, the quirks of he face, the way that she spoke to him, with startling frankness and humor. Her flirtation was intoxicating. He found himself wanting her to be his and his alone.

No, that was wrong, he realized after a moment of thought. That thought was one of possession. Ownership. He didn't want to own Alex, what he wanted was to be owned by her. To be wholly hers. That was another startling revelation. His eyebrows knit together. It was a dangerous thing, wanting; desire. It did terrible things to a man. He was evidence of that, if ever any was needed. Broken, reduced to tedious routine, unable to enjoy his new humanity, unable to embrace it. Desire had defined him for the better half of five centuries. Want had driven him to commit unspeakable acts. Acts that still haunted him. No, said that mental voice with fervent passion, you shall not think of that now. You shall not dwell on the past. Not today. Today you shall think only of Alex, your Cherie amour. Of dates and kissing in the rain. Hal was a romantic at heart, it was true.

"Well I do owe her dinner and a drink," he muttered aloud. "Is it a date? Should i make it a date? Does she actually want it to be a date?" He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. It was all so very confusing, wooing and such. He had once been a great romantic. Able to charm even the most chaste of women into his bed, but now, why, he was like a child! A babbling idiot, incapable of carrying on even a simple conversation without upsetting his lady. His Alex.

He gulped, aware of the tremble in his hands. What if Alex walked in on him this way? Shivering like a new-born calf! He would not abide that. Setting down the domino, he paced around his small room, hands folded behind his back. "To be or not to be," He said out loud, enjoying the sounds of the words as they rolled off his tongue. "To date or not to date. That is the question."

He eyed the telephone near the door. A reservation could be made, perhaps for tonight, at some nearby establishment of superb repute. He would spirit her away from the house for an evening of romance. He would rediscover the art of loving, and he would be doing it with Alex. A pleasant smile crept over his normally somber features, and he began to softly sing Fred Astaire's rendition of "You're all the world to me" in a voice that was both mellow and fine.

"Everywhere that beauty glows you are,
Everywhere an orchid grows you are,
Everything that's young and gay, brighter than a holiday,
Everywhere the angels play you are."