Of course Caroline kept all her work; she had them filed in neat photo albums, divided by date, type (greeting card, newspaper, etc.), and bookmarked by theme. But she had a special box with her favorites. These were the most memorable, like her very first Caroline in the City draft, before her style had clearly defined itself. But it had been good enough to catch some attention, to get her a place as an assistant to another cartoonist, and from there to quickly establish herself in her own right. She had some that she drew corresponding to important life events: the week she had moved into her first apartment, the beginning (and end) of her relationship with Del, and of course the early days when Richard had begun to work for her. Some she just really liked, like one she had drawn showing Caroline agonizing over buying a hat, which she had loved so much she had drawn several more extremely similar ones. And, of course, inside the box were her first milestones: her 100th, 500th, 1000th, and finally, 2000th. The 2000th was at the very top of the box, the last one in before she had sealed it off and stuck it under her bed and not looked at it.

She clearly remembered the last time she had leafed through this box. It was around the time she had had a big party to celebrate her 2000th strip. She hadn't finished it in time; she had spent days dreading it, putting it off and panicking about it. Only Richard had been able to sooth her. She had felt blocked, and she had believed it was because her creativity and inspiration had dried up now that she had lived in the city so long that it no longer shocked and intrigued her. But Richard, always able to see through her, had pointed out that her inspiration came from her life, not the city. And so the 2000th strip, sitting on top of all the others, was based on the thing that had inspired her most at the time: Richard. Their first date. Richard had helped her transfer it from the laundry machine she had sketched it on to paper, and arrive at the party just before the guests were all about to go home. She could still see Richard standing across from her at the desk, his white shirt stained black from the 'suit' he had been wearing (apparently made from soy products), quickly coloring in her work as Del had a near panic attack in the background about how late they were.

Later, when she had received her copy from the printers, Caroline had opened the box up to add this new, special strip to her collection. But she had gotten stuck on the box, as she always did: running her fingers over each of the drawings, watching her own progression. She could see how her work had evolved, from thin, unsure lines to the thick black marks she now made, the marks of a confident professional. Richard's work was exactly the same throughout; he had never had a problem with confidence in his work, unless having too much of it was a problem, and had already been overqualified when he had arrived on her doorstep five years ago. Her first assistant, who she had adored, didn't seem to compliment her own work quite as well.

But she wasn't thinking about drawing the 2000th strip, or even her progression as an artist. She was thinking about that night after she had placed the strip in that box. That night she had tried to sleep, she'd tossed and turned for hours to no avail. Finally she had gotten up, sliding the box out from beneath her bed and sitting on the floor, taking out all her work in chronological order and laying it out. She could just make them all out from the moonlight pouring through the window. She heard a rustling of sheets.

"Caroline?" Richard's sleepy voice had called out.

"I'm here," she had responded.

"Oh, OK," he had replied. Clearly, having made sure she hadn't gone somewhere, he was perfectly willing to go back to sleep. But Caroline, no longer having to feel guilty about waking him, couldn't stop herself from talking.

"I was just thinking about the future," she said, her eyes scanning over her work again. "Do you think about that? Richard?"

"Yeah..." It was more of a mumble than a word.

"So much has changed since the 1000th strip. That was right before you started working for me. Can you believe that? It seems like a lifetime ago. Don't you think, Richard? Richard?" There was a long pause.

"You're not going to let me sleep, are you?" Richard's voice finally asked, clearly more awake.

"No, you can sleep if you want," Caroline said. Secretly, she was hoping he would get up, but she didn't want to force him out of bed. But somehow he must have sensed that, because she heard the creak of the bed, the sound of his fumbling fingers looking for his glasses, and finally his footsteps walking around the bed. He sat down next to her in the small space between her work.

"Are you worried?" he asked. She found herself gravitating towards his heat, and he automatically put his arm around her so she could lean in to him. His fingers absent-mindedly caressed her hair, which had been shorter then.

"No, I'm just thinking about what will be different. How our lives will have changed. Will I have a new assistant?"

"Caroline, if you're 3000th strip comes around and I'm still your assistant, I may have to bid adieu to this cruel existence," Richard said, with a little smile. She hit him lightly on the shoulder.

"Don't say that!" she said, retreating a little away from him. He had always made jokes like that, and before they had started dating she hadn't paid them much mind. It was just part of his quirky, dark personality, something she found mildly entertaining, in context. But once they had crossed that line from friendship to something more, the jokes had begun to irk her. Maybe because some tiny part of her was always concerned he wasn't totally kidding. But his expression was reassuring. He pulled her in close again, tipping her chin up so that she was looking him in the eye.

"Caroline, I don't know where we'll be when that happens, but I promise that when the time comes, I'll come down to the laundry room and help you with your writer's block." She felt her heart beat faster. For all his cynicism and melancholy, Richard really did know what to say in these situations. She leaned forward, eliminating the distance between them and catching him in a kiss. It was meant to be an end to their conversation, an invitation for him to go back to sleep. He clearly had other ideas. He pulled her in even closer, and they gently descended to the ground.

"Richard we're on top of Caroline! We should clean up before..." But Richard evidently wasn't listening. He was creating a trail of kisses down her neck towards her collarbone, and she was finding it increasing hard to form coherent words. He was using one hand to support his weight, and the other was beginning to inch its way up the big shirt that she was fond of sleeping in (it was a relic from her relationship with Del, an over-washed college t-shirt. It had long since lost all sentimental meaning, but remained one of her most comfortable pieces of clothing).

"I love you," he whispered into her ear, and the words sent shivers through her.

"I love you too," she had replied.

"Oh! I didn't realize you were up!" Richard voice said from behind Caroline, causing her to jolt out of her memory and back into reality. "I see you've gotten out 'the box'. Feeling nostalgic?"

"Yeah," she said, not feeling the need to explain which memories she had been recalling. "Actually, I'm looking at these because of what you and Del said. I'm trying to recapture the feeling of my older work." Here, Richard sat down next to her. After reliving the memory of that night, it seemed almost unnatural that he put so much room between them, that his arm didn't ease itself over her shoulder, that he seemed almost to be leaning away from her. She was having a hard time looking at him directly, so instead she looked at her work. It had been a long time since she had looked at it. She used to go over these quite often, if she was feeling sentimental or blocked in some way. But after Richard had left they had just been added to the list of things that were a painful reminder of him. She had even thought about leaving them in New York when she came back to Peshtigo, with the rest of the things she could no longer stand to look at directly without feeling ill for him. But at the last minute she had grabbed the box and added it to the pile of things being shipped to Wisconsin. She had to remember that she had had Caroline longer than she had had Richard, that they were separate despite their years-long connection and that she had to reclaim her work from that failed relationship. But it had still been too hard to look through the box and see Richard's handiwork, even though she was definitely happy with Randy. Yes, definitely very, very happy. She kept saying it in her head, with Richard leaning in, just a bit, to get a better look at her work.

"Isn't this the one that Del and I drew when you threw out your back?" Richard asked. Caroline grimaced at the memory.

"I kept that one as a reminder," she said, taking it from his hand and putting it back in the box, "to never let you two around my work unsupervised."

"I thought it was pretty good!" Richard exclaimed. Caroline had to admit, looking at it now, that besides the punchline she didn't understand, the art was spot-on. Richard really was talented, even she wouldn't be able to distinguish it from the others. "It's better than this one!" He picked out another from the box.

"Hey! I like that one!" Caroline said. It was one she had drawn when Richard had disappeared, secretly moving to France to try and become a professional artist. It was also around the time that she and Del had broken up for good. She had been angry and hurt that he had disappeared, and the work reflected that a little too well. The strip, which had had a story arc spanning about a week, showed Richard getting into a series of unfortunate mishaps, each more calamitous than the last. It was voted a favorite by her fans, and Del had managed to convince her to make a spin-off greeting card depicting Richard falling down a manhole, a 'get well soon' card. Richard had been less than pleased when he had returned to see it.

"I seem to be in peril in a lot of these, don't I?" Richard said, taking a handful and grimacing at each successive piece. Caroline couldn't be found totally to blame. In an online live chat, several of her fans had made clear that their favorite storylines involved 'Caroline's Weird Assistant' getting in trouble, and she was always a people-pleaser. Also, Annie always said that it was a 'healthy expression of anger', for all those times Caroline and Richard disagreed on something.

"It's not really you, Richard! It's art," she replied, knowing the phrasing would only irk him further.

"Oh, really?" he asked sarcastically, pulling out a strip in which Richard was ultimately trampled by running bulls in Spain.

"I do like that one," she said, taking it from him and examining it further. This had been the first strip she had drawn in the office Del had forced her to move into, in the very earliest days of her relationship with Richard when they were still holding off on the physical and everything was highly charged with sexual tension. She had drawn it on the first day, when it had been particularly frustrating. The strip had deviated significantly from the reality of what happened, since Cartoon Caroline and Cartoon Richard weren't together yet, but that scene, so fresh in her memory, had seemed to be calling out to her to be translated to the page. "The only other time I've seen you run that fast is when I told you your mother was coming to visit as a joke."

"Hilarious," he said dryly. "And how about this one?" he asked, his voice faltering a bit at the end. It was the last one, the 2000th, their first date. She had just been looking at it, but for him it was the first time in months, and she was sure that there was a grimace of pain. For Caroline, the last few days had been confusing. She didn't know where he was; had he completely moved on, and come to the wedding to make sure she had too? Was he still in love with her? If Stephano hadn't interrupted first, what was he planning to? Or had he really intended to sneak out? She assumed the latter, since big romantic gestures really weren't his style. And she had been so distracted trying to reassure Randy that nothing was going on, she hadn't really thought about how Richard must be handling all of this. Stuck in a place he had admitted to hating, with a baby, and his ex-fiancee and her new fiance. He was truly excellent at hiding his feelings, he always had been. He had been in love with Caroline from early on in their friendship, Annie had revealed, and Caroline hadn't been the wiser for more than a year. But in that second, when he glanced down at the depiction of their first date, from the moment he had realized she wanted a fancy dinner at a nice restaurant he hadn't booked to the end when he had gotten stuck in a vent and they had danced together on the roof despite the awkward impediment and the paramedics on their way upstairs, she saw his pain. Because no matter how strange this must be for her, she was the one getting married and he was the one forced to stay in the house and watch her happiness with another man.

Suddenly, Richard looked up from the cartoons, and Caroline realized that in her desire to get a glimpse at the emotions underneath that usually impenetrable mask she had leaned in closer. Now they were just inches apart. It was like a magnet between them. Without really intending too, both began to lean in, growing closer and closer until, just as their lips were about to touch, they were interrupted.

"Caroline?" Randy's gruff, sleepy voice called from upstairs. "Where are you?" Richard and Caroline jumped two feet apart like they had both been shocked with electricity. Neither could look the other in the eye, and they began to hurriedly pack Caroline's work back into the box.

"Sorry, Randy! I was just looking over some old Caroline in the Citys for ideas!" Caroline called back up, trying not to sound too guilty. Her heart was pounding out of control, and she nearly jumped out of her skin when her and Richard's fingers accidentally grazed each other picking up the last cartoon, the cartoon, and putting it away.

"Come back to bed," Randy replied sleepily.

"Be right there!" Caroline called back. She turned back and found Richard holding out the box to her, also looking fairly guilty. She took the box, mumbled a quick 'thank-you', and hurried towards the stairs.

"Goodnight, Caroline," he said. She couldn't make herself turn back to face him, but she did manage to form her last words:

"Goodnight, Richard."