A/N: Thanks for all the great reviews! I love writing this story so much, it's quickly becoming one of my favorites so I hope you're enjoying just as much. This is for Luanne since her team lost to my team this weekend and I felt bad. Hope it lives up to expectations, Luanne! Hope you all enjoy the chapter and reviews are really appreciated. :)

At first I think I'm dreaming or maybe that alcohol has infected my brain and isn't letting me think properly. But then, no, it feels too real and I don't think that I've drifted off. I turn to my left from whence I heard the voice and I can feel my eyes widen as I take him in. He's standing there, arms folded, his lips curled up into a smirk and I swear to God, an ethereal glow to him, like he's just descended from heaven to see me.

I immediately flip onto my side and then in my astonishment I find myself kneeling on the bed in front of him. I feel like saying something, saying everything, but my mouth feels wired shut, like I can form the words in my throat, but they won't come out of my mouth. Instead I hear strangling squeaks of some emotion. I think it's relief mostly, sheer relief that he's here and I can see him and he's standing there with me again.

"Chris," I manage to stutter out, my throat nearly clamping shut.

"Yeah, you called?"

"How, but why…I don't…you left me!" My anger flares up and he just stares at me, that infuriating smirk back on his face again. How can he look at me like that after what he did to me? He left me here all alone and defenseless, without a guardian angel.

"I didn't leave you, Stephanie," he tells me. "I've been here all along, I'm your guardian angel, we don't just go someplace, we can't, I'm tethered to you, were you not listening during the entire conversation we had about how I'm made for you."

"I was listening, but you disappeared."

"I just didn't manifest myself. Look, it was getting pretty obvious that you were upset with the situation. As a guardian angel, I am supposed to prevent something like that, so I was preventing you from getting more upset."

"By leaving me! You've never left me before!"

"I didn't leave you, Stephanie, I've been here the entire time, trust me, I had to watch you and Paul get all warm and cozy with each other," he said and he's right back to being his sarcastic angel self. The time apart hasn't changed him one bit. "Then tonight with your drinking, not like you at all."

"Well, I wanted to go out and have fun," I huff, lying down on the bed again, closing my eyes. I can feel Chris's presence getting closer and I don't want to open my eyes because I don't want to look at him right now. He knows too much about me, much too much and it's unnerving. I won't admit to him though that his presence is extremely comforting.

"Sure you did," he teases me and I want to smack him and I would too if my hand wouldn't go right through him. I open my eyes and nearly gasp because he's right in front of me, appearing to lie on his side, staring at me. I look at him and my lips involuntarily turn up in the corners, just a tiny bit, not a real smile, but just, two lips turned up.

"Shut up," I tell him, blushing the slightest bit.

"You missed me," he told her. "And you can't even deny it because I've been here the entire week and I know what you've said and I've heard it all. I heard every last word. I like the description of me by the way, very flattering. If I had it in me to be cocky, I think I might be after a speech like that."

"Stop," I whine, getting very embarrassed now. He knows too much about me and it's times like these when that information gets me in trouble and makes me feel like a kid again. Still, he's here, he's really here and he's not going anywhere anymore, I have to make sure of that.

"It was nice to hear that I'm appreciated," he tells me sincerely and I stare at him, that beautiful countenance. His face just draws me in like nothing else in this world. I think I could stare at it for hours. God really knew what he was doing when he thought of this angel thing. I wonder if every angel is just as beautiful as Chris is.

"Well, it's your job to protect me, what's not to like, your entire life is me…or existence I guess since you don't have a life."

"Ouch, that one stung," he jokes and I'm glad for it. I couldn't stand the loneliness anymore and that empty, lost feeling is slowly being filled up with that sense of belonging and acceptance that Chris has always afforded me. It wasn't until he was gone that I realized that I've never felt like an outcast because I always knew, even in my darkest hours that Chris was there for me. He always made me feel special, even when I didn't want him around.

"Why did you come back?" I ask him seriously. I want to know the answer. One second he was gone and the next, he was here, like he'd never left me.

"You asked me to," he answers like it was nothing.

"You mean, all I had to do was ask you to come back, that's it?" I ask. All this time I've been…missing him and thinking about him and wondering where he was and all I had to do was ask him to come back and that's it? He would've come back in a flash, without any questions if I'd just asked! I take a deep breath so I don't lose it on him again.

"Of course. I've been waiting for you to say it and waiting and waiting. Look, you didn't want me around so I wasn't around, but if you want me around, you just have to ask me and there I am, I'm your guardian angel, I wasn't going to deny you your request."

I have to just say it and get it out there, "I'm glad you came back."

There, it's out there and maybe he'll mock me for it. It would be well within his wheelhouse to do so, what with his sarcastic nature, his almost too sarcastic nature. I wonder what the well-mannered angels are like. They probably don't try to interfere and just stand there looking beautiful, like statues. They don't comment on every little thing and then try to make themselves look superior, not that Chris does that. Chris, as a guardian angel, has to know his place in the hierarchy, he works for God after all.

"I'm glad you wanted me back," he tells me and his voice lowers, takes on a more serious tone that I didn't know he had in him. I kind of like it. I stare at him for a few more seconds and I don't like the feeling that's rising inside of me. I think I know what the feeling is, but the feeling is also impossible so I have to push it down. I cannot allow that feeling to be pushed into the forefront.

"Do you miss things, Chris?" I ask him.

"Why do you ask?"

"Because I missed you," I answer. "I think I missed you more than I can say. I just…I missed you, did you…can you miss me?"

"I'm not sure," he said, his brow furrowing just a little bit and it's the first time I've ever seen him look something akin to confused. I would never figure an angel to be confused. They know things that I can never know while I'm here on Earth. They must know so many secrets to the universe so what would he have to be confused about.

"What do you mean you're not sure?"

"I don't think I'm supposed to miss you," Chris said. "I was there with you, always, you know that, I would never leave your side, you do know that, right?"

"Of course I know, you were made for me," I respond and my fingers twitch to reach out and grab his hand, but he has no hand. It's just air in front of me and even if I try to feel something when I'm touching his presence, I know I won't because though Chris is as real as the thoughts I'm thinking right now, there are also rules and I can't touch him, just see him and sense him and be around him.

"We can never be separated," he tells me.

"I know," I repeat. I understand his place in my life now. I think the little girl in my understood on some level, though the teenager and young adult rebelled and rebelled hard. But I know now, I understand who he is and why he's here and what purpose he serves. I know he's here for me forever and I'm so thankful for that. Him being gone for as long as he was confirms that for me, that I'm thankful and grateful to have him in my life, that every person is even if they can't see their own guardian angel.

"Still, it was…there was a feeling that came over me when I didn't talk to you. I'm disciplined so I can go long amounts of time without speaking or doing anything. I just stand there while you're sleeping--"

"Yeah, that's not creepy at all," I joke and he smiles at me, appreciating it.

"Still, it just felt…I don't know how it felt not to talk to you. I've never felt anything like it before. I don't know how to describe it because I don't think I have the words to describe it because I don't know what it was."

"Was it in this general area?" I gesture my hands around his heart and then his stomach. "I mean, when you do feel things, do you feel them like I feel them? Do you know?"

"Well, when I'm happy, there's a feeling of euphoria that I get all over," he says, kind of obliviously, like he's talking of the weather.

"Well, was the feeling in that general area then?"

"Yeah, it was." I nod and he looks at me curiously. I don't think it's often when I know something that he doesn't know and I relish in it a little bit.

"I think you missed me too," I explain to him. "Sometimes, when you miss someone, you get this ache in your chest, particularly your heart. It's just like a pang, like your body is convulsing inwardly, like there's a black hole in your chest and it's trying to suck your body into it."

"I don't have a heart," he tells me and it's just so matter-of-fact. He isn't trying to be mean or harsh, he's just telling me the truth, but I think it's only the truth as he knows it.

"You think, don't you, Chris?"

"Yeah, I think."

"Then you must have something like a heart. There has to be something in you. You have a soul, I don't think God would not give you a heart. You feel compassion and that comes from the heart so who's to say that you don't have one? I think you do."

"You really think so?"

"Yeah, I really think so."

"I guess…I guess what you said is true, it did feel like a pang, like there was something in there, I guess," he looks down at his chest like he can see through it, maybe he can and he just never bothered to look."

"See, you missed me too."

"But I saw you, so it's odd."

"Yeah, but you didn't speak to me, you just had to stand there and watch me and not say anything and keep your mouth shut even when Paul was over here, which I know must have killed you, but you have to see now that he's not such a bad guy, right?"

"He's still the same Paul."

"You're insufferable," I tell him, pursing my lips.

"But how can I miss you if I've been through years of you ignoring me?" he wonders, maybe he didn't mean to say that, but he did. "You hated me back then, you never wanted to speak to me and you ignored me, you ignored me so much that you forgot I existed, you thought I'd disappeared then when I hadn't."

"But it's different now."

"How is it different now?"

"Because we weren't in each other's lives, I mean, we were, obviously, but we didn't talk to each other, we weren't friends…now we are and you're bound to miss a friend."

"We're friends?" he laughs.

"Chris, you know what I mean, I don't know how to explain our relationship, angel and trustee? Heavenly being and girl? I thought that friends was an apt description of what we are, do you not agree?"

"No, I like that, friends, we're friends."

"You missed me," I tell him, giggling a little bit. I'm not sure why that gets me so much, but I guess I just figured that Chris couldn't miss anything, but he missed me. He wanted to be around me just as much as I wanted to be around him. That emptiness was never really emptiness because we were feeling the same thing. I just had to tell him so, I had to want him back and let him know and I did and now he's back and I feel safe again. It doesn't even occur to me until exactly this moment that it feels like we're both lying in bed. Everything has just been so comfortable around Chris. But then, I think, if I'd allowed myself to feel him and see him more often in years past, I think I would've felt this comfortable back then as well. He has that knack.

"Yeah." He looks down and he almost looks wistful or curious and I wonder what that's about. Again, I want to touch him, but there'd just be air. Instead I clear my throat and he looks up at me again.

"What is it?" I inquire, wanting to know what has that look on his face. I didn't even know he could have a wistful look, I didn't think it was in his repertoire.

"I don't know," he tells me, just looking at me. "I just have never felt anything like it before and I don't know…I'm just getting used to it, I guess."

"I guess it would take some time getting used to…Chris, are you sure that's the feeling you're getting? Are you sure it's not like…a scared feeling because something bad is creeping up on my horizon?"

"No, it's nothing like that, I know that feeling, it's not that at all."

"Okay," I know I'm relieved, I can hear it in my voice.

"I think you're right, it's just getting used to it, that's all."

"Good."

"So let's talk about tonight and you dancing on top of the table."

Oh yeah, Chris is definitely back.