Our Lady Peace - Somewhere Out There

In My Place - Coldplay

Logically she knew the arcing bright streaks across the heavens were only comets falling from space to burn themselves out in the atmosphere. That didn't stop her from wishing on them. Anna breathed in, her fingers stroking through Elyria's dark hair. "There's one," she pointed upward at the lightning fast flash that crossed just a little south of where they had been looking.

On Anna's shoulder Elyria closed her eyes. At this point she wasn't beyond wishing. She could feel the cold and heavy weight in her legs driven by disease. Sixty degrees on Thanksgiving evening and her body was numbing fast. She curled in closer on her cousin, tugging her heavy army jacket closer.

Anna twirled thick strands of warm, coffee colored hair around her long delicate fingers. "You stopped chemo didn't you."

Elyria's amber eyes closed slowly.

"El…"

"Third time isn't the charm Anna," Elyria breathed out. Her gloved fingers closed around the edges of her jacket. "So tell me about this cop of yours."

Anna smiled wryly. "Will you tell me about your doctor?"

In the cold Elyria blushed, "He's not my doctor. And he's old enough to be my dad."

"Charlie is almost ten years older than me. It can't be that bad El."

"He's almost fifty."

The silence reigned.

Anna blinked her eyelids rapidly as if they would help her comprehend what her cousin had just said. "He's…"

"Almost fifty." Elyria supplied. "Right."

Anna coughed after a few moments of just listening to the echo of traffic. "Subject change."

"So the cop's name is Charlie." Elyria murmured, "He nice?"

"Mmm, very." Anna dug in her jeans for her cell phone. She flipped the little red object open and began searching for her one candid of her boyfriend.

Elyria took the phone from her, "He's kinda hot."

Anna smirked, "Kinda?"

"Okay, he's yummy." Elyria handed the phone back, "You're sleeping with him?"

Anna bit her lower lip, "You sleeping with the doctor?"

Elyria snorted, "He's like a five year old boy pulling my pig tails on the playground."

"Flirting and pushing your buttons." Anna murmured. "No," she sighed, "I'm not sleeping with Charlie."

Silence again, punctuated by horns and traffic.

"He the one?" Elyria asked solemnly.

Anna shrugged, "How do you define the one?"

"Heart beat pitter patter, Bella-Edward can't live without you need, makes you wanna kill him and kiss him at the same time. Gut wrenching panic when you think about breaking up with him."

Anna's lower lip bled where two of her teeth broke the skin. "I don't know."

Elyria pointed her arm upward, "There, there's one."

Together they closed their eyes and wished.

There were a fair number of maybes running through his head. Maybe if Anna hadn't gone to New York to be with family, he wouldn't have been lonely. Maybe if they had slept together he wouldn't have thought about Jennifer. Maybe he wouldn't have been in bed with Jennifer.

Skinny blondes, he had a weakness for them.

His fingers traced down his ex-wife's back.

He was cheating in more ways than one.

Because he was here with a married woman.

He had a girlfriend yet he slept with someone else.

He had a woman in his arms and he couldn't stop thinking about Anna.

Charlie rubbed his free hand over his eyes.

This had the potential to go bad in so many, many different ways.

And thus the multiple maybes returned.

His mind kept coming back to Anna leaving. He'd seen her Tuesday afternoon after school. She had been packing. Her cousins, the twins with leukemia, were getting worse. Charlie offered to go with her. He even offered to give her the money to upgrade her coach seats to first class.

Anna had given him that smile, the newest one he'd discovered, it was sad and more of an upwards curving frown. She had kissed him and told him to stop throwing money at her problems. She didn't want his money.

Jennifer breathed in slowly. Her fingers tracing along his chest.

If she hadn't left…would he still be here?

Not that he could blame her for this. This was an itch that eventually had to be scratched. Charlie knew that. He also knew he was going to have to tell Anna when she got back.

Jennifer curled into him, her arm across his chest, and her head on his shoulder.

She asked if he was going to find out who did this to them.

He squeezed her and told her he would.

Anna chewed her lower lip nervously, "I'm a three out of six match, but there's a chance that one or both of them could go into donor versus host. The chemo is working on Viola but Elyria…" she sighed, "El is refusing treatment."

Charlie was nodding, but he wasn't hearing. His mind was going over the various reactions she could go through. He shifted the phone from one ear to the other. "Did she say why?"

"The reasons change. El really isn't good with justifying herself."

She wasn't the only one. He turned around, pacing back and forth behind the couch. Ted was watching him. He glowered at Ted. Ted glowered back. Charlie pulled the phone away from his ear. "I'm going to tell her," he said under his breath.

Ted's eyebrows rose.

"Charlie?" Anna's voice said with uncertainty in his ear.

He glared at Ted and pressed his phone back to his ear, "I'm here."

"So what did you do for Thanksgiving weekend?"

"Nothing really," he replied, "Turkey with Ted and Rachel. Dead body on Black Friday."

Anna paused, "Dead body?"

"In a shopping mall."

Her nose wrinkled, "Who had that brilliant idea? Wait," she said before he could tell her, "don't. I don't want to know."

Charlie began to pace back the way he had come. Ted was still standing there, arms crossed. Looming like Charlie's guilty conscience in a physical manifestation. Aggravated Charlie went to the glass doors that lead to the patio and went outside.

"Which book did you end up reading on the ride over?"

Anna shrugged to herself, nudging her puppy over with the toe of her sneakers, "Started the Ender's Game saga."

"I slept with Jennifer."

And the silence was deafening. Sheba barked at her owner's sudden tenseness. "Sleeping slept, or…" Silently, in her head Anna was hoping he hadn't. Hoping that he was joking.

"Or," Charlie replied.

Anna snapped the phone closed.

Sorry about the delay in updating but I have discovered Orson Scott Card. My world of fantasy and fiction just got that much cooler.