You Know They Can Sail Away In Sunsets, We'll Be Stranded on the Ground:

After he had hit a few balls out of the field and into the stands, Alex grabbed his glove and moved into the outfield. After he shagged a few of his teammates fly balls, he started to stretch and prepare himself (mentally) for the game. Before he ran out to the outfield, he had checked in on Brianna and once again she had scolded him about it. He knew that she wasn't like most women, but it was her unique way of bluntly saying, "Get your fucking head in the game" that actually allowed him to relax and get focused.

He was just getting into the groove of allowing the new stretches Brianna had taught him before Alex's 'Zen' was interrupted by someone's knee letting out a loud 'pop'. He didn't really need to investigate, because Alex was sure he knew who would be standing there when he looked up. The only thing that kept him from telling off his team captain was the sick joy he took in watching the older player try to contort his limbs in the same way that he was doing it. The same way that Brianna had demonstrated to her boyfriend and her brother on separate occasions.

Even though he knew it was the years he had on the catcher that allowed him to move his body into the proper positions easily, Alex liked to think that it was actually due to his one no one time spent with Brie. It still amazed him that she could talk about deferred salaries and performance bonuses without missing a beat while she showed him a new way to stretch a muscle. And all of those new exercises really had helped to improve his performance. Whomever was the first athlete to sign with her as their agent was going to be the luckiest son of a bitch in their league. If only he could be the one, but…

"Ellis, can I ask you something?" His team captain called out breathily while he tried to complete some sort of yoga-like maneuver.

Alex spared a glance over his shoulder before he untwisted himself and answered, "If you want to know if you're doing that right… I'd say…go ask whoever showed you that move because I have no fucking clue."

Mike unfurled his body as he glanced at Alex, but he didn't say anything right away. Sure, he wanted to but right now he knew that wouldn't help him reach his end goal. So, instead, Mike gave Alex a forced smile and said, "Good one, New Guy, but that wasn't my question."

Alex gave Mike a 'sourpuss' face at that nickname, so Mike explained, "Well, you aren't a rookie and you came to this team in a trade and… well… she hasn't dated another play since… shit, at least…"

"She hasn't," Alex snapped out over the rest of Mike's words. "She was so focused on impressing you that she never wanted to be with another Padre."

"And yet…"

Alex glared at Mike and once again interrupted him as he retorted, "You mean DESPITE all of that, she and I still found each other." Mike looked genuinely surprised by that comment which caused Alex to let out a humorless laugh as he stated, "You really don't know her at all."

Mike's jaw clenched before he said through his teeth, "I guess that I don't." He then forced himself to relax because he thought he had found an opening with Alex. "So, Ellis? Why don't you tell me more about her? Like… What did she mean when she said that her brother and sister wish she didn't exist?"

Although he would argue that he didn't, Alex nearly fell over during his stretch as he asked, "She told you that?"

"Yeah…" Mike paused as he tried to remember her exact wording. "Well, she said something like that."

"Well then…I guess you should ask her about it. You know… so that there's no misunderstandings," Alex replied with a cheeky smirk. He had barely gotten the last word out before he was sprinting towards left field. Mike thought it was simply to get away from him, but in reality, Alex wanted to start his other workouts. The team wasn't far out of the running for the playoff race, Brianna had talked to him about the stats to prove to him when she thought he wasn't listening, so he wanted to get game ready. (She did it then because she didn't want him to think that she was pressuring him into doing anything, professionally or personally. Her lack of pressure ended up making him want to do better on the field and to be a better man for her.)

But today none of the Padres came through for Brianna. It was a hard loss to swallow for all of their fans. Today was supposed to end on a high note to take away some of the sting. The sting of signs pointing to Mike Lawson allowing himself to be traded away. No one really cared where, but it definitely hurt more that the rumors persisted that he had agreed to it only so that he could go to a team who the pundits were predicting would be a guarantee to go to the playoffs.

It hurt and Alex understood how it could be devastating. That's why he didn't wait to watch Mike Lawson's curtain call after the catcher struck out. Alex really didn't care about Mike Lawson's apparent resistance to living San Diego, he only cared about how it was affecting his girlfriend. He had meant it, wholeheartedly, when he told her that first at his apartment that 'it' was all about making her happy. What Brianna had yet to understand was 'it' wasn't just for that first night when she moved in with Alex. No, he meant 'it' as every day they were together for the rest of their lives.

When Alex got home, he threw open the door and called out, "Brie! BRIE?!"

I'm sure that I heard him. I had to have heard him because I knew that he could yell loud enough to be heard anywhere inside of his suite. Sure, I knew that, but at the same time his calls fell on deaf ears. I sat on the couch and stared at the TV blankly, feeling completely numb.

Knowing Alex, he probably continued calling out my name because he was that kind of guy. Plus, I saw his lips moving when he gently cupped my chin and turned my head so that I was facing him.

"He struck out," I finally heard myself say.

Alex smiled softly as he sat down beside me. He opened his mouth to reply, but I just continued my thought, "It wasn't supposed to end like this. He was supposed to get a hit. You were supposed to win the game. What the hell?"

"Life isn't a movie."

I frowned at his softly spoken words. "I know that. But some people get it. Jim Morris' life was like a movie, even before Disney got their hands on it. Hell, 'Fever Pitch' was re-written so that they could capture the magic of the 2004 BoSox win. Why couldn't we have this one little thing?"

"I don't know," he whispered as he pet my cheek.

My bottom lip started to tremble as I stared into his eyes. It was hard for me to do in a strong voice, but I still managed to croak out, "I'm sorry."

He started to frown the second that he heard my words. "Why are you sorry?"

I held up my hand that was now wrapped in a gel pack and held on by Velcro as I explained, "I was gathering everything together to make dinner when my knuckles started to hurt so badly that I had to stop. Then while I was getting iced up, I heard on the radio that they were letting him his, so I came in here to watch the game… so…"

"OH!" He answered with an exaggerated smile. He pulled me into a hug and then said against my hair, "Don't worry about that. I already told you I thought that we should order in. What do you feel like?"

"Like letting you hold me like this until the universe decides to bend to my will," I replied snuggling further into his chest.

He moved us so that he could lay down and have me blanket his body. That had become our favorite position in which to watch TV, so we felt completely comfortable. Comfortable enough that neither of us felt the need to talk. Now the only noise, besides our breathing, was the voices coming from the commentators on the TV. Photos and video clips of Mike Lawson kept flashing across the screen to go with their words. They even added a few from when he was in Little League and the Minors.

When Alex heard me sniffle in a breath, he moved his hand to pick up the remote from the coffee table. My left hand immediately followed and paused his hand from lifting the remote up.

"Leave it on, please?" I whispered to keep him from hearing my tear-filled tone.

He couldn't see my smile, so he didn't know that the tears in my eyes were happy, nostalgic ones. The younger photos reminded me of the time when I was still my father's "Little Slugger" and my sister would look me in the eye when she spoke to me. Instead, now there were no pet names used by him unless we were assured to be alone and she usually left any room I entered the second she saw me.

I don't know what Alex felt or heard, but while he was stroking my hair he seemed to sense that I was ready to talk. "Did you really tell him they wish that you didn't exist?"

I nodded while my cheek was still resting on his chest. "I don't really know why, but I did. Wanna hear something stupid?"

"From you? Always."

I quietly chuckled at his tone of voice then said, "I swear he actually looked worried about me when I said that to him. Like it hurt him to hear it. That's really stupid, isn't it?"

"Can't be stupid because you're the smartest person I know."

"Alex!" I countered with a snort and a laugh. I pushed up on his chest so that I could look down at him. "That's what happens when you only hang out with jocks."

We didn't end up ordering in that night. Instead we found some cans of Chef Boyardee ravioli. Believe me, I'm still teasing Alex about a grown man having that in his cupboards. That turned into the night that I found out that Alex's mom still sends him care packages every six months like she did when he was in college. Never mind that he had recently been talking to his agent about renegotiating the terms of his performance bonus clauses because of how well he had been doing during the second half of the season. He was still her little boy and Alex would never do anything to discourage her from thinking that because it would break her heart and he secretly loved how she still tried to baby him.