Hey guys! Sorry it's a day late...I had so much to do yesterday :(

It took them quite a while to get over themselves. Quite a while for Chrisitian to realize who he was holding, and for Rose to realize who she was holding on to. As soon as she came to her senses, Christian heard what sounded like a kick and then he fell on the floor, feeling the worst of pains in between his legs.

"What the..." he managed to moan before he completely lost it.

A couple seconds later, he opened hsi eyes to look at what looked like a mix of the devil and someone he'd just slept with. He didn't know what to say, and what was there to say, really? When he'd had casual sex, he usually left right after without looking back. It was what he was used to.

But Rose wasn't just casual sex. She was more, way more. For starters, the least he could say about her was that she was the mother of his child. True, a very selfish, unthoughtful, stupid, irresistible slut that...

Did he just call her that? Yeah...so she wasn't the only one that was currently mad.

He managed to zip his pants and stood up, ignoring the pain.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" He yelled at her, doing his best to ignore the urge to spit at her, then leave.

"Me? I wasn't the one who basically became a rapist in the past half hour! It wasn't as though you were such a great guy to begin with, and now..."

"Oh, please! You wanted me as much as I wanted you! It was physical, and if you told me it didn't feel good when I made you cum, then you're such a liar, among everything else! That guy you left me for isn't that good in bed, huh, Rose? He didn't make you feel that in the past half hour, did he?"

Rose blushed, but did her best to remain neutral. She didn't want to tell him that here had been no one that had made her cum in the past...well...okay, as embarassing as it sounds, four and a half years. There, she said it.

"That..." she said quietly, but in a dangerous voice. "...is none of your business."

"Oh, really? So it's none of my business that you left to go get fucked and didn't bother to at least check on your daughter once for the past...well, almost five years? Do you know that her birthday is next month, Rose? She's turning..."

"I know that she'll be eight, damn it!" Snapped Rose, trying no to fall apart. It hurt so much to think of her little baby girl, the one that she'd sacrificed all her happiness for. "Do you think I've forgotten her after all these years? What type of a mother would that make me?"

"Oh, gee, I don't know...someone who's abandoned her family? You know what, forget Christina for a minute. What about me, what was I supposed to do when you left? Maybe my whole life was supposed to be singing lullabies to a crying toddler who's begging me to find 'Mother'? Should I have told her she left to go get screwed by someone else? Or should I..."

"Why are we always fighting?" Rose kicked at the only trashcan that was in the bathroom. She felt a pain in her toes for a while, but ignored it just like Christian had ignored his pain. "Why can't we just have a normal conversation in which..."

"Because you're always screwing up, that's why Rose! What are you even doing..."

"ME? So I'm the one that 'screwing up'? What about you and your mistakes? You know you've..." She decided to stop, because...did it really matter who was at fault now? "What do you want me to do, Christian? Because you seem like you don't even know what you want yourself."

Christian opened his mouth to yell something back in an 'Ozera Style'. But he closed it and thought about it. What did he really want? Did he want her to apologize about what she'd done? Yes. Did he want her to take Christina back? NO! Did her want her to come back to him?

Well...now that was debatable. He wasn't exactly sure what he wanted and he just realized that Rose just happened to be so right. It didn't feel good. But what did he want?

Something. He knew he wanted something, that was the good part. The bad part was, he wasn't sure what he wanted.

He was so screwed. He sighed and decided to start with something simple.

"I want you to go back to see our daughter. Whether you stay or not, I don't really care. Currently, now that I'm thinkin rationally, at least, I don't know whether I want you back after what you did. But you can at least try to communicate with your daughter. Will you do that for me, please? That one thing?" He didn't realize he was begging until now. So he really was screwed, if he was begging to Rose Hathaway, of all people.

She seemed to think about it, or so he thought. Maybe she was just trying to think of a way to refuse. Why would she want to see Christina, after all? She was just a daughter that had been abandoned when she was barely two years old, right? She was really nothing.

"Okay." Rose finally said and Christian didn't know if he was glad or miserable with her answer. "I'll go. But let me make this clear, Christian. I'm not going because of you. I'm not even going because of Christina, as selfish as that might seem. I'm going because of me. Because that's what I want."

...

If anyone had asked Christian how he really felt, he wouldn't have lied. He would have told anyone that he was feeling...well, fucked up. And he was. Literally.

He'd managed to sleep with the woman that he loved, yet they were still nowhere near being a great couple. He didn't know if they would ever be a couple that most people dreamed of.

What do most people dream of, really? Do women really want someone to protect them and love them for the rest of their life? Do men really want someone they can count on to be a lady in public and a whore in private? Or did everyone want something different? For instance, one person could want a funny man, another a kinky woman...the choices were more than anyone could possibly count.

What Christian Ozera wanted...well, at this moment, he wasn't exactly sure.

He took Rose back to the playground to discover that Christina was gone. He knew that his driver had probably sensed that something was off and had taken her off. Having no other way to go, he and Rose started walking.

At first, it definitely was more thab awkward. Neither of them really said a word. Having no contact for almost five years would do that to you.

They knew that if they started talking, they would end up fighting, like they had before. Christian knew that he would yell at her for leaving them, just like Rose knew she would yell at him for beating her. Christian would be accused of being a heartless bastard who cared of nobody but himself, and Rose would also be considered selfish, except instead of a bastard, she would have been a whore. A slut. A bitch. Cal it whatever, but currently, all those words were forming secretly in the back of his mind.

Soon, both of them knew they would have to start talking, or they would go crazy. Neither of them were used to silence, so Rose decided to start.

"How is she?" she asked quietly, a little unsure of herself and afraid of what she might hear as an answer.

Both of them knew who Rose was talking about: Christina.

"Good." Responded Christian. "I mean, as good as she can get. She's not exactly living the best of childhoods being that she has no mother, but..." Christian stopped and actually decided to look at Rose. She had tears in her eyes, but hid her face quickly by staring at the floor, her hair covering her. Did he really want to hurt her anymore? True, she didn't seem to care about him, but he cared for her, so...

"She draws." he said, out of the blue. Was it necessary to say it? No. But he knew it would be something Rose would like to know.

Indeed, Rose looked up in surprise.

"She does?" He decided to say nothing about the tear that dropped out of her left eye and fell off her cheek.

"Yeah, she does."

He saw her smile come out, that lovely smile that he just now realized that he'd missed so much. He didn't know why he told her that their daughter drew. If it wasn't for Rose's smile, then it was because a she'd been gone from Christina's life too long. She needed something, anything, to help her connect with her daughter. After all, when she was two, Christina had loved her mother and depended on her so much...a connection like that couldn't dissapear because of a couple years' separation. It took much longer than that to break something so strong.

Next to him, Rose sobbed once and onec only, but he heard it. His heart told him to put his arms around her, to let her put her head on his chest and to relax. But his mind...his mind told him to leave her alone to suffer, to realize that what she'd done wasn't something that could be forgiven in an instant.

"What...what does she paint?" Asked Rose and Christian sensed that she was looking at him. He couldn't look at her, though, for he knew that if he did, he would wrap his arms around her and kiss her, like his heart and body were begging him to.

"Everything." He responded awkwardly. "But...nature mostly. When she first started drawing, she drew you, or what she could remember of you. She didn't know who you were at the beginning, she just knew you from dreams and vague memories. When I told her of you, she stopped drawing you and started drawing her own things. By this, I mean nature. She found something fascinating in seasons, in the way all the trees, flowers and everything else just changed during the season. It's really beautiful."

Now he knew that she was quietly crying, but this time he couldn't help but look at her. Nope, she wasn't crying. But she looked like she would start doing so.

They didn't say much else for the rest of the walk. But when Christian was opening the door to his house, he heard a low whisper:

"She draws just like me."

He didn't know if he was supposed to hear that. But he nodded and said to himself that yes, she did do that just like Rose. Among other things.

"I'm home!" Yelled Christian, knowing wha was going to happen before it did.

"DADDY!" Was yelled from the second floor, before he heard her small feet stomp to the staircase, where she would slide down.

In a second, she came into view. She was running barefoot, wearing a purple tank top and gray shorts. Her black hair was in two pigtails, a hairstyle that was known to be Mimmy's (Christina's nanny and maid) masterpiece, mostly because Christina loved it.

Rose gasped as soon as she saw her daughter, but Christian ignored her.

"Daddy, where were you? I didn't get to drink my shake, Daddy! You just ran of for no reas..." She stopped before saying 'reason' and froze right in front of her father.

"Hey, butterfly, this is..."

"I know who this is, Daddy." she said, her voice containing none of the excitement it had once before.

Christian knew how she would react before she did, he just knew her so well. Before she could say something, he quickly cut in:

"She draws just like you, my butterfly! Seasons and nature and stuff." What else could he call it, really? "You have your talent from her, you know I've drawn pigs that look like pink foxes..." He laughed, but nobody joined in and he knew the reason.

Christina, once looking like she might have something to say, simply turned around on her heels and...stomped up the stairs without looking back. A couple seconds later, Christian heard her slam the door. Like her mother, she had slammed the door. Like her father, she gave the cold shoulder when upset instead of screaming. Both of them knew it worked better.

He turned to see Rose's reaction and wasn't surprised when he saw the tears he'd been expecting for the past half hour.

"She...she just up and left." She sobbed, her face starting to get puffy. Strangely, though, Christian felt no sympathy.

"Yup." He said, without a care in the world.

"W-why?" She was so upset that she was stuttering.

Suddenly, Christian felt disgust for her. Was she playing or what? Did she seriously expect him to believe that she had missed her daughter? Honestly!

"Because she is just like her mother: when she doesn't like something, she 'just ups and leaves', like you put." He responded coldly.