Ali stared out at the reservation lake without really seeing it. She was seated in a plastic lawn chair, watching her sister and Nate play in the water with Uncas' young cousins. Cora had breezed into town on another whirlwind visit, 'just for the weekend' she said, and had somehow managed to charm Magua and most of his extended family. Ali had tried not to be hurt by the obvious snub but it was so glaringly obvious that she couldn't ignore it.

"It's because she's with Nate," Uncas had explained when he saw her face fall at their all too welcoming reaction to her sister and rather icy reception of her.

"He's your brother," Ali had pointed out glumly, "What's the difference?"

"The difference is that Nate is white." had been his only explanation.

So here she sat while Uncas meandered from family member to family member, and there were a lot of them at this reunion/barbeque, receiving warm greetings and salutations. Ali tried to ignore the fact that she was an unwelcome guest and endure the sordid mess, but her buried feelings of resentment were much more on the surface today. It would have helped if she could have distracted herself with pleasant thoughts but her mind just kept going back to the night she had told Uncas about the tour.

"They just announced it," Ali told him, numbly. She searched his face for a hint of what he was thinking but, as usual, he wore an enigmatic mask. She knew he must have been feeling as stunned as she was; it had certainly been the last thing she had expected to hear when Julia and David had gathered everyone together. She just wished he would have a reaction, any reaction.

"This is huge, Uncas," she continued in his silence, filling the void with her nervous chatter, "It's every dancers big chance and I…god help me, but I don't know what to do."

That part was still true, even a week later. There was a part of her, and she didn't know how large that part was, that wanted desperately to go. The other side, the one that wanted to be with Uncas, did not. If she were honest with herself, she wanted both Uncas and her career. She was facing the reality that she could only have one of them and that reality was painful indeed.

When Uncas gave no immediate response to her news she buried her face in her knees, wishing he would say something. She didn't even know what she wanted him to say. Did she want him to tell her to go for it and be excited for her or did she want him to get angry and demand she not go at all?

"Do you….want to go?" Uncas finally asked.

His voice was so collected, and he spoke the words so slowly, that Ali knew he was being careful. He was trying not to show too much of how he was feeling until he gauged where she was at.

"Yes…No…I don't know..." Ali stammered from her hiding place in her knees. Frowning, she lifted her head back up to look at him. She knew her face must look a mass of contradictions. She was excited, scared, nervous, just about any emotion one could expect when their world is turned upside down. When their eyes locked she sighed and threw her hands in the air.

"I don't know what I want more!" the words tumbled out of her mouth in flustered outburst.

Those words, spoken in a moment of confused desperation, still echoed in her ears now. She heard them when she did normal, mundane activities. They lingered in her ears, and at the back of her mind, even when she and Uncas were having a regular conversation.

"Could you pass the sugar?"

"I don't know what I wantmore!"

"Could you pick up some more milk from the store?"

"I don't know what I wantmore!"

They hadn't resolved anything that night and had been existing in a world of increasing tension ever sense. Ali's words had been like a punctuating clap of thunder; she had watched his already guarded face shut down, her words cutting through him like a knife. For a long time, he just stared at her and then slowly turned on his heel and walked toward the hall.

"That's it?" she cried out, jumping to her feet and staring with wide eyes at the straight lines of his hair and solid set to his shoulders. "I tell you the company is going on tour, maybe me with it, and you just…walk away?"

Uncas stopped walking but he didn't turn back to face her. When he spoke again, he still had that careful undercurrent lacing his voice. Ali knew him well enough to know she had hurt him; her honest, though not tactful words had cut him deep.

"I need to think, Ali."

Ali, not baby. It wasn't the fact that he left off his affectionate term for her that she found so alarming as much as the way he said her name in that moment. The lack of the nickname was suddenly a frightening thing, as though it were heralding an end to what they had.

"Uncas, please?" she whispered. There was a lot of pleading in that one, solitary 'please.' In that one word she was begging him to turn around, to talk to her, hell even to yell at her. In the beginning all she had wanted from him was a reaction. Now all she wanted was for him to not walk away from her.

"You're not the only one affected by this," he reminded her quietly, "I just…need time."

With that, Uncas continued down the hall and stepped into the bathroom, shutting the door quietly behind him. He left her standing there feeling like the floor was opening up underneath her, part of her wished it would.

Ali twisted a strand of hair between her fingers and bit her lip at the memory of that encounter. Before her conversation with him, before her mad cleaning spree, Ali had felt only a tingling rush of excitement. The company had let out a collective cheer at the announcement, hugging one another and talking excitedly amongst themselves. Even Cassie had come out of her angry reverie long enough to manage a grin. Ali had grinned too, until realization began to creep in as to what going on tour meant.

Despite her declaration of not knowing what she wanted, Ali knew that she didn't want to be away from Uncas for over a year. She doubted their relationship could survive that kind of distance. Nate and Cora already struggled with that issue, which was why Cora was putting out feelers for jobs in the surrounding area. Being gone for a year, being separated like that, would they still be the same people when she returned? What is she didn't return at all?

"Why the long face, Odette?" Paul's voice pulled her out of her troubled reverie. He flopped into a lawn chair sitting a little ways to her right.

"My sisters giving you the stink eye again or something?"

Ali blinked over at Uncas' cousin, whose black hair was starting to curl slightly in the humidity. It made him look younger than he really was, almost impish, especially with the teasing grin he had plastered on his face.

"What?" she said, startled, and then shook her head as her distracted brain deciphered his question. "No, no more than normal. I was just trying to be quiet and inconspicuous."

"Odette, you couldn't be inconspicuous if you tried!" Paul quipped, laughing and smiling to take any sting out of his words. "You're like the palest person here."

It was true; she really did stand out in the sea of dark faces. She was wearing the same yellow dress, now dry cleaned, that she had worn to the Indian Days Celebration, so her paleness was even more emphasized than usual. When she and Uncas were on better terms he said she looked like a frosted Christmas light, her hair shimmering in the sun gave the comparison more credence.

"Hey, are you alright?" Paul asked when she gave only a weak smile at his joke. He sat forward in his chair to peer into her face. "Seriously, are Kanti and Leotie giving you the bum's rush, 'cause I can tell them to knock it off?"

Paul's two older sisters were not Ali's biggest fans. They hadn't been particularly welcoming the first time she had met them and had become increasingly icier as the months dragged on. Today, they were pretending she didn't exist, which was fine by her.

"No, they're ignoring me today." Ali responded as she glanced over at the stocky build of Kanti, Magua's oldest child, who was trying to corral a screaming three year old onto a picnic bench. Kanti resembled Magua the most out of his five children; she had the same haggard and drawn features, the same stern expression. Uncas said it was because she practically raised the other kids after Paul's mom took off.

"She just never turned the mom thing off, I guess." Uncas had said by way of explanation.

Kanti had three children of her own, including the screaming toddler. Ali had seen what Uncas meant after watching her with her children and had to admit, Kanti was a good mom. She was strict and tended toward shouting, but Ali could tell she would put herself between a charging bull and any one of her children. Kanti's other two kids were happily splashing Nate and Cora as they chased them around the lake.

"What's up then," Paul asked and took a drink of the beer he held, "you and Ade have a fight?"

"Why would you say that?" Ali demanded, her voice came out high and a shriller than she intended.

"Uh, maybe because you two are usually wrapped around each other like a second skin." he offered, shrugging his shoulders.

"Dad usually complains that he has to pry you two off of each other with a crow bar, but today you're sitting over here looking like your pet goldfish died. And Ade is over there making nice with our great aunt Beulah, something we all avoid!"

Paul gestured with his head and Ali turned around to see Uncas patiently enduring what looked like an ass reaming from a rotund, Indian woman. Ali tightened her jaw before slumping back into her chair. She glanced sullenly down at her knees. Paul watched her and waited for a response. After a few seconds of tense silence, Ali spoke.

"I was prepared to take the next production off." she mumbled, speaking more to the air than to Paul. When she didn't elaborate or continue, Paul cleared his throat and shifted in his seat as though uncomfortable.

"Okaaaaaaaay," the man drawled, "needing some context over here, Ali."

"The company is going on tour." Ali clarified flatly. Another few seconds of silence followed.

"If that's a good thing, why are you saying it like it's a bad thing?" Paul asked, his voice laced with confusion. Ali sighed and slid down in the chair until her head was resting against the backing, then she rolled her head on her shoulders until she was looking at him again.

"It's a bad thing," she replied after taking a deep breath, "because I would be gone for over a year."

"Oh." Paul said quietly.

"Yeah." she murmured.

They took in the sounds of laughing children and chattering relatives for a while. Ali shut her eyes and let the sounds wash over her, trying to take comfort in the sound of normalcy. She didn't want to think about the tour anymore because it was the only thing she had thought about for over a week. Auditions were coming up soon and she was going to have to make a decision one way or another.

"What did Ade say when you told him about it?" Paul asked her then.

That was the problem; he hadn't really said anything since telling her he needed time. After he disappeared into the bathroom, she had heard the shower come on and then he had silently walked into their room without saying a word to her. After she had gotten herself cleaned up, she found Uncas curled on his side, facing away from her. She had slid in bed next to him and stared at his back, trying to think of something to say.

"I love you." was all she had managed. He hadn't answered her. She didn't know if that was because he was asleep already or because he couldn't bring himself to reply. Either way she had spent a long time staring at the ceiling until sleep claimed her.

Since that night they had spoken to one another very formally. They said good morning, how are you, how was your day, but it was always tense, always overshadowed by the issue of the tour. After three days, Ali finally plucked up the courage to approach him.

"We can't go on like this," she said to him when she caught him in the studio, "we can't keep skating around the issue."

"No, we can't." he agreed, his voice still careful and guarded. He was carving a piece of wood and didn't look up at her.

"So, let's talk about it?" she prompted.

"Have you decided what you want?" Uncas countered.

"Well, no, but-"

"You need to make a decision," he said, interrupting her before she finished the sentence, "you need to make a decision about what you want… or I do." This last was said so quietly that she might have missed it if she hadn't been looking at his mouth when he spoke.

Ali had stood there for a long time while he continued to carve that block of wood and couldn't formulate a ready response. She opened her mouth several times, clenched and unclenched the hands at her sides. She swallowed and tried to find her suddenly elusive voice.

"Are you going to break up with me?" she asked him, speaking calmly. She didn't feel calm, not at all, but she couldn't let that person screaming inside of her take control. If he said no, it meant he was at least willing to discuss this reasonably at some point, but if he said yes…she steeled her nerves and waited for him to answer.

"I don't know." he responded, setting down his tool and finally raising his eyes to hers. There was a lot of raw emotion in them; he was hurting as much as she was and he was trying to keep it together, the struggle was written all over her face.

"I don't want to but…you need to decide what you want, Ali. We can't move forward until you do."

"He told me that I need to decide what I want. That was after I told him I didn't know what I wanted more." Ali revealed, opening her eyes again. They hadn't resolved anything with that discussion either. Uncas had taken up his carving tool again and she had retreated before she burst into tears.

"Well, what do you want more?" Paul asked her. Ali turned her head to look at him and gave a faint smile.

"What's this, your shrink routine?" she joked. Paul grinned at her and sat back in his chair like a psychiatrist, pretending to hold a tablet, the tablet in this case was his beer.

"I zink it all began wit yer father." Paul said in a poor imitation of Sigmund Freud. Ali laughed and sat up straighter in her chair. Paul cleared his throat before speaking again and when he did his voice was serious.

"You guys should find a way to talk about this, though. It's kind of a big deal."

"Emotionally invested in our future now?" she quipped. Paul's face remained serious and any amusement she felt, feigned or otherwise, slid away.

"Look Ali, I'm not the world's greatest guy, you know that… but I do know a good thing when I see it. What you and Ade have is at least worth considering if not fighting for. Not many people can say that."

"Thank you." she whispered, surprised to hear these words coming from him of all people. In the beginning he had been vocally opposed to their relationship and now he was encouraging her to fight for it. She wondered if the world really had turned upside down.

"What are you two talking so seriously about?" Cora's voice asked as she sauntered up, drying off her long curly hair with a towel.

"Nothing much. Just Odette's looming stardom." Paul answered.

Ali shot him a warning look; she hadn't told her sister about the tour yet. She hadn't spoken to anyone about it aside from Uncas and now Paul.

"Looming stardom?" Cora repeated, blinking. She turned to her sister with a questioning look. "What is he talking about?"

"He's being dramatic." Ali answered vaguely, shooting Paul another glare around her sister. "There's no looming anything."

Paul gave her his 'uh-huh, whatever' look and took another swig of his beer before getting up to leave the two women alone. Once he was gone, Cora wrapped the towel around her waist and placed her hands on her hips. She looked down at Ali as though she were an errant child who was caught in a lie.

"Alright, spill!" Cora demanded, sounding exasperated. "I come home for a visit to find you and Uncas tiptoeing around one another. Now you're sitting over here sharing secrets with Paul? What is fuck's name is going on, Ali?"

"Cora, language!" Ali hissed, going red faced when she saw Leotie shoot her a dirty look from over by one of the barbeque pits, as though it were Ali that said the offending word and not Cora.

"I'm going to keep dropping the F-bomb until you tell me what's going on with you." Cora threatened crossly.

Ali pulled her mouth into a thin line and stood up, taking her sisters elbow to lead her away from the staring relatives. She really didn't want to have this conversation at the reunion, but to protect her sister from embarrassing both of them she would have to.

"My Dance Company just announced that they're going on tour." Ali told her sister quietly when she got her over near the woods and away from nosey relatives.

"You're going on tour!" Cora repeated but louder, bellowing the news like a fog horn.

The distance had apparently not been far enough, Ali winced as she looked over her shoulder to see the Blackstone clan staring at them with wide, questioning eyes. Ali went red-faced; embarrassed that everyone was now privy to her business. She turned her face back to her sister's startled one.

"The Company is going on tour" Ali corrected her quietly, her voice a small thread of sound in the sudden silence.

"Yes, a Company you are part of." Cora reminded her, looking angry and hurt that her sister had told Paul about the tour but not her. "When were you going to tell me about this?"

"I don't know, Cora!" Ali burst out, angry herself now. "Maybe when I decided what the fuck I wanted to do."

It was so quiet that a pin could have fallen in the water and everyone would have heard it. Cora was surprised by her sisters sudden burst of anger and took a visible step back as Ali looked over her shoulder again at the staring faces.

"Could we go for a walk, please?" Ali requested miserably. "I don't want to talk about this here."

"Yeah, all right." Cora murmured and took her sisters arm to lead her away. They made their way down the hill that lead out to the main road. As they walked slowly down the gravel path, Ali's temperamental knee didn't allow her to move very fluidly so she limped next to Cora, who was waiting for her to explain herself.

Ali knew she would be the subject of discussion after that little outburst. It would probably be used against Uncas in some way too, which made her feel even worse. God, maybe she should just go on tour in the fall. Was staying worth how she was feeling now? Maybe it was a sign that their romance just wasn't meant to be.

She walked under the green canopy of leaves and her heart felt heavy in her chest, filled to the brim with tears that she had yet to shed. Uncas was barely speaking to her and they had barely touched one another aside from the brushing of fingers. She was beginning to wonder what she was fighting for.

"Uncas doesn't want you to go, does he?" Cora asked her quietly, after they had walked in silence for a while. Cora was always good at finding the heart of a matter, even when she was angry about not being made privy to it.

"I don't know." Ali answered sadly. "I assume he doesn't, but he said he can't talk to me about it until I decide what I want."

"That's not unfair, Ali." Cora replied gently.

"No, it isn't." she sighed. Then she told Cora everything, every last detail that she could recall about the announcement, that first conversation with Uncas and the second, and then about how it came up with Paul. Cora listened quietly until she was finished.

"I'm going to tell you what I think" Cora began tentatively, after she was certain Ali was done speaking, "and I don't think you're going to like what I have to say but I'm going to say it anyway. Just know I'm saying this because I love you, alright?"

"Ok." Ali replied hesitantly. She braced as though she were about to be struck.

"I think you should go for it." Cora stated firmly. Ali stopped walking to stare at her sister, who looked back at her with a serious expression. "You've trained for this since you were four, Ali. You can't give it all that up for the first guy who shows interest."

"He's hardly the first." Ali muttered, feeling slightly affronted. "Besides, shouldn't the fact that I love him count for something? I thought you liked Uncas."

"I do like him but that's beside the point." Cora said back and pinched the bridge of her nose as though she were fighting for patience. "Look Ali, this is a chance that might not be offered to you again. Are you really willing to give it all up for a guy that you've only been seeing for four months?"

I don't know…I just…I don't know!" she stammered, flustered and confused and suddenly just wanted to run. She wanted to go home and hide from the world.

"Well you need to make a decision." Cora snapped back at her, startling her with the harshness of her tone. "And frankly, if you do choose to stay, I'm going to be disappointed in you! I gave up on my dream so that you could have yours so don't you dare throw it away now!"

Ali stared at her sister for a few stunned seconds before the tears that she had been pushing down rose to her eyes like a tiny geyser. She gave a little sob and then began to weep. When she couldn't stop the tears, she buried her face in her hands.

"Oh, God… I'm sorry!" Cora's contrite voice said as her arms came around Ali and pulled her in tightly. "I'm a jerk, I shouldn't have said that! I'm sorry, Ali!" Ali wrapped her arms around her sister's waist and cried into her neck like a child.

"No, I'm sorry." Ali replied tremulously when she got control of herself again. "You're right, I didn't even think about that. All I've been thinking about is the fact that I want both." She disentangled herself from her sister's arms and wiped her eyes with the heel of her palm.

"I've been acting like an entitled child who wants to have her cake and eat it too. I need to choose, I can't have it both ways."

"For what it's worth, I think you should take your sister's advice." a deep male voice said from a little ways behind them. Cora and Ali jumped and spun around to see Magua standing a short distance up the path from them.

"I can't say much about the first part, whatever it is she gave up for you," Magua conceded, having the decency to look embarrassed for eavesdropping, "but I think you should go with your Dance Company."

"So you can finally be rid of me, you mean?" Ali retorted harshly. She knew she was being rude, but found that she didn't care. He had walked into a private conversation and given his two cents, completely unsolicited. She wasn't feeling patient at that moment or friendly. If Magua didn't like it, he could kiss her ass.

"Could I have a moment with my nephew's girlfriend, please?" Magua asked Cora, speaking politely and formally. Cora blinked at him in surprise before looking to Ali for permission. She knew that Magua didn't particularly care for the younger Munro girl and was subsequently loath to leave her alone with him.

"I just want to talk." this was said to Ali. Magua put his hands in the air in an 'I come in peace' gesture. Ali stared into his eyes, the eyes that were so much like Uncas' and was surprised to see that they held none of his customary disdain. He looked kind for once, sympathetic even. Ali found herself nodding and hoped she wasn't about to make a horrible mistake.

"You're sure?" Cora asked her skeptically. Ali nodded again, her eyes still locked on Magua's.

"I'll be just up the hill then." her sister muttered before walking away from them, she glanced over her shoulder several times, still unsure, before disappearing over the crest of the hill. Once she was out of sight, Ali and Magua stood facing each other in awkward silence. He cleared his throat and gestured with his head toward a large rock near the tree line.

"Let's sit down." he offered, indicating she should sit first. Ali plodded over to the raised stone and settled on to it. Magua sat down next to her with a quiet groan, as though he was arthritic and the movement hurt. Ali waited for him to speak because she had no idea what to say. His ever so civil request to speak to her had disarmed her and rendered her temporarily mute.

"I proposed to my wife here," Magua revealed and patted the space between them with his palm, "right here on this rock. It wasn't ideal; I didn't even have a ring yet. We were about your and Uncas' age."

Ali didn't know why he was telling her this; Magua had never been much for over sharing. Everything she knew about him, she had heard from Paul, Nate, or Uncas. Magua caught her gaze and smiled sadly, the saddest smile she had ever seen.

"Do you know why Nootah left us?" Magua asked her then. Ali shook her head.

"She left because she regretted giving up her dream to marry me." The stern faced man explained. "She wanted to be an actress back then. Said she was going to run off to Hollywood, become the first 'Native American star'…but then we got pregnant with Kanti."

Magua paused in his narration to take a deep breath, his eyes far away and wistful, lost in a long ago dream. Uncas had told her that Magua didn't talk about his estranged wife very often and for years wouldn't even say her name. No one knew where she had ultimately ended up.

"Then one child became two, and then three and so on, until her dream became just that… a dream. After Tahki was born she left us." Magua finished softly.

"I'm sorry." Ali said quietly. She meant it too. It was bad enough to have your spouse abandon you with little to no explanation, but worse yet when they left you on your own with five young children to raise. Ali wondered if Nootah ever thought about her children or regretted leaving them.

"The point I'm trying to make by telling you all this is that you have a chance for something better than a poor life on this reservation. You deserve better than a poor life on this reservation." he said, correcting halfway through and pinning her with a meaningful stare. Ali could only stare back at him, at a loss for words. Magua had never spoken to her this honestly, or even kindly, the entire time she had known him.

"Look, I know you probably think I'm saying all this just to get rid of you, and several months ago you might have been right," Magua admitted when he saw the skepticism in her eyes, "God knows, I wasn't thrilled about you being here." Ali tilted her head slightly, trying to hear any pretense in his voice. So far she had heard only honesty and sadness.

"So what changed?" she asked curiously.

"I saw you dance."

So that had been Magua she saw ducking out of the theatre that night. Again, Ali was stunned, why had he gone to see her dance? He didn't strike her as the theatre going type.

"I didn't understand a damn thing that was going on in that ballet." Magua admitted with a nervous chuckle. "I haven't even watched the Disney version since Tahki was a little girl, but there was something about the way you danced in it. I might not have understood what was going on but you made me feel the emotion of it. None of the other dancers did that."

"You came to my ballet?" she repeated stupidly. She had heard everything he just said about how she made him feel the emotion of the piece, but her brain was still stuck on the fact that he had come to her ballet at all. Magua laughed at her baffled expression and nodded.

"I wanted to see what you were made of, what Uncas saw in you."

"And what did you learn?" she asked tersely, starting to bristle at the implication that he thought she wasn't good enough for his nephew. Then she felt guilty because he was coming to her with good will, she could at least return the favor.

"Well, for one, I learned that you're a hell of a dancer but more importantly I figured out the effect you have on the people around you. My son, Uncas and Nate, even Sinopa…you make them feel safe to be who they want to be." Magua answered. "I think you also make them feel hopeful and hope is something this place tends to kill. It's that hope, that fairytale like whimsy, which draws all of them to you."

"Well, I don't think my 'whimsy', as you call it, is doing me any favors these days." Ali mumbled, feeling a bit embarrassed by his perception of her. "Uncas will barely speak to me about the tour and I think he's a hairsbreadth away from ending our relationship entirely."

"Yeah well, my nephew is simply afraid to leave the reservation," Magua replied with a dry laugh, "and I have to admit that my generation hasn't helped much in that regard. I certainly haven't encouraged it, not with Uncas or with my own children."

"Afraid?" Ali repeated. "Of what?"

"Any number of things; maybe he's afraid he can never come back if he seeks out something bigger or afraid of disappointing his tribe by leaving. Maybe he's afraid of getting lost in the big wide world of the white man and losing himself. Either way it's still fear based. The difference now is you."

"I think you're overestimating my influence." she mumbled, casting her eyes down to her sandaled feet.

"If you go," the older man said slowly, " I think my nephew will follow you."

Ali started and looked back at him in bewilderment. Go with her? She hadn't considered that possibility at all, especially after the night of their argument, when she had casually brought it up and he had told her that the reservation was all he knew.

"He said he has a good life here, that it's all he knows," Ali argued, shaking her head, "I doubt that he would be willing to leave and tour the country with me, especially if he's as afraid as you've just said."

"He loves you and that makes a difference," Magua said with a shrug, "tell him you're going and I think he'll follow you anywhere."

"What if he doesn't?" Ali countered, unwilling to let hope in just yet. Magua gave her another sad smile and patted her knee with his rough hand.

"Then he's just another poor fool who's too scared or too proud to take a chance." The police chief answered firmly.

They sat in silence after that, Ali considering everything that Mauga had said to her and Magua lost in his own private thoughts. When enough time had passed, Magua groaned his way back to his feet and rotated his shoulders, working out the kinks.

"I better get back before my daughters launch a search party. Do you want to walk back with me or do you need more time?" Magua asked.

"I think I'll sit here for a while, you've given me some things to consider and I don't know if I'm ready to go back to be scrutinized by Kanti just yet." she smiled when she said this last. Surprisingly, Magua returned it.

"My oldest bases a lot of her opinions on what she thinks mine are. I'll speak to her about how she's been treating you and…I'm sorry. I'm an old fool with old ideas, another one who's too proud and scared to face change. You're good for my nephew; you bring him out of his shell. I've just been too stubborn to give you credit for it."

He walked away from her before she could respond, probably embarrassed by all the honesty and oversharing. Ali watched his back as he made his way up the small hill and felt respect for the man that she hadn't realized she was lacking until now. She had been intimidated by him, leery of him certainly, but she finally understood that she hadn't known him well enough to respect him.

Everything he had said to her in the last ten minutes showed a man who was more perceptive than anyone gave him credit for and Ali thought that she could like Magua, given more time to get to know him. He had certainly given her a lot to consider, as had Cora and Paul.

Was it possible that Uncas would come with her if she left? It wasn't unheard of, spouses and significant others followed dancers all the time. Ali hadn't considered that possibility until Magua suggested it and now wondered how to broach the subject with Uncas. Could she even bring herself to ask him to come with her?

Magua thought he would follow her if she went, but simply going without speaking to him about it felt too close to manipulation for comfort. It felt like something Cassie would do, simply state she was leaving without considering the other side. Ali didn't think she could do it like that. She sat on that rock for longer than she knew was polite. She needed to get back before they sent a search party for her instead.

She slid of the rock, dusted off her rump and made her way back up the hill toward the lake. She was just cresting the top off the hill when she saw her sister leaning against a tree, studying her hands. Cora looked up at the sound of her sister's uneven foot falls and stood up straighter.

"How did it go?" she asked worriedly.

"It went fine, he was very fair." Ali replied, stopping next to Cora.

"I was going to come running if I heard yelling. I didn't like leaving you on your own with him."

"He gave me a lot to think about." Ali told her quietly.

"Well, I still feel bad for what I said." Cora sighed as she took Ali's arm and pulled her back toward the sounds of the reunion. "I was angry and hurt and I didn't even mean it. I was just shocked that you were thinking about throwing it all away."

"You had a right to say everything you said," Ali told her reassuringly, "and I agree that it would be silly to give everything up like that."

"So you're set on going then?"

"Mostly, first I need to discuss some things with Uncas. I can't say how I'll feel after that, but as it stands at this moment, yes."

Ali just hoped this was going to be a decision she could live with in the long run, especially if Uncas chose not to come with her. She let her sister lead her back to the lake with a heart that was close to breaking but also resigned to the coming pain. She forced a smile onto her face and prepared to jump back into the fray.

(Authors notes:

Ugh! You guys have no idea how many times I rewrote this dialogue. The very first write through, I had Uncas basically stomping away and acting like a jerk and then I had Ali yelling at her sister in front of everyone and stomping off. Everyone (except Paul and Magua) was being needlessly antagonistic.

Then the second write through had me dumbing down Uncas behavior during that remembered discussion with Alice. I changed the dialogue so that what Ali said was honest and not meant to be cruel…but still hurt anyway. Then I had to rewrite that second encounter in his studio, which took forever to get right. Then there was the conversation with Magua! So…much…talking! XD

I actually didn't intend for that talk with Magua to happen until closer to the end of part 2. It just felt better here. I still haven't decided if I'm going to have him talk to Uncas as well. If he does, it will be a very different type of discussion (not nearly as involved). Putting the conversation here opens me up for some other scenes and helps me close out part two a little quicker than I thought I would. Now I can focus on getting Uncas and Ali back to being happy for a while.

I had intended to have this up on Tuesday but the rewrites plus doctor appointments (I developed asthma while writing this story. Ironic, I know!) really pushed me back. I don't know when the next update will be either because I need to think about Uncas side in all this. He kept saying to her that she needed to' make a decision' but I think what he means is that he needs to make a decision. I'll get into that more in the next chapter.

God, if this chapter (and the last one too, I suppose) had a theme it would be 'Mockingbird' by Rob Thomas. I heard it on one of my other playlists yesterday and chuckled a little. The line 'Maybe we ain't meant for this love' really sums up how the characters are feeling right now.

Again, thank you all for reading and bearing with me as I rewrite the hell out of this thing. Thanks for all the previous reviews as well, I do read them but don't always get a chance to respond. I will see you all at the next update!)