A thousand pardons for the delay - and a thousand thanks to the amazing nattiebroskette and AliceJericho for their patience with me on this chapter. At least it's extra long to make up for the extra huge delay in getting it out there, right? Sometimes life gets in the way.

Thank you all, also, for the reviews :) They keep me going!


Randy startled awake midway through the night, an image of Jackson smashing a thick glass ashtray on Meg's face, rather than next to it, being the thing that drove him from his sleep. 'And I still couldn't get him away from her. When does that part stop?' Just as he'd dreamed when he was alone in St. Charles, Meg had been screaming for him, begging him to stop Jackson, but he couldn't. His reach was always a fraction too short, Jackson always moved a whisper too fast, and then Meg's throat would be cut, a wrist slashed, something that he couldn't save or mend, and then he would jolt awake, touching her, checking her, even as her hands floated over him to settle him back into calm.

He knew they needed to talk in the morning, that there was so much undone needing to be sewn back together, most of it the things he'd torn apart that she'd then shredded into pieces. 'I'm not going to walk out this time. And she's not going to be drinking or taking her pills, and we're going to stay in bed and have breakfast and just...it'll be better.' He turned further onto his side, wrapping an arm around her, and she reflexively reached up to hold his shoulders, her eyes starting to ease open and slowly focus on him.

"Ran? What's wrong?"

"Nothing, Meggie. You'd think I'd be passed out asleep. Long day, huh?"

"Yeah...sorry." Meg ducked her head low against his arm, and began to draw her hands away from him.

'Oh come on...stop...' "Meg...not what I meant. I took a late flight out of Biloxi, I got next-to-no sleep once I landed, had...a lot of really weird shit happen in the morning...then got on a flight back here and went right into the show. I don't mean anything about you." He pulled her on top of him. "Don't think like that. Please?"

Her leg screamed as Randy lifted her, and she winced. "You gonna tell me where you went?"

"Yeah, but...I was gonna...it's part of..." Randy paused, trying to think of how to word things. "If you still want to go to the gala, I was gonna tell you about it then. And I swear, Renee and Jon were only trying to help. It was never about me leaving you. It was about me trying to fix something that...it turned out...wasn't really broken."

Meg looked at him cautiously, and Randy knew at least his answer, If not something more, wasn't sitting well with her at all. "Meg, I promise - and I know how you feel about that word – I didn't mean for this to get so bad. And," he adjusted her over him again, "Don't think I didn't see your face. What's wrong?"

"I screwed up my leg. Again. If you still want to go to the gala, I..." Meg sighed. "I just hope I'm not an embarrassment. That you're not dragging me around because I can't walk."

"Keep it in the brace for the next couple days, take it easy at the arenas in your boots. You'll get there." He brushed her hair back from her face, drawing his thumb down the line of her jaw. "We really okay?"

'I know what I want to do to make it okay. I know what I want to do to convince myself it's okay. I know it never works when I do it.' Meg let her eyes fall closed, and rested her head against his shoulder, trying to press into the slope of his neck, searching out his warmth and his cologne. "I want us to be, Ran. But I don't know what to try, anymore. You've been in the room, the shower, the bed with me, and you haven't even kissed me."

Randy felt the bed collapse underneath him, constantly moving, falling through floor after endless floor of the hotel, his mind's eye watching Meg hover slightly above him, her face no longer hurt, just questioning – 'Why tell me forever if you only meant for now?' He could only tighten his arms around her and hope the gut-wrenching sensation would eventually end. Meg stirred, uncomfortably, and it took him a second to realize just how hard he'd locked his arms around her.

"Meg...I just...I'm hoping about this. Us."

"You know how I know it's – this, we, us – it's all fucked up and not coming back?" Meg's voice was calm, almost niveous, and she traced her fingertips over the thin triangle-points of the tattooed design that crept over Randy's shoulders. Randy felt the bed speed up, crash faster, Meg's expression never changing, but the disaster around him looming larger and larger, all grotesque shadows and bleeding edges.

When he said nothing, Meg continued at a whisper, the milk and snow in her voice turning to smoke from a dying flame, wafting away; whatever small light there was now extinguished. "You just held me like death – it hurt, Randy – but not like you needed me. I was afraid to do anything first, because I thought I was what drove you off to begin with. Is there something on me you don't want to taste, or is it the other way around?"

Stunned into silence, no response came, and Meg simply lay still over him until sleep came back heavy enough to press her into quiet dreams. Randy spent the rest of the night staring at the wall, his arms now limp around her. 'She told me to leave once I got back, though. I didn't think she would want...but then the shower, it's not like I couldn't have...was I waiting for her to do something? Did I really think she wouldn't be scared? And how do I kiss her now? What did the song say, I slithered to her? I ruined her?'

His mind demanding a thousand answers to a single question, Randy realized it would now be two days he'd gone without anything more than a few hours' sleep. He'd be a wreck come morning, and he knew it. And a wreck for the show. And afterward. Assuming he could even get through the show, which wasn't a given – his head was pounding, his heart was pounding. The more he thought about Meg's hands traveling over him in the shower, her downcast eyes when he walked in their room, her quick, nearly stuttered explanation about the wine, he suddenly felt that anything he could do now would be better than doing nothing at all and letting the flailing, flying feeling continue.

Meg was deep into the kind of sleep that was all-consuming; her body was dead-weight over him, her face completely neutral, her hands having no interest in consoling him further by entering into their usual dance up and down his arms. Cautiously, he eased her off of his chest and back onto the pillows, half-rolling over her and waiting for the movement to register with her – which it did, and quickly. Meg startled awake, then looked at him, confused for the thousandth time that night. Her lips barely parted to speak, ask him what, or at least, what now, and he was already pressing a finger against them, trying to silence her. For her part, Meg simply acquiesced, her eyes showing exhaustion; the kind that indicated she'd rather be rid of the whole scene and simply back asleep.

"I always let you win, Meg. Always. But not this one. We're not fucked up...it's not...I'm not going to let go." He drew his finger down, easing her lips into the slightest of parts, and leaned down to kiss her. He was terrified and tentative, unsure his advance was wanted or even necessary; if her mind was already made up then there wasn't anything he could do. He knew Meg well enough to know that things didn't change once she'd made plans and decisions. They simply were.

Slowly, as if she wasn't sure she ought to welcome this new turn of events, Meg kissed him in return. Once she was past the lingering taste of wine on his lips, almost ready to enjoy the mix of their soaps on his skin, edging toward neutrality, if not acceptance, that he didn't plan on telling her what he'd been up to, his hands came up to her face again, this time trailing the outlines of her features, cheekbones, the bridge of her nose, curve of her chin, and it was a dirty and metallic aroma that made Meg jump back from him as much as the bed would let her, half-slapping at his hands, half-grabbing them to look at what was on them, his prolonged contact giving her time to notice what, exactly, was on his fingers.

"Where were you? Stop fucking saying later, you need to tell me now." 'The one place I didn't touch you in the shower; you were holding me. No roses, no cologne, nothing. Not your hands.'

Randy froze, hovering over her, trying to hold himself up while she pulled his hands back and forth, looking at his fingernails. 'The jewelry. Something must be on me – under my nails? - from all the metal. Everything we touched. It was all so old and the shower didn't kill it.' There, under some of his fingernails, around the beds of others, thin black lines of dirt and age from passing so many bracelets and necklaces back and forth, pointing out which jewels he wanted, laughing over a sugar spoon as the utensil of choice for the necklace chain, Alvin deciding that Meg must be both a sweet and thorny rose. "Meg...I went to get you a present. To make up for things. Can that be enough, just for now?"

Her eyes were hard, incredibly metallic and gem-like themselves, when she focused on him again, pushing his hands away. "Yeah. What's one more decision, right?" 'No. I know where you were. I know you went back there. You put your hands on that city, and then you put your hands on me.' Meg slid out from under Randy, fought for the edge of the bed and a vertical rise, grabbed the Concierge phone and her room card from the bedside table, and limped out the door in nothing more than her bathrobe.

Randy returned to staring at the wall, blindly digging at the invisible scent until the edges around his nails bled.


Meg collapsed into a low loveseat near the elevators, half-expecting to see Joe in the corner, then waving the Concierge phone around til she picked up a decent signal. She waited impatiently for the line to connect, bouncing her good leg up and down rapidly.

"The fuck? It's gotta be three in the morning. Dave, come get this thing. Medical, I guess, but hold on, it's Jon."

"Jon, it's Meg. What the fuck do you have the – actually, nevermind. I'm coming down to your room."

"What hap-"

Meg cut the line as the elevator doors opened, clutching the top of the robe closed, oblivious to the fact that the bottom half of the scar on her leg was visible. She padded down the hall of the sixth floor, half-dragging herself along the wall, wishing she'd thought to at least grab a shirt, but hopeful Dave would let her borrow something to sleep in. 'Or Jon. I don't care. I'll sleep on the fucking balcony. How did he – why would he – this makes no fucking sense.'

Knocking gently on the door to Dave and Jon's room, unsure if Jon had called out to a sleeping Dave during their phone call, Meg waited quietly in the hallway. Jon cracked the door open enough for Meg to slip inside, looking every bit as irritable as Meg felt. She looked as though she was ready to collapse, and Jon dragged her over to his bed, pushing her down onto the edge of it and daring her with a glare to try to argue with him about staying put. Dave looked for all the world like he was dead as opposed to asleep, and Meg decided she'd make the effort to keep her voice down, though she had no way of knowing he and Jon had been awake and talking just before she'd arrived. Dave made the decision to let Jon handle the situation, which Jon, surprisingly, readily agreed to. Taking a breath that threatened to slip away from her, Meg tried to explain what brought her to their room instead of simply sleeping off her argument upstairs.

Jon, however, had other ideas and sat down hard next to her, the sudden jostle of the bed knocking coherent speech from her and forcing her to focus on her balance instead. "Meg, before you get all pissy with him...it wasn't all his idea. I told him to leave, and Renee was gonna help him figure out what would make the most sense. It wasn't just like he took off on you. I thought...as many times as you've left and come back, he could take a day, since he was doing it for you and he was coming right back."

Something in Meg finally gave way, but not in the way she expected. She was waiting for an explosion, something kinetic and pressurized, filled with shards and angular things, but whatever it was that released was a simple defeat. Whatever will she had left evaporated, the fight in her was gone, and the purposelessness of all of it was completely, nakedly apparent to her.

"All of you?"

"Well...yeah. He just wanted to...fix things, I guess. It sounds stupid."

"It does, yeah. I guess I don't care. It's all fucked up, now."

"Don't say that, Meg. If you knew how much he-"

"Shut the fuck up with that. I know how much he...does...feels...whatever he does. But he does it wrong."

"So do you, you ever stop to think?"

"You had no right, Jon. You told him to go back to New Orleans. Where all that...was. Happened. You want me to tell Renee to go back to Cincy so she gets a good feel for your 'Lost Boy' years? You want me to have her chat with your friends to look for where you hurt the most, so she can peel those scabs first when she gets there?"

"It doesn't still bleed for me the way it does for you. Y'ever think maybe he went there to try to tie it off? And how the fuck did you figure out it was New Orleans? He didn't tell you, I know that much."

"It didn't wash off him. It doesn't ever wash off, Jon. And what does he think he can do?" Meg shook her head, pressing her eyes shut impossibly tight against the thought. "Jon, you-"

"Meg, are you ever gonna let him?" He stood up and pulled Meg to standing, urging her towards the door. "I'm sorry, hon, but no. No bed, no couch. Not here. You haul your little ass back upstairs and fight it out or fuck it out, but no matter how fuckin' stupid he was – and he was – you gotta stop this shit. Renee didn't have the ground to stand on, but I do. You almost died over it, whether or not you mean to, and Meg...everything about him is for you, anymore. Don't do this shit, to yourself or to him. Don't fuck up a good thing. I'm on your side on this one; it's why I'm not gonna let you do this."

"Then you need to call Renee and stop being a dick to her for checking me on my bullshit. Because you and I both know what I did was bullshit. It was bullshit when you used to do it, it's bullshit when I do it. The only difference is, you finally stopped and I'm not there yet." Meg shook Jon's hands from her shoulders and pointed to his phone. "You want me to leave, go get your phone. I'm not moving til I at least see it in your hand. I'll walk when you call. We all fucked up, now we all fix it."

He opened the door, but stopped shy of guiding her through it. "Go. And I don't wanna find out you went anywhere else but back upstairs, either." Jon fixed Meg with a steely look as he fetched his phone, and once he did she kept her end of the bargain and stepped into the hallway. Hearing his door shut firmly behind her, followed by a light bump that she assumed was Jon resting his head against the door, Meg felt the world flatten around her considerably – and never saw Dave smile. Cautiously, she looked back over her shoulder, but knew the door wouldn't be re-opening for her. She started the slow walk back to the elevators, expecting to find everything and nothing when she arrived back at the suite.


Randy, having picked his fingers bloody and moved past destructive into frantic, grabbed another notecard from the desk, this time putting more thought into his writing:

'Meg, I went to talk to Renee. I owe her an apology for earlier. I'm coming back tonight. I shouldn't be too long. Call my phone if you need anything. I love you, Meg, and I'm sorry.'

Hoping it would be enough, he threw on enough clothing to account for decency and fatigue, and made his way to what would have been Jon's and Renee's room, had they been staying in it. Knocking long enough to come to the conclusion it was empty, he puzzled over where they could be, and decided Jon was likely with Dave. Moving a few doors down, he came to Tenille's room, and knocked gently. Hearing Tenille's voice behind it, he knew he'd written a lie to Meg – the concept of "shouldn't be too long" had evaporated.

"Love, it's that asshole. I'm not letting him in." Randy winced; Tenille was loud enough to be heard throughout the hallway. "He's done enough damage for one night – fuck, for a whole year, don't you think?"

"No," Renee sniffled, "Let him in. Maybe he knows what's going on with Jon. Or Meg. I just...I dunno. I can't handle not knowing anything about tonight." Guilt cut through Randy; Renee's voice was hot and ragged, and she sounded like she'd been doing nothing all night but breathing in short gasps and sobbing.

Tenille pulled the door handle down, hard and fast, trying to flip it open and closed fast enough that she could claim she'd tried to let him in, he'd just missed his chance. Randy had to snatch at the handle in order to keep from being locked out. "You," Tenille shot out as he edged into the room, "are a cocksucking asshole. I don't want you here. Whatever you're up to, get on with it, so you can go."

Randy hadn't moved from the doorway; there wasn't anywhere for him to go. Tenille was sitting in the middle of the bed and Renee was hunched over in an armchair in the corner of the room. His night had spiraled out of control – Meg was gone, somehow sensing where he'd been when he left Biloxi, his friends were furious with him and with her, and he had no idea what to do.

'I'm just...done. I can't take care of her, obviously. And she can't take care of herself.' He looked down at his fingers, still bloody but dry, and leaned into the wall near the bed, as though it'd be the only thing left to hold him up when he was done speaking, assuming the building didn't come down around him.

"Renee...I'm sorry. About earlier. You were right, I shouldn't have left when I did. Or the way I did. I should have listened to you and Jon. And no, I don't know why Meg does this to herself. Or why she doesn't see what it does to other people – though I think she's starting to understand that more, now that she watched everything go to shit, and because she finally has friends. Not just Sarah, but all of you. It's hard for her to understand that people care about her, and she didn't think things would happen like this...the way everyone was hurt. Just...please don't let this fuck up anything with you and Jon. He's upset because he...understands Meg, I guess, in his own way, and...it brings shit up for him. Shit that hurts him, that hurt other people, all of it. Jon loves you, and I think we're all so sick of nobody listening to anybody that when you talked to Meg after he asked you not to, he just...overreacted."

"Well, fuck him, then! It doesn't give him the right to come down on Renee like that. Doesn't anyone see that what Meg did was wrong?" Tenille was barking at Randy, livid, and her eyes were on the brink of flooding. Her voice exploded into the room and filled it, leaving Randy little room to navigate.

Shifting uncomfortably against the wall, knowing he wasn't going to get many more chances at this – none of them were – Randy tried again. "Nell...Renee...Jon came down like that because he knows what Meg did was wrong. Because it reminds him of himself. Because he doesn't want to see her fuck up, and he doesn't want any of us caught up in the bullshit that those fuckups leave behind. Do you see this right now? How we're all acting? This is what he was trying to...stop from happening, I guess."

Renee had watched him the entire time he spoke, her face drawn and tired, but somehow not as hateful as it had been earlier. The tension was there, but it wasn't directed at him. "Randy...is she okay?"

"I don't know. She apologized to me for what she did, but I kinda fucked up there, too. She walked out. If you mean anything deeper than that..." Randy looked down at the carpet, the pattern suddenly swirling around rapidly, forcing his eyes back up to Renee. "If you mean anything else, then I don't know. It's like more is coming up now. Coming out. I don't know why. I don't think she knows why."

Tenille huffed at him. "Well. Fancy that. A fucking surprise there, that. The great Randall, fucking up and not knowing why or what to do to help the woman he says he loves. Is there a crown that comes with the title of being the world's biggest failure?"

Renee held up her hand, half waving off Tenille and half indicating she wasn't done talking. "Just...Randy...go be with Meg, okay? Go find her. I'll figure it out wi-" Her cell phone rang; Jon's ringtone, and all of them froze.

"Well, love?" Tenille nodded at the phone. "Pick it up?"

Slowly, Renee reached for her cell, accepting the call and holding her phone up to her ear. Before she could even get a word out edgewise, Jon's voice came blaring through the back of the phone, rapid-fire and almost stuttered, telling her to please just be quiet, let him talk, he shouldn't have, he should have, he did want, he didn't want, he was sorry and he never meant but he only meant, and then a long silence. Renee left her eyes closed as he spoke, finally ending the call without speaking, and stood up to leave. She hugged Tenille, whispered to her, and touched her fingertips to Randy's shoulder as she passed him on the way out.

"Go take care of her, okay? Tell her I'll talk to her tomorrow. To you, too. Jon wants me to come back to our room now. He said we need to talk, that he talked to Meg and told her to go find you, too."

Randy looked at her blankly, and then down to his own phone, still silent. "Randy," Renee whispered, "she'll call you. Or find you. Just wait. Go back upstairs and wait. None of this is getting fixed overnight; we all did too much damage to each other. But...go try."

Tenille glared and rolled her eyes, but waved him off with a single hand, motioning him to the door.


Randy took the elevator back to his floor, realizing too late that he'd dressed and left a note, but hadn't taken a room key with him. Hoping Meg would be back – or had taken a key with her – he knocked at the door, and heard nothing but silence on the other side. 'Great. She really...did...leave. In a bathrobe, so she's still here somewhere. Probably with Dave, since she didn't go to Renee or Tenille. And I can't get in. Maybe if I go to the front desk, but the odds of that working are-'

The door to their suite slipped open, revealing Meg in one of Randy's shirts, bathrobe cast behind her over the foot of the bed, and the tension that should have been between them oddly absent. Meg had followed Jon's directions as much as she was able, Randy had apologized to Renee as best he could; nothing there would ever be back to complete normalcy, they'd all experienced far too much of each others' stupidity and anger for it to ever be perfect again, but none of them were sure it needed to be perfect again, either. They'd all survived; that was what mattered.

Frozen in the doorway, Randy didn't reach for Meg, nor did she move for him. She simply looked up at his face, waiting for him to move, speak, anything – give any indication of what was coming next. Seconds ticked by into minutes; her leg was beginning to ache and he seemed to have died where he stood.

"Randy...do something." Meg's voice was low, and something in it was fearful, both pushed and pulled by that evil that had swirled around them earlier. "I don't know what to do. Please? I did enough...I did too much, and they've all been the wrong things to do, anyway."

Flexing his fingers out in front of her, in part to show her, and in part to confirm to himself the damage that he'd done, he turned his hands over and over between them both, not quite ready to look at her. The bloody edges on his nails were still harsh and obvious. "Meg...I still want forever. Part of that means you'll be here to have forever with me. Part of that means I won't do stupid shit like walk away from you. Right now, it means I want to do what I should have done as soon as I knew you were alright."

Shakily, slowly, he lifted his hands to her face and looked down at her, his eyes tired yet terrified. "Yeah, I went back there. New Orleans. I don't know how you – nah, forget it. It's because it's New Orleans. That's how you knew. You still have that place, Meg. It's not broken for you. And I want to show you what's still there, if you want to let me. Right now, I just want to kiss you. Like I should have done."

There was nothing tentative in her response to him, though his motions were cautious, and once he knew everything was back in its right place in his mind, in his bed, in his arms, he looked down at her – no longer in his shirt, the corner of a hotel bedsheet licking at her ankles, the sliver of Jackson's ashtray scar barely visible in the greyish moonlight that flooded the room after he'd thrown open the balcony curtains – and knew he'd never walk away again, not for any reason. His lips had found hers at the doorway, he'd carried her to the bed, and then spent hours re-learning and re-memorizing every inch of her body, not letting her do anything other than lay back and enjoy the security of his hands, nothing more than simple touches – as much as he relished in the security of her presence. Finally, he understood his decision had cut him, just differently than it cut her.

Meg's eyes had lost the harsh glint they'd had earlier, and held something much softer when she looked at him. The fight – whatever it was that she was fighting – truly had gone out of her, and when she touched his face her fingers were cold but gentle.

"I understand – I think – what you were trying to do."

Frozen to the bed, Randy held her and waited for her to continue. 'There's nothing you can say, right now. Just let her...just listen.'

Meg tucked her face into the slope of his neck, breathing him in as she spoke. "You were right. I wasn't thinking. Joe was watching me – all of us – at the club, and I felt...wrong, somehow. Like you could do better; he wouldn't ever let go. I wanted forever and I didn't know what to do with it, but I knew I didn't want to take you down with me. How not to break you, or wreck things. Even more when that woman threw that drink on me at the airport. You were talking about forever, then you walked away before I could explain about the pills. Then you just left. I thought it was...over. Like you finally got sick of all the drama. Joe said that to me right before he kicked me off his porch – that I was too much drama. I thought I lost you, and I didn't know what to do with that. I didn't want to die, Randy. I wanted to be angry, I wanted to hurt something – myself – because I didn't know how to take care of anything good. I thought I broke us. All I was trying to do was get the static in my head to stop, so I could think. And...it didn't stop. Everything I tried made it worse, and then I couldn't stop. You were...trying to find a way to make it stop that didn't involve destroying things, but I didn't know that. And it keeps coming back, and I don't want it to. I...remember more, now."

Randy's eyes were closed, listening, trying to force down the urge to hold her tighter, press her under him until she couldn't leave anymore, couldn't be touched by anything outside of him, and Meg watched his throat work up and down as though he was trying to swallow a scream.

"Say it, Ran. Whatever it is, say it."

"Magdalena, when am I going to be enough to make it all stop?" The words flew out of him in a rush; he regretted the phrasing as soon as they left his mouth, but his heart ached, his head ached, his stomach had been knotted in terror since he'd gotten back from New Orleans, and he had to know if there was a bottom to her free-fall or if he'd simply be on an endless ride with her. 'And if I am, Meg, that's fine, I'll go there, I'm going to do that for you, but I have to know now, so I know never to do this again. So I know what we need, where to be, how to do this..'

Flinching at his words, Meg leaned over him and reached up, her fingers pausing as they slipped down his cheek, thumbs brushing up over his eyes to catch or clear whatever may have been there. He felt her breathe deeply before she spoke. "You've always been enough, Ran. Just because my mind's fucked up doesn't mean you're not enough. Don't think like that." Keeping his eyes closed with her fingers and leaning over him, she gently dropped down to kiss him before she spoke, trying to still whatever fears he still had. "Listen to me. You've always been enough. This is the last time, I promise. And you know how I feel about that word. If you want forever, Randy, I'm going to be here to give it to you." Gently, tentatively, minds and bodies exhausted, kisses became fear-driven sleep, where they both refused to let go of each other and woke up every half hour or so, intent on making sure the other was still in bed with them, breathing and real, forgiving and whole. Meg puzzled over what he could've found in New Orleans, but figured she'd find out in a few days, and forced herself to leave the issue alone, trying to will herself into enough rest that when they woke in the morning, she could show him she was still alive and his.


Morning rose, and he was confused, to be sure – partly fearful, desperately needy, unable to reconcile the hundreds of emotions going through him at once – but Meg simply pressed a finger to his lips as he'd done with her the previous night, settled over him in his lap, and waited until they both found their rhythm, hands guiding hips, tangling in hair, fingernails leaving long, red trails across arms and up thighs, all of it harsh but still somehow reassuring, as though by putting just the slightest bit more force into it they both could push down their collective idiocy and pull up something more stable in its place. Meg's body, far more worn in the past few days than Randy's, gave way first, and he didn't stop, kept asking her for again, more, now, please, and though she couldn't move as well as she wanted to, sway as fast or as far as she knew he needed, she stayed with him, trying to meet him stride for stride until he was sated and he drew a second, harder, completely collapsing reaction from her body.

Watching him in his moment of release was a study of artwork for Meg; she always found some new piece of him to consider. The way he shuddered and his stomach clenched as his back arched, or the tension across the backs of his hands as he held her. If he was far enough back, she'd watch his eyes – they would go from blue to nearly completely black, pupils blown from the high he was on – but never losing their focus on her. The quiver in his arms as he held her up over him, or held himself off of her if he was on top. Without looking – he always insisted on eye contact – she could always feel the tension in his thighs right before she'd move and take him past his breaking point, or stop and lead him back from his edge. As much as she knew, there was always something more to learn.

She was shaking from exhaustion, deliriously happy, feeling him panting behind her, their skin sweat-slick together, his arms trying to pull her over, and she turned as carefully as she could to face him, trying to wrap as much of herself around him as she could.

"Randy, we're gonna be fine, right?"

Face buried in her hair, one arm under her, the other draped over her with his hand trailing up and down the length of her side, he mumbled out an answer that, to anyone else, would have been an inaudible jumble. Meg, however, knew better. Leaning back, she rolled her hips forward into him.

"What do I have to say yes to? You're up to something, Sir..."

Offering up a low chuckle, Randy pulled her on top of him, letting his hands explore her back, knead at her shoulders, tangle through her hair – anything he could do to reassure them both.

"You'll find out, Meg. I just hope it makes sense when we get there."

She nosed him up into a kiss, then rolled off of him to reach around the side of the bed for her brace. "I'm gonna listen to you, for once. But, you have to listen to me. You get some rest, I'll keep this on. And I'll take care of lunch; I think we missed brunch and I know breakfast is a goner. You have nothing to do today until showtime, which isn't for another...well, it's a while. So, you sleep. And I'll handle everything else."

"Deal." Randy let himself stretch, hard, before turning and pulling her underneath him. "But...and I don't know how to ask this and I don't want you to get mad..."

"Dave took away all of the pills. Literally all of them. If I hurt, I don't even have an ibuprofin. I'd have to call room service for them, and they only deliver packets of two." She burrowed against his shoulder. "Go to sleep, Ran. It's safe. We're safe. I'm not going anywhere without you."

Finally, the bed stopped falling and he could rest.


Meg slipped into a shower in the late afternoon, the absence of her weight waking Randy from his sleep. Having a few moments to check his phone, he sent a quick text to Sarah with her flight details, opting not to tell her about Meg's recent misadventures, and then checked his texts from Remy. Some of the rose petals were complete; Alvin had truly outdone himself. The edges of each petal were multifaceted, and the surface of each petal seemed to fold down into itself, until the garnet shifted seamlessly into black diamond. He'd mounted some of the petals into the framework of the rose, giving Randy an idea of what the finished piece might look like, though he had no idea what Remy meant by 'applying antiquing.' Shrugging, and deciding Meg's gift was in good hands, he sent another series of messages, trying to suss out what he could about the gala and the status of their group in relation to it.

Renee said she and Jon were going, but she was afraid Meg wouldn't want to, and she needed to talk to Meg before the gala, Jon told her what Meg said about being in the wrong, she wanted to apologize, needed to make sure they were okay. Randy's reassurances that it wasn't an 'apology' situation fell on deaf ears, and he ended the conversation by saying he'd let Meg know she wanted to talk. Jon confirmed what Renee said, and agreed with Randy – their girlfriends needed to talk. Shockingly, Jon followed it up by saying they needed to talk, as well, that he didn't like the way shit settled between them.

Unsure if that was an angry statement or not, Randy sighed and simply replied, "Yeah," hoping Jon would read it as an affirmative response to any number of things and then leave it alone. Trying Tenille next, she responded by telling him to fuck himself. Dave, after a laundry list of questions about Meg's health and well-being, said he'd be at the gala to keep an eye on things, which Randy didn't understand. Rolling out of bed and heading toward the bathroom, he knocked gently, waiting for wet footfalls indicating Meg was about to open the door for him. Letting him in and half-pulling him to the shower, Meg smiled into his kiss.

"Feeling any better?"

"Once dinner gets here, I think things will be pretty much perfect. Sarah's got her flight info, Jon and Renee are okay now, your present looks amazing, and Tenille still pretty much hates me. Three out of four is fine with me."

"You figured all that out between when I got in the shower and now?" Meg snapped him with a washcloth. "You text faster than a girl – and I only know this because I didn't hear you talking."

"Watch it, or I'm gonna snap you back." Randy, playful, began to wind a washcloth of his own. "Renee wants to talk to you, when you feel like it. And before you flip out, she's not mad at you. Jon told her what you said – I guess you two talked, or something – and she wants to make sure you're okay with her. Plus, Jon wants to talk to me. If nothing else, I need you around so he doesn't fuck up the other half of my face." He smiled as he spoke, trying to be sure she knew he was teasing, not temperamental.

Meg reached up to rub her thumb across the cut over his eye; the bruise would likely be gone by the night of the gala, but she wasn't so sure about the cut. 'If I had my shit together enough to put in a small suture or two when it happened...nice job, Meg.' Meg sighed, but tried to keep the frustration out of her eyes – it was done, he was fine, she was alive, they were together. 'And staying that way.'


Days later, early on the morning of the gala, Badgley Mischka shipped the dresses, pantsuit, shoes, and a seamstress ahead to the hotel the company was using to host the gala. They assumed wherever the ballroom was, the rooms would be, and thus would be the ladies who needed the garments and shoes – with the exception of Meg's shoes, of course – those came from her orthopedic specialist, leaving her to marvel at how, exactly, they managed to come up with them. The dark grey leather that was meant to wrap in straps up and around her calves had been split and re-sewn around thin, light, titanium bands, and Meg shuddered to think what it'd done to the overall cost of the already ridiculously expensive shoes. On a lark, she'd tried them on in the morning; room service had brought them up to her in their package along with their breakfast order, and Randy insisted that she stay clad in only her bra, panties, and gala-shoes for as long as either of them could stand it – which turned out to be just long enough for him to lift the whipped cream from her Belgian waffle, deposit it squarely on the middle of her stomach, and lick if off. She made short work of her scant amount of clothing after that, save for the shoes – it was readily becoming apparent that Randy had a preference for her in nothing but those, boots, stockings, or whatever other footwear he'd ordered for her.

An hour and a half later, breakfast forgotten, both of them desperately in need of a shower and thoroughly annoyed with their phones for constantly beeping and trilling – though Meg suspected it was Sarah or a seamstress telling her to come pick up her dress, or someone trying to let Randy know his surprise had arrived – a knock sounded at the door. Sliding from the bed, Meg hushed Randy and told him she needed practice walking in the shoes anyway, and gave him a brilliant, swaying view of her backside as she maneuvered through their suite to the door. Giggling, she swayed back to their bed and grabbed the sheet, trying to wrap herself as much as was possible.

"You look happy. Who's out there?"

"One crabby cat and whiskey on delivery!"

Randy, realizing that without the sheet he had nothing convenient to cover himself with, no idea where his boxers went, and that Meg was intent on letting Sarah in the room, tumbled behind the side of the bed. "Meg, you can't steal the sheet! What am I supposed to-"

Swaying back to the door and leaving Randy to hunt for clothing next to the bed, Meg let Sarah into their room, Randy dropping completely to the floor to maintain some semblance of decency.

"Hey girly! You look...Grecian! And sweaty! You didn't pick up your dress yet; Renee's waiting down there for you. Let's scoot!" Spinning Meg around and putting Chunk's carrier on the floor along with her suitcase and a garment bag, Sarah paused long enough to open the door to the cat-crate, rummage around inside of it while shooting a pointed look at Randy, who was now peering cautiously over the edge of the bed, and then turned back to Meg. "And don't worry about the 'sweaty' thing, you're only picking up the dress. We're all getting ready up here later; your man is spending some quality bonding time with Jon in his room, or so I've been informed. Bad luck to see us in our dresses, or some shit." She winked at Randy and looked down at the cat crate one more time, making sure he understood that he was to look in the cat crate once they left.

Meg's protests that she needed to shower falling on deaf ears and Randy unable to figure out where his boxers had gone, Sarah walked out of the suite with Meg on her arm, wrapped only in a bedsheet, still wearing her heels for the gala. Still peeking over the edge of the bed, Randy wondered what the hell just happened that Sarah had not only managed to walk Meg out of the room in a sheet and high heels, and immediately post-sex at that, but he'd been pointedly-though-indirectly told he was to get his things and get out, as the girls were planning on taking over the suite. 'I guess...I'm going to go see Jon? This is wonderful. I wanted Meg there as a buffer, and instead I get 'Nice tux, please don't whap me with a script again, that shit hurt.'' Chunk trundled out of his crate, tipping over a small box as he went, and Randy crept around the side of the bed to pick it up. Sarah had pressed a Post-It note to the exterior, which he loosened and read while he sat:

'Man-ass: Your Frenchie guy sent this to me to bring up. He said don't open the wrapping paper til you give it to her, and let her open the box. Very important you don't look before she does. Hope dumbass likes what you got her, Frenchie was over the moon about it. Ain't love grand? PS – which of your friends are single?'

Chuckling at Sarah's note, Randy now realized he had to figure out how to either camouflage the box all night, or, simply use the necklace as his opening gambit when they arrived and hope for the best. 'Or...maybe depending on how things go between the girls, and with me and Jon...this is the part they'll actually help with. Or Dave. If he's there to keep an eye on things, he might have his triage bag and he can hold it.'

Randy rushed through a shower, packed his things, and wrote a very clear, very long note stating that he was going to Jon's room because he thought that was what Sarah meant for him to do, but if he was wrong, just call him and he would come back. He wrote that he loved her, couldn't wait to see her later, knew they'd all look amazing at the gala, missed her already, and yes, her surprise was finally here. Laughing to himself when he saw he'd taken up nearly the whole notecard, he stood it up on the table, gave it a quick dash of cologne, and hurried himself out the door, texting Jon as he went.

'They tell you what they're up to?'

'We're exiled, they're doing dress shit in your room.'

'Are we cool now, or is shit gonna be tense?' Randy grimaced sending that message; there was no easy way to ask the question.

'Meg and Renee still need to talk. I think that's what this is about.'

"Yeah, and that didn't answer what I asked, Jon." Randy grumbled to himself, boarding the elevator.


"Meg...are you wearing a bedsheet? And are those your shoes for the gala?" Renee couldn't keep the shock out of her voice as Sarah shoved Meg out of the elevator and into the lobby to the looks of several startled hotel guests, and Tenille simply burst out laughing and ran up to Meg, tackling her in a hug.

"You naughty thing!" Tenille giggled "You sweaty, naughty thing. Clearly, you and Randy have kissed and made up. I still owe you an ass-kicking, though."

"Nell, I'd gladly take it. It's deserved. I owe you an apology. And Sarah, I owe you an explanation, but it should all probably wait til we get upstairs. Let's room-service some champagne, and-"

"Oh, no. None of that." Renee's voice was firm and carried solidly over Tenille's shoulder, causing her to tense around Meg.

"Renee...no. Listen. I don't have any pills, I don't have any-"

"I said no."

Meg winced and dropped her head, not missing the completely confused look on Sarah's face. "Okay, Renee. You're right."

"Tequila. You don't drink champagne."

Meg let go of a breath she didn't know she was holding, and reached out to Renee for a hug she didn't know she was missing, which Renee was only too glad to return in kind, nudging Nell out of the way. Whispering quietly, Meg leaned in. "You know, about that ass-kicking...you can get in on that. I do deserve it."

"Meg, you kicked your own ass. I can't do as much damage to you as you can do to yourself. I love you enough to need you to stop. That's all there ever was to it, I just didn't know how to say it."

Sarah still lost in the conversation, the girls collected their dresses and escorted their seamstress up to the suite, Meg smiling at the note – nearly essay – that Randy had left for her, then hurrying through a shower. Sarah's pantsuit needed only minor adjustments to the vee at the bottom of the blouse and the waist of the tuxedo pants, having them taken in slightly, and then she was ready for the evening – or at least, ready to lounge around, enjoy room service and a fluffy bathrobe, and wait for the hotel spa to send up professionals to fuss over her hair and makeup. Renee went next, needing barely anything done beyond some reinforcements at the peaks of the slits in the skirt, followed by Tenille, who was more interested in watching the feathers fluff out and having extra layers of tulle stuffed under the dress to give it more volume and make the crystals noticeable.

That left only Meg, and she opted to go into the second bedroom and try the dress on with the girls as moral support, to see if they thought anything needed adjusting, rather than have the seamstress go over it – she figured a seamstress could always find something to tweak, but the average person wouldn't be quite so critical. It turned out, Meg had lost weight, and the waist of the dress had to come in quite a bit. There was no escaping it, the dress needed to be pinned and then taken in.

"Can she pin it on you? She won't see anything, Meg, I promise. The adjustment is under the sash, so it's not anywhere near-"

Meg was already gone, off in the vacant space she floated to when her mind refused to provide her with the words or tools to survive whatever she was faced with, and instead preferred to put her into a neutral, soundless shell. Sarah was shaking her shoulder; Renee was brushing her hair away from her face, Tenille was holding her hands, and none of it registered with Meg. She'd been in her strap-up heels all day, the pain in her leg was becoming noticeable, but it only served to wedge her further back into that compact, vacuous nothingness. 'Why am I doing this when he said we could just go somewhere else? I can't act right. I know I can't. I can't even wear a dress right.'

Sarah had gone out to the seamstress and retrieved a box of pins, saying her friend was so overcome by the dress, the drastic last-minute alteration, so on and so forth, and could she please just do the pinning herself, quickly, the sash would hide anything that was imperfect, she really just needed to get the dress off before anything became dramatic – a lie that couldn't be further from the truth, in some ways – but she got Renee to help her stick in a relatively straight line of basting pins, shuck the dress and shoes off of Meg, and wrap her tightly in a bathrobe. Tenille, once she was no longer needed to hold Meg upright, set about removing all but one or two of the bottles of tequila from Meg's line of sight, at least until she calmed down. Sarah looked from Renee to Tenille and then back to Meg, but nobody offered any new information to her.

"Should we call Randy?" Sarah puzzled out loud, walking Meg over to the bed while the seamstress retreated to the bedroom the girls had just vacated, eager to begin her work. "You guys are acting like it's more than just the wreck from NOLA that's on her mind right now."

"Sarah..." Meg's voice was thin as thread and tense as wire, "They don't want me to overdose again, but they forgot I don't have my pills anymore. Dave took them. And it...wasn't really an overdose, anyway. I was just angry and didn't know what to do to deal with it."

Whirling around, her palm connecting with Meg's face in a slap solid enough to knock her to the ground, Sarah loomed over her friend before hauling her up to her feet and off the ground by the front of her robe. "They don't want you to what? Say that again, Meg, you weren't stupid out loud enough the first time."

Renee and Nell were frozen; Nell half-bent over the wetbar and Renee now seriously debating the merits of calling the men for help. Watching Meg dangle in the air, held up by Sarah – who, at runway heights and Amazonian proportions, did cut an intimidating figure – both women knew they weren't going to be able to pry her off of Meg if things got ugly.

"Randy went to New Orleans without telling me. He just walked out. I thought he was really leaving me – it was after all of the drama at the airport and the club, and I thought he just had enough – so I stole Dave's valium, bought two bottles of hundred-proof Southern Comfort, and couldn't get my vicodin open once I was really drunk. I just took the valium. Didn't do any permanent harm. Randy didn't really leave, obviously. I reacted like a fucking idiot, everyone went off on me, and I deserved it." Meg's eyes never once left Sarah's, even hung up in the air like a coat on a hook, though her voice never gained an iota more strength than it had when she started.

Unceremoniously, Sarah let go, dumping Meg on her ass, and threw her hands in the air. "Of all the fucking things, Meg! I was one fucking phone call away! One! And then this is how I find out?" Her face was as red as Meg's; though only one of them had been slapped, both of them felt the impact of a blow. Slowly, Nell and Renee crept over to Sarah, trying to edge their way between her and Meg. Meg, for her part, looked like she was in outer space, the fringes of a bruise creeping up where Sarah's hand had connected. Whatever rage had built up in Sarah was gone, replaced by blank exhaustion, and she turned back to the bed to wait for the spa to send up whomever was supposed to work on hair and makeup.

Cautiously, Renee knelt next to Meg, resting her hand on her shoulder. "Guess Nell and I don't need to take you up on that offer to kick your ass now, huh?"

"It felt good. I needed it. Sounds fucked up, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, it does. What the fuck do you mean, you needed it?" Renee sat back on the floor, flummoxed by Meg's comment.

"It's hard to explain. You guys love me enough to not do that; Sarah loves me enough to do that."

"I'm gonna have to ask Jon about that one, aren't I?"

"Yeah...he's gonna have better words than I do. Give Sarah a few minutes, okay? But don't be mad at her." Meg organized her feet underneath her and managed to stand, head spinning, trying to get ice from the wetbar to minimize the bruise that she worried would form on her face. 'How the fuck would I explain that one to Randy? Oh, hey, that friend of mine that you spent all that money on? Yeah, she slapped me hard enough to knock me down and gave me a massive bruise, no biggie. Same color as my sash, it coordinates! He would lose his mind. Sarah was going to find out eventually. And I earned every inch of her reaction.'


A half hour passed, then one hour, then two, and the girls found themselves getting ready in terse silence before Sarah finally stepped out onto the balcony to have a cigarette and a drink. Meg slipped her own pack of cigarettes from her suitcase and trailed Sarah outside, but Sarah spun on her heels and went back into the suite before Meg could even get a word out. Sighing, Meg lit a cigarette and leaned out over the railing.

"Ran, I hope you're having better luck with Jon," she whispered, letting her cigarette burn down in her hand, ignoring it completely in favor of staring out over the city below.


"Sorry I fucked up your face. That was shitty."

"Sorry I acted like an asshole. You were right."

"We cool now?"

"Yeah. Thanks for taking care of Meg. She said you were good to her."

Jon lobbed a bottle of tequila at Randy and nodded at a lounge chair in the corner of the room, the TV seemingly perpetually set to ESPN. "She's good for you. Don't fuck that up, man. Seriously." Randy carefully set the box down on the edge of Jon's dresser before he eased his way into the chair, suddenly recognizing the simple butcher-block paper that Alvin had originally drawn Meg's rose on as his wrapping paper of choice.

"You think she's gonna like it? New Orleans was...eerie. Spiritual? Weird. But I get why she likes it down there so much."

"I dunno...what's the necklace look like? Do you like it?" Jon cracked open his bottle of whiskey and propped himself back on the bed, having little interest in getting into his tuxedo before it was absolutely necessary.

"No clue. Remy said I wasn't supposed to open it."

"Wait, wait. You went all the way down there, you had it sent all the way up here, but you don't know what it actually looks like finished?" Jon looked into his drink, confused, then back at Randy.

"Yep." Drinking to catch up to Jon, Randy settled back into his armchair, satisfied.

"Uh...and you're okay with that...why?"

"Because Remy's friend at the bookstore knew where she got her coffee, and the lady who owned that cafe told me to go to the Mortuary Chapel – I think it was called that because of yellow fever? Something like that, but my room was yellow. The sunlight there is unreal, and it smells like salt, but not salt. There's a million things in the air. And frogs! Anyway, Meg used to play Pinochle – did you know she can play Pinochle – with the priest, and he knew where she got lost after a late rosary mass. She waited at an antique jewelry store for a taxi – well, back then she did, but the store was being renovated now because of Katrina. Alvin opened it anyway and knew about her Moroccan roses because she brought him croissants, and -"

"The fuck did you go, Wonderland?"

"Pretty much." Randy let a sly smile filter across his lips before drinking again and checking his watch. 'Eh, give it an hour. Then I'll get dressed. I wonder what she's up to? Shit – and where am I supposed to meet her?'


After pressing more ice into her face, Meg managed to keep a bruise from forming. Sarah's shot was more palm-to-cheek than anything else, and the shock and spontaneity of it had floored Meg, literally and metaphorically. Meg's fragile sense of balance when not properly wrapped or in a brace didn't help things, but it prevented the impact from connecting hard enough to leave more than a temporary red mark. With the girls dressed, styled, and in Meg's case, only lightly made-up, they cautiously circled each other in the open center of the suite.

"Well?" Renee was careful, but they had to put on a united front. At a minimum, Tenille had to be comfortable around Sarah; they were each other's company for the night and Nell's nerves were legendary when in awkward social situations.

"Nell is the prettiest mint green Big Bird I've ever seen." Meg smiled, and even Sarah couldn't resist the barest hint of a chuckle. "You look like you're one sneeze away from splitting a panel and going into full-out nudity, and Sarah's absolutely beautiful."

"I'm not gonna smack you again, hon. You don't have to kiss my ass."

"I can't bend over far enough in this to kiss it, Sar," Meg teased. "My boobs would fall out."

Renee and Nell looked at each other, wide-eyed, and then burst into laughter.

"Okay – now that we're all back on the same, non-violent page, can we all get just a little bit tipsy before we go suffer through speeches about philanthropy, corporate structural hierarchy, and the benefits of Never Giving Up while not being seen?" Renee waved her hands dramatically in front of her face at the last bit, mocking John and ending with a salute that nearly speared Nell in the face.

"As long as the spa chickie is still here, because I'm gonna need a lot of bourbon to get through all that. Which means someone's fixing my lipstick before we head downstairs." Sarah snorted, trying to compose herself enough to root through the back of the wetbar, hunting down everyone's preferred alcohol.

Meg nudged Sarah, smiling. "I stuffed her in the back with the seamstress, so that when Tenille shits a brick over losing a feather, nobody has to alert the National Guard."


Jon and Randy rushing around, having lingered far too long over their alcohol and not nearly long enough over their formal wear, managed to crash into each other multiple times in the cramped space of Jon's room, Jon giving up on walking and opting to vault over the bed more than once to rush back into the bathroom. Both of them managed to spill cologne, bourbon, and tequila, Randy having to make a near-diving lunge to save Meg's gift from taking a bath in Jon's drink, though both men were sloshed enough to find the maneuver amusing rather than dangerous. Shaking their heads at each other, they prepared to head down to the lobby, Jon trying to squint one eye into enough focus to text Renee and tell her to bring her group to meet them.

"Shit. You think we're ready?"

"You have no idea, Jon. This is gonna be the smartest thing I ever did. She just has to say yes." Randy started to open the door to the room and move into the hallway, but Jon had other ideas and grabbed his arm.

"You did do it. I mean, you didn't, because that's way too fuckin' big to be a ring, but you really did do it."

"I hope so. If she understands it, then I did it."


The gala atmosphere was foreign to Meg, but she felt like a princess in the moment. Tall, lithe – if not slightly too thin – on the arm of the man she finally realized she was meant to be with all along and truly needed to stop fighting against, Meg couldn't have been any happier. The chicken might have been a bit dry, the pilaf a bit bland – such were the perils of catered meals – but as far as she was concerned, it was gourmet and she ruled the castle, glass of champagne in hand. As for the dragon at the table next to her, well, someone else would have to slay her. It simply wasn't going to be Meg's problem.

Randy, from the moment he laid eyes on her, couldn't take them from her, barely remembered to offer up his arm to escort her, and wanted to take her directly back to his suite and study her privately for the rest of the evening, gala be damned. It became nearly impossible for him to see anyone else; Meg consumed his vision. The only thing preventing him from escorting her back to the elevators was his promise that he would take her to a gala and show her that he wasn't ashamed of her, rather than relegate her to back-of-the-house status as Joe had done so many times before. Not a single scar showed despite the dramatically open sides of the deeply charcoal dress or the obscenely high slit in the skirt; the crimson sash highlighted just how slight her waist was, and the way the ends trailed down the train of the dress drew attention to the equally crimson diamond dust that was strewn across the dress.

The dust mirrored the locations of her scars, but was still artistic in placement – it looked blown across, almost sweeping, and followed the lines of her body. The dust flowed down the draping that shielded her collarbone, swept down into a swirl along the line of the scar on her ribs, and made a sweeping trail along the inside of her injured leg, but did so without actually showing any of her injuries. There was just enough of the diamond dust in the back that it gave him the impression that, as much as she was showing her scars, she was walking away from them, as well – trailing them behind her, and moving forward to something else. The crimson sparkle didn't show unless Meg moved exactly the right way in exactly the right lighting; you had to know where to look, and just quickly enough, to even be sure you'd seen it.

Meg fairly floated through the room on Randy's arm, at times being pulled into group photos with the girls, other times introducing Sarah to the various men and women of the company, then finally settling into a chair for dinner and round after round of polite clapping for various speakers. Their group, plus Dave, had commandeered a table fairly close to the front and center of the room, near enough to where the dance floor would be after speeches that Meg wouldn't have to wander far in her heels if the mood struck, and also near enough to the bar that she could get into a decent amount of well-chaperoned trouble with her friends, as Randy, Jon, and Dave would be nearby. Meg knew she'd be on a fairly short leash where alcohol was concerned, but that was a small price to pay for the dream cloud she was floating on. She never noticed Randy pass the box to Jon in the lobby, telling him to continue to pass it, sealed, to as many people in their group as was necessary to keep it from Meg's eyes until dessert was served – he'd scanned the posted menu, and it seemed fate had smiled on them: tiramisu.

Renee wasn't kidding; the speeches did continue endlessly. Meg's hands wandered from her silverware to her champagne to Randy's knee, squeezing gently, and smiling when his hand found hers.

"They can talk as long as they want," Meg whispered, leaning up to him, "I'm content to stay here all night with you. This is perfect. Thank you." She kissed his cheek lightly, drawing smiles and a few quiet murmurs of affection and appreciation from the surrounding tables, including Stephanie and Paul.

Randy smiled, and leaned down to her, cupping her face in his hand and offering a chaste kiss of his own. "Not all night," he whispered, "I owe you a dance. I'm a little better at it since Blaine, I promise. Plus, your surprise is here."

Meg's eyes widened, and her whisper became pressured and hoarse. "Ran! No. Please, no." Her eyes were wide, and she suddenly looked nervous, her hands leaving his knee and searching out the stem of her champagne glass. "I don't...I know you went through so much trouble for it, but the way I reacted...I don't deserve anything special. Not right now. Not til I can act-"

"Don't you dare say that, Meg. Please?" Randy tried to bite back the edge that had crept into his voice and keep his tone low. "You are acting right. Here, hang on – it's almost done. I want to talk to you for a minute. There's a balcony on the other side of the room; we can go out there." He reached for her hands, lifted one from her champagne glass, and held it tightly. "I – we're – okay. Just hang on."

Edgy, restless, Meg prayed for a long speech, a surprise guest speaker, a technical difficulty that extended the presentation, anything – but it wasn't to be. The final speaker wrapped up, an overhead announcement let everyone know that plates would be cleared and dessert would be brought to the tables in ten minutes, so while the band was setting up, feel free to move about until the final course was presented. Randy took the opportunity to lead Meg outside, relishing in the attention they received as he paraded her across the room. Meg, lost in the emotions of what could be coming next, barely registered the sets of eyes that were on her as they moved, despite how appreciative they all were.

Once outside on the balcony, Randy spun Meg to face him, brushing a few stray pieces of hair back from her face, gently pulling at the large, loose waves and curls that had been pressed into it, left intentionally free from her updo. 'She's so gorgeous, and she doesn't even need this...or know it. I'm not going to lose this, tonight. This is the right time.' "Meggie, listen to me. There is no 'acting right' anymore. Please, please believe me. Jackson isn't here anymore. It's me. It's only me. I only ever want it to be me, and nothing you do is wrong. Okay?" He tried guiding her face up to his, to look at him, but her eyes remained downcast. "Meg? Say you believe me."

'He's right. Meg, you know he's right. He is not Jackson. He wouldn't ever tell you to act right. He's never – even when he walked out – really left you.' "I believe you, Randy." Her voice was shaky, but the words were there.

"Okay, Meggie. I want you to be happy tonight. You deserve it."

By the time they returned to their table, Meg's mind still elsewhere, Jon, Renee, Sarah, Tenille, and Dave had all bunched a bit closer together around one side of the round table, with Randy and Meg's chairs nestled close together at the other side – and Randy's small box placed between his and Meg's slices of tiramisu and glasses of moscato.

Meg sat down, then suddenly seemed to notice the brown paper package between their desserts. "Ran...what's that?" She reached for her wine, sipping slowly, trying to settle her nerves.

"Well..." He began slowly, "You already know I went to New Orleans. I...don't really know how to explain it, just ask Jon. I tried, and..."

"And he didn't make any fuckin' sense." Renee elbowed him, hard, but he just shrugged. "What? He didn't!"

Meg smiled. "So...I should open this?" Somewhere in the back of Meg's mind, she recognized that the band had started playing. Randy smiled, hope in his eyes, and nodded, pushing the box towards her.