The two sit there, Paul letting MIke think, and speak when he wants to. He knows it must have been hard for him, and he is not beating himself up for kissing Kate like he did tonight.
"Hey, Jim you okay?" Mike says as he sees Jim come into the lounge, Mike and his father have been sitting in silence for some time now. Mike wants to talk more but has no idea what to say to his father right now.
"Have you seen Kate? I'm worried about her." he askes as he moves closer to them.
"She is in my room, just be gentle on her Jim, I informed her of a thirteen-year-old secret tonight, she is struggling with that information."
"A secret Mike, you dropped a massive arse bomb on her." comes from his father after what he says, he doesn't think it's a secret more like a bomb with the way it has affected two people within the home.
"Okay yes I dropped a bloody big bomb on her today, and it's left her shell shocked," Mike says in response to his father. Yes, it was a bomb but it was also a secret as well. A secret that only he knew about, well Kate's mother also knew about it as well.
"Feel free to go down to my room and check on her, I don't mind Jim. It's in the opposite direction to everyone's par our parent's room, and office, you can't miss it, it has my name on the door." Mike says gently to Jim, and he points the way towards where Kate will be. He knows Kate hasn't left the room yet as she hasn't walked into the lounge. Paul is surprised are how gentle Mike is being with Jim, but also allowing Jim access to his room, that normally no one can enter. This to Paul says his son respects this person, regardless of his feelings he has respect.
"That was nice of you to let him into your room son."
"It wasn't nice it was the right thing to do. I know she will be curled up on my bed crying some more. The talking we did in the room, on top of what went on in your office dad. It's been a lot for her to take in.
After their talk, no one see's or hears from Mike when they wake that morning, Kate gets up and goes to the kitchen every so often, but other than that she keeps to herself, she won't talk about what happened at all but does talk when they talk to her.
Mike's dad is the only one who knows where Mike has gone, and that he has in fact left the family homestead. Paul feels it's not his place to inform them that Mike has had to leave to protect those he loves. Everyone else thinks Mike is hiding out in his room.
Three days later. Evening time
Everyone has realized Mike is no longer staying at the homestead, while he is away his mare gives birth to a lovely little filly, and Kate talks but they all have noticed she isn't her normally bright eyes bushy-tailed Kate. She does spend time with all of them and does play with the kids when they ask her. They all think she is like she is cause Mike has gone away, only Paul and Kerry know what has put her in this mood, not even Jim knows why she is like she is, but he is trying to be supportive of her.
"Mum, there is someone on the phone they want to talk to Kate, do you know where she is?"
"Jim and her are out at the stables, they checking on Phonex's foal." comes from Kerry, as she takes the phone from Suzy and speaks to the person on the other end, but gets totally now were saying that they can only talk to Kate, which leaves Kerry shocked as she has tried to pull the mother card and that didn't even work.
"Kate honey phone for you?" Kerry says as she gives the phone to Kate, and as Kate takes the phone Paul's mobile starts ringing, and it has a number up that he is surprised to see on the screen. Kerry wants to listen to both conversations but she isn't sure who she should listen to, but then she notices Kate collapses onto the floor, she sees tears running down her face, Jim goes to her and provides comfort as Paul comes towards them. Kerry looks at him and see's his worried face. He wraps his arms around his wife as he watches Kate on the ground still on the phone to whoever is talking to her.
Earlier on in the day
"Hey Penny, thanks for meeting me here," Mike says as the two sit down in a room Mike has rented in town.
"No problem at all though I can't understand why we have to met here, and not in some cafe in town."
"Here is more private and to be honest the town has heard enough of our relationship, they don't need to hear more about us." He says to her, as he makes them both a drink.
"I know this properly came as a shock to you, me wanting to meet up with you, after the way I have been towards you, but over the last few days it has really hit me, how bad I handled things with you," he says as he hands her the mug.
"We both been at fault over that Mike, I wasn't easy to deal with either."
"Yea but had I been more honest with you maybe it been easier on all of us, I just wanted you to have what you wanted, and what I wasn't prepared to have or give up so you could have it."
"A family?" Penny says to him, she is totally thrown by him wanting to talk about their past.
"Yes, a family. I knew how badly you wanted to have kids, and I wasn't ready yet, if I was honest I was nowhere near ready to be a father, it scared the living daylights of me the thought of being one, so young. Plus I also wanted to be more settled in my career, and have things for us first before we went down that pathway of having a family." he says to her.
"It got to a point where I didn't want to be at home with you, all we seemed to do towards the end was fight like cats and dogs over stupid bloody things," he says to her, Penny knows that towards the end they did more fighting than anything else.
"I properly shouldn't have pushed you so hard to have kids, but I felt lonely when you weren't there, and then all our friends were having them and I felt left out of the loop as you could say. They all talking about pregnancy, and babies and I'm being asked when are we going to have one, or asked if something was wrong because we weren't pregnant yet. I want to be a part of their joy but also have my own joy and experience what they were experiencing as well."
"I can understand that," he says back to her as he takes a sip from his cup.
"Kate and you? What's going on there? I noticed that neither of you two has rings on? You haven't gotten around to asking her then?" Penny askes she has been dying to know what is going on between the two, she knows they once were together, and now she wants to know if they still are or aren't.
"It's a very long complicated story. Regarding marriage, I nearly asked her once, just before her mother died. Since then yea, she is with someone else now." Penny hears the heartbreak in his tone of voice at losing Kate.
"You really do love her don't you?"
"I loved you also Penny, Kate came after you. When we were together every time I said I loved you I meant it, I still do love you, I just love her in a different way, one I didn't know existed until after our divorce and I allowed myself to even think of having a relationship with her. In fact, she was the one that asked me." He says to her. He wants her to know that he did love her when they were together, that in fact he does still love her, and will never stop loving her. She may be his ex-wife but she still holds a piece of his heart and it's been easier to push her away than deal with his feelings.
"I was talking to dad the other day and come to a realization that I have been treating you like crap since I walked out on you, he made me realize that me pushing you away not allowing you near me was to protect myself. He was right I was doing it to protect myself because I hadn't stopped loving you. The rest hated you because all you did was pick fights with me, which made me cross and upset. Dad, he could see what was really going on, he has been trying to get me to talk to you properly for a number of years now, and it seems now that I have my soul mate to someone else I finally see what I put you through, and how badly I treated you during it all."
"Come on Mike you left me everything when we divorced, you just took your clothes and anything that was related to you and your family. You didn't fight me on anything. I tried to get you to fight but it didn't happen at all. I say you treated me bloody well considering what I was putting you through. It took me time to realize that we were both as bad as each other towards the end. Dad told me to stop putting pressure on you, but I didn't so it leads to the end of the best thing that ever happened to me." Penny says to him.
"Yea but I could have expressed myself better than I did, we could have talked and sorted our shit out."
"We could have done a long list of different things Mike, and there is nothing saying we would still be together or not, have kids or not. We really don't know what would have happened had we done things differently back then," she says back to him, not wanting him to blame himself for what happened she knows it was a two-way street.
"Well, it would have stopped me making a drunken mistake with Maxine, and getting her pregnant."
"WHAT THE HELL" comes from Penny when Mike drops this bomb on her, it happened just after he left her.
"Yea a few weeks after I left you, I got drunk with her while Steward was away for work. Ended up sleeping with her, I only remember waking up naked in her bed, I put two and two together, she got pregnant told me it wasn't mine at all. Turns out when her ex was dying of cancer, a DNA test was done by him, and it turns out the child is mine after all. I only found out a few months ago that I have a son, it's still very new to both of us."
"WOW, that must of left you shell shocked."
"It sure did, it left us all shocked. I honestly don't think Maxine knew who was Ryan's father and since she was married she went with that instead. I suppose it was easier for her to lie than tell the truth."
"That would have hurt you thought, you missed out on being there for him."
"It did in a way but I was his godfather so I was involved in his life to a point. I know think of all the little things I missed out on, but it's only now that I think of those things, back then I'm not sure what I would have done."
"You would have done the right thing by her Mike, you wouldn't of let her do it alone no matter what your feelings were in regards to having a family. It's in your nature."
"I can only be thankful that it didn't happen while we were still together, as I know it would have torn us both up had it happened."
"We really don't know how it would have affected us, had it happened while we were still married."
Mike moves and lays down on the bed in the room, he places his arm over his face. Penny knows it's one of his tells. She goes and lays down beside him, she does keep some distance from him as well. They lay there in silence for a while. She can't help herself and gently reaches out and touches his face, he moves his arm and looks at her.
"I see you still not settled down again?" he gentle and every so quietly says to her.
"Yea hard to be with someone else when you still loving your ex, well I did try just they couldn't take me being in love with you still." She says to him.
She gentle moves and goes in to kiss him, she feels like she has nothing to lose, by doing this and hopefully more to gain. He kisses her back, and as they kiss she ends up straddling him.
Mike gently pulls away. "We properly shouldn't be doing this," he says as his hands gentle run down the side of her face.
"I know we properly shouldn't be, not with how emotional we both are right now, but I just can't stand seeing you so hurt." She says to him as she goes in and gives him another kiss.
Sometime later.
"Your still as good as I remembered." She says as they both lay curled up under the covered naked, after having sex. Mike doesn't respond but his hand keeps on running through her hair, she feels him move and lay a kiss on the top of her head like he use to do when they were married, it brings tears to her eyes. She goes to move.
"Where you going?" he asks her and she moves out of bed.
"I should go," she says and he hears the pain in her voice.
"Penny don't leave please." He says to her. He watches as she tries to find her clothes.
"I know we shouldn't have done what we did, it just hurts now and I should leave before I start demanding things from you."
"Penny baby stop please for a moment, can we talk please?" he says to her and she stops and turns and looks at him, she thought she would see regret in his eyes but she doesn't she see fear instead. He himself knows they shouldn't have had sex, but they did. And he loved it too, not that he didn't love having sex with Kate because he did.
"Mike it was just sex, I understand it. You are still trying to get over Kate and her now being with someone else, maybe in time, we can relook at things between us. But right now is not the time to be talking about anything. I will always love you." She says to him as she leans down and kisses him again, and he kisses her back. She leaves and heads back home to her parent's place. Mike gets dressed and decides to head out for a run.
He has been running for close to an hour and he decides to head back towards his hotel when he is suddenly hit by a moving vehicle and thrown up into the air. When help arrives for him they realize his injuries are major and that he needs to be choppered to a major trauma hospital, that as they start to work on him they organize a chopper to come and collect him.