Angels
Never came down
There's no one here that they wanna hang around
But if they knew, if they knew you at all
Then one by the one, the angels
Angels would fall.
-- Melissa Etheridge

The dream was the same dream as always; it had gotten even better since it had actually happened. (Eeeee!) All the eyes in the club were on her as she danced -- not nervously at all! Why should she be nervous, even though all eyes were on her, because that, of course, was how it ought to be.

She even heard the charming bartender remark to one of the handsome, handsome men watching her, "It's Natalie's world -- we just live in it."

And the handsome, handsome man ... snored.

Loudly.

Obnoxiously.

And in the real world, Natalie's eyes sprang open, wondering if maybe she'd made a terrible mistake in assuming that Pete was the perfect guy. Slowly, she turned her head on her pillow to look at --

It wasn't Pete.

Dylan, her friend, her team-mate, was snoring, drooling on her pillow and smearing it with her lipstick.

Natalie lifted her head just a tad.

Nothing came between either of them and the blankie. Or either of them and each other.

Well, Natalie thought, somewhat incongruously, at least this means I can find out if Pete snores some other time.

A few moments later, after some frantic self-evaluation, Natalie decided to be proud of herself. Despite the rather confusing situation, she had not panicked. She was still a credit to her profession.

Then Dylan broke off in mid-snore, fluttered her eyes open a crack, and muttered "G'm'rn'g" or something with perhaps one or two more vowels.

"Good morning," Natalie said cheerfully, grinning frantically to hide the sudden well of panic. "Can I get you anything? OJ? Pancakes? Your clothes? Subscription to `On Our Backs'? Anything?"

Dylan's eyes opened just a bit further. For a moment, Natalie entertained an ephemeral hope that this was all just as confusing to her as it was to, well, her, but the wicked little grin that settled on Dylan's face killed that notion. Even if it hadn't, the way that Dylan sat up in bed without trying to keep the blanket wrapped around her breasts would have finished the job.

(That, and the sudden recognition the sight of said mammaries provoked in Natalie's lips and mouth.)

"You," said Dylan evilly, "have no clue at all what happened last night, do you?"

"Well," Natalie started confidently, "well ... well ... well ... well, no. No, but I have ... a feeling that ... you ... and ... um, I ... well, that we, um, you know, might ... just possibly, mind you ... might ... have, er, well ... had ... what you might call, um ... sex?"

Dylan had watched with her chin planted on the palm of her left hand, clearly fascinated. "You didn't get told about the birds and the bees and the flowers until you were a teenager, did you?"

"Please don't make fun of me," Natalie whimpered, feeling tears welling up in the corner of her eyes. "Did we or did we not have sex?"

"We did not have sex."

"oh thank heav--"

"We made love."

Natalie stopped in mid-thanksgiving with a curiously blank expression on her face. Dylan reached out to gently trace the contours of her high cheekbones with her right hand's trigger finger. "Two very different things," she quietly assured her.

"I ... I know that, but I mean, I've never --" Natalie swallowed.

"Never?"

"No, never."

"What, never?"

"... well, hardly ever."

Dylan's smile went gentle, suddenly. "It's the same thing," she said, darting in to butterfly-kiss the cheek she'd carressed.

"What is?" Natalie asked, confused once more.

The red-head -- the natural red-head, Natalie remembered suddenly with another surge of embarrassment and something else -- let out a huge sigh -- and there was another one -- and said, "I've had sex with boys and girls and men and women ... and it's all the same. It's not who you're with, it's why.

"Last month ..." Dylan suddenly looked as uncomfortable as Natalie had felt earlier, and the blonde realized who she was talking about as she continued. "Last month, I told someone that you and Alex and Bosley and Charlie were the only people I loved. And it's true."

"What about Chad?"

Dylan shrugged. "Chad's okay. And the Chad, well, that's okay, in fact it's pretty great. But y'know, he's Chad."

After a moment, Natalie found herself nodding in understanding. "It's ... still a little strange, though. We've only been working together a year, and there's a lot of stuff I don't know about you --"

"There's a lot of stuff I don't know about you either. But it's all stuff I don't need to know. Who cares what your real name is, or --"

"My real name?" Natalie asked, once more confused. "But Natalie is my real name." Understanding dawned. "You changed your name, didn't you?"

Sigh. And Natalie admitted that it was desire she felt. "If you laugh, I swear I'll kill you." And Dylan said her real name.

Natalie held in the giggles for a whole minute. "Gertrude?" she finally exploded.

"I warned you," Dylan snapped, and grabbed her.

One "little death" -- for each of them -- later, Dylan was lying in the crook of Natalie's arm, smiling sweetly while Natalie tried to get her breath back. With that accomplished, Natalie heard herself asking "So where do we go from here?"

"Probably to the new office."

Natalie remembered a lot more now: how they'd both been partying in celebration of the opening of the renovated Charles Townsend Detective Agency building; how she'd had just enough to drink that it loosened up her inhibitions without convincing Dylan that it was the booze talking instead of her.

That hadn't been what she meant, though, and she said so. "I mean, what now? Is this going to be a full time thing, or --"

"Not if you don't want it to be," Dylan said, trying to convey vast indifference without really succeeding. "I think it's okay if you want to keep your options open."

"I'd like that," Natalie replied quicky. She admitted to herself that what she felt about Dylan was the same as what she felt about Pete. Well, maybe just a bit more intense, but whether that was because it was so new or something else was something she decided not to examine too deeply right now. But doing that forced her to examine other things closely, and so she asked, "You don't think it'll ruin things, do you? I mean, what if you get in trouble and I start worrying more about you than --"

"-- than you already do, Ms. `Pull Dylan off the bad guy and out of the helicopter as the missile streaks towards us'?"

"Point," Natalie replied, kissing her as gently as Dylan had kissed her, earlier. Though with a bit more precision.

"It's a big old crazy world out there," Dylan said as soon as her tongue was free. "I think it's got room enough for a couple of angels in love with each other, don't you?"

"Oh my," Natalie replied softly. "Yes indeed."

At that point, their phones rang. Simultaneously.

"How do you suppose Bos managed that?"

"I don't wanna think about it."

"Me neither."

"Should we answer?"

"Um ... yeah."

They did.

But that's another story.