A/N: Sorry it took so long for an update but here's a long chapter to make up for that. Summer's here so updates will be a lot more frequent. Thanks for reading. R/R.

~Shelby~

                        There remains little doubt in my mind that I still love Scott. It seems almost ridiculous to have to remind myself that the reason I left was because I loved him but the more I contemplate it the more I wonder if I was right or not. When I was packing that day was I really thinking of Scott or was the tightened feeling of terror around my chest due to some inescapable fear that if I stayed I'd I have to stay forever. When did it stop becoming a childhood romance and start becoming an adult reality?

            When you're young you think love will last forever, that nothing can come between two people that truly and genuinely care for each other. Then, when you've experienced life and seen more than your share of break ups and divorces you realize that love cannot be the only thing that holds people together, there has to be something stronger. Some say its trust or common ground, but I beg to differ, I think its something stronger than that, something that we can't even begin to name, something that I was afraid Scott and I were loosing.

            I can now think back to the first months after we moved together and Scott was so excited about his job. His enthusiasm was addicting and I too became engulfed with all of the wonderful dreams we made together. I was finally going to have more than what my mother had and knowing that I'd have it with the man that I loved held it together, made it believable. But as the year went on I got restless, that's the only way I can really explain it, boredom and as superficial and immature as that sounds it was the truth. Scott was gone more often and when he was around he always had his head in a book. We were always penny pinching to get by, cutting it close every month and once we were forced to eat peanut butter and jelly for a week straight. In reality, I was tired but I kept my stamina high for Scott. I learned slowly that my life wasn't going to be some whirlwind romance out of a ten-cent novel and that at twenty maybe I wasn't ready to lay down my life for God and Family. A sudden urge to see the world overtook me and I fought with the feeling for months before I worked up the nerve to say something to Scott. I thought that maybe we could wait longer to get married, at least until had done something with my life.

            That's when the pain started. It would begin in the morning with vomiting that racked my body and then at night it seemed impossible to get comfortable. So I went to the doctors and the rest is history. The whole process is somewhat of a blur now but I remember, almost to the point of physical aching, loosing Luke.

            The night before I had had some spotting and I woke scared to death that I was dying or even worst that my baby was. Then it just stopped and I made an appointment with a nearby doctor's office, saying that it was an emergency. It was on the way to the obstetricians that the severe pain started. I remember falling to the floor in agony. It seemed like an eternity before I could finally work up enough strength to drag myself to the phone in which I swiftly dialed 911 and then to the bathroom. It was there that the answer to the question I had been so afraid to ask hit me like a brick and smashing into my chest causing the air to leave from my lungs. Luke was gone and I was left on the dirty bathroom floor of a cheap motel out in Indiana with no friends or family to speak of.

            When the ambulance arrived I had been passed out for a good five minutes and at the hospital a middle-aged doctor confirmed my fears. I cried hysterically, sobbing and coughing until I could barely breathe as the nurses all around tried to comfort me. They kept repeating "it wasn't your fault" and that there was nothing I could have done to save him. Instead of being consoled I began screaming that they were all liars, thrashing and yelling at the top of my lungs until they sedated me long enough to give me proper medical attention. I never cried again after that episode, I never spoke about it to anyone…until Scott.

            It still makes me feel incredibly selfish and self-centered to think that the only reason I left was to save myself but then I remember that that wasn't the only reason. There's really no theory to anything that happens in life, it just happens to you and then you react. As quickly as your world is a fairy tale just as quickly it can be turned upside down, Scott couldn't teach me this lesson, I had to learn it myself. We had lived in a fantasyland for too long and I think we are that much stronger for it. Maybe it took true pain and hurt to change us from children to adults and maybe, just maybe, I had been our unwilling redemption.

~Scott~

            "Look Monique don't you think you're getting a little carried away?"

            I watched as she attempted to stuff more bags in her already packed backseat since her trunk was already full and nearly popping with the amount of merchandise in side.

            "Carried away! I'm going to be a mother, Scott!"

            I shrugged, this was a lost battle which I had discovered early in the day when she had dragged me out shopping with her. It had been a full month already since she'd barged into my office and shocked me with the news of wanting a child and the events that followed, followed quickly. In a matter of weeks New Beginning Adoption Agency had matched her with an infant in Maryland whose mother had abandoned her in a church. It still surprised me to think that people actually thought that Hollywood business of being able to leave your kids on church steps was still true. Monique had been ecstatic, so ecstatic that the next day she went out and bought a house. Just like that, on her first try she had found the perfect one. Picket fence, garden, play ground, the works. Lucky kid.

            "Well, if you're done…which I hope you are because if not that kids going to have tons of new clothes and no food with the amount that you're spending…I have some work to finish up at the office. I have opening arguments in less than two weeks."

            She waved her hand indifferently.

            "Oh, go ahead if you must, you stuffy old lawyer."

            I grabbed her in a bear hug before leaving her with several bags that had still not found there way into her car. In a sudden burst of resolve she picked them up and threw them into the front seat of her convertible. I got in my car and drove to the office speedily, dodging pedestrians and skating through yellow lights. I wasn't in any kind of hurry, that's just the way I always drove.

            When I reached my office I efficiently set the alarm on my Beemer with two quick clicks and then strode into the building. I gave my secretary, Kathy, a perfunctory nod before entering my personal office and locking the door but instead of taking out the folder containing the recent briefs in the Keller case I pulled out a small slip of paper. It wasn't more than the size of a business card but it weighed as heavy as a car in my hand and my heart.

            Her number was neatly scrawled across the white paper in light pencil that I squinted to read. She had always been neat with her penmanship; I chalked it up to the teacher streak in her. Sighing heavily, I once again went through the pros and the cons in my head. If I called her she might hang up the phone on me, not be there or even worse actually want to talk. If I didn't call her I'd never know if the feeling that I still got when I thought about her was real or not. Either way it could be a no win situation but I took it in stride and picked up the phone. I hadn't even dialed yet when it coincidentally started to ring. Hesitantly I pressed the button for line one and then answered.

            "Scott… it's me." The voice was very familiar, too familiar and one that I thought I'd probably never hear again but there it was soft, feminine and obviously upset. I gathered my thoughts before replying.

            "Heather," I attempted to sound as casual as possible. "How are you?"

            "Horrible but I can't talk over the phone. Can we meet…I really need to see you."

            The wind was taken out of me for a second at the prospect. It was bad enough that I almost married her against my better judgment but now I found myself about to meet her…once again against my better judgment. I still couldn't pinpoint what it was about her that always made me feel incredibly guilty even when I had done nothing wrong.

"Sure," I glanced at the clock on the wall. " It's three o'clock now how about in thirty minutes at La Fountain Bleu."

"Great, I'll see you then." I was about to hang up the phone when she stopped me.

"Oh and Scott…"

"Yeah."

"Thank you."

The first thing I noticed when she walked in the door were her eyes. Usually flawless and well made up they were bloodshot and almost lifeless. That scared me for a second; it was like I was looking at a totally different person. Her hair was cut shorter, for a while she had kept it at her waist but now it was at most at her shoulders and she'd lost weight, not in a good way, it made her look too skinny, malnourished even. In spite of all this it surprised me little that she still retained her flawless beauty, the same one that had turned my eye over a year ago.  All I could do was stare and she noticed this wearily when sitting down across from me. 

"Wondering what happened to your blushing fiancé aren't you?" She stated cynically while laying a linen napkin across her flowered skirt. I didn't respond with my mouth though but my eyes had a habit of refusing to conceal my feelings. She could see the answer in my eyes before I said a word.

            "I've changed a lot, inside and out, Scott. Marriage did it. You'd never be able to tell that I'm married to one of the most powerful men in this city and that all I have to do is snap my fingers and every task is performed for me. It's sorta ironic in a way. Here I am the one that married for money and I'm miserable and there you are the one that didn't marry because of love and you're miserable." An odd chortle escaped her lips.

"I guess it is ironic," Her words made me feel uncomfortable and I tried a change of subject. "How's Robert?"

"Who knows anymore? He hasn't been home for at least a week now. We've only been married a month and I've already driven him away."

Tears formed in her eyes, threatening to spill over and I attempted to comfort her by placing a hand over hers.

"That's not true…"

"Oh yes it is, look, I drove you away." With that she began to cry softly and using the napkin she'd lain across her lap as a handkerchief.

"You didn't drive me away, Heather. Remember? You gave me a choice and I did what was best for the two of us…I did what I knew how…"

She sniffled once and then stopped crying long enough to pat my kindly on the hand.

"You know Scott, you've been a true friend to me…better than anyone."

I smiled at her reassuringly, praying to heaven that she wouldn't cry again and luckily she didn't. Instead she gathered her things and prepared to leave.

"You know what Scott, you're a good guy. Maybe even the perfect guy, it's just too bad that she found you first. So…don't make me feel bad by not getting together with her. You obviously still love her…don't wait to long to do something about it because then it won't feel like such a waste to have let you go."

She walked away after that, leaving me at the table to contemplate her words and I soon found myself pulling the slip of paper from out of my pocket where it had been quickly stuffed. The name and number were still there, it hadn't changed but in a way I felt something in me had changed slightly. I couldn't exactly explain it but it was something akin to resolve, like I had come to a point where I knew a decision had to be made. It was either find her or loose her again and truthfully, I wasn't sure about either choice.

I left twenty bucks on the table to cover our loitered time before getting up and leaving the chintzy restaurant to return to my office. When I got in I told Kathy to hold on my calls and then I sat resolutely at the desk with the phone in my hand. Surprisingly, I found myself actually dialing this time.

The phone rang three times before a recorded message picked up letting me know that the number was no longer in use. The wind had been taken out of my sails and instead of feeling relieved I felt drained, like an athlete who had toiled for months to participate in a triathlon just to have it rained out. Discouraged, I returned the phone to the hook before once again glancing at the briefs that had yet to be finished. It was then that I determined to find her, even if I had to go to the ends of the earth. How far could she go? The world was only so big.

~Monique~

            A baby, I'm going to have a baby, not in the conventional sense of course. I've never been one to endure pain easily so this version was even better for me but even though I hadn't yet met my daughter I felt connected to her. It was odd, sometimes I would walk past the little yellow and blue bedroom that I had prepared for her and it wouldn't hit me fully that I was going to be a mother. This was quite possible the biggest step I'd even take in my life and frankly I was scared out of my wits.

            I was standing in the doorway of the nursery now after putting all of the new clothes away in the white chest of drawers when a knock on the door interrupted my daydreaming. I brushed my curls back with a hand, straightened my sweatshirt and then answered the door. I almost passed out when I realized who it was.

            "Ethan?"

            He stood there silently, staring at me through those piercing blue eyes, expressionless and unemotional. I, on the other hand, was bracing myself from falling over with one hand on the door and the other gripped on the doorknob.

            "C-come in. Sit down." I heard my voice and I saw him move to enter but I still didn't believe it. I felt myself move to let him get through the doorway and then watch his back as he walked slowly to the living room and seated himself on the couch. I sat down next to him but on the other end of the couch. Then, unexpectedly after so much silence, he turned to me and gave me a wry grin.

            "How have you been, Monique?"

            "Fine." I managed to stumble out.

            "I know your probably wondering why in the world I'm here so I'm going to get to the point quickly," He sighed and then moved closer to me so that he could face me. He held my eyes with his causing a pain to enter my chest from the intensity. "I've gotten an offer to join Doctors Without Borders. It's a program that gives physicians the opportunity to work in third world countries and they want me to go to the Philippines. For a while I knew it was out of the question but when I lost you I began to seriously consider it. Basically, Monique, I need something concrete from you, I can't do this anymore, I have to know if what I feel for you is unrequited or…or if there's hope."

            I attempted to process the words he spoke but they all ran together in one long strand. It seemed impossible to distinguish between them and then it hit me. He was going to leave but this time it wasn't just to the next state over, it was across the world and he was asking my permission.

            "I-…I…Ethan." I could barely get a word out. "I don't want you to go. This last month I've been thinking about everything and I realized what an idiot I've been. I was so stubborn and I should have forgiven you. It wasn't entirely your fault that everything fell apart it takes two to make a relationship work. I guess I'm saying that…I want you to stay."

            The look that crossed his face was priceless. His expression was that of someone who had just one the lottery, disbelief and then utter joy. The next thing I knew I was in his strong arms and I was doing something I hadn't done in a while, crying tears of happiness.

            "We'll take things slow, if you want…I love you so much, I'll do whatever it takes." He said sweetly into my ear.

            I entangled myself long enough to face him again.          

            "There's something you should know though."

            He raised his eyebrows in silent urging for me to continue.

            "Well…I'm going to have a baby."

            Ethan's eyes grew as large as saucers before chuckling I ventured to explain.

            "Not exactly have a baby, not like you think. I'm adopting a little girl from Maryland. Her name is Adrienna and she's two months old."

            He was silent for a moment and I immediately became afraid that he'd pack up and run away at the prospect of a child. We' d talked about having children before but never adopting especially having one so soon. He put his arms around me and pulled me close.

            "You know what this means don't you," He whispered into my hair. "We're going to have to buy a minivan."