Man, I' m on a roll. I should be rolling on homework, but this is more fun.

i watch your window for hours moon has set down without us all by ourselves riding in the front seat watch the sun come up all by ourselves we would run remember it was so long ago it was a long time ago feel your hand close beside me hear the highway behind me all by ourselves we made love under the sleeping moonless night all by myself i can see it like it's right before my eyes by myself as time goes by

--"time ago" black lab

Mmm, there is absolutely nothing better than a good night's sleep and a shower after spending a week in an airplane flying over a desert. I have never felt better. My life isn't perfect, no. I know it's going to get better, even. But I'm so in love with what I've got at this very moment, I can't even imagine being in any other situation.

I wake before everyone else, and set about arranging muffins on a plate. I'm not exactly a world-class chef, but I try, okay? After that I have nothing to do. It's a hotel room so there's nothing to tidy, I left London in a rush so I have no work to do, and all the men in my life are sleeping off hangovers, kidnappings, and trips to the great beyond.

God, I love my life.

Finally Alex appears, bleary-eyed and blinking, into the common room. "Morning, mum."

"Hi, handsome. Hungry?"

"Yeah!" Alex sprints across the room and vaults onto the stool, eyeing the muffins. After a moment, he chooses one and begins to gnaw at it, all traces of drowsiness gone in the face of a cranberry orange muffin.

"I thought maybe later we could all go out to lunch. How about that cafe you like with the Italian sodas?"

Alex nods but concentrates on his muffin, carefully digging the cranberries from its fluffy depths and piling them on the counter. The crumbs are spreading rapidly; I can see them migrate across the counter, off, to the floor and all over his clothes. I should tell him to be neater, but somehow I can't bring myself to reprimand him. Not today.

"Alex, honey?"

His mouth is full of muffin. "Yeah, mum."

I'm not quite sure what to say, but the words come of their own accord. Perhaps it springs from some deep motherly instinct that still can't trust that I have my son back unscathed. "Are you all right? Is there anything you want to talk about? Anything...over the past week that you...don't understand, or want to tell me--"

"Let's talk about you and Rick."

I blink. "What? No, honey, I meant--"

"I know what you meant. I'm fine, mum, I swear. They didn't hurt me. I want to talk about you and Rick."

"Um...okay." Am I really having this conversation? "What exactly do you...want to talk about?"

He wipes some crumbs from his mouth and brushes them on the counter. "I think you should marry him."

"You do?" I blurt. Where did this come from? "May I ask...why?"

He looks at me with all the amazing wisdom of his eight years. "Because I've never seen you smile this much."

My throat closes up. "Honey, I don't want you to blame Rick...your...."

He puts down the muffin. "You can say it, mum."

"Your dad...I don't want you to blame him for not being here for all these years, I... It's not his fault. It's not anybody's fault, and I don't want you to..."

"I know." Alex pops a cranberry in his mouth, then another. "Uncle Jon explained it to me."

Oh, God. I can only imagine how Jonathan explained our little affair. I can barely explain it myself. "Did he? What exactly did he...explain?"

Alex shrugs, as if I should know the answer already. "He just said that sometimes, even when two people love each other, they can't get it together and sometimes they do stupid things. He said that sometimes, if they really want it, they get a second chance." Alex plays with the crumbs on the counter, pushing them into a little pattern with the remaining cranberries. "I think that's what you guys got, a second chance. I dunno." He picks up a cranberry, studies it. "I want you to be happy."

I can't swallow the words before they spill out of my mouth. "I love you, Alex."

"Yeah, yeah." He throws a cranberry at me. "So when are you going to marry him?"

"Well, you're certainly not invited if you throw cranberries at your mother. It's not good manners."

He grins, gathering the rest of the berries into sticky hands. "Don't tempt me, mum."

"You know, Alex," says Rick from behind us, "you'd get a lot better distance on those cranberries if you had a slingshot."

"Certainly not!" I cry, but I see a look pass between them that is meant to be over the mother's head, and I shut my mouth. "All rested?"

"Yep," says Rick, and grabs a muffin. He's so damn cute. Eight hours is much too long to be away from this man. He grins at me through his mouthful of muffin and I suddenly wish desperately that he'd just grab me and kiss me madly in the middle of a motel kitchen, morning breath and muffin and all.

Of course, this little fantasy is going to have to wait, because after a moment of staring at each other we both realize that our son is still sitting at the counter, staring at us, too. "So Rick," says Alex. "When are you going to marry my mum?"

Rick nearly chokes on the muffin. "Water?" he croaks, and I grab a glass for him. Once he's successfully swallowed without killing himself, he turns to Alex. "I was thinking about tomorrow, what do you think?"

"I think that's good," Alex nods. "Have you asked her yet?"

"Yeah."

"Did she say yes?"

"Yeah."

"Good." Alex sets down the cranberries, and I whisk them away before he can do any more damage with fruit. "I have to ask you some things first though, before I let you marry her."

Rick takes a stool. "That's fair. Ask away."

"Do you have a job?"

"Yes. I run a shipping business out of Boston."

"Do you make enough to support a family?"

"I'd say so."

"How much?"

Rick glances at me, then names a number that makes me choke on my muffin. God, he's practically tripled what we sold off of Hamunaptra, and that's just in a year!

"You all right, mum?" Alex asks, but forgets me soon enough as I nod through my suffocation. "Do you have a house?"

"Yeah, but... We were thinking maybe we could all live together in London."

Alex considers this. "Yeah, I guess that'd be okay. I only have one more question... Do you love my mum?"

Rick smiles, eyes locked on Alex's. "Yes," he says simply, and Alex smiles, too.

"Then it's settled. Mum, you can marry him."

I clear my muffin-clogged throat and gulp down the rest of the water. "Thank you, Alex."

"Can I go play now? I'm done with breakfast."

"Yes, honey."

Alex flies off the chair and sprints out of the room with the 8:00 a.m. energy that only an eight year old can muster. The moment he's out of the room, Rick sweeps me into his arms and kisses me as passionately as I'd imagined he would, only sans the muffin crumbs, and he seems to have brushed his teeth.

Even better.

Every time I come back to Cairo, I am always amazed at how much it feels like home. I could be away for days or years, but it always seems right when I'm here. I guess growing up in a place you become attached to it, but somehow for the past eight years it's been the memory of Evelyn that's kept me coming back. I've taken more business trips to Egypt than was probably necessary, and I never found her there (always alternating between wishing I could just run into her and hoping I'd never see her again), but just the thought of her, of our brief time together in Cairo, was enough to make it the perfect city.

Having her now, walking beside me underneath those selfsame stars that I always pictured in my dreams, is enough to make Cairo, or wherever she's standing, heaven on earth.

As we round the corner, nearing the hotel again after our walk, she speaks. "Jonathan told Alex something very interesting."

"And what was that?"

She waves her hands to dismiss it, as if she hadn't brought it up. "It's not important. It was rather sweet, actually. Just about what happened eight years ago. Jonathan didn't go into any specifics, but...I was thinking about...what we would tell Alex if he asked us."

"Oh." Suddenly I feel the need to look anywhere but at Evelyn. "Okay. Can I ask you something?" She nods. "Whatever happened to Hugh?"

Evelyn squints her eyes, apparently trying hard to figure out who the hell I'm talking about. "Hugh? Hugh who?"

She doesn't remember him. Many an hour have I wasted over the years, torturing myself by wondering if my Evelyn had ended up with that Bembrige bastard Hugh "I'm better than you" Meridian, and she doesn't remember him. I can't believe she doesn't remember him! "Hugh who? Hugh Meridian? Tall, skinny, glasses, know-it-all, supposedly desperately in love with you?"

She starts to speak, then snaps her mouth shut, eyes widening. "Oh. Hugh. Right."

"So...what happened with him?"

"To him or with him?" She stops, crosses her arms, and now her eyes are narrow, flashing. "Are you implying something here? Because you'd better just come out and say it if you are."

Shit. It was just a simple question! We have to answer them sooner or later, we can't live the rest of our lives ignoring the past! Of course, I don't impart any of this wisdom to Evelyn. Instead, I say, "Evy, the guy followed you around like a lovesick puppy dog. I figured...I don't know."

"What? What did you figure?"

"I thought...no, I worried--that maybe part of the reason you didn't show up was because...of him. There, I said it."

Her expression softens a bit under the starlight. Or perhaps she's still furious (wait...what did I do?!), I can't really see her in the semi-darkness. "Rick...you thought that I...chose Hugh Meridian...over you? Is that what you thought?"

"Over the years I've thought a lot of things, Evy. That particular possibility crossed my mind more than once."

She puts her hands over her mouth, muffling her next words. Then she throws her arms around me quite unexpectedly, and I'm amazed at how just having her in my arms calms eight years of mental torment. "This is horrible of me, but I hated that man!" she says. "I couldn't stand him! I was only polite to him because he was a Bembridge Scholar! I can't believe you thought..." She draws back and smacks me on the shoulder. "And what, you thought I was the type of girl who'd just hop from your bed to his? I think I've just been insulted."

My relief is so great at her non-interest in Hugh that I nearly forget to reply. "No, see, you should take it as a compliment. I was so in love with you that the idea of you being with another guy was enough to send me into eternal agony. If you think about it, it's actually rather sweet."

She shakes her head. "I'm still insulted."

"I love you."

"No."

No? What the hell does that mean? "Um, 'no?'"

She points a finger at me, shaking it angrily. "Don't think you can just say 'I love you' and make everything all right."

"Evy, it's not like I was worried you were sleeping with him or something, I was just...worried that what we had was too good to be true. Like, it couldn't last. I'm not exactly good at holding onto people in my life, and then you came along, and... It scared me."

She drifts back into my arms and buries her head so I can hardly hear her. "I'm going to have to get over this not-being-able-to-stay-mad-at-you thing, or I'm going to end up losing all our fights."

I just hold her for a moment, noticing only now how the street has enveloped us in the full blackness of night with only the moon and stars to guide us. "Come on," I say, tugging her toward the direction of the hotel again, "we should get back."

We walk in silence for a few moments more, but the questions are still simmering inside my head, and I can't refrain from asking another one. "Evy...has there been...another guy?"

"No." She breathes in the Cairo air and exhales it again, slowly. "Never like you. And..."

"No. No guys in my life."

She laughs, clouting me again, but it's good-natured this time. "Rick..."

I shake my head, my grip on her growing tighter. "I could never get around the fact that it wasn't you."

Evelyn rests her head on my shoulder. "It'll always be me, Rick. Just promise it'll always be us."

"I wouldn't have it any other way."

~*~*~*~

Your reviews just make my day. Merci!!! :):):)~Buff