Author's Note: You guys are definately going to hate me. This part originally was really different...Actually I don't think any of the original is in here now that I look at it. Well, the first few lines are from the first draft, but the reactions were really different (as I think only one person here knows how it went before). Also, I'm so glad people are happy that they are in Boston. ClassicDorkette, I hope you have a blast here on your family trip. Go to Downtown Crossing if you are a shopping fiend like me. Tello's has really great deals...if you want other advice about the place IM me at KristinMilly.

Wow, long author's note. Longest one yet I do so believe....So please enjoy and review!

MIA:
My eyes lowered after he told me that. I was afraid of what he would say next. But he didn't say anything.
He made me stand up and then he kissed me. "I've been wanting to do that since March," he said afterwards. Then he held onto me like he was afraid of losing me. His breath was in an uneven pattern, similar to the type he had the first night we'd been together.
"Michael?" I whispered, still in shock that he had the nerve to kiss me.

"Yes?"

" I'm scared."

He rubbed my back. "It's okay Mia. You don't have to have all the answers right now."

"No, I'm scared that I'm not...look, I need to go for a walk. I-I'll talk to you later."

He held onto my wrist hard. "No, we have to talk about this now. Let's go onto the back porch where we'll be totally alone if anyone else were to come home." He was being awfully bossy wasn't he?

We sat on their back sundeck. "What? What do we need to talk about now? I said I want to just be friends. Why can't you accept that?" I asked, hoping that he hadn't noticed the crack in my voice.

He took my hand, "Because I know you haven't quite accepted that."

"Then apparently you don't know me very well because I have," I replied, pulling my hand away and looking at the rug they had on the floor.

He shook his head and half laughed. "Then tell me about yourself."

I opened my mouth to say something back, but I had nothing. "What do you mean?"

"I think, and correct me if I am wrong here, that you are interested in being with me, but are too afraid of how it'd look to everyone else. Why else would you sleep with me? That would be an aspect of a relationship that we could keep secret. Right?"

I looked up at the ceiling. I really didn't like the smallness of Tony's parents place. We were all cramped into a small area. Some people slept out here the night before and their sleeping bags were still sprawled out. "I am still in love with Joshua. And it's just too hard to let him go. I mean, I spent almost four years pining after him. Then I get him and there was this huge thing with Grandmere so I almost didn't even bother being with him. Then when things FINALLY got straightened out I spent the next two and a half years with him. The best two years of my entire life were with him. And now what? He's gone and I'm stuck here all alone."

He was smiling.

"What?" I snapped. Angry.

"You look cute when you go on like that. All your words are said so quickly."

I gave him a weird look that was like "Okay, discussing my dead fiancee here!"

"That's not what he wanted for you though," Michael said after a few minutes. "He wanted you to find someone else. To be happy as you were with him."

I suddenly got angry, but not at Michael (for once!). I was angry with Joshua for doing this. How could he have gone on that African trip with our wedding so close by? I had begged him not to go but he ignored me. "Why would he do this to me?" I snapped. I think Michael finally realized that this was holding me back.

"Do what?" he asked carefully.

" He's left me in the spot where I have to be the one to do something with my life, alone. Independently. I never do that. I don't want to be alone. I...I thought I did. I never thought...how could he do this to me?"

I was crying heavily now. The tears coming evenly down my cheeks. Michael stayed quiet though. He let me go onto another rant about Joshua and how unfair it all was.

I suppose I had been holding it all in for almost a year now. That isn't healthy, huh? I never wanted anyone to think I was weak, especially didn't want Michael to think that. "And then I am scared of what he'd think of me now...if like we had just been simply friends all that time and he was just watching how I was acting with you...would he have respected me?"

Michael kissed my forehead and pushed my loose hair behind my ears. "Mia, we would have been very different people. I'll be brutally honest with you here. Remember all those phone calls we exchanged through the years? The short like, three minute ones?"

I definately did. Although we never really talked, there were a few occassions where I was forced to call him. The first time was by Lucie. She wanted to talk to him about something she was writing. I pretended to be her so he never knew it was really me. Then my missionary friends made me call him so that I would get over him. And he called me on New Years Eve....the night I shared my first real kiss with Joshua.

I nodded, "Yeah," I said hoarsely.

" I had called that New Years from Genovia. I had gone to see you. You don't even know how much it took for me to do that...I was actually going to try to surprise you and see how you were doing. But you were in England so..."

I eyes fell. I felt terrible now. He had really been in love with me and how did I treat him? Like leftovers. "I-I didn't know."

"How would you have? I mean, you hadn't seen me in years then...well," he said, holding back his own tears. He didn't believe a real man cried. "Are you okay now?"

I would never be totally okay. But looking at him made things seem to be right again. I knew that he really and truly did love me, even when I treated him terribly. I had to figure out a way to make it all up to him again. But how?

"Michael?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you. For everything. For being you. It means the world to me."

He smiled shyly. "Eh, it's just me being good old Michael."

I stood up and kissed the top of his ever so bald head. "Don't change."

"I'll try not to," he teased.

" I'm gonna go for a walk. I need some time to be alone, okay?"

"Sure thing."

MICHAEL:
That day I went to Downtown Crossing, where there is a big jewelry designer. I was using my advance for the album to have this done for her. I was making her a gift. I don't know what it would be for, I just thought she deserved something.

I could tell by the look in her eyes that day that she felt something other than friendship for me. But that she was too afraid to admit it out loud. I am sure she has admitted it to herself though.

I know I love her, and that I want to spend the rest of my life loving her. And getting some of that love back from her. I had silently decided that I would be leaving Bueller eventually so I could move to Genovia to be with her. To be her prince consort. I mean, it's looking like it will take a few years to convince her that we belong together and that it's okay to move on from Joshua, but I can be convincing when I want to be.

I laughed kind of because Joshua had given up law school to be with her. She was clearly that special that any man would be willing to give up his own dreams for her.

I would stay with the band as a songwriter though. I needed that outlet at least. I'd miss the guys, sure. But I'd miss Mia more if I didn't do any of this.

I'm getting way ahead of myself here. I won't leave the band until she is fully ready for a real serious relationship. She just needs time. I need to be patient.

We went to a karaoke bar the Thursday night before the wedding. Mia and I had hung out a little bit since that conversation on Tuesday afternoon. We tossed the ball around and watched old re-runs of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I sang, with Tony, about ten different Beatle songs. Some silly ones, and some serious ones (those were when we had a few in us already and we wanted to be serious...we are weird when intoxicated).

And I alone sang a song that was so blantantly meant for Mia to hear, Her Majesty by the Beatles

Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl,
but she doesn't have a lot to say
Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl
but she changes from day to day
I want to tell her that I love her a lot
But I gotta get a bellyful of wine
Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl
Someday I'm going to make her mine, oh yeh,
someday I'm going to make her mine.

But then Mia came up with Lilly and sang Survivor by Destiny's Child...just like they had when we did that Habitat for Humanity thing back in high school. When I almost tried to kiss her again.

But after that Lilly left the stage and it was just Mia. She looked nervous up there as she told the control man what song she was going to do. She glanced at me and then settled her gaze at something in the back of the room.

She sat on a stool and took a deep breath as familar notes came from the speaker.

There are places I remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain (she glanced at our table at this time...a table with both new friends and old)
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I've loved them all (she stared at the floor as she sang this, probably thinkig of Joshua)
But of all these friends and lovers,
There is no one compares with you (was she looking at me when she said this? A guy could hope right?)
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them (she briefly pauses here)
In my life I love you more (now I KNOW she was looking at me because she didn't pull her gaze away from me)
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more
In my life I love you more

I don't know what changed her mind about things, but the ball was in her court. She had to come to me about all this. And I hope she doesn't chicken out or try to pretend she randomly selected this song from the playlist. SHe had picked it to tell me what she couldn't two days before. What had changed her so much?

Author's note: Wow, two of these bad Larry's in one post (Bad Larrys is a phrase used by one of my old friends). I said this within the text, but I don't want to be sued. The Beatle's sang the songs in this chapter. But I heard that Michael Jackson bought them. I dunno, you can look that up if you really wanna. Thanks for reading, stay tuned (I'm dying here, I had the whole story written, now I've changed one little thing and I hafta re-do the entire ending or it wouldn't make any sense! Someone smack me please!)