Oh my! It's an update! Took me long enough. I hope...I hope it's okay. Well, the whole Sharona leaving the show sort of threw me for a loop but oh well. Things change, right?

Thanks to everybody for their brilliant reviews!

Adrian gets a champagne colored envelope in the mail and immediately feels his blood run cold.

He stands there for what seems like an hour, staring at the offensive object in his hand and contemplates what to do with it. Throw it away, maybe...pretend it never existed in the first place. Let it drop from his hands and be carried away with the wind. Forgotten.

He shivers and decides to let the thing into his house. Places it in a drawer in his desk and tries to avoid it. The desk seems to throb with the weight of it, orders him to confront his fear, tear open the envelope. He shakes his head and moves towards the kitchen, chooses to deal with the rumbling of his stomach over the pressure of his heart.

But nothing seems to fill up the emptiness inside of him, and by nightfall he is sitting in the dark, staring at the outline of the desk, thinking about anything but what's laying before him.

Champagne.

And she thought he had taken it so well. If only Sharona could see him now! Maybe she would come back, if she heard he was holed up in his apartment again. Maybe...maybe if he died. Would she feel responsible? Leaving him like she did, giving him such hope and then tearing it away from him so abruptly. Cruelly.

To end up with him! The most unlikely person! Not even Randy had stood a chance. And Monk was surprised when Disher came close to him after hearing the news and said simply: "Why?"

And he didn't have an answer. He didn't know. He wondered if Sharona knew. Or if it was just a desperate attempt to finally pull herself away from Monk, to cut all ties. To escape.

He still remembers her waving good-bye, Benjy at her side. The way her curls bounced, her radiant smile. He had raised his hand stiffly in return, tried to make it move. For a second he had believed he might have a second chance. As she was walking away she stopped for a brief moment, about to turn around, and he braced himself for it. Prepared for her running back, throwing her arms around him, telling him she was making a huge mistake. But with a blink of an eye she was moving again, getting smaller and smaller, until she was nowhere to be seen. Lost in the crowd of moving people. Stottlemeyer touched Monk's shoulder.

"You going to be okay?"

He tried to smile but his throat hurt, so he just shrugged. That night he clutched his pillow and cried 'till he felt like there was nothing left inside of him. Just a dried up, brittle bunch of bones.

So here he was now, with the envelope in his hands. That champagne envelope which had terrified him. Before he could stop himself he was tearing it open, pulling out the shiny card which explained in delicate, cursive writing that Sharona Fleming was getting married. Would he like to attend?

He imagined Randy receiving the same, identical invitation. Staring at it as he himself was now. And of course Disher wouldn't go, but he'd send a gift, wish them the best of luck. Monk knew it would take him days to select his own gift, that Sharona had always been able to help him with decisions. Though he rarely listened. Maybe he should have listened. Maybe he shouldn't have kissed her. Maybe everything would be different.

He goes to sleep with the envelope in his hand, assuring himself she put her love into it, that her hands touched it as she slipped it into the mailbox, that her tongue licked the edge of it. That she thought of him at least, that her mind flickered for a moment to a picture of his face.

Adrian Monk, the envelope said.

So she hadn't forgotten...