Chapter 2

When John had finally finished at the station, he decided to enlist his brother's help. He had Michael call Evangeline to his place which was two floors above John's. Michael made John promise that he was going to fix this mess with Evangeline because Michael didn't want to get on E's bad side for helping him.

John still wasn't exactly sure what he was going to tell her; how he was going to explain, but he needed to see her alone and didn't know another way to make that happen. This way they were for the most part on neutral ground. The two of them couldn't go on like this. Nora wasn't the only one to mention that Evangeline was miserable. He had to do something for both of their sakes.

When Michael had called and said he needed Evangeline to come to his place right away, she hadn't given it a second thought. Michael needed her and she thought of him as family. She had cancelled her afternoon appointments and rushed to Michael's apartment.

When John opened the door, Evangeline was confused. Had something happened to Michael?

"Where's Michael?" she asked anxiously.

"At Marcie's, I think."

"He said he needed me to come over."

"I know. I harassed him into doing it."

"You mean he called me over here to see you?"

"Yeah."

"I thought something was wrong and that he needed…." John pulled her into a breathtaking kiss. As she was talking, John realized that he had to kiss her. It had been too long. He knew the likelihood of getting slapped was high, but it was worth it. He had missed her. At first, she'd tensed and then she'd given in to the need to be close to him. This kiss was so much better than the memories. When they pulled out of the kiss, John traced the side of Evangeline's face.

"That's so unfair." She opened her eyes and found herself lost in his blue ones.

"I know, but I had to do it," he said in a husky tone. "I couldn't resist."

Evangeline pulled out of his arms and walked across the room before sitting in an arm chair. She knew she was wouldn't be able to think straight with him touching her, especially after they'd been apart for so long and she needed to have her wits about her.

"I want to understand. I'm ready to listen to you. Since the secret came out, all I could see was how the secret affected everyone else. I couldn't see how keeping it was affecting you and for a while I don't think I cared because I was hurt. Now, that I've taken some time, I realize that this is what was bothering you for so long," Evangeline said.

"You know, I've said it before and I'll say it again. I don't deserve you. Thanks for giving me a chance to explain."

She sat there and gave him time to gather his thoughts before telling her the story.

"When the DNA results came back, I didn't bother to open them right away because Cris had confessed that he wasn't really Cristian Vega and that he'd killed Tico. He had already been sentenced to life in prison when I opened the DNA results and saw that he was Cristian. I went straight to see him. We talked about the fact that he couldn't remember, but that didn't change the facts. I told him it should left up to his family to decide what to do with the information and that went for Natalie as well.

"He wanted Natalie to have a life and he didn't think that would happen if she knew who he really was. He made me promise to keep it from her. If I was keeping it from her, I couldn't tell her family. Every time I saw Natalie or Antonio or Mrs. Vega, I was caught between a rock and a hard place. I knew how I would feel in the same situation and that they should know, but I'd made a promise. I wanted to tell you so many times. A couple of times I almost did. I just wanted to share it with someone that I trusted, but that would have been selfish."

Evangeline didn't interrupt him with any questions as she listened to him talk about the struggle that he faced and how much he wanted to tell her. She watched his eyes as he spoke and knew without a shadow of doubt that he was telling her the truth.

"So you decided to be a martyr?" she asked when he stopped talking.

"I didn't think of it that way. I'd made a promise and I didn't want to put you in the position of having to keep it for me."

"John, we were in a committed relationship." Evangeline noticed when John picked up on the "were" in her statement. "I love you. I wouldn't have judged you. I might even have talked you into going back to see Cristian to talk him into telling the truth. You're right that it was his secret to tell, to his family, but this is me. This had nothing to do with a case, so you could have told me. I mean, I helped get the DNA to test in the first place. I had a right to know the results if they were different than I expected."

"Okay, you're right. So, since I messed up, where do we go from here?"

"I don't know, John. This is what I've talked about before; you not letting me in when something important is going on with you. I know that it's who you are, I just need to figure out if I can live with it." Evangeline gathered her purse and walked past him to the door. He knew that he had to let her leave if they had a chance of getting back the ground they'd lost. John wasn't giving up; he was just retreating so that he could reassess the playing field. He wasn't going to lose her without a fight.

As she walked down the hall, she took a deep breath. When she'd walked out John's door, she'd been afraid that John was going to try to stop her. Evangeline wasn't completely sure that she could have walked out if he had and she needed time to think about what he'd told her.