A/N: Thanks for making the long wait! To the people who reviewed, I appreciate it tremendously, and if you're just reading it would be awesome if you could take a moment to click the submit button. I like to know my readers and what they want. Mexico was gorgeous, I'm still hyped and ready for this fic (being in Diego Luna's home country helped!), and so I hope all of you are too! Just so you know, there is a problem with the HTML for some reason, and my stars don't show up. So whenever you see a series of As, that's equivalent to stars. Thanks!

Rafael was seasick.

Javier wished he had brought something with him, a bag or maybe just a handkerchief, to let the child vomit into. It had been happening for days now. They would eat the small rations of dried nuts and papaya that Javier had prepared (bread was not too common or too cheap these days), and Rafael would throw them up. They had been at sea for over four days, and all that seemed to be happening was the child had gotten thinner. Javier considered giving up his rations in an effort to give Rafael more, but he realized this was pointless. The boy would only throw it up. And every time he threw up, he was leaning off the side of the raft, his tiny body practically thrown into the sea by the waves.

i I need a bag /i . Javier looked around the raft desperately. There were only a few moments to spare as Rafael slept through his nausea. He was trying to avoid sacrificing the satchel; if the rations and map were set free, they could just as easily fall into the ocean.

i But what's more important? /i It wasn't difficult.

The satchel was emptied. He stuffed the only map of America he had been able to find into his back pocket, and left the rations spilled across the raft. Everything Rafael did would have to fit in here.

Rafael stirred. "Javier?"

"Yes, Rafael?" His voice was raspy. Four days at sea with a minimal water supply and only nuts to eat would do that to you.

"When are we going to get to America?" He yawned.

Javier sighed. To be honest, he had no idea. He wasn't even sure if they had set off in the right direction. They could be heading for Mexico or worse, South America. He wanted to be in the United States, but was there any guarantee that that's where they would land? Of course not. But there was no way to explain this to Rafael. "Soon, I hope."

"Should we row the raft some?" He stuck his pudgy hand out into the water.

"Ay!" Javier practically shouted. Rafael withdrew his hand. "You don't know what's in that water, okay? We can't row it. I'm sure we're almost there." He hoped so. The rations were almost out, judging by the spilled contents of the satchel.

"Didn't you want to go to America before, Javier?"

He wished Rafael would stop talking. "Yes, Rafael."

"With that girl? Who came to the house?"

"You were young."

"I remember Abuelita talking about it." He yawned again. "She said you wanted to go. She said you were friends with that girl."

"I was friends with her," Javier replied. "We were good friends."

"I wish you could still be friends with her, because then she could tell us how to get to America faster." Rafael closed his eyes and fell flat backed on the raft, causing a slight tilt against a wave and a splash mark on Javier's shirt.

He had a point. Katey might have helped him, if he had stayed in touch. But he knew the chances of seeing her again were little to nothing, and these days he almost never thought of her but for in passing. He remembered the address she had left, the one sealed in his memory from staring at the paper over and over again…

Seventy-three Church Hill Road, St. Louis….

It had been his choice not to write to her. He never picked up a pen, a paper, and shoved the world of dance into the back of his mind. There were other things to concentrate on now. There was no time for dancing or beautiful girls who stole your heart.

There was poverty. There was the lack of food in the house. There was Carlos, the traitor. There was his mother, who was gone. There was Sandra, who he had sent off with a friend to America and had not heard from since. And most importantly, there was Rafael, who was here with him now.

"You're all I've got," Javier murmured, staring at the child with a mix of fondness and determination in his gaze.

If he had thought of ever starting a family it had not been now. He had a child to support, and the work in America would be good. He felt shame in leaving the country his father had worked so hard to build, but ultimately there were no regrets. i He would not have wanted his children to grow up in a place where they would starve. /i

Though at the moment, Javier was doing no better in provisions than his country had done. Rafael stirred again. He would be hungry soon. And then there would only be two rations left, enough, perhaps, for a few hours. He didn't know how much longer they could stand this.

Rafael squinted. "Javier?"

"Yes?"

"What's that? Is that America?"

Rafael had the tendency to mistake large sandbanks for America. Javier could not blame him. It was pitch black, after all, in the nights.

"No, Rafael."

"No, look! Look, Javier! It's America!"

Javier first looked down at the sea, but there was no hope in telling whether the water was shallow. He turned around.

And there was land. "Rafael! We've found land! Land!" He whooped with joy, throwing the child over his shoulder in a hug. "I promised you I would get you out of there, Rafael."

"Is this it, Javier? Is this America?"

How could he have not noticed it before? They were already so close to shore, they were practically feet away. Soon they would be able to wade in to the beach. But there was no proof that this was America.

"I don't know," Javier said. "It could be… We could be anywhere, Rafael." He looked down at Rafael's small, disappointed face. "But wherever we are is going to be better than where we were, I promise."

"There's a sign! Read the sign, Javier, read it!"

The sign was in English. It was only visible if he squinted his eyes and tilted his head to the left. "It's dark, Rafael, we'll read it when we get there."

"Read it! Read it!"

As they approached the sign drew closer, and Javier smiled as he read aloud a name he had become very familiar with on his map.

"Miami Beach."

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

She really wasn't ready when Frank called her.

"It's just that…" She sighed. "I had a really long night, and the show was good, but I'm just so tired. Can't you understand that? I have school tomorrow."

"Well, it's not like you have to curl your hair or anything." He sounded whiny. Thank God she'd said no. "I'm not expecting you to be gorgeous."

Why did she even see this guy? "I'm sorry, Frank. Good night."

"I said the wrong thing didn't I? It was the gorgeous thing. I'm sorry, Katey. Let me ask you again." He cleared his throat.

"I said goodnight, Frank."

He cleared his throat a little louder. "Katey Miller, please come out with me tonight? The dinner and dance bar is a very nice place."

"I work at a dinner and dance bar, in case you forgot, Frank. It's not like all I want to do is dance." She wasn't good at lying through her teeth. Strike one.

"Yes, but it's not like this, all the couples will be dancing here. And I just want a date, Katey, please. Don't make it so tough on me."

She suddenly felt guilty. She i was /i tough on Frank. He was only trying to romance her the way a girl should be.

"Frank, I… I want to go out with you. But really. I don't like dancing for fun. I'm more the quiet, stay-in type." Strike two.

He sighed, his voice thick on the other end of the line. "I understand."

"How about tomorrow night instead? I'll cook," she promised quickly. Appeasement after disappointment was something she was good at. Frank loved her cooking.

"That sounds great. I'll be there at seven."

"Perfect. Good night, Frank."

"Good night, Katey."

Katey felt horrible. It wasn't that Frank was a bad guy at all, and neither was it that she didn't want to spend time with him. He was cute and he liked her. He saw her dancing when he came to dinner with another woman, and he was quick to return and get her number on his own.

It was more that she was afraid.

Dancing outside of her work was not something she made a practice anymore. Dancing on a date was strictly off-limits. Being emotionally connected to someone while dancing was something she felt she could no longer experience because she had experienced every facet of it: she'd fallen in love and broken her heart, dancing the whole way through.

Javier was in her past now and she had no intention of changing that. She didn't know where he lived and returning to Cuba was, of course, impossible. Two years after leaving him she still felt a slight resentment that he had not listened to her when she warned him that things might not get better, that he had chosen to stay in his country. But then again, it had always been in his choice. He chose to start what they had, and he chose to end it by never writing. It tugged at her till she sometimes felt she might explode, and so she relied solely on the memories of his legs brushing her knee, his hand guiding her back, and the slight toss of his head to remind her of her life in Cuba. Dancing was the gift Javier had given her, and she would use it fully. The gift of love, however, was one she kept private and would not let the two intermingle anymore.

Susie insisted she was afraid. "You just don't like Frank." Susie had always been very honest, and, no pun intended, frank about her opinions on things, especially men.

"I like him, Suse," she insisted. "I just don't want to dance so much because I dance all the time at work. Is that so hard to understand?"

"You never used to think dancing was work." The implied image of Javier was sprinkled in the statement.

"I never used to dance as a living." Katey could lie logically. She prided herself on it.

"Whatever, Katey. When you're interested in being happy, we can talk."

"I am happy!" Katey had called after her sister's retreating back.

That wasn't a lie. Katey was satisfied. She had no reason to be sad or not content. Happiness, she had learned, was miles away. With the sacrifices she had been forced to make in her life, happiness was as much of a possibility as Javier running into her on the street.

"Yeah, right."

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

One room and a bathroom.

That was it. The kitchen was adjacent to the tiny room. There was no furniture inside. With what little money he had left from the down payment for this tiny apartment Javier would have to buy some blankets and some food. They could acquire the rest over time, as money allotted.

"You like this, Rafael?" He hoisted him onto his hip.

"It will be two hundred dollars per month," the old landlord grumbled. "You pay fifty dollars now."

And there it was. Almost all of his life savings had disappeared. The emergency money was all of what he had left, a measly eight dollars. Would that buy him one blanket and some food? Javier wasn't sure.

"I need a job."

The newspaper was lying on the ground outside someone's house. He had pocketed it on the way to the first available RENT sign he had seen, half dripping wet from wading to the shore.

He glanced through the classified ads, searching for anything that didn't require much experience. "All of these want me to have a degree, Rafael… I'm not too sure that's going to work out."

In the end, he found two available jobs: a car mechanic (although his experience with cars was limited to painting them, he could tell an engine from a carburetor) and an unspecified job with a fancy dinner restaurant.

"This restaurant does shows every night, Raffi, look! They dance." Javier laughed a little, wondering how good the couple was. "We should go see how they do tonight after my interview, huh?"

Rafael was fast asleep, but Javier was enthusiastic.

"I haven't seen good dancing since Katey Miller left Havana."

He was surprised he could work up the courage to say her name.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

A/N: It was long, hope it was worth the wait! I know, I'm evil, I'm saving the first meeting for the next chapter, and I would loooooove some reviews! I'm open to suggestions, ideas, criticism, and (of course) praise.

-Your faithful friend and author, Kiki