DISCLAIMER: Folks, I promise I will write a short chapter one of these days. But this one isn't it, so thank you for your patience. The Sara/Shaun banter has a mind of its own sometimes. And big thanks for Nic for her input on this chapter; you can be my wingman anytime, Nicster. As per usual, all Shaun of the Dead characters still belong to Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright.

After an eventful day of doing the obligatory "couple on tour" tasks, Shaun would have been happy to go straight to bed. But Emma insisted on having dinner in the hotel's restaurant. She'd received an invitation to join Lady Chatham, a local aristocrat, when they'd met in the gardens the day before. And Emma wasn't about to pass up the chance to dine with nobility.

When they walked down the stairs and into the dining room, Shaun stopped short, frozen at the doorway. Across the room he saw Sara, seated at a table with an older woman in a seemingly deep conversation.

"Shaun, what's the problem?" Emma inquired.

"Uh, nothing. Nothing. I'm fine."

"Well, come on, we don't want to keep Lady Chatham waiting," she chided, indicating the woman who was now in conversation with Sara.

Shaun was now confronted with the very uncomfortable proposition of sharing a dinner with some rich old bat, his current girlfriend, and a no doubt very resentful slayer. He quickly tried to think of a way to avoid doing any further harm to Sara. Then he had an idea. "Emma, you see the girl sitting at that table?"

"Yeah."

"She's a friend of Liz, my ex-girlfriend. So it might not be a good idea to make a big deal out of our relationship in front of her. I wouldn't want to exacerbate things."

"Oh, come on, Shaun. You're a big boy. Why should you care what she thinks?"

"I don't. I'm just asking you to show some consideration, okay?"

"Sure, of course."

Shaun and Emma approached the table. The older woman - her silver hair perfectly piled upon her head, multiple diamonds twinkling on what seemed like every finger - removed her attention from Sara and smiled warmly at the new arrivals. "Emma! How lovely to see you again! And you must be Shaun. I've heard so much about you."

"Nice to meet you, Lady Chatham," he said. "Thank you for inviting us to dinner."

"Oh, it's my pleasure. And allow me to introduce my new American friend, Helen Wellesley. She's researching the inn for a travel book that she's writing."

"Actually, Helen and I are old acquaintances," Shaun said, much to Sara's surprise. Had he already told Emma of their history? How dare he do such a thing without asking her first?

"Well, what a coincidence," Lady Chatham cried.

"Idn't it, though?" Sara/Helen quipped.

"How do you two know each other?" Emma asked.

"I used to work in a video store in London," Sara lied. "Shaun was a frequent visitor."

"Yeah, I was always trying to get her to stock more Anime titles," Shaun played along.

"And I was always trying to stop him from renting all those chick flicks."

"I was just trying to get some insight into the female psyche."

Sara narrowed her eyes at him. "You were nursing a guy-crush on Hugh Grant. You just need to come clean and admit it."

Shaun looked over at Emma and emphatically shook his head.

"Well, obviously you learned something from those films to attract such a bright, young girl," Lady Chatham enthused. "Tell me, how did you two meet?"

"It was just like in a movie," Emma beamed. "One of my friends was moving into a new flat, which was completely devoid of furniture and appliances and everything. She couldn't even make any toast for breakfast. So we wandered into this nearby appliance store, Foree Electric. Well, there were a bunch of kids working there, barely old enough to order a pint. So I insisted on being waited on by the manager, who happened to be Shaun."

Emma reached across the table for Shaun's hand. He smiled sheepishly across the table at Sara, who rolled her eyes and downed the rest of her Rioja.

"He was really knowledgeable about the products," Emma continued. "Not to mention funny and charming. I think he was flirting with me the whole time. Anyway, we agreed upon a toaster for my friend's flat, and he said, 'I'll only let you have it if you invite me 'round for dinner. It's part of our new product quality assurance policy.' I mean, can you imagine?" Emma laughed.

Sara looked at Shaun with a raised eyebrow, and he emphatically shook his head.

"So I took pity on him and said that he was welcome to take me to a proper dinner if the toaster didn't work, and…" Emma continued.

"Skip to the end," Sara mumbled. Shaun shot her a dirty look.

"The toaster did work. But I went out with him anyway and we've been together ever since."

"What a sweet story! You never know when you'll meet Mr. Right, do you?" Lady Chatham said, then turned her attention to Sara. "What about you, Helen? You American girls seem to think you can stay single forever. Bide your sweet time till you find the right chap, eh?"

"Well, we do tend to think we have the luxury of choice, Lady Chatham. Silly American idea of independence, I guess."

"Can you honestly say you never met anyone who made you want to settle down?"

"At one time I quite foolishly thought I had met Mr. Right."

"Really? Do tell."

"He was handsome, sweet, funny…" Sara looked evenly across the table at Shaun, who had visibly gone pink, attempting to hide behind his water glass. "Had superb taste in music. Rather heroic in his own way."

"What went wrong, my dear?"

"Well, turns out he was gay."

Shaun abruptly spit out his water and started coughing.

"Shaun, are you okay?" asked a concerned Emma.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he replied.

"I think he knew all along deep down inside," Sara continued. "He was just afraid to face the truth. But when he did, he felt so much better."

"Maybe he was just saying that to avoid hurting your feelings," Shaun offered.

"Oh, no, he was quite gay. Had this weird fixation on David Beckham."

It infuriated Shaun that she seemed to be enjoying this so much. "Becks is one of the finest athletes of our time," he asserted.

"So is Mia Hamm, but I don't have her posters plastered all over my bedroom."

"Well, I wouldn't know…," he grumbled under his breath. Sara, stung, bit her lip and the four shared an uncomfortable silence.

"I mean, I'm sure that your ex-boyfriend did," Shaun continued. "Y'know, maybe he just didn't think that any other woman could measure up to you."

"Well, some men are perceptive that way," Sara said.

"Still, you have to keep up hope that you'll find your special someone," Emma piped up, "and not let the disasters of past relationships hold you back. Take Shaun, for instance. He had absolutely horrible luck with women till he met me."

"Really?"

"Oh, yes. He said he'd never met anyone that he felt was his equal. Someone that he could connect with on an emotional as well as a spiritual and physical level."

"Is that so?"

"He told me it took him quite a while to get over his last girlfriend. She was some American girl. Drama queen, from what I understand. Completely clingy and co-dependent. He was very lucky to have escaped that relationship relatively unscathed."

As Shaun saw Sara's grip tighten on her butter knife, he knew he had to do something to extinguish the burning fuse that Emma had unwittingly lit. "Uh, Helen, you look like you could use a refill," he attempted.

"No, Shaun, I'm very interested in what Emma has to say."

"No, you really want to join me at the bar," he suggested, calmly but firmly.

"I do?"

"You do."

"Apparently I do," she said, smiling at Lady Chatham. "Be right back."

They walked together out of the dining room, across the foyer and into the hotel bar. Shaun ordered another bitter and turned to Sara. "The lady's having….hemlock, is it?"

She wrinkled her face at him. "Rioja," she spat at the bartender, looking over her shoulder at the table they'd just left. "Honestly, Shaun, I don't know what you see in her. Look at her, sitting there all smug. I'd like to stab her in the eye with a fork."

"Coming from anyone else, I'd take that as a joke," Shaun remarked, folding his arms confrontationally. "Look, what do you think you're doing out there? If you keep on like this, Emma is going to figure out that something is going on between us."

She feigned ignorance. "Is something going on between us?"

"You know what I mean," he said with a frustrated sigh.

"I dunno, Emma doesn't seem like the sharpest knife in the drawer."

"Sara, listen to me. I know that you're upset and you're probably planning some horrendous torture for me, but there's no need to take it out on Emma. She has no idea who you are, she's not dating me just to spite you."

"No, you're doing a fine job of spiting me all by yourself."

"What are you talking about?" Shaun asked, then snorted. As if he had no idea. She used to think that snort was adorable, but right now it made her want to pull every hair in his goatee out one by one with a pair of tweezers.

"What do you think I'm talking about, Shaun? I thought we had some kind of connection. I thought that what we had was sacrosanct."

"What does that mean?"

"Well, you apparently spent more time mourning the death of Johnny Alpha than you did for me."

"No, what does 'sacrosanct' mean?"

"Sacred, holy, inviolable," Sara explained. "But then again, maybe I'm just being a drama queen."

Shaun's gaze fell to the floor. "Look, I never said that about you."

"Really? I'm sure Emma wouldn't lie about something like that."

"Sara, I'm not going to keep arguing with you." The words came slowly, like an incantation to make himself believe it: "What we had…it was good. Maybe it could have been great. But it's …over. We had our chance and we missed it."

"You mean, I missed it."

"Well…"

"Shaun, I know that I blew it, okay?" she stated, throwing up her hands in resignation. "I created the situation, I chose to leave, and I have no reason to be upset with you or Emma. I am now fully focused on my job and thus I will not be bothering you ever again."

"Good."

"Fine."

"You're okay with this?"

"Give me a break, Shaun," she huffed. "It's not like you're the first guy who ever dumped me. I mean, it's not like I'll never find someone else, someone that I can connect to on an emotional level as well as a spiritual and physical level. So you know, don't flatter yourself that I spent the better part of the last 24 hours thinking about your forearms, because I most certainly didn't."

He threw her a quizzical look. "You what?"

"Nothing."

"Sara, this is pointless. We just need to face the fact that it's time to move on with our lives, y'know. We can't keep thinking about 'what if.' Because it's just gonna' drive us both crazy if all we do is wonder what would have happened if you hadn't got on that plane."

"I know, I know," she agreed, staring straight ahead at the rows and rows of single malt scotch lining the back wall. "But for the record, I think what we had…could have been great."

Shaun looked up from his pint at the side of her face. In the dim bar light, with her hair swept to one side, she looked like a portrait. Some artist's rendering of perfection that was no longer within his reach. It felt like Chow Yun-Fat had just emptied the clips of both .45s straight through his heart. "I think so, too."

Sara immediately felt her anger and resentment subside, leaving her with the all-too-familiar feeling of despair and loneliness. "It's a shame we can't do anything about it."With a weak smile, shebravely turned her head to see Shaun's eyes pooling with regret.

"Yeah," he said slowly.

"Hi!" Emma interrupted. "Lady Chatham wanted a refill. I told her I'd take care of it. What have you two been talking about?"

"Nothing," Shaun answered quickly.

"We were just talking movies," Sara replied. "Shaun thinks that Sin City will be better than Batman Begins, and I think that's complete bollocks."

"Really?" Emma asked, with a polite smile to signal that she had no idea nor interest in the topic.

"Helen has a thing for Christian Bale," Shaun said dismissively.

"I can't help it. British men just make me weak in the knees. Present company excepted, of course," she said with a sideways glance to Shaun.

Wishing to avoid any further confrontation, he decided to excuse himself. "Right, I think I'll pop off to the loo," he said. "Be right back."

"You've known Shaun for a while, right?" Emma asked.

"We're just casual acquaintances," Sara replied.

"There's just so many things I still don't know about him. You know, he was talking in his sleep last night. Did he ever mention a girl named Sara?"

Sara neatly spat a mouthful of wine back into her glass, wiping a dribble off her chin with her wrist.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, yeah. Black shirt, won't show... Um, no, I don't recall any mention of a Sara."

"Well, one day I was trying to tidy up his bedroom and I found all these toys and comic books and things. I was going to put them in a box and take them out to the shed, but Shaun completely freaked. He said they belonged to his friend Sara, and that he was taking care of them until she came back."

"Really?"

"Yeah, it's weird. He always gets this very distant look if I ask him about it. I don't want to think that he might be cheating on me, but…What if she's here? What if she is at this hotel and he's splitting time between us? I mean, can you imagine?"

"Oh, Emma, I find your lack of faith disturbing," she quoted, which drew a puzzled look from Emma. "Okay, I can hear the sound of flapping wings as that joke goesright over your head. Look, I know Shaun well enough to know that he's a good guy. He would never intentionally hurt you or lie to you. It's not in his nature."

"Good." She smiled at Sara. "I'm really glad we had this chat, Helen. It's been really helpful. Shaun has so much potential. I'd hate to think that I might have saddled myself to some overgrown adolescent who clings to these ridiculous childhood things. I'm not being unreasonable, am I? You'd feel the same if you were in my position, wouldn't you? Y'know, I've invested three months in this relationship and I've very little to show for it."

Sara placed her wine glass down on the bar with a resonant thud. It was clear she was going to have to summon heretofore unknown reserves of patience with this woman. "You've got a good man that loves you. What more do you want?"

"Sometimes that just isn't enough," Emma sighed. "A woman of the 21st century shouldn't have to settle, should she?"

"Let's get something straight, princess," Sara began, looking sternly into Emma's eyes. "Shaun is not some guy that you settle for. He's the kind of guy that you long for, and when you have him, you treasure and cherish every moment of it."

Emma laughed somewhat nervously. "I didn't realize you felt so strongly about one of your video store patrons."

"He's not just a patron, he's a friend. I would never admit it and if he asked me I would vehemently deny it, but I do care about Shaun. Very deeply. So if you break his heart, I break your face. Is that understood?"

Emma hesitantly nodded.

"Good. I'm really glad we had this chat," Sara smiled and patted her on the arm. Then picking up her drink, she walked away.