As Jessica laid in bed, thinking about how Ivan had kissed her that one day in the library, she began to drift off to sleep. She couldn't help but wonder how things would have gone had they not stopped where they did. That was the last thing she thought of before passing out.

Ivan and Jessica were sitting in the library.

"... Maybe this is a start," she said, approaching him slowly. He gave her a confused look.

She positioned herself in front of his legs while he was sitting in one of the velvet armchairs. She lowered her lips to his gently and cupped his cheeks with her hands, then made her way into his lap.

Ivan put his hands on her thighs to hold her in place, and ran his tongue along her bottom lip, asking for her consent, which she readily gave. He moved his hands up to her hips, dragging her dress up along the way. He delicately ran his fingers along the scalloped seams of her lacy red underwear before cupping her rear and squishing her into him.

Jessica moved her hands to the back of his neck and pulled his face closer, their kiss beginning to get more heated. She began to unbutton his shirt; after all but tearing it off him, she ran her hands over his shoulders and settled them on his collarbone.

"Jess... You know we shouldn't do this. We're not married, much less dating," he reasoned, but she could tell he was struggling to restrain himself.

"Well, I won't tell if you won't tell."

"I'll never leave you, Jess. I'll always be here for you."

"Ivan... I love-"

Then... she woke up. She was covered in a light sheen of sweat with an ache between her legs.

She huffed in annoyance, knowing that no dream could possibly compare to actually having him.

She slipped on a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, calmly walking to the kitchen where she found Ivan with a pot of coffee in his hand and two mugs sitting on the table. He gave her a beaming smile.

"Good morning, Jess. How did you sleep?"

She didn't quite know how to answer that...

'Well I was woken up during an dream we were getting ready to f*ck each other silly, but other than that it was good,' she thought to herself sarcastically.

"I slept great," she said with a tight-lipped smile, trying to not show the redness coming to her face.

If only she knew...

Ivan had been up for a couple hours, debating on whether or not he should wake Jessica up. He figured that at least checking in on her would be in order.

He tiptoed to her door and lightly knocked. No answer; he lightly pushed the door open to see she was asleep, but she looked slightly flustered and damp with sweat. He approached her bedside, very concerned. He suddenly heard her lightly moan, her hand grasping the back of her pillow. He was starting to think he should leave, when he heard her say words he never though he'd her say...

"Oh, Ivan!," she groaned in a breathy voice.

Ivan felt his eyes grow to the size of saucers. He couldn't believe what he had just heard... How could he act like he didn't know what she was dreaming about once she woke? He quickly and silently shuffled out of her room and made his way back to the kitchen, deciding he needed to keep himself busy.

'Well... That's going to stay with me for a while...,' he thought to himself.

He suddenly heard footsteps coming down the hall, and tried to calm himself.

"Good morning, Jess. How did you sleep?"

She stared at him for a moment, looking pensive.

"I slept great," was her simple answer.

The smile she gave with that statement though was enough to make him inwardly smirk. And when he distinctly saw her cheeks begin to turn the color of tomatoes, he gave a smile; a knowing smile.

"That's good. Very authentic. No bird will come back now," Ivan said to Adam, who was setting up a cross in the garden infront of the apple tree.

"Reverend Fjeldsted?," an unfamiliar woman called.

She was about thirty with long blonde hair, and had a distraught look on her face.

"Yes? Call me Ivan."

"I'm Sarah Svendsen,"

"Hi. This is my assistant, Adam."

'Excuse me... ASSISTANT? What is he thinking?!,' Jessica thought, offended that Ivan would give Adam a title when he couldn't care less about actually assisting him.

"I'm not from around here. I wanted to come to the service but I couldn't."

"Don't apologise. You only cheat yourself."

She began to cry.

"What's this? You're in a bad way. Let's go inside and talk," Ivan said consolingly, putting his arm around her shoulders.

Adam gave them an apathetic look. He watched as Jessica followed them into the rectory, thinking that he didn't like the fact she was unceremoniously whisked away from his by the priest. He began concocting a plot as they made their way up to his office. When he reached the room Ivan asked him to get milk and tea for everyone. He same back with an annoyed look.

"I met this guy-," Sarah began, when she was interrupted by Adam speaking to Ivan.

"The milk has gone bad."

"Fine."

"I was thinking about her," Adam said, nodding to Sarah.

"Me too."

"No, you didn't.

"Are you saying I didn't? Are you?," Ivan asked defensively. "Let's take that discussion right now. This may be the right time and place. John says: "He came to Canaan after having turned water into wine. A boy was sick. Jesus said:"Do to others as you want them to do to you." Don't call me inconsiderate," Ivan retorted.

"It's okay. I don't drink milk," Sarah said, trying to diffuse the argument.

"Maybe we have some cookies. Adam, could you go see if there's a few cookies for us?"

If looks could kill, Ivan would've been dead on the spot.

"Maybe I shouldn't have come," Sarah said wearily.

"So you met a guy?"

"I have been in Indonesia working for the World Wide Fund for Nature. I made love to a man and got pregnant. I used to drink a lot before. Now I'm in AA and I've been sober for three hundred and forty-one days. Now they're saying that the baby may be handicapped. I don't know where the dad is...," she explained.

'Uh-oh... That might be a sensitive topic for him,' Jessica thought.

Sarah then burst into hysterics, and Ivan obviously wasn't sure how to approach the subject. He had a tense, stony look on his face.

Adam brought in two plates of cookies, and set them in front of Ivan.

"Just a second, Sarah. Why do I get three cookies and Sarah only two? Don't you find that odd?"

'Leave it to Ivan to switch to a completely unrelated topic when the subject matter is extremely delicate...,' Jessica mused to herself.

"There were five left. Hers looked bigger."

"I don't think so. Have you measured the cookies?

"No one does that."

"Let's stop this discussion. You would like to get rid of it?," Ivan bluntly asked Sarah.

"Yes... No!"

"There's a sixty percent chance that the baby is handicapped. I have to decide within a week before it's too late. I can't handle a handicapped child. Sixty percent is a lot, right?"

"It's just statistics. Let me tell you something. When we were expecting our son-"

"SHE'S your wife?," Sarah asked, looking to Jessica.

Jessica looked down at the floor while Ivan tried to hide his amusement at the question.

"No, she's not. Anyway, we were told that he could be disabled. We could have been intimidated by statistics and reason..."

'Oh no...,' Jessica thought.

"But we chose to look on the bright side, and now... When I see him run around in the garden or doing his homework, we're happy that we chose to have him. You won't find anyone to say otherwise."

'Ivan, now isn't the time to revert to your dreamland... This woman is in distress, and you're feeding her lies,' Jessica thought, irked that Ivan would really push that perspective with their discussion.

"The Devil is testing us all the time. We have to make the right choices. If we all listened to reason... the world would be a gloomy place to live. You need to follow you heart and have the baby."

Sarah gave him a confident smile, and Ivan returned it. Jessica, however, was less than impressed.