Day 3: Good Morning Sunshine

"Have you ever loved anyone that much? " Chris Lorenzo asked his partner, as he rubbed her feet, and referenced the relationship between a suspect and his girlfriend-both part of their most recent murder investigation.

"Not yet. Must be fantastic and scary," she added hastily. "You?" she prompted.

Chris smirked, "Two times a year for a few months." Rita laughed and rolled her eyes as Chris gently took her hands and kissed them. "Don't worry you'll get your chance."

"Yeah maybe," she replied, half-heartedly. "Can I get you a pizza, partner?" She asked hopefully.

"I can't. Not tonight." He looked genuinely regretful. "Melissa is keeping something warm for me." He grinned broadly.

"Yeah, I bet!" Rita replied acidly. Trying to hide her disappointment. She watched him go. She stared after him, in her silent apartment, for a long time.

Rita awoke with a start and looked across at Chris in the dim light and stillness of his hospital room. He was still there, still alive, and still fighting. She looked at her watch: 3:30 AM, day number three. During the brief moments that she slept her dreams were so vivid, and so filled with memories of her life with Chris. As she slipped back to sleep she remembered another time, when the truth of their feelings came tantalizingly close to the surface.

"Look Chris. Loving and being in love are two different things," Rita was trying to rationalize why she was targeted by Chris's enemy, serial rapist/murder 'Good Time Charlie', instead of Chris' girlfriend, Ricky. Chris didn't seem to be buying her explanation, and his pensive mood was making her uncomfortable. She was glad when Chris' girlfriend arrived to pick him up.

Rita's dream moved forward in time to a case; to an event, that forced her to confront her feelings about Chris. Her response was to run, to not accept her feelings, although, in truth, she hadn't been sure what her feelings meant until now. Dick Plasmier's command droned in her head.

"Now think about the future!"

At this Rita stiffened and her blood turned to ice. The wonderful feelings of peace and happiness vanished and were replaced by feelings of loss and loneliness. She dropped Chris' hands and looked away. She didn't want him to see the tears in her eyes.

Rita's mind knew the truth. She'd pulled away from Chris because, as she gazed into his eyes, she saw a future with him and not just as his best friend. She saw them admitting their love, marrying, having a family, basically having everything she wanted, but those wonderful possibilities were pushed aside by a constant dread. A constant theme in her life—the loss of those she loved the most. Rita flinched in her sleep at the wail of an ambulance, and her own tortured appeal to Chris.

"Don't you leave me, Christopher!" Her heart shattered. She might lose him!

'It's a choice,' Rita's unconscious mind whispered. 'Love and maybe lose, or never take the chance. Make a choice!'

A barely audible voice broke through her doubt and reached her heart. It called to her. "Rita, Rita." It was Chris!

Her eyes opened and she prayed it wasn't yet another dream. It wasn't. She saw Chris looking at her. He greeted her. "Good morning, Sunshine!"

The End