Heyyyyyyyyy everyone!! Wow it's been while, and I'm very excited to have a new chapter FINALLY! I've missed it sooo much, and I know you guys have too! I apologize for the wait and hopefully it won't happen like that again. No promises or anything, but it shouldn't be another five years before I update again! Thanks so much for your patience and thanks for sticking with this story. It's almost been a YEAR since I posted the first chapter and I can hardly believe it. You guys are awesome!

The sun had risen in the sky and an assortment of customers had come and gone to the little coffee shop on the corner. In stark opposition to the frazzled and hurried people surrounding her, Monica continued to sit and stare into space in complete oblivion to her surroundings. She had no idea how long she had been sitting there, only that, judging by the sun's position in the cloudless morning sky, it had at least been several hours since she had first arrived. Sam had not come looking for her yet, though she knew he wouldn't need to do much searching anyway. She had no doubts that he would be furious when he found her, which she found rather ridiculous. She was an adult, was she not?

When she gave that matter a bit of thought, however, she realized that the answer she would most likely get to that question was no. She figured that, according to everyone else involved anyway, she and Andrew had "behaved" not much differently than two teenagers rebelling against their parents. In a sense, that is exactly what they had done, whether or not they chose to admit or believe it. But believing that, at least for the moment, was completely out of the question for Monica. Perhaps in time, her mind could learn to accept the horrible hand she and Andrew had been dealt, but her heart was another story.

In the last hours that she had been sitting alone, Monica had been trying to think of a reason, of an excuse, of … something. But there was no way for them to justify their actions, and that wasn't something she had thought about until after the fact. There existed no argument to use in their favor. It seemed that everything and everyone had been working against them. And, although she hated to think it, maybe they deserved it. Maybe it was forbidden and maybe it was wrong and maybe they were breaking some long lost rule. Maybe. But just as she and Andrew had been unable to provide a valid argument, Monica had yet to hear a good reason in return. Nobody felt it necessary to explain. No one had felt the need to do anything but rip them away from each other without warning. And until someone could come up with a reason that Monica could understand and agree with, which wasn't likely anytime in the near future, she would resist Sam's authority, and anyone else's for that matter, regardless of whatever consequences might be waiting for her.

Monica knew enough about how things worked in their world to know that she had a choice. She knew enough about humanity to understand that she had just as much free will as any other being on the earth, and if she so wished, was absolutely able to choose humanity. Of course, she had heard, one did not take that particular jump lightly; there was no coming back once the decision was made. That thought terrified Monica, and it was only on extremely rare occasions that she thought it at all. She couldn't decide, as she sat staring at the empty and fingerprinted frappuccino bottle before her, if she was more afraid of the idea itself or of the fact that she was considering it more seriously than she ever had before.

The early morning rush had slowed significantly since Jason had welcomed Monica into the store, and it was safe to say that he had gotten little work done since. He found himself spending the majority of his time staring at her in an awkward transfixation, pondering all the possible things that could have happened to her to make her look so distraught. Something, or somebody, had traumatized this girl recently, and Jason had an aching curiosity to know who had done it and why.

Jason had something of a bleeding heart when it came to women. Usually the ones he ended up with needed some form of rescuing and he wasn't afraid to admit that he rather enjoyed being the hero. It was a fact that he considered inevitable, but more often than not, he ended up falling in love with them too. He had such an overwhelming desire to fix other people's problems that he usually left his own alone. He had some rather large problems himself, the biggest of which was the patchy relationship that he had with his estranged wife Brooke.

Jason and Brooke had gotten married when she was young, just nineteen, and after only knowing each other for a few months. To them, it had seemed like fate, true love, whatever anyone wanted to call it, but to everyone else, it was just plain stupidity. Jason was the single heir to an unbelievably large fortune from his father, and regardless of what anyone said to him, he refused to believe that Brooke was just after his money. He honest-to-God thought that she was in love with him for who he was and nothing else, but as the blissful first few months steadily went downhill, Jason began to suspect otherwise. He never really believed it though, not until he caught her in their bed with his best friend. His whole world came crashing down around him in a matter of hours. Worse even was the fact that she didn't seem to mind that she had been caught. She offered no explanation when he asked her why, she only looked at him with an expression on her face that told him he shouldn't have been surprised.

And after all that, he still loved her, loved her even more in spite of it. It was his idea to just move on, to try and work through it because he loved her that much. But it was over between them according to her, whether he wanted it to be or not. She begged and begged but he refused to divorce her because it wasn't something that he believed in, no matter the circumstances. His stance on the matter caused raging, screaming fights until he could no longer bear the pain of it and left. He let her have everything, even the apartment because he knew that material things meant a lot to her, and they meant very little to him. He couldn't bear to move far though and ended up renting a place just a few blocks away, the little run down brownstone that he now called home. Eventually, he had bought the building in the hopes of fixing it up, but it was definitely still a work in progress and would continue to be that until the end of time. The condition of the place embarrassed him to no end, and he never told any of his tenants that he was the property owner. He hired a man that he knew from college to do all of that stuff for him. He just liked to keep an eye on everyone and be there in case there was an emergency.

He saw Brooke occasionally, but they never spoke for very long unless it was to argue about getting a divorce. She was "in love" with Joe, his now former best friend, wanted to marry him, and couldn't stand the fact that Jason still held on to her in that way. In infuriated her to no end and every time she saw him, she made it extremely clear that she hated him. But to Jason, divorce just wasn't an option, at least not at the moment. He just couldn't imagine divorcing Brooke, because even after everything that she had done to him, he was still in love with her in some sense, and he didn't foresee being able to let her go anytime soon. Thinking about it, even now, caused him too much pain. And so, he threw his efforts into helping other people and ignoring his own problems for the most part. Which brought him back to the present and back to Monica.

She was just his kind of girl, the one with the mysterious past that needed rescuing from some horrible situation that had ruined her spirit. Abuse, death, drugs, alcohol … even rape. He had seen and lived through it all, nothing scared him and nothing surprised him anymore. Whatever Monica's story was, he had no doubts that he could win her over and turn her life around in a dramatic way. He always did. And then once he fixed them up and got them back on their feet, it usually wasn't long until they left. He expected it now, and he guarded his heart accordingly.

Jason had occupied himself with grinding coffee beans during his trip down memory lane and there were no more beans to grind. It was time for a break, and time to exercise his rescuing talents on Monica, for she was still sitting alone, seemingly staring at nothing with the same stricken expression on her beautiful and delicate features.

"Hey Monica … do you mind if I sit here for a minute?" The movement was slight but he was almost positive that she had shaken her head no. He sat down and cleared his throat in an effort to start up a conversation, but he didn't really know what to say to her. She seemed different to him somehow, at least not like the other women he had known. There was something about her that was definitely different and he was determined to find out what it was. He had never been tongue-tied quite like this before, and that alone intrigued him significantly.

"So …" he started, racking his brain for a conversation starter to break the ice, "tell me about you … why have you graced Denver with your presence?" It was cliché, he knew, but it could work.

Monica looked up at him, slightly confused to hear someone talking to her. Was he even talking to her? There was nobody else around so the answer to that question was probably yes. She hadn't even seen him sit down. She had heard his question though, but she had no idea how she was supposed to answer a question like that. She couldn't very well tell him the truth, or at least not the whole truth. She didn't really know what to say.

"Well," she began slowly, "I'm just here for a change, I think … but it wasn't my choice," she said, looking away. Jason nodded, encouraging her to continue. He strongly believed that talking about problems was the best way to move on from something. But Monica just shook her head.

"I'm sorry but … I just don't think I can talk about this with you, with … anyone else really," she said, looking at him apologetically. Jason was about to try and convince her that talking would make it better when she suddenly went rigid in her chair.

Monica sucked in a slightly startled breath of air as she saw Sam approaching the door to the café, looking extremely upset. As defiant as she was currently feeling, she had hoped to have a bit more time to prepare what she was going to say to him. She stood up quickly, still holding on to her frappuchino bottle, and fed Jason a lame excuse as to why she had to leave so suddenly. She just preferred to meet Sam outside. She didn't want Jason to see them or hear what he would probably say to her, and she definitely didn't want to have to explain it to him later. She had him pinned down as the type of guy who would expect an explanation and wouldn't leave her alone until she spilled the story. She didn't want to put herself in that situation, and so she excused herself before it was even a possibility.

She stepped outside just as Sam was about to open the door. He didn't even look at her as he said,

"Walk with me, we have some things to discuss." His voice was crisp and strict and he never paused. "I have an assignment for you that's going to require you to put this all behind you, at least for the moment, and cooperate with--"

It was a few moments before Sam realized that she hadn't moved and still stood ten paces behind him. Monica wasn't sure where the bravery came from, but she was suddenly struck with the realization that Sam thought there was absolutely no way that she wouldn't follow his orders like a little soldier, and that he would never expect her to defy him.

"No."

She said it simply and quietly and didn't move an inch. Sam stood like a statue for a moment without turning around to face her. The seconds ticked by until he finally turned around, the expression on his face a mixture of shock and rage.

"Excuse me? What did you just say?" Sam couldn't believe his ears. Nobody had ever directly defied him before. Monica didn't miss a beat though and kept her cool, holding on to the inner strength that she suddenly had building inside of her.

"You heard me," she said coldly and in low tones, somehow holding her challenging stare without faltering. She tried not to look terrified, but that's exactly how she was feeling. She bit her lip hard to keep it from trembling, while trying to remain calm in front of him. The last thing she wanted to do in this instant was cry.

"I hope you know what you're doing," he said, his voice softer somehow. The angel standing before him was not the Monica he knew. She had always been the excited one, full of joy and had always thrown herself full tilt into her work with a charisma that he rarely saw. That angel was gone. As angry as he was, he hadn't wanted this.

"I can't make you stay and I can't make you work, you know that. But don't do this for the wrong reasons. Disobeying me and refusing to work won't get you anything but into more trouble than you're already in. It won't fix anything. Things stay the way they are. I can't make that clear enough," he said, wishing for the first time that he didn't have to say these things to her. It was just the way it had to be. "I'm assuming that you haven't spoken to the Father recently. Might I suggest doing that before making any rash decisions?"

Monica didn't even notice that he had disappeared until several minutes later. A single raindrop splashed onto her hand, pulling her out of her reverie. She stood motionless as the rain began to fall around her, the drops that fell onto her face mingling with the tears and running together, so one could not tell which was which.

More Soon!

Love, A