Title: I Know How He Feels
Category: TV Shows » Days Of Our Lives
Author: And The Moment's Gone
Language: English, Rating: Rated: T
Chapter: 4, Words: 6,677

Warnings/Spoilers: AU after Chloe's return to Salem after faking her death.

Summary: I know how he feels, how strong his touch can be, when he believes it's real. I've been there. And I know how he feels

Official Disclaimer: All Days of Our Lives characters and plots belong to Corday and the NBC. I do not hold stock either the man or the company. Chloe Lane, Brady Black, and any other character featured are NOT mine. The title, summary, and lyrics come from the Reba McEntire song I Know How He Feels and I don't own that either.

The Long Goodbye

Soccer practice, ice cream, and a change of clothes later, Chloe parked her Durango back into Rex's driveway for the second time that week. She sighed as she reached back and unbuckled Jack's seat for him and handed Joy the brownies that they had made for Mimi. Shawn took the bottle of wine and the gallon of juice from the floorboard, which left Chloe to lift Jack from his car seat. The boy clutched her to him and yawned.

Again Mimi met them at the front door, this time to relieve Joy and Shawn of their burdens, and Chloe smiled awkwardly when Jack practically jumped into Patrick's arms. It was nothing but laughter as Rex announced that yet again, dinner had not even been started when the guests arrived.

"I'll help." Chloe started, accepting her first glass of wine from Rex and laughing at the way Joy tackled Shawn in the family room as soon as he had sat himself down next to Patrick and Jack. "Joy don't you dare hurt him." Her voice was nowhere near stern. "What do you have planned for us here Rex?"

"Meems was supposed to get started on pasta, but we got a little sidetracked." Rex actually had the decency to look ashamed.

Shawn laughed and Chloe handed him a beer. "Do you have bell peppers?" She asked after a moment, and Rex nodded. "Angel hair pasta?" Another nod. "Chicken breasts?" Mimi nodded this time, and Chloe clapped her hand together. "Okay I need an over twenty-one kitchen helper."

There was a second before Shawn wrapped his hands around Joy's stomach to lift her, and then Rex placed a firm hand on the back of the man's neck. "Patrick?" Mimi asked hopefully. "Would you care to assist Chloe? I have to talk to the men about the wedding."

Chloe rolled her eyes and had to force herself not to flee from the room at the sound of the word 'wedding'. "Sure." Patrick handed Jack off to his sister and followed the angry brunette. "What can I help you with?"

"More wine." Chloe demanded softly, knowing that she must have looked like hell. "And bans on the words 'Brady', 'Nicole' and 'wedding' as long as you're in this room with me."

Patrick nodded and poured her another glass. "Done and deal." He told her carefully, handing over the next glass as she began pulling ingredients from the cupboards. "What's on the menu?"

"Chicken pasta primavera. Think you can handle that?"

There was a sigh from behind, her and Chloe tried not to turn around. "If I respond with anything other than 'yes ma'am', will you throw me into a pool?" He asked with as little sarcasm as he could manage. Chloe threw him a look and almost snorted wine she realized he was grinning at her.

"All water sports are strictly voluntary." Chloe decided, taking another sip of her wine and willing her body to relax. There was just something about the way Patrick was looking at her. "And I don't think we'll be hosting another wrestling match until the children have passed out."

"That's a shame." Patrick took the knife from her and began cutting the peppers into slices. "I was kind of disappointed that I didn't get my turn." His lip stuck out in mock sorrow, and Chloe laughed.

"I'm only certain that if you hang around long enough, you will be able to get your ass handed to you by the Diva." As the nickname slid from her lips, Chloe froze. She shook her head and forced herself not to think of Brady. She was in Rex's kitchen, making dinner and having a perfectly reasonable adult conversation with another man. Brady shouldn't even stand a chance in her brain. "Although if a combat ready Marine couldn't get past me, I don't have too much hope that you will."

Patrick flashed another cocky smile and laughed. "I'll keep that in mind." He told her as he prepared the rest of his half of dinner. They worked quietly and diligently, not even having to ask the other to pass the ingredients. Two hours later dinner had been consumed and everyone was back in the family room drinking and just enjoying each other's company.

"I heard a rumor from PR today." Rex started out casually from where he sat next to the coffee table coloring with Joy. "Apparently someone lit into Nicole's PA."

There was a laugh as Chloe tried to hide her blush. "I wouldn't say Maria was 'lit into.'" She decided, looking over at where Rex wasn't even paying attention to her. "She received somewhat of a scare – "

"Word is someone from the typing pool had to call Brady to come break it up." At the mention of the elder Black sibling, Chloe dropped her glass onto the coffee table and shook her head.

"Can we not talk about my afternoon from Hell?" She asked bitterly, watching Patrick raise a curious eyebrow in her direction and she sighed. "Besides, we all have to sing Saturday night."

Rex laughed at the look that had crossed Chloe's face. "'All' is such a big word, Chloe." He told her as he put his crayon back in the box. Jack had fallen asleep next to him on the floor and he wasn't too sure how he was going to extract himself. "I just oversee the art department; my voice is doesn't have to do anything."

A curse came from the other side of the couch, and a slightly tipsy Chloe almost growled. "Nicole damn lucky she's out of town until Saturday morning." She grumbled.

"But you have a pretty voice." Joy sat up from her coloring book and climbed over the table to plop herself into Chloe's lap. "Can you sing to us?"

"Songs happen at bedtime, Monster." Joy frowned and when Chloe caught the guilty look spread across Mimi's face, she almost thought she was being set up.

Joy stuck her bottom lip out and batted her eyes. "Please?"

Another grumble and Chloe readjusted Joy in her arms. "Just one and then we're going home." She announced, looking over to where Shawn sat nursing his beer. "Where you will be put to bed." Joy nodded and Chloe leaned back. "Okay then…any requests?"

"First thing that comes to your mind." Shawn spat out. There were quite a few songs that he could have suggested, but none of them seemed appropriate.

There was a knock at the door, but Chloe paid it no mind as she thought to herself for a moment. She kissed Joy on the head and sighed. The room sobered rather quickly and she hummed a bar or two of chorus before actually opening her mouth.

"When I heard that familiar voice,
my heart stopped dead in its tracks.
Across the room I could see him there,
a ghost from my past.
But he's too caught up to notice me.
She must be his new love.
I never dreamed that it would hurt this much."

There was nothing that Brady wanted to be doing less than carting his sister over to Mimi's house to retrieve a borrowed curling iron. But Belle being Belle had insisted, and since Phillip was worried about his pregnant wife driving, Brady had been given the honor of taking her. He had made it out of the office, relatively unscathed after his not so argument with Chloe, and now he was faced with the thought of an empty mansion and an ancient bottle of Scotch. All he had to do to get there was drop his sister off at the brownstone after retrieving the curling iron.

They pulled onto the street and he hadn't thought twice about pulling into the driveway. Nor did he actually realize that there was something wrong when he pulled his Jeep into the space right next to a Dodge Durango that he would have recognized anywhere had his mind actually been where it should have.

Belle flounced from the car, a bag of something or another in one hand and two garment bags in the other, and she brusquely ordered her brother out of the Jeep to help her carry all of the stuff to the door. He did as he was told, for the simple fact that the sooner he got her into the house, the sooner he would be able to get her out.

The knocker banged against the door, and he heard laughter from inside as Mimi pulled the soft wood open. "Come in." The younger woman said as she pulled the door open wider. "We're just having drinks in the living room."

Brady took a step down the hall after Belle and Mimi and froze. He knew the voice wafting down to him. He knew it better than he knew his own. And the sound of it almost broke his heart.

"I know how he feels.
How warm his touch is.
Oh how he feels.
How soft his kiss is.
And it cuts right down to the bone
'Cause I let him go."

When he stepped into the room, his eyes locked onto Chloe's form. One arm secured Joy to her body while the other hovered right above Patrick's knee with a wine glass in its hand. He honestly didn't know whether to laugh or run. Belle quietly opened the garment bag to show Mimi her dress, completely ignoring their friend on the couch, and for a split second, he thought that maybe his sister had planned this.

Then Chloe leaned closer to the man to her left, and Brady watched as Patrick brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes before she turned.

There was no preparing himself for the tears in her eyes as she looked up at him. There was no way he could steel himself as he normally did at the office for the look of heartbreak that was buried so deep in her that he couldn't deny it's origin.

I know how he cares.
How strong his love can be,
when he believes it's real.
Oh I've been there.
I know how he feels.

Another bar of the chorus and Chloe stopped, the hand with the wine glass moving up to swipe at her eyes.

"I think we should get going." She told the room softly, readjusting Joy and then smiling carefully when Patrick took her from Chloe's arms. Softly, a complete reversal from how Brady had seen her that afternoon, Chloe gathered her purse and said goodnight to Rex.

His eyes followed her to the front door, where Patrick handed Joy back to her and whispered something in her ear.

Brady's fist clenched involuntary.

Belle and Mimi smiled.

"Chloe!" Shawn's voice announced his presence to the house, and Chloe silently praised him for using his house key for once. "Marco?"

"Polo!" She shouted back at him. "Bedroom!" Her eyes darted to the clock and Chloe mentally calculated how much time she had until she was due to collect Joy and Jack from school.

"Went by the office…" Shawn stuck his head through the half open door, and grinned. The Diva that could run a multibillion-dollar record label in her sleep looked to be sleeping on the job. For what was supposed to be her busiest Friday of the month, Chloe seemed too relaxed. In an old hoodie and a pair of track pants, Chloe looked like any other average stay at home mom, complete with the basket of children's laundry at the foot of the bed. "Skye told me you were sick."

Chloe just shrugged. "I was diagnosed with a rare ailment that can only be cured with massive amounts of daytime television." She informed him as she turned off the TV and laid the remote on the nightstand. "Sometimes I wish that my life was that simple."

A folder dropped onto the bed, and Chloe picked it up, scanning the top page. "'Timmy's stuck in the well' simple, or 'all of my dead relatives are being held hostage on an island' simple?" Shawn watched her try to hide a smile and his widened. "Skye said your fax machine was off, so I brought you that."

"Thank you…" Chloe set the papers on top of the basket, and firmly led the conversation into the living room. He watched her try to read and walk at the same time, and frowned when she reached her destination. "What's wrong?"

"Can I talk to you?"

She glanced at him sideways, her hair falling over her shoulder to hide the side of her face. "Which language would you like to use?" She asked simply, mocking the fact that he had asked for permission to carry on a conversation.

"Swahili." His voice was as dry as hers was.

Chloe set the basket of clothes on the couch and turned to the bar that had been installed against the far wall near the breakfast nook entrance to the kitchen. "Speak my tall dark and handsomely married friend." She ran a hand through her hair and smirked when she turned back to Shawn. The smirk dropped the second she saw his face. "Shawn?"

"Do you remember love?"

Chloe halted mid-step and almost toppled over a toy truck that hadn't made it into the bin. She watched his face carefully as if to gauge the way he was asking the question. "That has to be the most retarded thing you have ever asked me." She said after a second, almost following it up with a giggle.

"No. I mean…" He shook his head, physically trying to clear his thoughts. Of all of the people to talk to, Chloe was the easiest. "Do you remember what it was like to be in love?"

She studied him for a moment and decided against making fun of him. Of the five of them that attended high school together, she was the only one not married, and it just seemed wrong to harass the most single of her married friends. Then there was the fact that through good times and bad, Shawn was her rock. She had to at least try to be there for him. "Fondly," she smiled, momentarily forgetting the drinks and moving back to the couch concentrate on Shawn and the laundry. "Don't you know what it's like to be in love?"

Shawn tried to tell himself that she didn't mean her question to come out as sarcastic as it sounded. Chloe was just that type of person. But it dug at him. "What did it feel like for you?" He asked her curiously, now sounding more like his little brother. He perched himself on the arm of one of the large chairs in the living room and then slid onto the seat when Chloe raised an eyebrow at him.

"Me in love?" She thought of Brady, which was always a sore subject for her and then frowned. Shawn needed her help, not a story of a love lost. "I don't think my love life will help you much. I think it's different for everyone." She finally decided. Her hair fell over her shoulder as she shifted her gaze up to see her best male friend and then she turned away. "In all our lives we search for someone to love, someone who makes us complete." She looked up at her friend and gave him a sweet smile. "We choose partners and change partners. We dance to a song of heartbreak and hope, all the while wondering if somewhere, somehow there is someone searching for us.

There was an odd moment before Chloe sighed. "I'm the wrong one to ask this question. My one true experience with love has been my downfall." Chloe reminded him. "No act of murdering vengeance or criminal intent has ever done as much damage to me as love." There was a poignant pause and Chloe looked directly into his eyes. "If you give me a hint, I may be more helpful."

Shawn coughed nervously, and then scooted to the edge of the chair, blinked for a second before shifting again. "No." He almost croaked, thinking of his wife before flashing to an image of Belle Black Kiriakis. The thought left him as soon as it appeared and Shawn looked down at the dark-haired woman sitting in front of him. "Never mind," he coughed, standing up and running his hands over his jean clad legs. He stopped as if to add something else when his cell phone rang.

Chloe watched as he dug it out of his pocket and groaned when he checked the LCD screen. That could only mean that the person on the other end had to be the one he shared a bed with. He hit a button and put the small silver device to his ear. "Hello?"

She stopped paying attention after the first word. Shawn would just repeat the entire conversation to her anyway. Instead, she finished folding the laundry. Chloe got as far as to refold the blanket on the couch before Shawn told his wife he loved her and then hung up the phone. Her hair swung around her shoulder as she turned and then laughed at the look on his face.

"Jan has invited you and Joy to dinner tonight." He said after a moment, not too sure what to make of his wife's attitude on the phone. Jan and Nicole had gotten home earlier than was expected. She had been calm and almost too rational as she asked how late he was going to be out and if he had a preference between meatloaf and lasagna for dinner. When he had told her that it didn't matter one way or the other, and he just stopped by Chloe's to give her a few files, Jan immediately invited the older woman to dinner along with Joy saying simply 'it's a shame they spend so much time by themselves.'

"That was nice of her." Chloe smiled and attempted to say nothing else. She had never been close to Jan Spears-Brady. In fact in high school the younger woman enjoyed nothing more than torturing Chloe. But after she married Shawn, and she realized Chloe wasn't going anywhere and that she and Shawn shared an uncommon bond. Jan began to warm up to her, baking cookies and offering to share meals. "What are you having?" She asked as if the menu would help her decide.

"Lasagna or meatloaf…I think." Shawn saw Chloe smile and he tossed a throw pillow at her. "Unless of course you have other plans?" He raised an eyebrow in her direction and smiled slyly at the thought of Chloe actually having a date. "You did seem to make a friend Wednesday…"

Chloe thought about smacking him, but decided against it. "Actually, your brother is having the sleep over for his birthday and Joy has been talking about nothing else for a week." If Shawn hadn't known better he would have thought Chloe was complaining. "I'm going in to the office to get some work done." She noticed him about to protest, she held up her hand. "My plan was to order some take-out from the Pub and sit on the floor of my plush corner office, listening to music at the loudest the stereo can get while I'm going over the marketing strategy that John needs revised before Monday."

"Well, who can compete with that?" Shawn smirked so glad that she dropped the previous conversation completely. "Jan's going to be so heartbroken that you're not coming over."

She pretended for a moment to look as if it were true, as if her absence from his house would matter. Then she giggled and picked up the file folder that he had brought over for her. "I think she'll forgive me just this once." Her blue eyes continued to read the page she had started as she entered the room. She would have frowned if Shawn hadn't been in the room with her. The folder contained each Basic Black executive's assessment of how the money for the next fiscal year should be spent, and she almost winced at the amount of money that Nicole has budgeted for the Black Label.

Off of the look on her face, Shawn leaned closer to her, trying to catch a glimpse of the file. "Bad news?"

"It's next year's budget." She replied keeping one eye trained on the piece of paper as she glanced sideways to her friend. "It seems there's going to be war in the boardroom when we review everything on the third." She pointed to the Black Label's budgetary allowance that came from Brady's memo.

"And Nicole starts out with napalm." He joked when his finger ran over the line from the soon-to-be Mrs. Black's.

She could almost hear Nicole and Brady now. "It didn't fly with Brady," she said almost as if she was talking to herself. "It won't fly with John." Chloe handed Shawn the folder and sat herself on the couch, almost wishing that she had fixed that drink.

"You sound sure." Shawn plopped down next to her and then straightened his belt. "Is there something you're not telling me?" He cocked an eyebrow as if she was about to reveal a dark and juicy secret.

She hit him with a pillow.

At ten thirty at night, Chloe found herself just where she said she would be, seated in the middle of her plush corner office, with a plastic take-out container from Alice's on one side and advertising information on the other. Her stereo blasted the sounds of an old mixed CD that she couldn't remember making, and she hummed along as she took another bite and thumbed through paperwork for the profile she had been missing.

"Skye said you were here."

Her head popped up at the sound of his voice, and she bit the inside of her lip when she realized that he had obviously been standing there for a while. "Really?" Chloe asked after a second, the surprise in her voice barely evident, masked carefully behind annoyance.

"Kate didn't want you to forget the fundraiser tomorrow night." He took three steps into the room, his eyes trained cautiously on her. "The location's been changed to the Penthouse Grille." He concentrated on smoothing his shirt and tried not to smile at the position she had arranged herself in. Chloe was curled on the floor, with her legs tucked underneath her in a pair of faded blue jeans with a hole in the right knee that definitely was not office casual and a plum lace baby-doll tank top that he would have sworn once belonged to his sister. She had a fork in one hand and a memo in the other, and he couldn't help flashing back to study sessions at the Penthouse that he had interrupted years ago.

"You couldn't have called?" Her voice was actually colder than she intended it to be. It was truly impassive compared to how she really felt about Brady standing in the middle of her office.

"You're cell is off."

Chloe set the fork back into the plastic container, and leveled her eyes on at him. "Pretty sure that was why voicemail was invented." She informed him as lightly as she dared. "And last time I checked there is a working phone right here in my office." Sunday's incident was still so fresh in her mind. She and Brady weren't supposed to be getting along. They hadn't in quite a while. "There was really no need for you to step foot from your inherited mansion."

He wished he had a smart-ass comment to counter hers. He wished he could find a way to cut her to the quick like she had done to him so many times. "I had some paperwork that I needed to review anyway." Brady told her lamely, trying to find a way to stop looking at her like they were teenagers again. They worked together. Six days a week, almost fifty-two weeks a year they were on call. Together. But as Chloe had pointed out time and time again, that was where whatever relationship they had ended. "And don't you have a multimillion dollar home of your very own?"

"Joy's at Zack's sleepover." She told him after a moment, wondering briefly why he had been standing in front of her with his eyes closed. "The house is too quiet." She told him honestly. "I had things I needed to get done." She tried to dismiss him, to ask why he had felt compelled to see her on a night like tonight, with Halloween just a few minutes away.

Brady sidestepped her unspoken question and frowned down at the paper in her hand. "Gotten your costume yet?" He asked after a moment.

"Get out of my office."

It wasn't the first time he had heard her mutter those words, or at least a similar phrase. Brady had to admit, the way she had said them buried a knife in his heart. "Chloe –"

"Just go." The significance of the path this conversation had taken wasn't lost on either of them. "Please?"

He glanced at his watch, a sad smile setting itself on his fine features. "Happy Halloween." He whispered gently, watching as she closed her eyes to the pain and memories.

When she reopened them, he was gone.

"Happy Halloween."

The car finally pulled into the driveway shortly after two, and Chloe pulled her briefcase out of the backseat before hitting the auto lock on the key panel. She entered through the front door, without thinking as to why, and for a second, she had the largest sense of déjà vu. The briefcase in her left hand was transformed into shopping bags, and she skipped into the living room without much reason.

She stopped a foot from the couch and set the briefcase down. Staring at it for a moment, Chloe shook head to will away the memory that Brady's visit to her office had provoked. She looked around the room glancing first at the side table and then the mantle. Pictures of her old life had been replaced with the new. Instead of the family portrait with Joy and Brady, Shawn and her sister now stared at her. And the framed novelty photo taken of Joy with she and Shawn from their trip to Disney had substituted the Aquarium frame of Brady, Joy and Belle from five years ago.

Chloe noted every change, remembering with vivid detail how she and Shawn had boxed all of the old up and hauled it away. She was still certain that it was in an attic somewhere, but she didn't know for sure.

As if by magic, Chloe's eyes darted to the one piece of history that she hadn't allowed Shawn to cart away. It was a candle, a reminder of one single night. It sat on the edge of the mantle, on the other side of a family portrait taken right after Joy was born, and Chloe's eyes watered just looking at it.

The front door opened with a protested squeal, and she could hear light footsteps echo throughout the rest of the house. "Chloe?" Brady's voice was uncharacteristically whimsical. For a moment Chloe could actually sense that there was something wrong. "Are you home?" The footfalls grew louder, until the bedroom door slid open. "Oh…"

The room was bathed in soft candlelight, with everything from pillars to tea lights covering almost every spare surface. The sheets on the bed had been turned down; pillow's fluffed neatly. And there, amid scattered rose petals and white silk, was Chloe.

"You're late."

What once would have been described as divine beauty had been toned down in the three hours she had waited for him. Her soft chocolate hair no longer spiraled down her back, instead it was held in place with a simple butterfly clip. A sheer taupe silk robe had been pulled over the elegant cream-colored negligee that she had bought just for their night together, and her make-up was one coat of lip-gloss away from gone. The look on her face told him all he needed to know of what would have happened had he been home when he had promised.

"I know." Brady bent to taste her lips as he unbuttoned his shirt with one hand. "And I'm sorry." Another kiss and Chloe was well on her way to forgiving him. "I actually only came home to change."

Seven words stilled her faster than any cold shower ever would. "Change?"

He didn't look at her, he couldn't. "Nicole's having problems with a board proposal." He explained, trading the blue business shirt with a coffee stain for another. He didn't have time for this with Chloe tonight. He had promised Nicole he would be back to Titan by ten thirty.

"I'm sure she pays someone a whole lot of money to handle these things for her." She tightened the sash on the robe and finally stood. "Brady, this is the third time this week." Chloe neglected to mention that it was only Wednesday. She had no doubt in her mind that something would come up the next day, and the next. It was always something with Nicole. She pulled the clip from her hair and dropped it onto her nightstand. "Third week in a row." She reminded him instead.

"I'm sorry Diva." Brady kissed her chastely on the lips, and buttoned the rest of his shirt. "But Nicole needs my help."

Chloe sighed and pushed away from him, moving methodically around the room to blow out the candles. She would have to call Hope before it got to be too late. Maybe she would be able to pick Joy up early. The house didn't seem as lonely when the child was there, even if she was asleep. "Nicole wants you." She barked back, still not looking at him. It was hard to believe that he was giving up a romantic childless evening to spend the night with Nicole locked in her office at Titan. Then again… Chloe shook her head, hard and turning on the bedside lamp, she glared at him. "Brady please…" Her voice softened greatly, almost as if she were begging him for attention. "Don't I deserve one night?"

"Don't use that against me, Chloe." Brady turned from her. "That's not fair." He slid back into his shoes.

She didn't know whether to yell at him or cry. "Damn right it isn't." Chloe finally snapped. "Just like this isn't fair to me!" She threw a nice sized candle across the room without thinking, grateful that it only landed with a thud on the plush carpet. "But that just seems to be the way it is."

Brady swore. He knew Chloe well enough to know what was coming next. It was written all over her face. "You're being unreasonable." He argued, trying to deter her train of thought.

"Really?" Chloe countered. Suddenly she was just tired of it all. The late nights at Titan, an office he didn't currently work in, spending all the time with Nicole. Chloe's patience with Brady was just stretched too thin. "You need to make a choice." She told him sadly, standing tall despite her warring emotions. "Right here, right now." With the back of her hand, she wiped away the tears starting to fall from her eyes. "Meor Nicole?"

Silence screamed louder than any one word.

His mind was churning. Nicole couldn't run Titan by herself. With Victor dead, his ex wife was fighting battles on too many fronts. Brady owed it to Victor to help her keep the company afloat.

"…I'm sorry…"

The tears ran freely, unchecked down Chloe's cheeks. "Not as sorry as I am." She sniffled, a heart wrenching sound that reverberated throughout Brady's head. She coughed again, and tried in vain to fight against the pain. "Good-bye Brady."

He was at her side in an instant, almost jumping over the bed, wiping away her tears tenderly and kissing her lips. Brady was so sweet and gentle with her that it broke Chloe's heart all over again. "I love you more than my own life, you know that.

Chloe nodded, still amazed that she was able to stave off the tears for so long. She steeled herself and backed away. Strength was a matter of resolve. She wouldn't be able to hold onto her determination if he continued to touch her. And Brady had made his choice. "Get out of my house."

His eyes widened, brimmed with tears and disbelief. "Don't do this Chloe." He begged, even as he threw on his jacket. "I can be home before midnight. We can talk – "

"Go!" She finally found her voice in her throat. Their eyes met, and this time it was Chloe who looked away. "And don't come back. If you leave…" Her voice cracked at last, tears breaking through the façade to cascade down her cheeks. They stood there for an eternity, just staring at each other. "Don't come back."

At last she allowed herself to blink.

"I love you, Chloe."

He was gone before she reopened her eyes.

"Oh God," she couldn't breathe, "Oh God." Her hand groped for the nightstand, knocking the cordless phone off its base and onto the carpet with her as her knees gave out. She closed her eyes again, praying that it had been a dream. That she would get another chance.

He was gone.

Brady was gone.

And he wasn't coming back.

Her eyes no longer even attempted to hold her tears at bay, and Chloe sobbed openly. She rocked back, leaning on the phone, turning it on accidentally with her ankle. The dial tone startled her, pulling her out of her trance as she picked up the object and just stared at it. "What did I do?"

The clock on the dashboard read quarter after two in the morning, and Brady still hadn't made it home. He was parked outside the old Titan building, just staring out windshield at the high rise. Right before he was scheduled to return from his honeymoon, his office would move into the building in front of him. It was odd, but it was a change that he wasn't looking forward to. After all, his fiancée had made sure that he would get her old office. The only upside to moving out of the Basic Black building was now he and Chloe would finally be on the same floor.

Brady frowned. The words Chloe and floorwere definitely two words that he shouldn't try to associate together again. He closed his eyes to the thought of her curled on the carpet of her office, looking up at him with her cerulean eyes. They had been the eyes he had dreamed about, the eyes that had tormented him.

They were the eyes that drove him here in the first place.

Brady laughed at the irony of the situation as he sat there, staring at the high rise.

The jeep circled the block for the third time, its driver incapable of steering it anywhere else. That would have required actual thought, and Brady was all out of brainpower at the moment.

It took all he had to breathe.

His mind just told him to keep driving.

He wanted to turn back. Brady wanted to pull back into the driveway and try the night all over again. He wouldn't leave this time. He wouldn't choose Nicole and a failing business over Chloe and their home a second time. He would do it right.

But as he put the jeep into park, he realized that he had driven himself to Titan Publishing. Brady knew that this time there was no going back. Chloe had already given up too much for him. He and Chloe were over.

And he was to blame.

He would be able to move on. It was what Brady Black did after all. If he could bounce back from Chloe's 'death' why couldn't he survive leaving her? It was Chloe he was concerned about now.

Because Chloe didn't just bounce back from anything.

So, as he got into the elevator, Brady made the one decision that even five years down the road would still be the smartest thing that he had ever done. Flipping his cell phone open, Brady scrolled through his phone book. After he found the right name, he put the phone to his ear.

There were three rings before someone answered.

Three rings for him to dry his tears and clear his throat.

"Hey, it's Brady." His voice crackled harshly, and Brady swallowed. "I know its late man, but I need you to do me a favor." There was little conversation on the other end of the line and then Brady frowned. "I need you to go check on Chloe."

It only took a moment to piece it all together.

And Shawn was out the door before he hung up his cell phone.

He put the car into drive and peeled away from the building. He had a full day in the morning. Sooner or later he would have to go home.

Home.

That was another word he would have to stop associating with Chloe.

Phone calls in the night were not entirely uncommon in the Brady household. Two in the morning, the phone went off, and suddenly Shawn was wide-awake, reaching for it. As he pulled his house phone to his ear, he did a mental check of where his jeans had wound up on the floor when he had gone to sleep. He knew he would be leaving the house. He looked to his hand when the ringing didn't stop and then snatched the offending cell off of the nightstand.

There were only two kinds of phone calls Shawn Douglas Brady received in the middle of the night.

Neither of them good.

"'Ello?" He asked, working through the haze enough to stand and trip over one of his shoes.

There was a sob. It was light, but he heard the choke after it. No one answered his greeting.

"Chloe?" He asked attentively, his jeans coming up over his hips and his hand diving into the pocket to find his car keys. "Chlo, baby you have to talk to me." Jan moved lightly on the bed, and Shawn kissed her cheek as he slid into his shoes. Sadly enough, his wife understood that when he ran off in the middle of the night he was running to the arms of the executive. "At least say 'hello.'"

She couldn't breathe. She didn't want to. From her seat in the middle of the downstairs living room, Chloe would have been content if God struck her dead. "Why did I do it Shawn?" She asked carefully, her voice hitching up between words. "What did I do?"

He didn't have an answer for her. In truth he never did. Ever since that first night of finding her he still couldn't understand everything that had happened in that house before Brady had called. "Well you know, mood swings and all. I think it was just the PMS talking."

But there was no laugh on the other end.

It didn't even sound like Chloe was breathing.

He was going through the motions again. As he pulled his shirt over his head, Shawn thought of every single little thing that he could to keep Chloe talking.

The front door was slightly ajar, probably more of an oversight on Brady's part than anything else, and as Shawn trekked through the house he noticed the little affects that he would have to get Belle to help Chloe remove. Based on what Brady had told him, there was no coming back from this. A cry echoed from the right side of the house and immediately he knew he would find her where Brady had left her.

"Chloe?" He asked carefully, making sure she knew he was there long before he opened the bedroom door. It had been the first thing that his father had taught him when he decided to join the force. "It's Shawn."

His name came from behind the partially closed door, and Shawn took that as a good sign and pushed it the rest of the way open.

And stopped.

Chloe was in the center of the room, her robe wrinkled somewhere between half on and half off, and the rose petals that Shawn assumed were once scattered on the bed pooling haphazardly on the floor around her. The sheets themselves had been torn from the bed, the comforter somehow hanging half out of the bathroom. There were no pillows to speak of, and honestly at this point in time, they were the least of his problems. As Chloe looked down at her hands, Shawn knew that locating feather pillows were the last things he would do.

"Why don't you hand me that?" He suggested, nodding to the shining object in Chloe's left hand. "And you and I can get you cleaned up and eat some mocha chip."

"I didn't mean for it to happen." Chloe snapped. Her hand moved, and it took Shawn all of the strength he possessed not to try to grab it. "I didn't mean for it to happen."

He wasn't sure which part of it she was talking about. Her hand turned, and he was fairly certain that her nightgown was unsalvageable now. Her hands were covered in red. It was as if the second that he allowed himself to focus; he couldn't see anything else.

Suddenly Shawn wished he had already taken his negotiator-training course. "I know you didn't." He answered carefully, dropping to his knees in front of her. "And it's going to be okay."

Another strand of red, and Shawn was just thankful that she had yet to turn her hand over.

"Where's Joy?" He asked carefully, watching her eyes for recognition.

She just kept staring at the floor as she bit her lip.

"Where is your sister, Chloe?"

That got to her.

It took her a moment to remember past her argument with Brady. To remember something before the pain started. "Hope offered to take her, so I …"

Shawn blew a breath out of his mouth and bit his own lip. It was one less thing to worry about at the moment. Now if only he could get her to let go of the knife. "What happened Chloe?"

"I let him go." Her eyes watered, just when she thought she was all cried out. "I told him to go."

Using that as his opening, Shawn scooted closer and wrapped his arms around her. "You didn't force him to leave." He whispered carefully, removing the knife from her hands and sliding it under the bed. "You wanted him to stay with you. Brady made his choice." He hugged her and rocked her, whispering reassurances until she was at last asleep.

Cleaning her up was easy, once he realized she had passed out due to exhaustion and not his original thought. The cuts were deep but superficial, and he followed basic first aid to stop the bleeding before bringing soap, water and towels in to clean the rest of her. Once she was changed he remade the bed, tucking her in while he sorted out the rest of the room.

Again the door was open when he arrived, and Shawn cursed himself for letting her go into the office alone. Although he didn't know just what he would find, he could bet that it wouldn't be good.

"Chloe?" He asked, feeling the familiar seep into him. "It's me."

He made it into the living room and almost shouted his thanks to every available higher power.

Chloe was on the floor, candle in one hand and the cordless phone in the other. Silent tears streamed down her face unchecked, and Chloe didn't even look up. "Where's Joy?"

A laugh finally came from her lips and Chloe dropped the candle. "Still with your mother."

He didn't hesitate as he took her in his arms and lifted her to the chaise lounge. "At least I don't have clean up after you." He whispered into her ear, feeling her body stifle a giggle. "I love you Chloe." He told her simply, curling her body into his.