A/N: You people are wonderful, you know that? So, here it is, just under my self-imposed deadline. I hope you like it. I promise that the next chapter will be up in a few days. XOXO Myx

Once again, I found myself wanting to escape the company of Sara's friends. But for a slightly different reason, this time. Charlotte Whitney seemed like a very interesting, very intelligent, and very sweet woman. She was cute, with her long, brown hair, wide-set blue eyes, and prominent but flattering nose and lips. She had a master's degree in horticulture, she had won awards for her cross-breeding of orchids, and her winning smile seemed warm and sincere. She was probably a very nice person, and I'm sure we would have gotten along really well.

Except for one little thing.

I felt a vein in my neck begin pulse and threaten to pop every time she touched Sara. And she touched Sara. A lot. She hugged her, rubbed her back, stroked her arm, kissed her cheek. Periodically, she would rest her head on Sara's shoulder for no apparent reason, and I swear she did it just to piss me off.

I did realize, of course, how ridiculous I was being. This woman seemed to be very nice, she didn't know me, I had no claim to Sara whatsoever, and it was evident that she and Sara had a very close, very tactile relationship. I was being stupid; I knew this. But that didn't keep me from grinding my teeth and clenching my jaw as I watched them draw up a color scheme for the service and subsequent reception. Could you die from glaring at someone's back for too long?

It really didn't help that every time I looked at Sara, I was reminded of what had transpired between us a scant fifteen minutes ago. I needed to think. I needed air. I needed some perspective, and watching Charlotte 'Lilac is always a classic choice' Whitney cover Sara's hand with hers was not the way to get it. I needed out.

"Sar?" I stayed several paces away. Touching her, no matter how much I wanted to, wasn't going to help me right now.

Sara turned to look at me, her head cocked in question.

"I'm going to step outside and get some air, okay? I'm not really any help here, and it's such a beautiful day."

She shrugged noncommittally, which irked me a little. Her behavior seemed somewhat chilly given what had transpired between us a moment ago. She turned her back again, somewhat curtly, I thought. "That's fine."

Charlotte looked at Sara's back and shrugged. Then she rolled her eyes and smiled at me, as if to say same old Sara. The vein in my neck twitched. That wasn't remotely annoying. "There's a bit of a park about three blocks up." She shrugged again, "It's a good place to go when you need to think" She looked pointedly at me, and I wondered if she were trying to tell me something. I decided that if she was, she would have to try a little harder, because I had no clue what her super secret message was.

I did, however, like the idea of a park. "Great. Thanks." My words were brisk. I hesitated a moment. "Bye, Sara."

Sara didn't even look up. The only sign that she had heard me at all was a low, grunted, "Hmm," of acknowledgment.

Right. I clenched my jaw. Fine.

I spun on my heels and stalked out the door without looking back, not even remotely sure what I was feeling at the moment. I think the door may have slammed behind me, I wasn't paying attention. I only knew that my emotions drifted somewhere within the range of wildly ecstatic, deeply hurt, and supremely pissed off. Hands shoved in my pockets, I went in search of the park.

I found it easily enough, and claimed a bench far enough away from the children and families that were giggling and shrieking there, but still out of the shade of the trees. I lay myself out and watched the clouds pass overhead. For the second time that day, I found myself deliberating over the many puzzles that Sara had begun to present in my life. What the hell had gone on in the flower shop? Why had I done what I did? Was there life after death by confusion and humiliation? A little voice in my head whispered slyly, you've always liked puzzles. I played very loud mental music to block it out.

I decided I would approach this calmly and rationally.

I had already admitted that I liked Sara as more than a friend. She's an intelligent, attractive, well-educated, employed woman with a government pension and a sense of humor. Who wouldn't think she was a catch? I liked Sara as more than a friend. So what? Loads of people probably did. Except now it seemed I was going to have to revise that statement to 'I like Sara in much the same way one likes…oxygen.' That's quite a jump.

Because if you just have a crush on someone or if you're just sexually attracted to them, you don't get crazy jealous, do you? You don't want to walk to the ends of the Earth to protect them from the tiniest bit of pain. And you don't have the urge to run into their arms when you're scared or confused. And you really, really don't find yourself daydreaming about loving them, and holding them, having a family with them, and spending the rest of your life with them. My thoughts pulled up short. Oh, shit. I hit the back of my head against the bench. This was SO not good.

I had to be realistic about this, these feelings weren't going away anytime soon. They were strong, really strong. I had to figure out a way to control them. Because there was no chance that Sara felt the same way. Or was there? All day, and to some extent since we got to California, she had been very touchy-feely, and she had opened up to me emotionally and trusted me enough to bring me into her life. That alone didn't mean anything, but what about in Joe and Maureen's store when her hands had been all over me and she had given me those kisses? And what about the blatant flirting on the way to lunch? And during lunch? And what about what just happened at the counter in Charlotte's?

I shut my eyes as I relived those seconds. God. Her expression was the sexiest one I had ever seen. She had as good as told me to touch her. So, I did. And wow. I had never felt so charged in my entire life! And Sara had very clearly been turned on as well. But then, before I left, she had been acting so distant. Had she changed her mind and felt bad? Or had she been teasing from the start and when she opened her eyes to realize I was serious, it freaked her out? This was giving me such a headache.

My mind began to veer into the uncharted waters of the very, very hypothetical.

Let's pretend, for a moment, that she did return my feelings. So what? What could we do? I couldn't just try it on with her, could I?I had Lindsey; she had Ayla and Maggie. We had our careers. Technically, I had seniority over her. Eventually someone would get sacked or quit or kick the bucket, and I would be made supervisor- what would we do then? Our jobs were too important to either of us for one of us to switch.

Plus, you cannot date while simultaneously raising three kids and working eight hour shifts. You just can't. You can have casual sex and fun outings with people you never bring home- I'd had varying degrees of success with that, or you could function as a married couple. Those were really the only two options. When there were children involved, you either had to keep your romantic life completely separate from them or you had to integrate them into it. There was no middle ground.

No. No, no, no, no. It would not, could not work. That was clear. It should not happen. It would not happen.

I sighed as I watched a cloud pass by rather quickly. A chill started to spring up in the late afternoon air.

It wasn't that simple though, was it? It's all well and good to say it, but in the end, could I abide by my own decisions? I wasn't sure that I could. Mainly, because I didn't really want to. I wanted Sara. I really wanted her, and I was beginning to think I might need her as well. I shook my head. This wasn't helping. Still confused, I stood up and headed back.

A half a block away from the shop, I paused. Sara was standing outside, her eyes on the sky. I watched as the wind picked up a bit and began to play in and out of her hair. The temperature had dropped significantly in the last few minutes, clouds had sprung up from nowhere to cover the sky, and Sara bent her knees, drawing her shoulders in against the cold. Her expression was dark and pensive.

A car alarm went off on the street above me. I looked over my shoulder at the sudden sound, and when I looked back, Sara had seen me.

She caught my gaze and I frowned slightly at the expression on her face. I crossed my arms over my chest, unsure of myself. I had never seen that look in her eye before. It was her typical brooding, puzzled expression- the kind she got when we really needed a break in a case. But now, there was a new depth to it, a stormy mix of seriousness, nervousness, determination, and…and fear. Something about it set me on edge. When I didn't move forward again, Sara dropped her gaze to the sidewalk and started up the hill to see me.

When she was a foot away, she looked up at my face again quickly before settling her gaze on what I told myself was my arms, because otherwise it would mean that Sara was staring at my breasts. She was biting her lip and shifting her weight from side to side. She was obviously nervous, and obviously the cutest nervous person in the world. She drew in a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. When she looked up at me, her expression was determined.

"Cath," she began, "I…" she stopped, apparently reconsidering her words. Instead she sighed, placed one hand on my hip for balance, and leaned in to kiss me sweetly, swiftly on the cheek. She pulled back. "Here." She produced a single flower from somewhere and waited for me to take it.

My eyes went wide, as I held the sleek stem between my fingers. "Sara, it's stunning."

"Yeah, well…" she shrugged and looked sheepishly down at her hands. "I saw it in one of Charlotte's special cases in the back, and it reminded me of a lot of you," she said quietly.

"Sara…"

It was a calla flower, or a calla lily. I knew it from being maid of honor at my sister's wedding. But I had never seen one this color before. White, and yellow, and peach, sure; but never a color this intense. At first glance, it seemed to be just a vibrant orange. But as you watched it, the colors seemed to shift into golden and sunshine yellows, and warm pinks and corals. Even more mysterious were the rare veins of deep blues, purples and emerald greens. It was spectacular. My heart was beating in me ears from her last statement.

She interrupted me, growing nervous and cracking her knuckles. "I mean it…it reminded me of lots of other things too, you know. Like the colors the clouds turn when the sun sets over the water…" she was babbling.

"Sara…"

"Or the umm…you know, Northern Lights? –The Aurora Borealis…"

"Sara…"

"Or the inside of the beating human heart that I saw in this documentary on the-"

Smiling, I gently pushed her chin up causing her to have to a) stop talking, and b) look me in the eye. "Sara, thank you. It's perfect."

She beamed at me, "Yeah?"

I nodded. My fingertips were still under her chin; I brought them down. "But, honey, why are you giving me a flower?"

She dropped her eyes again and I sighed; we were seriously going to have to work on this eye contact thing. She fiddled with the band of her watch. "Oh, well…" her voice got quieter, "…you seemed a bit upset when you left. And I was really distracted and not very sociable and I thought it might have been my fault that you left. Plus, you said I should get you a present for all the thank you's I'm going to owe you. And I know one flower isn't going to cover that but…" her voice was hopeful as she looked at me with wide liquid eyes. Ohh. "I was sort of hoping it would cover a couple 'I'm sorry's?"

I smiled warmly at her. Why did she have to go and be so wonderful? I carefully wrapped my arms around her to avoid crushing the flower. "You don't have anything to be sorry about, sweetie." I whispered in her ear. Pulling back, I grinned, "But I'm keeping the flower. I really like it."

Sara beamed at me.

A chilly gust blew through the street and I shivered. "Are you ready to go now?" I asked, more than ready to collapse into a nice hot cup of espresso.

Sara looked at me, "What? Oh," she shook her head, "I actually need to return a phone call. Why don't you go in and stay warm? I forgot how fast the weather can change when you're on the coast. Hang out with Charlotte for a minute and then I'll come in and sign some stuff and we can take off."

"You're not coming in?" Alone time with Sara's ex wasn't exactly on my top list of things to do.

"No, there's no service in the store, and I don't want to tie up Charlotte's line for as long as I'm going to be on."

That made sense. And I was getting quite cold. Damn. Okay, former girlfriend, here I come. "You promise you won't be too long though, right? I mean, I know I promised not to attack her but…accidents have been known to happen."

She smirked, "I won't be long. Try to keep from killing her, though? As fond as I am of you, I would have totestify against you in court. Plus, I'd have to take back my flower."

I shielded the calla with my body and looked sneaky, "Nope, it's my flower now." Another gust of wind blew by. "Alright." I tried to sound long suffering. "I'll see you in a minute." Bravely, I elevated up on my toes and returned the cheek kiss. Then, not waiting to see her reaction, I spun and went down the hill.

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Charlotte's shop was actually very nice. Tastefully decorated, pretty view. Not that I noticed much of it. I mostly wandered around in a daze, my fingers periodically skimming over the smooth petals of my flower. My perfect flower. My perfect flower that Sara gave me. Not much else mattered. I stopped in front of a poster on one wall. I stood reading it for several minutes, brushing the calla back and forth over my lips.

"It's a rose chart."

I spun. Charlotte was standing not too far behind me, also looking at the poster. "I'm sorry?"

She pointed at the wall, "It's a rose chart."

I raised an eyebrow. What the hell did that mean? I wasn't one of those flower people, I couldn't just read her mind "Explain."

She shrugged. "All flowers have meanings. Most even have different meanings based on color and variety. Roses," she gestured at the poster again, "are by far one of the most popular commercially sold flowers. But people have the most annoying habit of buying the wrong rose for the wrong occasion. People are always buy red roses for first dates or dance recitals or whatever. So, I put this poster up to tell people all of the different meanings for the different colored roses. It saves time."

I stroked the stem of my flower and smiled. A part of me was thinking, flower snob! But the vast majority of my brain was still skipping off somewhere on a Caribbean island, singing my new favorite song entitled, 'Sara gave me a flower!!' I paused in my rejoicing.

"Huh. That makes sense." I looked at my perfect flower, and then asked, curious, "Did you say all flowers have meanings?" I looked up.

She smiled softly and eyed my flower. Step off, bitch, this flower is mine! You can't have it! She could tell what I was thinking, "Pretty much. Not ones that were just discovered recently, and not the ones that only grow in really remote places. But basically, yeah- almost all of them."

"Yeah?" I tried to sound casual, "So, uh…what do callas mean?"

She tilted her head and studied me for a moment. Then, she nodded. She moved towards the swinging double doors at the back of the store, and motioned for me to follow her. I went after her, thought somewhat reluctantly. This was always that part of the movie where the blonde gets locked in a freezer filled with dead bodies, or something equally morose. Not that I've never been in a freezer with dead bodies, I have- several times, in fact. Though, I'm sure the effect is altogether different when there's a good chance you won't come out alive.

But walking through to the back, I didn't see any freezers at all. Just rows upon rows of tables laid down with aluminum foil. The tables were completely covered in orchids. Some of them were in full bloom, and some were in various stages of growth. There were bright lights, humidifiers, heat lamps, little machines whose sole purpose appeared to be to spray plants with mist. Hydroponics. I'd seen it before, but never used for a legitimate and legal purpose. Charlotte popped her head around the corner and smiled at me.

"Comin'?" she asked.

I followed her down a hallway. "Uh, yeah. Your setup is pretty impressive. You could have quite the little grow operation if you wanted."

She chuckled, "Don't think it hasn't crossed my mind. I'd make a hell of lot more money then I do selling orchids. But the thought of prison always stops me." She shuddered, "I don't think I'd last very long."

I laughed in spite of myself. "Coming from a woman who spends much more than her share of time in penitentiaries; trust me, you wouldn't. But don't worry, that's a good thing. Anyone who can handle prison and come out on top- those are not people you want to spend your day with."

She nodded, "Sara has said as much. When she first became a CSI," Charlotte shook her head, "She thought nothing could be worse than dead bodies on slabs. But…"

I nodded in understanding, "It gets a whole lot worse when they have names and families, and when you realize that all your hard work ended up doing was ruining one more person's life- and that's the best case scenario. Yeah, you try not to think about it like that, but some days you just can't help yourself. Even so, I love my job, and I know Sara does too. It makes everyday a challenge. Neither of us can stand to just have it easy. I think it makes us nervous."

I went quiet. I had never thought about it like that before, but it was true. Sara and I had a lot more in common than I'd ever thought. We were both hard workers, strong thinkers; independent women. We both lived for the challenge our careers provided us. We were survivors. But more than that, we didn't know anything else. Sara craved challenge and needed it, just like I did. Huh. A spark began to burn in my mind. Did that mean that we might be able to do this? It wasn't totally impossible. Sara was the kind of woman that never gave up on anything, she was just as stubborn as me. Of course, that could be a disastrous combination, but if we did it right…if we did it right, then maybe it would work. Maybe I could get it right this time.

Charlotte agreed, "We have a saying around here; No such thing as an idle Sidle. I think our friend Ginger coined it back when she was still just Robert. Sara can't just do something for the sake of doing it. If she does something, you can be sure she's thought about from every angle she can think of, and she's thought about it twice over." She looked pointedly at the blossom in my hand. She raised her eyebrows at me. "Very little that Sara does is accidental or without purpose." She looked at me a moment longer, but I wasn't about to give anything away. She sighed and ushered me through another door, "This is what I wanted to show you."

I gasped. Three of the walls were dressed floor to ceiling in flowers. It was several degrees warmer in here, and considerably more humid. The colors were brilliant beyond belief. I could only name a few of the plants; bird of paradise, passion flower, exotic orchids, and dozens more some of which I had never even seen before. And half of the far wall was taken up with the many varieties of calla lily.

"The calla lily isn't technically a sub-tropical rainforest flower," Charlotte was saying, "But it survives perfectly well in the climate, so I keep it here. It really doesn't belong with the grasses and overly cheerful wild flowers it usually cohabitates with. It has far too much presence and majesty for that. It's a proud, independent plant- never more than one flower to a stem." I started to think that maybe Charlotte wasn't all there. At least this was a better place to die than a freezer. She stepped forward and picked out a deep purple-red calla lily and held it out to me.

As I surveyed it, she spoke, "The Black calla lily, as well as the Burgundy calla lily are associated with matrimonial ceremonies, the Queen Whites are a sign of purity, grace, and elegance, the Green Goddesses mean Remember me, and signify lasting love." She replaced her calla lily in it's vase and gestured for me to give her mine. Begrudgingly, I handed it over. She caressed its spine almost reverently, then looked at me. "All callas represent magnificent and undying beauty."

My eyes widened at that.

She went on, studying my face the whole time while she unthinkingly turned the stem of my flower in her grip. "While Sara and I were dating, I took a course on decorative horticulture. For weeks, she helped me to study the meanings of plants and flowers. If you know Sara at all, then you'll know that she rarely forgets anything. This calla lily is known as the Firelight Calla." She handed it back to me and sighed. "It means…" she hesitated, "it means your light guides me home."

I looked up at her sharply. "What?"

"For ten minutes after you left, she didn't say a word. When she finally spoke, she asked me specifically for that flower."

I was stunned. I knew what she was saying. I just couldn't take it in. I felt the world around me go oddly mute. Sara never forgot things, and Sara never did anything that wasn't deliberate, intentional, and planned. Sara had chosen this flower and, knowing its meaning, purposely presented it to me the way she had. If all of those statements could be held to be true, then the only logical conclusion was that Sara…

"Oh, my God…" I couldn't stop it from coming out.

Charlotte nodded grimly, "For Sara, what you're holding in your hand says more than an entire sea of red roses ever could."

"Oh, my God…" I was in complete shock.

"What are you going to do?"

"What?" This was potentially life-altering news and this woman wanted to what? Gossip?! Not the freaking time, woman!

She sighed. "Maybe I should explain something to you. Keep in mind that as I say this, I'm saying it as someone who loves her, but who loves her as a friend. And I mean it as a friend to you as well."

She waited for me to give some sign that I understood. I nodded.

Charlotte took a deep breath. "Sara is a treasure. I don't know what happened in Vegas, but something has hardened her…again."

The word 'again' was deliberate, and I did not miss it.

"Sara has people who love her here, people who let her be herself, express herself. More importantly, she has people that she loves; people she trusts. Before she came to us, Sara had rarely felt what it was like to love someone, even platonically or familiarly, and to have them love you in return. Her heart has been broken more than you or I could count- or live through. Before she came to us, she had been disappointed by people so many times, that she genuinely believed that disappointment was a way of life. When she came here, when Warren brought her into our circle of friends, it was a small group- six, seven people, maybe. She was shy at first, she didn't even know how to be friends.

"But she learned. It took a long time for us to gain her trust, but when we did…" Charlotte smiled, "Sara is an amazing person. She doesn't judge people or expect things from them; she doesn't hesitate to be your crying shoulder or your patient ear. Sara will support you through anything you want to do. And because of all that, people are drawn to her; fantastic people that are brilliant or hilarious or wonderfully kind, but they're wounded somehow. Maybe society has cast them out for their appearance, or their lifestyle choices, or their disabilities. Maybe it's their own nightmares, pasts, or shadows that plague them. Whatever the reason, Sara doesn't turn good people down. At any rate, there are now about thirty people in our inner circle, with an outer network of hundreds more. All because of Sara. She has a pure heart. There is very little that she won't forgive and just being in her presence makes you find goodness in yourself."

She sighed and shook her head, "But she does have a flaw. You've probably noticed it- she can't turn her pure heart in on herself. No matter how strong she acts or how wide she smiles. She is vitally aware of every mistake that she makes. She walks this Earth, headlong in the wind, one hundred percent sure that she should never have been given the chance to feel it on her face. Deep down, Sara Helena Sidle knowsthat she's just a waste of space. Not she thinks. She knows." She looked at me as if she were getting to what was so important. "This is something so ingrained in her, it has now become one of the fundamentals of who she is. It isn't something you can change, it's not something that will go away with time. And it shows itself everyday."

I felt a tight knot begin to form in my throat. Why was she talking about Sara like that? I wanted to yell at her to stop. Stop! How can you say that about my wonderful girl? I wanted to insist that I could be the one to change her. But I didn't. Truthfully, I wasn't sure at this point that I could change her.

She picked another Firelight Calla from the vase and spun in it in her fingers, her eyes on it's petals, she began again quietly, "Sara will never truly believe you love her. She will never feel completely secure in your relationship because she will never feel completely secure in herself." She met my gaze and held it, "If you choose to pursue something with Sara, you have to be ready to prove to her that you love her. Not just once, but over and over again. It will never end. Ten years from now she is still going to wake up expecting your half of the closet to be empty, she probably won't even expect you to leave a note. Not because it's something she thinks you're capable of, but because she believes it is something she deserves."

She replaced the flower. "Sara is an amazing person. She is also the only one who will never see that. She loves you. When you've been speaking 'Sara Speak' as long as I have, that much is clear. She already loves you, and I'd say she trusts you a good deal as well. But in her brain, how it works is she thinks she's not even worthy of the right to love you. It's completely fucked. She doesn't expect you to reciprocate, she probably won't even let herself think that it's a possibility. And since you've been here listening to this and since you're crying, I'm guessing that there's a very good possibility."

I wiped at my cheeks; they were damp. I hadn't even realized I was crying. Shit. I turn all blotchy and pink when I cry, not to mention my make-up was running. If Sara turned up in the next ten minutes, there was no way I could feasibly deny the waterworks.

"Look, Catherine, you seem like a really wonderful person. And I genuinely believe that there is someone out there who can love Sara the way she needs to be loved. Maybe that person is you. But maybe it's not. All I'm saying is, be really, really sure. Because if you stop this now, and nothing every comes of it, Sara will be able to bottle up the hurt and pretend it away. But if you pull out after you've lived in her heart for a while…I don't think she'll live- and I do mean that literally."

I inhaled sharply. She didn't mean…? Would Sara really do something like that?

"I have no doubt that it would break her. I've seen her crack," she smiled sadly, "I've made her crack." She looked at me as if she was weighing a decision. Finally she said, "There are so many reasons to want to be with Sara. And most of the time, being with her is like…it's like the sea she loves so much. It's like the sea on a perfect summer day. But there are other times…I'm not strong enough to ride out those storms. I wish I were." She smiled at the Calla in my hand. "Just be sure, Catherine. She's one of the best people I know- she's like that for a lot of us. She's gone back in her shell a lot since she left. It's almost as if she's lost her footing; back tracked. Because the whole time she was with us, it was like watching her climb up this mountain, getting closer and closer to the sunlight. And I swear, that just before she left, I swear she was almost, almost there." Looking at her watch, she said, "Just think about it. We'd better get back out there, Sara must be done with her call by now."

I was torn between wanting to hurt this woman and wanting to hug her. I coughed and wiped the new tears away. "Sure. Yeah, let's go." I quietly followed her out the door and back out to the store front. Sure enough, when we got back out there, Sara was pacing back and forth beneath the rose chart. She looked up when we came in. I tried to keep my head down so that she wouldn't notice the obvious signs that I had been crying. Since that could only look suspicious, I decided to feign interest in the display cases.

"Hey, where were you guys? I signed all of the papers and mentally alphabetized the first two cases of flowers and reverse-alphabetized the third while I was waiting. Oh, and Char? I ran through my own transaction, if that's okay." I had the feeling that Sara was watching me.

"Sure, whatever. I know how much you hate waiting, Miss Impatience. I was just showing Catherine the flowers downstairs and the orchids. She said the same thing you did when you first saw them."

Now I could definitely feel her eyes boring into the back of my skull, I tried and failed to keep from deflecting it with hunched shoulders.

"Huh?" Sara asked distractedly, "Oh, yeah? I'm telling you, Char, that's your ticket to early retirement. I can even buy off PD if you want." Her joke was strained.

"I'll keep that in mind. Alright, so it's three different orders and color schemes. Obviously, the arrangements for Ducky's are completely on the house. You're covering the ones for the service and the Winger's have the reception. Everything will be delivered six hours in advance. Denny and Lola and me will handle the set up and breakdown at Duck's, don't worry about that, okay?"

"Great." Pause. "Thank you so much, Charlotte. Tell anyone you see that I say hi, and if I don't see them at the…umm…" she stumbled, "at the funeral, then I will definitely see them later on at Duck's."

"Of course, I will. And don't thank me. I loved Mattie and Warren, too, you know."

"Right…umm…Catherine?"

I cringed at the returning hesitance in her voice. It was the same tone she used to use when she had bad news about a case and was nervous that I would disregard the expression and, in fact, kill the messenger.

"Yeah?" I schooled my tone.

"Why don't we get going? I put the top up on the car; it's about to rain. It looks like we won't be curling up on deck chairs, but…" she hesitated, "Larry has a very comfy couch and a wall-mounted flat screen TV. And Tim has the world's largest classic movie collection of all time. So, we could curl up under lots of blankets and watch a movie and drink tea. If you want, that is?"

I shut my eyes tight at the uncertainty and hope in her voice. I took a deep breath, and turned around. Opening my eyes, I could tell by the look in hers that she knew I had been crying. I ignored her worried frown, "Sure, honey, let's go home." I smiled at Charlotte who nodded in return, and then I brushed past Sara and out into the windy street. I had no idea how I was going to face her when it was just the two of us alone in that car.

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