--- One Month Later ---
Cindy pulled up in front of the house and watched the three women on the porch. She turned off the car and when she closed the door, the three looked up at her. "Cin.." Lindsay almost ran to the redhead. She stopped a foot short and looked her over. "Come here." She whispered, pulling her to her and wrapping her arms around her. Cindy couldn't help but return the hug and smile at Claire and Jill as they walked over. "Are you home?"
"Are you still mine?" She whispered.
"Always." Lindsay whispered. "I have to talk to you about that, by the way. But for right now.." Her voice trailed off as she noticed something different in Cindy's eyes. "What's wrong?"
"Later." She said, turning to give Claire a hug. She then faced Jill. "Friends?"
"Friends." She said, hugging her. "Although, I may have to kill you for leaving Lindsay with us. She was a nightmare."
"Only for the first two weeks!" Lindsay protested, grabbing Cindy's hand. "And I wasn't that much of a nightmare, was I?" She asked, looking at Claire.
"Well, Jill, I think we should leave these two alone so they can catch up." She said, quickly moving towards her car. Jill gave Cindy another hug and made her way to her own car. Lindsay led Cindy into the house and sat her on the couch.
"So, how was your impromptu vacation?" She asked, letting Cindy get comfortable in her arms.
"Uneventful. I managed to somehow keep my job. Still not sure on how I did that. But I went and visited a friend up in Sacramento."
"This whole time you were only two hours from me?"
"Yeah. I know I could have..well, should have called, but I really needed the time away. It gave me time to think about a lot of things. Like, I came to the realization that I am head over heels in love with you. And that you mean more to me than I originally thought. And I thought about what Jill said. I was treating you like shit. All you were doing was trying to care and I was brushing it all off. I've never had someone care for me like you do. And it's so new and scary to me."
"You didn't treat me like shit. I just didn't exactly express every emotion properly. I didn't when I was married to Tom and sure as hell didn't with you. I am not the best at relationships. But I want to get better. And I want to get better at it with you. Promise me you will never run off like that again."
"I promise I won't."
"Now tell me why you look different. There was something in your eyes that wasn't normal. It was darker." She whispered, holding Cindy close.
"When I said I had a lot to think about, it wasn't just you. It was stuff that I have done that I was hoping to keep buried deep down and never to tell, but now that seems almost impossible to do. I faced down demons I hadn't seen in years. And I had to bring up some I never wanted to see again. I can tell you this though. Arik will not be an issue anymore. I called him out there last week and I sat down with him and had a nice long talk. He agreed to back off and let me just live with you without having to worry about him. I believe him. By the way, he is getting help for his drinking. At my insistence. That was always part of the problem was his drinking."
"You're getting off topic."
"Sorry. Anyways, I did a lot of thinking. And I realized that while you said you love me, and always will, I highly doubt that after today you will. Because I am going to tell you something that will crush you. And it will in turn, crush me. But I have to tell you, because if I didn't, I wouldn't be being honest with you or myself. I can't pretend it didn't happen, and I can't change the fact that it did happen. So I have to live with it. I have to live with the mistake and the repercussions of that mistake, with or without you."
"Cindy, to be honest, you are scaring me." Lindsay sat up and looked at the redhead. She seemed smaller than normal, and her face had a look of pain. "Go on."
"Remember when we had the one fight, and I stormed out of here? Well, I went to a bar. And when I told you that I went to a friends house, that was only semi-truth. I was hammered, and I was going to leave to come back to you, and Arik showed up. The way he looked at me, it was nothing but love. I realized then that even with everything he has done to me, on some level he does love me. So we talked. And when I actually did stand up to leave, he caught me as I almost fell down. He said he was going to take me home, and I knew I should have refused, but he was holding me so carefully and it felt right. We went back to the apartment, and I just let every single wall down. We talked and talked and I told him my fears and he listened. The next thing I knew, we were kissing and it led to the bedroom." She averted her eyes from Lindsay's gaze as tears began falling down her face.
"You didn't.." Lindsay whispered.
"It just seemed so right to do. I loved him and he loved me. So we did. And I didn't think anything of it after I got the third degree about it from Claire. Well, I didn't think of it until a week ago." She stood up and moved to the other side of the room. "I was really hoping that I could just forget about it. Because it was such a big mistake. And then last week, I just felt like plain shit when I woke up, and it was that way for three days in a row. I couldn't keep food down, and it was beginning to worry me. I convinced my friend that I was just a little under the weather. I tried to convince myself of the same, but that didn't happen." Cindy looked at the tears in Lindsay's eyes. She knew the confession she had just made must have broken the Inspector's heart, and she dreaded the next thing she had to say. "Linz, I'm pregnant."