Update day! I almost couldn't wait until Friday this week. I spent quite a few late nights/early mornings trying to get this part right, so I'm really excited to hear what you guys think. One question: would you guys like to see more chapters this length or is what I've been doing up until now good? The only problems I'd run into is that it takes we a week to write and edit something thins length and I try to stay at least one chapter ahead of you guys. So which is it? As always, thanks to my reviewers. And SexyMuppet, you rock!


Rachel managed to lead Thirteen to her car without any more protests. With the exception of Thirteen's directions, they made the short drive to her apartment in silence. When they arrived, Thirteen showed Rachel in, quickly giving her a tour. "Here's the living room, and my office," she said, pointing the way. "Kitchen, my room, and the bathroom."

"It's beautiful," Rachel remarked as she looked over the many windows and skylights that covered the walls. "It's like a greenhouse with brick."

"Thanks. I'm going to order some food, if you want to stay. It's the least I can do for dragging you away from your boyfriend and your favorite sport."

"Sure, whatever you like," Rachel said absentmindedly. While Thirteen phoned for takeout, Rachel gazed out one of the large windows. She didn't notice when Thirteen ended the call and sidled up next to her.

"Something on your mind?" Thirteen asked, causing Rachel to jump.

"Just thinking. If I did anything to upset Foreman, I'm sorry."

"What did he say to you?"

Rachel hesitated, "He was concerned. He said you were shutting him out, that you didn't seem happy, and he wanted to know if you had talked to me about it."

"And what did you say?"

"I told him you seemed frustrated, but that anything you might have told me was in confidence." Rachel watched as Thirteen nodded to herself with a sudden look of understanding. "What?"

"He's upset that I confide in you over him."

"Sorry," Rachel apologized again.

"It's not your fault. Although, it must be interrogation day because Alex asked me about you."

"Why would he–"

"He wanted to know how to get closer to you," Thirteen told her. She tried in vain to hold in what came next, "Why are you with him? He looks like a librarian."

"A librarian that listens to The Smiths and works out five times a week."

"He's meek, boring."

"That's why I picked him. He's smart, he's sweet, but there's very little chance of me falling for him."

Thirteen shook her head, trying to understand Rachel's logic. "So you don't care about him at all? It doesn't bother you that you'll eventually hurt him?"

"I care about him, but I've been very clear that it isn't serious. How does that lead to me hurting him?"

"You're acting just like Foreman," Thirteen spat sharply. "You're shutting Alex out. I thought you were only a bad girlfriend when you were in love."

"Do not take your anger with Foreman out on me," Rachel shot back. "The situations between you and Foreman and me and Alex are completely different. Besides the way I hear it, you're shutting him out."

"The way you hear it? You know why I confide in you instead of him. I can't talk to him."

"And I'm not going to talk to Alex. I've known him a month, I have no real connection with him."

Thirteen took a deep breath and tried to stop sniping at Rachel. "I know what it's like to be in a relationship with someone who refuses to let themselves get close to you. Don't do that to him. He's a nice guy."

Rachel quirked an eyebrow at Thirteen, "You just called him a librarian."

"He's still nice. He just wants to know you."

"I don't want him to know me. It's inevitable that I'll break up with him."

"Then you should do it soon," Thirteen added. "Before he gets his hopes up."

Rachel turned back to the window, "Why do you care?"

Thirteen dropped her gaze to the windowsill, picking at the wood as she struggled to voice her thoughts, "I care about you. I don't get why you'd want to be with someone you know you can't really care for."

Rachel shrugged, "I'm getting better at avoiding love altogether."

"What's the point of that? Why would you deprive yourself of loving someone, of having them love you?"

"If you don't let things get too deep, hurt feelings are kept to a minimum. I don't know how to be in love. I can feel it, but the more I try to let myself be with someone, the more I push them away. Whenever I open up to another person, my insecurities and fears trample all over them."

"You've opened up to me," Thirteen said. She placed her hand over Rachel's on the windowsill and inched closer to her. "I'm still standing."

"We're friends. It's not the same."

Rachel laced her fingers between Thirteen's and moved closer, intent on her parted lips. Thirteen responded in kind, leaning in until the ring of the doorbell jolted them apart. She snatched her hand away from Rachel's and moved to the door.

While Thirteen answered the door, Rachel leaned her head against the cool, textured glass, hoping the sensation would clear her mind. She vaguely listened to the sounds of rustling bags and clinking plates coming from the kitchen.

"Are you hungry?" Thirteen asked cautiously.

Rachel felt her stomach growl forcefully as the aroma of food reached her, but it quickly wavered at the timbre of Thirteen's voice. She pulled herself from the window to find Thirteen gazing at her hopefully. Chewing on her lip as she walked, Rachel joined Thirteen at the table, perching herself on one of the tall chairs.

"I hope you like Chinese," Thirteen said.

"I do."

Thirteen scooped helpings of noodles and vegetables onto two plates and handed one to Rachel. The two of them began to eat quietly, occupying themselves with their dinner. Rachel barely looked up from her plate until Thirteen caught her eye. She was struggling with her chopsticks, only managing to grab a single piece of food at a time. As Rachel stifled a laugh, Thirteen glared at her.

"What?"

"You can't use chopsticks. It's cute."

"I can use them," Thirteen insisted. "Just not very well."

"I'll bet that just kills you," Rachel teased. She leaned over and grabbed Thirteen's hand, positioning the chopsticks properly. "Hold the top one like this, and keep the bottom one still with your middle and ring fingers."

Thirteen tested out the new method, successfully grabbing a mess of noodles and shoving them into her mouth. Rachel choked on a laugh as she wiped away a smudge of sauce from Thirteen's chin.

"Thanks," Thirteen mumbled. "I don't take you for a takeout queen. How'd you get so good with these?"

"I spent a few months in Asia last summer. China, India, Burma, and Thailand. It was pretty hard to get a fork in most places."

"That sounds amazing," Thirteen marveled.

"It was. It was the most amazing trip of my life."

"That's what I need," Thirteen sighed. "Time far, far away from here."

Rachel smiled, "If you could go anywhere, where would you go?"

"Asia sounds good."

"Copycat."

"I'm serious," Thirteen laughed. "Just Thailand, though. I've always wanted to go there."

"You should go," Rachel said earnestly. "I could make a mile-long list of places for you to check out, and not a single tourist trap."

"I'm sure that will happen real soon. Once I deal with my overbearing boyfriend, and my all-consuming job."

"Screw all that. You get plenty of vacation time, when you're ready to go, just go."

"I guess I should do things like that while I'm still able," Thirteen said, her voice trailing off.

Rachel gently grabbed hold of Thirteen's hand, "Self-pity doesn't become you. You're strong, you're healthy–"

"But the amount of time I'll actually stay that way is limited."

"If you let yourself focus on how much time you may lose, you're wasting the time you still have," Rachel said softly. "Besides, I'm your doctor. I make sure my patients have years to experience all the amazing, crazy things they dream about."

Rachel smiled and Thirteen's cheeks began to burn. She tried to cover her mouth as it pulled into a smirk of its own.

"Stop smiling at me like that!" Thirteen cried.

"You keep saying that. I can't smile at you any other way, this is how I smile," Rachel insisted.

"Your smile makes me smile. Stop it."

"God, that must be hard for you," Rachel let her smile broaden as she toyed with Thirteen. "Expressing yourself in some way other than a scowl or a sarcastic comment."

"Stop grinning at me or I won't tell you anything else," Thirteen challenged. She watched while Rachel let her smile fade and waved her hand, giving Thirteen the go-ahead. "What would you like to know?"

"What's your dad like?"

"He's great, we get along really well. I only get to see him every so often, but we talk a lot."

"Uh-uh, you can't do that," Rachel chastised.

"What?"

"You can't summarize. How the hell am I supposed to get to know you if you summarize?"

"You did the same thing when you told me about your brother."

"You didn't ask anything more," Rachel pointed out. "Now spill."

Thirteen rolled her eyes, "What do you want me to say? I'm daddy's little girl. He still acts like I'm in college or something. He calls to check up on me, sends me care packages when I'm sick."

"Is that a bad thing?"

"No," Thirteen said, shaking her head quickly. "I keep thinking that I should find it annoying, but it's just nice. Last time I went home, he and my stepmother actually did my laundry before I left."

"That's sweet."

"We got pretty close after my mom died. I think he was trying to make up for time we couldn't spend together while he was caring for her. Anything I wanted to do, we did. As long as I wasn't too busy being a bratty teenager."

"Are we talking normal obnoxious teen stuff or something more?"

"I didn't specialize. If there was teen drama to be found, I found it," Thirteen laughed. "My dad was on top of it, though. He saw a therapist with me when my mom died, he grounded me when I snuck out, and he made sure to spend a lot of time with me when he remarried."

"You weren't happy your dad found someone else?" Rachel asked.

"Not at first. I saw them together once, when my mom was still alive," Thirteen began. "I hated him for being unfaithful to her. It took me a while, but eventually I understood it. They met at the worst time, but she was there when my dad needed her."

Rachel nodded while she thought of another question to ask. She had to make it a good one; Thirteen could decide to stop being so talkative at any moment. "What did your dad say when you told him you were bisexual?"

"I didn't," Thirteen said simply.

"Really? Why?" Rachel asked, leaning forward with keen interest.

"My dad's been through a lot with me, I didn't want to add another issue to the table. It took a long time for things to be good with us and I wanted it to stay simple and easy."

"I'm guessing you didn't tell him about your Huntington's either." Thirteen shook her head. "So, what do you talk to him about?"

"Everything else. Work, hobbies, if I'm dating a guy worth mentioning I'll bring him up," Thirteen looked to Rachel furtively. "What about you? What's your coming out story?"

"I'm going to need to be a lot less sober before I can go there."

Thirteen smirked and dashed off. She quickly bounded back with a bottle of wine, two glasses, and a corkscrew. She filled a glass and slid it to Rachel, watching, half-impressed, as the glass was emptied before she had filled her own.

"I don't technically have a story," Rachel said. "I was pretty open about it, so my family knew."

"You needed wine to admit that?" Thirteen asked, pouring more wine.

"I wasn't done," Rachel said. She started on her second glass, imbibing more slowly. "It wasn't really an issue until the sauna girl."

"Was your dad accepting before then?"

"No, I wouldn't put it that way," Rachel corrected. "He acted the way he did with everything; unless it affected him, he ignored it. The sauna girl and I had been dating for a while, and he knew. He just didn't feel the need to do anything until other people knew. Then he was embarrassed."

"What was it like afterwards? Before he sent you away?"

"It was a nightmare. Someone spread the story to the newspaper and once word got out, it turned into a scandal," Rachel sighed. "Being open about your sexuality is one thing, but having your budding sex life plastered all over the society pages is another. At sixteen, no less. I was actually relieved when he sent me off to school."

"Did you and your dad ever get back on good terms? What are things like between you now?"

"There isn't anything between us now. We don't talk, and I rarely see him. The summer before med school, I tried to patch things up, but it takes two willing people to do that."

"What's that like, not having a relationship with your dad?" Thirteen asked.

"It's sad," Rachel murmured. "There's love somewhere in there, but I think I remind him of the things he hates about himself."

"What could he possibly see in you that makes him so distant?"

"Overall, he thinks I'm selfish. He thinks that refusing to choose–as he puts it–that being so candid about being bisexual is something I do to further my own interests. I suppose that reminds him of how much he put his career and his happiness above ours."

"That makes sense if you don't think about for more than a few seconds," Thirteen scoffed. "Is there anything using a less warped sort of logic?"

"It's his logic, I don't know. He mistakes me for problems with himself. He doesn't know how to let people get close, he takes his moods out on others, he's got this angry side to him that is just terrifying. So, when he'd see me being distant, or acting moody, or self-destructive, it was a reminder of everything that went wrong," Rachel paused, her voice beginning to falter. "It freaks me out."

"What do you mean?" Thirteen asked.

"We're a lot alike. But I don't want to treat people like he treated my mom or my brother and I. I don't ever want to make anyone I care about feel the way my father makes me feel. I don't want to be like him."

Thirteen leaned over and gathered Rachel into a hug. She stayed quiet for a moment, running her hand in long, soft circles against Rachel's back. "You're not like him. The more I get to know you, the more I see this bold, honest, kind person." Thirteen pulled back to face Rachel. She rested her forehead against Rachel's temple, and as she spoke, her lips grazed Rachel's cheek. "That's who you are; that's the side of you that matters."

Having Thirteen so close sent shivers down Rachel's spine. Her heart pounded in her chest, drowning out any thought other than how much she wanted to stay wrapped in Thirteen's arms. After a few moments Rachel pulled Thirteen closer. She trailed her hands along Thirteen's back, memorizing every dip and curve. She swept one hand up to Thirteen's neck while the other came to rest at her hip. Rachel turned and looked into Thirteen's teal eyes, biting her lip in trepidation. She stared back wistfully, letting her thumb ghost over Thirteen's cheek before she pulled away completely. Thirteen could only stare in astonishment as Rachel quickly removed herself from the table and leaned against another window.

"That's it?" Thirteen gasped.

"Extolling my virtues is not going to change how I feel. It doesn't matter which side you see, it's not the only side there is."

"It does matter!" Thirteen insisted. "You spend your time trying to avoid hurting people. That's just as much who you are as anything else. You can't spend your life avoiding feeling–"

"Yes, I can. Until I can be sure I won't suck anyone else into my miserable bullshit, I have no business in a relationship," Rachel said desperately.

"But you can't be sure. No one can ever be sure that they won't hurt someone. All you can do is find someone you're willing to try to spare from pain."

"Oh, I can try?" Rachel sneered. "No one ever gets hurt when you try."

"Why is it all on you?" Thirteen asked. "A relationship takes two people. You work to keep each other safe." Thirteen closed the gap between them and grabbed Rachel's hand, clasping it tightly.

"I don't know how to do that. You should be with Foreman," Rachel said quietly. She sounded as if she was trying to convince herself more than anyone else.

"Foreman?" Thirteen sputtered. "Are you serious?"

"He loves you."

"No, he doesn't. He thinks he does, he tries to, but he doesn't."

"You care about him," Rachel said, already knowing how trivial that sounded at the moment.

Thirteen gripped Rachel's hand even tighter, "I care about you, too. And it's a lot different than what I feel for Foreman."

Rachel wrenched her hand free of Thirteen's and headed for the door, "I should go."

"Wait!" Thirteen called. She ran after Rachel, catching her by the arm before she had a chance to slip out the door. "You can't just ignore what's happening between us."

"Yes, I can," Rachel insisted. "If I get involved with you, I will hurt you."

"You can't know that. This could work."

"It won't work," Rachel said. She pulled herself away from Thirteen and began inching out the door, already regretting what she was about to say. "Go back to your boyfriend, Remy."

Rachel disappeared hastily down the hall. Thirteen closed the door with a heavy slam and walked to her couch, flopping down on it heavily. She brought her knees to her chest and held her head in her hands. As the soft fabric of her garment brushed her face, Thirteen realized she was still wrapped in Rachel's hoodie. She quickly pulled it off, hoping to keep Rachel's scent from enveloping her completely. After tossing the hoodie aside, Thirteen stormed off to bed knowing Rachel's essence already clung to her skin.