'Hey Mai, long time no see.' If Mai picked up the nervousness in his voice, she didn't show it.

'How did you find me?' Slowly she walked over to the gate.

'A lady at the grocery store said there was another duelist in town and gave me the shock of my life when she said it was you.'

'Annie.' Mai sighed. 'You're not the only one who got a shock. If I was a cat, I think I would have lost three lives.' She managed a shaky smile, amazed she could still talk with her heart thudding in her throat.

'Good thing you're not a cat then.' Because he didn't know what to say, Joey studied the house. It was panelled with stained wooden weather boards and capped with a denim blue roof. Stone steps led up to the front door and a large butterfly wind-chime hung in one of the many windows. 'Nice place you've got. I heard you just finished renovating. You proud of it?' Joey turned her eyes back to her and as chocolate met purple, he felt his heart banging against his chest, like it always did when he was with her, or thinking about her.

'Yes, very... What are you doing here Joey?'

'I came to see you, I thought I'd better come by before Sunday.'

'Sunday? Oh, right; Annie's barbeque. She said she was going to invite you, well the duelist who was in town, I didn't know it was you-' Calm down Mai, she told herself. You're leaning towards becoming hysterical. Swallowing, she asked, calmer this time, 'but why are you here? In this particular village?'

'Serenity, mom and me came here for a holiday last summer. I liked the place so much I thought I'd come back here for a holiday before the next tournament-Germany for me. You?'

I've got a fancy one in Switzerland. But there's no other reason why you're here? It's really just 'cause you liked it so much last holiday?' She was having some trouble believing that.

'Yep. Believe me Mai, if I'd known you were here, I would have been here sooner or not at all.'

'Why?' She frowned.

Joey threw his arms up in the air. 'Because I wanted to give you the space to decide when you wanted to come back, and the space to take a look at your life by yourself. You said that's what you wanted in the letter you sent me not long after California. On the other hand, I missed you so much I might very well have broken my vow to give you all the time you needed and been on the first plane over.'

'Why? Did you miss me that much?'

Joey heard the sarcasm, he also heard what he thought might have been a longing. 'Exactly.'

Mai's hand dropped from the gate and her mouth fell ever so slightly open. Dragging her composure back she fumbled at the lock on the gate, then realised she'd locked it already. 'Umm... if you wanna come in, just let me get the key.'

'Don't worry about it. Here.' He gave her the irises. She took them carefully, trying to pull her eyes back from pleading with him. Her face had fallen when he told her not to bother with the keys. He was just going to leave her again. She'd forgotten how much he could hurt her, and a part of her wondered if she could hurt him that much. Then her face split into a grin as he jumped the gate.

Trying not to get too far ahead of herself, Mai buried her face in the irises-though she knew they didn't have much of a smell-to give them both a bit of breathing space. 'Come on in,' She smiled at him, a bit disconcerted to see they were eyelevel with eachother-he'd grown and she didn't have heels on at the moment. 'You can tell me what you've been up to and how everyone is.'