So I broke down and started a playlist, after finding the perfect Iron and Wine song for this chapter. You can find it here: playlist (DOT) com (SLASH) playlist (SLASH)21434673419 , just take out the spaces and put the punctuation in instead of the words

Anyway, I know I say this, but thanks so much for reading. I know I'm crap at replying to reviews, but honestly, there aren't enough hours in the day. That's really what it comes down to. I hope you don't think they aren't appreciated, because you couldn't be further from the truth if so. They really mean a lot. Like I said before, if I someday have something written ahead on this story, I'll happily tease you, but I really just end up plugging these out in a couple of hours and posting them.

And I think when you finish this one, you'll be glad I'm writing the next chapter instead of replying ;).

Also, if you need me to rub your back, or pet your head, and tell you it'll all be okay after you're finished the chapter, drop me a note.

Eric

I'd gotten so little sleep the night before that I was out about ten minutes after we took off. I woke when the flight attendant came by with dinner and for part of some stupid comedy about some woman that didn't know her husband was a bounty hunter, while I drank some scotch, and that was it.

When I landed in Paris, it was about one in the morning, and about seven in the evening in New York. I had loved Paris when I was younger, probably because it had a tendency to be hedonistic and fun, but really, even after eight hours, I was starting to feel lonely.

The apartment that Appius' contact had rented for me was in one of the more liberal areas of the city, which, when you were talking France, was very liberal. Le Marais was home to a number of art galleries, and a huge part of the city's gay community, as well as the Chinese and Jewish population. I'd been pleased with the location from a research perspective, because it was quite diverse, and not too stuffy.

The cab dropped me off in front of an very grand home that had been converted into tiny apartments. I made my way up two flights of stairs, after picking up a key from the caretaker.

Walking into the apartment alone was a real bummer, because it was a space I knew Sookie would have adored. It was a bit stark, but very French, with toile wallpaper, with red pastoral scenes on it. The bed was very huge, very grand, with an elaborate gold headboard, and a blue bedspread. The apartment had a couch, and chair, a small kitchen table, and a very tiny area to cook in. There were two windows, one in the main part of the space, and the other in the bathroom, which was tiny, and contained a shower I figured I would barely fit into. I decided that I'd have to make a point of getting out a lot, because sitting here alone was going to be a bit depressing. When I'd brushed my teeth and washed my face, I set up my computer, pleased that the Wifi I'd demanded had been set up, and Skyped my family.

They'd been expecting me, it seemed, because Sookie answered on the first annoying Skype ring, and I instantly relaxed when I saw her and Ceci's smiling faces.

She winked at me and then pointed at the screen. "Look Ce, there's Dad."

Ceci narrowed her eyes at me. "Where are you?"

"Across the ocean Baby, in Paris. I miss you."

She smiled brightly. "Oh. Is Lily with you?"

Sookie laughed. "Lil is upstairs with your brother. Dad's a bit further away than that."

I chuckled at them. They looked so much alike sometimes it wasn't funny. "Where's Max?"

Sookie gave me a half smile. "He doesn't really feel like talking right now. Maybe tomorrow."

My heart sank a bit. "Oh."

She looked at me with knowing eyes. "He's okay, just reading a bit. Don't take it personally."

It was hard not to. "Tell him I love him, will you?"

She nodded. "Are you going to bed? It must be late there."

I shook my head. "I slept on the plane for ages. Call me back when you get them to bed, will you? Ce, are you being a good girl for Mom?"

She shook her head vigourously. "I helped Stella do laundry earlier. And I ate my peas."

"That's my girl. Are you excited to see Claudine on Wednesday?" I hoped to hell Claudine worked out. She was perfect it seemed, which kind of worried me in an odd way. I hoped I hadn't missed something, but Sookie had loved her too. If we needed someone in a pinch in case it didn't work out, Stella had promised to help out, however we needed her.

"Yes!" she squealed. "I like her, Daddy." Ceci had reacted very well to her. She didn't like everyone either, so I paid attention to that.

"I know you do, Baby. Be a good girl for Mom when it's bedtime, okay?"

She rolled her eyes at me, a small smile on her face."Yes, Dad."

"And I love you."

"Love you too." She giggled, before blowing me kisses. She usually blew kisses when she wanted up for real kisses. I desperately wished I was there to give them to her.

Sookie sighed, looking tired. "I'll call you in two hours?"

I smiled at her. "I'll be here."

I unpacked, sticking up the pictures of home I'd brought on the small fridge and the full-length mirror on the front door, and put my clothes in the one closet. The place was probably about four hundred square feet, huge by Paris standards, but tiny compared to home. I'd just undressed and crawled into bed to begin watching Mad Men, which Stella had bought pirated for me in Chinatown as a goodbye present, when my computer rang again. I smiled, as I opened the window to see Sookie sitting in our bed, wearing my old Columbia t-shirt.

"Hello again." She smiled, looking a bit sleepy. "How's the apartment?"

"It's very you, oddly enough." I slowly rotated the laptop so she could see it. "We'd never be able to shower together here though. I don't even know how I'm going to shower here."

"I'd make a stinky French joke, but I'm not that rude." She giggled. "Kids went to bed fine. Max says he'll talk to you tomorrow. He said he didn't have anything to say, so I didn't push it."

"I can't believe how much I miss you guys already." I looked down when I saw tears well up in her eyes. We had to stop doing this, or it was going to make time go even slower, if that was possible.

She wiped her eyes, and I could tell she was getting a grip on herself. She was going at doing that. "That's because you're looking ahead on four months, Eric. Let's just stop doing that until November, okay? We'll just go one day at a time here."

She was right. I knew she was. "Okay. We'll do that. Tell me about your day then."

She started giggling, and it took her ages to get ahold of herself. "So, I was pretty upset when we left you at the airport, so Pam decided that we should get drunk off mimosas at ten in the morning and go scope out vibrators."

I chuckled at her. "You have a vibrator." I'd bought it for her when she'd gone on her first conference after Ceci was born, after spending far too much time scouring the internet and reading reviews. It was kind of a joke, but we'd played with it a bit together, but it wasn't on regular rotation or anything. We kind of just liked having sex with each other it seemed.

When we were in the same city, anyway.

She shrugged. "Apparently, I should have more than one, according to Pam. She said they have different purposes. There's really a lot of them out there. When you get back, we're going to the Pleasure Chest. You'd lose it."

"How so?"

She shook her head. "Imagine if you will, a classy world of sex toys. There's everything. It's the store that was on Sex and The City, you know, when Charlotte bought the rabbit. How did we never go there?"

I shrugged. "No idea. But we'll go when I'm back. Let me see what you got."

She blushed deliciously. "I have to say, I'm a bit weirded out by the fact that your sister knows how large you are."

My lips curled up, imagining that conversation. "We lived together for years on and off. You know how much I'm naked. We ran into each other now and then. I know she's about a b-cup too."

"But hard, Eric?"

I groaned, thinking back on how my sister knew that. "Pam has boundary issues, like the rest of us do too. You know that. It was only once, and I think it freaked the hell out of her. We both started locking doors after that." When we were fucking, anyway. When I thought back on it, I couldn't even remember who'd been blowing me, but I'd never forget the look on Pam's face when she'd stumbled into my bedroom in California by mistake with that awfully androgynous young man, and caught me mid orgasm.

Awkward didn't even begin to cover it.

"I don't want to know. Just a minute though, I'll get it." She sat the laptop down on the bed, in just the right position for me to get a glimpse of a pair of cotton panties under my t-shirt, and Lily tucked in under the blanket like she did when it was just one of us in the bed, her little cute head perked up from hearing my voice. She always pawed at the blankets until you let her under. This Skype stuff wasn't so bad.

Then again, it was only night one.

And my son had refused to talk to me. We'd had a lot of conversations, Max and I about me going, and I knew he was going to take it hard. He really thought it was something he'd done, something he could fix, something he could say to make me stay. He kept making promises, like that he'd make his bed every day, and walk Lily all by himself, and do the dishes. Every promise was more heartbreaking than the last. He and I would have to do something really great when I got back. Maybe I'd teach him to skate, or we'd go ice fishing upstate for a weekend. Alcide had him really into fishing lately.

Sookie popped back into the frame a minute later, holding something that looked more like a sculpture than a sex toy. "It's kind of a weird shape, but the lady assured me that it was amazing. I figured I could hide it somewhere I could reach, since I need a step stool to get the other one."

We'd hidden it well, partly because it was very phallic, and because Stella was a huge snoop. Not that it mattered if she found it, but Sookie didn't want to have that conversation with the two of us. I'd have it, Stella would have it, but Sookie wanted no part in it. I cocked my head to look at it. "I can see how that would work."

She nodded, turning it over in her hands. "It came with elaborate instructions."

"You'll have to show me sometime."

She nodded, a huge smile on her face as she set it on the nightstand. "There may be a Fleshlight on it's way to you. I tried to tell Pam that that was stupid, but she wasn't having it."

"My cock won't fit in one of those. Not comfortably anyway."

She kept on smiling. "They make a larger sized one. That's what you're getting. Hence the awkward cock size conversation. Pam managed to freak the Pleasure Chest girl out. I feel like that was no small feat. Be happy you aren't getting the vampire teeth one. Pam wanted to get that one. The lady said that it was a best seller since Twilight and that vampire show on HBO."

"It's going in the garbage when it gets here, unless I can find someone to re-gift it to. I'm not sticking my cock in a rubber lined can."

She snorted. "I know that, and I told Pam to save her money, or send you some lubricant or something, but she was so engrossed with the Fleshlights. Neither of us had even heard of them before. I think they're kind of gross. I think Alcide is getting one for Christmas."

I rolled my eyes at Pam's weird shopping addiction. "Alcide has threesomes like four times a month. What the hell does he need a Fleshlight for?"

"I told her she was forbidden from buying our son one when he hits puberty. It may have been the mimosas talking at that point though."

"So it wasn't a terrible day?"

"She bought me a lovely new pair of shoes, so it wasn't a total wash. I think we're going to try and set up a bi-weekly dinner date while you're gone."

I smiled. Pam had promised me she'd check in, and report back if there was anything I needed to know. Sookie tried too hard to be strong sometimes, and had a hard time admitting defeat. She'd tell me if there were things I needed to know, but not the things she'd tell Pam I figured. "So what are you guys doing tomorrow?" I knew she'd have something planned. As easy as it was to mope, Sookie was far from that kind of mom. She'd have the kids out and their little minds so occupied that they'd crash by seven, if I knew her.

She smiled. "I was thinking the zoo at Central Park. We haven't been in a while. I might ask Bill to come. I haven't seen him in a while."

Bill. I'm sure he'd have lots to say about me leaving, not all of it negative. We'd buried the hatchet long ago and if anyone understood the hoops that academics were forced to jump through from time to time it was Bill. "With Charlie and Zoey?"

She nodded. "Yea. Selah too if she's interested, which she probably won't be. She'll probably see the chance for an afternoon off and get on it like you on that Fleshlight in a few weeks."

I smirked at her words. "Or you on that vibrator?"

She nodded, a grin on her face. "Exactly."

I watched her face as she yawned a little. "Tired?"

"Yea. Getting drunk before noon will do that to you. The bed is so big without you." She brought her eyes up to meet mine. "And not in a good way."

I looked at her, a pit in my stomach at the idea of waking up with her hair tickling my face. "This one too. This would be so much fun with you. We could walk around, eat, drink wine, look at art, fuck in the afternoon. It would be a great vacation."

She smiled, wiping her eyes. "Think of me there with you, and I'll think about you here. I know this is something people say, but it'll be over before we know it." She looked up for a minute, thinking. "Remember when Ce fell in the Hamptons and got that huge bruise on her face, and we were worried that someone was going to think we abused her? That was four months ago, and it seems like yesterday."

We'd been both hysterical and terrified over that. "That's true. You're so smart."

"I'm a mom. I'm good at convincing people of things. Eat your veggies while you're there. I don't want you coming back looking like Sam." She grinned. "As if you'd ever look like Sam. Get some sleep, and we'll talk tomorrow."

I nodded. I was absolutely ready to sleep again. "Sounds good. I love you, so much."

"I love you too. Good night Lover." She giggled, borrowing my moniker for her.

I slept like the dead, and woke up starving. Not really caring what Parisians thought of me on a Sunday afternoon, I pulled on a pair of tattered jeans and a t-shirt, unprepared for the August heat that hit me like a wall when I walked outside in search of sustenance.

I liked Paris, I did. As much as I would have liked anywhere at that point. I found a tiny cafe about five blocks from my apartment, and sat down with a coffee and a croissant and some cheese, pulled my sunglasses over my eyes and people watched for a few hours.

I'd always liked watching people, but it was different, being here, and not looking for someone to pick up, as I had when I'd spent some time here in a lost summer when I was in my twenties. I noticed people I wouldn't have then, like an elderly man helping his wife along the cobblestone streets, and two pre-teens holding hands. People came in pairs quite often, like matched set, salt and pepper shakers, hands and feet, peanut butter and jelly. Most pairs fit together in a way, even if outwardly they had nothing in common. There was always a look exchanged, similar posture, a forward motion shared. It was beautiful, in a way, the symmetry of couples. Old, new, young, experienced, it didn't much matter. The feeling one got from looking at people who experienced genuine affection for one another was the same.

And there were those couples that stood out as far from symmetrical. The man who had obviously picked up an escort, and was walking several steps behind her, the two slim boys obviously closeted but very much interested in one another, their hands brushing as they walked around, feeling out their environment. They'd be more likely to turn into a couple than the suit and the escort. The symmetry was already developing.

The singles stood out as well, looking around, glancing from face to face, looking for, trying desperately even, to make a connection with a stranger on the street, someone that would give some sort of meaning to their unfulfilled lives. Because that's what society and nature told them; that he or she was out there, and resisting it was futile.

As someone that resisted for years, I now knew that to be true. Coupling was a necessary part of life. It ensured the continuation of the species.

And when it was right, it felt so fucking right.

I thought about what she'd said, to think about her here with me, and I knew we'd be doing much the same thing I was doing now, except instead of looking at everyone around me, I'd be looking at her. We'd be one of the couples I'd been watching. I'd be memorizing her smile lines, the small freckle by her lip, the scar on her forehead, all for the millionth time. I knew her face better than the back of my hand.

The kids were an extension of both of us, their little faces a perfect blend of our features, and their personalities teetering back and forth between her and I, before they'd eventually settle somewhere in the middle. I missed them after a day, like I always did when I was away, knowing that I was missing something, even if it was mundane.

Finally, as the afternoon started to turn into evening, and people started favouring wine over coffee, I decided to head back and start planning my human sexuality course, Sorbonne style. I'd given myself three days before class stated to acclimate to the time difference and the loneliness, before I had to put on my American professor face, which was likely to be arrogant, and charismatic, all at the same time. That was usually what I went for, especially with introductory classes.

I unlocked the front door and made my way back up to my apartment, trying to think of the time difference and wondering if they'd be back from the zoo yet.

As I turned the corner, I almost bumped smack into a slim brunette leaving a note for someone.

In front of my unit.

I stood back, leaving her room to escape without awkwardness. "Sorry, I think you're too late. The person you're leaving that for is gone. I just moved in yesterday."

She whipped around, her eyes wide. "Eric?"

And with that, I was wrapped up in a vaguely familiar, bone crushing hug.

Dawn.

****Side note. Dawn is new. You don't have to hunt for her in the other stories.*****