5. Brighter Than Sunshine

'You were helping her…' He heard a soft voice from behind him. He rose into a sitting position and looked at the shadowed figure in the doorway. Rubbing his eyes, just checking he hadn't fallen into dreaming, he saw the figure hadn't moved.

She moved over to sit with him on the couch. The only light in the room was the moonlight casting shadows through the window. She reached up and ran her right hand fingers through his short blonde hair as he hunched forward, his hands gripping the front of the couch.

'I…I'm sorry, Sam…' She quietly stuttered apologising.

He turned his head to the left and said nothing but took her lips against his. He turned his torso towards her and ran his right hand through her auburn hair by her jaw as he caressed her lips gently.

She moved her hand up to his shirt and seductively unfastened each button as he slowly took over her. As he eased them both back into the arm of the couch she ran her hand over his bare chest, helping him slip off his shirt. She moved herself slightly on the couch to make herself more comfortable as his mouth administered little nibbles along her jaw line, moving to her neck. She closed her eyes, craning her head back and let the tickling sensation take over her. Through muffled kisses and nips he took a sharp inhale of breath.

'Marry me…' He mumbled just audibly.

In surprise she jolted her head down, her chin colliding with his nose. The bump was enough that he sat up and felt something drip into his hand. He looked down and saw a dark liquid, highlighted by the moonlight streaming in the window. She looked up at him and realised he'd been injured.

She sat bolt upright. 'Oh Sam, I'm sorry!' She gasped realising he was bleeding. 'Oh honey, I'm sorry!'

He chuckled lightly trying to rub at his nose with the back of his left hand. 'It's fine, I'll just fix myself up.'

He stood and Romy followed him into the bathroom. She sat him down on the side of the white tub, and opened the white mirrored bathroom cabinet, retrieving antiseptic cream and cotton pads. As she dabbed at the underside of his right nostril he watched her smiling.

'You still haven't responded…'

She stopped, her wide hazel eyes looking down into his. She cleaned the blood dribbling from his bottom lip.

He smiled at her. 'You're peanut butter…' He stated softly.

She chuckled in confusion. 'I didn't concuss you, did I…?'

'You're peanut butter…' He said again. She kept cleaning his face. He reached up and took her left wrist between his fingers making her stop and look him in the eye again. He took her hand in his, intertwining their fingers. '…You're everything I could ever need, Romy. You make my half a whole, you're my future and I see everything I could ever want in those eyes of yours.' Her eyes begun to cloud with tears, and as a single drop fell from her right eye, he caught it with the pad of his left thumb. He smiled at her.

'So, do me a favour will you? Be the peanut butter to my jelly for the rest of our lives. Marry me, Romy Beth Baker…'

She smiled through her clouded eyes. 'I think you mean Romy Beth Evans…' She chuckled.

He rose up from the side of the tub and connected their lips again. 'I love you.'

She smiled into their kiss. 'I love you more.'

'Not…possible…' He replied between kisses.

She adjusted herself in her seat, trying to get comfortable between exasperated sighs. Some movie she hadn't bothered to learn the name of was playing on the TV set in-built into the head rest directly in front of her, inches from her face. She stretched out her legs, attempting to cross her ankles and lean back into the navy blue seat and get some sleep on the flight between New York and Los Angeles.

As usual, her head was swimming too full of thoughts to possibly sleep. She sighed once again loudly, and decided to plug in her headphones to the armrest so she could watch the movie that most of the other passengers seemed to be engrossed in. She adjusted her position yet again, and tried to settle down to catch up on the events of the movie.

The camera was following a woman from behind walking down an undetermined sidewalk in the middle of the day. It was then that she sat bolt upright, making some of the other passengers around her jump slightly. She'd recognise that back anywhere. She'd recognise that ass and the way the woman walked any day. A chilling sensation trickled down her back. A vice-like grip racked through her whole body as she lurched forward, grabbing the paper vomit bag from the pocket of the seat in front of her. A low churning feeling of sickness swam in the bottom of her stomach as beads of sweat began to form across her forehead and down her neck. The other passengers around her alerted a passing flight attendant.

The attendant bent down beside her. 'Excuse me miss, are you okay…?'

She couldn't respond as she clutched onto her stomach, wishing for the sickness to stop. How embarrassing would it be to vomit in front of all the passengers? They'd only been in the air around an hour. She felt a sharp pain as she felt like her ribs were contracting around her lungs. She scraped at her chest and the attendant found another paper bag and held it up to her face.

'Breath into this paper bag, it'll help you…' The attendant cooed.

She nodded in gratitude, still unable to speak as she grasped the top of the bag between her right thumb and index finger, creating a circular hole. The bag inflated and decreased as every breath expelled from her lungs. She felt a hand rubbing her back in calming motions as the searing pains in her chest and stomach began to slowly subside into dull aches.

She looked up at the screen again she saw the woman's face. She was sitting at a wooden café table, but Quinn couldn't take in the dialogue. She just watched the way her perfect peach pout mouth moved with every word and her heart leapt with every smile that emanated from that small dark face. She had long dark bangs hooding the eyes that she used to swim in. That soft voice dreamily oozed from that mouth and she wanted to rip her headphones out of her ears so she wouldn't have to listen to the torture any more, but something overpowered her to keep listening to the words. She was falling back into her addiction. She was her own personal drug all the way through college, and she felt her begin to seep through her veins once more.

She closed her eyes, and eventually those words from that perfect mouth rocked her to sleep like a baby in a crib.