They fell asleep on the couch, heads leaning towards each other and their bodies posed at awkward angles. Charlie opened her eyes, focusing in on the cable box clock. 8:30.

Jesse snored softly beside her, twitching occasionally as he slept. The TV was still on; Jesse insisted on watching even after she suggested they go upstairs where warm, soft beds awaited. Charlie knew he was listening for his name, waiting to find out if he needed to run. Last night's breaking news had been replaced by a generic morning show. Updates on Heisenberg were relegated to the lower crawl. Charlie watched for Jesse's name but didn't see it.

She rose from the couch quickly and quietly. Jesse's head jerked slightly as her weight left the couch, but he snoozed on. Charlie crept into the kitchen, picking her cell phone up off the dining room table.

Charlie's boss was an early riser, in the office every morning by 7:30am. She dialed his number hoping he wouldn't pick up, but knowing he would. She explained away her need to stay home-there was a family emergency but she would meet today's deadlines and check her email frequently in case any emergencies popped up.

Jesse was still sleeping soundly. Charlie debated eschewing her (now late) morning run, but decided leaving Jesse alone posed little risk-even if he did get a sudden urge to take off, as he said last night, where would he go? She ran upstairs, pulled on her running gear, left a note for Jesse and headed out the door.

Being with Charlie was like being on cloud nine. It wasn't long before she managed to sneak into his room at night, somehow climbing up a trellis on the side of the house and swinging her onto his windowsill without making any noise. It had freaked Jesse out, the first time she'd done it. He turned around and was about to scream, but she held her finger to her lips, shhhhing him as her green eyes sparkled.

They fell asleep curled around each other most nights, Jesse waking her up early enough in the morning so she could sneak back to her own house undetected. He never figured out exactly how she managed to sneak into and out of two houses hundreds of times without being caught.

Soon after they started dating, Jesse managed to convince his parents to buy him his first car. He picked her up every morning for school. His friends claimed he was "whipped" but he didn't care. If it were up to him, every second would be spent in her presence. just watching whatever she did.

His borderline obsessive devotion didn't go unnoticed.

"Stop staring at me!" she said one day, pausing from her homework to throw a pillow at Jesse. Jesse was already high as a kite; his homework lay forgotten in the corner.

"I like staring at you, yo," he grinned, closing her notebook and trying to kiss her neck.

Charlie rolled her eyes in exasperation and slammed the notebook back open, "Maybe if you concentrated less on me and more on your own homework, you wouldn't be failing what? All your classes?"

"I'd rather study you….naked," Jesse said, sliding his hand up her shirt. They'd been dating six months and she barely let him past second base. Jesse considered this a "dry spell."

"You're going to have to try harder than that, Pinky," she said with a small smile as she pushed his hand away and depositing her homework back into her backpack.

"Pinky?"

"Well, I am clearly The Brain in this relationship," she said, grinning and leaning over to kiss him. "See you in a couple hours."

There was a post-it note on his forehead when Jesse's eyes finally flickered open. Even if he hadn't woken up in Charlie's house, he would have know the note was from her; she'd been leaving post it notes on his forehead since she was sixteen, convinced Jesse wouldn't notice them otherwise. He pulled the bright blue note off his forehead and read:

Be right back….

DON'T GO ANYWHERE

PS: I put the Golden Girls on TV and hid the remote. HAVE FUN! :-)

His lips flickered as if they were on the cusp of a smile that never appeared. Almost 10 years later and it felt like nothing had changed between them. The condo almost looked the same as it had when he was last here, almost six years ago at this point. Her stacks of books still stood in neat piles all over the living room. Her vinyl collection, which had grown considerably, was still crammed onto a bookshelf that sagged slightly under the weight. A framed poster from a Rancid concert Jesse reluctantly took her to in high school still hung on the wall behind the couch.

But the pictures, the pictures were different. Charlie's room, locker, condo …..they were always littered with pictures of her friends (and when they were dating of Jesse). The majority of those pictures had been replaced by ones of Charlie with a little girl who had preciously the same shade of dark brown hair and small button nose as Charlie. The two of them blowing out candles on a birthday cake, sitting on a horse as it was guided around a corral, laughing as they sat a pottery wheel, a dark clump of shapeless gray clay in front of them, the little girl smearing pottery clay on Charlie's nose. Next to the birthday cake photo, Jesse found a picture of himself with Charlie, her arm wrapped around his neck, pulling him close, with heads touching as they both grinned. He picked it up and felt the corners of his mouth twitch again, like he was going to smile.

The keys jiggled in the lock and Jesse hurriedly out the picture back down where he found it. He thought about lunging for the couch and pretending to be asleep, but Charlie was clearly making a lot of noise in order to inform him she was back.

"Hey," she said breathlessly as she kicked the door, and closed with her foot. Her hands were occupied holding a tray of iced coffee and a box of donuts. "Breakfast of champions!" She held up the donuts and smiled. Jesse recognized the box immediately: Rebel Donuts, the place they stopped at before school every morning.

"Thought you could use these today." She was still slightly out of breath as she deposited breakfast on the table and headed to the kitchen for a glass of water. Jesse watched her as she gulped it down, amused by cut up Alkaline Trio tee-shirt she'd cut up to make a running tank top.

"You run now?"

She placed the glass into the sink and splashed water on her bright red face. "I found it's easier to give up unhealthy lifestyle choices when you have something to replace them with," she replied, wiping her face with a towel. "Besides, I run like maybethree miles, and that's mostly so I can go to the donut shop."

She sat down at the table and stuck out her right leg; her knee was wrapped by a heavy duty brace. Jesse's eyes surveyed it warily as she undid the straps and removed it.

Charlie caught him staring. "It's just a precaution," she said, looking directly at him. "It almost never hurts anymore, mainly just on really cold nights."

Jesse shrugged and put his half eaten donut back down on the crinkled up donut bag. She picked up his favorites: a strawberry frosted topped with Captain Crunch cereal and a maple bacon bar. He spotted Charlies favorites, an apple green chile and a Boston cream, in the box as well.

"Jess, I'm not even mad about it anymore. Not even a little. Can you just eat your donut? I had them make the Captain Crunch just for you."

Jesse eyed the donut and crossed his arms.

"Don't make me force feed it to you," she threatened; he reluctantly picked up the donut and took a bite, forcing it down his throat to make her happy.

"Your name never came up on the news last night," she said casually between mouthfuls of donut.

"Great."

"You need new clothes. Those are hanging off of you."

"I'm broke," Jesse said, pushing the crumbs around the table top. Just a few months ago, he'd been a millionaire. "What month is it anyway?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Jesse saw Charlie wince at his words. "September...it's September. Your birthday's in a couple weeks," she replied softly.

"Oh."

"I have a rainy day fund that will definitely get you a couple pairs of jeans and some shirts, and a haircut," she said, crumpling up the empty donut bad and making a show of shooting it into the trash basket in the other room.

"Don't you have...like work or something?" he asked, trying to change the subject. "What do you do anyway?"

"I'm a digital media marketing strategist for a small company that manages some very large accounts," she replied with an air of boredom, "I'm exceptionally good at what I do, and I am very generously compensated with a good salary and perks, one of which is the ability to work from home when I need to. Quit changing the subject, Jesse."

Jesse shifted uncomfortably. He didn't like charity, but she was right. "I don't really feel...safe showing my face in public."

"Listen, I haven't asked yet, but I need to know what happened," she said seriously, playing with the straw on her iced coffee and looking Jesse directly in the eye. "I am going to go up stairs and take a shower, when I get out we're going to get your hair cut and then go to a mall, store, whatever and get you clothes and anything else you need. If you don't want to come with me, fine, I'll pick stuff out myself. But you have to wear whatever I buy."

Jesse recognized the tone Charlie was using on him and knew it was useless to argue. "Thanks," he replied quietly as she walked upstairs.

"You can trust me, Jesse," she paused on the stairs, "I'm on your side."