A/N: I'm going to try and keep the chapters under 1000 words. This is Elsie's perspective. After this, it's going to be all flashbacks, to show how their relationship developed. Please review if you have time. Thanks!

2:30.

Alice had left hours ago. And still Elsie sat in the diner.

Her coffee was cold. She paid the waitress, and went to leave, pausing before going out the doors.

The rain was pounding down again. The lightning and thunder had passed on, and the night was black. Even the highway was dark. The scant vehicles and their headlights were hidden by the mountains and the ceaseless downpour.

She ran to the truck. Alice's last words snaked through her brain. "If I lost him, there would be no one else. Could you say the same?"

You have no idea. There has never been anyone like him, not for me. I am forty-two years old, and I know there will never be anyone else.

But he was never mine to lose. What little we had is over.

Bile rose in her throat. Disgust, mostly with herself, mixed with the coffee and Beryl's leftovers she ate for dinner. She staggered to the back of the truck and vomited all over the fender. Leaning against the metal, it cooled her flushed face, as did the rain. Her mouth tasted foul.

She gripped the tailgate and tried to regain her balance. Fumbling with her keys, she opened the door and hauled herself in. Her clothes were waterlogged and clung to her body. Her hair, plastered against her face, dripped on the seat.

A faint scent of honeysuckle invaded her senses, bringing with it a rush of memories.

The old cabin. Sawdust on his hands and in his hair. Paint on her cheek, making him laugh. His sweat-soaked t-shirt clinging to his broad shoulders and muscular back. Trekking through the woods to the lake, watching the colors of the sunset. The kerosene lamp on the bedside table. His eyes, soft and dark. The touch of his lips on her fingers. The brass bed as it moved, scraping against the wood floor-

She grabbed a crumpled paper bag a moment before her stomach heaved again. Nothing came. There was nothing left.

You've done nothing but ruin lives here, a nasty voice whispered in her mind. Isn't Alice right? Wouldn't it be better if you left town?

Leaving seemed impossible. She had found a home here, one she never thought she would find. Working with Beryl at her celebrated restaurant, The Red Fox. The staff both there and at the hotel it served, Downton. Friends she'd made in town – Phyllis and Joe, the florists; Anna, who ran an outdoor sporting goods store with her husband John; Bill, who owned the IGA.

But most of all, she couldn't imagine leaving the owner of the hotel.

Oh God, I would give anything for him to speak to me again. Every day for the last month has been torture. Him being so close, yet so far away.

A wild howl of grief, a scream of anguish ripped from her throat. An incoherent sound formed on her lips, molding itself into a word. She moaned, her face now wet with her own tears rather than the rain.

"Charles," she gasped, her body shaking. She leaned her head on the steering wheel. God, no. I can't leave him. I'm not strong enough.

I love him. I love him. I need him, and he needs me. No matter what he says, or does.

The first time she knew she loved him, it was like a car plunging off a bridge into a hidden hollow. There was no going back. She could no more stop loving Charles Carson than she could stop the rain.

As messed up as the situation was, she loved him for his blasted honor. He was a man of integrity and honor, and it killed her knowing she'd been the catalyst to break it.

We never planned for this. We never planned to be anything more than friends.

Friends who became good friends. Friends who trusted each other. Friends who helped each other out, and made sacrifices for each other. They celebrated successes, and commiserated on bad days.

For such a big man, he could be very tender. Almost sentimental. It was all the more exceptional because he kept himself so closely guarded. Like her. He was a rock, someone she could rely on. She'd had precious little of that in her life. Except for Becky.

Leave town? Leave him?

It would hurt less to cut off her arm. Without anesthesia.

She shook her head and slammed her fist into the dashboard, cutting her finger. The punctured skin made her wince. Grabbing a napkin from the holder in the door, she pressed it against the blood.

A laugh bubbled out, bordering on hysterical. What kind of sick joke is this? Of course she'd cut her left ring finger. That's what you get on that finger, a scab.

She forced herself to take breaths, in, out, in, out. She couldn't stay in the parking lot all night.

The raging guilt nagged like a bad rash. She remembered seeing it in his eyes, knowing it was reflected in her own, on that last car ride back to town.

Elsie leaned back in the driver's seat and wiped her face. She felt drained. Steady. You don't have to figure everything out now. You have time.

No, you don't.

She dropped her right hand from the steering wheel onto her lap, sliding it up to rest between her hips.

"I can't leave. Not now." she whispered. If it was only her to worry about, surely the situation would be clearer, if not easier.

But in a little over seven months, she would not be alone.

How am I going to tell him he's the father of my child?