Zelda sat in her sister's kitchen, numb disbelief coursing through her. Schreiber's words kept running through her head—Marth Malloy had called her. He had dared to call Zelda's office, and left an allegedly "desperate" message. It had been what, three and a half years now since they'd said a word to each other? And now, completely out of the blue, he had the gall to ring her up at work? Or try to, anyway…

"You're going to call, aren't you?" It was Mrs. Cleverly, re-joining Zelda in the kitchen. She raised an eyebrow at her daughter's blank stare. "Zelda, whoever it was that your business friend said you need to call—you have to call them. You know that, don't you? It's your obligation."

For a fleeting moment, Zelda considered telling her mother who had called. But the idea quickly left her mind, as fast as it had entered. "Yes, mother. I am going to call him right now, so he isn't left waiting for me to get back to him. Goodness me, that would just be rude, wouldn't it?"

"Yes, I should think so," Clarissa said slowly, narrowing her eyes slightly. "But if you do intend on making a business call, I might suggest going up to whatever room it is you're staying in, because the way people blow in and out of this kitchen, you'd think it was Grand Central Station!" She laughed at her little joke.

"Mm…sure, mom." With Marth's number in her hand, Zelda swiftly exited the kitchen and walked up the stairs that would lead to her room. The door closed softly behind her. Zelda walked over to the window and looked down at the backyard; at the same time, Megan looked up and waved enthusiastically. Zelda smiled hesitantly and waved back, then held up one finger to show that she'd be back down in a minute.

Of course, she knew that wouldn't exactly be true. She needed to call Marth. Not calling him wasn't an option, and she would accomplish nothing by ignoring the message anyway. He was already on her mind now, and it would be best to get whatever it was out of the way rather than brooding about it for the rest of the day, trying to figure out why he had called. How better to find out than to return the favor?

So Zelda perched herself on the end of her bed and pulled out her phone. She was about to dial the number Schreiber had given her when she realized that she had no game plan. What tone should she use? Professional and distant, as if this was a business call just like any other? Or would he beat her down and know what she was doing if she did that? Chances were that he would see right through her… and just mock her for it. But she couldn't approach this casually, she was still trying to fully register the fact that he had called her!

Come on, Cleverly, the more you put this off the harder it will be.

She didn't know if she actually believed that, but nonetheless Zelda presently found herself punching in the number she'd so hastily scribbled down only a few minutes earlier. It was ringing, but Zelda's heart was hammering so hard against her chest that she could hardly hear it. This is surreal…

"Hello?"

Incredible. He sounded exactly the same, like a slacker, a punk. She could just see him sitting in a basement littered with empty pizza boxes and beer cans with some video game controller held lazily in one hand as he answered the phone. In her mind's eye he was still impossibly handsome and—

"Hello?" It was slightly more impatient now. "Is anyone there?"

"Yes, this is Zelda Cleverly, and I was told that you left an urgent message for me at work and I am returning your call." Shoot, he'd startled her into being all formal. I bet he's smirking.

There was silence for a very long time; so long, in fact, that Zelda wondered if she'd lost the connection. But ultimately she heard a low chuckling from the other line, and she ground her teeth together until Marth could bring himself to actually talk again: "Well I'll be, you actually deigned to call me back! How're things going for you these days, Zellie?"

"Don't call me that," Zelda hissed. "Just tell me what it is you want."

"Ooh, little cold there, Ice Queen," Marth teased in her in his low, mocking drawl. "You don't sound happy to be hearing from me, your first love, your baby's daddy!"

"I swear, Marth—"

"How's the rugrat, anyway?"

"Did you call me up just to—"

"The first cut is the deepest—"

This sent Zelda into an uncharacteristic tirade of calling Marth all the profane, obscene, and otherwise insulting names she could possibly think of, her voice rising until she was practically screaming into the phone. She hadn't cursed like that in quite a long time, probably not since the last time she'd had a row with her now ex-husband.

"Feels good to clear out the lungs, doesn't is sweetheart?" Marth asked. "Now don't go and hang up on me, just hang on for a second. What would you say if I told you that I needed some legal advice?"

He cannot be serious. "I'd say go look up Carson Drew, because hell will freeze over before I would ever even consider helping you."

"Carson Dr…oh, Nancy's father, I presume," Marth chuckled. "Good one, Zel. You were always a great kidder! And I hate to rain on your parade or otherwise hurt your massive legal ego, but I wasn't talking about asking you for advice. I meant your dear sweet old mother—you know, the one that actually basically taught you every trick you've ever used in a court room."

"What are you talking about, Marth? Talk straight, for once!"

"She's with you, isn't she? Your mother?"

"She…"

"It's Thanksgiving, isn't it? And if your sister Vivien hasn't changed since we were married, she'll have invited you over to good old Arkansas for the holiday, am I right? And am I right in remembering that each year you politely declined the invitation because you were obsessed with working? Well, I thought it was a bit strange when you didn't pick up your phone at work yesterday, and found it positively charming that your voicemail stated you had gone out of town for the holidays. Hey, speak of the devil, dear old Viv lives in Drew, doesn't she?"

"No, she's moved," Zelda lied calmly.

"Ah, you almost had me there for a second, honey," Marth said. "Or at least you easily would have, had I not gone to the trouble of looking up Dr. Vivien Lee—that's a very nice website her hospital's made for her, you should check it out sometime, she looks smoking in the picture—anyway, it just happened to mention that she currently resides in Drew, Arkansas with her husband and her four children. Awww."

"Where are you?" Zelda asked slowly.

"Well, I should be in Drew in about, oh, an hour or so," Marth replied casually, glancing out of his car window at the idyllic countryside. "If you remembered as much about my family as I do about yours, you'd recall that my brother likes to invite the whole clan down to Ashley for Thanksgiving every year. And like you with your sister, I usually turned her down. But this year I had a change of heart, and good thing, too. He had a heart attack the day I got down here, died in his sleep."

"Oh my Goddesses, I'm…sorry."

"Don't be, he was a jerk," Marth yawned. "Anyway, he hasn't changed his will since my parents died, so it's unclear who is supposed to inherit—er, take in his son and daughter, me or my sister."

"Don't tell me you're driving up to my sister's house on Thanksgiving to ask my mother to help you get custody of his kids," Zelda said in an acid tone, demonstrating how clearly ludicrous the idea was. "What's your motive behind this?"

"Motive? Geez, Zel, you make it sound like a game of 'Clue' or something," Marth laughed. "They're my family, what other reason could I possibly want?"

"How stupid do you think I am, Marth?" Zelda cried. "If you had any sense of family responsibility whatsoever, we wouldn't have gotten divorced! You wouldn't have hurt your own daughter!" Why was she saying all this? There was no point to it, it wasn't like she'd change his mind. "As you very well know, I can't stop you from coming up here, but I can sure as hell guarantee you that you will not be receiving any help in any way, shape, or form from me or my mother."

Math merely chuckled his annoying chuckle into the phone again. "We'll see about that, babe. Besides, it'll be fun to catch up, won't it? See the kid again after all these years, what she's up to and all that. And you, of course. Won't it just be a thrill to spend some time together again? You know, some one-on-one time to …discuss what went wrong between us and—"

With an angry sigh, Zelda shut her phone and threw it onto the bed. She waited for it to ring again, half-expecting Marth to want to finish what he was saying enough to call her back. But the room remained silent. The lewd tone that had been in his voice was clear enough of an indication that if the two of them were to spend any time alone together, if Marth had his way, they wouldn't spend it talking. Well, he was going to get quite a surprise. She wasn't going to be his doormat anymore.

Feeling as if she was in a dream, Zelda opened her bedroom door and slowly descended down the main staircase of the house. Once she reached the main floor, she saw Vivien out of the corner of her eye, coming out of a nearby closet. Viv was decked out in winter apparel and about to jam a woolen hat on her head when she caught sight of Zelda's crestfallen face.

"Honey? What's the matter?"

"I…just got a call from work…"

"Work? Zel, did no one ever explain the concept to you of a vacation?" Vivien laughed. "Well of course not, who am I kidding? You've never—"

"It was Marth."

Vivien stared at her for a very long time, nearly a full thirty seconds, waiting for Zelda to say it was a lie or a very bad joke. But her sister's solemn, light eyes just looked sadly back into hers, silently confirming that it was in fact the truth.

"No," Viv whispered. "No, he wouldn't dare do that. Zelda? You're pulling my leg, please, tell me you're pulling my leg!" In response to this, Zelda just shook her head and sat herself down on the bottom stair. "Oh, he's got some nerve." Vivien's gloved hands balled into fists. "What did he say? What does he want?"

"He's on his way here. He said he was less than an hour away."

At this point, Jack came striding in from the kitchen, headed for the closet that Viv had just emerged from. He noticed Zelda's somber expression and Vivien's angered one, and took a small step back. "Whoa, what's going on here?"

"Nothing, Jack, it's girl talk," Zelda muttered. She lifted her gaze from the floor to his eyes, and he understood that he needed to leave. So he backtracked out of the hallway and the sisters waited until they heard the sound of the porch door closing so they knew he was out of earshot.

"Um, you do realize that eventually he'll have to know what this is about, right?" Vivien asked. "Because if Marth comes, Jack is probably going to notice. And then smash his head in with a baseball bat. Also we're having this discussion in sort of an open area, and anyone who walks by is liable to—"

"Do me a favor, get Malon and Terra and meet me in your music room," Zelda sighed, getting off the stairs and walking away from her sister. She heard Vivien going outside to get fetch their oldest sibling and Zelda's best friend; Zelda walked down the hall to Vivien's music room. Most everyone was outside, but she still bumped into a few family members who weren't comfortable enough stopping to talk to her to ask her why she had that depressed look on her face—others were just accustomed to seeing it there, as Zelda had never been the family clown.

Vivien's "music" room consisted of a piano and a harp; Zelda made to sit herself down on the bench in front of the piano, but quickly changed her mind and headed for the chair by the harp instead. It had been years since she'd played a harp, even though there was one sitting in her own house… collecting dust. Now the only music that rang through her home was Megan's attempt at the piano and her enthusiastic xylophone playing. She's getting too old for a xylophone.

As soon as Zelda sat by the harp, her fingers touched the strings and immediately began to play "The Coventry Carol," the song she had played most often when she was younger. Her mother had liked to pull her out at Christmas parties to play the grave piece. Vivien's harp was excellently tuned, and as Zelda plucked the strings, the sound reverberated off the walls and windows of the closed room. Suddenly she couldn't remember what part came next…

She paused, then started over, humming the hymn to herself. Then the words inexplicably came out of her mouth, in a low, barely audible voice:

"Lullay, Thou little tiny Child; by, by, lully, lullay…"

Then that part, those two lines, repeated. Her eyes closed, her voice reached the volume of the harp.

"O sisters, too, how may we do; For to preserve this day; This poor Youngling for whom we sing …by, by, lully, lullay…"

She played on but could not remember the words to the next verse. Something about King Herod. But the melody was all the same… then came the next part, yes? Zelda hadn't sung in years, but her voice now rang out slightly louder than the harp, tremulous and timid: "Then woe is me, poor Child, for Thee; and ever mourn and say; For Thy parting, nor say nor sing; By, by, lully, lullay."

The door creaked open, and the second it did Zelda's hands dropped and her eyes shifted over to see who was coming in. It was Megan, who tentatively opened the door wider and came into the room, followed by Vivien, Terra, and Malon. Zelda narrowed her eyes at Vivien because she had not asked that her daughter be brought along.

"Mom, I've never heard you sing before," Megan realized.

"Hey, don't look at me that way, she has more a right to know of this than any of us do," Vivien said, giving Zelda a pointed look when she scowled at her.

"Know what?" Malon asked, sitting down at the piano. Her face was flushed from the cold, and she took off her gloves. "What's going on, Zelda?"

"Um, well…" She coughed and looked at each of the faces in turn, her eyes finally resting on her daughter. "Honey, do you remember much about your father?"

Megan was staring intently at her mother and did not see the incredulous look that Terra and Malon exchanged. "I remember him," she said slowly, wondering if this was a trick question of some sort. "I mean I haven't seen him in forever, but I still remember him. He… wasn't very… nice."

"You're right, he wasn't very nice," Zelda said. She was still sitting behind the harp, and Megan was still standing expectantly in front of her, the only one in the room who hadn't taken a seat. Zelda sighed. "He's not very nice because he did not tell me ahead of time that he was coming here."

Malon inhaled sharply and Terra could not contain a gasp. "What? Zelda, he's coming here? How, why?! How did he even know you were here?"

"Just a well-informed guess," Zelda said, not wanting to get into all of the details. "Anyway, there's nothing any of us can do about it now."

"There certainly is something you could have done about!" Malon barked. "If you'd gotten a restraining order like your mother suggested, he couldn't—"

"Mom!" Terra moaned. "Oh geez, Zelda, she's going to flip her lid when she sees him! And then Jack is going to beat him up and then—"

"Oh my Goddesses, what about Link?" Malon asked, her eyebrows raising so high that they disappeared into her hair. "Have you told him this?"

"No," Zelda replied, now feeling a little sorry that she hadn't gone to him about it already. She was startled to see that Megan's eyes had glossed over with unshed tears, but Zelda wasn't sure what they were for: was she afraid of seeing her father again, or was she upset that apparently her grandmother and uncle hated him? "Honey, I just wanted to tell you ahead of time so that you wouldn't be too surprised when he comes."

"He can't come here now," Malon said. "Your entire family is here! He's going to make a scene in front of everyone!"

"No, he's not," Vivien said. "Zelda, since you've never spent this holiday at my house before, you don't know this, but every year the day after Thanksgiving, James and I go to pick out a Christmas tree and everyone comes with us. It's the kind of place you can go and cut down your own tree, and all the kids have a ball running around, playing hide-and-seek and just dashing through the snow, you know, all that. And afterwards we all go on a horse-drawn carriage ride."

Zelda saw where she was going. "But Thanksgiving's not even until tomorrow."

"Whatever, we'll go today," Vivien said with a shrug. "Trust me, no one will mind. It's not like they've got plans, and they'll all be excited to go. That way you and Marth can, um… talk, alone. Uninterrupted."

"I don't think it's such a good idea for you two to be left alone together," Terra said, voicing a concern that had just been running through Zelda's mind.

"They won't be alone, I'll be here," Megan said.

"No, sweetheart, you'd better come with us," Vivien said. "It'll be fun, don't you want to come pick out a Christmas tree with us and go on a sleigh ride? You'll really be missing out, and besides…" She felt like it wouldn't be a good idea to leave Megan with her abusive father, and was afraid of the things the young girl might overhear in any conversation between her parents.

"She can stay if she wants to stay," Zelda said, addressing Vivien but looking at Megan. "She has every right to, and I completely understand."

"What about Link, are you going to keep him here, too?" Malon asked.

"I think you should," Terra said. "You ought to have someone—er, I mean another adult around to check Marth's behavior, and Link's the best option you've got. He'll probably be less violent than Jack, and well…" She indicated Vivien and Malon. "We've got such a personal history with Marth, it'd just be…"

"I got it," Zelda sighed. "Maybe you're right, it'd be good to have him around."

"Yeah, and then you can tell him Link's going to be your new husband and you don't want dad around anymore," Megan suggested.

Malon only just stifled a laugh, while Zelda's sisters looked immediately at her to see the reaction. Zelda only smiled half-heartedly and said, "I don't know that Link is going to be my new husband, Megan."

"But you kissed him."

Zelda bit her tongue. "Yes, I did. I…did."

"So you love him."

"I care for him quite a bit, yes," Zelda said, wishing that her sisters and Malon weren't in the room. "But it's not as easy as all that, honey." An awkward silence settled itself in the room, everyone waiting for someone else to say something. "I just want to say I appreciate everything you're all doing for me," Zelda murmured.

This stirred Vivien to speak again. "What was it you said, he'll be here in an hour or so? I'd better spread the word that we're going on our Christmas tree extravaganza today, then. It'll probably take about half that time for everyone to get ready." She rolled her eyes, then headed for the door. "Terra, Malon, could you help me round everybody up? Let's try and be as efficient as possible."

The three women then quietly exited the room and Malon shut the door behind her, leaving the mother and daughter alone. After a moment's hesitation, Zelda reached out her hand, silently beckoning Megan to come over. Megan took the few steps necessary to get to her mother and then sat herself on her lap. She rested her head on Zelda's shoulder and Zelda in turn cradled the back of her daughter's head.

"Mom, why is he coming?" Megan whispered after more silence.

"I'm not really sure why," Zelda responded; for although Marth had given her a reason over the phone, she knew that it really had nothing to do with his coming to see them. Why now? Why, after all these years, and at her sister's house? It made absolutely no sense to Zelda, so she didn't know how to try and make any sense of it to Megan. And how exactly would Link respond to all this?

A few minutes later, Zelda could hear the entire Cleverly clan stampeding out Vivien's front door to get to the car. Malon creaked open the door to the music room and stepped inside. "Hey, so, um, Link is still in the backyard. Terra went out and told him that Marth is coming, and he's… he just wanted a minute alone before he came outside. Viv told everyone else that Megan isn't feeling very well and that you wanted to stay back and be with her. No one has trouble believing that the Californian's first time out in the snow has her feeling a little under the weather. Think you can get Marth out of here in four hours?" She said all of this very fast.

"Piece of cake," Zelda mumbled. "Tell Vivien thanks for getting everyone out of here for me. I assume everyone is going…?"

"Well, it took a bit of arm-twisting to get your dear old mum to go along, but she finally caved," Malon answered.

Zelda snorted a laugh. "Why didn't mom want to go? Too much family love and Thanksgiving or Christmas joy for her?"

Malon hesitated before answering that one. "Actually, according to Vivien, it's because she was worried about you, about leaving you."

Megan followed Malon's lead and looked at Zelda for some sort of reaction, but Zelda's face was blank; she was staring at the floor. Barely noticeably, she shook her head and a small, one-sided smirk appeared on her countenance. "Yeah… right." She didn't say anything else, cuing Malon to turn around and leave with a nervous "see you later." Zelda nodded.

Not five minutes after the dozen or so family vans pulled away from Vivien's house did the doorbell rang. "Son of a…" Zelda muttered, moving to get to her feet. Megan quickly got off Zelda's lap to allow her to stand up. "I should have known he wouldn't be honest about how far away he was," Zelda said, mostly to herself, as she walked out of the music room. "It's a good thing Viv moved everyone so fast…"

She reached the enormous front door and put her hand on the knob. But she found herself suddenly and inexplicably incapable of moving. Sweat was forming on her fingers and making it hard for her to get a good grip on the door knob—she couldn't remember the last time she had sweated out of nervousness. The doorbell rang again. Zelda glanced over her shoulder and didn't see Megan; she supposed the girl was still in the music room, as immobile as her mother.

Come on, Cleverly. Pull it together. Postponing this moment any further is just going to make it worse. Do it. Just as the bell rang for the third time, Zelda swung the front door wide open.

Marth's finger was still on the buzzer, and for a split second his face retained that usual, unkind smirk. But as soon as he caught sight of Zelda, he was unable to mask his awe at her unadulterated, unbelievable beauty. They spent a considerable few moments sizing each other up. Marth hadn't changed all that much since the last time Zelda had seen him, except it looked as if he hadn't shaved in a day or two and he had maybe put on a few pounds since high school. His hair was still that weird blue color and spiked, as if he was trying to look younger than he was—which was actually still pretty young.

"I would've gotten here sooner but I was on the other side of the house," Zelda lied coolly. "You're here a little bit earlier than you said you would be."

"Sorry, my traffic and weather reporting just aren't quite up to snuff," Marth remarked, stepping into the house when Zelda didn't invite him to do so. "So." He looked her up and down again; that hourglass figure, those piercing eyes, that luscious hair—nothing had changed from the last time he'd seen her, except for the fact that maturity had only made her physical traits that much more appealing.

Zelda closed the door behind him, louder than she had meant to. "Let's not beat around the bush here, Marth. Why did you come here?"

"I told you why, Zellie," he said, enjoying the effect using this nickname had on her (she scowled noticeably). "On the phone. My brother—"

"Bull," she interrupted him. "Maybe that's true, that your brother died, and if it is, I'm even more disgusted with you than I would have thought possible. So uncaring, so nonchalant, so—so greedy! But that cannot have been the reason you came here, it can't have. You aren't stupid. Slimy and a jerk, yes, but stupid, no."

"Why Zel, your words hurt me, really they do," Marth said, putting a hand to his heart. He opened his mouth to say something else, but lost his train of thought just by shifting his gaze directly to his ex-wife. "Excuse me for saying this, but through some horrific lapse of memory I must have forgotten how incredibly… attractive you are." He stepped closer to her. "You aren't alone in this big old house, are you?"

Zelda's eyes automatically shifted to the music room, the door of which was still open. Marth followed her gaze, patted her on the shoulder and headed for the room. "Who've we got here?" he called. "Come out, come out, wherever you are! Viv? Terra? Don't tell me it's old Malon!"

Megan looked up when her father came into sight. She stared sullenly at him, not at all impressed by his shocked expression. "Hi, dad," she said in a low voice.

"The kid?" Marth snorted, looking back at Zelda. "I assumed that you wouldn't want her to be here when I came."

"Well, you know what they say when you assume."

Marth looked over at the new voice. Link came strolling into the hallway from the kitchen, fists jammed in his pockets and a would-be calm but stern expression on his face. He glanced briefly at Zelda (who looked at him with both relief and concern), but then redirected his gaze to Marth, who was just staring at him blankly. Marth's eyes moved to Zelda's hand and saw no ring on her finger.

"Oh," he snorted, turning away from the music room and acting as if he hadn't seen Megan at all. "Who's this we've got here, now? Boyfriend? Boy toy? Booty call?"

"You may not know me, Mr. Malloy, but I've sure heard a hell of a lot about you," Link said, folding his arms across his chest and walking up until he was face-to-face with Marth (who stood just an inch or two shorter than him). "You don't have a lot of fans in this family. In fact, I'd daresay you don't have any. But you probably know that, am I right?"

"Whoa, just step back there a minute, punk," Marth laughed, giving Link's shoulder a light push.

Link retaliated by grabbing two fistfuls of Marth's shirt and pinning him against a wall. Megan gasped loudly and came running into the hallway to see what was going on, while Zelda stood by in an almost dazed state, feeling as if she was watching something unfold on a movie screen. Marth's expression was perceptibly less smart and a lot more nervous, while Link's usually benign countenance was twisted into an ugly visage of intense anger and hatred.

"You watch yourself around me, punk," Link growled, spitting Marth's own words back at him. "I don't have any tolerance for guys like you, do you hear me? Zero tolerance. You give me a good reason why you're here, give me one good reason."

"My bad," Marth muttered, still pinned to the wall. "You're Zelda's bodyguard! I didn't know lawyers needed bodyguards, but I guess when you're as hated as—"

Link hit Marth with the back side of his hand. "Don't listen to him, Zel," he said, looking over his shoulder at Zelda. Turning back to Marth he said, "How dare you come all the way out here to insult someone who never did you any harm."

"Megan, honey, I think you'd better leave," Zelda whispered, motioning for her daughter to come over to her. "Come on, I'll take you outside."

"No, mom, I wanna stay," Megan insisted.

"Listen to your mother," Marth said in an authoritative voice. "Get out of here."

Zelda surveyed Marth with a look of utter dislike. "Say goodbye to your father, Megan. I don't want you to hear any more of this."

Megan's face betrayed no emotion; she had learned from the master. Walking slowly towards the kitchen so she could go outside, Megan muttered, "Goodbye, dad." The three adults watched her small figure leave the hall, and waited until they heard the back door close before continuing any conversation.

"I have a right to know exactly who you are," Marth said, pulling himself out of Link's slackened grip. "Obviously you're spending a lot of time with my daughter and with my ex-wife. What are you to them?"

"I love him," Zelda suddenly heard herself saying. Wow, that sounded incredibly cheesy and stupid. Even though the words made it sound like she was quoting a Danielle Steele book, Zelda stepped towards Link and took his arm and said it again: "I love this man, Marth. And he… he loves me."

"That so?" Marth asked, raising his eyebrows. "You said you loved me, too. Do you remember that?"

"I'm not the person I was," Zelda said quietly, succoring strength from Link's strong and encouraging grip.

"Yeah, okay," Marth said. He looked over at Link, grinning wryly. "And you, you 'love' her, huh? Yup, I can sympathize with that." In a stage whisper, Marth said, "She's pretty hot once you get her in bed, am I right?"

"You…" Link was beginning to demonstrate Jack-like tendencies, but before he could do anything, Zelda said "no" and squeezed his arm. She wanted to slap that smug smile right off Marth's face and raised her hand to do so, but somewhere on the way to doing that her fingers clenched into a fist and she punched him full on.

"Whoa," Link said, clearly impressed. Marth staggered backwards, clutching his noise, which had started to bleed profusely. "Nice one, Zel! I'm impressed!"

"That felt really good," Zelda laughed, rubbing her knuckles. "Marth, get a grip on yourself. You sorry, pathetic excuse for a human being. I want you to get it together, then walk yourself on out of here. Drive away, go find another lawyer to bother with your stupid family problems, and never, never contact me again. Don't talk to anyone in my family, not to my sisters, or my mother, or my daughter. And if you know what's good for you, you certainly won't look to get in touch with any of my brothers, especially Jack. Go back to whatever sorry slut you're seeing now and stay away from me."

The cold conviction in Zelda's voice was one Marth had never heard before, definitely never directed at him. Her stance was controlled and powerful, and he found himself feeling very small. He eyed her clenched fists, which looked all too ready to hit him again if he provoked her.

"You look confused," Zelda murmured. "A lot of people attribute my stand-offish and harsh personality to having grown up with my mother, but really, I've got to say you were the one that cultivated it. You abused me, you drained me of any human emotions I might otherwise have had. Long before our divorce I got this way… reclusive, cold." She realized as she said it how painful it was for her to admit it, and how sad it must have been for those close to her to have endured that side of her for six solid years. "Six years!" Zelda said, blinking back tears. "Six years of my life I wasted because you left me in shambles. I do not owe you anything."

"I don't owe you anything," Marth was quick to say.

"That's not true, and you know it," Zelda whispered. "You owe me a great deal of things, Marth Malloy, but right now I'll settle for just one. Leave. Don't darken this doorway or any doorway I might find myself in again. You owe me that, you owe me that peace and sense of being. I mean it, get out."

Marth was not accustomed to Zelda's relatively new, assertive self. He looked from her to Link (who still appeared murderous), and slowly backtracked his way to the front door. "I was just stopping by," he said casually, hand on the knob. "I was in the neighborhood. No hard feelings." He opened the door and walked out, closing it with a loud slam behind him.

"Do you think he's really leaving?" Link asked after a moment or two had passed.

"I doubt it," Zelda sighed, her posture slumping slightly. "He never gives up anything without a fight. I really don't think this is the last I'll be seeing of him …I don't know what it is, I just have a feeling that he's going to be bothering me again." She shivered. "I can't believe …that was just so surreal. I haven't seen or heard from him in nearly five years, and now, out of nowhere, he just… ah!"

"Zel, it's okay," Link said, turning her to face him and embracing her tightly. "If he knows what's good for him, he'll stay away. Although to be honest, he seemed pretty stupid, so…" He appreciated it when Zelda forced a small laugh for his sake. "Zelda, let me ask you something. You don't have to answer right now, I just want to ask."

"Go ahead," Zelda mumbled. If she had been paying more attention, she probably would have guessed what Link was about to ask her."

"Zelda, what would you say if I asked you to marry me?"