Finally. An update. I'm kind of a slave to my muse. Only as she inspires do I write. I'm really pushing hard to finish this though because so many people love it and, also, I have the last chapter written. Now, I just have to fill in the middle.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.

Emma and I flipped through the channels on the television while we waited for everyone to get back from the cafeteria. "Do you think everyone's still alive?"

"Maybe," Emma said turning towards me, "Jay definitely. The other three I have less conviction in."

I laughed lightly and spun my feet onto her bed, "So how long are the doctors going to keep you?"

"A couple of days. No more than four, Dr. Rheeling said. Everything looks in order once they knock the infection out."

"Then what?"

"What do you mean?"

"Jay's here. I mean are you two going to continue with the trip or head back to Canada?"

"Well, even if Jay is actually dismissed, not just on temporary leave, and even if he doesn't want to go on the trip, I don't think we're moving back to Canada."

"I thought you liked Toronto?"

"I did. I do. I don't know…so much has changed. We've both changed so much and the States have been my home for so long now. I like it here. I thought maybe we could settle down here, New York, or Virginia. Somewhere with a big backyard and—"

"They have backyards in Canada too, Em."

She tilted her head slightly and appraised my eyes, "Why are you giving me the hard sell on Canada?"

I shrugged my shoulders, "Jay loves it. I mean, I'm sure he would love anywhere the two of you could be together but he has always spoken highly of Toronto."

Jay said something to me once, when we were talking about everything that happened with us. It was, "Sometimes it's about what is best for us, not just what we think is best for us." Jay loves Toronto on paper. But he has never been happy there. Not as a child or anytime in between. I know he wants to stick it out, to create happy memories for our family where his never had them but…maybe what Jay needs is to be freed from his ghosts."

"Do you think that could happen?" a male voice asked breaking into our quiet calm. "Do you think we can ever really be free from our ghosts?"

Emma let her eyes follow the voice, "I don't know Jay. It's the nature of humanity to survive. Maybe part of survival is that memory of the struggle."

"I don't mean people in general. I mean us, me and you. Or do we have so many ghosts in so many cities and towns all over the world that we'll be running for decades?"

"I'd go anywhere for you."

"That's not what I asked."

"I—Jay, I don't understand the question."

"Two years ago you told me you didn't want to run away. What's changed?"

"I—I don't know. Nothing's changed really. I still don't want to run away."

"You do. And worse than that you're pretending it's me. Putting words in my mouth, saying I'm the one looking to be freed of their ghosts."

"You know I don't hide from my past. I accept it, let it become a part of me. But I'm not talking about the past, Jay. I'm talking about the future…the goals. The dreams we had for ourselves. I'm talking about being freed from the expectations of our former selves. But I'm in no way talking about running. If it's anything, it's choosing where to raise our children. Where to plant our trees, our family, for the rest of our lives. And what does Toronto have that should make us consider it more than anywhere else?"

"Our past. Our history."

"Our families are gone, Jay. Left in shambles or dead through and through. What history do we have there other than pain?"

"We had our first date at The Dot. Our first kiss. First home together."

"First miscarriage, first break up, first time I cheated on you with your best friend."

Jay's eyebrow arches at her words, "Last time you cheated on me with my best friend?"

A smile cracks onto Emma's face, "That too, you little optimist."

He points his thumbs in at his body, "Excuse me, I'm a big guy. Also, a realist. And maybe, sometimes, when occasion calls for it, a romantic." He turns his hands to her, pointing liek Vana White, "I can't help it God gave me so much lovely to work with."

"Come kiss me, you BIG romantic charmer. I've missed those lips."

He puckers his lips and strains his eyes downwards trying to see them, "These old things? And here I was thinking of trading them in for a newer pair."

"Don't you dare," she teases as he climbs into the hospital bed with her.

"Are they your favorite thing about me?" He asks, preening as Emma's hand trails down the side of his face.

"Not even close. But I like them well enough to keep them."

"That's funny, Jay was just saying the same thing about you downstairs," Sean jokes shuffling into the room with a bouquet of balloons.

I look back and forth between Jay and Emma, there is no sign of tension in either of their faces. And I wonder how the fight can be over when nothing has been resolved. They still don't know what they're doing with their lives, with their family. Nothing is going to be different. It's like they're just buying time until someone brings it up again. "Where's everyone else?"

"Craig and Manny? They went to talk somewhere. Manny said it was overdue and Craig more or less agreed—"

"He was dragged out into the parking lot by her short ass bitching the entire way about how much you two needed him back up here," Jay interceded.

Emma laughed, "He thought that would help? She's been waiting a lifetime practically to have it out with a sober Craig Manning."

"Where'd they go?" I asked pouring some water from the plastic pitcher on Emma's nightstand.

Sean pulled himself into a chair, "I think he said they were going back to the hotel."

I arched my eyebrow, "To talk? Well, let's hope it stays PG."

"There is nothing Manny has to say to Craig that could be said in a Disney movie," Jay replied.

Of course there wasn't. But I wasn't at all concerned about the talking. It was the other part, the all-consuming passion that haunts two people who can never quite let eachother go. That was the part that had me biting my fingernails. I couldn't help but a feel a little jealous of her. Back for less than five hours and she got her knock-down-drag-out-hold-nothing-back conversation? How was that fair? Especially when I'd been waiting just as long, if not longer, for it.

Emma reached over and stilled the hand I was tapping against the table, "Ellie…they're just talking."

I nodded and cracked a half smile so she'd believe me when I said, "Yeah, I know."