Over the next six months, Brandy was able to slowly get back to a regular lifestyle. She had been able to get a job at the hospital like she wanted, but it wasn't the position she had before. Since she needed more hours, she decided to take up Teresa's offer, and become a shift manager at the diner. Over this time period, she was able to build up her savings account, and was merely weeks away from being able to get her own apartment. She had learned to accept that Mark no longer wanted anything to do with her, but that didn't make the pain go away. On one particular day, though, her world would be turned upside down.

~*~*~*~

Brandy wiped down the front counter, gazing up at the clock for the hundredth time. So far, today had been exceptionally long, and it didn't seem like it would get any better.

"Hey Brandy, can I head on home?" Karl called from in back.

"No Karl. How many times do I have to repeat myself?" Brandy replied, growing irritated with him. The day was going by slow enough as it was, and him asking every five minutes if he could go home wasn't helping any. She brought the rag back to the sink, and Karl immediately walked over to her.

"Come on, Brandy, please?"

"Damnit, Karl, I said no! If you keep asking me, I'm gonna make you stay later! Is that clear?" Brandy demanded.

"Okay, okay. I get it. Damn," he replied, holding his hands up.

"I'm sorry, but you doing stuff like that doesn't help things when it's slow like this," Brandy said in a gentler voice.

"I understand, Brandy, it's just that I have a paper I really need to finish up."

Brandy placed her hands on her hips and let out an exasperated sigh. "Karl, why didn't you say something earlier?" He shrugged. "Look, I already said no, and I'm sticking to that. Teresa should be getting back soon, though, so I'm sure if you sweet talk her, you can head home early," Brandy added.

"I'm back, guys!" Teresa called out as she walked in through the back door of the diner.

"Hey Teresa. We just got done talking about you, actually," Brandy replied.

"Oh really now?" Teresa commented, raising an eyebrow.

Brandy was about to say something, when she heard someone walk in through the front door. "Let me go get that. Karl, you talk to her," she said, and headed up front.

Just as Brandy was about to talk out into the view of the customer, though, she stopped dead in her tracks. It was Mark standing there at the counter. She immediately noticed how drastic he had changed look-wise. The first thing she noticed was that he no longer had his long black hair. It was now cut quite short, and had some of his natural red hair peeking through. He no longer had just a goatee, but a mustache as well, and it matched the color of his hair. "Damn, he looks good," Brandy thought to herself. When he removed his sunglasses, though, she could see the anger burning in his emerald orbs, and knew it was her that made him so angry

Suddenly scared as hell to face him, Brandy hurried in back, pulled Teresa aside from Karl and whispered, "Teresa, it's Mark up front. Please, I'm begging you to take his order. I'm so afraid to face him."

"Brandy, you have to face him sometime," Teresa replied.

"I know I do, just not here!" Teresa sighed, and Brandy added, "Please, Teresa. I'm begging you. Don't make me do this."

"Alright, fine. I'll do it this time," Teresa replied, and headed up front. Brandy paced back and forth, her hands clasped behind her back and her head hung as she did so.

"Hey Brandy, you okay?" Karl asked.

She looked up, and found all three of the cooks watching her. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just thinking about bad memories, that's all," she replied. Content with her answer, they went back to their conversation, and Brandy let out a silent sigh of relief.

When Teresa walked in back, she handed the cooks their order, and said to Brandy, "He wants to talk to you."

The color immediately left Brandy's face. "Are you serious?"

Teresa nodded. "He said he wasn't leaving until he saw you," Teresa replied.

Brandy sighed. "Looks like I'm gonna have to face him," she said, and hesitantly made her way up front. "Hey Mark," she greeted him, forcing a smile. He simply nodded, his face revealing no emotion.

"When'd you get back in town?" he asked.

"A-About six months ago," she replied, trying hard to keep her voice calm.

He scoffed. "And you never bothered to call, or anything?" he replied, his voice harsh.

"I-I wasn't sure how you would react," she stammered, growing more nervous by the second.

He laughed dryly and shook his head. "So why did you do it?"

This caught her off guard. "Do what?" she asked, her eyebrows burrowed in a frown.

"I'm not dumb, Brandy. Why did you leave me?"

Brandy looked down. "You really think I left you…don't you?" she asked in a quiet voice.

"When you leave me a note like the one you left me, yeah, I tend to make the assumption that you left me," he replied sardonically. It was obvious he was growing angrier by the second.

"Look, Mark, I really don't want to talk about this here. If you come by Teresa's house later on tonight, though, we could-" Brandy tried to suggest, when he stopped her from saying any more by holding up his hand.

"Just don't. I'm really not in the mood to hear your bullshit," he said in a cold tone.

Just then, the girl Brandy saw with him in his house came walking up to him, and wrapped am arm around his waist. "Did you get me what I wanted?" she asked, popping her gum loudly as she did so.

"Yeah, babe, I did," he replied, wrapping his own arm around her shoulders.

Unable to see the two of them together, Brandy shook her head and headed into the back. "You okay hon?" Teresa asked.

"I need a breather," Brandy replied, and headed out the back door.

"Guys, let me know when the food is done," Teresa said, and headed out after Brandy. She found her sitting on the small picnic table they had by the door. "Hey, you alright?"

"I'll be fine," Brandy replied in a quiet voice.

"He was an asshole, wasn't he?" Teresa asked. As she began to cry, Brandy simply nodded. Letting out an exasperated sigh, Teresa wrapped an arm around Brandy's shoulders. "He isn't even worth it, babe. Don't let him get to you."

"He wouldn't even let me try and explain! God, he's so fucking stubborn," Brandy cried.

Beyond furious at Mark, Teresa simply comforted Brandy, and thought to herself, "God damnit, Mark, I'm going to fucking kill you!" It appeared Teresa was going to have to take things into her own hands.

~*~*~*~

Mark sat on his couch, staring at the floor as a million different things ran through his head. Seeing Brandy again had caught him off guard, and he couldn't get his mind off of her. Luckily, Sara had been gone a good portion of the day after they had seen Brandy, so he didn't have to deal with her whining and bitching. He wasn't sure anymore why he kept her around. Sure, she was great in bed, and really knew what she was doing, but other than that, he couldn't stand her. "You know why you're keeping her around. It's because you want someone to take the place of Brandy, and you're too damn stubborn to accept the fact that you still want her," he suddenly thought to himself.

"I do not," he grumbled out loud. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. Muttering curses, he stood up and reluctantly answered the door, where he was greeted by Teresa, who was standing there. "Teresa, I am not-" he started to say, when she cut him off.

"Get in the fucking house. I don't care if you're in a bitchy mood or not, we need to talk," she demanded.

Reluctantly, he let her in, and asked once he shut the door, "What do you want Teresa?"

"How could you do that to Brandy? She was willing to give her explanation as to what happened, yet all you could do was be a complete dickhead to her!"

"She used me, Teresa! She led me to believe that she actually cared for me, and then dropped me like a bad habit. Sorry for being a bit bitter over it!" he replied, just as pissed off by now.

"You are in for one rude awakening. Sit down," Teresa said.

"I don't have to-"

"I said sit down!" she yelled, and he reluctantly did so. "I will admit, at once I was just as mad as you were over this whole thing, but that was because I thought she had left you."

"She DID leave me," he commented.

"Shut up and listen," Teresa demanded, and he stayed quiet. "Mark, you did not see her the night she came back. I love her to death, but there's no nice way of putting this. The poor girl looked like shit. You wanna know why she looked horrible? It's because for the past year, she hadn't been off fucking some other guy…she was literally in a living hell. You remember her telling you about Tom? Well he basically kidnapped her and brought her back to his apartment. That's where she's been. While YOU were the one fucking a random girl every night, she was getting beat up, raped, and on top of that she had to deal with the fact that we pretty much abandoned her." By now, Mark was left speechless. "Is that what you wanted to hear Mark? Are you glad to hear she was so miserable?" Teresa asked sarcastically.

"I had no idea," he said in a low voice.

Growing gentler, Teresa sat down by him and said, "Mark…she still loves you, too. I know she does, and I know you still care about her. I don't blame you for being upset, I really don't, but you need to try to make things right."

"It's too late for that," he muttered, looking down at his hands.

"No it's not, Mark. I know for a fact if you were to ask her for a second chance, she would take you back in a heartbeat."

"But I'm with Sara-"

"Damnit, Mark, quit being so stubborn! I know you never cared about Sara, everyone can see that. All you cared about was getting in her pants, and I know that is not the case with Brandy. You need to hurry up and mend things with her, before it's too late," Teresa said, and patted him on the back before standing up and heading over to the door. Before walking out, she turned to him and said, "Make the right decision, Mark."

He let out a sigh once she left, and pulled out his wallet. He turned to the picture he kept of Brandy in there, and looked down at it longingly. God, how he missed her. He missed her laugh, he missed her embrace, he missed the way she smelled, he missed her kisses…he missed everything about her. He just hoped she could forgive him after the way he treated her earlier. Right then and there, he concluded that he would make things right between the two of them, and planned on winning back what was rightfully his.