((Hey, you guys have no idea how much your encouragement meant to me and how much it helped to get me back writing. It was huge. I'm still not in great head space, but I feel like writing again which is a victory and I'll take it. I'm eternally in your debt and humbled by your kindness))

It was with a heavy heart he looked out the window to the seemingly endless stretch of lush green land below. He was bringing Gene home to rest. He absently wondered if she had cried for Gene after finding out the truth.

Everything had just gone to shit. IT didn't go how it was supposed to. She was supposed to choose him. She was never supposed to meet Gene, because if you met Gene, you'd never pick Oliver over him.

Mai was supposed to pick him but Gene had gone int her dreams. He closed his eyes heavily and leaned back against the cramped seat. Luella and Martin had gone ahead on an earlier flight and Lin was napping next to him. Oliver was left to his own thoughts. As his mind kept trying to go over every detail of the last time he'd see Mai. He envisioned how it should of gone.

He'd desperately wanted to look at her after he told her the truth, then gather her in his arms and kiss her. lips softly. She'd forgive him and and understand. He'd tell her the moment he fell in love with her, and how she delighted and intrigued him. Most of all he'd thank her for just having been there with him because Mai had changed him. Made his heart stop bleeding and even got it beating again.

He was in love with her. He was going to kiss her again and brush the hair from her eyes. Move his fingers down her neck and ghost down her arm. He'd relish getting to touch her when she was aware of it, not simply when he had to save her. Of course, he'd always save her. He'd assure of that. He would always be there for her. It was why he had argued so strenuously to keep the Japanese branch open, so he could come back once Gene had been laid to rest properly and his adopted parents could let him go. He'd even bring Lin if had to. He'd have done anything to get back to Mai.

That is until she had shattered his fragile heart. It wasn't her fault and he didn't have it in him to be mad at her. His meddling brother was another matter. Why couldn't he have simply passed on? Why Mai? Why his Mai?

It wasn't her fault that she'd fallen for him. Everyone always did.

In his dreams he had imagined that once he'd return to japan he'd bet to kiss her daily and call her into his office, he wanted to sit her on his desk and feel her legs wrap around his hips. To feel her body flush against his. His hand moving up her thighs to cup her perfect butt. She would grind against him and moan in pleasure, beg for more.

And he'd be but too happy oblige. He had imagined having her in a hundred different ways in a thousand different places. Not once though; had he ever considered how everything had gone. 'He selfishly wanted to believe it was him that Mai loved but he knew it couldn't be true.

If he'd known that that idiot could reach out from beyond the grave perhaps he could have guarded his heart better. It still wouldn't have worked though, he knew deep down that Mai would have gotten through all his defenses. She was Mai and it was just how she was. It was impossible not to love her. Everyone did, with the exception of the pain in the ass medium who he suspected liked Mai and would love her if it wasn't for the childish rivalry she had invented for his affections. He detested her on a personal level while he respected her abilities he would most likely never forgive her for forcing him to quasi date her.

He had hoped that Mai could forgive him for it. He hadn't wanted to, but subterfuge had been necessary.

He was going to make her his. One day he'd lay her down on his bed and make her entirely his woman. He had read that intercourse was pleasurable but hadn't really thought much about it until the day he'd seen Mai bed over. In that pink mini skirt of her.

He remembered every detail. She had dropped a paper he'd tasked her with taking across the office to Lin. He had ben coming out of office to use the the loo and seen her. The lovely lace panties she wore. He swallowed hard at the memory. That was the day he's begun to imagine more than just kissing Mai and holding her close to him. He'd wanted to go behind her and run his hand up her thighs. When she jumped up surprised he would pull her back against him and lightly kiss her behind her ear and down her neck slowly. She'd gasp in pleasure, his one hand holding her cheek the other moving down her body. It would leave a trail that excited her.

Oliver shook his head. It was wrong to be thinking like this. Just days before he'd found the body of his dead and badly decomposed brother. He should be in mourning not longing. Yet, he had mourned. He'd mourned since the day he'd found out about it, from the moment his vision exploded green. He still mourned. It's why he was dressed in black and had banished all color from his life.

That was, until Mai had come literally crashing into it. He took a deep breath, then another in an attempt to steady himself and banish his fantasies from his troubled mind and heart.

It was though then he thought of something. Something that gave him a tiny bit of glimmering hope.

When he'd asked her, she hadn't said who it was that she was in love with.

He'd go back to Japan and he'd get his answer.

He knew though; even if it wasn't him, he'd protect and love her till his last breath.

As the plane ate up the miles to his old home? He was not longer sure, and now questioned what felt like home to him. Japan had felt like home with Mai. Would England feel the same as it had before or would it be empty and just a place he was as Japan and the American orphanage had been. While the hours ticked by and he grew closer to what would be Gene's final resting place young Dr. Oliver Davis contemplated what love was.