xv.

Zane was miserable.

At first he did his best to steer clear of Rikki. He figured she'd need time to process their... whatever it was that had happened between them on the island, but after three months of a respectful distance he began to find the separation too much to bear. Ridiculous. They'd barely had one date and already he thought of them as a couple.

But Rikki wanted nothing to do with him. He wished he knew why. Had he made her angry with something he said? Had he hurt her? He couldn't apologise when he couldn't even remember! And Lewis was no help at all with his endless suppositions and experiments. He didn't want a scientific theory to explain away his problem. He wanted Rikki to talk to him again. Lewis was by no means helpful in coming up with a way to make that come about.

"She and Cleo hang out, now," Lewis offered. "Maybe you could ask Cleo what's going on in that female mind of hers." Lewis mumbled something under his breath about girls and secrets backfiring.

"I don't get it!" Zane slapped his hands on Lewis's desk in frustration, causing the student scientist to jump and put his arms protectively around the samples and Petri dishes Zane's outburst had rattled. "She's talking to Cleo, now? She never talked to Cleo before! She never really talked to anyone. I mean, until we talked," he ended glumly.

"Well, that sounds like a healthy mentality."

"You don't understand. She's not that quick to open up to people. Even if she's mad at me, it's not like her to confide in just anyone."

The truth was, her sudden preference for Cleo's company pained him. It wasn't that he was against her having other friends—he wasn't a controlling monster—but the memories he had retained of their beachside stroll weren't easily dismissed. They had shared something secret about their pasts. They had talked about things Zane never imagined telling anyone; let alone a pretty girl on a first date. They were topics that were difficult, and... intimate. It felt more raw and emotional to him than waking up naked at her side hours later. That kind of thing wasn't easy for him to shrug off, and the fact that she seemed to get over it so quickly and find a new friend to confide in cut him pretty deep.

"I was talking about you," Lewis corrected, pushing his glasses a little higher up the bridge of his nose. "You're so jealous right now I think your tail might turn green."

"Look, as much as I love to chat rubbish with you, what I'm really interested in is getting Rikki to talk to me. Do you have her number? Her address? Something to go on?"

Lewis relented, partly out of pity for the desperation in Zane's attitude, and partly to spare his samples another shake. "I know she and Cleo go to the JuiceNet on Fridays after school. They're probably there now."

Zane's relief was tangible. "Thank, mate. I owe you one."

"Mhm."

-x-

They were there just like Lewis said. They sat at a booth together, Rikki dunking a straw warily into a thick, green substance while Cleo babbled cheerfully across from her, the remnants of a much more delectable looking smoothie clinging to the bottom of her glass.

Zane watched them a minute before intruding. He was curious to see if Rikki was as morose and downhearted when off her guard as she was when she knew he was around.

She was. The only difference was that Cleo's endless commentary seemed to hold her interest for long enough to raise an eyebrow and give the smallest hinting of a smile. "Whatever the health benefits supposedly are, they can't be worth puking it all up again," she was saying.

"You're probably right," Cleo nodded, but no less cheerful. "I'll go get you a new drink!"

As she stood to do so, Cleo noticed Zane coming towards their table and stood in his path like a tiny bodyguard. Zane's attempts to stifle his laugh came out in an unkind snort.

"Zane, I don't know why you're here," she said, arms crossed, "but Rikki is not in the mood for your prune juice tricks. Her tummy is very sensitive right now, and if you bother her..."

"I'm not here to bother her," he said, a little sorry now that Cleo only knew him as a prankster. "I just want to talk."

Cleo continued to block his way to Rikki. "Let me ask her if that's alright."

"No." Rikki said before Cleo had time to relay the request.

"She says no."

"I heard what she said; I'm right here!"

"Well, it's not a good time," Cleo said with a bossy sort of tone. Zane was no longer sorry for putting prune juice in her drinks.

Biting back his retort, he asked, "When is?"

"Never," Rikki stated dully as she reached for a chip.

"I think you'd better leave," Cleo added seriously.

Zane huffed but left them alone for the moment. However, he wouldn't relent in his pursual of Rikki and followed the girls at a safe distance until they came to a stop between two lanes. He thought Rikki might follow Cleo to the right, but his luck finally turned when she took a shortcut towards the beach, instead.

He waited until she had settled some distance from the other beach goers before sitting down beside her.

"I don't have anything to say to you, Zane."

Zane released a long pent-up sigh. "Rikki, please. Tell me what I did to make you so mad at me!"

"Nothing. It isn't you. I just... I'm not going to talk about this."

"I want to help," he assured her. "I want to fix... whatever I did wrong."

Rikki whipped her head around to look him straight in the eye for the first time in months, startling Zane with the fierceness of her expression and the tears that had sprung into her eyes. "Fix this!? You want to fix things? This isn't something you can erase, Zane! It's not something you can wave a cheque at and expect it to disappear! This is a human being whose life you've turn totally upside-down." He could tell she was trying desperately not to cry, and very quickly losing the battle.

"But I don't understand! What did I do?! I don't even remember..."

"Neither do I," she barked out a laugh without any humour, "Isn't that fantastic? Neither of us remembers a single thing past looking at the full moon that night, but I'm the one living with the consequences. Every day."

He averted his gaze and played with his fingers, all while looking dreadfully worried. "Did... did I hurt you? Did I give you some kind of disease?!" His anxiety might have been comical if Rikki was in a laughing mood.

"No. Not a disease. Just..." Her next words made her sound so sad and so small, and tore into him worse than any of her biting sarcasm ever had. "Please leave me alone."

"I'm sorry, Rikki. I have no idea what you're going through or what I did to put you through this, but I'm sorry. I need you to know that. I know I can't fix things, especially not understanding what they are, but if there's... if I can help at all, I will. I promise. I wish you'd let me."

At his sincerity, Rikki softened some. "I just need time. I don't know how long. Maybe a week. Maybe a year. I just can't talk to you about it right now."

"But we will talk?" He gave her half a smile. "I'm not giving up. I can be pretty stubborn when I want to be."

Despite herself, Rikki returned with a sad smile of her own, "Yeah. We'll talk."

A few breaths of heavy silence passed between them.

"I had a great time," he tried. "You know, before blacking out."

"Yeah, so did I," Rikki said as her voice caught. "Before the moon magic took hold it was... it was great."

He seemed to have no more to say without delving into dangerous subject matter, so he left her with a soft, "See you 'round," and headed off down the shoreline.

Rikki watched him go, a sob rising up in her throat that she tried desperately to quell. Maybe he had a right to know exactly what their moon fever had produced. Maybe she should have told him when she had the chance. But she couldn't bring herself to tell someone she knew so little of that he was more important to her than words could express, and his reaction to her condition could either surpass her every hope or destroy the little trust he'd earned from her.

How could she tell Zane Bennet, millionaire heir, that he was the father of her baby? The baby she decided already to care for, and nurture.

The baby she already loved.

A/N: So much confusion and misunderstanding! It would be so much easier if people just talked to each other, wouldn't it? Oh, but then I couldn't sadistically mess with each of the characters! :D Imeanwhat?