He opened his eyes and she was there, smiling down at him with tears in her eyes. The outline of her face was fuzzy at best, but the blonde hair that cascaded down past her shoulders was unmistakably that of the woman who had been the last thing on his mind before everything had turned black.

He'd been on the Malucci's boat, staring up into the face of a heavy-set and mean-looking man, the fists of the shaven-haired brute were raised before they began quickly descending towards his abdomen. He felt what little air that was left in his body leave in a rush as the thug's fist connected with his solar plexus. He attempted to turn on to his side in an effort to protect himself from the violent onslaught that rained down on him.

He felt himself being pulled onto his back again; he was no match for the other man in his weakened state. He'd let them all down, it was here that he would die and forever be remembered as the man that had betrayed the people he'd loved. It was too late, there was nothing left to be done but accept the finality of his situation.

He would take only one regret to the grave with him, the fact that he had never told the blonde angel that had been a constant at his side these last few weeks that he loved her. He barely knew her, yet he knew that with his body and soul he loved her and somehow knew that he always had.

He could have sworn that he heard the timer beeping in the engine room, signalling that it had reached zero and that the bomb beneath it was primed for detonation in the coming moments. He felt the vibrations coursing through the boat before he heard the deafening noise of the explosion as the oxygen was sucked from the room, he felt the pressure increasing and felt as if he were being torn to pieces in agonising fashion. Her name was on his lips as everything turned black.

"Calleigh….."

He came back to his senses abruptly and gasped, horrified to find himself nearly naked with his ex-wife. What had he done?

What had he been about to do?

He pulled away from her violently as he stood up, stumbling in his haste to get away from her, zipping up his fly and tightening the belt on his pants as he made his way to the other side of the room, wanting to get as far away from Lori as possible. She was no good for him; surely he knew that by now?

"John, what's the matter?" she asked as she watched him swiftly do the buttons of his shirt up. He'd responded to her touch, the years that had passed had done nothing to cool the passion between them, what had made him pull away so suddenly?

He ran a ragged hand over his face, shocked at what he had almost done with Lori. He'd been so consumed by his desire to feel her soft skin beneath his hands, to feel the hunger that she had for him and his touch, that he had allowed it to cloud his judgement. After everything Calleigh had done for him, how could he have been so foolish as to nearly throw it all away over a woman who had broken his heart so many years ago?

Lori was no good for him, she never had been. She would only end up breaking his heart, everything that he had been through would have been for nothing. He was fooling himself if he thought that the passing years had done anything to calm her fickle ways when it came to him. He would once again be lost in his confusion as she blew hot and cold with him, never letting him know where he stood with her.

"Lori…..you need to leave," he growled as he kept his back to her. He couldn't bear to see her, if his eyes set upon her he knew his strength would be sapped by her doe-eyed expression. He would feel the need to comfort her once more, to soothe away the pain that he'd caused her. Comfort and soothing would quickly turn into something else, turn him into someone else. Turn him into a man that he wasn't, a man that he could never be.

She watched him as his shoulders shook and his chest heaved, this certainly wasn't part of the man she remembered. John was always up for it, if sex was offered up he would take it without question, even when they had finalised the divorce, he would never give up an opportunity to be intimate with her.

Making her way quietly over to him, she placed a hand on his back and gasped when he flinched and made a move to get away from her once more.

"Stay away from me!" he growled through gritted teeth, the muscles in his jaw clenching with tension as he kept his back to her.

She was partly annoyed and partly offended that he had turned away from her and spurned her advances, did he think that she was no longer attractive anymore?

"It's not like you to turn down a free hop in the sack," she huffed as she crossed her arms over her chest.

He turned quickly, so quickly that the pace at which he moved frightened her as he stared at her with almost feral eyes. "I'm not the man you knew…..not anymore."

"Yes you are. You still love me…..I know you do." She made her way towards him again, he bolted from his position knocking over the free standing lamp as he did so, causing it to crash to the ground and smash.

"Don't come near me. Don't touch me," he warned, his voice dangerously low.

Frightened by the level of hostility that he was displaying towards her, she backed away and softened her stance towards him. Never in all of the years that they had spent together had he ever looked this angry or out of control. John was normally so placid when it came to her, she had been the one who would descend into histrionics whilst he tried to calm her down and tame the wild beast that raged inside of her.

He looked at her as though he were a cornered animal, primed to pounce at any moment. His hands were clenched into fists by his side as he stood staring at her, his chest heaving. His behaviour was new to her, and for the first time in her life, she began to feel a little scared of him. What had those bastards done to him to turn him into such a mess?

This wasn't the man she knew, the happy-go-lucky John that was up for anything. He'd been replaced by a man who had been worn down by years of pain and suffering, he was a man that she almost no longer recognised.

"John, this isn't you," she began holding out a hand in supplication.

"You have no idea who I am anymore," his voice was still dangerously low, the smoky tone that she once found so much of a turn-on was now beginning to unnerve her. "You lost the right to know me a long time ago."

"We can talk about this….I just want to make things right, we can make things better."

"There's nothing left to talk about. It's over."

Hadn't she said the same things to him when their marriage ended?

He had pleaded and begged her to give their relationship another go, she'd made up her mind though, there was nothing left for them to discuss, they would only end up hating each other if they'd tried.

How awful it felt now that the boot was on the other foot, she had come here to try to make him see that she'd realised what a bitch she had been back in New York. She wanted him to know that she'd never stopped loving him, even when she thought he was dead, there were still days when she would think of him and what they'd had together.

He was the one with all the power now and she hated it, getting first-hand experience of what it must have felt like for him when she called time on their marriage. Now she was the one with the broken heart, the one who would be left to pick up the shattered pieces of their life, the one who would be forced to start again on their own.

"You need to leave. Go back to New York; go back to your children."

She flinched at the coldness of his tone; the dismissive way he spoke to her was so unlike the man she used to have wrapped around her little finger. No longer could she toy with his affections in the way she had before, he would no longer be a willing participant in her childish games.

"What if I don't want to?" was her petulant response. Her pride had taken a huge blow to know that she could no longer do as she see fit around him.

"There's nothing for you here. Go home."

"But I love you." Her response was desperate but she was all out of choices right now, it seemed as if a good a time as any to play her trump card.

"If you love me then you'll go…..you'll leave me to get on with the rest of my life." His voice was so quiet, barely above a whisper as he looked at her with those sad blue eyes.

"Without me in it?" she asked, already resigned to the answer he would give her.

"Yes."

He turned away from her, his heart aching to take her in his arms and soothe away the pain that he had caused her. There was no other way, he had to make a choice, whichever option he chose he knew that he would end up hurting someone. Lori was his past, a love that he had lost a long time ago. Calleigh was his future, the only woman who had ever truly loved him for what he was.

Lori had tried her best to convince him that he was making a mistake but the passing years had served to make him wise to her games. With Calleigh by his side, he knew he had the strength to make the right choice and that choice left no room in his life for his ex-wife. To have her close by and know that he sent her away would eat at him day after day; it was best if she left Miami and returned to her life in New York. Putting distance between them would make it easier not to think of her every day and the look of crushing disappointment on her face as he told her that he no longer wanted her in his life.

He'd been weak enough to kiss her and almost fall for her charms, his mind had saved him from making the biggest mistake of his life. Being with Lori again had initially felt good, but soon he realised just how wrong it was to want to be intimate with her. She would never be any good for him, she never had been. He knew deep inside that he had made the right choice in giving his heart to Calleigh and not the pale imitation of the woman he had loved so many years ago.

His past was his past and he could never go back, no matter how much he wanted to. Being with Calleigh had given him the strength to know that he had made the correct decision, it was one that he would stand by, no matter how hard Lori tried to convince him otherwise.

Don't look at her. Just let her go, his inner voice commanded him as he heard her sob quietly behind him. He felt like such a bastard for hurting her, yet he knew that he had no choice. This was the way it had to be. The way it should be.

He doubted that she would hurt for long; the tears were most likely a by-product of her unhappiness at not getting her own way. It was best that she go back to New York to lick her wounds, to go back to hating him the way she had done for the last twenty years.

He let out a sigh of relief as he heard her stomp towards the kitchen to grab her purse. Her footsteps paused in the hallway and he had no doubt that she was shooting daggers at him with her eyes as he continued to ignore her. The front door slammed shut, a symbolic gesture of what had just occurred, he had sent Lori packing and shut the door on his past with her. There was nothing good there anymore, only pain and misery. He had closed the door on that part of his history, determined to move on in his new life with Calleigh.

He cursed himself for being foolhardy enough to contact Lori yesterday on his cell phone as she repeatedly tried to call him over the next few hours. Sensing that he would not pick up, she began to bombard him with text messages instead. Everything was a mess, all he wanted was a few quiet moments to himself in order to regain his equilibrium, and none of them would pay him the courtesy of leaving him be.

Since he'd woken in hospital for the first time, with no memories of his time in Miami, there had always been someone there with him, hovering and fretting as to whether he was ok, watching over him as if he were some feeble child that needed protecting.

After years of loneliness and solitude, the fact that he had people around him who cared came as a relief, that he had a team that loved him and wanted to protect him. Since waking for the second time, the people that claimed to care about him so deeply refused to let him be. Didn't they understand that he didn't need constant supervision, that he was a man who was capable of taking care of himself? He'd done it for years without anyone's help, he didn't need to be constantly mothered and he certainly didn't want to be made to sit down and talk about his past and the terrible tragedies that had befell him.

No, he just wanted to be left alone, just for a moment not being cajoled or pressured into revealing his inner thoughts to a well-meaning person who claimed to care for him. If they had really cared for him then they would give him the space that he so desperately needed to work through the myriad of emotions that were swirling through his mind.

Their protective nature made him feel claustrophobic, their hands clinging onto him tighter and tighter until he felt unable to breath anymore. The need to break free from their stifling insistence on crowding him was fast becoming more than he could bear. He wanted to shout, to scream at them all to leave him, just for a minute, to catch his breath and find some solid ground to on which he could regain his equilibrium.

Sitting with knees raised and his back against the wall, he watched his phone light up and vibrate noisily as it skipped across the carpeted floor. The constant ringing like a thousand hummingbirds pecking at his head, he picked the irritating device up and slung it across the room until it hit the far wall, smashing into pieces and falling silent at last.

The silence of the room felt wonderful as he rested his head against the wall and closed his eyes, dusk descending on the room and filling it with its darkened hue. This is what he'd wanted, for the creeping hands of darkness to envelop him and draw him close, in the darkness there was solitude, an unspoken understanding that he would be left to his own devices, no longer pressured to say or do what was expected of him. Here in the dark, he was allowed to just be.

Had he been so lost in his thoughts that he'd failed to hear Andy entering the house?

The deep voice of his former partner had certainly taken him by surprise as the light flickered on and bathed the room in artificial light.

"Well, you look like hell," Andy mused as his eyes scanned the room, noticing the fallen lamp and the broken remnants of a cell phone in the far corner of the room. "That explains why you weren't answering your phone I suppose."

He looked at Andy, tired beyond words. This was all too much for him, his life had become too much. He opened his mouth to speak before he realised that he had no idea what to say.

The older man awkwardly lowered himself down next to his friend, no mean feat considering his age and weight, adopting the same pose as that of the man he had come to visit. "Should I ask how things went with Laura?"

He could do nothing but open his mouth and shake his head, his ability to speak all but deserting him.

"You wanna talk about what happened?"

"Andy…" That was all he could manage as he looked at him, his eyes brimming with tears.

There would be time for words later, lifting his arm he draped it over the other man's shoulder and pulled him closer, reminiscent of a scene so similar, yet so many years ago.

Flashback. New York 1993:

The call he'd received this evening was certainly not the one he'd been expecting. He'd listened carefully that morning as John told him eagerly of his plans to smooth things over with his wife Laura. He'd had it all planned out, what he would say, what he would do, he was a man on a mission to repair the cracks in the relationship with the woman he loved. John could be an unstoppable force of nature when he put his mind to something and so he'd offered to cover for him at the end of the shift so that his amorous young partner could set his plans into motion.

He hadn't been expecting to hear from John at all tonight, presuming that his randy colleague would be too busy with getting his end away, for that was how he and Laura usually made up after their fights. He would have to sit opposite the smug young man as he sat at his desk the next day looking like the cat that got the cream, wishing it was him that was still as young and virile and obviously oh so attractive to the opposite sex.

By the broken sound of John's voice he knew something was wrong, terribly wrong. The poor man sounded on the verge of tears as he struggled to get the words to leave his mouth. "It's over," his partner squeaked out before his mouth became muffled by the presence of his hand. "Oh God, Andy."

He'd commanded him to stay where he was, grabbing his keys and jacket hastily, he shuffled from his apartment and jumped in his car, intent on finding his partner before the young man did something stupid. He ignored the honks of displeasure from other drivers as he weaved in and out of traffic in an effort to get to the payphone that John had called him from a few short minutes ago.

His heart sank when he found that John had ignored his pleas, he was nowhere to be seen. He drove around the block a few times until he saw that unmistakable red hair, the shoulders slumped as John carried a duffel bag over his shoulder. It had begun to rain heavily and the poor man was soaked to the bone, yet he didn't seem to care at all.

He pulled over and wound the window down. "John, get in the car."

His partner ignored him as he kept his gaze ahead and trudged on. Swearing under his breath, Andy jumped out of the car and pulled his jacket over his balding head even though it provided little cover from the elements. He stood his ground as he made John stop in his tracks. "Get in the Goddamn car," he growled.

John looked at him with unfocused eyes, the man had likely been crying, it was impossible to tell with the rain hammering down, beating them both mercilessly in the face with its ferocity. His partner had all but checked out on him, deciding that affirmative action was required; he grabbed John by the elbow and dragged him towards the car before running round the other side and getting in the driver's seat.

Chancing a look at John, he was dismayed to find that he still had that vacant expression on his face. The man was completely drenched and had begun to shiver as he sat staring blankly ahead, not appearing to hear a word that Andy was saying to him. John had finally come back to some sort of awareness when he'd finally pulled up outside his apartment block.

"It's over," he murmured as he looked at Andy. "I've lost her."

They could sit in the car all night and cry over their broken hearts, the fact remained that the car was cold and damp whereas his apartment was warm and dry. Common sense prevailed as he spotted a let-up in the torrential downpour. "C'mon, kid. Let's get inside."

He let out a sigh of relief as John reached for the door handle and climbed slowly out of the car, following his partner silently as they made their way up two flights of stairs. He opened his front door and ushered John in, shaking his head as the young man stood still, the water dripping off of his slight frame in a steady stream as it began forming puddles on his wooden floor.

"Go and grab a shower, you'll freeze your nuts off staying in those clothes."

John looked at him in confusion until his eyes followed Andy's to the wet clothes clinging to his body. He nodded his head slowly and trudged to the bathroom, but not before a memory blindsided him. The last time he had been here had been the morning that he'd married Lori, how could their marriage have soured so quickly?

He wanted to cry, to hit something…..anything. He finally let his fury unfurl as he smashed his fist against the mirror in the bathroom, not recognising the wearied man that had been reflected back at him. He felt the stinging sensation in his hand and stared at it, transfixed at the blood that dripped from the open wounds on his knuckles down into the sink.

Looking back up into the fragmented mirror, it seemed symbolic that the broken glass represented so much of how he was feeling right now.

His life and his heart were shattered, crushed like the tiny pieces of glass that were embedded in his skin.