NOW

Let the walls burn down

Set your secrets free

You can break their bounds

'Cause you're safe with me

You can lose your doubt

'Cause you'll find no danger here

You can talk to me

"Talk To Me"

Stevie Nicks

May 4, 1952

Worcester, Massachusetts

"Chuck, you ok?" Morgan asked as he leaned into Chuck's office through the open door.

Chuck sat at his desk, his head in his hands, elbows on the desktop. Two mugs of scalding coffee had barely put a dent in his chilled exhaustion, anxiety and regret combining to make a cold, sleepless night. He felt foggy, unable to concentrate, to move himself or his thoughts forward. He was stuck in last night, his god-awful, shameful proposal to Sarah.

"Yeah, buddy, I'm ok. Just didn't sleep well, that's all," Chuck sighed, pulling his hands away from his face and leaning back in his chair.

"Can't imagine why that would be," Morgan teased goodnaturedly, trying to lift his friend's spirits. "You have to pace yourself, my friend. You cannot solve all the world's problems in one night, contrary to your wishes." Morgan advanced a few paces inside Chuck's office.

"I'd settle for just solving one, maybe just for not creating any new ones, except I am such an…idiot," Chuck grumbled.

Morgan looked over his shoulder, then he shut the door. Chuck noticed an old, beaten ledger in Morgan's hand, folded like an accordion.

"Love makes you do stupid things," Morgan said in a kind of sing-song.

"Yeah, tell me about it," Chuck muttered.

"Hey! At least we're admitting it today. That's progress, no? Owning our mistakes?" Morgan asked vibrantly, peppily bouncing on his feet, determined to be cheerful.

"I blew it, Morgan," Chuck sighed in defeat.

Morgan blew out a slow breath and stopped bouncing. "What did you do, Chuck?" Morgan asked, flinching already as he awaited the details.

Wincing himself, Chuck replied, "I asked Sarah to marry me. In the dumbest, most hurtful way I possibly could have." He blinked, his eyes closed as if he could deprive himself of memory.

"I'm guessing she didn't say yes," Morgan replied cautiously, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

"Morgan, I asked her like I was asking her to be on my bowling team…or-or…play doubles tennis. No, it was worse than that. What the hell is wrong with me?" Chuck cried, his voice thick with self-recrimination.

Morgan sighed and tsked but not patronizingly. "You didn't tell her how you feel, did you? The words without the…feeling…well, that's a business meeting. For you, it's deceit. You're always all about the feeling. Yikes, Chuck, talk about doing the exact wrong thing," Morgan shook his head, incredulous.

Chuck rolled his eyes, then huffed out a sharp breath. "I have to fix it. I just wish I knew how," he muttered. As he thought, Chuck's gaze shifted to the crumpled book in Morgan's hand. Pointing, Chuck asked, "What is that?"

"Oh, this," Morgan said, looking down suddenly, as if he had forgotten he was holding it. "The, uh, the people from the Salvation Army were here, clearing the stuff out of Jack's office. They decided to take the drawers out of the desk to move it. This was crumpled in the back, behind the top drawer. They found it while disassembling it." He handed it to Chuck. "It had been taped to the bottom of the top drawer but the tape gave way."

Several days ago, Chuck had decided it was time to pack up Jack's office. The last time Chuck had talked to Diane, she had told him just to go ahead and clear the space. Nothing of importance was left there, she assured him. Jack had few personal effects in his office, just as he had few in his life. The leftover paperwork was discarded, or moved to Chuck's office when appropriate. Jack's furniture and books were being donated, the men here now to take the last of it–the heavy mahogany desk and a few chairs.

After smoothing the cover out as best he could, Chuck opened the book. Definitely a ledger. Scanning down the page in front of him, he realized what he was actually looking at. This was the real ledger, Jack's cookbook, his guide for all the subsequent book-cooking he had done over the years. This was how he kept track of what he stole–why he stole it, and where it was going. Chuck saw Frank Iaconi's name, and quickly slammed the cover closed.

"What is it, Chuck?" Morgan asked. Chuck wondered if his face looked as ghostly white as it felt. Chuck wasn't prepared to let Morgan in on his worst suspicions, not yet, not until he knew more. At least now, he hoped, he had a lead. One he would have to peruse later, when he was alone.

"I'm…not sure," Chuck said distractedly, swiveling in his chair away from Morgan while putting the book on his desk. From his new, angled vantage point, Chuck could see out of his window and into the parking lot of the building several floors below. A black sedan caught his eye. Diane Beckman's car.

Chuck stood and walked closer to the window. He had a clear view straight through the windshield of the car, knowing at the same time the angle of the sun would hide his presence at the window from anyone inside it. Diane was driving. Sarah was in the passenger seat. The car rolled, then shimmied slightly as Diane shifted the engine to park, leaving the car idling. Diane looked as she always did–hair in a tight, pristine bun, dressed in a crisp, angular jacket.

Sarah's hair was wrapped in a silk scarf, its edges flat across her shoulders as it folded around her neck. She wore different sunglasses than the ones she had worn yesterday at the cemetery; these were large, circular lenses obscuring half of her face.

She and Diane were gesticulating. Arguing.

Diane kept one hand on the steering wheel and gestured adamantly with the other at Sarah. Her face was colored; whatever she was saying, she was shouting it. Sarah shook her head back and forth, so forcefully that her scarf shook loose. Sarah straightened it, then reached for the door handle inside the car. Diane grabbed Sarah's arm firmly, holding her in the car, offering some last, emphatic words. Sarah shook her head no again, yanked her arm away from Diane, and climbed out of the car, slamming the door.

Sarah was walking into his building. Chuck's mouth went dry as he felt his heart start to pound in his chest. "She's here," he murmured nervously, "Sarah."

Morgan came to the window. "That's good, right?" Morgan asked, starting to bounce again but more cautiously. "I doubt she would have come all the way here today to turn you down again," Morgan said. When Chuck offered no response, Morgan mumbled under his breath, "Sorry, that's not helping. I'll, uh, go now." Chuck's bearded friend backed to Chuck's door, opened it, and left, shutting it behind him.

Chuck hadn't taken his eyes off of Sarah. He heard but did not see Morgan's exiting antics.

Sarah was nicely dressed, at least more nicely than yesterday. She looked as if she had invested considerable time in choosing her clothes. Her dress was cerulean, the same shade of blue as her eyes. It hugged her curves and fluttered dramatically at her knees. She wore black high heels and carried a small, square black leather purse that matched her shoes. Her scarf was floral, one of the multi-colored flowers in the pattern the same blue as the dress. Even from two stories up, she was breathtaking, her beauty visible. He watched until she was out of sight.

Then he began to panic in earnest. He knew he was going to follow Gertrude's advice, and make this better as soon as he possibly could. However, he had not anticipated doing it this soon, only a few hours after a night of fitful, restless sleep, after a breakfast of cold self-loathing. He started to rehearse what he might say, then stopped himself, realizing his carefully planned words from the night before had been partly the cause of the disaster. Jack was the one who talked from a script, not Chuck. The only way forward here was complete honesty, coloring his words from the paintbox of his own heart. He had to allow the conversation to happen naturally. He realized that now was as good a time as any. Maybe his fatigue would keep him out of his own way.

A soft knock soon interrupted the silence and his racing thoughts. The door opened to reveal Agnes. "Mr. Bartowski, Miss Walker is here to see you." Agnes' normal speaking voice was barely above a whisper, as if she had a sense of the importance of the visit.

"Thank you," he replied, cursing the shakiness in his voice. Hurrying, he hid the twisted ledger under a pile of papers on his desktop.

Agnes turned, and then Sarah was in the doorway. Her sunglasses were in her right hand and she pulled the scarf away with her left, sending her long blonde hair cascading down her back and across her shoulders. She kept her eyes down, folding the scarf and tucking her sunglasses inside her purse while waiting for Agnes to leave and shut the door.

"Hi…Sarah," Chuck said, breathless again. The blue of her dress and eyes made him think of summer twilight.

Sarah smiled, a beautiful, beaming smile, though it didn't completely fill her eyes. "Hi, Chuck," she replied, pronouncing his name the way only she did, only she could. "I'm sorry to just…show up like this, out of the blue–"

"And in blue," he offered. She looked at him. "No, no, it's ok, really. It's ok, you look…lovely," he stammered. He clenched and unclenched his hands into fists, dismayed by the dampness of his palms.

She smiled as if not expecting the compliment. "I didn't want to leave things the way I did. I'm sorry I ran out on you like that," she apologized, shifting her eyes down and to the side.

"No, Sarah, it's ok. What I said…I mean, how I said it, the way I did…it was awful. Stupid and hurtful and disrespectful and I'm sorry," he professed.

She fidgeted with the straps of her purse as they lay across her wrist, then looked up "It reminded me of something my father would have said. It scared me a little bit, hearing you talk like that. You're nothing like he was…and that's a good thing. You don't justify the means with the ends."

She kept her face up, regarding him. Her eyes were mesmerizing as always, and pulled him in, blue gravity, and it made him feel like he couldn't catch his breath or resist her. He had abandoned rehearsed words; however, relying on his heart was also failing him now. His heart was a jumble of aching regret, present need. He could barely think as she held him in her gaze.

"I realized I needed to think about you, you know, what's happened to you, now, in all of this, this mess," she started to explain. "You lose everything without your trust fund. Everything your father built from scratch and hoped to pass on to you. All those years you sacrificed, far away from home, so you could take this over, be prepared to run the business. All of that is wasted if you lose this. I can't let that happen to you." She took a step forward, closing the space between them. "Chuck, I–"

She came here to accept his ridiculous proposition?

He was dumbfounded, thunderstruck. What was happening? He felt like he was playing Blind Man's Bluff, like someone hand blindfolded him and spun him around and around, then left him to stagger in the dark. But through the internal jumble, he recalled Gertrude's words, imploring him to tell Sarah how he felt. He had to stop this, now, before it got worse. Stop spinning. He couldn't let her accept the lie, as she tried to help him.

"Wait-wait-wait-wait," he stuttered, holding out his hands to her, requesting she let him speak. "Wait," he said a final time, clearly and decisively. She hadn't expected him to stop her, he noted, seeing her confusion. Hesitantly, he asked, gesturing to the sofa along the wall, "Can we just…sit…talk…for a few minutes?"

"Ok," she said meekly. She sat on the very end of the couch and placed her purse on the cushion beside her, a small barrier between them. She kept her eyes straight ahead, waiting.

Chuck started without further forethought. "You were right, before, that I sounded like Jack last night. I wasn't trying to…but it came out like that. I can't justify what I said to you, how I said it. I was trying not to hurt you, or be disrespectful to you in any way, to protect you…and I did the exact opposite, because I was…I don't know, manipulating…my words on their way out," he explained, feeling like he was talking nonsense.

She turned to look at him, studying his face. She understood. "You always do best when you're speaking freely, from your heart. That's kind of your thing, you know?" she said sweetly. Her face softened, her eyes glowing with a soft, firefly glow.

He smiled widely, ridiculously, at her words, unable to hide the giddy pleasure words like that always created inside him when she spoke them. "Yeah…I guess so," he said gently. Then neither spoke.

The silence was tense, awkward, as it sat between them, like her purse. He wasn't sure where to start what needed to be said. The beginning, he chided himself.

"So…New York, huh?" he asked, trying to keep his tone conversational. "I never heard you say that once, ever, say that going there was something you wanted. Something that you were hoping to or planning to do." He rubbed his hands together between his knees, the mention of her leaving making him anxious.

She averted her gaze, her cheeks coloring the lightest of pinks. "It wasn't, you know, at the top of my list of things I wanted out of life, but it's…the only thing left on the list that I can still do," she said sadly, defeat in her tone.

He took a deep breath before he continued. "What was at the top?" he asked, fixing her with his gaze. He had so rarely asked her direct questions about what she wanted; he had always, like now, feared the answers. She paused, her mouth opening and closing several times with no words issuing forth. He rushed to add, almost begging, "Please, Sarah, tell me the truth."

"Having a family," she finally whispered. "You know, getting married, having kids, a dog…" Her voice trailed away and she swallowed so hard he heard it.

She had denied that last night, when he'd brought it up. He needed to know more. "What changed that? Why is it something you think you can't have now?" he asked carefully.

She wiped her wet eyes with her fingers, staying silent. She looked up at the ceiling, like she was trying to find the words to say, but she never responded.

He forced his fear deep inside, knowing the only way out of this..was through. Cowardice was no longer an option. "Sarah, what happened to us?" he asked, his voice trembling.

He heard her sharp intake of breath. He faced her, waiting for her to face him. "You used to be able to talk to me. We could talk to each other…about anything." Except what mattered most to us both. "And then…" His voice trailed away as he saw her hands twisting in her lap, a clear sign of her discomfort.

"It was…hard…when you left," she said softly; Chuck had to lean closer to hear her.

"I know," he whispered. Impulsively, bravely, he reached over and grabbed her hands, stopping her from twisting her fingers. "Me leaving was hell…on both of us." His voice broke. "You know, I cried myself to sleep every night for two months. I would wake up with a sore throat from being so quiet I didn't wake Michael, my roommate, up. I hurt…but I knew you were hurting too." His eyes were misted. "If there had been any other way, some other choice, you know I would have stayed here, in Massachusetts. With you."

Her voice was low, scratchy, when she replied. "I know. That's what I meant before. You sacrificed so much…to go to school."

In a broken voice, full of pain, he continued. "I know how much you suffered, being here alone. With no one but Jack. But…Sarah, it got worse…after your birthday party," he said, forcing the words out of his mouth, watching her react as if he'd shocked her with a live wire.

"Chuck–" she cried, making the same face he had seen, over and over, like she was bracing for pain. Her hands up, imploring —

He had to say it, he told himself. Gertrude's words haunted him, echoed in his head. "Sarah, I have to know this. Were you in love with Bryce?"

She broke down, weeping with her hands over her face. Bryce's name stuck in Chuck's mouth, dry and bitter, but he forced it out. He couldn't remember saying the name aloud in her presence since before she had started dating Bryce. Chuck felt like he was waiting for his sentence at a trial, life or death to be carried in a single word.

"No," she choked out. "No," she repeated, "No." Her voice strengthened as if she was confessing to herself as much as to Chuck, her conviction growing each time she said the word. She dropped her hands, started twisting them in her lap again. "We had…fun together. He kept my mind off…things. For a while, he made me feel…special. Normal. But–" She broke down, crying again, the sobs masking some of her words. "Why are you asking me that?"

No. He kept repeating the word to himself as she had to him. It echoed through him. No. Gertrude was right, of course. Damn it, she had always been right, about everything. And Chuck had been so wrong about it all.

Sarah never loved Bryce.

So, what in the world had happened to her?

"I've been…trying to understand…the changes that I saw in you. That I still see. You were in so much pain, I didn't know what to do…how I could help you," he told her.

She wept. "You couldn't. You can't," she added, changing tense implicitly.

"Help me to understand it?" he implored desperately. "I can feel it, like it's my own heart that's broken. It kills me to know you hurt so much."

She reached out, rested her palm flat against his chest, over his heart. Her hand was like warm compress, soothing. Could she feel how his heart was hammering inside him?

"You know, I felt so guilty," she said, her eyes meeting his then skittering away again. "I was relieved when he was drafted. I can't explain it, really, other than to say I…trusted him, and I shouldn't have. Then, when I got that call from his mother, after she got the telegram —" She sobbed loudly, her momentary composure gone. He pulled her into his arms, feeling the rigidity of her muscles relax in his embrace, an old and familiar feeling.

"It wasn't your fault, what happened to him. Any more than what happened to my parents and my sister was my fault. Tragedies happen. Life is full of them. Even if you felt relieved when he left, it doesn't make you responsible for his death," Chuck told her, trying to calm her.

As he spoke, his brain was working, making connections. Was it her guilt that had left her so nearly destroyed when he had seen her again when she had finally returned from school? He wasn't sure why, but he felt like she was keeping something back, obscuring one thing by revealing another. He didn't know how to ask for more without hounding her, when she was already close to hysterics. She cried for a long time, folded in his arms. The sun had climbed high before she stopped.

"What about you?" she asked at last, the words muffled as she spoke against his chest.

"What about me?" he asked, surprised by her question and unsure what she meant.

"Jill. You wanted to marry her. And then…you just gave up. I saw the way Hannah always looked at you…but you pretended like you didn't notice her flirting with you," Sarah noted.

Her conclusion wasn't true, but it was what she took herself to see. Hannah had thrown herself at him, only to be rebuffed. He was honest, of course, telling her he didn't feel the same way she did. But he never shared the reason why, because he refused to share the the truth with himself: he was in love with Sarah.

"Sarah, I was fortunate that I found out how I felt about Jill before it was too late…found out that I didn't love Jill, at least not the way that a husband should," Chuck admitted. His cheeks burned scarlet, but he admitted it all. "Jill acted the way Hannah did, I think. I went back to school after you and Bryce were…and I…"

She sat back, lifting her head and staring at him, like she had never seen him before, as if she did not recognize him. His words had shocked her, he knew. He watched her lower jaw tremble as the realization overtook her.

"Bryce came to my birthday party, when I turned 16, with Carina. They were…you know, together, like that. He broke it off with her and asked my father if he could take me out," Sarah blurted. "He tried once, to sleep with her again, while he was with me."

What? Chuck thought. That was something he had never known. He was dimly aware of Carina and Bryce, the nature of their relationship. Carina, by the age of 16, had quite a reputation. Chuck had assumed, based on what Sarah had explained to him at the time, that even a casual date with Carina, even at 16, usually involved sex. Somehow, he had just never connected all of the dots before. Carina was reckless with her body, but cautious with her heart. Sarah was her closest friend. That Carina never allowed Bryce to cheat on Sarah with her spoke volumes about the genuineness of Carina's friendship with Sarah.

"She told me right away, about him trying," Sarah explained. "I ignored it. I wasn't jealous. Maybe I should have been, but I wasn't. I didn't care enough. As long as he paid attention to me." Disgust with herself saturated every word.

"She told me she liked taking things that I wanted," Sarah repeated. "Maybe my apathy made him less enticing, I don't know."

That sounded like Carina, he thought. Bryce had been there for the taking, yet Carina had never acted on it. Carina's motives were always mixed.

"I told her to stay away from you," Sarah said softly, her face turned away. "That was the only thing I ever told her directly like that."

Carina had never once approached him, or propositioned him. That was surprising but he had never really thought about it. It was unusual to be male and in Carina's vicinity and not have that experience, given all he knew and all that Sarah had told him. To the extent that he had thought about it, he had attributed Carina's lack of interest as a measure of his overall desirability. He was tall and awkward, intelligent and quiet. No one's homecoming king, for sure. But Sarah had warned her off? It was strange, he thought.

"At my birthday party, Carina told me she was going to kiss you, even though she was there with Bryce," Sarah added. He saw her face, fire engine red with embarrassment.

The words felt like a blow to his head. Sarah had come outside, looking for him, because she was afraid Carina would do it first. Carina forced Sarah to act. Act out of jealousy. He had to finish with that party, had to get everything out in the open, once and for all.

"I should have explained myself, that night in the garden…at your party. Instead, I let you ignore it, pretend like it never happened. I convinced myself you did…what you did because you were drunk. But that wasn't the truth, was it?" he asked, his voice hushed.

"I was drunk. I drank three quarters of that bottle before you even showed up," she said, covering her face.

"You may have been drunk, but you still meant it, what you did…and what you said? You planned it before you drank the wine?" he asked. He had started it as an accusation, like he wouldn't let her deny it. He changed it to a question, giving her an out, afraid that he was still somehow misunderstanding everything.

She bent, folding in on herself, trying to minimize herself, to disappear. All he could see was the back of her head, but she nodded.

"Those dreams…the ones you asked me about?" she stated, her voice squeaking. "Marriage. I never thought about my dress…or my bouquet…or my bridesmaids, or anything like that. About me. But the one thing that was always the same, the one thing I always thought about, was my bridegroom…and it was always you. All of those things I wanted…I wanted with you."

He felt like his body was jelly, like he was sliding from the sofa onto the floor, a sticky puddle. How had he never guessed that, seen that, known that? It took Gertrude and her late revelations to make him see.

Wanted. The word struck him. Not want.

Past tense. Everything was past tense.

But what about the present, the future? He needed to know if there was a chance, however slim, that she still felt the same.

"Sarah, the hardest thing I have ever done…in my life…was stop you from kissing me. I didn't understand my feelings then, but know this: it took all the willpower I possessed to not do what you asked. I wanted to, Sarah. Desperately. I wanted you. But you were 16, and…drunk," he added, raising his voice slightly as he stressed the point. "It wasn't right, any of it. It felt like I would be taking advantage of you. I should have told you that was why, but I didn't. It would have required that I acknowledge how I felt. I told myself maybe there was a chance, if I waited, when you were older, even though I would never have expected you to wait for me, not like that."

"I'm older now," she said, her voice raspy as she labored to breathe. "The way I felt about you…never changed."

He could hear her ragged breathing, see her chest heaving, his words affecting her deeply. She turned her head, but only part way, as if she were afraid to look at him straight on. He slid closer to her on the sofa, close enough to smell her perfume, the scent of wild flowers, although domesticated by the scent of baby powder. The powder scent was new. It made him recall when she was small, an errant memory flashing in and out of his mind. He leaned to her and rested his chin on her shoulder, his heart skipping a beat when she leaned back against him. The reaction was familiar, but never before had it meant what it meant now. Everything.

"It was always you, Sarah," he whispered in her ear. "For me too. Nothing matters but you."

She sagged against him, melting into him, shifting in his arms slightly. She turned her head and her lips were on his cheek, gentle.

"I love you, Sarah Walker. I always have," he proclaimed, his voice soft but strong, leaving no doubt.

She turned her body all the way around, never breaking contact with him, never taking her lips from his cheek, turning her body completely toward him. A physical image of the emotions they had just confessed, he turned his head, pressing his lips against hers. He tasted the tears on her lips before she opened her mouth, inviting him in.

It was the same kiss from four years ago, just as passionate, just as hungry. She moaned softly in his mouth. It was like he was drowning, unable to breathe, sure the stories he'd heard about the final pleasantness of drowning had to be true. Her hands were in his hair, on his neck, on his face. His arm snaked around her waist, pulling her tight against him. He forgot that he was at work, every dilemma reduced to a small speck at the far horizon. All that mattered was the woman in his arms. The woman he loved.

There was no time while he was kissing her, lost in her. Eternal. She was the one to first pull gently away, releasing his lips and gasping for breath. She remained so close that he felt her smile against his lips a moment later, felt her eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks.

"You were my first kiss….Carina taught me how to kiss you like that," she added with a breathless, embarrassed giggle.

He was embarrassed too. He had been 20, but she had been his first kiss. "I was following your lead, so…maybe she taught me, too," he said in a low voice, "once removed."

She pulled back her head, her astonishment on her face at his words. He was uncomfortably flushed, feeling the heat from his cheeks near his eyes like heat rising from the sand on the beach. She took his face in her hands, her fingers cool and soothing on his burning skin. "You're so sweet," she gushed, smiling.

When he finally met her eyes, he lost what little breath he had left. It was as if the miserable years in between had vanished; she was looking at him the way she had when she was a young teenager.

Joy. He didn't know why he never understood that was what he had seen on her face all those years ago, what had been missing since. There was nothing about either of their lives that was joyous, except their feelings for each other, what they had together. I made her happy, he said to himself, at last able to accept it for truth. He shifted to the present tense. I make her happy.

She loved animals, birds and frogs, baby things, flowers and books…and him. Those things composed her life since the day he had met her.

He could make her happy again, if the look on her face now was any indication. That was all he wanted, to be given the chance to make her happy. The business and everything associated with it was important to him, and had been his motivation for starting to think this way. But now his eyes were open, and he could see everything. It was about her, for her…and nothing else mattered. Everything he had been trying so hard to salvage could collapse into itself–as long as he was with her, it was alright.

With a hand on each of his cheeks, she pulled back slightly, sighing. Her speaking again woke him from a dream. "I know this may sound strange, but…I need to take things…slow."

"Slow?" he asked, confused.

"We were never…together. We never dated. We're starting at the end, because we have to. But that doesn't mean we can't just…go slow, does it?" she asked.

"Fifteen years wasn't slow enough?" he teased. She giggled. It was like music.

"I know you. But I don't know you. I just…would feel better…without all the…stress of that," she explained.

She did know him; she knew him better than any other person on the face of the earth. The romantic part of their relationship was what she meant, he thought. He could understand, knowing she was still young, still technically a teenager, 19, at least for three more months. Even as his mind worked those thoughts, a shadow showed in her eyes. Something else was still inside, haunting her, something she couldn't or wouldn't tell him. He felt like they had come so far so quickly, in just one momentous conversation; he could wait. He could give her time–he had to give her time. He owed her time.

"Whatever you need," he whispered, touching her chin, running his thumb along her jawline. She closed her eyes, sighing pleasantly at his touch. He kissed her again, tenderly, lovingly.

She released him, smiling. She reached for her handbag, unfolding the scarf she had lain atop it. Deftly, she wrapped it around her hair, smoothing it down before she folded it over her shoulder. "I have to go. Diane's coming back to get me. I have papers to sign at her office."

"Can I pick you up at Roxanne's on the way home from work? We can have dinner at my house again," he said expectantly. "We can talk about…everything."

"Great," she replied, the warmest of smiles lighting up her face, the shadow, whatever it was, gone. "Although, two nights in a row? Gertrude might flog you," she giggled.

"Not when I'm bringing home my future wife," he said, teasing, though the words gripped his heart like strong hands. My wife.

She swooned against him, her earlier resolve weakening. "Keep talking like that, I'll never get out of here." She shook herself and pecked his lips softly. "See you tonight."

He felt like he was floating several inches off the floor. It felt surreal. Every dream of yesterday he had thought gone forever, now today snatched alive from the jaws of tragedy. Hope was beautiful, the most beautiful thing he knew. The substance of human life. It had been gone from him for so long, longer than he could even remember. But his heart was full of it, overflowing. Hope. That hope of happiness which is almost happiness itself.

He moved to his window, intent on watching Sarah. It only took a few minutes, and then she appeared. He saw her as she moved from the entryway to the sidewalk.

And saw her almost collide with Daniel Shaw.

A/N: Thank you Zettel for his pre-reading genius. Much appreciated. Thoughts? Drop me a line. :)