April 1982 – Fairfield, CT

Angela came in through the kitchen entrance after work, her arms loaded. She placed their dinner on the table, and grabbed a soda from the fridge. Ugh! I'm so glad to be home!

Taking a sip, she lugged her briefcase into the living room. "Hey, guys," she said with a moderate smile.

Jonathan was on the floor in front of the couch watching Sesame Street, while Michael lied down the length of it, facing her.

"Hi, Mom!" Jonathan yelled without looking away from Super Grover inadvertently creating mayhem.

Angela smiled at the back of her son's head, and then cautiously looked at Michael. He was watching her.

Michael lifted his arm at the elbow and waved. He didn't smile, but his face was soft. Angela walked behind the couch and leaned a little over the console table, her long curls falling over her shoulder.

"Can I get you anything?" she asked quietly.

Michael shook his head but kept watching her. Angela nodded slowly, and started to walk upstairs. Just when she'd passed him, Michael spoke.

"How was Paxton?" he asked, still looking where she'd been. She stopped walking.

Besides Michael leaving her ring on top of her makeup box the morning they left Panama, neither of them had brought up anything about their rift since the morning after. Recharged emotion radiated from her chest, and pushed tears right up against her eyes.

Looking down at him, Angela tried to recover, and a realization offered her the slightest smile, "A little whiny, actually."

She couldn't see Michael's face, but he turned his head to watch the TV. She went upstairs, taking controlled breaths, content with their encounter.

She wasn't pushing him, and she didn't want to be pushed.

Everything about that night was a twisted tumbleweed of feelings, and they could only be at the layer where they were. And for the last week and a half, where they were, was circling each other. They weren't really speaking, but for her, the incident had forged some sort of bizarre esprit de corps. Emotions were very near the surface, and they'd deal with them as they had to. But to her, Michael was front and center.

Her own burns were excruciating and deep, but God help anyone who'd try to pull her away. She was going to deal with this the way she wanted to, at her own pace.

Angela had called Paxton last Monday from their hotel room, informing him that Michael had been injured and wouldn't be able to fly home for a few days. After some uncharitable remarks from Paxton - which Angela noticed she found decidedly unattractive, she'd looked over at Michael's battered body napping on the bed, and ended the call with a righteous confidence she hadn't felt in a long time. Paxton's opinion just wasn't at the top of her list anymore.

"The tickets are changed, Grant. Let me know if you don't want me to come in next week."

The tumult of La Torre had shifted many things, not the least of which was Angela's confidence in the work she did. She knew she was an asset, and her realization that she'd never milk that emboldened her to take the time they needed. But there was something else this look into flirting revealed: Paxton did it to her, too. And his snarky comments were obvious and less than professional. So, if this wasn't about her actual job, at which they both know she did a damn fine job, then it could wait.

As it turned out, Paxton had never called to fire her. And besides eyeing her today during their regular Monday morning meeting, when he'd told everyone he hoped they'd 'had a good time off', he hadn't said anything to her.

Zipping up the jacket of her tracksuit, Angela walked back downstairs.

"Are you ready to eat?" Angela asked Michael cautiously.

"Yeah," he said, carefully pushing himself up from the couch.

Angela held the swinging door open for Michael, and he glanced at her as he walked through. Jonathan rushed past him, and Angela's eyes widened. "Whoa, whoa! Careful, honey! Daddy's hurt, remember."

Jonathan looked up at them from his seat, "Oh, yeah. Sorry, Daddy." He laughed. "I forgot. That's so funny!" he tipped his head back, enjoying the memory.

Michael and Angela shared a look, but didn't say anything.

"Tell me, again, Daddy - how you fell down the stairs with the refrigerator!"

Angela walked to the silverware drawer, rolling her eyes. Amateur.

Michael had attempted to construct a story for Jonathan that could go around town, if necessary. It had started innocently enough, but then Angela had to agree with Jonathan: it was just stupid.

Michael sighed, "Well, we were walking up the stairwell in the hotel, when there was this maintenance guy, and he was carrying a mini fridge...I guess the elevators were broken. Anyway, he was going to trip on his shoelace, so I said I'd hold the fridge for him while he tied it. But when he stood up, he accidently bumped me, and I…" he sighed, "fell down a couple flights of stairs…with the refrigerator."

Jonathan started laughing again, and Angela did her best to keep her face unchanged.

After a good eight or so seconds of their son's belly laughs, Angela put her hand on Jonathan's shoulder. "Okay, well, Daddy is hurt, honey. So, let's not laugh anymore, alright? Eat your salmon."

Jonathan wiggled to a comfortable seating position and started on his food. Michael took a roll, and cut it open. Angela snatched the butter from her side of the table, and put it close to Michael. They looked at each other for a second or two, then down at their own plates. Angela stabbed her salad, and exhaled.


After her run that night, Angela came into the house quietly. Michael would probably have Jonathan down by now. And while she certainly didn't want to wake their son, her nerves mostly came from being alone with Michael. That week in the hotel room had been awful.

Michael had slept a lot, during which, the absence of the distraction their tension provided while he was awake had left Angela feeling uproariously antsy. She'd tried working, working out, and even a little day drinking to settle her nerves. But at one point, she'd sat in the desk chair, chocolate frosting dripping onto her work folder, and Angela had realized something. Even with the inexorable guilt and hurt, she was still angry.

The flirting with Paxton, the deciding to go clubbing alone, the…dancing…with Tucker - it was all the vomit of my truly upset insides. It's not that I had a right to do it... She'd groaned. I can't even think of it without feeling sick... But something was going to give.

And what if I haven't satisfied it?

The memory of all this possibly happening again shook her to the present. And here she stood, in the same house, with the source of her hurt and rage. They were alone, and Michael was probably still awake.

When Michael wasn't sleeping in the hotel, they hadn't said much. If he'd needed something, Angela had tried to oblige. And she'd offered him the help she could anticipate. Otherwise, they'd kept to themselves. They just weren't ready.

Shit! This would be a whole lot easier if only one of us were at fault! But we've destroyed each other.

Angela now stood in the foyer, her hair damp, and her body spent. She looked wearily up the staircase, and sadness flooded her as she was thrown back to when they'd landed at JFK.

"Do you want to see a doctor?" she'd asked him as she'd shouldered their carry-ons.

"What for?" he'd asked, holding his side.

She'd stumbled through an answer. "I- I don't know… make sure it's healing the way it should, give you something for the pain?"

He'd looked at her for a couple seconds. "It wouldn't help," he'd said seriously, the rough commotion of the terminal softer than his spoken truth.

Angela flew back to the present, she and her headache. All these flashbacks. All this spinning. I really am going nuts. Wiping tears from her eyes, she held her head as she trudged up the stairs.

Michael was in their room, trying to change his t-shirt. Angela walked slowly, but purposefully, toward him, and glanced for permission to help him. She thought how cute he looked, standing there with the shirt through the head hole, but stifled the inappropriate smile. She pulled at the side of the shirt with the broken ribs, and carefully put that wrist through first. Then she did the other side.

"Thanks," he said quietly.

She cracked the tiniest smile, and turned toward her own drawers. She changed into a nightgown quickly, brushed her teeth, and ducked under the covers.

Since that night, the changing in front of each other had gotten really weird. Everything in her wanted to go into the bathroom to change, but she decided if Michael had to be exposed (and she tried her best to respect his decency), she would tough it out, as well. But she really wanted to cover herself in front of him, and she hated it.

It was all so uncomfortable. Just like she'd been doing since the second night, Angela had taken up as little space as she could on her side of the bed. Lying long and thin, she faced the door with her fists snuggled next to her face, and tried desperately not to move around.

She never saw Michael watching her, as he did every night, before looking up at the ceiling to go to sleep.

Herself, Angela closed her eyes, and wondered at the prudence of their process.

We just have to make it 'till his assignment. That's what he said he wanted…Right?

Besides, he needs to feel free to heal physically.

She tucked her elbows tighter to her chest, and scrunched her face.

Who am I kidding? I'm scared to death.


May 1982 – Fairfield, CT

Michael and Angela got out at the train station. It was raining buckets, but Angela kept Michael's pace to their car. Her stomach had been hurting all day. It was their 5th Anniversary, and she just wanted to forget it.

She felt exposed.

She felt wrong.

Angela knew Michael didn't like anniversaries on a good day. She did, of course. They'd been through a lot.

But despite still not knowing what she wanted to do about her and Michael, she did know, for the time being, that she wanted to prop up their mutilated marriage as respectfully as possible. It had taken an unfair beating, and she wanted to show Michael, if nothing else, that she cared.

Angela put the stick in reverse and backed up, the hum of the motor and the squeak of the wipers the only sounds in the car. Actually, she was starting to think the void between them had a sound, too.

But presents are about the recipient, not the giver.…Maybe ignoring the day is the best gift I could give him.

If that benefits me, I guess that's okay.


May 1982 – Fairfield, CT

Michael started to pack for his trip late the night before he would leave. Angela came up next to him under the harsh single light of the closet in the otherwise shadowed room. Without saying anything, she stepped in front of him and took over getting his duffel down from the top shelf. Even though he was basically healed, she figured exasperating those high-reaching motions couldn't be helpful. She tried to make the retrieval process look casual.

"Thanks," he said when she finally handed him the bag.

Angela held his eye contact for longer than she had in weeks. This close to his departure, the hurt had amplified with the expectation and dread.

It was probably 20 seconds before either moved. The back of Michael's fingers crept up to her cheek, and she closed her eyes. Oh, my God...she whimpered to herself.

Without opening her eyes, she stepped forward and hugged him gently but securely. Michael's warmth soaked into her like heroin.

Slowly, Michael moved his hands to hug her back, one on her shoulder and the other behind her head. He pressed his lips to her hair, and they stayed there for a while, almost shaking.

Michael dipped his cheek down next to hers, and Angela's mouth found his like a magnet. Slowly and softly, she pressed his top lip between hers. They were both breathing deeper, and her hands clasped behind his neck while his hands dropped to her waist.

The return of Angela's flashbacks could not have been more inopportune. She remembered hanging just like this on Tucker's neck, and felt the difference of Michael up against her. Guilt saturated the not-unpleasant distinction. Michael ran his hands up Angela's sides, and her mind saw him doing that to that woman. Fear filled her that he missed what he wasn't holding. Angela gasped and pulled her mouth from his, looking off to the side to catch a breath.

Her reasons for breathing deeply blinked like the spotlights in the club. Michael slowly brought both his hands to her face, and looked in her eyes with a tentativeness she barely recognized. Everything Michael does, he's always on the offensive. Guilt grasped her throat, seeing how he'd changed. I didn't mean to do all this. I swear, I didn't! She froze, except for her quickening breaths.

Michael moved in to kiss her softly, and closed his eyes on the way. Angela was overcome with a gratitude that he still wanted her. What she felt about him didn't really feel within her reach. She softened as he held her face, and kissed her soundly. He slid his hands down to her shoulder blades, and she felt him breathing through their chests as their heads tipped from one side to the other. Angela felt the shoulders of the man she loved beneath her palms, and got an immediate boost of sadness and guilt, harshly aware of her fresh comparison.

Michael moved his hands down her back, and pushed her hips tightly to him. He stood up straight, angling his neck down from above her. She felt the intensity of his kisses quickening, and tasted a clear, thin, saltiness on her lips.

She wasn't crying.

May 1982 - JFK

Michael gave Jonathan one last hug and put him down.

"I miss you, Daddy," Jonathan said with big eyes and a little voice.

Michael glanced at Angela before he jutted his jaw to bite his top lip. He squatted down in front of their son. "I miss you, too, Little Tiger. You're the best ice cream eating buddy a guy could have. I'll call you, okay?" Michael gave him another quick hug and stood.

He stepped in front of Angela, and looked at her with a sad sincerity, "Goodbye, Angela."

A frown flickered on her face, as he leaned over to kiss her forehead. Pulling back, he smiled at Jonathan and turned toward the gate.