Chapter 10

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"Hello, Michael."

There were dozens, maybe hundreds, of words buried so deeply inside his throat, encased by steel bands wrapping his heart, that none could escape, even though he desperately wanted to set them free.

She'd done it again as she had so many times before. She had rendered him speechless, but he couldn't turn and shrug this away, could not grip his composure, couldn't cleverly elevate an eyebrow in such a way as to dismiss the effect she engendered.

All it had ever taken was an honest glance. A soft touch, a tender gesture. Her husky hello. For years, he'd perfected hiding his natural response to her, a purely self-protective gesture, but that day had passed. Yes, he was speechless, completely weakened and overwhelmed by the moment. His words would not be voiced because the vision in front of him was like none other.

Here, before him, stood his life—all the yesterdays that counted and the tomorrows he so sorely wanted.

He knew she was why—she would always be the reason why—he wasn't capable of uttering a single syllable.

All he could do was move toward her, his gaze locked with hers. Even though his eyes never left hers, he struggled to interpret the expression on her face because it was something he'd never seen before.

Peace seemed oddly layered over her anguish. Curiosity flared in her eyes, and it gave him a measure of comfort to see desire and, conversely, another measure of dread when he recognized resolve he'd often interpreted as her stubbornness.

Now there was something more in her open gaze. She'd reached a decision of some kind, and, instantly and irrationally, or perhaps rationally, he feared it.

She would tell him something he wouldn't want to hear, but whatever she put into words, he would have to swallow it. Bury it. Accept it. If there was one thing Fi could do, it was clearly speak her mind, and he suspected he wouldn't want to hear what she had to say when she revealed the reason for her presence here.

Other than the summons he'd received—summarily delivered through Jesse—he could not guess at what she wanted.

He didn't realize he'd moved across the room until he inhaled. Her scent, the heat of her body warming and diffusing it, filled the cold place that that had grown over the past months since they parted. When he looked down into her upturned face, she filled his entire field of vision.

The rush of familiarity was so fresh and new he was instantly transported to days and nights remembered the days where everything around them had disappeared, the nights when the universe stood still.

Her dark eyes and small face, nearly luminous in the low interior lighting of the room, tilted up to his. He paused. For a moment, stupidly, he did not know where to put his hands; her body had changed so much in the time they had been apart.

Gone were her lean angles and soft curves, replaced by this sensual, beautifully rounded, pregnant, womanly version of the girl whose image had burned itself on his mind's eye when they first met so long ago, so very far away.

He had been new to the organization that day in the pub, and he knew the rules, knew what he was supposed to do and what he shouldn't. He also knew the moment she pressed that cylinder of hardened steel against his ribs and met his quick but calmly startled gaze that he would never be able to forget her.

Some called it fate.

This was the embodiment of all the tomorrows they'd both seen that first moment, a moment that transformed present to future as it skyrocketed through the primal memory of their first meeting before disappearing in the smoky, acrid atmosphere of an Irish pub, somewhere between the plaster and lath walls, somewhere beneath the scarred and battered wood floor.

As memory rushed at him, Fiona resolved his question about what to do with his hands by pressing her palm flat against his chest. The heat from her hand paralyzed him as she pushed him away by extending her arm to keep him from stepping closer, to keep him from touching her with trembling hands.

"Michael, we have to talk."

Acknowledging her words with a nod, he swallowed a hard and silent gulp as his gaze slid to where the warmth of her hand suffused heat through his chest, warming him, making his heartbeat stutter, stealing air from his lungs.

He couldn't let her push him away.

Her arm collapsed as he took a step closer, and slowly raised his hand to encompass hers before tenderly cupping her cheek with his other hand. Just as slowly, he lowered his mouth to touch his dry, chapped lips to hers, so soft and tender.

If she'd entertained resistance, it was gone the moment he felt her body shudder as his did. Quickly, he deepened the kiss, sliding his mouth across her cheek to the wildly beating pulse in her throat and then back again while she burrowed her way into his arms, their child and their clothing the only things between them.

In that instant, every invisible barrier was shoved aside as his lips left hers, pressing against her cheek, the soft spot near her ear and the small, tender place beneath it, leaving no lovely spot untouched. Huskily murmuring unintelligible words, he shared small deep sounds of pleasure.

He struggled to draw air into his lungs and whispered. "You shouldn't have come. This is dangerous, Fi."

"You shouldn't have left," she said, moving scant inches away before pulling him into another soft, sweet exchange. They stood there, embracing regret, need and want, their shared emotions laid bare on a bed of anxiety.

As he inhaled the freedom to touch her and this new life they had created, he wanted to drown in simply being with her. He would have freely given all the air there was to breathe to her if only the world could shrink to hold only them.

Fiona returned his embrace with strength he had almost forgotten. The heart thudding inside his chest had crashed with a jarring impact when he touched her after such a long absence from the sensation.

Now that she was in his arms, her touch had freed him from the maelstrom and pulled him into her safety, a sanctuary he had needed and dreamed of for so long. The energy between them smoothed and mellowed as he sipped hurried, hungry kisses from her lips before leaning down to press his lips to the evidence of their child, his hands on either side of her abdomen.

This was unlike any moment he could have imagined, so he memorized it, and allowed the sensation burn into his psyche because he knew he would need it, if not later today, then tomorrow and all the hours after that, hours he would attempt to explain in a way she could understand but never would.

He wanted what she would give him, but he wouldn't be worthy of it, not for a long time, and it startled him, knocked him flat, the realization he wanted them to be a family. The sensation wasn't that different from those unexpected times his brother Nate had bested him, stunning him with a wily, well-planned move before Michael could retaliate and bring the balance of brotherly battle back in his favor, where it had always been.

Fatherhood was a condition he had long denigrated; his own example had been so poor he never wanted to risk a predictable failure. There was nothing in his life to create a need for this most human possibility, but this gift he could not deny had seismically shifted his private universe.

He might not be able to claim Fiona in any other way, but this child was his and hers, an unalterable binding of a soul that would be melded to both of theirs.

This brief time with her would allow him to take leave of the silent war he fought. He knew if he stayed with her too long, he wouldn't be able to return or finish what he needed to do, a task he needed to do alone. He needed to end it. End it. He didn't need a cease fire; he needed victory.

As he pressed his face against her and their child, every protective instinct he possessed surged to envelope him with a helpless power. He had never tasted a confusing emotion quite like this.

Lightly, her fingers slipped through the hair on his head. Michael placed one more gentle kiss on her belly before he straightened up. She was so much smaller without her shoes. He'd forgotten this. Sliding his hands behind her back, he locked his gaze to hers.

Her voice was husky. "Careful. He likes to kick."

"He?"

"He."

Michael closed his eyes to the news of this gift, a faint smile on his lips. A hard swallow. A deep breath. A son.

"You're happy?"

He heard the hesitancy and kissed her forehead before pulled her into his embrace, his breath hot and moist as he pressed his face against the crown of her head.

"Of course, but I would love our daughter, too, Fi. Are you happy?"

"Yes," she whispered.

He felt her smile, and then he ruined the moment because he had to.

"You shouldn't have come." He felt her flinch, and knew it was his words not the scratchiness of his whiskered face on the soft skin of her cheek. "This was dangerous, Fi, foolish . . ."

She pressed her fingers over his lips, silencing him. "No." And when he would have said more, her fingers returned. "No."

He brushed her hair away from her face to focus on the flyaway halo of short auburn hair that framed her face, and cupped the back of her head with his palm and slid his fingers through the silken strands.

He didn't ask the question.

"I donated it to a place that makes wigs for people with cancer. This," she explained quietly, brushing her hair back from her face, "was because I needed to start over. I needed something new. It wasn't because—"

"She was only a contact, never more. I—"

Her fingers slid over his lips again and took a deep breath. "What I didn't know on the day I cut my hair was I already had a new life."

"You're . . . so, I —" Were there words to express how happy, how grateful, how thankful he was? "Fi, I—"

Again, she stopped his words with delicate fingers across his lips.

"Sam told me it this was wrong, that I should let you finish whatever you're doing, but I couldn't."

"I'm . . ." He closed his eyes, and tugged at her hand. She resisted and didn't move.

"I am not here to talk about your job, Michael."

"Okay. You know—""

He silenced himself, and then gently led her through the house, down a wide set of stairs and into a room adjacent to the kitchen where a low-burning fire in a fireplace lit and warmed the room beyond an eating area.

When she inhaled sharply, he stopped and turned quickly to see her slowly expel a breath while pressing her palm against her side.

Worry lined his face. "Are—"

"I'm fine." She pulled his hand and guided his touch to her extended abdomen where their child seemed to be actively protesting confinement.

Sublime wonder flooded his being as he felt a strong thump against his palm. When he blinked and looked into her eyes, his own were damp. "That's . . . beautiful."

Inhaling sharply once more, she took slow steps toward the seating area and lowered herself onto a couch as he walked beside her, his arm supporting her.

"I can walk, Michael," she chastised, but he didn't release his hand even as she tried to pull away.

Once seated, he sat close, watching as she pulled up her sweater and the knit shirt under it before pulling his work-roughened hands to cover her smooth, taut moveable flesh. She rested her head on the back of the couch and closed her eyes as her hands slid on top of his.

When their child's movement slowed, she took a deep breath. "This is inelegant, but I need to use a bathroom, Michael. Where is it?"

He stood to help her up. "It's back there, through that door, next to the bedroom."

When it looked as if he wanted to accompany her, she shook her head and smiled. "I'm fine, Michael, by myself. This is normal, regrettably normal."

Regrettably normal? Unbidden, his heart raced.

It took him much longer than it should have to realize she wasn't complaining about her pregnancy as much as the state of her pregnancy and the new demands on her body.

He turned to the view beyond the wide, sliding glass doors that opened onto a planked deck and overlooked a dense, wooded area where snow and night were falling with equal speed. With quick movements, he pulled the vertical blinds closed and adjusted the lever until the blinds blocked fishbowl view into the home. The fire had reduced itself to embers but remained bright enough so he could turn on the small lamp near the couch. He turned back and added several small, split logs to the fire.

"It's pretty here," Fi said as she returned and took a seat on the leather couch facing the other across from the fireplace.

He turned back to her. "This trip here . . . was, is risky, Fi."

"So is childbirth."

Feeling his heart race again, he searched for stillness before turning to kneel in front of her. "I know. I'm sorry, Fi."

Her irritation flashed, her hands again protectively on either side of her stomach. "Tell me you're not sorry about this."

"Never," he said softly, firmly.

Holding his gaze until she accepted his meaning and believed, at last she smiled.

"Fi, it's just . . . timing . . . and what I need to do," he said, his voice nearly a whisper.

Her quick look was a silent rebuke; he revised his question. "Maybe you should tell me why you wanted to come here."

He watched one fat, silent tear slide down her cheek. "That shouldn't be a difficult question for you, but, oddly, it is."

Closing his eyes, he gripped her hand tighter before softening his hold and pressing a kiss to the top of her knuckles.

Had he been looking at her, he would have seen anguish quickly hidden.

"I'm sorry my decisions have . . . disappointed you." It took him several minutes of silence before he realized she wasn't going to respond to him. "I don't know where to start, Fi . . ." His voice was almost a whisper.

"That sounds almost . . . honest."

It was achingly obvious they were about to repeat an old pattern of being in sync and out of sync at the same time. It was the only consistent thing in their long, magnetic relationship—that they would repel and attract each other with equal power.

Fiona studied the conflicted expressions on his face and clasped his hands with a strength he didn't expect.

And then she asked the impossible.

"Michael, I . . . really needed to see you. I know you think you can't come home but I came here to ask you to walk away from whatever you're doing. Please. Turn your back on this. We can escape. We know how. We can disappear. We can reinvent ourselves. We can start over. We can be a family. Together. I know we can. I want you to want this as much as I do."

She laid her heart bare.

His eyes closed.

How could she know how tempting this was? But there was so much she did not know. So much. "I can't."

Her voice was soft and quiet. "You mean you won't."

Her common sense, honed on experience after experience, told her this would be his response, but she had to try. She studied their entwined hands. He was going to do this thing, whatever it was he was doing, and she would never see him again. She believed it with every fiber of her being.

"Fi, I don't know how long this will take and I am so sorry I can't promise when . . ."

"Fine."

"Fine?"

As she had so often before, she slowly straightened her spine, and pulled the curtain over her heart as best she could. "If you can't do that, then you need to do something else for me."

"Anything, Fi."

"Do mean that?" She had him. They both knew it.

"I . . . if I can, I will—"

Always, the caveat. His door out. The un-affirmative, near agreement. She cringed inside, and pushed on. "It's simple. Your son needs a name, Michael. And I need you to be with me when he's born which should be in the next 20 days or so. If you won't stop this . . . thing you're doing, at least you can give me this much because . . ."

"I don't . . ."

" . . . and I won't ask for more." Again, ever. Never.

Too late he saw her steel walls arising, encompassing her, so he stopped the process and drug out a small, practiced, charming smile. Another mistake. "You know I want to marry you . . ."

"Marriage has never been part of our conversation."

"What if I want it to be?"

She sighed. Again, he'd changed the conversational topic. Typical Michael. Too typical. "Your son will be your son; marriage won't alter that."

She pulled her hand from his, pushed his shoulder so he would move out of her way and gracelessly stood and walked toward the fire to stare into the flickering depths. She'd wanted that push to make him fall or sit back from the kneeling position he'd been in, to somehow experience the same out loss of balance she had been living.

She knew he was studying, watching, evaluating, and trying to figure out what his next careful words would be. She was exhausted by the deeply personal chess game they'd played all these years. Wasn't he?

She felt him behind her. Stretching to ease the ache in her lower back, she crossed her arms above her baby belly and bit her lip when she felt him behind her. Wrapping his left arm around over her shoulder, he held a small object in front of her to see.

Clasping his wrist she held his hand still. "What is this?"

"Something I've had since we got back from Puerto La Cruz when Pearce sent us there for surveillance and an extraction."

She turned and looked up into his face, his eyes dark.

"Before I returned the agency wedding rings to Pearce you told me something. I remembered."

She only looked at him.

"Not long after that I ran into Nate, and he was, uh," Michael paused, "on what he called his apology tour of jewelry stores, looking for something for Ruth. It's not an Asscher cut diamond, but I think it looks like us."

Nate told him he was doing the wrong thing, that he should get the type of diamond Fiona requested, but Michael risked it because he thought this particular 18 karat gold band told a story—their story.

Handmade, the artist's vision captured his imagination. The moment he saw it, he knew it was hers.

It was 13 millimeters wide with a rough, chiseled slab texture in gold on the surface. The jeweler did not charge him for etching the words I Will Love You Forever inside the band.

She examined the rough texture of highs and low, the unique blend surfaces. No single surface besides the interior of the ring was smooth.

"Just because we've never talked about it, doesn't mean we haven't thought about it."

She glanced up into his face, the thick fringe of her lashes revealing a moment of surprise and truth. He was correct. She had thought about marriage and Michael, but she frowned as she looked back to study the ring between his fingers. "There are many things we never talked about."

"Children."

"Yes."

"You want this child."

The deep rumble of his voice touched every part of her soul. It was a moment of honesty that needed to be lived. "I do. But, I want, no, I need a different life than the one we have."

"I do, too."

She pulled away because she couldn't believe him.

"Marry me, Fi."

He could see the heartache in the hazel depths of her clear gaze as she whispered her reply. "No."

Inhaling a painful breath, he held it before slowly releasing it. "Then wear my ring. When I'm done, I'll find you and we'll . . . be a family."

"No."

His frustration and her stoicism sat between them, a living, breathing thing. She had proposed the impossible, the improbable and, despite what she thought, the unattainable. He could not walk away from the task before him, which did not mean he wasn't thoroughly tempted to do what she asked.

He stepped close, held her palm and placed the ring inside, closing her fingers around it. "Fi," he whispered, "being married to you is all I've thought about since Jesse sent me your picture."

"What picture?"

"Of you. Pregnant. I want us to be married, Fi, but . . . "

Her hand was warm on his wrist as she turned around into his arms and wrapped her arms around his waist.

"Will you wear this and wait for me?"

Wait for me.

He would leave. She'd known it, but she had to try. She glanced up into his damp dark blue eyes and didn't answer. She couldn't. All she had wanted was for him to make one decision to put the two, soon to be three, of them first, for once, just once ahead of everything else. First. Her heart thudded thickly in her chest; her pregnancy had already made it hard to breathe, and now, it was even more difficult.

Closing her hand into a fist holding the ring he'd placed there, Michael drew her close again. "I have missed you." He enveloped her small frame inside his arms, holding her as if he would never let her go, his voice cracking as he told her, "I've missed you so much."

She pulled away from him to slowly, and deliberately moved the ring from her left hand to her right before caressing his bearded cheek. "I've missed you, too."

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"Stop whining, Porter, and put on the boots."

"It's cold out there. And it's too late. We should stay in."

"I know, but you're going to love this. Come on."

It was a token of resistance because Jesse knew it was the only way he'd be able to talk to Dani in private, and given the scrutiny they'd been receiving all night, he was actually happy she'd figured out how to provide the relief.

She'd gone for a walk earlier and came back to retrieve him.

There were too many people in the great room for Jesse's personal comfort zone, so he stepped into the lightweight insulated boots he'd brought along, and followed her out the back door and down steps into the rapidly fading daylight, snow now brightly illuminating the winter-blanketed land around them.

Dan and Susan Siebels lived in a spacious house at the top of a hill not far away from the hilltop home of the Novaks who had offered their home and privacy to Michael and Fiona. Anders Porter had initiated the contact and made the request. With all four of the Siebels' sons away at college, there were bedrooms aplenty. As the odd man out, Jesse said he'd take the couch but Susan Siebels saw past his chivalrous offer and quietly put his duffle next to Dani's in the room.

As they left by the side door, Jesse said. "I thought it'd be colder. There's no wind."

"That's supposed to change," Dani said as she charged ahead, obviously aware of where she was going.

Fiona's request to see Michael shouldn't have surprised her, yet it did, almost as much as it surprised her to learn Jesse knew exactly where Michael was located. Months earlier, he'd given him one of SecuriCorp's newest developments—a cell phone which was easily located using some amazing proprietary software SecuriCorp had developed for its own use.

"They could sell this technology and make zillions," she'd said quietly. "But then they couldn't protect themselves."

"Hence, limited use," Jesse explained.

It struck her then, that everyone around her—Raines, Fiona, Anders Porter, Seibels and Cap—were aware of something she was uninformed about, something involving Michael and his seeming disappearance. She'd read the memo about Westen's leave of absence and the broad hint at psychological instability and disregarded it, even though her small group of colleagues in the CIA found it a joking matter.

She'd acknowledged the CIA alert that Westen was on medical leave, but she never believed it. The protected, secretive nature of this trip substantiated that.

By now, she knew Michael well enough to know if he was aware of Glenanne's pregnancy, he would have been here, with her. No, something else was going on, and it was all tied to Jesse's introduction to his father.

The subject remained one that Jesse guarded. If he chose to talk about it, she would listen.

The trip to Pennsylvania in SecuriCorp's private jet was tense. Fiona stared out a window, and clenched her hands when they were not protectively cradling her abdomen and the child she carried.

Anders and Jesse weren't making eye contact, so there was something new that had set them apart besides the very physical. Anders wasn't quite as tall as she was; his pale and greying Scots-Irish heritage clearly separated him from his son, except for their hands with their broad, square palms and elegant fingers. Until she saw them together in such close proximity, she had not realized Jesse's hands were shaped nearly identically as his father's.

Then she came to another realization: the stubborn expression on both of their faces matched, and it involved Michael. The last audible exchange she heard between them ended with Anders saying, "Leave Westen out of this."

She knew it had been Cap Novak who had contacted Michael and made him aware of Fiona's wishes, which gave Michael time to account for his time away from the job he'd taken. He'd spent the night in the Novak's home and apparently had talked with Dan Siebels.

Dani wanted answers and after being with the Novaks, Siebels and Jesse's father, she also wanted some breathing room.

It amused her when she realized she was the spy who had been left out in the cold, and it was here, in the cold, where she hoped to find some answers.

She wanted to talk to Jesse alone, and that wouldn't happen in the Siebels' home, not when so many people there seemed so very interested in monitoring their personal relationship.

"Are we there yet?" he asked from behind her.

"Almost." She laughed.

When she stopped, he nearly ran into her. She turned and looked behind them. The snow was coming down so rapidly, their footsteps were disappearing.

The small ridge overlooked a forested elevation that dropped down. There was a small creek at the bottom, with its edges rapidly filling with snow. The snowy world around them was silent, hushed without a prevailing wind. All was still.

She'd stopped behind the wall of pine trees that provided a snow and wind break and turned to look up at him. "Finally, privacy."

"Finally," he agreed as he took advantage of their situation and pulled her into his arms. Warm breath blended with warm breath as warm lips met warm lips in a welcoming kiss. "Mmm, I needed that," Jesse admitted when their lips separated.

"Me, too," Dani agreed, "but I need something else."

He looked down. "Explanations. I'm sorry, babe. I know I've been weak on those for you."

"Jesse, you don't owe me an explanation, but I want one."

"This whole thing . . . is crazy. None of us should be here, and not together."

She glanced around, pulled her phone and used its unique features to check the security level for the area. "Unless there's some stealth technology I'm unaware of, we should be able to talk freely here."

He smiled as fat snowflakes fell on her lashes. "Yeah . . ."

He pulled the hood of her jacket up around her face and held it then leaned close, placing small kisses on her lips before moving to her cheek and reaching her ear. He held her close and spoke softly, explaining the rest of what she didn't know, the rest of what Raines, his father and Gustafson had kept hidden from her, from everyone, for decades.

It took him about ten minutes to outline the game, the players still standing and those who had fallen. When he finished the tale and looked into her face, he saw tears there.

"Oh, my God." Dani looked away somberly.

"I meant to tell you sooner, I got . . . distracted."

"By Fiona and your father."

He nodded, and reached for her again to hold her. He brushed the snow that was accumulating on their shoulders and heads. "It's really coming down now."

The footprints they left earlier had nearly disappeared, but it wasn't far to the Siebels' home. They brushed off their coats and hats and left their boots dripping in a boot tray by the back door. Radiant heat in the floor was welcome.

"I wonder how Mike and Fi are doing," Jesse said.

"They're fine."

"I wish I believed that."

Dani sniffed. "Me, too."

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Allyson Novak had left a meal for them in the oven.

Michael consumed all of his and all of what Fiona couldn't eat. She was exhausted and near sleep when she finally relaxed, so he led her into the bedroom that had been prepared for them.

Her casual remark about sleeping in strange beds led him to understand that she and Jesse and Pearce had been here two days already.

They didn't discuss the future. Instead, they faced each other in the bed, and she answered his softly spoken questions. He'd wanted to know what she had been doing, to learn what she had felt when she learned she was pregnant, and she answered him, question after question, because Michael had never asked these things of her before.

He didn't answer any of her questions, though, and gently handed her request back to her. "You said you didn't want to hear about my job."

"Is it a job?"

He hesitated. "Yes."

She stretched, easing muscles she sought to keep from cramping as Michael possessively wrapped his arm around her burgeoning middle, splaying his hand across her abdomen.

He buried his nose in her hair, and nuzzled his way down to press a soft kiss against the nape of her neck.

She shivered and sighed. He yawned, the sense of peace encompassing him at a deeper level than it had during the many hours he dreamed of this very thing.

They slept, Michael more deeply than she expected.

Once again, nearly as accurate as any alarm clock, she was kicked into wakefulness by their child. She rose, reached for her clothing and hurried into the bathroom before double-checking her watch, and went in search of where she'd left her purse near the living room door.

She powered on the phone, made her call, and turned it off again. Wearing her coat and scarf, everything but her boots she returned to the bedroom and watched him for a moment before she walked to the bed and nudged his shoulder. He shrugged her touch away as if it disturbed his sleep.

"Michael."

"Hmmft."

"I love you, Michael."

"Love you, too . . ." he responded sleepily before he opened his eyes with a sudden awareness.

"I'm leaving. You should know. I'm leaving."

He heard her words and shot up, groggy in sleep, uncoordinated. "No, Fi. No. What time . . ."

He raised his wrist to see the luminous face of his watch, while attempting to understand what was happening in this awful dream-like place where he was stuck between the depth of sleep and dawn of wakefulness.

"Michael, I don't want to leave you without you knowing that I'm leaving."

Instantly, he grasped her meaning, and the unfamiliarity of warm tears flooding his cheeks caught him unaware once more. "No. Oh, I, no, Fi, don't go, not yet. Don't go."

Her own lashes were clumped together with her tears. "Don't follow me."

As his hands clasped hers in a death-like grip, she pulled away, whispering. "You can't follow me."

Defeated by powerful forces he couldn't dare name, he dropped his gaze from hers, and placed his hands on either side of her baby belly and kissed their child before looking up into her face.

He couldn't make her a promise anything nor could he release the flood of words again caught in his throat, as he saw her look toward the window, alert to a sound she was expecting.

"I love you, Michael."

And then she was gone, and he was more alone than ever.

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Author's Note:

I'm not really a fan of author's notes, but I think this story needs one or, at the least, my sincere apologies for leaving this hanging for so long. If you are among the many lovely readers who've asked me if I would finish this, the answer is yes. I will. However, I can't promise when that will be.

Peace be with you, friends. I hope you all have a blessed Christmas.