A/N: Much love to the peeps at Ravelry & Unicorn Unlimited, Ravelry Fan Fiction, Saturday night chat group, I bow down to Knittingfynatic & Betafishy, thanks for letting me bother you endlessly. I heart you all hard.

This story is rated M for Language & Future Lemons.

All Twilight and the Characters belong to Stephenie Meyer.

Enjoy!

Chapter One: Observance

Normally I am just leaving my office at this time and heading to a bar for Friday night drinks with co-workers, but here I sit. On my ass. Bored out of my ever-loving mind and sober.

One look at my right foot, bound in that off-white club of a cast, and at the garish pins inside, holding my ankle together, made me want to gag. A week ago, had I been paying closer attention to where I was going, and less to my neighbor's gossip, I would have seen the curb and I wouldn't have shattered my ankle. Stupid curb.

The only cool thing is that it takes me only five minutes to get to work now. That's the amount of time it takes me to get from my bed to the wheelchair and over to my computer setup. The computer used to live in my office, but the wheelchair I was given didn't fit through the doorway of the small room. So my neighbor helped me set up the computer in my dining room. Up til a week ago, I lived in a one-bedroom apartment; now I live in an efficiency apartment within my apartment.

Fuck, I'm pathetic.

I decided that I would partake in my new obsession, people-watching. Besides pwning people in Halo 3, this had become my favorite new hobby. I had been living in this apartment for almost two years, and only now had I realized how fucking entertaining it could be to watch and silently intrude into strangers' lives.

From my large apartment window, I could watch the comings and goings of people in the courtyard of the former warehouse that was now large loft apartments. The old building was in the shape of a U; I lived on the left-hand side on the second floor, facing into the open courtyard below. I could see my neighbors that lived on the right arm and those who lived in the center section too. It was a prime location for being a peeping Thomasina.

Even before I made it to the window I could hear the burly man's muffled voice carry through the courtyard below. His new wife, the leggy, blond bombshell, was doubled over in laughter. She had just apparently hit him with a large sponge that was full of soapy water because the big guy had a wet spot on the front of his shirt. The duo had taken their cue from the unusually warm weather and decided to wash their cars. They both looked like they loved each other very much, and in some ways I envied them both so badly.

I had no one. I was alone. My father was a retired police detective for the city, and my mother was remarried and living in some other state with a much warmer climate. She was one of those "give her a moment and the wind will change her mind" kind of people. I was as shocked as anyone when she told me the day I graduated from college that she had found someone. That someone turned out to be a twenty-seven year old, tan-skinned baseball player. Yeah. Good luck with that, Mom. My dad was always the quiet, strong one. A fourth-generation police officer, he was devastated when I was born a girl. He kept telling the "crackpot" doctors that they couldn't see anything on those stupid fuzzy black-and-white ultrasounds and had tricked him into thinking I was a boy. He taught me how to fish, as well as the rules of baseball. He was always the one to patch me up and take me to the hospital when I fell or cut myself with the scaling knife or got the lure stuck in my thumb. Dad would laugh and tell me that I was "snips and snails with a touch of sugar and spice." This childhood created a monster. An overly self-sufficient monster who was currently very lonely.

But right here, right now, it was just me in my apartment, and if it wasn't for my friend who lived across the hall, I would be a hermit, locking myself away to work on web designs and only coming up for air-- and sushi. I can't live without my spicy tuna rolls and sea urchin.

The boisterous man with the childlike face boomed with laughter down below in the courtyard, pulling me out of my thoughts. You could see his eyes sparkle all the way up here on the second floor. Blue. Damn, that's hot. Mischief suffused the features on his boyish face; he had taken the hose and aimed it right at his new wife. The blond did not like this new development. She turned on her heel and ran the other way, squealing his name in such a loud voice that I could actually hear her through the windows.

Without warning, a tinkling melody filtered down and crept into my ears.

Ah, The Piano Man.

His muse was apparently back. It'd been so long without the sound of his baby grand that my ears had started to go through withdrawal. The Piano Man lived on the third floor in a spacious loft apartment. An expensive loft apartment. It looked down onto the courtyard like mine, but because he was at the bottom of the U, so to speak, he could see everything from his lofty perch. Frequently we would be honored with evidence of his musical prowess; the music seemed to pour down through the rafters and cracks in the walls, not through the windows. It was magic.

Since I'd been unable to get out of bed without assistance these past few days, I'd missed my daily glimpses into his world. Normally I'd catch him in passing as I spoke on the phone with someone, cooked dinner, or waited for a friend or family member to make a rare appearance at the apartment. I would catch his dark eyes and when I would finally be able to regain movement, or the ability to talk, all I wanted to do was to take another hit of him.

I didn't know his name; I didn't have to. I almost didn't want to. It suited him that he lived high above the rest of us, frequently coming to the window to peer down upon the peasants like some uninvolved God watching his creations scurry hither and yon. He was my nameless, untouchable ideal, and somehow I secretly hoped I was his.

I watched the window for a sign of life, something more than just the sound of piano keys being hammered over the tight wires.

I felt like those wires. Edgy, wound tight.

His music was just starting to swell. He wasn't done; he'd be there pounding away for a while and catching a glimpse of eye candy would have to wait. I let my eyes wander as his music became the soundtrack for my latest foray into voyeurism.

My eyes drifted down to the doctor and his wife. They were one of the older couples in the complex. He was an emergency-room physician and she was a painter. She had a gypsyesque aura around her. She would stand in one of their rooms wearing just her underwear and holding a very full glass of red wine in one hand, twirling around like a prima ballerina with a paintbrush in her other hand. Large swaths of paint would ripple from the brush onto the huge canvases. Some days she would be following large moving men, shouting orders at them about how they needed to be careful, how her art was one of a kind. She rightfully worried about her art; most artists usually do when they put it in someone else's hands. If we could tell people how to frame it, light it, and admire it we would, but then again, my art was on the computer, and hers were installation pieces; once they were at their destination, they weren't going anywhere.

I often wondered if some of the art in the hospital ER waiting rooms were hers. Most people wouldn't notice that the painting in the waiting rooms changed monthly. Most people don't trip over just the thought of their shadow, though, either.

With my frequent trips to the ER, I had the pleasure of meeting the gypsy's very attractive husband. Unfortunately, everything in the ER happened so fast that I rarely caught a name, even with my frequent flier card punched so much it looked like Swiss cheese.

Once you met the good doctor you never looked back. He had bright blue eyes and dark, honey-colored hair with traces of white that made his classic, old-Hollywood looks sharp and slightly modern. He looked like he should have been rubbing elbows with Jimmy Stewart.

Hell, even Mr. Stewart would have been jealous.

Damn, I needed to get laid.

As the good doctor made his way out of his apartment, I watched and felt slightly ashamed as they kissed goodbye. Even though I was watching everyone's private moments like they were part of a new reality show, their love was so private and, and so theirs. It wasn't as new and in-your-face as the newlyweds' was. The newlyweds were rough and passionate, feeding off each other as if they were each other's only meal. But with the doctor and his wife, it was just as passionate, just more personal, timeless, deep, and it seemed to affect the doctor to his core. It rooted the ever-flighty gypsy. It was her anchor.

After the kiss the gypsy paused as her lover left, and as soon as the door shut, she went right back to a canvas that was sodden with four blocks of colors like a gigantic "Simon Says" game.

It only took a few moments before the doctor made it out to the courtyard carrying a briefcase. He looked very distracted by his Blackberry, engrossed in something on the screen. He walked briskly through the yard and didn't see the lanky young man, clad in a dirty pair of black jeans and a skinny black tee-shirt, walking towards him. His hands were buried deep in his pockets and his eyes looked no farther than a pace ahead of himself.

The two men didn't see it coming. The doctor was going to run headlong into the lanky young man. If I were a betting woman, I would have had money that the doctor would have knocked the man on his ass. Lanky Man looked like he hadn't eaten in days, and the good doctor had a good five to ten pounds on him.

I would have lost. The two hit like a rubber ball hitting a brick wall.

It was as if the lanky man was built of stone. The fair-haired doctor landed hard on his ass, his briefcase and Blackberry flying in opposite directions. Scrambling to his feet, he went scurrying for his things. The Blue-Eyed Beast stopped washing his car-- and wife -- and raced over to help the good doctor since his briefcase had also flown open and documents were slowly littering the courtyard.

The young man didn't offer to help or look sorry. In fact, I think he may have actually burst into flame, his anger was so sudden and so intense. Without any warning, the man's face went bright red, and he barked out an insult to the good doctor, then quickly stalked into the complex. I could follow his movement due to all the windows as he worked his way through the innards of the apartment complex. Just then a light flew on in a first-floor unit, and I could see the young man as he slammed the door behind him so hard I could have sworn I felt it from here. Shortly after that I could see him in his kitchen, sans jacket and pants, getting a beer. Part of me wanted to bleach my eyes at the sight of his dirty underwear and part of me was blinded by how ghostly white his legs were. A small, third part of my brain was shocked at how muscular he looked. Lanky man was apparently eating, but his body was rich with thin strips of muscle pulled taut over his entire frame. It dawned on me at that moment that the scene had gone quiet and the soundtrack had stopped. My head whipped around to the third floor.

There he stood in his god-like glory. His long slender fingers were wrapped around a matte black coffee mug and he was wearing dark jeans and a gray button-up with the sleeves rolled up his surprisingly muscular arms. The other hand pressed flush against the window panes. He was watching me. His face was contorted in an angry scowl. I gave him a small smile and a wave. I kept it small because if I waved any bigger, I probably would have hurt or embarrassed myself, or both.

His face transitioned from a scowl into a warm and inviting half-smile in an instant. Our eyes met, and his eyes seemed to glitter in response. Dear Lord, he was hot. All too soon, a loud roaring noise broke us out of our staring contest. A slick black and silver crotch rocket slid into the parking area of the apartment complex. It parked in the spot that only two minutes ago held the good doctor's car. I'd completely missed him leaving. The engine turned off and a spry young man hopped off and started to walk over to the blond and leggy wife. She flung her arms open wide. The motorcycle man who was wearing cowboy boots, a motorcycle jacket and much to my approval tight jeans, peeled the helmet off and a shock of curly blond hair cascaded out. He hugged the blond bombshell and made muscles man laugh. I turned my head back to see the piano man, the surveyor of all, only to see an empty window.

Well, fuck. Doesn't that just ruin a girl's day.

I rolled backwards, and gently turned around to my desk.

Guess it's time for work.

Damn it.