fanfic_name = The Mistletoe

chapter = 6

author = Dwparsnip

dedicate = Anyone who takes the time to have a peek.

Rating = AP15

Type = Angst

fanfic =

Lisa looked down to their hands and remembered. Slowly, gently, as though his right hand still bore the wounds caused by the shattered glass, she turned his hand so that she could see the scars that remained. They were still visible and easily found. The longest one, a two-inch long scar that looked like the result of a clean cut, ran along the heel of his hand. The other noticeable blemish was an inch long scar situated half way between his thumb and index finger. It was a little more jagged, and now that she knew that glass had been responsible for causing it, she knew it had to have been extremely painful.

The fingers of her right hand traced the line of the longest scar with reverence, with the deference that he deserved. She caused it as far as she was concerned, as surely as if she had pushed the piece of glass into his palm with her own hand.

Her eyes were still focused on the scar and when she spoke to him, her voice as soft as a warm summer breeze. “You told me you hurt your hand working on Skull One.” Indeed that was exactly what he had said when she came back from her trip. He never elaborated and she never thought to question it. There was nothing in his behavior or attitude that suggested anything was wrong much less that he knew about that night. He was his usual cheerful and incredibly romantic self.

Several teardrops fell onto their hands and her voice cracked when she added, “Rick, I’m so sorry…”

His right hand closed around hers with a swiftness that startled her and made her jump. “Stop it, Lisa. This wasn’t your fault, not ...”

Suddenly Lisa released his hand and pulled her hand away from his. In one enchanting fluid motion Lisa was up off the couch and walking away from him. He jumped up and rushed to catch up to her, and when he did he gently took her arm and turned her towards him. He looked deeply into her eyes, ignoring the tears and sadness, and leaned in and kissed her. Slowly, he slipped his arms around her hourglass waist and held her as close to him as he could. He put everything he had into the kiss. All of the love he had for her, all of the appreciation he felt for having her in his life, all of the regret he felt over the way he treated her in the past, all of his hopes for their future and all of the promises that they would get through whatever the universe would throw at them.

Nearly a minute into the kiss she had yet to respond to his lips pressing against hers, and he was starting to worry that perhaps he had said too much, that perhaps that night should have stayed where it was…in the past.

Lisa had been surprised by his kiss to say the least. He had just told her that he knew of her…indiscretion… on Christmas Eve. More than that, the injuries to his hand had been a result of her actions, whether he wanted to admit it to her or not. Her mind was going through everything that had happened, when a gentle squeeze around her waist made her realize that she had been a non-participant in the kiss. Finally she reached up and framed her hands around his face and returned his kiss, trying to show him how much she loved him, how much she needed him and how sorry she was for everything.

Another minute went by and Lisa, as much as she didn’t want to, stopped their kiss and leaned back enough to look into Rick’s eyes. “I love you”, she said quietly, with a solemnity that reflected the seriousness of the topic they had been talking about. She cuddled her face into his shoulder and wrapped her arms around his neck in a gentle hug.

“I love you, too”, was his equally reverent reply. “Are you okay?”

She leaned back, smiled and nodded. “Yes. I…I just feel so…”, she looked into his eyes, “…ashamed at what…”

“Lisa…”, he said as reassuringly as he could.

She smiled meekly as a tear slipped down her right cheek. “I need to tell you the rest, Rick, but I don’t know…”

“You can tell me anything, Lisa. Nothing you say is going to change how I feel about you.” He gave her another kiss, which to his delight and relief she returned immediately. When he looked at her again her eyes had in them a shadow that he had never seen before, a shadow of complete uncertainty. Sure he had seen her uncertain before, even nervous about a plan or course of action, but never like this. He had never seen her so absolutely unsure of herself.

He took her hand and guided her back to the couch, but when they got there her hand slipped away from his and she walked to the large living room window. Lisa folded her arms across her chest, trying not to show Rick just how cold she had become and watched the snowfall to the ground. She tried to gather her thoughts and the strength to tell Rick what she did and how she felt. She wasn’t sure she had it in her.

She heard him come up behind her, and a moment later felt his arms slip around her waist. His hands locked in front of her and his chin rested on her right shoulder after giving her a kiss on her ear. Lisa moved her hands down to cover his and after a few seconds of his touch, she began to feel the cold that she had been feeling since she first thought of that Christmas lessen slightly, but only slightly. 'Alright, Lisa…it’s time.'

Lisa cuddled the side of her face against his and took a deep breath. She released it slowly, vaguely aware on some level that perhaps she were trying to delay the inevitable. “Everything that John told you was exactly as I remember it. Walking into the Setup, ordering a drink and then asking for him to leave the bottle. He was right…I never even said hello. I was so…”, she laughed pitifully, “…lost I guess. I’m not even sure I knew where I was for a few minutes.”

Her tears were flowing freely and she was happy that Rick couldn’t see them, though she was sure that he knew she was crying. He always knew.

“Claudia came in a while later. She was shocked to see me I think. You see, before I came to see you I was with Claudia. We had talked and she had helped me to see that I wanted to see you. It wasn’t really her idea as such, I mean she didn’t actually come out and say that I should go and see you. She could really be subtle when she wanted to be.” Rick and Lisa shared a small laugh at the concept of the usually straight forward, no holds barred Claudia Grant being subtle. “It was her way of showing me how serious she was about it, making me figure it out on my own with a little help.”

She started to lovingly rub his hands as they rested on her stomach. “And I wanted to see you so badly. It hurt so much trying to avoid you, when all I wanted to do was wrap my arms around you and never let go.” She said it so quietly she wasn't sure if he even heard her, but she knew he did when he cuddled closer into her back.

Lisa took a quick breath and smiled slightly. “Anyway, we were both in a cab and she got off downtown, and then I went to your place. Like I told you on Christmas Day, the door was open. I had the door handle in my hand and was about to pull it open when I heard…when I heard Minmei’s voice asking you if she could stay.” She turned around in his embrace and her eyes drifted up to his to see if she could read any emotion in his bright blue eyes. She found exactly what she expected to find: guilt. She nearly skipped over what happened next, but in that split second she decided that she needed to be totally honest with him now. She needed to tell him everything, the whole truth, for both their sakes. Her eyes remained focused on his and she continued. “When you said yes I ran away from your place as fast as I could, until I couldn’t run anymore.” She collapsed onto his chest much as she had done that day when she collapsed against the light pole and held onto it for dear life. “I was so tired and so upset, I stopped to catch my breath. A man asked me what was wrong and I told him to go away and leave me alone. He was only trying to help the poor guy.”

Rick listened carefully to her words, but more importantly to the way she said them. She was tired he could tell. Listening to everything he had told her and worrying about it all was taking a lot out of her. Hell, it was doing a pretty good job on him too. He held her tightly, acutely aware of how she cuddled into him and how her voice was soft with painful memories.

“Let’s sit back down on the couch”, he suggested. When she looked up at him he smiled. “Come on.”

He released her waist and took her hand. He guided her to the front of the couch and sat down with his back against the arm of the couch. She sat down next to him and leaned over onto him, putting her right hand on his chest and burying her face into his chest beside it. Her long hair flowed down along his chest like a blanket. Rick rested his chin gently on top of her head and wrapped his arms around her, hoping to give her a sense of security, hoping to show her that he was still there and that he wasn’t going anywhere. He waited for her to find her own time to go on with her part of the story. He wouldn’t push her, not now…not ever.

Lisa took a moment to savor the feeling of Rick against her. The only times she truly felt safe in the last few years was when he held her in his arms. When he did, nothing could harm her. She knew he was waiting, and she took another deep breath before continuing.

“To this day I’m not sure how I got to the Setup.” She felt his embrace tighten in support, and she took strength from it, as she always had. “I…I have no idea. I guess I must have walked, because by the time I sat down on the bar stool I was pretty numb.” She didn’t have the heart to tell him that her inability to feel anything was more as a result of her emotional state rather than being physically cold.

Rick heard something in her voice, the same something he heard whenever she was trying to sugarcoat bad news, like a particularly devastating attack or some kind of delay in the mission. He only had to think for a millisecond to understand. She thought she had lost him forever…that he had essentially chosen to be with Minmei. He instinctively tightened his hold around her, hoping that in some miniscule way it would begin to make up for the anguish she suffered because of him. He opened his mouth to tell her how sorry he was, but he was interrupted when she took a very shaky breath and continued.

“I sat there in the bar going over what I had heard and what happened with our picnic, and it all just crashed down on me.” She felt him wince at the mention of their ill-fated picnic, but forged on while she still had the wherewithal to do so. “I never really noticed any of the other people in the bar, but as I went through drink after drink I started to pay attention to some of the conversations going on around me.”

She shivered against Rick’s chest and he rubbed her arm out of reflex. After a moment he reached up on the back of the couch and pulled down the blanket they kept there for occasions such as these, when they cuddled together on the couch. He threw one end down towards her feet, and because of the enormous amount of practice he had at doing that, the blanket covered her perfectly.

“Thank you”, she said quietly when he finished situating the blanket. Rick gave Lisa a kiss on the top of her head as a response. “There were a couple of guys sitting at a table close to the bar and they were talking about…about Minmei, naturally.”

Rick raised his eyebrows, not so much in surprise at the fact that men were talking about Minmei, but more in awe at the sheer cruelty of it all. Even in the place where Lisa had gone to find refuge she couldn’t escape Minmei.

Oblivious to the thoughts that Rick was having, Lisa went on. “I just couldn’t escape her. I should have known better I suppose. I wanted to leave so badly and find somewhere, anywhere that I knew Minmei wouldn’t be talked about, or mentioned, but the only place I knew of was home.” She laughed against Rick’s chest. “Home. I…didn’t want to be by myself, as strange as it sounds. I needed to be around someone, just to know that I wasn’t alone. I thought about trying to find Claudia, but she was supposed to be going to Vince’s place in the morning, and I didn’t want to interrupt her.” Lisa closed her eyes for a moment to try to shut out the memory of those feelings of emptiness. “Anyway, I stayed and listened to the two guys. They were talking about how pretty she was, how talented she was and how they would like to…well, you know.”

Rick was sure the color drained from his face. 'What does she mean by that? Calm down, Rick.'

“I just wanted to turn around and tell them about Minmei.” She took a deep breath, and Rick was concerned to hear that it was another shaky breath. “I wanted to turn around and tell them that she was taken, that she had the most wonderful man looking after her, and that she quite possibly had it all.”

Lisa wanted so badly to look up at Rick to see what she could possibly read in his eyes, to see what he was thinking and feeling. She resisted however, for she feared that the second she stopped and gave her attention to anything other than harnessing what strength she had for telling him how she felt, her strength would dissipate. Instead she listened to the beat of his heart against her ear. It had been slow and steady as she talked, except for when she mentioned those men talking about Minmei in the bar. His heart raced when she told him what they said, but it was only for a moment. She wasn't sure how to take that.

“I can remember laughing out loud, and I started listening to another conversation…a couple who were seated next to the two guys. They were obviously in love, talking about spending the Christmas together after they met their friends for a drink.” Lisa sighed a sad sigh. “I don’t know how many times in the span of a few minutes that they said how much they loved each other. Like I said, obviously in love. It wasn’t long before their friends arrived and the mini party began. They all sounded so happy.”

Rick didn’t know what to say or what to do. In the end he tightened his hold around her and nuzzled his lips into her hair. He couldn’t think of anything else.

“The party didn’t last long though. Like John said, it was snowing and people wanted to get home…to their families.” Lisa still felt chilled and she took the edge of the blanket and pulled in tight to her neck. “I was beginning to feel”, she cleared her throat, “a little drunk, and that was when the waitress walked by me humming one of Minmei’s songs. I remember thinking to myself that if you can’t beat them join them. That’s when I started singing.”

Lisa waited to see if Rick had anything to say, which of course he didn’t. She knew Rick well enough to know that he was probably speechless and didn’t have a clue as to what to say to her…and that was fine with her. In fact, it was the way she wanted it. She had a hard enough time trying to get through telling him about her darkest night without hearing the pity that would undoubtedly be in his voice.

“When Claudia came in and came over to me, I…I was so…I was so depressed would probably be the best description. She asked me why I wasn’t with you. She assumed, or probably hoped that you weren’t home or something like that. When I told her that Minmei was with you, she was surprised, but I think that once she got over that initial shock she saw the inevitability of it. She sat down next to me and tried to get me to talk about it…"

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"Lisa", said an obviously disturbed Claudia as she sat down, "he's not worth drinking yourself into oblivion. Lisa…talk to me."

'Don't you think I know that!', she screamed in response, though the words echoed in her head instead of coming out of her mouth. She looked at a small piece of ice on the bar a few inches beyond her bottle and focused on it. She didn’t dare turn to look at her friend…she couldn't bare to see the look of compassion that was most certainly in Claudia's blue eyes. Pity, mixed with frustration and anger probably.

"Lisa", whispered Claudia, "why don’t we get out of here…go to your place or mine?"

Lisa kept her gaze on the ice on the bar as she picked up her glass and took a sip of her drink. Claudia kept talking, asking her to go home, how she was feeling…the usual questions that a very good friend would ask. All Lisa kept seeing in the little puddle of water that the ice had become over time was the face of Rick Hunter. As the seconds ticked away his face became blurry, morphing into an unrecognizable visage. She was finally reaching the point where the pain in her chest became a little bit easier to ignore, though it never totally went away.

Lisa picked up her glass and downed its contents, and when she poured up another drink she looked around, still studiously avoiding Claudia's gaze. Through the alcoholic haze she could see that there were only a few people in the bar besides her and Claudia, and for some reason that didn’t seem to want to be pinned down, she noticed that the male to female ratio was 3 to 4…counting her and Claudia.

"Four women in this bar", mumbled Lisa mostly to herself, "and only three guys. That figures."

"What did you say, Lisa?" Lisa could tell by the shock factor in Claudia's voice that she knew very well what it was that she said.

She turned to regard her friend, a frustrated frown upon her brow and said, "I've counted…there are more women here than men. Cute men, but definitely not enough of them." Lisa didn't laugh at the way Claudia's eyebrows went up into her forehead…she giggled.

She turned around and her eyes studied each of the men in the bar. The same two men who were talking about Minmei earlier were still at the same table. They were handsome in an average sort of way, but she dismissed them immediately, if for no other reason that their bad taste in singers.

"He's good looking", she said loudly as she looked at the other guy. He was sitting by himself in a booth at the far end of the bar. He was cute, with shaggy dark hair and big blue eyes. He looked a lot like…

Lisa violently shook her head and looked away from the man before she saw the very person that she had been trying so hard to forget. 'Face it, Lisa…you're not going to forget him. He's going to haunt you for the rest of your life and there's nothing you can do about it. You love him too much to let…'

The thought was cut off when the door to the men's room opened and the man to woman ratio became 4 to 4. He walked to the bar and waited for John to come over and serve him. As he waited patiently, he looked to Lisa and gave her a smile.

Before Lisa knew what she was doing she smiled back at him. He had longish blond hair that framed his face nicely and accentuated his bright green eyes. He was tall and, from what she could see through his tight fitting t-shirt, well built. His most redeeming quality though, was the fact that he looked nothing like Rick. Lisa felt her eyes bulge open in appreciation, even as the sober part of her mind tried desperately to regain control.

"Lisa, get a hold of yourself. Honey you don't need…" Claudia's remark was drowned out by something entirely different and of the opposing view. The pounding of Lisa's heart told her that maybe, just maybe she did need to do something.

Oblivious to the fact that Claudia was still talking to her, Lisa reached up and grabbed the guy as he started to walk back towards his seat. Lisa grabbed him so suddenly that he almost spilled his drink.

"I'm sorry…I didn't mean to make you waste your drink." He opened his mouth to say something, but Lisa wasn't in the mood to wait. "Are you seeing anyone?", she asked with a tinge of hopefulness in her voice.

He smiled and shook his head to indicate a negative, and before Lisa knew it, and despite Claudia's pleading outcry not to do it, Lisa pulled herself up and planted an extremely deep kiss on the guy.

The kiss was going very well as far as she was concerned, so when she felt someone pulling at her shoulders to tear her away from him, her anger surged past the failsafe point.

Claudia pulled her back onto the stool and simply looked at the man and pointed for him to go away, which he did much like a dog would with his tail between his legs.

"What did you do that for?", demanded Lisa.

Claudia was about to answer when Lisa interrupted with, "Why don't you just leave me alone?" Claudia sat back down on her stool and was about to say something when Lisa shouted, "Leave me alone!"

Lisa took a sip of her drink and was only vaguely aware of the fact that Claudia was talking to her. Lisa didn’t hear a word of it, though Claudia's voice was in full-fledged calming mode. All Lisa could think about was what she could possibly do to forget about Rick Hunter, which was funny to her, thinking about a way to try to forget someone. If she was thinking about trying to forget him, she wasn't forgetting was she? It amused her.

Two more times in the next couple of hours the blond haired man came to the bar for a refill, and two more times he smiled at Lisa though that was all he did. Each time Claudia gave him a stare so threatening that it even impressed Lisa.

She had decided after she kissed him to limit her alcoholic intake, and while the fog in her mind was still present, it wasn't quite as bad as it had been. She was still probably legally drunk, but she was sober enough to keep her eyes open for an opportunity. John announced that the bar was closing and everyone started moving towards the door, except for her, Claudia and the blond haired guy. Instead he walked up to the bar and took out his wallet. He just placed a couple of bills on the bar when Lisa heard a cry of surprise, followed in very short order by a resounding crash.

She turned to see Claudia get up and rush over to the commotion, and then turned back to the man. He too had begun to move towards the trouble spot, but for the second time that night Lisa grabbed the man and planted a kiss on his lips…a shorter one this time. She broke from him and gave the bar a quick look. Claudia and John were busy helping whoever had fallen. Lisa looked past the guy's shoulder to the back door and roughly pushed him towards it.

He started to say something, to protest the course that Lisa had set them on, but she stifled any words with another kiss. They brought up solid against the back door, causing Lisa's body to press up against his, and for the first time in what seemed like a long time her body wanted more. Her lips were still pressed against his as she reached behind him to open the door and they nearly fell out into the snow.

The blond haired man broke their kiss, looked at Lisa and pointed to a car. "My car is over there."

He barely had the sentence finished when she started pulling him towards the car. He opened the car door and she got in. He followed and barely had the door closed when she grabbed him and started pulling at his clothes. In between kisses he tried to tell her his name, only to hear from her the response, "I don’t care."

Lisa and the blond haired man undressed each other hurriedly, pausing only when someone approached the car. Once the person, who Lisa identified as Claudia, moved away from the car, Lisa and the stranger began to make love in a mechanical fashion, void of passion and feeling. There were no words of comfort and no protestations of love. Most importantly for Lisa, and for him too she sensed, there were no promises of anything more or any strings.

Several times Lisa imagined what it would have been like if it were Rick she was with, even catching glimpses of him when she looked at the man…Rick's eyes, Rick's hair, Rick's lips. But even the thought of Rick Hunter was finally engulfed by the raw physicality of the moment. For one second, he was forgotten.

Lisa lid there in the back seat of a complete stranger's car, his hot breath beating against her neck, wondering just what she had done and how she had ever let it happen.

After a moment of gathering her wits, Lisa all but pushed the man off of her and started to dress. She paused once again as Claudia approached the car, continuing when Claudia walked away.

She never even bothered to do up her tunic, she was in such a rush to get out of the car and go anywhere else. She never said a word to the guy, her shame and regret finally seeping through the alcoholic fog in her mind. She opened the door, got out and closed it without looking back. She ran to the still open back door of the Setup and went inside, relieved to find no one there. She sat back down on her stool and took a sip of her drink. She tried to straighten her hair a little, finally settling for pulling her long locks around to rest on the right side of her chest. It was soaking wet, along with her tunic.

'What have I done?', she asked herself. She shook her head and then it hit her. She did what she wanted to do. She did what she had to do to forget Rick, and it worked…for a moment.

She sat up straight in her stool, suddenly proud of that fact, even though a part of her realized that that pride was not something to be admired or celebrated. But still…

----------------------------------

Lisa took a deep breath and released it against Rick's chest. The steadiness of his heartbeat kept her grounded, kept her focused on her story and without it she suspected she wouldn’t have made it this far. What affected her more than anything was how his heart remained so steady, even as she told him how she had been with another man. Not even so much that, but she had been with someone else for the sole purpose of forgetting him.

He was taking it all too well.

As it had been for most of the evening, Lisa was unsure about what to do next. There was more to tell him, but she wasn't sure if she could…if he could. Lisa closed her eyes and wished that she could just fall asleep where she was, and wake up to find things as they had been that morning.

She opened her eyes and slowly sat up. Rick's hand reached down and took hers, for which she was genuinely happy. Finally she looked up into his eyes and saw the opposite of what she had expected. She had expected to see the pain of hearing her tell him her thoughts and feelings at that time. She had expected to see a sense of responsibility…guilt…for what he had done to make her feel so badly. But no, all she saw was understanding and support.

"Rick…"

"Ssshhhh", said Rick as he held a finger to her lips. "Before anything else, how are you? Are you okay?"

Her heart swelled with the loving and concerned tone of his voice. "I'm fine, Rick." She reached up with her right hand to stroke his cheek. "How are you?"

He smiled warmly. "I'm fine, too. A little thirsty…you want some more tea?"

Lisa thought for a second and said yes. She reluctantly let him up to go and get the tea and as he walked into the kitchen Lisa got up and moved to look out the window again. It was still snowing, which Lisa thought was poetically appropriate considering the snow that fell on that Christmas Eve. She sighed and whispered, "It's still snowing…"

Rick looked out the kitchen door as he stood over the stove and looked at Lisa as she looked out the window. 'How can someone look so beautiful and so frightened at the same time?', he wondered. He had known it was going to be tough for her, telling him these things, and that was more than verified by the way her body felt against his on the couch. Usually they just melted into each other to the point where an observer would have trouble telling where he ended and Lisa began, and vice versa. But tonight, she held herself so rigidly, she was so tense that it almost felt like a mannequin pressed up against him and not Lisa. His hand came up to a spot on his chest and he felt the fist sized tear stain that was a glaring reminder that the night so far had been very real, and that it was in fact the woman he loved so much crying against his chest. He looked down to the wet spot and closed his eyes.

He had shed a few of his own tears as well as she told him her feelings and what she had been thinking, though he hoped that she didn't know it. His head nearly exploded as the gravity of just how hurt she had been became easily apparent in her voice. He knew about it of course, and had time to deal with it and get over it. He had made his peace with what had happened…to a point. He would never forgive himself for treating someone he cared for so much so badly. He would never forgive himself for not seeing the love she had for him and he would never…never…forgive himself for putting Minmei before her, as he had during that Christmas. Still, he wasn't angry at what she had done. As far as he was concerned, he had no right to harbor any ill will towards Lisa or the guy she had been with. No right at all. He abrogated any rights when he had when he went to see Minmei instead of going on their picnic. That wasn't how he felt when he first found out of course, but he wised up with a little help.

He opened his eyes and looked down at the kettle on the stove, vaguely remembering the adage, 'a watched pot never boils', and tried to sort out these new feelings he was having. Hearing the details that he hadn't heard before from Lisa's lips, the guy and how she felt and what they did, was affecting him deeply. It was one thing to hear John tell him what had happened, after all it was from another person's point of view and void of any tangible insight into Lisa's thoughts and feelings, but to hear it from Lisa was something else. To hear her thoughts, her feelings and hear the regret and pain in her voice was killing him, not just because it brought to the surface his guilt, but it brought back some of the thoughts he had the night he found out, like how could she and what was she thinking. They were useless and inappropriate thoughts he knew and he dismissed them quickly, but he was human after all and they kept trying to come out. He vowed not to let them.

He jumped as he suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder, and when he looked to Lisa she had a mortified expression on her face.

"I'm sorry, Rick", she explained hurriedly. "I called out and you didn't answer me…I was…I'm sorry."

She turned to leave, but by then Rick had regained full use of his mental faculties and reached for her. He caught her hand and kept her there while he turned off the stove. When he did that he pulled her into his arms and hugged her tightly. "It's okay, Lisa. I didn't hear you call out…I was just lost in thought." He kissed her forehead. "I'm sorry."

A few minutes later they were sitting on the couch again, and Lisa took a sip of he tea. "Rick, I don't think we need…"

Taking a page out of her book from earlier in the evening, he reminded her where she let off. "You left off at you just got back into the Setup after…", he hesitated, trying to find the right words. He cursed himself for it when he saw Lisa swallow hard and lower her eyes to the floor. "…after you got out of the car", he finished quietly.

Rick reached over and took the teacup from her slightly trembling hands and after putting the cup on the coffee table, he moved over closer to her and held her hands in his.

She smiled and took a breath as she squeezed his hands lovingly. "Yes, back into the Setup. John was right, Claudia did curse loudly when they came in the front door. I didn't know what to say about it, so I hoped Claudia wouldn’t see right through me and figure it out." Lisa laughed at he dubious look on Rick's face. "Yeah, I should have known better. The conversation went exactly as you described it…Claudia sat next to me and tried to get me to talk, then she went behind the bar and that's when she noticed that my shirt was…", Lisa didn’t know what to say, so she didn't say anything else about it. "Everything John told you about what Claudia and I said was what I remember." She looked into Rick's eyes, and for a moment she saw a deep shame in his eyes, but before she could really look it was gone.

"After we talked Claudia took me into the washroom and helped me to try to regain a little of my dignity. I washed my face in one of the sinks, and I", she looked down to their hands, "fixed my uniform. Claudia had a brush in her bag, and she brushed my hair. At that point I think I was more out of it than anything else. The alcohol was beginning to wear off and I was really starting to understand what I had done, not just to myself but also to the guy and Claudia. I remember we didn’t say much. Every once in a while she would say something reassuring and calming, but I suppose she knew better than to try to have an intelligent conversation with me."

Lisa looked up to find Rick's eyes watching her intently, though softly. He smiled at her and she couldn't help but smile back. "We came out of the washroom and got into the cab like John told you. I wish I had done more to tell John how grateful I was for everything he did. I meant to go back and thank him properly, but between Khyron and the…the memories, I just couldn't." She shook her head as she spoke the last three words, causing the tears that had built up in her eyes to spill out.

Rick got up and moved to stand in front of her. He knelt down on both knees, gently put his arms around her waist and rested his left cheek against her chest. When he felt her arms go around his neck he whispered, "I love you, Lisa."

Lisa let the tears go and hugged Rick to her. "I love you too. But we're not finished yet…"

State = Continuará/To Be Continue

feedback = Sí/Yes

email = dparsnipAThotmail.com