South of Nowhere 1. Run, baby, run!

**I re-read this today and didn't hate it anymore, so I figured I'd give it a try again. As much as I at one point regretted starting this story, it kept pulling me back. So here I bring you the six chapters I removed as well as a brand new chapter (7).**

**First off, for any new comers, I'd say you should probably read _SENIOR YEAR _first for this to make sense. Or not, your choice really.**

**Onto the warnings. I've taken humongous liberties with regards to Spencer's job. I could have done some research I suppose, but the actual intricacies of her job is not important, her reasons for doing it is. Also, I'm gonna ask you to forgive the fact that even though it's ten years later, it's still going to be 2008. I mean, I don't wanna do the whole year 2018 thing. So just go with it please.**

**I don't own anything, so don't sue.**

Senior Year: The Reunion

Chapter 1

Spencer's point of view.

The bastards always run.

It's always the same thing, they give me one glance, take in the blond hair and slim build and give me _that_ look. That look that says they're laughing their asses off at me and that they think I wont be able to take them down.

So they run.

And generally speaking, they regret it.

I mean running is the one thing I know how to do after years of first failing at it horribly and then finding some comfort in it. So they run and I chase.

I also jump, tackle and make them wish they weren't born.

Basically, you shouldn't underestimate me simply because of how I look, because I can guarantee you one thing, you fuck with Spencer Carlin and you're going to get hurt.

I have a gun and I have a badge. I'm the law. It's my _job_ to make bad people hurt.

Okay, fine. It's more like it's my job to arrest bad people and then hope the judicial system doesn't screw up somewhere along the line and let them back out on the street, but you get what I mean.

So back to them running and me chasing.

They _always_ run.

So here I am once again chasing. The guy is pretty strung out, sweat dripping off his face and matting his already grimy hair. I'm not exactly looking forward to taking him down, despite the adrenalin pumping through me. I mean I caught a whiff of the guy when he shoved past me on the stairs and lets just say he wasn't all smelling of roses and sunshine.

So when I'm finally close enough to make a dive for him, I give him one last chance to give himself up. That and I really don't want to be washing dirty scumbag out of my hair in the morning.

"LAPD! Stop or I swear to God I'm going to shoot!"

He doesn't stop, but he makes the fatal mistake of looking over his shoulder to check if I'm actually going to go through with my threat and shoot him. As if! Paper work after a shooting is just too much effort.

So while he chances the glance over his shoulder, I get the opportunity to take him down swiftly. My shoulder hits him almost right in the stomach and I know the wind's knocked out of him. We land harder than I would have like, my wrist taking the brunt of my fall and the strung out dealer the rest. I don't give him time to react, despite the pain shooting up my arm, and immediately flip him over. I scramble up slightly and my knee most satisfyingly comes down right between his shoulder blades, my weight enough to keep him down.

"You're under arrest, dumbass!"

I finally hear Carter's heavy steps on the sidewalk behind me, having been inside the apartment as I came up the stairs and giving me and the perp a head start. He's out of breath a little, but he hasn't broken a sweat as he talks into his phone.

"Corner of 6th and Sunset. You can just send a cruiser to pick him up, Carlin's got him down."

He flipped the phone shut after a second and gave me a quick once over, making sure all my fingers and toes are accounted for. As partners go, he's the best I could have asked for.

"Cruiser should swing by anytime now. Want me to take over?"

I nod my head, lifting my knee as I jerk the scumbag up on his own two legs by his arm. I press him up against the wall and my cuffs are on him in seconds, not wanting to take any chances. These crack heads are dumb and twitchy, never a good combination. Last time I took a second too long to cuff one, I got a fork in the ass.

Yeah, that was a fun afternoon at the hospital.

The cruiser comes flying around the corner, lights on and sirens wailing and I roll my eyes. Some of these guys just watched too much tv growing up. I've got the guy in cuffs, they were all of two blocks away and they still came in blazing. I sometimes think they just like to pretend they're playing Need For Speed or something.

The radio crackles in the background as the officer steps out of his car, his burly shape going over to Carter and they shove the guy in the back of the cruiser. I stay back a little, trying to ignore the pain that's still persistently pulsating in my writs.

God, I hope I didn't crack something.

I wiggle it round a bit and I'm happy enough when the pain doesn't get any worse. It would suck to have to get a cast, especially with my job and a hyper active three year old at home.

"Come on Carlin, we need to finish up back at the apartment."

We walk back quickly, declining the offer from the officer to just drop us back in front of the building where the perp and his now dead girlfriend lived.

We'd got the call about an hour ago. Dead girl found in her apartment after argument with her druggie boyfriend. Honestly, we get those kind of calls all the time, but it's not all that often that the boyfriend then wonders down the stairs from another apartment somewhere in the building and only realizes that there are cops already in and around the building. So he runs and I give chase.

"Jesus, he really went ape shit on her, didn't he?"

Carter's voice is even as he speaks, his cool absolutely always in place. He's about as unflappable as you can get. He says we're like ice and fire, he's all cool and calm and I'm all hot and explosive. It's not my fault I'm passionate about what I do!

I look down at the dead girl and can't help that quick burn that lights up my anger.

"Yeah, he worked her over well. Come on, the ME's truck is ready to take her and we've left the dipshit boyfriend stewing for long enough."

We get out of the way and let them zip the body up, wheeling her out. Another sad case, another dead girl.

Another night on the job for me.

Strangely enough I love it, more so than I'd ever have loved medicine. Quitting school had been the best decision of my life, but I still wish to God it had happened under better circumstances. Guess life just works out how it wants to in the end and we're all just along for the ride. Sometimes the road is bumpier than we'd like, sometimes the potholes threaten to swallow us whole, but we still keep going, you know?

I watch the clock back at the station, the interview and subsequent sobbing confession long over with. The guy, Nick Stevens, had beat his girlfriend to death after she used the last of his stash. Couldn't help himself he said, he needed his stuff and the bitch used it all. His words, not mine.

The station is quiet this time of the morning, just before the morning shift shuffles in and chaos ensues as per normal. Carter's got his head down, his eyes trained on his computer screen as he fills out his report. Mine is long done, I type with all ten my fingers after all. Carter not so much. He punches his keyboard with two single fingers and a look of pure concentration.

My eyes find the pictures on my desk, the little boy with his dark hair and smiling eyes, his sister sitting next to him and biting her lip a little, my Mom and Dad smiling at the camera in crazy colored safari shirts and the dark haired woman with her head thrown back, smile wide as she shoves my shoulder. Then there's the picture of Clay. I sigh a little as I look back at the clock.

They're why I do this job, why I love it so much. Every day, by doing my job and putting away a few more assholes, I protect them. I take care of them. I failed at it once, made one of the biggest mistakes of my life and they paid for it, so I've been making it up to them every day for the last seven or eight years.

I've got so much to make up for and I don't know if I ever will, but I'm going to die trying.

Carter looks up and catches me watching the clock. He gives a smile and my heart aches just a bit, because it always reminds me a little of Clay. They both had a way of smiling so wide and so genuinely that you can't help smiling back. This is no exception and I give him a small, tired smile.

"The shift rolls in in another fifteen minutes. Get out of here, no one will miss you."

I don't argue, 'cos honestly my wrist is still a little sore and I smell like drugged out murdered. Home and a shower seems like the best thing ever right now. That and some Advil of course.

The sun beats down on me with surprising strength and I pull my sunglass on the minute my ass hits my old Mustang's seat. It miraculously starts on the first try and I smile as I drive home, the purr of the semi beat up engine lulling me into a relaxed state. Glen's halfhearted attempts at being a weekend mechanic keeps my old hunk of junk running and I'm grateful for it. I love this car, it was Clay's after all.

When I get home I almost fall over a plastic construction truck on the way to the kitchen, my wrist protesting when I grip the door frame to keep upright. I'm muttering curses under my breath as I pick my way around the assortment of toys littered on the floor a bit more carefully. There's no sound in the house, so I figure everyone is still asleep, despite them having school and work in less than an hour and a half.

The kettle is boiling by the time I'm done stuffing an apple down my throat. Chasing people can really give you an apatite, trust me, I know. Mind you, these days I don't mind running. I love the sound of my running shoes hitting the pavement, the soft thud-thud almost in rhythm with my heartbeat. I figure I might go for a run before my shower, get my mind in a nice, relaxed place.

I manage to scald my fingers with burning hot water twice before I've got two steaming cups of coffee in front of me. I figure if I'm going to wake the grumpiest morning person I know, I should come baring gifts. As a police officer, one of the first things I was taught was to never go in unprepared or without backup. It could mean the difference between life and death and I'm fond of the idea of sticking around for a while.

On my way to the master bedroom, I pass the table and sweep up four days worth of post lying on the little table in the hall. With kids in the house it's hard sometimes to keep track of simple things like opening the post and paying bills.

So I enter the bedroom quietly, post stuck between my teeth as I carry the coffee in. The alarm is five minutes away from going off anyway, but I don't wait to wake her.

I put the coffee down on the bedside table, taking a moment to just look at the woman sprawled on the bed. There's premature, minuscule little lines around her eyes and her lips are slightly open, small puffs of peaceful air escaping. It's not often that I see her like this, relaxed and still. She's always a hurricane of activity, her mind and mouth going at the speed of light sometimes.

She has a drive that I admire, a will to live and be as happy as she can that has impressed and surprised me throughout the years. After everything that happened, after everything she lost and after the...

Well, that's not my story to tell.

I look away from her as I glance down to the first letter on my lap and open it. My hand absentmindedly shakes her warm shoulder, a groan my only answer at first. Then when my fingers grip her skin tighter, my nails digging in from shock, she sits up quickly.

"The hell?!"

I stare at the invitation in my hand, my heart beat stopping as I'm suddenly bombarded with old memories. Old touches and words and smells and even sensations washing over me. All the things that I buried years ago, the guilt, the longing, all of it flooding me.

Oh God...

_Ashley..._

"Sunshine? What's the matter?"

I shake my head, try to gather my suddenly scattered head together as I turn and stare into concerned blue eyes.

"It's nothing, don't worry. Just drink your coffee, Carmen."

Then I'm out of the room, my feet carrying me to the front door where I lean over the porch and take a few gulps of air in. It's almost pathetically funny that I'm reacting this way, that things that I put away years ago are now coming back and biting me in the ass again. I guess you can't really ever get over the things that helped shape you, that made you who you are today.

Still, I'm annoyed...

_Fucking _High School Reunion!

- - -

**So there's my birthday update. Hope you liked it and if you think it's got potential, please review and I'll keep going. **


	2. Good morning sunshine!

**I don't own, so please don't sue!**

Senior Year: The Reunion

Chapter 2

Carmen's point of view.

We all have moments in our life that help define us. Moments that leave an imprint on your life, on your view of the world. Moments that help you decide or discover who and what you are. Are you strong or are you weak? Good or bad? Many moments that all help you answer those questions, that help shape and mold the person you're inevitably meant to be.

I've had a few of those moments in my life.

Some were small in the grand scale of things, some where instantly life changing. Some made me happy and some made me sad. Actually, some of the happy moments led to the sad moments. I guess they're all entangled in the end, all connected somehow. Each had an affect on the next.

Still, there are three moments that stand out in my life.

The first time I fell in love.

The first time I had my heart broken.

And...well, I'm leaving the last one for later.

The first time I fell in love, I never meant to fall as fast or as hard as I did. I mean if I had had any choice in the matter I don't think I would have ever let myself fall in love with her, but I did. I loved her, Kyla. God, I loved her so much. I was blind and stupid with love. I wont lie though, it was probably the most exquisite feeling in the world.

I can't say I regret it. I simply _wont_ ever regret it, because it was the purest, most genuinely _good_ feeling ever born in this sad excuse of a heart I have. I've never felt that strongly before and it's never happened since.

So for a short, heavenly moment I was completely happy. I didn't know it at the time, but that feeling would save my life not two years later. That brief memory of happiness, the proof of it's existence was my salvation if you will.

God, I'm getting so soppy in my old age, but it doesn't make it any less true.

So I guess that brings us to the second moment, the first time I got my heart broken.

Okay, it's more like the only time I got my heart broken. I like to think that I've learned from my mistakes after all. So what can I say about that whole experience?

It wasn't fun. Actually, it pretty much obliterated me. I can't describe the disappointment, the pure ache that pulsed though me when it happened. It's unique in it's devastation. I was numb and broken for a little while, but everything still hurt so acutely at the same time. I felt everything and nothing. I ached and bled on the inside, while I walked and talked and functioned normally on the outside.

Still, it taught me something very important about myself.

I was strong. I could cry and hurt, but I could still live my life. Give me time and I can put all my pieces back together again and come out better assembled than before I was broken. That too would come in helpful later, when everything was at it's worst for me.

Love and loss made me who I am today while violence helped shape my form.

In the end, the more you hurt me, the stronger I am. That's what the most important moments in my life has shown me.

Still, sitting up in my big, empty bed and watching Spencer walk out of my room I don't get that I'm at the edge of another defining moment. Not that we ever realize it, right?

I shake my head and look around for the coffee Spencer mentioned and almost sigh in relief when I spot it. I'm such an addict when it comes to the stuff.

I'm figuring Spencer's PMS-ing or something, because in the two years or so that she's been living in my attic, I've realized that she's a bit of a bitch that time of the month. I mean _loads_ of Rocky Road is needed to soothe that savage beast!

I'm only half way through my coffee cup when my alarm goes off and I pull myself out of bed. Mornings are never my favorite. Mornings mean a teary eyed three year old that doesn't want to get up and a suddenly quiet, hormonal twelve year old that seems to be possessed by the devil. You never know if you're getting a smile when you wake her or a pissed off moan.

I'm so never having kids of my own one day.

I trudge down the hall to my first young victim, pushing the door open and just staring at the little boy sleeping in his bed.

He looks a lot like my sister, all dark eyes and hair and easy smile playing on his lips even as he sleeps. I guess if I had to have kids one day, I'd like one like him. I mean thank God he doesn't have my sisters personality though, then it would be another story completely!

I push the heavy, dark hair off his forehead and lean in closer, kissing his cheek softly like he likes it. He stirs a bit, smile widening and I find myself smiling too.

"Come on, Tommy, open your eyes. It's time to get up."

I give his cheek another kiss, my fingers drifting lightly over his forehead and he sighs loudly as his eyes pop open. He almost immediately starts pouting and rolls over onto his side, away from me and the light shining through the bedroom window.

I smile and leave him be for now, knowing he's up and by the time I come back from his sister's room he'll be ready to get some breakfast.

I hesitate before Julie's bedroom door, dreading the moody teenagers reaction to being woken up. She used to be such a sweet kid before the hormones kicked in. I roll my shoulders once before knocking on the door, pushing it open a second later.

"Julie? It's time to get up, sweetie."

I get a stuffed elephant against the forehead for that.

Hmm...guess that means she's possessed-by-demonic-forces Julie this morning. Lovely. I miss Julie who watched Sesame Street and still wet her bed, she was nice at least.

"Okay, right. I'm going to get breakfast ready now, so be down in a few minutes, Okay?"

Simba the lion hits the door as I close it. I love how her once beloved stuffed animal collection is now used as weapons of mass destruction.

So...back to _never_ having kids of my own.

God, I can't wait for Liz to get back. I mean I know I volunteered to watch the kids for her and it's not like I don't have help and all, but it's not always easy. What can you do though? I mean my sister gets a good job and suddenly she's needing to travel around for almost three out of the four weeks in a month. She's family, so I help out.

At least Spencer's here to help keep me sane. The kids adore her and she's one of the few people Julie will listen too these days.

Hey, thinking about Spencer...

"Hey, Spence? Where you hiding?"

The front door is open and I wonder out, finding Spencer leaning against the porch railing and staring at a card in her hand. It's the same card she read before sinking her freaking talons into me. For some reason a chill runs down my back.

"Spence?"

She jumps a little in surprise and I almost snort out loud. Great cop instincts there, Spence. I mean hell, I was shouting her name in the house a minute ago and she didn't hear me coming?

"Uh...Carmen? You know you're not wearing any pants, right? You're giving Mr Taylor over there a show."

I swivel round and see our old as the hills neighbor smiling like the cat that stole the cream before looking down on myself.

Old Berkley shirt and panties.

CRAP!

I bump my big toe on the way back into the house, biting my bottom lip to not yell from the pain. Gah! This morning is just starting to suck big time. I need more coffee and I need it quickly.

Spencer follows me into the house with a half smile, heading for the kitchen as I head to the bedroom, the search for track pants on. I've got one leg clothed and the other still bare when Tommy starts crying and I find myself hopping towards my bedroom door, pants being haphazardly pulled on.

The door swings open and misses my head by an inch, the whoosh of air actually ruffling my hair a bit.

"Tommy's crying."

Then Julie's down the hall and heading for the kitchen where I hope to God Spencer is making breakfast. And another pot of coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.

I've got Tommy sniffling on my shoulder when I walk into the kitchen, only to find Julie smiling like a little angel at a slightly distracted Spencer. Bet she'd never try to bash _Spencer's_ head in with a door. Freaking teenagers...

"Julie? Will you please take Tommy for a minute, I'm trying to have a chat with Spencer."

Spencer gets another big smile, I get that teenage patented go-fuck-yourself-and-die look. I cringe when I remember I only grew out of giving looks like that when I hit nineteen or so. Man, this was gonna be a loooooooong seven years.

Tommy and Julie settle in the lounge, cartoons blaring from the tv, as I step over towards Spencer.

"Okay, so you're freaking me out. Did you get a severed finger in the post or something? Picture of Glen's bare ass? What?!"

Spencer sighs and I'm getting so impatient I feel like slapping her upside the head, but these days that could lead to her snapping my wrist or something. She's a super cop now after all, but sometimes I still forget that and just see the old, goofy Spencer. The one I could slap upside the head with no problem.

Ah, I miss those days...

"It's stupid really..."

Right, it's so stupid that she almost draws blood from me and spends five minutes on the front porch looking as white as a sheet afterwards.

"Spill it sister!"

Spencer rolls her eyes and hands the card she's been looking at to me. My eyes flick over it quickly, taking in the words but somehow not processing them. I blink once, then twice and finally it sets in.

"Oh hell no! Forget it, I'm not going! Here, take it, I don't want anything to do with that!"

I shove the invitation back into Spencer's hands, my heart beating like crazy and little fuzzy bubbles appearing before my eyes.

High school reunion my ass!

Spencer's staring at me with big, confused eyes and a mouth half hanging open. So okay, maybe I kinda, sorta blew up there for a minute, but can you blame me?!

"Uh...I wasn't saying we should go, Carmen. Christ, calm down, you're almost hyperventilating!"

I am not!

Except, yeah, I kinda am. It's just...

_Kyla..._

I plant my ass on the ground and my chin in my hand, frowning down at my toes as I inhale and exhale deeply. No need to freak the kids out by fainting or something.

Spencer settles next to me, rests her head on my shoulder and sighs.

"I thought I was gonna throw up for a second or two when I saw it."

I nod my head, pretty much understanding a hundred percent how she feels.

"Yeah...that was...unexpected somehow. I mean, it's just..."

I don't really know what I'm trying to say here, not a situation I find myself in a whole heck of a lot being a lawyer and all. Still, what am I suppose to say? What am I suppose to feel?

High school wasn't the best days of my life exactly. It was torture most of the time, having to sit those last few months and watch someone I cared about, someone I loved against my better judgment, as she played the perfect girlfriend to her oh so perfect boyfriend.

I mean I've put that all behind me, locked it away deep inside where it couldn't hurt me anymore and now this invitation just ripped everything open again. Four seconds of reading a few simple sentences and it made everything flash in front of my eyes again.

Kyla panting in a shower as I kissed her. Kyla steeling my sandwich out of my bag and smiling as she insults me. Kyla sitting at a kitchen table telling Spencer it was just a mistake.

"Yeah, it was unexpected. I mean, I haven't thought about..._her_...in such a long time and now this..."

Spencer's voice is soft, the shadow of an old hurt in her voice. She can't even say Ashley's name and that thought makes my heart hurt for her. She feels guilty about so many things, so many things that were never her fault, but she could never see it that way.

What happened back then, between her and Ashley, the night that Clay died and the night...the night I was...

None of that was her fault, but she never believed me when I told her. Never believed her father or her mother or Glen either. Spencer just took all the blame on her too slender shoulders and that was that, the burden was hers to carry in her eyes.

I put my hand on her shoulder, the only thing I can think to do in this moment. A small comfort I know wont help much, but she's my best friend and I can't not do anything.

"So, we're in agreement that we're not going then?"

My voice is naively hopeful, because something tells me that deep down, Spencer wants to go. Maybe even needs to go, because of Ashley and what happened between them.

Me on the other hand, I can't go. Under no circumstances can I go back there and chance seeing Kyla again, not after the last time I saw her.

I can't, because it would only make me remember that night in the hospital with her face so close to mine, her hand tracing my bruised cheek as she literally cried over me. I can't, because all that would do is make me remember...

It would make me remember the last, most important moment that made me who I am today. The moment that I lost myself for a little while, where I was shattered into so many tiny little pieces that I thought I'd never be whole again.

The moment I finally broke down in a hospital bed the night after I was raped.

- - -


	3. Don't look back in anger

**Okay, first off, thanks to all of those that read and reviewed, you're all getting hugs and snuggles from me! Also thanks for sticking around, despite me not giving every little detail as yet. It'll all come out, but it's going to take time. Still, I was only planning to update this next week, but you guys kinda made me want to get on with this, you know?**

**As for this chapter...hmm...it wasn't exactly easy to write, simply because I'm not good writing the physical stuff, but it serves it's purpose here, so I hope I made it clear for you guys in the end.**

**I don't own SoN, so please don't go and sue! **

Senior Year: The Reunion

Chapter 3

Ashley's point of view.

"No, we're only scouting locations at the moment, but we're hoping to start filming in a few weeks...Yeah, that'll work for me...Maybe we could do lunch?...Right, I'll get my assistant to send you the details...Okay, yeah...See you then."

I throw the phone down on the bed, my body moving of it's own accord to the large windows of my bedroom. The ocean is angry today, waves breaking with an almost deafening crash as it hits the sand and then quickly retreats again.

I love the ocean, love standing and just watching it, taking in it's strength and violence. Love to see how the sand takes a beating and doesn't change, never bares any scars despite the continual abuse.

I'm the sand and life is the ocean. It tried to beat me down and I kept on living, no physical proof of the abuse to be seen.

I smirk at my own reflection in the window, thinking I should write that down. Maybe make it a theme in one of my films or something. I'm all deep and shit like that nowadays and it's an added bonus that I get to make money off it too. I guess life gives and takes in equal measures.

It's one of the few things I've learned in life.

Right along with threesomes are fun, but tiring, married chicks means hot sex, but pissed of husbands and that the best way to cure a hangover is to get drunk again.

All good things to know, don't you think?

I turn back from the view and find my laptop, sitting down on my bed and opening my e-mail. My assistant sends a never ending list of things daily, but over weekends he tends to at least cut it down to only the things he thinks is extremely important.

I roll my eyes when I see that my inbox has twenty six new messages, all but one from Mitch, my assistant, and I'm pretty sure it's just junk mail, so I delete it.

It takes me a few minutes to work my way through it, saving the ones I need to and deleting the rest. The second to last message is just a few short words really, just Mitch saying that an invitation came in the post.

King High is having a ten year reunion and I'm invited.

Hmm...well...

I delete the invitation and move on to the last of the messages and then hit the shower, seeing as there's a rather delicious young actress waiting for me at a private party somewhere back in LA. We'd been steadily fucking each other's brains out for the last month or two and I'm thinking this one may even stick around for a while longer than my girlfriends usually last.

I'm not fond of letting them get too attached, so I generally lose them after a few weeks. Makes things nice and simple, clean even. No teary breakups, no emotional minefield and no getting anyones heart broken.

That's the way I like it, so it's unusual for a relationship, if you can even call it that, to last this long, but Patrice is different from other woman. She's like me. We see things the same way I suspect and we both seem to regard what's happening between us in the same way.

I'm twenty eight years old and I'm honest enough to say that even though I can go on fucking as many people as I have the need to do, I'm getting kinda bored with it. I suspect it's the same with Patrice. So despite the fact that neither one of us is declaring undying love or something, we seem to be heading for something a little more permanent.

The sex is fantastic and Patrice is by no means your average dumb little party girl actress, so I'm thinking of making a go at this. It's time to settle a little and as long as we're both on the same page, I'm willing to do it.

So I hit the shower and make sure my make up is perfect, putting on a low cut black dress that_ screams_ sex. Hey, I'm hot and don't see the point of not flaunting it.

By the time I leave my beach house behind, the invitation is niggling at my brain.

I push any and all thoughts about high school away, because honestly? It was ten years ago and I haven't thought about it in years. Not about the school or the people that went with me. I'm over high school and it's little drama's.

Ashley Davies lives in the now, so I push up the volume on my radio and drive a little faster, wanting to reach the people and places that make up the now I live in. The need to out drive that bothersome niggling in the back of my mind overpowering almost. I'm not going to start analyzing why, because that would just...well, it's not necessary, because I'm not even going to the stupid reunion and I'm not going to see anyone from high school so it would be pointless to start dredging up old memories.

I hit LA and traffic is a bitch as always, but I don't mind, I can be as fashionably late as I want. I'd still probably end up arriving before half the other guests if I come an hour late. Still I'm relieved when I spot the club where the private party is being held and see I'm only about three quarters of an hour late. Most of the paparazzi haven't arrived yet, knowing the big stars will only show up later.

I smile as I realize that as a simple director I'm not all that big news anyway, despite who my father was. I've managed to keep a relatively low profile in the press, what with the lack of drug over doses or sex tapes leaking out. I leave that to the desperate hotel heirs.

Fine, that and Kyla would probably kill me if something like that ended up in the papers. She thinks it's bad enough that my name is sometimes connected to so many different woman that _do_ end up in the papers.

I park my car and head in, wanting a drink and Patrice, in that order preferably. The large bouncer checks my name off on his Blackberry and lets me in, smoke, perfume and bass hitting my senses all in one go.

Inside pretty bodies are mindlessly grinding on the already packed dance floor, booths strategically placed in dark corners already housing the coke heads and dealers as I make my way to the bar. The drink is cool and smooth as it flows down my throat, the rather bitter taste a welcome companion.

Hands slip around my waist and breasts push into my back, breath warm against my neck as I recognize the feel of Patrice against me.

"You're late."

Teeth dig into my should as punishment and a hand grips my hip warmly.

"Hmm...I was at my beach house and it's quite a drive from there. You're lucky I made it at all."

I turn in her arms, taking in the blond hair and sharp green eyes, the full, glistening lips. Yup, I could do worse than settle down with Patrice.

"You've never taken me there before, we should go for a weekend or something, get away from the city for a while."

She nuzzles into my neck as I stiffen, because...well..

I don't take woman to my Dad's beach house, not ever. It's the one place I have completely to myself, where I can just be me. It's simply off limits to anyone really, even Kyla isn't allowed there and she's my sister for God's sake!

"Yeah, that's not gonna happen, but we could maybe shoot down to Mexico or something if you really want to get away. I'm only starting the film in a couple of weeks, so it might be nice to get away before things get crazy with shooting."

Patrice just nods, not in the least bothered that I don't want her at my beach house. See, that's why I like her, it's nothing personal between us. We can use each other for what we need and neither of us gets clingy. It's perfect really.

"Sure, now come dance with me."

Patrice is a great dancer, all slender and tall while she sways to the rhythm, her body close to mine. We generate heat while we dance, catch the eye of many people that dance around us, but we're so used to that that we easily ignore it. Halfway through the night I have her up against a wall, my hand working furiously at making her come quickly, because as I said, I don't want to end up on the news with a leaked photo in the paper, so getting caught is not an option.

She's still panting against my neck as I wipe my hand clean, my throat dry from exertion.

"Want a drink?"

She murmurs yes and I walk away, finding the bar again and getting us drinks. I'm not nearly as drunk as I want to be, but drunk enough to let things creep into my mind that I usually wouldn't let out.

Hence me fucking my sorta girlfriend up against a wall in a dark part of the club. Distraction is always the best way to go in my opinion. Yet, even after that...

I can feel the thought forming in my mind, a name and a face that I purposefully keep hazy in my memory, clearing up a bit. I thought alcohol was supposed to have the opposite effect? Fuck.

Patrice finds me, hair and dress and make up perfect as always and I smile. Another much needed distraction and another much needed drink. I can feel the picture that was threatening to appear fade back to where it belongs and I smile broadly.

This is my life, this girl and this club and my films, nothing more. No old fuzzy faces that want to bubble up from my memory and no High School Reunion is going to screw that up for me!

I'm Ashley bloody Davies and I won't allow it.

So I grab Patrice and swallow another drink down, my hand already pushing against her lower back, directing her to the exit.

"We're leaving?"

I nod my head and suck her earlobe into my mouth, smiling when she shivers from the contact.

"Yeah."

She frowns for a second and stops.

"I needed to still talk to Francois, he's talking about casting me in his next film. It's going to be a big one, so..."

I sometimes forget that half of these parties are business for most of us. It's about connections and kissing the right ass and keeping up appearances, so I nod my head and we head in the direction of one of the dark booths. Francois might be brilliant, but he's also a raging coke head.

Then again, I'm basically a drunk, so...

To each their own I suppose.

Two hours later I'm in Patrice's apartment, drunk enough to not know how we got there really and not caring either. We're naked and we didn't even make it past her lounge, but it's okay, 'cos her couch is nice and soft and it gives me a view of the city as her tongue works it's magic on me.

My eyes half close as I moan a little, my hand tangling in her golden blond hair.

Golden blond, like...

Suddenly I'm flooded by arousal, my whole body heating up by a thousand degrees. It's almost painful how turned on I am as images start flashing through my mind.

_Blond hair spread out on my pillow as she sleeps, crashing waves a soft melody playing in the background...Her breath on my neck as she comes, shivering with my fingers still inside her...Her smile when I tell her I love her...my fingers threaded in her hair as her mouth and tongue drives me ever closer, the way only she ever could..._

I come harder than I have in years. My body shakes for minutes afterward, my eyes shut tightly as I try to keep tears at bay while my heart thumps loudly in my chest.

Patrice gently wipes the hair off my forehead and I can feel her watch me, but I still can't open my eyes, because if I do, I know I'll just hate myself for being disappointed when it's not _her_. When it's green eyes looking back at me and not blue.

"Who's Spencer?"

My world shatters a bit.

"She's no one."

And it's not a lie. Spence...she's no one to me, has been no one to me for a very long time now.

"Then why did you just scream out her name?"

I blink my eyes open and look into Patrice's strikingly beautiful face.

"Do you really care?"

It's quiet for a few seconds as Patrice ponders my question and I just sit there, catching my breath.

"No, I guess not. So, are you staying or going?"

I get up and kiss her cheek, find my clothes and let myself out. Tomorrow we'll have dinner like nothing happened, because really, for us, nothing did. That's the beauty of me and Patrice.

It's a long drive back to the beach house, but I don't feel like going to my apartment in LA. I just want to get away, go somewhere safe and quiet. Somewhere I can go and cry, be as weak about this as I always seemed to be.

When the warm water finally pounds down on my naked back, I let the tears fall.

Who is Spencer?

The question echo's back at me in my head and I finally answer, the steamed up shower door and tiles the only witness to my confession.

Spencer is the girl that showed me who I was, who helped me find the things that made me happy, that made my life what it is today.

She's also the girl that broke my heart, that threw me away like I meant nothing. That cut me out of her life so quickly and easily that it left me spinning.

She's the girl that confirmed everything I ever knew anyway.

People, no matter how much you love them or need them, inevitably leave you. Whether they die on you or go willingly, the point is you always end up alone and hurting.

So _screw_ Spencer and _screw_ King High, 'cos neither are going to see me again!

- - -


	4. Once upon a time

**I don't own, so don't sue.**

Senior Year: The Reunion

Chapter 4

Kyla's point of view.

When I was young, I had a plan.

My plan was similar to a thousand other young girl's plans really. Meet Prince Charming, marry him and live happily ever after. Simple, clean cut, a good all American dream that. Of course, life tends to throw you a few curve balls, but I dodged them well enough.

Which is probably why my life for the last ten years or so have been boring. I've come to the conclusion that curve balls are what makes life fun and interesting. That Prince Charming and his big, white horse is a pretty empty dream. An illusion that doesn't even really exist in the end, but that a girl like me had clung to, because it's all I ever thought I _could_ want. My eyes hadn't been opened to all the options out in the world yet and when such an opportunity came around...

Well, I went running for the hills screaming at the top of my lungs in a blind panic, didn't I?

Yes, not my finest moment I'll admit, but I was seventeen and scared. Every assumption I had ever made about myself came into question. I did things I never thought I was capable of, experienced feelings so strong and so confusing that...well, I ended up getting just a little lost. Or a lot lost if I'm honest.

I didn't know myself at that age, never realized the things I was capable of doing, how selfish I could be when it came down to protecting myself. So when faced with Carmen on her donkey as opposed to my visions of Prince Charming on his white horse...

I handled it in the worst possible way.

I just wasn't prepared for a change in my viewpoint and life of that magnitude, so I pushed it all away. I pushed Carmen away and I grabbed onto Aiden and the dream and held on as tightly as I could. I simply ignored my own heart and listened to my head. It was the single most stupidest thing I've ever done in my life. Yes, it even beats the time I got my nose pierced and put purple streaks in my hair. God, I was such a moron in college...

Anyway, the point is I was great at giving other people advise, at playing God and deciding what was best for Ashley and Spencer, but when it came to my own life? I couldn't see further than my own nose, couldn't see past my own childish expectations and the boundaries I let other people and their views set for my life. I was too scared to follow my own heart.

And when I finally did find the courage, when I finally realized what I wanted more than anything else in this world, it was simply too late. God knows that night next to Carmen Garcia's hospital bed broke my heart, but I deserved it in the end. So here I am today, a bored housewife.

Yes yes, I know, how cliché of me!

After that night I made some changes, came to grips with some things and ended up having loads of therapy. I accepted the fact that I was very possibly a bisexual woman. Yup, took me twelve sessions at 120 per hour to figure that one out. Another twelve sessions or so later I was actually pretty okay with that fact, yet somehow I still ended up steering clear of any woman I thought I'd find even halfway attractive and ended up marrying the closest thing to Prince Charming I could find.

I met Andre Richmond at a party Ashley and her film buddies threw and I admit to maybe falling a little in love with him. He was a beautiful young man, with a sharp mind and old money in the bank thanks to his father the shipping mogul. Aiden and I had split at that point, or more accurately, he dumped me the night I came to his dorm room sobbing my eyes out over Carmen. Back to the story though, I met Andre and we dating up a storm.

He flew me to the Greek islands and toured Europe with me, bought me a big engagement ring for our three year anniversary and married me in an old church in his grandfather's hometown of London. The perfect fairytale, don't you think?

I'm not going to lie and say he never made me happy, because for a very long time I felt loved and wanted and it was enough, but two years after the wedding he took a greater interest in the family business and suddenly I'm the trophy wife. Suddenly I'm quitting my job in advertising to host extravagant cocktail parties and host charity events.

Suddenly I realize that we have very little in common, that though the sex was always good, I hardly missed it when weeks without it went by. That when he missed our anniversary or came home late on my birthday, there would always be sincere regret in his eyes and jewelry as a gift, but it would happen again the next year.

I guess that's what happens when you settle for anything but true love. I've turned into the ultimate cliché, the woman in the designer clothes with the sparkling diamonds and the absent husband. Entirely my own fault of course, but you knew that already.

So here I am, twenty seven years old and living most seventeen year olds dream. Everything's just peachy, don't you think?

At least I'm happier than Ashley. God knows what she's doing with her life, but I've learned to not interfere anymore. Until I can fix my own screwed up life, I'm not touching anyone else's. Not to say that I don't try to keep her on track at least, because a good part of the last eight years of my life has been spent doing just that.

Picked Ashley up when she passed out at some party and didn't know where her car was, made sure she ate a healthy meal at least once a week, held her when she drunkenly cried about 'missing _her_'. Stuff like that, you know?

I'm glad to say the passing out at parties is something that never happens anymore, but every Sunday if she's in town we have a big family lunch at my house and it's been a few years since she's came to me a drunken, miserable mess. I still worry though, because Ashley is just...empty. I don't know how to explain it any better than that really.

Today she happens to be running late for lunch, but I've got a very good idea why. Three words:

High school reunion.

Yup, it's enough to give me heart palpitations, so Ashley must be going into full cardiac arrest. I still think I've got more to be apprehensive about, but I'm sure Ashley's taking this a thousand times worse than I am.

As if on cue I can hear her car pull up, the slamming of a door a few seconds later. She's in a tiff, I can already tell. She's not generally into slamming the door of her 1.2 million dollar car, almost popped a blood vessel when I did it once, so it's a dead giveaway of her mood.

When she strolls into my dinning room my housekeeper Camilla, she's British and older than the Queen herself, gives her a look that could freeze free flowing lava. I smile, because I'm sure that Ashley purposely dresses like a slut when she visits me, just to piss off the prudish Camilla. I eye the skirt that barely covers Ashley's ass and the top that's letting ample amount of cleavage show and wonder if Camilla will finally just give in and knock Ashley unconscious so she can dress her in a nice proper turtleneck and slacks.

I know she's thought of it, because she muttered something about that under her breath once when she thought I couldn't hear her. Funny old woman that Camilla.

"Ash, you're looking lovely as always!"

My voice is bright and cheery and both Ashley and Camilla roll their eyes, though I suspect it's for very different reasons. Camilla, because she heartily disagrees and Ashley, because she knows I'm just messing with Camilla.

"And you're looking...very Martha Stewart."

Ouch. Someone's _definitely_ in a bad mood. Whatever happened to seeing the bright side of life?

"Right, well...want a drink? Maybe some coffee?"

She's looking rather hungover and nods eagerly when I offer coffee, so I send Camilla on her way to the kitchen. Poor woman's going to have a stroke if she keeps glaring at Ashley all red faced like that. Can't be good for the blood pressure and all that.

"Had a late night with Patrice?"

Ashley gives me a look and I smile innocently. Patrice and I...don't get along.

I guess that's what happens when she calls me a bitch and I throw her with a glass of red wine. Skank had it coming in my opinion, but whatever.

"Hmm...we were at some club."

Right, which is code for they got horribly drunk with other semi famous wannabes and ended up having meaningless sex into the morning hours. Can't say I see the attraction, but I guess I can't judge. I mean the last time I had sex, meaningful or otherwise, was...uhm...uh...

Oh, well, isn't that depressing.

I can't seem to remember! Wait, does masturbation count?

Uhm...not that I, you know, masturbate or anything. That was a purely theoretical question, honest.

"So...I got an interesting invitation in the post the other day."

Ashley stills, her shoulders tensing up and a scowl immediately forming on her face. Oh look, she's pouting like a twelve year old now.

"I'm not going."

I didn't really expect her to say anything other than that. Wait, no, I expected some cursing thrown in for good measure, so I take the lack of shouting and cursing as a positive sign. Still this is going to be a touchy subject no matter how I approach it, so caution is needed. Also maybe some emotional blackmail.

"Oh, guess I'll have to go alone then. Hmm...I was hoping you'd be there to...well, doesn't matter. I'll be fine on my own. Probably."

Ashley uncomfortably shifts in her chair and for the moment we're interrupted as Camilla comes in to serve lunch. She sets an almighty roast down in the middle of the table and I can't help wonder who is supposed to eat all that. Lately she's been shoving food down my throat like you wouldn't believe, going on about the nutritional value of this and that. Drives me up the wall really. I simply don't care how much vitamin C is in spinach, the stuff's gross and I'm not going to eat it, that's why I have multivitamins woman!

When she leaves I expect Ashley to simply start eating, anything to avoid having me talk about the Reunion, but she surprises me when she sighs loudly.

"I don't see why you'd want to go. I mean it's a high school reunion, Kyla. It's going to be fatter, older versions of people that you probably didn't like to begin with, getting drunk and then feeling you up or reminiscing about that awesome day they chained Mr Hendrickson's car to the flagpole. It's stupid...and why are you going alone anyway? Isn't Andre going with you?"

And the mouse is being lured by the cheese, right into the trap!

"Oh, you know how busy Andre is. I think he said something about meeting with the head of a Chinese company who's looking to import something or other that day and meetings might go on late. So I'd be going alone."

All I get is another 'hmm' before Ashley shoves some meat into her mouth, chewing with a thoughtful expression. I guess Camilla's lamb roast is better than cheese, because the mouse is now ignoring the bait, dammit!

Camilla is getting a pay cut!

We eat in silence and it gives me a few minutes to think. She's not falling for my subtle emotional blackmail, so I could always try the truth. It's a revolutionary thought really, using the honest approach in this day and age to get what you want.

"I...I don't want to go alone, Ash."

She cuts me off, nodding her head and swallowing.

"Of course you don't, you'd look like a loser if you showed up in your current situation alone."

I roll my eyes, because I know she's just stalling, trying to avoid the hard subjects for as long as possible, but for once in my life I'm not letting my sympathy for her get in the way. Things need to be said today, whether it brings back bad memories or not.

"I wasn't talking about that, Ash. I meant I don't want to be alone when I apologize to the three people I hurt most in my life. I want my sister there to hold my hand if it goes badly, okay? I need you for this, Ash, please?"

It's the truth, I have some things I need to set right with Spencer, Aiden and mostly Carmen. I need to say sorry to Spencer for throwing her friendship away, to Aiden for using him so selfishly and to Carmen for...

I need to apologize to Carmen for breaking her heart, for sleeping with her and giving her hope only to treat her like she was something expendable, something of little value to me when she was in truth the first person I ever truly loved. Carmen was never nothing to me and I'm ashamed to this day that I pretended for one second she was.

"Oh for fuck's sake fine, I'll go, but you owe me for this, Kyla!"

I smile so big I think I possibly crack my face in half, but I don't care.

When I was a girl, I had a plan. It involved Prince Charming and a big, white horse and living happily ever after. Now I'm a woman and I have a new plan. The goal is the same, I want a happy ending, but the players have changed.

This time, it's not Prince Charming I want.

"Oh and Ash? Andre and I are getting a divorce and I intend to get Carmen Garcia to go out on a date with me, so you're helping me with that too."

I watch as she abruptly chokes on a potato, her face reddening as she hacks it back up.

"Divorce?...Wha...but...but...You're six months pregnant!"

Right, that. Oh hey, that answers the question to when last I had sex!

I roll my eyes and take a bite of my roast, not in the least bother by Ashley's reaction. I mean I never said the plan was flawless, did I?

- - -


	5. I can feel it coming in the air tonight

**As always I don't own, so don't sue.**

Senior Year: The Reunion

Chapter 5

Spencer's point of view:

Two weeks.

That's how long I've been struggling with this decision. Two weeks or fourteen days or...uhm...a bunch of hours. Point is I haven't had a good night's sleep since I got the invitation and the strain is starting to show. I basically look like crap. Dark circles under my eyes, pasty white skin and hunched shoulder's because of spasming muscles. Yup, you ever watched 'Adam's Family Values'? Well I look like good old Uncle Fester...except I've still got hair.

The point I'm trying to make is that this Reunion thing is driving me crazy. I'm thinking about things I haven't thought about in years. Reliving nights and days and conversations that's both breaking my heart and strangely warming it. Every time I close my eyes at night I'm bombarded by another image, a memory, that I've successfully suppressed for the last eight years. When I do sleep, there's the dreams.

God, the dreams _kill_ me.

Sometimes I'll dream about Clay. About Indian summers back in Ohio or weekends spent driving aimlessly around in Los Angeles with him and Kyla back when they dated. Mostly though, the dreams are about Ashley. I'll dream about her voice the first time I ever heard it or about nights in her father's beach house. I'll dream about her hands on my skin, her lips whispering how much she loved me in my ear and the smile on her face when I kissed her nose. She used to love when I did that.

Then I'll wake up and lay there staring at my ceiling while my heart simply..._aches_. It aches, because I threw all of that away. Me...no one else.

I guess many things led up to me breaking it off with her. So many tiny things that when taken on their own doesn't seem like a big deal, but put together...it was just too much for me. Now that I'm forced to look back on everything, it all just seems so tragically silly really. Sometimes I wish it had been something big and dramatic like I fell in love with someone else or Ashley cheated on me, but in the end it was just life getting to me.

In the beginning when I went away to school everything was good. Ashley was so supportive of me heading off to Boston, so sure me going to Harvard would in no way affect our relationship. In the beginning I thought so too. I mean we loved each other so much and it wasn't even an option in either of our minds to break things off. It would be long distance for us, no question about it.

Of course we promised to call and email and visit as often as possible and we did do all those things in the beginning. It was easier for Ashley than it was for me though, because she had the money to fly over for a weekend if she felt like it. Problem was that Harvard was nothing like I expected.

I was never a lazy student, to be honest I enjoyed school immensely, but University was...so much more difficult than I ever expected. I got homesick after a few months and to my horror I wasn't doing all that well in many of my classes. I was taking strain that first year and I was just missing _everyone_. I'd never been away from my family for any extended period of time ever. I was the youngest in the family and was used to having my parents looking out for me as well as Glen and Clay in their own way. In school I had had Kyla and then Ashley and Carmen who was always around. At Harvard I had no one.

I didn't make friends easily in University. People were all so busy adjusting and I was never one for the party scene, so things got lonely pretty quickly. My phone calls from home and Ashley was all I had and after awhile...it wasn't enough. I packed on the Freshman pounds and spent all my time studying to become something I didn't have the slightest inclination to be. Me becoming a doctor was my mother's dream, hell, even Ashley pushed me into it, but it never really appealed to me.

I ended up being pre-med simply because I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do and everyone else seemed to think medicine was perfect for me. So that first year was hard, but it only got worse in my second year.

Ashley had stayed in L.A to study film and she was insanely happy doing it. The things she was learning, the experience she was gaining, was something that I became resentful of. I was jealous of the time she spent helping a professor out with a documentary he was shooting in the summer after our first year and just generally pissed that it meant I saw her for only two weeks when I'd been missing her for so long.

So I went back to school and everything just...spiraled out of control for me. I fell behind in classes, picked up even more weight and steadily fell into depression. I was trying my best to hide all of this from my family and from Ashley, after all they had been so proud of me to begin with, that I just worked myself to death.

Then Ashley canceled a weekend visit and I just...snapped. She had no idea how things had been going for me, had never mention the weight I picked up and had been the perfect girlfriend when we did spend time together, but I was still insanely disappointed when she couldn't come.

So I blamed her for everything. For my failing grades and my weight, for my loneliness and for my depression. I blamed her and accused her of not caring about me anymore, of rather wanting to spend time with her school buddies doing crappy films than seeing me and ended it.

I still remember the absolute quiet that followed my words.

When she did speak, her voice had been soft and persuasive, but I was too far gone. She begged and pleaded with me to see reason, threatened to fly up that very minute and shake some sense into me, but I wouldn't hear any of it.

I told her I didn't love her anymore, that I hated what she did to my life and that I never wanted to see her again...

I heard a sob and then the line went dead. That was the last time I spoke to Ashley Davies.

After that everything fell apart. I stuck around in school another three months, failed my midterms and called it quits. I went home with my tail between my legs and my heart broken because of my own stupidity. My parents didn't take it well, but there wasn't much they could do about it. I was a mess and anyone with eyes could see that.

I tried pulling myself together and realized that what I did to Ashley had been a mistake and set off to fix it. I was ready to set things right with her, to beg and plead her to forgive me and take me back. Thing is Ashley hadn't waited for me to come to this realization.

I went to her apartment one night ready with flowers and a speech to explain everything to her. I got more than I bargained for when a half naked girl opened the door.

I had stood there for a second, my brain processing what I was seeing and then realized that whatever I had with Ashley was definitively over and I had no one else to blame but myself, so I ran. I hadn't run fast enough to avoid hearing Ashley's voice drunkenly calling out to the skinny brunette to get her ass naked and in bed though...

Too this day I don't know how I could have been so stupid to believe that Ashley would have waited for me. I knew her, knew how she dealt with things. Alcohol and sex had been her life before me and it was again afterwards. I was the one that had pushed her away, that had thoughtlessly lost the most beautiful thing in this world.

As corny as it sounds, I'm the one that threw our love away.

So I ran from her building, shame at my actions three months ago and self hatred almost blinding me, and went in search of something to numb the pain.

I found something alright, but God knows I'm still paying the price for it today. We all are.

I sigh as I sit up, turning to see the display of my alarm clock.

3 Am.

I'm about to just collapse back into bed when I hear the creaking of a door from below. I want to ignore it, but it could be one of the kids, so I get up and head downstairs. I find Carmen in the kitchen, her back resting against a counter as she stares out the window into the moonlit yard.

"You look miles away."

She doesn't jump in fright or gasp in surprise, just nods her head a little and keeps staring out the window, so I walk over and lean against the counter opposite of her. She looks pensive I guess, standing there with her eyes narrowed and unblinking.

"It's not your fault, Spencer. Nothing that happened that night was your fault."

I've heard her speak those words a thousand times before and like always I ignore them as I try to change the subject.

"Why aren't you in bed?"

She sighs as she shakes her head, strands of dark hair sliding over her shoulders. Then suddenly her sharp eyes are on me and I feel the irrational urge to twitch like a naughty child seconds away from being scolded.

"I phoned the school yesterday and confirmed your attendance at the Reunion. The principal was thrilled to hear you'd also give a speech to one of the classes about life as a policewoman and everything that entails. There's about twelve or so from our graduating class doing the same thing, I think he mentioned someone that went into politics, a fireman and even a clown. Go figure."

She turns away from me then and walks over to the kettle, switching it on.

I have to suppress the urge to walk over and strangle her. She had no right to do that!

"Why in God's name did you go and do something like that? I told you I wasn't interested in going!"

Carmen keeps her back to me, busying herself with filling two cups with sugar instant coffee.

"I did it, because even if I can't ever convince you that me getting raped or Clay being killed wasn't your fault, maybe I can help you understand that what happened with Ashley wasn't all your fault. I'm not going to lie and say you don't hold some responsibility there, but God knows it wasn't entirely your fault. You need to forgive yourself for being human and making a mistake and if saying sorry to Ashley helps you do that, then that's whats going to happen. You're going even if I have to drag you there myself."

She turns then and hands me a cup of coffee, steam rising from the rim and heat emanating from the mug, warming my hands as I cradle it. I don't say anything, not sure what I can say at this point, so Carmen continues.

"I want you happy, Sunshine, that's all and I know that deep down you want to make all of this right. That's why you do what you do for a living and I know it's helped some, but until you make things right with Ashley you'll never be able to start putting all of this behind you."

I roll my eyes, because that's utter crap. I've put everything that's happened between me and Ashley behind me a long time ago, hell, these last two weeks is the first time I've thought about it in years!

"I _am_ happy, Carmen! What happened between me and Ashley is long forgotten. I mean do you honestly believe I'm still letting something that happened that long ago interfere with my life? Please, that would be pathetic."

Carmen smirks and it's not a nice one. I'm pretty sure that's what she looks like when she rips her client's spouses to pieces in court. God, divorce lawyers can be scary!

"You're happy and you're over everything that happened between you and Ashley? Then tell me Spencer, when was the last time you actually dated someone for any extended period of time? When was the last time you told someone you loved them and meant it?"

The cup stalls halfway to my lips, my hand shaking a little as her words sink in. I've just been busy with work these last few years, trying to make detective and all, that's why I haven't really had a serious relationship! How can she twist that into something it's not? I mean, there _have_ been woman in the last few years, it's just never felt right. It's not that I'm pining over Ashley or that I'm still feeling guilty, really it's not!

I mean...it's just...it's not that, okay!

"You can't hide behind me and what happened to Clay forever, at some point you're going to have to stop being a coward and face things. You need to get a life Spencer and you need to start by going to that Reunion and seeing Ashley!"

I slam my cup down and don't care that coffee splashes everywhere or that the noise could wake the kids. I'm just too pissed off right now.

"How dare you call me a coward!? Everyday I put my life on the line, everyday I go out there and do what I have to do to keep everyone safe, to make sure that what happened to you and Clay doesn't happen to anyone else, so where do you get off calling me that?"

Carmen snorts and another cup of coffee is slammed down. She steps closer to me and I can see a mixture of pity and anger on her face.

"You think that's being brave? Spencer, for the last few years you've been trying to kill yourself by jumping in front of bullets or chasing after criminals alone. You take risks that shouldn't be taken, all because you don't think you deserve to live as much as the next person. You haven't let yourself find someone and be happy, you put everyone else's needs in front of your own and go on like you don't...like you don't have the_ right_ to be happy!"

She stops and there are tears in her eyes, her lips drawn tightly together as she breathes deeply in through her nose.

"You can't pay for what happened all those years ago with your life, Spencer. You can't do that to me and you can't do that to your family. I...we all...we need you, Sunshine."

Then I'm in her arms and my eyes burn with unshed tears, because I never once thought how what I do could be affecting everyone around me. Do I think my life is worth less than say Carmen's? Yes, because she's fought hard to be where she is today, she's taken every opportunity that came her way, while I've messed most of them up.

I got into Harvard and flunked out. I had the girl of my dreams and lost her. I had a family that was there for me, but I was too ashamed to ask for help and that got my brother killed and Carmen raped.

Not a day goes by that I don't think it should have been me that got raped or killed that night and yes, that's why I take risks at work, but it's not so that I can get myself killed. I do it, because it's the only thing I could think of to justify me still being here.

I might not have a life like she's pointed out, but hopefully someone else has, because I've done my job and put someone dangerous behind bars.

"I...Carmen, I'm not trying to kill myself. I'm just...I need to do my job, you know? I won't ever be happy if I know I'm not doing every single thing I can to make sure you're safe, that my family is safe. I need to do this, but I promise you now I'll be more careful, okay? No more stunts at work, no more visits to the hospital...and yes, fine, I'll go to the stupid Reunion."

Those words are running through my head as I tackle the teenage boy that made a run for it out of class. Imagine my surprise when I step into a classroom at King High to give a speech, in full dress uniform I might add, when some kid suddenly jumps out of his seat and starts screaming that he's just holding for a friend and that 'the stuff' isn't his.

The stuff being a bag full of weed and various tablets and little star shaped stickers that I'm guessing is lined with acid or something. He dropped the bag halfway down the hall and I kinda kicked it, spilling the contents. That just made me run faster, 'cos the little bastard was obviously dealing right in the school yard or something!

I _hate_ assholes like that!

So I was pretty motivated when I finally caught up to the kid in the parking lot, not taking a second to think about anything other than stopping him.

Hence the tackling...and the landing on the wrist thing again.

I'm not sure if it's broken, but I'm betting I've cracked it this time. Carmen's going to fucking kill me!

I get up and plant my knee on the kids back, right between the shoulder blades. He's cursing and kicking like a donkey, but I sit tight as I cuff him, pain radiating through my arm up from my wrist. Crap, I think it might be broke. I blink hard, trying to keep my focus as I hear footsteps approaching fast. When I look over my shoulder I spot the teacher, a young guy built like a brick wall, coming up to us fast, the bag of drugs in his one hand.

I sigh in relief and pull the kid up with my good hand, shoving him face down against a car's hood.

"Uhm...could you maybe hold him down while I...uhm...call for someone to pick him up?"

The words are barely out of my mouth when school security shows up. God bless big, burly men in security uniforms!

They're on him in a flash and I step back, pretty sure I'm going to either start crying in public or pass out. White hot, searing pain is making me nauseas and my wrist is already swelling. Yup, I'm thinking I _definitely_ broke it this time. Ha! Maybe they'll have to take me to the school nurse, that would be nifty, 'cause she used to be hot if I remember correctly.

I turn and then the urge to simply pass out really kicks in, because standing a little ways away is none other than Kyla Woods.

And right next to her, a frowning Ashley Davies.

Right, the universe officially hates me.

- - -


	6. Love is a battlefield

**So as always I don't own, so don't sue.**

Senior Year: The Reunion 

Chapter 6

Ashley's POV.

It's a bird! It's a plane! Oh, wait, it's actually just my ex-girlfriend sailing through the sky!

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I didn't expect to see that when I woke up this morning and started psyching myself up for this whole Reunion thing. I mean I knew there was a damn good chance that I would end up seeing Spencer again, but I was set to completely ignore her when that happened. I was going to be cool and aloof, maybe give her _one_ small nod and then proceed to catch up with a few old friends while showing off my super hot actress girlfriend. It was a solid plan in my opinion.

Now...well, what am I supposed to do now?

Ugh, this is all Kyla's fault. If she weren't pregnant and emotional I'd have told her to go take a flying dive into the shallow end of a pool when she asked me to go to this stupid Reunion, but I caved as I always do with her lately. It's just she looked so..._pathetic_. I mean she was sitting there with her big old puppy dog eyes, her lips drawn into a slight sad pout and her hand resting unconsciously on her baby bump and she just made me feel like such an asshole for saying no.

Or it could have been the fact that I was pretty hungover and she would have nagged and nagged until my aching head exploded. Or she would have done that silent thing where she sighs every now and then and just scrapes her eating utensils on her plate, which she knows grates on my nerves and makes me cringe. So saying I would go seemed my only option.

Now I'm regretting it, like I on some level obviously new I would, and there's nothing I can do about it. I'd decided that night while I was bawling my eyes out in my shower that this Reunion could kiss my toned ass, that there was no way in hell I'd go and I should have stuck with that. Oh, I should _so _have stuck with that.

Not only am I now faced with probably having to make nice with the girl that pretty much decimated my heart, but I'm supposed to help my pregnant, busy getting divorced stepsister score a date with a woman she hasn't seen in a good eight years. There's just so much I'm supposed to process and I'm honestly just a slight bit boggled by it all.

I mean back when the thing happened between Kyla and Carmen I kinda assumed after a while that she didn't really feel anything for Carmen, that in the end it was maybe just her experimenting, but now I have to come to terms with the fact that Kyla's bisexual. And on top of that she's sure she's still in love with Carmen, who as I've mentioned before she hasn't seen in eight years. I think it's all the baby hormones driving her insane and I told her as much that day at lunch, but she laughed me off and threw me with a forkful of Spinach. Does that seem like the actions of a sane woman to you? So like I said, this is all Kyla with the crazy hormone's fault.

I really hope Kyla blows up like a whale in her last two months...and never loses the weight after the birth. It would serve her right, the manipulative pregnant cow!

I'm about to turn to Kyla and give her at the very least my dirtiest look, but I'm distracted by the sight of Spencer firmly planting her knee in the poor unfortunate kid she was chasing's back and for a second or two I'm just completely amazed by the change in her. The last time I saw Spencer Carlin she was just shy of twenty, her face and body a little...uhm...squishy I guess is a good way to explain it. Her hair had been darker, the lack of the L.A sun meant her natural blond streaks had faded and her skin had been paler than I'd ever seen it. She had still been beautiful thought, I distinctly remember thinking that as I was ravishing her in the back seat of my rental car on my last visit to her before she broke up with me.

It was almost surreal to think that that quiet, chubby and sweet girl was the same woman who was now slamming some kid into the hood of a car. I mean gone now was any trace of excess fat, her thighs lean in the dark navy material of her slacks, the wide, black belt around her hips accentuating her lean, flat stomach. Her arms were tanned a golden brown, clearly defined muscles working in her forearms as she pins the boy down.

I can feel my heart start to thud in my chest as warmth starts to creep up my body and I tell myself it's anger and resentment, not prepared to admit that it might be something else. Something like arousal...

"Uhm...could you maybe hold him down while I...uhm...call for someone to pick him up?"

Her voice comes out slightly raspy, slightly breathless and I shiver, but it's aversion to the sound that causes the reaction, nothing else. I watch as she steps back and the bulky guy I'm loathe to say I didn't even notice arrive in the first place, takes hold of the handcuffed kid. She turns her back to us completely and I belatedly notice her hair is once again golden blond and sun streaked.

When she turns around I can see the surprise on her face, the way she almost dramatically pales and her breath hitches rather audibly and it all stirs something in me. Something ugly and dark, and I almost smile when I finally feel the rush of justified anger wash through me like a flash flood. I can handle anger and resentment, I'm actually well accustomed with those specific feelings in regard to Spencer and I'm sure I prefer it that way.

There's a slight pause, a short period of nothing but silence as I stand there and Spencer stares at me, her familiar gray-blue eyes wide and unblinking.

"_I don't love you anymore, Ashley..."_

The words crept into my mind softly, but I could hear it as clearly as I did that day over the phone, could hear the exact pitch of her tone, the way her voice had slightly quivered...

"_I hate what knowing you has done to my life..."_

Tears had rolled down my cheeks when she'd said that and my chest had tightened so much I thought I'd never be able to breathe right again, that I'd maybe just die on that spot.

"_I don't ever want to see you again..."_

The words had been angry, harsh and final. I had always been expecting to hear those words from Spencer, a part of me completely sure that it was the way it was going to be from the beginning. She would break my heart, would leave me, and there was nothing I could do about it. Just like I could do nothing about my father dying or losing my baby.

Life always took the things I loved the most away from me and I had known it would be the same with Spencer, so I was devastated when she left me, but not surprised. What had been surprising was how ill equipped I was to handle it, how despite knowing I would lose her from the very start of our relationship, I was still left so _unprepared_ for it all.

I think I got drunk and stayed that way for a good week, sitting in my father's beach house with Kyla hammering without success on my door and quietly contemplating killing myself. It was a bit mellow dramatic if I think back on it now, but I was twenty years old and so heartbroken, so hopeless and it just...hurt. It hurt to breathe and it hurt to cry, it hurt when I found an old t-shirt Spencer had left in my dresser and I sat wearing nothing but it for two days so I could remember what she smelled like.

Actually, that was pretty damn pathetic really and it just makes me angrier at the woman in front of me. She just fucked me up so badly, you know? I _hate_ her for that!

"Wow! I mean that was just...wow. And hot, let's not forget hot, because it _so_ was!"

Kyla's over excited voice breaks into my dark thoughts, brutally bringing me back into the now. It finally registers in my cloudy mind what she said and I'm immediately even more pissed off, 'cos she's supposed to be on my side here, not telling Spencer how freaking hot she looked tackling some guy!

Crazy fucking baby hormones!

"Uh...what?"

Spencer's got this dazed and confused look on her pale face and she's blinking real slow, like she used to do when she just woke up in the morning...and I really hate that I still remember that.

"I said that was so hot! I mean you just ran that boy down and tackled him and don't even get me started on the handcuffs! Oh Spencer, I'm pretty sure you just made my day with that."

And then Kyla's flying towards Spencer and wrapping her arms around her, squeezing her like a lemon. Spencer for her part just keeps blinking slowly, her arm coming around Kyla's waist slowly as she seems to come around a bit. I don't know what to make of the whole scene really, so I just stand off to one side and inspect my nails.

"Oh shit, ow...uhm.."

I lazily look up from my perfect cuticles to see Spencer stepping away from Kyla and cradling her arm close to her chest as she bites her bottom lip and for the first time I register that there are pebbles of sweat on Spencer's forehead and she's still deathly pale. Fuck, she's hurt herself...

"Hey, did you hurt yourself? Let me see, I did this first aid course when I found out I'm pregnant and stuff, because you know how kids are..."

Kyla's babbling on and I think it's more to distract Spencer than anything else as she takes a hold of her elbow and eases her arm out straight. It's started to swell around her wrist and she gasps as Kyla's fingers drift butterfly soft over the area.

"I landed funny again and I think I broke it. I mean I didn't exactly hear a snapping sound or anything, but...Hey, you're pregnant?"

Spencer eyes Kyla's belly and then she's curling her hand around the slightly swollen bump, her face going all soft and dreamy. It's the look your mother gets whenever she sees a pregnant woman or baby, that almost wistful emotion that flashes in her eyes. I hate when my mom gets that look, because inevitably it leads to the question as to whether or not I'm planning on settling down and having, as she so eloquently puts it, one of those turkey baster babies.

I figure at least she's okay with the whole lesbian for a daughter deal. Ha, bet she's gonna blow her top thought when she hears about Kyla's little bisexual epiphany. I know Kyla's dad is going to probably keel over from a heart attack, 'cos he just _loves_ Andre.

"Yeah, I'm just over six months...and I do think it looks kinda broken. We should get you to the hospital and fast."

Finally I feel the need to speak up, because there's no way I'm getting sucked back into Spencer Carlin's life.

"We? I'm pretty sure the nice security guards over there can call an ambulance for...her. Besides, I'm late already for that speech thing you talked me into, remember?"

It's true, there are probably four or five geeky Audio/Visual club kids waiting in some classroom for me to come give them some bullshit speech about film making. Trust me, that was not my bright spark idea, I would have much preferred to just show up at the stupid Prom Redux thing they're doing and call it a day, but Kyla obviously had a different idea.

I sigh in relief when the beefy guy that had showed up just after Spencer steps up to us and hesitantly comes to Spencer's side.

"Detective Carlin, security's taking Eddie to the principles office until the police...uhm...other police come to pick him up. I can take you to the nurses office and we can call an ambulance for you, or I could take you if you'd like. I drive really fast."

The guy blushes the minute the last words leave his mouth and I can't help rolling my eyes, because is he seriously trying to impress her while she's standing there with a probably broken wrist?

I guess Kyla's thinking the same thing, because she actually shoos the big, burly guy away, making sure to give him the evil eye as she catches him staring at Spencer's slightly heaving chest a little too long.

"Don't worry about it, _Bucko_, we'll take care of the good officer. We're old friends after all, aren't we Spence?"

Spencer for her part looks a little wobbly at this point and I can see she's basically clinging to Kyla's slightly smaller frame with her good arm. That's when I feel the tug in my chest, just the smallest smidgen of sympathy uncoiling itself and I roll my eyes as I try to will it away.

Spencer doesn't deserve my sympathy, not after the amount of pain she carelessly caused me.

"Yeah, sure...great old friends, _really_." And she means those words, I can tell by the way she looks at Kyla and smiles, affection plain to see on her face. Then she frowns. "You know, I'm pretty sure I'm going to pass out now. I mean the adrenalin is kinda wearing off and I've never really had a high tolerance for pain..."

Kyla turns big brown eyes toward me, her lips already starting to pout slightly and I know I'm screwed, because how do you say no to a face like that? _Especially_ when it's attached to such an obviously pregnant body. Nobody's that much of a bitch, not even me.

"Then we should probably hurry, I'm sure we can make it in no more than ten minutes or so." I want to turn and just start walking, but there's this stupid feeling in my chest that makes me look Spencer in the eye. "Think you'll make it that long?"

I hate that it sounds like I care, but I tell myself it's just 'cos I'm worried she'll trow up in my car or something before we get to the hospital. I mean the car _did_ cost me a million or so dollars, it's not exactly small change. And fine, I'm still not that good with puking in general, it makes _me_ kinda nauseas just thinking about it.

"Yeah, I'll make it."

Then suddenly we're moving, Kyla holding an arm around Spencer as I walk ahead to open the car door so long. Every step I take my heart hammers in my chest a little harder and my stomach does this twisting thing, but I ignore it as I've done every time over the last few years when thinking about Spencer Carlin has made me feel exactly the same way. I wish for a drink then, a good shot of whiskey or brandy, anything that will ease the tension in my stomach and just help me forget. I wish for it so hard I actually close my eyes for a second and cross my fingers, really and truly wishing for it with my whole being.

The only thing I see when I open my eyes is my car though and that's when it hits me. It just occurs to me that my car is a two seater. As in does not take more than _one_ passenger at a time. Which means...

_Fuck _and_ shit. _

"Uhm, my car is a two seater, so I can only take one of you."

Spencer's good hand shoots up into the air and she reminds me of a preschooler sticking his hand up in the air in class and shouting 'Me, me, pick me!'.

Kyla looks from me to Spencer and shakes her head, a sneaky smile blooming on her face.

"Well, guess I'll just call a cab and meet you guys at the hospital in a little while, okay? Now get in the car and get moving!"

Without a word Spencer gets into the passenger side and I slam the door shut, not at all impressed that I'm going to be stuck in a car alone with her. This just bites. I didn't sign up for this shit when I agreed to go to this stupid Reunion!

So without a further word I get in and start the engine, enjoying as always the aggressive roar of the engine as I basically gun it out of the school parking lot. I ignore Spencer completely, my eyes on the road as I go far above the speed limit, but when I'm forced to stop at a red light I can't help myself really.

I look over and find her staring at me, her eyes more gray than blue and suddenly my heart is pounding a hundred miles an hour again, because her good hand covers my own that's resting on the gear lever.

"Thanks for doing this."

Her voice is soft and barely audible over the rumble of the engine, but I feel it tingling all the way down my spine. Each syllable gently tickling a nerve ending and I shudder lightly at the feeling, my eyes closing tightly when she squeezes my hand and heat explodes from that one point of contact.

God in heaven, she can't still be doing this to me, she just can't.

We sit like that in silence, her hand on my own as her thumb slowly caresses my knuckles and my eyes tightly closed, the only thing to be heard in the suddenly confined space of my car is her soft breathing. I finally look at her, take in the mouth I've kissed a thousand times before, the eyes I used to want to write songs about, down to the hand that used to touch me so delicately. That's when it finally hits me.

This is _Spencer Carlin_ in the flesh. Spencer, my first love, my first heartbreak. The first girl I ever touched and the first to touch me, the girl who held me as I cried for my dead baby and made me laugh by doing impressions of her mother's face when she caught us having sex. She was my everything for more than two years, my whole life really.

A part of me wants to pretend that it's ten years ago, that we're just driving to lunch together and that she still loves me, that she never hurt me and left me. That Spencer Carlin was still my girl and all was well with the world.

Then my phone rings and whatever spell had spun itself around us is broken as I shrug Spencer's hand from my own. I pick up my phone and check the display.

_Patrice._

I glance at Spencer as I answer the phone, my voice loud and clear when I speak.

"Hey, Babe, what's up? Didn't you get enough of me last night?"

I watch with a warped sense of satisfaction as Spencer's eyes lower from my own and she turns away, facing the door and getting lost in the view out the window, her shoulders sagging a little.

That dark and angry place inside of me is profoundly happy to see that Spencer seems to be hurting on some level too. That seeing me again for the first time in eight years is affecting her as well and that maybe, just maybe, she's feeling at least a tenth of the pain that she caused me.

So I grin and gun the engine when the light finally changes, cutting my phone call short and head towards the hospital.

But for some reason I keep feeling the burn of Spencer's skin on my hand and no matter how many times I flex my fingers on top of that gear lever, I can't shake that tingling sensation...

- - - - -


	7. Cos I got high

**I don't own, so don't sue.**

Senior Year: The Reunion

Chapter 7 (Carmen's pov).

"Son of a bitch! Are you blind? It's red, asshole, _**red**_!"

Dear God, but people are stupid. I mean what's so hard about understanding that if the light is red, you need to stop? It's not quantum physics or brain surgery, you barely need to know your alphabet to understand the concept of a traffic light and what the colours mean. Yet on a daily basis this happens, some a-hole cuts you off on the freeway or someone runs a red light, just people doing stupid stuff behind the wheel of a car. People are just morons.

I give the old lady the finger and shake my head, wondering if she bought her driver's license from the local Pennysaver or something. Old people and cars, they're almost worse then_ teenagers_ and cars. And that's saying something, right?

I sigh as I put my foot on the gas, accelerating into traffic and turn up the radio. Road rage aside, there's something nice about driving with the windows down, music blaring and the warm L.A sun glinting off the car in front of you. I won't call it peaceful, but it's relaxing in a way to know that for forty minutes or so you can just numb your mind and follow the flow of traffic. I glance at Tommy in his car seat, head lolled to the side as he drools in his sleep. He seems to like it too...

My mother usually takes care of things like pediatrician appointments and trips to the hairdressers and stuff, but today was one of the exceptions and it was left up to me to take Tommy for his annual check up. I might have thought about dumping it on Spencer, but she has the speech thing today at King and was stressed and nervous enough as it was.

I knew she didn't want to do it, not just the speech, but the whole Reunion thing at first. I could see how she was closing herself off to the idea, how she was trying her best to just push it out of her mind completely. Thing is I knew she had to do it, could see how bothered she was by all the old memories it had drug up again. She wandered the house at night, her eyes gray and dark circled in the morning when we shared a quick cup of coffee before facing the daily chaos of both our collective professions.

At first I tried to ignore it, tried to tell myself that maybe just leaving everything alone would be the best thing for everyone, but in the end I knew my first reaction was the right one.

Deep down, Spencer wanted to do this. Well, maybe not _wanted_ to, but she sure as hell needed to. She keeps everything inside, keeps all her guilt close to her heart and feeds off it somehow. It drives her, it makes her scarily intense about her job and though I can't necessarily fault her for that, I know it's not entirely good for her either. She needs to rid herself of some of the guilt, some of the blame she so readily took upon herself.

Spencer is all about making right the wrongs in this world, all about paying for her so called 'sins'. Ashley is one of those sins, one of the things she feels guilty about. So as with everything else, with all the other things she feels guilty about and therefore tries to fix, why would the situation with Ashley be any different?

That's why I knew that deep down she wanted to see Ashley again, knew that on some level she's always been dying for the chance to make things right, to tell her how sorry she was. As much as I believe that the break up wasn't just Spencer's fault, I know she believes exactly the opposite. That's why I phoned up the school and informed them that Spencer would be attending the Reunion, that she's even do the speech thing the secretary mentioned.

Spencer wouldn't have gone if she wasn't pushed into it and me? I've never been afraid to push Spencer, to make her do the tough things she tries to hide from. That's what a best friend is for, to help you face the tough times and not hide from them.

That's what Spencer had always done for me, ever since high school. So even if it hurt to admit some of the things I did the night she found me in the kitchen, even though it broke my heart to tell her how scared I was for her every single day she picked up her badge and went to work, I knew it had to be said.

I meant it when I said I wouldn't let Spencer kill herself all because of some twisted sense of guilt she carried. She, more than anyone else I know, deserves to live. Spencer is a good person, always had been even despite the mistakes she's made. She's not perfect, I know that, but I think she comes pretty close.

Obviously she doesn't share that particular opinion, but I figure I can slowly get her to see that too. I mean I got her to agree to the Reunion, didn't I? Even got her to promise she'd be more careful at work, wouldn't go out of her way looking for trouble and taking chances. I'm just super persuasive like that, must be part of the whole lawyer charm I guess.

I smile as I start humming along to the radio, feeling rather self satisfied. I mean I know that given the opportunity, Spencer will talk to Ashley, hell, maybe even work some things out. If I'm super lucky, she might even start to understand that Ashley had some fault in the break up too and that will be one thing less she's got to carry the burden for.

By the time I'm actually singing out loud, some old Tom Petty song about even losers getting lucky sometimes, I'm in a rather good mood. It's Friday, I've got the rest of the afternoon off and all is relatively well in my life.

Of course, that should have been my first warning that it was all about to go to hell.

My cellphone rings just as I'm nearing our neighborhood, a number I faintly recognize flashing onto it's display. I answer, a frown immediately forming as I realize whose number it is.

"Garcia here."

And then my world is shaken a bit. Carter doesn't know much, just that Spencer ended up getting hurt down at King High. Something about a kid with a bag full of drugs and that she was already on her way to the hospital, actually probably already there. It's all he's got for me and he tells me he'll meet me at the hospital and that by then he should know more.

I have a little trouble breathing at first, but then I tell myself it could just be a false alarm, that I'm working myself up over nothing. The last time she ended up in hospital she had an ass full of fork and that's not exactly life threatening. I mean she nearly died of embarrassment, but she wasn't really any worse for wear.

I still break a couple of land speed records on my way to the hospital, Tommy sitting wide eyed and quiet in his car seat, like he somehow knew to not cry and distract me from the road. I try to push the image of the old lady's face I almost hit while she was crossing the road out of my mind, pretty sure that I took a year or two off her life with that scare. Kinda makes me feel a little guilty knowing she probably only has a few years left to begin with...

"Vroom-vroom!"

Tommy waves his little arms around, his eyes still round as saucers, as he imitates a car revving and finally I snap out of my little guilt trip.

"Yeah, Tommy, we went vroom-vroom really fast, didn't we? Now remember, we don't need to tell Grandma about this, okay?"

He smiles a little as I unstrap him from the seat and I bite my lip to stop from swearing when he gets tangled in the now loose straps. Spencer makes me put a dollar in a jar each time I swear in front of any of the kids, seeing as Tommy's second word was quite possibly 'crap'. I'm happy to report that the jar is only filled up halfway...this month.

I'm pretty sure my sister will be able to put the kids through college because of that damn jar.

By the time I've got Tommy on my hip and my car locked up safely, I simply sprint to the wide doors of the hospital. I don't care that I'm precariously close to eating dirt in my high heels, I just want to make sure Spencer is okay. So by the time I'm at a desk facing a bottle blond in a nurses uniform, I'm kinda sweating and there's a stitch in my side.

"I'm looking for information on a Detective Carlin, she was brought in...uh...half an hour ago? Maybe longer, I'm not sure."

Tommy's pulling my hair out of it's French twist, the strands tickling my ear as he giggles happily. The nurse looks up, her brown eyes fluttering without much interest between me and Tommy.

"Are you family?"

Immediately I'm grinding my teeth, irritation at the woman and her bullshit making my temper simmer. How freaking hard is it to simply tell me if she's been admitted, if she's still breathing for God's sake. I had the same problem last time, with the fork incident, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to handle it the same as I did then.

"Listen here, _lady_, I really don't have time for this crap, I'm asking you a simple question really and seeing as you're a nurse I'm betting you're not completely stupid, so how about you just type her name in on that computer of yours and tell me if she's been admitted here."

The blond sighs and gives me the same bored, uninterested look she gave me before.

"Look, I can tell you if she's been admitted, but I can't really give you any more information unless you're related. Those are the rules and I'm just doing my job."

I roll my eyes and what little patience I've had evaporates. I so don't have the time or inclination to be dealing with this, I just want to know if Spencer's okay. So I do the only thing I can at this point.

I'm halfway down the long corridor before the imbecile nurse realizes it and I simply ignore her voice as I make my way towards the emergency room. I should have just done that to begin with, but I was trying to play nice for once. I dodge a nurse or two and make my way to the curtained row of beds, some occupied and some not, my eyes quickly darting over the faces of the patients waiting to be seen or moved. I don't spot a uniform among them, so I grab the next hassled looking nurse that comes my way, knowing she'll be too busy to actually care if I'm supposed to be here or not.

"Hey, sorry, I was looking for a policewoman that was brought in a while ago. Blond hair, blue eyes, goes by Carlin?"

The nurse bites her lip distractedly as she thinks and I actually start bouncing a little on the balls of my feet with frustration, Tommy bopping along with the motion. Finally I see the lights go on as she nods her head.

"Right, the cop with the wrist...uhm...she's over on the right, waiting on x-ray I think."

She points as she speaks and I don't bother wasting time with saying thanks, I simply tear off in that direction, half relieved to hear her say something about a wrist. Wrists aren't life threatening, so that's good, but I need to see for myself.

By the time I catch sight of Spencer leaning back on a bed with her one arm slung over her eyes, I let out a breath. Tommy pokes me in the cheek, giggling when I give him a look and proceeds to kiss me on the tip of my nose.

I'd take a moment to appreciate how sweet he is, but I can't, because just then Spencer drops her arm and as fate would have it, she meets my stare dead on.

She cringes and I know exactly what's running through her head right now, the conversation we had in the morning hours coming back to me as well.

"What the hell, Spencer?! You fuc..." I feel Tommy's weight against my side, his hand at the back of my neck playing with my hair again and swallow the curse. "You fudging promised me!"

Spencer holds up her hand and I notice that it has a slight tremor. She's looking pale and sweaty, her lips a thin line in her drawn face and I finally let my eyes rake over her, checking for any visible damage. I find it when I spot her wrist, a cold pack resting against it but not obscuring the fact that it's swollen and angry looking from me.

"Look, it wasn't my fault, okay? I just stepped into the class and this kid went crazy and then made a run for it. Turned out he had a bag full of drugs on him and I couldn't...I couldn't just do _nothing_!"

She's quiet for a second and then gives me a goofy smile. "Hey, I think the injection just kicked in, 'cos I'm feeling pretty damn okay right now."

I want to scream, want to go over there and shake some sense into her, but I know she probably had a very good reason for doing what she did, she always has. That and it looks like she's well on her way to flying high, so I blow out another aggravated breath and step inside the curtained enclosure, only then spotting the two quiet woman sitting on plastic chairs on the left, previously obscured from my view.

It's unmistakably Ashley Davies sitting with her head halfway between her knees, her neck bent at an awkward angle as she peers up at me. Worse than that though is that I'm a hundred percent sure that it's Kyla Woods sitting right beside her, hand slowly rubbing Ashley's back as the other lies stretched over her swollen belly.

Oh you've got to be fucking kidding me. I do _not_ deserve this, not after having the shit scared completely out of me!

"What the hell are you doing here?!"

Spencer giggles at this point and I give her a look, somewhat sobering her up and she bites her lip wisely. Ashley just groans and drops her pale face down again, breathing in and out slowly. I fight it for as long as I can, I really do, but finally I meet Kyla's eyes. They're the exact same brown as I remember, the lashes still long and lush that frame them and I find myself swallowing almost convulsively.

I remember the way her eyes looked at me almost eight years ago, the regret and pain and absolute devastation that bled from their depths as she sat and held my hand, as she cried tears for me because I was unable to do so myself. Oh God, it's painful how clearly I can remember it all, her sweet, heady smell mingled with that of hospital disinfectant, the feel of her skin as I held her hand in my own scraped, broken knuckled one.

I had never loved her more than I had in that moment, when I'd been lying in that bed hurting in a way I wished no woman or girl would ever hurt, when I'd told her to leave despite wanting nothing more than to crawl into her warm arms and find the little comfort there could be for me.

I had also never been _less_ able to love her then I was in that moment. I was broken back then, my body bruised and my mind shattered, and I knew that if I let her stay I would have just hurt her. I would have somehow tainted her with the filth that had infiltrated my skin, my soul. So I let go of her hand and told her it was too late, that I didn't want to hear anything she had to say. Told her I didn't care what she felt, because I didn't feel anything for her. Told her I couldn't ever feel anything for her again...

All of that flashes into my minds eye, replays over and over until I finally realize that she's not sitting next to Ashley anymore, she's actually standing in front of me. She's smiling softly, her eyes mapping out my face and then her palm is against my cheek, a thumb gently sliding across my heated skin.

"Hello, Carmen."

It's a gentle whisper, but she's standing so close that I can still feel her breath gently fan over my face, can still feel the slight heat of her body as it seems to sway only inches away from me. I shudder as I step away, as I put as much safe distance between us as I politely can.

"Hello, Kyla."

I simply stand and stare at her, at the first girl I ever loved and wonder what the hell I'm supposed to do now. Am I supposed to act like nothing ever happened between us? Like nothing that happened between us was important or left an impact? Am I supposed to play along with all the scenes out of movies or books where we meet after all this time and everything is magically fixed and we can be polite strangers?

I'm still pondering this when Spencer breaks the tense silence.

"They brought me to the hospital, well, Ash brought me to the hospital." She was quiet for a moment, her eyes glancing over to Ashley and she blushed a little. "I kinda puked in her car and then _she_ kinda puked in her car. It was a really weird bonding experience I think."

Bonding experience, _riiiiight_. Remind me to never have one of those, 'kay?

"Yeah, okay, that sounds really nice." I hear a groan, probably from Ashley, but I ignore it. "Now what's happening here? Is your wrist broken? What did the doctor say?"

Spencer smiles at me, all loopy and slow, and I roll my eyes. Great, they obviously gave her something strong for the pain and now she's completely useless. Hell, at least she's alive.

"The doctor said...uhm...a lot of things. Said it was probably broken, but..."

She trailes off then, her eyes going over to Ashley's bent over form and she smiles again.

"The doctor said what exactly, Spence?"

Her eyes flutter towards me, but just as quickly flutters right back to the oblivious Ashley. I'm tempted to snap my fingers to get her attention, my nerves still on edge after the fright I had, but I hold myself in.

"The doctor just had a quick look and then gave her the pain medication and ice pack, said he'd organize for a x-ray just to make sure, but he was almost a hundred percent sure it's broken."

It was Ashley that answered, head still neatly tucked between her legs, probably fighting off nausea still, and I couldn't help smiling a little. She hadn't once spoken a word to Spencer, not even glanced at her, but she'd obviously payed attention to what the doctor said. Seems like someone was worried about Spencer...

And then I finally find my footing again, find the cool and calm I'm known for in court and give Kyla a pleasant smile. I know I can't pretend that I'm not affected by seeing her, but I'm not going to stand here and have a mental break down about it either.

"Well, I guess I owe you two a thank you for taking such good care of Spencer..so thanks. If you want to leave now that's fine, I can handle things from here."

Ashley groans and then straightens, her eyes looking at everything but Spencer.

"I can't drive in that car, not with that smell. God, I'm pretty sure just thinking about it makes me want to hurl again. I should just phone Patrice to come pick me up...us up I mean."

Kyla stiffens and rolls her eyes, her hair getting flung over her shoulder and I can't help recalling all the times she did that back in high school, back when she insulted me and walked off, only to seek me out again later and repeat the cycle. Ah, the joys of teenage sexual tension...

"Ugh, I'd rather be stuck in the puke mobile than drive in the same car as _Patrice_."

She said the name like she was talking about something distasteful, something that turned her stomach, her tone filled with nothing but vitriol and dislike.

"Kyla, please, stop acting like she's such a huge bitch, because we both know that's not true. You pick fights with her, it's your own fault you don't get along."

Kyla gaped like a fish and flushed with indignation, her eyes narrowing as she turned animatedly towards Ashley.

"I pick fights with her?! Me? She called me a pregnant whore-whale, she deserved the wine in the face and more! You can be glad I didn't rip her a knew one, the dirty gold digging slut..."

Ashley rolled her eyes, obviously having heard this argument before and got up, taking a careful breath and looking less pale than she was before.

"Fine, we call a cab, no big deal. As long as I get out of here soon."

There's an uncomfortable quiet and I find myself looking at Spencer, at the sadness that bloomed on her face the minute Ashley spoke those words. She's blinking slowly, her throat working as she swallows down whatever emotion it is that bubbled up upon hearing Ashley profess how much she wants out of the cubicle, out of Spencer's life...

"Wow, you really can't stand me, can you? I mean I _knew_...I...you really hate me so much you can't even look at me? I just want to see your face...I really like your face, you know?"

Spencer's looking so earnest, yet so completely lost that it makes me ache for her. I can see the cloudiness in her eyes, both from the medication she's on and from the old guilt and hurt that no medicine can ever take away.

Ashley for her part gives a strangled laugh, or maybe it's a sob, I don't know, because suddenly Kyla is pushing me out of the cubicle and down a hallway. I go quietly, knowing that despite it being the worst possible time for it, Spencer was going to have her talk with Ashley. The talk she probably didn't even realize she was thinking about having with her ever since that invitation came in the post. High or not, it was happening now.

It's relatively quiet in the hospital cafeteria, only a few tables occupied. We silently get watered down juice and then sit down in a corner, Tommy still blessedly quiet as he always is, simply following my lead and taking a sip of his juice.

I fight myself for a long few minutes, words forming and dying unspoken in my mind, but when Kyla sighs and rests her hand against her belly again, I can't keep quiet anymore. I_ need_ to know, the one thing I've been steadily ignoring burning me now so that I can't keep my tongue any longer.

"So...is that Aiden's baby?"

Kyla cocks an eyebrow and gives Tommy a pointed look.

"Is he yours...yours and Spencer's?"

I smile and shake my head, realizing that I'm about to have a talk of my own. Oh yeah, this was turning out to be such a _fun_ afternoon. So much for the losers getting lucky some time...Tom Petty's a fucking liar I tell you!

- - -

**Hope you liked it. Have I lost my touch with this story after so long, or should I go on? **


	8. Eye for an eye

**So it took me a while, I know, but I updated! It starts out a little silly again and then after the first thousand words or so I got tired of it, so it's more drama then anything else really. Hopefully you all like that kind of thing, though;)**

**I just wanted to thank everyone that commented on the previous chapter. It was great to see so many of you interested in this story, despite me having jerked you all around by removing it in the first place. I was an a-hole and I seriously apologize for that fact. So yeah, thanks for giving this story a go despite it!**

Senior Year: The Reunion

Chapter 8: Eye for an eye.

_Spencer's point of view. _

I threw up in her car.

No, really, I _threw up in her car_. We were probably no more than three minutes away from the hospital when she took a corner too fast and I slid in my seat, my wrist hitting the door rather hard and I just...I threw up. The pain and the tension and my freaking heart _breaking_ was just too much and it all spilled out of me.

Ten seconds later it spilled out of Ashley too. I was mortified that not only had I gone and embarrassed myself like that, but I actually made _her_ sick as well. That and we caused a bit of a traffic jam when she simply stepped hard on the break in an effort to get out of the car. All in all it wasn't the prettiest of sights...or the best smelling. Yeah, that three minutes it took us to get to the hospital was excruciating and nauseating and just...it was just...it was really messed up. I can't think of a better way of explaining it.

I mean I was trapped in a car with someone who could obviously not even look at me anymore, I was in pain and to top it all off I had to stick my head out of the window when I needed to breathe. Yeah, I wasn't kidding when I said the universe hates me. That was a cosmic bitch slap of epic proportions and my ears are still metaphorically ringing from the impact.

Strangely though the thing that hurt the most, that upset me the most, that _sickened_ me to my stomach the most, was listening to her coo into her cellphone to some woman. She's moved on, obviously she did after all these years. Hell, I knew she'd moved on, I stood on her doorstep years ago and witnessed it for myself when that horribly skinny chick with barely any clothes on opened her apartment door, but having it confirmed again? I won't lie, it hurt like a bitch.

It hurt more than my wrist or my pride did. It hurt in a way it really shouldn't have after all these years. I've put her behind me, I've buried it with everything else I've ever done that I'm so ashamed of. So why on God's green earth did it have such an effect on me? Ugh, this is all Carmen's fault. Her and her stupid notion that I have unresolved issues or whatever and that I needed to do this Reunion thing. This is probably her twisted way of getting me back for the pasta debacle of '06. It's not a pretty story that, involves me cooking and her hugging the toilet bowl for a day straight.

I'm not very good at cooking, surprisingly enough, and after that episode Carmen's handled any and all food related situations. She won't even let me make toast unsupervised...

Anyway, point is this is her fault. And I'm going to make her pay, as soon as my poor head stops swimming with pain and my wrist isn't all swollen and well, broken. At least that's what the doctor is saying I think. I've pretty much tuned him out though, I'm more concentrated on not flinching when he touches my wrist and just holding onto Kyla's hand.

She came in about the same time a doctor finally got around to seeing me. I was beyond relieved to see her, because I couldn't bring myself to really look at Ashley, despite the fact that she'd spent the last fifteen or so minutes with her rather green face firmly between her knees. God knows I find it tragic that despite the fact that she's never truly hurt me, I'm still managing to do exactly that to her. Years ago I cut all ties with her, I pushed her out of my life. I broke her heart knowing full well deep down that she loved me, that she loved me in a way no one would ever probably love me again.

Gave me her heart and I broke it. Gave me a ride and I made her throw up. I'm no good for this girl, or for this woman that used to be a girl I knew. Yet I haven't asked her to leave, because it feels so good in a way to know she's at least in the same room as I am again. That the same air that brush my lips may have touched hers too. That if I take a deep enough breath, I might just smell her perfume. That if I just open my eyes and turn to my right, I'd see her. It's with that thought that I lower my good arm from off my face, that I open my eyes, but before I can look at the one thing I find myself desperate to see for reasons unknown, my eyes land dead on Carmen Garcia.

She's pissed. She's so pissed I can spot it from all the way over here. It's rolling off her in waves, like it's bleeding out of her skin or something. The fact that she's got little Tommy on her hip at least comforts me to some degree, 'cos this means she won't have both hands available to strangle me with.

"What the hell, Spencer?! You fuc..."She pauses there and I'm thankful, because no way was she just going to say what I think she wanted to say right in front of Tommy. Last time my Mom came over Tommy said 'crap, crap, crap, crap' the whole time. That somehow evolved into her making us all go to church with her the next Sunday. "You fudging promised me!"

And I did, I had promised her, but this wasn't my fault! This wasn't something I went looking for, it was just the universe playing another one of it's sad excuses for a practical joke!

"Look, it wasn't my fault, okay? I just stepped into the class and this kid went crazy and then made a run for it. Turned out he had a bag full of drugs on him and I couldn't...I couldn't just do _nothing_!"

Honestly, what did she expect me to do?! I'm a cop, it's my job and...and...whoa Nelly! Who switched on the disco ball? No really, every thing's all spinny and there's dancing spots and...

"Hey, I think the injection just kicked in, 'cos I'm feeling pretty damn okay right now."

Right on! This is kinda funky, like being trapped underwater without the pesky panic about drowning and sharks and those weird blow fish. It's just all slow and steady and floaty and...hehe, Carmen looks like she's seen a ghost. She's looking at Kyla and Ashley and she's all...surprised.

She's all wide eyed and gapey. Ooooh, I bet I can count each and every tooth in her mouth right now. One, two, three, four...

"What the hell are you doing here?!"

Me? Why I'm here so the good doctor can fix up my wrist! She's so dumb sometimes, I mean really. Hey, why's she giving me the look of doom and destruction? Oh, right. She wasn't talking to me...and I should stop giggling now. It's not dignified for an officer of the law to giggle, right?

I think I missed something for a while, because Kyla has magically transported herself. I mean one minute she's sitting in the corner, then I blink, and now she's standing right in front of Carmen! How'd she _do_ that?! And why are they just staring at each other?

"They brought me to the hospital, well, Ash brought me to the hospital." I feel the need to break the silence, because silence can get awkward and we've had enough of that. Besides, when I talk the disco ball seems to stop spinning just a bit. "I kinda puked in her car and then _she_ kinda puked in her car. It was a really weird bonding experience I think."

Okay, I didn't mean to say that, but when I looked at Ashley all bent over and green, that's the first thing that came to mind. Fine, it was the second thing. I'd tell you all about the first thing, but it's a bit dirty and we're in a hospital and it seems kinda wrong.

"Yeah, okay, that sounds really nice. Now what's happening here? Is your wrist broken? What did the doctor say?"

The doctor? The good man with the magic mojo? He said, uhm, well...

"The doctor said...uhm...a lot of things. Said it was probably broken, but..."

Isn't Ashley just the prettiest thing ever? I mean look at her, even when she's all green and sweaty she's just...just beautiful. I used to watch her sleep, used to run my fingertips all over her beautiful face and watch her turn into my hand for more contact. It always made me feel warm and breathless and...and loved.

I mean she wanted me, even in her sleep. How great is that? It used to blow my mind a little, when she'd make these soft keening noises and shift in her sleep until she'd turned her body completely into mine, molding herself against me like we were meant to be that way. I was meant to be a part of her, or she was meant to be a part of me, something like that.

I swear I can feel her heat envelope me now, just like it did back then. Just from looking at her skin, skin I know is soft and sweet to the taste, I can feel it sink into me like it did when she would wrap us together in her sleep. Sometimes there'd be nothing to separate her skin from my own, no t-shirt or boxers or tank top, just skin meeting skin. Those nights it would always feel like her over heated skin, over heated because of what we did before she fell asleep, would actually burn mine. It would meld and mold her to me even closer than usual and I'd fall asleep feeling safer than I could ever recall feeling before or after.

I can hear them all talking, Ashley included, but my mind is so lost right now. I'm lost in the memory of her skin, in the way I can remember how her mouth would find mine in the morning, in the way she kissed me like it was the first time every time. God I miss that, I miss her.

I can finally admit that, because this is surely a dream or something. The fact that everything is looking a bit softer, all the hard edges have seemed to disappear. Maybe I am just dreaming, maybe I'm not really in this room and I can look at that face of hers for as long as I want to without feeling any guilt.

Finally though, some of what is being said filters through the clouds that have seemed to fill my mind and my heart, so confused right now by what's my reality and what's just dreams from the past, clenches painfully in my chest.

"...cab, no big deal. As long as I get out of here soon."

She sounds so tired, so desperate, like her life depends on getting out of this room. Like she can't stand it any longer to be here, to be near me...

"Wow, you really can't stand me, can you? I mean I _knew_...I...you really hate me so much you can't even look at me? I just want to see your face...I really like your face, you know?"

Finally the clouds dissipate almost completely, the medication being pushed out of my blood stream by the cold shot of sorrow that fills it. Reality, as unwelcome as it is, is trying it's hardest to rush back and I'm so ill equipped for it in this moment.

I'm not prepared for the hurt that stumbles from her mouth in the form of broken laughter, for the way her eyes shut so tightly while she tries to drag breath into her visibly laboring chest.

"You just want to see my face?" Another laugh, this one harder and somehow filled with nothing but derision, reaches my ears. "Maybe you should have thought about that before dumping me all those years ago, Spencer. Ever think of that?"

I simply nod my head, because don't I owe her the truth? Don't I owe her a thousand apologies? Isn't hurting her one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made, aside from getting my brother killed and my best friend raped? I've tried to make up for those two mistakes, have practically dedicated my life to righting those two wrongs as best I could, so why should I not try the same with Ashley?

Doesn't she deserve it, no matter how much it might hurt me to admit how much of a selfish bitch I had been, no matter that what I did to Ashley made me doubt everything I ever thought I knew about myself? Does the fact I'm ashamed of what I did to her give me the right to keep the truth from her?

"Yes, I've thought about it. It used to be all I thought about, until...until the night with Clay and Carmen and...what happened to them, and then it was just_ one_ of the things I thought about. It was just the first hurt I caused in a long line of them. I never got to tell you I was sorry, to tell you that you didn't do anything wrong. I was too messed up and too much of a coward to admit that I wasn't as perfect as everyone thought I was. I just...I let you think that I didn't...that I'd stopped...that you'd done something wrong, that somehow it was your fault we were over and it wasn't like that."

I'm not sure why I couldn't admit that I'd made her think I didn't love her anymore, maybe because I knew she'd have to understand that I _had_ still loved her, that somehow it might imply that I _still_ love her...

"What do you...do you mean to say that...that you hadn't..."

She trails off, her hand motioning in the space between us and I know she understood anyway. She understood perfectly what my stuttering little speech meant. She knows that when I told her I didn't love her, it had been a lie. That I'd put the blame for the break up squarely on her shoulders when it rested completely on mine.

"I was falling behind in school and you were doing good, I was lonely and you had all your new friends, I was a mess and you were doing better than ever. I was angry and depressed and I took it out on you in the end. I tried to make it all your fault, because I couldn't handle the fact that I'd made some wrong choices and that my life was going down the toilet. I didn't want to admit I'd fucked up, so I made you think you did."

Then I breathe in deeply, my stomach rolling uncomfortably as I search for the courage to admit something that gives her all the power, that gives her something she could use to hurt me with...

"I never stopped loving you back then, Ash, I just stopped loving myself."

There's absolute quiet in the little cubicle, the sounds from around us fading away against the backdrop of my little confession. I can see so many feelings, so many different emotions chasing each other on Ashley's face. I can see the flash of despair, the bitterness around her tightly clenched mouth that follows, the utter rage and disbelief that floods her face in bright red.

Then for the first time I consciously realize what I had done to her, really finally understand how deeply I must have hurt her. I knew how delicate she really was, how afraid she was that she wasn't worth loving, or how when she loved someone they were always taken away from her in the end. I knew all her insecurities, knew how deeply she had been hurt in her past as a child and I still did what I did.

She has every right in the world to hate me even more than she must have.

Then suddenly I'm sucking in a breath as I feel myself being pushed down into the hospital bed, Ashley's strong hands on my shoulders pinning me down firmly. Her face is so close to mine that I can clearly see her pupils dilate, can count the exact number of freckles she tries to hide under her make-up. It also means I can actually feel her anger, her absolute rage, emanating from her every pore.

"Do you honestly think any of that means a fucking thing to me _now_?"

The pressure on my shoulders increase painfully, but that doesn't even really register, because she's suddenly pressed up against me. I can feel her shuddering against me and there's nothing exciting, nothing sexual about it. This is pure hate running through her body, revulsion towards me making her body react like this.

I've never wished harder that it was me that died eight years ago, not Clay, as I do in this moment. I deserved it, not him. I deserved all the bad things that happened that night, not Clay and Carmen. I was the bad one, I was the one that had done something that deserved punishment, not them, and this is the proof of it: Ashley's face filled with hate and despair and the pain I caused her _underneath_ it all.

"Do you really think I want to hear this? Your little sob story that's supposed to make me feel sorry for you and make me understand why you did what you did? I don't fucking _care_, Spencer. I don't care why you did it, or if you meant it, or if you still lo..."

She stopped then, her face going absolutely still, her eyes cold and dead as she pulled herself away from me and stepped back.

"It's over, has been over for so long, so I don't see the point of doing this with you. This is what you wanted, Spencer, so deal with that and don't make it my problem."

Then she's gone. My eyes are still firmly planted on the vacant spot where she'd been standing no longer than a few seconds before and I finally realize that I'm the one trembling now. I'm the one whose chest is heaving painfully and all because I finally clued myself in on the fact that...

The fact that I still love Ashley. It simply wouldn't hurt this much if I didn't.

- - - - -

By the time Carmen finally comes back I've already had the x-ray. The doctor is actually putting my wrist in a cast as we speak, giving me instructions on what to do and what not to do. I'm once again simply ignoring him completely as I lie there and just...just _hurt_. That's really all I'm capable of doing right now, yet when I spot Carmen, who looks strangely rumpled and somewhat disorientated, I feel relief flooding me. I hadn't realized how badly I needed my best friend right now until I spotted her.

All it takes is one look at my face and her apparent disorientation disappears and she's the sharp, focused woman I've come to know. She frowns, shuffles Tommy around onto her other hip and pins the doctor with a stern glare all at once.

"So what's the verdict, Doc? Is she going to be okay?"

She's all business now, but the way she shoots me a small, concerned look tells me she knows something other than my wrist is bothering me. Well, she'd have to be stupid if she didn't realize that I suppose, I mean I have just seen Ashley for the first time in years and wasn't Carmen the one that told me I wasn't over her? That I need to talk to Ashley and get some things in the open?

Not that that helped me much in the end, if my sobbing heart is going to be any indication...

"She'll be fine in a few weeks. She just needs to keep it still for a few days and maybe take some Calcium to help the bone heal, but there probably wont be any permanent damage."

Carmen's right eyebrow cocks up and her mouth tightens almost imperceptibly.

"Probably?"

The doctor, and I only now realize he looks pretty young to be wearing the white coat, swallows.

"No, I mean there definitely won't be any permanent damage. It was a hairline fracture in the bone that cleanly severed it by the wrist, so it'll grow back with no problem. Uhm...I promise."

He tugged at his collar and swallowed and I couldn't help laughing, because did Carmen really give off _that_ scary a vibe? It seemed she did, because an hour later she had talked the doctor into discharging me, despite the fact that he said he'd like me to stay overnight. I think it was because of the uniform, maybe he felt that because I was a police officer he had to take extra care of me or something. I don't know, but once Carmen was sure I was okay she didn't feel inclined to leave me alone at the hospital for the night. The whole over protective thing went both ways in our friendship after all.

So I was sent packing with a bottle of pain killers and a relieved smile from the doctor, but that was mostly because he was glad to be rid of Carmen I think. We found Carter patiently waiting in a chair, his eyes coolly giving me the once over before he smiled and nodded.

"You'll live"

That was all he said really, except for telling me that he'd already made sure my car got back to the house for me. It was corny to think it, but he showed me how much he cared when he did stuff like that, he didn't need to say it. He was cool like that, my partner.

So I went home and slept off the last of the buzz caused by whatever the hell it was the doctor had injected me with. Not before calming my mother down of course, because Carmen made me phone her and tell her what happened before letting me crash. That was twenty minutes of my life I'm never getting back, thank you very much. I also ended up telling Carmen what happened between me and Ashley, what she said...

Which brings me to the here and now. The here being two blocks from my house and the now being...uh...about nine in the morning if my watch is set correctly. I slept like shit, kept having dreams about Ashley, about what she said in that hospital room and when I finally dragged myself out of bed it was only to swallow don't some Ibuprofen and then hit the road running, literally.

I've been running for more than an hour and a half and I'm somewhat regretting it. My wrist is killing me, so much so that I've once or twice considered stopping at the nearest pay phone and getting Carmen to pick me up, but every time I just pushed on. I need this time to myself, I need the rhythm of my feet on asphalt and the familiar burn in my calves to ease my mind a bit. I need to forget, just for a little while, and running is how I do it.

I still love Ashley, a fact I've managed to ignore or deny for a very long time now, but not anymore. If accepting it is the only way to get over it, then that's what I'm going to do. At least the last pain filled hour or so gave me that knowledge, so it's been worth it.

By the time I reach home I just double over, my good hand resting on the low gate as I try to even out my breathing. I need to stretch, need to cool down my straining muscles, but for a minute or so I can only stand there, can only breathe and close my eyes tightly against the crazy world that's waiting patiently for me to join it again.

After a while that's what I do, I stretch out a bit and wipe sweat from forehead with my shirt, ignoring the fact that now _I'm_ the one probably giving Mr Taylor a show. He's old, he's wife is a screaming hag most of the time, so I suppose he deserves the little bit of joy he gets out of life. I figure it's my good deed for the day.

I'm halfway up the path before I spot her. She's just sitting on my front steps, her eyes steady as she watches me walk towards her. She looks pretty damn terrible really, her eyes tired, red-rimmed with dark circles underneath them. I don't think she's slept at all, the fact that I can smell whatever it is she drank all the way from over here giving me the idea that she was out all night and instead of going home ended up here, probably still completely smashed out of her skull. I don't care to ask how she got here, don't care that she's now standing on my bottom step in nothing but a short, slinky black dress and swaying slightly.

I care about the hand she's stretched out towards me, about the way she's looking at me with so much pleading to...I don't know, to make things magically right maybe? I can't really do that, but I _can_ take her offered hand, so I do.

And then she's suddenly in my arms, her mouth against my own and she's kissing me, her hunger for my mouth so palpable it almost knocks me off my feet.

"I hate you, Spencer, I hate you so fucking much."

It's mumbled against my lips and I taste her breath, the anger mixed with alcohol on it, and I pull her closer, kiss her harder.

"I know, Ash, I know."

- - -

**Hopefully none of you got a headache reading that! Let me know, yeah? Also I'm thinking Kyla's point of view next, but if you have a different opinion on the matter, share it;)**


	9. The push and pull

**I seem to be on an updating roll this weekend, but I'm guessing you guys don't mind that at all;)**

**As always my thanks goes out to those that take the time to read and review, your input is always welcomed and appreciated. Hopefully this doesn't disappoint, because I'm feeling pretty good about this chapter and I hope you guys do too.**

**You know the drill by now, I don't own SON, I've stopped pretending I do and I've even given up hoping someone will give it to me for Christmas!**

Senior Year: The Reunion

Chapter 9: The push and pull.

_Kyla's point of view._

They say that reality is always a thousand times better than what your imagination can come up with and I have to agree on that one, seeing as Carmen Garcia in the flesh is a thousand times better than anything I've imagined to date.

She's raw and intense, beautiful in an almost feral way, while still retaining such a hidden sweetness that few believed she had back in high school. I'd known her sweetness, her passion, back then, but you know how that ended up, right? Oh, the folly of youth...

Back to my original point though. Seeing Carmen again is a thousand times better than I'd managed to imagine in the few years that passed since we saw each other last. She lost the last semblance of childhood, her face having acquired a few signs of age, but it doesn't distract one bit from her attractiveness, hell, it just makes her hotter in my opinion.

Her face looks like that of a woman who fully lives her life, with small laugh lines forming next to that firm mouth of hers and frown lines from all that lawyering that she does I suppose. She's just magnificently comfortable in that toned skin of hers and it shows.

Yet the hotness factor doesn't manage to completely distract from the fact that she has a little boy glued to her hip.

It's...worrisome. I'm honest enough to admit that even if that child is hers, even if she's had some commitment ceremony and is living in utter bliss with some woman and two or three of their artificially inseminated babies, I'm going to put up a fight for her. Even if that woman turns out to be Spencer, actually, _especially_ if that woman turns out to be Spencer.

Because we all know Carmen was mine first, and I was hers. That short lived relationship of theirs in high school was nothing like what happened between us.

The fact that we haven't been together for over ten years is just a..._minor_ road bump. All the best couples have those, I mean look at Romeo and Juliet? They had their problems, right? Not to mention Sleeping Beauty, Snow White or that little robot that just wanted someone to hold his hand! All the great love stories have obstacles in the way before getting to the happily ever after part.

So I'm more than ready to work to get what I want and I _want_ Carmen. Ashley can call me crazy all she wants, can blame my behavior on hormones or the fact that I'm possibly a little bit insane, but I know my own heart, know my own mind, and both mind and heart agree that Carmen Garcia is the one for me, always has been and always will be.

Just like Spencer was made for Ashley, as much as Ashley is currently ignoring that fact, I was made for Carmen. I really, truly believe that.

That doesn't mean I think it's going to be as easy as me walking up to Carmen and asking if she'd like to be my Baby Mama. Or my _other_ baby mama or...uhm...you get what I'm saying. She's never been the kind to let herself be pushed around, not by me or anyone else, so she has to come to me out of her own free will. I need to prove to her that I'm what's best for her, she has to _choose_ me.

So pushing her up against the hospital cafeteria wall and kissing her senseless is probably not the best way of going about that, but God knows that's what I want to do right now. Have I mentioned the hormones thing yet? Yeah, pregnant woman have a higher than usual sex drive, proven fact that. Still, I'm not stupid, there will inevitably be a crap load of talking and arguing before we get to the groping part of our journey. Oh to have a fast forward button for life, wouldn't that make things so much easier? I can't help sighing a bit wistfully and it seems to finally break the silence that fell over us as we settled down to sip at our juice.

"So...is that Aiden's baby?"

Ah, so she's been wondering about that, has she? I really like the fact that the thought that this could be Aiden's baby seems to upset her, hell, she looked positively green in the face just asking the question. As much as I want to enjoy that fact, there's something I've been worried about too...

"Is he yours...yours and Spencer's?"

She smiles and shakes her head, her eyes closing for half a second tightly before the smile turns into a grimace, like she realizes her question gave away more than she intended, but then so did mine.

"I asked you first."

I cock an eyebrow, because is that the best that a lawyer could come up with? That argument barely works when you're five! I think she realizes that, because she closes her eyes for a brief second again before giving me an irritated look. The kind of irritated look she used to give me, the kind of look that led to naked sexy time in the shower...

"Tommy is my sisters son, I just look after him sometimes. Spencer and I are just friends who happen to share living space, nothing more. Now back to you and your little bundle of unborn joy?"

My hand finds it's regular perch on my belly, the heat that my child is generating as he or she grows in me warming my palm. I never understood how a woman could love a child so much before she's even had the opportunity to hold them in her arms, but now I do. It's instinct, it's something imprinted in our DNA, something that only a woman will ever know. It's beautiful and scary and exhilarating, and I find myself again surprised as with a rush of emotion I realize Carmen is who I want to share that with. I want her to be excited about this baby, I want her to love it with me, I want _us_ to be this child's family.

I still love Andre in my own way, he'll always be important and I know he'll be as good a father to this child as he can be, but it's Carmen that I want by my side when I raise my child. So I don't want to hear that tone in her voice, don't want to see that dark look in her eyes as she looks at my pregnant body.

"It's not Aiden's. We broke up..." Here I hesitate, because I'm not sure now is the time to bring up that terrible night in the hospital after she was attacked, the night she said she didn't want me and Aiden finally realized I didn't love him. "A long time ago, years ago. This is Andre Richmond's child, my husband."

She jerks slightly at the words, her face contracting with fleeting pain and surprise before she composes herself, but that half second of uncontrolled emotion is enough for me. It's enough for hope to bloom like a thousand purple posies in my chest, elation that she showed even just the slightest of reactions to my words making me positively gleeful.

"So you're married, that must be..._nice_."

The word seems to trip on it's way out of her mouth, like her tongue had some trouble forming it, or the taste of it was foul in her mouth. All good signs in my not so humble opinion.

"Hmm...I guess you could call it nice, but I prefer to call it boring, which would probably explain the whole divorce thing."

She jerks again, this time a little juice managing to escape the confines of her plastic cup and land on her pinstripe pants suit. Have I mentioned the outfit yet? Yup, she's all corporate looking, what with the black framed glasses, the hair that's pulled back into what was probably a neat French twist and the clothes that remind strongly of what lawyers wear in all of those cop shows. Is it wrong that I'm imagining her with a horsewhip in hand promising to punish me for being a very bad girl?

Probably, but that's the beauty of having _inner_ thoughts, no one can judge you on them!

"So you're pregnant and in the middle of a divorce?! What kind of an assho...uh, jerk, leaves his pregnant wife?"

She sounds so incredulous and indignant on my behalf that I can't help smiling. If Carmen was still mad at me, if she really didn't care like she told me all those years ago back in her hospital room, then why is she acting like this? Why is she acting like she cares? Only reason I can think of is because she _does_ care.

Call me over confidant if you want, but I'm thinking I have this in the bag. It's so not the impossible task that Ashley told me it would be, the whole winning Carmen's heart again thing.

"Actually, I asked for the divorce and he conceded, because we both know we're not in love, not like a married couple should be at least. We care about each other, but we're not...it's not..."

I search for the right way to explain it, to express what I know I feel for Carmen, but she seems to beat me to it.

"It's not gut clenching, breath stealing, lightning bolts and thunder crashing, all encompassing, drives you up the wall with craziness, _passionate_ love."

I smile, my eyes locked onto that deep blue, concentrated gaze of hers that sends shivers down my back, as I nod my agreement. She knows exactly what I mean, because we felt that way about each other once. My satisfied smile is stolen rather swiftly from my face however...

"You do realize that _that_ doesn't exist, right? I mean I see what supposed love is every day, with every pre-nuptial agreement I set up and divorce that I file, I see what it _really_ is. It's hormones, it's stupidity, it's an illusion that people buy into when they're too young, or too dumb, to know any better and then they get decimated. There isn't love, Kyla, there's just respect and friendship if you know what's good for you. Because that whole crazy, intense love crap is only fleeting, will only _hurt_ you in the end..."

She stops then, whatever else she wanted to say being swallowed down as she blinks rapidly for a second, as she takes a deep breath and seems to compose herself for the millionth time. I suddenly hate the fact that she's not_ exactly_ like the girl I used to know, that girl that spoke her mind passionately and didn't censor herself at all.

"What you had with your husband, that was probably far better and safer than what you're apparently looking for. If more people realized that the divorce rate in this country wouldn't be this high."

She sounds guarded, somewhat jaded, and that doesn't bode well for me. Apparently my confidence was a bit...premature. Well, I truly didn't believe this would be easy, but I really didn't expect another person spewing that whole bullshit spiel about true love not existing, or not being worth the pain. I get that enough from Ashley, whose still _obviously_ pining over her true love, so I don't want to hear it from Carmen too. Besides it makes me feel that old guilt again that_ I_ hurt her, that this is just the product of my selfishness and stupidity.

Well, if I broke it, I can damn sure fix it! Kyla Richm...uh...soon to be Woods again,_ knows_ how to apply herself when the occasion calls for it. Spencer and Ashley's two year relationship proves that, since I orchestrated it and all.

"You really believe that? That settling is the better option when you could have something so beautiful, so unique and special, as real love? I don't think it's stupid and I don't think it's naïve to suggest it exists, because you and I both know it does. I guess it's just a matter of being strong enough to fight for it and not just sticking your head in the ground like an ostrich, because it's nice and _safe_."

And suddenly the passionate, argumentative, challenging girl I used to know and love appears. She's up out of her chair, her face alight with indignation and anger, but it's beautiful and open and it excites me beyond comprehension. This is what I missed, this is the fire that's been absent from my life for too many years!

"_I'm_ the coward? I'm the one that wants nice and safe? If I am, it's only because _you_ chose those things first! So don't waltz into my life and judge me, because you made me like this!"

Then I'm out of my chair, my blood pounding in my ears and my eyes seeing nothing but Carmen, nothing but her heated gaze and her firm, set lips.

"I know, and now I'm trying to say that I'm not that person anymore! You're just being too thick headed to understand me. God, I was a child back then, I was young and scared and I made a mistake and I'm _sorry_, but I know better now!"

Carmen scoffs at me and rolls her eyes, her face darkly flushed as her chest heaves with strain, as she fights in vain for her previous cool restraint.

"You were a child? That's no excuse and you know it! I was young too, I was scared too, but I still...I still...I still fucking loved you, Tink!"

And then there's thunder bolts and lightning crashing, there's stars exploding and bells ringing, there's every cliché you've ever heard as my heart basically implodes in my chest, because that's the first time she's admitted it to me. I stopped her all those years ago from saying it, from saying the words that now make me quiver and ache with need and expectation: She loved me and...and she called me Tink!

Then suddenly we're kissing, we're fused together by lips and breast and hips. There's no time, there's no world, there's no blame or anger, there's just us. There's the cool slide of her lips over mine, of her hands in my hair holding the back of my head as she moans and arches into me. This is life, this is food and water and shelter, this is everything that I'll ever need to survive.

She's my breath, my heart, my future...

"Uhm...excuse me? Ladies? Would you mind..."

Then there's nothing but space between us, when moments ago there was only heat and passion. Oh what a cold, cruel word we live in that would rob me of this moment!

"Aw, Tink, now why the hell did you have to go and do a thing like that?"

She still wanted this, wanted me, I could tell by the way her heart beat so fast against my own chest that it forced me to fall into time with her, match her beat for beat, breath for breath. This was the way we were supposed to be, the way our bodies and our hearts and our breaths happen in perfect synchronicity, this should have been our past.

We simply weren't made to match as faultlessly with any other human being on this planet, each of us a jaggedly cut half of the perfect whole. We had both tried to force a fit with someone else, had tried to smooth down our edges or chipped away at them, but no matter what we did it was always a painful process that was inevitably destined to fail.

I'm finally tired of trying to fit a circle into a square, if you know what I mean, and I'm going to make Carmen realize that fact too. Even if she fought me the whole way, even if she threw back into my face every stupid, painful, unfair thing I ever did to her, because we fit and deep down she knows that too.

When I finally pull my gaze from Carmen, it's too see some plump old nurse standing there, her face blushing heavily and her eyes darting uncomfortably between me and Carmen. Carmen's just standing there blinking, her chest still heaving, but now I know it's with passion and not anger. Well, maybe anger too, but there's definitely more passion there...

Hey, did she lose a button? Uh, that's strange, a minute ago she had all her buttons intact, I'm sure of it...unless...Oh. I guess I maybe ripped one off? Uhm, oops?

At least that explains why the poor nurse lady looks so mortified. Guess those pregnant hormones really kicked in there, didn't they? Well color me embarrassed.

"I'm sorry to interrupt ladies, but...uhm...you're scaring the children."

Then I blush as I realize we probably just attacked each other like two hungry animals in full view of the hospital cafeteria, all moaning and kissing and apparently groping.

"Right, sorry about that. Won't happen again, scouts honor!"

I put on my best smile, rub my semi swollen belly for good measure and watch as the nurse wearily nods her head and scurries off. Time to face the music though, because I finally notice that Carmen isn't just standing there any more. She's shouldering her handbag and lifting her nephew out of his chair and onto her hip.

She's running. Expected I guess, but still disappointing.

"Before you leave, give me your number."

She stares at me like I've grown horns and sprouted a beard, but I ignore it. She's not slipping away that easily, I have plans for her.

"Your number and your address, because I'm picking you up tomorrow night for the Prom Redux thing. You're my date."

Her jaw drops and her eyes bulge, but I push forward anyway. Seconds later I shove a pen and paper into her hand and fold my arms, nothing but resolve in my face. I think it's more out of pure stunned surprise that she actually takes it from me and rather mechanically writes down her information.

"Do you want my number?"

She drops the pen back into my hand and scowls, like she's finally come out of her haze and realized whats happening around her. That I might have taken slight advantage of her surprised state for my own benefit. I mean sure I said she had to come to me, that this had to be her choice, but I never said I wouldn't nudge her along a bit.

"No, no I don't want your number, what I want is to..."

My phone ringing cuts her off, but I'm pretty sure the words 'strangle you' was about to leave her mouth. I hold up my hand when I notice Ashley's picture on my screen.

"It's Ashley, I should take this."

It is indeed Ash. A very pissed off sounding Ash, whose threatening to leave me at the hospital if I don't meet her out front where she's got a cab waiting. I figure I've used all my luck for today, so I agree to be there as quickly as possible. Which turns out to be pretty quick, because when I turn back to where Carmen had been standing, she's not there anymore.

I'm not blaming her for that though, because I'm guessing she needs a little time and space to process all of this. See how great an almost girlfriend I am? I'm all considerate of her feelings and stuff, despite wanting desperately to find her and continue mauling her in a supply closet or something...

Outside I'm greeted by the sight of rainclouds and thunder and no, I'm not talking about the actual weather. Ashley's face is stormy and I know that she's upset and angry and probably a thousand other things right now. I knew she wasn't going to walk out of this hospital happy, not while she still told herself she was over Spencer Carlin, but I didn't expect that level of pain to be hidden beneath all that anger.

My sister is lost, has been for years now, but right now she looks positively desolate and...heartbroken.

"Are you okay?"

She looks at me like I just gave her a rattlesnake for Christmas, like I'm either demented or stupid or both.

"I'm perfectly fucking fine, thanks for asking."

Then I'm manhandled, or _Ashely_handled, into the waiting cab without much fanfare. She's quiet next to me, the faint scent of vomit still clinging to her, but I try not to focus on that. Pregnant woman tend to vomit easily and profusely, a fact that I'm sadly well aware of.

"So...I'm guessing things didn't go so well after we left?"

I get the death stare of doom and a healthy sneer thrown in for good measure as answer.

"No, she's a bitch."

Right, sweet Spencer Carlin who just happens to not only be a great person, if I remember correctly, but who now also seems to be doing one of the most selfless, under appreciated jobs in the world, is a bitch.

"And why exactly do you say that?"

Ashley swivels my way so fast I wonder how her head stayed attached to her body.

"Why? Because she fucked me up so badly all those years ago and now..." She swallows and runs a hand through her hair, her movements jerky and agitated. "Now she's all 'I never stopped loving you, I just stopped loving myself' and shit. I mean really, like that's supposed to fix things? Like I'm supposed to just forgive her for everything, because she admitted it was all her fault and not mine. Well it's eight years to late for that, baby!"

Then Ashley is huffing in her seat like a toddler and I can only shake my head. She's fighting so hard against the inevitable and she doesn't even realize it. Poor thing is in for a big surprise when she finally pulls her head out of her ass long enough to realize that she's probably already halfway past forgiving Spencer.

"Oh yeah, that must have been so _horrible_ to hear. I can't even imagine what it must have been like to hear her admit she loved you, that she was sorry about what happened. I guess it was infinitely better to keep believing she never loved you at all and didn't ever regret treating you like crap. The horror of it all!"

Heavy sarcasm has it's place, trust me, and when dealing with a self pitying Ashley it's sometimes a necessity.

"Oh ha ha, Kyla, that was really funny, I'm swallowing a lung I'm laughing so hard. Don't think for a minute I won't throw your pregnant ass out of this cab if you keep...irritating me."

I just roll my eyes and ignore her comment, because when she thinks I'm not looking she stares at my belly for ages with this wishful smile on her mouth. She'd never in her life kick a pregnant woman out of her car, because babies make her all gooey inside.

"Yeah, whatever. So did Spencer tell you she and Carmen were living together?"

And then I'm actually worried she's _really_ swallowing a lung, because she's sputtering and turning an unbecoming shade of blue.

"As housemates! That's all, it's completely platonic as I understand!"

The sputtering eases off a bit, but I find myself still sinking down into the uncomfortable cab seat, withering a little under her gaze. I finally decide that it's maybe time I left Ashley to do some quiet contemplation, and maybe do a little of my own, ensuring a violence free trip home for me.

Ashley, not so surprisingly, doesn't stay for coffee, but simply drops me off and leaves without a word in the back of the cab. I don't want to worry about Ashley, but I always have and I always will, so that's what I do for the rest of the day. Well that and replay the sock rocking kiss I shared with Carmen in the hospital.

I'm still not sure who kissed who first, but I know that she didn't resist a second of it, so that's good. The passion is still there between us, now I just need to address the issue of trust. She can trust me with her heart, completely and utterly, but I know it's not going to be that easy to convince her of that.

So my day goes by and I welcome the night, knowing that I'm going to have nothing but good dreams. And I do, but those dreams are disturbed pretty early when Ashley phones me at just past seven in the morning, her voice quietly asking me for Spencer's address.

"Ash, are you _okay_?"

If you could hear her voice, so small and timid, you'd ask her that question again too, because this is the version of Ashley that worries me the most. When she's unguarded and fragile, her feelings so exposed and raw that you feel her pain as if it was your own, she breaks my heart.

"No, Kyla, I'm not okay. I just...I need to see her, so I can...I need to see her, please?"

It's the 'please' that gets me, because Ashely for the most part demands, or simply expects things to come to her. So it's very seldom that you hear the word please from her and it tells me that she's feeling pretty damn desperate.

"Okay, Ash, just give me a minute."

Her voice hitches a little, like she's so relieved it's forcing itself out of her in the form of tears.

"Thank you."

So I give her what she asks for and then spend the rest of the morning trying to not phone her. She needs to settle things between herself and Spencer, that much is clear, and I know that means a talk that's uninterrupted by her nosy stepsister.

A decision that turns out to be a mistake, because just after ten I get a phone call from Ashley's cellphone.

"Hey, Ash, how did it go with..."

I'm cut off by Carmen's gruff voice, the tone making me tingle pleasantly for a few seconds until her words sink in and the sensation fades.

"Not Ashley, and the reason it's not Ashley is that she's currently passed out in Spencer's bed, drunk as a skunk and fucking with my best friends heart. Mind picking her up, before I throw her out?"

Great, seems like every time I think any of us has taken a step forward here, we're actually stumbling a few steps back...

- - -

**So did you like? I know it seems like I'm rushing with all of the couples, but I'm probably going to hit the brakes soon with them, so enjoy it while it lasts! (laughs evilly!)**

**Okay, hopefully you'll review if you enjoyed it and if you do, you might as well tell me whose POV you want next. Ashley or Carmen?**

**You choose, either could work for me at this point.**


	10. Time to Pretend

**I've noticed a lack of interest in this story and despite that, I've gone and written a chapter that will probably only make things worse! lol**

**I'm not fond of writing some of the stuff I've had to in this chapter and you'll probably pick up on that, but it needed to be done. So yeah, here be a bit of sex and not of the Spashley variety, so you're forewarned.**

**As always I'm really grateful to those that read and left a review, you guys make me smile and the encouragement is always nice;) Hopefully you're still with me after this chapter!**

Senior Year: The Reunion.

Chapter 10: Time to Pretend.

_Ashley's Point of View._

The lights sting my eyes, they're so bright.

Long ago, when I was young and stupid, I used to look into Spencer's eyes and get that same stinging sensation, like I was looking at something so bright, and _so_ beautiful, that it wasn't meant to be looked at by the likes of me. Yet I couldn't stop myself back then, couldn't blink away the sight in front of me like I do now.

I can shut the club's lights from my sight, can look down into my drink and forget about the sting, but I can't seem to stop seeing the phantom image of blue eyes I've managed to forget for eight years. Spencer is here with me, no matter how many times I blink or how many drinks I have.

Tonight I can't seem to get rid of her.

She's everywhere, she's in everything, she's every taste that's touched my tongue tonight and every breath I've dragged into my lungs. She's inescapable, because she's burned into my brain. I thought the Vodka would help, then I thought maybe the Jack would do it, but all it's done is mellowed my defenses. All it's done is helped images flood my mind, things I've buried long ago and very deeply away are now seeping into my thoughts. It's too much and I don't know how to stop it all.

I keep seeing Spencer lying curled up on my bed, more than nine years ago, her smile wide as she lazily stretched out and presented her nude body to me like a present. It was a present really, my Valentines gift. She had always been shy up until that point, but that day she'd blossomed in front of my very eyes. She'd given me a taste of the woman she would probably become, someone that was brave and bold and so giving, whether I deserved her generosity or not.

She'd touched me like it was forever, like that was it for us. I don't know how to explain it better than that really. There was no fumbling or blushing, just her quiet eyes looking at me the whole time she touched me, the whole time I shook and trembled under her fingertips. That day I cried a little afterwards, feeling so overwhelmed and loved and wanted that everything inside me broke wide open, spilling my heart and my love and my tears all over her flushed chest when she held me.

Now I'm just plain broken.

Now I'm just a woman in a bar with half a bottle of everything in her stomach and I'm incapable of thinking about anything else than the person that made me this way. I'm recalling her taste and her smell, her warmth, just remembering everything she finally took away from me.

She made me believe, all those years ago, that I'd been the one in the wrong. That it was my fault she was unhappy, that I killed whatever it was between us. She put all of that on me, knowing I was never the strong one, knowing what it would do to me. She had to have known, so why did she do it?

Because she picked up some weight? Because she was doing badly in school? Because I was finally finding my place in the world and she was jealous of that?

I never even fucking cared about the weight, because I loved who she was, not how she looked! And so what if she was doing badly in school, I knew how smart she was so she didn't need any degree to prove it to me. The thing that gets me is that all the things she seemed to have been jealous about, my happiness in school and the friends?

It was because of her that I had those things. _She_ gave me my happiness, _she_ helped me find my focus. I was happy because I finally found someone that made me believe in forever.

I just wish I knew why I didn't make her feel the same way...

"You're drinking more than usual tonight."

Patrice's voice in my ear startles me so badly that I spill most of my drink on my dress. She's been giving me looks all night, her eyes full of speculation that I didn't want to see.

"I've had a long day, I deserve it."

The nice thing about being somewhat famous is the VIP pass it gives me. So when I raise my hand a waitress comes running to our booth. It's in the darkest corner of the VIP lounge, but she's been keeping an eye on the table ever since I slapped a hundred dollars or so into her palm after she brought me my first drink.

"The talk at your old school tired you out?"

I simply nod, not in the mood to bare my soul to anyone tonight. I just want to forget everything tonight, I want to drown in music and drink and the woman by my side, because maybe it isn't much, but it's what I have. It's safe and easy and everything I've known since Spencer _fucking_ Carlin broke my heart. It's all I can handle in the end.

When my drink is placed in front of me I swallow it down quickly, my mind finally feeling that numbing sensation I've been searching for all evening. With my mind finally gone, my body wakes up.

I'm angry, my body undulating with the feeling, with the energy it causes. I'm edgy and twitchy and I need to work it out, so I drop my empty glass down onto the table and turn toward Patrice.

"I wanna go."

She raises a singly eyebrow at me and I lean in closer, my tongue tracing her ear before I speak.

"I wanna fuck you, I wanna do it hard and for a very long time and it needs to happen _soon_."

I bite down harder on her earlobe than necessary, but it only elicits a hungry moan from her. She presses close to me, her hand suddenly up my dress and against my center.

"Then fuck me right now, right here. You weren't shy about doing it against a wall in a packed club a few weeks ago, so why not tonight?"

Because tonight I want to make her scream, I want to make her beg and buck and arch for me. I want to sink my teeth into her and fuck her till she's raw. I want dirty and hard and I can't have that in a club full of people, no matter _how_ dark my corner booth is.

So I don't say anything, I just pull her up and out of that booth. Her eyes are on me as I force a path through the throng of people and I can still feel the speculation in that gaze, but I can also sense her body's excitement. Her nipples are straining against her dress, her thighs are already twitching when she collapses onto the passenger seat.

By the time we're in her apartment, she's so wet with anticipation I can thrust three fingers into her easily. So I do, and I love the hiss that comes from her mouth, the surprise in her eyes. I love how she rides my hand as I bite down on the straining tendons of her sleek neck. I love the pain mixed with pure want in her eyes and for a second or two I imagine blue eyes looking at me like that.

I shove Patrice away from me so hard she stumbles and falls, her face filled with anger and surprise when her ass hits the floor. When I blink away the color blue, I finally find myself in the moment again.

"Take off your clothes."

My dress is already pooling by my feet, my own hands making quick work of discarding every article of clothing sticking to my skin. Patrice watches my movements and when she smiles, I know it's the same smile that's lounging on my mouth. She's so much like me sometimes it scares me. It's like looking in a mirror, a somewhat warped mirror, but a mirror that nonetheless shows you the same coldness, the same darkness that lives in you.

She meets my hunger, my urgency, and we end up a tangled mess on her floor, her body urging my hands to touch, to brand and bruise if that's what I want. I'm not tender or slow when I enter her again, but she takes it with a growl and a scratch of nails against my back.

Minutes later, or maybe it's hours, I just don't know anymore, she gives me what I want. She bucks and screams and comes with a gush of warmth into my mouth, her body an undulating mess against my tongue. Her thighs are quivering against me and her heel has dug into my back so hard it almost brings tears to my eyes.

"Bedroom."

It's all I can manage, my voice a raw husk as I stand up and drag her shaky form off the floor. I want more, I want the silence that ravaging her body grants me, so I reach for the drawer by her bed and lift out the harness. It fits snugly against me and the way her tired eyes light up as they wander down my body and rests on the strapped on appendage, fuels my fire.

I don't bother with lubrication, knowing her body is still wet from her previous orgasm, so within seconds I'm thrusting into her. She keeps her eyes on me though, the whole time I move inside her her eyes are glued to my face and I can't take it. It reminds me too much of someone else's eyes looking at me with such concentration...

I flip her over and bury my nails into _her_ back this time, dragging them down the length of her spine. She's on her knees, her hands firmly clinging to the headboard and I don't care that at that moment she's just a faceless, nameless body. I just care that with every thrust, with every slamming push of my hips, my anger subsides just a little bit. I just care that my mind is dull and numb and quiet.

When she comes this time she howls, it's primal and loud and I can't help but keen out my own release. Sweat runs down my back as I arch into her one last time and it burns when it comes into contact with the raw skin Patrice's nails left in their wake from before.

When I finally breathe again, when my senses and mind come back to me, Patrice is passed out face first into the pillow and the room smells of sex and sweat and something that makes me gag.

I fumble free of Patrice and the leather harness around my hips and stumble into the bathroom, spilling the contents of my stomach quickly into the toilet. I'm shivering and naked, tiles cold against my ass as I collapse onto the ground. A flash of Patrice lying sprawled on the bed, her legs lewdly splayed wide and her back a red, scratched mess, floods my mind and I heave again.

I don't know who I am in that second, in that minute I'm sitting on cold tile with sickness and hate and anger pouring out of me. I don't know who I was when I fucked Patrice like neither she nor I was anything other than a mindless animal. I just know that it's not who I was meant to be, not when I know the warmth and contentedness that's supposed to follow after sex.

Not when I know that what I just did with Patrice was still not better than fumbling in the dark with Spencer Carlin when we were both eighteen and stupid.

I think I sit there for hours, just looking at my own faint reflection in the shower door before me. I sit until I can't take the smell of Patrice on my skin any longer, then I'm in her shower, ice cold water burning the scratches on my back as I let the water run over my dirty skin. I don't use her body wash, I don't use her shampoo, I just rinse her off me and get out. I dry off quickly, finding mouth wash and using it, hating that I can feel myself sobering up after the shower.

So I slip out quietly and find my clothes, dressing quickly and quietly and then I'm out the door. It's still dark, my watch telling me it's only four and I hurriedly get a taxi. I'm at a club in no time at all, a drink in my hand as I settle into another dark corner, another anonymous booth.

Is this what my life has come too? Am I that person? The one who only ever fucks and never loves? The one who doesn't have anything but a job to bring her true joy? The one who had to hurt someone else, though it was the _good_ kind of hurt, just to make herself feel something other than shit?

Is this who Spencer made me, or is this who Spencer stopped me from being for a short while?

The answer is too scary to really contemplate, so I don't. I just drink steadily and for a very long time. When the club finally closes I can barely stand on my own two feet and the rising sun is practically blinding me. It's that indefinite time of the morning where it's miraculously quiet in L.A and the desolate feeling that creeps over me is strange.

I'm disconnected from reality as I walk the streets, as I spot a bum or two asleep and sidestep what is hopefully just dog pee on the pavement. I walk until the scenery changes and I find myself in a park, in front of a bench. I sit and watch as an early runner or two jogs past, as birds rustle feathers and fly into the morning air.

Then a couple walks past, both looking like they've done what I have, spent the night in a club. They're eating ice cream, God knows where they got that this time of the morning, and holding hands. It's sweet really, the way the guy is steeling quick glances and the girl keeps on blushing. It's obviously tentative and new, their little romance. It reminds me of holding Spencer's hand beneath the table at lunch, of secret smiles and staring and blushing quietly. It reminds me of young love at it's best, as the song goes...

That's when I finally let myself cry. I don't sob and I don't blubber like a fool, I just sit there and let tears fall, because what else can I do at this point?

I'm sad and angry and scared and I really want to see Spencer. Well, maybe not want so much as_ need_ to see her. It's a refrain in my head, her face and voice and the need to experience the sight and sound of both. I don't know why and I don't know if it's going to help me or hurt me, but my mind is made up.

Spencer said she hadn't stopped loving me back then and that's something. Don't ask me if it's a good thing or a bad thing, though. I mean would it not have been better if she'd stopped loving me? Doesn't that make it worse, what she did to me?

In those questions lie the reasons that I need to see her I guess...

- - -

It was easy enough to get the address off Kyla, but actually standing on the doorstep and knocking? Not so easy really.

It's a nice looking house in an okay neighborhood, with slightly neglected flowers in the flowerbeds and an action figure toy half buried in the sand. It's so normal and plain that I wonder if I really have the right to be standing here, to be tainting this place with my presence. This is Spencer's home, one she shares with Carmen and her family, and it looks like it's well lived in, like there's love and joy in it's foundation.

Still, I need my answers and standing here debating whether this is a good idea or not isn't helping. So I knock. Somewhere in the house a voice is shouting that someone's at the door and I'm sure it's Carmen that gives a muffled reply. That's confirmed when the woman herself opens the door.

"Ashley? What the hell are you doing here?"

Not the warmest of receptions, but I've gotten worse. Paula used to wait until I was halfway over the threshold before slamming the door shut in my face. Bitch almost broke my big toe once...

"I'm here to see Spencer."

Carmen cocks her head to the side and gives me a smile that would only fit more comfortably on a shark's face.

"Right, because the two of you parted on such good terms that you're what? Dropping by for a breakfast coffee? She told me what happened at the hospital and honestly, if you're here to make her feel any worse than she already does you can just fuck the hell off."

I'm surprised by the venom in her voice, by the cool gaze set on my face and the somehow threatening set of her shoulders. It looks like she's secretly wishing for me to do or say something stupid so she can punch me!

"Look, I just want to talk to her okay? There's things that I need to get off my chest, questions that I want answers for. So could you just go get her for me? This really doesn't have anything to do with you anyway."

And that was apparently the wrong thing to say...

Carmen's almost blood red in the face and her nostrils flare as she steps closer to me, pulls the door closed behind her. I want to step back, want to put some distance between me and the puzzling accusation in Carmen's angry eyes, but I don't. I need to do this and if getting past Carmen is my only hurdle then that's okay.

"It's got everything to do with me, because once you've had your say and leave her in pieces, I'm the one that's going to have to deal with that. You and your blindness hurt her enough in the past and, God knows it's my fault you're back in her life, but I'm not going to let history repeat itself here."

And just like that my anger is back in full swing. _I_ hurt her in the past? No, Spencer did _all_ the hurting back then if I recall and Carmen Garcia doesn't get to stand there and play watch dog for Spencer. I deserve to have my say, I deserve to either move on from Spencer or...or...do whatever it is I end up doing.

"I'm the one that hurt _her_? You do know who did the dumping back then, right? You know who..."

I'm cut off when Carmen snorts and rolls her eyes, when she cocks her hip out and leans against the veranda.

"Oh God, this is really pathetic. Do you really not see that that was as much your fault as it was hers? Did you even pick up on the fact that Spencer was unhappy back then? Did you miss the depression she sunk into, did you miss how utterly fucked up she got back then? You know what, don't answer that, because I know the answer. You were too busy, or too self involved or too scared to notice. You were living the good life and that was all that mattered to you."

This time I do take a step back and almost stumble, the alcohol and rage making for a potent cocktail robbing me of my balance and calm.

"She never told me, Carmen! She was always okay when I phoned and when I visited we had a great time together. You can't blame this on me, because how the hell was I supposed to know if she hid it from me?!"

It's true, she can't blame this on me! I was in, a hundred percent _in_, when it came to Spencer. If she had told me she was having problems there was nothing I wouldn't have done back then to make things better for her.

"Did she hide it, Ashley? Did her picking up so much weight seem normal, or when you visited, did she introduce you to any friends or take you out to a favorite hangout spot? Did you ever talk to her when you saw her, or was there just sex? I think you didn't see it, Ashley, because you put Spencer on a pedestal and refused to believe she was anything but perfect. Your perfect version of her wouldn't get lonely, wouldn't get depressed or have trouble in school, so you never felt the need to worry about her or make sure she was okay. She killed herself everyday to live up to all those expectations and no one noticed. Then when she failed you for the first and only time, you didn't even fight for her. You gave up on her, Ashley, because she didn't live up to some screwed up image you had of her. So don't come to my house and demand your pound of flesh from Spencer, because you cut it out of her years ago when she went looking for you and found some strung out whore opening your door!"

Something in my chest tightens, like a hand gripping my aching lungs and squeezing. Did I really not see it? Was I really that oblivious of Spencer's pain? Can you love someone _that_ much, know them _that_ well, and still fail to see it? Or did I see it and ignore it, because I was scared of what it meant for myself. Maybe it wasn't fair of me to expect Spencer to be faultless, and if I'm honest I can say that yes, I had always believed her to be so, but did that really blind me to how unhappy she was?

I don't know, and I don't know if I came for my pound of flesh as Carmen put it, but now more than ever I need to talk to Spencer. Though first I need an answer to an equally pressing question.

"What do you mean she went looking for me and found a strung out whore?"

Honestly, what the hell is that about? Yeah, I'm probably a raging alcoholic by now, but I haven't touched drugs in years. Not since back in high school before Spencer and I started dating.

When I look back up at Carmen her face is dark, closed off and for a second or two I get the feeling she's a little lost in a memory. And by the way she so obviously suppresses a shudder, it's clearly not a good memory.

"Three months after she broke up with you, she was back home. She'd flunked out of University at that point and she was just...she was so not the girl I knew, you know? She was an utter mess, she was lost and so heartbroken it hurt me to look at her most days. Most off all she missed you, I think, and of all the things she had regrets about, leaving you was her biggest one. So she went looking for you."

She pauses and sits down on the front step, motions me to do the same and once I'm settles she resumes her story.

"She got to your apartment and she'd had everything planned, she had flowers and a speech and she would beg if she needed to. I know, because she practiced her speech on me the day before. It was almost pathetic, the way she had every word on that crumpled piece of paper memorized like her life depended on it." I can clearly see the picture she's painting, can see Spencer with that frown on her face as she probably twisted that speech she wrote in her hands, repeating it word for word anxiously to Carmen. "Anyway, she got to your place and when she knocked, some half naked chick answered your door. You were yelling in the background, something about how you wanted the girl in your bed and naked."

She looks at me then, her blue eyes that I never noticed were that bright or that intense, seemingly trying to convey something to me that I'm incapable of grasping.

"It devastated her. It just...it fucked her up beyond belief that she'd really lost you. It was what broke the camel's back if you will. That night she dragged me out and we hit a party or three. That night Clay had to come pick us up when she got so drunk she couldn't stand up straight. That night I got raped and her brother got killed, and she's never forgiven herself for that. So yeah, Spencer wasn't perfect back then, but she's payed a bigger price for it than she deserved."

Then she gets up, her face a little pale and her mouth trembling, like telling me all this has somehow drained her of all energy and left her...hurting. I don't know what to say to wipe that look off her face, to convey how sorry I am that all of that happened, not just to Spencer, but to her too.

She was my friend a long time ago and I never wanted her to get hurt the way she did. She was a good person underneath all her glowering and barking, you just had to scrape her surface to know that. And I did, I knew that and I still let her slip from my life, just like I apparently let Spencer slip from it.

"She went for a run, but she'll be back in a little while. I would invite you in to wait, but I honestly don't want your drunk ass around my family, so the steps will have to do." She turns back then, her shoulders tensing as she just stands facing the door, her hand on the knob. "Don't hurt her. If you do, you'll answer to me."

The threat isn't subtle and I know it's not hollow. She doesn't wait for my answer though, just leaves me on her front steps to think about everything she's said.

And think I do, I'm not capable of doing anything else really. I think about Spencer alone at University, about what her life must have been like. I think about the smiles she gave me that seemed now to hide the shadows in her eyes, how she clung to me when I left on the occasions that I visited her. I think about the sound of her voice when she called me in the middle of the night, when she let me ramble on about my friends and my professors and all the new things I learned, I just remember how quietly she always responded. She never once shared those kinds of things with me and now I know why.

Spencer didn't feel like she could talk to anyone, because in some way she'd be disappointing them. Everyone always expected something from her and what they expected was always hard. Her mother wanted her to be a doctor, her father wanted her to stay the sweet and easy child he always knew, and I wanted her to simply be perfect, to be the light to my darkness. It wasn't fair to expect all that from her and I can't imagine how scared she must have felt, how very alone.

And in the end I wasn't there for her when she probably needed me the most, because as always I was more concerned with my own pain than anyone else's.

I hang my head and sit there, letting all those thoughts wash over me. There's guilt and fear, there's more anger and doubt. Everything is muddled right now, muddled between what I_ remember_ and what I now know was the truth. I remember Spencer being a heartless bitch that dumped me and broke my heart, but I know she was just a girl with problems that lashed out.

When I look up it's to the sight of Spencer Carlin, bent over and stretching her twitching leg muscles out. It's the scared girl that grew into a woman with more guilt and pain then I may ever possibly know. It's the woman I was supposed to know for the rest of my live, because she made me believe in forever once...

Then she's walking towards me and I can see her face in the split second before she spots me. She's tired and sad and hurting, it's all written across her face so clearly, and it makes me angrier than I've ever been in my life before.

We missed out on so much and now? Now it's probably too late for us anyway, because there's years of hurt between us and we both bare the scars of it. We might be unable to ever get back to the place we once were, because our history robbed us of who we used to be.

Spencer will never be sweet and innocent and adorably shy ever again, because hasn't she seen too much death for that? And can I ever really believe in something like forever again, when the last eight years of my life has proven to me that I might simply not be built for it, or worthy of it for that matter?

So when Spencer looks into my eyes and I feel my heart break again like it did the first time around, I feel almost nothing but anger. She should have opened her God damned mouth back then and _talked_ to me, or I should have opened my eyes and seen what the hell was happening!

I didn't realize I was reaching for her until her hand slips into my own, until I fling myself into her so hard it steels my breath a little. I just know that I have in my arms what was always supposed to belong to me, but never may again.

So I kiss her, because isn't this our final goodbye? Isn't this us letting go of the past and moving on as best we can, because how can there a tomorrow for us? How can this ever turn into a happy ending now?

"I hate you, Spencer, I hate you so fucking much."

And I do, I hate her in that moment just like I hate myself, because we both kinda threw this away, we both failed in our own ways. Carmen was right, as much as it was Spencer's fault, it was mine too. We both did this and we're both paying the price.

"I know, Ash, I know."

Maybe she does know, maybe she feels exactly the same way, because when she kisses me again it tastes like regret. It tastes like an apology and a plea, all wrapped up in one startlingly desperate kiss. Her body wraps around me with soft remorse and I hold her just as tightly in return, my lips giving her everything I didn't back then.

I pull away and look her in the eyes, needing to see what my words do for her, needing to see at least some of the guilt I so wrongly dumped on her, lift.

"Mostly I hate myself though, because you deserved more than I gave you back then. I should have fought for you, should have got on a plane that night and sorted this out, but I didn't. I didn't and I let you down, I let you get lost with no one to really save you. I'm so sorry I did that to you, Spencer, I'm sorry I let us slip away."

I mean every word I say and maybe Spencer sees that, because she buries her face in my neck and cries brokenly. Cries like someone whose carried too much for too long and doesn't know how to do it anymore. I just hold her, just kiss her hair and gently circle her lower back with my palm, hoping a little of it comforts her in this moment. It's maybe eight years too late, but it's all I can do now.

I don't hear the front door open, but somehow I'm not surprised when Carmen lands a hand on my shoulder and steers me inside. It snaps Spencer out of her funk and she nods at Carmen before leading me up some stairs. I guess it's her room we end up in, but I don't care to look around. I just care that Spencer is pulling me down onto her bed and wrapping herself around me.

I just care that for a while longer we can pretend that me saying I was sorry is enough to right every wrong we both made.

"You're not going to be here when I wake up, are you?"

Her voice is soft and sad and I close my eyes, not sure I can bare looking into her eyes and seeing the hurt in them.

"I might be here, but I think we both know that...that I couldn't...that it's not going to really change things between us. I don't know how to fix this and neither do you, I don't think it can be fixed really. I just...let's just stay here for a little while, okay? Can we just do that, just pretend for a little while and sleep?"

Spencer nods and kisses me again, not long and not hard, but there's a solemn quality to it that makes me shudder.

"Can't we just pretend forever, Ash, _please_?"

No, no I don't think we can, but I don't say that, I just kiss her back. I just lay my lips against her own and silently apologize for not being whole enough to make this work somehow. I don't know how to be anything other than what I am today, and I know that would never be enough to keep Spencer.

She deserves more, deserves something other than an angry, confused drunk like me who doesn't know who she is anymore, or if she's even capable of liking herself, much less letting someone like Spencer love her...

- - -

**So, this was a little different to write for me, but I think it's the last of the truly depressing stuff. I hope I got across what I wanted with this chapter, but I'm not so sure I did. I should probably have showed Ashley's progression over more than one chapter, but it's the way it ended up, so... **

**Anyway, I hope you found something redeeming in this chapter and if you did, I'd like to hear from you. I'm kind of nervous about this chapter, so any feedback would be greatly appreciated. **

**(Oh and holy hell, this chapter totals 6000 words! That's kinda nuts.) **


	11. Let's cross the river now

**Right, so I know I said I was slamming on the brakes with both the couples, but...uhm...brakes are for sissies. I like speeding down a hill without brakes, it's fun, so yeah, the brakes aren't exactly applied here anymore! Lol. I suck at actually following the structure I set out for this fic in the beginning, but my muse spoke. Well, she mostly threatened with blunt force trauma to the head, so I folded to her will for safety's sake.**

**To those who have read and reviewed, know you put a smile on my face with all the encouragement. I never wanted to imply that I was thinking of removing the story though, I simply meant to say that despite a loss of about 200 hundred or so readers according to my story stats, I was still writing stuff that I was sure some people wouldn't exactly enjoy. Anyway, a few of you are sticking it out with me and that's the important thing, right?**

**Oh and if anyone cares, this whole chapter was inspired by the lyrics of **_**Annie, let's not wait**_** by Guillemots. Pretty great song really. **

Senior Year: The Reunion

Chapter 11: Let's cross the river now.

Carmen's point of view.

_i found something dying; it was my light  
it had resigned itself to night  
so i threw it out a fishing line  
and said catch your will and then catch mine_

_- _Guillemots (Annie let's not wait)

"_It's not gut clenching, breath stealing, lightning bolts and thunder crashing, all encompassing, drives you up the wall with craziness, _passionate_ love."_

I said that to Kyla Woods, or whatever the hell her surname is now, in that hospital cafeteria and then proceeded to explain how I don't believe it exists, or that I don't think it's anything but fleeting at best. Yet here I am, having my third cold shower in the last sixteen hours, because I'm over run with all these passionate, driving me up the wall with craziness, feelings.

Okay look, it's not just physical what I'm feeling here, despite the almost constant need for cold showers. I just...I can't remember the last time my heart rate picked up that much just because I looked into someone's eyes and felt over run with emotion, or how there was this strange zinging in my ears when Kyla stepped closer to me when we were arguing and I couldn't hear anything but her voice above it all.

There was gut clenching and there was breath stealing, and hell yes I heard thunder and saw lighting bolts, but God knows my freaking soul went _quiet_ when she kissed me. There was a stillness inside me, a feeling of such safety and rightness that it left me quivering and as absurd as it sounds, scared afterwards.

That's why I ran away, that's why I acted like the coward she accused me of being, because I realized in that moment that it's a loosing battle, isn't it? If she wants me, she'll have me. Simple as that, because how does one fight their own heart? I tried eight years ago in a hospital room and I thought I succeeded, thought I'd done the right thing for both of us and sent her on her way, but here she is again, asking the same thing from me. I don't think I can send her away this time, don't think I want to if I'm brutally honest with myself.

Eight years ago I did it and survived, because it was the right thing to do. I was in no condition to have her in my life, there was no way we would have made it if I'd grabbed hold of her that night and gave in to her begging. Somehow I just know that, I don't know why, but it's what my gut told me then.

I needed time to fix myself, to get past what had happened to me and what it meant for my life and in the end I wouldn't have been able to do that if I was also trying to fix things with Kyla too. So I made a selfish, yet very necessary, decision and pushed her away. It helped that I was still pissed off at her I suppose. It did make it easier for me in the end, gave me a few reasons to justify my actions afterwards.

Now I don't have that excuse, do I? She's back and I don't have one good reason to say no anymore, because we're even now, we've both hurt the other in an attempt to protect ourselves. She did it way back in high school when she chose to be with Aiden instead of me and I did it that night in the hospital. So like I said, it's inevitable now. She's not afraid anymore, a fact made clear by her jumping me in a public cafeteria, and I've long since come to terms with what happened to me when I was raped.

Hell, the fact that she could kiss me like she did is proof of that! For a long time after the rape, I obviously had issues with sex. Actually, I had issues with any kind of intimacy really. I couldn't even hug someone for the longest time. There was anxiety when someone just stood too close to me in an elevator, or if a stranger accidentally bumped into me on the street.

Sex didn't even come into the equation for another two years. I know it sounds long, sounds ridiculous that it took me years to get to that point, but that's how it was for me. Things with me and Michelle had ended not long before the rape happened and afterwards, it took me so long to find someone that I was comfortable with. Dani and I met in a coffee shop and right from the beginning things were easy between us.

She was this tiny little thing, with a smile so harmless and sweet that I couldn't help but return it when she threw it my way. We dated for almost six months before we took the next step and things were good for a while. Sex between us was always cautious, always soft and slow and she was absolutely ready to stop if I needed to, and that happened a few times, but then she got tired of the fact that I couldn't let her hold me afterwards. She got tired that she could never just walk up behind me and throw her arms around me without it almost giving me a panic attack.

The fact that I couldn't trust her was so clear to her and it broke her heart in the end. She knew it was because I didn't love her, not in the way she wanted me to anyway. Almost the same thing happened with my next girlfriend, and the one after that and the one after that.

Point is I could have sex, could enjoy it as much as the next woman, as long as things never became too passionate, as long as no one ever fully lost control and that was okay with me. There was no passionate ripping of clothes, no being slammed up against walls. I was incapable of trusting someone to do that with, could never completely push the memory of being held down and forced out of my mind. The shrink said that was to be expected, that maybe it would always be that way for me and I made my peace with it.

Yet when Kyla kissed me? When she grabbed me with desperate hands and pulled me so tightly against her I could feel every inch of her touch every inch of me? When she touched me almost a little roughly, when she kissed me firmly and hungrily?

I felt nothing but desire. There was no fear, no panic, no cloying claustrophobia of having someone pressed up against me, no shot of adrenalin that woke my flight or fight instincts. For the first time in years, I could just stand there and kiss someone with passion, with no memories of the night I was raped flashing in my mind.

That's probably why I got the hell out of there so fast, because that realization scared the bejesus out of me. My body trusted her so blindly, let me be completely vulnerable with her so easily and after years of being nothing but cautious and careful, it shook me. I never thought I'd be able to experience complete abandon again, yet I experienced just that in Kyla's arms.

I disproved my own statement that friendship and comfort, and the sense of safety it provided, was what made a lasting relationship, because what I felt in Kyla's arms? That was exactly what I felt ten years ago. It was explosive and passionate, it was vibrant and beautiful, yet it still managed to be warm and secure, because there was love and trust between us. The rape had not managed to touch it, or taint it, or take that away from me in anyway.

I had simply not realized that until she kissed me. Now I know and I've had a few hours to work through the fear and maybe accept that I'm ready to be with her now. I mean not her betrayal, not my rape, not even ten years, has managed to change what both she and I obviously feel, so why not give it a shot?

Don't I owe it to myself, to Kyla even? Besides, I'm pretty sure I can't keep taking cold showers for much longer or I might freeze my unmentionables off. It would seem wiser to just let her have her way with me and my unmentionables, then I don't get stuck with a huge as fuck water bill or end up going to a hospital for...nipple defrosting? Would my health insurance even cover that?

See, both medically and financially speaking, my best option is to just not fight it and let Kyla take care of my frustrations. In the end everyone will be happy, a win win situation if I ever saw one, right?

Yup, jury's convinced. I do make a mean closing argument if I do say so myself.

Now to figure out what I'm supposed to wear to the Reunion thing tonight, I mean it's not like I was planning on going, but now I am and I've got a hot, despite the whole pregnant thing, date as well. At least I've got a few good hours still to figure that out. Might even try to get an appointment with my hair stylist and then get a quick wax...

By the time I'm dressed and settling on my bed with phone in hand, operation sexy-myself-up almost in full swing, I hear a knock on my door. Julie screams oh so helpfully that there's someone at the door and I bite my lip to keep from cursing. The kid's probably in front of the tv, not more then a few feet from the front door, but she won't open it herself.

"Yeah, okay, hold your horses, I'll get it now!"

I don't bother to check who it is, because chances are good it's just Glen dropping by. He's almost a fixture in the house on a Saturday, either fixing whatever the hell broke in Spencer's car this week, or sipping beer with me on the front steps where we rate the hotness of the few female neighbors I have. What? I'm completely comfortable with sitting at a distance and enjoying what's on display.

Yet when I swing open the front door it's not Glen's pasty white ass on my front porch with a six pack in his hand.

"Ashley? What the hell are you doing here?"

Immediately I'm pissed off, my blood pressure rising again as I remember Spencer's face when she left earlier to go on her run. I asked her not to go, knowing that she was going to be in a crap load of pain because of her wrist. Obviously she didn't listen, which I completely blame the woman swaying in front of me for.

Goddamn Ashley Davies and her issues.

"I'm here to see Spencer."

The fuck she is. I can see it on her face, the anger and confusion, and I know it's all directed towards one person. She's not here because she wants to see Spencer, she's here because she wants to unload that anger onto someone else. She wants an emotional punching bag and it happens to be in the shape of my best friend.

"Right, because the two of you parted on such good terms that you're what? Dropping by for a breakfast coffee? She told me what happened at the hospital and honestly, if you're here to make her feel any worse than she already does you can just fuck the hell off."

After that it's on. She's pissed off, I'm pissed off...it's not pretty in the end. What I don't expect to happen is that I end up sitting on the front steps and telling her about that night. I don't say much, I don't give her any of the details, but I tell her what she needs to know. I tell her about what led to that night, about Spencer and how much her life must have sucked. I want her to see how Spencer wasn't the only one who made mistakes, that while she did her share, Ashley fucked up too. She failed Spencer, just like I did, just like her family did.

We all ignored what was right in front of our eyes. We were all too busy to see how bad things had got for Spencer in school and after she broke up with Ashley we _should_ have seen it. But no one did and Spencer ended up making herself pay for everything that happened afterwards. No one's perfect in this story, no one can claim to be the victim, not when we all played our part in how things played out.

"It devastated her. It just...it fucked her up beyond belief that she'd really lost you. It was what broke the camel's back if you will. That night she dragged me out and we hit a party or three. That night Clay had to come pick us up when she got so drunk she couldn't stand up straight. That night I got raped and her brother got killed, and she's never forgiven herself for that. So yeah, Spencer wasn't perfect back then, but she's payed a bigger price for it than she deserved."

If anything, Spencer is the one most wronged in our screwed up little story. She was the one that was lost, she was the one that was in pain, and in the end she still took all the responsibility onto herself for what happened. She never blamed me, despite Clay staying behind to help me while we both got Spencer to run. If he had left with Spencer that night, he'd be alive today.

That's something I have to live with for the rest of my life. I'm alive only because Clay Carlin gave up his life for me. He mostly bled out not more than two feet from me, his blood eventually touching the side of my face as I watched him while some kid, some sick fucking kid, raped me.

When the kid finished, when he came inside of me and laughed so hard, raising his knife to my throat, it was Clay Carlin, weak with blood loss and ashen faced, that lurched one last time and knocked the knife from his hands. Seconds later, seconds that he could have slit my throat in if Clay hadn't intervened, we all heard the sound of sirens.

Spencer had found help, but it was too late for Clay at that point. He breathed his last breath against the side of my face, his bloodied hand in my own, his eyes turning to stare straight up at the sky. I pray to God each night that he was looking up at heaven, that while his body slumped and his heart stopped completely, his soul was already on it's way there.

I was never one much for religion, but for Clay Carlin's sake, I want to believe there is a God and that there is a heaven and that the bravest boy I ever met is there right now.

When I stand, I have to fight the urge to clear my throat and brush tears from my eyes, the memory of that night suddenly so fresh in my mind's eye that I have trouble putting one foot in front of the other without falling over. For a second or two, I can actually smell the coppery scent of blood around me again...

"She went for a run, but she'll be back in a little while. I would invite you in to wait, but I honestly don't want your drunk ass around my family, so the steps will have to do." Then I turn away, not able to look into her face without betraying how weak I feel right now, how everything inside of me is quivering painfully. "Don't hurt her. If you do, you'll answer to me."

I can never repay Clay for what he did for me, what he sacrificed, but I _can_ protect and love his sister as much as he did. I owe him that small favor, even if he never asked it of me.

So with that warning, I walk back inside. I walk away from the regret and sadness I can see washing over Ashley's face and hope that I've opened her eyes enough to see what really happened all those years ago. I hope she can maybe finally give Spencer a little peace, maybe ease one of the heavy burdens she carries so willingly.

When I walk into the lounge the tv is blaring loudly and Julie is sitting with Tommy in her lap, his dark head nestled into her shoulder and I can't help but smile at the way she holds him tightly, securely. As difficult as Julie is, she's a good kid. She loves her brother and Tommy loves her too, his little eyes shinning up at her so sweetly and innocently with nothing but trust and love in them.

It gives me hope for a world I should have given up on long ago. It gives me hope that the woman out on my front porch, with her sadness and her anger, will maybe be okay, will maybe make things okay for Spencer. It's a faint hope, but it's there and it's all I have, because I could never give to Spencer what she really needs to be whole again.

That's all on Ashley's shoulders and I can only believe she'll be smart enough and strong enough to let Spencer have it...

Twenty minutes later I'm spying like a nosy neighbor through a crack in the curtain, my nose plastered against the window pane to get a good look at the two woman embracing on my doorstep. Not that I'm doing it because I'm curios, or because I'm getting a kick out of it, but because I'm fully prepared to storm out there and kick Ashley Davies' ass if there's a need to. I don't make idle threats and I meant it when I warned Ashley not to hurt Spencer.

Though what's happening on the porch looks more like a mutual pain party, like the two woman out there are holding onto each other because they're not strong enough to stand on their own two feet. I'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing, but I can't add to that by going out there and making a scene, demanding answers. I can only do what I think is best for Spencer and when I get a glimpse of her face, of the tears blatantly running down her cheeks, I know that kicking Ashley's ass right now isn't it.

So I straighten up and pull the door open, lay my hand gently on Ashley's shoulder and steer them into the house. Spencer's still clinging to the woman, her body shaking minutely, but the movement eventually pulls her out of her daze.

When she meets my eyes, there's such raw pain in them that my own chest aches in sympathy. When she nods, I can only drop my eyes down and let her lead Ashley up the stairs, feeling powerless to make this any better for her. I don't think I've achieved anything by telling Ashley everything I did, maybe only gave the woman a new, twisted way to hurt Spencer anew.

Because nothing I saw just now tells me that they've really worked anything out, they both just look a little shattered. Spencer mostly so though and at the moment I don't have anyone to blame for that but Ashley. She was supposed to make things right, God _dammit_! She was supposed to fix that sad look, not intensify it.

I'm so angry I can feel it burning in the pit of my stomach, mixing with the disappointment that was already heavily resting there. It turns my stomach, twists my gut and makes me shudder with its potency. I feel so helpless I can scream, or tear my hair out or something equally as stupid and pointless as that. It's a feeling I hate, it's a feeling that reminds me too much of being held down and violated, of being weak and unable to fight, to protect myself.

Only this time I'm unable to help Spencer, helpless to stop_ her_ hurt.

I wait maybe five minutes before I head up to her room, but I don't hesitate when I push it open slightly. I see all I need to see, Ashley apparently fast asleep while Spencer is just crying quietly, her face tilted up to the ceiling, her eyes pointed towards the heavens. It so startlingly reminds me of Clay lying on the ground, his face angled in exactly the same way as Spencer's is right now, that I stumble back. I'm down the stairs and out the door, dragging deep breaths of air back into my lungs, trying to calm my heartbeat. I need to do something, anything at this point really, or I'll go insane.

So when I spot a small black clutch bag left on the front step, I stalk over and pick it up, knowing it must be Ashley's that she left there. I don't really give a shit that I'm violating her privacy when I rip it open, when I pull out the slim, expensive phone. I just know that I'm done feeling helpless today.

I find the number easily enough and wait rather impatiently for the call to be answered. When it is, I completely ignore the slight jerk my heart gives when I hear her voice.

"_Hey, Ash, how did it go with.._."

I can't hear her voice, not now, not when I'm awash with old memories and trapped in a place where I'm incapable of protecting myself, when I'm weak and open and so easily hurt. So I cut her off briskly.

"Not Ashley, and the reason it's not Ashley is that she's currently passed out in Spencer's bed, drunk as a skunk and fucking with my best friends heart. Mind picking her up, before I throw her out?"

It's true, I'm completely capable of imparting with some pain right about now and sharing it in the physical sense is just fine by me. If only Spencer would fall asleep and Ashley didn't make too much noise, I could quite happily let her ass bounce down my steps with a little help from my foot.

"_Look, I'll be right over, just don't do anything drastic, please Carmen? Promise me you'll wait until I get there before...Just wait for me, okay?_"

I nod stupidly, not caring that she can't see me right now, because I'm not sure my voice wouldn't crack if I spoke. I'm seriously _that_ pissed off. Okay, fine, I'm also secretly that happy to hear her voice suddenly. It's pathetic really that just the way she says my name can affect me so much. Can drag me away from my memories at least a little bit.

Finally though, I take another deep breath and answer her.

"Fine, just get over here. I won't murder her in her sleep until then."

Then I abruptly end the call, slumping back down on the steps. A quick phone call to my mother sorts the kids out, she's at my door ten minutes later to pick them up. I explain about the Reunion and she agrees to take them, loving the chance to probably spoil them rotten for a whole day and night.

I really just don't want them around for...well, for whatever happens when Kyla gets here. I don't want the kids to see me maybe taking Ashley's head off and I know that one look at Spencer would have Julie clucking around the girl like a chicken. They don't need that, not with how hard it is for them without their mom around half the time.

So when another fifteen minutes pass and I hear a car pull up, I'm glad the house is empty, save for the two people upstairs. I'm waiting in the doorway, my shoulder leaning against the frame as I watch Kyla get out of a funky red sports car, her hair tousled madly by the wind and dark glasses hiding her eyes. I'm insanely disappointed that I can't see her eyes, that I can't loose myself for a little while in their warm depths.

I finally realize then that I didn't call her here to fetch Ashley, or to stop me from possibly committing murder, but because I just needed her. I needed her to make me feel the way she did in that hospital cafeteria, where I couldn't remember my own name, much less all the things troubling me. When she steps out of the car I'm down the steps to hold the door open for her, her eyebrows creeping up above the top of her sunglasses and I don't need to see her eyes to know they're showing surprise.

"Oh God, you're being nice! You've already killed her, haven't you?! This is guilt, the smiling and the holding my car door, it's all guilt!"

I almost smile even wider at her mellow drama, my heart already beating a little lighter than it did just moments ago. This is why I phoned her, this is why I didn't just haul Ashley's ass up and out of my house, because then I'd have no excuse to phone her crazy, beautiful, drama queen of a stepsister.

"No one's dead..._yet_. I'm just being polite when greeting a guest, there's nothing wrong with that, right?"

I'm breathing easier with her next to me, my hand finding the small of her back and resting there, feeling mostly calm for the first time in what feels like hours. There's suddenly no panic, no oppressive feeling of helplessness or raging anger. There's just the reassuring warmth of Kyla's skin beneath my hand, her face that's comically worried as she finally takes the damned glasses off her face and gives me a glimpse of warm brown eyes.

"No, polite is good, it's much preferred to bloodshed and violence as far as greetings go. It's just a little unexpected after your phone call and the way we left things at the hospital. I thought..."

She trails off, her hand unconsciously going down to cup her stomach in what I guess is a comforting gesture for her. When my hand covers hers, my thumb brushing against the taught skin of her swollen belly, she actually sucks in a breath filled with surprise.

"You thought this was going to be hard, that there would be fights and begging and tears, but you were willing to go through that anyway. You were fully prepared to not give up on me, on us, weren't you, Tink?"

She shudders when I pull her in a little closer, when the hand I have resting against her back circles around her waist. This morning I woke up and decided I was going to give this a go with her, that I would trust in what we felt after all this time, despite everything that's happened in the past. So I'm going to do that, I'm not going to let the feelings of fear, or anger and helplessness, that speaking to Ashley this morning brought back to me stand in the way of this.

Besides, after the morning I just had, it's kinda funny to see Kyla trying to work out what the hell is going on. My Tink, she was never as dumb as she pretended to be, but today she's not catching on as quickly as I expected her too either. That's okay, I can have more fun with that, I think I deserve a little fun after all.

"I...uh...yes, I mean no, I wasn't going to give up. Still not going to, despite you threatening to murder my sister and possibly being mad as a rattlesnake at me after I pulled that little stunt yesterday. So I'm not giving up, no. I'm here, I'm fighting, I'm willing to give it my all."

She sounds like a soldier signing up for the war, her shoulders actually straightening and her face determined and I know I've made the right decision. It's not going to be easy, we're going to have to have the serious talks and there will be fighting, but nothing I see in her face tells me it wont be absolutely worth it.

"Good, 'cos I'm pretty sure I want your all, despite your all being pregnant and halfway to Splitsville."

Then I kiss her for good measure, swallowing her delighted squeal and giggling into her mouth when she grabs hold of me like I'm the biggest and the best Christmas present she's ever gotten. It's nice, the kinda nice that makes your soul feel lighter and clears your mind of every dark thought that's ever crossed it.

So maybe I'm taking a huge risk by jumping into this with her, but I can't ignore every instinct in me telling me that this is right, common sense and almost ten years of separation be damned! I want this, so why should I not have it?

She pulls back suddenly, her hands around my upper arms as she steadies me and fixes me with a dark, intense look. It gives me chills right down to my little toes.

"You're serious, you want this, us? Just like that?"

I nod my head, pulling her back against me, not being able to have her even those few inches away from me. This is what I dreamed about those last few months in high school, it's what I sat and imagined in every class I shared with Kyla, when I had to watch her with someone else. I imagined her looking into my eyes like she's doing right now, with love and happiness, with contentment.

"Yes, this is what I want. I'm not going to walk away from this, not while there's a chance to fight for what we lost before. You were right, we're not kids anymore, we know better now, we can do this. So I don't see why we can't fight for this, for us, _together_. You're not scared anymore and I'm not in pieces in some hospital bed, so if it's ever going to work, now is the time, Tink."

I mean it, and she means it when she leans in and kisses me softly, with tenderness and devotion and promise in every soft slide of her mouth against mine. It rocks me deeply, makes my insides flood with warmth and desire and none of it scares me, none of it reminds me of anything unpleasant. It just roots me to the spot and turns me to mush, like only Kyla ever could.

When she pulls back again I actually groan, I'm so pleasantly lost in her arms.

"Okay, as much as I hate possibly bursting my own little love bubble here, what's the story with Ashley screwing around with Spencer?"

I sigh and bury my face in her neck, luxurious strands of brunette hair tickling my face pleasantly as I try to adjust myself around her slightly protruding belly. I've never dated a pregnant woman before, definitely never had sex with one, but I'm pretty sure that's not going to be a problem for me. I'm most definitely turned on by the fact that her breasts are larger and that her whole body is practically screaming 'I am woman, see my curves!'. Yup, no complaints from me in that department, I just wish she would have kept her mouth shut about the whole Spencer and Ashley situation for a little while longer and let me bask in her....womanliness.

"Your sister is hurting Spencer."

Kyla nods slowly, her hands burying themselves in my hair and stroking my scalp rhythmically as she nuzzles against my cheek.

"Did they fight? Did they scream and shout and then somehow magically end up in bed together anyway?"

I snort at the disbelief in her voice and find myself nibbling the strong tendon in her neck, my lips leisurely tasting her skin afterwards.

"What? You don't think people can scream and shout and fight and then still end up bedding each other?"

I cock an eyebrow and give her a look, a look that states clearly I remember our days in high school. I remember fighting and teasing and then still having her up against a wall in her mother's shower despite it. The blush that runs up her neck and across her cheeks tell me she remembers too.

"Okay, right, it happens obviously, but do you think that's what's going on up there?"

I shake my head, leaning back to look her in the eye again, becoming much too distracted by the fact that her top is rather low cut. Did I mention the slightly larger than I remember breasts?

"No, that's not what's happening up there, but I know from seeing Spencer's face, from the feeling in my gut, that whatever Ashley said to her today, didn't make a damn thing better between them. Spencer's hurting and Ashley isn't doing anything other than making it worse."

Kyla nods, her eyes narrowing and there's suddenly nothing but grim determination and shrewd calculation in those brown depths.

"Well, don't you think we should do something about that?"

And that there, that's exactly why I love this woman. Okay, it's also pretty much what terrifies me about her, but there's more love than fear right now, so I'll go with it. Kyla's not one to sit around and just watch things unfold, she gets her hands dirty. So I'm not sure what she's planning, but I know I'll go along with it, because she does have a way of getting what she wants, doesn't she?

And by the way she's smiling she wants something alright, and that something involves Spencer and Ashley and I doubt seriously that it's them separated...

"I don't know, Tink, does my vote here even count?"

When she just tips her head back and laughs, I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that I've just signed up for trouble. I don't have to be a genius to know what she's thinking, that the romantic in her is already plotting ways to give everyone here a happy ending, but with her in my arms I can't really begrudge anyone else that same feeling of happiness, can I?

Even if I don't for one second think that Ashley Davies is capable of letting herself have that with Spencer, no matter how much Spencer deserves it...

- - -

**Right, so hopefully you liked that? Once again I rushed a bit with Carmen's feelings and all, but I was so depressed after re-reading the Ashley chapter that I wanted a bit of hope, you know? So yeah, I gave myself a good dose of Kymen! Lol. Sorry to those that don't care for them, but they make me kinda giddy with happiness...**

**At least I'm all caught up with everyone to the same point more or less. Next one is a Spencer chapter I think, so then we'll be moving forward again.**

**So as always, I'd love your opinion if you're in the mood to share, so don't be shy!**


	12. Dare you to move

**I'm guessing most of you thought I'd abandoned you again, but I've really just been a bad writer with a severe case of the lazies...**

**I apologize for that and hope that this update makes up for it, despite not much happening in this one. I don't honestly know how many chapters I've got left in this story, but I don't think it'll be many more. I guess I'm thinking of wrapping it up in another four or so, but we'll see how it goes I guess.**

**As always thank you for the kind words and the subtle (and not so subtle) hints that I need to update more. Lol. **

Senior Year: The Reunion

Chapter 12: Dare you to move...

Spencer's point of view.

"Oh, well."

A beat of silence follows the voice drifting into the room, my eyes still closed, but conciousness slowly starting to seep in because of it. I ignore it, snuggling closer to the warmth I find myself wrapped around and sigh contentedly.

"Oh, well, what?"

Vaguely I register Carmen's voice, but I'm tired and warm and perfectly happy to tell myself I'm just dreaming.

"I mean oh, well, I was _actually_ hoping they were at least groping each other in their sleep or something, but they're just snuggling."

I frown when the thought finally hits me that this isn't some wacked out dream I'm having, I'm actually hearing voices in my room.

"Hey, snuggling's good, don't knock it. I prefer seeing them snuggle a thousand times over walking in on them naked or something. That would be scarring to say the least."

I finally pry my eyes open when a rather loud snort is heard. I'm disorientated to say the least, because not only am I staring at the back of a head covered with tangled, brunette curls, but I'm pretty sure my former best friend and my current one is standing beside my bed arguing about walking in on me...naked?

The hell?!

"Right, you would be absolutely _horrified _to walk in on two hot chicks, naked? Do you really think I'm falling for that one?"

When I turn my head, my hands and body simply refusing my orders to pull away from the body they're currently wrapped around for some reason, it's to the sight of Carmen giving Kyla a smirk and a small shrug.

"Well, I guess if you put it that way..."

I blink twice just to make sure I'm fully awake and actually seeing what I'm seeing.

"Uhm...guys?"

Two sets of smilling eyes turn my way and I find myself blinking again. Blinking in shock and confusion, because is that really Carmen Garcia standing in my room, looking years younger than she did a few hours ago when I saw her last? Her smile is almost blinding when she throws it my way and I almost swallow my tongue when she gives me a wink and then proceeds to meld herself against Kyla's side.

What the hell happened in the hour or two that I've been asleep? And why the hell is my arm so numb?

I turn away from the goofily smilling faces of the two woman looming over me and turn my attention to my numbed arm and the cause of it. With a start I realize that Ashley's still next to me in bed, fast asleep and pinning my uninjured arm underneath her. My other arm, the one with the cast around the wrist, is being gently cradled against her belly, her own hands covering it softly with our fingers clumsily tangled together.

My heart stills for a minute, just bathing in the still familiar sensation of waking up with Ashley, heat trapped between us and her smell lingering on my sheets and skin. God, it's enough to set my body alight and to set stars exploding off in my mind's eye and instinctively I find myself pulling her in closer. I have to fight off the cavewoman inside me that tells me to growl ferosciously at the unwanted interlopers until they pee their pants in fear and run away, leaving me alone with my woman.

Hmm...I think I've been spending too much time with Glen again, because his neanderthal ways seem to have rubbed off on me a bit. Then through the fog and the loud chants of 'mine, mine, mine, mine' in my mind, my body finally comes fully awake and I remember this morning and everything that was said.

Ashley isn't mine, might never be again, despite what my baser instincts are loudly shouting in my head. So I sit up and gently pull away from Ashley, depsite every fibre in my being protesting the action.

"Oh good, you're awake."

I nod at Carmen, opening my mouth to talk when pain shoots through my wrist and I have to take a moment to swallow down the pain.

"Yeah, I'm awake, but why's that good again?"

I'm really wanting the answer to that question, because currently being off in dream land seems a thousand times better than being awake and facing my reality that consists of a busted wrist, and even more painful than that, a broken heart.

"Why? Because as much as I love you, Spence, I gotta tell you that you're pretty much stinking the place up. Ever heard of taking a shower after sweating half your body weight out?"

I'm pissed off for a whole two seconds, then I take a sniff and realize that Carmen is pretty much on target. It doesn't help that Ashley smells like a distillery next to me either. Together we're pretty ripe and I wriggle my nose in distaste.

"Uhm...yeah, you're right, I kinda stink."

My shirt is plastered to me in a sticky, sweaty mess and I feel pretty gross now that I've got all my faculties about me again. Ugh, I'm pretty sure I'm actually looking as gross as I feel, both inside and out.

"Nah, you don't...hmm...smell yummy actually."

I'm not sure who's more stunned, me or the staring duo beside the bed as Ashley flips over after she spoke and basically buries her face in my lap, apparently still happily caught between sleep and wakefulness.

Or she could still be drunk, I'm thinking that's a pretty viable option too right about now. Which means I have to do the honorable thing here and get my ass out of bed before I embarrass her and myself anymore.

"Ashley, come on, it's time to wake up."

She turns her head a fraction and one bleary, brown eye looks at me through a half open lid, the white of her eye blood shot.

"Pretend time over?"

The softly asked question has me biting my lip to keep from...I don't know, maybe crying my eyes out? I almost find it strange that while I was the one begging her for us to just pretend forever before we went to sleep, she's the one that seems most upset about the fact that we can't now that we're awake.

"Yeah, Ash, pretend time's over I guess."

For a second I feel her hand that lay against my hip tighten its hold, her fingers digging itself into my flesh almost painfully, like she's holding on for dear life, but then the hand is gone and she's sitting up.

She's rumpled and hungover, sadness coating her very being as she rubs her eyes like a small, tired child, the gesture making my stomach muscles clench as I fight the urge to pull her back into my arms. To take her back to a place where she could pretend and so could I, and we could be happy, or at least blissfully ignorant of all the crap that waited for us in this world.

Crap that was all our own fault, because we fell in love too young, too hard and probably too fast all those years ago.

"Right, so you two need to shower and get dressed, because we're going shopping!"

Kyla's bright and cheery voice gives me an instant headache and by the way Ashley flinches, she's feeling pretty much the same.

"We are?"

Carmen seems just as surprised as I am by the announcement when she turns to Kyla, but once again I don't miss how they both reach out and touch each other lightly, how Kyla's hand brushes my best friend's arm or how Carmen actually stands there and nuzzles her cheek for a second.

"We are, because I want to look absolutely stunning tonight for you and I'm expecting you to return the favour. So since we're going, they might as well tag along and not sit here and wallow in abject misery."

Abject misery? Does she even know what that means?! And since when is she going with Carmen, who coincidentally was supposed to be _my_ date for the evening even though she hadn't known about that little fact yet. Great, this is just fan_freaking_tastic. My date, as platonic as it would have been, just dumped me for a pregnant chick, my wrist is in a cast and I'm going stag when I face masses of people that tried to eat me for breakfast back in highschool.

Oh God, Madison Duarte and her chronies are gonna have a field day with me. Not that I'm scared of the crazy bitch, because if worse comes to worse I could probably get away with shooting her if I go about it the right way...

"Earth to Spencer, come in Spencer! What you smiling about, Sunshine?"

Carmen's looking at me with her head cocked to the side and her eyebrows raised to the heaven, looking strangely like a dog asking for a treat and my smile, absurdly as it sounds taking into account the toiled bowl that is currently my life, broadens.

"Do you think I could take my gun to the Reunion?"

Carmen twitches her nose once, Kyla cups a hand over her belly and Ashley blinks rapidly as she stares at me. Okay, maybe that wasn't the right thing to say right about now.

"Uhm...nevermind, doesn't matter."

For a beat no one speaks, then Kyla, who I assume is the ring leader of this little ambush, steps forward and puts her hands on her hips and glares at both me and Ashley. Isn't it funny that a pregnant woman could turn out looking so intimidationg if she wants too?

"Now didn't I make myself clear a little while ago?" When Ashley and I simply glance at each other in question and then look at her again, Kyla sighs. "Get up! Go take a shower and be ready to shop till you drop in no more than twenty minutes!"

She sounds a little like a drill sargeant and the policewoman in me reacts automatically as I stumble out of bed and fight down the urge to reply with 'Yes, Mam!'. Ashley's a little slower in getting up, but when she's finally standing next to me she looks a little panicked.

"Uhm, I don't have any clothes to wear."

Her dress, probably once a sleek little black number that would have successfully fried my braincells the night before, is now a rumpled mess with suspicious stains on it.

"That's okay, Carmen's almost your size so I'm sure she's got a pair of jeans or something you could borrow, right my little Sugar Muffin?"

Carmen just about swallows her tongue and gives Kyla the look that people always give those flashers in the park. All startled and horrified, while still coming off angry.

"Sugar Muffin? Are you out of your freaking mind?! God, I almost think I'd prefer Ghetto Barbie! My name's Carmen, or if you must call me Garcia, but if you ever intend to get me out of my clothes in the not too distant future, you will not, I repeat NOT, call me Sugar Muffin!"

Righteous indignation looks good on Carmen and by the way Kyla gives her the once off with a slightly leery look in her eye, she notices that too.

"Ooooh, you know what it does to me when you get all riled up like that, don't you Sugar Pie?"

Before they lay into each other or rip each other's clothes off, I'm not sure which would be more horrifying at the moment, I step in and clear my throat.

"Uhm, so Carmen, maybe you could let Ashley use your shower and get her some clothes while I get cleaned up?"

I turn to Ashley for confirmation, but she's looking at Kyla with a frown on her face, muttering something about 'baby hormones' and shaking her head. God, I swear everyone in this room is a special brand of crazy. Me included probably...

When I've finally cleared my room of groping friends and a morose ex-girlfriend, I make my way to the shower I generally use upstairs. When the door finally shuts behind me and I can't hear voices from downstairs floating up anymore, I finally crack.

The tiles are cold beneath me as I sit and stare at my hands, my breathing coming slowly and evenly despite it feeling as if my heart is beating my ribs ragged. Everything is just happening too fast for me to keep up with. Carmen, usually so cautious when it comes to relationships, is practically hooking up with Kyla. Who broke her heart, or whose heart she broke, whatever, years ago. It's so obvious she's jumpimg in blind here and that has me worried, because she's gone through so much to get where she is today and I don't want to see her hurt again.

More disturbing than that though is Ashley. Ashley who shows up drunk on my doorstep and kisses me, tells me she's sorry for letting me down and then tells me we'll never be together, despite the fact that I'm not a moron and can see she still feels _something_ for me. Oh God, my head is five seconds away from exploding and I'm just not prepared for all of this. The walls close in on me then and it feels like I can't even breathe in here.

"Shit, pull it together, Spence. Don't have a panic attack, just breathe. _Breathe_ you mongoose!"

My chest finally obeys my commands and drags in air, somewhat loosening the tight band that settles around it when my thoughts wandered to Ashley. I can't sit here forever though, can't afford to let my worries take over and end up dead on the floor from a heart attack or anything, so I force myself up and strip, my clothes a forgotten bundle on the floor as I open the shower door.

When the cold water hits me I shudder, but I ignore the sting and close my eyes, lean myself forward and rest my forehead against the tile as I let the water rush down my body. I give myself a minute to just stand there, to just close my eyes and settle my mind a bit.

I'm Detective Spencer Carlin, for God's sake! I put murderers in jail everyday, I used to go undercover when I worked in narcotics, no gun and no back up sometimes and I always made it through. I've held a gun in my hand, had life and death depend on my actions and words, I'm tough God dammit!

I can _surely_ face going to the mall with Ashley Davies.

"So suck it up, Spence. You're not that weak little girl anymore, you're not eighteen, chubby and completely screwed in the head and you sure as hell know which way is up these days. So act like it!"

I'm not sure giving myself pep talks out loud is healthy, but it beats the chest constricting fear of earlier. With that in mind I grab my body wash and get down to business, scrubbing my skin untill I'm pink and tingly, my hair washed quickly but vigorously and ten minutes later I'm heading to my room with a towel wrapped around me.

I find my oldest and most favoured pair of worn Levis and tug them on, throwing a tight t-shirt on and slipping sandals on my feet to finish off my little ensemble. I look like a beach bum, but I'm at my most comfortable and that suits me just fine. My hair takes me a few minutes to dry and I leave it hanging loose down my back.

When I pound my way down the stairs I can hear voices in the kitchen, so that's where I head. Carmen's got coffee waiting for me and I take a cup gratefully, frowning when she shoves a muffin in my face and then places a pain tablet down in my palm.

"Drink that."

I give it a quick look and when I'm happy it's just normal Ibuprofen, I do as I'm told. Arguing with Carmen is like arguing with a...well, with a laywer. Which she is obviously, so sometimes even I have to admit it's a loosing battle.

Ashley's sitting sullenly on one of the kitchen chairs, her head a mass of wet ringlets and smelling of strawberry shampoo as she sips coffee and stares out the window. I'm guessing she didn't give herself any pep talks in the shower then...

"So we're really doing this? Getting dresses and then heading to our high school reunion tonight to hang with losers we didn't even like back in the day? God, I hope Madison picked up wait at least, maybe that'd make things semi bearable."

I'm trying my best to keep the mood light, because after this morning and the day before, I think I've had as much darnkess and angst as I can handle at any given time. Carmen gives me a smirk and a small nod, as if saying thank you. Thank you for what I'm not sure, mabye for at least trying to make this situation slighly less awkward and painful than it could be, or for going at all for that matter.

"True, but it would be even sweeter if Aiden turns up bald and beer bellied. Yeah, that'd be a real nice surprise."

Carmen's smile as she talks is pure malice and I can only smile as Kyla smacks her in the stomach and rolls her eyes. Still, Kyla's look is indulgant and nothing but loving, making me take a deep breath and trying to clamp down on the flutter of nerves I can once again feel. Like I said before, this is a lot of stuff happening at once that I'm supposed to process. Kyla, Carmen, Ashley...yeah, that's a lot in my opinion.

"Okay, if we do this, we do this in my car though. Carmen drives like a spazz and I doubt that little sports car out front could hold all four of us, so I'm voting for the Mustang."

Carmen sniffs and gives me an eat shit look.

"I drive just fine, it's everybody else in L.A that has the problem. I mean hell, if one more little old lady cuts me off I'm gonna crack a skull or two. Besides, do you think you can drive with your wrist? The doctor told you to take it easy and you've already ignored that by going running for hours this morning."

I roll my eyes at the strangely mothering tone in Carmen's voice and give her a look of my own.

"It wasn't more than ten miles and I was gone for no more than an hour and a half, so stop exagurating. And I can drive just fine, so for once could you not argue and just go with it?'

Actually, my wrist is pulsing with pain, but I really don't like other people driving. I think I might have a touch of the control freak in me when it comes to that, because I even fight with Carter about this and he's the best driver I know.

So that's how we end up in my car, Carmen and Kyla having made a not so sublte dash to the car to procure the back seat, leaving Ashley up front next to me. She hasn't said a word yet, she's just sitting there, her eyes fixed to the dashboard as I pull into traffic.

"Uhm...so I guess you're taking your girlfriend tonight? To the Prom Redux thing?"

I don't want to ask, don't want to hear anything about the woman she spoke to on the phone the day before, but I don't know how else to start this conversation, not after how we left things this morning.

Ashley seems startled by my question, her eyes finally meeting mine as she swallows and then licks her lips.

"Patrice, yes, she's going with me tonight. She's a...uh, she's an actress, you might've seen her in something before?"

The question is awkward and stilted and it's so obvious she's answering not because she wants to but because she doesn't want to seem rude. God, is this what it's come to? Polite small talk after we basically massacared each other emotionally a few hours before?

"The name doesn't sound familiar, but I don't watch movies much these days, at least not movies that aren't either animated or has that Zac Efron boy in it. Man, Julie really likes that guy."

It's true, unless it's Wall-E or High School Musical number 5646789, I don't really watch anyting else. The kids have free reign on the t.v and the same when we go to the movies, so mostly I'm watching a movie with Julie drooling over he-who-needs-a-good-shampoo or with Tommy just...well...drooling really.

Ashley seems to straighten in her seat and suddenly all her attention is focused on me, so much so that I almost end up ramming the car in front of me when we pull up to a red light. I kinda forgot how absolutely distracting it can be when she pins me with those dark eyes of hers...

"And I guess Julie's your date tonight then?"

I frown in total incomprehension, ignoring the snickers from the peanut gallery in the back seat as I chance a quick look at Ashley.

"Uh, no. Why would I take a twelve year old to my Reunion?"

Ashley blushes for some reason and slumps down in her seat, her hand coming up to rub at her forehead as she throws me a look and gives me a grimace that's half pain and half smile.

"So Julie isn't your girlfriend then. Gotcha."

Oh. _Oh_! She was jealous! She was totally jealous...and I'm not sure I should be as excited about that fact as I am. It still doens't change the fact that she definately has a girlfriend and made it clear she doesn't want anything to do with me romantically.

After that I decide polite conversation isn't really going all that great for us, so I simply flick on the radio and drive to the mall as quickly as I safely can.

- - -

An hour at the mall and we're nowhere nearer to having dresses than we were when we arrived here to begin with. I'm pretty sure I'm going to end up wearing the pants suit I had picked out for the occasion if things go on like this.

Kyla is a shopping monster, she really is. She's had us traipsing from shop to shop and she insists on trying _everything_ on. I could live with that really, but she keeps making _me_ try a bunch of dresses that there is no way in hell I would ever wear in public on as well.

"Come on, Spence, this blue one would do wonders with your eyes and colouring. You have to try it!"

I bite the inside of my cheek and give Kyla a small smile, trying my hardest to keep my irritation to myself, because even Ashley and Carmen seems to be enjoying this. I haven't really seen Carmen flutter like a butterfly before, but she's doing a pretty good job of it today. I guess it helps that everytime she tries on a dress Kyla fawns all over it...

So I make my way back into the changing room and for the fiftieth time today strip my clothes off and slide a rather slinky soft dress over my body. I don't even bother looking in the mirror, I just fling open the door and make my way out to show Kyla so I can get this over with as quickly as possible.

Only thing is Kyla's nowhere in sight when I step out, but Ashley's there. Ashley who gives me one look and swallows hard before she turns away. She's halfway down the small hallway and into another little dressing room when she stops and casually speaks over her shoulder.

"You should take that one, it..." her voice seems to crack a bit and she quickly clears her throat, "it looks beautiful on you."

Two steps later she's inside and wanting to close the door, but my hand planted firmly against it quickly stops her.

"Uhm..."

That's all she gets out before I shove past her and close the door behind me. It's cramped with two people inside, but I try my best to ignore the small slither of space seperating our bodies as I look into her eyes.

"Look, we need to talk. I mean I know what you said, that we can never be...that we can never get back what we had, but can't we at least try and be friends? Can't we at least stop trying to ignore one another and get past this? I don't want to lose you again, Ashley. I've lived through that once and it was almost more than I could bare and I refuse to go through that again."

I'm not sure what I expect her to say, but desperation floods me as she simply stares at me in silence.

"I just want you in my life, okay? And I don't care if it's as a friend or a casual coffee buddy that I see once a month, I just care that you're in it, that I can at least have a number to phone if I just want to hear your voice and know that you're okay. I just...please just let me have that, I know I don't deserve it, but please..."

I can feel tears start to burn in my eyes and the back of my throat closes up, but I keep my pleading eyes on her. I know I'm begging, I know I'm throwing what little self respect I had left out the window, but I can't let her go again. I just really can't.

I'm not stupid enough to think we can magically fix things and fall into each other's arms, but is it really that much to ask that we can sit down and hold a civil conversation? Is it wrong that I want just that small piece of herself if she'll give it to me?

I watch as a hand shakily makes it way up to my cheek, feel as it settles softly against my cheek and the air that leave my lungs is filled with relief.

"Is that a yes?"

Ashley drops her head down, but her hand remains and I cover it with my own, willing my warmth into her skin, willing it to melt a little of the ice around her heart.

"I don't know if we should do that, Spence. I don't think it's a good idea, _I_ don't deserve..."

Her brown eyes are swimming in unshed tears when she finally looks up and I don't really think, I just react. My arms are around her and without having to think hard about it, I know what she was going to say.

"You don't think _you_ deserve to be in my life? Ash, I don't deserve to be in _yours_, or in Carmen's, or my parent's for that matter, because I've hurt you all, but sometimes whether you deserve something or not, you want it enough to look past all of that. It's shelfish of me and wrong, I know that, but not even I'm strong enough to..to take that away from myself. So I'll fight to stay in your life now, I'll fight you with everything in me until you see reason and let me be your friend."

Ashley finally pulls back and my heart almost leaps out my throat when I catch her half smile as she looks at me.

"You're really not going to back down on this, are you?" I shake my head no and she gives another half smile before biting her bottom lip slightly. "It's not going to be easy."

I nod my head and give her a little more space, happy that I've at least got her to agree to this one thing. This one small thing that will probably hurt me and heal me in equal measure...

"No, no it won't be easy, not at first, but we'll get to know each other again and we'll talk about everything that happened and maybe one day, maybe it'll be years from now or maybe just weeks, we'll look at each other and it won't hurt so much. Maybe it'll be easier and in the end I think that makes it worth it, don't you? Don't you maybe need me just a little bit too, Ash?"

I'm a little surprised when she basically slumps against me, her face tucked neatly against my neck as she puffs out a soft breath against my skin that tingles.

"Yeah, maybe I do need you, Spence. Maybe just a little..."

- - -

**Okay then, hope that didn't suck to badly. I was trying to keep things just a tad lighter than the other chapters since they were, well, rather depressing I think. Also if there's more spelling mistakes then usual, it's cos my stupid spell check thingy wouldn't work:( Sorry.**

**Let me know what you though, yeah?**

**Next I'll try to get an update out for either Bad Reputation or The Prodigal Daughter. You guys can pick which one really, so let me know.**


	13. Dressed for Success

**So I promised someone an update as a belated birthday present, and surprisingly enough I've managed to deliver one. It's not the best I've done so far, but I've been blocked on this story for so long I decided to simply muddle through. **

**Anyway, to those that read and reviewed the previous chapter, my thanks as always. It always make slaving away in front of the computer just a tad bit more worth it if I know you at least enjoyed it a bit;)**

Senior Year: The Reunion.

Chapter 13: Dressed for success.

_Kyla's point of view._

People, in my humble opinion, are pretty damn stupid.

They're stupid, because they live their lives in fear. Fear of violence and heartache, fear of disappointment and embarrassment, hell, some people fear _life_ itself! Ashley happens to be one of those people. She's shut herself up tighter than an oyster, never letting much in that could possibly hurt her.

I'm not saying this isn't a very natural defence mechanism, but do I really have to remind you all what happens when a grain of sand does wiggle its way into an oyster? All I'm saying is a little hurt now could lead to pearls later, people. _Pearls!_ A thing of pure beauty that's born from something decidedly ugly.

Okay, it's born from something that's supposed to make you really horny, but that ruins my rather nice analogy, so I'll just ignore that part...

Back to my point. Ashley is missing out on so much love, so much joy, simply to avoid the little bit of pain and work that goes into achieving it. She can't see past her hurt, can't find a bit of courage to reach out and fight for the one person that could make her happier in this world than anyone else. I think that deep down she realizes this, that she knows in her heart that Spencer can bring her back to life again, but she's just too scared to do anything about it.

See? Stupid. It's just all so stupid. Ashley is stupid for being scared and Spencer is stupid for being so_ Goddamn_ noble that she feels she doesn't deserve being with Ashley. They're two frustrating morons if you ask me, but that's not going to stop me from showing them the error of their ways. Oh no, don't let it be said that Kyla soon-to-be Woods again is scared of a little stupid, because hello? I did date Aiden for a good few years, so I'm not a stranger when it comes to stupid.

I don't care how long it takes or how mad at me Ashley gets, I'm going to get her past her fear and give her her happy ending. I know I promised that I'd stay out of her business this time around, but would you stand idly by and watch a person walk blindly into rush hour traffic? Would you stand out on the street and watch a house burn down without going in to help the people inside?

Of course not! And I know that comparing Ashley's dilemma to a house burning down is maybe not _exactly _accurate, but it boils down to the same thing. Would you sit back and let someone get hurt themselves if you know there's something you could do to help them? I'm just not built to do that, so I won't. Ashley can bitch all she wants and Carmen can give me those worried eyes, but I'm a do-er, not a thinker!

Well, of course I'm a _thinker_, but you know what I mean, right? Anyway, so I'm doing something about this whole mess. Don't get me wrong though, I'm not going to lock them in a room and threaten to throw away the key until I hear grunting sex noises or anything. I know you can't fix something that took years to be broken, in one night. That's not my intention at all, no. What I want to do is give them time. Time has been my friend, has given me clarity on my own mistakes through the years and has brought Carmen back to me. Time took away Carmen's anger towards me, has softened her heart so much that all it took was one kiss and we both knew things could work out again for us.

Am I sorry that I had to spend all that time away from Carmen to get to this point? Yes, yes I am, but I also know that for us that was the right thing somehow. We needed time apart to fix ourselves, we needed that distance from each other to think clearly and find our feet. Spencer and Ashley though? They've spent the time apart wallowing in darkness, as melodramatic as that sounds.

They've had time, but the distance from each other hasn't helped them at all. So I'm giving them time, but I'm giving them time _together_. They don't get to push each other away again, don't get to stay in their little corner of self blame or guilt or anger and huddle the day away. Uhuh, they _are_ going to spend time together and they _are_ going to like it. They need to be reminded how nice it is to just soak up the sun a bit, you know? And we all know they're each other's sunshine, each other's happiness, don't we? Well, I sure do and I'm going to remind them of that fact.

So we're going shopping. For Prom dresses.

A little juvenile perhaps, but no less perfect as a bonding exercise than any other really. Besides, I missed doing this the first time around, didn't I? I'm honest enough to admit I'm doing this for myself as much as for Spencer and Ashley. I never got to go shopping for a dress with my best friend in high school, because I pushed her aside. I haven't forgotten that I've hurt Spencer too, that I owe her an apology for choosing Aiden and a 'normal' life above being her friend.

"Hey, what're you thinking about, you look miles away."

Carmen's voice is a low grumble in my ear and I find myself shifting just a little closer to her, smiling a little sadly when I smell perfume at the juncture of her neck and not the well remembered scent of warm, freshly baked bread. I remember walking into a bakery not long after seeing her in hospital after the rape and breaking out in tears in the middle of the shop, because I was over run by the scent of baked goods and it reminded me of the day we made pancakes and love.

God, you don't even want to know what the sight of pancakes can still do to me...

"Nothing really, just...stuff."

Carmen nods her head once and smirks at me.

"Stuff, huh? Like schemes? Like how exactly you're going to stick your nose, along with mine, into other peoples business and play cupid?"

I'm about to get into a bit of a huff at the comment, but then I look into her blue eyes and I see the affection in them. I see the half smile curving up her cheek and I don't get mad, I just shrug a shoulder and kiss the side of her throat.

"Maybe I am...or maybe I'm thinking I owe Spencer an apology for some of the things I did back then."

Carmen frowns and looks away, her gaze on the scenery flying past us as we drive.

"Yeah, maybe you do, but I'm pretty sure she's forgiven you for that a long time ago." Then she finally turns back to me, her eyes half lidded as she stares at me. "You're easy to forgive..."

My stomach drops at the purr in her voice and my thighs quiver slightly. Holy hell, her voice does things to me that makes me want to forget the fact that we're in the back seat of a car with an audience in the front. Especially with her eyes flitting down to my mouth and her arm tightening around my shoulders...

God, whose stupid idea was it to go to the mall again?

I sigh and look straight ahead and Carmen laughs softly, like she knows exactly what she just did to me and I can't help but smile a little. She's a smug bitch, but she's finally _my_ smug bitch again. Can't say I'm complaining about that fact.

I catch Ashley's eyes in the rear view mirror and give her a small smile, but she just rolls her eyes and turns away. Guess she's still a little bit embarrassed about her obviously jealous outburst from earlier. Carmen was shaking so hard with silent laughter next to me I think she might have rattled loose a lung or something! It was priceless though, Ashley being jealous of a twelve year old...

Just proves my point about how stupid people are, though, right?

When we finally hit the mall I'm happy to see that Carmen is smiling and even Ashley is perking up a bit. It's just Spencer that's kinda following us around like a lost puppy, but I suspect that's because she never was one much for shopping. I always had to drag her to the mall and that hasn't seemed to change one bit.

After an hour of fitting on a variety of dresses, I hit the jackpot. Not for myself though, but for Spence. I'm pretty sure I'm going to end up buying the black dress I tried on in the first shop we hit, but I've been less than happy with what we found for Spencer so far. This dress though, changes that. It's a brilliant, soft blue that's going to hug tightly in all the right places and flow freely in the rest. I'm so excited I actually feel like bouncing up and down on the spot, but I choose to rather rush towards Spencer with the dress held reverently in my arms.

"Come on, Spence, this blue one would do wonders with your eyes and coloring. You have to try it!"

Spencer grabs the dress and grumps her way into the dressing room, leaving me with nothing to do but wait. Of course that idea basically flies out the window when Carmen pushes open the door of her dressing room and steps out wearing a deep red dress. It's a pretty simple design really, just a sheath of material that flows nicely down her legs and that holds itself up by wrapping over her right shoulder. To say it's gorgeous with her straight black hair draping down her bare shoulder is an understatement, but I try to find my voice to say so anyway.

"Ung...uhm..." Words aren't really working for me though, so I shamelessly give a little growl and shove her back into the dressing room. "Pretty."

It's all my muddled mind can come up with as I bury my face in her neck and nip at the skin. I find myself blushing in slight embarrassment when Carmen throws her head back and just laughs.

"I'm guessing that means I should buy this one?"

I nod as I make my way up her neck, my lips not really keen on doing something that doesn't involve kissing her right about now. I'm no more than half an inch from her mouth when her hands find purchase on my shoulders and I'm pushed away.

"Aw, come on!"

Carmen snickers a bit and leans forward, pecking me quickly on the lips before pulling away again.

"Sorry, Tink, but there's no way we're doing this in a cramped dressing room."

I pout to the best of my ability, giving her puppy dog eyes that would put any five year old to shame as I take a step toward her again. I'm pretty sure my hormones have taken over at this point and that I don't care that we're in a dressing room, all I care about is Carmen. Or more accurately, _tasting_ more of Carmen right the hell now!

Hands cupping my cheeks halt my attack though, and the strangely tender look in eyes so blue they make me ache, steals my breath a little.

"When I have you, Kyla, and I _will_ have you, it's going to be in a bed, with you flat on your back," A hand drops down to my stomach and cradles the life growing there gently. "nice and safe."

The care and thought behind what she's saying hits me squarely in the chest and robs me of what little breath I had left. This woman, this woman who I've hurt and betrayed, is showing me more love and consideration right now, than my husband or Aiden ever did. More importantly, she's showing my unborne child the same thing. I swallow down the tears I can feel pricking the back of my eyes and give her a smile.

"Fine, no sex in the dressing room, I get it."

She nods and opens the door to push me out I guess, but then I spot Spencer shoving Ashley into the dressing room across from us. Hmm....now what can _that_ be about? When I turn back towards Carmen she's sporting a cocked eyebrow herself.

"We're not going to press our ears to the door and listen, so don't even think it."

I frown at her words and flip my hair over my shoulder, wondering how she knew that was exactly what I wanted to do.

"No, I guess _we're_ not, but _I _am. You can just wait here I suppose."

I figure that wasting time and trying to convince her that I hadn't thought of that immediately would just waste time. Time I could spend with my ear pressed to that door...

So I don't wait for an answer, I just casually stroll over and press an ear to the door and listen, but as my luck would have it I can barely make out what's being said. Honestly, why do people insist on heated whispering when they have discussions? What's wrong with clearly projecting your voice so that nosy step-sisters could hear what you're saying?

Honestly, people these days are so inconsiderate...

Then a hand finds the back of my shirt and tugs insistently until I'm standing upright and staring into Carmen's frowning face.

"Tink, there's boundaries, you know? I mean I get that it's a bit of a foreign concept to you, but that doesn't mean you can just ignore them completely." She sighs and kisses me on the cheek. "Some of this stuff they have to figure out for themselves, okay? I know you want to help, and I'm sure you will, but let them at least try to work some things out on their own?"

Before I can answer though, the door I had my ear pressed against not so long ago opens. Spencer steps out first, her eyes looking over at us questioningly as we stand in the middle of the hallway. Then Ashley peeks over her shoulder and her eyebrows shoot up.

"Is my crazy-with-hormones sister trying to maul you in the hallway?"

Carmen gives her a smile and shakes her head, giving me a little squeeze as she does it.

"Nah, she tried that in the dressing room already. We were just waiting for you guys, since I think I found my dress and by the looks of it," She gave Spencer a quick look and smiled, "by the looks of it so did Spence."

The blond rolled her eyes, but a hand self consciously snaked down and smoothed out the blue material over her hips.

"Yeah, now I just need to find myself a date in the next..." She peeked down at her watch and frowned. "...five hours. Ugh, I'm gonna have to call Glen, aren't I?"

Carmen threw her head back for the second time in just a few minutes and laughed out loud. Ashley and I just gave each other confused looks.

"Oh, this is gonna be good. You remember the last date he set you up on? The one with the gym instructor?"

Instantly Spencer is blushing, and for a second she looks exactly like she did when we were eighteen. She's not a cop chasing down some kid in our old high school, she's not tanned muscle and handcuffs, she's just my old best friend nervously shuffling her weight from one foot to the other.

God, I never realized how much I missed her until right this second...

"_Please_ don't remind me."

When Ashley and I both look at Carmen questioningly, she smirks and pats Spencer on her bowed head.

"Oh, she just tried to shove her hand down Spencer's pants in the restaurant's bathroom and the good officer here squeaked like a stuck pig, which ended up frightening a lady that was trying to pee two stalls down. So the woman comes barging out of the toilet with her pants still only up to her knees, because she thinks someone is being murdered or something, and finds Spencer pushed up against a sink with the gym instructor all over her. She screams bloody murder and five minutes later Spencer and her date are escorted out of the place and kindly asked not to dine there again."

Carmen is shaking with laugher, Spencer is red faced and huffing while Ashley's mouth hangs open.

"You almost had sex in a public bathroom?"

Spencer's head shoots up and she stares at Ashley, all indignant and hurt. This just has Carmen laughing harder and even I have to bite down on a knuckle to keep from giggling.

"No! She just attacked me with no warning and _definitely_ no encouragement from me. I mean even if that lady hadn't interrupted us, I sure as hell would have stopped it." She brought a hand up to her face and rubbed her eyes once, letting a puff of air out after a second. "Actually, taking that into account, going stag might not be the worse thing ever..."

As funny as the story was, I can't help but be distracted by something.

"Okay, wait, let me get this straight. Glen, your brother, set you up? With a girl?"

Back in high school Glen had thrown an epic fit when Spencer came out. He'd publicly called both Spencer and Ashley some really horrible names and kept up his ranting that whole year and well into the rest of their relationship.

And now he's setting her up with horny gym instructors?!

"Yeah, after Clay...well, after everything that happened my family just saw things differently. Losing a brother, a child, it puts things into perspective."

We're all quiet for a moment, the thought of Clay and everything else that happened that night settling down over us.

"So now they take turns setting me up on hideous dates, because they're afraid I'm going to die an old spinster or something. I mean even my mother, and you remember how she was, gives it a try. Actually, my mother was the one that introduced me to my last girlfriend now that I think about it."

Ashley seems like she's having trouble not choking on her own tongue and actually grabs a hold of Spencer's arm, turning her towards her.

"Your mother, who once threatened to beat me with a turkey leg at dinner, introduced you to your last girlfriend?!"

Spencer just shrugs and smiles, apparently amused by Ashley's reaction to her statement. I can't say that I'm not surprise either, because Paula Carlin had been a bitch of a woman. And that's putting it as kindly as I can.

"Okay, before Ashley breaks her poor head trying to process all this, how about we get some coffee and something to eat? I'm starving here."

Once again I'm caught off guard as Carmen's hand drifts down to my belly and cradles it, her mouth sporting a small, gentle smile.

"I bet you are, I mean you're eating for two and all."

I watch as her fingers drift over my clothed belly, as she frowns cutely while concentrating on her actions. Something warm and gentle blooms in my chest, something so comforting and welcome that I end up sighing in quiet satisfaction.

Somewhere, deep down, I had wondered how Carmen would react to my pregnancy. I wasn't stupid enough to imagine that she'd be over joyed by the fact that I came with an almost instant family, that I was in the middle of a divorce, but this last hour has proven to me that I underestimated her. That I underestimated what she feels for me.

"You're pretty fantastic, you know that?"

Carmen cocks her head and looks genuinely puzzled by my breathy words, her eyebrows drawing together.

"I am?"

I smile and lean over, kissing her on the tip of her nose quickly.

"You are. You really are."

She smiles brilliantly at me and once again the urge to stuff her back into that dressing room and try my luck at getting her naked, bubbles up.

"You know, I wouldn't be surprised if some crappy Celine Dion love song started playing right about now."

I give Ashley the stink eye, but she just rolls her eyes and drags me down the hallway. Spencer and Carmen takes the time to change and then pay for there dresses, while Ashley and I quickly run back to the store where the dress I want is. Twenty minutes later we all meet up again at the food court, but before I can sit down at a table, Spencer takes me by the arm.

"We're going to the bathroom, so you guys can just order for us, okay?"

She doesn't actually wait for an affirmation, just starts barreling our way towards the bathrooms. Over my shoulder I catch Ashley and Carmen's eyes, but they seem about as surprised as I am over Spencer's little kidnapping scheme.

"Uhm, Spence? Why the sudden rush for the bathroom?"

She gives me a look, all slitted eyes and pursed lips, and I suddenly realize this is what she must look like when she's facing off with a suspect. There's an instant aura of power, of simmering malice beneath her skin, and it makes me take a step back. This woman in front of me, with her suddenly cold eyes and her firm grip, she's nothing like the Spencer from ten years ago.

"We need to talk, you and I, and I'd rather do it in private."

That said she continues on her way and I'm stumbling gracelessly to keep up. It feels like that time I slapped Cindy Carlson in fourth grade and got dragged to the principles office. Only I'm pretty sure Principle Sanders didn't own a gun....unlike Spencer.

I'm still looking to see if I can spot a bulge that would indicate she's packing heat, as they so eloquently call it on all those cop shows I tend to watch, when she stops us in the middle of the mall's brightly lit bathrooms.

"Okay, spill it. What are you doing making kiss-y faces at Carmen when you're obviously pregnant and," She grabs my left hand and I'm mortified to spot the wedding ring I've yet to remove, "married?"

I gulp. No, really, I actually gulp. You would too if you saw her face, if you felt phantom hands reach for your throat and squeeze in anger.

"I'm getting divorced, honest! I'm not planning on sneaking around with her or something, my intentions are...uhm...entirely pure."

Except for the part where I want to do dirty things to her in the dark and have dirty things down to me...but Spencer doesn't need to hear that right now.

"You mean that? Because I won't stand back and let you hurt her again, Kyla. I simply won't. She means a lot to me, I love her as much as if she was my own sister, and I won't see her hurt, not again. I want to be your friend again, I really do, but that doesn't mean I'm going to turn a blind eye to what you did to her back then."

She's blunt, to the point and unapologetic when she says it, and I believe it. If I hurt Carmen, I'll have to deal with Spencer. My relationship with Carmen will directly affect my friendship with Spencer, and if things go wrong, she's making it clear that she'll choose Carmen over me.

It hurts, to hear that from the best friend I probably ever had, but that doesn't change the fact that she has every right to say it. Carmen's been there for her over the last eight years, they live together, they have a life they've built that deeply involves the other and I've...

I've been the cause of a great measure of hurt for both of them. So I don't get to be defensive now, I don't get to be hurt or angry at her words. I only get to stand here and promise her I'll do my best, because that's all I can honestly say.

"I mean it with my whole heart, Spence. I love her, I have loved her since I was just a girl, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to love her 'till we're both gray and wrinkled. Just like I hope you and I can be friends until we're both gray and old. Look, I wanted to wait before having this discussion with you, but I guess now is as good a time as any."

Spencer raises an eyebrow and leans against a counter, her arms crossing over her chest.

"What discussion is that?"

I swallow once and bravely look into her eyes, warmed at least a little when they don't seem to be shooting poison arrows at me anymore.

"The one were I tell you how sincerely sorry I am for what I did to _you_ in high school. Where I tell you I've regretted losing your friendship almost from the first second that fight started in the kitchen that morning. I was scared and you...you were so strong then, Spence. I saw how you held your head high, how you held Ashley's hand in your own as you walked the halls of that school and I was just so ashamed of myself. I was just so scared of how I felt about Carmen, about what it meant for my future and you were a reminder of how much of a coward I had been..."

I swallow, surprised when old hurt and regret rushes through me and I have to swallow hard to keep from choking up.

"I've wanted to make it right for a very long time and I have my chance now, not just with Carmen, but with you too. What I'm saying is....can you forgive me?"

Then once familiar arms wrap themselves around me and I sigh in relief.

"I've forgiven you a long time ago, Kyla. I think part of me wasn't even all that mad really, just disappointed and worried for you. Besides, I wasn't exactly acting like a saint that morning either, I said things that hurt you too, things I deep down knew wasn't true, but I still said them..."

I shush her quickly and just squeeze her harder, so happy to just be able to put it behind me that I don't care about the particulars right now. What happened back then is over, we can't change that, all I want is to move forward from it.

And I'm lucky enough to do that not just with Carmen, but with Spencer by my side as well.

- - - -

**So yeah, I don't know if you'll like it or not, but I think there was at least one or two rather sweet moments here, so that redeems it for me!**

**Hopefully I'll hear from the few of you still hanging around reading this story.**


	14. With a little help from my friends

**For anyone still interested, here's an update for you. To those that read and reviewed the last chapter, I'm grateful as always to hear from you guys. I appreciate your patients with me and my stingy updating ways.**

Senior Year: The Reunion

Chapter 14: I get by with a little help from my friends.

Ashley's point of view.

Oh sweet Jesus, why did I ever think drinking my sorrows away was going to help anything? I mean I've been doing it for years now and it's yet to give me anything but a momentary release from the crap floating around in my life, so why do I do it?

Ugh, it's 'cos maybe my teachers all those years ago were right, maybe I'm really not all that gifted in the thinking department. The pounding of my head and the ache in my stomach is punishment enough though, it really is. This time I may actually mean it when I say I'm never drinking again. I mean miracles happen, right?

At least the food is helping. Carmen and I decided to just order sandwiches when Kyla and Spencer made their impromtu escape to the bathroom almost twenty minutes ago. We haven't talked much since then, me mostly processing everything I've learnt about Spencer's life in the last two hours or so and Carmen seemingly genuinly more interested in shoving her meal down her throat than talking to me. That's okay though, because I'm not sure anything she has to say to me would be anything other than a threat right now.

"You have crumbs on your cheek."

Or it could be a polite warning that I have food all over my face.

"Uh...right."

I run my napkin over the area quickly and then look up carefully, not sure where I stand with Carmen after everything that's happened in the last two days. Carmen had never been scared to tell me where I could shove it, not even when we were friends years ago, so I know she wont hold back today. She sure as hell didn't this morning, but then I guess I needed to hear that, didn't I?

"She wants to be friends."

I'm not sure what's possessed me to blurt that out, other than the fact that I'm scared shitless at the prospect of having Spencer in my life again and there's no one else to tell that to right now except for Carmen.

"And you're already peeing your pants at the prospect?"

I nod vigorously, my palms sweaty with relief at having admitted it to someone else. I'm not much of a talker, I tend to sit and drink and brood, but sometimes I need to say things out loud or I'll maybe burst. Usually I say those things to Kyla, but the cause of all my concern has gone and bloody well dragged her away somewhere to do God knows where, so I'm making do.

"Yes, God yes! I mean I understand where she's coming from, I really do, but this is a disaster in the making. We can't just be friends all of a sudden!"

Carmen cocks her head, takes a sip of her soda and then leans back, her eyes narrowing as she stares at me.

"Why not?"

Why not?! There's a hundred million different reasons why we shouldn't be friends, _besides_ the obvious one where we broke each other's hearts and all. Our history is a painful one and I don't want to be reminded about that, I don't want to be reminded of everything I lost back then, it just hurts to Goddam much.

"Because it's...it's too complicated."

Saying it's complicated is maybe even an understatement in this case. I don't know what I was thinking when I agreed to this, because I don't honestly know how this is supposed to work.

"You know what's complicated? Suddenly dating a woman whose currently getting divorced and also happens to be six months pregnant. That's kinda complicated. Being friends with someone you used to date eight years ago really isn't if you compare it to that. Besides, this way you can maybe go about things the right way and not fuck it up like you did the first time 'round."

Okay, if she says it like that, my panic sounds maybe a little childish. I'm freaking out, I'm fully aware of that, but I honestly believe I've got a right too. This isn't as easy as she's making it sound, because...

Because as angry as I've been with Spencer, I still...care about her.

It's why I couldn't stand her begging in the changing room, it's why I agreed to be her friend, because I didn't want to see her crying. I don't want her to hurt anymore than she's obviously been hurting in these last years, but I don't think being in each other's lives is going to help that.

"Don't over simplify it like that, Carmen. You know as well as I do that things aren't as straight cut as you make them out here. And what the hell do you mean by doing things the right way?"

Carmen sighs and leans forward, her eyes sweeping around us quickly and then settling on me again.

"I'm not really over simplifying things, you're just making things overly difficult. I'll agree that what happened back then had serious repercussions, people got hurt, but you need to go on with your life, Ashley. You and Spencer are both just drowning in the past, aren't you? I'm guilty of doing it too in a way, but I've done better and I've moved on. I'm tackling my complications head on and enjoying the ride, you know?"

She's quiet then, a small smile playing on her lips and I know she's thinking of Kyla. I'm envious of her easy forgiveness, of the way she's seemingly pulling herself away from what happened all those years ago and grabbing onto what's on offer today. And it's true what she's saying, what happened between her and Kyla may in a way be even worse than what happened to me with Spencer. Carmen got raped, she was violated and hurt, Kyla married a man she didn't love and lived a lie for years, while Spencer lost her brother. Me? I just got dumped.

Still, despite all that, they're the ones willing to move forward and I'm the one still sitting here scared shitless...

"As for what I meant about doing things the right way this time? Back then you and Spencer didn't become friends first. Sure you got friendly, but then it was suddenly this mad, passionate love affair. You had a few months together and then she went away for school and maybe that was just a bit too much without a firm platform to base it all on. From what happened between you it's obvious you both didn't know each other as well as you thought."

Did I know Spencer? Was she my best friend during the time when we dated? Did I really know everything about her and vice versa?

God, I don't think I can honestly answer yes to any of those questions, as absurd as it sounds. I did talk to Spencer, but it wasn't anything like the talking we did that day at my beach house when we made love for the first time. We just went from there like everything was perfect, like being together made everything magically right. I guess it's part of the fantasy you have as a teenager, how once you find love you don't need anything else. How you don't have to work at it to make it last.

"You're saying it wasn't enough that we loved each other back then?"

Carmen gives a helpless little shrug, a sliver of sadness and regret flashing across her face as she smiles lopsidedly at me.

"If love alone was enough, Kyla and I would never have...well, I guess I can't say broken up since we never officially got together, but you know what I mean. I'm saying I've learnt this the hard way myself, Ashley, I didn't know Kyla back then and it got me hurt, but it's not going to stop me from getting to know her today. So I'm not saying do what we're doing and fall into each other's arms, I'm saying give Spencer a chance to get to know you and for you to get to know her. You two owe that to each other."

And maybe it is as easy as that. Maybe the girl I thought I knew never existed, because the girl I remember was one that left me and broke my heart in a seemingly heartless manner, but the woman Carmen told me about on the steps earlier, the woman that begged me to be her friend in the changing room today, she doesn't seem anything like that girl.

I can't handle falling in love with Spencer Carlin again, but maybe I can handle being her friend. After all, that's all she's really asking from me in the end.

"I think I can do that. I think...maybe it wouldn't be so bad, as long as things...as long as she doesn't want..."

I don't know how to say it, how to let Carmen understand that I can't be anything more to Spencer again, other than a friend. I understand now that she wasn't the only one in the wrong back then, but all that has really done is added guilt to all the feelings of anger and resentment that comes with remembering the past. I'm still just really fucked up over the whole thing.

I almost jump out of my seat when Carmen lays her hand over my own, not just because she startled me out of thought, but because she was never a touchy feely person to begin with.

"She's not going to ask that from you, because I don't know if Spencer will ever forgive herself enough to be able to do that. I think maybe her asking you to be her friend was already more than she thought she deserved."

I'm shocked at how acurate Carmen is, at how well she seemingly knows Spencer, but I guess that's what happens when you've been friends and roommates for so long. They have a history all of their own and it's something I'll have to accept if I want to be Spencer's friend, because I get the feeling that Carmen is a very permanent fixture in her life.

"And what you should take from that, Ashley, is that if you ever get to a place where you want more from her, you'll have to make the first move."

Before I can say anything, before I can even react or process her words, Carmen stands and smiles warmly as she pulls out a chair for Kyla. Then Spencer is dropping down onto the chair next to me, and across from Kyla, and she's smiling bright eyed at us.

"Spencer and I are best friends again!"

Kyla actually claps her hands together and squeals a little, all the while bouncing in her seat like a four year old. If that wasn't funny enough, the indignant look suddenly blooming on Carmen's face as she looks over at Spencer would have done it.

"Well, I don't think I've ever been replaced that quickly before as best friend, Sunshine."

Spencer snorts and rolls her eyes, giving Kyla a slightly scalding look before slapping a hand down on Carmen's shoulder.

"Stop pretending you're one of those girly girls that get jealous of their friends, because A: you're not and B: she's not my best friend, she's just applying for the position of _second_ best friend."

Before Kyla can say anything absurd and hormonally driven, I put a hand up and sniff loudly.

"Actually, I'm pretty sure I got the job of second best friend a little while ago, so technically speaking, she's applying for the position of _third_ best friend."

Carmen bursts out laughing and murmurs 'Good Girl' my way, while Kyla pouts and crosses her arms, Spencer just sitting there and blinking rather dazedly.

"Uhm...wow. I don't think anyone's ever fought over who gets to be my best friend. I mean I was the kid that got picked last for a team in gym and stuff. This is a pretty new experience for me."

Spencer gets a piece of tomato in the face courtesy of Carmen for her comment, while I find myself laughing along with Kyla. It's kinda nice, just sitting and joking for a change. The last few days have been pretty heavy, I've done and said things I'm not proud of, but this here is a chance at changing that.

Spencer was right, maybe I do need her. Maybe I need all of the woman sitting around this table with me, to remind me that things aren't always dark and painful, that I can move on from my past without leaving everyone from it there. Maybe I need someone like Carmen who isn't afraid to tell me the truth, no matter how much I don't want to hear it, and maybe I need someone like Kyla who pushes me into things, even when I'm too afraid to do them.

And maybe I need someone like Spencer, who reminds me of how blind I can be, of how far I can let myself fall, so that I don't make the same mistakes again.

All in all, this isn't turning out to be such a bad weekend after all...

* * *

So the not drinking thing didn't last, but I feel marginally better about that fact since both Spencer and Carmen are seemingly trying to drown the horrors of this night in wine as well. If Kyla wasn't pregnant, I'm pretty sure she'd be drunk off her ass by now too. Okay, no one's actually drunk, but I think we all wish we were.

The school assembly hall looks like a scene out of every corny reunion movie you've ever watched. There's streamers and balloons strung up, pictures of all the students from back in highschool displayed against the walls and out dated music playing in the background. The music I can still stand, but the tacky streamers I could have done without. Also the fake friendly assholes that keep coming up to our tables wanting to reminisce about the good ole days are starting to piss me off.

First off, I didn't even like half of them back in highschool and and secondly, most of them treated me like I had the Ebola virus after I came out. So the sudden wave of friendly faces around the table is leaving me a little cold. I think it has more to do with the fact that Patrice is semi well known for the few films she's done and the fact that Kyla keeps trying to make out with a rather mellow Carmen.

Our table is putting on quite the show you see.

At least Glen seems to be having a good time, after recovering from the shock of seeing me with his sister again that is. Not that I'm with Spencer or anything, because obviously I'm here with Patrice, but the whole trying to be friends thing is in full swing and we all decided to sit together. Which is going surprisingly okay really. I thought I might have problems with Patrice, having screamed out Spencer's name a few weeks ago during...well, during orgasm and all, but I think I may have lucked out.

Patrice is enjoying the not so subtle fan attention she's receiving and playing the part of the perfect girlfriend. She hasn't mentioned a word about last night, about fucking like a bunch of wild monkeys and me then disappearing and that suits me just fine. I'm not proud of that night and it's not something I want to experience again soon.

"Your friends are...interesting."

There's a lull in the fawning fans for a minute and it seems like Patrice has finally taken an interest in our table mates. Hmm...I'm not sure I'm happy about that.

"They're good people."

I catch Spencer's eye across the table and smile as she grimaces, her eyes flicking to her date and back and then she downs the rest of her wine in one gulp. Glen set her up with Cindy, whose twin sister Mindy just happened to be his date. Their bust size pretty much over shadow their IQ's if tonight's conversation is anything to go by.

They make Paris Hilton sound like a riveting conversationalist.

"Hmm...you know, your little friend Spencer is quite the looker, if you wanted to take her home and play for a little while, I wouldn't be against that."

I almost choke on my own tongue at the thought. Sure, we've done that before in the four months we've been together once or twice, taking someone home with us for the night and all, but to even imagine doing that with Spencer...

God, the thought is so dirty and wrong, and not in the good way, that I actually wish I could scrub out my ears and just _unhear_ those words. Besides knowing that Spencer would have a heart attack at just the suggestion, I can't bare to even imagine having to watch someone touch her, or kiss her, or...do stuff to her. I just...it makes me kinda nauseous really.

"Uhm...no, that's a really bad idea. She's not that kinda girl, Patrice, so don't go there. This isn't why we're here tonight."

Patrice shrugs elegantly in supplication, but she keeps looking at Spencer in a way that makes me uneasy. It's a calculating look, but there's a little bit of lust thrown in there that makes my skin crawl. I'm not sure what she's thinking, but I know she's thinking _something_ and it occurs to me that maybe she hasn't forgotten my little vocal slip all those weeks ago.

Before I can do anything, or say anything, a strained silence falls across the table and I find myself looking away from Patrice to see what's going on.

"Well, aren't you all looking happy and cosy?"

Time, unfortunately, has treated Madison Duarte well. She's as busty and curvy as ever, and by the sounds of it her attitude hasn't changed much either. _Oh Joy_.

"Beat it, Madison."

Spencer's tone is even and calm, her eyes steady as she stares at the woman who seemed to hound us all those last few months of Senior Year. Madison just smirks and cocks a hip out, flipping her hair back over her shoulder.

"Oh, I'm so shocked, here I was always thinking you were the polite Carlin, Spencer."

Spencer smirks right back, but it's not a nice one, it's not a look I've ever really seen on her face before. Just kinda reminds me again that I don't know the woman sitting across from me all that well. That's the point of becoming friends though, right?

"Hmm...once, maybe. Now I'm the Carlin that can legally shoot you."

Carmen seemingly snorts half her drink up her nose at that, making Kyla crack up laughing, while Madison stands there and swallows air for a second.

"Excuse me?!"

Spencer just sits there and cocks her head to the side, giving Madison a long look before snapping her fingers once.

"Oh, right, I forgot you're a bit slow on the uptake. I said I'm the Carlin that can legally _shoot_ you. I'm a detective see, and they give us these things called guns that go bang and gives you big boo-boo's. I'd be glad to demonstrate for you if you still don't understand?"

Spencer helpfully extends her arm out and uses her thumb and forefinger to imitate a gun going off, all the while pointing her finger straight at Madison's chest. By now Carmen is actually slumped against Kyla, her face red from laughing as we all watch Madison stand there dumbly.

Cindy and Mindy are shifting in their seats, not sure what's going on, but the tension in the air actually breaking through the fog of stupidity floating around them. Glen's just sipping his drink in what seems like gleefull anticipation and Patrice is picking at her nails in boredom.

"Uhm, Spence? Walk me to the bar?"

I'm not sure why I interrupt, because the crowd is obviously waiting for some bloodshed, but I remember Spencer's offhand question this morning about whether she could bring her gun with tonight...

"Sure, I could do with some more wine. Cindy...uh, or Mindy, would you like another glass too?"

Spencer seems genuinly confused about her dates name and I find myself laughing as I drag Spencer out of her seat, not waiting for the bimbo date to answer the question. We make it all the way out of the hall before we collapse against a wall and laugh. Spencer actually bends over, her arms wrapped around her stomach, and I just lean my head back and howl.

"Oh God, her face, Spence! That was...that was just..."

I laugh so hard at the memory of the stunned look on Madison's face that I can't finish my sentence, I just helplessy lean over and continue laughing.

"Yeah, I know...I thought she was going to have a stroke or something! God, that felt so good, I've been dreading seeing her again, but I just realized when I saw her she's nothing but a miserable bitch I used to go to school with, you know? She's just...a non factor in my life. Why should I be afraid of her then?"

I nod, agreeing completely with that statement. People like Madison are small minded, anal retentive, emotionally constipated morons that doesn't deserve to impact our lives in any way.

"Yeah, I see what you mean. Still, I don't especially want to go back there."

Spencer finally calms and leans casually against the wall next to me, her face turned up towards the sealing as she nods.

"Yeah, me neither, I think just sitting next to Mindy...or Cindy, whatever, is making my IQ drop."

I find myself facing Spencer, a smile playing on my mouth, and she turns to stare right back at me. I don't know how long we just stand there, music drifting back out to us from inside the hall, but it's a long time and for some reason it doesn't feel weird. We just look quietly, as if by mutual consent we let the other see the changes that eight years has brought, let ourselves become reacquainted with the other's face.

"You want to sneak up to the gallery and make fun of all the other losers here?"

I think about it for a second, figuring as ideas go it's not a bad one really, and then nod my head yes.

"Sure, but maybe we should scour for some provisions first?"

Spencer cocks her head to the side and gives me a smile, the image so much like the one I remember from years ago that a dull ache bleeds across my chest.

"What, like more wine and some Ding Dong's, 'cos that's all they got in there, Ash."

I just roll my eyes and drag her back inside, braving the masses of swaying bodies on the dance floor as I elbow my way to the bar. I don't bother asking the harassed looking bartender for the drink, I just kinda lean over the makeshift bar and feel around under the counter until I grip something bottle like. I'm pretty chuffed with myself when it turns out to be a bottle of lukewarm champagne. Spencer is simply stuffing her arms with Ding Dongs and those little packets of peanuts that seem to be found in all bars and airplanes across the world.

It doesn't take us long to sneak up the gallery, to find a spot where we can crouch down and have a clear view of the dance floor and tables below us. Spencer drops down quite unceremoniously and sits on the floor regardless of the beautiful dress she's wearing. I take a moment to look down on her, to take in the gently curled hair over her shoulders and the sun browned tint of her skin. She's exquisite, this woman that once loved me. I mean Spencer was always beautiful in my eyes back then, even when she was over weight, she'd still had a quality about her that just took me in.

Now though, it's like she's finally completely comfortable in her own skin, like she's found a confidence that she lacked before. I'm just sad that it took tragedy in her life to bring this out of her.

"You just going to stand there, or are we popping that champagne, Davies?"

I join her on the floor, back against a seat behind me and wiggle the cork from the bottle. I smile smugly when I pop it without spilling a drop, until I realize we didn't bother with glasses.

"Uhm, I guess we're roughing it?"

I raise the bottle and offer it to Spencer first and she takes it, puts her mouth to the rim and slowly sips the bubbling liquid.

"Thanks, but I better slow down, I'm supposed to drive Mindy or Cindy back home tonight."

I take the bottle and sip, keeping my eyes on the people down below us doing what looks like the funky chicken of all things.

"Are you going to spend the night with her?"

It's not a question fueled by jealousy, I'm simply curious to see if this is the kind of thing Spencer does nowadays.

"No, I don't...I'm still not much for one night stands, you know? Actually, I don't even date much these days, with work and all."

I feel a tinge of guilt when I realize I'm happy to hear that, because I was serious when I said earlier that I can't imagine having to watch someone else touch her or kiss her, the idea really does turn my stomach.

"You like what you do?"

Spencer gives me a look, takes a bite out of a Ding Dong.

"Are we playing twenty questions?"

I nod my head yes and she just smiles, takes the bottle from me.

"Fine, yes, I like what I do and I do it pretty well despite what Carmen might say on the subject. It's meaningful, what I do. I have a sense of purpose I never really had before, I feel like I belong when I walk into the precinct. As hard as it is to see what I see everyday, I can't imagine doing anything else."

I take in her words, the way her face is serious as she speaks them and I realize that Spencer is happy in her own way. Maybe not personally, but as far as job satisfaction goes she's set.

"I'm glad you found that, Spence. I mean I get it, you love your job, that's something I can understand."

It's true, we seem to have that in common, because as unhappy as I've been in these last years, I've been fortunate enough to do something that gives me maybe the only true joy I've had in the past years.

"You do?"

I find myself turning to Spencer, find myself becoming excited to share this with her, this one thing that I can be proud of in my life.

"Sure! I mean I love what I do. I love taking my camera and showing the world _everything_, showing them the ugliness and the beauty there is. I mean that's why I'm still partial to making documentaries, because it's about the truth, you know?"

Spencer seems lost in thought, then she smiles and passes me a Ding Dong.

"You know, it's funny Ash, but in a way we both do the same thing. We chase the truth, no matter where it's gonna lead us."

We're both quiet for a moment, just absorbing the strange similarities in our lives. As much as I always thought we were different back when we were dating, here we are now...both driven by the same need. Sure, the truths we chase are very different, but I like that it's at least something that we share.

Spencer takes another sip of the champagne before turning back to me.

"Do you think we're getting a little drunk and..."

I smile as I interrupt her, strangely knowing exactly what she's going to say.

"...philosophical?"

Spencer just laughs and looks away and I find myself feeling nothing but comfortable in the quiet between us. This shouldn't be so easy, it shouldn't feel completely natural to sit here with the woman who hurt me so long ago and have a perfectly nice conversation.

But it does and I'm just insanely grateful for that.

"Oh hey, look, Carmen's making Kyla waddle around with her on the dance floor." I lean a little forward and spot the two woman swaying together despite Kyla's pregnant belly between them. "What do you think about that by the way?"

I can only laugh and shake my head as I lean back and glance over at Spencer.

"Aw hell, all I know is that my crazy, hormonal sister wants Carmen and I feel sorry for anyone that comes between her and what she wants."

Spencer smiles goofily, the drink finally catching up with her and I find myself mirroring the look as she speaks.

"I think it's nice. Carmen deserves it."

Before I can reply, my eye catches someone making their way towards the swaying couple and I know instantly that this is going to be trouble, because the person is Aiden.

"Oh shit, Aiden's here."

Spencer looks slightly alarmed as we both lean closer to the railing and peek down to where Kyla and Carmen are now standing staring at Aiden. An obviously drunk Aiden.

"Come on, Ash, let's get down there."

I don't argue, even if I immediately morn the loss of our little private hideout. Things were going really well, we were talking and not freaking out or hurting each other. It was a nice change from every other conversation we've had these past two days and now things are going to get tense again, I just know it.

I don't realize I'm holding Spencer's hand until we reach the door to the hall and then I only let go, because it feels all to easy and familiar to be attached to her like that. Spencer notices, but she doesn't say anything, just flexes her fingers and gives me a sad smile, like maybe she forgot for a minute there too that we shouldn't be doing that.

Then her eyes flash over to the gathering crowd on the dance floor and she frowns.

"Fuck, this is bad, she doesn't like it when people push in on her like that."

I'm about to ask what the hell she means, but I'm interrupted by the sound of Carmen's panicky voice.

"Could you just step the hell back and get your hands off me!"

And then Spencer's off like a shot and I'm left with a sinking feeling in my gut that things just spun out of control for us again. It seems like no matter how hard any of us try to forget the past, it's always gonna come back and bite us in the ass...

- - -

**Okay, I hope you liked that seeing as it's pretty much nearing the end now. I'll be the first to say that this story has proven to me that I shouldn't be allowed to attempt writing a sequel again, but I started it so I'm gonna finish it, no matter how I feel about this story at this point in time. It's what I'd politely call a love/hate relationship right now!**

**So yeah, review if the fancy strikes you, but I wouldn't blame you if this didn't exactly inspire you to do so.**


	15. Saturday nights alright for fighting

**Okay, this here is a short chapter, only about 3500 words I think, but it was fun to write and that's what I need for this story: more fun. I've been dragging my feet with this, drowning in angst, so I thought I'd revisit some of the silliness I had going in the first story. Hopefully you guys enjoy it too!**

**To everyone still reading and reviewing, thanks for sticking this one out with me. I know I only ever update sporadically and that it probably irritates some of you, but I hope you can forgive me and still enjoy these last few chapters despite it! Thanks for all the kind words and encouragements to go on, I do appreciate it.**

Senior Year: The Reunion.

Chapter 15: Saturday Nights Alright (For Fighting).

_Spencer's point of view._

Oh how I wish right now that I was anywhere else on this planet. Why you might ask? Why would I rather be stuck in traffic during rush hour or waiting for a root canal? Because currently I'm at the bottom of what you'd call an old school pile up. There are limbs everywhere, an elbow stuck uncomfortably in my ribs and I'm pretty sure someone face is squished up against my butt.

How did I get here? How did my life suddenly turn into a slapstick comedy that would make the likes of Jim Carry, at least in his Dumb and Dumber days, proud? How did an officer of the law fall so far and so hard that she hasn't just thought about doing something so juvenile as giving someone a wedgie, but actually went ahead and did it? My story, let me tell you it...

I was having a good time finally, having escaped the_ wonderful_ date my brother set me up on and actually getting to spend some time with Ashley. It was relaxed up in the gallery, we were just talking and sharing a drink, not rehashing our past for the first time. So of course something had to happen, but I was a little tipsy and a lot hopeful and apparently that combination makes me turn stupid, because I didn't see it coming. Oh no, I was completely oblivious of the fact that trouble was leaning against the bar and throwing back his seventh brandy of the night. Yup, while I was trying my hardest to find some common ground with Ashley, Aiden Dennison was at the bar getting plastered.

He was also keeping an eye on the dance floor, because shortly after Carmen and Kyla hit the floor a-waddling, he spotted them. From there on out, things escalated quickly. I'm still not sure how everything got out of control so quickly, but I'm an honest enough person to admit that if I hadn't over reacted, maybe things wouldn't have been so bad. Thing is I did, over react that is, when I heard Carmen shout at Aiden to get his hands off her. For a second or two I just went to a very bad place, remembered a night that was pretty much burned into my memory, you know? It doesn't excuse the fact that I went in with the proverbial guns blazing, but it does explain it.

But my culpability ends there, because after I ran over and bodily removed Aiden from Carmen's proximity, everybody else went fucking crazy! It was too late to be the voice of reason then, so I kinda got swept away with the flood of stupidity and rather blundered attempts at violence. Guess if I had to do it all over again though, I still would have run over and body checked Aiden into another galaxy. It was kinda fun you see. Though for you to understand why he deserved it, I need to tell you a few things.

See, back in high school, Ashley always believed Aiden to be this big, dumb, harmless teddy bear. She thought he was simply too stupid to see what had happened right in front of him, that he didn't have a clue that Kyla and Carmen had had a thing, a passionate, romantic, emotional _thing_. Me? I didn't share that opinion. He and Kyla had been dating a month or so when I just realized that he wasn't as clueless as Ashley thought. It was the way he held her in public, how he pranced around with Kyla in the classes they shared with Carmen and practically tried to drown her in kisses and drool. He was purposely stacking his claim on Kyla whenever Carmen was within a hundred feet of the couple.

At first I thought it was just his clumsy way of trying to keep Kyla, but later I think he just kinda got off on flaunting it. He was stung by the fact that Ashley, who I guess was his first love, turned out to be gay. Maybe he felt responsible for that, maybe that was why he got such joy out of rubbing it in Carmen's face that he'd turned a girl straight again. Either way it was a screwed up, hurtful thing to do to Carmen in those last months, hurting her everyday to boost his frail little ego.

So no, I don't really regret planting his sorry ass on the floor, I simply regret that it seemed to set everyone else off. Everyone else being Madison, Glen, Ashley, Cindy and Mindy the vapid and bi-curious twins, as well as half the graduating class of 1998. And of course Kyla, whose mother bear instincts kicked in because of all those baby hormones. Boy, did they ever kick in! I don't think you understand a mother's need to protect what she perceives as her family, until you see her shove a woman's head into a bowl of peanuts rather forcefully, all the while yelling like she was Xena the freakin' Warrior Princess! Actually, that part was kinda scary. I'm never,_ ever_, pissing of a pregnant lady, because I might end up with peanuts stuck up my nose and a split lip too, just like Aiden's wife.

Anyway, back to the part where I tackled Aiden and all hell broke loose. I was just starting to get up, my poor wrist back to throbbing with pain, when someone started beating me about the head with what turned out to be a clutch bag. It was actually a pretty nice bag, all black suede with these little glittery things worked into the corners, but the fact that it kept impacting with first the back of my head and then my face, pretty much made it lose it's appeal in my eyes.

"Get off my husband! Get off him, you crazy bitch!"

It was at this point that one of those nice sequence things almost removed one of my eyes. Thankfully Carmen seemed to recover a bit from her panic and she stepped forward, taking the woman by the shoulder and pulling her away from me. Only to get an elbow in the face and a gushing nose bleed. Chaos as you might expect, erupted. Kyla was there in a flash, hand grabbing a fist full of hair and yanking for all she was worth, Ashley came in swinging the minute Kyla was involved, but before she could reach her sister Madison decided to join the party by getting in her way trying to reach me.

"She's crazy, she threatened to shoot me! Maybe she's got a gun!"

So Ashley did the only thing she could to shut Madison's crazy screaming, she tripped her and sent the angry woman sprawling, getting dragged down in the process. Then suddenly I was on my feet, an angry Aiden in my face and Glen showing up with his version of the cavalry: Mindy and Cindy.

"Jesus, would you all stop! Aiden, I didn't mean to..."

I didn't get out a word more than that, because Aiden got bumped from behind by one of the wonder twins and crashed into me, making me almost fall back on my ass, but I was stopped when Glen managed to reach out and steady me.

"Don't touch my fucking sister, Dennison, or I swear to God I'll kick your ass!"

Needless to say that after what happened to Clay, Carmen and myself, Glen has become very protective. He was seeing red, a little drunk and confronted by a pretty damn big guy pushing me around. Still, it was Aiden that threw the first punch, because Glen was smart enough not to start it.

At this point I gave up and let whatever sanity I'd been clinging to slip away. I turned to find Madison practically pounding on Ashley, Kyla trying to throttle Aiden's wife and Carmen trying to drag Kyla off the poor woman.

Instinct took over and I walked over to Madison, ignoring years of training on the force and not putting her down cleanly, but leaning over and taking a hold of part of her dress and her thong beneath it, yanking up for all I was worth. The squeal she gave was pretty satisfying, as was the look on Ashley's face when she realized what I'd done, but it was knowing that I'd finally done the one thing I had fantasized about doing for the last months of my Senior Year that really filled my chest with a warm, accomplished feeling.

"I have to tell you Madison, I've wanted to do that to you ever since I was eighteen years old and the wait just made it better. Hope I wedged that prejudiced stick a little deeper up your ass in the process, you small minded slut!"

Then a few of Madison's old cheerleading cronies joined the party and I went down like a ton of bricks, 'cos some of those chicks? Let's say it looks like they didn't just eat too much McDonald's, they actually swallowed Ronald McDonald himself. It didn't help that Cindy and Mindy decided to lend me a hand and jumped into the body heap, simply adding to the pile of people on top of me.

So here I am, trapped underneath a bunch of ex-cheerleaders and a set of twins that has me wondering if they had to actually share a brain between them, probably a minute away from getting smothered to death. It doesn't help that I can clearly hear that around us the hall has turned into a battle ground, with seemingly anyone who ever held a grudge over something that happened back in high school, taking the opportunity to get their own back.

"You slept with my girlfriend behind my back, you pig!"

"You cheated me out of that spot on the team, dickhead!"

"You got me pregnant and ran away, you asshole! I hope your balls rot and fall off!"

"Everyday for four years I had to listen to you calling me a fat, ugly geek, well honey, whose fat and ugly now, huh? And that Ferrari parked out front? Yeah, the geek part worked out pretty well for me thank you very much. So think about that next time you climb into your little Honda and drive to work at Wal-Mart!"

"Crabs, you gave me fucking Crabs! And the sex wasn't even good!"

And so it goes, accusations being shouted and the sound of fists and palms making contact with flesh accompanying it sometimes. God, what a way to go, getting crushed while listening to grown men and woman revert back to petty children, shoving each other on the playground. Okay, so maybe five minutes ago I gave into my own inner petty child, but I'm over that now.

And oh God, what the hell is happening now? If this is Madison grabbing my ankle and not so gently pulling me out from under this screaming, scratching pile of bodies, I'm going to really loose it, I swear!

Of course it's not Madison, lucky for her, but Ashley that I see when I finally roll onto my back, taking large gulps of air to celebrate my freedom. She's got one hand restraining Kyla and the other still firmly wrapped around my ankle, her eyes big as she just stands there and stares down at me.

"Uhm...nice underwear, Spence."

It's Kyla that alerts me to that fact that yes, I'm actually flashing my panties to the entire graduating class. Well, those who aren't too busy beating someone else up to notice anyway. I scramble up and shove my dress down, hating that tonight of all nights I decided to wear the gag gift Carmen bought me last year for my birthday, a little blue G-String that had a sexy police officer with cuffs dangling from her fingers on the front, boldly proclaiming "OFFICER SEXY!" above the picture. Oh curse novelty underwear, curse it to _hell_!

"I suggest we get the hell out of here before we discuss Spencer's underwear choices any further, okay?"

Ashley was twitching as she spoke, looking around at the various wrestling and verbal shouting matches around us the whole time and it reminded us all that there were more pressing matters than my underwear indeed. Like Carmen still dripping blood from her nose and Ashley's blackening eye. Madison really does pack a punch by the looks of it, but something tells me Ashley gave as good as she got by the small, smug smile she gives when she catches me looking her over.

"Right, let's get a move on. I think I'm five seconds away from having a full on panic attack and I'd rather not do that in public."

The tone in Carmen's voice immediately sends me into motion, brings my mind into focus and I step towards her, taking her hand.

"Come on, I've got you. It's alright, I won't let anyone hurt you, okay? I'm here now, it's safe."

Carmen's face is pale and she's sweating, her body quivering minutely as she swallows. I haven't seen her this way in a very long time, but I remember well enough how this goes, how if I let it go any further she's going to be a mess within the next few minutes. It got so bad once when this guy in a bar came on really strong that my mom had to give her a shot to put her out. She's the strongest person I know, but sometimes even she gets thrown back into a place where there's nothing but terror for her. I can't even pretend to understand what it must have felt like when she got raped, what she went through in her mind that night, but I know it was horrible. The look on her face tells me she's right back there now, what with everything that has happened tonight. With everything that I helped start up...

God, I just keep on hurting people, don't I?

"Yeah, yeah I know, but can we just hurry and get out of here? Please?"

Kyla seems to come out of her rage induced fog, immediately reaching for the obviously distressed Carmen, but I shake my head at her quickly. She understands, I can see that, but she doesn't look happy that she can't reach out and touch Carmen right now. As much as she wants to, it would be a bad idea. Carmen needs space now, needs to feel less threatened, and having someone hold her and make her feel trapped isn't going to help that. That's why I let go of her hand and simply start leading the way towards the door.

Outside in the parking lot, the air is cool and breezy, a few stars managing to twinkle in the clouded sky above us. It's blissfully quiet and I can see Carmen's shoulders dropping slightly, can see some of the tension seep out already. I can't help but breathe a sigh of relief myself to be out of there. Carmen catches my eye and nods once with quiet gratitude in the small action. I just smile back.

"Does anyone else hear that?"

I watch as Kyla stands, head cocked to one side and brows drawn together in concentration, as she seems to strain to hear whatever it is she heard again. Then I hear it, a soft, rhythmic thumping sound coming from somewhere in the parking lot before us.

"I don't know, sounds like a banging sound?"

Kyla nods her head at Ashley, confirming that it's the noise she heard and I'm surprised when we all walk towards the sound in curiosity. Somehow I end up getting pushed to the front of the pack, Ashley off to my left as Kyla and Carmen follow behind us. When I turn back and look at Kyla questioningly, she shrugs.

"What? If that's Jason Voorhees coming back from the dead again you're better equipped to deal with that then we are, right Officer Sexy?"

Ashley snickers at that, but stops abruptly when the sound of a low, seemingly pained groan clearly reaches us.

"Oh God, I was joking! I just jinxed us, didn't I?! Oh God, Oh God, Oh God..."

I shuffle around uncomfortably for a second, watching as Ashley bites her lip and Carmen goes pale again, all the while listening to Kyla curse herself for bringing up fictional serial killers in a dark, deserted parking lot.

Oh grow up, Spence! This is not some horror movie where the pretty girls are ripped apart by the bad guy because they were too dumb to run when they should have! We're four grown woman of reasonable intelligence and this is real life, so pull it together.

"Kyla, calm down. It's probably nothing, maybe someone having trouble with their car or something. You stay here and I'll go check quickly and then we can go on our way."

I can't just walk away, because I am a cop after all and if there is something going on, I can't walk away and risk anyone getting hurt because I didn't at least check it out. So I step forward and just smile when Ashley falls into step next to me wordlessly. We're halfway down the parking lot when I spot the car, the sounds coming cleared and louder and my adrenaline surges when I clearly hear a woman's voice.

"Uh, Spence? I don't think..."

I don't stay to hear what Ashley has to say, I just sprint my way over towards the car as images of a woman getting strangled or beaten flashes through my mind. So I'm in full cop mode when I charge right up to the car and fling open the door, only to be greeted by the sight of painfully white buttocks and...well..._balls_.

Hairy, disgusting balls. I think I might throw up for the second time in two days...

"What the hell?! Lady, close the fucking door will ya!"

I'm still blinking in surprise and horror when Ashley strolls on up and stops next to me, biting her lip in an obvious attempt to keep from bursting into laughter.

"Well, I was about to say I don't think the sounds mean anyone is in trouble, Spence, but I guess you saw that for yourself now, huh?"

Then a red head peeks out the door and I almost swallow my tongue when I recognize Ellen Short from my math club days staring up at me. On closer inspection I realize that Mr Hairy Balls and White Butt is actually Tristan Marks, who played on the basketball team with Glen and Aiden. Well hell, who'd have thought they'd end up screwing in the parking lot on the night of our High School reunion?!

"Uhm...sorry, I thought...well, I guess...uh...sorry."

Then I simply slam the door shut again, almost flattening Ellen's nose in the process, and back the hell up from the shag wagon.

"Don't say a word, if you do I'm gonna hurt you, understand?"

Ashley seems to take my warning to heart, because she's back to biting her lip even as her nose crinkles up with mirth and her brown eyes practically gleam with humor. It seems like every drop of blood in my body seems to rush to my face and I'm pretty sure my cheeks are bright enough to light up the parking lot. God, where's a good rock to crawl under when you need it, huh?

Then Kyla and Carmen are walking up to us, both looking curiously at my red face and the smirking Ashley.

"What happened? Why are you all...tomato looking?"

I don't know what to tell Kyla honestly, not really liking the idea of them knowing what an ass I just made of myself, so I just push past them, muttering as I go.

"'Cos balls are really scary looking, okay?"

That's when Ashley finally loses it and almost cries she's laughing so hard, leaving Kyla and Carmen standing there bemused as they watch me walk away. I find myself thinking that it might be better to go back inside the to the Royal Rumble that's probably still in full swing, but that idea is quickly shot down when I finally register the sound of a police siren heading our way.

Right, of course, someone called the police and with my luck, it would be some officer I know. I'd never live it down if it came out that I ended up in a school brawl, wearing a fancy dress and in high heels no less.

"You know, if I wasn't pregnant and well on my way to being the size of a whale, I'd suggest we run away fast at this point."

I turn to Kyla and give her a quick once over, taking in the protruding belly and the bloated feet in her low heeled shoes, nodding my head as I come to a decision.

"We'll just run slowly, okay?"

Then we're off, laughing loudly as we jog in the opposite direction of the now flashing lights and head into the darkness, all of us probably remembering the first time we all ran away from the police together on the night of Aiden's party .

Hell, that night was the start of a lot of things: the initial spark of attraction between Carmen and Kyla, Ashley realizing that she had more than friendly feelings toward me on a bathroom floor of all places...

Yeah, that was quite a night and I can't help but wonder if tonight would turn out to be just as eventful.

- - -

**Alright, if you enjoyed it, I'm glad. I was aiming for that after all! So tell me what you thought. Did this silly chapter help redeem this story, or helped it sink a little quicker?**

**Also who do you want next: Ash, Kyla or Carmen's POV?**


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South of Nowhere, Drama, Romance