Not mine.

This is a story about Carolyn. To make it clearer, Jim and Blair are already dead. Consider yourself warned. Thank you.

Personally I'd have liked to have left out the death warning.

If it had rained slightly harder she'd have missed the funeral. As it was, the minute she landed in Cascade she heard the announcer say all flights were grounded.

She took a cab to the church and found they were already burying Jim out back. So she walked like she knew where she was going, careful not to let her good shoes stick in the muck. If she'd had an ounce of sense, she told herself severely, she'd have worn closed and sensible shoes.

If she'd had an ounce of sense she wouldn't be here at her ex-husband's grave, using up the last three days of her leave during the holiday rush. "The Christmas Strangler, the Chanukah Killer and three unidentified terrorist threats. Don't hurry back Plummer, forensics will be just fine without you."

Maybe if she went back tonight she'd still have a job.

She came up to the funeral party just as they were filling in the first grave. Simon turned and saw her, but waited till she walked to him instead of going to her.

He took her hand and squeezed it briefly. "Glad you could make it." As if he were the bereaved.

Carolyn returned the pressure and let go. After all it was the truth.

She was introduced to the family after they finished burying Blair.

"Naomi Sandburg, Blair's mother. This is Carolyn Plummer."

She took the woman's hand, noting that she smiled bravely though her face was very pale. No makeup and unashamed tearstains on her cheeks. Carolyn realized she hadn't heard a sound from the woman during the funeral. Perhaps she cried in church. Perhaps she cried because she was in a church, metaphorically of course.

The rabbi took himself off with some murmured condolences.

Courtesy mourners from the PD, mostly new faces except for Rhonda and Brown. Joan was there, a relative distance from Simon but of course they'd been divorced almost as long as she and Jim had been, and was that Darryl? When had he grown so tall?

He hugged her, smelling of cologne and aftershave. Her face tucked easily into the crook of his neck. As she pulled away, his mother came to greet her.

"Joan."

"Carolyn." They clasped hands uneasily.

"How are you?"

"Good."

"Life treating you well?"

"Fine. The usual."

Joan nodded. Oh yes, she knew. Even when they double dated they'd never gone bowling on Saturday nights because the comrades-in-arms Jim, Carolyn and Simon would rather be playing pool or watching the game. It had always ended up being the PD three and Joan. Carolyn remembered that as two men she didn't know approached her.

"William Ellison." The older man put out his hand. His son, so obviously his son said, "Stephen," and stood, a prop to his father as Carolyn took his hand and held it a while.

"I'd have liked to have known you," William said as if it were her funeral or maybe his. Stephen said nothing, face far too much like his brother's had been when under stress or experiencing extreme emotion. Painful to watch. Easier to look away. But the only other thing in sight was the man who should have been her father-in-law and the incongruous strangeness of it all was suddenly too much.

"Where are you staying?" Stephen asked and he sounded nothing like Jim, which made it easier for Carolyn to answer, "I thought I'd," no, but they might offer her a room so she amended it to, "I have to get back tonight," which was what she intended to do.

"Oh." William Ellison let go her hand. "In which case we might as well have the reading now. Stephen?"

"Reading?" She didn't want to stay and hear of any bequests her late - Jim, might have made. They were strangers now, so much so that even showing up for his funeral was almost inappropriate. But Ellison senior insisted. The other mourners seemed happy for the reprieve.

There was a vestry room they could use and one of the new faces turned out to be the Ellison lawyer. Incongruous and embarrassing, all of it, like some badly orchestrated symphony performed especially for her benefit.

The will was relatively unexciting. She supposed Jim might remember her with some small bequest.

She grinned. Then again, she had already taken all the good china.

"To my beloved wife Carolyn, the building at 852 Prospect with all attendant -"

To my beloved wife?

"What?"

The lawyer looked over his spectacles at her. "Would you like me to repeat that?"

"Would I like you to - no!" she looked around and saw Simon look away, Ellison senior turn to her expectantly.

"I can't accept this." She tried.

After a pointed pause, the reading continued. Carolyn was forced to shut up and grit her teeth. To my beloved wife? When had he written this, 1993?

Jim hadn't changed it much then, only the codicil, 'To my friend and partner Blair Sandburg, I leave the loft to be his home' she tuned out the rest until she was certain she could speak again.

"Are there any questions?"

"Yes!" She lowered her voice. "I mean, I can't accept this."

The lawyer looked at her sympathetically. "I know this must come as a shock, but he," wheels turning, gears clicking away as he repeated platitudes, after all this mustn't be anything new to him, he probably had loads of cases where people left their ex-spouses all their worldly goods.

Both his spouses. Jimmy. You.

She knew what her father would say. "Think of it as Jimmy honoring his wedding vows. All of them, the bigamist." Her father was Anglican but with a sense of humor.

And now Jim's father was watching her with a look of - hope? - something in his eyes that made her set her teeth and pay attention as the legal eagle continued, "However you and Ms. Sandburg might care to stay back afterwards and discuss this."

Why?

The lawyer averted his eyes delicately and coughed. "Ms. Sandburg is Detective Sandburg's legal heir. Now as per the terms of Detective Ellison's will, you inherit the building and Detective Sandburg inherited one part of the premises. Since it cannot be established whether Detective Ellison pre-deceased Detective Sandburg,"

"Shut up." That was William Ellison not her. The lawyer summed up in a tone of respectful burbling.

Naomi Sandburg didn't speak at all, only looked at William Ellison till he had to turn away. So in the end Carolyn was left with the keys to the loft at 852 Prospect and Simon hovering uneasily by her side as the Ellisons left, William Ellison leaning on his remaining child as he said goodbye to her.

"Goodbye."

"Mr. Ellison."

"Call me William. Please."

She was embarrassed by his urgency.

Stephen Ellison gave her his card. "If you need any help,"

"Thank you."

"Carolyn," William again, "If I may call you Carolyn?"

"Please."

He smiled tremulously and she realized he was an old, old man on the verge of tears. "If you are in town this Christmas I would love for you to come meet the family."

The family. Carolyn smiled, feeling her face stretch painfully.

William pressed her hand. "We should have met years ago. Jimmy... he loved you very much." That last more of a hope than a certainty so she could only murmur something inaudibly while he moved away, hand gripping Stephen's shoulder like he couldn't bear to lose this son too.

Carolyn waited till they were well gone before turning on Simon with a vengeance.

"Did you know about this?" The keys rattled in her hand.

Simon cleared his throat. Naomi put her hand on his shoulder. "Captain, please."

It was addressed to her of course.

"I think we should all just go home."

Home. Carolyn looked at this woman, mother of Blair Sandburg and suppressed an urge to yodel, YES!

I just want to go HOME

My home. Not the loft.

Simon spoke quickly as if he knew what she was close to saying. "I'll take you both. Do you have any bags?"

Two. He carried them to his car. She made one token protest.

"I could go to a hotel."

"Nonsense." That was Naomi, brisk and quasi-maternal. "Every nice place is booked out for the Christmas season." A little softer. "I already tried."

So she was staying at the loft. Carolyn decided she really didn't have any feelings on the matter.

--

852 Prospect. Once upon a time this had been home.

"Carolyn?" Naomi was speaking to her. "You have the keys."

She unlocked the door and stepped through, carrying her bags. She'd insisted Simon not come up with them. He'd been glad to get away of course.

The air smelled clean and Carolyn inhaled reflexively wondering just what she'd been expecting. Dust? In Jim's house? She'd taught him too well for that.

Blood, the thought came to her. She'd been expecting blood and the dry musty smell of bodies decomposing. Flash of the autopsy room and the evidence holding unit just next to it, bodies and the piles of work they represented all waiting for her attention.

Naomi was standing next to her taking a bag from her hand.

"It was very quick," she said, like she knew what Carolyn had been thinking. Except she hadn't been thinking of that, only of the work left behind and how much longer before she could get back to it. Still for courtesy's sake and this was all about good manners,

"How did it happen?" she asked. Simon had called her at midnight yesterday, voice level and far too controlled. Funeral. Jim. She'd reacted instinctively, long buried habit patterns instantly resurfacing and she'd promised to take the next flight out. It was only in the clear light of day, faced with her commanding officer and a too-expensive ticket in her hand that she realized Simon had been making a courtesy call. He hadn't expected her to come down and why had she anyway? She hadn't even wanted to see Jimmy die.

Funeral. Not see him die, but buried. She hadn't wanted -

"...drug bust," Naomi said. "I told Blair he would never be able to handle a gun."

To Carolyn's horror the woman's face crumpled.

"I wish I'd been wrong."

She hoped Naomi wasn't going to cry.

Naomi's face straightened.

"I'm in Blair's room if that's alright with you."

"Fine." And Carolyn waited till the woman went into the room, closing the French door behind her before giving in to the pressing need to use the bathroom. There had been too many cups of coffee since last night.

There were different colored towels on the rack, two face flannels, two full-length bath towels. One set was obviously matched in soft green, the other not, stained raffia and zigzag tribal prints.

She opened the medicine closet without feeling a voyeuristic thrill. Just a need for information.

Toothbrushes in two different mugs, two different tubes of toothpaste. The results of the investigation were inconclusive. So she went up the stairs, pausing only to take clean sheets from the laundry closet.

There were no clean sheets or they'd changed the closets. Thinking of the full clothes hampers in the bathroom she figured Jim had been killed on a laundry day.

--

There were still washing machines in the basement and she loaded a bunch of sheets, thanking God and Jim Ellison for his insistence on separating the laundry into three neat heaps - linen, his and his.

Linen, his and his. She'd have expected mutually consenting adults to share the same laundry basket, but that was just her. Maybe Jim had grown more fastidious over the last four years. She'd have expected him to be less finicky but again, she didn't really know him, did she?

He'd left the entire building to her. She was a sleazy tenement landlord, or would be soon. This place needed some serious repainting.

The machine burped and lurched, almost regurgitating the laundry. But it settled down so she went over and took a look at it. Water was filling the main bucket and thank you angel of clean cloth, it looked relatively pure despite the suspicious tubing it was coming through.

Her hands itched with the remnants of detergent. She wiped them on her skirt then brushed the skirt off because the flakes showed. Jim still used the same laundry soap as she did. She wondered which one of them had bought it first and why they'd neither of them changed over after the divorce.

There had been two different brands in the kitchen. She supposed it didn't matter really, just like the single king-sized mattress in Jim's room, with one heap of pillows at the head and blankets at the foot didn't really matter.

There were reading glasses on the nightstand and underneath them a volume of the brothers Karamazov. She hadn't disturbed the arrangement, taking a couple of issues of Time down with her instead.

The basement seemed older than she remembered, full of hidden shadows and too silent, so she almost expected ratty squeaks. But there was a packing case she could sit on and the light really wasn't too dim. And as a ranking police officer she carried a gun with her at all times.

If a rat did appear she wondered if she might actually shoot it. Break the silence. Instead she started reading the magazine, last one first.

December 2000. Jim hadn't even made it to the millennium proper. There was irony in that.

The bulb glowed fitfully. Jim was, had been a rotten landlord. It took her an entire two hours to get past the first article and she gave up on reading while waiting for the dryer to do its work. By the time she walked up with clean, sweet smelling sheets she was far too tired to actually make the bed. Retributive irony. Because she'd already read the brothers Karamazov.

When she closed her eyes she told herself she was asleep.

--

Clock on the nightstand said it was 3.30 in blinking red. Carolyn felt for the alarm. It was a different kind of mechanism and her lips twisted, remembering the Switchman and the other one, what was his name, Lee? Jim had a predilection for getting into trouble with explosive experts. So many cases now, they all ran into each other. San Francisco was shining bright and virtuous compared to Cascade.

Slash of red and she remembered the last case she'd worked on before making the decision to move away. A woman, one of Jim's ex-girlfriends, someone she knew about. Shirley? It must have been awkward for Jim, needing to mourn and still feeling his way with the friendship re-establishing itself between them. She'd done them both a kindness by moving away before anything could happen.

Again. She wasn't the kind to make mistakes twice.

The woman's mouth had been slashed open, face almost cut in two with the violence of the knife. Carolyn closed her eyes then forced them open again, deliberately substituting another memory.

She'd untied Blair's hands once, had to use a penknife to cut through the stubborn knots. He'd not known who she was and as far as she knew he really was Jim's cousin. So when he'd asked her out for drinks she'd thought about it and said no, politely, running into Jimmy's grinning face when she turned around. That had been mildly embarrassing.

Carolyn closed her hands remembering Blair's in them. Damp and he'd groaned a couple of times when she'd pulled too hard getting the bindings off. Complained a little too... had he groaned like that for Jim, she wondered, stretching against sheets that still smelled of him, the impress of his body fitting her own like a comfort. Realizing she really didn't want to know.

She rubbed her face in the pillows wondering if she wanted to cry. Not yet, perhaps she was still in shock. After all she had loved him once.

At 5.30 she went down to start coffee.

--

It was strange to use milk and eggs and bread that had been bought by someone three days dead; stranger to see leftovers in innocuous white Tupperware. Relics of a life cut off, like the unfinished laundry in the bathroom. She supposed it was her job, Naomi's rather to take care of it.

Clean the fridge. Who would do that for her?

She'd taken her first bite of toast when someone knocked on the door. When had Jim uninstalled the doorbell?

Naomi stood outside holding an umbrella, cheeks red. Clad in a too large coat that when she opened it covered flowing draperies.

"It's sleeting outside. Maybe we're finally going to get winter weather."

Carolyn nodded. "I just started breakfast," she said. "Can I make you anything?"

Naomi shook her head. "I'm going to have a cup of tea. Will you join me?"

"Thank you." There was no polite way she could refuse. Coffee was her poison of choice, white and sweetened. But Jim didn't keep creamer around anymore. Perhaps Blair had taken his black.

The tea was hot and sweet and surprisingly comforting. It had grown chillier.

Naomi opened the door and went out to the balcony. Gray skies, lowering weather. Naomi seemed to like it, standing so she could look out over Cascade, robes blowing in the wind. Carolyn shivered, realizing she needed warmer clothes.

She needed clothes period, so she didn't think about it too hard. Upstairs there were sweats in Jim's closet and she took a pair out, along with a bathrobe. Luckily there were extra towels.

Naomi was still on the balcony when Carolyn came down again.

There was more hot water than she remembered. Maybe Jim had put in a new heater. She tipped bath gel into her palm and rubbed slow circles around her breast.

Both hands. She cupped her breasts, performing an unconscious check for lumps. She'd already stood in front of the mirror, deliberately looking herself over but even then. Ever since her mother...

None of that now. But as she soaped her hair she couldn't forget it.

Too many people dead now. Too many lost. It didn't seem fair that she was left to remember.

--

"I spoke to the lawyer," Carolyn told Naomi. The woman shrugged.

"I waive any claims he thinks I might have. Isn't that the legal jargon?"

"As Blair's legal heir," now she was quoting lawyer-talk.

"No mother should have to be her son's heir." This was bitterness. Carolyn did not need bitterness.

"Naomi, I think Blair would have wanted you to have this." She was conscious she spoke rather shortly. She should be more gentle. The woman had lost her son.

"Blair." There was a painful lilt in the way Naomi spoke the name. Carolyn averted her eyes. She didn't want to think about Blair. About more death.

Blair was not someone she knew well enough to mourn.

"Do you think Jim would want me to have his loft?"

"I'm," 'certain' was wrong. She wasn't sure. Not of anything anymore. Not where Jim was concerned and she didn't want to think about Blair.

Blair who she'd thought was her ex-husband's lover, Blair who she'd thought of with some nausea and maybe later a sense of detachment in certain 3 am moments when she wondered if perhaps that was why she and Jim hadn't worked, because he was gay. Though she'd never thought anyone could be that repressed.

Everyone seemed to think the two of them had been lovers. Maybe the will was Jim's way of proving he wasn't, a last attempt to placate his father and leave a proud memory. Maybe she didn't know Jim at all.

Or maybe it was true, that there was agape love that did not include eros. None of which answered the question, would Jim want Naomi to have the loft?

"I think it all depends on what you want, Naomi."

"And what do you want, Carolyn?" Face with features that were too open, eyes too wide, voice too hesitant yet knowing.

Carolyn surprised herself by saying, "I want Jim alive."

--

She shouldn't have said it of course, but it was the truth. If Jim were alive right now she wouldn't have to be dealing with any of this. Wouldn't have to be living in a house that wasn't hers anymore, wouldn't be hers because Jim had had too much refinement to outright give it to her - take the building, leave the loft for Blair. Blair who hadn't been able to cover his partner's back, who'd left them both wide open to be riddled with bullets, early Christmas present Jim.

No. No, that wasn't fair.

They'd shelved the topic of inheritance for a while; Naomi putting together a curry for lunch while Carolyn went upstairs and looked through Jim's things.

Tacit understanding - each was responsible for a man. Naomi had balked when Carolyn suggested she might want to look through Jim's closet, saying only that if Carolyn found anything she thought Naomi might want...

This for example, bound works of Proust with 'To Jim from Blair' inscribed on the flyleaf.

Carolyn put it back in the living room for consideration. She hadn't read Proust yet but maybe Naomi would.

Clothes, clothes, a bound work - oh.

Oh. Carolyn took it out. The famous dissertation.

She left it on the bed and continued sorting. Nothing incriminating, not even dirty pictures.

He'd kept her letters though. She didn't know how to deal with that.

--

"It was my fault," Naomi said, stirring the orange, spicy mess. "I sent Blair's dissertation to a friend and it leaked."

Carolyn said nothing, just drank her beer.

She'd only come in for a beer. The dissertation lay on the counter between them, innocuous in itself, just like the Tupperware containers she'd cleaned out and washed, wishing she dared throw them away.

"Blair would have never wanted anything to happen to Jim."

"Why did he write it then?"

Naomi didn't stop stirring. "He told me later he intended to keep the identity of his subject secret."

Carolyn arched her brows. "Really? Can you do that? For a scientific thesis?"

Naomi laid her spoon down on the counter, splattering orange. Carolyn winced.

"Blair would never have wanted anything to happen to Jim." Her voice was shaking, Carolyn realized. Realized with a shock that she was being asked, not told. Asked for forgiveness.

Tears ran down Naomi's cheeks, overflowing from her eyes. "He was his best friend. Blair would have never,"

"I know," Carolyn said quickly. Naomi looked away.

After a while she laughed, wiped her eyes. Picked up the spoon.

"There'll be too much salt in this curry if I keep this up. Salt destroys the flavor."

Carolyn went into the living room to read the dissertation. She'd barely opened it when Naomi came out and started setting the table. Of course then she had to get up and help her.

--

It took her all afternoon and most of the evening to finish reading. She lay in Jim's bed, the scent of incense wafting upwards as Naomi meditated by the light of a dozen candles.

Lucky she wasn't hungry. Naomi had been meditating four hours straight and she didn't want to disturb her.

"Would you like to join me?" Naomi had asked. "It clears the mind and relieves the body of harmful poisons." Very dryly adding, "It also elevates grief."

"Thank you." Carolyn had waved the book at her. "I want to read this." Naomi had nodded and begun lighting bundles of sage.

Carolyn moved upstairs when her eyes started watering, though that might have been due to the chill wind blowing in from the open balcony.

"It'll clean the house," Naomi said, bright-eyed and Carolyn didn't remark. At least she wasn't wallowing in her grief but elevating it, whatever that meant.

Low chanting from below as she read the closing sentence. Then silence barely covering the sound of movement.

The book lay half open, pages down on her stomach, a welcome pressure as she did her own version of clearing the mind, one arm bent under her head, hand rummaging under the pillow and finding a sleep mask. She drew it out, testing the elastic with both hands.

Footsteps on the stairs. For a moment Carolyn wondered if she could pretend to be asleep, then put the mask away.

Naomi paused, meeting her eyes.

Carolyn sat up.

Naomi held up something that looked like a large scrapbook. "I found these photographs," she said, laughing a little. The end of her sentence trailing away. "Would you...?"

Carolyn looked down and didn't say anything. After a while she heard Naomi start down the stairs.

--

8.30pm. Naomi had turned off the lights downstairs and was awake or asleep in Blair's room with the doors closed.

Carolyn's cell phone rang.

"Yes."

"Plummer." She didn't recognize the voice.

"Yes?"

"It's John. Mackenzie."

Detective Mackenzie. Johnny. Calling her. How sweet.

He coughed. "How are you?"

"Fine."

"Is there anything,"

"I'm fine, really John."

"OK." She heard someone call him, heard him say, "One minute."

"Sounds busy."

"Yeah you know. The Strangler."

"I thought we had him?"

She could almost see him shrug. "Maybe it's a copycat."

Maybe.

"Have you-"

"What time does your flight get in tomorrow?" he interrupted.

"9 pm. How do you know I'm coming back tomorrow?"

"I asked."

"Okay."

"See you Plummer."

"See you John-boy."

She heard him laugh before clicking off the phone. It had been like that once before. Nothing like violence and homicide to foster close ties.

She'd teased Jim about it once, that the most romantic thing he'd ever done for her had been staying back to help her with paperwork. He'd countered by getting them tickets to the playoffs. And the Jags won that year, and she won fifty bucks from him too. She hadn't wanted much else then.

Later...

Carolyn sat up in bed, drawing her legs under her. Holding her phone. She sat like that till well after midnight.

After midnight she went downstairs and saw Naomi sitting on the couch.

--

"Sound carries," Naomi said. "I'm sorry."

Carolyn shook her head, sat down next to her. Glad it was dark, that they didn't have to see each other though she'd never been so conscious of another body so close to touching.

Naomi turned to her. "Is he nice?"

Carolyn shrugged. "Sometimes he reminds me of Jim."

"Oh," Naomi shook her head. "Don't do that. I spent, oh, I spent twenty years looking for one man in a hundred faces."

That wasn't what she had meant. Still.

"Who was he?" She shouldn't have asked that.

"I don't know." And she shouldn't have answered. Even the bittersweet, "Blair was a gift. Maybe it was always him."

Oh.

"I'll always regret not knowing Jim better. He was a good friend to Blair."

Carolyn nodded, not knowing what else was needed. 'Vice versa' maybe, except that wasn't true, not tonight. Still, sacrifices demand reciprocity.

"You did the best you could for him," offered Carolyn, meaning 'Blair'. "He knew you loved him very much."

"Yes," whispered Naomi, moving the infinitesimal distance required to lay her head on Carolyn's shoulder. Only for a moment so brief it could have been a dip of her neck as she got up. Left without saying goodnight.

Left Carolyn sitting on the couch wondering about forgiveness. Wondering if that was the reason why Jim had named her in his will. If he'd wanted one part of him sacrosanct and Sandburg-free, if he'd allowed her in only because he knew she wouldn't touch it.

People said hate was only love that had turned its back. So what happens when hate sours?

Neutrality. The beginnings of friendship. And sometimes, love.

Suddenly she got up and went to the bathroom, flung open the medicine cabinet and stared at the tooth-mugs. They may have been brand new. They may not have been. Whatever - she closed her eyes as her gut clenched in pain - the truth was it really wasn't any of her business.

--

She did Jim's laundry in the end because she needed to wash the clothes she'd borrowed from him. She sorted out the shirts and socks and made neat bundles for the Salvation Army.

Naomi hadn't touched the one full hamper in the bathroom.

They'd come to a tacit understanding by the simple expedient of not discussing it. The loft would be hers as long as she wanted it. Then she'd talk to Carolyn.

"You'll tell me if you ever consider selling," Naomi asked hesitantly.

"Of course." Except she didn't intend to consider anything in Cascade at all. There was nothing left for her here, no memories, no one she cared about -

That wasn't true. If she chose to care. But. She didn't.

Carolyn laughed, a short, heart-wrenching giggle. How long since she'd been doing what she'd only ever accused Jim of? Lights off, no one home... maybe it was true, marriage did make two people one flesh.

Maybe.

William Ellison didn't call, for which she was pathetically grateful.

Naomi kissed her on the cheek as she lifted her bags and prepared to leave.

"Thank you," said Naomi.

"Take care," answered Carolyn. She didn't say 'what for?'

Simon drove her to the airport and bought her coffee.

"Don't be a stranger," and he bussed her cheek so she kissed him back. "You too."

They exchanged cards before she went in.

When the plane finally took off she looked out of the window as it circled over Cascade, seeing the lights and telling herself she was never coming back here again.

That was when she started to cry.

--

John was waiting for her like she'd known he would be, so she was glad she'd scrubbed her face clean. Twice. Even then he stood, hands behind his back, scrutinizing her face.

Carolyn smiled at him uneasily. Hoping he hadn't brought her flowers.

He unclasped his hands and strode forward to take her bags. "You look tired," he said in passing.

Carolyn told herself she wasn't disappointed.

They were more or less silent in the car; only once they were out on the freeway John did ask, "Family?" and she realized he didn't know why she'd gone back to Cascade.

"Used to be." She figured he'd understood because he didn't say anything after that.

He knew where she lived even though he'd not been there yet and carried her bags up without asking. She didn't tell him she could do it herself.

At the door he released both bags and looked at her so she stopped with one hand still holding the key in the lock.

"What?"

He gripped her shoulders and leaned forward, softly placing a kiss on her cheek. Then moved back, still holding her eyes with his.

What was that for? was what she should have said, except her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth. And she could feel her palms sweat.

"Ask me tomorrow," John said, like he knew what she was thinking. Squeezed her shoulders. "See you Plummer."

See you John-boy. Was what she should have said.

Carolyn shook her head to clear it as he retreated down the stairs. Not even looking back. Not even waiting for the elevator because that would have meant staying on the same floor.

She blinked away moisture. Real men didn't use elevators.

For some reason that made her cry again.

~ End.

Ask me if there's something you don't get. Or otherwise. Always nice to hear from you.

End Not without a whimper by Spyke: spyke_raven@yahoo.com

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