LOVE AT FIRST DATE

Chapter 17: Her Faux Pas

"Surely you, of all people, had to know what her reaction would be!"

"Yes, dear," Tony smirked with his back turned, amused to find how well his voice was able to so subtly pull off an imitation of a henpecked husband. As badly as he wanted to test out the "whatever you say, dear" part, he consciously fought the temptation for fear of Michelle catching on and chastising him for yet another five solid minutes.

"Are you even listening to me?" she asked in a distinctly irritated tone, watching him dig through the bottom of his closet on his hands and knees, indiscriminately selecting shoes and shaking them upside-down.

"Yes, dear," he dared to repeat, grateful he had his back to her, sparing himself the added burden of having to maintain a straight face. "I'm insensitive," he repeated her earlier charge, struggling to suppress another chuckle under his breath.

"I can see your shoulders shaking, you know. I'm not blind," she grumbled, fully aware of the good time he was having yessing her to death, with feebly cloaked responses smothering in obsequiousness.

Feeling it probably prudent to quit while he was barely ahead, Tony smirked in silence as he sifted through the remainder of his shoes only to come up empty. He exhaled a deep sigh. He could've sworn he'd finally decided to stash the microcontroller inside a shoe after having thought long and hard about a variety of places that Mrs. Sanchez's grandbrats were least likely to find it. Only now it was he who couldn't find it.

But it was definitely somewhere in the bedroom. He'd never have left it in his office down the hall, knowing it was the boys' favorite room to invade whenever they were able to steal a few unsupervised minutes behind their grandmother's back. Basilio always took abundant delight in religiously leaving behind some form of signature evidence to taunt him, like the half-eaten, open-faced peanut butter sandwich Tony had found adhered face-down to his keyboard the last time they were over.

The peanut butter, all but autographed by Basilio's hand, was also the kid's way of daring him to rat him out to his grandmother, Tony knew, which would give Basilio license to legitimately call him a "snitch" or a "stool pigeon" to his face for the rest of his life. But Tony had resolved long ago to deny Basilio such satisfaction, opting to pay the little punk back in other, more creative ways. Like the time Basilio had stashed a cheesy, cheap-sex Detective magazine under Tony's bed, knowing that his grandmother would come across it while vacuuming. After Mrs. Sanchez had indeed found and handed him the tawdry periodical with a disapproving tsk and frown, Tony had hit the web that evening, investing over an hour — and $22.00, plus shipping and handling — locating a vintage issue of National Geographic with topless Ubangi tribal women adorning the cover, which he slipped into Basilio's school backpack at the first available opportunity. Rumor had it that things got a little rough for Basilio when, come homework time, he'd dumped his backpack's contents onto the family's dining room table, nearly giving his grandmother a coronary and provoking a mild asthma attack in his older sister.

"Whoa, whoa... What are ya doing, honey? Don't... not there!" he said in alarm after catching a glimpse over his shoulder of Michelle crawling across the bed, apparently on her way to settle in for a quick power-snooze.

"Huh?"

"Don't move," he panicked, speedily whisking her off the bed as though he were snatching her from the jaws of a Great White. "That Old Spice on your dress is gonna get all over the sheets and seep right through to the mattress," he fretted, realizing how much he'd just sounded like Michelle in high-neat mode, but nonetheless relieved that he'd turned around in time to prevent her from making full-figure contact with the bedding.

"So? What if it does?" she said, shocked and somewhat annoyed to find herself on her feet again, right back where she had started. "I like the scent of Old Spice. Don't you?"

"Yeah, on my Dad. Not on the sheets," Tony grumbled, taking the added precautionary measure of moving her by the shoulders a few more feet away from the bed. "It's not something I wanna be inhaling in the middle of... things..."

"Why not?" she asked.

"'Cause it'll make me think of... well... you know..."

As soon as he'd said it, he realized that, no, Michelle likely didn't know. One would have to have grown up with parents to know the jolting, horrifying feeling associated with mentally envisioning their parents "doing it," and knowing for a fact that they had to have definitely done it at least once in their marriage in order for oneself to even be alive today. Worse was the likelihood that they'd even been totally naked while doing it, which was the kind of life-altering stuff that made eight-year-olds reflexively gag, thirteen-year-olds freeze in their tracks, twenty-five-year-olds yell at the dog for no good reason, and thirty-seven-year-olds lose their staying power right in the middle of "doing it" themselves.

Since he had every intention of engaging in a Michelle-athon all afternoon, Tony knew that the cologne wafting up from his sheets was bound to prompt at least one vivid mental flash of his parents engaged in hot, sweaty, heathen sex, which was all it would take to effectively pull the plug on equipment vital to the lovemaking process.

"No, I don't know. What?" Michelle predictably asked, his blundering statement having activated her internal need-to-know mechanism, just like clockwork.

"How come neither of your aunts ever got married?" he responded, his change in subject so abrupt that it even made his own eyebrows arch a little.

"What's that got to do with Old Spice and the bed sheets?" she promptly busted him in her usual, inimitable manner.

"Just... just answer the question," he grumbled in frustration, having no reasonable explanation beyond the truth — one good flash of his parents doing pagan things to each other and he'd be out of commission for God only knew how long. Besides, he didn't want to raise the subject of her parents again, knowing that the chance of saying something wrong, and irritating her even more, was somewhere up in the ninety-percentile.

Sinking to his knees, he peered around under the bed, wondering if the grandbrats might've ransacked his closet and stashed the chip where they knew he would have to literally crawl on his stomach like a reptile to retrieve it.

"Answer the Old Spice question and then I'll tell you anything you want to know about my aunts," Michelle bargained with him to no avail, making note of how perfectly perched the rear pockets of his jeans were for a well-placed, well-deserved kick right about now.

"What on earth are you looking for, anyway?" she tsk-ed him.

"Just a chip that I wanted to install while I was thinking about it," he sighed, growing more and more certain by the second that Basilio's grubby little fingerprints were all over its disappearance. He pulled his head out from under the bed and rose up to find the forlorn pout of a decidedly unhappy camper.

"What's the matter, baby. C'mere," he said, easing her in for a comforting embrace. "What's got ya so outta sorts, huh? I know it's not my insensitivity. You're used to that."

"I don't know," she murmured, feeling about as energetic as the average corpse. She had intended to look up the typical morning-after symptoms of barbiturates on his computer, which would have simultaneously offered her a primo chance to snoop around his office a bit. But even now, with ample time, ripe opportunity, and legitimate circumstances calling out her name, she couldn't quite conjure the firepower to drag herself down the hall.

"Still tired?" he asked rhetorically, figuring her irritability was primarily owed to the grogginess that she seemed to be having a lot of trouble shaking off. She might also be feeling naturally whacky, he figured, from that "monthly" state she was in.

"I guess so," she yawned against his chest as he felt his heart sink at the prospect of her sleeping away even so much as a few of the precious hours they had left together before they'd have to share themselves with the outside world again.

"Come inside with me," he said, gently kissing the top of her head. "I'll fix ya another blast of caffeine."

"No, thanks, dear. I'm really not in the mood," she grumbled, allowing her eyes to slide shut for just a minute.

Tony crooked his head to steal a glance at her face. As much as he was dying to get back into bed, into her arms, into her again, he made the executive decision to take a run to her apartment, instead, so she could gather the clothes she would need for work in the morning. Not only was it a chore that he'd just as soon be done with earlier than later, but it would get her into the fresh air and sunshine, which would undoubtedly go far in clearing her head and revitalizing her energy and spirit.

As he rocked on his heels for a few more quiet moments, he contemplated checking in with Max again and asking about her drowsiness, which seemed excessive and had him a little concerned.

"Want me to help you look for the chip?" Michelle finally murmured through yet another thick yawn, feeling she had better start moving before she literally fell asleep on her feet.

"Nah, that's okay. It'll turn up at some point," he convinced himself as his eyes made another quick scan around the room, this time from the perspective of a seven-year-old bandito. "Besides, I was thinking it's probably a good time to take ya home and get that outta the way," he mumbled, mindlessly scratching the side of his cheek and recalling that, at one point, he had thought about stashing the chip in the dresser drawer amid his boxers, confident that Basilio would rather jump out the high-rise window than make contact with his underwear.

"Home?" Michelle repeated, feeling her head snap back and her heart leap and lodge squarely in her throat, thoroughly startled by the abruptness and casualness with which he had apparently decided to bring their date to a screeching conclusion. "You're thinking of doing that... now?"

"Yeah, well," he replied, "it's a good time, traffic-wise. And it's supposed to rain later. So I'd rather get the drive out of the way while the sun's still out... Okay?"

Huh? Was he really asking if it was okay with her that he had suddenly decided to dump her back at her doorstep, approximately an entire day earlier than previously planned? And for what reason? Was he suddenly bored with her? Tired of the sound of her voice? Sick of looking at her yellow floral dress?

"Well... well, what about the rest of the day... and tonight?" she couldn't help but inquire, feeling herself suddenly beginning to literally swoon in his arms, only not in a good way.

"What about it?" he mindlessly replied, momentarily peeling his eyes away from canvassing the room to stare at her blankly, not quite sure what she wanted to know.

Did her ears just hear correctly? What about it, did he just say — cavalierly, one could even legitimately argue? As in what's the big deal about whether they spend the rest of the weekend together... or not? Did it suddenly not matter to him, one way or the other, or was there something she was missing here? Had he maybe made prior plans and not seen fit to even mention it to her? Or was it a case where he'd already told her, only while she had still been semi-comatose, and had since forgotten about it, or had never really quite absorbed the information in the first place?

"Was there something else you had planned for the day?" she calmly asked, feeling herself oddly growing lightheaded and hotheaded at the same time.

"Nah, nothing special," he shrugged, feeling his concern-o-meter on the rise again from what appeared to be yet another noticeably abrupt shift in her tone and mood. "Just the... y'know, the regular Sunday stuff... Reading the paper, drinking some coffee... Maybe rewiring a couple of peripherals while I'm switching out the chip... if I ever find the damned thing," he mumbled, backing her up a step closer to the dresser and leaning past her to slide open the boxers drawer.

"You're gonna read...the papers...? That's what you were planning on doing today?" she asked with wide eyes and a terse voice.

"Well, uhhh... yeah, I thought I would," he responded cautiously, catching a ring of anger surfacing in her tone. He had actually planned on sinking his teeth, and every other part of himself, into her for the next several hours, but didn't feel like now was such a good time to bring it up, given the less-than-romantic scowl on her face. "Is that okay?" he double-checked on the outside chance that maybe she had something in mind for them, like cashing in one of her checks at the Bank of Almeida — hopefully check number three, if there really was a God.

Somebody please tell her that this wasn't actually happening. He couldn't possibly be ditching her now, preferring the L.A. Times and a double espresso to her company? Was her weariness beginning to ruin his day? Was that it? The weariness she wouldn't even have right now if it hadn't been for the water he had carelessly handed to her?

"I was gonna put The Guns on, too, but that's not 'til tonight... after dark," he reminded her of the rules governing films with a high-testosterone rating. "Why? Was there something else ya wanted to do?"

Like... spend the rest of her life with him, did he mean? Or was he asking if she wanted to try doing it while swinging from the rafters this time, or atop an agitating washing machine, or while standing on her head and whistling Dixie before he deposited her back at her door and raced home to his L.A. Times?

"No... no, not really..."

"So, uhh... ya wanna start getting a move on, then?" he thought he should suggest, given she had barely moved a muscle since he'd laid out the agenda. "I really would love to be back here by the time the rain hits, honey... Hmmm?... Okay?"

Shell-shocked, she stammered out something that sounded like "Yeah, sure," as the hurt began intensifying a hundred-fold per second.

Tony's eyes widened, watching her abruptly snatch her purse and storm away to the bathroom. At least her energy level seemed to be increasing, he looked on the bright side as the door shut behind her with an unusually firm thud.

Please, God, no. This couldn't possibly be happening to her again, she prayed, taking deep breaths as she started to gather the few items she had placed in the drawers and medicine cabinet. He couldn't possibly be just another one of "those" guys, could he? Those wine-em-and-dine-em-and-do-em-and-ditch-em types, to whom she had already fallen prey, like a gullible fool, once too often in her short-lived romantic lifetime. Those slick operators who regarded women in general as little more than convenient semen receptacles, using them to satisfy carnal cravings, then dropping them off at their doorsteps and essentially ignoring their very existences until such time as the urge struck to get it on again. Those terminally insensitive men, who would tell a woman anything she wanted or needed to hear just to... Oh, my God! "Insensitive," did she just hear herself say?

She couldn't believe this was actually happening to her — again! She was furious. Furious and hurt. More hurt than furious. Possibly the other way around; she wasn't sure. Stupid, too. Let's not forget stupid. And gullible: her specialty.

She should've known better. This entire weekend — everything about it — had all been way, way, way too good to be true. Good stuff like that didn't happen to Michelle Dessler. Sexy, handsome heartthrobbers were never interested in her. They could date, boff, or settle down with any woman they wanted, including a supermodel, which Michelle was far from. She looked like a Shirley Temple doll, made by Mattel.

And how could she not have even seen this coming from a couple of zillion miles away? She'd been learning the hard way her entire life, after all, with "those" types and so-called normal men alike. Oh, a big two of them had been desperate enough to actually stay aboard for a couple of years, but she had managed to eventually bore them out of her life as well. One of them had even been a mega-bore himself: an accountant named Edward. Leave it to Michelle Dessler to out-bore a professional bore.

"Hey, y'know, umm... we don't have to go right now, if ya don't want to," Tony said through his side of the sealed door, his fingertips brainlessly picking at a notch of paint that had bubbled up on the frame eons ago.

"No, no. Let's just get this over with," she answered with icy pleasantness, proving conclusively for all the ages that two diametrically opposing tones of voice could indeed be achieved in the same syllable.

He wondered if one of those monthly mood-swing things was possibly in play. "Erratic behavior" was a classic warning sign, he knew. He remembered having read it in one of those men's health magazines, distinctly recalling how surprised he'd been to discover that he'd been misspelling "erratic" with only one "r" his entire life.

"You all right, baby?" he braved it again, fiddling now with what had grown into an eyesore of bare wood from having picked away too much of the paint.

"Of course. Why on earth wouldn't I be?" she coldly replied, grabbing the bent, creased tampon box, with the wrong-size tampons, and stuffing it into her purse, then pulling it out on second thought and placing it smack in the middle of his medicine cabinet, where even a blind man would have to go out of his way to miss it.

One disappointment right after the other. Just like the last man she'd blindly entrusted with her heart for close to two years — Campbell — only to be dumped like a hot potato for a daffy, flirty, cheap blonde who'd thought he was related to the Campbell Soup family. How she even could've dated somebody named "Campbell" in the first place was beyond her. And now, here was Tony Almeida himself — just another one of "those," as her atrocious luck in love would have it — taking his turn at stepping up to the plate and batting her heart clean out of the stadium.

She wasn't about to give him the ego-boosting satisfaction of knowing he had been slick and handsome and sexy enough to leave her pining for more. No way would she give him that. She would simply pretend that she didn't give any more of a hoot about cutting the weekend short than he did; that it had all been great fun and a ton of laughs, but meaningless sex, in the grand scheme of things; that he, unfortunately, didn't quite cut it for her beyond a couple of sordid, devil-may-care days and nights; that she was obviously already in the process of seamlessly moving on to bigger, better, and greener pastures. It would drive him crazy.

"I don't know. Ya just seem a little... I dunno... aggravated, or something. And I was just thinking that maybe..."

"Do I?" she curtly cut him off, yanking the door open and blowing past him with purse in hand. "Now, why would I have any cause to be aggravated... hmmm?" she coldly queried, dropping her purse onto the bed and skimming its contents to be sure she'd retrieved everything that belonged to her, ruining his next conquest's snooping expedition before it ever got started.

Tony took a few ginger steps up behind her and slid his arms around her waist.

"Then how 'bout a smile, ya big grouch," he cooed sweetly and tenderly, snuggling his cheek against hers and giving it a soft kiss.

A smile. How rich. The man wants a smile. Does that not beat all? The man will be dropping dead of old age before he ever sees another smile cross her face. Oh, she'll be perfectly pleasant and polite at the office, of course. And professional, which goes without saying. She'd be darned before she'd allow him, or anybody else, to affect her on a professional level. If there was one thing Michelle Dessler would always be remembered for, it was her stalwart professionalism at all times, under all conditions, circumstances, and pressures. Except when she broke down crying in the hallway last week, but that was technically a family-related matter and didn't really count.

I-love-you.

Wow. All three words. How smooth. One didn't come across that level of smooth too often in a lifetime — fortunately.

As her heart was breaking, she thought seriously about how uncomfortable their working relationship might become if she were to bring a lawsuit for damages resulting from the intoxicated state he had carelessly and recklessly allowed her to fall into last night, with depraved indifference to her human life.

"Y'know, I don't have to install that chip, either," he offered, nuzzling and kissing her ear. "It was just something I had kept putting off, 'cause stuff kept coming up. But if there's something else you'd like to do..."

Stuff. Now she was "stuff." Another one of those nagging pieces of stuff that just kept coming up and deterring him from getting other, legitimately important "stuff" done. That's nice. Well, at least he'd gotten that dinner-and-a-movie "stuff" over and done with. Perhaps he'd like to boff her in her parking lot one last time before dumping her at her doorstep, neatly wrapping "stuff" up with some sort of pithy farewell line, like, "Gee, ya sure know how to show a guy a good time, baby." Then she could punch him and never speak to him outside the office again.

Yet another one for the Michelle Dessler history books, she silently brooded, abruptly taking a step to move herself away from him.

"Look, umm..." he said, gently catching her wrist and drawing her back to him, "I don't know if you're aware of this, honey," he continued in an easy, tender tone, "but you're, umm... behaving a little strangely, and I'm beginning to wonder if maybe..."

"I'm perfectly fine," she responded with enough rigidity in her body and coldness in her voice to give him frostbite.

"See, umm... I don't think you are," he persevered, undaunted. "In fact, I'm starting to get a little concerned..."

Wow, this guy just had pure, premium, grade-A moxie running through his veins, didn't he. Was he actually so morally vacant as to suggest that she was some sort of "strange" oddball for taking sex — make that lovemaking — just a little more seriously than he? For seeing the act as the most supreme form of expressing one's genuine love for another, while he evidently perceived it as little more than a sport? She had bared and shared her soul with him. He had told her that he loved her. And now he was... what? "Concerned" that perhaps she had taken it all just a little too seriously?

"Look, it's probably just one of those mood swings you women get, but I was thinking it might be a good idea to give Max a call, just in case it has something to do with... y'know, the drugs," he bravely ventured.

"Mood swings..." she repeated, to be sure she had heard his sexist comment correctly.

"It's, y'know... possible, honey, considering the time of the..."

"You mean like the kind of mood swings we womenfolk get during our periods?" she innocently inquired, watching his eyes wince in pain. "Yes, our gynecologists tell us that mood swings are quite common during our periods. Fortunately, there's medication for that and a host of other problems, too, like cramps caused by blood clots and..."

"Michelle, Michelle," he flinched and stammered, "just... Honey, look. It's just that you're all upset ... overly upset over basically nothing... and it just came over you out of nowhere. And I was just thinking that I'd rather... y'know, play it safe and get a doctor's take on it, considering all those drugs in your system..."

"Basically nothing," she repeated, abruptly yanking her wrist free. "I see... That's what this weekend has meant to you, hasn't it? Basically nothing..."

His eyes widened in surprise, following her as she took off like a flash through the bedroom door.

"See, now, honey, that's another thing," he gently pointed out as he hurriedly trailed her into the living room. "You're, umm... you're suddenly not making a whole lot of sense, either..."

She was also completely ignoring him now, it was plain to see, as she dialed a number into her cell phone.

"No need to waste your time driving me home, incidentally," she mentioned, courteously and professionally. "Just go... do your chip search and your installation and... oh, and that newspaper-reading marathon you had planned for yourself. I'll see myself home. Thanks anyway," she informed him, shooing him away with the back of her hand.

Tony stared for a quick moment before crossing over to the counter and picking up his own phone.

"That's it," he muttered entirely to himself as he brought up Max's number, feeling no further need to involve a crazy woman in the decision-making process. He should never even have indulged her for as long as he had, in fact. Something was wrong with her and he was just going to do what needed to be done. She would understand later, after these crazy mood swings, or this drug reaction, or whatever the hell was making her certifiable, had eventually passed.

"You and Max go and have a nice afternoon together," she said, already having a good idea of whom he was calling. "Maybe his female patients will stop dropping dead from T.S.S. long enough to free him up for lunch and a couple of holes of golf," she sarcastically hoped for his sake.

"Max? Yeah, Tony Almeida... Yeah, umm... listen, what are the side effects of that stuff she took? She's acting like... No, I mean, like, mental side effects..."

"Yes, may I have the number of a cab company?" Michelle politely and professionally barked into her cell. "Hmm?... Any company. I don't care which... Any name you like. Pick one... Just any company located within the general vicinity of Westwood..."

"Huh?... No, no, not long-term, like addiction. I meant... Hold... hold on a second, Max. One second..." he said, glaring at Michelle. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Yes, any cab company at all within that general vicinity would be fine... Uh-huh... Westwood, yes..."

"Michelle, put that phone down," he demanded. She ignored him. "Michelle...!"

"Well, no, if I had a Yellow Pages handy, I wouldn't have had to call Information to find a... Hmmm?"

"I just ordered you to hang up that phone, Michelle, and I mean right now!" Tony sternly repeated, struggling mightily to keep his anger in check.

"I'm sorry, but could you hold on just a second, please? Some loud-mouthed fool seems to be under the absurd, misguided impression that he lauds some form of authority over me on my days off from work... I'll just be a... Hmm?"

"Max?... Max, I'll have to call ya back... Nah, that's okay. It's not... Wait, wait. Max, y'know that, that PMS business...?"

"9-1-1? No, no, that won't be necessary. I'm armed, but thank you for your concern... Hmm?"

"Can it make a woman go, like... insane? Like, temporarily insane?... Well, I mean, like, making no sense at all... Michelle! You put that damned phone down this second, y'hear me?"

"Or what? Ya gonna put me on report? I'm off the clock, buddy," she glared up and curtly reminded him before returning her attention to her phone conversation. "...I'm sorry. 'Sunnydale Car Service,' did you say?... Yes, that sounds fine..."

"Max, I gotta... Nah, I'll call ya back," Tony said at the end of his wits, snapping his cell shut and tossing it onto the counter.

"Hang up, Michelle! You're not going anywhere in a cab!" he barked at top volume, reminiscent of the scream fest he'd had in her face only last week when she'd refused to disclose Jack's whereabouts, completely ignoring at least a dozen direct orders before she had finally come clean with him.

"Uh-huh... Got it. Thank you so much... No, no, that won't be necessary, really. He's not dangerous. Just an idiot," Michelle assured the concerned operator as Tony fumed with arms akimbo and nostrils flaring.

"I told you to hang that up," he barked at her again, wincing slightly from the power-poke he received to his chest from the end of her cell phone after she'd snapped it shut.

"Now hear this, fat boy. You don't tell me to do anything outside that office. Y'got that?" she snapped, applying a little extra pressure to his chest the second poke around.

"Y'see? Y'see what I mean? 'Fat boy.' That makes no sense, Michelle... Where do ya see fat? Huh? Point it out..."

"Shall we start with your head?" she coldly inquired, blowing past him on her way back to the bedroom.

He stared in silence for a moment as she disappeared into the hallway, returning a few seconds later with her purse.

"I'm taking you to the doctor," he announced under no uncertain terms, picking up his phone to dial Max again.

"I'm not going to the doctor's," she informed him, picking up the slip of paper with the cab company's number on it.

"Yeah, ya are," he said in a low, determined voice, having no intention of arguing about it another minute further. "Yeah, me again. Look, I hate to ask ya on a Sunday, and all, but I need to bring Michelle over. Something's not right with the way she's..."

"Hi, Sunnydale? Yes, could you please send a car to..."

"Yeah, entirely out of the blue... Nah, I don't know what the hell triggered it," he said, deftly popping Michelle's phone out of her hand and pocketing it, much to her surprise and chagrin. "Okay, good. I'll see ya over there," he said and snapped the phone shut. "Get ready. We're leaving in two minutes," he grumbled, not really angry with her, but with the circumstances that were hard at work screwing up the lazy day of blissful romance and sweet serenity he had planned to share with the woman he loved, transforming the stimulating picture in his mind into one big, thick cloud of black smoke.

"There is nothing wrong with me. I am not going to the doctor's. And you are gonna stop bossing me around starting this second, mister. Is that understood?"

He ignored her, gathering his wallet and phone and glancing around for his keys. As he approached, Michelle could tell from the look in his eye that he was determined to physically carry her out to the car if it came to that, flashing that badge of his at anyone who sought to interfere.

"Fine. You want to waste more of your precious weekend with me? Fine. You can drive me home. But I'm not going to the doctor's and that's final," she snapped.

"Look, I don't want to fight about this, Michelle. You're clearly... Michelle, wait... Wait up!" he called out as she disappeared like a flash through the door.

He hustled the keys through the series of locks, then tore down the hallway and made a right, but she had evidently caught an elevator in the interim. With visions of her out on the street in search of a cab, Tony bounded down the fire stairwell in a mild panic, panting hard but immensely relieved when he found her waiting impatiently by the passenger side of his car.

It was all Michelle could do to hold back the tears as she watched his body moving toward her. The massive heartache was already setting in. She dreaded the weeks and weeks — no, months and months, for sure — of upcoming pain and emptiness that awaited her on the other side of her apartment door.

"Can you at least tell me why you're so mad at me?" he breathlessly inquired in a gentle and civil manner, but none too surprisingly his question went unanswered. As he fiddled with the keys, he wondered how he was going to prevent her from leaping out of the car the second she realized that he was indeed headed toward Max's, in the opposite direction of her apartment.

As he stooped down in front of her opened door, checking to assure that her seatbelt was firmly locked in place, she could see that all-too-familiar look of pain steadily growing in his eyes as he glanced up at her.

"Y'know, all I said was..."

"No need to explain yourself. You don't owe me anything," she generously offered, intent upon maintaining her air of indifference. "Besides, I've got a million things I'd like to do this afternoon, so if you wouldn't mind, let's just get on the road, shall we? Hmmm?"

He didn't get on the road. Rather, he got behind the wheel, slid the key into the ignition, and sat staring out the windshield for a long moment, looking rather glum and forlorn; even a little lost as far as Michelle could reckon. Good. He obviously couldn't imagine why she didn't seem the least bit nonplussed about being ditched by him. Her plan was already working like a charm.

"Would you mind very much if we just got going?" she politely requested a second time, straightening the hem of her yellow floral dress, which she fully intended to burn later that evening somewhere around her eighty-fifth glass of wine, or so.

"Would you mind paying me the courtesy of answering just one question before we do?" he turned his head and asked in a low, calm, polite voice, his eyes looking as though they were about to bleed tears.

She felt an instant pang hit her square in the heart. She loved those eyes. She had thought she'd be spending the rest of her life with those eyes. And that voice. She didn't want to lose that voice. She wanted to hear it in her ear again, panting out praises for the way she made him feel; telling her how much she excited him; asking for things; begging for things; sharing things he'd never told anyone else before. God, she missed him already...

"Sure, I'll answer your question if it'll help speed things up any," she stoically replied, maintaining her cool, calm exterior despite the heart-sickness that raged inside.

"Does this... this behavior of yours seem normal to you? Seriously. I just want you to step back for a minute and look at it from my perspective. Look at how furious you are with me," he stated, logically and rationally, "when all I said was that I wanted us to get your stuff and get home while it was still nice outside. I was thinking of you, in fact, Michelle. I thought the fresh air would pick you up. And ya flew right off the handle at me and have been breathing fire ever..."

He paused to study the rapid transformation of expression taking place on her face, from an icy-cold glare to a wild-eyed gape, which suggested that he was either finally beginning to get through to her, or that she was about to puke on the floor of his car at any second. He waited in suspense until reasonably certain it wasn't the latter.

"Now do ya see the position I'm in? Why I'm insisting that we make a pit stop at Max's before going for your stuff, Michelle? I can't just let ya carry on like this and do nothing about it..."

"My stuff?" she asked weakly, seeming somewhat dazed and flustered. "You were driving me home... to get...?"

"Your stuff, honey. Yeah," he repeated, jotting "forgetfulness" and "suddenly very pale" down on the mental list he had begun compiling for Max, whom he knew would meticulously drill him for every last detail of Michelle's symptoms. "What did ya think we were gonna do? Make a trip over there in the morning? At the crack of dawn... in rush hour traffic? You're all the way east, Michelle. We'd be making almost a complete circle if we..."

He paused in mid-sentence and frowned, amazed by how quickly and dramatically her cheeks were changing hue right before his eyes, from a ghostly white to a flaming, mottled hot pink. Oh, swell: a rash. This had to be a rash of some sort, given how deep the redness was. Heat rashes and other assorted skin outbreaks were not at all uncommon reactions to massive intakes of narcotics. Damned if he hadn't been right all along; she had been having some sort of reaction to those godforsaken drugs. He was certain of it now.

"I'm, uhh... I think... I think I might've... I may have made a mistake about something, dear," Michelle sputtered nervously, her mind racing as she began to fully grasp just how huge an error it was, too; how ridiculously she'd been behaving; how foolish she must've appeared to him; how utterly at a loss she was to explain it.

Incoherent speech and difficulty in processing her thoughts. He promptly tacked them onto the list and contemplated including "befuddled" when she startled him by suddenly unhooking her seatbelt. He was certain she was about to bolt from the car, but she surprised him by leaning across the console, instead, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him hurriedly and passionately.

"Honey, I need to explain," she said a little breathlessly and frantically as her lips broke away.

How could he have forgotten to jot down "mood swings": gigantic, spin-on-a-dime, out-of-nowhere, like-night-and-day mood swings, approximate in size and magnitude to a mid-western twister roaring through a trailer park at record-breaking speeds.

"I... I must've misunderstood what you'd said before," she anxiously prattled on, but he was only barely listening, too absorbed with her cheeks and ears, which were glowing like barbeque coals now.

An ear rash? He'd never heard of that one before. Hot flashes, maybe? He wasn't sure until he stroked her cheek and felt the high level of heat radiating from her skin. Scratch the hot flashes; this was a fever, no doubt about it. A bona fide fever. Unbelievable. He could just see the two of them now: Michelle laid up in a hospital bed and himself warring with the nurses and sleeping all night in a stiff, straight-backed chair. He deserved it, too. This entire thing was all his fault. He'd be lucky if she ever forgave him for this.

"You don't understand, dear. It's not what you think. I don't have to see a doctor. I feel just fine. It's just that when you said you were taking me home before, I... I, umm..."

"We've already been through this, baby. You're going," he stated calmly, but firmly, thinking of how much time he had already wasted getting her over to Max's as it was.

He thought of what kind of parent he would ultimately make if he allowed himself to be sidetracked and swayed by such ploys and pleas. He made a personal commitment on the spot to get better at standing his ground and doing what his instincts dictated, so he wouldn't find himself giving in to a mini-Michelle down the road someday, crying, "But I don't have to see a doctor to get my broken arm fixed, Daddy! You don't understand! I feel fine! It's not as bad as you think!"

He shouldn't have even indulged Michelle that call to the cab company. He should've just taken her phone away from the start.

"Just... honey, please, just pay me the courtesy of hearing me out," Michelle requested calmly and rationally, hitting him with his own words as she laid her hand gently against his forearm and gave him those penetrating doe eyes of hers. "Please, dear..."

She seemed so normal now, like her old self again. He sighed and, against his better judgement, pulled off to the side and patiently folded his arms across his chest, making another personal commitment to also get better at fending off those doe eyes. She used them on him like hypnotism.

"Two minutes, Michelle," he grumbled.

Five minutes later, after studiously listening to every nervous, disjointed word of her explanation, he scrunched his face and lightly shook his head in complete confusion.

"I must've missed something," he said. "Why would you think I was 'dumping' you at your place? It isn't even noon yet... We still have the whole day and night, Michelle... I don't get where you're going with this..."

He had missed the point entirely. She was almost grateful for it. No, make that grateful indeed. Eternally grateful.

"It's, umm... Y'know what, dear? It was a stupid misunderstanding on my part and... and I apologize for the way I acted, and... Well, let's just forget all this. Let's just grab my things and get back before the rain starts up, like you said, dear..."

"Wait a minute... Just... just hold on a second," he said with the same scrunched expression, but an element of disbelief now emerging in his voice and eyes as the pieces finally began tumbling into place. "You're not saying that ya actually believed I was doing that... are ya? That I was using you.. and was all set to dump ya... just like that?... Michelle?"

His worst fears were confirmed when she didn't even attempt to deny, refute, modify, elaborate, expound upon, amend or defend her position or actions.

"Michelle!" he said in disbelief. "How could ya even think I was capable of doing that... to you or to anybody?... Hell, what am I saying. You didn't just think it. You were convinced of it... and acting on it, for cryssake. You were biting my head off..."

"It was crazy of me, I know, dear," she tried to apologize, focusing on the hurt intensifying in his eyes. "I don't even know how to explain it. Something must've just..."

"What about all the time we just spent together? Were ya even paying attention up there?" he said in a blend of anger and insult, flashing his eyes upward in reference to the apartment, where they'd made such exquisite love to each other; where he'd shared some of his deepest, darkest secrets with her; where he'd fallen in love with her and made up his mind to propose to her.

"Geeziz, Michelle," he grumbled in anger. "Don't ya think I have just a little more integrity and character than that?"

"Of course I do, dear. You know I do. I didn't mean to suggest anything like that," she anxiously pleaded, feeling perfectly awful.

"Well, ya had to believe it was at least possible, since ya actually convinced yourself that I was nothing but a conniving liar... just saying all that stuff to bamboozle sex outta you..."

She could hardly deny the accusation. It was precisely what she had managed to talk herself into believing, for reasons she couldn't even begin to understand at the moment, much less explain to him.

"Geeziz," he brooded angrily, throwing the car into gear with a little more force than usual. "Don't ya think ya ought to have just a little more faith in me than that? And... and maybe just a modicum of trust, at least? I mean... geeziz, Michelle, we're supposed to be two people in love, here, for cryssake, aren't we?"

"Of course we are. You know we are," she sheepishly reassured him.

"I know this side of the car is," he bellowed. "I don't know what the hell's going on over on your side," he fumed, shaking his head in astonishment and disappointment as he wove his way into traffic, a deep, angry frown carved into his brow.

Michelle's heart was back in her throat. She stared awkwardly and uncomfortably down at her hands in her lap while he called Max and apologized for the false alarm, then locked his eyes on the road ahead and drove in dead silence. She hadn't anticipated wounding his feelings or ego, or inadvertently calling his integrity — if not the entire core of his character — into question. At worst, she had figured he'd be rankled for having been snapped at by her, and would scowl about it for awhile, then quickly recover as he always did.

How could she have even allowed her imagination to get away from her like that? Had past encounters and relationships really scarred and jaded her to the extent that she wasn't even capable of trusting anymore? Not even him, the love of her life? Had she become so accustomed to relationships failing that if they didn't begin disintegrating on their own in a certain amount of time, she would subconsciously begin initiating the process herself?

As they drove in uncomfortable silence for a few more interminably long minutes, she could feel his eyes occasionally glance at her profile as if having a second look at what he had gotten himself into. As she began to roughly estimate the destruction she had already done to their relationship, he surprised her by unexpectedly careening across two lanes and pulling up onto an embankment.

She waited with bated breath, bracing herself for the worst while he took a moment to collect himself before turning to her.

"That promise ya made me make this morning, Michelle? About always being honest with you? That's gotta be a two-way street," he sternly insisted.

"I know," she conceded in a small voice, thoroughly humiliated.

"Here you were all prepared to never to speak to me again, and over... what? A simple miscommunication? I drop a couple of words, 'to pick up your stuff'... and that's it? You're through with me?... Relationship over?"

She felt her cheeks burning a little more, as if that were even physically possible at this point.

"We can't have this, Michelle," he stated harshly, shaking his head in disbelief all over again. "All ya had to say back there was, 'Why are you taking me home?' Five words, and this whole thing would've been avoided."

It was six words, actually, but who could count at a time like this. She felt like her stomach was devouring itself.

"Do ya have any idea how worried I was that something was seriously wrong with you the way you were carrying on like that? Geeziz," he railed.

"I know... I'm sorry," she apologized. "I'm just... I'm not very good at this. I tend to internalize things," she stammered.

"I'll say," he groused angrily, turning away and preparing to throw the car into gear again.

"I'll, umm... work on that," she volunteered, relieved that he hadn't just called the relationship quits.

"Don't work on it. Just do it," he growled. "And I want a promise outta you, right here and now... that you'll tell me when something's bugging you next time," he firmly demanded. "If something I say doesn't sound right to you, you're just gonna have to open your mouth and come out with it... I can't read minds, y'know," he barked out a reminder.

"I know... I will," she agreed, thanking God he was even still thinking along the lines of there being a next time.

"And another thing, Michelle... Just for the record, I don't exactly have to lie and bamboozle women into sleeping with me," he castigated her with a wounded scowl, clearly nursing an injured ego. "There's a nice healthy number of them out there right now who wouldn't mind being in your shoes. Let's just put it that way," he informed her, in case she didn't know.

"I'm more than well aware of that, dear," she guaranteed him, feeling his eyes immediately dart over to her profile as if wondering what kind of talk she might've heard around the office, from whom and how many.

"Yeah, well... Ya might be wise not to forget it, either," he cryptically advised her, leaving her to just chew on those words for awhile. He didn't like having to get rough with her like that, but it was probably best that she knew what kind of competition she was up against.

As he assessed the fear of God that he'd probably thrown into her by now, he felt his heart soften at the sight of how painfully pink her cheeks and ears still appeared, softening even more when her apologetic doe eyes looked up at him, saturated with regret and remorse.

"All right, then," he mumbled, like a cop letting her off the hook with only a warning this time. Satisfied that he had sufficiently made his points clear and had left her with enough to think about for now, he merged back into the flow of traffic. "We're gonna talk about this some more later on, though," he gave her fair warning, despite already having a fairly good idea of what had inspired her irrational bout of doubt in the first place. It likely had a lot less to do with him than it did with her past, he strongly suspected; specifically, the first big significant blow she'd been dealt in the love arena.

"That's fine," she responded sheepishly.

They drove for a long while in silence before she had conjured the courage to speak.

"I didn't meant to hurt your feelings," she said in a low, conciliatory tone.

"You didn't," he lied through his teeth, the brood still present in his voice, though having subsided substantially. "Everything's fine," he murmured, his eyes not leaving the road, but his palm dropping down from the wheel and coming to rest atop her tightly folded hands.

She gazed down. She loved his hands. Over all those many months, she had memorized every vein, line, and inch of them, both left and right, in every position and situation. Now she had watched and felt them doing new and wondrous things, compelling her to look at them in a whole new light and memorize them all over again.

"Y'know, I, umm... I love you... more than I even knew human beings were capable of loving," she said to his hand, feeling his eyes veer away from the road and onto her profile. "...just in case you didn't know," she decided to add, logically assuming that he had to be wondering, after that hideous show of distrust she had performed for him.

That was all three words she had said, he thought to himself in surprise. All three and then some. Consciously and deliberately, too. He hadn't expected it. It had taken him by surprise. He allowed the smallest, minuscule smile to dent the corners of his mouth. Her timing had been perfect, as usual.

"I don't want you to worry, either," she added after a minute, in a serious, somber tone.

"I'm not," he assured her, his eyes still fixed firmly on the road ahead but his hand giving hers a gentle squeeze to punctuate the verity of his words.

They drove in silence, eyes on the windshield, for a few more minutes before she spoke to his hand again.

"Umm... I realize this is an odd time to say it, under the circumstances and all, but... you really can trust me, you know," she stated with timidity, given her lack of credibility, annihilated by her own hand. "That craziness before — it wasn't about you," she wanted him to know, though he himself had already come to that conclusion on his own.

"Yeah, well... I don't know about that," he mock-grumbled anyway, not feeling the least bit angry anymore, but not wanting her to think she could wriggle off the hook that easily either. "I didn't exactly notice any other guys in that bed," he pointed out.

"Not guys. Old ghosts is probably more like it," she clarified, her face lightly awash in embarrassment again. "I think a couple of them decided to pay me an unexpected visit and, umm... I guess I just succumbed to some old fears and insecurities."

That was obvious to him, but he pretended to give it some consideration for a moment anyway.

"I can understand that, I guess," he threw her a break. "Ya gotta remember, though, that those ghosts are from the past. It's just me ya gotta trust now."

"You're right. I know. I'm sorry," she apologized again. "I guess with a romantic track record like mine, after a while you just — you start to feel like it's not so much the person you don't trust, but love itself... if that makes any sense."

He nodded, slowly and knowingly, giving her hand another light, reassuring squeeze.

"I don't exactly have the most sparkling track record either, y'know," he said, hoping it would make her feel a little better about hers. "My last significant relationship ended up in front of a House subcommittee, if you'll recall," he elaborated with a slight wince, remembering some of the more delicate, intimate details he'd had to disclose to congressional investigators in the process of clearing himself of any direct involvement in CTU's bombing. "We've all got our war wounds and battle scars, honey, so don't think of yourself as so alone out there."

"You're right, of course," she sighed, chewing the side of her lip for a moment. "I just wish I were a little stronger when it comes to this kind of stuff, like you are, dear," she ruminated. "I'm just not as resilient, I guess. I don't think I could've survived a hit like the one you took. I think I'd have been too scarred for life to ever pursue another relationship again."

"Don't sell yourself so short, honey," he gently bolstered her frail self-confidence. "You took a pretty good hit, there, yourself, yet here you are, back for more hell and heartache, same as me... Right?"

"I guess," she glanced at him with a small smile, "but I can hardly compare my scars to yours, dear. I mean, true, Campbell just up and left one day, but I'm not so sure I can honestly say, in retrospect, that the wounds ran all that deep or lasted that long... If I wanted to be honest with myself, I was probably more instrumental in creating the impetus for him to leave than I care to admit."

"Campbell?" he said with a quick glance and a comical frown.

"I know. It was a mistake from the start," she giggled.

"I'm not so sure nature ever intended for a guy named Campbell to be trusted in the first place," he teased her, taking his eyes off the road long enough to flash her a playful grin. "I wasn't talking about Campbell, though... I meant your parents," he clarified.

Michelle felt her head involuntarily jerk back a bit in surprise.

"My parents," she repeated with a quizzical frown, looking at him as though he were crazy. " My parents didn't 'up and leave me,' silly. They were killed in an accident. You know that," she said, almost laughing at the sheer absurdity of his statement.

"Same thing, as far as an infant's concerned, though... wouldn't ya think?" he posited, instantly elevating her curiosity level to skyrocket proportions upon realizing that he was actually serious.

"I'm not sure I'm following," she said in confusion. "What would that even have to do with my love life?"

"Well... I mean, think about it, honey. Love is love," he postulated. "So why should it hurt any less if it's your Mom who up and leaves you than if a boyfriend does it? The feeling's gotta be ten times worse, I would think."

"Yeah, but... we're talking about an infant, dear," she said with a curious frown. "Would an infant even know what was going on? Enough to even feel 'left,' much less 'betrayed' at that age — like a spurned lover?"

"Why not? Especially when ya consider that the love they get from their Mom is really about the only thing in the world they actually do know at that stage of the game. Take that away and geeziz... talk about feeling alone and stuff."

She stared at him, stunned.

"But — what I mean is, do infants even remember things? They would have to remember this... this 'breakup,' so to speak, in order to later carry the pain or... or a wariness about love into adulthood, wouldn't they?"

"Something devastating like that? Your Mom just gone one day? Why wouldn't an infant remember? Humans have everything else they've ever experienced stored away in some memory bank. Why not an experience like that?"

"But I thought — don't they say that infants are extremely resilient? Like, the way they adapt to new parents... who adopt them, for instance?"

"Yeah, but adapting and forgetting are two different things," he reminded her. "When ya adapt to a new apartment, it doesn't mean ya forget all about the old one, or that you're not aware that you were evicted and had to move, or whatever."

"My God," she said a little breathlessly after thinking about the concept for a moment, astonished by how much sense it all seemed to make, especially in light of what she herself had just said about feeling a basic distrust of love itself. She didn't know what it all meant, if anything, in relation to her dismal romantic history, but the concept of an infant learning not to trust love, or believe it was going to stick around, certainly gave her something to think about.

"What in the world even made you think of that? Of — of making that connection? To my parents, of all things?" she asked in sincere amazement, surprised to discover that he — the "insensitive" creature she had lectured only a short while ago — apparently had more of a handle on emotional issues than she'd previously assumed.

"I don't know," he replied in all honesty. "I guess when I was assuring my Mom that you didn't even remember your mother... and that ya never even knew her... I didn't really buy that myself. I'll bet you remembered her back when you were really little. Maybe not her face, or any particular moment, but her. Y'know? I don't think a kid can forget that kinda thing."

She stared at him, her mouth dropping open a bit and her chest beginning to tighten.

"And then ya probably just tucked her away in a memory bank somewhere, at some point in time, like when it felt safe enough," he rambled on, "and, if anything, ya never forgot her — just where ya stashed her, maybe," he concluded, suddenly feeling himself becoming aggravated all over again at his inability to recall where he'd stashed that damned microcontroller, now more certain than ever that he had indeed stashed it in one of his shoes and that Basilio was the reason it wasn't there anymore.

"Honey, I know ya woke up screaming this morning, but ya didn't happen to notice if the older kid was anywhere near the floor of the closet at the time, did ya?... Honey?" he asked with a quick glance. "What the — Geeziz, Michelle, what the hell are ya...? Please don't start that again, huh?" he whined in despair.

"I'm fine. I'm fine, for Pete's sake," she sniffled, frantically digging through her purse for a tissue.

"Geeziz... you know I hate that."

"Just — you just keep your eyes on the road, please," she said, rifling through his glove compartment, realizing that she'd used her last Aloe-treated tissue at the restaurant yesterday after he had managed to upset the entire table.

"If ya think we're stopping for those special ones, you're sadly mistaken," he angrily informed her, peering up at the dark, ominous sky and thinking of how much valuable drive time they'd already lost as it was.

"Nobody's asking you to stop, dear," she was quick to remind him. "Are you even paying attention to that guy up there on the left? He's either drunk or blind."

"Geeziz... What the hell is with you women, anyway," he groused in anger. "What did I even say? You asked me how I made the connection, Michelle!"

"Everything is fine, dear. You're getting yourself all upset over nothing," she assured him.

"Look who's talking!" he roared, glancing over as she dabbed her eyes with the McDonald's napkin she'd found in the console between their seats, exercising extreme caution as if she'd been forced to use sandpaper.

Women. Forget the pipes. They were more like old leaky faucets beyond repair. They should all be born with a silver wrench in their mouths and a plastic bag of spare parts taped to their foreheads. That way, at least guys would have some semblance of control when one of them blew out an o-ring, he thought to himself, glancing up at the sky again, but beyond the dark, ominous clouds and through to the heavens this time, hoping somebody up there was listening and catching a clue.