LOVE AT FIRST DATE

Chapter 5: Her First Dib

The scent of coconut filling his nostrils made him pause and smile to himself. He had put that scent there. It had come from a bottle on one of his shelves. His own fingertips had lathered it in. A part of him was now a part of her and he loved the feeling it gave him. It felt as though she had moved another step closer to becoming all his.

His mouth continued slowly working her lips, taking in and suckling just a small portion each time before moving on to capture and savor the next sweet inch or so. She moaned beneath him, mesmerized by the affect his sensuous feasting was having on her, and how confused her mind had become, not knowing which sensation to focus on more: his soft, wet lips lightly nibbling away at her own, or the small, tight circular motion of his hips as he pressed and rolled himself firmly across the wildly ultra-sensitive region he'd zeroed in on and mercilessly taunted, steadily steering her closer toward the brink. She gasped hard each time he slowly circled back, skillfully applying a little more pressure, always at the right time and in just the right place, creating a breathtaking heat wave of friction between them.

With every slow, targeted tease he delivered to her warm, silky folds, he heard another whimper free itself from her throat, causing long, soft moans to escape from his own. He wallowed in the sensation of her delicate body shuddering beneath him, and in his own ability to draw such sounds of exhilaration from her. His breathing grew more and more stinted and labored each time he felt her hips lightly circle upward to meet his firm pushes downward, intensifying the shock waves that rushed throughout her every time he hit his mark.

She couldn't speak. She clung to him, reflexively responding to whatever his body told hers to do. His chest heaved deeper and heavier and his embrace compressed tighter around her, making her feel even more limp and lost in his arms. They seemed to envelop her everywhere, from the forearm her upper back rested against as his hand gripped the curls behind her head, to his other arm wrapped firmly beneath her, pulling her closer into himself, letting her feel each rhythmic rotation as he gradually increased his pressure and speed.

"Geeziz, baby," he gasped into her mouth, "I'm gonna lose it right here..."

His voice sounded pained as he lightly clamped his teeth against her bottom lip to punctuate his frustration before suddenly loosening his grip on her and rolling himself onto his back. He stared up at the ceiling, taking in a few deep, cleansing breaths in an attempt to land himself back on the planet.

"We're supposed to be discussing something, aren't we?" he panted. "What the hell were we even talking about?"

"Our inexcusable sexual irresponsibility," Michelle panted in harmony, suddenly wondering where her towel had disappeared to as she struggled to regain her breath and composure. She pushed herself up on her elbow and peered around, mystified, until finally spying the towel up by the headboard where he'd apparently tossed it at one point or another, while neatly maintaining his own, though disheveled and just barely still clinging to his waist. How had he done that? she wondered. When had he done that, in fact?

She was beginning to develop her own theory about how they could have entirely forgotten to employ the basics of protection. She had just felt herself being transported back to that other world again, where he had taken her to the night before. It was a place that consisted of no one but the two of them, and nothing but warm, bright light and celestial surround-sound, saturating her ears with a mix of their moans and groans and whimpers and gasps. No troubles, no worries, no fears; no CTU's or STD's. Just the two of them consumed with each other's every word and whisper and sensual touch.

She blinked herself back to reality. Tony was propped up on his elbows, his head tilted back and still staring at the ceiling, gulping in mass quantities of oxygen.

"It's the way you kiss me," he decided aloud. "That's what's getting us into trouble."

"You started it," she reminded him with a breathless, seductive smile.

"That's strange... 'cause I seem to recall the trouble all starting with a curly redhead jumping me in a dark hallway at the office," he corrected her.

She watched him slowly roll himself over and crawl up toward the headboard. Depositing himself on his side, he spent a few seconds working himself into a comfortable position, his arm bent and his head resting against his hand.

"C'mere, nature girl," he chuckled, noticing her staring at her towel in disbelief. He patted his knuckles against the mattress to get her attention, then extended his hand to her, flailing a couple of fingers like a climber signaling a fellow mountaineer to ascend.

Michelle followed his path up to the headboard and laid herself down beside him, face-to-face, in the same head-against-hand position he had settled himself into. He reached for the sheet and drew it up over her, knowing there was no way in hell he was ever going to otherwise be able to concentrate on their upcoming discussion.

She reached out and brushed a strand of damp hair back from his forehead, dying to hear him finally explain to her what in the world a "dib" was. But before she could even ask, she was promptly treated to her first introduction to the fine art and unique tradition.

"Listen, honey, I can't re—"

He had begun to speak but immediately halted himself as though suddenly realizing he had forgotten a key step. He quickly leaned in and placed a hand on her cheek and a kiss on her face. It didn't appear to matter where the kiss landed, Michelle noticed, just as long as one had been planted before the discussion had formally begun. In fact, the way he had kissed her face, so mindlessly and mechanically, had instantly injected an image in her mind of the ceremonial gunshot that sprinters had to await before diving off the starting line: His abrupt halting and backtracking in mid-word seemed somehow equivalent to mistakenly jumping the gun and being compelled, by the rules, to return to the line and start over again.

He brought his hand up to rub his eyes for a moment, as if doing so might bring his thoughts into sharper focus.

"I can't really speak for you," he began over again. "I can barely even—"

"Whoa, whoa. Honey... 'Dib,'" Michelle couldn't help but interrupt.

"Oh, uhh... Yeah. Dib. Don't ask me which nut in the family started it, or how many generations ago, but... DIB — 'Discuss In Bed' or 'Discussion In Bed,' depending on whether ya ask the Hatfield or the McCoy side of the Almeida clan," he smiled bashfully. "They've been arguing over it for years… Anyhow, that's how I grew up. Any important matter, ya gotta discuss it in bed. No one in the family can even tell ya why. All anybody knows is that if your name's Almeida and you've got something on your mind, you've gotta be sprawled out on your parents' bed before anyone will even begin to listen to ya."

He glanced down, smiling self-consciously and scratching his cheek, imagining how perfectly bizarre the family ritual must sound to her, not to mention the family itself. But when he finally lifted his eyes back up, he found her beaming with delight.

Michelle, in fact, was completely enthralled by the notion. There was something incredibly warm and loving and terribly sweet, she thought, about the idea of parents lying in bed with their child, fully focused on whatever issues were important and meaningful to him. Having family discussions in so intimate an environment and in so nurturing a manner seemed like the ideal way to grow up. No wonder he was forever fearlessly and confidently butting heads with his superiors and Division's hierarchy. He had been quite literally raised to open his mouth and speak his mind, with consequences taking a backseat to whatever point he felt necessary to make.

She suddenly began to better appreciate, as well, the significance of the kick-off kiss at the beginning of the discussion. It was a declaration of love for one another, but it also seemed to serve as a contract, or an agreement of some sort; one that gave family members up-front permission and freedom to fearlessly share whatever was on their mind, knowing that no matter what they eventually went on to say, or how heated the discussion were to become, they would still come out of the conversation as unconditionally loved as they were going in.

"Wow, honey, that's so nice," she gushed with a huge smile, which only brought an even more bashful expression to his face, prompting him to turn his head and look away this time. "No, really, honey, I mean it. I love this system of holding discussions. I can just see you as a young boy, lying with your Mom and Dad in their bed, talking about, like ... how badly you wanted to join the football team..."

"Baseball."

"...or your first heartbreak over the little blonde-headed girl down the block, with the ponytails..."

"Braids."

"...or announcing to your parents that you had decided to join the Navy..."

"Marines... We don't talk about that particular dib, honey. I dropped out of college to join the Marines, so most of that particular discussion took place with my Dad's hands around my throat."

"Still... I can just picture you engaged in this dib thing with your parents, dear. The visual alone is just so heartwarming."

"Yeah, well... visualize me discussing my financial future with my Dad a couple of weeks ago. 'Insane' probably works a little better than 'heartwarming,'" he both smiled and groaned." You haven't witnessed the height of lunacy until you've seen an armed federal agent in his late thirties kissing a sixtysomething international corporate cut-throat in a business suit before launching into a multi-tiered retirement strategy. Trust me on this one, sweetheart."

But his groans and eye-rolls soon turned into rich, self-deprecating laughter as he went on to explain to Michelle how the sheer lunacy of the Almeida DIB tradition had never really hit him full-force until that last meeting with his Dad, when he'd found himself stretched out on his Mom's side of the bed with a glass of Scotch in his hand, sneezing from her perfume-saturated pillow cases as he listened to his Dad reading an article aloud to him from the Wall Street Journal, which the man carried around the house like the Holy Bible. Midway through the reading, Tony had become distracted after he had shifted into what he thought would be a more comfortable position, only to find that his holstered revolver, which he had forgotten to remove from his belt, was now digging painfully into his side, causing him to awkwardly twist and turn a number of times until he had gotten comfortable again. It was only then that the big-picture Almeida portrait of father and son had come into clear, sharp focus for him: two grown men lying side-by-side in a king-sized bed; the father reading aloud from the holy book of Wall Street, telling the son to stop rocking the bed and pay attention; the son, armed to the teeth and legally dangerous, sneezing into one of his mother's ruffly lace-trimmed linen handkerchiefs, which looked like it might've belonged to Marie Antoinette at one point in time. There was just something inherently wrong with that entire picture, it had suddenly occurred to him there and then.

As far back as his teenage years he could remember longing to discuss things at the dining room table, or in the family room, like normal kids did, and had even been tempted over the years to tell his parents that he was too old to be doing this "dib" thing anymore. But he never even bothered, already knowing what their reaction would be. His Dad was never going to give up kissing him; that much he knew. The man was an animal in the boardroom, but a mush when it came to his family. Tony never saw other guys' fathers kissing them, and would always die a thousand deaths whenever his friends were around and his Dad would appear. He was certain that he'd get the crap kicked out of him after school if his buddies ever saw his father planting a kiss on his cheek the same way he kissed his Mom upon arriving home from work every evening.

And his Mom — forget about his Mom. She would cut up her credit cards before ever agreeing to dispense with the "dib" tradition. To this day, she had yet to get over his leaving the nest.

As he watched Michelle's cheeks turning pink from laughter at his expense, Tony hoped, more than ever, that she'd accept his proposal when the time came, just so he could wander in and out of his parents room and make faces at her while she and his Mom lied side-by-side in his parents' bed, discussing the wedding details.

Michelle wiped a tear from her eye as she pulled herself back together.

"I may need a picture the next time you have a talk with your Dad," she regretted to inform him.

"Nah, we Almeidas are too smart to allow ourselves to be photographed," he grinned. "Besides, it's not a real Kodak moment unless Mom's part of the discussion, too. The three of us in their bed. That's the picture you want to hold out for," he assured her. "Especially if it's close to dinner, and Mom has half a martini in her. Or if my sister's been giving them grief, and I've been called in to 'do something.' Then you've got the whole family screaming at each other at the top of their—"

"You have a sister?" Michelle interrupted in surprise. "You're kidding. How old?"

"Young. Sixteen."

"Sixteen! My God. How old were you when she was born? You have to be—what? Twenty years older...?"

"Thereabouts. She wasn't exactly planned, as my Dad likes to say," he smirked. "You wouldn't believe how she shook up that household, too. I was glad I was already away at college when she rolled around. Anyway..."

"No, no... tell me about her," Michelle insisted, still stunned to discover that he had a sibling. She had always been under the impression, for some reason, that he was an only child. She would even feel sorry for him sometimes that he didn't have a 'Danny' to cavort and commiserate with, like she did.

"I'll tell ya later," he said, eager to get the conversation back on track.

"Almeida! You've got to stop doing that to me!"

"Honey, we've got more important things to talk about right now," he said gently, sympathetic to how hard it was for her to have to wait for information. But he wanted to get a few things on the table and out of the way before he lost her to sleep, which looked to be only about five or ten minutes away, judging from the weariness in her eyes. One thing he felt he needed to get was a better handle on how she was feeling about him and them, and where she felt their relationship was heading. He was dying to know if a month from now, he'd be the happiest man on earth or downright suicidal. "I'll tell you all about her later. I promise, baby," he said, picking up her hand and placing an apologetic kiss against it.

"Well, at least tell me her name," Michelle pouted in disappointment.

"Olivia L. H. Almeida."

"L?"

"Louis. After the limousine driver who delivered her."

"Oh, how sweet."

"Five-four, brown eyes, black hair—or pink, depending on how nuts she feels like making my Dad. A hundred pounds on a good day. High-eighties when she's hell-bent on driving my Mom, and herself, to an early grave... Her grades suck. She has a boyfriend I don't trust, named Gerald, who's afraid of me, which he oughta be. And she wants to be a supermodel, only over my dead body 'cause she's going to college first, provided she can even get accepted anywhere with her grades as lousy as they are these days... Okay, honey? Is that enough to hold you over for a litte while?"

"And 'H'?"

"Henrique. I gave her that one. It means 'rules the home.' Talk about hitting the nail on the head, too."

"Can I see a picture?" she asked, immediately answering her own question with "Later," in two-part harmony with his reply.

"Okay, then explain your theory to me," she encouraged him again.

"No, not yet, honey," he pleaded with her for patience. "There's something else."

"No, now," she insisted. "This is too important to keep me hanging any longer. I don't know what in the world came over me last night. I don't even know who I am anymore."

"I haven't worked it all out in my head yet, though," he tried to explain.

"So talk it out, then," she implored him. "You know how things start to crystallize when you hear yourself verbalize them?"

Her curiosity was completely killing her.

"I wanna first talk about how fast everything's been moving," he said, "'cause I don't want you to think I haven't noticed it, or been thinking about it."

"I don't doubt that you have, dear," she assured him, suddenly feeling a little worried that maybe he was beginning to back off, as she had feared might happen.

"Well, I have. A lot, in fact," he reported. "But the thing is, I'm not feeling spooked about it. I expected to be, but I'm not at all. Everything feels, y'know— right about it. About, y'know... us."

She was relieved to hear it. Yesterday, at this very hour, they had been "Tony" and "Michelle"; now they were also "dear" and "sweetheart." They had wondered what each other would be like outside of the office, across a dinner table, or shoulder-to-shoulder in a dark movie theatre; now they had already become intimately and irreversibly acquainted in the closest of all possible ways. They'd been boss and subordinate yesterday at this very hour, and still were and would be; only now they were also lovers, on an equal and level playing field, which would invariably affect their office interactions from time to time, she anticipated. All told, enormous changes in their relationship and lives, in general, had already occurred, and all in less than twenty-four hours. All for the better, too, as far as Michelle was concerned. But she had worried about Tony, given the shambles Nina had left him in, evidenced by things Michelle herself could see. She knew his reluctance to verbalize those I-love-you words, for instance, was likely rooted in the damage that Nina had perpetrated upon him.

"Good, honey," she said lightly, not wanting him to dwell on the issue, thinking he'd only worry more about it if she were to expound upon it. "Now tell me what your theory was."

Tony glanced at her a little nervously.

"Well, first... umm," he said cautiously, "I was wondering a little, too, if you had concerns yourself about how fast things were moving, or... y'know... the direction they feel like they're... y'know... going in."

He was dying to hear her response to the latter part of his inquiry, even putting a little extra emphasis on the word "direction."

"I'm not concerned about it either," Michelle answered straightforwardly, without hesitation or equivocation, and much to his relief. "Everything feels perfectly fine, dear. I think that things are just feeling like they're moving faster than normal because we're probably just trying to make up for lost time. Try not to over-intellectualize too much, okay? Just let it happen... Okay, honey? Can we move on to more important matters, now?" she asked.

Tony couldn't imagine what could possibly be more important than the answer that had left him so breathless and relieved, but he would give her the world for the Mack truck she had just handily driven off his chest. She hadn't really answered the part about where she felt they were heading, or even definitively state the degree of affection she was feeling, for that matter. But already he felt a lot more secure about her emotions being in line with his own.

"What important matter would that be, baby," he said softly, reaching over and stroking her cheek, feeling the need to touch her again, just to be sure she was really there.

"Your theory," she answered with a sweet smile that illuminated with excitement.

"Geeziz," he sighed heavily, wishing he had five minutes to give it some thought, but knowing that he had probably gotten as much patience out of her as he was going to get. The same "curiosity that killed the cat" was going to do him in someday, too; he could just see it coming. "Okay, then, but understand... I don't know how much sense any of this is even gonna make, 'cause you're not giving me sufficient time to run it through my head."

"I'll help you figure it out."

"No... No...You'll listen, okay? You're already driving me crazy as it is."

"Fine, then. I'll just listen. That won't be a problem," she beamed.

"Geeziz… Okay, so—so I'm standing there, and I open the medicine cabinet, and the first thing I see is the box... Actually, that damned tampon box was the first thing I saw, Michelle."

"I just shoved it in there temporarily, dear. Don't worry. I'll find a—"

"I thought I asked you to put it where I wouldn't ever have to look at it again, for cryssake," he whined, reaching up to rub his forehead in anguish. "You have no idea what I went through in that store."

"You're just gonna get yourself all upset again, honey. I'll find another place for it. Don't worry. Go on. You opened the medicine cabinet and this thought came to mind... Go on."

"Okay, so... I just immediately thought about this guy Chris, from college. This unbelievable... y'know, lady's man. Ya couldn't imagine how women reacted to this guy. They used to hurl themselves at him. He was our god."

"Am I to believe that you, on the other hand, had problems getting dates?"

"I was shy."

"I'm sure."

"You're supposed to just be listening, remember?"

"Yes, honey, go on. I'm sorry."

"Weren't you the one bugging me to tell you this... even though I wasn't done thinking about it yet?"

"I won't say another thing. Go on, dear. Really."

"So...umm... So we naturally figured that Chris was gonna be the last one of us to get married. Only he was the first. And we couldn't believe it, because on top of it all, this girl he married wasn't even, you know... She wasn't what you would call..."

"Stripper material?"

"Well, I mean... you know... she was just this regular, everyday, ordinary girl. 'Jane' was her name, ironically enough. Like in 'plain Jane.' Nothing special about her, in other words. Yet, out of all the women Chris had drooling over him, this is the one he's marrying... Anyway, on his wedding day I asked him, y'know, if he was sure about this..."

"Nice, Almeida. You were putting second thoughts in the guy's head on his wedding day?"

"Well... everybody was just so stunned. I mean, you had to know this guy. He was constantly bumming condoms off all of us. And using them, too... Women—they just loved him. He had this innate charm and magnetism... like a Joe Namath-kinda guy. We were all in total awe of him. Anyway, so I asked him, 'How do you know Jane is, like... 'it?' And he gives me all the usual garbage. She makes him see stars. She transports him to another planet. He can't get her off his mind. All that business..."

"You're such a die-hard romantic, dear," Michelle half-giggled and half-yawned.

"And then he — Do you wanna hear this?"

"I'm listening."

"I'm gonna lose my train of thought."

"I'll be quiet this time. Really, dear. You just go on," she said, rearranging herself with her head against his chest and her arm draped across his waist. "See? I'm being quiet. This is me being perfectly quiet and listening. Okay?"

"Then how come I can still hear you?"

Michelle lifted a hand in the air and gave him some kind of a signal that he might've understood if he were fluent in sign language. But since she hadn't flipped him the bird, he figured she was just promising not to interrupt again, only using interruptive sign language instead of actual words this time.

"So anyway... umm... I forget where I was... Where was I?... Honey? Where was I?"

Michelle lifted her head and gazed up at him, not sure what to do.

"Well?" he frowned, after staring at her in silence for an interminably long period of time.

"I thought I wasn't supposed to talk."

"Well—well, not when you're asked a question," he said incredulously. "That's different."

"He was telling you all about how Jane..."

"That's the exception, sweetheart. You can talk when you're asked a direct question... Get it? How else can you answer me unless you talk?"

"I get it, dear. So, he tells you about—"

"I'm not psychic, after all."

"I know, dear. Don't upset yourself. He's giving you all these romantic reasons why Jane is 'it'..."

"Right. Okay... And so then he says to me—"

"All set? 'Cause I'm going back to being quiet now."

"Yeah, I'm good."

"You don't need me for anything else right now? You're sure."

"No, I'm good, baby... So he says to me, 'Besides, I'll save a fortune in condoms,' as if he ever did anything but bum them. The man never actually purchased a box of condoms in the entire time I knew him... So I asked him what he meant, because I didn't understand why he would stop using condoms just 'cause he was married. I had just never thought about it before... And he tells me, y'know... 'Well, you don't need them anymore because it's just the two of you now.' He says, if ya want kids, you're not gonna be using them, and if you don't want kids yet, they've got the pill or one of those other birth-control gizmos. And ya know you're never gonna pick up a disease 'cause you're never gonna sleep with anybody but each other...' And I said to him... 'Well, how do you know that for sure?' And he gives me the same routine about how she makes him see stars, she's all he can think about, he's never met anyone like her... all the usual stuff."

He paused to glance down at the top of Michelle's head, fully expecting her to cut in with another wisecrack. But to his shock and amazement, she was keeping her word and remaining quiet.

"So anyway, I run into him years later on the street, and I just assumed, y'know, that Jane's thrown him outta the house by now. He's got all these girlfriends on the side, and she's taken the kids and left him. But, no, the guy's still married, and Jane's great, and their third baby is due in October, and so on. And I couldn't believe it, 'cause... like... he's older, now, and more mature, and if anything, he's even more charismatic than back in college... Are you listening?"

"Uh-huh..." she yawned.

"Am I keeping you up?"

"No, honey, go on. Didn't you just tell me to be quiet? You have me in suspense... Go on, dear," she encouraged him, suppressing another ill-timed yawn.

"Okay, so—'cause I'm getting to the part where the condom box ties in, now."

"I'm listening, honey. This is me listening but not talking."

He rolled his eyes.

"So I'm asking him about marriage, just casually... What it's like... If it ever gets—I don't know—boring. Did he have any regrets about getting hitched so young. And he's swearing up and down, nah, nah, Janie's the greatest. 'Everytime is like the first time,' he says. He just loves her more as the years go by. And he shows me a picture and she's, like... Jane... Only older. And a little chunkier. And again I'm wondering what the hell the big attraction ever was with this woman. I just didn't get it."

He glanced down at Michelle again, amazed that she was actually listening so intently without interrupting. He paused to lean down and plant a quick kiss on the top of her head, feeling she deserved a reward.

"So, it's like Chris was reading my mind, 'cause he says to me, 'Ya wanna know how I knew Janie was the one for me, Almeida?' And he leans in, like he doesn't want anyone to overhear..."

Tony paused for just a fleeting moment to take a breath and organize his thoughts. He knew that what he was about to say carried a motherload of risk, since he wasn't at all convinced that Michelle was as totally comfortable as she claimed to be with the speed at which their relationship was moving. Nor did he know exactly how intensely she felt about him; or whether she had even gotten to the point of visualizing herself with him twenty years down the road, as he had. What's more, he himself was suddenly experiencing a slight case of cold feet. It seemed like forever since the last time he had been involved in a 'love' kind of discussion, only to eventually have his heart mutilated in return by the daughter of Satan, who shall remain nameless. But he was this far into the story and knew that he couldn't very well turn back now. He had already long since passed the point of no return.

He drew another silent breath, reminding himself that this was not the demon woman he was talking about love with. This was Michelle, now: the woman he could easily see still taking his breath away decades from now, as though they were making love for the very first time all over again.

"So Chris leans in," he bravely continued, "and I lean in and he says, 'This is when I knew for sure that Janie was it.' He says, 'It was this one night when we had sex without using a condom. And it was like the fear of diseases, and all that stuff, didn't even matter anymore, 'cause in the back of my head I knew that if Janie had some kinda deadly disease, then I wanted to die from it, too, 'cause life wasn't gonna be worth going on with unless Janie was there with me'... And then… umm... then he, uhh... he looks at me and he says... 'And that's how ya know when you're in love for real, Almeida. When you're making love to her and you're not even thinking twice about condums.'"

Tony could feel himself breaking into a sweat at this point. He nervously glanced down at her, hoping for some kind of reaction to his buddy's pearls of wisdom, which stunningly paralleled his own behavior last night — his subconscious mindset, he had theorized — when he'd made love to Michelle repeatedly without even once thinking about protection. But he knew that Work-Michelle would now be joining the fold, and it always took her a couple of minutes to quietly process, digest, and assess incoming data before responding to it. So if he was even going to get a reaction at all at this point in the story, he knew he was looking at a good 60-to-90-second wait.

"Chris didn't actually say 'making love,' of course," he nervously added, trying to kill some time. "Guys generally use other words... y'know... a little more colorful than that when it's just guys talking."

He felt his heart pounding hard in his chest, which he knew she had to notice since her head was resting directly on top of it. He was dying to know what was going through her mind. She couldn't have missed the not-so-subtle nexus between Chris's epiphany and his own subconscious actions last night; nor could she miss the unspoken conclusion that he was conspicuously drawing, based on Chris's tip-off to knowing when one was officially in love.

At least Michelle wasn't reacting negatively, he thought... or not yet, anyway. But maybe this hadn't been such a good time to get into this in-love business, on second thought. Their relationship was only about fifteen-or-so-hours old, after all. Maybe it was just way too soon and intimidating for her. Perhaps she was feeling like she was being rushed into agreeing that she loved him, too, only before she had even come to that conclusion on her own, in own good time. She might not be ready to make so heavy and committed a statement as that. Maybe that's what she was thinking about right now, only wasn't quite sure how to tell him without alienating or wounding him.

But he knew he needed to get a better handle on where he stood with her; especially given what had actually crept into his mind earlier while he had been shaving. He'd suddenly found himself wondering who could recommend a good jeweler to him. He certainly couldn't ask Jack; the she-devil had murdered his wife, for cryssake. Not his Dad, either; it would be too embarrassing if he helped him find a ring and then Michelle turned him down. And not his Mom, even though she knew more about jewelry than Harry Winston, Van Cleef and Arpel combined; she'd be on the phone with him every two minutes, asking if he'd popped the question yet.

Tony drew another deep, courageous breath.

"So, umm... I was just thinking..." he said, giving her shoulder another huggish-type squeeze.

"I'm listening," she assured him in a low voice, which immediately signaled trouble to him.

"Well, I mean, I was just thinking... maybe that's the explanation for what happened last night... Like, maybe we're just, umm... just, y'know, in love or something..." he said with a level of nervousness in his voice that even a deaf person could detect. "And that... well, maybe last night happened because we... y'know, we just sort of instinctually knew that we were each other's... 'it'... if you know what I mean."

"Mmmm..." she responded.

In no way was that a good "mmmmm," he immediately thought, feeling himself officially graduate from nervous to panicky. He hadn't been romantic enough; that's what it was. He could tell. He could definitely detect disappointment in her "mmmm." Dejection. Even a little anger, if he wanted to be completely honest with himself. Women want romance at a time like this. He had noticed in the waiting room, when he'd gone to have his teeth cleaned, that there wasn't a men's magazine out there that didn't have an extremely long article stressing that very point, over and over again. "Maybe we're in love" was far from romantic. It wasn't even close to a statement of fact, much less a committed one. There was no "maybe" about it. He knew he was in love. For real. Just as Chris had described.

"So, umm... sweetheart... does that make any kind of sense to you?" he ventured forward, wishing he could do something about the nervousness that appeared to have a stranglehold on his vocal chords. "That... the reason we never even thought about protection was because we're, uhh... y'know... in love... or something?"

That one didn't count. That was just a warm-up, he immediately thought, cutting himself a break. "Or something" was where he had gone wrong. It made the whole concept of being in love seem too casual; as if it were no big deal. But it was a big deal. It was the biggest damned deal of his life, for cryssake. Stark fear or not, he decided, if he were actually going to take the plunge and confess to her that he was indeed in love with her, he was just going to have buck up, be brave, and spit it the hell out. None of this "we" stuff, either. It's "I" or nothing, he instructed himself. He suddenly wished he had a coach, like fighters did when they went to their corners. He'd always had immense respect for boxing coaches, the way they psyched their guys up between rounds, and threw water in their faces, and rubbed their shoulders, and cut their eyelids, and reminded them of what they needed to do in there to get the job done; which strategy they had to employ; where they had gone wrong in the previous round. Coaches never got the recognition and respect they deserved, in his humble opinion. He couldn't even imagine how many famous heavyweight champs might never have been won their title had it not been for the coach.

He quickly leaned in and planted a long, soft kiss on the crown of her head, simultaneously and tenderly stroking her hair with the hopes of buying himself a few extra needed seconds to regroup and plan his next statement. He wished he had invested the time to discipline himself, as Michelle had obviously done for years, to analyze and assess his feelings and thoughts, and formulate his words wisely before he spoke them, not afterwards.

"Look, umm... sweetheart... I think what I'm trying to say here is, umm... I guess it's 'cause I'm... y'know... I'm in love with you, y'see, and, uhh... I was thinking that's probably why I hadn't even thought about using, y'know... protection. Like, it was the furthest thing from my mind at the time, like Chris was saying... when he was talking about knowing for sure when you're in love, and all, and... Well, anyway, honey," he said in a sweat, "that's the first thing that came to mind when I saw that box... Y'know?"

"I'll move it..." Michelle sighed.

"Hmmm?"

"I just stuck it there..." she explained, lifting her head in the direction of his voice and vowing to find a much better location to store the tampon box.

"Michelle?"

"I'm listening," she assured him, though by now he could clearly see that she was asleep. She was opening and closing her eyes nonetheless, in wide, exaggerated blinks, and struggling to push herself up on her elbow, toppling over the first time out. She got herself reasonably balanced on the second attempt, however, sniffling a few times as she rubbed an eye with the heel of her hand.

"Honey?" he said in amazement.

"I wasn't talking," she insisted in a disoriented whine, her eyes sealing shut once again.

She had gotten herself onto her knees and was swaying now, seemingly unaware that she was losing her balance and about to keel over any second again. Tony sat up, still dumbstruck, and reached out to steady her. He held the side of her waist with one hand and gently stroked her damp hair behind her ear with the other. Her curls slid around in his palm and through his fingers as she forced her eyes halfway open again and turned her head in a few directions. She peered around the room, not precisely sure where she was, and trying to get her bearings, until she finally found his face and focused in on it with a sweet, punch-drunken smile.

"C'mere, baby," he said with a soft, warm chuckle, beaming back at her although her eyes had already closed up again. He eased her down beside him, got rid of his towel, and dragged the sheet over both of them this time.

"Then what happened?" she asked in her effectively unconscious state, seemingly trying to suppress a yawn as if not wanting to give him the wrong impression, like she wasn't fully focused and clinging to every word he was saying. He suppressed the laughter that was begging to be released, shifting her body a bit until she was a little better aligned and centered against her pillow. He then settled himself in, with his head parked up against his hand again, using his free hand to gently sweep the scores of runaway curls back from her face.

"So, then," he said softly, smiling so wide that his cheeks ached, "Let me think… Oh, yeah... Right... So then the Papa Bear turned to the Mama Bear and said, 'Don't even think about ever sending me out on a tampon run again, woman..."

"I'll move them," Michelle mumbled, clearly asleep, as tears of laughter began pooling up in his eyes.

"… and then Papa Bear said, 'Well, you had just better do that, or I might never speak to you again, even though I know that you're my 'it' and... I really... I really do love you...y'know...'"

"Love you, too," Michelle murmured, unconsciously and barely audibly into the pillow, her voice tapering off as her mind finally surrendered itself to deep sleep.

A light gasp hit him in the throat. He felt his jaw drop and his heart slam hard against the wall of his chest. It had stunned him to hear her say that. He hadn't expected it. He stared at her, feeling the tears of laughter that stung his eyes suddenly beginning to transform into a different type of tears. He even felt that weird lump forming in his throat, though wasn't sure what to owe it all to. He watched as his arms seemed to take it upon themselves to slide under and around her, gently pulling her as tightly against him as they could without waking her. A hand brought her head snuggly into the crook of his neck, and he found himself nuzzling his face against her cheek, resting his lips alongside her ear. Her light, warm breath against his neck felt like life being breathed back into his soul.

"I love you, baby... Geeziz," he whispered to her with almost a tone of desperation to his voice.

He knew she couldn't hear him and was grateful for that. He'd really only needed to hear himself say it again. He hadn't realized until that moment how truly frightened he'd been about falling in love and placing the power to incapacitate him into the hands of another woman. But he suddenly felt so safe with her, and overwhelmed with trust and a sense of relief. Just releasing those words from his mouth felt cathartic and soothing and healing to him. He said them again, low against her ear, feeling her stir in reaction to the ticklish sensation his breath had produced.

He found himself feeling equally stunned by the freeing effect her words had also had on him. He suddenly felt like he was finally back among the living. He hadn't even realized how long he'd been gone until this grinning little curly headed punch-drunk had muttered those words into her pillow, unlocking a door that he had been vulnerably cowering behind for what seemed like centuries to him, now. But her words had taken hold of his hand and walked him bravely back through it, flooding him with what felt like a fresh surge of courage and power.

He suddenly understood what it was about Jane — or, rather, what it wasn't about. It wasn't about looks or body shape, or a scintillating personality or lack thereof. It was about two old familiar souls, from past lives, bumping into each other on Planet Earth and diving into each others arms, elated to see each other once again, and knowing how much finer and easier the journey ahead was going to be with both of them traveling it together now.

That was probably the thing he'd wanted to get at in the back of his mind, which he likely would have succeeded in doing, given enough time and thought. But talking it out and hearing himself verbalize his thoughts had crystallized things for him, just as Michelle had said it would. In fact, most of the things Michelle said always seemed to somehow end up being dead on the money. Maybe he would start trusting the advice she gave him as implicitly as he now trusted her with his heart. Maybe, as he continued to serve as Director of CTU, he would bring her in to serve as Director of Them.