Three
The End of the Game

Outside their motel room she could hear the rain striking the windowpanes in hard swipes, like fingers clacking on a keyboard, and she felt warm and protected lying next to him, staring at his eyes while he traced his finger over her cheeks, around her eyes, touching her expertly. Although she did want to make comparisons, he was completely different from Ben, who fumbled somewhat, and grabbed for what he wanted, which had been touching in its own way, but with Mike she had forgotten that he would know what he was doing, and had done it quite a few times more than Ben had, or would, and remembered that she could trust him completely to know just what to do to arouse her. And he did, even though they hadn't seen each other in almost two months, he remembered her shape like it was his own body, and from the moment he swept her into his arms outside of the Paradise she was lost again. Her reaction to him was immediate, and thrilling, and she instantly threw out any pain he might have caused her, at least for the moment. All that mattered when she saw him was that he was there, he had found her, he had come for her, and she didn't care beyond that.
She tried to speak to him but he shushed her and, soaked from the rain they had piled into a rental car he'd had parked nearby. After driving nearly a half hour in his insistent silence they had come to his motel room, and without even turning on the lights had begun to undress her. She wanted to stop at first, to speak to him, to really know he was here and not some intense hallucination. She wanted to tell him what was going on, she wanted to hear him apologize, but then he began to touch her, and kiss her, and she responded without thinking, pulling his clothes from him, and then they had fallen on the bed, crawling under the covers, touching, tasting, their sex as silent as their reunion. After, he'd rolled from her and leaned up on one arm, smiling the smile she'd imagined in her dream, and begun to run his finger over her face. The words stuck in her throat; she wanted to say something but felt under a kind of spell.
And then she heard his deep voice, a familiar husky whisper, but gentler than she recalled. "I am," he said, and kissed her mouth as a means of punctuation, "the sorriest man on the face of the earth." When she started to protest, he put a finger over her lips. "And I am going to spend every day of my life making it up to you."
After that, what could she say? Before she could even think to question him he had run his hands down her body again and started to touch her, watching her come to a climax. The closer she got the harder her hands gripped his back, and when she began to poke through his skin he couldn't keep just touching her, so he slid into her again, and in a moment they came together. It was something she'd never experienced before, and the sheer sensation of it made her cry aloud, and spontaneously her eyes started to weep. They pulled apart, exhausted, and panting, and he held her. "I love you so much," she told him softly.
In response, he pulled her tighter. "No more than I love you," he said, and he turned her face to him. "Don't ever let me fuck up like that again." And they fell asleep like that, with the rain falling harder and harder.

When they woke sometime the next afternoon, the rain still sounded torrential, so Mike crawled out from under the sheets, peeking out the window, and determined it was too rough to try to ride all the way back to New York. She sat up and rested her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands, and gazed at him by the window, staring like a schoolgirl. He turned back to her, catching her glance. "What are you staring at?" he demanded with mock macho attitude. "You lookin' at me?"
"I'm lookin' at you," she DeNiroed back to him. "You are just incredibly beautiful. I just love looking at you."
He leapt back under the sheets with her. "Not a bad way to start the morning, hearing stuff like that."
"I can think of another good way," she told him, teasing.
"Oh, yeah?" he teased back. "I'd like to see you."
"Okay," she said, and showed him.
Around five they ventured out to a local Italian restaurant and sat in the dim light, drinking wine and eating bread, dipping it in oil. It was as if nothing had passed between them, that this was the meal they had been meant to have all those weeks ago, before he disappeared, and both of them were acutely aware of it. Once, she said to him quietly, "You know, when you said you needed a half, I figured maybe forty-five minutes, not three months."
"Hey, I would have made it but I got a little sidetracked," he said, his smile strained. It wasn't easy maintaining levity about that subject, not this soon.
"Excuses," she said, but the teasing wasn't very forceful. She had started thinking about what he had gone through, and wondered if he would ever be able to talk to her about it. "I was terrified for you."
"Not half a scared as I was, I'll bet you that." A cloud passed over his face and was gone. "Can we not talk about that, not now?"
She nodded and he held her hands, and they didn't speak for a while after that, but after a few glasses of wine, she pulled back, not wanting to have the conversation they were about to have, but knowing it had to be done. "We do have to talk," she said, hearing the cliche and grimacing at it.
"Damn." He leaned back in his chair. "I was hoping we could avoid doing this so soon."
She shook her head. "Mike, come on. We can't go on not talking to each other, just eating and having sex." He raised his eyebrows at her and she smiled reactively, then erased it. "It's not any more realistic than being apart and being afraid of each other."
He twirled some spaghetti absently. "I know. I just wanted a little more honeymoon...honey." He grinned charmingly and she softened.
"I have to know some things," she told him, "and I have to tell you some things."
"I don't know if I'm going to like this," he said guardedly.
She sighed. It had to be done, it had to be said early on. Perhaps then, if he left, the pain wouldn't be as excruciating. Alexa closed her eyes, and leaped. "Mike, why now? Why are you here now?"
"I suppose that I just had a change of heart won't suffice."
She shook her head. "You kicked me out. I hit you. That was the last time we had any contact. That was weeks and weeks ago, it feels like a whole lifetime has gone by. I've been dreaming of you just showing up ever since I came out on the road...and then suddenly, there you were. I just want to know what made last night different from all other nights."
He stared into the middle of the restaurant, then back at her. "Somebody cleared me up on some important facts. Things you didn't tell me -- because I didn't give you the chance, I know, I know. I heard a lot of details, things that were important to hear, and at first, I didn't believe because it was so easy being mad at somebody. I didn't want to believe, even with all the newspaper clippings sitting right in front of me. But then, I called my Ma on the phone -- up until then I had kind of wrote her off after I heard it took her three days to come to the hospital -- and all she kept on asking me who that blonde chick was who was always hanging out at the hospital. 'Every time I come, she's there,' she griped at me. 'Who is she? She doesn't leave. She looks at me funny, like she knows me, I don't know her. Who is she, Mikey?' And that was when I realized it was all true, you'd done nothing wrong, just good for me. I'd just wanted someone to blame and you were very convenient. You took it. And it has made me nothing but miserable. I've barely left my apartment since I got home from the hospital. Just tried to watch a lot of television and drink beer and not think."
He paused, and drank more wine. "What happened that made me call Ma was that I was sitting in my room, feeling sorry for myself, if I was feeling anything, and -- this is a few days after the trial ends -- Ben Stone shows up and gives me what for." He took a deep breath. "He let me have it. I've never seen him so pissed off -- he's usually a pretty mellow kind of guy. He's the one that cleared me up, and I realized what an asshole I'd been. So, I started checking around, heard you were touring, followed you here. I thought you'd about written me off when you ran backstage last night, thought seeing me made you sick. But your friend Dave chased me down and told me to wait outside, he'd send you. And then you were there, and it was like no time had passed, you just jumped at me. And here we are."
"Here we are," she said softly. "It was like that for me, seeing you out in the rain, it was like the past weeks -- nothing happened. Like I was waiting."
He smiled slightly, then emptied his gaze. "Were you?"
His acuity struck her for a moment; she had forgotten how sharp he could be. She gave the question real thought, considering that except for a very few days, and then only when she'd forced herself to, she had never managed to keep Mike far from her thoughts. All the while she was with Ben he had been in the back of her mind, banished but unforgotten. At the thought of Ben her heart pained her; she had hurt him badly, used him in a way, and though he had been aware and willing to be used he had desperately only wanted to be her only love. And she'd never been able to give that to him, even when he'd asked her to stay and she was swept up in him, even though she loved him sincerely, as long as Mike Logan was around she could never be only his.
And in the end, she realized, he had done what his moral compass told him to do, and gone to Mike, even though it was the worst thing he could do personally. She owed him everything that was happening right now, and everything that would happen. "Yes," she told Mike, after a pause. "No matter where I went, or what I did, I was waiting. If I had to think of a happy moment, or picture a face, even after you'd thrown me out, God help me, I thought of you." She stared at the tablecloth and he reached for her hand, but she pulled it away. There was a pause as he waited for her to finish. She wiped her eye and looked up at him, staring into his face. "But Mike, while we weren't together...there was someone else."
He blinked and his head jerked slightly, as if he'd been hit, and his eyes turned away from her. He hadn't expected this, and was instantly, infuriatingly jealous, biting hard on the emotion to keep it from coming out. He wanted the easy way out, to say something insulting and make her feel worse than she already did. But, he grudgingly admitted, she hadn't hidden anything, she had come right out and told him, and he tried to keep that honesty as a center in his mind. It calmed him a little. Before he had it under control, he whispered, "Who?"
She closed her eyes a moment, having rehearsed this part in her mind, then opened them. "Do you remember when you read that statement I made to the D.A.'s office? And I said then that I would rather face whatever the consequences would be than tell on you to them? Well, Mike, you're going to have to live with not knowing. Because while I think it would kill me if you picked up and left me again, I have to be willing to risk losing you over this. I won't answer 'who.' I just won't." He didn't respond right away, and she felt her cheeks grow warm. "Please, Mike. You can't change my mind."
"Was he important to you?" Mike blurted, her resolve surprising him.
"Yes," she told him, and placed her hand over his. "Not as important as you, though, or I wouldn't be here now."
"I suppose," he drawled out agonizingly, "I deserve this."
"Oh, Mike," she sighed, "it wasn't ever a punishment. I was alone, I was afraid, and I felt very confused. He was just there for me when I needed him, and....it just went beyond. I didn't do it to get back at you. I thought we were over in your mind. It wasn't just....physical, I won't lie to you but it wasn't ever...he never had....all of me. Some part of my mind was always with you, some part of my heart wouldn't let go. I suppose that's small comfort, but to me it was the biggest deal in the world."
"Is it over?"
She took a second. "Yes."
"You hesitated."
"Mike, give me some leeway here. I have to be sure."
"Are you?"
"Yes."
"Okay, then."
"Okay?"
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah."

They drove home after they left the restaurant, the four-hour trip silent for the most part, but not a hard, uncomfortable silence, more of a contemplative one. She asked him if he was all right at one point, and he acted as if he were coming out of a dream. "Yeah, I'm fine, sweet. Just thinking."
"Well, let me know when you're done," she teased gently, cautiously. "I'm still a little worn out so I think I'll nap a little." He let her rest his head on his leg while he drove and absently he stroked her hair every so often. Early during the ride home he decided it had to be one of her band members she'd gone to bed with; they had so much closeness and rapport, and Dave, the one who'd said to wait outside seemed to know the score between Alexa and her cop boyfriend. Of course, it could have been any number of people, but Mike knew most of Alexa's friends were part of the Cantina, and as far as he could tell that would leave them out. She'd been in the New York City area the whole time, as far as he could reckon, though exactly where was shady, because she'd been spotted at the trial and a few other places, so he knew whoever it was had to be in a nearby zip code. He didn't suspect Gretchen -- she'd turned her down once, she'd told him that, and everyone else he could put a finger on was too old or married or otherwise nonsensical. Lennie? He smiled to himself. Hardly. Mike figured it had to be someone he had met; otherwise rather than giving him that speech about how she couldn't rat him out she'd have said 'no one you know' or 'nobody.' The band made the most sense, and he didn't really feel any threat from those kids. Still, the thought that her head had been turned made him seethe inside, and he didn't want to show that part of himself to her. That after all this time he could be made as immediately jealous as her confession made him feel shocked him; she wasn't just great in bed but at some point she'd reserved her own space in his life, on his heart, in his mind, just as he had hers. And wasn't that how it was supposed to be?
He stared down at her, curled up against his leg, and kissed his fingers, bringing them down on her lips. "I love you, you silly girl," he told her, and kept driving as darkness fell. Sometime just before they crossed the bridge into Manhattan, he realized what he had to do next.

"You're really gonna do it, aren't you," Briscoe said, his awe-filled voice disguised by the slight grin on his face. "You are a piece of work, Logan."
One of the other officers, Profaci, stuck his head into the precinct room and waved at Mike, a kind of signal that Alexa had just entered the building.
"Ssh," he waved at his partner. "Here she comes."
Alexa stepped carefully into the police precinct, feeling a little out of place, as if everyone would turn and see Amelia in her face. She'd dressed smartly, but not too done up, fearing even more comparisons, and felt everyone's eyes on her anyway. That morning she'd woken up in Mike's apartment, where he'd taken her after they got back into town around midnight. She remembered a soft, quick session of lovemaking, and then they'd curled around each other for warmth and fallen asleep. That morning, he'd left yet another note: When you get up, come down to the precinct for some questioning. Detective Mike. He'd mentioned that he was still chained to his desk for another week or so, until they figured he had his old resolve back, and they'd kept Briscoe with him, so she didn't call ahead of time, figuring they'd be there all day. After she'd woken leisurely and changed into the best clothes she still had from her tour bag, she couldn't think of anyplace else to go but downtown to see Mike. Still, the request was odd and she felt confused after last night: had he really forgiven her? Was there really anything to forgive? Was there some secret agenda?
Captain Cragen stepped over to Briscoe's desk and handed him a sheaf of papers. "Look guys, I need to see you in my office about the Verlaine case. Kincaid from the D.A.'s office is in there and wants to run a few things by you." He noticed they hadn't heard a word he was saying, and were concentrating intently on their desks. Logan darted a glance at the door. "Hey, gentlemen, hello? What's going on?"
Briscoe shushed him. "Just hold it a minute. Mikey's going home early today. Just sit back and watch."
Cragen, intrigued and irritated at the same time, put a hand on his hip. Behind him, Claire Kincaid emerged from his office and stood in the doorway just as Alexa entered the precinct and looked around curiously.
Briscoe noticed Mike break out in a grin, staring at his desk, and watched the grin disappear instantly, suppressed. Alexa headed over to their desks quickly, feeling even more paranoid now that she'd entered the main room. "Afternoon, Detective Briscoe, Captain Cragen," she said nervously. "Long time no see."
Briscoe gave her a shit-eating smile. "How goes it, Alexa."
"Mike?" she asked tentatively, and he looked up as if he hadn't realized she was there. "You gave me this?" And she handed over the note.
He looked up at her, quite seriously, and read the note as if he'd never seen it before, nodding. "Here, have a seat." And he dragged a chair up next to his desk and started rooting in his drawers for something.
"What's going on, Mike? Am I in trouble or something?" Now she wasn't imagining it; the whole room had gone quiet, everyone's eyes really were on her, and her heart was pounding. Maybe he hadn't come back for her, maybe they were going to arrest her or something.
Suddenly, he stopped rummaging and whatever he had been looking for, it fit in his fist. Before she realized what was going on, he had literally fallen on a knee in front of her and opened up his hand to reveal a small diamond ring. "Alexa Radin, in front of this entire precinct, which I'm gonna be pretty embarrassed in front of if you turn me down, Alexa, will you marry me?"
He looked genuinely unsure for a moment, the space between his eyebrows knotting, and her heart turned over. And then she heard the words. Oh God, she thought, there's still something else I haven't told him, but there was no chance now, and she lifted the ring with trembling fingers. Then she stared at him straight in the eye and said, teasing because he always brought out teasing in her, "You keep a box of these in your desk for contingencies, Detective?"
The tension released, the room broke out laughing.
"Alexa...." he prompted, and hadn't moved yet.
She started nodding and couldn't stop. "Yeah, I mean yes, Detective. I'll marry you."
He stood up and lifted her, spinning around with her, and whispered as he turned her, "I love you Alexa Radin. And I knew I better get you before somebody else did." And when he let her down she was dizzy, and they kissed long and hard while the rest of the precinct applauded.
Cragen made a face at Briscoe. "All right, all right. Go home." And he slapped Logan on the back. "Nine am sharp, tomorrow, Mike. Now get out of here."
And Mike swept Alexa off her feet as she giggled in embarrassment, covering her face, and he carried her all the way out of the precinct. And then they disappeared in the cab, back to his place.

Logan shifted restlessly in his bed. He'd been up for hours, staring at the ceiling, fading in and out of draggy sleep, the thoughts in his head bouncing around with such force they exhausted him and yet kept him awake. He felt like one of those glass snowballs, the kind children shake to make the plastic white bits fall on the scenery inside, and just as he felt himself settle something else would rattle him again, making the world chaotic and frenzied. He wanted to get up and pace, but was afraid Alexa would wake, and he didn't think his state of mind was exactly worth sharing at the moment. So he folded his arms under his head and tried to close his eyes again, tried to put his mind on to one track of thought, hoping again it would lull him into sleep.
He was first panicky. What have I done? He kept asking himself over and over again. He did not regret having proposed to Alexa, and yet there was something about her reaction that made him pause. All day, since he had taken her from the precinct home, out again later, and then back to his apartment he sensed a part of her was not wholly with him and, more unsettling, not with her answer. Tentatively he had searched for signs of reassurance, and each time he had come up with the reaction he had been seeking. Of course she loved him, of course they would be happy, they should go meet his parents next weekend, he should come meet her real ones upstate. They were planning, she seemed ecstatic, but...his mind pulled him back to that first day, in the cafeteria, when they stole glances of each other, trying to make sure the other wasn't watching. Their eyes had met once, accidentally, and at that moment he had been hooked. She had continued doing that while they were dating, watching him, then darting her glance away, and he'd pretended not to notice, but he'd known when she was staring at him, almost as if he could feel her slipping an arm around his waist. Her attention held weight in his psyche and since he had proposed he had not felt her eyes on him. When he turned suddenly to see where she was looking instead he would catch her lost in her own mind, staring vaguely into the river, or at a tree, anywhere but at him. Mike knew she had something on her mind that had nothing to do with the new ring on her finger, and the twinge he had first felt on noticing it was growing into a real irritant.
He thought it again: What have I done? Was this what he really wanted? Had he jumped before thinking things over? Not that that would be new for him; he'd gotten burned quite a few times in the past, saying what he really felt before considering the consequences, and he had yet to learn from it. Once he had been dating a woman for a few weeks, and was getting fairly serious over her, when out of the blue she had dumped him. Didn't give a reason, just told him on the phone it was over, and he'd run over to her place to have it out in person. Dumb move, he realized in retrospect, but at the time, in the heat of things he'd shifted his smarts into neutral and just got over there as soon as he could. She wouldn't let him in, just stood in the doorway of her apartment, blocking him from getting in, their words growing louder when he realized she was giving him the kind of brush-off he'd used a thousand times before. By the time her new boyfriend came to the front door Mike wasn't even surprised to find him in a robe. What had surprised Mike, however, was to see him out of uniform -- he recognized the lieutenant from a few precincts over. The officer hadn't said anything, just stood there with his arms folded, letting his presence do the talking, and Mike felt a curious sense of betrayal creep over him, as though this woman he'd almost gotten serious with had just been shopping around, trying to see where the better deals were amongst the stationhouses of the NYPD. And in the ensuing argument he'd said something even he didn't particularly like to think about, then called her a "cop-fucking social climber" and she'd actually laughed at him, closing the door behind her. He could hear her giggles trailing off back into the apartment, and incensed by so many things at once he'd put his fist through the wall next to her apartment. The pain had been ridiculous, and while he hadn't broken anything -- cheap fiberboard walls never did amount to much -- his fist had been swollen and purple for over a week after.
Usually, Mike knew to trust his impulses, even though a fist through a wall hadn't been among his best, and he'd gone with what he knew he had to do from the start. But is "have" to do the same as "want" to do? Did he want to marry Alexa, or did he feel in some part obligated to? Or was he just getting day-after jitters? He glanced over at her, and ran his hand down her shoulder gently, feeling the soft hairs of her arm under his palm. Was she feeling regretful? Where were her day-after jitters? She had never struck him as the kind of woman whose only goal in life was to be married, so how had she come by such confidence in what they were about to do together? And why did he feel there was yet another shoe to fall, something she wasn't being perfectly honest with him about -- something, of course, other than the identity of the guy she'd been with when Mike pushed her away?
He fell back against his pillow again, staring at the red lights of the clock, seeing the 1am hour slowly ticking away. Cragen expected him in tomorrow, another day at the desk, though he suspected they'd put him back on the streets soon. He had to fall asleep, he had to make peace with his thoughts somehow, or they would rack him into napping on the job. And thanks to his performance earlier that day the whole precinct knew of his approaching end to bachelorhood, and he would be expected to be the cheeriest guy there, not someone who looked hit over the head with a two by four.
Sometime around two, he passed out from exhaustion into dreamless sleep, having resolved nothing.

Mike looked at his watch. Already, an hour late. He'd told Alexa a half, and she knew better, but it was edging toward the beyond-the-pale zone, and he wondered if she'd come looking for him...like she had before. A flash of memory blotted out the world for a moment, the gun butt coming at his face for a second time, and lost in the recollection he dropped his coffee on the ground. Cragen had let him come out on the streets today, putting Lenny in charge of everything, but also putting Mike's tenure on the desk to an end, apparently feeling somehow that a proposal one day meant Mike was stable again the next. Mike wasn't so sure he was ready to be dropped back into the fray; little pinpricks of memories would jump him from behind at the oddest times, but he supposed that was to be expected on this first day back. He'd taken his notes, spoken to the witnesses, conferred with Lenny, gone through procedure like he'd never left it, but he'd been pushing himself all day, doing a lot more contemplating and a lot less voicing of every thought that came to mind. He supposed that would come back, in time, but for now he was standing alone, near the ambulance, waiting for Lenny to finish jawing with some of the beat cops who were keeping the crowds back. It was always a pain in the ass to have to cordon off a busy intersection in Midtown, and rubberneckers had been leaning over the yellow police markers, slowing things down, making it difficult for some of the cops to do their jobs. Lenny knew one of them from way back, and they'd been talking for about ten minutes now, the delay making Mike more and more annoyed.
One of the uniformed cops guarding the edges stepped up to him. "Logan?" he asked, and Mike nodded. "Here, some lady just gave this to me to give to you."
Mike took the wadded-up handkerchief and unfolded it in the palm of his glove. It was Alexa's ring, and he paled a little. "Where is this lady?"
"She was over here. You wanna see her?" the cop motioned Logan over to a far corner of the scene, and as they drew closer she waved at him. Mike felt a warm sense of relief wash over him; this wasn't some sort of gutless blow-off, like before. Not that he really expected anything of the sort from Alexa -- but his own fears had thrown him off-guard, and if he had started to confuse the issues in his own mind, he knew he could hardly expect rationality from her.
But after he finished being relieved, Mike grew angry, and roughly he dragged Alexa under the tape, pulling her by the hand over to the back of the ambulance. "What the fuck is this?" he asked her, pinching the ring in the handkerchief between his two fingers.
"Well, nice to see you too, Mike," she said petulantly, and reached for the ring. He pulled it back, out of her grasp. "I just wanted you to know I was out there."
"And a pen and paper doesn't occur to you?"
"I didn't have a pen and paper."
He took the ring and slid it back on her hand. "Don't ever take that off again, Alexa, not if you want it to stay on. You just subtracted years from my life."
"I'm sorry," she told him genuinely, abashed. "I wasn't thinking."
He held her hand an extra moment once the ring was on and turned it over, giving her a kiss on her palm. "Yeah, well, that must be my fault. I've been doing the thinking for both of us. I was up half the night last night."
"Oh," she said in a small voice. "Funny, I did a lot of thinking today, too. I think that's why I was so anxious for you to meet me...I couldn't wait at the restaurant. Maybe we should start pooling our thoughts."
He nodded in big long sweeps and felt his throat constrict a little. Here it came. "Okay, duck under here." He led her to the side of the cordon and she slipped to the edge of the crowd again. He waved over to Lenny, "Hey, Briscoe! Get over here and quit yappin'!"
Lenny finished his conversation and strode over to where they stood. "Evening, future Mrs. Logan," he told her with a grin.
She smiled at him. "Welcome back to the streets, Lenny."
His grin widened. "So you want to take my partner from me, don't you."
"It'd be nice if I could before, oh, say, sunrise. How much longer do you guys think you'll be here?"
Lenny cocked his head. "We're done, aren't we Mike?"
Mike shrugged. "I've been done. You've been holding court down there."
"So geddout," Lenny told him. "I'll cover for you. You should have a nice night out, you two."
Mike smiled faintly at him and ducked under the police tape. "Seeya Monday, Len," he said, and scooped up Alexa's hand in his own.
"And Alexa," Lenny called after them, and they turned. "Try and cheer him up, willya? All day he's looked like he swallowed his socks."
"Ah, bite me," Mike told him amiably, and disappeared into the crowd.

They continued holding hands, walking in silence down the street. At first Mike figured she'd suggest a restaurant, or tug him toward the subway, but she didn't say a word, and the more they walked the less he wanted to break the silence. It wasn't a heavy one, or an uncomfortable silence, it was more of a mutual moratorium on discussing what had been on their minds all day. Both of them sensed the potential for disaster, and neither of them knew exactly how to traverse the minefield, so they walked, holding hands, dodging the scurrying, lagging weekend commuters.
Mike remembered his badge was still out at one point, and he tucked it into his inside jacket pocket, getting a memory flash as he did, blanking out and remembering seeing some business cards on the floor of that co-op, picking them up, sliding them into his inner jacket pocket for safekeeping. And then he was back in the real world, Alexa never noticing he had been gone, the two of them just walking, approaching Central Park. Mike looked over at her, seeing her lost in her own thoughts, and he wanted to turn her to him, make her notice him, to wrap his arms around her and pull her into him. He felt he had lost control of his feelings for her; at some point he had felt the freefall of being in love and just let himself go, falling like Alice, but it frightened him. The rabbit hole had to have a bottom, didn't it? What happened when he landed?
Alexa glanced over at him quickly, and saw him staring off into the park, thinking. She had wandered around Manhattan that day, stopping to look in some of the stores, not really seeing any of the merchandise, just touching, exploring, running her thoughts over her mind as her hands ran over the fabrics. She had one more thing to tell him, one more hurdle to vault over, and what had her so knotted up was exactly how to tell him, and what to say. The easy route was simply to say that she had gotten pregnant just before he was...taken...and to prepare himself to be a daddy in another six months. The harder route, however, involved questioning exactly who was the biological father. Did Mike deserve to know there was some question there?
For there would always be that question, that much Alexa had decided. She was not going to ask any doctor to pinpoint an exact week of conception, and she was not going to let anyone else determine that for her. If the child was Ben's, what then? No, she had made her decision to stick with Mike Logan, to be his wife, and nothing had made her so contentedly happy as the moment when he had asked her. With that as a given, who could possibly benefit from putting her baby's paternity in question? She wanted Mike to accept her, and the baby, unreservedly. She did not want the child to be a constant reminder of someone else to Mike. Yet he deserved to know...didn't he?
And there was no one to turn to. The one person she could have received sound advice from was Ben, and he could hardly be expected to express objectivity here. There was as much a chance that the baby was Mike's as it was his. So who could it help to find out who was the actual father? Not the baby, not Mike, not Ben, not herself. Only pain could come from such knowledge. And yet, living with Ben for even the short time she thought she had learned the value of doing the right thing. Ben had gone to Mike and explained what had really gone on aboveground all those days Mike was missing. It had been the worst thing he could have done for himself, and he was hardly rewarded for his honesty. But he had said to Alexa, once, that "you have to look in the mirror, and you have to face what you see in there. Lie to yourself long enough, and you lose touch with that person you see when you wash your face. I have to know, in the morning, when I go to put a razor on my face, that the person I remember from the day before is still there. Doesn't make me any more special than anyone else, it just means I have to like what I see. Otherwise, if I couldn't, that sharp blade wouldn't be on my cheek. It might as well be used somewhere else."
So she had decided. But it didn't mean that because she was now certain of what she had to do telling would be made easier. Last night, when she woke up around two and couldn't fall back into sleep, she had to face the possibility that Mike would not stand for not knowing; that he would leave her...or force her to leave him. That was even harder to come to terms with; that was what made her wander the streets all that Friday. She didn't know how she would raise the baby on her own, but she knew she might well have to face that.
It had to be done, and done tonight. If she was lucky, they could move on from here out with no worries, no recriminations, no hidden secrets. Well, almost none. Suddenly, she could wait no longer. Just outside the Oak Room, across from Central Park, she stopped in her tracks. Mike, yanked back by her hand, still clutching his glove, turned and stood very close to her. Alexa rested her cheek against his chest, feeling the cool smoothness of his tie, the knot at her head, his heart beating beneath. She was about to whisper to him, to ask him to hold her, when his leather-jacketed arms wrapped around her back and squeezed, absorbing her into him, and he rested his cheek on the top of her head. She snaked her arms around his waist and they stood like that, the rush of Friday night streaming around them like water rushing around a stone in a creek, and she closed her eyes, letting him warm and protect her. After a long few moments she lifted her head, the curve of his face lit by a streetlamp, and she felt her legs weaken, he was so beautiful. She said to him, "How about pooling those thoughts now?"
He smiled slightly at her and kissed her forehead. "Do you have any particular location you'd like this pooling to take place in?"
She smiled back and said, "Well, ideally, on a remote island in the Caribbean surrounded by waterfalls, the sun, and all the mangoes we could eat so if, by some chance, the pooling doesn't go so hot we wouldn't care anyway, but since that doesn't seem too feasible, how about catching one of those buggy rides across the street, and letting the horse do the walking for us?"

Mike was a little dubious over the cost of the ride; he wished he could make as much per hour as these buggy drivers clopping through Central Park apparently did, but Alexa seemed to feel it was important, so he went along, and after they crossed the street and found a buggy with some small amount of privacy they hopped in and pulled a blanket over their legs. He hugged her arm and pulled her to him as the horse and driver pulled away from the curb and headed into the darkening park.
Central Park at night, Mike knew, was a hotbed of all sorts of illegal activities, the kind of place a person would not want to venture into once the lights fell low. There were some safe areas, relatively speaking, and the buggy seemed to stick to the road, so after a few moments he sat back and tried to relax, watching nothing and no one but Alexa, but being vaguely aware of the passing trees, the rhythmic hoofbeats of the horse, and the sense of darkness closing in on them. After a few minutes of further silence, Alexa pulled back from him and leaned against the side of the buggy, taking one of his hands in hers.
"Mike," she said finally, "have you been thinking that you might have made a mistake yesterday?"
He let out a long breath of air he hadn't realized he was holding in. "Is this the part where you tell me you're not ready, or you don't think we should go through with it, Alexa? Cause if it is...I'm gonna throw myself under the wheels of this cart."
She smiled at him. "Silly, no. You asked me and you're stuck with me for the duration. I just wanted to make sure you didn't have any second thoughts."
"Second thoughts...third thoughts, Alexa, I'd be lying to you if I said I hadn't had them. I had 'em all last night, till I passed out. My head hurt from all of this. But that was natural. I've been single a lot of years, and it'll take a while before I get used to not being that way any more." He paused. "But a mistake -- no, Alexa, not a mistake. Not a mistake at all. Have you...thought it was a mistake?"
Her eyes widened. "Oh, no, Mike. No mistake. I only wanted to be sure how you felt, first."
"First...before what?"
She took a deep breath. "I'm going to say something, Mike, and I don't know if I'm going to say it right...so first, I want to tell you how much I love you." And she pulled him to her, kissing him for a long time, and Mike felt himself thinking the news could hardly be bad if this was the introduction. They pulled back, and she settled against the side of the buggy again, struggling with her words. "I know you know that, so try to keep that in mind. Okay?"'
"Alexa," he pleaded, "spit it out. You're killing me here. Do you think I can't handle what you're throwing at me?"
She laughed shortly. "You, Detective Mike, who goes out and sees dead bodies and all sorts of evil all over this city every day, yes, I think you can handle whatever I might throw at you." Then she fell silent and her face lost all expression. "I'm going to have a baby, Mike."
He tried to stand up and hit his head on the top of the buggy. "Shit," he muttered, rubbing his head, then he stared at her. "Alexa!" And he leaned over again, pulling her to him, trying to hug her and kiss her at the same time. The relief he felt wash over him was almost as powerful as the message she had just given him. "We're going to be...parents," he murmured into her hair. "Jesus, God, that's a scary thought."
She let him hug her, wishing this was the end of it, knowing he wasn't going to let his emotions roll over his brain indefinitely. She knew what the right thing to do was, and after a moment, she pried herself away from him and sat against the buggy.
"Alexa..." he said, his brow creasing. "That's not...everything you wanted to tell me, is it."
She looked at her hands. "No, it isn't. And this is the part I hope you can try to understand."
With those words his heart fell into his stomach, and he knew, a cold realization settling into him. "The baby...it's not mine," he said flatly.
Alexa didn't respond. In her mind she had worked out a hundred conversations the two of them might have had, down to the logical arguments she would present to him, and how he would understand and all of this would be easily done away with. But in the end all of that went out the window when he said what he did; this was not an argument of logic, but one of emotions, and she could only try to explain what she felt. So at first, she didn't say anything.
"Is it," he insisted again, turning his head to try and catch her gaze.
Summoning her courage to face him she looked up and took a deep breath. "What if," she began, "what if it isn't."
He gave her a bemused look. "What does that mean?"
"Well," she said, "if I came out and said that this baby that I'm planning to have wasn't yours, what would you do?"
"For God's sake, Alexa, is it or isn't it? Stop tap-dancing."
She folded her arms. "I'm not tap-dancing. I'm trying to make a point."
"This isn't debate club, Alexa, this is important."
"Exactly," she told him, and narrowed her eyes. "Would you still want to marry me, then?"
He let out a long breath of air. "Jeez, if that's all you're worried about...I'm not getting married to a baby, I'm getting married to you." He paused, letting that hang there. "Though sometimes I have to wonder."
"Low blow, Detective. What's that supposed to mean."
He shook his head. "Forget it. What's the big deal, then? Is it my baby or is it...that other guy's." He grimaced at the last part of the sentence.
"I don't know."
"You don't know?" he echoed. "Well, that's fixed easy."
"It's not something to be fixed," she told him. "Nothing is broken. It serves no purpose in knowing."
"It sure as hell does," he said, a quiet anger building up in him from a reserve he hadn't realized he had. "It matters a hell of a lot."
"Why?" she suddenly flared at him, her eyes shining. Her words weren't very loud, but they carried a hidden emotional punch, and the combination unnerved Mike. "Why should it matter that much?"
"A man has a right to know his own child, Alexa. You are not that ignorant."
She shook her head. "No. If you want to marry me, you are getting a package deal. One with no questions attached. There is as much chance that this baby is yours as it is....someone else's. But I will do nothing that might make our baby somehow less in your eyes, to make you think that somehow you aren't really his father. What counts is who raises a child, not where he came from. That is the fatherhood you are going to have to accept. And if you don't want that, then you don't want me, either." Her voice was cracking as she spoke, but she had to get it all out at once, or she would lose the ability to phrase it so again.
"And you think," he said, nearly growling, "that if I know if this child is someone else's I won't care for it? Won't love it?"
"As much as your own?" she said. "By the very fact that you are asking these questions I know it for sure."
"You don't have a very high opinion of me, Alexa," he said tightly.
She narrowed her eyes and tried to blink away the tears she could feel coming. She was losing him, and could think of no way to argue with him and still be able to face herself. She had planned for something like this, for the whole thing to go horribly wrong, but seeing it crumble in front of her, when all she had to say was that she would see a doctor and get it resolved...it could be so easy. But Ben hadn't taken the easy route for himself, she would not let herself be so lulled. If Mike could not handle this, it might be best that she did not lock herself up with him for the rest of her life. "You just don't get it," she whispered. "After all this time, you still just don't get it."
The odd tone of disappointment in her voice watered his anger enough for him to at least see straight, and what he saw -- her miserable face, her desperate eyes -- softened his tone. "I don't know, Alexa, you're right, I don't understand. I don't know if I can ever understand." He was silent a moment. "I need to think about this. I need some time."
She wanted to shake him out of sheer frustration. He was ruining everything. A tear flew down her cheek and she knew more were coming if she didn't get out. And she refused to dissolve in tears in front of him over this. Reaching down and yanking the ring from her finger she snatched up his hand and forced it into his fist. "Take all the fucking time you need. All of a sudden, I don't want it to stay on," she told him, and turned, jumping from the moving buggy, stumbling a moment, then running off into the middle of Central Park.
Mike closed his fist on the ring, her words buzzing in his head, and then he realized what she'd done. He leaped down to run after her, but the buggy stopped short and he fell on his knees. "Alexa!" he called, and was about to run after her when the driver snatched up his arm.
"Hey, you," the driver said. "One of youse has to pay, whether you finish the ride or not."
Mike craned his neck in the direction Alexa had gone, but he could not see her. He pulled out his wallet and threw a few bills into the driver's hand and took off in long, loping strides after Alexa, calling her name. But the delay, though brief, had been crucial, and he could not see or hear a thing. She was gone, into the jungle of the Park, and he leaned up against a tree trunk, turning and kicking it until it felt like his foot would snap off. "God damnit to hell," he shouted, and started in with his fists on the tree, whapping the unyielding trunk until he hurt all over. Then he sank to the ground, still clutching the ring, and stared at it for a very long time.

When she finally stopped running, leaving Mike's calling voice far behind her, Alexa was in a fugue, stumbling around as though drunk, tears falling freely from her eyes, feeling disheveled and somehow dirty, as though she had done something terribly wrong. But she was not so disoriented as to not realize where she was, which was in the middle of Central Park at night, and she knew she had to get out as quickly as she can, wallowing in her grief after. She knew there was a subway stop near Columbus Circle, and the Mayflower Hotel near there, so she headed in the direction she thought would take her to the train. The only thought she could keep in her mind right then was a need to get to the train. Once you're on the train, she thought in a stream of consciousness, you change to the N, then that other one, and in a half hour you're home... but home, by that definition, was not Gretchen's, nor Mike's, nor Amelia's. It was Ben's house. Home, she thought, and began to make her way through the trees and rocks and seemingly random asphalt roads to where Central Park met civilization once more.
She never heard them sneak up behind her and in the end was probably luckier that they knocked her out with one blow. Had she fought, they would have killed her; they had the bloody knives from earlier in the evening to prove it could be done. But about halfway across the park three junkies, strung out and looking for other addicts to victimize, saw Alexa stumbling in her daze. Without a word they clipped her on one side of the head and she crumpled to the ground. One of the muggers pinched her cheeks and, seeing no reaction, decided she was out cold. They rifled through her pockets, coming up with her wallet, which emptied quickly, her spare keys, which were of no use to them, and a pack of gum, which they ate. But no drugs, and not very much money. It had hardly been worth it, but she was easy prey, and gave in without even a fight. So they decided not to kill her.
Alexa woke up some time later, cold, her head and face feeling like a balloon, throbbing and sore. She reached around to the back of her head and felt some crust that broke away and turned wet at her touch, and when she brought her hand around she could see she was still bleeding slightly back there. She had fallen ungracefully, the side of her face hitting the ground hard, and her mouth would not open fully. Nothing felt exactly broken, but she felt like she had been out cold for weeks. All of a sudden she started to shake violently from delayed shock, and clutched her knees to her chest until the spasm passed over her. She began to realize she was lucky to have survived, feeling in her pockets, unsurprisingly completely empty. She felt around for the small inner pocket, the one the specialists had missed in Mike's coat, and felt around to see if it was still there. A five dollar bill came out in her fingers, a kind of emergency money. Well, she thought vaguely, if this isn't an emergency I don't know what is, and she transferred it to her pants pocket. Standing slowly, seeing yellow stars in her vision, she gradually regained her balance and looked all around her. No one in any direction, but traffic noises came from several hundred yards ahead. She had almost made it safely. Almost.
At first, passengers stared at her on the train, but when she slumped down in her seat and pulled her loose hair around her face, they took no notice. She felt shameful, as if by not meeting their standards she had somehow failed, but that did not last long. All she knew now was the train was going forward, and she on it. Somewhere, at the end of it all, was Ben. It was the only place in the world she could think of going, and he the only person she could imagine seeing. Beyond that, she did not think.
If she had thought, she might have saved herself a lot of time. Ben was not home when she got there, after a long trudge through the suburban streets. Behind the door she could hear Clarence jumping around wildly, and the thought of her dog in this small house suddenly seemed foreign to her, as if she had read of all of this in a story, but never actually experienced it for herself. And that was, to an extent, true; Ben's house had always been a kind of fairytale for her. She sat on the porch swing and tried to puzzle out where he might be, tried to put her fragmented thoughts together in her mind, but the throbbing of her jaw made that nearly impossible. Why was she here? Why did she always run to him, or expect him to run to her? She had no answer. This time, her need was so great Ben seemed like the only star in the sky, the only beacon of light she might hope to feel safe with. For now, there could be no more right, or wrong, only that she was suddenly in pain and homeless, and just wanted to see a friendly face.
And then she knew where he would be. Was it only two days ago that she had gotten engaged? It felt a lifetime, it felt like she had lived and died since then. But it still was only two days, not even, more like thirty-six hours. No, he would have heard by now, but if she knew Ben he would not have wanted to come home quite so soon to his house. The memories would have been too strong. She felt how much she had hurt him just then, as if he had been there to blame her in person, and she felt like calling out to him. No, he would not be home. She knew where he would have gone -- to his one beacon of light.



Alexa tried to smooth her hair down, and generally rearrange herself so that she did not look so deranged, but the fact was that she was losing her grip on her ability to judge. She was tired by the time she'd walked back to the subway, and a quick nap on the train did nothing to help. A subway policeman, strolling the cars, looking for trouble, had woken her up once and spoke with her to see if she was in trouble, or about to make trouble, but eventually he moved on and let her stew in peace. So she tried napping again, mentally trying to picture where Barney lived. It was only a few blocks from the station to Barney's but on the way her head had started to throb again. The muggers had not taken her scarf, and she tried to wrap it around the injury. She could only imagine what she looked like to an outsider, certainly indigent was the kindest description. But she knew of nowhere else she could really go. Gretchen's was still a possibility, but Gretchen on a Friday night could be out all hours, dancing or partying, and would certainly be no help come morning.
She knocked hesitantly at Barney's door, but despite Alexa's self-ministrations, the aging housekeeper who answered was frightened, a shadow of fear crossing her face as she opened the door, and nearly shut it right away. "Please," said Alexa, as genteel as she knew how, "please tell me, is Barney in?"
"Mr. Hoskyns has visitors," the housekeeper told her. "He cannot be disturbed."
Alexa swallowed. "Can you tell me -- is Ben Stone one of them?"
The housekeeper raised an eyebrow, which was all the answer Alexa needed. Ben was in there. "I would not know that," the housekeeper said.
Alexa withdrew a bottle from her jacket, purchased with the rest of her money, and asked the housekeeper to give it to Ben, telling her what to say when she gave it to him. "Please? I'll wait out here."
Something about her appearance made the woman take pity on Alexa. "Yes. Wait a moment." And the door shut on her.
Alexa sank to the stoop, feeling more and more exhausted, on the verge of unconsciousness. If there was any way to reach Ben, it might be through that bottle of wine. She certainly had no intention of being cute, or of trying to rekindle anything, only to hope that he might forgive her her sins, the sin of walking out on him, the sin of being unable to forget Mike, and take pity on her tonight. For tonight, she thought, she needed him more than she ever had.



Barney's housekeeper, Edina, knocked on the door to his den. Inside, he and Ben had been getting liquored up for hours, laughing and talking, playing chess and doing anything but discussing exactly why Ben was not going home this Friday night. Barney knew if his friend wanted to tell him he would, but he suspected he knew: the dalliance with his younger, untakeable woman was over. He could hear it in Ben's jokes, which rang hollow, his chess playing, which was amateurish, and his desire to seemingly consume all of the Chivas Barney had around his bar. After tonight, Barney knew he would have to look after Ben all that much more closely; he was not going to let his friend drown in the drink, like so many good men did these days, but tonight...all bets were off. They would revel now, then regret come sunup.
"Come in, Edina," he told her, and the study door swung open. He saw what she carried, and waved it away. "No, no, Edina. We've had enough to drink, methinks, haven't we, Ben?"
Ben turned from the window and looked at Edina, focusing on the cheap bottle of wine she carried. "More than enough, Barney, yet...not enough, I think," he told him.
"The young lady said to say it came from Mesopotamia," Edina offered.
Sobriety cut through Ben's fog like a hand jerking him forward. "What young lady?" he asked, starting to the door.
Barney put out a hand to stop Ben where he stood. "Just a moment, my friend." He turned to Edina. "Leave us, leave the wine here. I'll take care of this." Edina scurried out the door. "Ben," Barney told him, "let it go. Anything she might have to say to you can wait until the day. You're not fit to see anyone."
Ben knocked his hand down. "Barney, don't do this. Let me go."
Barney stared at him and bellowed, "Edina!"
"Yes?" Edina stuck her head back in the room.
"Where is the young lady?"
"Waiting outside, Mr. Hoskyns."
"Very good. Thank you." And Edina darted back out again. He fixed his gaze on Ben. "Are you certain you want to see her?"
"I think I have to," Ben told him in a hushed voice. "I know I have to, just one more time."
Barney nodded. "All right then. Wait here." And he closed the study door behind him.
When he opened the front door he did not at first see anyone, and nearly shut it again before his eyes caught her on the front stoop. She looked like a bedraggled orphan, passed out on his stoop, her coat ripped and muddy, her long hair stringy, her black-and-white Arab scarf stained with blood in the back. Barney reached down and pushed some hair from her face, noticing the swelling at her jaw and the slight cut at the corner of her lip. Why and how she had come to collapse on his steps he did not question. That this was Alexa was all he needed to know, and he reached under her, lifting her in his arms, inside his apartment.
Barney did not, however, take her downstairs to Ben. Instead, he called up to Edina again, and the older woman ventured down the stairs, helping Barney carry Alexa up to one of the spare bedrooms. "My dear," he told Edina, "please clean her up as best you can, and offer her some of the spare pajamas in the drawer. No doubt they will be too large, but dress her and put her to bed. She appears to be hurt, but nothing looks too serious. You won't be afraid of a little blood, will you?"
Edina smiled thinly. "I have seen it before."
"Good woman. Whatever would I do without you."
"I can't imagine, sir."
"Indeed." He paused. "When you are done, you may quit for the night; we've already had you up far past any reasonable working hour. But first, come down and ask me if you may quit for the night. Then I will know you are finished."
"Yes, sir."
When he entered the study alone and closed the door behind him he saw Ben's face fall. "Where...is she?" Ben asked him hesitantly, foggily.
"As I said, Ben, you are in no condition to see anyone. And, as it turned out, neither was she. Edina is seeing to her now, and you may look in on her in the morning. It appears she will be staying in the spare room. As usual, you may use my room; even with all of this warm scotch I believe I shall be staying up all night again."
"What...condition?" Ben asked, the Chivas, finally having a chance to settle in his blood, making him slow and unfocused. He no longer felt like laughing, or playing chess. "What sort of condition was she in?"
"Now, Ben, you musn't bother her. She's already asleep, and likely to stay that way for the rest of the night. She simply looked a bit the worse for wear. Have you not seen her since...she left you?"
Ben looked away, out the window, and paced. "No."
"She is why you have come here tonight, isn't she?"
He stove his hands into his pockets and stared at the floor. "Am I really that much of a book?"
Barney laughed. "Of course, Ben, and I would have it no other way. You make my powers of perception seem that much more grandiose. Why, since this whole thing started I've seen you more than I did over the past five years."
"I'm sorry, Barney. I have used you, haven't I."
"That is what friends are for," Barney told him seriously. "Use away." He paused. "Is it over, then, between the two of you?"
Ben sighed. "If it could have ever really been said to begin. Yes, it is. She got engaged Thursday."
Barney searched his brain. "Then why on earth would she be here?"
"There's the big question, Barney, isn't it."
There was silence a moment as Barney searched his mind, and a rap came at the door. "Come in, Edina."
The housekeeper stuck her head in. "Might I go home now, sir?"
"Go right ahead. And..." he stood and followed her out the door, out of Ben's earshot, and they conferred a moment. "Good night, then. And thank you."
"Are you certain, Ben," said Barney, closing the door again behind him, "that she was indeed engaged?"
Ben frowned. "Let's say I heard it from a few sources already."
Barney nodded. "Interesting. According to Edina, she wears no ring."
Ben started forward again and nearly tripped over a chair. "I really have to talk to her."
Barney restrained him a second time. "Sit, my friend, or go to sleep. In the morning all things will be clear. Except our heads, which will be pounding. I can feel mine already. All right? Let her be for now. She will still be here in the morning, I promise you that."
Ben shook his head but retreated from the door. "With Alexa, I believe nothing about her state of permanence, not ever, in any place."

Ben headed upstairs about an hour later and changed, nearly crawling into Barney's large poster bed, but paused. His head was beginning to hurt already, and he hoped the aspirins he had just taken would help, but he still knew sleep would be some time in coming. And the thought of her being just down the hall...he decided he would just open the door and see Alexa for himself. The more he thought of it, the more necessary it became, to know for sure that she really was back under the same roof as himself.
On the one hand he still felt stung and hurt that she had just up and left him, no matter how it helped his case, no matter that it happened almost a month ago, no matter that it was the only thing she really could have done. The break had been hard, and painful, like ripping a bandage off of skin all at once, but he still could not remove her entirely from his mind. Hearing about the engagement from Claire had only opened the wound once more, just when he had been resigning himself to sealing up this part of his life. And now...for whatever reason...she was here. Why here? Why now? And if Barney's Edina was right, why sans ring? Where was Mike Logan in all of this?
He crept over to her door down the hallway and turned the handle gently. Edina had left one lamp on a very low setting, casting a warm, brownish light all over the room, and as the door revealed the room his eyes quickly adjusted to the new dimness. Alexa lay in the bed, sprawled on her back under the sheets, still very much looking like she had been just tucked in. Ben watched her, recalling the times before when he had stolen memories of her sleeping, feeling quite natural being a voyeur to her dreamstates, and he closed the door behind him, no longer content with just seeing her from across the room. He sat on the edge of her bed, lowering himself on the quilt as soundlessly as possible, and stared into her face, wondering what had made her jaw slightly bruised. It looked as if she had been punched at a close range. He stepped off the footstool leading up to the bed and found her clothes draped across the desk chair, lifting them up one by one, examining them. While her shirt and jeans appeared to be similar to ones he had seen her wear before, and in fine condition, her coat was ripped in places and streaked with mud down one side. Her scarf was decorated with one large, dark bloodstain, and now Ben knew why Barney told him she was in no condition to see anyone. Someone had beaten her up.
"Oh, God, Alexa," he murmured. "How could he have done this to you?" And then he shook his head. However he might feel about Logan, he knew in his heart Mike would never punch Alexa. It made no sense to even entertain the idea. But who, then? Ben reached over to stroke her hair, feeling impotent rage welling in him, mixing with a nausea not entirely related to too much alcohol. He wanted to crawl in with her and be with her forever, promising never to let anything terrible happen again, and knew he could make no such promises.
After he had sat with her for a half hour or so, watching her, hoping the bruise would seem less ugly after he had stared at it long enough, her eyes opened slightly. Groggily, she focused in on him. "Ben?" she asked slowly. "You're here."
"I had to say good night," he told her. "I couldn't wait until morning."
She sat up carefully, as if doing so pained her, and wrapped her arms around him. "Oh, Ben, I thought you wouldn't want to see me."
He hugged her back, though not too hard, the feeling of her against his chest coming back to him like a long forgotten but once familiar memory. "No, of course not, Alexa. I took the wine."
She laughed on his shoulder, then winced and pulled back. "You did," she said quietly and rested a hand against her jaw. "How bad does it look," she stated.
He nodded. "You've looked better."
She lay against the pillows. "What an idiot I was."
He shushed her. "Go back to sleep. We can talk about it in the morning."
She blinked at him and took his hand. "Ben, hold my hand, and sit with me for a minute more. Just until I fall asleep. Please?"
He squeezed her hand. "I'll wait."
It took nearly no time at all, and when she had finally drifted off again, Ben crept out and back to his own bed.

"I don't know, Barney," Ben told him the next morning, around the dining room table. "I can't figure out just how she came to be hit like that." Edina had just served them a hazelnut coffee and juice, and Barney had asked her to wait on their eggs until they saw whether or not Alexa would be joining them. Edina headed upstairs to check on her.
"Ben, don't jump to any conclusions," Barney told him. "Are you certain it wouldn't be this Logan person she's supposed to be engaged to?"
Ben stared at his juice, turning the glass around in his fingers. He would not have thought that Logan could strike a woman, particularly someone he claimed to love. And yet...the detective was not known for his shyness with suspects, he was known to go overboard when the situation got personal. It was in him, this latent violence. Whether that could transfer to someone he knew...that was something Ben did not really believe. But Alexa had a way of bringing out anger when she got particularly riled up; Ben could hardly forget that he had slapped her all those weeks ago. And if it had not been Mike who had struck her, why was she not with him now? Why would she once again try to run away...to the one person who always would take her in? "I don't know," he said finally. "It is possible. Until last night I wouldn't have imagined it. But if not him, who?"
Barney poured himself some more coffee. "I suggest, my friend, that you allow her to tell you what has gone on, in her own time. It may be that things are not as dire as you think; it may be that they are worse. But I do not think you should probe this further, not until she is ready to give you more information."
Ben laughed shortly. "Here's the kicker. She's been gone a month, shows up exactly where she knows I'll be hiding out, and it's like nothing has changed. I still feel exactly the same way about her. It's twisted." He paused. "I have to call an end to it. I can't live like this."
Barney nodded. "In the meanwhile, what shall we do with her? Do you think she'll want to leave straight-away?"
"I don't think so. I don't know why, but I don't think she will."
"Well, then. Let me know as soon as you suspect she will be staying on. I think I might be able to arrange something for the three of us tonight, if you're willing to venture outside. She may want to have her mind taken off of...things."
Ben looked at him and smiled. "I'll test the waters and let you know."
The dining room door slid open and Alexa, still in her oversized pajamas, wandered in, shuffling to a seat across the table from Ben. "Morning," she said, and yawned.
Barney glanced at the clock. "Afternoon might be more appropriate, my dear."
"All right," she said, and glanced across the table at Ben with a half-smile, the side of her face with the bruise not quite measuring up to the task. "I'm sorry to just show up like that last night."
"Any time you like," Barney told her. "Ben, I don't believe you've actually introduced us yet."
"Alexa," Ben told her gently, "this is Barney Hoskyns. You talked on the phone a few times, I think."
Formally, she stood and shook his hand. "You have a beautiful place," she said. "It reminds me of an Edith Wharton novel."
The elder man chuckled and turned to Ben. "She's darling," he told him.
Alexa eyed him and raised an eyebrow. "She's not a pet," she told him. "She's right here and can hear just fine."
"My dear," Barney said, ringing a small bell next to his plate to summon Edina. "I would have it no other way."


Part Three, continued