The song in this chapter is "Angel Eyes" by John Hiatt.

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Alison emerged from the bedroom. "Rafe."

When Rafe looked at Alison, he literally had to catch his breath. Alison wore her hair up and she looked incredible in that scarlet red dress.

"Oh…wow," Rafe said breathlessly. Alison laughed. Rafe walked over to her and took her hands. "You look absolutely beautiful." He kissed her hands. "I knew that dress would look great on you, but I had no idea you would wear it so well."

Alison blushed. "Thank you. You don't look so bad yourself. You look great in a suit."

Rafe smiled. "You ready to go?"

"Mmm-hmm." Alison shook her head and laced her arms around Rafe's. "So, where are we going?"

"That's a surprise."

"Oh, so that's how it's going to be, huh?" Alison asked.

"Yes, that's how it's going to be," Rafe laughed. "You'll love it, trust me."

"I'm sure I will," Alison replied.

Rafe helped Alison put her coat on, and then they walked out the door to go on their date.

"Well, this is it," Rafe said.

Rafe had taken her to this quaint little restaurant called "The Cottage". It was small, and very romantic. Candles illuminated the tables, and it wasn't too busy tonight. Soft music played in the background.

"Rafe, how did you know about this place?" Alison asked as she looked around with stars in her eyes. Rafe took that as a good sign.

"I asked Shirley where was a nice romantic restaurant I could take you, and she suggested this place. Why, have you been here before?"

"My parents, this is one of their favorite restaurants. When I was little, they would always come here. I always wanted to go with them, but they would never let me. They said it was only a place for grown-ups. No kids allowed. It's funny, I see children here though," Alison laughed softly.

"If you want to go somewhere else…"

"No, Rafe." Alison smiled at him. "I've always wanted to come here. I never knew it was so beautiful inside. Let's stay."

"Okay."

The hostess soon came and led them to their table by the window. From the window, they could see out onto the harbor. When the waiter came, he handed Alison a pink rose. Alison looked at Rafe and smiled, knowing that he had somehow planned that.

Rafe and Alison had been having a wonderful dinner together. And while many people on "dates" usually had a hard time finding things to talk about, that wasn't the case with Rafe and Alison. They talked for hours.

"I feel like something's different about me," Alison said. "I feel like I'm entering this new phase of my life. It's like, all my life, it seems I've been dependent on other people, my parents, my nana. And I even felt in a way that I was dependent on Jamal. But now, it's just me for myself. On my own. And now I'm going to make my own decisions."

"So what do you want to do?"

"I was thinking that maybe…no, it's silly."

"What, tell me?" Rafe's curiosity was piqued.

"No, I don't want to," Alison shied away.

"Oh come on," Rafe persisted gently. "You can tell me."

"Oh, oh right," Alison gave up. She smiled at Rafe. "When I was a little girl, I was really lonely. My parents were always away on vacations or whatever and my nana was always busy with some charity guild meeting. And I didn't have that many friends to play with. Nana wouldn't let me out of the house much, she wouldn't have me 'associate' with children she thought were 'unsuitable'. So I ended up spending a lot of time with Sally. She was my best friend."

"Who's Sally? Family dog?"

Alison laughed. "No, she was our cook!"

"Oh!" Rafe laughed. "Sorry, I thought maybe you were referring to some kind of pet."

"That's okay. So anyway, I was always hanging out in the kitchen with Sally. She was so nice too. She was the only person in that house that would really listen to me, you know? Well anyway, Sally taught me everything I know about cooking, I mean everything! She taught me how to bake cakes and bread and muffins of course. Omelets and French toast, everything. Well, for my eighth birthday, she bought me one of those Easy Bake Ovens. Do you know what those are?"

"I'm not sure. I don't think so."

"Well it's like this little oven, and it's this actual oven. You plug it in and it has these little tiny trays. It comes with these little packet of ingredients, and you mix them up in the little tray and slide it in this little oven. And it heats up the food with like, this light bulb or something! It takes a long time to cook, but if you had just tasted the little brownies I had made with that, you would say it was worth the wait."

"I can totally see you making food with that," Rafe laughed.

"That was my favorite present! So anyway, I would get all of my stuffed animals together and they would be my customers."

"Customers?"

"Yeah. I had to have customers at my shop! I called it 'Alison's Bakery'. I'd dream of growing up and having my own bakery like that all the time."

"So what happened?" Rafe asked when he noticed Alison wasn't smiling so much anymore.

"Well, Nana took my easy bake oven away. She said it was a silly thing to play with and that I didn't need to waste my time learning how to cook when I could just grow up and hire a cook when I got older. She told me it was better to focus on things like my piano lessons or ballet lessons or you know, my 'princess' lessons," Alison added sarcastically.

"I'm sorry, Alison."

"No, it's okay." Her smile returned. "Nana didn't really take it away. I found out she just put it in the attic. So I would sneak up there and play with it. But then a few years later, our grouchy maid Agnes cleaned out the attic on my nana's orders and it got thrown out or something."

"Alison..."

"That pretty much squashed all of my dreams. Until now I guess. I've been thinking a lot about it lately and you know, I shouldn't let my nana stop me from my dream. Maybe I could someday open up my own bakery. And who cares what Nana has to say about it, right?"

"I think you could do it, Alison."

"Really?"

"Yeah. In fact, I know you can. Port Charles needs a really good bakery."

Alison smiled. "So what about you, angel boy?"

Rafe looked up from his plate of food. "What do you mean?"

"Well I told you my dream. Why don't you tell me yours? Or at least, what your dream was."

"I didn't have one. The title of 'vampire slayer' was pretty much written on my business card the day I was born."

"Well I know that you really focused on that, but, Rafe, there had to be something else that you dreamed about. I mean, what if you weren't protecting the world from people like Caleb? What would you have liked to do instead?"

"No, I don't want to say…"

"Oh come on, Rafe! I told you mine! Tell me yours!"

"Well, okay. I guess there is one thing. I've always had a thing for writing, especially poetry."

"I know," Alison said. "You write beautiful poetry, Rafe. I uh, I read some of your poems in your journal. They were really good."

"Nah, you're just saying that," Rafe said shyly.

"No, I'm not! Rafe, you are a very talented writer. You are."

"Thank you."

"So how did you get so good at writing?"

"Well, I was a lot like you when I was a kid. I was lonely. I didn't have many friends because my family was too busy training me to be a slayer. My father passed away when I was pretty young, killed in the line of duty you know. And my mother was so depressed about my father dying and she was awfully sick. She passed away when I was only thirteen."

"Aww, Rafe, I'm sorry."

Rafe smiled. "Oh don't worry, they're just fine. They're together in heaven now, I've seen them."

"Oh right."

"So anyway, my Uncle Martin, my mother's brother, he sort of took over my father's duties and started training me, day and night, all of the time. And my mother was always pushing me too. She wanted me to avenge Caleb after what he did to my father. And I was just a kid you know. It's not that I didn't put forth effort in what I was doing. I knew it was an important job. It was what being a Kovich was all about. It's just that I wanted a normal life too. So I would often go away out in the woods and spend some time alone there. There was no one for me to talk to except myself, so I guess that is how the whole journal writing thing got started. And that's why I love to write I guess. It's just something I've always done."

Alison smiled. She liked hearing Rafe talk about his childhood.

Rafe looked across the room and saw a young couple dancing. It gave him an idea. "Hey, would you like to dance?"

"I'd love to," Alison replied.

Rafe stood up and walked over to her. He offered his hand and she took it. They started to dance.

"Sorry, no floating tricks this time," Rafe said. "But I wish I could."

"That's okay, I don't think you need them. I already feel like I'm floating." Alison smiled at him.

As they danced to the song, Rafe pulled Alison closer to him and kissed her rosy lips.

When the song was over, Rafe and Alison were still dancing, with Alison's eyes closed and her head resting on Rafe's shoulder.