The Conversation
      Chapter 9
 

He pulls back, still holding her fragile countenance in his shaking hands, and begins brushing the remaining hair from her eyes and placing each strand carefully behind her flawless ears. All tears are gone, replaced by expressions of acceptance. She wipes the sides of her face to rid herself of the heavy remnants of the tears they shared.

"You know… I don't think I've cried this much in months."

"Hey, at least you have an excuse… you're pregnant. I don't know what's getting into me."

She laughs as she strokes his cheek in the guise of cleansing his face, but in reality she simply needs to feel the skin that houses such an extraordinary man. Despite the amount of pain she put him through, he thanked her. Her heart swells as she remembers his love… the love that he put above all others as he protected her…

"I guess I just have that effect on you, huh? Able to turn you into a sentimental mess?"

"That's the truth… I never knew what hit me. Little did I know that sweet, innocent Michelle Bauer would rule my every emotion someday."

He rolls his eyes in mock disgust, all the while smiling as she pulls her hair back into a bun to get it out of her way. That hair. He's seen it so many times - twisted, loose, curly, straight, up, down - none of them a preference but all of them equally intoxicating.

"Ok, what's next down memory lane? Unless… do you want to get some sleep and we can pick this up tomorrow? It's getting kind of late and I want to make sure you get your rest."

"Oh, are you tired? Because I had a nice, long nap this afternoon while you were out, and at this point I'm kinda riled up…"

A look of worry flashes across his face and his muscles tense. She's six months pregnant, he thinks, she shouldn't be put through anything too stressful. The doctors have told him to ensure that she remains calm and kept out of any strenuous situations. Picking up on it, she lovingly strokes his arm…

"Oh no, not in a bad way. I'm just… awake."

She smiles widely as she always does to convince him of her sincerity. Relief takes over his body as he relaxes and takes her hand from his arm. He kisses it gently and moves himself back against the headboard, resuming their previous position - he sitting at her feet, and she at his. He does a few small stretches before bringing her legs up onto his lap, angling their positions toward each other as they continue. She giggles as he begins to massage her swelling feet.

"So, where were we?" he says, playing with her toes.

"Ummm… after the wedding, I guess."

"Oh, during the FBI's little visit?"

She sighs. She thinks back to the difficult decision she had to make that night. Destroy Carmen or save Danny. One or the other.

"Yeah… after you left the room the agent and I talked about your mother."

"Just my mother?"

This is harder than she thought it would be. Already frustrated, she knows it's too late to skip past this part of their history, but she tries anyway.

"Do we have to talk about this?"

"Yes we do."

She looks into his eyes, knowing that tonight is about truth - at all costs. She takes a deep breath before continuing quickly, knowing that he's heard it all before.

"It's the same thing, Danny… I made the wrong decision. I thought it was right… no, I don't know. The agent, he wanted to bring you down too - kept talking about how you were the future of the family and they had to cut them off early. I… I didn't want him to. I tried to see if there was a way to put Carmen away but keep you safe."

He laughs the sardonic laugh that she knows all too well.

"Yeah, I'm sure he was all for it."

"No. No, he wanted you too. And I was so… I didn't know what to do. So I did what he said. I guess I didn't fight hard enough for you then…"

"Baby, don't…"

He tries hard to understand. He doesn't want everything that she's said tonight to be for naught. He wants to makes sense of it all. No matter how much it hurt him then, he has to deal with it now, with her. It would do no good to continually blame her for feeling the way she did.

"I just… I tried, I really tried. I kept telling him you were different, I did… I told him how you weren't like Carmen… how, how you wanted to make the business legitimate."

"But, let me guess, he didn't exactly believe you."

"He didn't. You believe me, don't you? That I tried to get him to leave you alone?"

Her eyes plead for forgiveness, for some sort of acceptance of her explanation. He sees such honesty in her eyes as they open wide enough to dive into. He can feel her grip on his hand tighten as she is desperate for him to know that she was fighting, as much as she could, for him that night. He knows this woman. His wife. He has stood in awe as she's reached out to virtual strangers, as she's felt sadness and loss for mere acquaintances, as she's given parts of herself to people she loves, never thinking of herself first… so to believe that she would try to protect him that night, after what they had shared on their wedding day, was not difficult.

"I do…I do…"

They smile together as one.

"But… you weren't the only one who was confused."

Although his mind was on something else entirely, her first thought is the night in their bedroom, when their passion for each other almost destroyed her.

"Oh, I know… I know I led you on, sorta… I know that what happened at the church after that, and, when we got home… I know it hurt you. I didn't mean to do that. I didn't…"

Since she's decided to go there, he decides he'll join her.

"Shh, shh… can you just tell me what really happened between you and Mrs. Silva at the church?"

"I uh… I met with her to get as much… information about your business as I could."

"You did."

He's not looking at her. Instead, he keeps a firm eye on their adjoining hands, remembering how suspicious and angry he was when he found her, and how shaken and nervous she was when she was found.

"I did. I wasn't thinking about you, Danny, I wasn't… I had to get out. I had to get out of that house. If that meant getting away from you… at the time, I was willing to do it. I was willing to give up the way I felt about you if that meant getting away from your mother… from the danger…"

"Wow, you really hated her."

"I did. Can you blame me?"

"Now? Honestly? No. But she was my mother, she still had a really big influence over me, you know? Especially since you were running so hot and cold."

He was trying to lead her to his deception, but she needed to purge herself of hers first.

"I know. Anyway… Mrs. Silva didn't tell me much, and then Ray showed up, and then you… and I didn't know any other way to calm you down."

He wants to feel sorry for himself, for falling for it again, for feeling so much for her when she was manipulating him. He looks over her shoulder, not making eye contact with her as he remembers her voice, `you may kiss your bride'…

"Just tell me… tell me you felt it too…"

"Are you kidding?"

She forces him to look at her as she tugs on his arm and gently glides his face toward her with her left hand.

"Danny… I wish I could tell you how much I wanted you… how much I wanted to just love you… how much I wished it was that easy…"

He looks down and closes his eyes before speaking lowly.

"But it wasn't that easy, was it?"

"You know it wasn't," she whispers.

"Yeah, I know."

She takes herself back to his words that night as she rejected him - `It's turning me into something that I swore that I never would become' - and how much pain she caused him.

"That look… I'll never forgive myself for making you… for making you feel like you didn't matter to me."

"Hey, listen, it's forgotten ok?"

"No, it's not ok. You wanted us to talk about this stuff… to get it all out, right? Let's do this. Because I'm not done here."

"Oh?"

A new resolve takes over her body. She sits up straighter, she evens her shoulders, she takes a breath of confidence.

"No, I'm not. You… you may think that it was easy to lead you on… easy to use the one thing I knew I had over you… how much you wanted me… you may think it was easy…"

"Michelle, stop…"

"No… you may think it was easy to let you kiss me like you did… to let you touch me the way you did… to let myself want you as much as I did… or to even push you away the way that I did."

"I never sai…"

"Danny, let me finish. You may want to think, in order to make yourself feel better, that I set out to hurt you that night. That since I got what I wanted, since I got you to forget about the whole Mrs. Silva thing, that I had no intention of sleeping with you."

"Michelle…"

"Well, you're right."

Silence.

"What?"

"It was easy. It was the easiest thing in the world… to let you kiss me… to let you touch me… to let myself want you… it was as natural to me as breathing. And yes, until you carried me to that bed, I was hoping that I could somehow get out of it…"

"But?"

"But it changed. I wanted you. I wanted you to make love to me… I wanted to be yours…"

"What happened?"

She laughs at herself. It's the same old story, she thinks. How many times does she have to explain herself? Explain the conflicts that waged a war inside her very soul every day during that time of her life. How does she tell him this again? How can she make him understand?

"As usual, I happened. It really was no different than our wedding night. I was scared. I know that's no excuse, but it's the truth."

"The truth… the truth was… that half of you loved me… and half of you was scared to death of what I could do to you… what you would become… if you let yourself love me."

That's it. In his words, she hears her own thoughts. Her mouth opens slightly, allowing a small gasp of air to escape. She sees the look in his eyes. He does understand.

"You… you know."

"I know… I knew… even then, I knew. It doesn't mean it hurt any less, but I knew… because I felt exactly the same way."

How do they do this? How is it possible that two people who, to the naked eye, would have nothing in common, can share the same heart… the same soul… the same innate understanding? Just when she thinks their love can't get stronger, she falls back in amazement at the power of it all.

"But that didn't stop me from…"

It's his turn. Every time he's faced with the choice to tell her something that she didn't know before, he questions her need to know. He questions his ability to tell her.

"From doing what?"

"From setting you up."