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The Seattle Boy Ch. 01

By: Echo01



I should not be here right now, she thought to herself as she scurried through the January rain. Being in Seattle made her irrationally nervous, knowing he had moved back into the city after he was done with college and had looked for a place to make his way in the world. It's a big city and all, but just my luck we'll end up in the same bar tonight.

She walked into the bar, the neon lights flashing overhead. In her travels, she had been in many a bar, had the chance to experience the smell and the sound in many places all over the world, but had found very little variation. This particular one smelled of sweat, leather, and beer, with the slightest hint of cooking meat over the top. Fighting her way to the bar, she snagged an empty stool and perched on it warily. The woman behind the bar approached her, her long red hair frazzled.

"What can I get for you?" She asked.

"A burger, a salad, and the biggest glass of beer you have, please." The other woman nodded and turned away, already talking to the next patron.

She looked around the dimly lit room, surreptitiously scanning the room for a familiar face. Catching herself in the act, she scolded her actions and turned back to the bar to nurse the tall, wide glass of golden colored beer in front of her.

"What's your name, darlin'?" A voice, slurred with alcohol and laughter came from behind her.

She turned around, in the process of chewing a mouthful of salad, and looked up... And up... And up, into the biggest pair of deep blue eyes she had ever seen, on a face that was alarmingly familiar. Charlie, the little voice inside her heart murmured. It seemed, that for all her fervent hopes and wishes, they had in fact chosen the same bar.

"Oh... Um... My names...." She took a huge slug of beer to garble the rest of her sentence. "What's yours?" Knowing that she should have simply turned back around, he was so drunk that he wouldn't remember the events of tonight in the morning, she couldn't help but interact with him, to confirm it was really him.

"Charlie," he said, drawing out the last syllable, making him sound both drop dead sexy and ridiculous at the same time. "I missed your name though, sweetheart. If you don't tell me, I'll just have to make one up for you."

"Oh?" She asked, despite herself. "If you had to guess, what do you think my name is?" She settled back on her stool, her back braced against the bar.

Charlie studied her for a moment with his drooping gaze, shielding what she knew to be eyes of incredible intelligence and kindness that was dulled and hidden beneath the lights of the bar. "I'll guess... Clare."

"Why Clare," she asked numbly, though not surprised that he had guessed it right.

"Oh, you know... You remind me of a girl I used to know. Her name was Clare, she had the same colored eyes as you..." He frowned down at her, peering through the haze of smoke and alcohol in his brain. "You have her hair, too. But she had it cut differently, all long and silky like. Yours is shorter, and... And..." He collapsed onto the stool next to her, long ago vacated.

"What happened to her?" Clare couldn't help but ask. Knowing this would be the only time she'd see him while she was here, as her flight left the next night, she couldn't pass up the opportunity to talk to him, even from the perspective of another woman, about their past.

Charlie continued to peer at her, and for the first time since he'd asked her name, Clare felt a little uneasy, that maybe he really would recognize her. When he shook his head like a dog trying to dispel water from his ears, trying to shake the confusion from his mind, the vice around her heart relaxed a fraction. He would not remember her tonight; his incredible lightweight nature would protect her from his memory.

He sighed and looked away, running his hands through his hair. "She left the country and didn't bother to tell me. I was gone for a week, back here to visit my folks, and she just left."

"Were you living together?" Clare looked away too, focusing on the half empty glass in her hands on the bar. It was easier, she found, to stare intently at the liquid inside than to look at his face.

"No, but we might as well have been. She spent most nights at my house instead of her own apartment." Even though the stools were a good four feet off the ground, his feet still touched the ground when he slumped on his stool, matching his pose with hers, his back to the bar.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Clare sympathized. She took another huge gulp, drowning the tears that threatened to rise in response to the pain in his story.

Charlie turned his face back to hers, peering intently again. "Hey... Don't I know you...? You look really familiar." Despite his mental haze, somehow the memory of six years ago still threatened to rise to the surface.

Clare swiveled on her stool, ordering another glass for herself and for him. Shoving the glass into his hand, she shielded him with the liquid, knowing that true recognition would hurt him more than never knowing he'd run into her tonight.

He mournfully drank from the glass, his brown hair mussed and slightly sweaty. In the span of thirty seconds, he had drained the entire glass, and his chin drooped in the direction of his chest, eyes almost closed.

"Charlie?" Her throat threatened to close around his name, having kept in locked inside herself for so many years. "Do you need to go home now? It's awfully late and I don't think you can drive." She was in no fit condition herself, but maintained the ability to see and walk in straight lines. The last time she and Charlie had drank together, it had taken very little to knock him flat on his back.

"Yeaaah..." His words were long and drawn out, exhaustion weighing heavily on him. "My truck..."

"Don't worry about your truck, Charlie. Tell me where you live and I'll get you there." She slid off her stool, the distance to the ground shocking her. Shelling out the cost of their drinks, she took Charlie by the arms and heaved, managing to make vertical his body, and slowly they make their way to the door like some bizarre three legged animal.

When they got into the parking lot, she discovered that the rain had long ago eased off, leaving the city with a clean fresh sort of smell, like someone had turned the dial to rinse. The temperature had fallen to far below freezing, the wet road icy and slippery. The clouds hung heavy and silent, threatening snow. They stumbled to his truck, dark green and covered in the shelter of the trees lining the lot. He silently handed her his keys, slouching behind her while she unlocked and opened the passenger side door. When she turned around, he had shuffled a few steps closer, his head dropped down and hands braced against the side of the truck.

"What is it Charlie," she asked when he didn't move to let her by.

He said nothing, but peered into her face with the same intensity as before. Clare gazed back, nervously. He had never scared her, not in the fifteen years they had known each other, but his size and drunken state made her a bit apprehensive.

Slowly, as though he was made of molasses, his hands came down to hold her waist, drawing her closer to him. Never losing eye contact, he lifted her easily, up onto the seat.

"You look just like her," he murmured, holding himself close to her, pushing himself between her legs. "And you smell so similar..." He ran his fingers up her spine, dancing in the spaces between her ribs, seeming to remember how ticklish she was, and buried them in her short hair.

Clare could hardly breath, her chest crushed to his and her heart raced. She hadn't been this close to him in six years, and it still felt like home. His arms were heavy and powerful, always protective and never anything but. He wrapped his fingers around her hair, securing her head and drew her face to him. Lightly at first, and then with the fire and passion of years past, he touched his chilly lips to hers, the taste of beer and Charlie flowing from his mouth to hers. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, feeling the oh-so familiar muscles beneath tense and relax under her hands. His lips heated up, becoming hot and demanding, searching and questioning for hers to answer him. She moaned into his mouth, grinding herself against him, her pent up misery at their separation attempting to escape in the form of lust.

Charlie's hands fell to her hips, holding them still, keeping them from driving him to insanity. This strange woman, who looked, and smelled, and even tasted like Clare, was making his head spin, making him feel like he was seventeen again, like it was their first time again, like he had to be careful not to make too much noise for fear of waking a parent. When she bit his lower lip in retribution, his trip down memory lane ended abruptly, snaking one hand around her back and held her breast while the other forced its way between her legs, rubbing the place she ached most through her business pants.

Clare pulled her mouth from his, gasping his name as she tried to catch her breath. He dropped his face to her neck, biting and licking his way up to her earlobe and then back down to her collarbone, then up the other side. She writhed against him, gasping loudly as her movements pressed his thumb harder against her center, and crushed her breasts harder to his chest.

He pulled away from her, chest heaving in tandem with hers. "Who are you," he asked hoarsely, staring into her eyes, the haze of alcohol burned away by lust.

She gazed at him, her own breath ragged as she said, "I'm no one, you told me my names Clare."

The Seattle Boy Ch. 02



When Charlie woke up in the morning, he felt like he had been hit repeatedly over the head with a wooden mallet, and the inside of his mouth tasted as though some small furry rodent had crawled in and died weeks ago. As he shuffled into the bathroom off the hallway, he paused. How had he gotten home from the bar he had gone to after work? Usually he did his best to avoid drinking during the week, but the truly awful day at work had driven him to the comfort of his local bar. Had he walked home, or did the bartender call a cab for him? 

He peeled back the curtains from the front window, and was met by his green truck, parked in its usual spot. It appeared that while he had been out, it had dumped snow, burying his truck in a foot of it. The road was smooth, indicating that he had been home for quite some time, and that he'd had no visitors since. Stumped, Charlie turned away to get ready for work, the headache from the hangover melding with the one from a hard day at the office melding into one.

It wasn't until after work when he walked into the bar again, this time to thank the bartender for getting him home safely, that he realized his mistake.

"What do you mean, you didn't drive me home," he asked, staring stupidly down at the petit redhead.

"I mean, I am not the one who drove you home," she repeated, slightly mystified. "I told you, I do that three times for customers, no more and no less. You used up your last time two Fridays ago."

Charlie blinked at her.

"I thought you left with that pretty little brunette you met last night? I figured you two were going back to her place for the rest of the night, so I wasn't too worried," she continued.

"What brunette?" Now it was his turn to be mystified. "I don't remember meeting anyone last night."

She snorted. "I doubt you remember much of anything from last night Charlie, you were pretty drunk. She kept buying drinks, and you kept drinking 'em down. You two seemed to know each other pretty well, though, for two people who supposedly just met."

"Did you happen to catch her name?" He shoved his hands in his pockets, distinctly uncomfortable by the appearance of a familiar brunette stranger.

She shook her head, placing a newly polished glass on the rack behind her. "No, she never said when you asked. You made up a name, and she just went with it."

"Oh," he said, disappointed.

"I think you called her Clare, if that helps at all," she said, picking up a new glass. She looked down at her hands, frowning to remember the evening more clearly and by the time she looked up again, Charlie was already gone, out the door and halfway across the parking lot, stomping through the snow. She shook her head, and wondered why she chose to be a bartender instead of a shrink.

"Shit, shitshitshitshit," Clare muttered angrily, revving her car and finally hitting the steering wheel in defeat. The car, after forcing Clare to unbury it from the foot of snow, was now refusing to start. After half an hour of pleading and begging, swearing and cursing, Clare was forced to look for alternatives. The plane she held her ticket home for was leaving in less than an hour, and she was at least an hour and a half walk from her friend's apartment to the airport. Kelly was on a vacation home for the Christmas season, and had offered her house to Clare while she was in town for her conference. The snow was impossible to walk in, and she hadn't brought any of the appropriate clothing for a trek through the snow. She reluctantly climbed out of the car, grabbed her bags, and trudged back into the house and grudgingly opened it back up. She picked up her cell phone and dialed.

"Hi... Mom! It's Clare. Look, I have some bad news...."

She found herself back in the same bar as the night before, and the sense of deja vu was overwhelming. The redhead behind the bar eyed her more suspiciously tonight than the night before, but Clare paid it no mind. That is, until she approached Clare.

"He doesn't drink during the week, you know." Clare looked up and saw the redhead scowling down at her. "And tonight's a Thursday, so if you're looking for a good time again, you'll have to find it from some other guy in here."

Clare blinked slowly. Who was this woman, and what right did she think she had to judge what went on between her and Charlie?

"I'm sorry," she said carefully. "I missed your name, and your relation to me or Charlie."

The redhead's scowl deepened. "I'm no one to you, lady, just here to serve your beer and food. But I'm a friend of Charlie's, and he came in here this morning asking about what happened last night. Seems to me, you two know each other pretty well, you should have known he wouldn't remember anything today, and yet you kept buying him drinks and asking him painful questions about Clare."

"What do you know about Clare," she demanded, her voice accusatory and sharper than she had intended.

"What's it to you," the barkeep retorted. "If it's so important, as him yourself. He's usually in here tomorrow after work."

"I won't be in town tomorrow, so why don't you just tell me now and save him the trouble?" She couldn't explain it, but this curvy woman behind the bar who seemed to have a good relationship with Charlie irked her beyond reason, and aroused in her a feeling of ugly jealousy that had lain dormant for years.

"Fine," she snapped, irked herself. "Clare was a girl he fell in love with when they were kids, and he's loved her ever since. She's a bit of a wild one, never could bring herself to settle down in one place with him, but he's never been anything but loyal to her, both in fidelity and in social circles. I've told him for years to move on and find someone else to help him forget her. But he's always shut me down, not keeping anyone around for more than a week. Now, is that all you wanted to know, or did you want a flowchart to go along with it?" She looked intently at Clare from her vantage point across the bar.

"No, thanks. That's just great, all I needed."

"Great. Now, what was your name again?" She wanted to catch it for real's this time, so she could tell him the following evening.

Instead of answering, Clare paid for dinner and got up to leave, to walk across the snowy parking lot, along the busy but now deserted street, and up to Kelly's house where she could fall into bed in a drunken stupor.

When Charlie finally made it to the bar the following night, he half expected his brunette ghost to appear on the empty stool next to him, and every time he replaced his glass, he was disappointed that it remained without a tenant. Throughout the day, the half image of his ghost, a flash of brown hair around a corner, the hint of a perfume that aroused the hell out of him stalked him, and yet he could never quite chase it fast enough. As he pondered this, Keri minded the bar with one eye and him with the other, and she watched him get slowly drunk as the night wore on.

Finally when he waved his hand to ask for a third glass, she swatted his hand away. "No more for you! You don't have your pretty little brunette angel to drive you home today, so no more beer for you. She came in here yesterday, by the way," Keri added, hoping to distract him.

"She did?" His hopeful expression tugged at her. "What did she say? Did you catch her name?"

Keri sighed, rubbing her forehead with the palm of her hand. "Nothing much but to ask some questions about you and Clare. I didn't even the chance to ask her name, she was gone too fast. And I don't think she'll be back tonight, sounded like she was on her way out of town, so don't bother waiting up."

He looked sorrowfully down into his glass, split between desperately wanting her to walk in, and fervently hoping she was really gone. "You're right, Keri. I think I will go home and go to bed. It's been a shit week, I think it's time to call an end to it." As he headed for the door, he let his feet guide him completely oblivious to his surroundings and to the other patrons. He reached for the door, to push it out and release himself into the chilly world, when he found it open already, and collided chest first into a small woman with brunette hair.

Clare gasped in shock, her nose crunched against a man's chest, held in place by the arms that had caught her instinctively. "Sorry," she muttered, not looking up. "I wasn't looking, my mistake."

She tried to pull away, but found he had not let go. Instead, he was staring down at her, at the ghost and the phantom of his mind.

"Clare?"

 

She sat on the couch she had almost tripped over the night before last when she had stumbled blindly through his house, perched on the edge in a nervous attempt at keeping herself prepared to flee at the moment's chance. He paced before her, pulling his hair and then stopping to stare at her.

Finally: "What the hell are you doing here?"

It was spoken with a deadened calm, like his mind was still racing to catch up with the current events.

Clare cleared her throat. "I, um, had a business conference here a day ago, and I missed my bus home when it was over."

He continued to stare at her, his jaw working in quick, tense movements. Suddenly, without warning, he leaped forward and seized her by the shoulders and drew her upright, flush against him. Charlie stared at her for a moment, before he kissed her, all anger and passion and fury, relief at finally finding his ghost, and agony at knowing she was here, in his house, and had been before.

She stiffened for a moment, shocked at his actions, before she relaxed into him, melting her shoulders and her lips against him, luxuriating in the feeling of having his massive frame hold her smaller, more brittle one. He could sense her willingness, and wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her so tightly in almost hurt, just to reassure both of them that she would not leave again. He bent his knees, and she understood his silent signal and wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling five foot two inch self closer to equitable height with his own roughly six foot one.

Charlie growled into her mouth, massaging her ass, grinding her into him, allowing himself to imagine she was really here, in his arms, not just a dream.. He could feel her seeping through the light cotton of her pants, a ridiculous choice for early January, but one that made it easy for him to pet her. He was like a hot brand between her legs, and her body cried out for him, overriding the warnings and distress calls her mind was firing out. She wove her fingers through his hair, never wanting to let him go, desiring to kiss him until the end of the world if that's what it took.

Suddenly, she felt herself falling, and found that he had collapsed onto the spot on the couch she had vacated, giving his hands free range. He swept them up, underneath her shirt, to hold captive her sensitive breasts, squeeze and weigh them, rolling their nipples between his fingers through the fabric of her bra. One hand went behind her, to work on the fasten of her bra while the other journeyed south to the clasp of her pants, when he found her silky and hot, and completely shaven. They moaned simultaneously when he touched her, his rough fingertips against her sensitive flesh something she both craved and detested. She ground down on his hand, wanting more, wanting him inside her. Charlie was only too happy to oblige, thrusting two fingers inside, and massaging the little bean at the front of her mond with his thumb. She whimpered, grinding harder, allowing her own hands to venture down from his chest and onto the evidence of his arousal, thick and pulsing beneath his jeans. As she struggled with the belt buckle, he paid her actions no heed, proceeding to nip and suckle at her breasts through the fabric of her shirt, her bra pushed away. When she managed to slip her hands into his pants, it was his turn to groan, the feeling of her hands against him was like heaven, at the same time that his own hands were inside her.

He growled into her mouth, squeezing her waist with his elbows and gently thrusting against her. She ripped her mouth from his, gasping and pressing her chest against him. He stood abruptly, tearing his hands from her pants and her hands from his. He picked her up, princess-style, his mouth still glued to hers, and carried her up the stairs into the attic bedroom, absent-mindedly turning off lights as he went. By the time he got them up the stairs and to the bed, she was practically begging him to take her clothes off, whimpering and groaning against his mouth. As she reached for his belt when he dumped her on the bed, he scowled dangerously at her. 

Shocked, she sat back, lust forgotten. "What? Have I done something wrong?"

He was silent, eying her carefully. Fast as lightning, he grabbed her feet and pulled harshly, jerking her towards him. Grabbing her wrists, he pinned them one handed above her head and with the other he tugged her pants off, stroking her surprisingly lightly for his previous force. Her eyes fluttered and she thrust her hips at him, begging him to touch her harder. Instead his hand skated higher, tickling her ribs and her stomach as he reached his destination. 

Determined not to make it easy for him, she wrapped her strong legs around him and pulled, managing to jerk him forward, his still-exposed cockhead rubbing against her opening. His eyes closed and thrust despite his best intentions. Charlie growled and fell forwards, pinning her down with the weight of his chest. Freeing her hands to use both of his, he made short work of her shirt and bra, finally releasing her aching breasts to plunder them with his mouth. Again she pulled him to her, determined to seduce him into giving her what she wanted. 

He rolled her over, lying flat on his back, his head resting against the pillows as he gazed up at her. Delighted at her new position, she wriggled down until she was level with his almost angry-looking cock. Teasingly, she blew a mouthful of hot air against him, amused by the desperate twitching he gave in response. Suddenly she enveloped his entire length in her mouth, surprising him enough to shout in pleasure. As she sucked and swirled her mouth on him, he clutched the bed sheets and groaned. Sensing he was about to finish from the tightening in his balls, she released him and slithered her way back up his body, rubbing her breasts against his chest, and tickling him with her hair. She sat up straight, and taking him in her fist, guided him into her and slowly sank down, both groaning simultaneously as she did. 

" I don't know how this is even possible," she gasped, "but I think you're even bigger than you were the last time we were together." Unable to speak, he just grinned and grunted at her, raising and lowering her hips as she held his shoulders. Suddenly he stiffened and froze mid thrust, and she felt him explode.



The Seattle Boy Ch. 03



The morning's light was slow and creaky, touching first the floor and then the foot of the bed, reaching first Charlie's feet, all the way up their entwined legs, until it touched Clare's face and she woke. 

Charlie's arm was wrapped around her waist, his face pressed into the nape of her neck, one leg pushed between hers. Trapped as she was, Clare had few options but to lay there and feel his breath tickle the back of her neck. Lying in bed with him (again) was such a lie that it made her throat close and her eyes well up with tears. 'This could have been every day, waking up with the man I love,' she thought. 'And I really thought it would be. How old were we when we met? Twelve?' 

Her thoughts were interrupted by a grunt from behind, a snuffle in her hair as he huffed out a breath as he woke up. Feigning sleep, she lay still and quiet as he leaned against one of his elbows and she could feel him examining her. When he finally slipped quietly out of the bed and shuffled off to the shower in the next room, she breathed a silent breath of relief. Now she could dress and make her escape. 



Charlie sat in a new bar that night, desperately needing a change of scenery, and moping over his glass with the other patrons buzzing around him. It was just like her, he thought, to be there one day and then gone the next. Except.. It wasn't, not really. Only their last interaction supported that observation, and then last night again. All through their time together in high school, and certainly through college, she had never been fly-by-night, nor was she one to fuck and run. Then again, it had only been him, and perhaps the six years apart had changed that about her. I wonder what other kinds of things are different about her, he wondered. She was so sharp and bright, and like what you see after a firework has gone off when you close your eyes, she remained imprinted on the backs of your eyelids what felt like forever. Clare was the only woman he had ever loved, and still was. However, it seemed to him that she was not still that same woman.

Sighing in defeat, Charlie stood up from the bar, paid for his drinks and shuffled to the doors. The air was cold, so cold in fact that the snow from the previous nights had frozen into an icy shell that crackled and snapped beneath his feet. Luckily he hadn't been in the bar long enough for his truck door to freeze shut, so he got in and drove slowly home on empty back streets, the people content to stay home in their warm houses together. As he pulled into the driveway, he found small tracks leading up from the sidewalk to the front door, but not coming back. Suspicious, he turned the truck off and entered the house quietly, leaving the lights off. He followed damp tracks through the house, up the stairs, and down the hall to his room where the only light in the house was on and he could hear little noises coming from inside. 

Charlie edged closer to the door, peering through the crack of light to see Clare bent over the end of his bed, the bedskirt tossed up on the mattress as she searched beneath. She was cursing quietly, and to his observations her vocabulary had grown vastly in the last years. 

"Where the hell could it have gone? I swear to god I had it here, and if he's stolen it, he's a mother-"

Charlie stepped in silently and grabbed her hips, pulling them back against him. "Hello lover," he said to her after her scream quieted as he caught her punch. 

Clare, after getting over her initial terror and paralysis, felt it slowly melt into anger.

"What the hell were you thinking?! Sneaking up on me like that? What the fuck are you playing at?"

He felt his amusement melt into his own anger. "What the fuck am I playing at? I should be asking you the same damn thing! What are you doing here? Back in my city at the least, and in my house and damn room!"

She pulled away angrily, throwing his arms off of her and putting the span of the bed between them. 

"I came back for something I must have left here. Nothing more."

He snorted. "Your sense of pride maybe? Or a sense of dignity perhaps? What happened last night?"

She shook her head and turned away, studying the wall in front of her. Glancing down on his dresser, she spotted the envelope on the top, tucked under a candle. She snatched it up and spun around again.

"I'm sorry about what happened yesterday. And I won't let it happen again, I swear."

He didn't say anything to her for several long moments. He looked down and the bed and then turned away from her to look out the window. As he stared through the frosty glass, he felt his anger melt away as quickly as it had accumulated, and he was left feeling tired to the soul.

"Would you like to have coffee with me," he asked.

Clare blinked for a moment. 

"I don't know," she answered. "Are we friends? Can we have coffee?" 

Charlie leaned his face against the cool glass and closed his eyes. "It's really up to you. I want to talk. But if we can't, then that's okay too."

She turned the card between her fingers nervously. "When were you thinking of going? I'm kind of trapped here for a while, so anytime works for me."

"Tomorrow is Saturday, and I don't have work."

"Tomorrow it is then."





The next morning dawned bright and cold. Clare woke earlier than she had yet on vacation, and lay in bed for a long while. What had she gotten herself into? Was she really going to go meet Charlie in a few hours to "talk"? Why would she do that? Ditching town completely would irresponsible and unduly cruel, but her natural instinct was to run, and run fast. She sighed and turned over. Of course that was her reaction, it always had been, ever since she was about fourteen. The instinct to flee from a situation that had the potential to turn hard or unpleasant was inborn, but it got more prominent the older she got until it had culminated when she was almost twenty two and had disappeared for good.

Scolding herself, reminding herself that she owed him at least this much, she rolled out of bed and shuffled to the shower where the floor's tiles froze the bottoms of her feet and made her bones ache. "Now I remember why I moved so far south," she grumbled. "Any much longer in this damn city and my joints would freeze in place before shattering into pieces." The genetic condition that had given her perpetually painful joints her entire life worsened and was even more of a problem in damper and colder climates, so after graduating high school she and Charlie moved south as quickly as they could. 

As she walked into the coffeehouse, she was struck by a sense of deja vu- somewhere, lost long ago in time, she was walking into another coffeehouse like this just off campus in northwestern California to meet Charlie for breakfast. On mornings when he didn't have class and hers finished or if he had been out in a boat all morning and her class had let out, they'd have breakfast and go back to class together. 

Settling herself at one of the tables, she nervously rearranged her scarf and took off her heavy black peacoat, anxious now to the point of almost a panic attack, but she calmed herself and inhaled the warm coffee smell wafting to her over the counter. 

Her breath caught in her chest when he walked through the door, looking for all the world like he had just stepped off the research boat after a long morning of gathering samples and running tests on a boat in the middle of the ocean off the coast of California. The pain in her throat matched the feeling she carried with her last night as she was leaving; like two giant hands squeezing her lungs and her heart while they both pumped furiously to stay alive. She was tempted to close her eyes against the pain, but didn't want to stop looking at his beautiful face. He didn't see her at first, and scanned the room swiftly before his eyes finally landed on her.

"Good morning Clare," he said politely as he sat down across from her. "Have you ordered yet?"

She was struck dumb by the sense of deja vu again, and was silent for a moment.

"No, of course not. I wouldn't order without you here, that's impolite."

He smiled at her. "Of course." They stood in unison and walked in silence to the counter to begin ordering, just like the hundreds of times before.



"So. How have you been?" The question hung over the tiny table like a giant ominous thundercloud, threatening at any moment to split open and strike them both down where they sat.

"I've been... You know. Fine. Work is challenging, but I love it. I was on my way through to Bellingham for Christmas, but the snow stalled my car and I missed the bus home." She stirred the plastic spoon in her coffee, watching the swirls of milk chase themselves and avoiding his eyes. "What about you? What's been going on in your life?"

"I'm good. I've been working on a project with the Pacific University, so that's nice. It's nice to be out on the water with students again, I've missed that."

"Whatever happened with the TA position you were offered at HSU? Did you take it or were you accepted for the internship?" Forgetting her nerves a little, she let the coffee alone and glanced up into his face to guess the answer.

"I ended up getting to TA for a full eight quarters at Humblot before I got the internship. I didn't get the internship the first time, but I applied again during the final quarter I was teaching, and they accepted me. I went out in the fall, and didn't come back home until the beginning of the summer."

"Wow." she remarked. "That's a long time to be on a boat." Clare, who had always loved to be on the ocean, couldn't imagine being away from her beloved forests for that long. "What was it like?"

"Crowded," he said a bit dryly. "There were something like eleven grad students and four scientists on this smallish research boat. I bunked with two other guys, and we got to know each other real well during that time. In fact, that whole group of students got to be really close. We're still sending pictures and Christmas cards these days."

"That's great," she said with little enthusiasm. She had never been one to keep friends for longer than a few years. Wanderlust had gripped her at a young age, making it hard to keep close friends, and never released its hold. "How are you liking being back in Seattle?"

"It's... Nice. Nice to be back in a familiar place, you know? And it's kind of interesting to be back in the place I grew up and look at all those places that I thought were so important as a kid, through adult eyes."

Clare laughed. "Places like what?"

"Oh you know. Like the old Woods, and the abandoned shed out on 99. Oh, and especially Golden Gardens." He flashed a grin. "Remember all those... Movies we went to?"

She laughed again, and closed her eyes in shame. "Oh yes. I remember. My parents still don't know about those. And with any luck, they never will. Those were some pretty wild... Movies."

The table went quiet again as the awkward settled, taking the place of the thundercloud. They could both feel the other flashing unwittingly through their memories of better days. The coffee was observed studiously, and neither of them moved.

"Clare-"

"Charlie-"

They stopped and awkward, stilted laughter followed.

"You go first."

"No, that's okay. Whatever it is that you have to say, say it."

He was still for a moment. "Clare... Where did you go? And what have you been doing ever since?" He could feel the terror clutch his stomach as he asked the questions that had been haunting him for years.

The noise of the coffee shop filled Clare's ears as the silence inside of her rang in the blunt shock of the questions. Not that she hadn't been expecting these questions for a long time, because she knew that someone would ask her eventually and it would be painful enough, but the shock hit her anyway. "It's a long story," she said slowly. "But I'd like to start off by saying first and foremost, I'm sorry. I am so, so sorry.

"I left that spring while you were up north, here. I had signed up for the e-letter months before, and had been thinking about joining for ages. I wasn't shipped out until October, but I stayed in L.A. until I was. It was lovely there, for those months. So hot, and so full of people. I had a tiny apartment for the duration of my stay. It wasn't much, it was a studio apartment above a yoga studio. I was there, and then when I left, I sold a bunch of my stuff and sent the rest of it home to my folks. I worked at an at-risk youth center for eight months. 

"I was in Benin for two and a quarter years, and I led after-school groups that talked about you know, sex, and STD's, especially HIV, and growing up, things like that. It ranged from general mental health to sometimes more like counceling sessions. They were usually ages twelve to seventeen- anyone older than that was usually given to the other group leader who was older and had more experience than me. Those kids usually had more precise questions that I wasn't comfortable advising until late in my first year. I got home in December of 2008, just in time to go home for Christmas." At this point, she paused and sipped her coffee. "I contacted the center I had worked for before leaving and they set me up with a center in Eastern Washington. I've been there ever since. I have a cat and a dog, and we live in a tiny house in Spokane."

Charlie leaned back in his seat, eyebrows raised so far they threatened to come off his face and he was silent for a long time. He leaned so far back that he tipped his seat backwards until it balanced steadily on the back two legs. He was quiet for a very long time, before: "were you happy there?"

She was equally quiet. "Yes, I believe I was, eventually. It was stuff I truly believed in, and it was good work. I think I made a difference in at least someone's life, and that was my only goal, really."

"Oh come on Clare. Don't give me that. You know what I meant." He pushed his chair back onto its four feet angrily.

"Well what did you mean then?" In contrast, she was strangely calm.

He shook his head in frustration and stared at her intensely. "I mean, were you happy while you were there? In the moment."

"It's hard to pin down a moment and have it analyzed," she said, dodging the question solidly. "For the most part, yes I was happy. But it was scary too, being in a country that only spoke a language I was barely fluent in, and having it be a different dialect was a challenge at first. It wasn't really lonely, I had my host family to help me out, and then I held an apartment near by when I got the chance. I had a couple really good friends too, but we weren't assigned to the same city, when it came down to it. Mostly I made friends with the locals, who made sure I wasn't able to settle into my hobbit-ish lifestyle as I did once I moved back here." 

He sighed in exasperation. "Well. Alright. You know that's all I ever wanted, right?" Leaning forward he looked at her more intently than he had all day. "I only ever wanted you to be happy."

She looked down, aversed to looking him in the eyes as intently as he was looking into hers. "I know," she said. "I just didn't know what I wanted. And I figured you'd be better off without me in case I never figured it out."