<<"Ah, that was a lovely brunch!">> Margurette commented. <<"Mama! You would consider raw sewage lovely as long as someone else pays for it!">> <<"That's the truth! Now, Marie could you do me a favor?" Her daughter nodded. "My friend here has not seen all Paris has to offer, and sadly I have an appointment this morning. Could you take him to the usual places? The Louvre, the Arche, La tour Eiffel...">> Marie rolled her eyes. <<"Mama it is too late to get through the louvre, and the tour busses have already swarmed the Arche, the best I could show him would be La Notre-Dame and maybe the tower...">> <<"Wonderful! I shall meet you at the tower at...is three soon enough?">> <<"Mama...">> <<"Good! I shall see you soon enough Monsieur Rodger. Good day to both of you.">> Margurette made for the door faster than the Chief thought a lady her age could. Marie's face had a 'Hear-we-go-again' air to it. <<"Does your mother set you up like this often?">> <<"More often than you might think.">> she mused. Then she realized the harsh edge to her words. <<"I am sorry. It's just that this is too familiar, I bear you no hard feelings. My mother....well...have you ever had someone you care deeply about annoy you with something that you wish they wouldn't do and effects you directly?">> The Chief looked her straight in the eye and with all the sincerity in the world said: "Absolutely." "All right it's just around this corner.... If we just....hello!" "Is that?" Ivy trailed off "That's the Chief all right.." Carmen frowned "...but who's with him?" "Well either our mystery lady got twenty years younger overnight or he's hanging with another gal. Boy if I knew the Chief was this much of a babe magnet I would have...Ow!" Zack screeched as Ivy slapped the back of his head. "Can it Zack! What do you think Carmen? Should we follow him?" "Yeah.... but keep your distance....wait, they're going on foot? O.K. let's find a parking spot first." It was a nice day for a walk in Paris. The sun was shining, the smog was low around the tourist sites and he had only been almost-killed twice in the last hour. Life was good. And to top it off, Marie was warming up to him. She apologized for her earlier rudeness and told them about a few of the sites around the city that they could visit. She had wanted to go on a boat ride on the Seine, but the Chief turned her down. Two hours was pretty long, even for a boat ride and for some reason he felt like he was running out of time.... <<"Well, what about you?">> the Chief when they stopped to rest on a bench. <<"Tell me something about yourself. Your mother can't have been organizing your social life for too long..">> <<"I'd prefer not to talk about it Monsieur.">> <<"Oh. O.K., that's fair.">> <<"It was about a year ago....">> <<"All right...">> something told the Chief that he was about to experience high levels of pain. <<"I came home early on our anniversary to prepare my husband a special candlelight dinner and I found him with my secretary!">> <<"....Oh.">> <<"Yes! They had been together for two years! Two years! And what is worse...when I called my sister and told her that I had found out my husband had been had an affair...She started begging my forgiveness! I mean my own sister!!">> Marie kept going on and on and the Chief kept on dutifully saying 'Oh?' to every pause. His thoughts kept going back to Charlie and his Ex. Did all human relationships end up this way? He had always heard that it had been better to have loved and lose than never love at all, but he had never imagined that there would be so much loss when it came to the actual loving. He could have guessed it, though, from watching Carmen. It seemed like she had been destined to be alone from the moment he met her. She had never been much for dating: She was pretty intimidating to begin with and she instinctivly shunned intimacy. Those she had shown affection to either outright refused to return her affection or... Or they died. There had been a joke around the agency that since Carmen was so lucky in her work she would never be lucky in love. Some called the unfortunate string of chance happenings 'The Sandiego Curse' around the water cooler. The more superstitious agents began to seriously concider it's existence as Carmen quit the agency...loosing everyone she knew all for a Life of Crime... He never asked her why she had left everything behind to become a criminal element. Maybe it was simply that he didn't want to know. Maybe he knew all ready and didn't want to say it out loud. He had long suspected it was one of the few who had died trying to love her. Carmen acted impenetrable most of the time but the Chief knew she was pretty delicate when it came to matters of the heart. Her parents disappearance from her life had left a black mark on her heart at a very early age, a mark that could never be erased no matter how many indicators of safety lay around her. Safety and security actually seemed to frighten her at times. Those boys who had gotten close to her, who had learned to loved her inevitably wanted to try to marry her, protect her. An offer she almost always refused. Her denial was something that never failed to anger whomever she was dating. Then the boy would lose track of the job at hand, a dangerous thing in Acme's older days, and then the accidents would start to happen.... What was so potent about the human emotion love that made so many people forget reason and do anything to keep the object of desire close to their hearts? It was the cheapest thing in the world to obtain yet people spent millions of dollars to make their loves happy. It was an emotion that could be found on every street corner in the world yet some searched for years looking for it. Or worse they grabbed the closest thing they could get and swore that it was love as opposed to simple attachment. And after a few years and affairs later where were they? Complaining to whomever they could find about how rotten the other was! Marie was STILL going on about her Ex-Love's infidelity in intense detail. It made him wish he was still a droid. As Marie continued to explain her past betrayal the Chief saw a young couple walking in the distance. They were looking nowhere but each other's faces and they we talking in low tones. Happy and content; showing every sign of being deeply in love. Honestly and openly, comparable only to the movies and theater. Was this the true ideal? Was this what people hoped and dreamed for? Suddenly a young lady with a baby in tow came up and slapped the young man as hard as she could. A talk-show style fight erupted. O.K....maybe not. Sheesh, was there any kind of human love that wasn't tainted by lust greed or hatred? For some reason he started remembering the first Christmas night he had played Chess with Carmen. Cold and alone she had been the only one not celebrating the holidays beside him, even Suhara had gone to his family in Kyoto. He had hot-wired the coffee machine to give her a cup of cocoa without paying but demanded a chess game for payment. Laughing she agreed and proceeded to kick his butt in a cool ten minutes. He was shocked to be beaten by a kid, (she was only 14 at the time) but delighted that he had found a worthy opponent. He quickly demanded another game and they played until the break of day. She had always been his greatest adversary. She still was. Oh yes, his holidays with Carmen were his favorite part of the year. They still were. It was strange, even after she had turned her back on society she still broke in every year to try and play a game with him. Last year had turned out to be a horrible mess. He didn't want to tell Zack or Ivy that all that trouble had happened because of faulty wiring and Acme's new security channels. Still, the massive complications that had ensued really weren't worth one or two games of chess. Especially with other CHIEF program she had running VILE's recruiting center minutes away. What had made her do it in the first place? Humans were strange when you got right down to it. Even having human emotions didn't make things any easier. Actually they made it worse. This whole thing had started when he had blown up at Carmen when she had…. She had almost…. Damn. He couldn't even think of it without tearing up. How could she take such stupid risks when she knew how he felt out her from the last time? How did he feel about Carmen? The question alone started turning gears that he didn't even know he had. He obviously cared for her. He had know THAT for years. But how could he define it? Parental concern had a part in it, although wasn't the bulk of it; there had been many times when he had given her advice that fathers normally gave. Sibling affection? Maybe. She treated him more like a younger brother than a partner when she was first partnered with him back in '85. When she wasn't stressed out about the various problems that her job presented she still kidded with him like she had all those years ago. Was it just a crush? Well it could have been. He would take it to the scrap heap, but he had had a huge crush on Carmen before the heads at ACME had assigned him as her partner for the first time. Of course once he had gotten to know her he settled for being her best friend... Was it Love? Well there had to be some kind of affection otherwise... Was it LOVE? Ack! Why was he thinking like this? But he considered it anyway. His mind spun for several minutes, and finally it came up conflicted. True, he did care deeply for her. And in a twisted sense they had acted out many a script-worthy love scene during their traditional after-case coffee dates. But he definitely couldn't see them attempting any of the over-hyped unrealistic acts paraded on Melrose Place. He cared for her, but was his affection for her so strong that it constituted loving her? And how did he love her, IF he did love her? Love in any form came in quite a wide range. When he got down to the basics of this whole argument with himself he cared for her. But why did he say that with so much certainty? Was it because he had hung around so long while others quickly dismissed her as a traitor? That he secretly cheered each time she got away with one of her famous escapes? Because of a few simple, yearly, games of chess? And why was he still on this tangent? What was he trying to rationize down? <<"How could I have been so blind?">> Finally Marie was wrapping up. The Chief seized the opportunity <<"Love is a very strange thing Mamselle. It shows us parts of ourselves we never knew existed.">>he admited frankly <<"I am sorry for your troubles.">> he added as an after though. <<"Thank you for being so honest Monsieur. You are a wonderful listener. Shall we see Notre-Dame now?">>