It's still dark out when I feel a shake to my shoulder.  "Daddy!  Wake up Daddy, someone has to talk to you!"

I blink rapidly, trying to wake myself up.  "Thought I told you never to answer the door," I mumble.

"I didn't open it.  He did."

It's then that it finally registers that Hallie is holding the bear she told me that Michael had, and she keeps glancing at the open door...

The open door where Michael is standing, hands is his pockets, trying not to look at me.  I immediately jump to my feet.  Before I can say anything, he sighs.  "We need to talk."

I follow him out into the hallway, where I immediately start shivering.  Then I remember that I'm wearing nothing but boxers and a t-shirt, and I can't keep from blushing.  But my modesty is pointless, as Michael has his eyes focused on a point slightly left of my feet.  "Hallie was rather mad at me this morning.  She told me I made her daddy cry," he finally says.

I lean my head back against the wall, trying to swallow past the lump in my throat.  "What can I say?  She's very protective."

"She's also very talkative."  He's looking at me now, and I can see the veiled anger.  "She said you compared what's going on with us to when she broke Jamie's doll."

I shrug.  "I had to make her understand why you were gone somehow."

"Lying to someone for four years is hardly comparable to breaking a toy.  Now she doesn't understand why I can't just come back."

I tilt my head to glare back at him.  "What did you want me to say? 'Oh, sorry Hallie, Daddy manage to wreck your life, so not only did you just lose someone who raised you, but now you're gonna hate me too, and you'll probably grow up to be one of those kids who runs away at 10 and ends up gunned down in a gang war....'"

"You've put a lot of thought into that, haven't you?" he interrupts.

"Is this why you came back?"  I don't know what I was planning to say to Michael, but getting this pissed at him really hadn't been on my list of good ideas.  "Did you just come back to make fun of me, to twist the knife a little further?"

Michael rises an eyebrow.  "I came back to give Hallie her bear, but I'm interested to know what knife you think I'm twisting.  The 'I'm not your babysitter anymore' knife?  That's all I was, right?"

"No!"  I take a deep breath, let it out, and try not to yell.  "It was never about you just being a babysitter.  I wouldn't have spent four years with a babysitter."

He crosses his arms.  "Well then, what the hell was I, because your grandma sure made it seem very clear that I was here for child care alone."

I rub my forehead.  "I asked you to move in with me because I needed help with Hallie.  That much is true.  But that's not why...why I lied to you."

"Say it," he challenges.  "Say what you did."

"Why I pretended to be in love with you," I spit out the words.  "I did that because I thought you wanted me to."

He stares at me in disbelief.  "What the hell would make you think that?"

I glance away.  "You did so much, you helped me when Hallie got chicken pox, and you got her into day care, and...and you were gonna be a good role model for her, and then...it was the only way I could think to repay you."

"You could at least come up with something rational."  There's a carefully guarded fury behind his words.  "That's the most absurd story I've ever heard in my life.  You deceived me because you wanted to thank me?  And you expect me to BELEIVE that?"

"I wasn't trying to deceive you!  You were just so fucking upset, and I wanted to make you feel better, and everything just got out of my control..."

"Out of your control?!" he shouts.  "I was eighteen years old! How could anyone besides you have been in control?  You took advantage of me!"

"Bullshit!" I yell back.  "You may have been eighteen, but you weren't any kind of innocent.  You were all over me from the get-go and I had no idea what to do other than to sit there and let you do whatever you wanted to do to me!" I realize I'm shaking, the memory of my fear during our first few times together coming back too strong.

He pauses.  "Oh my God.  You're serious, aren't you?  This really was your way of paying me back?"  I nod weakly.  "That's sick.  That's...what were you THINKING?"

I slide to the floor.  I guess it's not enough for him to leave me, now he hates me, he's disgusted by me.  I wonder if I did something in a past life to doom myself so horribly.  "I wasn't thinking."

He's leaning against the wall on the other side of the hallway, looking up at the ceiling.  "Peter, you need to get help if you think that spending four years of your life pretending to love someone is proper payback for a favor they did for you."

"I didn't pretend for four years."  Even I'm surprised at how choked my voice is.

Michael sighs and sits down in front of me.  "Pardon?"

I look at him.  Even if it does no good, even if he walks right back out of my life, he has to know.  "I love you.  I don't know how or when or why it happened, but I love you."  I take a deep breath, trying to continue.  "You made me happier than anyone else ever has, and you make my little girl happy, and I'm sorry, so sorry, that I lied to you back then, but I'm not lying now, and I...I just wanted you to know that."  I drop my head again.

I can hear Michael's shaky breathing, and the silence stretches for long moments.  "You're a hard person to hate, you know that?" he finally says.

It almost hurts worse to hear him say that, to hear his voice without anger or disgust but to still know he's never coming back.  "I'm sorry," I whisper again.

"How do I know you aren't lying to me now?"  He doesn't sound like he's accusing me; actually, he sounds like he's thinking out loud.  "How I know you haven't just talked yourself into thinking you loved me?"

I can't do this anymore.  I stand up, pushing myself away from the wall.  "If that's what you think, then it doesn't really matter what I say, because you're never going to believe me.  I'm going home.  If you tell me where you're staying, then I'll call you later, we can figure out what we're gonna tell Hallie..."

I start to walk towards the door of my apartment, but I can hear him behind me.  "Pete...come on, Pete, wait..." And then, there are arms around me, his arms, wrapping around my body to hold me against him.  Why the hell is he holding me?  "I didn't mean it like that.  I just wanted to make sure you aren't just tricking yourself."

"I love you."  My voice sounds flat.  I wonder if he notices.

"I know you do, or you think you do, at least..."

"I love you."  I say it with conviction.  I have to convince him, he has to know I love him before he leaves me.

"Ok, I believe you."  His arms wrap around me tighter.  "Pete?"

I can't help letting my hands drift over to rest on top of his.  Something inside me is saying that maybe if I hold onto him, I can keep him here, at least for a little while.  "I don't want you to leave me."  I don't realize until then that I'm crying, that I have been since I tried to walk away from him.  That's why he came after me.  That means he cares that I was crying.  That means...he still cares?

My question is answered when he turns me around and guides my head to his shoulder, whispering soothing words in my ear.  "Shhh.  It's ok.  It's gonna be ok."

"Don't leave me," I plead through the tears.  I don't even care anymore, I've already bared my soul to him, I don't have any pride left in me.

"I'm not."  He's not.  He's not leaving me.  He's not leaving me?!  I jerk my head up to stare into his eyes.  I see that he's crying too.  "She's right, you know."

"Who is?"  I ask.

He smiles.  "Hallie.  She was lecturing me earlier, and she said that we've always told her that no matter what she does, we'll always forgive her, because forgiveness is part of love.  And she's right, you can't just close your heart to someone like you're turning off a light."  He closes his eyes for a moment, as if to collect himself.  "Peter, I'm not going to lie to you, I'm still mad about what you did, and I'm not sure I'm ever going to truly comprehend why you did it."  He opens his eyes, leaning his forehead against mine.  When he talks, I can feel his breath on my face.  "But I'm not going to let it tear us apart.  Because I love you."  He pauses for an agonizing moment.  "And I forgive you."

I nearly collapse as his words echo in my head.  He loves me.  He forgives me.  I haven't ruined my life, ruined Hallie's life, ruined anything.  It's gonna be ok now.  We hold each other, both crying, standing in the middle of the hallway, and even though I feel the tears soaking my cheeks, I've never been happier in my life. Once we've collected ourselves together, I lean forward to kiss him, softly, gently, the way you'd kiss someone if you were a little scared and unsure, the way we both are.  "Let's go home," I whisper.

And hand-in-hand, we do just that.
 

T H E   E N D