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"Meghan Moors, you're under arrest for aggravated assault, vandalism and fleeing the scene of a crime.   "You have the right to remain silent..."

   Pretense, It was pretense and ego, the lies to ourselves, the lies to each other, and the games with everyone else, for denying reality, and thinking we were superior to everyone.   Fate measuring out punishment for his and my moment of pleasure...

   There had been an unspoken agreement between the two of them, even if they would not admit it to themselves.   Swapping stories over the past the last several hours, they had carried on like old friends as Grey drove Meghan home.   It was a novelty, being normal that is, until they got close to the question.   There were pets to feed, mail to catch on and all the concerns of life that can only be avoided for so long before you had to ask what is next.    For hours it continued, and the conversation petered out, and the question grew with the shadows on the highway that Christmas day as they approached Philadelphia.   Uncertainties, apprehension, dread, and a hundred other constructs given names, and by that, power over the mind.   They had a voice, which was Meghan's, languid like her form.

   "Grey, be honest with me, what are you planning?"

   "With..."

   "You won.   I went out, I even enjoyed it.   Now we're going home.   You proved you point.   So, what are you doing now?   You always have a plan and an ulterior motive, which seems funny from a homeless guy."

   "I know...I don't know, and that's the truth.   I played you.   I have no plan, and I played you like everyone else I ever met."

   "You don't love me do you?"   He glanced for her rear-view mirror, just for a moment, eyes which spoke the better language of the heart.   Hers refused to be captured.

   "I think I do.   I thought I did, but how could I?"

   "Love is not something you think about, you just know.   You're always thinking too much."

   "Perhaps...perhaps."   Gray tried to focus on the drive, something twice as unnerving in city traffic, and gain blessed release from his own constructs, but it was all cartoon fingers and a leaky dike.   "...me, with a job," he muttered.

   "Is that such a bad thing?"   A look of incredulity broke through her stone face.   "It's what we all have to do."

   "And doing what, a cashier, working a car wash, or perhaps a garbage man?   Punching a clock, chatting to a water cooler, the only thing I was good at is people, and I was terrible to them.   I can't do that anymore."

   "You have a college degree, what was it, finance?   Do something with it!"

   "I can't.   Not even for you..."

   "WHY NOT!!!"   Meghan stomped her feet together, the force of which threatened to tear off the rear axle.   Two depressions were left in the floorboard.   Arms slipped out and became animated, emphasizing every word with unconscious motion.   "You are so aggravating.   Are you so weak that you can't control yourself?"

   "Is not causing harm enough?   Seventeen people that lost everything because of me, my actions, personally, alone.   Mark Montgomery downed a bottle of pain killers rather than becoming a hindrance to his children.   I looked him in the eye, and said he would never have to worry about his retirement again.   I guess that was the true, perhaps the only bit of truth I uttered.   I've been to each of their homes.   Mr. Montgomery, I went to each of his three children's.   Not one could I ever say 'I'm sorry'.   I never even reached a door."   A horn blasted from behind, jarring Grey back to the moment and back into his own lane.

   "I can't ever see you doing that to anyone, not anymore."

   "I don't want to know."

   "Then do something ELSE..."

   "I can't be dragged back into it."

   "You've done your pentanence.   You can be happy. "

   "My father, he'll find me...he'll be watching for anything, my social, my photo, my name, the bank, anything."

   "And I'm paranoid...so what?"

   "I just don't want to see him...never again."

   Meghan's gesticulating wore down, and then stopped, and she understood.   "Wait, bank account...your money..."

   "Yes, my money.   He must know by now, but it was worth it to see you smile, a real smile."

   "But you don't know if you love me..."

   This arrow struck deep, and stung hard.   He had been the fool only to himself.   The more he thought, the more he remembered suffering and desire, and understood.   With a calmness bordering on serene, he exited the highway near the core of the city.

   "What the fuck are you doing?"   Meghan lurched forward to stop him, falling into a squat in the middle of the van with a hand reflexively on his shoulder.   Grey shook it off with little effort, and would not answer, and she could manage little else but to watch.   Instead they continued a couple of blocks into a urban neighborhood of tri-story brick shops and homes above, some stucco coated, some in disrepair, all closed for the night.   He parked the van mid-block under a working streetlight, and shut off the engine.

   "Trust me, you'll be better off."   He was out the door before a response could come, rounding his way to the rear where his backpack was stored.

   "Grey...GARY!   Is this another one of your games?!?"   Meghan's words were thrown back at her by steel, glass and cheap carpet.   He winced just perceptively, and she knew he still heard her.   One of the rear doors swung open, and Grey reaching out from behind, using it as a shield.   "Gary, please!"   She grabbed his wrist with two right arms, another right arm and left his backpack.   "Not like this."

   "I cannot hurt anyone anymore.   It's all know how to do.   This isn't a game.   I'm so sorry.   I do love you...I'm sorry...I really do...it's no game."

   "Don't do this."

   "You have enough gas to get home."

   "What does that matter?   Take me home!"   She squeezed his wrist and pulled him almost in the van.   He winced in pain.

   "You can drive yourself home.   Pull the seat back and tilt it."   Huge tears tumbled down her face, but she let him go, and almost collapsed onto the floorboard.   "It's not illegal to be you.   Go home.   Find someone to take care of you right.   Have children as special as you and enjoy your life."   The final words came from over his shoulder as he walked away.   The door closed on her, ending her life...almost.

   "Hey...hey cracka.   What you doin' here?"

   It sounded too casual, which was warning enough.   Meghan threw herself flat on the floorboard, trying to contort every bulge and extremity of sight, begging any being that would listen to make her smaller in this moment.   She would never hate her body again, she swore it, and listened to the conversation.

   "Hey...yeah, my van just broke down.   You guys know of an auto store around here.   I'm not going anywhere right now..."

   "Naw man, it's all closed, it's Christmas..."

   "Well that sucks.   Hey, maybe a good tow guy?"

   Meghan never heard or saw anyone pass the van, but this other man was close, almost speaking like an old buddy.   She knew Grey enough, however, to hear the edge to his deep voice, and he was using all his skill to talk his way through.   Her concern for him overcame her fear just enough to peak over the back seat.   She counted five men half-circling him, four long and lean, in clothing too light for this winter night.   Where they had come from Meghan could not tell, but they moved as confidently as predators in their territory.   There was a violent grin, balled fists, one of them paced in the rear.   Even in the dark, the tension in Grey's limbs was evident, and on the back of his neck.

   "It's Christmas cracka."

   "An' his momma, she's sick."

   "My momma, I love her, she couldn' afford no presents fo' my little sister."

   "You got anythin' in that backpack for us santa?   Share the wealth, dude."

   "Fags, just take his shit and let's go." The oldest and tallest man slapped them both in the back of the head.   One straightened back up rubbing.

   "Gentlemen, I apologize, I have a twenty on me, that's all."

   "Tha's bullshit, you have that van."

   "Just leave the van alone, it's junk.   That's why I need parts..."

   "Nigga, it's not even worth stealing."

   "He go' da cash in dere I bet."   The forth one, overweight, finally spoke in a high pitched voice.

   "BACK OFF, NOW!"

   "Look out, we got a badass here...I love that, badass."

   From a hidden pocket sewn into the backpack Grey pulled a switch, dropping his backpack in the same clean, practiced motion.   "Listen to me.   Stay, in the van.   Whatever happens, stay in the van.   I'll be fine."

   "What'cha got in the van?   Yo woman, or buddy?   He got the cash?   I heard them before."   Grey was being out-maneuvered away from its rear door by the mob.   The speaker was reaching for the metal handle of the door.

   "Back off.   You do not want to find out."   He lunged at this man wildly with the knife, falling short of the mark.   They retaliated as one.   He imagined for a moment fighting at the jaws of Hel, in his fury holding his own.   "Stay in the van!...IT'S NOT WORTH IT!"   Something was in his eyes. Grey touched his head to swat it away.   His fingers came back slick with his own blood, his rage spilled too soon.   A fire struck his side.   There was a stabbing pain now when he breathed; a weight landed on his neck, and his body gave out, his legs folding up underneath him as the back of his head struck the concrete.   At the last he imagined a Valkyrie lifting him up.   He would see Valhalla...

   To the others the gates of Hel had opened to receive them, and had released its queen with open arms.   Her vengeance would be all-consuming and final.   They all came at her, and found her angry embrace.   They stabbed at her heart, their blades were turned away. If one found flesh, its wound did no harm, such was her power.   They tried to return her to the earth, and the largest was thrown into a storefront gate, collapsing it and breaking the window behind.   The tallest man pulled a pistol, only to have another of his own hurled at him, knocking both down.   He and his weapon came to rest beyond the front of the van.   Hel would have her night, and savored every moment of it.   Every cry of terror enriched the experience, and she took her time to repay it measure for measure, and then everything came to a preternatural still; Grey was there again.

   "Gary, oh God dammit, GREY!   You're bleeding all over the place."

   "noo....stay inside."

   "Oh, shut up.   I'm getting you to a hospital."   She picked him off of the pavement, shifting him oh so gently to slide an arm at a time underneath his body.   His blood pooled with hers and her foes on torn flannel.

   "No...take me home...I'm fine."   She lay him to rest across her bench seat.   The driver's seat was thrown back almost off of its track as she tried as best she could to fold herself into the front seat.   It would have been a comical sight if it was not for the situation.   The van revved, and would not catch.

   "Gary, it won't start!   Gary!"   Silence, Meghan tried to twist around to see if he even had even reacted, and instead nearly tore the armrest out and struck her head on the roof.   She could just catch a glimpse of a crimson pool that was his pillow.   More crimson dripped from a shirt soaked and torn.   He was not moving.   Meghan was at a loss again for what to do, a situation alien to her.   She popped the hood in desperation, hoping for something obvious.   "I don't know much about cars...why the hell would I?   GARY, need help!"

   The thug who stirred on the ground nearby, she picked him up with one hand, throwing his face on the engine block.   "Fix this!"

   "I'm sorry, don't kill me.   I don't know nothing about engines.   What are you?"

   "Go to hell..."   Meghan pulled him back to standing, swatting him away with a backhand.   She looked all over the engine, feeling out all the wires, belts and hoses simultaneously, praying in all sincerity like never before that it would be just that easy.

   "Gary!" She could barely see any of him through the windshield.   Meghan searched for a pay-phone, a cop, anything.   How could there be no traffic in the middle of a city?   She returned to him, he was the only one who would know.   "Gary, the van turns over, but it won't start.   I can't find anything loose.   Help me."

   His lips were moving.   At first she thought it was from his labored breathing, but she bent in to him from outside the van.   "Check...the can...back wall."

   "What am I checking?   God dammit."   Stripped down to her black undershirt, Meghan made some makeshift bandages from her already ruined flannel, and in seconds used them to staunch the blood loss.

    If I can do something to heal the flesh, metal should be so much easier.   It's what I do.

   This reset her mind, and she quickly found this canister, and unscrewed it by hand from its metal lines.   Meghan took it and peaked in the side.   It dripped of something inside, the distinctive smell of gasoline.   "It's plugged..."   She wrapped her lips onto one end, giving it a sharp blow.   Rusted iron flakes and fuel blasted out of the other end and onto the man she had tried to force into servitude, causing him to stir once more.   "...Not anymore..."   Meghan reattached it, and slammed the hood of the van closed, turning to return to the driver's seat.

   "...You stupid bitch, die."   Contained explosions crashed through the silence, a bullet pierced through her middle left bicep.   Three hot casings were ejected from the pistol, and fell onto the man, still on his back where he had crawled to retrieve it, and they did something completely improbable.   A late spark, or the heat was just enough and the vapor pressure of the gasoline was just right.   Meghan barely noticed as he jumped to his feet in panic as his shirt was set to flame.   She cared nothing about what happened to him, just that he was a threat no more.   A trickle of blood ran slow and thick down her arm.   "Hoisted on your own petard, weren't you?"

   Grey lie still and ashen like the dead, his last energy spent in a whisper.   Meghan was over him, sitting on her legs with her head bowed, trying to make a fatal decision in that moment.   "Too much...this is too much.   You have to go to the hospital."   A concussion for sure, a knife wound, likely cracked ribs, blood loss, dozens of lesser things.   Unconsciously, she wiped the blood of her own wound, already closing, with the fingers of another hand, looking at its crimson, sappy texture as she came to realize what she had to do.   "Ohh, you would like this, it's absolutely insane.   I might kill you, or worse, you might just understand me a little bit better."   She removed the bandages, using her own blood in his wound as a salve, hoping her strange traits would cauterize his wounds, while fresh bandaged were created and used.   The effect was immediate and noticeable and she gasped when she saw it, a compromise between laughing and crying.   "Rest, let's go home."

   The van roared again.   Meghan had to make fifty hunched up miles, driver's window open wide in the winter air for elbows room.   It did not matter.   More tears streamed freely, to pool for a moment on the upside of her cheek before whipped away by the night wind.   She could not bother to wipe them away.   There was no one to see them, and if someone did, why would she give a damn...

   He woke to the drip, drip, drip of the IV in his arm.   He remembered the coughing, the cold sweats he had endured in the weeks before, and growing weaker, until his mother insisted he go to the emergency room; the squat, dark haired nurse that took care of him during the rare waking moments, and his mother, with her flaming hair.   She was so sure, so capable, towering over every task.   She had never left his side...this isn't right...he was here before...

   Grey opened his eyes slowly.   Time passed before he could fix on anything, but he could still listen.   Something scratched at paper, and there was deep and still breathing.   He blinked hard, and squinted as he fixed on the blurry outline of a softly chiseled face and wavy hair made from many colored patches of blondes, strawberry shades, and deep reds.   "...Why is it I always seem to end up flat on my back on your sofa?"

   "It's a ploy.   I secretly hired those men to almost kill you just so you would have to stay with me."

   "No doubt."

   "How are you feeling this morning?"   Meghan leaned over him, one of her hands on his forehead.

   "My side hurts, but not too bad.   It's amazing, I thought for certain that I took one to the hilt, but it looks like it didn't even need stitches."   Grey hitched himself up to sitting, smarting slightly as he received a reminder about his ribs.   Meghan pulled up his undershirt gingerly, and they inspected the wound together.   There was still an inflammation surrounding it, and a scab where he was punctured, but it appeared to have been a wound from many weeks ago.   She ran a finger lightly across while holding the shirt folded over his ribs.

   "Yeah, uhm...you feel good then, nothing strange, or unusual?"

   "Sure...everything's normal, at least as much as they can be."   Grey rubbed his head unconsciously.

   "Normal...thank God."

   "Huh?"

   "Nothing, happy New Year’s Eve, my stray."

   "I've been out all that time?"

   "You've been awake, and weak, and I helped you do what you need to do.   You lost a lot of blood.   But yes, in my tender hands again..."

   More than once a feeling of déjà vu had come over her.   The first few had been touch-and-go, and Meghan teetered toward taking him to the hospital a scant mile away.   It was for the silliest of reasons she could not commit, seeing the disappointment on his face if he woke up in a hospital.   Instead, she had run through the last week on auto pilot, random stabs from her past flashing through her mind at every turn.   She seemed determined to flagellate herself with moments of regret no matter what the cause or outcome.   But he had recovered, and quickly, which worried her even more.

   She forced herself leave him alone that day, convinced that it was for the best on this first day he had really seemed to recover, but there wasn't enough of those little tasks around to do after a week of made up diversions, and she kept gravitating towards him while all the time chiding herself for it.   This little stray had become the center of her world, and she finally admitted it.   There had been some inquires, a request for a quote, some supplies delivered, she had even piddled around with her work, but nothing had touched her heart, the piece she really needed to finish.

   "I was unconscious a whole week again, unbelievable...you didn't drug me again to keep me here right?"

   "No, nothing to sleep with, not this time, just Tylenol and disinfectant for your wounds.   You were awake enough at times where I could get a little broth in you."

   "Wow, amazing.   I feel so full of energy, like I could lift a truck, or eat a horse. This is so good."   Dinner had been quiet until then.   It was his first solid meal and Meghan had wanted it to be a good one, chicken fettuccine alfredo.   Grey ate greedily, and she stopped and watched, worried that he would not be able to hold so much down so soon.   Now awake and out of danger, instead of it lightening her burden, it seemed to increase ten-fold.

   "Gary, I'm sorry."

   "For what?"

   "For not coming to help you sooner, for causing the break down that put us there to begin with."

   "Now why do you believe that you were responsible?"   He looked her in the eyes with nothing but warm concern.   His fork was finally given a moment to rest.

   "I must have shook something loose when I threw that tantrum.   You right about me, right about everything..."

   "It doesn't matter.   It could have as easily been my fault for not cleaning out the gas tank, or my decision to strand you there initially.   It happened.   Seriously, it wasn't even the worst beat down I've had perpetrated on my body."

   "You should have died."

   "Now why would you say that?   I'm fine..."

   "Gary...I want to tell you something, before you go...We're just running from ourselves, from each other.   We're both runaways, why doesn't matter.   Of course we would run away from each other, it's our nature.   But this time, this once, can we stop?   Won't running hurt more than staying this time?   It will me.   You say you don't want to hurt me, then do not leave.   Can we face it this time, together?   I think I can."   She spoke slowly in that high pitched, vulnerable voice that had come to represent a whole different side of her.   Her body shivered, and she reached for his cheeks to touch, and his hands for warmth.

   "What has become of a man who trades the cold for warmth, rejection for attention?"

   "He's been hurt too much, and afraid to be dealt another blow."

   "I owe you my life."

   "And so do I.   You gave me mine back.   Don't take it away.   I have a chance now to finally put away the past, and to grow up.   You are so right about me...I'm so...stunted...you've seen it.   It's just..."   She was stumbling to own the words that express what she felt.   "Just...just come with me, I'll show you."

   She could say no more, and let go except for one his hand, and stood waiting for him to follow, and took him away from a pair of dirty plates.   He was led upstairs, weaving past the cold, hard steel that had defined her for so long, to the final door he had yet been through.   "All that anyone knows about me is outside this door, especially the family that I see too little of.   Only you have guessed the insides.   Let me show you them."   Grey stepped in to a small room only lit by the bits of star light that leaked in through the window, and the light of the far distant florescent banks of her workspace.   He could only guess at what she meant.   A switch was flipped from a finger behind him, and the room went pink.

   It all seemed so wrong for a moment, but it all made sense.   A room you would expect of a young teen girl that had been given carte blanche to decorate it how she chose.   Her first room alone, yet seemingly among many in the home.   A master bedroom was made for the comforts of the owner, this was for one of the kids, down to the small, square floor space and the closet with the sliding track doors.   It had been painted pink after the fact almost sloppily in a flat paint, and decorated in every bit of mismatched enthusiasm in all kinds of girly things.   The dark wood poster bed in its center seemed way too mature for the surrounding landscape, even as it was covered with a gaudy bright and too small comforter and lace trim pillows and translucent peach curtains.   Across from its foot board an Macintosh computer on a white painted desk, her keyhole to the world.

   "This is me, stunted, immature, childish and all hidden."   Grey stayed silent.   He noticed the crooked posters on the walls were faded, the corners torn off even several times.   They showed off what were of the heartthrobs of ten, fifteen years ago.   The stuffed animals were patch bare; the hello kitty in particular was leaking cotton at armpit.   A stereo system stood in the corner, the black cloth over the floor speakers torn nearly off.

   "I don't want to hide anymore.   It's not lying; it hurts all the same.   But the most of all, I don't want to be the frightened little girl anymore."

   "What do you mean?"   Grey shifted his weight on his feet, becoming uncertain despite himself as he guessed the meaning.

   "When you were stabbed, I thought I had lost you, and you were run through, not some little thing I realized that if not for this," Meghan spread her arms and turned a slow circle, drawing attention to everything around her, "being this frightened little girl, and the lies to hide it all.   You would have been fine this Christmas.   What a Christmas, huh?   I am what I am.   There's nothing wrong with me.   And anyone who won't understand otherwise isn't worth my time.   Why can't I be that way too?"

   "And I would have been fine if I had not pushed you there."

   "But it doesn't matter, none of it matters but right now, and you and me, here.   But I can't move on until one thing is settled.   I don't know many people, but I do not think that there is anyone out there that I would rather have with me."   She reached for him, and pulled him in without hesitation with all her arms around his shoulders, back and waist.   There was no resistance to her need.

   "And I you, the real you.   I've been so absorbed with myself, I almost let the best thing I could ever have slip away.   I do love you, unreservedly.   I know that when I stop lying to myself.   You can't change who you are, and I wouldn't want you to.   It's not who you are, it's who you became because of it that I love, each and every bit entirely unique."

   "It seems we have the typical fairytale love story, care to live with a 'happy ending?'   This is a total cliché, but I want you to make a woman out of me.   Are you up for the challenge, my stray?"

   "Are you certain of this, after all of this?"

   "Very."

   "Then I think I can do that for you."

   A long time ago she had fantasied about this moment, dressing up a mental doll with different hair, faces, clothes, bodies.   At one time it was a rock god, an eccentric artist like her, or an actor, there were many cardboard profiles that had been in front of her at this moment, always larger than life.   It was never something so unexpected and strange as what shuffled before her right now, and never had anything been more real or exciting.

   She was afraid to touch him, such a fragile little thing, that he might break or turn to mist and drift away, leaving her alone again.   She was conscious of every sensation, the cold breeze on the hairs of her arms, her shallow breath and the ache of her heart, afraid that she might upset everything and he might fly.   Grey squeezed one of her lower hands in both of his, and drew it to his mouth to kiss.

   "Don't worry, it's fine."

   "I haven't so afraid of my flesh since I first saw myself in the mirror at thirteen."

   Grey unbuttoned her flannel shirt slowly, struggling for the last button on tip-toes. She laughed at this and her passion broke loose.   She lifted him up, two hands becoming a fondling seat for his jean covered buttocks, his legs straddling her hips, and their mouths came together in a passionate embrace, mimicking their bodies as the flannel fell. She held him close under his arms, his back and ass, ever so firmly, unwilling to ever let go again.   Thirty long, rough fingers learning every inch of his body by heart. He struggled to reach around her chest, between excruciating tastes of her tongue and neck, to reach the five clasps that contained her softness, and to undo them in those moments she allowed to draw a breath.

   "Here, let me help you," she whispered into his ear. "You're going to have a hell of a time with my jeans as well."   Meghan undid the clasp with her middle arms, still seating him well.   The poor overworked fabric fell into his lap, its straps ends dangling near his ankles.   Her breasts were free, so close to his thigh he could feel their heat as he wanted to trace their curves once more.   Even as she stood there still, they seemed to shudder with a life of their own every time she breathed. "No, not yet."
   Meghan tossed him, and he bounced one time as he landed on her bead.   "It's my first time, be gentle."   Her pants were peeled off her hips even as she was crawling towards him, sliding her body across his so that only her nipples slid across him from shin to collarbone.   "Now this isn't fair, your clothes are still on.   Let me get that."   And she did with efficiency, but somehow his arms became pinned above his head by just one of hers as she sat above him.

   With the nail of the index finger of her top right hand, she ran it up his body as she closed her eyes, this small sensation of bare skin more satisfying than anything that had come before.   The few pounds of weight he had put on had served him well.   His thin body like a runner’s, his muscles cut and toned.   As her finger reached his mouth, he sucked in in, and tasted her once more.   She shivered, and he could feel the goosebumps where her thighs touched his.   It was not enough, and she pressed her full body onto his, but oh so gently.   He was pinned by a giantess, she had him at her complete mercy, and he loved it all; his vulnerability only enhanced his need for this mountain of a woman.

   "You trust me now."   She surrounded him, bracing herself around him, cocooning him.   A finger touched his lip.

   "Yes, wholly."   His arms were let go, and he held her head.

   "Then have me."   She released him, rolling on to her side to let him explore her body any way he wished, the burning heat of her skin, the yielding firmness of her unequaled breasts as he fondled them.   The unexpected sweetness as he suckled them.    The mountain had yielded to him, and all he desired anymore was to please her.

   "I wish I had six arms too, there is just too much of you beautiful body to experience at once."

   "You might get your wish.   You've conquered me.   Take your reward."   There could be only one meaning as she grabbed his body, and rolled onto her back with him on top of her.   Grey hesitated for a moment.   He feared the inevitable pain he would have to deliver.

   He was not small as far as his manhood was concerned, to his pride, but he had never felt so inadequate before.   As he finally pierced her fold, she let out a gasp as her jaw dropped, and he knew as she grinned at him and closed her eyes that it was the intimacy that they shared, the all-consuming desire to please the other, that is what mattered most.   She only drove him deeper with her many arms caressing his ass, back and chest.   Strong arms that worked metal now sculpted his body into hers.   There was something right here that he had never experienced before.   They were united in form, moved in harmony and reached ecstasy as one, which only served to drive them to reach higher plateaus of pleasure, and try things only they could do. The passion burned through the night, and only grew brighter into the dawn.

   "I should have worn this last night..."   Meghan held up the teal lingerie from weeks ago, which had been wadded up in former disgust and kicked into corner of her closet.   "I think I'll wear it now."

   "I don't think I can take it."

   "Oh, yeah?"   She was all smiles this morning.   No, not morning anymore, the sun had risen over the window by now.

   "I feel like a glazed doughnut that was sat on."

   "Good, I'm wearing it after we shower."

   If there was a sun, or a cold wind, or people, places, beyond those rickety walls, the two of them traveled inseparable, unaware of it that day.   For today, none of it mattered, not even between those walls did one much matter except for the other.   Nothing else was noticed, not even time, as every little thing they did together was worth spending that extra time to make it special, a moment of love worth a lifetime of loneliness.

   *Bzzzzz*

   "You expecting someone Meghan?"

   "No..."

   Gray checked out through an upstairs window.   "Oh shit.   There's a ton of cop cars, a dozen even.   News vans too, I can't even tell how many in the twilight.   They're even setting up flood lights."

   "I guess it's time then."

   "What are you talking about?"

   "I half-expected this.   I left a mess behind me when you were hurt.   I have to pay for it."

   "How...no...I'll answer it.   I'll tell them you're not here.   We can get away through the bay.   Don't give up now.   We were so careful."

   "No.   It's time I face the truth.   I am a monster.   I will trade one cell for another."   Meghan began to walk to the stairs, Grey chased her down, tried to block her way before she got on them.   She stopped in front of him.   "Move please."

   "No."

   "You're an idiot."

   "You didn't do anything wrong."

"Then everything will be fine, but no matter what, I will be free.   And so will you." She opened the double door.   Four policemen stood there, each were taken aback to various degrees once they saw that the absurd rumors were indeed true.   One drew his firearm before the sergeant interposed, taking the gun away himself.   It took twelve handcuffs to restrain her as they had to be doubled up.   She had to lay down in the police cat to fit on the plastic seat in the back.   The flashbulbs were nonstop and dozens of cameras rolled, catching every moment.   At no moment did she flinch at this strange world she was now a part of.    She towered over a Lilliputian world. No one even noticed Grey as he came to the door, and he was proud of her strength, and ashamed of his own.   He had tried, and failed to keep her safe.   He cursed his father, most of all himself, as he came to realize the cause.

"It's my fault, I did this, and whatever it takes I will fix this.   Meghan will not suffer for my lies."

End of Act 2