<font color=7f1715>*I don't just want to be your regret</font>

The sound of his approach was completely lost in the ringing of her laughter. Downwind from her, he may as well have been a ghost. It wasn�t until he spoke that she knew she wasn�t alone. And he didn�t greet her, or run to her side. They did not pick up where they left off, as they had in her imagination. It was a question. Her name, uncertain on his tongue. She nearly choked on her own giggles; she turned slowly to face him.

The excitement she felt at seeing him again was replaced by a boiling anxiety, and there was nothing she could do to keep it from her face. Perhaps it matched his � she could see all the questions in his eyes, in the stern setting of his handsome jaw. She watched his eyes twitch over her, taking in her delicate (about as delicate as an elephant) condition. She had not intended to meet him like this.

But he was still here, and that had to mean something.

She took a breath, steadying herself, allowing the shock of first contact to ebb. Her lavender eyes closed, then opened again, and there he was. Just as she remembered him. And it was good. The butterflies � his butterflies! � came trembling to life, and she gave him the first genuine smile she had shared with anyone since they had last been together. �Sen,� she breathed, taking a hesitant step forward.

True, she didn�t currently have her attractive figure, and her moods were sometimes uncontrollable and confusing, but he was here now. And she was here now. And it wasn�t until now that she realized how desperately she had waited for this moment. Did he feel the same? She had no words to ask this thing of him, and he deserved answers to other questions first, so she allowed that particular stress to bubble with the other worries in the pit of her stomach.

�There�s no one,� she said quietly, still smiling, �I�m fine.� She wasn�t sure if those were things he wanted to know. She wasn�t sure if he was just waiting for his chance to escape politely. The idea made her somewhat queasy, so she ignored it. �It�s so good to see your face...� The truth slipped so easily off her tongue. Would he hear the waiting in her voice? Or the strain of Dante? The bear? The pregnancy? Iromar?

She glanced away, fighting foolish tears.

they sing in clever tongues

oh, how my knees go weak

to be the one;

H U S H

five ** bound by Dante ** midwestern crater **

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