Something Like August (original) (raw)

The White Room, part one
The White Room, part two

Joey had a moment of complete disconnection. Then, "What? No! When? Lance, that's ridiculous, you didn't rape anybody!"

"I did."

Joey couldn't understand this at all. Was Lance talking about, was there something—had there been something before they got captured? That might explain why Chris had been so determined not to touch Lance, maybe, but—no, it was insane. It wasn't possible. "I don't believe it," he said helplessly.

"You were right there, Joey, you know what happened. He—he wasn't, he didn't, he said no, but I did it anyway."

"That's crazy talk. That wasn't rape. You did what you had to do, if you hadn't he'd be dead."

"Yeah, except, not. We were rescued, remember? Justin and JC were on their way to us, right then, while I was—I should have waited. I should have let Chris make the call. I should have respected that."

"On the information we had—"

"Chris had that information too, and he made his choice. And I took it away from him."

"But he—" A terrible thought struck him like a fist in the guts. "Did—did I rape you, then? Lance, I didn't mean, I thought—"

"No, Joey, of course not! Don't even think that."

"But you didn't want to. You said."

"And I thought about it, and I changed my mind. I said yes, Joey, I said yes, so it wasn't rape. And I'm so sorry you had to, I know you never wanted, but you did it for me, for us, so thank you. You did the right thing."

"You did the right thing too."

Lance shook his head. "No. It's not the same."

"You were saving his life, man. Fuck, you couldn't just let him die."

"No. I couldn't."

"Anyway, he liked it. It's not like he didn't—he got hard, didn't he? He came." Joey could still remember those desperate little noises.

"Physical reaction. Doesn't mean anything. If my worst enemy had my cock in his mouth I'd probably come. Wouldn't mean it was my choice."

Joey had no clue what to say. He reached out helplessly to pat Lance's hand.

"Then... man, I tried to make it good for you. Was it just, I mean..."

Lance smiled wanly at him. "Always the stud. Yeah, Joe, it was good. You did just fine and I came because it was good sex, okay? And we—it doesn't make any difference to us, does it? You and me?"

Joey gripped Lance's hand. "No difference. You're still my best friend. And hey, I always thought you had a great ass! Just never thought I'd get quite that close to it."

Lance swiped at him. His grin looked real now. "You keep your hands off!" He drew in a deep breath. "Okay. I guess it's time to face the medicine. JC and Justin want us to talk about this, right?"

"JC does. He's pretty pissed."

"He's pretty all the time." Lance stood up, and Joey, with some difficulty, did likewise, and backed out of the narrow gap. "Lead the way."

Made it! All the way to their quarters without bumping into JC. Lance was at the end of the row, so he was already inside his quarters by the time Joey reached his own door, palmed it open and closed it behind him.

He looked at the small, grey room with something like affection. So many lumps and bumps, shapes and contours. Cabling for the doors and console, pipes and ducts for air and water and waste, the handles for his lockers and closet, the sliders for the bunk and chairs. His family pictures tacked onto the flat places. And nothing white. It felt like home. He pulled his easy chair out of the wall and sat.

How was he to get his head around this? Lance... raped Chris?

It wasn't what Joey had always thought of as rape. There had been a girl, back when he was a kid, the daughter one of the neighbours, she had a scar at the side of her face where her hair grew funny because someone, some evil prick, had raped her and used a knife to keep her down. She hadn't liked Joey much, she'd been the one woman on the bloc he'd never been able to charm. Maybe he looked like the evil guy? But that was what rape was, that was vicious and nasty, not—

And if it was true, like Lance thought, if Lance really had raped Chris, then whatever Lance had said, maybe _he_—

The door beeped.

It was JC. Shit. He must have had a tracker on Joey's quarters. Shit, shit.

Let me in, Joey, please.

That was the trouble with JC. He could sound so cute and gentle, and he was, most of the time, but when he was really serious, really pissed, he was about as cute as a scalpel.

He opened the door. JC came in, pulled out the guest seat, and sat down. After a moment, Joey lowered himself slowly back into his own chair.

"I talked to Chris," JC said. "So, you wanna tell me about what happened."

"Did—did Chris think Lance raped him? Because if he doesn't then he needs to tell Lance, because Lance is all kinds of messed up about it, but if Lance is right then I'm wondering if he was lying to me and really I, I raped him too. I didn't mean to, I never thought it was like that, I mean, we had to, right? Because it was that or they were going to kill us, and you know they only gave us back two suits after me and Lance did it, and he couldn't just let Chris die, could he? Only now he thinks, no, because you came for us, and he's all broken up about it, but I just don't know, JC, I don't know what to do."

"Hey, hey." JC was holding him, and Joey was clinging on for dear life, and he didn't mean to cry but the tears just wouldn't stop coming, and he sobbed against JC's shoulder and held on tight until at last he could breathe properly again. JC went to the head to fetch a couple of wipes.

"Okay now? Okay," JC said, wiping Joey's face clean of tear tracks and snot. "Better now?" Joey snuffled at him, but he seemed to have stopped crying. "Why don't you start from the beginning, okay?"

So Joey told him. From the beginning, from waking up in the Leggie holding cell, and the disorienting days in the white room. Joey told him all about the voice that had commanded them to have sex or be executed, about the arguments they'd had, about how Lance had seen the sense of it, how they'd saved the scrape to use, how the two flight suits had appeared in the food slot, and what happened with Chris. "I tried to make it good for him, JC, I did, I didn't want to hurt him but I never did it with a man before and I, I, it was good, and I never wanted to have sex with Lance, but I liked it and maybe I shouldn't have, I don't know, I don't know if I was wrong. I thought it was the right thing to do, I swear."

JC's arm tightened around Joey's shoulder. "I get it, Joey, I do, and it's okay that you don't know." He fell silent. Joey concentrated on breathing. He didn't want to start crying again.

"I think," said JC, after a long pause, "that you won't like what I'm going to say, but I think you were raped. All three of you."

"No," Joey said at once, because it wasn't true, nobody had done anything to him.

"Listen to me, Joe. You were forced to have sex when you didn't want to. Don't give me any guff about having a choice, it wasn't a choice. They had you in their cell, you were helpless, and they forced you to do things you never would have done otherwise. I completely get why you all just went crazy out there when you had the chance to get back at the Leggies for what they did."

"I don't—I did choose," Joey insisted.

"Yes, you chose to save your own life, and your wingmates too, and that was the right choice, Joey. Don't think for a second that it wasn't. And you know, it's okay that you enjoyed fucking Lance. It doesn't matter that he's a guy. Sex is great, Joey, you know that, it's just a human need, it should be pleasurable. Even bad sex is great, right?"

There was something wrong with JC's logic, there had to be, otherwise why would he still feel so dirty, but Joey didn't know what it was.

"Joe, I think you should call Kelly."

"I can't tell her about this!"

"Sure you can."

"But she, we had a row, she said not to call." Joey's head was filled with images of his girl, her smile, the way she felt in his arms, the way she looked at him when there was something serious to talk about, and suddenly there was nothing in the world he wanted more than Kelly, right here with him.

"She won't mind," said JC, confidently. "And there has to be a doctor on this ship who knows how to deal with this stuff. A proper shrink, not those stupid computers."

"Is Chris going to talk to a real shrink?" Joey found it hard to credit.

"He will when I finish with him," said JC, with steel in his voice. "I cannot believe he kept all this quiet, stupid fucker."

"Well, I'm glad he told you. I didn't want anyone to know, but, maybe I was wrong."

JC started to speak, then obviously thought better of it. "Look," he said eventually, "I think I should go see Lance now. You want me to get Justin down here? We don't have to tell him, if you don't want to, but you should have some company right now."

"No," Joey said. "I think I'm gonna call Kelly. Thanks, 'C." They hugged, hard, and if maybe another tear trickled its way down JC's neck, neither of them mentioned it.

"Say hi to your girl for me," said JC, grinned disarmingly, and left.

He blew half his monthly allowance on the call to Kelly, but it was worth it.

"You stupid fuck! What the fuck did you tell JC?"

"What? Chris, what time is it?" Joey had hit 'open' without really thinking about it, and he wasn't properly awake. And now there was a furious, bristling wingmate prowling around his quarters.

"He knows all about it! What the fuck did you think you were doing?"

Joey sat up, clutching at his blanket for protection. "Okay, so why is this suddenly my fault? You already talked to JC."

"Yeah, but I wasn't so fucking dumb that I'd tell him you got to stick your dick in Lance's ass! He didn't get any of that from me, and Lance knows how to keep a secret so it had to have been you."

"But he said—I—oh." JC hadn't actually said that Chris told him anything. Joey had just... "Shit."

"Yeah," said Chris. "Shit. And now I—they won't let me fly if I—this could be the end of NSYNC wing, you know?"

"I don't see that. We tell them about the, uh, about what the Leggies made us do, and then we, I dunno, do whatever shrinks make you do, and everything's fine."

Chris was still zinging back and forth across his tiny floor like a puck on a screen. "Everything's fine? What, just like that?"

"No," said Joey, patiently, "I guess it takes time. But they must know how to deal with... Uh. JC says, he says we were all raped."

Chris sat down on the bunk, suddenly deflated. "JC's a smart guy."

"So the shrinks will be able to help, right?"

"No, no, you see," Chris laughed bitterly, "that's where you're wrong, that's where it all goes wrong. They have us down for group therapy as well as solo session, we have to do some of this shit together, and I can't, I can't tell him, I can't."

"Lance?" Joey was surprised. Lance was pretty calm about stuff, usually. Lance could deal. He said so.

"No, no. Not when I—see, you maybe didn't notice, because you're a big dumb lummox and you don't notice shit, but that was—see, I can't sleep." Chris leapt up and started to pace again. "I can't sleep. Every night I get into my bunk and you know what I'm seeing in my head? You, fucking Lance. I see it, right there in my mind. You don't have any idea, do you, how it looked, how fucking incredible it looked, and then you with your hand on his dick, and his face, he had his head against your shoulder and I saw how he looked when he came and I, fuck! And he was on his knees and my dick in his mouth, it was so fucking good, and his eyes when he looked up at me, just... I see that every night when I go to bed. He's my wing man, Joey, how can I be thinking about fucking my wing man all the time and have him trust me? I can't tell the shrinks that, fuck it, I can't."

"Well," said Joey, blinking under the torrent, "Lance thinks—"

"I know what Lance fucking thinks," Chris said. "He didn't want me to touch him. He refused, remember? But he did it anyway, to save my life. I mean, that's incredible... How am I supposed to tell him I liked it? You said it yourself, we were raped, JC's right, those fuckers did that to us, they used us to hurt each other, and I'm gonna tell Lance it was the hottest thing I ever saw and I jerk off every night thinking about it? No. No. No way, no fucking, fucking—" he turned abruptly and smashed his fists into the wall, one, two—"fucking way. Ow. Ow!" His face was suddenly even lighter than his usual Celtic pallor, it was the color of Joey's sheets, and beads of sweat were forming on his forehead.

Joey caught him before he hit the floor, and carried him straight to the Infirmary.

* * *

The others were nowhere to be seen at breakfast time, but they met up for lunch, of course. Joey had just finished explaining to his three remaining wingmates that Chris was in the Infirmary because he was a moron who had punched a solid steel wall with both hands and Joey was lucky he'd been sleeping with pants on because he'd had to carry him there, when Chris appeared at the canteen doorway. He looked like shit, mostly because he was wearing Infirmary kit, in that hideous mucus green color that made everyone look really sick.

When Chris reached their table, they could also see that he had on what looked like polyfoam mittens, and was profoundly embarrassed under the defiance. He'd broken a bunch of bones, and had to wear the casts for at least a week, he said, but the worst part had been the accelerator injections, which had been a bitch but were supposed to help the bones knit back faster.

Meanwhile, he couldn't move his hands. "Would you get the—" Chris nodded at his ration tray, and Joey obligingly peeled back the lid. "I got a special spork thing, in the bag." There was a flap-top bag around his neck, and Joey fished out an odd-looking spork with a weird handle, like tongs. Chris held out one mittened hand. Joey couldn't figure out what to do with the tong handle, which kept slipping off the mitten's smooth surface, until Lance reached across the table and silently adjusted the alignment. It clipped on neatly at once, Chris muttered a thank you, and began to eat his dinner. The spork arrangement looked pretty effective, though Chris's elbow clouted Joey in the side a couple of times before he got the hang of it.

"That's gonna be a challenge," Justin observed, staring at the mittens. "So you can't move your hands at all?"

"Nope," said Chris. "They said the bones had to be kept in alignment. I have to go to Admin to get a voice key authorized or I won't be able to get into my quarters."

"Oh, so you're not stuck in the Infirmary?" Joey had assumed Chris would be under constant supervision.

Chris looked at him pityingly. "Does this look like the Infirmary to you? They keep the beds there for people who're hooked up to machines and stuff. Apparently I can look after myself, with a little help from my friends."

"What, do we have to undress you or something?" Justin seemed to find this hilarious, and snorted into his meat and potato pie.

"Actually I can undress myself." Chris demonstrated how his foam-coated thumb was nicely positioned to hook into his elasticated pants. His loose-fitting, wide-sleeved top had one velcro fastening, on the shoulder. "Not sure about taking a shower, though. They sprayed something over them," he angled a hand, and Joey could see that the polyfoam surface gleamed like varnish, "so they're waterproof, but how the fuck do I use the cleaning gel?"

"Kelly has a scrubby thing with a loop, like a mutant washcloth," Joey suggested. "You put the gel on it and it makes a lather."

Chris looked interested but puzzled, and Justin volunteered to ask Britney if she had a spare or knew where to get one.

"Cool. Thanks. You know, I can't play any games or use the comp so I'm gonna be bugging you guys to keep me entertained."

"Good thing we're grounded, then," JC said calmly.

Chris was taking this very well, Joey thought. He was himself rather uncomfortable, He'd seen how hideous Chris's mangled hands had been, but it wasn't that. It was... Chris would be unable to do anything for himself, and that, what did that remind him of?

"Looks like I get to piss sitting down until they take the casts off," Chris was saying.

"Won't be able to wipe your own ass," Justin suggested, still amused.

"Yeah, I'll have to use the autowipe." Chris didn't look as though he much liked the idea, and Joey didn't blame him. He much preferred to deal with things himself, and besides, it would bring back memories of the white room, where the autowipe had been the only option. That was what it reminded him of.

"The autowipe's better," said Lance.

"It really is," said JC. "It's hygienic. Much more thorough than—"

"Yeah, guys, can we maybe talk about something else? I still got food here," Chris complained.

Justin started to giggle. "Dude! No jerking off for you! 'Less you get someone to give you a hand—hey, maybe Lance could do that!"

"I. Don't. Think. So," Lance said into the sudden silence, and walked out.

"You know, you shit-brained little fuck, just because Lance is gay doesn't mean he's desperate to get his hands on any one of us," Chris hissed, his eyes glittering.

"I wasn't, I didn't mean—I just wanted to make him blush!"

"Nice going, superstar." Chris extricated himself from the bench seat, and stalked off.

"Um. Maybe I should—J, there's stuff you don't know," said JC.

Joey stood. "I'm, um, gonna go. But you should, um, explain. Stuff." He fled.

* * *

He tried to call Kelly again, but she wasn't there. Fuck. He really wanted to talk to her.

But not to his wingmates. If it weren't against regulations to eat in quarters, Joey wouldn't have gone down to the canteen at all that evening. Couldn't face sitting in desperately uncomfortable silence, trying not to look at Justin's miserable face, or else listening to JC babble about all kinds of nonsense in an attempt to fill the void. But eventually, he was too hungry not to go.

The place was nearly empty, day shift already gone on to the evening's entertainment, late shift not yet here. He found Lance at their table, already eating, and only his own rations left, which was a relief.

"JC said to join them in the rec room if you want," Lance informed him. "Apparently there are some hot honeys fresh from the training corps and all eager to make friends with the experienced pilots."

"Nah," Joey said, and opened his dinner. He wasn't really in the mood. Oh, and it was soya stew. Great, just great. "You know," he ventured, after a few slithery mouthfuls, "Justin was just trying to embarrass you. He didn't mean anything."

"Oh, really."

"He didn't know."

"He knew enough to figure out that I—" Lance clamped his lips shut on whatever he'd been about to say, and concentrated on his dinner.

"I talked to Kelly," said Joey, after a while.

Lance relaxed a bit. "She good?"

"She's great. I should have called before. You know, it really helped, talking to her. So, I was thinking, you should prob'ly talk to Chris. You know—apologise."

"_Ap_—apologise?" Lance's voice hushed to a furious whisper. "Oh, hi Chris, sorry I raped you, still friends? Yeah, right."

"Not like that," Joey said impatiently. "But, you know. It couldn't hurt. Tell him you're sorry."

"How? Seriously, how do you—I just, I don't know how to even say it. Besides, I don't think it'd be right for me to make him talk about it if he doesn't want to. He's the, the injured party."

"If you don't talk about it," Joey said cunningly, "maybe he thinks you aren't sorry. Maybe he thinks you don't care."

Lance's expression was enough to curdle milk, but Joey ignored him, and the stew wasn't going to taste any worse whatever anyone did to it. "Nice to know you're on my side," Lance hissed as he stood up. Well, he should consider it, Joey thought, unwrapping the fruit bar and chewing it with gratitude for actual taste and texture. It could hardly make the situation worse.

He stopped outside Chris's door on the way back to his own quarters, and hesitated a moment. If Lance had decided to talk... well, if he was in there, Chris wouldn't answer the door. So he pressed the hello button, and was slightly disappointed when a moment later the door opened.

"I just wondered if you needed anything?"

"I'm thinking tentacles," said Chris. "Also, a voice operated beer opener. You wanna pop a tube for me?" He waved Joey inside. There was a one-liter beer tube next to the console, completely inaccessible to Chris in his current state. Joey obliged, and Chris painstakingly inserted the end of a meter-long flexible drinking pipe into his beer before settling himself into his chair and sucking happily. "Ah, nectar."

"Anything else?"

"I got beer and a vid. Unless you're hiding a voluptuous nymphomaniac somewhere, I'm all set."

"Uh. No, sorry."

"What, no spares tonight? Nobody in your harem willing to spare a poor crippled pilot a few minutes? Fuck 'em, then."

Joey laughed, a bit nervously. "So... I'll be next-door, then. Um. You okay with the comm, if you need anything?"

"I'm good," Chris said. "JC came by earlier and reset everything to voice control. Might call you if I want another beer later."

"Sure," said Joey. "Well. I'll, um. Uh, did you see Lance tonight?"

Chris looked murderous. "He hasn't come by to provide me with any special services, if that's what you mean."

"Uh, no, no, I just meant. Never mind. Uh, call me if you need. Anything." Joey fled.

He tried Kelly again, but there was still no answer. Maybe he'd miscalculated the time? Joey sighed. He could really use a little comfort, and nobody knew him like his best girl. Wearily, he stripped down to his underwear and crawled into bed.

He'd only just got the pillow exactly right when his door entry beeped. Turned out it was Lance, looking shamefaced and pathetic.

"See, the thing is, I can't talk to Chris."

Lance sat on the open bunk. Joey pulled his pants back on and settled into his easy chair. "What's up?"

"I mean, you're right. I should tell him I'm sorry. I just." He leaned back against the bulkhead and closed his eyes. "I just don't think I can stand to see the look in his eyes."

Joey didn't quite get this. Chris had been there, after all. He knew what had happened. Okay, so Lance did not know he was starring in Chris's own personal porn showings every night, but he had to know Chris had noticed Lance's mouth on his cock. Joey was about to say so when Lance resumed.

"It's just—Chris, you know? I'm his wing man, I'm not supposed to feel like this. He's never said a word about—well, okay, he has, he mocked me for days when I told you all I was gay, but he never made me feel bad about it. But he trusted me not to be a problem, and I—I have, ever since he picked me out of training to be your fifth when that other guy left."

Joey had thought there was a little hero-worship going on back then. He remembered that wide-eyed innocent kid who fitted in seamlessly and was as reliable as rock when they flew together. The kid had had something like veneration for Chris, the wing-leader who put them all together, but Joey thought it had worn off in the face of reality, of actual Chris, who never knew when a joke stopped being funny, who insisted on showing everybody what he was chewing, and who had an off-duty sugar stix habit which turned him into a human catastrophe zone.

"The worst thing is, though, Joey, the worst thing is I liked it. I, oh, fuck, I dreamed about it so long, getting to go down on Chris, and I didn't want it to be there, I didn't want it to be where someone else was ordering it to happen and watching us all the time, and he didn't want me to even touch him, but I... it was... I forced him into it, Joey, and I enjoyed it. What does that say about me? What kind of person does that?"

"Huh," said Joey. "You were okay with touching me."

"Well, it had to be done, didn't it? It helped that I wasn't into—that we were friends. And besides, you like sex, and it doesn't much matter who you have it with, so I knew it'd be easy for you."

Joey was surprised how much he resented that. "Oh, 'cause Chris never has casual sex!"

"That's not what I meant. It just wouldn't have been—it wasn't casual for me."

Okay, enough. Just, enough. "For the love of—come with me." Joey stood, grabbed Lance's arm and hauled him ungently up from the bunk. He pulled his startled wingmate out into the corridor and leaned on Chris's entry button.

"Wait, Joey, what the fuck—?"

Chris's door opened, and Joey shoved Lance through. "Chris," he said, "meet Lance. He's had a thing for you for ever, he wants to get nasty with you and he won't because he thinks he raped you. Lance, meet Chris, he thinks you're the sexiest thing in the quadrant but he won't do anything about it because he's an idiot."

Leaving them both frozen with shock, he slammed the door shut, stalked back to his own quarters and got into bed. If they couldn't work things out now, fuck the pair of them.

* * *

What? The fuck? Was that beeping noise?

Someone at the door.

Fuck off. Joey pulled the blanket back over his head, but the beeping didn't stop. He peered out at his time display. Shit, he'd only been asleep a couple of hours. It wasn't fair. If this was Lance or Chris, he didn't care if they were here to kill him or kiss his feet, they were going to fuck off right back where they came from.

The beeping continued.

Cursing, Joey hauled back the blanket and stamped over to open the door.

"Hey, baby."

Joey blinked. No. He must be hallucinating. He reached out, touched her face with one finger. Felt real.

"Kelly?"

"I talked to your commander. He said get on the next ship out and he'd have clearance for me by the time I got to the shuttle port. So I just got here," she said in a rush. "If—if—I have guest quarters allocated, if you'd rather I didn't—"

He pulled her inside and wrapped his arms around her until she squeaked for breath. Then he dropped into the chair and tugged her down onto his lap.

"All the way here I kept wondering if I was doing the right thing," she said against his neck. "I thought you might have someone here." She kissed his ear. "I'm glad you don't."

"Don't want anyone," Joey said, wishing he didn't cry so easily. "Haven't. Long time."

"It's okay, baby. It's okay. We agreed."

Joey couldn't say anything. Kelly, here, came all this way because he needed her so much, so much, and she was here. He clung, and she stroked his face.

After a while, he managed to calm down a bit. "So. You talked to Johnny?"

"He's really worried about you, all of you. I told him you called and I wanted to be here with you. He didn't ask what we talked about, just said if you needed me I should come right out. He was great. All the permits were ready waiting for me every step of the way, I had no problems at all."

"He was so mad when we screwed up."

"He told me you were the best wing in the division, and not to tell you that."

"Best wing in the fleet!" Joey insisted, in a rather watery voice.

"I know that!" She hugged him closer. "So we have to get you fit and ready to fly again so's you can win the war and come back home where you belong, right?"

"Sounds like a plan. It's so good to see you, babe."

"Even in the middle of the night—it is the middle of your night, isn't it? I synchronized with your shift," she said proudly. "I thought I might have woken you up."

"Uh, I actually was asleep."

"But you're dressed! Well, half," she smirked down at his hairy legs, "and you always sleep—"

"It's more convenient," he said hurriedly, "then if someone comes to the door I'm decent already. Did I tell you about having to take Chris to the Infirmary? Good thing I had pants on or there'd have been a scandal."

She kissed him. "It's okay, sweetheart. We'll talk properly tomorrow. Can we go to bed now?" Joey tensed. "It's been a long journey and I didn't get much rest on the way. I'll probably sleep the clock round if you let me, so make sure you wake me, okay?"

He relaxed. "I don't mind watching you sleep," he said.

"Yeah," she slid off his knee, "but I didn't come all this way just to be comatose on you. Wake me." Efficiently, she stripped down to her panties. "I like that they give you guys wide bunks! I thought it'd be a skinny single. Which side do you want?"

"They keep us comfortable," Joey agreed, and slid in next to the wall. Kelly got in next to him and snuggled close, murmured a goodnight, and was asleep in seconds. Poor baby, she must be exhausted. He looked at her for a long time, so serene, so beautiful, so precious. He couldn't quite believe she was here, but if he was dreaming this was the best dream in weeks.

Joey reached over and turned out the light.

* * *

"Hi."

Now this was the way to wake up, with a nice warm female body right there. Joey could feel her fabulous breasts pressed against his chest, except why was he wearing a T-shirt? Oh. Yes. Realization dawned, and he inched backwards.

"Joey? Is something wrong?"

"It's just that I can't, I haven't been, I don't know if I—"

"Hey. Baby. Listen. It's me. I'm not pushing for anything, okay? Remember what I said when you signed up, you get to decide what you want to do, if you want to come back to me, or you don't. I'll be here, I can wait however long it takes, but you're always free to choose, yeah?"

Joey took a deep breath, and the sobs that shook him took him completely by surprise, but Kelly held him and kissed him and stroked him until the shaking stopped, and suddenly he felt better, cleaner, and he couldn't have done it with anyone but her, but somehow with Kelly, everything was all right.

Maybe, after all, things were going to be okay.