PREVIOUSLY

"Blair, Cupid you aren't….but….oh hell…"

She grabbed the tape with Todd's heartfelt confessions safely stored on it and left the Sun. Maybe for someone it would come in handy.

To Be Continued…..

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Author's Note: In this segment, the reader might be driven to utter frustration (Candyland will be on hand with Alka-Seltzer) because the drama and turmoil reaches various heights until even the author is wanting to reach for some Prozac. Tea's pain becomes especially raw and I'm hoping that it is not at the expense of the big tarnished hero himself. In any case, to set the mood and give a deeper sense of where this oh so frustrated Tea is coming from (or is it an oh so frustrated m&m?!) I thought the words to this song might help a bit. I also want to thank kelly and Louise for their input which helped me get past my stumbling block!

Water from the Moon, by Celine Dion 

I've looked everywhere I can just to find a clue

Oh, to get to you, and make you want me

And I've run circles round the sun chasing after you

Oh, but its no use

Can't you see that I'm going out of my mind

Trying to find a way to get through to you

Oh, you don't know how hard I try, and I try, and I try…..

What do I gotta do?

Do I gotta get water from the moon?

Is that what I gotta do

To make you love me, make you love me?

Do I gotta turn the sand into the sea

Is that what you want from me?

I've done everything that I can do

But get water from the moon.

I've reached high up in the sky trying to steal the stars

Oh to win your heart, but even that's not enough.

And I've searched every book I know just to find the words

Oh to touch your world and get some love out of you

I've already given all I can give, and I don't….

I don't know what's left to try, and I try, and I try…..

What do I gotta do?

Do I gotta get water from the moon?

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Maybe Tonight: Part 4

"Tea…" His voice was so soft and gentle that for a moment her heart thumped so hard it hurt. "We need to talk, Delgado."

She looked from the hand that gently held her shoulder to keep her attention to his eyes. She was lost in the depths of them in seconds as the softness she found there mesmerized her.

Todd saw the familiar flash of deep emotion in her eyes, and he struggled with the urge to hold her close against him and never let go. He felt that there was something between them…a barrier of tension and indecision. She seemed to be fighting her own struggle as well. In seconds, her eyes glazed over, seeming suddenly vacant.

"Todd, look, it's really late, and I don't feel much like talking tonight, ok?"

He raised his eyebrows almost comically at her, and she knew him well enough to read his thoughts. Her comment must have sounded like a carbon copy of one of his classics as it was usually he who wasn't up for a one on one chat. His eyes said it all…

His searching look called for further explanation.

"I just…I can't do this anymore…I didn't want to say this tonight…by tomorrow morning I was hoping I wouldn't have the heart to do it…"

He was watching her carefully. He had a horrible feeling that he knew what she was trying to say to him, and he was sure he didn't want to hear it. Still, he needed to know where she was coming from.

"You can't do 'this' anymore…this…what 'this'?"

"Todd, this hurts too bad, ok? Sometimes its like you're ripping out my heart and stepping on the same hopes you yourself handed me last week! You can't help it, I know that it's hard, but I…" her voice began to break as she relived all the disappointments that had started to build up over time. How she wished the evening could have turned out in the way she'd hoped!

Tea pulled away from him, and all at once Todd was sure he had a heart after all because he felt it breaking within his chest. She was running to escape before just being near him broke her resolve any further. Blindly she ran for the stairs, needing to put some distance between them.

She couldn't get away fast enough. The pull between them was almost magnetic.

The pain in her face had cut him like a knife. He took a deep breath and followed closely at her heels. Eventually, he caught her by the elbow in the living room and he whirled her around to face him. Her sad soulful eyes glazed over with defiance, her own personal shield, and he made the mistake of cracking a small smile as she jutted out her chin in typical Delgado fashion. Misunderstanding the reason for it, her anger rose and outweighed the hurt.

"What….What?! You find something funny here, Todd? Is this funny?" She flailed her arm in the direction of the dinner gone wrong. "I'm not laughing…not anymore!" Her voice rose in pitch and grew unsteady. "I refuse to continue doing back-flips for you. I've made a fool out of myself trying to make you want me…to make you need me as much as I need you. I can't belong in your world because every time I get a foothold in that rock wall you surround yourself with, you kick me back down to the bottom to start all over again. I'm so, so tired of clawing my way up again and again with nothing to show for it but a bruised ego and false hope for next time. Your world, Todd….it's so consumed with demons and regret, revenge and self-loathing, fear and self-punishment. You wear it all like armor. I'm too exhausted. I'm just too exhausted to keep trying to break through if the glass wall is indestructible in the end. Is it Todd? All my life I've tried to fight my way into a world that wouldn't give me a second glance. I thought you and I meant something…that we made some strange sense somehow out of two souls who live separately in total disorder. But now?" she shook her head sadly, her eyes a clear window revealing all the feeling beyond words. "All the fights gone, Todd. You've finally broken the unbeatable Tea Delgado. I give up….and you win." She laughed, but the sound was sad and hollow.

"In the end, we all lose, don't we? Me, you, and Starr, that precious little girl upstairs who deserves so much more than you or I ever had. So much more than this, Todd. She's confused…she worries about her place in all this and where she belongs. She sees everything, and she feels the confusion. It isn't fair…" Tears streamed down her face and she was aggravated by this show of weakness.

"Tea, look…." He stopped, struggling to find the words he knew she needed to hear…the words to save her, to save him, to save what they had…the words he wanted to be able to say. So much confusion, so much fear. In the end, the words were blocked by the fear. He ended up instead with a shrug of his shoulders, and he instantly regretted the diversionary tactic. It was all he knew in times like these. Backpedal….run! To confront the pain and to open his heart meant he gave the fear and the pain a voice. Keep it in, keep her safe…keep them all safe. He didn't want her to see or be a part of the confusion and the pain that ruled him. He realized, however, that the simple gesture didn't say all this to her. It only acted to dismiss her feelings and avoid his own.

"So that's it, huh? I am sick and tired of making the mistake of thinking that I could be somebody in your world…that I could someday be your everything. You were mine, Todd, did you know that? Right from the beginning I wanted this to work. I had so many dreams and wasted so many wishes. I've lost track of my friends, my job, my everything because in the end, I have to give all my energy to this. I want this for us," she said, motioning to the two of them. "I'm trying so hard…"

"Well who asked you anyway?" As soon as the words were out, he wished he could hit the rewind button and take them all back. Her pain was so raw, and his responsibility in that made him ache on the inside but defensive on the outside. He watched something die in her eyes and it tore out his heart. He wanted to tell her that it frustrated him, too. That he couldn't understand what it was in him that brought him so close to heaven and then held him back just inches from accepting it. Everything inside screamed at him to find a way to get past the blockades. With each second that passed, he feared she was slipping further away.

When she found her voice it came out flat and lifeless. To Todd, the silent face off had been a painful eternity. Despite the thoughts that ran through his head he let none of them become visible on his face. Had to stay safe--keep it hidden.

"I'm sorry…I guess…I guess I was just seeing things all along…The Proposal…everything…living in some unreal fairytale of my own making. I never realized that my imagination was that creative…I…" At a loss for words, she turned as if in slow motion and began to walk towards the door.

"Tea….WAIT! Oh God, please wait! That isn't what I meant…its not what I wanted to say. Don't go, okay? Not like this…not now."

She stopped in her tracks. She couldn't help it. His voice was that perfect mix of gruff and gentle, and her knees threatened to buckle beneath her. He noticed that her shoulders seemed burdened by the weight of the world. All he wanted to do was to hold her until he could return back all the strength to her heart and her soul and her body that the last year had stolen over time. Unfortunately, he didn't believe he had the strength to give to her, either.

"Why not, Todd?" she asked in a small, shaky voice. "Give me a reason not to go. I need…a reason, or we need to end this here and now. It's just too much, we're hurting Starr, and you….your pain is so deep, maybe I'm not the one to heal it. I can't be, not if you won't let me."

He tried so hard to gather all the feelings into something he could express out loud. He was much quicker coming up with the irreverent humor, and this beat the emotional stuff in the race from his brain to his lips.

"Well, for one thing, you can't leave. Not tonight, and not like this. You'd get nabbed for indecent exposure, plastered all over the front page of the Sun, locked up by the DA…you're only wearing my shirt."

Beside herself, she started to laugh, but before he could congratulate himself for the small victory her laughter changed to soft sobs that she couldn't control.

He walked over to her and put his arms around her without a word. She struggled against him for a second but then he felt her give in to the embrace. He whispered close to her ear in a way that threatened to melt her.

"Look, I'm sorry for tonight, and for all of it. Just don't go. It can get better…it can be better than this. That thing with Blair? She was just trying to get your goat. Don't let her get to you. Let's just forget it…forget it all, ok, and go on from here?"

He squeezed her hand which rested against his chest, and she winced slightly. He turned her hand over and saw the nasty cut she had received courtesy of the broken plate.

"You hurt yourself," he said softly, and she nodded.

"It wasn't one of my most graceful moments…it's okay." She shrugged it off and brushed at her remaining tears.

"No…it's not. It's not okay. I don't like to see…to see you hurt." He gently brought her hand up to his lips and kissed her wounded palm softly.

He looked down and found her eyes dazed with confusion and wonder. Todd had the feeling that his must mirror the same thing as he continued to gently run his finger along the tender area of her hand as if he could heal it with his touch.

"Tea, don't you know how I want things to be between us….how I want to make them better for you? It's just so damn hard…I can't love you like I want to, and that kills me." His face was a mask of utter frustration.

Tea moved closer to him and ran her hand down the side of his face in a gentle caress, feeling the prickly sensation of the unshaven areas against her palm.

"What is it that's stopping you, Todd? What pain lies so deep that it frightens you so much? What is so awful that you can't let me near you? I don't like to see you hurt either you know. I don't want to be the one to hurt you any more. I want to make things better for you, not make the struggle that much harder. Can't you let me try? Maybe I can take it all away…please let me take it away…"

She reached up and gently brushed his hair back from his forehead, searching his eyes for an answer.

Lost in her gaze, he forgot himself for a moment and the wall became invisible. Todd traced her jaw-line with one trembling finger, and her eyes dropped to his mouth. For once his thoughts were too slow to block his actions, as he complied with her unspoken request. His mouth met hers in a long, lingering kiss.

In the moments that followed, they lost all notions of time, and nothing mattered beyond the powerful hold of the kiss. All thoughts of frustration were banished and Tea's fears of never were further from her mind than they had ever been. When she was in his arms, the walls came down and he did not feel the internal battle waged between his need to love her and the need to keep her safe with distance. Fears in all forms were silenced.

When his mouth found hers, for the first time in her life she felt that she found somewhere where she belonged. A single kiss from him and forever wasn't such a lonely and overwhelming thought.

As the passion between them began to build, Tea couldn’t help but wonder if her subconscious was playing a cruel joke on her. Was is possible that she had never really woken from her dream earlier in the night? She was so flooded with emotion, some so strong she began to feel as if she had never really lived until she met Todd. In a dizzying turn of events, she had gone from floating on the hopes of her wildest dreams to having them dashed so much by her own doubt and confusion that she was sure only the dreams would remain, in the end. In the last several minutes, he had handed her hopes back to her; Suddenly, the impossible could transcend reality again. She made up her mind not to pinch herself if this be a dream because she never wanted to wake up.

Todd held her closer against him. For the first time in a long while he was so caught up in her love that nothing else mattered. The warnings he usually heard in his head were blocked by a power greater than fear. In those minutes, he felt free, and he wished that time could stop here and now to keep them in this place where all things seemed certain forever.

Tea felt his hands tighten around her waist, and though she didn't want to push him she decided to make the next move. She pulled back so that she could look up into his eyes, and when he opened them they reflected the same desire that she felt. She tilted his face down and towards her and tenderly kissed his eyes for holding the answers she needed to see in their depths. He moved in to kiss her again, and she buried her face in his neck, breathing in the scent of his soap, before whispering close to his ear.

"Todd….I love you so much. Will you take me upstairs?"

He felt a sudden bolt of fear travel through him as he studied her carefully and became suddenly aware of how vulnerable she looked. There was no fear, and total trust. He couldn't fathom that, when he feared and distrusted himself so completely.

She noticed the change come over him and silently cursed herself for pushing him. As quickly as it appeared in his features, however, he attempted to push it back to the place where he could keep it locked away, at least for a time.

"Yeah…if….if you're sure. Are you sure this is what you want?"

She laughed in a bashful way, suddenly reverted to that nervous schoolgirl again.

"It's all I've ever wanted."

He reached out and took her hand, and they headed for the stairs together.

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They started walking down the hallway, hand in hand, towards his room. Tea reached out and stopped him at the door, making a motion towards Starr's room. Todd followed behind her as she went to look in on her one last time that night. The night-light cast a warm glow over the little girl tucked safely in her bed. Tea stood watching her sleep for several minutes before Todd placed his hands on her shoulders, pulling her from her thoughts.

"She looks like an angel, Todd," she whispered, "she's just so beautiful. I see so much of you in her, all the time, do you know that? I hope one day I can give you another child half as beautiful as she is." She said it without thinking about it first and found herself blushing in the darkness at the boldness of her thought. She often dreamed about what it would be like to have Todd's baby but had never shared the thoughts outright with him.

Todd was having his own reaction to the sentiment. He suddenly felt like he had all the wind knocked out of him. The innocent statement revealed the depth of her love and her trust for him in a way that he had never been confronted with before. How could she really want to be with him forever, have his children, trust him to be a good husband to her and a model father to her children when he felt so damn twisted all the time? He was always unsure of his next move; he felt like a prisoner to an inner nature which he didn't understand and therefore could not claim control over in the end. He was afraid for her. He was so afraid of the damage he could do to her.

Tea turned to him and smiled, unaware of the inner war he was waging with himself. She closed Starr's door over behind her, and moved in close, surprising him from his thoughts with a gentle kiss of renewed invitation. She noticed that he was slow to respond to her kiss, and backed off nervously.

"Hey….are you okay?" Her eyes were searching his but she couldn't read him in the darkness of the hallway.

"What? Oh…yeah…I'm fine…" He struggled past the words and on impulse, he lifted her up into his arms and carried her towards his bedroom.

(Author's Note: If you're still with me….I'm starting to worry that if this were a novel it would have Fabio's face on the cover!!!….Look for Part Five to Maybe Tonight…..hopefully coming to you sooner than this part…my apologies!)