Hadley appeared suddenly in the doorway to my office, almost making me fall out of my seat in shock. You'd think I would've heard her coming into the apartment, but hey - when a photographer is editing, they're editing.

"Jesus," I exclaimed. "Hadley, what're you - ?"

"So, imagine my surprise," Hadley began, crossing her arms, leaning up against the doorjamb. "Getting a call from my mother in the middle of my lunch."

Shit.

I knew where this was going.

I'd been counting on the fact that since contact between Hadley and her parents was so minimal her mother might not even confront her about my unexpected visit. Apparently, my luck had run out in more ways that one.

"Really?" I said, trying to sound casual. "What did she want to talk about?"

"Oh, nothing much," Hadley answered, waiving an airy hand. "She just told me that you showed up out-of-the-blue at her office last week, told her I was pregnant and then ranted about how fucked up she and my dad are."

Well, Michaela really hadn't left out any details, had she?

A part of me wanted to deny doing anything of the sort, but there was no point.

"Oh, well, I wouldn't call it ranting," I said, rising to my feet. "I just made an offhand comment. The whole thing lasted, maybe, two minutes."

Hadley stared at me with a blank expression for a moment and then threw her hands up in the air and gave an exasperated groan.

"Goddamn it, Archer, what the hell were you thinking! Showing up at my mother's work and shouting off things like that? You do realize you could have jeopardized her job, right?"

I shrugged. It's not like that was my problem. "It felt like something I needed to do."

I was a little surprised at myself for being so calm about this, when normally I would've been just as fired up about it as Hadley was right now.

"Oh, really?" Hadley said, her eyebrows shooting up her forehead. "It felt like something you needed to do? Why?"

"Why?" I repeated. "Well, let me think about that for a moment. Your parents are ridiculous, Hadley, and you know that just as well as I do. Or have you already forgotten about how they used to leave you alone for weeks at a time and pay you off to keep you happy?"

Hadley recoiled as if I'd just slapped her, but then just as quickly the angered expression was back.

"And? So what? That was seven years ago. I haven't lived in my parents' house for years. If you haven't noticed, I'm an adult. I put my relationship with my parents behind me a long time ago."

I immediately found that very hard to believe. How could anybody just let something drop and forget it when it impacted their life so profoundly? Hadley hadn't even known what it was like to have a family until her junior year, when we'd started spending time together, and by then she had been almost seventeen.

I wouldn't have let anybody off who treated their child the way Kenneth and Michaela treated Hadley.

But then I had to remind myself that Hadley was a God awful liar. She was alright when I first met her, but after we'd been dating for a few months, she started bursting into giggles immediately after she told a fib, and she still did that. If she said she'd put her parents' treatment of her behind her, then she probably really had.

That just went to prove how different Hadley and I really were. And by some stroke of fate we'd ended up together?

"What on Earth made you decide to snap at my mother like that?" Hadley asked, grabbing my arm. "Because I honestly want to know what's going on."

I blurted out the story of seeing that woman on the subway ignoring her daughter, and how that inadvertently made me think of her and her parents. I'd acted on impulse and it was stupid, yes, but I didn't regret it. Sooner or later it would've come out anyway.

"Oh, Archer." Hadley sighed heavily, slumping back against my desk. "I understand where you're coming from, really, but what good would rehashing old wounds do?"

"Because...because..." I ran my fingers through my hair agitatedly and started pacing, struggling to sort out my thoughts. Why had I stormed into Michaela's office and thrown those words at her? "Christ, Hadley, I just kept thinking that if we had a daughter how it would absolutely tear me up inside if she looked at me like that, if she ever hated me the way I - "

"Archer, Archer, stop. Just stop." Hadley's hands gripped the front of my shirt and she pulled me forward, stopping my frantic pacing. "Honey, please. Look at me."

It took me a moment before I was able to look her in the eyes, see the sympathy and sadness there.

"You can't keep doing this to yourself."

"Doing what?"

"You have to stop comparing yourself to your father with everything. How many times do I have to tell you that you aren't him? Archer, you don't even know the man anymore. You're twenty-six years old, damn it. You are your own person. When are you going to realize that?"

Her words sunk in skin-deep, biting at me in a way I'd hoped words never would. In a way I knew she was right. But then again...my father had nothing to do with this.

"This isn't just about my father, Hadley."

I slipped out of her grasp and moved to the opposite wall, wary of the anger starting to rise in my stomach.

Hadley sighed again, her shoulders slumping forward. "Then what's going on? And will you please just be honest with me?"

Honesty. She wanted to talk about honesty?

That did it.

"Why the hell did you make that deal with Death?"

"What?”

"If we're going to talk about honesty, then, Hadley, tell me what the hell possessed you to go back in time to stop me from killing myself." I moved forward again on an impulse, bracing myself on either side of her on the desk, our eyes locked. She looked like she was about to start crying. "You and I both know you didn't just decide to do it on a whim. Why did you do it?"

Even though I was extremely grateful that she had, what was left unsaid was that we both knew things would have been very different had she not made that deal. Maybe for the better, maybe for the worst, I didn't know. But for one, I knew wouldn't be standing here if she hadn't.

"Where is this coming from?" Hadley asked, her voice rising in alarm. "I don't - "

"Like you really expected me to take that half assed explanation you gave me at the hospital that day Death first showed up?"

"Archer, I - "

"I thought I could just brush it all aside, you know, everything that you and Death said happened. I thought I could just shove it under the rug and not deal with it, just get these stupid fears over and done with. But I can't anymore, Hadley. So, please. Tell me."

Hadley watched me as I started pacing all over again, sitting in silence, looking exhausted. By the time she actually opened her mouth to speak I thought I was going to burst into pieces from the anticipation.

"Freshman year."

I stopped pacing and turned on her with a baffled expression. "Excuse me?"

"Freshman year," she repeated with emphasis. "When we had English together. The first time I...looked at you, I..."

"You...what?"

This pussyfooting around answering was honestly not doing much for me.

"Don't laugh, okay? But...the first time I looked at you, I thought...there was something special about you. I don't know. I knew you were misunderstood, but I just thought you were...different. And then after you killed yourself and Death showed up, offered me the deal, I'd already met your family, Regina and the girls. That was one contributing factor."

I could hand that one to her, I guessed.

"Okay, but - "

"And then there was also the fact that it was the right thing to do. Why do you think I became a grief counselor? The type of hurt I see every day is something nobody should have to deal with. And with everything that happened to you, it's no surprise that you would've felt the way you did in the first place."

There was no denying that what I'd been through when I was younger had not been pleasant. That much was obvious. But in reality, I hadn't shared half of the thoughts that had crossed my mind before I'd met Hadley. If I had...well, I probably would've earned myself a jail cell a long time ago.

Part of it is my fault because I weaned myself off of medication way too early and refused to talk about it. Another part because of my stubborn refusal to admit something was actually seriously wrong with me.

"Okay, okay, I believe you," I said, raising my hands in a surrendering gesture. "I'm not doubting your reasons for becoming a counselor, Hadley, I just - "

"And also? Because I was selfish."

"You - what?"

"I was selfish." Hadley heaved a very heavy sigh again, settled herself down in the desk chair, tucked her legs up underneath her. "I knew right from the start when I made the deal that bad things were going to happen. And d'you know what I did most of that time?"

"I can't even begin to imagine."

This was said completely without sarcasm, a first for me.

"I was having panic attacks about not knowing what to do, how to help you, wondering if you hated me, wondering if I was going to walk into school one day and find out that you'd killed yourself. But the more I got to know you, your family, the more I saw how completely amazing you were. Unbelievably troubled, yeah, definitely a jerk, but amazing nonetheless. I kept thinking that you couldn't die because there were all these things you were supposed to do, you know, go to college, find your dream job, fall in love and get married."

Despite the seriousness of the situation and the fact that my anger was still at an unbelievable level, I was able to process her words quickly when I normally wouldn't have been. And they confused the hell out of me.

"But not everybody goes to college or gets married," I pointed out. "Why would I - "

"Even though you were a colossal jerk I fell head over heels for you within a week and that made me realize I wanted you to do all of those things with me."

Hadley's face was flaming red when she mumbled out that last part, not meeting my eye.

I wanted to say something, but I couldn't think of anything to convey just how much my mind was reeling from her words.

"So maybe my reasons for doing what I did weren't completely horrible," she said quietly when I remained silent. "But it was still selfish of me. I could have handled things much better than the way I did."

"...Miele. You were sixteen."

"So?"

Jesus, she was crying now.

"Look..." I dropped down to my knees in front of her, took her hands in mine. "I can't pretend to know what it was like, what you went through. I know I'm an asshole and that I'm hard to deal with and that makes you a saint right there. But you seem to be forgetting how much you helped my family. Not just me."

Hadley gave a watery laugh, grabbing a tissue from the box off the desk, dabbing at her eyes. "I guess."

"Yeah, well, I know. Do you know how much you mean to me, to my family?" Somehow I managed to give a smile of my own. "It's just...I wish you would have told me."

She placed a hand against my cheek, tracing my skin lightly with her fingers, sighing. "Would you have believed me?"

"No," I said immediately. "But I would have wanted to know anyway."

"Archer, you - "

"You know what I said to you? The other week when April was here and I was taking her home?"

"Yeah, I remember," she said, trying very hard not to blush.

"I meant it. Every word. You don't know what I was like before I met you, and as absolutely stupid as this sounds, meeting you changed everything. I'm actually sort of okay with who I am today, thanks to you. Innamorato, you own my heart, soul, and everything else in between. Hell, you've got me by the balls, even. I wouldn't want to have children with anybody else but you."

My insides burned with embarrassment at even thinking about saying those things, but she needed to know what she meant to me. Yeah, I'd told her I loved her, but those times had been far few in between. And I owed her a lot more than just those words.

Carlo or somebody else with an idiotic view on relationships would say I was totally whipped, but like I honestly cared. So what? Hadley was the reason I was still kicking it.

"Your way with words is astounding," Hadley said, half-laughing, half-crying, before grabbing my face in her hands and pressing her lips against mine.

I sank into the kiss just as easily as breathing, lacing my fingers in her hair, letting myself forget everything that had ever given me trouble.

Kissing Hadley had always been pretty damn fantastic, but there was something different about this kiss. Maybe it was because we'd finally gotten past this point that would have put up a void between us for the rest of our lives.

I would have gladly dragged her off to the bedroom right then, pregnant or not, if it weren't for the loud ringing noise that broke the silence and pierced my ears. I wouldn't have been surprised if my ear drums ruptured right on the spot.

The second I jerked away from Hadley the noise immediately stopped, leaving behind stifling pressure in the air.

"Jesus," Hadley gasped. "What the - "

"You have got to be shitting me."

I stared at my pitch black computer screen, the words now covering it standing out as plain as day.

Time's ticking, ticking gone

You'll be seeing me before too long

There wasn't any surprise as to who sent us that cute little message.

"Why can't he just leave us the hell alone?" I snarled, slamming a fist on the desk. "If he's watching us like he says he is, then he should know how hard it was for me to say what I just did. That was a freaking huge fear."

The message was suddenly erased from the computer screen and replaced with another one.

If I were you, I'd watch your back

Who knows? You might just snap

"Funny," Hadley said acidly. "I'd almost forgotten he used to freak me out by writing stuff like that, the smarmy dick."

The computer screen went blank yet again.

Nice to hear from you too, Hadley

I think Lauren misses you madly

"This shit has to stop." I had to take a few moments to collect myself, convince myself that slamming a fist into the computer screen wouldn't be beneficial for my business. "If he so much as looks at Lauren the wrong way..."

Hadley caught my hand in hers and squeezed reassuringly.

"Well, unless I'm much mistaken..." She took a deep breath. "We just figured out something else for you to face."

"And what would that be?"

"I hear USP Canaan visiting hours are reasonable."