Greg peered into what he could only guess would eventually be Paul’s studio, if the collapsed easel and stack of canvases in one corner were anything to go by, and found Jenna curled up in a makeshift bed of blankets under the window. He gingerly wandered over, crouched down with only minimal creaking of the knees and carefully nudged her shoulder. “Jenna?” he whispered. “Jenna, you’ve gotta get up.”

Another nudge and she blinked awake, squinting at Greg in the early afternoon sunlight. “Why?”

“I’ll explain on the way. How you feeling?”

“Shitty.”

“You okay to fly?”

“Fly? Why?”

“We’re going back home to LA.”

“Oh.” She sat up a bit groggily but she didn’t seem too bad off. “I can sleep then?”

“Well you’ve gotta stay conscious to get dressed and get through customs, but otherwise, yeah, sleeping would be great.” He wasn’t really looking forward to another twelve hour plane trip having to actually converse with Jenna, not if Brad and Fenny weren’t going to be there to take up some of the slack. But his distaste for the idea of spending twelve hours on a plane having to deal with Brad and Fenny, who, based on the look on Brad’s face as he’d sulked out to the taxi with their luggage, were going to be less than pleasant company, outweighed his distaste for the hungover blonde.

“Right, okay,” Jenna mumbled, crawling across the floor toward her suitcase, which Greg took as his cue to leave.

Brad let out a sigh as the taxi stopped in front of the apartment building and, dropping the small address book he’d fished out of Fenny’s bag when he’d hurriedly packed their things, he murmured a request for the driver to wait and clamored out of the car. He reluctantly trudged to the elevator and pressed the button, rocking gently on the balls of his feet.

He’d given up getting angry at Fenny and all the things she did. It never did anything to help their situation. All he could feel was the hurt. It hurt that Fenny would once again go to Danny, that he hadn’t noticed she had gone to Danny, that he had probably once again made her go to Danny. Maybe if he’d paid her a little more attention on their vacation, she wouldn’t have had to go to someone else. Maybe if he’d treated her a little better back home, they wouldn’t have needed to go on what had recently been added to his list of ‘World’s Worst Vacations’.

The elevator opened and he stepped inside. Maybe Fenny was just being Fenny again and she was just destroying her life and seeing how many people she could bring down with her for the fun of it, or whatever ungodly reasons she had for doing what she did. He should’ve seen it coming. He pushed the button for Paul’s floor.

The big question now was, how far would she take it. Last time he dragged her away from Danny, she’d done so willingly and they’d made up immediately afterwards, even gotten married the next day. She’d probably have to up the ante this time. Maybe she’d stay with Danny. The elevator doors opened and Brad stepped out. He headed down the hall to Paul’s apartment, startled to realize that the idea of Fenny staying with Danny didn’t really frighten him as much as he thought it should.

He raised a fist to knock and paused at the sound of Fenny giggling. It wasn’t a ‘having every ticklish part of her body licked’ giggle, more of a ‘someone did something stupid on television’ giggle; of course if Brad was actually still capable of reading her well enough to make distinctions like that, she wouldn’t be laughing with her…well, whatever Danny’s technical term would be. Lover probably. Brad steeled himself and knocked.

The pilot’s voice rang through the plane, announcing their cruising speed and current altitude, which was of very little use to any of the passengers, and that they had just made it past the half way mark, which was only slightly more useful. The announcement jerked Jenna awake, and with a groan and a stretch she righted her seat and glared at Greg. “Where are we?”

“Over the Pacific Ocean halfway between Sydney and LAX.”

“Oh. Remind me why again?”

Greg let out a sigh. “Because your little dancing on the bar stint made it to the papers, as did the McDermotts bailing you out, which cost our gracious host Gina her job and she kicked all the crazy Americans out of her house.”

“Oh. I didn’t get a chance to say sorry.”

“Trust me, if you’d apologized, Gina would have ripped off your head and left it in the front yard as a warning to other Yanks.”

“Yanks?”

“Americans. Like Yankees.”

“Like the baseball team?” Jenna yawned.

Greg opened his mouth to explain but decided against it. “Yeah, sure.”

“Right,” she said, settling herself back in her seat. “So why’d she lose her job?”

“The press caught her and her husband dragging what they thought were two drunken hooligans out of jail, doesn’t look good for the TV station.”

“So, that just means they have stupid friends. Doesn’t mean she can’t read, does it?”

“I don’t know, I’m not in charge. All I know is we’ve been taking advantage of Gina and Paul for a long time and they finally had enough of us.”

“But we were only there a couple days.”

Greg decided it was time to change the subject. “So what really happened at the bar? I’ve only heard snippets, and I’d kind of like to know why two of my closest personal friends have finally cracked and kicked us out of their house.”

“I didn’t mean to, I really didn’t.”

“Yeah, that helps,” Greg grumbled.

“I don’t know, I was with this gorgeous guy and he was buying me these pretty purpley drinks, the next thing I remember is these cops dragging me off the bar. I thought they were strippers. Probably ‘cause they were throwing clothes at me, even though they were mine.”

“How’d Fen end up in jail then? The paper said you were both stripping, which I find hard to believe.”

“Fenny stripping! Ha!” Jenna cackled, then seemed to regret it as she pressed her palm to her temple with a wince. “I dunno, I kinda remember her yelling at me for making her spill her water when I was up on the bar, maybe they thought she was doing a wet t-shirt contest. Probably wouldn’t win, would she?”

“I don’t know, Jenna, I try not to think about my friends’ breasts.”

“What about Gina’s?” she asked.

“I’ll bet Fen got arrested for threatening your life with swizzle sticks and paper umbrellas,” he grumbled over another pointless announcement from a stewardess, looking around with the hopes of getting a pair of headphones or something to keep Jenna from talking. “You might want to stay away from Fenny for a while. Between Gina wanting her dead and having to spend time in an actual jail because of you, I don’t think you’re gonna be bestest friends anymore. Assuming that Brad manages to drag her from Danny’s love nest.”

“I wouldn’t blame her, he’s delicious.”

“You go around tasting strangers, do you?”

“I’d taste him if I could.”

Greg rolled his eyes and decided it was probably time to pretend to take a nap.

“You think she’d stay with Danny, really?” Jenna asked.

“I gave up trying to figure out what Fenny thinks a long time ago. It would take guts to leave her husband and move to Australia, but I think she’s sick of Brad being a moron.”

Jenna nodded but seemed to be looking over his shoulder to check out a steward’s butt as he set up an old woman across the cabin with headphones. “Ooh, look, they’re playing a movie,” Jenna chirped.

“Good, you watch, I’ll go drown myself in the blue stuff they put in the toilets,” Greg groused and wandered off to the sanctuary of the bathroom.

Danny handed Fenny the bowl of popcorn before heading off to answer the door. Every time someone knocked he was afraid it was going to be Freya with some sordid plot to get Paul, and he was currently enjoying himself far too much watching music videos and mocking them with Fenny to deal with Freya’s psychosis or the musings of Mormon missionaries or any bored members of the press who hadn’t yet noticed that Paul had moved. He wrenched the door open and his heart immediately fell through the floor and the several floors below him to imbed itself in the earth where it decided that was a good enough place to sit and twitch for a while. “Uh,” was all he managed.

“Paul told me Fenny would be here,” Brad mumbled.

“He what?” Danny gasped.

A sudden movement caught his eye and both he and Brad turned just in time to see Fenny trip over the leg of an end table, narrowly catch herself, and spill a few kernels of popcorn as she recovered. “Always with the popcorn,” Brad sighed as she hastily put the bowl down.

“Brad,” she said before swallowing hard. “I, I mean we, when Gina—”

“Don’t bother,” Brad interrupted. He was almost eerily calm, and the sadness radiated in his face made her cringe. “I figured it out. Well actually everyone else seemed to figure it out and they had to tell me, but hey, love is blind, right?”

Fenny rather preferred his screaming and name calling over whatever it was Brad was doing now. “I’m sorry Brad. I really am, I just—”

“I’ve got your bags downstairs in the taxi, I just want to know if I should leave them here with you or if you want to come to the airport with me.”

“You’re going home?” Fenny asked.

“Paul asked us to leave. He and Gina are pissed about you and Jenna and everything else.”

“Are they okay?” she asked worriedly. “Well Paul’s angry they didn’t mention GUD, I guess he’s used to this sort of thing. Is Gina okay?”

“She lost her job and you’re changing the subject again.”

“She what?” Danny gasped. Brad dropped his eyes to the floor, having almost forgotten Danny was still around and half wishing he’d go away for a few minutes.

“God, she’s got to be murderous,” Fenny sighed. “I wish there was some—”

“Look Fen, you can come back to LA with me, or you can stay here with Danny. Whichever one you chose is fine with me, but you need to make a decision and stick with it for a change. I don’t know about him,” he nodded vaguely in the direction of Danny who was just out of sight, “but I’m tired of always having to worry about where you want to be, and I kind of get the feeling that you don’t really want to be with either of us or you’d have picked someone already.” Brad rubbed the back of his neck dejectedly. “I’m going to go downstairs, if you want to come with me, fine. Otherwise…”

He looked up, briefly catching her eyes as he turned towards the front door, and a heavy pain moved through her chest to settle in her stomach. She swallowed as the door closed behind him, then turned to Danny.

“I—”

“I know,” he said with a weak smile. “You should probably go before he thinks you’ve made a stupid decision and he leaves without you.”

She snapped her mouth closed. She was going to say that she didn’t know what to do, that maybe it would be best if she just left everyone for a while, give herself space enough to think, decide between her comfortable life with her husband whom she loved and his child and her job and what felt like their near constant arguments, or struggling to make a new niche for herself with her lover who always made her feel assured, comfortable and loved.

But Danny had made the decision for her. She couldn’t determine from his face what his reasons were; maybe he felt guilty, maybe he wanted rid of her, maybe he thought that was best for her. Whatever his reasons, she figured her choice was made, so she nodded. “We keep doing these sappy goodbyes, don’t we.” She tried a smile; he shrugged noncommittally. “Thanks again for everything.” She stepped up to him and kissed him, quickly and lightly, and stepped back to grab her purse from the couch. “Right. Um, take care of Gina, tell her I’m sorry, huh?”

“Sure,” he agreed, and she opened the door. “Bye Fen.”

“Bye,” she breathed. Danny raised one hand in a weak wave, and as the door closed, promptly dropped it to his side again and flumped on the couch. He only managed to sit still a few minutes before moving to the window and peering down into the street. Fenny scampered to the waiting taxi where the trunk was open, presumably waiting for her to take her baggage up to the apartment. Did Brad honestly think she’d have chosen Danny over him? Fenny closed the trunk and slipped into the taxi, and he watched after the car as it trundled down the street.

He tried not to think how cliché what he was doing was, then tried not to think about how he’d again let himself think that maybe he and Fenny could have been happy together, then tried not to give in to the urge to throw the bowl of popcorn into the wall. He gave in to the last, then decided cleaning up the popcorn and broken crockery would give himself something less painful to think about.

Gina woke a bit groggily and realized she must have dozed off for a while. Between the early morning wakeup call and the emotional wringer of a day she’d been through so far, she shouldn’t have been surprised a nap had snuck up on her. She hoped desperately that the last twelve or so hours of her life had all just been a dream, but she was rarely that lucky. Paul was nowhere to be seen, so she dragged herself from their makeshift bed and wandered out down the hall, noticing along the way that the other rooms had been emptied of luggage and foreign belongings. She found Paul in the living room with the stereo quietly playing and his sketchbook opened in his lap.

She moved over to the couch and rumpled his hair as she looked down at his book, expecting it to be filled with scribbled skulls, gargoyles or any other number of the strange things that leaked from his brain. Instead she was greeted with a blank page.

“You feeling okay?” he asked, looking up at her.

“Yeah, just tired.”

“This was left for us.” Paul flipped a few pages back in the book and pulled out a sheet of paper filled with a familiar impatient scrawl, which he handed her and she read.

Gina flumped down on the couch and let the letter flutter to the floor, which she noticed had been rather thoroughly cleaned, and leaned against Paul’s shoulder. With the house finally quiet and still and her mind a bit numbed from the events of the last few hours and her head still throbbing gently in the aftermath of the tears, she was at a loss for what she should be doing with herself. “What do we do now?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s just been a while since I was unemployed with nothing to do and no lives to sort out for other people.”

“Well, I guess this means we can get back to finishing the house,” Paul suggested.

“Repair some of the damage the others did,” Gina sighed.

“There’s not too much left to do,” he perked, trying to be chipper for her sake and keep her mind off things. “Maybe Vicki could help us get the rest of our furniture in — I’m really looking forward to having a real bed again. Maybe a couple new rugs, a little more cleaning, finally unpacking everything and getting settled.” He was truly surprised she hadn’t immediately launched herself into a perverse scrubbing of the laundry, but chances were she’d get in a good bout of therapeutic cleaning before the day was out.

“We should call in someone to paint the outside of the house,” Gina mused.

“We can do it ourselves.”

“You want to do all the scraping off the peeling paint and everything else?”

He shrugged. “Well we’ve got the time,” he said gingerly.

Gina closed her eyes, trying not to think of all the jobs she’d lost since she’d run into those damn Americans. As much as she knew she didn’t mean it, at that moment she wished her poor excuse for a car hadn’t died on that road that had led her to Greg and consequently to Fenny, a bevy of gun toting maniacs, Freya, Giles and the whole mess their lives periodically became. She conveniently left out the fact that Fenny and Greg had led her back to Paul — at the moment blaming the bloody group of Yanks for all of the world’s problems seemed like a good idea.

After a deep breath, she smiled to herself. The important thing was that she did have Paul, and they had all the time in the world to spend together, which was a pleasant change. And no work would mean no Freya, which was a decent trade in Gina’s mind. She sat up and pecked Paul on the cheek. “I should fix us up something to eat,” she declared and sauntered towards the kitchen.

A few moments later Paul wandered up behind her as she worked at making sandwiches and wrapped his arms around her, dropping his chin on her shoulder. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, fine,” she assured him as she abandoned her sandwich-making and turned to face him, draping her arms over his shoulders with a smile. “Feels good to have some time to ourselves.”

“Feels very good,” he grinned, leaning in for a kiss.

“Oh,” she said suddenly, “I should probably call Mum, she might have heard about the jail thing.”

“Genie, do you really think that your mum is going to be devastated that you and I had to pick up some nut bars in jail? After all we’ve done, after all I’ve done?”

“I’ll call her later,” she smiled and pulled him towards her for a kiss.

Just as their lips met, a knock sounded at the front door. With a sigh, Paul pulled away. “I’ll get it.”

Gina reached into a drawer and handed him a wire whisk. “Take this with you. If that’s another fucked up yank, I demand you put it somewhere unpleasant while I sneak out the back.”

With a chuckle, Paul made his way to the front door and threw it open, a bit annoyed to be interrupted. The figure on the front stoop cocked her head at him as he hurriedly moved the whisk behind his back while staring at her, a bit shocked that she would show up at their door. “I didn’t picture you the baking type,” Ritza mused with a partially forced smile.