The Dance A/U Part 1: Crash Into Me

Prologue: Sweet Like Candy To My Soul

Phoenix, Arizona

December 31, 1996

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"Stomp your feet if you like my beat...clap your hands if you want some more..."

Stevie Nicks was standing in the middle of her living room in Arizona, holding her five-year-old niece, Jessi, high in the air and spinning her around to the music. Lori and Christopher had told her she could stay up until midnight but they knew she'd be done for the night and asleep long before the ball dropped on 1997. They were being proven wrong, however; it was eleven-thirty and Jessi was still going strong, flying high not just in her Aunt Stevie's hands but from all the sugar she'd been allowed to consume on this special night. Of course, Stevie had totally been contributing to her staying awake, playing the popular dance music station on the radio for hours at the little New Years Eve party that was really just the Nicks family - Stevie, Barbara, Jess, Christopher, Lori and Jessi - hanging out and enjoying some family time for the holiday. Stevie had been dancing with Jessi to the music for hours as her parents took turns shaking their heads and shrugging to each other, but Jessi wasn't the only one having a ball. Stevie loved that little girl. She would dance with her all night.

"Okay, get ready, kid...our favorite part is coming up!" Stevie took her niece's hand and they got into position, and began to do a little choreographed wiggle, singing along, "I like it, I like it, I like it like that!" Jessi erupted into a fit of giggles, and as her aunt took her hand to twirl her around, Lori heard the sound of the phone ringing in the kitchen. She laughed a bit over her daughter and her sister-in-law and best friend dancing in the middle of her living room, and went to go answer the phone in the kitchen.

"I'm about two minutes away from turning this off and making you two start dancing to 'Some Enchanted Evening' or 'Fly Me To The Moon' or something," Jess Nicks scolded his daughter, who was forty-eight years old but still considered herself scolded when he disapproved of something. "You kids today..."

"Jess, honey, don't do the Old Man talk," Barbara said, her hand dropping to her husband's knee. "You two go ahead...but don't rile her up too much, Teedee...she won't get to sleep until New Years 2000 at this rate!"

"Dance with us, Grandma!" Jessi shouted to Barbara as she twirled around in her little burgundy crushed velvet party dress, a matching bow in her hair, a present from Stevie for the holidays. The song had just changed to "I Like To Move It, Move It", and Barbara, sixty-nine years old but still a woman who loved to dance - Stevie still had pictures of her twenty years earlier at Studio 54 in New York - got up from the couch and the three generations of Nicks women began to dance together, Jess and Christopher shaking their heads as they sat together on the couch.

Stevie and Barbara each took one of Jessi' hands and had begun to lift her off the ground and swing her back and forth in the middle, Jessi squealing with laughter, when Lori came back into the living room and beckoned for Stevie to join her in the doorway. There was a serious expression on her face. Stevie approached her, unable to read her mood but knowing she had something to say.

"Stevie...the call in the kitchen is for you," Lori said. She took a deep breath. "It's Lindsey."

Stevie felt all of the blood rush to her head, felt her cheeks turn all kinds of pink. She cast her eyes downward, trying unsuccessfully to keep the grin off of her face, but it wasn't working. It had been over a year since they'd last seen each other, but Stevie had not forgotten the feeling of him holding her close to dance to "Dance With Me", the way he'd begun to call her "sweet girl", the way his lips were apparently still just as soft as she remembered them, all of the beautiful things he had said as they lay together in the darkness, skin against skin after he'd made love to her so tenderly she had not been able to hide the tears in her eyes more than once. She had not told Lori - or anyone, for that matter...not even Karen - about what had happened that weekend. She wasn't sure she even knew what had happened herself! All she knew now was that she had to stop blushing and squirming where she stood and go to the phone to talk to him so her family wouldn't pounce on her. She walked calmly into the kitchen and picked up the phone where Lori had left the receiver resting on the table. "Hello." Why was she trembling?