Survival

#4 Let's pretend that nothing happened

Lila was walking down the aisle of a supermarket with a shopping trolley in which she was putting her groceries. Diego and Grace were in a next alley, she was sure, because were very loud when Diego tried to entertain her. She was also sure that Five had been watching her for the last ten minutes.

Even though he kept his distance, she knew he was there. And she knew he wanted to talk to her, or else he'd be more careful about her not knowing about him.

She stared at the merchandise on the shelf, not looking in his direction, but finally she spoke. While continuing to pick through the merchandise as if nothing had happened. "You're my personal stalker now?"

"Am I that obvious?" Echoed Five, who was standing a short distance away from her, and he too looked like he was just picking out groceries to buy.

"You better hope it's just me noticing... I know it's not the first time in the last few days..."

"I wanted to see you. Among other things. But unfortunately for me, you're never alone."

"You can guess whose job it is. I'm just waiting for Diego to get me chipped and buy me a collar around my neck."

They hadn't been able to see each other since their night at the hotel, as Lila was never alone. Diego, the kids, her family and Allison made sure of that. It was more than obvious that they wanted to keep them apart. The kids at least unknowingly. Especially when Grace started sleeping in the room with Lila so she wouldn't be alone.

They both heard Grace's laughter approaching and Five was transported away. When Lila was alone moments later, he reappeared.

"It's going to go on like this for a while and I'll have to switch to more drastic methods of stealing you for myself." This time he spoke up directly behind her. Until she got goosebumps.

"And what exactly would that look like?" She reached for more goods. She didn't want to let it show that she was pleasantly excited by his presence.

"I might have to kidnap you."

Lila turned to look at him and for the first time actually looked at him. "You can't be serious..."

"What if I do?"

They were staring at each other when Grace came running into the alley again and saw them giving each other long looks.

"Daddy?" She called to Diego, who was just heading towards her.

Lila and Five looked at her and Five disappeared again that morning. Grace looked a little confused.

"What's wrong, Gracie?" Diego asked as he reached her.

"Honey, come here, you can help me with something." Lila called her to her and took her hand. For she was sure that Diego had somehow dragged her into telling him when she saw Uncle Five, especially around her.

Lila put her in the cart and drove her to the next alley.

Diego looked around suspiciously.

--

"What's that supposed to mean, Diego?"

Lila glanced around the set table in the dining room, where food, obviously from the delivery service, candles, even flowers were set.

"I wanted to surprise you! We can have a nice evening. The children are with your family. We have the whole house to ourselves."

Lila would have been thrilled with such a gesture only a long time ago. But now she just felt strange because it was obvious what Diego was trying to do.

"Ehm, Diego. It's really nice, but..."

"No, don't say anything. I know we didn't get off to the best start when you got back. But I promised you a lot of things would change. So give it a chance, okay?"

Lila hesitated, but eventually agreed.

They ate together, but the discussion stalled a bit or ended up on completely neutral topics. Mostly, Diego never tried to fully discuss about what happened. He only said something about it once, something that echoed in Lila's head every day and that also held her back.

In her mind, she was making up reasons why she was going to go to bed now. When Diego asked her to dance. For some reason she couldn't say no to him, but she didn't feel like it either. More than the desire to spend time with him, there was a growing feeling in her that she owed it to him and that she should do it because it was expected of her. She knew that feeling intimately from earlier times.

"Diego, I think we should finally talk about... well, everything really!" She stopped in the middle of the song and looked at him.

"Lila, why go back to all that? We've both made mistakes, and the fact that we're still here is like another chance. A fresh start."

"I'd quite like to say something about that, too."

"Isn't that what you wanted? Isn't this what you expected me to do? I want to start over and I want to prove to you that I can give you everything you need to be happy."

Before Lila could recover, Diego started kissing her. It was the first time he had done so since she had returned. Though even before that moment hadn't happened in a long time, not in the style it was happening right now.

She used to like it when he kissed her so unexpectedly like this, picked her up and carried her into the bedroom, but now she felt like she was being kissed by a complete stranger. Their hot beginnings were a thing of the past, and now it certainly wasn't awakening what she'd expected.

She tried to return his kisses for a moment, but when one of his hands descended on her butt, she cut it off and pulled away from him.

"Diego, we are going on this very fast!"

"Fast? You've been back for weeks. Do you know how much I miss you? I've been waiting patiently for you to get over this nonsense and for everything to be like it used to be. What else do you want me to do?"

"When will I get over this nonsense? Can you be specific?"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about. I gave you time to recover from what happened to you. After all, you came back to be with us. You were looking for a way back to us, and finally you're here. So why not pick up where we left off?"

It flashed through Lila's mind that they had ended up at that, she wanted a break, she wanted to think things through and Diego looked as if she had never mentioned this in her life. Like maybe she was imagining the whole thing.

Diego looked at her, took her hand, and then added: "You should be grateful I don't want to go back to your transgression." He rolled up the sleeve of her cardigan and stared at the bracelet on her arm, "we can start with you getting rid of this."

And at the moment he was about to reach for the clasp on the bracelet, Lila flinched and hid the bracelet with her other hand, as if afraid Diego would take it from her. She stared at him, shocked and angry at the same time, "what the hell do you think you're doing?"

Diego laughed uncertainly, as if he hadn't expected her violent reaction, "you don't think I'm going to keep looking at the fact that you're wearing another guy's bracelet?"

Lila just gasped in disbelief, turned on her heel and disappeared into the nearest bathroom. She locked herself in and leaned against the door. She closed her eyes and tried to calm down. She didn't respond to Diego's knocks and calls. He eventually left to pour himself a full glass of wine.

--

About ten minutes passed, Lila opened her eyes and walked to the sink, turned on the water and washed her hands, refreshing herself with cold water. She looked at her reflection in the mirror, looked down into the sink at her hands, at her bracelet, looked in the mirror again and saw Five behind her in the reflection of the mirror.

It was only a second, but his expression looked a little crazed and exhausted at the slightest.

The unexpected startle almost made her cry out loud, but Five promptly put one hand over her mouth and grabbed the other around her waist.

Before she could blink, he'd relocated them both out of the bathroom in her house.