So, Here I Am

Chapter Forty Four The End ?

Maggie was back in the kitchen when Laurent padded down the hallway. She had lowered the lights, and was cooking something that smelled wonderful, as she poured two glasses of wine. Laurent came quietly up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist, placing soft kisses on her neck and bare shoulder.

He was smiling so hard, his face hurt. Maggie turned around to look at him, a look of contentment on her face.

Laurent "Hey, beautiful"

Maggie "Back atcha"

She handed him a glass of wine, and taking hers, led him to the window with the view of Tower Bridge.

Maggie "To .... What ? To what, Lau ?"

"To us"

She didn't want to do that, she thought he would say something else.  She couldn't just go back to the way things were because they had cleared the air and had amazing sex.

Laurent -- here we go again -- why is this so impossible ? --

"What's wrong ?"

Maggie "Don't know. Something."

"I meant every word I said earlier, Maggie"

"I know. I know you did"

Laurent took their glasses and put them on the table. He turned to face her, and took her hands in his.

Laurent "We have to decide what we're going to do, Maggie. Not this minute, or next week, or next month. But about us, our future, if we have a future together, don't you think ? What do you want to do, Maggie ?"

"I don't know Lau. I think we both know how the other feels, don't we ? Our reservations, our reasoning ? But emotion doesn't deal with reason very well, does it?"  She turned her back to him, not to shut him out, but to stop him seeing what her eyes would tell him. Her tears were traitors now, and if he saw them fall, he would know.

He circled her waist in his arms again, and started swaying from side to side, taking her with him, gently, rhythmically. They stood there in the window, staring out at the lights reflected in the river, enveloped in the quiet and the darkness.  Swaying to a melody only they could hear, only they were privy to.  But there was something rumbling in the pit of his stomach, as happy as he was.

-- COURAGE -- he told himself.

He asked the question that needed to be asked, whether he was prepared to hear the answer or not.  He whispered in Maggie's ear

"Is this the end, Maggie?"  She could only answer him genuinely, honestly

"I don't know. Maybe. "

Then softly, barely above a whisper, he started humming, speaking the lyrics to a song they had danced to on that very spot, in what seemed like a lifetime ago, at the precise moment that Laurent Nicolas Bourgeois fell in love with Maggie Alexandra McLean.

"So, here I am ......

And can somebody tell me .....Where do broken hearts go ....... Can they find their way home ...... Back to the open arms of a love that's waiting there ...."

Her tears were falling, silently.  She couldn't bear it.  She knew she could die in his arms in this moment, and die happy.

"And if somebody loves you ...... Won't they always love you ..... I look in your eyes ...... And I know that you still care for me "

He buried his face in her neck, still swaying to the rhythm and words of a song neither of them would ever forget.

Waiting for the perfect moment..

To say ...

I will love you forever ......

Or to say.....

Goodbye.