Annika wakes up feeling hungover, with Rufus still tucked in her arms. After wallowing in bed for a while and having a good, solid pout, she finally gets up.

Out in the common area, she finds Mihika, who shrugs and says "she never came back last night." There's almost a disappointment in her voice, like she was expecting different, and Annika's stomach feels heavy and sour and she tries to quell that with some cookies and water.

Lalit comes in a while later and tells them to get camera ready, but she can't quite find it in herself to put on a full face of makeup, so instead she simply tries not to look completely like death. She doesn't want to care about looking good on camera, but she can't help it. The knowledge that in a few months, everyone she knows (and millions of strangers) will be seeing her and judging her is... well, she slaps on some under eye concealer and brushes down the absolute terror that is her hair and hopes that's good enough.

She sits on the couch between Bhavya and Mihika, with Tia and Varsha and Myra spread around them. There's some waiting around and Annika begins to fidget - why is the date card taking so long to get here? Mihika bumps her shoulder into Annika's and gives her a small smile, which Annika thinks is about as encouraging as Mihika can be, under the circumstances.

Eventually the door opens and it's not a date card, it's Manish and Shivaay, and Annika wishes she had both made more and less of an effort with her appearance (she doesn't want to care about Shivaay seeing her like this, but she does, damnit).

"Girls," Manish says in a very serious voice, "Shivaay has something he'd like to tell all of you."

Shivaay's hands are shoved into his pockets and he's looking anywhere but them and that sourness in Annika's stomach makes a reappearance.

"Hands!" Svetlana calls from the side and Shivaay glares at her, but takes his hands out of his pockets.

"Well," he begins, bringing one of his newly freed hands up to rub at his beard like he doesn't know what else to do with them. "Um, so, last night, Dhanya came to talk to me..."

Mihika lets out a low snort and Annika remembers her saying Dhanya had gone over in lingerie and probably didn't have a lot of talking in mind.

"Dhanya came to talk to me," Shivaay says again, pointedly ignoring Mihika's interruption, "and she..." he looks at Brinda, who nods at him, "...she expressed some feelings that I couldn't return, and so I had to send her home."

Annika feels her head spin for a moment as her heart slams inside her chest and she looks over at Bhavya to make sure she had heard that right. Bhavya's got a small, contented smile on her face and when Annika turns to the other side, Mihika is trying to suppress a grin and... and she must have heard that right. Right?

She looks up at Shivaay, who isn't looking at her, necessarily, though his eyes keep flicking to her before moving away, like he doesn't want to be caught at it.

"Great," Manish says, though his tone is different and Annika can tell it's not his Host Voice. "We good to move on?"

"If we have enough reaction shots, then yes, we have an appointment to keep," Svetlana drawls. Manish clears his throat and goes back into Host mode.

"Annika," he nods at her and it catches her off guard, "go get ready, today is your one on one."

"Again?" she blurts out before she can think and she hears a few of the other girls cough suppressed laughter into their hands as Manish rolls his eyes. (She doesn't think Manish likes her very much, though to be fair, she's not sure Manish likes anyone.)

"Come on," Sam gives her a smile and pulls at her arm and she shoots one last look at Shivaay before being dragged to her room, where Sam tells her to put on a bathing suit under her outfit and she spends much too long debating which one to wear before Sam finally points to a blue set and tells her to choose that one. When she puts it on in the bathroom, she's grateful, because it's one of her most modest and she knows she'll feel more comfortable in front of the cameras without having to worry about anything slipping out (and honestly, Sam is a lifesaver. She's not sure she wants to be black boxed on national television).

Back in the common area, Shivaay is still waiting and he seems to be making conversation with the other five, but he stops when she comes back in the room. She takes his outstretched hand and then turns to wave at the group (because what else is she supposed to do? Ignore them?). It's a relief that neither Dhanya nor Fatima is here to glare at her, and even though most of the girls don't look happy (minus Bhavya, of course, bless her), at least she isn't worried that any of them are secretly plotting to murder her in her sleep.

The minute they leave the room (and the cameras) she and Shivaay are pulled apart and Shivaay is hustled away from her. He shoots one last, exasperated look over his shoulder before he's put into an elevator and taken down.

By the time she and Sam make it downstairs, Shivaay's SUV has already left the hotel, off to wherever their date will be held. It's infuriating, really, she thinks as she gets into her own shuttle with Sam and the driver. If she could just get a bit of time with him without a camera in their face or Svetlana breathing down her neck, maybe she could get some reassurance. Because no matter that he always picks her near the top, no matter those little moments she keeps clinging to, no matter that she's the first girl to get a second one on one, there's still a small part of her that thinks maybe she's imagining it all. Or maybe he just finds her more tolerable than the others and this is all a part of his contract and he's just trying to make it through these last few weeks.

But, she supposes, that's the point of it, right? Keep her guessing, keep her anxious and worried. She's doing exactly what production wants her to do.

She groans and sags back against the seat, forgetting for a moment that Sam is sitting next to her. When she opens her eyes, even the driver is quirking an eyebrow at her through the rearview mirror.

"You'll like this date," Sam assures her, misreading her angst. "Unless you have some secret fear of spas?"

"A spa?" she perks up at that. "Really?"

"Really," Sam laughs. "Massages, relaxation, the whole thing. Shivaay specifically asked for you for this one."

Her heart takes a mad leap inside her chest, but she squashes that down. "Is he allowed to do that?" she asks instead, and she's proud of how steady her voice is.

"Towards the end, yeah, mostly. I mean, Svetlana could still force something if she wanted to, technically, but at this point it's mostly him."

For a moment she is giddy at the thought that he chose her for this, but then, as usual, her mood dips almost immediately. "But that also means he picked out whoever gets the second solo date this week."

"Well," Sam shrugs, "I guess, yeah. He probably chose her because she hasn't had one yet..." he trails off and looks horrified.

"Myra," she guesses.

"Don't let Svetlana know I told you," he sighs, rubbing at his forehead.

"You know I won't. And Ram, you're sworn to secrecy, too," she jokes and the driver gives her a salute in acknowledgment (she's found that most of the crew hates Svetlana and she thinks they're all quite willing to overlook slips in the shows etiquette when she's not around).

They arrive at the spa and when she's finally allowed near Shivaay again, he gives her a smile and leans down to whisper in her ear, "I hope this makes up for the rock climbing thing."

Inside, they're met with two women who give a brief overview of the history of the spa and they name drop it so many times, Annika wonders if their whole session is comped in return for all this promo. They split up again to go into the changing rooms and when she's standing in her bikini with a attendant handing her a robe, she feels the first pangs of true anxiety.

She's not ashamed of her body, necessarily. Not more so than any woman is, she supposes, and in the house with the other girls (and even some cameras getting B-roll), she's never once been self conscious hanging around the pool. But there's something different about this - about being the only girl here, the center of attention. Or maybe it's that Shivaay is here.

She dons the robe and heads out to find Shivaay already waiting (probably because he didn't have a mini panic attack in the changing room), and in a completely unnecessary move, they both are instructed to take off the robes they just put on (why couldn't they have just come out in their bathing suits to begin with? Why put on the robes at all if they were just going to take them off five seconds later? She will never understand TV production.)

She tries very hard not to ogle Shivaay because there is a camera pointed straight at her face, but she doesn't think it's fair, honestly. How is she supposed to concentrate when he's right there, all half naked and way too hot for his own good. It's rude. (Though she doesn't think anyone will blame her if she spends this whole date in a Shivaay Singh Oberoi induced haze.)

They're made to lie on the two tables in the room and she soon forgets that Shivaay even exists as the masseuse works out her back and shoulder muscles and it turns Annika into a mindless puddle of goo. At one point, she thinks she hears the woman mutter so tense and Annika nearly laughs dizzily at that.

No shit she's tense. She thinks she's been tense since the moment she called production and agreed to be on the show.

(She thinks she's been tense since the beginning.)

When the masseuse digs into a particularly tight muscle in her lower back, Annika lets out a groan of approval at the feeling and she doesn't even realize it happened until she hears a laugh from Shivaay.

"Having a good time?" his voice is low and relaxed and tinged with amusement and she doesn't even bother trying to look over because she doesn't want the masseuse to stop what she's doing.

"Shut up," she mutters to the ground under her table, her words come out slightly slurred like she's drunk but she doesn't care. She hasn't felt this good in so long and maybe it's the massage itself or maybe she's actually just comfortable around Shivaay, but she's not embarrassed about enjoying this so much. Why should she be? She's allowed to enjoy things.

Shivaay makes an agreeable noise in return and she doesn't even realize that she falls asleep until the masseuse is shaking her awake. She sits up on the table and smiles sleepily across at Shivaay, who gives her one in return.

She's pliant and unprotesting when they lead her to a room with side by side mud baths and she gets in happily, letting the cool mud slide over her.

"This is the best," she sighs, leaning back and closing her eyes, but she opens them after a little because she can feel Shivaay watching her.

"I'm glad I could make up for the rock climbing fiasco," he says and now that he's said it a second time, she realizes he means it and she frowns.

"That wasn't your fault. Also, it... wasn't that bad." He quirks an eyebrow at her and she laughs a bit and amends, "ok, the rock climbing part was awful, but I liked the rest of it."

That gets her a full smile (his real one that sends a shiver down her spine) and he says, "yeah, I liked the rest of it, too," and the smile turns into something else and that sends a different kind of shiver through her.

Do not climb out of this mudbath and get into his, she tells herself. She can't see them, but she knows there are cameras on them and she needs to get herself under control.

She realizes that Shivaay is still smiling at her, though this time he looks a little smug and she realizes that her face is hot and she's probably flushed red from the rush of (definitely not PG) thoughts that had been spinning through her mind.

"You're the worst," she grumbles and that makes him laugh and she thinks the massage has worked on him, too. He seems more relaxed than she's ever seen him and she decides she likes this version of Shivaay very much.

They let silence take over, but it isn't awkward and she relaxes back in her bath and thinks that she definitely could get used to sharing comfortable silences with Shivaay Singh Oberoi.

After a while, the attendants come back to help them out of the baths and they're lead to a shower to rinse the mud off. There are two showers, but Svetlana forces them both into one and Annika can feel the color rising in her face again.

She's well aware of the camera on them as the warm water washes away the mud and she can't seem to look at Shivaay's face because even though there are people watching, even though they've kissed before, standing here with him feels strangely and intensely intimate.

Shivaay's hand comes up and he uses his thumb to wipe a stray bit of mud off her chin and her heart slams against her ribs and her breath catches in her throat as he leans forward and presses a lingering kiss to her forehead. It's such a chaste thing, but it once again feels more intense than actually kissing him had and she swallows hard against a sudden lump in her throat (Vikram was never like this with her, no one ever touched her with such soft intent before and it feels strange and raw and new).

"You ok?" he moves his lips to her temple and whispers it. They had to take their mic packs off for the mud bath and she thinks these two words are the first he's said to her that production can't hear. She nods, though she's not sure she is. "Tell me if it's too much," he brings his mouth close to her ear and she feels another shiver rip down her spine and she nods again. He presses another kiss to the spot right below her ear, one arm around her waist and the other around her back, his hand solid against her spine.

He pulls back after brushing one last kiss along her jaw and she doesn't think at all when she leans forward and kisses him for real, like she's been wanting to all day (all week). She's distantly aware of the spray of the shower against them as she winds her arms around his neck. It is too much, she thinks - the way he's pressed against her, the rush and swirl of adrenaline and desire - but she can't make herself stop.

He has more willpower than her, it seems, because he does stop, eventually, pulling back with a low groan and placing both of his hands on her hips to push her away ever so slightly. "Cameras," he says, though she doesn't need the reminder.

"Cameras," she agrees, embarrassingly out of breath.

"I didn't think this date through," he mutters, seemingly to himself as he closes his eyes and tilts his head back under the shower spray. She must make some sort of noise in her confusion because he looks back at her and then brings one hand up to tug at the strap of her bikini. "Killing me with this," he says with a frown and she can't help the giggle that bubbles up in her throat.

"I could say the same," she grins at him and pushes at his chest and he pretends to be knocked back, though she barely put any force behind it and she rolls her eyes at his dramatics.

There's an undercurrent of tension that their attempts at lightness can't completely cut through, and Shivaay turns to where production is and says "I think we're clean," which seems to signal the end of the date.

She's lead back to the changing room and dries off as best as she can and puts her clothes back on, though her hands shake a bit as she does (she's just hungry, she tells herself.)

Sam leads her out to the transport van when she's done (Shivaay's is already gone, of course) and he seems uncomfortable and won't look her in the eye and when they're finally in the van, she begins to laugh.

"Sorry you had to see that," she giggles at the way Sam flushes red.

"I'm just glad you two had fun," Sam says and she knows he means it. "I didn't really watch."

"Well, everyone else did," she sighs (though it honestly doesn't bother her as much as it probably should?)

"Most of them have been working in reality TV for decades, I guarantee they've seen much worse," Sam tells her. "Your dates are probably boring, actually."

XXX

She's able to properly shower to get ready for the night portion of the date, but with the producers right out in the common area, she decides it's best if she just takes a cold shower to try and tamp down her libido. She feels hot and like her skin is stretched too tight over her body and she curses Shivaay Singh Oberoi and his effect on her. It's like the massage and mudbath never happened with how tense she is again.

The blue dress she chose for tonight is one of her altered ones, she only packed one custom dress in her travel suitcase because she honestly hadn't expected two one on ones. She wants to believe that he chose her for a second because he likes her the most, but there's a small part of her that wonders if he was just trying to make up for the rock climbing date because he felt guilty.

Sam sneaks her in real food, a full sandwich and not just protein bars, and she decides that she loves Sameer Dalal.

"Ok, you need to talk about your family," Sam tells her in the van on the way to the night date. "Remember you're trying to convince him to give you the rose for hometowns."

"Right," she breathes, feeling suddenly nervous again. "Easy enough, I guess. Gods, it'll be weird if he does meet my family."

Shivaay's already waiting at the little table set up with food (that she's not allowed to eat) and she thought she'd calmed down a bit, but seeing him sends her entire body into overdrive again.

"Hi," she says, annoyingly breathless at the sight of him.

"Hi," he smiles and leans down to kiss her and she almost wishes he wouldn't. Why does she have to be so attracted to him? It's infuriating. She was never this attracted to Vikram.

(Maybe that was the problem, a small voice whispers in her brain. Maybe it wasn't you that was boring. Maybe it was him.)

"So, tell me about your family," Shivaay says once they've sat down, and she can tell Brinda prompted him to talk about this, too.

"Um, well, they're... a lot." She frowns, because that wasn't what she had planned to say, but it makes Shivaay laugh. "I already mentioned my siblings. I have a sister and two brothers and... a Tarun, though I'm not sure he'd be there since he isn't technically family. And mom and dad. They're..." Her mouth opens but no words come out and she eventually lets out an annoyed huff of air. "I don't know why I'm finding it so hard to describe them," she admits. "Like, I don't know how to boil them down into a few words. Does that make sense?"

"Definitely," he laughs. "Any time I try to describe my mom, it never comes out sounding right."

"Right? Like, you just have to meet them," she agrees.

"Seven, you two are the worst," Svetlana interrupts. "Annika, you need to talk about them or I'm going to have nothing for this date."

Annika tries her hardest not to glare at Svetlana (she fails), and then turns back to Shivaay. "Ok, my dad is... well, he'll seem really serious and probably scary at first, but he's totally not. He's really just a big teddy bear under everything. Also, he makes the dumbest jokes, just pretend to laugh and he'll like you. My mom can also be scary, I've heard." (From Vikram, she thinks. Vikram hated her mom. Vikram hated her whole family, actually.) "I already mentioned Viren, he's a year older than me. Um, he's really into cricket, so beware. So is Gauri. Blanket warning for all of my siblings, actually. Sahil's four years younger and he's a genius..." She trails off when she realizes that she's probably doing the opposite of convincing Shivaay to come meet her family, but when she looks up at him, she finds him grinning.

"It's just... it can be a lot for people," she remembers how Vikram used to avoid family functions, used to make excuses or outright tell her he couldn't deal with her family. Eventually, she ended up staying behind, too, when he made her feel guilty enough. "But they're everything to me. I lost them for a bit. I didn't understand how important they were until I realized I was avoiding them because I wasn't proud of who I was - who I became down in Kolkata."

"I can't imagine what it must be like to have a big family," Shivaay's hand finds hers under the table. "I think about that sometimes. What it would have been like to grow up with siblings."

"I hated it when I was younger," she admits. "I always felt like I didn't belong because I didn't like sports or playing outside and they all did. My dad worked a lot and my mom was busy taking care of all of us, and sometimes I felt like I got lost in the chaos, you know? But now I look back and I can't imagine it being any other way. Was it just you and your mom?" She hasn't heard Shivaay talk about any other family and so she's pretty sure he's an only child, but she wants him to tell her that.

"Mostly, yeah. Just us against the world." For a brief moment he frowns and something dark passes through his expression, but it clears up quickly. "I have a half sister that I'm close to," he says slowly and that surprises her. "Pri. She's a few years younger than me. Omkara's my half brother. Their mom, Jhanvi, she was... she was nicer than she had to be." He doesn't expand on that, but the frown is back. "I used to visit them during the summers. She could have hated me. Jhanvi, I mean. She could have hated my mom, but she didn't. She was always nice. She sent us birthday cards. She didn't have to do any of that."

Shivaay's hand is tight in hers and she wonders if he realizes he's talking. He's staring at the table and his eyes are far away, like he's lost in thought. "After she died, Om changed and-"

That does it, she realizes, that sentence snaps him out of it and he looks back up at her and then over to where production is hiding.

"Break?" she hears Brinda's voice and the woman emerges from behind a tree.

Brinda doesn't wait for an answer and comes over to them and then Sam trots out and hands Annika a water bottle. They take a bathroom break and Annika spends the entire time confused by the abrupt shift in tone, the way Brinda immediately cut in.

"You knew Shivaay's dad, right?" she asks Sam as she watches Shivaay talk to Brinda on the other side of the dinner set. He seems to be saying something to her and Svetlana, it looks serious. "He barely mentioned him, but he talked about his stepmom?"

Sam shrugs and looks uncomfortable. "I didn't really know Shivaay's dad. My dad and his dad worked together, or something. Dad never really told me anything business related. But our summer house was down near his father's and that's where I met Shivaay. We spent almost every summer together, but we lost touch during college. Anything other than that, I don't think you should hear from me."

Annika sighs. "No, you're right. I shouldn't have asked. I just... I feel like I'm trying to put this puzzle together with all these missing pieces and it's infuriating."

This is the closest she's come to admitting to anyone how confused and anxious and nervous she is about this whole production. And it's stupid, really, to think that knowing every little detail about Shivaay's family will somehow give her clarity into what she really wants to know, which is how he feels about her - if this is all just a contractual obligation to him or if he actually feels something.

"What I can tell you," Sam says, putting a hand to her shoulder, "is that the Shivaay I knew was a good guy."

Before she has a chance to question Sam on his choice of the word was, Brinda and Svetlana are calling them back.

This time, she notices the rose on the table immediately and Shivaay barely hesitates before picking it up. "Annika," he holds it out to her, "I'd love to meet your family."

Despite her doubts, despite the unease of Sam's words was, she feels herself break out into a grin as she takes the rose from his hand.

XXX

When Myra leaves for her one on one, it's quiet in the suite. Annika has her rose, which means Shivaay is coming to her hometown (and gods, the more she thinks about it, the more she worries). He has to pick three others for hometowns, so if Myra gets her rose, that means there's only two roses left for the group date.

She doesn't want to think about who's going home or, more specifically, which families Shivaay is going to get to meet. She doesn't really want to think about the fact that in a few days, they'll be down to four girls and all of them are smart and wonderful and beautiful and as much as she thinks she has a connection with Shivaay, they could have one, too. Hell, they could have a better one.

They're all tense, and so Tia tries to lead them in a yoga session, except she's not trained like Misa had been and so they all sort of collaborate on the activity, piecing together their remembered bits from Misa's lessons. It's a decent enough distraction, but at the end, she's just as tense as she had been in the beginning.

It's mostly just her questioning her own feelings, Shivaay's, the other girl's, but it's also a bit of leftover sexual frustration, which she has honestly never had to deal with before. None of her past boyfriends ever made her feel the way Shivaay does and they certainly never left her aching like this (though she understands this is probably what production wants and so she's mad at her own body for falling into their trap).

She can also sense the other girls are just as on edge as she is, though none of them are really talking about it. She knows Bhavya isn't into Shivaay and she's still pretty sure Mihika wants Svayamvar, but Tia, Varsha, and Myra all seem to really like Shivaay, too, and that upsets her, because what if one of them wins? What if they're happy with Shivaay? Will it hurt more or less if he ends up with someone she actually likes? And what if she wins? She doesn't want to hurt any of them.

The scariest part, she thinks, is what if - once they're off the show and away from production - what if it turns out she feels nothing at all? What if all her feelings for Shivaay are just show manufactured and not really there?

It's terrifying, because she doesn't want them to be fake. It's been so long since she's felt this way about someone, that she's been excited to see them and just talk to them. She forgot what it was like to be into a guy and not have him make you feel like shit. She wants this to be real, she wants Shivaay to be real. And as much as it would hurt to find out that Shivaay was just acting this whole time, she thinks it would be worse if it turns out she was acting this whole time. She doesn't want to go back to feeling empty. She doesn't want to go back to her rut. She can't go back to that. Even if her heart is broken at the end of this, at least it will be real.

So when the door opens and an intern takes Myra's bag away, she allows herself to feel the heady mix of emotions - the grief of losing Myra without being able to say goodbye and the horrible excitement at being one step closer.

If this is all fake, if none of this is real, then she's going to spend as much time as she has left just feeling.

XXX

"Wow, this sucks," Tia says as she, Bhavya, Varsha, and Mihika are all about to leave for their group date. Three of them will be moving on to hometowns and one will be leaving and Annika hugs each of them tightly before they go. She knows she won't be seeing one of them again once they head out that door.

"I hate this," she tries to laugh when she gets to Bhavya.

"I think it's gonna be me," Bhavya whispers in her ear as they hug. "But I'll see you when all of this is over, ok? I'm gonna make Sam give me your number."

Annika feels her throat close and she squeezes Bhavya tighter and says, keeping her voice as low as possible to fight off tears, "you are the only reason I got through this."

"Same," Bhavya laughs and then pushes her away, blinking rapidly.

"Can you two stop, you're gonna ruin my makeup," Mihika rolls her eyes and Annika is surprised to see that she, too, seems to be a bit emotional. And here she thought Mihika only cared about herself.

The four of them leave and Annika is left alone in the suite.

The silence of it is deafening and she's almost grateful for the one cameraman and Mehak who have both stayed back to keep an eye on her. She won't cry in front of them, though.

She tries to lounge by the pool, tries to swim, takes a long shower and does every pampering thing imaginable, but eventually she ends up on the couch in the common area, staring at the four bags lined up at the door.

The night drags on and she ends up talking to Mehak and the cameraman, who's name she discovers is Sahil (she tells him all about her little brother, though she doesn't think he cares). Mehak is weird and standoff-ish, but she gets chatty enough when Annika asks her about the necklace Mehak always wears (Mehak goes off into a tangent about healing crystals and it gets weirdly religious at some point, but it's better than silence).

When the door opens and an intern comes in, it feels like her heart is trying to climb up her throat and she stares in disbelief as the intern takes Varsha's bag away.

Varsha was cut?

She feels completely off-center, because she was so sure it would be Bhavya and...

Is this good or bad? Is she happy? She can't tell, this whole thing is so strange and unnatural - she likes Varsha, they have plans for after the show, but Annika also assumed that Varsha was the one Shivaay liked the most.

Eventually, the other three girls come back and they all look just as confused as Annika and the four of them stare at each other until Mihika breaks the silence with, "right?"

"How was it not me!" Bhavya looks around at them like they'll have the answer.

"I swore it would be me," Tia laughs a bit, like she can't believe it and Annika almost reels at that. Tia has doubts, too? It's reasonable, this show is designed to make even the most confident of girls doubt themselves, but she always assumed Tia and Varsha had their shit together and so seeing Varsha sent home and Tia freaking out, it tilts her whole worldview for a moment. (And the fact that Tia is freaking out solidifies that she feels the same way about Shivaay that Annika does and that sucks. Gods, this sucks.)

"Alright, make sure you're packed and ready to go by noon tomorrow," Lalit comes in the room and seems oblivious to their emotional distress. "Once we're back in India, you'll all be headed home."

He says it so casually, but the word home is like a punch to the gut. In a few days, she'll be home. She'll get to see her family again and the idea makes her knees weak (she can see the same relief on Bhavya's face).

They don't talk anymore as they get ready for bed, because what else is there to say?

When she gets into bed, she tries to focus on the idea of her family, of finally getting to talk to mom and Gauri again, of seeing her brothers and hearing her dad's deep, calming voice. No matter what happens, she reminds herself, at least she'll always have her family.

XXX

Author's Notes : Once again, I want to tell everyone who is reading this that you are a joy and wonderful and I appreciate each and every one of you. We are almost to the end just 2 more chapters until the finale.

(I had a rough time writing this chapter and I'm still not sure I'm completely satisfied, so I hope it's ok??)

Happy Reading. Stay Safe.