Trigger The Years Past - 27. Chapter 27: Friendly Fire

Barry sat at the bar and lifted his glass of vodka and took a sip. "At least the elevator didn't get stuck."

Miracle grinned, poking at the ice in his coke with the straw. "Are you really glad?"

"I'm not telling you." Barry laughed and nudged his arm with an elbow. "I got to have my secrets."

"Fine, be that way." Miracle sighed and looked around, his eyebrows lifting. "These places only seem fun in groups for some reason."

"Oh, I'm not fun?" Barry looked up and brought a hand to his chest. "That breaks my heart."

Miracle looked at Barry and grinned. "I'm sorry, just sometimes...I feel like I go on super search to keep things going."

"You don't have to stress like that with me." Barry sat his glass down.

"I'm just like that." Miracle said.

"Excuse me.." A British accent rang forth as a man approached, around the same age as Cheston, yet he was slightly smaller in stature and figure, blue eyes and dirty blonde hair that was border lining on an almost light brown, yet it was a mixture of the two tones and it naturally flowed in it's short fashion, brushed flat, barely any bangs, his face youthful and clean cut.

The man was dressed in a black leather biker jacket, a dark gray tanktop beneath it and a pair of denim jeans were worn along with a pair of simple black tennis shoes. His hand, covered in a black, leather, fingerless glove, with small silver, metal dots on each knuckle. "Is he yours? Might have to steal him." He grinned at Barry.

Barry looked at the guy and took in a deep breath. "Oh...I just planned to have him branded tomorrow."

Miracle laughed and shook his head and looked over at the man. "No, he's not branding me. Why? Do you want to?" He turned in his seat to fully face him.

The man grinned at Barry and then looked at Miracle. "Gotta know your name first, so I know what to call my property."

"Miracle." He stuck out a hand. "Don't ask."

The man took Miracle's hand and shook it. "Godfrey." He let go and sat down on the other side of Miracle. "So, if I can't ask that, what can I ask?"

"You can ask me....anything else." Miracle grinned.

"Well, Miracle...it's been fun." Barry stood up and walked around him. "I'll see you later?"

"If that's what Miss Cleo says." Miracle upnodded Barry and laughed.

"Hope not! Shes a fraud!" Barry waved as he went off to head back to his room.

"You're funny." Godfrey said.

"That was sarcasm." Miracle looked at him. "Friendly fire, of course."

"What happens when...your fire isn't friendly?" He looked at Miracle.

"Piss me off and see." Miracle grinned and grabbed his beer and took a sip.

"I didn't come over here to do that."

Miracle lowered the bottle from his mouth. "What did you come here for?"

"To find a nice and interesting person." Godfrey nodded and looked over at the tender. "Beer, any kind."

"Interesting, maybe I could do." Miracle sat his beer on the bar and slid out of his seat, closing the distance between him and Godfrey, his hands moving to rest just above his knees. "Nice, I may can do. You might consider it nice, but if I mess with you, others might not consider it so nice."

"The ring?"

Miracle's eyebrows lifted. "You noticed?"

"The whole time, doesn't stop me." Godfrey grinned. "When I see what I want, I'm going to try and take it, if I fail...well it's a thing, it's life. You could send me home sad."

"Send you home?" Miracle quietly laughed. "So you just came to The Four Seasons to come in the bar?"

"No, I got a room, you know the expression." He grinned and his hands moved to Miracle's waist, legs spread so that he could yank him closer.

Miracle felt Godfrey's hands and didn't resist in the least as their bodies were brought closer, his eyes remained focused on the others. "Yeah, I got what you meant. I was teasing you."

"You don't stop teasing me, so you just amped it up." His grip tightened in a dominant manner.

Miracle slowly nodded. "As much as I enjoy this...there's someone else wearing another ring around here. I like to make trouble, not get into it, or rather, I don't like to get caught."

Godfrey smiled and let Miracle go. "Sad night..." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a napkin with his number already written on it. "I'm confident." He took Miracle's hand and put the napkin in it and closed his hand over it.

Miracle's eyebrows lifted. "You sound like someone I know...oddity." He shoved the napkin into his back pocket and then pulled away from Godfrey and headed out of the bar to return to his room, wondering what went down with Cheston and Rumor.

"So what happened?" Miracle sat on the foot of the bed, staring at Cheston.

"Oh...you are not going to like it." Cheston turned around in the office chair. "I made him an offer, I offered to give him everything, all that we have now, the estate, he even wanted the law firm...and for whatever reason, he wanted me fired from it. I know, we would be bad off, but it would be better than where we are now."

"But...he didn't go for it?" Miracle's eyebrows lifted.

"Oh, he said it was an option. Actually, in fact, we're worse than where we were before. I photo copied your diary into my computer."

Miracle stared at Cheston. "So, wait a minute, stealing my diary and burning it meant nothing?"

"Oh, it meant something, having the original evidence is always the best." Cheston frowned. "There's good news...and bad news. He went into my computer and destroyed it, trust me, he destroyed it beyond repair. Bad news, he took his own copy of it. So I was left with three options."

"Go on..." Miracle nodded.

"Sacrifice myself and go down for Lacey's kidnapping, sacrifice you by having the diary given up...by someone, or sacrifice you and Dizon by having the app log restored and in chain reaction, Martin gets set free." Cheston shook his head. "It was a bad idea contacting him, though, what I don't get...is why he was willing to share the estate with you, yet I have to give him the entire thing, not that I care about any of it, and why...if he is such a big shot hacker, why he is targeting us instead of cleaning out banks or hitting wall street."

Miracle let out a breath in a sigh and fell back on the bed. "All of that sucks." He stared at the ceiling. "You should sacrifice me...I'm the one that's murdered, I'm the one that's done bad things, take Dizon down while he's at it...because the guys a freak. Hell...just turn all the evidence in, the diary, the log, I should go down for all of my crimes, each and every one of them."

"Miracle, do you seriously think I would do that? They would brutalize you! I'm not ever going to do that, if anything, I'm sacrificing myself." Cheston stared at Miracle.

He sat up and looked at Cheston. "Maybe I want to be hurt, maybe I deserve to be hurt." He brought his hands up to his face. "This is so much worse than Eric...I mean, who knew blackmail could be so powerful. He's putting it in our hands, yet no matter what we decide, it's you or me that goes down."

"You don't deserve to be hurt, and all the crimes you did? Miracle...you did them because you felt like you had to. Maybe it wasn't self defense by the books, but in the situations, it was self defense. Kyler and Jordan were hunting you, were you supposed to run forever? And you know things would of escalated with Martin."

Miracle's hands fell from his face. "It doesn't excuse what I did to Wayne. He was an innocent in all of it, I used him as a prop to stage what I needed, at least with Kyler and Jordan, they were both bad guys. Wayne was innocent."

"What's done is done, you have to let it go, what will ruining your life really do? Nothing." Cheston shook his head. "I won't let you do it."

"So then what? We kill ourselves out of it? You know we would both have to, because which ever one remained alive, that would be the one that paid, if you said this guy was out to hurt us, which seems to be the case..."

"No..." Cheston shook his head. "We would be at a deadlock. If he wants the estate, he couldn't put us in prison. If he does...we write the estate to Rayne, so it goes to her and your child."

Miracle thought about it. "Well, maybe. He has nothing concrete on her, I don't think, but it's a gamble, especially if the estate is just a front, and it's really something more personal. One of us might even know this person, it could be anyone."

"Like who?" Cheston's eyebrows lifted.

Miracle's head tilted to the side. "Oh, right, I'm the one with all the enemies." He stood up and laughed. "Maybe it's Sterling, after all, he ruined his eye for me."

"I'm not joking, Miracle." Cheston watched him pace the room.

"Could be Daniel, I mean I did ruin his reputation in Australia." Miracle turned around. "But why bother? He's made it okay here in the states. Really though, there isn't a guy in my past, that is still alive anyway, that I've screwed over bad enough to do this, in fact, most of them screwed me over."

"David?"

Miracle gave Cheston a look. "Have you seen prison documentaries? The computers are like side by side, people would see what he was doing. No way he could pull that off inside prison."

"I know, just proving a point, he thinks you screwed him over bad, especially with that...awful quote." Cheston frowned.

"Don't remind me." Miracle sat down. "How about you?"

Cheston looked towards the window. "There was one incident...it was back in high school. It was this kid, he was friends with us, we were the jock crowd, he was openly gay, but we were cool with that, despite that, I still had issues of my own about coming out. He was...dating someone that the others deemed rather...low on the scale..."

"Why?" Miracle asked.

"It's odd." Cheston looked at Miracle. "He was beautiful, innocent, kind of like you...but he was boyish in a sense, still a little more feminine. He was like a doll, pale skin, blonde hair, long, but not really long, still short, but the wind could blow through it. You know, kept trimmed, but he had the bangs."

"Okay, I get it, really pretty, superficially pretty." Miracle slowly nodded.

Cheston nodded. "Well, sometimes he would change the color, his own reasons, I guess. Sometimes he'd have it dark blue, other times purple, He could be really...creative. Kind of like you, how you're in your twenties but you have those cute tee shirts that just scream little kid and it's adorable. The smilie faces and the Mickey Mouses and stuff."

"Okay, I get the picture, go on." Miracle nodded.

"Okay, so the rest of the guys didn't like it, just the way high school is, so he had to split his time between us and his boyfriend, he rejected us at lunch for his boyfriend and he tried so hard to make it work. Well, one night we found the kid at the park and all the guys beat him up. I was there...but I never touched him. He went into a seizure, he had seizures and...that was something else they made fun of."

Cheston continued. "Well he showed up, and the other guys took off and his phone died, he begged me to call for the ambulance. I freaked out, told him I would and...ran. I thought I'd call them when I got out of the park...but I just kept running. The kid died that night, and...we went to school the next day, we had a note in all of our lockers from our friend, all it said was 'see you in hell' but mine said 'see you soon.' And I always wondered when that day would be."

"That is so sad." Miracle's eyes drifted downward. "To find someone you love so much...dying, not even able to communicate with you..." He looked up at Cheston. "I don't know how to justify that, I was attacked...and they ran away and left me there, I guess you were scared..."

"It broke my heart." Cheston looked at Miracle. "I envied their love, all I wanted was to have what they had, to not hide, to not be afraid, and ultimately...it was because of me that it was destroyed. His life could of been saved. Don't justify it...but don't hold it against me, we all have a past."

Miracle looked up. "I think...it could be a real possibility that this person...could be Rumor."

Barry headed into the living room where Miracle and Cheston were cuddled on the couch watching Thelma and Louise. Cheston laughed. "I don't know why you have to always pick this movie. I kind of hate it until after the murder..."

"Well, I do too. The country club part is corny, the movie doesn't really get good until they decide they are going on the run." Miracle grinned and ate a piece of popcorn and looked up at Barry. "Oh, hey. Want to join us?"

Barry shook his head. "No, thanks. I don't mean to bother you...but I have to ask Cheston something."

Miracle grabbed the remote and paused the movie.

"What is it?" Cheston asked.

"Cody and I were wondering if we could borrow the jet in the morning?"

Miracle looked up, confused.

"Why? Not that I mind, I mean I can share a ton." Cheston smiled slightly.

"Well, you guys have been great, don't take it the wrong way, and Miracle, Cody cares about your friendship...and I love the one we've built. Thing is...we just feel like it's time to be on our own again...and the church apartment in New York is still owned and...we made plans to move there." Barry explained. "As creepy as living under a church will be for me." The hint of a laugh escaped.

Miracle looked down, a frown appeared as he thought to himself how it wasn't so much Cody he would miss, he started to blame himself for being a horrible friend. Things just hadn't been the same between him and Cody since junior year and it didn't seem to be getting better which just further pushed his belief that things couldn't be recreated, love, friendships, once they were really gone, that was it.

"Sure, I'll call and have the pilot ready. I've had it moved to the airport since...my mom died. It will take you to the airport in New York and then return on it's own." Cheston nodded. "We have enjoyed having you, and know that you can come back any time, we're just a phone call away."

Barry smiled. "Thanks." His eyes drifted over to Miracle. "Are you okay?"

Miracle looked up. "Yeah." He managed to say, barely keeping his voice calm. "It's been great having you here." Miracle nodded.

Barry could tell that Miracle was upset, and some how, he knew it had nothing to do with Cody, and it was one of the reasons why he had agreed that the distance was needed, a reason that he hadn't vocalized to anyone. "Well, I'm going to bed now, going to need the rest." He turned around and disappeared into the foyer and headed up the stairs.

Cheston looked over at Miracle. "You're not okay."

"It's not Cody I'm going to miss." Miracle admitted. "That makes me a horrible friend, truth be told, we haven't been the same since junior year, since Jaemin and I left. It's just...one of those things, when it's to far gone, it can't be recreated."

"We recreated." Cheston said.

"We were hardly broke up for any time at all." Miracle looked at Cheston. "Might as well say we had a fight and you went to a friends for a little while till I got over my little grudge. It takes a long time for something to get lost...broken."

Cheston nodded. "I'm sorry." He wrapped an arm around Miracle and kissed his cheek. "It'll be okay."

Miracle closed his eyes and nodded. "I know. I'm trying to decide if we should fly with them, go see Jaemin's grave. I always said I would, but...I kind of feel like I've moved on enough to where I don't need to. Or maybe it's me simply avoiding."

"Only you know that." Cheston whispered.

Godfrey walked into the doctors office and looked around the waiting room and spotted Miracle sitting at the back, flipping through a magazine. His eyebrows lifted and he grinned and headed over, sitting down beside him. "A doctors office? This is your discreet?"

"Yep, you're just a waiting patient sitting beside me." Miracle blew a bubble with his bubble gum and it popped and he pulled it back into his mouth.

Godfrey laughed. "And your husband doesn't know about your doctors office?" He looked around. "By the way, what are you having lasered off?"

"Last treatment, surgical slash gunshot scar. My husbands step dad tried to push me off the roof top terrace after drugging my drinks at the rich snooty party and my mom tried to shoot him and he used me as a human shield." Miracle said, flipping another page. "I bet all these magazines are out of date."

"That's dramatic." He looked at the magazine. "Have you tried looking at the date?"

Miracle shook his head. "No, what I'd love to find in a doctors office somewhere is a magazine laying around from the 90's. That would be really funny to me."

"Well, how will you know if you don't check the dates?" Godfrey asked.

"Because I know, out of date or not, they would never leave one that old anywhere." Miracle closed the magazine. "I wish I could draw blue prints. I would design my own house. I mean, I could draw the rooms, like on a Sims game, draw the floor plan and label the rooms."

"Something tells me you're the type that would go all out, like really out there." Godfrey grinned, resting his chin in his hand.

Miracle looked over at him. "Maybe, I don't know. In some ways...I kind of appreciate the simple style of normal homes. But then I guess there is still that part of me that might want some big and elaborate things."

"Like what?"

"Well, do you ever watch HGTV?" Miracle asked.

Godfrey shook his head. "No, why?"

"You should watch Property Brothers, I was on an episode, they constructed a bedroom for me when I was seventeen. My mom had it done, though a lot of the ideas, most of them, were mine." Miracle said.

Godfrey grinned. "I'll have to start DVRing the episodes until I catch it then."

"Well, they aired it not to long ago, so who knows when they will rerun it again." Miracle looked around.

"You know...you make me really happy, I enjoy your company."

Miracle grinned and looked at him. "Even in my doctors office?"

Godfrey laughed. "It's unique, it's funny, caught me off guard when you told me to come here. I like that, it's surprising."

Miracle's smile faded. "You know, it's hard to find guys that...I can just be friends with."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean..." Miracle stared out across the room. "I just mean that most of the time, a majority of the time, I always feel the magnetic pull, and I try real hard not to betray my commitment. You make that difficult, but it doesn't mean that I want to stop seeing you, I don't think I could, unless you pulled away from me."

"That's flattering, yet I feel guilty to say that because it troubles you." Godfrey slightly tilted his head down and to the side. "Do you ever wonder why you feel that way? What causes it? Have you ever figured that out?"

"It's because...when someone notices me, I get curious about what it would be like to be with them. I have this thing...called love addiction. It's when...you're attracted to the excitement of the new attraction, the new...romance or experience...or whatever you want to label it. You're just attracted to it, you want to taste the new experience, you want to see it, it's like sitting at the Christmas tree with a toy, and a new present box appears. You have to know what's in that new box, it's a new toy..and it brings new excitement, and new experiences, it's different."

Godfrey nodded in understanding. "So...it's kind of like a fork in the road, two paths, you have to go down both, you have to know where they both lead in order to know which one you actually like. But even then, a third path could appear, then a fourth, even a fifth."

"Endless possibilities, and you have to know everything or you will always question. What if I would have been happier that way? Or this way? Or staying how I am?" Miracle smiled and looked at him. "But a little bit of that is mixing with the borderline disorder, then I also have bipolar. My rages are usually well managed under medication, but everything else is still a challenge."

"So, I'm crushing on a nut job? That's pretty cool, makes things fun. Though...if you were schizophrenic, that would be much funner."

Miracle laughed. "Okay, now you're being jerky. And I'm sure you'd have loads of fun watching me hallucinate around." He looked up when he heard his name called. "That's me, and no, you can't go back and watch the procedure, for one, the doctor knows my husband...and for two, I don't want you to see." Miracle grinned and walked off.

Godfrey laughed. "Don't hallucinate being autopsied!" He shook his head and got up to leave the doctors office.

"Yes, I'm leaving the doctors now." Miracle drove down the road. "I'm going to stop by and check on Rayne, see how shes doing. Uh...what are we doing with Lacey? I mean, blackmail or not, I don't want her kept locked in a room. She doesn't know it was you, right?"

"No, Martin hired men to get her, they used chloroform and blind folded her. Thing is, I don't know where Eric built this house at. I doubt Martin will tell me, it's his only leverage to keep me as his defense attorney."

"Well, maybe you should tell him about Rumor and the recording, maybe then he'll let you get Lacey out. Of course, turn your phone off when you do."

"How do you know Rumor isn't listening right now?" Cheston frowned.

"Maybe Rachel knows where the house is." Miracle said, thoughtfully.

"Okay, but contact her by a payphone or something, and turn your phone off way before you do so you aren't GPSed. I don't want our only link to saving Lacey caught up in this mess."

Miracle rolled his eyes. "The bitch gave out my therapy sessions to the cops." He shook his head. "But, okay, I'll do that."

"See you at home, love you."

"I love you too." Miracle hung up and then turned his phone off and tossed it in the passenger seat and continued on down the road, looking for a payphone that was a good distance away from where he had last used his cell phone.

He pulled into a convenience store and parked by a payphone and pulled the keys out and walked around the car and grabbed the phone and put some spare change in. "Hope her number is the same." He said as he dialed the last number he remembered Rachel having.

"Hello?" Rachel answered.

"Oh wow, can't believe you still have this number."

"Miracle?"

"Yeah, it's me, listen I just needed to speak to you for a second..."

"Look, if you called to trash and crap, I really don't want to hear it." Rachel started.

"No, I need your help." Miracle said.

"About what?" She asked.

"I heard Eric had a house built here in Nevada, do you know where it is?" Miracle asked.

"Nevada..." Rachel mumbled thoughtfully as she sat on the couch. "No, I'm sorry, but I don't. I remember he said he was having one built, but I had no reason to know about it, why would I? Sorry, but I was just there as part of a packaged deal with Skylar. He would of only told me about it if he had plans for me to do something there."

Miracle frowned and sighed. "Makes sense, well thanks for at least giving it some thought."

"How are you?" She asked.

"Rachel, I'm not trying to be nasty, all the nasty stuff is between you, and my mom, but don't act like you care about me. My only regret is that...I never got to know Skylar as my sister. So...get through life, it's what I'm doing." He hung up and then got back into the car and drove away moments later.

Miracle stopped at a nearby McDonalds and parked the car across the parking lot from the building and sat there, not sure what he was doing. He looked at his phone and slowly picked it up and turned it on. "Rumor...are you there?" He stared at the phone, yet there was no response. His head fell against the seat and he sighed.

"I'm here." Rumor suddenly spoke.

Miracle's eyes opened and he looked at the screen on his phone. "No animation?"

"I wasn't sure what to make this time." He said.

"That's new." Miracle took a deep breath.

"I have to say, knowing so much about someones life, it makes things so much more personal." Rumor said.

"Please don't take any punches."

"I wasn't going to, anyone that could, after reading these, well, I'd wonder where they came from."

"What have you read?" Miracle asked.

"I remember that night, I heard the fire of the gun, my breath, my feelings, my life was sucked out of me. I fell to my knees, and I was frozen, like a statue. It almost seemed unreal, like I wasn't there and yet I was. Then I saw the locket in his hand and everything rushed back. I went to the train, I don't know why I chose that, maybe it was a subconscious thing. Then I was saved. I was put here in the psyche ward. That night, I almost couldn't make words, I couldn't really think, I just held onto that locket. I felt dirty, like I'd just crawled through the ashes of hell. I could of stayed like that, frozen in the moment of shock, I wish I had." Rumor grew quiet.

Miracle frowned as Rumor read that entry to him.

"Reading that...leaves me without words." Rumor said.

"But it doesn't change anything, does it? The three options?" Miracle questioned.

"Miracle, the more I read, the more I feel like I know you. That's new to me, to get close to people...after so long of being alone. Usually people don't feel like people to me, but this makes you real, it makes you human."

"And? What does that mean?" Miracle asked.

"It means...I hope Cheston does the heroic thing, because I might actually feel guilty if I have to..." Rumor trailed off. "By the way, I trashed Dizon's log, don't ask me how, it's a complicated process, but he'll never be able to get it back, trust me.

"Well, I appreciate that, you know, protecting me from Dizon." Miracle paused. "However, you know, we could sit here and do nothing, get the estate. Sure, you could put us both away, hurt us for whatever reason you feel the need to hurt, and we could sign the estate right over to Rayne and my child. What would you do then?"

Rumor frowned. "That would be a pretty stupid thing to do just to win, just to protect some money...some property."

"It's not about that, you want one of us to turn on the other. You want to hurt us by making us hurt each other. You can't hurt us if we don't let you." Miracle paused briefly. "Why do you want to hurt us? Or better yet, why do you want to hurt Cheston? With me, you wanted to share the estate, you didn't want to do that with him. Are you the one that sat by your lover helplessly as he died...while Cheston ran away?"

"I think....you better concentrate on your options." Rumor said.

"We will, and you can file through my diary, or think about our fourth option."

"Miracle, you wouldn't survive prison."

"Then I wouldn't have to suffer long, would I?" Miracle tossed his phone aside and started the car and pulled out of the parking lot, hearing nothing more from Rumor.

Rayne laid the remote down and dug her hand into a bag of chips and pulled one out, eating it. "Susan's at the grocery store." She looked over at Miracle. "But, I went to the doctor and she said everything was fine, looked normal, all great and good." She grinned and grabbed her E-Cig and took a puff. "I got lectured on this, but really, if it's bad, why is everything so good?" She laughed. "I asked her and she didn't know what to say."

Miracle grinned and sat beside Rayne. "Sounds like something I would do. The professional tells me something...and I challenge them."

Rayne smiled and looked at the television. "I hate cable, I hate satellite, I just hate television, but you know, the internet is just as boring. It's like we advance further and further until we advance so far that...it leads to ultimate boredom."

"You think that's what's going to happen?" Miracle asked.

"Yes, because eventually everything will copy each other, the human mind can only go so far, originality will cease to exist."

Miracle looked at the television. "Might be right, all the cop shows they make up. It's like...you want to see cops, go do something bad."

Rayne grinned and puffed on her E-Cig and then pulled out another chip. "But they like to see it without getting in trouble."

"Without getting in trouble." Miracle mumbled. "Can I tell you a secret?" He looked at Rayne.

She looked at Miracle. "Little you is in me, not anyone else, so yes, you know my loyalty is with you."

"Lets hope you're not talking about little me and it turns out to be a girl." Miracle grinned. "Uh...I met this guy." He looked down. "Nothing has happened...but he's really nice, fun to be around, I just like being around him. I know that's so wrong."

Rayne shook her head. "Miracle, the way I see life, whatever makes you happy, screw the rules." She nodded.

"You sound like Jaemin." Miracle grinned.

"Then we might of got along great."

"It's like...I just can't settle for one single life. I have to keep changing them." Miracle leaned against the arm rest. "But I want to, I want this normal life. I got married, you know? The first time, that's big, it's important, but I just can't leave it alone when guys come into my life. Though, I do have a theory, if I don't let anything happen, it simmers down. Kind of like Nik, I didn't let anything happen and the spark faded."

"That's what usually happens, they give up when you don't give in." Rayne said.

"Miracle!" A scream echoed from outside followed by the sound of a door slamming to a car.

Rayne made a face as she looked at Miracle and they both got up and walked outside to see Dizon had parked behind Miracle's car. Rayne headed down the steps, followed by Miracle. "What are you doing here? And calling him out? Really?"

"This is none of your business Rayne, go back in the house." Dizon looked at Miracle. "You haven't responded to my texts, you haven't answered or returned my calls! You haven't come to the room like you were supposed to, in fact, you disappeared from the hotel! Yes, I know you got your house back now, but still!"

"None of my business?" Rayne crossed her arms. "When you pull up in my cousins drive way like this, it is every bit my business!"

"Rayne, shut the fuck up." Dizon walked closer and looked at Miracle. "You know the consequences."

Miracle stared at Dizon. "I told you...I wasn't doing that." He walked closer. "You're weird...and I don't know how to be around you, nor do I want to figure it out. And in fact...I don't have to."

Dizon slowly nodded. "I'll bring that log back..."

Rayne's eyes widened. "You think that's what you're going to do? I'll go to your fucking house with my bat and show your computer what I could do in little league!" She stepped close to Dizon. "And trust me, the mess will look very horrific compared to what I could do with it now, think about computer massacre."

Dizon looked down at Rayne and slowly nodded. "Yeah? And do you want me to take us both down?" His eyes trailed to her stomach. "Or would that be three?"

Miracle quickly walked around Rayne and caught Dizon off guard, managing to punch him across the face, giving Rayne a chance to turn around and run back into the house.

Dizon yelled and stumbled back, holding his face as he looked up at Miracle and grinned. "Angry...hurts...but that's interesting."

Miracle glared at him. "Don't ever threaten her or my child again...I might not exactly get along with Rumor, but he's warming up to me, I can sense it, enough to tell you that he destroyed your log, and you won't be getting it back, even if hell froze over, and we both know that would never happen."

Rayne came back outside with her pink baseball bat from when she was a little girl and she had her car keys. "I'm going to bash your computer all to hell, you son of a bitch!"

Dizon stared at Miracle in shock and then looked over at Rayne.

Miracle spun around. "Rayne, don't! You don't have to!"

Rayne didn't listen as she got into her car and moments later, speeded out of the drive way.

Dizon watched Rayne take off and then he looked at Miracle and said nothing more as he ran for his car to go after her.

"Oh fuck!" Miracle frowned, knowing Rayne was going to put herself in some kind of danger and he ran for his car and speeded out after Dizon in a three car chase.

Miracle pulled up at Dizon's house and ran inside just as Rayne smashed the monitor with the bat and knocked it off the desk.

"How do you like that?!" She screamed and went to smash the tower only for Dizon to grab the bat and the two fought over it, struggling as they stumbled across the room. "It's mine!"

"Guys, stop!" Miracle screamed and looked over and picked up the tower and yanked it around, yanking the cords free and he tossed it towards the window, though he wasn't very strong, the glass did shatter but the tower didn't exactly fly out the window, rather it hit and simply fell to the floor.

Dizon twisted his head around and Rayne yanked her bat away from him.

Miracle looked between the two. "Rayne!" He looked at her. "I told you not to do this...you're carrying my child!" Miracle sighed. "I didn't think I wanted one...but I was scared to death something would happen to it..." He looked over at Dizon. "And you...just get out of the fucking picture! Let it go! You don't have any cards left to play, trust me, if you fuck with me again, Rumor will make you sorry!"

Dizon fell down to sit on his bed and brought his hands up to the sides of his head. "I don't know what's wrong with me...I just wanted to worship you."

"Yeah? Well, you need help." Miracle walked closer and lowered to the floor, easing closer to Dizon and he grabbed his wrists, pulling his hands down. "Look up."

Dizon looked up as Miracle took his hands. "I know what it's like to have your mind twisted, to be messed up, and it hurts bad, to try to live in a world made in a way that...was not made for you. No...you were made to believe in another world, one that doesn't exist. It's not fair, but all you can do is your best to accept this world...and try to live in it." He leaned up and softly kissed Dizon and then eased back.

Dizon listened to Miracle and his face tensed up, the urge to cry wanting to take over and after that soft and simple kiss, the silent tears fell from his eyes.

"I want you to promise me something." Miracle said.

"What?" Dizon asked, the sound of crying slipped out with his single word.

"That you will get help...and find peace. And...let me do the same? Right? You care for me, don't you want me to have peace too?"

"Of course I do, you're so perfect, you deserve all the best of the world." Dizon nodded.

"Then let me go, love yourself...and find your own angel...when the time is right...and you will know when it is, because you will feel it." Miracle nodded.

"Okay." Dizon sighed.

Miracle let go of his hands and slowly stood up and he looked at Rayne. "Lets go?"

Rayne nodded and waited until they got outside before she said anything. "You handled that well."

"Maybe, an obsession is not an easy thing to kill, I hope he will listen." Miracle looked up at Rayne. "Being sick isn't fun." He said, his own eyes filled with tears.

Rayne walked over. "I'm sorry." She hugged Miracle. "Maybe you shouldn't drive. I can drive your car, he won't go crazy if I come back for mine."

Miracle shook his head and pulled away from the hug after a moment. "No, we got out of this mess, lets just make a clean break."

Cheston stood behind Miracle at the mirror in their master bathroom. He slowly slid the white robe off Miracle's shoulders and let it fall to the floor and grinned. "This is it, the last seven days..."

Miracle took a deep breath, staring at the bandage on his chest and he closed his eyes and grinned, the hint of a laugh escaping. "Okay, take it off."

Cheston smiled and reached over Miracle's shoulder and slowly started taking the bandage off, it was a bit of work with the tape, but he managed to get it off.

Miracle winced at the tape as it yanked at his skin. "Ow...ow! Ouch!" Then he jerked forward when Cheston gave it that final big yank to finally get it off. "Ow! That hurt!" Miracle's eyes opened and he looked at himself, his skin was a little red still, but the scar was completely gone, as if nothing had ever happened.

"Don't worry, that's just irritation, and bandage marks..." Cheston said, his smile slowly appearing. "It's gone, all the way gone. Just what you wanted."

Miracle smiled and reached up, rubbing his chest and he nodded. "It's gone." He turned around and looked at Cheston. "It's weird, it's like having the power to erase something bad."

Cheston smiled and his eyebrows lifted. "You did erase something bad. You hated it, and so...like an enemy, you defeated it."

Miracle wrapped his arms around Cheston. "Couldn't of done it without you." His eyes shifted to the side. "Even when I was mad at you, I kinda had to rob you to do it...so I still needed you."

Cheston lightly laughed. "Yeah, you had to rob me. But, now we are joint on everything, and that's how I want it to be."

Miracle nodded and his smile faded. "Yeah, unfortunately, we might not have anything to be joint on if we have to give it all up, which...I'm willing to do. I lived on the run with barely nothing for a year...and then after that, my dad and Andy ran a tight budget, I think I could handle it."

Cheston frowned. "If only that were the only problem, he wants someone destroyed, one of us."

Miracle looked up at Cheston. "He wants you destroyed. He contacted me again after I left from my last appointment, I stopped at a McDonalds parking lot. I just...had this mood swing and had to pull over. He said he hoped you self sacrificed because he would hate to, then he trailed off. He wants you destroyed, though he's still willing to take me down."

Cheston slowly nodded. "So it's someone who hates me."

"I asked him if he was the guy, the one who's boyfriend had a seizure, he told me that we better just think about our three options. I told him we had a fourth, we could both go down together, give the estate to Rayne and my child." Miracle explained.

Cheston took a deep breath. "That's a fourth option, one I'm unwilling to take. You aren't going to prison."

"If only I hadn't been so stupid and wrote that diary." Miracle shook his head. "It was just so stupid, I didn't think anyone would get it...or mess with it."

"I was stupid to photo copy it onto my computer." Cheston stepped back. "I guess the mood is killed for our shower..."

Miracle's bottom lip stuck out in an odd expression and then he picked his robe up and pulled it on, tying it around himself. "Think Donnie could do it?"

"Wouldn't he be more angry with you? I mean, you promised him a bunch of money." Cheston shook his head. "No way he could do it." Cheston looked out into the bedroom. "Want some ice cream or anything?"

Miracle half grinned. "Birthday cake, but remember to make it kinda melty in the microwave."

Cheston grinned and laughed. "That is so odd, micro-waving ice cream." Cheston walked out of the bathroom and left the bedroom.

Miracle smiled and walked into the bedroom when his phone rang and he grabbed it and answered. "Hello?"

Godfrey grinned. "It's me, can you talk?" He spoke softly so that his voice didn't echo from the phone.

"For a minute, Cheston is...micro-waving my ice cream, but it only takes like fifteen seconds to half melt it." Miracle walked over to the window.

"Microwave ice cream? Why don't you just get milk shakes?" Godfrey softly laughed.

"Because no one sales birthday cake flavored milk shakes." Miracle grinned.

"By the way, what am I labeled as, on your phone?" Godfrey asked.

"Labeled? Oh, in case he's around? Oh, I just labeled you under my friend Rayne as mobile two. So either way it shows up Rayne, so actually I'll be slightly surprised. I did that because Rayne knows, so I feel safe."

Godfrey went quiet. "Rayne..knows? How much does she know? She doesn't know my name, right?"

Miracle looked up, confused. "Uh...no, why? I just told her..." Miracle twisted around, seeing Cheston still gone, his voice lowered. "I just told her there was another guy that...I liked being around, that's it."

"Oh..." Godfrey sighed. "Just...don't tell her more than that. I...uh...actually went to school with her...and it wasn't exactly a great time. I don't want old things drug up, you know? So if I can not exist to her, I would feel a lot better."

Miracle looked back out the window. "Sure, yeah, that's fine. I don't really do the gossip thing much anyway. I really didn't need to over share to get my point across to her."

"Well, can I see you tomorrow?"

Miracle smiled. "Yeah, you can." Miracle heard footsteps coming down the hall. "Well, I'm glad things are going good, try not to go crazy on those odd food cravings, I'll see you later, Rayne."

Godfrey grinned. "Peanut butter and pickle sandwiches....bye."

Miracle grinned and hung up. He laid his phone down on the desk beside the French doors and turned around as Cheston walked in with the bowls.

"Sorry, had to fix my own...and then I had a client call."

"Well, speaking of Donnie, was it that case?"

"No, that whole thing was actually just dropped, never heard from any of them again." Cheston stuck out a hand. "One bowl of half melty ice cream."

Miracle grinned and took the bowl and walked over and sat on the bed as Cheston moved to sit on the other side. "So what was it about? I find it hard to believe that you have other cases with the Martin trial going on."

"Well, you can still take cases, build a case load." He looked at Miracle. "Not over load, just...a round so that...when Martins sentencing comes up, I'll have a number of cases to keep me busy and a good work flow coming in."

"Oh, like when it's over." Miracle nodded and stirred his ice cream around, further working to melt it some more. "I see."

Cheston laid back, since he didn't have much of a threat of spilling his ice cream. He took a bite and looked at Miracle. "So, without laser treatments and...things seeming to fall back into place, aside from...the Rumors, what do you plan on doing with yourself?"

Leading a double life? That would be what he would of said, if he didn't have to hide this double life from Cheston. "I guess...just hanging around the house." He looked at Cheston. "I know, that's wasting myself...but, it's all I can do. And yeah, it makes me sad, I used to think it was because I lacked potential, maybe it still is, or maybe I just lack knowing what I want...because really I just lack knowing who I am."

Cheston slowly nodded. "I wish I had majored in psychology, maybe I could be more helpful to you. I do read, though. I have, sometimes on lunch breaks, stuff like that. I try to educate myself on understanding you and...I do that to have patience, so when I see a symptom, I can mentally just tell myself what is going on."

Miracle scooped up liquidy ice cream and took a bite and a small smile appeared. "That's sweet. You know, I have copies of my files, Sharon has one set of copies, and then I have my own, if you ever want to look at them. Hell, you already read my diary. They will probably read a little more technical."

Cheston smiled. "Sure, but for tonight, I just want to learn from being with you."