1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **It's a story I wrote for the challenge on another site. It was called "Blast from the Past" and the idea was to write a story, where someone from the past would appear in the character's life. This is what I came up with, and I'm happy to say that I actually won in the "Person of Interest" category. I hope you will actually like this story! It's finished, so I will do my best to update daily!

And, a huge thank you to **Fanka77**. I have absolutely no idea what I'd do without your help (and company ^^).

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><p>A satisfied smile made its way onto Myles' face, when he looked at the newspaper and noticed the article on its first page. <em>"Arsonist arrested and sentenced!"<em>. It felt very good to know that the man, who destroyed quite a bit of houses – and, as a result, also lives – was not only caught, but faced justice. Leland was aware that out of all the victims, he was one of those, who were affected the least. Yes, of course, he lost practically all of his belongings but he was still lucky enough to have the insurance policy and some savings, so he could find a new place to live and start to slowly re-buy everything he needed. There were very few of people like him, though; he knew of at least two families, who it was a huge tragedy for and had absolutely no idea what they were going to do in this situation. In their cases, the news didn't really matter now as they were more focused on finding a new place to live, but for Myles, it was a definitely happy news.

He actually planned to be present in the courtroom yesterday, but his plans got effectively ruined by the case they were working on. It was an important case and for the last two days they seemed absolutely stuck, so when the lead appeared on the previous day, they were all working hard to move forward. The only thing they eventually discovered was that it was yet another dead-end, and he felt terribly frustrated when he wasn't able to find any information about the court-martial after he had returned home in the very late evening.

The truth was, that there was a lot of things, which frustrated him when he was at home. First of all, it was the house itself. He bought it from a family, who wanted to urgently get rid of it as they were leaving, so it was a very great opportunity when it came to its price and in general, the place was great but it needed renovation. Not that it was destroyed, but it wasn't anywhere near to what he would like it to be. He didn't like the colours on the walls, the completely not matching pieces of furniture that he was able to quickly get when moving in. The worst place, however, was a garden; he absolutely couldn't understand how someone could plant grass all over it, when the amount of space allowed to create a true work of art., He really couldn't wait to find time to truly go shopping and start working on it all. The problem was that he moved in almost two months earlier and such an opportunity hasn't arisen, yet.

He stood up and humming, made his way out of the cafeteria and to the bullpen. Just like he suspected, most of the team wasn't back, yet but he couldn't help rolling his eyes because of the sight in front of him. He wasn't surprised to see Sue inside, as ever since she transferred to another team in order to officially enter a relationship with Jack, she was visiting them often and was of course very welcome. Still, he definitely didn't expect to find her sitting in Sparky's lap behind the team leader's desk, both so lost in the passionate kiss, that they were completely oblivious to the whole world around them. Even though he wasn't showing it as much, just like everyone else he was very happy to see them finally together, but it seemed that out of all of their friends, he was the one to walk in on them all the time and really hoped that this honeymoon phase, which they seemed to stuck in, was going to pass soon. It was about time, as they were married for six months already!

He cleared his throat, rather loudly, shaking his head and pretending not to see the way they quickly moved away from each other, the deep blush on Sue's face as she stood up an straightened her clothes and rearranged her slightly tousled hair, and the embarrassed look on Sparky's face.

"We were just…" started Jack, but it was clear that he was completely at loss what to say.

"I-I… I came to give you the business card, which you had asked about last week." Sue finally stuttered, and Myles smirked.

"Of course." he mumbled to himself and then turned to face her. "Thank you." he spoke, accepting the card, and glanced down at the small, rigid piece of paper. "Garden of Dreams." he read out-loud.

Even though his initial plan was to take care of it himself, the lack of time didn't allow him to do anything more than actually plan what he wanted to have in the garden and in general, how he wanted to have it arranged. Garden was one of the most important places for him in the whole house; it was the place, where he was spending most of his time when he was at home and eventually decided that hiring a company to do it for him would be the best option. He knew that it was exactly what Jack and Sue did, when they were renovating the house to move in to after wedding, and he really liked the result. Yes, he would change some things every now and then, but the Hudsons gave the company free rain and were very happy with the result, so he felt rather confident that if he kept an eye on them, he could be satisfied with the result, too.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **Wow, thank you very much for the feedback! I didn't expect something like this! It was supposed to appear yesterday, and I realised it when I was already lying in bed, half-asleep, that I didn't update a chapter. I'm sorry! Now, enjoy!

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><p>By the time the clock showed that it was eight in the evening, he was angry; no, not angry – furious. He was quite happy, when he called the gardening company earlier during the day and heard that someone could come to him even on the same day in order to take a look at the place and get to know what he expected. He didn't expect such a possibility, so he had plans for the evening but decided to change them; he really cared to renovate the house and he was actually taking two weeks leave starting on the next Monday in order to work on it, so if they were to start working on his garden at that time, it would give him a perfect opportunity to supervise them and make sure they don't do something wrong.<p>

He came home earlier, forgot about the ticket to the theatre, which was lying in the top drawer and waited for the person to come, but nobody came. And as much as he could understand that something important might have showed up, something what they simply had to take care of immediately, it wasn't too much to expect at least a phone call, letting him know that he shouldn't wait, was it?! Now, his whole evening was ruined and he could have been sitting in the theatre, enjoying the spectacle, not to mention that he should have already had the discussion about the garden behind himself.

There could be no single doubt in the mind of anyone, who knew him, that he was going to call the company as soon as possible on the next day, in order to ask what it was supposed to mean. He was a customer, he was paying for what they were doing and if happy, he could recommend them to others, so in his opinion, they should have been trying to please him, instead of annoying him. Obviously, someone in the company had another opinion, especially that when he finally called, nobody was answering the phone.

"I would be surprised if they did answer this phone." spoke Jack, when Myles voiced his displeasure and the Bostonian raised his eyes at him. "They start working at 11, later than most of the companies and in result finish later than them as well, but this way all the potential customers can find a good hour to meet with them without the need to take a day off at work." explained Sparky, as he was somewhat surprised by it at first, too, and inquired about the reason. "I think you've got those working hours on the business card, anyway."

Leland glanced down at the card, which he was holding in his hand and groaned, placing his cell phone on the desk. Indeed, they were written in quite visible, dark green letters just above the phone number, but he didn't really pay attention to them, assuming they would be standard. He simply needed to make this phone call a little later.

"Toni..?" came a voice of the receptionist and she looked up from the pile of papers lying on her desk. "We've got a problem. There is a man on the line and well, he's rather angered because he had a meeting scheduled for yesterday and nobody showed up. It turns out Sarah wrote his name down in Clayton's schedule and I tried to explain the mistake to him, but he doesn't want to listen…"

Toni sighed heavily, shaking her head. Sarah was a girl, who was supposed to help Rebecca with all her duties now, that the company seemed to be gaining popularity and with the season starting, they had quite a few orders. Rebecca was her dear friend, who she knew back from high school; she was afraid of what it would be to join the group of people, who knew each other for already two years, as she moved to DC in the middle of high school, but it turned out well and they were very close since that time. Now, that she inherited the small gardening company a couple of years earlier, she didn't hesitate to hire her dear friend, even though her knowledge about the gardening was limited to the basics.

Over the six years, the company developed; it was still rather small, but other than her, there were also four other gardeners, all of who were gaining wonderful opinions from everyone, who they worked for. Rebecca was the one, who kept it all neat from the technical side; she was generally responsible for contact with customers, scheduling meetings and making sure that nothing was colliding. Lately, however, her father had gotten really sick and she was on leave quite a lot, needing to take care of him, but nobody complained. Even if another person in the company was actually displeased by it, they didn't dare to voice it since Toni was the owner, and her opinion was the most important. And she perfectly understood her friend, knowing what it felt like to have a sick member of the family. It was the reason why Sarah joined them; she was a young girl, who just finished high school on the previous year. It was her first week with them and she still didn't know everyone and everything, and even though it was frustrating that she had made such a mistake, she couldn't be truly angry at her.

"It would be quite surprising if Clay showed up, since he had his appendix surgery the day before yesterday." murmured Toni. "Switch the call to me."

Rebecca nodded, walking away and soon the phone rang.

"Good luck." she heard her friend's voice, just before she switched the call and prepared herself for what was to come.

She quickly understood what her friend meant by her words. It was clear that the man on the other side was quite angered, and she tried to interrupt his flow of words a couple of times, with no results.

"Sir, of course, I understand!" she finally managed to get in between his words, raising her voice just a little. "It was a very unfortunate mistake made by the girl, who is still learning and we really didn't mean to place you in such a situation. I can promise you that I will personally make sure that it is corrected."

"I certainly hope you will, but how long am I supposed to wait for someone to meet with me, now?" he asked and Toni opened her calendar, glancing at the empty sheet of paper.

"I can meet with you even today, if it suits you." she spoke and was met with a moment of silence.

"Five o'clock?" she finally heard and wrote down the address, which the man gave to her.

She breathed out, when she placed the phone back on its base. The man definitely didn't sound like the preferred kind of customers, but those difficult ones needed to be satisfied too and the truth was, that they usually brought much more benefits. All she could do was make herself ready to face him and hope, that she would somehow survive it. Still, she couldn't help wondering what she has just gotten herself into.


	3. Chapter 3

It really couldn't have gotten any worse. She was quite used to being the one to deal with the most difficult of their customers, but all the experience she had gathered from all those times weren't able to prepare her to face this man. She could work for pedantic, demanding people, who wanted everything to be perfect; for those, who were constantly finding the smallest of details, which was wrong and were practically impossible to be truly satisfied and those, who thought themselves geniuses even though they had absolutely no idea about gardening or arranging anything. But the moment he opened the door, she wished she could turn around, leave and send someone else instead.

Yes, she had the name of the customer, which she was supposed to meet with but according to Sarah's scribbles he was a Mr. Reland, the first name being completely unreadable. But even if she had read the name correctly, she would have never suspect to see _him_. After all, what was the chance, that almost twenty years after leaving Boston she would run into a person, who was the reason why she had come to DC? She would mark it as 'practically impossible to happen' without hesitation. And yet, here she was, standing right in front of him.

Despite all the years, which have passed since the last time they saw each other, she didn't have any problems recognizing him. He has matured, of course, it was absolutely inevitable; he had different hair-style and wasn't as slim as a rake anymore, but everything else was absolutely the same. The way he straightened himself upon meeting with someone for the first time, his clothing all so very impeccable, the way he looked down at her with this characteristic, slightly disdainful gaze in his blue eyes and this aura of self-importance surrounding him; it all shouted how much he really was the very same Myles Leland the third, which she knew back from Boston.

As her eyes fell on his tall figure, she found herself utterly speechless. She was completely shocked and also somewhat surprised. It wasn't like the thought of meeting him has never crossed her mind; yes, she did think about it as something, what had no chance of ever happening, but she has never been truly able to totally forget about him and her mind sometimes wandered into the sphere of 'what if'. If someone had asked her, what she thought that she would feel upon meeting him, she would have surely listed fury as the most certain feeling. Now, however, she could feel her heart beat a little quicker in her chest, she had this funny feeling inside her stomach, but there was no sign of even the smallest of anger. She winced slightly the moment she realised, that she actually seemed to find herself attracted to him, and it definitely wasn't helping. She was so focused on comparing the present Myles to the one she remembered, that she didn't notice the change in his features, when he recognised her as well.

He has always known that he would have to be blind in order not to recognise Toni Rodriguez, no matter how much time passed. Her black hair was much shorter than it used to be, barely reaching her shoulders, there were hints of wrinkles on her face, an obvious sign of the years that passed. Still, there were those unforgettable brown, almost black eyes, ice-cold when she was angry, and warm as a fire when she was with those, who she cared about; this perfect little nose, which she was creasing so cutely whenever she was displeased with something; not to mention this worth-dying-for body, with wonderful curves in all the right places.

The last time he had the chance to see her was eighteen years earlier, when he was leaving for college, but she seemed to still have this effect on him. It has never been a secret back in high school, that her glance was capable of making the ever-eloquent Myles Leland lose the ability to speak and it wasn't any different now. He was just making himself ready to voice his displeasure about the whole situation once again, and everything he was capable of now was staring as if he has just seen a ghost.

"Toni Rodriguez…" he murmured, looking at her in disbelief, breaking the silence. "Of all the possible people…"

"Quite unexpected, huh?" she asked, making a face which very clearly showed just how uncomfortable she felt.

"Quite is actually a very big understatement." stated Myles. "I didn't know that you live in DC..."

"Well, I do. For almost twenty years now."

"I see."

Uncomfortable silence fell between them once again, as neither of them knew what to say. The way their ways parted didn't really leave a chance for a very friendly reunion. He wasn't oblivious to the hostile tone of her voice, which made it clear that she wasn't happy to see him at all. He didn't really know how he felt about it, as he had lost hope that he would ever get to see her again a very long time ago. A part of him wanted to drown her in questions, know exactly why she disappeared the way she did, yet at the same time, he wasn't sure he truly wanted to know it.

"Perhaps you should show me your garden." she eventually suggested and Myles nodded his head.

"Of course. Straight to business as usual, I see." he said, moving to the side to let her in and led her through the house into the backyard. "You, owning and working in a gardening company… I have to admit that it's quite fitting."

"Yes, well… Some people actually need to work hard to make a living. Anyway, do you have any particular wishes as to what you want to see here?"

In fact, he had and she listened carefully as he explained everything in a very detailed way. It was clear that he gave it a lot of thinking and that he wasn't just a simple layman in the subject but a person, who knew what they were talking about. Of course, gardening has always been his passion and it was yet another thing, which hadn't changed a bit about him. She was making precise notes, at the same time observing the animated way he was speaking about it all, walking around. And, as much as she wanted to ignore it, it was impossible not to pay attention to his handsome features, the way his eyes sparkled with passion during his speech or how his muscles flexed as he was moving around.

She groaned, shaking her head and trying to push those thoughts away from her head. It was going to be one of the most challenging projects in her whole professional career.


	4. Chapter 4

He let out a relieved sigh, when the door closed behind her and rested his forehead against the cool surface. As much as he was capable of acting like this meeting had absolutely no influence on him, it was very far from the truth. Despite the fact that the last time he saw her was eighteen years earlier, the moment he realised it was her, all the feelings which were haunting him for a very long time after her sudden disappearance and which he believed he managed to completely suppress, emerged from a place deep in his heart that would always belong to her.

It seemed quite a popular belief that even if those relationship didn't work out, people would never forget the people, who they kissed for the first time in their lives, who they have fallen in love for the first time and their first lovers. For him, all of them were one and the very same person and he could wholeheartedly agree that the theory was true. Even though he gave up the hope that he would ever get to see her again a long time ago and was through a few relationship, he has never really forgotten Toni Rodriguez. He could still remember the first time he laid his eyes on her and his feelings upon seeing her now, after all those years, didn't seem to be that much different from that moment.

_He was just seventeen-years-old and just came back home from one of the trips, which his parents used to send him and his sister during school-breaks and holidays. The main disadvantage it had for them was that it was only a week long, and the only reason why he wasn't sent to spend the remaining week at his grandmother's was that the woman was going on a cruise with her new man-friend. He just went out to spend some time in the garden, which has always been his favourite place in the house because of the hiding spot in the back, where he could go whenever he wanted to spend some time alone and didn't have to worry about being bothered. He only managed to step out of the house, when his eyes fell on the girl, struggling while she was trying to carry a big flower pot with beautiful, exotic flowers – amaryllis, as he later found out – to the other end of the garden. _

_ The sight made him stop dead in his tracks. As pathetic as it was, especially that he was never really hiding his disregard for all those boys, who ran after girls because of their good look and didn't seem to care about nothing else, he actually found himself stunned. She was in every possible way, the most beautiful girl he has ever laid his eyes on. She was quite a few inches shorter than him and had an absolutely gorgeous body. He couldn't understand why most of the representatives of the fair sex seemed to think that guys preferred skinny girls with sticking out bones, what really wasn't an interesting sight. Even more, he couldn't understand why most of the guys seemed to give them the reason to think so, as most of them didn't pay attention to the girl, who didn't look like a skeleton clothed in a skin. The girl in front of him, however, had a great, curvy body, and he couldn't deny that her whole appearance was breathtaking. She looked tanned, although he later learnt that it was actually her natural skin colour as even though she was born in the States, she had a Latino origin; her black hair was falling down her shoulders in very pretty waves and when it came to her eyes, when he actually got to knew her, he often found himself melting into a puddle when she would look up at him. For seventeen-year-old Myles Leland the third, she was a walking image of perfection. _

_Still, even though he has taken a few girls to dates a couple of times, he has never really had a real girlfriend; any bit of hope that he had was quite quickly disappearing after one or two meetings with any candidate. Reasons were various; some were really pretty, but it was everything they had to offer and there was no chance for a real conversation with them, some wanted to date him simply because his family was quite influential and hoped that good relations with him would bring them some benefits, and the others, who were quite nice, were finding him absolutely insufferable and didn't want to have anything to do with him. He often found himself teased because of it, but what could he do? He has never been a person, who was making friends easily and it was even worse, when it came to the girls. So, even though the girl in front of him took his breath away for a good moment and made his heart skip a beat, he didn't raise his hopes high. _

_It was the ever-so-proper gentleman in him, that actually made him approach her. The flower pot was obviously causing her a lot of troubles, and it simply wouldn't do for him to just stare at her when she was in need of some help. So he walked to her and suggested that he could carry it wherever she wanted to take it._

"_How long do you work with Mr. Rodriguez?" he asked, his curiosity raised quite high as he has never seen her earlier. _

"_It depends how you look at it. I've been helping him since I was strong enough to carry and manage a watering can, gradually learning more tasks as I grew up. My dad says that I have a gift and if I plant something, when he wants it to grow a little before he would set it in its final place, he is sure that it will actually grow." she explained, as she led him through the garden. _

"_Oh, you're his daughter!" he exclaimed, obviously surprised. "I've heard him praise you a lot of times! Still, I would have never guessed that you're Tori. Terri!" he immediately corrected himself and when he noticed an amused expression on her face, he realised that he still had it wrong. "Tammy...? Tracy?" he groaned, feeling terribly embarrassed when she laughed. "I'm sure it's something starting with the letter T." he mumbled and his eyes widened, when he felt the touch of her small hand on his arm and saw her smile at him. _

"_You're right, it does start with a T. In fact, you were close the very first time. It's Toni." _

"_I'm Myles, it's nice to meet you. So, you're helping your dad around?" _

"_Yeah, a couple of days ago he mentioned that the family suddenly came up with a brilliant idea to decorate the garden for some sort of gathering and there is no way he's going to finish everything by himself on time. From what I understand, the family living here is rather pompous and he didn't want to risk angering them with saying that he has too little time, so he asked if I felt up to helping him for some extra pocket-money. He didn't know that I actually hoped I'd get to help him some day, and I didn't really made him aware of that and…" she got quiet all of the sudden, blushing and while he sent her a questioning look, he also noted that she looked very cute this way. "I talk too much…" she explained and it was his turn to smile at her. _

"_I don't mind." he said, and it was somewhat surprising to him, but he truly meant it._

_Usually, he was easily annoyed by talkative people, but he didn't mind her chatter at all. In fact, he found it rather interesting and amusing, especially the comment she made about his family. He was somewhat shocked by it and probably under different circumstances he would feel offended, but this time he somehow didn't. It was obvious she had absolutely no idea, who he was and because of this one statement, decided that it would probably be safer if she stayed oblivious for some more time. _

"_Do you have anything else, that you could use a hand with?" he asked, when he placed the flower pot in the place, which she pointed to him._

"_No, I'll be fine with the rest. Thanks very much for your help." she stated with a smile, which made her whole face light up and he immediately found himself speechless and unable to take his eyes off her. _

"_You're welcome." he eventually managed to stutter and nodded his head before turning around and walking away, with his heart thundering in his chest. _

_He didn't see that she actually stood there for a moment simply watching as he was walking away, biting on her bottom lip. She could feel her heartbeat quicken, when she raised her gaze upon hearing his voice and looked straight into a pair of incredible blue eyes. There was something about him, what made her feel act like a blabbering fool and she was pretty sure that her heart was going to jump out of her chest, when he actually smiled at her. She hid her face in her hands, feeling the heat radiating from her cheeks and shook her head; why on Earth she was suddenly acting so silly?! _

_She jumped, blushing even deeper as she got out of this small reverie, when she heard her father clear his throat and looked at him to notice that he was watching her with his eyebrows raised, and most probably witnessed at least a bit of what happened. _

"_Myles just helped me carry the flower pot." she said, feeling suddenly abashed and the man nodded his head, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. _

"_I know I'm saying this about every boy, which you happen to meet since you turned thirteen, but this is one, who you should really stay away from. For your own good." _

"_You know, he actually seemed quite nice and I can't see what harm could come out of getting to know him." she said and rolled her eyes, when she noticed the frown on her father's face. "Oh, please!" _

"_Fine, fine." he said, raising his hand as a sign of giving up. "What can I do, I really hate the idea that my baby girl might be actually interested in boys."_

"_You know Dad, I'm fifteen. I can hardly be called a baby. And I never said that I was interested in Myles THIS WAY!" although, she couldn't deny that he was quite charming and this was this sort of funny but endearing, gallantry way that he seemed to treat her in. _

"_And you better don't be! I can only imagine his parents' reaction if they were to ever find out about it!" seeing the questioning look she had sent him, he realised that the boy obviously didn't made her aware of who he was. "He is the Lelands' son." _

"_WHAT?!" she exclaimed, staring at her father in disbelief mixed with mortification. "I just called his family pompous..!" she admitted, and looked at the man with reproach when he started to laugh. That would be it from making a good first impression._

He actually chuckled at the memory of her face expression after her father must have informed her about his identity. As he was walking away, he kept fighting the urge to turn around and finally couldn't prevent himself anymore. It was when she had already turned to Antonio and wasn't even aware that he was looking at her, and he felt really relieved because of it.

Straightening himself, he started to walk around the house in order to look for some occupation, what would take his mind safe from drifting off to her. All the feelings and memories, which he has fought for so long to get rid of, seemed to be coming back with full force and there was only one thing, which he was certain about. If she was to keep her word and engage in arranging his garden herself, it was going to be a very challenging period of time for him.


	5. Chapter 5

_Just because for the next two weeks they didn't exchange a word, it didn't mean that they were completely ignoring each other. Yes, Toni felt so ashamed of herself that she tried to avoid him; whenever she spotted he was anywhere near, she immediately focused on her work and acted like she didn't see him, but she was just pretending. She couldn't understand her own reaction, it was shocking and frustrating that she wasn't able to control it, yet every time her eyes fell on him, even accidentally, she could feel her heartbeat quicken. For more than a couple of times she found herself watching him, her eyes following him as he was walking through the garden, subconsciously chewing her bottom lip and wishing that she had a little more courage to approach and at least apologize for her comment that day. When he turned and caught her staring, as it couldn't be called anything else, she felt the ground would part and swallow her, blushing deeply and quickly looking away. _

_Still, when one day she glanced in the direction of the tree, which she used to find him sitting under and he wasn't there, her face fell and she found that she had even bigger difficulties focusing on her tasks than she had with his presence. Her mind was constantly drifting off to wonders, where he was and she wasn't able to prevent it. It was ridiculous; how could she feel a pang of jealousy at the thought that he was somewhere else, when they didn't even know each other?! _

_What she didn't know was that he was actually in his bedroom. He thought that by staying inside he would be able to study for quickly approaching history test, but there was one huge obstacle. His windows faced the gardens and no matter how hard he tried to focus on the book, he was catching himself reading the same sentence over and over again. The thought that all he needed to do was approach the window to see her kept bugging him, and at one point he finally shut the book close and just did that. Resting his forearms on the windowsill, he smiled when he saw her figure as she worked on pruning his mother's lilacs. _

_He was a little surprised to see her there just a week earlier. She pretty much admitted to him that she was helping her father ready the representative space of the garden for the social gathering, which they were throwing for their acquaintances and when he spotted her walking next to her father on Monday, he wasn't sure which of his feelings was stronger – happiness to see her or fear, because he knew how difficult it would be to think of anything else knowing she was near. And, as much as he tried to push those thoughts away and ignore it, he couldn't deny it any longer – he had a huge crush on her. _

_There was nothing he could do about it, though. They were from two completely different leagues. She was stunningly beautiful and he wasn't amongst who was considered the most handsome guys; from what he inquired, she was quite popular and he, well, was not. Not to mention that he was, after all, destined for the Ivy League, while she was just his family gardener's daughter! He couldn't think about relationship with her, and even if the difference between their social standing wasn't so meaningful, she surely wouldn't be interested in anything anyway. Still, he wanted to get to know her better and Myles Leland the third was always getting what he wanted. _

_She probably wouldn't be aware that he was watching her if it wasn't for a sneeze. It was a warm day, so his window was wide open and he was somewhat surprised that she didn't notice him, especially that he didn't try to hide. All she needed was to look up, but she didn't and probably wouldn't have if it wasn't for some pollen, which made him sneeze, rather loudly. She was obviously alarmed by it, convinced she was alone and he heard her exclaim, and noticed that everything she was holding in her hands was now lying on the ground. _

"_I apologize." he spoke, making her jump once again but this time instead of looking around, she simply glanced up. "Didn't mean to startle you." _

"_It's okay." she mumbled, blushing as she realised that she was so bothered about what he was doing while in fact, he was simply inside._

"_Wait a second." he said, disappearing from the window and few minutes later she saw him walking in her direction. _

"_I didn't think you were home." she said, when they stood for a moment in a complete, horribly uncomfortable silence, desperately looking for something to talk about. "It wasn't like I was thinking about you or something… I mean, I was but it's not that I..." she groaned loudly, hiding her flushed face in her hands. "I'm such an idiot." she mumbled, a little louder than she thought, making him chuckle. She jumped, when she felt his hand on her shoulder and shyly raised her eyes, blushing even deeper as she noticed the amused look on his face. _

"_Don't worry." he said, his lips widening just a little in a small, reassuring smile and she could feel her heart jump, starting to beat faster, and all the butterflies in her stomach come to life. For a moment, she found herself lost in this blue eyes, that he had, and only the way he raised his eyebrows brought her back from this little daze, making her cheeks even redder if it was even possible. "Is there anything I can help you with?" he asked, pointing to the tools and she shook her head._

"_I've just finished." she said with a smile and he frowned, realising that no matter how much he tried to suppress this attraction, it still made his heart skip a beat and took his breath away. Her face immediately fell, when she noticed the expression on his and blinked a few times in order to prevent tears from filling her eyes. "Get a grip on yourself, girl, and stop acting like a lovesick idiot." she reproved herself in her mind._

"_What would you say about a walk?" he asked, making her eyes light up and her heart jump once again."I mean, if you don't have anything better to do, what you would rather occupy yourself with..."_

"_Actually, I would love to." she admitted, chewing on her bottom lip nervously as she perceived just how eager she sounded, but he didn't seem to pay that much attention to it. _

_He surprised her by offering her his arm, but she took it and even though all the conversation they had was limited to a small talk, as they were both distracted with the other and their own reactions to their company and neither was able to truly focus, they didn't mind and agreed that it was a really great afternoon. _


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: **Thanks to everyone, who give me comments for this story. It means a lot to me! Myles is a very difficult character to write about and I still don't think that I am able to do him justice, but when this idea came to my mind, I decided to go for it. There aren't a lot of stories about him, and I thought that I could have this little bit of originality. Personally, I love Myles, he's great! Well, all of characters are, but there is something about him that makes me like him VERY much. Back to the point, it's very nice to see positive comments for this crazy little idea and I hope you'll continue to enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

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><p>Toni sighed, as she reached the car and sat in the driver's seat. Even though she somehow managed to keep her composure during the visit, now that she left his house, she was right on the edge of losing it. Her eyes were filling with tears and she was desperately blinking them away; she couldn't start crying now, she had absolutely no idea how long it was going to take for her to calm down and she wasn't crazy enough to drive, crying. So, she started the engine and drove away, trying to get to her apartment as quickly as possible, but at the same time, without causing any danger on the way. And as she was making her way home, the flood of long buried memories continued.<p>

_ After that day, they started to spend a lot of time together. He has never really had much of a social life; yes, he had a few friends, but even this word was a little too much to call them. He was hanging out with them, but he didn't have doubts that they accepted him only because of the benefits, that his company brought. It was however the moment, when he stopped spending his time out of school with anyone other than Toni. He was coming back home straight after school or any additional classes, that he was going to and always looked for her. She was the reason why he actually got interested in gardening; as much as he enjoyed walks or simple conversations with her, while sitting in some nice place in the garden, she knew what responsibility was and the most important thing was always the task, which she was given. When they were working together, it was always done much faster and they could simply enjoy each other's company afterwards. _

_ When they managed to develop some sort of immunity to each other's charm – even though of course, they never stopped being affected by all those little things – and the uncomfortable awkwardness disappeared, they learnt a lot about each other, and all of those discoveries only made them fall for the other even more._

_ What he got to know about her only ensured him in his initial belief, that their 'worlds' were too different. They were attending two completely different schools, as he was going to the best private high school in Boston, which his family was connected to for generations as his ancestors were one of its founders and all the next generations had a huge respect to their legacy, while Toni was in a casual public high school, but he managed to find out that she was quite a popular girl. He wasn't surprised, in fact he believed that it would be strange if she wasn't noticed by other guys with her looks and personality. Still, he couldn't help feeling jealous and it definitely made him feel better when it also reached him that it was very difficult, bordering on impossible, not to be turned down by her when asking her out and she didn't accept any invitation ever since they actually started to spend time together. While it was a fact, that she was quite a talkative person, she was also a very good listener. For the very first time he has met a person, who not only wouldn't mind his fondness of sharing what he thought were interesting facts with others, but who truly paid attention to what he was saying and showed interested in what he was talking about._

_One of the first thing, that Toni realised about Myles was that he completely lacked a sense of humour. She couldn't help feeling a little offended at first, when a couple of times she told him a funny story and he not only didn't start to laugh, but the look he sent her didn't leave any doubts that he didn't find it amusing at all. It didn't mean though, that he didn't laugh or didn't make her do it; jokes might have not been his thing, but he had a lot of interesting stories, which he could share with her all of them were very interesting and even some of them funny, although he wasn't always aware of that. He was intelligent and had this slightly funny and old-fashioned, but very endearing manner, which she actually started to really like about him. Almost all of the guys she knew were usually straightforward, sometimes to the point of rudeness, but Myles was different. She understood why a lot of people found him boring and claimed that he acted more like a forty-year-old than a teenager, but she never knew why they were holding it so much against him. He was always a very proper gentleman, who would never dare to cross any boundaries that she might have placed between them, even to the point of exaggeration. She really tried very hard to keep her father's words in mind, remember that any relationship that might - by some miracle - come out of their acquaintance, had absolutely no future and yet, the more time she spent with him, the more her love for him grew. _

_Because as much as they tried to suppress and deny it, their crush was evolving and they were actually slowly falling in love with each other. No matter what they tried to do to prevent it, their feelings to one another were only growing stronger and they could see the hints, that the other was feeling the very same way, although Toni was the only one interpreting them in the right way. Myles, as much as it would make him really happy to see that the girl, who seemed to be taken right out of his dreams and fantasies and placed in front of him, reciprocated his feelings, seemed absolutely oblivious to any hint that she was dropping. He made her feel really frustrated at times; there were moments, when she was almost one hundred percent sure that he would kiss her, and then she would suddenly come back to Earth and realise, that it wasn't going to happen. She couldn't help feeling a little ashamed because of it, even though her best friend and confidant tried to convince her that there was nothing wrong with wanting to be kissed by a guy, who she obviously liked and felt attracted to. Yet, no matter what she was trying to do to force him to make it clear to her whether their connection was going one way or another, even if it would mean for her hopes to get brutally crushed, it seemed hopeless; there was no reaction on his side. _

_It was on one evening, that she actually thought that would finally make a move. Her heart almost jumped out of her chest, when he reached out her hand and touched her face, gently stroking her cheek with his thumb. She leaned into his touch, sighing quietly; he swallowed hard, seeing her response to the gesture, which he actually failed to prevent himself from making. He was afraid it would mean crossing the line, offending her in some way and he definitely wasn't ready to face her disappearance from his life. It seemed inevitable that it would happen sooner or later, and even though the thought seemed difficult to accept, he actually learnt to do that, settling for the most distant later as it was only possible. Yet, in this very moment, he couldn't imagine that he would be able to ever survive it. All he was able to focus was just how wonderfully beautiful she was, how the sight of her sparkling dark eyes made his heart beat even quicker and how much she wanted to kiss those full, tempting lips. _

_She was truly shocked, when she realised that he had leaned down and his face was now barely few inches away from hers. She subconsciously licked her lips, parting them a little while her eyelids lowered, while she had difficulties to focus on anything other than her thundering heart and butterflies in her stomach. She couldn't help allowing the sound - which clearly showed her disappointment, to leave her lips and she found it absolutely impossible to prevent tears from filling her eyes, when she eventually felt him press his lips against the soft skin of her cheek. _

"_What's wrong with me?" she asked before she was able to bite her tongue and get rid of the tears. _

"_W-What do you mean?" he asked, taken aback by the sight in front of him and felt his stomach clench when he realised, that he must have made her upset. _

"_What is wrong with me, Myles? I bet that if I dated any other guy, he would at least try to kiss me after less than half the time, that we have spent together..! Yet, the only one that I would actually let to do it, is completely not interested so there must be something with me, that…" he interrupted, placing a finger against her lips and silencing her effectively. _

"_There is __**nothing**__ wrong with you. You're absolutely perfect in every way."_

"_Then why..? Because I'm so much lower than you? Because you're from the local elite, while I am a daughter of a casual cleaner and a mere gardener, who emigrated to US looking for a better life and future?" _

"_What?! Of course not!" _

_He was just about to say something else when he felt her hands cup his face, and she stood on her toes, placing her lips against his. It seemed like time stopped in this very moment, like everything else besides her stopped existing and all his doubts and resistance disappeared in just a second. How many times did he dream, that he would get to experience this one day? Her lips were just as soft and sweet as he imagined, but what he felt exceeded all of his expectations. He leaned down a little, slightly reducing the height-difference between them and wrapped his arm around her waist, holding her close while he kissed her back. The kiss was short and neither of them had any previous experience that they could have placed in it, but it still left both of them breathless. _

"_Toni…" he sighed, looking at her and brushing a strand of her hair behind her ear. "I…" he started, but there seemed to be none words, which were right for what he wanted to say. _

_He has never been good with speaking about his feelings, but in this very moment he found himself unable to voice any of them. Luckily for him, she could actually read all of them in his eyes and the smile on his face made him feel better. _

"_I know." was everything she said, just before she stood on her toes once again to kiss his cheek and walked away, leaving him with a much brighter and colourful vision of the nearest future. _


	7. Chapter 7

Rebecca was standing in the kitchen and chopping vegetables for dinner, when she heard someone knock at the door. She felt surprised, as she didn't expect any visitors and left everything in the kitchen, slowly making her way to open the door. She gasped, when she noticed her best friend outside, her face wet with tears, which were flowing down her cheeks. She had no doubts that she had to be coming home from the meeting with the difficult client, and she immediately started to wonder what happened to leave Toni in such a state.

"It was _him_." was everything her friend managed to sob out before losing it completely.

Rebecca wrapped her arms around her, led her to the couch and sitting down, pulled her close. Already in the middle of the way home, Toni knew that there was absolutely no way she would make it home. It was getting more and more difficult to control her emotions with every passing second and because her friend lived nearby, and always managed to make her feel better, she didn't hesitate to turn her car in the direction of her apartment. And there she was now, sitting on the couch in Rebecca's arms, crying her heart out.

It was something, what used to happen very often after she arrived in DC. There were a lot of reasons behind her family's moving from Boston, but all of them were pretty much results of one meaningful cause, which also made her experience a rather big depression. Rebecca was the only one, who even tried to get to know her, when she joined her class in the middle of term and she didn't have doubts that it must have been caused by the fact that she was an outsider herself. It didn't matter why, though; what was truly important for both of them was that they grew very close and soon their bond was more similar to that of very close sisters, than to what friends usually shared. They were both helping each other a lot during all the years, that they knew each other and Toni didn't have any doubts that Rebecca played a very big part in getting her out of this terrible state, which she was in when they first met.

"How could I not realise it? How could I not recognise this voice?! How could I…" remarked Toni, when she regained her composure enough to speak, but was soon interrupted.

"Can you start at the beginning, Toni? I think I'm a little lost…" stated the red-head, watching her friend with a questioning look in her eyes.

"Remember the guy, who called today and complained, that we were supposed to meet with him yesterday but nobody showed up and who I went to meet with…"

"Of course I do. What did he do to you to leave you in such a state?"

"He didn't do anything… At least anything besides being himself… Being _HIM_." Toni's eyes filled with tears once again and she hid her face in her hands. "How could I not realise it?!"

"I think I still don't know who do you…" she started, but the look on her friend's face, one that she saw there a lot of times, especially back in high school, made the realisation what she was speaking about dawn on her. "As in this _HIM_?" she asked, just to be certain they were thinking about one person. "Your ex-boyfriend from Boston? The guy, who you…"

"Yes! The very one!" whined the brunette. "What am I supposed to do now? How am I supposed to keep my promise and work for him, when just a short hour in his company has such an effect on me?!"

"Oh, believe me! I can't name a person, who would be more professional than you and if there is anyone, who can face it – it's you. You're able to overcome any obstacle; isn't it the reason why you always take the most difficult orders and deal with the most demanding customers?"

"It's different when you deal with a stranger, Becky! This time it's simply too much, I can't do it…"

"I hate to say that, but I'm afraid you don't have much of a choice… With Clay in the hospital and the rest having a lot of order themselves, there is nobody who can take care of it instead of you…"

"Don't you think that I know that?! I would rather not irritate him even more than he was because of Sarah's mistake, by making him wait for someone to miraculously find time in their schedule… He would have my head because of it!"

"Then you have to find a way to keep your emotions at bay, be the professional that I know and deal with this order. I am certain that you can do it, Toni."

"It's good to know that at least you have faith in it…" sighed the brunette, offering her friend a small smile. "Do you know what is the worst about it all?"

"You weren't able to control yourself and you've made him a huge scene, the moment you recognised him?" asked Rebecca, making her friend chuckle.

"I'm still attracted to him! He broke my heart and ruined my whole life, and yet, I can't even bring myself to hate him! Instead, I can't help getting lost in this blue eyes, which are haunting me for almost twenty years now or thinking how despite getting older, he actually got more attractive than I remember him as a teenager!"

Rebecca had a very difficult time trying to prevent the huge grin, from making its way onto her face as she watched her friend carefully. She could see how much Toni was affected by this unexpected reunion, just one glance was enough for her not to have any doubts about that. She knew her friend, though, and she wasn't surprised that her reaction seemed to be a confirmation to what she had started to believe, but never had enough courage to voice. No matter how much she tried to convince herself that she absolutely hated him and forget about him, at least a tiny part of Toni never truly moved on. She heard quite a lot about this guy and observed all of her friend's following relationships, and she couldn't help thinking that all of them were destined to fall apart because neither of those guy would be able to meet Toni's expectations, when one of them was being _Him_.

"It's not funny!" whined the brunette and Becky realised that she must have failed miserably with keeping her face straight.

"Toni… Don't you think that it might be a sign from the fate? I mean, what are the odds that two people, who originally met in a completely other part of the country and parted ways, having no idea where the life led the other one, would find themselves not only living in the same city but in a situation, which is mirroring the one from their past?"

"I beg you to stop it! It's not this fairytale, where the plain girls gets to have her happily ever after with a prince and I learnt it the hard way eighteen years ago! It's difficult enough that after all those years, I need to face being in his company again, I don't need my best friend making it an even bigger mess than it already is!"

"Fine, I won't say a word about it again." she stated, knowing there was no way to convince her friend to take such a possibility into consideration.

Still, it definitely wasn't going to prevent her from hoping that while her friend seemed hopeless in finding happiness with any different man than this Bostonian, the fate decided to give the two of them a second chance. Yet, she was worried that it could be a huge failure if Toni didn't open her mind to it. But perhaps the solution to this problem was another person, and she could only hope that the guy would be more willing to see that.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: **I know, I know... I'm horrible! I'm sorry though! Next time I promise to update a completed story daily and suddenly stop updating, you have my permission to kick me in my mailbox! *wink* I'll try my best to be better now! Hope you'll enjoy!

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><p>She felt as if her stomach was squeezed to a tiny size, when she parked her car in front of his house the following Monday. It was the day, when they had agreed she would start and even though she had a couple of days to prepare herself for it, she still wasn't sure if arranging his garden by herself was a good idea. She was scared of what he might be like towards her; she was afraid he would be this kind, gentleman-like guy, who she fell in love all those years ago, but at the same time, she wasn't sure she would be able to survive it if he was anything but this towards her.<p>

She took a deep breath, standing in front of the door and rang the bell. She winced, when she heard a very loud bang and a shout, her heart skipping a beat. Her immediate reaction was to reach out her hand with the intention to try to turn the doorknob but she stopper herself. She should check if something didn't happen, shouldn't she? But could she simply walk in, even if she could justify it by wanting to be sure that everything was okay? She didn't have to make the decision, as soon the door opened and Myles stood right in front of her, obviously fine.

She could feel her panic raise and her heartbeat quicken a little, when she noticed that he was without shirt and the fact that he was almost a foot taller made her eyes land straight on his bare chest. It wasn't the first time she saw him like this, but she had to admit that he looked way better now than he did all those years ago. Back then he was just a slim kid with practically visible ribs; now, however, he had an attractive, slightly muscular body with his muscles nicely outlined under his skin. It was clear that he must have put on weight and done some work-out, and it has definitely done him good. She swallowed hard, forcing herself to raise her eyes to his face and blushed, when she found him looking at her with his eyebrows slightly raised.

"Am I late?" she asked, pretending that she misinterpreted the reason behind the way he was looking at her.

"No, you're actually a little early." he spoke, finding his voice.

He moved to the side, allowing her to walk in and couldn't help taking in her appearance. It was understandable that knowing she would need to work in the ground and in result, get dirty, she didn't come dressed in her best clothes but in a well-worn shirt, jeans and sneakers, and she tied her long hair in a ponytail at the back of her head, and he immediately thought that she looked beautiful anyway.

"Be careful, I just painted the walls here." he stated, motioning for her to walk further in and led her through the house to the garden.

She was surprised to see the state of the house. All the furniture was covered and moved either to the side or to another room, and the foil was lying on the floor in order to prevent it from getting very dirty. When they walked past the living room, she also noticed a ladder standing in the middle of the room and some sort of a rag, which she later found out was a shirt which he had on; she stopped, when she spotted a bucket lying knocked-over with all the paint spilled on the floor.

"I see now. The bang I heard was the bucket falling down?" she asked, turning to look at him and Myles nodded his head with a frown.

"Actually, you must have heard it falling to the floor from the top of the ladder." he noted, sighing heavily. "I got lost in thoughts and was startled a little, when you rang the doorbell." he explained, when he saw her questioning look.

He didn't plan to say anything else as he definitely wasn't going to admit that his thoughts were actually occupied with her. He didn't know what would her reaction be like and he didn't want to risk offending her. He truly lost track of how many times during all the years he was actually thinking about her; the way they parted might have not been perfect, but he still thought of the year they have been together as one of the best in his life. He couldn't hold it against her, that she moved away; the truth was that she didn't have much of a choice when it came to leaving Boston if her family needed to do it. She was just sixteen at the time and for a two more years she had no legal right to live anywhere else but with her parents, as they were the only family she had in the United States.

Still, at least in his opinion, their relationship was serious enough to expect some sort of explanation and goodbye. Even though he was away in college, so it was rather difficult to inform him in person, there were other ways to do it and he couldn't understand why she didn't. It hurt, but he stopped feeling any reproach towards her a long time ago and was very fond of all his memories associated with her. What he had with her, was the sort of relationship he was looking for in his life; it wasn't absolutely perfect in every way, as they both had flaws and their tempers clashed at times, but he felt truly comfortable and happy being with her, something he couldn't say about all his following relationships. They seemed great at the beginning and he really cared about the women, but there was always one thing or another, which made the bubble pop and cause his realisation, that it wasn't what he wanted.

"Doesn't the wooden door on the side of the house lead to the garden?" she asked, when they stepped outside, bringing him back to Earth again. "You could simply unlock it."

"It does but well… Let's say I am afraid to touch it because I'm not sure if it's not going to fall apart the moment I do." he admitted, shrugging. "I moved in just two months ago and my job kept me so occupied, that I didn't have the chance to do anything around, yet."

"You want to do it yourself? I would have thought that you would hire a renovation company to take care of it." she remarked, placing her bag on the ground.

"The last time I hired the company, I wrangled with them for two months and needed to re-do everything anyway, when they finished. So thank you very much, but I'll renovate the house myself; this way I can be certain it is done honestly and right to my liking."

She nodded her head and the silence fell between them. They stood opposite each other, neither of them knowing what to say and it was quickly growing very uncomfortable. In the past, they used to have absolutely no problems finding the topic for conversation; they talked about everything, whether it was important or just a trifle.

"So, I guess I'll leave you to your work and go back to mine. If you need anything, I'm inside so just shout and I'll come."

"Okay, I will."

She sighed with relief, when he went into the house. It was difficult to be around him, the air between them so strange. Perhaps it was because of the way they parted or because they have never really had the chance to truly finish things between each other, but it all felt really wrong. Pretending she was completely indifferent to him, as if he was just some kind of a casual acquaintance, was going to be terribly difficult especially if he would continue to walk around the house without his shirt on. She blushed, when she realised where her thoughts were going, but luckily for her, the next time he appeared outside, he was wearing a navy blue FBI T-shirt.

"I brought you a tea." he said, placing a mug on the small garden table. "A flat teaspoon of sugar and lemon, or did I mess something?"

"No, you got it right." she said, surprised that he remembered such a small detail. "FBI, huh?" she chuckled, pointing to his shirt. "A friend of mine has a similar T-shirt; only his has the abbreviation explained as Female Body Inspector."

She couldn't help rolling her eyes a little, when his only reaction was to raise his eyebrows. Of course, what did she expect from a man, who seemed to completely not understand the idea behind jokes.

"It actually borders on insulting the serious institution, which the Federal Bureau of Investigation is." he remarked with a frown. "But, what to expect after casual citizens? We risk our lives everyday to save theirs, and all we get back is no help when needed, no gratitude and comments, how we earn too much money in comparison to how much we do."

"We? You work in the FBI?" she asked, too shocked by the way he spoke, indicating his connection to the place to care about his comment. "Weren't your parents preparing you to be a lawyer or a politician?"

"Indeed they were, and they're not happy about my choice of profession but, what can I say? Being an agent, fighting the crime and bringing justice sounded more appealing and I am actually happy with it. Anyway, here is your tea and I'm going back inside."

She shook her head, amused by what she just found out. Myles Leland the third, a special agent in the FBI? This was definitely something she would have never guessed!


	9. Chapter 9

Toni didn't have doubts that when it came to clients, Myles would fall into the category of the worst; he was a terribly demanding perfectionist and working for him wasn't easy. Despite being outside, she could hear his constant complaining to a plumber, who he needed to call after he accidentally damaged a pipe. She still remembered the scream, which she heard coming from the house; she had dropped everything, running inside as it sounded like he had hurt himself, and had found him standing in the bathroom with his T-shirt completely wet and much to her discontent, sticking to his body. Shaking her head to get rid of the image, she couldn't deny feeling some sort of admiration towards the plumber; he seemed completely oblivious to the fact, that Leland kept telling him how he should do his job. She was sure that if he did the same to her, she would simply pack her tools and leave, but it seemed that the man simply continued to do his job.

Luckily, she didn't have such a problem with Myles. His help with taking care of his family's garden back in Boston turned out to have additional benefits; now, she had this one huge advantage of knowing some of his quirks, so she was able to avoid making a lot of the mistakes, which anyone on her place would do.

She almost jumped, when she heard her phone ring and glanced at the screen to see her best friend's name on it. Her eyebrows furrowed, when she started to wonder what could be the reason for the call. Whenever she was working in the field, Rebecca was usually sending her text messages if she wanted something, because she knew that she shouldn't interrupt her unless something very important appeared. It made her worry what it was this time, because obviously nothing good.

"I just got a phone call from the guy, who was supposed to bring the plants to your Myles' house." she said and chuckled, when he heard her name leave Toni's lips in a growl. "He informed me that he's not able to do that until Tuesday, because he is going to Illinois to his grandmother's funeral."

"Why am I not surprised?" sighed Toni, but her voice didn't leave doubts that she wasn't pleased with the fact. "It's already his fourth of fifth grandmother I believe… Remind me, why do I even cooperate with him?"

"Because you had a huge fight with Lawrence, who made most of the others not want to cooperate with you or ask for enormous amount of money, and this guy was the only one, who you could afford."

"True, although I'm not sure it wouldn't be better if I paid your brother for renting his pick-up and transported those plants all by myself. Do you know if he would mind borrowing it to us?"

"I actually do know that, and he doesn't see a problem with it, although only tomorrow because he's going to Pennsylvania next week and is going to need it."

Toni groaned, knowing that the next day was Saturday. She was awaiting the weekend very impatiently, because it meant that she wouldn't need to face Myles but now it seemed she didn't have much of a choice. When she walked into the house, to ask if they could actually bring the plants tomorrow since he could have already made some plans, a part of her prayed that he has done it. He hasn't, though, and also didn't see a problem with her and Rebecca coming to him.

They planned to arrive in before noon, but eventually ended up parking in front of the house at around four in the afternoon. Toni was surprised to see two additional cars standing on the driveway; she checked her phone, suspecting that she could have missed a phone call from him, telling her not to come because he had visitors, but there was nothing.

"My, my… I don't know which one of the two is your Myles, but whichever he is, I can see why he's got such an effect on you..! He looks like someone to die for!" exclaimed Rebecca, looking at the two guys, who were walking towards them .

Toni rolled her eyes, when they followed her friend's gaze. She could see why his friend reacted the way she did; the two men approaching them could most definitely be described as amazingly good looking. They were both quite tall and slightly muscular; one of them had dark brown hair and a pair of really gorgeous brown eyes, and the other's hair, although also brown, was lighter, and his eyes were green. The latter also had a huge smile on his face, and Toni immediately thought that he looked like someone, who liked to make all sort of pranks.

"Then let me enlighten you, that neither of them is Myles." she spoke and her Rebecca's face fell.

She didn't have any doubts that the main reason why Becky wanted to accompany her so much was that she wanted to meet Myles. No matter how much Toni tried to explain to her, that there was absolutely nothing left between them and she didn't see the need to give it a second chance, Rebecca didn't want to listen.

"One of you, beautiful sheilas, must be Toni?" asked the taller guy, with a very audible Australian accent, when they got out of the car. "Myles sent us here to help you with the plants."

"And he didn't come himself?" inquired Rebecca, quite surprised by this statement.

"He would if he didn't just burn himself touching the hot barbecue. I believe my wife is bandaging his hand right now and he's not really able to carry anything." explained the brown-eyed man. "Any particular place we should take them to?"

"Myles said to use storage room until I'll plant them in the ground, but why don't you simply bring them to the backyard and I'll take care of placing them inside in the right order?"

"It's just one of her little quirks." said Rebecca, when both of the men looked at her questioningly. "She can get quite fussy, when the plants are not placed in the room with the ones, that she's going to use first at the front."

They didn't say anything else, just exchanged glances. While Becky supervised the two guys, while they were getting the pots off the car, Toni went to the backyard. At first she simply heard whining and rolled her eyes, when she realised it was Myles' reaction to the fact, that a blonde woman was taking care of his burnt hand. Other than her, there were also two more women here and both of them sent her a very curious look, when they noticed her approach.

"You must be this Toni, that Harvard was talking about." spoke a black one with a suspicious smile on her face. "He kept worrying that you won't come."

"Don't pay attention to her!" she heard Myles' voice. "Say one word, she'll misinterpret it and invent a whole story!"

"You could have called me, we wouldn't interrupt your friendly gathering."

"I'm sorry, but I had no idea that they planned to come. Just ignore them!"

She was somewhat amused, watching him in the company of his friends. It was clear that while they were quite close, they were a group of completely different people, who she would never suspect could share such a strong bond. Their personalities seemed destined to clash and yet, they got along quite well. She felt terribly uncomfortable, when all her moves were watched carefully but she didn't doubt that it was all because they didn't know her. She didn't plan to destroy or steal anything, but they couldn't be aware of that. What she had no idea about was, that after she left, they drowned Leland in all sorts of questions because of the complete trust in her, that he showed, the looks he kept sending in her direction whenever he thought nobody was looking, and the way he spoke to her, wanting to make sure she felt comfortable. And this was just the beginning.


	10. Chapter 10

„So?" started Lucy, when Toni and Rebecca left. "Is there anything we should know about?"

Myles could only sigh heavily, resting his back against the seat, which he occupied. It was exactly how he imagined it would be, when his friends and Toni met. He wasn't sure just how much he would be able to control his own reactions to the woman, so when he opened the door, convinced it was her, and saw Tara, Lucy and Bobby, later followed by Sue and Jack, he started to hope that she would call him and say, that she couldn't come. It didn't happen though, and when Tara commented how she saw a pick-up with all sorts of plants, he tried not to show his displeasure so much that he didn't even realise that he was trying to lean on the hot barbecue, effectively burning his hand. Now, he wasn't even able to help her, not to mention that all the plans he had to have a conversation with her got completely ruined. Not that they wouldn't if his friends didn't show up, because she decided to come with a friend, who he pretended not to notice was watching him very carefully during their whole stay. They were gone now, and just like he thought, the questions started.

"I don't believe there is anything, that you don't know about." he finally spoke, earning a couple of doubtful glances.

"Oh, come on, Harvard!" protested Bobby. "It's not like we didn't see the way you were looking at her! You know, it sort of reminded me of the glances, that Sparky used to send in Sue's direction before they admitted their feelings to each other!"

Everyone noticed the faint blush on Sue's cheeks at the mention of it and the look, which she exchanged with her husband. As always, it was as if for a moment the whole world around them stopped existing and the love between them was perceptible for everyone. All of their friends were very happy that they managed to find this sort of happiness, and yet, they couldn't help feeling a little jealous. They wanted something like this, too, but their relationships didn't really seem even close to it. At one point, Bobby felt pretty certain that Darcy was the one for him, but then she left DC and it all fell apart; Tara and Stanley eventually decided that the long-distance relationship that they were trying didn't really have sense; Lucy went out on a few dates with a couple of guys, but it was clearly becoming obvious that there was no sparkle and Myles, he didn't really like to talk or even think about his, for some time now, pretty much nonexistent love life.

It was until Toni appeared and stirred all those feelings, which turned out to still be there. There was a point in his life, when he believed that they could be meant to be together. In his mind, he tried to find a way for them to be together forever, and there were even the beginnings of the plan, how to make people – especially his family – accept this relationship. He was just a teenager and he could hardly claim any maturity when it came to this, but if what he felt towards her wasn't true love, he had absolutely no idea what was. Over the next years he's been in more and less serious relationships, but the feelings he had to those women were nowhere near what he felt for Toni. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that she was indirectly the main reason, why neither of those relationships worked out. She was the only person, who truly accepted him for who he was, with all his quirks and faults, who showed him the sort of relationship, which he later tried to find again, but didn't manage to.

He had decided, that he really needed to talk to her and get the answers for all those questions, which kept bothering him for the last days. He needed to know what happened all those years ago, that their roads so brutally divided. What caused her to move so quickly and, why didn't she contact him in any way? He didn't doubt there had to be a really great reason behind it and he needed to find it out. A part of him hoped, that perhaps, it was something she really had no influence on and they could try again. As for now, however, he didn't find enough courage to approach her with all those questions. Only now he actually understood why it took Jack so long to admit how he felt about Sue. Although he wasn't afraid of rejection, Myles was somewhat scared of Toni's temper. He had no idea how she felt about their past relationship, but knew that if he pulled the wrong string, she could explode and the last thing he needed while she was working on his garden, was to offend her.

"Well…" started Sue, bringing Myles back from his thoughts, which Leland drifted off to ignoring all the theories, that his friends had about Toni. "It's a shame that D. and Donna couldn't be here, but Jack and I would still like to use the opportunity, that we're all gathered here together."

"We just found out yesterday, but we thought that today seems like a perfect opportunity to share it with all of you." continued Jack, reaching out his hand to capture Sue's and give it a gentle squeeze.

"OH MY!" exclaimed Lucy, whose wide grin didn't skip anyone's attention. "You two are going to have a baby!"

Myles felt quite certain that the high-pitched squeal, which left her mouth the moment Sue nodded her head and Jack grinned, could be heard by a lot of his neighbours. She immediately ran to her best friend, hugging her tightly, followed by almost equally excited Tara. Bobby and Myles, on the other hand, focused on Jack first, congratulating him and only later moving on to Sue.

"It's sort of funny to think that there is soon going to be Little Sparky running around…" said Bobby. "With all fondness to you, Mate, I hope he's going to take everything after his mommy."

"No way!" protested Tara, blushing a little when all the eyes focused on her.

"I'm sure that what our Tippy wanted to say is that he simply has to have Jack's eyes, and Sue will certainly agree with that, right Sue?" added Lucy, looking at her blonde friend, who pursued her lips.

"This baby might be a girl, you know? But I can't deny that I certainly wouldn't mind if they inherited Jack's eyes."

For the rest of the evening, most of their talk focused on the Hudsons and the awaited addition to their family, and Myles felt quite grateful for that. It gave him the opportunity to avoid answering to all the questions about Toni, which he didn't know the answer to himself and think about it all a little more, as much to anybody's surprise, he found the conversation to be a little senseless. What exactly was a point in trying to guess, what was the unborn baby going to be like in the future? He didn't know, but his friend didn't mind his slight absent-mindedness and he certainly intended to use it.


	11. Chapter 11

He smiled, when he walked out of the house, carrying a tray and noticed Toni staring at the amaryllis, which right next to his roses was the most important for him. The selfish part of him was certain, that her thoughts were focused on their first meeting; the main reason why he actually liked the flower was exactly this memory. He placed the tray on the table, taking off the plates and drinks, and slowly approached her, touching her shoulder to get her attention. She jumped and gasped, startled; she was so lost in thoughts that she completely didn't realise he was anywhere close.

"Lunch is ready." he spoke, and Toni raised herself to the standing position.

Soon they found themselves sitting behind the table, eating lunch and talking. It was a routine they worked out and fell into quite easily. While she worked in the garden, he occupied himself with all the tasks, which he planned to do during his holidays, but he spent the lunch break with her. Despite her protests, that he didn't have to, he prepared some sort of a meal for them and they would sit together in the garden and talk a little. On the days, when it was raining, she was going to the office instead of his place, because she wouldn't be able to do anything at all. It was a very comfortable routine, and Myles hated the thought that he was going to have to break it, when he would return to work.

Even though another days passed, he still didn't find enough courage to ask her the questions, which were bothering him. It was obvious that the safest thing to do was to avoid the topic of their past and he was willing to do that. He probably would have continued like this for at least the rest of the time, which was needed for Toni to finish the work, if it wasn't for Anne. Since the memorable moment, when they decided to try to build some sort of a bond, they grew much closer than they have ever been. They were eating dinner together at least once in a month and visited each other every now and then. Now, she came using the opportunity that he was on holiday and she just finished working on a case, and had the afternoon completely for herself.

She was of course aware of the fact that her brother needed to move and the house needed renovation, but she didn't know that Myles decided to hire a gardening company in order to take care of his garden. The last time they spoke, he was still very insistent on working on it himself, so when she spotted a woman's figure in the garden, she was very surprised. It was only then, that he explained the reason to her and he definitely had a point in his reasoning. She couldn't stop thinking that the woman seemed sort of familiar, but she wasn't able to remember , who she was resembling. She probably would have never realise it, if Toni didn't need to approach Myles.

The moment she realised that the woman standing with Myles was his younger sister, she could feel her stomach twinge. It was difficult to speak about any relationship between the two, because it was practically nonexistent. Even back in the past, they were both simply aware of who the other one was; they never even exchanged a word. Still, Toni knew that Anne was aware of much more than her brother probably knew, when it came to all the mess connected to her family's moving out of Boston and could turn out to be a problem.

"Ah, here you are!" said Myles, when he saw her walking in their direction and a very panicked look appeared on her face, while he turned to his sister. "Do you remember Toni? Her father was a gardener in our family home about twenty years ago and she used to help him."

It took all her willpower not to show her feelings. She wasn't sure which one of the main two was stronger – fury at Myles or the paralyzing fear about Anne's reaction. They were both overwhelming and she found herself unable to say even a word, while the other woman stared at her as if she has just grew another head.

"I knew you looked familiar!" she finally spoke. "Of course, I should have thought about it, although I would have never thought that I could meet you here, in DC!"

"From what she says, she moved here straight after leaving Boston." reported Myles and Toni simply nodded her head, confirming it.

"That's definitely unexpected… Still, did you talk to him? Did you tell him?"

"There is no need for me to tell him anything." stated Toni, and she wasn't surprised to see the man look at her in confusion, while Anne's eyes narrowed.

"Don't you think that this is actually quite an important matter? Don't you think that he should actually know?"

"If you believe it to be such an important thing, why didn't YOU tell him all those years ago? Or even now, that you actually speak to each other and everything! You had quite a lot of opportunities, so how it is that then, he didn't have to know, but now he does?!"

"Could you tell me what are you talking about?" Myles tried to interrupt the two, but quickly realised that it was a very bad idea, when both of them sent him furious glares and he raised his hands up, giving up.

"How was I supposed to bring the topic up? This is something, that doesn't concern me in any way!"

"The very same way that you obviously expected me to bring it up now! And I didn't do it because there is absolutely no need for me to! The end of the topic!" she shouted and made her way to the door, ready to storm out of the building and completely ignore whatever Anne still had to say.

"He deserves to know and if you don't talk to him about it, I will!"

This comment made Toni stop and turn around to look at the two Lelands. She could feel her hands shaking and her heart thundering in her chest, and she lost any control over her own emotions that she had.

"There is nothing to talk about!" was the last thing she yelled, before she got into the car, slamming the door shut and drove away, making the decision that she would never show up in the place again. She didn't care about Myles' reaction anymore, she would simply hand the work to someone else and wouldn't need to see any of them again.

"Will you enlighten me what were the two of you talking about?" he asked, crossing his arms on his chest. "What is it that she should have told me about?"

"Eighteen years ago, when she was leaving Boston… She was pregnant with your child."


	12. Chapter 12

"What?!" exclaimed Myles, looking at his sister in disbelief.

"That's at least what she claimed… That the baby was yours…"

Anne watched him carefully and she could feel her nervousness rise as she could see his rage increase. It wasn't very surprising to see this emotion in him; any respectable man would probably feel the same way if he heard that he had a child, who he didn't even know about. A practically grown-up child in this matter, which he found out about almost twenty years later than he should have.

He could barely control himself. He felt like running around screaming and tearing everything apart. He wasn't sure if he has ever felt as furious as in this moment and the more his mind processed the information, the worse it was becoming. Was it true? Did Toni leave knowing that she was going to have a baby with him and didn't try to tell him? Despite Anne's words, he didn't doubt that the baby was his, it had to be. She wasn't with anyone before him and she was way too honest to cheat on him while they were still in relationship. Even when he left for college, they didn't break up and he trusted her enough to know, that the fact that he was away wouldn't change it. The truth was that if she was pregnant indeed, then he could even guess when it actually happened; there was just one time when they it could have happened - their last time together.

He remembered perfectly how surprised he left, when he was completely alone at home and opened the door to find her, standing there and hoping to spend some time with him alone before he would leave. It quickly became obvious that she had a plan, and one point of it was to seduce him. She might have not been the best of seductresses or had a huge amount of experience, but didn't really need to try hard. Toni always had a huge effect on him, much stronger than any woman, who got a place in his life after her, and it wasn't like he would say no to her. He should have, when he realised that they had nothing to protect themselves; he should have been more insistent, that it could turn out to be a bad idea even if she claimed it should have been safe, as it obviously turned out not to have been. But she made him want her so much, that it was very difficult to resist it, especially that she so obviously wanted him, too and they could not have another opportunity to be together for quite a while.

He really couldn't believe, that she didn't want him to know. Perhaps she did try to tell him, considering that Anne was aware of the fact, but how come that the information never reached him? And why didn't she say anything to him now? The answer to the last question seemed fairly obvious. If she did try to contact him and never heard back from him, she must have assumed that he didn't want to have anything to do with her and the child, but did she really think about him as about such a person? Yes, he wasn't perfect and he never really tried to hide that he didn't feel comfortable around children, but even at eighteen, he would have never backed out of relationship in order to avoid responsibility, because his girlfriend had gotten pregnant. He loved her, he hoped they would get to have a serious, maybe even lifetime-long relationship without the need to sneak around and hide, maybe a family one day. He would have taken care of her, of them, somehow and she must have known that so how could she do this to him?

It was also clear that Anne not only knew about it all, but also that he had absolutely no idea about anything. Why didn't she tell him then? She had a lot of opportunities, even all those years ago. Their relationship then couldn't be called great, but wasn't it important enough to get over it and just talk to him? And, if she didn't want him to know as it would suggest, then why was she suddenly insistent that Toni should talk to him, that he deserved to know. He really couldn't understand it, and by getting one little information about the circumstances of Toni's moving, he now had even more questions than before.

"Let's go to the living room and talk." he said, his voice not leaving doubts that it was better not to object. "I want to know _everything_."

"Myles, look, I really don't know much." she sighed, when she noticed his furious glare; there was no way she was going to avoid giving him an explanation. "Mom and Dad made sure, that I don't know any details. If it all went how they wanted it to, I would never even know about this fact, but I accidentally overheard them talking about it. From what I could understand, she must have come to them and informed them that she was pregnant with you, and you can imagine that they weren't pleased. I couldn't really hear anymore, because when Mom brought this topic up, Dad wanted to make sure that nobody heard them. I almost got caught and went to my room. I never heard them talking about it, again."

"And why didn't you tell me anything?"

"I wanted to, believe me. It's just there never seemed to be a good time for this sort of conversation… Whenever I tried to talk to you, we fought before I had the chance to bring it up and when we didn't, I kept bumping onto Mom or Dad. A couple of months passed and I didn't know how to bring up something, what I overheard so much time earlier and then I moved to college…"

Myles nodded his head, knowing what she wanted to say by that. When they were still living at home, they were talking every now and then, even though they were quite hostile towards each other and fought a lot. However, when they both started college, their paths divided completely and they didn't really talk to each other until the memorable investigation, when they decided to reconcile and give their relationship a chance.

"And now… Now I didn't say anything, because I completely didn't know how! What was I supposed to say? 'Myles, you remember Toni, your first girlfriend? Because I think you should know that she got pregnant and there is your almost grown-up child somewhere in the world.'? I don't know if I would ever bring it up… But she's here, in DC, so unless she had an abortion or gave the baby up for adoption, it is here, too!"

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and hid his face in his hands. He would have never guessed that it could be such a mess. But, the truth was, that this all seemed to get a little clearer. He felt quite certain that the reason for her sudden disappearance from Boston must have been the pregnancy. If his parents found out, there could be no doubt that they tried to do everything to make her get rid of the baby or make her life so difficult, that her family would have no other choice but to leave. He knew Toni well enough to know, that she would never have an abortion, so it must have been the latter.

Toni's reaction made it rather clear, that she didn't want him to know. So, it also meant that she wasn't happy about the idea of him, appearing in their child's life but even if he managed to convince her to give him a chance, how would he do that? How was he supposed to even address the child, an ADULT child and what was he supposed to say after all those years of not being present in their life?

First of all, however, he needed to talk to Toni. He might have avoided talking about the past, but he wasn't going to do that anymore. He was grateful for this coincidence, that the two women met; if it wasn't for Anne, he might have never found out about it. Now, he had to know everything and he wasn't going to waste anymore time.


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: **Thank you for comments! **Bgjk5272 **that seems rather impossible, as there are at least about 4000 miles between us! *wink* I am glad you are enjoying the story, though! :)

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><p>Talking to Toni turned out much more difficult than he thought it would be. And it wasn't because he was afraid to bring up the topic or she didn't want to talk at all cost. On the next day, she didn't show up at all and whenever he tried to call her, he got straight to her voice mail what meant that she must have turned off her phone.<p>

He thought about waiting a day; it wasn't like her not to come, so something must have happened, but he wasn't convinced. The truth was, the reason for her absence could be that she didn't want to face him, talk to him because she knew that he would expect answers, which she could be unwilling to give. Still, he couldn't think of any other way to contact her than her cell phone and he didn't really want to make a scene in the company. Yet, the more he considered the option, the better it seemed and eventually, he checked the address, got dressed and left the house.

He didn't have bigger problems with finding the company's office. He walked inside and was somewhat surprised by how small it seemed, but he could understand why. Most probably for the very same reason why they were doing all the work themselves, what he asked Toni about. The company was small and even though they worked on that, it was still pretty unknown and most of their customers were family, friends or acquaintances of others, who they worked for and praised them. It was perfectly enough to get them by, but they couldn't afford spending a lot of money, so whatever they could, they did by themselves. Toni was hopeful with the increasing number of orders, but it was still in the future.

He looked around and saw a very neatly arranged space. The walls were decorated with the pictures of the gardens, which the company must have worked on; there were a few doors, leading to the workers' offices, as he assumed and on the opposite of the door, there was a receptionist's desk. His eyes landed on a young girl with light blonde hair, which he guessed had to be Sarah. She smiled widely, when he approached and immediately asked how she could help him.

"I'm actually looking for Toni Rodriguez." he stated, and the smile faded from her face.

"I'm afraid Miss Rodriguez is absent right now, but…" she didn't get to finish, when one of the door opened and Myles looked up to see Rebecca.

"I thought I heard your voice." she spoke to him, motioning with her hand to follow her. "I talked to her yesterday, so I know what happened." she continued, when they entered the room, which he quickly realised was Toni's office. He looked around, searching for pictures and the only one he noticed was of her and Rebecca during their high school graduation. "I guess your presence here speaks rather well about you."

"Perhaps, but could you tell me where to find her?" he asked, knowing that if there was any person in this building, who knew where Toni was, it had to be Rebecca.

"I'm not sure. She didn't tell me what she would do, when she called that she's not coming to work…"

"There can't be a lot of places, where she would have to turn off her cell phone..!"

The woman looked at him, obviously hesitating but in the end nodded her head. It was clear that he really wanted to talk to Toni, he seemed rather desperate even, and she couldn't think about it as something bad. Her friend could have been afraid of what he would say to her if she decided to go to him, but Rebecca didn't think she had a reason to. She could see that he was somewhat angry, but her intuition was telling her that this anger was more focused on the fact, that he didn't know anything than that it actually happened.

"She's going to kill me, but I think that the two of you really should talk." she sighed, giving up and wrote something on a small piece of paper. "This is her home address, but before you go there, I'd check the Mount Olivet Cemetery first. If her phone is off, then she's most probably there."

"Thank you." was all he said before he turned around and left, leaving Rebecca slightly surprised.

"I thought he'd want directions where to look for her at the cemetery…" she remarked to herself, shrugging and returned to her work.

Myles didn't have any difficulties finding the cemetery. He has been there a couple of times, attending a funeral of someone he knew from work and when he parked his car, he immediately recognised Toni's. There was no doubts she was there, but how was he supposed to find her inside? She could be pretty much anywhere and there was a chance that she would leave before he found her. Feeling inappropriate, he bought a flower and started to look for her. It really wasn't the best place for the sort of conversation, that he wanted to have with her, but perhaps she would allow him to take her for lunch or even a walk, so they could talk.

He was starting to lose hope, when he finally spotted her. It was the last section, which he would expect to find her in – the children's section. His heart skipped a beat; was it possible that the person she was visiting was their child..? He knew that it was, but he didn't really want to consider such an option. He has just found out about their existence, he couldn't lose them before he even had the chance to meet them..!

He slowly approached with his hands shaking and feeling like his stomach was squeezed to the limit. Toni startled, when she felt someone's presence next to her and turned around. Her eyes widened, when she spotted Myles; what was he doing there?! He didn't notice that she was looking at him, though; he didn't see that her eyes were all red and puffy, her cheeks still glistening with tears, which didn't manage to get dry, yet. His eyes were glued to the small monument, which she was sitting in front of. It belonged to a Tomas Rodriguez, who was born a little over half a year after he left for college and died on the very same day.

"Is it..?" he started, turning to look at her, but found himself unable to finish.

She could see tears filling his eyes, as he looked at the monument and they fell, when he closed his eyes after she had nodded her head. He let out a sob, dropping to his knees. It did happen, then. He got to know that he had a child only to find out, that he wasn't going to get a chance to meet them. He would be happy even if he got yelled at because of being absent for such a long time, if he heard that he appeared too late. Everything would be better, but this.

Toni's vision got blurry, as she watched him. She could understand what he felt and reached out her hand, touching his shoulder. She was surprised to feel him wrap his arm around her waist and pull her close, but she didn't find it unwelcome. She rested her forehead against his shoulder, thinking that it actually felt quite right and started to cry once again. No matter how many years passed, she didn't really get over this loss, even if she was able to make everyone think so. The pain was still there and in moments like this one, practically equal to what she felt all those years ago.


	14. Chapter 14

Even when they calmed down and moved away from each other, they didn't say anything. Toni knew that conversation was now inevitable; there was no way she would avoid answering at least some of Myles' questions, but the man didn't want to ask them in such a place. It was why he suggested to take her for a walk and lunch, so they could talk and she had no other choice but to agree.

"I don't even know what to say…" spoke Myles, eventually, sighing heavily. "I came convinced that you didn't tell me anything because you didn't want me to be present in our child's life and prepared myself to argue, that you should give me a chance…"

"It's not like this at all..."

"Then how is it, Toni? Are you going to deny that if it wasn't for you and Anne meeting at my place, I wouldn't have found out!" he said, feeling himself getting a little irritated.

"You don't understand anything… I really wanted to tell you..!" she protested, raising her voice a bit as well. "

"Then why didn't you?!" he exclaimed, losing his patience. She took a step away from him, biting on her bottom lip nervously, looking at the ground. "I didn't want to yell. Perhaps you could explain everything to me, starting at the beginning?"

Toni nodded her head; she was aware that she owed him that much. Still, it didn't mean that it was easy, quite the contrary; it was terribly difficult and nothing could change it. The fact that it all happened so many years ago didn't have much influence. Yes, now she could actually talk about it, while in the past she was starting to cry the moment her thoughts drifted off to this topic, but she still found herself on the edge of tears while thinking about it.

"I found out that I was pregnant few weeks after you left… Actually, it was my mom, who noticed the symptoms… She made me take the test and it was positive… I made her swear that she wouldn't say anything to my father, I knew that he would be so angry… He kept telling me how you are not the right guy for me and all…" she sighed heavily, pulling him to the side, to sit on the bench. "By some accident, he found a test… He was convinced it was my mom, who took it and she had no other choice but to explain everything to him… He was so furious… I tried to talk to him, to explain that it was the worst possible idea, but he didn't want to listen to me… He went to your parents…"

"Who in their right mind would go to talk to my parents about something like this?!"

"My dad didn't really think clearly, Myles. He was furious and his actions were led by his emotions… He made me go with him… They weren't even angry, or at least they didn't show it… At first they questioned if it was yours, but when my father threatened that he would prove your paternity and they would regret it, they asked me how much money I wanted for getting rid of the baby…"

"WHAT?!"

"They offered to give me for having an abortion, next to paying for it… You know me, I would never do it! I was angry, it was a HUGE complication in my whole life and all my plans needed to change because of it, but it was still my baby… Mine and someone I loved… I could never do anything to it..!"

"I know." spoke Myles, reaching out his hand and touching her shoulder reassuringly. "I have no doubts about that."

"I told them that I wouldn't do it and it was what made them sort of angry… They said that they would make me regret this decision… They fired my dad immediately… My mom lost her job as well and I'm pretty sure it was their doing as well… With all their connections they made sure that nobody in entire Boston and surroundings wanted to hire them… We needed to move and I'm not even sure why DC, but that's the place they chose and we landed here…"

"Why didn't you tell me anything, though? I might not be perfect, but I think I deserved to know that I was going to be a father!"

"Of course you did! And I wanted to tell you… I tried to call you, but I was never able to reach you… I even went to you, but I heard that you went out with some girl... The conversation, which my question caused, suggested rather clearly that the two of you were involved, so I did the only thing, that seemed rational – I left!"

"You must be speaking about Wendy… And we weren't involved! I simply helped her with history project because she was a younger sister of a guy, who could help me with getting access to the most exclusive student association! Do you really think that I would cheat on you?"

"Until that point, I didn't think you would… But how could I know for sure?"

"I would never, ever cheat on someone that I loved!" he raised his voice and Toni looked at him through narrowed eyes.

"Really?" her voice made it rather clear, that she wasn't convinced. "I might have pretended that I was oblivious to your conversation, but I heard one of your friends suggesting otherwise."

"Lucy…" he sighed, wincing a little. "This is a long and complicated story, but it has nothing to do with us! You've got to understand, I loved you and I considered our relationship to be serious! I was actually thinking about proposing to you, when you turned eighteen… I tried to think of a way, thanks to which we could be together even if people didn't accept our relationship!"

"YOU have to understand that I couldn't know that! What would you think on my place? I came to my boyfriend to tell him that I was pregnant, what terrified me in itself especially that his parents were very clear about not accepting it, and then I heard that he went for a date with another girl! Do you have any idea how much it hurt?!"

His mouth was already open, so he could voice his protest but it wasn't going to lead anywhere. He wanted answers and if they continued to argue about one thing, he would never receive them.

"I guess I don't… Yet, I believe there's still a bit of a story left…"

"As I said, we moved to DC… Everything seemed almost perfect… You can guess that it wasn't easy for me at school… I was not only the new girl, but also pregnant and well, people weren't very understanding… I was still hurting because of what happened in Boston, but I had Rebecca though, my parents found jobs and my baby was developing well, so what could I want more?" Myles squeezed her shoulder gently, when her voice broke and noticed a tear drop move down her cheek. He found himself feeling uncomfortable; he has never really been good at comforting people and didn't really know how to act in situations like this one.

"It happened when I was in about seventh month... I was going for a routine check-up with my dad and we were running a little late… Don't get a wrong idea, he was driving very carefully even though I was sort of nervous that I'm going to miss my appointment! He was angry at first but once he got over it, he tried to do everything to make sure that his grandchild would be fine… Still, we got hit by a guy, who just got his driving licence and I guess he was trying to impress his friends… According to the official version, he wasn't looking at the road and he didn't see a red light and he hit us on a crossroad… I actually remember that I turned to my dad, to tell him that Tommy just kicked me and everything went black…" her voice broke once again and Myles understood the last sentence with slight difficulties. He moved closer, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and she leaned to him, resting her head on his shoulder.

"The next thing I remember is waking up in a hospital… Everything hurt but I didn't care, I just wanted to know how was my baby… I felt so terrible, when nobody wanted to tell me anything and I couldn't feel him move or anything… Finally, a doctor informed me that they needed to do a C-section because it was the only chance for him to survive, but his chances were very low anyway… He didn't want to let me see him, though… My mom claims that at least half of the hospital must have heard my screams, but I managed to get permission to see him… He was so tiny, and he looked even smaller attached to all the machines… He died on my eyes…" she made another pause, hiding her face in his jacket when another wave of crying arrived and Myles sat there, stroking her back with his hand.

"A nurse later told me, that it was a miracle in itself that he survived that long… That it was as if he made everything he could to see me at least once… It hurt so much… I might have not been happy that I got pregnant, that I would have him at seventeen and I would have to give up all my dreams for him, as well as forget about a lot of things that girls my age would do, while I would have to be at home and take care of him… But he was still my baby, my little boy, who I loved more than anything in the world… And I lost him…"

"Seventeen or not, you were a mother…"

He kept stroking her back and wondering if he should hug her or do anything else, feeling a little awkwardly. At the same time, he understood her pain perfectly. He might have never really gotten a chance to experience any of this, but it still hurt him to think that because of one irresponsible person, his child – his son – never really got a chance to live.

"You know what hurt me the most? The official version was that it was a miracle that everyone survived and I kept hearing that I was lucky… People at school seemed to believe that I should actually be happy, because I got rid of a problem. Nobody ever acknowledged, that I wasn't lucky, that I wasn't fine, that it wasn't like this at all! I lost my baby, my precious little boy but nobody cared!" she exclaimed, taking a deep breath to calm herself down. "Perhaps they never mentioned him because it wouldn't look good to write about a Hispanic teenager losing her child… I don't know… Still, a part of me died that day, along with our son…"

"I… I don't know what to say…" he admitted quietly, unable to find his voice. She looked up at him, nodding her head.

"At least you're honest, Myles… There was nothing I hated more than hearing all those fake I'm sorry's…"

"This is why you told Anne, that there was nothing to talk about…"

"Yeah, because it's true… Our son is dead, there was no need for me to tell you about him…"

"I am still glad that I found out… Thanks to this, I understand some things a little better…"

He was surprised, when he felt Toni wrap her arms around his waist and she hid her face in his shirt, but placed his arms around her and held her close. She sighed, trying to suppress all the overwhelming emotions at least a little and at the same time, she couldn't help thinking that it was the way, she should have found herself sitting those seventeen years ago, when everything she related to him happened. It was his arms, that she had needed to be in; there was nobody, who would have understood her better than her baby's father and a man, who she loved and who knew her better than anyone before and after him. Even if his grip was somewhat stiff and awkward, his concern and pain was completely sincere and it was all she needed.


	15. Chapter 15

After some time they stood up from the bench. They didn't need to say anything to agree that they could continue walking to the place, where they would eat lunch. She linked her arm with his and in silence, their made their way to the place, which Myles had in mind to take her. She was somewhat surprised when he led her to the restaurant, which was known for serving the best lunches in D.C. She didn't say anything, though; she just followed him inside and to the corner table, finding it a little amusing when he insisted on pulling out a chair for her and pushing it to the table, when she sat down. She could see that there was a lot on his mind and she had no doubts that there was still some questions, although she was convinced she explained most of the ones, connected to her disappearance. She didn't think there was anything more, that she needed to explain but there was always a possibility that he would think about something, what didn't cross her mind.

Myles, on the other hand, kept thinking about all the things he had found out during the relatively short time. As surprising as a lot of things seemed, he knew that Toni didn't lie to him; what point would there be? It was terrifying to think that his parents could do such a thing, yet he knew that they were capable of it. The most important thing for them was always the family's good name and it definitely wouldn't be seen as something positive if people were to find out that he was going to have a child with Toni. He was aware that as archaic as it seemed, she would be considered below him and definitely an inappropriate girl to date, let alone be in relationship or have a child with. What could he do, that he considered her to be much more beautiful and interesting than all of those girls, who were 'right' for him? For his parents it didn't matter though, and thanks to them he lost the best relationship in his life, not to mention a chance to be a father.

He didn't even want to think what it would have been like if Tomas had lived. Not that he was happy that he died, never! He would much rather for the boy to have a chance to live, but it still hurt to think what it would mean for him. Now, he knew that Toni had left with bitter feelings towards him, convinced that he had been using the opportunity of being away from her to date other girls, so it was doubtful she would have tried to convince the boy that his father was a good person. He wouldn't have been surprised if she had told the boy that he didn't want them, and she would have been certain about it, too. For such a long time, he would have been living completely unaware that he had a family; a son to carry on the family name, who would have surely been a wonderful boy, who he could have felt proud of.

"Well…" spoke Toni, breaking the silence and blushing a little, when he suddenly looked up from the menu, which he continued to stare at even though they had both already ordered. "I have to say that I was convinced that by now, there would be Mrs. Leland as well as one or two children in your life…"

"As you can see there isn't… It has never really been close to this…" he admitted, shrugging. "In fact, out of all my relationships it was ours, that was the closest to ending like this… You are pretty much the only woman, who I had considered proposing to."

"It seems rather unbelievable…" she said, unsure how she felt about it.

There was this strange warmth in her heart at the thought, that there was no woman, who he felt more devoted to than her. She knew that as much as she wanted to believe that it wasn't true, she still cared about him. It was as if a part of her knew, that he would never act like this towards her despite the evidence, that she had. Yet, at the same time, she was scared of it. It definitely wasn't a good idea to still have feelings for him, to be attracted to him. Perhaps Rebecca was right; maybe he was the reason, why she wasn't able to create a serious relationship with, because deep in her heart she was still committed to him. She couldn't know that in this moment, he was thinking about the very same thing, but about himself. Only now, that he allowed himself to think about that, he was starting to realise that it was his dedication to Toni, what made it impossible for any of his relationships to survive. He was looking for what he had with her and neither of the women were capable of giving it to him.

"What about you?" he asked, wanting to chance the subject as he didn't feel comfortable discussing this part of his life. At the same time, he felt curious how it looked for her.

"I don't know… It's difficult to talk about something, what pretty much didn't exist…" she sighed, feeling suddenly embarrassed. "I mean, there were a few guys… It never got truly serious, though… Even if everything seemed good, they weren't able to fully understand or accept that I will never, ever get over losing Tommy… I didn't try to hide him and they seemed fine with it, but at one point or another they always started to complain that I visit him too often, that I keep wondering what it would be like if he lived and so on…"

He reached out his hand and placed it on hers, surprising her a little. He was ready to withdraw it, when she sent him a small smile and he knew that he didn't offend her in any way.

"So, you named our son Tomas?" he asked and the way she blushed made him certain that he knew the reason why she did that.

He remembered the conversation about names, which they had once had. It all started because of encountering a boy, whose name seemed not only archaic but embarrassing for the child in the future. It was also when he admitted that if he had a choice, he would choose to have a son; not that he wouldn't be happy with a daughter, and of course, he would love her, but he still preferred the idea of having a boy. He also mentioned a few names, which he thought he would name him and Toni didn't really try to hide, that she didn't like them. Thomas was the only one, which she agreed with him about.

"It seemed like a natural choice… Even before I found out that our baby was a boy, I kept calling him Tommy in my mind… It wasn't fair because it could have been a girl, but perhaps it was this mother's intuition or something… My dad insisted that since he would have my surname, he should have a Hispanic name and luckily, I simply needed to adjust the spelling."

Few seconds later, they were approached by the waiter, who brought their lunch and they were both aware that the conversation was pretty much over. Still, the silence that fell was quite comfortable and neither tried very hard to break it. They did make a comment every now and then, but that was pretty much it.

"Will you come tomorrow?" he asked, when they left the restaurant and arrived back at the place, where they left their cars. "I have no doubts that other people in your company must be great, but with you I feel completely certain that everything will be perfect…"

"Don't worry, Myles, I'm going to finish what I started."

He nodded his head, feeling very relieved. The truth was that he was ready to even fall to his knees and beg if it could convince her to continue working on his garden. He didn't want anyone other there; Toni was a person, who he trusted and who knew most of his little quirks, so who could do it better than her?

"Toni?" he called out, when she opened the door and was just about to get into the car. "What would you say about going to a theatre with me on Saturday? We could go to dinner after the spectacle or somewhere else, if you preferred it…"

She bit her lip, hesitating for a moment. Should she accept the invitation? She wasn't sure it was a good idea and at the same time, she really liked the idea of spending some time with him outside of his garden.

"Actually, dinner sounds perfect." she smiled, leaving him no doubts as to her answer and even though he wasn't sure what made him ask her, he was happy he did.

Perhaps it was his heart, begging for a second chance with her.


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: **A huge thank you to the Guest, who made me realise that I forgot to update this story! In between learning French and making notes for the chapters for my other story, it completely slipped out of my mind that I still owe you a couple of chapters. There isn't a lot left, but always something! If I suddenly disappear again, don't hesitate to just drop me a PM or something because I might just be writing plans or learning French, or doing an idiot of myself by trying to actually say the French "R", so it's not going to hurt me to make a break and upload a chapter! ;) Hope you're going to enjoy! :)

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><p>Myles huffed with irritation, lifting a tenth tie and holding it against his chest in order to determine whether it matched or not. None of them seemed good and he really wanted to look absolutely perfect this evening. Of course, it wasn't like he didn't try for his appearance to always be impeccable, just like everything else, but this time it was something more. He didn't really try to deny – even to himself – that he wanted to impress Toni; the feelings he still had for her were getting more and more difficult to ignore and even if they were to realise that it wasn't <em>it<em>, he still hoped that they could give it a try. It could turn out to be a mistake and yet, it could also be exactly what they were both looking for the last eighteen years. They have both changed and it surely wasn't going to be just like he remembered their relationship from all those years ago, but there was nothing worse than leaving all the matters unfinished and even if she really wasn't the one for him, he wanted to see it clearly and be able to finally move on.

Finally, after almost an hour, he got dressed and ready to leave. His heart was beating like crazy, when he parked his car in front of the building, which she lived in and made his way inside. He wasn't sure if he ever felt so nervous in his entire life and with shaking hands, he managed to knock on the door. Taking in a deep breath, he prepared himself for facing her, holding the bouquet of pink roses straight, when he heard footsteps. The flowers were the first thing she noticed, when she opened the door and her heart skipped a beat.

"Oh, hi." she said, blushing a little and moved to the side, allowing him to step into her apartment. "They're beautiful…"

"It would be good to put them in a vase or something…" he spoke, and she wasn't able not to feel a little bit disappointed.

A lot of men arriving to pick someone up for a date would say that she looked beautiful as well or something in that style, after the comment that she had made. Or perhaps, she was simply reading and watching too much romances? It could be the case, of course, but either way she was forgetting that no matter the reason, it was Myles Leland in front of her. He definitely wasn't like most men, and also didn't possess even a bit of a romantic soul. He was able to make it up with his knowledge about what he should or shouldn't do, but it was rather stupid to expect anything truly romantic coming clearly from him.

What she didn't know was that he allowed himself to truly take in her appearance when she took the roses from him and went to find a vase for them. He immediately thought that she looked absolutely breathtaking in a simple, yet elegant low cut dress, which perfectly emphasised her curves in all the right places and at the same time, didn't reveal too much. Her hair was falling down her shoulders in lovely waves, which almost begged for him to touch them and he had a little difficult time focusing on the thought, that he should behave like a perfect gentleman. It was only when she turned around, that she caught him staring and smiled, when he immediately looked away, pretending that nothing like this happened.

"I'm pretty much ready to go." she stated, standing in front of him and Myles nodded his head.

It seemed that just like in the past, she had this ability to make him completely lose his tongue. Luckily, it turned out just as easy for her to start a conversation with him and soon it was just like it used to be between them. It was as if all those years, during which they led completely separate lives, didn't happen; they were only visible in their talk. Obviously, as they got older, they had much more experience than they had as teenagers and their views on certain subjects changed or matured, and they were surprised to find out that they seemed to match in many cases. They remembered that they had often needed to agree to disagree on things, which they now had the same opinion about.

He quickly noticed that while he wanted the evening to be absolutely impeccable, everything seemed to be against him. He didn't dare say anything about it, but he noticed his car acting a little strangely and had a bad feeling about it. Still, before they knew it, they reached the theatre and the moment they stepped inside they knew, that something was wrong. The atmosphere amongst the crowd was tense, and Myles pressed his lips together when he overheard two women speaking that the spectacle was cancelled because one of the actors broke their leg and the person, who was supposed to replace them in case of any accident, got sick.

"What do you mean, cancelled?! We paid for the tickets!" he exclaimed, when the official information reached everyone and she caught his arm, giving him a gentle squeeze.

"Myles, calm down." she spoke, thinking how this sort of behaviour reminded her a little of his father. "You can't be mad at them because of an accident they couldn't predict!"

He groaned, obviously dissatisfied but didn't say anything else so loudly, only kept grumbling under his breath. It was enough to make Toni happy, though, and he eventually stopped when they left the building after getting back the money for tickets.

"If you're up to it, we could go to the restaurant… I didn't know what time would the spectacle end, so I didn't make a reservation for a specific hour…"

At least at the restaurant they got more luck, but it was difficult for Toni to control herself, whenever the waiter was approaching. The man was strange and spoke in a way, which was infuriating for Myles, who clenched his jaw every time he got near. She sighed after yet another attempt to start a conversation, but she should have known it was pointless. Irritated Myles was either voicing his displeasure for everyone to hear or being silent, and out of the two she definitely preferred the latter, even if his complaints could be amusing at times. Yet, despite all this she still found herself enjoying the evening and felt strange, when it came to an end.

"I'm sorry… This evening really wasn't supposed to look like this…" he apologized, when he parked his car in front of her building.

"Don't worry about it, Myles. I had a good time, although it would be nice if my companion wasn't sulking so much…"

"It's just so infuriating, that when you want for something to be perfect, all your plans get ruined…"

"Obviously, we have slightly different opinion about what can be called a perfect evening… For me, it would be simply spending time with someone, who I care about… It could even be at home in front of TV, as long as person like this would be with me."

"I never really stopped caring about you…" he said, reaching out his hand and cupping her face; his thumb started to gently caress her cheek, waking up all the butterflies in her stomach, while her heartbeat quickened.

She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out and she blushed, looking away embarrassed. Myles watched her carefully, unsure whether he should take that as a good or a bad sign, but he smiled when he noticed her bit her bottom lip, something he remembered her doing quite often, whenever she had difficulties voicing her feelings or wasn't sure what they were. He was surprised, though, when she finally looked back at him but instead of speaking, she leaned closer and brushed her lips against his.

He felt overwhelmed by all the sensations evoked by this gesture; it was the simplest of kisses and yet, it had such a strong effect on him that he wasn't sure if any other kiss ever got even close to it. He kissed her back, feeling his heart thunder in his chest and couldn't help groaning, when they parted.

"There's no sense in hiding it. I want a second chance with you, Toni. I want to see where it's going to lead us and if we are to break up, I want it to be because we agree that it's not the relationship we want, not because of some external factor."

"I guess we're pretty much on the same page, then…" she said smiling and placed a last, short, gentle kiss on his lips before it was time for them to part.


	17. Chapter 17

She would lie if she said that she wasn't afraid of giving their relationship a second chance, but she quickly understood that she didn't need to. Even though he was the more determined out of the two of them, he didn't see her slight hesitation as a problem. She wanted to give it a try, to see if perhaps her best friend was right and she didn't manage to make a life for herself because Myles was the one for her. She was open to this possibility, even though it scared her a little. Would she be able to open herself to him completely again? She was afraid that it could turn out almost impossible for her doubts to vanish. He was, of course, a grown-up man now and his decisions weren't - or at least shouldn't – be influenced by his parents, and it was definitely easier to think of some possible future when they were both working and didn't need to worry about means for life. Yet, a part of her couldn't help being convinced that their world might be too different and their time apart could be a sign. On the other hand, finding him again so unexpectedly after such a long time, could also be an evidence that there were some plans for both of them together and she felt totally divided.

Myles could see that and even though he didn't have such doubts himself, he accepted hers and tried his best to give her as much space as she needed. At the same time, he was doing everything he could to show her, that there was no need for her to be afraid and he could sense her slowly overcoming that. It was probably the most visible in their goodnight kisses, which followed all the dates that they had gone to. At first they were rather short and gentle, but as time passed they were slowly getting longer and the passion inside them was increasing, not to mention it was getting more and more difficult for them to part. Yet, she was still somewhat apprehensive and even though he felt like he desired her even more and more every single time, and it was starting to get really difficult to ignore, he didn't dare to cross the line.

He was very sure, that Toni was the one he was destined to spend his life with. He loved her, of that nobody could have any doubts, but when he thought about himself, his actions and feelings, he realised that there was something different about them now, that he was with Toni again. He just rolled his eyes at Bobby's comment, that he was acting a little bit like Jack around Sue, but he now started to think that perhaps the man was at least partially right. Knowing what he felt, he definitely wasn't going to be the biggest coward in the universe and waste a couple of years before making a move, and definitely wasn't going to be so lovey-dovey or make out in every possible place at any free moment. Still, he noticed that now, when Toni was back in his life, he pretty much had eyes only for her. Not that he was completely blind to other women, and he could see that they were obviously beautiful too, but more than a couple of times already, he found himself comparing them to Toni, and she was always turning out on top. His feelings for her, now that they were completely free, exceeded what he felt towards any other woman, who was present in his life at one point or another. They could be a little different than what he remembered feeling, but it was surely because they matured and changed.

Neither of them had any doubts about this little fact, because it was pretty much inevitable. Myles could see that Toni wasn't this sweet, open, talkative and somewhat naïve girl anymore. She was obviously a little introverted and even if she was the one to start conversation with him, she didn't continue chattering until he interrupted or voiced his opinion. She seemed a little distrustful towards people, and guarded herself quite well. It wasn't easy to get through all the walls, that she had built around herself during all those years, but he was happy that she was willing to try to let him in. Toni, on the other hand, could see that while he has always been somewhat eccentric, he became even more so. He had more 'little' quirks than she would have ever imagined and there were some things, which she simply didn't understand but didn't say anything. Despite the loud protest, which would surely take place on his side if she told him that, he seemed to be getting more and more similar to his mother as the years passed. She remembered Mrs. Leland as very bossy, demanding person, who expected everything to be adjusted to her likes, wants and needs and even though it wasn't to this extent, Myles was a little like this, too. He still didn't have even a little bit of sense of humour and his like to give lectures about things didn't disappear – perhaps, it might have only increased. Overall, even if slightly different, he was still the same guy, who she fell for almost twenty years earlier and she still found his ways endearing.

He smiled, when he returned home after work and went into the garden to find her working there. His vacation time finished and he couldn't spend his whole days with her anymore, but he was still happy with the hour, which she stayed for after finishing her job. The teasing, which he experienced after his friends found out that he gave her a key to his house, even though it was truly for the very innocent reason of not being dependent on his presence in the house in order to work, finally ceased and he was actually surprised that they didn't find another reason to pick on him. He was quite certain that if only they wanted, there was a lot of things they could find, but was happy that they obviously didn't want to.

"How about you finish for today and help me eat the Chinese-food that I had brought home?" he asked and smiled, when he saw her eyes light up.

"How did you know? I actually thought today that I would eat some Chinese..!"

Just a few moments later, they found themselves in his dining room, eating and talking a little. It was a little awkward conversation, because they pretty much didn't have much more to share about their lives apart, there was nothing truly interesting in what she has done that day – and whatever she did, he obviously noticed when he looked at the garden, while he couldn't really talk about the case his team was working on.

"You know, you never really elaborated what this friend of yours… Lucy, I believe? …Meant with that comment…"

"We've been in relationship some time ago, even though I now can't really understand, how did it happen? Anyway, it was probably the longest relationship I was in but there was something missing… We were friends, though, and we worked together and I really cared about her, and even though I knew that it wasn't exactly that, I was sort of afraid of finishing things between us… She did that when she found out that I cheated on her…"

"What?!" exclaimed Toni, but before she could continue he started to talk again.

"I am not proud of it! It was a mistake, which I admit to making and regret, but one that I can't change… I really am not this sort of guy…"

"How can I be sure, that you're not simply telling that to me now? How can I know that I won't suddenly find out that you're cheating on me with someone?"

He groaned, when she felt the change in her attitude towards him. He decided to be honest with her, and now wasn't sure that it was a good idea, anymore. It seemed like this one confession suddenly made her take a few steps back in overcoming her doubts about this relationship and he had absolutely no idea what to do or say to make her see, that she could trust him.

"I don't think there is a way, which would allow me to make you absolutely certain of it… It's a matter of trust, but you have to know that what the two of us share is something special… Do you really think that I'd simply destroy it?"

"I… I don't know…" she admitted, biting her lip when she noticed that her words hurt him, even if he didn't really show it outside.

He could look completely calm or indifferent, sometimes he was hiding behind anger or other emotions, but she learnt quite well to read his emotions even if they were visible during a very short moment. Now, she could see that he felt terribly disappointed and probably also a little sad, and she felt really bad that she caused it.

The rest of the time they spent pretty much in silence and she sighed heavily, when she stood in the door to the house and instead of a goodnight kiss, she received a brief hug. Cursing once again that there was such a big height difference between them, she made him lean down and while she stood on the tips of her toes, she cupped his face with her hands. It made him automatically lean down and she closed her eyes, pressing her lips against his.

She sighed, when she felt his arms close around her waist and he pressed her to his chest, while the kiss continued and was slowly getting out of control. She let out a moan, when she parted her lips to let his tongue in and heard him groan, when she started to work on unbuttoning his shirt. Before she knew that, she found herself sitting on the small shoe cabinet right besides the door, while his lips travelled from her lips to her jaw, down her neck and his hands' exploration was getting bolder, setting her whole body on fire. She gasped, when she felt his hands gently brush against the outline of her breasts and she had a really hard time remembering anything around besides him.

"Myles..." she spoke, urging him to stop.

She could feel quite well, how much he wanted her, and she couldn't say that she didn't desire him as well, she wasn't ready to take that step with him, yet. She was certain that it would happen soon, because it was really getting more and more difficult to stop, to resist him, but she couldn't help feeling that they were moving a little bit too fast and it was a little overwhelming.

"I'm sorry." he immediately said, as if oblivious to the fact that he was now without his shirt on because she got rid of it at one point.

"Don't…" she interrupted, seeing that he wanted to say something more. "I want you Myles, don't doubt that but I just… It's all happening so fast, so many feelings at once… It's a little overwhelming... I don't want to be with you and then, wake up in the morning and think that we could have waited a little bit more before taking this step once again…"

"Of course." was everything he said before he pulled her close, holding her tightly against his chest as he hugged her. Even though he couldn't help feeling disappointed and somewhat frustrated, he understood what she meant and definitely didn't want the mentioned scenario to happen. If she wanted a little more time, all he could do was respect this wish.


	18. Chapter 18

She sighed, when she stood in the back door of his house and looked at the result of her work. His garden was all ready now, she finished it just a day earlier and even though every single time, when her work in one place came to an end, she felt sort of melancholic, this time her feelings were somewhat different. She spent a few weeks there, and those were very crazy weeks, which caused a lot of twists and turns in her personal life. She would have never suspected it to happen, when she had decided to do this job but now she was thinking about it as the intervention from fate.

Appearing in her life again, Myles brought some light back into it. Of course, it wasn't that she wasn't happy earlier, but not the same way that she was now. Everyone could see a change in her, in both of them in fact, and it was most definitely a positive one. She didn't even deny it any longer; she was in love with him, she has probably always been even if those feelings were buried deep in her heart. Who would have thought that this eccentric and infuriating man would turn out to be the one, who was destined for her. It was the more astonishing that they had a chance to build something great all those years ago and she would think, that if they were really meant to be together, it would work out in the past. If it had, they might have been married for about fifteen years now, had an almost grown-up son and who knew, maybe another son or a daughter. It hadn't, though, but it still seemed that it was IT.

"Admiring the perfect work of a very talented gardener, I see?" she heard his voice behind herself and turned around with a smile on her face.

"I don't know, something doesn't seem right…" she spoke and he rolled his eyes.

"I can't imagine anyone doing it more perfectly than you… Other than me, perhaps." he added, and even though his voice was entirely serious, she knew that Myles wasn't. "I'm sorry that I kept you waiting, I'm all ready now."

They were going out for yet another one of their dates. This time they were going for a dinner, and even though he didn't tell her where, by the need to dress very elegantly she judged that the place must have been quite exclusive and most probably very expensive. She felt quite bad every time she took her to such restaurants, knowing how much he needed to pay for a simple dinner while it really wasn't necessary, but he wouldn't hear of it. She still remembered his outburst, that those were his money and he could spend them however he wanted, and she had no other choice but to succumb.

She came to his place after he called her, that he was still at work and wasn't sure if he would be able to make it on time. He didn't want to lose the opportunity to spend time with her, so he suggested for her to get to his place – as she still had the spare key – and if he was late, he would buy something to eat on his way home. Luckily for them, he got there in the last possible moment, which would still give him time to get ready and later take her to the restaurant. What she didn't expect was that he would take her to what was considered the best restaurant in the area, which people needed to make reservation at half a year earlier than they would go there. How did he manage to do it so quickly? Was it possible that he intended to take someone else there, and now he simply used the opportunity?

"It's not like that." he said, when she asked him about that. "Well, not exactly…"

"What do you mean, not exactly?" she could feel her anger rise a little and Myles didn't have any problems seeing that.

"It was actually Jack, who made this reservation… Today is the fifth anniversary of the day, when Sue appeared in his life and he wanted to celebrate it in some special way." he explained, but her raised eyebrow made it clear that she still wasn't really satisfied by his answer. "She's pregnant now, and it seems that her stomach reacts very badly to a lot of different food, but it's the worst when it comes to take-outs or eating at the restaurants. As much as they both regretted, they agreed that it would be better for them to stay at home and celebrate with a home-cooked meal, which she might actually tolerate…"

"I know exactly how she feels…" sighed Toni and looked up, when she felt him capture her hand and give it a gentle squeeze. "So, he passed the reservation to you?"

"Yes. He was planning to call it off, but I asked if he would mind if I used it instead."

She nodded her head and he watched her carefully. Even though he didn't show it, he was very aware of why she inquired so much and it hurt. There were moments, when he regretted telling her the whole truth about his relationship with Lucy, because this one mistake, which ended it, seemed to have a huge influence on his relationship with Toni, or at least on her uncertainty when it came to him.

With a corner of his eye he noticed a band move to the side of an empty area, surrounded by tables, and wanting to turn her thoughts to a different subject, the moment the music started he stood up from his seat, approached and asked her to dance.

"It's funny to think that we've been on so many dates and yet, we've never really danced together." she remarked and even though it surprised him, he had to admit that she was right.

"Then we have to correct it all the more." was all he said.

She smiled, when he placed one of his hands on her waist and captured hers with the other one, while she rested her second hand on his shoulder. Even though she was sure that she wasn't going to be able to walk on the next day, she was grateful that Rebecca insisted that she should get the four-inch heels to match the dress, because the height difference between her and Myles was now at least partially reduced, what made it more comfortable to dance. She sighed, when he moved closer and she could feel his breath on her neck, while his fingers moved a little, gently caressing her side. As they swayed a little to the rhythm of the music, she had difficulties to focus on anything other than the smell of his cologne mixed with his own, unique scent, him being so close to her, his fingers moving along her side…

The spell was broken, when the song finished and he led her back to the table, where the waiter brought their main course, and she couldn't help feeling disappointed. She would eagerly spend the whole date in his arms; there was something in his embrace that made her feel so safe and special, and even though she saw herself as an independent woman, she really enjoyed this feeling. It was only the more evidence of how attracted she truly was to him; she didn't remember her reactions to ever be like that – maybe with the exception of when they were together in the past. How could she think, that she could remain indifferent to him? It seemed so stupid now and she definitely didn't regret that she wasn't capable of that.

Myles felt the same way, but in contrast to her, he didn't try to deceive himself even for a moment. Everyone could see a change, which happened in him when Toni appeared in his life. He still was the good old Myles Leland and yet, there was something different about him. Even after all those years he still had feelings for her, and he believed that it spoke volumes. And he seemed to be falling for her even more after each date or just a while, which they spent together. He was getting quite certain that Toni was the one for him after all. He felt like that already back then in the past, but now it was as clear as ever. She was the most beautiful and interesting woman he had ever encountered, and he wished they didn't lose all those years. There was nothing he could do about that now, but he definitely wasn't going to let go of her again.

"It was a really great evening." she said, when they later left the restaurant.

"I agree… I really like your company and I wish it didn't have to end so quickly…"

"Actually, I don't think it has to… I don't see the reason why we can't spend some more time together." she spoke with a smile, linking her arm with his. "It really doesn't have to be anything special, Myles… We could even watch TV together!"

"If you say so, why won't we go back to my place? I have a very nice wine and since it's such a great, warm evening we could sit in the garden instead of the couch."

"Sounds good, too!" she grinned and allowed him to lead her to his car.

There was no traffic problems on the way, and they reached his house quickly. Myles smirked, when he noticed Toni step out of her heels with a relieved moan the moment they walked into the house. Soon, they were seated in his very comfortable garden chairs, sipping red wine and talking. It felt great and natural to spend time together like this, in such a casual way and talk about something and nothing at the same time. She didn't inquire about his job again, knowing that he wasn't going to share anything with her anyway, and he knew what sort of topics it was better not to touch, too.

"Do you want some more wine?" he asked, when he noticed that her glass was empty.

"No." she spoke, biting her lip a little as she stood up from her chair.

His eyes followed her every move, as she slowly approached and sat on his lap. He was surprised, but he definitely didn't mind and placed his hand on her side, holding her against himself as she rested her head on his shoulder.

"I wouldn't mind your arms, though… It's starting to get a little cold…" she said, snuggling to him.

She really enjoyed sitting with him like this, with his arms wrapped tightly around her and holding her close, sharing his warmth with her. He liked it very much too, although there were moments when he wished for her hands to stop moving and her fingers not to brush against his body every now and then. His reaction to her was always very strong, but with her small body pressed against him, even the smallest of action had a huge effect on him.

It was only after a moment that he realised that she was actually doing it quite purposely. He shivered a little, feeling the cool evening air against his chest and it was then, that he noticed that his shirt was half-way unbuttoned. He turned his head to look at her and saw her bite her bottom lip playfully, and before he could say anything, she brushed her lips against his, silencing him effectively. She raised herself a little, shifting and straddling his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck as their kiss continued, slowly gaining more passion. She sighed, when she felt his hands move, caressing her back and sides and parted her lips willingly, when she felt him sweep his tongue against her bottom lip. She let out a soft moan, when their tongues met, engaging in a small battle for dominance, and moved her hands down his chest, then up to his shoulders before she resumed her work on unbuttoning his shirt.

"Toni…" he groaned, feeling her wriggle a little on his lap.

She just smiled and instead of capturing his lips again, she started to place kisses along his jaw up to his ear, gently nibbling on his earlobe, while her fingers worked on the small buttons, brushing against his bare chest every now and then and sending gentle shivers through his body. She chuckled, when she felt him cup her face, making her look into his eyes, darkened with passion, which made the one displayed in her almost black orbs. It was just one, relatively short look, yet it was almost as if a whole conversation has taken place. Neither of them had any doubts, just how strongly was the other's desire and he could see the consent reflected in her eyes, in the way she was looking at him and he could feel her heart swell. He knew, that as much as it would bring them both a physical relief, her consent also had much deeper meaning. It was like a non-verbal way of saying, that she was absolutely certain about this relationship, like she was finally giving her whole heart and trust back to him.

She wrapped her arms around his neck again, when she felt his grip on her tighten, understanding his intentions perfectly. Pressing her against himself, he slowly stood up and made his way back into the house, enjoying the sensation of her lips, brushing against his jaw and neck. It was only when they reached his bedroom, that he placed her back on the ground and shuddered, when he felt her cold hands moving along his shoulders, making his shirt fall to the ground. He smiled, leaning down to her and resumed their kiss once again, while his hands continued to caress her body, with no inhibitions this time. Soon, his lips moved to her neck and she sighed, tilting her head to the side to give him a better access and moaned, when his tongue found the place, which made her grip his shoulders tighter. He started to move down with his kisses, his hand reaching to the zip of her dress and lowered it, allowing the dress to fall to the floor.

She sent him a questioning look, when he moved away from her a little, as she stepped out of it, and leaned to the ground, only to pick the dress up and throw it over the back of the chair, standing next to the door.

"Wouldn't want for it to get ruined." he said, his hands now reaching to her back in order to unclip her strapless bra, and when he got rid of it, they started to travel all over her bare skin, setting it onto an even bigger fire than it already was on.

"You're crazy…" she said just before she let out yet another moan, when one of his hands cupped her breast, giving it a gentle squeeze as his thumb flicked over her nipple.

"I definitely want you like crazy…" he murmured, taking care of the last bit of her clothing and swallowed hard, when she unbuttoned his pants.

"Show me…" she whispered, and he picked her up again, making her feel the best proof of the honesty of his words, and then placed her in the middle of the bed.

She bit her lip playfully, as she watched him take off his pants and boxers, before he joined her on the bed and captured her lips again, hovering over her, supported on his arms and knees. She gasped, when – not for the last time that evening – he made them one, resuming his claim on her.


	19. Chapter 19

When she woke up on the next morning, a wide smile made its way onto her face. She slowly stretched out and opened her eyes, taking in her surroundings. It was the first time that she had a chance to truly look around; she hasn't been in his bedroom before and on the previous evening she was too focused on Myles to care about something like this. The place was exactly like she expected it to be. Most of the room was used by the biggest bed, that she has ever seen, but she had to admit that it was very comfortable. She could see that the ajar door was leading to the adjoining bathroom, and the other door must have been built-in wardrobe.

She wasn't surprised that he wasn't in the bed with her. There was this foggy memory in her mind, how he was leaving sometime earlier in the morning, although for her it was way too early to be up. It didn't matter that it was past ten, but after finally going to sleep at around three or four in the morning, she still needed some sleep. Now it was almost noon and she was up, wondering what he was doing.

Wrapping herself in a duvet, she scanned the room for anything she could wear. Obviously he must have taken care of the room, because there was no clothes on the floor and she was certain, that they didn't leave it so clearly. Not to mention that her dress was gone, the only piece of the clothing that she had there, even if not very appropriate to put on in this moment. Feeling slightly uncomfortable with it, she approached his wardrobe and opened the door; just like she thought, it was filled with a lot of clothes, all of the best quality and brand. She took out one of the T-shirts, which turned out to reach her knees and chuckled; at least she didn't have to look for anything else.

Following the smell of coffee, she slowly made her way downstairs and found him walking around the kitchen. During the few weeks, which she had spent working on his garden, she found out that next to being a very passionate gardener, Myles was also quite a good cook, even if he didn't always have enough time to prepare something. She also remembered the lecture about the influence of all the poisons on human bodies, which he gave her after commenting that she didn't know a lot of bachelors, who wouldn't stick to ready meals. She watched him, the fact that he was walking around without his shirt on having an influence on her keeping her eyes on him, too, wondering how long it was going to take him to notice her presence.

She chuckled, when she realised that he was so caught up in what he was doing, that he probably would notice her only upon bumping into her. She approached him, as he stood at the kitchen counter, and wrapped her arms around his waist from behind.

"Hey." she said, her grip loose enough that he managed to turn around.

"Good morning." he smiled, leaning down and capturing her lips in a short kiss. "How did you sleep?"

"I don't remember the last time I slept better…" she admitted, reciprocating the smile.

"Good. I have to say, it felt good to fall asleep with you in my arms afterwards, instead of hurrying to get dressed before we're caught by someone."

"You've no idea how many times I dreamed that it could happen…" she admitted and sighed, when she felt his lips on her forehead.

"I think I do… But now there is nothing to prevent you from staying whenever you want."

He kissed her again, a little longer this time and only when she commented that it smelled like something was burning, he remembered about the pancakes that he started to prepare. She laughed a little, as he did his best to rescue at least a little of the breakfast and was surprised, when he suggested a picnic after the meal. Myles Leland definitely didn't strike her as this kind of guy.

"What can I say? I like to spend time outside, surrounded by nature… Peace, sounds of nature, no signal at the cell phone… What could a man want more?"

"Sounds like a trip for one person, not two…" she suggested and noticed him roll his eyes.

"I actually thought you'd say nice company, but perhaps you're right… Although, I don't mind sharing this peace with you."

It turned out to be an absolutely wonderful day and every moment made her more certain that it was the right thing. There was a very short moment last evening, during which she started to wonder if she wasn't going to regret it, but it disappeared even quicker than it appeared. Now she didn't feel even a hint of regret; her heart was filled with certainty that she didn't make a mistake by jumping into this relationship with her both feet. Her intuition was telling her that only a good thing could come out of it. If their bond didn't disappear after all those years, it could really be the relationship that they were both searching for their whole lives.

"Toni…" he started, wanting to get her attention and waited until she turned to look at him. "I'm glad it was you, who came that day…"

"You know, when I left that day, I went to Becky's house and I had a huge breakdown… I was terrified by the thought of being near you again, but now I'm happy that it turned out to be you."

"I love you, Toni…" he said before he could stop himself and started to worry it could be a little too early for such confession, especially that he noticed slight uncertainty in her eyes. He reached out his hand, cupping her face and caressing her cheek with his thumb.

"I love you, too…" she said quietly, smiling a little at him and sighed, when he leaned closer and placed his lips against hers.

When they looked into their eyes, as they parted, they knew that no matter what happens, everything will be all right from now on.


	20. Epilogue

**A/N: **So, this is it. The end of this story... I hope that you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! Thanks to everyone, who decided to give it a while and read, and even bigger thanks to those, who let me know what they think. I've wanted to write a story about Myles for quite some time now, and it was nice to finally be able to do so. I still can't help feeling like I didn't do him justice, he's such a difficult character to write, such a complicated one and I definitely see him as a person, who has a lot of layers, most of which we didn't have the chance to see... And, when I was creating Toni, I definitely didn't think that she would be a winner in a Person of Interest category of the challenge, but I hope that you liked her...

And of course, a HUGE thank you to Fanka77, who this story would probably never be created without! She's the best person to brainstorm with, the best beta I've ever had and a great friend, and I often can't help wondering sometimes how does she manage to stand me, but she does and I love her for it! Thanks!

* * *

><p><strong>Epilogue<strong>

Toni smiled as she looked at the child, sleeping peacefully in her arms despite the noise around, the girl completely oblivious to the whole world surrounding her. She looked around, her eyes following all the children running around and the adults, gathered in groups and talking. Her heart was swelling as she watched the close relationship, which they all had with each other. She has always been taught that family was the most important value in life and it made her really happy to have the chance to see the scene.

It was funny to think how her life had changed since the moment Myles appeared in her life again. Before that, all she had was a couple of friends, almost a sister in Rebecca and an empty apartment to come back to every day. Now, however, her house was rarely empty and it felt really good. Being surrounded by family always made her happy, but one thing she loved the most were the gatherings, which were never missed by anyone unless they had a very good reason. She really didn't think that they would one day all meet on the party organised to celebrate her fiftieth wedding anniversary. Sometimes she had difficulties to believe that so much time passed, but the evidence was there, wherever she looked. Especially when she thought about the children and found them amongst the crowd, all grown-up now.

It felt as if just yesterday, she was holding her son like this. She still remembered how nervous she was when she found out that she was pregnant, knowing that her husband would want a boy. It completely didn't matter to her, but for Myles it was a little bit different. She didn't have doubts that he would love her and be extremely proud of her anyway if the child turned out to be a girl, but he would still feel disappointed. He wanted to have a son to carry on a family name and since they agreed that it was going to be their only child, it was his only chance to have him. They were both very happy, when Shane Anthony Leland made his entrance into the world and there wasn't even the shortest of moments in his life, when he didn't make his parents feel extremely proud. Shane was a spitting image of his father and she could never fully grasp just how similar the two were in both looks and character.

One of the traits that he surely inherited after his father was being quite discreet about his feelings. Yes, of course, she knew him well enough to know that there had to be some girl in his life, who he really cared about, but she would have never suspected it could be Cindy Hudson. She knew the girl and her two older brothers since they were babies, as the relationship with Myles made her grow closer to the people, who he considered his friends. Shane and Samuel Hudson, younger of the two boys, along with Robert Manning Jr. (also known as RJ – short for Robert Jackson - to avoid the mistakes two Bobbys would cause), were the same age and inseparable from the very beginning. Peter Hudson, despite being just two years older, often joined their fun as well, but his bond with them wasn't as strong as the others'.

She wasn't able not to smile, whenever she looked at the young Hudsons. She was aware that Jack and Sue named their son after the boys' grandfathers, yet they would have never suspected that the fate would prepare such a twist for them. It was clear from the very beginning that Pete was pretty much the spitting image of Jack (who, in turn, was a resemblance of his father) with his dark curls, brown eyes, unmistakeable smile (Sue often suspected that the only thing the boy received from her were the dimples, which made him even more irresistible for women than his father). Sam, on the other hand, was almost a one-hundred-percent Thomas, save for the name and probably resembled his grandfather even more, than his mother.

Cindy, however, was a true mix of them both. She had beautiful blonde curls, expressive brown eyes and her father's smile, not to mention her mother's caring, understanding and forgiving nature, and Toni didn't have difficulties understanding what her son had noticed in her. While she hated to think about her little boy as being all-grown-up and ready to have a family on his own, she was glad to see him with a really great girl, who was obviously able to make him very happy. And nobody had any doubts that she did, marrying him twenty five years earlier and giving him two great children.

Oliver was a true Leland with his father's blonde hair, blue eyes and very characteristic personality. Toni sometimes thought that he was even more like Myles than Shane, what was a huge accomplishment in itself. He was, of course, his grandfather's apple in the eye and it was only thanks to her, that the boy didn't end up spoiled rotten by her husband. It wasn't, of course, like she didn't like to spoil her grandchildren a little, too, but everything had its limits and Myles was often pushing them with him. It was just a little over a year earlier, that he got married to the girl, who he met at Harvard and was now expecting their first baby, and much to the delight of her husband - their great-grandson. She smiled, as she saw Oliver in the corner of the room, taking care of Katie, who was now entering the phase of the pregnancy when she felt uncomfortable practically all the time.

Madison, on the other hand, was taking much more after her mother's side of the family. Everyone could see how similar she was to Sue Hudson, with the exception of the famous Hudson eyes. In contrast to her brother, she was a little rebellious, especially when it came to the traditions (or more exactly rules) passed down in the Leland family for generations. Toni still chuckled every time she thought of Myles' face expression, when she announced that there was no way she would be going to Harvard. She was very insistent that she wanted to study fashion design, which wasn't offered there. The Leland men eventually gave in and last year the girl graduated at the top of her class from Parsons in New York, often considered to be the best amongst the schools, offering such courses.

Nobody had any doubts, that the girl would be good at it, especially after they saw some of their projects. She was already very good, even though just at the beginning of her career. A much bigger surprise for her family was when at the Thanksgiving last year she announced that she was expecting a baby, since they didn't even know that she was dating someone. It was even more shocking, when she revealed that its father was Danny Manning, RJ's son and Bobby and Tara's grandson. After all the teasing from Bobby they got about the fact, that Jack's and Myles' families were joined by their children, it was now happening for him, only a generation later. Only when they saw the two together, they weren't able to believe that they didn't notice the way, Madison and Danny were looking at each other, so very obviously in love.

Toni looked down, at their little girl and her first great-grandchild, who started to stir. She could hear Maddie talking to Cindy and Ella, Danny's mother about the wedding, which they planned for the next summer and was about to call out for her, but the girl just stretched a little and continued her nap. It seemed that she could be satisfied by her for a little longer and she used the opportunity to hold her, because she didn't know when she would get another as she was soon returning to New York with her parents.

After looking around the crowd once again, she raised her eyes at the sky. She could swear she noticed something blink up there, although it was so short that she couldn't be sure. Every time it was happening, she found herself thinking that it was a sign from Tommy, that he was there. She and Myles loved their family with their whole hearts, but their part always belonged to their first little boy, who Toni felt certain was watching them from above.

She startled, when she felt a hand on her shoulder and turned around to find her husband, standing right next to her. She smiled at him, watching as he slowly sat on the chair opposite her and reached out his hand, taking hers into it.

"Happy Anniversary, Toni." he said, this moment being the first chance he got to talk to his wife ever since the family appeared in their house.

"Happy Anniversary to you, too." she said, looking at him and deep in her heart wondering, how she managed to survive fifty years married to one of the most eccentric, infuriating (and sweet) men in the world.

THE END


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