It was three in the morning on a Thursday morning when she moved out of the bedroom and into the guest bedroom.  It was funny that he even remembered the moment that it happened.  Funny as in: Strangely or suspiciously odd; curious.  Rather than the more accepted definition: Causing laughter or amusement or intended or designed to amuse.

Permanently.

The move had been permanent, or at least as permanent as it could be considering it was now that it was a few days later and she still hadn't slept a night in their bed that week.

At first he'd thought that it was just a little misunderstanding.  He'd thought it was going to be smoothed over in a few hours.  He thought that good sleep and stepping away from the situation would be the cure, but almost four days later and a day before he was to leave town again she was on her way upstairs heading towards the east side of the house instead of the west side of the house where the master bedroom was.

"Felicity?"

She didn't flinch or turn towards him when he called her name weakly towards her back.  It was as if he hadn't even spoken her name, or rather existed for the last few hours.

The only time that she'd even made any act that would make him think that she knew he was sitting next to her while they both watched a movie on the big screen in the living room, was in a part of the movie when by habit she turned to him to repeat the funny line that had just been said.  She realized though before the words came out that she was upset with him and shoved popcorn in her mouth and turned back to the screen.

In the last fifteen or twenty minutes of the movie she started to slip down in her seat.  Her head dipped, her arms relaxed and left over popcorn fell into her lap, falling onto the fleece lap blanket that she normally cuddled up with on the couch.  If they hadn't been fighting he would have been curled up with her, absent mindedly running a hand up and down her arm as he pretended to watch the movie when really he would be waiting for the moment that they could go upstairs and get into bed.  Of course he wasn't totally a barbarian.  He loved being with her, talking with her and living in their house together, since for three fourths of the year he was traveling, but the physical part of their relationship took priority in his mind when he was home since all of the other things in their lives could be done over the phone or more recently, over the internet.  The physical stuff well, was physical.

He raised his arms, putting his hands flat on the top of his head and linking his fingers together.  The cool house air against his skin prickled the hairs on his arms.  He'd been curled against the warm couch and now that he was getting the cold shoulder from her he was also faced with the air conditioned air of the house.  He lifted his ribcage up with a huge breath and pushed down all his frustrations up and out through his arms and his hands.  His head and neck fell, forcing the breath out of his lungs, "Felicity?"

Still no answer.  He could hear her walking around up there, but again it was as if he hadn't even said her name.

The house was still and silent except for them.  Normally when he came home there were a million and one people over, hanging out, spending time with him; with them.  Tonight he'd refused more than a few invitations to go out or have people come over.  He'd known that it wouldn't have been a good idea.  He needed to confront her and now, at nine at night he was still hesitating.  After all, he'd just spent two hours in front of the television next to her mimicking her attitude towards him by not saying anything to her.

The silence only exasperated the fact that they were already on bad terms as it was.  He'd felt it while on the road.  The rollercoaster scenario that had always described women's behaviors really came into play in their relationship.  Some of that he could have helped, but some of it was just a natural ebb and flow, highs and lows, that women, namely his live-in girlfriend, would go through.  Depending on the day, she'd often start out on an extreme low or an extreme high, hit the opposite extreme then either accelerating to the highest high or dropping like a dead weight to the lowest of the lows.

Letting the grip on his linked fingers go he let his arms fall to his sides, hitting his thighs with a slap.  The slap sounded like a bullet being shot in the house due to the acoustics.

Still there was nothing.

His mouth began to move before words even came out.  He relived their conversation the other night for the fiftieth time in the last four days and he still didn't know what was going on with her.  Finally his breath caught in his throat and the frustration and anger came out in three simple words, "What the hell?"

Instantly, without warning, he heard heavy heels above him and  a moment later she was standing at the top of the landing.

If the words "what the hell?" had been a button to push with her, he figured that he'd pushed it, and it had gotten stuck in the "on" mode.

"What the hell?  What the hell what?" she asked angrily as she gripped the railing with her tiny hands.  It was a rhetorical question and he could see by the fire in her eyes that he definitely didn't want to test her use of the question.  "How DARE you ask what the hell?  You waltz in here in the middle of the night the other night after a month and a half of being away and two weeks without a call him, crawl into MY bed and wake me up.  Then when I finally tell you why I wanted you to come home in the first place, because you and I are about to have this blessed..."  She paused for a moment, choking on what he could only imagine as tears.  "...this blessed event in our lives.  You stare at me as if I've just ruined your life and you have the nerve to ask me 'what the hell?'"

The tone of her voice made him think instantly that he was in BIG trouble and definitely not the kind of trouble he could smooth over alone.

"Felicity?"

"Leave me alone.  I'd love to say that you can sweet talk your way out of this, but tonight is not..."  Again her breath caught in her throat on tears that had been threatening to fall, but that she'd held back iron jawed.

He could see her knuckles turn white as she readjusted her grip on the railing.

"Baby..."

She nodded her head no to him and stuttered a bit, but she finally pushed out the word, "Don't."  Her next move was to disappear.  She walked out of his sight and for a split second he worried that it was out of his life.

His shoulders rose and fell forcing the air in and out of his lungs.  He couldn't breathe.  He had remembered most of the conversation, but hadn't realized what she'd been saying.  He'd been focusing so much on her being upset with him that he'd forgotten why she was even upset in the first place.

They were going to be parents.

He sighed and looked upstairs as he heard the door to the guest bedroom slam shut.  "So that's how it's going to be?"

Moving back into the downstairs living room, he thought for a moment about flipping on the television, but instead grabbed the remote for the CD player.  Taking a seat he turned off the lamp next to him, letting the hidden ceiling lights shine onto the mantel, and leaving the rest of the room in darkness.

As the smoky voice of John Mayer filled the room and was joined by his ever so famous guitar he closed his eyes and leaned back against the couch cushion.  He prayed that the music would help ease more of the tension, but the song that the shuffle button had hit on really wasn't something he wanted to be hearing at the moment.

Still is the life Of your room When you're not inside And all of your things Tell the sweetest story line Your tears on these sheets And your footsteps are down the hall So tell me what I did I can't find where the moment went wrong at all

You can be mad in the morning I'll take back what I said Just don't leave me alone here It's cold, baby Come back to bed Come back to bed Come back to bed Come back to bed Come on back to bed

His eyes popped open as the music continued to play and he found that his eyes had found their way to the pictures on the mantle across the room.  Glued to both frames, his eyes went distant for a moment, blurring the image, and more importantly blocking out all of the therapeutic aspects of the song he was listening to.

Finally something caught his eye.  He wasn't sure if it was the reflection from the lights above or if it was just that he hadn't had much time lately to sit still on the couch and stare at the wall, but he soon found himself moving from the couch to stand in front of the mantle with an adrenaline rush that cleared both his vision and his thoughts.  His hands moved without notifying the rest of his body and he almost dropped the two frames that had been on the mantle.

The first was a shot of the two of them, in what she had always referred to as the Camelot days, when things were perfect and they were the happy little couple. The framed photo was them on the set of one of the videos for the group, his arm around her looking very plastic in his stage make-up, but the genuine smile he had and the one she returned showed that neither of them were at all plastic when it came to their relationship.

The second, and more important picture next to it, was the group standing outside of the 2000 Billboard awards posing on the red carpet. He had that same happy look on his face, but there was something about the shot that didn't sit right with him.  When he looked more closely he found that the picture had also caught her in the background looking upset about being there. He didn't know why he hadn't noticed it before, the picture had been sitting there for years now, but only now was he seeing the frown on her face, the slight dimness of her eyes, and the look of utter disgust on her face that was clearly directed in their direction.

The old saying about the light bulb coming on in a person's head when an idea finally presented itself was definitely the opposite of what happened to him that evening.  It was as if the lights HAD been on and finding this new information had smashed the light bulb to a million pieces sending cleanly and swiftly into the dark.

"You've got that damn song playing in every room in the house!"

He turned around on his heel finding her standing there, hands on her hips angrily staring at him.  He hadn't heard her come up behind him and he couldn't really tell how long he'd been standing there looking at the frames.

He couldn't say anything to her.  He didn't know what to say to her.  She'd been living this lie with him now for almost five years now and yet he'd never even noticed.

"What's wrong with you?" she finally asked.  She moved to the couch and grabbed up the remote and tried to flip off the song, but it only repeated the lines that he'd heard what he thought had been moments before.

What will this fix? You know you're not a quick forgive And I won't sleep through this I survive on the breath you are finished with

You can be mad in the morning I'll take back what I said Just don't leave me alone here It's cold, baby Come back to bed Come back to bed Come back to bed Come back to bed

Finally finding the button she threw the remote down.  It bounced off the couch coushin and fell with a clatter to the floor.  With the sound of the song going off and the remote hitting the floor, he jumped a bit, but when he didn't respond to her, move or practically even breathe, she turned her head to the side and looked at him from a different angle.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked, holding up a limp hand with the framed Billboards picture in it.

Anger was her first response.  "Tell you what?  Tell you that you're finally going to get what you've talked about so many years?  That you're going to be a father?  That's not something I would have wanted to deliver over the phone, but seeing as how screwed up this has all gotten--"

"I meant about this," he said and moved towards her.

She backed up.

He leaned and set the other photo on the coffee table.  "About this," he pointed to her face in the background of the picture.

When she didn't answer right away he took a deep breath.  "You know I saw this before.  Saw it coming, but I tricked myself into believing that it wasn't going to happen, but there it is."

"There what is?" she asked.

"This face."  He pointed at the picture.  "This hate."

Her eyes welled up with tears.  "I don't hate you."  She took the photo from him and set it on the coffee table.  "Its the opposite.  Totally the opposite and the fact that you don't understand that makes me even more--"  She took a breath.  "I don't know what the word is for it, but that look isn't hate."

"Well what the hell is it?  You've been here for the highs and lows of my career and there I am in that picture totally celebrating with the band and you're standing in the background throwing daggers at us!"  He didn't have enough time to realize the words that had just come out of his mouth, but it clearly had effected her.

"Jealousy."