Alice stood frozen in shock for a moment, holding her fingers to her lips that now screamed for the warmth of Dana’s to return to them. Alice’s mind raced around trying to make sense of everything that Dana had just said. She tried to think, tried to weigh things out, but then she realized that there was nothing to think about, nothing in her that wanted to find out if Dana was right or not, nothing in her that wanted to lose Dana all over again. And so , as soon as she could get her legs to listen to her again, she ran down the hall toward the elevator after Dana. Alice swore when she got to the elevator and realized that she had taken longer than she thought to react to her girlfriend and then ran toward the stairs. Alice rushed down the stairs, proud of herself that she only tripped once and that she was still breathing when she reached the bottom. She bolted out of the apartment building and grabbed Dana’s arm just as she was getting to her SUV.

Startled, Dana turned around to find Alice standing behind her completely out of breath. She almost laughed at the sight of her girlfriend bent over desperately trying to suck in breaths of oxygen. “Al, are you okay?” Concern for Alice took over and Dana moved closer to her and set her hand on Alice’ back trying to get her to calm down and breath normally. Alice lifted her head and smiled at Dana before leaning in and kissing her. Dana was so thrown off by the action that all she could do was kiss the blonde back. “Stay.” Alice said when they pulled apart. “Stay, and we can stop running together.” Alice smiled when Dana did and led her back toward the apartment building

Bette woke while it was still dark outside. She blinked twice before realizing that she had woken herself up with her own discomfort. She had been sleeping in the chair. She strained a little as she bent her neck toward the opposite side that she had slept on and tensed at the sharp pain in her neck. Bette got off the chair slowly and quietly not wanting to wake up Ariana. She squinted at the clock trying to get her eyes to focus and saw that it was only four thirty in the morning. “*****.” She swore quietly and walked out of the room toward the kitchen before she remembered that Liz was sleeping in the living room and she didn’t want to wake her up. Bette sighed knowing that she wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep and made her way out the front door to the porch. Bette sat on the porch swing trying to make sense of her and Tina’s new relationship. The distance between them was beginning to make Bette think that Tina coming home might not have been such a good idea.