“Sandy!” Lara suddenly realized she’d not given one thought as to how Sandy was handling this turn of events.  With a sigh, Lara recognized that she was far more invested in Alice, despite the fact that they’d not seen one another in almost a year and a half.  Closing her eyes she rinsed her face under the streaming water.

*-*-*-*

            “So, Lara looks ridiculous in your clothes, eh?”  Bette asked as she rummaged through her suitcase for a pair of sweats and a long sleeved t-shirt.

            “Uh-huh,” Alice agreed, then realized that Bette was smirking at her.  “What?” she asked.

            “When did Lara wear your clothes?” 

            Alice swallowed.  She remembered the evening that Lara had come to her apartment for one of their rendezvous.  Lara had spilled a glass of red wine on her jeans, and the pair of trousers that Alice had loaned her looked ridiculously short on her.  They had laughed at their disparate heights. 

            “Alice?”  Bette’s voice cut through her reverie.  “Did you and Lara ever….?”  Her question trailed off.

            “What?  God, no!” Alice snorted in a vain attempt to appear affronted.  Realizing that Bette could read through her, she sighed.  “Alright.  Yes.”

            Bette nodded, a spark of gentle empathy in her eyes.  “It makes sense.”  She gathered the clothes and moved to sit beside Alice who’d collapsed melodramatically on her bottom bunk.  Squeezing Alice’s hand she added, “You both were hurting so badly after losing Dana.”

            Alice nodded miserably.  “Yeah, I guess.”  She rubbed her eyes and grimaced at Bette.  “At first, it just seemed like we were both hurting so much that it was natural.  And then, it was like, in some really weird way, holding onto Dana.  And then, it just got strange.” 

            “Strange, how?” 

            Alice chewed her lip while she tried to think of the best way to frame her answer.  How could she sum up the fact that she’d gone from regarding Lara as a relationship-wrecking demon, to grieving comrade, to proof that living and feeling were possible without Dana?

            “Alice?”  Bette’s quiet voice interrupted her whirlwind of thoughts once again. 

            Alice blew the air out of her lungs in a whoosh of exasperation.  “Fuck, Bette.  I don’t know.  I mean, at first, we just fucked.  Simple.  It was an affirmation that I was still alive and could still feel, you know?  But then, somewhere along the way, it started to change.  And that scared the shit out of me.  So, I refused to talk about it.  And then, when I realized, that maybe I did want to talk to Lara about the possibility that I might be having feelings for her it was too late.  She was already booked on a flight to Paris.”  She threw her hands up in disgust.  “I guess the fact that she jumped on a plane should have been a clue to me that Lara was on the road to recovery a bit more quickly than I…and that she viewed our ‘arrangement’ as therapy that had run its course.”