PEACE :

She barely remembered the drive home. How she'd managed to make it one piece was amazing. She'd spent the entire drive lost in her thoughts, lost in the harsh words they'd exchanged. She hadn't asked him to return his key, but it was close. She was really growing tired of the constant fighting, the pain, and the misunderstandings.

Well she wasn't going to be the one to offer the olive branch this time. She'd always been the one to do it in the past. If there was any chance of some form of reconciliation, this time he would have to make the first effort. From deep inside her came a voice which told her that he had tried and she hadn't listened. But she quickly quieted it by protesting that it wasn't his attempt at reconciling, it was a booty call.

She stomped up the steps to the quiet refuge of her computer room, gritting her teeth to hold back the tears. Not this time. She would not cry again. Gradually she tried to relax as she put on her headset and allowed the music to wash her cares away. But as always her radio became her worst enemy as both love songs and break-up songs seemed to taunt her, tear at her until she could take no more.

"Fuck." The single uttered curse as she flung off the headset and buried her head in her hands. Tears now more out of frustration than anything. She simply couldn't figure how the good times between them had been so incredible and yet the bad times between them had been so awful. She simply couldn't understand how things had gone so terribly wrong and what, if anything, could be done to make it right.

She jumped suddenly at the sound of a knock at the door. She got up and quickly splashed her face with cold water from the bathroom on her way downstairs. When she opened the door she was startled at first to see no one there and then she noticed the bouquet of flowers sitting on the step. She pulled off the card without picking them up and opened it to read the words, "Turn around." She wasn't a bit startled by then to see him standing there when she turned to face him.

"They were fresh out of olive branches at the florist, but I know how you like daisies, so I hope they'll do."

"I knew I should've asked you to return your key," she said with a grin and they both knew she was kidding. She picked up the flowers to bring them in. "They are lovely. So beautiful in their simplicity. They always make me think of warm sunny days." She smiled tentatively at first. Her anger was fading, but what of the future, what of the next fight. She was guarded, worried.

He guided her over to the couch as he spoke, "I've been doing a lot of thinking of warm sunny days myself lately. Like the warm sunny days when we first met and the hot nights which followed them when we explored each other. Days spent contented in conversation and nights spent contented in each others arms. What happened to change that?"

"I've been wondering that myself," she said as she took his hands into hers and began tracing circles on the backs of them with her thumbs. "So much has happened. I think, maybe too much."

They talked on into the night, calmly this time; expressing thoughts and feelings that both had been holding back on before. They spoke without their defenses up and this time they were able to hear and understand each other. When she again invited him into the familiarity of her bedroom it wasn't truly make-up sex but rather renewal sex. They renewed and remembered and reveled in the things which they'd always enjoyed about each other. They clung to each other all night and were once again contented and at peace in each other's arms.