"Can I join you?" Alicia sat up and let the sheet pool at her hips. Parker was staring and it wasn't at her bed head. She sat back on her hands and arched her back a little enhancing Parker's view.



"Huh?" Parker smacked her lips together and tried to get back to her thoughts before Alicia's surgically enhanced features smashed her reasoning with a big two by four.



"You know, help keep your stitches dry and all." Alicia pointed to Parker's chest and waited not wanting to push too hard too fast.



"Nah, relax and I'll be out in a minute."



Parker, Parker, Parker, you aren't playing by the rules, baby, and it's really starting to piss me off. You should be all over me not walking into the shower alone. Alicia got up and called her agent to tell him where she was and where she was going so that there would be reporters waiting for them when she and Parker got there. In her mind they were a couple again, now it was time to let the rest of the world in on the happy news.



Alicia walked out toward the waiting car first while Parker picked up her messages from the front desk. She smiled at the petite blonde walking up the street with some flowers in her hand and Emily, to be polite, smiled back. Parker walked out of the front door and walked to the open door of the car without looking around. One more lunch with the pop star and she would be off the hook. While she was checking her messages she reviewed everything she had said up in the room and was pleased that nothing sounded like a promise.



"Come on, lover, we have reservations and I'm starved." Alicia slid in first and when Parker was clear of the door the driver closed it and moved to the front to get them moving. Parker never saw Emily hand the bouquet in her hand to a homeless woman walking passed the front of the hotel.



No wonder she didn't call. Emily walked away in the opposite direction so that Parker wouldn't have the opportunity to see her.



************************************************************************



Practice was slower paced in the next few weeks as Parker played to see what her mobility was. Gary would wrap her chest every morning to protect against popping the stitches in the healing wound in her chest, and to keep her pain down to a minimum. The tournament started the next day and he felt the games would last longer since Parker had lost some of the power in her first serve, but hopefully the strength of the rest of her play would pull them through.



"You want me to go with you?" Gary packed all her rackets and picked up the bag so she wouldn't have to strain herself. "Maybe a change in tradition will be lucky for you this time."



"I know Nick bought you both some tickets to see Rent tonight, big guy, so no, I'll be fine. My tradition got me to the finals last year and if that's where I end up this time, I'll be happy." Parker scratched her chest and wanted nothing more than to get into the shower in her room. As the wound healed, the more it itched. She just hoped she could control herself from looking like she was feeling herself up in front of the cameras starting tomorrow.



"Ok, but we'll come with you if you want."



"Gary, hand me that bag and get the hell out of here." Parker held her hand out for the racket bag and glared at her coach.



"No, I'll carry it for another twelve hours thank you. It will be waiting in your room when you get back don't worry. Have fun tonight and I'll see you in the morning. Call me if you need anything. And don't worry about the family, Nick is picking them up and bringing them over from the airport." They took a cab back to the hotel and went their separate ways.



In the two weeks since the attack, Parker had worked on getting stronger and tried to live down the headlines in the local papers that covered the story of her and Alicia getting back together. A story that the singer didn't seem to be denying and one that Parker was trying to forget about. One lunch did not make for a joyous reunion.



Her table was waiting for her by the wall of glass that looked out to the lit trees in Central Park. It was set up for one and the other patrons looked up from their conversations and meals when she walked in and sat down. Under one arm was a thin book of Robert Frost poetry that she placed on the table when the waiter handed her a menu.



"Welcome back, Ms. King, would you like the usual?"



"Thank you, Barry, and yes the usual would be fine." Her waiter moved off to get the drink she ordered, giving her time to look over the menu.



Parker never did mind eating alone and always did so before the beginning of every major tournament she played in. The solitude found in a crowded restaurant and a good book let her forget about tennis for a couple of hours, since it would be all she would think about for days to come. The next opponent, the review of her mistakes made in the last sets, the aches that accompanied her after a couple of grueling afternoons on center court, and all the other things Gary would want to cover once play began.



Barry came back and put the mug in front of her and took her order. When he left, she opened the leather bound book she had brought with her and started reading as she took sips from the cup sitting on the table. Parker tuned out the whispers being said about her from most of the patrons in the restaurant that night. Some of them wanted to come over and wish her luck, but her engrossment in the book and the fact she was sitting with her back to most of them kept them in their seats.



"You're staring." Bobbie took a sip of her mixed drink and tried to engage Emily in conversation again. They were out having a celebration dinner after Emily had found an apartment she liked. The pilot would be moving as soon as the furniture she had ordered was delivered.



"I'm sorry, what did you say?" Emily answered but kept her eyes glued to the woman drinking hot chocolate three tables away from them. She and Bobbie were sitting by the windows too, but Parker had never looked in their direction since she had sat down.



"I said you're staring. I didn't take you for a starstruck tennis fan, Em. The precocious Ms. King and I met not that long ago, if you want I can introduce you." Bobbie took a sip of her drink and tipped her head back in Parker's direction.



"You know Parker?" Emily finally moved her eyes from Parker to her dinner date.



"Parker? My, I may have over emphasized my relationship with the pin up girl of tennis. Do you know her?" Bobbie put her drink down and reached over to hold Emily's hand. The pilot had been sulking for the last couple of weeks and no amount of trying on her part would make Emily tell her what was wrong.



"Yes, we've met. How do you know her?"



"I wished her luck in the park one morning when I saw her stretching for a run. She thanked me then took off like Satan was chasing her through Manhattan. Ms. King actually gave me the run of my life when I tried to keep pace with her, after that morning I had to take a week off to recover. If she does that every morning no wonder three sets of tennis seem to be a breeze for her."



"Yeah, Parker seems to take on everything in her life with the same type of vengeance." Bobbie arched her brow at the statement, as Emily's attention went back to the lonely looking player.



"I saw her looking at us that night at Gotham too. It seemed to be fate that I would run into her again after seeing her that morning. As intently as she was looking, I chalked it up to her thinking the same thing, but if you know her, maybe she was looking at you."



"What do you mean, she was looking at us?" Emily forgot Parker for a minute and turned her eyes to Bobbie. All she could remember from that night was the blood coming through Parker's fingers when she went to get into the cab.



"I was looking at her when you walked in and her eyes followed you to the bar. She was watching us say hello before that Alicia girl gave her a wine bath. You know you read about stuff like that but you never think you will actually ever see them play out like that." Before Bobbie finished her observation she found herself sitting alone as Emily moved to the table where Parker was sitting.



"You hurt my feelings," said Emily in a soft voice as she stood next to the empty chair at Parker's table.



That must be the mantra I instill in women, thought Parker as she looked up from the book in her hand to the woman that had now taken a seat at her table. "How pray tell, did I do that?" Parker looked up from the verse she was reading passed Emily to the tall blonde that seemed to be her constant companion. She lifted her mug of hot chocolate and saluted the now shocked looking woman that was watching her dinner date sitting with someone else.



"You never called me this summer." Emily played with the napkin in her hand that she had inadvertently brought with her from her table. She was taking deep breaths trying to organize all the thoughts running through her head. It was the stuff she had wanted to talk to Parker about and now it was coming out as accusations.



"That's right, I didn't." Parker took a long look at the woman that had taken up most of her thoughts when she wasn't immersed in playing tennis over the past summer.



"I thought that you would at least once, after well, after the time we spent together."



"I thought so too, Captain, but you didn't reciprocate and give me your numbers so I didn't know how to get in touch with you. If you wanted to talk to me, you have every single number that will find me at the other end. Virgin Airlines is very accommodating, but giving out employee information is not part of their customer service. So you see, I tried, but you apparently didn't want to be found." Parker hadn't closed the book she was reading and hadn't really asked Emily to join her. The fact that she was getting pissed hadn't escaped her notice either.



Emily didn't make her any promises when she left so there was no reason for her to be mad now that the pilot was here with someone else. The someone else that had been kissing all over her two weeks ago in the other restaurant she had seen them in. You reap what you sow, Parker, and since you have planted row after row of miserable women all over the globe this is what you get.



"I did too give you my numbers." With Parker's clipped tones, Emily wasn't sure what to do.



"Captain, I am not going to sit here and argue with you, but no you didn't. You stayed at my house, you played with my dog, but there was no information on yourself that you left behind. Besides, I see that you are getting on just fine with your life. I don't see a purpose for us to talk unless you just want to gloat, and that, my dear, seems a little beneath you." Parker lifted the mug and saluted Bobbie again. The woman was sitting at the table with her chin resting on her palm watching the action taking place not that far from her lifting her glass to Parker again. Her eyes went from Parker to Emily like she was watching a special type of tennis match.



"What in the hell, is that supposed to mean?" Emily sat back and tried to figure out why Parker was being so obnoxious.



"Your date is getting lonely, Captain."



"I'm sure that my friend doesn't mind sitting alone for a minute while I'm over here telling you hello. Not that I'm sure why I bothered since you seem to have some sort of bug up your ass about something. Bobbie is who I've been staying with, she is not my date, well not technically."



"Is there a problem, Ms. King?" Barry came back with her appetizer and noticed the woman sitting with Parker. He and everyone around them noticed that neither one of them looked very happy.



"No problem, Barry, just an acquaintance that wanted to wish me luck." Parker smiled up at the waiter then at Emily. "Thank you, Emily, you have done your duty and are free to go."