"You want some coffee or something?"

Coffee. Right. Somewhere between the mariachi nightmare
downstairs and the complaint rock up here I find myself playing
freaking Dr. Phil and negotiating coffee talk with arguably the most
screwed up member of the Cicatriz clan.

And I'm actually considering it, because there's a part of me that
actually feels something for this messed up kid, which is maybe the
most surreal part of this whole damned gig.

"Do you?"

"Yeah. I'm getting hungry," Chevez says, and it occurs to me that
the last thing he really wants is coffee talk with me, but he wants
to go downstairs alone even less. I'm half inclined to just let
him twist in the wind, but there's something in his body language
when he sits up and looks at me, this half-hopeful need-- he looks
so damned young and hurt. Even knowing what he is, I just can't do
it.

Besides, I'd kill for a cup of decent coffee right now.

So I tell him that I need a shower but sure, I'll meet him down
there. Chevez would rather wait, hell, he'd rather sit down at the
table across from me sweaty from running to avoid having to talk to
his father, but he agrees without an argument, which is pretty much
an indicator of how wrecked he is. I shouldn't be doing this.
It's stupid and it's risky to let Chevez get too close. He's
imprinting. I can see it happening. That's not good for either one
of us. All of my instincts are screaming at me to renege and make
up some appointment or duty I forgot until just this second, but I
can't. I'll lie to myself and say that a healtier Chevez is a less
dangerous Chevez and I'm just doing my job. It'll make me feel a
little better. For now. I can live with that.

The bed's damned comfortable. I hate getting off of it, but I do,
finally. "Or you could give me five minutes and I'll go down with
you."

"Yeah. okay, I'll wait." He's happy with that. His shoulders relax
just a little. "Go for it."

"Okay, hang on then. Five minutes."

"Kay."

And five is all it takes. The life I've led, you learn any shower
longer than that is a luxury you just can't afford most of the
time. You become efficient at it. Vecchio used to say I must be
the most low maintenance woman he ever met and he needed one just
like me when he got back to the real world. That is, when he
remembered I was a girl.

I always preferred when he didn't.

Shit. What made me remember THAT out of the blue?

Shake it off, Fisher. It's all falling down around you. You can't
afford any squishy little trips down memory lane now. Not here.

Exaclty five minutes later I'm back in his doorway, hair still wet
but neatly braided, in a cleaner version of the clothes I had on
earlier. Chevez is trying hard to look like he wasn't *waiting* for
me, which is kinda sorta cute and kinda sorta creepy at the same
time. Duckling.

"I hope you know how to make decent coffee," I mock growl at him, so
he doesn't get any stupid ideas that we're best friends forever or
anything now.

But Chevez is happy. So happy he's actually grinning, which is
definitely an improvement over the lost boy thing he had happening a
few minutes ago. "Yeah, I do. Come on." He practically bounds down
the stairs, confident now because he has an ally with him.

"You better be prepared to prove that."

"Oh, I can, babe. Just you wait and see," says Chevez over his
shoulder as he begins fussing with the coffee beans and the grinder.

Babe? What the fuck? Did I HEAR that right?

Geraldo heard it. I know because he was watching Chevez pass when I
walked by his office. Our eyes meet just as Chevez says it and his
eyebrows twitch just a little. Oh yeah, I know what you're
thinking, asshole, and you can just forget it. He chuckles when I
send him a warning glare, then goes back to his papers.

I'm not in the mood to rip Chevez a new one, but it at least merits
a warning. "Call me that again and I'll tear your dick off."

He blinks, like he's completely unaware of his little
transgression. "What'd I call you?"

Yyyyeah. Riiiiight. Mr. Innocent. I raise one eyebrow.

"What?"

"Babe? Do I REALLY look like a babe to you?"

Anyone who knows either of us wouldn't believe what he was seeing,
watching this exchange. Me, trying to still look hard even though
the stupidity of the situation's starting to make me want to laugh
and Chevez looking way more clueless than a guy with his history
possibly could be. Grinding Kenya AA for a killer, no less. But
all he says is, "....oh" and all I do is-- nothing.

"Yeah. Just make the damned coffee."

"I am, I am." Chevez grouches, but he's doing it, like a proper,
LA, rich-boy, metrosexual. Smells damned good, too. And for one
crazy minute I start having another one of those ridiculous, 'I wish
I were a regular girl' moments, because then maybe. Maybe. I'd know
how to just relax and enjoy it This family messes with your
head.

Would it really be so horrible?

And the coffee smells better than sex. It's enough to push my
defenses down an inch more so I can lean back against the counter
and just watch him. "It smells good."

Damnit, WHY does Chevez Cicatriz have to be so easy on the eyes?

Don't go there, Fisher. You can not afford to go there. Not with
this kid and certainly not with this family.

"Yeah. it is good," Chevez says, so pleased that he doesn't notice
when my walls go back up. "I had to teach these idiots how to make
real coffee. But you notice who keeps stocked up on the good beans
NOW, huh? Cream? Sugar? Anything?"

I shake my head* "Just black, thanks."

The mug he hands me is big, round and painted in bright red
letters, "Mexicans do it with spice." Hell.

"Nice cup." I take one careful sip. Holy hell, it's good. "You
weren't lying."

Maybe the kid should open a coffeehouse. Even in a town where
there's a Starbucks on every corner, he'd make a killing.

"Yeah, it's good." His eyes close as he savors the drink. "Yeah.
Gods, I needed this."

"Me too. So what's to eat?"

He shrugs "We got stuff around here. Eggs. Toast. Bacon." Nothing
Mexican. Huh.

"Maybe just some toast."

He's cooking before I even finish the sentence. "No protein?"
Whatever bullshit Geraldo did to his sons, it seems like he's
installed a happy ease around the kitchen in all three of them.
Chevez moves around with a grace and a surety I haven't seen in him
before. He likes this.

It's really a waste that I'm not a morning eater by nature. "Not
before noon."

"Okay." Chevez is already in the zone, multitasking. He sets up
two eggs cooking for himself. A bunch of toast in the kind of
toaster that can make ten slices at once. He's hungry, snitching
fruit and eating it between tasks.


"You look comfortable here." So am I. Enough so that I hop up onto
the counter, just out of the way, sipping the coffee and watching
him work.

"Yeah. well." And that's all he gives me, because it's a dangerous
observation. In fact, he won't even look at me any more.

So I give him a confession of my own. I'm not sure if I'm trying to
lighten the moment or give him some of the same nakedness he's been
forced to show. I don't think I'll think about that too much.
"Lucky. My cooking skills are limited."

He takes it with a grin. "Gotta be proficient in everything or you
can't live by yourself, can you? Well..okay, so you can, but you'll
SUCK at it."

"I'm not home enough to develop any skill at it," which is painfully
true.

THAT gets his attention. "Do you even HAVE a home?" Amazingly he's
not trying to be sarcastic; he's dead serious.

"I have a place."

"Where?" Chevez slips his eggs onto a plate. "Dry toast?"

"Got any honey?"

"Uh..." He digs some out of one of the cabinets, deep gold, marked
`Imported from New Zealand. Of course they'd have the high class
stuff here.

I answer him as I take the bottle from his hands. "Here. In town."

"Town. That's funny. Los Angeles, a TOWN." He almost sounds
offended.

"I've lived a lot of places, Chevez. LA isn't the biggest."

"Yeah, but it's no town. A town is someplace where everybody knows
everybody and gossip is the sheriff's'' biggest problem."

Mmmhmmm. Exactly. "Yeah." Maybe it's escaped Chevez's notice
that LA is precisely that kind of place.

"I'd go crazy in a town. Wouldn't you?" He hands me a plate of
perfectly golden brown toast to go with the honey.

I do not want to like this kid. I really don't. I can feel it
happening. I know it's a lie because the guy making breakfast is
NOT the one I know. Only suddenly I can't reconcile this man with
the one I've dealt with for years.

"Who says we aren't already?" I spread honey on the toast, then,
because it's the good stuff, pour a little more in my coffee. Then
I just eat, not meeting his eyes any more, because this naked stuff
is hard and I'm unused to it and it puts me on edge.

Maybe he finally noticed me pulling back, because Chevez isn't
smiling any more. "Well, then Chicago looks even better, doesn't
it?" Chevez isn't looking any more either. He's shoveling his
food in like a starving man, which makes sense considering that his
dinner last night wound up all over the courtyard outside. He has
nice manners, but he's still inhaling his food and then it's just—
gone.

"If you say so. I like Asia."

"Asia? Really? How come?" He stares, surprised.

"It's huge. Anonymous. Easy to get lost."

For a man like Chevez invisibility would be a curse, not an escape.
He doesn't get it and it shows. I really, REALLY don't want to
explain it to him, but he's curious and I think I'm going to have a
hard time worming my way out of it.

"So not a place to go if you want to remake your name, then."

"Fuck names. Don't you ever just want to disappear?"

He has to think about that. "When I was younger I did. Then I
figured out nobody can really disappear. And then you're invisible
anyway even if you do, and....yeah," he trails off, softer than
before because it's getting hard again.

Welcome to the real world, where shit is hard and sometimes when you
get hurt you bleed.

"Believe me, kid. You can disappear. That day's coming for me.
Soon."

"Why?"

There it is. The question I've asked and answered myself a thousand
times a day, every day, for the last six months. The short answer
is, because it's time. But I don't think Chevez wants the short
answer, and if there's even the slightest chance that giving him the
long one will make a difference in the direction he's heading, maybe
I should just suck it up and give it to him.

"I've been doing this almost half my life. Sooner or later the law
of averages is going to catch up with me. Maybe I should get out
before it does."

His eyes are on me again, so intensely that I have to struggle not
to shift and squirm. "So why disappear? Why not just...quit?"

"Because people like your dad don't like it when people like me just
quit. It's not enough to say you're finished. You have to be
completely invisible"

He's still not getting it, but he's trying to process the ideas. I
can see it written on his face. "That is quitting, isn't it?
Becoming invisible."

"Yep." I go back to my coffee and toast, because I gave up a lot
just now. More than I have since Vecchio.

"That's a shame."

"Maybe from your point of view. You're a prospective employer."

He has the grace to blush just a little, then shrugs it off.
"Well ... yeah, I guess so."

And that's all there is to say, really.

"Yeah. Got any more coffee?"

"Yup. Made enough for four cups."

So I hold out that stupid, ugly, piece of pottery for a refill of
liquid heaven, more because I need to put a hard break in the
conversation than that I really need another dose. "I'll finish
this job. Poor you."

"Thats not so much poor me. I was wrong about you, Fisher. You're
kinda cool." He toasts me with his coffee mug, a little bit smugly
maybe, but he means it.

I should feel flattered, probably. He meant me to be. But I can't.
Because he's wrong. I'm not cool, or nice or admirable in any way
that any decent person would ever conceive. And he's deluding
himself.

Because in spite of all this touchy-feely stuff we've been doing
here, I'm never going to be his friend.