Adie couldn’t believe what she was hearing, he was giving up on them? He couldn’t, not after everything they had gone through. He had been the one to tell her that there was no one else in the world that he wanted to be with, he had been the one to fight for them when she had wanted to leave, so why was he ready to just throw the towel in? Why, when they were so close to figuring it all out, did he just decide that he had had enough? That he wanted out? She knew she had made a mistake in leaving but she had come to him, she had turned up in Vegas to find him, to let him know that she was ready, that she wanted to be with him and he had seemed happy enough with it. It was just the tiredness talking, that was the only thing it could be, she knew what that felt like, with all that had happened she too felt emotionally and physically drained. She had to make him understand that.

“No,” she shook her head. “No you’re not going to give up that easy Nick.”

“I’ve been trying for three months Adie, I’m done,” he told her softly but firmly and then he made his move towards the door. She quickly made her move to stop him but he shrugged off her arm and so she became more vocal.

“No, no, no, NO!” she yelled the last time, managing to somehow get in front of him and block the door.

“Let me out,” he said calmly, but she stood tall, her back pressed firmly against the door, if he wanted out he was going to have to physically pull her away.

“No,” she shook her head, wiping her tears, “No you’re not going anywhere.”

“I’m done,” he told her again, his eyes narrowing.

“But I’m not. I want to fight. I’ll fight for us,” she told him placing a hand on his arm. It was her turn to fight, her turn to be the strong one and she wanted to be, she wanted to make it work, she wanted to be with him.

He shook his head, “It’s not enough, let me out.” She stood strong and shook her head no again making Nick’s patience start to wear thin. She reached out for his arm, maybe if she touched him, held him, maybe he would realise that she did care, that she was sorry but he shoved her arm out of the way.

“Adie let me out!” He seemed to hiss but she shook her head again, tried to wrap her arms around him again but something inside him seemed to change right in front of her. It was almost as if the Nick she knew had disappeared, his eyes darkened, his jaw clenched and he grabbed her arms with such force she knew she would bruise. That wasn’t the scariest part though and as soon as she saw the fist coming, she held her breath in shock as her body seemed to freeze. The crack of his fist against the door just above her head, with his scream off “LET ME OUT!” was enough to remind her to breathe.

She looked at the anger in his eyes, his icy glare so cold that she stepped aside without another word and when he threw open the door and stormed through it she slid down the wall, sobbing into her hands.

***

Nick made it to the elevators before he seemed to realise what had just happened, and when he looked down to his throbbing right hand, the already darkening bruise was not the first thing he noticed, it was the uncontrollable shaking of both of his hands. What the hell had he just done? Had he really just punched the door mere centimetres from her head? Had he really just screamed at her? What the hell was happening to him? He caught his reflection in the shiny doors of the elevator, his eyes were red rimmed, the bags under his eyes so noticeable and he had to look away because he hated the man who was staring back at him.

He wiped his hand across his face as he tried to come up with some sort of plan in his head, but his mind just kept repeating his fist connecting with the door, the sheer look of terror on her face. She really thought that he was going to hit her and if he was honest with himself he knew he came so, so close to doing just that. That was why he had just left, he just walked away without uttering a single word because the anger towards her was just too much and if he had stayed there was the possibility that he wouldn’t be able to control himself. What the hell did that say about him?

He found himself just outside the door to the suite that Angel and Aaron were sharing, it was a mere three doors down from his own room, the room that he left her in. In the minute that he stood and stared at the gold plated numbers attached to the door, he could hear her sobbing. He hated being the cause for her tears but yet he felt almost happy that she was actually crying, that she did have some emotion left, god what had she done to him, to them? He was happy that she was crying, it was totally messed up but instead of going to her, instead of making sure that she was okay, he knocked on the door of the suite. He had to pound a few times but eventually he heard someone shout that they were coming and not two seconds later the door was yanked open.

“What?” Angel grumbled, her hair completely in her face, as she tried to wipe the sleep from her eyes.

“Hi to you to,” Nick grumbled back.

“It can’t be midday already can it? Can we do lunch later?” she asked through a yawn.

“Relax it’s not midday,” he told her as he followed her into the suite.

“What time is it?” She asked.

Nick looked down to his watch before answering, “Eight thirty.”

Angel snapped her head round quickly, a glare forming on her face, “Eight friggin thirty? I didn’t get to bed till five am Nick! What the hell are you doing here?”

“I think I’ve just ended my relationship.”

***

Adie’s sobs had quieted into silent tears, with the occasional hiccup of emotion escaping. She hadn’t managed to pull herself from the floor, and with her head resting back against the wall she knew it wouldn’t be very long until she drifted off into a restless sleep. She wanted to go after him, wanted to convince him to change his mind, but she was scared to. He had been quite clearly angry and if she was honest with herself she was too scared to go and see him because she had no idea what he was capable of, after all she would never have expected him to do something like that in the past.

She heard footsteps heading towards the door that had remained open and half of her wanted it to be Nick coming back but the other half was scared of what he would say, what he would do if it was him. She wiped at her eyes before flinching as someone knocked on the door.

“Adie?”

She looked up and spotted Aaron stood at the door. She wiped at her eyes again as she turned her head away.

“Can I come in?” he asked hesitantly, she nodded slowly and he entered the room, closing the door quietly behind him. He stood at the door beside her for a few seconds before he made his way over to the couch and sat down on it.

“Is Nick in your room?” She asked.

He nodded, “I’m sharing a suite with Angel. What’s going on?”

“He left. He’s given up on us,” she told him softly as she remained sat on the floor.

“He’s angry,” Aaron told her.

“Did he ask you to check on me?” She asked and his silence was answer enough, Nick obviously hadn’t.

“He doesn’t care anymore.”

“If he didn’t care Adie he wouldn’t be this broken. I think he’s just exhausted.”

“So why won’t he let me fight? Why won’t he give me the chance? I’m so sick of felling like this, I’m so sick of crying,” she told him.

“Then don’t. Don’t do it anymore. Go in there and tell him that you aren’t ready to let him go without a fight,” Aaron told her sternly, raising his arm to point in the direction of the room that Nick was in.

“It won’t change his mind,” she huffed as she crossed her arms over her chest.

“You don’t know that. Nick told me not too long ago that if you want something, if you truly believe in something then it’s worth fighting for, even if you don’t win, even if you don’t get what you want at least you know you tried. Sitting here crying about it isn’t going to get him back Adie, he’s not going to come to you, you have to go to him,” He reminded.

She, as always, disregarded his comment, “He’s not going to listen.”

“Make him listen! Make him understand!” He exclaimed.

“We just end up arguing Aaron, we yell and we scream and then one of us walks away.”

Aaron studied her for a few moments before standing up and shaking his head at her. He walked towards the door but before he opened it he turned and bent down in front of her his eyes focused solely on hers.

“For somebody who says they want him back, you seem awfully quick to put up barriers, to make excuses. Put him and your self in a position where you can’t walk away, where you have to talk about this.”

She watched as he stood back up and quietly let himself out of the room and it was then she knew what she had to.

***

Nick sat in the main living area of the twins suite, it had been an hour and a half since he had walked out on Adie, he had spoken to Angel after she had sent Aaron to check on the women he had just walked out on but even her support in his decision still wasn’t enough. He still wasn’t sure if he had made the right decision, if he loved her like he knew he did then why had he walked away from her? For the three months she had been gone he had pined for her, had missed her so much that he felt sick when he thought about how far away she had been. So why, after only spending a few hours with her, had he walked away?

Why had he listened to his head instead of his heart? He wasn’t sure but it seemed to make his head ache as much as his heart did.

He sighed as he looked around the room, wine glasses and empty beer bottles littered most of the surfaces, there was an array of shoes, that were probably all Angels strewn about the floor, and in between the messy pile of birthday cards in the middle of the coffee table was Angel’s camera. He leaned forward and retrieved it, flicking the face down to power it on before he hit the review button to look at the pictures that had been taken last night. He smiled and even laughed out loud at the first few pictures he looked at, they had obviously been so drunk by that time. The first photo he came to that had Adie in made that smile disappear quickly as he studied it.

She had been taking a bite out of a yellow cup cake with Angel, her dark hair pulled back into a ponytail, the giggling that Angel had been doing still apparent on her face. It had almost been like she had never been away, he could remember how sweet her kiss had been after that shot because of the icing that had remained on her lips. He continued to flick through the rest of the photos but every time he came to a picture of her he would stop and study it, even if she was off to one side, even if he could just catch a glimpse of her hand in the frame. The picture he had stopped on the longest was the one of him and Aaron after Angel had smushed his face into the cake, Nick was trying to help him rid his face of the red icing and Adie was in the background. She wasn’t looking at the camera, her attention was solely focused on Nick, her eyes saying it all, he was the only person in the room that mattered at the moment, she didn’t look sad, she didn’t look upset, she actually looked happy and he knew on more then one occasion that he had looked at her in exactly the same way.

He sighed heavily as he flicked to the next picture but the camera had other ideas and when the battery died the screen went black, making him replace the camera to where he had found it. He spun himself round so that his feet were on the other end of the couch as he reclined back, he just needed to get some sleep, he just needed to escape for a while and so he closed his eyes.

A groan of frustration escaped his lips when his cell phone chimed, signalling that he had received a text message, he sighed heavily as he reached into his pocket to retrieve his blackberry and he almost didn’t open the message when he saw who it was from. The curiosity ended up getting the better of him, he needed to know what she had said, what she wanted, whether it was her saying goodbye.

Can you please meet me outside the main entrance? X

***

Adie leant against the side of the car, blowing some air out of her mouth to try and cool herself off from the dry heat of the sun. She had sent the text message to him almost twenty minutes ago and ever since then her eyes had been focused on the main entrance to the hotel so there was no way he had come out and not seen her. She had thought about going to him but this way, by leaving it up to him she knew he wasn’t likely to explode like he had before. She looked down at her phone again, she was going to give him another ten minutes before texting him again and if he hadn’t shown by eleven am then she wasn’t going to bother him again for the rest of the day, she would just try again tomorrow.

Turned out that he only needed another three minutes.

She saw him walk out of the main entrance his hand coming up to shade his eyes from the sun as he scanned the surroundings for her. He spotted her quickly and walked towards her, stopping a few feet away, he said nothing just stared at her as he again raised his hand to block the sun from his eyes. She had to stifle a chuckle, some things definitely never changed. She grabbed the spare pair of sunglasses from her bag that was resting on the hood of that car and handed them to him.

“Thanks,” he said softly as he took them from her and placed them on.

“I didn’t think you would come,” she told him as she removed her own sunglasses so that he would be able to see her whole face, so that if he told her no he would have to look at the hurt in her eyes.

“I needed to say sorry. I shouldn’t have punched the door,” he mumbled.

“Did you mean it?” She asked.

“Huh?” He asked confused.

“When you said you were done? Did you mean it?” She asked biting her lip.

He looked away from her for a moment and for some reason she took his silence as a positive thing, if he was sure, he would have been sure, he would have been quick to answer. His hesitation was her hope. Until he spoke his next words.

“I said it didn’t I?” She searched his face for a moment, and she couldn’t quite put her finger on it but she knew he was lying, and it was then she knew she couldn’t let him walk away from her again because if he walked today then there was a huge possibility he would be able to convince himself that this was for the best.

She shook her head, “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe that you are willing to give up on three years this easily. I don’t believe that you would wait for three months to tell me this, I don’t believe you would sleep with me one minute and then throw me away the next.”

“I’m done Adie, I can’t do this anymore so I’m done,” he shrugged as he began to walk away from her.

“I don’t even get a chance?” She asked.

He whipped round quickly, pointing an accusing finger as he bit back, “I gave you a chance, you had your chance, Nepal was your chance and you blew it.”

“I made a mistake Nick.”

“Yeah you did and that’s the difference between us, I’m not going to make a mistake,” he said as he turned to leave again but again she called after him.

“What about forever Nick? What about wanting to be with me forever?”

He stopped dead in his tracks but he didn’t turn to face her so she carried on.

“I know you still love me. I know you’re angry at me, I know you probably want to say horrible things to me, I know you think I’m selfish and that I don’t care about you or how you’ve felt. I also know that when I was angry at you, when you were closed off and wouldn’t talk to me, that I still loved you. I loved you in spite of all your insecurities, I still loved you even though you felt you couldn’t trust me enough to tell me about your feelings, your emotions. I still loved you when I walked away from you. That was the biggest mistake that I ever made in my life and I was stupid enough to repeat it and in a way you were stupid enough to let me go. I’ve made the mistake and I don’t want to see you make it too.”

“So what? Are you going to kidnap me?” He asked turning to face her.

She looked at him for a few moments, knowing that she had a shot, if he was adamant about leaving, about it being over, he would have been long gone, hell he wouldn’t have even responded to her text message. She opened the door of the car and pulled out another bag, placing it on the hood of the car along with her purse she pulled out a few things.

“I have a car with a full tank of gas,” she told him as she patted the silver Grand Cherokee Jeep that she had been leaning against. She held up the bottles of water and packet of cheetos, “ I have water and snacks. I have an IPOD full of cheesy music fit for a road trip and I am the worlds best player and unbeaten Champion of the Jones’ eye spy tournament, but I am missing one thing.”

“What?” He asked.

“It doesn’t have a Sat Nav and you know me and maps. If I am ever going to make it back home I need your help,” she told him softly, her head tilting to the side slightly as she awaited his reaction.

“You’re driving back to Nashville? Seriously?” He asked, his brow furrowing.

“Yep,” she told him nodding her head.

“That’s like a three day trip with the way that you drive,” he pointed out.

“I’ve got lots to talk about and I figured neither of us would try and get out of the car when it’s moving at seventy miles an hour down the highway, no matter how difficult the conversation gets. All I’m asking for is a few days, a chance to talk and try and explain and if when we get home you’re still done then I’ll respect that,” she told him, fighting to keep her tears at bay. If he was still done by the time they reached home she didn’t know what she was going to do. Maybe then she would kidnap him, hold him prisoner in the basement.

“It would just be easier to fly Adie,” he told her.

“Taking the easy road isn’t necessarily the right road though Nick.”

I don’t mind it, I don’t mind at all

It’s like you’re the swing set and I’m the kid that falls

It’s like the way we fight, the times I cried

We come to blows and every night the passions there

So it’s gotta be right, right?

No I don’t believe you

When you say don’t come around here no more

I won’t remind you

You said we wouldn’t be apart

No I don’t believe you

When you say you don’t need me anymore

So don’t pretend to

Not love me at all

I don’t mind it, I still don’t mind at all

It's like one of those bad dreams

When you can't wake up

Looks like you given up, you’ve had enough

 But I want more, no I wont stop

Cause I just know you’ll come around right?

It s like the way we fight the times I cried

We come to blows, and every night the passions there

So its gotta be right, right?

Song Credit: Pink - I Don't Believe You