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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thanks to whomever nominated me over at Addicted to Backstreet! Much appreciated! :)

This feeling was what he'd been missing for so long. Anyone with any creative outlet knows that when you're deep, deep, down into the depths of your very soul pulling at the fibres of your being it's as if nothing else exists. It is the single greatest and most fulfilling feeling in the world and in Nick's world, it was better than sex. No orgasm could possibly top that feeling.

He didn't know how long he'd been in the basement, but words were pouring out of his fingertips at a speed he'd rarely seen since his university days. He could barely remember the last time having the drive and fervour that he had on that night.

He'd also never considered himself a romantic, but his words were full of a gentle passion he'd never personally experienced even with all the recent developments in his life.

Page after page rolled by on the screen and he had to open his eyes wider just to be sure he could focus on the monitor in front of him.

He didn't glance up from his own words until he felt eyes on him - Holly's eyes. Glancing up he took her in through the lenses of his reading glasses. She was wearing pyjama pants and a tank top with a comfortable sweater wrapped around her shoulders. Her hand was firmly on her hip and he recognized the list in her stance.

"What did I do?" he asked and awaited the complaints that were sure to follow.

Holly laughed, which only increased his nervousness, "What did you do?" she repeated.

"Yes, what did I do? You're going to have to spell it out for me because I don't know what I've done, or haven't done, and I don't feel like guessing... Did I forget to take the garbage out? Was it my turn to do the dishes? Did you find my porn stash?"

"Whoa!" Holly interrupted with her eyes wide, "You haven't done anything! - wait, porn? Nevermind, I don't think I want to know. I just came down to see if you wanted something to eat."

Nick looked at her with confusion written across his face, "Something to eat? We just had dinner."

"Boy you really are into it, huh?" Holly teased, "First I'll point out that you didn't even eat your dinner. You mashed it up on your plate then rocketed down here... which is where you've been all night. I came down to see if you wanted your coffee and maybe some breakfast. You've been down here writing all night Nick."

"What?" he questioned sceptically before quickly taking a look to his watch. Sure enough it was just after 6 - in the morning, "Wow, you aren't joking."

Holly laughed and shook her head, "No I'm not joking," she was still smiling as she reached over to pull the ball cap off of her husband's head, sending his hair up in a million dishevelled directions.

The mood turned slightly darker as Nick, with cat-like reflexes, snatched the hat back from her hands and securely placed it atop his head, "Don't just take things off my head," he quipped defensively, "You're breaking my concentration! I was doing really well."

Holly's smile dropped and she crossed her arms self-consciously, "My apologies your highness," she replied sarcastically beginning to make her way back out of his domain in the basement.

Nick closed his eyes and took a deep breath before turning back to her, "I'm just tired - maybe I do need that coffee?"

His wife nearly laughed at his brazen request, "Maybe you need a nap? You always say Olivia needs one when she's cranky so I would suggest taking your own advice," she instructed as she headed up the stairs towards the kitchen.

"So does that mean no coffee?" he still asked, watching her carefully.

Holly let out a petulant huff, and turned at the top of the stairs with the door firmly in hand, "Get it yourself! Some people have to get ready for work!" and with that the door slammed shut and Nick was once again alone in the basement.

He immediately hopped back into his trance, into the alternate universe he was creating on the page. It was pulling him deeper and deeper, fingers now back up to the pace he'd previously achieved.

"Here!" Holly was back, and now a mug was slammed down onto his desk, liquid sloshing over the sides.

"Jesus! Just pour coffee all over my shit why don't you? You told me to get it myself; I made no move to get it so why did you think I wanted it that badly?"

Just as quickly she reached out to take back the mug but he clamped his hand down over it before she could.

"You asked for some!" her voice was low, and soft but clearly annoyed.

He wasn't in the mood for another fight, he was in the mood to write, so he went against the "Man Code" and seceded, " You're right, I'm wrong, thank you for the coffee, I appreciate that you went through so much trouble for me."

Holly eyed him carefully, not entirely sure herself how they'd gotten to this point, "Don't let the people in your book talk like that," she told him, "You're the only person on the planet who thinks it's believable."

"Well," he chuckled lightly, "You're not yelling and you're not dumping hot liquid on me or my desk so I would consider it to be fairly successful."

 At first he thought he'd gotten to her, recognized that familiar twitch at the corner of her mouth as it lifted into a grin, but as she turned on her heel and headed towards the stairs her lingering words assured him that he was wrong.

"You're an asshole."

~*~

"So when do I get to read it?" Alaina asked, drawing circles with her nail on Nick's bare chest later that afternoon.

"When it's done," he replied simply, putting an arm behind his head to cradle his neck.

He'd still been in a bad mood when they'd gotten to the park, because of his earlier altercation with his wife, so the decision to cut playtime short and head to Alaina's so the kids could nap was not a difficult one. He was still annoyed after his strained moment with Holly earlier in the day and used Alaina as an outlet to relieve his frustrations physically.

Alaina swung a leg over Nick's, pulling herself up to straddle his waist, "When it's done? Don't you need, I don't know... a proof reader or something?"

"No," Nick answered simply, not planning on letting her get a look at the book until it was done. She couldn't read it; it would just be too uncomfortable. "That's why I will have an editor. They're paid to proof read."

Alaina's hands travelled from his stomach up to his collar bone and he sighed at the sensation, "Does she get to read it?"

"Who?" he asked, eyes closed as he accepted her light massage.

"Your wife."

Nick's eyes popped open and he grabbed Alaina's hands, holding them against his chest, "No one gets to read it. All people do when they read works in progress is lie about liking it. I don't need people to lie to me about what they think. I'll finish it, and I'll send it away for someone who couldn't give a shit about me to read it and tell me how horrible it is, or how horrible it's not. No one reads it before hand."

"Okay," Alaina said, yanking her hands out of his vice-like grip, "Obviously she's never liked anything you've written in the past."

"We're not talking about that," he groaned, leaning his head back against the couch pillow.

"Ooh," she giggled, "I think I hit a sore spot."

"Why do you always bring her up?"

"Why does her reading your writing bother you so much?" she countered.

Nick let out a frustrated sigh, "It doesn't bother me. She's read everything I've ever written... except what I'm working on now. I just want it to be finished before I go looking for praise from other people."

"Whatever you say... so, what's it about?" she followed up, returning to the gentle touch up and down his torso, "Am I allowed to know what the plot is or will that ruin everything?"

Nick sighed heavily, trying to find a way to word the concept behind his latest masterpiece, "It's about a man who has reached the end of his rope. Everything in his life is drain, and he just doesn't know who he is anymore. He's got these labels that have replaced everything he used to be and he's desperate to remember what it used to be like."

Alaina's hands continued along their path as she thought about his words, "Autobiographical?"

"No!" Nick was quick to defend, making it painfully obvious that he was trying not to reveal the truth behind his words.

They were quiet for a moment, just touching each other idly before coming together for round three. Nick tried not to think about his book, and whether or not anyone else would pick up on just how true to life it really was, as Alaina's hips ground against his.

"You're distracted," she commented, not stopping her movements.

"No," was all he could compose, hands sliding from her hips to her waist.

"Let's go away together."

All stop.

"What?"

"Away. Us. Together. For a weekend or something. Brian is going on a business trip for a couple of weeks, and my sister can absolutely watch Benji, she loves getting the chance to spend time with him..."

"What?"

"I'm sorry I shouldn't spring questions on you when your blood is running to the wrong head."

Nick took a deep breath, thinking for a moment about what she'd just asked of him, "What would I tell my wife? I can't just take off for a weekend."

"Why not?" Alaina wondered, "You could say you're going looking for an editor, or whatever it is you need."

"You need a publisher before you have an editor, and you can't do that until the book is finished. My book isn't finished," he deflected.

Alaina's face lit, "There you go! Say you need some time to write! Say you want to really have some time to yourself to concentrate on finishing the book!"

Nick was sceptical of her ideas at best, "Where would we go?"

"To the city, or something," Alaina suggested, resuming the movements of her hips against his as if nothing had transpired over the last minute.

~*~

"So, where did you say you were staying?" Holly asked for the hundredth time, holding Olivia firmly on her knee.

"Uh, the Hyatt on the Hudson, it's in Jersey City," Nick explained as he packed another shirt into a duffel bag.

Holly took a few deep breaths, then setting Olivia down on the floor stood from the bed to face her husband, "I'm sorry I keep coming back to this but I just don't understand why you have to go all the way to New Jersey just to write! You have your room downstairs, and no one bothers you!"

"No one bothers me?" Nick scoffed, and quickly ushered Olivia out of their room and into her own before returning to his conversation because he knew that things were going to end up heated and didn't want to leave on a sour note with his daughter too, "Everyone bothers me! You're coming down asking me if I want food, or a drink, or to ask what I'm doing. Olivia is coming down asking me to play, family calls on the phone wanting to talk to me, things come up! I probably would have gotten a lot further on the last book if I had been given an opportunity to really concentrate on my writing."

"And who exactly is paying for your concentration time?" Holly questioned, "The last I checked you don't have a JOB. I wish I could afford to stay at the Hyatt but I certainly can't! How are you paying for it?"

Nick didn't really have an answer. He certainly couldn't tell her that his rich mistress was fronting the bill for the ritzy hotel room in New York, not Jersey City, "I put it on a credit card. I'll pay it off later."

"Oh, that's responsible spending. I'm glad you feel that our income is so expendable."

At this point he could cry, or at least rip his hair out, "Would you STOP!?" Nick exploded, his hands tightly gripping the fabric of the duffle, "I can't take this anymore! Our income is not expendable to me! I understand that things are tight but I'm trying to make a career for myself, why can't you understand that? All I want is for someday Olivia to be proud of me for what I've achieved and I will never see that day if I'm never able to finish a book! I just need this weekend to myself to put my thoughts together and collect myself! I just can't do it with the two of you breathing down my fucking neck, okay?!"

Holly's hands gripped her hips as she looked down to the floor, "Okay," she breathed with a deep exhale, "See you Sunday night."

"That's it? That's all you have to say? See you Sunday? After all of that you're just going to leave it at that?"

She shrugged and nodded, "I'm tired of fighting with you Nick. If this weekend is that important to you then go. I hope that you can come back rested, and relaxed. I figure we might as well get used to you being away now before your book tours."

"You're getting a little ahead of yourself," he scoffed.

"Maybe I am," another shrug of her lean shoulders, "but I really hope that you accomplish what you need to this weekend. Maybe by the time you come back you'll have written enough to start pitching your book to some publishers."

Nick knew that would never happen. He wouldn't get a single word written over the weekend, "Yeah, thanks."

"You'd better hurry up then or you'll miss the train."

"Yup," he finished putting the last of his things into the bag, zipped it up and slung it over his shoulder. A kiss goodbye to Olivia and he was outside hopping into a cab and on his way to the train station where he would be meeting up with Alaina.

Holly watched him go through the window, Olivia propped up on her hip. She couldn't quite understand what was going on inside of his head, and she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to.

"Mommy, can you get my crayons?" Olivia questioned, looking at her Mother quizzically.

Holly put a fake smile on her face and nodded, "Sure, where are they?"

"On Daddy's desk," the little girl explained.

Holly left Olivia upstairs before jogging lightly down into Nick's dungeon. She glanced quickly around the room for the crayons and found them sitting on top of a stack of colouring books. As she reached for them something unusual caught her eye. Well, not unusual in the tradition sense but anyone who knew Nick, knew how he operated, and knew how he wrote would find it incredibly unusual. Sitting next to the stack of colouring books, and the crayons, and a box of red pens, and a mug full of stale coffee was an incomplete manuscript. It was the manuscript of the book that he was writing; full of his quick notes and ideas for the upcoming chapters. She normally felt like reading it would be invading his privacy, but she had a feeling deep down that Nick didn't forget it. She was beginning to think he never intended to bring it. Her breath coming short she picked it up, her hands nearly shaking, but just as quickly she put it down. She couldn't read it. He'd simply forgotten it. He had his laptop after all. There was no way he was hiding anything.