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bountyofbeads · 5 years

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Their Mothers Chose Donor Sperm. The Doctors Used Their Own. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/health/sperm-donors-fraud-doctors.html

Their Mothers Chose Donor Sperm. The Doctors Used Their Own.

Scores of children born through artificial insemination have learned from DNA tests that their biological fathers were the doctors who performed the procedure.

By Jacqueline Mroz | Published August 21, 2019 Updated 3:47 p.m. ET | New York Times | Posted August 21, 2019 4:36 PM ET |

Growing up in Nacogdoches, Tex., Eve Wiley learned at age 16 that she had been conceived through artificial insemination with donor sperm.

Her mother, Margo Williams, now 65, had sought help from Dr. Kim McMorries, telling him that her husband was infertile. She asked the doctor to locate a sperm donor. He told Mrs. Williams that he had found one through a sperm bank in California.

Mrs. Williams gave birth to a daughter, Eve. Now 32, Mrs. Wiley is a stay-at-home mother in Dallas. In 2017 and 2018, like tens of millions of Americans, she took consumer DNA tests.

The results? Her biological father was not a sperm donor in California, as she had been told — Dr. McMorries was. The news left Ms. Wiley reeling.

“You build your whole life on your genetic identity, and that’s the foundation,” Ms. Wiley said. “But when those bottom bricks have been removed or altered, it can be devastating.”

Through his attorney and the staff at his office, Dr. McMorries declined to comment.

With the advent of widespread consumer DNA testing, instances in which fertility specialists decades ago secretly used their own sperm for artificial insemination have begun to surface with some regularity. Three states have now passed laws criminalizing this conduct, including Texas, which now defines it as a form of sexual assault.

Dr. Jody Madeira, a law professor at Indiana University, is following more than 20 cases in the United States and abroad. They have occurred in a dozen states, including Connecticut, Vermont, Idaho, Utah and Nevada, she said, as well as in England, South Africa, Germany and the Netherlands.

According to the Dutch Donor Child Foundation, DNA testing has confirmed that a fertility specialist, Dr. Jan Karbaat, fathered 56 children, born to women who visited his clinic outside Rotterdam. Dutch authorities closed his practice in 2009, and he died in April 2017 at age 89.

An attorney for Dr. Karbaat’s family said they had no comment on the allegations and emphasized that the cases are decades old.

“Thirty years ago, people looked at things in very different ways,” said J.P. Vandervoodt, a lawyer in Rotterdam. “Dr. Karbaat could have been an anonymous donor — we don’t know that. There was no registration system at the time.”

In June, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario revoked the license of a fertility specialist in Ottawa, Dr. Norman Barwin, 80, and reprimanded him for repeatedly using the wrong sperm — including his own — in artificial insemination procedures over decades.

The college found that he had inseminated at least 11 women with his own sperm. In addition, scores of donor children claim they were conceived with the wrong sperm at Dr. Barwin’s clinic, though not the doctor’s.

He told one woman that he had used his sperm to calibrate a clinic instrument and that this contamination explained her conception. The college called that unbelievable and his actions “beyond reprehensible.”

“His actions will continue to have repercussions for his patients and their families in perpetuity,” said Carolyn Silver, general counsel at the college.

Dr. Barwin and his lawyers did not return calls for comment.

In the past, patients had little reason to suspect fertility doctors to whom they had entrusted one of medicine’s most intimate tasks, said Dov Fox, a bioethicist at the University of San Diego and the author of “Birth Rights and Wrongs,” a book about technology and reproductive law.

“In a word, gross,” he said of the cases. “In a couple more: shocking, shameful. The number of doctors sounds less like a few bad apples and more like a generalized practice of deception, largely hidden until recently by a mix of low-tech and high stigma.”

Fertility fraud

Dr. Donald Cline, a fertility specialist in Indianapolis, used his own sperm to impregnate at least three dozen women in the 1970s and 1980s, according to state prosecutors. Based on DNA testing, 61 people now claim he is their biological father.

Dr. Cline, who retired in 2009, pleaded guilty to two felony obstruction of justice charges and admitted that he had lied to state investigators. He surrendered his medical license and was given a one-year suspended sentence.

Calls to Dr. Cline’s lawyer were not returned.

Prosecutors said they were not able to press for a tougher sentence for a simple reason: In Indiana, as in most states, there were no laws prohibiting this conduct.

In May, Indiana passed a law that makes using the wrong sperm a felony and gives victims the right to sue doctors for it. Patients may sidestep the statute of limitations in these cases, bringing legal action up to five years after the fraud is discovered, rather than after it took place.

That provision is significant to accusers, because those who discover the identity of their biological fathers in these cases are usually adults.

Cases of so-called fertility fraud have prompted other states to enact similar laws that allow patients and children to pursue legal remedies from so-called doctor daddies.

After discovering the identity of her biological father, Ms. Wiley pressed for a similar law in Texas, meeting with legislators to demand better accountability of what she saw to be a grossly unregulated industry.

In June, Texas passed its own fertility-fraud law, and it goes further than those in Indiana and California. If a health care provider uses human sperm, eggs or embryos from an unauthorized donor, the law identifies the crime as a sexual assault. Those found guilty must register as sex offenders.

The bill passed unanimously in the state Legislature.

“It was a very compelling story of deception, and we’re seeing more and more cases of assisted reproduction being used improperly,” Stephanie Klick, a Republican state representative and a sponsor of the bill, said of Ms. Wiley’s experience. “We need to make sure that what happened doesn’t happen again.”

Some experts believe the measure is extreme. “Sexual assault is a step too far,” said Judith Daar, dean of the Chase College of Law at Northern Kentucky University. “Using that language, and imposing the ramifications that assault imposes, is highly problematic and more harmful than helpful.”

The Texas law applies when a health care provider uses his own sperm or the sperm of a donor other than the one the patient selected. But could a doctor or clinic nurse be convicted of sexual assault if the wrong sperm were provided in a mix-up?

“If a physician is rushed and inattentive, and grabs the wrong vial, a jury might find that the physician knew or should have known that the material was not what the patient selected,” said Ms. Daar, who leads the ethics committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.

If a simple mix-up could result in conviction as a sexual predator, she fears fertility doctors in Texas may stop practicing.

Ms. Klick, the Texas legislator and a nurse, believes that this form of deception does constitute assault.

“There’s a physical aspect to it — there is a medical device that is being used to penetrate these women to deliver the genetic material,” she said. “I equate it with rape, because there’s no consent.”

“It’s creepy,” she added. “It violates so many different boundaries on a professional level.”

Doctor knows best?

A few years ago, Marenda Tucker, 36, took a DNA test to find out more about her heritage.

Ms. Tucker, a mother of four, who lives in Oregon, knew that she had been born through sperm donation. According to her mother, the doctor said he had used an anonymous sperm donor from the South.

The DNA test matched her to relatives of the doctor himself. “Once I had the matches, I realized it was the doctor, and I was like, yuck, gross,” she said. “When I talked to my mom about it, she felt violated.”

“Until now, I’ve been able to handle what life has thrown at me,” she added. “But this was this weird identity crisis.”

Reached by phone by a reporter at his home in Little Rock, Ark., with questions about Ms. Tucker’s conception, the retired physician, Dr. Gary Don Davis, said: “Well, that’s surprising. Let me check on that. Goodbye.”

Further attempts to reach him were unsuccessful, and he died in June.

Why would doctors secretly substitute their sperm for that of a donor, or even a husband?

Dr. Madeira, the law professor who has been tracking many of these cases, said that some specialists may simply have thought it was smart business. Frozen sperm was not the recommended medical standard until the late 1980s, and many physicians may not have had ready access to sperm when patients sought help.

“They could have self-justified their malfeasance in an era of ‘doctor knows best,’” Dr. Madeira said. “In their minds, they may just have been helping their patients by increasing their chances of getting pregnant with fresh sperm for higher fertilization rates.”

But others, she speculated, may have had darker motivations. “I would bet a lot of these doctors had power reasons for doing this — mental health issues, narcissistic issues — or maybe they were attracted to certain women,” she said.

Confronted with the test results, Dr. McMorries acknowledged in a letter to Ms. Wiley that he had mixed his sperm with that of other donors in order to improve her mother’s chances of conception. Laws regarding “donor anonymity” prevented him from telling her, he wrote.

“The thinking at that time was that if the patient got pregnant, there was no way to know which sperm affected the conception,” he wrote.

Before the doctor’s confession, Ms. Wiley believed she had already found the man who donated the sperm from which she was conceived: Steve Scholl, now 65, a writer and publisher in Los Angeles.

“We started this beautiful father-daughter relationship — he officiated at my wedding,” she said. “My kids call him Poppa.”

After learning the truth, she told Mr. Scholl that she wasn’t his biological daughter. He was stunned.

“It took me a while to process,” he recalled in an interview. “We felt so much like we’d found each other. We didn’t know how the reproductive industry worked. But very quickly, we both decided not to let this change anything for us.”

Ms. Wiley still calls him Dad.

#women's rights #women's health #reproductive health #reproductive rights #reproductive justice #u.s. news #u.s. government #us politics #politics #politics and government #u.s. politics

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creepingsharia · 5 years

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A Month of Islam in America: March 2019

When Democrats took over the House after the 2018 elections, the House Homeland Security monthly report on terror, aka the Terror Threat Snapshot, was not only discontinued but previous reports were deleted from the government website. This is our version with a focus on Islamization in the U.S. that is much broader than just terror (jihad).

This month’s theme is one liberals and Muslims claim to champion: Diversity. As seen below, they are indeed diverse, but they all have one thing in common: Islam.

Links below may not work unless you know how to find archived posts because the tech police are now enforcing sharia law on Americans. You can easily search the names of the perpetrators and find articles on mainstream news sites or search for the described incident for more details. We likely won’t have time to rebuild all the links but are posting here for reference.

Future generations will thank you!

March 2019

Jihad & Terror

New Jersey: Muslim Sentenced to 16 Years Prison for NYC Bomb Plot on Behalf of ISIS

Gregory Lepsky, 22, of Point Pleasant, New Jersey, was sentenced today to 16 years in prison for planning to construct and use a pressure cooker bomb in New York on behalf of a designated foreign terrorist organization, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS).

Wisconsin: Muslim convert in Milwaukee who tried to join ISIS gets seven years

Jason Ludke pleaded guilty in October. He committed the crime while on supervision for threatening to kill a federal judge and bomb a Green Bay courthouse. He had cut off a GPS monitoring bracelet before leaving for Texas.

Georgia: Muslim Woman Arrested For Conspiring To Provide Material Support To ISIS

KIM ANH VO joined the United Cyber Caliphate (the “UCC”), an online group that pledged allegiance to ISIS and committed to carrying out online attacks and cyber intrusions against Americans.

New Mexico: Muslims who ran Islamic compound charged with planning terror attacks in the U.S.

A federal grand jury sitting in Albuquerque, New Mexico returned a superseding indictment on March 13 charging Jany Leveille, 36, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, 40, Hujrah Wahhaj, 38, Subhanah Wahhaj, 36, and Lucas Morton, 41, with federal offenses related to terrorism, kidnapping and firearms violations.

The superseding indictment charges all of the defendants with participating in a conspiracy from October 2017 to August 2018 to provide material support and resources, including currency, training, weapons, and personnel, knowing and intending that they were to be used in preparation for and in carrying out attacks to kill officers and employees of the United States, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2339A.

Sidebar: Terror-linked CAIR offered them condolences (pic at right)

California man threatens to kill First Baptist Dallas pastor ‘in the name of Allah’

“I will assassinate your pastor in the name of Allah,” said a portion of the letter quoted in federal court documents. “I will burn down Christian churches … this is a threat.”

Missouri: Muslim Refugee Pleads Guilty to Providing Material Support to Terrorists

Armin Harcevic, 41, pled guilty today to an indictment in this case that charged him with one count of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and one count of providing material support to terrorists.

Wisconsin: Muslim woman pleads guilty to providing support to ISIS

Waheba Dais used social media sites to promote ISIS ideology.

Prosecutors say the 45-year-old woman hacked at least five Facebook accounts. She allegedly used them to pledge allegiance to ISIS and attempt to recruit others to join and conduct attacks on the terror group’s behalf.

Court documents go on to say Dais posted videos with instructions for making explosive vests and bombs — and exchanged information with other suspected ISIS sympathizers on how to make poison.

North Dakota: Somali Woman Charged With Terrorizing Neighborhood Was Previously Tied to Human Sex Trafficking Case

Hawo Osman Ahmed, 26, is charged with a Class C felony of Terrorizing stemming from an incident last November 29 when she confronted three women from her Grand Forks apartment complex with a knife. According to a Grand Forks Police Department affidavit filed in the case, Ahmed said to the women “I’m going to bust all your tires on your car and windows,” “Come over here I’m going to cut you,” and “I’m going to slice your neck,” all while holding the weapon.

North Carolina: Jordanian Muslim who tried to access Fort Bragg special ops facility faces 7 charges, deportation

Court proceedings for Nouran Ahmad Shiba Sueidan were held before Judge Robert T. Numbers in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina.

″[ICE] will seek to take him into custody for removal proceedings following the resolution of the criminal charges he currently faces,” Bryan Cox, a spokesman for the agency’s southern region, said last week.

Illinois: Bosnian refugee woman pleads guilty to funding fellow Muslim who died waging jihad in Syria

An Illinois woman on Thursday pleaded guilty to a federal charge of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists for her role in funding a St. Louis County man who fought and died in Syria.

Mediha Medy Salkicevic, 38, of Schiller Park, Illinois, agreed with prosecutors’ claims that she sent money via PayPal to co-defendant Ramiz Hodzic, who then used the money to buy supplies that he sent to Syria. Salkicevic could face up to 15 years in prison at her sentencing in June, although defense lawyer Joan Miller said she expected a lot less. Salkicevic, originally from Bosnia, is now a U.S. citizen, Miller said.

Philadelphia: Mosque under investigation after child bride says “husband” sexually assaulted her 10-year old sister

Police are now investigating whether child weddings are being conducted at a Philadelphia mosque after a sexual assault victim comes forward to Action News.

In a Facebook video posted two weeks ago, one of the alleged victims describes her ordeal. She’s 17 now but says she first became a child bride at 14.

She says it didn’t last. And in 2016, she says she was married off to Rajmann Sanders, a man more than twice her age who then allegedly began sexually assaulting her and her 10-year-old sister.

Islamic Rape & Violence Against Americans

Dem Senator Kirsten Gillibrand fires Muslim aide after Politico investigates sexual harassment claims against him

Minnesota: Muslim immigrant who raped 10-year old girl gets just 12 years prison

Immigration Jihad in America

California: How did a Muslim refugee – arrested for ISIS cop killing – get into the U.S.? (VIDEO)

New York: “In Collaboration With NYPD,” Muslims Begin Muslim Community Patrol

Kansas: Overland Park Planning Commission Approves Muslim Brotherhood Mosque Expansion Next to Public Schools

Sharia in Your Community

Illinois: Chicago imam says Islamic caliphate our ultimate aim

Dallas: Outfront Media Refuses Billboard Offering Help to Muslim Girls at Risk of Honor Violence, Runs Ads Promoting Hijab

Minnesota: New task force led by Muslim AG and terror-linked Muslim groups may get opportunity to enforce Islamic blasphemy laws

Amazon Bans Tommy Robinson’s Book, ‘Mohammed’s Koran’, Mein Kampf Still Available

Sharia in American Education

Houston: Muslim Children Sing: ‘Allah Akbar, Khamenei Is Our Leader…We Are Your Soldiers’ (VIDEO)

Tennessee: Nashville charter school uses supremacist hadiths to teach Islam

Arkansas: Public high school teacher uses art project to indoctrinate students in Islamic faith

Student-housing deal structured to comply with Islamic sharia law includes 911 units in five U.S. cities

Sharia Adherents in Elected Office

San Francisco: Judge frees Muslim terror suspect who had one-way ticket, talked of killing U.S. soldiers

Virginia: Anti-Semitic Tweeting Muslim Democrat with Hamas-linked Donors Wins Special Election

Special election results in first Muslim woman “hijabi” in Pennsylvania House of Representatives

Florida: Terror-Connected Muslim Lawyer Running for City Commissioner of Coral Springs

Tennessee: Days before inauguration, Gov. Bill Lee prioritized meeting Muslim Council while denying requests for meetings with non-Muslim groups

Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar Holding Secret Fundraisers with Terror-linked Islamic Groups

Minnesota: Bill Will Ban Driving With Mobile Phone…Unless Phone is in a Hijab or Scarf

Arizona: Democrat Senate Candidate Mark Kelly Returns Thousands To United Arab Emirates

Pennsylvania: Dems, Specially-Elected Muslim Lawmaker Decry Opening Prayer as Divisive; Applaud Koran Reading

New Jersey Politicians Blind to Travel Agent’s Muslim Brotherhood Connections

Fraud for Jihad in America

Connecticut: Syrian Psychiatrist Agrees to Pay $3.38 Million to Settle Medicare, Medicaid Fraud

Louisiana: Muslim – who plotted to kill girlfriend’s unborn baby – arrested in $1.2M food stamp fraud

Florida: Davenport doctor settles health care fraud lawsuit for $2.2M

And last, a rare month where the sharia onslaught was halted, albeit temporarily, in multiple cases:

California: Anti-Islamophobia Settlement Bars Terror-linked Muslim Group CAIR from Indoctrinating Students in San Diego School District

Idaho: Bill to ban female genital mutilation (FGM) clears state Senate

Pennsylvania: Federal Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Filed By Islamic Group Against Lutheran Pastor

Federal judge strikes down request to expedite case of ISIS bride who wants to come to U.S.

#Creeping Sharia #fbi #finance #islam #Jihad #law #Legal #Life #litigation jihad #Media #Military #Muslim #News #Politics #Random #Religion #Sharia #terrorism #travel #monthly

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brookstonalmanac · 5 years

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Events 5.15

495 BC – A newly constructed temple in honour of the god Mercury was dedicated in ancient Rome on the Circus Maximus, between the Aventine and Palatine hills. To spite the senate and the consuls, the people awarded the dedication to a senior military officer, Marcus Laetorius. 221 – Liu Bei, Chinese warlord, proclaims himself emperor of Shu Han, the successor of the Han dynasty. 392 – Emperor Valentinian II is assassinated while advancing into Gaul against the Frankish usurper Arbogast. He is found hanging in his residence at Vienne. 589 – King Authari marries Theodelinda, daughter of the Bavarian duke Garibald I. A Catholic, she has great influence among the Lombard nobility. 908 – The three-year-old Constantine VII, the son of Emperor Leo VI the Wise, is crowned as co-emperor of the Byzantine Empire by Patriarch Euthymius I at Constantinople. 1252 – Pope Innocent IV issues the papal bull ad extirpanda, which authorizes, but also limits, the torture of heretics in the Medieval Inquisition. 1525 – Insurgent peasants led by Anabaptist pastor Thomas Müntzer were defeated at the Battle of Frankenhausen, ending the German Peasants' War in the Holy Roman Empire. 1536 – Anne Boleyn, Queen of England, stands trial in London on charges of treason, adultery and incest; she is condemned to death by a specially-selected jury. 1567 – Mary, Queen of Scots marries James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, her third husband. 1618 – Johannes Kepler confirms his previously rejected discovery of the third law of planetary motion (he first discovered it on March 8 but soon rejected the idea after some initial calculations were made). 1648 – The Treaty of Westphalia is signed. 1718 – James Puckle, a London lawyer, patents the world's first machine gun. 1730 – Robert Walpole effectively became the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. 1776 – American Revolution: The Fifth Virginia Convention instructs its Continental Congress delegation to propose a resolution of independence from Great Britain, paving the way for the United States Declaration of Independence. 1791 – French Revolution: Maximilien Robespierre proposes the Self-denying Ordinance. 1792 – War of the First Coalition: France declares war on Kingdom of Sardinia. 1793 – Diego Marín Aguilera flies a glider for "about 360 meters", at a height of 5–6 meters, during one of the first attempted manned flights. 1796 – War of the First Coalition: Napoleon enters Milan in triumph. 1800 – King George III of the United Kingdom survives an assassination attempt by James Hadfield, who is later acquitted by reason of insanity. 1817 – Opening of the first private mental health hospital in the United States, the Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of the Use of Their Reason (now Friends Hospital, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). 1836 – Francis Baily observes "Baily's beads" during an annular eclipse. 1848 – Serfdom is abolished in the Habsburg Galicia, as a result of the 1848 revolutions. The rest of monarchy followed later in the year. 1849 – Troops of the Two Sicilies take Palermo and crush the republican government of Sicily. 1850 – The Bloody Island massacre takes place in Lake County, California, in which a large number of Pomo Indians are slaughtered by a regiment of the United States Cavalry. 1850 – The Arana–Southern Treaty is ratified, ending "the existing differences" between Great Britain and Argentina. 1851 – The first Australian gold rush is proclaimed, although the discovery had been made three months earlier. 1858 – Opening of the present Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London. 1862 – President Abraham Lincoln signs a bill into law creating the United States Bureau of Agriculture. It is later renamed the United States Department of Agriculture. 1864 – American Civil War: Battle of New Market, Virginia: Students from the Virginia Military Institute fight alongside the Confederate army to force Union General Franz Sigel out of the Shenandoah Valley. 1867 – Canadian Bank of Commerce opens for business in Toronto, Ontario. The bank would later merge with Imperial Bank of Canada to become what is CIBC in 1961. 1869 – Women's suffrage: In New York, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton form the National Woman Suffrage Association. 1891 – Pope Leo XIII defends workers' rights and property rights in the encyclical Rerum novarum, the beginning of modern Catholic social teaching. 1904 – Russo-Japanese War: The Russian minelayer Amur lays a minefield about 15 miles off Port Arthur and sinks Japan's battleships Hatsuse, 15,000 tons, with 496 crew and Yashima. 1905 – Las Vegas is founded when 110 acres (0.45 km2), in what later would become downtown, are auctioned off. 1911 – In Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States, the United States Supreme Court declares Standard Oil to be an "unreasonable" monopoly under the Sherman Antitrust Act and orders the company to be broken up. 1911 – More than 300 Chinese immigrants are killed in the Torreón massacre when the forces of the Mexican Revolution led by Emilio Madero take the city of Torreón from the Federales. 1919 – The Winnipeg general strike begins. By 11:00, almost the whole working population of Winnipeg had walked off the job. 1919 – Greek occupation of Smyrna. During the occupation, the Greek army kills or wounds 350 Turks; those responsible are punished by Greek commander Aristides Stergiades. 1925 – Al-Insaniyyah, the first Arabic communist newspaper, is founded. 1928 – Walt Disney character Mickey Mouse premieres in his first cartoon, "Plane Crazy". 1929 – A fire at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio kills 123. 1932 – In an attempted coup d'état, the Prime Minister of Japan Inukai Tsuyoshi is assassinated. 1933 – All military aviation organizations within or under the control of the RLM of Germany were officially merged in a covert manner to form its Wehrmacht military's air arm, the Luftwaffe. 1934 – Kārlis Ulmanis establishes an authoritarian government in Latvia. 1940 – USS Sailfish is recommissioned. It was originally the USS Squalus. 1940 – World War II: After fierce fighting, the poorly trained and equipped Dutch troops surrender to Germany, marking the beginning of five years of occupation. 1940 – McDonald's opens its first restaurant in San Bernardino, California. 1941 – First flight of the Gloster E.28/39 the first British and Allied jet aircraft. 1941 – Joe DiMaggio begins a 56-game hitting streak. 1942 – World War II: In the United States, a bill creating the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) is signed into law. 1943 – Joseph Stalin dissolves the Comintern (or Third International). 1945 – World War II: The Battle of Poljana, the final skirmish in Europe is fought near Prevalje, Slovenia. 1948 – Following the expiration of The British Mandate for Palestine, the Kingdom of Egypt, Transjordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia invade Israel thus starting the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. 1957 – At Malden Island in the Pacific Ocean, Britain tests its first hydrogen bomb in Operation Grapple. 1958 – The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 3. 1960 – The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 4. 1963 – Project Mercury: The launch of the final Mercury mission, Mercury-Atlas 9 with astronaut Gordon Cooper on board. He becomes the first American to spend more than a day in space, and the last American to go into space alone. 1966 – After a policy dispute, Prime Minister Nguyễn Cao Kỳ of South Vietnam's ruling junta launches a military attack on the forces of General Tôn Thất Đính, forcing him to abandon his command. 1969 – People's Park: California Governor Ronald Reagan has an impromptu student park owned by the University of California at Berkeley fenced off from student anti-war protestors, sparking a riot. 1970 – President Richard Nixon appoints Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth P. Hoisington the first female United States Army generals. 1970 – Philip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green are killed at Jackson State University by police during student protests. 1972 – The Ryukyu Islands, under U.S. military governance since its conquest in 1945, reverts to Japanese control. 1972 – In Laurel, Maryland, Arthur Bremer shoots and paralyzes Alabama Governor George Wallace while he is campaigning to become President. 1974 – Ma'alot massacre: Members of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine attack and take hostages at an Israeli school; a total of 31 people are killed, including 22 schoolchildren. 1976 – Aeroflot Flight 1802 crashes in Viktorovka, Chernihiv Raion, killing all 52 people on board. 1987 – The Soviet Union launches the Polyus prototype orbital weapons platform. It fails to reach orbit. 1988 – Soviet–Afghan War: After more than eight years of fighting, the Soviet Army begins to withdraw 115,000 troops from Afghanistan. 1991 – Édith Cresson becomes France's first female premier. 1997 – The United States government acknowledges the existence of the "Secret War" in Laos and dedicates the Laos Memorial in honor of Hmong and other "Secret War" veterans. 2004 – Arsenal F.C. go an entire league campaign unbeaten in the English Premier League, joining Preston North End F.C with the right to claim the title The Invincibles 2008 – California becomes the second U.S. state after Massachusetts in 2004 to legalize same-sex marriage after the state's own Supreme Court rules a previous ban unconstitutional. 2010 – Jessica Watson becomes the youngest person to sail, non-stop and unassisted around the world solo. 2013 – An upsurge in violence in Iraq leaves more than 389 people dead over three days.

#Events

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annayumlawc · 2 years

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Address:

501 West Broadway #700

San Diego, CA 92101

Phone: (619) 233-4433

Website: https://www.annayumlaw.com/

As a former prosecutor, Ms. Yum has the experience and knowledge to know how the government works and thinks. Many San Diego criminal attorneys sit around and try to guess what’s going on in the prosecutor’s mind, but Ms. Yum has actually been there.

As a former deputy district attorney, Ms. Yum prosecuted cases just like yours. She received a wide range of trial experience when she was specifically assigned to various units at the DA’s office including: domestic violence, sex crimes and child abuse, misdemeanors (i.e. DUI, petty thefts, etc.), grand theft auto, general felonies, criminal street gangs, and many more. This type of background provides Ms. Yum with a unique advantage when it comes to negotiations, whether it’s resolving a probation case instead of prison or getting charges dismissed altogether.

Most importantly, Ms. Yum’s prior experience as a former prosecutor gives her team a unique advantage when it comes to spotting and attacking the prosecution’s weak points in the courtroom. Winning a fight becomes much easier when you know all of the in’s and out’s of your opponent’s strategy. Because Ms. Yum was a prosecutor, she has insight that most criminal attorneys can only dream of.

Let’s take the fight to the prosecution and make sure we do our best to fight for your future and freedom. Ready for a free consultation? Call us right now by dialing (619) 233-4433.

Keywords: San Diego Criminal Attorney, Domestic Violence Attorney At CA, San Diego DUI Charges, Restraining Orders At CA, San Diego Drug Charges, Law, lawyer, legal

Hours: 24/7

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defenselawyersandiego · 1 year

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Guidelines in Hiring a Defense Lawyer San Diego

youtube

Defense Lawyers San Diego are the people you'll turn to in any unfortunate situation. They can provide legal advice and representation during these difficult times.

You need to know your rights and the correct way of responding to the police or in court. You should always contact a criminal defense lawyer as soon as possible

San Diego criminal defense lawyers are always available to meet, talk about your case and let you know your rights and options. They're here to protect you, your family, property or anything else important to you.

There are many San Diego criminal defense attorneys out there and all of them have good reputations. To point you in the right direction, here's a list of things to consider when you're looking for help.

Do they specialize in criminal law?

Criminal cases are usually different from civil cases, and lawyers usually specialize in one or the other. You won't see a lawyer who handles both at the same time very often. Criminal law is way stricter than civil law. So be sure to get a lawyer who has vast knowledge in both areas.

How often do these lawyers win?

Larger or smaller doesn't matter for the basics. It all depends on the lawyer who will be in charge of your case. How often he's been winning cases lately? Do you have any faith that he can win your case and get you acquitted or settled? A good defense lawyer is a winner. He should be able to win your case with ease.

The new criminal defense lawyer doesn't know what he's doing, does he?

You want someone with experience. If somebody just handled a few cases, you don't know how good they are at representation on the job. Anyway, good lawyers can win any case no matter how short the time they spend on it. You should also ask for a mentor, an expert in your type of case, if you don't feel comfortable with the lawyer in charge.

Has the criminal defense lawyer who was successful in your similar case before, win theirs?

Every case is different from the next, even though they might seem similar at first. The defense often faces the same allegations and tactics from the opposition. The plaintiff lawyer often tries to improve their chances by changing things up a bit depending on the situation, but it's usually not too radical. If you find a lawyer that has handled a lawsuit before that's similar to yours, they can be more helpful since they know how those tend to play out.

Will the attorney be fully knowledgeable in regards to the case and criminal law?

Getting a criminal defense lawyer is crucial. The person you hire should be well-schooled to defend you in court as well as have knowledge about the case. He should know the constitution inside and out and if it's in violation of any of these articles, tell him you dispute this. He can't remember everything, but he should at least research any similar cases he's been assigned to beforehand.

Obviously, this is not something you do every day. If you are considering hiring a defense lawyer for a criminal case, these are 5 essential questions to ask before approaching the lawyer.

#Criminal Justice Attorney San Diego #Best Criminal Defense Attorney in San Diego #Defense Lawyer San Diego #Defense Attorney San Diego #Domestic Violence Lawyer San Diego #San Diego Criminal Defense Lawyer #Best Criminal Defense Lawyer in San Diego #Best Sex Crimes Attorney in San Diego #San Diego Sex Office Lawyer #Assault Criminal Defense Attorney in San Diego #Youtube

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architectnews · 4 years

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Residential property design in post-Covid world

COVID-19 Construction Report, Coronavirus Real Estate Impact Advice, 2020 Guide

Residential property design in a post-Covid world

3 Nov 2020

Placemaking ‘settlements’ with eco-credentials: image : Withers

How property design will be different in a post-Covid world

Covid-19 is accelerating rapid change in what we want from our homes and how housing developments are designed, a new report from international law firm Withers explains.

COVID-19 Residential Property Design Report

The report, which features insight from fifteen world-leading business and property experts, discusses the impact of Covid-19 on how we use our homes as well as where we want to live.

Key considerations that the experts anticipate are driving a rapid shift in where and how new homes are developed in the post-Covid world include: an increased demand for a more flexible living space; a greater focus on a home’s locality and nearby amenities; a heightened aspiration for community; and a greater emphasis on more sustainable and environmentally-friendly construction methods.

Homes will no longer serve a purely domestic purpose…

According to the experts, people will expect their homes to deliver much more because they will no longer serve a purely domestic purpose – they will become places that must fulfil home, work and social needs.

‘The home won’t just be a trading commodity you return to, play video games, have sex and go to sleep. People will be more interested in their living space.’

Robert Adam, Founder, Robert Adam Architecture Consultancy.

Spending more time in the home will also lead to more in-home entertaining. In the experts’ view, this will elevate the importance of these aspects of the home and this will be felt in design.

Location, location, location will mean a move from city centres…

Property agents have reported an increase in the number of people moving from city centres in the wake of Covid-19, to locations that are further afield than people had traditionally considered. These locations are not rural but offer a feeling of being outside of the central metropolises while still being well served by the kind of amenities and resources they are used to.

There have also been reports of increased demand for homes in well served villages, market towns, and coastal areas within an hour and a half journey to the cities; as home working offers more freedom and people look for more living space and greener environments.

Homeowners will expect more amenities on their doorstep…

As more time is spent at home, for one purpose or another, experts believe that the immediate locality will have to satisfy needs that were previously met elsewhere. Wherever people live, they will expect more amenities, variety, and infrastructure to be provided locally.

Withers’ experts believe that people have embraced local services and retailers during the pandemic and have questioned their use of larger national providers in a way that they hadn’t done previously. In some instances, confidence in national retailers was undermined by shortages and people discovered that there was more choice on their doorstep than perhaps they had appreciated.

‘As people have refocussed on getting provisions nearby, local businesses have seen a real boost… there’s been a nice re-discovery of traditional local shops’

Richard Pickering, Chief Strategy Officer, Cushman & Wakefield.

image : Withers

Suburbia will need to reinvent itself…

People’s expectations and requirements might have moved on, but the experts believe that suburbia has been slow to adapt. A theme from the report is that the suburbs feel tired and lacklustre and in their current configuration they are ill equipped to accommodate the resurgence in demand for community, brought about by an increased amount of time spent at home.

Withers’ experts believe that suburbs will need to become destinations that people want to spend time in, rather than simply travel to or from. Ultimately this is about creating a sense of community where perhaps it had been lacking, for which you need the businesses, shops, services, and amenities that make community possible.

‘The suburbs are knackered. They aren’t community hubs because they were built to be driven out of, so there’s nothing there’

Robbie Kerr, Director, ADAM Architecture.

‘Early 20th century suburbia that have very little to offer, homogenous outdated houses, there’s no ‘there’, there… the challenge is to create new settlements around them… it’s difficult to urbanise a suburb, but it needs doing’

Professor Yolande Barnes, Chair at Bartlett Real Estate Institute, University College London.

Vertical villages – buildings that offer housing, amenities, working spaces and ‘green’ space: image : Withers

New housing developments could look and feel a little different…

There is a prevailing sense that new settlements will be characterised by mixed use, mixed tenure, and mixed community features. The experts believe that housing developers will have to think harder about how to achieve this and these design considerations are likely to rank higher up the agenda than they have done historically.

‘Placemaking is a buzzword that has come to define a lot of the debate around the future of real estate after the pandemic and is perhaps best characterised as the creation of a space with a unique community which enhances quality of life. The norm is a nod to placemaking with a duck pond in the middle of a housing estate, but new settlements need long term management and curation’

Professor Yolande Barnes, Chair at Bartlett Real Estate Institute, University College London.

A home’s eco-credentials will be considered more…

The experts believe that new home buyers will drive demand for sustainability in new homes and settlements, and that developers may have to deliver on sustainability and environmental promises as never before.

‘Housebuilders will want to develop and build a reputation based on both their eco credentials and also their placemaking credentials’

Lucian Cook, Head of UK Residential Research, Savills.

Jeremy Wakeham, CEO of the Withers Business Division and a commercial real estate partner added:

“The world over, the buildings we work, live and socialise in are wrestling with the challenge of catering for our new demands and this presents extraordinary opportunities. This report examines this historic turning point in attitudes and practices to how we use property across all areas of our lives.

“Homes are taking on a new level of importance. Our respondents anticipate that people will expect their homes to deliver much more because they will no longer serve a purely domestic purpose. As more time is spent at home, for one purpose or another, the immediate locality will have to satisfy needs that were previously met elsewhere. Wherever people live, they will expect amenities, variety and infrastructure to be provided locally. Getting behind the right targets at the right time will be crucial for investors and developers.”

The future of real estate report: work, home and social, can be found at: https://reports.withersworldwide.com/the-future-of-real-estate/cover/.

image : Withers

Background

Report Methodology

Murmur Research was commissioned by Withers to investigate the impact of Covid-19 on the future of home, work and socialising. They conducted interviews with 15 experts who are well known figures within property, architecture, land development, hospitality, and academia.

The Experts

Robert Adam – Robert Adam Architectural Consultancy

Yolande Barnes – University College London

Lucian Cook – Savills

Nectar Efkarpidis – Molonglo

Jonathan Harbottle – Land & Partners

Philip Harvey – Property Vision

Robbie Kerr – ADAM Architecture

Katrina Kostic Samen – KKS Savills

Marcus Loo -Savills

Islam Mahdy – Credence Hospitality Developments

David McDowall – BrewDog

Chris Miller – White Rabbit Fund

Mat Oakley – Savills

Richard Pickering – Cushman & Wakefield

Mark Williams – Queen Mary School of Business

About Withers

Withers is an international law firm with a broad-ranging client base including multinational corporations, governments, international institutions and individuals and their businesses.

With over 170 partners and more than 450 other lawyers, we have unparalleled expertise in commercial, tax, trusts, estate planning, financial services, litigation and international arbitration, public international law, real estate, charities, philanthropy, employment, family law and other legal issues facing individuals and their families. The firm has advised 70% of the top 100 UK Sunday Times Rich List, 25% of the Forbes 400 List, 35% of the Hong Kong Forbes Rich List, and 35% of Forbes Asia’s Richest Families list.

Withers has 17 offices worldwide in London, New York, New Haven, Greenwich (Connecticut), San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles, Rancho Santa Fe, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, the British Virgin Islands, Geneva, Milan, Padua and Cambridge.

Residential property design in post-Covid world images / information received 031120

Coronavirus Impact

Previously on e-architect:

COVID-19 construction industry reinvention

Building Resilience Construction Report

APM Covid-19 outbreak online resources

IWBI Task Force on COVID-19 News

How Buildings Can Reduce Health Burden of COVID-19

Buildings Can Reduce Health Burden of COVID-19

Architecture and Pandemics: Covid-19 Hermetic Verticalism

Architecture and Pandemics

Covid-19 Quarantined Architects Database

Database for Quarantined Architects

Impact of COVID-19 on the London Property Market

Coronavirus Impact on Property Market Article

Remote Working During the COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19 Remote Working

Global equity markets have been hit hard by the coronavirus, which has been the catalyst for the biggest market sell off since the 2008 crash.

coronavirus stats

For all the latest breaking news on COVID-19 visit the UK government website page: Coronavirus (COVID-19): UK government response.

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victorianoir · 7 years

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The Detective and the Tech Guy Meet Baby

Another update to The Detective and the Tech Guy. Still trucking along, here. Slowly but steadily! Still haven’t read the rest of DATG? You definitely have to check out the MASTER POST. Would you rather read the story where it’s posted on fanfiction.net? You can do that HERE.

Have a good read, everyone. :)

The last time he’d been this tired was in his senior year at Stanford, when he’d stayed up ’til two in the morning studying for his final exam, then worked on some of the coding for his dad’s newest project at B.E.C. ’til the sun came out. He’d relied on a frat buddy sitting behind him to regularly kick his chair to wake him up so that he could finish the exam that day.

Chuck pushed his notebook out of the way and folded his arms on his desk, lowering his forehead to rest on his forearm and letting his eyes shut. Just five minutes, maybe, and then he could get back to work.

If this conference was going to be successful, he needed to figure out ways to sell it to sponsors. He’d thought about just fronting his own money, and a lot of it would come out of his own pocket. But he couldn’t pay for everything. Not for something this big, something this unprecedented.

It was going to be the San Diego Comic Con of underprivileged boys and girls learning about STEM.

Or at least…that was his plan.

But then there was a knock on his office door. It was a knock he recognized and it made his heart skip a beat. “Come in,” he mumbled, his voice muffled by his arms.

The door opened and there was silence for a second. And then he slowly rolled his head to the side and peeked up at his girlfriend. “Oh, hi.”

“Okay and this is why I came over here.”

He squinted. “Hmm?”

“Honestly, Chuck. You’re going to kill yourself doing this so often. Let me guess,” she said, stepping inside all the way and shutting the door behind her as she moved to the other side of his desk. “You were going to take a short nap at…” She glanced at her watch. “…almost ten o’clock. And then get right back to your work. Am I right?”

Chuck blinked. “I mean…maybe.”

She smiled, rolled her eyes, and shook her head. “Come on. We’re going.”

“How’d you know I was here?”

“I went to your place and you weren’t there. Only other options were here or some other woman’s place. And I have it on good authority said other woman is currently four hours into her sleep cycle.”

“Would that good authority happen to be Mr. Paranoia McGee?”

“If by Mr. Paranoia McGee you mean your brother-in-law, then yes. Yes, he’s my good authority. I texted her and he texted me back.”

“Sweet of him.”

“Isn’t it?”

“But as much as I love you showing up and spicing up my night,” she raised an eyebrow at that, smirking, “I’ve got a lot to figure out for the conference.” He immediately switched his brain to his work and rushed out, “What do you think about this? Tell me the truth. Back when you were a sophomore in high school, would you have wanted to go to a conference called ‘The STEM of the Future’?”

She pressed her lips together and winced. She didn’t have to answer.

“No,” he breathed. “No. W-What about just STEMCon? Keep it simple. No flowery language. Haaaa. Get it? STEM? Flowery? I’m really tired.”

“I know.” She giggled. And then she leaned over the desk and cupped his face, her hands cool against his cheeks. He nearly hummed at how nice it felt. “Let’s get out of here.” She took her hands away and stood up straight again. “You can get back to work in the morning. But I know for a fact you didn’t sleep last night. I went to sleep in an empty bed and woke up this morning in an empty bed again.”

“Well, how do you know I didn’t just go to bed later than you and wake up earlier than you?” He hadn’t. He hadn’t even touched his bed, as inviting as seeing her all wrapped up in his sheets, cuddling his side of the bed, had been. He’d just wanted to crawl in there with her. But he hadn’t. There was so much to do still.

“Because I can feel when you’re in bed with me? Even when I’m asleep?” she said, her voice lifting at the end of each sentence. “It’s a…weird…couple thing. I dunno.” She shook her head. “Come on. Get your jacket. Put your shoes on if they’re off.”

“They’re on.”

“Good. Let’s go back to your place. You can take a shower, I’ll make the martinis,” he popped his eyebrows at that, “and then we’ll drink in bed and fall asleep before midnight like old retired people who have a lot of money.”

“Can we have QVC on in the other room?”

“Mmm and an electric blanket at the end of the bed since, you know, old people are always cold.”

Chuck smirked, which turned into a chuckle. How could he say no to that? There was also the fact that his assistant had picked him up and taken him to work because Ellie borrowed his car for a road trip down to San Diego with Devon. Even though she’d come back earlier today, she still had the car parked at her condo and he was technically stranded.

He’d meant to call a cab eventually, but here was his knight in shining armor, tall and proud in her jeans and navy blue zip up sweatshirt that made her eyes look simply majestic.

But for the first time since she’d walked into his office, he actually looked at her eyes—really looked—and he saw that particular thread of tiredness there.

And it wasn’t the same tired he was experiencing. This wasn’t physical exhaustion. It was emotional, mental, spiritual. It was much deeper.

He knew why it was there, too.

Sarah Walker, P.I. needed a client. And she needed one soon. Each day that passed had her sinking further into a professional depression, as much as she tried to hide it from him.

And Chuck didn’t blame her from trying to hide it. He knew it wasn’t just that she didn’t want to confide in him. It was that she wasn’t used to confiding in people. And he knew she didn’t like pushing her troubles onto him.

He’d gladly take her troubles on his own shoulders, carry her burdens.

But instead, he pretended he didn’t see it.

For now.

And he let her grab his hand and pull him out from behind his desk. He grumbled good-naturedly and let himself be guided through the door, Sarah having reached over and snagged his jacket for him.

“Have your wallet? Keys? Car keys?”

“Ellie has my car keys.”

“Oh, yeah. She borrowed your car. Forgot.”

“God, Sarah. Get your shit together.”

She laughed, even as she pinched him on the ass, making him yelp as they walked past Chuck’s assistant’s empty desk.

The journey back to Chuck’s condo was filled with Chuck bouncing a few of his ideas about the conference off of her, since his dad had given him the order to make it his number one priority.

Finally, Chuck turned to look at his girlfriend, the streetlights flooding her face with light for just a moment every couple of seconds as they passed under them. “Why’d you go to my place earlier?”

She gave him a look. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you-you said you went to my condo and I wasn’t there so you came to my office. Is something wrong? I mean, you showing up at my condo at, like, almost ten o’clock makes me feel like maybe something’s wrong.” It just occurred to him and he felt like an awful boyfriend for taking this long. He shifted in the seat, sitting up a bit straighter and turning his body towards her as best he could under the constraints of his seatbelt.

“Nothing’s wrong,” she said, smiling and looking over at him. “Can’t a girl go to her boy’s place after nine o’clock on a Thursday night?”

“Sure she can,” he said with a shrug. “You know you can show up any damn time you feel like it. I just mean…it’s a little later than you usually come over.”

“What if it was a booty call?”

He choked a little. “Was it?”

“Nah.” She shook her head, the smirk dying a little as the seconds went by. “Simpler than that and a little less X-Rated. I just wanted to see you, I guess.”

“Okay, first of all…the fact that you gave our potential sex an X-rating is super hot. Secondly, ‘I just wanted to see you, I guess’ isn’t always entirely believable.” He winced, afraid she’d lash out at him for insinuating she was lying about her needs.

She didn’t, though. She just sighed.

They finally pulled into his extra space in his building’s garage and climbed out of the car.

When Sarah shut her car door, she spoke again. “I’m telling the truth,” she finally said. “I did want to see you. But it was because I needed to.”

“Needed to?” They walked into the elevator arm in arm and he pushed the button for his floor. “I repeat, did something happen?”

She rolled her eyes—more at herself than at him, he thought—and leaned against the railing next to him. “No, nothing happened. And that’s the problem.”

Ah. Yes. So he was sort of right.

“I’ve spent too much money for getting only one damn client. And while my paycheck was nice and sizable, I need more.”

“Well, I know some peop—”

“No.”

“But—”

“No.”

He held his hands up. “Okay, fine. But I was thinking last night while I was not-sleeping—”

“Aha!” She pointed at him. “You didn’t sleep. What’d I tell you?”

“Fine. You got me. I didn’t sleep last night. But I was thinking, Sarah. You gotta let me work on your website.”

“No—”

“Seriously. I could show you how to market to the right people. Less corny business hack, more Hercules Poirot.” She gave him a flat look and he sighed. “With the website you have now, it’s very simple, simple colors, simple layout, not a whole lot of information or links to click…And the phone number is kinda…clunky.” Her flat look was starting to get miffed but he continued on, pretending he didn’t see it. She needed his help, after all. “It looks a lot like those commercials on TV for lawyers who you can call when you get into a car accident and some peasant law student ends up as your lawyer in court for all the money you cough up.”

“Are you saying my website makes me look like a con artist?” She lifted an eyebrow.

“What? No, no! No. I’m just saying, there’s a way you can make it look less…”

“Unprofessional.” She crossed her arms, her jaw clenching. Woops.

“Not that, no. But B.E.C. has a killer rad website. Which I’m sure you looked at when you were first assigned to our case, It’s killer rad, right?” She didn’t answer, and he could tell she wasn’t exactly happy with him. “I’ve got some of the best marketing pros working for me. They all love you. They think you’re great. They’d totally help. You can work with them and get your site looking super professional, like you’ve been doing this for years. Which you have! Just…not on your own, you know?” he reasoned, holding the elevator doors for her.

They finally stepped into his condo and Sarah’s frown hadn’t subsided.

“Did I offend you?” he asked with a wince as he turned on the lights and shut his door. “I offended you, didn’t I? I didn’t mean to. I’m just trying to help.”

“No,” she sighed. “You didn’t offend me. I am not a marketing expert. I know I’m not. And my site isn’t great. I know that, too. But I have to figure this stuff out on my own.”

“But I can help. People can help.”

“I will let you know when I need your help, Chuck. Okay?”

He couldn’t help being confused. What did it matter if her boyfriend sat down with one of his marketing associates and figured out how best to work her site to make it playable to professionals who needed professional investigating?

Why was she so resistant about receiving help?

It didn’t make sense. He knew she was independent, self-reliant. But he kept forgetting that he didn’t entirely know all there was to know about her. He didn’t know her background. She went to Harvard for law school and left for Pinkerton. He’d picked up on that much. And not even because she’d outwardly told him.

He knew absolutely nothing about her parents, where they were, if they were anywhere. Did she have parents?

“Sarah, it’s not really…” He cleared his throat when she gave him a look. It was the look that would usually make him stop asking, stop pushing. But he kept going. It was important. He wouldn’t be muzzled tonight. “It’s not that big of a deal, having someone help with your website. It’s not your specialty. Investigating, being a bad ass, finding bad dudes and ladies, arresting them, saving lives…that’s your specialty. You need someone with a marketing talent to—”

“Chuck, I don’t need help. I’ll fix the website if it needs touching up. But I’ve got it.”

“I’m just giving you advice. I’ve been watching and working for my dad all this time, and I know how businesses get off the ground. Good marketing is key.”

“I don’t want advice right now. Okay?” There was an edge to her voice as she toed her shoes off and walked down the steps towards the bar. “I’ll start making the martinis. You shower and get comfortable.”

“Sarah…” He followed her but stayed a few feet away. “I know you don’t think you need help. But…when you do, I’m here.”

“Okay.”

She dug around in the cabinet at the bar, very obviously done with the conversation.

Chuck felt the sting of it as he stuck his hands in his pockets. “Sorry I even brought it up then. I’ll, uh, go take my shower.”

And he left her side, heading for the shower. It was going to be a long one. He needed it to be a long one. Because he didn’t want to be angry when he got out again.

Her resistance to his help made him mad. Not knowing why she resisted made him mad. Her innate ability to cut him off and make him feel in the wrong for even asking questions made him mad.

So he stepped into the spray of the shower and let it flood over him, standing there for a while, making his mind go blank.

The air felt charged with words that needed to be said when he came back down again, seeing her sitting on the couch with both martinis on the table in front of her.

Her blue eyes lifted to watch him approach. There was regret in her pretty features then as she lowered her gaze to her lap for a second, rubbing a hand down her jeans. “Hey, um…”

Sarah stood and walked around the table to stand in front of him. “I’m sorry.” She winced. “This agency—It-It has to be my own work, you know? I-I need this to be all me. Even the tiny things. Otherwise it-it doesn’t feel real, you know?”

He nodded, still not really understanding her logic. What was so wrong about asking for help, or accepting it when it was given? He had so many resources that were hers to use if only she asked him.

“I didn’t mean for it to be an argument,” he said, furrowing his brow.

“I didn’t mean to make it into one. Just—You get it, right? I don’t need help. I’ve got to do this. Just me.”

Chuck nodded again, even though he didn’t get it, even though none of this was sitting right, even though he still felt the tension. “Yeah,” was all he could give her.

And it seemed to be enough for her as she smiled softly at him, which was…a little annoying. All he’d said was yeah and it wasn’t even enthusiastic or particularly genuine, but she accepted it and was ready to move on.

He was trying to be okay with her emotional hang-ups, trying to understand, but it was getting harder, the more time went on without him really knowing anything concrete about her background, her past, what she’d been through. He felt like he didn’t know anything.

But tonight wasn’t the time to drudge all of that up.

So he did what he thought would calm him down, the thing he knew always did wonders for him when he was tense or unsettled.

He leaned in, stroked his fingers down her cheek softly, and kissed her, just as softly.

It did the job. The unsettled feeling in him settled, and when her arms went around his neck, while he didn’t feel like the tension was gone, he did feel their connection, the one that made all of this seem trivial. He was upset, but she was still his, and he was hers. No matter what happened between them, there was always that.

She finally pulled away, looking glad that they had cleared it up even though he didn’t entirely feel like they had, and she reached down to pick up their martinis.

“So, these won’t be as good as if you’d made them, since no one can make a martini like you do,” she said with a wink as he plucked one of the martinis from her fingers, “but a martini is a martini, right?”

He held his up for her to clink hers against, and when she did, he brought it to his lips and sipped it, smacking his lips, narrowing his eyes. “Nope, that’s pretty damn good. Well done, Walker.”

“Yessssss!” She did an excited fist pump and he nearly let the rest of tonight’s baggage slide, it was so damned cute. “Success.” She sipped hers and hummed. “It’s good, but I prefer yours.”

“Just because you like kicking your feet up and watching while I do the work,” he sassed with a teasing smirk.

“No!” she argued, slipping her hand into his and guiding him back to the stairs. “Although, the view is really nice.”

“Are you referring to my bum?”

“I am,” she giggled, and she led him up the stairs to the bedroom.

——————

Chuck yawned widely as he stared at his computer screen. STEMCon was what he’d settled on. He just couldn’t figure out if he wanted a space between STEM and Con, or if he wanted to smash the words together.

Either way, there was the small matter of getting enough people together who could be on panels, who could lead workshops. He had to find a way to get the technology there, to get sponsors there, and to figure out just how many tablets, laptops, jump drives, and other pieces of tech he’d need for the students.

He huffed in frustration and sat back against his chair, looking at the ceiling and groaning to himself.

It didn’t help that he wasn’t feeling very inspired today. All day, he’d been bothered by how strained the morning was when he’d woken up next to Sarah. Like their little make-up talk after his shower had just been an armistice.

Her smiles were tentative, her mien distracted. He’d kissed her and sped off to work, wanting to leave the tense atmosphere as quickly as possible.

She’d offered to make him breakfast but he’d feigned having an early meeting, which he’d then felt guilty about. When had he ever run away from her and not spent as much time with her as possible?

He needed to get over it. He was dating a woman who had some struggles with feelings. So she was a little closed-off sometimes, but…so were a lot of people. Just because he wasn’t that way, didn’t mean he should project his own personality onto her.

He just had to be there for her when she needed him. Just like she always was when he needed her.

Feeling a bit better, but also wanting to call her and talk to her, he picked up his phone. He wanted to tell her…

He didn’t know what he’d tell her. So he set his phone back down.

And just when he did, the door to his office slammed open. His mom stood there, his concerned assistant standing wide-eyed behind her.

“Chuck, it’s time!”

He smiled a little, amused. “What are you—? Oh!” The smile died and he jumped to his feet so violently that his chair tipped. “Oh! Oh my God. Is it Ellie?”

“What else?!” his mom snarked, her face pinched in unease and nerves. “Come on, hurry up. We need to get to the hospital.”

His mind flooded with thoughts of Sarah. He needed to get to her, she needed to be there, he needed her to share in this.

He grabbed his cell phone and coat, shrugging it on, shutting down his computer. “Adisa?”

His assistant perked up. “I got it, Chuck. Cancel all of your meetings for at least today. Just keep us all updated on what’s going on with Ellie.”

“I absolutely will.” He thumped the younger man on the back. “Thanks, Adisa. I’ll keep you posted.” Then he turned to his mom as they swept out into the hallway. “Did Ellie call you?”

“She texted your dad. He’s already on his way to the hospital from his meeting in Anaheim. Now come on! I’ve got the car out front.”

“I’ll drive. We’re getting Sarah on the way to the hospital. ”

His mother stalled behind him. “She can meet us there.”

“No. She can’t. We’re picking her up.”

“We’re not going out of the way to pick up your girlfriend, Charles! Your sister is in labor!” she snapped as she continued to follow him through the hallway to the elevator.

They climbed in and Chuck clenched his jaw, wanting to keep from snapping at his mom on this day of all days.

The doors opened again on the ground floor.

“Charles. Are you listening to me?”

Chuck spun on his mom and snagged the car keys from her hand, holding them up. “I’ve got the keys. If you have a problem with picking Sarah up on the way to the hospital, you can call a Lyft.”

He saw he’d won almost immediately. His mother would never Lyft or Uber. Not even to avoid being in the car with Sarah Walker, the woman she’d apparently taken offense to for some stupid reason.

The drive to Sarah’s office was quick, and honestly it was a toss-up as to whether or not she’d even be there in the first place. He knew she tried to keep a schedule, going to her office as many days during the week as she could. He knew she worked there even if she could do the same work from home.

He was surprised when his mom got out of the car with him once they’d screeched to a halt at the curb in front of Sarah’s office building. But he paid her no mind as he rushed into the building and climbed into the old-fashioned elevator.

Once they reached Sarah’s floor and started down the hallway, he spotted the light shining through the door of her agency and knew she was there. Relieved, he hurried his step even more, hearing his mom huff and puff behind him.

And then he burst into Sarah’s agency, a little breathless himself as he rushed through the small lobby and stopped in the threshold to her personal office.

She was on the floor with papers spread all around her, her eyes wide as she looked up at him. “Chuck! What—? What’s going on?”

He frowned at the mess, knowing she wasn’t typically the messy type. And she looked down to follow his gaze. “Oh. Um, yeah. This. I was sorting my paperwork to file it so that I know where everything is. I can find it easier that way, you know?”

“Well, we gotta go,” he said, nodding in understanding. He watched Sarah’s eyes fall on his mother who stood at his shoulder, and he could see she was embarrassed the older woman was seeing this mess. It made his chest ache in a good way, and in a bad way. Mostly bad.

“What do you mean, we gotta go? For what? What’s happened?”

“Ellie’s in labor.”

Her blue eyes popped, shining brightly as she jumped to her feet and clasped her hands together. “Oh, my God. It’s happening?”

“Yeah.” He let out a breathless chuckle and felt the beginning of tears. He just barely blinked them away as Sarah closed the distance and cupped his face in her hands. “I’m gonna be an uncle.”

The tension and strain that had been there this morning wasn’t in the room anymore. There was nothing between them but the deep affection and sweeping adoration that had always been there. And then she moved up to the tip toes of her pumps and kissed him.

He wrapped his arms around her and chuckled into the kiss, fighting the emotions, clinging to her.

When he heard the loud “AHEM” behind him, he pulled Sarah even closer, and as amused as he could tell Sarah was by the move, she was the one who pulled back, blushing in spite of everything.

“Let’s go,” she breathed, sliding her hand into his.

He had half a mind to ask if she needed to put any of this away, but she seemed so unconcerned by it as she rushed past him and snagged her coat, shrugging it on and pulling her hair out of the collar, that he shut his mouth and ushered his mom out.

Sarah took only a moment to lock up and then they were in the elevator, running out of the building, climbing into his mom’s car, and speeding the rest of the way to the hospital.

——————

Sarah followed Chuck and his mom through the maze-like hospital and turned the corner, stopping a little at the sight.

The hallway was crowded with well-wishers who’d heard about Ellie Woodcomb’s momentous news. All of them were dressed in scrubs or wearing doctor’s coats.

They were patting an overwhelmed Devon on the back, grabbing his hand and shaking it vigorously, and then leaving to go back to work.

His blue eyes lifted to see his brother-in-law and mother-in-law walking towards him and he beamed.

Without either of them saying a single word, Sarah watched Chuck and Devon embrace the way she imagined brothers might. Devon thumped her boyfriend on the back a few times and pulled away, then let loose with that booming laugh. “Dude. Awesome. And terrifying. But awesome.”

Chuck just laughed and grabbed him by the biceps. “What are you doing out here, man? Get in there with Ellie.”

“Y-Yeah. I’m—Well, she actually, um, she kicked me out.” He switched his gaze to Mary and immediately moved around his brother-in-law to sweep her up in a tight hug. It was obviously not what she was expecting as she let out an awkward “Oh” and held onto his shoulders with a wide-eyed, confused look.

When he set her down again, he called her “Grandma” and the slight look of begrudging amusement fell to a stony look. It almost made Sarah laugh.

But then Devon had her wrapped up in a tight, strong hug. “Congratulations,” she said, her voice a little strangled since she couldn’t exactly breathe. She had to resist getting misty when he pulled away and exhaled softly, dragging a hand down his face.

“Hey, what do you mean Ellie kicked you out?” Chuck asked.

“Um…I was kind of…” He winced. “Spiraling.”

Chuck let out a laugh and shook his head. “Come on, man. What’s got you spiraling?”

“Besides my wife pushing a living breathing baby out of her womb? Um, and the fact that I forgot my Push-Mix at home? And the comfy little pillow thing I bought that you put behind her head to make giving labor easier? Yeah, that’s at home, too.”

Sarah watched as the younger of the two men put his hands on Devon’s shoulders, meeting his gaze solidly. “Awesome, you’re awesome. Remember? I don’t call you the captain of awesome for nothing. You don’t need music. You don’t need a dumb little pillow. Ellie definitely doesn’t need those things. Pull yourself together and get back in there. She needs you. Not Captain Spiraling. Captain Awesome.” He saluted the blonde with a military flourish and Sarah melted a bit.

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.” Devon’s features became steely and determined, and he stood up straighter, like an Olympic statue or something. Or maybe a superhero. Considering what she knew about Chuck’s brother-in-law, he was a bit of a superhero, wasn’t he? “Thanks, bro. I’ll see you all on the other side.”

He turned and walked away from them, meeting one of the delivery nurses at the swinging doors and letting her deck him out in his surgical gown, handing him a cap. Then they disappeared inside.

Sarah heard Mary let out a stressed huff of air, and as she watched the almost-grandmother out of the corner of her eye, she saw the worried slump in her shoulders.

“Ellie’s strong,” Chuck said, looking over his shoulder. “We’ll meet Clara soon, I have no doubt of it.”

“She’s a bad ass,” Sarah added, a little breathless. “Seriously.”

She spun on her heels when she heard footsteps rushing down the hallway. Morgan was practically a tornado, sprinting towards them. Sarah caught Stephen walking a safe distance behind him, shaking his head in amusement, holding a large bag of something, and…for the first time since she’d met him…ever…wearing jeans, a T-shirt, a sweatshirt, and a dusty old baseball cap. It was…kind of nice, seeing him like that.

“Is she okay? Is she alright? Am I late?” Morgan rushed. He grabbed Sarah’s arms, since she was closest to him. “Oh my God, I’m gonna be an uncle!”

Mary scoffed and rolled her eyes, though she seemed amused at the same time.

Chuck made a high pitched, doubtful “mmmmm” sound over Sarah’s shoulder that made her giggle.

“Morgan, she’s fine. She’s probably still in the contractions phase,” she explained, patting his shoulder.

“So I can’t hold Clara yet…is what you’re saying.”

“No, buddy. Not yet,” Chuck explained.

He sighed and stepped back, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Man. When Sarah called me, I was sure it meant she was already here. Clara, I mean. I left in the middle of an onion volcano.” His eyes widened. “Oh, crap. I need to call Jing and make sure my restaurant didn’t burn down!”

As he scurried off, he nearly ran into Stephen, but somehow managed to divert his trajectory into the wall. “I’M OKAY!” he bellowed as he pulled his cell out and scampered around the corner again.

“You can always count on Grimes to add levity into any situation,” Stephen said as he walked up to them and lifted the bag. “I bought a bunch of snacks, both healthy and unhealthy. If Eleanor’s anything like her mother, we might be here awhile.”

“I did not take that long,” his wife argued, smiling at him.

“Welllll…” His shrug looked a lot like the one she’d seen plenty of times from his son.

His wife smacked his shoulder.

Morgan chose that moment to come back around the corner. “It’s still standing! All is well!! And I only got a little bit of boiling oil on one of our customers. So we’re good.”

“Uhhhhh…” Sarah felt Chuck slide his arm around her shoulders. “Buddy, that’s not exactly…” He stopped when she elbowed him in the side. “Never mind.”

Just then, they heard, “Mr. Bartowski? Which one of you is Ellie’s father?”

They all turned as one to face the nurse who’d crept up on them. Everyone turned their heads to look at Stephen. “Uh, th-that’s me. I’m the dad. Well, no. The mom’s dad. The grandpa.” Sarah wondered if it was the first time he’d said it out loud, because he looked a little choked up for a second.

“Oh. Good. One person is allowed in the room with her—besides the husband. At least for right now. And she asked for you.”

There was an awkward silence then. And Sarah told herself not to look at Mary. Don’t look don’t look.

She looked. She couldn’t help it. Everyone had turned to face the older woman.

And she looked like she’d been kicked in the gut. But then she slid a mask over the hurt and raised her eyebrows, folding her hands together and looking away.

“Uh…alright. Yeah. I’m comin’.” He passed the bag of snacks to Morgan and thanked him, then slipped past his wife. Sarah spotted the way he put his hand on her shoulder, squeezing comfortingly. And then he disappeared with the nurse.

The uncomfortable silence continued for at least a minute, until Chuck spoke up. It was like someone had pulled a plug and his voice spilled out. “I just realized I haven’t had my coffee today. I’m getting a coffee. Anybody else want one?”

“I do.” She looked up at him.

“Great. Anybody else?” Mary didn’t even acknowledge he’d spoken and Morgan shook his head slowly. “Kay, here I go.”

“I’m coming, too.”

“Okay.”

And Chuck and Sarah strolled down the hallway as she slipped her hand into his, squeezing tightly the entire way until they stepped into the elevator and he pressed the button for the food court. When the doors shut, they both exhaled and Sarah slumped against his shoulder.

“She did it to herself.”

Sarah raised her eyebrow at him. He shrugged.

“It’s true. Hate to be harsh, but it’s true. My mom’s the leader of the smear campaign against Ellie’s husband slash the father of her child. She really expects Ellie to want her in there with her after these years of tension and disagreements? I’m sure Ellie’s thinking about the time my mom told her Devon wasn’t allowed in our family home. Well? Now my mom isn’t allowed in the delivery room. Bam.”

“Yeah.” Sarah paused. “I’m not exactly your mom’s biggest fan…” The doors opened and they stepped out into the hallway, moving towards the food court. “And she’s definitely not mine—”

“Nope! That’s my title.” He grinned toothily and she rolled her eyes good-naturedly.

“But I felt really awful for her up there. She looked like she’d been punched in the stomach. Did you see her face? She was really hurt.”

“I know.” He shrugged. “She needs to be nicer to people. She’s alienated her own daughter because of this paranoia about people using her children to get to our money. Ellie’s not even in the family business. Both Ellie and Devon have massive salaries as surgeons. Her issues with him are completely illogical.”

Sarah nodded as they got in line at the coffee shop in the corner of the food court. She didn’t voice it, but she couldn’t help thinking that while Ellie wasn’t a part of the family business, Chuck was. He was Stephen’s heir. And while Mary’s distrust of Devon was unfounded, it was less so as far as Sarah was concerned. She was the one faltering in getting her private investigation agency off the ground, dating a man who was worth more money than honestly any one person should be worth.

They each got the largest size of coffee, black, and she pushed in front of Chuck to pay. He made a sound of protest but she ignored him, exchanging a quick smile with the young barista.

As they stepped aside to wait for their drinks, Sarah grabbed a handful of sugar packets and subtly slipped them into her pocket. Chuck gave her a weird look. “What? We’re going to be here for awhile. I might need all of this sugar.”

He chuckled and gave her a one armed hug, kissing the top of her head. “I love you.”

“You better. …the shit I put up with,” she teased, and he chuckled again.

They got their coffees and moved to a corner table that was away from others, sitting across from one another and staying in comfortable silence for a few minutes, sipping their hot brew, people watching.

“You know what really gets me?” She lifted her gaze to his face as he squinted off to the side thoughtfully. “Devon was probably in there advocating for my mom to Ellie.”

Sarah smiled and nodded. “I’m sure he was.”

And then she watched closely as he lowered his gaze to his cup and furrowed his brow thoughtfully. “Sarah…?”

“What?” She tilted her head as his eyes swept back up to meet hers. And then she felt a spike of nerves at the way he bit his lip and let her see a half-wince. She knew the look well. He was definitely about to address something he thought she’d be less than enthused about. And if it was what she feared it might be about, he’d be right.

“I just want to…” He licked his lips and sighed. “This morning, there was still some…tension. Between us. From last night, I mean.”

A bit of a mask slid over her features and she caught herself. There were still things she had to teach herself. Like how not to immediately close up to avoid conflict. That specific reaction was her. It was how she dealt with things. It was what she was used to. But she didn’t try to pretend everything was fine or brush it off the way she might have months and months ago, in the very beginning. She was upfront and candid with him, instead. Honest. Open.

Because she trusted him with all of it. Everything.

“I know there was,” she said. “I’ll take some responsibility for that. I could feel last night that you really didn’t get what I was saying and you were just agreeing because you didn’t want a fight. And while I appreciated that because I also didn’t want to fight, I couldn’t get it out of my head this morning and it made things…” She sighed. “Tense.”

“Yeah.” He nodded, and he slowly slid his hand across the table towards hers. She reached out and met him halfway, their fingers intwined. “I honestly…I’m trying to understand and let it go. It’s something I’ll have to work at and kind of, I dunno…” He shrugged. “Remind myself, I guess?”

“I don’t get why it’s so hard for you to understand,” she said, leaning in and squeezing his fingers in hers. And she was genuinely confused. Why was it so difficult for him to let her do all of this on her own? Why was he so offended by her need to start her business without anyone else’s assistance?

Chuck huffed, nibbling his lip, looking troubled. She wanted to reach across the table and rub a finger over the wrinkles between his brow, iron them out, see that clear, happy look of his again. “I don’t know. I’m—I have this thing, maybe, that I feel like I need to help everyone. Ellie said I’m always trying to save the world. It sounds like a good trait, but it isn’t really. It’s…I don’t know what it is.” Before she could respond, he rushed on. “I’m sorry, Sarah. I am. I truly don’t mean to butt in so much.” He gently stroked his thumb over the back of her hand. “I just care. A lot. About you. About your dreams. About…all of this working out for you. Your happiness and success. And it just seems like such a simple thing, getting my people to help you make your website more accessible for potential clients, and, you know, marketing your services.”

“That’s just it, Chuck. It is a simple thing. It feels like I’m taking the easy way out.” Like she was too dependent. And being dependent was never a good thing. She’d learned that the hard way. Too many times. “I don’t want that feeling. I want to know this is all stuff I got for myself, on my own, that I get to a successful place through my own hard work,” she emphasized.

It didn’t occur to her to tell him why, because deep down, she wasn’t even sure why. Maybe it was all of the times she’d been burned when she’d relied on others for help. The only times she hadn’t been burned were when she allowed herself to take the reins, when she pushed others out and handled her life on her own. This wasn’t about Chuck, this was about her. This was about her needing to know that she was capable, yes, but more than that, she couldn’t let herself depend on others. She couldn’t let that be the narrative around her success again. Because the resulting fall had been catastrophic for her family and she just couldn’t let it happen again. She couldn’t let it ruin this.

But she couldn’t tell him that. She couldn’t find her voice. And so much was happening today that was important. His sister was having her baby. Nobody had time for this intense, deep conversation.

“I can get behind that, Sarah,” he said. “That’s one of the things I struggle with working for the family business. This wasn’t something I worked hard for. This is all my dad’s. It’s his legacy.” He huffed. “And it gets to me sometimes. So I understand your wanting to know you succeeded on your own, without help.”

“Chuck, it isn’t like you just sit around all day and milk B.E.C.’s money like a Hilton child or something. You work harder than anyone I know. I had to rescue you last night because you worked through the night before and you were falling asleep at your desk,” she argued, reaching over with her other hand and clasping it over both of their hands on the top of the table. “Sorry, I know that isn’t the point of what you were saying. I just…I don’t like the idea of you thinking you didn’t earn this, like you haven’t worked your ass off to be successful. A corporation is not an easy thing to maintain, Chuck.”

His eyes widened a little, and then he chuckled softly. She was warmed by the affection as his features softened. “Thanks for that. Didn’t realize I needed it until you said it.”

Sarah gave him a one shoulder shrug. “S’what I’m here for. Amongst other things,” she tacked on with a head tilt.

“I know. And I appreciate that. But I’m also here for you. And…” He took a deep breath. “And I understand if this particular area is not a thing you want me to be here for. I mean, I don’t—I don’t get why. But I guess I don’t need to…I mean, I don’t need to know the why to still be able to support your decision.”

She felt the slow smile stretch over her lips, and it was laced with a bit of a pout because that was easily the most supportive and thoughtful thing anybody had ever said to her.

“I’m sorry if I’m butting in or being pushy about this. I just love you. I care a lot. And I know I can help. But if you don’t want it…” He pulled his hand out of both of hers and held his arms up by his head in surrender. “I get that. I won’t push anymore. As long as you remember I’m here. When you need me.”

“I do need you,” she rushed out. She could still see he was hurt by her insistence he let her tackle her business alone, and she needed him not to take it personally. She needed to erase the hurt he was trying to hide behind that warm smile of his.

“C’mere,” she breathed, making grabby hands across the table until he gave her his hands. She took them and squeezed, making sure she had his full attention before she continued. “Chuck, I do need you. I need you for so many things on a daily basis. I’ve always needed you. Even when I was here working on your dad’s case—on your case—I would find myself at your office or at your condo at the end of a long day and…” She huffed, shaking her head. “I managed to convince everybody—even myself—that it was because I was doing protection detail, checking on you, making sure you were safe. And yeah, that was part of it. But it was mostly that I needed to end my days with…Well, with you.” She felt her cheeks redden, heat coming up from the collar of her blouse. But she kept going. “You made me feel good. About myself. About…life in general. It was just nice being reminded that someone like you exists in a world that can sometimes be full of hatred and greed and corruption. You’d make me laugh or you’d just…you’d look at me in ways nobody had ever looked at me before.”

Sarah shook herself a little and giggled. “I know it’s sappy but I also know you love sappy, so…”

He grinned and squeezed her hands. “My insides currently feel like sunshine.”

That made her laugh, shaking her head at him. “Sap.”

“You, too!” he accused.

“Yep. And I’ll fully own that right now.” She nodded emphatically. “And if I needed you then, you have to know, it’s gotten so much worse ever since. It’s not just that I need you for martinis, though that’s a big one.” He chuckled. “Anytime I make a misstep or I…fall on my face…” She rolled her eyes and huffed. “Which is going to happen a lot with this agency, I can just see it…I’m going to need your support.”

“You’ll have it. You know that,” he answered quickly and easily.

“I know,” she said. And she did know. “You give me confidence in so many things every day, Chuck Bartowski. In you. In us. In life. In myself. I need that. I will accept and cherish your help everywhere else. But in this, it has to be me. It’s very important to me that this is my achievement. If it ends up being an achievement and not a colossal failure,” she said with a wince.

“I get it. And I’m ten thousand percent ready to be here for you in whatever ways you need me to be. However, wherever, whenever, whatever. Whyever?” He made a face and she let out a bubbly giggle. “Not whomever, though.”

“No.” She shook her head in faux seriousness.

“I only really know how to be myself.”

“Okay, Chuck, I got it.”

“Yeeeeah.” He wrinkled his nose and they laughed together. “I’m glad we had this talk.”

“Me, too. And…And can we please continue to be open and honest with each other like this? And not do what we both did last night slash this morning? The tiptoeing and pretending there wasn’t tension in the room. It felt…”

“Gross?”

“Yes.”

“We absolutely can be open and honest with each other like this. Yes. Please. I’d prefer it.”

“Good.”

“Good,” he repeated, and then he leaned over the table towards her. She met him halfway, kissing him deeply, lifting a hand to the back of his head and taking her time tasting the coffee on his lips.

If they could both just keep to that promise, she knew they’d be all right. Everything would be all right.

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