"You're wearing glasses." It was somewhere between an observation and a question.

"Well," He looked surprised. "I can take them off..."

"Oh, oh, no— I didn't mean that... Actually," Through mental thoughts about how stupid I sounded and what a great new impression I was giving I realised: "They look good." They looked really good. "You didn't always need them, though, did you?"

"Yeah." He nodded. "I used to wear contacts all the time, but I just got sick of poking my eye, you know?"

"I did not." My eyebrows raised. "I never knew you wore contacts at all...huh," I shrugged. "All these years and I didn't know."

He laughed. "God, Marie," He said. "It's good to see you."

I could only grin in reply. Feeling more welcome then than I had since my arrival. I stirred my tea, letting the steam collect on my fingers.

"You still haven't told me what's bothering you." Andrew sipped his coffee. For some reason, out of everyone I knew, he seemed to enjoy it the most. He had a passion for it like nothing I'd ever seen, except when his fingers met the piano. "Was it really my glasses?"

"No." I laughed. "Oh, I love this song..." I swayed as the first few lines of 'I will follow you into the dark' echoed in the sleepy diner.

"Me too." His eyes smiled. "God, I used to hate stuff like this, now it's essentially all I listen to."

"They really like thier DCfC around here, don't they?"

He nodded, waiting.

"It's everything, Andy." I sighed. "It's like I came back to a different place, or an alternate reality, or jumped dimensions, or something... Or maybe I'm still asleep and this is just an elaborate dream. Everyone's different now, sort of, like something happened to all of us while I was gone and now there's a hazy sadness over everything. And..." I searched for some other way to say it, but complication detracted from the truth. "And it hurts." I stopped stirring my tea, still barely too warm to drink, and sighed; suddenly captivated by the ripples bouncing back and forth in the teacup. "I thought I was done hurting, you know? I wanted to come back to everything the way it was— and I knew that wasn't going to happen, but... I just didn't think it would be this way."

He nodded and sipped his coffee. I'm not sure what I expected him to say but, whatever it was, he didn't say it. "You, dear," He began. "Had some very quixotic expectations." I studied the reflections in my tea as he took another draught of coffee. "Marie," He said in his quiet, matter-of-fact, way. "Something did happen." Andrew's hair fell almost straight into his eyes as he leaned just forward, and I noticed, for the first time, the half-moon scar on the left side of his bottom lip; where a silver ring had formerly resided. "You got sick." Pain crossed his features for a moment, I saw it in his eyes; an almost imperceptable wince, a ripple over the glossy cobalt of his iris. And then I knew: it was my fault. "First, you were gone." He went on. "And we could all deal with it. I know it sounds weird, but we all learned to get along without you..." He shrugged. "Nothing really changed until we found out you were sick."

Ouch. Well, out with it, at least I knew he'd not hide anything. "What happened, Andy? I think everyone expected Michael to tell me, but he didn't. And not knowing anything is making me crazy."

"I can tell," He smirked, handing me the pencil that had apparently been sticking out of my sleeve. He was quiet for a minute before he continued. "Without you to book them, we pretty much stopped playing gigs anywhere but here— and that only because Mitch felt sorry for us. Michael got real fucking busy with school, so he pretty much stopped playing anyway; Darrin kept playing though, he still does, as obsessively as ever. And I taught Nikki a bit on the piano because she asked me to... God, she is a natural. You should see her play, Marie, I fucking swear." Andrew absolutely glowed with pride for his only student, who was also his kid sister.

"Really?" I couldn't hide my amusement. I had forgotten his fondness for a certain expletive, and how oddly normal it sounded when he used it... I should have remembered, Andrew had always been the 'swearer' of the gang. He loved the f-word, used it as casually as the rest of us said 'um'—and never any others. I had been accustomed to it once.

"Fuck yeah." He said acutely, draining his cup of coffee. I laughed outright. He must have needed to get comfortable, this was the Andy I remembered. Changed, yet so essentially himself.