Sheridan was speechless. 'What is he doing here?' she thought to herself. He had heard her. She knew that there was no way she could talk her way out of it, so she finally made a decision.

"Luis, what are you doing here?" Sheridan asked quietly. She always lost her train of thought when he looked at her.

"I came to bring you home," Luis answered, never taking his eyes off of her.

"Listen, Luis, what you just heard..." Sheridan began, "I don't want you to think that I meant that..."

Before she could finish, Luis stopped her with a nod.

"You don't have to explain," he stated simply. The look in his eyes was quickly turning from desire to fierce anger. "As a matter of fact, I don't want you to explain."

"But I..."

Luis' glaring eyes silenced Sheridan.

"I came here because I finally realized that it was because of me that you left Harmony, and I needed to know why. I thought, after everything you said that you thought I had done something to you, and I wanted to make up for whatever it was that I did." He finally let his eyes move off of Sheridan and looked out the window instead. "I came here to tell you how I felt about you, how much I realized you meant to me."

Sheridan's stomach was doing flip-flops. 'Does this mean that he loves me as much as I love him? Is there a chance for us after all?' Just the thought almost brought her to tears. What Luis said next stopped her short.

"Obviously I made a mistake," he said.

"What do you mean, you made a mistake?" Sheridan asked, alarmed that things were suddenly going south.

Luis turned to Sheridan again, and she realized that it wasn't anger in his eyes. It was pain. She knew those eyes well. She had seen them every day in the mirror since she left Harmony.

"I thought you were different. I thought that if I loved you enough, we could get through anything. I thought that if I came here, you would give me another chance to prove that I am the man you've been waiting for. I thought..." he stopped, trying not to let his voice betray the despair in his heart. "I don't know what the hell I was thinking!" he concluded, not meaning to shout at her.

"Luis, I don't understand," Sheridan cried suddenly, genuinely confused by Luis' words.

Luis just shook his head. "I know now that you were right. 'You need to go back to your old life, and I need to get on with mine. That's just the way things are supposed to be,' " he stated, using the same words she had used when they met on the roof of the Seascape. "You've made me realize that we are two different people from two different worlds, and that anything more than acquaintanceship is impossible. I may have been right about you being different from the rest of your family morally, but you've got Crane stubbornness and you've got a double-dose of Crane pride. You're more of a Crane than even you realize yourself, and I know now that there is no way I can compete with that."

Luis did not mean to hurt Sheridan with his last comment, but as soon as he saw the look on Sheridan's face, he realized that it had, and he suddenly regretted saying anything at all, but it was too late to take anything back. The words hung between them like an impenetrable wall.

Sheridan was the first to break the silence, and the strength she found in her voice surprised them both. "Is that all?" she asked slowly. "If so, then I would like a chance to respond."

Luis looked at her, confused. He just nodded, noting the sudden businesslike tone she had taken.

Sheridan walked over to the window and looked at the city below. 'The city for lovers,' she thought to herself. 'Ironic that this is the place where I am losing my best hope for one.' Tearing herself from her reverie, she turned back to the man to whom she had given her heart. She was ready to take it back.

"Just who in the hell do you think you are?" she asked him matter-of-factly. "You want to talk about MY stubbornness and MY pride? News flash, Officer. In case you didn't know, you happen to have the preverbal corner on the market in that department."

Luis sat in stunned silence. Sheridan didn't wait to let him gather his thoughts before she started again. "I was right, even though I am just now since. There was no chance for us. But it is not just because I am a Crane. You can tell yourself that if it makes you feel better. Hell, tell yourself anything you want to. God knows I have. But the truth is that my family has very little to do with this. This has to do with US," she said. "We are attracted to each other. We have been since day one, and don't try to deny it, because I remember very well the look on your face when you saw my face after I hit your police car."

He couldn't deny it. Remembering back to the first day he met Miss Crane, he remembered most the feeling in his gut when he laid eyes on the beautiful woman who had tried to run from him. He had never admitted it, but he had always wondered what would have been had they met under different circumstances. Sheridan's voice broke into his memories.

"Even when I hated you, I was attracted to you, which just made me hate you more at the time," said Sheridan, not being able to keep a small smile from creeping onto her lips. "The fact that you were a cocky, arrogant jerk bugged me, but the way I felt when I looked at you bugged me most of all. We have an incredible, uncanny chemistry. You affect me in ways that no one else ever has before." It felt good to say it out loud. It was something they had both known needed to be said eventually. Sheridan just wished it were under different circumstances, before things had gone bad.

Luis looked at Sheridan solemnly. "Yeah, I know what you mean. You were always able to get to me, get under my skin." He began to smile as well. 'Why did it take you running off to Paris for us to say this to each other' he thought to himself sadly. 'Why did we wait until it was too late.'

Sheridan and Luis just looked at each other for a long time, both lost in memories of how they had come to this point. They both thought about the time they played basketball, and Sheridan had fallen on top of Luis. They thought about the little battles they had fought over anything they could think of, just to hear what the other would say. They thought about how they had gone to New Mexico, both looking for answers. They thought about how they didn't get those answers, but they came back with a new understanding and appreciation of the other person. They had actually talked to each other instead of at each other for the first time. After Luis saved Sheridan from drowning, he had found out her greatest fear: that she would never find a man who loved her for who she was and not what she had. He remembered her looking at him in her delirium. 'Are you the one? Are you the great love of my life?' she had asked, reaching for him. He had tried to tell that it was just him, she had the wrong guy, but she would not let him go. 'If I let go, you'll disappear, and it will break my heart!' she had cried, begging him to stay with her. He tried to cover her up more, and she had grabbed him and kissed him. Then later, when he had to lay next to her naked to keep her warm, she had turned to him. 'Make love to me.' She said. 'You have to make love to me now.' He would never forget hearing those words come out of her mouth, and how he had realized for the first time that there was much more to this rich and beautiful woman than he had ever imagined. No amount of money kept her demons from haunting her. They thought about the Martin imposter, how he kidnapped Sheridan and forced Luis to choose between his father and her. They thought about how Luis did choose, and how Sheridan had taken care of him after that, from offering a shoulder to cry on up to lending a couch to sleep on. They thought about their first dinner, and how Luis asked Sheridan to help expose her family in his father's disappearance, and how she answered him with a glass of wine in his face. He had gone back and apologized, trying to make up for what he had done. She had accepted his apology, and he had admitted to her that the only thing he could not live with was knowing he had hurt her. 'I don't want to be that guy, what's his name? Jean-Luc, in your life.' He had said adamantly. They thought about their first real date, how Julian had tried to bribe Luis into not seeing Sheridan again, and how he had refused, not because he didn't want what was offered, but because he knew if he did, Sheridan would never trust him again. He would have been just like all of the others. They thought about how shy they had felt around each other at the end of the date, and how Luis politely asked if he could kiss Sheridan. She thought about how sweet she thought it was that he only kissed her on the cheek, and how she had felt weak just because he was so close to her, his breath lightly caressing her face as he kissed her.

"I've suddenly forgotten what I was saying," Sheridan confessed, a little embarrassed.

The smile melted off of Luis' face. "We were talking about why we can't be in a relationship."

"Oh yeah," Sheridan said, suddenly realizing that that was what she had meant to do. She looked at Luis again, noting how he was not looking at her anymore, but at the floor. "The point is all of that is in the past. Yes, we have chemistry, and at one time I thought that there might be a chance for us, but it has become painfully obvious that there isn't. We are just too different, but..." Sheridan decided to go out on a limb. "I'm not angry. Actually, I've missed you," she confessed. "I would like to think we had become friends. I would really like to be, anyway." 'I can do this, we can be friends, though it would be a lot easier if you weren't so incredibly sexy all the time...' Sheridan thought to herself.

"It'll be awfully hard to be 'friends' if you still want to keep an ocean between us," Luis stated, not quite sure how else to respond. 'Does this mean she doesn't have feelings for me anymore? Maybe she can do this, but I don't know if I can! Okay, Luis, calm down. Just get her to come back to Harmony, and we'll go from their. Maybe we can be just friends after all. If only you weren't so damn beautiful...'

Sheridan smiled, knowing what he was looking for. "Yeah, I guess so. Well, now that we have everything cleared up, I don't see any reason why I need to stay in Paris. Besides, Ethan is getting married in a few weeks, and I should be there to support him."

"So," Luis asked, trying not to sound overly excited, "does this mean you're coming back to Harmony after all?"

"Yes, it does. I just need a day or two to get my things together."

"Then I'll see you in a few days. My flight leaves tomorrow, so I need to go ahead and go," Luis said moving towards the door.

"Wait, Luis," Sheridan said, grabbing her purse. "I'll drive you."

"You don't have to.." He started to protest, but Sheridan cut him short with a smile.

"I insist. This is what friends do, after all."

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