Life: Still Altered 4.04

            "Shane!"  Dana yelled,
she was in the bedroom, stark naked, dripping wet, and panicked.

            "Dana!"
called back Shane; Dana
leaned out of the doorway, looking back and forth in the hallway.  No one was there.  It seemed that lately, everyone was at their
house.  If it wasn’t Daisy and Ro, it was
Quin, Tina and Cassandra, if not them, it was
Better.  Sometimes it was Alice,
you just never knew who was hiding in the rafters. 

            "Where are you?" asked
Dana, paddling around the hallway,
listening for Shane.  She paddled along the hallways, leaving
puddles of water in her wake, the only thing she was wearing was a smile, and
her wedding ring.

            "In the kitchen…,"
began Shane.  Dana rushed to
the kitchen, eyes wide, sliding to a stop, seeing Alice
there, yelling at the top of her lungs, "with Alice…"
finished Shane. 

            "I didn’t see
anything, I didn’t see anything…," said Alice,
hands over her eyes, shaking her head from side to side.  Shane laughed, and Dana dashed back to the
small bathroom. 

            "Damn it, Shane!"  Dana lamented,
and Alice
laughed now.  The first real laughter she’d
felt inside of her in over three months, ever since she’d cheated on Quin. 

            "That was funny," said
Alice.

            "That was, Dana,"
added Shane. 
"Dane, what’s wrong that had you screaming my name like a banshee…"  Shane looked
over at Alice,
"she does scream like a banshee, but only when she’s in a certain position…,"
eluded Shane.

            "God, stop!"  Alice  Dana
came back into the room, her clothes stuck to her because she’d failed to dry
herself off before putting on her clothes.
laughed.

            "I was yelling
because, damn it, I’m losing my hair. 
It’s only been a month of treatment, and I’m losing my hair!"

            Shane
moved to her, face serious.  She adjusted
her glasses, slowly pulling Dana into a
comforting hug, "I’m sorry, baby."

            Alice
sat at on the bench at the counter, biting her lip.  The last month had gone by slowly, Dana
had begun her treatment’s.  The lump had
been malignant, and the cancer was spreading. 
The prognosis wasn’t good.

            "Is it true it grows
back thicker, after the chemo?"  Dana
asked, nose wrinkled in curiosity, giving Shane a
wink.  Shane  "Then by all means,
let it fall out."  Laughed Dana,
kissing ShaneShane’s
arms, nuzzling into her.
laughed, nodding. quickly, finding quick comfort in

            "So, you wanna do what
we talked about?"

            "What did you talk
about?"  Alice
asked, and Dana  She and Shane were
taking her illness with a grain of salt, and a dash of fun.  They weren’t going to sit and cry about what
was happening.  Instead, they were having
fun with every odd event.  grinned.

            "I wanna have a head
shaving party."

            "That’s morbid," said Alice.  Alice
wasn’t sure about Dana’s cavalier attitude about
this cancer, she was acting as if it were nothing.  Shane was
acting the same way. 

            "Ah, come on, Al,
I’m sharing this with my friends.  If you
don’t wanna come…"

            "Oh, I’ll be here, I
got no where else to be," added Alice
ruefully.

            "How are things with
you, and Quin?" asked Shane.  Shane and Dana
moved to the table, hand in hand, Shane pulled
out a chair for Dana, and she sat.  Dana leaned
back, slipping her legs up onto Shane’s
lap.  Shane’s
talented hands found Dana’s foot, and began to
massage it. 

            "They’re not.  Daisy isn’t speaking to me, still.  Peggy
gives me cold looks, she disowned Helena
for sleeping with me.  So now Helena
is stuck sleeping on Quin’s couch."

            "Hold up, Quin is still
talking to her sister, but won’t talk to you?" 
Dana asked.

            "Uh huh, looks like it
was all MY fault," Alice
said, throwing up her hands.  "Whatever,
there are other fish in the sea."

            "Just none like Quin,"
added Shane.  "You seriously don’t want to work it
out?"  Everyone had had this discussion
with each other, how to get Quin and Alice back
together again.  No one had come up with
an adequate idea.  Romantic dinners,
getaways, none of it would work for Quin and Alice,
because they had never been that sort of couple.  Their relationship had been intense from the
beginning, from rendezvous’ in New Orleans,
to amnesia. 

            "She doesn’t want to
work it out, so when is this party?"  Alice
asked, wanting to change the subject.  She’s
resigned herself to trying to pick up the pieces of her life, without Quin in
it.  The gaping hole that was left by Quin
would never be filled, but she wasn’t going to harp on her mistakes.  She also wasn’t going to act like a child and
try to get her back.  Quin was a stubborn
woman, who had been scorned, the two, didn’t make for a good combination. 

            "Hmmm, how about
tomorrow night?"  Shane
looked at Dana, touching her cheek lovingly and Dana
nodded.

            "Yeah, I have a
treatment today, that doctor that Sam
set us up with; Darci Cyr
is going to be here.  So, yeah, we should
call everyone, get them over here tomorrow night."

            "Ok. Dane," smiled Shane,
leaning in and kissing Dana gently.  Dana smiled
into the kiss, and Shane whispered, "I love
you."

~*~*~*~*~*

            "Peggy,
we cannot produce this show without Helena,"
offered Tina. 
She was sitting at her desk, having a video conference with the older Peabody.  Tina had been
steadfast in wanting Helena
reinstated at her job, but Peggy, was being just
as stubborn, and even more cold hearted than ever.  Peggy saw Helena’s
transgression with Alice
as being the final straw that broke the families back. 

            "You must, and you
will.  My oldest child is going to have
to learn that with every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.  She didn’t learn it in physics, she needs to
learn it now.  Please, do inform Daisy
that she may have to take on added responsibilities, at least for the time
being."

            "How about I do
that?"  Quin said from the door, moving
behind Tina, into her mother’s
line of sight.  Quin hadn’t approved her
the way her mother was dealing with the break up, or the way she was treating
both Alice and Helena.  Helena’s
whole identity had to do with work, and money.

            "Excellent idea, I’m
off, I have a lunch date with an old flame," with that, Peggy
winked out of existence.

            Tina
looked up at Quin, "Are you serious about taking on some responsibilities?  Don’t play with me; I have this new series…"

            "Yeah, I’ll do it.  I have nothing else to do, and watching Helena
brooding on my couch isn’t my idea of fun." 
Quin grunted, moving to the front of the desk, and heading for the
door.  "Send me the information; I’ll get
started on working on what I can."

            Tina
watched her leaving, biting her lip, thinking how sad Quin looked, like a lost
puppy looking for a home.