"But why? I miss you so much, don't you want to come see me?" Sabrina moaned into the phone.

"Of course I do, but it isn't that simple," Mark sounded frustrated "Like I told you before, they moved the date of our first practice up because ABC is running out of stuff to air because of the writer's strike."

"Stupid Strike!" Sabrina grumbled "First it took Grey's Anatomy from me, and now it takes my McDreamy."

"You know I hate it when you call me that, there are so many, much better, nicknames you could come up with, and more original too."

"What? Like 'Princess'?"

"She told you about that?! When did you and my mom get so buddy/buddy? I am going to kill her!"

"Actually, I just talked to your mom yesterday and she was telling me all about your younger 'confused' stage,when you would dress up like a girl on a regular basis."

"Hey, the ballroom world is a very confusing place for young boys to grow up in, I think that it's all the sequins and glitter," Mark laughed "but I don't know if I like you and my mom being in cahoots though, could get dangerous."

"You have no idea." Sabrina said slyly

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Sorry, I've gotta go, my call is in ten minutes and if I don't leave now I'm gonna be late."

"Woah, wait, we haven't had an extended conversation in a week." Mark said sadly.

"well, if you would come visit me we could have an extended conversation, among other thing, hopefully more other than conversation." Sabrina said suggestively "But I guess you don't want to be with your ever loving girlfriend on Valentine's Day. I really do have to go, I love you, talk to you soon."

"Love you too. Bye."

***


Mark hung up the phone and went into his bedroom and into his closet. He was packing. To go to India. To see Sabrina. He hated that he had lied to her, and that she was so sad now, but the surprise would be worth it. He packed everything he thought he would need and then went over to his computer to confirm his flight reservations. He was leaving this afternoon, and hopefully he would be there before she left for set tomorrow morning. He had planned this all out carefully with Adrienne and Kiely. She thought she had a ten o'clock call, but she wasn't actually in the scene that was being fimed that day. He had talked to everyone from the show and told them that if they talked to Sabrina they should pretend that practices had been moved up. Everything was set, the plan should have gone off without a hitch. Wishful thinking.

***

Back in India Sabrina was sitting at her vanity in her hotel room putting her hair in a ponytail and pouting about not being able to  be with her boyfriend on Valentine's Day when her cell phone rang. It was Edyta.

"Hello?" Sabrina sounded bummed as she answered the phone.

"Hey." Edyta answered "What's wrong? You sound down."

"Yeah, I kind of am." Sabrina responded "I just got off the phone with Mark and he was telling me that he can't come out to see me over Valentine's because of the whole schedule change thing. So yeah I am pretty down"

"What schedule change?" Edyta asked

"You know. moving practices to earlier to fill time slots because of the strike."

"They most definitley did not change anyone's schedules, I just got off the phone with the producers to confirm my first practice time and place and they didn't say anything about a change."

"Maybe Mark starts earlier?" Sabrina questioned

"They wouldn't do that, we all start on the same day so that no one gets an unfair advantage." Edyta stated "Maybe Mark just got confused?"

"Yeah maybe." Sabrina said, seemingly unconvinced "hey listen. it's great talking to you but I've gotta go, I'm supposed to be on set in five minutes. Talk to you later?"

"Yeah, definitely." Edyta answered "Take care, Bye."

"Bye"

As Sabrina hung up the phone with Edyta her mind was racing a mile a minute with possible reasons as to why in the world Mark would lie to her about something like that... what would be the point... maybe he was confused like Edyta had said... maybe she misunderstood him... maybe Edyta was wrong... what if he just didn't want to come see her... she knew they had rushed into things too fast... but she really wanted to be with him on Valentine's day, why didn't he want to be with her... unless... there was someone else... she knew this time apart would be really hard on him... Julianne had said he was never the most monogomous person... maybe that was why he had been so distant the last week or so... She didn't want to think baout this anymore... she was sure that Mark had a perfectly good explanation for this... he better... and it better be a damn good one...

"Hey Sabrina!" her train of rambling thoughts was interrupted by a knock at the door accompanied by Adrienne's voice "C'mon chic, we're already late."

"Coming!" Sabrina said as she grabbed her coat and purse and opened the door.

"You look like you just saw a ghost." Kiely commented

"Yeah. What's up?" Adrienne asked

"Nothing." Sabrina answered as if trying to convince herself as well "Let's go."

She shut her hotel room door behind her. Trying to rid herself of bad thoughts, willing herself to believe that she was blowing this way out of proportion and that there was a good explanation for all of this.

***

Later that day, after shooting had wrapped for the evening, Sabrina, along with Adrienne, Kiely, and a few other people for the cast and crew were walking down the main drag in Udpair when Sabrina's cell phone rang, she pulled it out of her purse. The screen said Mark, and his picture popped up on the screen. She hit the ignore button and dropped the phone back into her purse. She was to angry to talk to him at that moment.

"Who was that?" Kiely asked

"Just my agency." Sabrina lied "I don't feel like talking to them right now, tonight is a celebration! Who's up for some drinks?"

They all walked into the bar and found a table. Adrienne ordered a round of Indian beer for everyone and then a guy from the crew ordered Tequila shots. Another girl from the cast ordered margaritas for all of the women and Kiely ordered another round of shots.
Sabrina did it all, drowning her worries in liquids. By the time midnight rolled around she was already smashed and Kiely and Adrienne decided to take  her back to the hotel. The last thing she remembered was trying  to take Rob's shot from him and having Adrienne grab her arm and tell her she had had enough. She fell back into her arms and told her "Blame Mark. This is all his fault. Adrienne and  Kiely shot each other all knowing concerned glances as if to say  What went wrong? And then she didn't remember a thing.

***

Sabrina woke up the next day to the ring of her cell phone and a headache the size of a whale. She had no idea how she got home last night and, nor did she care at that point, all she cared about was making the annoying noise go away. She picked up her cell phone and answered it , not even bothering to look to see who it was that was calling.

"Hello?" Sabrina answered, stilled half asleep.

"Good morning sunshine" It was Mark, and he sounded dreadfully cheery.

At the sound of his voice all of the events of the previous day came flooding back into her memory. The lie that Mark had told her. The conversation with Edyta. The day full of bottled up emotions. And the bar, oh the bar, why did she drink so much? That was why her head hurt so bad. It was all his fault, the man on the other side of the phone. She couldn't keep her emotions bottled up any longer, she EXPLODED!

"What do you want?!" Sabrina snapped

"Woah, what's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with me? What's wrong with me! You! That's what wrong with me!"

"Wait, What? What did I do wrong?"

"Don't play that innocent act with me Mark!" now Sabrina was really angry. "You know what you did!"

"No, I really don't." Mark was trying to remain calm

"Yeah you do. I talked to Edyta yesterday and she told me that there was no schedule change. Why did you lie to me Mark?! What was so important that you had to lie to your girlfriend about not being able to come see her on Valentine's Day? You know you could have just told me straight. It would have been better than we wondering and coming up with ridiculous ideas in my head about why in the world you would lie to me. Is it someone else, because if it is, why don't you just tell me now and we can spare ourselves both a lot of heartbreak...."

Damn it. He had forgotten to tell Edyta about the secret, he had told Alec. He figured he would tell her Mark thought to himself He didn't even know she stilled talked to Edyta

"NO!" Mark answered "I would never. You don't understand..."

"Oh so you admit it, you did lie to me!" Sabrina was sounding more and more angry by the minute.

"No, well yes, but you don't understand..."

"I understand perfectly. Relationships are about honesty and clearly you don't have that down quite yet..." she was rambling

"SABRINA!"

"WHAT?!"

"Go to your door." Mark said calmly

"WHY?!" Sabrina was really angry now but she walked over to the door anyway.

She opened the door and Mark was standing there with the HUGEST bouquet of pink roses she had ever seen in her life. She dropped her phone to the floor as Mark dropped everything her was holding as well. She looked him straight in the eyes, she had missed him so much, words could not express the emotion she was feeling right now. Mark cupped one of her cheeks with his hand and smoothed the thumb on the soft skin below her eyes with the thumb of his other hand. He slowly leaned in to kiss her , keeping his eyes on her the whole time as if  he took his eyes off her she would simply disappear. Their lips locked in the most passionate kiss either of them had ever felt. They do say absence makes the heart grow fonder, and in their case that was true times one million. They broke away from their kiss that rivaled the heat of the Chicago fire.

Sabrina looked him sraight in the eye  "You jerk!" she said as she smacked his arm.

"What did I do?" Mark asked

"You had me in a worried" Sabrina said jokingly

"Oh come here you." Mark said as he scooped her up into his arms and kicked all of his luggage into her room. He looked deeply into her eyes and locked her lips into yet another deep passionate kiss as he walked through the door to her hotel room and shut  the door behind him.
 
~To Be Continued~