He saw her in a park in January.
He had never really liked parks. They were crowded, and polluted, and overall uncomfortable. He avoided parks whenever he could, so when he had to go to the park to track down a drug dealer, he was less than pleased.
The dogs were the ones to see her first. Actually, more like smell her; They came for her, smelling drugs, and the other policemen arrested her; What more could they do? She didn’t have a bag on her, but apparently the dogs smelled something, so there was nothing else to do. They wrestled her down, handcuffed her, and put her in the back of a police van to await his arrival; He was the only one with the description of the dealer, and he was late. He was informed of the arrest immediately over radio, and instantly sped up by ten miles.
By the time he had gotten there, he was livid. He got out of the car hurriedly, brushing by all the officers that rushed to him, until the head of the squad was in front of him, surprised by his furious face.
“The drug dealer,” He hissed. “Is a man.” He watched with a sort of satisfaction as the officer’s face dropped from satisfaction into dread. “Where is she?”
The officer gestured to the van, and he sighed. “This is why I think we should all be informed of the description before we start doing investigations,” He snapped, irritated with the dumbstruck look on his prime officer’s face. “And before it costs you your job.” Without another word to the man, he stormed to the van, fumbling out his key to the handcuffs, and stepped into the van.
He was more than ready to give her a brief apology, a standard refund of injured objects and an offer to escort her to the police station if she wanted to file a report against them. Once he actually glanced up from sorting through his keys, each and every word that he had in his mind flew away.
She was angry, of course, and he thought that she was the most beautiful like that; Her brow furrowed, eyebrows raised and eyes fiery, and perfect lips pursed, angry words ready to burst forth. Her hair, brown and long, was messy around her face, and there was a smudge of dirt on her cheek. Her hands, with delicate, long pianist’s fingers, were cuffed in front of her, and his heart dropped.
“Are you the one responsible for this?” She snapped before he even got a chance to speak. She stood from the bench, fury emanating from her. He simply gaped at her, admiring her anger. His stare took her aback and made her uncomfortable. “Well? Are you stupid? What’s your problem?”
“My problem,” He said finally, thinking carefully about his words. “Is that you’re so beautiful, and the only thing you want to do is kill me.”
She paused, startled, but the anger was back within moments. “And why not? I’ve been kept here with no explanation for over an hour.”
“Over an hour,” He repeated numbly, still watching her.
“I missed my mother’s birthday party,” She hissed. She moved to put her hands on her hips, but her cuffs prevented it.
“Missed your mother’s…..God,” He blurted, rubbing his face. “I…”
“And all because you and your lackeys think I’m a criminal,” She said, but his reactions gave her a bit of pause.
“I don’t think that you’re a criminal,” He said immediately. “I don’t.”
“You’re the one in charge, aren’t you?” She snapped. “Your men, that you are responsible for, thought that I was a criminal.”
“Well, I’m sure there were a lot of factors to that,” He said numbly.
“Such as?”
“Such as, my men are idiots,” He blurted. “Are you are the opposite of a drug dealer.”
“Which is?” She stuck out her hands to be uncuffed, and he obliged.
“Which is….Which is a drug free, non dealing, lawful citizen walking through the park.”
“Which is what I am.” She rubbed her wrists and took up her purse. “For your information, what your dogs were smelling was a bottle of aspirin, which I use for migraines. It was confiscated.”
“I can fix that,” He said. “Consider my men fired and your aspirin ordered. As much as you want.”
Her lips pressed together, hiding a smile. “I will be reporting this. I’ll need your name for that.”
“Detective Inspector Marret,” He said, still practically brain-dead. “I’ll need your name so that I can enact your vengeance upon my men.”
She bit her lip. “Mary Anne Wilson,” She said simply. “And I’ll be telling my friends about this as well, Mr. Marret,” She said. “When I meet them for dinner tomorrow night. Do you like pizza?”
She walked away, leaving Elliot Marret dumbstruck for the first time in his life.

It took him hours at his office to figure out which pizza place she was going to. It was a foolish three hours; There was only one pizza place open the night she had mentioned, but he had only discovered that at the end of his research.
He arrived at the pizza place at one o’clock the next day; He didn’t know what time ‘night’ was for her, so he came early, making sure he wouldn’t miss her. In a bag, he had an extra large bottle of aspirin.

Elliot fell asleep at three o’clock, and was woken by a prodding on the shoulder.
“Is he even alive?” A voice murmured.
“He’s fine,” A different voice said, loudly….It was familiar. “It just gives me a reason to do this.”
Cold, and wet. Elliot sat up, sputtering. He smelled like grape now.
“That stuff stains,” He complained immediately, but his breath caught when he saw her. He scrambled to his feet, standing in front of her. For the second time, he was dumbstruck.
“Well?” She said, raising an eyebrow and looking up at him.
“I...I, that is,” He said, and then turned, scrambling for the aspirin. “Your medication. Refunded, like I promised.”
She took the bottle, studying it. “And your men?”
“Oh, definitely ostracized,” He said. “Every one of them. Cried like babies.”
She smiled then, and offered him her hand. “Come eat with us,” She said. “Unless you’d like to continue your nap?”
The glare of the workers warned him against turning down her offer, and with an awkward smile he took her hand.

She loved parks. He hated them. She didn’t care. Mary Anne would go without him, walking her dog, or the neighbor’s dog,  but always invite him along beforehand anyways. He would always decline, but in the end he’d always catch up, and he’d put up with parks for an hour or so just to see her smile at the birds, or the children.
“I think I might want children one day,” She told him once as they sat on a bench, watching the children swing on swings and push each other down slides. “Maybe. If things were different.”
If things were different. It was the sentence she said the most often, and the one he never understood. He tried not to ask about it, though. Elliot Marret didn’t like putting his nose in other people’s business with no reason.
One day, they had a fight about that sentence. He had been at her apartment, playing a game. He won, and she pouted, throwing the small metallic moneybags at him in protest. He had said one thing.
“One day, I’ll let you win.”
“Maybe,” She said, smiling slightly, but it was soon fading. “If things were different.”
He blew up then. “If things were different? If what was different? What do you want to change, exactly?” He stood. She stared up at him, vulnerable.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” She said simply. “Is that a problem?”
“Yes, that’s a problem,” He snapped. “That’s a very, very big problem. Because I don’t keep things from you, Mary, why do you need to keep things from me?”
She stood. Her arms were wrapped around herself sensitively. “I want to go to the park,” She said, and Elliot felt anger stir up in him.
“Well, you can go ahead and go to the park and avoid the problem,” He scowled. “But I’m not. I want to face it head on.”
She left.
Twenty minutes later, he was watching her cry on a park bench from a distance, his heart in his stomach. He never mentioned it again.

The day he came home to a note that directed him to the hospital, he was the one crying on a park bench. He sped over, using his police lights to get to the place faster, and stormed in, demanding to be taken right to her room.
She looked pitiful. There was an IV in her arm and an oxygen tube in her nose.
“She has lung cancer,” The nurses told him. “She has for nine months.”
“I’m fine,” She insisted once she had woken. “I just….I need some aspirin, that’s all.”
“You don’t need aspirin,” He snapped. “You need a new lung.” Elliot sighed shakily then, head in hands, and somehow there was some finality about his words because she didn’t speak again.

He went to the park. He was alone, and he hated it. He watched the children playing. She had known. The entire time. She had had a year to live the day that they met. She had three months now.
If things were different.
The words were playing in his head, over and over. If things were different, if things were different, if things were different. Children played in front of him, their joy and energy an acute irony.

He sat by Mary Anne’s bedside when she was informed that she was on the top of the list for a new lung. She hadn’t even tried to get one until he had made her, and now it was possible that things could be different. She had smiled at him, squeezing her hand. There was time. There was a way for her to live.
She passed that night, with hope in her heart but a mass in her lungs. She went in her sleep, holding his hand, and he found his fingers in a loose, cold grip the next morning. He cried, and that’s how the nurses found them. He was assured that she had gone peacefully. It gave him no comfort.
That night, he went home and locked a small velvet box in a safe, and buried the safe in the backyard.

He met her in the park in October. He had taken to daily walks, sitting on her bench and watching the children play. He had become mellow and quiet, and took aspirin for migraines.
“Hey there,” She had said flirtatiously. “Mind if I sit?”
He didn’t mind, and she sat, and they talked for an hour or two. She got him smiling, and he felt, for a moment, whole again.
After awhile, they fell silent, watching the children.
“I think I might want children one day,” She said absently.
He darkened. “I do, too,”  He said, standing and walking away from her.
“If things were different.”