Wade flopped down on the bed in the master bedroom. The bed that the Wade and Quinn of this world shared. She tried not to think about that, and turned her face away from the framed pictures of the happy couple that adorned the top of the dresser.

"Why am I letting this bother me so much?" she asked herself. Did she honestly think that Quinn would choose going with Maggie over going back home, a place that she knew Quinn missed almost as much as she did? She wanted to believe that the answer would be no, but she still had this nagging doubt. And every minute that she saw Quinn and Maggie being affectionate with each other caused that nagging feeling to grow.

A soft knock at the door brought Wade out of her reverie. She sat up, hoping against hope that it wasn't Quinn at the door. She still didn't think she could trust herself not to ask him his plans. "Come in," she called out, trying to force some cheerfulness in her voice.

Rembrandt opened the door slightly, and stuck his head inside the room. "OK if I come in?" he asked.

Wade smiled. She should have known that it was Rembrandt at the door. "Yeah, sure. What's up?" she asked, moving over on the bed so he could sit down.

"Funny. I was just about to ask you the same question, girl. You haven't been yourself for the past couple of days. You know," Rembrandt added thoughtfully, "it'll help you to talk about it."

Wade burst out laughing in spite of herself. "You didn't tell me you moonlighted as a psychiatrist while you were singing with the Tops", she said, somewhat sarcastically.

"Just another one of my many talents," Rembrandt shot back, grinning slightly and nudging Wade in the side. "Come on girl--you know no matter what problem you're having, you can talk about it with me. I don't know if I can help you, but I sure can listen."

"I don't know," Wade said resignedly. "I'm not sure this is really a problem. More like a matter of my own insecurity. There's not a whole lot anyone can do about that."

"True. I used to have thoughts like that all the time when I was singing with the Tops--you know, was I gonna be good on stage, was I gonna be able to cry out of each eye, stuff like that. Sure wish I'd had someone to talk those things over with back then..." Rembrandt said, glancing sideways at Wade.

"So...how did you convince yourself that it was going to be OK if you didn't have anyone to talk to?" Wade asked curiously

"Well.." Rembrandt answered, grinning more broadly this time, "I'm the Cryin' Man! No way was God gonna waste this amazing talent on someone who didn't have sense enough to use it right!"

Rembrandt was pleased to see a genuine smile cross Wade's face, as she rolled her eyes and feigned exasperation. He stood up, grabbed Wade's hand and hauled her to her feet.

"Tell ya what. We'll get out of here, and you can tell me all about it. How's that sound?", he asked her.

Wade nodded in agreement. "Where are we going to go?," she asked.

"We're going to go out, find a diner and grab us a decent breakfast. Just between you and me," Rembrandt said, rubbing his stomach, "Q-Ball may be some sort of genius, but when it comes to slingin' hash....UGH!" He added a facial expression that left no doubt to his opinion of Quinn's attempts to master the culinary world.

Go to part 6