I don't even know if I can talk about it, and if you know me even a little you'll realise how unlike me that is. But seriously, that was disturbing and not in a good way. I don't remember ever moving that quickly, I got away from the scene of the crime in seconds. Actually I'm still sweating now, and I've been home about thirty minutes. Well, I've been home hiding for all of those minutes. I got home and ran upstairs, and have been here under the covers ever since.

I'm hiding from someone.

She's small, but deadly. And she's mad. At me. Again. This situation is too serious for long sentences.

Anyway I need to practise self preservation. She is bound to be after me...

And she's gonna kill me.

So I'm hiding under the covers, confident that they will protect me. Have I mentioned I'm a fool? That may very soon become even more apparent.

"JON."

Man she used her key, I was afraid of that. Well not the key so much, more like the woman bearing aforementioned key. She knows stuff, she could use it to hurt me and then distort the evidence. So I'm not replying, and not moving. I'm no fool...

"JON. I swear to God I'm gonna hurt you, get your ass out here now. I mean it, Jon. This is about as angry as I've ever been with you."

That is not good, cause I've seen her mad before. A lot. One time when we were arguing she threw plates at me; plates with food on them. And let me tell you a baked potato hurts when it makes contact with your skull, but I digress. I should be concentrating on the incensed woman downstairs, or concentrating on hiding from her. When you've got the blankets pulled over your head that makes you invisible, right? I believe I read it somewhere, but I only read tabloids and I'm not sure they have words you should live your life by. And, now that I think of it, I think the invisible thing might have been a dream. It's that one where I almost get caught in Orlando Blooms' bedroom, but am saved because I hide in his bed; well, you would wouldn't you... Anyway, seem to have wandered a little bit off the point, which is that I am hiding.

"JON. Where are you?"

She's getting closer, I can feel the heat radiating from her rage, man she scares me when she is consumned by rage. Maybe she really is nuts this time and has come after me with a burning torch, but I don't know how often that happens in Vegas. Not so much probably, but if I stay where I am and imagine crazy scenarios then maybe I'll be able to avoid this one.

"Jon, get out of there you coward. Get out and face me like a man."

I'm not a man, I'm a coward, surely she knows this. I'm a coward with pain issues; and getting punched in the face issues. I like my face the way it is, I spend a lot of time maintaining it's beauty, and really don't want her messing with that. She's so gonna mess with my face...

"Jon, I'm going to count to three. I mean it."

Okay be a man.

Who am I kidding? I'm going for sympathy as usual, not that it's ever worked before.

"Can I help you, Catherine?"

I managed to make that sound both arrogant and obsequious, which has got to be a skill to be proud of. But perhaps posturing is for another day, a day that I might live to see the end of perhaps?

"You can get your dumb ass out of there so we can have a full and frank discussion."

"Dumb ass? Is that anyway to speak..."

"Let me stop you right there. I'm not speaking to you through a blanket ; get up."

And you know, I didn't even think about it. She said all of that in her best 'mom' voice, so I just obeyed. Which is why I find myself as I am now, standing infront of a woman who is about to hurt me. A lot.

"I can't believe you Jon, I really can't."

"If you..."

"Did I say you could speak?"

See what I mean about 'mom' mode? I need to be smooth here, cause I'm not a kid and I don't need to take this.

"I assumed I was allowed to form sentences at will in my own home."

In my defence, I know I shouldn't have said it, but sometimes it's fun to watch Caths' face turn that particular shade of puce. Probably not today, though...

"You're giving me sass, after what you've just done? Seriously?"

"I'm nervous, okay? And embarrassed, but mostly petrified of what you're going to do to me."

And I think for the first time today Catherine is looking at me as though I am her friend, which has to be encouraging. Maybe that means I will survive this.

"I really, really want to hurt you."

"I know."

"I can't believe..."

"I know."

I think I might have run out of words, it had to happen one day. Bit of a shame it's coincided with the biggest fight I'm ever likely to have with Cath.

"You owe me an explanation, Jon."

"Yeah, well you owe me new eyeballs, cause I don't think I'll ever be able to use these ones again."

"WHAT?"

Did you see that, I managed to make her change from conciliatory to pissed in a matter of seconds. I'm talented like that.

"Okay, I misjudged the situation there Cath. I was refering to one of our favourite episodes of Friends. The one where Phoebe gets to see something she really doesn't want to. Remember? 'My eyes, my beautiful eyes'. I was trying to make a jokey reference to what happened today."

Okay, her silence tells me Cath is really not ready for jokey references. But do you see what we are fighting about yet? Can you guess what my innocent little eyes walked in on?

"What you did today, Jon, was not funny. I am really struggling to keep control of my temper. This isn't a joke, I'm not laughing, and neither is Gil."

And with that she's managed to knock all of the bravado out of me. I feel horrible, and it's been a long time since I've been familiar with that emotion. But when Cath mentioned Gil, she got tears in her eyes and she looked hurt. What have I done? I need to fix this, I refuse to make this woman cry.

"Come on, Cath. Come sit with me and tell me what I can do to make this better."

As long as it doesn't mean I have to... Actually I'm not going to say that, cause I need to do anything to make this better. And not for me, cause my eyes have seen worse; I watch Joey for goodness sake. But anyway I need to stop thinking about Matt LeBlanc, for once, and think about Cath and Gil. But if I think about Cath and Gil, my friends, I don't think of them that way anymore. I see them them the way I did when I was the uninvited guest in their house. I hate myself sometimes, why couldn't I just keep my big nose out of their lives.

"You can give me back the keys to my house. And you can rewind time and make it so that you don't walk in on me and my husband when we're having sex."

Yeah, I want that too babe. But wanting doesn't always get, I might have mentioned that before. It's why there is an absence of Orlando Bloom in my life.

"I don't know what to say, Cath. What can I do?"

"Were you just not listening, you need to rewind time..."

And with these words she actually starts crying, great big sobs of despair are issuing from her throat. I need to suck it up and fix this or I might not be able to have her in my life anymore... And isn't that just like me, thinking about myself in this situation. I'm an idiot, and if I were a better friend I would be worried about Catherine and Gil, not my myself. That's something I have to work on.

"I'm sorry honey, is Gil ready mad?"

She looks at me for a few seconds, and to my horror she actually trembles. She schools her features well, practised at hiding her reactions to painful situations, but she couldn't control the natural response of her body to the mention of her husband. I've really done it this time.

"Cath, is he mad at me?"

"No, you idiot. I'm mad at you, Gil is mad at me..."

What?

"What?"

"We had a fight, and we said things, and we..."

And she's forgotten that she hates me, forgotten that I'm the idiot who has gotten her into this situation, she forgets all of this... And she cries, leaning against my shoulder; she cries in a way I thought she had forgotten how.

"Okay, honey. It's okay. He's not mad at you, it's me. Wait here and I'll go and talk to him, I'll make this right."

"No, he's mad at me. He's embarrassed and I'm embarrassed..."

"I'm sorry, you know."

"Yeah."

"I thought someone... There was a lot of screaming, I thought something bad was happening."

"No, something good was happening."

She offers me a weak smile, trying to make me feel better despite herself. I love her for it.

"I don't know how many times I can say sorry, but I'll do it all day if you tell me it'll make you feel better."

"I'm not sure I can feel better today."

"Why don't you we go back, I'll apologise to Gil and he can shout at me and then you guys will be okay."

"I don't think so."

"Come on, I know I screwed up and you can revoke my key priviledges, but..."

"He asked me to leave."

"What?"

"Gil."

"Yeah, Gil did what honey?"

"He asked me to leave."

"No he didn't."

"Well, I was there, and he really did."

"But just for a few hours so he could cool down? Right?"

"I don't think so."

And she's crying again, and you know what; so am I?

"Honey, it'll be okay, it's me he's angry at."

"Well he gave a pretty good impression of being pissed at me."

"Because of me."

"Yeah."

"And he wants you to leave him? That can't be true, you guys are like... I don't know you're like the Paul Nemann and Joanne Woodward of the CSI world."

She's looking at me like I'm nuts now, which is maybe good, cause I've made her forget to be desperately sad for a few seconds.

"We have the night off, Jon, and we had plans... Plans which you kind of interupted, and now he's asked that I leave him alone for a while. For tonight..."

"Because?"

"Because he's hurt and he thinks that... I don't know what he thinks, and I can't tell you how much that scares me."

There is nothing for me to say, because there is no way I can get a 'funny' out of this.

"Do you want me to go talk to him? I could, well I don't know what I could say, but I could apologise a lot."

"We've never fought like this, Jon. Never. I don't know what to do."

And I don't either, and like I said, I have no words. So I deal with the situation at hand, I hug my friend. I hug her and let her cry, hoping that she is recovering a little more with every shed tear. And while she weeps I need to formulate a plan, one that will have Cath back in her husbands arms rather than mine.

TBC?