From Poolwatcher: Prompt: “I believe we lied, even though we said it was the truth. We were never in love with each other, it only felt just the same.” Pairing/character of your choice.

“It’d be just like you,” she said, quietly, and it scared him because she never said anything quietly. “God, Church, I’m leaving in the morning. Can’t you just give me a proper sendoff without making me question this?”

“I never made you question it,” he said, “You’ve always done that by yourself.”

Allison laughed a low, sarcastic chuckle, and Church frowned. “Don’t make this out like I’m imagining things. You’ve always liked ideas.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” he said, confused.

“You love the idea of me.” She sighed in an I-don’t-want-to-fight-anymore way. Church knew it well.

“Where’s the harm in that?” he said as he leaned over and kissed her forehead. She didn’t respond. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she echoed.

He hunted for a film projector for six months. One of those old players with wheels that click and turn and always seem like they’d catch and freeze the moment in time. He used to work at a vintage movie theater, one summer when he was sixteen. He wanted money for a car. He loaded the films and listened to the whir and purr of the machines as lights danced across the room from the projector.

He never bothered to get one after that summer, forgetting about the money he wound up spending on new technology and the car he never bought and the hum of electronics he always vaguely thought he should record so he could fall asleep listening to them.

The letter came, delivered by two men in uniform, and he took it quietly. Wordlessly. He read it and his hands naturally found their way to his computer, to the file from his camera, to her face. It played as he read the cordial, formal, stiff letter, apologizing for taking his world. His whole world. It echoed as she laughed and said “you’re going to make me late!” and “I hate goodbyes.” He thought about how he wouldn’t say it at the funeral, either. Goodbye. He’d never say it.

Six months later, he had a projector and a custom roll of film. Something more physical than data streams and words, backlit screens and small memory sticks. The film reel was big enough to hold, had a weight to it. Had a feel. A curve and a crevasse and a coldness that came with metal as he pressed it to his lips.

He loaded it in and her face was there, on the wall, smiling at him and waving away the camera half-heartedly. Her face was trapped in this metal form that whirred and clicked and if he closed his eyes, he could pretend it sounded like her breathing when she slept. He watched it once and packed it all up, all the sounds and lights and weight of it in a small chest as old as the technology he insisted on using, put out of sight but never out of mind.

When he saw Agent Texas for the first time, alive in that weird way she was made to exist, he thought it wasn’t that much of a stretch from that old film reel he kept in his office. Texas moved and purred and clicked just like he’d grown to think of her, of Allison, in that wooden box.

She was just as cold, too.

He stopped laughing and joking when she did, an informal letter of condolences sealing his eternal frown.

He always thought he inherited her passion in a way, he had been so unfocused before he met her and he saw how efficient and direct everything she did was, including him.

He thought that maybe the way she interacted with him for all that time was why he stopped seeking approval, and decided that a lack of direct opposition was the same thing as express permission - it was exactly what she had always assumed as well.

He had her to thank for the fact that when someone finally criticized him, he could shut them down, he could get so wrapped up in ideas and motivations and reasons and justifications that by the time someone realized he needed to be stopped, there was no other possible course of action; he had her to thank for the unadulterated conviction an obsession with a memory offered.

When he really thought about it, Leonard Church could trace back every habit and trait he has to her.

If I could write out my own dream
For the next time that I sleep

He used to dream of her all the time, easily. He’d tell her with a smile that she’s much more agreeable in his dreams. She never threatens to shoot him. She always wants to cuddle. She’d laugh in that condescending, derisive way of hers and would reply “where’s the fun in that?”

Now she haunts his every waking moment, but rarely visits his dreams. Now he longs to hear her snide remarks as he enters deep sleep, wishing only for her to show up and clean her guns again, not pay attention to him again, be herself again. Because then maybe he can convince himself that reality isn’t real, and he can focus on his Allison in peace.

Maybe then he can be with her again.

You’d be the first one that I see
And I the last one that you keep

It wasn’t like Wash had never had a crush before. He had, he’d had plenty. But there was something about this girl - something beside her good looks and odd hair. Something about how she looked at people, really looked at them. Something about how she never took anything at face value, when that’s all he was ever taught to do.

Something new.

This girl, this Agent Connecticut, she occupied his every free thought. In how she stood, in how she never liked her helmet, in how she’d smile at other people’s jokes, in her thirst to prove herself, in her desire to be the best, in her, in her everything.

It was only after it became the friendly “Connie” that she started to invade his dreams as well, these subconscious fantasies which didn’t involve kissing, or sex, just one very simple gesture. Her trust in him.

And the dream would go on and on
While we sway against all things thrown our way

Connie would never tell Wash she still dreamt about him sometimes. She still dreamt that he’d start listening to her, that he’d see what the Director was doing to them. She dreamt that he’d remember who she was. That he’d trust her again.

She dreamt that she could ignore the way he looks at Tex now, that she could chalk it up on something to do with his new AI.

She dreamt that he could tell her he loved her and she didn’t ever feel like he was constantly holding something back.

She dreamt she could give herself to him again, at least here, at least in her dreams, and maybe that’d make the harsh reality she had to live in bearable.

And the morning would be so cruel
When it came with sunshine and warmth to blame

Mornings were the worst for them.

York would get up and make her coffee, even if she never quite liked the stuff. She’d drink it anyway because he’d sit there like a little kid until she did, and she’d smile as he beamed at her halfhearted compliments.

She’d race into the shower while he’s busy riding the high from her praise and lock the door in laughter. Of course, it’d take him less time to unlock it than it did for him to turn the handle. He’d throw something at her - a towel, his shirt, something - and then they’d get in the shower together.

They never got much sleep the nights they spent together, but it was because they’d stay up late, talking, touching, hugging, chasing the morning away because morning meant the end.

Morning meant they had to leave this room and be Agent Carolina and Agent York, they had to be two separate, professional people. They had to not be touching, not be kissing, not be laughing.

They had to end their vacations from their lives.

For announcing the end of my sweet dream

“Does it bother you?” the Counselor asked in the soothing voice of his.

“No,” Tex said with a shrug. “It’s just weird.”

“Do you remember it happening before?”

“I remember having vivid dreams before. Very vivid. My mother used to say that I would invent my own reality because this one sucked.” She paused to laugh at this memory. “She used to say dreams were like a different universe. Just as real, just…different.”

“What did you dream about?”

“Usually it was just standard mission stuff. Bring the work home with me, you know? After a while, though, I started dreaming about…about the guy I was dating. Just, going on dates. That’s it. Complete with flowers and chocolates, even though all I ever did was make fun of him, and he gave it right back.” She realized distantly that from across the table, the Director has stopped writing on his pad but was avoiding eye contact. Next to him, the Counselor leaned forwards. “And then?”

“And then nothing. I don’t dream anymore. I haven’t since I got to this project.”

“It’s only been a few months-“

“Trust me. I used to dream every night.”

“You never mentioned that before,” the Director said from behind his paper and pen.

“Why would I mention something so common? You told me to tell you about problems, not about when life is going according to script.” She frowned at him slightly and he gave her that look, the odd one she caught him in sometimes. The one that always made her think he wasn’t looking at her, not really.

“I am sure it is merely temporary,” the Counselor stepped in again. “It must be part of adapting to your new environment. I wouldn’t worry about it, Agent Texas.”

“Right,” she said, unconvinced. “Sure.”

For announcing the end of my sweet dream

He’d heard how cruel the mind could be. He had experienced it firsthand. From the way his mind would egg him on when he used to argue with her. His own logic telling him he was right, his own mind insisting that logic had a place in this relationship. The way he tricked himself into resenting her for joining the army. The way his mind took the comfort away from the eulogy he was going to deliver at the very moment he needed it most. The way his mind locked the memories away, slowly, efficiently, as if it was to preserve them, as if it wasn’t a coping mechanism that wound up backfiring. The way his brain fixated on the one fact about her, about them, that she had died, and that he’d never be able to get her back. The way his mind orchestrated Alpha so that Tex showed up at the same time, because that was the only way his mind could see her again. The way his mind justified the preferential treatment he showed Tex. The way his mind justified all of his actions, with such conviction, in the face of every opposition - until Tex was gone. Allison was gone. Again.

But the cruelest trick his mind ever played on him are the moments of doubt of all those memories of Allison that were locked away, all those things he remembered aside from her death, all those instances of the two of them together. The mere suggestion that those things were something his mind invented. The slightest of doubts, in his weakest moments.

He looked around the room slowly, shuffling papers in his hands because he needed something to do. There was the man conducting the service and Leonard was never sure if he was reverend or a priest or a rabbi, it all melded together for him and was never thought important enough to remember. There were a handful of people from her old job, and a couple of people from the army.

He knew he’d be talking to himself.

“I’ve got this speech,” he started, already going off the planned path. He held up the index cards to prove it. “It seems to always comfort families of loved ones who have passed on. I was going to read it. I was going to find comfort in it. But standing here…” he trailed off as he looked at the coffin next to him. Her picture was on a easel on the other side of the room. It was one of those rare ones in which she was smiling. He remembered taking it. She didn’t know he had the camera in his hand.

“I am a scientist. I process things with facts and figures. I know how the universe works. I know how science conducts it. I know the symphony of life because I play it. I thought I knew the symphony of death.

“I thought, as a scientist, I knew that death was merely a stepping stone of life. It was an end point, but it was also a simple diffusion, a way to make life less orderly. I thought I knew that all her death meant was that her energy, her particles, her being were just released into the universe. That everything she was is now everywhere, all around us. That she hadn’t just stopped existing. That her existence was spread to the universe.

“The speech I hold in my hand is far more eloquent. It was not written by me, because I have no time or patience to be a wordsmith. I don’t understand sentences, I understand numbers. I had always thought it comforting, because it was a translation. It took death and grief, these profoundly human, profoundly literary concepts, and translated them for me. It ends by saying that, due to conservation of energy, you can be sure that not a bit of the deceased is gone. Every particle, every breath, every photon that bounced off of their face, they’re still here, they’re still in the universe, still travelling. Still existing. Not a bit of her is gone. She’s just less orderly.

“Still, as I stand here, in this room, next to this coffin, I find the translation meaningless. I find all of it meaningless. The comfort I thought would come of this speech is hollow. The idea that she’s still here, still around us, it isn’t a point of relief. It is a point of torture.

“She’s still here but I can’t touch her. Photons that bounced off of her smile are still in the universe, but I can’t gather them and see it again. Her heat that she radiated, I can’t feel it. I can’t know it’s her. This diffusion didn’t make her eternal. It made her indistinguishable. I can’t accept that. She always stood out. She’d never be anything less than extraordinary.”

He paused to look at her picture again. He briefly, distantly, registered the looks of confusion and apprehension that adorned his audience in the small funeral parlor. His hand went out and his fingertips rested on the corner of her coffin, and he thought for a moment how proud she’d be that he’s thinking outside of his narrow box of science. His ears almost rang with her voice, her small, jokingly disapproving laugh, her exclamation of “you fucking nerd” that he grew so used to (and so fond of).

“My conclusion is simple. Grief is not something you can translate. It is not something you can avoid. It’s not something you can comfort. It is merely a state of being. It is a state that I will now carry around with me, for every moment of the rest of my life. She deserves to be grieved. She deserves to be remembered.”

And here I dreamt I was a soldier.

He used to stare at her. Just stare. She’d eventually say something mean, with a fair amount of cursing, but she’d keep that smile on her face and he’d chuckle and poke fun at her. She’d call him a fucking nerd, he’d call her a weapon-obsessed psychopath. It was their courtship.

When she said joined the army, he stared at her. He stared while she told him, talked about it for two hours. All he could do was stare. She waited, patiently, for him to say something when she was done. All he could think to say was “Why?”

She spoke of patriotism. Of being able to make a difference. Of the war and how she needed to be part of it because she’s one of the best marksmen out there and everyone knew it. She needed this in her life because she dedicated her life to it. This was her chance. Her one thing she could do better than anyone. The one thing she could do to help.

He hated her dedication, hated it because he didn’t have it. He didn’t understand it. It was only after she was gone that he understood how she threw herself into everything she did, into everything she was. It was only after her death that he filled what used to be his dedication to her with his dedication and fever for science.

And just to lay with you
There’s nothing that I wouldn’t do
Save lay my rifle down

And I am nothing of a builder
But here I dreamt I was an architect

When he was handed Project Freelancer, it wasn’t a surprise. It wasn’t even handed to him. He stole it, from anyone in his way. He wanted it. He wanted to have his hand in every part of it because this war had killed her and this project was what would eventually kill it.

For a long time, he was doing exactly what was needed of the project, and nothing more. He was a picture of efficiency. His Agents were an example of excellence. He carefully crafted every aspect of the project, building it up and caring for it as one would a child. He sometimes thought of it as a child, the one he had idly thought about having with her all those years ago. When he started writing Alpha, the thought of everything he’s built, created, gave birth to, drove him forward.

It was when she came along that he realized he’d just as soon watch it crumble to nothing, if it meant she could watch it with him.

Even though my work is unparalleled
This structure fell about our feet

And here in Spain I am a Spaniard

His story was one of adaptation. He would eventually present it to the jury as just that. It was being a Roman when in Rome. It was being the best fucking Roman anyone had ever seen. Adaptation and excellence. He would never tolerate anything less.

His story was Shakespearean. A tragedy of the ancient times. A loss of love, of life, of the spark that kept him in check. A story of overcompensation. Of war. His entire cast was tragic heroes. He chose them for that very reason.

His story was human. That’s what he would hold to. His story was human in every way, it was human nature. It was human and because of that, no human jury would convict him. No jury could convict him. He only did what humans do, in their misguided, flawed, extremist ways.

He never quite found out if his story would hold. He couldn’t tell his story to her. He couldn’t tell it when she showed up in her light blue armor with Epsilon because she knew it. She knew the story, the whole story, and she’d already found him guilty. Telling it to her would serve nothing. His story was useless.

His story was over.

I will be buried with my marionettes 

He sat back in the comfort of his office, a broken glass on his desk. The whiskey it had contained was spilled over the wood and he had just finished recording the last transmission, half an hour since the EMP went off.

That was it.

It was over. She was gone. She was gone for good and he didn’t need to fight anymore, didn’t need to keep going or keep trying to find her because there was nothing to find. She was with Agent Maine, and she was gone now.

She was dead.

Again.

He told them that he was tired. He told them that Alpha was part of him, he told them that they can take this to court but he’d never be convicted because he didn’t defile a person, he didn’t torture anyone other than himself. He defiled a memory. He split up Alpha but then all the other pieces didn’t remember her, didn’t remember Allison, just Alpha did. The Alpha, and him. They couldn’t convict him because all he did was relive a memory, over and over, in some masochistic attempt to make it better, make it different this time.

And here she was, dead.

Again.

He didn’t know if he should feel this guilty at the slight sense of relief this brought him. He knew the relief was temporary, knew his search for her was merely being put on pause. But for right now he could breathe out slowly, pour himself another glass of whiskey, and say that he’s tired. He’s old and tired, and he didn’t do anything wrong in the eyes of a court, but he sure as hell did something wrong to himself, maybe even something wrong by her. He knew that soon that thought would eat at him until he started to chase her again, do it differently, do it better.

But right now, he was a tired old man, with a glass of whiskey and a verbal resignation letter, waiting to be arrested.

He wondered sometimes, during the late nights of creating Alpha, when he rubbed his eyes, displacing his glasses and yawning despite himself. He wondered why it was that memory that stood out to him. Why he had such trouble recalling everything else, but that one thought was the quickest to jump to his mind.

He caught himself one night, when he hadn’t really slept the few days prior and thought that programming at 4 am was the best possible idea. The last four lines weren’t even in the right syntax, and he hurriedly deleted them and tried to forget they were ever on the screen, lines from the service all those years ago. He saved his work and went to bed after that, but he couldn’t fall asleep for another hour and a half.

He could remember how her hair smelled. Every inch of her body. How she stretched in the mornings. He could remember the feel of her, the sight of her, the way she smiled sarcastically, teasingly. Sometimes he’d remember a few lines of dialogue before it was buried again, before she retreated back into his mind, somewhere.

He never had much patience for literature. He always assumed that anything he’d deem worth reading, he could write himself. So far he hadn’t been proven wrong.

“Open up a fucking book sometime,” she had said one night. Her legs were stretched across the couch and onto his lap.

“Why? All you read are training manuals,” he’d answered, watching her pick up and polish the pieces of one of her rifles, neatly laid out on the table.

“At least I read, jackass,” she said with a grin.

“Why would I read those? I write them.” She put everything back down on the table and slid up next to him.

“You’re really lucky you’re cute,” she said before kissing him, her idle work forgotten.

He knew it was a concept expressed often in novels - the death of a loved one, how that affected a character. He always thought that a death meant that all your memories of the person became that much clearer, that much stronger. He never even considered that maybe all the other memories faded, almost completely forgotten, peeking through at the oddest times. He never expected the brightest, strongest memory of her to be her dead, her coffin, lacking a body. Incomplete, even in death.

He couldn’t even catch his breath.

They couldn’t stop for long enough to walk up the stairs like a normal pair of adults. They were pushing each other into the wall, walking up but never breaking lip contact. There were four steps where Allison led him up by biting his bottom lip and pulling him after her. He would remember those steps for a good, long while.

On the second floor landing, he pushed her against the wall, holding her by the arms, and pushed her shoulders up. She responded by wrapping her legs tightly around his waist and sticking her tongue in his mouth. He carried her like this for the next two flights of stairs, before kicking the door to her floor open. She did this thing where her thighs tightened and flexed around his waist and he nearly collapsed, right there, in the middle of the hallway, the door to the ninety year old neighbor she always complains about five feet from them.

She paused and looked around. “That one,” she whispered, pointing, and let her head fall back as he kissed at her neck and chest, every possible inch of skin he could reach. They got to her door and he pressed her against it. She unlocked her legs from behind him and let herself slide down until her feet were touching the ground again. She dug into her coat pockets for her keys, glancing up at him with a smile.

“Allison,” he said softly as she finally got a grip on her key.

“Hm?” She pulled it out and jammed it hurriedly into the lock, trying to waste as little time as possible, limit the breaths they’re not sharing.

“Allison, I really do respect you,” he said. She turned to him just as the key in the lock turned, an expression of impatience.

“I know, Leonard. That’s why you’re here.” She opened the door, letting it creak, and walked in as he trailed after. Carefully and slowly, he shut it just as she turned on a small lamp and shed her jacket.

“No, I mean it, if you don’t want to…”

She grabbed him by his jacket and grinned. “Oh, I want to.” She started walking back with him, but two steps and already he couldn’t wait, couldn’t stop himself, his arms wrapping around her and pulling her closer. He moaned softly as she bit into his neck, an intake of breath as she rolled the flesh over her teeth with a grin.

“Uh…Allison?” He had opened his eyes and caught a glimpse of her wall.

“Mmhm?” She didn’t even pause, her fingers unbuttoning his shirt, her mouth touching every bit of skin on his shoulders.

“You’ve got a really (creepy? scary? odd? fucking weird?) interesting home decor.” She paused to look at the direction he was staring in. She smiled. Along her wall, behind a plane of glass, stood her extensive, impressive, and well-polished gun collection.

“I know what I like. Are we going to talk about my choice of throw pillows or what?” He turned back to look at her and she bit the left corner of her bottom lip with a grin, and suddenly the wall full of guns was completely gone from his mind as he was pushing her, forcefully kissing her towards the door to her bedroom. They were three steps away before she chuckled into the kiss and pulled back just enough to say “no, no, that’s the bathroom, that one’s the bedroom.”

He tightened his grip on her waist and lifted her up as he walked carefully to the door she indicated. She took an arm off of his shoulders and reached around to open the door, letting it swing in and reveal the end point, the bed itself. His steps quickened and soon they were close enough for him to bodily throw her. Before climbing in after her, her pulled of his jacket and shirt, kicked off his shoes. By the time he was slowly climbing over her, she had done the same. His hand touched her warm stomach and traveled up to her breast along with the rest of him, and she stretched her arms up to the headstand, a classic metal frame, made for gripping. Her knuckles began to turn white as his tongue and teeth worked her flesh, differences in her breathing and small, soft sighs being the only indication of her enjoyment. He went up and down, removing the remaining clothes in the process, at first taking his time and then the desire of it overtaking him until he couldn’t wait any longer.

She raised a leg and used it and her arms to push him down and mount him herself, using her feet and toes to work off his pants after she had undone the button with one quick movement of her hand. She could already feel him beneath her and she moved her hips slowly to let him know this. She fell forward, almost touching his lips, but stretching her arms up and catching herself on the head board firmly. They were an inch apart now, both of them breathing heavily, scrambling for a good breath but not really wanting one. “This is… what you had in… mind?” she said in between gasps as he positioned herself, now as free of obstacles as she was, and slipped into her.

“Kind of,” he said, moving slowly at first. “To be honest… I’m surprised… you’re letting me… set the pace…” He raised his head slightly to kiss her, running his hands over her thighs and sucking on her lip. She smiled.

“Shut the fuck up, Church,” she said, grinning. “You’re ruining the fucking moment.”

“I hardly think I’m ruining the fucking moment… oh. Oh, ok,” he said softly as she took control, deciding the rhythm and frequency. She wasn’t being quiet anymore, and neither was he, though he had always been the more vocal one. Soon they were moving together, her hands on his chest, nails digging in and leaving red marks, his hands helping move her body in the rhythm for both of them. Both of their bodies tensed up at the same time, and he thanked whatever God smiled upon him that night to have the timing so perfect. She fell on top of him, sweaty, panting, smiling, their energy and bodies drained. Carefully, she rolled off, smiling at herself in the dark as she stretched like a cat. He watched her in the dim room, a smile on his face. He rolled over to her and kissed the side of her forehead.

She chuckled slowly and turned her back to him, pushing herself closer until his body was in contact with hers. He wrapped an arm around her and she took his hand and brought it up underneath her chin.

“Hey, Allison?” he said softly in her ear.

“Mmm?”

“Thanks for letting me be your derivative.”

“…What?”

“You know,” he said with a smile. “So I can lie tangent to your curves.”

She groaned. “Oh, God, Church,” she said tiredly and grabbed the nearest pillow, hitting him in the face with it.

“Ow! Watch the glasses!”

“You deserve it, you fucking dork,” she said simply and pressed her body against his as she fell asleep.

“Heisenberg was wrong. I’m certain about what you’re doing tonight.”

She glanced at him, instantly sizing him up. Glasses, of course. Average height. Is that smile supposed to be sexy? Physics pick-up line. Cheap beer. “Heh,” was all she said, all she needed to say.

“Let me buy you a drink,” he said with that same smile, arrogant in so many ways but the one way that counts.

“You can’t afford it.”

He glanced down at his drink. “You let me worry about that. Name’s Leonard. What’re you drinking?” He was getting more comfortable, more cocky. She could tell in the smile.

“Fine,” she said, no smile or encouragement behind it. If he wanted to spend money on her, well, can’t say she didn’t warn him. She motioned for the bartender. “I’ll have another, and it’s on him,” she said, pointing to the man next to her. He nodded.

“Does that drink get me a name?”

“A first one, sure. Allison.”

“What do I have to do for the last one?”

She smirked at him. “A whole lot more.” They sat in silence for a few minutes, him glancing at her every so often, and she did her best to ignore him.

“You know, the universe is like a good relationship.”

Oh, here we go. “How’s that?” she asked, uninterested.

“They both start with a big bang.”

She put her glass down and turned to him with a roll of her eyes. “Do you seriously expect that to work?”

“For sex? No,” he answered easily, drinking his beer. “To get you to talk to me? Well, it’s already working, isn’t it?”

She smiled. The guy was winning some points, at least. “Alright, Leonard, I’m going to take a wild stab in the dark and say you’re a scientist.”

“Guilty as charged,” he said with a grin. “Can’t say much more, though, I’ve got a government job. Those tend to be hush-hush, you know.”

“Is this where I’m impressed?” She turned in her chair to face him. “Do you have some kind of fancy gadget to wave in my face to prove this story of yours? Special badge, or would you have to kill me if you told me?”

“Oh, no, nothing like that. My work is actually quite mundane, for the moment.” It was his turn to have the upper hand in the conversation. That’s how it always went, show them you’re the dork looking for their attention, hook them, and then have it flip, become the aloof one, have them fight for you.

“Do you like it?” This one wasn’t having it. She saw right thought his game, his ploy, and every sentence she uttered was just out of politeness. Maybe he tried to flip too soon, far before she was hooked.

“Not yet.”

“Pity. Enjoying what you do is important.” She let the conversation die. Five, four, three, two…

“What do you do, then, Allison?” Maybe there was still time to save this, to get her engaged in him again.

She smiled. “I shoot things,” she answered, finishing her drink. She stood up, leaving money for her bill on the counter.

“Leaving already? We were just starting to know each other!” Leonard said. He jumped out of his stool and picked up her coat, holding it open for her. She hesitated for a moment before slipping into it.

“Look, Leonard, right?”

“Leonard Church.”

“Right, whatever. Look, Leonard, I’m sure that works on plenty of girls. There’s probably four in this bar alone that would’ve gone home and had sex with you tonight if you had approached them. Instead you got me, and I don’t fuck around. And I mean that in a very specific way. I’m not going to chase you. That’s not my style. You won’t chase me, because you like the feel of power. So here we are, and here we’ll always be. Thanks for the drink, Leonard. Have a nice life.”

He didn’t say anything, merely looked at her as she zipped up her jacket. When she looked up at him again, he had on a very different smile than the one she first saw on him. This one actually was confident, actually passed for and exceeded sexy. “So I’ll see you next week, then? Same time?”

She didn’t answer, merely smiled through a small “heh,” and walked out of the bar. She told herself that when we went back the next week, at the same time, it was only because she was a creature of habit.

He told himself that when he introduced himself again the following week, properly, and wasn’t working an angle or trying to get her in bed, it was because she genuinely seemed like an interesting person - just that.