There is a lover, and there is a beloved - and the value and quality of any love is determined solely by the lover himself. It is for this reason that most of us would rather love than be loved. And the curt truth is that, in a deep secret way, the state of being beloved is intolerable to many. The beloved fears and hates the lover, and with the best of reasons. For the lover is forever trying to strip bare his beloved. The lover craves any possible relation with the beloved, even if this experience can cause him only pain. ― Carson McCullers

1

He hadn't meant to let himself go this way. Actually, he hadn't thought he was letting himself go at all. He'd thought himself so much in control, so calm and collected, completely at peace with everything that had happened… and everything that had not happened. He'd been a pragmatist, he was a realist and had told himself exactly what he needed to hear. In fact, he had repeated those words to himself so often that little by little he had started to pretend he believed it when he said that he'd put it all behind. He had in fact given himself the excellent impression that whatever had happened in Tekala had been a good feeling, a impression of a rare sensation that he cherished, because it had been born out of true friendship, understanding - and he needed to take the feeling, hold on to it, wish Alice all the best and let her go.

He had been repeating that to himself for the first few weeks… and then every now and then, every time he saw something that reminded him of her, every time he thought he saw her on the streets or someone that looked like her, or someone said something that made him think of her.

Those occasions started becoming less frequent and he was always more and more busy. He and Dino had opened up shop and the business was going well; they had a certain reputation for being tough sons of bitches that could deal with even the worst of situations - so naturally the money was good. But also the stress was high and for the first time in a while, Terry actually relished it, because it gave him the chance to let go of himself and lose everything in his work.

Every now and then, usually when he got back to his apartment and there was nothing more to do at the end of the day, nothing to bother himself with, his mind would go back at the long nights and tiring days that he'd spent with her, bearing through the heat and the tension and learning how to trust and how to let her in as she did the same. Learning what it mean to live with someone. What it was so share lives.

That case had changed him in ways Terry couldn't ignore, but didn't feel ready to face just yet. So every time these thoughts haunted him - usually in the dead of night when he couldn't sleep no matter how tired he was - he tended to turn the other way and deliberately think of something else.

But tonight, the thought of her was persisting… especially because his will was numbed down by half a bottle of 20 year old scotch and his loneliness had flared up with a stab so sharp he was finding it hard to breathe.

His bedroom was dark, the night was moonless, and he was feeling a very particular brand of fucking awful that left a sour taste in his mouth. The reflections from his pool played on his ceiling and he kept staring at them, without seeing anything at all.

What he sees is the sun on the windows and in the kitchen counter as she cuts up potatoes, carrots and he helped with the salad, sitting right across from her on one of the stools. She is talking about her childhood home in Arizona, with a distracted voice and a small smile that was more melancholic than happy. Her happy smiles are rare. It had been months by her side, and he had seen but a few.

"…The desert is a strange place, you know. Every extreme condition meets there, and the only life you find is just as strong and unforgiving as the desert itself. But there are these moments, right when the sun is about to set and… I don't know, I can't explain it. Everything gets so quiet, so smooth. It's not really beautiful," she adds swiftly, as if the very definition of the word irritates her, as if she's heard it too many times and she is sick of it.

"It's too harsh and unforgiving to be beautiful. Beautiful is for tourists that pass through every now and then, it's for people that have never been trapped under a rock with a broken arm for 21 hours."

He listens without even breathing as goes on talking and chopping vegetables, washing them, putting them on a bowl and deftly taking from his hands the ones he'd been cutting – their fingers brush and it feels more intense than any such careless brush has ever had the right to feel… But she acts as if she doesn't notice, as if it was normal. Absentmindedly she hands him the towel to dry his hands before he has the chance to ask for it. They've picked up a rhythm. She is relaxed around him now, completely at ease. It's as if she's known him for years and strangely, he likes that she feels that way… and it's beyond professional reasons. He likes it because her ease around him prompts an unusual response on his part: he relaxes too. He's been more himself, more unguarded with her these past few weeks than with his closest friends half his life.

So he listens as she tells him about her memories, and it all feels so utterly real. He can feel his life for the first time in ages and it feels… he has nothing to compare it to. The only thing that came close was the feeling of that first harsh, life-giving breath of air when you've been underwater for too long. He felt at once exited and completely at his ease…

He felt as if he belongs.

Safe…

Such a strange notion to have really. He was perfectly capable of taking care of himself, yet it was in her presence that he felt that kind of safety that made breathing easier for the first time in 13 years. The feeling was strange to him. He didn't quite know how to elaborate it – but he accepted it none the less.

"There's something else out there, though. A kind of freedom that only places at the edge of the world can give you. No rules, nobody to answer to. It's cruel, but it's real. I never thought I'd miss it so much." She smiles ruefully and shakes her head. "And I don't even know how to explain how I feel about it."

"I think you're doing ok. It's harsh and it's honest and it's the only place on earth that teaches you that you can both love and hate at the same time, with nothing in between." He's says slowly, looking right at her and waiting for her to look up and meet his eyes. She did and there was this look, of slight surprise and then that pleasant realization that one gets when they realize that wow, there is someone who knows exactly what you're thinking even when you don't know how to say it.

A small smile that curves her lips, and a slight nod.

'Yeah, that's it.' And then she looks down after holding his eyes for a second too long. 'And of course it's my home. You never forget where you come from, even when all you want is to leave it behind.'

Leave it behind…

Home was a strange thing, Terry though. It came in all forms and shapes.

And the ache you get when you miss it is unmistakable. It tears through you, makes you wonder why you feel like you want to smash your fists down and break the world. It makes you desperate.

He missed her…

Missed the presence of her, knowing that she was sleeping in the other room, hearing her walk about the kitchen at night, trying not to make noise. Watching her cook – practically being on house arrest had given her plenty of time for cooking to discharge her nerves. She loved fruit and vegetables, so much that she was almost a vegetarian… but not quite. She but her apple in four pieces before she ate it, she put the seeds aside and ate them last. She loved mango, though to him it was too exotic to be appealing.

She had put it in the salad one night.

"You don't like mango?" She'd asked when she noticed that he pushed all the pieces away at the edge of his place as if he were a small boy – It had been a particularly hard day with 'Marco' and it was gritting on his nerves. His smile to her was apologetic – he never let his emotions show around her – the last thing she needed was to see him waver.

Alice rolled her eyes at him.

"You should have told me." She sounded almost like she was scolding him.

"Now you know." He said, the edge of a smile in his tone but he was trying hard not to let it show. She was about to say something but then she frowned as she looked down at his plate again.

"What's wrong with the tomato!" because he was pushing the piece aside as well.

He smirked, the expression catching her off guard. "Fraternizing with the enemy."

She narrowed her eyes at him, but then at his cheeky grin she couldn't contain the smile anymore and her expression melted into it. It felt like she had shifted her face entirely. She reached over at his place speedily, stabbed her fork into the tomato and shoved it into her mouth as if to prove a point, but the piece of mango stuck on it almost fell off the fork - she had use her fingers to catch it and, with a chuckle, put it in her mouth and lick the juice off her fingers.

He returned his eyes to his place, the smile stamped in his face.

"Any other food you're not partial to?" She asked between a chuckle and a smile. At that point he'd had to laugh, even now, the look of mischievousness on her face in that moment made him smile.

God, he missed her so much it was ridiculous…

He missed her looking back at him from across the room, missed that soothing, reassuring touch over his shoulders whenever the situation got touch and he tensed so much that his neck and shoulders hurt. He missed having her around and watch him silently, her intelligent eyes tracking his every movement, listening his every word. She had methodically taught herself to trust him and for a man with deep trust-issues like himself, that amounted to true bravery.

How was it possible that he had wanted her for himself while at the same time admiring how utterly devoted she was to getting her husband back.

It was fucking insane, that's what it was! A wack-job on his brain, which had been shot to hell and he didn't even know why or how it had happened.

There had been the attraction first, it had been there all along, filling the empty spaces of his mind and hiding behind every corner of his thoughts. One that he had felt before, but with something a little different this time, because this time, he knew that he was more vulnerable to his own feelings now than he had ever been, and hat was dangerous. He had tried to mask it with professionalism – it was vital that he kept his head in the game and he was too good to trip on his own feelings when there was a human life at stake.

But still, the way her eyes on him made him feel didn't fade, it didn't go away just because he willed it to. Whatever he initially felt had changed shape. It had evolved as if it had a life of its own. And it was all her doing – which he didn't even try to stop.

He had no idea how to anyway...

He'd known that there was no way he could encourage this strange little tinge of desire whenever he looked at her for too long. It was undeniable that there was something about her that irresistibly drew him in, to the point where he didn't even fully understand it. It pulled at the very instincts that he didn't even know he had. Sometimes, whenever he looked at her for too long, usually careful not to be caught doing it, having her there, being there with her felt like a touch of destiny, like it was meant to happen. It felt unavoidable.

Those were the moments when he got a good chance to laugh at himself and tell himself to fuck off. They were his moments of delirium. He'd had only two of those - he was too much of a realist to allow himself anything more.

Now, remembering her, remembering everything and how much he felt he'd given up, he felt differently. The bitterness was overwhelming.

He remembered the first moment he had realized what bran of woman he was dealing with. She'd been looking at him straight in the eye, her stare unwavering and intelligent measuring him and trying to figure him out, just as he had been doing with her.

'This won't work if you bullshit me.'

He'd been caught unaware by that sharpness, by her deadpan manner. Her eyes spoke more of strength and endurance than they spoke of beauty and that was perhaps the point when his fascination with her began... or at least made itself known in a way he could identify, reason through.

'I can see that.'

'So we'll be straight up then?'

'That's exactly how we'll do it.'

He was fascinated by what she was, who she was. Captivated by her bluntness and no-bullshit persona, by her honesty and sharp way of seeing the world. Almost like himself, but not quite. Because there was another side of her, a softness resting there, right at the corner of her lips, just waiting to have the chance to show itself.

He hadn't seen it for a long time. She had not had many relaxed moments when she was with him, but the glimpses he got amazed him, drew him in even more, trapped him.

She had done everything so inadvertedly, so unwillingly that he could find no blame in her, nothing. There had just been tow people in a complicated situation. She was being herself and she couldn't help it if whatever her essence was drew him like a moth to flame. Not even he could help it, and he should have been able to - this was not his first time, he'd been in countless of these situations before. Well, not quite, he'd never felt like this before, but as for the grieving beautiful spouse that needed someone to lean on, that was nothing new.

But that was just it, Alice was not like that. She needed some support from time to time, something to assure her everything was steady, that everything was going according to plan, she needed someone to share this incredible burden with… but most of all she needed his skill-set, she needed him to do his job right.

She wanted her husband back…

It had always been a sum zero game for him, he knew the from the start, yet he couldn't stop.

She floored him because she was honest. Even in the way she looked at him sometimes that was not entirely stripped of that spark he felt inside himself from time to time. But, unlike him, she never tried to mask it. She simply looked away, denying herself the mere possibility of thinking that way.

But she didn't deny him friendship, not even an ounce of her kindness.

It was strange how she managed to do that. He could not even remember the last time he had had friendship from a woman. But she took their situation and leveled though it, trying to navigate herself, trying not to fall apart. And she did it by offering him her trust, by offering companionship despite the stress, the hardship, never-ending, nerve-wracking negotiations. It seemed that she took their experience and transformed it in something good for them, instead of letting the tension snap and boil. She found a way to deal with it, by relying on him.

She had no way of knowing that, but he needed her support just as much as she needed his. If it had been up to him, he would have quit his line of work right after Chechenia. He felt burned out, and frankly he didn't know if he had it in him to put himself into that kind of situation again. He just didn't want to. What had happened with his last case had left a sign in him that even he did not understand.

But then the Bowman case had come along, he had gone to central America, an area that he did not particularly enjoy for a whole set of reasons, and he had met her.

It was the anger behind her eyes, the desperation just beneath the surface, the tightly controlled expression... there were a whole lot of reason why her face just couldn't go away from behind his lids. Probably because she had been so strong, so adamant about pulling though.

He realized now, on a Saturday night as he laid in his bed in the dark and unable to sleep, that he felt so strongly for this woman (and he did, what was the point of denying it anymore?) because he had met her when he was in a vulnerable point in his life. She had crawled under his skin for that reason alone... and perhaps others too, but still... because he had been less willing to stay detached, cold. That first stab of attraction, so raw and sharp, had turned into something else because she had not answered him on those terms, because she had offered something more without even realizing it, and because he had been more open to his environment, more vulnerable and willing to be pierced by anything.

Everything had built on what was already there, and the bond between them had become stronger and more resilient, of the kind that he had never truly felt before. Inadvertently the feelings inside him had transformed... intimacy without physical intimacy was hard to control, lock up or explain away... especially when you needed it more than air to pull though safely.

Familiarity, closeness, understanding... pure and undiluted by excuses.

Cynically, he thought that maybe this closeness without as close as he wanted to be was why he just couldn't get her off his skull: because all he had had from her was one single kiss. His obsession was that of a child: he had been denied so he couldn't move on...

He snorted.

It was a stupid thought, it offended his intelligence even as he conjured it up and belittled the feelings he already knew he had.

That kiss...

Terry signed and turned over, smothering his face against the pillow. Why couldn't he stop thinking about that one kiss?! He'd fucked more women than he could recall, and in so many deviant ways that it made that kiss seem like a peck in the cheek between kiddies.

But he just couldn't shake it off, and it was driving him fucking insane.

This was why he never gave himself the chance to think about it goddammit!

Perhaps it had been so different, because he had felt every moment of it. He had been sincere with himself and with her, more so then he had ever been before with one woman. He'd wanted her to feel everything that she made him feel...

He'd wanted her to know without having to tell her.

Terry had known as he looked at her from across the garage that she would not deny him. It had been all over her, the fear, the worry reverberating off her in waves, as she watched with wide eyes their preparations. She had a innate aversion for the military – frankly he could not blame her – it must have been so strange for her to stand in that room with them as they geared up. Her face was expressionless, but her eyes were so wide. And she followed his every moment as if her life depended on it. He had felt her eyes burning the back of his head the whole time.

'I've never seen you so nervous…'

He'd felt like smiling then, but the tension in him was so coiled that he just…

The second he got one step away from her he knew that she knew. She read his intentions because he waited, he wanted her to read him, to know. And the look in her eyes, the way she had stopped breathing when his hands came up to her face, the rare shimmer of a tear that was hanging from her flashes and would never fall down… the way her lips and breath trembled when he brushed them with his. The shiver than ran down her spine and shot straight into him, from head to foot.

The impression of her lips against his was burned in his memory. He had been so impatient, to taste her even as he wanted to keep this simple, keep it at the margins because he knew that she was giving this to him, because he might go out that door and not come back. This was a gift, and he was not taking it as anything else. It was heartfelt and honest, it was true, but it remained a gift… even though the way she opened up to him without a breath of hesitation suggested she felt as strongly for him as he felt for her. The way she responded so honestly, so wholly, the feeling of her warmth, of her heady taste… It did nothing to command patience in him.

It fueled desperation…

He felt her hand come up to his shoulder to his neck and brush the side of his face and he angled her head, his fingers tangling in her short, soft hair as he kissed her more deeply than he'd first dared – because she allowed it, she pulled him in, her fingers on the back on his neck drawing him down on her lips more firmly, more deeply, as she met him fire for fire.

He pulled back, their breaths inkling through their parted lips.

He felt as if someone had pulled the rug from under his feet. His heart was going a mile a minute… even now as he remembered it, her smell, her taste and the way she felt as her body barely brushed against him, the heat of her seeping thought the clothes and right on his skin… even now, his heartbeats sped up, his breathing coming a little heavier.

It had been six months since that moment…

He'd thought he'd let go of her. That he at least had been ready to lets go of it.

Maybe he had been. But after what he had heard today, everything had changed. He could feel the change in him, but he didn't really know what he was going to do about it yet.

A loud stomping on his front door got him up.

"Terry? I know you're in there. Open the fucking door!"

Dino's dulcet tones were fucking unmistakable. Terry should have known that his peace would have lasted only as long as Dino's one night stand came to its glorious and predictable close. Terry chuckled without knowing why.

Oh, finally, the alcohol was giving its positive side effects.

Fumbling he got up and made for the door for one and one reason only: he knew that if he didn't let Dino in the motherfucker would just force the lock and let himself in anyway.

"Terry!"

"Chill the fuck out mate, I'm coming!"

The sign was just as hearable as if Dino had been standing on this side of the door instead of behind it. Terry opened the door and didn't even bother looking at his friend, just turned and went for the sitting room, planting his ass on on of the sofas. Dino followed, sat down in front of him and just stood there, saying nothing. Terry looked at him, eyebrow raised and waiting for something to come out of his oldest friend's mouth, but nothing did, except for a knowing look on those sharp blue eyes that was starting to get on Terry's nerves fast.

"So, to what do I own the pleasure of seeing you face at four o'clock in the morning mate?" Terry finally pushed.

Dino leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.

"How are you doin' Terry?"

"I'm quite alright Dino. Yourself?"

Dino's eyes narrowed. "Don't fuck me about my friend. I can see right through it."

"I said I'm alright." Terry repeated and this time he believed it. He knew that whatever he had inside him would not have gone away in a month or two. Getting over himself would take time, he knew that. What he hadn't predicted was that it would have been this painful and that it would go at such a nail's pace... but still, this was all in the plan, it was calculated.

And it didn't make him fee any better knowing so.

In fact, he didn't even want to get better, to get over it. But the pragmatist in him told him that this was the only way. He had a life to live. A son he was reconnecting to, a business to run. And he was too much of a realist to life on something that had no chances of being real... or at least any more than it had already been.

Because he knew, it had been real.

It just hadn't been meant to be for him.

At least not with her.

Dino's sigh brought him back to the present.

"Dino, I appreciate the worry, but there's no need to make this into anything more than what it is." Terry said calmly. Funny how he could sound to reasonable even when he was almost shit-faced drunk.

"Yeah, I can see that. You go around and with everything, you practically live at the office and when you're not there, you're with you son - which is great by the way, but that's it. And then you see her face on the news and you after that you have barely spoken ten words in two days, you don't go out on Friday night even though you Louisa's what-her-face practically sat on your lap for ten minutes and after that I find you pissing drunk at four in the morning. It worries me Terry."

"I know it does. I'll get over it." Terry finally said, laying his head back on the sofa and looking at the ceiling. He was not a man to lie to himself. He knew this was going to take work. And maybe he would get to feeling better some day, a day when lying about being fine would become easier, and when that day came, then fine would be just around the corner.

He'd get over it.