"Ah, there you are, Mercedes. Admiral Higgins, my chief of staff, Commodore Mercedes Brigham - we've known each other since Basilisk. Mercedes, Admiral Allen Higgins, current Admiral of the Fleet."

"A real pleasure, Commodore," said Higgins, shaking her hand with just the right amount of strength, and Mercedes blinked at the sudden shock of pleasure as the warmth of his hands enfolded hers.

"Likewise, Admiral," she replied, returning the handshake almost dazedly, but she focused her attention on her commanding officer once again at the frown that crossed her face. "Something the matter, Your Grace?"

"I thought we'd been over this 'Your Grace' nonsense," Honor said absently, "but never mind that now. If I don't go and rescue Eloise, she might relapse into her pre-Revolution persona, and assassinations are so hard on the carpet."

She walked away in a swish of skirts, admiral and commodore watching her with identical confusion.

"Does she do that often?" he asked eventually.

"Admiral Harrington? No, not usually, but this is really her peace, after all. Hers and the President's. I'm not surprised she's preoccupied - and she and President Pritchart have become quite close recently."

Allen Higgins shook his head. "Just as well it's not me, then," he said cheerfully. "But," and his face was more serious now as he turned to her, "I really am thrilled to meet you."

"Me?" Mercedes audibly snorted. "I'm only a mere commodore, sir."

Now his eyes were deadly serious. "You may be a commodore, Ms. Brigham," he said gravely, "at least in Manticoran service, but there is nothing 'mere' about you."

"This is a bad idea," Mercedes gasped some three hours later, even as her fingers curled more tightly in Allen's hair. "This is a bad idea in so many, many ways."

"I know." Allen's lips ravished hers, his hands possessively cupping her bottom as he pressed her against the door of the hotel room. "It is a terrible idea." He gave her a wicked grin, his eyes twinkling furiously. "Shall I stop?"

"Don't you dare."

His laugh, as the door opened behind her and he swept her into his arms, set her nerves on fire. "Mercedes." He kissed her, hard, and yet there was something unbearably sweet there, too. "God, even your name sounds like a song."

"You're a foolish romantic, Allen," she murmured against his mouth, but even she could hear the swoon in her voice, could feel the flutter of helpless pleasure in her heart, and she couldn't find the strength to disbelieve him.

"You make me into one," he murmured back, and she startled herself when a few stray tears fell down her cheek. "I don't - I'm not this kind of person, Mercedes. I don't tumble into bed with people I've known for three hours. But I can't seem to keep my hands off you."

"It's mutual," she managed between the kisses she rained over his face. "It's entirely mutual. I never thought I'd feel..."

Her hands falling away from his face, she slid down his body and turned away, an old, ugly memory coming back to tear open wounds she'd thought long since healed.

But then gentle hands were on her shoulders, and there was no pressure in his grip, only comfort. Only the instinct to hold and to cherish, whatever might or might not happen between them tonight.

She sank back against his chest as his arms came around her, and his lips brushed her cheek. "I know," he said, and he did. The story of Blackbird Yard and the horror of Second Yeltsin were far from secret, after all. "This is your night, Mercedes. Our night, but yours most of all. I will never ask more of you than you're willing to give."

She turned in his arms, the ghosts floating away as though they'd never been at the truth in his voice, and slid her arms around his neck. "This is my choice," she said simply. "I want you, Allen. And not just for tonight."

"Mercedes," he said helplessly, and then decided that words were useless and kissed her instead. "I could love you." The words came without thought. "I could love you so easily."

Briefly, ever so briefly, she hid her face against his shoulder. "I could let you," she admitted, shakily. "And I could love you."

Limpid dark eyes lifted to look at him, and for a moment they were caught, spellbound, in each other's gaze. We both of us have our ghosts, a part of her thought distantly, as his hand gently brushed her cheek. We've both lost too much in service to the Crown. And we both of us keep coming back, because there is nothing else we can do. Oh, I could love him. Yes, I could. Think carefully, 'Cedes old girl, because this is one road you won't be able to turn back from.

"Mercy?" His voice was gentle, the endearment unintentional, and certainty washed through her with the clarity of radiant transit energy.

"Allen," she answered her heart and his, and kissed him with a deliberation and determination far more eloquent than any words.

Later she wasn't sure whether they tumbled onto the bed, or the bed tumbled into them. Whatever it was, she found herself flat on her back with Allen's solid, welcome weight atop her, and his mouth found the curve of her breast through thin fabric as she whined in frustrated desire. "Don't you dare stop touching me," she gasped, even as her hands stroked the planes of his back and her thighs parted to cradle his hips against hers. "God, Allen, I want you so much I can't breathe."

"I can't breathe knowing you want me," he murmured into her mouth. "You're a miracle, Mercy. A goddamn miracle. I don't think I could bear to let you go."

"Then it's a good thing you won't have to." Quite deliberately, she rocked her hips against the hot hard length of him, and laughed in delight when he groaned and dropped his forehead to hers. "Damn it. Enough of this. Get inside me. Now."

"Mercy," he tried, and trailed off on a groan as her legs curled around his waist.

"Shut up and take me," she murmured hotly in his ear, and he rolled her under him with a moan of total surrender.

Gentle hands splayed over the planes of his back, her voice clouding his mind as he sank inside her. She gasped a little, tilting her hips to meet his, and the sheer relief on her face left him halfway to tears. "Mercy," he said, his voice strained, "Mercy, I…"

"Yes, darling. Yes, I know." Her hands curled into fists, fingernails biting into his back, and he closed his eyes against the shock of painful pleasure that lit him inside and out. "God, Allen, you feel so good… oh, God, love, right there, please, right there…"

"Promise me we'll have more nights than this." Eyes shut tight, he wished he could take back the words, but she only laughed, low and lovely, warm against his ear.

"Yes." Her body clenched around him, and he fought back the climax, far from ready for this to be over so soon. "Yes, we will, I can't let you go - I won't, darling, I won't. None of this makes sense and you're the only thing that makes sense - oh God, touch me there again, please, right now -"

"How close are you?" Hot and throaty, his voice curled around her spine, and the thread of amusement left her squirming.

"You have to know," she gasped as her body began to shake. "For God's sake, Allen, you're buried inside me, you have to know I'm right there -"

"Oh God," he said, and pressed his lips to the closest part of her. "Darling, I can't -"

"I know. I know, Allen. You don't have to."

Lost in her, lost somewhere between the hard truth of reality and the intangible fantasy of love, he pressed himself closer and let himself fall.

"Allen," she said as she followed him, but in her mouth his name sounded like 'darling'.

She woke to the ghost of a nightmare - and warm hands and gentle voice soothing it away. The dream fled her mind, already forgotten, as his lips found hers, and she curled into him with a small sigh of contentment.

"Now there's something to wake up to," Allen murmured in her ear. "I was afraid I wouldn't."

"Oh, you ridiculous man." Her eyes still half-closed, she reached up to brush his face with tender fingers. "You're the only one I've ever wanted to wake up with."

His arms tightened around her at that. "How long do we have?"

Blindly, she turned in his arms to kiss him again. "An hour, at most," she said, with a sigh of regret. The last thing, the very last thing she wanted to do was break the spell they'd woven last night, but neither of them had a choice; between the two of them, their days were harried morning till night.

But the nights… oh, the nights.

The nights, when they could steal them, would be theirs.

And there, she supposed, would be their true test; if what they had shared could stay with them, even after they left the haven of this room, then they might just have a chance after all.

He sighed. "I'm going to miss you."

Blinking, she looked up into the eyes that had captured her heart. "But I'm going to be right here," she said, struck with a distinctly un-Mercedes-like streak of sentimentality, and pressed her hand to his heart.

He took it and kissed the palm, gently, reverently, the touch of his lips the only reply she needed.

In the slick of summer-rain-warm water they shared the shower, hands skimming bodies, taking pleasure one last time as he carefully shampooed her hair, as she gently soaped his back, as they both came in a quiver of sighs and words muffled under the spray.

And then they were gone, to separate meetings, to their everyday lives, to duty and honor and responsibility.

But in the nights… oh, in the nights they dreamed, together and apart.

And the spell never broke.