A cage, that's all this city really is. A vicious trap that gets smaller and smaller everyday, until the walls close in around us, and all that was is gone.

Everyday it becomes harder to avoid him. Everyday I have to find a new, out-of-the-way corner of the city to work. Day after day, the city gets that much smaller, until there's almost no place I can hide.

I take the dark hallways, only slightly more dangerous than the others, and I try to stay below the water, where no one, not even John, would be stupid enough to come looking anyway. I have Radek bring me my meals for fear of seeing him in the mess, and I never go back until at least 0300.

Everything is fine, or close enough to it, on missions. We can be professional just long enough for me to find an excuse to leave with one of the others.

I see how he watches me, and it's all I can do to stay away. I don't want to avoid him, don't want to have to turn my back on him like this, but if I don't it could ruin him. It wasn't so bad before, when we were never going back. We were together, we were all we needed and we were happy.

But now, with Caldwell popping in and out every twelve minutes and home just a short trip away, I can't be near him. I know he's out there somewhere seeking me out, and it hurts to know I could be with him right now.

The door slides open. It's far too early for Raked to be binging me down my lunch, and I don't want to hear it when his voice floats in from behind me. "Rodney?"

"Very busy, John, come back later," I mutter quickly without turning.

"What are you doing down here?" he asks, and I can hear him turning in place, walking around a small circle, taking it all in. His voice comes closer as his footsteps echo on the walls.

"Work. Very important work that you're distracting me from."

He stops coming closer, and I would turn to face him if I knew I could do it without falling apart. His hand falls on my shoulder, and he spins me around.

"You look like shit," we say in chorus, bringing a smile from him.

"Gee, thanks, Rod. Nice set up you got going here," he says, gesturing around to the barren walls and empty space of this hole in the wall I wouldn't grace with the term 'lab'.

"Well, it's very quiet, secluded—"

"Far away from anywhere I might be working," he said conversationally, still glancing around.

"What do you mean by that?" I ask, feigning innocence, even confusion.

"Cut the shit, Rodney," he says, not in the snappish tone one might expect, but with something akin to pain in his voice. "Do you really think after all this time you can still lie to me?"

"John, I don't—"

"Why?"

"Have any idea—"

"No, no more lies. You're avoiding me and I want to know why!"

He's hurting; it's in his eyes, in his voice, the way he stands, shaking, in front of me. I turn back to the 'desk' I'd been using before he came in, turn back so that he won't see me cry. "Get out. I'm trying to work."

"But Rodney—" he starts desperately.

"Get out!" My voice is shrill and tight, but I just manage to keep it from cracking. His steps retreat and the door slides open and shut again. "Goodbye, John."

And that's when I fall apart; slumping on the table and crying until there aren't any more tears.