As I walked away from Harry I found myself more confused than ever. For a moment I had wanted him to … I don't know. Make some objection to me going. I mean he had, but not in the way I didn't know I had wanted him to object. Did I want him to make some big cheesy romcom confession and declare I couldn't go because he loved me? I mean, I didn't, obviously. One of the things I lov-liked about Harry was that he always respected me, and my decisions. If I told him to back off, he backed off. He kept me informed and didn't try to 'keep me safe' by not telling me anything anymore, or just telling me what to do. At least, anymore. We had had come to respect each other enough for that.

And he just had told me what I was doing was stupid, but it was. Any friend would be concerned. I could admit that. No matter which way I looked at it going on a sex holiday with a professional assassin was a terrible idea. Kincaid should be one of the people I was trying to kill. But the sex was so good.

I guess I was just a fluffy headed girly after all.

But this wasn't solving the problem at hand. Harry Dresden. Harry Fucking Dresden. And fucking Harry Dresden.

I couldn't do this again. Everyone thought that dating Rich would be a great idea because he was my best friend and he and I were in the same line of work. Shared the same madness. And look how that turned out. I didn't want that to happen to Harry and me. We were great friends, but a great friendship could turn into a terrible relationship, and there were things I didn't know, would Harry want kids? Was he still hung up on Susan?

Dammit, stop it. I didn't even know if Harry was actually interested. Well, Thomas had told me practically everyday that Harry was interested but I didn't really consider him a reliable source. He might be close to Harry, but the likelihood that Harry had actually confided in him was less than zero and despite what Thomas said, I didn't regard him as an expert on romance. The nudges Mouse had been giving me, on the other hand…

That dog was intelligent. I still wasn't sure to what degree. Whether he was a good romance detector remained to be seen.

I banged my head on the back of the taxi seat. I couldn't be thinking about this now. At this rate I wouldn't enjoy my sex holiday.

The driver made professional sympathetic noises and I said something about stress and needing to get away. The driver nodded wisely and said something about Halloween.

Halloween. That triggered something in my memory. Harry always said the barriers between worlds were thinner around Halloween, whatever that meant. God, I hoped I wasn't abandoning him to whatever weirdness always seemed to happen around him.

Don't think like that, I told myself sternly. You don't have to deal with everything. You deserve a holiday.

I remembered with a jolt that Halloween was also Dresden's birthday. Not that he ever celebrated it. Maybe I should've gotten him something. A first aid kit. Something to replace that stupid revolver he insisted made him look like Indiana Jones. A card.

I sighed. I was never going to be able to relax on this stupid holiday with this explosion of 'what the hell are my stupid feelings now?'

Focus on the sex holiday, Murphy. Have good sex. Deal with the feelings later.

'So … I missed the apocalypse?'

'I mean, technically not, since by definition the apocalypse is the end of the world and the world is undeniably still here,' said Butters, then caught the look on my face. 'I mean … yes. There were zombies, lots of super powered terminator zombies, and Harry rode a zombie T-Rex powered by Polka to fight evil necromancers. Who controlled the zombies.'

I opened my mouth to ask questions. Then closed it. There were too many questions.

I turned to Harry, who seemed to be mostly bandages. He was stubbornly refusing to go to the hospital as usual, and since he was conscious was unfortunately getting the final say. He smiled weakly, 'I watered the plants,' he rasped. I glanced around. There were no more plants.

'Right,' I said. 'Great work,' I sighed and shook my head. 'I leave you alone for a week and look what happens.'

Dresden gave a half smile, 'Well, you obviously shouldn't leave me unsupervised.'

I cocked my head slightly. The words were our usual banter but the tone was more, Don't leave me again.

Dammit, Murphy, Shut it. If you start obsessing over it, it'll only lead to misery. That was it. I wouldn't think about it.

Yeah.