Reese was startled when a drop of sweat splattered on the needle-nosed tools quavering in his hand.

Breaking into any house was usually the mindless effort of a minute; if he took more than three to pick a lock he usually resorted to less subtle tactics and just forced the door with a shoulder.

But this time, at Carter's apartment, the lock was defiant and impenetrable. Just as tough as she was, he thought with silent admiration.

Late July's heat wave was flaring in brutal mockery of the city's hopes for a moderate summer.

Reese had crossed town in one of Finch's hired cars, so the scorching sun hadn't really hit him until he bounded up the steps to Carter's place. But now, crouching before her door, he could feel the sweat condensing at the small of his back around the gun nestled there. His hands were slippery, his feet itched, and he had to blink rapidly to keep the perspiration from stinging his eyes.

Finally the lock succumbed and he entered the shadowed vestibule.

The living room was chilled and dark, even at mid-afternoon. He exhaled, squeezing out the anxiety of the break-in. The cool air soothed the skin on his neck and forehead and he took a deep breath to savor its refreshing calm.

He wondered at the expense of keeping the air conditioning going even when the occupants were away, but he figured Carter wanted to enjoy the immediate reward of cool temperatures at the end of her exhausting day on the beat. She didn't have the patience to wait for a cranky system to force frigid air through the apartment while she puffed and steamed.

Reese walked around the living room slowly, touching the varied textures of its furniture and decorations.

Everything was arranged just so: the angle of the framed photos on the mantle, the three matched candles on the coffee table, the precision pleats in the oatmeal-colored drapes hanging at the window overlooking the street. Even if he hadn't known of Carter's military background, he would have guessed it from the neatness of her home.

She seemed to leave nothing to chance, to consider all contingencies, to account for all possibilities.

The last time he had been here he hadn't been paying attention to the vacuumed ridges in the carpet or the lively pastel tones of the art work hanging over the credenza. He hadn't noticed anything about the place really. He'd only been paying attention to her.

Now he hesitated in front of the sofa. Its stiff contours didn't invite lounging, but he didn't know how long he would have to wait so he sat down. This was his first time sitting in this room. A new angle on her furniture, on her life.

He knew that Taylor's summer schedule included a two-week basketball camp at the end of July and that the daily sessions did not end until six. He also knew from Finch's vigorous surveillance that the boy had made arrangements with a teammate to attend a movie that evening. Oddly, Finch's prying didn't extend to knowing for sure whether Taylor planned to see the latest super-hero blockbuster or a zombie thriller that had debuted last week.

When Carter pushed back her door at last, Reese felt as if she had loosed a furnace in the dim and drowsy living room. Her uniform's dark creases carried heat into the apartment in a prickly cloak around her.

He noted that strands of her hair stuck to her cheeks and neck. As she walked through the door she unfastened an extra button on her stiff shirt, but she paused with her fingers at her throat when she saw him.

She didn't seem surprised to find him in her home; he supposed she was used to this aspect of their communication system by now. But she didn't unleash one of her sharp, exasperated comments either, the kind that usually set his blood racing. Instead she eyed him with a narrow gaze and spoke quietly.

"So it was either cool off in the public library or here, hunh?"

Her tone was resigned rather than annoyed, a change which set off little sparks of concern inside him.

"I wanted to see you."

"What for?"

This sounded like an accusation rather than an invitation, so he hesitated to respond. He needed to gauge her mood, so he let her lead the exchange.

"You and Finch know how to reach me when something comes up. You've got some kind of contraption set up in this house and probably in the precinct too, don't you?"

Without waiting for an answer, she turned her back on him and went to the kitchen. He could hear the shushing sound of the refrigerator being opened, the clinking of ice jostling under a stream of water from the tap.

When she came back to the living room he was surprised that she brought two tall glasses of cold water, one for each of them. He moved from the center of the couch to one end to make a space for her, but she continued to stand even after handing him the glass.

He took a long swallow, grateful for the relief, but unhappy that she remained silent as she retreated toward the window.

After downing half the glass, he decided that a direct question was the best way to break through.

"What's going on?"

"Going on?" She was determined be stubborn, it seemed.

"What's going on… with us, I mean."

"With us?"

Her clipped words and her seeming indifference were maddening. She was going to make him say it in plain terms, pulling it out of him with dead-eyed efficiency.

"Joss, do you want to… to end this?" He stroked his hand across the expanse of shadows between them.

This.

The term she always used: Whatever this is. We can't let anyone know about this. This can't be anything more. He allowed her to define their relationship in a way that felt comfortable to her and this was what she had always chosen. As if it were an animal of some undiscovered species, a creature whose naming would bring a curse down on them both.

Joss set her glass of water on the mantle, its shimmering side touching the large photo of Taylor grinning in his middle school graduation robes.

He watched her extract the cell phone from her pants pocket and take out the battery.

Her movements, so deliberate, even delicate, reminded him of how this all started. He thought of the burner phone he had given her, the way he had let his finger trail across her palm as he made the transfer, the electric charge that shot through him at that simple contact. The beginnings of their partnership all seemed so long ago.

She blinked her eyes quickly, as if remembering too. After a few moments she spoke in a whisper.

"I'm pregnant."

She looked toward the window, past the pale curtains. Then she darted her eyes in his direction for a rapid assessment of his face; hairline to mouth, chin to nose then to cheekbone. Never meeting his eyes directly, she glanced again out the window.

He read her expressions by instinct and could almost hear the words before she uttered them:

"I don't know what to do…" The fear, the ripples of uncertainty cascaded over her features as he watched.

He knew it was his turn to speak but he continued to hold his breath for another moment.

"What—how long?" He heard his voice crack in the search for words.

"Eight weeks, about."

She glanced at him again, her eyes huge, glassy. When she continued, they fixed on a point above his head.

"Sorry."

He wanted to sob then. Not at the revelation, but at her choked apology and all the distance and disunity conveyed in the simple word.

She took a deep shuddering breath and he did as well. He extended his hand to the empty space at the other end of the couch.

"Have a seat." The offer seemed so minimal, dry and unfeeling like a command rather than the phrases of comfort and solidarity he wanted to summon up.

Whether they were the right words or not, she acted upon them and sat heavily on the sofa, not near, but within reach.

They talked, first in short bursts, then in more convoluted sentences.

As they spoke, Reese's mind divided in two, one side pinpointing when the pregnancy had happened, the other observing with detachment their present conversation.

In between the halting phrases, his hands flexed on the couch, in secret imitation of the way they had gripped her hips as her legs wrapped around him. He remembered how their balance was thrown off, precarious and exciting as he pressed her against the wall, his fingers clasping her so tightly, one hand under her ass, the nails of the other digging into her thigh as it lifted to embrace him.

As she described in clinical terms the early warning signs and the first doctor's appointment, he felt far away, like he was staring at the two of them through the wrong end of a telescope. Her head tipped, his jaw clenched, their eyes darted without engagement. Obscured, their figures grew smaller and smaller in the spy glass until he realized it was impossible to track their true emotions in the cloud of shifting expressions.

When Carter gulped and stopped, blinking to keep back tears, one part of him wanted to comfort her, but his body, the cause of the calamity to begin with, stayed still.

POIPOIPOI

The blinking didn't really stop the tears, she knew, but Carter found the minute action comforting somehow: if she could control just this one part of her body then maybe the monumental rebellion growing inside her would be manageable.

As she talked, she watched the way John's hands clenched and released on the sofa next to her thigh. The contained energy and focus of the man seemed concentrated in that little repetitive gesture, disguising the real play of his emotions.

She didn't know which reaction from him she would prefer: towering disbelief, denial, shy enthusiasm, cool executive action. She wasn't sure if she wanted him to want this baby - her baby, their baby - or not.

She had resolved several days ago that keeping it was impossible. She knew they weren't a couple, never could be parents in any normal context.

She had been having sex with a man who killed for a living, bad father potential. She had a teenage son getting ready for college and a widowed mother marching steadily, however gracefully, toward old age. She needed to keep her job, keep her pension, keep her life on an even kilter.

At first, she had thought she would simply not tell John at all, get the job done, go on about their work as if nothing was the matter. So she had made an appointment to terminate the pregnancy. She had gotten as far as the clinic door before she turned away and fled to a diner for a cup of coffee. In that stainless steel sanctuary, the round of jagged breathing and tears had splattered coffee in little dribbles across the table top, causing the waitress to bring over a large stack of napkins in silent commiseration.

Now, as she turned her gaze to John, she could see the wheels turning in his head. Calculating, counting, analyzing, assessing behind those hard blue eyes as he would in the middle of a stake-out or before pulling his gun.

She expected him to ask a question, the one she had been asking herself ever since she realized the truth: How did this happen? I thought we were safe. How could this happen?

Instead his voice, wavering and thin, asked a different question:

"So what are you…thinking about?"

Open-ended, passive, soft instead of resolute.

Not an action-driven question with its implied answer – What are you going to do? Not an assertion or a command or even a suggestion. No hint of his own desires or hopes in the matter.

Maybe that was the truth of it at bottom: he didn't have any wishes or concerns, none big enough to bother her with at any rate. He was leaving the decisions to her, expecting her to shoulder this burden on her own.

She glanced around her living room. The familiar things crowded in from every wall and shelf. Each corner brought a reminder of the orderly life she had built. That careful life her foolish desire now threatened to topple. The photos of Taylor, her mother, herself in a holiday dress weren't soothing right now.

But she found the act of looking up at the mantle helped her not to cry. So she raised her head and stared past John's furrowed brow into the middle distance.

She knew for certain that she was on her own now; all these lives hung in the balance as she struggled to find a way to evade the consequences of her selfish and far too casual choices.