I cried.

I don't know why people say that crying will make you feel better. That's such bull.

Crying makes me feel swollen, stuffed-up, and soggy, and I hate it, which is why I never do it. Never. But that night… At least when I finally fell asleep I didn't dream.

I can't say the same for the following nights.

If I'd thought it was bad when we first returned from 1947, it had just been because I had no idea what bad could really be. I couldn't even look at Zane when I saw him – some weird combination of excruciating embarrassment and desperate misery made my cheeks flush and my heart race at even a glimpse of his back.

Fortunately, he didn't push and I tried to be grateful for that. Really, I tried.

Carter, on the other hand – well, he's such a guy's guy that it's easy to forget how perceptive he is. I tried brushing off his concern, then snapping at him, and finally I resorted to hiding from him. Yes, I'm not proud of this, but that's how I wound up killing time in a stall in the women's room at GD.

Carter was headed down the hallway toward my office, so I'd ducked into the bathroom. I wasn't planning on coming out for at least half an hour – he'd get tired of looking for me eventually. If it was work-related, he'd use the phone, but it wouldn't be. I swear, he'd been taking lessons from S.A.R.A.H., and his daily checks on me weren't doing anything but driving me insane. More insane, I mean.

I didn't think anything of it when two women came in. Some women can't pee alone. I don't get it, but I always figured it was part of some secret girl training that I missed while I was busy on the shooting range.

I wouldn't have listened, but when the first said, "He made me peppermint tea!" her voice incredulous, I couldn't help myself. Peppermint tea? Was she - ? No, no, it was just my paranoia that made me think that everything was about Zane.

"I warned you." The second voice held a laugh, but it was familiar, too. "He's notorious." Who was that? I knew I recognized the voice, but I couldn't quite place it.

"Oh, and it was worth it. But still – I show up at his place wearing the hottest black lace teddy in my closet and all I got was a cup of peppermint tea."

"And the speech, too, right?"

I tried to take a careful peek through the crack in the stall door to find out who was talking, but all I could see was the back of a dark head. "The one about it was great, lots of fun, but he's doesn't do serious, and it wouldn't be fair to me?"

"That's the one." Damn, I knew who that was. It was the blonde from reproductive biology. I'd never actually spoken to her, but I'd overheard her flirting with Zane more than once. "Welcome to the club," she continued, cheerfully.

I frowned. The club?

"He's God's gift to women," the first woman still sounded a little gloomy as she sighed.

"Three times, it's the magic number." The blonde was checking her make-up. "He never hooks up with anyone with more than three times."

Oh, lovely. I put my hand over my mouth to stop myself from screaming. If Dr. Baxter hadn't been tragically killed, they could have been talking about him – but he'd been dead for years. And the peppermint tea? They were talking about Zane. They had to be.

"No regrets, though. He's really good."

"Did he do that thing where he – " I didn't hear any more because I'd clamped my hands over my ears as I pressed my lips together. I wasn't going to listen, and I wasn't going to scream. It served me right for trying to hide. Cowardice always gets punished in the end.

I managed not to hear any more and they finally left the bathroom, but their words lingered in my brain.

There was a part of me that was jealous, not of him but of their ability to be so blasé about hooking up with him. Why couldn't I do that? My Zane was gone, and I thought after the hallucinations that I'd managed to let go of our relationship. So why did I have to be so devastated about having had casual sex with him?

Why couldn't I just take what I could get, and enjoy it?

Three times.

That meant I had two more, didn't it?

I was tapping my fingers on my steering wheel, trying to make up my mind to do what I wanted to do.

It was Friday night, a couple of weeks after the…well, you know.

He could have been out, but he wasn't. His lights were on and his bike was there.

He might have company. How humiliating would that be?

He might not have company.

I recognized this feeling. It was like pre-combat jitters, when the clock was ticking and the countdown was underway and any minute the word would come down that it was time to go. It was a little trickle of adrenaline, making my breathing a little too shallow, my heartbeat a little too fast.

Decide, I ordered myself. Decide.

Oh, hell. The great thing about being Catholic is that you can go to confession and get forgiveness for your sins. This was going to be a big one, but if I got nothing out of it but a night free of nightmares, it'd be worth it.

Maybe.

All right, another mind-blowing orgasm wouldn't hurt either.

I was out of the car and walking up the walkway before I knew that I'd made the choice. Zane's place was a duplex, one of the Craftsman-style two-story kind. Outside stairs led up to his door. I jogged up them, lightly, trying not to think about how many times I'd been here before. It wasn't as bad as it could have been because we'd always spent more time at my place than his: he liked mess, I liked order. It was just another reason why we really didn't belong together, why letting him go was the right choice.

After, that is, trying to quench this fire that he'd started.

Three times.

This would be two.

My knock was firm, decisive. It took him a minute to answer, and when he did, he looked surprised, almost worried.

"Jo?" he started. I brushed past him, then turned to face him. He read in my face why I was there. I could see it, the moment when his expression changed, the doubt changing to something more like anticipation, his eyes going dark with desire, his lips parting just slightly.

I didn't wait for him to reach for me. I stepped closer, pressing against him, almost pushing him back against the door, both hands sliding up his chest to his face. He didn't pause. His mouth took mine with a kind of glad ferocity that sent my own desire spiraling higher and higher.

I don't think I said a word between the time I arrived and the time I left. None were needed.

That night, I slept like a baby. Not a real baby, of course – they never sleep. But the imaginary baby that the cliché conjures up. I slept like that baby, long and dreamlessly and with a kind of boneless relaxed contentment.