A/N: Thank you all for staying with this and me. Madness here. You know I have been saying that for ages. I think I need a whole new word. No amount of Diet Coke is going to fix this. :)

My thanks to dancesabove. It seems wrong that she should have to edit her own present. But that is what has happened to her. Poor thing.

Trying to make the decision of what insulin pump my daughter should go with. Fairly certain my head will spin off taking all that in - just back from the appointment with the diabetes educator. So, just tell me which it should be. :) To CGM or not to CGM? Sigh.

Greg was busy at work the next week, getting in early and staying late, making up for the distraction he had suffered over the last month and a half. He didn't see Marcey as often as he wanted to, but he still found the time to leave her chatty, chummy messages on her mobile. She found herself playing them over and again on her breaks at work. And smiling ridiculously.

They met for late dinners out a few times, and each time parted on the pavement. Awkwardly. He wanted to come home with her, despite how impractical his schedule made it, but he wouldn't say that.

She would have gladly gone to his place to stay with him. But that was beyond admitting, somehow.

Finally, he had her to Rose Hill House, when the latest project at work was complete and delivered. He cooked her dinner, held her hand while she sipped her wine.

And he wanted, wanted to tell her that he loved her. But he was a confused, middle-aged man, one who saw clearly enough to know he was no catch. More, he was a married man, standing there surrounded by too many of Linda's things. All those memories of what he had thought was a good marriage crowded him.

Suddenly he doubted what he felt. It was too soon, wasn't it?

But he did know the simplest, most important thing: He wanted Marcey near.

"You can stay," he told her, with a feigned sort of nonchalance. "Same rules." He meant it as a sort of joke. And it would have been fine if he just hadn't blathered on. If he just hadn't followed that with an attempt at sounding humorously suave. "No matter how much you beg, I shan't make love to you."

He'd made things uneasy then. God help him, he had a perverse talent for that.

"Oh, Christ," he said immediately. "I'm not even remotely funny, am I, Marcey?"

She recovered as she watched the blush take him. She even laughed before nervously bringing a hand to her mouth. "It was only a matter of time before it needed really talking about."

"I don't know that it does. It's rather simple. Obvious, really. I'm still married. And still a mess. And you..."

"I'm not as recovered from my divorce as I like to pretend."

He wrapped his arms around her then and waited until he felt her relax against him. "Really," he whispered, "I was going to say, 'and you are a saint for putting up with me.'"

She nodded into his chest.

"Upstairs?" he asked quietly.

"Yes."

… … ...

"Too weird?" he worried aloud, as they pulled the covers around themselves in the bed he had once shared with Linda. Marcey understood without any need for explanation.

"Very nearly," she told him. But her dimpled smile relieved his anxiety.

They had done this, spent the night together, four times now, and until tonight they had always been at Marcey's. But they had never planned ahead. Never let it seem expected at all. On his nights at her place, Greg had never packed more than his toothbrush, and even that he had hidden neatly in his jacket, afraid to let Marcey know he had hoped to end the evening in her bed.

Marcey was the one in her smalls tonight. She had added a modest tee shirt to her layers as she had dressed for dinner that afternoon, and changed into some sporty boy-cut knickers, all the while pretending it had nothing to do with her hope that she would end the night snugged up with him as she drifted off to sleep.

… … …

The next morning, Greg heard her in the kitchen as he came down the stairs in his dressing gown. He looked at his watch. Marcey must have doubled back after he'd gone into the shower, he thought; she would be late for work.

"Forget something?" he asked before he had even rounded the corner.

He stuttered his step in the next instant and felt his pulse nearly double. His eyes were painfully wide, he knew. And his smile was gone. Because the wrong woman was in his kitchen.

"You'd said Thursday," he told his wife as he put his coffee cup in the sink next to Marcey's.

"For the love of God, Greg! It IS Thursday!" Linda said. Her brogue rang with annoyance before she finished with a sigh.

"Well, you've got me there, I suppose," he answered with a shrug. "I've been busy, so... I'll take your word for it. Thursday. Got it." He turned and gave her a painfully manufactured smile.

"Has she moved in already, then?" There was a nod of Linda's head towards the sink and the coffee cup with the subtly shaded lipstick on its rim.

Greg had been ready for that comment, and so his smile held, despite the protective wave he felt rise in him whenever Marcey was mentioned. After a painful silence, he merely offered his wife some fresh coffee.

Linda groaned her fatigue with the situation, with this man she could not understand. "I thought we could talk about furniture. The pieces I refinished..."

"Take it all," he told her off-handedly.

"The bed?" she asked pointedly.

"Especially the bed," he said, quickly.

It wasn't anger. There was no animosity in what he had said, he realized, as he took the measure of his emotions.

He was just done. So well and truly done with the past.

/ / /