A/N: Hope you like this chapter… more coming soon. =)

The next time the two of them were alone, was twenty-four hours later, and heading towards Old Swanport Road to check on a domestic. They hadn't said a word to each other since the day before.

It was Evan who was first to break the silence this time, though his nerves were evident in his voice.

"Do you wanna talk about yesterday?" he asked cautiously. He didn't want to push her. He was too scared she'd back away again and the moment that had would vanish as if it hadn't existed.

"No I don't," she said shaking her head.

"When? Because I don't want this to be just another lost and forgotten conversation, Tess," he pleaded.

"Later. We have somewhere to be right now."

"So that won't stop us from talking. Tess, something happened yesterday and I want to discuss it."

She took a deep breath. "I'm glad we were interrupted… maybe it was for the best. I think maybe we should just leave the relationship the way it is."

"And how's that?" he laughed bitterly. "Friends or the two of us in love pretending to be friends, which is it Tess?"

"Evan!" she warned.

"Don't! If this is how you want to leave it, then I'll get stationed somewhere else," he stated. "I can't live my life doing this hot and cold conversation with you, I can't be in the same office with you every day and nothing changes, when it's crystal clear to me that you feel the same way I do."

"Move out of Mt. Thomas?" she questioned, her eyes glancing quickly from the road to him, and back again. "You can't! Evan, this is stupid..."

"You're preaching to the choir. But it's not my choice here Tess, it's yours, you have the control in our relationship, you decide where it goes, you always did!"

He left it at that, and as they continued their daily routine of work, it wasn't mentioned again. They sorted out the domestic and headed back to the station, both silent, both lost in thought. Evan was thinking about her, and wondering what decision she was finally going to make. While Tess thought about the heartache Jack had caused her and wondered if it was worth going through it again, for Evan. Jack had once put it bluntly, she was a control freak, she couldn't let go, she couldn't do anything that wasn't professional. And she couldn't let a man take care of her, because she grew up with an absent mother and had to fend for herself the whole time and now to allow someone else to do that for her, was… impossible.

The following day it was as though nothing had happened, they were silent, nothing to say really, they went about in the station sitting at their desks doing their own work. It wasn't until the Boss demanded that they go check out an accident at the local pool that they had to be alone again.

In the car, neither one of them were open to start a conversation. Evan had had enough trying to persuade Tess to do anything about their relationship. Tess was too afraid to make a move because she wasn't sure how it would end up later, she had made the mistake the first time and she didn't plan on making the same one anytime soon.

As they walked into the pool area, ambulance officers and nurses, paramedics and a crowd full of curious people surrounded it. Tess rolled her eyes in annoyance.

"Move back, come on people we need some space here!" she ordered the group of strangers, eager to get a taste of a crime.

More? Yes… okay, hit that review button and I will deliver… hehehehe =)