"What is it?" Sam wanted to know, before he had even taken her coat that evening.

Because, dear God, something was up. It was easy for Sam to tell – not that just anybody would have noticed the awkward hold some issue had on poor Foyle.

He actually winced before he began. "My brother-in-law rang today. Because there is a job that really should have gone to someone else. I've been putting things off. And..." he faded off.

"And?" She had jumped in before realizing his face was finishing his statement for him. "No. I see." She put some distance between them reflexively. "Sorry. I hadn't let myself think this all through – even though you'd mentioned it before. That the job you looked for wouldn't be here. He rang about a job in London."

That's why you look so guilty, she concluded to herself.

"I'm not trying to get away from you."

"But you are, nonetheless," she pointed out with a make-the-most-of-it sense of humor and a raise of her eyebrows.

"I feel badly about this. Don't make it worse, Sam," he pleaded miserably.

"So?" she asked, knowing there was more.

"So... I leave tomorrow for a few days. And that's made me realize... well, I know I haven't been that… well-behaved," he tried to explain as he backed away slightly.

More of why you feel guilty, she surmised.

She almost laughed, but it all felt too dismal. "I was wondering when this would happen."

"What?"

"I've been wondering just when you would feel compelled to spoil things by consulting your punishing sense of what things should be like." She leaned against the wall. Not in sadness – just with a sort of fatigue.

"Because the way we've been since you came home has been fine by me," she continued after a deep breath. "Do you feel badly because you've kissed me the way you've wanted to instead of the way you thought you should? Or you're worried you've been all-too-forward, given that we don't know how this will end?" She paused, prepared to size him up, to read the answers in his face.

She sighed.

He nodded.

There was little to deny in what she'd said, he thought. She had it exactly. He had let himself be swept up. Before, when he had dwelled only on her last visit or her next, he had almost let himself forget that finding a job was rather more than just a distant idea.

But the spell of the past week was broken now. There was a certain reality to face.

He had behaved in a way he never would have got away with, had her parents lived in town. And he'd felt foolish and rather guilty about all of it ever since his conversation with Commander Howard. Because, as Sam would put it, that little talk had imposed upon his happy fantasy a punishing sense of what things more properly should be like.

But then, Foyle was good at guilt. Guilt was a skill long-honed as a sole parent.

He looked at his shoes.

"You can't think I would be happier about you leaving if you hadn't... well, been so wonderfully forward," she told him.

"You're better at all this than I am, Sam."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

God, he really was a hack at this. He rubbed at his temple and managed to look contrite without even trying. "You're better at knowing... what's right. What to say. I've been alone a long time. Not that I've ever been..."

She cut him off. "It's all right, Christopher." What she had wanted to tell him was that she needed to hear about the future. Not the past. But she could see from the look of him that there would be no resolving that tonight.

He was still trying to find his feet when it came to his heart, Sam thought.

"Let me take you out," he offered.

"Let's stay in," Sam countered gently. She smiled. Touched his sleeve. "I don't want you trying to act differently about things. And you won't let me kiss you the way I want to if we are out." She moved closer to him. Whispered, sounding far too unsure. "Kiss me now, Christopher."

And he did. But her stomach tightened over how sad and tentative his kisses seemed.

Knowing he was leaving the next morning, it took all of her will power not to cling or push at him for declarations that evening. All she could think about was how many times a month they might possibly see each other once he was in London. Was there someone she might stay with there? How often would he consent to come back to Hastings? Would he even want her showing up in London and demanding all his free time on a weekend?

Not bringing up these worries was the most strenuous act of patience Samantha Stewart ever remembered. There was a certain relief in having the night over.

Foyle walked her home to the quiet little street where she lived. And pulled her closer as they stood at the hidden entrance around the corner of the converted house. He had suggested that she not see him off at the station the next morning. So, this was their goodbye.

Regrets worked at him. Worry worked at her.

"I'm not very good at all this. I don't know at all the right thing to say," he stumbled.

He bit his lip, lost. He could read Keats or Byron. But he had no chance of ever sounding like them.

"Really, Christopher? Don't you know all you need to say?"

He pulled her in, hugged her to his chest. And registered how much he needed that... and her. "I love you," he whispered finally, with a certain simple realization.

She laughed. Petted at his face. "You're perfect at this."

Sam told him that she loved him and kissed him sweetly, deeply. She surprised him then, by telling him that he should go. "I'll say the wrong thing," she murmured, "if we stand here any longer." Because she wanted to let him know that she had loved him for so long now, and that she would simply always love him.

Given too much more of this goodbye, she would beg him to spend the night with his arms around her. Beg him to not say this goodbye at all.

/ / /