This is bad. Anders has very few rules, but staying within a platonic relationship with his employees and clients is among them. Sure, he messed up once and it barely lasted a minute. And Dawn moved first. But he made it worse. He kissed her back.

His plan was to get her to forget about the entire incident and continue on as normal. Except within the first five minutes of the next morning she's had a complete turn around in headspace. She hasn't said or done anything outside of a professional relationship again, so he lets things be for now.

It doesn't last for long. It's not Dawn's fault. It's just that throughout the day, he starts noticing things about her. This evolves into thoughts that he should not be having. He has a rule that he will follow. He's fucked up enough things in his life, and he knows that if there is any kind of repeat of last night, Dawn's going to get shit on. He's not going to try to convince himself that he's a better person, because he hasn't changed enough. Not enough that he can have any sort of relationship. And if he could, he wouldn't try it out with Dawn first.

There's also the underlying guilt. Anders remembers all the work Ty has put into getting Dawn to acknowledge him, and barely gotten anything in return. Instead, he's alone in a car with her for five minutes and can pull her in to straddle his lap. He could The have just angled her back a bit and been able to push up against her.

That alone gets adrenaline going through his blood stream. He does what he can to stay focused on work and keep his body from reacting further. It's difficult when he's pretty sure the imprints from Dawn's fingertips are on the back of his head. A thumb right behind his ear and the wrist of the other hand sliding against his neck.

The strangest part, however, is that similar things happen during the most mundane actions. If he so much as makes eye contact, he's awake and alert.

It's annoying. This is not normal for Anders. He hasn't had an attraction to someone who wasn't interested in a long time. He can't even remember the last woman he had to chase. Not that he's chasing Dawn. So he shouldn't even be thinking about it. She's not interested in him and, he shouldn't be and isn't interested in her.

So it's all figured out. He'll stop being an idiot. And for now, he'll stop being Anders. Bragi is shuffling through the papers on his desk, so Anders just lets him take over.

The idea was that being pregnant and carrying around another body would destroy any lingering libido. But her body has proved her wrong. After the talk with Anders, her body has been ready to go. Repeatedly, because she talks to Anders and sees him when they switch papers and can smell the soap he uses.

It's a hassle she doesn't need. And she plans on staying celibate for the time being. God forbid she gets pregnant twice. It just gets worse at the end of the week. There's a part of her that wants to jump Anders immediately.

There's a confusing thing about it, though. She passes men on the sidewalk, in stores, out to get lunch. But she doesn't get the same reactions with anyone else. Even home, trying the fall asleep, she's more turned on. Her one night of good sleep was just one night. Now she spends an hour or two trying to get her mind to clear.

By Friday afternoon, she's made a decision. She'll spend some time with Anders and he'll be his usual self. Then she'll get over whatever this is. Cut it off before it gets out of hand.

When she levers herself up, she makes her way over to his desk and tries to get his attention. It takes a couple times of her say his name before he looks up, jumping when he notices her.

"You're eating lunch with me on Sunday. My house, because I'll never make it up your stairs." Finished, she waddles back around.

She's half sure that Anders just won't show up on Sunday. But she opens her door to find him shuffling his feet like a guilty child. He follows her to the table quietly, pushing in her chair when she sits down.

"So," he takes a sip of water, "I don't really know what I'm apologizing for, but I am sorry."

"I'm not angry at you."

"Oh." His entire demeanor brightens. "Then why insist I eat your salad?"

"It's a long story. I don't want to explain it right now." She toys with the edge of her dress. "Just eat lunch with me, and let me sort something out for myself."

It's a failure, in the end. The entire meal, she's trying to stay calm. Anders stays longer than she thought he would. She gets scared that if he doesn't leave, she'll mess up her life even more. And it doesn't help that he's nice to her. He clears the table and keeps his dirty jokes to himself. A couple times, it appears he has to refocus himself. It makes sense, considering the amount of people he would have a casual lunch with.

Her entire body is tense by the time she's alone. A hot shower helps a bit, but what she needs is to get everything out of her head. The best shot at that happening is having her head removed.

Whatever this is, it's going to ruin what she has left.

There's a week of Anders running around with his brothers. Their work ends up being a wild goose chase. He returns home to find that not much has changed. He's sure that Dawn has grown significantly since he last saw her, but he won't say anything. They've been strange around each other recently. He's trying to make sure everything remains strictly professional.

But it's a little hard when Dawn stares at him from her desk. She always looks like she's thinking about something, but he doesn't understand why she can't do it while staring at the wall or her thumbnail or anything not him. It's unnerving. She just won't stop. He tried staring back at her, but she didn't realize he was doing it.

Now he's stuck in a situation of trying to be in a normal human platonic relationship, but Dawn keeps creeping him out and he doesn't want to talk to her. Not quite what he would call fixing them.

It's also no help that she is adorable at this stage in her pregnancy. He though she'd be bordering on disgusting, having to carry a huge flesh-bag around. But she's actually kind of cute. She walks with one hand under her belly and has stopped wearing shoes.

"You're seven months, right?"

She snaps out of her stare and looks down. "Yeah. Almost done with this."

"Are you sleeping okay? Having weird problems that pregnant women get?"

"No." She pauses. "Just a little trouble sleeping, but it'll go away."

He doesn't know if he should bring it up. "Has Lance reappeared?"

Dawn clenches her jaw. She shakes her head and leans back into her chair. "It's better. A couple more months and he won't have any claim to it anyway."

He has nothing to say after that, but he wants to stay in this moment for a minute longer. So he just leans against the table and keeps watching her. Her gaze changes, and there's something in it he can't figure out. Most concerning, though, is how it makes him restless and charges the hairs on his arms with electricity.