Sources: Tales of Ise, trans. Helen Craig McCullough; One Hundred Poems from the Japanese, trans. Kenneth Rexroth; The Languages of the World, Kenneth Katzner.

Author's note: Let me explain the poem I chose for this episode a little, because I think it expresses their situation perfectly, but you need some background to understand it. The Tales of Ise was written in Japan more than a thousand years ago. Many of the poems in it were attributed to Ariwara no Narihira, who, (probably over-exaggerated) legend had it, was a bit of a womanizer. These two poems refer to the nusa, sacred branches used in a Shinto purification ceremony. After being handled by many people, the nusa were thrown into a river to float away. I hope that explains the metaphor enough. If not, just ask and I'll expound on it further. That goes for any of the poems in the story, by the way.

Chronology: "Head Case"

Tales of Ise 47:

Her:

Many as the hands
pulling at sacred wands
are those that tug at you.
I find you most attractive,
but you are not to be trusted.

Him:

I am indeed reputed
to resemble a sacred wand-
yet when its drifting is done
is there not a shoal
where the wand comes to rest?

Eric found Calleigh waiting at the intersection where she'd told him to meet her. He sat down next to her. "We waiting on Tripp?"

"We are," she replied cheerily. She glanced at him. This case was hard on him, and she understood why. "You doing okay?"

He looked at her for a moment. "No, not really," he admitted. "I just found out that Doug's all alone. Doesn't have a wife, family."

"You know you're not Doug, right?" She wanted to assure him that if anything like that happened to him, he would have his family, Horatio, and her at his side, no matter what.

"Yeah, I know."

"Okay." She looked back at the street.

Eric watched her push back her golden hair, giving him a better view of her beautiful profile. It seemed to be an opportune moment to bring up his feelings for her. Ever since Dr. Marsh's murder, he'd suspected she not only read his file, but had come across something in it that indicated he was in love with her. He'd been hoping she would bring it up, but she hadn't.

"Your friendship means a lot to me, Calleigh." He'd decided on those words and rehearsed them in his head over the past weeks. They were calculated to let her know he cared for her while at the same time assuring her she could reject him without harming their friendship or working relationship, and providing her a platform to either let him down easy or say something to give him encouragement. He'd imagined a hundred different replies she might give for both scenarios.

"I didn't know you felt that way."

That had not been one of them.

"How could you not know that?" he asked. "You read my file."

She knew he was trying to find out how she felt about him, but the truth was that she was still trying to figure that out herself. She had been ever since she read his file. Actually, it started long before that, in his words to her after she was kidnapped, and the look on his face after he saw Jake kiss her. She still didn't know, and wasn't ready to talk about it, because unless she was sure about both her own feelings and his there was too great a risk that one of them would end up hurt. "That was an unrelated case," she evaded. "It's important to me to respect your privacy.' she smiled like she imagined she would if she really hadn't read his file and had no idea what he was talking about. But then she kept smiling at him. This amazing, smart, funny, gorgeous man was trying to tell her he wanted more than friendship with her. Was she a fool to not jump at the chance?

Her answer hadn't been an encouragement, but it hadn't been a rejection either. And now she was looking at him almost dreamily. If she really hadn't read his file, she would have asked what he said about her in it. He bit his lip and looked at her thoughtfully, trying to formulate a joke to the effect that she could stop respecting his privacy any time she felt like it, but that wouldn't sound too much like a double entendre.

The moment was broken by Tripp's unnoticed arrival. "Well who's organizing this picnic?"

Taira no Kanemori, Hyakunin Isshu 40:

Although I hide it
My love shows in my face
So plainly that he asks me
"Are you thinking of something?"

Their brief exchange played over and over in Calleigh's mind. Eric was unbelievably attractive, and sweet, and and charming...and he knew it and had used those charms on a hundred other women. If she got involved with him, she would fall in love-she wouldn't be able to help herself. And if his infatuation was sated by the conquest...she knew he'd never hurt her knowingly, but he did not have a good track record of constancy to the women he dated.

Over the past years, Calleigh had a string of terrible luck with lovers. John Hagen had become obsessive and possessive, finally killing himself in front of her. Peter Elliott got engaged to another woman without telling her. And Jake had disappeared from her life without even a goodbye...again. She cared for Eric so much that she was especially terrified of losing him like she lost them. His words to Dr. Marsh-that after getting shot he'd been thinking about settling down, and it would be 'nice' if it were her-did he really love her, or was he just looking for someone and she had been there for him? Maybe he thought he'd changed, but maybe it was just a phase following his brush with death, and he would go back to the playboy he'd always been, and she'd be just another fling. Could she work with him if that happened? She wasn't sure she wanted to take that risk.

"Calleigh, are you still there?" Horatio's voice asked over the phone.

"Yeah, sorry. I was just...thinking. So the file on the hat, how soon do you need it?"

"As soon as possible, please."

"Well, I'm heading out to follow up with a possible witness in a few, but I'll hand it off to Delko to get to you."

"Thank you ma'am. I'll let Eric know to look for you."

She finished typing the notes, then went to wait by the elevator for Eric's arrival. Her heart skipped a beat when the doors opened to reveal him.

"Hey. I was waiting for you. Uh, this is the file Horatio wanted."

"Thanks." He took it and started to walk away, but then turned back. He hadn't been able to get their conversation at the corner out of his head. He was becoming more and more desperate to know what she thought of what he said. "About what happened earlier: I didn't mean to put you on the spot."

She smiled and shrugged. "Forget it."

"What if I don't want to?" He looked at her plaintively.

Her beautiful smile dissolved instantly away, revealing itself to have been artificial. "Eric, I am so confused. What do you want?"

Stung, Eric looked down, unable to answer.

"You are going to have to tell me, because until I actually hear you say the words, I don't even know if you believe it yourself."

He couldn't think of words to counter her implied accusation.

"Do you know what I'm saying?" she prompted, hoping-longing-to hear his voice confirm what she'd read in his file, to hear him deny her charges. If he would just tell her that it was different with her, then she would believe him. But he remained silent. Calleigh rolled her eyes and walked away.

"Yeah, I do," he whispered. She was saying that she doubted he really meant the things he'd said to his therapist in confidence. She thought he was still the unapologetic womanizer he used to be. She'd said she trusted him with her life, but apparently she didn't trust him to know his own mind and heart enough not to risk their friendship for a superficial attraction. She didn't trust him with her feelings.

The pained look on Eric's face still haunted Calleigh minutes later. His question had echoed one John Hagen asked long ago, in a much more sinister context, and the memory made her more hostile than she'd meant to be. Maybe she'd been too hard on him. Maybe his silence hadn't meant he wasn't completely sure about his feelings for her. Maybe he was just too stunned to respond. While it's not true that you always hurt the ones you love, she resolutely believed, what is true is that you're ideally positioned to hurt the ones who love you.

But how was she supposed to know for sure? She needed him to talk to her. A love note. Flowers. Something. Was that so much to ask?

Umashankar Joshi, "The human heart":

How little it takes to break the human heart!
A word half spoken;
A word unspoken;
How little it takes to bleed the heart!

The lightning flash of a teeny smile:
How little it takes to please that heart!
And how little it takes to break it!

How little it takes to please the human heart!
And how little it takes to break it!