She comes home from Liara's one afternoon and he can smell something else on her skin, in her hair, as she passes by his desk. A dark and complex scent, something he didn't recognize.
"That's a new perfume," he remarks, and her eyes dart to his, connecting for an electric instant until John's eyes jump away.
"It's Liara's," she smiles past him. "I forgot my toiletry kit."
"I noticed."
"Yeah, and you know, I think she liked it," she said. "Once she got over my forgetfulness." She punctuates the last word with a fluid, affected wave of her hand. "I was thinking, John," she says, and she motions towards her bedroom and she doesn't stop, so he follows her to the threshold of her room. "I was thinking about plans for Christmas."
She's unzipping her backpack and it gets stuck. He watches her yank at it without taking it off.
"And I was wondering what you wanted. It's still a ways off, but give it some thought, okay?" She says.
She struggles with the zip, pulling it back and forth, and finally she steps back and says irritably, "Will you help me with this already?"
He comes forward immediately and she spins almost pressing her back into his hands. He slowly works the fabric out of the teeth of the zipper. It takes him a while and she watches him over her shoulder, while he resolutely keeps his eyes on the zipper.
He hesitates. "You can choose. Whatever you want to do, that's what we'll do."
She's pulling away then and his body follows her for the briefest moment as if clinging by magnetic force. And she sits down on the edge of the bed, heavily so it bounces a bit.
"That's the thing. What if I choose to spend it with Liara?...as a couple?" she asks, staring up at him.
Something in the careful blankness of her stare tells him she's feeling defensive, even a bit hostile, and he just does the one thing that comes to mind, sinks down to his knees in front of her and looks at her folded hands.
"If you want to go to Liara's, then that's what you'll do, I absolutely understand why you'd want your privacy." he tells her.
"You'll be alone."
He smiles. "I'm practiced at being alone."
Her hands unfold and reach out. He forces himself to stay still.
"You make it sound like a skill," she says, and her hands are cradling his head, and his eyelids are fluttering shut.
"It's, uh."
"But if you prefer being alone, I can understand that."
Her hands loosen their hold and his breath hitches and he says all in a rush, "Oh it's not that I like it, it's…."
"Are you sure?" The defensiveness has faded. Her voice is all concern. "I feel like you could use some space. I'm around all the time, you know, getting in your hair. I…I don't want you to see me as your jailer. It might be good if I left for a week. Or two. So you can have the apartment to yourself… maybe bring someone over?"
There's a hurt edge to her voice she tries to suppress. His heart is racing. He doesn't know what to do.
Her fingers are combing through his hair and he's hunching into it a bit, hoping she doesn't notice.
"I've been kind of uh…cruel to you," she admits to him, tugging her hands through his much too-long hair. "I knew I was gonna be messed up after… after everything."
"You haven't been cruel. If you hadn't offered me this home I – I don't know where I'd have gone. Almost certainly would still be in a cell somewhere"
She doesn't answer, and he resists the urge to keen against her arm as she thumbs his earlobe gently.
"I guess I'm just trying to say I know how much you sacrificed for me to come stay with you," he says. "I know it isn't easy to have me here."
"John…"
She starts to trail down, stroking his neck. Then her hands start to ever so gently pull his face towards hers.
This is wrong
He's suddenly breaking away, getting up on his feet, hoping he's not visibly shaken. He doesn't dare to look upon her face.
All his instincts are screaming at him the same thing. RUN.
And then he's fleeing, locking himself in the bathroom and sitting on the edge of the jacuzzi to think, the whir of the fan filling his ears, the golden pressure of her fingers imprinted on his skin.