Mark took a quick shower, shaved, and gave himself a serious talking to. If he'd been at the hotel he would have done this out loud but he decided on the silent-abuse-type for Susan's bathroom mirror. And when he came out in clean clothes, carrying a ball of not-so-clean ones, he'd almost convinced himself that he'd never even look at her like that again. The dreams would end. She was James' mother. She would be a friend. And after all that they'd been through that was no small achievement. So that was all. And no little thing. He'd convinced himself he could ignore the 'but...' that wanted to slip in after every resolution when he stepped into the kitchen.

Susan was holding a butter knife, loaded with dripping honey, over bare toast. She had the phone pinned between her ear and her shoulder as she spread the honey. "Yeah." She sighed and rolled her eyes at Mark. "Chloe." The person on the other end of the phone clearly was not listening to her. "I have to go. I'll see you soon." She hung up. "That was pleasant."

"Everything okay?"

Susan nodded. "Toast?"

"I can do it."

She stepped aside, taking her toast from the bread board and leaning against the bench so Mark had room to make his breakfast. "We're babysitting again."

"Oh." He didn't mind at all.

"Yeah. I hope you didn't hope to see the sights."

He grinned, turning to her. "No, I actually came without a thought for the sights of Phoenix."

She smiled. There was nothing remarkable about their breakfast conversation, other than a remarkable avoidance of how they'd woken up only an hour ago, but she so enjoyed every moment. She simply enjoyed him. Somehow she was totally at ease.

Mark insisted on tidying up the breakfast things so she went and got James up and changed, his room tidied, curtains open, blankets smoothed... bouncing him on her hip she returned to the living room and found Mark flipping through the TV guide.

"Hey stranger." She spoke to Mark but looked at James.

Mark stood, dropping the TV guide onto the coffee table, a displaceable smile on his lips as he watched his son wriggle weakly in her arms. "Hi."

She grinned, "He's pretty active in the morning. You want to?"

He nodded and she put the child in his arms.

He couldn't help but laugh. The whole scene was incredible to him.

Susan stepped back and took a deep breath. "That suits you."

"Why thank you." He sat back on the sofa, which he'd recently just turned back into a sofa, leaving his bedding inside the fold out bed.

Susan laughed, relaxed and happier than she'd been in a while.

"You know what?" he looked up from James. "I'm really glad that... I know it wasn't planned but..." he smiled, knowing there was probably no correct way to dig himself out of this one, "what I mean is..."

"It's okay." She put her hand on his arm, pulling it away after only a moment. "I know what you mean. There's no way I could regret him." She toyed with her baby's hand then looked back at the father. "Or you."

He was gob smacked for a second, then pulled his eyes away from hers.

She couldn't help but be a disappointed – he clearly regretted her even if he couldn't regret James. Maybe she'd been reading everything wrong. In a dream and other unguarded moments he'd been quite clear but most of the time his guard was up and he wasn't making the same mistake twice. Only she didn't see it as a mistake. She didn't even want to. She wanted to see it as the difficult beginnings of the two greatest things in her life: her son and his father. Before Mark had showed up she'd got comfortable with having her son and ignoring as best she could every whisper of hope toward the father. But he was making it harder and harder to let go of that tiny whisper of hope. And maybe he was doing so because he didn't want her to let go of that dream they'd once shared.