Apollo had been looking at her for the last ten minutes as she went over her pre-flight checklist.

She had been looking at him too, but she had been doing it out of the corner of her eye, so it was a little less noticeable.

As much as she enjoyed the attention, she finally decided that it had to end. "What?" She said, finally looking at him directly.

He blinked and shook his head as if to shake away his trance. "I didn't say anything." He answered casually.

"And I didn't say that you did." She replied exasperated. "But you've been staring at me since I got here. You wanna tell me why? What, are my lips still blue?"

"Well." He said, looking her face over. "They do still have a sort of purple tinge to 'em. But that's only slightly darker than normal."

She could have let his slip go, but she felt like having fun with him. "Look at my lips often, do ya?" She teased.

"Well, with a mouth that big they're kinda hard to miss." He smirked.

"Cute."

"Thanks. I thought so." He grabbed the clipboard out of her hands and looked it over. "Close call today, wasn't it?"

"We've been through worse." She shrugged. "Though I should have known that someday you'd suck all the air out of the room."

"Cute."

"Thanks. I thought so." She grinned widely.

A moment passed and she thought their conversation was over, but she was brought back to it when he spoke again.

"You were acting goofy." He stated matter-of-factly as he continued to look over her chipboard. He looked back up as she started to giggle. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing. It's just a lot of people have called me a lot of things, but 'goofy' was never one of them." She laughed. "I'm sure they thought it, but they've never actually said it."

"They were too afraid of your right cross." He countered.

She grinned. "Seriously, though. Of course I was goofy. The oxygen was cut off from my brain."

"I know. I know. It's just…..you got real close to me. You were inches away from my face, almost like you wanted to, ya know, do something to me." He waggled his eyes.

She narrowed her eyes. "Well, like you said, I was acting goofy." She started to whisper. "Besides. I didn't see you backing away."

He decided not to get into that with her. "The only reason I mention it is because, sometimes, when people get that goofy they also get…..uninhibited."

Her eyes got wide. "What the hell does that mean?"

"Uninhibited: it's when someone gets into a state where they do things that they wouldn't normally do."

She rolled her eyes. "Yes. Thank you for the definition of the word, professor. What I meant was: What did you mean by saying it?"

"Nothing." He said getting defensive, but also wanting to tease her. "It's just that….when people get uninhibited they do things that they wouldn't normally do….but that they've always wanted to do."

"Uh-huh. I see." She said clicking her tongue and narrowing her eyes at him. "So Apollo, think you've got me analyzed, don't ya?"

"Just call 'em as I see 'em. It's textbook." He grinned at her.

"Yeah, well, I've never been 'textbook' anything." She paused, looking him up and down. "But you're right. People do things that they normally wouldn't when they're uninhibited, things that they've always wanted to do."

His jaw dropped in disbelief. "So you're conceding my point?"

"Sure. I mean, we give ourselves away, let stuff leak through that we wouldn't under normal circumstances." She said, tracing a finger over the wing of her plane.

"That was all that I was saying." He said as he began to walk away.

"Uh-huh. Hey, CAG?" She said as he turned back to her. "You know when else we get uninhibited?"

"When?" He asked apprehensively, slowly walking back to her.

"When we're relieved." She smiled slyly. "Ya know, when something happens that we've been waiting for. When someone comes back that we've been worried about. Like when that person steps out of an airlock and onto a prison ship that's orbiting a planet. When you see that person walking towards you and you're so happy see them, cause you've been so worried that they were dead, and so terrified because you realized that you couldn't live without them. That might cause a person to be uninhibited……to do something that they normally wouldn't……but always wanted to." A smile spread all the way up to her eyes and she winked. "That sort of thing."

"Ummmm."

"Huh? What was that? I didn't quite hear you." She giggled at his befuddlement.

He knew he'd been called out, defeated. "I thought we had an unspoken agreement that we'd never bring that up?" He said looking around and scratching the bridge of his nose.

She shrugged. "You crossed the line first, Captain."

They stood grinning at each other for a few seconds.

"Call it even?" He asked.

"Sure."

-finis