Fred's hand still hovered to the side, where it'd frozen at the sight of so much exposed skin. He'd heard her coming down the aisle he'd been approaching, the one containing the locker he'd left his fatigues in, and he'd been prepared to steady her when it'd become evident she didn't know he was just around the corner - but he hadn't been expecting to be faced with her very revealing attire. His brain recovered quickly enough to determine she'd been swimming, hence the need for the mentioned towels, but it wasn't quick enough to prevent her from walking into him.

She gathered herself before he did, sounding exasperated. "Where did you come from?"

She was aware she was the one who was in the wrong place, she'd already acknowledged this or he might have pointed it out. "The weight room," he answered instead, finding it difficult not to follow the meandering descent of every rivulet of water which was dripping from her wet hair and running down her equally wet body.

"Were you alone?" Her palms were still flattened against his chest where they'd landed when she'd had the sense to react to the pending collision and he had not.

"Yes."

This seemed to relieve her somewhat. "Sorry.." Her hands fell away and she backed a few steps. "I'll get out of here."

"Wait - you said you need towels?" That was an issue he could assist with. There were plenty in the cubby in the adjoining gymnasium where he'd been strength training. When she nodded he went back to fetch some, grateful for the distraction, refusing to examine his reaction - running across half-naked women in the change room had not been a component of ambush drills. The armful he grabbed was probably overkill.

She was standing precisely where he'd left her when he returned. The raised fine hairs on her folded arms and accompanying gooseflesh indicated she was getting cold despite the fact the ambient temperature, by his estimation, was normal. She drew her lower lip between her teeth as the corners of her mouth tugged upwards. "Generous of you, but I only needed a couple."

He lifted his shoulders - the extras could just be left for the next person - but this explanation took a wrong turn somewhere between his frontal lobe and tongue. She'd plucked one of the towels from the pile he held and begun using it to soak moisture from the ends of her hair, and in so doing his eye had been drawn to her chest, where the stretchy navy fabric of her swimwear did nothing to conceal further evidence of her chilled condition. It was part of the body's natural response to a drop in temperature, no different than shivering, and not something he should be paying attention to - he cleared his throat and averted his focus rapidly. The fluffy white towels seemed the safest objects on which to secure it while she completed her ministrations and wrapped the towel around herself, tucking in the edge.

"I'll just… take these, then."

Fred extended the load and waited with mounting awareness as she attempted several arm positionings to carry them all which resulted in their forearms brushing together. A lot. "Why don't I bring them?" he blurted when his knuckles grazed her towel-enfolded breast for the second time.

"Yes!" She disentangled herself. "I think you'll need to." Patted his bicep and fled.

Exhaling in a controlled manner first, he followed. All he had to do was set the towels on the first available flat surface. His gaze lingered dubitably on the plaque outside proclaiming it the women's change room just the same.

"All clear," her reassurance drifted out.

The layout was identical to the men's and he stepped around the first row of lockers, stooping towards the bench to divest himself of his burden.

She'd take up a position further along the bench where a locker door stood open - presumably the one her clothes were stowed in. "Thanks."

"Anytime." He retreated back the way he'd come with her right behind.

"Do you swim?"

"I can swim. It's not often operationally required." He paused in the doorway leading out when he noted she intended to say more.

"I guess it's probably not advisable when wearing a literal tonne of titanium." Was she stalling?

"It poses some difficulty with buoyancy." Was he? Yes - yes, there was no question of that.

"That sounds like the technical way of admitting you'd sink like a brick." Her eyes were gleaming with mirth.

"I've never tried it," he confessed. "But I imagine it'd go something like that, yeah."

"No issues with buoyancy without the armor?"

The physics of muscle density, mass, water displacement, and gravity percolated through his mind briefly - until he realized she was taking slow, measured steps backwards towards the pool. Something about the gradual sway of her hips as she did so made breathing - nevermind physics - seem an intricate ordeal he was having trouble with. Her hands drifted up to the secured edge of the towel and she raised her brows in question.

What question? Was she suggesting he swim now? With her - alone?

He swallowed. Hard. He wasn't dressed appropriately. "None that I'm aware of." Not that that made a difference, because he wasn't dressed appropriately. Which she could clearly see.

The towel fell open. She lowered it from around herself. "Maybe you should show me, I'm not sure I'm convinced."

Fred wasn't ignorant of the concept of physical attraction. Nor was this his first experience of that nature. There'd been people - females - over the years whose physical attributes he'd found pleasing to the eye. Some had stirred more interest than others, some it'd just been a passing acknowledgement that yes - those eyes or that colour hair were nice. Preferable, even. But nothing like this. "I didn't come prepared to swim," he heard himself supply. Some part of his brain was still functioning as it should, at least.

"There's no one here but us," she pointed out, as though that precluded the need for swimwear somehow. "Besides, that sounds like an excuse to me. Are you telling me you wouldn't jump in if I fell in and was drowning?"

"Those would be extenuating circumstances."

"Pretend the circumstances are extenuating then, Lieutenant." There was something very improper about the address, something intimate despite the two metres separating them - she'd used his rank, but it felt no less familiar than his name. "I'm not going to tell anyone." Her tone remained playful and casual and conflict welled inside him.

He wasn't considering this. He wasn't.

The pool was utilized for crash prep training, the hydraulically operated D-79TC skeleton resting opposite them was evidence of this. In that scenario, entering the water clothed - outfitted in full tactical gear, in fact - was acceptable.

This was not that. The two could not be at more opposite ends of the spectrum of appropriate practices in which to engage in fully-attired swimming.

Apparently she'd presented him with somewhat of a moral quandary.

Lyra wasn't certain whether it was a military career's worth of strict adherence to accepted standards - maybe the prospect of swimming in something other than swimwear was too rebellious? - or if he was just modest - it hadn't seemed to be the case when he'd stripped down to don his MJOLNIR - but obviously he wasn't comfortable with the spontaneous overture.

It'd been impulsive of her anyway. She'd just thought - it'd seemed there was something - between them. More than acquaintanceship. Momentarily.

Suddenly, she needed that towel to be bigger, much bigger - security blanket big. She drew it back around herself, feeling like the worst kind of fool. "You know what - don't worry about it, I shouldn't put you on the spot," she amended. None of the media postings ever mentioned personal details about Blue Team, naturally, but that didn't mean he wasn't involved with someone. She had no idea how old he was - again, this information wasn't publicly available - but it wasn't overly young. There was every possibility he was in a relationship - and also every possibility he wasn't and wasn't looking to be, wasn't looking for anything. Maybe he wasn't in turmoil over breaking perceived rules or body conscious, maybe he was trying to come up with a polite way to tell her he wasn't interested? None of their previous interactions had suggested otherwise. He was respectful and courteous. Candid. She wasn't actually so vain that one glance at her rack convinced her she was irresistible, was she? "Thanks again for the towels. I'll just have to take your word about floating."

He did manage a nod of acknowledgement as she passed by and escaped into the locker room.

There were only a million good reasons not to tangle herself up with him.

Swinton had been right about things needing to be gotten out of systems - clearly it'd been too long since her system had been purged and now she was becoming irrational. Not even 'a fling with a superior officer' irrational, but 'seducing the guy who'd unknowingly knocked her up that one time - an event with extremely complex feelings surrounding it, the discovery of which could result in the immediate and complete implosion of the rest of her life' irrational.

She dried off, dressed, and got the hell out of there. Unfortunately, the walk to the hotel provided her with almost twenty uninterrupted minutes in which to self-loath.

God, she'd been fucking this up from the very start. She shouldn't have behaved like a simpleton the first time she'd laid eyes on the Spartans, shouldn't have gone on to so blatantly avoid them, and shouldn't have interacted with them in any manner except with extreme professionalism. Fred was to her continued liberty as the pin was to a frag grenade. As long as she steered clear of him and handled any situations in which they had to collaborate with care and caution, everything would be fine. Otherwise, risk having it all blow up in her face.

Good thing she wouldn't be needed on site much longer.