Before he could think twice about what he was doing, Sam pushed open the door to the ladies' room and stepped inside, stopping a few steps in, the door swinging closed behind him. Diane was facing the sink, her back turned to him, seemingly preoccupied with something on her face. She didn't seem to notice him yet, and Sam used those few seconds to try and come up with good enough reason for being in there, one that was neither perverted nor too revealing. Keep your cool, Sam, he told himself.

Before he could speak, he was startled by something hitting his back. A customer came in, and Sam had apparently stayed too close to the door because it got him right on the side of his thigh.

"Oh, 'scuse me". He said, stepping to the left and allowing the not bad looking woman to go through and into a cubicle. An audience, he wasn't expecting that.

"Sam?" His eyes had wandered after the woman - as they did - and he had momentarily forgotten why he'd stepped in there. Her voice brought him back though, and staring straight at him now was Diane, holding what seemed to be items of make-up in each hand. She had a confused look on her face, which, considering he had followed her into the ladies' room, wasn't surprising.

"Yeah?" Sam retorted. He saw her brow furrow further, as his interjection suggested she was the one that had come to him with a question.

"I mean.. yeah! What are you doing, Diane? The room is packed, there are customers out there and you're in here all - what, powdering your nose?" His arms flailed around aimlessly in apparent mockery of what she was doing, as he tried to employ his most indignant tone while talking out of his ass. He knew she'd have him for dinner the minute it'd be her turn to speak and he wasn't about to allow that just yet.

"What, what is it? An old flame comes in and suddenly you feel the need to show him you have… " He looked her up and down for something he could point out. "...cheekbones?!" Even he cringed at that one.

"I... " Diane's arms had fallen to her side in apparent annoyance, and Sam braced himself for the smarts she'd whip him with. The sound of the toilet flushing interrupted her though, and the apparently very uncomfortable customer that had entered the cubicle earlier had now left it and joined the party.

"You said I could have the night off, remember? To go flying in Jack's plane?" Diane spoke through locked teeth, keeping her tone as low as possible, as the woman used the sink next to her.

"Ah yes. So that's what you need cheekbones for? To fly around in Jack's plane? There's nothing about cheekbones in a flight's safety measures. I've read the inflight booklet." Sam bounced on his heels, his nose in the air, feigned self-righteousness all over his face. The words coming out of his mouth were so ridiculous, Sam noticed even the woman, who had been privy to their conversation this far, give him an "okay, then" look as she walked past him, and quickly step out like she couldn't get out of there fast enough. They were alone again.

"Cheekb… Sam, what are you talking about? I asked you to please get me out of this flight… promenade… and you encouraged me to go. In fact you refused to help. You said the place was quiet and that I should go. What are you doing in here now?" Diane looked thoroughly baffled and he was starting to feel like a mad man. And look like one too, no doubt.

"Don't change the subject!" He waved his finger at her.

"That would be quite the achievement as I don't know what the subject is!"

This was not going well. As it seldom did when Sam tried to wing it with her. Several debacles in their past proved it. That time she'd ask him to think about their relationship and he'd come up with nothing but "ditto". That other time she outsmarted him on his ski trip to Vermont and he ended up confessing without ever having gotten a straight accusation from her. When she'd fooled him into admitting he'd taken no woman to the Pequod after Diane, by saying she'd sent him a fruit basket that never existed and having him fall for it.

"The subject is!" Sam's mouth hung open for a moment as his mind struggled to come up with something that was as far from the actual subject in his mind as could be. "You're trying to skip work again and Carla's going to have to take your customers and I'll never hear the end of it!"

"What do you mean, again?" her eyes had turned to slits, and Sam watched her carefully as she turned around to put her make-up back in her make-up purse… thing, sensing the tension build. Sam had expected her to look angry and yell at him, but instead Diane looked defeated as she turned around and started making her way towards him and to the door.

"I don't have time for this, Jack's waiting." the look on Diane's face, coupled with how exasperated her tone rang in his ears, told him he couldn't keep this up much longer.

"No hey, listen." he stepped backwards and put himself between Diane and the bathroom door as she reached for the handle. "I'm just worried, alright?"

Diane looked up at him inquisitively, but remained silent. Sam couldn't tell what he saw in her eyes then, but the fact that she wasn't immediately talking back troubled him. "About the plane, I mean." Dodge that, don't dodge that. Dodge that. His mind was frantically fighting against the deafening sound of his own heartbeat, which had, unbeknownst to him, started going at a more rapid rate at her proximity.

"I'm sure Jack's plane is perfectly safe. He did fly all the way out here, didn't he? He seems to be in one piece to me." Diane tried to push the door open again but Sam leaned harder against it.

"Yeah that um, that's true. But you never know with those winged things." he tried to sound as nonchalant as he could. "They can fail without warning, fall out of the sky and smash onto the ground. And I'll suddenly be short a waitress…"

Diane interrupted him.

"Well if that's what's troubling you, your brain can step out of the undoubtedly gruesome storm it's been caught in, and go back to its customary activity of running through sunnier, empty fields. I'll write down some names and phone numbers on a post-it, of people I think would be a perfect replacement, and glue it inside your little black book. Under D for Diane's Inheritance." The sarcasm was cutting. "Or I can glue it to your forehead if you'd like. It's a really straight slope though, so you might want to add some duct tape on the bottom."

Sam rubbed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger and shut his eyes as she spoke. He had that coming. He'd done nothing but push her buttons since he'd stepped inside that room and although her voice remained calm, it was only natural Diane was beginning to snap. In a way, that comforted him. He liked it better when she was the Diane he knew instead of a silent Diane he couldn't read.

And he'd tried so hard to, so often before. Her silence had always been his demise. He could never tell what was going through her mind when she'd look at him after a fight, or after he'd said something that had really nailed her for one reason or another. Her eyes would glaze over him, steely blue, and he would try to think of a way to get her going again. A way to have her call him stupid again. It was a world he knew how to navigate. One where she berated him and spent time on actually coming up with ways to win an argument. It told him, again and again, that she cared.

Her silence would inevitably remind him of their break up. How she'd looked defeated then, too. How she had struggled to talk back, or had simply refused to. He had gone too far then, and by the time he'd made a joke about a reindeer, he had lost her without really knowing how. It was the first time he'd seen the fight go out of her, and the thought that she could have stopped loving him then had scared him so much he had let her go before she could let him go.

Except he hadn't really let her go, and countless moments in the past year had proven that to him, stubborn as he had been not to admit it to himself. The moment they were having now was just the latest round. He had never stopped trying to get them back in the ring.

His thoughts were interrupted by the feeling of the door bumping against his arm. She was trying to open it again.

"Sam!" she called out, trying to get him out of the way, with one hand pushing his shoulder in a shoving motion. He looked straight at her and exhaled, refusing to budge.

"What do you want?!" Diane's hands went to her waist, her eyes locked on his, an exasperated look on her face. God, she was beautiful. Did she know that? Had he ever told her that? Probably not. Most likely not. Definitely not. Sam had talked at her a lot since they'd first met, but he had somehow always failed to say what she wanted to hear. What she needed to hear. And, consequently, what he needed to say to her.

She had unknowingly shot a loaded question in his direction just then, though, and maybe that was his cue. Maybe that would be the last time he'd have the chance to say it, too.

Sam's eyes softened and he straightened up, his gaze still locked on hers. Something had shifted in him at her question and for once, maybe for the first time, he realized that if he did not have the courage to answer her question truthfully now, he might regret it. Probably forever.

"I want…" he moved in closer, beginning to hover over her, their height difference becoming more pronounced. He watched her expression change, first into startle, then into - was it hope? Did she hope he'd say what he was about to say? Would she admit to her own feelings if he did to his own? Was that what they were both waiting on, a move from him?

His heart was going a mile a second now and he silently prayed he could utter the right words this time. That he wouldn't suddenly see her flying out the door in a rage because he had managed to mess it all up again before being able to stop himself.

The smell of her blond hair was intoxicating. She was so close now.

"I want…" he repeated before the door flew open again, and he was pushed backwards and further into the room only to find Carla standing in the doorway, looking at them. Hands on her hips, her eyes darted back and forth between the two, a slight hint of suspicion in her tone.

"Sammy what the hell is going on? What are you two doing in here?"

When neither Sam nor Diane offered an explanation, Carla sighed impatiently. "Look, unless you tell me a pipe blew up and you're using the stick's hair as a mop, you better come back to the bar. Woody's Old Fashioned tastes like someone threw up in it and the customer who ordered it looks right about to."