Sam trailed after Diane and back into the bar's main area about five minutes -per his count- after she'd left the ladies' room. Five minutes that had felt like five hours, as he'd waited for his brain to regain control over his body. The bar was still packed, but less so than earlier, when he had rushed to help Woody with his cocktail disaster. That, too, seemed to have taken place ages ago. His moment with Diane had rung so intense, Sam felt he had lived in it for an entire lifetime. Alright, maybe not a lifetime, but a few hours at least. Even his eyes seemed to have difficulty adapting to the new-old surroundings. The gang was all still there, Woody busy behind the bar, Norm and Cliff occupying their usual stools, Carla seemingly conquering (or demanding) another tip. She was the first to spot him.

"Sammy, there you are. Miss I'll-be-right-back-to-work-next-year walked out here twenty minutes ago. We were beginning to wonder if she'd killed you back there. Though I personally would have preferred it the other way around."

"Five minutes." Sam spoke without looking at Carla, his eyes frantically looking for Diane around the room, his chest cavity feeling smaller and smaller with every corner he'd scan but couldn't seem to find her in. He couldn't find Jack, either and his loud mouth was nowhere to be heard. Had she… had they…

"What?" Carla asked, snapping him out of his thoughts.

"It's only been five minutes. Right, Carla?" He couldn't have been in there twenty long minutes. Could he?

"Oh, yeah, sure. Gee, I wasn't going off an actual clock."

"Carla, where's Diane?" his eyes still inspecting the room for her blue dress, her blonde hair, anything that might indicate she was in there somewhere. His ears kept trying to detach her voice, maybe her laugh, from the crowd.

"Oh she and adventure-warrior went outside a minute ago".

Sam froze. "Went outside? Outside where?" He made his way behind the bar, half wanting to run outside to find her - if it had only been a minute maybe he could catch them still - half wanting to play it cool and wait until she'd return to give her a piece of his mind. He tried to look over Woody's shoulder, maybe spot her purse under the counter that would tell him she couldn't have gone far. Woody's shoulders looked unbearably wide today, though. Sam couldn't see a thing.

Before Carla had a chance to answer his question, Sam spotted her coming in the door. The sight of her had him breathe out a gust he didn't know he had been holding. Eyes cast low, she walked back into the bar and grabbed her apron, tying it around her waist as if that was her main priority in the world. He watched her attentively, trying to figure out what sort of mood she was in, what had happened with Jack, what she'd said, what he'd said. What she was thinking. As if he would be able to read all of that by just looking at her. Not that he was any good at reading things most of the time she would say them out loud, either.

"Did Mr. Dalton leave?" Woody asked, which meant Sam didn't have to. He put on his best uninterested face and pretended to busy himself with drawing a beer.

"Yes, he did, Woody." Diane replied, at last lifting her gaze in the direction of the bar area. Her eyes briefly met Sam's and she immediately lowered them again, casting her gaze back on Woody as she spoke. "He had things to attend to and wanted to take off as soon as possible."

"And you didn't go with him, Miss Chambers?"

"No, Woody. I didn't go." she quickly cast a glance in Sam's direction again. Did he see a quick, vanishing smile on her lips?

"I thought Sam had been trying to convince you to go all this time." Woody said.

"That's what Carla told us." Norm intervened.

Sam looked at Diane, who knew nothing of what he had told Carla about what was happening in the bathroom. For a second he feared she might unmask him, and them, consequently. Explaining that away would be something.

"He was, yes." Diane cut in, reaching out and placing a hand on Woody's arm that would hopefully end his questioning. "But I was too afraid. You know me, an indubitable chicken." her chuckle sounded unexpectedly nervous to Sam. "And you know, airplanes can be… dangerous things." her eyes met Sam's intently now and he couldn't help but smile at the excuse he had used on her, to disguise his own intentions, now being delivered by her to an unsuspecting bar room.

"So yes, Woody. I thought better of it and decided tonight wasn't such a good night for flying after all." she picked up her tray and notepad off the counter. "Well, back to work, shall we? These beers won't serve themselves."

"Four years later and the sense of duty has finally caught up with you, whitey." Sam chuckled as he watched Carla resume her own shift at the opposite end of the bar. She just couldn't help herself, could she.

The evening went by without much incident. Drinks were poured and served as usual, the regulars chatted about and made jokes, Carla's voice could be heard above everyone else's every now and again, and to make it just another night at Cheers, one of her clients had left the bar fighting back tears. Just another evening, indeed. Except it wasn't. Not for Sam. He had been distracted throughout. When Diane wasn't in sight, she was on his mind, as were those fleeting moments in the ladies' room hours earlier. Why hadn't he kissed her then? He should have kissed her. He was dying to kiss her. And when she was within view, close to the bar or putting down an order only inches from him, wafts of her perfume would make him dizzy, and he'd think of nothing else but the patch of skin on her stomach he'd left his trace on, and that he wanted more of.

He would catch her looking at him, too, and they would exchange secret glances and meaningful smiles that for the first time since they'd met, nobody else was privy to. This time, contrary to when they had lived out their relationship in front of everybody else, no one but the two of them knew what had happened, what was going on between them. Nobody knew he was secretly craving that spot on the back of her neck, that he'd access by lifting her hair off her shoulders. Not one of the people currently in the room knew that it was adrenaline mixing with the blood in his veins whenever she'd call his name to tell him which, and how many drinks she needed him to hand her. Nor that he would try and touch her hand whenever she would pass him somebody's check. No one else was aware - and Sam suspected not even Diane - that she had missed one of the eyelets on her dress when redoing her laces. That small opening in her dress was there for him, and him alone, to notice. And it made him smile to himself, with a certain sense of pride, every time she would move a certain way and he'd spot that little patch of creamy skin across the room.

To Sam, that evening seemed to last an eternity. He wanted nothing more than to be alone with her again, to touch her again, to pick up where they'd left off. But if the patrons took their time to leave, it took the gang twice that amount of time to get off their barstools. After last call, and after Sam had closed the door for the night, Norm and Cliff had stayed behind discussing something that could not wait until the next day, Carla was telling Woody about yet another prank her kids had pulled, and Sam was trying his best to disguise his obsession with whatever Diane was busy with, whether it was cleaning up tables or picking up the remaining empty beer mugs scattered across the place. Couldn't everyone else just go already?

"Hey, guys? I think we should all probably call it a night. I uh, I have something to do early tomorrow and would very much like to close up here. Diane and I will finish cleaning up, Carla." His impatience got the best of him, much to even his surprise. He looked over at Diane, who seemed unfazed, and kept to whatever she was doing.

After a few comebacks at his words and a joke or two from the peanut gallery about how "Sammy had to be up early", everyone finally left.

Sam locked the door of the bar with a sigh. "At last." he mumbled, turning around to find Diane on the other side of the bar, setting down her tray and notepad and moving some clean glasses out of the way. He wondered if she'd heard him.

He walked up to the counter and rested his elbows on it, looking straight at her. Diane had sat on one of the barstools and had her eyes on his. Sam felt the familiar build up of something unsettling in the way only Diane could unsettle him. They were alone again at last, but he had no idea how to go about things now that it was just the two of them, no longer hiding from the rest of the room. It was always that way with her, so different from how it was with every other woman Sam had ever been with. He knew what to do with all the others. He knew exactly what lines to use, what moves to make, the right tone of voice to get them to agree to one thing or another, how to please them. Diane had always been a different ball game - it's no wonder she seemed to be the only ball game that could hold his interest for hours. Days. Months. Years, too, he was discovering.

"So." he said, tentatively.

"So." Sam thought he detected the same tremor in her voice that seemed to rattle his bones. Strangely, that helped put him more at ease.

"Would you like some coffee?"

"I'd love some." he watched out of the corner of his eye as she removed her apron and folded it neatly on the counter.

Getting behind the bar and closer to where she was now, he grabbed two mugs and found the coffee pot Woody had brewed before leaving, still warm enough. He poured some of it into two mugs, setting one of them in front of her and taking a sip out of his own, his gaze now unapologetically on her features. It took everything in him not to forget about the coffee and show her what he really wanted, what had been on his mind since earlier that day. Scratch that. Since that damn last day of September in 1982.

"So how did he take it?"

"What?"

"Jack. How did he take your change of mind?" he could barely suppress his satisfaction at this turn of events, and the role he had played in it.

"Oh. Oh he was disappointed, of course." Diane grabbed her mug with both hands and took it to her lips. "He said I have undoubtedly turned into a bore. A woman with no sense of adventure. Domesticated, he said." she waved her hand as if to get the word away from her.

"He's wrong." he spoke firmly, looking straight into her eyes, noticing the sudden flush of color to her cheeks.

When she didn't speak, Sam set his mug down next to hers and leaned forward, one of his forearms on the counter as the opposite hand brushed a strand of hair away from her brow and tucked it behind her ear. He was feeling bold again, and desperate to close whatever gap had settled between them.

"What is it with all these guys wanting to take you out on their planes, anyway? First my brother Derek, now Jack Dalton. Are you some kind of flying lucky charm I know nothing about? People look at you and think "airplanes"?"

Diane let out a chuckle at his words and Sam beamed. Her smile was infectious and he realized he was grinning, too.

"I mean, you even had me on a plane to Italy back in the day." realizing what he'd said too late after the fact, Sam quickly straightened up. Her eyes had widened at him. "Not that that's the… same thing. I didn't… you didn't… you know." Sam swallowed a bigger sip of coffee this time.

"Speaking of that…" uh oh. She had that 'I've got something on Sam' look on her face. "I'm not the only one withholding information about Italy, am I?" her head had tilted to one side and he was in trouble now.

"What? I told you all there is to know." the now empty mug was still being taken to his lips and Sam pretended to slurp. Anything to keep his face under cover.

"No. You told me you had gone there to stop the wedding."

"Yeah, that's all there is to know. I went there, didn't find you, thought you'd gotten married elsewhere, came back to Boston, found out you didn't get married, you came back to work here, the end. Do you want me to take you home or shall we go to mine?" he spoke fast, busying himself with everything and anything he could find.

"Not so fast." Damn it. "You did tell me all of that. But what was the plan? What if you had found me? What if you had stopped the wedding? What then?"

Sam bit his upper lip in that I'm-caught-way. "I don't know." He looked at her and offered a small nervous smile. She wasn't letting him off the hook. "I guess… I thought…" he looked at his shoes. "... we'd get married, instead. In Europe. You and me."

"Oh." she had her eyes on the coffee mug again. Sam studied her carefully.

"Do you… should we… talk about that?" He wasn't all that sure he could stomach talking about it, and all that it might entail, but the subject was in the room now, and he felt he had to let her have at it if she'd choose to. Even if, deep down, he recognized the threat of that particular subject leading to a fight. Something he would like to avoid, if he could help it. Sam couldn't remember the last time they'd had it this easy between them.

"No. Yes." she lifted her eyes to him and Sam was relieved to see the slight smile dancing on her lips. "But not now. We should maybe wait until… we're better equipped to deal with... all of it. With you. And me. With you and me. With the ladies' room. With Italy, too."

"Yeah." Sam nodded, disguising a smile of his own as he stared down at the empty cup in his hand. "Yeah, we'll wait a little."

"Do you have any more coffee?" she held out her mug, the smirk, now more meaningful, still on her face. Sam grabbed the pot and filled her up.

"Somethin' I been meaning to ask you about." He poured himself some more coffee as well, doing his best to keep a straight face through his next words. "Do I remember you saying something about a, what was it, a wet t-shirt contest in France?" A teasing tone to his words as he tried to suppress a grin.

"It wasn't what you think!" she exclaimed in mock shock and added, with true Diane Chambers pride: "It was a dress shirt! And I kept my underwear on."

"Right, right. I hear you only take it off on semi-private Greek beaches." he couldn't help himself, the murderous look on her face was priceless.

"I seem to recall taking it off on other occasions." her voice turned suddenly sultry and Sam swallowed his coffee with a loud gulp. His coffee was discarded and he leaned over the counter, leveling their eyes.

"Maybe we should find a semi-private beach sometime. Or a private one. Yeah. That sounds even better." he allowed his eyes to take in the perfect shape of her long neck before bringing them up to stare at her mouth. God, how he wanted to swallow her whole.

She gave him that "Diane look" he was used to getting from her whenever he'd suggest something out loud that involved them taking their clothes off. A not so subtle roll of the eyes, maybe a shake of the head. It was short lived, though, as she seemed to become preoccupied with something else.

"Get me a drink, Sam." her request snapped him out of his trance, and for a second he looked at her as if she had asked him for a monkey on a unicycle. "A real drink."

"What? What drink?" he stood and took a few slow steps backwards, closer to where the liquor bottles were, trying to figure out whether she was serious or not.

"Give me a shot of… I don't know. Tequila". Sam's eyes widened. She looked him dead in the eye, unflinching. Still unsure, Sam grabbed a shot glass and set it in front of her. When she didn't declare it a joke, he filled up the small glass to the brim.

He watched as Diane downed the tequila in one fell swoop. "One more." she asked. Sam was taken aback. "Diane.. What…."

"Come on, Sam. One more. Don't worry, I'm not going to get drunk. I just need some liquid courage." she gestured with her hands for him to pour her another one.

"For what? You sure this is a good idea?" he obliged albeit reluctantly. He'd seen her drunk before, she was such a lightweight. He'd have to carry her home if she'd keep this up.

Diane stood up as he poured the second shot, and she drank it standing, throwing her head back like she had been doing it all her life. Setting the glass back down with a bang and a lingering look at him, she walked over to the jukebox under Sam's curious watch. He proceeded to close the bottle and put it back where it belonged, his eyes on her the entire time. She took a few minutes to find a song and when she did, she turned around to face Sam, who was still as confused as he had been when she had first asked him for a drink.

"You said you'd have liked to see it."

"See what?" she seemed too distracted with the jukebox to respond. "Diane?"

Some guy started to sing a slow song in a foreign language - Italian maybe? - and Sam's gaze followed her, intrigued, as Diane walked up into the piano nook, the only well lit area of the bar at that point. He watched as she took her heels off and drew a chair from under one of the only two tables up there. Then, before he could begin to understand what was happening, Diane used the chair as a step to climb onto the table, and began to sway to the music.

Sam's jaw dropped in awe. Of all the things he thought he might still witness before the day would come to an end, Diane Chambers dancing for him on top of a table sure wasn't one that had crossed his mind. He looked at her, transfixed, and felt his heart rate increase as he slowly made his way over to her, taking her in, every single inch of her. She was not by any means following the rhythm of the song and her moves were all over the place, maybe helped by the alcohol gone speedily to her head. It may have looked silly to anyone else. To Sam, however, it was the sexiest, the most beautiful thing he had ever witnessed.

He allowed it go on for a minute or two more before making his way up into the nook. His hand found hers and he kissed the back of it intently, gently pulling her down to sit on the table. Her legs dangling from the edge of the table top, Sam leaned over and touched his forehead to hers. Eyes closed, he bent his arm to bring the hand he was holding to the back of his neck. He held it there, under his own, as if he were about to lead them into the next dance.

"What are you doing to me, Diane?" his voice was coarse and his breathing rapid. He knew it, and yet it still surprised him, each time, how quickly she could turn his world upside down. How she could blur his vision with one single trick, and dull his senses to everything and everyone else with nothing but a look. There was no point fighting it tonight, he was completely and utterly intoxicated.

Diane's fingers moved into his hair at the back of his head, and Sam moaned with pleasure. Her lips touched the corner of his mouth, to then drag along his cheek.

"You know, you never told me what it was you wanted." The words were spoken low, near his ear. Somewhat startled, his eyes met hers as she pulled away from him, eyebrows lightly furrowed, questioning. "Earlier, in the ladies' room? Before Carla interrupted us. You were about to tell me what you wanted." He couldn't help but shake his head, a small smirk drawn on his lips. She was good. And she knew he was at her mercy.

"You said "I want…. I want…."" She was moving her head to try and capture his eyes, the tone in her voice one he had heard her use many times before. The little know-it-all, trying to get him to say what she already knew all too damn well.

It occurred on Sam this wasn't the first time she'd done that that night, either. Her question about Italy. Sam was almost sure he had mentioned (and then denied he still thought of it) the getting married idea when he'd first told her about what he had done, at the Abbey. He was sure of it. Which, if it were true, meant she either didn't remember him saying it – impossible – or that her interrogation earlier had been yet another of her sly traps to get him to admit to what she knew to be true. And he'd fallen for it. He always would.

"Yeah, I know what I said." Sam hesitated.

Through the fog, old instincts were slowly creeping up on him. That familiar fear that he would open up, tell her word for word what she seemed to want to hear from him, only to have her laugh at him. To have her shoot back some smart ass comment that would leave him stranded, speechless and stupid. Like that time she had roped him in for a passionate kiss only to call out Frasier's name as he'd held her. He had felt such relief, then, too. He had missed her so much back then, that his abandonment had only made the blow that much worse. Yes, the familiar fear that had stopped him from telling her not to marry Frasier when she had called him to announce the proposal. The fear that had propelled him to lie, time and time again, to the both of them, about being over her. But all of that was fading fast as he felt her fingers in his hair, and her voice was drowning the music and every other sound except that of his heart, pounding in his chest. He wondered if she too could hear it.

"I think it's pretty obvious what I want." Another attempt at stalling. His fingers touched the side of her forehead and ran back toward her hair, tangling themselves in her blonde mane, cradling her head in his palm. She turned her chin up to look at him, determination all over her face. She was going to get this.

"What you want isn't always obvious to me, Sam." She wouldn't let it go, and did he really expect her to? This was Diane Chambers, after all. Sam exhaled. He figured he was as ready as he would ever be.

"You, Diane. I want… you." he hoped the slight tremble to his voice wasn't noticeable.

He watched her attentively as her eyelids drew closed, her features softening but not entirely readable to him yet. Was she about to laugh? Should he have listened to his instincts this time? Had she caught him yet again? Was he that gullible? When her eyes opened to him though, Sam saw no trace of mockery in them, and when her mouth moved it wasn't laughter that roared out, but a plea.

"Kiss me, Sam."

With one long look that conveyed his willingness to obey her request, he lowered his face to hers and kissed her deeply. His mouth captured hers again and again, devouring it like a thirsty man to whom a sip of water had been denied for months on end.

The temperature rose like lightning between them. Among gasps, sighs and moans, he felt her hands walk down his back to pull at the end of his sweater and bring it up to his neck. He pulled away long enough to get rid of it and discard it to the floor. His mouth fell back on hers with newfound hunger, and as she busied herself with the buttons on his shirt - why the hell had he put on so many layers today - his fingers were at the laces of her dress for the second time that day. He was much less ceremonious about them this time though, pulling them off with haste while shaking his now unbuttoned shirt off his shoulders. Once it, too, was thrown to the ground and forgotten, Sam drew near her again, parting her knees with his thigh, taking as many steps toward her as the table's edge would allow. Eyes locked with hers, he slipped one hand under each of the shoulder pads in her dress and slowly slid the garment off her frame, helping her get rid of its top half, which bunched up on the table top at her waist.

"What do you say we show this table a different kind of dance?"

He found the hem of her dress and hiked it up. She responded to both his action and his words by running her nails down his chest and taking hold of the buckle on his belt. While one of his hands fumbled with the hook of her brassiere, the other landed on her exposed knee and ran slowly up the soft skin on the inside of her thigh. By the time he heard Diane whimper his name into the crook of his neck, Sam was ready to melt into her.