October faded into November with the fall of brilliantly-colored leaves and increased freneticism among the students to measure the passage of time. Scarlett was so caught up grading papers and preparing lectures she barely had time to think about the expedition planned for next summer; indeed, it seemed so far away as to be a dream. With the weather cooling, George's appearances on campus were fewer and farther between, and as busy as she was she hardly spared a thought for what he might be up to.

Scarlett hurried back down the hall to her office - she had gone to consult with another professor in the next building over and gotten caught up in chitchat, spending far more time away from her desk than she had intended. She'd left her door unlocked, and when she entered she didn't notice the guest on her loveseat until he spoke.

"So, how's that expedition coming along?"

Scarlett started and dropped the stack of papers she was holding. George jumped up with a smirk to help her gather them up again. "That well, huh?"

"I'm sorry I haven't contacted you; I've been terribly busy," Scarlett said.

"Well, if you've got a minute, we could hammer out some of the details now," George said, handing over the papers he had picked up.

Scarlett drummed the stack of papers on the desk to straighten them out again. "Alright."

"So what dates work for you?"

Scarlett bit her lip and paged through her schedule, its spiral bound spine open flat on her desk. "I've put in for sabbatical next summer. It shouldn't be a problem; I'm not senior enough to warrant it during the academic year, but the summer is always a bit more flexible. Early June, after term ends?"

"Works for me," George said. "How long were you planning on being gone?"

"Oh, a week at most."

George gaped at her. "You're kidding, right? We don't even know where the Rose Key is, Scarlett! We have no idea what we're looking for, or if it's even still there. It's been thousands of years!"

"Two weeks, then," she said firmly. "Two weeks, and if we haven't found it we'll come back to London and try to narrow down the area from here. It's ages away yet, George. We have plenty of time to sort this out before we leave."

George took a deep breath. "Alright. What about contacts, resources, places to stay, all that?" He ticked them off on his fingers. "Let me write this down, hold on . . ." He took a pen off her desk and found a notepad in one of the drawers. Scarlett should be appalled at his audacity, rifling through her desk without asking. But she found she didn't mind. This was her space, but he fit seamlessly into it, like a well-picked piece of furniture or an understated painting, but far more fluid and alive. She wondered if he could fit this well within her life - within her heart.

Scarlett realized she was smiling at George like a lovesick mooncalf, but she couldn't stop. How long had it been since she'd smiled? She'd been so focused on teaching, so stressed . . .

"Scarlett?" He was staring at her, pen poised over the paper. He smiled back uncertainly and put the pen down. "What are you thinking?"

She looked down at her feet. "Nothing," she said, but it did nothing to dull the warmth in her chest. She met his eyes. "I'm just - it's good to see you, George. I - I've missed you."

He stood up and came to stand in front of her. He was so close, so delectably close - she could smell his cologne, something cool and herbal. She closed her eyes and let it fill her up.

"And here I thought you couldn't stand me."

Scarlett's eyes flew open. George was smirking, inches away. "I - what?" she stammered.

He chuckled deep in his throat and put his hands on her waist. "If I kiss you, are you gonna call security?"

"Will you bloody well kiss me already?"

George obliged. She moaned against his lips, threading her arms around his neck. He pulled her hips forward, flush against him, and sealed his lips more firmly over hers.

She pressed into him, deepening the kiss. George slid his hands down her hips, boosting her up. Scarlett wrapped her legs around his waist, clinging to him like he was all she needed, like water, like air. The sudden shift of her weight unbalanced them both. Unwilling to let her go, George set her down on the desk, sending her stack of papers flying once more, along with a leather-bound book and a cup of pens that rolled noisily across the floor in all directions. Scarlett had a fleeting hope that none of the other faculty would barge in to check on her before George yanked the tails of her blouse from her slacks and slid his hands across the bare skin of her torso, banishing all such mundane thoughts from her mind. His hands crept upwards, her breathing quickening with anticipation and want, until his fingertips brushed the undersides of her breasts, and she gasped.

Her office phone rang.

George and Scarlett jumped apart like they'd had a bucket of ice water thrown on them. Scarlett, cheeks flushed and lips swollen, caught George's wrists. His hair stuck up in all places and his eyes were slightly unfocused.

The phone rang again, unnaturally loud in the quiet office.

Scarlett spared it a glance before hauling George forward and crashing together once more.

"Do you need to answer that?" he gasped against the hot skin of her neck.

"Ignore it," she said, and George was all too happy to do so.

The phone rang a third time, before a click indicated the machine had picked it up.

The line remained open, white noise an undercurrent as George and Scarlett explored each other, touching, tasting. Then, almost too quietly to be heard, "Scarlett?"

The fear in the timid voice jarred Scarlett out of her lust. She went rigid under George's hands, and after a moment he realized and pulled away - but only just.

"What's up?" he asked, but she just stared at the phone.

"Scarlett, are you there?" The hoarse voice asked again.

George frowned. "Who is that?"

"I - I think it's my father," she said. She untangled herself from George's arms and picked up the receiver. "Hello? Dad?"

But only a dial tone replied. With a worried look she punched in her father's mobile number by heart, then after a moment his office extension. She put down the phone with an expression of dismay.

George watched, a little confused, part of him still back in fog of lust with Scarlett while he tried to wrap his head around what, exactly, was wrong.

"He's not answering," she said, her voice strained.

George shrugged. "Call him back tomorrow?" he suggested. She frowned and didn't respond.

He tucked in his shirt without really thinking about it. The moment had passed, at least for Scarlett, and there was no point in trying to push the issue.

"I, uh, should probably go," he said. "I'll call you."

"Right, of course. I'm really sorry about this," she waved at the phone. "It's only, I'll be pre-occupied until I get this sorted out."

George smiled tightly. "Don't worry about it. I'll see you tomorrow."

Scarlett managed a small smile in return. "Tomorrow."

The next morning's weather foreshadowed a subtle shift - the first chill that promised short, dark days were coming, cruel and cold. Frost devoured the windows of her flat like jagged teeth, and Scarlett was sure to bundle up before stepping out into the morning.

She couldn't shake the feeling of trepidation looming over her like the grey cloud of impending winter, but all Scarlett had to do was think of George and she felt flushed and giddy all over again. She couldn't wait to see him again, and perhaps today, they could finish what they'd started . . . after she contacted her father, of course, and put her fears to bed.

Scarlett bustled into her office, shedding overclothes and bags and papers all over the loveseat. She set to tidying up her office a bit and blushed as she picked her father's journal up off the floor, recalling the events of last night that put it there. She noticed the light blinking on the answering machine - her father had probably rung her back once she'd gone home. She pressed the play button as she continued her cleaning.

"One new message," the tinny automated voice announced. There was a beep, followed by a somber baritone voice she did not recognize. "This message is for Dr. Scarlett Marlowe. This is Dr. Downing from St. Dymphna's Hospice for Mental Illness. We have important news regarding your father." He rattled off the hospital's number and hung up. Scarlett dove for the phone, dread twisting her stomach.

"Hello? Yes, this is she . . ." She stopped. Finally, she whispered, "How?" Her voice did not sound like her own; it was a cracked and frightened little thing, like a rodent who has seen the owl descending upon it and tasted its own doom. Scarlett's whole body went numb as she replaced the phone on its cradle. She sank into her chair, feeling as though all her bones had turned to mush. This couldn't be happening. This was just a nightmare. Soon she would wake up, head into work and find her father in his office, sorting out some archaic problem the rest of the world had long forgotten. She imagined she could smell the chalk on his fingertips as she hugged him tight, just like when she was a little girl.

Scarlett didn't know how long she sat, stunned, before a colleague knocked on her door. "Scarlett, what's gotten into you? Your 9 A.M. class is waiting in the lecture hall; they're wondering where you've - Scarlett?"

The other professor broke off. Her name was Amy . . . Yes, that's right. Dr. Amy Price. She was an adjunct professor whose office was only a few doors down from her father's. They'd gone out for drinks before, though they weren't particularly close. Scarlett couldn't say the news out loud yet, particularly to someone she hardly knew.

"My father," she said, then stopped. Some wild desperate part of her reasoned that if she did not say it out loud, it was not true.

Amy frowned in confusion. "You want me to fetch your father? Scarlett, he's been on a leave of absence for two months. He didn't tell you?"

"What? No, that can't be right."

"It was all rather sudden. When he returned from Iran he just wasn't himself. He turned in his paperwork to the dean in September. I can't believe you didn't know."

Indeed, Scarlett wondered. How could she not have known? He was her father.

"He's dead," she blurted out, as if saying it quickly would make it less painful, like ripping off a plaster.

Amy's face fell. "Oh, that's awful. I'm so sorry." She thought quickly. "I'll tell your class a family emergency has come up. Don't worry."

"Thank you," Scarlett said distantly. She stood up in a daze, putting one foot in front of the other, her feet carrying her across campus without a conscious thought until she was standing before a familiar door. She barely noticed the note on the door, announcing the office's occupant on indeterminate leave, and used her key to open the door. It smelled the same: chalk, leather, the comforting musty scent of old paper. Scarlett sat in her father's chair and pulled her knees up to her chest.

"Why, Dad?" she asked the room at large, her voice a cracked whisper. It was all she could manage. Why did you kill yourself? But it was no harder a question than those she asked herself: Why didn't I pick up the phone? Would it have made a difference? Could I have saved you?

It was easier to ask a ghost.

The funeral was a blur. Later Scarlett would look back on the week following her father's death and wonder how she got everything done. The hospital staff took care of some of the details, and Scarlett was grateful for it. She'd brought home a box of his personal effects, what little he had brought to the hospital with him, but she hadn't yet brought herself to rummage through them. Instead, she brought it to work with her, cleaning out his office at the request of the dean, and piled the objects that had defined his life's work on top.

Scarlett returned to teaching a week later. In some ways, it was almost harder to bear the stares and hushed whispers of her students (many of whom had taken her father's courses in previous terms) than it had been that first raw day after Walter's death.

She had never really been one for socializing, but now she spent even more time holed up in her office, and at the end of the day she was so paralyzed by grief she often just slept on her loveseat rather than face the lonely silence of her flat. She found herself staring out the window at the hazy quad, recalling happier times.

The leather-bound journal on her desk drew her eyes inexorably towards it, but Scarlett still couldn't bring herself to open it. She sighed and rubbed her eyes, itching with tiredness. When she was awake, all she wanted to do was curl up under her duvet and sleep until the hollow ache under her ribs subsided. Yet when she laid down to sleep, she simply couldn't, lying awake torturing herself with what-ifs.

She deliberately pushed back from her desk, taking a calming breath that did nothing to soothe her, when she heard her office door creak open. She stood up and hurriedly swiped her hands over her face to make sure no tears had escaped - it wouldn't do for her students to see her like this. But it wasn't a student who hovered by the door.

"George," she said, letting out her breath. She didn't know what else to say to him, but she didn't need to. She could tell by the look on his face that he had heard the news. He crossed the office in three strides and held her as she broke.

"I'm here," he said, rubbing her back, "I'm here."

When Scarlett had cried herself out, she felt withered and used up. Fatigue weighed upon her like a wet woolen blanket. She felt George's hands, gentle on her shoulders and the small of her back, leading her to her office chair. He sat on her desk across from her, their fingers threaded.

"Sorry," Scarlett said, her voice cracking. She gave a little laugh, self-conscious of her blotchy face and puffy eyes. "I'm a bit of a mess right now. You don't deserve this. I'm not - I'm not your problem."

George untangled his fingers from hers and rubbed a hand over his face. He took a deep breath and rested both hands on his knees. "Let me tell you about Danny."

The air in the room stilled. Scarlett hardly dared speak - even a whisper seemed too loud. "Who . . . who's Danny?"

"He was my brother," George said. He told her how they had been on a family vacation in a cave in Kentucky and how he and Danny had pretended they were Indiana Jones. How Danny's leg had gotten pinned when a heap of loose rock shifted. How George had gone to get help and lost his way . . .

George's voice caught on the words. He swallowed hard. "So believe me when I say I have an idea what you're feeling right now."

He smiled faintly, his eyes fixed on a point near the corner of her desk. "I was his big brother. He thought I was the strongest guy on Earth." George spread his hands and shrugged. "I wasn't." They were both quiet for a long time.

"It doesn't get better, does it?" Scarlett said finally.

"Not really," George said. "But at least it doesn't get worse. Come on. Let me walk you home."

She wasn't even sure, after everything, if that kiss in her office was a one-off or if George even still wanted to accompany her on the expedition to Turkey. Scarlett was such a bloody mess, she didn't want anything to do with herself. She could only imagine what George thought of her. Scarlett knew it was a bad idea to want George - he was a business partner - but want him she did. But these feelings, riding so fresh on the heels of the guilt and grief of her father's suicide, she was too confused to sort out whether this was what she truly wanted, or if she just wanted to feel anything at all.

"Well, this is me," she said as they reached the door. She took out her keys with shaking hands.

George looked down, shuffling his feet. "Wishing you a good night doesn't really apply here, does it?" It was a rhetorical question and they both knew it. He cocked his head to one side and met her eyes. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

Scarlett nodded. He turned to go, and before she knew what she was doing her hand shot out to catch his. "Wait," she said desperately, and hated herself for it. "Stay."

"Scarlett, I don't know if that's a good -" She cut him off by dragging him forward by the lapels of his jacket. This kiss was far rougher than the one in her office, though no less passionate. They broke free, gasping. Her fingers were still bunched in the fabric of his coat. George gently took her shoulders and pushed her away, but he didn't let go.

"Scarlett -" he said with a grimace. "The last thing I want is to take advantage of you."

"No," she said breathlessly. "You couldn't. Please, George, I - I can't bear to be alone tonight."

He dropped his hands to his sides and sighed. "God, this is a terrible idea."

She shrugged. "I trust you."

George stared at her for a minute. Finally, he took her hand. "Okay."