Wheeler was down by the beach with Gi, collecting water samples. It wasn't Planeteer work so much as one of Gi's pet personal projects, and Wheeler had helped her out with it pretty much since they'd first arrived on the island. He'd done so at first out of a desire to get to know Gi better and spend time with her, and while they'd been dating, they'd used it as an excuse to fool around during the day away from the others. But after they'd fizzled out, he'd carried on helping her with the project out of a grudging sense of respect and a determination to show her they could still be friends, even after all that had transpired between them. It made him uncomfortable to admit that withdrawing his assistance would almost feel like an admission that he'd used the task as an excuse to get into Gi's pants and nothing more. And so, he kept going, up to his knees in the still waters of the cove, a vial in each hand and a plastic box of samples strung around his neck like he was some kind of sea kelp Christmas tree.

He wasn't so much Gi's research assistant as a glorified lab rack, really.

He must have been scowling into the water, because Gi suddenly shifted next to him.

'You're distracted today,' she muttered without looking up. 'What's up with you?'

'Nothin',' he muttered back, still staring into the murky depths beneath him.

'Yeah, right,' Gi replied. 'Spill it. What's up?'

She still hadn't looked up and Wheeler shrugged, keeping a tight hold on the box of samples precariously balanced around his neck.

'It's nothin',' he said again. 'I'm fine.'

'Hmm,' Gi made a non-commital noise, still bent over the sea, an arm sifting through the water.

Wheeler paused. 'It's just... it's Linka,' he admitted, suddenly desperate to talk to someone. 'Somethin' she said last night.'

'Linka. Okay,' Gi muttered, her voice flat and head still down. 'What did Linka say?'

Wheeler bit his lip, wondering just how much he should admit here. 'She... umm... she asked me to... uh... help her out with somethin'. I said no, and now she's talkin' about gettin' someone else to do it and I... I...'

Suddenly, Gi looked up. 'You said no to Linka?' she asked, and Wheeler tried to ignore the shock in her voice. 'What exactly did she ask you to do?'

He flushed a dull red, and the hint of a smile began to creep across Gi's face.

'Wheeler,' she said again. 'What did Linka ask you to do?'

'Sleep with her,' he admitted, and he watched as Gi's smile grew larger, before she shook her head with what sounded to him like a bitter laugh.

'Good for her,' Gi remarked, crossing her arms across her chest. 'Good for her.'

'What do you mean by that?' Wheeler asked sharply, and Gi shrugged.

'Just that, well, I'm glad she finally had the sense to move things along between the two of you.'

'What?'

Gi sighed. 'Come on, Wheeler, admit it. You and Linka... the relationship you have... it's kind of weird.'

Wheeler stood taller. 'No, it's not,' he smarted.

'Yes, it is,' Gi replied firmly. 'Honestly, it's creepy the way you bring girls here and take them to bed before waking up in the morning to spend the day with Linka. It's creepy the way you and Linka are all over each all of the time without being all over each other all of the time.'

'We're friends,' Wheeler protested. 'That's not creepy. Fucking hell, Gi.'

Gi shrugged, looking away from him and back to the water. 'If you want the honest truth, Wheeler, I'm actually surprised you didn't fuck her years ago.'

His mouth fell open and he stared at her. 'She's my friend, Gi. My best friend.'

'And I wasn't?' Gi asked sharply, and Wheeler paused, an unpalatable thought running through his head.

'Gi, you and me... we weren't...' he sighed. 'You and I were never friends before we hooked up, you know that as well as I do. Lin and I have been friends for years. It's different.'

Gi glared at him. 'You're so full of shit, Wheeler.'

He glared back at her. 'Excuse me?'

'You,' Gi snapped back. 'You're so full of it. This friendship with Linka... I mean, fuck that. You throw the word 'friend' around like it means something to you, when actually - where Linka is concerned - it's just a smokescreen for what you really want to do with her.'

'For what I really want to do with her?' Wheeler repeated, his voice rising an octave. 'You don't know me, you don't know what I want from Lin -'

'For fuck's sake, Wheeler, honestly?' Gi's voice rose too, and Wheeler snapped his mouth shut. Gi was red in the face, her fists tightly clenched, and he'd never before seen her so angry. 'You think I don't know? Really? Why do you think I ended us, all those years ago?'

He stared at her. He thought back to the end of their relationship, to that final night, when after hours spent star-gazing with Linka on the beach he'd snuck into Gi's cabin. Gi had been distant and almost cold, and after an hour of detached sex had rolled away from him, sitting up and pulling a robe around her shoulders.

'That was the last time,' she'd told him with a shrug. 'It's just not there anymore.'

Now, he shrugged at her. 'We just ran outta steam,' he told her. 'You got bored of me, and I -'

At that, Gi shook her head at him in disgust. 'I didn't get bored of you, Wheeler,' she told him, shaking her head. 'I got bored of you and her.'

Her words were like a punch to his stomach and he inhaled sharply. 'What do you mean?' he asked her. He waded closer to her, pulling at her hand. 'Gi, talk to me.'

Gi looked up, and he was shocked to see tears glistening in her eyes. 'You and I,' she began unhappily. 'It was good at first. I really liked you. And you seemed to like me and...' she paused, taking a deep breath. 'And then one night it was like a switch flipped and all you could talk about was her. It became Linka this and Linka that. And I love Lin, I really do, she's one of my best friends and I adore her,' Gi quickly added. 'But do you know how it felt, Wheeler, to watch you with her? To see you laughing and talking and giving her all of your free time, and then to watch you sneak over to me for... for that?'

'Gi,' he said miserably. 'I didn't mean to... I didn't know... if you'd just said somethin' to me -'

'Say what?' she asked him. 'What would I say? Oh, Wheeler, I think you might be in love with Linka and that really hurts me -'

'I'm not in love with Linka,' Wheeler told her gently. 'I've never been in love with Linka.'

Gi pulled her hand away from his. 'It's depressing, you know, how easily you keep telling yourself that.'

'But it's true,' he protested, although he paused suddenly as something, deep inside himself, stirred at her words. 'It's true,' he said again weakly, pushing the feeling down.

'Okay, fine, you're not in love with her,' Gi replied, her voice dull. 'But you've thought about her in a non-friend like way, right?'

He couldn't help the blood stealing to his cheeks.

'Go on,' Gi goaded him. 'Tell me you've never taken yourself in hand and thought about Lin. Tell me.'

He froze, his mouth somewhat open, unwilling to speak.

Unwilling to lie to her.

'Yeah,' Gi exhaled. 'That's what I thought.'

For a moment, they both stared into the water. Finally, Gi sighed, holding out her hand to him.

'I need a fresh vial,' she said, and he handed her one wordlessly. After a few silent minutes, he reached over and laid a hand on her shoulder.

'Gi,' he said softly. 'I'm sorry if I hurt you.'

Her face softened, and she gave him a watery smile. 'You're a good guy, Wheeler. Really. And things have worked out the way they were meant to. I'm with Kenly now, and I really love him, and I want to see you happy too. All the girls... all the flirting...' she paused, looking at him pointedly. 'It's time for you to grow up a little, you know?'

'I'm seein' Trish this weekend,' he said. 'I've been thinkin' about...' he swallowed down a sudden lump in his throat. 'I'm thinkin' about makin' things a little more serious with her.'

Gi stared at him, long and hard.

'What about Lin?' she asked him.

'What about her?'

Gi sighed again. 'You can't have it both ways, you know. You can't have Trish for one thing and Lin for another. Real life doesn't work that way.'

'I know,' he answered. 'I get that.'

'Do you?' Gi looked at him with real interest. 'How are you going to feel if you move on and Linka does too?'

'Linka's not in love with me,' he replied instantly. 'She should meet someone else -'

'She will,' Gi said gently. 'Just look at her, Wheeler. Really look at her. She'll meet someone else. Especially if she wants to.'

He felt slightly sick at Gi's words, at the thought of Linka with someone else, and he took a deep, steadying breath.

'If she wants to?' he asked, a little shakily.

Gi gave him a look that was somewhere between curiosity and pity. 'You know what Lin is like,' she told him. 'When she puts her mind to something... she's like a squirrel with a nut to crack. And if she's decided she wants to sleep with someone... and you've turned her down... well, she'll find someone else. And probably quickly too.'

It was another punch to his stomach and he had to take a deep lungful of fresh air to quell the nausea.

'She wouldn't - it isn't like her to...'

But Gi gave him a pat on the shoulder.

'Wheeler,' she said gently. 'She would.'

Later that week, Wheeler knocked on Linka's cabin door after dinner, hoping to get a private word with her. For the last few days something had been off between them, a distance in the air when they spoke, and he hated it. He hated feeling distant from her, hated feeling like he didn't know her, like she wasn't the Lin he'd grown to know and love over the last few years.

He just wanted her back. He just wanted things to go back to the way they'd been, before all this talk of sex between them had come up.

'Come in,' Linka sang out, looking up at him briefly from her chest of drawers when he walked in. Wheeler went to her bed, sitting on the end, and she smiled at him before going back to shuffling through random items of clothing.

'What're you doin'?' he asked her, and she frowned ever-so-slightly, raking through singlets and shorts and vague hints of lace that made him blush when he realised it was her underwear.

'Looking for something,' she answered absently. 'I bought a swimsuit recently over the internet... but it has a fault, and I need to return it.'

'A fault?' he queried her, and she nodded.

'Yes, well,' she paused, looking up at him and blowing a stray hair from her eyes. 'Maybe not a fault so much as a design flaw,' she smiled at him. 'I would have to show you for you to understand.'

'Okay,' he replied. He didn't get involved where women and fashion were concerned. He knew better than that.

'Are you alright, Wheeler?' Linka asked abruptly, looking at him closely and he shrugged.

'Just restless is all.'

'Mmm,' Linka nodded. 'Kwame says you are leaving tonight. You have a weekend at home.'

He froze. 'Uh, yeah.'

'You are seeing Trish?' she asked him, and his eyes snapped up to hers, looking for judgement or criticism or, God help him, even the smallest hint of jealousy. He knew that Linka was good at masking her feelings, but he also knew he was good at reading her too, and he stared at her for a few moments, searching for how she truly felt.

But her eyes were as clear of guile as usual, green and sparkling in the afternoon light, and he relaxed slightly.

'Yeah,' he admitted softly. 'I just wanted to say goodbye before I left.'

Linka gave him a small smile, before looking back to the clothing before her. 'You must say hello to her for me.'

'I will,' he said, all the while knowing he wouldn't. 'Listen, Lin, before I go, about what you said -' he began, just as Linka made a happy sound.

'Ponyal!' she exclaimed, triumphantly holding up a scrap of white fabric in her hands. 'There, I found it!'

He grinned at her. 'What is that? A handkerchief?'

She grinned back at him. 'No, Yankee, do not be silly. It is a bikini.'

He gaped at her, and at the tiny triangles of fabric in her hands. 'But that... that wouldn't cover a tea cup, let alone your...' he trailed off, realising with horror that he was gesturing to the ample curve of her chest. He blushed horribly, looking down quickly. 'Fuck, look, what I meant was -'

'It covers everything,' Linka said, suddenly indignant. 'I have tried it on, and it would be perfectly decent for the beach.'

He bit his lip, trying to push down the image of Linka on the sand, the tiny bikini barely hugging her flesh.

'So keep it then,' he replied harshly, without meeting her eye.

'Maybe I will,' she replied just as snappily.

For a moment they stood in silence, Wheeler unhappy and miserable at how this conversation was going, confused as to the torrent of feelings within himself. This wasn't how he wanted today to go. This wasn't how he wanted to feel.

Expelling a deep breath, he suddenly moved towards Linka and wrapped his arms around her. She smelt of salt sea-air and clean shampoo and he kissed the top of her head, pleasure spiking in his belly when he felt her burrow into him.

'Sorry, Babe,' he whispered. 'I don't know what's wrong with me today.'

'I do,' she whispered back. 'It is me... I have made things awkward between us...'

'No, no, that's not -' he stopped, kissing her on the head again. He could never lie to her. 'Maybe a little.'

She nodded against him, sighing against his chest. 'I am sorry, Yankee. I really am.' She looked up at him, her eyes wide, long lashes bristling against her cheeks when she blinked. 'Things are normally so good between us.'

He sighed too, running a hand through her hair. 'Yeah.'

'I should never have brought up sex,' she whispered, but he shook his head.

'It wasn't you, Babe. I'm the one who made that joke and -' he took a deep breath. 'Can we go back to the way things were? Before... that?'

She went still in his arms, and he looked down at her in worry. 'Babe?'

'Do you really want to?' she asked him quietly. 'You really want things the way they were?'

'Well, yeah,' he said, and watched as she bit her lip. 'Don't you?'

She pulled her arms from his waist and shrugged, moving over to her bed and sitting on it elegantly. 'I think it must be easy for you,' she said, sounding nervous and shy. 'You can go back to the way things were easily, because you do not find me... how did you say it? Sexy?'

He stared at her. 'You're sexy,' he told her instantly. 'You are. You're gorgeous.'

'You do not mean that.'

'I do,' he argued, and felt a tremor run down his spine at the realisation that he meant every word. 'You're beautiful, Lin. The most beautiful thing I've ever seen.'

'Really?' she asked, playing with a strand of her hair, and she looked so small and vulnerable, so open and sweet, that he couldn't help himself from sitting next to her on the bed and pulling her next to him.

'Yeah,' he said. 'You are. It's just that, in my eyes...' he paused. 'You're sexy but I just can't... I can't bring myself to...' he sighed deeply. 'I don't even know,' he admitted. 'I'm fucked up, Lin. You're sexy and yeah, I've pictured you in ways I probably shouldn't have, but the thought of actin' upon that...' he ran a hand over his eyes tiredly.

Next to him, he felt Linka soften. 'Oh, Yankee...' she exhaled. 'I do not want you to feel like this.' Briefly, she laid her lips against his forehead, cool and soft against his brow, and he leaned into her show of affection, pulling her closer.

'Babe...' he whispered, suddenly feeling warm all over. His skin sparked at her touch, and in that moment he wanted nothing more than to hold her closer, to feel more of her skin against his.

But she pulled away from him gently.

'We can go back to the way things were,' she assured him, 'I promise.'

And with that she stood, looking down at the bikini in her hand. Wheeler pushed down a quell of disappointment, before also standing, licking his lips and nodding to the scraps of white in her fingers.

'So, tell me, what's the problem with it?' he asked, hoping desperately to change the subject and divert attention away from the wounded puppy expression he was almost certainly sporting.

Linka blushed. 'I told you, it has a design flaw.'

'What?' he asked, intrigued by the stains of pink in her cheeks.

'It, ah, it...' Linka paused, biting down on her lip for a moment. 'It is fine for sunbathing, but when it, uh, gets wet...'

'Yeah?' he pressed her, not just intrigued but downright curious now.

'It becomes... uh, transparent,' Linka said quickly. 'The white fabric... when I come out of the sea... I might as well be wearing, umm...' she glanced up at him shyly. 'Uh, plastikovaya upakovka?'

'I don't know that one,' Wheeler admitted, scratching his head.

Linka blushed again. 'It is the clear plastic wrap people use on food... it is bad for the environment... we try to make them use beeswax instead...'

As the penny dropped, Wheeler's mouth dropped open.

'Saran wrap?!' he exclaimed, looking down at the bikini once more. 'You mean you get in the water with that thing on, and...'

Linka looked down. 'I might as well be wearing nothing at all.'

For a moment, Wheeler's mind struggled to follow the conversation, caught as it was on the image of Linka, in her white bikini, emerging from the ocean, the four triangles of fabric rendered translucent by the clinging water. His mouth inexplicably began to water, and he opened and closed his mouth several times, trying to speak.

When his mind did catch up with the conversation, when he found he could speak once more, Linka was staring at him, her eyes searching.

'Yankee, are you...?'

'I gotta go,' he said abruptly. He spun on his heel to leave, only to feel Linka lay her hand on his arm.

'We can be friends again, can we not?' she asked him quietly, and he stared at her fingers on his skin, trying to take deep, cleansing breaths.

'Yeah,' he finally said, mentally giving himself a shake. 'Yeah, course we can, Babe.'

She nodded, and he sighed, before reaching over to kiss her on the forehead.

'I should get goin',' he muttered. 'Want to get home before it gets too late, you know.'

Linka nodded. 'Trish will be waiting for you?'

He swallowed down an uncomfortable ball in his throat. 'Uh, yeah.'

Linka nodded. 'You will have a good time,' she decided. 'And when you come back, on Monday, we will have a visitor. Something for you to look forward to.'

At that he stopped. 'A visitor?' he asked, automatically suspicious.

'Yes,' Linka answered, a slow smile spreading across her face. It was the smile he loved, but tonight something in him rebelled against the idea that someone else was causing it.

'Who?' he asked, a sharp edge to his voice.

'Gregor,' Linka said happily. 'I told Gaia about his letter and the symposium and she suggested that Gregor come visit us here so he can see first hand our work.'

Wheeler's stomach dropped. Linka looked happy. A little too happy for his liking.

'This is a good thing, Yankee,' Linka carried on. 'It makes me feel as though I can help my village back home in a positive, hands on manner. You will be... kind to Gregor, yes?'

Wheeler nodded mutely.

'Thank you,' Linka hugged him quickly. 'Now go, you will be late. I will see you on Monday.'

He nodded again. When he looked down, Linka was still clutching the bikini in her hand. He gestured to it.

'Gonna send that back then? The saran wrap bikini?' He paused. 'You don't want Gregor gettin' the wrong idea about Planeteer work, do you?'

Linka laughed, before something crossed her eyes and she looked down at it, seemingly considering the garment in her hand, as though seeing it for the first time. That same slow smile spread across her face, and Wheeler felt deeply uneasy. 'Actually,' she said lightly. 'I think I will hang onto it.' She smiled at him again. 'Just for now.'