“Can I come in?” she asked. She had been drifting by his doorway all afternoon, hovering like a swimmer posed over too cold water. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and her toe skimmed the threshold, darting back to the other side.

He looked up from the deposition he’d been reading. “Sure,” he waved her in. Without realizing it, he took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Leaning back in his chair, he wove his fingers together behind his head and hoped he looked calmer than he felt.

She glanced around his office and sucked in a deep gulp of air before entering. She reminded herself that this was Harm. That she knew him. That she had no right to be nervous after their last conversation. She was, after all, the one deciding their fate now. There could be no arguing that she didn’t know how he felt. “I wanted-” she stopped and swallowed the rest of the sentence. A clear blue pool lay in front of her. Sunlight rippled on its surface, undulating in the waves. She closed her eyes briefly and got ready to jump. “I wanted-” She stopped again and resisted the urge to stomp her foot.

“You said that already,” he teased. His foot tapped against the floor tiles, jiggling his knee against his desk. “What’s up, Mac?”

She took a deep breath and jumped. “I wanted to tell you that I can’t – I can’t tell you what you want to hear.” Cold water sluiced over her skin and slid to the floor. She was certain he could feel it, because she could see his knee freeze mid-bounce. “Yet,” she amended.

“Unbelievable,” he muttered.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. She shook her head slightly and slid into a chair in front of his desk. “I didn’t mean to start this again.”

“Then what did you mean to do?” He picked up a pen on his desk and twirled it between his fingers. He kept his gaze fixed on the pen’s arc and refused to look at her.

“I meant to-” She broke off and shrugged. “I meant to-” Shaking her head again, she sighed. “I thought I was trying to fix things between us?”

“Exactly how did you think you were going to accomplish that by saying that?” He rubbed a hand over his forehead, smoothing out the skin there.

She bit her lower lip and studied the heel of her shoe. “What kind of person would that make me?” she asked softly.

“What do you mean?” The words were curt and ground out, forced out by the pressure of frustration.

She looked up at him and then turned her face away. “What kind of person would that make if I could get over someone, someone who died, that easily? That quickly?” Her fingers curled around each other and tightened. “Would you really want someone like that?”

“Mac,” he drawled her name out in a low sigh. “I…” Then he paused and looked down at his desk, studying the calendar on its surface. Only two months had passed; only two months and it seemed like so much longer and like no time at all. “I told you,” he said quietly, “I loved you. What more do you want from me?”

“Time,” she said simply, raising her eyes. “And understanding, I guess.”

He exhaled sharply. “You always had that.”

She nodded and swallowed heavily. “I know that now.” Sighing, she added, “I do, you know.”

“Okay,” he nodded this time. “How much time?”

She shrugged and read the diplomas on his walls. “As much as I need so that I don’t feel like a cheap slut when I tell you I love you, too.”

The air left his body in a quiet whoosh. Leaving him speechless in the wake of her declaration. “Okay.”

She swept her foot along the tiles, tracing their lines square by square. The silence stretched slowly, easing across the floor. It gained presence inch by inch. After a minute stretched to two, she asked quietly, “Is the offer still open?”

“What offer?” he asked absently.

“The vacation?”

“You want to come.” He was surprised and a little trickle of happiness seeped into the cold. It diffused, though, when he considered the practicalities. “What about leave?”

“I,” the smile was brief and sheepish, “I already got it.”

He answered her smile with one of his own. “Awfully sure of yourself, aren’t you? How’d you know I’d say okay?”

“Please,” she waved a hand and smirked, but a tremor along her fingers let him know that she had considered the possibility. She stood up and smoothed her skirt. “What time are we leaving?”

“We have reservations on the first ferry out, so we thought we’d leave the day before. Sixish?”

She raised an eyebrow. “In the morning?”

“Can’t handle it?”

“Oh, no,” she reassured him. “I’ll be fine.” She smiled again and walked to the door. Pausing at the entrance, she turned and winked. “I was worried about you.”

He tossed his pen at her. “Get back to work.”

Her laugh rippled into his office as she walked down the hallway. His pen lay on the floor. He had missed. But only by inches.

When he was a boy, too young to understand the cold, he loved to jump into the pool without testing the waters. After the initial shock wore off, after his scream had faded, the water always felt so good.