His eyes were dark and wild, and she felt tempted to say: *Well, I'm not the one acting like a deranged maniac.*

"It's not a big deal" she muttered.

He took a step towards her. She didn't back up, and didn't back down, either, as he drew himself up to her. She didn't move, but she didn't breathe, either. His hands were half clenched, and he was warm, hot where she could feel the space between them.

"Yes it is" he said, even though she knew that already. She evaded his eyes, but he refused to be ignored, staring her down with that unreadable, vibrant glance that was too shallow to get inside her, but strong enough to break the skin. He didn't understand her any more than she did him. They'd been there before. She wasn't afraid. And he wasn't angry. Not with her, anyway.

"You put yourself in danger" he rasped, harshly. "That was stupid."

"Why?" she asked. "Because I could have been killed, or because your sorry ass could have lost cover?" *Score* she thought, viciously proud. He was caught taken aback.

"I've told you before, you have no business getting involved here" he muttered, backing up. "You're a liability."

"Well, it's a bit too late for that" she snapped. "So don't you tell me that."

"Get out!" he told her. "This isn't your problem. I can't be responsible for protecting you."

"Like hell!" she flared, eyes ablaze. "This has *become* my problem, in case you didn't notice. And, more so..." she got in his face, before he could turn away again. "I do not need your protection!"

"You need something" he muttered, deliberately cryptic, as he paced back toward the table, where the papers were. Just as if that weren't cruel enough, he tapped them on the desk. "Why is it that I always get stuck with you?" he mused, aloud. "It's not fair."

"I'll tell you what's not fair!" she exclaimed, hot tears of anger and hurt stinging her eyes. "That you have to act like a jerk when I do something for you, just because you're mad! You're mad at yourself, because God forbid you say something like 'thank you'!"

That got his attention, and he froze.

"Is that what you think?" he asked.

"It's what I *know*" she clarified. "Sometimes, I don't think you even have a clue. You're so keyed in to everything around you, yet you can't see the forest for the goddamned trees."

"You risked your life!" he shouted. "What am I supposed to say?"

"I'd do it again!" she cried, letting the tears flow freely down her flushed cheeks. What right did he have to do this to her?

He didn't answer. He shook his head, irritated, partially with himself for getting himself cornered twice in five minutes, but mostly with her, for being exactly right on the money.

She took another step forward, echoing his movement, earlier.

"You don't have to appreciate my efforts" she said. "Don't worry, I won't bother again."

There was that breathing span, again. She was mad, and more than a little bit frustrated, with him, and damn it, if his laconic arrogance and slouched posture of defiance wasn't turning her on. She turned to walk away.

"Go to hell" she added, for emphasis.

He watched her retreating back with a churning stomach, and, before he could think better of it, leaned over and grabbed her arm. As if in slow motion, she turned, her face a mask of pain and fire, and his face contorted.

"Not quite yet" he muttered.

Then he did the unexpected. Or, unexpected until his face lowered to hers, after which it was just a tense, sweltering instant until he kissed her. She burned, and cooled, with the hard, insistent sensation of his mouth on hers.

She tried to pull away, not so much because she wanted to, but because it was what he would expect. She jerked against his wiry arms, which refused to give. He was stronger than he looked... maybe strong enough to break her. She moaned, muffled by his hot breath, his lips, as they simultaneously abused her and lavished her with a molten desire that was matched only by her own willing. He intensified the kiss even more, sweeping over the inside of her mouth with his tongue in a blatantly carnal gesture. Even as she went weak, he held her up, moving the sweet, warm torment of his mouth elsewhere, over her lips, cheeks, chin, down to her neck, where his intensity throbbed at her throat, as if he wanted to rip it out.

She wasn't ready, not for any of it, and she wondered if this instance, of him kissing her, her responding in like, going any further might have some huge and revolutionary effect on the turning of the earth, or the positioning of the sky above it.

She couldn't care less.

He had her pinned against the wall, his hands at either side of her ears, and she had unconsciously began to writhe away from the burning barrier his body made, moving against the wall in a way he envied, even as his fingers wandered, to the lure of soft, heated skin and more of her muffled, insistent murmurs, suddenly more precious and rare to him than the great and overwhelming Truth itself. *I can't do this* his head said. *I can't let myself feel this way.*

Just as whatever else spoke to him reminded him that he had never wanted something as badly as to plunge into her, and bury his fears and his hang-ups, his imperfections and his scarred heart, in whatever room she could possibly have for him. He wanted to sleep there.

Michael couldn't deal with all this at once, though, so he settled for throwing the folder against the wall, and pushing Maria down on the table, while all his heightened senses and cognitive abilities registered was red and her.

***********************************

Two days earlier...

***********************************

"Welcome to the Crashdown Cafe" Maria Deluca prattled by rote, same as she did everyday. She automatically flipped open her order pad. "What can I get you today?"

"I'd take a pair of those antennae, if you can guarantee that they'll make me just as clueless as you."

Startled, she looked up.

Michael Guerin was staring back at her from the diner booth, his face a careful plotted mask of ennui. A menu hung from his fingers, and he was tapping the table aimlessly with the corner of it.

"What does it take to get some service along these parts?" he muttered. "I've been waiting for fifteen minutes.

Gritting her teeth to disguise her blush, and taken aback-edness, she poised her pencil over the paper.

"What are you doing here?" she hissed, head bent over pad so that no one in neighboring booths would hear.

He cocked one eyebrow curiously.

"Are you implying" he asked curiously, "that there's a reason I really shouldn't be here? Because frankly, Maria, I was under the assumption that one could possibly order food here."

"Cut the crap, Czechoslovakia" she muttered. "You know exactly what I mean."

"Is that your pet name for me?"

"You wish."

"Do I?" he asked, interested.

She couldn't hide it this time as she broke out in a raging blush, and immediately grew furious, with herself and him. God!

*All right* she admitted. *He's cute."

*Gorgeous.*

*No, he's NOT!*

"Inner conflict?" he interrupted innocently.

Maria's blood ran cold. Had be read the two parts of her mind fighting?

"Come again?"

"You look perplexed" he said. "And I know my comment wasn't that confusing."

She realized he was waiting for a response, and, annoyed, she made an impatient motion.

"Come on, I haven't got all night!" she huffed. "Order something, or take a hike."

He sighed.

"Believe it or not" he admitted, "My coming here was not a ploy to distract you."

She rolled her eyes.

He motioned her closer.

"That guy" he indicated. "At table five?"

Maria looked over. A man, about sixty, she guessed, by the way he hunched over his cup of coffee and unfurled copy of the Roswell Times. Total zero on the Creep-o-meter.

"It's an old guy" she clarified. "With a pecan Danish that I just served him. Is that a crime where you come from?" *Ooh* she thought. That one irritated him.

"Go away" he muttered, lowering his eyes back down to the table. "You're drawing attention."

She put her free hand on her hip.

"Are you telling me that you just interrupted me from work for no reason, just to tell me that you're spying on some innocent old man?"

He looked up at her again, calmly.

"That would be a reason, wouldn't it?"

She prayed to the gods of the ceiling to fall on his head.

"If you're going to sit in my place of employment and harass my patrons, you're going to order something, and give me a nice, fat tip." She informed him.

Michael frowned at the menu.

"Isn't that blackmail?" he wondered aloud.

"No" she corrected him. "It's called bribery, from you to me so that I don't kick you out."

He held up his hands.

"Fine!" he submitted. "Give me a William B. Davis Deluxe Hot Dog."

"Good... that's more like it." She scribbled the order down with a flourish.

"Can you move, now?"

She looked behind herself, and something dawned on her.

"You're serious, aren't you?" she gasped.

He groaned in annoyance.

"That's what I said. Now move!"

"But... oh, God."