Ned talked all day, all day long, sometimes with a false cheer, to the interested clients, to people who weren't yet sure, to his boss, to his coworkers, until some days he came home and didn't speak for the rest of the night, not after he yelled at the last jackass in traffic and shut his apartment door behind him and locked it, yanking the knot out of his tie. No cat or dog to kiss or pet or feed when he walked in, just silence and the hushed whisper of the air conditioner, the distant metallic slide of ice cubes in the freezer, the traffic on the other side of his window. He could feel his heart and blood slow, his brain shift out of high gear, and it was a good feeling.

Then he heard the knock at the door, quiet, hesitant, on the verge of flight, and he was speechless, mute with surprise when he looked through the spyglass and saw Nancy there.

He waited a breath before opening the door, and her gaze traced the lines, his cheek, his tie, his bare feet. "I'm sorry."

He found his voice. "It's okay," he said, and stepped back, the faint outline of his foot still showing on the hardwood floor for a moment. "Sorry. You okay?"

She drew her hand through her hair, but still stood within a foot of him, as though his was the only halo of warmth or light in the place. "I'm," she said, half-tilting her head, and her voice trailed off to nothing.

He had opened his eyes to find his face inches from hers, his arm slipped behind her to rest just above the small of her back, but she had been sleeping. Her head had been resting on his shoulder. She wasn't his girlfriend, she wasn't, but the room was quiet and the television off and they were alone, and he had rested his fingertips just over the warm curve of her cheek, tracing down, and he had lingered there for a few minutes before he could summon up the will to wake her and break the spell of it. She had hugged him goodbye and he had memorized the smell of her shampoo, slept in those same clothes just for the memory the faint scent had called to him, and dreamed of her.

Now that he knew how it felt to touch her, he couldn't help it; his hand rose, longing to cup the skin just above her elbow and steer her to the couch, lead her head to his shoulder, to make her part of the silence. But she smiled, her keys sounding faintly in her hand.

"I shouldn't have come over here."

"Yes, you should have," he said, and smiled. "I haven't had dinner yet, have you?"

"Don't tell me you cook."

He shrugged. "Some things," he said. "But I consider microwave popcorn a major food group, just so you know. I was thinking more about takeout."

She put her keys down on the overhanging lip of the bar, but didn't move to shrug out of her coat or put her purse down. "So you haven't had a wife to domesticate you."

He walked into the kitchen so she wouldn't see his face. "No, I sure haven't," he said. "Had a fiancÈe, for about two seconds."

"Oh, so you nearly were."

He shook his head. "It's... it's kind of a joke," he said, pulling out a bowl, a pot, and stood over the stove feeling vaguely ridiculous as he put them back. He was nervous, and instead of looking for the worn and stained stack of delivery menus, he was acting like he was about to cook her a five-course meal, impress the hell out of her, and sweep her off her feet. "I found out the girl had a husband still living."

"You sure know how to pick winners, don't you."

He shrugged. "Not only that, but she wanted to kill me and claim my body was his, just so she could take his inheritance."

"Had she not heard of DNA testing?"

Ned opened the shallow drawer under the phone and pulled out the menus. "She was hoping that the plane crash would burn my body beyond recognition."

Nancy's eyes were gleaming. "Wow," she breathed, and when Ned caught the expression on her face, he wondered if it was the same one Bess had told him about. "How'd you figure it out?"

"A thousand tiny things," he said. "Plus, no girl in her right mind would ever be as eager to marry me as that crazy bitch was."

"I wouldn't say that," she said, sliding behind him to open his fridge. "Mind if I get something?"

"Oh, no, I'll do that," he said, putting his hand over hers, and when she looked at him over her shoulder, he knew that she could feel it too. If he could bottle that feeling, he'd never need coffee again. "Sorry I don't have too much. Beer and soda and water, that's about it."

"Water," she decided, after a second of deliberation, and he was slow finding a glass, filling it with ice cubes, pouring it from the cold filtered pitcher.

"Pick out what you want," he said, nodding at the stack of menus. "I'm game for anything."

She shuffled through them, finding the old standbys, pizza and Chinese and sandwiches. "Sushi?" she asked.

"That what you want?"

"No, I was just surprised," she said softly. "Chinese, double of whatever you get and I'll pay you back."

He couldn't take his eyes off her. "Don't worry about it," he said softly. "Just grab a beer for me and we'll call it even."

They talked, about Jessica Thorne and his own rudimentary detective work, and when he was serving himself another spoonful of beef and broccoli she confessed that she also had her pilot's license. "It's come in handy," she said. "Sounds like it did for you too."

He nodded. "I don't know what I would have done if she'd picked some other way to off me."

He took a swig of his beer and she looked down at her water glass, running her fingertip around the lip. "Ned... I don't want you to misunderstand me."

"About what," he asked.

"I'm not..." she cleared her throat. "What I'm going through right now, I just don't want you to think... I need some time."

He nodded. "I told you," he said softly. "I'm not trying to pressure you into anything. And if you don't want me, if you never want to date me," he swallowed and didn't look at her, "then it's fine. But I think it'd be a shame to... to never see you again."

She smiled. "Yeah, same here," she murmured.

The shadows grew longer and they made the usual excuses, as she pulled on her coat and he helped just for an excuse to touch her again, watching her juggle her keys nervously between her hands. At his door, in half-shadow, she stood still for a moment and just gazed at him.

"You told me it would change my life," she said softly.

"It would," he said, and smiled. "It still can. It's not too late."

"It is tonight," she said, and laughed a little under her breath, before she closed her fingers around his and squeezed them for a second. "Good night, Ned."

"Goodnight," he told her, watching until she was out of sight, her red-blond hair sweeping over her shoulders. He counted his steps across his apartment, and the stillness and quiet were vaguely unsettling without her there to share them.

He watched from the window as she crossed the street and unlocked her car, turned on the headlights and pulled out. Her plate and fork in the sink, her empty glass with the trace of lipstick on the rim, were the only signs she had ever been there.

"I think it is too late," he whispered, touching her glass, the smudge of her fingerprints. "I think you already have me."