He shoved his hands into his pockets. "Hey." Right now, he not only looked like an awkward teenager, but he actually felt like one too. Charlie took a deep breath, but couldn't look her directly in the eye. "Yeah."
Charlie came just inside the room and closed the door behind him. He could have stood there for a long time silently, but he'd been preparing himself for this and took a deep breath before starting to talk. "I've been avoiding you. Um, because of..." He shrugged. "I'm not good at this. I left you when I said I wouldn't and I did some things I shouldn't have done and I've gotta live with that now. That doesn't excuse anything, and it shouldn't. And I shouldn't have avoided you. I just wasn't ready. I dunno if I am now even, but..." He shrugged again.
Elizabeth just sat in the hard chair for a moment, composing herself and her thoughts. "But what?" she asked, wanting to hear what he had to say even if she wasn't sure if she wanted to hear it.
"But I think I love you." He looked away for a moment. "Scared the hell outta me knowing that loving someone so much could bring stuff out in me I didn't think existed, and not good stuff. I stayed away because it freaked me out."
As cliched as it might have been, Elizabeth's heart seemed to skip a beat.
"Well," she began softly. "I guess that's a good thing because I think I love you too. Which means that I don't like being left with just a note when you're going half-assed on some mission and might die."
"If the strength of your convictions had been enough, nothing I would have said would have been enough," Elizabeth said quietly. "And I would have had a chance to say goodbye, if, god forbid, the worse had happened."
"It won't." He was making a promise he couldn't keep, but it felt like the right thing to do at the time. Kawalsky wiped at his nose. "I dunno how to do this anymore." He waved his hand at her, then back at himself. "You and me are different types of people, Liz. I don't wanna lie to you about what I did to them, but I don't think you'd see me the same way if I told you."
Elizabeth bit her lip. "I've not really known how to do this since we've started," she confessed. "I think I have an idea. I've seen more military files than I've ever wanted to. So, I'm not going to ask you what you did to them." She looked down at her hands, twisting them together. "I knew you were a soldier when I met you. I knew you were trained to kill people. I guess. I guess I just thought that this would be high school and you wouldn't need to use that knowledge. Especially not because of me."
"It's part of who I am. It's easy to forget when I look like this, and go to classes and do teenage stuff. But I can't change 25 years of my life even if I try. It's always going to be part of me. Can you live with that?" To some degree, he didn't want to hear the answer. Ignorance was bliss and all that. But it had to be asked.
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"Well," she began softly. "I guess that's a good thing because I think I love you too. Which means that I don't like being left with just a note when you're going half-assed on some mission and might die."
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