RP LOG with goodcoverstory | More time

[lotterylucky]

All Riley wanted was for his head to stop pounding. It was like he was reliving over and over again that first moment Rory smashed it against the wall. The whole meeting in his office hadn't helped. In fact, it had just been downright strange and awkward. It would have been nice to know Rory had a brother - or two brothers, apparently - before they all got into this mess. Now there had to be a lot of backtracking to try and explain why Rory was being held in a military facility. Why the hell had Airlie had to go all ninja on them and contact the brothers without a heads-up? Estranged families were a pain in the damn ass.

Making his way through the pharmacy a couple of blocks from his home, Riley was wondering why the hell the lights had to be so bright and the walls had to be so friggen white. Just because they stocked medical supplies, didn't mean they had to pretend they were a freaking hospital. He could put sunglasses on, but then he would just end up looking like a freak considering he was indoors. A freak, or high, or hungover. Neither were particularly good for the appearance, though he wasn't entirely sure he didn't look hungover anyway. He wasn't even allowed to drive after the bump to the head, and Graham had escorted him home. Or escorted him here, rather. Riley said he would walk home once he stocked up on Tylenol and some antiseptic to keep the cut on his head clean. It was in an awkward position, too. He wouldn't even be able to lie on the back of his head. Plus, he really could have done without Graham's incessant reminders that Buffy was always going to get him hurt. With a soft groan to himself, Riley rounded the corner into the section for the painkillers and upon spotting the bottle he wanted, reached up to grab it, only to nearly smack someone else in the face who seemed to be on the same mission.

Smack someone else who just happened to be his one night stand.

Shit... "Lucie. Hey."

Nina blinked as she looked up to find Riley staring at her. The bottle of pain killers sat there forgotten as she tried to work out if she could maybe duck and roll out of the aisle and pretend like she hadn't seen him. Only of course he had to say hey. He had to recognise her. She felt like shit, their last encounter had left her in turmoil over her work and why she was even in France. Everything seemed to be compounding lately and giving her an identity crisis. The idea of being just Lucie was becoming more and more tempting. Just like Lucie getting someone special was.

She was just sure she'd probably fucked up her chances with Riley. "Riley. Bonjour. Are you well?" She glanced at the Tylenol and gave a small shake of her head. "Non, of course you aren't. I'm sorry." She just kept staring at him until she noticed a stain on the collar of his t-shirt. "Is that blood?"

Riley nearly wet himself, he really did. It seriously was not like Blaise to leave any traces, until Riley realised the blood could have actually come from anywhere. His own head, Rory's nose when he had him held against the wall. "Um... yeah, probably. I got hit in the head at work today. Hostile victim. Concussion... Tylenol," he added in explanation, pointing to the pills on the shelf before he hesitantly picked up his selection. "Nothing I can't handle. Been there, done that all before. My head is apparently quite thick," he joked.

Nina's eyebrows went up before she moved slightly to look at Riley's head to try and find the wound. "Have you been treated? Are you sure pain killers are going to be enough? You really shouldn't be alone after concussion. You need someone with you to keep an eye on you. Your head might be thick, but that had to have hurt. What happened to the victim?"

"I've had loads of concussions. It's okay. Once my brain stops feeling like it's going to melt out of my ears, it'll be all good." Riley pointed behind his head to where he got hit. "Stitches, see. And he's in our medical facility. He's under the influence of some powerful substances and had a bad reaction to them. I provoked him accidentally, unfortunately. Just one of those days. You watch, I'll walk outside and get rained on, without a doubt."

Nina touched the back of Riley's head gently and bit back a sigh. It was so hard not to quiz him like a CIA agent. She wanted to know what kind of substances, and why he'd even been taking them in the first place. Not to mention exactly how Riley had provoked him. As a soldier he should have known better. "Stitches, yes. You really are having a bad time of it, aren't you? Mon amour... What if you came home with me?"

Riley tucked the bottle of pills against his chest, not sure what he should say initially. "I think it's just a misalignment of the planets. My sign isn't in Venus' Uranus or something. Things seems to go fine for months, then just..." He made an explosion sound, with a hand gesture for emphasis. "Your place? Are you sure that's a good idea, considering what went down between us?"

"Do you really want your sign in Venus' Uranus?" Nina asked with a soft laugh before she nodded in sympathy. The explosion sound she could more than empathise with. "I don't know what's a good idea anymore. That's the truth. Besides, what went down between us was at your place. Maybe it happening at my place might be different."

Riley touched the back of his head to make sure his brains weren't falling out any holes, despite it feeling like they were. "It's probably the most action my Uranus as seen in a long time," he joked back and then glanced down at his shoes, trying to figure out if they were going to end up playing a safe game here. All he could see was more heartache. "You know, in my experience, when there are so many secrets in one small area, they are always inevitably going to come out. I'm not even sure how a relationship of any sort can be built on lies. I tried that once, I got found out and it seemed from that point, it never really found a firm foundation. It ended up coming to a crappy end. Also, the whole lover who died thing? Completely freaked me out. I've been in that position before too, and she never got over the dude. I was always second best, always being compared, and he wasn't anyone many would have a hope of living up to. I was never enough for her, and to be honest, I don't really want to go through that again. Ever. Then my next serious relationship, I couldn't really live up to her own ego. Seriously, I did consider celibacy after my experiences. That's no joke."

Nina sucked in a breath as she glanced around them, trying to see who else was in the pharmacy. "Riley, you don't have anyone to live up to. D'accord? You don't. My dead lover is... dead. I'm not hung up on them. I said it had been hard to let anyone close because it has been. I get nervous. They were murdered, okay? Murdered. Not some random car accident, not some freak plane crash. They were killed. If I ever do find someone again, of course I'm going to worry. Only you're military. Chances are you know how to take care of yourself, and maybe even me. I don't have to be the strong one... And I'm selfish enough to want that, to want to be the one that gets looked after. You're like no one I've met, and I guess I'm not in a hurry to let you go. Even at the risk of secrets being exposed."

Riley pointed. "That right there is another fear of mine. Not being let close. I don't know how much I have fought for that over my time, and I seem to keep getting booted in the nuts. You think telling me he was murdered is seriously going to make me feel better? It makes it all worse. I don't know if I can do this, alright? You come with baggage, I come with baggage. That's a lot of damn baggage. You know what, you're right. I am military. Do you realise I have more of a chance at getting killed randomly than most other people? How many brushes with death I have already had and I haven't even hit thirty yet? Do you realise I could have practically been strangled no less than five hours ago? This is... I just don't see how it will work. I don't. Call me mental. A lot of people do."

Nina reached for her own bottle of pain killers as she gave a nod. "Oui, you're right. Of course you're right. What was I thinking... You're not mental, Riley. Just logical. No one can fault you for that, least of all me. I think maybe I was just selfish enough to want something for myself, but how can I have that when there isn't full disclosure? And what would we get from full disclosure anyway... What good would it do us? The baggage would be strewn across the floor and we'd just be sitting in the middle of it."

"The fact that what you have disclosed to me has pretty much given me enough to be insecure about doesn't exactly set my pulse racing with anticipation," Riley admitted quietly. "The fact that there seems to be a whole lot more you haven't disclosed scares the hell out of me. Not that I can judge on that in anyway, but my heart is still human, and very capable of getting broken. In fact, I'm not even sure it's entirely healed from last time considering how much this is freaking me out. I also have to admit that my baggage... my secrets... I might never be able to fully reveal to you, because they're not my secrets to tell. My job is protecting other peoples' secrets. People I would die to protect."

Nina looked down as she shifted her weight, her mouth pulled to the side as she considered her options. All of a sudden she really was presented with something she didn't want to lose. "Would you protect my secrets? If I could accept the fact that you couldn't tell me yours, would you at least protect mine? If I jump... If I risk telling you... I need to at least know that you'll keep it between us."

"Yeah, of course I would. I'm military special ops. I'm painfully addicted to keeping secrets. So much so that I'm pretty sure I don't even have any secrets of my own anymore. They're all... someone else's, and some days that just hurts. I don't know why." Riley paused, tempted to crack open the pill bottle and down a handful of them to try and get his head to stop hurting. The whole fuck up with Rory's brother was playing on him, now this. He just felt confused, like he didn't know where his footing was safe right now. "Just... let me be honest about something for a moment. It's something I probably should have said straight up, but I thought it was just sex. I was married. To a colleague. Same sort of secret-keeping mind set, and just as much ambition to climb the ranks. At first, it was great. I loved being married, and she helped me out of a dark time. Until I realised she was just using me to get higher ranks. She... hurt me. Intentionally and physically. I just wanted you to know there was a reason I'm a nutcase with this whole relationship thing. Reasons. She's one, but I just felt like you should know that I was married."

Nina took a step back before she even realised she'd done it, her expression reflecting obvious pain. "I'm not after your rank, I'm not even that ambitious. I wouldn't hurt you, not intentionally. Not for those same reasons. And maybe it was just sex, but I like you. I keep thinking about you, and I keep wanting to just be the simple waitress that doesn't have secrets, but it's not me and I'm sorry. I'm sorry that all I'm doing is making you feel worse, and I just really want to do nothing but have a chance to be the one that does put you first, that gets it right. That treats you right. I don't even know why. Sometimes you just get this instinct. My timing is just really, really shit."

Riley watched her as she talked and then relaxed his shoulders just a little once she finished. He cleared his throat and rolled the bottle between his fingers. "I guess it couldn't hurt so much to just spend some time together... talk about stuff. I also didn't mean to imply you were going to do the same thing as my ex wife. I really did just want you to know I had been married. I've just been caught up in situations like this for so long, it's hard for me to always know the right or wrong answers. Before I went back to the Military, I worked for the government. The frame of mind there was just the same. It's easy to get locked into a self-preserving mindset."

Nina looked back at Riley, her own shoulders relaxing as she tried to hang on to some shred of hope that she hadn't lost Riley completely. "It's okay. You've been married. Divorced isn't all that bad. In fact, it's actually good. You just being separated would have been even more awkward. You can want to self-preserve all you want, and I know that mindset. Trust me, but I just... I want to get to know you. For you to get to know me. No rushing."

"It was an extremely fast-tracked divorce. Apparently 'She tried to kill me' are adequate ground for a speedy dissolution. Ironically, though, my ex wife made my girlfriend before that look like an angel in comparison to what she did to me, but it was the other relationship that hurt more. Funny how shit like that works. It just makes me wonder if a broken heart can ever really heal. Again, why I freaked out before. I am sorry for that," Riley told her again with a small frown. "It's been a hell of a few weeks. I guess I'm just tired and off my game. I seriously nearly well pissed off an MI6 Agent today, which could have had me stripped of my ranks and court-martialed. Luckily he was pretty focused on other things."

"Mon dieu, you really have had some day. Please, just come back to my place. No sex, no taking advantage. Just a warm bed, and some decent food to take with your pain killers. I won't even mind if you decide to drool on my shoulder," Nina said to him as she reached out to rub her hand against his arm. "I won't try and kill you, I'm not your ex-wife. Or your ex-girlfriend. Maybe a broken heart can't ever be healed, but it doesn't have to stay lonely."

Riley scrunched his nose up just a little, enough that he just avoided the action causing his head too much pain. "I can't promise I'm going to be much good company. Actually, I'm starting to wonder what has made you think I was good company at all. I haven't exactly been very accommodating to you. Feel free to have second thoughts."

Nina hooked her arm through his as she took his pain killers off him so she could pay for both. She even managed to pick up a packet of jelly beans. "The heart is a mysterious thing, non? There's no explaining attraction. It's getting beyond the attraction that makes it all complicated. You don't need to be good company. Sometimes just being with someone is enough."

Riley just followed her slowly, keeping his eyes down so the ground didn't spin too much. "See, I don't believe that. I maybe did once upon a time, but I don't anymore. I don't think just being with someone is enough. There always comes a time where it needs to be more, and often you just downright aren't enough for them. That's when everything starts hurting, and it makes you start wondering why the hell you're bothered. I mentioned I had concussion, right. I apologise in advance for any shitty and depressing things that come out of my mouth."

Nina stopped at the counter and pulled some euros from her pocket to give to the cashier before she turned around to face Riley. "I meant when you were feeling unwell. That's when it's nice to just have someone around. The concussion with the heartache really doesn't make you good company does it, mon amour? Good thing I'm tenacious. We're just going to work on one step at a time. It's all I can ask, and all I can offer."

Riley pressed his lips together and looked at her sheepishly. "I'm the sort who goes underground and hides when I'm sick. My ex girlfriend never saw me sick. That was a lot to do with the situation, but also to do with my tendency to back away when I'm feeling weak. Deny everything, and it might go away, and all that. I managed to convince a whole room of people today that I was fine to be in control of the situation when really I was just hoping both my eyes were focused in the one direction. In saying that, I always wondered how it would feel to have someone take care of me when I was sick. Never was enough for me to let it happen, though. I like to be the protector, not the protectee."

Nina took her change and pocketed it as she picked up the paper bag and slipped her free hand into Riley's to start to slowly guide him out of the pharmacy. "Maybe, but right now I think you need to be the protectee. And you know what? If you let your guard down right now... Let me see you sick, let me take care of you, that's one first that can't get taken away from us. One exchange of trust that is just between us."

"Well, the way my head is feeling right now, you might just get lucky," Riley joked and then fell quiet for a moment. "Are you just letting me talk about myself to avoid talking about you?" he asked her eventually. "It can't just be because you like the sound of my voice. I've done a whole lot of talking about me, and you've done a whole lot of answering me with a positive reply."

Nina cleared her throat softly as she looked down at her feet. "A little, oui. See one of the secrets..." She cleared her throat again as she let the French accent drop. "You and I aren't exactly from such different backgrounds."

Riley looked at her uncertainly. "And I'm just, uh... supposed to guess?" he asked. "I think I figured out early-ish that there was a chance you weren't just a waitress. I'm naturally suspicious. It didn't entirely make sense to me."

"You're my worst nightmare, but thankfully not someone I'm trying to gather dirt on," Nina replied with a wry smile. She hugged his arm a little tighter as the cool air started to hit her and lifted her gaze to meet his. "My name's Nina. Not Lucie. I think I'm really starting to lose my grasp for undercover work, and you have no idea how much that is scaring the shit out of me. I'm CIA."

Riley paused in his walking and closed his eyes momentarily. Who the frig could manage to cross the paths of MI6 and CIA in one day? All he needed was the FBI to jump out of the shadows at him and yell 'SURPRISE!' The day wasn't over yet, so he couldn't even discount that. "You don't happen to be working with an Agent Buchanan, do you?" he had to ask wryly. "At least I can assure you my name is really Riley. I work covert ops, but not undercover."

"It's nice to meet you, Riley Finn. Again. I'm sorry for... I'm sorry. I really want to be just Lucie for you, but I can't. Not when it's me that likes you. Not when you already have enough history with secrets to want to shy away from it all." Nina turned her head to keep watching him, waiting for him to decide this was all too much. "And no, not working with any Agent Buchanan. Was he the MI6 agent? It's okay, I won't ask what happened. Not the details. I know how it goes. Same as you can't really know what I am doing here."

"Yeah... he was. Really long story. He isn't undercover, either, but he has a lot of reason to be pissed at me right now. I'm yet to meet his partner, and I'm probably going to be stuck dealing with them both for a little while yet. He's involved in the same case I am. I am sort of relieved to hear you don't know him, because I could use a breather from the whole situation to try and get my head back into order before I turn around and screw up all over again. That seems to be something I'm getting really good at lately." Riley rubbed his forehead with his fingertips, watching her tiredly out from under them. "I promise, I don't really want to know what you're doing here, and I mean that in the nicest way possible."

Nina cracked a smile as she leaned in to kiss the corner of his mouth. "I'll take it as a compliment. That's at least, what? Three secrets down... And we're still standing, still here. Everyone fucks up, Riley. At some point we all stop being able to keep our heads straight. There's just no easy solutions for how to fix it."

Riley nodded a little, but didn't reply straight away. Truth was, he was getting sick of hearing the sound of his own voice. He had gotten the memo on her last point, repeatedly over the course of his life. He knew without a doubt his biggest fuck up of the day - year, maybe - was reacting to Rory's taunts about sleeping with Buffy. One would think he still hadn't gotten over her, but that wasn't it at all. He was just frustrated about the whole situation because he was over her. He was over her, and he had slept with her because he hadn't had any sort of intimacy since his divorce. He should have looked for it elsewhere, not with Buffy. The reason he smacked Rory in the face was because he was pissed off at himself for the exact reason Rory was taunting him. It just aggravated him to hear it put so bluntly. Now he had a concussion to show for it, and he was lucky that was all he ended up with. It just completely compounded the situation to have Rory's brother show up on the scene, and thankfully once the guy saw the injuries Rory had, agreed to keep him sedated for another twenty four hours. "You know our medic strongly advised I should be lying down. I'm pretty sure hearing myself talk is just giving me a bigger headache."

"I'm sorry, I know you want me to talk more, but I don't even know where to start. I was born in North Carolina. Went to college where I specialised in languages. That's where the Agency picked me up. I actually liked my work up until Australia. I was based in Sydney when my lover got killed... I had fallen for him while undercover and it just asked for trouble. I guess maybe that's why I just want you and me to be... you and me. Only we can't. Not always. Most of the time I'll still need to be Lucie. I wouldn't be surprised if this is giving you a headache as well. Meeting you, though... It's making me rethink the undercover work. I miss being Nina." She rubbed her hand against his arm slowly as they started to walk again. "I could always run you a bath if you wanted one."

"A bath?" Riley asked with a laugh, glancing at her. "Wow. I don't think I've had one of those in... shit, it's been a really long time. Just for the record, though, I don't really fit so easily into small ones. Probably why I don't usually think to have them. You apartment isn't, like, eight blocks away is it? If the ground feels anymore like it's going to turn up over me, I'll have to start taking really large steps to overexaggerate and that will just look really stupid. I can't really offer any advice about the undercover thing. I've lived life with two facets since I was a teenager. I guess I'm just used to it. I don't always like it, sometimes it's awesome. It just seems to prove really bad for me finding some sort of happiness with anyone. I thought I had it made when I got married, you know? But it was just another regret to add to my ever growing pile of them. I am sorry about your lover, even if it still freaks me out. You know, I'm not sure I have ever seen a successful relationship between two work colleagues. My wife was my partner, and she still tried to poison me to get my promotion. In dangerous jobs, there are always chances one of you could get seriously hurt or killed. Nothing really seems to point to that whole ultimate happiness thing everyone wants to badly."

Nina gave a shake of her head as she pointed to a door way they were coming up to at the side of a shoe store. "My apartment's up there. It's leased out by the sweetest mom and pop couple. They own the shoe shop, too. I have to admit it's a nice change from the massive complexes in the US that litter the cities. Don't get me wrong, they have those there, but it's nice having this small space right in the heart of Paris. Something no one really expects, you know?" She gently guided him towards the doorway. "Also came with a big bathtub... It was the real selling point for me, so I think you might be find you're actually fine. I promise I won't try and get in there with you."

Riley nodded and only managed to glance up a little before his head spun again and he made a blind grab to hold himself up on the wall they were passing. "Only, in Paris, not many average people can afford those complexes. It's times like this I'm lucky I get a housing allowance doing the job I do. I picked the place, and someone else signed the cheques." He just followed her the rest of the way, still not really sure how he was supposed to feel about the whole bath thing, or the being at her apartment thing. Or the fact when he went off on a tangent talking, she hardly said anything in return. He took it as a cue to shut the hell up and keep it to small talk. Safer that way anyway.

She waited until they were inside and she could ease Riley onto the sofa before she sat across from him on the coffee table and rest her hands on his knees. "You okay there, soldier? Look, I... I've never been married. I never really thought about it. It's one of those things that got pushed away, pushed to the back of my mind because how could I think about something like getting married when half the time I'm deep undercover for a year, or more? What kind of life would that be. So I really can't pretend I know what I'm doing, and if you couldn't guess already I'm just making it all up as I go. I'm not used to talking to anyone as me. It's been too long."

Riley reached over and took the pharmacy bag off her to get the painkillers out. He took a couple of them from the bottle and swallowed them dry, even if he wasn't overly convinced they would do much. "I get it. It's fine. I won't push you on it," he promised and neatly folded the bag closed again. "I guess that's why I'm fortunate in my job. I don't lose me. Maybe that's not always a good thing, though. The personal side of me just screws up, leaves me wishing I was someone else sometimes. In that sense, I'm envious of you."

Nina gave him a wry smile. "I'd rather just be me. I'd rather have something... someone to keep me grounded. Maybe that's asking too much right now, I don't know." Nina took his hand and kissed his knuckles. "You're not pushing anything on me, by the way. I just need the slow steps, taking time. Maybe we'll actually wind up balancing each other out."

"I guess we're both screwed up. Can I be honest with you about something? Sort of more like an admission, and I'm totally okay if you want to judge me on it, but it's just one more thing I feel like you should know before this goes any further. Even if it just goes a little bit more further before we back off. But as long as there is a chance it will go more than that, I just need to be honest with you about this one thing," Riley told her softly, looking down at her hand around his.

Nina leaned forward as she watched his face. "Sure, of course. I know you think I'm probably not involved in the conversation, but I am. And for the record I actually like the sound of your voice. It's nice just listening to someone. Realising that it's not just spying for secrets. What did you want to talk to me about?"

"At least you aren't looking at me with dumbstruck awe for having an American accent. I seem to get that a lot. But seriously, I realised today that a determined Scottish accent is way more out of place. You have a Scot yell at you, and you feel like drawing a sword on him and painting your face blue just by default," Riley said with a slight laugh. "It's about the girl I was at the restaurant with that night. The one you thought was my girlfriend... wife... whatever. I told you she was my ex, very much in the past. Which is true, but the fact of the matter is before I saw her in Paris the day before that night at the restaurant, it was the first time I had seen her since we broke up, save for one day when she found out I was married. Anyway, our relationship caused me a lot of pain. It's the reason I seem to have so much baggage that I really thought I had left in the past. But I... the day I saw her in Paris here, I slept with her. Old feelings got dragged up, and we slept together. It has actually created a whole lot more shit that I could be doing without. We shouldn't have done it... she's romantically involved with a really high profile person here in France, and although she says that wasn't technically the case, it has come to light that it really was and I feel like a huge idiot for getting involved with her again. I just... I did it because I was lonely. I missed being intimate with someone. My feelings got misprojected, and even hoped for the merest of moments there might be a second chance on the cards. It wasn't how I really felt, though."

Nina kept a hold of her hand and bit her lip as she listened. She rubbed her thumb against his and raised her eyebrows a little. "Okay, well... There's no judging here. I can't really blame you for that. I figured there might have been some intense stuff there. I mean, fighting me to pat your crotch? She was definitely not acting like an ex. No wonder you had your signals crossed. But she's... she's not about to become a mixed signal again, is she? How did you really feel? Was I... Am I a misprojection?"

Riley gave a slow shake of his head. "Not in any way, shape of form. I can't emphasise that enough, seriously. She hurt me a lot in the past. She never loved me. She let me walk away. I might be an idiot sometimes, but I'm not a masochist. Even if she had turned around this time and said we could have a second chance, I would have hit a point where I just ended up cutting it off anyway. I don't want to go through that again. You can see why I got so freaked out. Buffy is a good part of the reason for that. In fact, it eventually came to light that she had slept with someone else the day before. It was just a whole lot of mixed emotions. We cared about each other. A lot. But no. No mixed signals or misprojections. The restaurant lap thing did confuse me, I'll admit. Especially considering the guy she's involved with was there. I'm pretty sure considering you are CIA here in Paris, you know who Blaise Richelieu is."

"Wow, she definitely sounds... special." Nina made it clear that Buffy was anything but, however she was playing nice for the moment. Her back straightened a little. Of course she knew who Blaise Richelieu was. No one in intelligence was worth their salt if they didn't. It was hard to miss the fact that he was a strong presence in the city, but he wasn't linked to her investigations. He probably preferred bloodshed in the boardroom to just randomly draining victims with no signs of injury. "Buffy and Blaise... wow again. She's got some interesting taste. Still, I'm not her. There's no one else, and you were the first action I'd seen in a year. As far as I'm concerned there's only you, Riley Finn."

"Blaise is a good guy. If I had known how he felt about her, I wouldn't have gone near her. The thing is, I'm not sure he actually knows how he does feel. He isn't the sort to wear his heart on his sleeve or trust easily. Can't blame the guy at all. He has a lot to lose if someone fucks him over. I just hope that Buffy is capable of loving someone. I doubted that she was for a very long time. Whether he wants to risk that or not is his issue now, though, not mine." Riley shook his head. "You're going to have to give me a reason now why you apparently just selectively chose to give up sex. Last I looked, it wasn't a requirement of the forces. Not even a requirement of the military."

Nina frowned before she shook her head in disbelief and started to smile again. "Guess we're not the only ones struggling to find our feet with relationships. Even people like Blaise have trouble. I just figured avoiding sex would mean avoiding having to worry about romantic entanglements. Why have you waited so long since your divorce? If it hadn't been Buffy you met under the Eiffel Tower, would you have still slept with a woman that day? Would you have slept with me?"

"If you have ever been married and gone through a sticky divorce, you would understand why I waited," Riley offered with a small shrug. "I also got posted here and spend most of my time with other straight males. It's not exactly conducive. Do you really think it would have been fair for me to use a woman as rebound sex? Maybe some people have the conscience for that, but I don't. It would have depended on the woman and if I hit it off with her. To be honest, Lucie... Nina... if you hadn't poured wine in my lap, I don't think our paths would have crossed or we would have had any reason to talk to each other. Hypotheticals aren't something I manage to wrap my head around easily. I'm more a hard facts sort of guy."

"Well, hard fact," Nina replied as she gave his hand a soft squeeze, "is that we're both here. We crossed paths, and we're sitting here right now. We had sex, so I'm assuming we hit it off. Even if it wasn't exactly what you had in mind. I'm sorry to imply anything about the divorce. I know it had to have been hard considering what your wife did to you, but I'm not her. I'm not your ex either. I'm not looking to make things worse for you so if that's what I'll do then, we can just... go our separate ways. But I know enough about you to know I don't want to give up on trying something here."

"No... look, Nina. This isn't about you. I don't mean that in a bad way, either. Divorce is terrible on anyone. It's not about you not being my wife. It's the fact I made a promise to someone that I would be with them and love them for the rest of my life, for better or worse. To have that ripped away, it takes time to get back on the horse. It's a promise I made with all my heart at the time, and I was going to share my life with her. I vowed I would. That meant a hell of a damn lot to me, and I had to come to accept that she didn't feel the same way. What I do know is... this is feeling really heavy really quickly. I'm not saying no. I'm not. I just need to take things a bit slower than they're going here. I just can't let myself believe right now that you know me enough to make decisions like that. It's gonna take more time," Riley insisted quietly, holding her gaze.

Nina tilted her head. "All I wanted was time, but the secrets weren't going to give us that. I still think you shouldn't be alone tonight. Just let me take care of you right now, okay? I'll drop you home in the morning. As early as you want."

Riley sighed, and if his head didn't have a dirty great hole in it, he probably would have ended scratching his fingers through his hair in confusion. "I just need to lie down. My head's hurting. Thinking is taking a lot of my energy."

Nina stood up as she tugged on Riley's hand. "I'll get you comfortable on the bed, let you get some rest. Just don't mind me if I come in and poke you just to check you're still alive."

Word Count | 6,642