"I know you're still smarting from my turning down your proposal of marriage…but how long can you drag this out? You're hurting me, but you're also hurting yourself with this…feigned indifference!"

The court emptied out, leaving just the two of them. Standing there, like dopes, as usual.

He watched her take off that ridiculous neck brace and break down her collapsable cane (they made those? Of course they did, and of course Diane knew where to get one) and wondered if she recognized the look on his face for what it was.

He guessed since Diane couldn't look him straight in the eye that she didn't. He sat back down and stretched out his legs, casually, as if the hard, state-issued wooden chair was the big one in his office, and leaned back.

Alone again.

"Sam, I'm sorry. I guess I got a little…carried away."

Given what she'd just put him through, the obvious shame radiating off of Diane Chambers felt…right. Just. She deserved this, after everything that had happened in the last 24 hours—having him arrested wasn't even the worst of it.

He would've liked to make her squirm, but she was doing the job for him, and better than he could. He saw that for the first time since he'd called her up that night and asked her to marry him, Diane really was unsure.

She was looking at him, but she didn't see.

"I wanted to…expose our relationship to the scrutiny of the court. God knows I've tried to figure it out. I'm at a…complete loss."

He'd never felt calmer in all his life. Serene, almost. Which, considering what he was about to say, God help him, probably meant he was certifiable.

Maybe this was how Diane had felt when she waltzed back into Cheers and his life all those months ago, talking about 'fate' and how it 'wasn't up to them', grinning like the Cat that Caught Mayday Malone. She had been so sure of everything, then—of her, of him, of us.

Not that it had done her much good. He hadn't let it.

Sam counted himself lucky that she had major blind spots when it came to the two of them. Diane was like a powerful but undisciplined pinch-hitter—at the bottom of the ninth with two outs she could knock it out of the park, but usually she swung hard and missed. She saw him keeping her love letters for what it was, saw through his pathetic attempt to fool her about that weekend with Vicky at the Cape…

Her certainty he would propose again had been a real strike-out.

"No, it makes perfect sense to me. You want me to propose to you - I propose to you. You say 'no', I say 'fine, I never want to see you again'…"

If their relationship was a dance, the part that Diane had never gotten was that he needed to lead. Her pushing only made him want to push back twice as hard, made him want to fight her—that was comfortable, safe, familiar territory for them. Fighting let him hold her at arm's length while still being the center of her universe—exactly where he liked to be. Biding his time. Doing exactly what Janet had accused him of—not having and holding Diane, but sure as hell not letting anyone else take a crack.

He'd spent months trying to show her she had no power over him, but the only person he'd succeeded in fooling was Sam Malone.

And now, apparently, at last—Diane.

"…You drive me nuts telling me you want me to propose to you again. I do, you turn me down…"

He had meant every word the night before—this had become a game for them, a joke. It was staler than beer at closing, a cheap gag that had gone on way too long. He had to be firm with Diane, or she'd never let up—she would be the joke if it she didn't come to her senses and stop deluding herself.

And then those big blue eyes had filled with tears….

"…Next thing I know, I'm in a court of law where I've got to propose to you or I'll go to jail."

Had he been punishing her? After the disaster on the boat, Sam hadn't thought so, was sure he was well-rid of the woman. Diane's first instincts had been right, he was just on the rebound from Janet—hell, he and Diane hadn't even been together for almost two years. What was he thinking? He and Diane—didn't work. He knew it, she knew it. The whole bar knew it. They drove each other nuts, and on top of that—she was a lousy waitress.

A lousy waitress he'd rehired three separate times.

If he'd been serious about never wanting to see her again, he would not have let her come back to Cheers after she humiliated him at that press conference and torpedoed his relationship with Janet. He would have let her go away with her boy-toy hunk Lance, not risen to Diane's bait to prove to her—or maybe to himself—that no guy could get her as hot as he could. He would have told her to stop talking about a wedding that was never going to happen—because they weren't together and never would be again.

Except even when they weren't together they were never—not together, either. That was the trouble. He kept rehiring Diane because to him, now—the bar wasn't the bar without her in it. And when she did ccme back—she always did—they fell into their old rhythms, the familiar patterns that were them. Teasing, fighting, dating other people to try to make each other jealous and only making themselves crazier in the process.

Rinse, repeat. Sam, Diane.

"…It's the classic American love story."

He wasn't done fighting her—not by a long shot.

But he was done fighting everything else.

"That's pretty absurd."

She nodded, sadly, and looked at the floor—this woman was about as far from the Diane of yesterday as she could be. He watched her, waiting to see when the other shoe would drop. Then she looked up at him again, her eyes still puffy from crying the night before, and he knew it wasn't going to.

This wasn't a game to her—she wasn't playing anymore.

"Well, don't worry. I'm not going to hold you to that proposal. I know it was made under duress."

She really didn't know—didn't have a clue. Incredible.

"Goodbye, Sam."

Then she walked straight past him—not coy, no act. The moment of truth, and Diane was letting him go. Just when he was ready to—that woman…how could she not know what she was doing to him?

The truth was if she knew what she was doing, it wouldn't work so damn well.

"Where are you going?"

Diane stopped, and turned back around slowly. She looked too tired even to cry. He let the chair's legs drop to the ground and stood up, a slight swagger in his step that completely escaped her.

"You know, you're not getting off that easy," He pushed through the court room gate, easing his way towards her. "You're going to pay for what you put me through."

"What do you mean?"

She sounded so young, and the way she steeled herself, like a little girl waiting to hear her punishment for some schoolyard offense—God, Diane could be such a kid, sometimes. For someone so damn brainy she was damn naive, too. She had never understood what kept him coming back, time and again.

How had she never realized that the moment she stopped pushing him was the moment she was her most irresistible?

"I proposed to you, you said 'yes.' Now, they can stop me from killing you—they can't stop me from marrying you."

Her eyes widened in shock—she didn't believe him. So he raised one finger to beckon her and just like that, a flash of recognition, of joy—her purse dropped to the floor, and Diane barreled towards him.

"Oh, Sam!"

This wasn't over. He was never going to hear the end of it from the guys back at Cheers—and Diane was still Diane. He was still him. They still made each other nuts, and he had a sneaking suspicion that a wedding—one she'd accepted was going to happen long before he had—was the only thing that could make Diane even nuttier.

But she was in his arms again, hugging him like she'd never let go. He sure as hell wasn't going to.

He had to make her pay, like he'd promised—and that was going to take a lifetime. No, Diane Chambers wasn't getting out of this one, he thought, burying his face in her hair.

For once Sam didn't hate that she was crying.