Author's Note: I own nothing. This is a much more expanded version of Nice Guys Don't Kiss Like That. There's not as much detail as I would like in it, and it's relatively simple, story-telling wise. I'm thinking maybe later on this summer I will rewrite it to have more depth & characterization. Kind of getting discouraged by NBC's decision to withhold their renewal decision until May. Please R & R. Enjoy.

Zed knows she's made a terrible mistake the very second she doesn't walk out of that bar to run and chase him, to tell him she is sorry, to tell him that Jim kissed her, not the other way around. She curses inwardly as Jim smiles at her. It would be rude not to smile back, and Jim notices that when she does, her smile does not reach her eyes. His smile fades a little, and he looks down at his drink.

"Jim," Zed says. "I can't. You're such a good man, and if I-"

"Hadn't met John first?" he finishes for her.

"Yeah."

"It's okay, Zed. I understand. He's a...a real..."

"He's John," Zed replies. "There's no one else quite like him."

Jim walks her back to the hotel. It is not a romantic gesture, but a gentlemanly one. Zed kisses him on the cheek.

"If it doesn't work out..." he begins.

Zed gives him a sweet smile. "You'll be the first person I call."

John ends up in some pub on Barracks Street. He's drinking too much, he knows, even for him, but cannot make himself stop. Too much bourbon and too many cigarettes, and he doesn't refuse when a coffee-skinned, curly-haired woman asks to sit next to him. She is not Zed, but she looks like her, and that's going to have to be enough for tonight, and when she grins coyly at him and asks him to buy her a drink, he does.

In the morning, when Zed knocks at the door to wake him, she is greeted by a woman whose eyeliner has run, giving her a slightly racoon-ish look, curly hair frizzy, wearing a bedsheet.

"Oh. Um, hey," Zed says. "Is John awake? We have to get going, or we're going to miss our flight."

The other woman – Zed cannot help but notice their resemblance to one another – grins and bites her lip, turning around to look at the sleeping form on the bed.

"John," she says. "So that's his name." She turns back and looks at Zed, that same cat-like smile still on her face, and Zed finds herself wishing she could backhand it off and ask her what she was smiling about. "I'll get him up. You next door?"

Zed nods jerkily, and the woman shuts the door.

Zed stands there for a second, furious at having been seemingly dismissed. She turns and strides back next door to her own room, slamming the door behind her.

Why. Why? This isn't Corrigan's fault, and yet it is. He is a man who knows he is about to die, and she can't blame him for wanting to live life to the fullest and make every moment count. But did he have to do it right as John walked in?

There is a knock at the door. John. Zed hurries to the door to answer it, an apology on the tip of her tongue as she opens the door to see – the woman. Still in a bed sheet, still smiling that same motherfucking smile.

"He says he's going to catch a later flight," she says.

"Oh." Zed stands there for a moment, unable to think of anything to say, and instead, she takes a finger and flicks the door shut. Then she goes back into the room, seizes a pillow from the head of the bed, and proceeds to beat the mattress with it.

Zed relates everything that happened to Chas when she gets back. She tries to explain the kiss, explain how bad she feels, but the words come out muddled and wrong.

"Zed," Chas says gently, passing her a mug of tea, "It's going to be okay."

She's thinking of the time that John told her she was easy on the eyes. She should have said something back, something provocative, something to tell him she felt the same, and instead, she had only said, "Wish I could say the same."

This would be so much easier if this was a situation where she could blame him for not having worked fast enough and asked her out. But all she can think about now are the times he has openly flirted with her, expressed interest, and she shot him down. How could she do that, so many times, and the second Jim leaned to kiss her, she didn't have the sense to tell him no? That he was a nice man, but that it wasn't going to happen?

She sips the tea. "I don't even have feelings like that for Jim," she tells him.

Chas pats her hand in support. "It'll all blow over. Wait and see."

John walks into the mill three days later. He grunts a hello to Chas and dumps his duffel bag in the living room. Zed hears him when he speaks to Chas, rushes into the living room to say hello, but right as she gets in, she hears his door click shut, and then the pipes creak, indicating he is getting in the shower. She looks at Chas, gripping a handful of her hair.

"It's going to be fine," Chas tells her. "Just give it some time, Zed."

If Zed were a crier, she might throw a temper tantrum on the floor, let great fat tears roll down her cheeks, and howl; instead, she stomps back to her room, shuts the door, climbs beneath the covers, and pretends to sleep in hopes that maybe it will work and she can actually get some rest. It doesn't.

The next morning, when she wanders into the kitchen, John is there, frying up an egg. He hears her come in without turning around, and his shoulders stiffen slightly, but he says nothing.

"Morning," Zed tells him.

"Morning," he forces himself to say cheerfully.

And so this is how the next few weeks go. They are awkward around one another now; the closeness they had been enjoying since her hospital stay is gone.

He is exceedingly, unnaturally polite to her, and Zed hates it because she misses his old, cocky self who said what was on his mind and said more than three words to her at once.

And he's gone at night. He comes back in the late mornings, smelling of perfume and last night's whiskey, hair mussed. He walks by her without a glance in her direction, and shuts the door to his room. Inside, Zed burns.

Chas, Zed, and Constantine sit at the dinner table, eating a silent dinner. And it's not because the food is good; it is, but no one has anything to say. Chas tries to break the tension with a story about his daughter, but they only give him polite smiles, and stare back down at their plates, silverware clinking. Zed pushes her vegetables listlessly, before finally snatching up her plate and heading into the kitchen.

She practically throws her plate in the sink and flings on the tap, when she hears singing behind her. Hurling around, her eyes widen as she realizes she is having a vision. The other side of the kitchen, where the stove and refrigerator usually live, has been transformed into a river bank, edged by tall oaks. John is tilted back on his chair, the two front wooden legs hanging in the air, when he hears Zed gasp. The front legs of the chair hit the floor with a bang, and he is up, heading into the kitchen to find Zed staring down at her legs in the middle of the room. Chas follows close behind.

"Zed," he says softly, "what do you see?"

"My feet are in the water," she tells him. Her voice sounds distant.

"A puddle? A stream? A lake?"

"A big creek," she says. "I hear singing. It's a man's voice." Zed looks up, takes a step towards the oven. "There's a man. He's tall, good-looking. He's holding a woman's hand, and they're walking towards the bank." Zed frowns.

The man is indeed tall and handsome, but as Zed watches, a dark dread begins to slink over her like ink. The woman looks too dazed, a foolish, simpering smile on her face as she is yanked along by the man.

"Something's wrong," Zed says. "It's like the girl is drugged or something."

The crescent moon reflects on the water, and then on something metallic. Zed stares as the man pulls a sword from thin air. The moon has reflected on its long blade.

"John. John, he's got a sword. It's a big sword, like a Crusader might carry. It just—it came from nowhere-" And, to Zed's horror, the man brandishes it high.

Zed covers her mouth with her hands, unable to close her eyes and look away. The man moves forward, the corner of his mouth tilting upwards in a horrible, ugly smile.

"Oh, God, he's going to kill her!" she cries out, voice taut.

Zed swallows the bile rising up her esophagus as she watches the blade rise, then come down with a schickt sound. She can only stare as the blood begins to flow into the creek.

"John," she whispers, "he's decapitated her."

The man looks down at his prize, shoulders back, staring at the beautiful woman's head in fascination. Blood trickles down his arm, spilling onto his shirt. His posture is so casual, so calm, as though he is examining a piece of laundry. After a moment, he seems to notice that the blood is soaking into his shirt, and he heads forward into the creek.

"No, no, he's coming, John!" Zed scrambles backwards frantically.

John pulls against her arm as she stumbles back into the sink. The vision has ended, the stove and refrigerator back where they belong, the brick wall behind them solid.

"Zed. Zed! You all right?"

She blinks and stares at John standing in front of her. She looks down at his hand on her arm, and when he sees that she notices it there, he lets go abruptly, as though her skin has become stove-top hot. He moves away several steps and pulls out a chair for her at the table, then pours himself a drink.

"Who the hell was that?" she asks after the initial shock has passed.

Chas brings her a glass of water and sits down next to her, comfortingly rubbing her on the shoulder.

"Not sure, although the fact that you say he pulled a sword from thin air tends to put him in the otherwordly category," John says.

Zed nods. "He just looked so...normal. Handsome. And he had a great singing voice."

"What was he singing? Was it English?" John asks.

Zed frowns. "No, I don't think so. It sounded...the melody sounded very old, like an old ballad. It was beautiful."

"Well, until we know where it was happening, there's not much we can do. There's nothing you could see, no landmarks, anything?"

She shakes her head. "It was just a creek and some trees."

"That could be anywhere," Chas says.

"Mm. Well, we're just going to scan the national news, and see if something comes up," John says.

"I just...it was so cold, the way he killed her," Zed says, staring hard at the table. "He took such pleasure in it." She crosses her arms, hugging herself.

There's nothing to say to comfort her.