A Thursday in April, after midnight

"Was it because of the sex?"

Because her head was still buzzing from the orgasm she had just shared with him, Carter thought it best to keep her answer to Reese's mysterious question brief.

"Yes."

She hugged him hard, reaching her arms as far around his shoulders as they would go. The muscles there were tightly bunched as though the sex hadn't achieved its usual release.

She was surprised that his eyes were so clear; he usually wanted to drift off at this point in the proceedings.

Still inside her, panting lightly between his words, he didn't use his forearms to lift the weight off of her as he usually did.

As her tongue traced the outer rim of his ear, she whispered softly so as not to disturb him if he indeed was falling asleep.

"I don't have a clue what you're talking about. But I'm going to go with that answer. Do I win a prize?"

Before he lowered his head to rest it against her collarbone, she glimpsed tears sparkling in his magnificent eyes.

John was frequently blue these days.

Sometimes he was moody in the aftermath of a tough case, especially one requiring a significant show of force. Where she and Fusco usually felt exhilarated when they saved another life and even Harold occasionally celebrated by joining them for a drink, John's usual pattern was to retreat for a day of reflection.

He also brooded when time stretched too long between cases or when the intellectual and physical challenges of the assignment were minimal.

Every once in a long while, she worried that she might be the cause of his fits of melancholy. But then she rejected that conclusion again when new evidence of his fierce attention and passion brought home to her just where they stood.

That this strange man, so mercurial and reticent, actually seemed content with the haphazard life they shared was a constant source of amazement to her. If she were to read about the affair in a novel, she would reject the tale as flat-out ridiculous.

Nothing about it was even slightly romantic, in her view; it wasn't ideal by any reasonable measure. It was rough-hewn, awkward, sticky, often uncomfortable, and rarely predictable. It wasn't normal by any stretch of the definition.

But it seemed to work for them for right now. That was all she could ask or want.

She did worry about the boredom though. John without a task to perform or an order to carry out was a dangerous proposition.

She remembered that day the previous spring when his restlessness drove him to an underground gambling hall in the Bronx frequented by immigrants from Southeast Asia. He had stayed at the blackjack table for twenty six straight hours, first winning and ultimately losing more than she earned in a year.

Another time when the gap between cases extended to two weeks, John had abruptly taken off on a solo motorcycle trek through New England ending up on an island off the coast of Maine. He kept in touch with her and Harold only through infrequent phone calls, the terseness of which frightened her and infuriated his friend.

And she recalled a few terrible nights when he simply submerged his restless mind in alcohol.

Violence was also a distracting resort, although she hoped it was a last one. She suspected that some of the scraped knuckles and split lips she treated with her home first-aid kit were the result of minor fights John picked just because he was bored.

And occasionally he was moody after sex.

This was their third straight evening together. Twice at her apartment and now at his loft.

She wondered if the regularity of the sex affected his temperament; taking the edge off, replacing desperate ardor with doubt or even complacency.

So when he rolled off her and settled against her side, she decided to pursue the issue.

"You know, my brain is still fried. I need a moment to catch my breath."

She kept her voice lilting and a smile on her lips.

"So forgive me if I'm not following you too well, John. But if you ask again, real slow, maybe I'll come up with a better answer."

He seemed determined to get to the bottom of something, so he took her up on the offer.

"What you said to Donnelly about me being a good man. Was that because of the sex?"

She was stunned.

Had he really been stewing over that for all these months? Gnawing at this bare bone since that awful winter midnight when Agent Donnelly had arrested them, cuffed them into his van, and challenged her motivation for working with John's vigilante mission.

How in the world could she answer this?

It seemed to her that there was no possible reply that was the right one, the one that would assuage his fears and calm his insecurities.

So she decided that using a little more frankness than she ordinarily would was the only way forward.

She stroked the hair back from his brow twice, wiping drops of perspiration from the root of his cowlick.

"You know the sex is good, dontcha? I'm not gonna lie, some days the craving is pretty strong."

This wasn't exactly raw talk, but it was not her usual style and she felt herself squirming under his curiosity.

"And, well, to get right down to it. There've been some afternoons in the precinct where you'd phone me about some nonsense or another. And then I couldn't think straight about a single damn thing 'til I got my hands on you again."

She could see he was surprised by her boldness: the horizontal lines across his forehead vanished and his eyes sparked as they roved over her face.

His ears felt warm to the touch and she adored how the red crept from cheeks to throat to chest as she watched.

Ego-boosting 101 was easy when it had the additional power of being God's own gospel truth.

She placed a tiny kiss at each corner of his mouth when his teeth showed in a slight smile.

"But you've got to know too that what I feel about you, what I know about you, comes from a whole 'nother place."

"What place?"

"The place where I know right from wrong. Where I make my choices, set my true course."

"Your moral compass."

"Yeah, like you said before: my damn moral compass."

She sighed to see the sadness that flashed across his face at the memory of that first conversation in the Lyric Cafe.

"So, do I look real good to you up here on this freaking perfect pedestal? Because I hate it, ya know. I always hated it. I jumped off months ago. Or didn't you notice?"

"I noticed. I just didn't like it."

"Your pedestal, O.K. But my choice, my life."

"I know."

"Yeah, you know, John. But you don't buy it, do you?"

After a long while he answered, slowly, like she was dragging the words out of him.

"No, I can't."

So, this was his bottom line, his unchangeable truth.

The blunt expression of it seemed to relieve him at last. She noticed that his unburdened shoulders were relaxed now and the muscles of his jaw unclenched as he gazed at her.

But she was tensing up; her breaths expelled in short bursts across his face.

"Jeez, that makes me sound all stuck up and goody-goody."

The finger he played over her clavicle traced intricate patterns like a figure-skater. His hand floated lightly along the under curve of her breast. She lost the train of conversation as the sensations he was creating in her body washed over her again.

After a pause, his next words confused her.

"What's wrong with that?"

"With what?"

"With being a good girl?"

"I went all through high school with those shitty labels: 'Miss Stuck-up, Thinks She's Too Fine for the Rest of Us, Little Goody Two Shoes.'"

The real taunts had been much uglier, but she didn't intend to share those with him.

He was playful now, teasing her out of her glumness, the corners of his lips curling down into a flirtatious pout.

"Were you?"

"Yeah, probably, a little."

The admission didn't sting too much anymore, lying here like this with him. He lifted his leg over her thigh and drew her closer to his body.

"So I wouldn't have stood a chance with you in high school, hunh?"

She hesitated to say it, but it was true.

"No, probably not."

He grinned, the leer softened by the affectionate glow from his eyes.

"So was I the boy your mother warned you about? That boy who only wanted 'One Thing?' "

He raised his fingers to make quotation marks.

She passed her hand along the bulge of his bicep following the curve of a vein, touching briefly at the pulse throbbing under pale skin at the crook of his elbow.

"Yeah. Took me a long while to figure out what she was talking about exactly. What that 'One Thing' really was."

He leaned over her, pressing his chest against hers, the frosting of hairs tickling her nipples again.

"So when did you figure it out exactly?"

"Not until senior year of college."

He kissed her lightly on the nose.

"So you left a whole army of boys dead from frustration, hunh?"

"I don't know about that. No one even asked me for a date in high school."

He spoke then with the bracing certainty of a professor explaining an established scientific fact.

"All the boys were intimidated by you, Joss. Horny and scared is an awful tough combination. Millions of boys die every year from that, you know."

"And you know that from experience, do you?"

"Sure. Girls in my high school weren't interested in a skinny kid with no money, no car, a bad haircut, and a weekly date with the principal."

She laid soft kisses over his eyelids and felt them flutter under her lips.

"Even these eyes didn't make a dent with those girls? What were they? Stupid or blind or what?"

He didn't say anything and she kissed him again, this time on the dimple on his nose, then softly on the mouth.

He parted his lips and let his tongue dance along the seam of her lips. But she wanted to get in another question.

"So when did you…? Uh… You know…?" Her former boldness had fled.

"Lose my virginity?"

"Yeah."

"Junior year of high school. Natalie Pace. Waitress who worked with my mother."

"She your age?"

"Eight years older. She was between boyfriends."

"Oh, I see."

But she didn't, not really.

He skipped his index finger over the little frown line between her brows.

She thought his next words had a consoling tone, but whether the comfort was aimed at her or at himself, she didn't know for sure.

"It wasn't so bad. She needed something, I needed something. So it all worked out, I guess."

"Did your mother know?"

"Mom would have killed me - and Natalie - if she found out. So no, she didn't know."

He breathed a small sigh that ruffled her eyelashes.

"We practiced 'Don't ask, don't tell' real early in our family."

He kissed her again, this time with intense purpose. He was through with talking.

Through with brooding. Until the next time.