"That's the job."
"A dangerous job." She doesn't look away. "There's a difference between analyzing data and what you do."
Sarah understands what I do without needing the sanitized version. CIA Special Activities Division gets sent when diplomacy fails and someone needs to be reminded that the United States has a long reach and longer memory. She gets that without flinching.
Time passes. I stop pretending these dinners are casual. I'm checking my phone between training sessions, waiting for her messages about intercept updates that are really just excuses to maintain contact. The thought of deploying without seeing her first makes my jaw tight.
We're deliberate about operational security. We never meet at the same restaurant twice. We keep conversation away from active operations. We maintain plausible professional distanceif we encounter anyone from work. Measured caution doesn't mean we're uninvolved though, and I stop denying what this is.
Sarah is the first person in years who makes me want to stay instead of counting down days until the next deployment.
I don't know how to stay, though. My father's work destroyed my mother, ground her down until she couldn't take the silence and the waiting and the fear anymore. I learned early that people leave when the work gets too hard. It's safer to keep things undefined, maintain distance, prepare for the inevitable moment when whoever I'm with realizes what they signed up for and walks away.
Sarah doesn't walk away. After months of dinners and phone calls and stolen hours between assignments, she's still here. She still asks about operations I can't discuss. She still sends intelligence updates with personal notes hidden in professional language. She still looks at me like I'm more than just another operator running black ops in hostile territory.
One afternoon I take her to a gun range outside DC. She's qualified on standard NSA security weapons, basic pistol training that most analysts complete and then forget. I hand her a Glock, watch her check the chamber and magazine with competent efficiency.
"You've done this before," I observe.
"Dad taught me." She settles into shooting stance, arms extended, grip solid. "Before the PTSD got bad. He wanted me to be able to protect myself."
First round hits center mass on the target downrange. The second round hits the same spot. The third, fourth, and fifth all group tight in the kill zone.
I step behind her, close enough to smell her shampoo, and adjust her stance slightly. I place my hands on her hips, shifting her weight distribution. "Widen your stance. Better stability."
Her breathing changes. She doesn't move away.
"Like this?" Her voice is steady despite what I can see happening to her pulse.
"Exactly like that." I don't step back. "Try again."
Next magazine groups even tighter. She's a natural, or her father was a better teacher than most. When she empties the last round and sets the weapon down, I'm still standing close enough to feel the heat radiating off her skin.
"Micah." She turns, bringing us face to face in the narrow shooting lane. "What are we doing?"
I don't have an answer. I'm keeping things undefined because definition requires promises I'm not sure I can keep. I'm waiting for her to be brave enough to ask for more, terrified she'll actually do it.
"Right now?" I reach up, tuck hair behind her ear. "Shooting."
"That's not what I mean."
"Yeah. I know."
Sarah holds my gaze. "Your deployment's coming up."
Soon, but who's counting.
"Yeah."
"And we're still..." She gestures between us. "Whatever this is."
"Does it need a label?"
"Eventually. Yes."
I should tell her how I feel. That everyone leaves when the silence and the fear get too heavy. That she deserves someone who can promise tomorrow instead of maybe.
Instead I kiss her.
