The short, rough-looking man paused on the sidewalk and then sat on the bus stop bench behind him as though he’d been walking for miles instead of just a few blocks from the Metro stop. He stretched his legs out in front of him and gazed upwards, easily picking out the window he sought on the fourth floor of the apartment building across the street, even through the screen of leaves that obscured much of it. As he watched, a light came on inside the room to offset the deepening twilight.

He thought about the woman inside, picturing what she would be doing on a Friday night. She would be relaxing in some way, putting her feet up, indulging in a pint of Ben and Jerry’s, soaking in a hot bath. Lord knows she would need some relaxation after a typical work week. Certainly, she would not be getting ready for a hot date or to go out clubbing with the girls. That wasn’t her habit at all.

Mentally, he ran through the history of their relationship, if one could call it a relationship. More like a fantasy stretched over a loom of moments. A one-sided fantasy, at that.

They hadn’t had a precipitous beginning. He took two pictures of her, barely saying a word while his two partners rattled on about the latest rumors and dazzling her with their paranoia. She flinched away from the flashes as though they were an attack she didn’t feel rude enough to return. Of course, he took a picture of everyone who entered their base of operations in order to have a visual record they could refer to or dig up more information on, as they case may be. The second picture, however, he took because she tilted her head in well-contained exasperation, revealing a lovely angle of chin, cheekbones, eyes and sweep of hair. He knew his infatuation began then, and he knew as well that she felt nothing more than impatience and some amusement.

Each encounter was crystal clear in his mind.  A month or two would pass in between, but the two partners inevitably found their way back to his door.  It took years for her to come on her own, and even longer for her to cease the surreptitious glances in all directions, but she did come.  She began to trust.  They were the people she sought out when a certain brunette turned her partnership, and therefore world, upside-down.  She had leaned on them when her partner disappeared on her, and then even when he was available.

He smiled now, ruefully, acknowledging the warm fuzzies it gave him to be able to provide anything for her, especially things her partner had not the connections nor skills to procure on his own.  He proffered his information instead of chocolates and flowers.  Hell, with that woman, information on the strange conspiracies that permeated her life was likely to get a man much farther into her heart than Hallmark mush any day of the week.

She had an analytical mind, like him.  She precipitated his own intellect.  The brief, subtly sarcastic comments she made in a five-minute stopover sent his mind spinning into a dozen avenues of investigation.  How many of their cover stories did they three of them owe to her through this convoluted avenue?  Far too many to count.

He couldn’t say when she began to permanently occupy a corner of his mind.

A woman well into her no-nonsense fifties sat on the bench next to him.  She regarded him from the corner of her eye, first surreptitiously checking for a wedding ring, then noting as his expression changed from indulgently bemused to serious, and shifted to the opposite end of the bench.  She dug her paperback out of her industrial-sized purse for a little extra distance from the attractive little man who appeared to be carrying on a conversation with the voices in his head.

No, he couldn’t say when it had happened, but there came a time when he found himself seeking that gestalt from her when she hadn’t graced them with her presence.  Not physically, at least.  To the man, however, she became a place in himself to which he brought his impressions of the world, softer philosophies than would go into their paper, anything beautiful.  Anything he couldn’t dare getting into the guys, as close as they were.  Like that time he’d sought the end of his own mourning in Jim Beam, and made his drunken way to her door.  Was he already speaking with her then?  Was she already answering, in his head, in her lovely voice?  Or that visit could be blamed on the fact that sometimes a man just needs a woman to take care of him, and she was the only one in his life.  At least within staggering distance.  Maybe.  If so, his half-formed instincts hadn’t been wrong; she’d given him what he needed, and more.

Maybe it happened after that.  Hell, he didn’t know, and the when of it wasn’t important anyway.  The question at hand was one of the other cardinal w’s, what or why, or maybe even how.

Sometimes, this was his real life, especially when the movements around him degenerated into a miserable quagmire.  It was his place to escape.  To think, perhaps even dream if that was not too lofty a word.  To kick around concepts upon which the survival of the American people and philosophy was not depending, but were important nonetheless.

To be honest, he sometimes burned with shame to think of this side of his fantasy life, something he didn’t feel concerning the side he was so famous for, even boastful of.

The man sighed, and shifted.  His rear was fast becoming numb despite the surprisingly temperate autumn weather.  A bus pulled up to the stop, and the woman next to him gathered herself before stepping up onto it, shooting the man a brief, mildly-regretful over-the-shoulder glance.  _Pity he turned out to be odd. . ._

He didn’t notice.  His lips were moving along with his thoughts, the words slipping by on thin breaths as he thought.

“Why shouldn’t I?  He will never make a move in her direction.  If he hasn’t yet, he never will.  I’m sure she knows this, and has her reasons for not doing so herself.  I’m free, and so is she.  Why shouldn’t I go up, knock on her door. . .

“I’m sure she’d let me in.  We are friends, now.  She’d be wearing something scruffy, like a sweatshirt and old jeans from college in an unfashionable cut.  Weekend clothes.  And she wouldn’t mind, wouldn’t feel awkward to be seen without her professional uniform.  Maybe we would sit on her couch and talk, or catch the end of Law and Order, maybe even make plans to get together later this week since we are both in a severe need of a break. . .

“It’s all very possible. . .”

He sat on the bench nearly motionless, ignoring the numbness that crept upwards from his feet.  No one else came to sit down on the bench.  Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime, the light in the window went out and, as if that was the signal he’d been waiting for, Frohike stood and began to make his way back to the Metro station.