If you say go, I would stop everything.

My heart would play the role now,

And act like it's never been broke.

Though, my soul,

Lately I really need to know,

How long, how long can we be touch and go?

-"Touch and Go," Ed Sheeran

August 2018

James walked up and down the steps to Elise's front porch three times. It was like the beginning of the summer all over again. He didn't have a plan, didn't know where to begin, didn't even know what to tell her when she inevitably asked why he was there. Every bit of calm that Raigan had instilled in him had been sucked away the moment he landed on the beach and heard the first powerful wash of the waves, tumbling over one another, racing to the shore. She had told him to be nice. It was the only thing he could remember because she had told him so so often.

James stood at the bottom of the steps again now, stuck. He looked at the chipping blue paint on the siding and at the faded cushions on the porch swing and at the sand that had wedged itself in fine lines along all the window edges. He caught a glimpse of Elise through the small kitchen window and thought she might have seen him too so he forced himself to walk up the two steps again, and this time, he knocked on the door.

James heard footsteps approaching the door. They sounded angry, but he might have been reading too much into things. Elise pulled the door open and looked at him hard. "What?" she asked. And that cleared that up. She had definitely known he was outside.

James took a step back, stuck his thumbs in his pockets, and opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Elise just stood there with one hand on the door, ready to close it again. Her cheeks were flushed, but otherwise her face looked very pale.

"Can I come in for a minute?" James asked. It was the first thing that came to mind.

"I didn't invite you over," said Elise.

"You told me before I didn't need to ask," James retorted. Now that she was here and in front of him, his nerves had gone away and in their place, the frustration he'd felt earlier had crept back in. So before Elise could respond again, James slipped past her into the house. She shut the door behind her back and looked at him, her expression a combination of shock and agitation.

James wrung his hands out just for something to do. "Look," he said. No grand plan had formed in the time it had taken him to get inside, so he resorted to making it up as he went. "We've been fighting a lot lately, and I don't want to fight with you. I thought we could just... talk or something and figure out what happened, because..." James hesitated, but only for a second. "I don't really think I did anything wrong and I don't get why you're mad at me."

"I'd really rather not talk about this right now," said Elise cooly.

"No," James argued. "We're going to talk about it right now, because you wouldn't talk about it yesterday and you wouldn't talk about it today and-"

"We were at work, James," she snapped.

"Yeah, and we were at work when we made out on the beach too." James didn't mean to raise his voice, but he couldn't help it.

Elise looked flustered, like he had just shouted out this fact to a crowd of people she respected and not to her otherwise empty house and maybe Cat, if he was even here. "That was different," she said. "We weren't in the office."

"Okay, so when we're in another country, far away from anyone you know, then we can be a couple, but as soon as we're home, you start acting like we don't know each other?" James bit down hard and turned away. He paced across the room. He hadn't even meant to talk about this, but it was an insecurity that he'd been aware of since day one and had never spoken to her about. Elise kept quiet. He was worried that he'd scared her so he stopped pacing and looked in her direction but about a foot over her head. "You're not a secret to me, Elise. I don't want to be a secret either."

"It's not about keeping secrets at all," said Elise, almost scoffing at him. Her eyes went wide, exasperated. "It's business, James. And you are constantly letting your personal life get in the way of that. This is my job. It's my thing. My life. I don't go to work every day to see you. I go because it is my job to protect people. We have a crisis happening right now, and you cannot seem to wrap your head around the fact that until it's wrapped up, that is my main focus. It has to be." She paused a drew a breath. "And for you to make a decision to take me away from my job when there were people in danger who I could protect was wrong. Forget morality. You did not have the authority to make that call. I am your boss at work, James. I decide when we leave an assignment. Not you."

James could not believe what he was hearing. It could not be possible that she still thought his disapparating with her had been an option. He sputtered out a string of nonsensical almost words trying to get something out. Finally, he managed to say, "You're mad at me because I saved your life? That's honestly it?"

He didn't give Elise time to respond. He'd gotten going now and he could not stop. "Just let me get this straight. You expected me to see a guy about to kill you and just let it happen because I hadn't been given orders to leave the scene yet?"

"A shield charm, James," Elise snapped. "Disarm him. Literally anything else, but my god, you had to disapparate."

"Right, so I'm sorry that I used the tenth of a second I had to make a decision to do the first thing that came to mind. Sorry I didn't hesitate and weigh all the potential options so that by the time I did do something it was too late."

"That's it though, isn't it? You didn't think," she said. Her voice kept rising in pitch as she went on. "You just acted. You're so impulsive and reckless and you're always thinking about what's best for yourself-"

"I watched my best friend lose her husband," James interrupted, his voice low. "Eleven years ago she lost her husband in a situation she had no control over and now her kid doesn't have a dad and Raigan's still messed up over it even though she tries to pretend she's fine."

"I'm not Dawson, James. This isn't the same situation at all. That's not the point."

"That's exactly the point," said James, his voice rising again. "The point is that I love you and I had a split second to make sure I didn't lose you the way Raigan lost Dawson and I took it, but apparently, saving someone's life isn't-"

"You want me to say thank you or something?" Elise's voice came out shrill. He thought she sounded near tears and thought he might be glad if she cried. At least then she'd have some sort of legitimate emotion in regards to herself, since apparently she didn't care if she lived or died.

James opened his mouth, and several retorts died on the tip of his tongue. "Forget it," he said. "I don't want to talk about this anymore."

"Why not?" she asked. "You were all keen to barge into my house and start shouting at me two minutes ago."

"Well you're kinda acting like a-" James began, but he stopped abruptly. He would not say the thing he'd just been about to say.

Elise eyes narrowed dangerously. "Like a what, James?"

James looked resolutely down at the ground.

"Like a what? Tell me what you were going to say."

He kept quiet, shoving his whole hands into his pockets to keep his fingers contained. He had not been this angry in a long time, but he was not angry enough to call Elise something that she most certainly was not.

"Like a bitch? You think I'm acting like a bitch?" she asked. There was a note of laughter in her voice and James felt sick to his stomach over it. He was quite sure she was barely concealing her oncoming tears now. Still he said nothing and that was as good as confirmation. "Maybe you should go," she said. Her tone now was downright cold.

James took two steps towards the door. He stopped. He had just remembered what Raigan had said, about not getting another chance. This was it. And no matter how much he did not want to be around Elise at that moment, no matter how much he thought it would be a relief to be done with her, he was also not distanced enough yet from the other night on the beach, from the way she had looked at him and held his face, and said how happy he made her. He could not quite let go of that Elise along with this one. He cared too much and he knew too much.

So James turned right back around, walked over to the bookshelf on the far wall, opened up the single drawer on the bottom, and pulled out a very dusty and seldom used game of Wizard's Chess that was, thankfully, in the same drawer as it had always been. His mind was spinning too fast to come up with any other means of distraction than his Raigan stand-by.

He brought the game over to the coffee table and sat down on the couch. With much more force than was necessary, he began to put out the pieces, slamming several of them down so hard that they emitted little squeaks or grunts, and the Bishop actually said, "A little care if you would, sir," in an uppity sort of tone, and brushed himself off.

Throughout all of this, Elise stood in exactly the same place she had been, her arms folded across her stomach and her mouth open, apparently so surprised she could not even ask what on earth he was doing.

"White or black?" asked James shortly, looking down at the chess board rather than at her.

"I don't-" Elise began, but James cut her off.

"White or black?" he asked again. There was an edge to his voice he did not trust. He figured he'd better stop talking altogether.

Elise hesitated. "Fine," she said quietly. "Black." James turned the chess board so the black pieces were nearer the other side of the couch. Slowly, Elise walked around the coffee table and came to sit down. She left several feet of space between them. James moved his first piece.

They played three games. James put next to no thought in to his strategy and Elise beat him horribly the first two games, seemingly without even trying. By the third, his heart returned to a normal rate and he was able to unclench his teeth. He still lost, but at least he put forth a semi-respectable effort. He began to set up the pieces once more, but Elise straightened up, folded her hands in her lap, and said, "James."

He glanced in her direction, but did not stop setting up the board.

"Why are we playing chess?" she asked.

James stopped, his hand hovering above the space he had just set a rook on. He returned his hands to his knees and looked down for several long seconds. "Because," said James. "I was angry and I didn't want to say something that I'd regret." He took a deep breath before he continued. "But I also promised you that I wasn't going to walk out again, and I meant it. So..."

"So chess," Elise finished, her voice so quiet he could almost not hear her.

"So chess," James agreed. He ran his hand through his hair and they looked anywhere but at each other.

James watched the old clock on the wall tick. The second hand dragged it's way around for four full rotations before James said anything else. "I'm sorry," he told her. "I shouldn't have talked to you like that."

He expected Elise to brush off his apology, but she did not. Instead she screwed up her face and began to cry. She raised one hand to her forehead and turned her head away from him so he would not see, but there was no hiding the sound. She was sobbing. And it had happened all of a sudden. She had given him no warning. No first tear sneaking out. No sniff. Just an all at once onset, a waterfall.

James heart began to race again. He did not know what to do. Was it appropriate to hug her just now or to touch her at all for that matter? He had finally gotten a handle on what to do when someone was crying because they were sad, but this was something different. He didn't know what kind of different, but it was definitely something different.

He lifted one hand and rested it on her shoulder, but felt awkward about it so he picked it up again and ended up feeling even more awkward because he didn't know what else he should do with his hand. James felt sick. He had done this. He had made her cry.

"I just don't feel like myself," said Elise through her tears. "I don't feel like me."

James gave his head a little shake and threw caution to the winds. He scooted over next to her and pulled her into his arms and - because she had melted into him at his touch - he even pressed his lips to the top of her head. Elise tried to mop her eyes with the back of her hand, but the tears kept rolling out. "I don't know what's happening. I just feel so different and I'm- I'm crying all the time, and I get so irritated by things and I just don't feel like myself," she said again.

James did not know what to say. He agreed of course. She had been acting differently. She had been getting irritated rather a lot. But now, though she had given him no explanation, it didn't seem like something to blame her for. It seemed like something quite out of her control.

"I'm sorry," he said again. "I really didn't come here to upset you."

"Stop apologizing," said Elise, giving him a light smack on the arm. The gesture was jokey but her voice was not. She took a deep shaky breath that only partially calmed her down, and she pulled out of his arms. To James' surprise, she settled back down against the back of the couch and laid her head on his shoulder. James wormed his arm around her waist and looked at her. She stared up at the place where the ceiling and the wall met and sniffed. She looked exhausted.

"I really don't feel like myself," she whispered. "Something's wrong."

James smoothed his hand up and down her side.

"Can I just ask one thing?" James asked, because he did not know what advice he could possibly offer her, and because he could not stop worrying about this one selfish concern. Elise didn't say yes, but she also didn't say no, so James went on. "You're not really mad at me?"

Elise shook her head slowly and James accidentally smiled. "Thank god," he whispered, and he kissed her head again.

---

About an hour later, Elise said she might like a little space, and James recognized that this time, asking him to leave was not the sign of a door closing him out, so he said okay and she walked him to the door. Her arms were folded across her chest and she kept sniffling.

"Maybe we can go to lunch tomorrow?" James asked. "I can come and pick you up."

Elise nodded, eyes towards the water. "Okay," she said.

He put one hand on her waist and the other around the back of her neck. She shivered at his touch. "I'm really sorry," she whispered. She hadn't looked him in the eye for the last hour. James shook his head and leaned down to kiss her.

"We both messed up," he said, pressing their foreheads together. "Let's just... move on."

Elise inhaled, blinked a few times in succession, and opened her mouth, but said nothing. He hugged her, and the loose way that Elise gripped his sides spelled out just how confused she was. James could second that.