Jo sat in her office worrying her empty right ring finger. She wondered if anything had festered in the days she was off campus. She hadn't been to her office in nearly a week by the time she made it in to her office hours this morning, the flu kept her in bed for forever, so if anyone saw them, her and Harry, in the parking lot, Jo thought that may be the only place they walked the line, she was blithely unaware still. They did well inside. She doubted she'd get hauled in by the dean anyhow.  They'd done ok, maybe got away with it, being in public together.

Except with his mother. Harry slipped multiple times there and she still hadn't put the screws to Harry to find out what Anne had said. He had been there, to her house when she was sick, had noticed that she hadn't come to her office and turned up with things to make soup. She'd been so ill, and he'd been there.

Zoe was on the mend by then and he spent a good amount of the afternoon entertaining her when he'd come to check on them mid week.

"C'mon flyaway Zoe" she had heard from the living room faintly, the door snicked and there was blessed quiet for her to sleep off her fever.

Jo was moaning a little, into the still air of her room and she felt like the whole place smelled like her body, and she needed to pee and she wanted a shower so bad. But she couldn't get up yet.

"Jo?" God, she loved his voice and that he was here. He came to her bedside and placed his hand to her forehead, then his lips.

"Don't!" she said." You'll get it!"  And pushed his hand off of her, so he just kissed her forehead.

"Then you'll take care of me." He squeezed her cheek and it hurt a little because everything ached. "You're burning up baby."

He disappeared for a moment.

When he had come back in, a minute or an hour later, she was bleary-eyed and hotter, he picked her up like the sack of sticks she was. The bathroom rang with his voice. "Jo, when was the last time you ate? You're really thin babe."

"What day is it?" Her voice skipped like a scuffed dvd.

"It's Wednesday, morning. I knew you had come down with whatever Zoe had when you weren't in your office." He pulled his t-shirt off her shoulders and picked her back up and stepped into the bath with his jeans on to put her in.

"Your jeans, you'll be uncomfortable—" It was too late, but she put up a protest. "You went to my office?"

"You didn't answer my text yesterday afternoon and I knew you told me to steer clear on Sunday because of the fever. Monday, I gave you a pass on class because I figured Zoe was still sick." He got out of the bath and onto his knees. "Can you wet your own hair?"

She dipped beneath the water and watched him pour shampoo into his hand and wanted to cry. It had been four days since she had washed up. She was too tired and then too sick.

"I hate how wonderful you are," she said as he put the shampoo into the crown of her head and massaged her scalp.

"You don't," he told her and poured water over her head with the cup on the tub sill she used to wash Zoe's hair.

"I don't. I love you." She blubbered a little.

"I missed you, and was trying to wait to talk." He seemed as tender as her with time and unspoken words like there were broken boards on the suspension bridge between them.

"I'm scared, Harry." She had let him sink into her bones, and Jo felt like their expiration date was the time stamp on that video. "Did you delete it?"

"We haven't watched it." He dodged. "Jo, after I clean you up, I need to feed you." His hand ran up her gaunt torso. "Can you try some of the soup I made, and drink some water?"

"Zoe?"

"I fed her at the pub, the one with the playground?" Jo nodded. That was a local place. Did anybody notice them out together? She was almost too tired to care.

"Was anybody there?" She asked and his brow furrow. "That you knew? Or knew Zoe?"

"Why?" He asked while he felt her ends to see if the conditioner was out. Him having long hair was paying off for her right now. She loved it cosmetically, but the knowledge was helping her out in a more immediate way in the moment.

"Harry..." he soaped her up and poured water over her body and grabbed the nearby towel after letting out the drain. "We, still, lover, don't you think someone will notice if you're always with my kid?"

"I'm her babysitter." He said off-hand and wrapped her in the towel. "Can you walk?"

"Yeah." But she was weaker than she thought and happy he stayed next to her. "We need to be careful, I think the walls are caving in." She shivered as he pulled off the towel and dried her hair.

Pj's?" He asked, then laughed at her head shake. She didn't really wear those either. Jo was afraid he was gonna sidestep her worry, ignore it. And she didn't have the hutspah to bring it up again. He got up and came back with old trackies and his t-shirt. "Baby, we are fine. Walls are still up, and I'm done with school in a month and a half. We can do whatever then."

"We can't. Not right away." She said. "We have to talk to people, too." He kept brushing her hair and started to braid it. "How do you know how to do that?"

"Big sister. I was her dolly." He kissed the side of her head and her back where the end of her hair lay. "I'm gonna cook."

"Did your mom say anything?" He tucked her in.

"I'm gonna go cook." He said and stood to go, "Check on little miss."

"Harry, your mum?" She couldn't raise her voice, he had been close enough for her whispers. He went out and she lay down exhausted from worry and flu.

"Your mum?" She said when he brought her water a minute later. "She say anything, ask about your slip?"

"Yeah." Harry kissed her head. "We'll talk about it when you're better."

And he had avoided the topic while he fed her soup and set her up. Harry had avoided any hard topics, and she had been sick and too thankful for the help.  Harry had checked in on her on Thursday too via FaceTime. Zoe had spent the day with Audrey and Jo had spent her final day in bed. Harry had slept on the couch the night before and set her up for the morning before his classes.

"Feel better! I love you. I have class until late." He kissed her forehead and leaned down to kiss her lips. "Your fever broke in the night, babe. Do you want me to change your sheets?"

Jo moved her head to the side and his kiss glanced off. "No, not yet, Harry, let me be a day clear of it before we start kissing. And I feel much better. I think I can handle the sheets, lover."

"Ok, want me to come over tomorrow, after your classes?" He was buttoning up his shirt and hoisting his messenger bag. "Spend the weekend?"

"It's Colin's weekend. I can stay with you if you want." She tried be coy and cute, but her pallid hue didn't do her much credit.

"Yeah, that would be nice!" He stopped at the door, a light bulb above his head. "What if we went out?" He caught the look on her face and dimmed, she knew her brow was furrowed. "On the far side of town, away from school."

She'd nodded. And been excited despite herself. They hadn't gone out much after Liverpool, had laid their bellies to the ground for months. It was a happy life, domestic to a fault, but clandestine. The idea of another date, a time to be his, especially after the debacle with the tape, another thing they hadn't discussed, was a relief. Maybe they should have just planned a date, that had to be safer than filming themselves fucking.

The tape worried her but the thing she lay awake over was the ring. She had to get Ethan's ring back. It had been a desperate move and now she regretted it. Jo was scared to bring it up. They had so much pressure from without, she didn't want to add it from within. She hoped Harry understood. They could talk about an alternative token of affection. Hell, maybe she would get a tattoo, long as she appeased Harry and got that ring back on her finger.

The ring and the video seems like ammunition aimed at them. Nothing had changed as far as Jo knew, but she had had fever dreams about being caught out in the rain naked.  She was tearing through the woods with hounds on her heels. Jo could hear them barking and a sharp tooth pierced her heel as she was run down. She woke up when her knees hit the packed ground of the path in her dream. But they never needed to hit the ground, so long as they deleted the evidence, or were careful about it. She stopped then, deleting it was the only way.

Some of their other issues were matters of time. They just needed to let the clock run out on school
issues and Victoria's suspicion. So long as they remained careful.

After they fended off those foes, it was the hardest parts. Revealing themselves to their loved ones, Harry's mum and Ethan. Jo would use these hours to list out their issues so they could discuss them. Then she was going to get ahold of her man, and they would spend the weekend together, happy, and even go on a date. They would talk over the next month and a half and make plans to talk to the big guns. And she could finally feel like they had just avoided an iceberg. She figured two days in, and out, with Harry and she'd feel unsinkable.

Jo watched the clock as her reflection on the last week and her office hours ended. Nobody had come, which was not entirely odd this time of the semester, especially when she had been out all week.

She hoped Harry fed her. Maybe he would have cooked for her by the time she got there.
"Will you make me chicken tagine?" She sent the text with a pouty picture of her, and looked up from locking her door just in time to see Ewan and Victoria going into her office. 

Ewan waited outside and waved to her until Victoria gave her a curt, "Professor." which she returned before calling Ewan shrilly to follow her. Somebodies eyes followed her out, Jo didn't turn back to check who. She may be able to pull ostrich on that issue, and she intended to.

She was excited to get to Harry, but found herself fiddling with her naked finger a lot. That she wanted to remedy. She wasn't exactly sure how, but figured she would find a way. Jo navigated the streets to Harry's house and wondered why he hadn't text her back about her plans to meet him. Or the food she pouted for.

She got her answer when he came to the door.

"Baby!" He reached for her and she side stepped his public display. He was in jeans and no shirt, his fingertips were colored and she sighed at the sight of him.  The music was loud and their playlist was on.

She immediately felt better, like Atlas must have taken back his burden now that she was here. The air was even easier to breathe in his presence.

Jo pressed the door closed behind her and leaned back against it hoping he would lean back into her, or whirl around like the dervish he became when he was ecstatically creating some landscape portraiture alchemy. Normally, she'd follow him and get to watch.

Tonight, he danced with her though and she smiled when he went to kiss her. Harry stopped just short of her. Jo could smell the coffee on his breath and he had grey paint in a whisp near his hairline. She leaned up to close the distance; he pulled back just a fraction.

"We allowed to kiss again?" He let the curled edges of his pussy pink lips curl against her. "Is it safe now?"

"You're an ass!" Jo was really liking this teasing confidence. Maybe giving him the run of her and a token on affection had some effect besides her anxiety, the old cheeky Harry imbued with her reverent lover. His playfulness warmed her belly and she needed to move him along. And she needed to find a way to broach lots of subjects before the weekend was up. But now wasn't the time, they were in the middle of something.

Har-- Harry," She wasn't without her own power either.

"Yeah, that's my name!" He groaned and closed the circuit between them. She gulped when he gripped one thigh then the other to lift to his hips and carried her into his room.

It had been a while for that too.

Jo liked all his sexual moods, but worshipful was her very favorite she realized as she catalogued the way his long hair felt sliding down her chest to her belly. It tickled in the bends of her elbows and she giggled when he flicked it over his shoulders and it snaked over her upper thighs. She loved his wet lips and when he would lay his head on her hip joint to count her heartbeats for her.

She loved their velvet nights.

It got better after when he pulled her up and made sandwiches to share. It wasn't chicken tangine, but she was too hungry to care by then. They sat naked at the bar where they did months ago, and this time she fed him the remainder of her sandwich when he'd eaten his like he'd just discovered sliced bread and peanut butter.

"You are a hungry man today!" She laughed while he nipped her fingers on the way out.  She felt light as candy floss.

"Been painting for hours. Found the siren in those rocks. Come look." He stood up, naked as the day in that comfortable way he had infected her with and brought her to the studio.

He had found a lady indeed. She wondered if she should point out how much they looked like her, all his ladies. Maybe she was just projecting. But that looked a lot like her backside and her profile.

"Who's getting bashed on the rocks?" She grabbed a canvas and was wondering if they were still even there, if they went through their supplies equally. Harry had insisted it wasn't a big deal and been properly offended when she mentioned chipping in on them that one time. So she tried to bring things with her and casually leave them.

He gave her knowing glances, and when she had "accidentally" left the palette knife he always used at her house, the really good one, he had given her that look and just shook his head. "I'll pay in kisses." He'd said. And worked off some debts.

They set themselves up and Harry disappeared about thirty minutes into their session to come back with a bottle of red, the kind she preferred her pleased smile noted, and the music switched to PJ Harvey and she shared her grin with him.

"What're you painting today, who's got the beat?" He handed her the bottle and she took a sip and stared at her cowering lass.

"Dunno." Jo quirked her head to the side. "I think this time the beat has got her." She had only sketched out her own faceless lady, she was in the middle and the beat was a serious shape, lances pointed at her cowering head, surrounding her.

Harry grimaced. He kissed the top of her head and whispered, "Nobody is gonna get us. We will make it, we'll be fine." But his desperate grip made her wonder if he believed that. "Do you wanna talk about it now?"

Jo realized he had avoided it so strongly when she was ill, which was unlike her direct man. But she could very much relate at the moment. "No, I just want to paint now. Can we do the difficult stuff later?" Her head went deeper into the sand, it was nice there.

"Course!" His whole body looked relieved like taffy after a pull. "And I'll be your bubble, like in the Incredibles, the daughter?" And Jo remembered the cute movie Ethan had liked as a boy.  "Nobody is gonna poke you."

"Well, I hope somebody will poke me!" She flirted and he painted her nose with the brush she had just picked up. They wound up painting each other instead of the canvases. She pressed him against a wall and got the whole side of his face. But his size and youth won out when he took her down. Once Jo had given up the fight and lay beneath him, she'd let him paint her face in a Mondrian print and laughed when he took a shot on her phone. She'd set it as her background, since he couldn't. And then smudged the paint on his face and chest kissing him. They'd made it to the shower not long after their game of paint tag.

It was just one moment of joy from their weekend. Friday night was long and naked, and they slept in Saturday morning to compensate. Jo woke up first and made Harry tea and then the both of them smoothies and they'd curled up in his bed for hours, they watched "Peaky Blinders." And Harry got confused and jealous at her Cillian Murphy crush.

"He is so attractive!" She sighed.

"He looks like a cadaver!" Harry grumped and she laughed.

"Think he'd mind a live girl?" Harry tackled her then and made her admit he was the handsomest.

He was.

When they had turned off the show after nearly a season, they decided to go out. They made it to a pub after the street fair and botanical garden they had enjoyed the improving weather in. This was after a tense discussion over whether they should go to Home. Harry had been itching to see the gallery, but It was too risky, and Jo felt bad she had to tell him so. Harry had been very keen.

She hated to disappoint him.

They both shook it off in the name of their day out, but the clandestine requirements weren't as titillating as they once had been, it was stifling lately. With Harry pushing for more, more, more and Jo trying to rein him in like an unbroken mustang too beautiful to release but too wild to control.

The pint glass in her hand was getting warm she realized while she ignored that errant thought; she had been kicking his ass at trivia and it was more fun than drinking, so she took her time. It wasn't her last beer, but it may be her last victory. Though Harry seemed chuffed at her win. He loved when she took the piss out of him, she could tell by his grin. Didn't mind when she bested him. Later, after they had danced til she was sweaty, she stole his hair tie out of his bun.

"I have more hair." She pouted and he nodded and caught the ponytail she was gathering and held her by it to kiss her.

It was the second best date of her life.

They'd fallen into bed and his arms were warm and his laughter throaty, while she teased him about his abysmal sports knowledge. "Honestly, how have you not learned more, simply from making conversation?" She looked down to ask from his favored resting spot on her left ass cheek.

"I was to busy learning to paint from you and how to braid hair!" He nipped her cheek and flipped her over before crawling over her. "I think both are more useful skills."

"Have any other skills you'd like to show me?" she was a little breathless and bright eyed.

"Yeah." He'd breathed into her sternum where he pressed the first kiss.

It was a perfect 36 hours, but the next morning, the ring she had purchased at the street fair was burning a hole in her pocket. Harry was in the shower and she had pulled on sweats when goosebumps erupted over her skin when she got out from the covers. The apartment was colder than it had any right to be. Jo knew it was her nerves at the looming conversation/ She didn't want to do this in the bedroom, in case it went bad, and they fought, or the studio. Both were sacred spaces to her. So, she went to make tea and wait him out in the kitchen, neutral ground.

She was staring into her cup, stirring it slowly when Harry came out to her in his own loose pants and bare chest.

"You look ominous." He sidled up next to her. "Time to talk about my mum?" He was counting his fingers. That curious thing he did when he was nervous, but in control enough to not pinch his bottom lip.

Shit, his mum. She'd been so preoccupied by the ring when she woke up, since she saw the alternative really, she'd forgotten about their other obstacles.

It was as good a place to start as any.

"That and other things." Jo looked up from her cup and exhaled as many of the bats in her belfry as possible. "What did she say? Did she ask outright?"

He shook his head and sat at the place she had made for him, across from her. She should have put them side by side. Men did better that way, less adversarial.

"No, she never asks outright, or scolds me, but she did say we still seemed close, like we had been when I was younger. She emphasized that, younger not young. And she warned me, about how people might perceive it." He took a sip of his tepid tea, grimaced, maybe over it not being perfect. "But she gave me this look, one I know, where her eye contact is intense and her right brow is high and we both know she is saying more than she is saying."

Jo wondered if he knew he wore that look sometimes too. "Did she, did she say anything about me?" Jo bit at her lip and tried to remember that she and Anne were peers at least, if not friends. Never would be now.

Harry gave her his eyes then, "Just that you must be lonely without Ethan and after a divorce. How she felt for your desperate situation."

"She thinks I'm desperate?" That chafed.

"No, she's trying to tell me that if it seems you like me back, it's because you are lonely and need attention." He gripped his coffee cup. "She still thinks I get crushed by my crushes. I had to bite my tongue to keep from telling her that if you were a crush, I would get flattened under the weight if the real thing ever happens."

"I'm not lonely," that wasn't quite right. "or I was, but I didn't want it to be you." She sighed, "It just was."

"What's the plan, then?" He took her hand and coasted his ring clad pinky over her knuckles.

"We wait? More. Until school ends. Then we tell her." She gulped, he loved his mum expected a lot from her. "And we expect her to disapprove, like most people will."

He nodded, "They doubt because they don't know." He cocked his head with a sad smile. "They don't see us spending days together, that feel like minutes, that we are forever." He winked the ring at her, held his hand up.

She stared at the ring on his pinky "Harry, I hate that we have to talk about things like this, but there are lots of things we have to talk about." she gulped a breath.

"Like?" She took his hands at that.

"I want you to have something from me, and I gave you that ring," she gestured at his hand. "but." And she bit her lip.

"But Ethan gave it to you and you want it back." He looked hurt, but unsurprised.

"I'm sorry Harry. I wasn't thinking, you were so upset and angry and I didn't want to leave you empty handed." She took a big breath. "But that ring was a mistake, to give Ethan's ring was," she shook her head, she couldn't find a word. "and once I woke up from fever I had to talk to you about it."

"Jo, baby, I understand, it's not this ring, really. Though I love this one, the symbol on it. Any will do. It's not his particular thing, but what it means. I want what it means, the real symbol?" His voice had taken on a hue she didn't know, she heard it as deep purple.

"What symbol?" She was confused about his passionate segue.

"I just want to know it's forever for you too. That when you look down the line, all those titles that Colin gets are mine, because you want me to have them, think I deserve them."

Her blank face must have registered for him.

"You don't think about beyond? Like forever, Jo?"

No, she had made it a point to not think of forever. Cast those thoughts out like seeds on hard ground. "Harry..." she trailed off. This, they, had a natural end date to her, not because she wanted it, but because Harry would want things she couldn't give, naturally. "What titles do you deserve?"

"Husband. Definitely, and father." He looked down and whispered the last word, but when he looked up he was resolved and she knew one of those lances was coming to pop their bubble, but it was going to come from her, from within.

"Harry, I..." How do you tell somebody what they want was not for them, because of something as immovable as time? "You said... but you said a part of me was enough? What we have was enough for you?"

"And I meant it. I did! But you don't see more for us?" He begged. "Jo, we are so much bigger than right now, bigger than love. We're like paint on a canvas that outlives the original artist. Legacy, I see it with you." He smoothed hair behind her ear. You don't see it with me?" His desperate brow was breaking her heart.

" I do." She sighed because she did, but as a fantasy. "When I dream it's you and I with silver hair down our backs painting in a garden. But, I leave that idea in the night."

"Why? I dream that dream, too." Harry insisted and took her hands.

"Because it's, it's not fair to you, lover. I can't give you legacy." She felt her wet cheeks before she knew she was crying.

"What do you mean?" He looked like the answer was already there in his mind, but he was ignoring it, because most of the time the twenty year lap between them was less a problem than all their other hurdles, just a detail like her hazel eyes and his curly hair.

"It's not fair, giving you forever isn't. Because I can't, really. I can't have more kids." She gathered up all of her bravery like firewood to set his hopes on fire.

"What do you mean?" He cast his eyes around for a satisfactory answer. "like you think you are too old?"

"Harry, I am nearly too old." she cut herself on the words.

"But you still cycle, it can still happen." Damn he paid a lot of attention growing up among women, and to her body, probably because he never got squeamish about fucking while she bled.

"Technically, but we've only just been together four months and that's too soon." She was trying not to cut him with her truth too.

"It's not" Harry shook his head, "we aren't going anywhere Jo. I knew in my bones right away. I recognized you. Once I was grown up and looking."

She shook off his surety like shackles. "Harry, even if we started trying now." The words sparked hope in his eye. She was gonna dash it."which would be criminally stupid." she tilted her head at him, "But what I mean is, I can't. Doctors orders." The next bit she squeezed his hand over. "And Harry. I won't."

He looked up at her teary eyed. "Is it just that you don't want to have my baby? Is it me? Something lacking?"

Jo kissed his forehead, "No love, there is nothing lacking in you. It's why I don't think of forever. You deserve to have children, lots if you want, when you are ready. Older." She smoothed the lines his concentration face was trying to make permanent.

"But I want that with you. I want babies and grey hair with you." He was crying in earnest now.

It started her tears again too, "I can't Harry. It could kill me." She took a huge breath then and realized the front lines could charge all they wanted, they were about to self-destruct anyway.

Harry lay his head on the table and she stroked his hair while he wept. 

"Think hard about it baby, before we tell your mum, or Ethan, or anybody. I love you, I wish I could give you this. But I can't. I've done this before, and I was told it was a bad idea for me again. My uterus was nearly see through when they cut into me for Zoe. I'm lucky to have her. I can't give you this. And somebody else can, should. And that kills me. But you should have that." She cupped his wet face and brought it up to look at her. "You will make the best dad." Then she gave him a watery smile, "You should definitely share your genes with the world, lover."

He was shaking his head and hiccuping.

"And your heart. Though I want to keep it to myself."

"No, no, that's not right. It's not what I want."

"But I love you enough to give it to you. If you still want me, for the time I can give you, and the sell-by date on our life, our love. Ok. But I'm not your forever Harry." He looked at her broken, his face cracked like a dropped porcelain doll.

He just shook his head.

"But I have something for you, to give you." she pulled her hand off him. "In exchange for forever." She pulled out the sparrow rings she had picked up yesterday. Jo pulled his hand into her own and removed the infinity ring. In its place she slipped on the sparrow ring she knew he would love best and started to put its mate on her own finger. Harry took it over for her, and snugged it onto her right ring finger.

"I give you wings." she whispered over a rising sob.