You don't have to do that.

[ She's not distracting him. He's distracting her. Joan's just alleviating her boredom. (His mood isn't a threat to her; she doesn't need to manage it.) That's as simply as she can care for him and it still isn't without ulterior motive.

Hap sets his phone down, screen to desk, picks up his glass and leaves the room. He doesn't look at it again until he walks back into his study for a refill, a little under an hour later. Several minutes after that, he messages, ]

Are the others asleep?

[ Despite himself, he chuckles. That would drive him crazy. Even in his sleep Scott is annoying.

Pocketing his phone, Hap goes to the basement door. The beam of light pouring down the stairs announces his intentions. So as to not disturb the others, he descends and opens her cell in total silence, and ushers her out. ]

"It's not a terrible plan," he says, turning to face her. She might get a kick out of how out of touch he is in that regard. Any that he has seen are bound to have a unique spin put on them. That is actually what compelled to him to bring her up. He rejects the word "distraction." He just feels like warmth.

It's unbecoming but she did volunteer.

"First, do you — would you like to take a shower?" No strings attached this time, aside from the fact that Hap would very much like her to.

Hap shakes his head, though says, "Door open." He turns her down with a gentle smile, soft eye contact. Sex isn't off the table but it's not something he wants to get to right away. The opportunity to shower ought to soothe the rejection, and adhering to the structure he has in mind should slightly rebalance how odd he's being.

Not that any effort he makes will stop her from throwing this in his face later down the line. He's expressly not thinking about that, which makes a nice change from struggling not to think about the mentor that tried to kill him.

The sound of the shower brings a comfort entirely different from the one he denied himself by not joining her. He can hear it from the living room, white noise that waxes and wanes with the turn of her body. Putting on a record, he wonders if she can hear Gordon Lightfoot's voice under the spray, or if only the most heartfelt plucks of guitar strings break through.

In the study, Hap considers the liquor bottle in hand. He won't have any more after tonight. He may not have any more tonight. And it's not cheap. He's the one who established the tradition of buying it every year, initially an act of gratitude for Leon's unconventional understanding and guidance. Over time they became equals and it was more or less a nod to the past, a reminder of how far they'd come. Hap thought that's what it was, anyway.

Joan likes whiskey. He can't remember if she told him that or he's merely assuming but there's no doubt in his mind. Hap grabs her a glass from the kitchen and sets it down beside his on the living room coffee table, along with the scotch. As the water runs and a new song starts up, he sits, removes his glasses, and runs his hands slowly over his face. This is risky. He just has to hope that there's enough here to lose that Joan won't go and deliberately ruin it.

He gets up shortly after the shower goes quiet, meeting her in the corridor. He nods to her request; she's not pressing her luck whatsoever.

"Come on." Hap takes her to his room, where he pulls out a nondescript grey t-shirt and a pair of black sweat shorts.

"No test," he assures her, though on second thought, that's not quite true. Above ground, everything is a test. But he's putting his faith in her. She's already doing well, coaxing a slack grin out of him.

Hap grabs up her damp towels and heads back to the doorway, where he gestures her to exit ahead of him. "Have a drink with me."

"It's dangerous to mix drugs and alcohol," he pretends to chastise her.

Falling into step behind her, he tosses the towel onto the bathroom floor in passing. In the living room, he expect she'll linger in suspicion before finding herself a seat. Hap goes ahead and retakes his spot on the couch, draping an arm over the back.

It's not that she made the right choice, sitting right next to him. Why wouldn't she? She's starved of contact most of the time. The dance isn't always intimate; often, he approaches it with precision and pragmatism. Presently, he isn't consciously holding her to any one desired course of action. But he would have been disappointed and bemused, in unequal measure, had she sat anywhere else.

Now, he's just bemused, following her gaze up. What does she think is up there, the sword of Damocles?

"This is night," he says, and leans forward to fill their glasses. "And drinks. That's all."

Of course she thinks that. Hap doesn't have the energy to bristle. Joan will be Joan.

"Maybe," he says proposes, reclining with a glass in each hand. "I'm just tired and in my fifties." He offers her the fuller glass, brows tented as if to say, Imagine that.

"Had many designated date nights, Joan?" Seems a concept she'd have avoided as part of the whole commitment package.

He settles in with his scotch cradled on his knee. He's ahead of her, after all. Only right to let her catch up.

And she looks a flicker of beautiful throwing it back, hair in thick wet tendrils, a sheen of water clinging to her temple.

Mouth flattened as if in contemplation, he nods without delay. "A long time ago, yeah. Not for long, though." Shocking, he knows. "She was a teacher." Professor, actually.