“Planning,” she repeated.  One hand reached for her tunic, threatening to pull it open to reveal her breasts.  “Isn't there something else you would like to do?”

“I’m not a young man any longer,” Kurt reminded her, embarrassed.  “I need time to recharge my batteries before doing it again.”

Rose smirked.  “And there I was thinking that you were behind the stimulant shortage,” she said.  She went on at his questioning glance.  “Someone – probably more than one person – has been talking the doctor into issuing stimulants.  The doctor won’t say who.”

“Not me,” Kurt said.  There were warnings about using stimulants for sexual pleasure.  In the long term, they could create dependency or reduce potency.  But if someone believed that the entire ship was doomed, they might not care about the long-term effects.  “I still need to recharge naturally.”

He looked down at the flight rosters, although – in truth – they’d been over the same thing several times already.  It provided an excuse to meet in private, yet it had long since worn out its usefulness.  But the only alternative was to draw up new training simulations, which they would then have to fly out with their pilots ... angrily, he scowled down at the list of names.  Surely his life hadn't been so complicated before he'd started an illicit affair?

Rose leaned forward and placed her hand on his knee.  “Thinking about your children?”

Kurt flushed.  He hadn't been thinking about his children ... but now she’d mentioned them, the guilt flooded back into his mind.  Whatever happened between Molly and him was one thing, yet he would always be the father of Penny and Percy.  His affair, his betrayal of their mother, would hurt them badly.  He knew that for a fact.  And yet he couldn't stop himself from touching Rose, now she’d broken the barrier between them.

“I miss them,” he admitted, partly to cover his real thoughts.  “And I may miss the rest of their lives.”

The thought overwhelmed him.  Penny would walk down the aisle ... and he wouldn't be there to escort her.  Percy would grow up, perhaps join the Royal Navy to be like the father he’d started to admire ... and then marry himself, without his father to watch and advise him.  And Molly ... what would Molly do to make ends meet?  Maybe she would marry again, even though her best years were past.  Or maybe she would just work longer hours to keep the kids in their private school.

“You’ll see them again, I’m sure,” Rose said.  She withdrew her hand and stood up, pacing around the cabin.  “Tell me something.  Where do you see us going?”

Kurt blanched.  It was the question he had studiously refrained from even contemplating, as if refusing to think about it would make the question go away.  But it hadn't and it wouldn’t.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, finally.