Naomi reluctantly crawled out of her tent, glowering at Rick when he grinned at her cheerfully from his spot by the fire. Morning people, she thought irritably. She yawned and ran a hand through her curly, red hair, and then went about her morning routine of making herself somewhat presentable. The sun was barely up; most of them weren't awake yet. She wouldn't even be up if it weren't for the fact that sleeping on the ground was quickly becoming one of her least favorite aspects of forest travel.

Then she saw Wil a good distance away from the camp circle, his expression somewhat pained. When he caught her looking at him, the pained look quickly switched to nonchalance, and she sighed. Why couldn't anyone just come talk to her when there was a problem? she wondered.

Of course, it might not be a medical problem, she realized, even as she walked over to him. He'd been even more withdrawn than usual the past couple of days. But in this case, since that might very well have something to do with her, she needed to speak with him either way. "You feeling all right?"

He started to nod, then shook his head. "No. This morning I spit up blood-- don't worry, I buried it." He motioned toward a fresh patch of ground near the rock he was sitting on. "You better go tell Rick that I'm even more of a danger than he thinks I am."

"If you didn't want him to behave like you were a possible threat, you should've thought of that before you started waving a knife around," she said flatly. "As for your stomach-- I'm sorry I don't have anything stronger than the tea to give to you until we get back to the village, but we're two weeks away at the most. Until then, don't eat anything Caden cooks." The Inako seemed to enjoy making food designed to set people's mouths on fire.

Wil started to say something, winced instead. "Fine," he said giving her small salute. "Is that all, Doc?"

Well, Naomi thought, she'd known that she needed to say this, thought that saying it matter-of-factly might be best . . . until now, she hadn't quite been sure she'd be able to. But his sarcastic words and gesture steeled her resolve as few other things would've. "No, that's not all," she said. "I never tried to clear things up, as to what happened after Denae died. We were upset, and it was a silly mistake. I just wanted you to know I'm not going to pull some rejected-partner thing if you try to patch things up with Lauren."

He almost laughed, though it wasn't funny at all when he realized that thinking about Naomi had helped him get through these past few days. Her words hit him like a blow to his already aching gut. But why should she think any different of what had happened that night in the forest?

Any chance of a friendship they might have had was wiped out with one 'silly' mistake. She was a doctor, he was a sick man; she was just doing her job.

He shrugged. "Glad you could get that off your chest," he said. "But it doesn't matter. Lauren doesn't want to patch things up."

"Oh," she murmured. "I'm sorry. I just thought that what happened between us might be making things awkward and I didn't want that."

He looked up, surprised by the change of tone in her voice. He felt his throat go tight again. "It is making things awkward," he said.

"Yeah, it . . . it is," Naomi admitted, after glancing one way and then the other with a near-hope that Paloma or Lauren would call her over or even that someone would get an injury-- a very minor one-- so she wouldn't have to figure out how to navigate through the rest of this conversation. At least not without some time to think it over first.

He did laugh this time, and it was genuine, because he didn't think he'd ever seen her look more nervous, and realized he liked the thought of being able to make her uneasy. "I could throw up again," he told her. "If that would make you more comfortable right now."

Naomi laughed. "That's okay. I'm not *that* obvious, am I?" At his look, she smiled and shook her head. "Okay, maybe I am."

He pushed himself to his feet with the stick he'd used to dig the hole earlier. "Yeah, you are," he agreed. "But that's okay-- because you're a good doctor." He started past her, paused. "I mean that, Naomi."

The compliment startled a smile out of her-- she'd half been expecting another sarcastic remark, or just more of the silence that had seemed to characterize their interactions lately. "Thank you."

He kept walking. "You're welcome, Doc."