"Because this isn't normal, Harry." Her voice started to lift in her frustration. "And you're doing what you always do."

He regarded her for a quiet moment, then, "Did it ever occur to you that I do what I always do for a reason?"

Her hands curled into fists again on his chest. "Tell me, Harry. What reason?"

His brow crossed in pain as he opened his mouth. After several seconds of not breathing, his eyes slipped shut. "I have so many words and so little voice," he whimpered. "Because I can't explain it all, I can't explain anything." He opened his eyes again, speaking in a rush, with a voice that begged her to understand. "It was you. You're the reason."

"Me?"

But he continued. "I did it and I didn't want to, but I had to. I had to, Diane. There wasn't another way." He pointed his eyes up in a frustrated arc. "You don't know how different it all would have been if it hadn't been you." Harry looked back down into her face, carefully lifting a hand to brush back her hair. "But it had to be you, didn't it? None of it would have happened without you."

She shook her head a little. "I don't understand, Harry."

"Don't you?"

They stood, locked into each other, and they might as well have been in the middle of the desert together, in the middle of the ocean together, each nothing but the other for miles.

I mean you. You're the island. You're the paradise where nobody can find me. Why don't you understand?

Obligingly, the musical noise around them faded into nothing, replaced by the soft invitation of a piano. Harry glanced up at the emptying dark dance floor.

"Come with me."

You'll understand now.

"When the rain's blowing in your face
and the whole world is on your case
I would offer you a warm embrace
to make you feel my love