When Melody turned around it took him half a second to take in everything there was to notice. Her facial expression, the look in her eyes, the open potion vial in her hand. Ben tensed. He had no idea what she was doing, but it was clear that she'd been caught in the middle of something she hadn't planned to be caught at. That was enough to set off alarm bells in and of itself — that there was something she was, apparently, hiding from him — but the presence of the potion vial took things to a whole other level. The last time that Melody had done something with a potion without telling him about it...

He didn't want to jump to conclusions, but it was hard to imagine that there was anything good in store. Especially after she hurriedly re-capped the potion.

"Yeah," he replied stiffly. "Looks like it." He'd thought things had been going a bit better, after the night they'd played cards. Had he been misreading everything? Had something derailed and gone totally wrong at some point without his realizing it? He indicated a chair at the table and waited for her to sit and start explaining.