"I don't think you ruined anything," she soothes. "I mean, this is what you're supposed to be doing," she adds with a one-shouldered shrug. "Thinking it over. Talking it over. Same thing, really."

Her expression softens into something resembling understanding. "Men like Colonel Sheppard, they." She inhales. "They're a little insecure sometimes, too. They're so used to doing what they do that they forget that people might fall in love with them the way they are."

This isn't experience talking, don't worry. Ahem.