A young police officer sighed as he sat down on his bed for the night. It wasn't often that a case would get to him, but this time he couldn't stop thinking about it. The strange thing was it hadn't even been the bad guy who gotten in his head, it had been the words of the police officer himself. For four and a half years, he had been struggling. All day, every day, he struggled. He kept it to himself told himself to get over it. Occasionally he would get questioned on it, but for the most part he thought he did a fairly good job of hiding it. He had almost slipped up last week, and he was so thankful that he didn't let it get any further.

"It can never be anything" He would say. He truly hadn't lied to his sergeant when he said that he had no intentions of starting a relationship with her; He had no intentions whatsoever. He didn't want a relationship with her. Not because he didn't love her, but because he did. How could he love her but let her go at the same time?

He had never had intentions of falling in love with her. It just happened. There had been something from the moment they met, and it just kept growing. Not only were they best friends, but they were each other's biggest confidant, moral support, and partners. They knew each other better then anyone. They could communicate with a look, help each other fix their food wordlessly because they were that familiar with each other's eating habits, and they were so in sync that sometimes it was like they could read each other's minds. They were soulmates. They both knew it, but the other would shut it down anytime it was brought up. There was imaginary line in the imaginary sand, and they were getting closer and closer. They were standing on the line, and they were rapidly approaching the other side, the forbidden side. If they were being honest, they had even temporarily crossed it before but stepped back before anyone knew.

His family knew how he felt; his brother teased them for acting like a married couple, and his sister thought the sassy, confident blond was just his type. They all thought he was crazy for not pursuing it, but he had never admitted how he felt, and they hadn't wanted to push him, as they didn't realize just how close to the line they had taken it.

The police officer wasn't sure how much longer they could keep from crossing the other side of the line; what started off as being work partners turned into comforting each other and innocent flirting, which turned into spending the night on the couch at each other's places, attending weddings together, going dancing, being placed undercover together, defending each other at all cost, being honest about wanting to be in bed with each other, and even the occasional kiss. They were getting closer and closer to the other side of the line, and at this point their only options were to either go backwards or to cross it. If he knew anything though, it was that he couldn't go backwards. After four and a half years, their bond was too strong. At the same time though, how could they cross it?

Oh, how desperately the police officer wanted to cross it. The consequences though would be extreme. He had lost a partner before, but he wasn't sure he could handle losing her.

"Have you ever thought what we might be missing out on?" She had asked him once.

"Have you ever thought what we might be giving up?" He had questioned sadly. That question is what stopped them every time; They didn't want to give their partnership up. They both knew that they could make it, but not being able to be together every day and keeping each other safe? The thought of that scared him so badly, and he knew it scared her too. What scared him even more though was the though of not being with her at all. Eventually, he knew it would come to that if they didn't just step forward.

The police officer sighed, knowing what he had to do. He wasn't sure when or how, but he knew he had to do it before it was too late. After all, it had been him who said

"You love her, she loves you. There's no law against that."