Author's note: This is a short piece set early season 4. Definitively not part of, or anything to do with, the 'Step' universe that my other stories live in.

The Right Kind of Wrong

Of course it had to happen in the same place. Tom would have thought the gods were mocking him, if he hadn't known it was down to the much more earthly actions of Mike Slattery.

So here they were, he and Sasha, face to face, in the same room on the James in which he'd kissed her and then left her, sixteen months ago.

"What do you want, Tom?" She asked, her tone a little hostile as she looked at him impatiently.

"I thought we should clear the air." He'd practiced the line in his head, but coming out of his mouth it felt so weak.

"What air?" She leant against the wall, her arms folded. "My air is just fine."

"I-" He paused, fighting a rising tide of panic, the same kind of panic that had made him voyage halfway across the world in the first place, seeking a peace that had turned out to be entirely fragile. "I left, and-"

"And we got along just fine without you." She sounded so dismissive that had he not noticed the very slight tremor in her voice, had he not remembered that little tell of hers, then he might have believed it.

"I know, I can see that, but I still left-"

"Me!" She shouted suddenly, erupting across the cabin and into his space, her face now inches from his "You left me! You absolute bastard, Tom!" As she said his name, her voice broke.

And she was so beautiful, fiery, strong and vulnerable, all at the same time, and nothing had changed, absolutely nothing, and he grabbed her waist, jerking her against him and covering her mouth with his. For second, he felt everything click into place as her body yielded to his, but then she bit down on his lip and shoved him away with such force that he stumbled.

"That isn't how you fix this!" She looked shocked, and angry, but there was something else...

"I'm sorry, I know," He tried to justify himself, "I just-"

"You just what, Tom?" She forced her hands through her hair in a gesture of impatience he remembered from fifteen years ago.

"I just-" The words stuck in his throat, but he forced them free. "Every time I set eyes on you, I forget everything else. It's like there's nothing in this world that I want more than you. And I can't-"

And this time it wasn't a lack of words that stopped him mid-sentence, it was Sasha's mouth meeting his.

She kissed him with a kind of raw, painful hunger, that he matched as their mouths opened instinctively and their tongues tangled. It wasn't romantic, it was messy and desperate, and a perfect reflection of everything that had happened, was happening, between them.

When he had no choice but to pull back for a gasp of air, Tom saw the tears on Sasha's lashes and felt even worse, somehow, than he had before. She opened her eyes when he didn't return to the kiss, and what he saw there made him swallow hard.

"I'm seeing someone." She told him, her voice filled with something like regret.

"So am I." He admitted, even though he felt he could dismiss Cali in an instant, now that he knew his feelings for Sasha hadn't abated in the slightest.

"And I don't even care." She said brokenly, the tears spilling down her cheeks as she grabbed him and pulled him into another kiss, his arms wrapping around her so tightly that he wasn't sure he could ever let her go again.

This was clearly wrong on so many levels, so how could it feel so right?