Stella lies on top of the still fully-made bed, closes her eyes. The quilt beneath her is soft, the satin on the cushion she leans on is cool against her cheek.
She unzips her boots and pushes them to the floor, then cringes when she hears them hit the wood. She shouldn't make noise. The girls are asleep.
She should change clothes, brush her teeth. She can't bring herself to move.
Reed appears in the open doorway, her soft footsteps announcing her presence. "Do you need anything? A drink, perhaps? You look like you could use one."
Stella opens her eyes and shakes her head. "No, thank you. Drinking when I'm upset will make me unbearably weepy."
Reed has changed into soft fleece trousers and a pink shirt with a cat on it. "Yes, I suppose I know the feeling. I can't imagine what you must feel like."
Stella huffs a non-laugh. "I hope you never have to. Nice shirt."
She chuckles. "My daughter's."
A silence stretches between them, but neither of them makes a move to leave, to turn in.
"How did you come to be a pathologist?" Stella asks, and thinks that it doesn't matter what the answer is, she just needs something, anything to hold onto. To wake up tomorrow in a strange house in a strange city, go to work in a strange building, and keep working. She feels terribly displaced.
Reed takes her time to reply.
"I'm sorry, is that too personal?"
But she smiles gently. "Not at all. I've been asked this many times, actually." She walks into the room and sits down on the bed, turned away from Stella. "But usually what they really mean is, how can I stand to cut bodies all day."
"That's not what I mean," Stella says, staring into the middle of her back.
"I know." Reed turns to sit straight on the bed now, one leg folded in front of her, one still on the floor. "I trained as a doctor for a while. It's an inevitable fact of medicine that not every patient can be saved. Or even helped. I didn't think I could continue to cope with that. The dead are already at peace when they reach me."
Stella nods against the pillow. "Do not stand at my grave and weep. I am not there. I do not sleep," she recites.
"Precisely."
"Not that it stops us from doing so, anyway."
"No."
Another small silence stretches between them. They are both thinking about Alice Monroe, Fiona Gallagher, Sarah Kay, Joe Brawly, about Marina McPherson. About Rose.
"How did you come to be a police officer?"
Stella looks up at the ceiling. "I've been asking myself this all day long." She sighs. "But it's the usual explanation, I suppose. I wanted to help people. I thought it would be... satisfying."
"And it isn't?"
"It's a similar feeling to what you described, most days. Not everyone can be saved, or even helped."
"Sometimes you help."
"Sometimes. But even after everything..." Stella shifts to lie on her side. "I'm still surprised by what humans are capable of doing to one another."
Reed sighs. "I know what you mean. It's like - you nurse this fruitless hope that every terrible case you work will be the last one. The last tragedy."
"But it never is."
"Suppose we'd both be out of a job if it were."
"You could focus on research, teach."
"Maybe."
"Not sure what I would do. Direct traffic perhaps." Both of them chuckle. "Doesn't sound so terrible right now."
Reed moves to lie on her side, facing Stella, mirroring her with a hand tucked beneath her chin. "Tomorrow will be a better day."
Stella can't help but laugh. "You can't promise that, but thank you for saying it anyway."
She's surprised when Reed moves closer - when Reed's hand covers her own, and then, when soft lips touch hers. Barely open, just a small amount of pressure, easy and lingering. And then she retreats, and Stella opens her eyes to find the pair looking back at her full of something - something kindred. "Was that okay?" she asks. Their hands are still touching.
Stella feels her mouth curve in a half-smile. "When not in Croydon?"
Reed smiles back. "I don't know why I said that. I was just taken off guard."
"I thought so. You don't have to explain."
"I know. I want to."
"Okay."
"Did you sleep at all last night?"
"Not much. CSI was in the hotel for most of it. I got to my office early, slept for about an hour on the cot."
A gentle palm covers her cheek, warm, soft. "I don't know how you're still awake."
She realises suddenly that her eyes are closed. She can't bring herself to open them. "I don't think I really am," she answers, and it comes out a whisper.
"Sleep," is whispered back, the last thing she hears.
Stella starts awake in the dark, cold and stiff, the bitter taste of broken sleep in her mouth. Reed is asleep beside her, the hand that was on her cheek now around her neck.
Hands on her neck. Someone on top of her. Pulling at her clothes. Her hands are immobilized, she can't move, she can't scream-
She takes several deep breaths, waits for her pulse to slow. She reaches behind her, unclasps her own bra, and then shuffles closer to Reed, an arm around the other woman's waist. She closes her eyes again, tries to fall asleep again. Instead she remembers her journal, her other dreams, how the soft leather used to comfort her when she wrote in it.
She can't help the tears that spring to her eyes. The day has caught up with her – this wretched case, the past weeks – she allows herself to shed them on the soft cushion under her head, careful not to make a move or a sound.
Was it Spector in her dream? She isn't sure, but Reed radiates a comforting warmth that slowly chases his ghost away.
She sniffles and feels Reed start to shift.
"I'm sorry," she says. "Go back to sleep."
"Stella," Reed whispers back, and gentle fingers are on her face, wiping the tears away.
"Please, I'm all right, I've just had a hard day." The tears won't quite stop, but at least she isn't sobbing.
"I know." One hand on her ribcage, one back on her cheek, anchoring her. Reed isn't demanding, isn't asking for anything. She is the only person Stella has felt at ease with since she's left London. Longer.
A few more minutes, and the tears trickle to a stop. Stella keeps her eyes on Reed's shoulder in front of her, and sniffles again. Reed slowly slides her hand from Stella's face and pulls her jumper up slowly, over her stomach, her breasts.
She doesn't stop her, lifts her arms and slips them out of it, watches Reed tuck it on the bed behind her. She knows it won't end where it might have, the previous evening. "I think I'm too tired to do this tonight."
Reed's eyes meet hers. "I just want you to be comfortable. Can't sleep well in all those clothes."
Stella smiles softly. "I've had many men undress me over the years. Never heard that before," she says, by way of a quip.
Reed's lips quirk up. "Nice to know I'm original." She slides the unclasped bra off through the camisole, then gently unbuttons Stella's trousers.
Once upon a time, she might have forced herself to feign more eager participation for her lover's sake. When she was younger, when it still seemed important to please others at her own expense. But she has seen the truth of the world now, has learned that it does go on without her concessions. Has learned too, the value of a pure connection to another human being, unmarred by dishonesty. She wasn't, isn't quite prepared for the way Reed is under her skin now, but she is.
Stella turns to lie on her back, lifts her hips and helps Reed ease them off. The air in the room is chilly but Stella feels warm. Reed smiles. "There. Isn't that much better?"
Stella finds herself mirroring that smile, feels it reach her eyes, nods slightly.
"You should get under the covers."
"If you do too."
Reed nods, and in silent agreement they stand. Reed shuts the bedroom door as Stella throws the heavier cushions on the plush chair by the bed, folds her shed clothes on its arm. They peel back the covers, slip under the comforter, meet in the middle. It feels soft and smells clean and Stella realizes how sensible an idea it was, to slide (be slid) out of her clothes and into the sheets.
She finds Reed's waist in her arms under the covers and runs her hands up her ribcage, over the outside contours of her breasts, catches her face between her palms and kisses her like she wanted to last night, like she had planned to if they had made it into the lift, like she desperately needs the air Reed breathes into her mouth. Her teeth graze Reed's upper lip, tongue following, soothing. Repeat on lower lip while Reed sends her own tongue in to keep up, to caress, to say, hello, I think I like you. Her arm slides under Stella's pillow, the other around her back, gently stroking her spine, leaving tingles.
The kiss breaks for breath and Stella goes in for more, they both go in for more, less hesitant, holding each other like they're afraid to let go.
"Perhaps I'm not too tired after all," Stella says in a breathy and low voice, between kissing Reed's mouth and kissing her neck.
"It's okay if you are," she replies, her voice trembling and hitching as Stella leaves a small bite on her neck, just a little, not enough to hurt or leave a mark.
Stella is oddly touched by the words, suddenly overcome by a wave of affection. Instead of stopping, she slides her thigh between Reed's, pulls her knee tight over her own hip, and feels her gasp into her mouth. Stella starts a slow, experimental rub against her.
Reed breaks the kiss to gasp quietly again. "Oh my god." She feels Reed's hands curl into fists behind her, her arms tightening around Stella.
"That's right," Stella encourages, touching her forehead to Reed's, peeling the covers back slightly to allow cool air around them.
Reed moves against her, her breathing shallow and loud in the silence and dark of the night. "Stella."
Watching her climb towards release is more erotic than Stella ever thought.
"I've never," she starts saying, then moans, pulls herself even closer. "I've never been with a woman before."
"I thought so," Stella says, she hopes not unkindly.
"I've never wanted a woman like I want you."
Stella feels the ground beneath her shift at those words, her control slipping. She kisses Reed again, missing those lips against hers unbearably, holds her tight with one arm while the other hand dips under her shirt. She finds Reed's pert nipple and swipes her thumb across it, slowly, several times, swallowing the mews and sighs it elicits from her. Then she rolls on top of her, pushes into her a few times until Reed spreads her knees and bites down on Stella's lip.
Stella breaks the kiss and Reed is immediately regretful: "I'm sorry, did I hurt you?"
"No, don't worry," Stella reassures, and slips her hand past the drawstring on Reed's trousers, finding her exquisitely wet and needy. She knows her way around a woman's body, knows exactly what to do, and it isn't a coincidence that this position allows her some contact where she needs it with Reed's fleece-covered thigh. It won't be enough but she's okay with that, tonight.
She kisses Reed again and Reed's whimpering, moaning, breaking the kiss to sigh and gasp, pulling Stella back down every time with a shaky hand. "Stella," she whispers between a moan and a chaste kiss that she follows with a very unchaste one.
It isn't long before Stella can feel Reed's thighs start to shake, can feel how close she is, and applies a little more pressure, a little more speed, coaxing the climax out of her. "Go on, come for me," she whispers, and Reed is gone, gasping, panting, contracting around her hand in waves, pulling Stella's face down into her neck. Stella pants in surprise as her own soft orgasm comes after all, as she helps Reed reach the peaks of hers and doesn't let up until she pushes her hand aside, unable to take any more stimulation.
In the aftermath, Stella finds herself sprawled on top of Reed, nuzzling her neck, arms around her as Reed stares at the ceiling and catches her breath.
"That was nice," Reed says.
"Yes, it was," replies Stella, and both of them laugh at the absurdity of the understatement.
Eventually they settle into a more comfortable embrace, Stella pressed into Reed's side, sharing a pillow. They lie in silence for a few minutes, until Reed breaks it. "When this investigation ends, you'll go back to London."
"Yes."
"Do you think we'll see each other again?"
Stella hesitates a few seconds before answering. "Our fates are up to us."