*** *** ***
Nothing you confess
could make me love you less,
I'll stand by you
-The Pretenders
*** *** ***

It's 0113 hours on what is technically Sunday morning, and sleep is far away.

Jamie stretches bare legs down towards the foot of the bed and flexes his toes in search of a cool spot among the sheets. It's a warm, humid night and he's worked up a sticky heat, between the fidgeting of his limbs and the relentless cogs of his brain.

He throws the covers off and sprawls in his boxers, taking up the whole damn bed like the bachelor he is.

He used to let his mind spin itself down like an overtired toddler, poring over endless readings for school, or exhaust himself at the gym. But he's still stubbornly resisting the idea of further studies, and he doesn't want to deal with anyone likely to be at his usual gym at this hour.

Maybe he should give up and go for a walk. The thought of a solitary night walk is uninspiring, though. Who could he call at this hour? Not Eddie, not anymore. She used to keep him company by phone, curled up in her bed or watching the late news while he paced his neighbourhood. Sometimes he provoked her enough to join him, or bribed her with fresh bagels hot from the all-night Jewish bakery-deli near her place.

It never used to matter much if she joined him, anyway, because he knew he could save up everything he saw on his night-walks and tell her in the morning.

(It mattered. Walking through their own night universe together mattered a great deal.)

Not that long ago, if he called her up this late, she'd at least tell him he needed to wear himself out more, and try to make him blush with her matter-of-fact suggestions. The way they are, these days, she'd probably give him a look of slight concern and ask him how much sleep he's getting.

If it wasn't a Saturday night, he might try to catch someone on the graveyard shift during a coffee break, but they'll be busy with bar closings and won't pause until three or four in the morning. He misses having night-owl friends he could call to chat. He even misses rolling over and finding Syd awake, and chatting about anything and everything for a hushed, sleepy half-hour before going back to sleep. Or being able to wander down the dim corridor of the residence hall, his search for company guided by the light slipping underneath closed doors. Even if it was pressure and panic keeping them all awake, it was shared and understood.

Pressure and panic…he thinks.

It's been a while since he felt that intense rush, and the inevitable crash afterwards. He harbors a secret knowledge that it's not just inner grit but stubborn, genetically-entrenched pridefulness. A childhood refusal to let his family, especially Danny and Erin, know they'd gotten under his skin somehow earned him praise for being so resilient. Especially from Joe, who taught him how he'd learned to handle it. And it's become part of his identity as the youngest kid and as a damn good beat cop: a refusal to let the stress show on the outside in case he's suddenly needed to attend, fix or support someone.

That's Jamie, now. That's his individual slot within the Reagan regiment, self-assigned though it may be.

Which was why hadn't panicked when Eddie got shot, in case she needed him to lean on, hard, no questions asked. He didn't panic over his and Eddie's thirty-day rip, because he was still a fucking Ivy League lawyer, still state-licensed, and he was not going to let Eddie's career and reputation be compromised because of some bullshit NYPD public relations insurance threshold. These were all things he could handle, in the moment.

And it's not as though he's totally out of touch with his feelings. He'd sulked and clenched his jaw over Barry and his Captain America beard for a full ten minutes in his car, wanting to see how Barry treated her when he didn't know he was being observed.

No. Not entirely. He'd wanted to watch Eddie's body language, too, and be utterly certain that Eddie was completely comfortable around Barry, even injured. And then to go home and beat himself up for having somehow assumed that he was the only person Eddie wanted around when she was less than a hundred percent.

See? Emotional lucidity.

But since Eddie came back to work, since they won their appeal on their suspension, everything's been calm, and now things have started percolating up from the depths.

But it's not PTSD. I know what that's supposed to look like, and I'm not lashing out or having flashbacks or fugue states or anything. Danny's the one with military PTSD and still grieving for Linda, and with good reason. I'm fine. Nothing like the horrors of Afghanistan or losing my wife and the mother of my kids in a freak accident ever happened to me.

Just losing Joe.

Mom and Grandma.

Vinny, bleeding out in his arms.

Gina, just eighteen and trying to get clean.

And yes, Linda, too. She was as nearly as much his big sister as Erin.

Okay, that's a lot of deaths nearby. Maybe not PTSD, but a lot of letting-go he's never gotten around to doing. Maybe that's the real source of his moving-on hangup? Surely it can't be that simple.

Occam's Razor, Syd would say. Why belabour the point?

Oh, right and Syd. Not dead, but still gone. Even after she promised never to leave, the one person who understood him better than anyone ever had.

There it is.

He registers the adrenaline sparking down his legs and through his fingers, and the scattershot thumping of his heart and the cold sweat prickling on his brow and chest as being panic symptoms. But why should he be panicky now?

He and Eddie have been utterly loyal partners for years, despite some tumultuous episodes early in their partnership. He thought they were happy where they were now. He thought they'd found a bit of breathing space to be left alone and figure out where the latest round of not-just-flirting was headed.

I'm feeling panicky because I'm afraid Eddie's going to leave me, after all. He tries out the words in his mind to see how they resonate.

Close, but not exactly that.

I'm feeling panicky because I'm afraid Eddie's already left me and I had so many chances to tell her, please don't leave me, you're not just my partner, you're part of me now. I'm afraid I wouldn't recover. And I don't like feeling that there's anything that could get under my skin like that and shake me down to the bones.

But Eddie does.

That's terrifying in a way that only the most deeply cherished dreams can be, when they're hovering right off the cliff-edge of possibility, but might so easily evaporate and leave him spinning in midair on the way down.

He knows his outward demeanor has shifted, and people are clearly noticing. The adult version of dogpiling Jamie apparently involves trying to get him drunk and confessional (Erin), blinking kindly at him and asking him for help around the house (Pop) or blatantly telling him to grow up and move on (Dad).

Eddie has not changed at all on the outside, except for taking things easy as she heals up, and not teasing him as much as she used to.

Isn't love supposed to change people deeply? Shouldn't she be over the fucking moon? Why is she wasting her precious time on someone who doesn't make her feel like she's walking on air, and that she's the living answer to everything he's ever wanted and didn't know he needed?

If Eddie had encountered her own moment of reckoning in the aftermath of getting shot, clearly her envelope had contained a different message than his. But Eddie…settling? Admitting to deep loneliness? Craving the family she sometimes spoke of, through any means necessary?

Don't go there, Reagan. That's not true and it's not fair. That's your own fear talking.

Seeing her back at their shared desk, hurt but alive and healing and smiling deep into his eyes like she used to do sent such a wave of relief and excitement through him he didn't know how to contain it. He was so fucking close to saying something real, something he couldn't walk back and wouldn't want to. And he could feel Eddie right there with him again. Even with Barry and his Springsteen tickets waiting right outside the office.

He still doesn't know what he was supposed to have done, when she pinned him with a deadly serious gaze and demanded to know what he was thinking. For a second he'd thought she was asking him to stop her going out the door. But how was he supposed to wreck such an ideal (and costly) date that put such a beaming smile on her face? Confess to a huge morass of overwhelming feelings while standing there in uniform, in their very public office, and make her feel obliged to respond, and then go see a show with the new guy?

If he had kicked himself then, he was flaying himself down to the flesh now. He knows now she was hinting that she'd been doing a lot of thinking, too, about him. About them. And then the moment was gone, whatever it was she wanted to say. He knows now he was utterly terrified she was going to tell him she was moving on, requesting a transfer, and she'd see him sometime for drinks when their days off eventually matched up. No doubt with Barry in tow.

Fucking Barry.

Barry was supposed to be something they could laugh about. Not meanly, not at the guy, was harmless enough, but just to underline how weird their life was and how only cops really got cops. Barry had a fair chance, but as soon as he saw how attached Eddie was to the job and her partner, he ran away over the hills. His loss. Jamie had even begun to feel grateful to him for prodding he and Eddie towards that door they'd closed a year ago. He knows it's on him to re-open it, and he had just started to think that maybe Eddie was hinting that she might still be there on the other side, too.

Then Barry came back. And that's not on Eddie. She has every right to her own life.

But she's part of me, he thinks petulantly, and hates himself for how selfish it sounds. He knows where it comes from. They outgrew their roles long ago. His father certainly thinks so.

Jamie reluctantly turns to the tense non-fight he and his father had, just twenty feet away in the kitchen, earlier that day. His father's blistering admission that he is impatient and stung and does not understand how his hyperachieving youngest child has turned into a complacent beat cop with a reputation for thinking he knows better than his supervisors. (He generally does.)

He's been putting off hashing it over, knowing nothing good will come of it on an already long dark night like this one. He knows Eddie must have said something about him to Frank, which stings a little, but then again, Jamie's the one who re-gifted the Commissioner's personal nudge to sit the Sergeant's Exam, and his father had a right to know where it had ended up.

He rolls his eyes at himself. What a mess. He can hardly dump all this intense crap on her and expect her to react romantically at all.

On his night table, his phone lights up silently and then buzzes, and his heart, which had started to calm, leaps again in response.

Awfully hair-trigger for someone who definitely doesn't have PTSD...

He doesn't get many texts after midnight anymore. Everyone knows he has to be up by six in order to make 7:30 roll call. Late night calls are rarely good news these days. Especially from his family.

He reaches over, his heart still thudding, and when he sees her name and that there's no 911 in the text preview, he closes his eyes, breathes a deep sigh, and clutches the phone to his bare chest in stark relief.

Hey. You up? she had sent.

Just like old times. Nobody keeping her company on a Saturday night?

Yup. Can't sleep. You okay?

There's a pause, and then: I screwed up and I know I won't sleep till I tell you about it.

He wondered when she was going to bring it up. He knows she didn't go to his father's office on purpose, and especially not to cause him any trouble. He knows she's worried about him. She has no idea how deep the twinging ache reaches into him whenever his father brings up his career path. She won't have known that her words would propel Frank to come and ambush him in his own apartment, his own home that he pays for with his own earnings and keeps tidy like a grown adult, and make him feel like he'd just failed a math test.

Want me to come over?

Is that crazy, at this hour?

Not at all, he types back, almost giddy with the emotional whiplash of it. Be there soon as I can. Want coffee?

No, I'll put some on here.

10-4.

He takes a deep breath and swings his legs off the bed, sitting up. Swallows down the dregs of this lingering funk he's in, and hopes it doesn't emerge in barbed words. Better she think he's being all distant and rational than…imploding inside.

Because imploding he certainly is, he thinks in words, yessir, he's a fine example of unresolved stress and unexpressed grief. Who could blame Eddie for wanting someone lighthearted (fickle!), self-confident (the arrogant asshole) and uncomplicated (I bet he doesn't even get half her jokes.)

But Eddie's making late-night coffee for them and wants to talk. Even though she wants to talk about her conversation with his father, it's a step back to the overnight confidences and shared moments snatched between one day and the next, that only belonged to the two of them.

How quickly the world changes.

"I don't even know why I told him. I wasn't going to. It just came out, like I couldn't leave with it just hanging there over my head like a neon sign."

"I know. I know what he's like, Eddie. I'm not mad at you. I promise."

She tugs her white crocheted throw blanket a little straighter around her knees, which are drawn up to her chest with her coffee mug perched on top. Facing her from the other end of the couch, Jamie gives her his classic little half-smile, and reaches for his coffee cup on the low glass table.

She's ridiculously excited that he's there, and only hopes she's hiding most of it. They haven't had a proper late night talk since last fall. They nearly did, back in January, after a post-suspension Chinese dinner that was as close to a date as they ever seemed to get. One of their countless non-dates. She was so close to inviting him back for a last drink. Or two. Or breakfast, frankly. She's not even sure why she didn't, since even Captain Hollis seemed more concerned about their break in command than any extracurricular activities they might share. But they fell into their usual post-flirtation reaction, growing quiet and distant and talking about work instead, as if to remind each other to consider the risks.

But he's here with her now. It's a warm night and he shed his hoodie like an outgrown molted skin a while back, and if it's possible for a plain t-shirt to be cut just right, his is. It's just a normal heather-blue shirt (that looks really good with his light brown jeans) but it's doing something to the definition of his chest and arms that makes her want to crawl into them and stay there. And then there's the way he eyes her bare toes whenever they peek out from under her blanket. You'd think he'd be used to her indulgent bright pedicures by now, after so many years.

It occurs to her that maybe he is used to them. Maybe he occasionally wonders which color she picked, on her day off. Would he think anything like that? Jamie Reagan?

This wasn't supposed to be a hormonal quicksand night.

She remembers with an effort that these kinds of late-night rendez-vous between off-duty partners would be very difficult to explain to a third party. Like Barry, for example.

No, no, she tells herself, Jamie's just here so we can debrief and move on. Find our solid ground after a rough few weeks, and get our partnership back on track.

Liar, she also tells herself. There's a flush rising in her cheeks and she's as twitchy as a middle schooler left alone with her crush, and she shouldn't be feeling like this. Especially with Jamie being so completely neutral lately, and unwilling to talk about anything personal beyond Jack's Ivy League hopes, and to urge her to listen to her doctor's advice about resting up.

"Was he mad at you?" she asks.

"Yes, but not because of you. He…he's used to me being focussed and competitive to the point of needing reining back in. Not being happy with where I'm at. He doesn't get it."

"I told him I was happy where I was, too," she tells him, "when he visited me in hospital. He offered me a choice of assignments when I was healed up. Did he tell you?"

His eyes fix on hers. "No, but he wouldn't. What did you…wait. You said you didn't want to move?"

"Yeah," she says softly. He continues to stare at her, his mouth even falling open a little. "And he was as happy as I've ever seen him to hear I wanted to take the Sergeant's test. But I don't want to pass it just…" she trails off.

"Eddie. Taking up an offer like that isn't like a free hall pass or anything. It means you've taken one for the team and you've earned something in return. It doesn't make a promotion any less on merit. You have so many plans. Good ones. And you know they wouldn't promote you to Sergeant unless you'd passed like everyone else."

"I know. That was my first thought. But I…you and I still have a lot to do. I thought I'd just get my name down and deal with the outcome later. This thing with your dad trying to get us both to move up, though. You think he's trying to tell us something without telling us something? I know he must get wind of the house gossip now and then."

A brief flash of guilt passes over Jamie's face, and she's suddenly sure that it's not just house gossip that Frank hears.

"Who the hell knows, with him?" Jamie sighs. "I can't see him meddling in something so personal, but in a weird way, I wouldn't put it past him, either. He's sneaky sometimes. Like making you think he already knew you were holding onto a secret that you wanted to tell him."

Eddie rolls her eyes at the memory. "He must have been a hell of a cop," she says.

"He was."

"I didn't mean that to sound like…"

"I didn't take it like that. Not from you."

She's had to be so gentle with him lately.

She takes a sip of coffee without tasting it and watches him. She's the one who called him, needing to talk, but he seems to be simmering with things unspoken tonight, and the best chance she has to get it out of him is to wait it out without prodding. Usually they're in their patrol car, and she has all the time in the world to check her e-mail, hum along with the radio and work a few crossword clues. Tonight, she just has to hope he sticks around long enough to open up, like a night-blooming tropical plant.

"So, Barry?" he asks out of nowhere, too casually, into his coffee mug. His eyes slip from hers as he takes a sip.

"Eh," she wrinkles her nose in resignation. "He wasn't feeling too good tonight, or something. I think we're fast approaching Ghost II: Did That Even Happen."

"I'm sorry,"

"Are not." She reaches out a bare foot and pokes his thigh with her toes, and he visibly jumps. Gotcha.

"Hey, I…"

"It's not a big deal. He's…he was nice. Considerate. And he has a cop fetish, so…"

"Well, that oughta make you happy."

"Nobody's been getting happy, Reagan," she retorts, too quickly, "And I don't want to be fetishized. I'm me, I'm not someone's idea of me."

He puts his head to one side and waits. She sighs.

"We'd only had a couple casual dates when he disappeared the first time. Then when he got around to calling again, I was already laid up in hospital. He was so thrilled at the idea of having an injured cop to romanticize. So no, things never went very far. I wasn't up for much of anything."

In fact, she'd been cleared in a week for any and all activities that didn't cause her too much discomfort, but she hadn't told Barry that.

"Ah," Jamie says. "Well, I, ah, I'm glad he understood that you were healing up. So…"

"So, I think we're both just avoiding our next very polite lunch date, because we genuinely get along and don't want to be mean to each other. He's a good guy, Jamie. You'd like him, I think."

She doesn't miss the lift of the corner of his mouth or the slight straightening of his shoulders. Distantly, she hears antlers clashing.

"Think he'll be pissed he spent hundreds on show tickets and then things didn't work out?"

She flicks him a glance. She thinks she knows what he's asking.

Should I have asked you not to go out with him that night?

"I don't think so. He wanted to see the show as much as I did. And I'm gonna at least offer to pay my share. I think he was just glad to have a proper Boss fan to appreciate it with. It's not like he expected me to sleep with him in return. He just wanted me to sit still and rest for an evening, I think. But I must've sang, like, the entire show. My abs were not happy with that. I was so tired and sore I barely remember going to bed after I took a couple of T3s. When I woke up I found he'd crashed on the couch in case I needed anything."

Jamie thinks about this for a moment.

"You've never made me crash on the couch," he says. It's true. He stayed with her the night she killed someone on the job, and the night her father was attacked in prison, and then a couple of nights when they just talked themselves into a dawn stupor and she rolled him into bed. In fact she's never let him crash on the couch, even when he assumed he would.

"No, because what I needed was you."

Oh, good, so that's out now, she thinks. Shit.

"Eddie…"

"Well, I mean…I trust you. Not that I didn't trust him, but it's not like I know he's got my back in dealing with anything from a lost kid to a gun-wielding gangster wannabe to – to a bogus suspension."

She's not even sure if she's rationalizing or back-pedalling, or if, at this point, she even cares. She's tired. She's tired of the dancing around and the denials. She's tired of the house gossip, as groundless as it is. But she's not tired of her job, and she's not tired of doing the best damn work of her life with her best friend and partner.

…who is looking at her with something close to tears on his lower lashes. Oh, God, what this man doesn't do to her heart some days.

Something, as they say, has got to give.

She takes a rapid inhale and dives in again.

"The thing with Barry, though," she says. "He asked me out. In words. He told me in words he wanted to see more of me because he liked me. You remember what that feels like? And he didn't make a big thing of it. It wasn't…it was just so uncomplicated and easy, you know?"

From his end of the couch, Jamie nods. Their coffee has grown cold, but it was only a prop anyway, something to occupy hands and mouths instead of these lengthening, thoughtful silences they keep taking turns putting up.

"Because what if," he says, as if completing a thought, "what you needed wasn't me, but the idea of me? Someone you felt like you could lean on completely, who isn't a complete basketcase in reality?"

"The hell, Reagan?"

"Or on the verge of becoming one, anyway."

"You're going to need to explain this," she says, slowly. This is a whole new thing now. "It's always been me getting shit for letting emotions cloud my judgement, and you driving me crazy with your rational approach to everything. And I've never seen you not handle things incredibly well. Even losing Gina. You dealt with the fallout on the job, which I still think was totally unfair, and with her parents. I could not have pulled that off, not without a lot of help."

"I – Eddie, I've always been good at not letting shit get to me, which is why I did so well in the first place, at school, at Academy, on the job. But I'm realizing there's a crap ton of stuff I've never gotten around to dealing with. Processing."

Eddie sits very still, listening as deeply as she can, barely breathing. She knows that when Jamie opens himself up so deeply, the smallest sound or flutter in the air can make him withdraw, like a shrinking violet or a startled snail out of its shell. He doesn't look her in the eyes, but down at his hands, dangling loosely between his knees as he sits hunched forwards. She wishes he knew he could look at her, and would find only admiration there.

"I think I always sort of knew that, and used it as a sort of subconscious reason not to try to get any closer," he goes on, almost as if he's talking to himself, and only imagining her there with him. "To you, I mean. It was never just about clouded judgement or being split up as partners. I think as much as I wanted to protect you from all the usual shit on the job, I didn't want you to have to deal with all of mine, too. So I backed off. From you, from anyone who I might've gotten close to. And with every year, the thought of us being split up, or pursuing my actual career again…being anyone's supervisor, or being responsible for a whole watch, right now…" he shakes his head. "I think I do need some help. Before I fuck up monumentally and get told to get help."

He lapses into silence for long moments. She finally catches the tiny flicker of his eyes as he slews a glance in her direction, without moving his head, to try to gauge her reaction. She pushes off her blanket, scoots closer and wraps her arms around his middle from the side so he doesn't even have to move, and tucks her forehead into his neck.

"Thank you for trusting me," she murmurs, her voice coming out smaller and tighter than she expected. "I've wondered about that sometimes. I've been so scared of pushing you away."

"Never be scared of asking me anything, okay?" he says, in a sweet rumble that makes her swallow hard on a wave of helpless affection. He leans his head against hers, and she slides a hand over both of his. The contact calms and settles something deep in her core, but suffuses her with a rising warmth, too. "I might get upset, but not at you."

She nuzzles into his neck again and sighs. "I've been to the Employee Assistance counsellor a bunch of times, trying to keep shit straightened out about my dad," she confides, after a moment. "I'll go with you, if you want. You can tell people it's for me, if they ask. Everyone knows about my dad's history by now."

At that, he takes her hand and wraps it up between both of his, and they both sit up. "No, Eddie, no. I mean, that's – I get it, and that's amazing of you. But I'm pretty sure I need to talk to someone far away from the NYPD. Maybe one day it'll be no big deal if it gets out there that if the Commissioner's kid can ask for help, anyone should feel okay about it. That day is definitely not here. I can only imagine the shitstorm I'd be in for."

"Which is a load of crap, the whole hardass-cop routine and the idea that we don't need any help to deal with everything we see."

"Which I know, and you know, and most cops you ask directly also know, but as soon as it gets brought up in discussion or policy, all the denials and tearing-down start. Nobody wants to be seen as the weak link in the blue line."

"And women like me get blamed for bringing emotions and empathy training into the force."

"Thank God for women like you," he says sincerely.

"Well, I'll still come with you if you want me to. Just so you have company on the way there and back. You know I'd never ask."

Of course he knows. That's not why he's looking at her like that, suddenly. She tilts her head and watches him.

"What?"

"In what capacity?" he asks. "I mean, if you were to come with me to something like that, would you want it to be as my partner, as my best friend – or what?"

"Define 'or what',"she says, dialling back an adolescent-level eye-roll just in time, and substituting a direct unblinking gaze instead. "I mean it, Reagan. I want to know what you were thinking, the other night. I know it was about all this. Are you trying to tell me that you'd want to give us a chance if you didn't need to work on your stuff first, but you want me to say it? There you go."

He looks slightly panicky again.

"Ah…"

"I mean, come on, this undefined thing we have needs a name by now, don't you think? It's almost old enough to start Kindergarten."

He cracks up at that, out of relief as much as anything, and it's glorious. He takes her hand again and threads his fingers through hers, and his touch is so warm and deliciously spine-tingling that it's like coming back to some ancestral home she's only seen pictures of.

"I don't know," he says honestly, "All I know is what I see when I let myself go there. I've spent so long pushing it away, but it keeps coming back. And it's – breathtaking, Eddie. Really. And it's been wrecking me that even saying so might make it all vanish."

"Me, too," she admits, leaning into him. "I never stopped feeling that."

He presses a kiss into her temple and a little shiver seems to spread from his lips to her skin.

"I may not be an actual mess, but I'm nowhere near tidy," he warns her.

"I'm not going anywhere," she replies, only realizing as she says it that she's echoing his words back to him, from the same place on her couch, even. She smiles. Cops are such weird creatures, a mix of jaded world-weariness and deeply sentimental humanity. "Not without you. But that's what's kept us stuck and gotten us into more trouble lately. We're way overdue for a change."

"I'm not sure it's wise to try to fundamentally change our relationship and our work situation at once."

"Probably not," she agrees, easily. "So. What needs to get sorted out first?"

It's amazing how the puzzle pieces finally fit together, once they combine their sets and stop trying to work things out alone. But she's hardly prepared for the speed and confidence of his response, now that he's certain of her.

"I want you. I want a future with you, and that means getting my head straightened out more than it is right now. After that, honestly, Eddie, I'm way less concerned with what my job looks like. But I'd hate to think you were holding yourself back on my account. And there's nothing in the code that says a Sergeant and an Officer, or a Sergeant and a Detective shouldn't be together. Because you are going to ace that thing. It's what's next for you. I know it."

It's her turn for the tears to hang off her lashes now. Jamie, you impossibly frustrating, incredible person.

"Okay – " she says, and has to clear her throat and try again, "Okay. Let's hold onto that future-us thing for the time being and come back to it. Because we will, Jamie. I promise we will. In the meantime, I know how your brain works. You need to keep feeding it stuff or it starts to jam up and create problems of its own to solve. So what if…what if we both make a run at the exam? It's not going to come up again for a few more years, and none of the brass are ever gonna put you in for Detective, just because of the same family bullshit. The exam's only on us, not them. Nobody says we have to accept anything. But it gives us options. What if we focus on that, and on making sure you have whatever you need to get un-stuck. And then we'll get back to us – only better."

"If I got you beside me, I can do fucking anything," he says, with total sincerity.

That's when she feels her tears start to fall in earnest.

So do his.

"What're you gonna tell your dad?" she asks, half-laughing. "He's going to be over the moon."

"And very confused. I think I'm gonna make him sweat it out for a while. Just a bit."

"You little bastard."

"It's good to be back," he grins. His eyes have changed, even over the past couple of hours. She recognizes them again, and the old flutters start up in her belly. His grin turns to a smirk. He knows. "C'mon. Let's get some air and go for a walk to Solly's. Get some bagels and flip through the exam study guide. I know it's been changed since the last time I was working through it. Let's see what we're in for."

She wakes to bright springtime sunshine staring her in the face, and winces. Was she drinking last night? No. Wait.

She rolls over to make sure. Yup. That's the back of Jamie's head.

"Hey," she slides a hand over his shoulder and rubs her thumb over his skin. A shimmer of delight spreads through her at the touch, and she reluctantly pulls back. "Jamie."

"Mm. Hey." He blinks himself awake, and takes a deep inhale. He stretches his arms out in front, rotating his wrists, and lets out a sleepy sound that makes her want to keep him there with her all day. Morning Jamie is befuddled and tousle-headed, and she wants to run her fingertips over the fine stubble on his jaw. "Time is it?" he asks, as he shifts onto his back, interrupting her thoughts.

She glances back over her shoulder.

"Nearly noon."

His eyes fly open.

"Shit. My phone. I never thought to plug it in. It must be dead. I was supposed to be up by ten."

"Oh, you gotta get out of here."

"Yeah. Sunday dinner at one-thirty. I need to shower and shave and change and get across town, oh God..." He hoists himself to a sitting position on the side of her bed, and scrubs at his eyes. "I'm so not awake. They're going to eat me alive."

"Hang on," she says. "You drove over, right?"

"Yeah, I – oh. You're a genius. You don't mind?"

"No, no. Go grab your shower. You know where everything is. I'll run down and get your go-bag out the car. Has it got everything you need?"

He leans down, one hand sliding up along the bump she makes in the quilt, and kisses her sleepy mouth before either of them remember they're not supposed to be doing that, at this point. Shirtless Jamie leaning over her and kissing her is a very good thing indeed, and it takes a real effort to pull away instead of running her hands down that smooth chest. But this time there's no leaping back, no running out of the apartment. Just goofy grins and a shrug.

"It does. You're a lifesaver, you know that?" he murmurs.

"Yes, I do, and brush your teeth, too." She makes a face. "We weren't planning on a sleepover last night, either of us. Eww."

"Yeah, yeah. Okay. We have a plan. Let's do this."

"We're really doing this?" she wonders aloud. She's not talking about getting Jamie out the door. The crazy promises of the night before seep back into her memory. For once, they seem as solid in daylight as they did before dawn.

"We're really doing this," he replies.

The sweetness of his smile turns sly, as the cogs of his mind wake up and engage.

"Hey," he says. "I just realized. I'm gonna get to call you 'Sarge'."