MY DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDES

I HAVE RETURNEEEEEEEEED with more aftermath goodness that will hopefully warm your cold, dead hearts. I mean, you don't necessarily have to read the first three stories to enjoy what will unfold, but it's highly recommended because it'll make more sense that way haha. This takes place two weeks after the explosion, two days after Ingrid gets home from the hospital. I really hope you guys enjoy! Let me know what you think!

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Now or Never

She pulled her hood further over her head as the cool midnight spring breeze threatened to push it off. Mick Jagger sang softly to her through her headphones as she crossed the deserted, glistening street. The smell of rain lingered in the air and she shoved her hands back into the pockets of her dark jacket, checking over her shoulder for any sign of a tail as the hair on the back of her neck stood up. Come on, Third. She stepped in a puddle. He's not coming back. Not this time.

Despite herself, Ingrid shuddered. Whether it was from the midnight chill or her intrusive thoughts, she wasn't sure. Somewhere far off in the sky she noticed a flicker of light and she looked toward the moon watching her warily through the brewing clouds. She paused her music, removed the headphones from her ears, and waited. Four seconds later, thunder grumbled quietly in the distance. She gulped down a yawn in her throat as she looked at the time on her phone: 01:11. She'd been walking for about an hour. No wonder she was aching so much. She put her earphones back into their rightful place and hit play.

Oh, a storm is threatening my very life today

If I don't get some shelter

Oh, yeah, I'm gonna fade away

Ingrid pondered that verse for a moment before taking off once more.

I'm gonna fade away.

She took a deep breath, acutely aware of how much of a conscious effort it was to get air into her lungs. It was the reason she decided to walk in the first place; confined to her living room couch on bed rest, she'd been suffocating. At first, she had been grateful for the opportunity to catch up on all the sleep she lost over the course of the prior three months, but that gratitude lasted a grand total of two days before the paranoia of being sedentary started to sink in.

She needed air.

She knew that movement wasn't her greatest idea given the fact that she was still healing… the growing ache in her chest wouldn't let her forget that. But, in some masochistic way, she felt deserving of that pain in the same way that she felt deserving of the paralyzing flashbacks that haunted her. They were easier to endure with the myriad of painkillers prescribed to her – they made it easy to welcome unconsciousness, so she could avoid them altogether – but she stopped taking them. She needed to keep reminding herself of what Canton was: a monster. A monster who couldn't be saved the way that Fillmore had saved her or that Wayne Liggett had saved him. He was a monster she created…

A monster who almost took the person she cared about the most out of her life forever.

Ingrid didn't need to be there to see Canton pointing a loaded gun at her partner. The thought alone was enough to scare the hell out of her. Her heart started to beat so rapidly in her chest it left her feeling hollow. She stumbled to the nearest solid object to her left – a telephone pole – to keep herself from crumbling in a heap on the damp sidewalk. Air fled from her lungs as the sonic boom of a gunshot rang once – twice – three times – she gasped and clutched her tightening chest with one hand and the splintering pole with another.

Fillmore— she wrapped her arms around the nail-studded wood as her nose filled with the acidic scent of ash and blood. She pressed her fingertips into the nails, focusing on the sharp pains shooting into her wrist. Stay present. She pressed harder. Her chest throbbed. I am okay.

Rain-tinted air found its way back into her lungs what felt like hours later as thunder rumbled in the sky above her, closer now. She gasped short and shallow and felt a raindrop against her cheek. She wiped it away with a trembling hand and stared at the moisture glistening on her fingertip. She stared at it and waited for another to hit her, but it never came. She realized it wasn't rain… she was crying.

The grief slammed into her like a tidal wave and she squeezed her burning eyes shut, forcing more tears to escape down her cheeks. I could have lost him, the agonizing thought screamed in her mind as she pressed her forehead into the wood. It was unbearable… the thought of a life without Cornelius Fillmore in it.

"He's going to be fine," her father had tried to comfort her when she'd woken up in the hospital.A part of her knew he was holding something back from her by the way he'd hesitated to share that small detail with her. She heard the gunshots. She heard Karen screaming. She knew something had gone terribly wrong. It would have sent her into panic mode if the doctors hadn't chosen that moment to give her a sedative to put her back to sleep.

So many terrible scenarios had played out in her mind: Fillmore had somehow followed her and was caught in the blast and blown into oblivion; he'd gone after her and been burned alive; without her there to watch his back, he'd been captured by Canton… It was a shock to her system when she had fallen asleep with the idea in her head that something devastating had happened to her best friend but woke up with him standing next to her, safe and sound.

With a final deep breath, Ingrid finally fell back to Earth. Halsey was singing softly into her ears and the midnight breeze was damp and cool against her face. She turned her back to the pole and looked up at the swirling night sky in exhaustion.

"He's alive," she whispered to the clouds, wiping the tears from her cheeks. "We're okay," she breathed.

For now.

She swallowed the lump in her throat, but couldn't shake the butterflies circling around in her gut. If the explosion had taught her one thing, it was that life was short and very unpredictable. In a single moment, everything could change. Anything could happen. Her entire world could fall apart… and Fillmore was her world.

She pushed herself off the pole and headed west, ignoring the protests of her aching body. She pulled the memory of Fillmore and herself in the elevator at the precinct to the front of her mind. He held her, grounded her, protected her. He comforted her. Understood her. As she crossed the abandoned street, his defeated words echoed off the walls of the silent houses: "I know I failed you…" She kicked a rock at her feet as hard as she wanted to kick herself and it bounced off the side of a curb and scattered away. Out of everything she wanted to tell him in that moment, she told him nothing. It wasn't the right time, she had told herself. But, as she had suddenly learned, she couldn't depend on time waiting for her to be ready. Time runs out. It waits for no one… sometimes, there is only now or never.

Half an hour later, she found herself approaching the Fillmore residence – significantly winded – and she walked around the back of his house. The wooden privacy fence was easily a head taller than herself as she walked next to it. Her heart beat a little faster in her chest as she pushed the gate open and approached the back door. It had been too long since the last time she'd been in Fillmore's house. Weeks, at least. She was the one to blame for that, of course. Guilt fluctuated in her chest where her heart was as she reached behind the light fixture and felt for the spare key.

No one could deny that the reasons why she had pushed him away had merit. She flashed back to rocking back and forth on her bedroom floor after waking up from a nightmare, sweating and hyperventilating, desperately wondering if she should reach for her phone. …come and talk to me… he'd said. But the fear of him picking up the phone, finding her in that state, and not being able to (or, to her dismay, willing to) help her, felt stronger than her need to have him by her side. She had no idea if Fillmore could help her and whether he would stay with her if not. Fillmore was a fixer. A problem solver. Especially when it came to those he cared about. In his eyes, he could fix anything for his friends or he'd die trying. He might try to come off as a badass, but he had the biggest heart out of everyone she knew. And generally, when he was put to the challenge of doing the impossible, he'd rise to the occasion.

And she hadn't wanted to be the one thing that he couldn't fix. She had no idea what it would've done to him if he couldn't make everything better. Her world couldn't handle a broken dynamic duo. She wanted to protect him.

That worked out well.

Ingrid shut the back door quietly behind her, relocked it, and kicked off her shoes on the mat. The house was dark and quiet except for the sound of her heart in her chest. Looking back, she knew that pushing Fillmore away had been the exact thing she shouldn't have been doing. He was her rock. The one person she knew she could depend on. She swallowed the lump growing in her throat and leaned against the door behind her to catch her breath.

"I know… I know that I failed you…"

She needed him to know that he was wrong… that she was the one who had failed him.

She stepped lightly through the house towards the staircase, heading straight for Fillmore's room. What exactly are you going to do when you get up there, anyway? Ingrid froze halfway up the staircase. It's almost two in the morning, Third. At this time of night, the general population is usually sleeping. She cursed under her breath and squeezed the handrail tighter in her fist. For having the highest IQ in the Midwest, you don't always think things through, do you? With a disgruntled scoff, she turned around and started to go back down the stairs, but another thought stopped her in her tracks.

Now or never… remember?

Ingrid squeezed her eyes shut and ran her hands through her wind-tangled hair. Deep down, she knew if she didn't do it right then, that she probably never would. Her chest throbbed.

And, of course, you might not make the walk back home alone in this state.

A door creaked open. Reflexively, Ingrid quickly pressed herself against the wall and every aching part in her body screamed in protest. She listened to the soft shuffle of tired feet fade from her ears before a faint light reached her eyes, followed by another door closing. So, he is awake. She squeezed her eyes shut and took a short breath in to soothe the adrenaline making her chest flutter. I can do this.

She ascended the stairs quietly – instinctively staying close to the wall – and banked left, tiptoeing her way towards her partner's bedroom. The door was ajar, and light glowed underneath the closed door across from his.

Someone pulled the carpet from underneath her feet and the world spun around her. She blindly reached for something to hold onto and fell into the wall with a groan as nausea swept over her. Her heart pounded in her ears and she heard a faint whine – hers? – and the light sound of something jingling. A collar? Cra-

A large mass of white fur leaped towards her and nearly knocked her over with a muffled howl of joy. She'd barely had time to register how much it hurt; on his hind legs, the great Pyrenees matched her height. His paws landed squarely on the sorest part of her chest and he began to lick her face seconds before the hallway lit up.

"Bruiser, down!"

With a whine of impatience, the dog dropped to his paws and backed away and Fillmore instantly took his place, holding Ingrid by her arms to steady her.

"You think he's missed me?" Ingrid joked weakly as she looked up into her partner's worried dark eyes. Bruiser whined from his spot on the floor. He could hardly contain his excitement.

Fillmore dodged her question with his own. "Jesus, are you okay?" His eyes quickly skimmed over her body to check for any obvious signs of injury before he looked back at her face and he already knew the answer; she couldn't hide her discomfort if she tried.

"It hurt, but I'm fine," she assured him through gritted teeth. She put a hand to her temple to try to get the room to stop spinning. Fillmore brushed her hair behind her ear, involuntarily making Ingrid shiver.

"What are you doing here, Ingrid?" he asked softly.

But the exhaustion of her hour-plus trek finally began taking its toll on her. Her head and chest throbbed. She opened her mouth to speak but she couldn't seem to catch her breath and her legs were weakening by the second. Her mouth opened and closed repeatedly before Fillmore muttered something she didn't catch. He pulled her gently towards his room. Seconds later, she was sitting on his bed and he had disappeared from her view before she could beg him not to leave her. Tears burned her eyes. Jesus, Third, pull it together. Fillmore had reappeared – she wasn't sure when – with an opened water bottle in one hand and two white pills in another.

"Vicodin," he told her softly before she could ask, but she hesitated. God, everything hurt, but she needed to stay coherent and painkillers made her so sleepy. And she couldn't stay here; not after she said what she needed to say. Of course, she thought, they could give you the nudge you need to spit it all out.

But, of course, Fillmore knew exactly what she was thinking. He nudged her knee with the water bottle, "You can sleep here if they make you too tired." She scoffed at the irony and found herself shaking her head. "Of course, since I'm gonna guess that you fucking walked here—" he shot her a disapproving look "—I'm not letting you go home without me anyway."

Ingrid grimaced. Crackers. "How—"

"I didn't hear keys in your pockets or your car pulling up in the driveway," he interrupted smugly.

She arched her brow, rising to the challenge. "What makes you think I didn't just park on the curb? Or left my keys downstairs?"

He jerked his head over to the window on his right. "My window's open. At this time of night, that shitty grumbling noise your engine makes would've woken me up a block over."

A sharp pain hit her in the chest at the jab towards her car and she shot him as menacing of a glare as she could manage in her state. "Monica doesn't grumble. She purrs."

"Whatever," he said, not even trying to hide his smirk before holding up the pills again. "The point is you can't deny you're feeling like hell." She exhaled. You can't argue that. With a shaking hand, she took both pills and the bottle from his hands. "Which I know also means," he continued as she swallowed the pills, "whatever you came here for is really important."

She gulped, avoiding his eyes. He took the bottle gently from her hand and screwed the cap back on while she silently swore at him for knowing her so well. Her heart rate sped up once again, shooting to the tips of her fingers and toes. She rubbed her hands together in a futile attempt to get them to stop trembling as she cursed herself for not rehearsing what she wanted to say. She only had one shot… and whatever she said, she could never take back. God, was she willing to risk it all? All for what… love? Was that even what she was feeling? Of course she loved Fillmore. After all those years and all that they'd been through together, how could she feel anything less for him? He redefined the definition of "best friends" for her, forever.

But… love love? Did she even know what it meant to love? What it felt like?

Fillmore knew just by looking in her eyes how overwhelmed and confused she was. About what, he wasn't sure. For a prolonged moment, he ran the back of his finger softly back and forth between the top of her knee and the middle of her shin. "What's on your mind, mama?" he whispered, encouraging her to let it out.

Her heart lurched in her chest; tears instantly surged and fell from her eyes. It wasn't until she saw the familiar, comforting glimmer of worry in his eyes as he noticed her tears that she realized that she already knew the answer to that question. What did love feel like?

It felt like Cornelius Fillmore… and she could have lost him. That epiphany would have brought her to her knees if she hadn't already been sitting, and a hand flew to her mouth to stifle a sob preparing to burst from her throat.

"Ingrid, what's wrong?" he asked again as she shot up from her spot on his bed and crossed the room, suddenly desperate to create as much space between them as possible.

"What isn't wrong, Fillmore?" she asked rhetorically, pacing in front of the doorway and fighting the urge to run, which she knew she couldn't keep doing. "This entire shitshow is wrong. I inspired a madman to blow up our school, and I could've gotten nearly everyone I cared about hurt or worse…" Her voice broke on that last syllable, because she knew that, out of everyone who could have gotten hurt, he was the one who truly, deeply mattered to her. The one who cared about her so much he braved the inferno to go find her. Fought a psycho with a gun for her. Tried to shoot and kill said psycho for her. The fact that he was willing to sacrifice his own life for hers just felt… wrong. Not that she necessarily felt unworthy of his devotion – she truly felt lucky to have it – but he should've never had to do it. She'd put Fillmore through so much, and he didn't deserve that. And she knew that he would debate her into the ground about it, but she couldn't stifle the guilt no matter how hard she tried. Joelle and Karim could have lost their only son at the hands of the man who wanted Ingrid dead… She couldn't have lived with that.

Fillmore inched closer to her. "It wasn't your fault, Ingrid."

She rolled her teary eyes at him. "Sorry, my mistake. It was the other girl who made a sociopath fall in love with her and then blow up a room with her inside as payback for betraying him."

Fillmore shook his head and stepped closer, but she held up a hand to stop him. "Ingrid—"

"Don't," she barked, and stepped farther away from him. "You can't sit here and argue that this didn't happen in direct correlation with what we – what I – did to him." Fillmore didn't. She was right. He didn't have to like it, but he couldn't deny it either. So, he simply watched her pace in the doorway, waiting until the right moment to jump back in.

"We could've lost everything that day, Fillmore." She had to swallow the lump in her throat before she could continue. "Ever since that night in the treasury, I've been second guessing every move I made because something felt so off to me, and I couldn't figure out exactly what. And, once the nightmares started, I just wanted everything to go back to normal, but I—" She placed her hand on her chest, willing the grief to subside long enough for her to say what she needed to say, but she choked out between sobs, "I never meant to push you away."

Her cries were too much for him to listen to. In a second, he closed the space between them and embraced her, shushing her silently. "I'm right here, mama," he whispered into her hair as she grabbed fistfuls of his shirt. "You didn't push me anywhere." She shook her head to argue but he held her tighter – as tight as he could without causing her pain.

Words were starting to fail her. There was a part of her that wanted her to mask what she truly wanted to say in a way that could be left for him to translate on his own, but another part – the part that had convinced her to make the longer walk to his home instead of her own – didn't think anything she could say would be enough. For once, her emotions were much stronger than her mind, and god, she couldn't hold any of it in any longer. However, the smartest girl in the Midwest, who studied foreign literature when she got bored, couldn't find the words, until she remembered that, sometimes, actions speak louder.

Now or never, right? She reminded herself as she tried to muster up some courage. "I need to do something," she murmured into Fillmore's chest. He placed his hands on her sides, gently creating space between them so he could look at her. Her hands flew up to hide her face as she desperately tried to pull herself together. The tears were long gone, replaced by rapid-firing nerves in her chest. "The whole 'school getting blown up with us inside' thing has really made me think about some of the things I've been too afraid to say – or do – and—" Her breath caught in her chest as her heart fired away, begging her to stop, but she pressed her hands over it. "—I can't let anything else happen that could keep me from trying this."

Fillmore raised his eyebrow at her, but asked, "What is it?"

"I need you not to hold it against me."

He tilted his head. She officially had him drawing blanks, but he nodded. One second, he was gazing curiously down into her flickering green eyes, and the next, her hands grazed his cheeks, and her lips were on his.

To say that it took him by surprise was an understatement.

He'd imagined what it felt like to kiss her on many occasions. It had been the little things that made him wonder: the way she bit her bottom lip whenever she examined evidence boards, or when she pursed her lips at him when he did something she didn't necessarily approve of (like sneak into people's offices without warrants or trick Vallejo into signing an order for top-of-the-line and over-budget walkie talkies) but didn't dare scold him for. He thought about it any time she smiled, especially when she smiled because of him. And now, the same lips that formed the smile he loved were on his, and his imagination couldn't compare to that moment. His hands had jumped away from her waist in shock when she'd kissed him, but they quickly returned once his mind wrapped around the fact that Ingrid was kissing him.

Maybe she hadn't expected him to respond. But, once she felt his hands return to her waist, panic immediately rebooted in her chest and she pulled away. Back on her feet – she'd had to stand on her toes to reach him – she turned for the door with a mumbled, "I'm gonna go."

Stunned, Fillmore almost let her, but quickly recovered, stepping between her and the door. "Whoa, whoa, wait—"

"Fillmore—"

"Don't tell me that's all I'm gonna get."

She gaped up at him, unsure of what she just heard. When she saw him grinning stupidly down at her and his dark eyes gazing softly into hers, her heart skipped a beat. She didn't notice his hands reaching towards her face until his thumbs brushed her cheekbones, sending a chill down her spine. His fingers cupped her jawline, tilting her face up closer to him, and it was her turn to be surprised as his lips met hers. Not surprised that he was kissing her (they were both well past that initial shock) but surprised that he was so much better at it. Before she knew it, her arms were wrapped around his neck, and his hands inched their way to her waist and pulled her closer. His kiss was so gentle, her racing mind finally quieted, and she melted into his arms, cherishing the sensations she'd been dreaming about for longer than she cared to remember at that moment. And that moment ended far too soon for her liking as he pulled away and rested his forehead on hers, eyes closed.

"Wow…"

Ingrid nodded. "Uh-huh."

For a long moment, neither of them said another word. His thumbs brushed the bare skin just under the hem of her jacket, and Ingrid licked her lips, partly wondering if they were still there or just numbed from shock. When she opened her eyes, they met Fillmore's, and, suddenly, she couldn't hold back a smile.

God, she loved him.

She wondered if he could read her mind – which, considering how long they'd known each other, wasn't too far a stretch – because he grinned and kissed her again. More urgently this time, as if he couldn't get enough. He guided her backwards, so naturally that she hadn't realized he was doing it until her lower back bumped into his desk. In one swift movement, without breaking their kiss, he hoisted her up onto the desktop, and she gasped – partly from pain, and partly because wow.

Fillmore's eyes shot open with worry and he pulled away. "Shit, I'm sorry—" But Ingrid interrupted him with a kiss, which she realized she could do much easier now that she was off the ground and sitting taller. She didn't care that it hurt for only a moment. She didn't care about anything other than the boy in front of her, the ex-thief who stole her heart. She gripped him by the shoulders and pulled him closer, with her legs on either side of him. He hesitated for only a moment before his hands ran up her thighs and rested on her hips, and his lips wandered down to her neck, making her shiver. She gasped as he kissed his way to the base of her neck, to her healing collarbone, and, despite the chills he was sending down her spine, she suddenly felt so hot. She unzipped her jacket and slid it down and off her shoulders, then tossed it to the side. He brought his lips back to hers and slid his hands up the back of her tank top, pulling her back into him.

She wanted to hold his face in her hands as he kissed her. She wanted to wrap her legs around him and hold him as close as she possibly could but, suddenly, every limb felt so heavy. Her hands slid from his shoulders and rested limply on Fillmore's chest, and she could hardly open her eyes. She knew that kissing, if done correctly, could be euphoric, but… was it supposed to be debilitatingly so?

Fillmore pulled away from her, puzzled by her sudden weakness. "Ingrid?" God, she wondered, as he brushed her hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear, why am I so tired? That was when he chuckled, "Oh, the painkillers."

Oh. Right.

"Oh, yeah…" Ingrid murmured, and reached up to rub her heavy eyes. She should've been embarrassed, she knew, but she didn't care. Now she just wanted to sleep. "Forgot about those…" Fillmore pressed a quick kiss to her forehead and walked over to his closet, saying something Ingrid didn't quite catch about pillows.

I kissed Fillmore, she told herself, as if she needed to be reminded. Her mind had already started to fill with fog, but she didn't want any of that to be just a dream or a blurry memory. She wanted to treasure every second that had passed. Maybe if she kept saying it to herself… I kissed him. And he kissed me. No, wait… she faltered as she remembered that she'd come here to tell him something. Did I say that yet?

Fillmore reappeared in front of her and grabbed her hands, pulling her slowly off the desk, but she squeezed his hands to stop him. "Fillmore…" He ran his thumbs over her knuckles. "D-Did I tell you that I was sorry?"

He halfheartedly scoffed. "Even though there's nothing for you to apologize for, yeah, you did." She nodded, and he started to pull at her hands again.

"Did I tell you that I love you?"

Fillmore smiled softly at her, even though, for a moment, a spark of shock shot through his chest. He knew how big and scary those few words typically were, especially for someone like Ingrid, but after the shock of hearing them, he actually felt at peace. It might've taken a painkiller-induced make-out session for her to admit it, but he'd seen that look in her eyes for quite some time, only recognizing it from seeing the same look in his own.

He cupped his face in her hands and kissed her softly before whispering, "You didn't have to."

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