"Absence makes the heart grow fonder." Lucien whispered into Matthew's ear as they rushed back to the station.
Matthew scoffed the comment off, declaring that it had only been a week. Truth be told, something was bubbling inside his chest. Whether it was fondness or excitement, he was unsure but he knew he wanted to explore it some more.
"Matthew! Will you slow down, your knee will give way." Lucien hissed and Matthew finally decreased his speed when he arrived at the door of the station.
Entering the station, the pair knitted their eyebrows together upon seeing Matthew's Superintendent chair turned around and Sergeants Danny, Charlie and Bill firmly sat in three seats next to it. The three men looked pale. Had Danny been crying?
Matthew began to open his mouth to speak until his chair swivelled round revealing the most wanted potential killer of a recent case holding a very shaken Doctor Harvey on his lap with a gun to her neck.
Immediately, Matthew's hands reached out to grab her with a sharp "Alice!" but the suspect whipped the gun from her neck to rest on her temples, causing Alice to whimper and a slow tear to drip down her face.
It couldn't end like this. Couldn't end where there was so much to say and so much still to love. This long week without her while she was giving evidence in court in Melbourne had been hard enough, never mind a lifetime. All that was racing through his mind was a series of jumbled "I love you"'s as he stared right into her intense blue eyes, hoping and praying that she understood what he thought in case he had no time to get it out.
Matthew decided in the long thirty seconds that the man held Alice, that he would never forgive himself for not telling her how much she meant to him. Or for not ever saying he loves her purely because he was too scared on how she'd react. Now looking into her broken eyes that intensified more blue with every tear, he knows how she would've reacted.
In the mere five seconds that the gun was pointed to the floor in the midst of his aggressive rambling, Bill managed to throw a crowbar and successfully hit the suspect who knocked out and released Alice with a grunt.
Alice leapt forward into Matthew's arms, her own arms flung round his shoulders grabbing fistfuls of shirt, inching to get closer and closer to him. All of her fears and insecurities were swallowed away with quick, frantic and heated kisses. The sobs that she released rang out in Matthew's ears and her tense body only relaxed when a final vocal series of "I love you" were whispered into her ear.
It took Alice a good few weeks before they began officially courting to let Matthew touch her, in any way. Hand holding, hugging, caressing her cheek. Alice had to break down her carefully built walls to allow Matthew into her life. But the thought of nearly never being able to touch him again was driving her insane. So she took his hand in hers while walking out of the station, placed her hand on his upper thigh while he drove them home and didn't leave anything smaller then a metre radius between them when they got home so he was always in sight. When they finally sat down for that time in the evening where she would read a book and he would watch a game show, she didn't pick up her book but instead curled up onto Matthew with her head on his shoulder and legs draped over his.
When they got into bed she again draped her leg over his hip, inching closer with every word he spoke.
"Marry me, Alice." he whispered into her skin as she carefully traced the jut of his jawbone.
When they first got together or even when they first moved in together, the answer to that question would've been no. Alice was an independent woman, she didn't need a ring to prove anything to anyone. But now, as Matthew was pressed up against her, she remembered what it felt like to be warm. Warmth wasn't a feeling she had experienced often and if Matthew was going to over this feeling up every day for the rest of his life for her, she had to say yes.
"Of course, I will. Yes, Matthew. A hundred times yes." she whispered solemnly back into his, as if it was a promise.
Letting her guard down to find and love Matthew, was the best thing Alice had ever done.