A/N: I did not mean to write this. I'm sort of on break from writing. My muse is on vacation, and instead of coming up with updates for stories I already have in progress, I ended up somehow writing a Kyle/Jessi one-shot. O_o Not sure how it happened, honestly. This is my first attempt at writing anything in this fandom, and will probably be my last. Right now, I'm just amazed I wrote anything. So, um, enjoy!

Gravity

It had been one year, four months, two weeks, six days, three hours, and twenty-four minutes since she had seen him.

She took a deep breath. She could hear his heartbeat within the apartment, slow and steady, and the familiarity rushed over her with such force that she felt dizzy. She could hear it when his heartbeat sped up, and she knew her presence had been noticed.

Several seconds later, the front door was yanked open and there he was, looking just as she had remembered. A little more tired, perhaps, a little more world-worn. She could see it in his eyes, the same way she could see it in her own when she looked in the mirror.

She wondered if he would just shut the door in her face. Wondered if he would be able to forgive her for taking so much time. Wondered if he had forgiven her for leaving in the first place.

His arms were around her before she could move, holding her so tightly as he breathed her name into her hair. "Jessi." His voice was filled with relief and joy, and it was just as familiar as his heartbeat and his touch. For a moment, it was as if no time had passed--but then he stepped back and looked at her, and she was reminded of how much had changed.

"I won't blame you if you're mad at me. And hurt," Jessi began. "But I'm not sorry I left. I had to."

"Jessi."

"I was so scared. Of hurting you. Of losing you. Of holding you back. Of not being good enough." She had said all of this before and hadn't planned on saying it again, but the words bubbled over and everything she had carefully rehearsed on her way to him flew out the window.

"Jessi."

"Maybe it wasn't the best way, but it was the only--"

He stopped her with hands on her face and his mouth on hers. He was gentle, careful, and she melted into his touch, into the rhythm of a dance that had always been theirs. When he pulled back enough to look at her, his forehead bumping against hers, he said, "I know." He took her by the hand and pulled her into the apartment, over to an old couch. He tugged her down to sit beside him.

They looked at each other for almost a full minute before he broke the silence. "How was Japan?"

She wasn't surprised he knew where she had been. She had left her mark in that part of the world--undercover, without exposing herself, but he would have known. Just like she knew Kyle was involved when areas in Africa that had been unable to grow crops for years started yielding the beginnings of plant growth.

Jessi's throat tightened and she looked away from his piercing gaze. "Lonely." She remembered the night she had told him she was leaving as if it had just happened. Perfect memory could be both a blessing and a curse, and in this case, it just left her feeling hollow.

The Tragers were asleep when Jessi snuck into Kyle's room in the middle of the night. She woke him up the moment she cracked open his door, and he looked at her as she stood frozen just inside his room. When she didn't move, he climbed out of his tub and approached her. "Jessi? What is it? What's wrong?"

She shook her head and bit her lip as his arms folded around her, his fingers stroking her hair. "Jessi, it's okay. We're okay."

"We almost weren't. I almost killed you. You almost died and it was my fault."

"You know that's not true."

"It is true!" It had been a seizure--on her part. She tried something she wasn't ready for, even though she had been so careful not to push herself too far. She and Kyle had spent months exploring all of their abilities together, keeping themselves in check and growing in their mental strength and capacity a little more everyday. But she found herself in a situation where she had to push herself to save the lives of a group of schoolchildren, and it nearly cost her everything. She ended up in the hospital and so did Kyle. It was the first real taste for anyone of how deep their connection had become. They were not only bonded mentally anymore--it was physical.

Maybe it shouldn't have been surprising. Two weeks after Kyle's confrontation with Cassidy--who got away alive and disappeared--Amanda finally learned the whole truth about Kyle and Jessi. Things had been a mess for a while--there had been a couple of months of miserable confusion for Jessi, when Kyle was struggling with himself and what his heart was telling him. Between Amanda telling him that she wanted to be with him again, and Jessi holding the ground she had gained with Kyle, he'd had to come to grips with what he really wanted.

And when it came right down to it, even if Amanda knew the truth about everything, Kyle was never going to turn his back on Jessi. He would always share her past, and quite literally, her mind. Their mental connection grew everyday--they could walk in and out of each other's thoughts and memories, and that was something Amanda could never share.

Whatever confusion Kyle had been suffering, it had disappeared entirely during that summer. Kyle and Jessi had to go on the run, thanks to Latnok and their plans, and together had to plot a way to stop the group from screwing with their lives anymore. It was a trip that brought them to living out of tiny hotels or camping in nearby woods, and making quick calls that couldn't be traced to let the Tragers know they were safe.

That summer changed them. It was to be expected, really, that the more life they experienced, the more their experiences would change them. The more Kyle saw of the world, the more it affected him. At his core, he was always the same--giving, loving, compassionate. But he had to face the harsh reality of the pain and heartache around him. In this, Jessi was able to help him as he had so often helped her. Kyle had taught her how to trust, had taught her that life was not all about the lies and manipulation into which she had been born. He had taught her the importance of keeping her promises.

And in return, she taught him how to get through the lies and injustices the world threw at him. It was all she had known in her beginning, after all, and it had made her stronger. She still struggled, always, with the competitive side of herself. She struggled with the part of her that never felt she quite measured up to Kyle and his goodness, to his standards. He assured her that she had nothing to prove to him, but he was wrong. She had to prove she was someone worth loving--prove that she could give and not just take, that she could be an anchor, too.

That summer, their connection deepened, pulled them together so tightly that there was no going back, no more doubting, no more questions. It was just them, and despite being on the run and plotting the takedown of a secret company, Jessi couldn't remember a time when she ever felt so happy and complete.

And then she had almost killed him because of how completely intertwined with each other they had become.

She blinked rapidly as the memory of Kyle's concerned eyes faded into his real, solid eyes, just as worried.

"It was never your fault," he told her, seeing right into her heart, just like always. "It--our connection--it was both of us."

Jessi just looked at him. He had told her that before, too. He had told her a lot of things. He had tried to talk her down from leaving, and he had almost succeeded. He had always been so good at that. Bringing her back down, talking her around, keeping her close. She had always been willing--desperate, even--to reach back for him. And that had been the problem. It had been her need for him, and his for her, that had made her go. If anyone had ever told her that she would voluntarily leave him, she would have scoffed in their face. For so long, for her entire existence, he had been her anchor, her constant, and she loved him more fiercely than anything.

In a way, she thought maybe part of him had always needed her, too.

Jessi had read enough of Nicole's psychology books to she know that her relationship with Kyle had been considered unhealthy and probably co-dependent, obsessive, needy--all of these words and more could be applied to them, but Jessi had never cared if she needed Kyle. He had always been impossible to escape. They were like two planets spinning around each other, keeping each other in perfect gravitational pull, keeping each other in orbit, circling around endlessly. She hadn't known what would happen if she tried to break that. Hadn't known if she would send them both spinning toward catastrophe. Hadn't ever wanted to find out, because she hadn't wanted to let go of their connection, even if it was possible.

At least until she realized that she had almost brought his death to him.

"Everyone was upset with me." Jessi paused and shook her head. She had lived with the Tragers long enough to understand some things about family and commitment. She amended, "Everyone was upset about the extent of our bond and the damage it had on both of us. They were right to be."

"Jessi."

"Kyle. I was holding you back. I was holding us back. Everyone was saying that our connection was going to ultimately be self-destructive, and I didn't believe it until we ended up in the hospital. I know that you didn't think separating was the way to fix anything, but I had to. I thought maybe putting distance between us would…would keep you safe from me. That you would be able to know who you were without me."

"I already knew who I was without you."

"I didn't know who I was without you," she whispered. That had been the problem all along and she hadn't wanted to look at it closely. Living at the Tragers had helped her more than she could ever tell them--they had taught her the meaning of love and family, had shown her that there were people who could be counted on and who took the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, and accepted all of her. But deep down, she hadn't really believed she was worthy of any of it.

She had told him as much, too, on that night she went to tell him good-bye.

"Leaving?" His eyes were shocked and questioning, and she felt his mind reach out to her, searching, but she pushed him out.

"Stop it. You can't keep doing that. Don't you see how dangerous this is for us? That's why I have to go, Kyle. Don't you get it? I have to leave. I have to know you'll be safe. And I had to tell you, because I couldn't just leave you a note. I'd never do that to you. But I have to go and I need you to promise not to come after me. I have to find out."

"Find out what?"

"About myself."

"Jessi--"

She kissed him then, fiercely, desperately, fighting her longing and the terror and the loneliness that was already starting. She pulled away abruptly and turned out his room, unsurprised when he hurried after her, calling her name. She stopped at her bedroom door as he caught her wrist, swallowing as she turned back to face him.

"I'll find you again," she told him, her throat closing up. "I promise."

"So what did you find out on your journey?" Kyle, wonderfully present and solid in front of her, asked her softly.

Jessi had her answer ready. "That I'm always going to be fighting with myself to be better, to believe I'm good enough. I learned that I can do this without you--" the pain flashed through his eyes, and she took his hand "--but that I don't want to. I don't have to."

Kyle squeezed her hand and then let go. He pulled a familiar string over his head, and she saw that dangling from it, along with his, was her Latnok ring. The ring that had belonged to her mother, that Jessi had given to Kyle with her promise to one day find him again. He took it off the string and slid it back onto her finger, kissing the palm of her hand. "I knew you'd come back." His arms went around her again, and she relaxed against him. "But I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss you everyday for the last year, four months--"

"Two weeks," she put in.

"Six days, three hours," he continued.

"And thirty-one minutes," they said together. Their eyes locked, and she whispered, "I missed you more."

His fingers traced her cheek, wove through her hair. "You want to turn this into a competition?"

She put her hands on the back of his neck and pulled his face closer to hers. "I haven't had anyone else to compete with for a long time."

"In that case, I'll just have to show you how much I missed you." His lips met hers again, and she was lost, caught inevitably in his gravity, right where she had always been, just as he was caught in hers.