Title: One Breath.

Author: Andréa

Summary: The feelings between Miranda and Declan are changing.

Rating: PG-13, just to be safe. It might change later.

Category: D/M romance, UST, Angst

Spoilers: Small mentions of a few episodes.

Disclaimer: They do not belong to me.

Author's note: This is my first Mysterious Ways fic, also English isn't my native language so please, be nice :-) grammar mistakes will be inevitable. I have watched it since from the beginning and I always loved the show, especially Miranda, she was my fav. She was so cute and liked Declan so I always thought about them together and now I wrote a fic :-) Too bad the show is over sigh

Hope you enjoy and please review.

She clutched her clipboard tighter to her chest as if trying to make herself known by the nervous move and breathed in deeply as he walked closer to her. She was acting just like the geek schoolgirl she always was back in high school. Always trying to be less geek, to seem a little less smart, trying to be the cool girl, anything that could make the popular boy she was into to notice her.

It never worked. She was a geek for God's sake... nothing would change that. Nothing would make any boy look at her and think how hot she was, or how cool she was. She was a geek and that's all she'd always be. Just a weird face in the crowd of school. The one that'd always sit alone to eat her lunch.

This time she wasn't trying to show off to any stupid popular cute boy from school. This time she wasn't even showing herself off. This time she was just trying to be her old self, muttering stupid small words, nodding or just being completely mute as the professor came to her. She was just quite and polite and helped him when he asked her to.

She would just do anything to be near him, to please him.

It had started just as a normal friendship, a relationship like any other. They were just greetings in the morning and when they met each other, a few encounters now and then when she was working for him, but before she noticed, she was spending some of her free time with him and Peggy, meeting him between classes, talking to him as if he was one of her college friends. Now she was helping him with his cases, spending basically all her free time with him, hanging with him and Peggy, walking, talking, even working together with both.

She worked for him, she was his assistant after all, but that didn't excuse her spending all her time with them, him. Her being in his office, being with him all the time she was, was understandable and she was actually grateful for it, for she didn't really need an excuse to be around him.

And after all this time she just could not - not - do that anymore. She couldn't see herself working somewhere else; see herself hanging with friends of her age, with the people she went to classes with. Her entire life seemed to be revolved around them.

Then suddenly she saw her feelings changing towards Declan. She didn't know what she could do to stop it; they seemed to live by their own will. She didn't have power over them and just couldn't stop her feelings from growing more and more. She wasn't sure of what she felt, she only knew she had some kind of attraction to him; not physical because it was something that made her legs turn into jelly by the only fact of his presence, of feeling her heart flutter by the simple smell of his scent and made her tremble and feel nervous when he talked to her. It wasn't the 'whoa, what a body' kind of thoughts, but something more like a schoolgirl crush.

She often caught herself wondering if he thought she was beautiful, if she even thought of her at all. If he thought she was smart and funny and someone nice to hang out with. If she wasn't too boring with her talking - as if she talked a lot - but whether he was or not interested in her talk.

There was that time when there was that Emma. He was so interested in her, he spent so much time with her that it was as if he didn't have friends anymore. It was like as if she and Peggy weren't important anymore. What scared her the most wasn't the fact that he had another girl but that she would lose him forever, even as a friend. She knew then that he really mattered to her, that she cared so much about him that if she had to forget her feelings just to have him near, she would do that; she would do anything to stop him from going.

But he was a teacher and even if they got to have anything - even IF he for some reason felt something for her - the university would never ever allow it. It didn't matter how their relationship worked, if it got beyond friendship, it'd never be allowed. She'd have, somehow, to make her feelings for him go away.

She didn't want it, though. 'I wish I could just say it.' She thought with a heavy sigh, looking directly at Declan.

"Hey." He said with a small smile.

"Hey." She said back as a smile of her own formed over her lips. She just couldn't stop it, when it came down to Declan she have no control anymore. She knew her eyes were probably shinning with glee as he looked only at her and not to any other student in the crowd. "Oh, here," she said taking the clipboard from her body and grabbing a stack of papers. "The tests you asked me to run? Got the results today." She handed the papers to him and smiled again.

"Oh, thanks. That was quickly."

"I had nothing big to do, so..." She shrugged the compliment off.

"Yeah. Thanks." He said again. "Bye." He said as he heard the ring to the students go to their respective classes.

"Bye." She replied sighing again and watched as he walked further from her.

Sometimes she wished she wasn't in college, but then she wouldn't have met him, but then again, if she wasn't she wouldn't have to see the scene playing before her. It just didn't have a way out. She just couldn't get herself a little normalcy. Why couldn't she just meet some nice guy, date and have a boyfriend like any other college girl?

She looked down shyly and also angry with herself for not being able to wait a few more minutes instead of skipping the end of her class to come to Declan with more results. She could have just finished that stupid math class because at least she wouldn't have seen him practically flirting with the new blond English professor. It was just a friendly talk, they were both talking - too close, her brain screamed, though - and nothing big was going on.

But why did she felt as if her heart was being ripped into shreds? Why couldn't she have waited ten more minutes for the class to be finished to come here? Why, for goodness' sake couldn't she have just waited? And why was she freaking overreacting so badly over this?

She silently cursed herself as she turned to go and leave that place before any of them could see her and make her the most embarrassed person in the world. Unfortunately, the world just didn't seem to be on her side today, for she tripped on something - probably the rug, though she couldn't really tell. It could have been on her own foot and she would not know - and let her clipboard with all the papers fall to floor and with the noise Declan and the blond professor looked to see what was going on.

"Miranda? Are ok?" Declan asked worried she might be hurt as he walked to her then crouched down to help her gather the papers.

"Yeah..." She breathed out, averting his eyes as best as she could, pretending to be engrossed by gathering the papers. "I - I didn't see the... um, the - rug and tripped..." God, she didn't mean to stutter but he just did that to her, especially now that she had embarrassed herself the same way she was trying so hard not to.

"Do you need any help?" The other professor asked though her voice didn't sound as if she wanted to help at all.

"No, that's ok." Declan said, smiling up at her. "We're about done."

"Ok, so if there's nothing I can do I'll leave. I got a class in about five minutes." She smiled too and as if there was no one else in the room, she winked at Declan and left.

Miranda, unfortunately saw that and almost got her eyes white, trying so hard to turn them, doing anything possible to not see that flirty blond bimbo and, even without meaning to, she grabbed the papers from Declan's hand harshly, getting up and stepping away from him.

Of course Declan noticed her 'proximity' and took a step closer to her, but stubbornly she took another back. "Hey, Miranda, what..." He started but was quickly cut off by her.

"I got the rest of the results you were waiting for." She said rushed and handed him the papers as she still tried to look anywhere but his eyes.

Instead of taking the papers she was giving him, Declan put both hands on her face, turning so he could look in her eyes. She had such beautiful eyes; he had noticed them the first time they met. It was a blue so deep and pure he sometimes go lost staring at them. He had never seen someone with eyes as blue as hers. There was this gleam in her eyes that seemed to make them glisten even more. It brought out the color in her eyes and made it brighter.

He held her face in place as he stared at her, locking their eyes firmly. "What's wrong?"

Then she bit her bottom lip very slightly and stared back at him without saying a single word. Her eyes glistened and for a second, he thought she had tears forming, but she didn't cry. She kept biting her lip and tried to keep the tears she didn't know why were coming from getting out of her eyes. "There's nothing wrong." She whispered, thought she was whispering more to herself, it seemed.

"Miranda..."

"I gotta go." She whispered again and before the tears could really find their way out and embarrass her more than she already was, she walked out of there as quick as she could after shoving the papers in Declan's hands and he watched her leave with a very stunned and confused expression on his face.

To be continued, if you review that is. :o)