a/n: Takes place at the end of 5x08.
The exhaustion is heavy in his bones when they finally get back to the loft. He can feel it radiating off the detective at his side as they walk past the remnants of their dinner party left behind from a scene that feels like days ago, a disaster of such epic proportions that a crime scene felt like a welcome escape.
He throws off his coat when they reach the bedroom, flopping gracelessly backwards onto the bed and turning his head to watch her toe her boots off. Her hair is hanging around her face, fallen out of the updo he had watched her meticulously style in his bathroom earlier; the lipstick she had ordered him not to mess up as he backed her against the sink now faded from the night of hostages and mob bosses and worry.
She surprises him by settling down on the bed, the fabric of her slacks rustling as she pulls her legs up, stocking-clad toes curling into his thigh. He feels her heavy exhale across his chest as she tucks her head into his side and he snakes an arm around her, rubs at her back.
"We're good," he says without knowing which of them he's addressing, not sure which part of the evening he's offering reassurance about but he continues to massage her taut muscles, hand eventually coming to rest at the nape of her neck and tangling in her hair.
"I'm glad I have you."
She says it softly, almost a whisper, and he hears the apology for her earlier doubt behind the words yet it still manages to suck the air out of his lungs because no matter how much of herself she gives to him, shows him, he's still sometimes stuck somewhere in the past four years where she's something precious that he's hanging onto by a thread, a real life superhero who catches bad guys and tolerates the childish novelist writing her love letters the only way he knows how.
He's not quite caught up to the point where she needs him as much as he needs her, and his heart clenches in his chest to think about her going home to an empty apartment last year after a night like this. After the bank explosion, the sniper, the bombing. His hand tightens in her hair before he wraps his fingers gently around the back of her neck, draws her down to swipe his tongue out against her lips and she melts even farther into him, palm pressing flat against his chest as she sighs into his mouth.
"We've got just the right amount of yin and yang," he says when they separate, forehead resting against hers as she smiles softly and closes her eyes.
They're good.
She has him.