100: Him
His gut, which has been twinging all night, is screaming at him to say or do something, and when Sweets levels his finger at him it's like the last tumblers in a padlock coming into alignment. He knows what he has to do.
Still, old habits die hard and it's not until they're out of the building and down the stairs that he screws up the courage to make the first move. Because Sweets is right about them punishing themselves year after year and it's time to break the cycle before one of them goes insane.
He is the gambler, so he gambles. And honestly, he expects her first line of defense to be his words, because he knows her. So when her first words hit him all he focuses on is "couple" and for the first time in six years he gives into his gut and shuts her up with a kiss.
Her taste is as heady as the wine she drinks every night and he remembers just how right she feels in his arms. More than the kiss of young lust, or of blackmail, for a fraction of a second it is one that knows what old lovers they already are.
Whether it's his probing tongue or the hand that is migrating further north, he's unsure, but something pulls her up short and her sudden recoil and rejection makes him feel as if he's been set adrift in a roiling sea of emotions.
Her words about his protection blow so quickly by him it will only be later tonight that he pauses to consider their meaning. Right now, though, he is laying all of his cards on the table in an effort to convince her just how much he knows.
You see, it's not just that he knows, about daffodils, and daisies, and Jupiter, and a hundred other minute details that are part of who his Bones is. He knows her. He purposefully steers clear of the words "marriage" and "love" because he knows what they trigger in her and the last thing he wants to do is spook her. More than anything he knows that her still waters run very deep and that if he could just find the right words, she could see that she is more than capable of loving him for 30, 40, even 50 years. They could go through life together instead of the quasi-state they've been living in that leaves them alone every night.
But tonight the odds do not swing in his favor and he watches her pull away, fragmenting his heart in the process. As she babbles about being an unchanging scientist, he feels like listing all of the ways she has changed since they first met, and how much more she could change if she'd just meet him halfway. She does not.
So he stops. It'd be a fool's errand to continue at this point. He acknowledges that he cannot push her in this final step. He may've pushed too far already; though it was worth the risk to break out of the holding pattern they've been trapped in. A tear- maybe for her, maybe for himself- pools in his eye and he stops it before it can fall.
He hears the plea in her voice as she asks if they can still be partners. He knows it will be different now that they've finally been honest and he knows he's even more of a masochist than he knew he was before. But he knows her- loves her- and he knows that every man who has ever claimed to love her before has left. And since the day he learned that he swore he would never be that man no matter what.
So he sucks up his courage and nods. He warns her he has to move on and he can see that she knows what that means and she nods even as the tears flow. She starts to walk away and still he doesn't leave her, but walks with her. Not too close. Not too far away.
So that when she is ready she can cling to him. And she does, lacing her arm in his. And a moment later he leans into her. And they walk away.
Together. For tonight.
