Title: Connection

Author: TigerKat24

Rating: PG-13 for ahem implications.

Spoilers: None.

Summary: Aftermath of a soulgaze, part 3.

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Mr. Butcher.

Author's Note: Who loves ya, baby? Our Heroes finally talk, and angst and fluff ensue. I feel like I've been wrestling bears. Anyway, 10 100-word drabbles and one ten-word wrapup. Intended as bookverse, but could be either. Still terioncalling's fault.

Wizard!angst (aka, part 1) here.

Cop!angst (aka, part 2) here.

Crossposted to my journal.

"Harry?" she asks, in a small voice.

He flinches. He can't help himself. "Yeah?"

"You've been thinking about it." It's a statement, not a question. He doesn't need to ask what she means by 'it,' either.

"Yeah." He can't look her in the eye now. He knows what's coming. "Yeah, I have."

She swallows; he watches the skin of her throat move as if hypnotized. He tries to memorize it, to memorize her, the way he's been doing these last few weeks to stave off the sneaking feeling that every look is the last.

"Me too," she says, at last.

He's watching her again, that wary look back and stronger than ever, except he isn't watching her face. His eyes are directed somewhere lower, and not even lower as in kiss-your-teeth-goodbye-lower, but lower like he's avoiding her eyes. The way he used to do when he lied to her.

She can't say this. She'd intended to ask him what he'd been thinking, and now she just can't. For the first time she can't finish what she started.

"Murph?" he asks, cautiously. "What about it?"

Oh, God, she can't.

"Nothing. Never mind." She turns away from him.

She's leaving, and he knows this is the end. There's such finality in her movements, that he can't help but scramble after her.

"No, wait!"
He's spoken before he's even thought about what he's going to do. Beg, maybe? Fall to his knees and plead with her? He wouldn't want her to stay if that was the only reason she did. But she's turning, and for an instant there's a look on her face...

It's gone before he can place it, and her eyes are shuttered again. "What is it?"

Just that. Flat and empty. His heart breaks again.

"I..."

This is it. This is when he tells her he's leaving. She closes her eyes.

No matter what, she instructs herself, don't cry. You can do anything else, so long as you don't cry...

"I'll have the department mail you your paycheck," she tells him, finally. "They know where you live."

He nods, mutely. She waits.

Just say it, damn you...

She can't take it anymore. "Harry," she begins.

He looks up suddenly and holds her eyes, for the second time ever. "Screw the damn paycheck," he says, abruptly. "Murph, I have to ask. Do you want me to go?"

It's almost funny, the way she looks at him, like he's just spoken in tongues. She'd kill him if he laughed. He might kill himself.

"Do I want you to go?" she says, slowly, as if she's trying to understand his words

He shrugs. "For good, I mean," he says, and can't believe that the words don't tear his throat. "I will if you want me to."

Because I can't take this, he wants to say. I can't take standing here, watching you, waiting for the end, so I'll end it myself. Maybe it'll be clean.

Maybe pigs would fly.

Is he serious? He can't be serious. She spears him with what she hopes is an incredulous look (but what's probably more painful vulnerability) and asks, "Where the hell did you get that idea?"
He blinks. "Uh."

It's far too late for him to interrupt. She's gotten started, and now she can't stop.

"I've spent the last three weeks wondering why the hell you keep looking at me like you're waiting for me to explode, wondering when you're going to go away like all the rest," her voice rises, embarrassingly shrill, "and you ask if I want you to go?"

It's official— he'll never understand women.

"Murphy..."
"How dare you?" she yells, her eyes starting to glisten. "You bastard, how dare you?"

"You wouldn't look at me!" he shouts, grabbing her shoulders. "What was I supposed to think? I thought you..."
She interrupts him, her voice suddenly deadly soft. "So this is all my fault."
Wait... what? How did they get here? He inhales through his nose and tries to keep calm. "That isn't what I meant."

"Then what did you mean?" She folds her arms, ignores his hands still on her shoulders, and glares.

He looks at her, helplessly, and can't speak.

Shit, shit, she's going to cry.

"What did you mean?" she asks again, hearing her own voice choke with tears. "Dammit, Harry, if you're going to go, just go. I don't... I can't..."

His grip on her shoulders shifts, the only warning she has before he pulls her into his arms and kisses her as if he's drowning. She has about a heartbeat of rational thought left, and she thanks God that this blew up after a case, back at his office. If this had happened in public...

...but he's kissing her, and all she can do is hold on.

She melts in his arms, soft and pliant, and if he was a less principled man he'd have her then and there. But he's not, so he pulls away, though it physically hurts, and steadies her when she half-falls against him.

"I can't go," he tells her. She looks a little dazed, so he repeats himself. "I can't go. Not unless you make me. I..." His voice fails for the third time, and he shakes his head.

"I thought you didn't want me," she volunteers, her voice less steady than before. "Because of what you saw."

He chokes on air.

He stares at her, his face flatly incredulous, and a small bubble of hope warms her chest. "You thought— hell, Murph. I want you more." He pauses, then adds, "I thought you didn't want me around anymore. I know I'm not the best of people..."

Whatever he reads in her face shuts him up.

"I knew you," she says, softly, and touches his cheek. "You forgot that. I didn't see anything I didn't already know about you." She hesitates, and finally adds, "I didn't see anything I didn't already love."
There's a moment of stunned silence. Then she kisses him.

Nothing was ever the same. It didn't need to be.