A/N: I am so very glad that there are Alibi fans out there who are willing to read this. Thanks to the talented dancesabove for the help.


"It's late," Marcey told him. An echo of that other conversation from a few nights before. But tonight she took hold of his sleeve as she whispered the words to him, and her voice was not at all steady.

What she'd said was less a statement of fact than it was her wondering how this night might end.

… … ...

Greg looks done in, Marcey told herself. He's tired. He shouldn't drive. But she admitted, finally, as she dropped her eyes and tugged slightly at the fabric of his shirt, that she simply wanted him there with her.

Could that be wrong... to just get something that you wanted, without a world of complication?

"You could stay," she said, with an almost-awkward suddenness. Then, with flat equanimity, she told him, "I won't sleep with you. I think it a bad idea just now. And I am not in the mood to slap someone who isn't listening. So, if you stay..."

Greg bit at his lip before he told her, "I don't want you to think you aren't attractive. Desirable. That I wouldn't want to..." he was prattling on, he knew. "But I am too worn out, anyway."

And he meant emotionally, she understood.

The kiss seemed necessary then. Some sort of proper delineation was called for. She lurched forward, but then delicately and carefully pressed her lips to his.

His reaction was almost startled, at first. And then he responded. Brilliantly. It wasn't because of some sort of calculated skill that he kissed so well, she knew, but because of who he was.

It was just a kiss, she tried to tell herself, as she lingered there against him. But there was no getting the distance back.

This man was blindingly honest. So beautifully open. Marcey could read so much—almost too much—in the emotion of how he was with her. Breathing harder now, she put her fingers to his lips to stop him. To keep things tamped down.

"Come on upstairs, then. We can sleep," she told him gamely.

It was awkward. At least at first. She had the light out, and after hesitating there by her dresser, she decided she would put her pyjamas on in the bathroom.

Greg fiddled about nervously for a moment or two, once he was alone in her bedroom. It boggles the mind, he thought as he paced her floor. But he was really here, and barring any idiocy on his part, or misunderstandings on hers, he would stay the night.

Once he'd pulled off his jeans with a near-disastrous little hop, he threw them on a chair. Suddenly and quite irrationally, he worried over being thought un-neat, and hurriedly began to fold them. A moment later a relieved little laugh bubbled out of him as he caught himself at what he was doing.

This woman had seen him completely unnerved and unmanned. Had seen him flat-out panicked. And he thought it might make a poor impression if his jeans were not folded? He was the king of poor impressions—and still, somehow, he was here.

Greg got into the bed, not knowing what side she would want him on. But he needn't have agonized over it. Once back from the bath, she climbed in where she wanted to be without a word of complaint, and let him adjust. There was a smile from her and a quick kiss that caught him unaware. She rolled to her side, away from him, before he could properly react to it. Yet again he was left to feel that he was always catching up when it came to her.

Cautiously he moved to lie behind her.

"All right?" he asked after a rough swallow.

"Yes. Good. Fine." Despite the obvious nervousness, there was a warmth in her voice. She pulled his hand from where it rested on her hip, bringing it across her abdomen, and he snuggled in a little closer. He kissed her shoulders through the cotton of her shirt. Waited to be told to stop; to go to sleep. Instead, she squeezed his hand. He nuzzled at the back of her neck then.

And the limit was there.

"Sleep, Greg."

"I know. I know. It's just..."

It was just a thousand things, Marcey knew. She could almost hear everything that played inside him, bothering him. She moved to face him. And then pet at his cheek. "Shh, Greg. It's all right." She kissed him on the forehead, and he closed his eyes at last.

It was all right, he began to believe, as he rested his head against her neck.

And warm and good, she realized.

So, they slept. Just slept.

/

There was little room to misconstrue things, come morning. "We aren't going to lie about," she announced, with a teasing look from her side of the bed. Still, she leaned in and quickly kissed the groggy man.

"You take coffee or tea in the mornings?" she asked.

"Coffee," he said, rough-voiced.

She grinned at him. Left the bed.

She had distilled the morning's conversation down to a point where it might have felt like a mere sleepover. Might have, if he had not been shamelessly aware that he had rolled over to enjoy the shape of her rounding the corner.

… … …

Two days later they stood shoulder-to-shoulder doing the washing-up at her flat.

He ducked his head, seeming shy and aimless as Marcey put away the last of the dishes, as he waited to know if she would ask him to stay. It was ridiculous to be so ill-at-ease, he recognized, given what she knew of him, and given that she had glimpsed him in his horrid, saggy Y-fronts as he had struggled to get his jeans on that other morning.

If she would have him, he wanted nothing more than to sleep next to her again. Tonight. And he didn't want to think rejection could pummel him now.

With a little grin, Marcey let him off the hook, didn't make him ask. "You can stay, Greg," she said simply, a laugh in her voice. "Same rules. Good enough?"

It really was good enough, right now, as wrung out by life as he was. He just needed to hold her. To feel the caring she had for him conveyed in her fingertips as she caressed his face.

And as her hand wound into his, he suspected she knew all that, just as she had known so much all along.

… … …

But it was a weeknight. And so, with work to get to, Marcey was putting up with no excuses, come morning.

He tried to distract her once the coffee was poured. His hands gingerly at her waist, he kissed her softly again and again.

"We both of us need to get to work," she scolded. "Of course, I'm not the boss."

"No. You're right." He scrubbed at his face then. "They all know Linda's left." His speech sped up as he said in an almost throw-away manner, "If I go in late... Well, Christ, they'll think I'm suicidal." He was only half kidding, they knew.

"And how are you? Really. You know... about Linda leaving," she asked gently.

"Not suicidal," he summed up flatly.

Marcey nodded. Watched and waited to see if there was more.

Greg shrugged and looked away a moment. "Linda left me a long time ago, really. That's how I look at it. She packed a few weeks ago, but in reality it was a year ago that she left."

Marcey's lips were pursed and her eyebrows high a moment. There was nothing to say. And he read her look. Knew that look.

"But I'm all right," he put in quickly. "You needn't worry. Just..."

"Time," she supplied, when he trailed off. "You need time."

"And you."

She shook her head and said a little warningly, "I'm not part of you getting over Linda."

"No. I understand. But you are what makes now, well... Good."

/tbc/