Part 4

She watched him sleep.

Sitting akimbo at the end of the bed, she felt a sense of wonder and contentment. They were the last things she'd expected to feel this night and she knew they would fade the longer she thought about the catalyst for what they'd just shared.

He had surprised her tonight. First showing up at her door, then kissing her and awakening a need in her. And in him, too, she thought.

He didn't make himself vulnerable often but when he did…

She could have thrown him out. After everything that'd happened during the day, she would have certainly been justified in doing so. She suspected, from the things he'd said after she'd asked him to stay, that he'd wanted her to. He'd almost left while she'd been in the bathroom, and a big part of her had expected him to be gone when she'd opened the door. She'd hoped not but she knew him well enough to know he might run from the emotions they were both feeling.

He'd been so confused about himself and her, and what he should do. He couldn't hide it and hadn't tried. Ironically, his reticence had cemented her want of him and what she believed she could find with him. It had given her the strength to take the lead and he'd followed.

When she'd asked him to stay, she hadn't been entirely sure what she'd wanted other than to not be alone and feel the pain of loss. She'd been honest with him in that. He'd been terrified, but the mention of pain had overridden his fear. He understood pain, of all sorts. He'd seen hers.

It wasn't until she'd been in her bathroom and found herself slipping on her robe and nothing else that she knew what she wanted with him. She just hadn't known if he would be there when she came out, or if he was, if he'd be able to overcome the jumble of their feelings enough to be with her the way she wanted.

But he had been everything she'd needed and it touched her that he'd seem to find a solace of his own in her. He was so often angry and bitter, almost always abrasive. If he'd found even a moment's reprieve from what fueled those things while he'd been with her then she was happy for him. He deserved more and better than the hand life had dealt him.

She grieved the things he'd lost over the years and the changes in him and desperately wished she understood why she felt the way she did about him. He gave her crap constantly and was sometimes cruel, but she still put up with him.

Michigan had bonded them somehow, far deeper than she would have expected from a brief friendship and one night of bone-melting passion. She suspected it was the same for him and that he was just as confused by it. And by how things had developed between them in the years since. And tonight.

She cared about him and would even go so far as to say she loved him at times. Tonight was one of them. From the moment he'd kissed her, she'd loved him and she loved him still as he lay atop the covers of her bed.

Her eyes moved over his long, lean form, admiring the unique beauty of him. He would undoubtedly scoff at being labeled beautiful, but he was, in his own way. She frowned when her eyes settled on the scar on his right thigh. It was the only thing that marred his outward appearance and it was her part in its presence that bothered her, not the way it looked. It truly took nothing away from him.

He remained devastatingly sexy. From the sensual line of his mouth and that entirely kissable and suckable bottom lip, to the scruff — which she'd never felt before — and the little patch of hair on his chest, to the streamlined muscles that made up the lines and planes of him, and the hands that had touched her so tenderly just a bit ago, he was mouthwateringly delectable.

She wanted to be with him again, but not because of those things, but because he'd acknowledged her grief and reached out to her despite his fears and uncertainty. Because he'd made her feel like a woman, desired and needed and cherished, despite the fact her body had been unable to produce a child.

He had given her something beautiful tonight, from that first kiss until this moment, and she hoped through the morning. She did not want him to leave and she feared he might if he felt he had taken advantage of her, or she'd taken advantage of him. The latter would be laughable under other circumstances, but tonight, he'd responded to her needs and she hadn't really stopped to ask him his feelings.

She'd been singularly selfish and it made her wonder if she deserved to be a mother. The thought was a melodramatic indulgence to her overworked sense of guilt. He'd tell her that if she was awake. But she couldn't help but consider that perhaps her priorities were as out of whack as those of the teen-age mother who'd destroyed her hopes.

She'd been serious when she told him she couldn't go through that again. The pain of its was much. It hurt still and she expected it to hurt for months to come. She had bonded quickly with Joy, before the little girl had even been born. Doctor's visits, ultrasounds, prenatal testing, she'd been there for them, anxious, relieved, excited. And joyful.

Shifting, she brought her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. She closed her eyes against the tears threatening to fall.

She felt none of those things now. There was just a persistent emptiness where that joy was supposed to be, and empty arms where Joy was supposed to be. She should have been rocking her daughter to sleep right now, or hovering over her crib happy but feeling daunted with the responsibility she'd just taken on.

Instead, she'd taken a man into her bed. No one would understand the choice of who that man was. She wasn't even sure she understood it entirely. But he'd cared enough to come see her, and to stay. She was grateful and, at the moment, a little in love with him.

"You okay?"

Opening her eyes, she saw him looking at her, blue eyes glittering in the darkness. Seeing his frown, she gave him a little smile.

"Just feeling sorry for myself," she confessed, her voice soft in the shadows. It carried only a hint of impending tears.

"You just lost a child, Cuddy," he replied. "I think you're entitled."

She felt a tear slip free and she confessed something she'd not told him. This time her grief could be heard.

"She wasn't the first."

His frowned deepened as he worked it out. He didn't say anything, probably because he didn't know what to say. She wasn't sure she would have either beyond an "I'm sorry." To her surprise, those were the next words he uttered. They were said soft and low while his eyes remained on her. From him, they were like gold and touched her in ways that no one else's condolences ever could.

"Do you really think I would be a good mother?" she asked then, needing to know if he'd meant what he'd said earlier.

"Yes," he said then asked, "You don't want to try again?"

She shook her head, which dislodged another tear.

"To have gotten so close… It just hurts too much."

"She gonna pay you back?"

"I don't care about the money," she said. And she didn't. The money was nothing. Joy might not be hers, but she was safely in the world. It was the only consolation out of all of it.

She thought he might argue the point with her, telling her she was being foolish or that she was entitled to demand restitution. But he didn't. What he did do surprised her once more.

He stretched his arm out atop the bed, toward her, his hand open, palm up. Invitation or gesture of commiseration? She didn't know and didn't care. It touched her that he made it either way.

She moved to him, bypassing his hand to move astride him. His arm slipped around her, his hand splaying across the center of her back as her eyes found his.

She took his face in her hands and whispered her one desire of that moment.

"Stay the night?"

His answer came in the form of a kiss, a combination of the kinds they'd shared earlier. Her heart fluttered and she melted against him in want. In need and love. And with a measure of joy.