The sound of her heels echoed in the dimmed light of the hallway. It was late; long after visiting hours were over and most of the staff had gone home for the night. Alice approached Matthew's room with apprehension and anticipation. On one hand she was excited to see him; on the other her doubts about Matthew even wanting her as a soulmate lingered. Wanting her was one thing - she'd seen that in his eyes - but also wanting everything else that came with the burden of being a soulmate was something else.
Alice shook her head, trying to shake the doubts from her mind as she pushed on the door to his room. Jean (and Lucien) said Matthew would welcome the news, but Alice needed to hear it from Matthew himself. The lights were low in his room, only a small lamp on the bedside table illuminated his sleeping form. She closed the door behind her as quietly as she could and walked over to the right side of his bed. Her eyes swept over his pale face, not as deathly pale as before, but still worrisome to Alice. She took in the dark circles under his eyes, followed the jut of his cheekbone and the permanent frown lines around his mouth.
Her fingers reached out before she could stop herself, trailing feather light touches along his cheek and jaw; his skin warm to the touch. He was here; Matthew was here, alive, warm, and she'd almost lost him. Tears welled in her eyes as Alice gingerly sat down on the bed, her hip brushing his leg, and took his right hand in both of hers. She sniffed, her shaking thumbs rubbing the thin, raised scars on his knuckles. The scars that had started her suspicions, that gave her hope that her soulmate and Matthew were one and the same.
A tear splashed onto the back of his hand and her lower lip trembled. Alice had almost lost Matthew before she could tell him how she felt. Even before she found out he was the one she'd been waiting for, Alice couldn't deny the feelings she'd developed for the gruff police superintendent before her. She couldn't deny the way her heart beat faster whenever she heard his drawling voice, or when he met her eyes over the autopsy table. She lived for the moments they shared in the morgue, in her office, at the Blake household. To think that had almost been taken away from her… she couldn't even dare to imagine.
Alice clutched his hand in hers, her body shaking with silent sobs as more tears fell on the back of his hand. He'd wake at any moment, but once the tears started, Alice found she couldn't stop.
"Don't cry, sweetheart."
Matthew's voice, heavy with sleep, startled her. She looked up with a strangled gasp to see his eyes cracked open, blinking slowly through the medicated haze and sleep.
"Matthew," Alice sighed in relief even as her cheeks turned pink in embarrassment.
His free hand reached up and wiped away her tears, his fingers a little clumsy, but Alice leaned into the attention nonetheless. She held his hand to her face with one of her own, warmth spreading through her body from where his thumb brushed the skin of her cheek. This was what she'd been waiting for, this right here. Alice couldn't believe she hadn't seen it - hadn't seen how they were drawn to each other; two souls adrift at sea only to find each other in the depths of the ocean.
"Are your hands okay?" He asked, his right hand trailing over the bandage on her left hand and right knee. "And your knees, too?"
Alice nodded, her tears drying as she smiled at him. "They sting a little, but I'll live."
"What happened?"
"I dropped a tray of glass containers and fell on them."
She could see the confusion in his eyes and ducked her head. Matthew gently curled his hand beneath her chin and tilted her head back up. "You're the most careful person I know, Alice; you're not one to drop a tray out of nowhere."
Alice smiled, her heart warming at Matthew's statement. She bit her bottom lip as she struggled to come up with the words to tell him. "I… um. It's hard to explain."
"You don't have to explain yourself to me."
'Bless this man and his patience, his understanding.' Alice thought.
"In this case, I do, Matthew. I have to explain myself this time because… it involves you too."
His thumb caressed her jaw, sending shivers down her spine, but Alice didn't look away from Matthew's eyes. Though a little clouded from the narcotics currently running through his veins, they never wavered from her face. They were open and waiting, understanding and kind.
"You know of the marking?" She asked him softly, continuing at his slow nod, "For a long time, I never believed I'd get a soulmate. I… didn't have the greatest examples of love growing up and so for years I wanted nothing to do with the marking. It took awhile after I turned eighteen, but I did get a soulmate."
Matthew listened closely as Alice spoke to him. The bandages on her hands rasped against his skin, her thin fingers cool to the touch as always. She looked tired, her face almost as pale as he imagined his own was at this very moment, her beautiful eyes red-rimmed (had she been crying? for him?)
He gently rubbed her jaw, sighing quietly at the feel of her soft skin against the calloused pad of his thumb. Matthew's eyes dropped from Alice's face to his own hand cupping her chin; new marks - scars - on his palms made him pause. He looked at Alice's still bandaged hands and then back at the bright red narrow lines on his own. Matthew drew his eyes back up to Alice's gaze, only to find she'd stopped speaking. He caressed her knee, his subconscious act slowing when he felt the slightly raised and jagged edges of a scar above and around her bandages that matched where his leg shattered at the garage.
Of course… of course it was Alice.
A part of him had known it, had pulled him towards her even in his doubts and warring emotions. This revelation warmed him and Matthew smiled up at her.
Alice smiled back at Matthew, feeling her cheeks grow warm as his right hand stroked her knee. Drawing both of her lips in between her teeth, Alice chewed on them as she thought over what she wanted to tell Matthew - how she wanted to tell him. She'd seen the gears turning in his head as his eyes traveled from her face, to their hands, and his fingers lightly tracing the scar on her knee. He'd figured it out.
She still wanted to tell him - needed to tell him - all of the thoughts and doubts churning in her mind.
"I never really sought out my soulmate. I just knew they'd find me, that we'd find each other, in time. I used to almost forget I had one until the next time I woke up with bruised knuckles. Something called me here, to Ballarat, and it almost felt like coming home. I knew I belonged here, not just that my soulmate was here."
She paused and looked down at his right hand, both of her hands reaching down to grasp it, her thumbs tracing the rough skin of his knuckles. His left hand dropped from her face to rest across his stomach.
"Then… I met you, Matthew. I met you and started to dream that maybe you could be what I was waiting for, that maybe the universe was kind enough to send you my way. I started looking forward to seeing you, to talking to you. I wanted my soulmate to be you, but I had no way of knowing if you were or that you felt the same way… at least until that moment in the morgue."
She caught Matthew's grin out of the corner of her eye and Alice felt her cheeks grow hot at the memory of being pressed between the cool autopsy table and the warmth of Matthew's chest a couple of weeks ago. She ran her fingers over the scars on his knuckles again - nonsensical in their movements.
"I hadn't felt as comfortable before as I did in your arms that day, oddly enough. That was also the day I first got my suspicions that… you were mine."
Matthew tightened his hand around her fingers as he asked quietly, "What made you suspect?"
Alice smiled and continued to stroke his hand, tracing idle designs on the back of it, "These scars here."
"My knuckles?"
She nodded, "While you were gone in Melbourne, there was a situation with a suspect at the Colonist's Club and I got caught in the middle. I woke up after he let me go from a chokehold to see scars like these on my hand." Alice leaned down and pressed a faint kiss to his scarred knuckles, her hands tightening around his fingers.
(Matthew had never seen her this affectionate)
"These sparked my suspicions, and I wanted so badly to tell you, to reach out to you."
"But?"
"But I wasn't sure you wanted me as a soulmate… I still don't," she squeezed his hand and he brought them up to rest on his right thigh. "Then your accident happened."
Alice drew in a shaky breath as tears sprang to her eyes again. The pain from Matthew's accident still achingly fresh in her mind. Matthew took her right hand and pressed it against his chest, right above his heart. She controlled her breathing, grounding herself in Matthew's steady heartbeat.
He was alive, he was here, he was hers.
"I felt it, Matthew. I felt all of it and I was terrified of losing you before I could tell you how I feel. All I could think of was telling you, even with my doubts that you would want a soulmate like me. I had to tell you."
Matthew felt like he could walk on air. Maybe the drugs in his system had some influence on that, but Matthew could hardly believe that Alice was sitting here in front of him, confessing that she was his soulmate. If he didn't have her hands in his, one flush up against his heart, Matthew was half convinced he was dreaming all of this conversation.
He drew one of her hands up to his mouth and pressed a kiss to the back of her fingers. "Oh, sweetheart, I've waited for you for so long."
The radiant smile, shining through the tears, made it all worth it.
"Really?"
He nodded, "I hoped it was you. God, I hoped so much that it was you, Alice."
The tears continued to streak down her face and Alice laughed, almost giddy with happiness as she leaned forward to cradle his face in her hands. He smoothed his own up and down her upper arms and joined in her laughter; his hands curled around her shoulders, trailing down her back, and settled on her waist. This is what it was like to feel happy, to know where he belonged.
Her thumbs stroked the sharp jut of his cheekbones, her tears drying as she slowly drank in every detail of his face. He watched Alice silently as her eyes trailed over him, relief, happiness, and lingering shock evident in the blue-grey irises.
"Why did it take us until now?" Matthew asked, his voice slurred by sleep and the pain medication. "Why did we not see it sooner?"
"I don't know," Alice shrugged. "Granted, neither of us went out of our way to get hurt."
He chuckled, "You almost slipped under my radar, until I noticed the callouses that weren't mine."
She smiled, "Honestly?"
"Yeah," Matthew smiled back.
"To be fair, I thought a lot of my scars from you in the beginning were from my cat and I'd forgotten about the scratches."
Leg and pain be damned, Matthew couldn't help the fit of laughter that escaped. Alice's cheeks flushed a pretty pink even as she bit her lips to hide her smile at Matthew's laughter.
"I'd forgotten about your cat," he grinned. "Feisty thing."
She smiled fondly, "There are some days I miss her. For a long time she was my only companion."
"Tell me about her?"
"Oh she was feisty, definitely had an opinion about everything and let it be known," Alice giggled. "Miss Prim and Proper and always wanted attention while getting into so much mischief."
"Where'd you get her?"
"A couple of terms into university. My favorite professor had run across a pregnant cat and offered up the kittens to anyone who passed her rigorous testing to make sure the kittens would be taken care of out of her students. I was one of the lucky few who got one."
Matthew smiled, imagining a younger Alice gazing curiously down at a demanding fluff ball of a kitten and choosing that one. "I bet Miss Prim and Proper had quite the name."
Alice hummed in agreement, a grin spreading across her face at the memory of her old companion. "She did. My professor laughed so hard when I told her. I'd named my cat after a close friend of hers. The Honorable Miss Phryne Fisher was a fitting name for my cat. I usually ended up calling her Fish though."
Matthew laughed, his hands smoothing up and down Alice's back as she joined in. She stroked his cheek as if she still couldn't believe he was hers. Matthew tucked a stray curl behind her ear with a fond smile - he couldn't believe it either. She smiled and shifted until she could comfortably lay against his chest, his heart under her ear and her arms wrapping around his torso as though she couldn't bear the distance between them anymore after confirming they were soulmates. He circled his arms around Alice, holding her close, feeling her matching rapid heartbeat against his chest, and he pressed a kiss to her hairline. It felt right; it felt like home to have her in his arms.
It was late, both of them should be asleep by now and Matthew knew the nurses would be making their rounds soon, but neither made the move to leave. He smoothed his hands over her upper back - feeling her contented sigh more than hearing it - and he felt himself relaxing even more than he had on the drugs.
"Sleep, Matthew," Alice murmured, her own voice sounding drowsy to his ears. "I'll be here when you wake."
Alice's weight on his chest was gone when he woke the next morning. He frowned without opening his eyes. 'Perhaps it was all a dream'
"Do you always look this grumpy in the morning?" Alice's voice, matter-of-fact even in the early hour, convinced him to peek a look. She sat on the chair next to his bed, in fresh clothes, her hair tidied and makeup redone, and a steaming cup of tea in her hands. With a smile, she sipped at it and raised her eyebrows at him, still expecting an answer.
"Was that a rhetorical question or are you expecting a serious answer?" He grumbled. Matthew's distaste for the morning melted a little at Alice's soft chuckle.
"A bit of both, maybe."
"I'm always grumpy, haven't you heard?" He relished in her laughter, her eyes damn near sparkled in the early morning light.
Matthew reached out a hand and Alice took it, she smiled when he pulled her to sit on the bed beside his hip. Leaning over to place her teacup on the bedside table, Alice shifted until she was comfortable and gave him her full attention.
"How are you this morning, sweetheart?"
She ducked her head, her smile widening as a blush spread over her cheeks at the term of endearment.
"I'm fine, Matthew. The cuts don't really hurt anymore. And you? Did you sleep well?"
He nodded, "The medication they have me on is strong. Though, the company last night wasn't too bad either."
With a soft tut, Alice halfheartedly swatted at his arm even as the flush of her cheeks deepened. Matthew grinned. He lifted her hand and kissed the backs of her fingers simply because he could, the seemingly ever-present warmth in his chest expanding at Alice's smile.
A knock on the door of his room shattered the moment and they both looked up to see a slightly sheepish Mattie O'Brien peeking into the room. Alice stood abruptly, but Matthew kept a grip on her hand.
"Sorry to interrupt," Mattie started softly, "but I need to do a check up on Superintendent Lawson. I can change your bandages too, Doctor Harvey, since you're here."
"It's alright, Miss O'Brien," Matthew waved her in. Alice tried to draw back, but a soft squeeze on her hand and a reassuring smile from Matthew held her in place standing by his bed. The reveal of their bond was still new, still fresh, and Alice wasn't sure if she wanted to share that with the world just yet.
Mattie said nothing, though, of them holding hands or the fact that Alice was there at all. (She'd stopped by in the night, checking on Charlie, and seen the two of them asleep on Matthew's bed. Suddenly the cuts on Alice's hands and matching scars on Matthew yesterday made sense. They were good for each other.)
Alice watched quietly as Mattie checked on the wrappings around Matthew's leg, her touch sure yet gentle. Matthew's hand tightened in hers at the same time Alice felt an echo of his pain in her own leg at each probe of Mattie's hands. She rubbed her thumb across his knuckles to soothe him through the check up and to ease the worry in her own mind. Mattie gave him another dose of pain medication and changed out the bottle of fluids for his IV next to his bed.
Mattie smiled, her voice straightforward as she updated Matthew on the state of his leg (the x-rays weren't back yet, they weren't sure if he'd be able to walk, or how soon he'd be able to, at this point), and then turned to look expectantly at Alice.
Alice sighed and made to sit down on the chair by Matthew's bed, only to be pulled to his bed by the man himself, "Matthew…"
"S'more comfortable, sweetheart."
She flushed so much she felt her ears burning - that pain medication settled in fast. Mattie's chuckle turned into a cough at Alice's narrowed look, but the smile remained on the nurse's face. Sensing a losing battle, Alice sat on the edge of Matthew's bed while Mattie sat in the chair and undid her bandages.
Matthew's hand was warm in hers as Mattie unwound the gauze around her knees and made sure there were no lingering shards of glass in the cuts. She winced as Mattie cleaned them - Matthew's fingers tightening minutely around hers with each stinging swipe. A square of gauze covered the cuts on her knees instead of a length of bandage wrapped around her legs and Mattie repeated the process on her arms and hands. She wound bandages around Alice's palms, gently advising Alice to let the cuts breathe overnight and to see Lucien if she needed any help with her hands.
"You really should take a few days off work to let them heal, but knowing you, Dr. Harvey, you'd just insist on working anyways." Mattie grinned at the exasperated look on Alice's face and the low chuckle from Matthew.
"I'll refrain from putting my hands in any chest cavities, if that makes you feel better, Miss O'Brien, but nothing will get done in the morgue if I'm not there." At Matthew's bark of laughter, Alice smiled, "Alright, nothing will get done on time in the morgue if I'm not there to help Lucien."
"Let me or Lucien know if you need anything for the pain," Mattie's hand on her shoulder was hesitant, but warm, and Alice smiled softly at the young nurse. She had a talent with people, that was for sure.
Mattie smiled back at Alice and patted Matthew on his shoulder before she left the room. A tug on Alice's hand brought her attention back to Matthew and she smiled down at him.
"You know, I do have work to do, Matthew."
"Nah, y'don't."
Alice laughed, "Yes, I do, you silly man."
A dopey, boyish grin appeared on Matthew's face (she'd never noticed that he had dimples, they were adorable) as he tried to pull Alice closer to him on the bed. She blushed as heat flooded her body when his hands smoothed over her waist, back, and hips.
"Matthew." She tried to look at him sternly, but a girlish giggle broke through her control. "Matthew Lawson, you are a deviant."
"Only with you, sweetheart."
"That pain medication kicked in quickly, too." She swatted at his chest, her fingertips barely grazing it as she was too busy laughing. Calming her laughter, Alice leaned over and pressed a kiss to his forehead simply because she could, her thumb wiping away the smudge of lipstick before her hand trailed down to stroke his cheek. The thrumming in her chest, the one that brought her to the man lying before her, filled her with light and warmth; her heart filled with joy at Matthew's grin.
She was home.
(Neither of them caught Mattie in the window, watching the two of them with a fond look before she left for her rounds.)
'Definitely good for each other,' she thought as she walked away with a smile.
The morgue was blissfully silent as Alice took inventory. Usually Lucien helped her - their banter and discussion over the latest scientific theories filling the tiled room with a friendship born of a shared interest in medical science - but he was finishing up their case at the police station with Hobart and Charlie. She didn't mind it, actually thankful that she avoided an interrogation from Lucien about her and Matthew yet again.
'Knowing Lucien,' she thought, 'he's just biding his time until the only thing between him and his insatiable curiosity is another dead body.'
The thought of a murder keeping Lucien occupied so he'd keep his nose in his own business made Alice chuckle. Not even murder would even keep him from satisfying his questions; at the hospital she saw the coiled energy behind his eyes, begging to pepper her and Matthew with queries. Her own escape from Matthew's room to change her clothes and later Jean in the exam room served as buffers between her and her closest friend. She'd eventually tell him, but Alice still wanted to bask in the newness of her bond with Matthew for a little bit before others crowded in.
A knock on the door interrupted Alice's mental tally of disposable scalpels and she frowned. The frown remained on her face as she looked up to see who had invaded the sanctuary of the morgue.
A half-sheepish smirk graced the redhead's face as she peered around the door. "Sorry to interrupt, but I'm looking for Doctor Harvey?"
"That would be me."
The redhead's eyebrows rose and Alice inwardly sighed; she'd evidently been expecting someone else.
"Can I help you?" Alice asked, trying to keep her tone even. She never had patience for interruptions; she usually left them for Lucien to handle.
"Rose Anderson," the younger woman strode forward boldly with an extended hand. Alice looked at it and then up at Miss Anderson's face before she shook the offered hand. Miss Anderson smiled, "You're not what I thought I'd see when Uncle asked to stop by here."
"Uncle?"
She nodded, smile still in place and Alice thought it looked familiar. "Uncle Matthew, he wanted to stop here before we go to the police station."
The familiarity clicked into place. Rose Anderson shared the same smile with Matthew when both of them were trying to be polite - bland with a hint of mischief around the corners. "Is he here? Your uncle?"
Miss Anderson nodded again, "He's outside, I'll bring you to him, Doctor Harvey."
"Thank you, Miss Anderson." Alice put aside her inventory list and followed Matthew's niece out of autopsy.
He had a niece. Alice filed this away, resolving to ask Matthew about it later. He'd never mentioned a niece, but then again, he barely talked about his family with Alice in their few conversations outside of work. She knew his childhood wasn't the greatest, and she wondered if he'd tried to protect his sibling (or siblings) much like she tried to protect her sister. There was still so much to learn about each other.
The brisk, cool air hit her once they left the building and Alice was glad she'd kept her lab coat on. She smiled when she saw Matthew waiting by a bench, no longer feeling the wind at the warmth of his returned smile.
"I'll leave you two to it," Miss Anderson threw over her shoulder with a smirk, one that had Matthew rolling his eyes in response.
"God, she's too much like her mother," he groused as Alice settled on the bench by his wheelchair. Her hand sought his out instinctively and Matthew's playful scowl at Rose Anderson quirked into a smile as he tangled his fingers with hers.
Alice chuckled, "Not a good thing?"
"It is except when you're on the receiving end of it like I was with Vera for most of my childhood." His face was gruff, but Alice could see the tenderness and fondness in it towards the young woman leaning against the cab on the street.
She smiled and took a moment to watch Matthew. He was out of uniform again, this being only the second time she'd seen him in regular clothes - not including his pajamas in the hospital. The bright cobalt blue of his sweater stood out from the grey trousers and dark brown leather of his jacket. It brought out his eyes (Alice noted that his eyes were quickly becoming a favorite of hers).
"How are you, Matthew?"
"Been better, and tired of people asking me that question, but I'm glad to be out of the hospital." He smiled at her and she chuckled. "You?"
"I haven't shoved my hands into any open chest cavities in the past few days if that's what you're wondering." Alice grinned at Matthew's laughter. His thumb rubbed her knuckles as he shifted in his seat. His movement drew her attention to his injured leg. "Have they said any more about your leg?"
Matthew nodded, his good mood dimming as he looked down at the leg stretched out in front of him. He was grateful for Lucien saving his life - grateful that he didn't wake up without a leg at all - but the news that he was crippled had shattered his expectations for his life. His career was at an end, his life turned upside down all by a man behind the wheel of a car. Matthew's fist tightened on his leg. It wasn't fair.
"It'll never heal properly. I'll walk, but probably with a cane or something just as humiliating. I suppose the higher ups in Melbourne are happy that they've finally gotten me off the force again."
"Then…?"
Matthew didn't want to leave her, didn't want to be apart from Alice so soon after the reveal of their bond to each other. It wasn't fair.
He nodded again, answering the question hanging in the air between them. "I'm sorry, sweetheart, but I have to leave again. There's recovery and learning how to walk again, I can't do that here in Ballarat."
"Don't apologize for putting your health first, Matthew Lawson," Alice chided him, her voice firm even as her spirit sank. They'd only just found each other and now circumstances were forcing them apart yet again. It wasn't fair. Finally the universe had pulled the two of them together, albeit through less than kind circumstances, but they were finally here at this point in their relationship. It wasn't fair.
"Where will you be going?"
"Melbourne," Matthew answered. "Through Lucien and Rose, I have a spot at the university's hospital. They're running a sort of program where the students learn about different injuries and we get the help. Lucien assures me it's not exactly like a hospital, more like a home, but I'll admit… I'm not fond of it."
Alice reached out and squeezed his arm, "I still have a few friends at the university, would you like me to have them drop in and… make sure everything is running smoothly?"
"You don't have to, sweetheart."
"I want to, Matthew," she smoothed her hand up and down his forearm.
God he was so grateful for Alice.
When he first heard about her, people said she was blunt, socially inept, abrasive, and hard to work with; now that he knew her better, Matthew saw most of what was said about her was untrue. She was blunt, didn't always read a room or people right in social situations, but there was a softness to her that most people didn't get to see. Alice rarely lowered the walls around herself, and Matthew loved that he was one of the few she felt comfortable enough around him to do that.
She had an empathy that made him feel like he could get through anything with her support, though he couldn't stop the rising thought of shame at Alice being stuck with a crippled soulmate. A part of him wondered how long she'd stay until she realized she would be settling in loving him. Another part - the highly optimistic part - fought with his usual pessimistic nature in the knowledge in Alice's feelings for him on top of the bonding. It didn't completely wipe away his doubts, but it helped. Alice helped.
His free hand landed on her knee and squeezed, "If you'd like, you can do that, Alice. Maybe I can grill them for some old stories of you." He winked at her and laughed at her narrowed look.
"Just remember I can return the favor, Superintendent."
Matthew smiled and lifted her hand to press a kiss to her knuckles before holding her hand with both of his. Alice blushed and threaded her fingers in his; she could get used to this, Alice realized. Their easy companionship, kisses pressed to backs of hands and foreheads ('Hopefully more,' Alice mused with a smile), the steady silences that neither felt the need to fill with words, his warm hands in hers. She definitely could get used to it all and that thought no longer scared her as much as it once did.
She was falling for him, hard and fast. Normally this revelation would have her running for the hills, pulling up her walls out of fear of being hurt, but this was Matthew. Matthew, who was patient with her, who apologized when he stepped out of line, who was kind under his gruff exterior. The circumstances that finally brought them together were not ideal, and it wasn't fair that those circumstances were now forcing them apart, again. It wasn't fair that Matthew was in pain, that he'd likely not walk without assistance, and the higher ups in Melbourne were pushing him out of the force.
It just wasn't fair.
He could fall for her, Matthew thought. He loved her and could fall in love with her. It wasn't just because of the bonding; that helped certainly, but they had been circling each other long before finding out they were each other's soulmates. He loved her blunt nature, her tunnel vision when it came to science, and the way her hand fit in his - the coolness of her fingers against his palms.
She'd wormed her way into his mind and now his heart, settling easily beneath his own protective walls like Lucien and Jean had done years before. Alice made him laugh, didn't push when he needed to sort his thoughts out, and he felt comfortable around her regardless of his mood.
Yes, he definitely could fall for her.
"Can I kiss you?" Matthew's voice was sudden and soft, barely audible above the breeze that swirled fallen leaves around the bench she sat on.
She looked up at him, his eyes shining with an emotion she couldn't quite place before she looked down at their tangled hands on his wheelchair armrest. "I'm not sure I'll want to let you go if you do that, Matthew."
He chuckled, one of his hands coming up to curl beneath her chin, tilting her face up. "I think I'll take my chances."
"Then…" She leaned into his touch, casting a fleeting look down at his lips before she met his gaze. "By all means, Superintendent, take it."
Matthew leaned over the armrest and she met him in the middle; his lips brushed hesitantly over hers before slanting his mouth more firmly over her own. Alice gasped at the pleasant jolt in her stomach when Matthew kissed her and he took the opportunity to cradle her face in his hands. She closed her eyes and hummed in the back of her throat as one of the hands slid into her wind-teased curls to cup the back of her head.
Heat flooded her senses, her heartbeat thudded in her ears as she pressed as close to Matthew as she could and remain appropriate for being outside the hospital. She slid her hands up to grasp the sheepskin collar of his jacket, her fingers tightening in it when Matthew drew back. One of his hands fell to her shoulder, his thumb gently rubbing it through the fabric of her lab coat.
"Well-"
Alice didn't let him finish, instead she pulled him back by his collar and captured his lips in her own again. The hand on her shoulder tightened instinctively, Matthew's faint murmur of surprise vibrating against her lips as he gently nipped at her bottom lip. They separated slowly, lips brushing against each other as though reluctant to actually part for longer than a few seconds.
Alice leaned her forehead against Matthew's, smiling as he nuzzled her nose with his own. "I did warn you."
Matthew chuckled, "Seeing as you've yet to let go of my jacket, I'll have to agree with you, sweetheart."
She loosened her hold on his jacket, idly smoothing out the garment, and drew back from his embrace far enough to look in his eyes. "I'll come visit, Matthew, once you're settled."
"I'd like that," his fingers caressed her cheek and she mirrored him. Her thumb rubbed away remnants of her lipstick on his mouth and Matthew grinned as she blushed faintly. His thumb traced her cheekbone reverently, "I can ask Jean for your number and call you once I'm there, Alice."
She smiled, "I'll do one better and give it to you now." Reaching into her lab coat, Alice pulled out the small notepad and pen she always kept in the pockets. She wrote her flat number and address before giving him the sheet of paper. He took it with a soft, chaste kiss, smiling against her lips.
"Thank you, sweetheart."
Alice looked over his shoulder and saw Rose walking in their direction. She stole one last kiss from him, blinking back the sudden tears in her eyes as she wiped away the traces of her lipstick.
It wasn't fair, but they would make do.
His thumb caught a stray tear and he pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I have to go."
"I know. I don't want you to, but I know you have to leave to get better."
"And I will," Matthew smiled, his eyes glassy with unshed tears. "I'll look forward to when you visit and we'll talk."
"Stay safe, I'll know if you don't," Alice smiled when he let out a short bark of laughter right as Rose reached them.
"You too, Alice," he kissed her cheek one last time before looking up at his niece. "Right, Rose."
"Ready to go, Uncle?"
"One last stop at the police station and then I will be."
"Okay," Rose nodded, smiling at Alice as she slowly wheeled Matthew away.
"I'll watch over Lucien for you!" Alice shouted after them.
"Both of you better stay out of trouble!" Matthew shouted back and Alice laughed.
She wiped away her tears as they fell, waving at the cab until it turned the corner. Letting out a sigh that she felt in her whole body, Alice stood from the bench, her heart both lighter after their kisses, and heavier at their separation for the foreseeable future. She walked back into the morgue slowly, her fingers tracing her lips - Alice imagined they still tingled - as she smiled. Warmth filled her chest and bubbled up in a soft giggle. She was happy, very happy, something she never saw for herself let alone in another person.
Alice had been content - long before the scars from Matthew appeared - in being comfortable with her life. She never expected to truly be fully happy, but still satisfied with herself and her work. She never imagined finding a home in a sleepy gold rush town, in an standing offer of dining over at the Blake household, in friends such as Lucien, Jean, and Mattie. She never imagined finding her soulmate in the one person that understood her as well as Matthew.
It made sense, that he understood her, if one stood on the fact that the universe provided people with their perfect match. Alice, who believed in science and what she could see, was slowly coming around to this fact with the reveal of Matthew as her soulmate. Where once she'd doubted she would ever receive the marking, now she looked forward to getting to know her soulmate better.
Alice couldn't wait to see Matthew again, but she was also a patient woman.