Chapter Thirteen: A New Normal

Keira was a wreck the whole drive home, huddling in the passenger seat and shivering despite the fact that the heat was on. Will observed her out of the corner of his eye, ready to pull over if she needed to vomit again. She wouldn't say anything to him—instead she stared out the window, making no move to wipe the tears running down her cheeks.

Her cell phone vibrated fifteen minutes into the ride, and she picked it up with a grimace. "Hello?" she asked dully.

Will could hear Spike's panicked voice pouring rapidly out of the phone. "Keira, I am so sorry, I didn't know—I thought—when you said you were afraid of spiders, I didn't—"

"Spike," Keira cut him off wearily, looking so upset that Will's hatred of the other man reached dizzying heights, "I can't do this right now."

There was a brief pause. "I-Is there anything I can do?" Spike stammered uncertainly. "Is there any way I can make this up to you?"

Keira's features contorted, and for a moment Will thought that she was going to burst into tears. "Can we talk later?" she asked, unable to conceal the hitch in her voice. Judging by the uncomfortable silence on the other end of the line, Spike had heard it, too. "I just… I can't… Not right now, okay?"

"Okay." Spike's reply was barely audible. "I'm really sorry, Keira."

"I know." Keira smiled sadly and hung up, then shrunk against the passenger door and avoided Will's gaze for the rest of the drive.

When they pulled up to her house, a small ranch in a quiet neighborhood, Will parked the car and looked at her. "Are you going to be all right on your own?" he inquired concernedly.

"As long as there aren't any spiders," Keira tried to joke, though her voice broke on the last word.

"I'll talk to Spike," Will promised, feeling awful for her. "He shouldn't have done that to you."

"Don't," Keira immediately said, wincing. "He didn't really know—not how bad it is, anyway. He wouldn't have done it otherwise."

Will noticed that her fingers were hovering over the car door handle, and he unbuckled his seatbelt. "Come on," he said quietly. "I'll walk you up."

"You don't have to," Keira quickly replied; yet Will had already gotten out of the car and was walking around to open the door for her. She made a face, but otherwise permitted the chivalry.

Together, they went up the small walkway. Keira paused in front of her door, seemingly reluctant to head in. "Will?" she asked in a small voice, looking up at him with those gorgeous eyes.

"Yes?" he inquired, painfully aware of their proximity: less than a foot apart from each other, their faces perhaps closer than they should have been.

Keira swallowed. "Thank you," she said, "for… for today…" Will opened his mouth to reply, but she wasn't done. "I know I've been… kind of treating you like shit lately," she continued, a hint of pink on her cheeks, "and… and I'm sorry."

And the way she said it, flushing and biting her lip when she was done, was how Will found himself—after everything that had happened, after a decade spent wondering what he had done wrong—shaking his head like all of it had been nothing and saying, "It's okay. We're good."

"I mean it," Keira insisted, her eyes wide. "I've been a total bitch to you, and you just pulled a tarantula off of me." She shuddered at the memory. "I'm really sorry, Will," she finished softly.

"Hey," Will said gently, "don't worry about it. You know I've never been able to stay mad at you for long."

At this, Keira couldn't help but smile. "I think your record is an hour," she teased him. "When I accidentally crashed your bike into a tree."

"That was a good bike, too," Will couldn't resist reminding her.

Keira laughed a little, then sobered as she appeared to teeter on the edge of saying something. "Uh, Will?" she finally asked, staring down at her boots.

"Yes?"

It took awhile for Keira to look back up at him. When she did, she took a deep breath and said, "Look, I'm still not ready to talk about why I dropped out of college. I'm sorry, I just… I can't."

Will gazed into her eyes, wondering if he would see something flickering in their hazel depths that might give him even the tiniest hint about why she had taken off without a warning—but instead he found a closed door, shrouded in quiet misery.

"Okay," he murmured, his former resolve to uncover the truth melting into oblivion as he realized how upset she was. It had always been this way, hadn't it—her with her secrets and her boundaries, and him learning not to ask questions. Supporting, not interrogating. Hoping that, one day, she would let him past the walls she had built to protect herself from an unknown enemy.

"But… I want to be friends again, if you do," Keira continued, glancing nervously at him and then down at the ground. "I know it doesn't sound like it, but I've really missed you. And I want… I want to go back to—to the way things used to be."

"I do, too," Will agreed, meaning every last syllable: he missed having Keira in his life, no matter how frustrating she could sometimes get. "So… friends, then?"

Keira nodded, her lips pressing together the way they always did when she was struggling not to cry. "Friends," she confirmed.

Will suddenly found himself enveloped in a tight embrace, Keira's head nestling against his shoulder. "Thank you," she whispered, her voice shaking.

Will held her, and neither of them moved as the hug became longer than friendly.

"Hey, Lou."

Lou didn't look up from the weights he was curling. "Hey, Spike," he said, wondering what his friend was up to now—he could tell by the man's tone that it wasn't a casual greeting.

"Is it just me," Spike began, sitting down at the bench pressing station, "or have Keira and Will randomly become best friends?"

Lou glanced over at the mats in the center of the gym, where the two rookies had been sparring for the better part of an hour. Will was getting his ass kicked.

"Oh, Will, this is just embarrassing," Keira was saying after yet another takedown, this one ending with Will in an uncomfortable-looking chokehold.

"Just—wait—until…" Will's voice trailed off as Keira grinned and squeezed.

"What's that? I can't hear you," she teased him, before relenting and giving him room to breathe.

"It's not just you," Lou told Spike. "They've definitely been friendlier lately."

"Okay, so, correct me if I'm wrong," Spike said, "but didn't she hate him a few weeks ago?"

"Yeah—before he pulled Babycakes, Jr. off her neck," Lou pointed out, raising an eyebrow. "Which, in case you forgot—"

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Spike muttered, glaring at him. "I'm an asshole, etcetera. And so are you, by the way, cause you helped me. But isn't it kind of weird, even with the tarantula thing, how they're all buddy-buddy now?"

Lou shrugged. "Does it matter?" he asked, doing some more reps.

"Well, I mean, it's odd, isn't it? Seeing Keira being… nice to someone?" Spike pressed, frowning.

Lou put down his weights and looked closely at Spike, wondering if there was more to this interrogation beneath the surface. "Odder than you being so interested in who she's friends with?"

"I'm not interested in who she's friends with," Spike immediately insisted. "I just think it's weird. She hated the guy up until recently, and now it's like they're better friends than you and I. You can't tell me something's not off about that."

"You know what I think?" Lou asked, fixing Spike with a sharp look. "I think someone's getting a little jealous of Will."

"What? Why would I be jealous of Will?" Spike demanded.

Lou shrugged noncommittally, deciding not to press the issue, but inwardly he resolved to keep a closer eye on his friend.

"Finally!" Will exclaimed in triumph as he pinned Keira to the floor, his arms gripping hers and his legs between her own so that she couldn't knee him in the groin. Keira felt a familiar twinge of discomfort, but pushed it away: she wasn't going to give those memories any more of a hold. "One out of, what, ten?" Will continued, so pleased with himself that it was actually kind of cute.

Keira grinned as she replied, "Hate to break it to you, buddy, but I let you pin me—I need to practice my ground maneuvers."

Will's eyes barely had time to widen before she bucked her hips and sent him flying, then made quick work of rolling him over and pinning him beneath her.

"Damn it!" Will growled, in half frustration, half admiration. "Since when have you been a black belt?" he grumbled.

"Since two years ago," Keira promptly informed him.

"Wait, seriously?" Will asked, his unfairly blue eyes meeting hers.

Keira nodded. "Jason hooked me up awhile ago with a cop who taught martial arts," she explained, trying to forget why she had wanted the lessons in the first place.

Will looked as if he had more questions on the tip of his tongue, so Keira hastily stood up and offered him a hand. "What are you doing next weekend?" she asked quietly, so that the others wouldn't hear and get the wrong impression.

"Nothing," Will replied, gazing at her with a mixture of wariness and curiosity. "Why?"

"I have a huge favor to ask you," Keira warned.

Will didn't hesitate. "Shoot."

"My brother and his wife are going away for the weekend," Keira explained, "and I'll be watching my nephew Brian while they're gone. The problem is…"—she blushed, embarrassed—"that I don't feel comfortable being alone in the house at night. There's been some robberies nearby and we don't have an alarm system yet. And yeah, I know, I'm a cop with a black belt. Shut up."

"I didn't say anything," Will replied, with a grin that was worth a thousand words.

Keira pretended she hadn't heard him. "So, I was wondering… I was wondering if you could sleep over Friday and Saturday."

When Will didn't say anything, Keira hastily added, "You wouldn't have to watch Brian; I'll be taking care of him. And I would have asked Spike, but then the tarantula thing happened… and Jason knows you better, too." Her brother had insisted on inviting Spike over for dinner when he found out that Keira was sleeping with him—and he had purposefully come home late that night, so he didn't have time to change out of his police uniform before sitting down at the table. Yet although he had reluctantly approved of Spike, Keira knew that he'd be more comfortable with Will in the house.

As if reading her mind, Will asked, "Jason's okay with this?"

Keira nodded. "I already asked him if someone from work could stay over—but Ed and Wordy have wives, Parker would just be weird, Lou has too much of a social life, and I have reason to believe that Sam and Jules have plans. Separate. Plans."

Will chuckled as he caught the undertone in her words. "Separate plans?" he repeated with a smirk.

Keira shushed him—just in time, too, as Ed walked into the gym. "Less talking, more training, folks," the senior officer said by way of greeting.

"I'll be there," Will whispered, before walking over to join Lou at the weights.

Keira turned away so that no one on the team would see her smile.