Cappie's POV

I felt a hundred times better the moment I woke up and felt her body molded to my side. I knew without opening my eyes that it was her. Her smell and the way her body fit to mine was just perfect. The kind of perfect that no one else had ever come anywhere close to.

My head was still hurting so I knew the fever wasn't gone completely and my entire body was aching from all the chills the night before. But I could breath a little, so that was an improvement and I wasn't quite so cold, so I knew my temperature had dropped some.

Whatever she gave me, to my relief it wasn't antifreeze, had done the job it was supposed to. But it left me with a medicine induced, groggy feeling that I couldn't quite shake.

I wasn't sure where I was, or rather when. My mind couldn't focus enough on the here and now. All I knew was that I was sick, Casey was taking care of me, like always and she was curled up in my arms, like she should be.

I nuzzled my nose into her hair and pulled her tighter to me, enjoying the haziness of the drugs and the feel of her against me. Her head was resting in the crock of my shoulder. Her back was against my side and her small hands were wrapped around my arm, holding me to her, protectively.

It was magical, perfect. If I had felt better, everything would have been exactly as it should be.

I leaned down and placed my lips against the warmth of her shoulder and she shifted, turning in my arms to face me.

She hadn't opened her eyes and I could tell from the way she was breathing that she was still asleep. I didn't want to wake her. She looked so beautiful with her hair spilling out over my shoulder and her tiny fists curled up at her chest. One of her legs draped over mine and my arm instinctually wrapped around her waist, hugging her tightly.

I guess it was the medicine giving me that out of time and place feeling. She was the only thing real for me, the only thing in the world that existed at the moment.

I brushed my lips against hers, because I couldn't stop myself any longer. I did my best to keep the contact light, so as not to disturb her slumber, but it was like fighting against myself. As soon as I tasted her, I wanted more. My whole body was demanding it. I needed her. Right then, her kiss was more important to me than air. It was like I hadn't had the oppurtunity to kiss her in so long, I couldn't help myself any longer.

I thought there might be something important to that thought. I couldn't fathom why I hadn't been able to kiss her. At the moment, I was so lost in the feel of her, in my memories from Freshman year. I was there, nineteen years old again and having her in my arms was natural, normal and, to my deep chagrin, something I took for granted far too often.

She shifted again as I increased the kiss, waking from her sleep and lacing her arms around my neck, pulling me into her as she buried her hand in my hair.

" Cappie, " she breathed as I pulled away to catch my breath. I realized she was breathing a touch heavily as well and it made my chest swell that I had that effect on her.

Lost in the past as I was, I couldn't understand why all these things were suddenly occurring to me like they never had before.

My regret over taking her for granted. My delight at seeing how she reacted to me. These were things that I never took the time to think about to much before. But now, they seemed vitally important. Like my subconscious was trying to deliver a message to my brain that said, Hold her tight this time and never let her go again.

Of course I had no intentions of ever letting her go, so the message seemed absurd to me. But even as the thought played through my mind, I wondered, does she know that ? Does she really understand what she means to me ? Had I taken the time to say the words that I thought she understood ? Said all the things out loud that she needed to know ?

Her hand was still in my hair, pulling me back to her for another kiss. I gave her no resistance, and sank into her lips like she was a swimming pool and it was the hottest day of summer.

Her arms tighten around me, clinging to me and I did the same to her. I felt her trembling in my grasp and it made my heart skip when I realized that it was me causing the reaction.

It was my kiss making her lean into me and groan so erotically into my mouth. It was me making her tremble and clutch her hands in my hair as if she were afraid I would disappear. I was the one making her heart beat so hard I could feel it against my own chest.

The reality of all those things startled me. The effect I had on her crashed into my consciousness and I realized for the first time that I was the luckiest man in the world.

Not just because I was holding her, but because she had chosen me to hold her. It was mind numbing to think that out of all the men in the world, this woman, this perfect creature had picked me.

I felt something warm and stinging prickling at the corners of my eyes and I quickly determined that the cold I was deeply enthralled in was causing my eyes to water. That was the only possible explanation. Nothing else made any sense. I certainly wasn't about to cry. I was not a man that cried. Some men did and that was perfectly fine for them. I held nothing against them. But it wasn't for me.

And it wasn't out of some macho, men don't cry, kind of thinking either. I just never let anything affect me enough to drive me to tears.

And yet, they were there, stinging the corners of my eyes. Obviously, she had broken past that condition I held about not letting things affect me.

She always had. She affected me like no one else in the world ever had or ever would.

And again, that voice in the back of my head was badgering me, does she know that ? She needs to know that.

I pulled away and swallowed as I looked down into her eyes which were looking up at me with some emotion I was having trouble explaining.

I felt compelled, everything in me, every instinct, every little voice in my brain, told me to tell her, to just say the words that were bubbling up my throat. Say it so she would never again doubt how I felt about her.

So I did.

I took as deep a breath as I was capable of and swallowed once more after wetting my suddenly dry lips. I had never said the words out loud before. Not even to my parents. A silly notion crossed my mind that I should tell me them, too. So I made a mental note to call my mother later. Then I smiled down at her as she blinked up at me and plunged headlong into the icy waters of my nervousness.

" I love you." My voice was cracked and strained but the words were clear.

The expression on her face was however, very decidedly not as clear.

That was the moment that everything in the world, all the time and emotions that had passed between us came crashing back to me. I was no longer nineteen and she was no longer mine and I suddenly understood all the things my mind had been trying to tell me. I understood that my mind was two years too late. It hadn't gotten the message to me before it was too late. It was already so far too late for us it seemed impossible. She wasn't mine anymore. She belonged to someone else. And there was nothing I could do to make up for all the mistakes I made when she had chosen me.

I felt like shrinking into myself as I understood the look on her face. I had just fucked up the only thing that still remained between us. And now, after everything we'd worked so hard to build, the friendship, the trust, it was all gone in the utterance of those three cursed words.

Casey POV

It felt so wonderful laying against him, I could feel his chest rising and falling with every strained, raspy breath he drew into his lungs. It worried me, but as the night wore on and I felt him becoming cooler and cooler where his body touched mine, the worry ebbed.

He would be fine. He would survive. And then we would talk. I resisted the nearly overpowering urge to wake him up. Laying there in his arms, waiting for the medicine to wear off, waiting for him to regain consciousness was torture.

I needed answers. My mind would not stop flashing the images back at me that I had found on his closet door.

I tried to sleep, to let myself relax and I got further than I thought I would just from the feel of his arm, that I had wrapped around me.

I didn't think he was aware of me being there beside him. If he was, he showed no sign of it. His arm didn't curl around me. He didn't turn to his side and wrap his body around my back. He just slept on, oblivious to whether I had actually stayed or not.

I was a little discouraged by that. I wanted to believe that my being there had more of an affect on him than that. I wanted to think that my being close to him was making him feel better.

But it seemed like it didn't matter at all.

I let out a heavy sigh and tried to make myself not read too much into his actions. His actions had never spoken very loudly of his feelings. I remembered the way I always felt when he pushed me aside or forgot about me. It was the thing I was feeling at the moment and I wanted to squelch it. I wanted to jump out of the bed and run right back to Max.

Max, who never made me wonder how he felt about me. Max, who never let me doubt how much he cared about me.

I paused. That wasn't true at all.

Max always made me doubt how he felt. Every time issues about his old girlfriend came up, I got the same feeling I was experiencing right then. I felt dejected, rejected and not ever good enough.

That was all I wanted. I wanted, just once, to feel like I was good enough to be someone's everything. I knew it was a selfish, unrealistic thing to wish for, but I couldn't make the notion go away.

And I knew the reason was snoring lightly behind me.

When we were together, he was my everything. He meant everything to me. I loved how it felt to be so totally and completely wrapped up in someone like that. And I prayed that someday someone would feel that much for me. That I would mean that much to someone.

No, not someone, him. I wanted to be everything to Cappie and no one else was going to make me happy. I dreamed of being the center of his universe, the most important thing in his life. I had never felt anything like that from him. I knew he wanted me. I knew he cared about me. I never doubted that, but I had never felt like he loved me as much as I loved him.

I twisted a little, trying to find a more comfortable position and wishing with everything in me that he would acknowledge my presence. I knew he was miserable and sick, but I felt like if I had just a tiny bit of encouragement from him, some little reassurance that I was making a difference, I could sleep.

I felt my stomach flop a few moments later when my prayers were miraculously answered and he shifted to his side and drew my body into his chest.

Then as he breathed against the back of my neck, I finally slept.

When I woke up a few hours later, the first thing I felt was his lips against mine. It was a fleeting brushing motion, almost as if he were afraid he'd startled me and I'd run away. But then it was like a floodgate opened inside him and he was suddenly dragging me tighter against him and turning the fleeting kiss into much more.

Wrapped my arms around him, because I was absolutely helpless to do anything other than that, and buried my hand in his hair, holding him tightly, afraid that at any moment he was going to leave me or I'd wake up and find it was all a dream.

I let him pull away long enough to draw in a quick breath of air. Then I heard myself moaning his name and I was yanking him back to my lips.

I felt deprived, like I hadn't really been kissed in so long I could barely remember the last time. I sank into him, drowning in the sensations he was creating through my body. Every touch was like a tiny jolt of electricity, every kiss like a shock to my entire system.

When he pulled away again, I almost stopped him and grabbed him back to me, but the look in his eyes stopped in instantly. I had never seen him look at me like that before.

I caught a glimpse of his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed. Then his tongue snaked out just barely to wet his lips.

I was utterly transfixed by every move that he made. When he opened his mouth, I knew whatever he was going to say, it something that was going to rock my world completely to its foundation. It was just a feeling in the air between us.

And I was right. I could hardly believe my ears when his voice croaked out, " I love you."