"So many thoughts that I should have just let my heart explain..."

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The box of pictures sat on Laura's dresser, waiting for them to take it up again and let memories of Zak run free. Bill couldn't imagine looking at them with anyone other than Laura. There'd be too many questions, too many explanations needed if it were someone who hadn't been there. He sighed as he stood by the bedroom door and looked down the dimly lit hallway. It was beginning to sink in that casual questions about his family would never be 'casual' again. He laid a brief hand on the box's lid as he left the room, tamping down an irrational impulse to say 'good night'.

The dryer's buzzer was jarring in the quiet as Laura returned from the bathroom. She turned back towards the door with a wry smile.

"I left a new toothbrush out. Sounds like I should have checked on the clothes."

He touched her cheek lightly. "I'll get the clothes out after I'm done. Why don't you get into bed?" He could feel his heart thump against his chest as he spoke. Such an innocent question, to bridge a decades-long gap. He tightened the belt of his robe as he went down the hall, feeling his cheeks flush and hoping she hadn't noticed.

When he returned with their clean clothes, she was lying on her side with the sheet up to her shoulders, the cobalt-blue satin of her nightgown dark against her creamy skin. Her eyes were half-closed and a bit curious as he put the clothes down on the trunk at the foot of the bed. An incongruous shyness hit him when he picked up his underwear and he turned away from her even while his heart protested it was okay, it was Laura.

She'd told him once he gave off too much heat for her to wear anything when she slept next to him, and he'd blamed his Tauron blood instead of the ancient air conditioning in his apartment. They'd been young and strong and beautiful in their nakedness then. Shyness and reticence...those had been for other people.

He tugged his boxer briefs on under the brown robe. Maybe for a little while, he could imagine what things would be like if life had turned out differently. He tried to imagine they were a long-married couple, their children out on their own, husband and wife getting some sleep after a long day. The fantasy comforted him as he laid his robe on the trunk next to hers and got into bed, the sheets cool against his skin.

"You okay?" He could hear the sleepiness in her voice.

"Yeah," he said. "Thanks for the toothbrush. I wasn't exactly prepared to stay over."

"I know. I'm glad you did, though." She moved cautiously towards him, like she was testing the waters.

Water…he remembered how the pain of everything had washed over him like a flash flood once he stood in the shower, feeling like he was drowning in a bitter ocean until he felt her hand on his shoulder. She was his life preserver, his beacon out of the darkness, like he had tried to be for her, before everything went wrong.

Laura shifted next to him, their bodies not quite touching, her hand coming to rest on his chest. He felt something unlocking deep inside, and he breathed easier than he had all week.

He turned towards her, her head resting on the pillow next to his. "Thanks for…you know…being there for me tonight. With the shower and everything. I don't—"

She touched his lips. "Shh…Bill, it's okay. I know something about what it's like."

"I know you do. I think you're the only person in the twelve worlds I could've been with tonight and not gone crazy. And what you did with the pictures of the boys, of Zak…it's like you gave me a part of him I didn't have a chance to know, and it would have been lost forever without you."

He felt her body stiffen and her hand went rigid on his skin. Her breathing was uneven, ragged in the quiet dark.

"I know what that's like, too, Bill…to feel like there's missing pieces in what you thought you knew about someone you love. Wondering what else there was that you didn't know. It hurts so much…that hit me so hard when you were here that night after the funerals. It was like you knew my real dad and you were keeping him from me."

The room seemed to spin with images of the past. Her father's voice as he gave Bill secrets, responsibilities he'd barely been old enough to understand. His uncle's cautions about decades-old betrayals. He wished he could have one more conversation with Mr. Roslin, to ask him how far he wanted his daughter brought in to this.

He wished he'd had a chance to tell Zak he was more than an outlaw biker.

His son had gone to his grave not knowing who his father had really been. He looked down at the woman next to him and realized anything could happen after tonight. Hadn't today, this week been proof enough that life was uncertain?

More than thirty years after meeting Mr. Roslin's determined, complex daughter, after all they'd been through, he was lying next to her tonight in the same house where they'd first met. They hadn't spoken in three years, parted on the worst of terms, and she was willing to give him solace, and he was able to take it.

If that wasn't a sign it was time to end the secrets between them, he didn't know what was.

"Laura?"

She was still unyielding, keeping a few inches of bed between them. Her answering "yes" was in a hoarse whisper that said she'd been holding back unshed tears. He moved towards her then, putting an awkward arm around her shoulders.

"In the morning, we'll go in your dad's office, and I'm going to tell you everything I know about your father." He could feel his voice break on the word 'father' and wondered if she had heard it.

The mattress shifted a fraction and he knew she had let go of some of the stiffness at his words.

"Bill, we can wait, if you need to. I don't want to…make anything harder for you right now."

He wanted to start blurting out answers that would ease her heart but knew it would be an incoherent jumble if he started tonight. Dropping a light kiss on her temple, he whispered, "You're not. It feels better, thinking about finally being honest with you."

There was just enough light coming in through the window for him to see the reflected glow in her eyes. Her skin was warm under his fingers as he stroked her cheek and murmured a soft "good night" by her ear. Then another wave of grief hit him, a mix of Zak and years lost and regrets of what might have been grabbing him by the throat, and her understanding gaze, even in the dark, was too much for him to bear.

He turned his back to her and let images of his son, her father, and a sandy shore leading to fields of green fill his mind. Through his tears, he could see their faces. It looked like they were smiling their approval as they faded into silvery mists.

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She woke slowly, the smell of his skin familiar from a lifetime ago, a different scent within her sheets. She kept her eyes closed while she felt him with her body, her legs moving towards him as he lay curled on his side. Turning her head to the right brought her face next to his broad back, and she inhaled the fresh herb-scented fragrance from their shower, mixed with that hint of citrus his skin had carried when he was just a boy, a young soldier barely twenty-one. He gave off a remembered heat in this new and different posture. Her eyes flickered open then, and she examined the curve of his naked spine in the streaming moonlight. Inked letters and images covered the expanse of skin down to his underwear and below.

The last time she'd shared a bed with him, he'd lain on his back, open and fearless in sleep, even though he'd known the loss of friends and at least one lover in battle. She smiled sadly at how young he'd been…how young they'd both been, how their self-confidence had whispered to them in their sleep that they were invincible. The curve of his back told her what his words couldn't: there were some things that can't be fought…they can only be endured. Her thoughts made her breath catch in her throat and her fingers shook as they traced over the outlines of ink, muscle and bone in front of her.

He began to straighten under her touch, bringing his leg back until it touched hers. He seemed to start, like he was surprised there was someone next to him. She wondered briefly if he'd thought she was someone else at first. As his leg insinuated itself back between her knees, she decided it didn't matter. She would be whoever he needed her to be through this night. A wave of sympathy ran through her, followed by overwhelming gratitude for his promise for the morning.

Maybe both of them could start healing in the light of tomorrow's dawn.

Edging closer, she touched her lips to the nape of his neck, burying her nose in the thickness of his hair. A low rumble encouraged her as she touched her hand to his hip and shifted to mold her thighs along the line of his ass. If she could cover him for a while, if she could be a barrier between him and what waited for him when daylight came, she'd stay like this all night.

"Whatever you need, Bill, whatever you want, I'm here," she whispered by his ear. She hoped he could hear her, feel her wanting to give him whatever she could.

Even as the thought crossed her mind, he reached up and took her hand, pulling it over his waist and settling it on his belly. She raised enough on one elbow to see the side of his face—his eyelids twitched with dreaming sleep. She wondered if it had been as long for him as it had been for her, sharing a bed with another person all night long.

She shifted her arm a couple of inches to get more comfortable, and drifted off again, her hand open and flat against his stomach. Stroking lightly against the fine hairs on his skin, her hand finally came to rest just under the waistband of his shorts.
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Bill slowly came to a half-waking foggy state, conscious of a hand resting scant inches from his cock. There was heat and softness against his back, a woman's satin-covered breasts pressing against his skin there, heartbeat slow and even. He opened his eyes enough to get his bearings and saw the dressing table by the wall, legs covered in a gauzy flowered skirt. A white bench, the seat padded with dark pink velvet was in front of it. Two trophies at either end of the table caught the moonlight. He looked at the gilded running figures, and realized he knew what they looked like in bright mid-day light.

Laura's room.

He turned his head and felt silky hair rubbing between his cheek and the pillow, fragrant with her scent. A cold wave of terrible knowing began building in his mind, threatening to wash away even this small comfort.

My son.

There were crushing, consuming thoughts locked away in his mind, demanding to be let out, crashing against the door. He swore he'd be back soon...in just a little while. He'd take everything behind the door waiting for him, if he could have a few minutes' reprieve. A few minutes of laying down his burdens. He waited with eyes shut tight for cold reality to smash the lock and let it all loose. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, he realized that his defenses were holding. The worst of his grief seemed willing to rest a while, on the other side of the door.

Voices echoed inside his head from thirty years ago.

Take five, soldier.

Get some rack time.

Your watch is over.

Stand down.

Permission granted.

His chest loosened as he felt the relief of respite, however brief it might be. He turned over into Laura's space and she was soft and warm, smelling of tea and last night's soap. He pressed his face into the valley between her breasts, catching a remembered ginger scent that permeated her gown. His arm slipped over her waist to her back and he moved to rest his leg over the side of her satin-slick hip.

His half-hard erection rubbed the sweet spot where her thigh met her soft folds under a wisp of fabric. She shifted against him as she stretched and the light friction was enough to bring him fully hard against her heat. One slender arm hooked around his back as he turned to nuzzle his mouth against the inner slope of her breast until he reached the nipple that seemed to be waiting just for him. A soft hum reverberated through her body. He felt its encouragement as his mouth closed on her, sucking, teasing the pebbled tip with his tongue and lips.

The first time he had done this, so many years ago, she had jumped and gasped, and then her hips had rocked against his jeans-covered erection, there on the bank of the lake. He grazed his teeth over her flesh as he remembered the smell of the just-mown grass that had been under them back then.

Her fingers began twisting in his hair and he groaned as the past and present danced along his consciousness. A part of him registered the feel of changes in her body as he pushed her gown down to her waist…the fullness now under his hand had been tighter, firmer then, but she had a lushness now that was new and all her, and the quickening beat of her heart hadn't changed.

She tugged at his hair and he reluctantly released her breast while she pulled away long enough to skim her gown and panties down over her lifted hips. Moving with him until their mouths were together, she ran her fingers over his craggy cheeks and down to his jawline as she kissed him again. A brief thought—should've brushed my teeth again—flashed through his mind as he felt her soft lips under his.

In this moment he could remember every kiss from her he'd ever had. She breathed against his mouth and he was quietly overjoyed that there was no fresh artificial mint taste between them, just the scent of the air warm from her lungs and the flavor of her tongue flicking against the corner of his lips, tracing its way into his mouth.

As soon as their tongues touched, the air seemed to crackle with electricity and their kisses became rough and hungry. He felt the tingle of her nails on his skin and knew they'd be followed by deeper strokes until she was digging into his waiting chest and back. She threw a leg over his hip, and her firm touch on the back of his thigh told him to move it tight up between her legs as she rocked against him.

Her touch turned demanding. Her thumb caught the edge of his waistband and shoved his briefs down his hips. A confident hand dipped inside and grazed the head of his cock, rubbing against the beaded fluid at the tip and igniting flames along his spine. He straightened awkwardly and pushed his briefs down until his cock was free, then further, until there was nothing between them but a fine sheen of sweat.

Needing more than her mouth, he broke their kiss to start again on her neck, traveling down to the spot on her collarbone that still made her moan when he lightly bit against it. She pressed against him harder as he drifted a hand down over her stomach until his fingers hovered over her soft curls.

She shifted again to give him more room, breathing hard into his ear, beginning to hum against his neck. His fingers pressed against her mound, going lower until her sensitive nub was under the pads of his fingers and her hums became moans. She whispered "Yes" and opened herself a little more.

The scent of her arousal traveled up along their bodies and went right to his head, driving out everything but this moment and his memory of her whispered promise—whatever you need.

Need roared through his mind like a windstorm as he pushed her onto her back, bringing his mouth down on hers in a hard claiming rhythm echoed in the movement of his fingers against her.

Part of him wanted to go slower, draw this moment out, take his time with her. The rest of him whispered that dark riders were growling against his mind's door, wanting to take this away, and they wouldn't wait much longer. He gave in to his haste and hoped she'd forgive him later.

It was like their first time all over again, her head moving back and forth as if not believing her own body when it told her she was ready—told her she was almost there. Her legs shaking, she grabbed his hand to keep it right where it was, both falling towards her spiraling orgasm, her cheek pressed against his shoulder. She groaned and cursed and called on the Gods until her back arched, her head falling back while her shaking crested, then subsided.

They both were gasping, his breath sounding harsh against her throat. He moved the head of his cock through her folds, gathering her slick juices and running himself over her sensitive nub until she pushed against him, open and demanding. His slickness joined hers as she pulled him more fully over her waiting body. He could see her eyes in the dim moonlight, growing wide and urgent as he trembled above her, holding himself poised at her entrance, waiting.

Past and present collide again and she's eighteen and nervous and he's twenty-two and silently begging for one more yes so he knows it's right and it's good and it's what she wants.

Her half-sobbed "yes" was still on her lips when he slid slowly into her, pausing at each hitch of her breath until he was fully enveloped in her welcoming heat. They began moving in the old familiar rhythms, the wordless song that was them, that had always been them.

He braced his arms against the mattress, muscles corded with strain as he flexed his hips to drive deeper, grinding against her with each stroke. Her breaths were shallow and rough, a low whimpering humming deep in her throat. Her legs came up and wrapped around his thighs, then settled at his waist as her hands gripped his shoulders, fingers digging deep.

They frakked away the years that had kept them apart and the years that had broken their hearts. Everything that hurt burned away in the lightning storm that was Bill and Laura, the two melting into one, flowing red and gold in the crucible created with their love.

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