Her phone chirping drug Sorcha from the lovely dream she was having. Grumbling obscenities, and vowing bloody and swift retribution on whoever was on the other end of the phone, she flipped over to snatch the offensive device from the nightstand.

The name of the caller shoved all thoughts of murder and sleep to the back of her mind.

"Mal?" Sorcha glanced at her clock radio as she pushed herself upright. Three in the morning was an unusual time for him to call. Unless... "Did you have a night terror?"

"Can you come to the door?" His voice wobbled, sending pinpricks of alarm shooting through her. "I, uh, need some help."

"Yeah, sure, gimme a sec."

The line went dead. Not that it mattered.

Sorcha was racing for the door before he even said he needed help.

For Mal to call this early?

To come over?

It was something serious.

She just prayed it wasn't emergency room serious.

Sorcha took a deep, calming breath before pulling open the door. Mal stood there in a pair of cotton sleep pants and one of his Harvard t-shirts. He wore no shoes but did mercifully have on socks.

He also had a bloody towel to his forehead.

"What happened?" she cried as she reached up to cover his hand with hers. "Mal?"

"I had a..." he broke off, sighed. Shame and misery warred with each other on his face. "One of my restraints let go and I fell out of the bed. Hit my head on the nightstand."

And split it open but good, Sorcha realized as she carefully lifted up the towel to get a better look at the injury. The wound was the length and width of her pinky and still bleeding quite profusely.

"Come on, let's get you to the couch," she said. "I'm gonna go wake Mandy and have her take a look at this."

"It's gonna need stitches." Mal's resignation almost made her smile. "I can already tell."

"Yeah, it is." Sorcha gave him what she hoped was her most reassuring smile as she helped him over to the couch. "At least you'll have a cool story to tell people."

"Don't think me falling out of bed and hitting my head will make all that great a story."

"Tell them it happened while having wild and crazy sex."

"Believable." Mal huffed a laugh. "Since sex is dangerous."

"People have died during it."

"Did you know la petite mort refers specifically to that sensation which occurs post orgasm and which is likened to death?"

"That you know that surprises me." Gently, and with great amusement, she eased him back on the couch. "And if you weren't bleeding like a stuck pig, I'd dare you to prove it."

"You would."

"Hey, I'm not the one with the intrigued look on his face here."

Embarrassed heat filled his cheeks. "Can we talk about this when I'm not bleeding?"

"I'm filing it under conversations to have when Bright isn't bleeding."

"Long list, I know."

"You're an accident prone idiot but you're our accident prone idiot." She moved the towel to again look at the wound. "Who has a lovely goose egg on his forehead."

"Course, I do."

"Gonna have a scar."

"Not a surprise."

"If it wasn't on your forehead you could do what I did."

He couldn't contain his curiosity. "What's that?"

"Get a tattoo over the scar."

His lips twitched. "Is that why you have that proverb on your right hip?"

"It was that or barbed wire and since it was barbed wire that caused the scar..." She shrugged. "I went with the proverb."

Love without friendship is like a shadow without the sun.

The words summed up her relationship with Malcolm. Sorcha started to suspect she was in love with him during spring break. She might even have fallen in love with him the moment she saw him.

Seated there in that flight-or-fight seat looking so lost and lonely it broke her heart.

He was definitely the sun caressing her shadow.

The light within her soul.

The song in her heart.

And one day, she thought as she went to wake Mandy, I'll tell him that.

Because the accident prone idiot would just scoff if she told him she loved him now.


A/N: Hello, all! Hope this finds you well!

I just want to send a special thank you to Rookblonkorules for their lovely reviews!