The address Dexter had given was a little more than twenty minutes away. Twenty fucking minutes. Skye had been that close to him for hours. She recognized the road they had pulled off on. They'd driven past it on the way to the station. They'd driven right past Jeffrey.

The place was a ranch. There was a for sale sign next to the entrance. Once they had crossed under the gate, the road stretched ahead for quite some time before the house came into view. No one was there. Skye didn't think anyone had lived in it for months. Woods extended far behind the empty house. The driver weaved in and out of trees. Skye lurched in her seat as the agent's car rolled over thick roots.

They explored the woods for an additional twenty minutes. Just when Skye was starting to think Dexter had lied to them, the grey shipping container peaked through the trees. Skye threw off her seatbelt. She flung open the door and pitched herself out of the car before it had come to a complete stop. When her feet hit the ground, they were yanked out from under her and she fell onto her back.

"Skye!" Agent Ginsburg hurried out after her. "Are you okay?"

Skye climbed to her feet and started running, but the agent caught her arm and pulled her gently to a stop.

"I can't let you go in there," she said. "My agents need to make sure it's safe."

"You have Dexter!"

"I'm sorry," the agent insisted. "You need to wait."

Skye had never been patient, but that wait would kill her. Another agent – Sanchez, was it? – came up and put his hand on Skye's shoulders in what was probably supposed to be a soothing gesture. Skye shrugged him away, her face hot.

"I can't just stand here."

"I need you to trust me, okay? This is my job," said Agent Ginsburg gently.

Skye wanted to say well, fuck your credentials, this is my best friend, but she didn't. With her heart pounding, she followed the two agents to the edge of the clearing. There was half a dozen other agents closing in, along with a team of paramedics. A helicopter circled overhead, ready to airlift Jeffrey to the hospital. Annoyingly, some reporters had managed to tail them all the way from the police station. A couple of agents were fending them back. Everything was a blur. None of the pieces were fitting into place quite as well as they should have been. It was like the scene was unfolding inside a dream and she would soon wake up and realize that none of it had been real.

The shipping container was still locked with iron chains. Agent Ginsburg and Agent Sanchez stood with Skye while a couple of other agents broke through the padlock after only a brief struggle. When the heavy metal door swung open, it was too dark for Skye too see inside. The moon lit up the clearing, but the shipping container was pitch black.

Agent Ginsburg's radio hummed with static as it came to life.

"We've got him," an agent informed her. "He's…"

The agent probably only paused for less than a second, but to Skye it felt like the entire night had waned away.

"He's alive."

The world turned upside down. Skye's body reacted so physically to those words that she could hardly form a single thought. She lost her balance. She would have fallen if not for Agent Sanchez catching her in his arms and carefully righting her. The relief she felt was more pain than it was pleasure. It was as if her mind was fighting against it, not allowing her to feel happy because it was afraid it would turn out to be a lie.

When she saw him, all the pain left her at once. Two agents practically carried Jeffrey out with his arms draped over their shoulders. Skye could only stare. He looked worse than he had when she'd left him – a lot worse, actually – but she couldn't focus on that. His chest rose and fell aggressively as he struggled to breathe. His broken leg hung limp, but he hopped tentatively on the other. He was hurting; Skye could see that, but hurting meant living. "Living" was the single most important word in the English language.

It was then that Skye realized she really had thought she would never see him again. Now, she could actually comprehend having a full life with him in it, and even still, she struggled to completely believe it was possible. Her heart leapt into her throat. Her eyes stung with tears.

"Jeffrey." She tried to call to him, but her emotions suffocated the strength of her voice and his name drowned at her lips.

He hadn't seen her. He barely kept his head up, just enough to see the ground a couple paces ahead of him.

Skye thought harder about shouting. She put as much power into his name as her voice would allow her. "JEFFREY!"

This time, it carried across the clearing. Jeffrey froze. The agents supporting him dragged him a couple extra steps before they realized that he was resisting. They stopped with him. Jeffrey's eyes found her, and the sight of her face made him almost completely double over in shock. His mouth dropped open. Time stood still as they stared at each other. Skye never wanted to break eye contact with him again. She started to move forward, but Agent Sanchez stopped her.

"The paramedics should look at him first," he said. He was apologetic, but Skye still wanted to punch him.

"It's alright," Agent Ginsburg said.

Agent Sanchez looked surprised.

"Look at his face, Matt," she said, gesturing at Jeffrey. "Let her go to him."

Agent Sanchez stepped out of Skye's way, and she barreled across the clearing. Agents and paramedics alike warned her to be careful, but their words were lost on Skye's ears. Jeffrey flung his arms away from the agents holding him up. Thick bracelets of raw skin and scabs circled his wrists, and the bruising was so dark that at a quick glance, Skye thought he was still wearing chains. He swayed on one foot, but he didn't have to balance for long. Skye threw her herself at him. His good knee buckled and he fell into her precisely when she leaped on him. They toppled to the ground and rolled across the grass, tangled in each other. When the momentum from the fall died away, Skye was on top of Jeffrey. She hugged him to her so tightly it was like she was trying to absorb him into her so they could never again be separated. Slowly, his arms came up and snaked around her. They were weak; they rested loosely against her back like he'd fallen asleep holding her.

"I believed him," said Jeffrey. His voice was gone. He struggled to speak through the raspy, broken remnants of it. The effort made him cough. "He said you were dead, and I really thought—"

"I love you."

Skye's mouth was on Jeffrey's before he'd had anytime to process what she had said. He stiffened and with a surprised gasp, he drew back. He winced and swiped his tongue over his split lip. Skye swore at herself.

"Shit, I wasn't thinking. I'm sorry, did that hurt?"

Jeffrey stared into Skye's face with wide eyes. Then he blinked away his astonishment and a smile tugged at his lips. "Yeah, it did."

Where he found the strength for it, Skye would never know, but he grabbed her neck and pulled her face down to his. He kissed her. Skye didn't bother propping herself up. She lay flat against Jeffrey and cupped the sides of his face with both of her hands. He tangled his fingers in her hair and drew her even closer. Skye would have stayed like that forever. It didn't matter that there were people watching. She would show the world that she was in love with Jeffrey Tifton.

When he pulled away from her, Skye hurt from how badly she wanted him. He brushed his thumb across her mouth. It came away painted with his blood.

"That's really gross," he murmured. "I'm kind of disgusting."

"I don't care." As if she needed to prove it, when Skye kissed him again, she slid her tongue in his mouth. She tasted blood and what she thought might be dirt, but that didn't make her want to pull away. Nothing could do that. The feeling of his lips intoxicated her. It threatened the pieces of her sanity that hadn't been touched by the trauma of the past days. His kiss drove her a different sort of wild. She was obsessed with it.

Jeffrey was intent on making her crazy by denying it from her. Karma. When he broke away, Skye's lips tingled and itched for his again.

A breathy laugh escaped from Jeffrey's throat and tickled Skye's face. "I'm dead, right? That's what's happening. I finally died."

Skye shook her head. "No. You didn't. You're alive, and I—" She couldn't help it. He was too alluring. Finishing her sentence was too long to wait before kissing him again. It wasn't a lengthy kiss; she slid her mouth over his only twice, but it was enough to satisfy her for the time being. "I am so in love with you."

Jeffrey's grin lit up the night sky. Then it was him kissing her. Skye couldn't breathe, but she wasn't complaining. She would never get enough of him.

"Since when?" Jeffrey asked with his lips still on hers. They brushed across Skye's as he formed his words.

Skye didn't pull back any; she spoke into his mouth. "Apparently since always." She'd thought about that a lot. She could trace the start of her feelings back to at least Maine.

"Dammit, Skye." He smiled against her lips. "You're impossible."

"Yeah, that's my bad," she agreed.

He started to kiss her again, but then he was laughing. Once he started, he couldn't stop. Skye flushed with guilty embarrassment, but she laughed along with him. Jeffrey rolled Skye off of him and sat up. His face twisted in pain, but he pulled her into a hug. When Skye hid her face in his neck, she noticed for the first time that it was bruised a sickly dark purple from the base of his chin to the start of his shoulders. Skye pressed her lips to the crook of his neck. Jeffrey's amusement died down when hers did. They were too caught up in the relief of each other's presence to remember why they were laughing.

"I love you, Skye," Jeffrey whispered. When he spoke quietly like that, the damage done to his voice wasn't quite so obvious. He breathed in the scent of Skye's hair and tightened his hold on her.

He was shivering. Skye realized he was wet. His pants were soaked through with freezing water. His hair was cold and plastered to his forehead.

"Jesus, you're shaking," she observed. She rubbed her hands over him to try to warm him up, but he tensed as she brushed over the lacerations in his skin. She stopped, and she ordered herself not to cry. She would eventually, she was well aware of that. The more she looked at him, the closer she would get, but she would not give in just yet.

Jeffrey rested his hands against the sides of her neck. They were like ice. He leaned back to study her face. "I really thought you were dead." His already broken voice cracked at the end of his sentence.

Skye felt a lump rising in her throat. His green eyes were gorgeous, and they did calm her, but she hated looking at his face. She couldn't count the bruises. Both of his eyes were black. There was so much blood, so much swelling. He'd obviously had something tied across his mouth; deep grooves were dug into his skin. His cheeks had been torn by whatever he'd been gagged with. His teeth were stained red. Skye felt guilty about kissing him.

"Hey, Jeffrey," said a man's gentle voice. A paramedic squatted down next to them.

Jeffrey took his hands from Skye's face. "Hi," he wheezed.

Skye's eyes were glued to the heavy bruising around Jeffrey's neck. Rings of ligature marks layered over the full length of his throat. Jeffrey had been strangled to the point of hardly being able to talk. Skye had to bite her tongue so she wouldn't sob. He saw her looking. He touched his hand to his neck, and Skye thought she saw his face redden – though it was hard to tell, it was so discolored already. Skye swallowed back her anger. Jeffrey shouldn't have to feel embarrassed, and Skye shouldn't have to completely understand why he did.

The paramedic smiled a calming, easy smile at them. "Would it be alright if I checked you out a little bit?" he asked Jeffrey. "I'd like to make sure you're okay."

Jeffrey nodded.

The paramedic looked at Skye. "I'll take good care of him, I promise."

Skye reluctantly unwound herself from Jeffrey to give the paramedic space. It killed her to do it. She wanted to hold him forever. Several other paramedics came to help, laden with supplies. They fixed what they could. They taped up the gashes covering his upper body and wrapped his wrists with a cohesive bandage. They splinted his knee and his ankle. Jeffrey was handed a Styrofoam cup and he swished out his mouth a couple of times before he drank from it. When he spit, the water was a concerning reddish brown. He had tasted like dirt. Skye wondered if a gag wasn't the only thing Dexter had put in Jeffrey's mouth.

Jeffrey was helped onto a stretcher. Skye held his hand as it was wheeled over to the red paramedic truck. It was the hand that was now without fingernails. Skye couldn't stop looking at it. Jeffrey held his wrist stick straight. If it twitched or bent at all, he sucked in a sharp breath. He kept a brave face, but Skye knew how much pain he was in. He sat up in the stretcher because both his back and his chest were shredded. Skye felt guilty about laying on him too. He was fragile. How could she have forgotten that?

The press chattered excitedly as Jeffrey was loaded into the truck. Skye climbed in after him.

"We're going to be on national television, aren't we?" said Jeffrey. "This is not what I expected for my fifteen minutes of fame."

"This part's not so bad," Skye said. She brushed her fingers through Jeffrey's hair, then she retook his hand. She leaned over to kiss his forehead, but he lifted his chin and caught her mouth with his.

"You're right. It's not so bad," he said. "I can't decide if this is the worst or the best day of my life."

Just then, the truck lurched forward. The movement strained Jeffrey's broken leg and he cried out. Skye felt a hot tear slide down her face. He exhaled shakily as the pain passed. He looked like he was trying to brace himself against more. The paramedics were keeping a close eye on him, but they had done what they could. He needed a hospital.

Jeffrey set his other hand on Skye's forearm. He played with the fabric of her sleeve. "You're wearing my sweatshirt."

Skye looked down at it. It was stained with ribbons of his blood. The white lettering was covered in stripes of bright red. She shrugged. "You left it on your bed."

A smile teased at Jeffrey's lips. "You sentimental idiot."

"Yeah. Yeah, I think so." She wanted to tell him how much she'd missed him, but that didn't quite sound right. It didn't describe the gaping hole that the thought of losing him had blasted into her entire existence. The panic she'd felt wasn't properly conveyed through I miss you. I need you, maybe, but even that wasn't enough.

Skye wasn't allowed in the helicopter with Jeffrey. There wasn't enough space. She had to pry her fingers away from his like their hands had been glued together. A new panic flared up as she watched them lift him inside.

"Hey," she said as the paramedic started to shut the door. He paused. Skye struggled to sound relaxed. "You better not die on me now, Jeffrey Tifton."

He grinned. The blood was gone from his teeth. "No way," he promised. "You're stuck with me."

The door shut. Skye backed away until she was far enough from the helicopter that it could safely take off. The wind generated from the rotor blades blew her hair back. Tears stung her face as it lifted into the sky and took Jeffrey away from her once again.


A/N: That felt so weird to write I've had it outlined in my notes for literally years. It's the only part of this story that hasn't changed from my initial idea. I put off writing it for like three days cause I was scared of disappointing myself haha