Author's Note: Hello! Here is Chapter Four. Things at work are getting a little busy, so updates may take a little longer than I'd like, but I promise they are coming. As always comments mean the world. Enjoy!

Chapter Four

Buck

He felt fantastic. He hadn't opened his eyes yet, but he knew exactly where he was. He was too comfortable for last night to have been a dream. The soft sheets, the warm glow of the sun through the curtains that had been left open and the feel of the warm skin next to his told him everything he needed to know. He opened his eyes. The sleeping face partially hidden by a mass of coppery waves confirmed it. He had spent the night getting reacquainted with Abby Clark – and it had been brilliant. He smiled broadly, he felt an overwhelming need to stretch, he tried not to wake her as he did. Abby had always been a light sleeper though and this was no exception. He saw her eyebrows creased in a frown as she stirred and opened her eyes blinking a couple of time before settling on him.

"Good Morning." He said quietly.

"Hmm what time is it?" She asked, still squinting and her voice hoarse from sleep. He lifted himself up on his elbow to look at the clock on her side of the bed, before settling back down.

"Six forty-seven." He said. It was a lot earlier than he expected to be honest.

"Hmm, go back to sleep." She groaned, she shuffled closer to him, burying her face in his neck to shield her eyes from the daylight. He laughed a little before wrapping an arm around her shoulder and trailing it down her back, closing his eyes in a search for sleep. They were both asleep in minutes.

The next time he woke up, the bed was empty, but he could hear the shower running in the bathroom. He peered around the room and noticed that his clothes were strewn across the floor. The dress Abby had been wearing the night before appeared to have been picked up and hung over the back of a chair, something Abby must've done when she got up. He got out of the bed and slid on his briefs before searching for his phone, which he actually found in the living area in his jacket pocket. He'd removed his jacket and laid it on the couch before Abby pulled off the rest of his clothes in the bedroom.

He looked down at his phone. He had one message from Eddie.

Hey man. Didn't see you at the end of last night. You get lucky?

He heard the shower shut off and chose to ignore Eddie's text for now and sat back against the pillows on the bed. It was a minute or so before the door to bathroom clicked and opened. Abby walked out in one of the hotel robes, towel drying her hair.

"Hey, you're awake." She smiled at him, and moved to sit down on the edge of the bed.

"Yeah. I slept later than I expected, this bed is amazing." He told her stroking the mattress either side of him.

"Oh, I know right, it makes my mattress back home seem like it's made of stone." She moaned, swinging her legs up on the bed and leaning back on the pillows beside him. She closed her eyes and sighed contentedly.

He looked at her for a moment until she opened her eyes.

"What? What is it?" she asked, sitting forward a little.

"Last night was amazing." He said simply, and watched her lean back again.

"It was, wasn't it?" She grinned a little and turned to look at him, before she continued.

"So, what now?" She asked him. He supposed that was the million-dollar question. Last night had been amazing, there was no denying that he had wanted it and had thoroughly enjoyed it and it seemed like Abby had felt the same, but the fact remained – he lived in LA and Abby still had a life in Phoenix. Was this just a weekend fling? Would she be interested in seeing him again? He needed to know what page she was on.

"Well I mean, what do you want to do now? I mean about this? Us?" He asked her cautiously.

"Oh Buck, I don't know. I mean this is great, you are great. But it's been so long, and I live in Phoenix, and you're here." She sighed, running her fingers through her hair as if hoping the answer would fall from her head.

"So, what exactly are you saying here?" Buck asked her. He wasn't sure what he was hoping for.

"I really wish I had an answer for you, but I don't. I mean would you be okay if we just, I don't know, enjoyed the time we have together, like today, for now?" She seemed a little apprehensive, like she thought he might say no. But in all honestly, the offer to spend the day with her seemed like a pretty good one. He wasn't working until tomorrow morning. He supposed they didn't have to iron everything out now.

"Yeah we can do that." He smiled leaning across the bed to kiss her. As he pulled away, she smiled.

"So, room service for breakfast?"

Abby

After a leisurely breakfast in her hotel room, Buck had left to grab a shower and change of clothes from his place, which was fair enough, he couldn't be expected to stay in a wrinkled suit all day.

He returned ninety minutes later at twelve thirty, by which time she'd put on a pretty sundress and was ready to venture out into the city with him. He drove them to quieter beach, just south of Venice Beach. It was still well populated as all the beaches would be for Labor Day weekend, but it wasn't teaming with people or crawling with vendors like Venice or Santa Monica. The walked along the sandy expanse, carrying their shoes as they let the cool water flow over their feet. Abby had always loved the ocean, she used to go down to the beaches as a teenager all the time, or at least whenever she wasn't at swim practice. The ocean was where she would go to swim for fun, to relax. She didn't need to perfect her strokes of swim faster than everyone else. The ocean held some sort of freedom.

"This is beautiful." She told him, enjoying the feeling of just being. She was enjoying spending time with him again.

"I love this beach. I used to like the pier and stuff, but I don't know, I think after the tsunami, it kind of lost its appeal." He mused.

"Carla told me about the tsunami. I was so relieved to hear that you were okay, but it must have been terrifying." She remembered her panicked phone call to Carla, when she saw the tsunami on the news. She was relieved when Carla answered, that she was okay. But when Carla had told her she didn't know anything about Buck or any of his team, she'd worried and made her promise to try to find out something, but it wasn't until the next morning that there was any news. She had gone back and forth over whether or not to call Buck, but she'd only just received his letter and remembered how he'd wanted to move on, and she wasn't sure what was happening with Sam, she decided to just leave it alone.

"It was, I mean the worst part was when I couldn't find Christopher, you know he'd Eddie's son and Eddie had trusted me to keep him safe, and I thought I'd lost him." Buck explained. She listened trying to imagine how it must have felt, and wondering if perhaps she should have called him after all.

"I can't imagine what that must've been like." She reached for his hand and squeezed it gently, she felt him link his fingers with hers and they continued to walk with their hands connected.

"You know I thought about calling you, after it happened." She told him, she wasn't sure why she'd said it, but she felt like she couldn't keep it inside, swirling around in her head.

"You did?" He asked, he seemed surprised.

"I did." She confirmed simply, nodding.

"Why didn't you?" She knew he'd want to know, and she would need to explain, need to mention his letter.

"The tsunami happened, not long after I'd returned from Europe, I was staying with Matt, and your letter was waiting when I arrived. I'd just read it, really just a day or two before I saw the tsunami on the news. Everything you said, about not being able to wait any longer, and needing to figure out who you are without me. I didn't think you would have wanted to hear from me. I thought it was better for me to just leave you alone. I knew you were okay, Carla had kept me updated, so I just left it at that." She explained what had happened, but left out the part where she had fallen apart reading his letter, and called Carla in tears the next morning.

"If you hadn't read the letter, would you have called? If I hadn't said those things?" He was looking at her intently and she felt a little like a rabbit caught in headlights.

"I…I don't know, possibly." It was the truth, she didn't know. She'd felt confused at the time. Sam was in Phoenix, she was living with her brother just east of Phoenix, so she really was considering the possibility of her relationship with Sam going somewhere. Then when the tsunami happened, all the unresolved and raw feelings about Buck were brought to the surface. She hadn't really known how to feel.

"Do you wish you had?" He knew how to ask the tough questions, that was for sure.

"Do you?" She countered, she really didn't know how to answer him. He seemed to consider it for a moment and then shook his head.

"No, I don't think I was ready for that then. It was still kind of new. I had dated, but I was still thinking about you, and wondering if you would ever come back. I was still trying to move on." He explained to her. He wasn't angry, he was just being honest. There was no animosity.

"Okay." She didn't really know what to say. Did this mean he was just killing time with her for the weekend?

"In my letter, I told you, I would always love you. You read that?" He asked her. She remembered that part of the letter, right at the end. She had found that part confusing as well. It had been part of what had made her question if she really should have stayed in Arizona. If he actually loved her, perhaps they could've fixed things.

"I did." She nodded.

"That was the truth." He said, he stopped walking and turned to face her. He leaned his head towards hers and kissed her. She reached up and placed her arms around his neck, deepening the kiss. Kissing him had always felt right.

Buck

He felt glad that they had talked about the tsunami. It had been a really horrific experience, and that was something he would always find difficult to shake, but knowing that it had registered with her, did make a difference. Knowing that she had been concerned and knowing that she had contacted Carla to check that he was okay meant that she hadn't just stopped caring.

The conversation eventually returned to being light hearted. After he'd kissed her, the tension of the situation seemed to melt away into a feeling of contentment. He was happy that she was here, and he wanted to make the most of it. It was about three o clock when they left the beach and went to a small seafood café for a late lunch. They talked more about their families – Buck about his niece, Maddie and Chimney's daughter Jee-Yun, and Abby talked about Matt and Beth's kids that she had gotten to spend a lot more time with since moving to Phoenix.

"So, one of them takes after you then?" Buck grinned at Abby.

"Well, Kyla is on the swim team, and she's really good. Better than I was at her age. But Peter is way more into football. Hannah is in college and she's on the volleyball team. All of Matt's kids are athletic." She laughed, thinking about how much pride her brother took in his children's sporting accomplishments.

"Well Jee-Yun is amazing at puzzles and building blocks, so we're all super proud of her for that." Buck joked as if trying not to let his niece be outdone by Abby's nieces and nephew. "Although Maddie does actually take her swimming from time to time, and she seems to love it so who knows, maybe she'll be really into it." Buck mused, thinking about the last time Maddie had taken Jee-Yun swimming. She'd come back very excited, talking about how much she seemed to enjoy being in the water.

"Probably, that's how it started for me. Mom used to take me and Matt swimming all the time when we were kids. Matt wasn't crazy about it, I mean he can swim, but he just wasn't that interested, but I just always wanted to be in the water, so Mom got me lessons as soon as I was old enough, and it kind of went from there." Abby smiled at the memory.

"I was in Little League until I started high school and I made the school team. But I never took it any further than that. I travelled a lot after high school, but it had nothing to do with baseball." He smiled thinking about how all of his antics whilst travelling used to drive Maddie crazy. She always worried about him, even with the hell she was going through herself.

The afternoon faded quickly and Buck and Abby returned to the hotel at around 6PM.

"Can you stay?" She asked him quietly. It seemed she didn't want to draw the attention of the hotel staff. He supposed she probably wasn't meant to be bringing anyone else up to her room for the night.

"I can stay, as long as you don't mind my alarm waking you up at 5AM, I have to be at work for 6AM tomorrow." He told her. She grinned and took his hand leading him towards the elevators.

Back up in the room they showered and then took a similar path as the previous night, though perhaps less frenzied. By midnight they were both wrapped up in the sheets and each other, sleeping soundly.