After MM gave Billy and I our mediation session, he told us he had a date with two ladies who were far more entertaining than our sorry asses and to get our shit together because without our heads in the game - well, he was amazing at peptalking. Kind of.

"I can't believe," I sighed, as the door shut behind him.

"That he butted his huge fuckin' head in where it didn't have any right to butt in?" Billy grunted, and I shot a glare at him. "Look, Ronnie, you and me - we got our problems, sure, but we also got our own way to get past 'em."

I was pretty sure I was going to have to learn to draw my eyebrows on if he kept challenging me like this, because for fuck's sake, they were both going to fly off my fucking forehead soon. "Really, Mr. Butcher? And just how the fuck do you and I get past our problems?" My arms crossed over my chest and I waited to hear just how my partner in everything would describe our 'conflict resolution' tactics.

"Well," his voice had gone a few octaves lower and I warned my body to calm the fuck down, we're mad at his sexy ass for God's sake. "First of all, you're too fuckin' far away -" his freakishly long arms reached out and pulled my chair closer to his. "There now, ain't that better?" I rolled my eyes. "Once we're a bit closer, Ronnie," he moved his hands from the arms of my chair to my legs, and I wondered how the fuck his skin could be so fucking hot that I could feel him through the fabric of my slacks? "It's just a matter of a hands on approach."

"You are such a fucking -" but I never got around to finishing the sentence, not when his hands worked their way to my waist and pulled me onto his lap, while his mouth silenced whatever I was planning on tacking onto the end of my sentence. I would LOVE to say that I fought it, that I pulled away and argued some more, but once our lips touched, my traitorous hands were sliding into his hair and holding him as tight to me as his hands were holding me to him.

We weren't pulling clothing off or free, we were simply kissing and holding. Tasting and reminding one another that we did love one another's crazy, stubborn, stupid asses. When we did finally pull back, only slightly and only because we needed oxygen - neither one of us were willing to mock the other. Not now.

"Missed that," he murmured, hot breath fanning my face. "So much."

"We haven't gone a full day without kissing," I pointed out, but my fingers were still laced in his hair, my forehead touching his. "What's to miss?"

"You, this." His eyes were on mine. "You weren't lookin' at me. No eye contact at all, was killin' me." My heart clenched. "I love you too fuckin' much for that."

"I know, me too." I sighed. "I hated it, but -"

"Hush," he shook his head a little. "I know, we still have shit to work out about Ryan. But let us have this, would ya?"

I nodded and nudged his nose with mine before kissing him again, swallowing his moan and feeding him my own when his fingers gripped me tighter. He was right, this, us - we couldn't lose sight of it. Not again.

We picked up Terror on the way home from work and Mom studied me with a maternal eye and I felt like squirming.

"Good," she said with a nod. "The two of you looked like misery personified this morning when you dropped off my four-legged grandpuppy." She smiled at the dog in question, who was currently being given another treat by his grandpa and coaxed onto his leash by his daddy? Jesus fucking Christ, she's got me doing it too. "I told you, he's a good one - if a tad rough around the edges, and you're good together."

"Yeah," I shook my head as I watched Billy and my dad discussing Terror's preferences in toys and treats. "Yeah, we are."

Dinner was take-out, Billy insisted. And once we were home, after Terror had terrorized the firefly and rabbit population of our yard, we settled in the living room at the coffee table with our dinner and drinks. Billy refused to let me sit on my own cushion, pulling me onto his leg and holding me against his chest.

"Billy," I started to argue at the awkwardness of eating this way, but he cut me off.

"I'll not spend more time apart than we have to, Ronnie," he wound his arm around my waist and held me in place, his lips brushing against my earlobe. "Not a single moment we don't have to, you hear me?"

I nodded, unsure that I still had the ability to speak with my heart stuttering the way it was, we ate, working together to feed one another. We didn't talk about work OR Ryan, not yet. Dinner was for us, for closeness, for being near one another and just being sure of one another for a while. Once we were full, we got up together to put what was leftover and refresh our drinks.

"Come 'ere," he pulled me along to the hanging bed on the porch. Taking my drink from me, he set both down on the side table and laid down. "Come 'ere," he repeated, and like a moth to a flame, or like Terror to a firefly, I was drawn to him. Lying back, he held me, and instead of angrily arguing our sides in the debate over Ryan Butcher, we discussed it like the adults MM accused us of being.

"I'm worried about him, Billy," we were laying side by side, but also facing one another in the twinkle lights that ringed the mosquito netting of the hanging bed. "He's a kid and he's suffered so much loss for his age." Billy's eyes were locked on mine, and he was listening intently. "Those people, they aren't doing anything other than KEEPING him, that's all. And he deserves what she wanted for him -"

"I never wanted kids, Ronnie," he softened the words by brushing my hair away from my face with his thumb. "Never wanted to be a dad, never wanted a little shit running round me and demandin' my attention." I listened while he told me what I KNEW from my report, but hearing him tell it, his childhood, his brother, his failure as he saw it, helped me understand why Billy Butcher thought he'd be shit at parenting. "I need a kid like I need a big fuckin' hole in my head."

I contemplated how to say what I wanted to say, but it was a memory of the worst thing that had happened to me - to us, so far that reminded me of something HE'D said to me. Something he said when we were faced with it. "In the ER," his eyes narrowed while he was trying to remember that far, even though it wasn't that long ago. "When I first started steaming and puking, when that doctor came in and told us that I was -" his eyes went shut as his memory landed on it, what he'd said when I woke up alone with him in the room. "You weren't as opposed, Billy, you weren't."

"It's not the same, Ronnie," he wasn't pulling away, his hand met mine when I cupped his cheek and I was afraid for a beat that he was going to brush it off, but he didn't - linking our fingers he held my hand in his. "It ain't, and you know it."

"No, it's not, but you do know this might be our only chance, Billy." It was a low blow, but it was also true. With his temper and his past, even having his name cleared - with my bank account and my own personal and professional background impeccable - the likelihood of even getting a private adoption to go through without a hitch were slim. "You heard what the doctors told me," his eyes were tight, and I knew I was causing him pain, but we had agreed to be honest and I was. "Even if we could, it might end up -"

"If I ever figure out how to kill that bastard -" he growled and I sighed, not helping. "Do you really think that Ryan would be safe with us?" I was shocked by the question, I expected the question to be about OUR safety from Ryan - mine in particular.

"I think, Billy Butcher," I closed the small gap between us, "that I would bet my life on you protecting ANYONE put in your care, with your life." I kissed him, sealing my belief with all the love and trust I felt for him, because I meant it. If Billy wanted to protect Ryan, then Ryan would be the safest little boy in the damn world.