He's vaguely aware of her shifting beside him and in his half-asleep state he reaches for her, frowning when his arm lands on the empty bed. His eyes adjust to the dark just in time to see her silhouette as she bolts for the door and by the time he registers fully that she's gone, he hears the bathroom door slam shut. His heart sinks. It's been almost two weeks and he's pretty sure she hasn't slept through a single night since. Fucking Swabey. If the sick bastard hadn't taken things into his own hands and shot himself...no, he won't let his thoughts go down that road again, it won't help her and right now that's the thing that matters most, it's the only thing that matters.
He flicks the lamp on, squinting in response to the brightness and glancing at the alarm clock beside the bed, giving silent thanks that they're not at work tomorrow as he notes that it's approaching three in the morning. She's exhausted, he knows that. He can see it in her eyes, in the extra few minutes she takes putting on just a little more makeup than usual in the mornings, in the way she sighs wearily and has to cover her yawns before she even makes it to lunchtime. He's exhausted too but it's a different kind of exhaustion, it's a tiredness that comes from worrying about the person he loves, all day, every day. When he asks, she says she's fine, sometimes in a tone dripping with impatience, coated in a warning to him to drop the subject. Stupidly he does drop it, he lets her brush him off every single time and he's kicking himself now.
He still feels sick when he thinks about how close she came to dying at the hands of that maniac, tied up in the back of a van by a man who was furious at his wife and decided to take that rage out on any other woman he could get his hands on. He knows it's not about him but his brain often replays the reminder that he almost lost her, and he knows that without her he's a more reckless cop, a more impatient man, he's just not as good if she isn't by his side. So no, she's not fine and there would be something wrong with her if she was, he thinks.
Outside the bathroom door he hesitates, not wanting to push her or to make things worse, but after a few agonising seconds that feel so much longer he knocks softly on the door.
"Harry...can I come in?" There's no response but he hears a muffled sniffle and there's no way he can stand out there knowing she's on the other side of the door crying. "Harry?"
"Yes, come in." It's quiet but it's a yes so he opens the door slowly and steps in.
She's on the floor, her back against the bathtub and her knees pulled up in front of her, her arms clasped around them. He sits down next to her, his shoulder resting against hers, offering what he hopes feels like some kind of comfort.
"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to wake you again."
"Nothing to be sorry for." He pauses and reaches for her hand, relieved when she lets him take hold of it. "You know, you could wake me way before I have to come and find you on the bathroom floor."
"You shouldn't feel like you have to stay, you can go home and get a proper night's sleep if you want to. You must be exhausted too." Her voice is quiet but determined and he knows what this is, knows too that she's batshit crazy if she thinks she can push him away without a fight. "I know I'm a mess at the moment, and you didn't sign up for this. If you wanted to go, I really wouldn't blame you-"
"What are you saying, Harry, you think the first time things get rough I'm out of here?" Maybe that is what she thinks, or maybe she's not thinking at all right now. Either way, she couldn't be more wrong. "Is that what you think of me, that I'm just here when it's all fun and games?"
"No, I didn't mean that, I didn't... I just-"
"I'm not going anywhere, baby...unless you're telling me to go and if that's the case then I'll leave, but just so you know, I'll be sitting right outside in my car so you'll know exactly where I am if you need me."
"I don't want you to go." She sighs and he hears the shake in her breath, watches as she wipes her eyes. "I just...I feel like I'm going mad. I don't think I've slept through a whole night since it happened, and I just keep thinking if you hadn't got there when you did, I...I really don't want you to go. I actually...I just don't want you to think you have to stay and deal with this."
"I don't think I have to stay. I'm here because there's nowhere else I want to be. I'm here if it's good, I'm here if it's shitty. I love you, you know that."
"Then why haven't you...you haven't touched me. It's been almost two weeks, and my bruises are gone and I'm okay, or...I'm mostly okay, better than I was, at least, but you don't want to touch me. Properly, I mean. I need you to touch me, I want you to make love to me but you won't, and it's...I feel like you look at me like I'm different now, and I hate it. It's bad enough that it happened and I didn't know if I was going to make it out of there but I can't bear the idea of you thinking I'm...weak now, or damaged, or-"
"Whoa...stop right there, princess. The last thing I could ever think when I look at you is that you're weak. I just...I didn't want to push you, I thought I should give you some time, that's all."
"I don't need time. I just need you." She pauses and he watches her, waiting because he senses she has more to say and he wants her to be able to say whatever she has to. "I need you to kiss me, Dempsey, I need you to touch me. I can't make this go away by myself…all of these things in my head, they won't go away, they just won't, and I'm so tired."
"I'm sorry." Her breath catches and he hates that she thinks he doesn't want her, he wishes he'd pushed harder when she insisted she was fine. "I do want to touch you, Harry. I pretty much always want to touch you. Come here..."
He wraps an arm around her shoulder and pulls her against him, needing to hold her, needing her to feel safe and wanted, needing her to know that even though he's still furious about what happened it's not her he's mad at. He knows he can be uncommunicative, sullen sometimes, but he's working on it. Since they've been together he's been trying so hard to be better, to talk more, but it doesn't come naturally, and it doesn't help that she has a tendency to be guarded, to never accept help from anyone, not even him. They've gotten so much better at talking, at communicating, because what they have together matters, it matters more than anything, but what happened with Swabey feels like it set them back months and he's angry with himself for allowing it to. He needs to make it right, he can't stand what this is doing to her, what he's afraid it could do to them. He won't allow that asshole to destroy what they have. Something has been playing on his mind for days, since that night in the park, really, something he's almost raised with her more than once but has never quite managed.
"Now, I'm pretty sure I know what you're going to say here, but…" He pauses but realises he needs to just say it, even if he's almost certain he can predict her reaction. "Do you think maybe you should see someone?"
"I'm a one-man woman, Dempsey, you know that." Her hand slides onto his knee and squeezes gently. "Or I hope you do."
"I do know that, but I'm talking about a...shrink, therapist, or whatever. You know, a buddy of mine in New York was caught up in a pretty violent robbery a couple of years ago and it left him...well, shaken up didn't even start to cover it. His wife pushed him to see a therapist and it really helped him, just to talk about what happened, I guess."
"If things were the other way around…" She looks up at him and there's a faint wobble in her bottom lip but her eyes are focused, sharp, and as beautiful as ever. "If it were you, my big, tough New Yorker, would you go and talk to someone?"
"We're not talking about me right now, Harry."
"Nice deflection, but I'm going to take that as a no." There's steel in her tone and sometimes the fact they know each other so well can be a real pain in the ass. "So if you wouldn't go, why do you think I need to? Why do you think I can't deal with this? Because I'm a woman? Because I-"
"First off, I don't think you can't deal with this." He stops her because he's trying to help, not make things worse, and he's in real danger of this going in the opposite direction. "I don't think there's a damn thing you couldn't deal with. What I do think is that something really shitty happened and it's screwing with your head. Understandably, Harry, before you take that the wrong way."
She does smile faintly in response to that and he relaxes a little.
"Even if you were a big, hairy guy, if something was getting to you like this I'd suggest the same thing. Not that we'd be sitting here on your bathroom floor in the middle of the night if you were a big, hairy guy…" She lets out a faint huff of laughter and it feels like his first victory of the night. "Like I said, my buddy's wife made him go, so yeah, if you told me to see someone, I would."
"You do continue to surprise me, do you know that?" She smiles now and he shrugs slightly. "I expected you would pooh-pooh that sort of thing. You weren't exactly delighted when that doctor showed up and tried to psycho-analyse you."
"Yeah, well, that was different." He remembers it well, he remembers resisting the shrink's attempts to figure him out. He recalls Harry trusting him completely despite the efforts of the doctor to convince her he was uncontrollable and verging on dangerous. "That guy was hell bent on proving I was some kind of out of control lunatic."
"Don't you see though that if I did go, if I did talk to someone, it would prove everything that people say, you included once upon a time, that women aren't tough enough, that being a cop is a man's job?" She sighs and he hates himself all over again for ever making her feel she wasn't strong enough, when she's a million times tougher than him in so many ways. "I'm a cop, a detective. There's always a chance something like this could happen, I need to just get past it and then I'll be fine."
"Harry, you're not sleeping, you're barely eating...the only thing it would prove is that you had something really shitty happen to you. I just think talking to someone could help, that's all." She's about to protest again so he raises his hand to let her know he'll drop it. "Just...would you think about it at least?"
"Fine." She sighs and he knows that's it, end of subject, so he'll drop it for now. "I'll think about it. Now can we go back to bed?"
He nods and stands up, reaching his hand out to her and pulling her to him when she makes it to her feet, suddenly wanting again to keep her safe from Swabey even though it's too late for that. When it came to it that night he failed her completely and he's not sure he'll ever fully forgive himself. He feels her arms slide around him and hears her sigh against his neck.
"You know what I kept thinking when I was in the back of that van?" Her fingers trail softly across his lower back and he waits for her to go on. "I was sure by that point that I was going to die but I started thinking about what he might do to me before he killed me and I couldn't bear the thought of you having to hear the details, and my father too. And I kept thinking how unfair it was that this would happen just as I'm finally happy, and I thought about how much I love you and how we haven't even told my father yet that we're together. I thought I was going to die and he wouldn't even know I was happier than I've ever been."
"You are?" He can't help smiling at that because he feels the same, he feels like he's in the right place at last, with the person he's meant to be with. He often thinks lately that maybe he was such an ass to all the other women before her because the universe needed him to wait for Harry, but he's aware that could be his brain's convenient excuse for his past shitty behaviour.
"I am." She pulls back to look up at him. "And I know my father will be delighted. It really was quite a turn up for the books to realise how much he adores you, but he really does. He's not an idiot, he knows there's something I'm not telling him, he knows something has changed, he keeps telling me he's never seen me look happier, but I would really like us to tell him properly."
"So...maybe we should go and see him this weekend?"
"Really?" She smiles and he knows he's said the right thing.
"Yeah, sure. I love your dad, Harry, you know that."
"I know, I just didn't know if you were ready to...for people to know, I suppose."
"Hell, if it was up to me, honey, I'd have put a notice in the paper weeks ago." He grins because there's no better feeling than the thought of everyone knowing she's chosen him. "I thought maybe you weren't ready and that's why you hadn't told him."
"Freddy will have us married off and trust funds opened for our children within an hour of us telling him we're together." She smiles softly and ducks her head slightly, looking up at him from under her lashes. "I didn't want to scare you away."
"Oh honey…" He runs his finger gently down her nose, wondering how long they could stay in bed, wrapped up in each other and locked safely away from the outside world. "You could never do anything to scare me away."
"Not even all of this, my constantly waking up in the middle of the night feeling like I'm in the back of that van and that I'm about to die?"
"I told you, I'm not going anywhere. You're my girl now, that's it."
"Your girl. I like that." She smiles again and there's a hint of colour in her cheeks that makes him happy. "I'll call Freddy in the morning and see if we can drop by. It would be nice to see him."
"Not too early though, huh? We're going to get some sleep and then I'm going to make it real clear in the morning that I absolutely want you, Harry, that the last couple of weeks without touching you have felt like years." He leans in and kisses her before he takes her hand and leads her back into the bedroom.
In the darkness of the room she rolls towards him, wrapping herself around him, pushing her legs between his, like she doesn't want a single inch of space between them. She slides a hand under his t-shirt onto his chest, her fingers drumming a faint rhythm on his skin until he covers her fingers with his own to settle her restlessness.
"Sorry…" Her voice is a low murmur and he can hear the faint traces of fear in her tone. Not for the first time he wonders if the dark is something she's struggling with but won't admit. "I haven't fucked everything up, have I?"
"You haven't fucked anything up." She doesn't curse all that often so when she does he finds himself taking notice, and he has to tamp down his rage at Swabey all over again. "And if anything was fucked up, which it isn't, it sure as hell wouldn't be your fault. Do you hear me?"
"I...yes, I just feel like I should have-"
"Alright, hang on…" He can't take another second of her blaming herself, either for what happened or for their failure to talk about it properly. He slides out from under her just far enough to reach for the lamp, flicking it on and watching as she blinks, startled by the sudden light that floods the room.
"What are you doing? You were the one who said it's three in the morning and we need to get some sleep, I don't…"
"I just...I need you to know that if the dark is freaking you out right now, we can sleep with the light on." He pauses and runs his thumb slowly across her cheekbone, almost as if he can brush away the faint purple hue beneath her eyes, the tiredness she pretends is nothing. What he doesn't expect are the sudden tears that fill her eyes and he kicks himself for somehow upsetting her without even knowing how he has. "I just mean if the dark makes you think about...you know, I-"
"Every time I close my eyes I feel like I'm in the back of that van in the dark, hoping you were on your way, wishing I'd just said yes, please drive me home instead of saying I'd be fine." He swipes a tear gently away and wishes he could take her pain away with it. "I should have been fine though, I should have been able to leave work and get into my car and drive home. I shouldn't have ended up tied up and gagged and thinking he was going to kill me, and I'm just so... I'm furious, Dempsey, I'm so furious that I feel like I'm going to explode. I can't help thinking that at least if he was locked up I could go and unleash some of this anger but he didn't even give me that, the selfish bastard."
"You know if he was locked up I'd go with you and hold him down so you could beat the shit out of him, right?"
"I know, and I do love you for that, even if I'd never let you do it. I hate this, I really hate it. " She sighs, a long and heavy breath that he hopes is enough to release some of her rage. "I suppose...maybe I should talk to someone, even if it's just to try and get rid of the anger. I don't want to keep feeling like this, and I'm scared I always will."
"Then let's find someone for you to talk to. Yeah?"
"Okay, fine." She nods and he smiles at her, amazed all over again by her bravery, her resilience. "I know you said we should get some sleep, but we're both wide awake now, and I can definitely think of one way to take my mind off some of what I'm feeling…and maybe one of the things keeping me awake has been my worrying that you were trying to figure out how to tell me you wanted out."
"Never." He pulls her closer and feels an overwhelming relief that she's talking to him and that she accepts she wants help. "Seriously, Harry. I never want out."
As he leans in to kiss her, the smile she gives him is lighter, brighter than he's seen since that awful night and for the first time he's certain she's going to be okay.