The conclusion to Need and Care. I'm aware that I chop and change between perspectives, but I quite like the end result.

XxX

She said nothing, just left the door open and walked inside. He followed her into the living room. She looked tired and drained and he wondered when that had happened.

"Drink?" she offered, as she poured herself one.

"Yeah – no. Okay, yeah."

A quirk of her brow. "Which is it?"

"No," he decided. He should be completely sober for this. "Thanks."

Silence as she drank and he watched.

Her eyes were red, and he knew she'd been crying.

Please don't be my fault, he thought. "My fault?" he asked gently.

There was no point in lying. She was tired of pretending she was okay. She was tired of, well, everything. "Partly."

Jesus. He was an asshole. "I'm sorry."

"I know."

"Ahh, Harry, how did we get this screwed up?"

A small grimace flittered across her face. "Talent?"

Maybe it was a mistake to come here. Maybe he'd pushed her so hard that she really was done this time. But maybe, if he could just make her understand, she'd lose that bruised look in her eyes that was like a knife to his gut. He took a breath. "Look, I just wanted to tell you . . . I know I've been acting like a jerk lately. I've been working through some things and maybe I've been taking it out on you. I haven't been fair and, well, I'm sorry."

She turned to look at him. "You're not completely at fault. I've also been trying to come to terms with certain. . .things. I probably haven't been pleasant to be around either."

"What a pair, huh?" He tried for humour and missed the mark.

"Quite."

Another stretch of silence filled the room.

"Can you throw me a rope here, Harry? I'm trying to explain to you why I've been such an asshole. Not trying to deflect, but you've just got me wrapped up in so many knots my head hurts trying to figure out where we stand and what we're doing. It hasn't exactly brought out the best in me. And I'm - "

"Don't you dare say sorry again, Dempsey," she interrupted with fury. Don't you dare apologise for not –"

"For not what?"

Loving me. Wanting me. All the fight seemed to deflate from her as she turned away. "Does it even matter?"

"Yeah, it matters. There's something wrong here, Harry. You're back but you're not, and I miss you. I miss us – how we used to be."

"And that's the problem. We can't be how we used to be. Not anymore."

"Why not?"

There it was. She was going to have to pound it into his brain and hope that this time he understood. "Because things change, Dempsey. People change. Feelings change. And when one persons feelings change and the others don't, it's messy. We can't go back. I'm sorry, but I can't go back."

They were on the cusp of something here, he could feel it. Maybe they weren't so screwed up after all. Maybe she wasn't talking about his changed feelings. Maybe she was feeling as shitty as he was because . . . "Hey, can you look at me for a second?" He waited until she turned around. The look in her eyes was killing him. "Can we agree to total honesty?"

A beat. What else did she have to lose? Only her pride. "Total honesty," she agreed. "Why not?"

"Okay, here it is."

She waited. And he froze. He knew what he wanted to say but the words just wouldn't come. She smiled at him with resignation and nodded her head, like this was exactly what she expected from him.

"I love you, Dempsey," she said sadly. "I didn't intend to ever tell you that, but you won't leave it alone. So there it is. I'm so stupidly in love with you and you are so stupidly oblivious."

He froze as his brain absorbed, deciphered, and then celebrated her declaration in nanoseconds. "You love me?"

"Yup. Go on, tell me how you've never thought of me that way and we're partners and you're sorry but you just don't feel the same. Get it out of your system and then get out. Please."

He hated the bitterness in her voice; the little waver in her plea. He hated that she seemed so broken. He hated that she didn't know anything. "When did this happen? When did you. . .the warehouse?"

"The warehouse," she confirmed. "I saw you die. I felt you die, Dempsey. You broke my heart that day and you were too busy being obtuse to even notice."

He shook his head. No, no, no, that was not how things went down. "I noticed that's where everything started to go wrong. I noticed you speaking in riddles and then clamming up and running away. I noticed you avoiding my calls and making decisions without even talking to me. I noticed that you up and left me without even a god damned goodbye. And I noticed how fucking easy it was for you to do all of that!"

There was fire in her eyes as she rounded on him. "Easy? You think it was easy? You didn't give me any choice! I tried to tell you how I was feeling and you blew me off."

"I didn't realise. How could I? We'd never . . . I mean, we'd flirted and joked about it – about us – but it was never anything serious. How was I supposed to know things had changed? You didn't exactly spell it out."

"I didn't exactly know things had changed until that day. I had a major epiphany and you were too busy trying to pat the little woman on the head and protect her from the big bad dead guy to understand!"

"You coulda tried harder, Harry. If I had known –"

"You would have what?"

"I dunno," he admitted. "I don't know if I was there yet. But we could have talked about it. Maybe I wouldn't have had to have my own epiphany under a bridge with a drunken homeless man. Maybe I could have worked through my own crap earlier and we wouldn't be here like this."

"Well, it hardly matters now, does it? Are we done?"

He ran his fingers through his hair. "Not by a long shot. I'm not good at this, Harry. I never have been. But I'm trying . . .for you. Total honesty? You've been driving me insane. I don't know if you're here to stay or if you're gonna leave me again and I can't stop thinking about that. I'm sick to my stomach because you made me want more than I thought we could ever have, and then you come back and you're wrong, we're wrong. You're miserable, I'm miserable, and I have no idea how to fix any of it. But I want to. I want to make you. . ."

"Make me what?"

"Happy. I want to be the one who makes you happy. Can you let me do that?"

"You can't make someone happy, Dempsey. Just like you can't make someone love you. God knows it would be a hell of a lot easier, but it doesn't work that way."

"I think it can. The happy thing, I mean. All you gotta do is give me a chance."

Harry tilted her head and looked at him with tired eyes. She wanted this, she wanted him. But she had to know. "Why?"

He took a breath. "You gotta know how I feel. About you."

She was starting to, but that wasn't enough. She needed to hear it, and she needed to feel the truth of it before she could let herself believe it. "Do . . . do you love me?" she asked in a small voice.

"With everything in me," he admitted.

"I love you, James. Very much. But I need for you to be able to say it. I've been there and done the emotionally stunted relationship before and I don't want to do it again. If you can't tell me how you feel then you should just leave me be. Because I can't, I just can't."

"I'm never leaving you, sweetheart. You gotta know, you're my everything. You're my first thought of the day and my last at night, and every single god-damned cliché in between. Harry. Please. I need you like I've never needed another woman in my life. Straight from my heart, this is all I got."

He closed the distance between them, took her drink and placed it on the counter. "I love you," he said, as his hand caressed her cheek. "And while that scares the hell out of me, I'm ready to see where this goes. As long as you're ready to come with me."

The wait for her to answer took years. Eons. But then, "Lead the way," she said softly, and that was all he needed. His body angled over hers and everything blurred around him as he brushed his lips gently to hers. Once, twice. She sighed into him and he kissed her a third time, bolder this time; exploring with his tongue, testing what she liked. He could taste the wine she'd been drinking, smell the shampoo of her hair. She was his now; he knew it and she knew it, and she felt like home.

They broke apart and his forehead came to rest on hers. "We have a lot of stuff to figure out."

Her arms locked around his neck, like she would never let him go. "I know."

"They might transfer one of us."

"More than likely."

He wrapped his arms around her tightly and their bodies aligned. He wanted to be touching her always. She was fire, his Harry; he had no idea how he had ever thought otherwise.

"Are you okay with that?"

"Are you?" she countered.

He didn't even have to think about it. "As long as I can come home to you, yeah. I'm okay with that."

"Me too," she smiled.

"So do we tell the boss?"

A moments hesitation. "I don't think we need to make his job any easier, do you?"

"Absolutely not," he grinned.

"Then let's not worry about it until the time comes."

Another kiss, and he walked them backwards to the couch. "Seems like a very me thing to say. I think I'm rubbing off on you."

Knees connected to the seat of the couch, and he brought them both down with minimal loss of touch.

"It was only a matter of time," she agreed as she settled into his side, and this time she kissed him.

End.