AN: Due to ff.net policies regarding NC-17 fic, the full chapter cannot be posted here. If NC-17 isn't your thing, or you aren't of age, the version of this chapter here at ff.net is rated R (NC-17 portions have been cut).

The real chapter, rated NC-17, is located at my site: http://www.geocities.com/laras_dice/wpp/wpp_08.html

Please, if you are archiving this fic, take the NC-17 version.

Chapter 8 — Now or Then

He returns to the couch and sits. Hopes for her return, to at least tell him where she lives, tell him her name. Tell him there's too much hurt for anything other than friends, but that, at least, would be something.

But he tracks the time on his watch — 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, half an hour — and decides that isn't going to happen. Not tonight. Maybe not ever.

Resolution, he thinks, doesn't feel like he thought it would. It aches and it stings and it's real, and now that he has it, he hates it. Too late. Too much hurt and too much damage done to salvage it.

It is snowing again, he notices. Big glittery snow globe flakes coming down, and they should be beautiful, but they only remind him of where he is, of what he's lost and given up. Fucking hindsight. He reaches out, presses his hand against the cold glass, watches the snowflakes grow blurry and thinks he's got no idea where to go from here. Knows he is not going to bounce back from this, that moving on will be harder than ever, with her two blocks away and completely distant. Just exist. Just go to work and do the routine, and stay alive, and maybe that will be enough. And maybe some day you'll pass her on the street, and you'll tell her hello and she'll smile a little, and you can go from there. Start again.

A faint knock at the door, and he stands, wants to believe it's her, but it has been almost an hour now. Don't go getting your hopes up because your neighbor got your mail again. Across the room quickly, heart pounding as he opens the door.

Sydney, covered in snowflakes.

"Hi," she says, soft and shy and shivering. Nose red and eyelashes coated with tiny beads of water.

What the hell does this mean? "Do you want to come in?"

She nods, steps inside and waits for him to close the door behind her. There, wet and cold and right in front of him, when he turns around. Chilled fingertips on his cheeks as she pulls his mouth to hers and kisses him, hard and thorough. Something has changed in her eyes, he thinks, when they finally break apart.

"It's time to get this right, Vaughn."

"What do you m— " She kisses him again, shivering under her bravado. It means you got a second chance. Don't fuck it up. Don't ever fuck it up. Ever ever ever. He reaches between them to unbutton her half-soaked coat. "You're freezing cold."

"I took a walk," she says. "I needed to think. Apparently that doesn't work as well here as it does in California. Or, I guess it works, but the side effects aren't so good."

"You're crazy." He cups her chin. "You're here."

"Yes." She leans into him, and he rubs the thin wool sweater over her arms, but he's not going to be enough.

He wishes he had a fireplace — someplace perfect and romantic to warm her. "Why don't I go get you a blanket?"

He starts toward his bedroom, hadn't meant for her to follow, but she does, and when he notices, he picks up her cold hand.

"I never got the grand tour," she says.

"We were a little preoccupied."

"Yes. Yes we were."

They walk into his bedroom and he pulls down the bedspread, lifts the blue fleece blanket beneath it and drapes it over her shoulders. "Is that better?"

"A little bit." She draws it tighter and sits on the edge of the bed.

Nothing to do but join her, and he does, wrapping his arm around her, hand resting on her arm. "Do you want to talk, anymore, about — anything?"

"No." She leans into him, lays her head down on his shoulder. "I'm tired of hashing out the past. Who should have asked and who should have said yes. I don't know what love is, Vaughn, and I'm tired of guessing. I just know I want to be with you. And I think — I think you feel the same way."

"Yes." He slides his hand up, runs his fingers through the wet strings of her hair. "Of course." Always. And now it's out there, and everybody's said it and she's still here. It occurs to him that this might be a perfect moment, that it may not get any better than this, Sydney leaning against him and peace between them. He stays silent, doesn't want to break it. She does the same, and maybe she's thinking the same thing.

"I missed you," she whispers, finally.

"Me too." So much it hurt. So much it made me half-crazy. No need to think about that now. She's here.

"Vaughn, what's your name, now?"

"Michael Henderson." He slides his hand over to her back, rubs in slow, steady circles.

"They kept your first name?"

"I'm told it's very common. What about you?"

"Catherine Murray. Or Cate, with a 'C'." She lifts her head and turns to face him. "But don't call me that tonight."

He's just beginning to process what that's supposed to mean when she sits up and kisses him again. Slow, almost sloppy, overfocused on first his top and then bottom lip until he's groaning into her mouth and he knows exactly what that's supposed to mean. She stops but doesn't pull away, breath on his face and eyelashes fluttering so close.

He's wanted this so much for so long it's scary as hell. "Are you sure? I mean, I want — but it's really fast."

"You and I don't measure time the same way, Vaughn," she whispers. It makes his skin tingle. It's all the reassurance he needs. They won't talk about love anymore tonight, he thinks, but there must be some of that here. More need; he needs her and she needs him and they both need to forget the last fucked-up year and a half. Need to be certain this is all real.

———

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*

*

———

She sighs, and sounds sated, as he traces her back idly with his index finger. "So where do we go from here, Vaughn?"

"Where we should have gone in the first place."

"That's a thoroughly useless answer."

He tries again. "Wherever we want to go." Wherever you want to go.

"I don't want to go anywhere," she says, voice soft. Close to sleep, perhaps.

"Me either."

Her breathing goes shallow and that's it, he thinks, reaching over to stroke her hair and touch her cheek. Soon, he knows — from sleep not nearly as intimate as this — will come the words, endearing and amusing. For now, he watches her, and she is peaceful, so serene and so close the feeling enters him and he drifts into sleep with his hand resting on her hair and a faint smile on his face.