Some kind of banging woke him up at three in the morning. After he remembered where he was, he tried to figure out where the noise was coming from. There was a light coming from the kitchen. He grabbed his discarded t-shirt off the ground and began to make his way there.

The sight he saw from the doorway was priceless. "Are you making pancakes?" he asked as he sat down on one of the kitchen barstools.

"Yeah. Blueberry. I couldn't sleep. Pancakes usually help," Sydney explained.

"That is so strange."

"Does that mean you don't want any?"

"Now, I didn't say that." He smiled at her and looked her up and down. She was wearing a pair of shorts and a t-shirt that looked familiar. "You're wearing my old rugby shirt."

"It was my favorite," she explained without turning around. "I wore it so much that you eventually gave up on ever getting it back."

Wanting to continue their casual conversation, he asked, "So, why were you having trouble sleeping?"

"You don't want to know."

"Come on," he prodded.

She sighed and looked up at him. "I can't sleep because the other side of the bed is empty. I haven't gotten a full night's sleep since the Covenant took you away from me. Now, don't you wish I hadn't told you?"

"No," he answered honestly. "That's just another point for why I'm starting to believe you."

"You're starting to believe me?" She placed a bowl in front of him. "Mix."

He picked up the spoon she offered. "Yeah. Your story, and you in general, are pretty damn convincing."

She smiled at him as she threw some butter into a hot pan. "You always used to make me pancakes at night when I couldn't sleep. The first time, I didn't believe you that they would help my insomnia, but wouldn't you know! They put me right to sleep."

"It was something my mother taught me. Before she died, that is." He carried the bowl over to the pan and set it down.

"I'm sorry," she said, looking up at him. "I know how hard it is for you to talk about your mother. I shouldn't have brought up the story behind the pancake making."

"When did you decide my emotions needed to be tiptoed around? I'm a big boy. I can take it."

She scooped up some batter and dumped it into the pan without responding.

They made two "rounds" of pancakes in silence before she finally spoke again.

"Can I ask you something?" she said tentatively.

"If it's within reason, yes."

"Have you been in contact with the Covenant since we left Tokyo?"

"No," he lied. "Why do you ask?"

"Because the Sark I knew two years ago would turn me in to them if it was profitable for him. And I just wanted to know if I should be worried."

He looked at her and noticed for the first time that she did seem a little uneasy around him. "I'm telling you the truth. At this moment, you don't have to worry about me turning you in to the Covenant."

"Thank you." She felt her eyes tear up slightly and willed herself not to cry.

"Oh shit! It really was worrying you that I was going to betray you." He wiped the tears from her eyes and silently admonished himself for doing something that could have hurt her. This whole day, she had treated him with respect and kindness, not wanting to push him too far. In all actuality, she had probably been telling him the truth. He probably had been with her these past three years.

And there he was doing exactly what she was afraid of, contemplating turning her in for a profit.

"I'm okay," she said, shrugging out of his reach and leaning against the opposite counter. "You don't have to feel bad for me."

"This is killing you, isn't it?" he asked, moving to lean next to her on the counter.

"It's hard. I'll admit that much." She looked up at him. "But I'll be fine. I've never wanted something as bad as I want you to realize that I'm telling you the truth." She saw his eyes widen at her comment. "It's the truth."

He rubbed his eyes and sighed, purposefully trying not to look at her.

"What's the matter?" she asked tentatively after a minute. "Did I make you uncomfortable?"

"It's not that," he said, still not looking at her.

"Then what is it? Tell me so I won't do it again."

"It's… it's… you."

"It's me?" She looked at him confused. When he still didn't meet her eyes, she started to get mad. "Would you be a grown-up and look at me? I'm tired of addressing someone who's acting like a child who's done something wrong."

He glanced over at her, and she saw the fire in his eyes. It was at that moment that she realized she might have hit a nerve that wasn't supposed to be touched. "Julian?" she whispered hesitantly.

"You know why I can't look you in the eye, Sydney? Do you?"

"No."

"It's because every time I'm near you, I'm so unbloody hinged I can't take it. And I don't know why. I've been with you for all of thirty-six hours, and you've already thrown my life completely off kilter. You have this effect on me that I can't even fathom to explain. And I don't like it."

Sydney moved slightly and positioned herself so that she was standing between his legs facing him. "You feel like you have no control over what's going to happen?"

"Exactly," he said, wondering how she knew exactly what he was trying to explain so easily.

"Congratulations. That would be the scariness of being in love that you're feeling. I've been going through that for years now with you. You'll learn to love it."

"I don't love you, Sydney. I keep telling you that."

"I never said that you loved me. But still, I'm calling bullshit. Because you do love me, and I think you're beginning to realize it." She trailed a hand lightly up his chest until it rested on the back of his neck. She casually rubbed one of the points she knew he was most sensitive while leaning in to whisper in his ear, "Does this make you feel unhinged?"

He grabbed both of her arms and pushed her back fiercely. "You don't want this."

"If you think that's true, you've been missing my whole point." She began to speak slowly and articulate heavily to get her point across. "I want this. I want you. I've always wanted you. I won't ever stop wanting you."

He smirked at her. She really was one of the feistiest girls he had ever met. And a woman after his heart. He leaned in and whispered in her ear, "The pancakes are burning."

"Let them burn."

She felt his arms snake up around her and pull her up, twisting her until she was seated on the counter. He reached over and turned the burner off while kissing her lightly on the neck. "You really are a messy cook," he said as he tasted her skin mixed with batter.

"Maybe, but you always enjoyed licking it off of me." She felt him nip lightly at her neck and couldn't help but moan softly.

"Some things don't change," he said as he felt her reach her hands under his t-shirt and push it up over his head.

She flung the shirt to the floor and pulled him back in close to her. "I don't want to be alone," she whispered into his ear. "I thought I could handle it, being without you. I can't."

"You're not alone now," he whispered. "Close your eyes."

"I'm shaking," she said as she felt him pick her up into his arms.

"It's all right." He carried her into the bedroom as fast as he could. She seemed to have single-handedly destroyed every emotional defense he had constructed in the past twenty-years with just one day and one walk through Central Park.

She felt herself being place on the bed. His fingers trailed up her sides lightly, making her want to giggle. But she held it in as she felt him lift her shirt up over her head. She had desperately missed the feeling of his hands on her body.

His fingers were warm as they trailed over her. Warm with that rough scrape of callus. They were the weather-beaten hands of a man who had gotten himself in and out of many situations. Someone who wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty to get what he wanted. Her stomach did a little jump as she felt them work down her body and tease the waistband of her shorts.

His lips pressed lightly on her heated skin, just above her waist, making her moan and raise her hips towards him slightly. He had always known just the right thing to do. She relaxed slightly as she felt him blow softly on her skin, sending chills up her body.

"Lift up your hips," he demanded.

She obeyed and felt her shorts being dragged off. His hands trailed down her body, and she was surprised to feel him begin to rub her feet.

"You remembered," she said, absentmindedly. She opened her eyes to look down at him. "It took you a few weeks into our relationship, but you found out the way to my heart was through my feet."

She leaned back against the bed again and just gave in to the simple pleasure of his hands on her. There was a small sense of loss when he stopped rubbing her feet and began to work his way up her calf, then her thigh, all the way to her stomach.

He kissed her lightly and whispered, "There's something familiar about the way you smell. Like lilies and…"

"And…" she said running her hands through his hair.

"Blueberries," he answered making her laugh. She lightly stroked his cheek as he rested his chin on her abdomen. "I didn't realize it before, but your scent was haunting me. I used to wake up during the middle of the night in the room the Covenant had set me up in. I'd reach across the bed and be thrown off by it being empty. And for some strange reason, I would feel hollow because the pillow next to me didn't smell like lilies. I couldn't figure out why I thought it should smell like that. But I did."

She pulled his lips up to hers, feeling them soften, gentled on hers. "Julian," she whispered.

"Shhh. Don't think. I'm tired of thinking."

When his mouth came back to hers in a kiss of lingering sweetness and warmth, she practically melted under him. He was acting so much like his old self that she wanted to cry.

She kept sighing his name as his hands, his lips, his tongue, slid over her. As his lips found hers again, it was in a kiss that lingered as if there was nothing else in the world more vital at that very moment than this. Her heart melted.

She reached down and pulled his boxers away as he unclasped her bra and slid it softly off her shoulders. The pressure between them was beginning to build.

His hands trailed down her sides again, and his fingers looped into the thin band of her underwear. As he slid them off, she couldn't help but bite lightly into his shoulder in anticipation. "Julian," she pleaded.

"Not fast this time. Fast is too easy," he said as he slid his tongue around her nipple while running his hands up the inside of her thighs.

He felt like they had nothing but time. He had spent so many hours not knowing what he was missing. Now he wanted to take his time discovering every inch of her for the first time again. The scent of her, the way she squirmed underneath his touch, the unconscious way she licked her lips when she wanted him to kiss her. He wanted all of that, and more.

Having her with him now erased every lonely hour he hadn't realized he had been suffering through.

He pressed his lips to the dip in her throat, the small freckles on her shoulder, the corner of her mouth, as the rage for her he hadn't known he had shot through him. He held her close as he felt her fall over that first peak.

The urgency was building as he let himself slide into her. He could feel her watching him as they began to move together. Her eyes were a mixture of both pleasure and tears as he gripped her hands in his.

"Stay with me." He crushed his mouth to hers. "Stay with me."

He had stripped her heart bare. Every defense she had built up against him, every single reason she had made herself dream up as to why he was never going to be the same, was gone. He had her quivering in his grasp, in his complete control. It was a wonder he didn't see that in the tears in her eyes.

So, she closed her eyes to keep him from realizing. She kept her hand locked in his, stayed with him. Stayed with him. And was with him still when their worlds shattered.