She sits down opposite Stephanie, feeling oddly nervous about today's session even though they have definitely covered more difficult topics. She knows her trepidation comes from this being something she has continually pushed aside since long before what happened with Swabey, and certainly long before Billy's death almost sent her right back into the terror of that night. It's something she didn't think mattered until Dempsey and their happiness together suddenly mattered more than anything else. If she had imagined for a single moment when she got married that Robert's behaviour would impact the way she would then go on to look at every other man…well, she would have run as far and as fast from the altar as possible. It's too late for that now though, so she has no option but to tackle this head-on.

"So, you mentioned there was something in particular you wanted to talk about today, Harry?" Stephanie crosses her legs and smiles at her.

"Yes, but I will admit I really only made sure I told you that ahead of time so I couldn't change my mind when I got here." That's an improvement in itself, her willingness to admit she has a tendency to avoid the tricky topics, to bury them and carry on regardless.

"Has something happened…at work, or at home, perhaps?" Stephanie sounds concerned but her gentle smile stays in place.

"No. Well, nothing bad, anyway." She sighs, her thoughts jumbled and her words refusing to flow. She decides to start with the positive, unable to keep the smile from her face as she shares the news. "Dempsey and I are getting married. In two weeks, actually."

"In two weeks?" The expression on Stephanie's face is one of surprise, and of a curiosity she perhaps won't voice. "Gosh, so soon!"

"It's not a shotgun wedding, if that's what you're thinking. I'm not pregnant." The sheepish look her therapist gives her suggests that's exactly what she may indeed have been thinking. "Don't worry, my father jumped to the exact same conclusion too when we told him. There's no ulterior motive, we just want to get married and there really doesn't seem any reason to wait."

"Congratulations, Harry, that's lovely news. Really, I'm thrilled for you." Stephanie looks and sounds genuinely happy for her, just as everybody has when she has told them about the wedding. "I must admit it does leave me slightly confused about what it is that you're nervous to talk to me about."

"I…it actually feels rather silly to mention it at all, really, but I think it's something I need to talk about because I want to make sure I don't end up doing what I always seem to do." She sighs and runs her thumb slowly across her engagement ring, her mind looking for the calm she always finds in the diamond promise sitting comfortably on her left hand. "Not this time."

"What's that?" Stephanie frowns faintly and crosses her legs. "What is it you always do, Harry?"

"Well, I tend to assume the worst, I suppose. I put up my walls in readiness for yet another betrayal, and it ruins things." She takes a breath, thinks about Robert, about Susannah, lets the rage at her ex-husband and the disappointment in her former friend pass before she continues. "There hasn't been anybody serious since my marriage ended, nobody I saw any sort of future with, so it didn't really matter that I inevitably pushed away anyone that I did date, but it's different now, it's different with Dempsey. I'm marrying him in two weeks and I very much intend to be married to him for the rest of my life, I won't allow myself to destroy that."

"It's good that you recognise a pattern in your behaviour, Harry. Not everybody does." She's grateful again for Stephanie's gentle tone, her quiet support, completely lacking in any judgement. "Why don't you start by telling me about your marriage, about your ex-husband?"

"I'm not sure there's an awful lot to say, really. I was too young, I knew almost right away that I'd made a terrible mistake." She shrugs and Stephanie stays silent as she thinks about her next words. "I think he realised it too as soon as it became clear I wasn't going to comply with his idea of the perfect little wife."

"Comply is an interesting choice of word. Tell me about that." Stephanie pauses and lets her words sit, giving her time to think.

"Is it?" She ponders that for a few seconds, wondering why it was the first word that came to mind. "Well, I suppose I just meant that he expected things from me that I wasn't prepared to give. He thought my joining the police force was a passing phase, a "silly fad" was what he actually called it. He thought that as soon as we were married I'd stay at home and do…well, whatever people do when they get married and choose to stay at home, I suppose. Bake cakes, shop, I don't know, really. Anyway, when it became clear that's not what I was going to be doing, he…well, he wasn't happy, let's just say that."

"And you? Were you happy?"

"I tried to be, I really did." She recalls those early months and how she tried desperately to convince herself she just needed to get used to being a wife, to being with him, and she would be fine. "I thought that once I settled into married life I might be okay, but I think I knew, deep down, that I was on a fool's errand."

"How long were you married, Harry?"

"Well, technically, two years, by the time the divorce was finalised, but we'd only been married for about ten months when I came home and found him in bed with my best friend. I spent a day listening to him trying very hard to worm his way out of things and then I went to work a night shift and told him I wanted him to be gone when I got back." She still has moments when she can't quite believe it was happening right under her nose for months on end while she had no idea. "As it turned out, he'd been sleeping with her for almost the entirety of our marriage. All those months I'd been trying to make something work that he clearly hadn't given a damn about from the beginning."

"That must have felt like a huge betrayal." Stephanie pauses and she nods in response, not sure how to describe how it felt. "Your husband and your best friend. I think it's understandable that you feel somewhat wary after going through something like that."

"I'm still not entirely sure which of them I feel most betrayed by, if I'm honest, but I just…I hate that for so long I've allowed it to affect the way I doubt people who don't deserve to be doubted." She thinks about Dempsey, and how, since they've been together, he hasn't given her a single reason for doubt or uncertainty, and she knows she should hold on to that. "And I don't suppose Robert has even given me a moment's thought, beside the fact that I didn't live up to his expectations for a quiet, easy wife who would quit her job and start birthing his precious heirs the second the wedding ring was on my finger."

"You don't want children, Harry?"

"I didn't think so then, no, and in hindsight I'm very glad we didn't get that far." She smiles wryly and Stephanie returns it, encouraging her to continue. "Do you have a family?"

"I do." Stephanie nods. "I have two boys. Henry is twelve and Max is almost eight."

"My family seems to produce long lines of girls, I'm not sure I'd know how to manage boys." She thinks about Dempsey's energy, his temperament, and smiles as she wonders how she would cope in a house full of boys just like him. "It is something I want though, at some point, to have a family with Dempsey."

"You sound very certain about that, Harry, and about getting married. You sound completely certain anytime you talk about Dempsey, actually." Stephanie pauses and she nods, sensing the therapist has more to say. "Which is why I'm wondering why you're afraid things won't work or why you seem to feel that betrayal is inevitable?"

"It's not because I don't trust him, I don't want you to think that, I trust him completely. I know he loves me, I know he would never treat me the way that Robert did, I just…" She sighs again, struggling to put into words why the niggling doubt never quite leaves her. "I think I'm afraid that I'll be the one to ruin everything because I'll make him feel like I don't trust him, when it's…I'm not sure I trust myself."

"You don't trust yourself not to sabotage things?" Stephanie sounds surprised and she wonders if it's because she's so good at appearing in control even when she's teetering on the opposite end of the scale.

"I don't trust that I won't panic about things going wrong before they do, and that I'll end up pushing him away."

"I'm aware that I don't know Dempsey but from everything you've told me I do get the sense that he isn't the type to be pushed away very easily." Stephanie pauses and smiles at her. "And certainly not from you."

"No, you're right, he's…well, he's three thousand miles from home and I know he's not still here because he has a perverse preference to lock up British criminals over their American counterparts." She smiles because she knows exactly why he's here, and she does take comfort in that.

"So you're about to marry a man who is essentially staying in this country because he wants to be with you and who has been nothing but supportive of you since the night you were abducted. I can't change what your ex-husband did, Harry, but I can help you reframe it so that it doesn't have to impact things the way it still seems to be doing." That's it, that's all she wants, to be able to not have her crappy marriage bleed into what she has with Dempsey now. "Do you blame yourself for what happened in your marriage?"

"I think perhaps I did at first, just a little. He was very good at planting those seeds."

"Manipulative people generally are good at that." Stephanie sits back, seeming to let her words sink in, and she realises that Robert was indeed very good at manipulation, and that she didn't see it at all. Not at first.

"We were never right for each other, I know that, so it makes me angry that it's still there creeping into the back of my mind even though things with Dempsey are the absolute opposite."

"Does he know you feel this way?"

"He…sometimes when we fight, he reminds me that he's nothing like Robert and that he doesn't appreciate being tarred with the same brush." She pauses and takes a breath, thinking about it from Dempsey's point of view, damned by the actions of another man. "And he's right. He's done nothing to deserve that."

"And how do you feel when he does remind you of that?"

"Frustrated, I suppose. Angry with myself for letting my thoughts go in that direction at all, when I absolutely know better." She realises too, what else she finds frustrating about these feelings. "I also hate that I have these moments of feeling so blatantly insecure, especially when there is absolutely no reason."

"Is this something that seems to be bothering you more now that you're about to get married, do you think?"

"You think I don't want to get married and I'm looking for excuses?" She doesn't mean to sound quite so defensive, so petulant, but she knows that isn't the case and the insinuation hurts somehow.

"Absolutely not." Stephanie shakes her head and smiles, aware that her question has been taken the wrong way. "I think you do want to get married but that you were burned by what happened in your first marriage and you're scared."

"I'm not scared." Only as she says it aloud does she know it's completely true. She's not scared of marrying Dempsey, not in the least. "I just want to get it right this time."

-/-/-/-/-/-/-

"Harry, you home?" She hears the front door slam shut as he calls out to her.

"I'm here." She reaches the bottom of the stairs at the same time as he does and smiles at him.

"Hey." He smiles back, stepping forward to kiss her, his lips warm and welcome, her arms moving instinctively to wrap around him. "I was worried about you, baby. I thought you were planning to head back to work after you were done with your appointment."

"I was...I'm sorry, I should have called, I just didn't…" She feels herself switching into autopilot, ready to shrug it off but remembers her conversation with Stephanie and stops. "I didn't feel up to it, it was a strange session today."

"You okay?" He frowns and she manages a smile in his direction.

"I'm okay." She leans forward to kiss him again, his eyebrows raising slightly as she pulls back. "I am, I promise."

"You want to talk about it, your session?"

"I actually think I do, yes." She nods, biting her lip slightly but oddly proud of herself for knowing she should share with him some of what she shared with Stephanie. "But later, when we've had some dinner."

"You know I'll hold you to that, right?" His finger runs slowly across her cheekbone and an involuntary sigh escapes her lips.

"Mm…" She nods again, actually appreciating his tenacity when it comes to this. "I know."

"So, before we eat…" He grins at her, a grin that suggests he's pleased with himself about something. "This honeymoon of ours, princess. You really want some sun, right?"

"I don't want it, Dempsey, I crave it. With my entire winter-hating soul." She doesn't know how to quite describe how much she wants some sunshine, some warmth, how much she needs it, really. "I want to lie on a beach, cocktail in hand, and stare at you looking sexy in your shorts."

"So if I said I reminded Spikings today that neither of us have taken any time off in forever and that my gently persuasive charm has gotten us two weeks off, starting the day before we get married...you'd be okay with that, right?"

"Seriously?" He nods and she has no idea what he told their boss to somehow manage what feels like a feat unlike any other. "I would be very, very much okay with that."

"Good answer." He pulls something out from behind his back and grins at her as he hands it to her, a travel brochure, open on the page he clearly wants her to see. "How does this sound? Two weeks on a Greek island."

"Like absolute perfection." Even a quick glance at the page is enough to see the white sands, blue skies, and shimmering sea, and she sighs in anticipation. "Oh my God. I should rip your clothes off right here in the hallway to show you how grateful I am."

"Well, don't let me stop you going with your gut, Harry. You do whatever you have to do."

-/-/-/-/-/-/-

It's quiet and warm and she's really only half awake, but the half that is awake can't quite understand the coconut scent wafting up into her nostrils. There's nothing in the house that smells of coconut that she can think of...she's just thinking how good it smells when she hears the sound of water, of gently crashing waves and her eyes slide slowly open as she remembers where she is.

"Sunscreen." She realises suddenly what the coconut scent is, smiling contentedly.

"Harry?" She hears Dempsey's voice and even without looking in his direction she can hear the confusion in his tone, understandable given that she has woken up and uttered just one slightly random word.

"The smell." She turns to where he's sitting on the sunlounger next to hers. "It's sunscreen."

"It is." He moves over and sits on the edge of her lounger, running his hand softly over her shoulder.

"Oh, am I pink?" She leans into his touch, frowning slightly.

"No, you're good." He shifts closer and strokes a finger down her nose, grinning at her. "Freckles. I really love your freckles, princess."

"Glad to hear it, because I don't think they're going anywhere." She smiles and closes her eyes briefly, sighing softly. "I don't think I've ever been this relaxed in my life. I mean, literally, Dempsey, in my entire life."

"That was the plan, babe. Get married, go on honeymoon, relax." He pauses to kiss her, his thumb still resting on her face. "And for me to get to see you in a bikini for two weeks."

"A bikini? Singular?" She smirks at him and raises her eyebrows. "I have a whole selection of them, you'll see."

"And then before we head home, you model them all for me and I get to choose a favourite?" He runs his finger down the strap of the one she's wearing today, dark blue, plain and more substantial than a couple of the others in her suitcase.

"As long as you return the favour." She nods down in the direction of his shorts, also blue, as though the two of them deliberately coordinated, and she grins at him.

"I brought six pairs of shorts, honey, and they're pretty much all just...blue."

"You just went shopping and bought six identical pairs of shorts, didn't you?" She giggles as the expression on his face answers her question, and leans in to kiss him. "Ah, my haute couture husband, how I love you."

He stands up and holds out his hand, taking hers and pulling her up from her lounger and against his chest, sliding an arm around her waist. He kisses the top of her head and then pulls back, keeping hold of her hand and smiling at her confusion.

"Pool yesterday…" He smiles and squeezes her hand, laughing when she stands her ground as he tries to pull her towards the water. "Ocean today."

"But it's so warm here, and these loungers are so comfortable, and it's going to be so cold in the water." Aware that she sounds like a mildly sulky toddler, she smiles back at him, as sweetly as she can manage. "Why don't you dip your toes in and I'll sit here and watch."

"So..." He tangles his fingers tighter within hers and keeps on grinning at her. "If I said I was going to pick you up, throw you over my shoulder and drag you into the water with me, you wouldn't be okay with that?"

"My screams would be so loud I'm fairly sure someone would assume you were kidnapping me and would call the police. Then we would be forced to play the whole 'but we are the police' card and who knows where that would get us on this island…" She strokes his hand, unable to resist running her thumb across the wedding ring sitting on his finger, newly placed but seeming like it's always been there. "So no, I wouldn't be okay with that."

"You know, there are other things people do on honeymoon...if you're not down with swimming right now."

"Ah…" She grins at him, more than happy with what he's suggesting. "Now I think I would be okay with those sorts of things."

-/-/-/-/-/-/-

They have just ordered dinner when the little boy at the next table catches her eye. He's about three, she thinks, with a small heart-shaped face, a mop of dark hair and huge bright blue eyes. He grins at her and then looks away shyly. When he looks back, she returns his grin and he giggles. His parents stand up from the table and his father takes the little boy's hand, and as they walk by, he smiles again and she gives him a wave, smiling at his parents and watching as they leave the restaurant. She feels Dempsey watching her and she takes a breath, looking up and across the table at him as she reaches for her drink. He's looking at her curiously and she thinks she knows what he's about to ask so she smiles at him and waits.

"Is that what you want, do you think?" His tone is hesitant but he keeps his gaze fixed firmly on her. "Kids, I mean?"

"He was sweet." She smiles at him again and nods. "When I was a little girl, I thought I would have a family...and then when I grew up I realised it isn't automatic, you don't hit a certain age and get handed a husband followed neatly by a line of sweet little people. And I certainly didn't want children with the first idiot I married, so…"

"What about the second idiot?" He picks up his glass, glancing down and then meeting her eyes again. "Does he have a shot?"

"He's doing rather well so far, yes." She nods, wondering if her smile looks as wide as it feels, any pretence at a casual reaction to his words completely pointless. "He has a very good shot."

His thumb strokes across hers and she looks down, unable to prevent her mind drifting into thoughts of his hands holding a tiny newborn, or holding on tightly to a squirming toddler. When their food arrives, he slides his hand gently out of hers and she sighs, shaking her head at her sudden wave of silly sentimentality.

After dinner, they stroll slowly back to their room, her hand firmly in his, accompanied by a comfortable silence and a light breeze that feels good on her skin but isn't quite taking the heat out of the evening. She changes out of her dress into shorts and a t-shirt, and when she comes out of the bathroom he's out on the balcony, also in shorts and there is wine poured for both of them.

Curling up next to him, her thigh is pressed against his and her feet tucked up under her as she reaches for the glass and takes a sip, looking up at the view in front of them. The sky is a velvety dark blue with a light smattering of bright stars, the trees are moving gently in the breeze, and when the breeze changes direction she can hear the waves gently lapping against the sand.

"I think it might actually be perfect here." She lets out a long, contented sigh.

"Got the sun, sea, sand, got my girl." His hand comes to rest on her knee, his fingers stroking tenderly across the bone. "Doesn't get any better than that."

"Does your wife know about this girl of yours?" She turns to look up at him and smiles, still trying to get used to the feeling of being married, this time to the right man.

"Thing about my wife is she's a total hottie, a complete babe, so she has nothing to worry about." There's a sparkle in his eyes that turns more serious and his hand moves from her knee to her face, his thumb stroking softly across her cheek. "I really hope she knows that, but sometimes I'm not sure…"

"I do know it, Dempsey, I do. I love you." She leans into his touch, smiling as he nods.

"Then yeah, you're right, it is perfect here."