Ed, sweetheart."

So preoccupied is he with the act of brushing his teeth that Lorraine's words are not enough to capture his attention; instead, it's only as he catches her eye in the mirror that he frowns before spitting out his toothpaste.

"Did you say something?"

His tone is one of earnest confusion, and Lorraine feels a rush of simultaneous relief and disappointment upon receiving further confirmation of the very thing she's trying to address in the first place.

"I was working up to it," she confirms softly.

For the better part of a week, in fact, she's been working up to it—nearly since the moment they emerged from the tunnels. Aching over what they had just witnessed and hoping that they had been quick enough to save Arne and those around him from any real harm, she'd handed over Ed's medication and had been all too aware of the way he wouldn't quite look at her.

There's been a lot of not-quite looking in the days since, and a lot of not-quite fitting together. Lorraine doesn't like it one bit.

Particularly because she suspects – quite strongly – that she understands what's rendered them off-kilter.

"Okay." Ed's reflection offers her a small smile before he turns to return to their bedroom, Lorraine trailing behind. "What's on your mind, hon?"

That you can't seem to stand still, she doesn't say. That it doesn't feel like we're on the same page these days and a gazebo in our garden isn't enough to change that.

Lorraine knows her husband, so she starts smaller.

"I've been thinking about the night we found the witch's totem downstairs."

Ed makes the slightest indication of faltering with his hand on the edge of the dresser. "Yeah?"

"Mhm." She draws near him – she must, to hang up her robe before climbing into bed – and is on the verge of smoothing a hand down his arm before he lays his watch down and turns toward the bed. One of a number of gentle touches which he's rendered impossible, as of late. "I thought you deserved some time to bring it up in your own way, but I can't bear it anymore. I need to talk about it, too."

As Lorraine was speaking, Ed had sat down, the mattress creaking slightly under the abrupt shift in weight. Now he looks her straight-on for the first time, but there it is, still. A hint of barely concealed tension behind his kind smile. "Talk about what?"

She inhales a slow breath and smooths her hands over her bare arms. "Ed." Are you really going to keep up this bluff? she may as well say. "The witch is gone, but it's like she put a wall up between us. And I won't pretend to know exactly why you've been distant, but I wish you would talk to me about it. It's not like us to let things simmer like this. If you're-- if you're still carrying any guilt for doing what she forced you to do… or…"

Ed gazes at her for a few long moments, perhaps waiting to see whether she will continue. His practiced expression has faded, to be replaced by a hesitant sort of frown. "Or what, Lorraine?"

"Or anything. Whatever it is, it should be our burden together."

Right now, Lorraine would give anything to cross the floor and kneel before Ed, or sit down and cradle his head in her lap as she does after he's had a particularly miserable day. But Ed's eyes remain wary, so she instead allows the bed to stand between them like a sentimental gulf.

He, too, takes a deep breath. "A part of me knows that."

"Can I talk to that part of my husband?" she asks. Much to her satisfaction, she manages a genuine – albeit – sad smile, and he returns it.

There. That's her Ed.

It's her Ed who proceeds to open his mouth and confess, "It's not about what she forced me to do. It's…" He repositions himself, lifting a leg up into bed and holding his ankle close, examining it rather than hold Lorraine's gaze. She's suddenly struck by just how much he looks like the young man about to go to war. "I can't stop thinking about how you looked at me after."

Lorraine's mouth drops open, and she does dare to take a few steps forward, then.

Not so many as to spook him, of course.

"How I looked at you?" she echoes. And here she must tread carefully, because of course she has no control over his guilt, of course not, but they'd talked about this, and she thought he understood that she doesn't fault him for anything that happened, either here or in those tunnels. If he's still troubled by it…

Well, she can't say for certain that she would be able to remove the guilt entirely, but again. The least she could do is ease his burden.

Ed nods slowly, eyes still focused downward.

"I knew from the first minute that that wasn't you," Lorraine murmurs. Slowly, carefully inching closer, their carpet warm and soft beneath her feet. "I wasn't frightened of you, Ed, not for a second. I was frightened for you."

"I know." Ed looks up to meet her gaze as she draws near, his eyes tender but penetrating. "But I promised you better than that, after London. I never wanted to scare you like that again."

Gingerly, Lorraine takes the last few steps—enough to hold out her hand for Ed to hold. He does in an instant, clutching her tight and leaning his head against her hip. "We might be in the wrong line of work if we're going to take ourselves to task over worrying one another," she muses.

The meager attempt at humor pays off alright. It makes Ed chuckle, at least, her nightgown bunching against her skin slightly with the movement. But he quiets in an instant, nuzzling his head closer at the same moment that he pulls her in and goodness, does her heart feel like it might burst, then. "This is different, hon."

"No, London was different." Lorraine runs her free hand through his hair, a careful gesture which makes Ed's posture soften at once. "In London you ran off before we had any time to come up with a plan of attack. If anything happened to you in that house, I would have spent the rest of my life wondering whether there was anything I could have done. This time…"

She falters, admittedly… picturing this time, again. She pictures the wild, delirious look in Ed's eyes, and her heart stutters. Because this time was different, a little bit. "This time I thought the same thing I think every time we work a case."

"What's that?" Ed whispers.

Lorraine nudges at his chin, encouraging him to look up at her. A warmth blooms gently in her belly when he does. "I thought that if anything happened to either of us, at least I knew I would have done everything in my power to stop it." She hesitates. "But sure, I suppose I might have been a little frightened that my best wouldn't be good enough this time."

Ed leans his forehead against her hip once more and wraps his arms around her middle as he laughs soft and low. "Your best will always be more than enough."

His sweet tone – and sweeter words – might put a smile on her face, but even so, Lorraine tsks and clutches his shoulder so that she might push him back. "I believe you're the one in need of comforting here, Mr. Warren."

The corners of his eyes crinkle with mirth; Lorraine would chance a guess that this is the first time she's seen a true smile on his face in the past week, give or take. Clearing his throat, Ed scoots back further on the bed to get a better look at his wife as he gestures her on. "Yes, of course. What sort of comforting do you have in mind?"

An innocent enough question, but Lorraine knows her husband.

She sees the way his head is tilted, and the way his mouth sits just so—lips slightly curled up and slightly parted.

Arching an eyebrow, she says, "It seems like you have something in mind."

"I might have one particular aspiration," Ed concedes.

Lorraine poses her response in the most unenthusiastic monotone she can muster given how pleasantly she's smiling. "And what would that be."

"To take that image of your face in my head and replace it with a more pleasant expression."

Just in case Lorraine is not following – she is – Ed's smile gets wider. His eyes wander from her face and down.

Lorraine rolls her eyes, chuckles, and climbs into bed after him.

Despite his teasing, Ed kisses her like he's not in any hurry, and Lorraine doesn't mind in the least. It's not that they haven't kissed, since the tunnels, but it's viscerally evident how much the distance between them had permeated each facet of their relationship. Suddenly, kissing Ed feels easy again.

It feels rich and endless and good.

Ed sits with his back against his pillow and his head angled awkwardly to kiss Lorraine as she presses into him, but he does, with some deftness, capture her hips in his hands and pull her more tidily into his lap. A better angle for both of them, to be sure—Lorraine does so like to look down into Ed's darkened eyes when she captures his lower lip between her teeth and nibbles, and on the other hand, he's told her more than once…

There are very few things he likes so much in the entire world as the sight of Lorraine on top of him. He's not particularly picky about the specifics.

Right now, though, his eyes are barely open as he revels in Lorraine's mouth moving slow and pliant over his, her fingers where his jaw meets his neck, and her heat tantalizingly close; it's been years since she even considered wearing panties to bed, so it's only his thin underwear between them as she straddles his pelvis and grinds over him steadily.

In something very much resembling unison – another rarity the past several days – Ed and Lorraine pull apart for a breath. But Lorraine shifts at once, ducking her head down to whisper in Ed's ear, "Are you feeling comforted yet, sweetheart?" before scattering a number of kisses over his neck.

"Starting to," he concedes before letting out a heady sigh—she's shifted back onto his thighs to give herself a better angle from which to reach down and touch him over his underwear.

The fabric is damp from her arousal, generating a peculiar sort of friction that makes Ed hum as she strokes over his length. Too much and not enough, all at once.

Ed's not far behind in reaching between Lorraine's legs, and he's not subtle about it, either. His fingers dance up her thigh with a playful lightness that anticipates further light touches: Ed reacquainting himself with her folds with a delicate finger, savoring the wetness there before dragging up to her clit and oh.

Once upon a time, they would have gotten each other off like this. In the back of Ed's car, clumsy and giggling, Ed finally pressing his fingers inside of her only once she reached into his underwear and skin met skin. Once upon a time, they would have breathed heavy in one another's ears while Lorraine rocked against his hand, until she had gasped and screamed and her hand was sticky with his cum.

As Lorraine kisses him again, Ed's tongue sweeps into her mouth, he fills her with two fingers in a smooth, easy gesture that feels like coming home, and she loves it. She does.

But she clenches around him and right now, here, she aches for more.

It's an easy task to free his cock from his boxers. Lorraine can't resist the urge to break their kiss at once so that she might look down at him, never tired of the sight of Ed fully erect in her hand and leaking pre-cum all because of her. All because he needs her so desperately.

"Don't tell me you're in a hurry," Ed murmurs.

Lorraine could point out that he's still coaxing her along – easing his fingers in and out, stroking her clit with ever-patient circles from his thumb – but she doesn't. (Not least of which because it feels quite, quite good.) Instead, she leans her forehead against his as she smooths her thumb over the head of his cock. "Only in a hurry to have you inside of me."

They might not be barely-grown, not-yet-married kids in the back of his car anymore, but Ed still giggles. "Well who am I to say no to that?"

Neither of them speaks as she eases onto him, but they stare. Lorraine clutches his undershirt with one hand and his hair with the other, and she could almost cry over how at ease he is. Both because he's eagerly snaked his hands up her nightgown, holding her with the utmost reverence, and because he's looking at her now, well and truly looking.

"I missed you," Lorraine whispers.

Ed nuzzles his nose against her cheek. "Missed you, too."

She rides him slowly and kisses him sporadically—lazy kisses that have her moaning softly into his mouth when he reaches down to rub her clit again where they're both joined. For the first time all week, the trauma of what they've been through truly begins to recede until her mind is emptied of everything but their immediate surroundings--

Their sheets rumpled beneath her knees--

The wood of the headboard hard against her knuckles--

Ed's cock filling her just right and his gentle thrusts as he rocks his hips to meet her--

And her arousal, bubbling up pleasantly until it's coursing through every inch of her veins.

No sooner has Lorraine realized how close she is to orgasm than Ed pulls out of their kiss, leaning his head back. "Lemme get a better look at you, hon."

She's very nearly wrecked by the sight of his hungry eyes and his lips, deep red where she'd bitten and perhaps sucked a little too hard.

No, not too hard. Just right, if his own unsteady breathing is enough to go by.

"You going to come, sweetheart?" she asks. The words are little more than a gasp.

Ed squeezes her hip gently. "I'll be--" He falters with a groan as she rocks against him just so. "--right behind you."

Lorraine can't help but smile, because yes—he always is.

Her movements become sloppier as she chases the peak, but Ed responds easily, his own thrusts and attention to her clit remaining steady. His gentle words of encouragement – just like that, hon. there we go – are the last thing Lorraine hears before she gasps, her climax overtaking her in a steady ebb and flow. As promised, it's not long after that Ed's fingers dig into her hip hard, only an instant before she feels it—him, spilling inside of her with a deep groan before he buries her face in her neck.

A pleasant, heady energy hangs over the room as they return to themselves, and it's some time before they're inclined to disrupt it; Ed's kissing her neck absently, and Lorraine might never tire of the feeling of his head, cradled between her chin and hand.

But Ed murmurs, "I'm sorry I didn't say anything sooner," and they pull away as one to look at each other, then.

Lorraine gives him a tender smile. "I'm sure you'll find some way to make it up to me."

He laughs before wrapping his arms around her and tucking his face against her neck once more.

It's nice, she thinks, to hear the sound of his laughter again.