Couple more chapters...before the end. Thank you so much for the great response!
Thank God for Partners. I could not have made it through these last couple weeks without her. When I asked her if she wanted to move in together I was only partially serious, I never thought that she would actually consider it. She never did tell me her answer about moving into my house but we have come up with an excuse every night this week to stay together. Either staying up late watching movies until we fell asleep on the couch or working on paperwork late into the night. We stayed at her apartment as often as we stayed at mine. The more time I spent with her the more I realized how perfectly we complemented each other. She always knew what to say and when to say it or to just not say anything when I needed her. Parker adored her and I could see the glint in her eyes when she was with him.
We talked about our friends, our families, our pasts, but never our futures. Our futures were so completely up in the air. She had always said that she did not believe in marriage and never wanted to be a mother. I had always said I wanted to get married and have a family. I was not sure where that left us. I hoped that we could be together but was not sure if it would work. Only time will tell what our futures will bring.
The best part of spending our time together was the plain and simple fact that I was able to sleep. It had been years since I was able to sleep through the night. Slowly I have been able to open up to her and tell her the small things that were the cause of my nightmares and she was able to listen and forgive me for my sins and it helped me to slowly let go of the guilt and the pain. I still had it but the more I was able to talk to her the feelings of deadness inside of me with lifting and I felt more alive.
She was scared. Scared of me leaving her like the rest of her family that had left her. I could promise her every second that I was not going anywhere and I do not know if she would ever truly believe it. I know that she trusted me more than anyone else but she was still scared. It would take time, maybe she never would, but I had to prove to her that not everyone would leave her. She knew that I loved her, I told her everyday and I knew that she loved me though she was too scared to say the words.
The only kiss we had shared was that fateful Christmas under the mistletoe. I kissed her temple every night before falling asleep and I felt her return the kiss once she thought I was sleeping but until she was ready…until she was ready I would wait.
Last Saturday she had me go with her to look at a house out in the country. It was about a mile from the bridge she was paying to have rebuilt and only a couple blocks from Andy. I told her it was perfect and she had decided to buy it…she said she was not sure but I heard her on the phone later that night working out the details. The only downside to it was the commute to the city. On a good day we could make it in an hour. If there as traffic it would take at least two hours to get to either one of our offices.
I hoped that her buying this house was her way of saying she wanted to move in together. If it wasn't I do not know what I would do. Two weeks spending the night with her I did not know if I could go back to sleeping alone. I knew for sure that I never wanted to spend the night without her.
The longest we had been apart in the last two weeks was for six hours when she said she had a meeting with her publicist and I had to meet with Cullen at the field office. During that time we sent random texts to each other so really we were not apart. It was weird. Before this I would find random excuses to stop by the lab, take cases where I knew we would have to spend a great deal of time together but once Parker called her over that fateful weekend things somehow changed. I just did not know what to expect tomorrow. It was like my world had been turned upside down and I was trying to figure out what it meant for my future, for our future.