Stevie awoke with surprise, not having been able to remember coming to bed. The LCD clock on her bedside table shone twenty-four minutes past one. Cautiously she swung her feet over the edge of the matress and sat up. There was a light downstairs, she suspected from the kitchen - which was odd, because she always turned everything off before coming to bed.

Half-way don the stairs, hearing the sound of snoring, she had to stifle a laugh. Decending the last few, she spotted Smithy sprawlled on her crouch. Head tilted back, a rug covering his left leg but mostly on the floor, he had one arm thrown up with the hand on the couch back, the other leg dangling off the couch altogther, and he was lying diagonally across the couch. He looked too comfortable for her to think about waking him. She tiptoed into the kitchen to turn the light off, pausing once she flicked the switch to ger her bearings. She headed back towards the stairs, still trying not to laugh at Smithy's routine snores, moving stealthily, not wanting to-

Crash into the coffee table and knock it over, which is what she did a moment later.

"Woooah!" She heard Smithy's voice followed by a curse as he leaped up, crashed into the overturned coffee table, and then hit the ground heavily. "Smithy! Are you all right?"

A groan answered her. "Turn on the light, would ya?"

She groped her way to the wall and hit the switch. Turning, she found Smithy on the floor beside the crouch, the rug now caught up around his ankle, distangling himself from the coffee table. "I was trying not to wake you..." She said, and he smiled ironically. "Nicely done." He teased, sitting on the crouch to remove the rug. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to go fall asleep here, I was-"

She waved away his excuses. "Smithy, please - everything you've done for me, you don't need to. It was a long day yesterday."

He had folded the rug, rather haphazardly, and placed it on the crouch back. "Got a feelin' we got a few of them coming up."

"Mmm." She came to sit beside him, shivering slightly. He immiedately drew an arm around her shoulders, and she felt his warm shoulder against her side. Galcning up at him - he was much taller than she was, even sitting down - she tapped a finger against his chin lightly. "You know you get this... sort of distant look sometimes. Like something's so far out of reach you'll never catch up to it."

"Hmm." It was a cross between a spoken word and an exhale. Watching the lght and shadows play over Stevie's face, he had a sudden urge to tell her exacly how he felt, and exactly why it was so difficult. "Stevie... I don't want to... it's a really, really long story."

The finger moved to his lips and pressed gently to silence him. Resting her head on his shoulder, she tilted her chin to look up at him. "Smithy, you can tell me anything."

And, because he knew that he could, he told her everything.

He told her how he'd fallen for Kerry, and everything that had happened with the allegations, with Gabreiel, with poor Andrea. That despite all his doubts and agaonzing he knew he could never give up on Kerry Young, and he stood by her in the end until he'd finally confessed his love. He felt the tears threaten as he told her how Kerry had been shot right there in his arms, how he'd slumped, stunned, against the area car with her, and how she had died in her hospital bed. That later he had learned what Gabriel had done to her, and that she had died carrying Gabriel's unborn son.

Stevie cried silently for him, the tears running down her cheeks as she gripped his hand, wondering how anyone had the strength to go on after that.

He told her how he'd changed after Kerry, lost sight of his job, his friends. About Lousie, the poorest substitute he could have found. About ending up in prision because of her, but being saved because Mickey and the team had beleived in his innocnce.

How he'd met Kerry's father who had told him Kerry called him her knight in shining armour.

The rage he felt against Gabriel when he learned of what he had done, pushing him over the edge. He'd attacked Gabriel... and later when the truth had come out. How he'd always felt he had to avenge Kerry, but that he'd failed her in the end when Gabriel took his own life.

Stevie, though she couldn't stop the tears falling as the story unfolded, said nothing, merely listened as he spoke. When he had finished, he moved out of their embrance, sitting his his bowed head in his hands. She could see his shoulders trembling. Gently, she pulled one hand away, taking it in hers, and ran the other across his cheek. He looked up, looked into her blue eyes, and knew she would understand, that she had the strength to hear anything he could ever tell her.

"After everything... it never really did return to normal, you know... it was slow. Gradual. But I felt like I could never, ever put myself through anything like that again. I was careful, more guarded, I didn't show people that I cared. It's the same with you. I had to make sure that I knew how I felt. I didn't want to rush anything, make any stupid descisions." Risk loosing you like I lost Kerry.

"I know about those." she murmured with an ironic smile hinting at her lips. "Smithy, all my life I made the worst possible choices with men. And I promised myself that... with you... I wouldn't."

An almost playful light entered his green eyes. "Back on the Gun runner obbo... what was that kiss, then?"

She grinned back at him - pure, mischeivious Stevie Moss. "Okay, maybe I slipped up once or twice." The sound of his chuckle made the smile linger, and she realized her hand as still hovering near his face. Lightly she stroked his cheek again, watching his features go serious for a moment, then soon relaxing under her touch. She traced the line of his jaw, letting her thumb brush his lips, watching his eyes close as she smoothed down the brown hair that tended to stand up in spikes, invited or not. He relaxed completely, body leaning back into hers, and she felt the weight of him settle plesantly against her side. His hand came up to catch hers, eyes flickering open, regretful smile on her face. "Tempting as it is to slip up now, Stevie... I can't."

She smiled a little sadly, enjoying the feel of his strong fingers gently carcessing her own. "I know you can't." She replied softly. "You can't be anyone but who you are... and that's why I'm falling in love with you."

She knew of course, what those words meant to him. Why he looked, for a moment, so utterly terrified, guilty, and hopeless. The last woman to tell him those words had been fatally shot moments later. She wouldn't rush him.

After what seemed to be an eternity for them both, Smithy shifted slightly, though his hand still gripped Stevie's like she was his lifeline. "I... should go." He felt the words catch, knew their reluctance showed.

She held onto him as tightly as he did her. "Don't leave." She said softly. "I don't... I'm not asking for anything. I just want you here. Not alone."

He drew her hand to her lips to press a gentle kiss to it. "All right." He said quietly. "It won't take me forever, you know."

She smiled again, pulling her legs up onto the crouch and leaning slightly into him. "I know. I'll wait for you, Smithy." The promise in her beautiful eyes were what convinced him. No matter what they had riding on this - the Devlin case, their careers, their emotions - one look into those eyes and he knew. He had to risk it. For her he'd risk anything. Not that day, or week, or even that month. But someday, when he found the courage to look his past in the eye and make peace, Stevie would give him a future he only could have dreamed about.

She got up only to turn the light off. He heard the creak of her body returning to the couch, the soft rustle as she sought him in the darkness. He reached for her, drawing her close. She curled against his chest, her head tucked in the curve of his shoulder. He let his arms settle around her, her hair soft under his cheek. They needed no displays of passion, not this time. He reached up to pull the rug back down and shook it out, covering her carefully. Warm and safe, wrapped up in one another in the darkness.

Stevie felt a gentle exhale ruffle her hair slightly, and just as she was drifting off, Smithy's voice reached her ears.

"Stevie?"

"Mm-mm?"

"I love you, too."