Chapter Seven

It was moving day. Kate wasn't sure how she felt about that, but one of the emotions she had managed to pin down was sheer and utter relief. Her hand patted her stomach absentmindedly as she watched the two men outside through the window. Bernstein was opening the boot of Kate's SUV, and stacking boxes on the sidewalk as Tim reviewed the situation with calculation.

Tim didn't have many belongings, a few forensic journals, clothes and books. He hadn't been back long enough to acquire enough items to make a home. She wondered if it was because he had been waiting on her to finally relent on the issue of having him move back in.

The baby was silent inside her, something that worried Kate, she was used to the constant wriggling movement that besieged her at random moments. To have the baby immobile inside her was scary. The ultrasound had showed them that the baby was in fact alive and developing, at that moment Kate had finally been able to breathe. They hadn't been able to tell the sex yet, which created debates about the color of the nursery.

Kate's home office had becomes Tim's bedroom, she had no need for the office anymore and the desk and other items had been removed to make room for a modest set of wardrobes, an oak chest of drawers and a double bed. Kate had also provided some book shelves for Tim. She wasn't going to be using the office anytime soon anyway.

Arrangements had been made between the two of them, there were a set of unspoken rules to abide by. She doubted very much Tim would be bringing lady friends around especially with his eight year old son sleeping in the next room, and a baby in the other.

Daniel seemed confused but pleased with the way things had changed. On one hand he was glad to have his father living back in the house with them, but on the other he didn't understand why Daddy now had his own room. Tim had sat him down and given him a reasonable explanation, mommies and daddies needed their own space sometimes. Daniel seemed to accept that. Kate knew he was simply glad to have both of them in the same house.

Their relationship was still on hold, there had been no hand holding, kisses or hugs. Tim felt obligated to ask if he could reach out and touch her belly. He was painfully aware that despite it was his baby, it was also Kate's body. She liked that awareness, it was thoughtful and conscientious.

They were both aware that their relationship was a small part in much bigger things. What mattered more importantly was the baby. That was their primary focus. The baby and Daniel.

Still Kate couldn't deny her urges. Her hormones were running wild and her temperament, she admitted, was not at its best. She'd tore the head off of Delko the other day for interrupting her during an experiment she was conducting. Tim was a calming influence, every time she became erratic, stepping in or soothing her with a light touch on her back.

She hated to admit that she needed him, that she craved his hands all over her body and mouth in places best left unmentioned. The doctor had warned her about this phrase as had Autumn. Kate felt hey had not given the hot, wild urges enough credit. Just seeing Tim lift one of the boxes from the back of the SUV, his muscles straining under his tight navy blue teeshirt was enough to send her running for a cold shower.

And in the end that's what she did.

It was late at night, or rather early in the morning. Tim was lying in bed, his forearm resting over his eyes as the glare form the alarm clock taunted him. He had become a light sleeper in the three years he had been away. Paranoid and uneasy. He closed his eyes against the light, his ears pricking up at the sound of the door to his room opening.

He frowned, withdrawing his arm away from his handsome features to see a familiar figure tip toeing through the dark towards the bed.

"Kate." he whispered, on the edge of the bed, his hand resting gently on her back as she sat down on the edge.

"I had a nightmare, move." she demanded.

Tim didn't question her, he knew better than to argue when she was like this. He complied willingly, pulling the quilt with him allowing her to slip inside the bed. He tucked it around her body as she climbed inside. She didn't resist.

Her shoulders quivered. Something was wrong, he could sense it.

"Kate?" he questioned, his hand enclosing on her shoulder as he angled his body towards her.

He gently rolled her onto her back, his fingertips smoothing across her feminine features, gliding across the tears that were rolling down her cheeks.

"Hey now, what's going on?" Tim asked quietly.

"It was just a dream." Kate uttered, her eyes clenched shut, her hands rubbing over her face. "Just a bad, bad dream."

"About the baby?" he questioned, his hands softly taking hers and drawing them away from her face.

"The baby was in the nursery, I knew he needed to be fed. I had the bottle in my hand and I was walking towards the crib. Something was wrong. I could sense it, the baby wasn't making any noise."

Tim felt his hear thud harder as she spoke, there was something clawing in his chest, a sense of dread.

"He was just lying there, it wasn't moving, it wasn't crying. He's lips were blue. I was shaking him and he just wouldn't breath." she was wheezing now, her eyes squeezed tightly shut. "He just wouldn't breathe."

Tim leaned in close, his lips next to her ear, she was beginning to hyperventilate. He could hear her gasps in the darkness.

"Breathe deeply, exhale through your mouth." he advised, his hand rubbing her stomach soothingly.

Tim didn't feel as calm as he sounded. He remembered Bernstein telling him once about Autumn jerking awake drenched in sweat positive she was in the throes of a miscarriage after such a dream. Bernstein had been beside himself, it had been a struggle to calm her down and convince her everything was alright, he had been frightened about the stress she was putting on the baby.

Just like Tim was now.

His hand tickled along what he imagined to be his child's head as he pressed a kiss to Kate's forehead, before resting his own against it.

"Your ok, everything is ok." he reassured her, his lips brushing her closed eyelids.

He could taste the salt on the apples of her cheeks as he kissed those too, feeling her body begin to relax against him. Something nudged his hand through the silky fabric of Kate's night dress.

"What the..." he trailed off, recoiling slightly and staring down at her stomach with suspicion.

Kate let out a sigh of relief, both hands clasping her stomach, following the movements.

"That's your baby awake and kicking." Kate tilted her head to face him as he shuffled onto his side, his hand coming to rest on her stomach again as his eyes met hers.

"Doesn't that feel weird?" he asked her, the palm of his hand flat on her belly.

Kate smiled.

"It's like having something from Roswell living inside you." she informed him.

"I think it can hear you." Tim stated with a grin as the baby impacted with his hand.

"This is the first time it's started kicking." she told him triumphantly.

Tim shuffled further down the bed, his head came to rest on Kate's stomach. His ear pressed against the baby bulge, he heard the rustle of fabric as his hand shifted, following the movement of his child.

"Do you think it knows I'm listening?" he asked her, still rubbing and caressing the fabric.

"Why don't you talk to it and see?" she offered.

Tim rolled onto his stomach instead pressing his mouth to the baby bump. He began to talk, in deep husky tones. She remembered other times his voice was like that. Early in the morning after the initial moment of wakening, she loved it when he spoke into her ear murmuring dirty thoughts or declarations of love. More than that she remembered his arousal, the way his tone dropped and became even more masculine as she drove him closer and closer to the edge until there was little more he could do but gasp.

Kate held in a moan at the warmth of his hand through the silky night dress. It felt good across her skin. The nightdress crept up her thighs from his movement as his fingers strayed across her abdomen. Her skin was flushing with heat, for some reason she couldn't bring herself to move. There was something so tender about the fact he was whispering to their baby. Her fingers ran through his unruly curls, her hips arched a little, her body betraying her thoughts.

Tim's fingers circled patterns on her inner thigh, Kate bit her lip as red hot waves shot up her body, leaving her tingling and wanting. She wanted to tell him to go higher, not to stop. Her grip tightened in his hair guiding his head lower. His teeth grazed her panties, his calloused hands smoothing up her legs, and then back down again. The gesture was seductive and maddening, her hips bucked in a frenzy. Tim pressed his tongue against her through the panties. She could feel his breath through the material. The heat pressing against her bundle of nerves as she cried out, his tongue licking right up her.

And then he stopped.

Kate groaned in frustration as withdrew from her aching body and moved into a sitting position on the edge of the bed.

"I can't do this." he told her hoarsely, his voice twinged with emotion.

Kate flopped back onto the bed staring at the ceiling.

"It's the hormones." she uttered, screwing up her eyes and rubbing them with her hands.

"So this was just going to be a fuck for you?" Tim stated matter of factly, his hands running through his hair.

Kate pursed her lips together before shaking her head, her hands resting on her stomach. The two of them were so close yet the distance that divided them seemed to stretch for miles.

"I need to take a cold shower." he said raising to his feet.

He was lumbering and heavy, his shoulders were deep set and his head bowed. Tim paused as he made it to the door, his hand resting on the frame. Kate watched his back, shoulders slumped with weariness.

"You know, I thought it was different this time." Tim shook his head. "This baby... I thought it would make things different."

Kate wasn't sure what to say to that. Her feelings were complicated at best. She wanted him more than ever. She wanted to depend on him, she wanted to put all that trust and faith back into him but there was always something stopping her, some part of her that drew away and sealed itself off from him.

Would she ever feel whole? The emptiness twisted inside her. She'd been alone for so long, Mathew hadn't been able to pull the chords that vibrated through her heart and in the end she knew that was why she'd picked him. He'd been incapable of hurting her. Tim however,sometimes it felt like she was drowning, the wave of emotions he made her feel. It was like falling in love all over again.

"Tim." she breathed.

He turned his head so she could see his profile, the fine sculptured features and chiseled jaw. He was looking down, his ears intent and listening.

"Please." she whispered. "Please come back to bed."

"So I end up fucking you again?" he snorted.

"I want to feel close to you again. I want to feel like it did before..." she trailed off, wrapping the quilt around her and laying on her side.

"That's up to you." he told her evenly. "I'm trying but your not letting me in."

"I don't know how." she murmured, burrowing into the confines of the quilt feeling cold inside. "I don't know what to do anymore."

She felt his weight on the opposite side of the bed, his hands were pressed together between his knees, a sign he was trying to be patient.

"You need to let it go." he sighed, shifting to lay beside her.

"How did you do it?" she questioned quietly, burrowing her face into the pillow. "How do you let go of all of that?"

Tim rolled onto his side, his eyes trailing over her small huddled form. He exhaled deeply before wrapping an arm around her wist gently and pulling her against him.

"I knew I'd rather have you there with me than anywhere else in the world." Tim said, propping his head up on his hand.

His free hand traced lines up and down Kate's bare arm as he spoke.

"In the end what you did didn't matter, it was the fact you were back that made the difference." he told her. "You could have gone anywhere else in the world but you came back here, to me."

"You came back to me." she whispered, her cheek pressed against the pillow.

"Your the only place that feels like home to me." he said quietly, his fingers toying with her loose hair.

"It was like that when I was away." she told him."Thinking about you always kept me grounded, there was always something to come back to, something to focus on."

"Yea." he confirmed, resting his cheek on her hair. "That's what it feels like."

Kate angled her body so she was flat on her back, her eyes meeting his. Sapphires on chocolate, something happened she wasn't sure what but suddenly all her walls had evaporated an there was nothing but him, filling her head, filling her heart and then her soul.

"Jesus Tim, I missed you." she whispered into the dark.

Their faces were inches apart, their bodies molded together, the perfect fit. Her slender frame and the baby bump pressed against him, as he lowered his mouth to hers, his lips brushing her own.

"I missed you too Kate." he murmured before sealing the deal with a kiss.