A/N:If you like this story and haven't read any of Whoneedsasword's fan fiction, go check out her work at: u/4262423/Whoneedsasword.

They stay wound around the other after the riposte of hips ends. Orgasm states the tangle of emotions and the jetlag, which prick like thorns against Chibs bones. This feels good; Fiona's hands move up and down over the expanse of his back, hands stuffed between cotton and skin, her shoulder soft and smooth beneath his lips. He kisses away sweat, whispers nonsense (you're a blood marvel, lass). She sooths away life's barbs like a balm to a burn, the embrace of his wife's body a familiar bind.

Chibs is buried in her still - to the hilt - and he begins to pull out from the comfortable snare of tangled limbs and galloping hearts because Fiona shifts beneath him with a sigh, leg flexing. Her hands grab at his biceps, closing in a vice, as he moves. Her face turns into his, seeking his mouth for a long kiss.

Then she lets him up, satisfied.

"We really should be getting dressed. The last thing I need is for the Casey brothers to see me without my knickers." Her grin cuts threw the darkness, bright and strong. Chibs tucks himself back into his pants, closes the fly.

Fiona raise her arms over her head, shoulders lifting, head tilting back. Her mussed up hair brushes her shoulders. Her bare breasts rise, bouncing slightly as her body lifts towards the ceiling.

She pulls the cups of her bra back up.

"Don't take away the view, love."

"You've had enough for one night," Fiona replies, voice light and quick and so damn Fiona. She pulls her underwear up from where it dangles around an ankle. "Wouldn't know what to do with any more."

"Oh, I know exactly what I'd do." Chibs grabs her about the middle, yanks her into his lap.

Fiona gasps; a painful little sound that steals the moment. The dim light thrown over the room by the telly casts a blue glow on her face, illuminating her grimace.

"You all right, Fi?"

"Get the light."

He sets Fiona on her feet and flicks the switch by the door. The light above them flickers, casting shadows around the den. Fiona's shirt hangs slightly off one shoulder, revealing a bruise, ugly and extended past the edge of her cotton shirt.

"Jesus, Fi."

She grabs his hand as it tries to slide into her shirt. "It looks worse than it is," Fiona says, steel in her voice.

Chibs girds his loins for a fight. "Let me see it then."

"It's a bruise." Fiona's head tilts to the side, chin raised slightly, the line of her lips set and stubborn. "I don't need a goddamn medic."

Chibs pulls his hand from her grasp, and hanks her shirt from one shoulder. Fiona twists away from him, sidestepping his concern. She turns off the light and sits on the couch.

He stars at her shoulders, recalling the pain that trailed the blade as the knife slid into his cheek. Jimmy marked him after delivering a painful beating (he spat and pissed and shat blood for a fucking week) meant to slay. He does not have to ask if this is Jimmy's handiwork; Chibs is well acquainted with the man's fist.

"Was this Jimmy?"

But he asks anyway, struggling to keep his voice level. The bruising on his wife's body the accumulation of all his fears since leaving her in Charming

"You don't need to ask; you already know the answer." Fiona sighed. "Come sit down."

Chibs does and Fiona turns to look at him, brow furrowed. "I can't cry on your shoulder and play the victim, love. I knew the price for going to you in Charming. I was willing to pay it."

"What -"

Fiona shook her head. "Doesn't matter."

"If you aren't going to lean on me now, darling, when?"

"The last time I leant on you," She traces a scar with her fingertips, "Jimmy did this. You run off half-cocked again, this time he won't fuck around and just make it personal. He'll kill you," her voice broke and bent, lips curved beneath the weight of fear and sorrow. "I..."

"Easy," Chibs says, wrapping an arm across her shoulders.

Fiona leant against his chest her breathing rough on his collar bone. "I can't have you dead, Filip. And Kerrianne needs her Da. And -"

"All right," he murmured, lips pressed against her temple. "I'm not - "

"You can't promise me you'll make it out of this whole," Fiona said, hands fisted in his shirt.

"I'll be careful," He swore. "Careful as I can. But I'm going' to carve Jimmy in to a million little pieces, love."

"Just think with your head this time. Not your heart." Her eyes closed. "Christ. I'm so bloody tired, Filip."

They arrange themselves on the couch so Fiona rests on her uninjured side; her head pillowed on his arm, the afghan wrapped around them both. Chibs thinks about the fights that sometimes shook the walls of the tenement house that belonged to his parents in Glasgow. The Man sometimes came, flashing his badge, and if he made no arrests than the fight escalated in his absence. Someone always ended up dead, usually the little woman.

"You can examine if it you want," Fiona says after a moment of silence, her breathing flat and smooth.

Chibs runs his hand along her ribs, feeling for any unusually bumps that will signal a break in the bone.

"What are you looking for?"

"I'd feel the break if there was one" He says. "But you're just bruised. You should get some ice on it. Take something for the pain."

Fiona shook her head. She threw an arm over his chest. "I'll be fine."

"Yeah." Chibs kissed her forehead. "I know."