In the days and weeks that followed, News Night enjoyed a significant boost in the ratings. Their audience had been holding steady or growing for months now, forcing the Lansings to give Will and Mac a little more leeway with the stories they chose to chase down, but this new development was unprecedented. When Will had taken to the airwaves to break the news of Bin Laden's death, he was the first to provide the American people with an official confirmation. New viewers had flocked to ACN in record numbers that night, and so far, they hadn't left.

With this resurgence in popularity, Will, Mac and Charlie all felt increasingly confident that the Republican party would choose Will and their network to host one of its presidential candidate debates. They would all have dearly loved to revamp the entire process, forcing the candidates to answer all their most pointed questions without any waffling or blatant falsehoods. They knew, however, that such a dramatic change would never be accepted, and so, when they weren't working on putting together that evening's show, the three of them were closeted away in one of their offices, brainstorming ways that they could still make this debate their own, still do the news their way.

For Will and Mac, these discussions were not confined to the newsroom, but followed them home each night, continuing via an endless series of texts and phone calls, over dinner, and as they settled into bed. This was their big chance, and they were determined to get it perfect, but for the better part of May, they couldn't make up their minds just what perfect looked like.

They were still deep in conversation about it one morning when Will's car dropped them off at the studio. They were earlier than usual, so they decided to cross the street and share a drink before getting down to work. They had just settled into an empty booth, and Will had finished stirring cream and sugar into his coffee, when both of their cell phones buzzed at the same time.

Ratko Mladic arrested in Serbia

Mac's eyes flew up to meet Will's over their phones, their mouths dropping open in twin expressions of astonishment.

Will recovered first. "Never a dull moment, huh?" he said, standing and putting the lid back on his drink.

"Nope," Mac agreed, rolling her eyes a little as she, too, rose to her feet. Yes, they were journalists – she had never wanted to do anything other than the exact job she was doing right now, but could they not even enjoy one lazy morning together without breaking news calling them in to work?

Mac was right behind Will as they exited the coffee shop, but she hesitated for just a moment, fishing the teabag out of her cup and tossing it into a garbage can just outside the door. When she glanced up again, Will was just stepping down off the curb, and that was when time suddenly slowed to a crawl.

Out of the corner of her eye, Mac saw a car streaking through the red light and into the intersection, weaving dangerously, and hurtling straight for Will, who had his eyes focused on the road in front of him. She didn't even have time to scream his name.

With a superhuman speed she had not known she possessed, Mac sprinted towards Will, shoving him further into the road as the car veered back towards the sidewalk. She had just enough time to see Will stumble free of the car's path, before her entire left side exploded with pain, and the world went dark.

It was all the noise that finally woke her, and the sensation of too many people crowding in around her. Before her eyes were properly open, she lashed out with her arms and legs, trying to push them all away, but the resulting wall of pain knocked the breath right out of her.

Mac's eyes snapped open, and against the blinding lights, she saw a handful of men and women in scrubs and white coats pressing in on her, all of them talking at once. Though the pain was excruciating, she couldn't help her whole body from surging once more, gasping and straining to fill her lungs as she tried to twist away from them. Finally, one terse voice cut through the others.

"Mac, stop moving!"

She went limp in an instant, implicitly trusting the words before she was even conscious of the fact that it was Will's voice she had heard, or that both of his hands were wrapped around one of her own. A moment later, when her foggy brain managed to process this fact, she latched onto it with iron-fast certainty, feeling instantly calmer. Whatever else was happening, he was here, and she was safe.

"Hurts," she said, still gulping for air, her eyes rolling back in her head. She squeezed his hands as she turned her head to look up at him, his grip and his gaze providing a rock for her, something to steady herself amidst the storm of activity going on around her.

"I bet it does," said one of the doctors, stepping back from her, and giving her space to breathe at last. "Your left shoulder is dislocated. You'll feel better once we pop it back into place."

Will's eyes had been wild and terrified when they first locked with hers, but now that she was awake, she watched them grow darker and deceptively calm. He still held her hand in both of his, and showed not the slightest sign of letting go, so it wouldn't have been obvious to anyone else, but Mac could tell at once that he was very, very angry. In a strange way, she was glad of it, because it gave her something to focus on besides the pain.

He and the doctor helped Mac to sit up on the gurney, but even this slight movement made her whimper with pain. "You can't be here for this," she gasped, her nails digging into Will's hand.

Will glared at her without speaking, his teeth clenched and his breathing shallow.

"Please," Mac implored, trying to hold herself as still as possible. "I don't want you to see this. It's not going to be pretty. Call Charlie and let him know we're okay."

A short, silent battle of wills later, and Will dropped her hand from his grasp, striding towards the exit. When he was gone, Mac nodded to the doctor still supporting her other side.

"I'm ready," she said resolutely, but nothing could have prepared her for the moment of agony that followed, and her screaming cry sounded more wild, injured animal than human.

Gasping again until the worst of the pain waned, Mac sank back against the gurney, silently allowing the doctors to clean and bandage the scrape on her forehead, to shine bright lights into her eyes, and to manipulate her injured shoulder into a sling, her left arm pulled tightly against her body.

Only when one of the doctors came back towards her, carrying a small vial of pills, did Mac speak again.

"No drugs," she said, shrinking as far into the pillows as she could.

"Mac, don't be ridiculous," Will said tightly, re-entering the room just in time to hear her.

"No drugs," she repeated desperately, almost growling this time. Will glared at her once more, but sank into the chair beside her bed without another word.

"By all accounts, you've been very lucky, Ms. McHale," said the doctor who had reset her shoulder. "A car like that, going that speed, should have done a lot more damage. You'll need to take it easy with that shoulder for a while, but otherwise you've come out of this with barely a scratch."

"What about her head?" interrupted Will, speaking as if Mac wasn't even in the room. "She was out for a long time."

"She was," the doctor agreed, "but I see no signs of a concussion. I'll release you if you've got someone at home who can keep an eye on you for the next little while."

"She's staying with me," Will said, glaring pointedly at Mac as if daring her to challenge him. One look at his face, however, told her that this was an argument she was never going to win.

Will pretty well ignored her after that. He came and went from the room several more times, receiving last-minute instructions from the doctors and signing the necessary paperwork to have her discharged from their care. He didn't say a word to Mac as he wheeled her out to the waiting car. He turned a deaf ear to her protests when they pulled up outside the nearby pharmacy, jumping out of the idling car and filling the prescription himself. He simply stared out the window, glowering, all the way to his apartment. The mounting tension between them was beyond palpable, and for Mac, it was even harder to take than the ache in her shoulder.

When Will finally had her settled on his couch, Mac was unsurprised to see that he would not sit down himself, merely pacing back and forth before the window, his body trembling with tension.

"Looks like you got your way about me moving in," Mac joked lamely, breaking the silence in the only way that she knew would end this stalemate. "You're stuck with me for a few days, anyway."

Will whirled around to face her, shooting her his most murderous and resentful glare yet.

Mac sighed. "I'm sorry, I know that wasn't funny," she said, getting slowly to her feet and padding her way over to him. She lay her good hand on his arm, and forced him to look into her eyes. "Will, you look like you're about to explode. Whatever you've got to say, could you just say it so we can get this over with?"

Will needed no further prompting. "What were you thinking?" he exploded, gesticulating wildly. She knew that if her shoulder was not immobilized and therefore strictly off-limits, he would have been trying to physically shake some sense into her. "You jumped in front of a car! Are you crazy? You could have been killed!"

Mac didn't even flinch in the face of this tirade – she could handle any amount of screaming from him, and she could give as good as she got. It was only when he went silent that she floundered, because it felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room. "I was trying to save you!" she exclaimed, digging her index finger into his chest for emphasis. "And it's obvious that I wasn't thinking at all – I saw the car coming for you and I just reacted, it was instinct! You can't actually expect me to apologize for wanting to keep you safe."

Mac could see before Will did that he was about to collapse. Ever since the accident, his fear and later his anger had been the only thing sustaining him, and now, with his outburst behind him, he had absolutely nothing left. With Mac's hand on his arm to guide him, Will sank heavily onto the couch, his entire body shaking alarmingly as he buried his face in his hands. Ignoring the growing pain in her shoulder, which throbbed even more every time she moved, Mac sat down beside him, twisting herself so that she was pressed as tightly against his side as she could get and wrapping her good arm around his back.

"I'm not sorry for what I did," Mac repeated, murmuring into his hair. "But I am really, really sorry for scaring you." She held him tightly until the shaking had subsided, and he was breathing normally again.

"Elliot and Don covering for us tonight?" she asked quietly, trailing a soothing hand through Will's hair.

"And the rest of the week," Will nodded, leaning his head against hers. "There's no way you're going back to work tomorrow, and I'm not going anywhere without you."

It was Thursday, and with nowhere they needed to be until Monday, Will and Mac settled in for a quiet long weekend together. Will popped a movie into the DVD player, returning quickly to Mac's side. He was calmer now, but being any further than arm's length away from her still made him feel on edge.

Mac appreciated the proximity as well, but it made it so much harder to conceal the fact that the pain in her shoulder was growing exponentially. She fidgeted uncomfortably, holding her breath so she wouldn't cry out whenever she landed in a position that aggravated her injury further.

If Mac hadn't been focusing so much of her energy on trying to pretend like nothing was wrong, she would have noticed that she had never had Will fooled, not even for a moment. When a particularly painful maneuver made Mac let out an involuntary gasp, Will had had enough.

"Would you just take your pain meds already?" he said.

Mac shook her head vehemently. "Don't like how they make me feel," she said, gritting her teeth against the pain.

Mac had been fortunate over the years to have had very few occasions to need strong pain medication, but those few times when it had been necessary, the result had always been the same – disastrous. No matter her mood before taking the drugs, the remainder of her pain-free day would be spent so maudlin and weepy that she always felt even more miserable than before she took the pills.

Her most recent experience with pain medication, in the aftermath of her stabbing in Pakistan, had been a particularly bad one, because her mood had been hopeless to start with. The couple of years since the end of her relationship with Will had done nothing to lessen the devastation she still felt, and that, coupled with pain medication and the worst injury of her life, was the recipe for disaster. The entire brutal experience was all Mac could think about now, and it was making her more anxious by the minute, because she knew that she couldn't hold out forever.

As the morning wore on, the pain worsened considerably. When it had gotten so bad that she was practically writhing on the couch beside Will, her skin clammy and her breathing laboured, Will would no longer accept no for an answer. He rose silently and filled a glass of water for her himself, pressing it firmly into her hand along with two of the pills. Mac swallowed them without hesitation, but she wouldn't meet his eyes.

In less than half an hour, the pain had faded to almost nothing if she remained at rest, but Mac had to keep her good hand pressed against her mouth to hold back the tears, which felt like they were permanently threatening to overflow. She tried desperately to keep her attention on the movie they were watching, but her mind kept taking her back to the hospital bed in Pakistan, where she had drifted in and out of a drugged and feverish sleep, Will's worried and angry and hurt face painted on the inside of her eyelids, tormenting Mac every time she so much as blinked.

In the years since, Mac had accumulated more of these images of Will, the same ones which had given her such nightmares just a few short months ago, and now she had some new ones to add to the collection. The memory of the wild terror that had filled Will's eyes in the hospital was the freshest, and it left her struggling not to retch all over his couch. Will was the best man she had ever known – so why, why could she not stop hurting him, stop scaring him out of his wits?

Mac reached again for her glass of water, but the medications, taken on an empty stomach, had made her a little light-headed, and the glass toppled over, spilling onto the floor.

"Sorry," she gulped, sniffling and watching helplessly as Will grabbed a cloth to mop up the mess.

"Don't worry about it, it was an accident," Will replied, turning his attention back to the movie.

But for the rest of the afternoon, Mac could do little else but worry. Her eyes perpetually filled with tears, she kept tripping over herself, apologizing to him for everything under the sun, from being the reason he was missing such an important show tonight to burning the grilled cheese sandwiches he had asked her to flip while he heated up some soup.

Will did his best to reassure her, and he tolerated her never-ending deluge of emotions as long as he could, but even his patience had its limits. Early in the afternoon, he saw that she was struggling to keep her eyes open against the pull of the opiates in the drugs, and he suggested that she go lie down and try to get some rest. To his relief, Mac agreed at once, but when he offered to help her to change into something a little more comfortable, she visibly shied away from him, her stricken face losing what little remained of its colour. He was forced to listen from the other side of the wall as she spent many long and painful minutes struggling out of and into her clothing and her sling, every gasp and involuntary cry of pain making Will want to tear his hair out.

Much later, when Mac finally exited the bathroom in one of his large t-shirts, Will wordlessly helped her put the sling back on, and then gave her a hand climbing into bed, arranging several pillows around her to better support her shoulder as she lay on her uninjured side.

"I'm sorry for being so much trouble," Mac whispered pitifully.

But this was the last straw for Will. "Will you just stop apologizing?" he snapped, irritated.

Mac's eyes flooded with fresh tears. "I can't help it!" she whimpered. "I know you don't want to hear this, but I can't even look at you without thinking about all the times I've ever hurt you, and it's making me sick to my stomach."

Will threw up his hands in exasperation. "I can't believe we're still talking about this," he said, having reached the end of his tether. "What happened to 'I'm not keeping myself in jail anymore'? What happened to 'Some of us have moved on'? You said those things over a year ago."

"Wishful thinking," replied Mac, managing a crooked and watery smile. "I thought if I said those things, maybe I could fool myself into actually believing them, but that hasn't happened." The smile, such as it was, soon faded. "There's no reason for you to be so good to me," she whimpered, lying there helplessly as he tucked a sheet loosely around her waist.

"I didn't know I needed a reason," Will quipped, desperately trying to lighten both of their moods. It didn't work.

Mac let out a harsh sob. "Will, please, I'm begging you. I feel like I'm drowning, I feel like I'm being buried alive. I have no idea how to stop feeling like this."

Will opened and closed his mouth several times, trying to think of anything he could say or do to improve the situation, but as he watched her eyes grow heavier, he knew that she was simply in no condition to continue this conversation right now.

"You just try to get some sleep," Will urged. "I promise we'll talk later, okay?"

Mac was too exhausted, too sore and too inconsolable to protest. Will lay down beside her, resting one hand on the small of her back and massaging gentle circles into her taut muscles until she fell into a fitful sleep, her tears drying on her cheeks.

When Mac awoke once more, it was very dark outside, and Will had gone. Her tears had dried up for the moment, and her head felt a little clearer, thanks to her long nap, but after the day they had had, finding herself on her own instantly sent her anxiety ratcheting through the roof. Will would never leave without telling you, Mac rationalized, so she knew he was somewhere in the apartment, but her heart lurched nonetheless. She knew that she really, really should not be alone right now.

Mac rolled gingerly over to the side of the bed and lowered herself to the floor. The air was chilly after the warmth of Will's bed, so she grabbed a blanket from the chest at the foot of the bed, wrapping it around herself before tiptoeing from the room in search of him.

She found him sitting alone in the living room, staring absently out the window, the forgotten television screen providing the only light in the room. Mac breathed easier as soon as she laid eyes on him, but she still hovered uncertainly near the kitchen, not wanting to bother him if he had retreated out here to get away from her.

Mac didn't make a sound, but Will had always had a sixth sense when it came to her, because he looked up almost at once, spotting her. In the darkness, and swallowed up by his shirt, several sizes too large for her, Mac looked dangerously frail, like she would break if he so much looked at her the wrong way.

"Hey," he said, trying to smile as he flicked on the lights. "Are you feeling any better?"

Briefly, Mac considered lying, but what was the point? Will was always going to be able to see the truth anyway, and the deception wouldn't help.

"No," she admitted miserably, hurrying over to him. She sank down onto the couch beside him and cast aside the blanket, resting her head on Will's shoulder. "I really want a drink," she confessed, "but I figured this was a better idea."

Will said nothing, simply squeezing her good shoulder and pressing a firm kiss to her forehead.

Mac burrowed her face deeper into Will's shoulder, but no matter what she did, she couldn't seem to get close enough. She felt like she wouldn't be satisfied unless she could climb right inside his very skin. After a while, she wriggled down the couch, curling up into a quasi-fetal position around her sling, and rested her tear-streaked head in Will's lap.

"I hate seeing you like this," Will said, and he sounded so heartbroken that Mac wanted to weep all over again.

"I know," she said hollowly. "I'm sorr—". She broke off abruptly, savagely biting her lip to halt the very words that had made Will so angry before.

Will trailed his fingers through her hair, and the gesture was so sweet that Mac couldn't hold back a little half-sob.

"There's no reason you should have ever forgiven me," she said, her voice quavering.

It was almost identical to the remark that he had mishandled earlier that afternoon, but after sitting here in the dark for several hours, alone with his thoughts, Will was prepared this time.

"Honestly, I don't think logic really factors into it," he began slowly. "I think it mostly just comes down to wanting to." He paused, and took a deep breath. "I never had any desire to forgive my father."

At these words, Mac bolted upright so fast that she almost wrenched her shoulder back out of its socket. She gasped loudly, though whether it was more from the shock or the pain, she honestly couldn't have said.

"Are you okay?" Will asked at once, his eyes flashing with worry.

"I'm fine," Mac choked, though her eyes were watering from the pain. "Finish – finish what you were going to say." Mac's heart was racing, and in spite of the renewed agony, she suddenly felt more awake, more alert than she had all day, ever since the accident.

Will had told her once – once – about his father, had squeezed out the entire painful story one night when she had asked him. Mac had listened, uncharacteristically silent and still at Will's side, holding his hands as he spoke until his voice was raw and he couldn't force out even one more word. When he was finished, absolutely drained, Mac had taken him into her arms, embracing him as tightly as she possibly could, and they had never spoken of it again. Until now.

Before he could continue, Will reached down, pulling Mac's bare legs into his lap. It took only a split-second for Mac to realize what he wanted, and she scooted back down the couch toward him, so he could bend her legs and bury his face in the skin there. He closed his eyes and inhaled for a moment, and Mac tried to ignore the pang of guilt she felt when he kissed one knee.

She knew that Will needed this tactile contact with her legs, needed it in practically the same way that he needed oxygen. They were almost always the part of her he reached for first, especially when he was anxious or stressed, but this was the first time since they had gotten back together that he had any real contact without her pants or a skirt in the way. More than any other aspect of their physical relationship, even more than kissing or making love, Mac felt awful about holding back from Will for so long in this respect. After the incredible stress they had been through today, it was no wonder that he needed more, and she was relieved that he felt secure enough to simply take what he needed from her now.

Will straightened up a short time later, but he made no move to relinquish her legs. He exhaled. "Hitting my father was the most satisfying thing I had ever felt in my life," he said tightly, pouring all of his nervous energy into gently massaging her calves. "He had terrorized our entire family for years, especially my Mom, and it felt so good to finally hit him back. It didn't fix all of our problems, he didn't walk out on us until a couple years later, but in that moment, being able to inflict even a fraction of the pain that he had caused us felt like the sweetest victory of my life."

She should, Mac reflected, probably be deeply offended that he was comparing her betrayal to an alcoholic who had inflicted a decade or more of abuse on him and his family, but she wasn't. Hadn't she always known that his father was the source of the greatest physical and emotional turmoil Will had ever experienced? And her own devastation at what she had single-handedly done to end their relationship was nothing, nothing, to the anguish that she had caused him. The reason she had agonized over it for nearly four years now was because she had been absolutely petrified that she had broken him beyond repair.

Will drew in a great, shuddering breath, concentrating on the back of Mac's knees now, before forging ahead. "When you came back last year, I fully expected that hurting you would feel just as satisfying, but you were already punishing yourself far better than I ever could, and I really didn't like how it felt."

When she had crawled, despondently, from Will's bed a few minutes ago, this was not remotely the conversation that Mac expected them to be having now, but she had a pretty good idea where he was going with all of this. It felt like he was opening up her chest like a surgeon, shining a bright light into all the dark corners, and exposing almost every secret that was written on the walls of her heart. She squirmed a little, bitterly uncomfortable in the spotlight, but she didn't pull away from the examination.

"Before I took you to Phantom a couple months ago, when was the last time you saw a Broadway show, or ate at your favourite restaurant?" Will asked. "When was the last time you took a vacation, or treated yourself to a hot fudge sundae? When was the last time you spoke to any of our old friends?"

"You know that the answer to all of those questions is almost four years," Mac said quietly, surrendering to the truth at last.

Will nodded, relieved that she hadn't attempted to deny it. "Yeah. You've spent four years beating yourself up about this in every way imaginable, denying yourself anything that would give you even a moment of pleasure. You have worked yourself to the bone, not sleeping or eating properly, not taking care of yourself, being far too reckless when it comes to your own well-being."

It was surreal, having entire years of your life summed up in one tidy definition, but Mac couldn't deny even one word of what Will was saying. Though some of it had been deliberate, some of it only unconscious or incidental, every action, every decision, every word from the last four years had been carried out with the belief in the back of her mind that she needed to pay for what she did.

"Did you go to Afghanistan to punish yourself over what happened too?" Will asked. He stopped massaging Mac's legs as he waited for her answer, but he didn't push them off of his lap.

"Partly," Mac said, her throat dry.

Will shot her a knowing, disbelieving look.

"Mostly," she amended.

Will grimaced, even though he had already known what her answer would be.

Mac remembered thinking that it would be better if she volunteered to go overseas herself, rather than the network having to send someone who had a spouse or children waiting for them back home. There was, to be sure, some element of the ambitious and idealistic journalist behind Mac's decision, the desire to dive into the thick of things and report the real stories on the ground, but if she was being honest, Mac could admit that she had taken a lot of unnecessary risks. They were all extremely fortunate to have come out of the experience reasonably unharmed.

Will shook his head, trying to get his thoughts back on track. "The point is, not once, in all these months we've been working together again, has it felt good to see you punish yourself over any of it. I realized that very early on, but for a while, I still couldn't figure out where we stood. I thought that it would be too difficult, too painful to let you back in all the way, and it wasn't easy, but it hurt even more to see every day how unhappy you were."

Mac's breath was coming shallowly now, her chest rising and falling rapidly under his shirt. She had forgotten entirely about any pain in her shoulder, because she was hanging on every word that fell from Will's mouth.

"There are some things that are unforgivable," Will continued, his hands clenching into unconscious fists in his lap. "Grown men abusing their wives and children? That's unforgivable. Making a stupid mistake because you got scared? We've all done that."

Taking his eyes off her legs at last, Will reached for Mac's good hand, helping her to sit up and lacing his fingers through hers. "I didn't fully realize it until tonight – maybe because I still didn't want to think about what you did, why you needed forgiving, but I do. I forgive you, Mac."

Despite the fact that every gesture from the last several months had been a demonstration of this very thing, hearing Will actually speak the words was unexpectedly powerful. Mac bowed her head, letting the feeling wash over her like some kind of warm, ritual cleansing. Her eyes, which she had thought were absolutely spent, welled with tears once more, and for the second time tonight, but for a very different reason, simply sitting beside Will on this couch did not allow her to get remotely close enough.

Before she could change her mind, Mac got to her feet, leaning against a bewildered Will to steady herself, before impatiently pulling him up to join her. Burying her good hand in his hair, she tugged his mouth down to meet hers.

This kiss could not have been more different from the night of the bin Laden broadcast – it was tentative, and tender, and more of a heartfelt thank you than any words could have ever conveyed, because this time Mac had initiated the contact. Will responded at once, making the blood sing in her ears, but he allowed her to control the pace, and she kept it slow and gentle.

It wasn't long before Mac's nerve ran out, and she had to pull back, hooking her good arm up and under his shoulder, and burying her face in his chest. But she had just enough courage left for one more thing, and it was definitely time.

"I love you so much, Will," said Mac, turning her head to ensure that her words wouldn't be lost in his shirt. Her heart, filled to the brim with a mix of joy and terror, felt like it was about to burst out of her chest, and she prayed with every atom of her being that he knew how astronomically big these steps were for her.

He did.

"I love you, too," Will replied in an instant. From the way that the words practically spilled out of him, Mac could tell that he had been dying to say them for months, that he had merely been waiting for the moment that he could be sure they weren't going to scare her off. She hugged him even tighter, hating the fact that she couldn't embrace him with both of her arms.

Mindful of her injury, Will settled one of his hands on her hip, the other cradling her head tightly against him. "I just want you to be able to forgive yourself," he said, burying his fingers in her hair.

Mac didn't respond right away, but neither did she shrink away from him. "Tonight, for the first time," she said slowly, "I actually believe that I'm going to get there."

Though it would probably have been safer for Mac to sleep alone that night, to reduce the risk of either of them accidentally jostling her shoulder, Will and Mac needed closeness tonight too much to even consider it. As he changed for bed, Will looked like he felt a little guilty about not volunteering to stay in the guest room, but one stern look from Mac was all it took to have him rearrange her nest of pillows to accommodate them both.

Lying on her good side, curled up as tightly as possible against Will's warmth, Mac simply couldn't imagine feeling this safe anywhere else. He could have been holding her heart, still beating, in his bare hands, and she would still have slept soundly in his arms. There was no one else in the world she trusted this much – he was never, ever going to hurt her.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Thank you so much for reading! I apologize for the huge delay before this chapter – first there was writer's block, then there was a week in the hospital, then there was more writer's block … But anyway, it's done now!

I really hope you enjoy it, and that you'll let me know what you think! I can't tell you how much the reviews I received in the hospital meant to me. I was pretty miserable for a while, and they really cheered me up. THANK YOU!