A/N: Angst and fluff! I do have an ending to this story by the way, but I don't want to rush the journey, so we'll take it slow and see how long it ends up lasting. Enjoy!

...

Emma thinks about that Thanksgiving dinner a lot over the next few months. Sometimes, she dreams about it - except they're in an apartment, with fairy lights and windows and more than one room. They're together and they talk for hours, and then when they get tired they go to their shared bedroom and-

And she wakes up, because none of that is real, and she's starting to feel like it never can be. It's been over two years now, by her count, and whilst she can't imagine ever being without Paul again, she also can't really imagine being with him and safe from Nick, aside from that one dream. Still, she clings to the fantasy; when she thinks hard enough, she can almost smell roasting vegetables and rain and the cinnamon perfume she used to wear on dates when she was a teenager.

Paul thinks about it too. Its been a lot longer since he's been outside this room and he barely dreams of anywhere else these days, but he thinks about Emma anyway, planning crazy scenarios that won't ever happen. He thinks about giving her gifts, necklaces or dresses or flowers. She'd smile and tell him she didn't need any of those things, he knows, but he longs to give them to her anyway. He thinks sometimes about the future too - this usually scares him silly though, so he tries not to.

Emma decides one night, when they haven't seen Nick all week and she's feeling particularly brave, that enough is enough.

"Paul, I don't want to make things weird." She starts, then stalls. "Well I guess things are already pretty f**king weird." She amends. Paul is sat on the sofa messing with one of the cushions, trying to patch a hole there with tape. He looks up at her as she sinks down beside him. "What I'm trying to say is, I really like you." She sees his eyebrows furrow and rushes to add: "And not just because you're one of the only two guys I've seen for the last couple of years."

"I like you too, Emma." He takes a deep breath and she waits for him. "I think maybe... I'm not sure if anything can happen here, but I know that if we'd met at a coffee shop or something normal, I'd have asked you on a date."

"I'd have said yes." Emma responds immediately, leans in a little closer. Paul stops fiddling with the sofa.

"We could've seen a movie."

"Not a musical." Emma grins and he laughs.

"Damn straight." He sighs. "I'd have walked you home, and you'd have insisted I didn't need to."

"But you'd have done it anyway."

"Of course. And then, if I was feeling brave, I might have asked you for a kiss." He looks away nervously. There hasn't been anywhere to run for nearly eight years, but being this vulnerable makes him feel exposed in a whole new way. He feels a hand on his cheek, a warm steady presence.

"Bold of you to assume you wouldn't have already got one." Emma whispers, inches from him. He tilts his head down towards her, puts one hand over hers. Then she closes the gap, and their lips meet.

Paul thinks about weddings and children and pets and a little house with a garden and a vegetable patch. And then he stops himself, because that isn't theirs, and it can't be. What is theirs right now is this, and it is enough.