Author's Note: Again, thanks to all who favorited, followed and especially those who took the time to leave me a review. (You guys are awesome and I appreciate your support!)

Warning: Vague references to mature subject matter (nothing explicit at this point). Also, possible mild coarse language (I don't tend to censor myself when playing like this).

Now onto some more Clarke/Reese feels…


Jeff awoke with a start, his body jerking and the bullet wound stabbing him in the hip. Instinctively throwing an arm out, he caught the back of the couch and prevented himself from tumbling to the floor. He must have been in a deep sleep, so what had awakened him... Oh.

Sounds from his bedroom. Sarah. His heart rate quickened as he struggled to get to his feet and dashed through the dark apartment (okay, limped).

She sounded as if she was in distress, struggling with someone. But she was alone in his bed, tossing about and whimpering. He'd put it at partway between a nightmare and an outright night terror. Burning buildings, illness and injuries, combat... Jeff knew how to deal with those things and rarely, if ever, hesitated. But this... What was the proper thing to do?

Ironically, it was something Sarah would be able to tell him, if she weren't the one suffering from the borderline night terror.

He clicked on the bedside lamp, flooding the room with the soft light and waited, watching. Her face was still contorted with distress, her brow furrowed and her lips pressed into a thin line. She whimpered again and turned her head away from the light. But she didn't wake up.

Okay, then.

He eased himself down to sit on the bed beside her distressed sleeping form and lightly rested a hand on her shoulder. She twitched. He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze and whispered her name. She whimpered, her eyes shifting rapidly beneath her eyelids.

Damn it.

He shook her and said her name more loudly. Her whole body jerked and her eyes shot open as she gasped sharply, her back arching off the bed.

"You're okay, Sarah," he said, trying not to be freaked out by her startling awakening. She was breathing heavily but seemed to calm when her dark eyes settled on his face. "You were having a nightmare."

"I don't remember." She wet her lips. "Just that feeling of terror and helplessness."

"I'll leave the light on." He gave her a reassuring smile and tried to leave but her hand caught his wrist.

"Stay with me." Her brown eyes were imploring. "Sleep beside me. Please."

Jeff could only nod, swallowing down the lump in his throat. He went around and got in the other side of the bed, leaving Sarah in the soft light. He thought about being a gentleman and just sleeping on top of the covers, but... Instinctively, he knew she wanted him close, and she instantly turned and snuggled up to him.

"Is this... Um, is this okay?" she whispered as she slipped a hand over his stomach and pressed herself against his side. Obviously, the poor thing was feeling vulnerable, needy and insecure.

"It's fine," he draped an arm over her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. "Get some sleep."

She felt so good cuddled against him, warm and soft in his bed.

...

Warmth. Heat. Almost unbearable. Sweat was beginning to bead on her skin, dampening her oversize cotton t-shirt so that it clung to her body. Sarah blinked against the soft lamp light that Jeff Clarke had left on to protect her dreams. Although, it was a task he'd taken on himself, apparently.

She'd been the one that had snuggled up to his side before she'd fallen asleep, but they'd shifted in the night a bit, and he was currently wrapped about her like a heavy woolen blanket. And just as warm as one, too.

He must run hot, but the heat she was feeling was also probably because all sorts of parts of him were coming in contact with all sorts of parts of hers as he spooned her quite efficiently with his larger body.

His knee had wedged itself between hers, the cheaper cotton-blend of his scrub pants a little coarse against her bare legs. One large hand was splayed over her stomach. The other was, well, cupping her left breast. Not aggressively, just sort of absently as he slept, his breathing steady against her hair.

It was actually very obvious he was attracted to her. Well, at least his body was.

And maybe that's why there was an intense heat flaring deep and low in her belly and warming her skin so that she'd begun to sweat a little.

Because it was very obvious she was attracted to him. Well, at least her body was.

Her head, however... She had no idea where that was at. So she should really try to untangle herself from the warm, solid, attentive, overprotective, quietly confident, sweet, charming man.

But he was sleeping so peacefully... And felt so fucking good.

Sarah sighed and tried to guide his hands away from her body but his grip tightened on her and he made a low growl of protest. Shit. She hadn't meant to wake him, because now this whole scenario was all kinds of awkward. As soon as he realized that-

His hands jerked suddenly away from her and the wall of fire behind her disappeared as he rolled onto his back. She froze, her heart racing. Had he been alarmed to find himself spooning her? Had he liked it?

"Sarah...? You awake?"

She groaned herself, rolling over and putting some more space between them.

"How could I not be awake? Sleeping next to you is like being in a sauna." She opted for teasing, because it seemed to be part of his nature once he was comfortable with a person. And she wanted him to feel comfortable with her.

"Sorry." He chuckled softly and then whipped the blankets off from them. A gust of cold air washed over her, cooling her skin. "Better?"

"Yes." A tense silence fell between them as they avoided discussing the intimate position they'd woken in. Not bad tense, but definitely filled with a humming sort of tension.

"You're still a firefighter inside, aren't you?"

His silence wasn't uncomfortable as much contemplative, but it had been rather a random question.

"I mean, your first instinct his to protect others," she said, wondering if she was pushing it too far, but remembering how he'd opened up to her before under her relentless barrage of random questions and insatiable curiosity. He hadn't seemed to mind it then despite his usually reserved demeanor. "You give off a lot of body heat. And you smell sort of sooty and sweaty. It's like you've been in so many fires that they're a part of you now."

"Really?" She thought for a moment she might have really alienated him with her rambling observations of his person, but when he spoke, there was an amused lightness in his voice. "No one's ever told me I smelled so offensive before."

Before she could stop herself, she reached out blindly to swat him in the arm, eliciting a mock cry of pain from the man.

"That's not what I meant and you know it." He snagged her wrist and intertwined his fingers with hers. Why did he seem to like to hold her hand so much? Not that she was unappreciative of the contact. It was rather calming, made all her worries and doubts and anxieties melt away. "So... Do you miss it? Being a firefighter?"

He shrugged where he lay beside her. "I guess. Was getting too old to run into burning buildings anyway..."

"You're not old." Hell, if she'd ever seen a man in his prime, it was Jeff Clarke. Except, it was an injury that had ended his firefighter career. "What happened, when you hurt your back? If you don't mind me asking?"

"If you don't mind if I ask you something in return."

Well, that was an interesting proposition. What could he possibly ask her, something he was obviously hesitant to ask her if he prefaced it by trying to get her permission.

"Okay." She turned onto her side to study what she could see of his face in the dim lamplight. "Tell me what happened."

"Nothing extraordinary, really," he said. "We train hard and study fires. But sometimes things just happen beyond anyone's control. There was a flashover. My options were to jump out a third story window or get fried."

"You had a three-story fall?!" She squeezed his hand tighter, as if she could catch him, as if she could ease that past pain. "That must have been excruciating."

Jeff shrugged again. "I was lucky. Just a stress fracture to the L4 vertebrae. Not enough to permanently cripple me. But enough to keep me off the job."

"Better safe than sorry," she said. Once fractured, it would be a weak point. And a weak point in a man's spine was quite contraindicative to grueling and dangerous labor. Also, he never would've applied to medical school, never would've been on rotation at Chicago Med, never would've been there to save her ass from an unstable patient. They might never have met.

"It worked out okay," he said, bringing her hand up to press his lips to her knuckles in a brief display of affection before releasing her. Blood rushed to her cheeks and she flopped back onto her back, hoping to hide her blush.

She studied the shadows cast on the ceiling from the lamplight as a silence settled between them once more. It had been a long time since she'd laid in bed in the middle of the night talking to a friend.

"So..." she said after awhile, tamping her voice to nearly a whisper in case he had dozed off. "You had a question for me?"

"Uh, yeah." He shifted, the mattress shaking with the movement. "There were flowers when I went to pick you up to be discharged. They weren't there when I'd left you a few hours earlier."

Oh, fuck her. She closed her eyes and took a breath. "Is there a question in that?"

"Who gave them to you? And why did you leave them behind?"

She pushed herself up into a sitting position, tugging her sleep shirt down to cover her thighs as she looked down at him, catching his eyes that were all steel grey in the dim light.

"I think you know who gave them to me."

He wet his lips, obviously made a little uncomfortable but his gaze never wavered from hers.

"Joey," he said. Not a question. He knew.

"As for why I left them behind..." Was she really going to do this? There was a flash of anticipation and need in his eyes as she leaned down over him. She was crazy to do it, but god how she wanted to, wanted him. "I think you know why, Jeff."

She touched her lips to his, the faintest brush that made them tingle, just a teasing taste to-

His hands, so strong and warm found the nape of her neck and the small of her back and pulled her into a real, searing sort of kiss. It quickly became open-mouthed, a little sloppy and desperate… and dizzying. And utterly intoxicating. And oh, god, let it never, ever stop.

He pulled her tight to him and rolled them over so he was on top. Except, he immediately flopped onto his back beside her with a strangled whimper of pain.

Damn. How stupid was she? He'd been shot not three days ago. He was in no condition to...

"Your hip?" she asked. He was lying rigid on the bed, his eyes squeezed shut.

"Yeah," he said, breathless (from either the pain or the kissing... maybe both).

"Can I get you some pain meds or something?" She placed a hand on his chest, stroked his cheek with the other, coaxing him to open his captivating steel-colored eyes. It felt good to be the one taking care of him for once.

"I'll be okay. Just forgot to take it easy." He gave her a smile. "I was a little distracted."

Sarah blushed. "Sorry."

"Stop apologizing for kissing me," he said. "You're going to give me a complex."

She laughed lightly, relieved but still conflicted. Was this all a reaction to the trauma she'd suffered (and couldn't yet remember)? She'd been stalked and drugged by a patient, she'd broken up with her boyfriend and in effect shacked up with her rescuer.

Yet again, the man proved himself adept at reading her.

"Come here," he said, tugging her down into his arms so that her head was resting on his shoulder and giving her cheek a kiss. She closed her eyes and just savored the moment; his intense body heat now welcome in the cool air of the bedroom, his sooty-sweaty scent heady and comforting.

"What are we doing?" she asked after a few minutes spent just enjoying being held by him.

"I believe it's called 'cuddling'. And then maybe some more sleeping," he said. He wasn't a liar. She knew that. But he had a tendency to tease rather than be completely candid. Typical guy. Not wanting to discuss feelings. She sighed.

"I like you, Sarah." Or maybe not. Maybe he wasn't afraid to tell her how he felt. "I like you a lot. But I know your head's probably not right yet. How could it be after everything you've gone through? We can figure things out later. For now, just know I'm here for you."

She blinked back the tears and swallowed the knot in her throat. Everyone at Chicago Med had been very concerned about her wellbeing. And yet, Jeff Clarke had been the one there for her in all the ways that really mattered. Her family was distant. Joey, concerned but not understanding. Even Dr. Charles had backed off, but that she suspected was more due to the fact that the psychiatrist thought she would respond to Jeff Clarke the best.

And god, how she had.

"Thank you, Jeff."

He was her hero. She snuggled up to him and let herself drift back to sleep.

...

TWO WEEKS LATER

There was no reason to be nervous. Things had been fine between them, even when he'd purposely pulled back. They'd had an understanding. They both needed time to settle down after the intensity of that week. See if they still felt the same after... After she was able to go back to her apartment and her work and didn't have night terrors and panic attacks. Well, he wasn't privy to whether she had night terrors anymore. Just those first few nights when she'd slept in his bed.

And that's honestly how he knew it was real, what he was feeling. Because he missed holding her in his arms. He missed breathing in the strawberry scent of her. He missed the way she lit up when he made her laugh. He missed the way she could pierce his heart with her curious gaze. Her extremely forthright attitude. The way her brow furrowed when she was deep in thought. The sound of her voice...

Jeff was done keeping his distance. Sarah seemed herself at the hospital (from what he could tell while trying to stay away). Dr. Charles had confided in him that although it would likely be long process, she was making a solid recovery.

It was time.

He took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

Butterflies swarmed in his stomach as he waited. It wasn't like he hadn't done this before. But it had been a long time, since Lisa, really. He and Nat had just started sleeping together. They'd skipped this phase. And maybe that should've been a signal to him that it wasn't real. But then again, given the chance, he probably would've just jumped directly into bed with Sarah, too. He sort of had... only not.

The door opened a crack, revealing one curious brown eye and then part of a smile before it closed, there was the rattle and click and then the door was flung wide open.

"Jeff." The young woman said his name with such pleasure, and such a radiant smile that about half of the worries and doubts in him evaporated. But unfortunately not all of them.

"I... uh, got you this," he said, he held out the little glass orb that had caught his eye when he'd gone into the florist's shop. Some artsy person had their quirky wares on display there.

Sarah accepted it in both hands, cradled in her palms as she held it up and looked into it. Her inquisitive brown eyes shifted upward, and she gave him one those looks again, the kind that seemed as if she were really seeing him for the first time. And he was a little bit pleased that despite feeling like she could flay him open and examine every part of his insides, he could still surprise her.

"Thank you," she said, stepping back to let him into her apartment.

He shrugged. "It seemed more like you than a bouquet of perishable flowers."

She smiled but her scrutinizing gaze never left his face. "And why is that?"

"It's cute. Looks delicate, with a complex little world inside." Her cheeks were gaining a faint pink tint but he needed to say it, needed her to know how much he liked her, respected her, wanted her. "But it's actually quite resilient. I think the term is succulent."

She raised her eyebrows at the implication, his obvious intent. But he wasn't going to back off this time. Not anymore.

"So what's the gift for?" she asked, heading for her kitchen to set the miniature terrarium with strange little waxy plants down on her cozy little table. "Besides the fact that flowers don't seem like me?"

Nope. Don't go for the easy out. He could just say it was a 'congrats on settling back into your apartment' gift. Or a 'I'm glad you're doing better' gift. But that wasn't true. It was a gesture to show his romantic interest in her. And it was time to see if she still returned it. Because her interest had existed at one point. She'd kissed him... More than once.

"I wanted to know if you'd like to go out to dinner sometime," he said, feeling almost as nervous as when he'd asked Karen Lydell to go to the senior prom with him.

"Like a date?" she asked, giving him nothing. Damn, her unreadable expression was getting good. Except her eyes... they told it all. There was warmth and playfulness and desire in the chocolate depths of her gaze as she met his eyes.

"Yes," he said. "Exactly like a date. Because I've done the 'distancing ourselves' thing but I still want to spend time with you. I still want to do this…"

He pulled her close and bent down to kiss her. He didn't have to go far because she stretched up on her tip-toes to meet him, wrapping her arms about his neck. And she was just as sweet and succulent as he remembered. Like a sun-warmed strawberry.

And Sarah may have been right about his compulsion to help others, his supposed Savior Complex. But she was also wrong. He wasn't attracted to her just because she'd needed his protection.

She was more than just a damsel in distress. This thing between them was more than that.

It felt like it might just be everything he'd ever wanted.


A/N: So, for those of you wanting a PG ending, this was it (hope it was satisfying - M-Rated is more my style, I guess).

For those interested in a more smutty conclusion, that's coming up next ;-)