Author's Note: Here's an alternate way Barney and Meera confess their love. I typed and discarded it a while back, but hey, I gotta prime ya'll for the epilogue, which is coming soon. Enjoy!

You've been living with me for this long, and it is more than a little amazing to me how easy it is.

"You know it's been around two months?" I ask vaguely.

You understand what I mean in moments. "Has it really?" you murmur.

"Yeah," I half-laugh with amazement. "Don't feel like it, huh?"

"Not at all," you reply with surprise. You hug one knee to your chest, and balance your chin on it. "Both the shortest and longest two months of my life."

I get that completely: short because you want to forget the majority of it, the awful parts, and long because you can't let them go.

The news comes back with a story about a really prestigious garden four counties over.

"Look at that tree!" you marvel. "There's nothing like that in Nepal!" The camera panning over the acres of landscaping stops on a live oak with dipping branches, perfect for sitting in, shady and with moss for a carpet underneath. The stately tree is laced with various sizes of Moroccan lanterns that light up at night.

As soon as I lay eyes on the tree, I know. It has to be now, tonight, and there.

I slide my glance over to you, still enraptured by the beauty of the gardens framed by a camera's lens. You've gotten so much better. In truth, better than I had hoped. You've gone from the ember on ashes to the phoenix, and your wings are continuing to get stronger. You hardly ever cry anymore: a few episodes of quiet, shaking sobs that break my heart with their genuineness, but they feel like maintenance of a healing process more than the establishment of a trauma. When I look in your eyes during and after those times, I see lessened pain. Pain, yes, but fading a fraction more every day. Some days you're quieter than others, and I know those are the days to throw an arm over you when we sit on the couch. Some days, you're eyes are so free that I have to take you on motorcycle rides, just so you can get it out of your system, or you might levitate into the air and combust into flame.

Your saucer-sized groupings with the pistols are shrinking to fist-sized, and I secretly special-ordered a .38 with custom engraving. It's due in a day, but I will be in the Himilayan foothills. That damn job for Kresh, a necessity for my life, is going to take me away from you for three weeks, maybe more. You'll make it, I know. But how well? And how will I make it?

You've made friends, too. Lou at the laundromat knows your step's cadence and gives you jokes straight out of the Reader's Digest. Gunnar and you burn up the phone talking over his textbooks, and I swear, you're helping him study for midterms. January has called twice, and both times you absconded with the phone to the cockpit of the plane. If I stand in the hangar during those calls, I can hear you giggling like crazy. I hear words like 'bra', 'perm', and 'syphilis', turn man-pale, and man-scurry away before my ears burst into flame.

The voice of God, the songs of angels, and the conversations of untethered women...all things not to be heard by men.

So, you're getting there. Getting adjusted. Getting steady on your feet.

Would I be knocking you off your tenuous balance if I laid it all down tonight?

I have to take a chance. You've seen me angry. You've seen me cynical. You've seen my version of scared. You've seen the darkness in me when I tell you stories late into the night, and you've stared it down unflinchingly. Christmas, the guys, and a multitude of other people may know more about my past, but you've seen the internal workings of me.

You're constantly showing me your strength, both newfound and ever-present in your personality. You encourage me to test you in various ways, like picking occasional word wars, arguing the perfection of your Isosceles stance, asking my opinion on your doctored Chicken with Thai sauce MRE. I have to take a chance on you.

One day, you'll wake up and wonder why you're still here. You'll realize you don't need me.

Little do you know, I will always need you. I, who hate dependence on anything, am so wrapped up in you that I can't fathom being without you.

It has to be tonight. I have to tell you how I feel tonight, or I could lose my chance.

"Wanna go?" I ask.

You know I mean the garden on TV, and look at me excitedly, but with some bewilderment. "Now?"

"Now," I confirm. Do you hear the change in my voice? The decision reflected in my tone?

Maybe so, because a microexpression just beyond glimpsing passes over your face like a shadow. "Alright," you say softly, smiling.

We don our leather and helmets, and roar out of the hangar.

The countryside is nice this time of night: the sun is going down, the bats are starting to flit, the biggest stars are starting to show. Riding now gives a lot of bang for buck. Times like these, we can take in one of the most marvelous transformations in nature: summer to fall, day to night. We ride the cusp of the season and the time.

I'm more than a little worried over what I'm about to do. I'm a glorified soldier, but I'm still a human. It boils down to two options: I'm either going to set fire to our relationship as it stands, or tip us both over the edge into the great unknown.

I'd take skydiving blind, like some of my previous jobs, over this.

If I do this and murder our bond in cold blood, you'll never trust me again. You won't want to sleep next to me, or accept my enbraces even when you're overcome with sadness, or be able to stand my touch or gaze. I will lose you.

And if you admit what I'm suspecting...well, we'll get to that part if it comes.

We rumble through county after county, passing a few cars, then one occasionally, then none at all. Night envelopes the world completely, and I turn on the headlight of the bike. The halogen cuts a swath through the dark, darted through with insects in flight.

In a matter of an hour, we make it to the front gates of this prestigious garden, which are after a simple dirt parking lot that is empty save for a few puddles. I guide the bike to a stop, and you dismount, take off your helmet, and walk over to try the gates. They rattle and clang when you lay a hand on the lock. Your shoulders slump in disappointment. "Oh, well," you sigh, returning. "We tried."

I refuse to take 'we tried' as a viable excuse, in any situation. It's part of why I'm one of the best mercs on the market.

I cut the light on the bike and take off my helmet. "Hang on," I say, a plan hatching.

With you watching queryingly, I wheel the bike into some bushes next to the ten-foot-high white brick wall around the premises. When I emerge from the shrubs, removing a wayward twig from my mouth, you chuckle.

"What are you doing?" you ask as I put my back to the wall and push my feet out from under me.

I crouch a bit more and cup my hands together. "We're getting into this garden. We're going over the wall."

Your eyebrows shoot up, and you take in the expanse of brick. "It's pretty high, Barney. I don't know..."

"It's alright. I'll get you up. Put one foot here, then step to my shoulder, then swing onto the wall."

The speed at which you swallow your misgivings tells me you want this, badly. You only hesitate for a second. With a dash of rapidity to your step, you plant one foot in my palms. I lift as you straighten your legs like a champion cheerleader, and you place the other foot on my shoulder, then the other to the opposite. I can feel you scrabbling at the wall, keeping your balance, but my back is braced against the bricks, a stable step. Your full weight squarely on my shoulders is about equal to a fully-loaded deployment bag, and hardly the heaviest thing I've hefted. The boots would hurt if it weren't for my leather jacket.

You are conscious nonetheless of your shifting weight, so instead of throwing one leg over the wall that is now at your waist, you bend in half over it, removing your boots from me, and by the time I turn around you're sitting upright, straddling the wall. "Hello down there!" you say cheerfully.

"Don't fall," I caution. "I'll be right up." I back up a few paces, get a running start, and spike it. I can feel the gym time agreeing with me as I use my upper body to lever myself up. Now, I'm mirroring your straddle and facing you.

You look mildly impressed. "That was kind of awesome, Barney."

I laugh. "Thanks, Meera. You should see me when I'm being shot at."

You snicker.

I lower myself down and land on my feet in the soft woodchip mulch. "Your turn."

Your apprehensive look tells it all. "Um, it's a long way down."

"You think you can lower youself down and land, like I just did?"

You shake your head fearfully. "I can't."

"Then hang on the edge, and I'll catch you."

"I can't Barney."

"Yes you can," I say firmly. "You got up there. Now you have to get down. Come on, just lay forward and swing over that leg."

You moan with fright, but do as bade.

"Now, slowly roll and shift over the side - good!"

You hang by your hands from the top of the wall, looking a little silly.

"Now, let go. I've got you."

Your breath comes fast, but I know your fear will outlast your strength. You can't see me to know I'm holding out my arms, ready and waiting.

Come to think of it, that's something of a metaphor.

You drop with a cry, and I catch you easily. My hands get you behind the knees, and your back thuds against my chest. I'm left holding you half-folded like a toddler.

Within a few pants, you twist your head to look up at me. I grin. "You did it."

"I think my heart stopped," you reply pitifully.

I laugh. "It was really only a four foot drop, and I was there to catch you."

"Still scary," you pout.

I let you down, and we take in the expansive view. The garden is nestled in a manmade valley, along the top edge of which the brick wall runs. The place is easily four acres square, and in the dim waning moon's light several smaller and well manicured gardens make up a sort of patchwork array. In the very center of it, there's the tree we saw on TV, its light glowing like the gathering place of legendary fae.

We walk slowly, enjoying the smells and sounds of the place. The crickets are a chorus' ode to the night, there's a night-blooming jasmine vine somewhere mingling with honeysuckle, and there are triangular trellises of huge white disk-shaped flowers that are open and easily the size of my hand.

Your wonder renders you silent, but I can feel the appreciation of the place radiating off of you. This is the sort of place you belong. You deserve to be here, surrounded by good smells and peace. I want to give that to you. For now, this will have to do.

By the time we make it to the tree, your hands are folded unconsciously to your chest. I'm a little ways behind you, letting you take it all in unobtruded by my presence. I am content to hear your sighs and small exclaimations of fascination.

You approach the tree with marvel, and it accepts you into the embrace of its light-laden branches like a lover. You spin slowly in place with your head tilted back, looking up into the branches dotted with lanterns, all lit.

"Come here, look at this," you urge in a reverent whisper.

I come to stand beside you and admire the view. Not the tree, but you. It's an image I want to remember forever. No matter what happens tonight, I want to always see you in my mind this way: blissfully amazed by the nature that so easily accepts you, bathed in this radiant glow, utterly without worry or care, your hair shining like raven feathers and your skin the color of warm earth.

"You're so beautiful," I say. It's so true, from the depths of me, that it feels as natural as the moss we stand on. I know my feelings are written all over my face, but here, now, with you...it's okay.

You look at me a bit befuddled, but your eyes are wide with recognition of what is on my face. "You think so?" you whisper, like you don't believe it.

"Yes," I say. "Meera, you stun me."

Your eyes are soft, receptive. You continue to watch me carefully. Is that expectance I see? I was right: you've known...

You're not appalled by my words, so I press on. "Meera, I don't know how to say this except in the simplest way I know."

With a curious, gentle, and slightly anxious smile, you urge me on.

"I've been agonizing for weeks, wondering if you were ready to hear it. If it was even fair of me to tell you."

Your eyes widen an infinitesimal amount, and your mouth opens slightly.

"The only way for me to move forward is to tell you. So, here it is." You know what's coming, and you don't seem to be afraid. You brave thing.

"I love you," I say. There's no orchaestral swell, no dramatic sweep of theme. Three excruciatingly simple words, and I am laid open like a body in autopsy. It feels like my entire being was wrapped up in the weight of that statement, and it rushes out of me with the words like water. I'm left empty: both dreading your responce and needing it more than my next breath.

Your duck your head and stand completely still.

A breeze bobs the lanterns and sighs through the trees, cool and misty. I'm balanced on a turning point of my future, my life, our lives. You're still not moving. Can I actually see you melting into the ground, fading into the darkness, disappearing before my eyes?

So slowly I'm not sure it's happening, your head starts to lift. You're smiling, and when you finally meet my eyes, your smile gets bigger. You say the sweetest words to ever hit my ears. "I know. I've known. I love you, too."