Chapter 17 Back to the Breach.

The cold breeze woke him. Clarke was fully dressed on the ladder opening the hatch quietly. The door landed in the snow with a dull thud. She was dressed mostly in Grounder clothes. Was she running again? With that thought panic filled him. He didn't want her to leave. He needed her to stay. He was about to call her name when she looked over her shoulder at him and smiled wanly.

"How are you feeling this morning." She asked, dropping back to the floor and examining his scalp with deft fingers. She avoided his gaze keeping her eyes resolutely in his hair. Her fingers stayed there too, perhaps a moment longer than strictly necessary.

The cold air bit into his bare skin. Combined with Clarke's touch it sent a shiver down his spine, that he couldn't suppress. Clarke misunderstood and quickly stepped back her hands leaving his head as if burnt by a flame. Bellamy stood and grabbed her wrists. He waited until she looked up at him. Her eyes big blue pools of hurt. He could feel her need to escape but he didn't care.

"You're forgiven." He spoke the words softly and waited. The chill breeze raising goose bumps on the flesh of his arms and chest.

She continued to look at him, first in question, then relief flooded her face. Her lips quivered and Bellamy fought the urge to cover them with his own. There were still so many unanswered questions.

"Where were you going?" He asked, eyes raised to the hatch.

Clarke looked over her shoulder as if just suddenly realizing it was open and then back to Bellamy's bare skin. She broke from his grasp and raced up the ladder. He was right behind her as she reached out for the door and pulled it closed. They were plunged into momentary darkness as their eyes adjusted once more to the low light in the bunker. Bellamy's arms pinned her as she turned on the ladder to face him. His breath hot on her face. His body was so close she swore she could feel his heart beating. But it was just her own thumping wildly in her chest.

"Radio!" She squawked, and cursed herself inwardly. She regained her composure as he stepped away from her. "I tried to wake you but you were out cold. I was worried. I thought maybe you might have dropped one."

Bellamy reached a long arm between them and plucked at her Grounder coat eyebrow raised.

"It's warmer." She said defensively. Then shook herself as if remembering who she was and flung her hair over her shoulder. "Besides," she smiled doing a slow twirl, "I make it look good."

Bellamy couldn't disagree. It was fastened below her breasts, making it very hard for him to look at it, without looking at them. He coughed and walked over to retrieve his own clothes. Clarke's eyes followed him and he could feel her gaze as he stripped and redressed. In another time and place he would have made a flirty comment and flashed his grin. But not with Clarke, not here, not now. He wanted her he realized, but he needed her friendship more. Besides….

They trudged through slush towards the bare tree that marked the ravine where his friends had died. Bellamy couldn't believe how close they'd all come to surviving the storm. He'd learned the lesson a long time ago but it hurt no less now. Life was not fair. Death was too constant a companion, too greedy, taking good people before their time and leaving the likes of him behind. He stopped to look under the tree, but the wallet was not there. Just wishful thinking.

"How do you want to do this?" Clarke asked, looking down at the drop. She'd begun securing a length of rope to the trunk while she spoke.

Bellamy hadn't thought this far ahead. No one had tried to collect Charlotte's body. They had just left her below to rot. He shook his head in shame. Wells would have found a way.

"Are you okay?" Clarke stepped towards him raising her hand as if to examine his head again. But Bellamy stepped back.

"I'm fine!" He said gruffly continuing to back off. Then stopped allowing her to close the distance between them. "I was thinking about Charlotte." Bellamy was surprised by the momentary look of confusion on her face that lasted longer than he would have expected. But then, her ability to live in the present was one of her strengths.

Clarke looked along the tree lined edge of the ravine. In places streams of meltwater had created small waterfalls, all cascading into the river below. "She fell over there." She said pointing off into the distance. Bellamy looked at her, and after a moment she corrected herself. "She jumped over there." Bellamy nodded. Clarke would know.

"So," Clarke said, visibly shaking herself, "lower me over the edge and I will see what I can see?" She raised her eyebrow as if it was a suggestion, but they both knew it was more. Bellamy braced himself against the rope, rough fibres digging into his bare hands and Clarke began to climb down. She didn't have to go far before she came to an overhang. She yelled up at bellamy to give her some slack, then swung herself over the edge. Bellamy's heels digging into the hard soil as he took her full weight for a moment.

Below the overhang there was a large ledge with a small bush and sparse grass. From there she had a clear view of the water rushing about fifty meters below. She could see some equipment scattered on the nearest bank, but no bodies. The climb down didn't look too difficult with the help the rope.

Bellamy insisted on coming down despite Clarke's concerns about his head. The equipment all seemed to have come from one pack that had broken free from the sled as it fell. The larger radio was busted. The thought of Wick making a joke about Bellamy trying to fix it flashed through his mind unbidden. It hurt. Unconsciously he searched his pocket for the necklace he had taken from Wick for Raven. It was still there, perhaps she would add it to the sculpture Finn had made. The need to get back to comfort her, to all his people tugged at him. Safe within the pack was a smaller handheld radio. It was dead but might still work once the battery was charged. If that was what was wrong with it.

They searched along the bank on their side in both directions but there was no other sign of Bellamy's friends. As they walked Bellamy talked about them, just loud enough to be heard over the roar of the river. Clarke listened quietly, sensing his needed to fill the emptiness with his memories of them alive, for as long as there was hope. Her heart ached with him at the memory of finding Mr Green and the rest of the Farm Station. She remembered how it felt the first time she had seen her mom alive, back from the dead. Monty would never have that. There was no question of trying to cross the river. It was wider and more violent than either of them remembered seeing it.

They had stopped to rest before turning back for the second time and watched as a large boulder on the other bank had tumbled and crashed into the water only to disappear wholly beneath the frothing surface.

On the way back Clarke actually laughed when he told her about Lincoln trying to teach the Bob's how to See The World around them. Her voice tinkling in a way he didn't know it could. It reminded him of Octavia. Bellamy trusted Lincoln to keep them both safe and to get her to Luna's protection. Not being worried about her when she was so far away felt strange to him. Clarke reassured him that Octavia could take care of herself, and he knew it to be true, but still. After Bellamy told her about the peace that had been brokered by the farm station they both walked in silence. Thinking of what could have been, should have been. He turned once to ask Clarke about this thing with Lexa, but her face was drawn with the pain of her own mental hell. It could wait. He wanted to take her hand, to give it a reassuring squeeze, but he couldn't. When they finally returned to the ropes the orange sun was low in the sky.

As he looked up at the climb ahead Bellamy asked. "You don't suppose they somehow made it?" But Clarke's eyes confirmed what he already knew in his heart. His friends were dead, their bodies consumed by the river. He swallowed, and was silent for a moment before nodding and taking hold of the rope.

The ascent was tough. His muscles ached as he hiked his leg over the top and rolled away from the edge. He took a moment to catch his breath the cold air assaulting his lungs. When Clarke failed to appear he crawled to the edge and looked over. All he could see was the slope of the rocks, punctuated by the occasional tree clinging to the face of the ravine. Beyond them the woods spread out. He couldn't see the river but he could hear it thundering past beneath him. Had she fallen, was it right now sweeping her away from him?

"Clarke!" He called out, his voice desperate.

Her voice came swiftly from beneath the overhang. "I'm okay. Just catching my breath." But Bellamy could hear the strain. Something was wrong. Bellamy looked at the sun beginning to set. The air was getting colder quickly as it became darker. He rolled onto his stomach and got to his knees before standing and taking hold of the rope.

"Hold on," he yelled, "and I'll pull you up." He braced himself against the trunk of the tree. Once he could feel the weight of Clarke on the other end he began to pull. His arms and legs burned and his head began to throb, but he kept his hands moving on the rope in a steady mechanical pace. Focusing on pulling her up, he could not let her fall again.

The rope went slack and sent him tumbling onto his back knocking all the air out of his lungs. He must have cried out because Clarke answered him with an, "It's alright I'm here." Then she really was there crawling over to him. As he got to his knees. He flung his arms around her and pulled her into a tight bear hug, burying his face in her hair, breathing in the scent of her like a drowning man gasping his last breaths of air.

"I thought I'd lost you." He said pulling away at last. Then he sobbed, "I couldn't pull them! up." Clarke grabbed onto him again pulling him back into a bear hug. She murmured soothing words into his ear and held him until she felt his breathing returning to normal. His panic attack over.

"Help me up?" She said finally. Only then did Bellamy register that she was injured. A bandage was wrapped around her thigh. Bellamy looked at her quizzically. "You should see the other guy!" She said jokingly, but when she saw Bellamy's eyes dart to the edge in alarm she realized he was still too on edge and calmed him with a touch. "Joking."

Bellamy looked abashed for a moment and then his eyes flashed with anger. "Why didn't you call out?" Bellamy asked as they got to their feet. His big brown eyes actually seemed hurt.

Clarke looked at him for a moment. "You were nearly at the top. I didn't want you to come back down for me." Bellamy's eyes asked her why, so she continued defensively. "I can handle myself Bellamy" He shook his head at her brow furrowed. The right words for how wrong that sounded to him not forming in his head. "Quit complaining," Clarke scolded him, "I let you pull me up didn't I." Bellamy just looked at Clarke with a mixture of mirth and frustration. She drove him crazy in the best possible way and he had no idea whether the feeling was mutual or not.

"How bad is it?" He asked eyeing the distance back to the bunker. Normally he'd have gone for the heroic carrying her in front of him approach, but the throb of his muscles was letting him know that wouldn't be an option. He didn't think Clarke would appreciate being thrown over his shoulder like a sack of rations, but it would be much easier. That's when it occurred to him, before she could answer his first question he asked. "How did you get me back?"

Both of them looked at the distance that Clarke had dragged him over. All up hill. Snarly roots and fallen branches covering the path they had made. Clarke had no idea how. At the time she hadn't even thought about if she could get him back. She'd just known she would.

"Thank you." Bellamy said quietly. He had died here. His last thoughts had been of his sister and his failure. The vision of Monty's father below him sawing through the rope sailed in front of his eyes. "Thank you." He whispered remembering the frayed rope back in the bunker "I'm sorry." Mist rose in front of him as he spoke.

Clarke's hand leaning on his shoulder brought him back to the present. He looked at the rope tied to the tree. It was giving away their position but he wasn't sure he had the strength to pull it up. It would be dark soon. He could go back for it in the morning. Clarke reached down and picked up a large stick and began walking back to the bunker. He caught up with her in a couple of steps and circled her waist with his arm for support. She didn't acknowledge him, but she didn't object either.

The air around them was still, it was as if the world was holding its breath. Neither of them spoke in the twilight. The only sound was of their footfalls and breathing. The only warmth where one's body touched the other. The door rang like a bell as Bellamy closed the hatch above them.

Below Clarke shrugged out of her coat and relit some more of the candles and brought them to the low table next to the chair to give her more light. She winced as she bent to untie her boots. Bellamy knelt in front of her unlacing them as she watched. Clarke's face was pale but determined not to sure weakness. Bellamy had a hard time with reconciling this reserved woman with the feisty passionate person he knew. Not the first time he wondered what had happened to her while he was in the mountain.

Her fingers trembled slightly as she began to unwrap the makeshift bandage she had torn from the bottom of her shirt. When Bellamy raised his hands to help she shrugged him away with a mumbled "I can do it."

Bellamy sat back on his haunches studying her for a moment. "You don't have to do this all alone." He said finally. Clarke just raised her eyes at him and that's when he realized. "You're still not coming back with me are you?"

Clarke lowered her eyes to her leg and continued to remove the fabric. It has already begun to clot and in places the torn shirt she had used was stuck to her skin. From what Bellamy could see it was a long gash but not very deep. "Stitches?" He asked. Clarke looked at it for a moment pushing the skin together in places, barely wincing before nodding.

"I don't suppose there is a med kit in that bag?" She asked eyeing the recovered backpack.

Bellamy pulled the bag over and rummaged through it. He pulled out a small green bag and handed it to her. Clarke's eyes lit up as if she had received a Christmas present. She unzipped it and lay it flat on her lap. She smiled broadly. And pulled out a tube.

"I need hot water" she told him, indicating towards the stove.

As he moved to light the stove Clarke began to shimmy out of her trousers. He was about to ask how, when Clarke told him to turn the knob on the left all the way right. The stove roared into life. It was a modern marvel. He turned to Clarke to ask how it worked, but she cut him off. "Can you put the bandages on the shelf into a pot of water please, not too much, I don't want to waste it." As he worked he could feel air above the stove been sucked up into a chimney he hadn't noticed before. Bellamy shook his head at Clarke. It didn't make sense. "There's no power. How does it keep working?" He asked.

"There's a manual." She said. "You can read it later if you get bored, but basically it's a passive system, all to do with the way the ducting in the bunker is designed." Her fingers were still rummaging through the kit. She pulled one tube out and read it and then a second. Bellamy watched her re-read them each twice.

"What is it?" Bellamy asked. Clarke looked at him her eyes sparkling. "Magic, if you believe what's written on these labels." Once the bandages had boiled for 5 minutes Bellamy gingerly scooped them out onto a clean plate and placed them in front of Clarke. She waited a few more minutes before using them to clean her wound. Her hands trembled as she began to pull the shirt fabric from the wound and Bellamy stopped her. His hands were cleaner anyway. Clarke watched tight lipped and pale as he finished the job. "What next?" he asked as he looked at the angry wound that seemed to have gotten worse with cleaning and was bleeding again.

Clarke gulped, "I need you to hold the wound together while I glue it!" Bellamy looked at her like she was crazy, but she just held out the tube. "That's what it says. If it doesn't work we can go back to stitches."

"Are you sure, that tube is 100 years old." Bellamy asked incredulously.

Clarke nodded, then showed him how to hold her skin together. Her blood trickling over his finger into the bed his nail as he did. Then she cracked the tube and traced the line of the wound with a clear sticky liquid. The blood flow stopped instantly on contact, and bellamy tried to press the pieces of her torn flesh together as neatly as he could.

"What now?" He asked hands still firmly pressed against the soft skin of her upper thigh.

He looked up at her and leant back as he realized how close their faces were to touching.

"You need to hold it like that for a couple of minutes and then we move to stage two." Clarke's voice was breathless, no doubt from the pain. She licked her lips as she raised her eyes to look straight into his.

"I can't go home." She said suddenly. Before Bellamy could voice an objection she pressed on. "As long as I am there Lexa will never see my mother or Kane as the leader of our people. She will always seek me out." Clarke lowered her eyes to look at her wound again, placing both of her hands over Bellamy's as if to help keep them still. The warmth of her touch seeped into him, creating a yearning in him that was new and different. Something more than just desire. She raised her eyes to look at him again. "I don't want to be in charge anymore. I never did."

Bellamy nodded. He understood that at least. He couldn't go back to leading alone, but they didn't have to. "We are not alone anymore Clarke. We did it. We survived until help came. We are with our people now. They need us."

Clarke shook her head, her eyes brimming with tears. "I can't. Besides, Lexa wants me dead too, or did you forget?" Bellamy was thoughtful for a moment, Clarke hadn't been mentioned in Indra's message. Clarke broke the silence, her voice hard. "I trusted her Bellamy. I thought, I thought I meant something to her. She left me to die."

Bellamy gripped Clarke's thighs involuntarily and she winced, making his hands fly off her leg without thinking. His eyes shooting up to hers in apology, hers replying that it was okay.

"Well that seems to be holding." Clarke said over enthusiastically. Then eyeing the second tube, "Lets see if this works too."

Bellamy watched in amazement as Clarke sprayed her leg, the wound disappearing beneath an opaque layer that was probably meant to be skin tone, but looked grey against her pale thigh. When she was done he took the spray from her hand and read the label. "Liquid Skin." The small print claimed it was "Water impenetrable after 30 minutes." "Allows natural skin to regrow." "Naturally antibiotic."

"No stitches then?" Bellamy said placing the tube back in Clarke's hands. Clarke shrugged and then smiled at him in that small way he swore she reserved just for him.

"I don't know, my pants aren't going to regrow themselves." She said, picking up her trousers and sticking her hand through the rip.

"That I can fix." Bellamy said standing up. "But first food." He moved over to the cupboards.

Clarke watched as he rummaged through the supplies. He ripped open two more bread packets and set them aside to rise. Then he pulled out the desiccated meal rations from the retrieved backpack and added warm water to them. When he was done he helped her rise and sit at the table. Honestly her leg didn't hurt that much anymore. The analgesic in the glue was doing it's job, even after a hundred years. But she liked the excuse it gave her to accept Bellamy's gently guiding hand on the small of her back. The way she could wrap her arms around his waist and feel their skin pressed together beneath the thin fabric of their shirts.

As she had watched him work the urge to blurt out how much she enjoyed being alone with him was overwhelming. She needed to get a grip. She would not allow herself to go down that road again. Not after Finn. Not after Wells. Not after her father. She'd loved exactly three people in her whole life and they were all dead. If she thought about it she knew that part of the reason she was still angry at her mother was for protection. Hers or Abby's she had quite figured out.

But this was more than just superstition. Lexa had warned her that the people she loved could be used against her. Just as her Costia was. Lexa had already insinuated that Clarke had feelings for Bellamy. She'd been quick then to deflect the commanders suspicions. Instinctively wary of the Lexa's motives for prying. Did everyone know, she wondered. She hadn't, not until they'd spent this time alone. She still didn't know, not really. It was all very confusing.

Wellington Jaha had been the first boy to kiss her. She had thought they'd put it behind them, they'd been so young. Raven claimed that he had been in love with her, that's was why he followed her to the ground. Clarke had been oblivious if it was true, she'd just seen him as a friend, her best friend. Then there was Finn. Those first few days on the earth had been terrifying, and exhilarating and so freeing. The Finn she had fallen in love with seemed like a fantasy now. The earth had broken his spirit and mind, she had killed his body. Lexa had forced her to do that.

Bellamy watched Clarke's hand shake as she raised the spoon to her mouth. He'd been silently watching her eat. Wondering if she would start talking about the Commander again. They needed to figure out how to deal with the threat from the Grounders. He needed a plan that would make Octavia safe again, so she could come home. "Are you okay?" he asked.

Clarke shook her head and dropped the spoon. One fat tear escaping her lashes as she did. "I was thinking about Finn, about what I did." Elbows on the table she buried her face in her hands for a moment. "I was thinking about Wells, we were best friends our whole life you know. I never had a sibling but I imagine it's maybe a bit like that." Clarke didn't see Bellamy's skeptically raised eyebrow. Her eyes were on her spoon again. Her fingers absently pushing it from side to side. "I killed them."

Her eyes shot up to his challenging him to tell her she was wrong. He tactically chose to remain silent and let her continue. "Wells only got himself locked up so he could come to earth with me, so that I wouldn't be alone. Like you did with Octavia. He didn't even know I was mad at him, that I blamed him for my dad. I treated him like a shit."

Bellamy reached across the table to still her hand. "You are wrong!" He waited for Clarke's eyes to reach his. "Wells made his own choices, he made his own fate. He didn't deserve what happened to him, but it wasn't your fault. I gave Charlotte the weapon, not you. I've thought about this a lot. What happened to them both haunts me. I think she watched you helping Atom. That's where she got the idea for how to kill him, but that's it. I'm the one who told her to slay her demons, I'm the one who armed her. I didn't know she was dangerous. I'm sorry."

Clarke couldn't believe it. Bellamy was apologising to her for Wells death, and he meant it. "You couldn't have known.." She began, but he cut her off with a raised finger.

"I could have. Do you know why they sent her to lock up? She murdered three people!" Clarke's mouth dropped open in shock. "I got Raven to look up her records, I wanted to remember her. Her parents took the fall for the first two, they had access to the poison she used. There was no one to take the fall after they were gone though. They found her social worker stuffed into an air vent." Clarke shook her head in disbelief. Sure Charlotte had seemed damaged, but then who in the SkyLocker wasn't.

"The grounders killed Finn. You saved him from lingering pain, just like you did Atom." Bellamy ignored the shake of Clarke's head and pressed on. "You are strong Clarke. We'd all be dead if it wasn't for you. They'd have killed us all at the dropship. I'm not surprised they picked you out as our leader. Remember! They had Lincoln spying on us and I'm sure he wasn't the only one. They tortured Murphy and he told them everything they knew."

Bellamy had meant his words to be encouraging, bolstering, he watched aghast as the color drained from Clarke's face completely. He thought she was going to faint and leapt from his chair to catch her, but she steadied the palm of her hands against the table. When she looked down at him, now kneeling beside her chair her eyes were more haunted than he had ever seen them.

"What?" He asked searching her eyes for some clue.

"I'm okay, sit eat.' Clarke said finally.

As he sat down, she picked up her spoon and mechanically began following her own advice but he could see her mind whirring away.

Finally after she had mopped up the last of the meal with her bread she rose to move back to the chair, but then thought better. She was nearly halfway to the bed when Bellamy's arm scooped around her waist to needlessly guide her the rest of the way. He put some pillows behind her back and rolled up a blanket so she could raise her bad leg. When he was finished he sat at the bottom of her bed with her trousers in his hand. He unzipped his jacket and reached inside and pulled out a small sewing kit. He waited for her to make a witty quip about it.

"I think Lexa had Finn killed to weaken me." She said instead. Bellamy raised an eyebrow at her, clearly indicating that he thought she had reached a new level of crazy.

"No hear me out." Clarke insisted. "You said it yourself. Lexa had spies watching us. She was always getting intelligence reports when I was there. She picked me out as the leader because of the Drop Ship. She even challenged me on it the first time we met. She would have known that Finn and I were, were.." Clarke's voice faltered and cracked. "Lovers?" Bellamy supplied, keeping his face and tone neutral. Clarke nodded.

"Lexa told me about a woman named Costia who was special to her, I think they were lovers. The ice nation tortured and killed her, sent her head back to Lexa. Since then she thinks that love is a weakness that the enemy will exploit to weaken her." Clarke's eyes pleaded with Bellamy to understand what she was saying.

Bellamy nodded. That did fit what he had seen of the Commander. Sometimes she was so cold and emotionless she was almost robotic. But he knew Clarke was wrong. Lincoln had been the one to convince them that the Grounders would insist on Blood for Blood, not Lexa. Before he could contradict her, she continued her voice becoming increasingly distressed.

"We could have argued that the lives Finn took were our Blood Price for the lives they took from us!" Clarke's lips trembled as she grasped for straws, "They slaughtered us Bellamy! For what?"

Bellamy shook his head and threw Clarke's mended pants over to the chair. "You're wrong Clarke! We did everything we could to save Finn. To them we were enemies invading their soil. None of us were innocents in their eyes." His voice, which had started out sure, faltered. "Especially not after we burned down their village." Bellamy's hands raked up his face and through his hair.

Clarke watched as he hunched around himself, as if hiding within his own skin. "It wasn't your fault Bellamy, you didn't know that was going to happen." She said, thinking of the flares, the beautiful lights which had filled them all with such hope and almost sealed their doom.

"I knew that throwing the radio in the river was selfish and wrong and I chose to do it anyway Clarke." Bellamy's voice was cold. "I didn't care what happened to anyone else as long as I was okay. How many people died because of that Clarke! Good people. How many more people have I killed." He turned to look at her, his eyes burning into her own like the fires of hell. "It should have been me you killed, not Finn."

Clarke's heart stopped, as she relived the moment she had pushed the blade into Finn's heart. A little resistance and then it had moved almost on its own. She remembered the warmth of his blood gushing over her hand as his body went limp in her arms. Sometimes in her nightmares he thanked her, but only sometimes. A lump formed in her throat. In that moment on the bed with Bellamy she knew that if she could choose between them she would still let Finn die. She didn't know why but the thought of losing Bellamy of him dying was physically painful. She couldn't face that again, not again.

"I don't want you to die." She said weakly, her voice not conveying her meaning at all. Bellamy smiled at her wanly.

"That's why I need to get Octavia back. She's the one good thing I've ever done in my life. I need to protect her from the Commander. I need your help Clarke." The desperate edge in Bellamy's voice pulled at Clarke's heart.

"I can't help you. I don't know what to do!" Her voice was flat, defeated. So unlike herself to Bellamy's ears. She pulled her good leg up to her chest and hugged it.

"Start by telling me everything you know about her, who her generals are, any weaknesses. Anything!" Bellamy's voice pleaded. How could she refuse.

They talked into the night. Bellamy wrote down all tactical information Clarke could supply while she produced sketches of the people she could remember and maps she'd seen. It felt good to be busy again, to be useful. Bellamy moved to sit next to Clarke as she described the people she was drawing. Their shoulders brushing easily against each other. As his long legs stretched out next to hers. It was hard to imagine now the distance that used to be between them. Hard to remember why they had ever fought at all.

It was while she was explaining what little she knew of the Grounder barter system that Clarke realized that the scratching of Bellamy's pencil had stopped. His breathing had changed to the deep slow rhythm of sleep. Adjusting herself so that she had a better of view of his face Clarke picked up a new piece of paper and began to draw. Her eyes lingering on every curve and plane, on the furrow of his brow, even in sleep, on the deep cleft in his chin and the soft fullness of his lips. Drawing him was a balm to her soul. It soothed her mind and allowed her thoughts to roam freely. It was as she was concentrating on the shape of his jaw that she realized what she had to do.