Welcome opaque_daydream, Cougar3371, and lookingglassalice6! :)

For those of you who have lost your story subscriptions, I will be PMing you individually to explain and apologize. I can only hope you choose to stick with Analeptic and Malum. There are other stories in the works, so please don't lose faith in me as a writer.

Oh - and I was asked in PM - every chapter title (I'm about to replace the titles in Malum) has a meaning. You might have to dig a little, or use the Google-Fu, but there's always a rhyme and reason to it. I'm sneaky that way. This one has an in-chapter reference, and the pictures that go along with what they actually are, are mind-blowing.

Finally: nattiebroskette has written an amazing, lovely, wonderful, hot-hot story, "Shielded"

You all should go check it out, especially if you're an Ambrose fan. *wink, nudge* Plus, she held my hand through this entire chapter (by which I mean, kicked my ass and told me to stop being afraid of the smut), so without her, there would be no woo-woo. GO TEAM NATTIE!

Content warning. For those of you who have been PM'ing with me, he is "interruptus" no more. ;)

"Dave, you can leave. If anything happens, it's not like I can't call you. All we can do now is wait, and you need sleep more than I do. Remember when I had a job doing this? You always dumped me on night watch. So, I'm night watching. Go the fuck to sleep. You're gonna have to deal with triage at some point, it's after a pay show. And remember, I'm not supposed to be here? Don't make yourself complicit."

"Why do you have to argue about everything?" He dropped both of his medics' bags heavily near the head of the bed, but Randy didn't so much as twitch.

"Because I'm right. And because he wasn't listening to you anyway, so it doesn't make a fucking bit of difference what you want. Now go. He's still knocked out, and when he wakes up, he's going to be a bear." Her voice was a wavering combination of anger, stress, and fear. 'And I want to talk to him, but...not around you.'

Slowly, unobtrusively, Randy swam up to the conversation from what felt like a great depth of water. His eyes burned, even while closed. His ears were ringing, and every inch of his body ached, but he held still and said nothing.

"Meg, I'm not leaving. Period. When you need help – and you will – I need to be here. Not ten rooms away in a house I don't know." Dave was fast losing his temper. He'd spent the entire day watching Randy decompensate, and against his better judgment had waited for Meg. To be told that his opinion wasn't needed on Randy – especially when Randy told him that his opinion on Meg wasn't needed – was one step too far. "Plus...corporate gave me an assistant, and I left him in charge."

She pushed Dave away from the bed, toward the door of the first-floor guest room. Randy's numerous stories about Sam's exiling him there while they were 'working things out' had given Meg a general idea of where to head toward on the ground floor. Randy was nearly dead-weight while she and Dave moved him, but getting him up to a bed made him easier overall to deal with.

"You are ridiculous! Do you hear me?" Meg was hissing, trying to keep her voice low and make the entire interaction quick. "I'm going back in there, you're leaving, and if you think you can do better you can do it alone." She cocked her head to the side. "And congrats on the hired help. Were you ever going to tell me?"

"Meg, stop. Stop!" Dave spun to face her. "Have you looked at yourself? You walked in here white as a ghost, probably from that shit on the highway. I'm not saying you can't take care of him. I'm saying I'm trying to take care of you. Is that such a bad thing? I know I can't do shit for Randy; why do you think I called you and left the other guy in charge?"

Meg stammered, but gave up on words and arguments, settling for a defeated sigh. She raked her hands through her hair and looked back into the room, not liking the amount of noise and shuffling she was hearing from the bed. "Okay. Okay, Dave. You're right, and I'm overreacting."

So...what do you want to do?" Dave dragged his toe across the carpet in the hallway, not sure if he should look down or at Meg.

"I want to talk to him. Can you please at least let me do that? He won't care if you stay in the den. It's close by; it's not like you can get lost." Meg's voice went from angry to pleading, and Dave's resolve slipped.

"Meg, right now, you need to swear to me, if anything changes, you come get me."

"Dave, just...Jesus Christ. Go the fuck to bed. I want to talk to him. Just go."

"You go, before I change my mind." Dave rolled his eyes and walked away, pushing the door to the guest room fully open as he passed. "And don't think I'm not going to come in there and check on you, either."

Meg scrambled back inside the room, annoyed the conversation with Dave had taken much longer than she wanted, and positive she'd heard Randy trying to move. Correct on the second count, she had to hold him by the shoulders and throw herself bodily into fighting him down from an attempt at sitting up.

"Ran, no. No! Shh, hey. Stop." She stroked his jawline gently, avoiding the row of bruises Joe had left there, and squeezed his shoulder before rubbing it, the same way he'd done for her a hundred times at the resort. "Ran, focus. C'mon, Ran, try to calm down. It's me." He stilled, thinking, then relaxed slightly.

"Welcome back, Ran. Just relax, keep breathing." 'Stay with me. Focus, please. I'm here now. If you don't want me to go, I'm here. If you do want me to go, too bad – I'm not leaving again.' Meg threw her hair back into a quick ponytail, trying to keep it out of her face while she worked.

She continued, quietly, trying to slowly move his face away from hers into a position he could focus from. "You had me worried. I'm sorry about getting you up on the bed...we – me, I mean, and Dave – probably didn't do your back any favors. Here – here's some ice." She slipped her hand from his jaw to the highball she'd filled with ice chips and left on the bedside table, fishing a few out, gently sliding a few small shards past his lips. Randy shivered, and Meg pulled a blanket up to cover him. "Can't believe I didn't wake you up; I think I damned near pounded ice cubes through your kitchen counter before I realized your freezer had a dispenser for small ones in the door. Couldn't accuse me of being smart, huh?"

"Meggie?" Randy groped blindly forward, then up for her hand, feeling for the cold spot she left on his shoulder, his voice hoarse and his eyes unfocused. She pressed herself into him, trying to leverage her scant weight into keeping him still, but he kept forcing himself against her, trying to get up.

"Ran, where are you trying to go? What do you need? I can get it for you...just rest, okay?" 'Why are you fighting me?'

Randy felt a creeping, unsettled panic come over him. Meg was there, but her voice was everywhere and nowhere at once. The echo in his head was unbearable, almost unreal, and he couldn't understand why he was hearing her so distantly. 'It's like she's...not here? Dave. Dave had the phone.' "Meg, no. S-stop. Don'- don't...When are y-you..." He pushed her back, hard, and she flew over the edge of the bed to the floor, landing with an oof. His eyes still couldn't focus and he was only vaguely aware that her outline had dropped from his view. He pounded his fists against the bed, completely uncoordinated, while Meg struggled to get her legs underneath her. She dragged herself back up in front of him, wincing when her collarbone popped, but pushing his hands down onto the blankets all the same.

"Randy, stop it! One of us is going to get hurt." 'He's got to be half-dreaming. Got to be. Dehydrated, low blood sugar, something, but he is completely. Fucked. Up.'

Momentarily, Randy's eyes found Meg's face. "You're h-here?"

"Yeah, dumbass, I'm here. Can you please sit still now? We're gonna get hurt and I'm-"

Randy nearly fell over her, trying to drag her forward and up, and he hissed from the pain in his side. Meg, rolling her eyes at his sheer stubbornness, coordinated with his movement as much as possible, entirely convinced he was out of his mind. "Okay, slow down. Seriously, slow it down." He stared down at her warily, his face perilously close to hers. "I'm staying, Randy. With you. You were right, and I-"

Adrenaline shot through his body. 'Meg's really here. She thinks I was right about...something. She's staying. I'm not fucking it up. Neither is she.'

His arms locked around her, and Meg had to lean away from him to have any idea what expression was riding his face. Randy's skin was sallow and bruised, and he looked exhausted, but a vague smile was playing at his lips. Meg tried to shift her weight around his lap, in an effort to take pressure away from his ribs, but he pinned her in place. Giving up, she sighed, reached for the highball of ice, and held it between them.

"-and I fucked up, Randy. Let me try to fix it."

"You're h-here?"

"Yeah, Ran. I'm here, and you were right." She held more ice to his lips, and watched it melt down her fingers while she waited for him to make up his mind as to whether or not he would accept it. "The question is, was I right?"

He looked at her blankly, and shakily pulled the ice from her fingertips before putting it in his mouth.

"Was I right about you hating me?" She whispered, and cast a backwards glance over her shoulder, in the general direction of Dave and the open door.

"N-no, Meg." He turned her to face him, leaving his hand against her cheek, his face awash in confusion and their pause in speech heavy in the air. "I was right?"

"Yeah, about a lot of things. Dunno where to even start, Ran...just...a lot of things." She rested her hands gently on his chest, pushing slightly, testing to see if he'd accept some gentle guidance back onto the bed. "Lay down with me? So we can talk? I want you to rest." 'You went through this entirely because I'm a self-centered cunt. You have to tell me what to do from here.'

"You too, Meg." He let her tilt him back, but his grip never wavered. The only allowance he made for her movement was to let her lay next to him.

The silence was gentle now; Randy wanted it to go on for the rest of the night as his fingers slowly trailed through her hair. Minutes passed and stretched; every movement was a tremendous effort for him to coordinate and organize, and he doubted Meg would let him get away with much more introspection. 'Why am I this twitchy? Everything hurts. I feel sick.'

"Hey, Ran?" Meg shook her hand over the carpet, watching droplets of water from the melted ice fling out into the room. "Feeling any better? Ice helping?" She kept her voice small and quiet, not wanting to break apart too much of their comfortable stillness.

"Sorta. Ice's h-hel...it's good."

Meg sniffled, disbelieving, and turned from her side to look more closely at him, trying to subtly stretch out her ribs while she moved. "You wore yourself out. Your body is just...tired. You didn't sleep – I know that from Dave. Probably didn't eat, right?"

Randy tried to look anywhere but in her eyes, knowing he'd give himself away. "'m fine." He shifted uncomfortably underneath Meg, not from her weight but from her directness.

"Randy. Seriously? You're so tired, or hungry, or both, that you're literally shaking. I want to get some sugar tabs in you, at a minimum, more water, I need to take a look at your back and your ribs, you need-"

"S'hup, Meg." 'Idiot. You said not fucking it up, Randy.'

Surprisingly, Meg's mouth flew closed. She tilted her head and looked at him as though she'd never seen him before, as though something about him had become radically different in the last five seconds, and if she didn't inspect it fully in that particular moment she'd never understand it.

"Meggie...sorry. I'm-"

"-tired. Of my bullshit. I'm done. I know."

Defeat was in her eyes. "Ice is on the table. You can kick me out in the morning." She closed her eyes and laid back where she'd popped up from, but not before inhaling deeply, as though trying to instill his scent in her memory. Randy, having neither the answers nor the energy to argue with, pulled her ever-so-slightly closer to him, dropped his chin onto the top of her head, and waited for sleep.

True to his word, Dave checked on them after a few hours had passed, rolling his eyes when he found them heaped together in the bed. 'Because that's going to help her ribs or your back, you two fools. I can't leave either of you alone, can I?' He trundled to the kitchen and peeled a paper towel off the roll, leaving a note for Meg, which he deposited on the bedside table where she'd be likely to see it:

'M-

Had to run. Triage call. Told you they hired an idiot. Will be back eventually.

Please, be dressed.

D.'

Meg woke a few hours later, stiff and aching from being crammed tightly between Randy's arm and chest, but thankful he had finally slept. As the night wore on, he'd rolled further and further over her, pulling her further and further up his body and into the crook of his neck. Slowly, in the inverse of what he'd done, she worked her way down and then out from under his arm, smiling as he grumbled but didn't wake. 'Grouchy and asleep like the dead. He seems a little better, anyway.' Seeing the note, she perched on the edge of the bed, reaching out to check the folded bit of toweling. 'Hm. Poor Dave. It's too bad I can't come back to help him, but...burnt that bridge.' Tossing the paper back onto the table, Meg inspected her clothing. Wrinkled and definitely smelling like she'd spent the previous 18 hours smoking, driving, arguing, and sleeping under someone's unshowered arm, she crinkled her nose.

She was vaguely aware of Randy's weight shifting behind her, and reached unconsciously back for him. Meg wasn't prepared for how hard he pushed her arm down, and she turned to face him, worried something was wrong. He'd propped himself up on one elbow, his other arm now occupied with pinning her hand to the bed. Meg felt a strange mix of hot and cold come over her, and realized she had no idea what to do.

"Randy...what's go-"

His hand, first pressing hers into the bed, slid up her arm and settled briefly on her shoulder, only for his fingers to change course and trace a light line just underneath her collarbone and up her neck, then thread their way back down to her hand. Meg could feel a wordless, expressionless maelstrom rise in her body – it came with sounds, to be sure, but they were staccato, breathy, didn't fit anything that fit her and Randy. In the time it took for her to understand that she didn't understand, he'd pulled her forward by her shirt, taking the bottom half up and nearly off of her, nearly dragging her on top of him in the process.

"Ran...wait...what..."

'God, sleep helped. Water, ice, whatever – helped. I needed you; you helped.' She felt peach-skin soft under his fingers; damp from nerves.

"Meg, help me?" He continued pulling at her shirt to take it off; she moved with his the entire time, but she never stopped asking 'what' over and over. 'I know you trust me. You let me do this much before. Now I need you to let me do the rest.' His hands drifted along the soft plane of her stomach, drawing a full-body shiver from her that finally silenced her questions. Meg's eyes crushed closed as his hands trailed upward, crossing the scar on her ribs, the fullness of her breasts, the angles of her shoulderblades as he pulled her closer to him, and then stopped, questioningly, his hands still solidly behind her.

Her perfume was stale; so was his cologne, and she knew her hair was hanging lopsided out of her ponytail – a quick, sidelong glance upward told her as much. Her clothing was slept-in and rumpled, and she was acutely aware of how cold the air in the room had become. Meg never was able to find the thermostat, and the whole house was consumed by the outdoor chill. She grabbed blindly at the bottom of her shirt, not daring to look, trying to pull it down around her – but strangely, not trying to move him away. Randy dropped his hands from behind her and gently held her wrists still, trying to get Meg to stop moving both her body and her mind.

"Listen to me. I don't care."

Meg's eyes flew open, then she forced them shut again, unable to look at Randy and not understanding what he meant.

"Meg. Listen. I don't care. I know what you did, and I don't care. All that shit with Jackson, you walking out, the car, causing the accident, whatever else you think you did, or know you did, I just don't care. Whatever it was, you did it, it's done, and if you would just fucking stay here so I can-"

All the time Meg had spent with Randy had given her a frightening proprioceptive ability where he was concerned – he was faster, stronger, but not often sneakier than her. In the split seconds it took her to process what he was saying, what the hot-cold feeling traveling across her body was, where his hands were, that her eyes still hadn't opened, she realized she knew exactly where his mouth was and that he didn't need to say anything more. Meg's hands slipped from Randy's grasp and flew up to his face, bird-wing light, her fingers across his cheekbones like snowflakes, and she chanced her lips against his.

'It's all...done. It's all done and he's not leaving. He doesn't want me to leave, either.'

Now was Randy's turn to be silent; he was briefly unsure if he'd imagined Meg's kiss and was a half-second too slow in responding. Meg pulled back, her face an ugly mix of fear and hot embarrassment, and moved to push herself back from him.

"No, no, wait. I wasn't sure, Meg, and I don't want to fuck up anything. Please?" Randy pulled her elastic from her hair, letting it fall around her face. "Meggie, look at me." He tried to tilt her up to look at him, brush her hair back, but she pushed his hands down and tried to ferret away from his lap. 'Oh my God, Meg, not now, please don't do this to me now.'

In every interaction he'd had with Meg since she'd come back from New Orleans, Randy had been gentle, reserved, even what could be considered self-sacrificing, but all of the pieces on the board had been broken, nevermind rearranged, now that she'd moved on him. Much more roughly than he meant, Randy pulled Meg up to him, over his lap and into his chest, and gave them both no option but to let their lips meet again. Meg struggled, largely out of fear, and Randy broke away from her only long enough to whisper to her to calm down, trust him, before pulling her up to meet him in a kiss for a third time.

Meg's mind was sent flying off its already precariously-balanced axis. Shame had given way to terror had given way to flashes of memories from their time together on the bay, each one more delicious than the last, until she stop-motion-reeled her thoughts to their last night in bed, Randy thick between her legs, her body a tense band waiting to snap, and still neither one of them had crossed the line. It was that nuanced mental re-enactment that caused her slowly to shift, then rise, suddenly pull, then urge him on, her hands and legs with minds of their own, all while she was in his lap in bed, and it was Randy's deep groan that threw Meg back into reality. Looking for all the world like she was high, Meg shoved herself back from Randy and snatched her shirt off before leaning back in and nipping a slow trail up the side of his neck, her cold fingers curling around his arms, pulling her against him.

'Careful...you don't go from terrified to turned on that fast...' "Meggie...hang on...everything okay?"

Confusion reigned on Meg's face, and she leaned away. "Isn't this...isn't this what you want?"

"I want you to feel okay with this. You're not just some...whatever, you know? Some thing. You're mine. I want this to be right."

"And parts of it won't be, and just...I don't know. I can stop if you want?"

Randy laid back with her, and did his best not to wince at his ribs and back. "I want it to be right. Whatever that means."

"Then just...go easy on me. And shut up."

Randy smiled, relief evident. 'Okay. Go easy. Mine. She's staying. Everything else I can learn as I go.' Meg slid down his chest, avoiding his side, feeling his hands run over her back as she moved, though he caught her by the waist of her jeans before she could shift as far as she wanted.

"These come off."

Wordlessly, fully aware he was watching, Meg rose to her knees over him and let him unbutton, unzip, slide, and then sat back so he could ease the denim down her legs, drifting a finger dangerously close to the circular scar on her thigh. Randy's warm hands closed around her shins, and he pulled her up the bed so she straddled him, her legs sliding open, her laughter quiet as he towed her towards him.

"You're lucky I'm flexible." Meg pressed herself against his chest, raking her nails upward. "A lesser woman couldn't get on top of you that fast." Her arms snaked around the back of his neck, and she returned to the trail of nips and kisses she had started, feeling Randy's hands on her hips, urging her forward, closer, lower. Meg was tentative, and she felt her a metallic, electric sting fly through her body, half pushing her nearer and half pulling her back.

'Meg, just go with it. Trust him. You've always trusted him.'

His thumbs rolled under the bands of her panties, just over her hips, and he used the fabric to pull her completely over him. Meg's hands braced against the headboard, and Randy began a series of torturously slow, firm kisses along her collarbones, hearing her whimper when he hovered over her scar.

"Meg, do you feel me?" He brought his hips up to meet her, and she rolled her hips back over his, almost involuntarily, not knowing what was compelling her to move and entirely uninterested in stopping it. 'Because Jesus, Meg, I feel you. Not enough of you, but please let me. Please, please, let me.'

She nodded, but couldn't manage words. Everything was tangled now; sounds were scents, scents were visible, the things she was seeing were deeply, indescribably blue, like Randy's eyes. The friction Meg created as she moved was nearly intolerable; Randy decided if he couldn't bare himself, he might be able to bare her and see if she'd follow her own lead.

"If you feel me," he continued, continuing to gently kiss a trail across her collarbone, trying to mend what he couldn't see and didn't know, "Then...can I feel you?"

Meg's mind hummed with possibility; Randy continued to slowly work his mouth over whatever was available to him, carefully pushing her back with each kiss, fingers still tangled in the band of her panties, holding her scant weight as he tilted her further over the bed, her hands leaving the headboard in favor of clinging to his neck again, letting him take her over backwards.

"Can I?" Calling his voice was a whisper would be generous; the only reason Meg could hear him was because he was laying over her. She felt the waist of her panties tighten and slide as he pulled at it, and finally she understood – he meant for them to come off. One of her hands left his neck, tracing the long line of his arm, clasping around his wrist.

"Yeah, but...I will." Her grip on his wrist never wavered. Randy relaxed his hands, smoothed the fabric over her hips, and Meg took a few deep breaths and let go of him. Slowly, and with him focused on her face and not her body, she slipped the scant bit of pastel cotton down, toeing it past her shins, with Randy adjusting around her to allow her to move. "Your turn," Meg breathed, as he settled back over her, content to simply hold her and wait to be sure she was calm.

She pressed up into him once, gently encouraging, and Randy hid his face in the curve where shoulder became neck, where Meg always started when she put on her perfume, fearful she'd seen his expression. 'Slow. Down. Slow down. This isn't like when you had all that time. This is after a fight and after reports and after knowing what he did to her and after saying it doesn't matter but you know it matters to her. Slow. Down.' Keeping his head burrowed into that perfect slope, again afraid to meet her eyes, he shifted his hands towards his waistband.

"Wait."

Randy froze. "What's wrong, Meggie?"

"Can I?" She sounded half-afraid, half-shamed to even ask, but somewhere in her voice was a thin lilt of hope. "But...help me?"

Working deep kisses – and having no idea how she'd feel about bites, gentle or otherwise – into her neckline, he broke away just long enough to hover over her and bring them both to their knees on the bed, trying to account for their difference in height and reach. Meg flinched, hard, and the whimper she made told him he'd needed to actually answer her question.

"C'mere, Meg. Your hands." 'Control. What can she do, what will I do next.'

Randy reached for her and pressed her palms against his waistband, but couldn't force down the hard shiver that followed. He closed his fingers around hers, bunching the fabric together, and carefully, slowly, pushed her hands down. Meg stopped, did nothing, looked at him quizzically, and when she read nothing hateful in his face, gently slipped his boxers to his knees.

"Lay back? You asked me something earlier." Meg's lithe frame pressed fully, even eagerly against his body, and Randy was only too happy to wrap an arm around her waist and pull her on top of him as he leaned back into the pillows, letting her fuss and fret his boxers the rest of the way down as they moved, skin still like alabaster, just as he remembered, and colder than marble.

"I did?"

Meg's eyes never moved from his; they were fixed in place in a way that hovered between gentle and hollow. 'And can I fill that, Meg? Nothing's broken, just empty.'

"You can feel me." She pulled one of Randy's hands up to her face, his fingers tangling in her hair on the way, his touch tentative at first, almost fearful. Meg felt a sad, simple smile play at the corners of her lips, and she reached for his other hand, pulling it onto her hip, up over her waist, then arching herself just enough to guide his hand between them, then lower, but hovering not quite low enough.

'Oh. OH. Oh God. Meg, please be sure. Please? For both of us, be sure?' "Meg...I can feel you...I want to...but please...not until you tell me..."

He was asking, nearly babbling, for the one thing Meg didn't have words for anymore, couldn't say yes to, but could show him and so she did what she could with what she had – what was left of her body. She kissed his fingertips, nipped the inside of his wrist, leaned down as far as she could to lave attention on his chest, shoulders, cheekbones, anything she could reach, and then with as much speed as she could manage, guided his other hand lower.

'Don't think, Meg. Just do. Don't let him think, either.'

As much time as they'd spent together half-dressed at the bay, as many fantasies as Randy had entertained and then acted upon, nothing had prepared him for the searing contrast between the ice of Meg's inner thighs against the edges of his palm and the blistering heat that was the rest of her, at the moment – the entirety of her – dazzling his fingers. He didn't know if he should move, look, breathe, do more or less, and then it occurred to him – he should do nothing.

Slowly, not realizing how much fear could compound pain, Meg began to draw her face down from the ceiling, willing her neck to bend forward from the fishhook shape it had assumed when she'd thrown it back and trusted herself to his hands. Slower still came the motions she remembered, beyond those came the ones she enjoyed. At first, he was terrified he'd done something to hurt her after watching her head snap backwards, hearing her strangle for air, and then when her hands died at her sides he was ready to call Dave and admit guilt and beg forgiveness – but she'd come back to him, slowly, her fingers first, moving up his sides, as though knowing his skin would tell her who was or wasn't under her. Randy didn't dare speak, knew he couldn't tell her it was alright – none of it was alright, for either one of them – so he waited, still ready, still a knot of restless urges that demanded a conquered demon – but for now, he had to conquer her breathing and her memories.

Once her hands found a way to relay to the rest of her that this was, in fact, home, Meg seemed determined to prove she could keep house. Fingers not occupied with guiding his found other parts of him to tease and ply; Randy dying a bit more each time her grip tightened, her arc changed, her smile against his lips tilted, or he found her tongue as a satin pillow against some new part of him. He'd barely realized she'd gone towards and then over her edge until she lunged forward and locked her elbow around the side of his neck, banging into the headboard both of them had forgotten they were against, a series of short, panting breaths deafening him, eventually turning into something he recognized as her asking, please.

He wasn't far behind her, he had to concede. She'd started to move off of his hand, but hadn't given any indication of what was next. 'Please what? Meg, help me out here...'

Meg leaned in, pinning Randy in place with her gaze – hazy and sated, she looked as though she was debating between eating him and kissing him, still riding the high he'd sent her on. "One more thing, Ran?" 'Just let me, don't ask me, just go with me...'

Not knowing if Meg was looking for permission or acquiescence, Randy opted for quiet passivity and slumped back, palms up, hoping he looked as gentle as he felt. Meg crawled up his chest, cupping his chin, both of them starting to feel the exhaustion settling into their bodies. "Trust me," she whispered, looking at him and beyond him simultaneously, "I want this."

Gently, firmly, as though knowing all along where he'd be – and why not, he was hers – Meg settled back over Randy's lap, eyes suddenly drained of anything resembling feeling, pain or otherwise. Randy looked at her in disbelief, then fear, then – not knowing what to do with the pyretic, intoxicating, choking feeling that hadn't just spread, but jumped across his body – fell forward across her as she eased onto him, pillows forgotten, desperate to hide her, protect her, keep her for himself even if it meant crushing her under him. It didn't matter, he was buried in her, she was buried under him, and it was all like a mobius loop in his mind.

When she moved and he finally dared look, there was the feeling. Buried, put under so much for so long she'd had to dive to find it and be sure it was for him before she surfaced. She pushed, really pushed herself when she came up against him from underneath, caused a massive shift in angles, everything slid, walls and the alphabet slid, and he was lost in moving back against her in a rhythm that came so naturally to both of them it was like they'd simply picked up their slow two-step where they'd left off at the elevator. No reminders, no please-can-you-move-a-little, just a simple, languid, long-stroked, soft-handed, resonantly felt yet quietly sounded trust; what both of them had realized for years was just before the edge of the falls.

Perfectly exhausted, verging on deliciously numb, Meg knew her body couldn't carry her twice, and at the same time didn't know her body could carry him at all. Serpentine, her arms trailed down his back and across his shoulders, first pulling her up to him, whispering, then pulling him down to her, her legs woven through his, and when she caught his eyes she offered the smallest wisp of a smile. Her skin damp, Randy smoothed her hair from her face, tendrils trailing across her cheeks and down her neck, and the shadows and light that played through his body raced lower until they tangled, detonated, and he knew his grip slammed around her shoulders far too hard. By the time sound registered with him, and he was sure that moving wouldn't cause him to turn to ash, Meg was blindly tracing fingertip patterns across the back of his neck, half-asleep underneath him, quietly, slowly humming along to the piano from the lobby at the resort. Randy smiled into her neck.

"I remember that night." His lips confused words with kisses as he spoke against her skin, and he felt her shoulders twitch with her silent laugh. 'Oh, don't do that, Meg. I want to stay where I am. With you. In you.'

"Mmm. And I'm going to remember this night."

"Just this night?"

"Depends. I did say you could kick me out in the morning."

Randy groaned, but reached up to ruffle her hair as he'd done so many times in the past. "Meg...you came home. Here. Stay a while, okay?"

Her eyes, bright and warm, said nearly as much as her kiss, which told him more than her words would have in response.

They were idiots, to be sure; had run for too long from what both of them knew was happening naturally around them and required no histrionics or dramatics, no festering or fertilizing – they'd dangled within arm's reach of each other, grabbed on when they'd both needed it, and then somehow fallen, and no amount of mutual stupidity would change it. A night's worth of sleep interspersed with wordless requests from each other's bodies would surely cement it, though.