Her apartment looked the same as he last saw it. Simple yet elegant.
He waited patiently on the couch while she was in the kitchen which surprised her further , he was never someone to wait for anyone.
She handed him his cup of tea and sat down on the other side with her coffee cradled in her hands.
"It's good tea." he complemented after taking a sip;
"Thank you." she replied with a smile.
They sat there for a few minutes simply enjoying the silence.
He wanted to say so much but, as usual didn't know where to begin and as always she came to his rescue;
"Stephen , you didn't come to my apartment at 4 in the morning just because you had a nightmare."
He looked up from his tea to see her beautiful face and that was all the encouragement he needed;
"Before all that happened, I never had a nightmare, even after the accident, not once, mostly because I couldn't care about anyone but myself."
She looked down in her cup not wanting to see his face;
"But tonight was the first time I have ever felt fear.",
She looked up and saw the truth of it in his eyes,
"I have said this before and I will say it again because it is only I have left to say to you - I'm sorry for everything I put you through, if I had the chance I would do it all differently."
" And I have said this before too, you don't need to apologise anymore, Stephen, all of that is in the past, and we are past that..."
"Doesn't take away the pain I caused you.."
She looked at him and for a second found it hard to recognise he was the same arrogant man she once knew.
"How differently?", she suddenly asked to change the tone of the conversation;
"What?", he was a little clueless,
"You said you would do it differently, how differently?"
Well, he didn't prepare an elaboration to that statement, but he could try, for her the least he could do was try;
"Well, for starters I would attempt to take you out on a proper date...",
She smiled at that and ducked her head,
"Yes, we could start with that.."
The smile on her face was too enchanting to take his eyes off, so he didn't.
Also what he said next was something he should have said a long long time ago;
"Will you go on a date with me?"
The spilling of the coffee from her mouth could be taken as an indication that she was surprised to hear that;
"What?"
He smiled at her reaction and asked again;
"Will you go out on a date with me, Dr. Palmer?"
She took a good few minutes to process and reply to that, but the answer made it worth the wait.
"Okay."