Carlos

Carlos dragged in a deep breath when they broke through the door, sighing in relief. "Thank you god."

Beside him, his partner laughed, tugging her hand out of his to begin pulling the shining hair extensions out of her hair. "Oh, come on. It wasn't that bad."

"Oh yeah? Then what are you doing here instead of hanging out inside?" Keira shrugged, a quick grin breaking across her face, and he nearly sighed at the now-familiar tug of longing. It hadn't even been two months since Brad left, he reminded himself grimly. Even though she'd chosen to stay, he knew she still had regrets. He wanted to give her time to get over everything that had happened before he started pushing her for anything more.

She was here, and not 70+ years in the future, and she seemed to have made peace with that. It was enough for now. Had to be. But it was getting damned hard to remember that when he had to work with her day in and day out, knowing that his patience might very well turn around and bite him in the ass if she found someone else to hook up with.

His partner was very pretty, very single and, now that she had officially decided to stay, very interested in settling in, which was both good news and bad from his point of view. She had made the news official when she accepted the new Chief Inspector's offer to come on as a full time consultant to the VPD. That little piece of news had the dual benefit of giving her an income through official law enforcement channels on top of what Piron and SadTech both paid her as a technology consultant (i.e. being allowed to pick her brain as well as study her suit and CMR), and letting every red blooded male on the police force know that she was going to be sticking around for the foreseeable future.

He'd done his best to tune out the words of the guys joking around in the locker room about who was going to be the first one to talk her into coming home with them, had had hard words with the idiots that didn't know he was standing behind them and decided to shoot off their mouth, but it wasn't getting any easier. He didn't want to start anything with Keira that was shrouded in secrets and regrets, which was why he was trying to wait until he was at least reasonably sure she was ready, but he was pretty sure the first guy he caught even looking at his partner twice between now and then was going to find himself six feet under.

Thanks to that debacle with the "original Keira", he was damn good at hiding a body.

"Carlos? You okay?"

Keira's face was scrunched in a confused frown, and he realized that he must have missed something while he was woolgathering.

"Sorry, spaced out for a minute. What were you saying?"

"I asked where we were going."

Looking around, Carlos realized he had somehow bypassed the lot where he'd parked his car and wandered toward the water. He thought for a minute about taking a walk so he could drag out the relatively infrequent experience of having his partner all to himself without a major crisis looming in the wings, then took a look at Keira's skirt and shoes and thought better of it.

"Why don't we grab some pizza and head back to my place?"

Keira

Leave it to Carlos to think about food on a night like this. It had to be a man thing. Rolling her eyes, Keira reached down and pulled off the four inch high heels, moaning in relief when her stocking-clad feet hit the cold concrete. She wouldn't be able to feel her toes soon enough, but for right now she was just glad to have the uncomfortable monstrosities off.

"Swear to god, whoever designed women's shoes could give Hitler a run for his money," Carlos said, sounding amused. "You know, you're going to freeze like that."

"I know, but it feels better to freeze than to have those on for five more seconds."

"Why the hell did you wear those in the first place? Oh, wait, let me guess."

"Emily," they said in unison, then laughed.

Keira looked longingly over at the water, then accepted the inevitable. It was way too cold and she wasn't wearing nearly enough clothes to take that stroll by the water she was thinking of when they first came outside.

"You know what? Pizza sounds good."

"Fabulous." With a flourish of his cape, Carlos bent down and scooped her off her feet, grinning to show as much fang as possible when she tried to protest. "Just trying to save you a little hypothermia, that's all. I know what the ER looks like this close to Halloween, I don't want to get anywhere near it."

Keira tried to come up with a good argument, then gave up. No one was watching. She was tired, her feet hurt, and it felt good to let her partner carry her. Just for a little while. Tucking her discarded shoes against her stomach, she relaxed and leaned her head back against his chest, breathing in the smells of aftershave and shampoo that were uniquely Carlos. She shivered when the night air snuck up the back of the ridiculously short mini-skirt, and without saying a word or breaking stride somehow Carlos managed to get that ridiculous-yet-surprisingly-warm cape wrapped around them both.

Snuggled in, Keira felt her eyelids beginning to droop, but forced herself to stay awake. It was a short walk from where they were standing to Carlos's car. "Crap. I have to stop by the apartment." When he looked down at her, she smiled sheepishly. "I don't have any other clothes with me, and I really don't want to spend any more time in this get up than I have to. Unless you've got something I can borrow?" she asked hopefully, remembering almost against her will how nice it had felt to wake up wrapped in his clothes the last time she'd spent the night before Brad happened-and everything that went with it. "And maybe a spare bed to go with it?"

Carlos laughed, setting her down on her feet next to his passenger door. "I think we could make that happen. Although I'm going to have to start putting serious thought into charging rent for that guest room if you're going to keep sleeping over."

Keira flushed, slipping into her seat. Watching him close her door and walk around the front of the car, she had to admit it was true. Seemed like she'd spent more nights at his house than her own since Brad left, preferring Carlos's company and the reassuring sounds of him sleeping in the room next to her over her now empty apartment-especially when the nightmares came, as they still did, all too often. They'd gotten better-sometimes she even went 2-3 nights in between-but they were far from gone. Of course, that didn't mean Carlos liked having his house invaded as much as she liked invading it.

"You really don't have to entertain me you know," she said self-consciously when he hopped in the car. "I can go…"

"No!" he said quickly, tossing the car into gear and pulling out into traffic before glancing over at her, then reaching out to squeeze the hand she had resting in her lap. The deathly pallor from his makeup took his dark eyes from interesting to striking, and it warmed Keira to the core to see the easy affection in them-something that, not too long ago, she thought she'd lost forever. "No, it's nice to have the company, you know? Besides," he added, his smile slipping into a grin as his eyes turned back toward traffic but his hand continued squeezing hers. "With you around, life is never boring."

"Well, THAT much is true, anyway," she said dryly, leaning her head back against the back of her seat and closing her eyes, reflecting on the many, many, MANY times she and her other self had brought trouble to Carlos's doorstep. With the exception of the past two months, the poor man hadn't had a week of peace since he met her. It was a wonder he didn't just boot her straight out the door. Instead, she was in his car, heading to his house for pizza and laughter and beer before she went to sleep wrapped up in the comfort of knowing that Carlos was right next door if she needed him.