He watched her silently for a moment, his expression slightly apprehensive and Lilly saw him swallow; she could only imagine what he was expecting her to say and none of it was probably very good. Finally he gave a small nod, rubbing a tired hand over his face.

"All right. What do you want to..."

"Why did you kiss me, Scotty?" she blurted out, interrupting him mid-sentence; she had to get the question out there before she lost all of her remaining courage and ended up sweeping yesterday's events under the carpet, where they would remain for an unforeseeable time, possibly for good, and she didn't want that to happen. This man meant too much to her; she needed to be brave now.

"Because I wanted to," he responded, looking away from her, a muscle twitching in his jaw; clearly he had decided to be brave too, honest, not making any excuses, no matter how she might react. "Because I have wanted to for quite some while."

"So yesterday was… just to get it out of your system?" Lilly swallowed heavily, now wondering if it had indeed been just that, one kiss to test the waters and then that was it. "In the... heat of the moment?"

Scotty turned his eyes back to hers, the familiar fire back in them, the scorching obsidian burn. "I will never be able to get you out of my system, Lil; you've been there for years, an' there's no end in sight. Which of course doesn't bode that well for me, considerin' the fact that you're leavin' an' everythin'."

Leaving?

For a moment she frowned, confused, then understood what he meant. The FBI; she had forgotten all about that possibility with everything that had happened recently. The job was still on the table; she'd been told it was all hers if she wanted it, the application process just a formality, really, but she didn't know what to do, hadn't known previously and now even less when nothing was normal anymore.

"Whether I leave or not… it doesn't mean we would… that we wouldn't be in each other's lives anymore." She almost felt panicked, realizing she had failed to even consider that possibility, consider that maybe she would no longer see Scotty if they didn't work together. Just the mere thought was suddenly killing her.

He scoffed slightly. "I doubt that, Lil. Different cities, busy schedules… that agent guy for you…"

She frowned again, once more having to dig into her brain before it agreed to inform her what he was talking about. "Ryan? What does he have to do with any of this?"

Scotty shrugged, turning and walking to the living room window. "I just figured he'd be there waitin' with open arms when you joined the Feds. Or is Saccardo still in the picture? It's gettin' a bit difficult to keep up with your love life these days."

"Really?" She rolled her eyes, now becoming a little annoyed. "What about you then? Are you going to adopt Lizzie, live happily ever after with her and Christina?"

He turned back to her slowly, his face looking absolutely astonished, then somewhat thunderous. "What?"

She swallowed again, slightly scared by his expression; still, she stood her ground. "I doubt my sister would have anything against that plan."

"For fuck's sake, Lil." He scowled, started to pace, his hands on his hips, his temper clearly about to boil over. "What do I have to do to get through your thick skull and convince you I don't want to be with Christina? Yeah, the baby is adorable, but… why would you even think that?"

"History repeating?" Lilly turned her eyes down, biting her lip hard enough to almost draw blood. "It's difficult to believe you, Scotty; you've lied to me about her so many times."

"Yeah, to protect you!" A growl left his mouth, his hands again making their way though his hair in a gesture that looked almost desperate. "Five years ago, I could see how terrible your relationship with her was, so yeah, I lied about not bein' with her, because I didn't want you to have to worry about me. Same thing a few days ago; you had enough on your plate, an' it probably would have tipped you over if I'd piled your sister's painkiller addiction on top of all the other crap. An' there was no goddamn booty call by the way; I certainly didn't want one an' I don't really think she did either."

"You did want it five years ago, both of you," she reminded him, feeling tears spring into her eyes; the memories hit her full-on, memories of how awful it had been to realize the truth, that her sister and Scotty were in fact… something, in some sort of a relationship, no matter how dysfunctional it may have been.

He shrugged. "Yeah, we did. I'm not gonna deny that, an' I'm not gonna deny that for a while there I wanted even more, until it dawned on me that I was nothin' but a pawn to her, someone she used for a while before her past caught up with her. An' when it did, I meant nothin' to her anymore, if I had ever meant somethin' in the first place. Like I said back then, I fell for an act; I don't know how many times I have to apologize for this, Lil."

"Do you have any idea how awful it was to watch you back then?" she whispered brokenly, her vision becoming obstructed by her tears. "Drinking so much, slipping up at work, Boss being so furious at you… I was terrified I was going to lose you. Not just my partner, but… you."

Scotty sighed heavily, halting his pacing for a moment before taking a few steps closer to her, silent; then he finally met her eyes and the fiery fire in them made her startle.

"I met Elisa when I was 14 years old, an' I fell in love with her pretty much instantly," he said quietly and Lilly frowned, really not having expected him to bring this up. "We were together for another 14 years, half of my life at that point; for a large part of it, I watched her struggle with this awful disease that was like a roller coaster, up and down, an' when in the end she took her own life…"

His jaw worked from side to side, his eyes glistening with unshed tears now too when they focused onto hers. "Christina helped me. Bein' with her was easy, simple; there were moments when I was able to forget all my demons that were constantly tauntin' me that I didn't do enough to help Elisa, that I didn't even try. She didn't ask any questions, she knew I didn't want to talk about it, an'… well, she was the closest thing I had to you. The only thing I had of you."

Lilly felt the floor rock underneath her feet, released some sort of a strangled half-gasp; he gave a teary-sounding chuckle, shook his head.

"You hated me, the woman that had been by my side every single goddamn day for the past year an' a half, the woman I trusted with my life, knew I could lean on if I needed to. But then I suddenly no longer could, an' I needed… I needed somethin'. Someone. I didn't want to be alone, an' unfortunately that someone was your sister, even when she was the reason I lost you in the first place."

"Then why didn't you come to me, instead of her? I never, ever hated you, I never could hate you, but you refused to even talk to me when Elisa died." A hot burst of tears left her eyes finally, wetness flooding down her cheeks; Scotty rubbed his forehead, reaching to brush his fingers against her damp skin.

"Because you had your own problems to deal with like I said, an' I didn't want you to have to shoulder mine too." He studied the salty liquid he'd taken from her cheek, appearing strangely fascinated by it; she briefly wondered if he had been under the impression that she wasn't capable of crying at all, or that the only thing to come out of her eyes would be shards of ice, true to her reputation as the Ice Queen of Homicide.

"Did you love Christina?" she asked, really not sure if she wanted him to even answer that; he shook his head immediately, however, easing the gnawing terror inside her.

"I wasn't capable of love back then, an' even if I had been, it wasn't like that." He was quiet for a moment, then looked deep into her eyes. "What did she do to you, Lil? Why did you hate her so much?"

Her first instinct was to run, to flee instantly so that she wouldn't have to talk about this; somehow her legs seemed to have grown roots, however, and from the expression on his face she knew he wasn't going to give up on this. She would have to tell him the truth about one of the most painful things that had ever happened to her.

"She slept with my fiancé, a week before our wedding day. Patrick." She watched Scotty's eyes widen in shock. "When she came back to Philly five years ago, she told me that one day I would have to forgive her; I asked if she would forgive me, had our roles been reversed, and she said no. And despite that, she just expected…"

"I'm so sorry, Lil," he whispered, rubbing a hand over his face. "I didn't know… I asked her, back then, but then I chickened out before she could tell me. I never thought it was somethin' that bad… Jesus Christ. She seemed… so sweet, so nice, I couldn't wrap my head around why you made such a huge deal about it, why Nick warned me to stay away from her too..."

"Yeah, well." She reached to touch his forearm, gave it a gentle squeeze. "Like we established back then, you weren't the first one to fall for her act. And it wasn't just her; it took them both, and when George held me at that attic, he told me that I would just have found some other way to leave Patrick even if it hadn't happened. As much as I hate to admit it, he seemed to be in my head, and... he was probably right about that."

"Please don't remind me of that bastard." Scotty closed his eyes tightly for a moment. "Can we just… put all this behind us? I don't want to be with Christina; I hope she can clean herself up, get herself together for Lizzie's sake, an' yours, if you want to try to have a relationship with her, but for me, that door is permanently closed. Do you think we could… never talk about this again?"

"Okay," she agreed after thinking it over for a little while; she really wanted to forget the whole thing as well, had spent way too much time and energy worrying about things that obviously didn't need to be worried about, because in his eyes she could see only pure honesty, knew that while he might have lied to her about Christina before, that was definitely no longer the case. Taking a deep breath, she lifted a hand onto his face, cupping his cheek, felt him lean slightly into her touch.

"But you could have come to me, Scotty; it kills me that you thought I hated you, and I'm sorry I didn't make more of an effort myself. Your loss was so huge, I didn't know how to approach it, and I was terrified I would just end up uttering clichés that were straight out of Hallmark cards; that was the last thing that would have helped you back then, or anyone ever."

His mouth turned into a smile. "Well, considerin' how many Hallmark card remarks I got, many people do seem to believe they hold some power."

"Yeah." Lilly sighed, feeling so goddamn exhausted now; she leaned her forehead against his chest, felt his hand at the back of her neck, gently rubbing it, just like she had felt him do during the kiss. She loved the feeling; it was so intimate, relaxing, calming, reassuring.

"As for your earlier question… Eddie's gone, has been for a while now," she told him, looking back up. "And Ryan was just a fling, nothing more. It never will be anything more, no matter what might or might not happen with the FBI. Scotty, I…"

She felt him tense, his hand at her neck stalling; he was obviously thinking she was about to tell him she had decided to take the new job, and she couldn't believe she hadn't seen this earlier, hadn't realized how deeply upset he was about the possibility of her leaving the Philadelphia squad. His eyes looked hard, terrified, and her heart broke, more than anything over the realization that she had somehow managed to be oblivious and stupid enough to make him convinced they were nothing but partners, and would never see each other again if she changed jobs. Even the kiss hadn't seemed to help, or had perhaps made everything even worse, and she knew she had to find the right words to make him understand how mistaken he was.

"I haven't made any decisions, and I'm not going to until things settle down a bit." She took his other hand, securely entwined their fingers. "But you are always going to be in my life and I am always going to be in yours. Okay?"

He seemed to finally relax a bit, groaning something incomprehensible as a reply and pressing his forehead onto hers; he was so close, they had spent more time in such close proximity over the past two days than during the seven years of their partnership combined. It felt good, secure; she wasn't overcome by the need for personal space, the need to keep him at arm's length that she had felt so many times in her previous relationships, starting with Patrick, then Kite, Joseph, Eddie… only Ray had been somewhat different, based solely on the fact that she had known him practically since her birth, and he had been there with her through all the horrors of her childhood. Scotty hadn't been, but despite that, she had the same easiness with him, loved being close to him like this. He got her, it was as simple as that, he understood, and if the past years and especially yesterday were any indication, he would stand by her through thick and thin, no matter what life ended up throwing at them.

God, how could she have been so damn blind for so damn long, Lilly mused to herself, leaning heavily against him and focusing only on the simple act of breathing and the overwhelming sense of safety, just one thought filling her tired mind.

This was right.