AN: I'm pretty sure I had a significant plot point related to Darcy's alternative first name. Sadly, I had not written it down and have forgotten it by the end. As such, it ends up being as anticlimactic as this chapter suggests, though I hope the rest of the chapter makes up for it. If I ever give this a rewrite, I think it will disappear...I really wish I could remember where I was going with it!

Chapter 25

I actually gasp a little when I see the blinking speech bubble appear after my last words. I leap off the lounge and start pacing on the tiny balcony. Three paces up, three paces down. I keep checking the screen in nauseas agitation, both in desperate need and in desperate fear. There's the smell of desperation I remember from last year. In the end, I make sure the phone is not on silent, toss the phone face down on the lounge and stoop to rest my head on the chrome balcony rail, willing myself to calm down.

After 5 minutes of silence, I am unable to stop myself checking the message window. There is no new message, but the cloud is still present, promising a message to come soon. I asked for one word, what could possibly be taking so long?! I wonder where she is and whether she's pissed that I woke her up on a work night. I'm pacing and panicking again, and although I'm nowhere near risky levels of anxiety, my heart rate has picked up and the BBQ Bacon & Angus burger I had on the way down is working its way back up. My phone pings, and suddenly I'm afraid to look at it and have to swallow convulsively against an overwhelming desire to vomit. I snatch up the phone and collapse into the lounge as I unlock it to see her replies. The phone continues to ping as she types and sends her thoughts.

Llewellyn. Huh

Never would have guessed that was the big secret.

So. Not. That. Big a deal.

I'm so glad you're finding a way past your disorder, and not letting it control you. It sounds like you're figuring out how you want to live.

With or without me.

I don't condemn you for failing to imagine the evil that exists in all of us. If we truly could, we would never leave our houses, right?

You have always been the best of men, Fitz. Even at your worst points, you weren't really malicious. If I was anything, I was merely the catalyst to a revelation, not a transformation.

You are one of the best men I have ever known. Not perfect. But best of men.

Yet you have caused me the most intense grief I have ever known.

Deep, confusing, perplexing grief. Twice.

The second time was a real soul crusher. I mean I held it together, but my heart was so broken, I had some doubts I could put it all back together.

It was real grief.

The kind of grief you can only feel when you love. Deeply. Intensely.

I fell hard, Fitz. So hard and so fast. Do you remember?

I remember.

The joy is mixed with the grief. They are intertwined, inextricably linked. I cannot have one without the other.

So, what is my answer?

Am I willing to pay the price?

My eyes have devoured these words as they have appeared, bounced across satellites from wherever she is, to me. I almost black out holding my breath waiting for her answer. After 5 minutes, I jump up and start to pace again. In desperation, my back resting on the balcony rail, frustration making my fingers shake, I start to type a plea for her to tell me something, to relieve my agony one way or another, when I see her speech bubble appear.

Look up, Fitz.

I fail to obey for a moment, as I squeeze my eyes shut to try to process what she's asking me to do. Does she mean it like a metaphor? A religious clue? Does she want me to look to God? What does she mean? I growl an oath as my closed eyes sweep heavenward and open, my hands spreading in unconscious supplication, when the phone pings again and my eyes are drawn immediately to her next words.

Not to the sky, Fitz.

And I look up again, directly in front of me. She is a vision, standing on the other side of the glass sliding door, one hand on the partly open frame, the other holding her phone to her chest. Hair dishevelled, eyes a little blood shot and sleepy. She is wearing my blue Houston Texans t-shirt (that's where it went!) and a pair of ratty flannel pyjama shorts, one shapely leg resting on a pointed toe behind the other. Her face is an eloquent, tremulous answer, as she smiles shyly behind her raised phone and taps the screen. My phone pings as the answer bounces up into space and back to earth and her smile turns to a laugh as she opens the door to step out.

Yes.

She comes to me then, sweet and gentle, pressing me against the railing, burrowing into my chest, fitting perfectly within the confines of my arms. My tears of joy, grief, overwhelming love and gratitude fall into her hair and on her face as I bend to kiss her head and her cheeks, tasting her lips once more and inhaling her sweet scent, whose presence in this house was not a memory at all, but a promise. And a gift.