This is a bit of a long chapter, but I couldn't find a good point to take a break! Enjoy!
The sight of her at his door made something inside Frank leap, and yet the look on her face testified that she hadn't come to him in an overwhelming rush of lust or love. "What the hell's happened?" he demanded, stepping back to allow her to enter. "Christina..." he followed her into the living room. "Christina!" Grabbing her arms, he swung her to face him. "What's happened?"
"I..."
His eyes roamed her face, catching sight of the gash on her forehead. "You're bleeding!" Immediately, he pulled her into the kitchen, and she stood there, unmoving, whilst he wet a cloth and pressed it to her head. "What has he done?!"
"He's just...just drunk..." she stammered. "Drunk and...and angry. He threw...threw a glass..." reaching up, she took over holding the cloth. "When it smashed, a bit of it must have just...grazed me..."
"Right," he said, striding purposefully back into the hallway and over to the phone, rage coursing through him. "I've had enough of this!"
"What are you doing?" she asked, following him.
"I'm ringing the station. We're going to have him nicked for this."
"No! No, please don't! Please, please don't!"
"Why not?" he rounded on her, receiver in hand. "It's assault!"
"It's not assault!"
"Well, what would you call it then?" he started punching in the number, each stab of the digits vicious as though it was Stewart himself. "I'm going to fix this once and for all, mark my words!"
"No!"
"It's either that or I go round there myself and give him a good hiding! Which would you prefer?! Hello, Bob? Yeah, it's..." She reached across and put her finger on the button, cutting him off mid-sentence. "What did you do that for?!"
"I asked you not to!" She pushed past him towards the front door.
"Where are you going?" he followed her.
"I'm leaving!"
"Chris..."
"I came here because I thought you were my friend!" she turned back; her face wet with tears. "I came here because I thought you would help me!"
"I am helping you!" he retorted. "Getting him nicked is helping you!"
"No, it isn't! You just don't get it do you? It'll just make it worse! Make him worse! Why can't you just leave it?!" She turned back to open the door and, in that split second, he knew he couldn't let her leave. Using the advantage of his greater body weight, he pushed it closed.
"I can't leave it! You know I can't leave it!" She tried to open the door again only for him to press his weight against it, forcing it to remain closed. She sagged against it, defeated, and he gently turned her to face him where she stood, trembling but silenced save for the odd hiccup of emotion at his touch. His thumbs wiped the tears from under her eyes, then his hands moved down her neck, over her shoulders and down her back to her waist, pulling her into him, his breath dancing across her face. "And you know why," he said softly before kissing her.
Her arms were around his neck within seconds and there could be no doubting her reciprocity as she pushed against him, her mouth working against his. Her fingers found the buttons on his shirt, carefully releasing the first few before impatience took over and she pulled wildly at the fabric, making a gentle skittering sound as they hit the floor. He knew that, given something bad had clearly happened to bring her to his door, he should most likely stop, pull back, try to get her to talk and make sure this was what she really wanted, but his body paid no heed to the rationalisation of his brain. As his shirt fell to the floor, followed swiftly by her sweater, he pushed her back against the door, his mouth continuing what it had earlier started by tracing a path to her neck, down her collarbone and across her chest. She reached behind herself and unclipped her bra, her breasts tumbling to greet him, his lips instinctively closing over one hard nipple and then the other as he pressed painfully against the constraints of his own clothing.
"Fuck me," she whispered breathlessly, "please fuck me."
On the one hand, it wasn't entirely what he wanted to hear. Yes, he wanted nothing more than to fuck her, to feel what it was like to be inside her after all this time spent wondering and yet, even though they had been tantalisingly close to behaving in the most basest manner in his office, the part of him that he rarely showed in public wanted to make love to her, the way people in love were supposed to do, rather than simply take her in an explosion of carnal desire.
But, at the end of the day he was a man, wired to need and crave sex and, here she was, in his home, giving herself to him in a way that, twenty-four hours earlier, he could only have imagined. He would have been crazy to stop now and therefore told himself, as he propelled her along the corridor to his bedroom, that it was what they both wanted.
They collapsed on his bed together, his hands instantly moving to the waistband of her jeans, pulling them down her legs and over her ankles, followed swiftly by her knickers. In that second, he wasn't entirely sure what he should do first or, indeed, what she was expecting. He wanted her to enjoy it and therefore it seemed only fair that he use every trick he possessed to make sure that she did. Moving her legs apart, he dipped his head between her thighs, his breath stirring the delicate hair on her abdomen before his tongue sought and found her hard knot of desire. She gasped loudly as he slowly circled her, her hand moving to the top of his head, holding him there.
"Oh…shit…" She moved against him, almost as though she wanted to escape, but he held her in place, snaking one arm around her thigh and moving the other slowly up her body to caress her breasts. "Shit…shit…shit…" His thumb grazed over her nipples again before his hand moved down to rest on her belly, his arm sliding out from around her thigh, and he lifted his head momentarily to look at her before sliding a finger gently inside her. "Oh God…" she groaned. "Oh…God…" One finger, then another, and she arched her body off of the bed only for him to bring her back down by once more focusing his tongue between her thighs. He moved slowly, then with increasing speed, the combination of the sensation of his fingers and tongue driving her in exactly the direction he wanted her to go. He could feel her body start to shake, the warm heat of an orgasm building inside her. "Oh shit…Frank…"
He slid back up her body, his thumb replacing his tongue, his fingers still inside her, still working her towards the inevitable, wonderful conclusion. Her eyes were closed, her face flushed and seeing her on the brink almost made him come himself, right then and there. "That's it…" he said encouragingly as her breathing grew suddenly desperately shallow. "Come on darling, you want this, you need this, you know you do…"
She came then, harder and faster than he could have anticipated, her body bucking against him, rising up and off of the bed uncontrollably, the noise emitting from her throat the most wonderful thing he thought he had ever heard. Moans and cries and shouts and, most wonderful of all, his name. She thrashed wildly and gripped onto his shoulder, her head falling back as he continued to circle her, the frenzy continuing long after he reasoned that it should.
As she peaked and then slowly started to come down, he continued gently stroking her, causing her body to shiver and shake with the painful sensitivity of each movement. His lips moved to her breasts again, then her throat, then her mouth, his tongue searching and probing and when he finally withdrew his hand from her, he felt her body shiver, even as he covered her with his own. The next step was obvious and yet, even though it was her and she was likely too burnt out with spent desire to even think of it, he knew he needed to. He only hoped that the very action itself wouldn't cause him to come prematurely. Reaching across her to the bedside table, he slid open the drawer and searched inside.
"Condom," she said suddenly, and he paused and looked back at her. Her eyes were open, one hand tangled in her hair, her cheeks still burning and her body still rapidly rising and falling with the dying embers of her pleasure.
"Of course," he replied pulling out a packet and ripping it open with his teeth. removing the necessary item.
"I'm on the pill."
He paused and looked at her again, "I've been around a bit." It wasn't the most flattering thing he knew he could say about himself, but it was the truth. She may only have been with one man her entire adult life, but he certainly hadn't been as selective. Before he could say anything else, she took the sheath from him, unfurled it and then reached for his shaft, her hands shaking slightly. He groaned softly as she slipped it over the head and rolled it gently downwards before he pressed her back down into the bed, pulling her legs around his waist. He kissed her again, hard and insistent, desire, raw and pure, rising once more within him, his hardness pressing against her thighs.
He could still give her a way out, if she wanted it. He wasn't so far gone that he couldn't respect a decision made, seemingly, almost too late. It was her after all. He would do anything for her. "I can stop. I don't want to, but I can stop."
"No…" she reached down to touch him, guiding him towards her opening, and he shuddered at the sensation. "Don't stop." He pushed inside her without further recourse to conversation and she cried out again as he filled her. He slid back and then inside her again, every nerve in his body screaming at him to go faster, to pound her, to unleash all the pent-up desire that he had been carrying around for so long. She lifted her legs higher and tightened them around his waist, pulling him deeper inside her, a dark pool starting at the edge of his vision and rapidly closing in on him.
He buried his face in her neck as he moved inside her then, all of sudden, felt her hands on his head, forcing it upwards so that he had little option but to look into her eyes, connecting with her in a way that he hadn't done for so long, perhaps not ever.
"Frank…" she gasped, the sound of his own name spurring him on. He lowered his forehead to rest against hers briefly, then kissed her, and she wrapped her arms around his back as he felt himself shudder towards his own climax. He willed his body to stop, willed it to last longer, but biology couldn't be ignored.
"I love you," he heard himself gasp as the edge of the cliff approached. "I…" the rest of his words became unintelligible as he suddenly came inside her, pushing hard against her pelvis, grinding her into the soft mattress, unloading everything he had into her, thrusting again and again and again until he was spent and capable only of collapsing on top of her. He lay there for a moment, surely almost crushing her with his weight, before pushing himself up onto his forearms to look down at her. "I love you," he said again, kissing her gently before eventually withdrawing from her, catching the edges of the weighty condom as he did so. He was fairly practiced at this bit and moments after disposal, he moved behind her on the bed, spooning himself against her back. She offered no protest, made no sign that she was desperate to get up or leave. She lay pressed against him, and he wound one arm around her body, his hand splaying across her chest, her own hand resting of top of it. He felt the slump of post-coital bliss and his eyelids drooped, only to snap open again as she turned onto her back to look at him.
"Do you mean that?" she asked softly.
"What?"
"You said you loved me; do you really mean that?"
He pushed a stray lock of hair away from her eye and gently kissed the tip of her nose, "Yes, I do." He wanted to ask her if she felt the same way, if she was finally able to vocalise what she hadn't been able to admit to earlier, but part of him was hesitant.
"It's wrong, on so many levels."
"It's not wrong, not to me."
"Frank…" she reached out and gently stroked his face with her hand. "It's so complicated."
"You wanted me to fuck you, and I did. I don't see what's complicated about it."
She let out a long breath and then shifted herself closer to him, burying her face against him. "It was more than that."
"Yeah?" he asked casually.
"Do you really think, knowing me as you do, that I would have let just anyone do that to me?"
"Well, I suppose sometimes we all need to just…"
"Stop," she pulled back again and looked up at him. "I'm trying to tell you something."
"You don't have to," he reassured her, cupping her face with his hand and kissing her again.
"I need to. Stewart…I mean…I haven't felt the way I feel right now for a long time. I was a kid when I met him, when I fell in love with him. I don't…I don't know what it's like to fall in love with someone when…when you're an adult. I don't know…"
"It's all right," he said, mindful of what he had felt before she had turned up at his door. "You need time, that's all." Gathering her up into his arms, he pulled her close, breathing in the very scent of her knowing, regardless of anything else, that he was just glad she was there.
17 December
She woke with a start in the darkness, her mind racing. Everything felt unfamiliar and goosebumps rose on her flesh as she tried to orient herself to place and time. The faint light from a streetlamp outside the window cast shadows around the room and as her eyes adjusted, she recognised that it wasn't her own and the warmth emanating from the body lying beside her wasn't coming from her husband.
Frank.
She rolled over to look at him, his profile barely visible in the shadows. She didn't remember falling asleep, her last memory being of him holding her, telling her that he loved her and her being somewhat incapable of responding coherently. A shiver ran through her, simply at his nearness, and visions of what they had done flashed across her mind. His head between her thighs, his cock deep inside her, his eyes fixed on hers…
What the fuck had she done? Fourteen years. Fourteen years of being with only one man and in the space of a few hours she had given herself to someone else. Guilt overwhelmed her, the memory of standing at the altar on her wedding day, promising to forsake all others for Stewart Church, pushing away any delicious remembrance of Frank and any notion that what they had done was either right or acceptable.
Swinging her legs out of the bed, she began the slow rediscovery of her clothes, strewn as they were across his bedroom floor and out into the hallway. She paused at the front door, at the sight of her sweater and his shirt lying discarded together and swallowed hard. Tosh coming into the office and stopping them had been some sort of sign. Why hadn't there been anything like that when she had turned up at Frank's door?
As she pulled on her sweater and lifted her handbag, she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror. Her hair was wild and tangled around her head, her face pale in the dim light, the gash on her forehead painfully visible. She touched it with trembling fingers, reliving that moment of pure anger when Stewart had thrown the glass at the wall. She didn't want to go back there, really didn't want to go back and, glancing back down the corridor she thought about simply taking all her clothes off again and climbing back into bed beside Frank. He would never even know that she had tried to leave and then, when morning finally broke, he could somehow make it all better.
"No," she said to herself. "You have to go home. You have to go back to him." Gently, she released the latch and turned the handle, a cold rush of night air sweeping in to greet her. Stepping outside, she pulled the door softly closed behind her, hearing the latch click and realising that she couldn't get back inside even if she wanted to. Her car was where she had left it, parked somewhat haphazardly at the kerb, and covered with fresh fallen snow. The first time she turned the key, it coughed, spluttered and then died, and she glanced back towards the flat, mindful that the noise could wake anyone. The clock on the dashboard blinked, telling her that it was almost three o'clock in the morning and she was due in court later. "Fuck," she swore softly, turning the key again and pressing her foot down on the accelerator, the engine finally acquiescing and rumbling into life. Slowly she pulled away from the kerb and made the solitary journey back to her own home through snow filled, silent streets. As she drove, she glanced at the curtained windows of the houses around her, their blankness almost seeming to say, 'you can't come back. You're not welcome now.'
The house was in darkness when she drew up outside, but when she closed the front door and tiptoed towards the living room, she could see the light from the television reflected on the wall. The test card girl smiled pathetically at her as Stewart snored loudly from his position on the couch. There were more bottles littered around the floor and she mechanically picked them up before gently placing the blanket from the back of the chair over her husband and switching the television off. He didn't stir and she quietly made her way to the kitchen, depositing the bottles next to the sink. She knew she should go to bed, get some more sleep before the reality of the new day was upon her, but she also knew her mind would be occupied by only one thing, so she busied herself tidying up as much as she possibly could, bringing the house back to some kind of normality before finally climbing the stairs to their bedroom.
As she slid her clothes from her body, she felt another shiver run through her and the memory of Frank, peeling them from her, burned brightly before her. Her nipples hardened in the cool air and as she slid between the sheets and pulled the duvet up to her chin, willing herself to sleep, her groin contracted as she remembered him touching her there. She closed her eyes and tried to think about the evidence she was due to give in the mugging case later that day, but all she could focus on was him, his scent, his touch, his words…
"I'm in love with you and I have been for a very long time."
XXXX
He didn't like that she had gone before he woke up, partly because he had wanted to touch her again, wanted to engage in the sleepy morning sex that all couples were privileged to, but primarily because he knew exactly where she would have gone. Home. Back to Stewart. Back to a man who didn't deserve her and a man he had very nearly had arrested. Still could, if he thought about it.
He sat in the bed for a while, staring at the place where she had been lying, conjuring her naked form before his eyes, remembering the look, the smell, the taste…Christ, he was no stranger to sex but, with her, it had been almost indescribable. The sensation of being with someone that you cared deeply about that you loved…there really wasn't anything that could come close.
He showered somewhat reluctantly, not wanting to wash her away, unwilling to lose the memory of what it had been like with her. When he closed his eyes, he could see her lying beneath him, trusting him, accepting him, her breasts firm in his hands, her pussy slick against his throbbing cock…
He turned the water onto the cold setting to jerk him out of his lust filled reverie and then hurriedly dried and dressed himself before grabbing a quick slice of toast. Work beckoned and though he knew that when he saw her it would be a fight to keep his hands to himself, he was savvy enough to realise that there had to be some level of professionalism, at least until they could be alone again.
"Where is everyone?" he declared when he walked into the office just before nine and found only Ted smoking at his desk. "Someone declare a holiday and not bother to inform me?"
"Viv's on annual leave, Jim and Mike are out on enquiries, I've no idea where Tosh is and Christina's in court," Ted replied. "And I'm stuck here trying to finish this never-ending paperwork before Christmas."
"Court?" he asked, seizing on the only relevant piece of information out of everything the other man had just imparted. "What's she doing at court?"
"The Tallow Street mugging from last month," Ted replied. "Remember? She witnessed it on her way home and arrested Billy Gallagher."
"Oh yeah…as if I could forget," Frank replied. "He started shouting about her assaulting him during the arrest."
"The very one," Ted said. "She mentioned the other day that it should be an in and out job though. Gallagher's banged to rights, not to mention overdue."
"Let's hope so," Frank said, moving into his office, feeing thwarted at the fact that she wouldn't be there, that he wouldn't get to look at her until God only knew when. He spent the rest of the day trying to lose himself in the many mundane yet necessary tasks in front of him, the ones he had pushed to the end of his to-do list and were now crying out for completion before Christmas, yet he found his concentration almost non-existent. Every time he tried to focus, his mind wandered back to her, to what had happened when she had returned home, to what she would say the next time they were in front of each other.
"Ah, Frank, there you are." He started slightly as Kim appeared at his office door. "I thought we said three o'clock?"
"For what?" he asked stupidly. The woman had literally walked into the station that morning for her first day on the job and already she was acting as though she had been there for years. They had had a brief introductory session earlier and he had already formed the opinion that she was going to be a tough nut to crack.
"We said we would look over the latest crime figures, remember? They'll be due to get signed off this week and I want it done sooner rather than later."
"Oh, right…of course…" he looked around wildly for the paperwork, conscious of her still standing in his doorway and aware that he wasn't giving off the best of impressions. "They're here somewhere."
"I'll see you in my office shortly then," she replied, her tone clipped as she turned away.
"Yes Ma'am," he called after her, inwardly chastising himself. His personal life had never gotten in the way of his professional life, at least not so as he was prepared to admit, and even though he knew that he had finally found the one person he never intended letting go of, he wasn't about to let Reid smell even the faintest whiff of apathy.
XXXX
The day at court finally over, Christina found herself back at the station for reasons she wasn't quite sure of. Her shift was technically over and there would have been nothing stopping her going straight home and yet…home…the place she was no longer sure she wanted to be. Stewart had still been prostrate on the couch when she had left for work, most likely oblivious to everything and anything spanning the previous twenty-four hours. She hadn't attempted to wake him, primarily because she didn't really want to speak to him after what he had done, but more so because she wasn't sure she would be able to keep the guilt from her eyes.
"You avoiding me?"
The sound of his voice sent a ripple of anticipation through her, and she paused in the corridor, willing herself to remain calm and professional in the face of her boss, the man she had had sex with but a few hours earlier. "No, of course not." She turned to face him. "I've been in court all day. The Tallow Street mugging?"
"Ted said that was going to be a five-minute job," he said, stopping in front of her.
"It would have been, but the defence made lengthy submissions before the case started and, when that didn't work, they cross examined each witness for ages. Plus, CPS, in their wisdom, decided to call me last. I've been sat around all day drinking coffee and reading newspapers."
"Lucky you."
"Hardly." She didn't want to say that a huge portion of the day had been spent thinking about him, about them, about what they had done together and how much she had enjoyed it.
Frank opened the door of the nearest interview room. "Can I have a quick word?"
"Sure," she replied, walking in and waiting as he closed the door behind them. "I take it the new DCI turned up then."
He looked momentarily thrown by her comment, but quickly recovered. "Yeah, and she's been making her mark already. She'll be wanting to talk to you in the morning; size you up. See if you're going to be on her firm or not."
The words were said in his usual manner, but she knew him well enough to know there was a proprietary undertone, all too reminiscent of Gordon's arrival. She felt a sudden rush of protectiveness towards him and the urge to put her arms around him and tell him he needn't fear being undermined.
"I've been thinking about you," he said, before she could ponder the wisdom of her own thoughts. "All day in fact since I woke up and found you'd gone."
"I'm sorry," she said. "It…it seemed for the best."
A silence descended between them.
"Any chance you might have been thinking about me?"
She met his gaze and instantly felt all the memories of the previous night came flooding back all at once to the point where she would have sworn that her knickers suddenly became damp with arousal. "What do you think?"
"Good..." he crossed the room towards her, his hands sliding onto her waist, pulling her gently into him, his mouth seeking hers.
It was like a lightbulb switching on in her head, illuminating the darkness that for so long had threatened to consume her. Being in his arms, touching him, holding him, connecting with him felt so normal, so natural and despite all her misgivings, she found herself responding to him as passionately as she had done before.
"Don't do that again," he said when they finally broke apart.
"Don't do what again?"
"Don't just leave my bed like that."
"I'm sorry," she said again. "Believe me, a huge part of me really didn't want to."
"What about the other part?"
She sighed heavily. "At the end of the day, he's still my husband. Before you, I had never once cheated on him, never once wanted to cheat on him and now..." she paused for breath. What she had wanted then and what she wanted now seemed like two entirely different things.
Frank looked at her squarely, "You don't love him."
Despite the mess of her feelings, indignation coursed through her at his casual dismissal of the last decade of her life and she shook herself free from him. "You have absolutely no business saying that! Nothing about what happened last night gives you any right to say that! What do you know about my relationship, my marriage? Nothing! You know nothing about it!"
"Only what I've seen you go through over the last few months whilst I've stood in the wings wishing that I could make things better for you, that's what I know about your marriage. And I'll tell you this too; I know that you couldn't have let me make love to you the way I did last night if you still loved him. You wanted me just as much as I wanted you, you admitted it. You could have gone anywhere last night after he kicked off, Ackland's, Martella's, here...but you didn't. You came to my flat knowing full well that you were going to end up in my bed because you wanted to continue what we had started in my office."
"I didn't say that I didn't want to be with you but…it's not fair for you to try and make out that my marriage has been a sham because that's not true!"
"All right, I'm sorry. It was a poor choice of words."
"I do love him!"
"I'm sorry," he stepped forward and pulled her into his arms again. "It's just…I feel like I've bared my soul to you, told you how I feel and, well, beyond asking me to fuck you, you haven't really told me how you feel."
She thought back to the aftermath of their lovemaking, when she had struggled to articulate how she felt in the wake of his revelations. Falling in love at sixteen had to be so different from falling in love at thirty and, for a long time, he would have been the last man she would have ever contemplated feeling that way about. She decided to take the cowards way out, have him spell it out for her. "What do you want me to say?"
"I want you to say that you love me. I want you to say that you'll leave him…for me."
And there it was, her escape route. The perfect, seamless pathway to making a new life for herself. There would be no need to fear being alone, having nowhere to go, worrying about how she would manage. Frank would be there, he would look after her, he would protect her, he would love her, the way Stewart had done for so long.
But that was the killer. She owed Stewart so much. He had been there for her when she had needed someone, when her parents had cast her out over her refusal to accept her father's way of life. He had taken her in, cared for her, loved her, made her his wife. Now that he was suffering and in pain, wasn't it her turn to step up to the plate, even if she had to admit that she was in love with someone else?
"I love you," she said, her body shivering once more as she said the words, aware that she had crossed a line there was no returning to. "I do, but he needs me."
Frank kissed her gently. "I need you."
"You're not an alcoholic. You're not...looking at losing everything..."
"He's got no-one to blame for that but himself."
"But...it's an illness and I can't...I can't just leave him..."
"Why not?"
"Because...because if I go then what's to stop him just drinking himself to death? Or getting himself killed in a fight or in a road accident?"
Frank's expression hardened. "You living a lie is not going to stop any of that happening. If he loved you the way you say you love him, he wouldn't be putting you through any of this. He wouldn't be getting himself so pissed that you have to spend your days bailing him out of trouble, cleaning up his mess, putting up with him assaulting you, to name but a few things."
"He didn't assault me, and he does love me!"
"Oh, I see. So, throwing you against the wall in the pub and lobbing glasses at your head doesn't constitute assaults now? Men who love their wives don't do those sorts of things to them!"
"And you're such an expert on men who love their wives, aren't you Frank?!" she snapped, pushing him away. "I mean, you were the model husband, weren't you? Oh, maybe you didn't drink to excess, hit her or throw things at her, but that was because you were too busy with any other bit of skirt you could get your hands on, wasn't it?!"
"Yes! I admit it. I've told you before that I was unfaithful to her. I hurt her, badly, and I'm not proud of that. But when I think about it, really think about it and analyse it, I can recognise that it was because I was unhappy. It was because I didn't love her. Not in the way that a man should love the woman he's committed to. Not in the way that I love you. Chris…please…" he took her face in his hands and kissed her again. "I'm a bastard, I know I'm a bastard. I've never been faithful to any woman in my entire life but with you, I would be, I swear."
She melted once more into him, the prospect of a new and different life so tantalising, the thought of going to bed with him, making love with him, waking up with him causing her body to sing and her heart to soar, but there were so many other factors to take into account, including those they hadn't even yet touched on, like how they could possibly have any kind of relationship whilst they were both based in the same department.
"I need time," she whispered, burying her face in his shoulder. "I just need time."
"I know," he replied. "I'm sorry, I don't want to pressure you and I don't want to say things that are going to upset you. But I need you, more than I think you realise."
She pulled back and looked up into his eyes, seeing nothing but sincerity from a man she had often thought had none, not when it came to women anyway. "I need you too," she said, pressing her forehead against his, knowing that whatever happened, nothing could ever be the same again.