(Untitled)

[longlonghair]

Rapunzel was watching Alex sleep again. She seemed to be doing a lot of that lately. She had been babying him since they'd gotten back to the bar, and thanking God silently during every moment of it that he was around to baby. Tears welled again at the thought of how close he had come to not coming back at all

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[gotham_knocking]

At her touch, Alex awakes. He sees her, and smiles. "Hey. What time is it?"

[longlonghair]

"It's not too late, I don't think."

She turns her head and looks at the clock.

"Just after eight. How do you feel? Are you hungry?"

[gotham_knocking]

He sits up, respledent in his t-shirt and boxers under the sheets, and lets his body talk to him. "Better. Still sore. I think that is gonna take a while to heal.

"But yeah, I am hungry."

[longlonghair]

She smiles softly and cups his cheek in a caress that also checks him for a temperature. His cheek is rough with stubble, but not hot to the touch.

"What would you like to eat? I'll run down and get it from the bar, and we can have a bed-picnic."

Just having him awake and talking is helping her mood. The tears have vanished (hopefully before he saw them) and she gets to her feet.

[gotham_knocking]

"I'd love a big breakfast. That nightmare gave me an appetite. But I got this feeling that I shouldn't overdo it. So...oen egg, two slices of bacon and one slice of toast?" He flashes a huge smile. "And coffee. Hot coffee. I'm not sure I'm warm yet."

[longlonghair]

"Nightmares, still?"

Her voice is laces with concern.

"Well, I'll get you a tray and well get you filled up. After all that snow in Bahamut, I'll never like winter as much again. I'll bee right back."

She presses her lips to his forehead again, and hurries down to the bar. When she comes back, she's got enough food and coffee to feed four people.

[gotham_knocking]

"Wow. If that's your idea of a light meal..." He grabs a slice of bacon as she gets close and devours it. "You should meet my omother. She cooks like that, too. Though no bacon.

"As for nightmares...not so much a nightmare as just strange stuff. But all fading fast."

[longlonghair]

She nods as she perches beside him on the bed.

"You didn't have the flu...it's all right for you to eat."

She takes a triangle of toast and nibbles on a corner.

"I want you strong again, leg and all."

[gotham_knocking]

"Do you know?" he says as he leans in to giv her a kiss. "That makes two of us. Though I think that when we teach Allie and the kdis baseball, I might need someone to show them how to run." He pours a cup of coffee and sits up enough that it won't spill.

And pauses.

"Raps, I got something on my mind."

[longlonghair]

She worries about that. About his leg possibly being permanently damaged. She feels guilty over it, though she wasn't the one shooting.

She looks up at that last bit, worried.

"What is it?"

[gotham_knocking]

"There's something I wanted to tell you. Sometihng I wish I had before Bahamut happened. Because...well, if I really had been killed, or you had, you wouldn't have known. And I can't let it stay that way. It's too important."

And for the first time in a long while, the always confident Alex Knox sounds nervous, and seems a tiny bit tounge-tied.

[longlonghair]

She has a feeling that she knows what is coming, and doesn't know if she should let him say it. It's not that she doesn't want to hear it...but...but...but...

She can feel the tears pricking at the back of her eyes again, and squeezes his hand, remaining silent. If he needs to say it, then she'll deal...if she can remember to breathe.

[gotham_knocking]

He takes a breath of his own. "I know that when we first starting seeing each other, we agreed we'd just be friends, with beneifts. That it would just be fun. And it has been fun, and beneficial.

"But it's more than that to me now. It has been for a while. And I had to let you know...

"Rapunzel, I am so much in lvoe with you.

"And that's all I needed to say." He holds his breathe again, and hopes that he hasn't gone and say something stupid.

[longlonghair]

“Alex, I…”

Her heart pounds in her chest, and she can feel the trembling in her hands as she gathers herself.

“I wasn’t ever going to say the words to you; saying them would make them real. Telling you I love you would open the door on so much potential change and disaster for both of us…but not saying the words doesn’t make them untrue.”

The tears are escaping, rolling down her cheeks, though she isn’t really crying.

“I do love you. I don’t know what that’s going to mean for us in the future, but I just…I couldn’t…I didn’t know how to tell you.”

She bites her lip, not knowing if any of that made any sense at all to him, but not having the courage to say more.

[gotham_knocking]

He finds himself smiling. He was so scared that she didn't love him after all. Or couldn't.

"You just did, didn't you? And..." He takes a deep breath and then takes her hands, leaving the coffee alone for now. "And I don't know what's going to come next. For you or me or us. But the way I hear it, people fall in love all the time, and sometimes there's disaster and change. And sometimes there's good stuff.

"I think we can get some good stuff."

[longlonghair]

She smiles, much of the ice that had formed inside of her since the bullet hit him Bahamut melting ans she throws herself into his arms, regardless of the tray of food between them.

The tears are a mixture of happy and frightened ones, but mostly happy.

"I think we've earned it."

She kisses him again and again.

"Alex...I love you. It feels really, really good to be able to say it."