Fic: Sometime Yesterday (3/3)
Title: Sometime Yesterday
Fandom: Stargate/Leverage
Rating: K+
Genres: het, apocafic (kinda)
Recipient: failegaidin
Prompt: Stargate, Laura Cadman/Evan Lorne, I'd rather kiss you than yell at you.
Summary: Evan Lorne followed a call from Eliot Spencer. He's not sure if it was such a good idea, after all.
A/N: Holiday Fic Request Meme. I admit, not much Leverage in this (and probably the reason why I'll let myself be convinced to write at least another story for this, after all...) but Eliot does play his part and I needed a little closure, at least. We'll see about the rest. Deal?
( For a Better World to Live in )
( With the Left Over You )
Sometime Yesterday
“Sometime yesterday,
There was another way
Of dreaming....
But there's another way
You don't have to be a hero....
God, it's not easy
There's a lot to keep you holding
On forever....”
The Radio, “Whatever Gets You Through Today”
It’s weird, he thinks, to be back in the US after five years of desert and sun. It’s weird to be somewhere with seasons… with winter and he’d probably cuss his ass off about freezing to death in some backwater town in the middle of nowhere called Elk River, Minnesota if he weren’t trying to find the fastest way to what used to be North Memorial Clinic at Elk River Physicians and is now rumored to be a field hospital for the resistance group that calls itself Takeover. He just should have brought the Hawk after all.
Actually, he should have brought his entire crew but there had been holdups and issues with available space on a freelance freighter needing protection from the pirates roaming the Atlantic and in the end they’d just shoved a forged passport and a plane ticket into his hands and basically pushed him onto the tarmac of Mohammed V International Airport in Casablanca, telling him they’d catch up with him as soon as the freighter made it across the Atlantic. He feels like he’s been awake ever since Spencer called two weeks ago to tell him he found Laura.
There is such thing as adrenaline, though, which is probably the only thing keeping him sharp enough not to slide too much on the ice on the sidewalk as he’s running from the improvised Greyhound station towards the hospital. She’s in there, Spence told him that, almost the minute he finally touched American soil again. They were doing some guerilla fighting a few miles further west and she was wounded and God, he needs to see her. He needs to see her.
The urge to see her pushes away the lingering doubt that it’s really her and that she actually wants to see him that was brought on by Spencer skirting the issue whenever he asked about that. It even holds up all until he arrives at the hospital entrance that’s guarded by a group of young men in ragtag clothes armed heavily with an… interesting array of guns.
Okay, that’s just a minor hold up. Spencer gave him the password and he just needs to… whoa! He didn’t even get close to tell them because the moment they saw him cross the street, he finds himself eye to eye with half a dozen shot guns, .9mms and even one M16. He definitely should have brought the Hawk. Or at least his P90. The Beretta on his thigh won’t do much against that little army. Let’s try diplomacy, then. “Hey, guys, uh, I’m on your side and…”
“Stand down, everyone.” He’s pretty sure he was never so glad to see Spencer as right now. He also tries not to feel embarrassed by having had to be rescued from an outfit like this by Spencer. There had been a time where he would just have shrugged and patiently waited for the men to cave in when being faced with the power of several P90s and men and women highly trained to use them.
But that time is over and now he depends on the men listening to Spencer who isn’t even wearing a sidearm, just like back in the desert. Aside from the M240H, Spencer never used or carried a sidearm and it had struck him as odd back in the desert. It’s even weirder back in the US were everyone seems to have taken up wearing some kind of weapon or other.
He walks past the guards, conscious of their stares. It takes all his willpower to ignore them. Seems as if months of trying to tell himself that Laura died and then weeks in which he suddenly tentatively allowed himself to hope again took their toll on him. Who would have thought.
So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the first thing he says when he reaches Spencer is, “Where is she?”
Spencer nods toward the door and opens it. “First floor. I’ll show you,” he says and holds out his hand. What? “The Beretta. They’ll boot you out before you can even blink if you walk around here with that thing strapped to your leg.”
Right. It’s still a hospital after all. Reluctantly, he parts with the weapon that has been his since his earliest days at the SGC and slaps it into Spencer’s hand. Spencer leads them over to a footlocker with a heavy lock and a nurse looking like a human version of a dragon to go with it and his Beretta is locked up properly. It feels as if the entire thing takes them a couple of hours.
Then, finally, he’s lead through corridors and up the steps, with every available space seeming to be filled with wounded. He doesn’t want to think about Laura in such a place, being one of them. It gets him after an eternity and much too soon, though. All of a sudden, they’re standing in front of a hospital bed, in a corridor and there’s someone sitting on it, leaning against the wall behind her, an IV next to her. He swallows.
It comes like a blow to the guts. Hard enough that he nearly doesn’t hear Spencer say, “Look who I brought, Red.”
There’s a small smile blooming on her face, one of those she gave out so rarely, even back at the SGC when things seemed to be infinitely much more normal than now, even after five years. “You know how to cheer up a girl, Eliot.”
He takes her in. Her hair’s still the same as it always was, red and drawn back from her face. The only difference is that it’s not nearly as neat as it used to be. Single strands are framing her tired looking face and he’s not sure if she ever looked more beautiful than right now. Hazel eyes are heavy-lidded as if she’s finding it hard to stay awake. His gaze travels further down and he finds something dark staining the left side of her t-shirt. Oh God.
“Laura…”
“Alright, I guess I’ll see if Parker is back from her run up… Anyway. I’ll be back in a few.”
“I’m good, Cookie.” Most certainly not. There’s blood seeping from a wound in her side and she needs an IV and he’s pretty sure she’s in pain. “I got one clean through the side. Wound’s cleaned and bleeding’s been staunched. I’m just here because Eliot wouldn’t let me go.” She smiles again, breaking his heart and putting it back together right away. “At least now know I why.”
It’s still impossible for him to say something so he simply takes her silent invitation and climbs on the bed, sitting down next to her, leaning against the wall. He takes several deep breaths before he manages a quietly rasped, “I missed you, Laura.”
She turns her head, smiling. If she keeps up doing that, they might have to treat him for a heart attack soon. “I missed you, too, Evan.”
All he wants to do is hug her and never let her go again, heal her pain, make her whole again, protect her from everyone and everything that might harm her because he failed to do so the first time and never wants to mess it up again. He ends up looking at his fingers and asking quietly, “Why’d you leave us, Laura?”
There’s no answer from her at first. Then, barely audible, “I had to.” That’s bullshit, he wants to tell her. Why would she have to leave them? They were her team, the people she slept with together, fought with, ate with, did everything together with. “I did it for the team, Evan.”
He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get why she would disappear into the Sahara for the team, what one thing has to do with the other. “That doesn’t make any sense at all.”
It pains him to see her close her eyes for a very long minute, making her look so exhausted and frail and clearly hurting. “It does, if you know that I was caught by Mauritanian government troops. Who sold me out to our government. Who wanted me to go back to the team and work for them.” Usually, in this kind of fight, she’d raise her voice, ending with full out shouting at the end. He’d been there a lot of times. She never actually lowered her voice before. “I was supposed to betray you, Evan.”
He never… That… he never knew. He never knew she fought an entire government, just so she wouldn’t be forced to sell out her team, and him and he feels bile rising up in the back of his throat. He feels the very primal urge to go out and find whoever did that and who knew what else to her and make them pay. But most of all, he wants that sad look disappear from her eyes. He nearly whispers when he says, “We would have protected you, Laura. I would have protected you.”
“I know,” she says and it’s not only her eyes looking sad now, it’s her voice carrying a deep, bone-gnawing sadness, too, “that’s why I had to leave. I’m sorry, Evan, but I just couldn’t go back, knowing I’d be responsible for you getting hurt and killed.”
“But that’s not how it would have gone. We would have fought them. We would have found a way out of this.” He can’t believe Laura Cadman of all people would give up so easily. He can’t believe staying away from him… them would be easier for her than staying with… with him. He can’t believe he can’t stop feeling personally insulted by her decision.
After his little outburst… she’s silent. For a long time, and not just an imagined one. It must have been at least ten minutes in which he thought she might have given in to exhaustion and pain after all and just fell asleep when she speaks up again, trying so hard to sound conversationally. "You know… every time we fought, I thought I'd rather kiss than yell at you."
It’s another blow to the guts, this time shutting him up effectively. There’s so much he wants to say only he doesn’t know if it would do any good and most of all how to say it. The implications of what she said… he sees them back in Atlantis, at the SGC as teammates and it seems like that was in another life.
He sees them during the time they formed the plan of going AWOL, how they got to Africa, nights in the desert shivering beneath the infinite blanket of stars they would never travel again, days of frantic relocating after having been spotted, burying friends, making new ones… but never receiving a sign from her other than she’s his friend and his subordinate who would follow him through hell and back.
The truth is, he would have gone through hell and back just to keep her with him. He would have done everything to keep her safe. Even if it had meant to stay away from her for the rest of his life. He would have done the same, if it had been his predicament. Because… because…
He leans his head back and closes his eyes. I’m sorry, Laura. You were right to do what you did, Laura. I love you, Laura. That’s what he wants to say so badly. Instead his bruised and battered heart only lets him do tentative probing. "I'm not going anywhere, Laura."
He tries to smile but she doesn’t answer it. She just says, a little wearily, "But I might."
It confuses him and automatically, his thoughts turn to the blood on her t-shirt and how frighteningly large the stain had looked and how he doesn’t want to lose her, never again, now that he found her again. It makes him sit up straight again and argue fiercely, "No, you won't. That's nonsense and you know it. You're not hurt bad enough that..."
"I meant that I might leave this hospital as soon as I can and disappear again. I'm tired of fighting." Oh. That’s… well, that makes… sense. It makes sense and it makes him feel ridiculous for jumping at her like that. It makes him feel sorry to cause her to look so weary.
He tries to save her goodwill for him. "In that case... I probably won't be around here much longer, either. If you'll..."
"Yes, I will." What?
How can she know what he even wanted to say? "But you don't even know..."
"Didn't I just say I'm tired of fighting?" Damn. That was stupid. Of course she’d know what he wanted to say. She’s Laura Cadman, and she could always see right through him, even better than Keller with her doctor’s x-ray look.
Also, and that’s even more important, she just… she kind of glued him back together. All the years of telling himself she was just a friend and teammate and the months of hating himself for never telling her she’d been so much more for years just kind of… vanished when she just said she’d take him with her, as soon as she could get away from all of this. He smiles and all by itself his hand seems to slowly inch towards hers. "Yeah, you did. And I am, too."
He could finally make her smile again. He thinks he’ll gladly be an idiot and be sorry for it for the rest of his life if it just makes her smile like that. And squeeze his hand like that. "I'm kinda glad about that."
Everything inside of him threatens to explode in a wave of relief and joy and everything he tried to keep in for so long, so the only thing he can manage is, "Yeah, me too," and grinning like an idiot.
She grins back and laces her fingers through his, holding on for dear life. He could sit here with her grinning at him like that and allowing him to touch her and hold her hand for the rest of his life. He could even sit and watch here roll her eyes for that like… “Just kiss me already, you idiot.”
What… oh. Kiss her. Kiss her. Yeah, he thinks, why not? Why not give in to the mad urge to sweep her up and kiss her if his life depended on it and hold on to her like he’s drowning? Oh, right. Because she got hit by a bullet not too long ago and there’s an IV feeding stuff he doesn’t want to know about into her system and she’d probably kill him if he caused her more pain than she already is in.
But she’d probably also kill him if he doesn’t kiss her right fucking now so he slowly closes the distance between them and touches her lips with his. He’s not sure if he just heard her sigh contently but she’s responding to his kiss and that’s all he needs to bring his hand up and gently bury it in her hair and forget about all the death and destruction around him. It makes him forget about everything but her and the feelings he’d buried for so long.
Even when the kiss breaks because he might spontaneously combust if he keeps it up any longer, he’s barely aware of his surroundings because it’s Laura and Laura fills his entire mind. Enough that he only marginally registers Spencer appearing in the door again, accompanied by a blonde, both smirking first at him, then at each other.
He’s ready to signal them to leave them the hell alone when Laura turns her head in the same direction and then looks back grinning. “Come on, Cookie,” she says with that wicked kind of undertone that always preceded some fireworks by her, “let’s be good role models and show those two how it’s done.”
Whatever she meant by that, he’s game. “With pleasure,” he growls and sets out to kiss her again and he’ll be the happiest man on Earth and probably in two galaxies, too if he could only do this for the rest of his life. Kissing her and feeling her replying with the same vigor and tenderness at the same time makes him soar enough that for the first time in years he allows himself to hope.
Hope that everything will be alright in the end, because as he just discovered, it’s enough to be with her to make everything alright in the world and since he will never let her go again, everything else will be a piece of cake. Who would have thought it could be that easy, he thinks and smiles against her lips and keeps kissing her. It’s the best damn thing that ever happened to him and everything else can just get better now, too. He has never been happier.
Fandom: Stargate/Leverage
Rating: K+
Genres: het, apocafic (kinda)
Recipient: failegaidin
Prompt: Stargate, Laura Cadman/Evan Lorne, I'd rather kiss you than yell at you.
Summary: Evan Lorne followed a call from Eliot Spencer. He's not sure if it was such a good idea, after all.
A/N: Holiday Fic Request Meme. I admit, not much Leverage in this (and probably the reason why I'll let myself be convinced to write at least another story for this, after all...) but Eliot does play his part and I needed a little closure, at least. We'll see about the rest. Deal?
( For a Better World to Live in )
( With the Left Over You )
Sometime Yesterday
“Sometime yesterday,
There was another way
Of dreaming....
But there's another way
You don't have to be a hero....
God, it's not easy
There's a lot to keep you holding
On forever....”
The Radio, “Whatever Gets You Through Today”
It’s weird, he thinks, to be back in the US after five years of desert and sun. It’s weird to be somewhere with seasons… with winter and he’d probably cuss his ass off about freezing to death in some backwater town in the middle of nowhere called Elk River, Minnesota if he weren’t trying to find the fastest way to what used to be North Memorial Clinic at Elk River Physicians and is now rumored to be a field hospital for the resistance group that calls itself Takeover. He just should have brought the Hawk after all.
Actually, he should have brought his entire crew but there had been holdups and issues with available space on a freelance freighter needing protection from the pirates roaming the Atlantic and in the end they’d just shoved a forged passport and a plane ticket into his hands and basically pushed him onto the tarmac of Mohammed V International Airport in Casablanca, telling him they’d catch up with him as soon as the freighter made it across the Atlantic. He feels like he’s been awake ever since Spencer called two weeks ago to tell him he found Laura.
There is such thing as adrenaline, though, which is probably the only thing keeping him sharp enough not to slide too much on the ice on the sidewalk as he’s running from the improvised Greyhound station towards the hospital. She’s in there, Spence told him that, almost the minute he finally touched American soil again. They were doing some guerilla fighting a few miles further west and she was wounded and God, he needs to see her. He needs to see her.
The urge to see her pushes away the lingering doubt that it’s really her and that she actually wants to see him that was brought on by Spencer skirting the issue whenever he asked about that. It even holds up all until he arrives at the hospital entrance that’s guarded by a group of young men in ragtag clothes armed heavily with an… interesting array of guns.
Okay, that’s just a minor hold up. Spencer gave him the password and he just needs to… whoa! He didn’t even get close to tell them because the moment they saw him cross the street, he finds himself eye to eye with half a dozen shot guns, .9mms and even one M16. He definitely should have brought the Hawk. Or at least his P90. The Beretta on his thigh won’t do much against that little army. Let’s try diplomacy, then. “Hey, guys, uh, I’m on your side and…”
“Stand down, everyone.” He’s pretty sure he was never so glad to see Spencer as right now. He also tries not to feel embarrassed by having had to be rescued from an outfit like this by Spencer. There had been a time where he would just have shrugged and patiently waited for the men to cave in when being faced with the power of several P90s and men and women highly trained to use them.
But that time is over and now he depends on the men listening to Spencer who isn’t even wearing a sidearm, just like back in the desert. Aside from the M240H, Spencer never used or carried a sidearm and it had struck him as odd back in the desert. It’s even weirder back in the US were everyone seems to have taken up wearing some kind of weapon or other.
He walks past the guards, conscious of their stares. It takes all his willpower to ignore them. Seems as if months of trying to tell himself that Laura died and then weeks in which he suddenly tentatively allowed himself to hope again took their toll on him. Who would have thought.
So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the first thing he says when he reaches Spencer is, “Where is she?”
Spencer nods toward the door and opens it. “First floor. I’ll show you,” he says and holds out his hand. What? “The Beretta. They’ll boot you out before you can even blink if you walk around here with that thing strapped to your leg.”
Right. It’s still a hospital after all. Reluctantly, he parts with the weapon that has been his since his earliest days at the SGC and slaps it into Spencer’s hand. Spencer leads them over to a footlocker with a heavy lock and a nurse looking like a human version of a dragon to go with it and his Beretta is locked up properly. It feels as if the entire thing takes them a couple of hours.
Then, finally, he’s lead through corridors and up the steps, with every available space seeming to be filled with wounded. He doesn’t want to think about Laura in such a place, being one of them. It gets him after an eternity and much too soon, though. All of a sudden, they’re standing in front of a hospital bed, in a corridor and there’s someone sitting on it, leaning against the wall behind her, an IV next to her. He swallows.
It comes like a blow to the guts. Hard enough that he nearly doesn’t hear Spencer say, “Look who I brought, Red.”
There’s a small smile blooming on her face, one of those she gave out so rarely, even back at the SGC when things seemed to be infinitely much more normal than now, even after five years. “You know how to cheer up a girl, Eliot.”
He takes her in. Her hair’s still the same as it always was, red and drawn back from her face. The only difference is that it’s not nearly as neat as it used to be. Single strands are framing her tired looking face and he’s not sure if she ever looked more beautiful than right now. Hazel eyes are heavy-lidded as if she’s finding it hard to stay awake. His gaze travels further down and he finds something dark staining the left side of her t-shirt. Oh God.
“Laura…”
“Alright, I guess I’ll see if Parker is back from her run up… Anyway. I’ll be back in a few.”
“I’m good, Cookie.” Most certainly not. There’s blood seeping from a wound in her side and she needs an IV and he’s pretty sure she’s in pain. “I got one clean through the side. Wound’s cleaned and bleeding’s been staunched. I’m just here because Eliot wouldn’t let me go.” She smiles again, breaking his heart and putting it back together right away. “At least now know I why.”
It’s still impossible for him to say something so he simply takes her silent invitation and climbs on the bed, sitting down next to her, leaning against the wall. He takes several deep breaths before he manages a quietly rasped, “I missed you, Laura.”
She turns her head, smiling. If she keeps up doing that, they might have to treat him for a heart attack soon. “I missed you, too, Evan.”
All he wants to do is hug her and never let her go again, heal her pain, make her whole again, protect her from everyone and everything that might harm her because he failed to do so the first time and never wants to mess it up again. He ends up looking at his fingers and asking quietly, “Why’d you leave us, Laura?”
There’s no answer from her at first. Then, barely audible, “I had to.” That’s bullshit, he wants to tell her. Why would she have to leave them? They were her team, the people she slept with together, fought with, ate with, did everything together with. “I did it for the team, Evan.”
He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get why she would disappear into the Sahara for the team, what one thing has to do with the other. “That doesn’t make any sense at all.”
It pains him to see her close her eyes for a very long minute, making her look so exhausted and frail and clearly hurting. “It does, if you know that I was caught by Mauritanian government troops. Who sold me out to our government. Who wanted me to go back to the team and work for them.” Usually, in this kind of fight, she’d raise her voice, ending with full out shouting at the end. He’d been there a lot of times. She never actually lowered her voice before. “I was supposed to betray you, Evan.”
He never… That… he never knew. He never knew she fought an entire government, just so she wouldn’t be forced to sell out her team, and him and he feels bile rising up in the back of his throat. He feels the very primal urge to go out and find whoever did that and who knew what else to her and make them pay. But most of all, he wants that sad look disappear from her eyes. He nearly whispers when he says, “We would have protected you, Laura. I would have protected you.”
“I know,” she says and it’s not only her eyes looking sad now, it’s her voice carrying a deep, bone-gnawing sadness, too, “that’s why I had to leave. I’m sorry, Evan, but I just couldn’t go back, knowing I’d be responsible for you getting hurt and killed.”
“But that’s not how it would have gone. We would have fought them. We would have found a way out of this.” He can’t believe Laura Cadman of all people would give up so easily. He can’t believe staying away from him… them would be easier for her than staying with… with him. He can’t believe he can’t stop feeling personally insulted by her decision.
After his little outburst… she’s silent. For a long time, and not just an imagined one. It must have been at least ten minutes in which he thought she might have given in to exhaustion and pain after all and just fell asleep when she speaks up again, trying so hard to sound conversationally. "You know… every time we fought, I thought I'd rather kiss than yell at you."
It’s another blow to the guts, this time shutting him up effectively. There’s so much he wants to say only he doesn’t know if it would do any good and most of all how to say it. The implications of what she said… he sees them back in Atlantis, at the SGC as teammates and it seems like that was in another life.
He sees them during the time they formed the plan of going AWOL, how they got to Africa, nights in the desert shivering beneath the infinite blanket of stars they would never travel again, days of frantic relocating after having been spotted, burying friends, making new ones… but never receiving a sign from her other than she’s his friend and his subordinate who would follow him through hell and back.
The truth is, he would have gone through hell and back just to keep her with him. He would have done everything to keep her safe. Even if it had meant to stay away from her for the rest of his life. He would have done the same, if it had been his predicament. Because… because…
He leans his head back and closes his eyes. I’m sorry, Laura. You were right to do what you did, Laura. I love you, Laura. That’s what he wants to say so badly. Instead his bruised and battered heart only lets him do tentative probing. "I'm not going anywhere, Laura."
He tries to smile but she doesn’t answer it. She just says, a little wearily, "But I might."
It confuses him and automatically, his thoughts turn to the blood on her t-shirt and how frighteningly large the stain had looked and how he doesn’t want to lose her, never again, now that he found her again. It makes him sit up straight again and argue fiercely, "No, you won't. That's nonsense and you know it. You're not hurt bad enough that..."
"I meant that I might leave this hospital as soon as I can and disappear again. I'm tired of fighting." Oh. That’s… well, that makes… sense. It makes sense and it makes him feel ridiculous for jumping at her like that. It makes him feel sorry to cause her to look so weary.
He tries to save her goodwill for him. "In that case... I probably won't be around here much longer, either. If you'll..."
"Yes, I will." What?
How can she know what he even wanted to say? "But you don't even know..."
"Didn't I just say I'm tired of fighting?" Damn. That was stupid. Of course she’d know what he wanted to say. She’s Laura Cadman, and she could always see right through him, even better than Keller with her doctor’s x-ray look.
Also, and that’s even more important, she just… she kind of glued him back together. All the years of telling himself she was just a friend and teammate and the months of hating himself for never telling her she’d been so much more for years just kind of… vanished when she just said she’d take him with her, as soon as she could get away from all of this. He smiles and all by itself his hand seems to slowly inch towards hers. "Yeah, you did. And I am, too."
He could finally make her smile again. He thinks he’ll gladly be an idiot and be sorry for it for the rest of his life if it just makes her smile like that. And squeeze his hand like that. "I'm kinda glad about that."
Everything inside of him threatens to explode in a wave of relief and joy and everything he tried to keep in for so long, so the only thing he can manage is, "Yeah, me too," and grinning like an idiot.
She grins back and laces her fingers through his, holding on for dear life. He could sit here with her grinning at him like that and allowing him to touch her and hold her hand for the rest of his life. He could even sit and watch here roll her eyes for that like… “Just kiss me already, you idiot.”
What… oh. Kiss her. Kiss her. Yeah, he thinks, why not? Why not give in to the mad urge to sweep her up and kiss her if his life depended on it and hold on to her like he’s drowning? Oh, right. Because she got hit by a bullet not too long ago and there’s an IV feeding stuff he doesn’t want to know about into her system and she’d probably kill him if he caused her more pain than she already is in.
But she’d probably also kill him if he doesn’t kiss her right fucking now so he slowly closes the distance between them and touches her lips with his. He’s not sure if he just heard her sigh contently but she’s responding to his kiss and that’s all he needs to bring his hand up and gently bury it in her hair and forget about all the death and destruction around him. It makes him forget about everything but her and the feelings he’d buried for so long.
Even when the kiss breaks because he might spontaneously combust if he keeps it up any longer, he’s barely aware of his surroundings because it’s Laura and Laura fills his entire mind. Enough that he only marginally registers Spencer appearing in the door again, accompanied by a blonde, both smirking first at him, then at each other.
He’s ready to signal them to leave them the hell alone when Laura turns her head in the same direction and then looks back grinning. “Come on, Cookie,” she says with that wicked kind of undertone that always preceded some fireworks by her, “let’s be good role models and show those two how it’s done.”
Whatever she meant by that, he’s game. “With pleasure,” he growls and sets out to kiss her again and he’ll be the happiest man on Earth and probably in two galaxies, too if he could only do this for the rest of his life. Kissing her and feeling her replying with the same vigor and tenderness at the same time makes him soar enough that for the first time in years he allows himself to hope.
Hope that everything will be alright in the end, because as he just discovered, it’s enough to be with her to make everything alright in the world and since he will never let her go again, everything else will be a piece of cake. Who would have thought it could be that easy, he thinks and smiles against her lips and keeps kissing her. It’s the best damn thing that ever happened to him and everything else can just get better now, too. He has never been happier.