I go home. I don’t sleep. At least I don’t mean to. But I must have, because several hours later I wake up and blink, confused at the light in the room. Then I see the clock, and I remember.

My eyes are still puffy and bleary. I fell asleep in my clothes, watch included. It reads seven ‘til nine.

I strip and shower quickly. If only I could wash off the psychic grime with the physical.

I get dressed in jeans and a tee shirt, then thinly slice off two pieces of cucumber. I press one to each eye and lie down. Thank god for hydrosol. The cooling sensation is heavenly. I stay like that until the doorbell rings.

.

I wipe cucumber from my eyes and answer the door.

“Hi,” He has brought bagels and cream cheese.

I take them from him and smile. “Thanks. Come on in.”

“Thanks,” he swallows. I can’t figure out why he looks so afraid.

“Have a seat.” I gesture to the bar. “Something to drink?”

“Juice if you have it.”

“Cranberry or orange?”

“Orange, please.”

The thought of eating anything makes my stomach lurch. I wish I could just tell him to say his piece and get out, because I want this to be over.

I pour us each an orange juice. I don’t know how, I know but he is staring at my every move.

I set his juice in front of him. He looks like he's waiting for the firing squad. “Why do you look so afraid?” I ask.

He sips his juice. “Thank you.” He sets it down and looks at his hands. Then he looks up at me and I am reeling with the intensity of it. Something is up. I don’t like this.

“Everything you said was right.” He says it quietly and the look in his face… it looks like a storm is brewing in his eyes.

“Everything I say is usually right.” I smile, feeling stupid, and he smiles back as if his heart is breaking. He looks as if he might cry. It’s seriously freaking me out. “That doesn’t explain why you look terrified right now.”

“I’ve changed my mind.”

“Eh?” I say.

No, Sara, don’t hope don’t hope don’thope.

“I do want to try. With you.”

“What?”

“I can’t let you go.” There are tears in his eyes. I want to hold him but I can’t. Now I’m afraid. I can’t help but feel that I’ve broken free and now I’m being reeled back again. I don’t like it.

I’ve taken control of my life in the last nine hours, but now everything is swirling again.

“You changed your mind. Just like that.” I don’t believe him. I don’t want to believe him.

He nods. I can’t take much more of this look in his eyes, so I look away. This isn’t the time to be weak.

“You know when I changed my mind?”

“No.” I whisper I pull up the other barstool and sit across from him. Tears are threatening to undo my cucumber treatment just as he is threatening to undo me.

“I saw you cry like that, I saw, no, I let myself see what I was doing to you. And when you came down that alley to me, and I asked you if you were okay, you were still so...open. And then you did something that...”

Tears are on his face again. “You asked me if I was okay, after all of that. You make my head spin, Sara. No one has ever loved me like that and I’m terrified of you but I don’t want to let you go.”

He presses his face into his hands and takes a deep breath. Then he is quiet.

“I’m afraid to believe you.” I say, so quietly I’m not sure if he heard.

He nods. He looks so dejected, so torn apart. I get up and walk around to the other side. I touch his shoulder and he turns to look at me.

I touch his face again, déjà vu. The stubble there is wet with hot tears.

Then he has me in a crushing embrace and I swallow hard. Home, I think, and I hate that I am thinking that.

We stand like that for a long time. His breathing calms.

“Let’s go sit down.” I finally say. I break free and we go to the sofa. He has a look in his eyes that makes me want to hold him forever and scream with frustration. Either one.

I can‘t look at him. He is like Tantalus, and right now I am being tortured. “I don’t know what to say,” I finally say. My voice sounds like gravel.

He nods. “And I have so much to say.”

“Then say it.” I say quietly.

He closes his eyes. “God, I love you.”

Hearing this is not supposed to hurt.

“You make it sound like a death sentence.”

“It feels like one. Loving you is going to have to change so much of who I am.”

“I don’t want you to be with me if it makes you feel like you’re at war with yourself.”

“But I want to be. I have to be at war with myself. I don’t want to live like this anymore.”

I bend over, hugging my chest, feeling fragile. I stare at my floor. “Why do you love me?”

He laughs, almost sarcastically. “Oh, god, Sara. I don’t know where to start.”

I scowl. I refuse to feel guilty for putting him on the spot. Everything has to be crystal clear. The burden of proof is on him now.

I close my eyes, and breathe.

“I love you because you have loved me all this time. It all starts backward from that moment in the alley, and I don’t know how long I’ve felt this way. Years, maybe, since you came to Vegas. I love the way your eyebrows wrinkle up when you’re upset or thinking really hard. I love the goofy grin you get when you make a geeky little joke.”

He gingerly takes my hand, as if it might bite him. But then he squeezes it in both of his, and his grip is strong, not faltering. “I love the way you fight for our victims. I love the way you sat at Pam Adler’s bedside and talked to her. I had to mark you down for prioritizing but I love the way you worked to find out who committed gorillicide.”

I’m suddenly embarrassed, but I can’t keep a smile from twitching my lips.

My body wants to feel bliss, but I just can’t. I can’t believe him.

“I love the way you call me on my bullshit...” he says, the words sounding foreign in his mouth.

I laugh, completely unexpecting that.

“I love the way you just laughed. I love the way the sun looks on your hair and the scarily quick way your mind works and how we work in sync together, finishing each other’s thoughts.”

He seems a bit more confident now, but I am not. “That hasn’t happened in a while.”

“Last night?” He had a point.

“Last night was good. I don’t know how I functioned.”

“I was, and am, in awe of you,” he says gently.

I smile again. All of this praise, after having none for so long, is making me a little warm and dizzy.

“I don’t know what to say. I want to believe you but I can’t.”

He is quiet. He still holds my hand in both of his. “I don’t blame you.”

I nod.

“It’s not surprising to me that you don’t believe me. I tried very hard to keep you from knowing how much I love you.”

I close my eyes. I don’t know how to react to that.

He continues. “I’ve felt this way for a very long time. Since the day I met you, I think.”

I turn to look at him. He sees the disbelief in my eyes, and I know it hurts him.

He keeps speaking, holding my eyes with his own. “I saw myself in you. And that had never, ever happened before. I told myself that I had to guard against you as if you were the plague, because you were so dangerous to me.” I stiffen, staring at the texture of my carpet.

“I’ve felt like this for years. It was torture seeing you with Hank Peddigrew.”

“What about Heather?” I say it before I even think it.

This gets no physical reaction from him, as I expect. “Heather was very intelligent, like you. And very beautiful, like you. I hoped that if I could have something with her it would make me forget about you. It didn’t work.”

I’m not sure if I wanted to hear that or not. But I suppose it’s no different from Hank.

He keeps talking. Quietly. I love his voice. It‘s so measured, intelligent. “I don’t know what else to say. I could tell you how I’ve felt every moment I’ve spent with you the last seven years. I know you don’t trust me. I pray you don’t leave. I hope it’s not too late. You scare the hell out of me, but for the first time something else scares me more.”

I sit there like a statue. Wait to let him finish. But he doesn’t say anything, and I glance at him.

His eyes corroborate everything he has said. I can look for just a second, that’s all I can handle. I turn away.

We are quiet. Finally I say something. “I’ll stay. I’ll try. Under two conditions.”

He squeezes my hand, probably without realizing it. “Which are?”

“First… if you are going to be with me, or at least try this, you can’t be with anyone else.”

“There isn’t anyone else, nor do I want there to be.” I believe him, because of the simple tone of his voice.

“Second, you have a habit of withdrawing, of getting cold and terse and… robotic. You can’t do that. If you need your space that’s fine, you can just tell me that and we’ll spend a while apart, but I won’t be around you when you’re like that. It's torture. I won’t do it.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“All you have to do is tell me if you need time. It’s not so hard. I’m going to do it right now, because now I need to be alone for awhile.”

“Really?”

“My head is spinning. I’m emotionally exhausted. I need some time.”

“That’s the least I can do,” he says, standing up. He offers his hand to me and I let him help me up.

I nod. My brain is fried.

“Sara?”

“Yeah?” I meet his eyes, shyly.

“Can I hold you? Just for a minute?” He gingerly reaches out to tuck my hair behind my ear.

I nod and reach for him.

His body is so warm. I’ve come to think of him as cold and steely, but he is flesh and blood, and so warm through our clothes. I want to sob but I don't want to go there again with him. I can wait until I'm alone.

I love the way he holds me, one arm around my back, the other cradling my head. I close my eyes and breathe him in and move my hand over his broad, warm back. He feels secure, though he is anything but.

“I should go,” he whispers, pulling away. He catches my hands in his. “Call me if you’d like to have dinner tonight before shift. We can talk. Or, if not, that’s fine too. I’ll wait.”

I nod. “Okay,” I whisper.

He pulls me close again and kisses my forehead gently. He meets my eyes. “I love you,” he says, and I see it in his eyes.

Then he walks to the door, and is gone. I stay rooted where I stand, staring at the door as I hear his Tahoe start up and fade away.