Lovely and Loved [80% Complete]

[Heather Greenfield]

Prompt List

• Shy
• Introduction
• The Movies
• Valentine's Day
• Dance
• Pregnant
• Sorrow
• Devil
• Hate
• Devoted

[Heather Greenfield]

SHY

Heather had, for most of her life, been a shy girl. She was always quiet and tried to stay out of everyone else's way, and it was no wonder with that inherent Avian Reserve that most bred birds had. Whether they liked it or not, many of the Avian race had that specific, hindering sort of trait, especially those with long familial lines, and Heather's was particularly lengthy. In fact, she'd only started to open up to Harvey more recently. Now, of course, it was true that she had opened up to him quite a bit before, obviously or they'd never have married, but the last year had been a whole new round of discovery for her. What she was capable of, especially where her strength and ability to express her emotions (violently, at times, though never directed AT someone) were concerned. But always, always, she was fighting that instinct to withdraw, to compose herself and to hide her emotions behind a smile made of marble.

In her dreams, however, Heather was not shy at all.

In her dreams, she was free - as free as a bird, really, though that's not how she saw herself. No, in her dreams, Heather was a wolf. Dominant, ferocious, strong, and above all, sensual. These were words that Heather had never heard used to describe herself. Harvey may have used them, but it was only because he saw both who Heather was and who she had the potential to be. That was both his take on her out of love, and his take on her through his ability, because Harvey saw how things worked, and he could see without a doubt that within Heather these aggressive traits existed, if only she could find a reason to bring them out.

What Heather loved, above all in her dreams, was the way things felt. She could feel them as if they were extensions of her, had infinite knowledge of time both forward and back and even sideways when she wanted it, and she could summon a thousand stars from the night sky just to amuse herself. She would run through the forests, roll through the dirt and feel the caress of the moon on her belly.

But Heather hadn't felt that way for a long time, and it wasn't until Eli began taking up a more permanent residence in her home that she felt safe and warm and was able to, in her sleep, return to that place in her mind where she was utterly feral and answered to nobody and had no obligations and didn't do anything that wasn't for her own pleasure. So when, in her dream, she felt the cold, damp moss of her forest beneath her feet, she yelped a howl of joy, shed her clothing, and ran straight into the darkness at a full tilt. Because in her dreams, Heather feared nothing, and in fact it was those things that lurked beyond that should fear her.

Unfortunately, living in the same house with someone whose powers were as terribly specific as Eli's were, and being the subject of many of those abilities, even indirectly, Heather's dreaming self became her astral self, and she shuddered as the forest around her gave way to warm blankets and a bed that was too tall in a room that was too empty in a house that was too quiet. Her feet were no longer covered in grass and mud, and they were no longer finely-sharpened claws that hung dangerously out of thick paws, and her lovely tawny fur was no longer bathed in moonlight. No, they were just her feet, and they were moving silently across the hard wood floor, and Heather was clad only in a thin white t-shirt that was perhaps a bit too short and a pair of black shorts that were more underwear then outerwear.

But in her mind's eye, Heather was still the wolf. And that wolf smelled something... wonderful.

As quiet as falling snow, Heather glided to her door, pushing it open and pausing to lean against the doorframe, head peeking out into the hall only to source out that scent. She inhaled deeply, then felt herself move forward, searching. She paused by a room that held a light, her ears picking up a melodic and mechanical sound mixed together. Her child lay sleeping in his crib, peaceful and dreamless, and she stayed for a while and simply watched and listened to the soft sound of his breath.

But the smell kept catching her attention, and as much as she tried to resist it, it was as though she was being pulled by an unseen force, so on she went, further into the rabbit hole of a hallway. There was another door, this one closed, and she pressed against it with her body, hands outstretched as her the pads of her fingertips dragged down it. There it was. She turned the knob and entered, shutting it behind her with the weight of her body as she leaned against it, simply ensconced by this thing that had commanded her so.

When nothing happened and nobody moved for a long while and all Heather could hear was a heartbeat that went more slowly then her own, she advanced, only to stop at the foot of the bed. There it was. As though Heather had a body full of grace made only for this task, she nimbly put her hands on the bed and began climbing up and forward, over the warm body that was there until she was planted atop it. Her knees pressed into the soft down of the mattress, as did her hands, and her tumble of blonde hair fell loose from her shoulder and brushed across the bare chest of the sleeping man between the sheets. She tilted her head, the simple, curious gesture so much more lupine then avian, and slowly, slowly, slowly, leaned in to hold her face just above the crook of his neck.

There it was.

Gently, almost playfully, she pressed her lips against the vein that ran through his neck, knowing that he was predator enough himself to wake any moment - which he did. She felt his arms snap forward, large hands clamping down on her limbs, but she failed to brace herself for any further attack. He was smart, and he knew who she was, and the motion went no further. She felt his grip loosen, but not leave entirely, and she tilted her head the other way, her hair dragging across his chest again in a slow sort of way that she enjoyed.

"Heather?" Eli asked, his voice holding no trace of sleep in it.

She didn't respond, only stared at him, and her body moved so slowly, so fluidly, that she was almost hypnotic in a way. She smiled then, and it lacked the shyness and quiet sort of suffering that Eli had come to expect, which only confused him more - which was why he didn't react like he should have. She dipped forward, nuzzling her cheek to his, then turned her head to run her lips across his jaw, enjoying the feel of the stubble as it lightly scratched her. She could feel every muscle in his body tense (since she was on top of him, and so very aware of everything at that moment), like he was preparing to react finally, and before he could say or do anything else, she'd kissed him. It was no small event, either, as the way she did so demanded participation and he found that it was very hard to ignore the beautiful blonde on top of him.

Finally, he sat up, forcing her to sit back, and she gingerly removed herself from her spot over the covers, coming to kneel next to him. "You need to go back to bed," he said. The way he said it wasn't loud, or harsh, or angry or frustrated or malevolent. It did have a strangeness to it, a tone that she found she couldn't disobey, no matter how hard she fought it. She felt herself nodding, and she watched as her body slid across the bed and stood, only a hand reaching back and trailing a finger down his arm all she could do to rebel against the order. She walked back to her room, got back into her bed, and closed her eyes.

Eli flopped back down onto the bed and slammed a pillow over his face so that he could yell into it without waking up the baby. How in the fucking Christ had she done that? He must have rubbed off on her somehow, or simply didn't anticipate that she would have been having a strong enough dream to where she'd actually step out of it, somehow. God fucking damnit. He thanked his lucky stars that he had the good sense to realize what was happening and send her (and her apparently very sexually aggressive sleepwalking/projecting/whatever the hell had just happened) back to bed.

Heather slept, and remembered nothing. Eli lay awake until his alarm went off, then threw it across the room, sighed, retrieved it, and got to preparing himself for his day.

In the kitchen, Heather was singing to herself and simultaneously feeding Liam Cheerio's as well as eating some herself, and when he came in, she had a mouthful, so she only gestured for him to sit, then dropped a bowl in front of him. He ate, happy for the moment where the only noise was the normalcy he'd come to know and love about the house - Heather banging around in the kitchen while Liam banged around in his high chair.

"So," she said, finally swallowing her cereal after chasing it with a sip of orange juice. "I had the weirdest dream last night," she informed him.

Eli snorted so hard he shot a Cheerio out of his nose, and then Liam began to laugh and Heather never got to finish her story. It was fine with him. He already knew how it ended.

[Heather Greenfield]

INTRODUCTION

  What Heather didn't know couldn't hurt her. That's what everyone around her thought, and they thought it often. Unfortunately, what Heather didn't know planned to hurt her very, very much, and as she pushed the key into the door of her apartment after having just dropped Liam off with Raven, she found out exactly how much 'very very' was.

She went for her phone, first, because it was the most logical thing, but he knocked it out of her hand before she even had a chance to press a single button. All that it really would have taken was a button mash with no response, to any dozen or so of those contacts in her phone, and the evening as Kiyoshi planned it would have gone off-course. So, no, that wasn't happening. He picked it up, holding her frozen in place with the other hand, scrolling through it absently. Heather was a shifter, a sparrow, and however plain she was, she was still his to control, and Kiyoshi fully intended to abuse that.

"Who should we call?" he asked playfully as he forced her to walk to the couch and sit down. She looked like some sort of stop-animation doll, like a Japanese ghost in the corporeal, and he grinned as he saw her eyes start to water. "You know, if you stop fighting, it won't hurt so much," he said, pulling up a chair and dropping down into it, seating himself the wrong way, of course.

She tried to speak, but he'd closed her mouth for her, and he didn't really need to hear her voice to know what she'd say. "You're still just as much of a bore as ever," he moaned. "Should I take your wings out for you? Would that liven you up a bit?" He relaxed his control on her enough for her to violently shake her head no, and he chuckled to himself. "No, of course not," he muttered, focusing his attention back down to the phone. His thumb moved against the screen as he scrolled through her contact list.

"Connor? No, that's the Crimson leader. That idiot couldn't stay dead if he tried. Hmm..." he mused, scratching at his eyebrow lightly as he continued searching. "Ooh, who's Sitara? She sounds exotic," he said, his tone lilting again in that strange sing-song way it did.

"Sniper," Heather managed.

"Oh, right, I forgot I left you able to do that!" He snapped his fingers, as if to say 'shucks!' to himself, then opened his palm and closed it - the universal symbol to shut your mouth. As he did so, Heather's mouth clamped shut, and her breathing became more laboured through her nose as she tried to calm herself and still her heartbeat.

"Heather, I really have to hand it to you, most of the people in your phone I can honestly say I don't want to tangle with," he said, standing up, He shoved the chair back under the little kitchen table, then moved in front of her, falling into a crouch. He could hear her asking why he wouldn't just let her go, and he snorted. "Where'd the fun in that be? I said most. Did I accidentally take away your ability to hear, too?" And with that, he lunged forward, screaming rabid, loud nonsense into her ears.

"No, you can definitely hear," he concluded, flicking her ear as if to make the point.

He found something, pressed send, and then rocked back into the squatting position in front of her. While it rang, he straightened his jacket sleeves, picked off a piece of lint, and surveyed the status of his fingernails. As soon as he heard someone pick up on the other end, he set the phone down and pressed 'Speaker'.

"Hello?" Kiyoshi said. He made no effort to disguise his voice, though the particular individual he'd called wouldn't recognize it anyways.

"Heather?" the man asked.

"Well, obviously not," Kiyoshi scolded. "Unless Heather's been hiding something from you," he added, a little giggle following behind. He cleared his throat, unable to compose himself for a moment. "Listen, here, kidd-o, I'm about to play a game, and everyone's favourite little blonde birdie is our first contestant," he said, his voice taking a terrifyingly dark tone. Heather's eyes widened as she recognized that sound, but she couldn't do much else to protest, and Kiyoshi waved hello at her frantically as though he'd not seen her in years.

"Who the fuck is this?" the man demanded. "Is this a joke?"

"A joke? Me? Heather, my sweet sweet girl, do you know me to 'joke'? Kiyoshi asked. He held the phone up, releasing the hold he had on her, and then pressed the mute button very quickly. "Make me look good, blondie, or I'll let your little boyfriend see what your insides look like when I send him the photo he's probably going to want when he asks for proof I haven't killed you yet," he threatened, his tone dropping again. "Nod if you understand," he commanded.

Heather nodded.

Kiyoshi pressed the button again, then held it out for her, shaking it in her face when she didn't speak fast enough.

Heather took a deep, shaky breath, and composed herself with all of the reserve she could muster. "Eli? This isn't a joke. He's deadly serious, and if you don't do what he says, I'll..." she trailed off. She couldn't say it.

"She'll get to see what her intestines look like wrapped around the Christmas tree before she dies, Eli, old friend," he hissed into the phone. He clamped his hand down, silencing her again just as she'd started to cry, and the sound of Heather in the background suddenly dropped off.

"Prove you haven't hurt her," Eli commanded, already grabbing his coat and rushing for the exit of the guildhouse.

"I'll send you a photo. Do you prefer the clothes on, or off?" he asked, his voice giddy. When he got no response, he made a sound of disgust. "I was only kidding. She's not my type. I do know of a certain German vampire who'd love to get to know her from the inside out, though," he growled. Nobody in that room had to know that Stefan wasn't a creeper rapist, especially since from the inside out could very well mean the entrails Kiyoshi was suddenly so fond of mentioning.

"Just send me the photo," Eli said harshly.

"Call you right back, okay?" he sang, his voice hitting a Valley accent. He hung up the phone, held it up, and grinned at Heather. "Should I be in the picture, too, do you think?" he asked. He seemed serious then, looking down at himself critically. "I don't know... the flash might blanch me out a little too much. Ah, well. We'll skip the cameo for now. Maybe later you and I can play dress-up together, though," he said, his voice going back to that sinister tone at the last bit. She heard the snap of the camera, flinching as it made the CLICK sound. Kiyoshi sent the photo as promised, then loudly counted to thirty, and dialed Eli back.

"Did you get it? Isn't she something?" he asked happily.

"What do you want?"

"I WANT you to answer my QUESTION, Eli!" he pressed. "Isn't. She. Something?"

Heather closed her eyes, tears rolling down her cheeks. She silently begged Eli to just fucking play along.

"She's beautiful," he said flatly.

"Like you MEAN it, loverboy," Kiyoshi snapped.

There was a pause, and then a shaky breath. "Heather, you're the single most beautiful girl I've known in my entire life. You have a face that men would write songs about, sail across oceans for. You have a warmth that men would kill for. You have a love that men would die for," he added, his voice stressed at the end as he thought about Harvey, and wondered what the fuck he would tell the man when he inevitably returned if he somehow let Heather die in that room with that psycho.

"Wow," Kiyoshi said, doing a Christopher Walken impression. He covered the phone up (rather then hitting mute, so he was still audible), and nudged Heather in the leg, hard. "You know, blondie, I was only kidding about the loverboy bit, but now I think I may have dialed the right number, indeed. Indeedly-do..." he trailed off, lifting his hand off the phone again.

"So, here's the drill, kidd-o," Kiyoshi said. "You're going to come home to your lovely wifey-bird, and you're going to come alone. If I even, for a fucking second, EVEN think that you're bringing hunters or friends or back-up of any kind? I will cripple her. I will rape her. And then I will set her on fire. And I will ensure that every second of it is burned so deeply into your head that you'll gouge your eyes out so just so you can try to unsee it. Got me, friend?" Kiyoshi growled.

"One question," Eli said.

"Okay, shoot," Kiyoshi replied, his tone suddenly smooth and good-natured.

"Who is this?"

"Oh, didn't I introduce myself? Some call me the Puppet Master. Some call me Dr. Doolittle. Some even call me God," he added, crooning into laughter. "But you can call me Kiyoshi."

"Kiyoshi," he repeated. "I'll be seeing you real soon, friend." And with that, the phone went dead.

While Kiyoshi was set to clapping his hands and laughing and telling Heather what a good job she did (and then demanding to know where her hair brush was because she looked fucking disgusting - and then lapsing into the process of taking her self-esteem apart piece by piece), Heather only sat still and silent and answered when she was able and was as obedient and gentle as possible, because while Kiyoshi didn't know Eli, didn't know he was a hunter (very obviously), and had no idea of any ability he possessed, Heather was one up on him - because if there was one thing she knew about Eli, it was that she had never, ever, ever, heard that tone of voice from him before that moment.

And it was because of that, and only that, that Heather was not afraid.

[Heather Greenfield]

THE MOVIES

  "Come on," he said, rolling his eyes. He dodged a piece of popcorn that aimed for his face, swatting at the petite blonde next to him playfully. "That movie wasn't that bad," he insisted.

Heather sat forward in her chair, nearly knocking the box of Lemonheads out of her lap with the sudden jerk. "Are you kidding me?" she asked. She glanced up at the screen as a bit of trivia flashed overhead ('What actor played the Night Owl in the 2009 movie Watchmen, based off of the graphic novel of the same name?'), said, "Patrick Wilson," without thinking, and then went back to her argument, which was very important that she won. "Insidious was terrible. Okay, I mean, if you forget the last thirty minutes ever happened, then yeah, it's okay, but seriously? The ending?"

He slapped his hand down on his knee. "The ending was the best part!" he shouted. From somewhere below them in the stadium seating, someone turned back and shushed them, and he and Heather both said, "The previews haven't even started!" at the same time. They exchanged a glance, then laughed.

"Okay," he said. "I can see I'm not going to win this, am I?" He reached into the popcorn, noticing that the noise above him signified the projector was loaded and the previews were about to start. Or, the pre-preview commercials, he thought bitterly to himself as a GMC commercial began. He looked back at Heather for an answer.

She was smiling at him. "Nope, you're not."

Even in the dim light, bathed in the sudden red and white by the Coca-Cola ad, she was... radiant. He felt bad the instant he thought it, and just shook his head. "You're unbelievable, you know that? You always have to get your way, don't you?" He turned back to the screen, still smiling, but very aware that she was still focusing more on him then on the screen.

"I do," she assured him. "But it's okay, I'll go easy on you. I'll make you think you have a choice, at least," she added. She laughed a little, and he did, too, but she didn't notice that it was forced. Eli, despite his proximity to Heather and her son (who was now almost six months old), had managed to keep her at arm's length. But sometimes? Sometimes it was harder to do then other times. Right now was one of those times - but he'd take a few moments of awkwardness on his part if it meant watching her smile and laugh and not just lay on the couch and sleep for days and days and days. He was just thankful he knew enough about babies to take care of Liam while she rode out her bouts of depression.

As the movie started, he felt something warm on his arm, and looked down to realize that Heather had rested her hand on his armrest. It was just at the joint where his hand and wrist met, and for a moment, he thought she'd done it on accident, and then realized that she tossed her hair to one side ever so slightly. Signature Heather move. He'd seen her do it a thousand times with Harvey, especially when she wanted attention.

"Heather," he said softly, his tone already betraying what he was going to say. Before he could move, he felt her slender fingers tighten their grip - not tightly, but enough. Enough to make him know that she had a point to make. He looked at her finally, and realized that she was looking straight back at him.

"Just let me have this. Okay?"

He blinked rapidly. There wasn't even the slightest hint that she was playing around with him. He honestly didn't know what to say - and he realized that Heather had basically told him earlier that she would always win, and that she'd just let him think he had some choice in the matter. Was that defensible? 'Sorry, she left me no choice. I had to hold her hand.' He felt himself nodding to her, saying okay, offering her that reassuring smile as he always had - and he was met with her own beautiful smile in return (but this time not the ridiculous, wide grin - it was more soft, more private somehow).

He could only imagine how far that excuse would get him, but as she pushed the arm-rest between them up finally and scooted over a little. She directed his arm over her shoulder (in an appropriate way, at least, none of that pre-teen groping), and rested her head against him. She smelled like strawberries and he didn't know, and he found himself holding his breath. He'd never gone so out of his fucking way not to be attracted to someone before in his life, and for what? What had it gotten him, really?

And then something scary happened, and she turned into him, covering her face in his chest like the little chicken she was (Insidious his ass, he bet she'd turned it off as soon as that creepy demon thing appeared from behind the guy's head). He hated to say it, but it had gotten him this - whatever this was.

"You can look now," he whispered to her as soon as the initial jump-holy-shit sequence had ended.

And this was okay, for now.

Wasn't it?

[Heather Greenfield]

VALENTINE'S DAY

  It had been nearly two years since Harvey was gone. Nearly two years, and by now, things for Heather were looking up - as strange as that sounded. Liam was happy and healthy, and had already said his first word, which much to Eli's chagrin was "Eli". He'd tried to keep it a secret from Heather, but as soon as she'd come home (to the new house - more on that later), Liam had belted it out again. Eli hadn't meant to encourage it, but his mixed reaction was interpreted as 'good', and so as soon as Liam saw the petite blonde he knew to be his primary caregiver, he pointed right at Eli and screamed, "ELI!"

That had been an awkward dinner, to say the least.

The house that Heather now lived in was beautiful. She was in a good neighborhood close to good schools, and it was Eli-approved, which meant that he'd gone over every inch of it, inside and out, and warded the everloving shit out of it. Ever since the incident with Kiyoshi, Heather had unfortunately been right in the middle of a rather monumental burst of Eli's power, and between that and the solid year he'd been in her life day in and out, she'd picked up a few things. Particularly, that Eli wasn't normal, and also that he wasn't very pleased to know that Heather now understood it to its fullest capacity. She'd been mostly silent on the matter because she knew that he didn't want to scare her, but Heather had also grown a bit of a spine through that time, and so eventually it had to be addressed. As far as she understood it, she was simply more aware of things, and as a result, more receptive. Since that meant that now the things she saw and felt knew she saw and felt them, Eli had only one choice, and that was to teach her enough to feel better when he was away for work.

She wouldn't be releasing any legions of angry revenant on anyone anytime soon, but kicking out small unwanted house guests she could do on her own, and Eli hated to say it, but he did feel a sense of pride for that. It was buried under yards of guilt, but it was still pride.

Unfortunately, there were other matters that Eli felt badly about, and as much as it kicked him right in the FEELS, they'd have to come up sooner or later. He'd been avoiding them for a long time, but Heather wasn't stupid (far from it, in fact), and she picked up on those things more now then she ever had before. There was a certain tension in the house that hit Heather right between the shoulders, and since she couldn't find anything that was directly causing it, she knew it had to be something that had been long left unsaid.

On Valentine's Day, she'd asked Raven to watch Liam, and the gypsy happily obliged. Raven was like a second mother for the child, and Heather knew that, especially given what Raven and her sister Rook had gone through with the loss of their own mother not too far behind them, anything or anyone aiming to hurt that baby was in for a world of pain. She'd come home early and made an amazing meal for she and Eli, who was due back from a job that evening. Heather had gotten pretty good at cooking, mostly because before, when Eli had been trying to cleverly distract her by getting her out of the house so he could rid it of the little asshole ghosts that kept popping up, she'd spent a lot of time at the fucking grocery stores all over the city. In her downtime, she'd begun to watch the Food Network, and after a while her dishes went from the mundane ("Macaroni and cheese with hotdogs again, Heather?") to the exotic ("Is that sushi?").

She'd also learned that Eli used his power more than he let on, especially to the guild, and she'd promised him on her very life (which he immediately became angry about, bless his heart) that they would never learn of it from her, and she'd come to understand that power expulsion meant exhausted resources. Since Eli was still human, resources came by way of food, drink and sleep, three things that she noticed he favoured above almost everything else. The top of his tier, of course, seemed to be Liam, and to a very slightly lesser extent, Heather.

That night, she'd done sushi again, because she had gotten really good at it and it made her kind of proud. She'd set the table for two, gone into her room to slip into the beautiful black dress she'd gotten with a little fun money she'd promised herself she'd spend once things had settled down, and had just lowered the lights in the dining room (the formal dining room, because Heather's house was also huge) when she heard the front doorknob toggle as a key slipped into the lock. Unable to help herself and despite months of learning to focus and calm down when she became anxious, she dropped the cloth napkins she had in her hand and ran to the door.

Eli was snow-covered and tired, but he simply hadn't stood a chance against the beautiful blonde who'd jumped on him as soon as his first booted foot connected with the marble tile in the foyer, and he had to drop his duffel bag before he accidentally lost his balance with the new weight suddenly anchored to the front of his body.

"I missed you, too!" he exclaimed, laughing as Heather began talking a mile a minute about this or that while he'd been gone. He finally got her to stand on her own two feet, in heels no less, and held her hand up so he could spin her around for a quick second. She'd gotten a new dress, he knew it, and he knew she'd say something if he didn't acknowledge it. "Very nice," he praised. "Special occasion?"

And then she'd just looked at him like he'd grown a second head, rolled her eyes, said something about 'men', and disappeared into the darkened dining room. He followed, because he was genuinely curious, and stopped short when he saw the table she'd set.

"Christ, it's Valentine's Day," he said dumbly.

"Surprise?" she said, the word more like a question. She half-smiled, one eyebrow raised as the eye beneath it squinted - a mannerism he'd noticed she always displayed when she wasn't sure how to gauge his reaction over something.

"Is that sushi?" he asked, eyes falling on the array of black and white square dishes that held little rolls.

"Ye-es," she began. "Hungry?"

He blinked. "Uh, yeah. Let me go put my stuff down and get out of these nasty clothes. Ten minutes," he promised. The smile he'd been returned with was a sign that his momentary lapse of holiday had already been forgotten, and he vanished into his room to take a quick shower and put on something that he hadn't been wearing for the last two days.

After they had eaten, he cleared the table for her while she got out her phone to check on Liam. He came back with two glasses of wine, setting one before her, and raised his own in a toast. She clinked her glass to his. "Amazing, Heather," he said. "I can't believe people pay twelve dollars a roll and you managed to do this all in under fifty."

"I am a bargain shopper," she admitted, taking a sip of her wine.

There was a heavy pause between them then, and he inwardly flinched, knowing that something he'd been trying to avoid was about to rear its ugly little head. At that moment, he wished desperately for something to take residence in the hall closet so he'd have an excuse to go and fix it and not have to have the conversation that was about to happen.

"Eli, can I ask you something?" she asked. Her eyes were fixed on him, watching his every move. With that spine she'd also grown came a sense of familiarity with Eli, and unfortunately for him, Heather had learned to read him fairly well due to the fact that he let himself relax around her quite a bit. It was his mistake, but he didn't regret it.

"Anything," he said. He meant it. He hated that he meant it, but he did. He did take a larger swig than before on his glass, though.

"Do you remember when Kiyoshi came after me?"

He snorted into his glass, cutting her off. "How could I forget?" he asked wryly.

"No shit," she muttered. "But, what I mean is, do you remember what you said?"

He leveled his gaze. "I believe my exact words were, 'Who the fuck is this'," he said, purposely dodging her. He topped his glass off.

"No," she said, her voice taking on that quiet, stubborn tone. "The other thing."

He sighed, setting both the bottle and his glass down. Then, with all of the gaul he could bear, he said, "Heather, you're the single most beautiful girl I've known in my entire life. You have a face that men would write songs about, sail across oceans for. You have a warmth that men would kill for. You have a love that men would die for." And he reached across the table and took her hands in his own gently, never letting his eyes leave hers. "I did mean it, if that's what you're asking."

She was quiet for a while, and if they both pretended very hard, it was the end of the conversation. Except, it wasn't, and she took a breath in before she spoke.

"It's been almost two years, Eli," she said softly.

"I know, Heather," he said, his voice barely audible.

"He's not coming back."

And that was where she was wrong, and unfortunately, he knew it to be true because he himself had proof that Harvey was alive. He had, on several occasions, tried to reach out for the man's spirit, to drag him back to Heather, to demand that he protect her like he was fucking supposed to, and every time, he'd only received dead air. Even after the Kiyoshi attack, when his power had found a new high, he could reach across the world and comb through individuals as though they were blades of grass, and he still found no evidence of Harvey's spirit, neither lingering in limbo nor restlessly pacing in the spirit realm.

"Heather..."

"It's time to accept it, Eli. It's time to move on." She spoke firmly, but he could tell that it took all of her courage to say the words, and he knew that it didn't make her happy to say them. He had to admire her for the effort, but she simply wasn't correct, and unfortunately, there was no way to tell her that without setting her off.

"Please, don't, Heather. You know how much I love Liam. And you. But it's just... it's not in the cards. Not like that, not for us. You don't belong to me. You're someone else's wife, and Liam is someone else's son. It isn't that I don't care deeply for either of you, and it isn't that I wouldn't go through Hell and back for you, but if Harvey were here, if he could see this situation..." he trailed off. Eli would have a fight on his hands that he just didn't want, if Harvey even had the slightest idea of the situation.

She pressed her lips together, nodding, and looked away as she tried to withdraw her hands. She was going to cry. He knew it, she knew it. Fortunately, Eli hadn't been run through the ringer with her more times than he cared to count to simply let her go off to her room and be left alone with her emotions.

"Please, I just want to be alone," she whispered.

"Not a chance," he said stubbornly. "Not now, not ever."

"I just want to move on, Eli. I just want a normal life."

He tilted his head, giving her a look that made her laugh through her tears. "Normal, sweetheart? You are anything but, and I have the spiritual scarring to prove it," he said sarcastically. He laughed a little, causing her to laugh more.

"Can you still stay? I mean, now that I've just gone and made a fool of myself?" she asked.

He sighed heavily. "You haven't made a fool of yourself," he chided gently. "I understand what you're saying. I do. It's just... I couldn't do that to him. And I know he wouldn't do it to me if this situation was reversed. No matter how much I wish things were different."

She was quiet for a long time, and then she nodded. "I understand. I just..." she trailed off. "I just wanted to hear you say it. To know that I'm not crazy," she confessed.

As though planets had aligned and the stars were right, everything was suddenly in perfect clarity to Eli. He pushed out his chair, letting go of her hand only so he could stand up, and as soon as he'd done it, her own chair shot back with a loud scrape and she was clinging to him, face buried in his chest. It was so similar to how he'd found her, there on the lawn of the doctor's office, falling apart at the seams, and he did exactly what he'd done then and just swept her into his arms and let her cry.

"I just wanted to know that I'm not the only one," she sobbed.

It was probably better that she couldn't see his facial expression, because Eli himself was reigning it in pretty well, but it was hard when all this honesty was afoot. He'd just been about to say something that he knew he shouldn't, just because she was right. She wasn't crazy. She wasn't the only one. He opened his mouth and took a breath, the words forming on his tongue when the ringing of her phone cut him off. Heather flat out ignored it at first, content to stay right where she was in the arms of the man who had protected her for this long, who had been a father to her son for this long, and had essentially worked his way into her life and her heart. She ignored it at first, but after the briefest of pauses, it began ringing again.

Unaware that a confession was about to occur, Heather swore. "God damnit!" And then she was pulling away from him before he could stop her, sliding away as he let his arms follow her and fall to his sides, useless. She grabbed up her phone from the kitchen counter, saw a number she didn't recognize, and opened it. "Yes?" she demanded, turning her back to Eli so she could dot at her eyes with a napkin. Eli watched as her posture stiffened, and he saw the flux in the radiance around her that told him only one thing: distress.

"What? Heather, what is it?" he hissed. "Is it Liam? Is everything okay?"

She said something into the phone that he didn't hear, then lowered it to her chest. She turned very, very slowly and looked at him, and her face wore an expression of total and utter shock - and fear. "It's.. it's.. "

"Sweetheart, what is it?" he asked again, trying to ignore the cold sweat as dread began creeping across his skin like thousands of tiny insects.

"They found him," she said, her voice utterly monotone and clearly in shock. "They... they found Harvey." She paused, her eyes holding confusion, panic, fear, and astonishment. "Eli... he's alive."

[Heather Greenfield]

DANCE

[Heather Greenfield]

PREGNANT

She sat in the waiting room, alone.

Alone.

The word echoed around in her head over and over and over until she put her hands over her ears, trying to stop the sound. The nurse at the window looked at her wordlessly, a thick eyebrow arched, and then licked her finger pointedly and went back to sorting her papers. The way her facial expression was, Heather was certain she'd be in this woman's crosshairs for the next few minutes if she didn't fix up and look sharp.

Where was he? She looked down at her wrist, remembering that the silver watch Harvey had given her for her birthday was at home on the dresser. She hadn't worn it since the last time they'd gone out to dinner. With a twist of her lips, she pulled her phone out of her purse, then pressed the button to see the time. It was nearly a quarter to four. Her appointment was for three fifteen, and here she was a half hour later, just sitting, waiting, thinking...

She rested her hands against her very pregnant belly, fingers clasped together. Her shoulders shook as she felt a flutter rise up in her chest; she recognized the threat of tears, and cleared her throat loudly, then stood up with a loud sound as her chair scraped across the floor. She rushed up to the nurse's station, where the woman glanced up at her again, that wary look still in her heavily lined eyes.

"Miss, I tol' ya, da doctor is gon' be a few minutes more," she said, her heavy Jamaican accent echoing in the little cubicle.

"I just need to get some air," Heather said. Her cheeks were red, and she looked like she was a little panicked. The nurse observed her for a second, then nodded.

"Go on wit' ya, child. I'll send someone to come get ya when he's ready for ya," she said. "Dere's a soda machine down the hall. Grab some Ginger Ale. Worked for me every time," she added, smiling sympathetically.

Heather blinked a few times, then nodded. "Sure, okay," she said, though she almost didn't hear herself. She turned on a heel and left the comfort of the office and moved into the more formal and sterile levels of the clinic she'd chosen for her doctor. The guilds had offered, and she'd told them all to go fuck themselves. This doctor worked with shapeshifters, and he was highly recommended from other Avians. Heather would be fine.

Or, she would have been, if she hadn't felt so utterly alone.

Alone.

It rattled around in her head again.

Heather got to the lowest level and pushed open the doors, practically running out into the warm sunlight. She wanted to fly away, so fucking far away, but pregnancy made it complicated. She was trapped, anchored even, and she had nothing and nobody. She must've looked crazy, standing there in the lush green grass of the private clinic, tears glittering down her face, but the people who went there had probably seen worse, and so they simply let her have her mood swing and told themselves they'd check on her in a while if she hadn't stopped.

  "Heather?"

She didn't even hear the voice at first, standing there in the grass, just totally melting down. She was about to sit down right where she was, but she knew if she did she might never stand back up (not without great effort, anyways) - and she was hallucinating, of course, because there was no way that -

"Sweetheart, what's wrong? What happened?"

A look of recognition flashed over her face, and she stopped crying out of shock - Harvey?

"Let's get you back inside," his concerned voice said. She felt him wrap an arm around her, and for a moment there was familiarity, and then everything felt wrong. The way he placed his other hand on her shoulder instead of in the middle of her back? Wrong. The way he held the door open with his forearm instead of his foot? Wrong. The way he shielded her as they walked through the clinic and back upstairs, as though he was waiting for someone to attack her? Wrong. His height was wrong, his eyes were wrong, his voice was wrong. WRONG WRONG WRONG.

"Mrs. Greenfield?" an older Chinese man called, scratching his head of salt-and-pepper hair. "I just saw her..." he muttered.

"Here, we're right here!" He gently lead Heather toward where the doctor directed, then hesitated at the door when she went inside the room.

"Come on, don't be shy, Mr. Greenfield," the doctor cheered. "This will be when we determine the sex of the baby. Aren't you excited?"

Eli didn't dare look at Heather, because he didn't know how she'd react, and he damn sure didn't know how he was visually reacting at that moment. He was fairly certain he froze, but it was only for a heartbeat, just a second, and then he cleared his throat a little. "I'm Eli Sterling," he corrected the doctor. "I'm just a good friend of the.. family. Mr. Greenfield couldn't make it, I'm afraid." His throat burned when he spoke. If Harvey was dead, he'd fucking haunt him forever for this.

"Wait!" Heather called, holding a hand up just as Eli tried to shut the door behind him. "Please stay," she whispered.

He stopped himself from visibly cringing. He loved Heather, he really did - she was a darling girl and she didn't deserve anything that was happening to her. But was he going to be the one to step in and fill those shoes until Harvey came back? That was... that was a fucking can of worms he didn't even want to open. And yet, he found himself coming back in the room, smiling at her, taking her hand as she motioned for him to come closer. Harvey and he disagreed openly on absolutely everything, but he could change his opinion about one thing, at least: Heather was impossible to say no to.

[Heather Greenfield]

SORROW

After the disaster of a doctor's appointment, Heather had found that Eli had arrived on sight with her for a reason. He'd not told her anything useful, only said that she needed to come with him right then, and that they were headed to Crimson. She kept asking where Harvey was, why he was so late, and if something had happened, and Eli just told her that she needed to talk to Connor. So, she'd sat silently, teary nonetheless, knowing that she was about to receive very bad news but having no real proof of it. She made Eli wait in the hall for her, almost taking her sonogram with her into the office, and then stopping at the last second and leaving it with him.

When she went in, they only asked her to sit down, and then didn't seem to waste any time at all.

  Gone.

The word rattled around in Heather's head, echoing over and over again. A gentle touch on her hands, which rested on her lap, just in front of her growing baby bump, brought her back to reality. Capricia Varekova was kneeling before her, lips pressed together pensively. Heather could seemthe scars of Capri's work more closely: small white scratches along her hands, knuckles just slightly too-big from multiple fractures, and a tiny slice on her lip that she normally hid with a lipstick that matched her own lip colour perfectly. Her face was void of makeup, and she had dark circles under her eyes. Her hair was unwashed, pulled back into a twist with a small black hair claw. Capricia herself had only just recovered from being run through the ringer several times over - as Heather understood it. She didn't have the details, which was probably for the better. If she knew what Harvey could potentially be in the thick of at the moment... Gone was just a better word for it.

"Heather?" she asked softly, fixing her brown eyes on the blonde.

"What do you mean, 'gone'?" she asked, her voice carefully neutral. Gone was open-ended. It could mean anything. It could mean that he'd just gone off grid for a hunt, or they simply couldn't contact him. It didn't mean he was dead.

Connor opened his mouth, but a look from Capri stopped him. This was a delicate situation, one he already didn't want to be in. Having to deliver this news was a daily possibility - they'd done a lot of notifications during and directly after Midnight had unleashed the fury, but that was all behind them now. He didn't want to have to do it again. It never got any easier, and it never hurt any less. It was simply one of the responsibilities he had as the guild leader, one of the many. Since Capricia had officially been elevated to Trainer status with Frost, it was a responsibility they had shared.

"He's missing in action," Capri said, turning back from Connor to look at Heather again.

She had started to say something else, but Heather looked past her to Connor, unwilling to let her eyes do more than water at the moment. "So what does that mean? I need to know what that means," she demanded, her voice taking a sharp tone. She was being handled with kid gloves, and she knew it. They were telling her as little as possible. When Connor didn't respond right away, she pushed out of the chair, forcing Capri to stand up to move out of her space. "He can't be gone," she said, more firmly. "He was supposed to be at the appointment today... He wouldn't miss the appointment," she insisted.

Against Capricia's previous advising that he should be as gentle as possible, Connor realized that Heather wasn't having any of it. "Heather, I'm sorry, but there's no easy way to do this. We don't officially list any of our hunters as dead unless we have a body. We don't have a body, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't get your hopes up, because it looks pretty bad."

"So you consider him missing, or dead?" she asked, raising her voice. She narrowed her eyes. "Where was his last assignment?"

"I can't say," Connor said. In truth, they didn't tell people outside of the guilds that information; he wasn't just trying to play the asshole. It was a safety issue - in the past, before Connor had ever been considering being in the guild much less a leader, the policy had been set into place because a family member had tried to avenge their fallen sibling. It had ended in a bloodbath. Civilians just couldn't interfere like that, it would get more people killed.

Heather was in pure shock. They couldn't tell her where he was, what he'd been doing, or even if he was actually dead. She looked at Capri, but the blonde hunter had recessed to the wall to lean, arms folded as she watched the conversation.

"I'm sorry, Heather, but if we give you any more information, it could potentially be used to put you under the focus of someone you don't want to be noticed by. I don't have to remind you what happens when someone takes a shine to you," she said bluntly, referencing the trauma Heather had only just recovered from (physically - mentally, that would be years).

"I don't believe this," she said to herself. "No body, no information, no nothing. I can't even have a funeral. What am I supposed to tell my sonwhen he's born? That his dad just vanished into thin air?" she demanded. Yes, Capri was right, she had been through a lot. But she felt like she was stronger for it, however naive and misplaced that strength was. She slammed her fist down on Connor's desk in a sudden burst of anger, causing him to push up from his chair slowly.

"Heather, please sit down," he said; he gestured to the chair, but what he said was only politely phrased as a request; it was not actually that.

She dropped down into the chair because she was outnumbered, but it didn't do anything to calm her down. "What am I supposed to do?" she asked again, feeling the anger go back into sorrow as she let the tears drop from her eyes.

"Everything you need will be taken care of, " Capricia assured her gently. "You will have absolutely nothing to worry about financially for the rest of your and your son's life. I know it isn't much, but at least you can focus on raising your son..." she trailed off. She didn't know what to say. She knew nothing would help this. She could only imagine how she would have reacted to this scenario, and it would have been a lot less composed than Heather. Maybe Heather felt that she was reacting poorly or out of control, but it was nothing compared to what they'd dealt with before.

"What?" she said, that sharp tone to her voice again. "You think this is about money? I don't care about that!" she exclaimed. She was full-on crying now, but she remained tethered to the chair, afraid that if she stood, she'd fall down. "I don't want anything! I just want him back! Why can't you tell me where he is?" she demanded.

"Heather, it-" Connor started.

"I need some air," she said very suddenly, and sprang from the chair. She ran out of the room before Capri could catch her, and took off down the hall, right past a very shocked Eli. She'd been to Crimson before, however infrequently, and she at least knew how to get outside. She followed the path to the doors that lead out to the courtyard, where she fell to her knees in the grass and buried her face in her hands. When she felt a hand on her shoulder, she cried out, choking back a sob as she whipped up to take a swing at whoever was grabbing her. PTSD.

"Heather!" Eli cried out, springing back, thankful for his reflexes - she'd swung hard, which he should have thought of, but to see her full out freaking was not something he wanted. He'd heard about her endeavor with Kiyoshi, and he realized he shouldn't have surprised her, but she'd come rushing out of there so quickly he was afraid she was going to hurt herself - or the baby (no, her son, he told himself).

"Did you know?" she cried/yelled, still on her knees. She felt like she'd been in this position a lot lately - just running away, then falling in the grass and letting loose with her emotions. It was so unbecoming of her, and yet, twice today she'd done it.

Eli was silent for just long enough that when he finally did open his mouth to speak, she made an angry noise and just threw a handful of dirt at him. He blocked it, then tried to stop her from the flurry of slaps that she sent his way. He managed to get her by the wrists, pushing her arms down until he could wrap his own around her and pin her to him in a forced hug, mostly to stop her from hitting him, but also to try and calm her down.

"I'm sorry, Heather," he said honestly, his voice as heavy with emotion as he'd ever allowed it to get. And he really was - he'd never liked Harvey, for a myriad of reasons, but he'd always liked her - loved her even, in a friendly way - because she was a sweet girl, and she didn't deserve to go out like this.

"And all I can think about?" she managed, after a few moments of simply sobbing, "is that I can't reach anything in the kitchen now. He put everything on the tops of the shelves, and now how am I going to get to it?"

Eli sighed. "We'll figure it out," he told her, and internally, he promised himself that he would. "Hey, you left something with me, I thought you'd want it back. Now that you're a little more calm, anyways," he added, trying to get her to smile. He handed her the sonogram, which she took, wiping at her eyes furiously before she held it up to the light to get a better look at it. Then she looked up at Eli, a heavy sigh shaking her shoulders.

"What am I going to do?" she asked, her voice strained.

"We'll figure it out," he repeated. "I promise." He gave her shoulder a squeeze. "Come on, get up. Let's get you home."

[Heather Greenfield]

DEVIL

[Heather Greenfield]

HATE

And so it was that one day, Heather's heart finally came to understand hatred. She had never known herself to feel so strongly in the negatives, and for a long time, she simply assumed that it was not within her character to have the capacity to hate. And yet, there it was. That burning sensation in her skin, the one that flickered over her in a rush and quickly turned cold as fast as it had gone hot. At first, she didn't realize what it was, because hate doesn't necessarily appear one day - especially not with a girl like Heather.

No, without realizing it, she had cared for her hatred as though it were a precious gem, protecting it from any storm of reason or logic that she found herself facing, and nurtured it with constant resentment and unsaid words that, when bitten back and swallowed whole, gave that tiny little bud of hatred weight and form. It was a slow and gradual decline, until one day she woke up and she felt it through and through, and it left a bitterness in her so strong that even things she once enjoyed suddenly did not interest her.

Harvey took the brunt of it, but it was more subtle, and thus more of a gradual gnawing away at their relationship. Eli did not escape unscathed, either, and though her husband endured worse in the realm of tense words and wry barks of laughter where conversation and constant childish giggles had been, he received flat-out apathy. It was as though the hate had been tailor-made for each man, and Heather somehow knew which tactics would get at them the worst without actually having ever allowed herself to use them before.

For Harvey, whose intuitive aptitude demanded that he understood every aspect of everything, he could not, for the life of him, understand why it didn't seem to matter what he said or did, his wife was angry. When she spoke to him, the brevity took him by surprise often times before her tone, if only because before, she seemed to have no problem talking to him for hours on end. Now, even asking him the most necessary questions (such as what time Liam's appointment was) seemed as though it bothered her to even address him. He'd tried asking, and she'd only told him that she had no idea what he was talking about. It was like she'd been taken over by something, and it was killing him.

For Eli, whose presence in Heather's life during her change from carefree youth to a more practical woman, he had only the slight advantage of being tuned in to who she had become rather then who she was. While Harvey found himself trying to reconnect the dots with someone who no longer existed, for Eli, it wasn't a matter of reconnecting but rather registering in her fucking field of vision at all. He still saw her, because it was unhealthy to be suddenly ripped from a child's life so early in the developmental stages, and for some reason, he and Harvey seemed to get along more than he and Heather did. And it wasn't even that they didn't get along, it was that she simply seemed to act as though she had never seen him before - and that was each time she saw him anew. She spoke to him tonelessly, answering questions about Liam's day or newest adventure almost as though in an empty narrative. She looked at him, even made eye contact with him, and somehow it was as though she looked right through him.

And while Heather seemed to go about her day as though nothing had changed, the two men were quite keen on the fact that something had, and drastically. They didn't know how to approach eachother about it - either that, or each had an ego large enough that they were unwilling to breech the topic, and so as the days slid by, seemingly endless, Heather only put more and more distance between both of them. She had somehow managed to keep a full social schedule with Eli while maintaining a full home schedule with Harvey and it was as though she wasn't even actually present for any of it.

And at her very core, she did know why she behaved so horribly. She hated them for trying to make her choose. Whether they had meant to or not, they had, and instead of choosing one or the other, Heather had fretted and feared and cried so long and so hard about it that the only way she could preserve herself was to chose neither. That little seed of hatred had indeed sprouted into a massive shade tree, under which Heather resided comfortably, and until either one or both of them could figure out a way to chop its branches down and make her see how much (and very likely irreparable damage she was doing, there she would remain.

Heather, of course, saw no difference in herself at all. After all, as everyone said, she simply didn't have the capacity to hate.

Right?

[Heather Greenfield]

DEVOTED

  Heather had finally broken down and told everyone she needed space. And by space, she meant that she'd leave for a little while. Harvey hadn't been okay with it, and as a matter of fact, neither had Eli, especially when she told neither of them where she'd be. She had the sneaking suspicion that the men compared notes on her behaviour, and it felt a little like they were trying to get one over on her somehow. She'd dropped Liam with Rook and Raven, who by now had come to expect the tiny houseguest, and they welcomed him with open arms. Both women couldn't rightly understand what she was going through, but they knew she needed to go through it, and so they didn't question her.

The hotel wasn't too far away, but Heather had made sure to take the battery out of her phone, just in case anyone got any ideas. She'd also cleaned the room first and foremost, booting out rather explosively a lurking spirit that she sensed had an alignment to a particular individual who was trying to keep an eye on her for her own safety. Heather was damn tired of being looked after, and she sent that message loud and clear as she banished the thing with the equivalent of a spiritual bitch-slap.

It had started to rain right after she got back to her room with her food, and she ate in bed greedily, thankful for the time she had to herself to do nothing other than simply exist without anyone to emote at her. After she'd finished, she flipped through the channels for a while until she found something worth watching. By then, the storm had gotten pretty bad, and she almost felt a little guilty for cutting herself off in such a downpour. No doubt Harvey and Eli both would have her in the back of their heads, wondering if she'd left the state, how far she'd gone, or if she had made it to her destination in one piece.

When she finally found she could stay awake no longer, the gale force winds were a mere sideshow to the thunder and lightning that terrorized the area. She'd never slept comfortably when the weather was foul, and though she was stubborn enough to try, the first hour or so she spent just tossing and turning - awake one minute, asleep the next, then being startled back into consciousness by the booming from outside. She alternated between kicking off the blankets and pulling them back up around her, and finally around two AM, she managed to fall asleep for good.

And then, of course, she experienced the most vivid nightmare she'd had since Harvey had first disappeared two years prior. She woke up in a cold sweat, throwing off the blankets instantly to get the feel of the damp sheets off of her hot skin. She scrubbed at her face, passing her hands through her hair nervously as she tried to remind herself of where she was and that it had all just been a dream. The worst part, and the part that actually bothered her the most, was that she couldn't remember what had her so terrified. She didn't know any single thing about what she'd been dreaming of, only that it had scared her to the point of waking, and since Heather was emotionally exhausted, it was no small feat to just achieve total alertness in a split second like she'd managed.

She sighed, and with shaking hands, flicked on the lamp by her bed. She drew her legs up so that she sat Indian-style, and pulled the phone the hotel provided into her lap. For a while, she just traced the receiver with her fingertip, trying to decide on whether or not she really was bothered enough to give her position up. Finally, she made the command decision that, if she was still mulling over it an hour later, it obviously needed to be done. She picked it up, listening for the tone, then dialed a number she knew by heart.

"I'm at the Oak Crest Inn off of old County Road Fifty-Four. I'm sorry to call so late..." she began.

"No, it's fine," the voice at the other end said. "I was up."

"Of course you were," she muttered.

"Heather..."

"Just.. come and get me. Please. Now."

There was a pause on the other end. "Like, right now?" She could already hear movement, though; even as he asked, he was devoted to her enough that he'd take the chance of her changing her mind and still leave to go after her. That was simply the way he worked.

"Yes. Please. Right now."

Roughly a half hour later, there was a knock at her hotel door. She answered it in her pajamas, holding the door open while managing to hang back in the dim room as she did it. "I didn't think you'd come," she said honestly. "I wouldn't have blamed you if you hadn't. Look, I know you're soaked and I just woke you up in the middle of the night, but I've been doing some thinking, and I think... I think I've been really shitty. I'm sorry. I want to make this work. So if you're still in this, we're going to hash it out right now. All the ugly details. Can you handle that?"

"Can you?" he asked in spite of himself.

  "Yes," she said firmly. "I can. I'm not a little girl anymore. It's time to stop pretending that if I just stay angry enough, it will sort itself out. It won't. That's sort of clear to me now."

He didn't move an inch, still surveying her carefully. He was trying to read her, and she knew it.

"Come on. Come inside. You're dripping all over the hall. I still can't believe you drove through that," she added, a small smile on her lips.

"Heather, there is exactly one person I'd have come through that weather for tonight, and I'm talking to her," he reminded her, the bluntness of his tone betraying how exhausted he was about the entire situation.

"I know," she said softly. "And I fully intend to put as much effort as I can muster into this."

"Good," he said smoothly. "Because I think my car may or may not be submerged at this point, so you're actually stuck with me until tomorrow."

"I think I can handle that," she said, smiling again in spite of herself. She stepped aside and let him in, shutting the door behind him with a click.