"What?" Scott asked her quietly, after Cassie had kissed both of them good night, and gone inside to bed.

"What, what?" She turned in his arms and looked into his eyes, and realized it was the first time since she'd been back, since everything had happened, that they'd been truly alone together. She held his face in her hands, and smiled uncertainly at him, then gently kissed his forehead and was silent for a moment before she spoke again. "Feelings. I've never been good at them, having them, I mean. I always thought if I just didn't have them, life would be easier, and now, they are all over the place, and I can barely breathe."

He nodded and tucked a stray hair behind her ear, then smiled kindly at her in that way he had. "I know. I remember the first time you looked at me and I knew, I knew you loved me even though you didn't want to. People had always let you down, you knew I would let you down, disappoint you, if you let yourself care the tiniest bit. And I did, I let you down, and I wasted all that time, that we could have -"

His next words were lost, as she stole them with a breathtaking kiss, then without another word, grabbed his hand and all but dragged him into the house, and closed the door against the rest of the world, as they began to catch up on lost time.