"Like this?" Frowning in concentration, Cassie balls up a fist, lifting it as if to throw a punch.

"Not quite," says Hope, smothering a laugh. Gently she takes Cassie's hand and shows her how to do it properly, thumb on the outside of her fingers. "There. Now try."

That furrow still between her eyebrows, Cassie bites her lip, eyes the sandbag, and plows her tiny fist into it with all the power an eight-year-old girl can muster. The sandbag visibly dents, if only for a moment, and Cassie whirls around to throw herself in Hope's arms, hugging her tight. "I did it!" she cries, and this time Hope can't stop the laugh.

"You sure did," she says, and hugs the girl just a little bit tighter.

She's not your daughter, a traitorous voice in the back of her mind reminds her, but she shrugs the thought away.

She can't shrug away the next one.

But she could be.

Suddenly shaken, she opens her eyes - and catches sight of Scott, standing in the hallway, staring at her with an absolutely stricken look on his face.

Gently, she disentangles Cassie's arms from about her neck. "Why don't you go show Mister Hank what you've learned?" she suggests, refusing to allow even a trace of the anxiety rioting through her to show in her voice.

"Okay!" chirps Cassie, and takes off up the stairwell, not even noticing her father on the other side of the room.

As Cassie's footsteps clatter up the stairs, she straightens from her crouch. Scott takes one halting step toward her, then freezes, his hands fluttering uselessly at his sides, and this time her voice shows everything. "What's wrong?"

His face doesn't change. Doesn't even twitch.

"I want to spend the rest of my life with you."

She drops straight back to the floor with a thud, and the shock of impact makes absolutely no impression on her at all as she just stares at him.

"What?" she manages at last, in something oddly like a squeak.

He just stands there. "I want to spend the rest of my life with you," he says again, and something about the plain, stark honesty in his voice has her up off the floor and launching herself into his arms before she's even aware of doing it.

His arms close around her, sharp and hard, squeezing the breath from her lungs, and she just pants, chest heaving, hands fisting in the cotton of his shirt. She can feels the damp of his tears on her collarbone, and she just whimpers, clutching at him.

"You can't be serious," she manages at last, but she doesn't move from the circle of his arms.

"Can't I?" he demands, his voice still muffled by her shoulder. "Damn it, Hope, where did you think this was leading then?" Finally he lets her go, just a little, just enough to look into her eyes. "We're not kids," he goes on, his face grave. "This matters. And seeing you like that with Cassie..." He shakes his head, but his eyes don't leave hers. "I love you. But I didn't know, until today, that the only future I'd ever want was the one with you in it. Not just now, not just for the next few years, but always. You're my answer, Hope. And I can only hope to God you'll let me be yours."

Wordless, helpless, she shakes her head, and his face softens, one hand coming up to cup her cheek. "I don't expect an answer, not right now. This was a bombshell, for both of us, but you especially. But Hope - you deserved to know, and I won't apologize for that."

"Don't you dare," she starts, holding him tighter, "don't you dare apologize. Not for that." She turns her face into his hand; then, on instinct, leans up to kiss him.

She doesn't feel the same way. Not yet.

But, oh God, she could. She could, she's so close to it she can taste it, and...

He kisses her back hungrily, holding her tighter, fingers coming up to tangle in her hair, and when he lets her go at last she can hardly breathe.

~*~

She wakes up in the middle of the night a few days later, memories of breaking glass and cracking stone and screams of the dying tearing through her ears.

"Hey! Hey," says Scott's voice, and then he's awake, flipping on the light, reaching out to hold her against him. "I got you, babe. You're safe, okay? I've got you."

She lifts her face from his shoulder to look up in his eyes, warm and brown and oddly serious. "Did you just call me 'babe'?" she asks incredulously, and he flushes.

"Absolutely not," he backpedals, and she can almost see him holding up his hands in defense even though his arms are still very much around her. "Never would I ever call you the b-word."

She raises an eyebrow.

"Except for the part where I absolutely did," he admits about ten seconds later, and she can't help it; she bursts into laughter, pealing out of her loud and wild and free, and then he's smiling at her, soft and sappy and adoring, and her heart goes splonk! right out of her chest.

Abruptly, she's not laughing any more. She's just staring at him, looking rather like a poleaxed ox, she knows, but she doesn't care.

Because she knows.

She knows exactly how he felt that day, when he saw Cassie in her arms. Knows the way his brain froze and his tongue went silent and everything in the universe went flip! and suddenly a world that had always been upside-down was suddenly right-side-up.

"I want to spend the rest of my life with you, too," she says, because it's the only thing she can say, and his face lights up like fireworks at Disneyland.

"Yeah?" he whispers, and she can feel him shaking.

"Yeah," she says, and all she can do is smile, smile, smile.