4x13 An Embarrassment Of Bitches

Second-Shot

He watched her. He watched her sleep. He had a feeling that if she knew she'd toss him out, calling him a creep. But he couldn't help it. She looked so not-Beckett while she slept. She wasn't the hard, professional cop. Nor the trying to hide I'm broken by showing my poker woman. She was Kate. Just Kate. The woman who he'd only seen glimpses of before at rare occasions. Sometime during the night she had pulled away and he had stirred awake and been so afraid she was waking up to kick him out. Only she put her head on the pillow beside him and moved her hand to his chest, not waking up. To his amusement it meant he could see her beautiful face instead for the hair he'd seen when her head was on his chest. At one point her hair fell down in front of her face and he couldn't stop himself from carefully putting it back, just after getting anxious that he might wake her if he continued pulling stunts like that. Without any warning one of her eyes popped open and he widened his in surprise, just as sudden as she had popped it opened it closed again.

"You're still here," she mumbled snuggling her head into her pillow.

"Uh, yeah, I should leave though," he immediately started shuffling around, was about to rise when she had her eyes wide open and shook her head while rising onto her elbow.

"I didn't mean it like that," she said with a small panic in her tone.

He stilled with eyes set on her. Their eyes met, looking deeply into the other.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't keep you here if you don't want to be here," she apologized, looking away.

"No, no it's not that I don't want to be here," he quickly interrupted. "I just wasn't sure if you remember last night..." he let his voice die out, not knowing if he should risk telling this or just shut up.

"I do," she said low, almost too low for him to hear.

He looked at her with curious eyes. Did she remember she told him she loved him? Or was that sleep-talking?

"Kate..."

And the tone of his voice was how she knew the questioning was about to begin, so she tried to mentally prepare as much as she could.

"What-uhm, what happened... last night? Why did you insist on me staying?" he decided not to mention her confession.

Hell he didn't even know if it was a real confession or if it was just something casual that slipped  her mouth, like perhaps it was just a 'I love you as a friend'-kinda thing. She felt her heart skip a beat as she took a deep breath and looked away from him, tried to focus on something that wasn't him to be able to get out her answers without choking.

"I'm..." she blew out some of the air in her tensed lungs, trying to calm down, still avoiding looking at him, "I needed you because... I-I remember," she stuttered out.

She got a frightened feeling, she felt frightened of what he would say, she suddenly realized that, depending on what it would be, his response could break her heart. When her eyes widened as she realized that she quickly drove her face down into her pillow in hope to hide my fear. What she didn't know was that he had seen it. And he was not sure of what to say. He found it kind of adorable how she seemed so shy about it. Or perhaps she was afraid. She had looked frightened.

"And... you feel... how do you feel about... that?" he asked, still confused as to what everything meant.

She refused a groan that threatened to come up her throat. Why would he be so clueless when he really was one of the smartest people she knew? She was sure she wouldn't be able to get another word out. She felt him turn a bit, probably getting as uncomfortable with her silence as she was. But she didn't know what to say! Why didn't she just let him walk out? Why would his touch hypnotize her the way it did? Touch. Suddenly she knew how to show him, she could show him without needing to utter any words. She raised her head and carefully looked at him beside her. She crept closer and just as she got into his personal space he spoke.