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‘And while you sleep… I will miss you.'
Falling in love with Lucy Tara had never been part of the plan and Kate knew she had it bad. This thing with Lucy never ended like this, even in her wildest dreams. In the early days, it was a bit of fun; an attraction neither denied nor allowed to flourish. History lay between them now–months of pining and giving in, fighting and making up, loving and losing one another.
The first night Lucy stays over, exhausted from a week-long case that had ended in a fire fight, Kate watches her sleep. It feels like an intrusion, a side of the NCIS agent that she’d never been allowed to see. They’d spent the last few months giving each other only their exteriors–two women afraid to let the other in past the outer shell. Kate wonders if Lucy meant to fall asleep, or if she should wake her before this went on too long.
Lucy sleeps on her side, dark hair washing over cream-colored pillowcases and the matching duvet hugs around her shoulders. Her hands are tucked innocently under her chin; her legs entwined in Kate’s at the end of the bed. Occasionally her eyelids will twitch and Kate hopes she isn’t reliving the day’s mission in her dreams.
It’s watching the woman before her now that Kate realizes how much trouble she was in. They’d been so good at keeping each other at arm’s length–the annoying woman from DIA and the scrappy agent from NCIS–that she’d never really looked at Lucy as just Lucy. She shouldn’t be shocked to find that she likes what she sees just as much.
Without thought, Kate’s right hand drifts up to brush Lucy’s hair back off her forehead. The brunette doesn’t stir but seems to settle instead, taking a deep breath and relaxing further into the pillow. A moment like this isn’t something they’ve allowed to pass between them previously and Kate has only a moment’s regret that Lucy isn’t awake to realize it too.
It’s the first time Kate lets herself think beyond this fling they’ve had going on. Thoughts of holding hands on the beach dance through her mind, a bottle of wine over a shared dinner, of kisses in the bullpen without care or worry. It’s a slippery slope but Kate knows she’s already halfway down.
“Kate?”
The whisper shakes her from her mind. Her vision clears to find drowsy brown eyes on her. “What time is it?”
Kate glances over Lucy’s shoulder to her watch on the nightstand: 1:36 A.M. “Late,” she confirms, and Lucy stretches her arms up over her head, joints cracking with the movement. There’s a lapse of silence that passes and Kate takes the lead, settling off her elbow into the pillow beside Lucy.
“Do you want me to go?”
Kate lets her hand trace down over Lucy’s cheekbone but the touch carries more emotional energy than sexual. “Stay–you’ve had a long day.”
Lucy’s relief is palpable in the way she instantly relaxes. One of her hands comes up to find Kate’s and she presses a kiss to the inside of her palm. It’s charged in a way they haven’t addressed yet–new waters yet to be crossed. “Mmmkay,” the murmur is heavily accented as Lucy begins to drift off again, obviously worn out. “Pancakes OK?”
Kate’s brow creases in confusion.
“For the morning?”
The clarity rushes across her expression as she realizes what Lucy means and she hopes the correlating increase in her heart rate goes unnoticed. “Sure,” she gives in as Lucy responds with a half-asleep smile that Kate knows in the moment she’ll never tire of.
As Lucy’s breathing evens out once more, the blonde takes her in once more before shutting her own eyes, welcoming the vision of the other woman even in her subconscious. She’s falling–she knows it. It’s dangerous, quite possibly the most calculated risk she’s ever taken in a life full of them. Lucy wouldn’t let her fall alone, right? Surely they could do this together.
Kate smiled as she felt sleep overcome her, connected to the woman next to her in a way she’d never felt before. ' You love her you idiot.’ Her brain was right. After months of blocking her out, protecting herself, maybe Kate was ready to let those walls tumble down.