Re: Derek/Nell
"Sorry?" Nell tucked her head in against his chest until she could control her giggles. "She's only...eighty," she added when she looked back up at him, still smiling. Looking around, she took his hand and pulled in the direction of a couch to sit on. "I'm getting a crick in my neck. I need to start making friends with shorter people. I'm not telling you anything you don't know about John, am I? I'm just explaining why I think he probably already knows, too. "
Sitting with her back against the arm of the sofa and her legs folded beneath her, Nell fixed him with a stern look. "You weren't the one that caused this, Derek. An accident caused this, a power gone awry that wasn't yours. Had we both been in our right minds, it never would have happened. Oh, we might have had sex again. But, this?" She waved her hands around herself to indicate the chaos that was her mental state these days. "It was all in my head, every last second of it. The man I see in my nightmares isn't you. The memories that make me afraid aren't of you. You're the man who's helping, not hurting." Nell grinned at him. "Without smothering, which gets you all kinds of love in my book."
Laughing, she nodded. "Alright, we do what feels good until it doesn't."