She was falling. Sinking. Breaking away. And there was no one left to hold onto her or catch her but he man that had his arms so securely wrapped around her form.
The one that she'd just thrashed and berated and railed at...now, for the first time, encircling his strong arms around her and holding her in such a way as to assure her that she was safe. Safe from everything. From him...from her...from the world. There, nestled against him with his hand running through her hair, she was safe to crumple. To cry. To break. He'd guard her and protect her...and, as always, be there to put the pieces back together once it was all said and done.
She was weeping. Soft, bitter tears. Her body was shivering against him.
It had finally become too much for either of them anymore. Cut away the anger and the snide remarks and the cold front...and this was all they were left with. These broken shells of the people they wished they could be. Collapsing to the floor together. He felt her pull herself more firmly into his embrace, her head tucked into the warm crook of his neck as her little sobs and breaths tickled their way across his skin.
She thought that she had reached the lowest point she could possibly go - but as her silent, loyal protector finally broke that quiet and whispered his own fears against her ear...she realized she was wrong. Her heart sank lower and she breathed in a hard, shuddering breath as she clung to him, hands entwined deep in the folds of his shirt like a mere child clinging to their parent for comfort after scraping their knee.
So. That was it then. The truth of it all. He didn't love her...or couldn't love her. Even at this, their most vulnerable point they'd ever reached in one another's company, there still remained a barrier between them.
Ironic, really. She'd often thought that once they could look beyond the boss and employee relationship...once they could look beyond the "friends" relationship...once they could look beyond the snarky, bantering relationship...that all that could possibly be left would be a soft, tender affection and love that they'd fought so hard to ignore. But it wasn't so. Even with everything stripped away - there still remained a final, guarding factor.
And it had become too much for her.
What will you have me do then?
She turned her reddened, tear filled eyes up towards him and looked closely into those impossibly dark eyes of his own.
What would she have him do...?
"Forgive me," she whispered brokenly...and before he could question those words, she'd lifted one hand up to run its way back through his dark hair as she brought him down to press a firm, heated kiss against his lips. A kiss that with it expressed all of her pain and her fears and her worries and her hurt.