It was hypocritical, telling her not to drink when he'd woken up yet again and finished off the gin he'd left in the glass the night before. He could feel how much effort it took her to let go of the bottle when he released her wrist and started pushing it away. His head hurt. He wanted a cigarette more now than he had any time since he'd quit. He understood the struggle, but being a hypocrite didn't make him wrong. At least not for the moment.

“It still hurts after all this time because you bury everything you feel before you can get it out. You can run full tilt in the other direction all you want, but you'll always eventually come back 'round the earth to where you started. Can't run from yourself, love, you're attached even to the parts you don't like.”

Stubborn silence. The refusal to acknowledge anything he said. He expected no less. But he felt the tiny pelt against the long sleeve of his shirt, and saw the darkened little wet spot where her tear had hit. She reached up and immediately wiped her face, turning around in the same motion. She went to push him away, but her hands stopped on his shoulders instead of shoving.

He held his breath. The way her body pressed against his wasn't intimate, and it wasn't seeking comfort. It had all the force of a pack trying to turn the scrum. It wasn't until her head dropped against his chest that he exhaled. The set of her body changed even if the pressure against him didn't.

Her fingers curled into fists full of his shirt as his arms locked around her. He'd seen, and felt, her shaking before. With fear, with rage, with adrenaline or even excitement, though she'd deny that last one to eternity and back, but never once had he wanted to feel it stop like he did now. He wanted to do something to make it stop.

Holding a woman was generally a pleasurable feeling but holding this woman was an intoxicating victory, a relief instead of rejection. The problem was, he didn't know what to do now that he had her there. Years of animosity, the cat and mouse game they had played, of anger and violence and misunderstanding wouldn't so easily be forgotten. At any instant her lapse of judgment could dissolve and she could leave him laid out on the kitchen floor.

“I hate her so much.”

She gave him the opening.

“I know you do.”

“I hate everything that she did, and everything that she is. ...But I never feel more natural than when I'm doing something she would do.”

Should he? The chance was right there. It was a baited trap. The question was whether or not he could nick the bait without springing it.

He drew in a deep breath and leaned back, just a touch. Her cheek was damp against his palm as one hand slid from her back to her face. Whatever he saw in her eyes when she looked up at him, it wasn't unadulterated hate. It gave him hope, which was a foreign enough feeling.

“That one's easy love. 'What doesn't kill you makes you stronger,' is an oversimplification, but that's the truth of it. You took something away from the years of suffering under her, something you could use when you needed it. Adapt or perish. You adapted.”

He was still waiting for her to come to her senses and push him away at any moment as he brushed away a tear with his thumb. The vulnerability in her no longer put him off like it had those few nights ago. It didn't draw up the instinct to strike at the weakness.

“What did you take away?”

The question made him chuckle. Not because he found the memories entertaining, but because he should have known she would ask. Whether she recognized it or not, it was tit for tat. She'd exposed something to him, now she needed something in return to feel like she was still on even ground.

“A number of things. Most I suspect you wouldn't approve of, and one I don't think you'll believe.”

“Try me.”

“My biggest weakness, Aidan, the reason you and I have been tangled up in this mess for so long; I crave something to protect. In the beginning it was Mum and Mason. When she was gone it was just him, even though I knew what he was. Then there started to be ones I could protect from him.”

There was a feeling of dread at the look in her eyes when he paused. The analysis he knew was coming. He'd done enough all on his own, skewed as they might have been. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear hers, and yet he was curious. The unwitting creep of her fingers up the side of his neck prepared him to enduring anything she might say just to maintain the touch.

“You need something to make you feel like you are the strong one. You need to feel like you can change things for someone because you couldn't back then. You want to feel needed.”

She wasn't wrong, but he still hated hearing it. Much as he suspected she wouldn't be too keen on his assessment of her. She didn't seem to realize that she was running her thumb across the scar she had left on his left cheek until he reached up with his free hand, laying it against the back of hers to keep her from pulling it away too quickly.

“You want to feel like you don't need anybody. All the years of being told that you couldn't and you weren't enough makes you want to prove that you don't need anyone's help. You'd rather dig yourself in deeper than admit you're in over your head.”

“And you've convinced yourself you want to protect me. How do you think that's going to work out?”

He chuckled again. It was something he had considered, certainly.

“Well I've been known to ignore the evidence right in front of me in that pursuit of being the strong one. Another of my many flaws.”

The urge was there, at odds with the logical thoughts in his head. She hadn't stopped looking up at him, and her lips were right there. He wanted to, but if he did he knew he would likely lose every last bit of ground he had gained with her in the last hours. He was going to have to give more, a lot more, before he risked that.

“Took me forever to acknowledge that Mason wasn't always the whiny little prick he played at being. I'd seen it again and again, but if I admitted it to myself then I'd have had to admit maybe I was the weaker one.”

She shivered.

Fuck. He had chosen the wrong topic.

She stopped looking up at him. He held his breath as he waited to be pushed away. It took a moment to breathe again when her forehead rested against his collar.

Maybe not.

It was an impasse. Did he just stay there, standing forever in the middle of the kitchen? Did he move and risk letting her come to her senses about what she was doing? She had already let him hold on for far longer than he had expected.

He drew in a slow breath as he thought. Then he made his choice.