Work Text
When Amanda woke up, gasping for breath, heart pounding in her chest, she knew that there was no point trying to go back to sleep. Instead she stood and pulled her robe around her, padded down the hallway to her son’s room. It was partly to check that she hadn’t woken him, partly to reassure herself that he was still there and the sight of CJ still sound asleep, eyelashes dark against his cheeks, hair sticking up in a riot of curls did bring a smile to her lips. Only for a second though because when she leaned against the doorframe, crossed her arms over her chest, her fingers brushed against the bandage on her arm, a reminder of what she’d gone through and she shivered again, wished, as she had done each night for the last week, that there was someone here with her to talk to. Someone who could listen, could understand. Could wrap his arm around her and pull her close and reassure her without even saying a word. And if a sudden vision flashed through her mind of someone who could do just that, she pushed the thought away. In that direction lay madness and messiness and she’d had quite enough of that, thank you very much. Knowing sleep was a long way off, that it was too early for coffee and a medical bourbon was out of the question thanks to medication for her arm injury, instead she curled up in bed with a book that she was trying to read and stayed there until the sun came up. Morning brought with it a sense of routine, of normality. Cook breakfast for CJ, get him washed and dressed, apply some makeup to conceal the dark circles under her eyes and get him out to daycare. She knew that she could keep him at home - she was signed off work until her arm was better; as a medical examiner, her patients might have been beyond help but the fear of a doctor excising evidence with only one and a half fully working arms was not music to any DA’s ears - but her son needed his routine. And she needed to try to process what had just happened to her, even if she’d much rather forget it. The morning was spent on housework and more reading and by the time lunchtime arrived, she was practically climbing the walls with boredom. Deciding to have lunch out, she drove to BBQ Bob’s.It was for the food, she told herself firmly. The company, the human interaction. Nothing to do with her middle of the night thoughts, nothing to do with her recent experience with a stalker reawakening her on again off again crush on Steve Sloan. It was no big deal, she reminded herself as she drove. The crush came and went; it would again, it always did. It was something she’d long since come to accept, to live with. She would be fine. She would. She reminded herself of that when she walked into the restaurant and who was the first person she saw behind the counter but Steve himself. For a second, she was tempted to turn tail and run but then he lifted his head and a smile came to his lips, one that she couldn’t help but return, even as her heart gave a leap totally unbecoming of a woman of her age and life experience. “I thought you’d be at the station,” she said, recovering quickly as she slid onto a seat at the counter. “Criminals won’t arrest themselves.” It was something she’d heard him say to Jesse on more than one occasion when his partner was muttering about Steve not spending as much time at the restaurant as he could. Today, though, Steve didn’t show any signs of finding the line amusing. “Day off,” he said. “I figured I’d make myself useful with the lunchtime rush.” It wasn’t particularly busy yet so Amanda didn’t feel guilty about keeping him talking. Nothing to do with her middle of the night wonderings. Nothing at all. “It’s important to keep active,” she agreed. “Idle hands and all…”For some reason, Steve’s jaw tightened and she didn’t miss how his eyes glanced towards the bandage on her arm. “How are you doing with your time off?” he asked. She opened her mouth, all ready to tell him that she was fine, but he stopped her with a look, eyes narrowed, head tilted. “And don’t try to tell me you’re fine. I bet you haven’t slept a full night since it happened, have you?” Amanda pressed her lips together, dropped her head. She didn’t even think about lying though - if this was what Steve was like in an interrogation room, no wonder his case success rate was as high as it was. “No,” she admitted. She looked up when she heard a long sigh. “Join the club,” muttered Steve, turning to pull a coffee cup from the stack on the counter, reaching out for the coffee pot. Amanda crowned and looked carefully at him, studying him like he was one of her patients. There was a definite pallor to his cheeks, dark shadows smudging his eyes, a thin line of tension running along his shoulders. He looked, she realised, like she felt. Crossing her arms, she rested them against the counter, leaning in as he filled the cup and pushed it towards her. “I know why I’m not sleeping.” Amanda curled her fingers around the cup, concentrating on how the heat from the liquid seeped through the porcelain, warming her skin. It was a comforting sensation in a world where there were too few of them lately. “Why aren’t you?” Steve’s lips twisted as he poured himself a cup. “Much the same reasons I imagine,” he said as he placed the coffee pot back in its place, coming back to stand in front of her. His brow was furrowed, making the dark shadows under his eyes more pronounced than she’d ever seen them and she frowned. “I was cyber stalked and harassed by a serial killer,” she reminded him. “Why is that keeping you up at night?” Raising his cup to his lips, Steve took a long swallow. The hot liquid may even have been the reason he winced but somehow Amanda knew there was more to it than that. “Aside from the fact that my stellar police work wasn’t enough to keep you from almost getting killed?” Sarcasm dripped from his words and his eyes lingered on Amanda’s left arm, the bandage that was still there. She shifted uncomfortably on her seat at the reminder of her injury, of how close a call it had been. “You did everything you could-” she began and Steve didn’t let her finish. “And it wasn’t enough. If we hadn’t got there when we did… if you hadn’t fought back like you did…” He didn’t have to finish the thought; it played out in her dreams every night. “As it was… seeing you, lying on the floor like that…” A visible shudder rippled across his shoulders. “I thought we were too late. And I can’t get that feeling out of my mind.” He paused, met her eyes and Amanda felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up one by one. “I can’t get you out of my mind.” Amanda’s jaw dropped and the background noise of the restaurant - diners talking and laughing, cutlery clinking against plates, people coming and going - was suddenly muffled and faded, as if she was underwater listening to it from very far away. Her hands went cold, even the one wrapped around the coffee cup, even as her cheeks flared with heat. Across the counter from her, Steve looked stricken, shook his head and ran a hand over his face. “I shouldn’t have said that.” He dropped his hand, let it fall to the counter with his other hand and he stood with them braced shoulder width apart, locked rigid at the elbows. “Let’s chalk it up to too much coffee and too little sleep.” Except Amanda could tell, from the stormy look in his eyes, that there was more to it than that. “What if I don’t want to?” The words left her lips before she’d even realised she was thinking them. She only realised she’d actually spoken them out loud when she realised how Steve was looking at her - mouth slightly open, eyes almost glassy with surprise. “Amanda-” he managed and it was her turn to shake her head. “We can’t talk here,” she said. “CJ is at daycare.” Slowly, carefully, she pushed herself to her feet, headed for the door, didn’t look back to see if he was following her. He arrived at her house approximately ten minutes after she did, which gave her approximately nine minutes to wonder if she’d made a colossal mistake. To convince herself that he hadn’t meant what he’d said, or at least hadn’t meant it the way she’d interpreted it. To have her thinking that a combination of stress and fear and lack of sleep had combined to take her sometimes-almost-crush on Steve and have her create a fantasy where he might feel the same. The doorbell ringing came as a relief. Neither of them spoke until they were standing facing each other in her living room and somehow she wasn’t surprised that it was Steve who spoke first. “I shouldn’t have said what I said,” he told her. “You have enough on your plate dealing with what happened to you without me laying that on you.” “Steve, you know you can talk to me about anything,” she told him. “We’re friends…”“Friends.” The word came out more harshly than she was expecting it to and she flinched. He had the grace to look abashed, visibly reining himself in. “I know we’re friends, Amanda.” His voice was more gentle now. “We’ve been friends for a long time. We’ve worked together, solved cases together, you're like a daughter to my dad…” His voice trailed off and Amanda’s lips twitched, either with amusement or hysteria, she couldn’t say which. “Is this where you tell me I’m like a sister to you?” Steve actually chuckled. “No.” His right hand reached out, his fingers brushing against her left cheek before falling to her shoulder. “I think it’s fair to say I’m definitely not thinking of you as a sister right now.” He took a breath, like the next words he was about to say needed some preparation. “And it’s not the first time either.” Confirmation that she wasn’t alone in her occasional crush sent a rush of giddiness coursing through her, far unbecoming of a woman of her age. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?” she asked, as if she wasn’t equally guilty. “When, exactly? Every time I’ve been single you’ve been seeing someone… or vice versa. We haven’t exactly had the best timing. But I figured if it’s meant to be…” He shrugged. “So last week… when I thought…” He stopped, like he couldn’t even speak the notion aloud. “I thought I’d missed my chance completely. And ever since…”“It’s all you can think about.” She wasn’t just speaking on his behalf. Slowly, carefully, she brought her right hand up, rested it over his heart. “I’ve thought about it too,” she confessed and it might have been her imagination but she swore his heartbeat sped up under her palm. “Especially over the last few days… Steve, I don’t know how I would have got through that without you.” Snapshots of the nightmare flash through her mind; his stoic resolve that they’d catch the man who was stalking her, how he’d kept her in the loop every step of the way, how he’d held her as she’d cried when they got to one crime scene too late to save the latest victim. Steve’s hand slid down from her shoulder to skim the bandage around her wound. “I wish I could have done more.” His lips were a thin line. “Stopped him sooner.” He blinked, as if something had just occurred to him. “Not that I had much to do with stopping him at all…” He grinned, his hand returning to her face, his knuckles skimming her cheek this time. “Quite the fighter.” She smiled back at him, couldn’t resist arching one eyebrow as she looked up at him. “Don’t you forget it, Mister.” “Amanda…” Steve covered her hand, still on his chest, with his. “I’m hoping to not be on your bad side too often.” His fingers tightened on hers and Amanda’s throat followed suit. “So… we’re doing this? You and me?” She felt like she was on the edge of a precipice, ready to fall without any knowledge of a safety net underneath her. Steve’s lips twitched. “Well, I was thinking we could start with dinner. Not at BBQ Bob’s.” That was thrown in expressly to make her smile and it did the trick. “See where we go from there.” “Dinner sounds good.” Amanda knew she sounded a little breathless and she didn’t miss the way Steve’s eyes had fallen to her lips. It made it less of a surprise when he leaned in, closing the gap between them, and brought his lips to hers. And then Amanda didn’t feel like she was falling any more. Instead, she was flying.