He can't wait any longer; he can't leave it to another day and another time because there might not be another day or time so he clenches his hands into fists and strides across the hall to her door. He bangs urgently, frantically, pounding on the cheap painted pine with the desperation of a man who's dying and his last breath of air is locked away and he needs to get to it before he suffocates.

She opens the door and before she can speak he starts talking, the words spill from his mouth like water over a cliff and he tells her he's sorry. He praises her talents and tells her how his heart is bursting with pride over her achievements. He just wants her to know he's so sorry for everything he's never done right. It's hurting him that he's hurt her.

He tells her again and again how sorry he is, how he's so ashamed of his behavior and he misses her dreadfully. He's never gone for so long without seeing her or touching her and all he wants is to be her friend again. He feels as though half of him is missing and it saddens him because it's his better half.

Her big blue eyes fill with tears as he kneels on the floor asking for forgiveness, nothing more. Forgiveness for causing her pain and grief, for not opening up, for hiding his feelings. Forgiveness is all he wants from her because he can't live with the belief that she hates him.

She kneels beside him and slides her fingers through his hair. She envelops him in her arms and he breathes in the smell of soap and perfume and the sweet scent of her skin. She brushes away his tears and tells him all she wanted to do was make him proud. She says she wants to prove to him she is competent, show him that because of his tutelage she can now fly further than she thought possible. She holds back her own tears as she whispers that she had to go, but she means it when she says all she left was the job.

He looks into her eyes and tells her that he's so much in love with her, he thinks he's going to go crazy without her, but he's so desperately afraid he'll screw it up like everything else, which is why he can't help pushing her away.

She takes his hand, locks her door and pulls him into his room and they talk. They really talk and there is no holding back; he says everything he's been hiding inside for so long and it's more than he's expecting to tell her but once he starts he find he can't stop.

He opens up more than he's ever opened to anyone because he can't hold it in; he doesn't ever want to keep anything from her again. He wants her to know him inside out and he can't help feeling indignant when she smiles teasingly, saying she already knows him inside out but she likes him regardless.

He's reassured when she smoothes a hand over the furrows in his brow and says she knows everything he's been saying. She was just waiting for him to know it himself; waiting for him to step up and no matter how much she wanted to help him, she wouldn't.

He whispers again that he loves her and she's more important to him than food and water and air and life itself. He thinks of her as his soul mate. As he says this, his voice strangely shy and his fingers pulling on a loose thread in the wool blanket, she takes his face in her hands, forcing him to look into her eyes as she pulls his mouth to hers.

The first kiss is more than he's ever dreamed of. He's been so lost for so long and she's found him and he's found her. It isn't lust that now allows them to become one, it's the realization they are not alone anymore. They share a love that they both know is timeless.

Movements are timid and nervous; fingers fumble with buttons and zippers and he admits that he's afraid he won't measure up. That he'll somehow disappoint her; afraid that once they go beyond this point they can't come back if it all goes wrong.

She smiles gently and says she feels the same way, so it doesn't matter if they muddle it because they'll muddle it together. It doesn't matter if they do things wrong because they have each other to rely on. She murmurs that she trusts him implicitly. He tries to stop himself from shaking with joy when she tells him she loves him beyond words and she wants to be with him forever.

He's wrapped in her body and she's biting on his shoulder to keep from crying out too loudly. He tells her again that he loves her because he doesn't want to stop saying it. As she moves beneath him, he whispers that he wants to spend eternity with her and that his goal now is to do nothing more than make her happy.

The hours pass and they lie entangled in each other. He feels nothing but pure joy, contentment and bliss wrapped in her arms and legs. He's happy here, happy for the first time in a long time because he's become whole again. As he silently stares, he realizes he can see his future, past and present in her face, and he isn't afraid anymore.

She reaches over to run a fingernail over his palm and he curls his hand around hers, brings her fingers to his mouth and revels in the sound that escapes her lips - a cross between a moan and a sigh. He slowly nibbles one finger at a time before pulling her arm to drag her so she's lying half across his naked body. He can feel the smoothness of her pale skin against his chest as he kisses her again and again until neither can breathe, and they break apart gasping for oxygen.

He pushes a strand of golden hair off her face letting his fingers graze the delicate curve of her ear, laughing softly when she trembles, kissing her fingers once more as she rubs her nose against his shoulder. She finds a curve in his neck that she claims as her own with a few gentle kisses.

The bed is warm and cozy. He's staring at her and she's staring back at him, a tiny smile tugging at her mouth and words at this point are not necessary. They haven't spoken because there's nothing more to say right now.

He's in the place between awake and asleep where everything is softness and light and he's just drifting. There are emotions here, feelings and thoughts but none are bad. It's a place where he usually feels the most peace and he's in the twilight basking in her love and in the knowledge that she is his.

He's at the point between asleep and awake and he smiles as he watches her watching him. He realizes how glad he is that a few hours earlier he finally swallowed his stubborn pride and conceited arrogance and went to her.

He wants to stay here forever because the peace he feels is indescribable. It's been so long since he's felt anything except uncertainty and confusion but he knows that soon he has to make the choice between sleeping and waking. He knows that he can't stay here forever. After years of fence-sitting with the most important things in his life, he knows that limbo isn't an option he'll ever be happy with.

He looks down at her and she smiles encouragingly, knowing that time is passing and she presses a tiny kiss to his throat, understanding his dilemma. She breaks the soothingly sweaty silence that cloaks them by telling him that he has to choose. She says it doesn't matter if he chooses the place where she isn't his because she'll be waiting when he returns here.

He whispers to her, asking for help, asking her to tell him what to do but she shakes her head. He knows, of course, he has to choose for himself. He's okay with that, because she'll be here for eternity and she'll never leave him.

She can, as usual, read his thoughts and she promises him she isn't going anywhere. He pulls her body closer, desperate to meld his skin to hers, desperate to imprint her soul upon his.

He drapes his arm across her hip to stroke the downy skin in the small of her back. He tells her he's okay leaving the point between asleep and awake because at least in one place she belongs to him. She smiles again and his heart pounds frantically because she's so absolutely beautiful.

He knows what it means to be the luckiest man alive when she whispers she loves him. She says she has always loved him and will always love him, and that she belongs to him in the other place as well. All he has to do is say the same things he said tonight and he can have her everywhere.

She kisses him once more. She says that if he's found her once, he can do it again and she has complete faith and trust in him so he closes his eyes, takes a deep breath and leaves the twilight between awake and asleep.

And he enters the state of consciousness where she isn't lying next to him, but soon will be.