Thank you to everyone who commented kindly when I posted the first part to senad, and to everyone on sentinel_betas who helped me whip the second part into shape.

Oh you were always my original sin
~Elton John: Original Sin~

So here we are. Alone again. No Bartley, no Zeller, no reporters. No detectives running in to tell you the latest developments in the case, or police captains yelling for your attention. No Naomi, either, just a note with the name and number of a hotel in Cascade, and a simple one-line message: "I'll call. Love, Naomi"

So here we are. Just the two of us. Alone.

I'm dead on my feet, and Jim doesn't look any better. In fact, he's worse, considering he has a fresh bullet wound in his leg -- thankfully just a flesh wound. The doctors said he'll be as good as new in a few weeks. Still, walking from the car to the elevator wasn't a piece of cake, and judging from the way he's wincing as he limps over to the couch, the pain dial has slipped up again.

I take a deep breath to center myself, meaning to go to him, to help him dial it back down -- but suddenly, the breath I inhale gets stuck in my throat. I realize I'm shaking. My eyes swarm and my ears hum with images and voices, from the day, from the past, disbelieving, disappointed, derisive, mocking -- haunting me with the enormity of what I've done, all the trusts I betrayed, the expectations I denied, the relationships I destroyed, the bridges I burned -- in those few minutes, with those few words. My knees give way, refusing to support my weight, and I curl up in a tight ball, trembling violently and uncontrollably.

I feel rather than hear Jim shuffle across the room, then his weight is on me, reaching for me, prying my hands away from myself. I resist, but he's insistent and unrelenting, patiently working his way through my limbs, until he's inside and I'm wrapped around him, clinging to him tighter than life itself -- and his arms wrap around me, holding me to him, holding me close, holding me tight.

I wail and bawl and cry like a baby, and Jim just holds me, keeping me tucked securely against his shoulder, and the floor must be hard and his leg must be killing him but I can't stop, I just cry and cry and I know Jim will hold me until the end of time if need be, in silent and stoic penance for his part in this disaster, and that's just so Jim it makes me laugh, and then I'm laughing hysterically, laughing and laughing and laughing until my stomach muscles start convulsing in painful spasms, and even then I can't stop, can't stop, until Jim firmly slaps me across the face.

The shock from the slap finally stops the laughing, leaving me gasping, desperately trying to draw breath into my constricted and uncooperating lungs. Jim's hands are on my back, strong fingers massaging the constricted muscles, encouraging them to loosen up until I can breathe.

I look into his eyes. And I think it shouldn't really surprise me to find them full of tears, but it does. He looks so old and haggard, like he's aged ten years in the time I'd been crying, and that just twists something painfully deep in my heart. I reach out and trace the lines on his face, lines I'm sure weren't there this morning. His eyes close as my fingers touch him; his hand comes up to mirror mine, and I lean into the touch of the warm solid fingers. I let myself slide down until I'm buried against his shoulder again, and his arms come around me, enclosing me in their shelter.

And the floor is hard and his leg must be killing him, but I stay there, feeling his hand softly caressing my hair, knowing I can stay here until the end of time if I want to, and Jim will hold me and never let me go.

Damn, the floor is hard, and my leg is killing me, and let's admit it, Blair's not light. I longingly eye the stairs leading up to the loft and my big comfortable bed, but right now I'm not sure my leg, throbbing and swollen from the bullet wound, will bear the strain of carting my bone-tired body up there. The floor looks mighty tempting, but Blair won't thank me when I get up all cranky and grumbly from the kinks and creaks and sores I'm sure to feel in the morning if I slept here all night.

As gently as I can, I ease Blair off my shoulder. He's a mess. Eyes red and puffed up from crying, nose clogged up and sniffling, cheeks stained with tear tracks, hair rumpled and matted all over his face. I push his sticky hair off his face, smoothing it into place as best I can. I want to tell him it's ok, everything will be ok, but nothing is, and nothing will be. He looks so small and lost, staring up at me with dark glittering eyes. I have this most unsettling feeling that if I take my eyes off him for a second, he'd disappear.

I cradle his face between my hands and press my forehead to his, needing the touch, this closeness between us. The memory of how I shut down this closeness, pushed him away, cut myself off from him, is bitter in the back of my throat and churning pure acid in my stomach. I pushed him to this, I turned him into a wraith, a shadow of his former self, cut off from everything that was ever important to him, turned into a pariah, a disgraced exile from grace -- and God help me but a part of me is glad, no, downright exultant, to have him finally to myself. As shameful as it is to admit, I can't deny that deep down, there always was a part of me that wanted him, wanted somebody who will put me first above all else. And the closer he came to being that, the more I wanted him to be it. The one who was mine and only mine, who put up with my every whim and mood, who understood me without explanation and accepted all I was without recrimination. Who sacrificed himself to fill my every need. And here in my arms I have the punishment for my darkest wish, the bitter grail, the broken ring. And I clutch Blair tight to me again, not minding the hard floor or my burning leg, knowing I can't ever put the pieces of his shattered dreams back together again, the dream that brought us together, bound us to each other, and kept us apart.

And here we are. Alone at last, facing each other in the shattered smoldering ruins of his dreams and the dark bitter fulfillment of my wish, entwined so deeply in each other we can never be pulled asunder.

I wanted him, and my punishment is to have him. Every breath he takes, every step at my side, every smile he gives me, his existence itself -- and even if we had until the end of time, it won't be enough, nothing can be enough; there's no atonement for being what we are, being him and me, being -- human.

Blair lifts his head and pulls away from me, roughly swiping at his face with the back of his hand, succeeding only in mixing and spreading tears and snot and sweat all over his face. Time to get us moving, off the floor, which is really much too hard. Tomorrow is a new day, and the cycle will start over again, we'll stagger and muddle our way through the world and through each other, tripping and falling as we blindly grope our way through the mist. He says everything happens for a reason, but everything that happens also has consequences, with repercussions no one can ever foresee. One thing I know for certain, I'll get us up those stairs, even if my leg kills me. I'll get us comfortable in the big warm bed, and I'll pull him close and hold him until the end of time and never let him go, knowing always it won't ever, ever, ever be enough.