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The clangor of sleet pounding at the windows and on the roof seemed to swallow every other sound. It was only when a voice called his name that Walt registered the knocking he'd been hearing as separate from the storm. Before he'd made the conscious connection, instinct had him up and throwing open the door. Vic stood on his front porch, shaking hard and rasping air past her chattering teeth. Her clothes were plastered to her body and streaming water.
"I wrecked the truck," she blurted.
Skewered by fear, he grabbed her arm and dragged her inside. "Are you hurt?" he demanded.
She shook her head mutely.
He wrapped his fingers around her wrist, searching for her pulse. "How long were you out there?" The beat against his fingers was rapid but shallow and her skin was icy to the touch.
Without bothering to wait for an answer, he half-pulled, half-carried her back towards the bathroom while she stuttered and stumbled.
"I—I'm f-f-i—"
"You're not fine, Vic. You need to get warm."
Under the yellow bathroom light she hunched in on herself and squinted up at him, blinking owlishly. "Just lemme... t-t-take... a shower."
"That's a bad idea. If you warm up too quickly, you could go into cardiac arrest. You've got to get out of these wet clothes and get dry. Can you do that by yourself?"
"I don't... I don't think so," she said with her jaw clenched against her shivering.
"I'll help you." He reached for the zipper on her jacket but her arms were crossed over her chest, holding on tight. "I need you to let go."
"Can't."
"All right, uh ..." He thought for a moment and then flipped the lid over the toilet seat. "Come sit down. Tell me what happened." Crouching in front of her, he went to work removing her boots and socks.
"Um, we got a call from ADT Security about a break-in at Newt Cunningham's place. They couldn't get hold of anybody. I was heading out so I told Ferg I'd take a look. Turns out a tree branch broke through the basement window. Some damage but nothing major.
"I was on my way back when I must've hit a patch of black ice. Went into a skid, slammed into a tree. The air bag worked, but the front end of the truck's busted. Radio's shot. My phone's a lost cause, too, so I had no way to contact anybody. I only saw one other vehicle stupid enough to be out in that frozen hellscape on the drive, so I figured my options were freeze to death or start walking."
Walt could see it as she spoke: the dark, empty highway; her crumpled truck. Just like that he was transported back to the night at Chance Gilbert's compound. Vic's blood was all over his hands and his clothes; her life was spilling out with him helpless to stop it.
In the light and warmth of his bathroom, he cradled her feet and checked for signs of frostbite. He thought of the barriers that held life together, held it in. How very fragile they were.
"Does this hurt?" he asked, palpating each toe.
"No."
"What about this?" He scratched along the sole of her foot. It gave a belated twitch.
"Tickles."
"Wiggle your toes for me." It took a second but they curled slightly and then relaxed. Satisfied, he released her leg. "Other foot."
With a heavy sigh, she shifted and he repeated the examination. "We need to keep an eye on them for a while but I think you're okay." He placed both of her feet flat on his thighs and covered them with his hands.
"Sorry you have to keep rescuing me."
Walt glanced up and shook his head. "You got yourself here, Vic. I didn't have anything to do with it. And I seem to recall it was you doing the rescuing last time."
"Didn't do such a good job."
He allowed himself one long moment of looking into her golden brown eyes to banish the recollection of that night. "I disagree."
The lopsided smile she gave him was almost lost in her shivering. Walt set her feet gently back on the tile, noting her wince.
"C'mon. We've got to get you dry."
With his help standing up, she was able to relax enough to allow him to slough her jacket down her arms. It dropped to the floor with a heavy squelch. His fingers worked rapidly at the buttons of her duty shirt until they reached her waist and then tugged the fabric sharply to pull the tails free of her pants. He dropped the shirt on the floor and went for her gun and cuffs, setting them on the sink. The leather tongue of her belt was stiff and resistant; he had to yank on it hard enough to jerk her forward. She stumbled and he caught her by the shoulders.
"All right?" he asked, holding her steady.
Her head sagged low enough to meet his chest and he could feel water soaking from her hair into his shirt. "I'm really cold, Walt," she said in a small voice.
"I know," he said gently. "I know. Can you lift your arms up for me?"
The soaked fabric of her undershirt clung to her equally wet skin when he tried to pull it off. Vic could only shake while he maneuvered her, finally sagging a little in his grip when the shirt peeled away and landed on the floor with a plop.
He took the towel hanging on the back of the door and wrapped it around her shoulders, then folded the ends together and curled her fingers over them. "Hold on to this for a minute."
They stood in a loose embrace while he ran his hands carefully over her back and upper arms, hoping to dry her off and slowly increase her circulation at the same time. Warming her too fast would be just as dangerous as not warming her at all, and there was no real way for him to judge what stage of hypothermia she was in.
Belatedly, he pulled the length of her ponytail out so it lay on the outside of the towel, away from her skin. "We need to do something about your hair."
"I'm guessing you haven't bought a hair dryer since I left," she said dryly.
"Nope."
"Surprise."
The band holding her ponytail was so stiff with water and cold that he couldn't work it free with just his fingers.
"I'll have to cut this," he said apologetically.
"Doesn't matter. I've got a million of them."
Walt found a pair of scissors in the cupboard and snipped gingerly at the elastic, afraid of catching any of her hair between the blades. The heavy mass held its shape even after the band fell away, almost frozen in place. He went to work with another towel, gently rubbing at the strands to separate them, then quickly squeezing out as much of the excess water as he could. The second towel lay over the first for whatever extra absorption it could provide.
He took a slow breath as he stepped back and met Vic's eyes. "I need to take your pants off now."
She let out a ragged chuckle. "If I had a dime for every time a man said that to me."
One corner of his mouth twitched up and he felt a a bright burst of relief that she could find the humor in this. He was having some trouble with it, himself. There was nothing sexual about his actions; he was undressing her out of necessity, not for his own gratification. Yet he couldn't escape the knowledge that he was acting out a warped version of a long-held desire.
He’d wanted this.
Just get on with it, Walt told himself.
After the shooting, Vic had switched to wearing looser pants to accommodate her still-healing wound. He was grateful that they were much easier to remove than the snug denim of her jeans would have been. They slid down and off easily, and she was able to step out of them while holding on to him for balance. He took another towel and passed it quickly over her legs to dry them. His progress hitched at the sight of the puckered skin of the wound on her right thigh, and he had to force himself to focus.
"Okay, let's get you something to put on."
Vic's footsteps were surer as he guided her back into the bedroom. He grabbed an old, soft sweater and turned to where she stood clutching his towel around her shoulders, still wearing the last of her wet clothing.
Somehow he'd forgotten about that.
"You should, um..." His voice faltered and he gestured vaguely. "Get the, uh, rest off, too."
"Oh. Right."
She let go of the towel and her hands hovered before her as though unsure what to do. Walt shook off his adolescent awkwardness.
"Here." He dropped the sweater on the bed and stepped behind her. He unfastened her bra, then slid the straps down her shoulders, letting her pull them all the way off herself. He picked up the discarded towel and swiped it over her back briefly before passing it around so that she could dry herself.
Trying to ignore the expanse of bare skin before him, he arranged the sweater in his hands with the arm and neck holes aligned. "Arms up."
The sweater was so big on Vic that it slid easily down her torso without assistance, hanging almost to her knees. The sleeves hung limply far past her fingers.
Walt placed the drier of the towels under her hair before he moved around to face her and began rolling up the dangling sleeves. "How do you feel?"
"Everything's starting to hurt."
"That's a good sign."
She gave him a sour look and he couldn't really blame her. The skin of her face was mottled red from her exposure to the elements. Her nose and cheeks had borne the brunt of the damage, along with her lips and the tips of her ears.
He took her hands from inside their too-long sleeves and examined them as well. Her fingers were red and swollen but seemed no worse off than her face.
"You'll probably be sore for a day or two, but I don't think there's any serious damage," he told her. "We should keep an eye on it just in case, though."
"Okay," she said after a moment, and it was only then that he realized he was stroking her wrist with his thumb.
On a wave of self-consciousness, he released her and stepped back. "Uh, you should finish getting dry. Can you get your, um, your underwear off yourself?"
At her nod, he let out a breath of relief. "I'll find you some pants and socks."
He ducked into the bathroom for another towel, then kept his back to Vic as he rummaged through drawers trying to find something that had a chance of fitting her. He settled on a pair of sweatpants with a drawstring she could tie and two pairs of socks. They'd all be overly large on her but would be enough to keep her warm.
When the sounds of fabric shifting against skin seemed to have ended, Walt passed her the sweatpants and socks, took the damp towel from her shoulders and placed her discarded bra in it, then received her wet underwear in the same way.
"I'll be back in a minute," he said, and retreated.
A man had his limits, after all.
He threw her clothes into the washing machine and hung her heavy jacket in the shower to drip dry. Returning to the bedroom, he found her attempting to secure the drawstring on the sweatpants.
"My fingers still don't work right," she said with an irritated huff.
"I'll get it."
She held the hem of the sweater out of the way and he tied the drawstring as tight as it would go. The waist still gaped enough to slip down to her hips but it didn't seem in any danger of falling off.
"That okay?"
She nodded.
The bundled pairs of socks lay on the bed and he reached for them, gesturing for Vic to sit. Kneeling before her, he rolled up the hems of the sweatpants several times so she wouldn't be in danger of tripping over. Her feet were still cold to the touch, but seemed to be improving. When he pressed gently into the flesh with his thumb it sprang back with a fast flush that indicated healthy circulation. He tugged the first pair of socks onto her feet and used the second pair to secure them, then he pulled both feet onto his thighs again to let his body heat warm them.
"Sorry I crashed the truck," she said quietly.
He shook his head. "I don't care about that. It's insured. You're not."
And how very close he'd come to losing her again.
Leaning forward, Walt tugged on the quilt to drag it down from the head of the bed, then brought it up and around Vic, folding it into her body. When he was done, he met her eyes and was struck by how clear they were, how steadily they were watching him. Cool fingertips settled on his wrist.
"Thank you," she said.
Warmth flooded him. It rose up his neck and spread into his cheeks and out to the tips of his ears. It radiated through his chest and along his arms, down his thighs and back, as his blood rushed with tingling heat under his skin. He was suddenly and acutely aware that Vic was wearing nothing under her borrowed sweatpants and sweater. There were absolutely no barriers between her skin and the fabric of his own clothes. The reality of it felt shockingly, arousingly intimate.
He swallowed with difficulty.
"How're you feeling now?"
"Better. Still cold, but it doesn't feel like my bones are breaking anymore."
"Good. You should go sit in front of the fire. I'll make you some tea."
She nodded.
In the kitchen he filled the kettle and set it on the stove to heat, then braced himself against the sink and breathed deeply. The buzz of emergency still coursed through his muscles. It felt as though an eternity had passed since Vic arrived at his door but a glance at his watch showed it had been less than an hour.
"I should call Ferg," she said over the gurgling kettle. "He'll need to notify Highway Patrol, although what the fuck they're gonna do about it in this weather I've got no idea."
"Another few minutes won't matter," Walt replied.
The tea he brought her was hot with plenty of sugar in it. She pulled a face at the first swallow.
"Jesus, that's disgusting."
"Drink it all," he ordered.
"I think I'd rather have hypothermia," she muttered into the cup, but took another sip.
Walt headed back into the bedroom to change out of his own wet clothes. For the first week or so after the shooting, Vic had found the shower in her motor home too small to accommodate her injury, so he'd offered her the use of his. In that short space of time he'd grown pleasantly accustomed to the mingled scents she left wafting through his bedroom on warm, damp air. Now as he dressed, as he tidied the bathroom and gathered up the towels to wash, he was disappointed to find no trace of her.
When he emerged from the bedroom, he found an empty mug of tea and Vic folded practically in half in the chair, wrapped in the blanket from the couch, asleep. Her head rested on the arm closest to the fire and her long hair hung over it almost to the floor. He sat gingerly across from her, his chest constricting as he watched the light of the flames flicker over her face.
These calm moments were the hardest for him now, when he had no immediate task. The yearning crept in then, the hope, and the persistent, near-debilitating fear. That fear was a wound down the center of his chest, like the seam of an oyster shell, just waiting to be cracked open.
It hadn't been so hard with Martha. They'd dated, stolen kisses in his truck on warm nights, and gotten married because it was what people did when they loved one another. Falling in love with her had been a sweet journey, full of the excitement of discovery.
Falling in love with Vic had been bewildering and shameful and filled with moments of such raw communion they stole his breath. For years he'd tried to tear her out from where she'd taken root in his heart and been utterly unable to do so. The elemental tug she exerted on him only grew stronger, and his foolish, stubborn heart kept right on loving her.
How could it not?
Walt studied her now: the smudged shadows beneath her eyes and fine lines of tension at the creases. Her brightness had dimmed since the shooting; it had been dimming for much longer than that if he was being honest. She was thinner now, too, her skin tighter over her cheekbones. She hadn't recovered as much as she'd like him to believe. Even asleep she looked tired.
He didn't really want to wake her, and she was almost certainly out of danger, but he couldn't take any chances. Not anymore. He found himself holding his breath as he crouched in front of her, his hand hovering indecisively before settling on her knee. He said her name quietly.
Watching Vic wake up was different every time. In the hospital, on his couch, and now here: Walt was gathering a collection of memories. She tilted her head and made a soft sound; she wrinkled her nose. Her eyelids fluttered before opening slowly. For a moment when she met his eyes her lips curved into a dreamy little smile and stopped his heart. He knew he was unequal to whatever she saw when she looked at him like that, but he wanted her to look at him that way forever. He wanted to deserve it.
Her expression quickly shifted into alertness and she winced, straightening in the chair. "Shit." She rubbed at her eyes with the heels of her hands. "I was just trying to get my hair to dry faster."
Walt reached out and took her left wrist, feeling for her pulse. It was reassuringly strong and regular again. "I think you're all right."
"Pretty sure I told you that a half hour ago."
"A half hour ago your lips were blue and you could barely stand up." He gave her a pointed look. "Are you hungry?"
Mild surprise flashed across her face. "Actually, I am."
While he heated up some soup, Vic called Ferg. Walt half-listened to her side of the conversation but his thoughts were mostly taken up with how good it was to have her here with him again. The time they'd spent together after she'd been shot had been so ordinary and yet so unexpected. After living alone for so long, a small part of him had wondered if they'd get in each other's way. But they'd fit together as well here as they did at work.
Her daily presence had only sharpened his feelings for her, magnifying his desire to be close to her. It wasn't about sex, although that kind of desire could strike abruptly, snake-like, rearing up in unforeseen moments and sinking its fangs in deep. But he'd grown accustomed to living with the constant pull of his attraction. This was a simpler and sweeter longing, in some ways more difficult to bear. She hurt and he wanted to help her stop hurting, wanted to be for her what she'd tried to be—had been—for him. He wanted to hold her, just hold her, for as long as it took to make up for every moment of comfort they'd both been denied.
Vic finished her call as he was spooning the soup into bowls at the table. She left the blanket on the chair and, before he could protest, said, "Seriously, Walt, I'm sweating over here."
While they ate she relayed Ferg's side of the conversation and Walt tried not to be too obvious about watching her for signs of improvement or deterioration. It was clear from her tentative and slightly clumsy movements that her hands, in particular, were causing her some pain, though she'd never mention it, he knew. They were alike that way.
He refused to let her help him clean up the few dishes and for once she didn't argue, but she stayed at the table and regaled him with some of Joe Mega's more esoteric pieces of wisdom.
"I guess you're glad to be back in your own place now," he said as he wiped down the sink.
Vic shrugged. "Well, it's closer to work."
"Right."
"But no one cooks for me, so that's kind of a downside."
From the corner of his eye Walt saw the flash of her grin and it drew an answering smile from him.
"Huh," was all he said.
When he mentioned she might want to turn in and get some rest after what she'd been through, she gave him the kind of blank stare that made it clear what he could do with the suggestion. Instead she eased herself onto the couch in the spot he'd already begun to think of as hers despite the fact that it had been his own until she'd come to stay.
There was a certain obvious metaphor in that.
"Are you warm enough?" he asked. "Do you want the blanket?"
"Walt, I am fine. Stop worrying."
"Let me see your hands."
As expected, Vic rolled her eyes, but she allowed him to take both her hands in his and examine them.
"Any numbness?"
"No."
Satisfied, he patted the space on the couch between them until she sighed and swung her legs up. She pulled off her borrowed socks and he performed the same examination of her feet.
"See?" she said when he'd finished. "Fine." She bent over to put her socks back on and nodded at the file on the coffee table. "Some light reading?"
"Dave stopped by with some papers for me to sign."
"I thought they were dropping the lawsuit."
"They are, but there's still a lot of paperwork involved."
She made a contemptuous face as she sat back. "You should be suing those assholes. At the very least they should have to issue a public apology for all the shit they put you through."
Walt felt the knot in his chest loosen a little more at her steadfast defense. She'd never once wavered in her belief in him. He'd never thanked her for that.
"I don't know," he said after a moment. "Losing Lucian... That was worse than anything they could have done to me with that lawsuit."
Vic's expression softened. She reached out and squeezed his hand, her fingers curling into the shallow cup of his palm. It must have hurt her, at least a little, and yet she suffered the pain to offer him comfort.
This was what so completely disarmed him about her: how swiftly she was moved to compassion, to empathy; how easily she let it show. She was so brave, braver than him by far, brave enough to give him chance after chance and wait for him to take just one. Why hadn't he? He was hers and had been for a long time. Maybe too long, but what did that matter now? Everything else fell away until only that essential truth remained.
Feeling absurdly daring, Walt turned his wrist so that his hand lay flat on his thigh and hers rested on top of his. They weren't holding hands, were barely touching, really, but it was deliberate, and neither of them moved away.
His heart drummed loud enough to drown out the pelting storm outside. There had been moments like this between them before and he'd always shied from them, thrown up distance, run away. This time, though, he was determined to meet her out here in the middle.
"In a way," he said slowly, "some good did come from the lawsuit."
Vic looked at him with utter disbelief. "Seriously? Having your integrity, your entire career, questioned? Almost losing everything you've worked your whole life for? What part of that is good?"
He offered her a wry smile. "None of it. But it made me remember something I, uh, I suppose I'd lost sight of." At the curious tilt of her head he went on. "It's like you said. Even if I lost everything else, I still have people in my life who care about me. I've got Cady and Henry." He forced himself to hold her gaze. "I have you."
She stared at him, her lips slightly parted.
"I realized I'd been taking people for granted, not showing them how important they are to me. How much I... I care about them. I don't want to do that anymore."
Vic was absolutely still, hardly even seemed to be breathing, and looking at him with the rare openness that he understood now was for him alone.
Her fingers tightened ever so slightly on his.
Here she was, right in front of him; here was the burn in the back of his throat that seemed to be constant these days. She exerted a force like gravity on him and here was the culmination of a fall so incremental he'd never noticed its motion. His stomach did a slow roll up into his chest and his heart leapt above it into his throat and with a seismic shift the world tilted and he kissed her.
He'd imagined kissing her in so many ways but none of them could match this sweetness. Her lips were swollen and a little chapped but still unbelievably soft. Blood rushed in his ears and sparks skittered over his skin as heat gathered in the space between them.
When he eased away a fraction, her eyes were still closed. Then she opened them and he felt it like a lightning strike. She blinked, then caught her bottom lip beneath her teeth and a smile bloomed around it, lighting her up, until she seemed to be a small, woman-shaped sun sitting on his couch. He looked straight at her radiance and was joyfully blinded.
"Vic, I, uh," he began, because it felt important that he say something, but she gave her head the slightest shake.
"Walt," she said, still smiling. "Shut up."