Disclaimer: I do not own Cold Case.

AN: I am suffering from a resurgence of Cold Case addiction. This story picks up with Lilly's arrival at Scotty's apartment in the middle of episode 7.14 Metamorphosis, and so most of the dialogue at the start comes straight from the show. I wanted to build on the shift in energy I detected in the episode. It seemed to have been building up for awhile there, so I took it where I thought it should go. Honest reviews are always appreciated.

Scotty Valens was blankly contemplating the meagre contents of his refrigerator, simultaneously keeping half an ear on the baseball commentary coming from the television in his living room, when the four sharp knocks sounded on his front door. He sighed before slamming the fridge shut and making his way across the apartment. Upon opening the door, he was only a little surprised to find his partner, Lilly Rush, standing before him, a six-pack of beer held under one arm, the other gloved hand reaching up to brush back an errant strand of her blonde hair from her face. Beneath her coat, she was still dressed in her work clothes, and he absently admired the way the royal blue scarf, casually draped around her pale neck, brought out the blueness of her eyes.

"I went to Jones'." Lilly spoke first. "The bartender said you took Nick home."

"Yeah." Scotty gave a wry grin. "He was plastered by the time I got there. Somethin's up wi' him."

His partner looked down and rocked a little on her heels. "A lotta that goin' around," she said, softly, bringing her eyes back up to meet his.

"Mmm," he met her gaze and took a breath in. There sure is, he finished to himself.

"Still thirsty?" Lilly broke into the awkward pause, holding up the six-pack, her eyebrows raised, a look in her eyes that hinted of something…quiet desperation, perhaps.

He grinned again, taking the proffered beer and opening the door wide for her to enter. She strode past to the centre of the room, before swinging back around to face him.

"It really means a lot, you know," she wouldn't quite meet his eyes. "Not to go on about it, but…that you were… there. For me. When you couldn't have been even sure if…." Here she stopped, a slight blush staining her usually pale cheek. "Anyway…"

"Rush, we're partners. You coulda called me to help you get rid of the body," he stated, a hint of his usual cockiness breaking through with the slow spread of a smile. "Now, keep your coat on. I got the perfect place to drink these."

Lilly turned to follow her partner's broad, retreating back through the apartment, pleased that he wanted her to stay. Earlier in the evening, she had realised, with a pang, that after the trying events of the last few days, what she really needed was the companionship of someone who knew her. As well as I've ever really let myself be known, she adjusted the thought, her mind going briefly back to touch on the sad accumulation of failed relationships in her past. Not to talk, so much (she'd never been very good at that), but just to…be.

Once he was outside, Scotty turned to help his partner follow him in clambering through the kitchen window. She did so with a laugh, slightly encumbered by her heavy coat, but maintaining that careless grace that was so Lilly. When she was standing again, he gestured widely with his arm. "Welcome to the patio. Grab a chair." He scooped up a deck chair from where a pile leant against the wall and carried it up to a low concrete platform. Setting it in place, he sat down, picked up a beer and took a swig.

Lilly laughed again, collected the second chair and joined him. Before sitting down, however, she went across to a low wall running the length of the outdoor area.

"Wow, Scotty. This view is amazing." She stood looking out at the cityscape spread out below her, then turned back to face him, leaning against the concrete support and pulling her coat more securely around her. "You come out here often?"

"Yeah," he replied. There was a pause before he continued. "It's a good place to sit and think. When you've got stuff on yer mind."

She nodded, walking back over to him and taking a seat alongside. She accepted the bottle he held out to her, and they sat gazing out at the twinkling city lights, happy for the moment just to sit quietly.

After ten minutes of comfortable silence, during which Lilly had once again been going over the news that Moe Kitchener was gone for good, she all of a sudden remembered a conversation she'd had with Will before leaving the precinct.

"Heard about your dance with Gargantuan." She raised her beer up to her lips, chuckling a little.

"I had 'im right where I wanted 'im." Scotty leant back in his chair and looked up at the darkness spread out above them.

Lilly let out a breath. "Bringin' him up for assault?" she queried.

"Guy belongs in the puzzle house, not County. Punks were harrasin' 'im." Scotty paused. "Like, taggin' 'freak' on his buildin'."

"Cruel world."

He nodded in agreement. "Filed three separate police reports. It's just… protectin' himself."

Lilly leant forward and looked over at him, before turning her face down to gaze at her feet.

"Sorry I wasn't there."

There was silence from the chair beside her. "Almost…lit 'im up, Lil." He hesitated. "Wanted to."

Lilly felt a pressure build in her chest. "Thanks for…" She saw a frown meet on her partner's forehead. "…havin' my back." She looked over at him, meeting his stare, before clarifying. "With Moe. The alibi."

Scotty smiled at her, and brought his bottle up to meet hers with a gentle clank. "Partners, right."

She smiled back in agreement. "Yeah."

After a pause, Lilly tore her eyes away from his and stood up. With a sigh, she made her way down from the platform and across to the ledge. She leant on it and looked out across the city once again. "I still can't believe it. What Hank did."

"Just beat you to it," Scotty replied, still seated.

"So what does that make me?" She turned to face him, a challenge present in the stare she levelled across at him.

"Hmm," he dragged out, leaning forward as if to really think the question through. "Human?" It came out somewhere halfway between a question and a statement.

Lilly gave a brief chuckle. "Protect and serve, right?" she drawled, her gloved hands wrapping around the bottle of beer she had carried across with her. She swung it gently within her grasp as she contemplated her position, what she might have done…

"The innocent, Lil." Scotty's voice broke through the reverie, a little impatiently, as he gestured at her. Hell, she shouldn't be feeling bad for wanting to take out a scumbag, especially one who had tried to… "We need more Hanks out there. Guy deserves a medal."

She looked at him and frowned, uncertain of where this vehemence was really coming from. It couldn't just be about her situation. "You believe that?"

Scotty rose to his feet. "Yeah," he said, as he got up from his chair, chuckling a little. "Yeah, I believe that."

He made his way over to join her by the ledge. "Just be glad someone else did it. That he's gone." He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, staring not at her but down at the city lights below.

Lilly looked at him, an intent gaze, as recent events and changes in her partner's demeanour started to connect in her mind. "That fortune-teller said somethin' about your mom. You okay?"

Scotty maintained his position, not looking at her. "Time comes, Lil, I might need you to have my back too." He almost started to laugh, then, bemused somewhat by the feeling of desperation rising up to choke him at the thought of his own helplessness and his father's ignorant despair.

Lilly kept her gaze on him, a deep concern welling up at her partner's obvious attempts to hold himself together. Scotty, usually so confident and together, looked as though he might actually break out in tears at any moment.

She turned her body to fully face him. "We're partners, right."

He met her eye for a brief second before they both broke away, each stung by the intensity of a moment neither could quite find a definition for. The atmosphere seemed charged, somehow, as if their individual pent-up emotions were almost but not quite at the point of breaking free from their confines and merging.

Lilly felt both scared and exhilarated without being able to pinpoint why, and she fought to take a clean breath. An anxious energy began to build deep in her stomach and radiate out across her chest and arms. She pushed away from the ledge and began to stride back and forth across the roof-top platform, her hands moving furiously, from her hair, to her face, to thrusting deeply into her pockets and back out again.

Scotty turned to watch her restless pacing, admiring her fierce beauty as words and incomplete sentences spewed from her mouth in an attempt to mollify and control the turbulence within.

"He's gone. He's finally gone. I don't have to… I mean, for months, I've… And now…" She paused briefly, her eyes wild, before resuming. "All those nights, watching him, following him… I thought about it. You know I did. I even had the g…" She stopped again, something warning her that the gun secreted in her chimney, while no longer required for its original purpose, should remain hidden, even from her partner. She wasn't comfortable sharing its existence, or its provenance, even with Scotty.

"But now, I don't know how I feel. Did he deserve it? Would I feel better if I'd done it myself? Do I wish I'd done it? Should I have…"

Scotty, who had been following her diatribe with an increasing urgency of his own, suddenly stepped forward and seized his partner by the arms, preventing her frantic movements from continuing. "Stop," he said. "Just stop, Lil. It's over, okay. It's over, and you don' have to think about that no more. Please."

His close proximity, the emanating warmth from his body, and the earnest plea in his deep brown eyes, which were now turned full-force on her own, were all of a sudden too much for her. Still compelled by that nervous energy trapped within her, Lilly reached up, grasping his face between her two gloved hands, and brought his lips down to meet hers with sudden violence.

Scotty seemed frozen in place for a moment, before responding to her with an equal intensity. His hands moved from her upper arms, twining around behind her to draw her close, as his mouth explored hers. He pressed her hard against him, before moaning and reaching up to tangle one hand in her soft hair, the other dropping lower to keep her body close to his. Still kissing her furiously, he began to move them backwards, drawing her with him until they reached the raised platform on which their abandoned chairs remained. His lips and tongue moved down to caress the soft skin of her neck, while he roughly unbuttoned her coat, pushed it from her shoulders and dropping it to the ground, followed by his own.

Lilly felt the cold night air bite her newly exposed skin, but she was too caught up in the now wonderful feelings coursing through her body to care. As Scotty pushed her back to lie on the temporary bed their shed outer garments had formed, and brought the full weight of his body down on top of hers, she didn't have to fight hard to ignore the discomfort of their surroundings. Instead, she clutched him closer to her, her hands, like his, roaming desperately, over and then under clothing, searching for the certain contact of warm skin, the promise of release from all that anxiety she had been experiencing. And as their bodies came together, her only thought was how right this felt, that there could be nothing more natural in the world than this moment between them.