The first time she kissed him was their tenth kiss. She and Bess and George had stayed up giggling and discussing each one, and every time, when Nancy reported that he'd been the one to lean down and press his lips to hers, Bess had protested. "Why don't you kiss him?"

"Because he's so tall," she had said, as though that was reason enough.

"Well, next time, just grab him and kiss him," Bess insisted. "You want to, right?"

She did. She did want to. Because sometimes when he was talking all she did was stare at his mouth, wishing that he would lean down the slightest bit, just so that she could stand on her tiptoes and press her lips to his. Just so that when she pulled back, she could see the same shocked, pleased, flushed feeling that flooded over her whenever he did the same.

He was offering her a bite of his ice cream and she had leaned in for it, and with the taste of sugar and cream and chocolate melting cool on her tongue she put her hand on the back of his shoulder and pulled him down, and he leaned down with no hesitation or resistance, until her eyelashes were fluttering against his cheek and she was kissing him.

He looked shocked and pleased and flushed with happiness when she pulled back, his brown eyes searching hers. "Oh," he said, his lips curving up in a smile.

Nothing has ever felt as right as that did. Nothing ever will. "You okay?" she asked, and she could feel the heat rising soft in her cheeks.

"Almost," he said, reaching down and claiming another.

--

The first time she told him she loved him, she hadn't meant to say it at all. Before she'd met him, she had almost convinced herself that love was a trick, hormones and weakness, momentary lapses of judgement. After she'd met him, she'd known that she had been wrong. And it scared her. After four months of being his girlfriend, she knew that she never wanted to be anyone else's. She never wanted to be with anyone else, ever again, and the strength of that knowledge was more frightening than a hundred kidnappers, than anything else she'd ever experienced.

He hit another ball into the fence and she traced the hard line of his muscles with her eyes, the smooth clean curve of motion, the raw power of his swing. She knew how to hit the ball, had been able to hit a baseball since she'd been strong enough to pick up a bat, but not like that.

"Teach me," she said, letting her own bat fall to her side. "How do you do that?"

Ned swung again, and it looked effortless, like he was born to no other purpose. The baseball bounced off the fence, hard. "I just... I just do," he said, laughing a little.

"Show me."

"Come here, then," Ned said, and Nancy took a deep breath before she came to him. She wanted to show him. She wanted him to be proud of her, the same way she of him was every time someone cheered him on during a ballgame. "Now, hit the next one."

She set her mouth, determined, and when the next ball came she swung, but she knew she hadn't done so well as him before she had even dropped her arm back to her side.

"You did fine."

"Not like you," she said. Turning to him, willing him even as he chuckled to come put his arms around her.

"You have to," he began, and when he obeyed her unspoken wish she felt her heart begin to pound, and wondered if he could hear it too. His palms cupped over the backs of her hands, and her skin tingled faintly where it touched his. "Put your hands like this. Under mine."

She nodded. This close, she could smell him, his cologne and the faint masculine aura of him. Safe. She closed her eyes for a moment.

"Okay, now, swing," he said, guiding her bat slowly through an arc. "Like this. Do you feel the difference?"

She nodded. "Like," she agreed, mimicking his motion. Her back against his chest. "Think we can try one?"

The first ball slammed against the fence, the second harder, the third making it shudder and squeal in protest. She couldn't hold back the wide grin. "You're really good at this," she told him, looking back to see his face.

"I'm okay," he said, but he was flushed with pride and satisfaction, and she couldn't help but laugh. He knew how talented he was.

The next ball came up and she felt his muscles tighten against hers, and now she could almost anticipate and predict it, the way he would swing, meeting the ball with the hard smack of the bat. "I've never met a girl like you," he said.

Her heart skipped a beat, but she played it off with a laugh. "I hear that a lot," she told him. But it's never meant as much, until you said it.

"You hit baseballs with all your boyfriends?" he teased her back. "You have a great eye."

"I don't," she protested, blushing faintly in pleasure, "but I do like it. Another." His arms moving with hers. Perfect cooperation. One will.

"I think I might be falling for you."

She froze, but the next ball came and she forced herself to follow his movements again, willing her pulse to slow, but her heart, her heart could never fall, not after those words. She turned, sweeping her helmet off to keep her hands occupied, to keep them from sliding around him, in the middle of the batting cage and in front of everyone. "You think?" she said, her voice miraculously steady as she searched his eyes.

He nodded, speechless, and she laced her fingers between his.

"I think I might be falling for you, too," she told him softly. "I've never met anyone like you either." I think I might be falling in love with you, and Bess and George are already sure. When they want to tease me they call me by your name. I think I might love you and it's the scariest thing I've ever felt, in my entire life.

He leaned down and kissed her and her heart was in her throat, and she pulled back far before she wanted to, afraid he could feel her tremble. "One more," she said.

He stepped in close to her, his arms over hers, and they hit the last ball together, but the words were still on her lips, and if she opened her mouth, if she let them out... she couldn't. It was too soon. Even if he thought he was falling for her, it didn't mean...

"I love you."

She was in his car, at her father's house, and when he said those words, when he echoed the ones she was afraid to say, a tremendous weight left her chest. No more doubt, no more fear. She couldn't stop the smile, couldn't stop herself from leaning over to kiss him.

"I love you too," she told him, and then she was running to her father's door, but she couldn't feel the ground.

--

The first time she saw him in his boxers, she was visiting him at Omega Chi for the first time and Howie, without announcing her arrival, had told her Ned's room number. She skipped up the stairs, returning appreciative stares with a disinterested smile, counting the doors until she reached his.

She knew she should knock, but she couldn't stop herself from trying the doorknob, just in case.

The door was unlocked and when she swung it halfway open he was standing next to his bed, pulling his shirt off and over his head, leaving him in only a pair of charcoal-grey boxers. Tanned flesh, defined abs, the hard muscle of his upper arms. She drank him in for that moment before he saw her, before he was conscious of her presence, a blush creeping faintly over her cheeks.

"Nan."

She smiled. He was smiling and unselfconscious and she dragged her gaze to his face. She had seen him in swim trunks, but this.

"Sorry," she said. "I-- wanted to surprise you."

He held her gaze for a moment before he picked up a pair of jeans, vanishing behind the open door of his bathroom, still smiling faintly. "Give me just a minute."

That night she dreamed of charcoal-grey cotton.

--

The first time they slept touching wasn't supposed to happen at all. On their third anniversary he suggested they go camping, overnight, on the edge of a lake still frozen and dull with ice. Very romantic and very alone. Her father had insisted on separate tents, then relented and settled for separate sleeping bags. On opposite sides of the tent. She almost expected him to buy her a roll of razor wire to string between them.

On the second night, after toasted marshmallows and s'mores and the obligatory stargazing, they crawled into the tent to escape the cool wind. Out of the corner of her eye she watched as he stripped down to waffle-knit cotton, she into the thinnest softest silk long johns. Even the tent wasn't enough to keep the chill out of the air. When she climbed into her sleeping bag, obediently placed as far from his as it possibly could be, she curled up in on herself immediately, shaking, her feet almost numb. Her cheeks stung as the feeling came back, and she nestled her face into her sleeping bag, her body turned toward his. Looking forward to another night that she would spend hating the few feet of space between them.

But to cross those inches, until only the space of breath separated them... she had told him that she wanted to wait, and she did, but sometimes when she looked into the face she knew so well, the reasons seemed insignificant.

"Hey," he said softly, and she opened her eyes, her shoulders still trembling slightly.

"Hey," she whispered, and smiled.

She put her folded arm under her head, under the shallow pillow, as she waited, drowsy and numb with cold. "Come on," he said, and began to unzip his sleeping bag. "You're freezing. It'll help."

Does this mean, she thought, but cut it off immediately. He wouldn't. He knew. But she was freezing and he was warm and...

With the faintest smile on her face, she unzipped her sleeping bag as well, and he zipped them together, and she wasn't sure if she was even breathing anymore. All her attempts to convince herself that this was nothing different, nothing special, were all falling away in the soft trembling glow of her quickened heart. Especially when she felt his hand on her arm.

"Relax," he breathed.

"I'm relaxed," she told him. If relaxed meant giving in to the euphoria that swept over her when she realized how close they were. "Thanks."

"Comfortable?"

She slipped an arm over his chest and pulled in close to him, her face to his shoulder. "Yes," she said, and laughed softly, nervously.

He put his arm over her and closed his eyes. "Nan, I love you."

"I love you too," she said. Oh yes, her father would kill her, if he ever knew. But she would have regretted it, if she hadn't, if she had turned down the opportunity to feel his arms around her.

She was tilting her head back to look up into his when he kissed her.

She was too young for this. She was too young to know that he was the one. Every now and then, she did forget. Every now and then, someone else caught her eye, and she felt again the soft instinctual rush of attraction, but it was never like this. She was drunk in him. With him, it all made sense; when he was around, to listen to her hunches, to save her when she took a step too far, she knew that she could do it. She need never fear his will, his wrath, his insistence that she change who she was for him, because he never would. He had seen every dark corner and he hadn't turned away. She had finally found someone she could share the insanity of her life with.

She leaned into him, running her fingers through his hair, and they lay on their sides, facing each other, their kisses soft and slow and gentle. Almost shaking. Delicate.

Not that they would have much of a life, once they were in separate colleges, hours and miles apart, linked by telephone wire and the hope of their next meeting. Still. The taste of him in her mouth, even as she knew, knew that she had to stop, even though every time it grew more and more difficult to remember why.

She pulled back, gasping, tilting her face against his chest. "Did you have this in mind, picking out the coldest night we've had in ages? Did you plan all of this?"

He smiled and ran his hand over her hair. "Yeah, before I asked you to be my girlfriend I happened to look up the weather three years in advance, and planned this trip just so I could offer to share a sleeping bag with you."

She chuckled, then, and tilted her face back to look into his, put her palm against his cheek. "You know I care about you," she said softly.

He nodded. "But you want to wait."

She smiled. "Not that I don't really appreciate the warmth," she said, and her heart was pounding as his fingertips trailed over her, digging into her ticklish flesh, until she was writhing out of his grasp, laughing, shrieking for him to stop. His fingers against her flesh. She almost groaned her disappointment when he pulled away.

Then he leaned over and kissed her forehead. "I'll wait," he said softly. "I'll wait until you're ready."

"It may be a long time, Nickerson," she cautioned him, closing her eyes as he traced his lips down her cheek.

"I'll wait," he repeated, and kissed her, his fingertips finding and gently stroking along the warm band of flesh between her top and waist, and she was speechless.

When she woke she couldn't imagine spending another night outside the circle of his arms.

--

She and her father and Ned's parents were staying in Emersonville, the night before his college graduation, and she had known something was in his mind since he had visited the week before. Something in the look in his eye. He had been quiet the whole night, over their lavish expensive meal, when he had offered her a single white rose, and she had nestled it in her hair and watched him smile. She wished he would just say it, whatever it was. Preferably before midnight, when he'd promised to have her back at the hotel. He'd suggested a walk through Emerson woods and she had agreed, hoping that once they were alone he'd feel comfortable enough to talk.

"Thanks for dinner," she said. "It was great. And beautiful. And you have this look in your eye."

"Do I?" he said.

"You do," she said, and laughed at the shocked look on his face. "You are graduating, right? That's not your surprise."

"I am graduating," he replied. "All the forms are in order, everything's fine. Cap and gown accounted for. And you'll be there."

"As long as there's no crisis in London or anything," she teased him, shrieking when he tickled her. "Okay, okay," she begged. "Yes, I'll be there. I will. I promise."

He put his arms around her waist, and she relaxed into his embrace. "You'd better," he said. He was smiling as he looked down into her eyes, and she put her palm against his cheek, drawing him down to her for a kiss.

"What did you want to tell me," she breathed, when he pulled back, gazing up at him.

He opened his mouth, then reached for her hand, and she followed as they began walking again. "I know, when we were younger," he said softly, then shook his head. "I've been thinking a lot about the two of us. About what's going to happen."

She stopped, and he stopped with her. He had been going through extensive interviews with a firm, one he really wanted to join, and they had talked about it so much she almost felt like she was the one waiting on pins and needles for that final phone call. "Did you get the job?"

He nodded. "I got the job."

"Ned, that's wonderful," she cried, wrapping her arms around him. "That's great. I can't believe it. Everything? The salary?"

"Everything," he nodded again, and reached for her hands when she pulled back. "Almost everything," he amended. "Almost."

"What else is there?" Besides finals, and how much he missed her, he had talked about little else. If he was graduating, it couldn't be finals. Thinking about the two of them...?

He looked away, then, and she watched his adam's apple bob in his throat a few times, before he slowly, slowly knelt at her feet.

"You," he said simply.

On his knees. He had never, he'd never been on his knees, not... not before. He couldn't... Her eyes started to fill. "I have another year of college," she said faintly.

"I know," he said. "A year is a good length of time for an engagement." He smiled. "Plenty of time to plan a wedding."

"Ned," she said. Watching incredulously as he reached into his pocket, as he pulled out the box. He'd never done this before, either. So it was real. So this was real. The diamond was beautiful, perfect, brilliant. She put her hands over her mouth when she saw it, her eyes swimming with tears. "My God, Ned."

"I promised myself a long time ago that you'd be the first girl I'd ever propose to," he said. "And I want you to be the last. I know you said before, it wasn't the right time. And it wasn't. But, now..." he smiled. "I was hoping that maybe you'd change your mind."

"You want to marry me."

"Practically since the first second I saw you."

He looked so beautiful. Soft-eyed with the wind ruffling his brown hair. She knew these weren't just words with him. This wasn't some prelude to a new case. This was the rest of her life. And all she could think was, "When."

"When we're both graduated," he said, and gazed up at her. "Tell me what you're thinking."

"Of what my father will say," she said. "That before I met you, I thought I'd never find someone I could share my life with, someone who would put up with me. That I've never loved anyone the way I love you, Ned," she said. The ring, the second she put it on, she wouldn't be alone anymore, she wouldn't be able to follow her heart on some whim at the interested glance of another guy, and she had never wanted that assurance more. She put the ring on and smiled at him, her heart so full she felt like it could burst, and when he swept her up into his arms and twirled her she laughed up into the sky, up at the stars.

"I'm going to spend every day for the rest of our lives, making you happy," he whispered into her ear, after their kiss.

He had never done anything else. She laughed, wiping at her wet cheek with the back of her hand, staring down at the ring. "Just love me," she said, pressing her mouth against his cheek, kissing him softly. "Just be you and just love me, and I'll be happy."

"I've never stopped," he said, the color high in his cheeks as he pulled back to look at her. "I'll never stop. And you'll be my wife."

She nodded, and he spun her again, in his arms, and she laughed, her hands clasped at his neck. Never, ever again would she let him go.

"And you'll be my wife."

--

On the first day of their life, she was dressed in white, yards of it, so pure it was almost blue. Pure as the driven snow.

Twenty-four hours ago, after she'd recovered the kidnapped girl just this side of the Texas border, she had been burning up the phone wires, pleading her way onto a flight. No one could refuse her long, once she explained the urgency. She wouldn't be able to bear the look on Ned's face, if she didn't make it. And now she'd never have to.

Seven years ago, he'd swept her off her feet, with his easy smile, his cool intelligence. Now he was standing at the altar in his black suit, tails, a rose at his lapel, shoes and cheek gleaming. She could read the faint nervousness in his stance and bearing. Waiting for her. For seven years he had waited for her.

For seven years, he'd had her heart.

The music swelled and startled her from her reverie. Bess giggled, nervous, waiting for George to step out before she followed, giving her best friend one last reassuring glance. Her father linked his arm through his, and she took a long last deep breath.

He was indistinct, through the haze of her veil, but she could still make out the gleam of his eyes, the flash of his teeth as he grinned at her. He was her best friend. Familiar and safe and comfortable. Her heart refused to listen, and kept throbbing erratically in her chest. He was her best friend and he would put a ring on her finger in front of all the people they had invited, he would become her husband.

"Who gives this woman?"

Her father answered, and she smiled as he folded her veil behind her hair, leaving her to Ned's proffered arm. Since the night she'd told her father that she'd agreed to become Ned's wife, he'd looked forward to having him as a son-in-law, without a moment of doubt or hesitation.

She slipped her arm through Ned's and smiled at him, already feeling the pressure of tears gathering behind her eyes. He was beautiful, and perfect, and hers. For the rest of their lives. She would never wake up alone again, never again be without him, her confidant, her protector, her love.

"With this ring, I thee wed."