The Dresden Files/Codex Alera is copyright Jim Butcher. This story is licensed under the Creative Commons as derivative, noncommercial fiction.

Written for the Day By Drabble Blue Skies Event on Livejournal.

Prompt #2: photo of fireworks

Author's Note: This is set after Summer Knight, from Karrin's point-of-view. It's a little angsty, since they're both recovering from relationship and supernatural badness, and a little teensy bit shippy in that 'did I just think about kissing my best friend?' kind of way.

They were on a desolate stretch of lakeshore north of the city, someplace she'd never been before. The horizon seemed to burn – aglow with the far-off, steady lights of Chicago, the silent and gaudy flash of fireworks and fickle lightning in thunderclouds to the west. The moon was rising, huge against the purple-gray twilit sky, mirrored in the water.

Harry was walking down the shoreline with a baseball bat in one hand. He looked less scary without that ridiculous coat, barefoot, wearing holey Levi's and a gray t-shirt.

She had been more than a little surprised when he asked what she was doing for the Fourth of July – he was going to the lake and invited her along. They'd never really done much outside of work before, except for drinks at Mac's a couple of times. Karrin agreed to go, even though she knew spending any amount of time with him at all usually ended up going like Ferris Bueller's Day Off meets The X-Files.

Today had been startlingly normal, though. They had fished for a few hours without much luck. Karrin caught two that neither of them could identify. Harry caught a hiking boot and released it back into the wild after threatening to make filet of Timberland sole for dinner.

When the fish and boots stopped biting, they threw firecrackers at each other and talked, steadily depleting their supply of beer and sandwiches and topics that weren't her dead ex-husband, his not-so-dead highschool sweetheart, or what had happened last month.

Or what had happened last year.

It was obvious how much of an effort he was making to get past it. It had been bad enough for her – the night terrors hadn't ceased, but she was recovering. He was still too pale, faded around the edges, unsettlingly subdued. She was used to a different man, the larger-than-life version, funny as hell, always quick with a smart-ass remark, short-tempered, volatile.

He still talked with his hands, though, and she had seen the scars on the inside of his wrists; messy puncture wounds, in sets of two.

She shivered, even though it was warm next to the campfire.

Dresden had stopped a few yards down the shore and was now digging through the cardboard box of fireworks he'd bought, bringing out a handful of little cannonball-looking things – the kind used in professional shows.

He picked one, tossed it in the air and home-run slammed it out over the lake where it exploded in a flash of gold, blinding and violently loud, low enough that she could hear the hiss of sparks on wet sand. He did this a few more times and she applauded.

Beer and high explosives – this was his kind of holiday.

"Can I try that?" she called, trying not to limp as she walked over. She didn't need crutches anymore, but her knee still ached from their Acme misadventure in the Wal-Mart garden center.

Harry held out the bat. "Go for it."

"How do I light it?"

"I'll do it," he said, handing her a firework. "You just knock it out of the park."

She gave him a skeptical look and threw it, swung and missed. Twice.

"Do you want me to—" he started, taking a step toward her.

"I've got this," Karrin said, narrowing her eyes. He held up both hands and stepped back, out of range of the bat. She swung again and this time it connected but went wide and low, struck a driftwood log and ricocheted right back at them.

"Foul ball! Hit the deck!" He was already scrambling backward, one hand wrapped around her arm. He pulled her back and down, and her vision was a whirl of stars and bright green fire, then darkness as she hit the ground, as the air rushed out of her lungs.

She opened her eyes to Harry Dresden's thermonuclear grin.

"Strike three. You're out."

He was still half on top of her where he'd dropped to his knees in the sand, duck-and-cover style, his hands still wrapped around her arms, just above her elbows.

It had been a long time since she'd been this close to a man she wasn't arresting; this was too close, too warm, too heavy. He smelled like leather and ozone and black powder, like magic, and she wondered what he would do if she kissed him, whether it would burn — then wondered why she was even considering it.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

She rolled her eyes, more at herself than anything, then sat up and pushed him away; putting the fleeting, fuzzy-headed feeling she'd had down to alcohol and atmosphere.

"You wizards have some really dangerous sports."

Harry flopped down on the sand, fingers laced behind his head, wearing a crooked smile.

A real smile. Something she hadn't realized she had missed.

"For the last time, Karrin, I don't play Quidditch."

Thanks for reading!