Under Control.

chapter thirty eight.

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'So, ah, you know where the phone is, I guess.'

Even with everyone gone, Julian was still second guessing himself. And Nora could tell.

On his way out and with Cat still by the hand Albert had stopped to pull Nora up from her seat to standing, looked her square in the eye, and dropped a kiss on her cheek. And then, before finally leaving, he'd stared down Julian and mouthed something that Nora hadn't been quite able to make out. This was a risk — them, alone. Them, together. It was a risk for Nora's bruised heart, and Julian's lonesome one. It was a risk for Albert, who'd only just managed to find peace between his two friends. And it was a risk, just because that's what loving someone was.

'Julian?'

Nora was standing in the middle of the room, at the centre of it and everything, and looking at Julian in a way that until recently had only existed to him in dreams and memories.

'Yeah?'

Julian was standing by the door, still marooned between want and need, wishing and waiting.

'It's a Degas painting,' Julian thought he knew what that meant, but he wasn't sure. He couldn't be sure. And so Nora went on, voice soft and eyes burning, with the room between them sparking all the while. 'Customs can keep it for all I care.'

There was something about the way that she was — calm, and with a hint of something playful about her — that tempted Julian into ease. He met her gaze, the heat and the steadiness of it, but still, he was waiting.

He needed to be sure.

'You wanna talk?' His voice still had a remainder of sleep to it, a soft edge, and the hum of him floated over slowly, landing in Nora's ear like it did when there was just a whisper and some sheet left between them and not a whole room.

'Sure, yeah. We could talk. You wanna talk?' Nora was brave, mostly. She had in it her to be, and she wanted to be. But even still and after it all she needed to know that what she thought she knew, was true.

'I, yeah, look — I still don't trust myself enough to guess here, Nora.'

Julian felt the same way as she did, and Nora could see it.

'I don't have anything particularly pressing to say, Jules. Do you?'

Nora took a step shaped like a leap then, and Julian could only laugh against the blooming feeling of relief in his chest.

'I have a lot to say,' he hummed, taking a leap of his own and daring to let his touch fall on her shoulders once she was near enough to him to reach, his hands cradling the sides of her face. 'But I can say it now, or I can say it later. I don't mind.'

With that, Nora nestled her face into his hand, her lips against his calloused palm, and let her eyes fall shut against the flurry of Julian's unexpected words.

'Tell me what you want, baby. Anything you want. Just tell it to me, and I'll do it.' Julian hoped that his face looked like his heart felt — open, and sorry. He hoped that she believed him, even if he wouldn't blame her if she didn't. And, he hoped that she'd let him talk later, after what ever this was, and want then to listen.

Nora did want this, with him. She wanted it back, and it scared her how much. But she also didn't trust it yet, not fully. And so for now, the best that she could do was just to be with him, and hope that eventually — someday, somehow — the rest would all make sense again. Or, maybe it wouldn't, and neither would they. Nora didn't know, wasn't sure and couldn't be. But she didn't want to think about that, right now.