Questions And Answers...

What About Rene?

"I'm sorry, Kelly. For everything. I really thought that perhaps....." but she didn't bother finishing, knowing her race had been run.

Kelly smiled, a little sad but not for what had been. Just the heartache it had cost him. "Guess everything happens for a reason...... it's taken me a long time to find someone I can trust and love..... Stella is everything I've ever really wanted."

Rene felt a deep stab of envy and loss as she watched her ex-boyfriend turn round and walk away, feeling like she had lost him all over again.

*****

Stella trudged up to her apartment, her world seeming to be collapsing. Her stomach was churning and she felt dejected and sick. There weren't too many conclusions to come to when your boyfriend's bed hadn't been slept in and his last known movements were with his ex-girlfriend. How could she ever compete with an international lawyer who just happened to be hot as hell? And someone that Kelly had been desperately in love with to boot.

Fitting the key into her door lock, she was wondering when he would tell her that he and Rene were getting back together. Just the thought of hearing those words was like a punch to her gut.

It was that brutal thought that was carving its way through her chest when swinging open the door, she saw Kelly, sitting relaxing with a newspaper on her bed, one leg tucked under him, his face lighting up when he saw her.

Shocked to see him there, Stella faltered, trying to find something to say, caught completely unaware.

" Wha...I....I thought...you were gonna pick me up?" She babbled, trying to compose herself.

"You did? No. I was waiting for you. I stayed here."
His eyes had his lazy heaviness of post-early morning wake up.

Stella's face betrayed her confusion for a split second but then tried to appear casual hanging up her jacket trying to calm down her galloping thoughts.

"Uh...Did you win?"

"Yeah, case is over." He was smiling, knowing she would be pleased.

"And uh.... err.. what about Rene?" She had to ask the question giving him an opening.

Perching herself on the arm of the couch, she sat and faced him. It was so Stella to confront every situation.

Kelly smiled at her, blue eyes soft with tenderness.

"I told her congratulations and there's no reason to see each other again.......and I came here."

That was Kelly pretty much telling her everything she wanted to hear and her heart bubbled with love at the understated way he had of telling her the most important things.

Smiling she recalled her conversation with Cruz earlier. "Grand gesture." She murmured to herself.

"Huh?"

Moving to sit in his lap, she snuggled herself into him, Kelly wrapping his arms around her and kissing her neck.

"I just miss you," Stella admitted, the loneliness of the last couple of weeks pouring into those four words.

Kelly squeezed her as she looked up at him, the unease of Rene's recent intrusion laid bare.

Kelly studied her, thinking how at peace he was, right here, with her in his arms.

"All I think about, is you.."

Stella stared at him, his simple confession filling her heart. Kelly was a man of few words and right now the few words were everything. She raised a hand to the back of his head and she looked into his eyes telling him everything silently, and then they kissed each other, falling back on the bed, needing to reestablish the physical connection that had been lost recently.

*

Kelly pulled the blanket over them, drawing Stella closer to him. Their breathing had slowed to a natural cadence and he was drawing idle circles around her hip, thinking about how to tell her.

"Rene kissed me." His words were slow and hesitant.

His hand continued to stroke her hip while he waited for her to say something. There was silence.

'Stella?"

"Did you kiss her back?" She asked finally, her head staying buried against the side of his ribs.

"No." His response was quiet and simple.

"O.k." inside her, Stella suffered a prick of jealousy.

"Are you angry?" Kelly asked, not quite sure how to take her measured responses.

"Not with you...... thank you for telling me though...... you didn't have to...."
She had been right to not trust Rene after all.

"I know. But I wanted to."

"I was a little jealous of her.."

"Is that why you told her not to mess with me?" Stella could hear his amusement.

"No..... I just didn't want her to hurt you again..."

Kelly's heart contracted. Christ, did anyone ever love him like this before? Putting him before herself? Always.

"I went to the Loft before I came home this morning. To look for you."

Stella needed to tell him that.

"You never had any reason to be jealous, Stella." He kissed the top of her head.

"She's hot and clever. And you were in love with her once." Her words were almost lost against his skin.

"That was a long time ago...and I'm in love with you now. Madly....deeply....and you're so much more hot and clever...and hot...did I say that already?"

He sat up and pulled her into his arms so she was straddling him. He smiled at her in that way that he did which turned every cell inside out and could make her stop breathing.
He buried his head into her chest and she threw her head back laughing out loud as the hairs of his day-long beard tickled her skin.

"I love you, Stella." He murmured against her breasts and Stella giggled with pure happiness as he suddenly rolled her under him, Stella shrieking, her leg hooking around him. "How about you plan that guess what color game for our next shift off....and I"ll make sure we don't get disturbed..." He looked down at her thinking that all his futures were in that face.

As the shadows of Rene drifted away, Hermann's converted garage echoed with the sounds of love and laughter.
Everything was going to be just fine.