Scout had actually drifted off somehow by the time George returned with hot tea for her. She awoke with a start when he opened the door, holding warm, dry pjs which he'd found in her dresser during a quick trip upstairs. He made sure she could change on her own, turned his back briefly while she changed, then sat down with her, pulling her into his arms and helping her drink her tea, pulling a blanket over her, trying to warm her up.

"So, tell me what happened?" she asked softly when she finally stopped shaking.

"I don't really know," he answered, rubbing his chin meditatively on top of her head. "I woke up and you were gone. The dogs were gone as well, and I found them shut up in the attic, of all places. You must've put them in there before you went outside. Have you done this sort of thing before? Walked in your sleep, I mean?"

She shook her head. "Never. I usually sleep like the dead," she replied.

"Strange," he said.

Something about his tone of voice sounded evasive to her, and she lifted her head to look at him. "What else?" she asked him.

"What do you mean?" he asked, shrugging. "There's nothing else."

She lowered her head back onto his shoulder. "Why was it so cold in here?" she asked.

"Oh. All of the doors and windows were open," he said.

She lifted her head again to stare at him. "What?"

He nodded at her.

"You're saying I got out of bed, locked the dogs in the attic, a room that I've never even been to before, then I opened every single door and window in the house, then I wandered outside and went for a walk along the cliff in my bare feet and pajamas, all without waking you up and without waking up myself?" she asked, her voice getting higher and higher in pitch.

George took a deep breath and nodded.

"Yeah, I guess so. People do strange things when they walk in their sleep, I've heard, you know?" He looked at her. "Maybe it's just a delayed response to what happened yesterday, to spending the night on the ledge and nearly dying and all that."

Scout blinked at him. "You really think so?" she asked doubtfully. "I'm not usually like that, though. I'm normally very down to earth and calm and normal and all that, you know? Not very emotional or full of vapors or likely to faint and get all weird."

George grinned at her. "Maybe you're just coming into your femininity a little late in life."

"That's a very sexist thing to say, George Wilder," Scout said with a frown. "I'm going to ignore that, I think."

Scout yawned.

"We should probably get you to bed, love," George said, giving her a little shake. "Come on, then, up you go, hm?"

They closed up all the downstairs windows and doors before they went upstairs, and Scout noticed that it took the two of them close to ten minutes to do it together. She found it hard to believe she could've done all of them alone, in her sleep, no less, especially since she herself didn't know the locations of so many of the windows, and the latches were unfamiliar to her.

When they got upstairs, George turned to her regretfully, saying, "I think it might be better if you slept in there, on your own," gesturing to the smaller room she'd been sleeping in.

Scout looked at him, unable to keep the hurt out of her eyes. She swallowed and looked down. "Okay. Okay. Good night, George," she said softly, turning away.

He watched her walk through the doorway, and he heard her sad breath. He bit his lips together. This was for her, he told himself. This was to keep her safe. What had happened tonight, what had been happening practically since she arrived, had to stop. He couldn't protect her, that had been made clear. She had nearly died.

This was the only way.

George got into bed. Jess and Bandit jumped up with him and walked around, looking for Scout, whining.

Fuck.

"Sorry, guys," he whispered softly when they came to peer earnestly at his face. He scratched their heads in apology. They lay down for a few minutes, then jumped off the bed and wandered into Scout's room, and he heard her dulcet voice talking to them, murmuring in soothing tones. He could also hear the unmistakable sounds of sniffling, which was like a knife twisting his heart.

He lay there a few more minutes and tried to fall asleep without the three creatures he loved most in the world, and finally realized that he couldn't do it. What was more, he realized that he didn't want to. He couldn't be a prisoner to the past anymore.

He tried telling himself he couldn't ask Scout to take such a huge risk with him, that it wasn't fair to her, but he realized he didn't care. So what if he just didn't tell her? Maybe he could just not tell her? Couldn't that be a kind of protection?

He wasn't going to.

He got out of bed and strode through the darkened doorway, hoping she wasn't sleeping yet. He approached her bed quietly, whispering, "Scout?"

She flipped the comforter back and grasped him by the wrist at the same time, pulling him into the bed, making a sound of gladness that made him smile in the dark.

He lay on top of her, resting his full body weight her slight form, his forearms on either side of her head. He reached over and turned on the lamp.

"I want to see you, is that all right?" he asked.

She nodded, eyes glowing, leaning up to kiss him, mouth open in anticipation.

"Dogs, off," George said, turning his head slightly, and he only had to say it once. Jess and Bandit both jumped off the bed and lay down near the doorway, content and tired.

He turned back to Scout, kissing her deeply, grasping her head firmly with his hand, exhaling through his nose.

He needed this. He was going to have this.

He sat up, unbuttoning the flannel pajamas he'd picked out for her just a short time before, his fingers fumbling with his nervousness. He bit his bottom lip as his eyes flicked from the buttons up to her luminous eyes.

"I'm sorry I sent you away," he said, brows furrowed. "I just--I--"

Scout sat up, putting a finger on his lips before leaning in to kiss him. "Shh," she silenced him. "I don't care, I don't," she assured him. "I just want to be with you now, okay?"

"Okay," he nodded.

She brushed his fingers away from her pajama top.

"You're taking forever," she said with a soft laugh. She quickly unbuttoned them and slid the top off, leaning back against the pillows when she was finished.

"Oh, wow, Scout," George breathed. "You don't even know how long it's been since I've seen anything so pretty, honestly." And he reached for her, sliding his hands up her waist until his thumbs were touching the gentle swells. He leaned in and kissed her, continuing to move his thumbs up until they were covering her nipples, which felt like soft gumdrops to him.

Scout moaned into his mouth for a moment before she pulled away. "It's okay, George, I've done this before. You can tell the truth," she said softly.

"What do you mean?" he murmured, moving to kiss her again.

"I mean I'm not some virginal girl you have to sweet-talk, that's all," she said with a smile. "I know about my body," she continued with a little shrug.

She leaned forward to kiss George again, but this time he pulled away.

"Hold on a minute, you need to explain that," he said. "What exactly do you know about your body?"

Scout sighed, covering herself. "Look, I'm a twenty-four year old woman with an advanced degree from an Ivy League institution, that's all I'm saying, okay? I'm not stupid. I know you like me, I understand attraction is about more than just physical things, and I understand you can be attracted to me for more than just my body, so it's not a big deal if you find me a bit lacking in the physical sense. I don't mind," she said reassuringly.

"My old boyfriend explained about how men get turned on visually, and how it's nothing personal, and it's normal for men to need more stimulation than can be provided by one woman, especially if the woman looks like me," Scout said with an embarrassed smile.

George was listening in shocked silence. He made a rolling motion with his hand, indicating that Scout should continue.

Scout rolled her eyes, and kept talking. "I know that you'll probably need 'help' to get ready for intercourse," she finally said.

"Help?" George repeated curiously.

"Like from my mouth or my hand," Scout elaborated. "Or from pornography."

"And what about you?" George asked. "Do you get any, um, 'help', from me?"

"Well, no," Scout finally replied. "Women don't usually do that, right? That's a myth, perpetuated by magazines and men's pornography."

"Wait, what?" George asked, shocked.

"Jesus, I can't believe we're talking about this," Scout said, deeply embarrassed. "Women don't usually have orgasms, that's just a myth perpetuated by women's magazines and men's pornography."

George just stared at her. "And all this was told to you by your previous boyfriends?"

"Well, boyfriend," Scout admitted. "I didn't date much."

"What was this boyfriend's name?" George asked, scooting up on Scout's lap.

"Will?" Scout told him. "Why?"

"I just wanted to know the name of the wanker who'd filled your head with such a load of nonsense," George responded, gently removing the blanket she'd used to cover herself.

"Now, Scout, Lawson, let's just get a few things straight, okay?" He looked into her eyes. "You are beautiful. Your body is utter perfection, exactly as it is, and no man should need any sort of 'help' to get ready to have intercourse of any kind with you."

He leaned in and kissed her. Their tongues tangled into an amiable twist between them, making them smile. He pulled her up, clasping her to him.

"Every single time I've been close to you, I've been hard as granite in my pants, you know that," he murmured in between kissing her. "How could you possibly think anyone would have trouble getting excited for you? Hm? Jesus. Mm." And he moaned as he slid his hand up between them to squeeze her lovely, pointy breast, the nipple hard between his fingers.

"And just so you know, women having orgasms isn't a myth, and I'm going to prove it to you tonight, many, many times," he said to her with a little smile, and it was one of the sexiest things she'd ever seen.

"Okay," she replied breathlessly.

He laid her back so he could pull her pajama bottoms off, and he knew she wouldn't be wearing any knickers, because he hadn't brought her any earlier when he'd brought her the dry pjs. He looked at her smooth, white thighs, at her hip bones, and her dark patch of pubic hair, and her sex, which was as pretty as he'd known it would be.

He leaned down to inhale her scent, and to taste her, which he guessed, based on her words, no one had ever done to her before, and he was right. She gasped at the sensation of his mouth and tongue on her, and he smiled reassuringly at her, putting his hands on her thighs, stroking her, trying to get her to relax a little bit.

"Do you want me to stop?" he asked her. She looked at him, eyes huge, and finally shook her head. "Okay, then, just open your legs, darling, and close your eyes, all right?" And she did, and he licked into her, letting the wonderful taste of her, which he'd been dreaming of for weeks, finally wash over his tongue.

Amazing.

"Scout, you taste absolutely glorious," he murmured. "And you're going to come now, okay?"

She nodded, eyes still closed. He grasped her hand and placed it on his head, encouraging her to push and pull, and after a little while she established her own rhythm, rocking her hips into his mouth, moaning, touching her little breasts with her other hand, and it was so sexy that George wanted to just grab himself and finish while he watched her. Within a few minutes after that she climaxed, thighs tensing around his head as she yanked on his hair, gasping out his name.

Jesus.

George moved up her body, kissing her beautiful skin as he went, sucking on each breast before finding her lovely mouth again, kissing her swollen lips once more.

"Thank you," she murmured, looking as beautiful as she'd ever looked to him, starry-eyed, roses in her cheeks.

"My pleasure," he responded with a smile.

She kissed him again as he settled between her thighs, and she felt him, and he was so hot and so hard and he was pressing on her sex, which was still so sensitive after her very intense orgasm.

She instinctively spread her legs to him, wanting him inside her, and George, who hadn't been with anyone in over a year, could feel how slick and warm and tight she was, just from the tip of him nudging at her entrance, and he groaned and thrust and he was inside her, and it was absolutely heavenly, and the fact that he wasn't wearing a condom, far from being a deterrent, made it feel absolutely incredible, and there was no stopping him, no stopping them.

"Oh god, Scout, fuck, feels amazing, you feel amazing," he hissed, and she moaned in his ear, and she rolled her hips up to meet every thrust, and he was hitting something deep within her, and she tightened her thighs on his hips, wrapping her legs around him.

She'd never felt anything like this with Will, ever.

George looked into Scout's beautiful eyes, whispering, "I love you, Scout, I love you," and he pushed into her, so hard, and they both went rocketing deliriously over the edge together, holding each other so tightly as they fell down the other side.