I'm feeling kind of sentimental about Cold Case these days... I'm not so sure we're gonna get a season eight, and the new episodes are just getting better and better... especially Two Weddings, which I just adored (aside from the lack of Kat Miller). So my LS muse crept out of the understairs cupboard and begged me to write this, because I was on tenterhooks for them to dance at the wedding. And Kathryn looked beautiful. Anyway, it's not all that great, it's fairly rough, but it was my little shipper reflections. Hope I stayed in character.

Reviews are always very much appreciated.

We Sure As Hell Ain't Dancin'

The shoes, however much she spent on them, hurt like a bitch, and she was leaning against a pillar sipping a glass of champagne she'd lost count of. A few loose blonde strands were obscuring her vision, and she was trying not to let her eyes drift closed.

Nick disappeared almost an hour ago, and she was pretty sure Will's sneaked home.

Last she heard Curtis was going out the front to ring Kat... which although she supposed wasn't the best idea in his current state of inebriation, she let him go.

Boss was sitting in the corner, deep in what looked like a very serious conversation with an elegant looking woman who she thought Louis had introduced to her as one of his aunts earlier in the evening.

She tapped her fingers lightly on the side of the glass, thinking of Anna and Dan and the concerning similarities the initial investigation had brought up to her almost-wedding. She didn't even want to think about how many years ago that was. Her slight smile widened almost imperceptibly as she considered the irony of the bouquet landing at her feet.

Like that was ever going to happen.

She hadn't heard from Eddie in months, they hadn't exactly parted on good terms... and she couldn't... she'd never been very good at looking forward, but she just couldn't see herself with Eddie, not for something as definite as forever.

Faces danced in front of her mind for a moment, Patrick, Ray, Kite, Joseph, Eddie... All of them smiling, all of them promising her things they couldn't give her.

The smile faded.

"You haven't been dancin' nearly enough tonight, Lil..." a soft voice whispered, slightly too close to her ear. She felt goosebumps rising over her skin, and blamed the champagne.

She looked sadly down at her feet. "My shoes." she said simply, and he laughed, taking her hand.
"Come on... one dance!"

There was a light in his eyes that wasn't quite always there, but again, she blamed the alcohol, letting her eyes drift over his face noncommitally as she staggered slightly after him into the crowd of wedding guests.

His hand was warm against the small of her back, but he held himself far enough away from her to keep a soft distance between their two bodies, two friends, dancing. That was all.

"I hate weddings." she muttered as a ludicrously drunk bridesmaid started making out with a groomsman hardly a metre away from them, and Scotty gave that low chuckle that made a blush creep over her skin.

She'd definitely had too much champagne, but now wasn't the time for that thought.

"Your sister?" he asked, casting his eyes shamefully to the floor, pressing his hand a little tighter to her skin. She nodded slightly, but he didn't look up in time, and neither of them said another word, moving in time with the music.

She caught her breath and nearly stumbled as he spun her, but he caught her, fingers gripping, splayed on her skin, his other hand flying to grab her hip.

His face was too close, and then she blinked.

"Louis looks really happy." he tried, but all she would give him was a small smile, a tired smile, her eyes bright and unreadable.

Across the room, over Scotty's shoulder, she saw Boss leading the woman he'd been talking to earlier into their corner of the dance floor, smiling, and she nodded slightly, knowingly. He deserved to dance with an elegant stranger at a wedding.

The music changed, and their pace slowed.

Anna and Louis were kissing again, and the remaining guests still paying any attention were cheering, but all Lilly could feel were those splayed fingers, drawing her closer. Her hands snaked from their conventional positions to loop around Scotty's neck.

No longer just two friends.

She was warm and small, her eyes wide and unsure. They hovered close to the edge of the dance floor, hardly moving, swaying in time.

"What would yours have been like?"she asked, and he knew she meant his wedding, his wedding to Elisa.
"I never had a freakin' clue." he laughed, but a silence ensued.
"I'm sorry, Scotty." she said, and it was for so much.
"Me too." he breathed, "For Christina, for-"
She shook her head. "That was forever ago. It doesn't matter now."

Another silence stretched between them, and he watched, transfixed, as another blonde wisp fell from her carefully pinned up hair.

"That fiance of yours-"
"Patrick?"
"Yeah." his eyes turned dark. "He was an ass."
She gave a light laugh. "Hmmmm..."
"Lil?"
"Uh huh?"
"I mean it. It was his loss."
She smiled, then gulped, almost comically.

Seconds passed. Their eyes did not move.

"Scotty?"
"Mmm?"
"We're not dancing anymore."

Like friction, his lips burnt over hers, in the corner of the dance floor at Louis' wedding, and they found themselves close together, mapping out unfamiliar yet comforting territory with lips and hands.

It wasn't until it occurred to Lilly that Stillman might be watching that she pulled back, hands still clasped around her partner's neck, smile on her face.

"We sure as hell ain't dancin' anymore, Lil." Scotty breathed, an identical tentative smile on his face. Her fingers played with the cropped dark hair at the nape of his neck, her eyes flickering from his eyes to his lips, as if she were deciding something. She seemed to come to her conclusion quickly though, because within moments she'd closed the gap between them and started kissing him again.

This time, after things had started to get a bit heated, Lilly's back pushed against the ornate column, when Scotty pulled back the expression on his face was one of bemusement.
"This ok?" he asked, his voice low and almost feral in her ear. Goosebumps spread over her skin, and she kissed the side of his jaw, realising it was something more than that champagne making her this bold.

"Partners, right?" she echoed his own words from weeks before, when she'd stood dangerously close to him on his balcony and wondered what it would have been like to make that a regular occurrence, to have been more than his friend. And although it didn't really mean anything, although it didn't really make sense, he pulled her body flush against his and kissed her again, one hand tangling in the blonde hair he'd spent the last seven years occasionally longing to touch.

She tried to murmur his name but it was lost against his lips, and she considered that she was feeling all this so vividly that maybe the champagne wasn't so much in control anymore, and there'd always been something...

She made a promise to herself. Not to look back, not to regret.