A/N: See part 1 for the notes and disclaimer.

Skulduggery Pleasant sat behind the wheel of his beautiful Bentley and fretted.

It was still a relatively foreign feeling for him. Fretting, that is. Skulduggery did not fret. Never. Well, sometimes. Only when it came to his young partner, really. Otherwise, no. It would have ruined his reputation.

Of course, the fretting this time had to do with his young partner, too. But not because she was in any kind of mortal danger, which had been the usual reason for his fretting these last few years. At least he hoped she wasn't in any mortal danger – as far as he knew, she was having breakfast at home. Her parents' home.

It bothered him a little that Valkyrie still called her parents' home "home", not his house. His house was always "let's go to your house", "can I stay at your place today", "I think I'll stay at your house tonight".

Not home, never.

Probably never would be, either.

He sighed. It felt nice, the sighing, even though he didn't need to sigh. Many things felt nice these days. Valkyrie's hand on his arm. Valkyrie's arms wrapped around his thin frame. Valkyrie's face against the front of his ribcage, which he still sometimes thought of as his chest. Valkyrie's… Valkyrie's front, soft and warm, pressed against him whenever they hugged.

He always made sure to hug her, whenever he could do so without raising concern.

It had been a week now since that girl, too smart for her own good, had figured out his currently best-kept secret. Well, formerly best-kept secret. One of them, anyway, one of those that he hadn't yet been ready to share with her.

A week.

A week.

She'd given him hope, and then she hadn't said anything for a week.

Not a thing.

No, she'd just continued as usual. Except that it wasn't the same, their relationship, not since the night she'd as good as got that confession out of him.

There was a barrier between them now. Oh, she pretended everything was the same as before. As did he. And they were both good at pretending – after years of lying to everyone, it came naturally, if still more naturally to him than to her – but they couldn't pretend with each other and have the other convinced. Not really. They knew each other too well.

He shook his head. The movement upset the perfect angle of his hat, so he glanced at the rear-view mirror and adjusted it. It might be hopeless, this… this thing he had for her, but that didn't mean he didn't want to look his best for her.

He adjusted his tie while he was at it. And flicked a bit of dust off the lapel of his jacket.

Where was she, anyway? He fished out his pocket-watch – he was wearing a three-piece suit today and whenever he did that, he liked to carry the pocket-watch instead of just checking the time on his mobile phone – and opened it.

She was supposed to meet him two minutes ago.

Maybe something had happened. Maybe there had been another vampire attack. Even in broad daylight, even in their human skin, they'd be strong and fast.

Or maybe it was zombies. A horde of hungry zombies, munching away on his Valkyrie.

No. This was silly. Valkyrie was safe at home, eating her cereal and bouncing her baby sister on her knee.

He sighed again. Valkyrie was so good with her baby sister. She'd make a good mother some day. A good mother to someone else's children, not his. He could fool himself about a lot of things, but some things… Some things he could never give her.

Then again, it was not as if she wanted children any time soon. And they could always adopt when it came to it. Or perhaps magic…

No. That line of thought would get him nowhere.

He looked at the time again. Three minutes late, now.

Maybe there were zombies attacking her house after all. He turned and craned his neck in order to get a view of her house. It was relatively far from their meeting place at the pier but with his eyeless sight, he could see better than he ever had when alive.

No zombies. Unless they'd already broken in…

No broken windows either. Although they could have entered from the back garden…

There – the front door opened and a familiar figure came out. He sagged back in his seat in relief. She was fine. Now he just had to wait for her to sneak back up in her room, change her clothes and join him.

x

She climbed into the passenger seat and gave him a sleepy grin. His non-existing heart leapt at the sight of her.

"Did you sleep well?" he asked, knowing that she hated small talk in the mornings but not willing to forego the pleasure of hearing her voice.

"Not really." She yawned. "I did some thinking last night."

"Thinking is good." He nodded. "It's one of the skills you need if you ever want to become as good a detective as I am. Not that you'd ever reach my level, but it should give you something to aim for."

Valkyrie rolled her eyes. "You're being silly again."

He shrugged. "I'm never silly. Besides, I'm only speaking the truth."

She yawned again. "So, I did some thinking."

"We've already established that much." He winced inwardly as soon as the words left him. Teasing her was all fine and good, but he didn't want to go too far with it. Had he sounded unreasonable? It was all the fretting he'd been doing lately. Wondering. Thinking. Worrying.

She looked at him, her head tilted. "Do you want to know what I was thinking about or not? Because I don't have to talk about it. I just thought you might want to know."

Oh, great. Now she sounded annoyed.

"You were late."

Oh, great. Now he'd managed to sound petulant. What was it about this girl? He couldn't even think straight these days.

"I was late," she said, "because I didn't get much sleep last night. And I didn't get much sleep last night because I had some thinking to do."

She paused. He waited for her to continue.

"About… About what you, you know, said, last week," she said at last. "Or rather didn't say but…"

"Implied," he supplied.

"Yes. Implied."

He didn't say anything.

Valkyrie sighed. "Why is this so difficult? We talk all the time."

Skulduggery gave a slight shrug. "It's about feelings. Feelings are complicated."

"Not for me they aren't." Valkyrie turned her head slightly, looked at him. "They've always been pretty straightforward for me. See cute boy, pounce on cute boy. No thinking involved."

He waited for her to continue.

"You're my best friend," she said after another pause. "You're the most important person in my life. I love you – I've loved you forever. As my best friend. As my partner. As… Whatever it is that you've become to me."

So this was it, then. The "I love you as a friend" speech. Skulduggery forced himself to look at her instead of turning away. Not that he'd expected anything else, but he'd hoped… Ridiculous of him, really. She would never return his feelings.

"I understand," he said eventually. "Let's not bring it up again."

Valkyrie blinked. "I wasn't done yet."

"Oh."

"It never… I guess it just never occurred to me that it might not be all there was to it." She wasn't looking at him now. "Not consciously, that is. I think a part of me has – has appreciated you – as a man, I mean, for a while now."

Skulduggery didn't say anything. Inside his ribcage, his imaginary heart did a tiny leap of joy.

Valkyrie took a deep breath. "I want to – no, I need to – know, though, what exactly it is you'd want this… this relationship? – to be. To be like."

"I haven't really thought that far," he admitted. "I didn't think it would ever happen."

"But you must have some idea."

He shrugged. I want to whisk you off your feet and kiss you senseless and show you the world and make you the happiest woman alive was what he would have wanted to say, but he wasn't sure Valkyrie would appreciate that. "Whatever your previous relationships have been like?" he offered at last.

She blushed. Very becomingly, he thought.

"With a little less cheating on me with vampires," he amended, hoping to lighten the mood.

"We don't talk about vampires, remember?" She grinned at him. "Besides, you'd know instantly that something was up."

"That I would."

"So no cheating."

"I'd appreciate that."

"With Fletcher, we mostly just…" She pursed her lips. "You know."

"Unfortunately I do, yes. You were hardly circumspect about what you got up to with your boyfriend."

"Well, I suppose we could do that, too…"

He was glad he couldn't blush. "We can do whatever you feel comfortable with. Or we don't have to do anything at all. It's not really…" He cleared his throat. "I'd like to, don't get me wrong, but I don't need to… Whatever you got up to with Fletcher. Or Caelan."

"We could watch movies together."

"We could."

"And go out. I'd like to learn to dance. Like you did at the Ball."

"We can do that."

"And you could take me places? Somewhere warm." She pulled her jacket closer around her. "I'd like to go somewhere with a beach. Or a pool."

"I should be able to arrange something. Unless there's another emergency in which case we need to save the world first."

Valkyrie grinned at him again. "The world can wait a bit, surely? Beach comes first. Or a pool. I'd be happy with a pool."

"You're a Sanctuary detective now," he reminded her. "Work comes first."

She sighed. "I suppose you're right."

"But we don't need to save the world all the time. I don't think there's an apocalypse planned for next week, for example. If it's a holiday you want…"

"I do. I've needed one for ages now, but…" She hesitated. "I haven't wanted to go anywhere without you."

He didn't say anything.

"So I guess we just see what happens?" she asked after another pause. "Take it a day at a time, that sort of thing?"

"Sounds like a good plan."

Valkyrie fidgeted with her seatbelt before letting it go. "There's something I'd want to do right away."

"Yes?"

She reached up at him and touched his cheekbone, gently. He hadn't bothered with the façade, and he was glad he hadn't as the touch of her fingertips on cool bone felt wonderful.

"Would you mind terribly if I kissed you?" she asked, her tone a mixture of playfulness and anxiety. "It's just, well, I've always wondered…"

"Always?"

"Well, no, not always. Not when I was twelve, obviously." She scowled. "But sometimes. Later. Just in theory, of course, I wasn't actually going to do it, but I was—"

"Curious?"

"Yes."

He adjusted his hat. A quick glance in the rear-view mirror told him his tie was still perfect, so he didn't need to fix that. "It's because I'm so dashing, isn't it?"

She laughed. "Yes. Yes, that's what it is. So, um, can I?"

"Certainly."

She grabbed his tie and pulled him close, her lips replacing the lingering sensation of her fingers on his cheekbone. It felt even better this time.

"I think this is going to work out just fine," she murmured into his ear when she finally pulled back.

The End.