You know the drill. I don't own Downpour, I don't profit from writing etc. etc. etc...

Originally, this was going to be really explicit but it turned out to be tame enough to post to FFN so I'm pretty happy about that XD This is pretty long, so I thought it might be easier to read if I split it into two parts.

For my girlfriend.

In the smoky air of the bar, even with the relatively sizeable crowd, she wasn't difficult to spot. Even out of her work uniform and in street clothes, Anne Cunningham had a way of sticking out. It could be the intensity to her or it could be the sense of familiarity in seeing her there, cradling a cup on the bar in front of her in both hands, back hunched. But whatever the case Murphy Pendleton's eyes immediately managed to gravitate to her as he entered the building, leaving the cloudy gray evening behind him as the double doors slid shut. He sidestepped bargoers in varying stages of drunkenness through the small, dim space and ended up by her side.

"Hey, stranger," he said before realizing how goofy it probably sounded. Anne was by no means a stranger. They'd been meeting like this for months now, always in desolate, dumpy little bars and out-of-the-way restaurants. Anne's reasoning was that places like this would attract less attention, make them less visible, which was necessary for what they primarily discussed—before the discussion inevitably veered off topic and reached the far ends of the spectrum—namely, making a case against Sewell. That wasn't to say that the meetings didn't occasionally include a little good natured flirting, but as far as Murphy was concerned at the end of the day Anne was always primarily all business. Anne was, of course, good at choosing these low-profile locations. Murphy had had to know the name of the bar to find the place, but if he didn't he would have believed anyone who told him it was called the Hole in the Wall. It was that refined. "Sorry if I'm late. Took me a while to find the place."

"Hey yourself," Anne replied, but there was a hollow quality to her voice, and the pit of Murphy's stomach dropped several inches. Shaken slightly, he lowered himself onto the stool beside hers, staring hard at the glass in her hands. It looked like whiskey, confirmed by the quarter-empty bottle of the liquor sitting on the bar before her.

"You okay?" Murphy asked, his tone shades gentler than the last sentence he'd uttered. "Should you really be drinking so much?" She'd driven here, after all.

"Why not?" she asked, and momentarily there was a dull throb of buried anger in her tone, that old dangerousness, before she buried it in a long, slow sigh. "Might as well. Sewell was acquitted."

"What?" Murphy asked. He felt like he'd been punched in the gut. "Even after—"

"Mhm," Anne replied, taking a swig of the whiskey in her glass before her and then placing it back on the counter much harder than she needed to. The clatter attracted the attention of the bartender momentarily and then he went back to polishing glasses. "Not enough evidence. 'Circumstantial', they said. And they wouldn't even let me testify. They called it fucking conflict of interest. And so with all that the case fell through. There weren't any credible witnesses. Live ones, anyway." The amount of bitterness in that last statement made Murphy's hair stand on end. "So all of this has been for nothing. Even after all that he still… the bastard still walked."

"God idammit/i," Murphy huffed, mostly because he didn't know what else to say. All their work, all their sleuthing and combined brainpower, nights of brainstorming, all of it had ultimately amounted to nothing. Murphy felt sick to his stomach. Not just for himself, either. Sure, Sewell being convicted would have meant Murphy's freedom, would mean he wouldn't have to live out of hotel rooms and work odd jobs off the radar and live on borrowed time because he was supposed to be, by Anne's reliable report, a dead man. And if he were a live one, he would be a wanted one. But the more pressing issue was Anne. Because this was her father's killer in question. This was her one chance for closure going up in smoke before their eyes. Murphy hurt for both of them. "I'm so sorry. Is there anything else I can—"

"No," Anne replied quickly, and there was a tremor in her voice, her usual tough invulnerability falling away to reveal the delicate person she kept so well concealed underneath. "You've done more than I could have asked for. We gave it our best shot. There's nothing else we can do."

It wasn't like her to give up. It worried Murphy more than the hopeless tone she said it in. "Sure, we can…"

"Don't," Anne said rather sharply, shaking her head. "Just don't. I don't want to talk about that right now. I can't. There's nothing I…" it didn't seem she could finish, and she bowed her head forward, a helpless gesture. Her shoulders shook once, twice, and Murphy placed his hand on her arm, pushing it gently back down to the counter when she lifted it to pick up her drink, and then sliding up to her shoulder. Seeming almost indignant, Anne lifted her head and fixed him with an intimidating stare, which he chose to ignore.

"Let me take you home," he suggested, his voice low. He hoped it was soothing. It had been so long since he'd had reason to be tender with someone he found himself tripping awkwardly over his words, feeling as helpless as she looked and sounded. "You can get some rest, worry about all this tomorrow. It's not doing you any good right now, trust me." It wasn't that he thought she was drunk; Anne was better at holding her liquor than anyone he'd ever met. Certainly better than him, with all those years behind bars without a drop of liquor reducing his tolerance drastically from what it had been before. It was that he was worried about her, about what she might do. Never mind that she might end up crashing if she drove after all that whiskey and while she was so upset, and he'd never be able to live with himself, knowing he let her get hurt. It was more about what she might do to Sewell if he left her alone. The bastard wasn't worth throwing her life away over and he'd be damned if he let Frank's daughter end up with a number on her back.

Not even justice for her father was worth that.

"I can drive myself home." Anne sounded hollow, more so than before, and when she reached for the whiskey a second time, Murphy intercepted her hand and put his on top of it, successfully ignoring the warm jolt in his chest as he did so.

"I don't think that's such a good idea," he gave his rebuttal firmly, but not roughly. "And I think you've had enough."

"I'll tell you when I've had enough," Anne replied, the classic remark of people who have definitely had enough, before finally sighing softly and letting her shoulders slump. "Alright. I'm sorry." She sounded miserable. "I guess I don't need to get drunk and belligerent and start a bar fight on top of everything else."

Relieved that he'd gotten through to her, Murphy coughed unnecessarily and removed his hand from on top of hers, feeling like some kind of ridiculous schoolboy. "So you'll let me give you a ride, then? I'd feel a lot better if you would."

"I could have one of the guys from the prison give me a ride to my car tomorrow," Anne said reluctantly, and Murphy knew he'd won. Wobbling a bit with what Murphy suspected was not drunkenness and merely sheer emotional exhaustion, she slid from her stool. She had no purse to grab, and had left her holster at home. It was strange to see her without a gun on her person. Somehow, she looked much smaller. "You sure you don't mind?"

"Of course. I'd actually rather make sure myself that you get home safe," Murphy replied, fussing more than was necessary. She'd already been through so much, and now this, on top of everything else. In his own small way, he wanted to help her however he could. Even if it only meant giving her a ride when she was in no shape to drive herself and when she might have vigilante justice on the brain. He knew her well. Definitely well enough to know it was a possibility.

"Thanks." Anne sounded genuinely grateful, much more than the situation warranted. "For everything."

"Yeah," Murphy responded, because he didn't know how else to react to that. He wasn't sure he'd ever done anything to deserve her thanks. Now that she was standing, he did the same, and gestured toward the door. "Come on, my truck's in the lot. Should probably get out of here before it starts to rain."

And of course, the downpour had already started when they exited the bar. It pattered heavily on the windshield during the mostly silent drive to Anne's home. Apart from her giving him directions, the interior of the truck was filled with silence and the smell of their wet hair. Even with that, Anne smelled nice, though it made him feel like some sort of creep to think about. In the confines of the truck they were in closer proximity to each other than they'd ever been, besides during their myriad of awkward hugs, and her scent filled the interior of the cab. It was a little difficult inot/i to notice. The scent was something like poppies, with those vague, ever-present-in-anyone undertones of recently used soap.

"You okay?" Murphy asked after a time, mostly to derail his thoughts. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Anne nod.

"Sure," she responded, voice heavy. "I just wish I…" She didn't seem to know how to finish.

"I know," Murphy nodded back. "I know."

Anne's home turned out to be a small two story house twenty minutes away, tucked into a rather pleasant neighborhood and with two large oak trees out front. It was surprisingly quaint for someone as intense as Anne Cunningham, but then again he wasn't entirely sure what he'd been expecting. "This it?" he asked as he pulled into the driveway.

"Yeah." Anne sounded like a soldier after a battle, and she undid her seatbelt, but then simply sat there and glanced sideways at him. "Want to come inside? I could make some coffee." A pause, and when she spoke again it was in a confessional tone. "I guess I just don't want to be alone right now."

"Sure." Murphy nodded, putting the truck in park. He climbed out with her into the rain, the driveway and the grass of the yard burdened with the wetness of the storm. He waited, staring into the stormy sky, as she fished keys out of the pocket of her jeans and unlocked the door. Inside, the house smelled like her, with an assortment of undeterminable homey scents laced through that surprisingly feminine floral smell. The air was warm. He stepped out of the way so Anne could lock the door behind them, and then followed her into the kitchen.

"Coffee?"

"Why not?" Murphy wasn't about to turn down her hospitality. Anne moved over to the coffee maker on the counter and began measuring out grounds and water, depositing them in their correct places. Murphy watched the rain fall outside the window.

"We were close, you know. To nailing him," Anne said while she was busy with the coffee maker, putting far more focus into the small tasks at hand than was really necessary. "If the damn thing hadn't fallen apart in court, then we would've…" she was all business, as usual. Strong and steadfast and unbreakable, and then she felt apart. It was abrupt, like a glass smashing when it hits the ground. All at once she threw the box of coffee filters against a cabinet and crumbled, shoulders dropping, head falling down toward her chest. Murphy was standing at an angle where he could see her face, and it screwed up as the tears started to come, tears she hadn't let herself shed when they were in public. "Oh god dammit," she moaned, face already streaked with tears. One hand came up to clamp itself over her eyes, and the other fumbled blindly for the counter behind her so she could lean up against it. "Fuck."

Murphy was frozen in place by her sudden display of pain. It killed him in ways he could not have imagined and he let out one shallow, shuddering breath before he came for her, not even really knowing what he was doing. She saw him coming and lunged for him, pulling him into an almost crushing hug, which he returned. They were almost exactly the same height, and it made hugging simple business. One cheek pressed to hers, Murphy held Anne as she held him, and she shuddered several times. She swallowed it all before she was able to start openly sobbing, but those shakes still happened, uncontrolled. As her arms tightened around him, Murphy swallowed hard. Her moment of outward despair passed quickly, but he couldn't help worrying, anyway. It was obviously still there, buried again. Slowly her arms loosened and she was holding him instead of clinging to him, but she didn't pull away. Murphy didn't either.

"Stay like this for a while," Anne muttered, shifting enough to make the embrace more comfortable. She sounded shaken, but no longer like she was on the verge of falling apart, and Murphy allowed himself an internal sigh of relief. If she wanted to keep this closeness, who was he to deny her? Especially since there was something about holding her like this that made him feel like somehow, everything made sense for the first time in quite a while. It was an enormous and slightly daunting thing to realize. He shifted with her, accommodating her better in the circumference of his arms, and as he did, his lips involuntarily grazed the side of her neck.

Murphy almost offered an apology, but then her reaction was not at all what he'd expected, no tensing up of her muscles and awkwardness. Instead, she relaxed, a soft breath releasing with a bit of sound as it happened. Murphy was all at once overcome with surprise but also something that felt almost like butterflies in his stomach. He was at a loss, but the way she leaned into him, the way she'd reacted… almost as though he was running on autopilot, or as though he was living in a separate world where it was an entirely normal and acceptable thing to be putting the moves on a prison guard with whom he had what was supposed to be a strictly professional relationship, he did it again. He was caught up in the impulse of the moment, struck dumb by the sheer frivolity that her reaction had somehow unleashed, and this time it was less of a brush and more of a kiss. While last time she had relaxed, this time Anne positively melted. Murphy could not deny the electric thrill he got from that, from the way her fingertips kneaded into his back momentarily, seemingly involuntarily, before she leaned her neck back into his reach, back against his lips in silent consent for him to do it again. This time rather than keeping his lips firmly pressed together he allowed them to part slightly, loose, and egged on by the low gasp she released he trailed kisses down the side of her neck.

II must be losing my mind…/i he told himself somewhere in the middle of his burst of spontaneity as he lavished her neck with kisses, but he didn't stop. Not when his lips parted further, when the tip of his tongue brushed her skin briefly, not when Anne leaned farther into him and tilted her head to the side to give him better access. Not when any sane person would have stopped. Certainly not when his mouth made its way down to her tee shirt and he lifted a hand to move it slightly so he could close his mouth over the place where neck met shoulder. As he sucked gently at her skin there, he was aware of Anne's breath coming faster, harsher, her fingertips kneading at the skin of his back. These things fueled his desire to ignore common sense, to slowly let one hand drift to her hip.

Apparently, that did it. Anne sucked in a hard breath and pulled back enough to move her head, crushing her lips to his. Murphy felt his rear bump against the side of the counter as Anne backed him into it, kissing him slow and deep and desperate. She'd always seemed like such a controlled person but now all of that was gone, peeled back by the sheer level of passion she was expressing in every kiss, in the brush of her tongue to his lips. Murphy let his meet it, a spike of desire slamming into him hard and fast, without warning. Her tongue caressing his desperately, Anne pressed him harder against the counter as her body moved forward to meet with his. The heat of her curves melding with the rough shapes of his body made Murphy's head swim. It wasn't as though he hadn't thought about this, lonely nights in a musty motel bed with his head full of very non-pious thoughts of this woman who had become so many things of him. He was only human. It was more than he could do not to think of her when so many of his feelings had changed and molded around her and she had fit her way into his heart. Lover was something she'd only ever been to him in his most private thoughts, and the clash of his fantasies and reality was far more deafening than that of the clouds outside the window.

Murphy tried to speak around the kiss, a pleasant shiver running the length of his spine as one of her hands squeezed his bottom, the other moving to fumble with the buttons of his shirt. There were things he felt he needed to clarify, even with his head so dizzy and arousal starting to pool in his abdomen and lower in very fast and incredible amounts. "Anne…" he started, only to have it kissed away before it was finished. "Anne… I was wondering…" her kisses drifted to his neck, and Murphy took the opportunity to voice his concerns. Because it was becoming increasingly obvious, if it hadn't been enough already, that this wasn't going to end with mere kissing. "Are you going to regret this in the morning?" it was a valid concept, and as loathe as he was to do anything to put a stop to this intense and passionate night that had only just begun, he wanted to make sure this was happening for the right reasons. Anne was upset, had been through an ordeal today, and she had been drinking. And Murphy was there, the only person around to soothe her worries. The last thing he wanted was for his long repressed desire for her to reach crescendo and find out that he was the only one in it for the reasons he was. For all these tender feelings that arose when she was close and this pure, aching iwant/i for the woman in front of him, one of hands exploring inches of his torso whenever she managed to get a button undone. "You're upset. I don't want you to do something you'll regret because of it. I just—"

Anne's mouth had been exploring the various spots that made him jerk unconsciously on his neck, but at that she moved it back to his, kissing him with such intensity that his knees nearly buckled. It was lucky she was there to support him. When she pulled back there was a fire in her eyes and the look she gave him gave him a jolt in the chest, intense and passionate and with an edge of almost irritated disbelief.

"If you really think me wanting to be with you has ianything/i to do with what happened with Sewell, you're not as smart as I had you pegged," she told him very candidly, eyes watching his in a heated way that was somehow still gentle. "And that'd be a shame. I don't waste my time with idiots." Murphy was very conscious of a ridiculous grin coming over his face as she spoke. "Let me make this very clear; iI want you/i. I've ibeen/i wanting you. And if you tell me you haven't been thinking about this too, I'll call bullshit right here and now. I've seen the way you look at me. Pretty close to the way I look at you, I imagine. So no, I won't regret this in the morning. I've been regretting not doing this a lot of mornings for a long time now. Does that answer your question?"

"In that case, forget I asked," Murphy replied, the grin still on his face. For a moment he just stopped to look at her watching him, fully conscious of how pretty she was now that he knew he had every right to appreciate it. Then, he moved one hand to pull the elastic out of her hair, and it tumbled down around her face. Running his fingers through her hair as he moved in to kiss her, a small contented grunt rose in his throat. Reassured, his free hand worked its way up under her tee shirt, and he felt somehow humbled by the softness of her warm skin under his fingertips. Anne groaned into their kiss as he explored skin he had never dreamed he'd touch. The curve of her side, the bow of her hip. The gentle, subtle slopes of her back and stomach and the warmer skin under the back of her sports bra when he dipped his fingers under the elastic. Anne had finished with his buttons and her hands felt warm as they slid gently over his skin, exploring as he was. Their kisses were less uncontrolled now, less needy and frenzied and instead slower, deeper, more passionate. Murphy's shirt hit the floor as Anne pushed it off his shoulders and he moved his arms to accommodate it, and he grabbed the bottom edge of her shirt and lifted it off of her, too.

There was something almost unreasonably sexy about Anne standing before him in the kitchen in her jeans and gray sports bra, hair messy from his fingers running through it as they kissed. Murphy fell back to her with enthusiasm, tongue finding hers, hands running up and down her soft sides and then up under the front of her bra to cup her breasts. Anne groaned and her hands froze on his hips, fingertips digging in just barely as his hands started to knead them softly, the soft warmth feeling almost surreal against the rough callouses of his hands. It had been so many years since he had been in an intimate situation, since he had touched a woman this way, and he concentrated hard on memorizing the softness of her breasts, the taste of her mouth, and the wet heat of her tongue brushing his. They were things he never wanted to let slip away, even after it was over, but right now it was difficult to think of anything else when she was arching slightly against him, her hands squeezing his hips.

To be continued...