"What's the matter with your back?" Liz asked.

Red looked away and crossed his arms over his chest self-consciously, and Liz's attention was drawn briefly to the way the muscles in his upper body shifted beneath his skin with the movement. Shirtless Red was a distracting Red, but Liz knew she would have to put her own reaction to him aside if she was ever going to get to the bottom of what was going on.

"More than a ripped stitch," he answered after a while, and he stood there, tense and almost timid, like one wrong word from her could destroy him.

"Why don't you let me see?"

Red took a deep breath and held it for a moment before he let his eyes slide shut and let the breath out through his lips. Slowly, he nodded, just enough that she was sure that's what he was doing.

"Will you turn around?"

Stiffly, he turned, but only a little, a few halfhearted steps, like he wasn't comfortable controlling this moment more than halfway, and she would have to reveal what he was hiding from her on her own.

Liz reached out to turn him the rest of the way, closing her fingers around his upper arm below the still-pink scar from Tom's bullet. The skin on the back of his arm was thick and gnarled under her fingertips. She sucked in a breath once his back was to her, the full extent of his secret finally visible. Her heart began to pound in her ears, drowning out any other sound save her own quickening breath.

His scars… His scars were burn scars. Red's entire back was covered in burn scars. Liz's hand hovered mere millimeters above his skin and her eyes slid shut against the onslaught of memories—flashes of fire and heat and fear and strong arms carrying her to safety.

His one good decision.

She was his one good decision?

Suddenly, his demeanor over the past several days began to make some kind of sense. Saving her had been the traumatic defining moment in his life and it had happened again.

Again. It had happened again. No wonder he was such a wreck. Hell, it was a wonder he was still functional at all.

Silent tears ran down Liz's cheeks unchecked. Her own scar twinged in sympathetic pain; if she were more fanciful, she'd say it was recognizing its twin, born on the same night, in the very same fire. But she wasn't quite that fanciful. The scars weren't linked, but they had been ever since that fateful night.

She took a moment to compose herself before she set about cleaning and dressing his wound. When she finished, she laid her hand over the new bandage, like a blessing, an absolution.

"There," she said, her voice thick. "Good as new."

"Lizzy," he croaked. "You're killing me here. Please—tell me what you're thinking. I can't handle dancing around the elephant in the room for much longer."

Red could see her expression in the mirror. There was no use pretending he couldn't—chances were he watched the entire gamut of emotion play out across her face in silence, wondering desperately what to make of it. She offered his reflection a lopsided, watery smile. Once the first aid kit was packed away again, she came around to face him.

"You saved the girl." She pressed a quick kiss to his cheek, perhaps closer to his mouth than it needed to be. "That's all that matters."

Whatever Red expected her to say, that obviously wasn't it. He put his hand on her arm before she could move too far away and his jaw worked wordlessly. Before long, his face crumpled like it had the other night and he pushed forward into her arms, clinging tightly to her as he sobbed into her shoulder.

Liz still wasn't used to seeing such raw emotions from Red; he strove so hard to control the image of himself he presented to the world that part of her had started to believe the facade. Perhaps she should've listened to her instincts rather than her fears.

She rubbed his back, learning the terrain of bumps and recesses, thick and thin patches of battered skin.

He whispered something into her shoulder. It sounded suspiciously like, "Thank you."

This was a long time coming, Liz thought. It certainly explained a lot about Red. He carried the weight of this guilt for decades. He'd never been able to forgive himself for whatever happened the night of the fire, but to have her forgiveness… Knowing him, that meant much more to him than his own.

Liz pressed her mouth against the bare skin where Red's shoulder met his neck, leaving a tentative trail of open-mouth kisses in her wake. It was meant more as a comfort than anything else, just a way to help ground him, to ground herself in the moment.

His breathing sped up again, even as his tears stopped falling. Slowly, he began to stiffen, hot and hard against her stomach. She pressed closer, almost unconsciously. He inhaled sharply and began to pull away, cheeks flushing pink.

"Wait. It's OK." How close had they just come to this in the bedroom, and downstairs before that? She brushed the backs of her fingers along his lower belly, just above where his hard length lay still covered by his trousers. "Would you like me to…"

"You don't have to," he said, but he pressed forward anyway; he didn't say no, didn't shake his head or do anything to indicate he wasn't just as interested as she was.

"No, I know." Nuzzling and nipping his neck, she directed his hands to the hem of her shirt. "But I want to feel you. Is that all right? I want…"

"Of course it's all right, Lizzy," he said, breathless at her ear, "Of course."

And then his hands were splayed under her shirt, pulling her tightly against him again, and he blindly sought her lips with his.

Their first kiss had been comfort, their second pleading, their third a promise. This one was fire, an electric sort of heat coursing along their nerves and quickening their hearts. His fingers traced up her back, caressing as far as he could reach under the restrictive fabric of her clothing.

After a while, it wasn't enough. They pulled back a bit so they could slide her shirt off over her head, and then her fingers busied themselves at his waistband, making quick work of his belt buckle and fly.

He reached around her back to unhook her bra and she couldn't help but notice that his fingers, though confident and skillful, still trembled as they worked to undo the clasps.

It was flattering as hell to think that she could evoke such a reaction from a man like Red, even more so after he pulled back so he could take her in. It seemed to Liz that he had forgotten to breathe. His pupils were so dilated, almost none of the stormy green was visible at all.

"You're beautiful," he said, and such a trite sentiment had never felt so thrilling. He reached out and traced her curves with curious fingers, caressing and stroking, sending wonderful spikes of arousal coursing through her body.

His gentle reverence tugged at her heartstrings. A man had never looked at her body with such wonder clear on his face. It was nearly too much, too intense, despite the softness of it. She couldn't possibly be deserving of such high esteem. How on earth would she live up to it?

Thankfully, he pulled her close again soon enough, winding his arms around her body. The shock of their bare torsos pressed together was enough to steal the air in their lungs in matching gasps and their breathing sped up as they clutched at each other, at skin exposed for the first time, as they savored each other's warmth.

Liz worked a hand between their bodies, slipped it beneath Red's underwear to wrap around his length. He inhaled sharply even as he pushed himself closer.

The weight and the heat of him in her hand, the girth… She could only anticipate what he might feel like inside her. He made such wonderful noises, gasps and moans and little breathy sighs, noises that brought to mind the sounds he made when he ate something exquisite, some obscure delicacy she had never heard of.

"Lizzy," he said, gruffly, as her fingers moved, "I'm afraid that I'll…"

"That's fine. That's what I want. I want you to feel like it's OK to let go with me."

Red locked eyes with her, his face full of gratitude, for a breathless moment, and then he sought her lips again. His hips rocked in counterpoint to her movements, faster and faster, with more urgency and less rhythm, until he tore his mouth away from hers with a deep, rumbling groan, and spilled hot and quick over her fist.