For Fuck's Sake, Stella.

You're cursing yourself again. Why? Because you've been without your journal for five fucking minutes and already you've near-doubled the amount of internal monologues you have. Internal - save for that sickening soliloquy you accidentally gave to Burns. The one that made every muscle in your jaw twitch with the effort of not giving in to emotion.

"Oh but modern life is such an unholy mix of… voyeurism and exhibitionism"

You have no doubt that that line would have been scrawled at the top of the next page of that sodding book. That sodding book which was now sitting downstairs in a plastic evidence bag.

Oh Stella, don't take it out on the book. You left it lying around for Spector to see.

It's easy to be mad at the book though, like it was a person. A person who had spilled all your deepest, darkest secrets. It was easier to be mad at the book than admit what you were really feeling - a miserable mix of anguish and loneliness. That book was kind of like your friend. The friend of a child who didn't play well with others and relied on their favourite stuffed toy instead. It was the Wilson to your manic Tom Hanks.

Great. Now you're comparing yourself to a mad man on a desert island. For fuck's sake, Stella.

You know why you go to the morgue. It's less because you have to and more because you're slowly coming apart. Although, you do have to, because Spector's read every page of that fucking journal and he knows exactly who the leather-clad woman riding into a crime scene on a Ducati is. He knows exactly how intimate your dream was that night, knows exactly how your body responded. That puts Reed in danger, and that scares you too much to say out loud.

She's burning the midnight oil. Scrubs. Low-ponytail. Still immaculate. You know it would be more than a little odd to just tell her off-the-cuff and so you make up some bullshit about needing to know more about the dead girl in the woods. You don't. The toxicology reports can't help you right now. You stay though, while she finishes work, because fuck - everything Reed does makes you feel warm and fuzzy and safe, right down to tapping away on her keyboard while you lie sprawled on the couch.

"Right, I'm going to go get changed"

You realise you've been napping - comfortably - having your first non-Spector charged stint of subconsciousness in a week. Reed's office is warm and cozy and your eyelids are heavy as you struggle to respond to her words. Her face breaks into a smile when all you can muster up is a nonsensical noise.

"You're ready for sleep"

The sudden adoration in her features jolts you but you force yourself to remain impassive. There's something about the words too - she says them protectively, motherly, almost the way you would talk to a sleepy child. It's a small thing and Reed doesn't understand the significance of it, but it causes a sudden rush of emotion to course through you. Emotion that both slightly abates and yet painfully reminds you of that loneliness once again. Emotion that has the icy Stella Gibson furiously swallowing an inconvenient lump in her throat.

You watch her leave, wondering what she'd say if she knew that she was the reason you'd managed to fall asleep, however lightly, in the first place. Because no one in this god-forsaken country could make you feel quite as - shit, secure - as Reed.

You'd told Burns just that morning that you'd almost made the same mistake. It hadn't been to make him feel better because you didn't much care how that self-important, utter mess of a man felt. But you had almost fucked up, royally. You'd almost put Reed in the same basket as Olson, and all the rest. You would have too, if she hadn't had more sense about her.

You would have fucked her and then gotten her killed. He would have found her and strangled her, maybe even dolled her up. He would have carefully painted that blood-red varnish on to her perfectly manicured fingernails and smiled, knowing that he was screwing with you just that little bit more. He would have…

…. For fuck's sake, Stella.

There it is again, that silent admonishment. You get up and go to the cool room as a distraction, pulling out the drawer.

You're dead. She isn't. She's warm, you're cold. She's okay. She's fucking fine. Now you're talking to the cadavers

"What on earth are you doing?" She's back, you're in her domain. Black tank. Shirt open. Searching you.

You have to tell Reed, Stella.

You have to tell her everything.