Written as a birthday gift for my precious friend Kitty. This i my first attempt at writing Kabby. How I love these two idiots!

The feel of her is familiar now, the press of soft curves into the hollows of his own frame, the silken strands of hair that tickle his neck and beg for his touch, the warmth of her breath as it caresses his chest.

She smells of sweat and sex, a scent now more dear to him than life itself, and he breathes her in, filling his lungs with the essence of her, of Abby, of the woman who awakened dormant regions of his heart and pieced back together a soul more broken than whole.

She is his healer in more ways than one.

Calloused fingers stir over his stomach, fingers whose apparent delicacy conceals pure strength. Hands that sew together torn flesh had clasped him in raw need only hours before, fingers that remove bullets and arrows had stroked him to the point of oblivion. He stares at lips slightly parted in sleep, resisting the urge to graze them with his finger, to touch what he longs to kiss, to taste the essence of this complex woman of sky and earth, knowing she needs sleep with the same urgency that he needs her.

She nuzzles into him then, and he smiles, cherishing the steady pulse of a heart that holds his a willing captive.

How is it such a woman exists? How is it she now lies naked in his arms, bare and vulnerable, tender yet fierce? She grants him entry into the wonders of her body, allows him to stroke and explore hidden facets of her soul, offers him the privilege of feeling her come apart around him, of tasting her climax, of holding her as her tremors subside just as his own spill over into her womb.

She now sleeps in his arms. Whatever fates deemed that he was deserving of such a gift, well, he thanks them as night's music mutes the stresses of uncertain days.

For too long he loved her in silence, stubbornly resisting the pull of a force mightier than gravity itself. Emotions masquerading as hostility were exposed when he'd found her barely breathing after the Exodus launch, leaving him raw, fragile, and pleading to a God he'd never acknowledged for her life. The feel of her against him at that moment changed everything, the faint but steady rise and fall of her chest, the way she'd clung to his shirt, the way she had allowed him to half guide/half carry her to her bed, the hoarse voice that had thanked him as he prompted her to drink and wiped sweat from her face with a cool cloth.

She became his everything before he'd even realized he'd let her in.

He'd lost himself to her that night, as he sat by her bedside, as he watched her breathe, as he allowed himself to contemplate for the first time what a life without Abby Griffin would actually mean. He'd nearly snuffed out her life once, and he shivers at the memory, drawing her closer to him, pressing all of her into all of who he is. She somehow sees him as the man he longs to be rather than the one he seeks to outrun, kissing scars that mark his skin, accepting those buried too deep for human touch. He doesn't deserve her-this he knows without a doubt.

She then murmurs something he can't quite make out.

His lips brush across her forehead, and she shivers, alerting him to the fact she's cold. He tugs the worn blanket up to her shoulders, thankful that her toes aren't frigid as they so often are, even when the rest of her is slick and sweaty from the aftermath of their lovemaking.

Her leg then glides against his own, and his body responds in spite of himself. She'd roll her eyes at his semi-hard state if she were fully awake, so he adjusts his hips, moving his growing erection away from the puckered flesh of her upper thigh where monsters had drilled into her bone. The movement must disturb her, for he spies the echoes of a sleep-drugged smile and creased lines around her still-closed eyes.

He's been found out, it would seem.

"You're hopeless," she mutters, her voice low and husky, still weighted with dreams, and he chuckles as her arms wrap around his waist.

"You're right," he says, allowing his fingers to trace the lines of her back the way he knows relaxes her. Soft lips feather across his collarbone as she burrows into the combined warmth of blankets and him, and he holds her as close as he can, wishing he could freeze time right here, with her, in this moment.

"Go back to sleep," she murmurs, prompting him to kiss her forehead as he continues to stroke her spine. She arches into his fingertips, sighing into the crook of his neck as her core brushes against his upper thigh. "Just don't stop doing that."

He smiles broadly, allowing himself to stroke the curves of her bottom as she hums into his rib cage.

"I won't," he says. "But you've got to stop doing that." He squeezes her rear as she rubs against him deliberately, taking him from half-mast to fully alert in five seconds flat. A hoarse laugh is her only response, and he considers flipping her underneath him and sliding into her before she has a chance to protest. The fact that her eyes are still closed keeps him from doing so.

"Mmm," she acknowledges as his palm cups her ass, notching up his need for her another ten degrees, but he restrains himself, limiting his touches to those that soothe. There will be time to make love to her after she's slept her fill.

She settles back into him little by little as his hand moves up to her spine, tension easing out of her with every gentle pass of his fingers. The influenza outbreak has robbed her of sleep for nearly a week, but through her diligence and expertise, they have lost no one.

Thankfully, the crisis seems to be abating. But she, the healer, is exhausted.

Dragging her into their quarters, plying her with Monty's moonshine and stripping her out of her clothes had started as a grand scheme to grant her some much needed rest. Their libidos had taken over as soon as her panties had hit the floor, however, and the sex had been hard and frantic, a surging of pent up stress and exhaustion, the aftermath of their coupling a deep and dreamless sleep.

So he holds her as her breathing evens out, as the rhythmic thud of her heartbeat slows and her grip slackens. He should sleep, too, and he closes his eyes, allowing oblivion to lure him under little by little as her breath caresses his skin. She's here with him, skin to skin, soul to soul-Abby, his Abby, just as he is her Marcus. He knows that he is getting the far better end of this deal, for she is the best thing that has ever happened to him, her trust a gift he will cherish and defend with his very life, her love as vital to his survival as the air in his lungs.

And as sleep's silken caress begins to overtake him, he realizes that this life they've created together is more than enough.