Blackout 6/6

Chapter 6:

The last of Charlie's students left the room and Charlie didn't even notice. Once they'd all turned in their tests, he'd put all his attention towards grading them quickly. His lighting-fast mind and eidetic numerical memory meant he could grade papers merely by looking at them for a moment, instantly noticing any errors.

What he didn't notice was Deirdre standing in the doorway of his classroom.

She finally knocked on the door, startling him.

"Hey! What are you doing here? Your four weeks off aren't up yet! Aren't you supposed to be at home recuperating still?" He ushered her into the room and offered her a chair, which she waved off.

"I just wanted to... I guess I wanted to come back and see..." She was having trouble expressing herself, but Charlie understood. He'd had trouble his first time back in the classroom as well, even though the blood and shattered blackboards had been cleaned up already. Unable to shake the memories, Charlie had put all the remaining blackboards in a storage closet and moved a small potted palm tree into the corner where the blackboards had been.

Deidre couldn't take her eyes off that corner, regardless.

Charlie stood behind her and rubbed her arms with his hands more to comfort her than to warm her even though she did look chilled.

"See?" he offered. "Everything's fine now."

"Yeah," she said softly, turning around to face him. "Thanks to you."

"No, we both did it." Charlie wasn't going to take the credit for saving them, especially when he was still carrying around the guilt over letting her get shot. "If you hadn't had that PDA..."

Deirdre opened her mouth to protest but stopped and just looked down at the floor, instead.

Charlie picked up on this immediately. "I tell you what. Let's just be glad we're both still alive, put this all behind us, and move forward, okay?"

Deirdre looked up at him gratefully, and nodded.

"You know, Deirdre," Charlie said, lowering his voice, "these last few weeks..."

"Yes," Deidre prompted him, standing a little closer than necessary.

"Coming to visit you while you've been recuperating, having you teach me more sign language... It's been... I've just really been enjoying spending time with you." Charlie stepped a little closer to Deirdre as well. "So, why don't we get out of here and you can start teaching me some more sign language?" he said with a grin.

Deirdre smiled and stepped in closer to him, placing her hand on his chest in the form of the letter 'C'.

"I'd like that," she said softly.

Charlie returned her smile and leaned in to kiss her; one long kiss followed by two short ones.

'D'