Disclaimer: I know that I don't own Pushing Daisies or Lee Pace… But I can dream.

Ranting: NC-15, just to be safe.

Summary: As if somehow, a small memory of Ned had remained inside her.

Paring: Ned/Chuck

Dedicated to my patient and lovely Beta; thank you very much for the magic.

Spoilers: Everything until Corpsicle is fair game.

Title: Lately

Chapter Title: Sins (I)

By Lylou

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Chuck: "Where've you been?"
Ned: "Not important."
Chuck: "It's important to me. I missed you."

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Some nights, he still woke up uneasily at midnight, as if he had just remembered that he had accidently left the gas turned on; and always, for those very first seconds, Ned didn't remember that he wasn't alone in that bedroom anymore; that now, his bed seemed narrower than it used to be and that there was a faint scent of honey floating in the dark air of the room.

Always, in those first seconds, Ned needed some time in the blurred space between dreams and awareness to allow himself to re-remember that he could hear someone else's breathing in the room.

Her breathing.

For the first nights she had been there his exhausted mind had travelled in vain during unending sleepless hours, just listening to her calm breathing in the bed next to his. He'd think, not so much about all of the intricate moral and metaphysic possible consequences of having a re-alive-untouchable girlfriend, but more on how now their clothes were mixed in the same closet. Sometimes, when he put on one of his shirts it still held a faint trace of her warm scent in the black fabric, making Ned feel dizzy and keeping a silly smile on his face throughout the day; until the night, when he slowly unbuttoned his black shirt and that warm scent, like peaches heated by the final days of the summer sun, faded. Because that was how the pale skin of her neck and collarbone smelled.

Or at least, how he thought they would smell.

Of course, Ned had never gotten close enough to her to discover if his daybreak musings were true, but that didn't stop him from the addictive and incredibly painful routine of imaging it. It was just like the way Ned couldn't help but look disguisedly at her while Chuck was kneading in the kitchen, smiling radiantly because the flour had stuck to her small hands. She'd wring them delicately, and it made her look even more like something unreal and definitely out of this world.

And actually, she was.

Ned held his self-destructive, yet delightful mental thread the best he could and turned slowly in his bed to look at her; Chuck was sleeping safely and quietly only a few feet from him.

The certainty that this was how they were going to spend the rest of the nights of their attached but separated lives made Ned feel terribly sad and sick. It was as if suddenly all the honey and pure joy that she had brought to his life had transformed into something bitter, unknown and rotten.

And soon, they'd have something else bitter, unknown, and rotten to face.

Ned had finally brought her home after two miserable days of looking for her everywhere, all the while torturing himself with the idea that maybe he would not see Chuck ever again; until he finally found her, sitting on the frozen ground and looking at her father's headstone, covered by the snow.

And that had been the very first time in his life that the Ned had said an irrevocable "No" to her -- under the snow, when she begged him to bring her father back, even if it was only just for one painful minute.

After that, he put his coat upon her shoulders and remained, silently standing behind her for some minutes as an involuntary witness of her too lonely and too sour goodbye.

He was secretly sure that at any moment, the woman he loved would magically fade under his big coat at the same speed with which she had appeared in his life again.

But she didn't.

And then, under the quiet snow and looking at her, Ned couldn't help but think about how his life would be now without the sound of her chuckle fluttering around him, or without her big green eyes, looking grateful, lovingly and a million things more, and making Ned feel for the very first time as if he was much more than only a tall and lonely shadow who smelled like flour and baking powder.

After some minutes more in silence, Chuck turned to look at him with wet eyes and a small smile dancing on her lips; and when she spoke that snowy and cold night seemed less chilly to Ned.

"Let's go home."

He couldn't help a half smile when he heard the word "home" from her lips, and then was the very first time that Ned realized, that actually, it was true; she was living with him, in his home.

They were just like a normal couple, sharing the shower, the bedroom, the closet… and they both felt that maybe those walls were something worth going back to.

But that illusion of warmth and normality faded fast and painfully when Ned felt a familiar dark and latent pain in his chest when he realized that it was impossible for him to do something as normal as hold her hand to help Chuck to get up from the snowy ground.

So she walked by herself as they headed for the car, and they left the frozen cemetery behind them.

After two days without her, Ned waited until Chuck was completely asleep, and did something that he hadn't done since their first night together – that night when Chuck slept in his former bed and he imagined her across the wall -- he locked the door.

Of course, there was an urgent need in his shaking hands to protect her and her secret when he closed the bolt, but there was also a dark and hidden spot in his mind which convinced him that, otherwise, Chuck would run away from him while he was sleeping.

You know it, but you don't want to admit it –you feel it even now, as she sleeps safely in the bed beside yours: something has changed. The spell has broken and you are not Prince Charming anymore; reality has caught up with the both of you.

Ned sighed. Frustrated and unable to sleep he turned again in his bed to look at her; he could make out her body's silhouette under the blankets through the darkness in the bedroom.

Their bedroom.

Again, Ned had to remind himself that now he was sharing his bedroom, his life and his secret with somebody.

She was still sleeping, but Chuck seemed to have developed an unconscious mechanism that always made her wake up only a few minutes after him. She was aware of that fact too, and secretly liked the idea, as if it was some kind of invisible bond that connected her to him; it was like after he had touched her cheek and brought her back to life, her body was still able to remember him, as if somehow, a small memory of Ned had remained inside her.

Even before she opened her eyes, Chuck could feel his gaze upon her body through the shadowy bedroom, and turned slowly to look at him with a small smile dancing on her lips before asking warmly: "You can't sleep?"

Ned didn't answer immediately, he just looked at her intensely and in silence for a few seconds. At first Chuck thought that he had just woken up of a nightmare, especially when she saw a spark of fear crossing fast behind his eyes… or maybe it wasn't fear, maybe it was pain.

And then Chuck couldn't help a rush of love overwhelming her when she realized that Ned never had seemed that much like that lonely nine-year-old little boy she knew once, until now.

Suddenly Chuck felt the urge to run to his bed and comfort him and wait underneath the blankets with him, until the last cell of her body was impregnated with his scent.

And if his touch wouldn't kill her instantly, leaving him miserable and devastated for the rest of his life, she would have jumped underneath the covers with him and leave all the rest outside that bed.

Ned cleared his throat softly and spoke with that mix of shyness and stutter that she loved:

"Sort of. … I… I'm tired, but my body doesn't want to give up."

Chuck wrinkled her nose gracefully in the darkness and smiled softly before she whispered:

"Yeah… I know the feeling; it's weird when you want to rest but your brain is still awake and kicking."

"Yes… Something like that."

Chuck looked at the long shadow laying in the bed next to hers, deathly sure that there was something else he needed to say her, and knowing deep down, that somehow she was the reason for his insomnia and elusive tone.

But everything else faded when Chuck felt an instant sharp lance of guilt and regret, hearing Ned speak without even looking at her and in a low and urgent voice that she never had heard from him before:

"You are okay, right? I mean… You, you have been fine for the last two days, haven't you?"

And then, in their dark bedroom Chuck could feel her heart breaking noisily under the weight of his fragile voice, his concern and his love. Hot tears formed fast and burned her behind her eyes; when she whispered, Chuck's voice sounded tearful, overwhelmed and a thousand things more:

"I haven't been okay… But I've been safe."

Her answer seemed to comfort Ned, even if he had clearly heard the trembling and the tears in her voice through the ever brightening room.

His tone changed a bit and Ned spoke warmly with a little smile on his lips and a small teasing tone in his voice:

"And what have you being doing during these two days…?"

Chuck could felt her heart stopping inside her chest and all her blood coagulating painfully in her veins, knowing that she was going to lie to the man that had given her a second chance of living without asking anything in exchange. She knew that it would torture and hurt him in a million different ways if she said something like: "I have been busy avoiding you and almost telling that creepy man who lives underground and seems to stalks us how Digby and I are alive again. It's all because I was feeling miserably lonely and mad at you, and mostly unconsciously but partially on purpose, I wanted to hit you where it would hurt the most. And I know very well that what hurts you the most is me, and our secret."

So she lied:

"Nothing. Just… thinking."

Ned's voice sounded worried, sad, and something else, something small and dark that Chuck couldn't guess then, but even then it still made her feel as guilty and depressed as she ever felt during all the time she had spent next to him.

"Something I should know about…?"

A brutal and shrill voice in Chuck's mind screamed: "He knows it; he knows that you almost ruined everything, and he isn't going to be able to forgive you. You are going to lose him, and your re-gifted life isn't going to be worthwhile without him."

So Chuck lied to him for the second time that morning.

"No. Nothing."

Ned looked intensely at her, wishing he could go to Chuck's bed and kiss her thoroughly until she forgave him, or until she told him the truth, whichever came first; because he knew then that she was lying, that she had been lying to him since she had woken up. But he was too happy to have her back that he decided not to think about it.

At least, not today.

And Ned was an expert in doing that.

An expert in hiding all the unpleasant things and putting them together in some dark corner of his mind, and acting as if he had forgotten about them, as if they didn't exist anymore.

And of course this time wasn't an exception; but somehow, the thought of going to Chuck's bed and crushing his body against hers and kissing and loving her until she was moaning his name, tortured Ned for longer than usual; until in an uncommon fit of sanity, he decided that it was enough torture and impossible delight for the moment.

But before he surrender completely to their reality again, Ned had time to think about how it would be to wake up every day with Chuck's taste in his mouth and with the rest of his senses flooded by that honey scent of hers -- it was enough to drive any man mad -- or how it would be to have her underneath him until there wasn't a centimeter of Chuck's body left that didn't belong completely to his hands and his mouth, and then continue, until she wasn't able to feel anything but the trace of his saliva upon her skin and his hot breathing in her ear.

And then, Ned got up of his bed just like any other day, having dreamt of her only to discover that he had fallen in love again when he woke.

He was deadly sure that having just a small and untouchable piece of Chuck was much better than not having her at all, and unaware that today, everything was about to change forever, and that he would have to say goodbye to the woman he loved.

To be continued…

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