Oh, how she wished she could see his smile again.

Not the false pretense that had haunted his face for the past few weeks. The real one… The one that evoked a feeling of intensity in her heart every time it played gently across his handsome face. The one that reached all the way up to his eyes…

Oh, how she could get lost in those eyes.

Their chocolate brown complexity hypnotized her. He could be read solely through his eyes. There was always a hint of sorrow, but she knew it was only because his heart had been ripped apart time after time, case after case, shot after shot, death after death. Apart from the ever present sorrow, there was a blithe, raw emotion that she couldn't name. It was much deeper, more connected to the soul that she knew was beneath the flesh and muscles.

Oh, how good looking those muscles were.

The muscles that carried her when she was tired. The muscles that held her tightly as she cried. Those muscled that tensed when he worked. The same muscles that had been shot at and injected and almost killed.

Oh, how the killing killed him.

She could see it on his face, in those eyes. Every life he took was ten years off of his own. He would guilt himself into a premature heart attack, she knew. Of course, the justice in his heart overrode the guilt, but the guilt still resided in his mind. It affected his mood, his mindset, the way he held himself, although he never let it control him.

Oh, but it wasn't these things that made him so perfect for her.

It wasn't the overwhelming good looks or the job. It wasn't the muscles or even the eyes. No, it was the spirit. It was the boyish trouble making. It was the man who kneeled beside his bed each night to thank whoever was up there that he was still alive to see another day. It was the family that he held so close to his heart. It was his sensitivity and his softness beneath the hard shell he tried too hard to keep around his feelings. It was the possessive way he spoke about her, the way he held her hand without even knowing it. It was the way he kissed her… They way she knew he wasn't after a purely physical relationship. It was the love, so intense and so pure that drew her in.

And oh, how he drew her in.