A/N: Can't believe it's over...can't believe its through. Yes, this is the end my friends. Thank you for all your love, your comments, your support. I'm tinkering with an epilogue but for now, our journey is complete. Thank you for sharing it with me.

When love is truly right (this time it's truly right)

It lives from year to year

It changes as it goes

Oh, and on the way it grows

But it never disappears

After all the stops and starts

We keep coming back to these two hearts

Two angels who've been rescued from the fall

And after all that we've been through

It all comes down to me and you

I guess it's meant to be

Forever you and me

After all

(After All - Peter Cetera ft. Cher)

Drums beat in the distance, they march in the same staccato rhythm, toy soldiers sent off to fight an endless war.

Battles waged, lost and won, over a decade in the making, both fresh wounds joining bodies already riddled with scars. White flags finally raised, surrendered guns laid down at feet.

They are an earthquake caused tidal wave, a natural disaster that leaves things crumbling in their wake. Yet, like after a wildfire, the earth renews, more vibrant and alive than the dead brush of the past.

OoO

The stack of papers sits on the table, the last scratch of the pen, sign here, initial here, and it's done, a long awaited conclusion to a marriage that had been on life support for years. It's bittersweet, to him, the letting go, the Catholic guilt, and yet there is a freedom that feels like wind back in his sails.

He and Kathy had put up the house, already in escrow, almost complete in their separation, shaping and bending to all that is new. The kids are all grown, the reveal anticlimatic, most of them knowing better than their parents ever did. Eli comes every other weekend, his toys littering the corner of the living room. He didn't expect ever wanting this for his children but there is a happiness in him that he can only surmise is the best thing he can do for the people he loves by ceasing to live a lie.

"You okay?" she asks, and he looks up to greet her intuitive gaze. Her hair is growing back, soft and darker, it's natural color now, so much the same and so different from so long ago. He remembers when she cut it, he had laughed, he knew she was trying to take away from her physical appearance so that she could portray the, badass cop. They had encountered enough men, both suspects and colleagues who didn't take her seriously, at first. He hadn't told her that she didn't need a short haircut, she showed them soon enough. Showed him too.

Maybe he always knew.

Looking up, he meets her eyes, toffee warm, color back in her cheeks and he thinks he might be too optimistic because she's been eating better, the jutting of her collarbone, slightly less pronounced. He knows her vitamin and med schedule better than any doctor, how she likes her eggs on the mornings where the light makes her sick, and which brand of orange juice to keep in the fridge. She knows the nightmares that shake him to his bones, and how to place her hand on his chest to wake him, the informercials at three in the morning their church service until he's calmed enough to lie back down.

It's been a three months since they've been back, since she stopped digging in her heels and just let them be. Her last blood test results are pending, the couch is still lumpy, his back aches and the knots in his neck appear to be everlasting, but he wakes up to the sound of her breathing in the bedroom...and for now, that is enough.

OoO

The way they tune into each other has never ceased. The cord had been severed, sometimes she had felt that last bit hanging threadbare, but it had never completely disappared. She can feel it now even, in the way he looks up at her, his eyes bright, and yet storms ringing in the distance. She knows that he will take his right hand, run it over the, barely there, stubble, and force a smirk on his handsome face.

Then he'll say, "Yeah I'm fine" even if they both know he's not. But she won't say anything, not yet, because they know when to push...when to pull, and when to acquiesce.

Just as he had known in that hospital room, just how much she needed to be pushed, and how far he could go without losing her over the edge. As much as she hated the idea of surrendering, the idea of him walking out of that sterile room and now going back to her shoebox apartment, it terrified her more than the unknown.

"Up for a walk?" she asks and that garners a real smile and a nod, better than any oxygen mask that breathed life back into her lungs.

He grabs her sweater, even as she protests, the sun barely beginning to warm the ground, flowers just remembering they were alive after the winter chill. As his hand slides into hers, she feels akin to them.

OoO

The sun shines onto his face, and for the first time in forever, he remembers to be thankful for the small things, like how the blue sweater looks against her skin, still too pale than he'd like but a promise for the future. For the way the light fills the park by her house, almost drowning out enough of the city to make him feel like they're away together, for the swings that he pushes his son on, and for the fact that she grips his hand tighter and leans into him around the bend.

To any passerby, they look like a normal couple but he knows they're somehow less than and more than that all at the same time. Because there's been no discussion on where they're headed but he knows that they've seen the worst of life, of each other, and they've battled their way back together...stronger.

OoO

"I got a called today, from the doctor" she starts out, quiet, the voice stuck in her throat and he stops underneath a tree, pulls her in front of him and looks down at her, his eyes shimmering and wide, worried.

The lump in his throat bobs with emotion, "Okay, that sounds..." he trails off.

Her hand reaches his other hand, the tether, her anchor to the world, and it's in that moment she realizes that he saved her. Without him, she's not sure she could have made it, and now there's no going back. They save each other, that's what they do, and they always will. The last part is whispered in the wind and she tries to ignore the implications, her heart not yet prepared to make that leap, instead they run their steady marathon around each other...with each other.

Squeezing his hands tighter, she matches his gaze fully, "I'm officially in remission" she says softly, still not believing it.

A sob escapes his throat and his hands are on her face in an instant,in her hair, and his lips press against hers, promises murmured with no words, their fates sealed, her fingers twisting in the softness of his sweater, hearts beating in sync.

When he pulls away, his forhead rests against hers, "I love you Liv" he tells her, "God I love you so much"

Tears fill her eyes, and she bites her lip, the emotion almost too much, and she can't bare to look at him, in fear of losing it completely but she nods against him, her fingers digging into his sides softly, "I love you too" she murmurs, so soft she wonders if he hears it but his arms wrap around her, pulling her as close as his own skin.

OoO

The news has him practically skipping down the walkway, his heart ramming against his ribcage, ready to burst, and he feels like he's faced the apocalypse and found a whole new world after the destruction.

"Chinese tonight?" she asks as they make their way back to their home.

The smile reaches his eyes, his heart that was once limping to beat, her words paddles to his chest.

Their home. Because whereever she is...he is home.