"Ranger's already texted a guy about the windows."
She turned and looked up at me. Her eyes were still red around the edges, her hair a disaster, her robe wrinkled beyond saving. She was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my life.
"You better not half-ass it," she said.
"When have I ever half-assed anything?"
She opened her mouth. I raised an eyebrow.
She closed it again. "Fine."
Cap showed up with Ghost and Ranger twenty minutes later with boards and a nail gun to cover the open windows until the glass could be replaced. Doc swept the floors. Jasmine and Amanda stripped the beds and started a load of laundry with the efficiency of two women who had decided that helping was better than standing around feeling helpless. Marla made coffee in a kitchen that was somehow completely untouched by the raid and distributed it like she was running a field hospital.
Anna stood in the middle of all of it and watched her people show up for her, and I watched her watch them, and after a whileI saw the set of her shoulders finally come down from around her ears.
"Go shower," I said quietly when I came up beside her. "I've got this."
She looked up at me. "You sure?"
"Go."
She went.
By the time she came back out, hair damp and wearing actual clothes for the first time in what felt like days, most of the windows were boarded and the floors were clean and the house smelled like coffee instead of smoke and broken things.
One by one the crew filtered out, the way they always did. No ceremony, just a hand on my shoulder from Cap, a nod from Ghost, Ranger stopping to squeeze Anna's arm and tell her his guy would be out Tuesday for the glass, Smoke moving with him like a shadow. Jasmine hugged her hard enough that Anna actually laughed, a short, startled sound, like she'd forgotten she was allowed to.
And then it was just us.
The house wentquiet around us in a way I hadn't felt in weeks.
Anna stood at the kitchen counter with her coffee mug cupped in both hands, staring out at the boarded window above the sink. She'd been quiet since she came out of the shower. Not the brittle quiet she got when something was wrong. The settled kind.
I moved up behind her and slid my arms around her waist from behind, resting my chin on top of her head.
She leaned back into me immediately. Both of us just breathing for a minute, letting the quiet exist.
"It's really over," she said.
"It's really over."
She turned in my arms, tipping her head back to look at me. There were still traces of exhaustion around her eyes, but underneath it something else had surfaced. Something warm and unhurried that made my chest ache.
"I'm still a little mad at you," she said.
"I know."
"About the house."
"I know."
"And the arrest."
"Anna-mine." I tucked a piece of damp hair behind her ear. "I know."
Her eyes searched mine for a moment. Then she reached up and fisted the front of my shirt in both hands and pulled me down to her.
The kiss started slow. Soft in a way we hadn't had room to be in a long time, her mouth moving against mine without any urgency behind it, just warm and certain and hers. I cupped the back of her head and kissed her back the same way, one hand sliding down to the small of her back, pulling her closer until there was no space left between us.
