11calls | It's where my demons hide, oh it's where my demons hide.

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It's where my demons hide, oh it's where my demons hide.

In the end it had been Simon. Alex had been aware that Simon was…watching her which sounded a hell of a lot better than stalking her since she’d heard their conversation when she’d recorded her sleep note. What Alex hadn’t realized then is just how much Simon had been protecting her or whatever and how often he’d been around. Sure, joking with Nic about Simon watching was one thing—what else is one supposed to do when you’ve got a dark sense of humor and a creepy bilocating kid with an obsession—but finding out that he’d actually been there and overheard those conversations was another thing entirely.

But in an effort to convince Alex to go to Turkey to meet him and the Horn of Tiamat, he’d come clean. Well, it was as clean as Simon had known how to come given all of his cryptic bullshit but she’d gotten the gist of it nonetheless. Alex had gotten the gist of it, and then she’d tried to hide from it, pulling the blankets over her head for a day and calling in sick and wondering if it could possibly be fucking true. That Strand was a demon and had been the entire time and that she had been friends with a demon, that she’d flirted with a demon, that she’d defended a demon and that Alex had bought into the lies and manipulations of a demon who was using her and her entire show for some untoward purpose that probably was the end of the world.

Honestly it was enough to make anyone take to their beds—even Alex Reagan with all of her bravery.

But it was only for one day, even if Alex did call out of work. Nic was more than happy to give her the time off considering it was Alex asking for it, and calls, texts and emails from Strand went entirely unanswered. The most important thing Alex knew from her investigation was that she needed two things in order to figure this out; to prove it: information and evidence. While Alex may not have been very good at collecting evidence of things (though now she can’t help but to wonder how much Strand and to a lesser extent Simon had sabotaged her efforts toward it) one thing that Alex was excellent at was collecting information and getting people to talk to her. Especially people with whom she’d already had a prior connection too.

Alex didn’t know if it was something in her voice or if it was just a case of it being the right moment but this time when she reached out to Charlie Strand, Charlie did agree to talk to her. Off the record, and Alex didn’t record it but it wasn’t about that. This had gone well past a story to the truth and Charlie told her how when they’d been out looking for Coralee, Strand had changed. It was what Charlie had meant by her not having a father anymore because the man who came back from those woods wasn’t her Dad. There had been moments in Charlie’s childhood where the man masquerading as her father had seemed to come out, but Coralee always managed to fix him. Without her stepmother, there was no hope in turning Richard Strand back into who he had been which was why Charlie was working at the Vatican hoping to find something that would work. So far? She hasn’t.

There was no way for Alex to get in touch with Coralee but there was another person who knew him, and Alex called her and begged in a way that she hadn’t when she’d talked to Cheryl before. Richard had moments of weirdness when they were children, but Howard had beaten it out of Richard. That was until Richie had gone looking for the body of Bobby Maimes that he’d seen within his dreams and came back entirely different.

It had taken a week to try and track these things down, and then Alex couldn’t sit on them anymore. She couldn’t keep pacing and waiting and worrying and talking to herself wondering if who she was actually talking to was Simon. In the end, it’s late when Alex drives to Howard’s house in the middle of a rainstorm. Knocking on his door, Alex just holds her breath not sure who—or what—was going to answer the door.

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Richard takes Alex's hands and squeezes them. He doesn't look at her.

"...I love you Alex." He turns her to cup her cheek, "That is a lot of responsibility to place on one person but you are the one thing that I have seen, and held onto,and that is a lot to ask of you - to hear that. I can't protect you from things like that, but I want you to know that whatever happens I will stand by you."

She has seen him live, and die, and be born again.

His gaze is wholly human when he looks at her, "I'm so sorry. I'm so so sorry."

Alex just raises her eyes to him when he cups her cheek, and she doesn't look any better than she did when they'd left Simon honestly. It's not something that Alex can easily shake off, even if she knows that she needs too, and that Simon would want her to in order to end this. Still, she tries to give him a smile, even if it's a weak one.

"I love you too, Richard. And I know you are. I'm sorry too." She means it, because if she hadn't pushed him into this then it wouldn't have happened and the two of them wouldn't have ended up here, and Simon wouldn't be dead. She's going to be sorry for that for a long time, especially if other people are going to die because of it.

And Alex knows that they are.

"Listen Richard," Alex says softly, and she just kisses him for a moment before she speaks urgently, holding onto his face with her hands and not letting him break away from it. "If it comes down to saving the world or if it comes down to saving me, I need you to promise that you're going to put the world first. Please."

No.

It's an instant reaction. He withdraws and stares at her in shock and confusion because that's such an absurd request. He will sacrifice himself. Alex is the future, Alex will live.

His hands don't let go of hers but he's a deer in the headlights. It's on the tip of his tongue to deny it but -

"I could-"

No. No.

"I can't promise that please don't make me promise that."

"Richard you're the only one who has the power to stop Thomas Warren. I don't." It's something that makes sense giving what had happened in that clearing. That Warren wanted Richard to come to Geneva and was willing to do whatever he needed to do in order to make that happen.

"And do you think that I'd be able to live with myself if you had the choice between saving the world and saving me and you picked me? Richard, please. Please be sensible. Please."

Alex moves forward, so that she's practically in his lap, straddling him, and not letting him flinch away. "You wanted me to connect you too what's human. That's what I'm doing. Thomas Warren is going to try and use me, use this connection between us to try and get you to do what he wants." Because Alex has the terrible thought that part of what happened in the clearing was to see what it was that Richard would do when Alex was threatened. And they knew: he'd kill.

"Alex I'm not going to lose you."

His voice is hard and ice cold but he clings to her for a moment, leaning into her shoulder.

"I'm not going to lose you, don't make me promise that I've lost enough damn it."

The emotion in his voice is purely human, purely heartbroken, "I've lost my family, I've lost my daughter, my wife, and my humanity I'm not losing you too!"

"Fuck." It's soft and quiet and so very sad, but it's also followed by: "I can't do that to you." Alex means it, because she can't, not when he puts it that way. She wants too, and if it weren't for the end of that sentence she might have pressed on it more. She might have made him promised anyway. But she can't, not now.

Instead, Alex just sniffles, and she rests her forehead against his own, her eyes closed. She's crying again, because her heart is breaking, and it's been breaking since he'd told her that Simon was there and that the two of them should leave the boy to his fate.

It's breaking even more, because he's still dead and Richard has still lost his humanity, and Thomas Warren is still threatening the world. "I don't know how to fix it," Alex just whimpers. "I don't know how to fix any of it."

"We work together."

He just wants to hold her and be held by her, "And we...we play it by ear. It's us Alex." he strokes her cheek, wiping away her tears, "I swear to you. This is going to have a happy ending. No matter what the circumstances of it."

Drawing her face to his he kisses her softly.

"Just moment by moment."

Alex wants to believe him, she really does. She is trying to believe him, and she just kisses him softly, gently and sweetly with her arms wrapping around his neck. She's holding onto him for dear life, because Alex is terrified that if she doesn't, then she's either going to go spinning off the cliff into complete despair, or he's going to, and Alex can't let either of those happen. She won't.

So, she moves, and just tugs him down onto the bed, and asks him softly, her voice little and exhausted, the grief etched into it like the fear had been on the sleep note, but it was the same sort of entirely overwhelmed feeling. "Will you just hold me, Richard? Please? Until we fall asleep?" Because she's worried about them both and because honestly, Alex Reagan has never needed a hug so badly in her entire life.

He doesn't respond for a moment before he wraps himself around her, tucking her under the crook of his chin and spooning her from behind. Holding her against him, he's warm and safe and he silences every part of him sensing the forces of darkness.

"...What can I do for you Alex. Tell me."

Alex wishes that she had a clear answer for him. She wishes that there was something going forward that would make things easier, that could undo the ache that's in her chest and has been for so long. God, she's tired. She's so tired she's pretty sure that she's never going to be not tired again in her life.

If she has one after they're done with this. Honestly, she doesn't think that she does. Alex isn't being fatalistic, not really. Fatalistic isn't who she is at her core. But what Alex Reagan is, and has always been is genre savvy. She's not the hero in this narrative, even if she is a protagonist, and her show is the lens through which the world has been altered and changed. What Alex is, really, as evident by the way that he holds her, the way that Richard Strand had died to save her to become reborn as this Richard is the love interest.

Love interests in genre stories don't typically get happy ever afters at the end of the world, or beyond it.

So, Alex just lets out a sigh, a shuddering breath and she keeps her eyes closed. "You can't do anything. I'm just so tired and I can't seem to stop my brain from going." There's a pause. "I'm just tired. I don't know how the hell I ended up here causing the end of the world. I'm just me. I'm not good at this, and I have no idea how to fix it."

Demons were angels once.

Apparently. And armed with abilities and memories of being demonic - of being a wretched shadow creature - he has nothing he can do. No angelic sense of healing. Nothing that he can do to make her feel better.

It's not fair.

He has been aware the universe isn't fair for years now, since childhood, since his invasion. Gently stroking her hair he hesitates.

"I can put you to sleep." He hesitates, "I can - I think - take away that stress for an evening. Or a day."

He sounds lost for half a heartbeat before he kisses her cheek.

"Or I can just hold you. This frustration hurts."

"I don't want to be put to sleep like that." Alex's voice is soft but firm, because that's the last thing that she needs: something else inside of her head. The nightmares and what she'd seen and everything else was enough; Alex knows that if she lets him put her to sleep now then she's going to be come dependent on it and that's not an answer to her sleep problems.

If it was easy, Alex would have found it already.

Besides, there's a damned good possibility that something is going to happen in the night--that Warren is going to do something and the last thing that Alex wants is for her to sleep through it or for him to need to take the time in order to wake her.

Shifting in his arms so that they're no longer spooning, but so that they're face to face and eye to eye (well, as much as the two of them can be considering the differences in their heights) Alex just reaches out and brushes her hand along his face, feeling the stubble from the day there. Her thumb just brushes along the corner of his lip, marveling that somehow, she got to do this before the world ended.

There were days where Alex definitely didn't think that they would.

"Just holding me sounds nice. It doesn't make the frustration go away but." Then she kisses him again, softly and gently, gingerly like she's learning his mouth in a way that she can never forget. When Alex pulls away from the kiss, she just speaks against his lips. "But it will go away. We're going to stop him and fix this."

His kiss is sudden and deliberate and passionate as he kisses her deeply before he pulls away and presses his forehead against hers.

"That's the Alex I know." He held her, "The same person who just wouldn't let me go. 11 phonecalls."

His voice is hoarse, "Nobody's ever called me that much. Wanted me that much."

Alex just laughs softly, but it's not one that's unkind or bitter. It just is a laugh before she adds, "I think you're forgetting about all the times I'd called you when you were in Chicago, you know. Even if I didn't leave a message. Even when I just called to hear your voice and hoped that you would finally talk to me." The last is murmured like a secret, something that Alex has been holding onto and not shared with anyone before. But she'd called his voicemail when he was gone just for that reason.

Because she missed him. Honestly, because it seemed like she was never going to stop missing him when he was gone.

Her eyes just close for a moment, and Alex keeps her forehead pressed against his. "I didn't want to lose you. I still don't." Which is true, even if in a way she had lost the Richard who was for the Richard who is. The Richard who is here, and who is a hybrid, but who's staying and holding her so tightly.

"I'm sorry."

His shoulders shake slightly, "I'm sorry I made it seem like you were the reason I...did what I did. It was wrong to..." To what? To not fight harder?

"I never-"

He swallows, "I love you Alex. My stupid mistakes are never your fault. And no matter what. I promise I will always answer your calls."

"We'll kill him. We'll kill him and save all of them and then we can...spend the rest of our lives together."

"Hey." Alex's voice is soft, and her hands move from his face to the shuddering of his shoulders, and then they slide below his armpits in order to hold him tightly to him. There's always been a believe in Alex that if you hug someone enough, that you'll be able to keep them safe. It's something that goes back to the time when she was still very small and needed to hold onto her teddy before she held onto the Reagans.

Abandonment is something that Alex has always felt very keenly, which is one of the reasons that all of the times Richard had just disappeared on her had hurt so badly.

"It's okay. It's... I can't imagine how hard it was to fight for so long. I can't imagine what it's like to both gain and lose yourself like that." And then there's Simon, and everyone else who is going to die in their path. "We're going to leave for Geneva in the morning. I mean there's no point in pretending that we're not doing it. At least that way he won't put anyone else in our path."

Alex just kisses him again, but there's a little bit of desperation in it, because Alex wants to believe that's true. The believer in their little tragedy is having a small crisis of faith, and she doesn't know quite how to handle it.

Every instinct he has screams make love to her even if it oozes desperation. He kisses her hard, holding her head against him as he stiffens and he wills himself to be still.

"I'm not leaving you again."

He cradlers her, "Ever again."

He doesn't move, but Alex does, because Jesus. She is not dying without having had sex with the man she loves. Even if he is a half-demon hybrid. Even if she knows that tomorrow they're going to murder someone in cold blood or die trying.

Or maybe it's because of all of that honestly. Probably.

But she moves, kissing him more deeply, moving so that she's on top of him while she does it, and her fingers are moving down the buttons of his pajamas. "Make love to me, Richard. Please." Alex's voice is little, smaller than she'd like it to be, and her cheeks color brightly as her eyes search his. Normally, Alex wouldn't have a problem saying that, but considering how many highs and lows the two of them had, how many times they'd come close to going over this line, but never actually doing it...

Well, it's a leap of faith. Maybe that's all that it always was.

She asked.

She wants this and so he moves to roll her beneath him, kissing her deeply, hard as his hand pulls at her shirt, hand circling to her breast. As he does that, his other hand tugs at his cheap tourist shirt - tugging his shirt off to reveal his body underneath.

He sits pack to pull her shirt off, silent all the while.

"...I want this."

Alex holds onto his face, her eyes boring into his as she does it. Because she wants to make sure that he does, that he's not doing this just because she asked him too.

That he wants her as much as she wants him.

Her voice is low, and one hand moves to capture the one around her breast, holding it still and in place against the warmth of her stomach when she asks: "are you sure, Richard? Really? That you want this and that you want me? It's okay if you don't."

"To be honest." He grinds against her, "I was going to say something sooner. I just didn't know if you wanted me."

He kisses her hard, "...Alex I would go to the moon for you."

“I want you.” There’s a little bit of a huffy laugh herself in Alex as she kisses him in return. “I’ve always wanted you, Richard.” Which isn’t a lie in the slightest. The two of them had been dancing around this and then falling back behind their walls of Coralee and her journalist integrity and Alex has never been able to place the words to it until now.

“I want you.” The words come again as she kisses her way across the scruff on his face, down over his jaw to his neck and collarbone.

“I’ve just been waiting for you to want me too.”

He kisses her, arching himself as he tugs on her pants, pulling them down as she kisses him before he runs his hands over her breasts, pulling on her nipples with a purr. His eyes are open and full of love and affection and need.

They pull before running gently behind her shoulders, turning his kisses down her neck. The world may end tomorrow.

This at least he remembers, and he's never felt more human.

Alex just moans softly, and she trails her fingers through his hair, brushing along the nape of his neck. "Richard." His name is a whimper, soft and needful and as close to a prayer as Alex Reagan knows how to make right now. It's urgent and yearning, and places her heart inside of it, stripping bare any and all of the armor that was between them before.

Lifting her hips so that she can wiggle out of the hotel pajamas, Alex just reaches forward and slides his own pants down, her hand curling around him and cupping him with a long slow stroke before she kisses him again, even or more deeply.

His kisses trail down to her chest, gently kissing and probing her nipple with his tongue as he visibly shudders. Jesus he's dreamed about this. He's dreamed about her spread beneath him, how soft and unyielding she'd be.

He gently, gently thrusts against her, continuing to kiss at her chest, teeth gently nibbling at the soft skin.

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