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By the time he gets home, the bleeding above John's eyes has mostly stopped, thanks to Nikita's handiwork. He doesn't think Karen will be too concerned, she's long since gotten used to the things they put themselves through, the strange lives they lead, and he's walking, he's barely bleeding at all, and he knows he doesn't have a concussion.

He also hasn't been shot, so he'll call tonight a win, relatively speaking.

Still, he thinks he ought to prepare Karen for when he arrives, just in case, so he sends her a text when he's nearly home.

a little battered, but I'm fine. home soon.

By the time he reaches the apartment, he barely even has a headache, which is also due to Nikita's help. He thinks Karen will be grateful for that. He certainly is. While they don't share all their secrets with anyone in Darrow, they've collected a small group of people they can trust with some things and that makes a big difference.

"Hi," he calls when he unlocks the front door. Bear comes to greet him and John rubs the dog's ears before he moves deeper into the apartment. "Karen?"

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Karen worries, of course, when she sees the text. Not nearly as much as she could, not least because she knows John would tell her if there were anything seriously concerning, which tempers the feeling considerably, but she does all the same. It's not the first time and she's sure it won't be the last, a hazard of both of his lines of work and one that she's long since been aware of, but even so, at the risk of being a cliché, she thinks she's allowed to fret over her husband a little.

Besides, she knows he would do the same for her.

Not about to just sit around and wait, though, she sends back a quick text — I'll be here. stay safe. — and puts away her laptop and notes, straightening up the living room a bit. She doesn't know if his being, as he put it, a little battered is going to require any patching up or other first aid, and she ought to be ready in case it does. That, and it gives her something to do while she waits. Just anxiously sitting around has never really been her style.

She's gone back into the bedroom when she hears the front door open and John's voice drift down the hall. "I'm here," she calls back, emerging a few moments later, looking just a little frazzled but relieved. At a glance, he doesn't seem too badly injured, which is what she might have guessed, but it's still good to see it firsthand. Stepping towards him, she gingerly rests one hand on his shoulder so she can lean in and press a soft kiss to his cheek. "What happened?"

"A man with a gun stepped out of the shadows as I was finishing up my task," he answers, keeping the details vague even though Karen already knows what he was planning tonight. Even though they both do regular sweeps of the apartment, John doesn't trust it not to be bugged unless he has only just done one and he hasn't. He wants to keep the details under wraps, just in case.

A man with a gun approaching a police officer isn't out of the ordinary. He can tell this part of the story.

"I disarmed him, but he hit me," he says, ducking a little so she can see the cut in his eyebrow. "Just once. Nikita was there, she patched me up." It's convenient, too, that Nikita is a genuine EMT. There's no reason for anyone who might be listening to suspect her presence is strange at all.

Karen immediately catches what he's doing, talking around specific details just in case someone else might be listening. It's easy enough to understand what he means, anyway, when she knows what he was doing tonight. She nods to convey as much, brushing her fingertips over his forehead a couple of inches above the cut as she looks at it. Fortunately, it doesn't seem too serious; a little battered in this instance probably wasn't too much of an understatement. Still, she's relieved all the same to be able to see as much for herself, and that he's back now.

"I'm glad she was there," she says earnestly, letting her hand fall again. "And that you're home safe." With their lives, that isn't guaranteed. She's long since accepted that risk, and she also knows that the current situation might well get worse before it gets better, but that just seems like all the more reason not to take any wins, no matter how minor, for granted. "Do you need anything?"

"So am I," John answers with a very small smile before he ducks to kiss Karen again, properly this time. There are no guarantees with the life he has, they both know it, and while there are times John wishes he could give Karen a safer, more normal life, he thinks she might not be here with him at all if that was the type of man he was.

They came together for a reason. He doesn't take that for granted.

"She reminded me how lucky I am to be married to you," he adds once they part, the smile growing in tiny increments. "Just in case I had forgotten."

The longer they stand here, the more reassured Karen feels that there isn't anything seriously wrong. There's bound to come a time when that's not true, but she'll be here if and when that happens, worried but not put off by worrying. She knew what their lives would be when she married him — when she first kissed him, even — and taking that on has been more than worth it. For the moment, then, she doesn't feel the need to wonder about how bad things might get, how much they might escalate. Tonight, he's come home in one piece, and she's grateful for it.

"And had you?" she asks, her brow arching, though she doesn't really mean it. Under various circumstances, they've played at being married for a long time, as long as she's known him, but actually being married is new enough that the thrill hasn't quite worn off yet. "Forgotten?"

"I don't think so," John answers, his smile growing, his hands coming up to frame Karen's face. His thumbs sweep along her jawline, her skin smooth and pale, and he leans in to kiss her again. He lingers this time, parting her lips with his tongue, smiling against her mouth, enjoying the moment of just feeling her. Breathing her in.

"No," he says. "I don't think I have, but if you'd like to be completely certain, I can always show you I haven't."

Even though they've pretended to be married more than a few times, this is different. Everything with Karen has always been different. He will never forget just how lucky he is.

"Oh, is that so?" Karen asks, a little surprised by both the way he's kissed her and the implication in what he's said, but not terribly so. It's sort of relieving, actually, after the brief flare of worry she'd had after receiving his text message, to stand here now, her forehead leaning against his, and know that he's alright. The fact that that one day might not be the case just makes her more appreciative that this time he is. In spite of the risk, or maybe, in an odd, counterintuitive way, because of it, she counts herself lucky, too. No one has ever understood her as well as he has, or known the worst parts of her past and accepted her anyway. And the work that he does outside his cover job, dangerous as it might be, is part of what made her fall for him in the first place.

She's always been willing to take on everything that comes with that.

"I mean," she continues, soft and teasing and fond, "I can take your word for it, but I don't think I'd mind that, either."

"But it would be so much more fun to show you," he answers in a low voice, smiling against her cheek as he nudges another kiss there. He knows how lucky he is. To have another day with her, another week. To have her at all. To have this life in Darrow where he isn't in danger to the extent he had been in New York. To be free of Kara and every awful thing she had brought into his life.

Most important, just to have this moment. If John had his way all those years ago, he wouldn't have any of this.

Gently, he begins to walk Karen back toward their bedroom, and Bear huffs out an annoyed sound, wanting far more attention than he's getting. The dog wanders off to curl up in his bed in the living room and John laughs.

"Sorry, buddy," he says, not sounding sorry at all.

"No, you're not," Karen says, laughing against John's mouth as she lets him guide her back towards the bedroom, almost a little surprised by how easily the response comes. Just minutes ago, she'd been, though hardly frantic or panicked or anything of the sort, worried about John and his safety. Almost instantaneously, he seems to have lightened the mood, and even though she's still aware, in the back of her mind, that one day there very well may come a time when that won't be the case, right now, it makes her want all the more to make the most of the fact that it is.

Sounding like that, he makes it hard to resist, anyway, and knowing he's not badly hurt, she can't see any reason to try to do so. Instead, she leans in to kiss him, soft but lingering, her smile a touch teasing when she draws back to speak. "Alright, then, show me."

John grins, then leans down, sweeping one arm under Karen's legs, the other behind her back, then pulls her up into his arms. She's a tall woman, but John is tall, too, and stronger than people might think when they see a well dressed man in a finely tailored suit. He likes carrying her like this, feeling, however foolishly, as if he can protect her from anything.

Karen doesn't necessarily need protecting. She's clever and tough and John knows it's a little sexist of him, but he still likes how it feels.

"How's this?" he asks, teasing as he carries her into the bedroom, then lays her gently on their bed before he ducks his head down to press his lips to her long throat.

Not expecting him to pick her up like that, Karen huffs out an exhale of a laugh, grinning as she does, her arms around his neck. Although it isn't something that actually makes much difference, she sort of likes that, as tall as she is, he's still just a little bit taller than her, at least when she's barefoot, and capable of quite literally sweeping her off her feet like this. If she'd had any concerns that he might be hurt worse than he's been letting on, this would be enough to rid her of them, too. If he had any more serious injuries, she doubts he would be doing this so easily.

"A good start," she says, gently teasing, once he's set her down, her head tipping instinctively back as he kisses her neck. "I like the direction this is going."

John knows of only one other time in his life when he's felt this way, one other woman who made him love life again, who made things seem brighter and worth fighting for. He doesn't think of Jessica often anymore, but he thinks of her briefly now, an almost unconscious acknowledgement that he wouldn't be able to be here now without her having taught him how to properly love someone.

"Then I'll keep up the good work," he teases as he tugs at the hem of her shirt, pulling it free from her jeans and revealing the smooth, pale skin of her stomach. He presses his lips to her skin there, then lets them travel upward, toward the edge of her bra, breathing out against her skin.

"You're so beautiful," he murmurs. "I love you so much."

It's a little strange sometimes to consider that, before John, she's pretty sure that no one ever loved her, at least not like this. Karen never really dwelled on the lack of that, either, realizing what she was missing only when she finally got it. He's said it so many times, but he says he loves her, calls her beautiful, and she believes him, as quietly breathless as if this were a new relationship and he wasn't her husband. That seems like a good thing, that he still has that kind of effect on her.

Of course, the breathless part might also have something to do with the soft press of his lips against her bare skin, her mouth curving into a smile as she looks at him.

"I love you, too," she says, her own voice low in turn and warm. "Definitely like the direction this is going now."

"Lucky for me," he says with a low, warm laugh, then begins to push her shirt up further, helping her remove it entirely before he discards it on the floor. At the same time he removes his suit jacket, doing something Finch would hate, and dropping it on the floor as well. The suit will be fine. Karen deserves his full attention.

He begins to unbutton his shirt, letting it fall open before he kisses the valley between her breasts, then slips his hand under her, between her back and the bed in order to unhook her bra.

"Very lucky for me," he murmurs as he tugs her bra straps down, then drops his head to scrape his teeth over her nipple.

Karen means to respond, but it gets lost for a moment, her breath catching in her throat at that graze of his teeth. There really is something to be said, she thinks, for being in a long-term relationship with someone, being known. Sex is sex, but there's a different sort of intimacy in being with someone as long as she has with him.

Besides, even if she weren't for that, how deftly he gets her bra unhooked would be pretty telling in its own right.

"Mm, lucky for both of us, then, I'd say," she says, pulling her bra the rest of the way off so she can drop it on the floor with their other already discarded clothes. "Guess we did pretty well for ourselves, huh?"

"We're very lucky," John agrees.

He doesn't mean he's lucky because Karen is beautiful and smart and kind -- although she is all these things -- but because he knows how unlikely finding real love is in this world. In any world. Finding it once with Jessica had been unbelievable, very nearly enough to change the course of his life, but then something else had changed it instead.

He made his choices. He regrets them at times, but they were his choices to make. And now, being given a second chance at a love like this, one that's lasted longer, grown deeper, become more meaningful than any he's ever had before, he knows exactly how lucky he is.

With deft fingers, John undoes Karen's jeans, kissing her stomach, then her hip, tugging her jeans down at the same time.

There are so many ways in which she's lucky, and Karen knows it. Thinking too much about any of them now would probably ruin the mood, so she doesn't, but the fact remains that it's been true for a long time, and it has very little to do with how dexterously he gets her undressed. That part — anything to do with sex, really — is just an added bonus.

Right now, it only seems unfair that she can't reach to even the score, though she lifts her hips a little to make it easier for him to pull her jeans off. There's no sense in keeping them on, even if he is overdressed.

"Very," she echoes, mouth curling in a smile as she looks at him, fingers of one hand threading into his hair just to touch him. "Don't know how we got so lucky, really."

"Well, in my case, I nearly died of hypothermia and a beautiful woman rescued me on the beach," he says. "Then she lied to the doctors for me so she could keep an eye on me while I recovered."

He discards her jeans on the floor and then sits back, beginning to undo the buttons of his shirt, watching Karen all the while. She's absolutely beautiful, her hair spread out on the mattress around her, the pale smoothness of her skin.

Of the two of them, he knows he's the lucky one. That she saved him in more ways than one.

"Oh, that sounds especially lucky," Karen says, at least attempting to feign seriousness, as if she doesn't know this story, as if she isn't one of its central figures. It's difficult to succeed in, though, when she can't even bother trying to hide the way she watches John undress, her smile turning a little sly as more skin gets exposed.

Recounting her own arrival seems like it would be too dark, though, and fairly irrelevant, all things considered. She was here before John was; it's the very reason she was the one who found him at all.

"About as lucky as finding a stranger with a gunshot wound and hypothermia, thinking you probably shouldn't trust him, and taking a chance on doing it anyway. Even lying to some doctors and buying him a balloon in the hospital gift shop to really sell it."

"Oh, I don't know if that sounds lucky," John says with a rumbling laugh as he undoes his belt and then unbuttons his trousers, then returns to the bed to properly stretch out over Karen, still in his briefs. He kisses her, deep and sweet, then pulls back to smile. "That sounds like a risk."

But he is so glad she took that risk on him. Everything in him would have said he hadn't deserved it, sometimes he still doesn't believe he does, that she's too good for him, too smart and deserving of a life better than the one he can give her.

But he wants to try.

Karen pretends to consider that for a moment, though she doubts it's very convincing when she leans so readily into the kiss, her hands coming to rest on John's hips as he settles over her, a little breathless when she responds. "A bit of a risk," she allows, the satisfaction in her expression at odds with the words themselves. It's true, but that feels like so long ago now. She took a serious chance on a stranger, but she couldn't just let someone die on the beach.

Didn't want yet another person's blood on her hands, but that's a thought she quickly dismisses, easy when she has such a wonderfully present distraction.

"But a calculated one." She tips her head up to kiss him again then, smiling into it.

When the kiss breaks, John presses his mouth to the underside of Karen's jaw, using his teeth gently on the sensitive skin there. Then he kisses his way down her throat, pausing to give as much attention as he wants to various places, stopping at the top of her collarbone, then again under the curve of her breast. He cups her in his hand, drags his teeth over her nipple, then pulls it into his mouth until it's a stiff peak.

At the same time, his other hand drags down the length of her body, skimming over the front of her underwear, his palm pressed between her thighs.

"You're so beautiful," he murmurs against her skin. "So incredibly beautiful."

A soft moan in her throat, Karen arches up just slightly against his touch, not in a rush but seeking out more all the same. It's not something she could ever get tired of — his hands on her, his mouth, the way he calls her beautiful like he means it. Hearing that, it's hard to continue joking in any real capacity. All things considered, she really can't bring herself to mind. As with everything she was saying in the first place, it's worth it.

"You've got a hell of a mouth," she says, wry and warm, "you know that?"

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