AN: Next to last chapter! Only an epilogue after this one, okay?

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As Penny had feared, Cam didn't want to return to therapy.

"I don't think that doctor is a good fit," he began when Penny brought up the idea of going back for another session.

"Why not? She was nice, and she understood our situation, our need for privacy; what's the problem?"

"She just rubbed me the wrong way."

"Would you prefer a man doctor?" Penny tried.

"No, you know I don't care about stuff like that," Cam answered scornfully. "Her gender means nothing to me."

"So what, then?"

Cameron shrugged. "I don't know, maybe I just didn't like her."

"What, specifically, didn't you like about her?" Penny prodded.

"Well, for one thing, I didn't like how she asked why we were there, like it wasn't completely obvious that I looked like I'd been front and center at Chernobyl, you know?" He gestured to his face before finishing off the drink in his squat, heavy glass and mixing himself another. Penny didn't know what he was drinking today, except that they were very dark, very potent, and smelled like they could knock a rhino sideways.

"I wish you wouldn't drink so much," she said, striving to keep her voice light and steady. "You know that when you drink a lot, your scars get inflamed, you get really bad headaches, and it makes your face hurt more than usual? Have you noticed?"

"Yes, I've noticed," he replied, mimicking her, his impression of her deadly accurate.

Penny lifted her chin and ignored his cruelty.

"It's just it makes it hard for us to have substantive discussions when you're drunk and whiny and puking your guts up all over the place is all," she continued. "I find it hard to communicate with a self-pitying infant."

"Ooh, nice one, Penelope, very nicely done," Cam responded as he turned around, eyes narrowed, smiling as best he could with lips that were already slightly numb from his drinking. "Bitterness suits you, doesn't it?"

She ignored him and went on. "Cameron, please. I'm trying so hard, I'm working so hard to save you, to save us, and I feel like I'm working all alone. Don't you want this to work? Don't you want to get past this?"

Cameron looked at her in disbelief and threw his still pretty full glass against the kitchen wall, where it shattered and mostly fell into the sink, thankfully. The sound sent Carol Channing scurrying from the room.

"Get past this? Get past this? How in the name of all that's holy do you think I'm going to get past this?" And he gestured again to his face. "Look at me! No, don't just let your eyes slide over me like you usually do, damn you, really fucking look at me!"

He grabbed her by her forearms in a very tight, very painful grip and pulled her close, half dragging her over to where a lamp was lit on this dark and drizzly April afternoon.

"There! Now look at me, dammit! Look at my fucking face, Penelope! Really look, see it, see the mess that it is and tell me how, how on god's green earth am I supposed to get out of bed every bloody morning, see this in the mirror, and fucking get over it?"

By now he was shaking her back and forth with every word, shouting in her face, causing her to turn away from him as tears slid from her eyes, as she murmured, "Please stop, please, please," over and over.

He dragged her a couple of steps over to the couch and dropped her onto it with a bounce, leaving her with the parting words, "More to the sodding point, how are you?"

He then dissolved into sobbing as he disappeared into the kitchen to clean up the glass in the sink.

Penny could hear his hopeless crying as she lay on the couch, his last words echoing in her mind. She slowly rose from the couch and went into the kitchen, to where he was carefully picking the glass out of the sink and laying it on a paper towel. He was talking to himself as he worked and cried, a despairing and dreadful sound.

"I'm sorry, Penguin, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, so sorry. My little Penguin, I'm so so sorry." He stopped to sniff, then began again with the litany of apology, which would've been funny if it hadn't been so heartfelt and pitiful. His voice mixed with the clinking sound of the glass, and Penny was afraid he was so drunk he didn't have the coordination and would cut himself badly while he was at his task.

"Cameron? Are you worried about how the world will feel about you? Or how I will feel about you?"

He turned around with a gasp, his face a red, mottled mess with his scars and tears. "Oh, Penguin," he whispered, shaking his head. "Why haven't you left me already?"

"Because I love you, you idiot."

He stared at her in quiet wonder from his place next to the sink. "But--but how can you love me when I can't even love myself right now?" He carefully put down a piece of glass. "In fact, never mind love, I don't even like myself at the moment."

Penny smiled through her tears. "I guess you don't know yourself as well as I do, then."

She stepped forward and took him in her arms, reveling in the feel of his arms as they came around her, strong as bands of steel around her back.

"But my face? How can you love me with my face? It's hideous, I hate it--"

"Cameron! You loved me with my face when I hated it, when I thought it was hideous."

"But it wasn't, that was all in your mind, I never saw it that way, don't you see? I mean, I suppose it wasn't perfect, but all the rest, it was all up--" he broke off to look at her and saw that she was smiling at him.

"Do you understand, my sweet Cameron? I'm not saying that the world will see your face and my face the same, I'm not. But I am saying that, as far as you and I are concerned, as far as what's between you and me, we are equals. You love me, all of me, including my face, right?"

Cam nodded, smiling.

"And I love all of you, including your face, and that will never change." Penny kissed him, carefully, loving the fact that she could still feel his smile, even through his nerve damage and the scar going through his lips. "And your scars might fade a lot, and they might not fade at all, and that won't change how I feel about you at all. Do you understand?"

He nodded.

"Cam? If I wound up with scars all over my face or my body or whatever, would it change how you felt about me?"

Cam didn't even hesitate.

"No."

Penny gave him a delighted shake. "See? That was all you had to ask yourself, from the very beginning. We could've avoided all of this silliness. If I'd known that your feelings were about me and not the rest of the world, I would've told you how I felt and asked you that question on the very first day, and we wouldn't have spent these last horrible months wandering around in the dark."

"Penguin?"

"Hm?"

"I have to ask you something, and I want to see your face when I do, yeah?"

"Okay."

They sat on the couch, facing each other. Penny was concerned about Cam, about how his scars were red and inflamed from his liquor consumption and his tears, but she supposed she could wait.

"Do you--I mean--could you--want me to--you know--ever again?"

Penny looked at him blankly.

Cam swallowed and tried again.

"Obviously I completely understand if you don't--if you wouldn't--I mean, if you couldn't--"

Penny put a hand on his arm.

"Cameron, what are you talking about?"

"You know, if you don't want--erm, Little Prince Cameron to be part of your life anymore--"

Penny nearly fell of the couch.

"What? Are you talking about sex?" And she realized that possibly not all of the color on Cameron's face might be from the liquor or his tears or from inflammation.

Cam rolled his eyes in agony.

"Well, yeah."

"Oh god, Cameron, sex with you is all I think about, if I'm perfectly honest," Penny answered with a cute laugh.

"Really?" And Cameron's face lit up with joy as he reached for her hand.

"Really, Little Prince Cameron is on my mind pretty much 24/7," she assured him.

"Well, that's really smashing," Cameron answered. "My face looking like this hasn't put you off those activities?"

"Not one little bit." She cocked her head toward the bedroom. "In fact, if you're not too pissed from whatever the hell it was you were drinking, we could head over right now and make up properly--?"

"Cameron Aldobrandeschi is never too pissed to shag," Cam announced, rising, still holding her hand.

And moments later they were in their big happy bed, the dark, drizzly day forgotten in the joy of being together.

"You've lost weight," he accused as he pulled her shirt over her head.

"Yeah? That's good, though right?"

"Dunno. I liked you before," he told her. "As long as you're comfortable, I suppose I like you however you like you, Penguin. You're absolutely lovely."

"And you, sir, aren't as ripped as you were before, and that's fine with me as well," Penny said as she peeled his pants off him.

"Sorry we can't kiss more," Cam said breathlessly as they lay down together, pressing their flesh together. "God, feel how wet you are, Jesus, what a turn on."

"And you're hard as a rock already, oh my god," Penny gasped.

"You ready for me, beautiful girl?" he asked as he turned her, spreading her legs, palming her breasts.

"Yes, oh yes."

"Here we go, then--" And he was inside her with one momentous thrust.

"Nothing has ever felt so good--"

"I know, I know, please don't move for a minute, okay?"

"Okay, I'll try--"

And then came the slow, syncopated movements, of nearly coming apart, and then moving together again, as close as two people could be with their faces so close together that they were breathing the same air, lips nearly touching.

Cam grasped Penny's leg and hitched it higher, changing the angle to something so pleasurable it was almost mind numbing.

"Oh god, nothing has ever felt so good--I love you, Penguin, I love you--"

"Mm, I love you, too, Cam, I love you, I love you--"

Then came the unravelling as they tumbled down the far side together, the forgetting and kissing, hard, feeling the ridge of his scar inside his lips as their tongues touched. He shot deeply into her body, and she accepted him, feeling his seed entering her, lodging far inside her.

"I missed this. I missed you, penguin. Thanks for waiting for me."

"Always."

"Me too. Always."

"For the rest of our lives."

"Yes. The rest of our lives."