MJ spent most of the next day in a state of nervous anxiety. The call telling them Heath's lawyer, Douglas Archer, had arrived in the early afternoon did nothing to improve matters, though meeting him did help a little.

MJ was expecting a sort of scary, high-powered, man in a really sharp suit, instead of which she was confronted with a rumpled, gray-haired Dumbledore type who had somehow managed to fly seven thousand miles in a cardigan that had dog hair on it.

"Oh, hello, hello, my dear," he said, holding out a hand to shake. "MK, is it?"

"M-J, Douglas," Heath corrected.

"Yes, of course, of course, so sorry," he said with an absent smile as he sat down.

Archie gave MJ a wide-eyed grin behind Douglas' back, as if daring her not to burst out laughing. Poppy saw this, and whacked him between the shoulder blades, hard.

MJ bit her lips, just so she wouldn't burst out laughing. She looked at the white tufts of Douglas' soft, white hair, and remembered a line from an SNL episode, in which Colin Jost described Bernie Sanders with the line, "His barber is the wind," and this nearly ended it for her, and she had to bite the inside of her cheeks, very hard.

Crisis averted for the moment, she took a seat next to Heath, as they all made themselves comfortable, and Heath reached for his phone to call down for some food.

"No, let me," MJ said. "I'm your PA now, anyway, remember?"

"No, I'll do it," Poppy said firmly. "You need to listen, MJ." She took the phone and left the room to make the call.

And, snowy hair and rumpled demeanor notwithstanding, as soon as his pen and legal pad came out, his questions came rapid fire and without cessation, and he repeated back entire chunks of their conversation verbatim with no notes of any kind.

Wow.

They took a short break when the food arrived, though they continued to talk about what they'd already begun to call "the case."

MJ, whose temples had really begun to throb, asked if she had time to lie down for a few minutes.

"Of course, darling," Heath said, nodding.

"What time should I set my alarm for?"

"Don't bother, we'll come and wake you," Poppy said. "That way you'll get the maximum amount of sleep you can, kick that headache's arse, okay?"

"Thanks," MJ said gratefully. She wandered in and lay down on the bed, wondering when housekeeping had come in to make it up, since they'd been in the room pretty much all day.

She closed her eyes, trying to get comfortable, but couldn't really find a good spot for her pounding head, so she rolled over, only to find that the sun had moved way over to the other window, and she'd somehow been covered up with another comforter.

WTF?

She looked at her phone and was horrified to find that it was nearly four o'clock, which meant that she'd slept for nearly three hours.

She leapt out of bed and ran as quickly and quietly as she could to the door, which had been pulled closed, listening, but she couldn't hear any voices. She opened it, but the room was nearly empty. Heath was sleeping, slouched in the chair, looking like he had no bones, completely relaxed, like a cat at rest.

Of Douglas, Poppy or Archie, there was no sign.

"Heath?"

He opened his eyes, his features morphing into a smile as his eyes focused on her face. He blinked sleepily as he pulled his long body into a huge stretch and an equally huge yawn.

"You look so cute when you're worried," he said, his voice blurry with sleep. He pulled her into his arms, into his lap. "What's the matter?" He kissed her soundly on the mouth. "Hm?"

"Where is everyone? Where's Douglas? Why did you let me sleep so long? What happened? Why--"

"Wait, wait wait--" Heath interrupted with a laugh, carding his hair back off his face. He used his fingers to count off his answers. "One: everyone's gone, obviously. Two: Douglas, too, has gone, again, obviously. Three: You needed the rest, again, obviously. Four: Nothing's happened. Five: Oh. I can't answer that last one." He smirked at her.

MJ looked at Heath in frustration and consternation. "Where's Douglas gone to?"

"Aren't you not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition?" he asked. "To is a preposition, right?" he asked, brows furrowed.

"Yes it is, and that's a rule from Latin that doesn't really apply to modern English," MJ told him absently.

"Really?" Heath asked. "Always?"

"No, not always, because there are times when the sentence won't make sense if you don't end it with--oh, Jesus, do you really want to do this now?" MJ asked.

"No, I suppose not," Heath answered, sounding a bit hurt. "But to answer your question, Douglas has gone back to England."

"What?" MJ asked, nearly taking Heath's ear off.

"Blast, MJ, there you go again, doing that supersonic canine thing," Heath complained. "Anyway, he needs to file a bunch of things and get stuff rolling, and it's best done from London, so yeah, he went back."

"Oh my god, that must've cost a fortune, for him to fly here, eat some sandwiches, drink some tea, and just fly back like that." MJ's voice was quiet with shock.

To Heath's horror, MJ began to cry, her body quaking with the force of her sobs. Nothing he did could quiet her.

"MJ, please, god, please please stop," he implored her.

"I can't, I can't help it, I can't pay for all this," she kept saying.

"Shh, shh, don't worry about it, please," he begged her.

Finally, he just gathered her up, as much of her as would fit in his lap, and just held her, reaching for a tissue now and then so she could blow her nose.

Eventually, as the room was getting dark, her sobs tapered off to quaking breaths now and then, and deep breaths, and sniffles, then sighs, and release.

Ahh.

"You feeling better now?" Heath asked, his voice quiet in the room.

MJ nodded with another deep breath.

She tried to get off his lap, but he held her firmly, shaking his head.

"Heath, come on, your legs must be numb by now, let me up," MJ tried in a quiet, nasal voice.

Heath again shook his head. "No, and for every remark you make like that, I'm just going to hold you here five minutes longer, so think hard, young lady, and watch that mouth of yours," he admonished.

This was rewarded with a small laugh from MJ.

"That's better, Ms. Just-letmecrymyeyesout," he said, hugging her.

She hugged him back, wrapping her arms around his neck tightly and laughing.

Her laugh rose into a little squeak of alarm when he rose from the chair while holding her and began to carry her back to the bedroom.

"No! No, Heath! Put me down! You're going to hurt yourself! I'm too heavy! You'll hurt your back! HEATH!"

"We're already nearly there, so hush!"

Heath laid her carefully on the bed and lay down next to her as he pulled her into his arms. "Honestly, MJ, you go on and on about your size, but the biggest thing about you is your blasted mouth, you know that?"

"Heath, are you sure you didn't put your back--wait, what?" She lifted her head, though she couldn't see him in the darkness. "Did you just call me a big-mouth?" She couldn't keep the laughter from bubbling up. "Did you? Heath Michael Spencer!"

"Well, if the absolutely gigantic mouth fits," he said, laughing comfortably as he pulled her shirt off over her head.

He made some very comfortable moaning sounds as he felt her wonderful skin, as he undid her bra so he could feel her breasts against him, so he could put his hands on the dip of her waist, so he could flick his tongue in the dip of her cute navel.

He could feel her body move as her breaths became deeper, as she responded to the feel of his mouth and hands on her.

She ran her hands through his wonderful, dark hair, that was getting longer and curlier by the day. She dug her fingernails into the muscles of his back, and she wrapped her legs around his beautiful hips, so he could feel her deep heat against him.

"I love you, MJ," he whispered against her mouth in the darkness. "I love more than I've ever loved anyone else in my entire life." He nodded as he grasped her jaw, holding her mouth open so he could press his tongue into it. "Mm, I love you, I love you so much."

"Me too, Heath," MJ responded when she could talk. "I love you too, more than anything, more than anything."

She opened her legs even wider, pressing him into her body with the heels of her feet. "Fuck me now, okay? Really hard, Heath, now, please."

Heath had never heard these words from her before, and the effect on him was galvanizing. He thrust into her, causing her to lift her chin high into the air. He gathered one of her legs by sliding his arm under her knee, which made her catch her breath, because she'd never felt it like this before. And, even after these last weeks, being inside MJ was still a really tight fit, the most exquisite, heavenly feeling, like her body was squeezing him with her heat. Heath could feel his eyes rolling back in his head from the sensations on him, oh my god. He tried to go slow, to make it last for her, as long as he could. After a while, she spoke to him.

"Heath?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm, uh, I feel something different--"

"Different good?"

"I'm going to come, I think--"

"Really?"

MJ nodded, exhaling an explosive breath against his mouth.

"I'm going to come, Heath--"

Then MJ stopped talking, but Heath recognized her breathing, the panting, and the tightness, the tension, then the relaxation, that meant she'd climaxed, though he usually felt it against his mouth or his fingers, and not his erection.

Wow, nothing had ever felt so good.

He pumped inside her, even faster, and within a couple of minutes--

"MJ, I'm going to come," he breathed against her mouth. "Oh god, I'm going to come now, so hard, so hard--"

He pushed on her so hard he worried that he was stretching her leg muscles too much, though she didn't say anything.

After a few more seconds, he slowly released her leg, lowering it , as she let them both relax to the sides.

He planted a kiss on her moist forehead.

"I love you, MJ, so much."

"I love you, too, Heath. I love you, too."