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The kitchen had gone dead quiet behind her.

"That first day. On the porch." He pressed a fist briefly against his own chest, like the memory sat there. "I took one look at you standing there holding that purse like a weapon, and something in me just… knew. Knew you were the one woman who could get all the way in. And it scared me so bad I told you your shoes wouldn't last a week. You remember what you said?"

A sound came out of her, not quite a laugh. "I said I was nobody's darlin'."

"And I looked at you and I decided you were the kind of woman nobody keeps. Too sharp. Too beautiful. Too alive to stay out here with the likes of me." His laugh broke apart halfway out of him. "I had you filed under temporary inside of two minutes, because temporary was the only way I knew how to want something I was that scared of losing. And I had it backwards, Lara. You were never the one who wouldn't stay. I was the fool who couldn't be kept from you, and I spent two months calling it a wall so I wouldn't have to say so."

A tear slipped down her face. Dean stepped closer without deciding to, and stopped himself.

"I love you." He said it plain this time. No buildup left in him, no wall left to say it from behind. "There. There it is. Out loud, where you can hear it, like you asked me to."

Lara made a small sound in the back of her throat.

He kept going, because if he stopped now he'd lose his nerve and he knew it.

"I love you so much I couldn't sleep after you left. Couldn't eat. Levi stopped talking and Giana looked at me like she was never going to forgive me, and my father hauled himself out of a sickbed to stand in my kitchen and tell me what a fool I was, and none of it landed half as hard as waking up every morning knowing I'd stood there and let you walk out my door." His eyes were burning. "You asked me to be brave with you. Once. And I failed you completely. I know that."

"Dean —"

"But I'm here now. And I'm done hiding behind being scared like it's something noble." Another step. She didn't move back. "I want all of it. The whole thing. I want you in my bed every night and your books stacked all over my house again and your coffee mug back in the rack where it goes. I want you fighting with Levi about his vegetables and braiding Giana's hair before school and chewing me out for leaving my boots by the door." His hand came up like he couldn't help it anymore, fingers brushing the wet hair back off her cheek. "I want to marry you, Lara. In front of my family and the town and Pearl and God and anybody else who wants to watch. I want babies with you, as many as you'll give me, and if I get a vote I'd like at least two. Daughters, I'm hoping. Daughters who look like their mama and are twice as stubborn, God help me. I want years with you. I want to grow old on that porch watching you boss the whole county around."

A laugh broke out of her through the tears, helpless, and Dean's face crumpled a little at the sound of it.

"I love you," he said again, softer. "And if you'll still have me, after the way I failed you, I'll spend the rest of my life proving I meant every word of it."

Lara stood there with the dish towel and the tears going down her face and didn't wipe them, and when she spoke her chin came up, the brave thing, one more time, making him be sure.

"You can't say all that and take it back later." Her voice shook. "Not this. You don't know what it cost me to leave you, Dean. So if there's one single part of you still trying to protect itself, any inch of that wall still standing, you walk back out that door right now and you leave me be. Because I can’t survive that twice."

Dean looked at her one long second.

Then he crossed the last of the kitchen. Not slow this time. Certain. He stopped right in front of her, close enough that her breath caught.

"There's no wall anymore," he said, low and steady. "You hear me? There's no inch of me that's still hiding. There's just you. I'm all the way in, and I'm not going anywhere, and I'll say it as many times as you need to believe it. I'm sure, Lara. It's the only thing I've been sure of in four years."

She dropped the towel.

Just let it fall.

And grabbed two fistfuls of his shirt and pulled, the way she did everything — deciding it, choosing it — and Dean made a sound low in his throat and got his arms around her so fast it was almost violent, hauling her in against him like he'd been starving for the weight of her.

"Say it again," she whispered against his chest.

"I love you."

"Again."

"I love you. I love you. I'm sorry. I love you so damn much, Lara." His mouth was in her hair, against her temple, anywhere he could reach. "Lara." Her name like it was the only word he'd ever needed.

She kissed him before he finished the sentence. Hard. Desperate enough to hurt a little. Dean stumbled back into the counter with her, one hand cradling the back of her neck and the other locked around her waist like he physically could not let her go again, the first kiss since the rupture, four years and two months of being a coward burning off all at once.

When they broke apart she was laughing and crying at the same time, both hands fisted in his shirt, her forehead against his chin, and from somewhere down the hall Addi's voice called out, thick and wet and trying very hard to be casual: "Is everybody… are we… do I get to come out yet, or… "

"Give us a minute, Addi," Lara called back, not lifting her head.

"TAKING THAT AS PROGRESS," Addi yelled, and a door shut.

Lara laughed into his chest, helpless, and Dean held her, and felt her breathing against him, warm and real and here, and thought he would never in his life let go of anything again.