Clark had always liked building things. Wood, brick, steel—it didn’t matter. There was something steady about it. Something he could do with his hands, something that made sense. There were instructions. There was order. A finished product.

He wished feelings came with blueprints.

The IKEA bed was half-assembled when he heard you in the kitchen, padding around and fighting with cardboard boxes. Every now and then, you’d pop her head in with something in your hands—two mismatched mugs, a towel, a stray sock—and he’d pretend not to watch the way your sweatshirt slipped off one shoulder or the way her bare feet padded across the hardwood like it was already yours.

This wasn’t new. Not the moving, or the helping, or even the odd—out of time— beat of his heart against his ribcage, one look at you; and it had a mind of it’s own, trying to break itself free of its chest and jump straight into your arms, where it belonged. Where it always had. It had started slow. Quiet. Your laugh had settled into his bones before he even realized it. Your voice had a way of curling around him, like smoke, like the perfume that seemed to be your second skin, And somehow, somewhere between late nights and shared coffee and too many almost-touches, you’d become a part of his world he didn’t know how to live without.

Clark liked the silence. Not the absence of sound, exactly—but this kind of quiet. The low hum of the city through half-open windows. The shuffle of moving boxes. The soft creak of wood under his weight as he tightened the final screw.

You were standing in the doorway again. Holding a stack of dish towels like you weren’t sure where they were meant to go. Your mouth opened like you were about to say something, but your eyes landed on the frame. Then him. Then the space between. It all felt so…domestic. And his heart lurched at the thought. He swallowed it down, fiddled with the wrench in his hand and looked back at you as if he hadn’t been in love with you since the moment you’d stepped into the bullpen, so sure of yourself, what you could do.

He could’ve said anything. About the bed. The room. The view, but he couldn’t, not when you looked so peaceful, so soft in the mid afternoon lighting casting the prettiest glow across your skin.

“This place suits you.”