The silence had improved substantially within only a few days. When a few weeks had come and gone, they were talking again, just like they used to.

Their sex life didn't improve much at all, but that didn't matter because sex wasn't everything and love was enough. Carter went to work more frequently and came home with a smile and Harry painted for hours upon hours, his masterpieces slowly regaining their color as his world returned to its true brightness.

Bright rays of sunlight streamed through the blinds that they'd forgotten to close the night before, Carter hummed as she traced ink that was set in his skin. Weekends were their therapy days, days that they would spend together without worrying about work, or family, or anything, and where they would just relax.

After a while, Carter spoke softly, she had noticed that she'd never given him her promise in the same way that he'd given his to her, "You don't have the same tattoo."

Harry looked down to where her fingers rested just above his heart, his lips pulling down, "You're right, I don't."

She lifted her eyes to meet his and he could see the sadness as clear as he could see the light streaming through the window, "I'm sorry. For a lot of things really, but I'm sorry for the way that I left you because I let my mind get the best of me."

Harry reached for her hand and laced their fingers together, his lips pressing to the top of her hand seconds later, "I know, sweetheart. I know. And I still want to marry you, even if you still think that I don't."

Carter's vision blurred slightly as tears threatened to fall, "I still don't deserve you and all that you've done for me."

Harry shook his head and brought his free hand up to catch the tear that had escaped from her left eye, "Yes you do, Carter. You deserve it all."

"How can you say that after all that I've put you through?"

Harry smiled down warmly at her, his free hand placing a loose strand of hair behind her ear, "Because I love you."

Carter sat up as best as she could and pressed her lips to his, exhaling through her nose at the contact and closing her eyes. To her, even the simplest kiss, was a heavy dose of medicine and an unforgiving addiction and she felt so much better once their relationship had started to mend along with their emotional state.

She didn't have to say anything for him to understand and he kissed her back sweetly. The familiarity of his lips cleared her mind and sent a welcomed warmth through her veins. For the first time in a while, she felt like she deserved to be loved and she let herself drown in it.

Midnight, however, was feeling quite neglected and decided to jump up and onto the bed and rub her face against Carter's. She meowed loudly and circled around to do it again. Carter pulled away from Harry's intoxicating kisses and laughed softly as she picked up the growing kitten.

"You're so needy!"

Harry sat up as well and pressed a hasty kiss to her lips and repeated his earlier statement, "I love you."

Carter smiled as she scratched behind Midnight's tiny ears, the kitten purring loudly in her lap, "I love you too."

They ended up staying in bed for most of the day, eating mac and cheese for lunch, playing with their kittens, cuddling and stealing countless kisses.

Harry held Carter close and hardly ever let her move very far, but she didn't mind because her favourite place to be was in his arms and the heat that his body was producing had a tendency to make her sleepy.

She didn't want to sleep though and forced herself to stay awake. Carter pressed her lips to the bottom of his jaw and squeezed his hand.

Harry was half asleep and he smiled softly at her actions.

"Harry?"

"Hmm?"

"Will you give me a couple of new tattoos? I've been thinking about it for a while, and I don't want anyone else to do them but you."

Harry opened his eyes and smiled at her, "I would love to. It's been a while though, so I can't promise much finesse."

Carter giggled and pressed another kiss to his jawline, "Doesn't matter."

Harry sat up and pulled her over so that she was laying on his chest, her smile as bright as the stars that littered the night sky, "What tattoo's would you like?"

He took her hands in his and entwined their fingers. Carter's smile dimmed and was almost sad, which worried him. He'd been about to ask what he'd done wrong when she answered his question, "Her name and the dates and 'I'm yours.'"

She didn't have to say the name explicitly for him to know who she meant. Harry kissed her forehead, letting his lips linger for a long moment, "I'm sorry."

Carter hugged him a little tighter, it was still hard for her to talk about, but she was so happy that he hadn't left. The night that he had snapped at her, she knew that he was thinking about leaving, she knew it and she knew that it was her fault because she'd been shutting him out and ignoring his feelings.

She'd never told him that, but she knew and she never wanted the thought to ever cross his mind again because she needed him more than she needed oxygen to breathe.

"Me too."

. . .

Carter bit down on her lip harshly as the needle bit into the skin on her side. Harry was carefully spelling out their lost little girl's name and the dates, but it still hurt like hell.

Carter knew that the ribs were one of the worst places to be tattooed, but she wanted her name there and nowhere else because Harry's promise, and her new addition of her promise, rested over her heart. The side where her heart resided was the next best thing and she refused to put it anywhere else, even if Harry was terribly inexperienced and causing her more pain than he needed to.

"Will you tattoo the same thing on my ribs next?"

She flinched as he ran the needle over a particularly sore spot, "Yes. You need the promise too, if you want it."

Harry pulled the needle away and wiped away the excess ink, "Of course I do."

It was a dangerous thing to let someone mark you in the way that they marked each other with marks that could never be erased. Covered up, sure, but erased? No, even if their marks were covered they would still live on in their memory, an ink stain that would take centuries to fade away.

Neither of them worried about it though because they had each come to the conclusion that they were it for each other. Love wasn't easy, and it had hardly been easy for them, but that's how they knew that it was true and why they stuck together even when things seemed to be at their worst.

Carter took deep breaths and closed her eyes as Harry worked on her ribs, it hurt but it let her focus on some other pain as she spoke softly, "She was so beautiful, you know. Sometimes I wish that you had seen her, but at the same time I don't because it was so traumatic just for me to catch the smallest glimpse."

Harry pulled the needle away, shut it off, and carefully wiped his eyes, "I know because she would have looked like you. I wish that you hadn't seen because it did terrible things to you, Carter. I don't want to see you hurting like that ever again, it was worse than losing you the first time, so much worse."

Carter bit down on her lip harshly because she knew that they had to talk about it eventually, the pain from the needle was gone and left her with a different pain to focus on.

"But you still want babies and I can't give them to you, Harry. I can't, no matter how much that I want to, I can't."

Harry cleaned her tattoo and she gasped at the sudden burning sensation, she didn't know that he had actually finished.

He bit his lip and let his tears fall, "They didn't say that Carter, you know that they didn't."

Carter sat up and turned to face him, her beautiful blue eyes swimming with tears, "But I can't do that again Harry." Her chest was heaving as she took in shortened breaths, "I can't lose another baby. I can't."

Harry's heart felt constricted even as he closed the space between them and held her tightly, "I won't make you, sweetheart. I won't ever make you do something that you don't want to do, ever."

Her body shook as her sobs increased, her hands twisting in the soft fabric of his shirt, "But I want to give you babies, I want to have cute little children that look like us. I just-I'm so scared, Harry."

Harry kissed her temple and smoothed her hair, he understood and he wasn't going to push her, but there was something that their therapist said that stood out in his mind, "Claire said that it's natural to feel that way, but it shouldn't stop you from trying again. I know that you don't want to hear it, and I'm still not going to push you, it's just something that I remember her saying."

Carter inhaled deeply, her body relaxing under his touch and the comforting quality that his voice always possessed, "I know, but it is. I'm so sorry that I can't give you what you want."

Harry pulled away and put a tiny bit of distance between them. His held his palm against her cheek and wiped her tears away with his thumb, his eyes staring deeply into hers, "You're all that I want, Carter. As long as I have you, you've given me everything."

That only seemed to make her cry even harder. He let her cry and held her close, giving her loving kisses and whispering 'I love you' every now and then. After a while, she'd calmed down and marked his skin just as he had marked hers.

They'd hardly been more than a few inches apart from one another all day and, when Carter went to take a bath and Harry stayed in the bedroom, she felt a little twinge of emptiness and walked back into the room immediately.

"Please come with me I...I don't want to be alone."

Harry closed his sketchbook and placed it on the bedside table before getting out of bed and meeting her at the entrance to the bathroom. He took her hand in his and kissed her temple, "I'm here. I'll always be here."

Carter left the jets off and leaned back against Harry, his arms around her stomach and his head resting on her shoulder. She'd turned on some music before they had gotten in, but it still wasn't enough to keep her from her thoughts.

"We've been engaged for so long, and for nearly all of it, I've been depriving you of sex. We're probably the worst engaged couple ever. Who gets engaged and doesn't have a ton of sex?"

Harry laughed softly and pressed his lips to her neck, "Sex isn't everything, sweetheart."

Carter sighed and closed her eyes, "Yes, but we're really bad at not having sex and recently we've been really bad at having sex."

Harry shrugged, "That's okay, sometimes life turns things around for a little bit."

Carter smiled softly and removed his arms from her torso so that she could turn around and straddle him, her hands around his neck, "I want to try to turn it back around. It's good stress relief and orgasms are really nice. I mean really nice."

He tried not to pay attention to the way that her breasts pressed against his chest or how she'd positioned her hips perfectly against his, but it was becoming harder and harder to ignore with every second that passed.

His green eyes practically looked through her blue ones, "You're absolutely sure?"

Carter bit her bottom lip, her smile shy even though they'd had sex many times before and it was never really a sensitive subject, and nodded.

"Yes."

Harry let his hands slide down to her waist and pull her closer, his lips attaching to hers in a gentle kiss that moved from gentle, to passionate in very little time at all.

Carter had forgotten how great of a kisser he was and welcomed his tongue with no restraints, her hips gently rocking against his and the pressure between her legs gradually increasing as Harry slipped his hand between her legs.

Soft moans fell from her lips and her fingers twisted in his hair and gripped his shoulder harshly as he kissed down her neck and slipped two fingers inside of her.

Her back arched as the familiar feeling built up in the pit of her stomach, Harry mumbling encouraging and dirty words against her skin and egging her on. She rocked her hips against his hand and in only a few more moments she was coming undone and repeating Harry's name over and over in a breathy moan.

When she'd come down from her high, he resumed stealing her breath with kisses even though his dick was throbbing and needing attention. She was more important and he wanted to make things special instead of needy.

They'd kissed for what felt like hours before he was lining himself up at her entrance and briefly teasing her by rubbing against her and only entering his tip. Carter moaned loudly and her short nails dug into his shoulders as he slowly pushed into her.

It had been a long time since they had last had sex and he knew that it probably hurt her, so he let her adjust before pulling his hips back and pushing himself in and out of her in a slow, deliberate, and passionate manner.

Carter clung to him, rocking her hips against his, matching his pace as quiet moans passed her lips and the mind-blowing tingling sensation built up for the second time in the pit of her stomach. His lips mapped her skin deliberately and sloppily, low groans escaping every now and then and adding to the pleasure that she already felt.

A few more thrusts and Carter was biting his shoulder, parts of her body relaxing while other parts clenched and the wonderful tingling that accompanied orgasms spreading throughout her entire body.

Harry wasn't there yet and picked up the pace, his fingers tightening around her waist and his eyes closing as he neared his climax. He mumbled her name against her skin before releasing a low groan and pulling her closer to him.

Carter kissed him deeply, pouring out her entire heart, "Things won't ever be easy for us, but I won't ever stop loving you.

Harry smiled lazily in return, he was still trying to catch his breath, "And I won't ever stop loving you, no matter what happens. Please don't ever forget that."