Song: Ngize - Mpumi ft Professor

(Thought I'd use a song from home. Well technically this is from South African artists, but they're our neighbors so...The gist of the song is "Until I find the one/mine." I liked the tone of the song for this chapter).

"I don't know how you think you'll manage an undercover mission for weeks, Henderson. You can barely last half an hour without texting or calling your girl," said Amelia Bennet, Nathan's new partner in the SCU.

After working with him in Pinehive, she'd been happy to partner with him when he finally joined the SCU, and had been responsible for his training for the past six months.

"I don't text her every half hour," he protested, to which she raised an eyebrow, looking pointedly at the phone in his hand. "She has a big interview today, I'm just wishing her good luck," he added defensively as he shoved the phone back in his pocket and picked up his binoculars again.

He peered through the window of the house from which they were watching the street in front of them, but there was no action yet.

"Drop the reigns or she'll run for the hills and never come back," she warned him.

He ignored her and checked the watch on his wrist before looking back out at the street. "It's almost 5 p.m. First truck is due in three minutes. Are Clark and the team in position?"

"They're on standby, pending further," Amelia confirmed. This was the first big case Nathan was taking lead on since he joined the SCU, a test of sorts, so every call to action rested on his shoulders.

She joined him over by the tinted window, camera in hand, and they waited. Sure enough, three minutes later, a white garbage truck approached, stopping occasionally to collect trash bags left on the pavement outside almost every house.

The house they were watching had no trash bag outside it so the truck passed and before long, disappeared down the street and round a corner. Hardly a second later; a short, fair skinned woman dressed in a long, plain grey maid's uniform stepped out of the house they were watching, wheeling a trash bin with the lid slightly propped open. She left the bin outside the gate and went back inside.

"Tell Clark and the others to get ready to move," Nathan said. Amelia radioed his orders as they left the house and went to their car.

The low rumble of an engine caught their attention and a second garbage truck came down the street. Unlike the first, this one drove right by the other houses and only stopped at the one they were staking out.

They watched as a man, dressed in overalls and a cap pulled low over his eyes, dropped down from the back and opened the bin. He reached in and brought out a bulky looking trash bag, carefully encircling his arms around it like he was afraid whatever was in it would fall out. Nathan's instincts immediately kicked into high alert. There was no way that bag had ordinary household trash.

"What's your order, Agent?"

Nathan thought it through and made a decision as the man threw the bag into the truck and climbed on. He took the radio and gave his order. "Stand down, Clark."

"Are you sure?" Clark asked on the other end, sounding doubtful.

"Yeah. When he comes your way, let him through. Amelia and I will follow him. Wait for further instructions." He drove off right after, following the truck from as far a distance as he could without losing sight of it.

"I'm curious," Amelia began. "Why'd you tell Clark to stand down?"

Nathan kept his focus on the truck as he answered her. "The last task force that worked on the case of the Trash Snatchers jumped the gun and only managed to catch one member of the operation who proved to be useless, while the rest moved and it took us three months to find them again. We have to let the truck lead us to the others, so letting them think they got away with this first phase is our only chance at finally ending this."

Amelia slow-clapped. "You're good, Henderson. It's dangerous and risky, but if it works it'll be worth it. That's the kind of call you'll have to make on an almost daily basis, so I'm glad I didn't have to strongarm you into it."

"Thanks for the high praise," Nathan said wryly.

"Don't let it get to your head," she said, turning serious. "Do you have a backup plan in case this one goes south?"

"Yeah, but you better pray Plan A works."

"Plan B's that bad?"

"Let's just say, I wouldn't be opposed to calling it Plan Bloody."

***

Nathan and Amelia followed the truck to the outskirts of town where the landfill was located. The truck dumped the bag and drove off and Nathan sent a few agents to follow it while they waited at the landfill, watching the bag and hidden from sight.

On Nathan's instruction, Amelia ran over to the bag and opened it while he kept a lookout. A small boy, possibly aged six lay inside, unconscious and with a huge, red bump on his forehead. The only source of air was a couple of holes cut out in the bag. Battling with the urge to take him away, she attached a tracking device on the inside of his shirt and snapped a quick picture of him with her phone before running back to hide with Nathan.

From her phone, she checked that the tracking device was working, then they waited. Just as it was getting darker, a large dirty truck came along and the boy in the bag was loaded in the back along with a couple of bags marked food waste.

They followed the truck when it left, grateful for the increasing darkness and shared the location data from the tracking device with Clark and the rest of their team. The truck went to some farm plots at the end of town and once the tracking device showed they weren't moving anymore; the SCU stormed the place with Nathan and Amelia in the lead.

Ten men were found inside the house, along with double the number of children; boys and girls all around the ages of 6 to 10. Even though the abductors were outnumbered two-to-one, they put up a fight and one of them managed to cut Nathan high up on his left arm before he was pinned down and handcuffed.

Back at the SCU offices; Nathan was patched up, debriefed, then released and given a couple of days off to recover, even though he insisted the knife wound was barely a scratch. On the bright side, his "test" had gone well and now he'd get to spend New Year's Eve and the next day with Natasha without interruption, so he didn't protest too much.

***

As soon as he left the office, he checked his phone and saw a message from Natasha telling him the interview had gone well. He tried calling her but she didn't answer. Anxiety started to claw at him with each passing ring, but he forced himself to stay calm and just text her and wait. So he sent her a message asking her to meet him at The Book and Bean, a little restaurant which had quickly become their favorite after they'd had their first official date there.

He went to wait for her there and sat at their usual outdoor table set at the back where the sounds coming from the street were low enough to be tolerable.

After half an hour, she still hadn't texted or called back and he was starting to worry. The strong sense of deja vu that settled over him didn't help matters much and by the hour mark and third unanswered text and call, he was in full panic mode.

Just as he was dialing the office to get someone to track Natasha's phone, she walked up to him with a smile that almost melted away the fear that had his chest in a vicelike grip.

Almost.

"Hey, babe! Say hello to the new Production Manager of Bake Up!" she said cheerily, leaning down to kiss him. He jerked away from her and she straightened back up, startled by his blatant rejection of her affection. Her eyes roamed worriedly over his face, taking in the bruises and his angry expression.

"Why weren't you answering your phone?" he asked in a tone she knew he only used when he was furious, and trying very hard not to snap.

Warily, she said, "I met some friends after I got your text to meet here and we got caught up in conversation. By the time I checked my phone and saw your other calls and texts, I was just around the corner, so it seemed pointless since I was about to get to you anyway."

"Pointless!" he exclaimed. "Do you have any idea how worried I was?"

"I'm sorry, okay. I was carrying a lot of things so I had to put my phone in my bag. Let's not make a big deal out of this. Look, I brought a cake to celebrate!" She tried steering the conversation away from the cliff it was about to take a nosedive from, showing him the box in her hands.

"It is a big deal, Natasha. I thought something might have happened to you and I was two seconds away from calling a search party. And you couldn't even be bothered to just send me a text so I'd know you're okay."

"I can't have my phone in my hand to tell you I'm alive every fifteen damn minutes!" Natasha snapped, all patience lost.

"Is it too much to ask for a text every once in a while to put my mind at ease?"

"Yes! You freak out if my phone battery is low and I end up looking like a mad woman, running around to find a place to charge it so that it doesn't switch off. And if I don't respond to your texts within five seconds, I get fifty calls. It's suffocating!"

Silence passed between them after her outburst, louder than the noises coming from the street beyond the restaurant.

Nathan stood, a grim expression on his face, and threw a couple of bills on the table for the drink he'd ordered while he was waiting. "Sorry, I didn't realize my caring about you was such a burden."

He walked away, leaving her staring after him as he disappeared down the street.

***

Once she was alone and her irritation had simmered down, guilt descended on her. She knew his paranoia stemmed from the events of the night she'd been shot and she understood why he was fussy about communication. But it had become exhausting to appease his need to check in on her all the time.

After wallowing in regret for a few minutes, she left the restaurant and took a cab to his apartment to apologize. She knocked on the door for a while before caving and using the spare key he'd given her. The place was dark and empty. He hadn't come home and she had no idea where he could be.

If she called him and he didn't answer, she wouldn't have the courage to try again, so that wasn't an option. She wandered around his apartment instead, hoping if he found her there he wouldn't throw her out.

Unlike his last apartment in Pinehive, this one felt more homely and less generic thanks to the pictures and furniture filling out the place.

The open floor plan made the space look bigger. A light brown two-seater couch and a matching single one occupied half the lounge area, with an oval rug filling up the space between the couches and the wall where a large flat screen TV was mounted.

Several gilded frames hung on the wall surrounding the TV, each holding a treasured memory immortalized in pixels. Out of all the pictures, Natasha had two favorites. The first was the one of Nathan and Carey holding cardboard signs. He looked happier in that picture than he'd ever been since she'd known him, and her heart broke all over again for the hurtful things she'd said to him.

Her gaze strayed to her second favorite picture. This one was of her and Nathan, taken a couple of weeks ago. They'd been walking around the park after a picnic date when he suddenly lifted her and twirled her around until she was a laughing, dizzy mess. When he'd finally put her down, she latched onto him for support and he hugged her and tenderly kissed her neck.

The photographer had captured them that way; locked in an embrace with her head thrown back in laughter and his lips on her neck. It was beautiful, in spite of its "stalker-y origins" as Nathan liked to say.

Behind the larger couch, a rectangular dining room table was set up with four matching chairs, two on either of the longer sides. Whenever they had dinner there, the setup allowed them to choose to eat while watching TV or facing the beach that could be seen beyond the long, glass, tinted windows.

The kitchen area was on the other end. It was simple too, with the fitted cabinets, a refrigerator and the stove taking up most of the space around the walls. A kitchen island completed the area, set centrally with chairs around it.

She put the cake she'd brought with her from work into the refrigerator and considered cooking something since they hadn't gotten around to eating.

Deciding otherwise, she went to wait on the couch, fighting the urge to explore the one room she hadn't spent time in; his bedroom. Unlike in his last apartment, she'd never spent the night or slept in his bed, despite having helped him pick out linens and random paintings for the walls.

After waiting another hour, she switched off the lights, locked up and headed to the apartment she still shared with her friend, Laura.

It was almost 11 p.m. by the time the cab left her outside her building and she rummaged through her bag for the keys as she climbed the stairs to the main access door.

Halfway up the stairs, she saw someone stand from the top step and start walking towards her. When she looked closer, she realized it was Nathan, looking very relieved to see her.

Her shock wore off quickly and she blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "I can't sleep with the lights off!" she said, earning a perplexed expression from Nathan who now stood next to her.

"What?"

She cleared her throat and explained. "Ever since the shooting, I get a panic attack if I try to sleep with the lights off."

Nathan eyed her with a mix of concern and confusion. "I'm so sorry." He looked like he wanted to hug her, but uncertainty flashed in his eyes and he held back.

"What I mean is that I get why this phone thing is a big deal to you. You, me, Kelsey; we were all messed up by that night. I'm a grown woman who cries if the lights are turned off and Kelsey couldn't even look at their car for weeks after Claire attacked her in it, until her father had to sell it and get a replacement. I'm sorry I dismissed your feelings," she went on.

"You don't have to apologize. I clearly need help and I shouldn't have put all this on you. I'll find a way to deal with it so I'm not a burden to you," Nathan said.

"You're not," she protested, but before she could carry on, a group of people passed by singing out of tune and laughing loudly.

"Should we go and talk in your apartment?" he asked her.

"Laura might come back any second. How about we go to yours where we won't be interrupted if you don't mind?"

"Okay," he agreed, and the small smile he gave her assured her she hadn't ruined them just yet.

***

"I was here earlier," she said as Nathan led her into his apartment, deciding to confess before he figured it out himself. "I wanted to apologize so I came here and waited a while then called it quits and went home."

She sat on the two-seater and Nathan joined her there, much to her relief.

"I was waiting for you at yours. And when you were gone for so long..." he trailed off, running his hand through his hair in frustration.

"I'm sorry that you've had to put up with this and I don't want to 'suffocate' you in this relationship, so I'll deal with my issues. Just...please be patient with me?"

"No. We're in this together, which means we deal with things together. I'm sorry for what I said. It was horrid and selfish and I shouldn't have said it."

"Don't apologize for being honest about how you feel," he said, with a more genuine smile this time. "So how do you propose we deal with this together then?"

"Well, I can't promise that I'll reply to your messages or answer your calls the instant I receive them because sometimes work gets busy and I can't even look at my phone. But I can promise that I'll try my best to text you back as often as I can and if work gets busy or I'm otherwise pre-occupied, I'll at least send you a text that just says 'busy' so you'll know I haven't fallen off the face of the planet."

Nathan considered it. "I think I can live with that. Thank you."

"Ever heard of 'Find My Friends' and how it works?"

He stared blankly at her and she went on.

"It's an app that we can both have on our phones so you can check my location as long as I have it on. If I can't text or call you back, I'll at least make sure I keep my phone in my pocket so it's with me all the time and you can just check my location in the meantime. Would you mind if we tried that?"

"Are you okay with that? I'd basically be stalking you," he teased.

She pretended to look him over, then smiled. "Yep, definitely more than okay."

"One more thing," she said, standing and putting some distance between them, then motioning for him to do the same. "Try attacking me."

"Sorry, what?"

"Attack me."

"Uhmm. I think I'll pass, thanks."

She giggled. "I'm trying to prove a point, babe. Just do it. Try tackling me."

Nathan reluctantly surged towards her and just as he was about to reach her, she side-stepped him and kicked her leg out at his shin, locking his arms on his sides by wrapping hers around him and pulling him down to the ground.

Her advantage didn't last long as Nathan spun them around so he was on top of her, locking her wrists above her head.

"What was that?" he asked, slightly amused.

She tried wiggling out from his hold and he tightened it, fighting a smile. She stopped struggling and relaxed her body, smiling sheepishly up at him. His grip loosened a fraction and she immediately locked her foot around his ankle his and pushed him off her, landing on top of him.

"That was you falling for my false surrender," she smirked lowering herself so her face was only an inch away from his. Her arms were wound around his back and she was kneeling between his legs, halting any escape. "I just wanted to show you I'm not completely helpless."

"You took self-defense classes," Nathan guessed staring up into her hazel eyes.

She nodded and sat up, leaning against his raised knees and removing her arms from around him, now wearing a troubled expression on her face. "I know you would never hurt me, but after everything with Max and then Claire, I figured I had to learn to protect myself. I just never want to feel helpless like that again so..." She stopped, swallowing hard.

Nathan sat up so his face was now level with hers, and pressed his lips to hers to wipe away the horrors that haunted her. When she brought her hands to his neck to draw him even closer than they already were, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her down on top of him again as he lay down on the rug.

He pulled away for a second and his blue eyes were like liquid fire, scorching every part of her.

"Stay with me tonight?" he asked.

It was the first time in a while that the issue of her spending the night with him had been raised. Before, either he changed the subject or she evaded it.

In lieu of an answer, she kissed him. Slowly. Deeply. Until nothing else existed but the feeling of his body against hers and the chaotic rhythm of their hearts, chests pressed so close together he couldn't tell which was his. Her t-shirt rode up a little at the back and when his fingers came into contact with her skin, a shiver ran through her whole body. His hands went to her waist, tracing a torturously slow trail up her sides.

This time, she pulled away and Nathan instantly dropped his hands, worried that he'd pushed too far. Before he could offer an apology, she pulled her t-shirt up over her head, tossing it over the couch and grabbed his hands, putting them right back where they'd been before.

"It's okay," she assured him.

Nathan stared up at her in wonder, rendered speechless by the depth of trust he saw in her eyes.

He lifted himself up from the rug, holding her tightly to him and she wrapped her legs around his waist, kissing his neck as he walked them to his room. Voices carried over from the beach and the loud crack of fireworks occasionally cut through the darkness, even though there were still a few minutes left to midnight.

He lay her gently on the bed and took his time leaving light kisses on her stomach, chest, and neck before finding her lips again. Somewhere down at the beach, the ten-second countdown to the new year began, but Nathan and Natasha only focused on each other, shutting everything else out.

Midnight struck, bringing with it the dawn of a new day in a new year, ushered in by jovial shouts and explosions of light throughout the night sky.

In an apartment overlooking the beach; something else dawned, but no hysterical shouts or blinding flashes of multicolored lights accompanied this. Only the silent beauty of two hearts, minds, bodies and souls coming together, with just four walls to bear witness.

***

Happy New Year! I wish you all the best in 2019.

This was originally meant to be a Christmas special to celebrate TUS getting 10K reads, but we all know how I am with time management when it comes to writing, lol. We're at 13K now and I see so many new people reading, voting and commenting, so thank you all for your continued support!

In other news, we're getting a spin-off of TUS! Thanks to some not-so-gentle-prodding from a friend, and my general issues with not being able to let go of stuff, I'm going to be writing a second story.

I have a title (which is a first for me, because those usually only come to me when the story ends!) and I'm still working on the outline but I'm not yet sure when I'll start posting it, although it's definitely in the early months of this new year. It'll have most of the same characters as TUS, but Nate and Tasha won't be the main focus of the story. I'll tell you a little secret about this bonus chapter once I start posting the new story #winkwink.