Love to

For a few moments, Eric senses Stacy is going to say no, and he could feel his heart sinking just a little bit. Had he come on too strong? Or too sudden? 

But as she continues, his hopes surface again. Hearing her words, his heart gains a strange feeling. He wasn't really sure what it was. It was heartache, knowing her past and how she'd been hurt. It was empathy, being able to relate to that hurt and the hesitance to try anything again. It was compassion, knowing full well the desire to be gentle and take things slow. 

Coming to a halt and forcing Stacy to stop too, he takes her shoulders and turns her to face him. Looking down into her eyes, his smile is warm. "Whether things between us ever go any further or not... I will go slowly... as long as you go slowly with me. I will be gentle... as long as you're gentle with me. And I will bear with you... as long as you bear with me too."

Leaning down, he gives her lips a soft, tender kiss before retreating again. "I ain't really sure what I'm doing, or if I'm doing it right, so you're gonna have to tell me if I do something wrong... but... I'd love to date you, Stacy Cullen."

Seeing Dalton bring out the nameplates, a lump rises in Scott's throat. He'd had no idea they'd even been kept, let alone that Dalton had really been waiting for him to return. He hadn't been so sure he'd ever be back here again... but his friend had had more faith than he. 

Reaching down, he runs his finger over the nameplate on the desk before he looks back up at Dalton. His eyes glisten and it takes him a moment to control his emotions. "Thank you... Dalton. This, um... this really means a lot to me." 

Coming around the desk, he sits in his old chair and is quiet for several moments, his eyes just studying the computers. "I'm... I'm trying really hard to get my life back. Some days it's easier than I thought, and other days it's a whole lot harder than I thought. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and think I ought to be back at Brookshire. Sometimes I sleep a whole night through and know I really am recovering." 

He pauses again before sighing deeply. "I think though that... what I need to remember is... I'm not the same person anymore. What I've been through has changed me, whether I like it or not. And I can regain some of my old self and my inner core is always the same... but my reactions, thought processes, how I think, my decisions... they're all different now. And I've been fighting it for so long that... maybe I failed to see that it's okay to be different than I was." 

His eyes move to look at Dalton, hoping his friend understood. "I guess my biggest fear is other people not understanding and hoping that I'm just the same old Scott when... I'm not... and I'm not going to be. I just don't want to disappoint anybody."