Fic: We’ll Never Sleep (God Knows We’ll Try) (5/5)
We’ll Never Sleep (God Knows We’ll Try)
Part Five
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“I don’t understand why I can’t stay until after my sister delivers her child,” Juliet protests, resists the urge to check her voicemail -- she still hasn’t heard back from Rachel’s oncologist’s office, and it’s been three days already. “It’s barely two months, what difference can that make?”
“To the women under our care,” Richard Alpert counters sagely, his hands lingering on the files -- so many files of so many women, all suffering, all on the brink of loss and fear and death, and there are so many failures in her life, so many things she’s let slide, let fall, let break; and Alpert must know it, too, to draw her attention until she worries her lip between her teeth to the point of raw, metallic agony -- until she knows there’s no way she can add another failure. Not now. “The difference can mean life and death.” Then he adds -- gently, though it has the exact opposite effect. “They’ve already been waiting quite some time, after all.”
She lets herself think like a fool for a moment then; lets herself wonder what things would be like, how life might be now, if she’d simply accepted the offer that day in the morgue.
“You have an incredible gift, Dr. Burke,” Richard tells her, his voice full of something like honest regard, and where it might have baffled her, might have been gratifying; now, it just hurts. “You’ve given hope to the hopeless. You give life,” he reaches out, and brushes comforting fingertips over her hand -- it should be inappropriate, forward, untoward, but it isn’t; it breaks something in her, instead -- something too dangerously close to resolve for comfort. “Let us help you share that gift with the world.”
She’s silent for a solid minute before Alpert leans in, his voice an octave lower -- quiet and grave. “If we told you that we had the resources to ensure your sister’s recovery, and the successful delivery of her son,” she says slowly, his eyes fixed hard upon her as her gaze flashes to meet his, narrowed in disbelief; “would you reconsider?”
She swallows once, twice, again; forces out dry and parched because there’s nothing to help it, nothing to soothe it; “Excuse me?”
“If we could guarantee that your sister’s cancer could be cured, and that she’d deliver a healthy baby boy in approximately seven weeks’ time,” Richard repeats carefully, starkly, without aplomb or irony, “would you reconsider our offer?”
“My sister is in remission,” Juliet says, a recycled response that’s half self-preservation, half-wishful thinking, but also mostly denial, and it stabs her through the chest with a force she can’t endure.
“Are you quite certain of that?”
She bites the tip of her tongue to keep the tears at bay, the rage in check; she doesn’t bother to ask how he knows -- there’s more here than she cares to understand, and digging for answers where she’s not welcome has only served her poorly, of late; it’s only hardened her heart.
“No one can guarantee that,” she breathes, a hiss through her teeth as she turns wild eyes, pained eyes to Richard’s open ones; his sad ones. “Not you, not anyone.” She shakes her head, feels her stomach clench; she’s nauseous, and her vision’s blurring with more than just tears, because she’s while she hasn’t quite learned to judge a lie, she’s decent at knowing the truth when she hears it. “Only God can make those kinds of promises.”
And strike her dead where she stands, but there’s truth in his voice when he answers:
“I assure you, we can.”
She says nothing, reels with all of the thoughts of impossible and maybe and what if that threaten to catch and choke her, send her to an early grave with the way they race in her blood. “We want you, Dr. Burke.”
“It’s Dr. Carlson, now, actually.” She doesn’t know why she says it, doesn’t know what prompts the comment at all; but it feels right, in the moment, like a feather lifting from her shoulders amidst the weight of the world -- the straw that broke the camel’s back sliding away before the cracking, the shatter.
“Dr. Carlson,” he amends, nodding, like he knows a secret now that lives inside her name. He heaves a soft sigh, and stands slowly, his eyes flickering to the window before he gathers his folders, his case files, and returns his gaze to her. “I’ll be in the area for another week,” he says, a deadline if she ever heard one. “You have my number. Think about it.” The sound of his shoes against the floor is deafening as he walks to the door, pauses before opening it. “We don’t make offers to just anyone,” and it sounds like a warning. “And we don’t make our promises lightly.”
And that sounds like a sign.
The door is nearly closed behind him before she calls out.
“Six months, Dr. Alpert?”
It’s as if he’d been expecting it, had been listening for the change of her heart, because the cadence of his footfalls is almost practiced, almost planned, like he’d meant to turn back. “Six months,” he reiterates, leans back against the door so that it closes behind him once more. “Unless you decide to stay with us longer.”
“And my sister?”
“She’ll be well-cared for.” Alpert walks closer, sits down closer to her now, in her space, intimate in a sense that conveys a trust that sinks deep, that makes her want to believe, for all that shouldn’t. “I give you my word.”
“Will I be able to speak with her?” Juliet asks, her eyes red-rimmed but dry as she meets his gaze. “Will I be able to know when my nephew is born?”
“Our location is extremely remote.” She turns away from him, frustrated -- she’s heard this spiel before; they live in the fucking twenty-first century, what the hell does “remote” even mean, anymore?
The hitch in her breath, the way it catches; it must be audible, obvious, because he leans in closer and covers her hand with his own -- tentative, but sympathetic. Reassuring. “If I stayed on the mainland until she delivers, would that comfort you?”
She blinks at him for a good ten seconds, processing the proposal. “I...” she starts, but the offer, this man’s offer -- a man who doesn’t know her and doesn’t owe her anything -- knocks her off-balance for the moment more, and it’s not about her. “You’d do that?” she asks, voice small, a little wondering. “That would be okay?”
He smiles, and it’s almost as if it’s weary beneath all of the warmth, like a few extra months would mean nothing in the grander scheme of things for the man at her side. “It’d be my pleasure.”
“But you said you’d only be here for another week.”
“We need you,” Richard answers simply. “Some exceptions can be made.”
She stares at her hands for a good, long moment, studying the small lines, the ones that only reveal themselves in the right sort of light; she wants to second guess this, wants to put it off just a little bit longer, but she can’t. She won’t.
“It’s not forever, Juliet,” Richard reminds her kindly, a firm presence at her side; on her side. “Nothing’s forever.”
She breathes deeply, lets the air out slow. “Can you,” she tries, takes another long, deliberate breath. “If you stay, would I…” She looks up at him, her lashes clumped, a mess. “Could you,” and his face is kind, like he pities her, like he wants to help, and she doesn’t know how to take it, how to handle it in the moment; she’s adrift drowning on dry land.
“Could I see him?” she finally asks, her mind’s eye focused beyond the now on a little baby boy all pink and soft and warm, a little tuft of hair on his head and her dad’s nose, her mom’s lips, Rachel’s smile. “After he’s born,” she trails off, lost in the thought of it, of family and blood and miraculous, heart-stopping life. “Just, a picture... something...”
“I’m sure I can arrange something,” he assures her softly, his hand on her shoulder for a moment as she nods; nods before she can speak it, say it out loud.
“All right.” It seems a little like selling her soul; though selling her soul seems a little anti-climactic, all things considered -- draining, but not deadly.
“You’re making a selfless decision, Dr. Carlson.” And maybe she is; but it sure as hell feels like running, like caving -- giving in. “Believe me when I say that it won’t go unnoticed. Nor unrewarded.”
And that should sound more ominous than it does; frankly, she’s beyond the point of caring. She’s tired; she’s done.
It’s done.
“When do you need me to leave?”
“Ideally? As soon as you’re ready.” He clears his throat as she props an elbow on the table, holds her head up in her hand. “We can arrange for transport within the week.”
She nods, mute; ready, and yet completely unprepared.
“Can I ask you a personal question?” And she looks up, pins him with a stare that sees past him, through him, and hopes it looks like consent, even if it’s not supposed to.
“I’ll admit, I haven’t been entirely confident of your interest in our offer. You’ve kept us waiting quite some time.” He cocks his head, considers her, and she wonders, idly, what it is that he sees. “What changed your mind?”
The words come before there are thoughts to fuel them.
“Everything changes, Dr. Alpert. And I suppose it’s time I started owning that fact for myself.”
She wills her legs to be steady, and stands to leave.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It’s not a decision, so much as an obligation, an imperative to be waiting at Nathan’s when he gets back. The fact that she’d called, left a blank message on his machine as she waits in the wings with the beeping matching her pulse in thirds, just so he’d have to hear the words that came first before her own silence would play -- well, that was more like poetic justice than anything else.
She walks to the kitchen in her socks, silent, just as the message is wrapping up, just before hers begins.
“What was this, Nathan?” she asks, shocks his attention toward where she stands; he looks shellshocked, unhinged. “What was it, just…” She gestures absently, eyes dead; everything’s just a little bit dead as she considers him, sees the anguish sluice from him -- can’t bring herself to care, to not. “Just a game, for you?” She laughs, sobs; looks at him, and anywhere but. “Just... cheap entertainment while you were away from your wife?”
The word chokes, and she can barely see for the red, for the tears she won’t let fall.
“No,” Nathan says, taking a step, stopping, taking another step -- almost hesitant, almost scared, dodging the falling pieces of everything, everything, as it breaks. “God, no.” And he looks at her as if she’s the only thing, the only thing that matters, and Juliet -- she can’t help herself, it just hurts all the more.
“Jesus,” Nathan says, closes the distance between them with a single glide of motion, desperate. “Fuck, Juliet, no.” And he reaches up, hands hovering at the sides of her face for a moment before he touches, takes. “No, that was never, this was never about her. This had nothing to do with her.”
It takes her the moment between the contact and the words for her to flinch, to pull back; to turn venom on him, because it’s easier, darker -- it hurts deeper and harder than anything else she has.
“You’re her husband,” she spits, lashes, presses into the stove as she spins away from him in a rage. “It has everything to do with her!”
“Juliet, listen to me,” he begs, and he looks genuine, looks crushed, grasping at straws, and there’s sympathy there, elusive, as he approaches her with open palms and wide, sad eyes. “Jules,” he says slowly, his voice barely there, “Jules, listen. I didn’t... I didn’t love--”
There’s sympathy, somewhere, but it sure as hell isn’t here.
“Do you really think I’m going to fall for the victim ploy, Nathan?” she snaps, jerks against the way he’s close, the way he halts mid-step in the face of her scorn; hair falling into her face, making her feel wild, feral, unchained. “That I’ll buy your sob story of some... loveless marriage where you--”
“It’s not a ploy,” he cuts her off, stays put even as his voice reaches out for her, pleads with her to understand, to listen. “I didn’t love her. I tried to. I believed I did, for a while.” He looks rueful, melancholy, and the torrent of feeling in her chest spirals, surges in response. “But she was the man my father wanted for me: a trophy wife to carry heirs to the family business, the family name, to carry on the Petrelli legacy. Hell, she was my mother, up and down.” He shakes his head, passes a frantic hand across his features, and she can see the little tremble in his fingers, the shake in his wrist. “His tastes don’t change, don’t age. Sometimes I wonder if that was part of the reason he was so keen on me proposing to her. For his own... amusement.” He shivers, cups a hand against his mouth and traces long fingers around the shape of his lips.
“She’s a good woman,” he says, forces out like he wishes she weren’t. “But she was never... she was never what I...”
Juliet scoffs, opens her mouth, but he’s quicker, and she’s tired. So fucking tired.
“I should have told you,” he says, solid -- fact. “I mean, it was something...” He shakes his head again, eyes darting like cornered prey, like he’s counting the last minutes before the end, and the precipice of it lingers behind Juliet’s heart as she watches the fear, the regret swirl in his gaze. “It was already over, for all intents and purposes, I swear. But I should have told you. When this got... when we got... when it became serious, I should have said something. I just...”
His face crumples for a second -- everything bare and exposed, but gone too quick to read the whole. “It was hard to tell, when we got serious. It was kind of like it’d always been serious, except... I don’t know. I’m not trying to make excuses,” he says quickly, blinks rapidly as he looks at her, flails for footing. “It sounds like I am, but I’m not.” He breathes hard, turns to brace his hands against either side of the sink basin, staring down and catching his breath; if she looks hard enough, in the shaft of light that hits him just so, she can see the throb of his pulse at his neck, heavy and harsh beneath the skin.
“It’s just... I never meant to hurt you.” He lets out a long hiss of a breath from between pursed lips, looks at her from the shadows, bleeding in dark shades without color as she takes him in, as she wishes it all away, back to how it was; wishes it had never ended, or began.
“Regardless of anything else,” he says softly, taking another step toward her; and this time, she waits him out -- unsure, unsettled, torn apart below the surface. “I never meant to hurt you.”
He reaches for her, thinks better of it this time, his hands hanging limp and pathetic in midair, half-way to her own. “I’m not expecting you to forgive me,” he says, a bare scratch of sound against his throat as he hands his head, and in that moment she’s disgusted, betrayed, denied, enraged, agonized, impassioned, and so filled with need that she doesn’t know what else to do; doesn’t know what else to say or be or want, ever again.
She reaches out, grasps Nathan’s wrists between her thumbs and ring fingers, savors the jackhammer of radial pulse.
“Shut up.”
He blinks, maybe recognizes hate and love and blank, unfeeling apathy, exhaustion in her gaze; maybe not. “What?” he stammers, following her touch at his hands, only barely staring straight into her eyes. “Jules, I--”
“Just shut up.” She drops his hands with a force, a thrust, reaches higher -- frames his face. “Shut up, Nathan.” Her hands are hard, fingers firm on his jaw as she grabs, makes him watch her, and there’s something close to surprise, more like apprehension in his gaze as he watches her, lips slack. “Stop talking. Stop making excuses. Just shut your goddamned mouth,” and she shuts it for him in a crash before he can protest, defy -- closes his mouth around hers without finesse or regard, and takes what she wants for once.
To his credit, he puts up a token protest; doesn’t speak, but refuses to touch, to kiss back, to give in for the longest of moments that drag, useless and weighty -- inevitable. His hand is twined around her middle in an instant, as soon as the dam breaks, and his hand is at the waist of her jeans, sliding tight beneath the denim and teasing at the outline, the stitching of her panties; she bites against the swell of her bottom lip, tastes blood against her teeth when his fingertip traces at the cleft of her through the cotton -- forgiveness, and a promise in his eyes when he finally meets her stare.
She tilts her hips, lets his hot digit stray as the material shifts, as flesh meets flesh in a tease, and fuck, she can’t believe she’s doing this, can’t believe; she's not the woman she always thought she was.
He strokes her, slick and graceless -- dirty -- and she closes her eyes, pretends the context and the meaning and the heartache away; she breathes, and hears only the thrum of her blood, the soft hush of her breath as she moans, the hum of the refrigerator pressed at her side as she hangs, hovers on the edge of the counter -- and they’ve come full circle, in their own strange way.
She does her best not to cry in the comedown.
“The machine kept...” she gasps, just before she catches her breath -- leaning far too heavily on the countertop, against Nathan’s weight where his hardened, untended length presses against the heat at her thigh -- unsure why she’s even bothering before she finishes, lamely; “beeping. I didn’t...”
“I know.” And there’s fire in her eyes, because she doesn’t owe him -- neither apology nor explanation -- there’s nothing she owes him anymore, if ever there was. “If I thought it would help,” he recoups quickly, his hand burning the back of her neck, “I’d say I was sorry.”
She ducks her head, pulls away, but his touch is firm now, insistent. He cradles her close with more tenderness, with more need than he’s ever shown her before.
“I filed for a divorce,” he says plainly, his eyes never leaving the crown of her head; she tenses, thinks about looking up at him; thinks twice. “That’s why I was in New York. She was served this afternoon,” he adds, almost wonderingly, like the truth is something he’d never dared to dream into reality, “probably after I was already in the air.”
To say that it puts her off-balance, that small confession, is a glaring sort of understatement. “You,” she starts, can’t finish; she doesn’t know if her eyes can grow any wider for what she thinks he’s implying, can’t be implying...
“Don’t.” He must see the change, the shift in her; he must know her well, by now. “I didn’t mean... I didn’t mean it like that.” He shakes his head, doesn’t seem to quite know what he means at all. “I don’t expect anything from you,” he clarifies, his eyes open and honest and dark as he looks down, studies his hands. “This was a long time in coming.”
She doesn’t reply; doesn’t say or do anything -- and it doesn’t seem like he expects her to, even if he hopes.
“My father wants me to run for the state senate,” he finally says, his voice strained, quiet, dull and defeated in a way he shouldn’t be, in a way she can’t reconcile with him, even now. “My mother’s got delusions of the presidency. I’ve buried myself work to avoid going home to my wife since a month after we got married,” and with the way he sounds so bitter, she doesn’t question that it’s true -- for whatever it’s worth, at this point. “And when I came down here, I thought it would just be a quick respite, a break, a breath before the plunge.
He looks at her now, looks at her, in her, and she has to weather the shiver that tears through her, has to be careful so he doesn’t see. “But then it was the plunge,” he breathes leaning in close to her, leisurely and remorseful, “and the fall and I couldn’t, wouldn’t break away from it.”
She feels the brush of his chest when he sucks in a breath, lets it out careful against her cheek. “Because you were the first breath, and all the breaths after.”
The anger wars with pity, the hurt with want, and she doesn’t know what to feel, what to say.
“Stay,” he whispers, raises goosebumps at the point of her jaw, the tender spot below her ear. “Just…” He comes close, aims to drop his lips there, but then pulls back, meets her eyes again: weary, finished, worn. “Stay.”
“I...” she fumbles, heart still swift and leaden beneath her ribs, the wetness between her thighs like a mark, a scarlet letter, never seen. “I need...”
She doesn’t finish the thought, doesn’t have to; she slips away without difficulty -- his hold on her wavering now, broken -- and resolutely refuses to look where his eyes burn against her back as she leaves the room in retreat.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She thinks about locking the door after she’s already in the shower -- wishes she had, but can’t bring herself to step out from under the spray; she’s a little lost in the subtle scents of Nathan’s soap, his shaving gel, in all the sounds of rushing, riotous blood against her ears -- deafening, frightening, and her pulse only quickens to hear it, pushing at the breaking point until it starts to frays at the seams. Her chest heaves, burns, a dying star against her ribs, and she cannot breathe, the bruises of her heart against her lungs like broken glass, broken veins. Blood chokes her, and there is only the beat, the beat, oh God, and there is nothing in the world but its crescendo, its agonizing ascension, and the world slows, dissolves, as her pulse rattles on with the promise of dark things -- end things.
She laughs, sobs, loses the boundary between the two, and wonders what made her think that this would help her escape.
She’s hunched beneath the torrent when the door slides open, when cool air wafts against her naked flesh and then disappears, never there; a presence at her back, hesitant and yet inescapable, taking its place.
She doesn’t speak, he doesn’t ask; his fingertips sink into the give of her thighs as he teases, stokes the skin. He pulls her close and she doesn’t resist, doesn’t do anything -- just gives in, because there’s nothing else left. Nothing gold can stay, and all that; and this was never really gold, she thinks, just something warm and beautiful, for a time, that was never meant to last.
His mouth, when it sucks sharp marks against her neck, is Elysium, the seventh circle of Hell; and she will not, cannot want this, but she does. Christ, but she does.
His hands come up around her breasts, cup but don’t move, like he’s just holding on, holding close -- needs to feel as he breathes heavy, in and out against the curve of her shoulder, the soft brush of his lashes like the wash of feathers on her skin. They stand like that for what seems like an eternity, her heart thrumming heavy between his hands and his pulse bearing down against the hard line of her spine: the water never grows cold; the smell of chemicals and bleach oddly heady in the steam around them, as if something knew before they did that they would need cleansing, need to forget.
It’s a mutual tug, a gasp that turns sour, desperate as she turns, rubs her nipples against his as her eyes sting, as she trembles. His hands are on her shoulder blades, pushing her as much as gaining purchase, grabbing hold. When they move together, a single thread of this world pulled taut between them, she feels as if she might tear in two, might melt and topple and collapse, lose everything in the downpour; when his length presses against the fold of her, lined against her heat, she gasps, and once he pushes in, swallows her moan with his lips on hers -- everything dissolves, fades, crumbles when she breathes out; nothing left to breathe back in.
The extinction of desire is Nirvana.
She clenches her eyes tight, can’t watch -- neither of them notices when their rhythm dies, dismantled into sudden jerks and clawing, needing, when her spasms turn to shudders, to shivers, to trembling, aching sobs; when the hot streams of water tracing the contours of her face taste saltier, sweeter, dissolve into tears. It all spirals to the basin, sinks the same below the drain.
Her pulse hums, breaks against the cadence of her panting, the smack of skin on skin; the water, rain on her bare shoulders almost soothing, almost damning. She steadies herself against him, palms up in surrender, and it’s with a grim satisfaction that she catches the barest flutter of a racing, desperate beat echoing through the skin and the sheen of his chest as he thrusts; she’s done something right, she guesses, even when it’s all so very wrong.
She blinks once as she feels, knows he’s reaching his peak; watches as his eyes roll back a little, and realizes with a sickening twist that every promise that’s ever been made and tucked deep in her heart has been broken, and it doesn’t even sting. She thinks it probably should.
She comes, so hard it drives her to tears; and it’s not for the pleasure that she’s driven to the edge -- it’s the fear: of loss, of gain, of sin and death and loneliness and having someone to wake up to in the morning; of costs and consequences, of joy even more than sorrow -- of grace and justice and retribution; karma, the universe.
She thinks of Edmund -- of a voice on a machine and a faceless name -- and she fights the urge to vomit.
He kisses the line of her jaw before he steps out of the shower-stall, lets the door slide back into place; his handprint still visible in the condensation on the glass.
In his wake, the water splashes, draws across her skin, slowly dragging what’s left of her humanity away with every droplet, every rivulet drawn across her pores, taking and taking and washing her clean of things she forgot, things she doesn’t want to lose just yet; the heat rises in plumes of steam that cannot hide her, cannot help her -- the torrent is scalding even as she shivers beneath the spray.
She steps out, leaving puddles in her wake, because there’s nowhere left to run, and she’s still afraid of drowning; she doesn’t pause to look in the mirror as she passes - she knows she won’t recognize what she sees.
She doesn’t bother to dress, her hair cold as the water leeches, seeps against the pillowcase. She rolls on her side, doesn’t fight as Nathan turns toward her -- doesn’t touch, but sucks in breath close enough that she can feel the way the air in the room shifts around him, through him, expels and shifts again.
He might as well be touching, she thinks; there’s nothing they haven’t broken, and there’s no time left to fix it.
“I leave for Portland in the morning,” she whispers, and he stays where he is -- doesn’t move. His breaths come shorter, slower, until black covers her and forgets to listen any longer, forgets she’s not supposed to lean into his warmth.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She sits up in the bed, overwhelmed by the sharp breath of detergent lingering on the linens, immortal beneath the musk of sweat and sex and sticky, messy, selfish human need where it clings like a stain on the sheets, on her skin. A story written there that she’s never really noticed, only pays any heed as she approaches the end.
Their legacy, spelled there beneath her skin.
She turns, lays her ear against her hands, sees his eyes open in the dark, empty valleys against shadows.
“When do you have to go?” he whispers. She lets the sound cascade and fall, its echoes die before she answers.
“My flight leaves in seven hours.”
“Don’t go.” It’s a quick, short sort of response, like the words were out before he could think. He draws in a sharp breath; she doesn’t know what to say, but he saves her from trying to figure it out.
“I...” he starts, and she can’t see him, so much as feel the way he flounders. “Just... sleep now. If you still want to leave, I’ll get you there.”
She doesn’t ask how, doesn’t wonder -- she’s only looking for a way out, doesn’t care what it looks like, where it leads.
She’s so fucking tired that it hurts, but she knows that sleep won’t cure the ache.
She waits until he’s out, away from the world; he sleeps like Somnus -- chest barely rising, never falling, walking the fine line between life and death. She doesn’t close her eyes, of course, doesn’t sleep; only shivers, and it’s predictable -- like the storm that never comes, never falls.
She’s watching him like he has the answers; like he’s the sky.
Lying next to him still feels more like home than anywhere she’s ever been.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In the morning, before the sun wakes, she’s standing at the window with a bag of nothing in her hands, tagged with her name, but no address -- she’s not sure where she belongs anymore, if she deserves to belong to anywhere, to anyone.
If she deserves to be so caged.
She knows she’s going to be late, will be lucky if she gets out on the flight she’s meant for. She walks to the door of the car, watches him like it’s a choice, a test; like she wants him to fail.
He shakes his head, reaches for her arm before she can shuffle against the gravel for more than an instant, before more than a breath of rock grinding against rock can whisper from beneath the soles of tired shoes -- it’s habit, now, to stop for him, and where her mind wants to break it, her heart still clings.
He touches her, wraps her close enough to know his heat and feel his heart, and she realizes, suddenly, that she doesn’t want to go anywhere anymore -- it makes no sense, yet makes all the sense in the world.
And it’s funny, because the world’s as heavy as it ever was -- heavier, even. Everything she’d ever thought or dreamed -- it’s all backwards, now, jumbled and broken and swept together in a wreck of a heap she couldn’t recognize, never would.
“Trust me,” he breathes, and God Almighty -- for better or worse, in spite of everything -- she does.
She does.
She barely feels her limbs, the rush of air beneath her skirt and the tug of gravity at the surface of her skin in the moment, the instant; she barely knows what she’s doing, what he’s doing, and it would be chilling, terrifying, if she’d still operated under the delusion that she knew anything at all.
Her arms tighten around him with the kind of blind faith that moves mountains, and she knows at the very core of her being that whatever happens, he won’t let her fall.
Her heart’s in her throat before her feet leave the ground.
~fin~
Part Four // Master Post
Part Five
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“I don’t understand why I can’t stay until after my sister delivers her child,” Juliet protests, resists the urge to check her voicemail -- she still hasn’t heard back from Rachel’s oncologist’s office, and it’s been three days already. “It’s barely two months, what difference can that make?”
“To the women under our care,” Richard Alpert counters sagely, his hands lingering on the files -- so many files of so many women, all suffering, all on the brink of loss and fear and death, and there are so many failures in her life, so many things she’s let slide, let fall, let break; and Alpert must know it, too, to draw her attention until she worries her lip between her teeth to the point of raw, metallic agony -- until she knows there’s no way she can add another failure. Not now. “The difference can mean life and death.” Then he adds -- gently, though it has the exact opposite effect. “They’ve already been waiting quite some time, after all.”
She lets herself think like a fool for a moment then; lets herself wonder what things would be like, how life might be now, if she’d simply accepted the offer that day in the morgue.
“You have an incredible gift, Dr. Burke,” Richard tells her, his voice full of something like honest regard, and where it might have baffled her, might have been gratifying; now, it just hurts. “You’ve given hope to the hopeless. You give life,” he reaches out, and brushes comforting fingertips over her hand -- it should be inappropriate, forward, untoward, but it isn’t; it breaks something in her, instead -- something too dangerously close to resolve for comfort. “Let us help you share that gift with the world.”
She’s silent for a solid minute before Alpert leans in, his voice an octave lower -- quiet and grave. “If we told you that we had the resources to ensure your sister’s recovery, and the successful delivery of her son,” she says slowly, his eyes fixed hard upon her as her gaze flashes to meet his, narrowed in disbelief; “would you reconsider?”
She swallows once, twice, again; forces out dry and parched because there’s nothing to help it, nothing to soothe it; “Excuse me?”
“If we could guarantee that your sister’s cancer could be cured, and that she’d deliver a healthy baby boy in approximately seven weeks’ time,” Richard repeats carefully, starkly, without aplomb or irony, “would you reconsider our offer?”
“My sister is in remission,” Juliet says, a recycled response that’s half self-preservation, half-wishful thinking, but also mostly denial, and it stabs her through the chest with a force she can’t endure.
“Are you quite certain of that?”
She bites the tip of her tongue to keep the tears at bay, the rage in check; she doesn’t bother to ask how he knows -- there’s more here than she cares to understand, and digging for answers where she’s not welcome has only served her poorly, of late; it’s only hardened her heart.
“No one can guarantee that,” she breathes, a hiss through her teeth as she turns wild eyes, pained eyes to Richard’s open ones; his sad ones. “Not you, not anyone.” She shakes her head, feels her stomach clench; she’s nauseous, and her vision’s blurring with more than just tears, because she’s while she hasn’t quite learned to judge a lie, she’s decent at knowing the truth when she hears it. “Only God can make those kinds of promises.”
And strike her dead where she stands, but there’s truth in his voice when he answers:
“I assure you, we can.”
She says nothing, reels with all of the thoughts of impossible and maybe and what if that threaten to catch and choke her, send her to an early grave with the way they race in her blood. “We want you, Dr. Burke.”
“It’s Dr. Carlson, now, actually.” She doesn’t know why she says it, doesn’t know what prompts the comment at all; but it feels right, in the moment, like a feather lifting from her shoulders amidst the weight of the world -- the straw that broke the camel’s back sliding away before the cracking, the shatter.
“Dr. Carlson,” he amends, nodding, like he knows a secret now that lives inside her name. He heaves a soft sigh, and stands slowly, his eyes flickering to the window before he gathers his folders, his case files, and returns his gaze to her. “I’ll be in the area for another week,” he says, a deadline if she ever heard one. “You have my number. Think about it.” The sound of his shoes against the floor is deafening as he walks to the door, pauses before opening it. “We don’t make offers to just anyone,” and it sounds like a warning. “And we don’t make our promises lightly.”
And that sounds like a sign.
The door is nearly closed behind him before she calls out.
“Six months, Dr. Alpert?”
It’s as if he’d been expecting it, had been listening for the change of her heart, because the cadence of his footfalls is almost practiced, almost planned, like he’d meant to turn back. “Six months,” he reiterates, leans back against the door so that it closes behind him once more. “Unless you decide to stay with us longer.”
“And my sister?”
“She’ll be well-cared for.” Alpert walks closer, sits down closer to her now, in her space, intimate in a sense that conveys a trust that sinks deep, that makes her want to believe, for all that shouldn’t. “I give you my word.”
“Will I be able to speak with her?” Juliet asks, her eyes red-rimmed but dry as she meets his gaze. “Will I be able to know when my nephew is born?”
“Our location is extremely remote.” She turns away from him, frustrated -- she’s heard this spiel before; they live in the fucking twenty-first century, what the hell does “remote” even mean, anymore?
The hitch in her breath, the way it catches; it must be audible, obvious, because he leans in closer and covers her hand with his own -- tentative, but sympathetic. Reassuring. “If I stayed on the mainland until she delivers, would that comfort you?”
She blinks at him for a good ten seconds, processing the proposal. “I...” she starts, but the offer, this man’s offer -- a man who doesn’t know her and doesn’t owe her anything -- knocks her off-balance for the moment more, and it’s not about her. “You’d do that?” she asks, voice small, a little wondering. “That would be okay?”
He smiles, and it’s almost as if it’s weary beneath all of the warmth, like a few extra months would mean nothing in the grander scheme of things for the man at her side. “It’d be my pleasure.”
“But you said you’d only be here for another week.”
“We need you,” Richard answers simply. “Some exceptions can be made.”
She stares at her hands for a good, long moment, studying the small lines, the ones that only reveal themselves in the right sort of light; she wants to second guess this, wants to put it off just a little bit longer, but she can’t. She won’t.
“It’s not forever, Juliet,” Richard reminds her kindly, a firm presence at her side; on her side. “Nothing’s forever.”
She breathes deeply, lets the air out slow. “Can you,” she tries, takes another long, deliberate breath. “If you stay, would I…” She looks up at him, her lashes clumped, a mess. “Could you,” and his face is kind, like he pities her, like he wants to help, and she doesn’t know how to take it, how to handle it in the moment; she’s adrift drowning on dry land.
“Could I see him?” she finally asks, her mind’s eye focused beyond the now on a little baby boy all pink and soft and warm, a little tuft of hair on his head and her dad’s nose, her mom’s lips, Rachel’s smile. “After he’s born,” she trails off, lost in the thought of it, of family and blood and miraculous, heart-stopping life. “Just, a picture... something...”
“I’m sure I can arrange something,” he assures her softly, his hand on her shoulder for a moment as she nods; nods before she can speak it, say it out loud.
“All right.” It seems a little like selling her soul; though selling her soul seems a little anti-climactic, all things considered -- draining, but not deadly.
“You’re making a selfless decision, Dr. Carlson.” And maybe she is; but it sure as hell feels like running, like caving -- giving in. “Believe me when I say that it won’t go unnoticed. Nor unrewarded.”
And that should sound more ominous than it does; frankly, she’s beyond the point of caring. She’s tired; she’s done.
It’s done.
“When do you need me to leave?”
“Ideally? As soon as you’re ready.” He clears his throat as she props an elbow on the table, holds her head up in her hand. “We can arrange for transport within the week.”
She nods, mute; ready, and yet completely unprepared.
“Can I ask you a personal question?” And she looks up, pins him with a stare that sees past him, through him, and hopes it looks like consent, even if it’s not supposed to.
“I’ll admit, I haven’t been entirely confident of your interest in our offer. You’ve kept us waiting quite some time.” He cocks his head, considers her, and she wonders, idly, what it is that he sees. “What changed your mind?”
The words come before there are thoughts to fuel them.
“Everything changes, Dr. Alpert. And I suppose it’s time I started owning that fact for myself.”
She wills her legs to be steady, and stands to leave.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It’s not a decision, so much as an obligation, an imperative to be waiting at Nathan’s when he gets back. The fact that she’d called, left a blank message on his machine as she waits in the wings with the beeping matching her pulse in thirds, just so he’d have to hear the words that came first before her own silence would play -- well, that was more like poetic justice than anything else.
She walks to the kitchen in her socks, silent, just as the message is wrapping up, just before hers begins.
“What was this, Nathan?” she asks, shocks his attention toward where she stands; he looks shellshocked, unhinged. “What was it, just…” She gestures absently, eyes dead; everything’s just a little bit dead as she considers him, sees the anguish sluice from him -- can’t bring herself to care, to not. “Just a game, for you?” She laughs, sobs; looks at him, and anywhere but. “Just... cheap entertainment while you were away from your wife?”
The word chokes, and she can barely see for the red, for the tears she won’t let fall.
“No,” Nathan says, taking a step, stopping, taking another step -- almost hesitant, almost scared, dodging the falling pieces of everything, everything, as it breaks. “God, no.” And he looks at her as if she’s the only thing, the only thing that matters, and Juliet -- she can’t help herself, it just hurts all the more.
“Jesus,” Nathan says, closes the distance between them with a single glide of motion, desperate. “Fuck, Juliet, no.” And he reaches up, hands hovering at the sides of her face for a moment before he touches, takes. “No, that was never, this was never about her. This had nothing to do with her.”
It takes her the moment between the contact and the words for her to flinch, to pull back; to turn venom on him, because it’s easier, darker -- it hurts deeper and harder than anything else she has.
“You’re her husband,” she spits, lashes, presses into the stove as she spins away from him in a rage. “It has everything to do with her!”
“Juliet, listen to me,” he begs, and he looks genuine, looks crushed, grasping at straws, and there’s sympathy there, elusive, as he approaches her with open palms and wide, sad eyes. “Jules,” he says slowly, his voice barely there, “Jules, listen. I didn’t... I didn’t love--”
There’s sympathy, somewhere, but it sure as hell isn’t here.
“Do you really think I’m going to fall for the victim ploy, Nathan?” she snaps, jerks against the way he’s close, the way he halts mid-step in the face of her scorn; hair falling into her face, making her feel wild, feral, unchained. “That I’ll buy your sob story of some... loveless marriage where you--”
“It’s not a ploy,” he cuts her off, stays put even as his voice reaches out for her, pleads with her to understand, to listen. “I didn’t love her. I tried to. I believed I did, for a while.” He looks rueful, melancholy, and the torrent of feeling in her chest spirals, surges in response. “But she was the man my father wanted for me: a trophy wife to carry heirs to the family business, the family name, to carry on the Petrelli legacy. Hell, she was my mother, up and down.” He shakes his head, passes a frantic hand across his features, and she can see the little tremble in his fingers, the shake in his wrist. “His tastes don’t change, don’t age. Sometimes I wonder if that was part of the reason he was so keen on me proposing to her. For his own... amusement.” He shivers, cups a hand against his mouth and traces long fingers around the shape of his lips.
“She’s a good woman,” he says, forces out like he wishes she weren’t. “But she was never... she was never what I...”
Juliet scoffs, opens her mouth, but he’s quicker, and she’s tired. So fucking tired.
“I should have told you,” he says, solid -- fact. “I mean, it was something...” He shakes his head again, eyes darting like cornered prey, like he’s counting the last minutes before the end, and the precipice of it lingers behind Juliet’s heart as she watches the fear, the regret swirl in his gaze. “It was already over, for all intents and purposes, I swear. But I should have told you. When this got... when we got... when it became serious, I should have said something. I just...”
His face crumples for a second -- everything bare and exposed, but gone too quick to read the whole. “It was hard to tell, when we got serious. It was kind of like it’d always been serious, except... I don’t know. I’m not trying to make excuses,” he says quickly, blinks rapidly as he looks at her, flails for footing. “It sounds like I am, but I’m not.” He breathes hard, turns to brace his hands against either side of the sink basin, staring down and catching his breath; if she looks hard enough, in the shaft of light that hits him just so, she can see the throb of his pulse at his neck, heavy and harsh beneath the skin.
“It’s just... I never meant to hurt you.” He lets out a long hiss of a breath from between pursed lips, looks at her from the shadows, bleeding in dark shades without color as she takes him in, as she wishes it all away, back to how it was; wishes it had never ended, or began.
“Regardless of anything else,” he says softly, taking another step toward her; and this time, she waits him out -- unsure, unsettled, torn apart below the surface. “I never meant to hurt you.”
He reaches for her, thinks better of it this time, his hands hanging limp and pathetic in midair, half-way to her own. “I’m not expecting you to forgive me,” he says, a bare scratch of sound against his throat as he hands his head, and in that moment she’s disgusted, betrayed, denied, enraged, agonized, impassioned, and so filled with need that she doesn’t know what else to do; doesn’t know what else to say or be or want, ever again.
She reaches out, grasps Nathan’s wrists between her thumbs and ring fingers, savors the jackhammer of radial pulse.
“Shut up.”
He blinks, maybe recognizes hate and love and blank, unfeeling apathy, exhaustion in her gaze; maybe not. “What?” he stammers, following her touch at his hands, only barely staring straight into her eyes. “Jules, I--”
“Just shut up.” She drops his hands with a force, a thrust, reaches higher -- frames his face. “Shut up, Nathan.” Her hands are hard, fingers firm on his jaw as she grabs, makes him watch her, and there’s something close to surprise, more like apprehension in his gaze as he watches her, lips slack. “Stop talking. Stop making excuses. Just shut your goddamned mouth,” and she shuts it for him in a crash before he can protest, defy -- closes his mouth around hers without finesse or regard, and takes what she wants for once.
To his credit, he puts up a token protest; doesn’t speak, but refuses to touch, to kiss back, to give in for the longest of moments that drag, useless and weighty -- inevitable. His hand is twined around her middle in an instant, as soon as the dam breaks, and his hand is at the waist of her jeans, sliding tight beneath the denim and teasing at the outline, the stitching of her panties; she bites against the swell of her bottom lip, tastes blood against her teeth when his fingertip traces at the cleft of her through the cotton -- forgiveness, and a promise in his eyes when he finally meets her stare.
She tilts her hips, lets his hot digit stray as the material shifts, as flesh meets flesh in a tease, and fuck, she can’t believe she’s doing this, can’t believe; she's not the woman she always thought she was.
He strokes her, slick and graceless -- dirty -- and she closes her eyes, pretends the context and the meaning and the heartache away; she breathes, and hears only the thrum of her blood, the soft hush of her breath as she moans, the hum of the refrigerator pressed at her side as she hangs, hovers on the edge of the counter -- and they’ve come full circle, in their own strange way.
She does her best not to cry in the comedown.
“The machine kept...” she gasps, just before she catches her breath -- leaning far too heavily on the countertop, against Nathan’s weight where his hardened, untended length presses against the heat at her thigh -- unsure why she’s even bothering before she finishes, lamely; “beeping. I didn’t...”
“I know.” And there’s fire in her eyes, because she doesn’t owe him -- neither apology nor explanation -- there’s nothing she owes him anymore, if ever there was. “If I thought it would help,” he recoups quickly, his hand burning the back of her neck, “I’d say I was sorry.”
She ducks her head, pulls away, but his touch is firm now, insistent. He cradles her close with more tenderness, with more need than he’s ever shown her before.
“I filed for a divorce,” he says plainly, his eyes never leaving the crown of her head; she tenses, thinks about looking up at him; thinks twice. “That’s why I was in New York. She was served this afternoon,” he adds, almost wonderingly, like the truth is something he’d never dared to dream into reality, “probably after I was already in the air.”
To say that it puts her off-balance, that small confession, is a glaring sort of understatement. “You,” she starts, can’t finish; she doesn’t know if her eyes can grow any wider for what she thinks he’s implying, can’t be implying...
“Don’t.” He must see the change, the shift in her; he must know her well, by now. “I didn’t mean... I didn’t mean it like that.” He shakes his head, doesn’t seem to quite know what he means at all. “I don’t expect anything from you,” he clarifies, his eyes open and honest and dark as he looks down, studies his hands. “This was a long time in coming.”
She doesn’t reply; doesn’t say or do anything -- and it doesn’t seem like he expects her to, even if he hopes.
“My father wants me to run for the state senate,” he finally says, his voice strained, quiet, dull and defeated in a way he shouldn’t be, in a way she can’t reconcile with him, even now. “My mother’s got delusions of the presidency. I’ve buried myself work to avoid going home to my wife since a month after we got married,” and with the way he sounds so bitter, she doesn’t question that it’s true -- for whatever it’s worth, at this point. “And when I came down here, I thought it would just be a quick respite, a break, a breath before the plunge.
He looks at her now, looks at her, in her, and she has to weather the shiver that tears through her, has to be careful so he doesn’t see. “But then it was the plunge,” he breathes leaning in close to her, leisurely and remorseful, “and the fall and I couldn’t, wouldn’t break away from it.”
She feels the brush of his chest when he sucks in a breath, lets it out careful against her cheek. “Because you were the first breath, and all the breaths after.”
The anger wars with pity, the hurt with want, and she doesn’t know what to feel, what to say.
“Stay,” he whispers, raises goosebumps at the point of her jaw, the tender spot below her ear. “Just…” He comes close, aims to drop his lips there, but then pulls back, meets her eyes again: weary, finished, worn. “Stay.”
“I...” she fumbles, heart still swift and leaden beneath her ribs, the wetness between her thighs like a mark, a scarlet letter, never seen. “I need...”
She doesn’t finish the thought, doesn’t have to; she slips away without difficulty -- his hold on her wavering now, broken -- and resolutely refuses to look where his eyes burn against her back as she leaves the room in retreat.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She thinks about locking the door after she’s already in the shower -- wishes she had, but can’t bring herself to step out from under the spray; she’s a little lost in the subtle scents of Nathan’s soap, his shaving gel, in all the sounds of rushing, riotous blood against her ears -- deafening, frightening, and her pulse only quickens to hear it, pushing at the breaking point until it starts to frays at the seams. Her chest heaves, burns, a dying star against her ribs, and she cannot breathe, the bruises of her heart against her lungs like broken glass, broken veins. Blood chokes her, and there is only the beat, the beat, oh God, and there is nothing in the world but its crescendo, its agonizing ascension, and the world slows, dissolves, as her pulse rattles on with the promise of dark things -- end things.
She laughs, sobs, loses the boundary between the two, and wonders what made her think that this would help her escape.
She’s hunched beneath the torrent when the door slides open, when cool air wafts against her naked flesh and then disappears, never there; a presence at her back, hesitant and yet inescapable, taking its place.
She doesn’t speak, he doesn’t ask; his fingertips sink into the give of her thighs as he teases, stokes the skin. He pulls her close and she doesn’t resist, doesn’t do anything -- just gives in, because there’s nothing else left. Nothing gold can stay, and all that; and this was never really gold, she thinks, just something warm and beautiful, for a time, that was never meant to last.
His mouth, when it sucks sharp marks against her neck, is Elysium, the seventh circle of Hell; and she will not, cannot want this, but she does. Christ, but she does.
His hands come up around her breasts, cup but don’t move, like he’s just holding on, holding close -- needs to feel as he breathes heavy, in and out against the curve of her shoulder, the soft brush of his lashes like the wash of feathers on her skin. They stand like that for what seems like an eternity, her heart thrumming heavy between his hands and his pulse bearing down against the hard line of her spine: the water never grows cold; the smell of chemicals and bleach oddly heady in the steam around them, as if something knew before they did that they would need cleansing, need to forget.
It’s a mutual tug, a gasp that turns sour, desperate as she turns, rubs her nipples against his as her eyes sting, as she trembles. His hands are on her shoulder blades, pushing her as much as gaining purchase, grabbing hold. When they move together, a single thread of this world pulled taut between them, she feels as if she might tear in two, might melt and topple and collapse, lose everything in the downpour; when his length presses against the fold of her, lined against her heat, she gasps, and once he pushes in, swallows her moan with his lips on hers -- everything dissolves, fades, crumbles when she breathes out; nothing left to breathe back in.
The extinction of desire is Nirvana.
She clenches her eyes tight, can’t watch -- neither of them notices when their rhythm dies, dismantled into sudden jerks and clawing, needing, when her spasms turn to shudders, to shivers, to trembling, aching sobs; when the hot streams of water tracing the contours of her face taste saltier, sweeter, dissolve into tears. It all spirals to the basin, sinks the same below the drain.
Her pulse hums, breaks against the cadence of her panting, the smack of skin on skin; the water, rain on her bare shoulders almost soothing, almost damning. She steadies herself against him, palms up in surrender, and it’s with a grim satisfaction that she catches the barest flutter of a racing, desperate beat echoing through the skin and the sheen of his chest as he thrusts; she’s done something right, she guesses, even when it’s all so very wrong.
She blinks once as she feels, knows he’s reaching his peak; watches as his eyes roll back a little, and realizes with a sickening twist that every promise that’s ever been made and tucked deep in her heart has been broken, and it doesn’t even sting. She thinks it probably should.
She comes, so hard it drives her to tears; and it’s not for the pleasure that she’s driven to the edge -- it’s the fear: of loss, of gain, of sin and death and loneliness and having someone to wake up to in the morning; of costs and consequences, of joy even more than sorrow -- of grace and justice and retribution; karma, the universe.
She thinks of Edmund -- of a voice on a machine and a faceless name -- and she fights the urge to vomit.
He kisses the line of her jaw before he steps out of the shower-stall, lets the door slide back into place; his handprint still visible in the condensation on the glass.
In his wake, the water splashes, draws across her skin, slowly dragging what’s left of her humanity away with every droplet, every rivulet drawn across her pores, taking and taking and washing her clean of things she forgot, things she doesn’t want to lose just yet; the heat rises in plumes of steam that cannot hide her, cannot help her -- the torrent is scalding even as she shivers beneath the spray.
She steps out, leaving puddles in her wake, because there’s nowhere left to run, and she’s still afraid of drowning; she doesn’t pause to look in the mirror as she passes - she knows she won’t recognize what she sees.
She doesn’t bother to dress, her hair cold as the water leeches, seeps against the pillowcase. She rolls on her side, doesn’t fight as Nathan turns toward her -- doesn’t touch, but sucks in breath close enough that she can feel the way the air in the room shifts around him, through him, expels and shifts again.
He might as well be touching, she thinks; there’s nothing they haven’t broken, and there’s no time left to fix it.
“I leave for Portland in the morning,” she whispers, and he stays where he is -- doesn’t move. His breaths come shorter, slower, until black covers her and forgets to listen any longer, forgets she’s not supposed to lean into his warmth.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She sits up in the bed, overwhelmed by the sharp breath of detergent lingering on the linens, immortal beneath the musk of sweat and sex and sticky, messy, selfish human need where it clings like a stain on the sheets, on her skin. A story written there that she’s never really noticed, only pays any heed as she approaches the end.
Their legacy, spelled there beneath her skin.
She turns, lays her ear against her hands, sees his eyes open in the dark, empty valleys against shadows.
“When do you have to go?” he whispers. She lets the sound cascade and fall, its echoes die before she answers.
“My flight leaves in seven hours.”
“Don’t go.” It’s a quick, short sort of response, like the words were out before he could think. He draws in a sharp breath; she doesn’t know what to say, but he saves her from trying to figure it out.
“I...” he starts, and she can’t see him, so much as feel the way he flounders. “Just... sleep now. If you still want to leave, I’ll get you there.”
She doesn’t ask how, doesn’t wonder -- she’s only looking for a way out, doesn’t care what it looks like, where it leads.
She’s so fucking tired that it hurts, but she knows that sleep won’t cure the ache.
She waits until he’s out, away from the world; he sleeps like Somnus -- chest barely rising, never falling, walking the fine line between life and death. She doesn’t close her eyes, of course, doesn’t sleep; only shivers, and it’s predictable -- like the storm that never comes, never falls.
She’s watching him like he has the answers; like he’s the sky.
Lying next to him still feels more like home than anywhere she’s ever been.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In the morning, before the sun wakes, she’s standing at the window with a bag of nothing in her hands, tagged with her name, but no address -- she’s not sure where she belongs anymore, if she deserves to belong to anywhere, to anyone.
If she deserves to be so caged.
She knows she’s going to be late, will be lucky if she gets out on the flight she’s meant for. She walks to the door of the car, watches him like it’s a choice, a test; like she wants him to fail.
He shakes his head, reaches for her arm before she can shuffle against the gravel for more than an instant, before more than a breath of rock grinding against rock can whisper from beneath the soles of tired shoes -- it’s habit, now, to stop for him, and where her mind wants to break it, her heart still clings.
He touches her, wraps her close enough to know his heat and feel his heart, and she realizes, suddenly, that she doesn’t want to go anywhere anymore -- it makes no sense, yet makes all the sense in the world.
And it’s funny, because the world’s as heavy as it ever was -- heavier, even. Everything she’d ever thought or dreamed -- it’s all backwards, now, jumbled and broken and swept together in a wreck of a heap she couldn’t recognize, never would.
“Trust me,” he breathes, and God Almighty -- for better or worse, in spite of everything -- she does.
She does.
She barely feels her limbs, the rush of air beneath her skirt and the tug of gravity at the surface of her skin in the moment, the instant; she barely knows what she’s doing, what he’s doing, and it would be chilling, terrifying, if she’d still operated under the delusion that she knew anything at all.
Her arms tighten around him with the kind of blind faith that moves mountains, and she knows at the very core of her being that whatever happens, he won’t let her fall.
Her heart’s in her throat before her feet leave the ground.
~fin~
Part Four // Master Post