For muses_w_remotes - 4.17
17. “I know I'm gonna use good judgement. I haven't lost my temper in forty years, but pilgrim you caused a lot of trouble this morning, might have got somebody killed... and somebody oughta belt you in the mouth. But I won't, I won't. The hell I won't”
| McLintock
[Co-written with agentcampbell]
The whole team sat at the conference table in the Crimes Against Children department at the New York Headquarters of the FBI. It had just passed ten pm and there wasn’t a single face in the room that didn’t harbour stress, sadness, defeat, and downright anger.
The case had failed.
One small miscalculation of evidence had the whole profiled case blow up before their eyes. The profilers had been working on it for close to three weeks before the brief was handed over to Pierce to set the team into action. It had been James’ first case calling the shots as Deputy. He’d planned the initial tactics; the who, what and where of all the very mechanics that went into launching a case. He delegated, he analysed, and he was so sure he had every minute detail pristine to launch into surveillance and targeting of the perpetrators. Everyone had been so confident in his seemingly watertight action plan.
It was about as a watertight as the Titanic.
James was the only team member not sitting at the conference table. He was standing stiffly at the window, arms folded, face hard, as he stared out the window at the lit up city sprawling before him. It wasn’t really his fault, but he was shouldering it, no less. It had merely come down to a misleading string of evidence, which happened all the time. The only thing that didn’t happen all the time was two children getting shot to pieces, killed instantly, because of it.
The case was horrific to start with; somewhat similar to slave trading, an organisation had been running a ring of pornography with a disturbing twist. They were buying children off parents who were living more than below the breadline and selling them on to child pornographers for their own abhorrent purposes. The ages of the kids spanned from as young as four to as old as twelve or thirteen. It was an industry that had only recently come to light to the Feds and Pierce was on to it as soon as they were able to sink their teeth in to it. The evidence had shown that the business was being run out of a farm on the outskirts of New York and that’s where the devastating mistake lay. It was thought that the children themselves were being kept in a separate location before being sold on, days of surveillance hadn’t even shown children coming or going from the location, and this was what James had built the whole foundation of the case on. It had been wrong. Some of the children were being held at the farm… At the farm the FBI raided at the first instance they could before the perps fled. A shootout exploded between the Agents and the crims and all in a matter of about fifteen minutes, it was over.
All that had been at the farm were lackies of the masterminds of the business and a handful of the purchased children. Three were seriously injured and two were so full of bullets, they died instantly. The lackies had also been taken out by Pierce’s team, with James’ at the helm of the raid. Any leads they’d had effectively became dead and the case had gone crashing down around them, leaving the blood of two children and possibly more to come on their hands.
Pierce stood and folded the case file over. “Case closed. There are no further leads. Intelligence will continue to track for any new information, but until then, nothing more can be done. Go home. Close the book on it emotionally, too.”
James didn’t wait for the standard dismissal from the meeting. He unfolded his arms and stormed out of the conference room, the door being flung open so roughly, it banged sharply against the wall and the sound reverberated through the whole department. He’d already heard the whispers. It might not have happened if he hadn’t come back from sick leave too soon. He shouldn’t have taken the role as Pierce’s Vice if he wasn’t recovered enough to cope with the stress. He wasn’t cut out to be Deputy. The list went on. The team needed someone to blame so the pain of the dead children didn’t stick with them and James, as their leader in the field, was the scapegoat.
Isabel had sat quietly at the table throughout the entire debriefing. She couldn't shake the image of the dead children from her mind. She could feel the trembling start as she came down from the adrenalin rush of the shootout, and kept her hands clasped under the table to stop anyone from picking up on just how badly they were shaking. She looked around at the rest of the team, and her green eyes clearly showed defeat. Frank seemed to be the one most about breakdown and cry, while Jacobs just looked like he wanted to go out and kill something.
Pierce was inscrutable, but the moment James had stormed out he gave a nod to Izzy, a silent request for her to be the one to go after him. Isabel pushed back from the conference table and tried to ignore the fact her knees were about to give out from under her. She was not only dealing with a case that had gone so incredibly wrong, she was watching her partner suffer for it. He was also the man she loved.
She followed him into his office and walked up to stand beside him. She gently placed her hand on his arm, and looked at him. "There was no way you could have known, Campbell."
James pulled away from her touch and the look he shot her was cold and angry. "I should've known!" he spat. He picked his backpack up from the floor and slammed it down on to his desk. He started emptying the case file out of it, sheets of paper flying everywhere and he made no attempt to clean it up. "Which fucking theory are you going with? The standard? I shouldn't have fucking been back at work, right?" His head was stooped as he looked around his desk for his cell phone.
Iz flinched, and took a couple of steps back as she crossed her arms under her chest. She'd seen him angry, but this was different. The shock of the look he'd given her passed, and she glared back at him. "I'm not going with any fucking theory, James. I just don't think you could have known. Every bit of information we gathered supported your analysis, and your plan. There was nothing, nothing to indicate children would be at that farm."
"WE SHOULD'VE CONSIDERED IT!" James exploded and grabbed his cell phone so furiously, it flew out of his hand and went smashing into the wall, breaking on impact. "I fucked up! I fucked up and kids are goddamn fucking dead because of it! No flowery platitudes are going to fix that! No pats on the back and pasty little attempts to make ourselves feel better are going to cut it! Guns shouldn't have been drawn! No one should have fucking died!"
"What do you want me to say?" There was a quiet anger to her tone, like she was ready to yell but needed to work up to it. "Yes, you fucked up! Yes, you're the reason that two kids are dead! Yes, you fucking suck at being Deputy. Is that what you want?"
Izzy backed up towards the door and threw her hands up in defeat. "You know what? I'm just going to take my fucking platitudes elsewhere. I'm done, Campbell. You can just pick up your own fucking mess, and any mess that will follow." She turned on her heel and stalked out of the office towards the stairs. She wasn't about to stop and wait for an elevator. No point spoiling a good exit.
James picked up his pen cup and threw it roughly against the wall in the wake of his cell phone. He pressed his fingers into his eyes and squeezed as hard as he could tolerate. The safest option would be to probably burst into tears and try to cleanse himself of something... anything. The anger coursed through him and it felt like it would never stop. Why did it always have to be Izzy in the firing line? He didn't mean to take it out on her but she was always there! She was always there and-
He froze, tears pooling in his eyes, but he blinked them away. He was so pulsing with emotion, he was shaking all over. What had he just done? "IZZY!" he shouted, half of him hoping she would come back at the call, but she didn't. She'd walked away… she'd finally walked away. He stepped away from his desk, panicked at first what to do. He had no idea but he just reacted and shot out of his office to run after her.
She'd run don the stairs without stopping. A vague noise had followed her down, and for a moment she'd considered going back up to find out if it had been James shouting after her. She'd meant what she'd said. She was done. Isabel just couldn't take anymore. She could be his partner, and she could maybe be his friend but first she still had to walk away. She needed to break up without him, without him even knowing she was.
She burst out of the fire exit, entering the street behind the FBI headquarters. It was pouring with rain, and Iz hadn't even thought to bring an umbrella. All day it had been threatening to rain, but she figured that maybe it would hold off until tomorrow. It didn't occur to her that it would rain overnight.
She didn't even have any smokes. The only cigarettes she ever had were the ones she'd pinched off Campbell. He was upstairs throwing a temper tantrum, ignorant of just how much she loved him. And how much she hated him right now for throwing his foul mood in her face again.
James was running so fast he nearly tripped down the stairs. The elevator would've been safer, but slower and he couldn't trust himself not to completely lose it on the trip all the floors down. When the fuck had Izzy started to run this fucking fast?! He had to stop on the second floor, doubling over to clutch his stomach. The effort to keep his breath had failed and it was working as an accomplice to the emotions to choke him up and threatened to not let go. He refused to believe it was anything to do with his health. He wasn't going to lose it now; not after everything.
He stumbled down the last couple of flights of stairs to the fire escape and threw himself out of it and into the heavy downpour. He was drenched to the core in moments. If he had been crying, no one would've been able to tell. She was there, just as wet as he was and standing in the middle of quiet back street. "WHY THE FUCK DID YOU RUN?!" he screamed, the tone of his voice muffled in the heavy rain
"WHAT THE FUCK ELSE WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO, LOSER?" she screamed back, moving slowly closer to him. She swiped her hands over her eyes to try and keep the water from blurring her vision. Her dark hair was plastered to her face, and her shirt and jacket were stuck to her body. "You were fucking yelling at me for no good reason! Do you honestly expect me to just stand there and take it?"
"YES!" James cried in exasperation as he swept his drenched hair off his face in a sodden mess. "Because you're always there! You are! You're always supposed to be there! I turn around and you're there, just like you fucking should be!"
"I CAN'T! Not the way I want to." She was crying now, her entire body trembling from more than just the rain, and the shock of everything she'd seen today. She closed the gap between him and shoved him in the chest. "You nearly killed me, Campbell. You scared the fucking shit out of me when I got that call from Frank. I thought we were us again! But I can't take it. I can't take you getting so fucking pissed off and taking it out on me and not knowing if you'll ever understand why I'm always there!"
"HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO UNDERSTAND?!" James threw his hand up, his other moving to grab at his soaking hair again. It stayed there as he clutched the wet, blond locks in desperation, rain pelting down on his skin and dripping down into his eyes. "THIS IS IT! YOU ALWAYS RUN! YOU DID IT TO ALL YOUR EXES! IT WAS ONLY A FUCKING MATTER OF TIME BEFORE YOU RAN AWAY FROM ME TOO!"
Isabel felt like she'd just been kicked in the stomach. She took a gasping breath, and nearly choked as she inhaled water. She just shook her head as she coughed, and started to back away. "WOULDN'T WANT TO DISAPPOINT YOU!"
Iz walked past him as she started already planning the phone call to Pierce in the morning to let him know that she either quit, or wanted a transfer. She was also planning a call to Fi to ask her favourite sister if she could come and crash at her place. If she stayed in her apartment people could find her. Ali was the only one she wanted finding her.
How could he understand? He couldn't, all because Izzy was too stubborn to just straight out tell him she loved him. She'd rather lose everything this way, than tell him and lose him because he didn't love her back.
Even in his confused and angry state, soaked wet to the bone, James' reflexes proved lightening fast, not letting him down as he caught her arm before she could get too far away. His hand was gripped in the corner of her elbow, the drenched fabric of her jacket sleeve sinking between his fingers. "YOU CAN'T FUCKING WALK AWAY! I WON'T LET YOU! I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU TOO FUCKING MUCH TO LET YOU RUN AWAY!" he shouted at her, the tears finally spilling over in a wave as the raindrops caught them melted into a wet mess. His hand went to the back of her soaking hair, the dark slicked locks tumbling over his fingers, and he kissed her; he kissed her so desperately and bruisingly like his very life depended on it.
She'd only just processed his words when he kissed her. He loved her. James Campbell loved Isabel Owens. The thrill that went through her body made her feel like a schoolgirl. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back with so much intensity it left her breathless. The rain continued to pelt down, but it didn't matter. None of it mattered.
She broke the kiss as her hands framed his face, and her green eyes looked at him. "I LOVE YOU TOO! HAVE DONE EVER SINCE I MET YOU!"
James just stood there, shocked, as the rain just started to pour down heavier. Neither made a move to run for shelter. He clutched at her arms and just sobbed as he struggled for words as something collapsed inside him that he'd been trying to hold up all day. "Then why did you run away?!" he cried helplessly. "I need you! I need you here!"
Isabel was trying to remember how to breathe. She'd finally told him that she loved him. It was like this massive weight had been lifted off her chest and she couldn't work out how to function without it. She'd been so used to feeling like there was a lead weight tucked under her ribcage, and now it was gone. She gave a helpless shrug of her shoulder as she licked at raindrops that covered her lips. "You just said you didn't want my platitudes! I didn't know what else to give you, Campbell. I just want to make it stop hurting. I just... I couldn't take you telling me to fuck off."
James just threw his arms around her and pulled her against him. He buried his face in her shoulder, desensitised now to how wet he was and how confused he felt from probably one of the worst days at work he'd ever had to see through. "Just don't fucking run away," he pleaded close to her ear, the words hitching around a sob. "Please."
Izzy's mouth pressed against his ear and she wrapped her arms around him to keep him close. "I won't, James. I won't run away, I swear. There's no getting rid of me now."
The rain came to an abrupt stop, and Isabel looked up into the dark sky. If she weren’t soaked to the bone, and starting to shiver, she would have wondered if it had really been raining at all. Still, the meteorological reaction to their moods wasn't lost on her and her lips quirked into a smile.
"What now?" James asked, his voice weak and tired. He didn't let go of her, though. He didn't want to... and maybe he never would.
She cupped the back of his head and pressed a kiss to the side of his face. "Come home with me," she whispered. It wasn't a proposition. She just wanted to go home and try and wash this day away despite the shower she'd just experienced. She needed warm water, and maybe a stiff drink, or ten. And she wanted James with her.
"Okay," he agreed and took a small step back to meet her eyes. He smoothed his hand down her wet hair and rested his forehead against hers. "We go home... together."
Words: 2990
| McLintock
[Co-written with agentcampbell]
The whole team sat at the conference table in the Crimes Against Children department at the New York Headquarters of the FBI. It had just passed ten pm and there wasn’t a single face in the room that didn’t harbour stress, sadness, defeat, and downright anger.
The case had failed.
One small miscalculation of evidence had the whole profiled case blow up before their eyes. The profilers had been working on it for close to three weeks before the brief was handed over to Pierce to set the team into action. It had been James’ first case calling the shots as Deputy. He’d planned the initial tactics; the who, what and where of all the very mechanics that went into launching a case. He delegated, he analysed, and he was so sure he had every minute detail pristine to launch into surveillance and targeting of the perpetrators. Everyone had been so confident in his seemingly watertight action plan.
It was about as a watertight as the Titanic.
James was the only team member not sitting at the conference table. He was standing stiffly at the window, arms folded, face hard, as he stared out the window at the lit up city sprawling before him. It wasn’t really his fault, but he was shouldering it, no less. It had merely come down to a misleading string of evidence, which happened all the time. The only thing that didn’t happen all the time was two children getting shot to pieces, killed instantly, because of it.
The case was horrific to start with; somewhat similar to slave trading, an organisation had been running a ring of pornography with a disturbing twist. They were buying children off parents who were living more than below the breadline and selling them on to child pornographers for their own abhorrent purposes. The ages of the kids spanned from as young as four to as old as twelve or thirteen. It was an industry that had only recently come to light to the Feds and Pierce was on to it as soon as they were able to sink their teeth in to it. The evidence had shown that the business was being run out of a farm on the outskirts of New York and that’s where the devastating mistake lay. It was thought that the children themselves were being kept in a separate location before being sold on, days of surveillance hadn’t even shown children coming or going from the location, and this was what James had built the whole foundation of the case on. It had been wrong. Some of the children were being held at the farm… At the farm the FBI raided at the first instance they could before the perps fled. A shootout exploded between the Agents and the crims and all in a matter of about fifteen minutes, it was over.
All that had been at the farm were lackies of the masterminds of the business and a handful of the purchased children. Three were seriously injured and two were so full of bullets, they died instantly. The lackies had also been taken out by Pierce’s team, with James’ at the helm of the raid. Any leads they’d had effectively became dead and the case had gone crashing down around them, leaving the blood of two children and possibly more to come on their hands.
Pierce stood and folded the case file over. “Case closed. There are no further leads. Intelligence will continue to track for any new information, but until then, nothing more can be done. Go home. Close the book on it emotionally, too.”
James didn’t wait for the standard dismissal from the meeting. He unfolded his arms and stormed out of the conference room, the door being flung open so roughly, it banged sharply against the wall and the sound reverberated through the whole department. He’d already heard the whispers. It might not have happened if he hadn’t come back from sick leave too soon. He shouldn’t have taken the role as Pierce’s Vice if he wasn’t recovered enough to cope with the stress. He wasn’t cut out to be Deputy. The list went on. The team needed someone to blame so the pain of the dead children didn’t stick with them and James, as their leader in the field, was the scapegoat.
Isabel had sat quietly at the table throughout the entire debriefing. She couldn't shake the image of the dead children from her mind. She could feel the trembling start as she came down from the adrenalin rush of the shootout, and kept her hands clasped under the table to stop anyone from picking up on just how badly they were shaking. She looked around at the rest of the team, and her green eyes clearly showed defeat. Frank seemed to be the one most about breakdown and cry, while Jacobs just looked like he wanted to go out and kill something.
Pierce was inscrutable, but the moment James had stormed out he gave a nod to Izzy, a silent request for her to be the one to go after him. Isabel pushed back from the conference table and tried to ignore the fact her knees were about to give out from under her. She was not only dealing with a case that had gone so incredibly wrong, she was watching her partner suffer for it. He was also the man she loved.
She followed him into his office and walked up to stand beside him. She gently placed her hand on his arm, and looked at him. "There was no way you could have known, Campbell."
James pulled away from her touch and the look he shot her was cold and angry. "I should've known!" he spat. He picked his backpack up from the floor and slammed it down on to his desk. He started emptying the case file out of it, sheets of paper flying everywhere and he made no attempt to clean it up. "Which fucking theory are you going with? The standard? I shouldn't have fucking been back at work, right?" His head was stooped as he looked around his desk for his cell phone.
Iz flinched, and took a couple of steps back as she crossed her arms under her chest. She'd seen him angry, but this was different. The shock of the look he'd given her passed, and she glared back at him. "I'm not going with any fucking theory, James. I just don't think you could have known. Every bit of information we gathered supported your analysis, and your plan. There was nothing, nothing to indicate children would be at that farm."
"WE SHOULD'VE CONSIDERED IT!" James exploded and grabbed his cell phone so furiously, it flew out of his hand and went smashing into the wall, breaking on impact. "I fucked up! I fucked up and kids are goddamn fucking dead because of it! No flowery platitudes are going to fix that! No pats on the back and pasty little attempts to make ourselves feel better are going to cut it! Guns shouldn't have been drawn! No one should have fucking died!"
"What do you want me to say?" There was a quiet anger to her tone, like she was ready to yell but needed to work up to it. "Yes, you fucked up! Yes, you're the reason that two kids are dead! Yes, you fucking suck at being Deputy. Is that what you want?"
Izzy backed up towards the door and threw her hands up in defeat. "You know what? I'm just going to take my fucking platitudes elsewhere. I'm done, Campbell. You can just pick up your own fucking mess, and any mess that will follow." She turned on her heel and stalked out of the office towards the stairs. She wasn't about to stop and wait for an elevator. No point spoiling a good exit.
James picked up his pen cup and threw it roughly against the wall in the wake of his cell phone. He pressed his fingers into his eyes and squeezed as hard as he could tolerate. The safest option would be to probably burst into tears and try to cleanse himself of something... anything. The anger coursed through him and it felt like it would never stop. Why did it always have to be Izzy in the firing line? He didn't mean to take it out on her but she was always there! She was always there and-
He froze, tears pooling in his eyes, but he blinked them away. He was so pulsing with emotion, he was shaking all over. What had he just done? "IZZY!" he shouted, half of him hoping she would come back at the call, but she didn't. She'd walked away… she'd finally walked away. He stepped away from his desk, panicked at first what to do. He had no idea but he just reacted and shot out of his office to run after her.
She'd run don the stairs without stopping. A vague noise had followed her down, and for a moment she'd considered going back up to find out if it had been James shouting after her. She'd meant what she'd said. She was done. Isabel just couldn't take anymore. She could be his partner, and she could maybe be his friend but first she still had to walk away. She needed to break up without him, without him even knowing she was.
She burst out of the fire exit, entering the street behind the FBI headquarters. It was pouring with rain, and Iz hadn't even thought to bring an umbrella. All day it had been threatening to rain, but she figured that maybe it would hold off until tomorrow. It didn't occur to her that it would rain overnight.
She didn't even have any smokes. The only cigarettes she ever had were the ones she'd pinched off Campbell. He was upstairs throwing a temper tantrum, ignorant of just how much she loved him. And how much she hated him right now for throwing his foul mood in her face again.
James was running so fast he nearly tripped down the stairs. The elevator would've been safer, but slower and he couldn't trust himself not to completely lose it on the trip all the floors down. When the fuck had Izzy started to run this fucking fast?! He had to stop on the second floor, doubling over to clutch his stomach. The effort to keep his breath had failed and it was working as an accomplice to the emotions to choke him up and threatened to not let go. He refused to believe it was anything to do with his health. He wasn't going to lose it now; not after everything.
He stumbled down the last couple of flights of stairs to the fire escape and threw himself out of it and into the heavy downpour. He was drenched to the core in moments. If he had been crying, no one would've been able to tell. She was there, just as wet as he was and standing in the middle of quiet back street. "WHY THE FUCK DID YOU RUN?!" he screamed, the tone of his voice muffled in the heavy rain
"WHAT THE FUCK ELSE WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO, LOSER?" she screamed back, moving slowly closer to him. She swiped her hands over her eyes to try and keep the water from blurring her vision. Her dark hair was plastered to her face, and her shirt and jacket were stuck to her body. "You were fucking yelling at me for no good reason! Do you honestly expect me to just stand there and take it?"
"YES!" James cried in exasperation as he swept his drenched hair off his face in a sodden mess. "Because you're always there! You are! You're always supposed to be there! I turn around and you're there, just like you fucking should be!"
"I CAN'T! Not the way I want to." She was crying now, her entire body trembling from more than just the rain, and the shock of everything she'd seen today. She closed the gap between him and shoved him in the chest. "You nearly killed me, Campbell. You scared the fucking shit out of me when I got that call from Frank. I thought we were us again! But I can't take it. I can't take you getting so fucking pissed off and taking it out on me and not knowing if you'll ever understand why I'm always there!"
"HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO UNDERSTAND?!" James threw his hand up, his other moving to grab at his soaking hair again. It stayed there as he clutched the wet, blond locks in desperation, rain pelting down on his skin and dripping down into his eyes. "THIS IS IT! YOU ALWAYS RUN! YOU DID IT TO ALL YOUR EXES! IT WAS ONLY A FUCKING MATTER OF TIME BEFORE YOU RAN AWAY FROM ME TOO!"
Isabel felt like she'd just been kicked in the stomach. She took a gasping breath, and nearly choked as she inhaled water. She just shook her head as she coughed, and started to back away. "WOULDN'T WANT TO DISAPPOINT YOU!"
Iz walked past him as she started already planning the phone call to Pierce in the morning to let him know that she either quit, or wanted a transfer. She was also planning a call to Fi to ask her favourite sister if she could come and crash at her place. If she stayed in her apartment people could find her. Ali was the only one she wanted finding her.
How could he understand? He couldn't, all because Izzy was too stubborn to just straight out tell him she loved him. She'd rather lose everything this way, than tell him and lose him because he didn't love her back.
Even in his confused and angry state, soaked wet to the bone, James' reflexes proved lightening fast, not letting him down as he caught her arm before she could get too far away. His hand was gripped in the corner of her elbow, the drenched fabric of her jacket sleeve sinking between his fingers. "YOU CAN'T FUCKING WALK AWAY! I WON'T LET YOU! I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU TOO FUCKING MUCH TO LET YOU RUN AWAY!" he shouted at her, the tears finally spilling over in a wave as the raindrops caught them melted into a wet mess. His hand went to the back of her soaking hair, the dark slicked locks tumbling over his fingers, and he kissed her; he kissed her so desperately and bruisingly like his very life depended on it.
She'd only just processed his words when he kissed her. He loved her. James Campbell loved Isabel Owens. The thrill that went through her body made her feel like a schoolgirl. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back with so much intensity it left her breathless. The rain continued to pelt down, but it didn't matter. None of it mattered.
She broke the kiss as her hands framed his face, and her green eyes looked at him. "I LOVE YOU TOO! HAVE DONE EVER SINCE I MET YOU!"
James just stood there, shocked, as the rain just started to pour down heavier. Neither made a move to run for shelter. He clutched at her arms and just sobbed as he struggled for words as something collapsed inside him that he'd been trying to hold up all day. "Then why did you run away?!" he cried helplessly. "I need you! I need you here!"
Isabel was trying to remember how to breathe. She'd finally told him that she loved him. It was like this massive weight had been lifted off her chest and she couldn't work out how to function without it. She'd been so used to feeling like there was a lead weight tucked under her ribcage, and now it was gone. She gave a helpless shrug of her shoulder as she licked at raindrops that covered her lips. "You just said you didn't want my platitudes! I didn't know what else to give you, Campbell. I just want to make it stop hurting. I just... I couldn't take you telling me to fuck off."
James just threw his arms around her and pulled her against him. He buried his face in her shoulder, desensitised now to how wet he was and how confused he felt from probably one of the worst days at work he'd ever had to see through. "Just don't fucking run away," he pleaded close to her ear, the words hitching around a sob. "Please."
Izzy's mouth pressed against his ear and she wrapped her arms around him to keep him close. "I won't, James. I won't run away, I swear. There's no getting rid of me now."
The rain came to an abrupt stop, and Isabel looked up into the dark sky. If she weren’t soaked to the bone, and starting to shiver, she would have wondered if it had really been raining at all. Still, the meteorological reaction to their moods wasn't lost on her and her lips quirked into a smile.
"What now?" James asked, his voice weak and tired. He didn't let go of her, though. He didn't want to... and maybe he never would.
She cupped the back of his head and pressed a kiss to the side of his face. "Come home with me," she whispered. It wasn't a proposition. She just wanted to go home and try and wash this day away despite the shower she'd just experienced. She needed warm water, and maybe a stiff drink, or ten. And she wanted James with her.
"Okay," he agreed and took a small step back to meet her eyes. He smoothed his hand down her wet hair and rested his forehead against hers. "We go home... together."
Words: 2990