Fic: Wait It Out
Title: Wait It Out
Author: numbartist
Rating: PG-13
Summary: She takes the moment to finally get a good look at his face and immediately alarms go off in her head. It was a difficult case but it shouldn’t have hit this hard.
Characters: Chase/Cameron
Set: After The Tyrant 6.04.
Word Count: 941
A/N: Thanks to enigma731 for feedback and suggestions. <3
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The sudden shift in the mattress immediately rouses Cameron, whose attempt at finally drifting to sleep has still been unsuccessfully fulfilled. At first, she opens her eyes and begins to lift herself off the pillow but then she sees him sitting on the edge of the mattress, face in his palms and hunched over, her shoulders automatically tense. She wills herself to keep still, not daring move toward her husband, even as the pounding in her heart urges her to do.
He sits for what seems like hours to Cameron, her heart now thumping so loud in her chest that she swears the sound is echoing off the walls. Chase’s movements are slow and heavy when he finally moves from the edge of the bed, almost as if he has aged years since she saw him hours before.
When he begins to turn around, she squeezes her eyes shut and pretends to be asleep, the hem of the comforter held between her fingertips to suppress the need to fidget. The shifting mattress stills and when she finally peeks open her eyes, he’s lying down with his back to her. She can practically see the valleys of his back through the shirt the muscles are so tense.
She waits for his body to relax but it doesn’t happen. Anxiety building in her thoughts, she instinctively inches herself closer to him, though hesitant to touch him. But when she gets so close that his heat begins to radiates off onto her, the urge becomes too great. In a swift movement, she slides her arms to wrap around his waist, burying her face into the wrinkled cotton of the shirt he had neglected to remove. His muscles tighten at the sudden contact and he tries to move away but her grip is tight and she doesn’t let him leave her grasp.
Eventually, his muscles start to relax and she uncurls her fingers, loosening just enough to let him turn around in her arms. She frowns at the fact that he’s still wearing both his pants and his shirt from work. Her fingers begin working to unbutton the shirt and help him remove the piece of clothing but when she starts at his pants, he decides he’s competent enough to handle removing them himself.
She takes the moment to finally get a good look at his face and immediately alarms go off in her head. Even in the dark, Cameron can see hard lines of anguish across her husband’s face and the greasy, disheveled hair across his forehead uncovers that it was a lie when he said he was staying at the hospital to shower. It was a difficult case but it shouldn’t have hit this hard.
Once the clothing has been discarded onto the floor, she moves a hand to cup his cheek, running the pad of her thumb along his jawbone, her forehead wrinkled in concern. “Babe, what’s wrong?”
But he won’t look at her, no matter how many times she strokes his cheek or voices words of comfort into his ears. Frustration begins to flood over the patience in Cameron’s voice. “Chase,” Her touch turns forceful and aligns his head parallel to face hers. “You have to tell me. I’m your wife now, you can’t just ignore me if you don’t feel like talking.” His eyes turn icy cold and his lips thin, yanking her hand away from his face by the wrist and continuing to avoid her gaze.
She hesitates, hurt by the uncharacteristic reaction. “Robert, please.”
But he turns away from her, and her lip quivers in confusion and distress, regretting what she said to him about not caring if Dibala had died. She opens her mouth to say something but closes it again, afraid of letting this end badly, so she spoons herself against him, not willing to push this any longer. She presses her lips to the bare skin between his shoulder blades before settling into him. She can feel his wavering breath through her chest pressed into his back and Cameron aches, feeling even more helpless.
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The golden glow reflecting off of the walls is what finally wakes Cameron in the morning. The faint yellow highlights the hills in the comforter and softens the crisp colours of the room. Feeling like she hadn’t gotten any sleep at all, Cameron makes a little annoyed noise at the bright light. Groggy, she outstretches her arm to feel for Chase but her hand comes up empty, met with the cold fabric instead of a warm body. Confused, she sits up and surveys the room, her heart sinking when she realizes he’s gone.
She lets herself fall back into the comfort of the mattress and lies there, unsure what to think of this. Something was wrong; did he not trust her enough to tell her what it was? Or was he paged to the hospital early? But wouldn’t he have woken her, since they share the same job now? Nothing is making sense and that in itself scares her.
She gets distracted from her thoughts when she feels a sudden mass fix itself on her flat stomach. Raising an eyebrow at the cat, she scratches one of his tiny gray cheeks. He starts purring and settles into her abdomen. She sighs, hoping that this is really nothing and not a downward spiral that her thoughts are leading her to believe it will be. Scooping up the cat in her arms and carrying the gray ball of fur into the kitchen, she tries to push the negative thoughts from her head, the empty bed failing to completely detach from her mind.
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fin
♥
-jackie