i look outside, the sky's painting the floor
There's a slightly groggy quality to the way that Jerry battles the key into the lock, taking a moment to pinch the bridge of his nose and rub his eyes, stifling a yawn even though there's no one to see him in the empty corridor. Old habits still die hard, even when you're feeling a little worse for wear following a long trans-atlantic flight, something he's never be able to get used to, regardless of the fact that he's never doubted how worthwhile each trip has been. He smiles to himself, though, when the key finally finds where it's meant to go; it's a symbol of something fitting perfectly. Despite the fact that he's used it many times over the past few months, after it appeared in his post with no note, no explanation, no nothing, just a little red ribbon tied neatly around it, there's still something special about the act of opening this door - Teagan's door. The ribbon was all he had needed. A little corny, of course, but then she had learned from the best. She told him on a fairly regular basis that he'd practically written the book on corny.
Inside, all he immediately registers is a slight chill. After the relative warmth of the corridor, it catches him off guard a little. Blinking dumbly for a moment, Jerry allows the door to fall quietly shut behind him, abandoning his suitcase in the hall as he tentatively moves along the perfect wood floors. The atmosphere's all wrong. Whenever he makes his own way to Teagan's apartment from the airport, in the interests of convenience or surprise, he's welcomed inside either by the constant, soft stream of music in the background, or the light floral scent of her favourite perfume, always lingering in the hall, when she isn't home.
"Teagan?"
His voice, gentle and maybe a little anxious, bemused, seems to bounce off the walls. If it were anyone else, maybe he would have taken it as a sign that they're not home, but it's Teagan. Jerry knows her, he knows her very well, he knows her ins and outs, he recognises the way she purses her lips when she's holding something back, the strain in her smile whenever she fakes it and even the little quirk of her brow she loves to give him when they're in public to tell him exactly what she's thinking.
"Teagan," he repeats her name as if he expects it to help, "are you in here? You said you'd be here when I arrived- not that you need to tell me everything you're planning, of course, but you know what I mean." It'd be silly to do this under normal circumstances, but when your girlfriend has the power of invisibility, it's always better to be sure. Inching slowly into the living room, he does a careful and attentive sweep of the entire room, brushing his hand against the panel on the wall, hoping that'll brighten the lights - Teagan's preference for impossible and complicated electrical systems has always escaped Jerry a little - and much to his relief, it does just that. The room is empty. Everything's neat and tidy as usual, that one space Teagan always keeps relentlessly clean to make up for clothes being dropped around every centimetre of floorspace of the bedroom every morning and for the disasterous experimentation area (occasionally known as the kitchen). She always says it's the sole piece of evidence that she isn't completely hopeless, and every time she does, Jerry makes sure to actively contest this fact.
Crossing the room, he gently pushes open the bedroom door, in case a particularly trying day at the office has already sent her stumbling to bed, but the room is empty. To his endless surprise, the room is also as immaculate as the living room. Not even a pillow is out of place. He spends a long moment frowning at the room, wondering if maybe he has genuinely stumbled into the wrong apartment by some crazy chance, one with the exact same lock as Teagan's, but he recognises the bedsheets, he can see the framed photograph of the two of them at the Order's - absolutely hectic and absurd - international Christmas party last year on the bedside table. It's the right place.
"I can't stop thinking about this." Jerry glances over his shoulder, as if in a faint daze, following the sound of Teagan's voice as it suddenly bursts into the unsettling quiet. She's standing in the furthest corner of the living room, where the massive windows meet the wall, her arms folded and eyes staring at nothing in particular. "I'm so scared. Is that really stupid?" She laughs, slightly mirthlessly. "Of course it's stupid. I can't believe I'm actually doubting this." Except she probably can, and it's obvious in the way she teeters backwards only moments later. "We've planned it all out, we can't go wrong, not if we play it right, not if fate decides that we definitely belong together - which we do - but all I can think about is the sickening idea that maybe we won't play it right and that fate has other ideas for us." She smiles, and there, Jerry can see it, that tightness in the corners of her lips, the stiff line of disbelief that belies just much she doesn't care for smiling right now. "I wish the Order could trust us."
"I don't think it's about trust, Teagan." It's the first contribution Jerry makes, soothing and quiet as he moves towards her. "Not just about trust, at least."
"What could we do?" A petulant note of annoyance creeps into her voice. "None of us could exactly go shouting about it in the street. Who'd believe some random fool mouthing off about a secret superpowered organisation running everything behind the scenes? The Order is more than capable of hiding itself from someone who'll be branded as a little bit weird by the rest of the world. It's such- it's such a stupid procedure!" Of course that's what she's talking about. Jerry had known all along, though he wishes he'd known a little in advance, specifically. "I know we're doing this together because... because we need to move on, because we can't keep jumping between continents all the time like it's nothing, because we reached that whole tipping point between work and us, but- God, you think they'd give us a bit of a break considering the reason why we're doing this!" There's a little tremor of emotion in her voice, and it's enough to encourage Jerry to close the distance between them.
His hands touch her elbow, her waist, before taking her hand and pushing a strand of hair away from her face, even though she keeps her eyes away from his. Jerry knows that he doesn't need to answer because Teagan already knows the answers to these questions. The Order can't take any risks. If it - if they were meant to be, then they would be once again. They had to relinquish the memories of being in the Order, they had to accept the "cover" memories, and that was it. No more Order in their lives. Teagan had made plenty of biting remarks on the truth of that sentence in the past month or so, after they had made the decision. Everything was so complicated. Flights here, flights there, the rare occasion where a teleporter would help with a quick jump across the pond, months spent relying on Skype and painful phonebills because of conflicting schedules and weeks where Teagan has to disappear to unspecified or secret locations and Jerry wishes he could see whatever and whenever just so that he can know she's alright. Maybe they both knew it from the start, that this day would come. This relationship was never going to be short lived.
"What if I decide this little hint to spontaneously get up and go somewhere isn't worth the trouble?" Teagan's cheeks are wet with tears and she's stopped trying to keep her voice level. "I want to say I'd never forgive myself, but I wouldn't even know that I'd need to. I'd be missing such a vital, wonderful part of my life and I'd never have the slightest suspicion." Jerry leans a little closer, their foreheads bump together. "It's pretty sappy, but I don't really want to imagine what it'd be without you."
"Then maybe you should stop talking about it?"
"Don't tell me you haven't thought about it too."
His silence is answer enough. Teagan sniffs helplessly and practically collapses into his arms, burying her face in his shoulder as he wraps his arms around her, protectively, reassuringly. Everything she has voiced has already gone through his mind a thousand times before, but to see it etched on her face, it brings everything back, and suddenly it's so much worse than before. Now they're those thoughts that have been making Teagan cry and sit on her own, invisible, in her apartment.
"We've got the week." He's trying to reassure himself as much as he's trying to reassure her now. "We'll go over everything again, we'll make sure it works. It will work, Teagan, I swear." Somewhat admirably, he manages to inject more confidence into his words than he generally feels. Teagan's hands dig into his shirt, at his chest, on his shoulder, before finally she lifts her head, and much to Jerry's relief, she's smiling for real this time. It's a small, gently curve, but it's familiar, and it warms him more than anything else could right now.
"Let me tell you about this stupid thing I did a while back." Jerry quirks his brow curiously, and does not interrupt. "Against my better judgement, I very foolishly fell head over heels in love with this really adorable loser, yeah? This loser was not only, as I've mentioned, an absolute loser, but he also happened to be Canadian, and now I'm determined to follow him just about anywhere. Ridiculous, isn't it?"
"Completely. What were you thinking?"
"I wasn't, obviously."
Their laughter melts together into one sound, quiet and tired, hopeful. Jerry kisses Teagan on the forehead, and takes her hand. She squeezes his a little, and allows him to tug her along towards her room. Time to sleep and calm down, before the morning, when they can cement everything, make sure everything's going to work. As he turns away, her face falls again, just for a moment, and her eyes shut tightly.
Let this happen again. Let his goofy smiles find me again, and let him love me again like he does now. Whatever happens and however it happens, just let it be this, in the end. That's all I want.
Inside, all he immediately registers is a slight chill. After the relative warmth of the corridor, it catches him off guard a little. Blinking dumbly for a moment, Jerry allows the door to fall quietly shut behind him, abandoning his suitcase in the hall as he tentatively moves along the perfect wood floors. The atmosphere's all wrong. Whenever he makes his own way to Teagan's apartment from the airport, in the interests of convenience or surprise, he's welcomed inside either by the constant, soft stream of music in the background, or the light floral scent of her favourite perfume, always lingering in the hall, when she isn't home.
"Teagan?"
His voice, gentle and maybe a little anxious, bemused, seems to bounce off the walls. If it were anyone else, maybe he would have taken it as a sign that they're not home, but it's Teagan. Jerry knows her, he knows her very well, he knows her ins and outs, he recognises the way she purses her lips when she's holding something back, the strain in her smile whenever she fakes it and even the little quirk of her brow she loves to give him when they're in public to tell him exactly what she's thinking.
"Teagan," he repeats her name as if he expects it to help, "are you in here? You said you'd be here when I arrived- not that you need to tell me everything you're planning, of course, but you know what I mean." It'd be silly to do this under normal circumstances, but when your girlfriend has the power of invisibility, it's always better to be sure. Inching slowly into the living room, he does a careful and attentive sweep of the entire room, brushing his hand against the panel on the wall, hoping that'll brighten the lights - Teagan's preference for impossible and complicated electrical systems has always escaped Jerry a little - and much to his relief, it does just that. The room is empty. Everything's neat and tidy as usual, that one space Teagan always keeps relentlessly clean to make up for clothes being dropped around every centimetre of floorspace of the bedroom every morning and for the disasterous experimentation area (occasionally known as the kitchen). She always says it's the sole piece of evidence that she isn't completely hopeless, and every time she does, Jerry makes sure to actively contest this fact.
Crossing the room, he gently pushes open the bedroom door, in case a particularly trying day at the office has already sent her stumbling to bed, but the room is empty. To his endless surprise, the room is also as immaculate as the living room. Not even a pillow is out of place. He spends a long moment frowning at the room, wondering if maybe he has genuinely stumbled into the wrong apartment by some crazy chance, one with the exact same lock as Teagan's, but he recognises the bedsheets, he can see the framed photograph of the two of them at the Order's - absolutely hectic and absurd - international Christmas party last year on the bedside table. It's the right place.
"I can't stop thinking about this." Jerry glances over his shoulder, as if in a faint daze, following the sound of Teagan's voice as it suddenly bursts into the unsettling quiet. She's standing in the furthest corner of the living room, where the massive windows meet the wall, her arms folded and eyes staring at nothing in particular. "I'm so scared. Is that really stupid?" She laughs, slightly mirthlessly. "Of course it's stupid. I can't believe I'm actually doubting this." Except she probably can, and it's obvious in the way she teeters backwards only moments later. "We've planned it all out, we can't go wrong, not if we play it right, not if fate decides that we definitely belong together - which we do - but all I can think about is the sickening idea that maybe we won't play it right and that fate has other ideas for us." She smiles, and there, Jerry can see it, that tightness in the corners of her lips, the stiff line of disbelief that belies just much she doesn't care for smiling right now. "I wish the Order could trust us."
"I don't think it's about trust, Teagan." It's the first contribution Jerry makes, soothing and quiet as he moves towards her. "Not just about trust, at least."
"What could we do?" A petulant note of annoyance creeps into her voice. "None of us could exactly go shouting about it in the street. Who'd believe some random fool mouthing off about a secret superpowered organisation running everything behind the scenes? The Order is more than capable of hiding itself from someone who'll be branded as a little bit weird by the rest of the world. It's such- it's such a stupid procedure!" Of course that's what she's talking about. Jerry had known all along, though he wishes he'd known a little in advance, specifically. "I know we're doing this together because... because we need to move on, because we can't keep jumping between continents all the time like it's nothing, because we reached that whole tipping point between work and us, but- God, you think they'd give us a bit of a break considering the reason why we're doing this!" There's a little tremor of emotion in her voice, and it's enough to encourage Jerry to close the distance between them.
His hands touch her elbow, her waist, before taking her hand and pushing a strand of hair away from her face, even though she keeps her eyes away from his. Jerry knows that he doesn't need to answer because Teagan already knows the answers to these questions. The Order can't take any risks. If it - if they were meant to be, then they would be once again. They had to relinquish the memories of being in the Order, they had to accept the "cover" memories, and that was it. No more Order in their lives. Teagan had made plenty of biting remarks on the truth of that sentence in the past month or so, after they had made the decision. Everything was so complicated. Flights here, flights there, the rare occasion where a teleporter would help with a quick jump across the pond, months spent relying on Skype and painful phonebills because of conflicting schedules and weeks where Teagan has to disappear to unspecified or secret locations and Jerry wishes he could see whatever and whenever just so that he can know she's alright. Maybe they both knew it from the start, that this day would come. This relationship was never going to be short lived.
"What if I decide this little hint to spontaneously get up and go somewhere isn't worth the trouble?" Teagan's cheeks are wet with tears and she's stopped trying to keep her voice level. "I want to say I'd never forgive myself, but I wouldn't even know that I'd need to. I'd be missing such a vital, wonderful part of my life and I'd never have the slightest suspicion." Jerry leans a little closer, their foreheads bump together. "It's pretty sappy, but I don't really want to imagine what it'd be without you."
"Then maybe you should stop talking about it?"
"Don't tell me you haven't thought about it too."
His silence is answer enough. Teagan sniffs helplessly and practically collapses into his arms, burying her face in his shoulder as he wraps his arms around her, protectively, reassuringly. Everything she has voiced has already gone through his mind a thousand times before, but to see it etched on her face, it brings everything back, and suddenly it's so much worse than before. Now they're those thoughts that have been making Teagan cry and sit on her own, invisible, in her apartment.
"We've got the week." He's trying to reassure himself as much as he's trying to reassure her now. "We'll go over everything again, we'll make sure it works. It will work, Teagan, I swear." Somewhat admirably, he manages to inject more confidence into his words than he generally feels. Teagan's hands dig into his shirt, at his chest, on his shoulder, before finally she lifts her head, and much to Jerry's relief, she's smiling for real this time. It's a small, gently curve, but it's familiar, and it warms him more than anything else could right now.
"Let me tell you about this stupid thing I did a while back." Jerry quirks his brow curiously, and does not interrupt. "Against my better judgement, I very foolishly fell head over heels in love with this really adorable loser, yeah? This loser was not only, as I've mentioned, an absolute loser, but he also happened to be Canadian, and now I'm determined to follow him just about anywhere. Ridiculous, isn't it?"
"Completely. What were you thinking?"
"I wasn't, obviously."
Their laughter melts together into one sound, quiet and tired, hopeful. Jerry kisses Teagan on the forehead, and takes her hand. She squeezes his a little, and allows him to tug her along towards her room. Time to sleep and calm down, before the morning, when they can cement everything, make sure everything's going to work. As he turns away, her face falls again, just for a moment, and her eyes shut tightly.
Let this happen again. Let his goofy smiles find me again, and let him love me again like he does now. Whatever happens and however it happens, just let it be this, in the end. That's all I want.