Falling, Part 13 of 13
Title: Falling (part 13 of 13)
Author: Louisa and Tamoline
Rating: NC-17
Fandom: X-Men/Criminal Minds
Pairing: Emily Prentiss/Emma Frost
Notes:
This revolves around the events of Faces, told from Emily's point of
view. (We really will get around to the sequel, but Falling is of
sufficiently different form that we thought it best to make a seperate
story for it.)
You will need to read Faces before reading this story:
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9
The Hunt is suggested as well, as it deals with Emily prior to the events of Faces:
Groundwork Interrogation Contact Aftermath
Previous parts of Falling:
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12
There's a song running through my head. It's stuck on a loop; has been for the past few minutes. It's just there, in the background, getting on my nerves. Getting under my skin.
I don't even *like* Meatloaf.
Well, not anymore. But Celia and I have sworn each other to secrecy about that dark period in our pasts.
In any case, *this* song was never one of my favourites. Even when, especially when, it was kind of, sort of, my theme song. Metaphorically, if not musically.
My hunts may have been about many things, need and want amongst them, but love?
Love was never my strength.
Maybe that can still change.
Maybe.
The persistent, insistent refrain still ringing in my ears, I have to stop myself from raising my voice in an attempt to drown it out. I might be a little more manic than usual, but hopefully Emma will just chalk that up to the unleashing of my inner geek. I sneak a sidelong glance at her, catching her watching me with an amused expression. My heart skips a beat. The music rushes in as if to compensate.
"What?" I say to Emma, quirking an eyebrow in my best imitation of her trademark quizzical expression.
She shakes her head. "Oh, nothing," she murmurs, smiling. "Just listening to you."
I ignore any complexities to her expression. Maybe if I wish hard enough, they'll just disappear.
It's a futile hope, but it's the only one I have left.
With only the slightest of efforts, I return her smile. "Was I rambling?"
"Just a little. But you do it so cutely that I'm inclined to forgive you." She leans in and pats my hand. I grasp her fingers with my own and we walk side by side in silence for a few steps before she slips her hand out of my loose grip to fiddle with the belt of her coat.
"So, what did you think of the film?" I ask. I'm pretty sure she liked it, but since leaving the cinema she's been mostly letting me do all the talking.
"It was entertaining," she says lightly, "if a little unbelievable in places."
"It's a film about going into other people's dreams," I observe drily. "What were you expecting: a documentary?"
She starts to say something, then sighs and shakes her head. "Would it have killed them to stick a few electrodes and a brainwave monitor on the dream gizmo? Or to at least hint at the need for some degree of telepathic potential?"
I roll my eyes. "The mechanics of how it's done aren't important for the story. Any explanation they'd put in there would only have been a distraction."
"There's nothing wrong with adding a little touch of verisimilitude."
"There is if it confuses the narrative."
We bicker almost naturally as we stroll to my apartment, by which time she concedes that, minor quibbles aside, she did actually enjoy the film. So, I would like to think this outing could be counted a success.
I really would.
It's been nice. It is nice, talking like this. It almost feels comfortable, like before... Like before. My stomach flutters nervously as we approach my apartment building, but I allow myself to hope. We didn't really plan anything for after the movie, but maybe...
My heart lurches as she briefly glances towards her car, but then she turns to me and says: "Shall we go up?"
I smile. "I thought you'd never ask."
We take the elevator for once, rather than the stairs. Not our usual habit, but it was there and waiting. Serendipity. The short journey passes in silence. This isn't unusual for us; we've never felt the need to talk just to fill a space. But this is... different, somehow. Charged. Pregnant with words unspoken. Perhaps this means she's finally ready to say them. Whatever they are.
Or maybe it's just that damned refrain looping over and over in my mind.
I never thought I'd actually wish for muzak.
I close the apartment door behind us and turn to Emma. I'm intending to ask her if she wants to order take-away here tonight, but I stop, suddenly struck once more by how beautiful she is. By how much I love her; how much better my life is now that she's a part of it. Words well up in my throat, too many words, too long unsaid. And I just can't. They'd just be the wrong things to say.
That doesn't stop them choking me.
So, wordless, I kiss her instead.
* * *
The first sign that things were getting worse, not better, was Emma's eyes.
She was lounging across the sofa when I came in from the office, head propped up on one armrest and feet on the other, book clasped loosely in one hand.
She looked up. "Ah," she drawled. "There you are." She raised an empty glass in my direction, waggling it imperiously. "Just in time to get me a refill."
I rolled my eyes, but good naturedly took the glass and headed into the kitchen. I wasn't quite sure how, but her demanding ways had become part of her charm. I couldn't imagine her any other way.
While I was there, I grabbed a glass of my own before returning to the living room.
"Juice?" she said, looking highly displeased. "Really?"
"Maybe you should you have been more specific," I said, shrugging. "And it's too early for alcohol."
She snorted and muttered something I didn't bother to try and catch. It would only encourage her.
I leaned back into my chair and made myself comfortable. "So, how did your therapy session go today?"
If I hadn't been looking right at her right at that moment, I might have missed the slight shuttering of her eyes.
"Oh, you know, more of the same," she said. "Talking about my feelings. Blah, blah, blah."
I thought about enquiring further, about pushing the subject, but I didn't. This might have been a step backwards, but that was fine.
We had time. She'd tell me when she was ready.
We might have had more time, but she never did.
I might have been falling, but all I could see were clouds beneath me.
* * *
I want you.
We move together; two bodies, one rhythm. We may be slightly off kilter, out of synch, now, but I don't think we can ever forget the steps to this dance. Push and pull, give and take. She reads me and I can read her. Reflected and reflection.
I need you.
We can match each other almost perfectly. Almost everything I want, she can be. Almost everything I need, she can give me.
Almost.
Almost.
But maybe tonight, almost will be good enough. Again.
If I just ignore the nagging voice in the back of my head, this can feel so right, in a way things haven't been for what seems like so long. The two of us, together, like this.
I love you.
Maybe she'll stay the night.
Maybe we'll spend it in each others' arms and make love again in the morning.
Maybe I can ignore the fact that she's trying just a little too hard.
Maybe.
Don't you feel it, Emma? Don't you feel this?
Don't you want it back?
Don't you want it?
Don't you want me?
Don't you?
Don't...
Don't let me go.
Please, just don't let me go.
* * *
The second sign was a less subtle message that something was wrong.
A drowsy, satisfied smile upon my face, I luxuriated in the warmth of contentment. Languidly stretching, I rolled over to wrap my arms around Emma, but met only the softness of duvet, not skin. Confused, I raised my head in time to see her get to her feet.
"What is it?" I asked her. It was unusual for her to leave the bed right away after we'd made love. Not without -- well, not snuggling; Emma Winthrop didn't *snuggle* -- without curling up together in a blissful tangle of limbs, kissing slowly and tenderly as the urge took us.
Even if the kisses hadn't been quite as slow or as tender recently.
It was just a phase. Every couple went through them. So I'd gathered from the tales of my friends and colleagues.
Maybe she needed the bathroom.
But she turned to me with opaque eyes and shrugged. "I rather thought I'd retire to my place tonight," she said.
Oh.
I tried not to read too much into that simple phrase. It would be so easy, too easy and my judgment would be clouded by my proximity to the subject. Instead I settle for asking merely, "Why?"
She tensed slightly, and I knew that I had said the wrong thing, pried behind her closely held barriers. I'd just, I'd just hoped that we'd already moved past that stage of things, to a point where we could ask these questions of each other.
Apparently not.
Or apparently not anymore.
"Even an international woman of mystery can have things she needs to do in the morning," she said with a false lightness.
Translation: She needed her space tonight, and wasn't willing to go through the reasons why with me at the moment.
She never had been as open after that afternoon.
It could still just be a phase.
It could.
"Maybe I'll be able to enjoy your company next time," I said, giving her an easy out.
To pry further would just make things worse.
She smiled at me, but it was her game smile, not the smile of a lover newly from the bed. "It's a date," she said.
But she didn't stay the next time either.
Or any of the times after that.
Those weren't clouds beneath me. It was an icy, rocky landscape instead. And I was accelerating downwards.
But there was still time to fly.
Please.
There was still hope that I could learn to fly.
* * *
A cry, a scream, a whisper, then finally my name on her lips.
Not quite an afterthought, but nearly, oh so nearly.
The way she shudders and trembles, clutching me to her body like she's never going to let me go.
Don't let me go.
Not as if she were getting ready to push me away.
Never that.
I clasp her to me with everything I have, hands, legs, even teeth.
"Tell me you want me," I breathe. A murmur, a plea, a demand.
"I want you," she says, letting lust cloud her eyes, almost covering the lie I can see reflected in their depths. "I... Ah!" she gasps as I bite her, harder, trying to drive the untruth out. "I *want* you, Emily."
She arches, but even her ecstasy can't drive the pain from my heart.
Kissing each other, over and over and over again, like broken promises. Maybe, if we have enough shards, we can make something whole.
Skin sliding on skin, bodies slick with empty desire. Tangled limbs and roaming hands, sliding past each other, always just missing.
Sometimes, almost is close enough.
Sometimes, it's an impassable divide.
But the music plays on regardless, carrying us with it whether we will it or no.
Every touch, every look, every gesture of mine says "Stay with me".
Every caress, every word, every movement of hers says "Goodbye".
And when I climax, we both pretend my tears are those of pleasure.
* * *
The third sign in some ways the most subtle, and in others the worst.
We were sitting around in my apartment after a night spent together.
It was always my apartment these days. What had once been a sign of the unparalleled trust I had for her was now something different, now just a further frail tether that I could wrap around her, a grasping of the straws.
If she was here, then she was in some ways inside of me.
If she was here, then she was still making a conscious effort to seek me out.
If she was here, then I didn't have to pretend so hard that I wasn't losing her.
Of course, if she was here, it made the conversations with hidden edges we'd been having recently that much more painful.
"Not that your decor isn't absolutely *delightful*," Emma drawled. "But we have spent all together too many of our evenings within these four walls recently."
No.
Going back to just meeting in Emma's impersonal white apartment would hurt too much. It would be another step, which at this rate I'd never get back.
I couldn't do it.
Please.
"An evening out?" I deflected. "Where would you suggest?"
It was a compromise. Emma would suggest something she enjoyed and, hopefully, we'd get back into some sort of a routine.
Give and take. I knew how much Emma hated to owe anyone anything.
Emma pondered my peace offering for a moment. I could almost see her go through a list of options. Finally, "You're the local here. Why don't you come up with something?"
Put on the spot, I panicked a little. What could I think of that Emma would appreciate?
I needed time.
So I suggested something I was fairly sure that she wouldn't go for, a temporary reprieve so I could either palm the decision back on her, or research something better. "Well, there is a sci-fi movie that I've been wanting to watch. A heist movie about a group of dream thieves."
Emma rolled her eyes, and I could see her preparing a scathing response. And then...
And then she swallowed it with an effort. "Sounds like fun," she said quietly. "When do you want to go?"
Oh.
She didn't snark.
Emma.
Didn't make a single sarcastic response.
She didn't like to owe anyone anything, and the only reason I could think that she wouldn't reply with a barbed comment was...
If she didn't think that she'd be around to collect my payback.
That was the moment I knew that what we had was over.
It was too late. All I could do was close my eyes and brace for impact.
* * *
"Emily," she says softly from behind me as we lie sprawled out on the bed afterwards. My name sounds like a death knell on her lips.
Do you want to stay here tonight?" I interrupt. Maybe, somehow, I can deflect what she's about to say, avert it for another night. Change the ending, change the track.
God, I'm pathetic.
"I know you've needed some space recently," I continue, knowing it's futile but unable to stop myself from trying, from *hoping*. Because what we have, what we had, is worth fighting for.
But she isn't fighting.
"But, well, I thought..." I turn, finally, to look at her, and I see the resolve in her eyes. The last of my hope withers and dies, leaving behind nothing but salt and ashes.
"We need to talk," she says, and her words fill me with ice.
Now that the moment has come, I feel almost calm. The compartments of my mind rearrange themselves, transitioning her smoothly from lover to someone who is about to hurt me, and that, weirdly, is something I can almost deal with.
Almost.
"Go on," I say when she pauses.
She sits up, facing me properly. "I know I've been distant the last few days," she says, quietly, as if *that* could make it better. "I just wanted you to know that it's nothing to do with you."
It's nothing personal, I can hear *her* say, and, this time, she uses Emma's voice.
I taste bile. "It's not me, it's you?" I ask, and suddenly I feel fury. I welcome anger's fire. Maybe it can warm the part of me that's frozen over. The part that I let her thaw.
How *dare* she do this to me?
She winces, but not enough, never enough, because she's still going to continue.
To leave me. Again.
"In a manner of speaking, yes." Weasel words. Evasions. I've seen it all before. Heard it all before. But not directed at me. Not after *her*.
"It's because of something that I just wasn't able to deal with before. Therapy has helped me come to terms with a number of my issues, and this one was buried deeper than most. Probably because I really didn't want to deal with it." She sighs softly, as if this is difficult for her. For *her*. "For a number of reasons."
Reasons, reasons. There are always reasons.
And somehow, somehow, her distress softens me, soothes me, takes away my anger.
Leaving just the pain.
Damn her.
"Why didn't you tell me about it?" Why didn't you let me help you? Why didn't you trust me? "I could have helped you..."
She holds up a hand commandingly and my mouth closes with a snap. "Because you couldn't, not with this." There's a look in her eyes, a look of almost shame, a look that promises something worse than merely: 'I'm sorry, I don't love you.'
'...never gonna love you,' the song mocks.
But she's still speaking.
"Before I left the school rather abruptly, I was already in a relationship."
Oh.
Oh god.
Even as part of me is slotting that piece of the puzzle in place, noting how much now becomes clear, the rest of me is reeling.
I feel sick.
How could she-
"I had a boyfriend."
The sentence stops me dead.
For a moment, I can't even breathe. Somehow, this makes it even worse. I'm not even being left for another woman.
All I can do is ask, "And this never came up before because...?"
Her words wash over me, but I don't really listen. I can't. This has been nothing, nothing but lies, and I fell for it. Despite the warnings, despite her point blank refusals on the subject of relationships, despite everything.
And I can't help but think in some small part of myself that I deserve it. JJ, Mona...
Amanda.
The thought ignites defensive anger. I've got to get more distance between us.
"So this is why you'd never commit to a relationship with me? Because as long as you didn't, you still had *him*?"
"I love him. I can't just let it go, not like that."
Of course she can't. But she has no problem letting go of *me*.
"So you run off to D.C., find me," Make me love you, "*Use* me to help yourself and now, what? Run back to your nice, normal boyfriend?"
"I need to go back to him, to find out where I stand. What our relationship is."
I note she has no problem using the word where I'm not concerned.
"So what was tonight, then? A pity fuck? One last ride for good luck before you slithered on back to your boyfriend?" I laugh, bitterly. "Doesn't it count as *cheating* if it's a woman you're fucking?" I've heard of that happening, but I never thought... I never thought that Emma would do that to *me*.
I'm such a fool. Some profiler I am.
She doesn't want me. She doesn't need me. She sure as hell doesn't *love* me.
Two out of three, the song drones on, but I don't even have that.
I have nothing.
I have nothing left.
"That's not... I didn't think..."
Of course she didn't. Why would she? Why would anyone?
"Go then," I say, curling up in a ball, instinctively trying to shield myself, to make myself less vulnerable. Invulnerable.
It doesn't work.
"I'm sorry," she says quietly as she leaves.
It's too much.
It's too little, too late.
"Don't say you're sorry when you don't mean it," I yell at her back. But the passion is spent almost as soon as it erupts. "Just don't," I murmur to myself.
I can't see how any of this can be unintentional.
As I hear the door to my apartment close, the anger exits with her. I'm left with a burning cold inside of me, and unshed tears which stubbornly refuse to fall, denying me even that comfort.
After all, it's nothing personal.
It isn't the fall that kills you.
It's the stop at the end.
Interlude
Author's Note: Our apologies for taking so long to get this out. We had some other commitments that siphoned off our creative energy, and then we had problems making the time. There is going to be a final part to this story, but I can't swear as to when we'll manage to get it out. If we're lucky, maybe over the Christmas break.
We hope that at least some of you enjoyed our apology fic and please tell us what you thought of Falling
Author: Louisa and Tamoline
Rating: NC-17
Fandom: X-Men/Criminal Minds
Pairing: Emily Prentiss/Emma Frost
Notes:
This revolves around the events of Faces, told from Emily's point of
view. (We really will get around to the sequel, but Falling is of
sufficiently different form that we thought it best to make a seperate
story for it.)
You will need to read Faces before reading this story:
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9
The Hunt is suggested as well, as it deals with Emily prior to the events of Faces:
Groundwork Interrogation Contact Aftermath
Previous parts of Falling:
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12
There's a song running through my head. It's stuck on a loop; has been for the past few minutes. It's just there, in the background, getting on my nerves. Getting under my skin.
I don't even *like* Meatloaf.
Well, not anymore. But Celia and I have sworn each other to secrecy about that dark period in our pasts.
In any case, *this* song was never one of my favourites. Even when, especially when, it was kind of, sort of, my theme song. Metaphorically, if not musically.
My hunts may have been about many things, need and want amongst them, but love?
Love was never my strength.
Maybe that can still change.
Maybe.
The persistent, insistent refrain still ringing in my ears, I have to stop myself from raising my voice in an attempt to drown it out. I might be a little more manic than usual, but hopefully Emma will just chalk that up to the unleashing of my inner geek. I sneak a sidelong glance at her, catching her watching me with an amused expression. My heart skips a beat. The music rushes in as if to compensate.
"What?" I say to Emma, quirking an eyebrow in my best imitation of her trademark quizzical expression.
She shakes her head. "Oh, nothing," she murmurs, smiling. "Just listening to you."
I ignore any complexities to her expression. Maybe if I wish hard enough, they'll just disappear.
It's a futile hope, but it's the only one I have left.
With only the slightest of efforts, I return her smile. "Was I rambling?"
"Just a little. But you do it so cutely that I'm inclined to forgive you." She leans in and pats my hand. I grasp her fingers with my own and we walk side by side in silence for a few steps before she slips her hand out of my loose grip to fiddle with the belt of her coat.
"So, what did you think of the film?" I ask. I'm pretty sure she liked it, but since leaving the cinema she's been mostly letting me do all the talking.
"It was entertaining," she says lightly, "if a little unbelievable in places."
"It's a film about going into other people's dreams," I observe drily. "What were you expecting: a documentary?"
She starts to say something, then sighs and shakes her head. "Would it have killed them to stick a few electrodes and a brainwave monitor on the dream gizmo? Or to at least hint at the need for some degree of telepathic potential?"
I roll my eyes. "The mechanics of how it's done aren't important for the story. Any explanation they'd put in there would only have been a distraction."
"There's nothing wrong with adding a little touch of verisimilitude."
"There is if it confuses the narrative."
We bicker almost naturally as we stroll to my apartment, by which time she concedes that, minor quibbles aside, she did actually enjoy the film. So, I would like to think this outing could be counted a success.
I really would.
It's been nice. It is nice, talking like this. It almost feels comfortable, like before... Like before. My stomach flutters nervously as we approach my apartment building, but I allow myself to hope. We didn't really plan anything for after the movie, but maybe...
My heart lurches as she briefly glances towards her car, but then she turns to me and says: "Shall we go up?"
I smile. "I thought you'd never ask."
We take the elevator for once, rather than the stairs. Not our usual habit, but it was there and waiting. Serendipity. The short journey passes in silence. This isn't unusual for us; we've never felt the need to talk just to fill a space. But this is... different, somehow. Charged. Pregnant with words unspoken. Perhaps this means she's finally ready to say them. Whatever they are.
Or maybe it's just that damned refrain looping over and over in my mind.
I never thought I'd actually wish for muzak.
I close the apartment door behind us and turn to Emma. I'm intending to ask her if she wants to order take-away here tonight, but I stop, suddenly struck once more by how beautiful she is. By how much I love her; how much better my life is now that she's a part of it. Words well up in my throat, too many words, too long unsaid. And I just can't. They'd just be the wrong things to say.
That doesn't stop them choking me.
So, wordless, I kiss her instead.
* * *
The first sign that things were getting worse, not better, was Emma's eyes.
She was lounging across the sofa when I came in from the office, head propped up on one armrest and feet on the other, book clasped loosely in one hand.
She looked up. "Ah," she drawled. "There you are." She raised an empty glass in my direction, waggling it imperiously. "Just in time to get me a refill."
I rolled my eyes, but good naturedly took the glass and headed into the kitchen. I wasn't quite sure how, but her demanding ways had become part of her charm. I couldn't imagine her any other way.
While I was there, I grabbed a glass of my own before returning to the living room.
"Juice?" she said, looking highly displeased. "Really?"
"Maybe you should you have been more specific," I said, shrugging. "And it's too early for alcohol."
She snorted and muttered something I didn't bother to try and catch. It would only encourage her.
I leaned back into my chair and made myself comfortable. "So, how did your therapy session go today?"
If I hadn't been looking right at her right at that moment, I might have missed the slight shuttering of her eyes.
"Oh, you know, more of the same," she said. "Talking about my feelings. Blah, blah, blah."
I thought about enquiring further, about pushing the subject, but I didn't. This might have been a step backwards, but that was fine.
We had time. She'd tell me when she was ready.
We might have had more time, but she never did.
I might have been falling, but all I could see were clouds beneath me.
* * *
I want you.
We move together; two bodies, one rhythm. We may be slightly off kilter, out of synch, now, but I don't think we can ever forget the steps to this dance. Push and pull, give and take. She reads me and I can read her. Reflected and reflection.
I need you.
We can match each other almost perfectly. Almost everything I want, she can be. Almost everything I need, she can give me.
Almost.
Almost.
But maybe tonight, almost will be good enough. Again.
If I just ignore the nagging voice in the back of my head, this can feel so right, in a way things haven't been for what seems like so long. The two of us, together, like this.
I love you.
Maybe she'll stay the night.
Maybe we'll spend it in each others' arms and make love again in the morning.
Maybe I can ignore the fact that she's trying just a little too hard.
Maybe.
Don't you feel it, Emma? Don't you feel this?
Don't you want it back?
Don't you want it?
Don't you want me?
Don't you?
Don't...
Don't let me go.
Please, just don't let me go.
* * *
The second sign was a less subtle message that something was wrong.
A drowsy, satisfied smile upon my face, I luxuriated in the warmth of contentment. Languidly stretching, I rolled over to wrap my arms around Emma, but met only the softness of duvet, not skin. Confused, I raised my head in time to see her get to her feet.
"What is it?" I asked her. It was unusual for her to leave the bed right away after we'd made love. Not without -- well, not snuggling; Emma Winthrop didn't *snuggle* -- without curling up together in a blissful tangle of limbs, kissing slowly and tenderly as the urge took us.
Even if the kisses hadn't been quite as slow or as tender recently.
It was just a phase. Every couple went through them. So I'd gathered from the tales of my friends and colleagues.
Maybe she needed the bathroom.
But she turned to me with opaque eyes and shrugged. "I rather thought I'd retire to my place tonight," she said.
Oh.
I tried not to read too much into that simple phrase. It would be so easy, too easy and my judgment would be clouded by my proximity to the subject. Instead I settle for asking merely, "Why?"
She tensed slightly, and I knew that I had said the wrong thing, pried behind her closely held barriers. I'd just, I'd just hoped that we'd already moved past that stage of things, to a point where we could ask these questions of each other.
Apparently not.
Or apparently not anymore.
"Even an international woman of mystery can have things she needs to do in the morning," she said with a false lightness.
Translation: She needed her space tonight, and wasn't willing to go through the reasons why with me at the moment.
She never had been as open after that afternoon.
It could still just be a phase.
It could.
"Maybe I'll be able to enjoy your company next time," I said, giving her an easy out.
To pry further would just make things worse.
She smiled at me, but it was her game smile, not the smile of a lover newly from the bed. "It's a date," she said.
But she didn't stay the next time either.
Or any of the times after that.
Those weren't clouds beneath me. It was an icy, rocky landscape instead. And I was accelerating downwards.
But there was still time to fly.
Please.
There was still hope that I could learn to fly.
* * *
A cry, a scream, a whisper, then finally my name on her lips.
Not quite an afterthought, but nearly, oh so nearly.
The way she shudders and trembles, clutching me to her body like she's never going to let me go.
Don't let me go.
Not as if she were getting ready to push me away.
Never that.
I clasp her to me with everything I have, hands, legs, even teeth.
"Tell me you want me," I breathe. A murmur, a plea, a demand.
"I want you," she says, letting lust cloud her eyes, almost covering the lie I can see reflected in their depths. "I... Ah!" she gasps as I bite her, harder, trying to drive the untruth out. "I *want* you, Emily."
She arches, but even her ecstasy can't drive the pain from my heart.
Kissing each other, over and over and over again, like broken promises. Maybe, if we have enough shards, we can make something whole.
Skin sliding on skin, bodies slick with empty desire. Tangled limbs and roaming hands, sliding past each other, always just missing.
Sometimes, almost is close enough.
Sometimes, it's an impassable divide.
But the music plays on regardless, carrying us with it whether we will it or no.
Every touch, every look, every gesture of mine says "Stay with me".
Every caress, every word, every movement of hers says "Goodbye".
And when I climax, we both pretend my tears are those of pleasure.
* * *
The third sign in some ways the most subtle, and in others the worst.
We were sitting around in my apartment after a night spent together.
It was always my apartment these days. What had once been a sign of the unparalleled trust I had for her was now something different, now just a further frail tether that I could wrap around her, a grasping of the straws.
If she was here, then she was in some ways inside of me.
If she was here, then she was still making a conscious effort to seek me out.
If she was here, then I didn't have to pretend so hard that I wasn't losing her.
Of course, if she was here, it made the conversations with hidden edges we'd been having recently that much more painful.
"Not that your decor isn't absolutely *delightful*," Emma drawled. "But we have spent all together too many of our evenings within these four walls recently."
No.
Going back to just meeting in Emma's impersonal white apartment would hurt too much. It would be another step, which at this rate I'd never get back.
I couldn't do it.
Please.
"An evening out?" I deflected. "Where would you suggest?"
It was a compromise. Emma would suggest something she enjoyed and, hopefully, we'd get back into some sort of a routine.
Give and take. I knew how much Emma hated to owe anyone anything.
Emma pondered my peace offering for a moment. I could almost see her go through a list of options. Finally, "You're the local here. Why don't you come up with something?"
Put on the spot, I panicked a little. What could I think of that Emma would appreciate?
I needed time.
So I suggested something I was fairly sure that she wouldn't go for, a temporary reprieve so I could either palm the decision back on her, or research something better. "Well, there is a sci-fi movie that I've been wanting to watch. A heist movie about a group of dream thieves."
Emma rolled her eyes, and I could see her preparing a scathing response. And then...
And then she swallowed it with an effort. "Sounds like fun," she said quietly. "When do you want to go?"
Oh.
She didn't snark.
Emma.
Didn't make a single sarcastic response.
She didn't like to owe anyone anything, and the only reason I could think that she wouldn't reply with a barbed comment was...
If she didn't think that she'd be around to collect my payback.
That was the moment I knew that what we had was over.
It was too late. All I could do was close my eyes and brace for impact.
* * *
"Emily," she says softly from behind me as we lie sprawled out on the bed afterwards. My name sounds like a death knell on her lips.
Do you want to stay here tonight?" I interrupt. Maybe, somehow, I can deflect what she's about to say, avert it for another night. Change the ending, change the track.
God, I'm pathetic.
"I know you've needed some space recently," I continue, knowing it's futile but unable to stop myself from trying, from *hoping*. Because what we have, what we had, is worth fighting for.
But she isn't fighting.
"But, well, I thought..." I turn, finally, to look at her, and I see the resolve in her eyes. The last of my hope withers and dies, leaving behind nothing but salt and ashes.
"We need to talk," she says, and her words fill me with ice.
Now that the moment has come, I feel almost calm. The compartments of my mind rearrange themselves, transitioning her smoothly from lover to someone who is about to hurt me, and that, weirdly, is something I can almost deal with.
Almost.
"Go on," I say when she pauses.
She sits up, facing me properly. "I know I've been distant the last few days," she says, quietly, as if *that* could make it better. "I just wanted you to know that it's nothing to do with you."
It's nothing personal, I can hear *her* say, and, this time, she uses Emma's voice.
I taste bile. "It's not me, it's you?" I ask, and suddenly I feel fury. I welcome anger's fire. Maybe it can warm the part of me that's frozen over. The part that I let her thaw.
How *dare* she do this to me?
She winces, but not enough, never enough, because she's still going to continue.
To leave me. Again.
"In a manner of speaking, yes." Weasel words. Evasions. I've seen it all before. Heard it all before. But not directed at me. Not after *her*.
"It's because of something that I just wasn't able to deal with before. Therapy has helped me come to terms with a number of my issues, and this one was buried deeper than most. Probably because I really didn't want to deal with it." She sighs softly, as if this is difficult for her. For *her*. "For a number of reasons."
Reasons, reasons. There are always reasons.
And somehow, somehow, her distress softens me, soothes me, takes away my anger.
Leaving just the pain.
Damn her.
"Why didn't you tell me about it?" Why didn't you let me help you? Why didn't you trust me? "I could have helped you..."
She holds up a hand commandingly and my mouth closes with a snap. "Because you couldn't, not with this." There's a look in her eyes, a look of almost shame, a look that promises something worse than merely: 'I'm sorry, I don't love you.'
'...never gonna love you,' the song mocks.
But she's still speaking.
"Before I left the school rather abruptly, I was already in a relationship."
Oh.
Oh god.
Even as part of me is slotting that piece of the puzzle in place, noting how much now becomes clear, the rest of me is reeling.
I feel sick.
How could she-
"I had a boyfriend."
The sentence stops me dead.
For a moment, I can't even breathe. Somehow, this makes it even worse. I'm not even being left for another woman.
All I can do is ask, "And this never came up before because...?"
Her words wash over me, but I don't really listen. I can't. This has been nothing, nothing but lies, and I fell for it. Despite the warnings, despite her point blank refusals on the subject of relationships, despite everything.
And I can't help but think in some small part of myself that I deserve it. JJ, Mona...
Amanda.
The thought ignites defensive anger. I've got to get more distance between us.
"So this is why you'd never commit to a relationship with me? Because as long as you didn't, you still had *him*?"
"I love him. I can't just let it go, not like that."
Of course she can't. But she has no problem letting go of *me*.
"So you run off to D.C., find me," Make me love you, "*Use* me to help yourself and now, what? Run back to your nice, normal boyfriend?"
"I need to go back to him, to find out where I stand. What our relationship is."
I note she has no problem using the word where I'm not concerned.
"So what was tonight, then? A pity fuck? One last ride for good luck before you slithered on back to your boyfriend?" I laugh, bitterly. "Doesn't it count as *cheating* if it's a woman you're fucking?" I've heard of that happening, but I never thought... I never thought that Emma would do that to *me*.
I'm such a fool. Some profiler I am.
She doesn't want me. She doesn't need me. She sure as hell doesn't *love* me.
Two out of three, the song drones on, but I don't even have that.
I have nothing.
I have nothing left.
"That's not... I didn't think..."
Of course she didn't. Why would she? Why would anyone?
"Go then," I say, curling up in a ball, instinctively trying to shield myself, to make myself less vulnerable. Invulnerable.
It doesn't work.
"I'm sorry," she says quietly as she leaves.
It's too much.
It's too little, too late.
"Don't say you're sorry when you don't mean it," I yell at her back. But the passion is spent almost as soon as it erupts. "Just don't," I murmur to myself.
I can't see how any of this can be unintentional.
As I hear the door to my apartment close, the anger exits with her. I'm left with a burning cold inside of me, and unshed tears which stubbornly refuse to fall, denying me even that comfort.
After all, it's nothing personal.
It isn't the fall that kills you.
It's the stop at the end.
Interlude
Author's Note: Our apologies for taking so long to get this out. We had some other commitments that siphoned off our creative energy, and then we had problems making the time. There is going to be a final part to this story, but I can't swear as to when we'll manage to get it out. If we're lucky, maybe over the Christmas break.
We hope that at least some of you enjoyed our apology fic and please tell us what you thought of Falling