24 frames per second
Title: "24 frames per second"
Author: Leigh57
Characters: Jack, Renee
Warnings: AU until proven otherwise;) Language, spoilers for everything through 7x22. If Jack/Renee smush frightens you, you are so in the wrong place. Run now!!!
Summary: This ended up in my head as snapshots of Jack and Renee throughout the first year of their relationship. A few of them are chronologically connected; most are not, but they do take place in order.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. I’m only borrowing them as a therapeutic attempt to deal with overwhelming finale angst.
A/N: (Sorry it’s so long!) This fic is a response to a challenge from dealan311, who supplied the fantabulous song prompts (Also the title. Okay I lied. She wrote the whole thing). But seriously, writing these has gotten me through the finale buildup, so thank you Kay, both for the songs and for listening to my never-ending drabble babble.
As always, thanks to lowriseflare and adrenalin211 for the “savage” betas (Are there any other kind?). You two are my rock stars, especially since you both know how outside my nine dots this was:)
I’ve included a list of the songs in order as they correspond to the drabbles, in case anyone is interested in the connection. Also a download link, thanks to Kay: Songs for 24 frames per second.
Xanax - Maria Taylor
Knights of Cydonia - Muse
Don’t Be Afraid to Sing - Stars
Munich (Editors Cover) - Corinne Bailey Rae
Consequence - The Notwist
Heartbeats - Jose González
Fear - Sarah McLachlan
Goodnight and Go - Imogen Heap
Believe - The Bravery
Crushcrushfaint (Linkin Park vs Paramore) - UnforgettableSound
Somewhere a Clock Is Ticking - Snow Patrol
Red Sky - Thrice
Boulevard of Broken Songs (Greenday vs Oasis) - Party Ben
Freeze and Explode - Cassettes Won’t Listen
A Bitter Song - Butterfly Boucher
The Fear You Won’t Fall - Joshua Radin feat. Schuyler Fisk
Signs - Bloc Party
Breathless (Coors Cover) - Emm Gryner
9 Crimes - Damien Rice
Quiet - Rachael Yamagata
Don’t Change Your Plans - Ben Folds Five
We Haven’t Turned Around - Gomez
Weapon - Matthew Good
Bring On the Wonder - Susan Enan
_________________________
After a week back at work, she still pictures pieces of her breaking off, leaving a trail as she walks down the hall.
Everyone except Janis looks at her funny, avoids eye contact.
She hides in her office, focusing on work with such fierce concentration she needs Advil by noon.
When her phone rings, she doesn’t look up from the profile on her desk. “Walker.”
“It’s Jack.” He pauses. “I got out of PT early. Do you have time for lunch?”
She’s at the elevator in thirty seconds, the coffee she bought five minutes ago still steaming on her desk.
_________________________
Bullets hail down around them. They’ve taken cover behind a large shipping container. Jack waits for a lull, but there is none.
Suddenly he sees her leaning around the corner of the container, weapon extended.
He wraps his free arm firmly around her waist, hauling her back. He’s torn between admiration and the spectacular desire not to watch her bleed out in front of him.
“What the hell are you doing?”
He realizes his hand is still gripping her ribs, so he lets her go.
“If you want to get yourself killed, do it when I don’t have to watch.”
_________________________
She’s already had two margaritas and a glass of champagne.
Her nylons itch.
Baxter closes in at the exact moment she spies Jack.
She grabs Jack’s arm, pulling him toward the dance floor. “Dance with me. Save me from Baxter.”
It’s a slow dance. Her face reddens.
“Who’s Baxter?” Jack looks amused.
“He’s a programmer. I always feel like he’s staring at my ass.”
Jack’s breath ruffles the hair near her ear. “You’re probably right.”
She wishes she could think about anything besides how close he is now, the smell of his aftershave, the feel of his palm touching hers.
_________________________
She eats ice cream like a little kid.
Jack watches her lick the edge of the spoon, leaving a dark chocolate smudge at the edge of her lip.
They should have been back at work ten minutes ago. Maybe fifteen.
She sticks another large bite into her mouth and looks up. “You’re staring at me.”
“You eat ice cream like Kim did when she was six.”
She grins, but she still doesn’t lick the chocolate off her lips. “So?”
He shakes his head. He wants to kiss her.
“Are you going to finish yours?” she asks, reaching for his spoon.
_________________________
He walks back into the bullpen to find her staring intently at the computer, biting the edge of her lip in concentration. Her fingers are tapping a blue ballpoint pen into the desk.
It’s 2:34 a.m. The noise should annoy the hell out of him, but it doesn’t.
She glances up. “You okay?”
“Yeah. More coffee. I think this one is vanilla.” Her fingertips touch his as she accepts the mug, a warm jolt.
He had it backwards.
He’s wasted so much time trying not to fall overboard, when all along he should have been yelling for a life preserver.
_________________________
“You’ve got all the blankets.” She yanks at the sheet, hard.
“I’ll share. Come back over here.”
She laughs. “Oh no. That’s what you said last time.”
“And were you sorry?” He bites his lip so he won’t laugh.
“Shut up. If I had known you were such an arrogant ass I would never have slept with you.”
“You’re full of shit,” he murmurs, reaching out to pull her toward him.
“You’re only winning because I’m cold. I want that on the record.”
“Fine.” He pauses. “Renee, goddammit. Stay still for ten seconds.”
“You’re the one who wanted to share.”
_________________________
She’s running so fast she can’t breathe, weapon sweaty in her hand.
Confusion. She can’t sort the voice traffic on the comm.
She rounds the corner of the building at the same instant the suspect’s bullet catches Jack in the chest.
He smashes backwards.
Everything is cold.
Her hands are eerily steady as she pulls the trigger. She’s using too many bullets.
She keeps firing.
Silence. Backup.
He’s already pushing himself up by the time she runs over, through what feels like quicksand.
“Renee. He got the vest.” His voice is calm. Steady.
She shouldn’t, but she takes his hand.
_________________________
She’s stirring alfredo sauce when she hears the metal scrape of his key in the door.
She watches him pull off his coat, drop his keys on the table. “Hi.”
He walks around the counter, lifts her hair.
He kisses her neck, his lips lingering just long enough to make her shudder, goosebumps rising on her forearms.
“Hi. You need help?”
“No. Almost done. Go relax.”
“I’m gonna take a quick shower.”
She hears the water rushing, Jack’s muffled “shit” when he drops something. Soap. Shampoo.
The air’s a different color now, four shades warmer, and she can’t stop smiling.
_________________________
At 4 a.m. she finds him sitting at her kitchen counter, head in his hands, eyes red and exhausted.
She grabs a pan to make cocoa and waits for him to speak.
“I keep dreaming about Tony.” His voice is thick, unsteady. “About being in the van. Having to choose.”
She stirs the milk, watching the clouds of steam as they float and vanish. “You didn’t.”
“No, but-”
“We both know what you would have done.” Statement of fact. No expression.
Before she hears him move he’s curling her into his arms, shoulders shaking, holding on so tightly it hurts.
_________________________
“Why the hell didn’t you wait?”
“I would’ve lost visual cont-”
He smashes his hand into the wall a foot away from her head.
She doesn’t move.
“Goddammit, Renee.” He’s flushed with fury, his voice shaking. “Then you lose contact! They were less than a minute out.”
“Would you have waited?” She smacks his arm away, hard, walking to the other end of the room.
His voice drops to a whisper. “If I had known you were listening on the comm, yes. I might have waited.”
He slams the door behind him as he leaves, and this time she flinches.
_________________________
He wakes up to her body naked on his, her mouth dropping kisses on his chest.
“Renee. What-”
She’s breathing hard. “I can’t sleep. Want me to stop?”
“Hell no.”
She exhales into his stomach, lips touching the curve of his hip.
There’s nothing she does halfway.
This is a reason not to believe in God. Only a sadist would make it possible to feel the way he feels about her.
Too much risk of drowning.
“I’m sorry about earlier.” Her voice a vibration skimming over his skin.
She smiles in the darkness.
He’s going under, and he doesn’t care.
_________________________
The effects of the biotoxin exposure have faded so completely it’s seductively easy to forget about them.
Then ambush.
He misremembers a name. A syllable actually, but the team goes to the wrong apartment.
Questions the wrong person.
It’s only 1:30 and he has to pull himself together and god help him she’s the last person he can bear to have in the room.
“Jack. It’s okay. Nobody expects-”
“You need to get out of here.” Good. He still has volume control.
“Will you please just talk-”
“Renee. I don’t want to-“ He stops, shutting himself down. “Leave.”
She does.
_________________________
He paces up and down the short hallway of his apartment, flexing his hands open and shut.
He can’t stop picturing her face in the suspended moment between his words and her exit, the fragmented flash of unfiltered pain before her defenses kicked in and she wiped her face of any expression at all.
He drinks a glass of ice water in several swallows, grateful there’s no alcohol around.
He’s enough of an asshole sober.
It’s darkly amusing to him that bleeding alone in his apartment hurts worse than it would have to stay and let her touch the wound.
_________________________
Nights like these make her wonder what the hell she was on when she let herself get involved with him. Nobody else can flay her with his exquisite skill.
She’s on her third glass of pinot noir. Her eyes are puffy. Her head feels a step behind the rest of her body.
Her phone rings. She wants desperately to be able to ignore it, but she can’t.
His voice, cracking at unpredictable intervals. “I am such a fucking piece of shit.”
“Could you just come over here?”
“I’m downstairs.”
When he opens the door she walks straight into his arms.
_________________________
At ten-thirty p.m. it’s still eighty-eight degrees outside. The central air is broken.
He rubs the back of his neck, fingers sticky with sweat and the remains of an iced coffee he chugged several hours ago.
“How long until you have a location?”
Janis glances up. “Fifteen minutes? Maybe twenty. The encryption code is one I haven’t-”
“We don’t have twenty minutes. “Why the hell can’t you-”
“Jack.” Renee speaks quietly from across the cluster of desks.
She catches his gaze and holds it for a moment before her eyes return to the screen.
He sits down beside Janis. “Sorry.”
_________________________
The apartment’s too quiet.
Renee sits cross-legged on the bed, the pad of her thumb tracing the corners of her cellphone.
She feels like an idiot.
He’s only been in L.A. for two nights.
Half the things she misses don’t even make noise.
His hands in her hair while she reads. His leg sliding to her side of the bed, warming her freezing feet.
The phone rings in her hand, startling her.
Jack. She flips it open with embarrassing speed. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
It’s too quiet.
They’re both waiting.
He chuffs. “I can’t fall asleep without your feet on my leg.”
_________________________
She stands in front of the Wall, studying the raindrops dripping down the granite surface.
The water droplets distort her reflection, but she can see tiny movements as the wind lifts her hair, shifts the collar of her coat.
The names don’t move.
When Jack appears, stopping a few feet away, she isn’t surprised. She told Janis where she was going.
He’s quiet.
“It’s Larry’s birthday.”
Still silent, Jack steps closer. His eyes meet hers in the black granite void.
“He never understood why I love it here.”
Jack’s fingers cover hers.
She’s never loved someone more for saying nothing.
_________________________
Sometimes the sound of her laughter reminds him of heroin - the lift, the soaring, the sense there’s more inside him than should logically fit.
It’s not the same, but deep down he’s not convinced she’s any less dangerous.
They were pretending to play gin.
It lasted about three minutes.
Now she’s under him on the couch, giggling against his neck as his fingers trace her ribs.
He kisses her, watching her face. Her eyes keep laughing even when her mouth brushes over his.
He realizes he was addicted from the first hit, and there’s no treatment program for this.
_________________________
He drives twice the speed limit and runs four red lights on the way, but she’s conscious by the time he arrives at the hospital.
Her hair looks startlingly red against the white of her skin and the sheets.
Exhausted, he sits on the edge of her bed, both hands clutching her wrist.
He needs to feel her pulse.
“Victor?” she asks, voice cracking.
“He’s dead.”
“Oh god.”
He leans forward, touching her freezing fingers to his cheek.
He’s so fucking glad it wasn’t her.
He doesn’t know if it’s the guilt or the gratitude threatening to blow him apart.
_________________________
She’s been asleep for hours now, head in his lap, cheek touching the grey cotton of his t-shirt.
The pain meds he practically forced her to take have knocked her out.
He moves his fingers through the soft red of her hair and watches her throat, the barely perceptible flicker of her pulse.
It doesn’t get easier. Every time it happens, an empty expanse in the world, the pain is worse. The recovery time longer.
He pictures her that morning, maple syrup smudged at the edge of her lip, breathless after a diatribe over some NPR story.
He’s so lost.
_________________________
He gets out of the shower and finds her stretched out on the couch reading the latest Alice Hoffman, a bowl of trail mix perched precariously on her stomach.
She’s eating it one piece at a time.
“Jenna called today and offered me a consulting job. Counterterrorism.” He pauses. “Here in DC.”
Given the prep time, his delivery should have been a hell of a lot smoother.
“Okay.” She glances up from her book, eyes wary. “You going to take it?”
“You want me to take it?”
“Yes.” She holds out the trail mix. “I saved you some.”
Okay then.
_________________________
She spent over an hour getting ready.
It’s all worth it the second she comes down the stairs and sees the expression on his face.
“Wow.” He swallows. “Dance with me?”
His fingers cup her neck, her waist. He’s so careless now, the way he touches her, even here.
Everybody knows anyway.
He murmurs, “If that Baxter shithead stares at your ass, I will hurt him. I’m allowed now.”
The room’s spinning, and she’s not at all sure it’s the champagne or the dance.
Her cheek pressed against his, she whispers, “I’m so-”
He kisses her forehead. “So am I.”
_________________________
Apparently the two hours of slow dancing were foreplay.
Her fingers haven’t finished twisting the deadbolt locked when she feels Jack’s hands cover her neck and shoulders, holding her still so he can unzip her dress.
His mouth moves along the edge of her ear. “I’ve been waiting all goddamn night to take this off.”
He’s inside her on the counter, his hands stroking from her knees to her hips, barely touching her skin.
Making her crazy.
She’s trembling.
He stops there, holding her. “Slow down.”
“I can’t.”
She’s gifting up her cherished control, but it doesn’t matter.
She’s safe.
_________________________
He’s not even inside the dark apartment when he hears her yelling from the patio. “Jack! Come out here. Hurry!”
She’s standing with her face to the sky, visibly shivering.
He walks up behind her and slides his arms over hers, absorbing her chill.
The sky is a phosphorescent combination of colors, the sun creating shiny gold outlines on the clouds as it sinks.
His cheek touches hers. He understands now how wrong he was to equate her with heroin, with the sensation he’d run out of space.
With her, there’s always more room.
It expands.
He whispers, “Thank you.”
Author: Leigh57
Characters: Jack, Renee
Warnings: AU until proven otherwise;) Language, spoilers for everything through 7x22. If Jack/Renee smush frightens you, you are so in the wrong place. Run now!!!
Summary: This ended up in my head as snapshots of Jack and Renee throughout the first year of their relationship. A few of them are chronologically connected; most are not, but they do take place in order.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. I’m only borrowing them as a therapeutic attempt to deal with overwhelming finale angst.
A/N: (Sorry it’s so long!) This fic is a response to a challenge from dealan311, who supplied the fantabulous song prompts (Also the title. Okay I lied. She wrote the whole thing). But seriously, writing these has gotten me through the finale buildup, so thank you Kay, both for the songs and for listening to my never-ending drabble babble.
As always, thanks to lowriseflare and adrenalin211 for the “savage” betas (Are there any other kind?). You two are my rock stars, especially since you both know how outside my nine dots this was:)
I’ve included a list of the songs in order as they correspond to the drabbles, in case anyone is interested in the connection. Also a download link, thanks to Kay: Songs for 24 frames per second.
Xanax - Maria Taylor
Knights of Cydonia - Muse
Don’t Be Afraid to Sing - Stars
Munich (Editors Cover) - Corinne Bailey Rae
Consequence - The Notwist
Heartbeats - Jose González
Fear - Sarah McLachlan
Goodnight and Go - Imogen Heap
Believe - The Bravery
Crushcrushfaint (Linkin Park vs Paramore) - UnforgettableSound
Somewhere a Clock Is Ticking - Snow Patrol
Red Sky - Thrice
Boulevard of Broken Songs (Greenday vs Oasis) - Party Ben
Freeze and Explode - Cassettes Won’t Listen
A Bitter Song - Butterfly Boucher
The Fear You Won’t Fall - Joshua Radin feat. Schuyler Fisk
Signs - Bloc Party
Breathless (Coors Cover) - Emm Gryner
9 Crimes - Damien Rice
Quiet - Rachael Yamagata
Don’t Change Your Plans - Ben Folds Five
We Haven’t Turned Around - Gomez
Weapon - Matthew Good
Bring On the Wonder - Susan Enan
_________________________
After a week back at work, she still pictures pieces of her breaking off, leaving a trail as she walks down the hall.
Everyone except Janis looks at her funny, avoids eye contact.
She hides in her office, focusing on work with such fierce concentration she needs Advil by noon.
When her phone rings, she doesn’t look up from the profile on her desk. “Walker.”
“It’s Jack.” He pauses. “I got out of PT early. Do you have time for lunch?”
She’s at the elevator in thirty seconds, the coffee she bought five minutes ago still steaming on her desk.
_________________________
Bullets hail down around them. They’ve taken cover behind a large shipping container. Jack waits for a lull, but there is none.
Suddenly he sees her leaning around the corner of the container, weapon extended.
He wraps his free arm firmly around her waist, hauling her back. He’s torn between admiration and the spectacular desire not to watch her bleed out in front of him.
“What the hell are you doing?”
He realizes his hand is still gripping her ribs, so he lets her go.
“If you want to get yourself killed, do it when I don’t have to watch.”
_________________________
She’s already had two margaritas and a glass of champagne.
Her nylons itch.
Baxter closes in at the exact moment she spies Jack.
She grabs Jack’s arm, pulling him toward the dance floor. “Dance with me. Save me from Baxter.”
It’s a slow dance. Her face reddens.
“Who’s Baxter?” Jack looks amused.
“He’s a programmer. I always feel like he’s staring at my ass.”
Jack’s breath ruffles the hair near her ear. “You’re probably right.”
She wishes she could think about anything besides how close he is now, the smell of his aftershave, the feel of his palm touching hers.
_________________________
She eats ice cream like a little kid.
Jack watches her lick the edge of the spoon, leaving a dark chocolate smudge at the edge of her lip.
They should have been back at work ten minutes ago. Maybe fifteen.
She sticks another large bite into her mouth and looks up. “You’re staring at me.”
“You eat ice cream like Kim did when she was six.”
She grins, but she still doesn’t lick the chocolate off her lips. “So?”
He shakes his head. He wants to kiss her.
“Are you going to finish yours?” she asks, reaching for his spoon.
_________________________
He walks back into the bullpen to find her staring intently at the computer, biting the edge of her lip in concentration. Her fingers are tapping a blue ballpoint pen into the desk.
It’s 2:34 a.m. The noise should annoy the hell out of him, but it doesn’t.
She glances up. “You okay?”
“Yeah. More coffee. I think this one is vanilla.” Her fingertips touch his as she accepts the mug, a warm jolt.
He had it backwards.
He’s wasted so much time trying not to fall overboard, when all along he should have been yelling for a life preserver.
_________________________
“You’ve got all the blankets.” She yanks at the sheet, hard.
“I’ll share. Come back over here.”
She laughs. “Oh no. That’s what you said last time.”
“And were you sorry?” He bites his lip so he won’t laugh.
“Shut up. If I had known you were such an arrogant ass I would never have slept with you.”
“You’re full of shit,” he murmurs, reaching out to pull her toward him.
“You’re only winning because I’m cold. I want that on the record.”
“Fine.” He pauses. “Renee, goddammit. Stay still for ten seconds.”
“You’re the one who wanted to share.”
_________________________
She’s running so fast she can’t breathe, weapon sweaty in her hand.
Confusion. She can’t sort the voice traffic on the comm.
She rounds the corner of the building at the same instant the suspect’s bullet catches Jack in the chest.
He smashes backwards.
Everything is cold.
Her hands are eerily steady as she pulls the trigger. She’s using too many bullets.
She keeps firing.
Silence. Backup.
He’s already pushing himself up by the time she runs over, through what feels like quicksand.
“Renee. He got the vest.” His voice is calm. Steady.
She shouldn’t, but she takes his hand.
_________________________
She’s stirring alfredo sauce when she hears the metal scrape of his key in the door.
She watches him pull off his coat, drop his keys on the table. “Hi.”
He walks around the counter, lifts her hair.
He kisses her neck, his lips lingering just long enough to make her shudder, goosebumps rising on her forearms.
“Hi. You need help?”
“No. Almost done. Go relax.”
“I’m gonna take a quick shower.”
She hears the water rushing, Jack’s muffled “shit” when he drops something. Soap. Shampoo.
The air’s a different color now, four shades warmer, and she can’t stop smiling.
_________________________
At 4 a.m. she finds him sitting at her kitchen counter, head in his hands, eyes red and exhausted.
She grabs a pan to make cocoa and waits for him to speak.
“I keep dreaming about Tony.” His voice is thick, unsteady. “About being in the van. Having to choose.”
She stirs the milk, watching the clouds of steam as they float and vanish. “You didn’t.”
“No, but-”
“We both know what you would have done.” Statement of fact. No expression.
Before she hears him move he’s curling her into his arms, shoulders shaking, holding on so tightly it hurts.
_________________________
“Why the hell didn’t you wait?”
“I would’ve lost visual cont-”
He smashes his hand into the wall a foot away from her head.
She doesn’t move.
“Goddammit, Renee.” He’s flushed with fury, his voice shaking. “Then you lose contact! They were less than a minute out.”
“Would you have waited?” She smacks his arm away, hard, walking to the other end of the room.
His voice drops to a whisper. “If I had known you were listening on the comm, yes. I might have waited.”
He slams the door behind him as he leaves, and this time she flinches.
_________________________
He wakes up to her body naked on his, her mouth dropping kisses on his chest.
“Renee. What-”
She’s breathing hard. “I can’t sleep. Want me to stop?”
“Hell no.”
She exhales into his stomach, lips touching the curve of his hip.
There’s nothing she does halfway.
This is a reason not to believe in God. Only a sadist would make it possible to feel the way he feels about her.
Too much risk of drowning.
“I’m sorry about earlier.” Her voice a vibration skimming over his skin.
She smiles in the darkness.
He’s going under, and he doesn’t care.
_________________________
The effects of the biotoxin exposure have faded so completely it’s seductively easy to forget about them.
Then ambush.
He misremembers a name. A syllable actually, but the team goes to the wrong apartment.
Questions the wrong person.
It’s only 1:30 and he has to pull himself together and god help him she’s the last person he can bear to have in the room.
“Jack. It’s okay. Nobody expects-”
“You need to get out of here.” Good. He still has volume control.
“Will you please just talk-”
“Renee. I don’t want to-“ He stops, shutting himself down. “Leave.”
She does.
_________________________
He paces up and down the short hallway of his apartment, flexing his hands open and shut.
He can’t stop picturing her face in the suspended moment between his words and her exit, the fragmented flash of unfiltered pain before her defenses kicked in and she wiped her face of any expression at all.
He drinks a glass of ice water in several swallows, grateful there’s no alcohol around.
He’s enough of an asshole sober.
It’s darkly amusing to him that bleeding alone in his apartment hurts worse than it would have to stay and let her touch the wound.
_________________________
Nights like these make her wonder what the hell she was on when she let herself get involved with him. Nobody else can flay her with his exquisite skill.
She’s on her third glass of pinot noir. Her eyes are puffy. Her head feels a step behind the rest of her body.
Her phone rings. She wants desperately to be able to ignore it, but she can’t.
His voice, cracking at unpredictable intervals. “I am such a fucking piece of shit.”
“Could you just come over here?”
“I’m downstairs.”
When he opens the door she walks straight into his arms.
_________________________
At ten-thirty p.m. it’s still eighty-eight degrees outside. The central air is broken.
He rubs the back of his neck, fingers sticky with sweat and the remains of an iced coffee he chugged several hours ago.
“How long until you have a location?”
Janis glances up. “Fifteen minutes? Maybe twenty. The encryption code is one I haven’t-”
“We don’t have twenty minutes. “Why the hell can’t you-”
“Jack.” Renee speaks quietly from across the cluster of desks.
She catches his gaze and holds it for a moment before her eyes return to the screen.
He sits down beside Janis. “Sorry.”
_________________________
The apartment’s too quiet.
Renee sits cross-legged on the bed, the pad of her thumb tracing the corners of her cellphone.
She feels like an idiot.
He’s only been in L.A. for two nights.
Half the things she misses don’t even make noise.
His hands in her hair while she reads. His leg sliding to her side of the bed, warming her freezing feet.
The phone rings in her hand, startling her.
Jack. She flips it open with embarrassing speed. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
It’s too quiet.
They’re both waiting.
He chuffs. “I can’t fall asleep without your feet on my leg.”
_________________________
She stands in front of the Wall, studying the raindrops dripping down the granite surface.
The water droplets distort her reflection, but she can see tiny movements as the wind lifts her hair, shifts the collar of her coat.
The names don’t move.
When Jack appears, stopping a few feet away, she isn’t surprised. She told Janis where she was going.
He’s quiet.
“It’s Larry’s birthday.”
Still silent, Jack steps closer. His eyes meet hers in the black granite void.
“He never understood why I love it here.”
Jack’s fingers cover hers.
She’s never loved someone more for saying nothing.
_________________________
Sometimes the sound of her laughter reminds him of heroin - the lift, the soaring, the sense there’s more inside him than should logically fit.
It’s not the same, but deep down he’s not convinced she’s any less dangerous.
They were pretending to play gin.
It lasted about three minutes.
Now she’s under him on the couch, giggling against his neck as his fingers trace her ribs.
He kisses her, watching her face. Her eyes keep laughing even when her mouth brushes over his.
He realizes he was addicted from the first hit, and there’s no treatment program for this.
_________________________
He drives twice the speed limit and runs four red lights on the way, but she’s conscious by the time he arrives at the hospital.
Her hair looks startlingly red against the white of her skin and the sheets.
Exhausted, he sits on the edge of her bed, both hands clutching her wrist.
He needs to feel her pulse.
“Victor?” she asks, voice cracking.
“He’s dead.”
“Oh god.”
He leans forward, touching her freezing fingers to his cheek.
He’s so fucking glad it wasn’t her.
He doesn’t know if it’s the guilt or the gratitude threatening to blow him apart.
_________________________
She’s been asleep for hours now, head in his lap, cheek touching the grey cotton of his t-shirt.
The pain meds he practically forced her to take have knocked her out.
He moves his fingers through the soft red of her hair and watches her throat, the barely perceptible flicker of her pulse.
It doesn’t get easier. Every time it happens, an empty expanse in the world, the pain is worse. The recovery time longer.
He pictures her that morning, maple syrup smudged at the edge of her lip, breathless after a diatribe over some NPR story.
He’s so lost.
_________________________
He gets out of the shower and finds her stretched out on the couch reading the latest Alice Hoffman, a bowl of trail mix perched precariously on her stomach.
She’s eating it one piece at a time.
“Jenna called today and offered me a consulting job. Counterterrorism.” He pauses. “Here in DC.”
Given the prep time, his delivery should have been a hell of a lot smoother.
“Okay.” She glances up from her book, eyes wary. “You going to take it?”
“You want me to take it?”
“Yes.” She holds out the trail mix. “I saved you some.”
Okay then.
_________________________
She spent over an hour getting ready.
It’s all worth it the second she comes down the stairs and sees the expression on his face.
“Wow.” He swallows. “Dance with me?”
His fingers cup her neck, her waist. He’s so careless now, the way he touches her, even here.
Everybody knows anyway.
He murmurs, “If that Baxter shithead stares at your ass, I will hurt him. I’m allowed now.”
The room’s spinning, and she’s not at all sure it’s the champagne or the dance.
Her cheek pressed against his, she whispers, “I’m so-”
He kisses her forehead. “So am I.”
_________________________
Apparently the two hours of slow dancing were foreplay.
Her fingers haven’t finished twisting the deadbolt locked when she feels Jack’s hands cover her neck and shoulders, holding her still so he can unzip her dress.
His mouth moves along the edge of her ear. “I’ve been waiting all goddamn night to take this off.”
He’s inside her on the counter, his hands stroking from her knees to her hips, barely touching her skin.
Making her crazy.
She’s trembling.
He stops there, holding her. “Slow down.”
“I can’t.”
She’s gifting up her cherished control, but it doesn’t matter.
She’s safe.
_________________________
He’s not even inside the dark apartment when he hears her yelling from the patio. “Jack! Come out here. Hurry!”
She’s standing with her face to the sky, visibly shivering.
He walks up behind her and slides his arms over hers, absorbing her chill.
The sky is a phosphorescent combination of colors, the sun creating shiny gold outlines on the clouds as it sinks.
His cheek touches hers. He understands now how wrong he was to equate her with heroin, with the sensation he’d run out of space.
With her, there’s always more room.
It expands.
He whispers, “Thank you.”