Fic: Midnight Blue: Trying to Protect my Point of View (2/3)
Well… that’s it then, she takes it. And it’s not like she couldn’t have seen it coming, either. Which is probably the thing that irritates her most. Evan Lorne and her… she should have known it won’t work out in the long run. But then again… no one and her works for long. Rodney didn’t work - he had seemed to be always in her head, and always in the wrong places - Carson didn’t work because he wasn’t in her head enough… so why should Evan be any different?
But the thing is… this time she’d let herself believe that for the first time in ages her very long streak of bad luck with men had finally ended… seeing as Evan and she had made it for almost a year - which is longer than any of her relationships in the last five years… maybe even longer - until… until they didn’t.
Dammit, it had been going so well… after a relatively short period of awkward dancing around each other at the PD when other people were around and nearly frantic craving of the other’s presence when they were alone - everything ranging from short pecks on the cheek to heavy, if short make-out sessions in dark corners at the PD and quiet evenings on the couch to… not so quiet nights in bed at either of their homes had been fair game - she’d gotten her transfer to another team approved and things had evened out… even become normal.
Well, okay, normal aside from the occasional op going a little awry or… yeah, right, normal in cop terms, not in civilian terms. But still… normal.
And then he just had to go and stir it all up. Just one little innocent question, whispered in bed, after a hard day and a soft evening… “You know, I’ve been wondering… what did you mean when you said I didn’t know anything about you?” he’d said and the only answer she’d had for him had been turning away from him to face the wall and watch the lights and shadows from the city play over it, even long after she’d heard his breathing even out behind her.
He’d tried to ask her again but when she hadn’t answered and given off stony silence instead, he’d fallen silent and there had been the rustling of sheets… but the arm she’d been expecting to come around her waist had never come and she’d known that this relationship was doomed as well.
The break-up didn’t come immediately… but when they were together, she felt watched by him, like he wanted to get into her head but didn’t know how. It had irritated her and shortened her already short fuse even more and they’d found themselves arguing a lot more often… It’s not like they hadn't had their fights over the course of the year - kind of impossible not to get in a fight when the whole relationship started with a spectacular one - but they were always like thunderstorms; brewing a little beforehand, and then one big discharge with lots of thunder and lightening but clear air afterwards. The fighting that had started after the stupid question; that had been… different. More like petty bickering, sometimes amounting to half-hearted attempts at clearing the air with a bang… but somehow it had never worked.
He never brought up the question again but she just knew that it was what was behind all of this. He wanted an answer to it and she couldn’t give it to him… partly because it was classified and partly - and that’s the bigger part - because she didn’t want to wake sleeping dogs… not again.
Or at least that’s what she told herself for two unbearable months, until she’d had enough and he’d had enough and they had kind of come to an understanding that they needed a break from each other - actually, it was more like she needed a break from herself because all this constant thinking about the answer she owed him brought it all up again but admitting that to herself would have meant a few things she wasn’t ready for yet - and… and that had been it.
Well, for three weeks, at least. But the churning wouldn’t stop and she would keep on thinking about that damn answer and she missed him so very much and it was starting to show in her performance… and because you can’t afford anything to show in your performance in the kind of work she did on a daily basis, she’d done something that was probably both stupid and dangerous.
She’d hunted down her records. That is to say, the version Evan didn’t know… the version no one aside from two or three people at the PD knew. The one where her Academy results are still pretty good but not half as stellar as in the records Evan had first accused her of and then liked to tease her with and the one… the one that contains an op that didn’t appear in the… adjusted version of her records.
After calling in a series of favors and shamelessly bribing and even threatening one or two people, she’d had an exclusive copy in her hands and she’d marched into Evan’s office with that. Originally she’d wanted to present them as a peace offering but when she’d come in, he’d looked up and… there had been the same look on his face he’d usually worn before… their little fight in the female officers’ locker room about a year ago and somehow that had confused and irritated and hurt her so much that all she had been able to do had been throw the records on his desk and tell him “It’s all in there,” before heading home.
That had been yesterday and since then she hasn’t seen or heard anything of him because it’s her day off… and instead of spending it outside and enjoying New York City in the spring time, she holed up in her apartment, hiding from all the shadows his question and her hunt for her records had woken up again.
It’s all back… going undercover in a weapon dealers’ ring, insisting that she could do it, even though she hadn't been part of the force for very long at the time, desperate to prove herself and make her daddy proud… having her cover blown because of a stupid mistake, being prisoner of the weapon dealers’ boss for a week… they could get them - all of them - and a lot of that had been her merit but that thought never made the memories of the week in captivity go fully away.
Of course she’d had counseling - it’s actually in her records as well - and it had helped, at least a little and she’d been able to move on and do her job, changing divisions completely, with a little help from the PD brass. They’d wanted to award her something big but she’d asked them - nearly begged them - to let her award be that her records be… altered and her position be as far away from Organized Crime as she could.
It wasn’t that she’d been afraid of the dealers in prison. No, she’d wanted to get away from everything in her head and never go back to it… until Evan had made her sound like a person she wasn’t - despite telling herself that she was that person, not the one in the other records - she’d snapped and made a mistake.
God, she thinks, that was so stupid… telling him he didn’t know anything about her. She should have known that he wouldn’t let it go. He’s a cop, for Heaven’s sake, of course he would investigate. And by now she’s pretty sure that he did. Which led her to the question of what he actually found out and if… if maybe… whatever he found out… had been another reason for the testiness he’d displayed in the last weeks of their relationship.
She groans and tries to curl up tighter in the arm chair, if that’s even possible. So stupid. It’s her damn day off and she couldn’t bring herself to leave the apartment, mainly… mainly because last year around this time she’d been madly in love with Evan and suddenly spring really had been all about raging hormones and silly nothings, for the first time ever since leaving high school and she had loved that.
This spring… she’s still madly in love with Evan but he’s not there to walk through the Central Park - and basically every other park the city has to offer - with her or do the silly Sleepless in Seattle kissing thing on the Empire State Building or the other things all those disgustingly happy couples do in springtime in NYC.
Instead, he ignores her at the PD when he doesn’t have to talk to her and obviously avoids seeing her, inside and outside of work… and giving him her records very probably just hardened the aversion he seemed to have developed for her… maybe even turned it into downright disgust, seeing as her records show in great detail how exactly she botched the job and how messed up she emerged from it.
Damaged goods, she’d heard people murmur behind her back and yeah, that’s probably what she is. It had been stupid to pretend that the only side of her that exists is the carefree Laura, the one that can crack jokes while pulling and cutting wires attached to explosives and shrugging off her Sergeant’s disapproval with a roll of her eyes and a grin.
And it had been stupid to think she could keep Evan out of the places in her head she didn’t even want to go to herself because Evan… Evan was different from all the others. So yeah, Rodney also got to places in her head where she didn’t want him but she just can’t imagine Evan prodding and prying and generally being obnoxious about it like Rodney. And Carson… was that just her door bell?
She tries to tell herself that she heard wrong but… yeah, there it goes again. For a moment, she contemplates simply ignoring it but that’s kind of hard since whoever it is, is really determined to get on her nerves. Grunting in frustration she gets up to open the door, mentally grumbling about not even being allowed to do a little brooding once in a while. And she just really hopes it’s not the old lady from two floors down, asking her to check all her locks again - why exactly did she tell that woman that she’s a cop again… Okay, no, it’s very obviously not the old lady in question.
“You were right,” he says after a moment of mutual silence - stunned from her end… insecure from his? - and when she doesn’t answer, he adds, “I really didn’t know anything about you.” Right. So? “Laura… can I come in, please… for a moment?”
Well… that’s not the man whom she got to know in the last weeks of their relationship. Actually… it’s the man she recognizes from when it went well… or at least the more subdued version of him. She’s tempted to say no but in the end… the sincerity in his face and the absolute absence of any anger or irritation win and she nods silently and steps aside.
He enters her home and she shuts the door, leaning against it with her arms crossed in front of her chest, waiting for whatever he has to say. After taking a deep breath he holds the records she threw on his desk up and says, “I… read it. All of it. And I… Laura, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you.”
Right. That’s what she’d thought. Now that he read it… she shakes her head. “Sorry I’m not the overachiever you thought I was.” She tried to sound detached, a little bored… but it somehow came out weary and even apologetic.
Sighing, he rubs a hand over his eyes. “That’s not… what I meant, Laura. I just…”
“Well, what did you mean, then?” Dammit, she’s at it again. Snapping at him when she should keep her mouth shut… and this time he hadn't even provoked it. But talking about anything related to the undercover op isn't exactly her strength.
She can recognize that it’s already getting to him - and who could blame him? - by the way he presses his lips to each other and slightly narrows his eyes. “Laura… could you please just listen to me?” She wants to say something but he doesn’t let her. “What I meant was…” Yeah? She can’t help raising her eyebrow as he struggles with whatever he wants to say. “Ah, fuck it. I miss you, Laura. And I’m sorry for… for how everything went.”
He missed her. He misses her. She wants to get away from the door, tell him she misses him as well, curl up with him on the couch and forget about all of this. But something that she thought she had forgotten - the reflex to get defensive of herself, push people away so they wouldn’t find out she has a weak and messed up side to herself - makes her latch onto something else entirely. “Then why did you end it in the first place?”
Of course it’s a valid question… but her tone wasn’t valid and she knows that. “Laura, you were the one who ended it. You told me you couldn’t go on like that and that you thought we were better off without each other. What was I supposed to say?”
Right. Here they go again. She shakes her head, pushes herself away from the door and brushes past him, furious, half at him for accusing her of being the one who ended it… and half at herself because he’s a lot closer to the truth than she’d like to admit. Actually, she’s angry enough to turn around and say something as stupid as, “You could have contradicted me, Evan! You could have said that you don’t agree. You could have done something instead of just… you could have…” You could have tried and saved me from myself and stop me from destroying the best thing that ever happened to me, she wants to add but her pride keeps her from doing it.
However, it’s only saying it that her pride stops her from. Against everything else - the tight feeling in her chest at seeing him flinch when she nearly yells at him, the tears that are just waiting to be spilled - her pride is powerless.
“Well, I am doing something now, Laura!” Now he’s yelling as well and it’s her turn to flinch. “You wanted to know what I meant when I said I was sorry for asking? Fine, I’ll tell you. I meant it when I said I read all of it and you know what? That bastard’s lucky that he’s rotting away in prison because the first thing I wanted to do was show him how EOD personnel deal with scum like him.”
There it is again. The intensity in him that he never shows on duty, only when he was with her. Like always… it both flatters her and scares her. Scares her for him because she’s got a feeling that keeping all of that inside all of the time can’t be healthy for him. And like always… it makes her speechless. “But then I realized this was neither about him nor about me. It was about you and I just… I wished I could have been there for you, back then.”
She wants to tell him that she’s glad that he wasn’t because she never would have been able to bear it if he’d seen the wreck she’d been back then but he simply keeps on talking. “And I also realized… what it must have stirred up again for you and that I never wanted to be responsible for something like this. I should have just let it lie. I’m… I’m really sorry, Laura.”
“No,” she hears herself saying hoarsely after a moment of silence standing like a wall between them, “I’m sorry.” She really, really is. And that somehow… opened the flood gates and suddenly not even her considerable pride can stop her from talking. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. It was classified but I still could have just told you and I’m sorry for being so unreasonable and such a pain in the ass and I know I don’t deserve you so of course if you want to leave you can because I’d underst…”
“Do us both a favor, Laura. Never push me away like that again.” It’s not really the fact that he said that that stops her from rambling… rather, it’s the fact that he just engulfed her in a hug and hoarsely whispered it into her ear. For a moment, she’s so surprised that she practically freezes up but against her expectation - apprehension really, but she’d never admit that - he doesn’t let himself be discouraged or angered by it.
Instead he rubs her back and somehow she manages to relax into his embrace. Being so close to him, she’s surrounded by his scent again and his warmth and she realizes she missed not being able to lose herself in it anymore. And then it really registers with her what he just said. She doesn’t dare looking up, just leans her forehead against his chest and asks, “Again?”
“Yeah,” he sighs, “again.” And then he clears his throat and… hey, where did his arms suddenly go? Confused and a little irritated she does look up… just to see him sheepishly rub the back of his neck. Huh? “Well, I mean… if you… you know… if you’ll actually take me back.”
Even after a year… it still astounds her every time she sees him flustered and confused and anxious. Genuinely curious and a little confused herself she bends her head and says, “What the hell gave you the idea I wouldn’t?”
“Um… well… I though that maybe…” Is he blushing?
Ah, hell. Not seeing a point in unnecessarily prolonging this anymore - because she knows what she wants and she’s almost sure that he knows what he wants - she pushes all her doubts and fears and all the other irrational crap back into the dark corner of her mind where they belong and growls, “Just shut up,” followed by leaning forward and planting a kiss on his lips.
After a moment of surprise he responds to her and she feels relief flooding through her. She deepens the kiss, not wanting it to end but yeah… oxygen does become an issue in the end, so she breaks it up and smirks at him. “That answer enough?”
He grins back. “Yeah, pretty much.” So… what now, she wants to ask him but he bends down to put a soft kiss to her temple and says “Laura…” before he puts another one close to her ear and adds in a pleasantly low but serious voice, “I know you won’t talk about it… but maybe you could just let me be there for you, once in a while?”
She wants to answer that she always let him be there for her but it dawns on her that… she didn’t. And that he means a very specific issue. He’s right, of course, in assuming she won’t talk about it - at least not for a few more weeks - but there’s something she can do. She buries her hand in his hair and gives him a little shaky smile. “I think I could do that, yeah.”
Relief showing in his grin he bends down to give her another kiss, dragging it out delightfully long before he breaks it and says, “So… let me guess: the only thing coming close to food you had today was a cup of coffee and a piece of toast this morning?”
What… how… damn. He just knows her too well and for a moment she wonders if it was the right decision to let him back into her life - after all, she has major issues with men being in her head - but then she decides that it’s not so bad to have this man in her head and makes a face, saying, “None of your business, Sarge.”
“I knew it.” Damn, didn’t anyone ever tell him that he looks way too good when he’s smug? “Come on, you gotta eat, Officer. I think I just know the right place…” And with that he grabs her hand and she lets him drag her just a little, to show him that he does not have her wrapped around his little finger just because of his great looks and the sexy voice and his intensity and just… basically everything that he is.
Luckily, he makes it a little easier for her to try and tell herself she didn’t completely fall for his charm when he turns around and says, “Oh, and just for the record: you’re even more of an overachiever than I thought.” Her first impulse is to snap at him for that but… then she realizes he meant it as a compliment. Right. Doesn’t have her wrapped around his little finger. Nuh-uh.
Yeah, right.
Ah, fuck, she thinks, he has her wrapped around his little finger and she’d follow him through hell and back, anyway, so trying to resist him when he wants to take her out eating is just a little bit pointless. Giving up the last bits of her mock reluctance and deciding she could still get back at him for insults that are really compliments on another day, she tightens her grip around his hand gives him a little almost shy kiss on the cheek and suddenly springtime in New York City… seems to be a whole lot less grey and irritating. Maybe, she wonders, she can convince him to take her to that little park two blocks down the street before getting something to eat. Would be a nice ending… or beginning, as she prefers to look at it. Yeah… that would be really great.
~*~
TBC in Christmas Day.
But the thing is… this time she’d let herself believe that for the first time in ages her very long streak of bad luck with men had finally ended… seeing as Evan and she had made it for almost a year - which is longer than any of her relationships in the last five years… maybe even longer - until… until they didn’t.
Dammit, it had been going so well… after a relatively short period of awkward dancing around each other at the PD when other people were around and nearly frantic craving of the other’s presence when they were alone - everything ranging from short pecks on the cheek to heavy, if short make-out sessions in dark corners at the PD and quiet evenings on the couch to… not so quiet nights in bed at either of their homes had been fair game - she’d gotten her transfer to another team approved and things had evened out… even become normal.
Well, okay, normal aside from the occasional op going a little awry or… yeah, right, normal in cop terms, not in civilian terms. But still… normal.
And then he just had to go and stir it all up. Just one little innocent question, whispered in bed, after a hard day and a soft evening… “You know, I’ve been wondering… what did you mean when you said I didn’t know anything about you?” he’d said and the only answer she’d had for him had been turning away from him to face the wall and watch the lights and shadows from the city play over it, even long after she’d heard his breathing even out behind her.
He’d tried to ask her again but when she hadn’t answered and given off stony silence instead, he’d fallen silent and there had been the rustling of sheets… but the arm she’d been expecting to come around her waist had never come and she’d known that this relationship was doomed as well.
The break-up didn’t come immediately… but when they were together, she felt watched by him, like he wanted to get into her head but didn’t know how. It had irritated her and shortened her already short fuse even more and they’d found themselves arguing a lot more often… It’s not like they hadn't had their fights over the course of the year - kind of impossible not to get in a fight when the whole relationship started with a spectacular one - but they were always like thunderstorms; brewing a little beforehand, and then one big discharge with lots of thunder and lightening but clear air afterwards. The fighting that had started after the stupid question; that had been… different. More like petty bickering, sometimes amounting to half-hearted attempts at clearing the air with a bang… but somehow it had never worked.
He never brought up the question again but she just knew that it was what was behind all of this. He wanted an answer to it and she couldn’t give it to him… partly because it was classified and partly - and that’s the bigger part - because she didn’t want to wake sleeping dogs… not again.
Or at least that’s what she told herself for two unbearable months, until she’d had enough and he’d had enough and they had kind of come to an understanding that they needed a break from each other - actually, it was more like she needed a break from herself because all this constant thinking about the answer she owed him brought it all up again but admitting that to herself would have meant a few things she wasn’t ready for yet - and… and that had been it.
Well, for three weeks, at least. But the churning wouldn’t stop and she would keep on thinking about that damn answer and she missed him so very much and it was starting to show in her performance… and because you can’t afford anything to show in your performance in the kind of work she did on a daily basis, she’d done something that was probably both stupid and dangerous.
She’d hunted down her records. That is to say, the version Evan didn’t know… the version no one aside from two or three people at the PD knew. The one where her Academy results are still pretty good but not half as stellar as in the records Evan had first accused her of and then liked to tease her with and the one… the one that contains an op that didn’t appear in the… adjusted version of her records.
After calling in a series of favors and shamelessly bribing and even threatening one or two people, she’d had an exclusive copy in her hands and she’d marched into Evan’s office with that. Originally she’d wanted to present them as a peace offering but when she’d come in, he’d looked up and… there had been the same look on his face he’d usually worn before… their little fight in the female officers’ locker room about a year ago and somehow that had confused and irritated and hurt her so much that all she had been able to do had been throw the records on his desk and tell him “It’s all in there,” before heading home.
That had been yesterday and since then she hasn’t seen or heard anything of him because it’s her day off… and instead of spending it outside and enjoying New York City in the spring time, she holed up in her apartment, hiding from all the shadows his question and her hunt for her records had woken up again.
It’s all back… going undercover in a weapon dealers’ ring, insisting that she could do it, even though she hadn't been part of the force for very long at the time, desperate to prove herself and make her daddy proud… having her cover blown because of a stupid mistake, being prisoner of the weapon dealers’ boss for a week… they could get them - all of them - and a lot of that had been her merit but that thought never made the memories of the week in captivity go fully away.
Of course she’d had counseling - it’s actually in her records as well - and it had helped, at least a little and she’d been able to move on and do her job, changing divisions completely, with a little help from the PD brass. They’d wanted to award her something big but she’d asked them - nearly begged them - to let her award be that her records be… altered and her position be as far away from Organized Crime as she could.
It wasn’t that she’d been afraid of the dealers in prison. No, she’d wanted to get away from everything in her head and never go back to it… until Evan had made her sound like a person she wasn’t - despite telling herself that she was that person, not the one in the other records - she’d snapped and made a mistake.
God, she thinks, that was so stupid… telling him he didn’t know anything about her. She should have known that he wouldn’t let it go. He’s a cop, for Heaven’s sake, of course he would investigate. And by now she’s pretty sure that he did. Which led her to the question of what he actually found out and if… if maybe… whatever he found out… had been another reason for the testiness he’d displayed in the last weeks of their relationship.
She groans and tries to curl up tighter in the arm chair, if that’s even possible. So stupid. It’s her damn day off and she couldn’t bring herself to leave the apartment, mainly… mainly because last year around this time she’d been madly in love with Evan and suddenly spring really had been all about raging hormones and silly nothings, for the first time ever since leaving high school and she had loved that.
This spring… she’s still madly in love with Evan but he’s not there to walk through the Central Park - and basically every other park the city has to offer - with her or do the silly Sleepless in Seattle kissing thing on the Empire State Building or the other things all those disgustingly happy couples do in springtime in NYC.
Instead, he ignores her at the PD when he doesn’t have to talk to her and obviously avoids seeing her, inside and outside of work… and giving him her records very probably just hardened the aversion he seemed to have developed for her… maybe even turned it into downright disgust, seeing as her records show in great detail how exactly she botched the job and how messed up she emerged from it.
Damaged goods, she’d heard people murmur behind her back and yeah, that’s probably what she is. It had been stupid to pretend that the only side of her that exists is the carefree Laura, the one that can crack jokes while pulling and cutting wires attached to explosives and shrugging off her Sergeant’s disapproval with a roll of her eyes and a grin.
And it had been stupid to think she could keep Evan out of the places in her head she didn’t even want to go to herself because Evan… Evan was different from all the others. So yeah, Rodney also got to places in her head where she didn’t want him but she just can’t imagine Evan prodding and prying and generally being obnoxious about it like Rodney. And Carson… was that just her door bell?
She tries to tell herself that she heard wrong but… yeah, there it goes again. For a moment, she contemplates simply ignoring it but that’s kind of hard since whoever it is, is really determined to get on her nerves. Grunting in frustration she gets up to open the door, mentally grumbling about not even being allowed to do a little brooding once in a while. And she just really hopes it’s not the old lady from two floors down, asking her to check all her locks again - why exactly did she tell that woman that she’s a cop again… Okay, no, it’s very obviously not the old lady in question.
“You were right,” he says after a moment of mutual silence - stunned from her end… insecure from his? - and when she doesn’t answer, he adds, “I really didn’t know anything about you.” Right. So? “Laura… can I come in, please… for a moment?”
Well… that’s not the man whom she got to know in the last weeks of their relationship. Actually… it’s the man she recognizes from when it went well… or at least the more subdued version of him. She’s tempted to say no but in the end… the sincerity in his face and the absolute absence of any anger or irritation win and she nods silently and steps aside.
He enters her home and she shuts the door, leaning against it with her arms crossed in front of her chest, waiting for whatever he has to say. After taking a deep breath he holds the records she threw on his desk up and says, “I… read it. All of it. And I… Laura, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you.”
Right. That’s what she’d thought. Now that he read it… she shakes her head. “Sorry I’m not the overachiever you thought I was.” She tried to sound detached, a little bored… but it somehow came out weary and even apologetic.
Sighing, he rubs a hand over his eyes. “That’s not… what I meant, Laura. I just…”
“Well, what did you mean, then?” Dammit, she’s at it again. Snapping at him when she should keep her mouth shut… and this time he hadn't even provoked it. But talking about anything related to the undercover op isn't exactly her strength.
She can recognize that it’s already getting to him - and who could blame him? - by the way he presses his lips to each other and slightly narrows his eyes. “Laura… could you please just listen to me?” She wants to say something but he doesn’t let her. “What I meant was…” Yeah? She can’t help raising her eyebrow as he struggles with whatever he wants to say. “Ah, fuck it. I miss you, Laura. And I’m sorry for… for how everything went.”
He missed her. He misses her. She wants to get away from the door, tell him she misses him as well, curl up with him on the couch and forget about all of this. But something that she thought she had forgotten - the reflex to get defensive of herself, push people away so they wouldn’t find out she has a weak and messed up side to herself - makes her latch onto something else entirely. “Then why did you end it in the first place?”
Of course it’s a valid question… but her tone wasn’t valid and she knows that. “Laura, you were the one who ended it. You told me you couldn’t go on like that and that you thought we were better off without each other. What was I supposed to say?”
Right. Here they go again. She shakes her head, pushes herself away from the door and brushes past him, furious, half at him for accusing her of being the one who ended it… and half at herself because he’s a lot closer to the truth than she’d like to admit. Actually, she’s angry enough to turn around and say something as stupid as, “You could have contradicted me, Evan! You could have said that you don’t agree. You could have done something instead of just… you could have…” You could have tried and saved me from myself and stop me from destroying the best thing that ever happened to me, she wants to add but her pride keeps her from doing it.
However, it’s only saying it that her pride stops her from. Against everything else - the tight feeling in her chest at seeing him flinch when she nearly yells at him, the tears that are just waiting to be spilled - her pride is powerless.
“Well, I am doing something now, Laura!” Now he’s yelling as well and it’s her turn to flinch. “You wanted to know what I meant when I said I was sorry for asking? Fine, I’ll tell you. I meant it when I said I read all of it and you know what? That bastard’s lucky that he’s rotting away in prison because the first thing I wanted to do was show him how EOD personnel deal with scum like him.”
There it is again. The intensity in him that he never shows on duty, only when he was with her. Like always… it both flatters her and scares her. Scares her for him because she’s got a feeling that keeping all of that inside all of the time can’t be healthy for him. And like always… it makes her speechless. “But then I realized this was neither about him nor about me. It was about you and I just… I wished I could have been there for you, back then.”
She wants to tell him that she’s glad that he wasn’t because she never would have been able to bear it if he’d seen the wreck she’d been back then but he simply keeps on talking. “And I also realized… what it must have stirred up again for you and that I never wanted to be responsible for something like this. I should have just let it lie. I’m… I’m really sorry, Laura.”
“No,” she hears herself saying hoarsely after a moment of silence standing like a wall between them, “I’m sorry.” She really, really is. And that somehow… opened the flood gates and suddenly not even her considerable pride can stop her from talking. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. It was classified but I still could have just told you and I’m sorry for being so unreasonable and such a pain in the ass and I know I don’t deserve you so of course if you want to leave you can because I’d underst…”
“Do us both a favor, Laura. Never push me away like that again.” It’s not really the fact that he said that that stops her from rambling… rather, it’s the fact that he just engulfed her in a hug and hoarsely whispered it into her ear. For a moment, she’s so surprised that she practically freezes up but against her expectation - apprehension really, but she’d never admit that - he doesn’t let himself be discouraged or angered by it.
Instead he rubs her back and somehow she manages to relax into his embrace. Being so close to him, she’s surrounded by his scent again and his warmth and she realizes she missed not being able to lose herself in it anymore. And then it really registers with her what he just said. She doesn’t dare looking up, just leans her forehead against his chest and asks, “Again?”
“Yeah,” he sighs, “again.” And then he clears his throat and… hey, where did his arms suddenly go? Confused and a little irritated she does look up… just to see him sheepishly rub the back of his neck. Huh? “Well, I mean… if you… you know… if you’ll actually take me back.”
Even after a year… it still astounds her every time she sees him flustered and confused and anxious. Genuinely curious and a little confused herself she bends her head and says, “What the hell gave you the idea I wouldn’t?”
“Um… well… I though that maybe…” Is he blushing?
Ah, hell. Not seeing a point in unnecessarily prolonging this anymore - because she knows what she wants and she’s almost sure that he knows what he wants - she pushes all her doubts and fears and all the other irrational crap back into the dark corner of her mind where they belong and growls, “Just shut up,” followed by leaning forward and planting a kiss on his lips.
After a moment of surprise he responds to her and she feels relief flooding through her. She deepens the kiss, not wanting it to end but yeah… oxygen does become an issue in the end, so she breaks it up and smirks at him. “That answer enough?”
He grins back. “Yeah, pretty much.” So… what now, she wants to ask him but he bends down to put a soft kiss to her temple and says “Laura…” before he puts another one close to her ear and adds in a pleasantly low but serious voice, “I know you won’t talk about it… but maybe you could just let me be there for you, once in a while?”
She wants to answer that she always let him be there for her but it dawns on her that… she didn’t. And that he means a very specific issue. He’s right, of course, in assuming she won’t talk about it - at least not for a few more weeks - but there’s something she can do. She buries her hand in his hair and gives him a little shaky smile. “I think I could do that, yeah.”
Relief showing in his grin he bends down to give her another kiss, dragging it out delightfully long before he breaks it and says, “So… let me guess: the only thing coming close to food you had today was a cup of coffee and a piece of toast this morning?”
What… how… damn. He just knows her too well and for a moment she wonders if it was the right decision to let him back into her life - after all, she has major issues with men being in her head - but then she decides that it’s not so bad to have this man in her head and makes a face, saying, “None of your business, Sarge.”
“I knew it.” Damn, didn’t anyone ever tell him that he looks way too good when he’s smug? “Come on, you gotta eat, Officer. I think I just know the right place…” And with that he grabs her hand and she lets him drag her just a little, to show him that he does not have her wrapped around his little finger just because of his great looks and the sexy voice and his intensity and just… basically everything that he is.
Luckily, he makes it a little easier for her to try and tell herself she didn’t completely fall for his charm when he turns around and says, “Oh, and just for the record: you’re even more of an overachiever than I thought.” Her first impulse is to snap at him for that but… then she realizes he meant it as a compliment. Right. Doesn’t have her wrapped around his little finger. Nuh-uh.
Yeah, right.
Ah, fuck, she thinks, he has her wrapped around his little finger and she’d follow him through hell and back, anyway, so trying to resist him when he wants to take her out eating is just a little bit pointless. Giving up the last bits of her mock reluctance and deciding she could still get back at him for insults that are really compliments on another day, she tightens her grip around his hand gives him a little almost shy kiss on the cheek and suddenly springtime in New York City… seems to be a whole lot less grey and irritating. Maybe, she wonders, she can convince him to take her to that little park two blocks down the street before getting something to eat. Would be a nice ending… or beginning, as she prefers to look at it. Yeah… that would be really great.
~*~
TBC in Christmas Day.