Por si éramos pocos by Belenuski - Chapter 9 (Part 3)
Title: Por si éramos pocos by Belenuski
Rating: PG-13
NB: And, this is the end of Ch. 9. I hadn't realized it was so short or I would've included it in the previous update...but oh well, here it is anyway. I'll try to start Ch. 10 (titled "It's only...sex?" *wink*) next week.
“Pepa?”
Silvia’s voice resounded in the brunette’s head, causing her to open her eyes and sit up with a start. She had fallen asleep on the lab table, leaving her with a horrible pain in her neck. She yawned and snorted when she saw the time on the digital clock.
“3:45,” she said.
She rubbed her eyes to wake herself up and then was finally able to observe her surroundings. Three cadavers, two opened up on the tables and the other still closed. The analytical scanner was making noise and Silvia…Silvia was in front of her, also leaning on the lab table. She looked really beautiful even though she had bags under her eyes, her hair pulled up in a messy ponytail, and blood stains on her lab coat.
“Go on…go on home,” the redhead told her.
“No, come one, there’s only one left.” She stood up, stretching out her arms.
“Seriously, go home. We won’t be done until five at the earliest.”
“Without my help you’ll finish at six. So, go on, put the mask on.”
Silvia shook her head, smiling. “We still haven’t analyzed the substances,” Silvia also stretched. She grabbed the coffee-pot and poured the dark liquid into a cup. After that, she added a little milk, “Another coffee?”
Pepa shrugged, “Not much difference between five and six.”
Exactly. So with that, she had her sixth coffee; they were small, but strong. They had called Rita’s house at 9:30 to say goodnight to Noah who, of course, was really happy to know that her mothers would spend the night together.
Few noticed, but the girl’s smile always grew whenever she was with them both, together. In her little head, she still kept memories of happy moments: eating breakfast with both of them every morning, going to their bedroom in the middle of the night, her fears abated when she saw them together and holding each other, living together under the same roof…those were the things she missed.
The scanner warned that there were still a few minutes left for the analysis to complete, so they drank their coffees serenely, each lost in their own thoughts - which just happened to be the same.
“Paz called me,” Silvia said abruptly. Pepa looked at her, taking another sip of her coffee. “She said she wanted to speak to me. Or with you, or both of us…either way.”
“Why? Is Noah misbehaving at school?”
“That’s what I asked her. She said no, she just wanted to talk about Noah in general. She said that Noah’s changed in the last few months and…” Silvia stopped. She didn’t know if she should say what she was thinking or just keep quiet so it wouldn’t sound as if she were insinuating something. But it wasn’t an insinuation, it was simply what Noah’s teacher had recounted to her. “They were talking about Christmas, about how it was getting close and…well, she asked Noah what present she was going to ask the Three Kings for. And you know what she said?” Pepa raised her head. Yes, of course she knew. It wasn’t hard to imagine. “For her mothers to be together again.”
The brunette focused her gaze on her coffee, not really seeing it, just thinking. How was her daughter been managing the past few months? She was so…mature? Precocious? She wasn’t quite sure how to describe her, but she kept things inside, she thought a lot, and things occurred to her that didn’t occur to other children.
Pepa felt herself squeezing her cup harder and harder, and being that it was plastic, it was about to break. Silvia, watching her, gave her warning. She knew what Pepa was thinking since she had thought the same thing when Paz had called her.
“Do you feel guilty?”
“I feel like shit,” Pepa wasn’t going to tip-toe around it.
“Yeah…sometimes I wonder if we’re not asking her to deal with too much.”
“But there was no other way. She knew even before that things weren’t going well.” Pepa swallowed the last gulp of coffee but continued to squeeze the cup.
“She was accustomed to a routine and when we broke it, she realized it. She would watch us, waiting for us to give each other a goodnight kiss that never came.”
“She would leave her bedroom in the middle of the night to see if we were sleeping together.”
“She would ask me about you, just to see if I knew.”
“And she asked me about you, too. Like she was afraid we would forget one another.”
Silvia smiled nostalgically, “How clever she is.”
Pepa smiled, too, but melancholically, “And despite everything, nothing helped.”
They looked at each other. How were they supposed to feel in that moment? Talking about divorce, about kisses never given, about nights spent alone, about Noah…and powerless to move, because they knew if they moved, it would be towards each other, to embrace and say how much they missed each other. And that wasn’t really the problem. The problem was that if they hugged, they would be so close that they would note each other’s smell and, powerless against it, they would kiss. And yes, if they kissed, there would be no going back.
And it had already ended. They couldn’t allow themselves a moment of weakness just because.
Lucky for both of them, the scanner emitted a sharp beep, wresting them from their thoughts, and they raced to the small screen, discovering that, undoubtedly, the prints detected on the neck of the first man were the same as the prints on the wrists of the second. They sighed. One less thing to do. Now, after that conversation, they were more intent on finishing with the last cadaver and, if possible, getting some sleep before the morning.
Because tomorrow would bring a change to how they interacted; they would present themselves to each other in a different way, a better way, like when Pepa first arrived at the precinct. Whether they slept that night or not, just knowing that the other would be there cheered them up. But still, they didn’t allow themselves to feel anything more. For now, they strived to feel just that, happy to see each other.
Like two friends.
Links to the original story:
http://pepaysilvia.mforos.com/1469855/8481210-por-si-eramos-pocos-01-11-09-23-40/
http://pepaysilvia.mforos.com/1469855/8680673-por-si-eramos-pocos-ii-28-11-09-21-35/
http://pepaysilvia.mforos.com/1469855/8848739-por-si-eramos-pocos-iii-14-02-10-0-55-finalizado/
Rating: PG-13
NB: And, this is the end of Ch. 9. I hadn't realized it was so short or I would've included it in the previous update...but oh well, here it is anyway. I'll try to start Ch. 10 (titled "It's only...sex?" *wink*) next week.
“Pepa?”
Silvia’s voice resounded in the brunette’s head, causing her to open her eyes and sit up with a start. She had fallen asleep on the lab table, leaving her with a horrible pain in her neck. She yawned and snorted when she saw the time on the digital clock.
“3:45,” she said.
She rubbed her eyes to wake herself up and then was finally able to observe her surroundings. Three cadavers, two opened up on the tables and the other still closed. The analytical scanner was making noise and Silvia…Silvia was in front of her, also leaning on the lab table. She looked really beautiful even though she had bags under her eyes, her hair pulled up in a messy ponytail, and blood stains on her lab coat.
“Go on…go on home,” the redhead told her.
“No, come one, there’s only one left.” She stood up, stretching out her arms.
“Seriously, go home. We won’t be done until five at the earliest.”
“Without my help you’ll finish at six. So, go on, put the mask on.”
Silvia shook her head, smiling. “We still haven’t analyzed the substances,” Silvia also stretched. She grabbed the coffee-pot and poured the dark liquid into a cup. After that, she added a little milk, “Another coffee?”
Pepa shrugged, “Not much difference between five and six.”
Exactly. So with that, she had her sixth coffee; they were small, but strong. They had called Rita’s house at 9:30 to say goodnight to Noah who, of course, was really happy to know that her mothers would spend the night together.
Few noticed, but the girl’s smile always grew whenever she was with them both, together. In her little head, she still kept memories of happy moments: eating breakfast with both of them every morning, going to their bedroom in the middle of the night, her fears abated when she saw them together and holding each other, living together under the same roof…those were the things she missed.
The scanner warned that there were still a few minutes left for the analysis to complete, so they drank their coffees serenely, each lost in their own thoughts - which just happened to be the same.
“Paz called me,” Silvia said abruptly. Pepa looked at her, taking another sip of her coffee. “She said she wanted to speak to me. Or with you, or both of us…either way.”
“Why? Is Noah misbehaving at school?”
“That’s what I asked her. She said no, she just wanted to talk about Noah in general. She said that Noah’s changed in the last few months and…” Silvia stopped. She didn’t know if she should say what she was thinking or just keep quiet so it wouldn’t sound as if she were insinuating something. But it wasn’t an insinuation, it was simply what Noah’s teacher had recounted to her. “They were talking about Christmas, about how it was getting close and…well, she asked Noah what present she was going to ask the Three Kings for. And you know what she said?” Pepa raised her head. Yes, of course she knew. It wasn’t hard to imagine. “For her mothers to be together again.”
The brunette focused her gaze on her coffee, not really seeing it, just thinking. How was her daughter been managing the past few months? She was so…mature? Precocious? She wasn’t quite sure how to describe her, but she kept things inside, she thought a lot, and things occurred to her that didn’t occur to other children.
Pepa felt herself squeezing her cup harder and harder, and being that it was plastic, it was about to break. Silvia, watching her, gave her warning. She knew what Pepa was thinking since she had thought the same thing when Paz had called her.
“Do you feel guilty?”
“I feel like shit,” Pepa wasn’t going to tip-toe around it.
“Yeah…sometimes I wonder if we’re not asking her to deal with too much.”
“But there was no other way. She knew even before that things weren’t going well.” Pepa swallowed the last gulp of coffee but continued to squeeze the cup.
“She was accustomed to a routine and when we broke it, she realized it. She would watch us, waiting for us to give each other a goodnight kiss that never came.”
“She would leave her bedroom in the middle of the night to see if we were sleeping together.”
“She would ask me about you, just to see if I knew.”
“And she asked me about you, too. Like she was afraid we would forget one another.”
Silvia smiled nostalgically, “How clever she is.”
Pepa smiled, too, but melancholically, “And despite everything, nothing helped.”
They looked at each other. How were they supposed to feel in that moment? Talking about divorce, about kisses never given, about nights spent alone, about Noah…and powerless to move, because they knew if they moved, it would be towards each other, to embrace and say how much they missed each other. And that wasn’t really the problem. The problem was that if they hugged, they would be so close that they would note each other’s smell and, powerless against it, they would kiss. And yes, if they kissed, there would be no going back.
And it had already ended. They couldn’t allow themselves a moment of weakness just because.
Lucky for both of them, the scanner emitted a sharp beep, wresting them from their thoughts, and they raced to the small screen, discovering that, undoubtedly, the prints detected on the neck of the first man were the same as the prints on the wrists of the second. They sighed. One less thing to do. Now, after that conversation, they were more intent on finishing with the last cadaver and, if possible, getting some sleep before the morning.
Because tomorrow would bring a change to how they interacted; they would present themselves to each other in a different way, a better way, like when Pepa first arrived at the precinct. Whether they slept that night or not, just knowing that the other would be there cheered them up. But still, they didn’t allow themselves to feel anything more. For now, they strived to feel just that, happy to see each other.
Like two friends.
Links to the original story:
http://pepaysilvia.mforos.com/1469855/8481210-por-si-eramos-pocos-01-11-09-23-40/
http://pepaysilvia.mforos.com/1469855/8680673-por-si-eramos-pocos-ii-28-11-09-21-35/
http://pepaysilvia.mforos.com/1469855/8848739-por-si-eramos-pocos-iii-14-02-10-0-55-finalizado/