No Other One, Chapter 36
Title: No Other One, Chapter 36
Author: Duckie Nicks
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Yelina Salas, Horatio Caine, the whole Caine family
Author's Note: WARNING: SPOILER FOR SEASON 6.
Summary: Almost two decades ago, Horatio made a decision that would change his family forever. Will they ever forgive him? Will he ever tell Yelina how he feels? This is an alternative to the beginning of season 6. A Horatio and Kyle story; H/Y romance in the future.
Previous Chapters: Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 20, Chapter 21, Chapter 22, Chapter 23, Chapter 24, Chapter 25, Chapter 26, Chapter 27, Chapter 28, Chapter 29, Chapter 30, Chapter 31, Chapter 32, Chapter 33, Chapter 34, and Chapter 35.
Disclaimer: I don't own the show.
“We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone.” - Orson Welles
If she’d thought she was exhausted before, Yelina didn’t even know what she was now. There were no words to describe just how tired she felt. Fighting always drained her, and today had consisted of nothing but that, or so it seemed at least. And the worst thing about it, above all else, was that she hadn’t been able to protect her son from it.
Ray shifted in her arms, gradually becoming more relaxed and accepting until he finally rested his head on her shoulder. Closing her eyes, she thought about the situation some more.
True, she could have lied, could have insisted that everyone keep quiet. But in the end, Yelina understood that that would have been a quick fix. So the only real choice before her was to watch Horatio break her son’s heart. Yet knowing that didn’t exactly make things any easier, because… what it came down to was she thought she should have known this would happen.
And she had relished stripping the title of “father” away from Horatio, but honestly, Yelina didn’t feel she had done a very good job at being a mother to her own son. It was hypocritical, of course. She wasn’t so into her own pain that she couldn’t see that part. But in a way, that had only served to deepen her ire. While so many other people would argue that her own shortcomings meant she needed to forgive him, all Yelina could think of was how wrong it was for him to undermine years of parenting like that. As though her husband hadn’t done enough of that already.
At that moment, Ray Junior shifted, his nose running back and forth along her shoulder. Inwardly the mother couldn’t help but cringe; he was wiping his nose on her clothes, just as a child would. Her body naturally tensed at the action, and she could only imagine the kinds of germs he was giving her and how much the dry cleaning bill would be…
But she didn’t push him away or say anything about it. Right now things were so tense between them that Yelina was afraid it would turn into yet another fight. And given the way the day had gone, another argument seemed eminent, if something she couldn’t handle.
So she quietly forced her attention elsewhere. Back to the problem at hand, the brunette decided that there was enough fight in her left to keep this family afloat. She would not throw in the towel any time soon. Even if Horatio and his stupid brother insisted on breaking them, she would do everything in her power to hold it together.
Which meant Yelina would not fall apart over her brother-in-law’s betrayal. She would not become an empty shell of a person or distrustful simply because those two found it impossible to be honest. And there was no way in hell, she decided, she would let her son carry this burden.
Pulling Ray Junior out of her arms, Yelina steeled herself for what might happen next. But looking into her boy’s brown eyes, she could see the same resolve, which made her feel not quite so alone.
“We will get through this, Raymond,” she said then, her voice filled with emotion.
“Yeah… whatever,” he told her, pushing aside the matter at hand. The dismissal, she understood, was not meant to be hurtful. The teenager had just… reached his fill of talking about what Horatio had done. Frankly, Yelina felt the same way. So instead of responding or admonishing him, the mother let the comment slide.
Putting some distance between them, Ray Junior asked, “What’s for dinner?”
She inwardly groaned. Sometimes, Yelina wondered if her son would ever be able to survive on his own. Emotionally, he could handle so much - more than he ever should have been forced to deal with. But there were other things that he was so… inept at. Cooking, cleaning - the brunette was almost sure of it now that Ray would need her to do that for… a good deal longer.
Knowing that wasn’t anything new. It was a fact of life Yelina had come to accept long ago. And in a way, she had enjoyed that duty; it had given her purpose, a reason to keep going, even when her husband had completely abandoned her.
It wasn’t a perfect solution. That much she’d understood from the beginning. Taking care of her son to the best of her ability couldn’t replace that ache inside of her for a companion, an equal - a husband. The mother could fawn over her child, but it wouldn’t make everything better, and in the back of her mind, she understood… at some point he would grow up and leave. And whatever misery she’d staved off would renew itself at full force.
But she’d accepted the weight of caring and protecting Ray Junior. For the most part there was no desire to shrug it off, to want things to change. Only now did Yelina realize that maybe… it was more than she could handle. Because what had started out as a desire to parent well had turned into an obsession of sorts. It was all about pleasing her son and making sure he was happy, which sometimes hurt them both in the end. It meant never being able to set down that weight when she needed to.
Like now.
Yelina absolutely did not have the energy to worry about dinner. But instead of complaining, instead of telling Ray he’d have to fend for himself, all she did was sigh and say, “What do you want?”
Her son’s brown eyes widened innocently, telling the mother that whatever he wanted would be time consuming. “Ajiaco,” Ray Junior said earnestly.
Immediately she frowned. As much as the soup appealed to her at a time like this, Yelina did not want to end her day in the kitchen. “That will take hours to make,” she told him.
“Come on,” Ray whined. “All you have to do is cut stuff up and put it in a pot. It’s not like you actually have to do something.”
Not persuaded in the least, Yelina retorted, “Then you can make it.”
The look on his face was priceless. It would never occur to him to cook for himself - that situation hadn’t ever really presented itself for before. And just the thought of doing it on his own made his features contort in disgust. “Mom,” he complained.
God, she was weak and, after today, too tired to fight. “Fine,” she caved, hating herself for it. But at least, Yelina thought, this day would end at some point. Who would be hurt more by that she didn’t know.
With that in mind, she crossed the small distance to Ray’s bedroom door. And just as she had one foot out into the hallway, the mother remembered something. Turning she told him, “You should do your homework now. You won’t want to do it after you’ve eaten all that food.”
“Homework?” he repeated in confusion.
She couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “Yeah. I understand that it’s probably been a while since you did any, but the concept -”
“I know what it is,” Ray said snottily. “But why do I have to do it?”
“You have school tomorrow.”
The teenager frowned, looking exactly like he did as a child whenever she told him no. “But… why do I have to go? I don’t get a three-day weekend?”
“Not unless it’s given to you by the county,” Yelina said cheerily.
“But -”
“Raymond,” she interrupted, moving back into the room to be closer to him. Her voice softer, the brunette told her son, “You have to go. I know that you don’t want to, but… if I let you stay home every time something happened to this family, you would have never learned how to spell your own name.”
“Please?” He was nearly begging, his eyes pleading with her.
And so she brought him into another fierce hug. His chin digging into her shoulder, Yelina told him, “You have to go. You can’t afford to miss school, and… a distraction might not be such a bad thing, hmm?” It took a few minutes for him to relent, but eventually she felt him nod his head. “All right. I’ll make dinner. You do your school work.”
The mother offered him a kiss to the temple before leaving the room.
As soon as she was out the door, Yelina sneered at the thought of making ajiaco. It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy the soup, because she did. The brunette had hundreds of memories of eating the dish, watching her mother and grandmother prepare it. And if there was one thing she’d learned in all of her years, it was that ajiaco was not meant to be cooked quickly or in anger. Were it prepared too fast, the potatoes in the soup wouldn’t break down, and using a masher just never compared.
With the second case, the brunette had rarely seen ajiaco made when its cooks were furious. After all, who wanted to spend time lovingly chopping and stirring in a hot kitchen when they were already irritable? Not her anyway, Yelina admitted to herself. And those few instances when her mother and grandmother had gone into the kitchen angry, the food had reflected it: watery soup, chicken that had been cut so aggressively that hunks of bone accompanied each bite. Of course, surpassing all of those little grievances, there’d been the single instance of a fire.
Standing in her empty kitchen now, Yelina could practically see the flames dancing along her stove top as it had back then. Silence was her only companion in the room, but if she thought about it, she could still hear the words her mother and grandmother had hurled at one another. How could the brunette ever forget what had been said when it was that fight that led her family to move to the United States to begin with?
Yelina sighed, pushing the thought aside. Some things were best left in the past, and that was one of them. In any case, if she were to attempt ajiaco, then her mind needed to be focused on that. And just as she told Ray Junior, the mother believed that maybe a distraction would be what she needed in this moment.
Blindly Yelina pulled a large pot out of a cupboard. She ran her hands along the black metal sides, turning it around, assessing it. Convinced that it would hold the amount of stew she wanted to make, the brunette filled it with water before placing it on top of the stove.
As she pulled out a whole chicken from the fridge, Yelina considered that perhaps she should have changed before getting started. But seeing as how her suit already had Ray Junior’s breakfast and snot on it, she understood all too well that it would need to be dry-cleaned. Besides, the sooner she got the ajiaco started, the sooner they could eat, and this day would be over.
Trying to cut a five-pound piece of poultry right now, though, was anything but easy. In theory, Yelina thought it could have been the perfect way to release all the frustration and anger and disappointment she was feeling. And looking down at the pale raw chicken, she could almost envision Horatio’s face on the meaty breast in front of her. But as wonderful as it might feel to stab the dead bird repeatedly, the brunette understood that it probably wouldn’t taste good. So all she could do was patiently cut through the meat, sectioning off pieces to put into the large pot.
There was no choice but to go slowly, and that meant she had plenty of time to relive her day. And Yelina thought then that it must have said something if the highlight of her Thursday had been time with Rick Stetler.
As she placed the chicken into the pot of water, she remembered how the two had kissed. Instinctively the brunette glanced to the kitchen table where she had basically asked to get back together with him.
That had been stupid, she thought, as she washed her hands. Really stupid - incredibly so, because nothing good could come from dating Stetler again. In the very least, it would alienate Ray Junior… more. Her son would never forgive her for bringing Rick back into their lives, and Yelina knew that that alone should have been enough to keep her lips to herself.
But if it were really that easy, she thought as she turned the stove on, then why had she still done it?
Her mind briefly shifting back to the soup, the brunette searched through her pantry for the guascas she’d need to put in the pot with the chicken. Her manicured fingers snatched the bag of the grassy, green and brown herb. As odd as it might have been, Yelina had come to love the smell and would have enjoyed a garden full of the plant. But the herb was an invasive weed, which would kill anything else in a person’s garden.
It was, in some ways, the perfect analogy to her relationship with Rick, she thought tiredly. He was a good man, no matter what others said. No matter what Horatio said. Stetler wasn’t easily manipulated by friendship, which she appreciated, and he often found himself doing the right thing even when it was unpopular.
Perhaps it was odd for her to respect him for it, given that he was an IAB agent. And though her love for her husband had diminished, the memory of trying to fight for his pension and protect his reputation hadn’t lessened with time in the least. Yelina bitterly tossed the herb into the pot with the chicken at the thought. If she were honest, she realized, there would never be a day where that time in her life didn’t bother her in some way.
She despised the agents who had relished in calling her husband a dirty cop, who enjoyed stripping good men and women of their name. And maybe Rick had a little bit of that in him. But it wasn’t his sole reason for doing his job, and… Yelina could see that he’d tried to keep her out of that part of his life. Even when he’d gone after Horatio and his team, Stetler had been careful never to use what had happened in their relationship against the CSIs.
Nevertheless, Yelina understood that they didn’t work well as a pair. He might not have been swayed by friendship, but she was; loyalty mattered to her, which inevitably led to several fights and accusations that she was weak. And perhaps that wouldn’t have been so bad, but they both had awful tempers as well, making a volatile situation even worse.
He’d hit her.
She’d hit him.
And in the end, Yelina hadn’t learned her lesson, because she’d kissed him anyway.
But it seemed as though Rick had changed, had learned something from the time they spent together. Because he hadn’t said yes to dating… that only now did she really appreciate. As she pulled out the different kinds of potatoes she would need for the ajiaco, Yelina felt relief course through her. Stetler could have used her in any way he wanted today. Given the jumble of emotions she felt thanks to her brother-in-law, the IAB agent still could, more than likely, take advantage of her.
The relief didn’t last long though.
As she started cutting the potatoes, Yelina couldn’t help but feel that distinct loneliness that had become her constant companion. It had been there when her husband had faked his death, was there every single time Horatio pushed her away, and now… Now there was no hope of ever being with the redhead; he’d ruined that. And while Rick would have inevitably been a disaster, Yelina thought she’d prefer the illusion of companionship over the reality that she was in now.
Taking care of Ray Junior filled her heart with joy, but it was not enough to make her feel whole. She’d tried to convince herself that it was enough, but now there was no denying that she needed more. And thanks to Horatio, that little fantasy she’d had in her head (the one where he would be with her and ease her pain, console her, and make her happy) was gone.
Yelina quickly pushed the thought aside and focused on the soup once more. But for a tiny moment, she could no longer avoid just how lonely she really was.
End (37/??)
Author: Duckie Nicks
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Yelina Salas, Horatio Caine, the whole Caine family
Author's Note: WARNING: SPOILER FOR SEASON 6.
Summary: Almost two decades ago, Horatio made a decision that would change his family forever. Will they ever forgive him? Will he ever tell Yelina how he feels? This is an alternative to the beginning of season 6. A Horatio and Kyle story; H/Y romance in the future.
Previous Chapters: Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 20, Chapter 21, Chapter 22, Chapter 23, Chapter 24, Chapter 25, Chapter 26, Chapter 27, Chapter 28, Chapter 29, Chapter 30, Chapter 31, Chapter 32, Chapter 33, Chapter 34, and Chapter 35.
Disclaimer: I don't own the show.
“We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone.” - Orson Welles
If she’d thought she was exhausted before, Yelina didn’t even know what she was now. There were no words to describe just how tired she felt. Fighting always drained her, and today had consisted of nothing but that, or so it seemed at least. And the worst thing about it, above all else, was that she hadn’t been able to protect her son from it.
Ray shifted in her arms, gradually becoming more relaxed and accepting until he finally rested his head on her shoulder. Closing her eyes, she thought about the situation some more.
True, she could have lied, could have insisted that everyone keep quiet. But in the end, Yelina understood that that would have been a quick fix. So the only real choice before her was to watch Horatio break her son’s heart. Yet knowing that didn’t exactly make things any easier, because… what it came down to was she thought she should have known this would happen.
And she had relished stripping the title of “father” away from Horatio, but honestly, Yelina didn’t feel she had done a very good job at being a mother to her own son. It was hypocritical, of course. She wasn’t so into her own pain that she couldn’t see that part. But in a way, that had only served to deepen her ire. While so many other people would argue that her own shortcomings meant she needed to forgive him, all Yelina could think of was how wrong it was for him to undermine years of parenting like that. As though her husband hadn’t done enough of that already.
At that moment, Ray Junior shifted, his nose running back and forth along her shoulder. Inwardly the mother couldn’t help but cringe; he was wiping his nose on her clothes, just as a child would. Her body naturally tensed at the action, and she could only imagine the kinds of germs he was giving her and how much the dry cleaning bill would be…
But she didn’t push him away or say anything about it. Right now things were so tense between them that Yelina was afraid it would turn into yet another fight. And given the way the day had gone, another argument seemed eminent, if something she couldn’t handle.
So she quietly forced her attention elsewhere. Back to the problem at hand, the brunette decided that there was enough fight in her left to keep this family afloat. She would not throw in the towel any time soon. Even if Horatio and his stupid brother insisted on breaking them, she would do everything in her power to hold it together.
Which meant Yelina would not fall apart over her brother-in-law’s betrayal. She would not become an empty shell of a person or distrustful simply because those two found it impossible to be honest. And there was no way in hell, she decided, she would let her son carry this burden.
Pulling Ray Junior out of her arms, Yelina steeled herself for what might happen next. But looking into her boy’s brown eyes, she could see the same resolve, which made her feel not quite so alone.
“We will get through this, Raymond,” she said then, her voice filled with emotion.
“Yeah… whatever,” he told her, pushing aside the matter at hand. The dismissal, she understood, was not meant to be hurtful. The teenager had just… reached his fill of talking about what Horatio had done. Frankly, Yelina felt the same way. So instead of responding or admonishing him, the mother let the comment slide.
Putting some distance between them, Ray Junior asked, “What’s for dinner?”
She inwardly groaned. Sometimes, Yelina wondered if her son would ever be able to survive on his own. Emotionally, he could handle so much - more than he ever should have been forced to deal with. But there were other things that he was so… inept at. Cooking, cleaning - the brunette was almost sure of it now that Ray would need her to do that for… a good deal longer.
Knowing that wasn’t anything new. It was a fact of life Yelina had come to accept long ago. And in a way, she had enjoyed that duty; it had given her purpose, a reason to keep going, even when her husband had completely abandoned her.
It wasn’t a perfect solution. That much she’d understood from the beginning. Taking care of her son to the best of her ability couldn’t replace that ache inside of her for a companion, an equal - a husband. The mother could fawn over her child, but it wouldn’t make everything better, and in the back of her mind, she understood… at some point he would grow up and leave. And whatever misery she’d staved off would renew itself at full force.
But she’d accepted the weight of caring and protecting Ray Junior. For the most part there was no desire to shrug it off, to want things to change. Only now did Yelina realize that maybe… it was more than she could handle. Because what had started out as a desire to parent well had turned into an obsession of sorts. It was all about pleasing her son and making sure he was happy, which sometimes hurt them both in the end. It meant never being able to set down that weight when she needed to.
Like now.
Yelina absolutely did not have the energy to worry about dinner. But instead of complaining, instead of telling Ray he’d have to fend for himself, all she did was sigh and say, “What do you want?”
Her son’s brown eyes widened innocently, telling the mother that whatever he wanted would be time consuming. “Ajiaco,” Ray Junior said earnestly.
Immediately she frowned. As much as the soup appealed to her at a time like this, Yelina did not want to end her day in the kitchen. “That will take hours to make,” she told him.
“Come on,” Ray whined. “All you have to do is cut stuff up and put it in a pot. It’s not like you actually have to do something.”
Not persuaded in the least, Yelina retorted, “Then you can make it.”
The look on his face was priceless. It would never occur to him to cook for himself - that situation hadn’t ever really presented itself for before. And just the thought of doing it on his own made his features contort in disgust. “Mom,” he complained.
God, she was weak and, after today, too tired to fight. “Fine,” she caved, hating herself for it. But at least, Yelina thought, this day would end at some point. Who would be hurt more by that she didn’t know.
With that in mind, she crossed the small distance to Ray’s bedroom door. And just as she had one foot out into the hallway, the mother remembered something. Turning she told him, “You should do your homework now. You won’t want to do it after you’ve eaten all that food.”
“Homework?” he repeated in confusion.
She couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “Yeah. I understand that it’s probably been a while since you did any, but the concept -”
“I know what it is,” Ray said snottily. “But why do I have to do it?”
“You have school tomorrow.”
The teenager frowned, looking exactly like he did as a child whenever she told him no. “But… why do I have to go? I don’t get a three-day weekend?”
“Not unless it’s given to you by the county,” Yelina said cheerily.
“But -”
“Raymond,” she interrupted, moving back into the room to be closer to him. Her voice softer, the brunette told her son, “You have to go. I know that you don’t want to, but… if I let you stay home every time something happened to this family, you would have never learned how to spell your own name.”
“Please?” He was nearly begging, his eyes pleading with her.
And so she brought him into another fierce hug. His chin digging into her shoulder, Yelina told him, “You have to go. You can’t afford to miss school, and… a distraction might not be such a bad thing, hmm?” It took a few minutes for him to relent, but eventually she felt him nod his head. “All right. I’ll make dinner. You do your school work.”
The mother offered him a kiss to the temple before leaving the room.
As soon as she was out the door, Yelina sneered at the thought of making ajiaco. It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy the soup, because she did. The brunette had hundreds of memories of eating the dish, watching her mother and grandmother prepare it. And if there was one thing she’d learned in all of her years, it was that ajiaco was not meant to be cooked quickly or in anger. Were it prepared too fast, the potatoes in the soup wouldn’t break down, and using a masher just never compared.
With the second case, the brunette had rarely seen ajiaco made when its cooks were furious. After all, who wanted to spend time lovingly chopping and stirring in a hot kitchen when they were already irritable? Not her anyway, Yelina admitted to herself. And those few instances when her mother and grandmother had gone into the kitchen angry, the food had reflected it: watery soup, chicken that had been cut so aggressively that hunks of bone accompanied each bite. Of course, surpassing all of those little grievances, there’d been the single instance of a fire.
Standing in her empty kitchen now, Yelina could practically see the flames dancing along her stove top as it had back then. Silence was her only companion in the room, but if she thought about it, she could still hear the words her mother and grandmother had hurled at one another. How could the brunette ever forget what had been said when it was that fight that led her family to move to the United States to begin with?
Yelina sighed, pushing the thought aside. Some things were best left in the past, and that was one of them. In any case, if she were to attempt ajiaco, then her mind needed to be focused on that. And just as she told Ray Junior, the mother believed that maybe a distraction would be what she needed in this moment.
Blindly Yelina pulled a large pot out of a cupboard. She ran her hands along the black metal sides, turning it around, assessing it. Convinced that it would hold the amount of stew she wanted to make, the brunette filled it with water before placing it on top of the stove.
As she pulled out a whole chicken from the fridge, Yelina considered that perhaps she should have changed before getting started. But seeing as how her suit already had Ray Junior’s breakfast and snot on it, she understood all too well that it would need to be dry-cleaned. Besides, the sooner she got the ajiaco started, the sooner they could eat, and this day would be over.
Trying to cut a five-pound piece of poultry right now, though, was anything but easy. In theory, Yelina thought it could have been the perfect way to release all the frustration and anger and disappointment she was feeling. And looking down at the pale raw chicken, she could almost envision Horatio’s face on the meaty breast in front of her. But as wonderful as it might feel to stab the dead bird repeatedly, the brunette understood that it probably wouldn’t taste good. So all she could do was patiently cut through the meat, sectioning off pieces to put into the large pot.
There was no choice but to go slowly, and that meant she had plenty of time to relive her day. And Yelina thought then that it must have said something if the highlight of her Thursday had been time with Rick Stetler.
As she placed the chicken into the pot of water, she remembered how the two had kissed. Instinctively the brunette glanced to the kitchen table where she had basically asked to get back together with him.
That had been stupid, she thought, as she washed her hands. Really stupid - incredibly so, because nothing good could come from dating Stetler again. In the very least, it would alienate Ray Junior… more. Her son would never forgive her for bringing Rick back into their lives, and Yelina knew that that alone should have been enough to keep her lips to herself.
But if it were really that easy, she thought as she turned the stove on, then why had she still done it?
Her mind briefly shifting back to the soup, the brunette searched through her pantry for the guascas she’d need to put in the pot with the chicken. Her manicured fingers snatched the bag of the grassy, green and brown herb. As odd as it might have been, Yelina had come to love the smell and would have enjoyed a garden full of the plant. But the herb was an invasive weed, which would kill anything else in a person’s garden.
It was, in some ways, the perfect analogy to her relationship with Rick, she thought tiredly. He was a good man, no matter what others said. No matter what Horatio said. Stetler wasn’t easily manipulated by friendship, which she appreciated, and he often found himself doing the right thing even when it was unpopular.
Perhaps it was odd for her to respect him for it, given that he was an IAB agent. And though her love for her husband had diminished, the memory of trying to fight for his pension and protect his reputation hadn’t lessened with time in the least. Yelina bitterly tossed the herb into the pot with the chicken at the thought. If she were honest, she realized, there would never be a day where that time in her life didn’t bother her in some way.
She despised the agents who had relished in calling her husband a dirty cop, who enjoyed stripping good men and women of their name. And maybe Rick had a little bit of that in him. But it wasn’t his sole reason for doing his job, and… Yelina could see that he’d tried to keep her out of that part of his life. Even when he’d gone after Horatio and his team, Stetler had been careful never to use what had happened in their relationship against the CSIs.
Nevertheless, Yelina understood that they didn’t work well as a pair. He might not have been swayed by friendship, but she was; loyalty mattered to her, which inevitably led to several fights and accusations that she was weak. And perhaps that wouldn’t have been so bad, but they both had awful tempers as well, making a volatile situation even worse.
He’d hit her.
She’d hit him.
And in the end, Yelina hadn’t learned her lesson, because she’d kissed him anyway.
But it seemed as though Rick had changed, had learned something from the time they spent together. Because he hadn’t said yes to dating… that only now did she really appreciate. As she pulled out the different kinds of potatoes she would need for the ajiaco, Yelina felt relief course through her. Stetler could have used her in any way he wanted today. Given the jumble of emotions she felt thanks to her brother-in-law, the IAB agent still could, more than likely, take advantage of her.
The relief didn’t last long though.
As she started cutting the potatoes, Yelina couldn’t help but feel that distinct loneliness that had become her constant companion. It had been there when her husband had faked his death, was there every single time Horatio pushed her away, and now… Now there was no hope of ever being with the redhead; he’d ruined that. And while Rick would have inevitably been a disaster, Yelina thought she’d prefer the illusion of companionship over the reality that she was in now.
Taking care of Ray Junior filled her heart with joy, but it was not enough to make her feel whole. She’d tried to convince herself that it was enough, but now there was no denying that she needed more. And thanks to Horatio, that little fantasy she’d had in her head (the one where he would be with her and ease her pain, console her, and make her happy) was gone.
Yelina quickly pushed the thought aside and focused on the soup once more. But for a tiny moment, she could no longer avoid just how lonely she really was.
End (37/??)