Title: After You Were Mine
By: saras-girl
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Why do I have to relive how we fell apart, just because you don't remember?
A/N: Slight spoilers for Fannysmackin'
Post est/rel. Nick's perspective throughout, this was my first experiment with his first person, I/you voice, if you will.
Reviews are my absolute favourite, so yes, please do :) Flames will be used to make delicious toast. -crunch-
XXXXX
I almost don't go in, because I'm not sure I know what to say to you any more. Even though I know it doesn't much matter what I say to you, because the doctor says you are unconscious and the blow you received to your head was severe. He said you would be ok, but there might be long term damage. Seizures. Memory loss. Pain. Severe blunt force trauma, he says, and I almost laugh, thinking of how many times I have said those words in the course of my work, never really connecting them to anything real, only a lifeless body on a slab. You're real though, the most real thing I ever had, at one time in my life.
That feels like a long time ago as I stand outside with my hand on the reinforced glass of the door, looking at you. My heart aches from wanting to protect you but I shake the feeling away. I wasn't there to protect you when you were dragged out of your car last night and almost killed for no good reason. You aren't mine to protect any more, though you were once. I remember being happy, more content than I ever thought possible. It was so easy to be with you. Sometimes we didn't need to say anything at all but I could look over at you sitting in your favourite chair, legs crossed, tapping away on your laptop at something I could never hope to understand, and I knew that you loved me.
It is this memory that grabs at me and pushes me through the door to sit at your side, but just as quickly, it fades and is replaced by another that makes me want to turn tail and run away, before you ever know I was here. This memory is the one that haunts my dreams. It is the one that can pop into my head at the happiest moments and wash every positive feeling out of me in an instant.
I can see you so clearly, the day you left. Your face was blank and when I looked into your eyes, I saw nothing, and that scared me more than anything you could have said or done. The slump of your shoulders gave you away a little, but it was the only expression of emotion you showed as you stood in our kitchen and told me that you were moving out, leaving me, that it was over. Your tone of voice was so ordinary and matter of fact that for a moment I wondered if I had heard you wrong, but you simply shook your head and said it again. You said you weren't happy any more and that you needed something that I could not give. I would have done anything, but you could not tell me what it was that you needed. You had packed your things and said you were going to stay with a friend, would not tell me where. You knew I'd come after you. You smiled a little and said you were sorry but you still left. Left our home and our life after five years together and you couldn't even really tell me why.
That was a year ago and I still live in our apartment. I planned to get a new place but in the end I couldn't bear to think of some stranger living amongst all our memories, painting over the places where we had stained the walls in the kitchen trying to cook and ending up laughing and kissing and covered in pancake batter or spaghetti sauce; or replacing the bathroom tiles I used to push you against when you crept into the shower behind me in the morning. I know I should move on, Warrick is always telling me I need to find someone else. He says my house - our house - is like a shrine to you and I need to let it go.
He's my best friend and he's probably right, but I can't. I suppose a part of me hoped you would feel as much pain as me, and that you would come home. But you didn't, did you? Sometimes I think you are in pain. Work was the most difficult thing, in the beginning. We somehow managed to stay professional even though everyone knew what had happened. I would not have got through those first few months without Warrick and Catherine, and I saw you grow closer to Sara. I hoped she was helping you to heal; though I wished you could realize that you didn't have to.
Almost a year now, and you have changed. I know you say you haven't, but you have. You've lost your sparkle somehow, the light in your eyes that first made me fall in love with you, that's almost gone. You don't smile as much as you used to. I used to love being the one that made you smile like that, would think, just for a second, that you only smiled like that for me. Your clothes have changed and your hair is more sensible. You look grown-up and handsome and I sometimes still look at you admiringly when you're dressed up for court. But I miss what you were when you were mine. You never cared or tried to fit in and that's what I loved about you - you were just you, and you made no apologies for that fact. This past year I think you have forgotten who you are. I can understand that though. Without you I find it difficult to remember who I am too. But you are the one that walked away.
After two months I took down all our photographs, because I couldn't stand to look at them any more. I put them in a drawer in the bedroom - I still think of it as our bedroom - along with the silver ring you left on the kitchen counter. I didn't see it until after you'd gone, and that's when I lost it, because it was so clinical that you'd thought to remove it and just leave it sitting there like it was nothing. You didn't want to wear your ring any more, now that you weren't mine, of course you didn't. I waited a month before I took mine off and placed it in the drawer next to yours. I wonder if you ever think of that day. I do. I thought you were mine forever that day. I remember the evening, when everyone was busy dancing and eating, we slipped away, stood by the lake and just looked at each other in the fading light, for a long time. You were crying, and you never cry. You looked beautiful that day and I just held you, knowing I would do anything for you. Anything to make you happy.
Everything hurts when I think about that, and the day you left, and the sight of you now, lying there motionless with dried blood in your hair. I wonder why I'm here, because I'm probably the last person you want to see. I wonder if you have someone else who should be sitting here in my place. I don't think you do, but then I don't really know you any more. There has been no one for me, no one since you. Catherine tried in the beginning to set me up with her friends, but she gave up after I went on a date with one of them and I told him over our appetizers that I was still in love with my ex-husband. She left me alone after that.
My eyes rest on your lips, bruised and swollen, but still perfect. I always did love your mouth. The first time we kissed is burned on to the back of my eyelids and I can never erase the image, no matter how much I have tried recently. We were in the break room of all places, hardly the most romantic setting. You were wearing your lab coat and a loud, patterned shirt that hurt my eyes, and your hair was all over the place. You were talking to me - or rather at me, as there was little chance of you stopping long enough for me to respond – about how you'd helped Catherine to make a breakthrough in her case, and you were asking me if I thought you could be a CSI, but you weren't waiting for an answer.
You could not stay in one place, you were so excited, and your dark eyes were dancing with exhilaration. I was entranced by you, and the feeling hit me so hard that I forgot to try and disguise it. Suddenly you were looking at me strangely with your head on one side and asking me if I was ok. You were touching my arm gently. When your fingers connected with my bare skin I remember letting out a moan that didn't sound like me, pulling you against my body hard, and pressing my lips against yours without thinking of the consequences. It was quick because we were in the break room, and because I remembered who I was and that I didn't do things like that. At least not until I met you. When I released you, you leaned against me for a moment, looking at the floor, and I was terrified. Until you raised your eyes to mine and smiled in the way only you can, with this immense surprise and delight. I had liked you up to that point, but I think it was then that I fell in love with you. It was so easy after that, somehow, I loved you, and we just 'were'.
Until we weren't. I know it was gradual, but I still should have seen it happening in time to stop it. I should have noticed that you were slipping away from me in those last few months, but I did not. I had my own stuff to deal with and I know I was wrapped up in my own fear after the abduction, but that's not an excuse. I thought we were starting to come back from that when things really started to go wrong. It's like we just stopped talking. You got so much quieter and that energy I loved became less and less, but I still loved you, however much you changed. How ever much we argued and you used words to hurt me. You could hurt me because you knew me. I would get angry, lash out at the wall, and that would just make you twist the knife even more.
We had both suffered, but I suppose I never expected we would take it out on each other. I knew how hard you worked to get where you were in your career, and I was so proud of you, but I suppose that took its toll as well. I couldn't comfort you the same any more, it was like there was something dark inside you that I couldn't reach, though I tried over and over again. I would have tried anything. Maybe I would have tried harder, but some part of me just assumed we would always be together, no matter what, because that's what I wanted. That's what I still want, but I know too much has passed and you have changed too much to ever want me again. I hear your words like a sting and I know I can never be enough for you. I suppose I should be grateful that for five years, you let me try.
I'm staring at you and thinking about leaving when you wake up. Your eyes fasten straight onto mine. They are half closed and bloodshot but it doesn't matter to me.
"You're here," you say, and the naked relief in your voice shocks my heart back into a regular rhythm.
"Yeah," I smile, suddenly feeling terrified.
You're lying in a hospital bed and I'm scared of you. The power you still have over me is immense. I wonder how you will choose to use it.
Suddenly you are touching my hand as it lies next to yours on top of the sheets. I suppress the urge to jump. It's been a long time since you've touched me and my body almost can't handle it. Your fingers are tracing lightly and I can't take my eyes away. Suddenly I have Warrick's voice in my head.
'If you have to go there, man, be strong. He's going to look vulnerable and sad and you know how you react to that. Just remember how much he hurt you and don't let him try anything to mess you about, ok?'
He doesn't hate you, he really doesn't, he just doesn't want to see me go through that again. He had to pick up the pieces the last time and he's wary, and protective of my feelings. Thinking a little more rationally, I go to pull my hand away when you speak, and your voice is so confused and plaintive that I want to cry.
"Nicky," you whisper, still tracing the skin of my fingers with yours. "Why aren't you wearing your ring?"
I continue to stare at you and think that you haven't called me Nicky in a long time, you'd think it would sound strange on your lips after all this time, but it doesn't, it sounds like home. You know why I don't wear my ring. It's the same reason you don't wear yours. It's because we don't belong to each other any more. I look at your hand instinctively, which is still touching mine but has stilled now, because you are looking too, following my eyes with yours. A small sound of distress slips from your mouth and it wrenches at me. You rub at the third finger of your left hand with your thumb and you look at me. I know when you are looking at me, I always have. It's like a sixth sense, all the hairs prickle on the back of my neck and I know I just have to turn around and there you'll be. I haven't had that feeling in some time and I miss it.
"What's going on, Nicky, please? When can we go home?"
Your questions rip the breath from me because you are talking to me as though these last twelve months never happened, and while I wish almost every day that that were true, it isn't, and you are scaring me a little. I remember what the doctor said about memory loss and a strange feeling grips me. I know I need to answer you because I haven't spoken more than a word since I entered the room, and you look absolutely lost. It's breaking my heart, but I know that if you really don't remember, then what I have to tell you will break it even more.
"Greg," I begin, thinking immediately that I have gone wrong. I rarely called you simply 'Greg', and I see you frown a little at the formality. I have to continue now, though, and get this over with. I need to get out of this room before I lose what little progress I have made over the past year to get over you.
"Greg, I'm glad you're ok, and the doctor says you're going to be fine, but you might have some problems with your memory. I think you do, Greg, because...well...because..."
Damn, this is hard. What kind of screwed up universe are we living in where I have to tell you that you no longer love me? I try again.
"What do you remember?"
You look scared and I ache to comfort you, but I know it won't help. I can't help remembering when you lay here before, when you had a similar look on your face after the explosion, but then I could hold you and whisper to you and say stupid stuff to try and make you smile. Because you loved me, and it was easy.
"It was dark. I was in the car, and then I wasn't...I don't know. It hurts."
"Before that?" I know I'm being cold and I hate it, but I need to know.
"We had breakfast together, I think. Then we went to bed. It's a little hazy. Nicky, will you please tell me what's wrong?"
I draw every last reserve of my strength to stop from crying out. I don't remember the last time we had breakfast together, but I remember the first. It was at your apartment, before we got our place together. You made me eat fruit loops and I pretended to hate them because I loved how you looked when you were indignant. In the end I put my spoon down and grabbed you, and we made love right there on the kitchen floor, because we couldn't wait. This isn't helping, I know, but every time I look at you it's like a film of our lives together and I can't seem to stop playing it.
I look in your eyes then, and imagine, just for a second, what it would be like if I could just take your hand again and tell you that it doesn't matter, and that I love you. You could come home. Wipe out twelve months of pain as easily as that. You might never remember and it would be like having you back. Just as easily, though, I know I could never do that to you. It isn't up to me to play God just because I need you. You don't need me, other than to tell you the truth in the gentlest way I can, and then you need me to leave. There will be someone else along soon to comfort you, even if you don't know it yet. Sara will stroke your hair and make all the right noises. She might even tell you what an idiot I am, and maybe that will make you feel better, so you don't feel like you have lost anything. Which you haven't, really, I suppose. I take a deep breath and look anywhere but in your eyes.
"Greg, you don't remember this right now but we aren't together any more. We broke up almost a year ago. That's why you don't have your ring, and why I don't have mine. I came to see you because I was worried, but I shouldn't have, I'm just confusing you and I'm sorry."
You close your eyes then, and you look like someone has stabbed you in the stomach. You curl up as much as you can and pull away from me. The sound you make is harrowing, it chills me. It's like an animal in pain, and I can't stand it. Warrick was wrong, it isn't me that is hurt. It's you. I don't know what else to do, so I get up and walk out of the room. I walk until I cannot hear that sound any more, but then I find I can still hear it in my head. I get to my car and kick out at my front tyre violently, spinning and stumbling, almost falling.
- Remind me, over and again, what I had -
It's funny how I think I can predict people's behaviour, that I know what they are going to do next, because more often than not they wind up doing something that really surprises me. I stopped trying to predict what you would do next a long time ago, but I think I have a pretty good handle on most of the people in my life. Warrick surprises me, this time. We stand side by side behind the two-way glass watching Brass in the interrogation room. I know that this is one of the missing links that hurt you, and I insist I be allowed to observe his interview. Warrick takes one look at my face and follows me in. That's not what surprises me though. It's what he says next. His tone is cold and quiet.
"What are you doing here?"
I turn to look at him with surprise and have not yet formulated a response when he continues.
"He's lying in a hospital bed, alone, confused, and you turn up to tell him – by the way, you guys split up a year ago – and then you leave?"
Warrick's face is an incongruous mixture of fury and pity. I open and close my mouth like a fish. I don't understand, because only hours ago, he told me to be careful because you were going to try and mess me up. Now, inexplicably, he is in your corner and I am the bad guy. Sometimes Warrick makes no sense to me, and I tell him so. He gives me a look that could curdle buttermilk at fifty paces and I fall silent. Of course I feel bad about what I did to you this morning. Bad doesn't cover it, there should be a word for what I feel for hurting you, because it's like actual physical pain. I can still hear that horrible, drawn out sound that came from somewhere deep inside you, somewhere primal, and it makes me feel sick.
But I had no choice. It would have been disastrous for both of us had I allowed you to go on believing that we were still together. I know how easily I'd slip back into our life. The thought of you in my arms at night, your back pushed tightly against my chest and your legs tangled up with mine like we used to, makes me breathless and warm inside. You and I just fit together. The first time I woke up without you there I felt like a piece of me had been removed, yanked away in the night by unseen hands.
I'm honest with myself, at least. Having you home is the only thing I want in the world, and the part of me that knows that would take you back in an instant, however you offered it. The other part though, knows that you only seem like you want me again because you have forgotten why you stopped wanting me. It's as though someone has reached into your soul and purified it of all the parts that made you leave me. The only trouble is, I know it wouldn't be real, and when your memory comes back, so will all of the reasons why you broke my heart. I'm not sure I could survive that a second time. You never actually said as much, but your voice and your words and your touch earlier today tell me that – for the moment at least – I am what you want again. That hurts, because I want you too.
When I tell Warrick this, he snorts and shakes his head. I wish he would tell me what he's thinking because I feel like I need something solid to hold onto before I get washed away in all of this. I tell him I'm sorry because it feels as though an apology is expected of me, and God knows I feel weighed down by guilt as it is.
XXXXX
I get through the next week because I have no choice, and because I'm stubborn, and because the job demands it. It seems as though all of the things that lurk in the nightmarish side of Las Vegas have come out to play, and every case I work reveals some new sickening twist. Then of course there are the everyday run-of-the-mill nightmares too. Rape, murder, assault, abuse, neglect – I see them all. See, document, collect, process, analyse. I absorb myself in my work because I don't want to think about you, and though I still see you everywhere I look, it's the best distraction I have. I know I need to get good at distractions, fast, because on Friday evening Sara corners me in the locker room and tells me that you are coming back to work on Monday. I cannot decide if she looks angry with me, or frustrated, or anxious. In fact, she looks a lot like Warrick did just before he yelled at me. I decide not to push it. I just want to go home and sleep and forget, just for a few hours, the whirl in my head and the pain in my chest and the unsettling feeling that the world is shifting under my feet whether I like it or not.
Which is why, probably, you do not get the best reception when you turn up at my door five minutes after I get home. You are wearing a plain t-shirt and jeans that look too big for you, hanging off your hips. In fact, you look thinner, and you weren't big to start with. Your hair is disheveled but not in the artful way I grew to love, which - I learned the hard way – takes a long time to create, but just messy, like you don't care. At least the dried blood and bandages have gone, but of course they have. That was a week ago, and I feel a twinge of remorse that I did not go back to see you, but I know it would not have helped either of us. I can only wonder why you are standing here now, staring at me in what can only be described as a defiant manner. You almost look cute and I suppress an inappropriate urge to smile at you and push your hair out of your eyes.
"Hey," you say eventually, an edge to your voice. Your hands are in your pockets and you stand like you are trying to front me out.
"Hello, Greg." There I go again. Now I have started this whole forced formality thing it's like I can't stop. I remind myself that it's you. The man I used to be married to. It hurts my head. "What do you want?"
"The doctors checked me out, you know, and they said there doesn't look to be any permanent damage. They said my memory loss might even be stress-related, because…because most things have started to come back. Except you."
Great. I have a horrible, twisting, sinking feeling that I know what's coming next. I'm still standing in the doorway and I'm not sure I have any intention of letting you in. You haven't been in this apartment since the day you left for good. Not once. I feel almost as though letting you past me into the hallway might bring some carefully erected barrier crashing down, and me with it.
"I want to talk about what happened." You look sad, but resolute, and this is what I had been afraid of.
"Can't you talk about this with Sara?"
"Sara wouldn't tell me. She said I had to come and speak to you."
Well, thanks a fucking bunch, Sara. For a fraction of a second I want to slam the door in your face, as if by not seeing you I can pretend you aren't there. I don't know who I'm kidding, because everything in this damn place reminds me of you. Your eyes are impassive and I listen to the sound of your breathing.
"I really don't remember it," you whisper, leaning on the doorframe, and I know there's another question because your eyes are burning with it. I wish you'd just ask it, so we can get this over with. "Why did you leave me?"
I take an involuntary step back at the quiver in your voice and the knowledge that you truly believe that I was the one to end our relationship. Not you. I wish I could forget that day as easily as you have...no...I take that back, hurriedly, and thank God I didn't say it out loud. It must be horrific for you, and I'm sorry for even thinking that thought. You sigh and I wonder if it's because we are still standing here, me in the doorway, not allowing you into the apartment that as far as you are concerned, you should still live in.
I let you in, make coffee. We sit, gravitating towards the positions we always occupied in the lounge, or at least the ones we chose when we were absorbed in separate tasks, or had company. A lot of the time we would just lie tangled, full length on the couch, because you liked to feel as much contact between my body and yours as was possible, and I was happy to oblige.
The thought of touching you heats me and hurts me simultaneously. You are sitting in the big red armchair, and I watch as you kick off your shoes and curl your legs around you, settling, looking at me expectantly with huge eyes. Your bruises have all but faded but you look different to all the versions of you I have known over the years. You look worn, and for the first time, you look every one of your thirty-one years. I'm not sure why but this makes something in me contract with sadness, and I push it down. I shift on the worn leather sofa and sigh.
"Sara really didn't tell you anything, did she?" You shake your head but say nothing. "I didn't leave you. You left me."
I let this hang in the air for a while and though I try not to look at you, my eyes are drawn. I hear myself wince because the colour has drained from your face and a wet sound is dragged from your chest. I know now for sure that this is brand new information to you. I muse on the fact that acting only on the information that were are no longer together, you have automatically assumed that it was me who broke things off. I don't get to think on this much longer because you are speaking to me, urgently now, demanding to know what happened. Your arms are hugged tightly around your chest and you draw your knees up as if protecting yourself. I wonder if you think you need to protect yourself from me. I hope not, because I would never hurt you on purpose.
I start talking. It's the one of the hardest things I have ever done, harder than the hospital, harder than being in that box, harder even than standing in the kitchen the day you left holding your ring in my fist and wondering how it came to be the only part of you that still belonged to me. This is harder, because I am reliving every moment of it all at once. And I'm doing it for you, because you have a right to know what happened to us. Because although it was you that left, I know it takes two to destroy a relationship and I had my part too. Because you are sitting there, looking like you have stopped breathing, listening to me with pure incomprehension and hurt glittering in your eyes.
I tell you about our arguments; the ones about work, the ones about what we did at the weekend, the ones about your family but especially about mine, the ones where we always came back to the same things, when you would call me predictable and I would call you irresponsible. You once told me I was boring, and you knew it hurt me, so I said you were ridiculous and that you should grow up. I'll never forget your face when I said that. I didn't mean it, I had said it because I knew it was the one thing that would really cut you, and in that moment I had wanted to cut you, but only because I was angry. Words, though, once exchanged, were impossible to take back.
At the same time, I want, desperately, to tell you that I still loved you through all of it, and that I would have done anything to make you stay. But I don't. I keep the words in my mouth, bite down hard on them, because I know that they won't help. All they will do now is confuse you.
I tell you that we stopped apologising after we fought, but just carried on as if nothing had happened, but it didn't work like that. We were drifting, and you jumped.
"Why would I do that? Why didn't we try?" you ask in a small voice.
You look genuinely baffled and I try not to hear your question because it is one I have asked myself so many times.
I have to tell you that I don't know, because, honestly, I don't. Only you know what went through your head that day. Or rather, you did know, but now I suppose no one does. All that's left is us, looking at each other from two sides of a chasm.
We talk for a long time, trying in some way to reach across the space, but it feels impossible. I know, despite what I might have said to Warrick, that you cannot want what I want, or you would never have left in the first place. I'm still talking when I realize you haven't said anything in a while, and when I look over at you, you are asleep, curled into the back of your favourite chair. I've lost count of how many times you have fallen asleep in that chair and I've had to pull you, protesting sleepily, to your feet so you can come to bed with me. I would make sure you didn't mind too much, one way or another.
I stand and stare at you, unsure suddenly of what to do. Seeing you asleep in that chair seems like the most natural thing in the world and the most utterly wrong at once. Eventually, I cover you over with a blanket and leave you there, crawling into bed, exhausted. I never imagined that if and when you slept in this house ever again, that you would be out there and I would be in here, and that I would feel so completely empty. I want to walk out there and rouse you from your sleep, pull you gently into bed with me and know that the comfort I would feel, even if just for a little while, would take all of this away. I settle for curling myself around a cold pillow and pretending that I'm not crying. It doesn't count if you don't make a sound, you told me that once, do you remember?
XXXXX
When I leave for work you are still sleeping, and after a moment's indecision, I just leave you where you are. I don't have time to think about what that might mean.
When I unlock my door after shift, I can't help but wonder if you are still there, and I honestly don't know if I want you to be or not, but I hesitate all the same, my hand resting on the door handle for a few seconds longer than usual.
The apartment is empty, and there is no sign you were ever there apart from a neatly folded navy blue blanket sitting on the kitchen counter top. I stare at it and feel a little strange. I remember that you were always much neater than me, even though it seemed to surprise people how tidy you were. We used to have silly arguments all the time because I left my clothes on the floor and you hated it. I would tell you it was a horizontal filing system, and you would just shake your head and tell me I was a slob. You never stayed mad though, I suppose you just accepted it as part of me, like so many other things you endured for me, like football, and Johnny Cash, and talking in my sleep. I wonder, not for the first time, what it was about me that you finally could not endure.
I lean on the counter top heavily and push out the breath I am holding, slowly and deliberately. I know I'm being ridiculous, getting misty eyed over a blanket, and I grab it up and shove it back into my closet. I can't miss you, because that makes no sense. I don't miss you.
XXXXX
I don't see you at all during your first shift back, I'm out at a messy scene with multiple victims and by the time I get back to the lab, shift is almost over. I know you are around somewhere, I can feel it. I hear snatches of conversation from the lab techs as I pass, most of them are commenting on how well you look and that you seem quite happy. I want to stop them and shake them. Tell them of course you aren't happy, don't they know how well you can pretend? But I don't. I keep my mouth shut, which I know is the safest course of action when in doubt, and go to store my evidence away before I leave.
I am only mildly surprised to see you leaning against my car with your eyes closed and your headphones on. I'm tired, physically and emotionally, and I don't feel like a confrontation. You pull out your headphones and straighten up. You want to come over. You don't say why, but I know that it's not a good idea.
"Please." Your voice is louder than usual and it echoes harshly across the parking lot. "I don't want to be alone." You fiddle with your cuffs. They're too long, and hang down over your fingers.
I shake my head and get into the car, not looking at you. Certainly, I'm not thinking about when you used to wait for me just like this, when we first started out, when we were a secret and could not leave work together. Most nights I would walk out of the lab to find you leaning against my car, just like you are now. Flashing me that secret smile that promised so much. Sometimes you would be hiding behind my car, crouched down next to the front wheel and grinning, having ducked down to avoid being seen by Grissom or Warrick or anyone else who might put two and two together with any success.
I used to laugh at you when you jumped into the passenger seat and crouched below window-level, even when there was no one left to hide from, just because you knew it made me smile. I'm starting to hate the fact that everything you are doing recently is reminding me of something you used to do when we loved each other. Maybe you haven't changed as much as I think you have.
Sometimes I think you can read my mind, and I wish you couldn't, because for some reason you have a small smile on your lips and then you're slipping around the side of the car, ducking into the passenger seat and bending at the waist, clutching your bag on your knees. I stare at you for a moment, because you're laughing. I can't remember the last time I saw you laugh, and it pokes at a sore spot inside me. You look up at me from between your fingers, your dark eyes dancing and there's that smile that I pretend I don't think about when I'm alone. I'm breathless, suddenly, because the years fall away from you in that moment, and you're Greg Sanders – DNA Tech, Greg Sanders – crazy lab rat that I can't keep my eyes from. You're the Greg Sanders that was mine. I feel inexplicably exhilarated. I forget, momentarily, that I'm supposed to be keeping you at arm's length, because I'm grinning at you in a way that the pull on the tight skin around my mouth tells me I have neglected for a long time.
You straighten up slowly, clicking your seatbelt into place, and I don't stop you.
"Do you think anyone saw us?" you stage-whisper with faked anxiety, unable to stop one small corner of your mouth lifting slightly.
"No, G, I think we're good."
I register the use of the name at the same time as you do. You lift one eyebrow briefly and my heart speeds up a little. Am I flirting with you? Are you flirting with me? In that one moment, I appreciate the irony of covertly flirting with my own ex-husband in my car outside the place where we both work. I start the car just for something to do with my hands while I think. You aren't looking at me any more. Your eyes are shut and your head is tilted back onto the headrest. I watch the way your eyelashes rest against your pale skin, the darkness of one throwing the lightness of the other into sharp relief. I tear my eyes back to the road. I don't mind admitting when I'm utterly confused. You're sad, scared, flirtatious, vulnerable and excitable, and you have been all of these within the last five minutes. I'm not sure if I'm petrified, angry or turned on. Just drive. I take deep breaths and wonder if you are actually sleeping or just none-too-subtly avoiding conversation.
When I park up, you open your eyes and follow me languidly inside. You assume your position in the red armchair and your eyes light up when you see that I'm already passing you the phone. I look down at it, startled, as you take it out of my hand gently and punch in a familiar number. I do that without thinking, and it scares me a little, because I slip into this role, whatever it is, so easily, and you...you just fit right there, sitting in the chair. One leg curled around you and one tucked up to your chest, chatting away to some restaurant employee like they are an old friend. Knowing your eating habits, they probably are.
So many nights, we did this. We gave up trying to cook quite early on, and you always did the ordering because we both knew I would eat anything. I'm not sure what we're doing here, but it feels nice, and scary, and I don't know if you're here because you want me, or because you're lonely, or because you don't know what else to do.
We don't talk about that though, and we don't talk about last night. You sit in your chair – it is your chair, whatever I tell myself, because I never sit in it – and I sprawl out on the couch, and we talk about nothing and everything, until I'm just mumbling, and I let my eyes close.
When I open them, it's light outside and there are empty chinese cartons everywhere. You are curled into a ball and snoring gently. I'm confused for a moment because I smile and get up, crouching down in front of you to brush lips against your skin, sleepily amazed at how content I feel. When I'm half an inch from your face, close enough to smell you, I remember with a sickening jolt that this is not the scene of cosy domesticity my sleep-addled brain is trying to tell me it is. I freeze. I'm here, and you're here, but you aren't mine. I can't kiss you. Nor do I have any business being anywhere near this close to you. I draw away, catching my breath, and retreat to my bedroom as quickly as I can on unsteady feet. I flop down on my back and cover my face with my hands.
What the hell am I doing? What are you doing to me, Greg? Do you know?
XXXXX
The second morning you are there again when I walk out to my car. You say nothing this time, just pin me to the spot with your eyes. I suddenly get the impression that this is not a negotiation, at least not one that I'm going to win. Though I love all your expressions, there is a certain glance that you have that you know leaves me breathless and submissive to pretty much anything you want. You didn't use it often when we were together, perhaps not wanting to dilute the effect, and maybe also not wanting to make me feel powerless too often, because you knew that being in control made me feel safe. It always felt a little dangerous that I was in your thrall so completely, but I also knew you would never use the power I gave to you against me. You shared it with me, and to my surprise I learned that there were things I could do that reduced you to nothing but liquid eyes and breathless pleading, and it thrilled me.
I am intoxicated by your stare now and I force myself to look away. I wonder if you look at anyone else like that. We drive in silence and I can't help wondering why you don't want to go home, and where you are getting your clean clothes from when I know you have been nowhere but work and my place for a couple of days now. I don't realize I have given voice to my question until you answer me.
"I have spare clothes in my locker," you murmur, looking ahead. "I can't sleep at my place."
We don't talk like we did last night. Instead, you order Thai food and curl into the armchair, eating it slowly and watching CNN. I have no idea why you want to watch an unbroken procession of death, violence and destruction when that is what you see all day every day, but I say nothing because it seems to be soothing you somehow. In the end I put my glasses on and pick up the book I have been meaning to finish for months now. A couple of times, I catch you looking at me, feel you looking at me, but when I meet your eyes, you look away.
The silence between us hangs heavily but it is not uncomfortable, even though my heart is hammering in my chest. Everything would be right if you were sitting next to me, curled into my side, pressing kisses against my shoulder like you always would without really thinking about it. I loved those moments because I knew you were not really conscious of what you were doing, you just did it because it came naturally. You were mine, and it was written through every cell in your body. You are looking at me again, and I glance up from my book, catching my breath.
Your mouth is slightly open and your eyes are darkened, almost predatory. You haven't moved, but your expression transforms you. I find my body responding to you in a familiar, uncontrollable way and the urge to touch you is incredible. I look down for a beat, taking a deep breath, and when I meet your eyes again that look has vanished from your face, and you are sitting there regarding me with interest. Your mouth is closed and your eyes are soft and a little confused.
God.
I get up then and walk away from you. Grab the blanket from my bedroom closet and almost throw it at you. You don't know what you're doing. What you're doing to me. You're confused. Vulnerable. Sexy as hell. No!
I sit down heavily on the edge of my bed, wincing as the door slams shut behind me. What are you doing in my house, G? I can't do this, I just can't. I don't know what you want – I don't think you know what you want – but I know I can't give it to you. I block out the thought of you sitting there alone in the lounge, probably with a slightly stunned expression on your face, wondering what you did to offend me. Unless you know, and you want to do it to me. I suppress the overwhelming urge to take my frustration out on the wall, because I do not want to be that person any more.
This ends now. I'm breathing rapidly and I can feel the remnants of your gaze prickling all over my skin. I'm not thinking when my hand drifts down and I wrap shaking fingers around myself. God, I'm hard. It's almost painful. Anger, confusion, desire mixing and spiking with a frightening intensity as I move my hand faster and faster, never releasing my grip until I come hard all over my stomach. I'm not thinking of you when I feel my bittersweet release and bite down into my own forearm to muffle the sound. I'm not thinking of you at all, just in the next room. This ends now.
Tomorrow.
XXXXX
There is only one hour left on the clock when I find you alone at last. You look calm and focused, staring at the monitor in front of you, softly glowing in the relative darkness of the AV lab. You look up at me and your eyes soften. I love your eyes. I used to think I could fall into them and everything would be ok. I close mine, briefly, cutting off the connection. You know what I mean when I say:
"Please…don't."
You know, because you look confused and hurt and I want to take it back, but you nod quickly and turn back to the monitor without a word. I watch you for a moment and then slip away.
When I walk out of the building at 9am, there is no one in the parking lot but me.
- Everywhere I look, there you are -
I know that I have done the right thing in asking you to stay away, even though it doesn't feel that way right now, as I stand in the middle of the lounge, twirling my keys around my finger and fighting down the sensation that something is very wrong. It's too quiet, that's all. And too dark. The blinds are all still closed against the morning light and I move slowly from window to window, pulling them all open and letting harsh winter sun flood the space. It catches on floating dust particles wherever it touches, and I am reminded that it has been a while since I cleaned up. There never seems to be much point, it's just me, and since I no longer have you to place a cloth and a can of polish in my hands with a stern look, it rarely crosses my mind.
I sigh, casting tired eyes around the room. It really is a mess. I have left all the takeout cartons from the past two days all over the floor. Feeling a pull of sadness as I notice that all of the ones next to the red armchair – all of yours – are neatly stacked in order of size on top of your empty plate, I shake it away and start picking things up and transporting them to the kitchen. I flick on the radio and turn the volume right up in the hope that the sound will fill the space that has seemed cold and hollow since I walked through the door.
I quickly abandon my task of tidying up, having done a worse than half-assed job because I keep picking things up and staring at them, suddenly completely unable to remember where they are supposed to go. I need to focus. I wonder if you are sitting in your apartment, or if you are still at work, or maybe somewhere else with people I don't know and don't want to think about. I wonder if you are talking, or thinking, or laughing, or…I stop that thought before it begins. Either way, I'm fairly confident that you are not staring at a TV remote and trying to work out why you have brought it into your kitchen.
Focus. Right. I sit down on the couch and start leafing through some case notes I didn't get chance to look at during my shift. I try not to think about the fact that I have nothing better to do with my free time than more work, because that thought both scares and depresses me.
The victim is a 25-year-old woman found in a strip club bathroom, stabbed to death. She didn't work there and no one who does could recognize her as a customer. There is no usable trace on her body and so far, nothing to link her to the club or her killer. I know there is something we are missing, and it is somewhere here in these notes. I like that I can lose myself in a task like this, it's as though once I have stepped inside the case, nothing can pull me out unless I choose it.
You used to remark on my powers of concentration all the time; you liked to watch me when I read or watched a movie, you said, because you thought I looked so intense. You took it upon yourself as a challenge, to distract me. Your methods were varied and always interesting; sometimes successful. But if I chose to break my concentration because you were sitting in front of me on the coffee table with your shirt off, sucking fingers slowly into your mouth, that surely was not my fault.
I have been looking down at the file without seeing it for some seconds before I realize that I am thinking about you, and not about the case. In fact, momentarily, I cannot even recall the victim's name. I rest my head against the soft back of the couch and turn it slowly to rest on the armchair that has been occupied for the past few days and is now empty. If I squint my eyes against the bright light I can almost see you sitting there, curled into a small ball and wrapping noodles around a fork. But that's ridiculous, of course. That dull, compressed feeling inside my ribcage, that's just because I'm tired, not because I'm missing you. You do not live here, you have not lived here for almost a year. Three nights sleeping in an armchair while I lie awake in our bedroom does not give me the right to miss you. And yet. I squeeze my eyes shut and drop the notes onto my lap, lifting hands to drag across my face and through my hair, trying to scrape away this feeling. It makes no sense, and I prefer things to make sense.
I drag myself to my feet and stretch, letting the brown file slide to the floor and skitter across its shiny surface. I pull my shirt over my head in one swift movement and I'm collapsing, sinking, falling into the yielding softness of a chair that I have not sat in for longer than I care to remember, a chair that smells like you, your unique scent seemingly embedded into every strand of fabric that brushes, drags roughly across my bare skin. I sprawl there for a minute or two, breathing deeply, turning my head into the back of the chair and sliding work-tense fingers underneath overstuffed cushions. I feel surrounded. Warm. God, I wish you were here.
I let go then, let go of my control because there is no one here but me. I have become skilled at missing you over the months, or more accurately, I have become skilled at pretending not to miss you. If I do not have to look at the photographs or mementos or anything of yours, it is easier not to miss you. I thought that my systematic removal from sight of anything that reminded me of you was bullet-proof, but the last five minutes has taught me that I can be reduced to a rusting, aching tangle by a few empty food boxes and a garish, tatty piece of furniture.
When I let myself feel it, the pain that floods my body is horrific and I close my eyes tightly against it. The initial shock of losing you, dulled slightly over time until it was bearable, has been sharpened and freshened by your unexpected return to what was once our space. It draws fresh blood and slides along wounds that were slowly starting to heal, opening them too. Again I am reminded of the decision I made by your bedside, to tell you the truth and then walk away, because letting you slip back into my life could only hurt both of us, when you remembered. I know it was the right decision, but familiarity is comfort, and the fact that I desperately need that right now has me reaching for the phone. I punch in your number without really thinking about it, just wanting to hear your voice. I cut off the call before you pick up and throw the phone to the far end of the couch, where it bounces twice and then comes to a standstill.
I am looking out for you too, Greg, when I draw this circle around myself. None shall pass. I have to be the strong one here, because I can remember how much this hurt, how we almost destroyed each other. If I can just keep you on the outside of the circle until you remember, and then you will be able to draw one of your own to keep you safe.
XXXXX
The days and nights pass with frightening speed, so much so that I start to feel disoriented, like I'm flailing within my own routine. The only thing that seems to anchor me is when I come home after work and press myself into the long-abandoned chair that still smells a little like you. The first time I fall asleep there I feel strange and a little ashamed, but in all honesty I'm relieved that I have slept at all. I know that my struggle is starting to show on my face and, Catherine tells me, in the way I hold myself. She also tells me I look older since what happened to you, and though I roll my eyes and tell her where to get off, I know she is concerned for me and I also know that she is right. I still know where you hide your coffee at work, and feel only the smallest sliver of guilt that I use this fact to my advantage in my fight to stay conscious.
I actively avoid you at first, a lot like I did in the first few weeks after you left. If you are in a room or a lab, then I am not in it, unless we are working a case together. Grissom, to his credit, does not assign us to the same case unless he absolutely has no other choice. He knows that things have taken a painful turn in our personal relationship, and he is not naïve enough to assume that it will not impact on our professional one, despite that fact that we had learned, slowly and painfully, to work together over the past year. He understands that, for now at least, all of that is undone.
I'm secretly pleased that you are allowed to carry on as normal, despite what has happened. You worked so hard and sacrificed so much to be a CSI, and I know how much it would devastate you to have that taken away. Only our inner circle know the full extent of the damage you sustained from the beating. About the memory loss. Grissom knows because he is your boss, and it is his business to know. Sara knows because she is your best friend, and you certainly need someone to talk to about all this. Warrick knows because I need someone to talk to as much as you do, and Catherine knows because Warrick knows. And because I have never been able to hide anything from her as long as we have known each other. She was the first to guess about you and me. The first to ask the awkward questions, and the first to hug us both with genuine pleasure when she was allowed into our secret.
Everyone else at the lab just sees how your bruises have healed, and that you are back to charming and flirting and making jokes. The few of us that really know you see the sadness behind your smiles and the hollow ring to your voice. You look exhausted this week. There are dark circles under your eyes and your skin is so pale it is almost translucent. You said you could not sleep at your apartment and by the looks of it, you were not exaggerating. I hope I'm not responsible for your appearance, but it's useless because I already know the answer to that.
Sara is sitting beside me at the break room table when she brings it up, at last. I have been waiting for her to say something for several minutes, because she is pursing her lips and knitting her eyebrows together with the effort of keeping her thoughts in her head.
"He misses you, you know," she blurts at last, looking at the table.
"He's confused."
I don't want to play this game with her, but I also don't want to snap, because none of this is her fault.
"He's not stupid, Nick."
I know I snarl a little, then, because I resent the implication. I don't need anyone to tell me that you are not stupid. You are the smartest person I know, much smarter than I could ever be. I think you even have the edge on Grissom, though you used to laugh and push me away when I said that. Sara should know me better than that, and I tell her so.
"He's vulnerable, if nothing else, and confused," I add, unable to keep the edge out of my voice.
Sara sighs and looks at me as though I'm an unstable suspect.
"He doesn't remember being apart from you. He remembers being with you. Being happy. Of course he misses you. Have you seen how he looks this week?"
Her words hang, accusingly, in the air and I push my chair back and stand up, moving out from under her oppressive gaze.
Of course I have seen you. When you are anywhere near me I have tunnel vision. My world closes down to nothing but you. I want to look at you…god…it wrenches at me to look away, but if I am to keep you outside my circle, I have no choice. I apologise, because I know Sara is trying to help in her usual awkward way, and walk straight out into Grissom. I nod professionally when he tells me that you and I are working a scene together, resisting the urge to ask why Sara cannot do it.
"Sara is helping me with an experiment," he replies, catching me out as my eyes slide to the break room door for a split second.
"Right."
I take the slip from him, a little roughly, and walk away.
XXXXX
We work the scene in near-silence, both absorbed in our separate tasks. I am surprised by the comfortableness of it, and I look up more than once from what I'm doing to watch you snapping photographs from various angles. I know I'm not supposed to be looking at you but I'm also thinking about what Sara said, and I suppose I like that you miss me, if you do. It doesn't mean you want me back or even that you love me, but to be missed is a nice feeling. It's validation, of nothing else, that I once meant something to you.
I'm feeling relatively calm when I hear your dull groan and the clatter as you drop your camera. I know you have found something unpleasant and instinct tells me it is a second body. My suspicions are confirmed when I look over your shoulder, though I get no satisfaction from being right. The victim is young, maybe fifteen or sixteen, and is a mess of cuts and scars. You pull out your phone to call David, and as you leave the room your hand brushes across my shoulders. Your touch is so light that I am not entirely sure I didn't imagine it, but I wonder if you do it because you know I need support in that moment.
We are in that house for hours. It is unrelenting, even after the second body has been processed and taken away, there seems to be a sense of bleak despair that hangs over the scene, more so than usual. The CSI in me is grateful that there is so much evidence to collect, because every fingerprint and fibre will bring us closer to catching the killer, but I'm tired. Not just in my bones and my aching muscles but somewhere deeper that no one can touch or soothe away. Life is unfair, and death is senseless, and more often than not I do not understand any of it.
Shift is over when we return to the lab, and the day techs are already setting up as I walk slowly to the locker room to collect my bag and coat. I do not know where you are, and I am not thinking any more.
When I reach my car, head down, feeling like I'm carrying the whole world on my back, you are there. It's almost like a silent agreement; that you know I need you and you know I cannot ask. Guilty relief floods me. You can read me, you always could, except towards the end, and I think you chose to stop reading me, you never lost the ability.
You have showered and your hair is damp. There is a small, wet patch of shirt sticking against your chest; it's a white shirt and turns transparent where it flattens damply to your skin, just above the nipple, that warm expanse of smooth skin I used to love to kiss. When I drag my eyes away, they settle on the way your hair, darkened by water, is starting to curl around your ears. You look different from earlier. You still look tired but there is a glow to your skin that was absent before. Softer, calmer, not quite vulnerable but open somehow. I know by looking at you that you demand nothing of me right now, you are just there, and you wait. Your presence lifts me, in spite of myself. I realize that I do not want to have a discussion about it, and besides, the words are stuck in my throat. I unlock the car and you get in beside me without comment.
XXXXX
You watch me over the top of your coffee cup as I cook breakfast. I maintain that what we eat after shift is breakfast, because it's morning, but you always tell me that doesn't make sense. That mealtimes are dependent on your...our...rhythm, not the rest of the world's. That Chinese takeout for breakfast would be unspeakably wrong, but to eat it at ten in the morning and call it dinner is just fine.
I smile without thinking as I stir the pan and I remind you of this. There are actually a couple of things I can make that do not result in disaster or major diplomatic incident, and spaghetti is one of them. You watch me as if I am performing a magic trick and laugh softly at my remark.
We sit, by mutual agreement, out on the fire escape and eat. You look out over the neighbourhood from three floors up and do not say much. When we talk it's not about us, but about everyone else we know mutually. We talk about Warrick and Catherine, and Sara and Grissom. We talk about Hodges and Ecklie and everyone who has come and gone over the years we have been at the crime lab. The ones who left, and the ones who stayed, and the ones that allowed a family to build around them. It's more than just a job for you as well as me, and you understand how I love it and hate it in equal measure, because you see and feel those things too. We are sitting right next to each other though not touching, squinting against the midday sun, and just for a moment I'm pleased you're here, whatever your reasons are.
Suddenly your hand is on my shoulder and I jump at the heat, turning to you to ask what you are doing but then I feel pressure and realize that you're bracing against me to stand up, and your hand leaves my shoulder after just a couple of seconds as you straighten up and stretch your arms over your head luxuriously. I follow the hem of your shirt for a moment as it rides up, grazing your stomach, then look away. You don't seem to notice, or if you do you don't comment.
"Gonna catch a couple of hours, I think..." you half yawn, half mumble, eyes closing.
I nod silently and as you climb back through the window, I turn away to look out at the sky again. I try not to think about what this means for my circle. I'm exhausted, and all I can think of is that some things never change. It is still so easy to love you, it's as though I was born to do it. I'm too tired to think about your intentions or what you do or don't remember at this point. You haven't tried to get close to me or said anything specific but you are here, and that is both frightening and incredibly comforting. I go inside and wonder why you have chosen, again, to sleep in the arm chair when the couch is much bigger and would allow you to stretch out. You are already under the blanket, I suppose because I still keep things where you used to put them. You were right, I am predictable.
For the first time in days I climb into bed and fall asleep straight away.
XXXXX
Time is an interesting concept. Four weeks ago, I was flailing in the discomfort of my shattered and rearranged life. What is happening now is frightening in its security and unsettling in its newness. After that morning when our silent agreement led you back to our house, we both slept soundly, woke around 9pm and went to work.
There was no explicit communication between us agreeing it, but we have developed a routine. We drive to work in my car. After shifts, I find you waiting for me in the parking lot, though you do not hide from me or anyone else these days. We eat, talk, laugh and watch television, you curled in your chair and me in my usual position on the leather couch. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of mornings when you have not been there when I walk out of the lab, and those days I am on edge. I sit in your chair when you are not there and pretend to myself that I am not worried about where you are. When you turn up at the door some time later I open it and say nothing as you walk past me into the kitchen, wordlessly making the coffee that was always your responsibility.
You are still sleeping in that chair. I have stopped asking if you are sleeping ok and if you wouldn't rather sleep on the couch, because I'm aware that I sound like your mother, and because you are perfectly within your rights to sleep wherever you want. It seems to be agreeing with you, at any rate, because you look good these days. Really good, actually. You are starting to sparkle again, and it warms me to see it. Other people are noticing too. You have started wearing some of your old clothes again, your loud colours and flamboyant patterns. Sara cannot help but comment, surprise in her voice. And I thought she knew you better than anyone.
"I looked in my closet and there was a frightening amount of brown in there," you explain, your grin self-effacing and genuine as I watch you from the other side of the break room. "Why did no one tell me?"
I notice the way you dress. You mix your old, wild clothes with your newer, more conservative ones, and it is a good look on you. Such a good look, in fact, that staring is fast becoming a problem for me.
It has been a long time since you went back to your own place for longer than a few minutes to check your messages and pick things up. I have got used to seeing your things in my space again. Your hair products have taken over my bathroom. I notice that they seem to have multiplied and proliferated in their year-long absence. There are more pairs of sneakers than anyone should have piled up behind the door to the apartment. Your coffee is in my cupboard and your CDs are stacked on my shelf.
For all intents and purposes, you are living in my house. Our house. Whatever it is or is not, you have become a fixture again, and though I am secretly thrilled to have you here, I am constantly on edge, waiting for you to leave. Your behaviour confuses me, because still sometimes you look at me in a way that is so filled, saturated with meaning, that I feel myself lose control a little. Other times you just look lost and afraid.
Your own mind is playing games with you. I know this because in one, rare, vulnerable moment you tell me, in a whisper, that you are not sure which memories are real and which are just images pulled from your nightmares. Your eyes are huge and dark with fear when you tell me this, that I cannot resist the pull to hold you, just for a few seconds, hoping fervently that there is some comfort I can offer you in that brief moment before the contact would cross the line that I cannot cross, even though I so desperately want to.
I let you stay because I understand about not wanting to be alone after an event that turns your world upside down. I don't know what I would have done without you around me constantly after I came out of that box. I didn't need to worry about it, because you were just there. You were there when I woke up yelling from nightmares, there when I lost it taking a shower because the glass walls suddenly reminded me of that place I never wanted to return to, there when I couldn't get to sleep because I was terrified of where I would wake up. You were just there, your voice and eyes and touch tentative and yet firm, reassuring but unyielding in keeping a hold of me, not letting me slide uncontrollably into my own fear, reminding me that you loved me and that we were going to get through this.
When I look back, I see how much I pushed you away and how much I retreated into myself and the safe, comfortable routines that made me feel secure. Risk was a four letter word because I did not think I could stand to lose anything more. You tolerated all that, all of the nights when I would not let you even touch me. The nights I did not sleep, I know you didn't either. We got through all of that and I lost you anyway. Yes, I know about fear, and I want to keep you close, keep you safe, even if that's all I can do.
Sometimes I catch you with that fearful cast to your eyes and I know you are thinking about it, and I know you look over your shoulder when you are in your car at night. I catch you looking at me sometimes with a similar look in your eyes and I wonder if that is what is hurting you more – the trying to wrap your head around what happened to us. We still haven't discussed it since that first night, I'm afraid to because...the way you looked when I told you how we ended...I never, ever want to see you look that way again.
The rational part of me knows that it can't spend forever being the elephant in the room, and during brief moments I find it almost amusing that two grown men can live together in a house that was once theirs, one in the bed and one on a chair, doing almost everything that a couple would do. Never mentioning that they are not together, or why they are not. I want to ask you what you remember now, because I know other things are coming back, like some of the cases you worked during the last year, and the trip you and Sara took to California last summer. I don't ask, though. I let you stay because I love you, but in order to let you stay and still fulfill my need for self-preservation, I must not think about the fact that I love you. To be honest, I'm exhausted with it all, but I don't let you know.
On good days, I smile genuinely at you on the drive to work and pass no comment when you put on godawful music and turn the sound right up. I look forward to our time after shift, talking about nothing in particular, and in some ways it feels like it almost might be enough for me, this strange arrangement we have. On bad days, everything you do makes me want you and I cannot stand it. I find terror and desire a dangerous combination and on bad days, I like to take refuge somewhere neutral.
Today is a very bad day.
I don't go to Warrick's place because his wife scares the crap out of me, and he's hardly ever there. I go to Catherine's, because nine times out of ten it's Warrick that opens the door anyway.
"What is it this time?" he asks, quirking one eyebrow as I stand on the doorstep knowing I look flustered and a little ashamed.
"He's eating ice cream," I say, and ignore the expression of tolerant derision that flits across his face as he lets me in.
You should not be able to do that to me. I couldn't take my eyes off your mouth, because you eat ice cream like you're giving head, and I don't know how, but I had forgotten that. As I watched you the sheer force of my desire shocked me. I had to get out of there before I did something stupid, like kiss you until you couldn't breathe, or push you back onto the table and take you in my mouth, feeling you grow hard under my tongue, uncompromising until I felt your release spurt warmly down my throat. I have to get that out of my head right now.
Catherine takes one look at my face and shoots Warrick a stern glance. We sit on her sofa in a row like three wise monkeys, me in the middle, all staring straight ahead at the wall. I smile inwardly at the image, because when it comes to love, wisdom is something all three of us are lacking in.
Me, I'm hiding from you, the man that's somehow living in my house, because despite everything, I want you so much it horrifies me, and at the moment I have no idea what you want. You seem to want to be near me, but who knows what that means. I have run away to sit on my friend's couch and not think about how I want to lick chocolate-cherry-crunch off your tongue and tell you that I love you. Because I know that either result would be disastrous.
Warrick is here, hiding from his wife with the person he should have been with all along.
Catherine is letting him, because doing so soothes the part of her that shattered when he married Tina.
None of us are qualified to advise each other, and I suppose that's why we give and hear and accept the advice anyway.
Catherine asks me what I'm going to do, and I have to admit that I don't know. I am honest with her, and I tell her that even though you haven't said so, I think maybe you want me back and I don't know what to do with that. She knows it is all I ever wanted while we were apart, but now, faced with the reality, I know I cannot accept it like this.
How can you make a decision on your future when part of your past is missing? It's becoming more and more like torture, having you in my space all the time at home, though you seem to keep your distance at work where possible. I wonder if that's anything to do with the fact that I rarely seem to be allowed to go anywhere nowadays without a Willows/Brown task force flanking me. I suspect they have some sort of agreement to watch out for me, and though I appreciate the thought, I can't help but wonder what they think I am going to do if left to my own devices.
I have maintained my self control at home, and that's where you are doing things like eating ice cream, and walking around after a shower with just a towel wrapped around your waist. You used to do that a lot because you knew I liked it. Knew I could never resist touching you when your skin was damp and warm and you smelled like lemon shower gel and toothpaste and that smell that is just what you smell like when you're wet. More than once, I remember you climbing out onto the fire escape, wearing only your towel and standing there drinking your coffee.
The one I remember best was a winter morning, and it was too cold for you to be out there but you didn't care, you said the sun was warm, even though it wasn't. I stood inside and watched the wind making all your hairs stand on end and your nipples harden, lifting damp curls from the back of your neck. You turned to smile at me and in an instant I was out there with you, pressing my chest against your back and wrapping you tightly in my arms, trying to keep you warm, not caring that you were wet and I was fully clothed.
When you walked into the kitchen yesterday like that, dripping and leaving a cloud of steam behind you, I was transported instantly and I had to turn away and not look at you, my fingers itching to trace your clean skin. You did not comment, just reached across me to grab a mug for your coffee, and I wish I knew for sure if you were doing it on purpose. Not that it matters what you are trying to do, because it isn't a good idea. I have hurt too much to let you in when you don't even know what you want. Maybe you're just responding to the instinct that tells you that you want to touch me. I know it always felt instinctive with you; we just knew how to touch each other. After five years it thrilled me to know every spot on your body that I could use to make you crazy, and I would, just to hear the sounds you made and the look in your eyes and know that I was doing that. Me.
I'm trying so hard not to think about things like that because this situation is painful enough without having to endure it with a permanent hard-on.
I realize that I need to go home, much as I would rather stay here on the safety of Catherine's couch, because I've been gone over two hours, and the last thing I need is you thinking that I had to leave my own house because of the way you were sucking a frozen dessert off a spoon. Even though that's true.
"You need to talk to him," says Catherine as she hugs me goodbye. I make a noncommittal sound and open the door.
"You know what, man...some things happen for a reason."
This is Warrick's parting shot and I think about it all the way home, turning it over and over in my head.
Does he mean that you and I ended for a reason so to stop thinking about it?
Does he mean that you are back in my life for a reason and to figure out what that is?
Does he mean that what happened to you was for a reason? To give us another chance, to try again?
I park up and walk slowly up the stairs to our apartment. My apartment. The apartment. It doesn't matter anyway, because soon you are going to leave, and then things can go back to normal. Even though this thought strikes me sharply and unpleasantly somewhere deep inside, I do not explore it, just push the door open. You are asleep on the chair and have kicked your blankets onto the floor. I stoop to retrieve them and cover you over without thinking. You look so uncomplicated when you sleep. I used to like to watch you, finding comfort in the rise and fall of your chest, knowing you were breathing. I blink and hurriedly tuck the blanket in whilst trying not to touch you, but your skin is warm and it sends a shiver up my arm.
My bed is cold and I can feel every wrinkle in the sheets beneath me. I don't try to sleep, just lie there on my back, cataloguing each crack in the ceiling and try to calm the torrent swirling in my gut.
I must have fallen asleep eventually because I open my eyes and I sense it is quite some time later, though I can't see the clock. I swear I can feel once-familiar prickle on the back of my neck that tells me you are close, watching me. I wonder if that is what woke me, but I know you cannot be watching me. Why would you be watching me? I stay as still as I can, my back to the door, and screw my eyes up tightly. When I hear the soft creak in the hallway, I tell myself it's my imagination.
Until I hear it again, and my eyes fly open. I roll over to see you standing in the doorway, outlined by shadow. It must be mid afternoon, but the blackout blinds ensure that I cannot see you clearly. I can see that you are only half dressed and that your stance is hesitant, legs slightly apart and one hand resting on the doorframe. I can see your eyes, and the look in them that is so familiar that it draws my breath from me in a low groan. My thought process slows to a standstill as long seconds slide by and I stare back at you.
– Push me, and watch me break for you -
You stand frozen, fingers gripping the painted wood of the doorframe now, your reaction to my involuntary moan cutting across your face and ensuring that I cannot drag my eyes away from you. Your whole body is stiff, coiled, with emotion – I cannot decide if it is fear or anticipation – but whatever it is has taken control of you. The tension hums in the air and I wonder, through the fog circling in my head, which of us will be the first to break it. I am half-lying, half sitting now, propped up on my elbows, tension restricting my breathing. I keep my eyes on your face, because it's beautiful, ethereal, and because I think I know what I will see if I only dare to look for your body's physical reaction to me. I'm not feeling daring right now, I'm feeling petrified. Exhilarated. Breathless.
It amazes me how I can go from utter confusion to complete certainty in a heartbeat, when it comes to you. I suppose it's because sometimes you are the man I knew and loved for all those years, and I understand you, even if I often cannot predict your next move; the rest of the time you are a new person, a new Greg Sanders that I am unfamiliar with, and he is the person that unnerves me the most. I am grateful that I do not have to think about why that is, for the moment, because you have let go of the doorframe and you are walking, slowly, gracefully towards the bed.
I am the one frozen to the spot now, because you are standing right next to the bed, looking down on me, and suddenly, I have never been more afraid. My discomfort is exaggerated by the fact that you are standing over me – reflecting the balance of power between us in this moment. This moment in which you have walked right into the centre of the only space in the apartment that does not contain any of your things. The only room that you have not entered, by mutual silent agreement, since you started living here again.
This room, by definition that it was once ours, is now mine. It has become my place to retreat to when this whole thing gets too much. My space to secretly lie down, close my eyes and remember how things were. In this room, I thought I was in control, but my trembling hands, hidden behind my back, tell me that I am not. Conflict rages in the pit of my stomach as I try to steady myself. You gave up your right to have power over me in within these four walls. You gave it up when you walked out, and the thing is…I am ashamed, frightened and thrilled that all you have to do to take it back from me is stand there.
Your arms hang limply by your sides and your eyes pin me to the bed, making me feel incapable of moving or even breathing outside of the low, shallow gasps that drew you into the room in the first place. Not knowing what you are going to do is intoxicating, and I feel unsteady with it.
I want you out of my room. I want you back in the armchair where you belong. I want you in your own apartment where I cannot see or hear you. I want you to stop looking at me like that.
I want you.
My entire body is alive with it as your eyes travel over every bit of my exposed skin, and the feeling that floods my veins as you lean closer to me and I prepare to relinquish my control – that feeling is relief. I didn't expect to feel relief. I had anticipated fear, regret, pain and a myriad of other negative emotions, but relief was never on my list. You are closer now and it's only a matter of time before you are touching me, and once you have done that, your strong, slender fingers curling around my wrist or threading into my hair, you know I will be lost.
Do you even realise how you are able to do this?
This is my final coherent thought as the mattress shifts next to me and you are sitting down on the edge of the bed, achingly close. You are not touching me yet, but the sheer amount of heat pouring from your skin ensures that you do not need to. You look away, unexpectedly, dropping your eyes. I watch your fingers twist nervously around each other as your hands rest on your bare knees. I feel an unfamiliar pull in my chest to see those slender fingers clench and shake, because I'm accustomed to seeing them so confident when you used to touch me, so sure when lifting prints or handling dangerous chemicals. There is nothing sure about your posture now, I realize, now that you are close enough to touch. It feels as though if you looked at me, you might just break and shatter into a thousand pieces, and I am conscious that the power no longer rests in your hands. It is not in mine either, but free-floating around the room, daring one of us to reach out and grab it. To use it to close this tiny but impossible distance between us.
"Hey," I whisper, finally, and watch you gulp hard and close your eyes.
A strange thought occurs to me, maybe for the first time, and though I try to brush it away, it persists. Could it be that I am somehow fucking with your head, heart and body as much as you are fucking with mine? I had not thought it possible, that I could retain any sort of power over you, and yet the evidence is sitting right in front of me, looking for all the world like all you need is to crawl into my arms like you used to. Feeling inexplicably like I am about to make the biggest mistake of all, I ask you, carefully, what you are doing here.
"Can't sleep," you state simply.
"I was asleep."
"I know. I'm sorry."
It feels as though you want to say something else, but you fall silent. Still, you do not look at me, and I gaze uselessly at your shadowy profile, lingering on the soft outline of your lips, slightly parted to release hesitant breaths, and your spidery eyelashes that flutter weightlessly as though you are fighting a constant battle between opening and closing your eyes. I both want and fear those eyes on me.
I can smell you this close up, and it drives me insane. You still wear the same cologne you wore when we met, and after all of this time, it is a smell that is just purely you. It changes subtly, depending, almost, on your mood, mellowing or sharpening according to whether you are excited or subdued, cold or warm. Your nervousness floods my nostrils, snaring all of my senses, shooting unwelcome and inappropriate electricity to my cock. We have to get out of this room, immediately, because whether you know it or not, you are looking down at my protective chalk circle and reaching out to smudge its edges with fingers that do not tremble or hesitate. I know what those fingers can do. There is a whisper inside my head, gently but insistently urging me.
'Talk to him'. It is Catherine's voice, and it does not belong here with us.
In one swift and less than graceful movement, I throw back my sheets and swing my legs onto the floor, relieved to feel cool floorboards under my feet and to take just a moment with my back to you to gather myself.
"Coffee," I hear myself announce to the room as I stride out of it, hoping I sound more confident than I feel. I do not turn to see if you are following me, or if you have looked up, but head straight for the kitchen. Something catches my attention as I walk past the living room, something I do not place immediately but simply pile on top of the tangle of uncertainty seething behind my eyes. I am halfway into the kitchen before I unravel it and stop dead, resting hands on the doorframe for a split second before turning slowly and retracing my steps.
I stare at your chair. It is lighter in here; you never did care much for the blackout curtains. You liked to feel the sun on your face. It was a constant battleground when we slept together. You would slip out of bed when you thought I was asleep and tug the curtains open. Sometimes I would bite my lip and just allow you to slide back into my arms, even though it meant I could not sleep. Other times I would open one eye and demand that you closed them again. You always did, too, when I asked, and the next time you did it I would pretend to be asleep again. It is easy for me to forget the small, insignificant sacrifices we made for each other every day. There were many of them, and the recollection feels like tiny pinpricks against my skin.
Pinpricks that intensify into a prodding, reaching sensation as my fuddled brain registers what I am looking at. Your blanket is draped over one arm of the chair and the rough, red cushions are flattened in places from the weight of your body as you tried to sleep. It is not that, though, that draws my eyes. It is the creased blue garment that is spread untidily across the seat and back of the chair; wrinkled and stretched from being slept on, pinned under or wrapped around your body. I recognise it immediately as mine, because you bought it for me. It is a soft, fine knit zip-up sweater that you gave me a couple of years ago, back when you were still attempting to get me into colours other than black. Despite my eye-rolling at the time, it is a favourite, even now, and I now realise why I have not seen it in my wardrobe for some time.
I lean on the back of the sofa for a moment, fingers gripping reassuringly worn leather, and fight down the flood of questions about why you would want to sleep with my sweater, because those same questions are stinging my eyes. It is nothing, and it is everything, and I wish I had not seen it, because it makes it so much harder to go on telling myself that you do not love me.
"Doesn't really smell like you any more," you say suddenly, and I know you are standing right behind me. How do you always know exactly what I'm thinking? You have lost none of your intuition. Your words make me stand up a little straighter and my heart is hammering. "You left it on the back of the couch…a couple of weeks ago, and I…" Your voice grows softer with every word until it fades completely.
Slowly, I turn to face you and sweep my eyes over you from head to foot with a confidence that takes me by surprise. Fuelled by nothing other than your unanticipated vulnerability. I register the subtle flush to your cheeks, your downcast eyes and the way you are wrapping one hand around the opposite upper arm in a defensive, self-soothing manner. You bite your lip gently and I realise that I have not seen you do that in a long time. It is a tell of yours, an expression of rare submission. Something you would do, unconsciously, before asking me to…I throw the barriers up in front of that thought immediately, and head pounding, walk away and begin to open and shut kitchen cupboards with more force than is necessary. I feel you watching me, and I am also aware that what I'm doing is not only overkill but that you are having none of it. My deliberate movements scream out 'I am making coffee here, nothing more', and I am not sure who I am trying to convince; you or myself.
I am mildly surprised when I turn around with cups in both hands to find an empty room. I did not expect you to wait for me, of course, perhaps a little bit of me just hoped you would. When I feel a soft, drifting breeze lift the hair from my forehead I know exactly where you are, and I am instantly calmed by the knowledge. Plus, outside seems safer, neutral somehow, when compared to the heavy tension of the bedroom or the painful longing conjured up by the mere sight of my own clothing in the living room.
I tell myself that I am not slowly going insane, as I duck my head out of the propped-open window and manoeuvre myself out onto the fire escape without spilling a drop of hot coffee. It is a practised action, worn smooth by years of using the utilitarian metal structure as our makeshift balcony. There is just enough space for two to stand, or to sit, if they do not mind sitting in very close proximity, which we never did. You tried on numerous occasions to persuade me to have sex out here, and though I found it difficult in the extreme to refuse you, it was…is…a little too public for me. Anyone could see from the street and I suspect that was what excited you about it.
You are standing now, leaning out and breathing in deeply. You open your eyes and accept the steaming cup, wrapping steadier fingers around the handle. It is later than I first thought, because now the sky is streaked with orange and gold, and there is enough of a chill in the air to make the soft hairs on your forearms to stand on end.
"I always liked it out here," you smile. The tension has melted from your face. "Remember when Mrs Khan's dogs got out?"
I do remember, and I lean out next to you, smirking. I remember that you stood in that exact spot and laughed helplessly until you had a coughing fit. I remember that I watched you from the window and waited patiently for you to regain control of your breathing and tell me what was so funny. You laugh like you don't care who hears you, and it is infectious.
Remember. Remember when Mrs Khan's dogs got out? You do. That happened during our last few months together. We still laughed, even then. And you remember. I am unsure whether it is a memory you never lost, or one of the ones you have had to reclaim over the last few weeks. The urge to ask, to bring up what has become the unmentionable, is intense.
What do you remember, Greg?
Greg. After the initial incongruence, it has become more and more comfortable to call you simply that. At first I thought it was my way of trying to create some distance between us, but now…I'm not sure why but I am starting to like the way it feels on my tongue. Of all the names I have for you, it is sticking, and your reaction to it has altered. These days you just look at me, slightly askew, and I burn to ask you what you are thinking, because you have the smallest, twitchiest smile on your lips and it intrigues me.
"Greg," I mutter, experimentally, and it isn't until I feel your pause that I realise you have been talking.
"…shouldn't really keep dogs indoors anyway, it's not very humane. She had all of those little – god, what were they called? You know, like rats on a string? Nick?" You arch an eyebrow at me, and I know you have caught me not listening. I make what I hope is an encouraging sound and you continue:
"I can't remember. About the name of that dog, I mean. I remember…" you sigh, frustrated, and then change tack abruptly. "My therapist says I need to talk about what I remember. With you."
I cannot keep the surprise from my voice, and it is a welcome if temporary distraction from the fact that you have just acknowledged the unspeakable. "You're seeing a shrink?"
"A therapist," you correct, dark eyes mocking gently.
I try to think of when that could have happened. You are here all the time, or at work.
"Don't you wonder where I go when I don't come home with you? You never ask."
I nod my understanding and allow myself to swirl in a little tide of relief. Those days, when I choose not to think about where you might be. I could have asked, all along, because the answer does not cut me like I imagined it might. The relief does not last long though, because now you are going to want to talk about it. We have made an art form out of talking but not talking, you and I. This is it then. This is going to be the point at which you can tell me that you have remembered exactly why you stopped loving me, and all of a sudden, I'm not ready for it at all. I grip the cold metal bar in front of me and wait.
"Don't," you urge in a whisper, and I have no idea what you are asking me not to do until I feel the warm splash on the front of my t-shirt. I blink and sense the wet slide over dry skin, taste the salt of my own tears in my mouth. I'm crying, and you have not even said anything yet. I'm ridiculous, I know that, but then this whole situation is ridiculous. I feel as though I should be able to just click my fingers and all of this will go away like it was someone's idea of a joke. As far as I know, our worst crime was not communicating, which hardly seems bad enough to warrant this. No. In all honesty, our worst crime was throwing away what we had, and reducing each other to this. Two decent, intelligent adults. One afraid to talk and one afraid to hear.
"Nicky...please don't."
Your words are soft, and yet they rip at me and I hear a small sound of pain. It takes me a few seconds to realise that I am the one making it. You are mumbling something now, incoherent and low, and I watch your lips move, part, press together and curve. Your supple mouth, your warm dark eyes, your creased white t-shirt that isn't quite big enough for you. So close now, have you moved? Have you? Have I?
And then we are kissing, and I'm not sure how it happened, but I think I kissed you first. You respond to me like you are trying to take my pain away. It's slow and desperate, and you are pressing yourself against me so hard, as though you want to force yourself though me. I'm touching your face as I kiss you, the pads of my fingers dragging on the beginnings of stubble along your jaw line. My other hand immediately goes to the back of your head, twining fingers into soft hair that I have not touched in far too long. You taste bittersweet, like coffee, we both do. Your fingers grasp at the front of my t-shirt hard, as though any moment I might disappear. The feeling of your mouth on mine is agonisingly good and it opens up a slow ache deep inside me, stretching and uncurling, liquid heat spreading over us, catching and ripping out of control.
Your lips fit mine like puzzle pieces, just the right amount of firm and yielding, allowing me to urge them open with my own so that I can lick into your mouth and trace missed but not forgotten contours with my tongue. You moan softly into my mouth and I shiver at the sound. I allow my hands to drop down to your back, eliciting a deep shudder from you as I slide flat palms over rumpled cotton and then across warm, bare skin. It's like a long-memorised dance, that neither of us has to think about any more; that it is just understood and accepted how you will kiss me, and how I will touch you. The familiarity of the dance thrills, comforts and scares me, because I'm just melting into you and I honestly do not know how to stop myself.
I knew I would be lost if I felt your mouth against mine. Every rational, cautious thought is being pushed to the edges of my consciousness too quickly for me to be able to grab for them, to hang onto them. I'm floating, being carried by gently surging water that blurs the chalk outline around me into a haze.
The sharp trilling sound startles me, once I realise it is not in my head, and I pull away from you, trying to catch my breath. You do not let go of me, though, and your lips fall, insistently, to my neck. You have this ability, still, to pull a physical response from me with every single touch of lips or fingers on my skin. Once you have touched me, I can no longer hide from you, and the part of me that is still sentient thinks that that is why you are refusing to relinquish the contact. You are hard against my thigh, and I can feel the heat of it through the two flimsy layers between us. Your touch hurts and soothes me all at once. It has been so long that I am literally thrown off balance by the intensity of the connection we have. I stumble slightly and you tighten your grip on my clothing, sniggering warmly into my neck.
"Leave it," you whisper, assuming I am going to answer the phone.
The phone. Right. I should, I know I should, because it could be work, and it could be important. I doubt somehow that Grissom would accept this as a valid excuse for missing his call. I disentangle myself from you with some effort, and climb back through the window.
"I'm sorry, Gris, but I couldn't come to the phone because I was making out with my estranged husband," I mutter to myself, hoping the words will somehow connect me back to reality, because the way I feel right now is downright unnerving. It's as though I am watching myself from outside my body, and I do not like it one bit. "Ever so sorry, Grissom," I murmur, trying to locate the ringing before it stops, "Greg Sanders was ill-advisedly kissing me senseless, and I couldn't reach the phone."
The phone is in my hand now, and my thumb is hovering over the answer button. Your short bark of laughter from the other side of the window distracts me, and I immediately look at you. You are creased and dishevelled and flushed and you look wonderful.
"Ill-advisedly?" You arch an eyebrow and I'm not sure if you are hurt or amused but suddenly I wish you had not heard that part. I had not intended for you to hear me at all, truth be told, but as usual you do not miss a thing. "I wouldn't lead with that," you add, glancing down at the phone, which has now stopped ringing. Shit.
You do not look disappointed at all as you join me in the room and pull me into the circle of your arms before I can start to think again. I'm reaching up and rubbing my thumb along your full lower lip, the sudden darkness of your eyes drowning out all rationality. I do not know who has the power right now but it certainly is not me. Your kisses are disarming, incapacitating, and I sink. Until the phone rings again. If possible, it sounds more demanding, and I daren't ignore it. You pull back a few inches, an unchecked sound of irritation jerking from your throat.
"Stokes."
"Nick? Is everything ok? You don't sound too good."
I smile grimly and try to locate my normal voice, but with you still pressed against me, fingers tracing slow patterns down my back, it is easier said than done.
"I'm fine Gris. I was sleeping, that's all. Go ahead."
I lean against you heavily, allowing your hair to tickle my nose, unable to stop myself inhaling the distinctive chemical/citrus scent of all the stuff you put on it to make it look like you have just got out of bed. Only this time you have, sort of. Grissom is speaking to me, and I realise that I have no clue what he has just said. The last I want right now is for him to start asking close-to-the-bone questions about my lack of attention, so I cast around wildly and throw out a single question, hoping for the best.
"I've just told you where it is, Nick, are you sure you're feeling alright?"
When I do not reply, he repeats the address and I repeat it too, out loud.
"1225, Moorgate Drive," you whisper against my neck. "Sorry. I thought we were all saying it."
You pull away from me and your smile is dazzling, vital, as if kissing me has restored you somehow. Maybe it has, but even as I stand there, almost touching, grinning back at you like a lovestruck teenager, I know that this was not a good idea. As you step back and surrender the last touch, cold regret is already pooling in my stomach. Because it's so very easy to be with you, and I fell into it just like I knew I would. I also know that if I thought I felt pain before, what is coming is going to be unbearable because I lost my control. I know that I'm going to push you away again. You are looking at me now as though you are about to say something momentous, and you have my attention like you always do. Your words are cut off before they are formed, because now your phone is ringing too, a song that I do not recognise filling the room.
You answer, rolling your eyes, and I go to move away whilst your eye contact is broken, because it's the only time I can do it.
"1225, Moorgate Drive," you repeat in a sing-song voice, and of course, it's Grissom.
He did not mention your name during our conversation, or at least I don't think he did. I'm not sure if he knows you are here or not, because he never asks, and I will not volunteer the information. As though sensing my hesitation, you reach out, lace your fingers through mine and squeeze my hand, just once, before releasing me. I smile thinly at you and go to get dressed, leaving you to finish your call. Whatever it is I need to do, now is not the time to do it.
XXXXX
We used to get called in early all the time, and I hated it. After a while, more often than not we would both be called in at the same time, and it warmed me that Grissom and Catherine understood that we preferred to both be working or both be at home. Not only understood that we needed time together, but acted on it without ever a word being spoken.
...'We need you at a scene, Nick, I'm sorry. Sanders too.'...
They almost always called me. You are not in the best of humours if you have just been woken up, and that they learned from bitter experience. I do not imagine they would relish the prospect of some of the things I had to do to put that smile back on your face.
I drag my clothes on with some difficulty because my whole body is resisting, and all I want to do is collapse on the bed and pull the sheets over my head. Hide from the world, and you. I'm caught between this idea and actually feeling pleased that I am being called in early. It is a distraction I can immerse myself in until I figure out how I am going to deal with this.
XXXXX
You turn on the radio as we drive and I watch you select a station that I like and you hate. I watch your hand drop from the dial to rest on your knee as you smile to yourself and turn to look out of the window.
"We can talk later," you say, and I nod slowly, because it is not a question.
Sofia is waiting when we pull up, and she walks beside you as she relates the details of the scene to both of us in her customary matter-of-fact tone. She is also saying something about swing shift being understaffed, and I hear the edge of irritation in her voice. They found the body in the garden, she tells us, and that is where we need to start. The space behind the house is immense, landscaped and manicured, exotic blooms cutting a sweeping path through the green. The heavy scent of freesias hangs in the air, and I can almost convince myself that nothing horrible happened here, but not quite. There is a mountain of evidence to collect and process, and I clench my teeth against the headache that is threatening. I know immediately that we are going to be here for some time, and as I set to work, I consciously deepen my breathing and pull myself into that calm focused state that is the only way.
You are at one end of the garden and I am at the other. I lose myself in my task and can all but forget that you are there, and that only hours ago you were holding me and kissing me like you never wanted to stop. I only realise it has been hours when I am forced to stand and ease the kinks out of my back, feeling it pull and crack, and feeling old. The back of my neck is positively crackling, and I instinctively look around for you in the fading light, experiencing a twinge of disappointment when the person behind me is Sofia.
"What you got there?"
She peers over my shoulder at the cigarette butt I am dropping into an evidence bag, and then glances to one side, a rare smile changing her whole face.
"Well," she adds, a warm, bitter laugh in her voice. "I wish someone would look at me like that."
Puzzled, I follow her gaze and I understand. You are crouching on the grass some distance away but your eyes are firmly trained on me as you pause in what you are doing, print tape suspended in the air. You are looking at me with a warm adoration that stuns me, because I am not expecting it, and because you make me feel as though you have reached out and touched me.
I allow myself to look at you, because you looked at me first, and because Sofia is looking too. My eyes soak up your faded jeans, half undone laces, your striped shirt under your black CSI vest and your ruffled curls that do not quite obscure your eyes. Those eyes catch mine, you smile at me, and I can do nothing but smile back, such is the rush of love I feel for you in that moment. It is instant, and it hits me with a strength that unnerves me. I am reminded how easily you can break my focus and I do not want to feel so out of control when I am trying to process a scene, but you have me. It is out of a twisted sense of self-preservation that I deliberately evoke the memory of you that hurts me the most, and at last I can look away. Remember. The kitchen. Your calm, devastating words. Your ring. It slices, as I know it will, and I grip the evidence bag hard. Remember.
I smile tightly at Sofia, because I do not have the time or the mental energy required to answer her, and after a minute or two she turns and walks away toward the house.
XXXXX
The light has faded and re-appeared again by the time we finish work. I am not certain of the time but I am wiped out. You are exhausted too, because you are talking constantly but making very little sense. We have collected and transported and analysed and theorised for so long that I can barely keep my eyes open. You are in slightly better shape, and I am reminded once again of the seven years that separate us as I lean heavily on my locker, trying to summon up the energy to walk out to the car. Your eyes are searching as you regard me over the top of your locker door and your hand slides across cool metal to caress my shoulder, just for a moment. I sigh and pull the keys from my pocket as I push off the wall of lockers and head out of the room. Impulsively, I drop the keys into your hand as I pass and carry on walking.
I never let you drive my car. Never did. I don't know if it is because I like to feel in control or because once Warrick told me you were a bad driver. I wonder for the first time if it ever bothered you. There is a strange expression on your face as you turn my key in the ignition and pull out of the parking lot. I watch you lazily through half open eyes and I know I'm drifting but I am conscious enough to recognise that you drive well. Faster than I do, but with confidence, and I feel safe.
Out of nowhere, you are thanking me in a small voice that I only just hear.
"What for?"
You exhale in a rush and drum your fingers restlessly on the steering wheel.
"For trusting me, after what I did."
It takes me a second but my eyes snap open as I realise what you are saying. Because you hit that kid with your car. You don't talk about that part of what happened much, and I ache to understand so late that it has eroded your confidence in more places than I knew. We both know that what you did was necessary in that moment, but the knowledge does not negate your pain.
"Never thought not to," I mumble, my eyelids leadlike. "Never doubted you."
Warm, strong fingers wrap around mine and I close my eyes again. We'll talk later.
XXXXX
When I wake up, I am on the couch, and I do not remember how I got there, but I'm sure as hell you didn't carry me up the stairs, so I must have been semi-conscious. I feel disoriented and glance around to centre myself. Bright sunshine is streaming through the half open curtains and you are sitting on the floor next to the couch, one arm thrown back over me protectively, the other holding the book that I have been trying to read for a long time. It is splayed open on your lap and I note sleepily that you are already halfway through it. You read at a voracious rate that leaves me impressed and envious.
"I made you a sandwich," you murmur without turning to me as you put the book down and stretch, allowing your hand to slide over my chest before you pull it over your head and arch contentedly. I want to reach out and touch you because this feels so right, and it is the best way I have woken up in months, but I do not. The reasons why I hold back, a multitude of them, creep in rapidly to chase my comfort away. All that we have not yet discussed hangs over my head and I have no idea what to do next.
You have other ideas, as always, and there is a determined tilt to your head as you pass me a plate and stare at me, eyebrows raised, until I eat. I could be eating anything, because my concentration is elsewhere. I'm looking at you, looking at me. You have discarded the vest and shoes, and the top two buttons of your shirt are open. You look calm, resting your hands on threadbare denim-clad knees as you tuck your feet underneath you. As soon as I set my plate down I know. You jump right in, and I don't know how I could have expected you to do anything else.
"It's like a blind spot. I can see everything around it, but it's like it's not there."
I don't need to ask what you mean.
"It was all blurry at first, the whole thing, after I woke up. All I could remember was you, that I needed you, it was like this pull...when I saw you. I remembered we were married."
Your voice catches painfully and you blink. I know you are remembering what I am remembering. Not our wedding itself, but that moment at which you woke up in the hospital and looked for the ring on your finger.
"I remembered little things, but there was just this fog over everything. When you left – " your eyes flick down for a second before returning to mine and I realise how hard I am gripping the leather arm of the couch. "When you left, I had a lot of time. Sara helped me with some stuff but she wouldn't tell me about..."
You cannot say it. The break up. The end. I can't say it either, because something invisible but heavy is sitting on my chest. You rub your hands nervously across your thighs and pause. You seem to come to some sort of decision in that instant, and when you speak again your eyes are unclouded.
"Sorry. I'm not going to drag this out. I was scared. I am scared. It's like little pieces sliding into place. Big pieces too. They all seem to know where they go, when they come back. I suppose I'll never know if I have them all. Veronica says – "
"Therapist?"
"Yeah. She says that what happened to me...when I was attacked…everything shut down, and the missing parts are what my mind is trying to protect me from. What happened to us. Though we'll never know for sure how it happens. The mind is a complicated thing, by all accounts."
You flash a nervous smile, and take a breath. It reminds me to take one too, my heart racing in response to the oxygen flooding my system after one too many seconds.
"I remembered about the arguments...a little...after you told me. But everything around the time I left is just..." You spread your hands out, palms parallel to the floor. "Lost."
I have to, and I don't want to. I have to ask you, just to hear it from your lips. I push myself upright and lock eyes with yours.
"You don't know why you left me." It is not a question, after all, but a statement, and it feels heavy in my mouth.
You shake your head slowly, and I feel like crying. Because all of this, and the little flicker of hope I was keeping locked away, is meaningless without that knowledge. Your touch, your kisses, the way you look at me these days…none of it is real without the pain that I seem to be carrying for both us. And I hate myself because I still want it, regardless. I love you, and I want you back where you belong.
Creeping, so slowly, ever closer to me as all I can do is stare at you. Your eyes are shimmering with tears that threaten to spill. You never cry. Hardly ever. Not like me. I'm reaching out as though I have lost control of my body, sliding thumbs under your eyes and encouraging hot tears to overflow onto my dry skin. Your eyes close slowly, wet eyelashes brushing against worn ridges, invisible prints left on paper-thin flesh.
When you whisper that you love me, I only just hear it, but it sweeps through me in an instant, touching places long forgotten. My eyes are burning and I close them too, closing my world down until it encapsulates nothing more than your tears on my hands, your nervous breathing and the racing of my own heartbeat.
Thank god. Yes. No. Not like this. I need it. But not like this.
Everything aches, Greg. I'm tired of being afraid.
I never stopped loving you. Acceptance is life on a knife edge, waiting. Denial is just that. It's all in this next move, and I do not dare open my eyes.
-Change me. Change you. All change-
Before all of this, I would have said that one must either accept or deny; that there is no middle ground. But somehow, when it counts, I manage to do neither. Torn between kissing you and telling you that I love you too, of course I do; and pushing you away and fleeing the apartment, I choose what I hope is a more neutral solution. Just for now, until my head starts working again. If it ever starts working again.
I lie on the couch again, flat on my back, and pull you down with me so that you are lying half curled into my side and half on top of me, your head on my chest and one leg slung across mine. You have not opened your eyes and I do not say a word. I can only imagine what might be going through your head, but knowing you, it is a whole stream of things, twisting and processing at an incredible rate. I'm sure you're thinking about the fact that you have just told me you love me, and I have not responded one way or another. The other things I can only guess at, as I hold you as tight as I can and listen to your soft, steady breathing. I crush you against my chest with one arm and rest my other hand firmly in the small of your back. As we lie there, I turn my eyes to the ceiling against the glare from the sun streaming into the room.
I know that doing this, and saying nothing, and all of my actions up until this point, are just meshing us further into this web of complications. But I also know that I do not want you to leave; I could not bear it. So I say nothing, and I cling on to you like I'm drowning. When your hand slides up to thread through my hair, I close my eyes again. Holding you here, like this, like I used to when you were mine, caresses the ache in my soul. I know that if we could just stay here, it would be ok.
"I just want to try," you whisper against my shirt, just before you go limp in my arms and sleep claims you. I'm glad you are asleep because, not for the first time, I do not know what to say to you.
XXXXX
It is hard to believe it has been two months since you left the hospital. I remember the date because it was the first of the month, that day you turned up at my door looking like a shadow of yourself and demanding to know why I had left you.
Two months since you first showed up back here and three weeks since I kissed you and things changed again. Recently, I feel as though I am performing some kind of delicate balancing act. Constantly hovering on the edge of something, throwing my arms out to try and steady myself and grasping for a safety rope that is not there. Again, I realize that the world is shifting beneath my feet and I cannot help but wonder what it felt like to have control. It feels like the longest time since I had any.
I thought things were strange before, but they have evolved, as all things do. What exists between us since that day we crossed the line is torturous and for the most part, does not feel real at all. But just perhaps, today is a day for change. And it is that thought that makes me feel nervous.
I look forward to the first day of each new month, I always have, because it feels like a fresh start. Every thirty days, a tiny little second chance. I know it's silly but it's a view I have inherited from my mother, and I kind of like the idea of a monthly do-over, even though I know that's not quite how life works. It did not take you long after we got together to notice my propensity to schedule important events for that date. I was embarrassed when you asked me about it, because after all, you were a scientist, and I thought you would laugh at me for being so superstitious. But you didn't. You smiled and kissed me and told me about your Nana Olaf and her 'sense'. You always were full of surprises. Our wedding was September 1st. You chose that date, and I loved you for it.
I dress for work and go to pour myself a cup of the coffee I hate to admit I love, shamelessly watching you crunch slightly burned strips of bacon. You lean against the island in the centre of the kitchen and you are wearing red, a deep cherry shade, next to your face and it looks good. I notice, as you stand there completely ignoring me, how healthy you look. You have slowly regained the weight you had lost and your skin is glowing. I smile and swallow the hot, bitter liquid, certain I can actually feel the caffeine surging through my veins with each sip. Your hand moves, and my eyes are drawn down by the movement. That is when I notice what is holding your attention, and I laugh.
You slide the book away from me and raise defensive eyes to meet mine. Cram the last of the bacon into your mouth in one go and drag your hand across it inelegantly, looking like you are trying to decide what to say.
"A recipe book?" I'm almost speechless but not quite. "You're reading a recipe book?"
"Yes," you reply haughtily, fingers curling protectively around the edges of the book. I just stare at you. I want to ask you if you're feeling all right but I sense that would not go down well. I settle for asking why, and: "Where did you even get that from?"
You flash me that nervous smile, the one that shows all your teeth, and my heart races like I somehow know yours is doing.
"Never mind where I got it. I thought I'd learn something new. One of us should know how to cook." Your chin is lifted as if daring me to defy your logic, and I say nothing. "Anyway, it's the first of the month. All change," you add, and this time the smile is genuine.
"All change," I echo, staring at you because you are so deep in my head that it takes my breath away.
Though I do not really believe you can read my mind, I think what frightens me is the depth of our connection. Still. How you can pull at it without even thinking and I will feel it. You actually look a little smug now and that is probably because I am staring at you with my mouth open. I close it, and grip the edges of the work surface to stop myself from touching you. But it's no good, because my hand is coming up and squeezing your arm, just where your short sleeve ends, so that I get warm, smooth skin under my palm. Your mouth is still smug as I release you, but you are blushing too. I don't think I have ever been able to make you blush by touching your arm before, and for a moment I am intrigued. I instinctively begin to wonder what else I could do to you to make you blush like that, and I have to stop myself because allowing those thoughts would be crossing the line. Granted, my circle is a little smudged these days but I do know I must keep you on the other side of it as much as possible.
I turn away and pick up my keys and you follow me. I'm grateful at times like this that our work will always be there to rescue me. In the past I used to mostly think of work as 'getting in the way' but it has come in useful, particularly these last few weeks, as a get out when it is all getting a bit too much for me. Catherine shakes her head at me whenever I turn up early for shift, especially when you are trailing behind me looking frustrated. She says that all I am doing is adding new angles to my game of avoidance. I tell her that it's not a game, it's survival. She only sighs and repeats her original advice. That I should talk to you. That no one should have to live in this ridiculous state of uncertainty and flux, where you still love me and I am spending most of my time looking but not touching. Sometimes touching, a little. Worrying about a fragment of memory and an invisible chalk circle.
She is frustrated for both of us, even though her loyalty lies with me and I know it always will do. We have been over this time and time again. I have this strange feeling, just recently, that she and Warrick are not trying to protect me from you any more. Maybe it is because our working relationship has slowly become viable again. We are working cases together more regularly, so Grissom too, has noticed the shift. I find myself smiling at you in the corridor, and sometimes you make me coffee like you used to.
At home, the difference is still more subtle. A casual observer might miss the change completely, because the fundamentals of our set-up are the same. You still sleep in the red chair, and you do not come near the bedroom. You washed my blue sweater after I noticed it that day, and left it neatly folded on the floor outside the bedroom for me to pick up. I said nothing when I returned it to my closet, and I also said nothing when my ancient A&M t-shirt disappeared from the laundry basket and reappeared about a week later.
We touch each other more. They are not sexual touches, but undeniably more than neutral, platonic ones. I feel the warmth and love spreading from you when your fingers brush mine, or when you press both hands against my chest when you laugh and lean against me, just for a second. Though your intentions no longer confuse me, they make me ache instead.
The real change, though, is in the atmosphere between us. There was a certain kind of tension between us before, that built slowly and was shattered by our kiss and your whispered admission. What is creeping in around us now feels like static, like that electric crackle you can feel in the air just before a thunderstorm. Like that sharp, earthy tang that you can actually taste on your tongue. It starts up almost the minute we are home and the door closes behind us. I stare at you when I think you're absorbed in some involving task, like styling your hair or choosing a CD, and my thoughts circle on an unforgiving loop.
Want…love…hurt…need…remember…breathe.
So beautiful.
Mine. You could be.
…'I just want to try.'…
Each time I shake the thought away, but each time to do so is more of an effort, and I wonder if I am losing my grip. What does that even mean, anyway? Try. In my experience, when people say they will try, it means they already know they are going to fail. Not that it matters, of course.
The crazy thing is, if you just had the time back, and you could tell me that you made a mistake in leaving me, I would have you back in a heartbeat. I thought I cared what your reasons were, but I don't. I just need you to know what they were so you can look me in the eye and tell me they do not matter any more. But you cannot do that, and it isn't your fault. Being with you was the best thing that ever happened to me, and I feel as though I'm punishing you as well as myself.
But you have this new air of patience about you, you do not push me any more, do not try to force my hand, you are just here and it's like you are waiting. I think you are waiting for me to figure it all out and get my act together, because you know, even though I have not said it. You know how much I love you.
The second time we kiss, more than three weeks after the first, you take me by surprise. I am crouching on the floor of the lounge, bracing one hand against the couch as I lean under it to retrieve the TV remote. When I straighten up, trying to ignore the clicking in my knees, you are there. I feel your heat before I see you, and I turn around slowly. We are inches apart and I don't remember you standing there before. I see your hesitation, the almost imperceptible twitch of your hands as you lift then drop them, then think better of it and slide them up my back, into my hair. I'm not breathing as you smile with one corner of your mouth and cover my mouth with yours; warm, firm, a little wet. You draw my bottom lip between yours for just a second, touching your tongue gently against mine and holding my head more firmly against my shiver. All too soon you release me and you're gone from the room before I regain my composure enough to ask you what that was for.
Yes, things are certainly changing.
I always thought I hated change. It was a fundamental difference between us from the get-go. You liked change for change's sake, always wanting to shake things up, try something new. I admired your daring and was amused by the way you were constantly chasing some new thrill. You usually dragged me along with you, and I suppose you changed me too, because I tried things that, before you, I would have laughed at the idea of. Liquid latex. Surfing. Sushi. I remember the look of astonishment and pleasure on your face the time I allowed you to put eyeliner on me. It wasn't really my thing, but the reaction it got out of you was worth it ten times over. You persevered with me, but deep down I accept that I'm a little set in my ways. I have never been able to shake the belief that if something is good the way it is, then change is not only unnecessary but it is threatening.
You changed slowly, over the years, and it was gradual enough that I never felt uncomfortable. You were still my G, my Greggo, and we both knew it. During our time apart, I now know, you did not change, you faded. That makes me sadder than anything. I am realizing that the true change is what I see now. This man, thrashing around my kitchen to Marilyn Manson whilst tipping flour into a bowl and running powdery fingers down the glossy pages of the now familiar recipe book. I lean against the doorframe and watch. He is different. You. You are different. You are still Greg Sanders, there is no doubt about that, but experience and life and pain has altered you. I see new hurt in your eyes that was not there before, but I also see an unexpected softness. You can still surprise me, even after all these years. It makes my heart ache to notice the little changes you are making, consciously or unconsciously, for me.
Your music, though still loud enough for me to hear, is coming from headphones because you know it hurts my head and stops me from concentrating. We used to argue about that, and you would play it loud anyway.
The fact that you have taken to cooking a couple of times a week both baffles and humbles me. It may seem like a small thing, but I know it's not. All change, you said, and you were not kidding.
The third time we kiss, we are laughing. You are telling me about something that happened at work, and you have lost control of your Hodges impression because tears are running down your cheeks. I am laughing too, because your laughter is contagious, and you are the best storyteller I know. It just happens. One minute we are looking at each other and the next we are connected, frantically, at the mouth, heated, until we break apart panting and after a moment, you continue telling me the story like nothing has happened.
It takes me longer to realize that I am also changing. Small, yet significant alterations.
You stand behind me in the bathroom, reflected in the mirror as I brush my teeth. You are ostensibly flossing, but really staring at me via my reflection, when I notice the first one. And that's only because you are reaching out and tentatively threading your fingers through the hair at the sides of my head, both hands, like a hairdresser might, your length of floss dangling from your mouth, forgotten. After a brief moment, you withdraw your fingers and return to the task at hand, but not before I notice your smile. I have not cut my hair since before…before you got hurt, and it is growing out. You always liked my hair longer. I have cancelled two haircuts this month. Both times, I was tired from work and could not be bothered. That was the reason. Not because of the way your face lights up when you see that there is enough to curl around your fingers.
It is not a conscious thing, at least not at first. The first time I undress for the shower and pause in the doorway to the bedroom, looking at my clothes strewn across the floor, I do not know you are watching me. I do not know what compels me but I turn back, cross the floor, and bend, holding my towel closed around my waist as I pick up my shirt, pants and underpants and place them in the laundry basket. Feeling a little strange but unable to suppress the small smile tugging at my lips, I head for the bathroom and finally catch your expression of stunned amusement as you watch me from the hall. You say nothing, just step back to let me pass, and I say nothing either. Despite the little voice in my head telling me that I should not be trying to impress you, I pick up my clothes after that, most of the time.
The fourth time, you pass me a plate of food and it's nothing, I'm just not thinking. I thank you and press a soft kiss to your lips before I turn away. It isn't until I reach the lounge and see you are not right behind me that I realize what I have done. When you eventually emerge, you are smiling. You just ask me how the food is.
The fifth time, we are at work. Sara and I have had a disagreement about our case and I am frustrated, and hiding in the men's bathroom because I do not want to speak to her, and it is the only place I feel confident she will not follow me. But you follow me. You take both my hands in yours and walk me backwards until I am pressed into the wall and you look at me as if you are trying to drain the tension out of my body.
"Breathe."
And I do. And you kiss me. Tender, firm, soothing. You kiss me exactly like you used to when I got wound up over something silly and you wanted to comfort me. Because you knew a kiss like this would placate me more than a thousand reassuring words could.
The sixth time, I should not have done it. I should have stayed where I was, safe, sitting on the couch with your laptop on my knee.
I should have stayed there, but when you come out of the bathroom shrouded in steam and lean over my shoulder, I can smell you and can feel the heat pulsing off your bare, damp skin in waves. I set the laptop down, twist and kneel so I am leaning into you over the back of the couch. Draw your damp head down to mine and slide my tongue between your lips. You accept it immediately and stroke my tongue with yours, groaning as I run my hands over your wet skin like I have wanted to for weeks. The relief is incredible, but I know I am losing control and it is only a matter of seconds before my mouth is on that sweet-tasting, damp skin and that towel is on the floor. I'm intensely, instantly, painfully hard and yet I'm hoping to God you do not touch me. Because I need to stop. And fortunately for me, at that point the phone rings, and I am able to answer pointedly "Hi, mom," as you throw your eyes to the ceiling and walk away, pulling your towel a little tighter around yourself.
I'm relieved at the interruption, because despite what my body and my heart wants, I can't do this. In these moments it is so easy to pretend I cannot feel the pain any more; that the fear and the emptiness are gone, but we both know that isn't true. We are getting better at talking, even though the reality of what keeps happening between us has crept onto the no-go list along with your memory of the break up. You are talking about the beating now, though, and the day-to-day rebuilding of your memory. I can even bring myself to help you with some parts, and I can see that we are sliding pieces into place all the time. You tell me that you think your picture is almost complete now, and that is frightening. I want to keep my distance, but you seem to sense the pain inside me and reach out. You always did know exactly how to heal me.
XXXXX
That is why, the seventh time, I know.
I'm livid, both with the sick fuck who murdered a mother and child, and with myself, for not being able to do a damn thing to help. The child we found today, tossed in a dumpster, strangled. She was six years old. I know I get too involved in cases like those, I know I do. But once we ran DNA and figured out her connection to my unsolved from weeks back, I felt sick. Felt responsible. Because if we – if I – had caught the person who killed that 25-year-old woman in the strip club bathroom…then that person would not have been free to kill her daughter yesterday, and leave her in a dumpster off the strip for us to find. When we bring him in, he admits to taking them both, admits he got rid of the mother early on, and kept the daughter in his basement until he got bored of her. Those are his exact words. Bored of her. It is all I can do to stay in my seat when he says this, and I am grateful for the table separating us.
Even though I know it isn't my fault, even though I know that we chased every lead and came to a dead end, I cannot seem to shake this feeling. No one is blaming me except myself. And yet. Two lives, both over too quickly, and that jerk is laughing at us. All I can think is 'what if' and it is churning me up inside. I can't decide if I need to cry or punch the crap out of an inanimate object. Or if I need something else entirely. I usually feel drained after a shift like this but as I leave the lab at last, nervous energy is pouring off me and I'm wobbling on the edge of breaking down. You follow me out and gently tug the car keys from my hand.
I can't seem to sit still and I shift in my seat every few seconds. Notice your eyes flick to me momentarily, watching me cross and uncross my arms, before they flick back to the road. The frustration that courses through my veins makes my skin prickle and my eyes unbearably hot. I sense you hesitate before speaking and I snap at you.
"What? Just say it!"
You exhale slowly. Neither of us look at each other.
"It's not your fault."
I say nothing, and neither do you, until we are back home and the door clicks shut behind you.
"It's not your fault, Nick," you repeat more forcefully and you grab my arm, turning me to face you.
I do not want to hear it, and I snort angrily and turn away from you. I do not want your pity either, do not want you to feel sorry for me because I made a mistake. I think I want your comfort, but I do not want to admit that I want it. I want to pull away from you but I have forgotten how strong you are, because you are tightening your grip on me and pushing me hard until my back connects with the door, knocking the breath from me. You take my face in your hands and force me to look at you.
"You have to let it go," you murmur, your eyes burning into mine as you pin me to the door with your whole body weight. Your fingers are in my hair and you are pressing feather-light kisses to the side of my face. Although I am still, at last, the crackle and surge under my skin has not subsided and I cannot seem to control my breathing. It seems to rise up from the deepest hidden part of me, this feeling, and the intensity of it throws me off balance. I feel, suddenly, unsteady on my feet and the thought crosses my mind that maybe the only thing holding me up is you. I don't even know what the feeling is any more, if it is anger, or guilt, or sadness or lust. Because you are pressed so close against me now, I can feel every inch of you through your clothes, and this feeling is a floodtide. It has me and it hurts and I need to drive it away. Every breath is catching and tearing in my chest and I'm just hanging onto you, because you know what to do, I know you do.
Conscious thought is leaving me, slipping away, as I yank your shirt out of your waistband and claw fingers blindly into soft skin, dragging you harder into me. I always lost control, every time, I realize, as your lips meet mine.
"Just let it go."
Your words. Sighed into my mouth half a second before you kiss me, hard and uncompromising, and I know then that you are not talking about the case.
And I know. And I want it, so much. I know it's going to hurt me, in more ways than one, and yet I cannot push you away. Your lips are insistent against mine now, your tongue flicking into my mouth, and you are barely pausing for breath. You are pulling my t-shirt over my head, breaking your contact with my mouth for one or two seconds only, but the loss of it hurts a little. I'm pulling at your shirt but fumbling with the buttons because suddenly my hands are shaking, and I know that has never happened before. I squash the voice in my head that is crying out that no good can come of this, because I need to feel your skin against mine. I need it. I can feel how hard you are against my thigh and it only drives my need higher and more urgent. I hear myself moaning your name as if from far away.
And then you are stepping away from the door and unbuttoning the shirt yourself, hurriedly, with one hand, dragging me by the hand with the other, across the room, never once breaking eye contact and pushing me down hard onto the couch.
The room is spinning now and I know I'm coming undone, because all I can think about is your mouth, sucking on my neck, your fingers raking over heated, prickling skin, and then somehow no barriers between us, none whatsoever, and skin pressed against skin, everywhere. Your cock sliding against mine and my god…how have I forgotten how good that feels? It's been too long since I felt this, too long…this voice is as insistent as the one screaming 'stop', and they are both hurting my head. I don't have a choice now, anyway, as I arch against you and cry out for the pure relief of being surrounded by you again. Every sensation is achingly familiar, your smell and the taste of your skin, and I know that I cannot stand for you to tease me, I need this now.
You know too. We both know it has to be this way, that you have to take me over. You are sucking your fingers into your mouth as you sit astride me, coating them with saliva. Staring down at me, pupils blown, your other hand pressed flat against my chest, holding me down and steadying yourself. I cannot tear my eyes away as you pull them out of your mouth, leaving a long strand of saliva connecting your fingers and your bottom lip. I watch it until it snaps and you are pressing slick digits against my opening. Hesitating for just a second before pushing three fingers inside me firmly, making me cry out against the stretch and grip uselessly at the smooth leather cushions beneath me. I notice, vaguely, that you are trembling slightly as you move and twist those fingers. Because you need this as urgently as I do.
We shouldn't, I know, but I also knew that it was coming as soon as the door closed behind us. Every stroke inside me pushes us further over the line I promised myself we would not cross, but my need for you is primal, and god, I want it more than I have ever wanted anything. I'm lifting my hips for you, trying to pull probing fingers deeper into me, and the only coherent word I can form is 'Please.'
I repeat it over and over. You push harder in response, curling the tips of your fingers to make me cry out. You keep going until I cannot take any more and it has to be right now. I grab your wrist to still your hand and you know, without the need for words to be exchanged. We have been here so many times before. Before my body has time to register the loss of your fingers, you are positioning yourself, pushing my thighs to my chest and leaning on them. You plunge into me in one stroke. Hard. It hurts like hell, and I love it. Everything but you is burned away in that instant as you kneel there motionless, eyes downcast, giving me seconds to adjust to the invasion of your cock before you start to move.
It is fast and rough, because you know I need the relief. Pulling out and slamming straight back in so forcefully that I'm sliding against sweat-slick leather with every stroke, every breath dragged out of me with equal force.
You normally talk during sex, or at least you used to. A constant stream of words, barely coherent. Say anything. Never silent until now. You just bite down on your lip and fuck me hard, blunt nails digging into my hips hard enough to break the skin, but I don't care.
I'm close, so close. You are so hard inside me and you hit that spot that makes me shudder over and over. I'm going to come without even being touched, and I feel suddenly vulnerable, spread out underneath you like this. I throw my arm up over my eyes and wrap my legs around your back, pulling you deeper.
"No," you gasp, breaking your silence at last. "No. Look at me."
You pull my arm away roughly and say it again, because my eyes are still tightly closed. I do not want to look at you when I lose control. It's too much. Too familiar.
"Look at me."
This time your low, harsh tone makes my cock jump and my eyes fly open against my will.
"That's it. Look at me." Your tone is warmer now but still commands me. You thrust hard and grind your hips against me. God. Your eyes are locked on mine now and my heart swells painfully because that look means you are close and so much more.
So beautiful when you come, Greg. Love you.
I clamp my mouth shut and reach for you. I need your mouth more than I need oxygen.
You don't stop moving as you lean closer to me, dripping sweat from the ends of your hair onto my lips.
I can't hold on much longer. Pull all the way out and slam back into me. You whisper into my mouth, encouraging now.
"Stay with me, Nicky, just let it all go. Feel me. I love you….I love you…"
Then it's your mouth on mine, hard, warm, damp, and your cock so deep inside me I can't hold on. I let go, come hard, splashing both of us and all I can think of as the heat explodes out from my spine is you saying you love me. The relief is immense and just for a split second, I do not regret a thing. You aren't far behind me and I crush you against me as you arch and cry out, pulling away from my mouth and biting down hard on my earlobe.
XXXXX
We lie there, breathing hard and sticky, tangled together, for I don't know how long, but it is long enough for that regret to start pooling in the pit of my stomach and spread cold streams into my veins. What the fuck was I thinking? I know, with a dull strike to my chest, that I have just made things ten times more complicated for both of us. You are limp on top of me, your mouth slack against my neck, your damp hair trailing my skin. I shiver softly when you slip out of me, feeling sticky warmth spread between us. And damn, we didn't even use anything. I didn't even think. I know neither of us has been with anyone else in years but it is still fucking irresponsible. Just further proof of how you make me lose my mind.
You are shivering a little now, and I somehow manage to hook my finger around the blanket on the floor and pull it around us both, not letting go of you because, even though I want to be as far away from you as possible right now, I know how vulnerable you are after you come. All of that control and aggression, gone. I lie there until you fall asleep, turning my head so you do not feel my tears. I can't help it, they just start leaking out me, an overflow of everything I have been holding. One release forcing the next. I was right, you did know what to do, because all of my tension has drained away from me. I wish I could have held onto it now. The feeling I am left with is cold, exhausting and hollow. And it scares the crap out of me. I open blurry eyes and watch you breathe.
XXXXX
I have to get out, and I am just relieved I can move out from under you without waking you. It is the only time you sleep soundly, motionlessly, and though I know I will not rouse you, I still dress quietly and avoid the creaking floorboards as I slip out of the apartment, down the stairs and onto the street.
The sky is a heavy, oppressive grey now and the air a thick, humid soup that almost requires those walking to push through it. I shove my hands in my pockets and start walking, not taking much notice of which direction I'm headed in, other than away from our apartment. I feel the ache and stretch as I walk, the empty throb of the space you created inside my body. Of course, it is a space you created many years ago. Yours. It stings with every step and I try to concentrate on something else. I hope you aren't too upset when you wake up and I'm not there. I pause, shake my head. How on earth is that a better thought?
I feel as though I could walk until I reach the ocean, just to cleanse this feeling away. It's not long though, before I find myself sinking down onto the cracked, creaking wooden slats of a park bench. Resting elbows on knees and head in hands, I push air out of my lungs slowly and steadily until it starts to hurt. I can still feel you all over my skin. I should be there with you, wrapped around you, keeping you safe and warm, but I cannot. I stare out from between my fingers at the deserted park, languid shades of green cracking and crying out for the rain that I need, too.
I'm thinking about you and your therapist, and how nice it must be to just sit there for an hour, every week, talking about anything you need to. You are more comfortable with that sort of thing than I am, maybe it's because you grew up in California. Maybe it's because you almost belong to the generation after mine. Maybe I'm just stuck in my ways, and I like to talk to someone that I know will understand me. A friend. Still, Veronica seems to be helping you, though you never tell me exactly what the two of you discuss, and I do not ask.
These thoughts are echoing around my head as I call Warrick on my cell. I'm not sure what I'm going to say to him but I am hoping I will know once I hear his voice. When I do, though, it's his voicemail message, and I end the call, instinctively choosing Catherine next. It just rings out, and I let it ring for long seconds after I know she is not going to pick up the call. I could call my mother. It's a thought, but one I dismiss quickly. There is no way I can talk to my mom about what just happened between us, and besides, she is not a natural relationship counsellor.
I am so aware of how hard both my parents had to work to get their heads around me and you. They saw how good we were together, eventually, like I always told you they would. Stood next to me at our wedding, looking scared and proud and happy. They are both so angry with you, Greg, for what you did to me. The thought of telling them that I have allowed you back into my life under these circumstances fills me with dread and guilt. I look down at my phone again, scrolling through names, seeking support of a remote variety.
I sigh and shift with discomfort on the bench, realizing that out of all the names on my list, the only ones I would call in a time of crisis are my co-workers. When did my world become so very small? I make my next natural choice, even though it feels strange.
Her voice registers a surprise that mirrors my own.
"Nick?"
"Yeah."
"Ok, hey, so…no offence but…why are you calling me? You never call me any more."
"Sorry, it's just…" I pause, looking for words. It has started to rain, at long last, and I find myself looking up, distracted.
"I wasn't your first choice, was I?"
Sara's voice is shrewd and knowing at the other end of the line, and it brings me back to reality. I start to protest, not wanting to hurt her feelings, even though she is right.
"It's ok," she replies, her tone warming. "Greggo got me in the divorce. You got Warrick. Division of the assets."
I almost want to laugh at her easy, matter-of-fact relation of the facts, but a thought strikes me.
"We aren't divorced, Sara."
"I know that. I'm sorry. It's just a figure of speech. What happened?"
There is a long pause before I start to tell her, but I make myself because I have to tell someone. Sara has a logical, clinical brain; at times she has been accused of being cold. Though I know that's not true, her tendency toward the scientific may help me here. I know she is firmly in your corner, I cannot forget that, but she was my friend too, before all of this, and I am hoping she still cares enough for me to listen.
I tell her, haltingly and leaving out the details. I know that when I get to what has just happened, my face flushes a deep red, even though she cannot see me. I cannot believe I am having this conversation with Sara, and in fact it is a testament to your unwitting influence on me that I am having this conversation with anyone.
"Oh, Nick," she says at last, after she is sure I have finished. Her voice is softer than usual and for some reason that unnerves me. "Didn't you…didn't you kind of see it coming?"
That, I was not expecting. Did she see it coming?
"Everyone did, Nick. When you started living together again…yeah…yeah, everyone knows about that…well, you both changed again. Greggo looked happy and confused, and you looked happy and…petrified." She sighs, and I drop my head into my hands.
"Look. I think he may have exaggerated the amount of talking you have actually been doing. You need to tell him how you feel. Really. Or you're just going to end up hating each other."
When I end the call, her words echo through my head. All the way home, I walk through the warm rain, hoping it will wash away this feeling.
…'Or you're just going to end up hating each other.'…
Hating each other. I know I could not stand that. I'm afraid she may be right.
My heart is pounding and I am damp from the rain and sweaty from earlier when I let myself back in. You are standing out on the fire escape with your face turned up to the sky, but you climb back in through the window as soon as you see me. Your t-shirt is speckled with water splashes and your hair is everywhere. You seem uncertain whether to smile or frown at me, and in the end you do neither, just stand there. I can taste the static on my tongue, I was wrong to think that what we did earlier had broken the tension.
"We need to talk."
You nod slowly and cross the room, dropping gracefully into the red chair and gripping the arms tightly. I avoid the couch and lower myself to the floor, leaning my back against the wall and facing you.
"You've seen all my cards now," you say. Your voice is calm and steady but your eyes betray you. "Show me yours."
-Show me there is always more to lose-
XXXXX
'…You've seen all my cards now…show me yours…'
The bald, direct simplicity of your words makes me straighten up a little, and the coolness of the wall spreads onto my back through my thin shirt. You are looking straight into me, and the openness of your posture is in stark contrast to mine. Stalling for time, I pull my breathing into line and clasp my knees tighter to my chest as I look at you. You have dressed, sort of, since I left, I suspect just enough so that you could stand outside without risking an indecent exposure charge. Grey boxers and an old t-shirt with bleach spots on it from when you used to colour your hair all the time. In fact, most of those spots are from when you asked me to help you one time and I was a little over-zealous.
I watch your chest rise and fall through the thin fabric, and you look remarkably calm, long legs slightly apart and stretched out across the floor, leaning back into the soft cushions of the chair and resting palms on the padded arms. Your eyes are soft and liquid as they hold mine, and somehow this only serves to increase my agitation. The storm is still swirling in the confined space, but you are riding it. Cool water, calm breeze. I am trapped in its centre and the heat we created between us just hours ago bears down on me oppressively. I try not to look at the couch, but to be honest, looking at you isn't much better, and I am painfully aware that having burst in here and demanded to talk, it is my move. I can't seem to catch my breath.
I wonder if that is why you are so calm, because it's true what you said, you showed me your hand weeks ago. You have nothing more to hide or reveal. So you wait, like you have been waiting this whole time. Even today, you did not push me, not really. You took me because you knew I wanted you to. And I did, I wanted it, and it felt incredible. But I know that despite that, it was a mistake.
Come on.
I'm so tightly coiled I feel like I might snap, fingers rigid, grasping denim-covered calves, heart hammering against ribs and crushed as I curl up into myself. I squeeze my eyes shut and take just a second, maybe two, focusing on the cold wall holding me up and systematically relaxing each muscle, working downwards, until I can open my eyes again.
I have been hiding from you for more than two months. I haven't allowed myself to rationalize it, I have just done it. Feeling fractionally calmer, I cast around in my head for something, anything, that I have said to you to indicate how I feel. When I draw a blank, shame picks at me, just under my skin. I do not want to hurt you, but this has to stop, really it does. Maybe I need to start at the beginning, because when I told you before, I told it like it was someone else's story. Something said to me a long time ago drifts like smoke and attaches itself to that thought.
…'It's like he doesn't realize how much he hurt you.'…
It was my sister, Anna, who said that. She always got on with you best out of all my siblings, and we talked about you often in the first few months after you left. She was the one who told me to go after you; that I could not just let you leave like that. I always disagreed, and she dropped it eventually. I wonder, idly, if I had called her today, what advice she would have given me. Whether it would have been the same as Sara's. I suspect it would, and anyway, I can't call her during the day, she's a school teacher and she would have had my balls for interrupting a class. Thinking about Anna soothes me a little, and I realize how much I miss her. She's my calming influence, a cool contemplator in a family of hotheads.
Even if you did realize, of course, that's no guarantee that you still have that information now.
You clear your throat softly and raise one eyebrow ever so slightly as I attach myself back to the here and now and can only hope I have not been in my own world as long as it feels like I have. I swallow. Breathe. And say the words I have kept inside me for over a year. They are raw, but I feel I get my point across.
"You broke me when you left, Greg. I shattered."
You do not move, but your fingers wrap around the edges of the chair arms and I am suddenly aware of your breathing. It is sharper now. I feel you. I need you to feel this.
No going back now. I want to stop, but I can see all of the people who care about me in the back of my head, silently urging me on.
All this time. Talk, Nick, goddamnit. Just talk. Talk to him. So I do.
I tell you how I fell apart. I tell you how I did not leave the apartment for three days in case you came home and I wasn't there. I tell you how Warrick came round in the end and all but pushed me into clean clothes and into work, before I lost my job. I tell you about how long I held onto hope, how much it hurt to hope and how much it hurt to let it go. I tell you about the hours I spent going over and over and over our last few weeks together, agonizing over your reasons and never finding relief. I tell you how I could not sleep without you next to me, and about the times I dialed your number and stopped halfway through. About Catherine's attempt to set me up, and how I came home and cried down the phone to Anna because I felt like I had betrayed you by even going to the restaurant, even though nothing happened.
I look at the floor and twist my fingers around each other as I talk. I am not going to cry, because this is my story and I have to hang onto the little bit of control I have. I almost want to laugh, because I want to show you that I'm not a broken man without you, and yet equally, I need you to know that the exact opposite is true.
I talk until I am out of words, until I feel empty. And then, finally, because I know I must, I drag my eyes back up to yours. You have not changed your position in the chair but your limbs are rigid now, reflecting the set of your eyes and the ash pallor of your skin. You are hearing me, at last, and you look like you are going to throw up.
As I stare at you, I feel the pain etched across your face that finally, finally mirrors mine, and the feeling that is rising in my gut, gripping me, is satisfaction.
Hurts, doesn't it, Greg?
My stare is a challenge now, and within it, something that I did not realize I needed. It is now or never, that I can ask for it.
"You never said sorry."
The strength of my voice surprises me a little, and suddenly doesn't matter how hard I am gripping my thighs or that I am sitting on the floor and I have to look up at you. Because the look on your face now is like I have thrown a blinding floodlight into your eyes and you cringe away from it. When you speak, your head is down and one hand is sliding through your hair, sweeping it down over your forehead as though trying to hide your eyes. You look fragile and strangely beautiful, and I narrow my eyes against my long-established response to you.
"I wouldn't have known what I was saying sorry for."
And then I am angry, because you are making excuses. You think you can just walk back into my life and pick up where we left off over a year ago? Where you left off, more accurately. Like it is just that easy, to say you love me and everything will be fine. I want to yell at you, to grab you and shake you until you understand, but I do not move an inch. I am hanging on to my control with every drop of strength I have left. I'm aware I still have not said what I need to say, and I want it to be as painless as possible when I do say it.
"I am sorry, for what it's worth." You have shifted forwards in the chair now and you rest your elbows on your bare knees, lacing your fingers together. "I love you, Nick."
I cannot pretend that those words do not lift me, but I do not want them to. Because it's not enough, and I force myself to say so before I can think better of it.
"Why not?"
And God, your voice is so small, it's like part of you has been stripped away by my words.
"Because I can't trust you. How do I know any of this is real, Greg?" I pause, taking a hold of myself and meeting your challenge at long last, though I suspect not in the way that you hoped. "You wanted to see my cards? Here they are: I can't do this."
Neither of us says anything for a long time, and my last words seem to echo around the room. They taste bitter in my mouth and I realize that the static has dropped away. All I feel now is cold. I do not want to drag this out now, because in the end the result will be the same. I can already feel myself shutting down and it's as though I am powerless. Through the shroud dropping down over me I hear you ask me, incredulity tainting your voice, what the hell we have been doing for almost three months. I am tired and I want you away from me before I change my mind.
"Your guess is as good as mine."
And I don't know why I say that, because it is flippant and cold and dismissive and I am none of those things, not really. I actually see the moment it hits you and you close your eyes just for a fraction of a second.
Then you're out of your chair and standing next to the window, raking fingers through your hair.
"Right," you mutter under your breath. "Sure. Fine…ok. Ok. So, um, are you just using me then, or what? I need to know."
"Using you?" I stare at you, having never expected that.
You have my attention again. It never crossed my mind that you might feel used, and now it does, it chills me. Because I have been pulling you to me and pushing you away on an almost daily basis, and I have been so preoccupied with how you could hurt me, that I just never considered this. I'm about to apologise, somehow, when I think about the way you took control of me this morning up against the door and pushed into the couch. I can't help but wonder how fragile you really are, even though it's a horrible thought. You did not look like a victim this morning. Your eyes meet mine then and I feel so completely exposed that I cannot help the barriers flying up.
"Well, what about you? You knew I was vulnerable today because of the case, and you saw your opportunity."
The words are out of my mouth before my brain has a chance to censor them, and regret is immediate.
Your face has drained of all colour and you take an unsteady step back.
"You think I...took advantage of you?" The disbelief in your voice is so intense I feel it ripple the air around me.
Of course not. Do I? No. You wanted to comfort me, make me feel real again. You wanted me, but I wanted you just as much. It was an opportunity, sure, but...and then, I don't know why, but I'm not saying anything, just staring at you, watching the pain twist your face. I cannot help wondering what I have become.
"Fuck you, Nick." You shake your head and your hands are balled into fists at your side. "How can you even...Jesus. Fuck."
You whirl around and kick out violently at the couch, managing to shift it several inches across the floor, such is the force of your feeling. Then you are swearing again and turning away from me, breathing hard, because it must have hurt you, square hard leather against bare skin. I have never seen you this angry in all the time we have known each other. It is frightening, not because I think for a second you would hurt me, but you have lost control and it is so rare that you do. It is with a grim sense of irony that I realize how our roles have been reversed. You are aggressive and I am using words to hurt you. At least I was, I have not spoken for well over a minute and I am afraid of what I will say when I do.
When you turn around, your face is a mask. You have pulled back your control. The set of your shoulders shows me that you intend to hang onto it, too.
"I thought you understood," you say. Low. Steady. "I wanted you to have it all, this time."
It only lasts a second, the look we share across the room, and then you are gone. I hear you throwing things into a bag and dressing. The last image I have of you is as you slam out of the door, zipping your jacket right up under your chin as you go.
XXXXX
Somehow I thought that after a week, it would hurt less, not having you here. I don't know who I think I'm kidding, because it sure as hell did not happen like that the first time you left. I was still hurting a year later, and that – I remind myself with some irritation – is exactly why I ended up back here. Sitting in an apartment that has been ours, mine, and almost ours again. We never quite got there, did we? Even so, for a couple of months you were nearly mine.
You never came into the bedroom again after that first time, and that stings me a little now, because I know why. You knew that I did not want you there. There's no use me thinking I am good at covering up my feelings, not with you, and I might as well have strung crime scene tape across the door. It was just too close to the past for me, thinking of you sitting there on the bed like you used to when I could not sleep after the abduction. I knew you did it, because on the occasions when I would snatch a few minutes' relief between nightmares, I would always wake to find you sitting poised, ready to reach out a hand to cover mine, dark eyes filled with love and concern. I suppose I could not stand to have you sit there when I knew that love could falter and die at any moment.
We were so close, and that is what cuts deep. Also because I have to sit with the knowledge that this time, at least, it was because of me.
I hover, indecisive for a moment, before giving in and falling back into your chair. Close my eyes and hang on tight, feeling you all around me, and I do not cry. I think perhaps, I need a new chair.
The difference between you and me is that you are a risk taker and I am not. You were prepared to give me everything of yourself, and I could not, cannot, do the same for you. Strange as it sounds, I admire that quality you have, call it what you will. Recklessness. Daring. Abandon? No. It's deeper than that, and I do not give you enough credit, because you are not reckless or irresponsible. Despite what I might have said in the past. You are thoughtful, thorough, considered. You are the man who has, on more than one occasion, dragged me back to a crime scene because you think we might have 'missed something'.
You are the one who will think a theory over and over and over rather than make a rash decision. Just because you talk a lot while you're doing it, and you make it look so effortless, does not mean you are not thinking. I learned that very quickly from you. You always act like you have so much to prove at work, and just sometimes, that irritates me, because you do not need to try so hard.
That quality though…I suppose it's strength of soul. You get pushed down and stepped on and you still believe. You believed in us, even though you have no idea what tore us apart. It's ironic really, because you think that I'm so brave and yet here I am, too afraid to try.
I suppose I should not feel too sorry for you, after all you are the one that hurt me first. You decided you did not want me anymore for whatever reason, and that, Greg – that – is the thing. Because without that, none of this would have ever happened. I would not be sitting here feeling like the world has ended for the second time in my own apartment.
It isn't even that I cannot forgive you. It's just that I don't think I am strong enough any more. I'm not strong enough to sit around and wait for you to leave me. And I do not think I am strong enough to handle the idea that you might never remember why you did what you did.
I push out a sigh and all I can think is that simple exhalation should not be so difficult. If you could see me now. I have no idea what you are doing now, and I don't want to know. When I passed you in the corridor last night you looked grim. You nodded to me, briefly, and carried on walking. You are still angry, I know that much, even though you try not to let it show. I have been fighting this thought all the way over the last few days, but it nudges in now and I let it.
I don't know how long we can continue to work together.
I suppose lots of people have to work with someone they once loved. Maybe there is a couple like us in every workplace in America. All thinking that they did not expect it to end that way. No one ever does, I suppose, or they would never start it. I cannot stand seeing you at work, and I cannot stand being reminded of you at home. Warrick was right – about that, at least. There are too many memories here, and I have to stop kidding myself that we will ever be in a position to enjoy those memories together. Most of your stuff is still here, and I am not relishing the thought of you coming to pick it up. I think that when I see you, I will want to tell you I have changed my mind and hold you until the pain stops.
Ok. Clearly that is not the most helpful thought right now. Maybe what I need is to be somewhere else, I reason, stumbling to my feet and casting around for a distraction. My eyes fall on my running shoes, long abandoned in one corner of the lounge.
"Right," I tell the empty room, hoping that sounding resolute will make me feel it.
XXXXX
It has been far too long, and the burn and stretch in my muscles as I pound along the road is temporarily enough to displace thoughts of you. I focus on my breathing and on trying to locate a long-forgotten rhythm. It is difficult to think that this was easy for me at one time. Now my body jars with every contact with the asphalt. My chest is burning and sweat is stinging my eyes. You used to laugh at me when I called you stubborn because I am just as bad as you are, if not worse. Once I have an idea in my head, I find it almost impossible to let go, even if to hold on is to fly in the face of logic.
My emotions rule me, they always have. You're head, I'm heart. You would always say 'think', and I would tell you to feel. You weren't cold, just in control. You said you liked my emotional side because you found it so hard to express your own. After I was rescued, you did not speak for hours, you could not. What's strange is that you have been more open these past few weeks than I have ever known you. I was starting to get a read on you again, and it was a nice feeling. But I am not feeling regret, because regret is dangerous. I push regret down until I am crushing it under my feet, and I drive my protesting body faster, looking for the relief that I convince myself is around each new corner.
I run until I am almost broken. Until my thighs and calves are screaming. Until my mouth is dry and all I can taste on my tongue is salt and metal. Until my feet are sliding in my shoes and I'm losing my balance. I stop, turn, and walk home slowly. It is a warm, heavy evening and people are starting to drift on and off the streets parallel to the strip where I walk. They look careless and languid, and I wonder if any of them are as stupid as I am.
When I get in, the answering machine is flashing accusingly on the kitchen counter. I stare at the blinking red '3' for a full minute before I press the button. When I hear your voice, it stabs at me and I hit delete before you can say any more than my name. I leave the other two messages and head for the shower, leaving damp, sticky clothes strewn across the floor behind me. The water is scalding, and it soothes the muscles I have pushed too hard. I allow the spray to wet my hair and scrub hard at my skin with a rough sponge. It is more than a week since you last touched me and I am still trying to wash you away. Trying to scrub your smell, your touch, your warmth from my skin and watch it circle around the drain. Distracted, I run hot fingers over blissfully cool tiles and remember us, once. When we loved each other so much. I don't think I want to live in this apartment without you any more.
XXXXX
I get out of the shower quickly and my cell is ringing as I dress, but I ignore it. If it's you, I do not want to answer it, and if it's work…the way I'm feeling right now they can go jump. I'm not on call. I am fully aware I'm being childish, but everyone is entitled to be now and again.
…'Even you, Nick Stokes. Even you have a bad day.'…
Catherine's words to me, a long time ago. She smiled as she said it, and in spite of myself, the memory makes me smile now. It is a tight smile, and I do not exactly feel my heart lift in response, but I suppose it's a start.
Once I am dressed, I realize that it is three hours until I need to be at work, and the time stretches out in front of me, time I have no idea how to fill. I wonder briefly how I could have become so dependent on you in such a relatively short length of time. Reluctantly, I pick up my cell and see that I have been back in the house for just over ten minutes, and I have already showered and dressed. For God's sake.
I have missed calls from both Grissom and Warrick on my cell. Frowning, I allow my eyes to be drawn once more by the answerphone, and inexplicably I'm swallowing a dry lump in my throat and my pulse has jumped several notches above resting. Because I have this feeling, and I do not like it one bit. I'm crossing the floor in three long strides and pushing the button. Listening to my outgoing message with every aching muscle in my body tensed.
Two messages, left just short minutes before I came back from my run. Grissom's voice is solid as he explains that there has been a second, unexpected explosion at a bomb scene. They thought it had been secured. There are multiple casualties, at least one fatality, and a huge scene to process. Swing shift is overwhelmed and they are calling in everyone from days and grave to help out. There's something else though, because his voice flickers slightly when he asks me to call him before I set off.
Warrick's message is brief and fills in the gaps. You went into work early.
You were sent to the original scene and no one has been able to contact you since the second explosion.
XXXXX
I am driving on autopilot and it is only pure luck that keeps me from smashing into another car. I end my call with Grissom and drop the phone on to the passenger seat. The sane Nick Stokes in me, wherever he is, is telling me I have just yelled at my boss and demanded to know what the fuck he was thinking, sending you to a scene like that. An explosion, for god's sake. Doesn't he know you are still afraid after all these years? And that, hearing the naked fear in my voice, Grissom apologised to me, three times. But I cannot listen to the sane voice, because the part of me that loves you has taken over. I don't know if he is the insane part, but he has me, and I have no idea how I kept him under control for so long.
I just need to get there. That's all. Because they don't even know if you're hurt, or worse. No has been able to reach you since the second bomb went off. Fuck. I am gripping the steering wheel so hard that my hands are turning white. I don't really believe in God, Greg, but I'm still pleading with him. Bargaining with him for your life. Anything.
My life for yours, I don't care. Anything. Please.
Because it doesn't matter, none of it. I just need you to be safe. I'm not worried about being hurt any more, I can't lose you. I can't. Because you are mine, I cannot hide from it any more. Because it is not just some fantasy of the past any more. Since you came home I have fallen in love with you all over again, so gradually I almost did not notice it.
…'I wanted you to have it all, this time.'…
I do not hold back the sobs that rip out of me because there is no one here to see them. I never said I loved you. You said it, more than once, and what did I say?
…'I can't trust you…I can't do this…you saw your opportunity…'
I want to close my eyes against this tide but I'm still driving somehow. I know I am not thinking straight, that adrenaline and pure terror are coursing through my veins and sharpening everything, crushing logic, but I also know that the way I feel now is real. Risk is relative. Nothing is certain, especially not the voice in my head that tells me that fate would not be so cruel as to hurt you again. Or take you. Because life does not work like that.
I am dully aware, through all of the emotion raging through me, that this does not solve everything or change anything, not really, but I love you, and I can start with that. I am yours, and we can go from there. I hope.
Someone who walked on to this scene an hour ago has not made it out again. The smell of smoke and burning is overwhelming as I get out of the car. Grissom and the others will be here as soon as they can, but for now it is just me. I drag my kit out of the trunk and look around, suddenly feeling as though the world has slowed down around me.
It is a scene of devastation. Smoke is drifting and coarse dust is settling slowly over the rubble of the destroyed section of building. The stark contrast of complete silence from the crowd of shaken onlookers behind the tape still being hastily strung up, Police Officers, CSIs I vaguely recognise from days and swing, the injured, some sitting on the ground, some unsteadily on their feet, holding on to each other wrapped in grey blankets; to the frantic scramble of EMTs around someone lying motionless on the ground. I can see someone else covered over with a plastic sheet, a man's shoes poking out of the bottom, and I feel nausea rise up in my gut, dropping my kit and clamping one hand over my mouth. Because I can't see you anywhere, and Grissom said you were here, he said…no, no, no, no, Greg. No.
I hear your voice behind me like it's from very far away. Almost fall down with relief as I spin around to see you.
You're fine. You're ok. You look scared but you're not hurt at all. You have your kit in your hand and you're not hurt at all. You look confused to see me and you're not hurt at all. Fuck.
All I can do is pull you to me and hold you so tight that it hurts you. You whimper in pain because I'm crushing you, and I apologise but I do not release my grip. I need to feel your heartbeat, breathe you in with every breath of mine, so I know. Feel your skin under my fingers.
Someone is crying out, 'Oh god...oh god...oh god...' over and over, and I don't know it's me until your free hand, the one I'm not trapping against your body, lifts to thread through my hair and you are whispering...
"Shh...Nicky...shh...it's ok. It's ok."
I try to speak but my words make no sense, I'm incoherent with relief and shock. I'm shaking but your lips against my ear are warm, and they soothe me. Warm, because you're alive, and you're fine. It's ok. It's all ok. I know it's not, of course, because someone, at least one person, will not be making it home to someone who loves them like I love you. Someone will be grieving tonight and it's senseless, but it isn't me. It isn't you. I have you.
I've had you all this time and I've been holding you at a safe distance, drawing a protective circle around myself and not letting you inside it. When you cross the line I kick you back over it again. I need a new circle, one that surrounds both of us. It's no use protecting myself and not protecting you. I'm yours and you're mine. I cannot say any of this because I don't yet trust the words to come out in the right order and I'm not quite ready to let go of you. My face is wet and I don't care. I don't care who sees how scared I am.
I'm fucking terrified, Greg. I love you.
We just stand there, still, against that backdrop of chaos, until our breathing slows and becomes synchronised. You hand cradles the back of my head and you are whispering to me, though I have no idea what you're saying. My face is pressed into your neck, making your skin damp, and we are touching at every point possible between shoulders and knees. I keep one hand in the small of your back and slide the other up into your hair, wrapping strands tightly around my fingers. I keep my eyes tightly shut and redraw the circle.
When a harsh voice breaks through my stupor, I pull away slightly and look around for it.
"You're here to work, not make out."
I am speechless, and my head is turned by your response.
"Back the fuck off," you spit, your eyes fierce, and the cop I don't recognise scowls and walks away. You grip my hands as though trying to keep me with you, and I catch the shudder you try to hide, remembering that you must be afraid.
"I saw it," you whisper, looking past me at the scene. "Felt it. I called you," you look ashamed then, and it is nothing compared to the shame I feel as I realise I deleted your message. "And then my phone ran out of battery. People have been trying to call me, haven't they?"
I nod and you look remorseful as you release me and we both look together at the aftermath of the disaster. We say nothing, because we both know that whatever has or has not changed for us, right now work comes first. There looks like there might be enough to keep us going for several weeks. I sigh heavily and pick up my kit, punching in Grissom's number as I watch you ducking under the tape and holding it up for me. I follow you.
XXXXX
I lose myself for the next few hours, because I have to. It is easier than it has been for a long time to do that, and I think maybe it is because there is a peace deep within me that comes with knowing you are safe. I am absorbed in the work, taking photographs, collecting and even speaking to a couple of witnesses. Brass pats me on the back as we walk away from the last one and I turn to him, surprised, because I do not think he has ever touched me before. He smiles, catching the look on my face.
"You're ok," he says firmly, and walks away, tucking his notebook back into his jacket pocket.
I stare after him, squinting in the fading light. Am I ok? I think, perhaps, I will be.
XXXXX
When we have done all we can for the moment, and everything is safely back at the lab, there is nothing to do but head home for some rest. Grissom knows that there is a certain breaking point after which he can no longer pull what is required from his team, and he is wise enough to see when that point comes.
When he tells me to go, he lingers in the doorway of the locker room for a just a moment too long and I feel his hesitation before I see it. Usually impassive blue eyes are troubled and I sense he wants to apologise to me again. Sanity is, at least temporarily, back at the wheel and I feel the shame of my own outburst flood me as we regard each other in silence.
"I'm sorry I yelled. I was…scared."
"I know. He's ok, Nick."
I nod, slowly. Realise that my reaction to what I thought was your life in danger speaks more to this perceptive observer than anything I could have told him about the state of our relationship.
"Perhaps I should be apologising to him." Grissom tilts his head slightly in contemplation before he smiles and returns to his office.
I'm not sure if it is a reaction to the chaos of the last twenty-four hours, or perhaps because everyone around me seems to have turned bizarrely zen, but I am pervaded with a warm sense of calm as I drive home, knowing you are following me in your own car.
It isn't until we are inside the house that I suddenly do not know what to do. You are standing in the hall, looking at me, and neither of us have said a word. Because it is in that moment that I realize how angry you are.
I fight to hold on to my calm, to squash the rising panic, because I am sure you did not come here just to shout at me. Though right now, I would not judge you, after the way I have behaved. But then I think about how you held me, whispered to me, comforted me just hours ago. That meant something, surely. This feeling just is not even covered by confusion. I am lost in whether I am supposed to be forgiving you, or you are supposed to be forgiving me. Maybe both. What I do know, is that I want you home. And there is no qualification any longer.
Not 'if you remember'.
Not 'if you are sorry enough for what you did.'
You are speaking to me now, and though you are not shouting, I can tell you are furious, because the words are so controlled but your breaths are not, and your hands clench and unclench at your sides.
"Is it only when you think I'm going to die that you realise you want me? Because if this is just some manifestation of your hero complex, I'll tell you what, Nick, I don't want to be fucking rescued. If you're going to get scared again and push me away, do it now, because I'm not playing any more."
Your eyes are bright; dirty, dishevelled hair falling into them and you shake it back defiantly. Every muscle in your body seems tightened as you stare at me from a distance of only ten or twelve feet that suddenly feels like miles. I feel intimidated by you, and once again the power has shifted in the room without me knowing it.
And the static is back, but it feels different this time. It tingles and wraps around me, invading deep into the base of my spine and dragging up to my throat, insistent pressure making it difficult to speak. Because I know this is it.
"Greg…"
"I want to be with you again." You cut me off abruptly. Every word a challenge. "Properly. Not this…this...whatever it is. If you can't get your head around what I do and don't remember then that's fine – well, it's not – but don't mess with me any more. I feel, you know? I feel too. You want to love me, or not?"
I catch my breath with some effort, pushing the static away. The force of your anger skews me because it is shot through with raw love and I know then, the only truth is in what you feel for me right now.
It might never be easy again, but you are mine, Greg, even if I have to fight every day for you. Even if you never remember.
"I just want what's real."
You nod slowly, eyes holding mine, but you do not move.
I don't know if I can close this distance. I want to. Maybe that will be enough for now.
-The proof is in everything we are-
XXXXX
Often, the first step is the hardest. Just sometimes, though, it is also the most simple. Because in that moment, as we stand there staring at each other, I realize with a clarity that lifts me that what you need and what I need are one and the same. All I need to do is take a deep breath, let myself go, and do what every fibre of my body is urging me to do.
Move.
I know you aren't going to come to me, not after everything I have said and done. The move is mine, and I claim it. I do not feel a single step of it because I am looking at you the whole time. Holding yourself so firmly, like this is a stand-off, but confusingly for you I have given in. And I am in your personal space, watching you swallow hard, blink, catch a breath in the back of your throat. Your apprehension is mine too, and I need to do something before it sweeps one of us away. I won't let that happen now, hands finding yours and gently, carefully, uncurling your fingers and weaving them through my own, gripping firmly.
Because I do not want to overwhelm you like I did at the scene; this is not about passion or survival or relief now. It is a demonstration. An offer. A plea that answers yours. Your eyes and mine, connected. Let me show you.
I'm sorry, Greg.
Find it, and find it fast, the voice inside me is urging. You need to hear it, too.
"I'm sorry, Greg. I'm sorry."
The small noise that falls from your lips shakes me. You are vulnerable. I have this power, suddenly, after all of this time, and I do not want it. It feels uneasy in my hands and perhaps I should give it back to you, but I do not know how. Despite everything, the look on your face and the way you are holding onto my hands shows me how open you are, and I could hurt you. I could tear you apart in this moment and you would let me.
I see you, Greg. This man that you are. You are not an older version of the man I fell in love with; unshakeable, over-confident, sharp. You are new and brave and different, but still mine. If I want you to be.
Step two is easier than anticipated. I lift our joined hands and pull yours up around my neck. When I let go, you leave them there, and I raise mine to your face. Your eyes flutter closed and I take just a second to capture you. You are dirty and sticky and you smell like smoke and sweat and chemicals. Your skin and hair are gritty, slaked with dust you haven't quite managed to brush away. Your shirt is sticking to you in places and creased in others. God. I must love you, because you are a mess, and you look breathtaking. And then, I am holding your head gently and kissing you. Not a frantic, I-must-have-you-now kiss, or even a languorous do-you-know-how-much-I-love-you kiss, but just a slow, firm connection. My lips and yours. An exchange, a confirmation.
Yes. I want to love you. Yes. I'm here.
Your response is tentative, but it is there, and the relief is immeasurable, even though I knew. I close my eyes against the fingers twisting into the hair at the nape of my neck and just kiss you. I will kiss you until you know. Until you believe me.
When we pull away, a little, there are tears in your eyes that I did not expect. You also look as though you are moments away from collapsing on the hard wooden floor, either from exhaustion, or relief, or just plain being overwhelmed. My instinct to make you comfortable kicks in and I pull you by the hand towards the bedroom. Feel you hesitate and pull back, shaking your head, and I understand.
I hate it, but I understand. There are only so many lines you can cross in one day, and obviously you are not quite ready to be accepted back into that room after all this time. I breathe in, and out steadily, thinking. Finally, I take the blanket from the closet and lead you to the couch, pushing you down onto it with hands firmly on your shoulders. You kick your shoes off and wrap the blanket around yourself, watching me as I stand, hovering. So weary, so drained, not like you at all, and I know you need to let it all go and sleep for a while. After all of that fury poured out of you, you seemed to just slump.
"Sleep," I murmur in what I hope is a soothing tone, touching your hair gently. "I'll be here."
"No," you call out, and your voice is louder and stronger than your posture indicates it should be. "No. Come here. Be with me."
It is not a request. Not that it matters. I come to sit beside you, and in seconds we are tangled together in a way that it has always been. The way that we fit. Me on my back and you wrapped around me, listening to my heartbeat, your slow smile, closed eyes, fingers under my collar and blanket covering us both. I hold you and try to keep my eyes open, because I want to hang on to this feeling for the next time I doubt you. Because I will, I know I will. Only time will wash that doubt away, and it is time now that I can give you. You feel so perfect in my arms and I have not forgotten that panic, just hours ago, that I might never hold you again. Now I just shiver and pull you closer to me. I have this feeling, as my eyes drift closed at last, that this is going to be an uphill struggle. We both have so much to prove. But just maybe, it will be worth it.
These are the first steps.
XXXXX
I am still afraid, but when I look at you, I know I can do this. We can do this. Just one step at a time.
When I wake up holding you, the first thing I feel is dread, and it takes me a few seconds to process everything up until this point, and remind myself that yes, it's ok. It is a good thing that you are here with me. A really good thing. Almost lost you. The other thing I am suddenly conscious of is that we are both disgusting and need a shower immediately. I shift gently underneath you and you jump, immediately alert. You see me, and your features relax into an almost-smile which I find gratifying.
"Shower," I offer, and you wrinkle your nose and nod silently, rising and stretching. I watch you appreciatively and do not even try to pretend I am doing anything else.
"Don't look at me," you complain, your voice still raspy from sleep. "I'm all squicky."
I laugh and look out of the window instead. Sunset. When I turn around again you have left the room and I hear the shower start up. What I really want, if I can admit it to myself, is to follow you in there. I used to love sharing showers with you. There was something about you wet that just did it for me, and though I liked you afterwards wrapped in a towel, getting to touch you while you were warm and dripping was even better. I liked washing your hair too, when you submitted to it, and just holding you against me under the spray. I think, though, it might be too soon. Despite what happened on this couch just days ago. It feels different now. I don't want a regretful fuck because of a moment of weakness.
I want more than that this time. You have been, and you will be, and you are; more than that to me. So then, I suppose, we have to go back to the start.
XXXXX
I may have told myself that we had to start again, at the beginning, for this to work. Of course, things have not quite turned out that way. What I am realizing is how close we really were to being together, before the sex and the fight and the explosion.
I'm realizing this, because, all things considered, not too much is different. I can touch you whenever I want, and neither of us have to pretend we are not looking at each other, but much is the same. If I want to kiss you, I just do it, I do not have to wait for some moment of crisis or distraction that would serve as an excuse. I find that I do want to kiss you, more frequently than is practical. We have been late for work twice in the past fortnight because I just refused to let go of you, and you of course, think that is hilarious.
I don't much care, because I feel seventeen again, and I am not even too bothered when I realize Grissom doesn't believe my excuse about a traffic jam at 10pm on a Tuesday night. Sara is standing behind him when I say it, and she grins before turning mock serious; making air quotes and mouthing 'traffic' whilst nodding slowly, eyes flashing. I am wary of smiling back, because I have a feeling that Sara knows what I said to you that day you walked out, and I know how protective she is of you.
Everyone is all over the fact that you and I are together again. Most people seem genuinely pleased for us. Most people. But they do not see the silent struggle we are enacting behind closed doors. Because despite how easily we can fit back together, some things are more difficult. It is almost two whole weeks before you sleep in the bedroom. Before either of us do, actually, because I will not leave you. If you are not ready to share our bed again, then that's fine, but there is no way on this earth I am spending another night away from you. So we both sleep on the couch. I suppose I should feel fortunate you are not insisting on the chair, because I do not think my back could stand it. I am not getting a lot of sleep, and though I think I hide it well, some people just have a way of finding me out.
Warrick somehow gets it out of me on the way back from a scene when I am thinking and my defences are down. He is staggered that I would do that for you, after everything. It's no use trying to explain to him that I am at least equally responsible for the mistakes we made, and as such I am happy to make sacrifices for you, because he still maintains that this is all your fault. I remind him how protective he was over you that day after I left you at the hospital.
"That was different," he says. He snorts derisively. "He's just making it difficult for you."
It is not as simple as that, though, and we both know it. It is still too early to tell, but I sense that some of the moves we made during our time spent in limbo have caused more damage than I first thought. Your attempts to get close to me, and my attempts to push you away have left us with a strange and confusing dynamic. Waiting, watching, so wary of each other. Hanging on for some kind of affirmation, some sign that 'yes, it will be ok' and never finding it. Tension is replaced by frustration; tight, restrictive, winding its way around me and reducing movement. I can see, now, your fear and your guilt, tainting every move you make.
You apologise, frequently, and when you apologise, I do too. I can't help but wonder how healthy it is to say sorry so much. All it does is remind us both of the mistakes we have made and holds us back from each other even more firmly.
You take me by surprise that night. I am sitting on the edge of the bed pulling my t-shirt off over my head when I feel you, and I pause, tangled, cotton covering my eyes. Pushing down the ripple of anticipation in my stomach, I discard the t-shirt and look around for you. I imagined you would be standing in the doorway but you are nowhere to be seen, and it is not until I feel the mattress depress under your weight that I realise you are behind me. Your warm smell drifts in around me and I breathe it in deeply, feeling my heart rate quicken at your proximity. I want you in here, I realize, and it feels right at last.
I let out a sigh as you press yourself against my back, soft cotton brushing my bare skin, because you feel so damn good, and you are folding your legs around me and drawing me back into you, hands sliding down my arms to thread fingers through mine, wrapping my arms and yours around me so tight. I feel surrounded by you and warm relief rushes outwards to my fingertips, soothing me. Your mouth is slightly open and pressed to the back of my neck, and I feel you shiver as though you are trying to calm yourself. I can only grip your hands tighter, because this feels different to any way you have held me before and it is wonderful. It feels like coming home.
"Thought maybe we could sleep in the bed like normal people," you murmur against my neck, not loosening your grip on me.
"Normal, G?"
The light teasing in my voice and the use of the name are almost unintentional, and I cringe, thankful that I'm facing away from you. Suddenly aware that making fun of you is probably not my best move right now, when you are taking a step towards me again. If you back off I will only have myself to blame. To my surprise, you laugh.
"Fair point." You kiss my neck softly as you think, and something about the way you are doing it tells me that you are not actually aware of doing it at all. I feel, suddenly and inappropriately, like crying, because that means so much. So much.
"I know I'm being a colossal pain in the ass, Nicky. I also know that I'm severely lacking the right to be that way. In fact if I were you, I wouldn't be bothering with all this, I don't know why…"
Because I love you. But I'm not quite ready to say that either. Not yet.
Instead, I extricate myself from you with some effort and stand, turning to face you. You kneel up on the bed and lean into me, looking so uncertain, even through your half smile that does strange things to me.
"You're my pain in the ass, that's why."
I cannot help but run my eyes over you, seeing you for the first time since you came into the room. You are wearing a green t-shirt and scruffy jeans with holes at the knees, and I am struck by the fact that you can make anything look good. Anything at all. Your hair is ruffled and sticking up in all the wrong places and those eyes are fixed on me like I am the only thing you see.
And of course I am watching you as you undress, admiring how the light glances off the smooth planes of your body as I lay on my side under cool sheets, unable to take my eyes off you. And of course, when you crawl in next to me and instinctively shift back into me, your back against my chest, skin to skin, legs tangled with mine; of course I respond to you, I can't help it. The feeling of your warm, familiar body pressed into mine is too much for me, and I cannot control the way my cock instantly hardens and pushes against your ass. At least we are both wearing boxers, but still, there's no way you do not feel it. It is not the time, though, for that. One step at a time.
You say nothing but reach back to pull my arm around you tight. My eyes are hot and there is a bittersweet ache somewhere in my chest for how perfect this feels and for all the nights I missed it. But you are here now. All I can do is pray I can keep you this time. I fall asleep listening to your slow breathing and when I wake it is dark outside. I know that we both have to get up for work but I almost cannot bear to wake you and not have you this close to me. I have no choice though, and I shake you gently awake. You shift in my arms and turn to face me, eyes still closed, soft sleep-warm kisses and rough stubble.
The next day, when I walk into the bedroom after a shower, you are already lying there, propped up on one elbow, and you throw the covers back for me.
XXXXX
It thrills and unnerves me, this new thing we are doing. Catherine says it's called 'communicating', and she laughs at me, because apparently when she says it, I look at her like I have never heard the word before. I know she is teasing me, but I also know that the reason I look so indignant is because, as per usual, she cuts right to the bottom line.
"How you lasted as long as you did, when you didn't tell him how you felt about anything, it's beyond me," she says, shaking her head as we sit across from each other at the break room table.
She has torn her eyes away from her autopsy report to give me a lecture, and I take it, because she is usually right. And because she would follow me if I got up. Unlike Sara, I firmly believe she would have no qualms following me into the men's bathroom, either.
"He didn't tell me, either," I point out, somewhat weakly, and she knows it too.
She flicks her sharp blue eyes to mine and grabs my hand as I rest it on top of my open file.
"Whatever it is you're not talking about, Nick," her fingers close around mine, reminding me once more that she is freakishly strong. "And I have an idea – that's the thing you need to talk about. Trust me."
As I leave the room, I know she is right, of course. I just do not have the faintest idea of how to ask you if you want to have sex with me again. It seems all wrong when we have known each other so intimately, for so long, and yet. It is a barrier I do not yet know how to break.
"Alternatively, talking can be overrated. Sometimes actions speak louder than words."
I turn around to see Catherine's smug smile, but she is absorbed in her report once more.
I cannot help thinking that is easier said than done. I want you, so much. It is becoming more difficult to ignore with every passing day, this pure need to be with you. Everything you do seems to be erotically charged, and it is torture.
We are talking, talking about everything except this. And I think you want me too, but I just do not know where to begin. I know that I do not want it to be like the last time, I want to show how much I love you even if I cannot say it yet. But after everything, after the desperation and the regret, we are both nervous. It feels to me like the first time, which is not only ludicrous, but strange, because the first time we made love I was not nervous at all. It was just natural. We both knew it was coming, and then it was just happening. It always felt so easy with you. Just perhaps, I need to stop over-analysing everything.
XXXXX
It seems that everyone is gripped by this new urge to communicate. Especially, I suspect, those of us who are subject to Catherine's influence. We have been driving to a scene in relative silence for ten or fifteen minutes before Warrick speaks to me. He does not look at me, just continues to stare at the road, hands resting carelessly on the wheel, pale eyes narrowed against the sun.
"I've been so pissed with him all this time," he says at last, and he does not need to tell me who he is referring to. "I know it's none of my business, Nick, but I care about you, you know that."
"Of course."
"You know what, though? When you find the person you're supposed to be with, you don't let them go."
The regret in his voice turns my head, and I regard him for a moment, knowing that just for a second, it isn't just about you and me. He sighs heavily and continues.
"Second chances are rare, man, so rare. Do whatever you gotta do to make it work."
Still, he does not look at me, but the emotion underlying his words catches me off guard, and I cannot stop myself reaching out and grabbing his shoulder, squeezing once and muttering the thanks I somehow know he does not want to hear.
"Don't tell Sanders what I said." He laughs and turns the radio on.
I smile, knowing he is right and also knowing that there is more for us to talk about; when he is ready.
XXXXX
…'Do whatever you gotta do to make it work.'…
We are so tentative around each other, and it has never been like this, in fact it is slightly unnerving. The first time you slip into the shower behind me I am so relieved that it is all I can do not to press you into the tiles and just take you right there. I let you kiss me under the warm water and run firm hands over wet, slick skin. You feel incredible under my fingers, but then I already knew that. You moan and shiver when I wrap my finger around your hardening cock, resting one hand against the tiles behind me and leaning all your weight on it as I move my hand in sure, firm strokes, unable to take my eyes from your face. Eyes closed, mouth slack, hair wet and flattened against your forehead, breath catching over and over as I bring you closer to the edge. It is the longest time since I have seen you give yourself up to me like this and I never want it to stop.
When you come, you drop your head to my shoulder and clasp your free hand to my back, grasping for purchase against wet skin. You moan what sounds like my name, but it's such a low, drawn out sound it is hard to tell.
I do not let you touch me this time, though you reach for me. I rinse us clean and switch off the shower, kissing your confused mouth and wrapping myself around you under the bedclothes until your breathing slows.
XXXXX
I am starting to love the long kisses that I am drawn into, almost always whilst trying to do other things. You are both languorous and urgent against me and I have stopped worrying so much about who has the control. Perhaps neither of us do, and that is a little exciting. This feeling is a slow ache, and it feels good.
As soon as I open my eyes that day, I sense it. A glance at the clock tells me it is early evening, though you have managed to leave the blackout blinds closed for once and the room is shrouded in darkness. I can see your eyes, though, and you are looking at me with such meaning that something like electricity jolts through me and my mouth turns dry. I reach for you. It is slow this time. Every touch is savoured as if it is the last, even though we both know it's not.
I slide one hand down your side, over gently lifting ribs, sweep soft skin and the angle of your hipbone, firm turning to trailing fingers as I near your inner thigh, looking you in the eyes just once before pushing your hair back through my fingers and bringing your lips to mine. You kiss me unhurriedly and tighten your grip on my back, pulling me against you, throwing one leg over mine and arching into my touch. I want so much to drag this out, but I don't know if I can. When you slide your hand down to grip my ass firmly I lick into your mouth and hold onto you a little tighter.
My skin is burning up wherever it touches yours, and waiting…I know I am losing sentient thought now but I do know I feel like I have been waiting forever already. I am wondering, as far as I am able, how it is going to be, this time. This need that floods me is to take, to possess you. Show you. I don't know if that is what you want, and I am trying to decide how to ask, when you laugh softly and pull me on top of you.
Did I say that out loud?
I hope I didn't, but you don't seem to care, running hands down my back and staring up at me, eyes black with need, legs apart underneath me, open, not caring, cock flat against your belly, already leaking a trail of shiny liquid onto your skin. God. I am remembering to breathe and trying to stop my hands shaking as I run them down the sides of your body once more, sliding underneath you into the small of your back, rubbing thumbs over the relief of old scars as I pull you down the bed, closer to me, in one movement.
The air in the room is charged with a new static, and I feel it lift me, crackling through fingertips that trace and pinch your nipples and wrap around your cock as I lean down to take you in my mouth. So long, I've wanted this again. So fucking long, Greg. You shift underneath me and I hear your breathing hitch and the soft scratch of sheets twisted into your hands as they drop from my back.
You taste incredible, you always did. I grip you tighter and wrap my tongue around the head of your cock, wanting to feel, taste you flood my mouth, but you are pushing me away. Your hand in my hair, gentle but insistent pressure and I look up. You are shaking your head, chest heaving and you are speaking to me, low, urgent, desperate.
"So close." You swallow hard. Bite your lip. Never breaking eye contact. "Need you…now."
I stare at you for long seconds, not releasing my grip on you, moving my hand slowly and watching you react to my touch, There is no way I will not give you what you want, but there is a part of me that wants you to ask for it.
"What do you want, Greg?" I do not recognise this voice as mine, but it is. I'm pulling myself up your body now, sliding against you, and I know I am losing control with each second your painful hardness touches mine.
And you are reaching back, then, pushing square foil at me, grabbing my hand and dribbling slippery liquid onto my fingers, making me fuzzily aware that you have been thinking about this just as much as I have.
"Now," you hiss, pushing up into me. "Please."
At the sound of that word, dragged from your lips, I move like something has hit me. Pressing fingers, one immediately followed by the second, stretching, pushing, feeling you squeeze me and not wanting to wait. Not another second. Your hands are on me, covering and slicking and your brief touch is almost enough but I want to enjoy this.
The sound you make as I push inside you is one I will hear echoing in my head for days to come. It tears through me and I almost think I have hurt you until you whimper softly and smile, eyes closed, and I register the nails in my back pulling me in deeper. And then you are wrapping strong legs around my back and rocking against me and I'm losing it, just feeling you, everything you are surrounding me. I love how we fit.
"Slow."
"Yes."
The last coherent exchange before I'm gone, sliding, pressure, eyes flicking between your face and your hand, between us, stroking yourself so slowly as I push inside you, matching your pace. For as long as I can, but not long enough for this ache. There will be other times.
Your eyes snap open and draw mine as you whisper my name. Heated, barely there, hot breath. I lean down to kiss you, needing the connection, demanding it.
"Fuck, Nicky, I..." you spill hot ribbons of come onto your own skin, spread between us as I kiss you once more and give in to my own release. Heat pulling and expanding outwards making me cry out and push hard into you one last time.
I honestly do not think I can move, and you do not seem to want me to, arms thrown around my neck and legs tangled. Warm, sticky, and you are sliding slick fingers into my mouth and kissing me softly. I love you. I love you so much.
I think perhaps I'm dead, because nothing has felt this good for a very long time, and my eyes are so heavy.
"It was good advice," I hear myself whisper to no one in particular, and then I'm drifting.
XXXXX
Something shifts for us, after that, and I feel like everyone can see it. It is a strange sensation, feeling so exposed all the time, as though I am suddenly transparent and all of my thoughts and desires are on plain view. It is you, you do that to me. Part of me wonders at it, because it is just sex. We have done it hundreds of times before. It doesn't matter how much I try to convince myself of that, though, because I know it was more than that for both of us. It represents another barrier being broken down, not the last one by any stretch, but an important one. It felt better than the first time because of the depth of feeling I have for you. Because I know you so much better now.
I tell you this, some days later as we stand in the kitchen trying to write a shopping list. You keep taking the pen from me and adding things that I tell you are not going on any shopping list of mine. You look up, momentarily distracted, and smile. I take the pen back from you whilst you are not looking and cross 'chocolate milk' from the bottom of the list.
"It was great," you smile, backing me against the island for a kiss. "You're such a romantic." Your smile is crooked and I feel silly all of a sudden, because I am talking about sex like a teenage girl and I am waiting for you to remind me that I'm a guy, and I'm almost forty. You kiss my neck and laugh warmly. "I love it." You tug the pen from my grip and run away with the list.
You insist on buying everything on that list. I am so mired in my own thoughts that I do not even register what you are doing, you could be filling the basket with chocolate milk and ramen for all I would notice. I wonder somehow, if in all my bitterness I have given you all these hard edges that I keep expecting to hurt myself on; when in reality perhaps you are not so different to me. Not in any way that counts.
"I love you, Greg."
We are in the cereal aisle, and you stop dead. Turn to look at me, and you look as surprised by the words as I am. Your smile is electric. The connection jumps and crackles between us, melting one more sliver of doubt away. You drop a box of fruit loops into the basket and slide your hand up my arm. The contact feels good, and I needed it.
"Love you too."
So softly against my ear and over too soon as you let go of me and disappear around the corner. And I know you do.
XXXXX
I realize that we can never get back exactly what we had. That's not how it works. And to be honest, when I really think about it, that's not what I want anyway. Sometimes it feels like a battle, but the difference is that now we are on the same side. It astounds me, the simplicity of that thought, because for years now we have been facing off against each other, so whoever wins, someone gets hurt. I never knew it did not have to be that way. What we are fighting now is fear, and complacency and insecurity. Not uncertainty though. I am starting to embrace it, because you can make uncertainty interesting. I have never worked so hard at a relationship, maybe because it has never meant as much.
I know we are winning when you call your landlord and ask him to rent your apartment to someone else, and you move the rest of your stuff back into our place. I am standing beside you when you make that call, and I feel a little more of my doubt slip away with each word. I think we probably have too much stuff, like we did when we first got this place together, but it doesn't matter. It is ours again.
I know too, when we go to Catherine's annual barbecue together and you hold my hand in front of everyone. When you look unsure but you don't let go, and when Warrick smiles at you, you grin uncontrollably and I feel your fingers tighten around mine. At first, I struggle to understand why his approval, his forgiveness, is so important to you. Until Sara drops down into the lawn chair beside me and passes me a beer.
"I'm pleased he has you back, Nick," she says, touching her bottle to mine, and relief floods me, because I know she means it, and there is a warmth to her voice that I thought I would never hear again. When I look around instinctively for you, you meet my eyes over Catherine's shoulder and you nod with satisfaction. Then, I get it. Acceptance is important, and I had not realized how much.
Unfortunately, not everyone is so accepting. I should have known that they would find out, however long I tried to put it off. I know it is coming, the day you answer the phone and I just watch the colour drain from your face. Hear the spike of horror in your voice as you reply, slowly;
"Hello, Mrs Stokes. Yes, it's Greg," before you are silent, wide-eyed, for the longest time, and the only other thing you say is "sorry."
You do not say anything for quite some time after that, and you are stiff in my arms when I try to reassure you, despite the heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I do not know what she said to you, because you will not tell me, but I know my mother well enough to get the idea. She can reduce the toughest man to a quivering wreck with her courtroom voice, so can my father. It would not have mattered which one of them had spoken to you.
Your parents have known for weeks, and they are characteristically laid back about the whole thing. But then again, we never did have to fight so hard to win them over. There is an edge to you after that phone call that I cannot smooth away, and I'm afraid, because to lose you now after all this would just be too much to take. We are talking, still, but a little of the guilt has crept back into your eyes and I do not know how to take it away. I have left several messages on my parents' machine but they remain stubbornly silent.
"All you Stokes are stubborn," you remark, and you are only half joking.
It is Anna that intervenes in the end, as I should have known she would. She is furious with me initially, that I have hidden the fact that we are back together from her, but fortunately for me she is not the type to hold a grudge.
"You're an ass," she says matter-of-factly when I pick up the phone. No 'Hi, Nick,' or anything like that, I suspect she does not think I deserve pleasantries right now. After she demands the full version of the story, and with Anna, she has to know everything, she sighs and I can picture her shaking her head with disappointment at the other end of the phone.
"Don't you remember how mom and dad were when Kendra took her husband back? I almost had to physically restrain them from going round there and kicking him over the state line."
I do, of course, remember, but as I point out, Kendra's husband cheated on her with his secretary. You did not do anything like that, nor would you ever.
"If you could stop being so goddamn literal for just a minute, and hear me? They're angry with Greg because he hurt you. They don't want to see you hurt, none of us do."
She sighs and I know she is exasperated with me, but then that is nothing new. People like Anna are doomed to a life of feeling exasperated with everyone who is not as coolly logical as they are. I suspect that's why you and her get on so well.
"Nicky, listen. If being with Greg again makes you happy, then there's nothing else to it. I'll speak to them. It'll be ok, I promise."
And I want to believe her. I really do. Not only do I want them to forgive you for our sake, there is also a small part of me, a part I am ashamed of, that is afraid this rift will make you pull away from me. The pain in your eyes when you heard my mother's words, that was so real, I felt it like it was my own; twisting, cold, sharp. I hate to doubt you, but I have watched you run from pain too many times now.
When I put the phone down, I go straight for the bedroom, remembering you were in there reading when Anna called. As I hover in the doorway, something feels strange but I cannot register it straight away. You are curled up on one side of the bed, eyes closed, book forgotten, and I'm not sure if you are asleep or not but you look peaceful.
"Don't run," I whisper, going to crouch down at the side of the bed. Reaching out to touch you. "Don't run away, not when we're so close."
I should have known you were not asleep, maybe I did. Maybe I wanted you to hear me.
"I'm not going anywhere," you sigh, opening your eyes slowly and catching my hand in yours. I stare down at you, absorbing your words, allowing them to flow through my veins. "I know you don't trust me but I wanted to say it anyway. I promise."
I'm assaulted, suddenly, by sensation and my head is spinning, because I want to tell you that, yes, I do trust you and I did not realize you were unaware of that fact, but there is something else. Your hand tightens around mine as I feel it, and you know. Fingers brushing across metal and circling, familiar and new. My words are choked in my chest in a rush, because you are wearing your ring and all I can do is stare at you with my mouth open.
"Promise," you repeat, holding my gaze. I can't speak. The drawers were open, I muse absently, I never open those drawers. That's what it was. I noticed.
The world may have come to a standstill around me, I am not sure I would know one way or another. Look at you. Lying there, so open, so unguarded. Jesus. Fuck. I love you. I'm not going to cry, I'm not.
"Fuck….Greg…my god." I am still trying to breathe, and then you are sitting up, opening your other hand.
"Sure, in a minute," you say mildly. "Thought maybe you might want to…?"
You drop your eyes, unsure, and I follow them. Mine, too, balanced on your palm. The blood is raging in my ears now and I hesitate only for a moment, taking and replacing and pulling you to me fiercely in one fluid movement.
Then there is nothing but silence as we collapse back onto the bed, connected, our circle glowing around us.
XXXXX
We have a new strength that everyone can see, and there is not one bit of me trying to hide it any more. Catherine smiles at me when she notices, the next shift, but she says nothing until we are sitting at the usual diner for breakfast; Warrick, Sara, she and I. You are conspicuous by your absence, but your appointment with Veronica is more pressing than your predilection for blueberry pancakes. Just about.
She twists the ring around on my finger and smirks.
"Just like that," she says, meeting my eyes to tell me without words that she knows, feels, how hard we have fought to get to this point.
"You guys make me sick," adds Sara, brightly, tilting her head on one side and swallowing a forkful of scrambled eggs.
Warrick smiles into his coffee and says nothing.
When my mother phones two days later, her voice is stiff but just before she hangs up, she whispers; "Tell Greg I'm sorry about what I said."
I let out the breath I have been holding, because I know she is still angry with you, but it is a start.
I call Anna to tell her she is a genius, but she laughs and tells me she already knows that.
XXXXX
I am hot and wiped out from my run when I approach our building gratefully, walking now. It is getting easier again but it is not yet effortless, and I know I will have to work hard to get to that point again. Like with all things, I suppose. I smile when I see you standing to one side of the front door, absolutely intent on something, because you have not seen me, and I am not about to pass up a chance to admire you.
As I draw closer, I realize what you are doing, and it only serves to make my smile wider. Just a few feet behind you now, so quiet, watching you scrape at the label next to the buzzer for our apartment, pushing at it with your thumb nail until it peels away. That label had my name on it, and I am suddenly intrigued to see what you plan to replace it with. You are wearing jeans so threadbare that they look in danger of falling apart at any moment, and they hang dangerously low on your hips as you lean forward to write on the label. You are also wearing one of my t-shirts, and it makes me feel the strange but familiar rush of something…proprietal, almost, gripping my body that only seems to come from you wearing my clothes.
You pause, pen in hand, talking to yourself. Thinking out loud.
"Stokes/Sanders. Sanders/Stokes. Hmm." You lean forward to write, biting your lip in an effort to concentrate on writing legibly for once.
I cannot help but wonder why you did not just write on the label before you stuck it to the plate, but then your logic has always been a mystery to me. You straighten up, looking satisfied with your work, but you are still conversing with yourself, sucking on the pen thoughtfully with your back to me.
"Sanders-Stokes." Experimentally now. "Gregory Sanders-Stokes." I cannot see your smile but I hear it in your voice and suddenly I am smiling too. "Greg Sanders-Stokes, CSI. And you are?"
I so much want to ask you who you are talking to, but I don't, and I suppress the laugh in my throat because suddenly I am overwhelmed with love for you. We never changed our names, mostly because of work, even when we got married. It was easier not to, we agreed, and until this moment I had no idea you even gave it another thought.
And I can't help it then, I creep up and wrap my arms around you from behind.
"Why not Stokes-Sanders?"
"Nicky, fuck…" you jump, and I feel guilty for perhaps half a second, because then you are blushing as you realize you have been overheard. You say nothing for a long time, just lean back against me, lifting hands to cover mine.
"Because it doesn't sound right," you respond eventually. "Not because I have some weird macho thing about needing your name to come second."
I pause, wanting to approach this carefully, because this is new territory and I like the idea more than I care to admit. I'm so worried I will scare you off but I have to say something.
"I didn't think you needed my name to be anywhere," I point out, gently, and maybe there is a little bit of a challenge in there. Maybe.
You pull out of my arms and start walking back up the stairs to the apartment. I follow you, watching you shove hands in your pockets as you walk, a sure sign that you are feeling defensive.
"I don't need it," you reply without turning around. "Maybe I want it though. A little. For when we're not at work."
You turn, finally, and lean against our door. Your eyes are guarded but there is a slightly sheepish, hopeful smile pulling at your lips and I cannot stop the one that I know I am returning. I have no problem with anyone knowing I belong to you. No problem at all.
"Ok."
"Ok." You kiss me and then push me away and wipe your hands on the front of your jeans. "Shower."
I am vaguely aware of you in the bathroom as I shower, but I am so distracted by my own racing thoughts that I do not register your presence as I normally would. It feels as though we have come further in the last few months than we got in the first five years. I am not complaining, not at all, but it is a strange thing to realize. The relationship that we had, the one I wanted back, was not like this one. I would not change a second of it, and yet what I have now seems to have even greater value. I may be confused by you on an almost daily basis, but I also feel the most real I have ever done. The fear that it might all come crashing down at any second is also very real, but I know that one cannot exist without the other.
I am rubbing my hair dry with a towel when I notice you have left me a note in the condensation on the mirror.
'Love you, Mr Sanders-Stokes. All change.'
I'm laughing as I wrap a towel around my waist and go looking for you, leaving the bathroom floor wet. Today is May 1st. All change.
XXXXX
It happens gradually, but I realize that I am no longer preoccupied with your memories. Perhaps I am beginning, at long last, to fully immerse myself in the here and now. I cannot pretend it does not have power over me any more, but only when I think about it, which is far less frequently these days.
It is easy to forget, too, with everything that is shifting and changing, that you are the one that really lost something in all of this. When I come home from the store on a cold Saturday afternoon, having left you naked and peaceful in bed, I cannot find you immediately and I panic. Check all the usual places you like to sit, but you aren't in the bedroom, the lounge or on the fire escape. The bathroom is empty and I don't see you in the kitchen. I check the bedroom again, just in case.
I am panicking, I will admit, when I return to the kitchen to dump the bags on the counter and I see you. You are sitting, or more accurately slumping, on the floor behind the island, your back against the oven door. You are hiding from something and I can only hope it isn't me, because you look desperately sad, even though there is a small smile on your lips. Surrounded by photographs; you must have every single album we own between us spread out across the tiles.
You run shaking fingers over the photographs of us at our wedding, the ones of looking at the camera and grinning like idiots, pausing at one a couple of pages in. It's my favourite. It's the one that Lindsey took with her disposable camera, first thing in the morning, when we didn't even know she was watching us. We are looking, not at the camera, but at each other, lost to our surroundings. I remember a lot of those moments that day but this one is captured forever and I looked at it often during our year apart, torturing myself by recalling how completely in love we were.
Your chin is tilted down and your mouth is slightly open but lifted at the corners. You have both hands placed firmly, palms flat, to my chest and your eyes are turned up towards mine. I can never remember exactly what, but I know I had said something to make you laugh, and the warmth in your eyes as you look at me is overwhelming. I have one hand, the nearest to the camera, threaded through the hair at the nape of your neck and my smile is one of pure adoration. It's just a moment, caught, of two people delighted to belong to each other. Mine. Yours. As simple as that.
I have not looked at that photograph in a while, I realize, as I stare with you, almost unconsciously covering your hand with mine to still the trembling. You are wearing only a pair of jeans and the kitchen floor is cold. I want to pull you up and into our warm bed but I sense you need to stay here because you have something to resolve, so I settle for pressing myself into your side, hooking one leg over yours. I haven't looked at that photograph because you're here. I don't need to look at this album to remind me of how you used to look at me because you're in our apartment – ours – looking at me. Not exactly how you used to do, but with just as much love.
"It was an amazing day," you say at last, leaning back against me. Your skin is freezing and I wrap myself around you as best I can, trying to warm you.
"It was."
"How come I can remember that and not…?"
Now I understand.
"Because our wedding is a nice memory…you didn't need to block it out, did you? Wouldn't you rather have that than remember something painful?"
You reach up to pull me closer against you. Shivering now.
"Given the option, I'd rather know what I was saying sorry for."
"You don't have to apologise to me any more," I say, and I mean it.
I do not need your apologies, and the fact that I have made you feel like you owe me a lifetime of them settles uncomfortably in my stomach. You are not in my debt, nor am I in yours. I realize, as I am pulling you to your feet and later curling around you under the covers, that letting go of guilt is a big step forward too. I am vaguely aware of myself mumbling this into your ear and then noticing that you are already asleep.
XXXXX
Things are not perfect right away, but when are things ever? I know we have a long way to go, but I suppose the difference now is that we have something to start from. Not just a shared past, but a common future as well, one that we can move towards together. Because whatever happens, I know that I want you with me, and in order to have that, I have to also believe that you want that too. I mean it when I say I trust you. Trust does not equal certainty, and that's ok.
I think what helped me was realizing that everything we do is uncertain, nothing is guaranteed, and risk is inherent. I once assumed that because we belonged together, it would always be that way. It is still easy to love you. I also know that to keep you, I have to work a little harder.
Many things are the same, because they were good things. We still share showers, and weekend afternoons in bed, and Thai on speed dial. You still like to sit in that chair sometimes and watch me, though more often than not you end up wrapped around me or draped over my lap before too long. You still talk during movies and tell me what's going to happen in my book before I have got there. I still walk around the apartment spraying furniture polish into the air when you aren't looking, and tell you I have cleaned.
We have settled into a pattern at work, at long last. Sometimes we are assigned cases together, and sometimes not. We are professional, for the most part, though I take a new pleasure in watching you, seeing how confident you have become in the field. You do not need my help any more, and I realize anew that you deserve more respect than you get. I also realize that you do not need me to help you gain that respect.
Some things are different, and those are equally important. Sometimes you cook. You are getting better at it, and your enthusiasm is both admirable and kind of hot. I let you drive my car, and not only am I starting to enjoy letting go and looking out of the window, but I realize I love to watch you. You sing when you drive, and you do not look over your shoulder nearly as much as you used to.
We are both quicker to apologise after an argument, and mean it, though you still crash around in the kitchen and mutter under your breath in Norwegian when you are angry with me. It has taken me a long time to stop fearing that every disagreement will be the end, and the fear is not completely gone.
Someone once said to me that fear is good. It stops us from taking things for granted. I think perhaps that's true.
XXXXX
It has taken me a while to adjust, but after three months of having you back for real, I no longer panic inside when you want to do something that does not include me, or feel guilty when I leave you alone in the apartment. I realize it was silly, laughable, clingy – god forbid – but the fear of drifting apart was so real for me. It still is, I suppose, enough to keep me on my toes, but the panic has abated. Instead I actually find it immensely comforting, the way we can do our own thing, outside and here. Sometimes, just being here together and separately, we do not need to touch or exchange words to know the other is there. I draw strength from our new-found ability to communicate; and also from the moments where we choose not to.
Like now. I am engaged in my customary Wednesday morning phone call with my mother, listening to her recurrent fretting over the fact that Anna is thirty this year and still single. I am, I hope, making all the right noises as I walk around the apartment picking up cups. Cups that you will say all belong to me, and I will let you say that, because I have learned to pick my battles, and because cups are the only thing you do not instantly tidy away. You are somewhere around. I can hear you singing tunelessly through my mother's anxious questions.
"Maybe we can set her up with someone at your Dad's birthday," she is saying, and I roll my eyes, because I know that Anna would rather chew off her own hand than endure another well-intentioned maternal matchmaking attempt. "Are you still coming, Nicky? The fourteenth of August?"
I see you out of the corner of my eye as I enter the kitchen, balancing the phone between ear and shoulder as I flip through our wall calendar.
"Sure, mom, yeah, we're free on the fourteenth." I let the pages flick back down and lean against the counter. "Greg is speaking at a conference on the sixteenth, so we can't stay all week."
I smile, because she is asking after you, and her concern is such a relief after everything. "He's fine."
I turn to smile at you then, because I know you are right behind me, doing something with the sink, I can hear the water running.
I freeze when I see you. You are motionless, gripping the counter top with your head down, eyes closed, mouth open, breathing sharply. The water is still running and there is a bag of flour out on the counter. I feel a stab of panic as I watch you because you are just standing there, and I have no idea what my mother is saying any more. I tell her I will call her back; and I'm with you. Saying your name, softly, not wanting to touch and startle you. I am right by your side, inches away, reaching out to set the phone down when I see it.
And I feel a flood of something unexpected that makes me close my eyes against it, just for a second. I open them again, remind myself that it's ok. That was then, this is now. Because your ring is sitting on the counter top, edged by a small pool of water. Breathe. You are standing right next to it. It's ok. And you are speaking, at last.
"I took it off because...I wanted to make pastry, and it all sticks, and..." You take a deep breath and you still do not open your eyes. "God."
And then I know. I know what's coming and I don't know whether to move closer to you or further away so I stay exactly where I am. I cannot breathe suddenly, because this moment is everything.
"It was a Sunday," you say at last. "It was raining, and I got wet standing on Sara's doorstep after I left here. I took my ring off, and I left it...left it here. I was going to give it back to you but in the end I couldn't do it."
I swallow hard. Knowing that you really do remember, because these details…they are all the parts I left out when I told you my side of the story all those months ago. I wonder now, if I did that deliberately, so I would know for sure that your returning memories were genuine.
"I thought...I thought maybe you'd come after me. When you didn't, I..." your breath catches painfully. "I thought I'd done the right thing."
God. This hurts, and I'm not ready. But you're here. You are here with me, and it's ok.
"It was stupid." Your eyes snap open and you turn to face me. Those eyes are huge and dark and they glitter with pain. "I thought that - "
"Greg." I cut you off, and you blink, surprised, but you stop talking. You are thinking so loud that it deafens me. All this time, this one little fragment of memory that has so filled me with dread. You have it now, and you can tell me.
So many times, I have pictured how I will respond to this moment. Sometimes, I thought it would be emotional and overwrought, that we would go over every detail and we would both cry. Other times I imagined listening in silence to the whole thing, and then coming out with something wonderfully romantic and sweeping, like…I don't know.
The thought that remembering would mean you did not want me any more has not been permitted head space for quite some time. What I did not imagine, though, is that it would be as simple as 'I don't need to know'. Because I don't, not any more.
"I don't need to know."
"But…"
"Does it change anything?"
"No," you whisper, and you are biting your bottom lip and trying not to smile. Your eyes look wet too, but I am not going to call you on it.
"It doesn't matter why you left. Not any more. I have all I need."
That smile is huge now, and you are no longer trying to suppress it. The expression on your face is weightless, as though with that, you are able to let go of that last little bit of tension. You look giddy with it, and you lean against the counter top with one hand, laughing. I laugh too, because it's contagious, and because the wave of relief hits both of us simultaneously. I am letting go too, of this tight little knot between my shoulder blades. Most of it, anyway. I think perhaps I will keep the last of it, just to remind me.
I just watch you. My Greg. That smile, the one that I know is only for me. Dark eyes sparkling. I watch you, lifting your hand from the counter and reaching for me. And before I know what I'm doing I'm pulling that hand up to my mouth, pressing kisses against your fingers, searching blindly with my free hand, because I do not want to break eye contact. Reaching out and sliding across cool marble, feeling for water and metal. There.
Your eyes are questioning for just a split second, before I hold your hand out in front of me and put your ring back on your finger. Then they are warm on mine, and we just stand there, grinning stupidly at each other. You break first, taking one small step and wrapping strong arms around me, catching me off guard and claiming my mouth without hesitation. My hands are on your back, and in your hair before I know it, pressing you against me as you flick an enthusiastic tongue into my mouth.
"You didn't kiss me like that the first time I put that ring on your finger," I manage, when we separate to breathe.
You snigger against my skin and pull gently at the hair that is almost falling into my eyes.
"No, and for good reason." You are pushing against me and I can feel how much you want me. More than six years since we first kissed, and I can still get a reaction like that out of you. Can't be bad.
"Mine."
"Yours," you reply, and there is no uncertainty in your voice as you kiss me again.
XXXXX
I almost don't go in, because I'm not sure I know what to say to you.
You are sitting alone in the locker room, leaning back against the wall, hands resting listlessly on your knees. Your eyes are closed and I can feel your tightly wound control from where I stand, in the doorway. Our connection flares painfully, and I wonder if you feel it as acutely as I do.
"Hey," you half-whisper, half-sigh without opening your eyes. Answering my question.
It doesn't much matter what I say to you, I realize, because it isn't my words that you need.
I cannot tell you not to let a bad case get to you like this, because you would call me a hypocrite, and you would be right. Besides, it is when things like this stop affecting you that you are in trouble. As a person and as a CSI.
I sit down next to you and take your hand between both of mine, running my thumb absently over your ring and gripping your fingers firmly enough to make you open your eyes.
Eyes that are slightly red, framed by damp eyelashes, slide to mine for a second before slipping back to the middle distance. I shift so that our thighs are touching and I do not let go of your hand. I look where you are looking, at nothing in particular. I know you will be ok, and I know you know that too, but everyone needs a minute sometimes.
"I love you."
I smile, rubbing my thumb over the back of your hand. "I know."
"Just one more minute."
I think I can manage that, for you, Greg. Because you're mine.
FIN
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