Nothing else left
Summary:She didn't know when it started. How it started. But when she noticed, it was too late.
Warning: Angst. Drama. Last chance to run.
Set: At no specific time, since I haven't watched Cold Case for half a year now...
Disclaimer: I own a quite overactive imagination. So if I say I own Cold Case... Don't believe me.
She can´t even remember when it started to change.
Maybe that fateful day they fought in the entrance hall.
Maybe when he decided to not report her because of case Josef.
Maybe when she was shot in the interrogation room.
Maybe when her mother died.
Maybe when she was pushed from the bridge in her car.
Maybe the day she realized it was all about her, every time Scotty and she really talked. Every time they grew closer, it was about her. That was when she started to think about her partner more. About his character. His looks. His clothes. His family. His behavior.
Until she couldn´t think of anything else any more. It felt like drowning. Again. Scotty. Scotty. Scotty. He was in her mind, in her head, in her entire being. And he didn´t even notice.
The biggest mistake in her life was to get drunk that particular day.
Of course, inebriation always is a good excuse to behave foolishly and to do stupid things. She wouldn´t have expected she´d behave that idiotic herself. Maybe it was because she felt lonely after Saccardo left the second time. Maybe she just needed to get laid. Maybe her subconsciousness wanted it to be Scotty. Maybe that had been the reason she had let Saccardo into her bed again – to forget her partner, the one person on earth she could never have. It didn´t matter.
She got drunk, and Scotty got drunk as well, and they ended up in his apartment. In his bed. And it was the best sex Lil ever had.
It was over as soon as she woke and realized what had happened. Scotty blinked at her with heavy-lidded eyes, still groggy from drunken, idiotic, freaking good sex. Looking that hot shouldn´t be allowed. She looked back, frozen from fear. Their conversation wasn´t long, but at least they had one. A few words were exchanged and she gathered her clothes and left. They were responsible grown-ups, after all. They could handle such a situation.
"This shouldn´t have happened."
"We can just forget about it."
He had been the one to offer the only solution possible to them. She accepted it gratefully, clung to it like a drowning person to a plank. Only after she closed her own front-door behind her, she realized what this agreement really meant.
Calling in sick was the only way to avoid her partner.
Going to work was the only way to not sit around and bawl her eyes out.
She took the second possibility.
"You look like shit", Kat told her as soon as nobody else was within earshot. "You sure you don´t want to talk about it?" Lil ignored her.
She was pretty sure she never ever wanted to talk about it in her entire life.
Kat let the subject drop. Lil continued to work as normal. Scotty did, too. He actually behaved as if nothing had happened at all. Maybe it was the fact he didn´t seem affected by their intermezzo that made Lil feel sick. Maybe it was the fact that she couldn´t even read his expression. In the past, she had been able to read him like an open book. Now the book was not only closed but sealed, wrapped securely and packed away in the safest vault she could imagine. She knew she held the key, but she refused to use it. Instead, she buried it and chose to forget about it. The task wasn´t easy. She barely managed it.
She wouldn´t tell him their one-night stand had meant everything to her.
She wouldn´t tell him she had somehow, unexplainably, fallen in love with him.
She wouldn´t tell him she was falling apart because he, obviously, didn´t see any deeper meaning in their relationship. He was flirting with a dark-haired woman and she left them in the entrance hall, making her way straight to the restroom and barricading herself inside until her heart-rate had somewhat slowed down and the nausea receded.
She wouldn´t ask for his love.
If there was nothing else left in the world, there still was her pride.