Author's Note: This is a speculative fic for the upcoming episode titled Versus (airing in the US this Monday). Spoilers utilized were those provided by the promo and the press release, nothing more. This story imagines that Wash and Taylor have been a couple for awhile, and that Taylor did in fact kill someone, though in self-defense. This kind of piece is far from my forte - I don't usually go romantic, even intense romantic. However, challenges should always be undertaken. Let me know if this was interesting or in the ballpark of how you think something like this would go supposing the above. Thanks in advance.
Content Warning: Contains adult sexual situations - though not graphic. Some language.
He harbors no delusions of a conversation tonight about whose bed they'll be sharing. He rather figures that unless they can work this out, and get past it, well then they might not have that particular debate for a good time to be, in fact.
The realization and understanding of that bitter truth hits Nathaniel Taylor far harder than he would have ever expected it to.
He knows that he should stay the hell away from her at least for tonight. He should honor her clear (if unspoken – she's not someone who is apt to make a show of her feelings) desire to put space between them. He knows she's angry, hurt and betrayed. He would be as well if their positions were reversed.
And dammit if he doesn't know how dangerous she is when she's all of those things. Going near her right now seems naïve at best, and suicidal at worst.
And yet, somewhat inexplicably, he finds himself walking purposefully towards her house, intent on seeing her, determined to try to explain himself to her. Which in and of itself is already bizarre enough. He's not used to having to do that – normally, what he says and does is just accepted at face value.
Even by her.
This is different, though.
After everything they've been through, after everything that they've become to each other over the long years together (they don't bother with definitions, none quite seem to fit all they are to each other), he feels an almost compulsive need to explain. To make her understand. Perhaps that's a bit selfish and self-serving, but he can't help himself. The thought of this hanging between them eats at him.
He's not even slightly surprised to find her front door locked when he gets to it. Normally, if they haven't already decided on who is staying where, she leaves it open for him until at least twenty-two hundred hours, just in case he wants to drop by and stay over for the night. He does the same for her at his place.
Considering that it's just a notch after twenty-one-hundred, and her door is locked tight, it's fairly clear to him that she doesn't want him here. And he's fairly confident in believing that she won't be dropping by his place either.
He slips his hand into his pocket, and extracts the skeleton key he has. It's typically locked away in a small box in the desk in his own house, but before leaving the serenity of his own domicile to come here, he'd had a suspicion that he'd not be well received, and thus would need to create his own entrance.
As he unlocks the door, he's hit with one thought that feels like an absolute certainty: she's going to fucking kill him.
And it'll probably be well deserved. But hey, he's always been something of a gambler so why not roll the dice here and hope for forgiveness? It's one hell of a bet for sure, but one that he's not sure he can afford not to make.
He simply cannot afford to lose her.
He's lost too much in his life, he won't lose her, too. Not like this anyway.
He steps into her house, sparing only a cursory glance around. He knows this place like the back of his hand, has spent many a night moving around it. It's kept almost ridiculously neat, a model of military style cleanliness and order.
He takes a breath – pausing briefly so as to steel his nerves. The fact that he even has to makes him chuckle to himself and shake his head. Here he is, Commander Nathaniel Taylor, war hero of the twenty-second century and leader of Terra Nova, and yet he's acting like he's afraid of a simple woman. It's absurd.
If the brass back in the future could see him now, they'd surely laugh and mock.
But that, he muses, is simply because they neither know nor understand the woman in the other room. The word simple? Yeah, doesn't fit at Wash at all.
Mercurial. Hyper Controlled. Deadly determined. Singularly focused. Intense. Fierce. All of those, and more? Sure, absolutely. But never ever simple.
He opens the door to her bedroom slowly and steps in, waiting for a moment in the silent and suddenly oppressive darkness of her private quarters. The room is cold, but not unusually so. She tends to run warmer than most, and thus likes to keep the temperatures around her lower than most would find comfortable.
He considers saying her name, but thinks that if she responds and stops him before he touches her, before he has his arms around her and can somewhat contain her (not control her – even he knows that control of her is permitted not taken), then she'll likely block this conversation from occurring at all.
And it needs to happen.
It has to happen.
Now. Right now.
He takes his shoes and socks off, but nothing else. Undressing more than that seems presumptuous, and thus likely to anger her even more. He steps over to the bed, his eyes settling on the blanketed form of his lieutenant.
His friend.
His lover.
He sits down on the bed, feeling the mattress sag beneath his added weight. He knows that she's awake. And waiting. He can feel the tension rolling off her lean muscular body even from a few inches away.
He glances around the room, his eyes settling on her gun belt, which is sitting on the dresser, absent its weapon. He knows that the gun itself is probably very close to her, close enough for her to get to and fire if need be.
Also absent from the belt is her K-Bar. Vaguely, with entirely too much amusement to be safe or sane, he wonders if she'll shank him the moment he slips within distance. She's certainly quick enough to be able to at least make an attempt if she wanted to. Ah, but he knows her better. She'd never hurt him.
Hurting someone seems to be what he does best.
Ayani. Lucas. Wash.
He feels his heart seize painfully, and for the briefest of moments, a man who no one would ever dare call a coward actually considers backing out of this plan. He wonders if he has the right to push here.
Almost as quickly as the doubts had come upon him, he wipes them away. He's never been a man to back away from any challenge – even the ones he should. He's sure as hell not about to start now. Not when it means so much.
He pulls his legs up onto the bed, then slowly (and with some mild pain in his muscles – age, he thinks with a slight frown) stretches himself out, lying parallel to her if not yet touching her. That she's so far refused to say a word to him or even acknowledge his presence makes him wonder if she's hoping he'll change his mind and just go away. Or maybe she's too pissed to even be able to speak.
Either way, he rolls the dice, hopes for the best and leans towards her, slipping behind her, and molding her lean body to hers. When she doesn't immediately shove him away, he decides to further test his luck by sliding his arms around her waist, his fingers interlocking around the front of her.
That's as far as he gets before she stiffens up so much as to be uncomfortable.
"Wash," he whispers, his mouth against her neck He's certain that she can feel his breath on her skin. He presses a light kiss to what he knows is an extremely sensitive spot on the nape of her neck, hoping to hear the sharp intake of breath he usually hears when he does that.
Instead, he hears, "Leave." Cool as ice, no room for argument or debate.
Her request doesn't surprise him a bit, but he chooses – however stupidly – to push past it. He tightens his arms around her midsection, one of his hands sliding up under the thin black tank top that she's wearing. It settles against her rock hard abdomen. "Let me explain," he asks. He knows that he should come to her about this on his knees, beg for forgiveness, but he can't. It's not his way.
And he likes to think that as angry as she is with him right now, it's not what she would want from him either.
Their relationship works because of two things: despite titles, they're equals. She's brave and tough and fiercely independent. She can reduce a man three times her size to tears within seconds. She doesn't believe in gender roles, and yet she's never seen the need to step on his toes just to prove that she's as strong as he is. The other reason they connect so effortlessly is because they seldom need words to define their feelings for each other.
They just know.
But that's not going to work right now.
He owes her more than that. He owes her an explanation, and he means to give her one whether she wants to hear it or not.
"Wash, come on, look at me," he says after several moments of uncomfortable silence. He hesitates a moment before adding softly, "Please."
Maybe it's the use of that word – one he seldom uses outside of a polite request. Maybe it's his slightly pleading tone. Whatever it is, after a few more tense seconds, she turns slowly in his arms, finally facing him.
He looks her over as she gazes back at him, his eyes sliding over her face. It's scrubbed completely clean of makeup now, showing off some of her stress and worry lines a bit more clearly than usual. She's a beautiful woman – striking even – but she's certainly not fresh-faced. Too much life lived, too many painful battles fought, too much loss absorbed.
And dammit if he hadn't added to all of that tonight.
She doesn't wait for him to start. Instead, her voice weary, she opens with, "You could have told me."
"I know. And I should have."
"But you didn't, Nathaniel. You didn't."
She won't say how much that hurts her; these aren't words that Alicia Washington quite knows how to verbalize. She hopes that he sees it in her eyes (even if the room is dark). She hopes that he can read it in her voice.
"You know I don't say this often, Wash, but I'm sorry. I really am."
That's not enough, and they both know it.
She slips out of his arms, and almost absurdly, he feels the loss of her deep in his bones. Right now, he wants nothing more than to pull her back to him, pull her close again and hold her. But he doesn't. He simply waits for her to speak.
Finally, quietly, "Tell me what happened. All of it."
"Does it matter now? You know I didn't murder that man." There's maybe a hint of hurt in his tone now because he knows that for at least a moment during Shannon's investigation, the thought that he might have actually committed murder had to have crossed her mind.
"But you did kill him."
"I had no choice," he insists, trying to keep the defensive edge out of his voice.
"I know. And you could have told me that. Instead, you let me stagger around looking like an idiot while Shannon asked questions." She shakes her head, the anger starting to surface. He's pretty sure she's just a few seconds off of again demanding that he leave "I'd defend you against anything or anyone, you know that, Nathaniel, but I deserve more than just standing blindly by your side like some kind of –"
It's risky, this he knows, but before she can finish the sentence and before he can lose his nerve and think better of it, he leans in and kisses her, pressing his lips against hers. They're soldiers, "men" of action. It seems almost ridiculous for this discussion to be happening through mere simplistic words.
He's almost surprised when she answers the kiss in kind. Frankly, he'd expected her to push him away immediately, but that's far from what she does.
Instead, the almost urgent kiss deepens and hardens, a thousand emotions – some of them quite ugly and painful - being thrown around like ingredients being tossed into a simmering cauldron. He feels her press up against him, their suddenly superheated bodies running flush against each other. His hand sweeps out, and tangles into her hair as he pulls her towards him.
She answers by wrapping her arms around his torso, her short nails biting into his skin, even through the thin fabric of his black shirt. There's anger in the way she's holding onto him, and he knows that if something happens now, if they do this, well it won't be their typical playful or passionate way of making love. It'll be much different, much more raw and physical.
Much more full of anger and hurt.
He's not sure how he feels about that – and some part of him is saying that he should stop this, that neither of them want this to happen – but he couldn't if he tried. He needs to feel her. Touch her.
Their mouths separate, and then he's kissing her neck, smiling slightly against her suddenly very warm skin when she tilts her head, exposing more flesh to him. He hears her growl, low in her throat, a warning sound really.
If she were an animal in the wilderness, he'd be grabbing a knife and a torch and digging his heels in for one hell of a fight.
She doesn't permit him much time to dwell on these thoughts before she's grabbing at his shirt, shoving it upwards, all the while dragging her nails up his chest. She's drawing blood, he's certain of this, but he doesn't dare stop her. It's not that he enjoys pain during sex (he doesn't, though he's not completely opposed to rougher lovemaking), it's more that he understands that right now, she needs to be the one in charge.
This is her party.
At least for now.
She shoves his shirt over his head and then leans in and presses a kiss – suddenly shockingly soft – against his chest. And then, like all the air going out of her sales, she simply leans into him, pressing her forehead to his.
He inhales sharply. Wash," he whispers.
She looks up at him, and there are a thousand emotions and a million questions running through her eyes.
"Why didn't you tell me?" she asks, her voice barely a whisper.
His voice throaty with emotion (and possible arousal), he answers "I didn't want you involved."
"I'm involved if you are. You know that."
"I do, but…I'm not…I'm not proud of what I did, Wash."
Her eyes soften as if seeming to say that she understands how difficult those words are for him to say. Back in Somalia, they'd both done things that most normal people would find unimaginable if not downright reprehensible. They'd rationalized and justified those often heinous actions away, learned not to dwell on them. That he feels shame for this act – one not of murder, but of justifiable homicide – well that cuts her deeply. All the way to the core.
"Nathaniel…"
He reaches out and takes her hand, curling his over hers. "I did what I had to do, but maybe there was another way. Maybe I could have just wounded him. Maybe he didn't have to die. I…I didn't want him to die. Maybe I failed him."
There's a slight tremble in his voice, one which she's heard less than a handful of times in their entire time of knowing each other. She imagines that most people have never heard it – probably would never want to. It's terrifying and unsettling.
"I should have told you, Wash. I should have told you everything, but I think even then I knew that…that maybe there'd been another way, and the last thing I wanted was you to…feel the same way. I didn't…I didn't want you carrying any more…anything more." He's trying to explain, trying to find the words, but each one seems harder than the last. He's a man used to dealing with his issues through force. For someone so capable, so utterly able to lead, he seems at a loss as to how to handle this. How to explain that his decision to keep this from her had been not just about him, but also about her.
She melts.
Her anger flows away (though perhaps some of the hurt remains – even though she understands a bit better now, it's still going to take at least a little time to completely let go of that). She reaches out with one hand and cups his cheek, her fingers sliding over his bearded jaw. She feels him lean into her palm.
"I will always stand with you," she tells him. "Always. There's nothing that you could do that would change that." She meets his cobalt blue eyes with her dark ones, the gaze intense even in the darkness of the room.
"I don't deserve you," he chuckles, trying to hide how much her words mean to him. She knows, though. That's part of why they work so well.
"No, you don't. But you've got me."
"Wasn't sure about that a few minutes ago."
"A few minutes ago I was seriously considering taking a trophy or two," she replies dryly, and for at least a second, he's not sure if she's serious or not.
"Well then I'm glad my charm won out." He's smiling now, a mischievous glint in his eyes as he recognizes that he's out of the danger zone.
"Your charm, huh?"
"I'm a charmer," he insists before puts his hand over the one of hers that is still rested on his bearded cheek. He pulls it away from his face, and then, before she can even think to react, he leans in and kisses her. He hears her emit a soft moan, and just that sound alone does things to him that he can barely begin to explain. It seems almost absurd that at his age and after all he has experienced, anyone can make him lose control. But she does. She really does.
He pushes her backwards on the bed, his knee settling between her legs as he leans over her, kissing every part of her that he can get to – mouth, neck, chest. Her arms wrap around him, momentarily finding purchase in his short hair before sliding down to grab at his biceps hard enough to leave bruises.
Inwardly, it occurs to him that thanks to the scratches on his chest, and now the marks on his arms, he's going to look like he went ten rounds in the gym come morning. Not that anyone but her (and maybe Jim) would ever comment on it.
He pushes up her tank, then leans down and presses his mouth against her abdomen, grinning when he feels her arch forward. The woman has a ridiculous amount of sensitive points on her. All of which he has exploited at what time or another. All of which he plans to exploit tonight.
And that's exactly what he does. What occurs between them is passionate and tender, but not at all gentle. There's no anger in the act, but there is need.
And then, exhausted from more than just the act (or even the argument) they both tumble into the world of somewhat peaceful sleep, their legs wrapped around each other, the sweat soaked sheets of her bed tangled beneath them.
His last thought as he slips off into unconsciousness is: if this is death, if she killed me for coming to see her, well then so be it. There are worse things.
Far worse things.
-Fin.