To Steal A Titan
To Steal A Titan takes place after the end of series seven, and after an as yet unwritten case. Stella/Eve. Somewhat OOC.
They had spent two days in Paris by themselves, enjoying each other's company, and unwinding after the case. Stella's arm was still sore, but there had been relatively little muscle damage. The bullet, as Eve dimly remembered the surgeons telling her, had passed cleanly through the muscle, escaping the rotator cuff in the shoulder and leaving the main nerves and tendons intact. The science and medicine had cut through the panic and blindness that Eve had felt, and began to make sense of it all. Basic medical assumptions came back to her – how blood isn't always an indication of severity, how muscles bind and heal, how things can be fixed. Surgery had patched the muscle together, physiotherapy would strengthen it. Stella had been lucky and so, to an extent, had Eve; they had spent most of those two days in their hotel room. Needless to say, Stella had been following the doctor's orders and keeping her arm gently exercised.
When they had made the hour's journey out of the city centre, to see Stella's mother, Stella had offered Eve two notes of warning: Don't mention my arm – and always complement her cooking. Both pieces of advice had come in useful (not that there was anything wrong with Jeanette Goodman's cooking), and Eve had found Madame Goodman absolutely charming. The woman smoked and drank like a Frenchman, and yet manage to do so with the delicacy and dignity she had obviously passed on to Stella.
It was impossible to tell that the woman had lung cancer. Smokers' cough, she called it. She had confided in Eve, who had promptly put her cigarette in the ashtray, and hadn't smoked since. Stella hadn't caught her eye, but Eve saw her bite her lip, and wondered why she had not once mentioned it.
It was their last night. Stella's mother had gone out to play Belote and consume copious amounts of red wine with the same group of once-young widows she had been doing so for the last twenty-eight years. Stella and Eve had taken advantage of the empty house, making love like naïve teenagers, and now lay, in a half sleep state, on Stella's bed in the small attic room, the moonlight shining down onto them and tinting the tossed and tousled white sheets a pale blue.
After lying still for a small eternity, Stella leant over and kissed Eve, so softly. There was something she wanted to say; Eve could taste it in the kiss, could feel it on her lips.
I love you, murmured Eve, the words getting lost in the all-encompassing something that Stella was thinking, which grew between them, murky and full.
Stella blinked. Sighed. Swallowed. Moved even closer to Eve and kissing her skin. I love you too. And then Stella took a deep breath and closed her eyes. I think I might come back here, soon. And I don't mean for a few days. I mean... I mean for a few months. Maybe a year.
A year?
I don't know. I feel... I feel like I need to be back here for a bit. With my mother. But it's not just that. Stella stopped, either for breath or for thought, and Eve – though her eyes never left the ceiling – felt a warm tear roll from Stella's cheek onto her arm, before coming to rest on the bed. I've been thinking about it for a while – and then you came along and I thought I would stay... But I can't. I'm sorry.
Eve rolled over, facing Stella and held her close. When?
I don't know. When I get my things sorted. When I hand in my notice. She gave the faintest of smiles. When Boyd accepts it.
I hope he doesn't.
I'd go anyway.
I know. Eve closed her eyes, and did the only thing she could. She kissed her. I know.