Okay so hello everybody, for the ones who don't know me yet I've posted just a few one shots, cause I don't know the language well enough to write something more sophisticated, but you may know me for some review I have left you or by twitter. Also, when I first wrote down this one shot I though about "All this time" as the title, but then I saw there was already another fic named this way so I preferred to change its name in "After all this time" (which by the way reminds me of Harry Potter, oh, I'm such an incurable Potterhead). Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy it and you'll find a few minutes to let me know what you think, enjoy the reading :)
The annoying hiss of the teapot brings you back to reality. You woke up suddenly, as if someone had shaken you violently.
It has been days, or even weeks, since you last slept more than three consecutive hours. You're always staring at the ceiling, planting your nails on the mattress until the sunrise, just to end up falling asleep everywhere during the day, even at work. Luckily, you don't have to give any explanation to anyone; everyone already knows what you're going through, so they never dare saying or anything but constantly giving you merciful looks.
However, the hardest moment of the day is not when you're at work and you stay in his now-empty office for hours; neither is itwhen you spend whole days in a house that you've been sharing with him until so recently. No, the worst moment is when they knock at the door.
When, with constantly-swollen eyes and a racing heart, you run at the door and look through the spy-hole just to realize that it's not Cal. So you open the door praying to God and whoever will listen to you that it's the mailman, a neighbor, a salesman. Anyone but an agent come to tell you that he didn't make it, that the next time you'll see him he'll be just a cold body, a ghost of the love of your life.
But it's never him; it's never Cal.
Thank God, it's never an agent, either.
But how long will it take until one of them knocks at your door?
Before your agony will end but also your deepest fear will be confirmed? Holding on, you dismiss these thoughts from your mind once again,and you get up to get some tea.
Tea. Cal.
No. Focus.
You look at the clock - almost two in the morning.
Despite the hour, you prefer sitting down on the couch again instead of going to bed, a bed you know is waiting for you just for another endless and awful night of pain.
Trying to drink your tea and to overlook the lump in your throat that is bothering you again and that never stops for real, you breathe deeply. The smell of the tea, his smell, crowds even your soul, and new tears start falling down again. At this point you can't ignore the memories, and you remember these last years with him and the long way that took you to where you are now.
You remember Wallowski, his pushing and pushing you again to the edge, like he wanted to see how much you could handle before breaking down and falling apart. You think about Clair's death and how it changed both of you; all the pressure was gone in a second. In one day, he stopped pushing. He has always been at your side since that very moment, and that weight pressing your heart even harder than you thought was just gone.
You remember that night on your office's balcony: his Scotch-tasting mouth, that fleeting kiss that - deep down - you both knew was meant tobecome so much more with time. You remember your first real kiss, in this very house, that was his at the time but that now belongs to both of you (and that could become just yours in a moment). You had fought heavily that day; he had furiously run out of the office without a word, and you had used the keys he gave you for emergencies to get into his house. You sat on the couch and waited there hours for him to show up and when he finally arrived, sopping wet, it took you just a few seconds (minutes maybe) to stop fighting and start kissing furiously, kisses that in some minutes became something so much deeper as well.
The memories of that night, your first night, break up into your mind: voracious mouth everywhere, your hands getting lower and lower, your moans and his, your nails on his back, your legs over his shoulders, your back arching again and again as he thrust deeply, your screams and your gasping breaths.
While you try to hold it in, clutching tightly the cup of tea, and tears stream down your face again and again you remember it all so vividly.
Every kiss, every night, every fight and every victory, every joke, every hug. Every laugh that seemed never to end, every night you spent just holding each other, every look full of lust you shared at the office, every tear you each wiped away for the other. Every time youboth felt lost and thought you'd have never get out of that maze, but then the other reached out a hand; and looking into each other's eyes, you found hope again.
The tears, the pain, all those memories, so clear in your mind, are obfuscating you so much you don't even hear the door unlocking and opening quietly, as it has always done in this very way to its owner.
"Gillian?"
This time it's not the teapot that brings you back to reality; it's him.
When you turn back he's still there: in the hall, sopping wet, right as he was that night when it all started, but so much more tired and aged now.
You don't know how your legs moved, but now you're in front of him, staring. You can't talk; you can't move. You can't even breathe. Cal is alive! He's here; he's right in front of you. He's safe. He's okay.
"I'm home, Gill" he whispers; and it all happens at once.
You throw yourself against him as hard as you can, and he apparently does the same because you crash heavily against the wall. But it doesn't matter; no, the only thing that matters now is getting as close as you can to him.
You keep pressing yourselves against each other, so hard that you're sure you'll have bruises, so hard you can barely breathe; but it doesn't matter at all, because you know now Cal's back. You can breathe again.
You keep hugging harder than ever, sobbing, becoming just one body. And he, pressing your head against his chest as he had already done so many times to reassure you, once again with a broken voice whispers to you, "I'm home."
Hope you liked it, bye!
Depends_On_The_Lie