Summary: This...this is so much more than just a drawer. Short post-ep for 5x14.
Disclaimer: I wish I could take credit for last night's ep, but I can't. All I own is just this stupid grin that's been on my face all day.
Louder Than Words
She's never been good at putting her feelings into words. He knows that. He's known that for a long time and he didn't really think that jumping into this with her would change that.
He's a writer. She isn't.
He makes his living with words, has no trouble eloquently voicing his feelings for her. She doesn't, and though her vocabulary is quite expansive, she never seems to use it for that purpose.
And while he's dying to hear her say the words, while that tiny, insecure part of him is craving the reassurance that she's in this just as much as he is, he also knows that with Kate, patience is a virtue.
It took the better part of three years and his whispered confession as she lay dying in the cemetery to convince her that maybe he deserved a chance. It took another year after that for her to be healed enough to finally take the leap. He shouldn't have expected her to spill the very depths of her heart to him right away. And she doesn't.
But what he also doesn't expect is that she would find so many other ways to tell him she loves him without actually saying the words.
Smiles, touches, kisses. Promises of 'tonight' and 'tomorrow' and 'this weekend.'
Believing in him when everything was pointing against him, when faked emails were dubbing him a cheater and evidence was marking him a killer.
Sharing with him stories from her past; her days as a Nebula 9 fangirl and other snippets of her childhood.
Leaving behind her long-held traditions to spend Christmas with him and his family.
Clearing out a drawer in her dresser so that he can keep some of his things at her place.
She's letting him in. Slowly but surely, she's opening her heart to him, to his love, to the possibilities that lay before them.
She doesn't open up easily, plays it close to the vest, and he completely understands her hesitance, her desire to protect herself from more pain, because she's endured more in fourteen years than most people do in their entire lives. She keeps one foot out the door; he remembers her admitting that two years back. One foot out the door, because stepping all the way in opens up the possibility for pain and heartbreak.
Which is why this...this is so much more than just a drawer. This is her opening up her heart, her home, to him. This is her allowing him to bring his personal effects to her safe haven, her private sanctuary. This is her silent promise of more. Commitment, love, and – he hopes – forever.
He doesn't want to ask because he doesn't want to pry, but he can't help but wonder if she's ever allowed any other man their own place in her bedroom. In her heart.
From the shy way she blinks up at him as she awaits his reaction, the beautiful smile that spreads across her face as he assures her as to the meaning, the importance, of her gift to him, he can deduce the answer to his silent question.
He's the first.
The first to be allowed this deep into her heart.
The first, and hopefully the last.
END
Thoughts?