Disclaimer: Not mine. Joss would still be hanging in there if it were.
I don't wanna wait in vain for your love.-Bob Marley
He waited.
He waited through the grief of Beecher. He waited through the puppy love of Ian Murphy. He waited through the tenuous patchwork of the relationship she worked through with Paul. He waited until after the scare of Simmons and H.R. that nearly took her away from him.
He waited.
Until one day in early summer when the waiting ached down to the bone and he couldn't do it anymore.
The bitterness of winter melded straight into the scorching of summer, skipping the lull of spring completely. That leap had propelled the populace from one bad mood into an even worse one. The numbers came down in a downpour. They'd saved three people yesterday and six more the previous week. He was exhausted on all fronts.
"Go home, Mr. Reese," Harold said, removing his glasses and wiping sweat from his tired eyes.
John nodded. He wouldn't argue with Harold this time. He exited the safe house and reached into his suit pocket for his phone.
"Carter."
She must have known it was him and not Finch, must have sensed his aura the way he sensed hers.
"What are you up to?"
He heard ruffling in the background.
"Finishing up this paperwork on our last case. What's up? Do you need help?" A tinge of the exhaustion that weighed him down seeped out into her voice. She had been just as busy as he, busy ferreting out information for them, working her own cases and still collecting awards from her victorious tussle with H.R. She had flown back from a ceremony two weeks ago where she'd been honored for her service in aiding the FBI.
"Yes."
More ruffling.
"Okay?" she said with a lilt despite everything. He could picture her poised with pen in hand waiting to jot down a name or address.
"Come to my place for a movie?" He hoped he didn't sound too eager, hoped his desire to be in her presence didn't push her away.
They were fragile sometimes now. Not with work. With work they were efficient and in perfect synch. Simultaneous knowing looks, the draw of guns, the immediate piecing together of tactical responses to best apprehend suspects were their expertise. No, their new awkwardness wasn't around the numbers. Instead it seeped into their personal interactions: a pause when both reached for the sugar at Lyric Cafe, a nervous smile when they met on quiet stakeouts, an uncomfortable turning away if their gazes held too long.
John waited through them all.
"You're a fool," Shaw said one day after she caught him fixated just a little too much on Carter's ass as she trudged to her cruiser with a perpetrator. "A damn fool."
"A movie? Your place?" Hesitancy outlined her words. "So this isn't about a number?" He could picture the wrinkle forming between her brows.
"No. Thought you could ditch work, get Lionel to finish up since he stuck you with everything for his vacation last week. Thought we could relax."
She was silent. He didn't rush her. He waited. He was so good at waiting, but only with her. With everyone else he demanded and bullied until he got immediate answers. With her, he let her think, he let her parse out her emotions until she was ready to respond. He accepted her answers.
"I don't know." A tinge of something unknown floated underneath her words.
"Come on, Joss. I know you could go for some relaxation too. I'll order us pizza, on me, and you can pick the movie." A gentle nudge with all the perks lined in her favor. Carter was a pizza fiend. She could wolf down a large by herself in no time. A particularly interesting fact he didn't find out until he holed up in her apartment after Ian scared her by stalking her outside of Blur. She also had a thing for action flicks starring Bruce Willis, which was a win-win for him.
"I guess."
He smiled. The pot was too sweet for her to resist.
"Great. See you in two hours?" He managed to keep his giddiness to a minimum. He gave her the address. She had never been to his place before. They had never found the time in their spy adventures to delve into his space. It had always been him showing up uninvited to hers. He wanted to change that.
She didn't say anything when he opened the door for her. She took one glance at his white tank, black sweat bottoms and bare feet and raised a brow.
He wondered what she was thinking. The way she looked around, not looking him straight in the eye let him know she was nervous. Carter was a woman who lived her life on the edge, not out of want, but out of necessity. Life tossed her off the edge of its deck enough times for John to know she was barely hanging on sometimes. He hoped to anchor her, but he was afraid he was causing her to slip further into the sea of confusion. He was certain his kiss in the morgue and then his announcement of wanting to be with her in his dying throes had set her on edge in a way he never intended.
"So?" he questioned.
"The Fifth Element," she answered. They were in synch again. He marveled at how she knew what he wanted to know without him saying much. He realized he was the same with her. Just last week he had said "yes" when she hadn't said one single word, knowing intrinsically what she wanted to know.
He padded over to the table and bent to grab the remote for his big screen television from the glass surface. He'd recently done a complete remodel of the place. While reluctant to receive the gift when Harold had given it to him, he'd decided while on that street clutching Carter's bleeding body that he would not wait to enjoy his life. He only had one and he needed to squeeze out whatever joy he could. He hadn't gotten much. He would never be into anything too fancy. He'd just gotten a new, big leather couch and a big screen television. If he was honest with himself, he had envisioned Joss on that couch watching television with him. He'd also envisioned her naked in his bed, her hair mussed and lipstick smeared as she beckoned to him with that coy smile of hers, but he closed his eyes and swallowed down that thought. It was too soon, if at all, to think like that.
He turned back to look at her and tried not to smile. Frozen in an unsteady stance was Carter. Her tongue grazed her upper lip. Her weight had shifted to her right leg and her head was tilted. She had clearly been checking out his ass. He wouldn't bring it up, yet.
"The Fifth Element is a good one, Joss. Lots of good, campy action."
She snapped out of her daze. "Yeah. Bruce Willis. Plus Chris Tucker is hilarious in it."
He nodded.
"I haven't ordered the pizza yet. Didn't know what you'd want." She was usually a pepperoni woman, but sometimes she ventured into the deep with a meat lovers or supreme.
"Is meat lovers okay?"
"Yeah. You know I love women who love their meat." His mouth morphed to a grin at her startled face. They were used to flirting and playing with the line in their relationship. He wanted to see just how far he could go before it was too far.
She centered herself quickly because she closed her mouth, blinked twice and leaned her head down. Her own mouth formed a slow smile until she laughed. "John," she dragged out in exasperation.
He could see the heat rush to meet her cheeks even though she kept her head ducked for a moment.
He wiggled his brows.
"Where has this John been hiding?"
He swore he heard her sigh.
"Who said he was hiding?"
She crossed the room and plopped down on his massive sofa. She looked like an angel against it as her hair fanned out behind her. He swallowed again.
The dream he'd had of her last week, the one with her open mouth gasping, small hands traveling his chest and thighs encasing him as she rode him hard, flashed in his mind. He scurried away from her and to the counter where his cellphone was. Jesus. He had to find a way to bottle those thoughts up or otherwise the plan for a fun night with Carter was going to turn into a torturous nightmare for him. He didn't want that. He'd waited for this moment and he didn't want to pressure her.
He had a feeling that if he pressed she would agree, would comply and bend to his will because he was her weakness like she was his. Why else would she go at such great lengths to save him and risk her livelihood and career?
He pressed his hands against the countertop and took a breath before he dialed up the pizza place a block away.
"Forty-five minute wait. Is that okay?"
He couldn't see her over the back of the couch, but he heard her "That's fine" clearly.
He went to his kitchen and pulled out two wine glasses and a bottle of vintage Barbera d'Alba. He'd gotten the wine as a thank you from a wealthy restaurateur they'd saved two years ago.
He placed a bowl of popcorn on the table in front of them and took his place next to her. He sunk into the thick cushions. The Blu-ray disc was frozen on the menu screen, the play feature highlighted and waiting for them to start the movie.
He handed her a glass of wine.
"So this is what you do on your time off? You bring strange women to your place to watch Bruce Willis movies?"
He looked at the amusement lining her face. She wasn't serious and yet she was. She was really interested in what he did, what he was like off the clock and away from her. He wondered why.
"Not strange women, no," he muttered.
She shifted her body further up onto the couch from where it had sagged against the comfy cushions.
"So not so strange women then?"
"No." His answer was firm. He hoped she didn't mean Zoe. He very much liked Zoe, would always like Zoe and he wouldn't change a minute of their relationship because it had been good and beneficial for both of them, but he and Zoe had agreed to move to a business only relationship. At first it was because he didn't want to endanger her to his ever-growing dangerous lifestyle, but then it became about the fact that he thought they just grew out of synch with each other. There would always be respect and affection there though.
"Oh," she whispered.
An uncomfortable silence drifted between them and he held his breath out of fear that he would do something to break the silence in the wrong way. People always thought you could ease out of silence, but sometimes someone or something came along and punctured it, ruined it in a way that was unable to be pieced back together. John was familiar with things in his life getting ruined and he wasn't going to be the one to do it this time.
She reached for the remote and his hand covered hers. She struggled not to pull away sharply, her hand flexing against the plastic and out of his grip.
"Joss," he started. He was frustrated.
"No," she shook her head. Her big bright brown eyes sparked with forced mirth. "You promised me relaxation."
He couldn't quite smile, but he did let her hand go and activated the dimmer in the room. Instantly, the hazy glow from the television swept over them as the movie started. She snuggled down into the couch and stared straight ahead. He watched her from the corner of his eye before facing forward. He would wait some more.
Carter was engrossed in the movie, her body jerking to simulate fight moves when the doorbell rang.
He answered, took the warm boxes with grease staining the bottoms, and paid for the pizza, making sure to tip the delivery guy nearly fifty percent of the cost. He was a big tipper. He knew what it was like to survive on tips. Back in his youth, he'd bussed plenty of tables and trudged home with barely any money to help the family out.
He pulled out hand painted plates he'd found at a market and brought the pizza over for them to share. He'd gotten two pizzas just in case. He was expecting Carter to mindlessly scarf down three pieces without ever looking up.
"This is so good," she moaned around a mouthful of food. Sauce leaked around the corners of her mouth before she licked it away.
He knew she would like it. It was from the pizza place around the corner. A family owned it and always gave him a bonus of some kind since he'd brought their eldest son back from the brink of disaster after his gambling debts almost cost his life. John put this time's bonus back into the deliveryman's tip.
"Glad it covers the relaxation I promised you," he teased. She turned to him and smiled before they both connected back to with the movie.
He watched her stretch. Her arms lifted high above her head. The short-sleeved tee she wore rode up her stomach as her jeans pulled taut against her thighs. He gritted his teeth and grabbed the plates. No, no. He would wait. He would continue to wait. He wouldn't let the fire crawling up his body overtake him.
"This was a good idea. I enjoyed it."
He scraped the scraps from the plate into the garbage and placed the plates into his dishwasher.
"Good, Joss. I'm glad you liked it."
"You knew I would." He stopped his journey back to her. His warm feet touched the cold wood in warning. Things were about to switch. He could feel it.
He urged himself to move forward, to face her.
"I figured." He shrugged and leaned side ways against the couch to face her.
"You knew," she repeated. "You always know."
"Joss, I don't always know."
She shook her head. "Yes, yes, you did. You always know now. Ever since the morgue. Don't lie. I know you feel it too. Doesn't it irritate you?"
No need in lying. "No, it doesn't." He had cause for alarm. "Does it irritate you?"
"Sometimes," she answered honestly. "Sometimes I hate it. I hate that I'm so attached to you."
"Why?" He knew it felt like tethered electricity, but he welcomed it, waited for it, felt disrupted and upset when the energy was knocked out of circuit.
She shrugged and he waited. He waited for her to find her words.
"I've been alone for so long. I don't need to need someone."
"What if I said I needed you?" His voice slipped into the earnestness he'd used in the alley right before she'd been shot.
Her eyes lit in discomfort like they did then. "John." But she never finished, just let his name hang in suspension by itself.
"I would say I'm sorry, Joss, but I'm not."
"Did you invite me over here for this?"
"No." He paused. He considered. "Maybe. Yes."
She sighed. "I can't give you anything right now, John. My life is too hectic. Taylor is getting ready for college, the FBI is still watching me closely, and Quinn's trial is soon."
"I know. I know. I'm not here to pressure you, Joss. I just want you to know I'm here and if you're attracted to me like I am you, I'd like to know that when you do get ready that I'm not fighting other men for a chance with you."
She smiled then. "You would fight other men for me?"
"In a heartbeat." His eyes sharpened and he held her gaze.
"I always thought you came a little close with Ian," she joked.
"You have no idea." His voice turned to steel and his hands flexed.
Her eyebrows lifted. "Don't hurt anybody, John."
"If someone tries to skip in line, I can't make promises."
She touched his leg.
He stifled a groan and removed her hand. "No, don't do that, Joss. That does not help in the way you want it to."
A smirk appeared on her face. "Really? Good to know."
His hand reached up to swipe hair out of her face and he felt her shiver against his calloused fingers. "You really don't want to tempt me now."
Her eyes closed. "No, I guess I don't."
However, when she opened her eyes she leaned forward, cupped his chin in one hand and slid the other across the nape of his neck, pressed smooth lips against his. He opened his mouth and let her tongue enter. The tang of fresh mozzarella and pizza sauce flooded his mouth. The energy around them sparked and soared and he felt that tethered electricity between them grow stronger.
When she broke the kiss her eyes shifted between his. "Can you wait for me, John?"
"I can."
He would wait forever for her, but he had a feeling it wouldn't take forever.
A/N: Hope you like.