A/N: Well, I promised I would write a companion to That's What He Said and here it is! Our Altanta trip was lovely, a little chaotic, but what is new? The orchestra took first place (Yay!) and the Chorus did so as well. NHS dominated, needless to say :^) And it will never cease to amaze me how much music unites us, you know? That two girls from Canada that I had never met sat down and we talked about music for half an hour -that is awesome. *Sigh* I am such a music nerd (or as we fondly have dubbed ourselves, 'Orch Dorks'). Anyway, I wrote several chapters of this on the bus ride (and slept the rest of the time) and shall now post the first two installments. So here we go!
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing but unfinished homework assignments that cruelly beckon me to my desk. 'Tis a sad thing, having to write seven APWH essays. Ah, well. . . . .
"He's my partner."
And he is. Her partner. Her friend. A man who is everything she never knew she was missing because she hadn't found it until after she met him. And she would have found it the day she met him if she'd left herself. But she didn't because that seemed like a foolish thing to do, learn to trust a man, befriend a stranger, who wanted the opposite of what she did –a man whose green eyes were hurting because a loved one was taken away. And when she permitted herself to trust him, allowed her heart to open up just a little bit, peel back part of the veil she shrouded herself in, she found the missing piece. They were assigned to watch each other's backs, never told to monitor the opposite's six. They just did. And it took a while but before she realized it, she no longer had to guess what he wanted, where he wanted her when they were creeping around a suspect's residence, what he needed to say to get her to understand. And he no longer had to guess what subjects were safe to broach around her on long car rides, nor did he have to hazard her next move, wonder if he would have the barrel of his Sig in her face or the target's. And it was no longer necessary for her to pantomime what it was she was trying to convey because he understood now in an instant what idiom she had mangled. And he knew now to never let her drive. And now they moved in tacit, conversed with eyes and looks and actions. She knew him better than herself and the frightening truth was that he knew her in a similar manner. And he didn't hate her for it. Because she's his partner.
And years from now, the word partner will have more meanings, more layers. Because they are partners and never will stop being so.