Disclaimer: I don't own To the Moon.
A Secret No Longer Hidden
Somewhere deep down inside, she's known how he feels—how she feels—long before he says those three words, but denial has been her other best friend for years. As long as the whatever-it-is between them is never given a name—as long as she can explain it away as coincidence or meaning something else or idle workplace gossip—she never has to deal with it.
His aborted attempt at touching her shoulder at the end of the Johnny Wyles case? He was obviously trying to get revenge for her pushing him off the lighthouse.
Him occasionally calling her by pet names? Clearly meant to annoy her.
That mistletoe during the Christmas party the year before last? Of course he wouldn't want to fulfill such a corny tradition.
If she's honest with herself, she'll admit that she knows the moment she realized she cared about him as far more than a friend or partner. It was during their first year working at Sigmund Corp., the first time she saved him from being fired—the first of many over the past six years. Of course, she was ready with the easy excuse that she was just being a good friend, a loyal partner, and while it is true, the deeper truth is that, for better or worse, she simply doesn't want to do her job without him.
For better or worse, she isn't sure if she even wants to live without him.
Really, that's what all her resistance and denial and evasion boil down to. Once the whatever-it-is becomes real and concrete and something no longer avoidable, there will be only two outcomes: either they'll stay together for the rest of their lives...or they'll break up. And because he's Neil Watts and she's Eva Rosalene, any breakup between them would almost certainly involve an explosive fight, slammed doors, and an inability to go back to how they were before.
Whether she admits it or not, he's become a rather important part of her life, and of all the ways she could lose him—the boss finally firing him, another woman catching his eye, a case going horribly wrong—she doesn't want a possibly doomed liaison to be it.
So when he tells her those three words while lying in a hospital bed, it's (almost) easy to fall back on years-old denial, to tell herself more than him that the drugs in his system are making him loopy. A mental voice that sounds suspiciously like Roxanne is screaming that he's giving her all the excuse she needs to just give in already, but she ignores it.
Afterward, when he's been released from the hospital and she gives him the promised verbal thrashing for not telling her about his chronic pain, his confession to her remains undiscussed.
Days pass, then weeks. Outwardly, nothing has really changed since the hospital—no serious conversations, no more sudden declarations. They still bicker, exchange sarcastic barbs, and work with patients about as well as they usually do. Even so, no matter how deeply she wants to bury it, the knowledge is still there, still is.
It's there in the way he'll sometimes—keyword there being sometimes—look at her when they're witnessing a tender memory between a patient and their spouse or old lover, instead of making smartass comments like he normally does. Since the lenses of his glasses have what he likes to call "extra-reflexive coating," it's hard to know what exactly he's saying with those looks, but she has her theories.
That could be us, if you want, is chief among them.
She's careful to avoid his gaze during moments like that.
A month and a half has passed by the time Taima once again brings up the nephew she's been trying to set Eva up with. Ordinarily, she would politely refuse to go along with whatever matchmaking scheme the elderly woman has cooked up, but this time she accepts, mostly to stop Taima's pestering, but also partially because a date with someone else is yet another avoidance tactic.
At first, Neil thinks it's a joke when she tells him about it in his office at the end of the day, but the grin disappears from his face when he realizes she's not kidding.
"Seriously?" he asks. "You're seriously going on a date?"
"Yes, Neil," she replies. "I'm seriously going on a date."
She imagines he blinks from behind his glasses. "Um, okay. I guess that's...fine."
"You guess that's fine."
"Yeah."
A moment of silence passes. Honestly, this isn't the reaction she expected. She thought he'd be exaggeratedly dumbfounded, tease her about how long it's been since she's had a date, or something equally obnoxious. This subdued bewilderment and almost...resigned acceptance is not very Neil-like.
(A part of her was maybe kind of, sort of hoping he'd start an argument.)
"Look," she finds herself saying, "this is just to get Taima off my back. For all I know, the date will be a disaster and I'll never have to see her nephew again."
"Hey, do whatever you want; no one's stopping you."
"Er...right," is the only response she can manage. With nothing left to say, she leaves his office, trying to ignore the disappointment (what about? He took it amazingly well; isn't that good?) churning in her stomach.
And if she hears a thump coming from Neil's office, as though something is hitting his desk...well, she tries to ignore that, too.
As it turns out, Taima's nephew, Jacob, is not the worst person in the world to have dinner with.
In fact, the thirty-four-year-old lawyer has been nothing but a gentleman to Eva from the moment she met with him at the fine restaurant they're eating at. He pulled out her chair for her before she sat down, he said she looks lovely (truthfully, she didn't spend that much time on her clothes; the most she did was throw on the first dress she could find in her closet), and he seems like an all-around nice, polite man who's genuinely interested in what she has to say, even if what she has to say doesn't amount to much more than small talk.
It could definitely be worse...but it could also be better. Because no matter how courteous and well-mannered Jacob is, it doesn't change the fact that—God help her—he isn't the man she wants sitting opposite her.
Jacob isn't the one who "recycled Rob's B.S." in an effort to reassure her that what they do for their clients matters.
Jacob isn't the one who held her in his arms after their first failed case.
Jacob isn't the one who told her in the most ridiculously roundabout way possible ("If you're gone, they'll probably pair me up with Alistair!") that he no more wants to work without her than she wants to work without him.
Jacob isn't...isn't Neil.
Oh, pineapple, she thinks as she sips the soup she ordered. So this is what her dating life—or lack thereof—has come to. She won't be able to look at another man without finding herself thinking, He isn't the one who... She'll be measuring the worth of a man based on whether he'd program a surprisingly flattering hairstyle for her in the memory machine.
At the hospital, she pretended that Neil's confession was nothing but drugged nonsense. Now she wonders if she can still give him a different answer, or if the moment has already passed her by.
Either way, she'll never know by sitting here with Taima's nephew.
Halfway through the meal, she pretends to check her phone and claims that she's got a client and needs to go, terribly sorry to cut things short. A noncommittal hum is her only reply when Jacob suggests they see each other again, and she throws some cash onto the table before hurrying out of the restaurant and to her car.
She makes a mental note to apologize to Taima as she drives to Neil's place.
"Whatever you're selling, I'm not buying!" she hears him shout from inside the house.
"Neil, it's me!" she yells, knocking on the front door again. "Open up before I freeze to death!"
She hears footsteps, then the door opens, revealing Neil, his eyebrows raised in surprise.
"Am I the only one with déjà vu right about now?"
She ignores the reference to another night she came to him after a date and walks into his house, shivering slightly from the chilly night air.
"Eva?"
She doesn't answer him; instead she continues walking until she reaches his living room. He follows her, and she sits on his couch.
"Yes, by all means, make yourself comfortable, but are you going to—"
"I love you," she blurts out. The whole ride over, she wondered how she would say it, how she could ease into it so that it wouldn't sound like it came out of nowhere, but clearly, six years' worth of unacknowledged feelings have decided that the subtle approach isn't going to cut it.
The seconds crawl by in silence. She stares at her lap, her face burning. Come on, Neil, do something. Kiss me, yell at me, say you love me, something.
She hears him step over to the couch and sit down next to her. She looks up to find him staring at her; his glasses have slipped a bit to reveal the shock in his widened green eyes.
"Are you drunk?" he finally asks, quickly pushing his glasses back up.
"No."
"Are you high?"
"No. And before you ask, no, you're not dreaming, and no, we're not in the Twilight Zone."
He nods, but he still seems to be trying to figure out if she's for real or not. She chooses that moment to continue.
"I've been in love with you for a long time now. Taima's nephew was nice, believe it or not, but he wasn't you."
"Eva..." he begins, but his voice trails off. Just as she's about to say something else, he finally goes on. "You're serious?"
"What, you think I go around telling people I love them for the fun of it?"
He stands up, looking down at her, and a smile slowly spreads across his face. "You know, I'm not so sure you don't."
She stands up as well, her eyes narrowing. "What the cactus is that supposed to mean?"
"What it means," he drawls, "is that I may need some convincing. I can't just take you at your word, you know."
"Is this revenge for—"
She never gets to finish, because that's when he takes her face in his hands and kisses her.
Her mind blanks for a second, and then she's kissing him back, fiercely, passionately, desperately. One of her hands makes its way to his shoulder as they explore each other's mouths, her heart hammering against her ribcage. And because old habits die hard, there's a tiny voice in her head reminding her that this is Neil, this is Neil, and conventional wisdom advises against making out with your partner like this, but caution was thrown to the wind the moment she decided to come to his house.
Yes, this is Neil, and she's tired of hiding her secret, from herself and from him.
Eventually, the kiss ends, and he's grinning like nobody's business, still cradling her face. "Congrats, Eva. I'm convinced."
"Just shut up and kiss me again."
He obliges her, and she melts into him a second time.
It's over much more quickly than she'd like; he pulls away before the kiss can truly get heated and walks over to the window. "Oh, I almost forgot."
"Forgot what?" she wants to know, staring at him in confusion.
He looks outside, then turns to her with a smirk that only Neil Watts has. "Well, whaddya know, dumpling. The world didn't end."
She groans and rolls her eyes, but the corners of her mouth still curve upward into a smile. No, the world hasn't ended because they've taken a step in their relationship that's been six (or ten, or sixteen) years in the making. It hasn't ended because they've finally given a name to the whatever-it-is, or because they've now kissed twice.
If the world hasn't ended, then perhaps the foundation of what makes them them won't end, either.
And that is an encouraging thought.