Like Moths in Flight
A/N: I'm sure everyone was as captivated as I by the little scenes in "Murder Onboard" and let their imagination run away with them. Dialogue excerpted from the abovementioned episode.
When he found her at last, on a stretch of beach hidden by a curve and a bank, away from where tourists and colleagues might bother her, he stopped in his tracks, brain momentarily frozen because shit, she was crying, and he was bad, very bad, oh so bad with women, and crying women? Well, he might as well slap himself now and save her the trouble. Especially after that conversation in the car. Honestly, Richard? Your dog? Well, no help for it – his feet were moving him towards her whether he wanted them to or not.
To both their shocks, he gingerly parked himself in the sand next to her. His brain was racing to come up with something to say to make her feel better – and failing - but she saved him by speaking first.
"I'm not very much use to you, am I?"
(What?) "Yes you are. You're… you're fantastic. You've just lost your friend."
"All the more reason to stop being so useless and help you to find her killer."
"You're not a machine, you're a person." He went quiet, but inside his head he was babbling a mile a minute, and pretty soon his brain came spilling out of his mouth. "You know when you care about someone, ah, sometimes it's hard to ah, be eloquent, you know, about how you feel? To erm, tell them how much they mean... meant... to you, how important they are in your life, and how special."
(In other words: If I were a braver man, I'd have my arm around you. I'd be showering you with kisses, telling you how brave you are, how exciting you are, how damned smart you are, how infuriatingly accurate you are at seeing through my nonsense, how I hate seeing you looking like you don't have a friend in the world, because I'm here, I'm your friend, I'm more than your friend, I want you so badly my head swims, but you terrify me, and I'm so scared of screwing up what little we do have, but if you ever left me my world would be at an end, because it revolves around you now. Even if it never crosses your mind to see me as anything more than your partner, I am lucky, so lucky, to have you in my life.)
The look she gave him was half amusement and half keen stare, catching his eyes and holding them, like she knew all his secrets already. She probably did; he never could sham her. "I've never heard you talk like that before."
"No. Just trying, you know..."
"To be supportive?"
"Exactly." Yes. Supportive. Certainly not trying to confess how hard he'd fallen for her at the most inappropriate time imaginable. Of course not.
"Well, I think it's very sweet of you."
In truth, he wasn't thinking when he picked up the orchids; he just went with his gut. Only in hindsight did he realize that perhaps presenting her with the very flowers that were instrumental in solving her best friend's murder would perhaps not be the most tactful gesture. Too late now. He stood before her on the beach, holding them awkwardly out to her.
"Flowers. For you. Orchids. Stephen may be unoriginal but he has fairly good taste in floral arrangements."
For a second she looked blankly confused. "Why are you giving them to me?"
"Because I don't know how to say I'm sorry. For what happened to your friend. ... Oh it doesn't matter, they weren't expensive –" He was turning to go, kicking himself, humiliation already burning behind his eyes, when her words stopped him.
"Richard. You found out why she died - who was responsible. You've done enough already." She almost smiled at him, still sad, still trying to find her new normal. He thought he saw gratitude on her face and maybe, if he felt like fooling himself, affection.
He realized that he was still holding the orchids. "…So did you want me to take them back or...?"
"Well, I didn't mean that…" She reached up, this time with a genuine smile, and took them from him. I'm sorry too, about what I said before. About how you didn't have friends. Because you know we are-"
"-You're not going to say because you Dwayne and Fidel are my friends because that would be horrifically sentimental and mawkish..." His terror at hearing the word friends to describe them, even without that disappointing just in front of it pushed him to interrupt with a strained joke. Dear lord, he wanted to smack himself.
She seemed to make a decision, and patted the log next her. "Join me?"
He sat, fruitlessly attempting to cushion the wood with his jacket. The nearness of her brought his nerves to the top again and he began to ramble to fill the space.
"They were quite expensive, actually. Rather ridiculous considering they grow in the wild..."
She laughed, and they chatted softly for a while as the sun began to set, she slowly calming, he bumbling his way through the conversation. He became even more acutely aware of her when, after standing to adjust her shorts and remove her shoes, she sat back down close to him. Very close. So close that her long thigh pressed against his, dark skin against dark trouser, bare foot next to hopelessly sandy shoe.
He fell silent. As a rule, he didn't get to touch women. Dancing with Camille at Solly's wake had been just about as close as he'd gotten to any woman in a very long time, never mind one as bewitching, as wholly captivating, as terrifying as the beauty who was now keeping a companionable silence next to him. His breath hitched and she shot him a quick glance under thick lashes. He had the impression that she already knew his secrets just by looking, and the thought made his stomach lurch uncomfortably.
As the silence stretched further he felt the lumps and bumps of the log they were sitting on begin to dig into his behind. He was just about to stir and make some excuse to leave when he felt her sigh and gently slide her arm through the crook of his arm, resting it like a bird coming home to the nest. Her hand (he can't pretend that he hasn't thought about those slender, nimble hands) on his forearm seemed to burn as hot as the sands at midday. The terror returned and he clamped down on it, thoughts racing.
Perhaps it was time to be a braver man.
The thought nearly sent him scrambling off the log. There was a good chance he'd read everything wrong, that she wasn't in fact – well, there was no other word for it – cuddling with him. But even as he thought it, he was moving.
Richard took a deep, shaky breath and slowly, ever so gently, reached up with his unoccupied arm and took her hand, fingers sliding against fingers, his nerves betrayed by the slightest of tremors.
She didn't look away from the ocean; just her lips, curved with the barest hint of a smile, betrayed her.
He waited a moment, heart in his throat, and then disengaged his arm and lifted it, shyly settling it lightly around her shoulders, praying for a moment his underarm didn't stink. For half a second she didn't move and his heart began to plummet down into his stomach and then she looked sweetly up into his face and melted into him.
His arm betrayed him by tightening, sweeping her into his side, her skin smooth and warm under his touch, and he was fairly sure he was going to die right then and there. Her warmth against his body and her scent swirling around him made him dizzy with happiness.
Maybe someday he'd work up the nerve to kiss her.
They stayed like that, entwined, until the sun dipped behind the sea for good.