Voyage of Rediscovery 1/?

Disclaimer:- Don't own them just borrowing!

Episode:- Allegory of Love

Pairing:- Jean Innocent / James Hathaway

Rating:- M

Achieve:- . /group/lewisffarchive/

Summary:- For the first time in my life I've left my head out of the equation and gone completely with my heart and as I once again give myself completely to him I can't help but hope that won't be as big a mistake for me as it proved to be for Ginny.

Author's Note:- Based on S03EP01 Allegory of Love so does contain spoilers, rated M for language and sexual content so if that's not you thing stop now! You have been warned.

"Mam? It's late shouldn't you be at home by now doing your miraculous transformation from scary chief super to Stepford wife?" I swear if another single one of my junior officers' spoke to me the way he does they'd be back in uniform so quickly their heads would be spinning for a week. Somehow though; he always manages to lace his comments with just the right amount of cheeky, boyish charm to get away with it. Maybe that's why I let him say the things he does or maybe it's because I know when he accuses me of being a Stepford wife, however jokingly, it's because he sees behind the mask, without ever having been told he seems to know the sham that my marriage has become and the front I put on for others never fools him. If I still loved my husband or believed he loved me that's where I'd be right now, after the hell of watching one of my oldest friends be arrested by what the rest of the station loves to call my own personal batman and robin. I'd be at home letting him sooth the turmoil that rages in my heart right now. Yet I'm not, mainly because I know right now he's not there it's the weekend he'll have disappeared to his latest sleeping partner, left me a note or email or some equally impersonal notification to explain his absence. Even if he was there I know the last thing I could rely on him for is comfort or support we stopped being that to each other long ago. So instead I'm here at my desk staring at paperwork I'm not reading and wishing I did have someone to go home to.

"I decided to give Mrs Innocent the night off on the grounds that her alter ego has had such a bad day, shouldn't you be off doing… well whatever it is you do at the weekend playing rock music and seducing groupies?" See there it is again that change he brings out in me that I wish would stay hidden and not betray me so easily. It's the old me, the me I was when I was his age and the fact he brings out my flirtatious side would be acceptable, maybe even welcomed at least I think it would.

"Does that night off extend to accepting an invitation to have too little food and too much alcohol with a colleague who knows exactly how bad your day has been and is prepared to listen?" This is the point where this me, the unhappily married Chief Superintendent should and would say no that she really should get home but there's a problem with that. "She" has left the party, thrown up her hands in disgust at the fact the world can be such a terrible place at times and said do what the hell you want who cares about rules or boundaries no one will give a damn anyway. The world is hurtling toward hell in a handcart and since it's half way there you might as well jump on for the ride. Detective superintendent Jean Innocent has left the building and reminded me , as her parting shot, that only a fool truly believes that the heart can always obey the head, a fool or a rule obsessed woman who has forgotten how to go with her heart, her desires, and damn the consequences.

So that's how I ended up here, pressed against the wall of the hallway in the small flat inhabited by a man if not half my age not far off it while he kisses me with a passion I'd long since stopped believing I could illicit in any man.

"James we shouldn't do this it's a bad idea on so many levels and just plain wrong on many more." I've heard the words fall from my lips as his were branding my neck with fiery kisses and it's taken me a few seconds to realise it was me who said them. A moment of clarity in a fog of need and arousal, a moment when the old me popped her head round the door to see how I was getting on in her absence and thought maybe she should step in.

"All you have to say is stop. One word Mam you know me well enough to know if you say stop that's what I'll do. One word Jean, that's all it takes." His hands are still resting on my hips his eyes fused with mine and I know I couldn't say that one word now even if I wanted to. The old me has left again with a shrug the image of Ginny so broken, so destroyed by what her life had become still too fresh in my mind to care about the consequences of this right now. My head and my heart are no longer part of the decision making process having given up to a completely different emotion now in control. Desire, lust, need, call it what you will but right now all I want is for him to carry on, to make me give up completely any grip I might still have on reality.

"Don't stop." I want, somewhere in the back of my mind, to justify my desires to him but what could I say? I'm about to cross the line, commit the ultimate betrayal one I know in my heart has been committed against me more than once, to justify it now would be to regret it before it even happened and I won't do that to myself not now, not tonight.

His hand is in mine pulling me further into his home through the door of his bedroom. His fingers are in my hair removing the clip that's holding it in place and letting it fall around my shoulders as he kisses me again. It's been too long since anyone made me feel like he is right now as he undresses me with a lustful laziness that shows me he is enjoying discovering every new part of my body he reveals. His lips and his fingers trace parts of me that for many years have belonged to only one man, one who is now so familiar with them that he takes them for granted, so much so that he rarely feels the need to explore them anymore in the way that James Hathaway is right now.

"You're an amazing woman Jean; you deserve to be worshiped not treated like he treats you." His words are muffled as he nibbles on my earlobe while he speaks and the arousal they send coursing through my body makes me hungry to take back control in some small way as I undress him with the same slow exploring hands wanting to make him feel as good as he has me.

The quiet moans and giggles I hear echoing around the room as we fall on to the bed a tangle of naked limbs seem alien to me, something I haven't hear in so long I'd forgotten I was capable of making such sounds. His body is blanketing mine now as he brushes a stray hair away from my face his eyes searching mine and I know he's waiting, giving me that moment to turn back, to stop this when I can still dismiss it as a moment of madness born of loneliness and sorrow. Once this takes that final turn that it's about to my get out clauses are all gone, once I let this happen I've crossed the line both personally and professionally and there'll be no turning back. I don't know what the other side of the line is like but I don't care, whatever the landscape I'll deal with it because I want him now more than I've wanted anyone in too many years.

"Don't stop James." I won't beg him to carry on I need to give him the chance to back out too but I needn't have worried, permission granted he's thrust slowly into me my body yielding to him in a way I never imagined it would to a man who wasn't my husband. He's taking me slowly, passionately like he's savouring every minute, making snap shots of my every reaction. God I've missed this, I've missed feeling like I'm the centre of someone's universe at that moment and my body is reacting without me giving it any conscious thought, working from memory and I'm lost.

"You're so beautiful; you've no idea what you do to me." My eyes have snapped open, the realisation that this isn't something he's doing on a whim, that he's thought about this, imagined it even shocking me and he can see the surprise in my eyes. "You're a beautiful woman Jean, a beauty only heightened by the fact that you never see it, you never see what you can do to a man with a single glance."

His words are my final undoing as he moves faster inside me my body arching toward him as it exploded in a torrent of pleasure that claws at the very edges of my soul reminding me that there is no feeling as amazing as giving up to pleasure created by someone else's desire for you. He's desperate now I can feel it in how he kisses me, how he thrusts into harder and faster making me whisper his name in a rhythmic chant as I'm over taken again and finally feel him still inside me as he falls into my arms.

My head rests on his chest, the silence between us more comfortable than I expected it to be as his fingers make lazy trails up and down my back and the guilt and regret I was expecting to feel doesn't come.

"This could make things really complicated." Some things have to be said, no regrets aside, I've just allowed my authority potentially to be undermined, the dynamic of our office could be completely thrown into flux, not to mention the fact that he's young if this ever became a topic for locker room gossip both our careers would be over. "No one can…..well you know what I'm saying, you're an intelligent man James, if there's even a hint of office gossip we're….."

"Do you really think I have such little respect for you, for what we've just done? Do you really think I'm going to walk into the office on Monday and brag like some bastard about having "had" the boss? I thought you knew me better than that."

"I do I was just saying if…."

"You just don't get it do you?" No actually I don't get it and I'm not afraid to admit it, he doesn't know how big a thing this is for me, over 20 years of fidelity, over 20 years of accepting that I'd made my choice and most of those years being happy with that, believing I'd never want to break my marriage vows. Now in a single night I've shattered that and while I could never tell him that and risk breaking the spell that seems to be hanging in the room it doesn't change the facts. To me it's important that he understands this has to be discreet especially if it is ever to happen again.

"No I don't get it James, 3 hours ago I thought our relationship was simple. I was your boss, your boss who I am not naive enough to believe you constant liked to see coming I know you and Robbie have probably bad mouthed me on more than one occasion when you've hit the bar of an evening. Now I don't know what it is anymore and that scares me I'm not good at lack of control a fact that won't surprise you." I've sat up and the thin cotton sheet has moved with me as I pull my knees up to my chest keeping my back to him and suddenly feel very vulnerable. So much for not breaking the spell; he'll be rushing me back out the door again so fast now this conversation will be irrelevant; yet once again he's surprised me pulling me back down onto the bed and into his arms as he stares at me and my heart races.

"For a brilliant and intelligent woman you can be really stupid sometimes. You've no idea how many times I've watched the light go out in your eyes because of something he's done. You put on a good show that fools most of the people we work with but I know how unhappy he makes you. I've spent the better part of three years wishing you'd leave him, that you'd be free for me to see if you'd ever consider letting me show you how well you deserve to be treated." I want to speak to say something sensible, or logical, hell who am I kidding even saying something nonsensical would be better than being silent but I'm in shock. I told you he could always see right through me didn't I? I always knew he could better than anyone else I just never realised the reason for that perceptiveness ran so deep. Can it actually be anything more than a build-up of unrequited lust though? The age difference is bound to become an issue eventually and then there's work I still have to be his…. "I know what you're thinking but I don't care about age or rank or anything else."

"Jesus James if you are going to make a habit of reading my mind it could get very disconcerting." He's smiling but the joke hasn't lifted the tension in the room the way I hoped it would. Instead he's gone back to staring at me again with an intensity that is starting to make me feel like he's examining my soul, claiming it as completely as he already claimed my body.

"You remember a couple of days ago when came into the office to check on us before you went to dinner with Ginny and your other university friends?" The mention of Ginny's name has brought the heaviness back to my heart and again I know he can see it as he pulls me a little closer wiping away the tears that have escaped without permission and kisses me softly. This is getting dangerous, it all feeling too right, I can't let that happen. Can I?

"Yes I remember you were watching the CCTV footage and trying to…"

"What I was trying to do was to pretend that I hadn't noticed how amazing you looked all dress up and ready to go out while you tried to match make Robbie and he pointed out exactly how great you looked to anyone in earshot. I never dreamed that the week could end like this. I never thought you'd ever let me make love to you and if you want this to be a one off if you regret it and want to pretend it never happened I'll understand and I'll learn to live with it. If you let me though I'll make sure you never ever doubt how beautiful and desirable you are again. I know it's not easy, I know you'll probably never leave him and I know you're worried about work and….."

"Stop talking James for two seconds and let me get a word in edgeways," Part of me can't believe I'm about to say what I know I am. That part of me that ran off at the start of all this is back standing with her hands on her hips pointing out that I'm lying naked in the arms of my sergeant having betrayed my marriage and put my career on the line and instead of leaving and telling him it was a mistake I'm about to compound the mistake. "You're right, I don't think I can leave him, not now, not yet, and like you say I don't know if I'll ever be ready for that but he left me physically and emotionally a long time ago. He's been giving those parts of himself to someone else for so long now I've forgotten what it was like before he started. Yes work will be complicated, if it ever comes out that we have a personal relationship my career is over and you'll be a sergeant for the rest of yours."

"But?" There he goes again with the mind reading I'm trying to get there, I really am it's just not that easy for me, my heart has made its decision but my head won't let me say those words since it's not completely on board with the plan.

"No one could ever know, not even Robbie and Laura if they did it's only one step away from someone over hearing something or a rumour starting and…."

"I know all that, what I don't know is if you want me, want this to happen again or if you're trying to build a strong enough case to justify telling me it never can." God jean just do it, just say it, you know you could say you don't want him, you could even leave here believing it was true but you know you could never give up the feelings that he's created for you tonight, you know all it would take was one bad day, one more weekend as a widow to whoever your husband has decided to share this bed with now, and you'd be back here seeking him out, desperate for him to make you feel loved, desired, wanted. Pep talk over and I can't take the look of longing in his eyes any longer. I know what I'm about to do and in spite of myself I don't regret it any more than I do what happened already.

"You'll have to be patient with me James, I never thought I'd feel like this about anyone else but if you can do that then I want this, I want to know you want me I need that now more than anything. If you can understand that there'll be times when I have to be with him even when I'd rather be with you then maybe it can work. I'm still his wife and there'll be events, times of year, moments of triumph and disappointment that I'll have no choice but to be there for. So the question really isn't if I can do this it's if you can? Are you prepared to take what we can until things change and are you prepared to accept that change may never come?"

All that vulnerability that engulfed me earlier is back as he stares at me for what seems like hours but in truth is only seconds before he kisses me again. This time the hunger and desire in the force of his lips on mine is all the answer I need. All conversation stops and we lose ourselves in repeating the sin now accepted as our new norm and I know I've just stepped onto a rollercoaster. For the first time in my life I've left my head out of the equation and gone completely with my heart and as I once again give myself completely to him I can't help but hope that won't be as big a mistake for me as it proved to be for Ginny.