This came about spontaneously one night after hearing a song called "There She Is" by Mumm-Ra and having this vision of Tony and Michelle being miles apart but having the same dream. Hope you like it.
He lost count again.
Lying on the cheap cot that took up most of his cell, he stared, counting the cracks in the ceiling overhead with diminutive interest. Or, he was counting them until he allowed her to enter his thoughts again. Then it was a futile effort.
His wife had come to see him that morning, looking even less like Michelle than she had the time before. What she looked like was sixty-five kinds of defeated, and defeated had never suited her. He closed his eyes, trying to picture her. The way she used to be. Beautiful. Happy. Whole. His.
All he wanted, all he'd ever really wanted since the day he met her, was to be with her. Make her smile. Bring her flowers. Tickle her until she dissolved into giggles. Take a walk with her. Cook for her. Make love to her. Maybe one day even have kids with her.
But as long as he was in here there would be no 'one day'. He would never get to see that smile she always wore when he kissed her in the morning. He would never get to take her out to her favorite restaurant for dinner. He would never get to spend another Christmas with her, or Valentine's Day, or the Fourth of July, or even a lazy Sunday afternoon with a movie. And her birthday? He could forget about getting her anything for her birthday, let alone something nice. Time would go on, they would get older. He would never get to see her carry their son or daughter. Never get to watch her be a mother.
Not like this. Not the way things were.
The only thing that kept him from losing his sanity altogether was the thought of spending his days with her again. Of what he'd do when he finally got out of this nightmare. How they'd come home and he'd push her to the nearest wall, crushing his lips against hers and touching her and loving her until she was okay again. Until the look of pain in her eyes was replaced with the light he'd always seen in them. Until she was his Michelle again.
He never found out just how many cracks were in that ceiling, and she was still playing on his mind, the way she always was, when he fell asleep. Because the only way he could ever fall asleep was to imagine waking up.
Waking up... and there she is.
"I missed you."
Three words. The most honest ones she's ever spoken in her life, and yet the biggest understatement she's ever heard.
He brings her hand to his lips, slowly pressing soft kisses to each of her fingertips. "I missed you, too. But it's all over now."
She's curled up against him in bed. Skin-on-skin. Head against his chest. Warmer than she's been in sixty-five days, since the night he was taken away from her.
Her hand brushes across his stomach, feeling the subtle impressions of fresh scars. Scars he never had before.
Her arm curls around his waist as she pulls herself in tighter to his body, as if holding him now can erase the past. As if protecting him now will make the scars disappear. As if she can keep him safe from everything that already happened, everything that hurts too much to think about.
She feels his kiss against the top of her head, him burying his face in her hair.
"I missed your smell," he mumbles. "Sometimes I'd forget what it was like and it would drive me crazy for days... and then I'd get to see you. And it would come back."
She smiles despite the tears welling up in her eyes as he strokes her back. There were times she'd only wished she could forget the smell that was so distinctly his. It was everywhere. In his clothes, in the sheets. Especially the sheets. Washing them never made any difference.
She moves her head and kisses his chest. "You're never leaving me again."
"Never." He takes her hand again and squeezes it, running his thumb over the wedding band on her fourth finger and brushing his lips against the inside of her wrist. "I'm staying right here, baby. Always."
She nudges his foot with hers where their legs are intertwined and grins up at him, touching her fingers lightly to the stubble on his cheek and kissing his mouth slowly.
She remembers feeling the rise and fall of his chest. His steady, relaxed breathing beneath her. His breath against the back of her neck.
But she woke up in a cold room.
She was not wrapped up in his embrace.
There was no warm breath against her skin.
There was no familiar presence beside her.
And then she knew the truth.
She choked out his name, voice trembling, knowing she wouldn't get a response but refusing in her heart to believe it.
Her whole body shook, the knot in the pit of her stomach tightening, and she sucked in a quick breath before being seized by the unfailing, intense nausea she'd grown accustomed to in the months she'd spent alone.
She threw the covers off, barely making it to the en suite before her body decided to rid itself of the little she'd eaten the day before.
She knew she couldn't live like this. The nights weren't getting any easier, and she was watching herself waste away more every day. She couldn't stay here. Not when every time she turned around he was there. His favorite mug in the kitchen. His razor in the bathroom cabinet. His toothbrush on the countertop. His voice on their answering machine. The little things that had once gone unnoticed now had her coming undone.
She picked herself up off the tiled floor and splashed cold water on her face before studying her reflection, instantly wishing she hadn't. She looked nearly as awful as she felt. Dark circles lined her lower eyelids, and her complexion was the shade of pale she would have associated with a corpse. She pinched the bridge of her nose and leaned her elbows against the countertop.
They had thrown her husband behind bars, her life and all her dreams along with him, and expected her to live with it. To function and do her job the same way she always had. But how could she? How could she get used to going to bed alone every night? How was she supposed to live with the nightmares, the nausea, the insomnia plaguing her every time she closed her eyes? How was she supposed to do her job when every time her eyes wandered to her husband's old office she had to remind herself that he wasn't there? And why he wasn't there.
He was it for her. She knew that. There was no one on the planet that she could ever love more than the man who had risked the fate of the entire country to keep her safe. She hated what he did, hated the guilt it left her with, but she understood it. She would give everything she had, her very soul, just to have him at her side right now where she needed him.
As much as she tried to tell herself otherwise, she knew as long as Tony was gone her whole life was on hold. She was at a standstill, living day by day, counting the hours until she could see him again. Consecrating her entire existence in between visits to her work. Only now that work had paid off, and there was a temporary position in Seattle with her name on it. A promotion the higher-ups at division had offered her that she would be out of her mind not to accept—and maybe she was. But leaving Los Angeles would do nothing but make her feel like she was abandoning her husband, and putting more distance between them was the last thing she wanted to do.
For now she would survive. She had been through worse trials than this, hadn't she? She was strong. Strong because she had to be, and after all, she learned from the best; it was Tony she drew her strength from. They would both get through this, past this. It might take longer than either of them wanted or hoped for, but they would be okay.
She would find a way to bring him home, and the only 'never again' she'd have to live with would be waking up to anything but his warmth, his voice, his kiss, and his disheveled hair.