Disclaimer: Cable and Dom aren't mine, and I'm really not rich, so don't sue. You'd get paid in action figures.
Note: This is a part of the TTaT series, set just before events in 'The Prosecution Wins.' My thanks go out to anyone masochistic enough to still be following this timeline. Title is from a 10,000 Maniacs song.
Noah's Dove
by Timesprite
"Dom?"
She tore herself away from studying the grain of the battered table top, lifting her head slowly, running a hand back through her hair. In the dark of the kitchen only Nathan's eye glowed, casting weird shadows around him. "What are you doing?"
"What does it look like?" Her voice was more hoarse than she'd expected. She hoped he wouldn't notice. Or wouldn't mention it. She wasn't about to admit she'd been on an admittedly rare crying jag before getting disgusted with herself and opting for a less healthy coping method.
He flipped the lights on. "Drinking Jack Daniel's out of the bottle."
"I could get a straw."
He blinked at her as he took a seat across from her. "Something the matter?"
"Why would there be?" She couldn't help the bitterness that leaked into her voice. He was the problem, after all. They were the problem. Or rather, it was what they weren't that was the problem. They'd started something together, but too much strain in too short a time had killed it before it ever had a chance to grow. The two of them continued to tip-toe around that ghost, trying too hard to pretend it'd never existed in the first place.
It'd been so long now since she'd been happy. Ages, it seemed, since they'd both given up even the pretext of getting along. She'd stayed because after so many years, she didn't know what else to do. It was jarring to realize that she hadn't had much of a life of her own in all that time.
"People generally don't sit around in the dark drinking themselves to death when there's nothing wrong."
She eyed the bottle. "I'm not even buzzed." He didn't need to know that it was actually the second. Granted, the first had been half-empty to begin with, and she had trouble getting well and truly drunk even when she wanted to. A big downside to the insane metabolism she sported. "Where were you?"
"Jakarta. I didn't think you'd want to go."
Which really meant he hadn't wanted her to go. It seemed ridiculous, she'd known for years that this would come. Things were building yet unseen on the horizon, preceded by portents that only Nathan seemed to understand. The real confrontation could be months away yet, years, but he'd started already--withdrawing, protecting himself, she thought--lest he begin to doubt.
He vanished more and more without a word, without even a goodbye, and sometimes she caught herself almost hoping he wouldn't come back. At least then she wouldn't have to choose.
"No," she replied. It wasn't worth fighting over. They pretended they were making do. Like a couple married for years, to whom divorce was as unthinkable as it was inevitable, they fought and made up in an endless cycle that did nothing to resolve their problems and only perpetuated misery.
She wanted to hate him for having more sense of commitment to the dead than he had to her. And she hated herself for playing the game, for letting them both pretend that nothing had changed when everything had and it was eating away at her silently.
She picked up the bottle.
"You stayed here?"
She shrugged. "Wasn't anything else to do." She almost never left the house anymore. There didn't seem a point to it. She could start picking up work on her own, she knew... she'd always had her own work, even before they'd started distancing themselves from X-Force. Nate had distanced himself. She'd just come with.
She took a long swallow.
He sighed. "Dom?"
She gave him a brittle look. "What?"
He reached for her hand. "Why don't you put it away for the night?" Trying to be comforting maybe, and in need of comfort. She set the bottle down, closed it. Climbed to her feet and walked off towards the bedroom. She knew what he wanted, of course, could have easily told him no. In his arms though, even if for just a moment, she managed to feel like she mattered. An unusually desperate part of her mind had entertained the thought of really giving him something to live for, but knew, rationally what an unmitigated disaster it would be. He would go anyway, and they'd both just be more hurt in the process.
She sat on the edge of the bed and stripped off her clothes. A part of her felt this was her fault. She couldn't remember when this cooling had begun. Had it been before? Something whispered that it had, that the gnawing hollowness had been there before the menace of Apocalypse's threat had come to hang between them. Something screamed that she'd flinched first. She tried to bury it as he reached for her, to drown herself in the feel of his arms around her, something that had once made her feel so safe but now just tore her heart to pieces. There was no fixing this, and the realization was very quietly killing her.
After, when he'd fallen into turbulent sleep and she'd gone cold all over despite his warmth, she let herself cry because there was nothing she could do. She liked to pretend there'd be a perfect time--a perfect moment to grab her bags and go, but there wouldn't be. He'd come back as long as he needed her company, and she'd stay as long as she could ignore the anger and hurt that built inside her daily. As long as she could pretend she stayed out of love. As long as the lie didn't crack. Nathan murmured in his sleep, drawing arms closer around her.
There would be a better time, she told herself. There had to be.
-End-