This is kinda the second part of The Night After The Day Before. It's the Jesse/Lexa section of the story. I got some criticism about the Brennan/Shalimar fiction because there wasn't enough romance at the end (btw, the way I figured it was that they're both extremely tired, they didn't work out all their problems with regards to this new relationship they're stepping into and them holding hands was supposed to be a reminder that they're still friends…being lovers shouldn't change that) so hopefully those people will be appeased by the end of this story. For everyone else I suggest you have sick bags to hand…you might need them.
Thank you to everybody who reviewed the last one. It was so nice to be so warmly received, especially after having been away for such a long time. And thank you once again to Steph for giving me invaluable feedback.
Her long brown hair, a million and one shades of chocolate swung loosely in the slight breeze that flowed across the top of the building. Her eyes scanned the horizon, searching for what she didn't know. Her mind wasn't taking in the scene in front of her. It had been busy whirring away to itself for the past half an hour, flitting from one thought before discarding it or being sidetracked by a new one. She couldn't focus, hadn't been able to since the explosion. It had shocked her, shocked them all to find that they had their own personal judgement days. But for her it shouldn't have been suprising. All along, ever since she had met the members of Mutant X, had become part of the group she had acted like she knew everything and a lot of the time that pretence hadn't been completely unfounded. The Dominion had told her things that she had kept hidden from Shalimar, Brennan and Jesse; she had known things about Adam's past, about the Dominion's connection with him that the other members couldn't even have guessed at. She berated herself for not having guessed, figured out the overall plan of the Dominion. She should have known that there was something bigger going on, that the Dominion was planning on making a move on Sanctuary. And she should have done something about it. Paranoia had hit not long after they had been forced to make a run for it. She had never been truly comfortable in Mutant X. In the beginning it had been the obvious hostility demonstrated by both Brennan and Shalimar. They hadn't wanted her there, she hadn't wanted to be there and it had been a temporary situation. But gradually as the days became weeks and the weeks turned into months she had been forced to accept that she was in it for the long haul. Whilst she hadn't necessarily been happy everyone had instinctually, when faced with the news of her hanging around got into a rhythm. They had all learned each other's ways and although Lexa and Shalimar would never be best friends it was clear that they were friends. Granted friends that would, fifty percent of the time happily have punched each other but friends nonetheless. And then there was this thing with her and Jesse. She had, without meaning to become attached to the man. She grimaced as she realised it was so much deeper than that. She could tell that she was falling for him, slowly but surely. She hadn't meant to, getting attached to people was not what she did. After everything that had happened with her and her brother, separating herself from everything and everyone she met had seemed like the safest, most sensible option. But safe wasn't always what her heart wanted to do and with Jesse it was definitely the part of her body making the decisions for her.
The night time atmosphere had calmed her considerably but she still couldn't shake the feeling that she had no one in the world to turn to. She probably wasn't anyone's favourite person at that moment in time. Her decisions as far back as her first few fays at Mutant X had impacted on the result of today. Everything she had done since becoming involved with these people had led to this night. And even if they didn't feel like that she couldn't get it out of her head. She wanted to leave, she knew it was selfish but she couldn't think of any other way to make it right.
She turned sharply at the sound of gravel crunching underfoot. She watched as Jesse stopped dead in his tracks. He looked curious more than anything, aware perhaps of a tiny portion of what she was feeling.
'You've been out here a while, I thought I'd come and see how you are,' he said hesitantly. When she didn't reply, he continued. 'So, how are you?'
'I'm good Jess. We just got royally screwed over and now have been left with nothing,' she said, her voice louder than either of them had expected, her face full of forced sarcastic enthusiasm and her hands gesticulating wildly.
His eyes lowered to the ground. He was unaware of what to say next. He had encountered Lexa in these kinds of moods before and every single time he had been at a complete loss for words. He had never loved anyone quite so much as the brunette standing in front of him but she scared the crap out of him. She was so angry and bitter but most of all she was angry and bitter at herself. He had no idea what she had done throughout her life that warranted so much self hatred. He knew that she had killed people, but that wasn't her fault because the Dominion had been playing mind games with her; he knew that she had been sent into Mutant X as a spy but that was before she had known any of them and once she had become a real member of the team all that had been behind her. He didn't know why she insisted on blaming herself for all the wrongs of the world. There was no way she could or should have known about the Dominion's plans. They had never told her everything so why did she berate herself now. A lot of the time her thought processes made no sense to him but he was not going to let her reach her inevitable conclusion. He may not have known a good few things about her but he did know and had realised as soon as she came up onto the roof that she was detaching herself from the rest of them, that she was thinking of leaving Mutant X.
'You're not going to say something?' she asked him, her voice brash and harsh. 'You're not going to try and convince me that its not my fault at least a little bit.'
'No,' he replied. His answer made her look straight at him, a frown marring her features. 'Because what would be the point? You've already convinced yourself that you are to blame, that everything the Dominion does should be somehow your problem, no one else's but yours. So, what exactly could I say that would make you change your mind?' he finished quietly. He may have loved her but she infuriated him sometimes. A lot of the time. The vast majority of the time.
It was her turn to be lost for words. She and Jesse had argued before, they were living in the same building, dealing with extremely high pressure jobs, of course she and Jesse had argued. But he had never been furious with her. She looked at his face, muscles clenched in his jaw, his eyes cold. She didn't like him being angry with her. It made her feel 100 times worse and she had no idea why he was the only one capable of making her feel like that.
'There's a bar down the block from here. I'm gonna go get very wasted because after today I think I deserve a little escapism. Feel free to join me,' he said, his voice sounding less angry, more exhausted as he turned and walked through the door leading to the stairs that would take him to the ground floor.
'You want that on the rocks?'
'Do I look like I want it on the rocks?' Jesse bit back at the barman. After the day he had just had he didn't even feel guilty about snapping.
'Coming up,' replied the barman, seemingly taking no offence. He had seen enough pissed off customers of an evening to know that it wasn't personal.
Within seconds the double shot of whisky had been placed in front of Jesse. He stared at the glass. He had never been much of a drinker, especially not whisky. He didn't know what had even tempted him to order it. Maybe it was a desire to get as far away from reality as possible. Ordering a double whisky was as far away from what he would usually do as you could get and hopefully it would lead to some level of inebriation which would achieve his ultimate aim of complete escapism from his current situation.
He picked up the glass in his right hand, looked at it for one second more before raising it to his lips and throwing it back. It slid down his throat leaving a trail of stinging flesh as it went. He grimaced and placed the glass back down on the bar in front of him hard. Gradually the stinging sensation was replaced by a feeling of warmth, rising from the pit of his stomach. He raised his hand for the barman to bring him another.
'You weren't kidding were you?'
He looked up, forcing his eyes to focus in on her face. 'Kidding about what?'
She looked down at him. Even though he was well on his way to being drunk he still held the qualities that she so much admired in him. When every other man in the room was being obnoxious, or attempting to hit on her, or under the misplaced illusion that they really were Gods gift to women everywhere Jesse was still playing at being the little gentleman. Despite his wasted state he hadn't taken the opportunity that his eye line afforded him to check out her cleavage and he was still the same innocent guy with ideals that he had been on the roof of the hotel.
She sat down on the barstool next to him. 'Kidding about getting drunk,' she said, raising her eyebrows at the large whisky placed in front of him. 'Can I get one of those please?' she said politely before turning back to Jesse.
'You here to get drunk too?' he asked, still fairly coherent.
'I figured we both deserved it after today,' she replied. When he had left her on the rooftop, staring out into the distance she had been lost, confused. He had been right. He wasn't going to completely convince her that today hadn't been her fault but he had reminded her that there were other people suffering. They had all lost Adam, and now they had no way of getting him back, which meant that herself, Shalimar and Brennan were all waiting for death to catch up with them. The prospect was not a welcome one but she had kind of assumed that Jesse was hurting less than the rest of them because he was cured. Problem was that when they were all gone he would be the one who got left behind.
She picked up the drink that had been put in front of her and threw it back into her mouth. She relished the instant heat that it bought to her. The outside was bone-numbingly cold and her warmest, most protective coat had been burnt in the multiple explosions that had ripped apart the interior of Sanctuary. She looked to one side and noticed Jesse watching her, an amused smile on his face, the first she had seen since everything had happened. She raised her eyebrows, no verbal question required.
'I didn't know you were such an accomplished whisky drinker,' he said, a slight trace of awe present in his tone.
'I have some catching up to do.'
A snort erupted from her mouth, and was quickly hushed by a giggling Jesse. She self consciously placed her hand over her mouth, a look of absolute repentance on her face as she watched Jesse fish around in his pocket for the room key. The amount of interest displayed by the woman was the kind that could only be experienced by someone who had consumed quite as much alcohol as she had.
Eventually Jesse found the illusive key and pushed it into the lock, twisting it until a sharp click was heard. Lexa's eyes widened as she heard the noise and she looked all around her, eyes huge and staring, her stance defensive. She jumped as she felt a hand grab her arm. She had completely forgotten that Jesse was in the corridor with her. She looked at him as he pointed at the lock, the source of the sound and after a few moments pause, as the cogs in her brain figured it all out she burst into a bout of hyena like cackling that even Jesse's urgent shushing could not quiet.
He pushed open the door and they found themselves looking in on darkness but still Lexa continued to laugh. He pushed her inside and quickly kicked the door closed behind him with his foot, wincing as it slammed. He looked around him but the darkness had obscured his vision and he couldn't find a light switch let alone the giggling brunette.
He stopped moving around aimlessly as he heard a loud thump, followed by a second duller thump, then followed by silence.
'Lexa,' he whispered into the dark, his voice deafening in his ears. He shuffled forward a couple of steps before kicking something, a moan issuing from the lump at his feet. He smiled at the sound of her voice before dropping to his knees next to her. His vision was gradually improving and instead of just black he could now make out the vaguest of grey shapes.
'As if the table attacking me wasn't enough you have to mass out your foot and kick me with it?' Lexa asked, her anger obvious even without his sense of sight.
Without meaning to he found himself laughing at their current predicament. He didn't know if it was the drink or if he was finally gaining that one moment of clarity that he had been so desperately lacking in the past few hours but everything suddenly became clearer, blindingly obvious in fact. He saw in front of him Lexa's face as clear as if she had been sitting in direct sunlight. He reached out his hand and slowly caressed her cheek, the touch of skin on skin sending intense shivers running up and down both their spines and leaving them tingling. He suddenly felt very sober. He could feel the gentle touch of her breath on his fingers as they brushed over her lips.
Looking back on it Jesse would never quite work out how in the gloom and their drunken state of mind he and Lexa ever found each others lips but they did and the kiss that followed was one of the most memorable of his life. He had seen movies where people had talked about melding with someone else, about souls becoming inextricably entwined but despite his naivety he had never been gullible enough to believe it. And years later he would still be unsure about whether or not he believed it, because he was destined never to experience that kiss again. But it wasn't something he missed, and it wasn't something to despair about because kisses like the one he and Lexa shared that night were kisses that should only come along once in a lifetime.
Dawn broke over the world slowly, almost as if nature itself didn't want to disturb the worlds inhabitants. For Lexa it didn't matter. She had been awake for hours. Initially she had lain on the sofa bed that she and Jesse had offered to take on the premise that Jesse slept on the floor. They had never yet tried to approach the fact that they were in an actual relationship and even if that was what they were involved in she didn't know if she was ready to share her duvet just yet.
She had lain on the bed for at least 45 minutes, staring into space, listening to the deep breathing of the man lying next to her. For a while she had caught herself staring at his face in the manner of a woman completely in love. She wasn't used to seeing this side of herself. Ever since forever her feelings had been strictly off limits to most people, bar Leo. And even he hadn't witnessed everything she experienced. But to Jesse she seemed so completely transparent. She had always assumed that she was a closed book but Jesse was reading her like no one before him had. It was scary but the scariest part was that she loved that he could do that. She loved opening herself up to him because he made her feel better about being her. Nobody else could do that, nobody else made her feel like she was worth fighting for.
But for the past hour she had been standing at the slightly grimy window looking out on the world as its shades and colours changed. Everything had gradually become brighter, shadows created by the glow of the sun. It hadn't yet properly risen and there were still traces of mist due to the complete lack of movement in the streets outside. Lexa had never been much of a morning person but she could certainly get used to the views.
She heard him move behind her and she turned, smiling as she saw him snuggle further under the blankets, trying to capture the last remnants of warmth, attempting to stall the imminent continuation of the day. Having failed miserably he sat up, his hair ruffled, the kind of messy that only people who woke up with him would ever bear witness to. She couldn't stop a smile from growing at the sight of him. She could definitely understand the appeal of a guy who needed mothering. But she was fully aware of the fact that needed protecting too. Maybe that was why she and Jesse were so perfect for each other. Their mutual needs fitted together so wonderfully.
She wiped the smile off her face as she saw him watching her. His clear blue eyes sparkled with the amusement he knew he was causing in her. He could have watched her for years. She hadn't showered or brushed her hair and there was not a trace of makeup on her skin. He had never seen her looking so breathtakingly beautiful.
She tilted her head to one side, watching him watching her. After the longest pause that went by in a matter of seconds she turned and to look back out of the window. The sun was inching closer to appearing in front of her. She heard the rustling of blankets and the soft padding of his feet across the floor towards her. She smiled as his arms wrapped silently around her waist and pulled her closer to him. As they stood there, the world spread out before them the sun crept over the horizon, the world became new and was born again, a new day, a new world. Neither of them knew quite how long their love would last but in the morning light it felt like forever was stretching away before them, a forever that would bring so much and take so much away but a forever that would kind to Jesse and Lexa, that would allow them to be happy.