What Doesn't Kill You…
(I own nothing. I'm just playing! Please don't wound me!)
Huge thanks to Danny for being my sounding board and beta!
(Warning, some mature themes, aka miscarriage, allusion to hanky panky and a hint of violence. Please don't read if you're uber sensitive.)
He lay there quietly as dawn broke outside the quaint house that she had grown up in, her slumbering and undressed form pressed flush against his body and her long raven hair cascading over the pillows behind her. Her olive skin shone under the gentle light of the morning sky, the rosy hue upon her normally pale cheeks making her appear almost ethereal to him, her rosebud lips slightly parted as she drew steady breaths. As his eyes traced a path over the gentle curves he had run his fingertips over so tenderly the night before he couldn't help but think to himself that beside him lay the most beautiful woman he had ever lay his eyes upon; albeit one who tried so hard to hide the delicate beauty that he had seen so clearly from the moment she had walked the Holby wards make-up less under much duress all those months before when a patient had reacted to it...a beauty that he had never forgotten even during the months that he had been with Sunil and away from her. She was a lot more vulnerable than anyone knew, but during the day and night previously and for fleeting moments in times gone by she had let him and only him see it. He guessed they were two peas in a pod that way, hiding beneath a well-built facade until those times that the cracks opened up enough for someone to see through them. It just happened that more often than not, those someone's were each other.
Last night he had truly seen through her tough and nonchalant exterior...he had truly seen her because for the first time she had chosen let him in with no holds barred. Seeing her so vulnerable, seeing the beauty and fragility that she had so often hidden away with such clarity...it had done something to his heart that he couldn't explain leading both of them here to this moment, to their having given themselves to each other in a way so unexpected and yet which still felt so right. So often back home his heart had ached for her and he hadn't understood why, drawing the conclusion that it was because she was clearly the one woman in the hospital that he would never get...the woman who would never fall for his charms regardless of his intentions for once being completely pure. You always wanted what you couldn't have after all. Having her lay there beside him however he knew that this wasn't the reason at all. They fit together like pieces of a puzzle, her beauty seeping into every pore of his being and making him feel truly alive for the first time in years...making him feel whole. This woman had a power over him that no other woman had held before and he felt for her with an intensity that he hadn't believed his heart capable of. That's why he knew what he was going to do next would haunt him forever and as he took her fingertips in his own and brought them to his lips, kissing them softly and whispering his apologies, a pain shot through his heart and tore at his soul. Feeling guiltier than he had ever felt he carefully climbed out of bed and pulled on his clothes, taking one last look at the sleeping woman who had last night given him everything and committing her breath-taking beauty to his memory as he walked to her bedroom door.
"You are exquisite Frieda Petrenko." He whispered gently, his voice cracking with emotion as his heart screamed at him to go back to her... to pull her closely to him and never let her go again. As it tried to alert him to the fact that what he felt for her was so much more profound than what he had ever felt for anyone else and that for her he would never allow himself to stray. But fear that he would hurt something so precious overtook him...fear that he would destroy the woman who exuded such strength and passion that he couldn't bear to cause damage to it. Instead of going back to her he turned around and left the room and her behind him, creeping quietly out of the house that Elliot had left hours before into the brisk morning air. Little did he know that his departure from the bed had awoken her from her slumber; her breath catching in her throat as she saw him walk out of that door and away from what they had shared. Nor did he see the single tear rolling down her cheek.