Author's note: I find it almost impossible to write things about what is actually playing out on screen; I can draw inferences and fill in gaps and thought processes sometimes but have never ever been able to do the "what happened after . . . " pieces that some can do so well.
But the time from "The Human Shield" to the end of "I Do" is ripe with possibilities so I'm giving it a go. Lots of people have written some splendid things already on this subject so this might well seem a bit lame, and if that's the case feel free to tell me so via a review; I promise I won't cry.
Usual disclaimers apply; none of these characters are mine, except for Chester. Lucky me.
In two or three parts, it's from Abby's POV.
Intermezzo – Part One
You've done that, right? You've had those mad dreams about totally inappropriate people, erotic dreams that seemed so real, but involved people you've never even looked at twice? The last time it happened to me I was getting hot and heavy in the back of a dry cleaning place with Chester from radiology, a guy with seriously bad hair, fingers like sausages and an X Files fixation. For weeks afterwards I'd find any excuse not to go up there, totally sure he'd read it in my face. Man, the stuff my subconscious got up to with that guy, stuff I didn't even know I knew about.
This? This was about a million times worse because it wasn't a dream, it happened, and it didn't just happen once. I can't be sure how many times we did the deed that night, how many times I growled with frustration as he stopped to reach for the pack of condoms on the nightstand. I'm trying real hard not to think of the couple of times we turned to each other in the night only half awake and the reaching for the condoms thing didn't happen because we were too lost in the whole deranged, unexpected, intense, strange familiarity of it.
I do know that it was maybe the best sex of my life, that it was new and exciting but without that thing of not really knowing what worked. We knew and went for it. And went for it and went for it. Whatever else we got wrong when we were together before I couldn't in all honesty fault that side of it, that always worked really well. Maybe if it hadn't we'd have had a reason to talk about stuff. This time I needed to talk, and I had talked and God, he'd listened, he heard me. In the very last split second before he kissed me it went through my head that he was watching me cry and that I was OK with it, more than OK with it. I needed to cry and for once I wanted someone to see me do it. No, I wanted – needed – him to see me do it, because he was the only person in the world I'd trust with it.
It wasn't even about me being mad at him, it was that he'd been able to do that doctor thing, put it all in its place and walk away and man, was I not doing that right then, and it was about that little girl being kept by that piece of shit and her whole world turning into a nightmare, and maybe it was about me remembering some nightmares of my own, like hiding in a closet when I was the same age as her as my mom ran through the house with a butcher knife, or about lying on the back seat of a car thinking I was going to die. Maybe I should talk to him about that whole "God, this is it, I'm going to die" thing because he'd know what I was talking about.
It seemed to take forever for him to walk towards me and I think maybe he was surprised, maybe just getting it straight, understanding what he was seeing. Me crying, not hiding it, waiting for him to make it all right. Jesus, letting him in.
The thing is, I can't even say when we started to get all that other stuff right. I can't say I was surprised when him and Sam ran aground – how was a kid like that ever going to handle a man like him? And yes, that's me asking, me who handled him like I was doing needlepoint in boxing gloves, but that's the point, because I can see that now. But when I felt OK making a little joke about him and me and he felt OK hearing it and smiled that smile I think I knew we'd shifted up a gear.
And really, he didn't do the sackcloth and ashes thing for very long. A couple of drunken pity parties and a half assed attempt to turn his apartment into a biohazard but he seemed like he picked himself up and dusted himself off. Maybe he just knew by then that however bad it felt it wouldn't kill him. Okay, bad analogy in his case, but you know what I mean.
Things moved pretty quick after he kissed me. For a long moment I just looked him in the eyes and then it was me who pulled him back to me, me who was doing the kissing, and we didn't stop to wonder what came next. We knew what came next.
That night , it wasn't the sex that made it what it was, it was that all through it, wrapped up in those sensations, those textures, those scents and tastes and sounds I thought I'd forgotten, there was something else, something that said I know you, and God, it was such a relief to be known and still desired, to know and still desire, to be known and still be loved, to know and still to love – see there it is. The "L" word. I'm not talking hearts and flowers and swooning and dreaming, I'm talking love, that solid, warm feeling that comes out of knowing someone for what and who they are. It's the love you have for the friends that stick with you, who see you at your worst and don't run. Except of course I was also swooning and feeling a little bit hearts and flowers too because while I was busy with the knowing and loving stuff I was also busy with the flesh and sweat and kissing for so long that we forgot to breath and just not being able to get enough of it all.
I guess it's complicated. It's weird that it didn't feel complicated while it was happening, it felt easy, and it felt easy because we'd been lovers and now we were friends; but now we'd been and gone and done this and friends don't do this, not like we'd done it, not hot and sweet and – OK, I'm going to say it even if I feel kinda silly, because it's the only word that fits – passionate.
Funny - I didn't realise just how much I'd missed passionate.