Author: Amber
Title: A Beautiful Moment
Rating: PG
Spoilers/Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Characters, etc., are property of CBS. No infringement intended.
Pairing: Charlie/Amita
Summary: You can't always do what you're supposed to do.
Note: Much love to Kristen for reading over this.


When you wake up next to someone for the first time, assuming it's someone you care about, it's supposed to be a beautiful moment. You're supposed to wake up and hold the person next to you, trace the planes of her body with your hands. The word 'planes' shouldn't send your mind off on a tangent. You're not supposed to wake up and curse that she doesn't have a single chalk board in her apartment.

And when you wake Amita by searching the nightstand for a pen, and she says, "Charlie, are you okay?" the appropriate response isn't to say only that you need to write something down. You shouldn't leave her bed to sit at her kitchen table at three in the morning, scribbling on the back of some old lecture notes you left there weeks ago.

You shouldn't wake her three hours later, at dawn, by insinuating yourself back under the covers. If only because it's cliche, you also shouldn't wake her with a gentle kiss and a mumbled apology, shouldn't brush her hair back and rub your stubbly cheek against her smooth skin and whisper in her ear that she's beautiful. You shouldn't feign normality just because you're scared that you've failed at something that should have been easy, something everyone else seems to know by instinct.

When she asks whether your family will be worried that you've gone missing, you're not supposed to say that they're used to your staying out all night. You're not supposed to say that because it will make her frown, make her avert her eyes and still her hands and say, "Oh?" Then you have to stumble through an explanation, that you've spent night after night in your office sometimes, working; that you didn't mean anything like that. You're not supposed to make every moment awkward.

But what really matters, what you realize as she smiles and squeezes your hand, is that she doesn't care that you can't always do what you're supposed to do.