A/N: This story has some inner thoughts about spirituality. I hope it doesn't offend anyone. I certainly don't intend for it to be offensive.
I just woke up in Robert Goren's bed. I. Just. Woke. Up. In. Robert. Goren's. Bed.
And he was even in it.
So, where am I now? On the roof of his apartment building. Because that makes total sense.
It does, sort of.
I remember distinctly the first time I spoke to God in my adult life. I was on a roof not totally unlike this one. And had just woken up with someone in my bed. The mood, however, differed significantly from the one I'm in now.
Joe had just died and my sister, the one for who I would bear a child five years later, had decided she would come and stay with me to keep me company. She also decided that part of keeping me company would be to sleep with me in my bed.
As children sometimes we would fall asleep in the same bed. But at the age of thirty? I was grieving, and I didn't want anyone in my bed. I had pretended to be sleeping so that she would go to sleep. She was worried, I get that. In the days following Joe's death I had refused to cry. I wasn't really sure what I should be feeling.
Yes, I lost my husband. But, truth be told, he and I had not been on solid footing for some time. He wanted children. I did too, I just didn't want them right then. It had become the source of frequent arguing.
Of course, I didn't want him to die. I guess this is what made for my confusion after his death. I was sad, really, really sad. But I was also guilty. Guilty because I felt a sense that some weight had been lifted, that there wasn't pressure anymore.
So, that night after my sister fell asleep I climbed up through the attic of my house in Rockaway, and out onto the shingled roof. I lay on my back, in my pajamas, staring up at the sky. The New York night sky doesn't offer much, however, the air offered something. It was chilly. That early fall chill that comes off the ocean in Rockaway, the one that lets you know winter isn't far off.
That chill woke me up. It made me feel alive. And the next thing I knew, it made me cry. I was out on my roof sobbing into my hands uncontrollably.
"Oh. What am I supposed to do now? I don't want to be alone, it wasn't supposed to end like this. I don't think I wanted to be with him anymore, but I didn't even get the time to make that decision…" I remember going on and on and on into the midnight air. Until finally…
"God. God, I know I've never talked to you like this before but what on earth am I supposed to do now? I loved him and he's gone and I'm so confused about everything. What am I supposed to do now?"
Flat on my back that fateful night eight years ago I started talking to whoever I thought might be listening. I don't know what I thought was going to come next, or who or what I was expecting to respond to me. Certainly I wasn't expecting what happened next.
"Al, go to bed. There isn't anything you can do right now, in this very moment. So go to bed." The sound of that voice made me sit up on the roof. I half expected to see my sister poking her head out the window, but there was no one there.
It was then that I realized that I had connected with some sort of divine being merely by talking to myself. It was on that night that I realized that if I never had anyone else again, never had another friend, I always had myself. I could always help myself. I could watch over me.
I came to count on that inner voice, my inner god so-to-speak, in a way that maybe can't be fully understood by some. It's the reason why I never discuss it with anyone other than my therapist, who I'm pretty sure finds it very weird.
In times of crisis it's this voice that I've relied on to get me through. When I was feeling lonely and depressed after giving birth to my nephew, after every time I've had to pull the trigger on my gun, after my abduction, the many times Bobby and I haven't been on the same page these last few months…
When I climbed back into bed that first night I went right to sleep. It was as if something had clicked, all the bricks had been laid in their proper places, and I realized that sleeping and resting were the key to being able to function and move forward in the days ahead.
Move forward I did, and hear I am many days ahead. Over eight years of days ahead. Now I'm not on my roof but on the roof of one Robert Goren.
It's been a hard year for us both. Between my kidnapping, and his mother, and everything between us… it's just been hard. There isn't any other way to say it. Sometimes simplest is best.
We've started picking up the pieces of our broken friendship recently.
I'll admit I wasn't sleeping well after my attack. I couldn't sleep at all some nights. I know he doesn't sleep much. A few weeks ago was the first time I had woken up in his bed…without him in it.
I had come for dinner after work. He'd made a fantastic chicken cacciatore and a salad. I fell asleep on the couch while we were watching t.v. and when I woke up I was in his bed. I have no doubt he carried me in there and tucked me under the covers, not wanting me to be uncomfortable on his couch (which I should add is the most comfortable couch ever).
It's been happening like that for about the past month. I come over, eat, fall asleep, wake up in his bed. Or he comes over, we eat, fall asleep, and I wake up in my own bed and find him on my couch. It's comforting, really.
We're moving at this slow, evolving pace. I love it. There is no "falling over a cliff" moment. It's just happening gradually. We're learning each other's habits and quirks. I've learned that he likes to eat the leftover take-out straight from the carton, but only when he thinks I'm not looking. He's learned that I like to sing in the shower. Hell, we're both learning how to dance around one another in the bathroom in the morning.
So now I'm up on his roof after waking up with him in his bed with me for the first time. Part of me wonders what made him get in the bed with me this night as opposed to other nights. The other part of me knows that this is what we have been building up to. Like I said, there was no "falling over a cliff" moment but the steps are coming naturally.
The voice inside of me, the one I came up here to share this moment with, is telling me to go back to bed again. Like that night eight years ago. Only this time I don't have to go back to bed alone or, worse, with my sister. I've found someone to watch over me, the same way I will watch over them. I've found someone I really want to share the bed with. The wonderful Robert Goren is waiting for me.
And he's probably eating leftover Lo Mein from the carton since I'm not around to see.
Fin.
A/N2: Yay!! CI Just got renewed. I know it's going to be on USA now, but when I think of all the wonderful actors on cable these days it makes me kind of happy to know CI will be in their company.