"We are just now getting reports that former FBI Agent Elizabeth Keen has been shot and killed…"
Samar freezes, mere steps from the door, the dingy neighborhood bar's few late-afternoon customers gradually falling silent as the bartender turns up the volume.
"…No comment yet from the FBI, but moments ago, this photo appeared on the Washington Chronicle website. The paper, quoting anonymous sources, is saying Keen was one of several victims shot at an undisclosed location outside of New York City…"
She turns, feels like she's moving in slow motion, fighting her way through quicksand, and her eyes feel heavy, like she doesn't remember how to control their movements, but then she's staring at the television hanging above the bar and she sees her. She sees her lying there in a pool of blood, her face pale, her blonde hair sticky, matted with red. (Blonde? she thinks, somewhere in the back of her mind.) She reads the headline "FUGITIVE ELIZABETH KEEN KILLED" at the bottom of the screen, and it's so cold, detached, unfeeling, that it seems like a joke because she's staring at that face and she knows that face, she isn't detached from that face, and it's just so discordant, that face next to those words.
She can no longer hear the reporter's voice; it's a dull droning sound now, words jumbling together, not making any sense. All she can do is stare at that jarring image until it's replaced with another – the most wanted poster – and she wants to move, she wants to run, to make herself wake up from this nightmare, but she can't move her feet.
"Hey, you're FBI, right?"
She manages to tear her eyes away from the screen as the man's words filter through her fuzzy mind, and she focuses on him – one of the men seated at the bar – the best she can. She just looks at him, doesn't know what to say, can't say anything.
"I heard you talking to Ted," the man continues, gesturing to the bartender, the man she'd been speaking to moments before, asking questions on her quest to find Arioch Cain. "You're FBI. You know her?" he asks, pointing to the TV.
She doesn't have the energy for this. She doesn't. She can't. So she shakes her head, as if it's that simple – and it's not a lie, not really, because had she ever really known Elizabeth Keen? – and she manages to unglue her feet from the wooden floorboards and suddenly she's pushing the door open, the bells jangling merrily overhead, and she wants to climb up and rip them off, smash them into pieces, because how dare they make such a happy sound? How dare those bells act as if the world is just going to continue after this?
Her stomach is twisting now, she feels like she may vomit at any moment, because she's realizing that the world is going to continue for everyone else. Those bells are going to continue jangling with each new person who enters the bar, people are going to continue drinking beer and laughing and talking about the big news of the day, and then it will be the next day and the next and the next and the people in the bar will talk about other things because Elizabeth Keen will be old news, and none of it matters because Arioch Cain got what he wanted and there's nothing she can do because Liz is dead.
Liz is dead.
She feels like her stomach is trying to squeeze its way through her windpipe, maybe trying to consume her heart and all her other organs along the way, she's not sure. All she's sure of is that it hurts and everything is blurring around her, and she's stumbling unseeing through the parking lot because all she can see is that face, that image of blonde hair and bright blood branded behind her eyes, burned into her brain.
Liz is dead.
It's all she can think, over and over and over – Liz is dead Liz is dead Liz is dead Liz is dead Liz is dead – but the words aren't sinking in, no matter how many times she thinks them. They have no meaning beyond that horrifying image in her mind, so incongruous with the lively, sparking memories she holds of her Liz, the Liz she kind of maybe knew, the Liz she would now never get the chance to know better because she's dead, she's dead.
But Liz can't be dead. She just talked to her a few hours ago. She just heard her shaken yet somehow still strong voice over the phone, her voice saying her name – "Samar? Samar, what did you find?" – and now that voice is gone, never to be heard again, so she clings to the memory, those two syllables of her name. She clutches it tightly – "Samar?" – holds the sound of it between her fingers – "Samar, what did you find?" – locks it in a tiny box inside her for safekeeping. She's desperate, terrified that the memory of those two syllables will be distorted, that they'll be brushed away like granules of sand on a breezy day, that they'll simply disappear altogether, altered by time. And if that happens, if the day comes when she can't remember what her name sounded like on Elizabeth Keen's lips-
No. No, she can't think like that. She won't think like that. She won't forget. She can't. Forgetting isn't an option.
But now she only feels more nauseated, her head buzzing and light, a thin sheen of cold sweat breaking out across her hot skin. She can't get her brain to stop: the memory of the phone call; the knowledge that her own words – "this time he may not miss" – had come unbearably true; the realization that if Liz had just listened to her, if she'd come to her and turned herself in, if she'd just let her help her, she would be safe right now, she could have protected her-
Barely aware of her own body, she leans forward, hands on her knees, and vomits, watches as the contents of her stomach appear below her on the blacktop. She hasn't eaten much, she's been too busy, so it's mostly a bubbling, translucent liquid, a strange mixture of water and acid and coffee. She can feel the acid burning her throat, the inside of her mouth, and she retches again and again and again, until her stomach is entirely empty, until she's gagging only on air.
She can't breathe and her eyes are starting to sting. The panic is taking hold now, because no, no, no, this truly cannot be happening, there's no way in hell this is really happening, but she knows it is because that damn image of Liz's face, her pale skin and blonde hair and thick blood, is eating away at her synapses and she knows for certain that she never would've made that up. She's gasping for air, and in some small corner of her brain she knows she needs to calm down, that she's hyperventilating, but she can't. She can't calm down, because she never got to buy Liz that drink.
And now Liz will never know the truth, because she's gone, she's dead, she died not knowing, and it's not okay, none of this is okay. She feels like someone ripped out her kneecaps, like all the bones in her legs have turned to jelly, and she's wobbly and unsteady on her feet and there's nothing she wants more than to sink to the pavement and let the ground swallow her up.
She's about to let herself, to give in to the feeling of complete helplessness, but then she realizes that her puddle of vomit is only about twenty feet from the big black FBI-issue SUV she'd arrived in, and she manages to stumble forward one step, two steps, three. She feels numb, like she's floating, as she makes her way toward the hulking vehicle, a safe haven of privacy and darkness away from this vivid winter sunlight, this stupid sunlight that proves the solar system is somehow still functioning correctly.
And finally, finally, the SUV is there, right in front of her, and she feels so empty, so weak, that she has to lean against the freezing steel as she sticks her shaking fingers down into the pocket of her jacket, digging for the keys. She's uncoordinated, her hands uncooperative, as she presses the unlock button, as she struggles to grip the door handle and pull it open, as she clumsily climbs inside and closes the door behind her. And now she's sitting inside a hushed box, hiding from the cheerful sunlight and the happy bells and the curious strangers, and she takes a second to just sit, surrounded by the dark windows and the dark interiors and the dark silence.
It takes her four tries to successfully fit the key into the ignition and turn it. She finally hears the engine rumbling to life, but then suddenly there's a voice invading her private, silent box, and she vaguely remembers that she'd been listening to the radio before parking outside the bar, and before she can react, before she can do anything, she hears the voice saying, "…CNN is reporting that former FBI Agent Elizabeth Keen has been confirmed dead after a shooting at an undisclosed location near New York City. Keen has been accused of committing the worst acts of terrorism this country has seen in over a decade and…"
A terrifyingly inhuman noise escapes from deep in her throat and she smashes her palm against the dashboard until she manages to find the power button, until the voice stops saying those awful words, those words that reduce Liz to something she wasn't – a terrorist, a monster, not a person, not a kind and wonderful person whose life had been torn apart by the cruelty of others.
She somehow feels both hot and cold, but her sweat is making her jacket stick to her arms and it's uncomfortable, so she tugs it off, flings it into the backseat angrily, pounds her fists against the steering wheel until they hurt, until she knows there will be bruises left behind.
She's going to lose it any minute, she's going to start crying and screaming and raging, and she knows she can't, but she's so angry and so devastated and she feels an overwhelming urge to break things, to throw things, to create destruction that might temporarily ease the ache inside her. She's sitting in an FBI vehicle, in the parking lot of some random bar in some random neighborhood, and she barely even remembers where she is, but she knows she can't go back to the Post Office like this. She just wants her apartment, her bed, to curl into a ball on top of her comforter and to never move, ever again, because what's the point of moving now that Liz is dead?
She tries to think, but it's difficult. Each thought that comes to her is disjointed; it takes an absurd amount of effort to connect simple things in her mind: Her purse is at her desk in the office. The keys to her apartment are inside, the keys to her car, her wallet. Her car is in the parking garage. She's not supposed to use this vehicle for non-FBI purposes. But she can't face the Post Office, she can't face Aram's tears, she can't face Liz's old desk sitting empty in that little windowed room.
She turns herself on autopilot, puts the SUV in drive, presses her foot lightly to the gas pedal, pulls out of the parking lot. She realizes it's a little ridiculous, her plan to break into her own apartment, but she doesn't care. She doesn't have the luxury of caring about anything so trivial right now. The drive is a blur, her brain reacting automatically to traffic lights and stop signs and braking cars, but somehow, after an indistinguishable amount of time, she looks up and realizes she's parked in front of her apartment building.
She stumbles out into that glaring, horrific sunlight once again, barely remembering to pull the keys from the ignition, barely remembering to lock the car (but she does, obviously, because somewhere in the back of her mind she knows it's the FBI's), barely paying attention to what she's doing as she pulls a bobby pin from her hair, picks the lock on the front door with ease, drags her heavy feet up the three flights of stairs to her apartment. One more lock stands between her and her bed, and when the door swings open in front of her, she's almost afraid to go inside, afraid of the solitude, afraid of the normalcy, afraid of her own emotions.
But she does. She walks inside, she drops the car keys onto the side table, and she blindly pushes the door closed behind her. Somewhere in the blur that is her brain, she makes the steadfast decision to leave the door unlocked, and she almost hopes someone breaks in and murders her, puts her out of this misery; she doesn't dwell on these thoughts, they leave her ashamed, so she pushes them out of her mind, but still leaves the door unlocked, because even if she isn't actively hoping for something bad to happen, she doesn't care. Nothing matters right now, nothing matters except the fact that Liz is dead, Liz is dead and she doesn't know how to keep on living.
And then she remembers the note, that little scrap of paper Liz had left on her desk after the fiasco with Beck, after Liz risked her life for her, after they almost died together in a fucking airport, infected with an ancient plague. And now nothing matters except that piece of paper, and she searches every dusty corner of her brain, trying to remember where she'd put it.
And then it comes to her, through the haze of her not-properly-functioning mind: the desk drawer, the one where she keeps various papers, things from work, keepsakes, letters, special cards. She rushes toward the desk at the edge of the living room, pulls open the drawer, hard, rifling through everything frantically, items falling at her feet, papers spilling out of order.
And then it's there, right in front of her, and she's picking it up, looking at those words scrawled in Liz's handwriting – told you we'd be okay :) – and she feels like something's crushing her, like an elephant is standing on her chest, puncturing her lungs, and she can't breathe again, and those five words, that little smiley face, are all blurring in front of her and she feels another wave of nausea rushing through her. She runs to the bathroom, but there's nothing left in her stomach, only acid and bile, and she watches the sticky, mucous-like liquid spewing into the toilet below her, bright yellow now, globules separating into clumps and threads as soon as they hit the water. Her stomach is heaving, and she gags over and over, until she's retching on nothing but air again, and she can't breathe, and suddenly she's sobbing, great, gasping sobs, because it's the only way her body will allow her to breathe, it's the only way she can get oxygen into her system. She sinks to the floor beside the toilet, collapsing in on herself, her entire body shuddering, and the tears finally come, gushing down her face in unstoppable, uncontrollable torrents.
She hurts. It all hurts so much, but the sting of the tears, the lack of oxygen, the raw burn of the acid in her throat, the bitter taste coating her mouth, the tightness, the emptiness, of her stomach, they're all nothing compared to the gaping hole she can feel where her heart's supposed to be, the stabbing pain in her chest, and it's too much, it's too much, and she makes a noise she's never heard herself make before, somewhere between a groan and a scream, and she drags it out, makes it last forever. She never wants to stop making that sound because it helps a little, it eases the stabbing and it makes the hollowness of the hole a bit more bearable. So when she has to stop for more oxygen, has to take another gasping, sobbing breath, and the pain comes back full force, she does it again, screams into the cold tile floor because it's the only thing she can think to do. She stretches her foot out until it meets a solid surface, and she kicks the bathtub, hard, harder, harder, until her ankle is throbbing, and oh god, she wants to reach into her chest and rip out whatever's left of her heart, she wants to reach in and close that stupid hole, because it hurts.
She clutches at her chest, but it's useless, nothing can make it stop, nothing can close the hole, nothing except Liz, and that will never happen because Liz is dead. She howls and screams and moans again and again, roaring like an injured lion, until her throat is even more raw and the screaming only makes her hurt worse, but she can't stop now that she's started.
Her hipbone is digging into the hard tile and it's cold against her bare arms, so after ages of lying there, sobbing, unable to move, she forces herself up from the bathroom floor, stumbles through the living room, into her bedroom, and then she's finally crawling onto her bed, her soft, familiar bed, and she feels safe, a little better almost, until she remembers that Liz would never feel the comfort of a soft, familiar bed ever again, that the last thing Liz felt was pain because some fucking asshole assassin with a God-complex shot her, murdered her.
And now she can't stop imagining what Liz had felt in those last moments, can't stop wondering what exact pain she had endured – where had she been shot? The stomach? The heart? The lungs? She can't stop wondering what Liz had been thinking when she died – what were her final thoughts? Who had crossed her mind when she took her last breath, when her heart stopped beating? Tom? Her friends? Reddington? Had Reddington been by her side as she slipped away, or was she alone? Had she spoken? What were her last words? Was she thinking about all of the things she'd never get to do? Was she thinking about how she'd never have the family she'd always dreamed of? Had she had enough time to realize that she was dying? Had she known what was happening? Had she suffered? Had she been scared?
Each thought is another stab of excruciating pain in her chest, a knife twisting in that empty hole, and she's sobbing harder and harder, so hard that she's remotely afraid she may pass out from lack of oxygen. The little scrap of paper is still clenched in her fist, and she begins to uncrumple it, tries to smooth it out, but it only makes the remains of her heart, hole and all, twist and flip inside her and she's crying even harder now because oh god, she's nearly ruined it, it's all wrinkled, beginning to rip in the corner.
She blinks furiously until the curtain of tears clears enough, oh so briefly, for her to see the words again – told you we'd be okay :) – and no, no, no no no, she can't. She's lying on her side, and she pulls her knees up to her chest, hugs them to her body, makes herself as small as humanly possible, and rocks herself back and forth. She feels like she's losing her mind, like it's crumbling into tiny pieces, like someone's inside her brain stomping on those tiny pieces, making them even tinier, so tiny she knows she's permanently damaged, that there's absolutely no way she'll be able to put all those crumbs back where they belong. She focuses on the rocking motion, begging it to calm her down, and she begs and begs and begs, but it doesn't help because those words, those goddamn, witty, adorable, sweet words aren't true anymore, Liz isn't okay, she'd never be okay, she's dead, and there's literally nothing she can do about it – she'd failed at her job, she'd failed at protecting her, and now she's gone forever.
She lets another screaming moan tear at the raw flesh of her throat, and she buries her face into the comforter to muffle the sound, her neck stretching so taut that it's uncomfortable – she almost feels like she's going to twist it into such an unnatural position, strain it so much with her sharp sobs, that it will never heal (just like her brain, she considers vacantly). She remembers the fragile piece of paper in her hand, places the little note a safe distance away from her so she won't cause it anymore damage, and then reaches blindly up the bed for her pillow, grabs the fabric between her fingers and yanks it to her body, hugs it to her chest, clutches it so tightly her knuckles hurt. She sobs into the pillow, endless, tortured sounds, drowning in her own grief. She'd thought she was used to losing people by now, that she could handle death and grief after having lost her mother, her father, and her brother, but no, she realizes now that this is something utterly impossible to get used to, something that never gets easier no matter how many times it happens.
Liz's handwriting is engraved in her memory now, projected onto the screen of her closed eyelids, the words drifting over top of the image from the news, the image she knows will haunt her forever. All she can see floating in the darkness is Liz's pale face, so much blood, and told you we'd be okay :), interspersed with sparks of life (her piercing blue eyes, her dimples, the musical sound of her laugh those few times she'd managed to hear it) and brief flashes from the airport (the blinding pain in her abdomen, the feel of strong arms keeping her blood inside, the memory of "shhh, we'll be okay").
"Liz, oh god, Liz," she cries into the pillow, her words muffled, digging through the thin fabric, burying themselves deep inside the down feathers. She sobs until her body is entirely spent, her throat so raw it aches, and eventually, she falls asleep, exhausted, her head burrowed into the tear-and-snot-soaked pillowcase, Liz's name falling in whimpers, then whispers, from her lips.
TBLTBLTBLTBLTBLTBLTBLTBL
"Samar?"
She isn't sure what wakes her, but everything comes rushing back at once – the pain, the guilt, the gaping hole in her heart, the crushing and stabbing in her chest, the raw aching burn in her throat-
Liz.
She remembers – Liz is dead.
She's alone, in her apartment, in her life. She loses everyone she loves, and she hates herself because it should hurt less, it shouldn't surprise her, but it doesn't, and it does. She hates herself because for someone who loses everyone she loves, she somehow still hasn't learned that time isn't to be wasted, that if you love someone, you tell them, and now, again, it's too late. It's always too late.
"Samar?"
That voice… Her heartbeat abruptly speeds up, trips and skips in her chest, and she feels a ripple of nausea course through her, enough to turn her stomach, twist it into knots, but not enough to go rushing for the toilet, not yet at least.
Is she hallucinating? Why is she hearing Liz's voice in her bedroom, in her head? She's afraid to open her eyes, but she's not sure which she's more afraid of – that Liz will be there or that she won't be. She allows herself to give in to the fear, her muscles clenching, every inch of her body tightening, making itself smaller, curling around the pillow still in her arms.
But then, she hears the voice again – "Samar, are you awake?" – and, with her face safely concealed by fabric, she opens her eyes. She stares into blurry darkness, beginning to make out wrinkles and threads as her vision adjusts, but she definitely knows her eyes are open and she can tell she isn't dreaming and she hears someone else's shuffling feet in her bedroom, and now she's completely and utterly terrified, because what on earth is happening?
She forces herself to lift her face from the pillow, scrambling into a sitting position, and she's dizzy, her vision instantly narrowing into little tunnels, because Liz is there, standing a few feet from the side of her bed, staring down at her with a look of concern, and none of this makes sense because Liz is dead. She feels empty and full, heavy and light, broken and repaired, like she's simultaneously disintegrating and being put back together. It doesn't make sense. This doesn't make sense.
Her voice is trembling, an earthquake along the San Andreas fault-line of her newfound hope, when she manages to speak, and she's barely aware of her mind and body working together to form words, barely cognizant of what leaves her mouth, as if she's hearing someone else say it: "I don't understand."
She watches Liz's face, studying every detail, every miniscule movement, looking for something she can point to as proof that this isn't real, something that will make her triumphantly, regretfully, shout, "a-ha! You're not the real Liz!" But there's nothing. It's just Liz – the little wrinkles she gets above her eyebrows when she's worried, the sympathetic tilt of her head, the tiny, sad smile, the kindness in her eyes.
And then Liz is speaking, firmly, slowly, making sure each word sinks in, and it's that voice she never thought she'd hear again, that she was terrified of forgetting, and just the sound of it alone is enough to sharpen the situation into focus: "It wasn't real, Samar. We had to fake my death so Arioch Cain would take me off the website."
She hears the words, she understands them, but they don't really make sense, because she can still feel the leftover ache of the hole in her heart, can still taste the sour bile on her teeth. She remembers those inhuman noises she'd produced. Her stomach muscles, her fists, her hip, her ankle – they're all sore from the exertion of her grief. And she can still see that image of Liz lying pale and dead in a pool of her own blood, no matter how much she wants to forget it.
She attempts to wrap her mind around this development, this miracle of Liz, alive and breathing and heart-beating, standing right in front of her, yet she still can't help but feel like she's staring at a ghost. She tries to swallow, to salve the dry sting of her throat, then whispers, "I thought-" But she stops, she can't. She can't continue, she can't say the words out loud.
She watches Liz take a cautious step toward her, and tries to listen, to focus, as her lips begin to move: "I know. I'm so sorry, Samar. You were supposed to know, you were supposed to find out ahead of time. Everyone's been trying to contact you for hours."
She's confused at first, because as far as she knows, no one's tried to contact her. But then she remembers – the jacket she'd angrily flung into the backseat, her phone tucked into one of its pockets, left forgotten in the SUV parked outside. She tries to offer up an explanation, but she's so dazed and her brain is refusing to cooperate: "I left my phone in the car, I was so…" It still doesn't make sense. Her mind is whirring uselessly, because no matter how she realigns the pieces, she can't erase that image of blonde hair matted in red, can't erase the emptiness, the utter helplessness and disorientation she'd felt. "I don't understand," she says again, her voice ragged, scratchy, broken. "Well- I understand, but this doesn't make sense. I saw you dead. You were dead."
Liz smiles, so softly, tilts her head in that understanding way that's just so Liz, and says, "I wasn't. I'm very much alive. And you saw a photo of me dead; that's decidedly not the same thing." Her brow furrows then, and she steps closer to the bed, asks, "Are you okay?"
Liz looks so worried, so profoundly concerned, that it strikes her as absurd because Liz was supposed to be dead and now she's here asking her if she's okay. She shakes her head, bites her lip; she's trying so hard to control the stinging tears in her eyes, but she's incapable of stopping them as the first fat drops begin to roll down her cheeks. "No," she breathes tremulously, "no, I'm not okay, I thought you were dead."
And then she's breaking again, rough sobs rocking through her body, horrifying noises tumbling from her tender throat, and she's so embarrassed, she doesn't want Liz to see her like this, but she can't help it, she can't stop, because what else is there to do but cry when the woman you love comes back from the grave? She pulls her knees to her chest, hugs them close, hides her tearful, anguished face against them.
She feels Liz reaching for her, feels her hand on her shoulder, feels her thumb brushing gently, soothingly, back and forth, and this physical proof of her worry and affection is too much, the final straw. A whimper escapes her between sobs and, without thinking, without realizing, she's uncurling her body and clambering off the bed and launching herself at Liz with such force that she causes her to stumble backward a few inches. She frantically wraps Liz in her arms, and now she's only crying harder because this is real, this is proof that Liz is alive, she can feel her right here in her arms, she can feel her breathing, can feel her chest rising and falling against her own, can feel the puffs of air against her ear as Liz returns the embrace.
She's past embarrassment. Embarrassment is trivial. All that matters is the solid presence pressed against her, wrapped around her, holding her so tightly, just like that day at the airport, except this time, rather than her blood, Liz is keeping her heart inside, making sure the remains of it don't shatter.
She's squeezing Liz so tightly she's afraid she may hurt her, but she can't force herself to stop, she can't manage to lessen the strength of her embrace by even a minimal fraction, so she simply buries her face in the crook of Liz's neck and sobs, sobs, sobs. She can feel the whisper of Liz's breath against her hair as she murmurs soothing shushing noises, reassures her in that familiar, gentle voice, "I'm okay, Samar. I'm okay. I'm so sorry that you didn't know, I'm so sorry."
All she can do is sob harder and harder, until finally she's able to gasp out, "Liz. Liz." She feels Liz's arms tighten around her even further, feels her cheek press against her ear, every inch of her so close, so alive, and she knows now that she's been so, so stupid to have waited this long, that she can't possibly wait another second because Liz could die in an hour, Liz could die tomorrow or next week or in a year, and this inevitable pain and loss, made infinitely worse by the unnecessary, avoidable regret of words left unsaid, would consume her all over again; so she quietly, brokenly, whispers: "I love you."
She feels Liz stiffen in her arms, her hands stilling against her spine, and she doesn't know what to make of the reaction, can't quite tell whether the admission has come as a good surprise or a bad one, and she's scared, completely terrified, but nothing is worse than the fear she'd felt when she realized that she would never get to say those three words, that Liz would never know the truth.
"I love you, and I thought I lost you, that I'd never get to tell you. I was so stupid for never telling you." She can't stop now that the words are tumbling out of her mouth, and she's afraid to stop, afraid of what Liz will say, so she just keeps going, keeps saying the words she thought she'd lost her chance to say forever. "But I've lost so many people, Liz. I lose everyone I love. I was scared. And then I lost you and I thought you would never know the truth, and it was so much worse; it was more terrifying than anything else that could possibly happen, anything you could say to me, anything I had imagined. And now you're here, you're alive, and I'm somehow even more afraid of losing you. I can't lose you, Liz. I can't-" She's choking on her words now, and even having Liz in her arms isn't enough to keep the panic at bay, so she presses her cheek more solidly against the pale skin of Liz's neck, against the slick wetness of her own tears.
But then she feels Liz pull her impossibly closer, feels one hand slide up her back, the other tangle in her hair. She hears her murmur right beside her ear, "Oh, Samar… I had no idea. God, I'm so sorry this happened. I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere. I'm right here." She feels her fingers gently combing through her curls, occasionally brushing against her scalp, and it's so much all at once – so much safety and pain and home and fear and relief all rolled into one. She wants to bottle this moment and keep it forever, because it's all she's ever going to get, she's sure of it.
She feels Liz beginning to disentangle herself, and her heart drops because she doesn't want this to end, she doesn't want Liz to see her blotchy, tear-stained face, she doesn't want to be rejected right now, not yet. But then those familiar eyes (those piercingly ice-blue eyes), that bright smile, those deep, pronounced dimples, are just a few inches in front of her. She watches as Liz leans in and presses a kiss to her cheek, and it's light, it's soft, but it lingers a moment longer than necessary, sending an arrow of hope into her wrecked and battered heart.
When she feels Liz begin to pull away, sees her take a step back, she can't help but close her eyes, afraid of what's next. She can't help but try to protect herself, so she says, "I'm sorry, I know that was a lot to take in. Just…for now, please don't say anything? I don't think I can face rejection right now."
She hears a soft huff of laughter, feels gentle fingers brush along her jaw. She opens her eyes just in time to see the twinkle in Liz's eyes as she smiles and replies, "Who says I'm rejecting you?," and it's enough. It's more than enough.
She feels her lips tugging up in a smile, she's practically beaming, because she can't possibly hold it back, and she can feel the hole in her heart repairing itself as the hope spreads through her body, into every limb, every finger and toe. "Really?" she asks so quietly, so scared that this will end up being a dream or a cruel joke.
But Liz is nodding, reaching for her hand, twining their fingers together, squeezing once, and then repeating: "Really."
She has to take a deep breath then, a deep, shaky, unsteady breath filled with relief, because this can't possibly be happening but somehow it is. She can't bring herself to look away from Liz's eyes – she can't get enough of them, that shade of blue is her favorite color, she wants to memorize every fleck – so she doesn't. She just looks and looks and grins like an idiot, feels the weight of Liz's hand in her own, vows that starting right now she won't waste another single second.
So she kisses her, locking away her first memory of Liz's lips, already trying to memorize how they fit against her own, how they taste, this feeling blossoming in her healing heart. She kisses her, and Liz is kissing her back, and when it's over, she gazes into those blue eyes once again, smiles, and says, "So if I offer to buy you a drink, will you say yes this time?"