Hang.
Rating: PG – With an angst alert, of course.
Disclaimer: Don't own anything except my computer, and really, you don't want it. The title and the song belong to Rob Thomas and Matchbox twenty. Sadly I don't own those either.
Summary: He said he couldn't do it, but what if he can't? (G/S)
A/N: I'm pinning this one entirely on Rob Thomas's writing skills, a late night feeling sick and a case of writer's block. Seriously, I take no responsibility over this story. You've been warned.
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He looks at her and looks at her and then looks at her some more. He doesn't even care that she might notice, he can't help the staring. Not right now. A mechanized voice calls to a select group of people in a too polite tone that makes his nerves jump. He shifts ins his seat, drops his head and rubs his eyes. He's always disliked airports, but never before like this. It has never been like this.
Turning back to his subject of study, he finds her staring at him, an unreadable mix of emotions in her eyes. There's pain (that's easy), and tiredness (that one is obvious), but there's also something else; something besides the familiar quiet melancholy that usually lurks beneath their brown surface. If he had to guess, he'd say it involves accomplishment, or a feeling akin to personal satisfaction. The notion makes him hurt inside.
Again the voice. This time he didn't notice it, but she did and now she's moving, gathering her things, getting up. Leaving. It happens too fast. It could take forever and it would still happen too fast. His mind struggles with the facts but the analysis takes too long, so he does what he's worst at. He acts on impulse. .
"Sara, wait"
She stops and looks up at him, the way one looks at a small child when the same question is asked for the umpteenth time.
"I…"
His brain is trying. It really is trying.
"I…Y…Do you have to go?"
"Griss…"
"Stay."
She touches his face, her palm conveying all the mixed feelings of a lifetime not spent together.
"I can't"
She can't and he knows why. He nods and the hand that was touching his cheek drops to get hold of a heavy backpack. His eyes follow her as she walks towards her gate, not looking back once. Then she's gone, and it suddenly hits him that it was self realization hiding in her eyes; a healthy trace of pride.
He loves her more because of that.