Shot Through The Heart (Post Ep. For Bang)
Rating: T for mild sexual situations, possible salty language.
Pairing: Jimmy/Abby (Jimmy POV)
Summary: But everything has changed. That boy is a man now. He's stronger, he's tougher, and he's more sure than ever of what he wants.
Disclaimer: CBS left them in the toy box, I'm just playing with them.
AN: Thanks so much for those who have been reading and reviewing. I'm truly humbled by all y'all's kind words.
Spoilers: Through Episode 5 – to be safe.
The knock on the door startles him. It's tentative, soft, like the person who is knocking isn't sure they want it to be heard. He has a fairly good idea of who's on the other side of the door before he opens it, but no idea why. Opening the door, he's transported back to the days after she left. This was always a fantasy of his, that one day she'd just knock on his door and be standing on his porch and all would be right with the world again. He's always promised himself that she wouldn't even have to say anything. He'd just take her back in his arms, and the ache would go away and it would be like she was never gone.
She's hesitant and tense, like the deer in the woods, and he needs to be careful or he'll spook her away. She says nothing, but he's known her long enough, loved her long enough, to recognize her troubled expression. He wants to ask, but he doesn't want to break the spell, afraid she'll disappear again. He's been so careful to keep things light, no pressure, but he can't just stand there, while she's so afraid and do nothing. Instinct makes him take a step toward her, and he's gratified when she slips into his arms for comfort. He can feel her trembling and immediately wants to ask what's wrong, then find whatever it is that has scared her so badly and destroy it. The question is on the tip of his tongue, but he stops himself.
"Let's go inside, it's kind of cold out there," he says instead, as Abby slowly nods. He sweeps them inside the door, shuts and locks it behind them.
There's a few minutes of awkward silence as Jimmy just stands there trying to process what's happened, that Abby is here, with him again. She takes a seat on his couch and he blurts out the first thing that comes to his mind.
"Don't you hate pink?" he reminds her, taking in the sweatshirt she's wearing.
"Bachelorette party uniform," she explains with a grimace.
"So how was it? Lots of high pitched squealing and trading recipes?" he asks, smiling a little when she glares at him for his sexist remark. He always loved getting a rise out of her.
"It was fine," she says shortly, and he takes the hint to change the subject, as she looks around the room, noting the changes.
"My parents moved to Bellevue a few years ago. The place is all mine now," he explains.
"You live alone?" she asks, almost too casually. "I thought that maybe I shouldn't knock so late because I didn't want to interrupt if you had company or a roommate or something," she continues, her voice picking up speed to a nervous babble.
"Just me," he replies. "And you're always welcome here, Abby. You know that."
"Some things change," she says cryptically, fidgeting nervously with her hands.
"And some things don't," he corrects her, trying to get a handle on the woman in front of him who is both so similar and so different from the girl he knew. She looks tired and tense, and he wonders if she's been sleeping. He also knows he can't ask.
"You want something to drink?" he offers, his manners finally kicking in as he heads for his kitchen. Without waiting for her answer, he returns with a glass of water, puts it on the table in front of her, and eases himself onto the other end of the couch. She takes a sip and thanks him.
The moment is followed by more awkward silence. Both of them are trying to forget the last time they were here together.
...
The knock on the door wakes him up, and he's immediately alarmed. His parents are gone, Shane's on the mainland, and Abby went home hours ago. Quickly tugging on a t-shirt over his boxers, he answers the door, stunned to find her standing on his porch.
"Abby, what's wrong?" he asks the brittle girl in front of him radiating pain in waves, as he moves forward to wrap her into a hug.
"Nothing," she lies, breezing past his outstretched arms into the house. He's not fooled. Her mother was murdered a couple of weeks ago, and nothing's been right in Abby's world since.
A month ago, Abby would have had to sneak out her window, rappel down a tree, and then tiptoe down the brick walkway in the dark, to accomplish this late night excursion. And her father still would have showed up with a shotgun soon after. But Charlie Mills hasn't been home in three days, likely passed out at the sheriff's station. Tonight Abby just left through the front door with all the lights on.
She's fidgeting, nervous, and as Jimmy comes closer he can smell the alcohol on her breath. She is slowly falling apart in front of him, and he's not sure he can hold her together, much as he desperately wants to.
"Got anything to drink," she asks, not drunk, but hardly sober. Jimmy shakes his head and gets her a glass of water from the kitchen. When he returns Abby is on the couch, her hair down, and top two buttons open. She pats the space next to her for him to sit down, and he does.
"So I've been thinking that maybe we should take advantage of my lax parental supervision.." she begins with a coy smile that doesn't reach her eyes. They're rimmed by dark circles that are starting to appear permanent.
"What do you suggest?" he asks lightly, letting her take the lead.
"How about a sleepover?" she asks and Jimmy nods, trying to remember where his mom keeps the spare sheets to make up the couch. He knows it's a bad idea. Tomorrow when the sheriff wakes up from his hangover and finds his daughter hasn't been home all night there will be hell to pay, but he's willing to risk it for Abby to get some much needed rest. He's about to get up and find the sheets, when suddenly he has a lap full of Abby, kissing him with a force that's almost bruising, as he tastes the left-over alcohol.
She deepens the kiss and her hands start roaming under Jimmy's shirt as she traces patterns on his chest, and settles herself into his lap, now straddling him. Stealing his breath, she shifts in his lap and Jimmy is lost in the sensations. Soon her shirt is gone, revealing the black bra underneath but Jimmy barely gets a glimpse of the newly revealed pale skin, before she's drawing him into another punishing kiss. He tries to gentle the kiss, to slow it down, but Abby isn't having it. He reaches up to stroke her hair and she grabs his hand and places it over her satin-covered breast instead. Her moves are mechanical, her eyes closed. Physically she and Jimmy are as close as they've ever been, but she couldn't be further away.
His brain finally penetrates the fog of his teenage hormones and reminds him that this is all wrong. Much as he wants her, because he always wants her and he's dreamed about being with her like this for so long, he knows that Abby's not here because she's ready to be with him. She's here because her mother is dead, and her father is drunk and her life sucks right now. And when it's all over he'll just be one more thing she regrets.
"Abby, stop," he says, gently pushing her back to give himself room to breathe. She looks at him with unfocused eyes, rejection dawning in them.
"I thought you wanted this," she half-accuses him in a mix of anger and tears. "Isn't this what we've been working up to all these months?"
"Just wait..." he starts, trying to calm her down, but she's off his lap and pulling on her shirt, her face flushed with embarrassment and recent exertion while Jimmy's still trying to figure out what the hell just happened.
"I'm sorry," she babbles, suddenly feeling exposed, missing a few buttons in her haste to cover herself.
"It's okay," he says, trying to calm her, but she's halfway to the door before Jimmy manages to get off the couch. He briefly catches her hand in his trying to turn her toward him. She keeps looking down, refusing to meet his eyes.
"I'm sorry," she says again, pulling away and running out the door, leaving him speechless behind her. He tries to follow, but he's barefoot and half-dressed, and she has a head start.
A week later Abby is gone from Harper's Island – and Jimmy – for good.
...
"How's Julia?" she asks, struggling for small talk.
"She's good. Asked about you," he replies, smiling to himself at the elderly woman's shameless attempts at matchmaking on the drive to the grocery store.
Abby catches the smile, and gives him a curious look.
"She's tried to fix me up with every single woman on the island under 30," Jimmy explains, trying to tamp down the glee he feels when Abby's eyes darken at that news, much like when he said he was married at the docks.
"Well you are a catch," she puns as Jimmy groans.
"Are you sure you're a writer because that was just bad," he laughs as Abby looks at him with a frown.
"How did you know I was a writer?" she asks him.
"Small town, people talk," he says nonchalantly, refusing to admit to his subscription to the L.A. Times or the copies of her articles he has under his bed, along with a mix CD he never got to give her and the hair ribbon that she left behind on their last night together.
He'll never tell anyone about the Abby Box again, after all the grief he's taken from Shane for that particular drunken revelation.
"I'm not a real writer yet. I just get to do the occasional column or story. At least I'm finally off obituaries," she adds.
She was promoted from obituaries eighteen months ago, but he's not supposed to know that so he doesn't say anything.
"So you have your own boat now, just like you always dreamed about. That's great," she offers enthusiastically.
"It's good. Can't complain. I like working for myself," he replies, trying to forget the memories of lazy afternoons spent dreaming together, and the plan that when he got his boat, they'd take a trip down the coast on it.
Finally fed up with the small talk, and the politeness that keeps them from really saying anything, he takes the plunge.
"Abby, what happened?" he asks, unsure if he means 7 years ago, or what brought her to him tonight.
"Bad day," she says simply, trying to wave him off, but he just keeps looking at her like he can see through her.
"Some girl was kind of staring at me at the Globe, and then I was almost hit by a car, and then the wedding present I was making for Trish and Henry got ruined and..."
"Wait a minute, you almost got hit by a car? Are you okay?" Jimmy interrupts her immediately, shifting into caretaker mode.
"I'm fine. It was my fault, I wasn't paying attention," she explains with a wave of her hand. "Anyway, then they're telling fortunes at Trish's party and mine was weird. It was the same woman who almost ran me over, and she took my mom's necklace, and then she dropped it and said she had to go. And then she like – cornered me outside the Candlewick and told me that he wanted me dead and I needed to leave."
"He who?" Jimmy asks in alarm.
"Who knows. I thought that maybe she was just trying to scare me, but then I thought about Kelly and ..." her voice trails off.
And she came to him, knowing that she would be safe. Neither of them need to say it to know it's the truth.
Suddenly Abby smothers a yawn.
"Do you want to stay here tonight?" Jimmy offers, as she faces him with dark searching eyes. "I can make up the couch," he adds unnecessarily.
"I should probably go back," she says, making no move in that direction.
"It's late, it's dark, and it's really no trouble. Besides Henry'd have my head if I let something happen to you at his wedding," Jimmy argues as she smiles back at him.
"Well we must not disappoint the groom then," she agrees, as Jimmy just keeps staring at her with that soft expression. Some people wear their hearts on their sleeves, Jimmy knows he wears his in his blue eyes.
"The last time I was here..." she begins, then trails off, unable to finish.
"It's okay," he says, and it is now that she's here. Even if he's spent countless hours since then going over what happened that night, endlessly searching for a better ending, and knowing that there isn't one.
"I meant what I said today, Jimmy. Leaving wasn't about you. You were actually the hardest part of it, the one thing I didn't want to lose," she explains hesitantly, afraid to meet his eyes, almost worried she's revealing too much.
It feels like he's been waiting his whole life for those words, for some acknowledgment that he did mean something to her and that this love that is always present, even now, wasn't all in his head.
"I think I knew that," he acknowledges, finally admitting to himself what he never could before, too busy wrapping himself in the comfort of being the one abandoned, the one betrayed, the one deserving of revenge. He could have gone after her. He could have called, he could have written, he could have done something. Henry didn't let her just slip out of his life. Charlie sent cards, even if she didn't respond. Jimmy did nothing. He was a boy who let his fear hold him back.
"It's okay," he says again. And he realizes that 7 years ago, the boy he was just wasn't ready, wasn't equipped to be what Abby needed. As his father was fond of saying, he had good intentions, but no follow through.
But everything has changed. That boy is a man now. He's stronger, he's tougher, and he's more sure than ever of what he wants.
A few minutes later, Abby's pink sweatshirt is on the arm of the couch, and she's settled into the makeshift bed. He pulls the blanket over her, and before he can help himself has dropped a quick kiss on her forehead.
He turns out the lights, and is about to go into his bedroom when Abby's voice stops him.
"Thank you, Jimmy. For everything," she says.
Jimmy decides it is time to let go of the past, and concentrate on the future.
"You're welcome. For everything," he says, closing the door behind him.