A/N: Inspired by a couple lines from the film Knight of Cups. If you haven't seen it, I strongly recommend it if you have a deep appreciation for beautiful cinematography and/or just really love Cate Blanchett and Natalie Portman (like me).
Anyway, I wanted to write something with Maura a couple years older than Jane, so here you go.
b
…
..
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"You changed."
Simple. Concise. But you're not a fool. Even with her back to you, you can sense the beginnings of a unavoidable entanglement. One deadly. One deserved. One long overdue.
You are unafraid.
"You changed," she repeats, now glancing over her shoulder at you. "The world absorbed you."
Different now.
Beautiful. Convoluted. Absolutely complex. She is these things and more. Words cannot help but fail you in her midst, so you don't even begin to try them. Instead, you rely on your feet to keep you grounded as she hugs her arms around herself.
She turns away from you again, not bothering to grace you with her eyes. All you can do is hope for a wistfulness you will not find.
"I regret that it turned out the way it did." The breeze moves her hair, swirling it across her shoulders hidden beneath a black knit sweater. Envy slinks down your spine, dribbling and uncalculated. You want to touch her. You're too dense to notice she's in mourning.
No. You have not earned her sorrow. You don't deserve it. Not anymore.
"You always wanted to get away from me," she whispers, and it's a shot to the gut. You want to tell her she's wrong. To grab her by the shoulders and swallow her pain. To climb inside of her and return what you have so selfishly taken. "I just didn't want to be alone."
She shivers. She's lying. You can see her fingers twitching as she tries her very best to keep her hands from flying to her neck.
"I couldn't have you… Couldn't keep you… Couldn't love you enough."
Her words flay you alive, and leave you exposed as she dives underneath your rib cage. You remember longingly those days her words could rocket you into the heavens. Steal your breath and give it back with intentions to kill you in ways that felt a whole hell of a lot better than this.
"Are you sorry you brought me here?" she asks, and for the first time, you can speak.
"Are you sorry you came?"
She lets out the kind of sigh that tells you you're done for. The final blow. The coup de grâce. You physically flinch, waiting.
Waiting.
She deflects. She spares your life and turns to face you, "Do you remember how happy we were?"
Her eyes are watery, and you can't bear to look at what you've done. The woman you've wounded so terribly. Cowardice clamps down on you, something you once would have fought to the death is now hunkering down on you without so much as a fight.
"It's different now," you manage, but it sounds like meaningless sputtering.
She looks beyond you at something only she can see. It pulls weakly at the corners of her mouth. "What happened to us?" She wipes her eyes and smiles again, "You used to sing coming down the stairs in the morning. Do you remember?"
Yes. Commercial jingles. TV show themes. Songs you made up the words to just to make her smile.
"I only meant to make you happy, Jane," she says, swiping her hands across her eyes despite the futility. "I didn't want anything more. I didn't want to take from you."
No. She took nothing from you, and in return you stole away with her heart and lungs. Her love.
She shakes her head, commanding her tears to cease. Her smile vanishes, and with it your hope. "But then you began to get angry with me… just for little things. I don't mean to accuse you, Jane, but you turned more unkind towards me by the day—"
She stops short, gathering nerve. "Almost cruel."
You can't breathe. You can't breathe because she's right. You devoured her and left her to rot here in this house alone while you ran off and came back again without a care. While you walked all over her. While you killed her.
Her hands tighten into fists and rise in front of her face, but her rage dies. She has nothing left. Fingers uncoil but remain rigid in front of her. "Just… Just don't threaten me with leaving, okay?"
She is backing away from you. "Just do what you want to do… Just go."
…
.
.
"Pay attention to this moment," she mumbles. Her mouth is warm against your shoulder blade and her hair tickles your cheek. "Everything is here…"
Her lips brush the shell of your ear, "perfect..."
She is golden. Soft and beautiful. You want to keep her in this bed forever. Away from the world and every place you cannot feel her skin beneath your fingertips. It is by dumb luck you found her, but now that you have her, letting go seems unnatural. Cold. Wrong.
"and complete," she finishes, squeezing her arm around you and pressing a kiss at the base of your jaw.
"Mmm," is all you can manage because she doesn't know all your words have turned to mush.
She laughs quietly and rests her forehead against your back. "You're so quiet. You keep everything to yourself."
Inside you are fire and blood, consuming and revitalizing. Damage. Repair. Damage. Repair. And for the first time in your life, you've found someone who notices.
"You have love inside of you. I know it." She trails her fingers up your chest, "When I'm with you… I forget everything else. My husband… my life as I knew it."
And you can't.
She's married to a good man. He's not some monster she needs you to save her from. He's a doctor. A pediatrician. You don't want to think about how much this would hurt him… You don't. You can't.
You want her more.
.
.
…
She starts for the house.
Your home. The house that now dons a crooked 'for sale' sign. The house the two of you spent months making your own. You wanted her to have everything she ever desired. To make her happy with objects and things.
But she only wanted you. You can see now.
But it's too late.
Everything's fucked.
There's nothing left, you can feel it in your bones. But you can't let her go. You cannot lose her again.
…
.
.
"I don't feel guilty that I've fallen in love with you," she says, and you nearly choke on your coffee.
You look up, and her eyes hold yours for a moment before she reaches out and smooths an unruly curl behind your ear, "I'm glad. Grateful I still can."
Her palm comes to rest on your cheek, and you're torn between closing your eyes and backing away. All you can think about is the man waiting for her, wondering where she's gone.
"You're afraid," she whispers, and you nod once. "You're afraid you're making me break my vows. My darling, the vow comes out of the love behind it."
She can sense you're not entirely convinced. Her free hands slides into your hair, and you want to confront God and demand to know why something that feels so good could be so bad.
"Love is so rare that when you find it, you can't doubt it... He knows." Your eyes widen, and she nods. "I belong to no man."
"There you are," she says, and something inside you liquefies as her lips meet your own.
.
.
…
You can't remember the last time you ran with such purpose. But now that you are, you find that it's incredibly difficult to stop. Even as her form grows dangerously closer. As background becomes foreground, you collide solidly, pinning her against the mahogany door she spent two weeks picking out all those years ago.
You just want her to look at you.
But not like this.
"Are you hurt? I…" You what? You couldn't stop yourself? True but unbelievable. You have no excuse. Instead, the words you settle on carry a triteness outweighing the world. "I'm sorry."
All she gives you is a slight nod.
You take a step back once you're certain you have not crushed her. "I should go―"
"Stay," she says, reaching for your hand. Her words are soft, but you make no mistake. It's a command.
…
.
.
"How did I find you?" you whisper into her hair. It is autumn. The air is cool and sharp, and miss dumbest genius seems to have forgotten her jacket in the taxi. You were about to give up yours, but she simply shook her head and pushed into your chest, disappearing within you.
"Mm, my love, you weren't the one looking." You kiss the top of her head, lost to the world when she sighs. "Come away with me."
"Okay."
"I want to go away with you," she pulls you in closer. "Marry you. Love you forever."
You lose your language.
.
.
…
"You wanted me to help you," she says, leaning against the island, coffee cup in hand. You recall dozens of mornings just like this. Wonderful mornings that became less and less as you began to fade. "through the dangers of a young woman's life. Bravery—"
"Fear," you correct, and she accepts it immediately.
She glances at your feet, "When was the last time you took those boots off?"
"I don't—" you start, but she takes off in another direction completely.
"I think you were afraid of going astray. All those nights I couldn't reach you because they sent you in there all alone." She covers her mouth with her hand. You made her like this. You were the one who would disappear for months at a time on deep-cover assignments, leaving her on a moment's notice at times. All you ever wanted was to make homicide. Just to prove that you could. To prove you were worth something more. But so quickly it became more than that. A fixation. An obsession. They warned you plain and simple: undercover sucks you in. Takes everything you have. Then spits you out again.
If only you'd listened.
"I couldn't help you stay on the right path. Your head was turned in the wrong direction." She reaches for your hand, and you give it to her, watching closely as she runs her thumb over the raised patch of skin at the center. "Can you move all your fingers?"
"Yeah. Good as new," you try to assure her, closing your hand into a fist then stretching it out again. "See?"
She gives a nod and releases your hand, "You never really wanted to be totally inside our marriage. Nor outside it, either. You were sincere in the promises you made… Still… they didn't come from your heart."
"I… I was afraid," you confess, but she already knew that. "Afraid of life."
Her face falls a little more, and with it your insides grind together crudely. "And who pays for it?"
"I'm sorry you had to pay." You mean it, god, you mean it with everything you have left. But you're not entirely sure that's enough. So you try again. "You were... You are my hope. You give me peace."
You reach for her, but she allows nothing.
Again, you try because losing her… losing her would toss the world around you into an anguish so acute, eradication would seem almost merciful. "You give me what the world can't give. Mercy. Love. Joy." All else is a cloud. You can't get the words right, but maybe that doesn't matter. Her eyes find yours again, and you know she's listening. And that's all you need.
"And I… lost sight of that… of you… of everything. But I see now. I see you, and I see what I've done to you, and I…" Your language is failing you again. "I don't know how to tell you how sorry I am."
She hesitates and for a split second, you're suspended in space. Airless. Breathless. Dying slowly. Then suddenly, you feel her hand rest atop yours on the counter. And the breath you take in feels like a gift.
"Be with me." A faint whisper.
"Always." In a leap of faith, you gather her in your arms, and by some miracle, she lets you. Dumb luck. You seem to be blessed with it. "I'm not going to leave you. I never meant to make you feel—"
"Shh." And she's right. You've said just the right amount for now. "You're still the love of my life," she murmurs, and you can't help but smile as you hold her tighter.
"Pay attention to this moment," you tell her, echoing the words you fell in love with so long ago. She looks up in amusement. "Everything is here, perfect, and com-"
She kisses you, and it feels like forgiveness. There is so much love inside of you that never got out. You want to show her everything you have. Every part of you you kept away before. To start over and get it right. She's giving you another chance.
And that's all you need.
…
.
.
end