A/N – I own nothing. I adore this show. You should watch it.
The first time she kisses him she's trying to prove a point, but his mouth opens and suddenly she's drowning in him and she can't quite remember what they were arguing about. Her palms are sweaty and he pulls away, but his lips are swollen and stained with her lip gloss. She needs to be closer to him so she pushes her chest against his (she can feel his pulse race) and their teeth bang. She's falling, and her stomach is filled with butterflies, but it's ok because it's Tommy and he'll be there with her when they hit bottom.
She's thirteen (and she doesn't know it then) but she's stumbling into love with a Donnelly.
She never planned on telling him like this. The sun is setting, and the words tumble out and for a moment she thinks that daylight won't ever come again. He hears 'married' and 'Kevin' and his eyes change from that moss color she loves to something deeper ( the shade of green they used to be when they were sixteen and stupid, groping In the janitors closet between fifth and sixth period). He stays quiet, but both their hearts are breaking in the silence (she wonders when he decided to let her go). At least he doesn't ask if she's knocked up like her Daddy (no), or tell her he's not good enough like her Mama (she knows). He disappears for a moment and she hears the screen door clang, he comes back with two beers, and the bottles clink with a 'cheers', it's an unspoken goodbye.
Their dancing and she's wearing white but it isn't like she dreamed it would be when she used to write Mrs. Thomas Donnelly on her English notebook in tenth grade. He doesn't get the first dance but the third, after Kevin (the man she doesn't love), and her daddy (the man she'll always love). She almost laughs at the irony, because Tommy Donnelly is her first everything.
After the band finished playing a horrible cover of wild horses (they used to make love to Paint it Black) she finds herself in a coat closet with white satin bunched at her hips and his lips on her collarbone. This time she does laugh (they've been here before) as his name comes out in a moan and she can feel his grin on her neck. They've gotten better over the years but he still smells like acrylic pain and bar soap (this is what heaven smells like), and he still knows where to touch her to send her over the edge. This time the goodbye is final, and she can taste the bitterness of failure (they could write songs about this).
Jenny's husband is gone and she's heard the rumors (she's not stupid), and she can sense the pity. Tommy hasn't made a move (at night she puts her hands down there and comes with his name on her lips) and she's surprised. He sits at the counter sketching and watching her with those careful green eyes. She knows he's doing his best to make sure she doesn't fall apart, and she won't as long as he is there.
She sits between him and Sean (he's always been her second favorite Donnelly) at church on Sundays and as they sing Ave Maria Tommy grabs her hand. A long time ago she lost faith in God (she remembers the smell of ice cream, she see's freckles and eyes filled with guilt) but she's always believed in Tommy Donnelly.
The next day she waits tables because the only thing that ever came easy to her was loving him and her dreams were only big enough for one of them (he's talented-he's getting out of here). She makes sandwiches and pours coffee and wonders what ever happened to her hopes; then it hits her all she ever wanted was to be his.
She sits at his bedside because she's a Donnelly, even if she's a Riley, and he's so broken and she'd give anything just to see him smile. She wants to see those eyes, and hear that laugh (the one that s left broken hearts all over the city). It's Sean and a part of her wants to thank god it's not Tommy, because she can still hear the echo of Mrs. Gillespie's words (sweetheart it's Tommy, and it's bad). The guilt and the worry are eating up her insides. She put her heart at his feet, and he walked away, and she's never been good at begging (but she would).
Jesus. She knows Tommy Donnelly, like the way she knows herself. Palms down she can trace his life lines, because they mirror hers. She knows what worry looks like on that dusty gold skin, and she could see the fear. Those elevator doors opened this afternoon she wanted to hold him and to kiss every single freckle on his skin (the one on his collarbone), and she wanted to remind him that this thing between them wasn't going anywhere, that she wasn't going anywhere.
She walks over to the window and watches the rain (remembers the second kiss in the rain outside St.Mary's and her blouse went see through with the water and him cursing into her open mouth). She wonders what a life without Tommy Donnelly would be like, and it hits her that she's not sure if she can survive without him (because she's never had to).
His hands are bruised and battered and there is blood on his shirt. She sees his hands at six, covered in green finger-paint drawing turtles on her smock, thirteen with the hands of a man, his fingers wrapped around a broom handle (cursing at Joey ice-cream about his fast balls), hands (calloused from holding a pencil) that wrote poetry on her naked back at seventeen, and hands that just yesterday sketched her on a place mat. He wasn't meant for this, and he's shaking so she grabs his wrists and feels his pulse beat beneath her finger tips and places an open mouth kiss on his palm and then calmly knots their fingers. Their eyes lock, and it's evident that everything has changed, but he's here now and he's alive and she can feel the heat of his body, and for now that's enough.