A/N: found this hidden in one of those unused folders in my laptop. I probably wrote it when I finished season 2 back in December and was trying to find a reason why Paige would do that. Hope you like it - xo.
To those who asked: no, I'm not leaving the fandom/the Graceland section, but I'll be gone for a while due to the upcoming holidays and exam session :( But hey! Aaron was doing press with Daniel, that's a great sign, isn't it? [lakergirl4life! ;)]
That kiss brought back so many memories, Paige almost felt like drowning.
She remembered the night they first met.
His boyish smile, his slightly red cheeks when she had met his eyes in that filthy bathroom mirror, his full lips nervously tortured by his teeth.
It brought back memories of those nights spent together, as he made love to her. Tenderly, slowly. Between his oxford sheets, pure white and warm, just like him.
The way their bodies would end up tangled together in her bed after one of their furious fights. When neither of them would give in until their passion exploded and silently solved things for them, as they tightened their arms around each other.
Everything was so vivid and clear, like an old dream refusing to fade away.
Like he almost had.
But he was never going to fade away.
The thought crossed her mind before she could even stop it, as she titled her head to the side and his lips travelled down her neck. Grasping his shoulders, her eyes stared off into space. His hands were warm and soft holding her waist, just like she remembered.
That kiss brought back memories she didn't want to remember.
But they were there, flashing before her eyes while his fingers ghosted over her skin and one by one their clothes dropped to the floor.
It brought back the pain of discovering he wasn't a savior; he was an executioner.
The feeling of having lost everything with him and suddenly she wasn't a savior anymore, but an executioner, too.
His executioner.
Yet, they were in that trivial hotel room together, playing that cruel chess game neither of them would ever find the force to end or win. Far away from their world, where the feeling of not being able to be themselves wouldn't allow them to be together like that. A world that wanted and needed them to be something else, rather than just them.
This was all they had. A night between old lovers that would swim among floods of unforgotten memories.
The silence was heavy and thick with familiar emotions.
Their bodies were still sweaty and hot, the sheets rumpled and warm, brushed by wheezing, irregular and heavy breaths.
"I should hate you."
His words were harsh and painful, seeping through his gritted teeth like a snake's hiss, as he stared up at the ceiling.
Paige rolled on her side, gathering the blankets around herself like a shield, and nodded imperceptibly, relieved that he couldn't see her.
They were toxic. Poison-tipped arrows in each other's hearts.
But she'd missed him so much during those months of faking his death, it was impossible for her to ignore her guts twisting with guilt.
When she'd found out about his and Briggs's plan, she'd gotten so mad she hadn't talked to Paul for weeks: it had been irresponsible and all around crazy. If the CPR had failed, he would be gone now.
But most of all, she had been mad at herself. If they had gotten to that point, it had been mostly because of her.
As much as she had later on regretted it, she was the one who had sold him out to Sid. If he had traded places with Death for 4 minutes and 45 seconds, it had been because of her: (un)consciously, Paige had given him a chance to redeem himself.
Though she wasn't sure if the Mike she once knew was back. She didn't know if the man lying next to her was an echo of the past or a zombie of the present.
But dead people couldn't talk, let alone make her feel so alive and whole.
That night, between those shabby sheets - it had been like discovering him for the first time. His skin was pale and white-hot under the brush of her hungry kisses, the sighs of her breath, her touch.
Paige had tried to ignore the presence of their troubled past hanging over them, but it was there and it wasn't going away. It was imprinted in their minds, marked on his body by the fading but still nasty burns on his chest where the defibrillator had revived his heart.
A haunted heart that matched hers in such a perfect and wicked way.
They were both scarred tin soldiers in fluttering ashes.
That fresh scar on his left side was like a temporal door that separated them from what they were and what they had been. When her lips had traced its red path, he had trembled under her touch and tangled his fingers through her hair, as if reminiscing of a long lost time together they would never get back.
Paige had tried to move on, to fill the void he'd left in her chest with somebody else, but none of those fearless ones who had stepped briefly into her life with a touch&go had been able to give her that feeling of uncontrollable fluster and stimulation like he had, every single time.
That feeling of love.
Despite the mess they had become, despite the fact this was probably the last time they would ever see each other again under such circumstances, that feeling was still there and it was hurting more than ever.
Paige just couldn't stop loving him.
"I wish I could hate you." She whispered to herself.
Paige just wouldn't stop loving Mike.
She wanted to fall asleep and stop the roller coaster of her thoughts and feelings, but she was afraid to wake up and find out it had all been a dream.
With a flutter of her lids, that dirty and peeling wallpaper would transform in her purple bedroom walls and she would find herself in her queen sized bed - her sheets cold and empty without him there to comfort her.
After everything that had happened between them, she wouldn't be surprised if she'd wake up alone and abandoned the next morning.
How they'd gotten into that bed in the first place was still a mystery to her.
One minute he was visiting them at Graceland, the next they were falling in that trap their dangerous love was, again.
She didn't even remember who had been responsible for that Gallehault kiss that had catapulted them back into that trap.
Suddenly, his arm sneaked around her waist and his lips pressed to the back of her shoulder. Paige held her breath, as his hoarse voice clouded her senses in what should have been a statement but came out like a question.
"This is a goodbye?"