A brilliant light radiates from the sky, its thunderous clap shaking the building, sending a jolt of fear through her body. Her muscles stiffen, briefly, before her eyes fly open, the half-moon window giving way to the night sky, littered with raindrops sliding down the glass, washing away evidence of the noise that had ripped her from sleep.
Her eyes flutter, adjusting to the quick change, the wine from earlier that night making her head a bit foggy, until a reflexive grip on her hip pulls her closer. She's ready to reach for the gun underneath her pillow, when she remembers where she is, and she lets out a sigh of relief.
A deep breath in, and she's willing herself back to sleep, only to be jolted again by the raging storm outside. Shrinking into herself, silently scolding the behavior, she gently turns around, the wall of warmth behind her humming like a heater, inviting her into its warmth. The soft air expels from his lips, floating against her forehead, sending a tendril of hair flittering across her face. Pushing it back with a flick of her fingers, she hovers somewhere between his lips, littered with a blissful smile that even in sleep refuses to leave, and a shoulder that's begging her to rest her weary head.
"I wouldn't have taken you for someone scared of storms," she feels his words more than hears them, whispering across her temple.
She stiffens, her breath hitching. She'd woken him.
But no sooner than the words leave his mouth, she feels her defenses quickly beginning to lay the brickwork for a higher wall. She rolls her eyes, the darkness hiding her annoyance, letting out a huff of air, lowering the shield, if only for a moment. But lately, she'd found the need to shelter herself less and less, finding refuge in the arms of another.
"I thought you were asleep. It's past ten, old man," she teases, but he just holds her tighter, knowing there was a reason she'd taken up space so close to him.
"It's okay to be afraid, Frankie," he says, his smile widening against her.
She pulls back, enough that she can see his eyes still closed, but a smirk silhouetted in the dark.
"I'm not afraid of anything," she barks back, a lilt on the last part, playfully hitting his chest. A loud crack striking across the sky again, the storm so close, the delay between light and sound barely there.
Her body betrays her again, flinching at the sharp sound of the storm, and she braces herself for his laughter, ready to tease, her tongue eager to lash out if he so dared.
"Okay," he acquiesces, his fingers dancing across her arm, as her eyes narrow.
"What? That's it?" She asks, having been prepared for a sparring match.
He shrugs, his green eyes twinkling in the dark, and that annoying smile that she can't seem to get enough of lately, quietly promising things she never thought she'd want.
"You need me," he winks.
"I…" she hesitates, not wanting to admit that she does. She doesn't need anybody. It's something she's convinced herself of for a long time. But feeling the pads of his fingers trace the scar on her stomach, the one he'd given her, she knows that while she hates to admit it, she may need him just a little, but it doesn't compare to the building feeling in her chest, the one that strikes like lightning…the want for him to stay. And that scares her more than the threatening storm outside. "I'm not scared. I just…don't…like the sound," she states matter of factly.
Burying her head back into the crook of his neck, she feels him wet his lips, before settling near her ear, a soft humming coming from him.
"Oh God," she groans with a laugh at the end, her eyelashes fluttering against his neck as she rolls her eyes, shaking, no longer from the storm raging outside, but the quiet fire burning between them.
"It's a classic," he teasingly argues, his finger finding the slight dimple formed from her pursed lips. "I'll give ya shelter from the storm," he sings, his voice cracking at the strain to keep it a whisper, and giggles tear through her, carefully chipping away at the wall around her.
"You are such a dork," her voice carrying louder than the thunder.
Her eyes flutter, rolling at the absurdity of fear that grips her, unexplained. Her hand extends, peeking out from the sleeve of her sweater, reaching for an anchor, only to find an empty space, cold sheets meeting her fingertips.
Flopping onto her back, she sighs dramatically, as another clap thunders through the building, leaving her curling into her herself, her hand reaching for cold metal hanging around her neck.
Her mouth forms a pout of sorts, the tiniest dimple appearing at the corner of her mouth, and she can feel another's fingertips having traced over the indent, pointing out that it appears whether smiling or frowning, but somehow always curving upwards whenever his hand found its way to her face.
Grabbing her pillow, she places it over her face, hoping to block out the sounds coming from outside, as well as pause the not-so-distant memories dredging to the surface of her mind, demanding they be made into habits and not just had beens.
Pinching her eyes shut, the room spins from the whiskey she'd drowned her feelings in earlier. The irony of trying to stop thoughts of a man whose name coincided with the liquid she was swallowing, allowing to take over her mind, flowing freely through her, completely lost on her.
The next roar, shutters her nerves, flinches her muscles, and has her bracing herself like a bullet's coming towards her, unable to move, helpless to watch the lead shatter the dream she'd been living in. A carefully constructed balance of denial and bliss, intertwined into something she felt resembled a word she refused to utter. Love.
"Will!" She screams, his name echoing off through the hall, the thundering beat of her heart pulsing through her ears, blocking the sound of anything but a hazy fog capturing her in its grip, until she feels like she's slugging through mud to get to him.
The mission has all but slipped from her mind, the voices of the others drowned out by the worry radiating through her, her gun discarded on the floor by her side as she rushes to his slumped figure.
"Will, Will," her voice quivers, afraid of the response, or lack thereof, that she's going to receive. She was never the type of girl who let herself think about the future, her days a succession of missions and people that meant little to nothing to her. But the past few months, she'd found her thoughts floated somewhere closer to the notion she'd had as a teenager. Allowing someone to have carefully handled her heart, the looming threat of it being crushed now being flaunted in front of her, desecration on the horizon, her hope teetering on the predication that she'd suffered enough loss to last a lifetime.
Her hands reach out, cradling his head, as he opens his eyes, taking an erratic breath, leaving a relieved sigh, as she quickly unzips the jacket he's wearing, only to find a vest nestled safely underneath, a bullet tucked snugly into the kevlar.
She lowers her head, meeting his forehead, her eyes shut.
"You can't get rid of me that easily, " he jokes, and she shakes her head against his, her instinct is to laugh, but something inside of her tears at the seams she'd so carefully sewn herself up with years ago.
Carefully helping him stand, she grabs her gun, and she doesn't miss the scrunch of his brow at her quiet response.
Frankie watches the drip of the coffee, having decided that she wasn't going to get any sleep, she stands awake, debating whether to make her beverage Irish, needing the sharp sting to let her know she was still there, another wound to tend to than the one that was currently hemorrhaging from, leaving her emotionally drained, weak.
The knock at her door surprises her, grabbing a gun from a plant on her way to the door, her feet, having been dragging before, now move swiftly, untrusting of anyone out this late at her place of residence.
Swinging open the door, she sees him, soaked to the bone, the usual smile that annoyingly rests on his lips no longer lights up his face, instead he wears a look of despair, his green eyes determined, only partially shocked to find a gun pointed at him.
"Whoa, I was already shot once today," he warns, his voice slightly teasing.
Yeah, I know," she bites out, lowering her gun and placing it on the table by the door. "What are you doing here?" she asks defeated, crossing her arms against her chest, as if sheltering her heart from bursting from its place, suddenly beating faster against her ribs than it had been, the fear of the storm having been replaced by a different kind of fear, one that threatened to steal her heart right from her chest.
"It's storming," he says matter of factly, as if she hadn't noticed.
She raises her brow, her eyes widening, prompting him for a better explanation, the pressed frown only illuminated in the sharp strike of lightning behind them. Her mouth is quiet but her eyes are tired, the usual green shifting into something grey, matching the sky, her attitude as if trying to make him mad at her - picking at a loose thread, trying to unravel the work they'd done to sew each other back together.
Sensing that she wasn't going to make this easy, he sighs, resigned that this conversation was going to happen outside.
"You left without me," he announces with a tilt of his head, sending a droplet of water that had been clinging to his hair down his face.
Her eyes scan over him, as if making sure he was really standing in front of her.
"I don't want to talk about it," she definitively asserts, ready to slam the door and get back to her miserable night, but her hand refuses to do so, instead reaching for the necklace that she often found herself gripping.
She sees his eyes flit to her hand, and he takes a step forward, briefly, before she leans back, giving him pause of his gesture, and instead plants his feet back where they were.
"Frankie," he utters, her name slipping from his lips, swallowed by the storm.
She doesn't even realize she's crying, her tears mixing with the rain, until his hand is on her cheek, gently tracing the track of emotion displayed.
"I'm right here," he assures her, his voice waking her from her momentary lapse, pushing him gently away.
"I know," she says, as her face wrinkles with confusion, his eyes squinting, trying to make sense of the situation. She can see it, she knows he's confused. "That's the problem," she whispers.
"That's the problem? If you don't want me here…" he starts, as if afraid to finish that sentence, and she takes the bullet and finishes it for him.
"No, I do, and that's the problem," she pushes out of his arms. "I can't do this," she waves her arms around, her eyes wide with fear. "You almost died today," she points, and his balks at her accusation.
"Hardly, I've been shot worse…by you, actually," he reminisces, muttering the last bit to himself.
"Not the point," she says with another frustrated roll of her eyes. "The point is you're here now, but for how long, huh? And the longer you're here, the more I…whatever…" she trails off, the the residue of the storm clinging her, gathering the fear and wrapping a noose around her heart, tugging at a wound that refused to stay hidden behind a bandage any longer, instead pulsing to life and seeping into everything.
"Hey, hey, Frankie," he tries to calm her, a realization seemingly washing over him, reaching out and gently grabbing her arm, and she grips onto him tightly, as if trying to meld them together. Her eyes are unstable, wildly filling with moisture, gathering in the corners of her eyes, turning the color to a furious emerald. "I'm not going anywhere," the sincerity of the promise is genuine, the probability unlikely.
"You can't say that, you don't know. One minute you're making plans and the next you're…"
"Gone," he whispers, like a ghost confirming the real fear, the unpredictability, something out of her control.
She just nods, knowing that he understood, to some degree the loss she'd been carrying around with her, dictating her choices and locking away her heart, refusing to feel.
"I don't want to lose you," she utters, barely above a whisper, and she swears she can feel his heart break at her words, the logic of wanting so desperately not to lose him that she pushes him away, effectively losing him, but on her own terms. But here, right now, her quiet utterance, she was fighting against herself, this time for him.
"If you don't allow yourself to feel anything, you won't just bypass the hurt, you cut yourself off from the good too." His hands cradle her face, her hair falls in curls around his fingers. His mouth quirks in a little before he leans down, his lips barely a whisper away from her own. "And Frankie, what we have is good."
Her face turns into a pout with a hint of a smile at his words, puckering to briefly tickle his own.
"That was so cheesy," she mutters, closing her eyes.
"But true," he counters. "I don't want to lose you either," and she closes the gap, pressing his lips into a kiss, a wet mess of tears and rain, and ardent yearning that refuses to let up between them. Her hands move to snake through his short hair, pricking her fingers, ignoring the thunder outside the door, unwilling to let the unpredictability of the present dictate her future.
Pulling back slowly, his thumb traces the curve of her jaw, landing on the small dimple, and she smiles.
"For the record, I…whatever you too," he teases with a smirk.
"I hate you," she says, lowering her forehead to his chest.
"Sure you do."
"Just promise you'll stop adding bullets to this necklace…unless they're coming from me," her head raises, holding up the gift he'd given her some time ago.
"I feel like that sentence could've ended with, 'stop adding bullets to this necklace.'"
Her laughter the only sound carrying through the home, the storm having passed, and the two of them shrouded in uncertainty, but determined to face it together.
xxxxx
A/N: hellooooooo. i'm back and writing for these two now. i've been so obsessed with this show, and after that finale and cancellation, i had to write something that took place after the inevitable kiss - the aftermath of what a relationship with these two would mean.
hopefully, it's not too terrible. it's obviously my first time writing for these characters.
if you liked this fic, please let me know. it'll only encourage me to write mote for them. thanks!