I am fascinated by the Rick/Melinda relationship, and I am not ashamed to admit it! So if you don't like the idea of these two, then please don't be mean. I have no idea if I will continue this or not, but I wanted to get it out there I guess.
Disclaimer- I do not own these characters or anything from Ghost Whisperer.
Chapter 1
Melinda hugged her plush brown sweater tighter around her, staring listlessly at the kettle that was warming to a boil on the stove. The harsh winter air rapped persistently at the kitchen window, thickening the cloudy layer of frost already adhering to the edges of the glass pane in intricate, spiderwebbing patterns.
Jim should be home soon, she distantly mused, holding her hand over the heat emanating from the burner. The thought, which only a month ago would have sent a warm tingle down her back, now only filled her with a sort of emptiness. She sighed, loathing this new and persistent void in what was supposed to be a perfect married life.
It was perfect, by all appearances. She and Jim loved each other with an intensity to be envied by other married couples, and Jim's constant support and adoration, especially given her unique supernatural circumstances, was something Melinda knew she could never find elsewhere.
None of this had changed. She loved Jim just as much as she had loved him on their wedding day. However, the perfect bliss of young married life had begun to ebb, and Jim was discussing children. True, he had said he would wait for her to be ready, but there was a hint of disappointment and yearning in his tone that Melinda immediately registered. She knew Jim earnestly wanted kids, and the thought of letting him down, he who had loved and helped her so selflessly, ate her up inside.
The boiling kettle began its high-pitched wail, and Melinda snapped from her reverie and removed the water from the heat.
She wanted children, too. But she knew the time had not yet come, and she had no idea when she would feel ready. How could she have a child when ghosts were continuously knocking down her door, assaulting her with their problems? Melinda knew she needed to hone her skills before becoming responsible for a human life.
She sighed deeply, taking a shallow sip from her steaming cup of tea as she moved to the window and contemplated the heavy gray sky. For the first time, she found herself wishing a ghost would make an appearance. Maybe some voodoo, a nice zombie, pesky poltergeist, anything. Anything to distract her from her unsettling comtemplations.
Jim had begun to notice her melancholy. Of course he had, attentive as he is. Melinda always brushed off his inquiries good-naturedly, mentally kicking herself for not concealing her darker feelings more skillfully. This would subside, she told herself. A normal stumbling block for any married couple, hence the expression "the honeymoon is over".
A quiet ringing filled the kitchen, and Melinda walked to the kitchen table and flipped open her cell phone.
"Hello?"
"Hey honey, it's me," came Jim's reply, the sound of other voices in the background almost drowning his out.
"Hey, heading home?" Melinda asked, though anticipating his answer.
"No, I got tapped for a double shift. Bad car accident on the interstate and they needed extra hands. Don't wait up for me," he explained, before dropping his voice suggestively. "I'll make it up to you."
"I'm holding you to that," she replied, smiling. "Be careful out there."
"I will," he said, before yelling something to someone. "Listen, I gotta go. I'll check in around nine."
"Ok, sounds good. Bye Jim," she responded, flipping the phone closed and replacing it on the table.
The light outside was beginning to fade, and Melinda shot a cursory glance around the empty kitchen before electing to grab dinner, then take a hot bubble bath. This would be nice, she decided. Exactly what she needed- to relax, collect her thoughts, and remind herself how lucky she was to have such a wonderful life.
Barring the ghosts, of course.
----
Melinda sank into the steaming tub, the thick, lavender-scented bubbles sizzling around her as the almost-too-hot water illuminated her cheeks with a delicate flush. She flipped her dark hair over the side of the tub, relishing the lethargy now stealing over her relaxed body.
"Mmm," she sighed, sinking lower and catching the bath faucet with her toes. Now this was living.
Her cell, sitting next to the tub, began to softly ring, and Melinda smiled at Jim's punctuality. She stretched a soapy hand down and grabbed it before settling back and flipping it open.
"You," she murmured, eyes closed contentedly and smiling, "are missing a very satisfying bubble bath."
A beat, followed by an amused, "Am I?"
Melinda eyes shot open and she bolted upright in the tub, immediately recognizing Professor Rick Payne's Jersey-accented voice. No other person could inject every syllable with so much smug self-satisfaction.
"Why don't you paint me a very detailed word picture over the phone until I can get there and yes, I am literally halfway to your house already," he continued, smirking.
In his office, Payne leaned back in his chair and propped his feet up on his desk, smiling broadly at the muffled sounds of splashing on the other end of the line.
After a moment, Melinda returned to the phone, having jumped hastily from the tub and wrapped a towel around her dripping form.
"What do you want?" she hissed, her cheeks now tinged with embarrassment as she tightly clutched the towel around her.
"Start with what you are, or are not, wearing, and we'll go from there," came his teasing reply.
Melinda rolled her eyes and gritted her teeth angrily.
"I'm hanging up," she announced, pulling the phone from her ear.
"No no no! I'm sorry, I'm done, I'm done!" he exclaimed, laughing, and she reluctantly replaced the phone.
"The only reason I am still talking to you right now is because I have a suspicion you have something ghost-related to tell me, and I've been spoiling for a good ghost," she said, shivering slightly as water dripped down her legs.
"That's interesting," he mused with a grin, then adding before he could stop himself, "Sounds like you're spoiling for something else entirely…"
Melinda promptly hit the red button on her cell to end the call, clicking her tongue in disgust.
Payne chuckled before flipping his own phone shut and contemplating it for a moment, a smile lingering on his lips. Setting the cell on the desk, the professor turned to the papers covering his desk and ran his eyes blankly over the passages on Mayan religion. Normally, graphics and descriptions of grisly ritualistic human sacrifice captured his attention, but Payne seemed unable to make himself focus.
The Mayans performed sacrifices according to priests' interpretation of the cycles of the heavens and earth…
God, so that was the Melinda that Jim knew. Her voice, low and suggestive, and Jesus, she'd been naked…
"Damn it!" Payne yelled, leaping out of his chair angrily. "Damn. It!"
He stormed over to the bookshelf and began grabbing books from a box and slamming them onto the shelf.
"You're sick," he muttered. "You're sick, and she's married."
It was the unattainability, he had decided. At first, she'd been a mere nuisance, always barging in and bombarding him with questions and noise. Of course he had flirted, but only because it always made her squirm uncomfortably. Then, he stopped minding so much when she arrived, and months passed before he could resolve himself to the unsettling fact that he actually looked forward to seeing her. And this should have been the moment when a red flag warned him from becoming too attached.
But he'd become too cocky, too self-assured to ever believe that someone like Melinda Gordon, so achingly cheerful and irritatingly optimistic, could ever truly affect him. Yet she had done it, had burrowed her crafty way into beneath his defenses, insinuated her presence into his life, and now he was consumed by her.
Payne still had no idea how she had done it. But it was done, and he wished he could go back in time and slam the door in her face the first time she showed up at his door.
Then again, this was Melinda Gordon. She would never have given up so easily. And besides that, he had on several occasions all but thrown her out of his office, and look how much good that had done.
His furious shelving slowed to a halt, a smile curling his lips as he contemplated Melinda's endearing determination. Then, remembering himself, the smile vanished.
"No!" he exclaimed firmly, throwing another book onto the bookcase. "Not endearing, annoying and headstrong!"
He was trudging through life knee-deep in his infatuation. She was everything, and he was fucked.