Nothing Like You and I

a/n: Music moves me, inspires my stories. The musical inspiration for this story is a song called Nothing Like You and I by the Perishers, an amazing song that set the mood. I enjoy Tate/OC, but the soft spot for Violate will always need to be satiated. So here is a one-shot forgiveness story for the couple. Hope you enjoy. Read and Review if you have the drive to do so. xoxo

You're all that I want…you're all that I have

Violet spun her necklace charm over and over and over again, mindlessly reading to pass the time away. It didn't matter that she had read it three times before; time was something she had a lot of these days, even more so since the new family moved out. She glanced at her iPod. No songs she hadn't heard. Her eyes then darted desperately to the bookshelf. Including her father's boring medical text books, there were no books she hadn't read, maybe even twice.

Her laptop was now a paperweight, since there was no electricity to charge or internet to use it.

And all of these small, petty things just reminded her of the one thing she was avoiding.

Tate.

She whispered his name aloud unintentionally, and she still loved the way it sounded falling from her lips.

It was silly for her to assume that she was never going to see him again. She saw him from time to time, but he, out of respect for her feelings, wouldn't talk to her. His eyes said enough, however, and she found herself crawling back into bed for days at a time after their brief encounters. She would curl up in the sheets and hug onto her pillow, that painful, high-pitched cry escaping her mouth through wet tears. Like clockwork, to remind her why it couldn't be, Vivian would appear and hold her daughter as tightly as the night Violet had to say goodbye to him. They would fall asleep together and Violet would collect up the pieces left of her, until she saw him again.

And she always saw him again.

The moon hung high in the sky, full. Not too uncommonly, the house was being broken into by some drunken teenagers. It was October, and safe to say that they were looking for a pre-Halloween scare. As Ben and Vivien had become increasingly protective of the home and the people that came into it, they banned together for their basic, reliable plan of ridding the house of the teenagers. Over time, it became more and more fun to scare the hell out of people to ensure that they got out, and generally Tate was cooperative in aiding the trespassers out the door.

Those nights were bittersweet for Violet. She liked to help her parents, but it was a sure thing that Tate would be among the more caring ghosts, pushing people out of the house. That night, he accidently brushed against Violet. Electricity surged through her as she came face to face with him, closer than they had been in years. He didn't smile, didn't flinch, no emotion showed on his boyish face. Just stared at her with those black eyes, and muttered a quiet "hello" before hurrying along. The brief passing sent her into a dark depression all over again. It hurt; the things he had done tore a hole in Violet's heart. But the worse pain, the pain ever-present and ever-nagging at her body and soul was the fact that she still wanted him, so very badly, but couldn't have him.

"You're not angry at me," Ben told her softly that night, when he was trying to comfort her and she rejected him. Since the days, months, years passed on after banishing Tate from her, Vivien was the only one allowed to get close to Violet. When Ben breached her security barrier, she became angry and anxiety would flush over her, pushing him away. Her hazel eyes found her father's through involuntary tears.

"Oh? I'm not?" she challenged. She knew she wasn't.

"No, you're mad at him," Ben promised. "It'll pass," Ben promised. "I love you," Ben promised.

"It hasn't passed," she finally sobbed openly, her knees unable to hold her weight any longer as she dropped to the floor with a thud. "I can't stand another day in this house; I can't live here with him here! It never gets better!"

"It wil-"

"YOU DON'T KNOW THAT!" Violet screamed at her father. He let her. After all this time, she was still mourning the loss of Tate, a loss that she didn't even need to feel. He was in the same room as her, in the same house. She could smell him, sense him, hear him laugh upstairs with Beau and cry in the basement, scream out her name loudly as to disturb the house like a toddler throwing a fit over a toy in the store. As if maybe if he screamed loud enough, someone would hand her over to him to get some peace.

On the floor, Violet hugged her knees to her chest and rocked herself, sobbing into her sleeves. In life, she would take this grief and cut it into her veins. Now, as soon as she slid the razor across her milky skin to feel its release, red from white, it would heal up. And with it, Violet would feel everything she needed out of her close back up inside with it.

"Violet, honey, this isn't healthy," Vivien appeared, trying to help her daughter from the floor. Violet was dead weight against her mother's insistent pulling. She looked up at her through tear-streaked eyes.

"Who cares if this is healthy? I'm dead! We're dead! Why must you both insist on us carrying on like we're not! I don't have to be healthy, I don't have to be sane!" Neither could argue; they themselves had wondered what the point of the charade was. Why care who's company Violet was in any longer? It wasn't as if there was anything left to protect her of, not that they could have saved her from herself. This was what death had done to their daughter. The once strong, brave Violet was a puddle of emotion at their very feet.

And she just stayed there.

Violet Harmon lay on her father's office floor for hours. Ben and Vivien coaxed her, begged her to get up. They weren't unsympathetic of her, they just didn't want her to hurt anymore. As the way you will kiss a child's boo-boo or tell them to brush it off, you just want to take the pain away. All Vivien and Ben wanted was to heal their daughter. And they knew deep down inside that there was only one person in the world who could take her pain away; it just so happened he lived in the same house.

Hours slipped by, and Violet still lay on the floor, her hot cheek pressed up against the slick, cold hardwood floors. She stared ahead of her, never blinking; looking like a broken porcelain doll sprawled across the floor. Neglected. Forgotten. She listened to the sounds of the house. Moira cleaned the dishes. Jeffrey laughed. The twins broke things. Hayden and Travis fucked. Beau rolled his ball back and forth, desperate for someone to come and play. Life went on without her, even in death.

Hours then become days. Vivien sat by her daughter, just talking about things from the past and how if they left early enough, they could drive to Disneyland on Halloween to really enjoy the freedom that day offered. Violet just listened, waiting to be left alone again with her thoughts. She didn't have tears left to cry anymore, but her body still ached for release. So much welled inside of her, she felt she could burst at any moment.

Ben attempted too, talking again of how unhealthy her behavior was and how they worried about her so. In Violet's mind she knew that her father's talk of health was only a cover for his fear and the fact that he had no idea how to handle his lovesick daughter, the pile of bones collapsed upon the floor. It was then that Ben composed the brilliant idea of 'Violet Watch,' where Violet wasn't left unattended. She knew she could simply disappear, but the will to make that even happen just wasn't there any longer. She hated him for not just allowing her to be alone. She just wanted to be alone.

Travis sat beside her, telling her sweet stories of his youth and his attempts made her smile inwardly, but didn't dare cross her face. Moira offered up some of her sage advice, but it all fell upon deaf ears. It would seem that no one could pull Violet up with the world weighing her down on the floor. Even when Ben tried to scoop her up, he couldn't. She just wouldn't budge. So he finally did what she wanted most. He left her alone.

At 12 am, after a full day three of her self-induced comatose state, Violet awoke alone on the floor. Through her confusion, things began to make sense. Violet felt the sensation one gets upon waking from a wonderful dream, only to realize that none of it was real. She felt the surge of pain blow back into her, and tears rolled from her eyes. She let an agonizing cry escape her as she remembered that she was dead, and that the only person who understood her at all might as well have been dead to her. She slammed her fist against the hard floor and sobbed into it, pain ripping through her chest and she thought she had literally felt her heart break. It grew and grew until she couldn't take it anymore, until she felt a hand upon her, and it suddenly stopped.

Hands found her shoulders, lips found the top of her head, and before she knew it, she was scooped up quickly and tucked away in safe arms as they carried her up and off the floor, then off to her room. She looked up though her tear-filled haze and found his blonde-framed face. She nuzzled her face into his sweater and everything went black.

Even through the blue-black cold of her room she could see him perfectly. The room glowed in the pre-dawn blue haze, and she was nestled safely in her bed. She reached to him slowly, hesitantly, as to make sure he was real before proceeding. Her hand found his face, skin on skin, and his hand quickly found hers, bringing her hand to his lips and placing gentle kisses upon it. She listened to his breathing, the way it matched her own.

"Why- why are you-" she swallowed, the sensation of his lips on her skin distracting her from coherent thoughts. He looked at her through his blonde hair, his eyes peering out.

"You called for me," he whispered. She didn't recall calling for him, but then again the last few days had been a blur. "I just watched you, for days, laying on that cold floor," so much emotion shook in his voice, like he could burst into tears and any given second. Like he had been waiting for even the slightest chance to say something, anything to her, and he didn't want to fuck it up. "I just waited, Violet. I just waited for you to want me. To need me. Then…you said it. You were crying in your sleep, and you called out my name." Violet swallowed hard. She missed this closeness to him more than she could articulate, but the pain slowly began to creep back in as she realized that it just couldn't be.

"Tate, I-" her words were cut off by his eager lips. He didn't want to hear what she had to say, although he could listen to her talk for hours. He just couldn't hear her reject him, tell him to go away again, he couldn't listen to any of that. He needed her, and he needed to feel her and to be close to her even if this was the last chance he ever got.

Violet fell into the kiss after an initial resistance. She couldn't understand how something that she had been avoiding so long could make her feel so alive again, so whole. She took him in, took all of him. His scent filled her lungs, his mouth massaged hers lovingly, tenderly, painfully. He gripped onto her arms so tightly she was sure he was leaving bruises wherever he touched, and she loved it. Little reminders left behind as proof that this was real, after all of this time this was real.

Tate climbed atop her, his hips matching hers and grinding into her, pressing her down into the mattress firmly. She was pinned, forced to endure him. Their lips broke and he trailed down her jawline, to her neck. She bit her lip and tried to speak, but she could only get out short bursts of coherent sentences.

"Tate I- I can't…" she attempted, but her body spoke out louder than her words as she pulled him tighter to her, wrapping a leg up and hitching it onto his back. His strong, eager hands ran along the length of her leg and hoisted it up higher, causing her to shudder and gasp at the same time. One by one, pieces of clothing began to be stripped away until it was only them in their true, unfiltered forms, left between silky sheets to their own devices. Skin to skin, heart to heart, even if they weren't beating any longer they danced in unison, feeling the need to be as desperately and painfully close as physically possible. Hands grabbed at hair and pulled gently and not so gently as they lost themselves within themselves once again.

By the time he found his way inside of her, he had covered every naked inch of her skin with kisses, took time to run his fingers along every gentle curve and nook of her young body. He took this time to study every part of her, on the unthinkable chance that this never happened again, that this was a fluke. That he found her at a moment of weakness and it was only a matter of time before she came back to her senses. But Violet didn't want to come back to her senses. She wanted him inside of her, filling her to the very brim with all that he was. She stared intently into his black eyes, falling into the dark pools of them, and trying to find his soul.

When they finished, they did together, basking in the glow of their wet bodies and steamed up windows. The room became silent. Still. Like they were too afraid to break this moment, even if it was to say the one thing they wanted to say to one another the most. Tate nuzzled into the crook of her neck, gently kissing it over and over again. Violet turned her head to his and kissed the top of his hair, a ratted mess of blonde unkempt curls. She wished that she and him could disappear forever into this existence; spend their days and nights making love and whispering how much they loved each other into the darkness of the room.

"You are the best part of me," Tate whispered. His face was wet from tears, so overjoyed and scared and in love all at the same time. He held her to him even tightly, their sticky skin meeting once more. "I am so sorry, Violet. I am so sorry."

"Shhhh," she whispered. She didn't want the moment spoiled. Because in only a matter of moments, dawn was coming, like a relentless milkman up the front steps, and they'd have to face what this meant, and what they had done.

For now, she just didn't want this moment to end.