So here we are. Months and months have passed since I wrote this. But someone (Jaime) reminded me that this didn't have a second part and I am glad she did. Thanks to both Jaime and Soph for the read-through, where would I be without my television loving (and very talented) friends. Thank you both, hugs.
That Eerie Shade of Blue
Her eyes fluttered open, she shivered as they adjusted to the dim light of the room. She could feel his arm resting upon her stomach; she wriggled carefully and slipped out from underneath his grasp. He didn't move, his arm gently dropped to rest carefully upon the sheets. Slowly she climbed from the bed and stood next to it, staring down at him. He didn't awaken, he didn't even seem to realise that she had gotten up.
When they'd first began sleeping together she'd loved that she could creep to and from the bed without him noticing. There were no disappointed looks when she'd had to leave to attend a crime scene. There was no pity face when she'd crept into bed late. She was simply able to sleep when she needed and leave when she needed – she'd been able to keep her foot out the door.
Right now though she wished he would wake up. She would even take a confused and perhaps annoyed face tonight, but there was no movement. She shivered again and then remembering the advice he had given her earlier, she quickly managed to find another sweater and another blanket and wrapped both around herself as she headed for the kitchen.
The room was eerily still. She sighed, it was the same as every other night when she'd found herself standing here. But tonight was different. She shivered again as she found her way to the lamp and switched it on. The room brightened, but instead of the normal light that usually illuminated, it had taken on a blue shade. She shivered again as she turned both of her hands to face her, inspecting her fingers. There were no icicles forming. Her hands weren't turning blue. Her hands looked like they always had, she clenched her fingers against her palms three times to make sure. Each time her fingers curled and uncurled easily and the color didn't change, they weren't turning blue and they weren't cold. Her skin wasn't icy. Her lips weren't turning blue. Her teeth weren't chattering. She wasn't freezing. She was safe.
Katherine Beckett had never felt that blue was an eerie color, but that changed today. Blue was the color her breath turned as she'd whispered to him what she thought could be her last words. Blue was the color she'd seen as her eyes had closed, too helpless to fight against the cold that had begun to penetrate her bones. Blue was the color of the eyes that she longed to see when she'd woken after being pulled from the freezer. Blue wasn't easily forgotten.
Blue was the color of the eyes she'd stared into when she'd thought for the second time that she was going to die. That his blue eyes and his handsome face were the last things she was going to see in this life if that bomb had gone off, that his name was going to be the last thing she'd say. His face, his eyes would have been engrained on her mind. Not the busy New York street, not the bomb that was going to end their lives and the lives of countless others. It would have been his face, and the blue of his eyes.
It is the same blue eyes that she'd stared into later that night, after the city had been saved, after the thanks had been made. Blue were the eyes of the man who'd wanted to say something else to her before he'd seen Josh and changed his mind. She wishes she knew what he would have asked. If their night would have consisted of drinks at The Old Haunt, laughs with the staff they had both come to consider friends. Would it have been better than the night she'd ended up with?
It is the blue of those eyes that haunts her now. It is the blue of those eyes that makes her want to shake Josh awake so that he can distract her with more conversation, with more questions, with more ideas that him coming back means that they have a second chance.
Dinner with Josh, drinks with Josh. Conversation with Josh about why he'd changed his mind about the doctors without borders mission. Kisses with Josh, more conversation with Josh. But still the shade of blue remained.
The blue of frozen fingers. The blue of breaths and of whispered words. The blue of eyes that penetrated her mind and refused to leave.
Shades of blue of differing strength, shades of blue she can't forget.