- I hope you all are enjoying my new fic, 'reality'! Please leave me a review or any thoughts and comments you may have. I'm very excited to continue this work for you all. (:
She landed late that same night, welcomed by a nearly empty airport and a nearly pitch black sky courtesy of the few stars that she could barely see glistening above the looming skyscrapers and maybe she should've been accustomed to the constant bustle of a city and the feeling of how undeniably small she felt roaming the crowded streets beneath those towering buildings but all she felt was overwhelmingly alone.
This place didn't feel like home and this place didn't feel as if it was going to allow her to change the world by ridding it of disgusting terrorists and the twinge of hope that'd she'd clung to on the plane that everything would feel right when her feet finally touched the ground had vanished. She clutched Hank's gift of the dog tags to her chest, trying to find a sense of comfort in the cool metal against her warm skin and trying to ignore the sudden urge in her gut to whirl right back around and sleep in the airport for the rest of the night and board the first plane back to Chicago in the morning and back to his crystal blue eyes and the dash of freckles across his nose but then she remembered that she couldn't and no matter how hard she hoped and wished otherwise her and Jay were not what they used to be.
She recalled her promise to her fatherly figure, the only official goodbye she'd had the guts to make within the confines of his office, the promise of never looking back and to keep going forward and so she steeled herself, wrapping her fingers around the handle of her suitcase and weaving her way through the last few stragglers of jet-lagged tourists that were huddled near the front entrance to get to the sidewalk, hailing a taxi and only letting some of the tension out of her shoulders and out of her jaw and out of her fingers as she rattled off her new address to the driver and slammed the door shut behind her as he began to head towards her unfamiliar apartment. Her unfamiliar apartment that would still have four walls and would still have one bedroom but only one person living in it. Her unfamiliar apartment that was purchased fully furnished as a thanks for taking her FBI-affiliated, cushy new job and as a necessity because she couldn't bear the thought of seeing their couch anywhere other than exactly where they'd put it and she couldn't bear the thought of her bed anywhere else than exactly where they'd used to share it or the flat screen anywhere else than where Jay had excitedly mounted it on the wall after she's finally given into his begging but to be honest she would've handed him absolutely anything he asked for in this world if she would get to witness the way his eyes would light up and his lips would turn up into the adorable crook of a smile.
Her hazel orbs watched in almost a daze as the flickers of light from the surrounding city dashed past her window, trying to make a mental note of the names displayed on the street signs and trying to get a feel for the city as a whole but no matter how hard she tried or how hard she searched not one piece of it felt right. Nothing would ever quite feel the same as walking her Chicago streets, but damn she'd been hoping for something, anything to let her know she had made the right decision and had ended up in the right place.
The cab dropped her off at her apartment building a few minutes later, and after she tossed a few bills and a generous tip in the driver's direction she braced herself before walking the few steps to the entrance of the place, pressing the 'up' button for the elevator far too many times because she was impatient and cranky and exhausted even though she was well aware of the fact that the extra slamming of her fingers against the thing wouldn't make it move any faster.
Finally, it reached the lobby and she rode it in silence all the way up to the eighth floor, trying not to fidget and squirm or maybe burst into a mess of frustrated tears, stepping off to be greeted with an overwhelming quiet and dark colored wooden doors and a plush carpet an awful shade of blue and though she tried not to grimace and she tried not to hate it the ill feelings had already settled in her stomach as she rolled her suitcase down the hall to room eight twenty-two and turned her key in the lock. The only key that anyone had to her place and suddenly she really wished that she had someone she cared enough about to give a spare too.
Shaking her head and berating herself for even letting herself think of him when she was nothing other than lonely, she let the door click shut behind her before making a beeline for the couch, her head instantly falling to a pillow and her knees instantly curling up to her chest and it'd only been two hours and thirty-six minutes since she'd left Chicago but she wondered whether he had managed to fall asleep tonight or if it was one of the bad days, where she used to be able to only get him to sleep by humming an old lullaby she remembered of Camille's, the sweet tune lulling him into unconsciousness while his head rested on her chest listening to the constant beating of her heart and feeling the steady rise and fall of her chest while she breathed. She wondered if he'd had a few cold ones with the rest of the unit and maybe even Hank because she was certain by now Jay knew she was gone and she hadn't had it in her to face him and maybe their boss could offer him the comfort or the explanation that she couldn't allow herself to give. She wondered if he would pick up the phone if she called, if she dialed the number she knew by heart and listened for the smooth sound of his voice on the other end of the line but when she reached for her cell her hands and her fingers were shaking far too badly for her to carry through with it. It's better this way. To cut ties. He'll understand someday.
But her heart won out over her head and the sweet release of sleep wouldn't come to take her away, and so she found herself typing out his name and then a quick 'i'm sorry' and hitting 'send' before she could think twice about it, her gaze lingering far too long waiting for those three little dots to appear on the screen because she was desperate for a response. Desperate to know that there was a piece of him that understood why she was here and not there, desperate to know that he wasn't going to shut her out because it'd taken so long for them to let each other in. But perhaps that didn't count for much anymore since she'd boarded the plane and left him behind.
Erin waited but his reply didn't come, and she stopped herself from throwing the phone at the wall in a fit because she deserved this. She deserved his silence and his anger and his avoidance because this time it was states that separated the two of them and not just a few city streets.
This time she'd told herself she wasn't going back and she'd meant it because there was no way in hell he'd understand her saving her mother and there was no way in hell she was going against her promise to Hank.
She was certain Jay wouldn't understand how she'd put her mother's safety and well-being above all else in her life yet again and as much as she despised herself for doing so she couldn't stop it. She was certain he would demand she come back and demand she explain what in the hell she was thinking but sitting here, on a cold and unwelcoming couch in the heart of New York she still couldn't find the words to explain why Bunny always came before what she wanted and hoped and prayed for. Because that was her weakness- putting others above herself and maybe that came from having grown up with next to nothing, and maybe that came from the fact that she was absolutely terrified the second that she was pleased and content and safe her mother would come and tear it all into shambles or that she'd fuck it up herself because she'd never had much good in her life and she was scared to death that she'd ruin every wonderful thing that came near her, like some kind of disease. And even though Camille had used to spend days a time coaxing those words of self-hatred out of her head and out into the open Erin had never quite grown to accept the fact that she deserved anything besides the slaps across the face her father used to deliver or the jangling of a full pill bottle from the hands of her scheming and manipulative mother.
Her phone screen lit up which snapped her out of her daze, her hand flailing for the device before she realized it was Hank with the words 'you've got this, kiddo. I believe in you' and so then she allowed a few tears to fall, realizing she was here in this new place with only one fellow FBI agent in her corner when she'd used to have so many more and maybe this counter terrorism job was supposed to be one that some waited their entire lives to get but maybe she would've done just fine as just a cop back in Chicago, so long as she had the promise of her favorite blue eyes waiting for her to come home to.