Noir: Different

"You'll learn my love for you is true,

And I'm sure I'll learn the same from you

For our love is different."

"Our Love is Different", Billie Holiday

He comes home and puts the newspaper next to her. She is sitting cross-legged on the counter eating toast. She has music on. A soulful voice floats through the apartment. She is only wearing his shirt. She likes the way it smells, and sometimes it feels more comfortable than her own skin. She wears it a lot. She licks some excess jam from her fingers. He just watches her. His eyes burn her.

She then looks down at the paper and stills. He had known she would have. The front page is an article about her mother. They are honoring her. She trails a finger down the black and white jaw in the picture before she looks back at him. His eyes hold a question. He asks her if she's going to go. She says it's not her world anymore, but they both know it could be again. He kisses her. It's hot and desperate and demanding and possessive, tinged with something else that neither can attest to. She doesn't know who needs it more. They have sex/fuck/make-love on the table. After, he sits, naked, on a chair next to the table; his head is resting next to her thigh. After, she lays limp on the table, still only wearing his shirt, she lets her fingers comb through his hair.

The music still filters through the apartment. The voice is sensual and soulful. She has never really let him hear her sing, but today she lends her voice to the last part of the song that is covering them like a blanket.

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A/N: Very nervous about this one. Just in case it isn't obvious- what Vala sings are the lyrics at the beginning. I was really nervous about the whole thing, because for me in the AU it's all about the thing they don't say, but feel and know. So having Vala sing the last piece was me sort of cheating, giving her affirmation of love a condition—it's just a lyric in a song, nothing more…. Except it isn't. So, okay, yeah… moment of self-justification over. I hoped you like!