-2 Years Ago-
She wishes she could explain it better, wishes she could get the words to leave her tongue, to tumble out of her mouth. She wishes he would say something, that he would stop looking at her like that. Like she just took his whole heart and put it in a blender, like she just bulldozed his soul, like she just grounded his bones to dust.
"Francis…" She says softly and he finally blinks, finally let's go of the breath he's been holding since she told him.
"Please tell me...that you're coming with me and that your bags are packed because it can't be the other thing, Mary, it can't." She shakes her head and he lets out another breath, this one struggling to claw its way out of his lungs and he tilts his head at her. If she could see through her tears, she would remember what his face looked like. "Why?" It's soft, she barely hears it and she takes a step towards him but he steps back. "Why are you telling me this now?"
"Francis, I-" She swallows, "I only just realized how...impossible this all is."
"Impossible."
"Please try to understand where I'm coming from…"
"I'm trying, though it's proving to be rather difficult, Mary." He says and there's a slight edge to his voice now, "How long have you been sitting with this?" He asks softly after a few seconds of just trying to process this.
"Not long…" Not long as in this morning. When she saw him packing up the last of his things, setting it all up with Bash, who should be here soon to take him to the airport.
"Last night when we were together...when I was touching you, were you rehearsing what you were planning on saying to me?"
"No, Francis."
"I'm finding it hard to believe you." He says softly and she's surprised, she expected him to yell, to scream at her, something more than this. Maybe he knew it too that this wouldn't work, that they'd end anyways so they might as well end it now. It's too much for her to be away from him for so long, to only have him for a few weeks before he has to leave again. They can't make a life with each other out of occasional phone calls and skyping maybe. Not to mention the time difference, the fact that he's a whole ocean away, a different country. Having and raising kids like that is damn near out of the question. Being away from them for so long, only being able to be with them for a little bit before he has to leave again would crush him.
"Francis, I'm sorry."
"Yeah." He whispers, "I can stay."
"You can't."
"Mary-"
"You already took the job."
"Because you told me to!" There it is. That's what she was expecting, the shout makes her jump, it shakes her to her core, it rattles her bones. "I can't go if it means losing you."
"You have to…"
"Can you at least give me the luxury of trying?" He asks and he meets her eyes and she wishes he hadn't, he's never looked at her like that. Francis has never been one to beg, but he appears to be now. "Just try and see…"
"It would only delay the inevitable."
"What has gotten into you, where is this doubt coming from?" He asks and she doesn't answer, she doesn't know. She just knows it won't work, doubt twists in her gut and threatens to drown her and she wishes it were different, that this wasn't happening, that Paris wasn't an option and that he could stay. He can't.
"We can't build a life with each other if you're only here every couple of months, Francis."
"Then why did you let me-" He shakes his head, "It can work, Mary, you just have to let it."
"Francis-"
"Please."
"I don't know how else to explain this to-"
"You can't do this, you can't be okay with this one minute and then end it the next." He snaps and she doesn't say anything because that's what she's doing and she knows it isn't fair, but it has to be done. They have to be done. She opens her mouth to say something but they both turn their heads when the front door opens and Bash comes in.
"Are you ready?" He asks looking between them and she doesn't know how much of it he heard but he looks uncomfortable, so he must have heard some of it. Francis nods.
"Just a minute."
"I'll take some of your bags to the car," Bash says softly and then he's grabbing a few and heading back outside. Francis doesn't look at her as he runs his hands through his hair.
"So, this is it then?" He asks, "You're just done."
"Francis-"
"I can't convince you, can I? You've made up your mind, doesn't really matter what I think. I have to go…"
"At least tell me you understand…" She says quickly, grabbing his arm before he can walk out the door and leave her forever, "I love you…"
"I don't understand." He shakes his head, "And I know, okay? I know." He says softly and then he's prying her off of him, the door slams behind him and she's alone.
He's gone.
-Present-
"How's the hangover?" Mary asks softly, voice still a little hoarse from all the crying so she clears her throat. James shrugs.
"Not bad." He must be used to it. Mary hands him a cup of coffee before going to the freezer to grab an ice pack for her eye. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine."
"I just caught you crying on the living room floor, I don't think you are."
"Then why did you ask?" She asks as she sits at the table across from him. "I'm...handling it."
"What's it?"
"James-"
"Francis?" He asks, raising an eyebrow at her, looking at her like he knows that's the it she was referring too. She shakes her head, not because he's wrong, but because she doesn't want to talk about him right now. She stares down at the steam rising from her cup, she must look pretty pathetic sitting here, one eye was swollen and bruised, the other red-rimmed and puffy; seated at the table with ice pressed to her face. She hasn't even brushed her hair today, it's a tangled, almost unsalvageable mess.
"Your silence tells me I'm right."
"It's not just Francis." She says softly, though most of it is. A lot of it is Francis, but some of it is her. Some is James.
"You never told me what happened."
"Well, I can tell you he didn't cheat on me."
"What? Was he just done?"
"He wasn't the one who ended it, James," Mary says softly and that made him straighten, made him tense because he may not know Francis very well, but he knows Mary and he knows how much she loves him. Loved him. Past tense, though she didn't feel very past tensey, two years without him and it's still hard to refer to Francis in any way other than present tense.
"Oh," James says softly and he doesn't add anything to that, waits for her to continue but she isn't sure she wants to. It's not a long story, everyone expects it to be some stupid fight, a heated argument that ended them, but it wasn't like that. Not really. So while it isn't a long tale, it's still a painful one. "Care to fill me in or am I going to have to peel you off the floor again?" She doesn't answer, just shifts in her chair. "I won't press the issue if you don't want to tell me. But it must have been pretty bad to get you to leave him."
"It wasn't."
"Oh?"
"Trust me it would have been easier if it had been."
"Sooo, what happened?" He asks. She takes a sip of her coffee before she starts and when she does, she does it quickly, gives him the shortest version she can. Turns out any way she tells it, it's going to be the same length it always was. James listens though, he doesn't interrupt and he doesn't ask for any explanations. That's what she always liked about talking to him, he listened to everything so carefully, allowed himself time to process the information before asking her any questions. When she's finished, he just leans back with his arms folded over his chest.
"I hate to say this, Mary I really do, but I agree with Francis." He says after a minute and her eyes would go wide if it didn't hurt so much.
"What?" She asks.
"I mean, I get why you did it don't get me wrong, I probably would have done the same thing." He says and then he shrugs, "But it could have worked."
"No." She shakes her head.
"Yes."
"How?"
"With a lot of hard work and patience."
"Am I getting relationship advice from James?" She asks softly.
"Look, I'm not really the one to talk to about that, but if you had come to him before he had to leave, you could have worked something out together." She knows he's right, she already knew that but she wasn't thinking that day. She knows what she should have done, how she should have went about it but it was too late.
She already broke him.
"We still would have ended regardless."
"Why?" He asks softly, "Why do you think that?" The distance for one, the months of not seeing him. Mary wouldn't have been able to handle it, add her mother dying right after that and she really wouldn't have been able to handle it.
"I don't agree with him cutting you out of his life completely though." James says, "That was kind of a dick move." She nods, "Speaking of"
"Oh god."
"I can't imagine how angry that made you."
"Not angry…" She says softly, "Just sad." He doesn't say anything, instead, he just changes the subject to something more interesting. Interesting to James at least. Greer.
-/-
Later in the day, James decides it would be better for both of them if he got a hotel room until he could figure what he was going to do. In case Francis shows up again, he's not sure he'll be able to keep from saying anything. Mary tries to get him to stay but he refuses, her couch isn't comfortable apparently and she really doesn't have the room for him, so she gives him enough money to stay at a hotel for a couple nights and then he's gone.
He makes a promise to try and keep in touch but she doubts he will. He never really does but at least he's closer now and she knows where he'll be for the next few days.
Her phone buzzes and she jumps, catching it before it can vibrate off the coffee table.
"Hello?" She asks softly.
"Hey." She expects it to be Bash since that's the contact that came up but it isn't his voice.
"Francis, why do you have Bash's phone?"
"Because I knew you wouldn't answer if I called from mine."
"...And Bash just let yo-"
"I may have switched with him when he wasn't looking."
"May have?" She asks raising her eyebrow.
"I did."
"What do you want?" She asks softly, "I'm busy…"
"Mary, I know you didn't go to work today and I can hear Judge Judy playing on the tv in the background."
"I'm busy watching Judge Judy and icing my very bruised eye."
"I just want to talk," Francis says softly.
"I wanted to talk for two years."
"Mary-" She hangs up, turns her phone off after that.
"Mary what the hell happened to your face!?" Greer asks when she opens the door, adjusting Rose on her hip.
"It's a long story." She says softly, giving her friend a weird look, she didn't tell her she was coming over. She would have at least gotten dressed. "What are you doing here?"
"You said you'd watch her…"
"I did?"
"My father is in town, and you promised…"
"But I-"
"Mary, please." Greer says softly, "Lola is out of town and I am not letting Kenna watch her unsupervised." She nearly asks why, but it's Kenna, enough said.
"Why can't you take her with you?" Mary asks slowly already regretting the question, Greer's father is...old fashioned. Rose was conceived outside of Greer's marriage and that's not even mentioning the fact she is mixed. "Still?"
"He's trying."
"Doesn't look like he is if you're leaving her with me."
"Mary-"
"You need to talk to him, for god sakes, does he know what year it is?" Mary asks, blood boiling just a tiny bit at the thought that anyone would look at this little girl with such disgust. She can't even imagine what Greer feels.
"Fine."
"Thank you." Greer says softly, "I went to your office but you weren't there. Why aren't you working today?"
"Can't be walking around Catherine's building looking like someone beat the hell out of me, can I?"
"Did someone-"
"No."
"Don't lie to me."
"I'm not. It was an accident."
"Mary-"
"It's a long story that you don't have time for," Mary says quickly as she takes the baby and the bags, smiles as she closes the door. "Bye-bye."
"This isn't over," Greer says as she wedges herself between the doorway and the door. Mary rolls her eyes, she wasn't expecting it to be. She leaves, promising she'll be back in a few hours. It'll be fine, she's had to do this once before, Rose was usually a pretty quiet kid so Mary just sets her down on a blanket on the floor with some toys and goes to take a shower. The quiet doesn't last long. Rose starts to cry seemingly out of the blue and Mary tries everything to get her to stop.
"Why?" Mary asks over the shrieking, pacing her apartment with Rose in her arms and she just won't stop. "Is it my eye? It's pretty scary to look at I know." She sets her back down on the blanket and grabs her keys, dangling them in front of the kids face to try to catch her attention, it works. She stops crying for the first time in an hour and reaches for the keys.
"Are you a cat?" Mary asks softly, watching her bat at them before handing them over, "Well, whatever works I guess…" She sits and watches her play, making incoherent noises out of excitement that make Mary laugh softly. She barely hears someone knocking on the door, she expects to see Greer when she opens it, but it's not Greer, no that would be too easy.
"This is harassment," Mary says softly and Francis rolls his eyes.
"Your eye looks better."
"The power of makeup."
"Can I come in?"
"No." She says quickly, looking over her shoulder to check on Rose and his face does something at that, changes to an expression she can't quite read.
"Why?"
"Because I said no?"
"Is someone in there with you?"
"No." But she says it too soon, Rose decides right now is the perfect time to unleash a shriek so loud it threatens to break the windows. "...My tv is really lou-" She looks back again, she's really crying now, she needs to cut this short. He's giving her this look, a little bit of confusion, a whole lot of curious and he manages to push past her.
"Where did you get that?" He asks and his entire face lights up when he sees her. That answers the question if he still wanted kids as badly as he used to.
"That's Greer's daughter." She says softly, trying not to let the look on his face get to her. It gets to her. "Rose." He raises an eyebrow and then picks the screaming child off her place on the floor. She stops crying the second she looks at him.
"I think she likes me." He smirks and Mary just gapes at him. She spent an hour trying to get her to calm down and all he has to do is look at her.
-/-
A few things she's learned since he let himself into her apartment, one: he's good with babies. Which isn't a surprise, he has younger siblings. She's never actually watched him interact with an infant before though and honestly she isn't sure she can take any more, her heart already feels like it's going to explode. Two: Rose likes him. Like really likes him, like she isn't sure if Greer is going to be able to take her away from him.
"Where's James?" Francis asks softly, they're sitting on the floor, Rose is curled up in Francis' lap, asleep.
"He checked into a hotel earlier." She whispers and Francis nods. "He didn't want to break more of my things."
"I'm sorry about that." He says softly, "In my defense, he did come after me first."
"I know…"
"Mary." He says softly and he shifts on the floor to look at her more directly, he's being different than he had been the last few days. Today he seems a bit more comfortable being near her, he's still tense but not as tense. "Did you mean what you said last night?" She barely remembers it, what she said to him.
"I...we can't talk about this right now." She says
"Then when-"
"When do you go back to Paris?"
"Anxious for me to leave?" He asks with a quirk of an eyebrow. She is, once he leaves everything can go back to how it was before. Not that she wants him to leave, or maybe she does; she isn't sure what she wants anymore. "In two days." He says after a while, "Mary, I know it doesn't seem like it but I really did miss you."
"Stop."
"Why?"
"Because talking about how much we missed each other is only going to hurt and I don't want to hurt right now." Mary says softly but there's more to it than that and she can tell by his face that he knows it too. She doesn't want to hear how much he missed her, not from the man who pretended she was dead and ignored all of her calls and cut her out of his life like she never mattered and then treated her like a criminal when he did get to see her again.
It's not fair.
"I know...I handled it really badly. All of it." Francis says softly, "And I know that it's going to take a lot for you to forgive me, but can't we at least try to get along? As Friends."
"Friends." She scoffs, "Is that what we are now?"
"It's worth a shot."
"I don't think I can be friends with you, Francis," Mary says softly and he almost says something but Rose starts to wake up, stirring in his arms. Mary nearly forgot she was even there. She wakes up just in time too, Greer enters the apartment without so much as a knock and stops dead in her tracks when she sees who's holding her kid.
"Oh." She tilts her head, "Well isn't this a pretty picture." Mary glares at her and she just smirks.
A/N: Sorry for the wait, I think we all needed something a little more light-hearted.
