Author's Note: I apologize for the hiatus. I've been having some writers block recently. Things are just not flowing. But I will finish this story and make the chapter extra long. Still all in canon for what I think could have happened as Filler chapters for the episode Home. I hope it doesn't suck. Sometimes you get ideas and they just bleed out on the page. Other times you sit there stabbing yourself with pins and get barely a drop.
Mike walks into the bathroom and locks the door behind him. He can hear the water flowing, and he sets down his towel and walks towards the shower. He's covered in a light glean of sweat even though he had cut his run short this morning in favor of coming back to the house to keep an eye on Briggs. Turns out he could have run further, because when he got back Briggs had slipped off somewhere, but Mike has too much riding on this bank robbery to worry too much about it.
"Are they ever going to fix your shower?" Apparently Paige can tell his footsteps apart from the others, because she doesn't turn off the shower or open her eyes before addressing him. Mike can hear the annoyed tone in her voice, but she doesn't sound quite as aggressive as is usual lately. Her mood swings have been leaving him dizzy.
"I was right. Someone was in my room last night. I couldn't find anything missing, but some things were out of place." Mike tries to keep his voice neutral. He needs to talk to someone about this, and Paige, even when she hates him, is his confidant. "You think someone knows about us?"
"I think everyone knows." Paige's hallow laugh echos off the tiled walls.
"What do you think they know?" Mike's actual question is what does Paige think is going on with them because he sure as hell can't tell. Last night had been wonderful, but had left Mike more confused than ever. Not to mention this morning…
Mike had been slow to wake up, but finding the blonde naked woman still in his arms, he squeezed her even tighter to his chest, bringing his leg up so it wrapped around her hips under the blanket, his entire body almost completely covering hers.
The movement coaxed Paige out of her slumber, but just barely, and she squeezed his hand in a silent hello. She pushed her hips back against his, snuggling even closer to him somehow. He kissed her bare shoulder, his eyes still not completely open, his morning erection settling between her thighs. He would have been content to lie like that, basking in the stillness of morning, but Paige's next move had surprised him.
She had adjusted her hips and reached down to guide him to her center. This was a first for them. They had always used protection in the past. Without the thin layer of latex, she felt hot and wet around him. He rocked in slow languid motions behind her, kissing her shoulder, the position leaving his hands free to roam the front of her body.
The bed creaked as the two agents moved together in the otherwise quiet morning. For that moment all their differences had seemed irrelevant and for the first time, they were lovers, not just two people having sex.
"If you're so worried about it, find another seat in the van." Paige's annoyed tone snaps Mike out of his reverie. She mentioned it. The thing they never talked about. That his spot was beside her, and she was telling him to find another spot. A few hours ago they'd made love, and now she was breaking the rules.
"I don't care what they think. You're not hearing me. Someone was in my room last night, and I think it was Briggs." Mike is frustrated. Quite frankly at this point he doesn't give a damn who knows about them. He is trying to talk to her about something important. Someone was in his room last night, he hadn't just been hearing things.
"And now it's suddenly last summer again." Paige turns the shower off and rolls her eyes.
"You know my thoughts on that." Mike is annoyed Paige isn't taking this more seriously. Yes technically Briggs' name had been cleared but Mike still had his doubts on his innocence, and even though Paige wanted to believe the neat little bow Briggs had put on it, he knew she had doubts too. "
"Look, let's just get through this stupid bank robbery today and then you can go back to DC. Don't start another stupid goose chase." Paige grabs her towel and wraps it tightly around her body.
"Woah, you think I'm leaving after this robbery?" Mike asks, grabbing her by the arm as she tries to pass him.
"Isn't that the whole point?" She asks, sounding disinterested and bored, looking down at his hand on her arm.
"The point, is to make Markum panic once his funding goes down the drain and prove that he is a dirty cop. There's still a lot more we need before-"
"So what? Now you're here until the entire police force is cleaned up? You were originally just going to be here for a weekend to be bait for the Caza cartel. Then the buses, then the Solano's, then Silmar, now Sid? When's it going to end, Mike?" Paige yanks her arm from him.
"Are you trying to get rid of me?" Mike wants her to stop pushing him away. Every time they seem to get close, she retreats.
"I'm trying to get back to my life! You come here, pull me off all my normal cases, turn my world upside down and I just can't-"
"What was this morning then?" Mike asks, "Now you want to get rid of me?"
"I wasn't fully awake. It just happened. It doesn't change things. It was just a carry over from last night."
"Fine! What was last night?" Mike demands. He can not keep track of her emotions. This morning had meant something, they had made love this morning. Before either of them had woken up to the points their brains could screw things up, they had made love, and she wasn't going to convince him otherwise. Every time he felt he was getting close to her, she pushed him away. The first time they kissed she'd filed paperwork for him to transfer back to DC.
"You know what last night was. It was just a quick hit to ease the stress so we didn't go into this job today with clear heads-"
"Well if that was your plan it failed. Spectacularly." Mike sarcastically spats at her. "I'm not you Paige, I can't just make love to you because I've done it before and then go back to this war we're-"
"Stop calling it that!"
"Why? Apparently everyone in the house already knows that WE MADE LOVE!" Mike raises his voice to yell the last words to purposely piss her off. She clamps her hand over his mouth to shut him up and he glares at her in a challenge.
"The stress isn't us having sex, or people knowing, it's you refusing to tell me the truth." Paige says in a sharp voice. "I don't trust you!"
"Oh, you don't trust me?" Mike asks indignantly as Paige pulls her hand back from his mouth. "You can't even speak the truth of what's happening with us. You threw me at Jessica. You went to hunt down the Tinkerbells with Jakes without telling me. You lied to me about the raid at Sulla's. You used my feelings for you to get me out of the way so you and Briggs could go behind my back-"
"If you had shut down the place like you-"
"I was trying to save-"
"You were trying to boost your career. You were leaving a dozen girls at the mercy of those monsters when you could have saved them. Do you know what they were doing in there, Mike?"
"They were safe. I bought them all and I went back in there to guard them, for you!"
"If it was so safe, then why did you take me instead of Lina? Why did you lie to me, and drag me out of there."
"You want me to be honest with you? Fine. I'm fucking in love with you. This is not some fling to me, or whatever it is you seem to think it is. And you broke my heart when you asked me to go to Jess, because if you felt one shred for me what I feel for you, you never would have asked that of me. So when you ask me why I chose you instead of Lina, it's because for me there is no choice. It is always going to be you, Paige."
"No." Paige says, in anger shaking her head back and forth that Mike would dare try to make this about that. "You don't get to use whatever feelings you think you have for me as an excuse for what you've done."
"Everything I have done has been for you, Paige." Mike wishes she would just understand. He tortured Lawrence to find her. He went under at Silmar for her. He had faked Lina's escape and hit himself with a crowbar so she could still have hope. He carried that girl's death on his conscious so she wouldn't have to. Everything Mike did was for her.
"What happened to Lina, Mike?" Paige asks for what feels like the millionth time.
"I told you." Mike says through gritted teeth. Every time he lies to her he feels it like a knife in his side, but he will endure the pain, because she needs the hope.
"You lied." Paige spits out harshly. "I can tell when you're lying. I'm not stupid."
"I don't think you're stupid." Mike wants to strangle her. He had just, for the second time, confessed he was in love with her, and she glossed over it like it wasn't important. Like it wasn't real. What did he have to do to convince her.
"It is our job to protect the innocent. Out there, there was a warehouse with innocent girls being held against their will. Being raped, and tortured, and you did nothing. No, you did worse than nothing. You protected the people doing it to them. You are worse than those men themselves." Paige screams at him, tears coming to her eyes.
"I am trying to protect a thousand other girls from that fate. Sometimes we have to make tough calls-" Mike tries to talk sense into her, but she is not having it.
"It's not a tough call Mike. There are innocent girls in there that you are using as bait. You had the man power, you had the information. The instant you found out the location, you should have shut that place down. We would have found other connections to Sid."
"And you that was your decision to make? I was in charge of the team, Paige!"
"Well you were doing a shit job! I had to do something before someone else got killed." Paige calls him out, and Mike can't slip up. She still doesn't know for sure Lina's dead. She may suspect, but she still has hope, and no matter how mad he gets at her, he can't take that from her.
"Five people died. You led Sid to a bloodbath-"
"Those girls were innocent! Lina was innocent Mike!"
"They were still lives Paige! And there's a lot more girls just like Lina out there. We didn't kill the beast, we just poked it. Now they know we know and they were our only connection to-"
"That's it. You don't care who dies as long as you can burn Sid."
"Believe whatever you want to believe, Paige." Mike throws his hands up in frustration, cutting her off.
"No this is not some god damn pick your own reality. There's only one truth, Mike."
"Not everything is black and white. If living at Graceland has taught me anything-"
"Well then Graceland ruined you! And you ruined it." Paige says harshly.
"I'm sorry I'm not the innocent school boy who first came out here Paige, but if we're being so honest here, don't pretend you wanted who I was. You barely saw me when I moved here. You just saw Levi. You never would have slept with that guy. You didn't want me until I was dipping hands in led and bringing another woman back to the house." Mike sneered at her.
"That's not true." Paige shakes her head obstinately, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Really? Because you claim you don't want me to be a rockstar, but you still screw me like one. You don't want a relationship, you just want someone to fuck in your own bed. I'm just the loophole to the no guests upstairs rule! If I hadn't gotten rid of Zelanski, you-"
"That's it? You fired Zelanski because you were jealous? You told me it was a tactical decision about ICE you-"
"It was a tactical decision, we already had DEA and I didn't like the way he looked at you! I don't trust him."
"No, you don't trust me! And that is how I know you don't love me, because to me love is trust. So you may desire me, but you don't love me."
"You're wrong." Mike says simply, "But you know what? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how I feel. It matters how you feel, because I thought I knew, but now-"
"How do I feel? I feel like I need some space." Paige says simply.
"Space? How am I supposed to do that? We live in the same house." Mike asks. He'd been giving her space ever since he'd pulled her kicking and screaming from Sylmar. After that she had sought him out. Clearly space was not the answer.
"Then we'll just have to go rob this damn bank so you can catch this bastard and get back to DC where you belong. Until then, find a different seat. And fix your damn shower." Paige turns and storms out of the bathroom, leaving Mike with nothing but wisps of steam.
Mike showers numbly, his mind wondering how they'd gone from last night, when she knew him so well, to this.
"Mike you're driving me crazy. I need to do something..." Paige gasped her fingers tangling in Mike's hair as he slowly used his mouth and fingers to bring her to the edge of climax but not take her over. Mike seemed to be using his new "control" she'd granted him, exclusively for her pleasure. She's not allowed to do anything so far, but submit to his soft caresses.
"Describe to me our first kiss." Mike's voice is husky as he stares up at her from between her legs.
"You were there." Paige rejects his odd request.
"I'm in control remember? It's an order." Mike lays a tender kiss on her inner knee. "Tell me what you felt when we first kissed."
"I… I was surprised." She gasps, finding it hard to concentrate.
"And…" He edges her on.
"I… Mike…" Her head crashes back down on the pillow as she tries to keep from screaming. "I pulled away. I couldn't. The timing with Briggs and…"
"Not the timing. The kiss. My lips on yours. How did it feel?" Mike lets each word brush against her hot skin.
"Like a broken promise." This was not the answer Mike was expecting, and for a moment he pauses. "It felt like a promise of things to come. Things we couldn't have."
'We could have them…We did have them.' Mike thinks to himself, but he's asked her how she's felt and it's not fair of him to argue with her feelings. He continues on, knowing her words will hurt, but it's a truth he has to face.
"The night we met. When I brought you the birth control-" He prompts her to keep talking.
"You were nervous, but cute. I remember thinking you looked-" She starts to babble, anticipating where he's going with this.
"No. Later that night. After I was gone. How did you feel with Bobby Moi, trying to get hard for you. Trying to fuck you, with you needing to pretend you wanted him too."
He knows there's things she's not telling him about what happened at Sylmar. Horrible things. Yet here she was, giving him control over her and he wasn't going to waste it. He wanted to drive any memories of Sylmar completely from her mind. To make up for his mistakes. To prove that Mike was different from the other men she'd been with, and if he were going to do that, he had to remind her of things he wished she never experienced. He had to hear what she had gone through, even if he didn't want to.
"Why are you…" Paige looks down at his intense eyes staring up at her. He continues stroking her slowly with his hands, but has slowed from earlier.
"Tell me what it felt like, to kiss him, to convince him you were his."
"He tried for twenty minutes, he couldn't… His fingers. Mike, stop!" Paige pulls his hand away from her.
"Shhh… I know." Mike stops and comes up to hold her to his chest.
"I didn't say the safe word." Paige mumbles embarrassed into his chest.
"I know, but you asked me to stop." Mike assures her. "You don't need a safe word with me. I know you, Paige. I took things too far. I'm sorry."
"I just don't know why you would ask that."
"I wanted to know you knew the difference. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not Bobby Moi, or any of the guys you go under cover for." Mike takes her face in his hands and tries to convince her of this one important point. "I'm not one of your nameless bar guys, and I am not the same as the guys at Sylmar."
"When I first saw you there. When they took that bag off from over your head. I thought… I thought we were saved. I thought the nightmare was all over. Seeing you there was the happiest I've ever been in my whole life. Which only made what you did that much worse. You lied to me."
Mike doesn't have an answer for her. He just holds her close and rests his chin on top of her head, and asks quietly, "Do you want to say the safe word?"
A moment passes, until Paige quietly whispers, "No."
"Ok. Then I'm still in charge. No more talking unless I ask." Mike says, tilting her chin up and kissing her gently. She weakly kissed him back, and he could tell that last memory took most of her strength. He kisses her, softly running his hands over her body until he brings her back to the level of passion where she forgot everything. Only then did he continue.
"Tell me what you felt our first night together." Mike moved, so he was hovering over top of her, kissing down her neck.
"You were going to leave. I thought it was just a one time thing… We were both so drunk. We couldn't stop giggling." Paige's words come out as gasps, as her fingers dig into Mike's back as he kisses his neck and rubs his hips against hers.
"How did it feel?" Mike stares down at her face. Her eyes are shut as she remembers. He loves hearing her voice.
"Like a dream. It didn't feel real. You were drunk and clumsy. There was a point I thought you weren't going to be able to finish, but you were so earnest and tender, and I was so in love with you. It was perfect."
Mike leans down and captured her lips with his own. It's the first time he's ever heard Paige use the word love, and he's not sure she even realized she did. Kissing her tenderly, he slides into her eliciting a soft gasp from her as she adjusts to his intrusion. "How does it feel now, Paige?"
"Like a broken promise."
