Well it's been almost two years this time, but here we go again. This chapter turned out very differnt then I had intented it to, when I outline the story many years ago. It still has the same outcome, though.
Special thanks to the guest reviewers, who wrote comments in 2018, seeing you being interested in this story, made me come back to it, so thank you.
I Will Fall
Skyfall
They rose with the sun, ate some breakfast, which Wade had prepared over the fire, carried the canoe to the river and started their journey down the stream. All without talking much. Wade was still tense, maybe even more so. And by now Zoe had lost all sense for time and distance. The could have been on that river for one hour or maybe seven, traveled a mile or hundred. She couldn't tell anymore. Her mind was to occupied with Wade and his unusual behavior. And the silence slowly drove her crazy, so in a moment of unfiltered curiosity and deep desperation her mouth formed words before her mind could stop them:"Why don't you love me?"
"Huh?"
"Why don't you love me?"
"Zoe."
"No, don't Zoe me!", she really couldn't stop herself, even though she really wanted to, especially after turning around and seeing Wade's sad and defeated figure. He looked so much like a lost little boy, it hurt her heart more than anything ever before. And yet the words continued coming out of her mouth, "I mean you obviously don't love me, because otherwise we would be in bed at home doing the things we're best at. But we are not, we're in a canoe in the middle of Nowheresville Alabama. And it's okay that you don't love me, I can't make you love me, but I just want to understand why. I mean you used to love me, what changed? "
Wade sighed, "those are two totally different things."
"What?"
"Us being together and me loving you. Two totally different things, because, I do love you, Zoe."
She turned around again to look at him, "then why aren't we together?"
"Because I love you."
"Wade, you are not making any sense. At all."
He sighed again, "look, Zoe, we tried. We failed. We broke each others hearts. And I don't think that I can take it again. Both breaking your heart and getting mine broken."
"So you just give up? Waste some perfectly good love? That's your genius solution?". She was being mean and she knew it. All the pent up frustration with their situation and his behavior poured out of her.
"Zoe", his tone was pleading, and hadn't she been so riled up, she would have stopped.
"Don't you dare to Zoe me. You can't just use ma name, my actual name as some kind of magic word to soothe me and make me swoon. 'cause tell you what, it ain't working mister, not this time" . The only thing stopping her from marching over to him and poke his chest, was the fact that they were in a canoe and her standing up would let, at least, her fall down into the cold water.
"I'm"
"Don't say you're sorry, 'cause you're obviously not. You keep treating me like I'm the bad guy in this fucked up situation. I'm not. I did not scheme with Vivian and Joel . I was abducted the same way you were. It's also not my fault that you are the love of my life. Honestly, right now I wish you weren't. It breaks my heart to see you like this, so tense and sad. It breaks my heart not knowing what is going on with you and us not being together, guess what? It breaks my heart. You're breaking my heart right now, Wade, on so many levels. You're breaking my heart."
She was emotionally exhausted now, not able to look at him anymore, so she turned around. With tears streaming down her face, she tried to focus on the bending river before her,tried to get her agitated breathing back under control. Before Wade could even think about reacting to her outburst, rain started to fall, the sky darkened rapidly and somewhere in the not so far distance they could hear thunder growling.
"Doc, we need to go on shore quickly and seek shelter, because a storm is coming, and it might be a big one."
xXx
Zoe was lying on top off Wade underneath the canoe. The canoe was shielding them from the heavy rain and the blowing wind. The temperatures had dropped rapidly and the only think keeping her from freezing was Wade's body thunder was still rolling and from time to time lighting illuminated the inside of their cane for a fracture of a second.
Zoe had started to draw circles on his chest a little while ago, mainly to calm herself. Between her outburst earlier, the storm and their current physical closeness, a lot off conflicting feelings had build up in her. With the rain drumming against the canoe, the howling wind and the rowing thunder, there was no way to verbally communicate, so she had started to touch him lightly. It helped her calm down and it seemed to help him too. Physical communication had always been their strong suit. He was a little less tense, holding Zoe firmly to his body.
In a moment of overtaking physical attraction Zoe pressed a kiss on his chest. In next moment she could feel his hands move upwards her body , touching her face softly. A bolt of lightning illuminated the scene and for the fraction of a second, they looked each other in the eyes, there faces merely inches apart. Then she felt his lips on hers in a soft and sweet, but short kiss. Afterwards she kept drawing circles on his chest and he kept holding her tight, while the world outside their canoe seemed to come to an end.
In the next chapter you'll find out why Wade is behaving the way he is. Feel free to have a guess until then and let's all hope, it's not gonna take me two years to update again.