Disclaimer: Characters are owned and produced by The Disney Channel, That's So Productions, Brookwell-McNamara Entertainment and Warren & Rinsler Productions. I am just borrowing them for these stories.
Author's Note: The title I am using for this chapter was originally going to be a story title; first for the story that turned out to be my Londie fic, The Search for Tomorrow. That story was originally going to be the one that dealt with the darker theme of infidelity before I moved that theme to this story and this couple. Then, it was the working title for this story before I wrote London's baby shower scene. But I decided that Love Conquers All was the title that perfectly summed up what was going on here.
And just for the record, while there are several songs out there entitled Love Conquers All, none of them were the inspiration for this title. There is a melody that I created in my head that was the inspiration for the title. I wish you could hear it. I think it's great. But never underestimate me. I might find a way to sneak "my version" of Love Conquers All into this story after all.
Chapter Title: Harder to Breathe from Maroon 5's 2003 debut album, Songs About Jane. Written by Adam Levine and Jesse Carmichael. Produced by Matt Wallace.
Love Conquers All
Chapter 14
Harder to Breathe
Tuesday, May 19, 2020 – 11:35 am – Office of Benjamin Parker and Associates – midtown Manhattan
Raven and Chelsea met up at the coffee shop in the lobby of Dr. Parker's building. Fourteen years had passed since they went to see him in his San Francisco office for their first and only appointment. They sat in front of him for less than thirty minutes before he decided that these two women were made for each other.
FLASHBACK (excerpt from For Them The Bells Toll, Chapter 8 – Good Counsel) – Monday, December 4, 2006
"Rae, what's wrong?" Chelsea asked taking Raven by the hand. It was then that tears began to fall from Raven's eyes. "Baby, what's wrong?"
"I'M SCARED, OKAY!" Raven admitted for the first time. "I am terrified of getting married to you."
"What?" Chelsea said softly. "Why?" Chelsea felt tears prick her eyes.
"You… have been so good to me for so long… and I have treated you like crap sometimes…" Raven started.
"No, baby. You have never treated me like crap." Chelsea reassured Raven.
"Yes I have. And I am so afraid… that when we have our first married fight, and it's gonna happen, don't even try to tell me it's not… I'm afraid that when that happens, that all that… stuff is gonna come up…" Raven's tears begin to fall harder. "And you're gonna leave me!"
Raven dropped her head and began sobbing. Chelsea stood up and knelt in front of Raven's chair to embrace her. "Shhhh." Chelsea attempted to console Raven. "I'm not going anywhere." Chelsea said in a whisper soft voice. "We have been through too much together for me to leave." Chelsea began rocking her. "I can look back and laugh at everything that we have ever done together, even that awkward two weeks before we got together."
"You're… not gonna leave me when I do something stupid?" Raven said between sobs.
"Of course not Peaches." Chelsea used her nickname hoping to lighten her mood. "No one else would put up with your crazy psychic ass." That crack elicited a chuckle from Raven. "I love everything about you; every harebrained scheme, every stretch of those beautiful eyes, every goofy vision face…"
"My vision faces are goofy?" Raven asked in a cute, playful wounded way.
"Like you're staring off into a studio camera at center stage or something." Chelsea said as she held Raven. "And I love every one of them." Raven looked at Chelsea and smiled. "You are the most sensitive, caring, giving, loving person I know. Gina and Eddie think so, your parents think so, deep down Cory thinks so. But no one thinks so as much as I know so." Chelsea paused and then delivered what would become her signature line when asked about her feelings for Raven. "You are my heartbeat. I can't live without my heartbeat."
Raven threw her arms around Chelsea's neck and began sobbing again, this time in joyful relief. "I love you so much. I will never let you down." Raven said as she sobbed.
"I know you won't baby. I know you won't." Chelsea said as she cried. Several minutes passed as they embraced and rocked and cried. At one point, Dr. Parker slid a tissue box to the edge of the desk for them to use. Chelsea was the first to break the embrace to take a couple of tissues and wipe Raven's face. She then planted a soft kiss on her lips.
"Well, my work here is done." Dr. Parker said.
"What do you mean? That's it?" Chelsea asked.
"I've been doing this for close to ten years now and no two people have ever walked through that door that were made for each other the way the two of you are." Dr. Parker said.
END OF FLASHBACK
Fourteen years later, they stood in the elevator of his Midtown office building, hoping that the words he spoke a decade and a half earlier were still true.
Chelsea glanced over at Raven and took her in from head to toe. She had an outfit on very similar to the one that she had on the day they played hooky from work a year earlier. This time, her black skirt and stilettos were accompanied by a rich blue blouse and silver bangles on her wrist. The one thing that Chelsea noticed that was missing were the silk stockings. Chelsea felt a tingle in the pit of her stomach that she immediately recognized. She hadn't touched Raven in an intimate way since the end of January, and that was only an anguish-filled desperation kiss in Raven's office. Chelsea had just felt a wave of lust for her wife. She and Raven might have been estranged, but that didn't mean that Raven didn't look good - damned good - to her. She mentally shook her head and wondered what in the hell possessed her to look Evelyne's way when she had this magnificent specimen of a woman beside her.
Raven felt she was being watched and slightly turned her head toward Chelsea.
"What?" Raven asked softly. Chelsea simply shook her head and looked up at the lighted numbers inside the elevator as it ascended. It was in that moment that Raven took a good look at Chelsea.
The auburn hair was as full, curly and shiny as ever. Chelsea was standing with one foot slightly in front of the other, giving Raven a good view of both lean, sculpted legs that were by navy blue round-toe heels that went with the navy pinstripe dress suit she wore. She even noticed Chelsea's freshly done, white-tipped French manicure. In her mind, if they had allowed themselves to really get behind that January kiss, they would have saved themselves the heartache of the last three months. Despite the Devyns and the Evelynes of the world serving as tantalizing distractions, there was only one woman that Raven truly wanted. And she was standing a shoulder's width from her inside that elevator.
When Chelsea's Blackberry went off, she moved her jacket to the side and pulled it off of her hip. In that instant, Raven took in the profile silhouette of the gorgeous attorney. She had told Chelsea once in jest that she was built like a "brick shithouse", a term she once heard her father say that his father used to describe a well put together woman. As she stood there, she knew why her grandfather said what he did. Raven began to mentally salivate. The emotional connection may have been temporarily disabled, but she wondered if a good old-fashioned physical hookup was out of the question as well.
Chelsea looked at the incoming message. It was from Gretchen.
Are you there yet? Let me know how things go.
Gretch
Chelsea fired off her reply.
G,
I'm standing next to her in the elevator. She looks so fucking good. Would I be wrong if I just asked her to hook up with me?
C
Raven was in the middle of trying to stop herself from lusting after Chelsea, knowing that there was serious business that need to be tended to upstairs when she felt a familiar sensation inside. This one wasn't lust however. It was a vision.
VISION
Chelsea is in the bathroom at the end of a row of sinks. She is clutching the sides of the sink with her head down as she stands there, one leg in front of the other bent slightly at the knee. She looks up at the mirror and says, "I am so horny and she looks so damn good. Man, I've got a taste for some honey-hazel caramel right about now."
END OF VISION
Raven came out of her vision with a one-woman audience looking at her. Oblivious to Chelsea's observation of her, Raven began sexily chuckling to herself over what she had just seen.
"What was that vision about?" Chelsea asked.
"Huh? What?" Raven said, snapping out of her mind's replay of her vision. "Oh, nothing. Just some… silliness. You wouldn't be interested."
"Rae, you've told me about every vision you've had since we were twelve." Chelsea said as the elevator chime sounded and the doors opened on Dr. Parker's floor. "Now what was it?"
"It was… uhh…" Raven stammered.
"Hold that thought. I have to go to the restroom before we go inside." Chelsea said as she turned in the direction of the plastic overhead restroom sign that could be seen down the hall.
"I knew that." Raven snickered under her breath, but not low enough that Chelsea didn't hear it. Chelsea glanced back at Raven and raised an eyebrow before turning to walk away.
As she came out of the stall and walked over to the sink, she had another passing wave of lust, recalling their sexual encounter in the bathroom at her father's country club.
FLASHBACK (excerpt from Thunderstorms, Chapter 17, In Da Club)
"We could get caught." Raven said in a mix of fear and excitement.
"The door locks and I've got a cover story ready." Chelsea said as she pulled Raven into the bathroom by the arm and slammed Raven's back into the door shutting it. Chelsea pressed her body against Raven as she locked the door.
Chelsea was like a starving woman eating her first meal in years. Raven was her buffet. Mouth, earlobes, neck, collarbone were all falling victim to Chelsea's mouth.
"I thought… about… the look… in your eyes… all morning." Chelsea mumbled in between kisses on Raven's neck and collarbone.
Raven's head was thrown back, her fingers intertwined in Chelsea's hair. She was incapable of making any sound. She was paralyzed with pleasure.
"Do these snap?" Chelsea asked as she fingered the top two buttons of Raven's blouse.
"Uh-huh." Raven managed to eke out.
"Good." Chelsea said as she yanked Raven's blouse open in one motion. Chelsea buried her face in Raven's ample cleavage, consuming the soft skin on the tops of her breasts and the peach scent that emanated from them.
Raven drew one leg up and started rubbing the outside of one of Chelsea's legs. As Chelsea continued to kiss her, Raven let out a series of low whimpers.
"Oh. I know what you want." Chelsea started her slow descent until she was eye-to-eye with the waistband of Raven's skirt. She slid the fabric up until she could see the fabric of Raven's panties. "Peach. Huh. You knew you were getting some today, didn't you?"
Raven squirmed. "Chelsea, will you please shut up and fuck me?"
Chelsea smiled. "Well, since you said please."
END OF FLASHBACK
Chelsea leaned forward at the sink, resting her hands on the sides as she dropped her head in thought before lifting it and uttering the words that would fulfill Raven's vision.
"I am so horny and she looks so damn good. Man, I've got a taste for some honey-hazel caramel right about now." Chelsea said in a low, needy voice. A split second later, the events of the last couple of minutes clicked in her head. Raven's elevator vision; the snickering after she came out of it; Raven saying she knew Chelsea had to go to the bathroom. "Sonofabitch." Chelsea whisper-spat. "She saw me in here." Chelsea paused. "She heard what I said." She paused again as she washed her hands and dried them. "Damnit!" She exclaimed as she walked out of the bathroom. She began purposefully striding down the hallway toward Raven. When she got near Raven, she never checked her speed as she walked by Raven to go to the office door, but not without a word for her. "You and your damn visions!" Chelsea spat in frustration.
Raven began silently laughing as Chelsea breezed past her. She watched Chelsea fling the outer office door open and walk inside. "That much anger? Wow. She really is horny." Raven said to herself as she slowly stepped up to the door and opened it to go inside, but not before finishing her satisfying chuckle. After walking inside, Raven started toward the desk, but saw Chelsea wave at her to come over to her.
"I already signed us in." Chelsea said as she clutched the clipboard that had their information sheet attached.
"You need some help with that?" Raven asked.
"No. I got it." Chelsea said.
"You never remember my social security number." Raven said.
"Well when I get there I'll ask you for it." Chelsea said in an irritated tone.
Raven looked at her for a second. "I'm sorry about that out there." Raven lowered her voice. "You know I can't control my visions."
"Yeah, well there are some thoughts that just need to stay private." Chelsea said as she scribbled on the form. She then softened slightly. "It's not your fault, I know."
Raven paused in contemplation over her next question. "So… you're horny too, huh?"
Chelsea's brain raised its awareness level to DEFCON 3 when she heard Raven ask that. She's horny too? She asked herself. However, on the outside, Chelsea didn't react. She only continued to write. "Vibrators only do so much." Chelsea mumbled under her breath. Chelsea's mind then set out to ask a question that had been lingering for several months. "Why couldn't you have seen…?" Chelsea choked her question off. "Never mind."
"Why couldn't I have seen what? You and Evelyne? Me and Devyn?" Raven asked. "Why didn't I see Lilly's fake girfriend? Why didn't I see Tonya getting hit by that soccer ball? Why didn't I see 9/11?" Raven asked rhetorically. "You know as well as I do that it's random. Before today I hadn't had a vision in months."
"This is so frustrating." Chelsea said as she wrote.
"We made this bed, no pun intended; now we have to lie in it." Raven said.
"I wake up in the morning and I feel like I want to scream." Chelsea admitted.
Raven dropped her head. "Me too." She said softly. Don't say it, don't say it, don't say it. "The bed is so cold without you." You said it. Great.
No Chelsea. She hurt you. Don't feel what you're feeling. Chelsea placed her hand on top of Raven's. Chelsea was about to speak when Dr. Parker came out of his office with jacket in hand.
"Chelsea, Raven. Hi. I'm terribly sorry but I have a family emergency and I need to reschedule." Dr. Parker said.
"Is everything all right?" Raven asked.
"My son got into a fight at school and they're suspending him for rest of the school year." Dr. Parker said.
"For a fight?" Chelsea asked.
"He took a folding chair to the back of the kid's head like in wrestling." Dr. Parker said.
"OH!" Raven exclaimed. "Yeah! You go do… what you need to do."
"Thank you for understanding. Carolyn will call you to reschedule." Dr. Parker said. "Have a good day." He said before walking out.
"You… too." Raven called out to him as he left. "Well… there goes that for today."
"Yeah. I guess so." Chelsea said before a moment of awkward silence settled between them. "Would you… care to have lunch… with me?" Chelsea asked gingerly.
Raven straightened up in surprise. "Are you asking me out on a lunch date?"
Chelsea looked at Raven for a moment. "I saw the you I used to know for a minute and… I wanted to talk to her." Chelsea said.
Raven smiled slightly. "That me saw the you I used to know too." Raven paused. "Yeah. Sure. I'll have lunch with you."
Twenty-five minutes later, Raven and Chelsea found themselves at one of their favorite Italian restaurants.
"This place is better than Guiseppe's." Chelsea said of their favorite Italian restaurant in college.
"Do not let Guiseppe hear you say that!" Raven said causing Chelsea to laugh. Raven watched Chelsea laugh for a moment before dropping her head. "This is hard." Chelsea stopped laughing and looked at Raven. "Moments like that make it feel like old times again. But…" Raven trailed off.
"You and I have never done things the easy way." Chelsea said. "If there's a hard way to get something done, we're gonna find a way to make it even harder."
Raven nodded her head and smiled. "True."
"Just like what I'm feeling right now. It really pisses me off." Chelsea said.
"What's that?" Raven asked.
"What your vision was about. Me and… what I said in the bathroom." Chelsea said.
"Keeping that bottled up inside doesn't help you any." Raven said.
"Letting it out doesn't either." Chelsea said.
"You know what my first thought was afterward?" Raven said.
Chelsea shook her head. "Rae, I can't…"
"You." Raven said. "I had just… betrayed you in the ultimate way and all I could think about was how horrible what I had just done to you was."
Chelsea looked up from the table. "She cares about you." Chelsea said.
"Not like that." Raven quickly said.
"I know." Chelsea softly said. "I talked to her and… I don't blame you… I mean, I do but… she is gorgeous. At least when you cheated, you upgraded."
"No I didn't." Raven said firmly. "There is no one on this planet that compares with you."
"Then why are we here?" Chelsea asked. "If no one compares with me and it's hard for me to breathe without you, then what are we doing here?"
"It's… hard for you… to breathe?" Raven asked.
"Yeah." Chelsea said in a whisper.
Raven locked onto Chelsea's brown eyes and refused to let go. Chelsea had said the same thing to her that she admitted to Chelsea in that ill-fated voicemail message. It was hard for both of them to breathe without the other. Raven's heart began to swell to near-overflowing. She wanted to pull Chelsea up from the table and whisk her away to their apartment that instant to begin the reconciliation in full bloom. She was about to speak when all of the air that rushed into her lungs in that instant was sucked out when her eyes fell upon the two figures that followed the maitre'd down the aisle, the shorter of the two blonde figures in particular.
The two women froze in their tracks when they saw Raven. One of the women knew of Raven. The other woman had just sat down face-to-face with Raven a little more than thirty days earlier.
"Hello Evelyne." Raven said with cold warmth. Chelsea, whose back was to her, closed her eyes and let out an exasperated breath. She and Raven were seconds away from reaching the edge of the forest, only to be snatched back the monster that dwelled therein. She knew that the goodwill that she and Raven were sharing had just eroded.
"Raven." Evelyne said with steady neutrality. Raven's eyes darted onto Chelsea who was summoning up every ounce of intestinal fortitude she possessed to remain cool and collected. "Chelsea." Evelyne added.
Chelsea turned her head to look up at Evelyne who was standing in front of her sister, about two feet from Chelsea. "Hi. Evelyne. Erin. Good to see you again." Chelsea eked out.
"You too." Erin said softly, fully aware of the tension that hung in the air.
Raven looked up past Evelyne to Erin. "I'm sorry. I don't believe we've met. Raven Daniels." Raven said as she extended her hand.
Erin stepped forward. "Erin Carlson. I am a huge fan of your work." Erin said with subdued awe as she shook Raven's hand. Evelyne couldn't find a comfortable place for her eyes to settle so she shifted them back and forth. Chelsea kept her head turned in the sisters' direction but refused to look Evelyne directly in the eye.
"I'm flattered. Thank you." Raven said. Chelsea had known Raven for nearly thirty years. She could tell by the tone of Raven's voice that the wound had just re-opened and she was holding on by a thread. Erin could tell also and moved to ensure that Raven's strings didn't pop.
"Well we're not going to keep you from your lunch. Take care and enjoy." Erin said.
"Thank you. You too." Chelsea said as the two women walked past them and on to their table.
Raven dropped her head and nodded slowly several times. "Her sister's pretty." Raven said softly.
"Rae…"
"It's okay Chels." Raven said as she placed her napkin on the table and scooted her chair back to stand up. "Look… I've got to… get back to the office and I'm sure you have… some brief or depositions to go over… so… I'll call you."
"Rae, let's stay here and talk." Chelsea quietly pleaded.
"I uhh…" Raven said shakily as the race was on to see if she could get away from the table before her first tear fell. "I'll call you tomorrow… and we'll uhhhhh… come back another time, okay? Okay." Raven leaned over and gave Chelsea a quick peck on the forehead. "Bye." Raven quickly turned and walked toward the door. Her quick pace making her heels click briskly on the hardwood floor. Chelsea could see Raven bring her left hand up to her face as she walked, seemingly to wipe away tears that had formed.
Chelsea slid back from the table as tears quickly descended upon her. "Damnit." Chelsea quietly spat. She stood up and made a beeline for the bathroom. How ironic that the bathroom, a place where the promise of Raven and Chelsea's day was born out of Raven's vision, would be the place where the harsh reality of their dilemma would overtake Chelsea; further reinforcing the point that without each other, it was indeed harder to breathe.
Reconciliation is full of starts, stops and re-starts. Raven and Chelsea just found out the hard way. Chapter 15 and Raven's trip to Tennessee is next.
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