A/N: I'm sorry for the long wait! Descent had completely hijacked my brain, but here's a new chapter for CCH. Many thanks to awildmind and AllintheEyes for their support throughout coming up with this one.

CHAPTER 9 - BUTTERFLY EFFECT

"Do you wanna get outta here?"

"Sure, let's go."

We didn't have to walk much. There was no elevator either. We tried to keep a safe distance from each other, but as we moved in some sort of barely-controlled urgency, I was very much aware of his big frame next to me — and then behind me, while I clumsily fumbled in my pocket for my keys.

He towered over me, his chest covering my back, his hands anchored against the doorframe on each side, and I forgot what I was supposed to be looking for. I panted heavy breaths as I felt him nuzzling my neck and taking a long whiff.

"Open the door," he commanded, his head right next to mine, his low voice leaving a trail of goosebumps down my neck.

"I'm trying," I complained, then lost all speaking function when I felt his lips closing around the skin behind my ear, then nibbling at the softness of my lobe.

One of his hands came to rest on my shoulder for a second before it slithered down my arm and met my hand inside my coat pocket, his fingers grazing mine before wrapping around something that he retrieved, then displayed in front of me.

"This might help," he said, showing me the keycard before sliding it in and out of the metal lock which I had strangely not noticed before, his arm over my shoulder making me feel like I was his property — for which I was surprisingly glad.

The unlocking sound immediately followed as the door opened to reveal the big bed that waited for us, no other furniture anywhere in sight.

Elliot practically pushed me in, and I heard the door swing closed as he shoved me into the nearest wall, his mouth crashing over mine with such an imperative kiss that it stole my breath. I gasped for air when he moved to my neck, even though I had no memory of either of us getting rid of my scarf. I forgot all about that as his hands nimbly worked the buttons of my coat while waves of heat coursed down my body and converged between my legs.

The details escaped me — everything happened so quickly. Our clothes came off easily, so much so that I took no notice; all I knew was that his hands were getting closer and closer to my skin, and it burned in anticipation. When we were down to our underwear, we reached the bed, its proximity a blessing given our hurry.

It was then, just as the moon highlighted his face from the wrong side of the room — the darkness in his eyes, his swollen lips, his determined expression — that it hit me that I was in bed with Elliot. For the first time. Everything turned black and white as he pushed me down softly, both hands underneath my back working the clasp of my bra before he actually took a moment to take it off slowly.

He bent down to kiss a trail from my throat to my collarbone to the swell of my breasts. His hands wrapped around them before he took one of my nipples into his mouth, and I involuntarily threw my head back as my fingers curled around the sheets.

It all felt so real. The wet heat of his tongue teasing my skin. My hand wrapped around his length, rubbing it slowly. Even the slight discomfort at the intrusion when he entered me, quickly giving way to pleasure as he filled me completely.

But it wasn't real, and that's when I slowly became fully aware of my surroundings, as well as the loneliness in my bed.

The hollowness in my body.

Elliot wasn't there with me, and he wasn't filling me completely. The heat of his grunts huffed against my neck as he rocked into me had been a mere figment of my imagination — that's how much in my head all of this was.

I closed my eyes to hold onto the dream a little longer as my middle finger gently parted myself, the abundant slickness I found in there almost ejecting my hand — as if I needed to be reminded that this wasn't going to cut it tonight.

It was going to have to.

I wiped some of the moisture off on the sheets to give my finger some traction and started rubbing at my clit, so swollen and ready from the illusion of Elliot's company.

Open the door.

His voice was clear in my ear, and it sent cold shivers throughout my body as I increased my ministrations, the dream still vivid in my head while I quite literally took matters into my own hands.

I felt my entrance pulsing with desire, displeased that it wasn't getting what it wanted. I continued, taking myself close to the edge then stopping before starting it all over, knowing that it would heighten my forthcoming climax to make up for the overwhelming lack.

I made myself come thinking of Elliot and hated myself for it.

It was now out in the open in every bit of space in my mind and every inch of my body that I wanted him, that I wanted him in my bed, just like in that dream. There was no denying that, in addition to all the other complex feelings towards Elliot that had been unearthed in the last couple of days, there was also the very simple and very compelling urge to fuck him.

My orgasm didn't help the feeling of emptiness where I wanted Elliot, but should probably never have him — was probably never going to. My insides ached for him like I'd never ached for anybody, but he was in the next room aching for his broken marriage.

He wasn't aching to be inside of me, and that realization was the sour aftertaste in my mouth for the rest of the night as I kept replaying the actual facts of our departure from the restaurant over and over in my head, quite afraid to fall back asleep and have it be replaced by another dream that couldn't be converted into existence.

I had to keep reality very present, I reminded myself as I went back to that moment once again.

This is how it really happened: even now I remember how my heart thumped in my chest with unforeseen violence as we left. It seemed to reverberate on the ground around me when we reached the cold air outside. I could feel it as I walked next to Elliot and pretended he was mine.

Do you wanna get outta here?

My question kept repeating in my mind as I couldn't seem to shake my own incredulity. Had I gone insane? I didn't even have enough alcohol in my system to justify the impulsiveness of my suggestive invitation. All I knew was that I wanted to be alone with him, and there was nothing rational about it.

I was not an emotional person when it came to men, and in that moment, I missed always being in control, lost in the maze I had created with all these feelings since we had arrived. But then again, a small part of me had to admit that maybe I didn't miss the way that the old version of me didn't feel anything as opposed to this one, who felt everything, who felt the ripples of every butterfly flapping its wings in the pit of her stomach.

I had always protected myself from feeling too much, but it seemed like this place had the power of disabling all of my defenses, unveiling everything that had always been utterly forbidden in my partnership with Elliot — the avalanche of feelings that were now allowed to wreak havoc inside of me was overwhelming to say the least.

It wasn't alcohol that was taking away my control, but I was definitely under the influence.

I looked at Elliot as we shared a seat in the shuttle on our way back to the main building while I slid down the ladder of level after level of the deafening inner monologue that was now continuously happening in my head and reached the present to contemplate that he was quiet, his lost stare directed at some moving spot through the window. Actually, it took me a while to notice it, but he looked a little upset.

The butterflies went wild with the most varied theories; their fluttering made me nauseated.

"Are you alright?" I asked softly, a light touch on his arm just to call his attention, I told myself: I was just trying to be a good friend.

Without looking at me, he shook his head and poorly concealed a burp. "I'm fine," he said.

It slowly dawned on me that maybe he regretted agreeing to come with me: maybe that was the reason he was acting cold now, avoiding my gaze, not saying a word. Maybe he'd been a bit more inebriated than usual, and it had clouded his judgment; maybe he had only realized after saying yes what my invitation could entail.

And what was that exactly? Maybe the answer was more obvious from the outside. I shuddered as I avoided it inside my own head, the screaming voices' endless arguments useful for once as they made me slightly deaf to the thoughts I couldn't really admit to having at that point.

Thoughts involving touching that had nothing to do with being a good friend. Thoughts that would later manifest in a dream that would haunt me in wakefulness.

Open the door.

I resigned myself to silence as I withdrew my hand and abandoned Elliot to his thoughts, whatever they were, accepting that we were calling it a night. With what little rational thought I still had left, I figured that he had either understood from my invitation that I just wanted to leave (improbable, honestly), or that what I wanted was something he had inadvertently agreed to by walking out of that restaurant — an agreement he would have to awkwardly take back as soon as we stepped into the seventeenth floor.

Either way, that was where our night was fated to end: in the hallway, right outside our doors. I was avoiding any form of eye contact as we took silent steps towards our rooms and already had my keycard in my hand when he spoke.

"Hey… Did you wanna come inside and have something to drink? I'm not exactly sleepy yet." He swiped his keycard and pushed the door in while he stared at me with a distant longing.

That caught me off-guard and debunked all my theories, rational or otherwise. "S-sure," I stuttered, walking in behind him.

"Beer?" he said almost indifferently as he led the way and turned left towards the kitchen area.

I watched him shed his coat, scarf, and jacket on his way to the fridge, forming a straight line right in front of me, and I couldn't help but feel like one of the discarded items. I started to suspect the invitation for a drink had a lot more to do with the drink than with me.

I took the beer that he absentmindedly handed me, his eyes still busy with random targets instead of engaging with mine as I tried to read him and his intentions. I took a long sip that burned its way down my throat with anticipation for something I couldn't exactly dare name and that I was beginning to fear was never going to come.

Elliot drank too, emptying almost half of the bottle as he walked aimlessly between the kitchen counter and the coffee table like he couldn't settle down, like he needed his whole body moving in order to process whatever it was that had put him in this sudden funk, his mood a far cry from the playful Elliot I had found earlier in the evening.

That reminded of the empty bottle I'd seen then as we'd both drank from another; I added those to the cocktails at the restaurant and this new amount of golden liquid he was so hurriedly gulping down. Yep, he was drunk.

"What's up with you?" I finally asked, my previous nervousness subsiding as it got quickly replaced with worry. "Are you gonna tell me why you're drinking like that? Or do I need to take you to the bathroom to puke first? Already done that once tonight."

Elliot just shrugged, finally making his way towards his couch, his gaze still evading mine. "Same as always. I'm a lousy father, husband, man."

I sat next to him, feeling myself and my hopes disappear as I put an innocent hand on his forearm. "What happened?"

He sighed in a dry chuckle that bore no humor as he raised his head slightly to finally meet my stare, his brow furrowed. "Kathy won't let me talk to my kids until I sign the divorce papers."

My heart skipped a beat and replaced it with a double backflip. "You haven't signed them yet?"

Of course he hadn't signed them. I cursed my stupidity thinking that, just because he'd been served with the fucking papers, he would have signed them already. He would have signed them at all. What in the world had possessed me to think that he even wanted to?

"I conveniently forgot them at home," he smiled, taking another swig that left his bottle almost empty, his eyes full of sadness in contrast.

That's when I knew he was gone. We were in his room, alone, but he was worlds away, and everything I had been agonizing over until then was completely irrelevant.

I deeply felt the rejection in the fact that what I had deemed so blatantly obvious hadn't even gone through his mind. He had never suspected any illicit intentions on my part.

I tried to think back to those times when I'd had the feeling he was flirting with me, but the denial of everything was so all-encompassing that I couldn't even think of a single example, the voices in my head no longer debating: they were now chanting in cruel unison that I had imagined it all.

Elliot had a family to think about, and that was always going to be front and center, no matter how many road trips he planned with me. He was just being polite — and expecting me not to get it all wrong, expecting of me the partnership and friendship we'd had for almost seven years.

I shook my head as I swallowed more beer and my pride and my misguided expectations for the night, for the trip. For life. I heard my own friendly, partnerly voice coming out of my mouth. "She can't withhold contact with your kids, that's crazy."

"Yeah, well…" His bottle didn't survive another sip and ended up abandoned on the coffee table, the condensation that had once covered it quickly conjuring a pool around it.

"Elliot…" I said, but he continued to stare out into whatever imaginary point he'd found now. "You're not a lousy father and you know that."

"Yeah, whatever… For all I know, Kathy is telling them the exact opposite, and they'll believe it, 'cause she won't let me talk to them and they'll never get to hear my side."

"You're a great father." I paused. I fidgeted in my seat, and the next part just escaped my mouth without warning. "If I'd had a father like you…"

I bit my lip, but it was too late. He had already turned to me with that insufferable glint of pity in his eyes.

"Never mind," I said in a rush. "I was just saying—"

Elliot interrupted me with a hug, out of the blue, and no words, just a sorry silence that rang loud in my ears.

"I'm fine," I promised. Pleaded, really.

"I know," he said, still refusing to let me go. "You just deserved better, is all."

That was not the kind of interaction I wanted. It certainly wasn't the kind of interaction I had been sinfully thinking about in clandestine corners of my mind. I didn't want for him to hug me out of pity or make my s'mores for me because I'd never had someone teach me or plan trips for me because my mother had never taken me anywhere.

But still, he was holding me. It was too powerful.

I relaxed into his embrace, because it was too hard not to. This man I wanted so much, that I was slowly starting to admit I wanted so much, had me in his arms, and whatever the underlying cause had been, I didn't have it in myself to disentangle from them. At least not immediately.

"Thanks," I said eventually, pulling back a little until he took the hint and let his arms slid off of me. I stood up from the couch, keeping my eyes as far away from him as I could. "I just meant to say you're a great father and you should never doubt that."

I needed to get the hell out of there. I left my half-full bottle of beer on the coffee table next to his empty one and said I was getting sleepy. He didn't protest as I left and went to my room with a million unanswered questions.

It was so humiliatingly obvious now that it was all in my head. This was Elliot. What the hell was I thinking? He didn't see me that way. And even if he did, he was way too focused on salvaging his marriage, rebuilding his family: that was always going to be his priority.

I chastised myself. I normally had no problem flirting with anyone. On the contrary, I was good at it. I could make pretty much anyone leave a bar with me — and they didn't need to be drunk, and they certainly didn't get more drunk and complained about family problems to me.

But this was Elliot, and there was a reason I had never allowed myself to really wonder if there could be something more between us. I had never doubted myself this much. I had never doubted how attractive I was, how interesting. I was used to being able to make any men want me if I really wanted to, but this was Elliot. I couldn't make him do anything.

Him and me becoming something more during this vacation, this idea that had been permeating everything since we'd hopped together on that plane: my mind had conjured it just as much as it conjured the dream I was about to have as I lay down in my bed for the night.

I woke up the next day with a resolution: to forget this Elliot thing. I had let Casey, Allie, Silvia, and even Kelly convince me that there was something there, but the truth was that none of them truly knew the kind of relationship that we had and what it could ever turn into.

Or what it could never turn into.

I was just glad I hadn't said or done anything too compromising, like trying to kiss him or something — even as the sensation of his imaginary kiss in my dream ghosted my lips.

It was almost 11AM, and breakfast was almost over at the main building's restaurant. Coincidentally, there was a message for me at the front desk — Allie and the other girls were inviting me to go have brunch and then go skating. I figured it was the perfect opportunity to get some distance from Elliot.

I just sent him a text before heading to the restaurant where they'd told me to meet them, down at the village.

Feeling better?

He didn't reply, so I thought he must be still sleeping. When I met the girls, they told me the guys were going to invite him to hockey practice for the game the next day, so I figured it was a good thing he was going to have something to do on his own as well.

Kelly was supposed to come along with us but, predictably, she texted Allie saying she had the worst hangover and was going to stay in her room. She was going to join us for practice if she felt better, but she never showed up.

I was thankful for that, especially when, still during brunch, Allie and Silvia asked me about Elliot.

"You guys disappeared last night," Allie said, raising a meaningful eyebrow.

"It was nothing," I said, and that's why I was relieved Kelly wasn't there; I wouldn't have wanted to admit that nothing had even come close to happening in front of her. "He had a bit too much to drink too, he's facing some family problems… Basically, I listened to him whining about it until the beer made him too sleepy to continue."

They seemed disappointed, and I just shrugged. "I don't think anything's gonna happen there," I clarified, then proceeded to lie through my teeth. "And it's for the best. He's separated, and his family is a lot of drama. I don't think it's worth the trouble anyway."

Whether they bought it or not was a different story, but my goal was achieved: they dropped the matter altogether and never brought it up again for the rest of the day.

We went for ice skating practice in the indoor rink. The same way that there was a major gear store to rent skiing equipment by the mountain, here there was a huge place as well. Silvia gave the rest of us pointers on what to wear — especially me, the newbie. I mechanically followed her advice while my mind kept trying to go elsewhere.

I thought skating was going to be easier than skiing; it certainly sounded more intuitive, but I was wrong. The thing with skating was the ice: it was so slippery. I fell quite a few times, but the protections I was wearing kept me from getting hurt. Silvia was a very patient teacher, and by the end of the afternoon, she had me skating somewhat autonomously, my falls reduced to a minimum.

If I could remove the fog that had covered that entire day with the effort required to keep Elliot out of my head, I could probably tell you that I'd had fun. Skating had almost been enough to distract me from the incessant thoughts telling me how stupid I'd been for ever considering anything between him and me a possibility.

I was about to hit the shower in the rink's locker room when I saw that he had replied to my message a few hours earlier.

Yeah, much better. Gonna practice hockey now, enjoy skating.

Cold, I thought. Detached. I snapped the phone shut trying to ignore how much a few words on such a small screen could hurt with their inherent disregard.

I convinced the girls to get a coffee before going back to the main building — the truth is I still needed some distance from Elliot. I wasn't looking forward to seeing him again and facing all my frustrated hopes; I guess I still felt a bit humiliated, even though both the flirting and the subsequent rejection had all happened exclusively in my head.

At the cafe, Allie got a text from Matt: they wanted to meet us at a sandwich place at the village for dinner, and then go skating in the outdoors ice rink, since we had all been practicing. I didn't want to be the one person to say I didn't feel like socializing any longer, so I just gave Allie a cover-up smile while the butterflies woke up.

Seeing Elliot was a bit of a shock: I was struck by how good he looked. It was as if he had grown taller, his shoulders wider, as if his eyes had turned bluer, his jaw firmer. As much as I'd told myself I was dreading the moment we'd meet again, when I laid eyes on him it was clear: that day had been nothing but boring, endless waiting for him. It terrified me that just one day away had made me miss him that much; it was as if nothing else could hold my interest if it didn't involve him.

Kelly arrived with them. She had probably just come along in the shuttle after spending all day in her room recovering, but that voice in my head wondered if she had gone to the guys' practice instead of joining us for skating. I was half-convinced she had been pursuing Elliot the whole time we were apart.

She sat next to him during dinner, talking to him and touching his arm all the time, and I could barely hold any appetite to finish two thirds of my sandwich at the furthest corner of the table where I'd purposefully sat to stay away. I also avoided his stare, not sure if I was afraid I would or would not catch him looking at me.

When we were all gearing up to go skating again, he came to me. I was shocked by the physical reactions ignited by his presence — I had the clear impression that they were getting stronger every day.

Open the door.

"You avoiding me?" he asked point blank, some dissatisfaction clear in his expression.

"Me?" I spun to look at him. "Of course not."

"I thought we were supposed to stay together," he said questioningly, a crooked smile playing at his lips.

His warm lips.

"Well, we did separate things today," I explained, then joked. "It's not as if I could practice hockey with you, I can barely stand on my own in these skates."

"That's not what I'm talking about," he said as he tilted his head to the side, narrowing his eyes at me. "Was it something I said last night? Did I say or do something that upset you? I drank a bit too much."

"I'm not upset, El," I insisted, using his nickname for leverage and forcing a smile. "Everything is fine. Can we please just go skate?"

He stared at me for another moment, a weird tone to his voice, almost as if he was daring me. "Sure. Can we skate together?"

"You might need to catch my fall a few times," I smiled, steering clear of his eyes.

"Not a problem," he retorted, serious.

The rink looked beautiful, and I have to admit I had wanted to skate in it from the moment I'd first seen it from the window of the car that had brought us to the hotel. It was a very cold night, but as we kept moving, my body temp increased and made it bearable, while the beauty made it worthy.

If only nothing else was weighing heavy in my heart.

I was doing a lot better at the skating itself, which allowed me to control the distance between me and Elliot as we skated: I made sure there were always a few feet keeping us apart as he told me how hockey practice had been and asked questions about my afternoon.

He seemed more than ready to fall back into our old dynamic, but I was not.

Internally, I was panicking because I knew then that our old dynamic was now unbearable to me. No matter how much I was still trying to ignore it, the fact was that I had opened my eyes to my feelings for him, and now I couldn't unsee them. There was no putting the pin back in the grenade; this was all going to blow up inside of me, and there was nothing I could do to avoid the death and destruction.

"I hadn't played in a long time," Elliot was telling me, "but hockey doesn't require much more than just moving fast on these skates and shoving other guys around, at least not for the enforcer."

I knew next to nothing about hockey, but I laughed because I knew that the "enforcer" was a guy whose main duty was to keep the adversary from being violent against the team's players — by being violent with them.

"Just be careful not to get hurt," I warned, chuckling at the fact that I should have given myself such warning before accepting the invitation to this stupid vacation.

That's when I slipped, almost losing my footing, but Elliot put his arm around me quite roughly to keep me steady.

It did anything but.

The unexpectedness of his touch sent me reeling, and our sudden proximity sent waves of heat defying the cold and hitting me in my core. Even as I regained my balance completely, he didn't let me go. Maybe he knew he was about to make me lose it all over again.

"I missed you today," he whispered into my ear, and I swear the world started spinning as I asked myself if that had really happened or if I had started hearing things now.

Open the door. It was the same low voice, delivered in the same way.

My left arm reached desperately for his while his right one was still firmly wrapped around my torso, maybe a bit more firm than necessary, his fingertips boring holes into the dip of my waist and sending electrical waves in every direction. "Me too," I heard myself pathetically replying.

Elliot carefully removed his arm from around me, offering it for me to hold instead, which I took, still not confident enough in my own legs, absolutely hating his effect on me and my inability to tell whether it was intentional or not.

He was no help; he gave me no other clues that night. Still letting me lean on his arm for the rest of our run in the rink, Elliot made no mention of the way he had touched me or spoken to me while my head spun mercilessly. I wished we could go back to before that stupid trip. I wished I could stop wanting him. I wished he didn't give me any signs. I wished he gave me more signs, clearer signs.

But he just talked about hockey like nothing else was happening.

And, technically, nothing was.