Disclaimer: I don't own.
A/N: Short, but I wanted to give you an update before I headed off to class. Hope you enjoy!
Thanks for all the reviews! To answer some questions from my reviewers--I thought of it because I was thinking about those games and how mortified I would me if my MOH tries anything like that for my bachelorette party, when it comes around, and then (as most things) I related it to GSR, and it appeared. :) Also, there will be angst in this one, of course... but when do I not have them ride off into the sunset? (With the notable exception of Shades of Porphyria, in which I warned people they probably didn't want to read it...)
:) Thanks again! Let me know what you think!
She was different. I knew it the moment I saw her closer, her features clear and unobstructed by distance and the cloud of my own self-deprecating contemplations. Her curls were delicate, and long, brushing past her shoulders. Her eyes were bright, and were the only thing, from a distance, that hinted at the amount of alcohol she must have consumed. Her steps were steady… graceful. She was tall and thin, her curves subtle and supple and practically mouth-watering. Her lips curved gently when she laughed and spoke, revealing a gap-toothed smile that for some completely unfathomable reason had me tensed, already at half-mast.
But she was getting married.
Despite the provocative shirt and the games her friends were making her play and her obvious reaction to my advances… she was getting married. She had a veil over her curls that, despite being stuck with condoms, made her look positively glowing. She would be a beautiful bride, and he was the luckiest bastard in the world. …And she was an honest woman. She sensed the electricity between us… knew, without a doubt, just as I did, that something could happen between us. If she let her friends pour as many drinks down her throat as they intended and I kept up my flirtations… something would have happened.
She knew, and she tried to avoid it. She didn't relax until I pulled my arm from the back of her chair.
Which meant that, despite whatever drew me to her and her to me, she loved the man she was marrying in just over a week's time, and she would be a faithful wife.
Knowing this about her… and knowing what was between us… I could see no good coming of sleeping with her, tonight, or even kissing her… laying my lips to her breasts and letting her 'suck for a buck' game serve as a means to be closer than I had any right to be… because she would feel guilty, and she would go back to him, and they would start their marriage filled with doubt, when she had tried to avoid me in the first place.
It wasn't fair to her, so I took the lifesaver that was safest, not even allowing my lips to press against her body through the shirt, and roused Paul with no little amount of difficulty, retreating to a cab that would take him home and me to my hotel where I could get hardly any sleep and wake up with a pounding headache to go teach timeline regression. It was not a happy ending, and it was not the something that I had been certain was going to happen… but instead of wallowing in disappointment, I found myself lying awake in the hotel bed, wondering if it would have been possible for her to be next to me.
She had been doing everything in her power to avoid us getting swept up in one another… what would it have taken, to get her to forget about her husband-to-be and let me take her back here for the night? What would she have felt like… tasted like… sounded like, when she reached her peak and went over?
I did wake up with a headache, and popped three Tylenol before jumping in the shower, thinking that the best thing to do now was to put it behind me. I had lectures to give all day, and daydreaming about the girl from the night before who was not only engaged but far too young for me would not make it go any faster or any easier. I put her from my mind with effort, dressing in a white and blue pin-striped button down and a black pair of pants. I really just wanted to wear jeans and a t-shirt, but I figured the Forensic Academy might not appreciate that so much.
I ate peanut butter toast and an apple over a paper down in the tiny breakfast room, and drove my rental to the Berkeley Campus, where the Conference was being held, trying to shake the tightness from my chest and focus on the science I was about to be teaching… I used to get so excited to teach. …I used to be contented with the job and nothing else.
Things had changed, the night before, and it wasn't just a crisis or a reaction to the alcohol and the exposure to beautiful women. The woman from the night before… Sara… she was different. She exuded something that I couldn't name, but I wanted to bask in it forever. I didn't believe in love at first sight, and I didn't believe in soul mates… but I believed that Sara had been something else. …I believed that if I'd met her under different circumstances, we would have been together.
I set up my slides and my overhead, I went over the notes that I was unlikely to use, and I double-checked my specimen jars, and I sat down, not looking up when people starting coming into the room, staring blankly at the papers in front of me, pretending to be reading so that I did not have to meet the eyes of any of my colleagues who were now piling into seats. I wanted to go back to the night before and make different choices… entice her to spend some time with me… get to know her, and let whatever was between us grow.
Because it was already overwhelming, just as it was… given some time, it would be unavoidable. I had seen the way she looked at me—she felt it too. …Would she have broken off her engagement to see where things would go between us? …It was moot point. I would likely never see her again. …But if I could go back… if I could do it again… if I could have a second chance to see her and talk to her… I wouldn't make the same mistake again. I would pursue her. I would make the most of the limited number of moments in life that truly felt good and right, like last night.
"Sara…? What are you doing?" The voice drifted to me from the crowd, and I looked up in alarm, seeing her standing there, just as beautiful as the night before, staring at me in shock. Her jaw was dropped, her eyes wide… and two of the girls she'd been with the night before—not the friend I'd talked to, but two others—were in front of her several paces, looking back to see why she'd stopped… and looking forward, at me, to see what she was looking at.
They recognized me too, and I was swallowing hard, unable to tear my eyes from Sara's, caught in the sheer improbability of such a thing.
I had just been telling myself… If only I could have a second chance, I wouldn't make the same mistake again… It looked like I'd been given a second chance.