Lead Me Upstairs, by Sid
Category: CJ/Sam, post-ep Manchester II, angst a-plenty
Rating: R for language and a little continuation of the sumthin'-sumthin'
Summary: I told her people had been talking about how dark she was inside.
Disclaimer: They weren't mine before and I'm pretty sure they're not mine now. I am, however, willing to negotiate.
Thanks: To the muy bonita mamacita Jessiquita.
Note: Fourth installment in the newly-christened 'Shades of Gray' series (David Gray rocks and rules). Stories are: 1) Flesh, 2) Red Moon, 3) Wisdom.
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I have my fantasies like everyone else, and they're probably about as adventurous as the next guy's: sudden passion with a stranger on an elevator; Isabella Rossellini on a sandy beach; my high school crush tracking me down all these years later and confessing she's carried a torch for me since we were kids. You know, pretty standard stuff. Nothing your average guy couldn't relate to; just your general sexy, well-lit, run-of-the-mill romantic settings. Nothing fancy.
And yet suddenly, making love to CJ Cregg on the hay-covered floor of a chilly, musty, darkened New England barn has left all other fantasies choking on its dust.
I want her. I need her.
She feels so good.
Her cold hands are on my bare chest, separating my shirt from my body. We're kissing and she's making these soft noises that do crazy things to my senses. I don't think we're saying much, just murmuring each other's name and things like, 'Hurry' and 'Please'. She's smiling now, I can feel her lips curl against mine, and I'm inexplicably happy that I've done my part to bring that incredible smile back to her gorgeous face, to take away some of that pain and sadness she's carried with her for so many weeks now.
I lay her back against a pile of hay, my palms resting on either side of her.
"Sam," she murmurs, her eyes closed, her head thrown back as I lean over her.
"Claudia," I whisper, because 'CJ' just doesn't sound right. 'CJ' isn't the right name for this incredible woman who's currently driving me crazy. I raise my mouth from its place at her throat. She opens her eyes then and gazes down at me. Her irises are a curious, smoky blend of green and blue. She smiles at me and traces a finger along my cheekbone.
"What?" she asks, kissing my jaw. "Sam, what is it?"
I want to tell her that this is different than last night, that I don't want this to be a mindless nothing, that I want to be here for her in every sense of the word. I want to ask her if she's half as attracted to me as I am to her. A million words are rushing to my mouth, but with another look in her hazy eyes I realize now is hardly the time. I'm still too confused myself; I have no right hoping for answers from her.
"Nothing," I say, smiling softly as I dive for her mouth again.
We kiss a while longer, her hands warming underneath my shirt as they rest on my bare back. She feels good pressed up against me like this, warm and soft and pliant, more curves than sharpness. A guy could get used to this.
"Do you have to do this *now*?"
The voice pierces through our reverie sharply, accusingly, and CJ and I freeze, her mouth at my neck, my arms still around her. I can feel her heart pounding against me. We're concentrating so hard on quieting our raspy breathing that it takes us a moment to realize that we're hidden behind a stall, away from view, and that the now- familiar voice was not addressing us.
"Um, yes, yes I do."
It's Toby and Josh. They both sound vaguely irritated.
"CJ's a big girl, Josh, she can find her way home on her own."
"Oh that's chivalrous of you. CJ!" Josh aims his voice at the center of the barn. "CJ, you hiding in here?"
"Come out, come out, wherever you are," Toby intones dryly.
Josh tries again. "CJ!"
"Josh, let's *go*." Toby tacks his signature world-weary sigh at the end of his words.
"I know I saw her come in here," Josh mutters distractedly. His voice rises and falls, as if he's moving around the barn. "I swear to God, Claudia Jean, if this is some deranged form of punishment, I'll wring your sweet little neck the next time I see you."
My heart rate accelerates alarmingly. CJ and I haven't moved once for fear of giving ourselves away. We're pressed closely together, holding each other tightly, but for the moment it's not romantic, it's merely uncomfortable.
"Call her cell," Toby suggests.
"Okay, that's actually a good idea."
"Shit," CJ whispers to me a second later. "Where's my jacket?"
"What?"
"My jacket!" she hisses in my ear as Toby and Josh argue in the background. "My cell's in it. They'll hear the ringing!"
"Oh. *Oh*." Realization hits me and we both begin to scramble around the hay, searching for CJ's jacket, cursing ourselves silently for flinging it so far away.
I've never thought of hay as particularly noisy, but just now, as we both search slowly along the floor, every rustle sounds like an air raid siren. Plus, you know, I do *not* recommend crawling along a hay- filled barn with your shirt off. Definitely not comfortable.
CJ finally finds her jacket, yanking the still-silent cell phone out of the depths of her pocket. In the dusky light of the barn's lamp she quickly turns off the ringer and we both breathe a sigh of relief, collapsing back onto a haystack.
By which time we notice that Josh and Toby are already gone.
We're suddenly struck by a fit of giggles similar to those you would normally find at a grade school slumber party. We try to stifle the noise in case someone comes back, but after a second all that nervous energy gets the better of us and we're practically rolling on the floor--in a vastly different manner than we were a few minutes before, needless to say.
We've gone from late-night Cinemax to an after-school special in five minutes flat.
Her laughter subsiding, CJ wipes her eyes and says, "That was..."
"Close," I say.
"Frighteningly so."
"No kidding."
"I should call Josh."
"Yeah. You know how he worries."
"Yeah." CJ nods, then sighs a moment later. "Toby, on the other hand, didn't seem terribly concerned."
"To hell with Toby," I offer recklessly.
"Easy for you to say." She sounds weary, as if she hadn't been laughing like a teenager just seconds ago. "Oh God..." Suddenly she leans forward, bending her body in half, thrusting her face into her hands.
"CJ?" I don't think I've ever seen her quite like this. She's not crying, but her posture is so defeated, as if she's given up all hope. I can't stand to see her this way. CJ is so strong--so damned strong. She has all the weaknesses of one who lives with an idealist's heart in a realist's world, but she still intimidates me with her strength. To see her like this--the indomitable CJ Cregg--is proof that things are different now, and if they're ever going to get back to normal, I have to start acting differently as well.
I draw her into my arms, pulling her up close against me. She's still not crying, but despair radiates off her like a heat wave. I say, "Toby's just--he's just being Toby."
She laughs again, mirthlessly this time. "This isn't about Toby, Sam, you know that."
For a moment I let her words sink in. I have to speak carefully now. "You're losing faith in yourself, CJ," I tell her, tangling my fingers in her soft hair. I gaze out at the interiors of the barn, the long-neglected bridles, the faded walls, the gentle light of the lamp. "It's okay to lose faith in other things sometimes. Sometimes that happens. Sometimes people, or--or things...sometimes they don't deserve our trust. But you can't--you can't lose faith in yourself. That would be the ultimate crime, CJ. You'll be okay. You'll be..amazing."
"Sam," she sighs, sounding frustrated, pulling back from me, taking her warmth away.
I wait expectantly. "Yes?" I say finally.
Her eyes move swiftly away from my face. "You should button your shirt back up."
"Oh..." My voice trails off, my face flushing hot with embarrassment. "Right." I reach for the buttons, bringing the separate folds of my shirt together as I begin to fasten it. I'm halfway through the ordeal when suddenly her hand blocks my path, slipping past the collar to rest on my shoulder. She's cold again and I shiver at her touch, but I don't want her to take her hand away.
We sit that way for a little while, her hand on my skin, my fingers still clutching my shirt. Her head is turned down as she looks at me. "Sam," she says, in a voice that hints at questions to come, "last night--in the hotel room...Why me?" Her thumb slowly massages my shoulder.
"Excuse me?" I wasn't expecting this question.
"You could have invited anyone up there."
"I invited you."
Her eyes flash at me in irritation and she removes her hand, slipping it out from under my shirt. "Yeah, but why did you?" she asks insistently. "Why not Donna, or Cathy, or Connie, or the *maid*?"
"I don't think I see the relevance here," I say.
"There are a lot of women you could have asked up to your room for a night of meaningless screwing, Sam. Why the hell did you choose me?" All of a sudden she sounds hostile, her voice a challenge.
My temper flares then too. "That's not why I 'chose' you, as you so delicately put it," I shoot back. "I had no intention of asking you to sleep with me, CJ. I asked you up to talk to me and drink with me. Things just--happened, that's all."
"Yeah," she sniffs. "They happened all right."
"Look...I'm sorry about this morning, about, you know, embarrassing you like that. I didn't mean to push. I shouldn't have."
"Damn skippy!" she exclaims. "You stipulated no strings attached, Sam, and I agreed. You had no *right* to turn around the next day and ask for more!"
Her anger alarms me. I reach for her hand but she pushes me away. "CJ, where is all this coming from?"
"Why did you come to me that night at *all*, Sam? Why did you ask me up for drinks and talking? A month ago you and I could barely keep our claws sheathed around each other, and suddenly you decide we're drinking buddies?"
"Oh, like you don't know," I say, sounding for all the world like my mother arguing with my father. Jesus.
"You were worried about me," she says flatly.
"Yes."
"You thought I was some goddamn damsel in distress."
"No," I say, but she doesn't seem to hear me.
"You thought you'd charge in on your fucking white horse and do the selfless thing by worrying about *me* for a change."
I wince at the implication, the words she's not saying rather than the words she is. "That's not fair, CJ."
"Oh, fair, fair, *fair*," she replies fiercely, her voice low. "Who cares about fair? Fair would have been a comforting word from you, or Josh, or Toby--a comforting word, Sam, after the way I--"
"You wouldn't let us *near* you," I remind her, stunned that she seems to be rewriting history.
"Okay fine, that first *hour* I wouldn't let you near me. But after that, Sam...all those hours after that, when you were all strategizing and planning how best to fix Claudia Jean's *screw*-up, and I was sitting in my office feeling sick to my stomach...What about then, Sam?"
I don't answer. Anything I say right now would be wrong anyway, so why bother?
And just as quickly the anger seems to dissipate, and CJ sits there on the pile of hay, looking deflated once more. "I know what you all think of me," she says quietly.
"No," I say, "you don't. You don't have a clue."
"Leo made himself abundantly clear."
"Leo acted like an ass, CJ. We're all allowed to do that sometimes. I'm not saying he was right and I'm not saying I wouldn't be pissed if I were in your shoes...But he's human. He's thoughtless sometimes."
I see her shake her head in the dusky light, looking away from me, hands folded together, shirt still partly undone. She's so beautiful it makes me hurt. "The things he said to me, Sam..." Her voice fades away.
I swallow a wave of desire and focus on the task at hand. "Look...CJ, you know we're not one big, happy family. We're not now and we never have been. But we handle things. We get through them."
"We beat each other up, Sam."
"And then we buy each other a beer and come back for more."
CJ exhales in a light chuckle, rewarding me for my words by brushing her hand lingeringly on my thigh. "You're a regular Mary Sunshine, aren't you?"
At least she's not calling me 'Spanky'. I can live with that. "I have my moments," I agree.
"But it's gonna take more than a little sunshine to change what's inside of me right now, Sam." Her head lifts and our eyes meet in the lamplight. I see the truth of her statement reflected in her gaze, but there is also caution there, a guarded look. She's testing me, slowly but surely revealing tiny bits of herself, trusting me. I hope to God I'm measuring up.
"Well, we just take these things one day at a time," I assure her, catching her hand in mine and lacing our fingers together. I like the way our hands look like this. I study her short, carefully-sculpted fingernails, marveling at the way the tiniest details captivate me. Just a little over twenty-four hours ago this woman was my friend and nothing more; I would never have contemplated doing anything to mar the delicate lines of our friendship the way I'm contemplating now. What a difference a day can make.
"Sam." Her voice is low and throaty, and when I look back up at her, the sadness is gone and she's fixing me with an impossibly smoldering gaze. Suddenly she's some sultry forties screen siren, all smoky eyes and curving lips. She's Marlene Dieterich and Lana Turner and Katharine Hepburn all rolled into one. She's amazing.
"Yeah?" I think my voice just squeaked there.
"You know, today, when you were wearing that white tshirt?"
"Yeah?" I raise an eyebrow, puzzled.
"With the blue shirt kind of unbuttoned here?" She indicates a spot near her chest.
"Yeah?"
"I liked it," she says simply, but her eyes are dancing.
"You liked it?" I repeat like an idiot. Then I catch her look and comprehension dawns. A satisfactory feeling washes through me as I grin. "Ohhh...you *liked* it." Oh yeah. I am *so* feeling like The Man right now.
CJ Cregg has turned into a veritable sex siren before my very eyes. She's practically draped across the haystack, seductive and tempting, yet also a bit flirtatious. I think I'm drooling. "I liked it," she repeats. "It was sexy."
This is very difficult to adjust to. My equilibrium is all off. One minute we're drinking, the next we're making love, the next we're arguing in a coffee shop...She told me there wouldn't be any 'us', yet here we are now. I was convinced she wasn't attracted to me, yet here we are now.
I like where we are now.
My breathing shallows as CJ's hand glides up my thigh. "Don't...don't do that..."
"Don't?" She's puzzled now. Her hand stills.
"Not here," I clarify.
CJ agrees, nodding. "Okay, not here."
"My room."
She pauses a moment before drawing in a deep breath. "Lead the way," she says.
These days her moods encompass all four seasons, often in quick succession. She can be as frosty as winter one moment, shutting me out and looking at me with the kind of cool impassivity that burns, and then before I know it she's as warm as a summer's day in Northern California, and she melts against me, around me, right through me.
I'm sitting on a dilapidated old bench outside of the hotel, and I'm thinking it's been two days since that night in the barn--that night that led us to my room again, that night that caused me to draw ever closer to the brink of something big and scary and exciting. We talk sometimes, we argue sometimes, and we make love again and again. During the day we pretend to be the same old CJ and Sam, but it's hard for me. I feel like it's written on my face every time I look at her, like this hunger in my body is as obvious as the color of my hair.
Every time she touches me I lose little pieces of myself. Sometimes when I'm alone I feel whole again, the way I did before this all started, but then she comes into the room, or I walk by her in the hall, or I hear her voice, and I'm gone.
I keep asking myself how the hell this all happened.
The worst part is that though CJ is in turmoil, it's nothing to do with me. And that hurts. I watch her face as we make love, and I see pleasure and sometimes even passion, but it dies away when it's all over. She lays in my arms stiffly, eyes closed as if she's waiting for it all to be over. She always leaves after I've fallen asleep. She enjoys me--hell, she probably even still likes me--but her heart is not in any of this.
I'm not sure mine is either, to tell you the truth. At least, not yet. But I know that as I draw closer to that big, scary, exciting precipice, my heart will most surely become involved. I'm not looking forward to that. It's bad enough right now, wanting CJ to be with me with more than just her body; I can't imagine how much it will hurt when I fall in love with her.
Wait. If. I meant 'if'.
"Hi there." She's here suddenly, sliding sideways onto the bench next to me. She slips one long leg underneath her and turns to me, her breast pressing into my side. "Am I interrupting some deep, soul- searching thoughts?"
"Nah," I reply easily, tracing the lines of her hand with my forefinger. "Just relaxing."
"Mmm," she murmurs, yawning. She scoots closer and rests her head on my shoulder.
"You know, we leave tomorrow, CJ."
"I know."
"Bright and early."
"Yeah."
"Back to DC."
She raises her head then and I can feel her eyes on me even though I'm not looking at her. "Spill it, Sam."
And then I ask her the question I've wanted to ask her for three days now, the question I've been afraid of. I still don't really want to ask her, but I have to. I know that once we get back to DC everything will change again, only this time maybe I can prepare myself.
"What--what happens?" I begin tentatively. "To us, I mean. I mean, I know there isn't an 'us', but...what happens to us? In DC, I mean, because...you know, we're going back." Oh yeah, I am so suave.
She has moved as far away from me as she can get without falling off the bench. "I don't know," she replies, not looking at me. "I hadn't really thought about it."
Well, that hurts. I'm over here wondering and worrying what's to become of us, drowning in my own angst, and she hasn't even really thought about it?
I'll try again. "Because I'd like to know. CJ, you've got to let me know."
"Should I stay or should I go-o-o-o?" she sings tunelessly in response.
"Yeah, bringing the Clash lyrics really answers my question," I retort, wishing she wasn't so close and didn't smell so damn good. Wanting to take her right here, right now, on the main street of Anytown, USA isn't helping my frame of mind.
"I don't know what happens when we get back to DC, Sam," she flashes, finally turning to face me. "Why does anything have to *happen*?"
"What are you suggesting? Are you suggesting that we just go on like this?"
She shrugs as if it doesn't matter to her one way or the other. And maybe it doesn't. "Or not," she says. "We can stop right now."
I suck my breath in sharply. "Oh. Okay."
"The sex is good, Sam, maybe even great, but is it worth disrupting our lives over?"
Yeah, because it hasn't already. I snort indelicately but keep that thought to myself.
"Let us not forget that *you* were the one who initiated this--this *thing*," she emphasizes the word by waving her hand in the air, "the first time *and* the second, and the third, fourth, and fifth if I recall correctly."
"Yeah, yeah," I cut in, bitterness lacing my words. "I'm a horny bastard, is that what you're trying to say?"
CJ softens again and moves her body back up against mine. Then she does this thing that I love, where she takes one hand and lays her palm flat against my stomach; it feels tender and yet possessive at the same time. "Sam," her voice is low, "what I'm trying to say is that you're the one risking yourself here."
"And you're not? You're giving me your body, CJ, maybe even a little bit of your--"
"Don't say it, Sam," she warns me. "Just don't. Because you're wrong. I don't care about my body, I don't care about my heart, I don't care about anything except the pleasure I feel when I'm with you. It's good. I need it. But when it's over, Sam..." She sighs deeply, looks up at the stars for a moment and then returns to the conversation. "When it's over, and I'm laying there with you, all I'm thinking is that I'm hurting you. I'm ruining you. I'm ruining you the way I ruin everything."
"You're not--"
"You're so beautiful, Sam," she says softly, as if she hasn't heard me. "You're so damn beautiful. I look at you, and I just...And I'm ruining you."
"CJ, don't talk like that."
"This can't be what you think it can be, Sam. It just can't. I know you're not in love with me, but you're also not the kind of man who can go on settling for less. You shouldn't have to. You deserve better than me using you this way. You deserve something real, and if that's what you want, then we have to end this right now."
I can't speak or breathe for a few minutes. Until she actually spoke the words I hadn't allowed myself to consider the fact that she might be using me. The announcement has hit me like a physical blow and it takes a moment to recover. "Fine," I say, clearing my throat.
She pauses. "Fine?" she repeats in a strangled voice.
But it's my turn to ignore her. "If I can help you through whatever's going on inside of you, CJ, I will. If I'm any help at all, even if I just help you forget--"
She interrupts me, emitting a loud groan. I watch as she shakes her head at the ground. "No, no, *no*, Sam, you're just not getting it."
"I *am* getting it. I'm getting it, CJ! When you're with me, you can forget the darkness."
"No, Sam, I *am* the darkness!"
Under less strenuous circumstances that declaration would make us laugh and do Darth Vader impressions right now. Instead her words ring out into the night and we both sit back, stunned at the forcefulness, at the truth.
And I think, I want her so badly it hurts. If she's in the darkness, I want to be her light.
I've never been in any relationship where the dynamics have changed as swiftly, as stunningly, as they have with CJ and me in a matter of days. I'm trying to adjust, but just when I think I have, she throws something new at me.
I'm not in love with her, but I want to be with her. And I know that if I want to be with her, if I want to be able to touch her and taste her and get through to the pain that still hasn't gone away, then I have to take whatever she's willing to offer. Because she's wrong: I *am* willing to settle for less--if I know that eventually I can have it all.
"Sam, be honest with me. Do you want more than I think you do? I need you to tell me the truth."
I look at her, overwhelmed by her. I can't form a response right away, but then I do. "No," I say. "I don't want more." The words sound hollow, but I force them out anyway.
It's an act of self-preservation. It's a lie--the first time I've ever lied to CJ--because right now I can't comprehend what telling the truth would bring. She would take herself away from me, and I don't know what that would do to me.
So I lie, and CJ relaxes and smiles at me. We get to our feet and we walk into the hotel, not touching, until we get to the staircase. She takes my hand and leads me to her room, where we will talk and make love and pretend we never had this conversation.
Her room, where I will fight back the worry and the wondering and the darkness that spreads in her body and in her heart.
-FIN-
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I care little for my body, she said
I couldn't care less about my soul
And as she led me upstairs in whispers
my whole summer turned cold
I'll lead you upstairs
I'll lead you upstairs
If you've got no worris
then I've got no cares
I'll lead you upstairs
I told her people had been talking
about how dark she was inside
She said, My hopes are buried in the soil
deep in the earth outside
And with one twist of the world
she brought me to her side
She asked me for the truth one time
and all I did was lie
I'll lead you upstairs
I'll lead you upstairs
If you've got no worries
then I've got no cares
I'll lead you upstairs
--Lead Me Upstairs, David Gray--