Part Six
Disclaimers in Prologue.
"Jimmy!" Yves gasped, opening her eyes to the brightness of early morning sun. It filled all the corners of the white, pebbled ceiling. She could smell the old, bitter scent of sterile bandages and antiseptic and realized she was in a hospital.
She heard a woman's voice say, "He's okay."
She recognized that voice and tried to turn her head to it, meeting resistance. She brought a hand up to feel the brace encircling her neck. She whispered, "Jessica?" hardly believing that she'd heard correctly.
Jess' face, green eyes turned hazel with concern, appeared over Yves. "How are you feeling, Yves?" she asked.
Yves didn't even register the question, her focus on only one thing. She asked, "Where's Jimmy?"
"I.C.U., but he'll be all right. His doctor says the bullet passed clean through, but it'll take some time for him to recover."
Yves tried to sit up and Jessica placed a hand on her shoulder, keeping her down. She said, "You might not want to do that. You were pretty severely concussed. We were afraid you might have a head fracture."
"He saved my life."
"I know. Agent Perkins told me."
Yves looked away from Jess' honest face and the concern still present there. She murmured, "I wouldn't blame you if you hated me now."
"I don't hate you," Jess said, her voice soft and Yves looked back to her, trying to see if Jess was lying. Jess continued, "I know you love him, and I know you never meant for this to happen. You were just trying to protect him, weren't you? I can't hate you for something Jimmy chose to do, but I can't lie to you, either. If he wasn't all right, I would."
Jess stopped there, closing her mouth tightly, as if she were afraid of what she might say next. Her lower lip trembled and she looked away from Yves, toward the window.
Yves said, "It's going to take some time to come to peace with you, isn't it?"
Jess nodded. She drew a deep breath and let it out. She said, "I should let you get your rest."
She started to walk toward the door, but Yves said, "Jess, wait."
Jess stopped, looking back at Yves.
Yves said, "I'm sorry."
Jess' eyelids flickered. She nodded, then said, "Try to sleep, you really do need your rest. I'll let you know of any more news."
"Jess?"
"What?"
"Could you stay? Talk to me?"
"What about?"
Yves answered, "Everything I never asked about?"
"Just sign here," said the nurse. Yves took the clipboard from him and signed her release papers.
The nurse said, "Thank you," took the clipboard from Yves, and left the room, brushing past Jessica.
Jessica looked back at the nurse and then to Yves. She said, "That was just--"
Yves nodded. "Seems they don't want me anymore."
"You weren't going to leave without finding me first, were you?"
"No, of course not."
"You better not have been. If I recall, you made me a promise not to leave until this was settled, no matter what."
"I don't break my promises, Jessica."
"Good. I came to tell you--Jimmy's awake. I was just talking to him. He wants to talk to you now. So, come on, I'll show you where he is."
Jessica started to walk on, but stopped when she realized Yves wasn't following her.
"Yves?"
"What if--"
"Now is not the time for doubts, Yves. Just come with me."
This time Yves followed her.
Jessica left her at the door to his room and Yves stood hesitantly at the entrance. Jimmy had his head turned, gazing out of the window and Yves had a moment to observe him. His skin was so pale, the ashen color of severe trauma.
He turned his head and saw her. He said, "Hey, Yves," and that was all, but it undid her. All the memories of the times she'd been the cause of harm to him, however indirectly, and this last, almost fatal incident, combined to cause tears to well in her eyes.
She said, her voice unsteady, "I am so sorry, Jimmy, so very sorry." She swallowed hard, trying to regain control, succeeding in some small measure. She blinked, determined not to allow the tears to overwhelm her.
She heard him say, "I'm not."
When she focused her eyes back on him, he said, "You might have been right, but I'm not sorry at all."
"You should be sorry, Jimmy."
"I could never be, when will you start believing that?"
She looked down, unable to meet his probing gaze. She didn't want to say, didn't want to admit that the past few days had taught her to believe, to accept that he really did mean everything he said to her. Yet, no matter how she tried to evade it, the one truth was that Jess was right--he would love her forever.
"I do, Jimmy, how can I not?" The admission came easier than she had expected, but she still couldn't look him in the eyes, those infinitely caring eyes. "You've proved it to me, over and over again, but I still don't understand." She looked up at him, her courage returning, wanting to see if he would answer this one question with all the candor she'd come to depend on. "How can you love me?"
And he answered it. "Because I just do, Yves. Because you need to be."
She felt a tear fall and wiped it away.
She said, fighting around the lump in her throat, "I don't know if I can take what you're offering me."
"What's to keep you from taking it?"
"Nothing. Nothing at all. I have no excuses left. You wanted this to be over and it's over and...I don't know what to do."
"Start over," he said, as if that was all it would take.
She laughed, a choked, agonized laugh. "That simply, Jimmy? Forgive and forget?"
"Why not? We have before, remember? Pax, Yves?"
"One word isn't going change everything, Jimmy. It takes time."
"I have time, do you?"
It was such a simple question on the surface, but Yves knew how much it really meant. She knew he'd been avoiding asking it, because it meant that she had the power to completely alter their lives.
She walked to the side of his bed, sitting down beside him, as close as she could. She reached out, taking his hand from its resting place at his side, and clasped her fingers through his, careful not to disturb the I.V. attached there. She said, "This is the second time you've saved my life, Jimmy, you realize that?"
"And I'd do it again."
The image of him, lying on the ground, his shirt soaked in blood, flashed through her mind. She said, "You almost died, Jimmy." Her voice cracked, unexpectedly, and she looked down, at their joined hands.
"You would have," he said, with an intensity that let her know, more than anything else, that he wouldn't have cared if he lived or died, as long as she was safe.
She said, with an eerie calm that widened his eyes, "If you had died, Jimmy, I wouldn't have been able to live with it."
"What are you saying, Yves?" he asked, agitation clear in his voice.
"I don't know what I would have done, Jimmy. Without you...I would have been left with nothing." She held his stricken gaze, saying slowly, "I've had too much time to think about it, wondering..." She closed her eyes, and heard him say, "You're scaring me, Yves."
She opened her eyes. "I'm sorry, Jimmy. I just want you to understand how much, how much you really mean to me. I didn't know, Jimmy, how much I cared for you until--" Her breath caught in her throat. Her mouth trembled a little, but she continued, "Until I saw your life seeping away. In that instant, I knew. I need you. More than anything. It's taken me too long to admit that. I've wasted so much time, Jimmy."
He separated his hand from hers and reached out, touching her cheek. She could see the pain that effort caused him in the way he clenched his jaw, but he fought past it.
He asked, "But that's all in the past, right?" and she could hear an edge of desperation in his voice.
She reached up to grasp his hand and brought it to her lips, giving it a soft kiss. She said, "Yes, Jimmy, it's all in the past."
End.
