Window, Part 5.
Author's Note: Set about a month after part 4. Much love to the most incredible forum ever to exist; thank you so much, Maple Street.
It was such a strange experience.
Dragging the eraser across the sleek whiteboard, eradicating with a simple swipe the life we had worked so hard to put together. It didn't seem right, investigating and searching and interrogating, all to end up, ultimately, with a board just as blank as the one we had started with.
Yet here I was on our empty, silent floor, removing the past forty-eight hours of Matthew Keeley's existence from the board, from sight, from memory.
Maybe not from memory. I don't think I could ever forget the expression of horror, the agony on Adrienne Keeley's pale face when Jack looked her in the eyes and told her softly, gently, that her husband had been killed.
I tossed the eraser lightly in the air and caught it, memorizing the shape and texture all the while fervently wishing it was my softball instead. It was times like these I needed to be reminded that life wasn't all pain and emptiness and blank white boards.
With a sigh, I set the eraser down and looked around me with a slight feeling of uncertainty. My report was finished and it was late; the obvious choice was to go home.
Except that amidst the chilling darkness of the unit, a light still burned in Jack's office.
The door opened silently, and I slipped cautiously into the illuminated room. At first, I didn't think he was aware of my presence. He was seated at his desk, eyes closed, his head resting in his hands. The air was heavy and smothering, and I wondered if this was a moment too private, too personal for me to witness.
"Sam."
His head rose and his eyes opened, and the torment on his face was so intense I had to grab the wall for support.
"Jack, what.." I had been about to ask what was wrong, except his head had fallen back into his hands, and the words forming on my lips no longer seemed adequate.
Before I could move, he stood and fixed his broken gaze on me.
"She loved him."
I didn't have to ask who Jack meant.
"God, Sam, she loved him so much."
Hollow and resigned, his voice didn't match the desperate pain on his face.
He tore his eyes from mine and glanced down at his left hand, and suddenly it was so clear.
"I wish I knew what that felt like."
The quiet hurt that crept into his soft tone was almost too much to bear.
Our eyes met again, forged a connection across the vast, weighted stillness, pierced through the suffocating tension, and abandoning all sense of reason and logic, I took a step forward.
Suddenly I was back against the wall, and he was inches from me, so close, and we were breathing the same air, and then I wasn't breathing at all, and he was ducking his head and brushing his lips across mine with a tenderness that resonated through every part of me, and I wasn't surprised.
Wasn't surprised when he pulled back slightly, and I saw the hazy fire burning in those dark eyes. Wasn't surprised when he took a step even closer, bringing his firm body flush with mine. Wasn't surprised to feel his hand tracing the contour of my jaw, leaving a trail of scorched skin in its wake. Wasn't surprised when he bent again, and his mouth returned as a lingering contact on my own.
Wasn't surprised that this moment I had dreamed about, envisioned, played in my head a thousand times over, was more powerful than anything I could have ever imagined.
He was warm and solid and soft and wrong and wonderful, and any coherent thought I had left disappeared when he slipped an arm behind my back, between my body and the wall, lifted a hand to my cheek and uttered a low moan against my lips.
We finally broke apart, gasping for air, and I let the wall support me as Jack's hand moved from my back to my hip. I covered it with my own, entangling our fingers together as our eyes met again, and I saw every shred of emotion and desire I'd carried with me for so long reflected in those black eyes.
"Jack.." I stopped. I didn't want to talk, not when he was standing here, completely open, offering me everything I tried to pretend I didn't want but knew I desperately needed. I didn't want to talk because I wasn't ready to hear a voice full of guilt and regret.
Instead, I tugged gently on his hand, and together we left his office behind.
It was warm in the elevator. It was warm but I was cold, because we stood on opposite sides and the temperature in the confined space just wasn't enough; my body craved the heat emanating from his still form.
The distance, I couldn't stand the distance between us, and so I closed it, moving across the elevator with a shyness I didn't know I still possessed.
For the second time that night, we were so close. The elevator was slow and so was the kiss; a gentle exploration that sent every nerve in my body flying into overdrive. I memorized the rough texture of his hair and the soft angles of his face, and he pulled me more firmly to him, and when the doors slid open he didn't let go of me. His fingers, so reassuring, stayed closed warmly around my own as we stepped out, and I realized then that I never wanted him to let go.
The ride to my apartment was silent. It was as if words would destroy this delicate, fragile world we had created, and so we didn't speak at all. His hand ran a light, idle pattern up my leg, and even through my skirt his touch was scalding.
I was breathless by the time we reached our destination and abandoned the cab for my darkened street.
The key was in my hand and the door was right there, and I knew it would take only a simple turn of the wrist for us to step across the edge, to move through and beyond and above what was right, and moral, and accepted, to leave behind everything safe in favor of something dangerous and completely unknown.
Was I ready?
Was he?
One look. I raised my head and met his gaze, instantly falling victim to the intense desire in those dark eyes, mitigated slightly by a look of such touching concern that I couldn't help the small smile from spreading across my lips.
One touch. Standing there just outside my door, I closed my eyes in reflex as his hand traveled softly down the side of my cheek, stopping just under my jaw. My heart thudded on an irregular beat, and I knew.
One look, one touch, and, ready or not, I would follow him across the edge.
[end]