London After Midnight
DISCLAIMER: Wow, "Out of Sight" was a really great episode. Quintessential Crossing Jordan. It was so good to see Lily again, she is so beautiful. I hope she gets with the detective who used to play Tobey on Dawson's Creek, lol. I have to say my favourite part, though, was when Nigel said the initials on the medal were "A.S." - because those are my initials sheepish grin. Woodymajor asshole. He REALLY annoyed me with not being accepting of agoraphobics. I have a few of them in my family. Anyway none of this has anything to do with LAM but I just needed to throw in my two cents.
MANY THANKS: Thank you Nikki, NewMoo, Brandi, and ShadowyFigure for your continued praise. Thank you c313 for your first review. Thanks so much gryffingirl for cheering me up, and for jumping ship of course! I couldn't ask for more. And thank you Aesear for your honest review - in truth, I enjoy writing the Nigel chapters more, which is so strange to me because this is my first time ever attempting Nigel while I have written as Jordan, on the other hand, for about a year and a half now. For some reason I just feel like I really connect with Nigel - I guess it's my complete and total sympathy for the character as he relates to the show (I've been known to have a weakness for the underdog). Also, I didn't do a lot of the other char's reactions to J&N because I didn't want it to be overkill or too corny, which I was afraid might happen if I posted everyone's reaction, and also, Jordan and Nigel didn't want their coming together to be a huge to-do... they wanted to keep it more private and discreet :) And yeah, Woody and Devan need to prance off into the sunset together... I couldn't care less if they're a perfect match or not, but it would get Woody the hell out of the way at least lol. Okay, enough rambling.Chapter Fifteen
"I Met You On A Monday Morning"
Nigel
Culture shock, they say, is a feeling of confusion felt by a person visiting a country or place they are not familiar with.
That first week back in England, I experienced it in abundance. Hand in hand, Jordan and I discovered all the wonderfully perplexing oddities and amenities involved in learning - or relearning, in my case - the customs of a foreign country, starting with the food.
I'd all but forgotten what a pleasure it is to have a stroll down the street to the corner chip shop and indulge in a greasy, triangular paper sack full of deep fried fish and chips - or french fries, as I'd grown accustomed to calling them in the States. Too accustomed, it seems - even Jordan caught on quicker than I did where small potatoes are concerned, going so far as to correct me when I mistakenly placed my order the American way our first time at an English restaurant:
"I'll have the cod with a side of fries, please."
"My boyfriend's been in America too long," Jordan explained to the clerk. "He'll have the cod and chips."
"First time I've ever heard a Yank correct a native," the cashier replied, and dumbstruck, went off to fill our order.
We're not supposed to use ketchup here, either, that's a big no-no. Very frowned upon. But for some reason I still couldn't seem to stop myself from reaching for the old Heinz bottle and drowning my fine English cuisine in it. Jordan did it the proper way, dousing her chips with a few splashes of malt vinegar, and seemed to find it quite pleasing. Actually Jordan's found most of the English palate quite pleasing, ordering welsh rarebit with pickled beets, shepherd's pie, Yorkshire pudding, Heinz baked beans on toast for breakfast, hell, even spotted dick for dessert, and all without the slightest bit of prejudice or doubt. The only thing I could not persuade her to try - probably the only thing I'd find even remotely tempting if I were an American - was half of my fried Mars bar at a football game one afternoon.
"Are you trying to kill me?!" she exclaimed, recoiling in horror from the sugar-dusted delight. Completely enamored, I laughed and reeled her in for a chocolate-flavoured kiss.
One thing that doesn't take much getting used to is the act of sitting down for high tea once every afternoon. In America, I had taken to drinking coffee to help me stay awake on the job, but in my heart of hearts I enjoy nothing more than a teacup full of English breakfast made cloudy with lots of milk and sugar. And now, living above a tea shop, it's an even more pleasurable experience. Every day at four-forty-five, Auntie Bea hangs her "Back in Fifteen Minutes" sign on the shop door and gathers up Jordan and I - Duncan, too, when he isn't at work - and we all get our pick of any of the flavoured teas she has in stock, plus a batch of her freshly baked biscuits. She'll switch the store radio from elevator music to the classic rock station (bless her tree-hugging hippie heart) and make sure we all get a good fifteen minutes peace. Jordan seems to love this particular ritual as much as I do, and I do believe I've succeeded in converting her into a tea drinker.
The simple truth is that Jordan seems to love England, period, taking to it like a fish to the ocean. She becomes instantly fascinated with all of the smallest things I've always taken for granted since childhood, red phone booths and double-decker buses and signs that spell color with an o-u-r. She listens to other people's conversations just to pinpoint all the different variations of the English accent and then repeats certain words to me and asks if she sounds convincing enough. She never does, dear girl, always slightly sounding more like she's from Louisiana than Liverpool, and that makes me love her even more. Everything makes me love her even more; day by day I watch the happiness spread across her features, and knowing that I helped put it there makes my heart swell with affection and yearning, swell near to bursting, ten times worse than it ever was during all the years I couldn't have her.
In the daytime we go out and in the evenings we stay in, sort of playing house in this little apartment that isn't really ours, trying on forever and seeing how it fits. And I love it, I do. I love living here in my homeland with Jordan and I think that if we could stay here for the rest of our lives, I would. Gladly, and without any reservations whatsoever. Surely we could find jobs here; people die everywhere, all over the world. There isn't much in Boston that I couldn't also have in England, though I don't suppose I could ever find another mate quite like Buggles. But he would visit us, surely...
I'm digressing, I know. I'm getting far too ahead of myself. Jordan would probably never go for moving here, her whole life is in Boston and nearly always has been. What I need to do is simply enjoy this brief vacation, because that's exactly what it is: A vacation, and nothing more.
A week has passed us by and so has Sunday morning; when I wake up it's nearly two in the afternoon and I curse myself for sleeping so late. Though I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised; Jordan and I spent most of last night in bed doing many other things before we even got around to thinking about sleep. I've rapidly discovered that when it comes to making love, Jordan's enthusiasm is completely unrivaled. What I was shown that first rainy night was only a fraction of her true nature, fear and shyness having restrained most of her passion - and it was quite plentiful, even so. But now that those awkward first strides of our relationship have been taken, my dear girl does not hesitate to wring me out like an old dish rag in bed, squeezing out every drop of energy until I'm limp and useless in her grasp.
It's memories of last night that I wake up to, perhaps fragments of cognitive dreams having magnified them. Jordan on top of me, a sharp bare knee tucked in at either side of my hips. One of my long union jack t-shirts hanging loosely around her tiny frame and swaying back and forth slightly every time she does, her milk-white thighs parted and me between them. Her palms flat on my chest, covering my nipples, and my hands on her waist, fascinated with her waist, the strength in my fingers there helping her to move more swiftly. How her eyes would drift closed and then she'd open them listlessly to look down into mine. I saw something in hers last night, something that's been hovering inside her gaze all week. A secret question for me. I wish I knew what it was, I wish that I could read her thoughts. Despite all her happiness, something is bothering Jordan. Something is bothering my dear girl and I don't know how to help her but there is nothing in the world I want more than to try.
This is what is riddling my mind as I turn over from my back to my side, searching for her warm, soft body with my arm, meaning to use it to encircle her waist and draw her against me to make spoons. I love making spoons with Jordan Cavanaugh; her subtle curves fit just right against my lanky body, my knees behind her knees and my chin atop her head, and once last Tuesday morning she asked me to make love to her that way, the blankets creating a pocket of delicious heat all around us that seemed to warm me up for the rest of the day.
But I don't find her body there today, which doesn't quite surprise me either, not yet. It is nearly two, after all, so it isn't inconceivable that I may have been the only one who overslept. I struggle to sit up, raking one hand through wild, oily morning hair to tame it, then briefly rubbing the sleep from my eyes. "Love?" I call out for her, my voice rusty and untried. I receive no answer, so I clear my throat and try again. "Jordan? Have you left me, then?" I'm joking, really, and I untangle myself from the bedsheets to stand, lumbering naked to the dresser for a pair of underwear. Somewhere in the back of my mind I remind myself I need a shower. I pull a t-shirt from the drawer anyway, and slip it over my head after stepping into the briefs. Jordan still hasn't answered; perhaps she's in the shower herself. Perhaps I'll join her.
Perhaps she's being sick, a voice whispers at me as I find my reflection in the tall mirror tacked to the back of the dresser. There is a long gray hair on the left side of my widow's peak which I did not notice yesterday but is absolutely unavoidable today. I reach up and twine it around my index finger, then pull it out with a grimace. She's been sick an awful lot lately; this wouldn't be the first time this week you've woken up and found her vomiting in the loo. Bloody hell, I'm getting old. Thirty-seven, I am. I'll be thirty-eight at the end of October. Soon, soon. Won't be able to yank out the gray hairs forever; I'd sooner go gray than go bald. I'll have to start dying my hair soon, I suppose. She could be ill. She could be very ill, more than she's letting on. Something could be wrong with her. She needs to see a doctor. It would have to be one of the women's brands, of course, they still don't make decent hair color for men. Perhaps she's already seen a doctor, and she just hasn't told you. She could have done it a hundred times that you wouldn't have known about in the two weeks before you left the States. A thousand times, perhaps. It would explain her wistfulness, and the clouds in her eyes, and how hard she's trying to be happy and pretend as though there isn't anything wrong, and those looks she gives you sometimes, those desperate, hurting looks that beg you to beg her to tell you what's wrong. No, I'd never use men's hair color; those horrible boxes with the cover art from the Eighties and the Brawny paper towel woodsmen type models with beards two inches thick... I'd rather use shoe polish. Thirty-seven, bloody hell, I'm getting old. Perhaps she's pregnant.
The thought creeps up behind me like a KGB assassin in a dark room, taking me into a choke-hold and wrapping a chloroform-soaked cloth around my mouth and nose. I tear my eyes from my reflection in the mirror and take a step backward, easing down to sit at the edge of the bed again.
Perhaps she is pregnant. It's quite possible; there have been more than a few occasions in the last three weeks during which we all but completely lost our heads, forgetting everything but each other in the wake of our fervor. We'd scold ourselves afterwards and murmur a halfhearted promise of Next time. Sometimes we made good on it and sometimes we didn't. We haven't been careful, I know that we haven't. I've been inexcusably foolish. If Jordan is pregnant, then it's my responsibility. I realize that better than anyone.
But how would I feel about it?
When I was seventeen, I had my first girlfriend. Her name was Eileen Sullivan. We'd met at a Stray Cats concert and hit it off right away; she was redheaded and Irish and half my size, and I remember one of my mates - Algernon, I think it was - joking that I could fit her in my shirt pocket if she needed a lift home. She was cool and apathetic and didn't talk much, and come to think of it she probably didn't listen much either, but she'd hold my hand in public and introduce me to all of her friends as My boyfriend Nigel. She had been the first girl who ever called me that and so no matter how often she would ignore me when I spoke, and no matter how rarely she would smile at my jokes, I fell madly in love with her. She took my virginity on our sixth date, just laid coolly underneath me with her legs parted and let me grunt and sigh and kiss her neck, never making a peep but just waiting for me to finish. We weren't protected, and it didn't take long. Afterward I whispered I love you, Eileen in her ear but she just pulled her knickers up and pushed her skirt down and wriggled out from under me. I followed her to the loo and helped her wash throw-up from her long titan hair, so enamored that I never realized there was anything wrong, that she hadn't had an orgasm, that she hadn't even tried to. That she didn't say she loved me, too.
The next day she broke it off with me. She never even ended it properly, simply stopped speaking to me and had her father tell me she wasn't home whenever I rung her on the phone. He was a brisk, curt man too much like my own father for my taste. Stop calling, he'd gruffly demand, and hang up. Within a week I learned she was going round with some other boy. Richard, his name was, I think. Or Rufus. I don't quite remember. I didn't know him well. I went through a brief period of shame and brooding, perhaps a month or so, before I started letting myself go out and have fun again. Then one night at some club I saw one of Eileen's girlfriends who happened to be on the outs with her at the time - and quite drunk, as well - and she let me in on a little secret: That Eileen had been pregnant, and that she had had an abortion.
I never really knew for sure if it was mine. I never called Eileen to ask her. I'm not even certain she would have known; she wasn't a virgin the night I ceased to be one, and she certainly wasn't celibate with Rufus or Randolph or whatever his name was. But I never could shake the feeling of doom that crept inside my gut, the unexplainable certainty that she had got rid of a child that belonged to me.
I didn't blame her, I guess. We were only seventeen, still children ourselves. But it hurt. It hurt me so deeply that sometimes I still feel a dull ache when I think about it, an emptiness, a yearning for something taken away before I even knew it was there to begin with. I never asked to be a father, but completely without my knowledge it had happened, and the loss I felt told me that the choice she made, I never would have approved. I never would have even considered it.
If Jordan is pregnant, I need to know. I need to go to her and tell her it's all right, that I still love her and I would do anything for her. That we can do it together. We can do it, no problem. I'm thirty-seven years old and I can't yank out the gray hairs forever. This could be it. This could be everything.
I stand from the bed and leave the room barefoot, stepping out onto the living room floor and wincing at its frigid temperature. Jordan isn't anywhere in sight, but the bathroom door is closed. I can hear the faucet running and, underneath it, the sound of her sickness. My stomach clenches in empathy and I'm quiet as I walk across the room to get to the loo.
"Love?" I call softly out to her, my hand on the doorknob but unwilling to turn it until I have an invitation. "Are you all right?"
She doesn't answer for a long time, gagging violently for a stretch and then gasping for air when she's finished. "Fine," she replies in a hoarse voice that sounds as if she's been throwing up for quite some time, or perhaps several times since she woke up.
"You sound bloody awful, love," I argue, keeping my tone soft so as not to irritate her. "Let me come in. Let me hold your hair back." She makes a sound that is difficult for me to interpret, but most resembles somewhat of an Mmm-hmm or an Uh-huh before succumbing to a fresh bout of nausea, and that's all the permission I need. I turn the knob and let the door swing open, greeted with the sight of Jordan on the freezing bathroom floor, barefoot like me, wearing only the same t-shirt from last night, her hair wet with sweat and splayed in all directions as she kneels half-slung over the toilet. She looks so small. So small, and so cold. I take a dry towel from the rack beside the shower stall and wrap it around her little shoulders as I lower myself to my knees behind her and gather up her hair in one fist. I bow my head against her back and slip my free arm around her waist, stroking her stomach with the back of my hand. My eyes slide closed, my brows furrowed in sympathy and futility as I listen, Jordan's gags gradually turning into sobs and I shush her. "It's okay. It's all right, love." I raise my head to press a kiss against the back of her neck.
We stay like that for five minutes maybe, perhaps more. Then she reaches up to press down the handle and lets herself crumple slowly into my arms, her back slumped against my chest, limp and heavy with sadness. I release her hair and wrap both arms around her instead, cradling her close, my cheek pressed to her temple, and for a terrifying moment I think that maybe she isn't pregnant after all. Maybe she's ill, like I originally thought.
"This is the fourth time this week you've been sick, love," I whisper, trying to keep my voice from showing any sign of trepidation.
"I know," she replies, whispering too, but rough and breaking. "I'm sorry."
"Stop saying that," I quietly scold her. "It isn't your fault. You can't help being ill, right?"
She doesn't say anything for what feels like minutes, her breathing calming down. I can't feel her pulse pounding in her gut anymore. "I'm not sick," she finally confesses, staring straight ahead, and I finally exhale all of the air I was holding in my lungs. I was truly frightened for a moment back there; I don't know what I'd have done if I found out something was seriously wrong with Jordan.
My arms tighten around her but not too much, afraid of constricting her like a big jungle snake. I wish she would look at me. I need to see her eyes, I need to know how she's feeling about all of this.
"Are you pregnant, Jordan?" I hear myself whisper it but I don't feel myself say it. It's like listening to a recording of myself; it doesn't sound like my voice, it's distorted and surreal and not what I'm used to at all. I speak again in the hopes of rectifying it. "I mean... do you think that you might be?"
I feel her whole body go rigid, and when she speaks, her voice is tense and stone cold. "I know I am." She pulls away from me with all her strength, tearing herself from my arms and standing rather disjointedly before staggering out of the bathroom. Her towel falls to the floor. My arms instantly ache with need and my knees realize how cold the floor has been all along. My heart is hurt and my pride is wounded. I want her to come back.
I stare at the grime in the tiled floor for a really long time. One room away, dresser drawers slide open and clothing rustles and I know right away what she's doing. She's packing her suitcase. A wire snaps inside of me and my heart goes plummeting down into my stomach like a sandbag. For a brief moment, I can't see, my vision suddenly blurred by tears. I blink them back and lurch to a stand. I can't feel my legs as I trudge slowly back to the bedroom.
Sure enough, Jordan's suitcase is opened on the bed and she's emptying the contents of her allotted dresser drawer into it, hurried and willy-nilly, completely unorganized in her haste. She's even got her jeans on underneath my t-shirt, as if she means to leave right this second. Panic rises in my throat.
"What are you doing, love?" I firmly demand, trying hard to keep the tears from my voice. My whole face feels tight. "You can't just leave. Not over this. There isn't any reason to. We haven't even talked about it yet, Jordan. You need to at least give me the benefit of a reasonable discussion. This isn't a decision you can make without me, I won't let you. I can't let you, love, please understand."
"You can't stop me." She sounds as if her throat is tearing itself in two, and it's only now that I realize how hard she is crying, teardrops making long trails down her cheeks and quivering thin lips, her breathing shallow and panting with hysterical sobs. She stops shuffling around long enough to raise her head and look straight at me, and the fear in her eyes is overwhelming. There's so much of it that I don't even know what to do with it all. "Don't you get it, Nige? I can't do this. I can't be a mother. I'd be no good. No good. Just as bad as my mother, maybe even worse."
"Jordan, it isn't true," I insist, my voice verging on desperation as I take a long stride forwards, reaching out to take her by the hand. She tries to pull away at first but I hold on, wrapping my fingers up with hers. "Oh, love. It isn't true." Five free fingers brush against the silky wetness of her cheek, making trails in her tears. "You'd be wonderful. Wonderful. Splendid, love. You're the bravest, most driven, most caring woman I know. You'd go to hell and back for the people you love. There isn't any way you wouldn't be a good mother. Listen to me, Jordan."
"I don't want to," she whispers stubbornly, her eyes so wide and frightened, pooling up into mine. "I'm scared. Okay? I can't. I can't, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Nigel. But I have to go home now."
She doesn't have to tear herself away from me like she had to on the bathroom floor. Her words are sharp arrows splicing through my heart and my limbs go limp with the shock and confusion and awe of being hurt so very badly, so intentionally. I don't hold her back. I watch her close her suitcase and put on her boots and jacket and leave the room. I listen as the front door creaks open and I flinch as it slams shut. I can hear her footsteps on the staircase, getting softer and softer until she reaches the bottom and then I can't hear her anymore at all because she's gone.
She's really gone. My Jordan, my love, my dear girl, and she's carrying our child but for how much longer, I don't know. All I know is that it's happening again. This is Eileen Sullivan all over again, only this time...
This time I know. This time I'm not some clueless seventeen-year-old kid who found out a month after there was anything he could do about it. This time I'm a thirty-seven-year-old man who knows for sure, who just found out, and who still has plenty of time to stop history from repeating itself.
I don't know how I get to the front door so fast but I do know that I forget to close it behind me. I take the stairs two at a time and nearly go toppling headfirst when I underestimate the height of the bottom step. Over the heads of a dozen Sunday patrons of Auntie Bea's tea shop - mostly old ladies having just returned from church - I can see Jordan Cavanaugh opening the glass door and my heart leaps up into my throat.
"I met you on a Monday morning!!" I bellow so loud that not just Jordan, but everyone in the shop turns around to gawk at me, standing here in nothing but my Sid Vicious t-shirt and my y-front underpants. My whole face fills with scorching heat but I keep talking all the same.
"It was a Monday morning. Drizzling a bit outside, but mostly just cloudy. I was sitting in the break room having a chocolate chip muffin and a cup of tea before I started my shift. I was early. So were you. You blew in like some sort of saucy American tornado, smoking a cigarette and asking who you had to fuck to get a decent cup of coffee around here. You were wearing ripped jeans and the same Doc Martens you wore three weeks ago with your purple dress, and a black Alanis Morrisette t-shirt. Jagged Little Pill. You sort of looked like her, too, I remember, because your hair was loose and curly and went all the way down to your lovely little bum. You blew me away, love. You made me feel like some kind of virgin schoolboy and all I could do was stare at you while you moved around the break room like a savage, smoking and grabbing and making conversation with no one in particular. Then you turned round and looked at me and smiled and said, Hey, I'm Jordan Cavanaugh, who the hell are you? And I said, Nigel Townsend, and stood up to shake your hand and you backed away and yelled, Holy shit, Garret didn't tell me I'd be working with giants! Then you asked if you could climb me and said you'd bet I was a two-day trip." I can't help but grin at the memory, wide and wistful. "It was ten years ago, but I remember it so clearly, love. You were twenty-five and I was twenty-seven. By the end of that first day all I wanted was to take you to bed, and by the end of the week all I wanted was to ask you to marry me."
I've completely captured the attention of the customers, it seems, all the gossipy old English ladies whispering to each other during every break in my speech. But the only pair of ears in the place that I'm concerned about is Jordan's, and my eyes never waver from hers, watching every flicker of emotion that passes through them from all the way across the room. Her thin little mouth is drawn and tense; tears still bead off her eyelashes and fall down her cheeks. I try to translate forever through our shared gaze alone; I try to translate infinite need.
"I've loved you for a very long time, Jordan Cavanaugh," I continue, my voice hushed but still loud enough to hear in the sudden dead silence of the shop. "And I would gladly love you for the rest of my life if you let me. I'd do anything for you, anything you asked. Except for this, love. Except for this. I can't let you do this."
"Nigel..." she cries. Her voice is so small. I want to go to her but I stay right where I am. She has to come to me, now. For once in our lives, Jordan has to come to me.
"Don't leave me," I plead, stretching both arms out to her, palms upturned. "Don't leave me, Jordan. You have to believe that you'll be a good mother. We'll be wonderful parents, you and I. The coolest, coolest parents. I want to try, love, please. Promise me you'll try with me. I love you so very much, Jordan. More than anything. More than myself. Come back to me. Let me show you how much."
It seems like hours pass in dreadful, horrible silence, during which the rest of my life hangs in the balance, at the mercy of meddling old tomatoes in front of whom it's all been put on display, every gory detail of it. I hold out my arms until my muscles ache, and just when I've begun wondering if time itself has simply stopped, a solid, echoing bang rattles the walls as Jordan drops her suitcase to the floor.
She's running to me, then, shoving patrons aside, blind to their age and any handicaps they may have, and my smile spreads so wide across my face that my cheeks spasm with the responsibility of it, and I'm laughing, laughing at the image of Jordan pushing old ladies out of the way and laughing with the pure joy of knowing that my life is never going to be the same. It's going to be fantastic.
Jordan collides with me so hard that she knocks all the air from my lungs and I gasp for it as I throw my arms around her, squeezing so tightly that I lift the heels of her boots off the floor, tightly enough to crush her before I realize my own strength and put her down. Her hands grasp either of my cheeks and pull my mouth to hers; she kisses me roughly, over and over again.
"Show me," she begs against my lips. "Show me. I love you, too, Nigel. I want to try."
She doesn't need to ask me twice. I let her use my shoulders as a boost and she wraps her legs around my waist, kissing me still, even as I turn around and carry her blindly up the stairs back to our flat, more adamant about showing Jordan Cavanaugh how much I love her than I have ever been about anything in my entire life.