Author: duck
Rating: PG
Summary: She feels like she's lost a limb; she keeps having a ghost sensation for what isn't there.
Author's Note: I haven't written in a very long time and I don't know if I will again. Thanks to the gorgeous and talented Eroded for a beta-ing at five in the morning.
Disclaimer: The beautiful people contained herein are not within my possession.
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She misses him with a sharp ache she wasn't expecting. There's a certain edge to it, like a paper-thin slice across her heart. It flushes her skin with the longing of a person insulated to loneliness, yet awakened to feelings half-lost in the haze of willing forgetfulness. The feeling of missing him is both a precise and dull pain, an all-over feeling of being ill-at-ease. She feels like she's lost a limb; she keeps having a ghost sensation for what isn't there.
She never rolls over in the middle of the night and expects to see him there, breathing so heavily through his nose he almost snores. She never fixes more breakfast than she can eat by herself. She never starts to read a bit of the newspaper or the latest book out loud. She never starts to write a note when she goes out in the evening, when the apartment is empty and alone. That's not the relationship they had.
She does throw her pen down on her desk sometimes, or shove her keyboard away in a frustrated and useless gesture. She does still plan excuses for mid-day excursions, even if she doesn't use them for anything good. She does still work out all the best places and times to relieve tensions. She does still think of it in those terms, no matter how euphemistic and childish they strike her as being now.
What it comes down to is that she misses him. She misses him and not just the sex. He'd talk to her afterwards. About whatever she wanted, whatever she needed. And he genuinely listened. It was nice to have someone actually listen for once, instead of just listening for holes and places to tear you apart. She hadn't realized how much she was going to miss that when she'd said good-bye; hadn't realized it would be like she was missing an actual part of her.
But she's going back. She is torn over it. Half of her wants to demand to sink further into Witness Protection, half of her wants to demand an earlier flight back to New York. They aren't telling her anything she really wants to know. All they'll give her are these briefings about what she has to face by doing this. No questions answered about the people she cares about.
Are any of them dead? Is he dead? Dangerous job…God, no. She can't think like that, can't entertain the possibility. Maybe he's divorced, maybe he turned to Olivia when she left, maybe he turned to anyone that was there. Maybe he didn't need to turn to anyone at all because they didn't really have anything that meant something.
Why does she feel so conflicted about this? She's always been so smooth and assured of herself, but this last year has destroyed her confidence. She's afraid she'll never feel whole again. She hates Velez for chasing her. She hates herself for running, hates the necessity of it. And somewhere deep down she thinks she hates them both for being able to say good-bye so easily.
Damn you, Elliot Stabler. Alex Cabot is coming back to town.
-end-