Title: February
Author: Katerina
Rating: PG
Pairing: J/S, of course… with mentions of M/S
Disclaimer: Nope. Promise.
Author's Notes: This chapter is for all the people who reviewed the last one. By rights, you probably all should have abandoned me because I took so long to update; this is a thank you for sticking by me.
Also, thanks to Mariel. Your support and help is invaluable!
Chapter Eight
She looks just the same.
He stands on the beach that seems to be a thousand miles from anywhere, oblivious of the sand filling his shoes, the wind beating at his tie, and the fact that he is wearing several layers too many for the hot February weather.
Her hair is spilling across her face in long golden curls, and he wants to feel his fingers slide through them again. Then, he wants to trace a hand over her face, slightly tanned with a sprinkle of freckles he has never seen before. He wants to feel her skin, the soft brush of her eyelashes on the sensitive pads of his fingers. He wants to learn her features all over again.
His hands long to trace the outline of her body, the fuller curves he is glad to see after his last impression of her was worrying thinness. He wants to tickle her sand-covered toes to hear the giggle he has imagined for too long.
He wants to kiss her.
She looks just the same.
XXXXX
She barely recognizes him.
Her eyes are beginning to clear, and now she sees him in the harsh Australian sun that hides nothing. There are too many silver threads in his dark hair, too many fine lines on his face. Shadows are etched under his eyes, and stubble darkens his chin.
She hopes it's not her fault, but at the same time she feels a spark of pleasure, knowing he was worried.
But he looks worried almost to death.
She is not sure, but she thinks his hands might be shaking. There is a slight puffiness around his face, an odd filling-out that she recognizes and does not like.
His eyes are bloodshot.
She wonders if his breath smells of whiskey.
He is watching her, just as carefully as she watches him. There is something desperate about him, something she never saw in all the years she knew him, and something she does not want to see now.
That is what makes her offer him her hand.
"This way," she says.
His palm is hot against hers as they make their way back up the beach, towards the house tucked among the sand dunes.
XXXXX
He looks oddly out of place, sitting in his black suit in the middle of her cream and polished wood kitchen. She pours him a glass of water, and sits opposite him at the table.
There is silence.
He has brought a bag with him, a dark gray tote that sits in the corner by the door. She looks at it, for something to do and to avoid his eyes, and realizes that she herself had little more the first time she stepped through that door.
"Sam," he says, and she starts. No one has called her that in three years.
"Jack," she replies, and in that tiny exchange, she truly, truly realizes for the first time, that they are strangers.
She's not sure she's ready to change that, no matter how much she wants to.
"Would you like something to eat?" she asks instead.
He shakes his head. "No. Look, Sam, I - "
"It's Jaime," she interrupts, and he shakes his head.
"I don't think I can call you that," he murmurs, and she bites her lip.
"Please," she says. "Call me Jaime."
He looks at her for a long, assessing moment. She is not sure if he will refuse.
"Okay," he replies, finally, and she wonders again how much he knows, or suspects. "Okay."
End Chapter Eight.