Sequel to "Broken", though you could probably read this as a oneshot.
Thanks for all the reviews - you guys rock!
Don't own them, but I wish I did!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This Time
Something was different.
He wasn't in his own bed. At least he didn't think so. This was smaller, firmer, the blanket felt differently…
Cracking one eye open, he turned his head to the side, and tried to survey his surroundings. He was on a sofa – not his own – and from the way the light was falling on the coffee table in front of him, he guessed it was probably early afternoon.
His body felt heavy and lethargic, his joints creaking as he tenderly sat up, and groggily shook his head, trying to banish the sleep induced fog that still enveloped him.
The events of the previous days were coming into focus bit by bit, slowly floating into his consciousness as fragments and disjointed images.
Nick…kidnapped…in a box…underground…
The kidnapper…the bomb…the explosion…
Blood…bits of flesh on his clothes…on his face…
Sara…
Sara.
This was her sofa.
He'd told her.
He'd come to her apartment, tired, stressed, freaked out by the kidnapping, by being almost blown up, feeling more isolated and helpless than he could ever remember feeling before, and he'd told her.
Spilled the secret he'd kept hidden in the darkest recesses of his heart for almost a decade. And this time the conversation hadn't just been in his head. This time he had actually said the words out loud.
Confessed that he needed her.
When she'd cupped his cheek in her hand, and turned his face towards hers, he could only focus on the look in her eyes, the smell of her hair, the way her pale skin was almost translucent in the lamplight.
And then he'd kissed her.
Not slow and deep and tenderly like he had always hoped it would be. Not even hot and heavy and demanding like he sometimes wished it would be. Just a soft pressing of their lips together, before he pulled away slightly to rest his forehead against hers.
He can't remember now how long they sat like that. But she kept her hand on his cheek and softly stroked across his beard with her thumb. She had only every touched him like that once before, and back then the contact had been so unexpected, so startling, that he could only stare at her like a rabbit caught in the headlights.
But now the caress was his lifeline, and he was too frightened to budge, afraid that any movement on his part might break the spell.
And still she hadn't said anything.
Just given him time to adjust to this new situation. Waited for him to make the next move.
"I have to go."
Please don't let me.
"You can't drive like this."
Thank god.
And so he'd stayed, sitting next to her on the sofa, the fingers of one hand interlaced with hers, her head resting somewhere in the vicinity of his collarbone. Her soft, warm breath wafting across his bare neck as he finally allowed himself to slip into the long overdue comfort of sleep.
It had been that simple.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Padding softly through the small apartment, he checked the rooms quietly to see if she was anywhere, sighing loudly when he realised he was alone. In the bathroom he found a folded towel and a toothbrush on the edge of the bath, a note resting on top.
Hey.
Hope the couch wasn't too uncomfortable.
Ecklie left a message to say Graveyard has the night off, so I've gone to the hospital to check on Nick.
S
He kept going over the note in his mind as he showered and brushed his teeth. No mention of last night, no mention of what he'd said, no demands on him today. Not asking him to stay, and not telling him to go either. Just leaving the ball in his court, to play - or not - as he wanted.
Damn. She really wasn't going to make it easy on him this time.
No clues to help him unravel what she wanted him to do, no trail of breadcrumbs for him to follow to the right answers.
And he was at a bit of a loss.
He wanted to stay. He was desperate to stay. He didn't blame anything that happened last night on nervous tension, or exhaustion or residual anxiety over what had transpired with Nick. He didn't need to.
He might have been shattered mentally and physically, but he'd been perfectly lucid and had meant every rambling, incoherent and garbled word that came out of his mouth. By the time he made the decision last night to walk into her apartment, he had already made up his mind about what he wanted from this relationship.
He wanted it all.
Problem was, right now, he just wasn't so sure what she wanted – and that scared him.
Yes – last night she stroked his cheek, held his hand, allowed him to kiss her, told him to stay, but maybe she was just feeling sorry for him. Maybe she was just yearning for some human contact herself, to assuage her own demons from the past few days.
Maybe he hadn't said the right things. Maybe he hadn't done the right things. Maybe the reality of actually seeing him on her couch this morning had been enough to frighten her away for good.
Maybe, maybe, maybe…
Swallowing hard he leaned against the bathroom sink for a moment. Stay or go. Go or stay. Why was everything always so damn hard? Why couldn't she just leave some kind of hint, some acknowledgement that she felt the importance of what he had revealed last night? Some idea of what she wanted him to do now?
Taking a deep breath, he walked out of the bathroom – her note clutched in his hand.
Decision time.
That's when he realised he wouldn't be able to leave even if he wanted too. If she needed him gone, she was going to have to physically throw him out. Until then he was going to get comfortable on that damn couch and wait her out.
Ball back in her court.
The soft click of a lock opening, made him turn around. She was standing in the door, with a non-committal look on her face. He was surprised at just how nervous he suddenly felt.
"Hey."
"Hey."
They eyed each other warily for a moment, neither willing to break the uncomfortable silence first, neither wanting to play their hand before the other one. Then she came all the way in and closed the door, and he took the opportunity to shove her note into his pocket.
"How's Nicky?"
She looked at him with a slight smile and took a couple of steps towards him.
"Fine. He's doing…great, actually. I…uh…I didn't…"
She was only a couple of feet away from him now, close enough for him to catch the scent of her perfume and to see the slight tremble of her hand as she tried to brush a strand of hair out of her eyes. It fell back almost immediately, and with a small smile, he closed the distance between them and gently hooked it behind her ear.
He genuinely never knew hair could be that soft.
"You were gone a while."
"Yeah. I…uh…wanted to give you time to…ah…wake up."
"Time to change my mind and make my escape, you mean."
She had the grace to look slightly embarrassed at that, but the smile on her face grew a little wider. He noticed her hands weren't trembling any more.
"But you didn't…"
"And I'm not going too. Not unless you want…"
"No. No I don't want you too. But…I did want to at least give you the option. Time to back out if you couldn't…"
"Honey, if I'd wanted to back out I wouldn't have come here last night. And I meant every word I said, you know. It wasn't just the exhaustion and the stress talking. They were just…the push I needed to finally get my head out of my ass. I don't regret anything that happened…and…"
He stopped when he noticed the large smile she had on her lips. The smile that she reserved only for him. The smile he hadn't seen in months.
He couldn't stop staring at it.
"Griss?"
"Huh?"
"It would seem I'm not the only one who tends to over talk…"
He looked at her quizzically for a moment, before the memory of him pinning her down, slowly surfaced, and his own face broke into a huge lopsided grin. Placing his hands on either side of her face, he tilted her head up slightly.
And this time the kiss was slow, and deep, and tender.
Just like he always knew it would be.