AN: Just popping in to post this minuscule, napkin sized, embarrassingly poor excuse for an update (sorry!) simply so I can say a huge HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my ROD girl Jessica R. **Inserts several crying emojis followed by 23 pinky shiny love hearts**
Never forget Jess, the reason this fic exists is solely because of the OG masterpiece you wrote called BREAKING POINT - the life changing fic that inspired this one.
Thank you so much for your talent, your friendship, your kindness, your trust, your love, your humour, your sexy meloni gifs and most importantly for existing. I hope you have the happiest of days today because you truly deserve it - I love you more than banana cream pie! (Yes I finally cracked & binged those 18 episodes in 3 days due to your relentless insistence lol. NO regrets. Still madly process what I just witnessed! My eo heart is on fire!).
Also if you guys haven't read Breaking Point, check it out under JessicaRNY, it's twisty, gritty, compelling, trauma based healing, love, heart and heat! You won't regret it.
X
2:58pm
She feels the car rock and sway beneath her, causing her head to lift off the window and her heavy eyelids to open.
She blinks against the afternoon sunlight as she attempts to regain her bearings.
She had nodded off, a slumber beneath the privacy of her new shades as her bowed head rested uncomfortably against the window.
She sits up, turning her neck from side to side to relieve the ache of the positioning, a bout of motion sickness dormant in her stomach as her eyes skim the clock.
2:58pm
Jesus.
She doesn't know whether she feels relief or concern at the length that she had slept but she rolls her sore and aching shoulder regardless and gives her neck a firm rub.
The radio had been on before, but it was switched off now.
"Where are we?" her horse voice cuts through the silence as she licks her dry lips.
Elliot continues to stare straight ahead, barely acknowledging that she had roused.
"Allentown."
She glances over at him, the answer surprising her.
They were a lot closer than she had thought.
"How long until-"
"Just under two hours," he finishes off. "Maybe a bit longer if we hit weekend traffic."
Her eyes move across to the dash where she registers that it was in fact Sunday.
Sunday afternoon.
The precinct would be a ghost town right now.
Cassidy would be at home, pacing...
And she was now mere hours from getting out of Elliot's SUV and walking up her stoop like it was nothing.
Or maybe not.
Maybe the entire squad including Cassidy were all at the precinct, chained to their desks since her disappearance, working doubles.
She lets out an uneven breath, her gaze darting across the landscape, trying to ease her anxiety with the view because there was zero point getting worked up over it until she was home. She notices the rain had cleared while she slept and the sun was now peeking through the clouds.
Just under two hours.
She glances over at Elliot, his elbow was propped up on the side of the car window, his tattered sunglasses shielding his expression.
He looks uncharacteristically relaxed considering their circumstances, with just a far away look on his face.
She blinks at the image of him, as afternoon sunrays cast against his profile and she instantly flashes back to her days with him in the sedan.
She reels at the parallel, at the juxtaposition.. at the injustice of it all.
This could have been them on any other day of the week, if he had just stayed.
Just under two hours.
She doesn't tear her gaze away from his profile as if she were now fixated on taking in every line on his face, every angle, every pore - committing his profile to memory for a lifetime to come.
He glances over at her, doing a double take when he catches her staring and he holds her gaze steady.
"You okay?" he asks with undertones of concern before his eyeline moves back to the road. "Do you need me to stop?"
"No."
She just needs thisto stop.
All of it.
A few beats of silence pass before she realizes she actually doesneed to stop. She had drained one of the water bottles, and a third of his before her unscheduled nap and it had well and truly worked it's way through her system.
"Yes," she changes her answer.
His lips lift slightly at that, barely noticeable to the naked eye but she catches it.
He is smiling.
But what she really wants then is time to stop.
She wants to delay the inevitable.
She wants to freeze that smile on his lips.
Capture it for good.
TBC
AN: Okay so I know that was a micro update but I really hope to get more onto the page soon! In the meantime thanks to everyone for their kind words and shout out to Susie who left the most beautiful unexpected feedback today, I truly appreciate you taking the time to leave such a glowing take on how you experienced this fic. I would have replied directly but you were a guest so perhaps you will see this. It meant a lot. X
