Buy a Boat

He had always been distractible. That was nothing new. Well, distractible from what was being discussed at the time by whatever his mind wanted to focus on, anyway. "Tom."

Her ex husband didn't bother to look up from the computer. "Hmm?"

"I asked-" Liz huffed as his gaze didn't even rise to meet her and she picked the computer, pulling it away from him. He was such a child sometimes. "Seriously? I'm trying to find answers and you're looking at.. boats? A little bit of focus isn't asking much, you know. You offered to help."

Tom blinked at her, a slight pout resting on his features and she had to resist the urge to reach out and smack him. "What is your fixation on this anyway?" she demanded, looking over the picture of the boat on the screen and he shrugged.

"Seems like it'd be nice to be able to get away where no one can find us."

He had once told her that he knew all her tells, and since he had come back into her life she had started picking up on a few more of his. One was the way that he hesitated ever so slightly when he wasn't telling her the whole truth, just as he had with that line, and she snapped the laptop shut in frustration, her words getting away from her. "Not sure why you think the two of us being on a boat together on a boat is ever going to be a good idea," she snapped.

Tom went still where he sat and Liz felt a coldness wash over her, realizing just what she had said. They didn't talk about it. Ever. Those four months might as well have not happened for all the discussion that had taken place. When they had - very briefly, and only in a vague sort of way - discussed why Tom had had to come back to keep her from going to prison, the fact that he was held captive by her was not a point in that discussion. Instead they danced around it, wilfully ignoring the truth and purposefully no commenting on the stretch of time.

She still had nightmares about it. Sometimes Tom was killing Eugene Aimes, sometimes he was attacking her. The ones that she woke screaming to were the ones where she found herself with a gun in hand and her ex lying dead on that old, thin mattress. If he had died there, she would have been the one that had killed him just as surely as if she had shot him again.

He cleared his throat, reaching out for the tablet she'd been trying to get him to look at. "So, I did some more research on-"

"We never talk about it."

Blue eyes flickered up to look at her and they were slightly haunted. "There's a reason we don't, Liz. This ring-"

She pulled in a steadying breath. "We should."

Tom snorted. "What makes you say that? What could possibly make you think that's a good idea?"

"Because if we don't do it now then someday something is going to bring it up and you and I are going to have it out over it."

"Not if we bury it deep enough," he answered tightly. "Just leave it, Liz. I don't want to talk about it."

"And why do you get to make that call?"

"Why do you get to be the one to force me into it?" he returned, and his expression was unreadable. She hated when he did that. She wasn't sure how he managed to shift into it so seamlessly, but he did, and his thoughts and emotions were locked behind some barrier that she had trouble breaking through to while she was left opened. Exposed. Easy to read. The only way through it that she had learned wasn't pretty, and she'd learned it in the time that he was adamantly ignoring.

"Because it happened to both of us," she pushed and crossed her arms. He was still seated and she stood over him, and she saw the muscles in his face twitch very slightly.

"Yeah, because you were locked away in a steel dungeon after getting shot. Right. Must have forgotten that one."

Liz snorted. "I only shot you because you held a gun to my head, or did you forget that?"

"I wasn't going to shoot you, Liz!" he growled, feet coming off the table and his boots hit the floor hard. "I would never have-"

"How was I supposed to know that? You held me at gunpoint, forced me to drive, and-"

"The plan wasn't well thought out and it fell apart. I was going to get you out of there."

"You could have told me."

"You wouldn't have believed me." He sighed, shaking his head, and his voice was softer. "It doesn't matter now, Liz. You know I wouldn't, and I don't blame you for it."

She pursed her lips together. If they were going to continue working together, this needed to be dealt with so it didn't fester. "For shooting you or for the boat?"

"It doesn't matter now," he repeated, not meeting her eyes.

"You say that when it really does," she pointed out, and that got his attention.

Blue eyes darted up, a cold sort of look hiding something just beneath it. "What do you want me to say, Liz? You want me to tell you that it sucks that you gut shot me not once, but three times, and then leveraged my health for information? Or maybe that you nearly let me freeze to death down in that hell hole?" He stood and Liz braced herself to stand her ground. "That when I was dying you couldn't be bothered to come down until I could talk enough for you to start questioning me? How about the fact that you kept your nose in the air the whole damn time like you were so much better than me? You had me down there for your job, Liz, and-"

She struck him. She didn't even give him the dignity of a closed-fisted punch, but the palm of her hand left his cheek red and snapped his head around. "How dare you compare your job to mine?"

He blinked, staring at anything that wasn't her. "Just different bosses, Liz, and sometimes not even that. I've done good things for my job. I was solving a murder in Germany. I was protecting you before that."

"I didn't need your protection," she said icily and he threw his hands up in the air.

"Fine. Good luck with it all then."

Liz found herself staring as he turned, looking very much like he was going to storm off. Her vision blurred a little and hot, angry tears threatened. She wouldn't cry. She's cried enough over him, but when he turned back, she saw she wasn't the only one teetering very close to that emotional edge.

"This is why I didn't want to talk about it, Liz. I know you. I know how you… push things until I get so pissed I say stupid things." He sighed shakily. "I don't want to fight with you. I just… want to put it behind us. Can we do that?"

"I nearly killed you."

"You saved my life."

"I tortured you."

He shook his head. "That wasn't you. You're a good person, but that woman that you were in that time - the one that kept telling herself that she was doing it for the right reason - wasn't. She wasn't you."

The tears spilled out and Liz squeezed her eyes shut against them. "After everything, why-"

"Because I love you, Lizzy." She opened her eyes again and saw a strained smile pulling his lips, his eyes a little glassy too. "Because you're my whole world."

Carefully she took a step forward, her hand touching the same cheek she had slapped just a few minutes earlier. This time her fingers were gentle and he leaned into the touch. His hand came up to cover hers and he turned it over, pressing a tentative kiss to her palm before meeting her eyes. "Tom," she said said quietly, "why do you want the boat?"

"I want to replace the bad memories with good ones," he answered, his voice no louder than hers and Liz swallowed hard.

"I can't run away, Tom. I have to face this."

"I know."

She paused, looking up at him. Their fingers were laced together now and his hand was warm against hers. "You don't have to stay for the fallout."

"I know, but if you're going to stay, I want to. Will you let me?"

Liz nodded, not trusting her voice as she wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in the crook of his shoulder. "You're so stubborn."

He snorted and she felt him press a kiss to the side of her head. "That's something you knew getting into this."

"Guess we're both a little stubborn, huh?"

"Well, you said it was going to be a hell of a ride."

She laughed and his arms tightened around her. Liz nestled a little closer. "I'm sorry."

"Me too." He shifted a little. "You want to get back to work?"

"No." She felt him relax against her, arms still loosely around her and she was leaning into him. The picture and the ring could wait for a little while. They might not be able to sail away into any sunset or whatever crazy idea Tom had cooked up for a fantasy escape that could never be, but they could have this. They could have a little bit of hope to cling onto that someday, maybe, they'd both be stubborn enough to put the shattered pieces of their life back together.

Notes: So, it hit me the other day that Tom is fixated on a boat. My first reaction was that he must be just a little crazy. Didn't he have enough time on a boat with some rather traumatic memories attached to it? Then I realized how very Tom that is. If he doesn't want to think about it, he just sort of shoves it aside, replacing it with something better. The whole world is crashing down around him? 'Hey, Liz, let's renew our vows!' He reaches for better times.