Chapter 67: Yielding

Silence was the only answer, or maybe any words were simply lost in the dull roar of the small car that blew past her on the street, or a few cyclists' bells ringing angrily in response. "Gavin?"

"Just—I don't understand," he said finally.

Cully released a breath. It wasn't her imagination, the last few seconds and last few minutes, it couldn't be—at least not on her part. "I didn't—sorry."

"Thought you still weren't supposed to say that."

"It's not just me, is it?"

"No," Gavin said quietly. "But what happened, Cully?"

"I—decided not to read in the end. I didn't perform my monologue."

"But—why?" She heard the hitch in his words. "After everything you said about not skiving off—"

"I didn't"—she shook her head—"I did at least tell them."

"Then why not at least try calling them yesterday?"

Cully turned around, hoping to shut out the noise of the street as she struggled to hear him, her phone even closer to her ear. "I wasn't sure about anything, until now."

"Sure?"

Gavin was right to ask after the last two weeks and the couple of times she had seen him face to face. She was lying to herself if she thought anything else. Whether it was that morning as she wound down her days driving the mobile library van or last Thursday evening, talking through and stoking her own concerns, he was right. He would even be right to be angry—and somehow, she didn't hear it. "I decided I didn't want to be in Cambridge," she said softly, turning back to the street.

"I thought you loved it there."

"I do—"

"Then why aren't you auditioning?"

Don't you know? Cully asked herself. You have to—you must, Gavin.

He began again. "I mean—"

"Because I realized—I don't want to be here," Cully said, not waiting for him to finish. He does, I know he does.

"No?"

Do you want me to spell it out for you? she wondered, biting at her thumb again as the bustling street still hurried on past her and her own small world. "At least not—not alone, Gavin." Wasn't that the truth in the end? However she tried to ignore it, the world was a little emptier—a little lonelier—without him, and all his garbled words and flushes.

He was quiet for another second. Please say something— "When will you be home again?"

"I was supposed to be back sometime tomorrow afternoon," she said quietly. "But..."

"Can you make it today?"

"I can try to catch the next train." Just a few minutes after twelve now, if she caught the next bus back to the station, she might make the next non-stop train to King's Cross, retracing her steps from earlier in the day. "At least to London. We—" She began again as she started down the sidewalk, searching for the sign marking the bus stop where she unhappily jumped off hardly an hour earlier. "I'll have to see from there." Had he heard what she almost said? Perhaps, but it hadn't even been six months since Gavin walked back into her life. No, that wasn't right: it was those few short months since she plunged back into his, waiting on him whenever he hesitated and remembered how it had all gone wrong before. Could she really blame—

"Too long since you had to make that commute?" he asked, breaking through that memory.

"Maybe."

Cully glanced up the street, the bus she anticipated just visible turning round the corner, slowly rolling down the street to where she had jumped off just an hour earlier. All that distance, from Causton to Cambridge—it wasn't so far after all, hardly more than a hundred miles. But it wasn't the distance that had churned in her stomach all this week, rising even stronger this morning. She had peered into her future—their future?—for a short moment, and watched it vanish like a reflection on the surface of a rippling pond as the first raindrops heralded a coming storm: the beginning of an end.

"What did your parents think?" Gavin asked.

"I haven't called Mum yet." As the bus loomed closer, she pressed her phone to her shoulder, rummaging through her bag to find her wallet and the fare. It's here somewhere...

"No?"

"I just wanted to talk with you first, after...the last couple days—"

"Don't—"

"But Gavin—"

"Look, can I collect you from the station?" A few seconds of silence passed before he added, "Please, Cully?"

Her stomach tightened again, but there was no apprehension, no confusion this time—something else instead. "I'd like that."

"Just—I feel we should talk."

"Yes," she breathed. The bus was nearly here, slowing as it approached her and a couple others standing on the edge of the sidewalk, its brakes groaning. "Ah, sorry, Gavin, I've got to go. I'll call you when I reach London."

"Sure," he said quietly. "I'll see you in Causton." And as Cully dropped her phone into her bag once more and slipped her coins into the fare box, she smiled. The past always crashed together with now in her time—really life—with Gavin, his boyishness forcing her own impulsiveness to new heights. Not even bothering to read for Poppy wasn't a wise choice; after all, if something came of it, she merely had to say "no" to any offer. But it didn't matter, knowing that for herself, not when she wasn't worried for herself.

The short minutes on the bus back to Cambridge's station blurred together, Cully crushed between a few of the other passengers murmuring quiet apologies for for the close quarters, hers given in return for her own unintentional elbow jabs. Even an hour made such a difference, she saw, the city waking late to a lazy Saturday morning like nothing was up and about. Perfectly ordinary, as everything suddenly was. Tucking her bag beneath her arm, she wrestled with with what to do next. As the trolley rocked her back and forth as it rolled over the bricks breaking through the pavement and for a minute or so, she almost forgot the gentle tide all around her.

Once or twice she closed her eyes, remembering not to get ahead of herself. Even if Gavin wanted to talk, she couldn't blame him if he simply wanted to understand—truly know—what had happened over the past few weeks. But she couldn't stifle some foolish hope, as unreasonable as it might be, that a path lay forward, circling around as it always had to the way things had been before. No, not that way: perhaps to something different and better. Is that too much to want? she asked herself, peering out the window again. Maybe—but everything she wanted wasn't here, the new clarity glaringly simple. Really, it wasn't until she hurried down the steps onto the sidewalk just outside the station that Cully remembered James* and her promise to call him after she finished at the theater.

She paid for her ticket at the kiosk, shoving it into the back pocket of her jeans as she ducked outside again. The center of the station was of course crowded, and for a short moment before securing her seat, Cully wondered if the first train to King's Cross was completely booked already. It wasn't that important, being on the next one, but as her stomach continued twisting and churning with all the unpleasant questions of her wants alongside Gavin's, what she was right to just hope for...Sitting about Cambridge rail station twiddling her thumbs for another half hour or even an hour was the last thing she wanted to do. But as she fumbled around for her phone again, she had to check the time again; only a few minutes to try to get a hold of James for a quick words and apology.

Midway through the third ring, her ear was suddenly filled with the low murmur of something instrumental. "Done so soon?" James asked. Even during their university days, he was always listening to something, though she couldn't quite tell what this time.

"Not exactly," Cully said, holding her mobile closer to her ear as another bus rumbled past on the pavement in front of the station.

"Cryptic cryptic, darling."

"Only if you're always suspecting something."

"And I usually am."

Rolling her eyes and turning around again, she muttered, "Right."

"And I'd think you would know that better than most!"

"Not exactly," she said. From the earliest days of their friendship, he had been fascinated by the darkest stories plastered across the tabloids. And when she recounted a few of her father's more colorful tales, he was more eager than she sometimes liked to hear more of them. But when she remembered some of the days he had sat with her, listening while she complained about more than one boyfriend, perhaps it was a fair exchange in the end. "But I'm sorry, James, I won't be able to see you this afternoon."

"Oh?"

The minutes before her train departed were rapidly dwindling, some clock ticking on in her brain. "Something's come up in Causton, that's all."

"Some new grisly deed?"

"I said Causton, not Midsomer."

"Your little county should always be on the front page for some homicidal maniac."

Well, he wasn't entirely wrong. "We're just rather used to it," Cully said, pulling her phone from her cheek and glancing at the time. Only five or so minutes. "Sorry, I have to go."

"Well, you didn't sound too happy about this one anyway," he said, the faint melody in the background fading—pausing—changing. "But if you're skipping out on me because of boy trouble again—"

"And what if I am?" Cully asked quickly. Were her troubles and doubts that obvious?

"Oh?" For a second, she thought she heard James laugh, maybe as he teased an answer out of her. "Then he's either lucky or about to become very unhappy. Never much in between with you."

Her forehead wrinkled. "Thanks, I think."

"A compliment, Cully," he said quietly. "You do know how to cut people to the quick."

"Well, hopefully I'll actually see you some time soon."

"I will not forget this time—"

"And that is something I'll believe when I see you then," she interrupted, "not like the last time I was here."

"Typical of you not to forget."

"We'll have to talk later, I—"

"Bye, love. Call me soon?"

"Of course," Cully said quietly, snapping her phone closed and dropping it into her bag once again and making her way back into the crowded station.

Locating her seat was a far greater challenge than when she had boarded the train for Cambridge at King's Cross earlier that morning, many more people eager to leave Cambridge for London alongside her. In the end, she had to climb over a pair of young women chattering back and forth in French, leaning into one another and whispering about some quiet joke she didn't quite understand. Instead, Cully just apologized as her legs knocked into theirs, even as they ignored her attempts to step around them. With a first glance out the window—the platform less crowded now that the last of the throng holding the same tickets she did were making their way to their own seats—her breath vanished. Just one thought, one decision—all because of one chance encounter months ago—and suddenly everything was different, clear even through the murk of what might happen next. And it was only once the train lurched forward over the rails that she at last found her breath anew.

Trying not to let her mind drift too far ahead and ask too many questions for which she had no answers yet, Cully struggled to focus the rocking of the train tossing her lightly to and fro. (She leaned as much as she could against the side of the carriage, hoping not to bang a shoulder against one of the French-speaking girls.) There was no play, no monologue, no easy audition to clutter her mind like this morning, battling against the last of the fog of exhaustion from the early hour. Instead, it became just one minute after another remembering and wondering. After all, how much did it truly matter, finding this next step forward in her career—the next bullet point on her resume—without understanding…

No, she thought, pressing her palm—newly clammy—to her cheek, the cold wakening her again. You can't just ignore all of that, but why does he even matter so much? It doesn't make sense—you know it doesn't. Her eyes flicked up through the glass again, the countryside showing its age beneath the sun, marching forward one day into the next: a little bit older, perhaps a little wiser, a little more certain of what lay ahead? But I don't even know what that is, just that it isn't here. Isn't that honest enough for a start?

With nothing to distract her, the journey went on and on, the murmurs rustling around the carriage turning to nonsense as Cully closed her eyes. If she didn't know what she had just left behind in Cambridge—or really, what she had just tried to leave behind in Causton—how would she know what she was hoping to find when she finally made it back? I don't—but then why does going back feel so much easier than what you know? Maybe that was what she needed, an answer for the question echoing for the last few years: where does it end? Does it end at all?

If the platform at Cambridge had looked crowded, King's Cross was more a zoo than a train station: noisy and cramped. What do you expect in London at midday? Cully asked herself as she took her place in the queue for the ticketing kiosk, holding her elbows to her side to avoid the bumps and jostling of hundreds of other people with places to go, people to see...People. I guess that's one way to think about it.

With her ticket in hand, Cully paused at one of the vending machines to pay rather more than necessary for a bottle of water. Even without anything since her early breakfast, food was the last thing she wanted, though the frigid water burned in her stomach. The worst of her thirst quenched, she tucked the damp plastic bottle into her bag, reaching again for her mobile. About ten minutes until her train left, but the front screen glowed with a new text message. Before she opened her phone, she knew who waited at the other end of the message. where are you Gavin had asked fifteen or so minutes ago.

kings cross

when are you back

i should be home by 3.30

ok see you then

Snapping her phone closed, Cully remembered: home. Hadn't Gavin said the same thing earlier, about home? It had hardly registered, that word, but she had just thrown it back at him, without even thinking about it— Her promise to her mother came back to her, to call and let her know how it went, for better or for worse, and now to surely say that she had changed her mind. Cully looked at her phone again: eight minutes until the train left. Later, she thought, now shoving into her back pocket, making a swift path toward the platform. Perhaps it was the one blessing of Midsomer, she wondered, at last boarding the train a few minutes before its scheduled departure; there were always an extra few moments here at the end of this line from the southeast with its smaller gaggle of people working to find their seats.

Each pause of the train and its engine along the route to Causton forged a new knot in her stomach, a few minutes closer to…She closed her eyes. Simple as that, just as it was now so clear how easily and thoroughly her world had reshaped itself around him: his voice, his touch, his proclivity for assumptions that made her shake her head, all of him. And all of it sharpened by the distance and...the emptiness, if she was honest. Another stop and another start of the train pitched her against the window and she opened her eyes, squinting against the glare of the sun. I suppose it's fitting, she thought, scrubbing at the crusted remnants of sleep still lingered, and maybe more than you deserve.

The second half of the journey sped past as quickly as the ride to Cambridge had stretched on. With every check of the time, the new and unfamiliar knot in her stomach loosened anew, another few minutes drawing her nearer to where she really wanted to be, blurring together. You can't pretend it can all just be like it was before, Cully reminded herself as the first of the outermost Midsomer villages rose just on the horizon. He has every reason to be angry with you. She hated those words she threw at him over the phone just a couple weeks ago: "You've got your life. Have a good one." She had hated them since she closed her mobile that night, fighting against unfamiliar and unexpected tears. But even through all of it, she still heard Gavin's disappointment that she couldn't quite cancel her audition, how he carefully talked around the nastiest moments of his work, the way she caught him looking at her that morning on the road to...one of the Wardens when he didn't think she would notice. Maybe—

Her phone shook in her palm, another short message glowing on the screen when she opened it. im here. just outside

The same churning in her stomach: eagerness and excitement crushing her wariness recklessly. almost to the station she tapped out on the tiny keypad, the greenery of Midsomer dwindling and giving way to the outermost edge of Causton.

cant wait to see you

Cully nearly closed her phone, for a short moment uncertain how to answer. Well, how many choices are there? Honesty or what's got you into all of this, she thought. And what got you into all of this would have seen you stay in Cambridge like a fool.

same she typed after another second, peering out the window again, the tired buildings of the older corner of the city rising faster and faster. I suppose that's truly honest.

The last few minutes on the train saw the familiar buildings of Causton come into view, a few of the small crooked streets snaking between them into the distance. Home, she reminded herself, gathering her jacket closer. Even as the train rolled forward slower and slower, finally gliding to a shuddering halt, her stomach jolting. The electronic voice—female, as always—named the call: "Causton train station, exit to your right."

At least Dad won't need to pick me up tomorrow, Cully thought as she found her feet with the last swaying of the train. And I still haven't called them, she realized, hopping from the train when the doors finally opened to the station she knew from so many travels, more crowded than this morning but nothing like King's Cross. They can wait, Cully thought, finally tossing her mobile into her bag again. I—we just need some time.

Outside, he had said, and she tried to work through the still larger crowd to the pavement outside, clutching her jacket closer in the colder air when she finally found herself outside, looking one way, then the—

Cully found Gavin like she never would have done before, close to the outer wall of the station just waiting in the cluster of people milling just outside the entrance. A year ago, she wouldn't have noticed him: hands in the pockets of his trousers as they often were, dark button-up shirt untucked and hanging about his waist, pale windbreaker fluttering in the faint wind. His hair was as she always expected on days like these, a touch rumpled, and at the weekend without work demanding his attention, his chin bore the faintest beard. The darkest moments of the last few months vanished and everything else rose around them as she grew closer to him.

She knew the moment he saw her through the last of the crowd, pulling one of his hands from his pocket, waving to her. Whatever uncertainty remained—it vanished as her pace quickened, even as she had to mumble an apology as she darted around the last few travelers between them. He had already taken a first few steps toward her—and her heart pounded again. What were you so worried about? she asked herself, finally pausing a couple of feet from him.

"Hey," Gavin said quietly.

"Hey." Her hand tightened on the strap of her overnight bag, still pinned to her side by her elbow. One moment, one day—it was enough to make Cully hate the last few weeks, pulling herself inward even as she flung her anger at him for doing the same. But...he was still here, as he had been for so many months.

"You—look nice," he managed after a second.

She felt the weight of his gaze on her, and it was her turn to flush instead of him. "Like you don't always."

"Not today."

"No?"

The new silence was growing, alongside the knot in her stomach. Please say something, Gavin. Anything.

"I don't think there's that much competition today." He tugged at the collar of his shirt, like he had forgotten he hadn't bothered with a tie earlier. "Look, Cully..." He glanced down for moment.

"Sorry—" they began together, and she bit her lip even as Gavin laughed.

She took another step closer. "I suppose that was a while overdue for you to hear."

"It's more than one person to argue—"

"I know that—"

"So you can't—"

Gavin fell quiet when she threw her arms around his shoulders, pressing herself against him, just hearing his breath catch. Two days earlier, Cully refused to lose herself in that embrace, escaping so quickly he must have hardly felt her before she broke away. Now she allowed herself to clutch at his jacket and tangle her fingers in it, her face against his shoulder as she remembered his warmth, how lovely so much had been before everything suddenly turned— She sighed, the tension in her muscles easing while his own arms tightened around her shoulders as well. If once so long ago he had refused to hold her—pushed her away—now Gavin clasped her so close and strong, it nearly hurt.

"Everything all right?" His breath tickled her ear and cheek through her hair as she smiled against his jacket.

"Yes," she whispered, wishing she could pull him closer.

"You sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

Another time and place, maybe they would have stayed like that, feeling the angry words and dark memories of the last weeks bleed away: not suddenly forgotten, but newly unneeded. Here, though...Cully loosened her arms after a few seconds as he did the same, all that warmth she desperately wanted fading even as she stood hardly a foot from him. Her knuckles had nearly gone white from the strength of her grasp. "Then what made you change your mind?" Gavin asked softly.

I suppose I don't have to choose, Aunt Alice, she thought. "I couldn't really stop thinking..."

"About what?"

"You." His cheeks reddened for a short second—and if she was a few feet from him or didn't know him nearly so well, she might have missed it. "Gavin—" She bit her lip again as he grabbed her hand, twisting his fingers around hers tighter than she ever remembered. "Thanks for picking me up."

"No worries. I'll drop you..." His voice faded before he finished, glancing down at their hands, his thumb running over her knuckles. His touch was soft, almost delicate.

"What?"

"I mean—could you come round, so that we can talk?"

"Of—of course, Gavin," she managed, stumbling over her own words. It was all she wanted from this afternoon, a few hours that didn't shiver beneath the storm clouds of everything swirling around them, desperate for every second that didn't feel stolen, illicit. And as they walked toward the car park, hands still clasped together, Cully saw him glance down at her two—three times. Smiling.

* Another OC of little true import.

A/N: Oh lord, USA, we survived. It's so nice to not be constantly worrying about what the President of the United States is doing all the time.