Jo shot up into consciousness without any real sense of when she'd lost it to begin with. She knew there'd been no fanciful dreams, no peaceful and refreshing rest before, just darkness until she'd suddenly been forced back into wakefulness.
The harsh light bypassing the blinds to stream through the moth-bitten curtains was nothing short of cruel.
The familiar thumping in her skull announced a migraine that had been brewing throughout the night, waiting for her return to awareness in order to make its pitiless presence known.
The scratch in her throat suggested her tongue had been replaced by sandpaper during sleep and had managed to rub her entire mouth raw throughout the night.
All in all, this state of things wasn't foreign to her, unfortunately. Neither was the need to retread her memories to piece back together all the hazy events of the evening prior.
Jo cringed and buried the heel of her palms into her eye sockets. Partially to relieve the surmounting pain in her skull, and slightly to will reality to swallow her whole, later to discard her in a present far more preferable.
She'd overshared. She'd dismantled a wall that had taken decades to form. All that time spent laying each brick carefully, assuming they'd never be disturbed as long as she may live. Then, she'd gone and taken a sledgehammer to the whole thing, and for what? To prove a point, surely, but now she stood bare amongst her own destruction, her fragility displayed without burden.
In an instant went her ability to control precisely who held the capacity to disappoint her.
And, the conclusion was...well, she couldn't take all of that back now.
Disturbing her swirling thoughts was a warm arm snaking around her middle, tugging her closer to the other side of the bed. "Go back to sleep," Tim's husky morning voice willed her. As if that was even a remote possibility now.
Jo flopped back onto the mattress, throwing a pillow over her face to block out the treacherous sun. "Can't, I'm dying," she groaned pitifully.
There was a sigh beside her before Tim's weight noticeably lifted off the bed. She didn't bother asking where he'd gone to; she was too busy willing herself to fade back into the tranquil nothingness she'd inhabited before.
There was some shuffling heard faintly beyond the room, and, after a short while, he returned. The mattress dipped again underneath her. "Here," was all the instruction he offered once settled.
Hesitantly, Jo removed the pillow and sat up again, appraising the man before her as eyes readjusted to the room's brightness. Tim waited patiently with hands outstretched, a glass of water in one and some painkillers in the other.
Well, she hoped they were painkillers. In this house, there was no telling what actually lay within unmarked pill bottles.
Jo chose not to question it further. She hastily claimed the starchy white pills from his awaiting palm and threw them back into her throat before washing them down, drinking from the glass greedily until it sat empty again.
The scratch in her throat was temporarily satiated, but the dull throbbing in her head would take longer to still.
"Proud of yourself?" Tim asked cheekily while turning to discard the now empty glass on an end table. Jo did not appreciate his apparent amusement at her self-inflicted anguish, as evident by her halfhearted glare.
"I regret nothing," she responded indignantly while snuggling back into the comfort of the bedsheets. "Lay down with me while I slowly perish," she muttered dramatically, lifting the comforter beside her so he could slide gracefully back into the lingering warmth next to her.
Jo allowed herself to become wrapped up in him. Her head resting beneath his chin, their legs tangled, as his hand softly ran through the now tangled ends of her hair.
And, perhaps that's all she had to do to find harmony for once in her life. Just to allow herself to find comfort in another human being who wasn't family. Someone who wasn't Arlo, or Helen, or Raylan.
The prospect, however, would never appear to be anything less than daunting for someone so irrevocably haunted by their own harrowing experiences.
It was worth a shot, though, Jo supposed. The anticipation of jumping off the cliff was always more disconcerting than the blissful freedom felt during the following moments of free fall, right?
Or, perhaps, she'd finally grown too tired of fighting. You're stripped of the elation of scoring when always playing defense, right?
"I'm afraid you'll one day realized I'm damaged goods," she whispered her confession ever so quietly into the silent room. Tim's hand momentarily stilled in her hair, all the indication needed that he had in fact heard her admission.
The pause was brief, though; barely a breath passed before he continued his ministrations. "You say that like you're the only one. I was literally flashing back yesterday."
The simple observation made Jo realize just how selfish she had been. At every turn, she'd forced Tim to jump through hoops to convince her of her validity, without stopping to consider his own reticence.
He'd been made to kill countless people under the guise of peace, and no amount of good deeds thereafter could replace the burden of guilt. He'd see their ghosts with every shot taken and feel their presence with every unexpected noise heard.
They weren't so different, no matter the lengths she went to convince herself otherwise.
The truth of the matter was, Jo had been an insufferable chicken shit up until this point, and Tim had still stayed.
There was more than enough give remaining on her end to satiate the both of them.
Propping herself up on her elbow, Jo gazed down at Tim, resting comfortably amongst the pillows. And dammit if he wasn't just one of the most glorious sights to behold. His sinewy build concealed the strength she felt when being held in arms made defined by years of carrying a rifle. His always clean-shaven face contrasted with the darkened hair across his chest, which she occasionally caught a glimpse of beneath the loose top button of his work attire. And those perfectly full lips, which were nearly always pouting or brooding, begged to be kissed in the most inappropriate of moments.
Jo had been nothing short of a complete imbecile for long enough.
Her tongue darted out to wet her own lips, and Tim's eyes carefully followed the action. "No more excuses then?" Jo asked with an undeserved air of uncertainty. As if she hadn't been the primary obstacle standing in their path the entire time.
He chuckled and sat up beside her, his hand drawing invisible patterns into the skin of her lower back. "That'd be nice, yeah."
Jo bit her lip to contain the smile threatening to expose her satisfaction. Again, Tim's eyes carefully trailed the motion, imagining her lips anywhere but trapped beneath her own teeth.
"Then there's something I shoulda confessed a while ago," she trailed off, the words failing. Tim's hand squeezing her hip lightly broke through the narrative trapped inside her head, ushering the intended sentiment out into the open.
Jo sighed. "I fell in love with you the moment you took that hit from Raylan in my living room. It was very stoic and very sexy-"
She didn't get the opportunity to finish the sentence as Tim's full lips descended upon hers in a bruising kiss. Drinking her in like a man who had been deprived of water for ages.