Hello, my darling ones! I hope life is treating you all kindly. Although to be honest, so far I think 2016 should be cancelled. But don't get me started on all that...
Thank you, thank you once again to all those who've been reading this story and also it's lovely to learn from some of you that you've gone back to read it again. Thank you all for your amazing reviews and to those who sent me lovely PMs too. You're all wondeful! :)
Shout-outs to: Sparky She-Demon, 'Guest', Raven A. Evans, CaptainArwenPond221B, Mia, jackiemack916, Angus of Sherlock's, Alice, Rumpelstiltskin0902, sieni1, canis lupus familiaris, MaraJade13243, 'Guest', Shayde F. Ravelle, DarkEnigma322, FireheartNinja, 'Guest', The Ginger Midget, immysaurus, IheartStewart20, megumisakura, kaia, Lunar678, Fiera Evenstar, Lady Avotil, Anthro23, Rumpelstiltskin0902, Zebidah, 12ljam, Tempest1444, Guesswho.
Time Knows No Boundaries ~ Chapter Thirteen
Love, you didn't do right by me
You planned a romance that just hadn't a chance
And I'm through
Love, you didn't do right by me
I'm back on the shelf and I'm blaming myself
But it's you
My one love affair didn't get anywhere from the start
To send me a Joe who had winter and snow in his heart
Wasn't smart
Love, you didn't do right by me
As they say in the song, "You done me wrong!"
'Love, You Didn't Do Right By Me' – Rosemary Clooney
.:*:.
A horrible, painfully tense silence spiralled around the shabby living room as all parties inside froze to a stop at the sight of one another. As though in slow-motion, Martha's gaze travelled over the sorry scene before her.
Elliot stood in the middle of the room, looking like a deer that had been caught in the glare of headlights. His clothing was dishevelled (in fact, his shirt was on backwards) and his hair was askew. He had frozen in the action of picking up a pair of heeled shoes which seemed to have been discarded unceremoniously onto the floor. Numb, Martha continued to survey the length of the room and felt her heart falling into her stomach like a stone being dropped into a pool. Elliot's slovenly appearance was nothing compared to the sight of the woman hovering awkwardly by the entrance to his bedroom. She, too, was in a state of partial undress and wearing an expression of confusion and shock. To complete this horrendous picture, just behind the woman, Martha spied the disturbed linen upon the bed; it was only too obvious that it had just been recently vacated.
Overwhelming ripples of anger rose up in her throat like bile as she tore her gaze away from this repulsive sight to look back at Elliot. He did not speak. He seemed quite unable to. After what felt an agonizing eternity, Martha broke the strained silence.
"After school science club, is it?" she said lightly, "So what's the topic? Brushing up on human anatomy, are we?"
Her demeanour was surprisingly calm but she could feel her hands trembling and her heart racing.
"M-Martha, what – what are you doing here? I – " Elliot began, seeming to have found his voice at last, "this isn't – this isn't what it looks like – "
"Really?" Martha let out a small laugh which contained absolutely no humour at all, "So, what happened then? Did the both of you trip, fall over and accidentally land in bed together?"
It seemed far easier to try and mask her emotions with sarcasm but the slight tremble in her voice betrayed her pain and anger. Elliot opened his mouth to answer but she held up a hand to stop him in his tracks.
"Oh, please don't let me keep you," she continued in that same light, almost friendly manner, "I can see that you're terribly busy..."
At this last, her eyes flickered once more towards the mystery blonde-haired woman by the door, who was now pulling a blouse over her shoulders; her movements were slow as though she was trying to attract as little attention to herself as possible. Martha was wondering vaguely why she was remaining so calm. It all felt very surreal; like she was watching in on a scene in another person's life. She could not quite decide whether she desired nothing more than to dissolve into the threadbare carpet from utter humiliation...or to give Elliot a swift, sharp kick in an area of his anatomy where the sun did not reach. Both options sounded very appealing at that moment.
"I just thought you might like your phone back," she continued, stepping into the room properly, pulling the offending device out of her jacket pocket and holding it up.
Elliot's face fell, his insides giving a terrible jolt. He stared, wide-eyed, at the phone in Martha's hand and then back at her.
"You read it?" he asked her in a strange tone, as though he could not make up his mind whether he ought to feel outraged or guilty.
"No, I didn't," Martha answered simply, "I didn't need to. You see, I drove to the school before I came here... Only when I get there, the caretaker – very nice man, by the way - tells me that there is no after-school science club there tonight."
Now Elliot was the one who looked like he ardently wished for the ground to swallow him up whole. What little colour that was left in his cheeks dwindled away completely. The other girl, who just finished fastening up a smart-looking pencil skirt, had so far watched the scene unfold in embarrassed silence. Now, however, she looked around at Elliot with a quizzical frown.
"I thought you said that it was already all over between the two of you?" she demanded, her tone accusatory.
Elliot grimaced and pinched the bridge of his nose as if to quell a bad headache, avoiding both women's gaze.
"Shut up, Zoe, you're really not helping," he muttered from behind his hand.
Martha raised her eyebrows. It was apparent that she was not the only one who had been lied to... The woman called Zoe looked affronted at his words.
"No, don't you tell me to shut up," she retorted fiercely, "You swore to me that you'd finished it for good with your girlfriend. For weeks you've been telling me - spouting out all kinds of excuses of why we couldn't be together properly - and all this time you've been with the both of us?"
"Zoe, can you please just go?" Elliot told her firmly, gesturing in agitation, "this is going to be hard enough as it is..."
"Hard for who exactly?" Zoe sneered at him coldly, yanking her shoes from his grip and stuffing them clumsily onto her feet.
"I'll call you tomorrow, alright?" he said in an undertone, clearly meant for her ears only but Martha caught every word.
"D'you know what? Don't bother!" she answered angrily, tossing golden-blonde tresses over her shoulder and grabbing her coat from a nearby chair, "In fact...don't ever bother calling me again!"
Zoe departed, leaving a lingering aroma of ink, a floral-scented perfume and a horrible ringing silence in her wake. All that could be heard for a moment was the sound of a distant door being slammed shut and the rumble of passing traffic from the busy road outside. Elliot did not appear to know what to do or say. Martha turned away, unable to look at him and wandered aimlessly over towards the window, gazing out over the rooftops of the townscape before her without really seeing them. It had started to rain. The twinkling lights of people's windows and car headlights blurred as raindrops trickled down the glass like many miniature rivers.
Martha's lips were pressed together so tightly, willing herself not to be violently sick. She had never felt so humiliated in her entire life. She placed her hands upon the windowsill in an attempt to steady her trembling hands, to anchor herself.
"So you've been lying to her too," she said finally in barely more than a whisper, more of statement than a question, her eyes upon the raindrops running down the window, "She works with you at the school?"
Elliot's own gaze was fixed upon the threadbare carpet, looking once more as though he was begging it to let him dissolve into it.
"It's not what it – " he began but she cut him off.
"Don't!" Martha closed her eyes momentarily, voice rising, her calm exterior threatening to crumble, "Please don't bother trying to deny it. It's taking all I have not to throw something at you right now. For once in your life, just be honest. It's the least you owe me," she said through gritted teeth.
Elliot flinched a little as though her hissed words had physically struck him. He had never heard such venom in her voice before. In fact, he had barely ever seen her angry – he had sometimes wondered in the past if she was even capable of such an emotion. He opened his mouth, an automatic excuse dancing on the tip of his tongue. But the image of that terrible ghostly figure dripping blood floated to the surface of his mind's eye with horrifying vividness. An odd tingling feeling erupted at the back of his neck, stirring the little dark hairs there, along with a harsh coldness which had just stolen over him all of a sudden as he recalled the words which had mysteriously been written upon his bathroom mirror...
Tell her the truth, she deserves better...
Elliot gave an involuntary shiver and rubbed his hand up and down his arm as if to warm himself, which went unnoticed by Martha. There really was no point in denying things any longer. He exhaled a very heavy sigh.
"Yeah, alright, she does," he admitted with great difficulty, "She's my...um...one of the teaching assistants. And before you ask, none of this was planned, okay? It just...happened," he finished, somewhat lamely.
Martha swallowed back a lump in her throat, her eyes still fixed upon the rain-dashed window.
"And how long has this – whatever this is - been going on for?" she asked with another brave stab at keeping her voice steady.
Elliot gave a half shrug. It looked like he was trying to get rid of an irksome fly on his shoulder.
"A few months or so," he answered.
Another dart of anger coursed through her at this horrible revelation. Months, did he say? He had been seeing this woman for months? She thought of all the times where he had given her excuses about working late, his evasive behaviour; how he could be infuriatingly insensitive one moment – sometimes even downright unpleasant - and yet would be all sweetness and seduction the next ... now it all made sense. Martha could not believe that this was happening. This was the sort of thing that happened to other people – to those poor souls who wrote to her advice column imploring her help and counsel - not to her and Elliot.
Steeling herself, she asked quietly, "This Zoe...are you in love with her?"
She was not entirely sure if she wanted to hear the answer or not. Elliot had sighed impatiently.
"What difference does that make?" he asked irately, beginning to pace up and down the carpeted floor behind her.
Martha wheeled around away from the window to face him at last.
"I don't know!" she said loudly, abandoning all pretence of calm now, "I'm just trying to get my head round it all! About why you'd do something like this!"
"Alright, no. No, I don't love her. It wasn't anything serious between us," Elliot told her, gesticulating with his hands again, "It was just – "
"Sex," Martha finished for him, confirming her worst fears, "Nice. Zoe seems to think otherwise... So you've been telling her that you were going to leave me for her, when really you just wanted your cake and eat it as well, huh? Nice. Really classy."
Elliot let his hand fall back against his thigh with a light slapping sound. All of a sudden, something dawned on her as she ran over in her mind what he had just told her.
"A few months..." she said slowly, staring at him. Then something in her mind clicked into place. "That trip you took...the one to New Zealand...you didn't go and visit your parents at all, did you? It was a cosy little holiday for the pair of you." Elliot said nothing at all in answer to this but the guilty expression on his face spoke volumes. "I'm right, aren't I? No wonder you weren't thrilled at the idea of me coming with you! You say it was nothing serious? Well, it must be something pretty damn serious for you to swan off to one of the most beautiful countries in the world togeth – !" At the continued furtive look on Elliot's face, she broke off as she began to smell an even bigger rat. "Hang on a minute...did you even go to New Zealand?"
"We flew up to Scotland and stayed at a mate's place," admitted Elliot, not meeting her gaze and seeming to be increasingly fascinated by his bare feet.
Martha stared at him, wide-eyed, in disbelief, feeling yet another pang of anger and shock. What new bombshell was he going to drop on her next?
"We went there so no one would recognise us," he explained hurriedly, "I'm the local schoolteacher... You know what people are like here, how fast gossip goes round in this town – it makes Twitter look obsolete!"
Martha stared at him. Was he seriously trying to justify his actions? She ran her hands through her hair distractedly, beside herself. She now took up Elliot's place of stalking up and down on what little floor space in the apartment there was without paying heed to what she was doing.
"Oh god, this is getting better and better," she muttered feverishly as she paced, "Is there anything you haven't lied to me about?"
Her head was pounding painfully. She did not know what to do. She couldn't think. She supposed she ought to ask Elliot why he had done this... how he could betray her over and over. But she couldn't, she just couldn't... She couldn't take any more. More than anything, she desperately wished to bolt right out of that room. She could not even stand to look at the man before her. It was not just the fact that he had cheated repeatedly – as terrible as that was in itself – but he had lied to her face over and over again... and not just to her but to Zoe as well! She had defended him, had believed so strongly that nothing untoward was at work here; had felt so guilty about having to hide James' existence from him, even more so for harbouring feelings she certainly should not have.
At long last, her legs were unable to support her for much longer. She halted in her pacing and sank down upon the nearest chair which sagged under her weight, burying her head in her hands. Another silence stretched between them for some minutes as Martha tried in vain to process everything.
"What're you going to do?" Elliot asked eventually in a hollow tone.
"I don't know..." she said from behind her hands, her voice muffled. She shook her head but stopped because it only made it ache all the more, "I don't know...I don't know even know how I feel at the moment, El, let alone what I'm going to do."
"You're not...you're not going to say anything, are you?" Elliot asked her cautiously, his dark eyes wide.
Martha raised her head a little, staring at him incredulously over her clasped hands. "What?"
"To the school...If word got out about this at the school," he continued, staring imploringly at her, "I'll lose any respect I have there and I won't be able to show my face there again..."
Martha could not believe her ears. On top of everything else, he had the absolute nerve to ask a favour of her! How dare he? How dare he? Never mind how he had made her feel...the utter humiliation and the hurt he was putting her through, just so long as his own reputation remained intact. That was all that mattered to him!
"You are unbelievable..." she growled, glaring at him.
Who was this standing before her? What on earth did she ever see in him? This was not the same man whom she had fallen in love with two years ago. For a tantalizing second, a surge of recklessness overwhelmed her. She was extremely tempted to say that that was exactly what she would do; that she would tell everybody at the school, let the word spread and let everybody see him for what he was. Could she really be blamed after all he had done?
But no... Martha beat the feeling back down again and it was snuffed out as quickly as it had come. What will that even achieve? She asked herself. It may give her some fleeting satisfaction but in the long run, what good would it do? It would not help at all, only make her feel worse. Petty, small-minded revenge wasn't her style and she was not about to begin now – all because of him.
A voice in her head, not entirely unlike James' whispered, "You're better than that."
Her mind was made up. Letting out a slightly shaky breath, she rose to her feet and answered finally in a peculiarly placid tone, "No, I'm not. They won't hear anything from me, don't you worry, Elliot."
An expression of great relief spread across Elliot's features, even if he was thrown by her abrupt change of tone.
"Thank you," he muttered.
"Oh, don't go running away with the idea that I'm doing it for your benefit," she snapped at him, "I'll have your things packed up. Would you be so kind as to pick them up by the end of the week?"
Elliot stared at her in bewilderment, not entirely certain he had heard correctly.
"Sorry - what?" he blurted out, frowning at her.
"Has infidelity made you go suddenly deaf?" she quipped, "I need time away from you. I don't want you anywhere near me at the moment!"
"Babe, come on – " Elliot reached out a hand towards her in an attempt to persuade her, clearly hoping that he could win her around with some well-chosen honeyed words but she evaded his touch impatiently, "Don't do this... I swear what happened with Zoe meant nothing to me... It will never happen again – "
"Stop it!" Martha burst out, finally snapping. She glared at him, incensed. She made an odd movement with her arm, half raising it as though to slap him around the face. But then she lowered it again, thinking better of it. He just was not even the worth the hassle.
"I'm not swallowing any more of your lies! I'm sick of you thinking you can treat me like a doormat! I'm sick of you thinking that I don't matter. You could have just broken things off with me sooner but no - you thought you'd humiliate me all the more...let me believe that what we had was real. All you can think about is yourself! Do you really think I can trust you after this?"
It was remarkable how those green eyes of hers, usually so full of warmth, were now resembling cold emeralds as she regarded him, seeing him plainly for the first time. It was not even anger which Elliot could see there anymore...it was unmitigated disappointment. She could not stay a second longer in that apartment. She could not think straight at all right now. She just wanted to leave as fast as was humanly possible while she still had any dignity remaining.
"If my feelings mean so little to you, then clearly this isn't going to work, is it? And I don't even know why I'm bothering to waste another second on you."
Turning her back both on him and the life she had thought they had shared together as a couple, Martha marched determinedly out of the door, not glancing back once. Elliot stared at the spot where she had been standing seconds ago, not entirely sure whether what had just transpired had been real or whether it had all been a bad dream. Once coming to the horrible conclusion that it was indeed the former, he violently kicked out at a nearby chair, letting out a roar of annoyance which quickly turned into one of agony. Now all that he was left with was nothing but a excruciating pain in his foot and an incredibly deflated ego. An hour ago, in his sheer arrogance, Elliot Fielding had imagined that he had had his life under control. Now he was laid bare for all to see and left with nobody.
When James materialised back into Martha's living room, all was quiet and the lights extinguished and so at first, he assumed that nobody was home yet. Martha had been absent for a long while now... Though before he could even start to worry over her whereabouts, he spotted a dark figure seated upon the end of the sofa. Relieved, he made to approach her.
"Martha...what happ - ?" he began to ask softly.
"Don't!" she uttered, her voice hoarse and strained.
Martha was curled up on the sofa, her arms clasped tightly around her knees, as though she was attempting to make herself as small as possible. She was staring unseeingly into the middle distance, apparently frozen on the spot. The only sound in the room which could be heard was the slow ticking from the clock on the wall and the gentle pitter-patter of rain outside the window.
She knew that James was watching her carefully, his expression seemingly one of absolute calm. A myriad of different emotions – hurt, shock, anger – were battling with one another in her brain, seething and writhing beneath the surface like lava ready to boil over at any moment. The backs of her eyes stung as hot, angry tears threatened to spill. She closed her eyes and bowed her head, trying to keep it all at bay, willing herself to remain composed.
No, I'm not going to shed tears over him, she thought stubbornly, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not...
But no sooner had she thought this, her body decided to rebel against her. The tears which she had been fruitlessly trying to hold back began to fall silently down her pale cheeks. She sensed rather than saw the captain move towards her and the next moment he was sat beside her upon the sofa. She heard him exhale a slight sigh. When he reached out a hand towards her, Martha turned her head away a little, ashamed of allowing him to see her cry.
Sensing her strain, James instead began to run one long-fingered hand across her back in a soothing gesture. He could immediately feel the tension in her body as she fought hard to keep her emotions in check. James waited... It was not long before his quiet patience and light touch soon had the desired effect. Martha could feel her composure crumble with every passing second. There was a hearty sniff followed by a strangled sob, and this poor wounded dove he so wanted to care for came freely into his welcoming arms as the dam around her suppressed emotions finally burst.
Some while later, Martha let out a great, shuddering sigh against the front of James' now slightly damp shirt. She felt utterly drained and yet somehow that was not such a terrible feeling. It was actually a relief.
She moved her head a little so that the buttons of his shirt weren't digging into her cheek. His hands rubbed soothingly over her back and arms, his lovely long fingers, the pads cold but strong, dependable and slightly calloused, feeling marvellous against her skin. She felt comforted by his nearness, yet it was eerie and also very saddening to have her ear pressed against a chest from which no steady heartbeat could be heard or felt.
His head which had come to rest atop her own as he held her close, patiently waiting for her to vent her sorrows, now rose up and Martha could feel his gaze upon her. She let out a sniffle. James reached across for the tissue box sitting on the coffee table and wordlessly passed it over. As she wiped at her face, she glanced over and that sure enough saw those cerulean eyes watching her with concern.
"Sorry," she muttered as she wiped at her eyes but he dismissed her apology with a slight shake of his head.
"Shh, don't apologise. It is good to cry sometimes. Do you wish to talk about it?" he offered kindly.
Martha shook her head and uttered a soft "No." However, after a short pause, she said hoarsely, "It was another woman." James had had a feeling that this was the case but he stayed quiet as he waited for her to continue. "I went to Elliot's flat and they were...together."
This last word was spoken with great difficulty, as though forcing herself to admit something highly unpleasant. James bowed his head a little, emitting a sigh.
"I am so sorry, Martha..."
"Turns out he was lying to her as well. How could I have been so taken in by him? You tried to warn me that he wasn't to be trusted but I wouldn't listen... I didn't want to believe it. How could I be so completely stupid?"
James shushed her gently, reassuringly, like he was trying to calm a fretful horse.
"It's not stupid for wanting to believe in the good in people," he said quietly. It was one of the things that he liked so much about her.
"No? Well, I just feel like such a fake...it's my job to advise other people about their love lives and my own was a complete sham. I bet he was having a real laugh about it," she added bitterly, "...stupid, gullible little Martha, she'll never find out, hasn't got a clue what – "
"Oh, hush now, I will not have you saying such things about yourself," James told her firmly, tightening his hold on her but not enough to cause her discomfort, "Please don't do this to yourself. This is not your fault. He is the one who is in the wrong here, not you. Do you understand?"
Martha only sniffled in reply. James felt it would be unwise of him to voice his personal opinions of Elliot right now, even if he did think that the man was a downright waste of space who had taken advantage of Martha's sweet-hearted nature and betrayed her trust... But she was hurting right now and expressing abuse of the man she had been in a relationship with would not only be highly insensitive but also serve to make her feel worse than she clearly already did. However, as he looked down to see her tear-stained face and sore red eyes, the captain felt absolutely no remorse at all for frightening Elliot when he had haunted him on those two occasions. It was the very least he deserved.
Martha shifted her body, turning herself around completely so that she was facing him, lying on her back. James gazed down at her, a little taken aback at first. Her head was now pillowed against his thigh, red hair splayed across his lap. Oh, how he wished that this scenario was different... James had lost count of the number of times over the last few weeks where he had wished such a thing. In another time, in another place, he had known people who would have found this shockingly inappropriate for a young lady to behave in such an intimate manner alone with an unmarried gentleman. But this was Martha...and with Martha, it felt far from inappropriate. It felt perfectly natural. Right.
Martha was quietly watching him. It had once been said by a remarkably clever lady author that friendship was certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love. A best friend was something Martha felt she had always missed out on over the years. Before she had met James, she had never experienced that feeling of striking up a special bond with someone outside of her family. She was so tremendously grateful to have him here by her side, fighting her corner. Not for the first time, Martha thanked the stars that it was she who had unearthed that dusty old pocket watch from amongst the clutter at the antique shop.
She reached up a hand to gently stroke her fingers along his cool, pallid cheek.
"Where would I be without you, huh?" she whispered.
That terrible pain which had been tormenting him for the last few weeks gave a sudden lurch in his heart as she spoke these words. It lingered only for a few fleeting seconds on this occasion but still it was intense. Martha's brow furrowed when she thought she saw him wince in discomfort but it was over so quickly that she thought perhaps she had imagined it. To disguise the moment, he curled his own hand round hers, entwining their fingers, softly running the pad of his thumb over her palm. That pain seemed to be determined to deliberately taunt him of what was inevitably to come and of what he were to lose when it did. He could not bear even the thought of it.
Placing the softest of kisses to the back of Martha's hand, he murmured, "You look exhausted."
The corners of Martha's mouth twitched up slightly at this.
"Is that your nice way of saying "you look terrible"?"
"No," he said with a slight laugh, "it's my way of saying that it's late, that you have just suffered an emotional blow and what you need right now is rest and sleep."
"And things'll look better in the morning?" Martha asked, quirking an eyebrow, before letting out a weary sigh, "I can't sleep...I'm too tired to sleep."
Although no sooner had these words left her mouth, her eyelids felt extremely heavy but she could not muster the energy to move to go to bed...and despite feeling emotionally battered and bruised, it felt so nice to be lying here in the shelter of his arms. After a moment, James began to gently stroke her hair and Martha unconsciously snuggled herself closer to him, feeling her entire being gradually relax. Her eyes fluttered closed.
"Will you be here when I wake up?" she asked him.
"Yes, of course...if you want me to," he answered softly.
"I'll always want you..." was the last thing he heard her whisper before she finally succumbed to sleep's welcoming embrace.
I rewrote that scene between Martha and Elliot so many times and I'm still not sure if I'm happy with it. I suck at writing arguments or confrontations because they never seem to have the impact I was aiming for. I've never been in a situation concerning a cheating partner myself (I'm glad to say), so this is a combination of stories I've heard/read and artistic licence. I know in real life a breakup like this would take much longer to pan out and to be honest, I did write a much longer scene. But I figured it'd so boring for you guys to read and I'm sure you're a lot keener to read more about Martha and James. I just wanted to boot that stupid arse Elliot out of the picture before focusing on the story's ending. But he will make an appearance later on.
Anyway! I've rambled on enough. I hope you enjoyed reading and if so, a review would be marvellous, my darlings! Love to you all :)
