Allegro 21

Sigh…it's all over...almost

Disclaimer: Characters belong to Lloyd, Moore and others

He would be coming in soon. Eve looked at the clock over the mantle. She had disabled its chimes. The constant fifteen minute updates of the passing of time pained her still. Every whir and click and chime sends me back to the tunnel, to the train. She had disabled all the chimes in all the clocks in her house. When I want to know the time, I will look up.

She heard him outside, fumbling for his key. She opened the door for him and stood aside. He is cold. He stood there on the stoop, hatless, his hair whipped around his head in the gusts from the storm. His hair curls when it is wet. Circles of hair stuck to his forehead in round coils while the rest of it stood up in the wind as he stood there, staring at her, his keys in his hand. His Mac was pulled up around his neck, but he was cold and wet. Evey opened the door wider and he came in, bringing some of the storm with him.

He had gone straight away to the kitchen. Evey followed the trail of drips on the floor to find him there, taking off his Mac, setting his briefcase on the chair and laying his mobile on the counter. Evey smiled at him. "I made soup for you. It's in the crock-pot. And I have some hot bread to go with it. You'll be warm soon."

He glanced at her, worried. Evey smiled harder, reassuring him. His eyes were still wary, his mouth firm. They had not spoken since last night when she had tucked him into his bed. He pulled off a glove, tilted his head toward Finch's room. "How is he?" His voice was hoarse. Maybe he is coming down with a cold. Or he is more worried about Finch than he lets on. Or it's something else.

"I will go check on him for you," Evey said in a smooth voice. We can talk about this later if you want.

His mobile rang. He looked at the folded screen with distaste. "I have to take this call," he said.

He sounded apologetic. Guilty. Evey smiled again. My smiles are ineffective. He needs more than my smiles. She said to him, "Take the call. I will check on him. You need a hot shower before you eat. Go take the edge off that chill you brought in with you."

He nodded, dripped water on the counter from his hair. Evey turned as he reached for the mobile. She heard him talking over her shoulder as she made her way to Finch's room. "This is Stone. Yes. I see. Do you have the papers for it? Have you filed the report?" His voice faded as she passed through the open door into the first-floor guest room.

She kept it dark in here. The doctors had said to keep the lights low until he had recovered completely. Evey opened the door to let in the light from the hall just enough so she could see him in the large bed. He was sleeping; she could hear his regular breathing. He was stretched out on the very edge of the bed on his side, facing away from the center. She had put a king-sized bed in this room for him. The medical transport men had placed him in the very center of it. Within a minute or so of their departure, she had found Finch on the edge. And he never moved from it. Is he used to sleeping on the edge so he can reach the phone in the middle of the night?

There was no place for her to sit next to him. She knelt on the floor. Or maybe…she looked over his shoulders at the vast empty space behind him on the bed. He sleeps as far away from a woman as he can get. Cynthia. And Delia. V's Delia. A cold woman. We are all connected in one way or another, aren't we? Eve imagined Finch and Delia together. Two people going through the motions of love, but feeling nothing. They both knew they needed something but not what it was. It was not each other. She looked at his sleeping face. Relaxed. At peace. His dark curls were pressed against his head, bits of grey at his temples now; she didn't remember the grey from last year. He is sleeping well. He is fine. He will be fine. I will tell Dominic, it will take some of the ache out of his eyes. She held on to the bedside table to brace herself as she got to her feet. Finch's eyes flew open and he sat up quickly. The blankets fell away from his body, leaving him exposed in his cotton shirt and drawstring flannels.

Evey put her hands on his shoulders and sat down on the edge of the bed where now, suddenly, there was a space. "Oh, Mr. Finch. I'm sorry. I did not mean to disturb you, I was checking on you to see how you were doing. I'm so sorry. I didn't intend to wake you."

He was alarmed; the dark eyes quickly took in the room. An inspector's eyes. Evey waited until he had scanned everything, seen everything, collected himself. "Where am I?" He rubbed his eyes and looked again.

"You are here, in my home, Mr. Finch, Eric. You were released from hospital yesterday. The doctors have you heavily sedated. They say you won't sleep without drugs. That is why you might feel disoriented. Do you have any pain?" Evey asked that last question because of the stricken look in his eyes. He grimaced and rubbed his face with one hand. She reached for the prescription canisters on the table.

"No. No." He gestured, brushing the air in front of the canisters.

"No more drugs. I have to think."

"Oh, there you are wrong, Inspector." Evey put the drugs down and took his hand. "No thinking. You just need to rest. At least a week of rest before you do any more thinking. I am taking care of you. And Dominic is taking care of the Nose. You can relax now. Everything is going to be fine. I came in to see if you need anything. Are you thirsty? Do you need to get up? The loo is just a few feet from this bed, right through that door. I have some soup for you if you are hungry. Some tea, the kettle is hot. Tell me what you need, Eric." He turned his eyes on her when he heard his name. Evey smiled a soft smile. He needs reassuring.

"Your house?"

"Yes. We are here in Bloomsbury. You are staying with me."

"Dominic? The baby?"

Evey paused. Dominic. Her ear stretched out into the hall, to the stair. She heard Dominic, his phone call completed, climbing slowly and heavily up to his room, each weighty step like his own death knell. I will go talk to him. "Yes. He is here too. And the baby. We are all here. We are your family now, Eric."

The look he gave her nearly broke her heart. Evey sat back, put her hands on either side of his face. He felt soft on the outside, hard on the inside. The opposite of what she knew to be true about him. She made him look at her. "Eric. Look at me."

He did. His eyes, always so guarded, always so calculating, appeared lost. She saw him thinking despite her admonition and smiled at him. She kissed his forehead. Then Evey pulled him to her and hugged him, stroking his back. He sighed, sagging in her arms. Go ahead, she thought at him, embrace me it's all right now, it's all over. He folded her into his arms and squeezed. Evey felt his weariness in the embrace. Time to rest, Inspector. Time for some peace. Can you feel that in me? Can you feel my peace?

He murmured, "I can."

Evey leaned back to look at him, amazed. He blinked at her. Then he frowned. His dark eyes moved up and to the ceiling, then he stared back at her intently. In a very soft voice he said, "But someone else needs it more."

"Ah…" Evey stood up. "I believe you are right." She looked up at the ceiling too.

"He loves you so much."

Evey put a hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry about him. I will take care of him, too."

Finch frowned again, looked up past her at the light fixture over their heads. "I think now would be a good time. It's just a feeling I have."

Evey patted his shoulder. "Yes. I know what to do."

Eve made her way up the stairs, hand on the railing, careful not to slip on the drops of water that had rained down from him on each step. She paused at the entrance to his bedroom. The door was wide open. She could hear the shower running within. His suit coat lay over the arm of a chair. His briefcase lay on the bed. His shoes were by the wall. She walked past each of his things on her way to the bathroom. The bathroom door had been pulled close to the jam to keep the steam in, but he had not closed it. He did not like closed doors. Not anymore. Evey knew why.

She pushed the door open and went in silently, clicking it shut behind her. Only the dim lights from the mirror were on. He had not flipped all the switches. Evey liked soft light when she was in the bath too. His trousers, with the belt still attached, lay over the sink, his white shirt on top of them. His blue tie was draped over the towel rack. Black socks on the floor. The water made a hissing sound, loud in her ears. She could see him through the glass doors; the steam and the etching on the glass diffused the shape of his body into a shadowy blur in the running water.

Eve watched him. He had not heard her come in. She could tell buy the way his arms worked behind the glass, soaping his hair. She slipped off her shoes one by one. Then she shimmied out of her skirt and draped it over his trousers. The steam made it difficult to see the tiny white buttons of her blouse. She unbuttoned each one and let the silk fall to the floor. Her bra came off. She laid it over his tie. Her panties joined her blouse on the floor. She walked to the shower door. Even the sliding glass door was not closed all the way. He had left it open a couple inches. A light mist drifted from the shower on to the floor through the opening. She paused with a finger on the door handle. When I slide this door, there will be no going back. Is this what I want?

It is.

She touched the door lightly, allowing it to slide smoothly in its track, then stepped into the shower, sliding the door fully closed behind her. She looked up at him, expecting to see him shocked. He was. He stood there, absolutely still, his eyes wide. The shower rained water down on his head, plastering his dark hair to his cheeks in ropes.

Evey merely stood before him, naked, letting the splashes of water from his shower cover her body, stippling her with tiny droplets. Her hair slowly relaxed until every strand hung down over her shoulders and lightly touched her breasts. She waited for him to recover from his surprise. He blinked at her, but did not move or speak. Obviously he will not recover quickly. Time to act, then. Evey took a step toward him and lifted a wash cloth from the rack on the tile wall, then the soap from the ledge. She did not move her eyes from his as she soaped the cloth. She took another step until she was nearly touching him. She had to look up even higher now, to hold his eyes. She raised her hand and touched his shoulders with the soapy cloth, then slowly made a circling motion over his muscled chest. He flinched. She knew he would. Slowly, she told herself. Slowly. I have to be careful. His eyes changed. Good. No longer shocked. Now they were worried. He is afraid. He doesn't know what I am doing. She continued to soap his chest and shoulders until she felt him relax slightly, getting used to the idea that she was in the shower with him. Then she moved the washcloth down his right arm to his hand. He allowed her to lift it and examine it in the steamy light. Evey brushed the soapy cloth over his fingers, looked at the scars. Thick white marks crisscrossed the back of the hand from the wounds the surgeon's knife had left on him. Smaller scars peppered the fingers from where the splintered bone had pierced the skin from inside. Eve remembered his pain, his blood. She remembered setting each shattered finger. She remembered who broke them. She looked back up at his eyes. He is still afraid. She took the hand and laid it carefully, with the straight, healed fingers splayed out, over her heart, and then covered it with her own.

This was too much too soon. He immediately bowed his head to hide his face from her; the water cascaded over him making his hair a black curtain between her and his thoughts. He feels safer if I can't see his eyes. So be it. Evey pressed his hand against her and moved close enough to touch him body to body. Now she could hear him breathing under the sound of the water. Breathing deeply, irregularly. What can I say to him? Steam rose up around her shoulders, as she ran her other hand along his side, comforting him, feeling the muscles under his skin as his chest rose and fell with the effort of breathing. He felt warm.

"Dominic," she said. He inhaled loudly, turned to the wall and rested his forehead against the tile. He put his hands on the wall too. There would be no more eye contact with him turned away from her like that. "Dominic. I came in here for you." She rested her head against his back and let the water rain down on her. "I need you. We need you. Say you will stay."

Evey did not look up while she waited for his response. She closed her eyes and gave him that privacy of darkness as the warm water washed over her. After a long while, she felt him turn around. A moment later both his strong hands were gently laid on her hips as he brought her in close to embrace her. She felt him bend down and then his rough cheek rubbed against her ear.

"Evey. Are you certain? Please, please do not…I can't…" he couldn't finish. But he didn't need to finish. Evey knew. She looked up at him, still hiding behind a curtain of dark hair. The drops from the shower rolled down his face and splashed down on her. She raised her hand and smoothed the hair to the side, holding it there against his cheek.

The dark eyes were full of pain, the black lashes clumped with warm water and steam. Evey shook her head side to side. No more pain. No more. Not for either of us. "I am certain,"

She waited. His move, now. He bent lower, took her chin between his finger and thumb and touched his lips to hers, lightly, just a feather touch, not even a real kiss. Then he pulled back to look at her; his detective eyes darted quickly over her face. Warm water rained down on both of them.

He's searching my face for signs of distaste, revulsion, rejection. Evey knew he would not find them. Only truth.

"Oh, Eve." He put everything into the sound of her name.

"I am getting wrinkled. Time to get out of the water." She took his hand and led him through the doors. He turned the shower knob as he stepped out; the sudden quiet in the small room was filled with the sound of a baby crying. "Oh no," Evey smiled at him.

"Here." He handed her a fluffy towel, then wrapped another one around his waist. Evey wrapped hers around her body and tucked the corner in around her breasts. They both dripped quickly through his room into hers and to the crib by her bed. The sound of pitiful crying became angry and demanding as soon as she leaned over the edge and the baby saw her face. She laughed. "So he is hungry. That's how I can tell."

"You can tell?"

"Yes. He gets angry when the food is late. Here, will you pull that chair up for me?" Evey gestured to the rocker under the window. Dominic brought it to her as she lifted the baby from the crib and brought him to her shoulder. She sat down and dropped the towel from her breasts. The baby reached for her with tiny waving fists and she silenced him with a nipple. Dominic went down on his knees by her side, watching. He glanced up at her briefly, as if to ask for permission, then reached out to touch the baby's cheek with the back of his index finger. Evey looked down at both of them, full of love.

When Dominic looked up at her again his eyes were shining.