A/N: Apparently my muse is on over drive. Another Small Ficlet- Jolie Style. A little sadish. Sorry about that.
Part Two: Making Plans
Sometimes in the earliest morning hours she would find herself padding downstairs, putting on a pot of coffee hours before the lobby would see anyone but herself. The sweet aroma would help her wake up, help remove the dreams that lingered too long. The difference between dreams and nightmare she had learned was a thin and wavering line, the sweetest dreams often had her wake with the heaviest of hearts.
Sometimes she would do the books for Roxy, chewing on a pencil end as she added and re-added the long badly done columns of numbers, and sometimes she would straighten the papers that she knew John always left lying about the place, but more often than not she would find herself looking longingly at her day planner.
John had chuckled at her when he had seen it one morning, while Jared slept soundly upstairs. "Why is being organized funny?" Natalie had asked with an arched eyebrow.
"Nothing funny about being organized." John admitted, Natalie had been placated with his response. "But there is something funny about you being organized."
Natalie sent him a sharp look. "I don't see why."
John poured himself a cup of coffee, amazed to find it so stale, and registering that she must have brewed it hours ago. "I must be thinking of some other Natalie then, the one who left her wet towels all over the apartment."
"Funny." Natalie replied tartly but there was a wisp of a smile teasing the corners of her lips. And then he was gone, off to work, or to see Cole or Marty, or a multitude of other places she was no longer privy to.
It was always after he had left, that the quiet seemed so loud. The small lobby always seemed so much bigger, and she felt so much smaller. The tasks she had set in front of her always felt so hard and though she tried to concentrate, her eyes would wander every few minutes to a her blue day planner.
Sometimes on the mornings when the emptiness was too hard to swallow, she would find herself picking it up and heading to the small sofa. There she would cast a furtive glance up the stairs, looking guilty at something so innocent. Then she would flip back to December, looking at the appointments and wondering how something so unplanned had almost changed everything.
And then she would page through weeks, skipping entire months until she came at last to September 10th. Natalie would look at the date, a tiny circle around the number and nothing else noted on it. On most days there would a quiver in her chin and on rare occasions a tear or two, shed in silence. Sometimes she would wonder how you could miss something you never even had.
She had planned to tell him, she wasn't sure when, she had thought maybe she would stop by after the Go Red Ball with some burgers and fries. She would be dressed up and he would be casual, and they would match in their own imperfect way. But then there had been the craziness with Jess and Alison and then red spots. And then there was nothing to tell.
Now September 10th was just another day, another Wednesday, and that circle she had so eagerly done in bright red ink was nothing but a what-might-have-been. She had tired to cast those thoughts aside but her heart had a longer memory and in dreams moments that should have been would pop up unbidden and still asleep her hands would flutter down to a belly that was too flat and she would wake with heartsickness.
Once or twice she had almost told him, there was nothing to tell really, but she occasionally thought he should know. She would watch storm clouds send bolts of blue electricity into the hot summer night, and wonder what he would have said, or would still say. Maybe he would be relieved, a bullet dodged, or maybe he would feel the ache she did when she saw a stroller. Those nights she always went to bed vowing to tell him in the morning, but the harsh light of day was harder to face.
Natalie was tracing the date lightly with her fingers when John came suddenly bolting through the door, causing her to gasp and snap the book shut. John paused on his way up the stairs. "Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."
"You didn't." She shook her head a little too much for it to be true.
"I left my badge," He explained. "You sure you are okay?"
"I'm fine." The words were a half truth, concealing and comforting.
"Okay." He smiled and with a look at his day planner he nodded his head. "Well I'll let you get back to planning your future."
And her eyes followed him up the stairs. There wasn't a future to plan anymore, not that she intended to tell him that.