A/N: So hello again! Thank you for all your wonderful reviews! Not only did they make my day, but they encouraged me to write immediately. So it happened that this was the first song that came up, and it fit that since I had done comfort for angsty Ranger, Steph should get a chance. It was not on purpose, but I heard this song and this story just came out. I have edited the lyrics so they do not include all of the song, just the ones I thought were applicable.
I am sorry it is so short. Originally, it was even shorter; I was going to end it before the love scene. But still, it is quite short, so I will try and post another chapter soon to make up for it. I didn't want to force it to be longer just for that sake. I hope you enjoy and please, drop me a review if you liked it!
Title: Come Away with Me
Inspiration: Norah Jones
Genre: Angst/Romance/Comfort
Rating: M
Summary: Something happens to Stephanie to make her feel like her world is falling apart. And there is only one something, one someone, who can make her feel whole.
Warning: Brief sexual situations at the end, but really, its more emotion than it is sex.
The rain was falling. It was pounding the ground, and all I could see was splashes bouncing off black pavement as I ran, puddles reflecting what must've been buildings, but just looked like blurs of color through the rain, through the tears, through my pain.
It was dusk. The light was low and the car didn't see me coming, and I just saw light. I dove, and it swerved, and I was lucky. Flat on my back, the rain looked like bullets plummeting towards me, and I wondered if I laid here if they would destroy me.
I felt destroyed. God, I felt raw. I laid there and hoped that if it pounded hard enough, I would feel the cold, feel the pressure, feel anything but this hole the size of Massachusetts in my chest.
I had come here for a reason. I had gotten so close to solace, to relief, to escape. But I hadn't made it. I hadn't made it far enough, and now I was going to drown. In what, I didn't know. My tears. My despair. The rain pounding down into my nose and mouth. Any of them would do. Because I hadn't made it far enough. I hadn't made it to him, my solace, my relief, my escape.
God my everything.
It was all that mattered anymore. With one foul sweep everything else had disappeared, and now the only thing that mattered was that by the time night fell, I would be gone. And he would be with me.
Come away with me in the night,
Come away with me,
Come away where they can't tempt us,
With their lies.
But his hands came through. They always did. They had when they pulled me out of that coffin, when they pulled me away from flying glass and bullets, when they protected me, when they had held me for a kiss that had been forbidden before we knew, when they had covered every inch of my body once we did know.
Hands became a warm body and the body led to lips that I kissed crazily while my own hands grasped at a mocha latte face that haunted and soothed me all at the same time.
Come away with me,
And we'll kiss,
Come away with me,
And I'll never stop loving you.
And what was so incredibly perfect was that those lips were kissing me back, those hands were pulling me into that body, and when I finally pulled back, I saw ease reflected back at me in his eyes, and I forgot the desperation in my own gaze.
"Come away with me," I whispered, breathless from his kiss and the magnitude of my longing, "Now. Come away with me and there will be you and me and nothing else."
Behind the fear, the knowledge that he had a business to run, every logical thought and insecurity that made me doubt the words would come, I knew. Just as we had finally known all those months ago.
Some call it infatuation. Some call it blind. I call it faith. There was nothing I had more in him than faith and trust. And finally, that faithful day, I had known that my trust in him extended beyond my mind and my body. I trusted in him, had faith in him, and loved him with everything I was: heart and soul included. I trusted him with them, and knew he would not break me, or my heart, just as he knew I would not crush him.
And so now, as we sat in the rain, and he wrapped a jacket around my shoulders, stared into my eyes, nose-to-nose, I knew that brush of his lips, that sigh of contentment and utter peaceful longing, and his words did not surprise me.
"God yes," he sighed, "We will go. Now."
And then I wasn't in the rain. I wasn't in despair. I wasn't feeling the gaping hole of loss and betrayal and emptiness. Soft sheets surrounded me. Warm hands, now, covered my naked body and pulled me against hard, velvety skin. Full, pliable lips kissed beneath my swollen eyes as I ran my fingers through long, solid black locks.
"Are you going to tell me what happened, Babe?"
"It doesn't matter," I spoke, and my voice no longer shook, "I don't care, anymore. You, this, this is what matters. This is what is important. This, God Ranger, this is everything."
His eyes filled with emotion. I don't know how I had never seen it before we knew. How I had thought he had a blank face, thought that he hid his emotions. Because before me was a man who was swelling with all of them, and as he slammed his lips into mine and slid inside me, we both gasped, and I knew now that it was at so much more than our physical joining.
He met my eyes and loved me harder with them than with his body. He sighed against my cheek, dipping his head and then inhaling harshly the scent of my neck.
"I love you, Stephanie," he said, lips now against mine, "I love you so much. Breathe, baby; God you feel like every fantasy of the best heaven anywhere."
With those words he gently pulled out of me and pressed back in, slowly, lovingly, feeling my body, running hands up to feel my breasts. And everywhere he touched, it was like I could feel exactly what emotion he did it with. There was no ferocity, no urgency, no claim being staked and no animal desire taking charge. It was like this act was a mere extension of the onslaught of emotion that was gripping the both of us.
He thrust inward, and I felt him cherish the way that my body fit to his own perfectly. His hand ran up my side, and I knew he adored me as he moaned at the way my breast fit in his hand as though God had measured. When he ran his thumb around my nipple, I could feel his awe: at how it perked up instantly for him, at how I responded to him this way and every way, at how much I was his and we were us and we would never be singular people ever again.
I have heard that when two people find each other, they feel as though they are two puzzle pieces that fit together. I understood that for our bodies, but as I felt him push his fingers under my head, push further into me, and bring our faces closer together, I knew that we would never be two puzzle pieces. There was no line that separated us. No piece to be fit.
We were one singular piece.
When I came, it was soft. I felt my body clench but it was nothing in comparison to the ecstasy that filled my chest as I literally felt my heart explode. It was okay. I didn't own it anymore anyway. And when I felt him, in reaction to my trembling body, my cry of his name, and the tears running down my cheeks, release inside of me, I felt that every single ounce of him was for me, mine, never really his at all.
Warm arms wrapped me up again. We kissed for ages, kissing away tears and intensity, and allowing the all consuming, overwhelming, utter love die down enough so that it was manageable that we could not physically crawl into each other's skin. When my now dry eyes met his again, I knew for sure that not only did I belong here, but that if I had asked him to come away with me to Mars, or Venus, or anywhere, he would have. And I felt, as he stroked one hand through my crazy curls, that there was no question; I had always known. Because everywhere one of us went, so did the other. He didn't need to come away with me; we only came away together.
And I want to wake up,
With the rain falling on a tin roof,
Where I'm safe there in your arms,
So all I ask is for you,
To come away with me in the night,
Come away with me.