Chapter 17 – Melt My Heart to Stone
"How did you manage to accumulate so much junk?" Linka asked, picking up an old slinky and regarding it with a frown.
"Hey!" he replied, taking it out of her hand, "It's not junk… well not all of it. I just haven't gone through it in a while."
The Russian looked around at the stacked and over flowing boxes, and the papers that had slid down to cover the floor of the small room. "That is an understatement."
Wheeler shrugged, "I meant to put it all away somewhere but…"
"You know that if you have not used any of this in all this time, you could probably just get rid of it all," she gestured around the room. "There is no point just moving it somewhere else."
Giving her a look, the American began to root around in one of the boxes. "That's why we're going to sort it all properly. The papers are to do with my degree, I want to make sure there's nothing I need in them, and to be honest… I'm not sure what else is in here."
Linka rolled her eyes and started picking up papers, "Do you not have all of this on computer?"
"Not the technical drawings no, I found drawing on the PC too slow." He shrugged and began helping her. "Let's just get them bundled up for now, I can go through them later." He ignored the expression on her face which said she knew very well what 'later' meant.
"Oh!" The lovely blond exclaimed suddenly, halting in her work.
Wheeler came over beside her, wondering if she'd seen a mouse or something. "What?"
She pointed to the object she'd uncovered beneath the mountain of course work. "Did Ma-Ti bring that to you? I… I was sure you had left that on Hope Island."
"No..." he replied quietly, bending down to lift up his guitar, "I got it myself. Most of this stuff came from there…"
"You went back." Linka whispered.
Wheeler wondered what she was thinking. "Yeah, to clear out my room." He lied.
"Oh." She chewed nervously on her bottom lip for a moment and then said. "I did not know."
"You'd already left." He told her, turning away and pretending to take an interest in another box. "There didn't seem any point in calling you back just to say good bye again." She didn't answer and he said, "Gi tried to tell me that you would want to see me but… it was all still so raw."
She swallowed, "I understand."
"I didn't, not back then." Her friend turned back towards her and continued sadly, "I wanted to talk to you, and I was pissed that you weren't there, even though I had no right to expect you to be." He shook his head. "I wasn't really ready to listen either... I was still leaving, I guess I was going to play the martyr while offering you a chance to prove yourself by coming with me... You had a lucky escape."
"I would have gone with you." She told him. "Whatever you believe my motive for it was, you must know that I was committed to the relationship?"
Wheeler gave a slow nod, "Yeah… like I said, you had a lucky escape. It would never have worked, I hadn't forgiven you and sooner or later it would have come between us."
"And there would have been no hope of saving our friendship if that had happened," She added, almost to herself as if she needed reminding.
"Yeah." The silence stretched onwards until Linka finally suggested that they move everything to the lounge and sort it into piles there. This they did, gradually regaining their composure until Linka made another discovery.
The Russian had suddenly halted in mid-sentence but it was a moment or two before Wheeler looked round. When he did, he found her sitting on the sofa looking at an old piece of paper, piles of things all around and silent tears streaking her dust ridden face.
"Hey Babe, what's wrong?" He quickly but carefully made his way over to her and though she tried to dissemble, sat himself down next to her and compelled her to show him what she'd been looking at.
Wheeler stared at the newspaper cutting of that fateful night just before it all fell apart.
"I did not know what happened to it." Linka told him, moisture still leaking from her eyes, "I assumed the others got rid of it, I never dreamed you kept it."
The American shifted guiltily, "I took it with me to Doctor Derrick's, it was the only picture I had of us together."
"But why? If you truly believed it was all a lie…" There was a look in her eyes that Wheeler refused to acknowledge but the tone in her voice was almost desperate and he couldn't lie.
"I didn't want to believe that! I kept looking at that article like I thought I'd suddenly have a revelation or something… I don't know. Everyone kept telling me that you loved me, I guess I was trying to see what they saw, or what they thought they saw." He ran his hands through his hair, "But after I went back to Hope Island and found you gone I just dumped it in one of the boxes with the rest of the stuff."
He didn't need to tell her that he'd forgotten it was there, that was clear to her, as was something else. "You never did work out what made them think I loved you, did you?"
Wheeler shrugged, "They saw what they were supposed to see, and what they wanted to see, just like I did until… well it doesn't matter. The point is I should have got rid of this years ago, I'm sorry you found it like this."
"Da." She took one last long look at the happy couple, kissing as they swayed to the music, "You should burn it."
Wheeler was a bit taken aback by the suggestion, disturbed that she hated the reminder so much, but he had to acknowledge that she was right. Taking the old clipping into his ensuite bathroom to carry out the destruction however, he found that he wasn't willing to part with the memory. Hiding the paper in the bottom of one of his cupboards, Wheeler found an old magazine and tore out a page to burn in the bathroom bin, just in case she checked.
I know it embodies her betrayal, he thought, I can't blame her for hating it and I know it's not healthy to hang on to it… but we were happy that night. It's like a snapshot of a dream and I don't want to forget how it felt, even though it was a lie… I just wish I'd never found out the truth.
"Nervous?" Wheeler asked as the lift door closed on them and they began their ascent to their office. He'd noticed how quiet his companion had become on their journey in and wanted to help.
Linka nodded, "I keep telling myself that no one knows, but I still feel like everyone will be watching us."
The American shook his head, "Tom won't say anything, but you'll have to let HR know that you're staying at my place so it might get out anyway. Just act like it's no big deal."
"Da I know." She gave him a brief smile and, as they reached their floor just then, stepped through the open doors and made her way to her desk.
It had taken a few more telephone calls the previous day, both with Tom and her superior in Russia but everything was back the way it had been. She'd managed to sidestep their more personal questions about her change of heart but she knew it would be harder to keep things from their team.
"Happy New Year!" Karen stepped forward and gave her a hug, knowing full well that Linka wasn't the sort of person who appreciated such gestures.
"Happy New Year to you as well," Linka smiled and disengaged herself quickly, "I hope you had a nice holiday?"
Wheeler laughed and asked where his hug was and Karen obliged him as she answered, "I did, thank you… though with kids like mine I'm glad to be back at work to recover. What about you two?"
Linka blushed, though their colleague hadn't intended to imply a joint vacation, "It was good."
"She's lying," Wheeler said, coming to her rescue, "She missed her flight home because of her cold and then got stuck with me for the duration."
Karen looked surprised and so did Olga who had just arrived, "Did I hear that correctly Linka? You spent Christmas with Jason?"
The Russian girl looked very uncomfortable but she nodded, "I was sick and the doctor said I should not be on my own."
"Why didn't you call me?" Olga asked, making herself comfortable at her desk.
"Well I…" Linka looked helplessly at Wheeler, not sure how much she should tell them.
The American rolled his eyes, more for their team members benefit than Linka's, "She fainted at the airport and the hospital called me because she still had my card in her purse," he shrugged, "We were both on our own anyway, it didn't make sense to bother anyone else."
Linka nodded in confirmation and escaped to make coffee in the small kitchen area, automatically making one for Wheeler as well. He thanked her when she put it on his desk but was already looking through the notes he'd made, and the others were greeting the male members of their team, so Linka was able to take a few seconds to recover.
"Do we have a replacement for Amanda yet?" Peter asked at last, taking his usual seat.
"Tom has someone lined up." Linka told him, "But it will be a few days before he can start. Jason and I have worked that into our plan, I do not think it will be a problem as long as he is on-board before the next round of inspections start."
"I hope you two didn't spend the whole of your holiday working?" Karen said, coming up beside them.
Linka smiled and shook her head, "Nyet, but I was sick for the first half anyway. We watched a lot of films mostly."
Since it was clear that Peter was sensing a story, the Russian was glad that Wheeler called them all into the meeting room at that point, and she could bury herself in work.
"You ok Babe?" Wheeler tilted his head and peered closely at her as they stood side by side in the kitchen area during their mid-morning break.
Linka smiled, "Da of course."
And she was. As ridiculous as it seemed to her, she had found that she missed his jibes, simply because it meant that she didn't have his attention. Wheeler had been so focused on his work all morning that she had longed to provoke him in some way, but unlike her friend, would not give in to such childish impulses.
"Ok…" He continued to watch her, "You've just been a bit quiet is all."
"I think I am still trying to work out how to relate to you now." She said softly, not wanting her voice to carry to the others. "Our friendship was never so…"
Wheeler gave her a cheeky look, "Tame?"
Laughing, she nodded, "I do not want to fight and it would be inappropriate for us to flirt, but… it is different when it is just the two of us."
"Yeah." Wheeler agreed, knowing that he'd taken every opportunity to be in contact with her over the last couple of weeks, and feeling the unnatural distance between them as badly as she obviously was. "I guess it'll take time. You're not regretting it though right? Coming back I mean?"
"Nyet." Linka smiled at him, and then asked consciously. "And you? Are you ok with my being here?"
Wheeler grinned and a warm feeling started in her chest, and only increased with his words, "More than ok, even when I was fighting it, it felt good not to be on my own anymore. Now, knowing you're here, it's just… right."
Her face was failing to conceal how happy he'd made her, but all she said was, "We make a good team, partner."
"The best!" The look in his eyes made her cheeks grow hot and he tenderly brushed the back of one finger over the warm skin before heading back into the office, leaving Linka with a smile that wouldn't quit.