A/N: Hey guys thanks for reading I really appreciate the support, your reviews, or adding this story as a favorite or on alert make me very happy. So the muse is cooperating so I've decided to continue for a bit. Same disclaimers apply blah blah. Enjoy!
I didn't want to watch them walk back into the apartment. I didn't want to see them walking away from me. I wished I could go and join them, help make dinner, laugh with them, and tuck my daughter into bed. Instead like a coward I sit out here and watch. Watch them walk away as if I didn't exist, I supposed in their lives I didn't.
Suddenly I was startled by a sharp rapping on my window. And my heart stopped again.
"Excuse me are you lost? Do you need directions...oh my god….Danny?" She was so close to me, my senses were overwhelmed by her light scent of jasmine and honeysuckle. I had never really believed in sensory memory until this moment, I could remember exactly how her skin felt under my fingers, how soft her hair was when she was laying across my bare chest. Part of me thought I should slam the car into gear and peal out of the parking lot, but once again I couldn't make my limbs work. My mouth felt dry and I was suddenly struck dumb.
"What are you doing here?" I couldn't look into her eyes, I didn't want to see the anger that I assumed would reside there.
"Lindsay, I'm really sorry, I'll just leave. I won't bother you again." My voice had barely returned to me and it only contained apologies. I felt awful, I felt so dirty, and I actually thought I was going to be sick. To violate her privacy like this, to usurp moments that I had no right to and wasn't invited to share. But I remembered sullenly that in fact I had chosen this; I made an awful choice, this awful choice, not to be included. I chanced a look at her face and was surprised to see just confusion and sadness. I could never get her forgiveness for the worst of my crimes, but I felt like I had to apologize for at least this indiscretion. "I'm so sorry, I'll just go. Don't worry I won't bother you." I still couldn't get myself to put the car into gear and drive away. It wasn't easy the first time I left her, and it was impossible now. My body knew what a huge mistake it was the first time and refused to listen to my conflicted mind and leave now.
I could tell she had no idea what to say. That she had walked over here with the intention of telling the loitering creep, in the nicest possible way, to leave. My presence was the last thing in the world she expected to find. I'm sure she was in a way comforted to think I was in New York and wouldn't come back into her life to turn it upside down. She seemed to be having a hard time forming words, or tell me to get the hell out of her life.
Suddenly her silence, my rambling apologies and sudden onset paralysis were interrupted by a tiny voice.
"Mommy?" and the remaining pieces of my heart broke.
"I'll be there in a sec honey" her voice barely betrayed her present shock. Yet she still looked at me.
"Are you staying nearby?" I wanted to lie, tell her that I was leaving right away, that in a few minutes I would be out of their lives completely, I wouldn't ruin their lives again. I knew the truth, I knew I couldn't leave this city yet. Even if I had to end my voyeuristic thievery, just being in the same time zone, imagining sharing the same air, the same sky and the same stars with them would keep me here for a bit longer.
"Um yeah, at the motel down the road." I couldn't lie to her anymore, couldn't lie to myself anymore.
"Okay." And just like that she turned around, picked up Sierra balancing her on her hip and walked away. The thing inside me that demanded punishment, made me watch them walk away. To feel a modicum of what she might have felt. I knew I would never know what she had felt. Pregnant, unloved, alone. I could never know what heartbreak I caused her. She and the rest of the team would have been well within their rights to have publicly stoned me. As I watched them walk away, Sierra turned in Lindsay's arms so she was looking directly back at me. A curious expression brightened her blue eyes, almost in a strange recognition, and a she gave me a small smile.