A/N: Hey loves, This is short and sweet. Maybe a little dark...are you caught up yet? I'm so bored over here! ;)
Just Keep Breathing (We The Kings)
I can't define just how much the pain draws me together...
Makes me complete...
And all that I have to do is just lay there and take it.
Just close my eyes and allow the pain to transform into something beautiful...
Something personal...
Each time that I go under the needle, I am already wounded in some way.
I feel like I have fallen apart and I go to the needle so that I can feel closer to who I once was.
If I could rewrite my life...
Fix things so that I could have minimal amounts of hurt...
There is one thing that I would not change...
And that's my love for her.
It has caused me pain and sadness just as much as it has caused me joy and peace.
This process is what connects me to her.
She just doesn't know it.
Not yet.
But she will soon enough.
When I had figured out that Christmas in San Francisco would be a bad idea, I had made plans to spend the week catching up on the things that I had lost over the last few months.
It had been my hope that Quinn would be spending it with Britt, Derek and Nicky, just like Thanksgiving...but then Britt called my bluff.
She wasn't going to let me flake out on my first Christmas with my wife and so she turned the tables.
Britt made it possible for the dominoes to fall the way that they did.
She was forcing Quinn to make the first move.
Nothing that Brittany does is by accident.
It was why I was so angry with her and why she was so angry with me.
She was planted firmly in the middle of my marriage...not because of Quinn but because of me.
Brittany has always been my shield...where I go to hide because I'm too afraid of the world...too afraid of being an adult.
What I had failed to take into account when I selfishly decided on skipping out on my wife, was that Brittany was no longer a child herself.
Addiction, rehab and motherhood had taken the innocence that I used to hide behind and transformed it into maturity.
I couldn't hide anymore.
So now, here I was...preparing to open up to myself to my wife like I never had before.
And while at first, I wanted to berate Britt and tear her to shreds, as I laid there watching my wife watch me, I was grateful.
Only a true friend will make you face the parts of yourself that you are trying to hide.
I couldn't be mad at her...because it was just a return of an unsolicited favor.
She was sober because I pushed her to be...
And my marriage was being saved because she had called my bluff...
Turnabout is fair play.
"Are you alright?"
I looked towards my wife who sat in a chair next to me and watched what was going on with wide eyes.
In many ways, she was still that sweet, naïve girl who her father raised...even if she had gotten a tattoo way before I had.
"What's it mean?" She whispered as she played with my fingers that dangled into her lap.
"It's a line from my favorite poem."
"Is the poem in Spanish too?"
"It's Neruda...so yea."
She smiled and caressed my fingers with her thumb.
"Tell me what it says." She said without looking away from the needles that broke the skin on my back.
"Te amo como se aman ciertas cosas oscuras, secretamente, entre la sombra y el alma. Which means, I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul."
I watched as her eyes teared up and I smiled.
"Is that about me?"
"Of course it is, Q. The whole sonnet reminds me of you...well it reminds me of us."
"You know most people would prefer to be loved in the light." She said finally looking at me.
"But not you...right?" I asked trying to gage exactly where she was going with that line of thought.
"I know from experience that sometimes the best loves are the secret ones. Like my love for Beth...it doesn't need to be in the light, shining and on the surface where I can see and feel the pain of not being with her...I keep it close to me...where no one can damage it...just like my love for you."
"I feel the same way."
We sat on the beach watching the sunset and I felt her peace fill me.
I held her in my arms as the water tickled our bare feet.
"Tomorrow...I'm going to tell you everything...I promise." I said as I kissed her shoulder.
Her hand came back and rested on the back of my head.
"Do you love me?"
"Of course, I do."
"Do you still want to spend the rest of your life with me?"
"Yes."
"Will you come to me the next time you feel like you are falling apart?"
"I will try my best...you will be the first to know from now on."
"Then honestly, San...I can do without the rest. Unless there is something that you really want to talk about...I would much rather just enjoy our time together. No pressure or looming heavy conversations necessary."
I hugged her tighter and didn't try to hide the tears that dripped down my cheeks.
"You're sure?" I whispered as she twisted to look at me.
"San, I already know that all I have to do is ask you, if I really want to know something but right now, what's more important to me is that you know that no matter what, I am with you. That I love you just as you are and nothing else matters to me more than you knowing that."
In that moment all the residual heaviness left me.
And I just let her love soak in.
I memorized her face in that moment, the way that it glowed, not from the dwindling orange sun but because of the truth that was shining from her words.
A/N: They are so freaking charming! Ugh...I can't stand it! ;)