"Have I missed it? I have, haven't I?"
Ally smiled broadly into the hushed teasing that carried over the line, his voice a little breathy but warm with a boyish humor. "You mean the bath? Yes."
The muttered curse that dragged against the line brought her laughter full as she shouldered the phone and shifted her laptop from her crossed legs, angling it farther down the bed as she shunted paperwork to the side. Her back stretched into the head board, shoulders rolled back as she winced into realizing she'd been in one slumped position for too long.
"I still have half a bottle of wine." She turned softly over the line in a hushed and curling tone of voice.
"And I still have miles to go, darlin'." He murmured back into an obvious remorse. "Just checking in."
She made an understanding noise in her throat as she let her eyes close, head pressed hard back into the wall as she exhaled, "Teller still pissed?"
"Well, we don't much need to talk to ride anyhow." He hashed over the slight crackling that was eating up the line tethering them. "So, no. Not at all. He's fine."
Ally untangled her legs from the way she'd spread half her work over the bed, socked feet pressing the mattress beside the computer blindly as she stretched her back harder and exhaled. "You don't call me to check in, Telford. What's up?"
"Call ya for check ins all the time." He mumbled back. "Call ya plenty."
"Not like this." She argued quietly, catching the faint murmur of voices going in his background. "What's going on?"
"It was stupid, what you did. Making a promise like that." His words were brash but there was a struggling telling to their softness. "Y'know that, Ally."
"So don't get arrested." She murmured back into his assertion. "And I won't have to worry about it."
"It was stupid." The line was crackling quiet for a moment. "But sweet."
She drew in a slow breath, eyes still shut as she let her empty hand relax against her stomach, spine finally relaxing into her stretching. "Are you going after Marks? Is that why you're being so… I dunno."
His breathing silence was more of a truth than she'd expected from him.
And the fact he didn't try to lie it away was enough to curb a little patience on her.
"So what?" his voice was stunted slightly.
"Attentive. It's unnerving." She murmured quietly. "You are, aren't you? The whole damn pack of you. You're hunting him down."
"Althea." His tone twisted quieter.
"You ramped him right up." She surmised quietly over the phone, "He needed to focus and you gave him an outlet right before he walked out the door."
"He's still just an angry boy, love." There was a whispered near on teasing in his voice but it was still sobered enough that it fell flat. "And he's lost his center."
"Filip - "
"And I stood up for you at the same time. Y'should be flattered." He shunted over the line tightly. "And I called."
She shook her head into exasperation, "Just be careful."
"I will." There was a welling warmth of a smile in his tone. "Stop worryin'."
"I can't." she flushed over the line with a tone that she'd really hoped to keep reigned in a bit longer. "You know that."
It was a deafening beat before he answered, "And that's why I called."
He was holding the line with shortened words and an otherwise nerved up silence and it was itching her skin toward crawling.
"You're killin' me, Scotty." The shake of her head against the wall drove a ridge of almost pain into the back of her skull, the force breaking a darkness into her field of vision as her chest cinched. "One of these days one of us is gonna have to put up or shut up."
A ranged heat of cagey laughter broke over the line, "Ally, I don't see a day comin' where you just shut up."
She smiled despite her frustration, not knowing where the rest of the night's roads were going to take him, accepting his placating humor to partly assuage the worry that was chilling her cold, "Will I see you tomorrow, Vice President?"
"Aye, save the wine." He agreed tightly. "Sleep a little for me, yeah?"
The quick cut of the line was a clear assurance that she likely wouldn't.
The problem with classifying him in any way, trying to connect with what she touched when he was close, the problem was that she had nothing of him besides a shirt, empty bottles and spent cigarette butts. And while she wasn't normally the sort of woman that would twist and burr up, it was nagging a slight annoyance of a headache behind her eyes as she tried to let herself sleep. Because he was suddenly so twined and knotted up into her life, but she still had very little to nothing in her hands when he was away. And it was the first time in a long time that the feeling of it was more of a saddened emptiness than a sign of independent freedom. She wasn't generally apologetic when it came to men. She wasn't generally all that apologetic when it came to life. But a half empty mattress was starting to feel more and more like a bed of apologies the both of them made for what they were and what they did when separated.
She dumped her body back, stretching flat onto her spine as both hands raked over her face before tugging into her hair, skin chilled clammy and sweated and cold at once. She knew what he was doing and he hadn't had to truth or tell or lie for her to figure it out. And if she slept, the turn of morning was going to make him out a savior or murderer. Likely, both at once - if he survived the hours he was turning under spinning wheels and the promise of a retribution. She wasn't looking forward to the report of his night's endings crossing her desk. Because it would tell her more than he had, black and white typed up truths that said he was still a liar, even if by the silence of omission. Even if the hands that broke down on August Marks were going to break heat on her within the day.
She suddenly and surprisingly accepted the trade off with a slack spine, staring blankly at the ceiling. Because this raged retribution was partly hers to own. And they were both blindly spinning fortune's wheels in this. Regardless of what he could be when he was apart from her, he was generally not those things when he was letting her draw his heat onto her. She'd argued once that he wasn't a vigilante and while in truth, he absolutely self appointed himself a sort of twisted up justice… In another truth, with her, he wasn't. He let her be the justice and judge of true and untrue. He let her be the vigilante when he gentled each argument with an affectionate foil of humor and teasing and warmth.
He was capable of so much shine and unabashed heat that the stretching opposite on the spectrum of cold fury was the hardest thing for her to accept.
Especially in the middle of the night, in a half empty bed, while she waited to see if he could survive being the face of grim one more time.
At least until the next time.
And the next after that.
"Jesus, Ally." Her fingers pried into her hair as she squeezed her eyes shut. "You're an idiot."
Because even the bitterly swallowed acceptance of his predetermined actions didn't exempt her from realizing that she damn well loved him anyhow.
At least, in the only eyes-shut way she could love a liar.
Which was generally also the only way she could find to love herself.
"I'm sorry." She offered into the completely confused and not yet completely awake way that Lyla Winston was staring at her from across a somewhat cluttered but small and homey kitchen. "I needed to talk to… Chats with Gemma Teller aren't an option for me. And I don't have a lot of female friends. I don't usually like women."
A suddenly blushingly amused smile wrote so fully over the other woman's face that Ally shook her head into her eyes shutting, embarrassment flushing her skin warmly as she blew out a breath of uncertainty. The blonde's laughter was suddenly such a hash of graceful warmth between them that she couldn't help opening her eyes again in a sweeping rise of self defense. But there was such a wealth of gentleness in the way Lyla was nodding her a slowly complacent understanding that she had to back off the shunting annoyance.
"They're insane." Lyla murmured quietly as she wrapped the satin silkiness of the robe tighter, "And you shouldn't care about them. But you just can't help yourself?"
"Something like that." Ally admitted gently, uncomfortable in the way her uniform paled her stark in comparison to the other woman's half awake rosiness. "Add more tension, constant distrust and a lot of great sex and you've pretty much nailed it."
"The kids are gonna sleep for another hour or so." Lyla smirked into the words as she reached for the coffee she'd left on the counter. "Back porch?"
Ally just nodded agreement as her arms stretched her torso to cross her body.
"Coffee?"
"Oh," she shook it off tightly, "I don't need any more, thank you."
Lyla's laughter was something that she couldn't quite accept as friendly yet, but it was hedging safer on her than it had been.