Author's Note: So, this is where it become very A.U. to my mind. It's all downhill from here!
If you like the trajectory please review. If not, thanks for trying.
They stayed until night proper, when the heat seemed amplified by the number of bodies and the louder music and raucous and joyful conversation. As they began to wander again, a light shower started, soon to be joined by roaring thunder. What initially was a cooling rain swiftly became a downpour that would soak her through. Thinking quickly, he pulled her into the stone archway of an apartment block only a few from his own.
"You can't stay out in this," he said, pulling up his blazer to shield her from the rain.
"I'm perfectly waterproof," she laughed.
"Still."
"Okay, a bar?"
"Everyone will do that," he peeked out into the street and mid-curse, because he didn't have his keys, an idea occurred to him, "I'm not everyone. Come on, Clarisse."
Pulling her down the two steps and onto the slick street he adjusted to her pace, holding his blazer over her head, and then dipped into the familiar archway of the white stone building. He pulled the iron-grated door open and was met with the dusty smell that had welcomed him home for a number of years. Casting a glance at the mail box, which still read J. Romerro, he led her up the winding staircase. It was only then he realised his own daring. It was a daring born from nothing and nowhere. One minute he had wanted her to be out of the storm, the next moment he was planning something far more.
"Where…"
But as if she knew, her question disappeared into nothing as she followed him up the spiraling staircase, the only noise their footsteps and soft drag of her hand on the wrought-iron banister.
In his hand, her fingers curled more, gripping him.
He stopped at the landing and looked at her. When she did not look away, when she didn't reprimand him, he understood.
Her choice was his choice. But there wasn't really a choice at all.
"Wait here please," he said quietly, suddenly realising how incredibly impossible this situation was, yet forging on anyway.
She fell against the white-wash wall, her face disappearing into the shadow.
-0-
She watched as he knocked on a door, his jeans sticking and wet against his body, his soaked blazer heavy in her hands. She knew precisely where she was and what she was agreeing to.
Through the fug of expensive wine and a day of sheer bliss was a warning so acute that it was hammering in her brain.
Yet she ignored it. And her ignorance was liberating.
"Senor Romerro!"
An older woman, frail and small, emerged from behind the heavy oak door he had stalled outside and rapped his knuckles on.
"Senora Vargas," he said quietly, "Sorry to interrupt you so late. I've ended up dropping in and I wondered..."
"Of course," her eyes shot towards Clarisse, hidden in shadow, but she looked away almost instantly, "I'll get your key."
At this he turned to look at her and she tried, in a gaze she wasn't confident of, to show that she was complicit in this. That she knew what this meant.
And that she was alright with it. That she wanted it.
The woman returned a moment later, brandishing a small set of keys.
"Gracias," he smiled, leaning forward and kissing the older lady on the cheek.
She smiled and said 'charmer', stole a look at his shadowed companion before closing the door, and then left them alone in the silence of the hall. He took her hand, with one that was shaking, and led her to the furthest away door. Pushing the key in with his other hand, determined not to let go of her, he turned it and let the door fall open.
He stepped back and let her walk in.
Then there was nothing else in the world and she was in his arms, where she had always wanted to be, as he kicked the door closed with his foot.
She pressed her lips to his, her body to his. She invited his hands against the buttons of her shirt, where they deftly made quick work of the garment, and allowed her own hands to be more confident than they really were. Backing her up against a table, where there were piles of mail and an empty vase, he lifted her onto the surface as she wrapped her legs around his waist. The vase skittered across the surface and landed with a crash, splintering all over the floor. Unfazed, a jolt of pleasurable horror shot through her when his hands were under her skirt, tracing a path up her thighs. He was pushing the material up to her waste and she found her hands were helping his, without her really realising it.
"No," he pulled back from the heated delirium, "No, not like this."
She was momentarily horrified but he save her, instantly, from her own humiliation.
"The bed," he lifted her from the table, "I want to make love to you."
She'd never known a man – in her limited experience – to consider what might be best for her. She followed him wordlessly through a wide and quiet hallway to the bedroom. It was typical of Joseph, sparse and black and white. The large bed in the middle, with fresh white sheets, was both a symbol of everything she wanted and everything she feared.
At the foot of his bed he pulled her towards him. He peeled her shirt from her rain-slickened skin and she watched it as if she was outwith herself, as if she was watching his lips trace over someone else's body.
"I love you," he whispered against the heat of her skin, turning her fully towards the huge window where the stars blazed in a rain-cleared sky as his lips traced lines against her neck.
"I love you too," she turned in his arms, and kissed him again, "I love you too."
-0-
The silence then was peaceful, in the sea of his bed. Midnight fell upon them, pressing against their bodies as they lay tangled and unclothed. She was outwith herself, floating somewhere above her crimes.
"I love your world," she whispered, pressing her mouth to his chest.
"I hate yours," he said softly, tracing his fingers through her hair.
She laughed at that – a little, hard, bark.
"Thank you," she said plainly, "It's never been like that. I've never…"
He felt momentarily embarrassed by her candor. He couldn't feel proud about something he had wanted as desperately as air but there was still the macho aspect of him that reveled in the praise.
"That's because it's never been you before," he said gently.
She pressed her face to his chest, just over his thrumming heart.
"This is so dangerous."
"Clarisse, stay here with me?"
She couldn't answer, he knew, so she kissed him wordlessly instead. Perhaps that was answer enough.
-0-
In the morning they awoke, bodies sore and depleted and tangled, to a weak early sun. She sat up and he traced the planes of her back with his fingers in the early light. The silence was beautiful and cool, as if the world had decided to quiet itself just for them.
"Can we remain?"
The vagueness of her question offered no period of time, no sense of when this would end.
"I don't…yes," he answered quietly, trying to figure a plan that would allow him to accommodate that for her, for him, "It does mean I'll have to leave. We need things. Food. You need clothes."
She lay back and pulled the sheets over her body, "I-"
"Let's not think about it," he said gently, "Let's just enjoy what's here. Then when we have to go back, we'll talk about it."
It was the only thing he could do to delay the inevitable.
"I am going to hurt you," she said, and suddenly there were tears in her eyes, "And that is the worst knowledge I've ever had."
He scooped her into his arms, sitting against the iron bedstead, "We'll work out something, alright?"
"Yes," she agreed but her voice was fragile, "Alright."
They sat like that for a while longer, until he grew sore with the bars digging into his back. He deposited her back onto the large bed and retrieved his clothing from the floor. Checking his watch, still on his wrist, it was only six a.m. which meant the streets would be quiet and he risked attracting any unwanted attention far less. Pulling his wallet out to check he had money something suddenly occurred to him and chastising himself, he sat on the edge of the bed with the wallet limp between his panicked hands.
"Clarisse, we didn't use any-"
"I wouldn't worry," she said, not without humour as she looked over his shoulder and saw the wallet in his hand, "I am past the stage of babies."
"That old, really?"
She slapped his thigh playfully, "Yes."
"Well you certainly don't look it," he kissed her forehead, his bravado returning, "I'll be back in an hour or so. What do you need?"
"Underwear, clothes," she propped her head up on her hand, "You have common sense."
"I'll get it wrong," he stood up, "Make yourself at home darling."
She said nothing, watching him take a holdall from the wardrobe and go wordlessly from the bedroom. When he reached the door she spoke.
"Oh Joseph?"
"Yes?"
"My make-up and moisturisers. They're all in a bag in the bathroom."
He laughed and closed the door behind himself.
The streets were quiet, the parties of the night before being swept away by the business of the morning. Donning his sunglasses he jumped on a bus and huddled in the back corner, head down.
It wouldn't be hard to slip into the hotel and grab the things he needed and the things she wanted.
The lobby was quiet and, given her status, he didn't have to stop in at reception to collect keys. Instead he took the service stairs, waiting for a butler carrying room service to sweep past him before he came out, and slipped into the suite. The evidence of her tea from the morning before had been cleared, and both beds made. He ruffled each up, pulled pillows out of their place and sheets out of their tight folds. He ran a hot shower in the bathroom and dampened some towels, chucking them in the tub for good measure. Then he collected her make-up bag from the bathroom and her toothbrush, as well as his own toilet bag from the smaller adjoining bathroom.
Going back to the bedroom he suddenly realised how crazy this was. Feeling winded he sat down on the edge of the bed and looked around in the dimness of the room. He could still feel her perfect skin under his hands, remember with alien clarity her body yielding to his.
Sitting there, on the edge of the bed, he felt as if he was sitting on the edge of the world. He knew that it could only end in disaster but it was a disaster he'd go willingly into.
He stood again and went towards the dressing room area, realising he didn't know where to begin when retrieving her clothes. The fact was that, no matter how intimately he'd known her, rifling through her things was in no way appealing to him.
He chose things for their practicality and some other things that appealed to him for entirely different reasons, and made sure she had shirts and dresses and skirts enough for a few days. Then he grabbed some of his own things and left as quickly as he could.
Lastly, his daring outweighing his sensibilities, he wrote a note detailing the queen's decision to travel to the coast of Spain for a few nights. She would be gone two days and the account was to remain opened until settled. It was hardly believable but it wouldn't be questioned either. It would be a work of fiction which would be taken for fact. On the envelope, he asked that it be delivered by housekeeping to the reception.
Outside it was busier and he decided to duck into a cab, stopping a block away from the apartment and passing the man many more pesos than needed to cover the cost.
He stopped in at the market shop and bought lots of things they didn't need, as if they were hoarding for a disaster. Which of course, he knew they were. The chain of events had started and, if he'd learned anything in his days in the military, it was that an impending disaster couldn't be halted.
There was a little café he'd frequented when he lived here, curing hangovers and guilt with their coffees and pastry, and he bought a box of pastries and an English tea and a strong black espresso. He stood outside, the holdall slung over his body and the cups in hand, and wondered where this would go. It couldn't go anywhere but that didn't seem to matter.
Ah, the hardest by far! What do you think?