"We can't do this..."

Connie said the words, meaning them to come out with the firmness to end this before it could even begin, but instead she found she couldn't look Rita in the eye, and the words came out sounding vague and watery, with no conviction whatsoever.

She heard Rita draw in a staggered breath, and out of the corner of her eye she saw her bite her lip.

"Do we have a choice?"

Rita asked eventually. Her voice was so quiet, and as she spoke she sat down on the edge of Connie's bed, looking up at the other woman so that she had no choice but to look back at her.

"I'm not sure this is something we 'do', or 'don't do', I think this thing between us...it just 'is'."

Rita exhaled, she knew it wasn't the most eloquent of sentences, but the need to find out if Connie understood, or at least felt the same way, was too strong to worry about how she was stringing sentences together.

Connie was silent. Just standing there breathing in and out, her head too cluttered to think. Somewhere there must be a book of love, with all the symptoms written down that she had missed, or confused for blind hatred. Dizziness and Desire. A tendency to stare at the night sky, searching for a message that might be found up above. A lurching in the pit of the stomach, as if something much too sweet had been eaten. The ability to hear the quietest sounds-snails munching the lettuce leaves, moths drinking nectar from the overripe pears on the tree by the fence, a rabbit trembling in ivy. She had missed all of this, and now she was faced with it all at once, on top of everything else, with Rita staring up at her with real hunger within her eyes, a hunger just to see her, to just be near her, as if whatever Connie gave her would be enough, as long as it was her that gave it.

"What, uhm..."

She cleared her throat, a frown creased her forehead. Love like this wasn't planned, she realised. It wasn't what she had wanted, or expected, but it seemed to follow her, and despite everything it had settled within her and overtaken both common sense and willpower.

She exhaled, her entire body breathing out and she sat down ever so carefully on the bed next to Rita.

"Before I say anything else, I want you to know that I'm not saying 'no'."

She said quietly, and a flutter of something resembling hope ignited within the very pit of Rita's stomach.

"Whatever this is, I can't deny it. But I can't help but wonder if what we're feeling is a temporary reaction to...what happened."

Rita nodded slowly as the other woman spoke, though the words were painful to hear.

"I don't want to hurt you any more than I already have."

Connie glanced away again, looking down at her hands that she had folded into her lap until she felt the slip of Rita's own hand as it brushed against her thigh, and her fingers pushed between Connie's own, interlinking them.

"Do you really think this is temporary?"

She asked quietly, though both of them knew the answer. Connie glanced at her, and gave a slight squeeze of her fingers.

"I just want to be sure. We've barely begun to get to know one another, and after everything that has happened, I just want to..."

"Make sure it's not just a sudden aversion to men?"

Rita cut her off without really meaning to, and despite everything Connie laughed. More out of surprise than amusement, but the sound alone was enough to make Rita smile, and they looked at one another, really seeing each other for the first time in the stillness of the room.

"I just want to take things slowly."

She corrected.

More fluff to come. Let me know what you think, and if this Is going in the direction you'd hoped.. :)

Have a lovely Friday everybody! xxx