DISCLAIMER: This is written purely for fun, not profit. Spoilers for the entire Tarzan series as yet, all two episodes. Thank you Lucy Lawless for another strong, gorgeous female character on TV.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
Me Kathleen, You Jane
By Wordsmith
As soon as I walked in I could tell she had been crying. Tears streaked down her face, eyes swollen, and red, yet still an incredible light shone from the brown depths. "Dammit John" I swore under my breath, "Now what have you done?"
John, of course, is John Clayton, my long lost, now found, nephew. Lost for the past twenty years, he lived alone in the jungle after his parents both died in the plane crash that stranded him there. For years we all thought him dead. Until Richard, my other brother, heard rumors of a wild man in the area already searched a hundred times. Richard, to his credit was like a man possessed, driving his team deeper and deeper into the jungle to find anything; any sign that someone had survived the crash and bodies if they didn't. And find him they did. To Richard's dismay, they found not bodies, but a living breathing man. John. My nephew was only a boy when he left. He retained his boyish charm, and innocence even as he grew to become the tall, strong image of his father with hints of his mother around the eyes and in his sweet shy smile. But behind the smile lay the mind of a man left alone for far too long. I had hoped by bringing him here, to his childhood home before the crash, it would help him remember. Remember what it was like to live among people, to live in a city, to live up to his potential.
Instead, he tries to adapt his current surroundings to what he has known the longest. Shoes-a mystery. Clothing-barely enough to cover himself. Furniture-why sit in a chair when a tree in the atrium will do just as well? Manners reduced to scowls and non committal grunts on a good day and silence on a bad. Or simply vanish, seemingly into thin air. Every time I see him heave himself onto the window ledge, my heart plummets for him. But he never falters, slipping silently into the night as if on the wings of an owl.
And now he's done it again. Vanished, that is. Leaving Jane Porter crying in the atrium.
She is just as much of a mystery to me as my nephew. A detective on the police force, she has become something more to John. I know he watches her constantly, sometimes with her knowledge, more often without. It's as though he is ready to sacrifice knowing anyone else in the world, just for the chance to know her. Deep down, I can understand his need to watch her. I find myself unable to look away whenever she is in the same room. Tall, nearly as tall as me, slim with a dancer's grace, long reddish brown curling hair and the aforementioned deep chocolate brown eyes. I can only hope the open hungry look on John's face isn't mirrored on mine.
She is the only person John will talk to, aside from me. And I think he only talks to me in order to find out details of his parents. Of his life before the crash. If I didn't have information he needed, I would become as invisible as everyone he comes in contact with.
But with Jane, he talks. Long sentences filled with nuance and inner messages. Messages of longing, and desire and an honest inability to understand why it should be so hard to communicate this longing to her. Finally, after giving it the old Clayton try and, apparently, failing, he retreats. As I enter the dark, humid, dank room, I see a shadow pass by and know without looking that John has retreated over the ledge and will not been seen again tonight. Leaving Jane alone and crying.
Until I come in, that is. Quietly clearing my throat to alert her to my presence, knowing how John's tendency to inadvertently sneak up on people unnerves her. "Jane" my voice is husky and low, and I feel the slight burn of my after dinner drink deep in my throat. "Are you alright?"
She tries to hide the fact that she has been crying, but quickly realizes the futility. Nodding, she looks up at me for a brief moment of composure, only to lose it just as quickly. Fresh tears spring to her eyes and her mouth opens soundlessly as she tries and fails to speak. Taking her hand, I join her on the cold stone bench, mercifully free of the damp wetness coating most of the furnishings in the room. Still holding her hand, I slowly rub the other in circles on her back. Heat radiates from her back into my fingertips and I take a slow breath to calm myself before speaking. "What did John do this time?" I try to put a wry spin to my tone, to let her know that it's ok to talk freely to me about John and the difficulties in knowing him. She hiccups as she speaks, "It's not John. It's me."
I feel my brows knit together at this, and when she looks up at me, I raise one, questioningly. My one hand never strays from her back, and the other keeps its grip on hers. Jane lowers her head but beneath the curtain of hair, I see a slight grin. "It's just that he wants so much more than I can offer him. I do care about him; I want him to be safe. I want him to be free. But he wants…" she trails away uncertainly.
Afraid to voice the fear that had been growing in my heart since before she arrived unannounced in my study this evening, I push aside my reservations. "He wants more than that." I whisper, "From you?"
"Yes." Her whisper matches mine. "But I can't" again she trails off. I pick up for her, "Because of your finance, Michael?" I knew that her finance had died under mysterious circumstances but until she told me a week before, I never would have guessed that it was during a fight with John that Michael accidentally fell off a multistory roof. John had tried to save him, but was unable to hold on.
"No, that's the part I don't understand myself. I mean, I loved Michael, I was going to marry him. But now that he's gone, I feel like that part of my life is simply over. As if I did all of my grieving in the week after his death and now it's finished. Does that make me a terrible person?" Her tear stained face turns to me and it takes all of my self control to keep from wiping away the glistening drops. "No" I tell her seriously, "I think it makes you a realistic person. So you took a little less time. There's nothing wrong with that. What's wrong is those people who spend the rest of their lives getting over loss, never being able to move on and become part of the world again. Actually, I admire you." Her face tilts in question.
"I feel like sometimes Richard never got over our brother's death, and that's why I am so determined to help John now. To keep him from falling under Richard's control. Does that make me a bad sister?"
She smiles faintly, "No I think that makes you a good aunt."
I chuckle ruefully, "Well if I could get him to wear shoes, I would win Aunt of the Year."
At this she laughs outright. Its good to see her face open up, showing her even white teeth and those wonderful dimples in both cheeks. I laugh with her, and find I am squeezing her one hand and bringing her closer into a one armed hug with the other. She leans into the side of my body, and I am once again amazed at the heat her body gives off. The atrium is kept warm but the cool night air is starting to glide in through the open windows. Releasing her hand, I wrap my arm around her feeling the softness of her hair tickle my arm. Her hair smells of sweet shampoo and her warm skin lets off a spicy scent I cannot place. Recognizing the urge to bury my nose in her tresses just in the nick of time, I hastily pull away and stand up, facing away from her. What must she think of me? Her fiancé dead little less than a week. Admitting mere moments ago the growing feelings between my nephew and herself. But did she admit to them? I turn to face her again.
"Jane." When she looks up at me from her position on the bench, there is a light in her eyes that had not been there when I came into the room, and I give myself a mental pat on the back for at least helping her somewhat. "Not to sound too overbearing, "I say with a wry smile, "But just what exactly are your intentions toward my nephew?"
Immediately the light vanishes, replaced by a sort of stricken terrified look. Again she looks at her feet, whispering, "I'm not sure." Then in a stronger voice, "I do know that I don't want what he wants."
"And what is it you think he wants?" I ask.
Looking me boldly in the eye, she answers, "Me."
That threw me. I knew John had developed feelings for Jane, but I had put them in the Protector category, or perhaps the Teacher-Student slot. But her answer hints of things more primal, more heated, more…No more! Again looking into the depths before me I managed to ask without sputtering, "And what is it that you want?" A long moment passed and a thousand thoughts before she slowly speaks again, "I have thought about nothing else, it seems since I met John. And you." Her glance turns shy for a split second before she continues. "But it seems what I want is" briefly she falters and I barely heard the next word, "You."
My world explodes. "Me?" I croak, more surprised than I ever recalled feeling. Even more so than hearing the news that John had returned to us. I feel my eyebrows climb into my hairline and I stare at Jane who stares back defiantly for a long moment before finally looking away, blood rushing to color her cheeks.
"Believe me, I was as surprised as anyone when I realized what was going on in my head, " her words come out in a rush "And I certainly never intended to say anything to you about this when I came over here tonight. Or ever, really." This last was said with a hint of a grin. "But I have done and said so many things recently I never would have before, I guess I just better go with the flow. No matter where it takes me." And with that, she stands making every appearance of now leaving. I, on the other hand, have other ideas. I cross in front of her, blocking the exit. "Wait just a minute Jane. You can't just drop a bomb like that and walk out of the room. We need to talk about this."
She laughs bitterly, "Talk about what? My complete inability to talk to another person without making a complete botch of it? Look, I plan to make it clear to John, that while I am willing and eager to be his friend and help him in any way that I can, I am not interested in him romantically or physically. I don't see any reason to tell him any of what I just told you, since it would only confuse him." Her face tightens in concentration, "Or would it? Aren't there studies showing chimps can be gay? Or was that gorillas?" she shakes her head as if to clear it, "In any case-"
I cut her off before she can continue, "In any case, do you mean to tell me that you are interested in me romantically or physically?"
The deer in headlights look returns. "I'm sorry about that. I mean, I've never-"
Again I cut her off. "Neither have I but if you would be quiet for two seconds I could tell you that I have been thinking about you constantly too, I am interested in you but only if it can be done in a way that wouldn't be detrimental to John and the progress he's made."
Her eyes grow impossibly large and she cants her head to one side as her brain tried to catch up to what her ears were hearing. "What did you say?"
Confident that she had heard me the first time, I slowly walk toward her until our bodies are only inches apart. In my lowest, huskiest voice, I nearly growl at her, "I said, I want you Jane. I want you all the time. I want you right now." And with this, I kiss her, more roughly than I intended, certainly rougher than I had ever imagined it in the hot feverish fantasies I reveled in night after torturous night since meeting her. But her response is to meet my rough touch with a frenzied aspect of her own. Her tongue demands entry into my mouth, and when I open, sweeps in possessively. In the back of my mind, I hear someone moaning and am shocked to realize it is me. I never moaned before, but I have a delightful feeling that this would not be the only surprise of the night. If her skin smelled of spice earlier, her mouth tastes only of sweetness. I bring my tongue into play against hers, delighting as she sucks it into her mouth. I can't breathe but refuse to relinquish her mouth for something as trivial as oxygen. Until she pulls back, heaving a huge breath in, gasping in pain as she did so.
It was then that I get a good look at the ugly red bruise on her chest from being shot earlier while wearing a bullet proof vest. With a gentleness that belies my recent roughness, I bring my fingertips to the bruise, tracing it. "Does it hurt?" I ask in a hushed voice.
"Only when I forget to breathe."
Making a small cooing noise in the back of my throat, I lean in and gently kissed the reddened area, peeking out from the collar of her white shirt. Her breathing hitches and I look up to her face in alarm. "I'm sorry, am I hurting you?"
She took my head in her hands and guided it to where it had been. "No, actually it feels better than it has all day. Don't stop."
Thus encouraged, I lean in to taste her skin again, warm and salty. Her hands wind into my hair as mine snake around her slim waist. I slowly kiss my way up her chest to her neck as she leans her head to her shoulder giving me more access to the muscles and cords there which I eagerly lick and tease. There will be more bruises there in the morning to match the one on her chest, more pleasantly earned. I can't believe how good she tastes. Holding my head steady, she brings her lips to mine for another heart stopping kiss that leaves us both breathless, gasping as we rest our foreheads against each other.
"Jane" I pant trying to recover my breath. "We can't do this." At her panicked look, I chuckle and smile indulgently. "At least not here. I doubt John will be back tonight, but if he does come back, I can't let him see us like this." I search her eyes for understanding, and am quickly relieved when she gives me a brief squeeze and a nod of the head.
"No you're right. And as much as I would like to stay, I think it would be better for us both if I left now. I think we both need time to think this through before we go any further.
Just because I knew in my heart this was the wisest coarse of action, it didn't mean my body accepted it. I took her hand in mine and led her out of the atrium. Two floors and many hallways later, we stood in the vestry in front of the heavy door that led to the street. Taking one hand, I stroked her soft cheek, trying to show her in my touch and in my eyes all the tenderness and gentleness my earlier kisses had not done. "Take all the time you need, Jane. I'll be here when you're ready."
With a slight nod and a seemingly conscious decision to refrain from touching me again, she walked out.
The End
Author's Notes: not sure where this is going or if it will go anywhere, but I sure like writing from Lucy Lawless's perspective. So THAT'S what it's like having legs up to your neck!