DISCLAIMER: I own nothing but my own name.
SPOILERS: Spoilers for Season One, then we go off script and into a possible future. Love, angst, introspection, and spy stuff.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
FEEDBACK: To spheeris1[at]yahoo.com
The Two of Us In the Unknown
By spheeris1
It's amazing how cold it is here.
Well, amazing and a little bit awful. The wind is fierce and the rain hits your face with force, wet stinging nettles that continue to come as a cold, sharp shock every time. You've been pacing for a while, turning your back to the weather when you can and then taking it on once again.
You feel a mess. But you've been a mess for days now. Weeks upon weeks even. You were a mess when you took off. You were a mess with blood long gone from your skin but never from your mind's eye.
You were a mess with her and you are a mess without her.
It's so fucking cold here. What's taking so long?
You got a call, the kind you are used to getting – out of the blue, but totally expected all the same – and you flew from here to there, details scant but incoming, and she's been fine without you. Out of your house, as far as you know, and still doing her job – the one you finally came to grips with, the one that made it possible for you to have her in your life – and you keep track of her, a peripheral glance or two, and then you go back to studied ignorance. But you got a call and they need you to deal with her.
You, the one who wrangles the beast to the ground; you, the one who tipped your head back and let her devour you. You have to deal with her because you've been dealing with her all this time, you took her on, you took her on and didn't think about what you'd lose or what you'd gain along the way. Not really, not fully...
Another blast of chilled wind and rain coats your already wet face just as headlights crest the top of the road and your numb fingers form fists by your side and you blink into the storm and see her staring back at you from behind the glass.
She doesn't say anything. Neither do you, though. And the road is bumpy, dips along cracking pavement and potholes full of muddy water, jostling you both as the skies grow darker.
The texts said she was on probation – whatever that means – and to cool things down, reassess her mental state – I'm not a psychologist, what the hell do they want me to do – and then report back. Take a few days, the last text said, take a few days and then... and then...
It's stuffy in this car, hot air blowing on the windshield, and now you feel damp and muggy. Nothing feels comfortable. Not the car, not the weather. Not you. Not this silence between you both. Not this kind of silence – stifling, heavy, tense. It's not been like this in a long, long time. And fuck it all, you keep looking at her and you know that she knows it, even if nothing in her face reveals it; you know she can feel every single graze of your eyes on her.
A sigh slips past your lips. Her knuckles grow white around the steering wheel. And then... and then...
I've missed you so much that it hurts.
She hits the brakes hard and you lurch forward, seat-belt digging into your chest as she quickly turns the car off and leaves you there, steps fast as she walks into the small home you'll be staying in for the next 72 hours.
And then you sigh again. And then you sit there and wish your body didn't ache, wish you could erase a whole multitude of sins, wish you were anywhere but here.
You killed someone. You tried it once, with her, but it didn't take. And you were glad about that – in the end. But you killed someone, not out of defensive of your life or hers, not really. She had it all in under control, you know this, and you could have stepped away. You could have stepped away and let her finish things.
He moved. She fell back. You drove the knife into his stomach.
His blood was everywhere. You did it because you could.
You did it because you wanted to know if it feels as spellbinding as she has claimed, as it once felt to hear her say you couldn't and then you proved her wrong.
I killed someone. And it felt like nothing.
The thoughts tumble around your brain as you eat your food, as you watch her eat, as you pretend to read over messages on your phone as she slowly nods off on the tattered couch in the corner of the room. She still hasn't said anything to you, just handed you a bowl of what looked like stew of some sort and then it was like you weren't there anymore – eat, drink, bowl in the sink, and now sleep.
So you pace. You read the texts again. You watch her for a bit. You think too much. Repeat.
"I had forgotten how loud you are."
You stop and look at her and she's watching you, face a blank mask. Mostly blank. There's something at the edge of her mouth, a tiny shadow of a tell, like she wants to smile and hates the thought of it happening; the ghost of amusement, skittering about the two of you out of fear. And you want to say that you are sorry for leaving, sorry you couldn't handle it. You want to kiss her, you want to forget everything and just kiss her and just forget the rest of the whole complicated world.
"Sorry."
Maybe that's a start, though.
She tells you about the latest job, where things went right and where they went wrong. She claims that it wasn't a big deal - "I took care of it, I don't understand why they are so pissy" - and you can see it from both sides, rolling your eyes at her and at bureaucracy at the same time. You talk, she talks, and it is all very pleasant, very polite, and you say what they want you to say and you ask the questions they want you to ask and she answers you – voice bored, stare drifting – and at some point, you stop saying anything because you are starting to bore yourself.
"Let's go for a walk."
You don't wait for her to reply, just get up and shove your boots back on and bundle yourself up in your coat and head out the door. You don't look back to see if she follows, but somehow you know that she will. You know that she wants to, against whatever her head is telling the rest of her body, and it only takes moments for her stride to match your own.
And it is the two of you under the clouds, fog low over the hills and mud and grass sticking to the soles of your shoes, and every breath taken cools the burning in your lungs and you combat the urge to take her hand, to tug her along and into running, to run away from this safe house and never come back. Instead, you lead and she keeps pace, feet steady on old paths zig-zagging across the countryside and neither of you are talking but it feels better now. It feels calmer now. It feels like you could really say the things you want to out here, if you really wanted to.
Thunder booms in the distance and you both look towards it.
And you think you catch the glimmer of lightning in her eyes.
Then she kisses you.
Finally, finally, finally.
She always looks like she's been desperate to touch you, like any second spent holding back is a second too long, and you suppose that's just part of her mental make-up. A girl born impatient, seeing no reason for taking her time, and so she swallows you up, takes you down whole. That's how she has been from the start, gobbling you up with her eyes and with her confessions and with her mouth hot against your flesh; that's how it has always been between the two of you. Like there isn't a enough time in the day for what you both need, there isn't enough time in the night for what you both desire.
A match-head lit, burning up the outline of her body, and she dips into your river of gasoline.
God, it is so wrong. Not morally, the moment for that has long passed you by, but there's no way something like this, something like what they have, can ever be considered right. And you sink your teeth into her neck, latching on for all you are worth – which can't be much, not anymore – and you feel her heart beating past her breasts and she wraps her legs around your hips and you've caught lightning in a bottle, haven't you?
Something electric. Something deadly.
And she comes apart at your caress, arcing upwards like a bow string pulled taut, and your lips kiss the scar you gave her as your fingers move in deeper and you remember knives and you remember blood and you remember death and you remember losing so much and gaining something new and there are dark places that have seeped into the rest of your world now.
You are something electric, too. You are something deadly these days, too.
She tugs your hair, nice and hard, and your nails cut up her sides and she groans into your mouth once you return to her, and she keeps you close – closer than close, like she wants to fuse your bodies into one – and you don't know how you ever believed that you could live without her. You've been lost for such a long while, lost when your father died and lost in England and lost in a dull job and lost in a marriage that was meant to fix you... you've been lost and then she found you. She found you and nothing has been the same since.
She shoves her nose into the folds of your skin, breathing you in where your belly rises and falls, one arm around your ribcage and thighs overlapping, and you feel your eyelids fluttering.
"Don't do that again."
Don't leave me. Don't walk away from me. Don't hurt me.
Don't pretend or lie. Don't hide. Don't act like you aren't exactly who you are.
"I won't."
She offers to teach you how to use a knife better. More control. Dexterity and movement. And you say maybe, maybe later, but you say it with a small grin and you mean it and she lets it go. She lets it go when she is the most impatient person you've ever known and if that's not love, then you don't know what is.
One more day here, then back on the road. You, back to London, and she'll be on another plane to somewhere. And then, back home – your home, her home, the floorboards you both walk on and the bed you both sleep in – and then...
...and then you'll embrace the shadows and welcome that wicked knowledge, and then you'll wipe away the smoke you've been lingering in and find yourself again, the real you, and then...
...and then
and then...
...it'll be the two of us in the unknown.
The End