DISCLAIMER: I don't own any characters herein, and I will return them (mostly) unharmed once I'm done playing. I am making no money from writing these stories. As a non-profit interpretation of the original work, this constitutes fair use under USC 17.107.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
SPOILERS: through "Rise Up" (5.07). Callie POV.
FEEDBACK: To rachel.mercer[at]hotmail.com
We Never Even Got To Start
By hnsnrachel
Aftermath, that's all our relationship was. It was all aftermath. After I kissed you, after I slept with him, after I realized that I want to be with only you... we were supposed to get our beginning, not a final, wrenching, never-to-speak end. We never even got to start. We were supposed to learn to be happy together. Because I never got to tell you how happy you made me.
I thought I had forever to say the things I wanted to say to you. I thought that I might get the rest of my life to say those things. What could be more perfect than falling in love with your best friend?There's so much we already knew about each other, and yet, so much more I wanted to learn. I thought I had forever to tell you that I love you, that I need you, that I've never been happier than when I was with you. Even through the fear, all it took to make the world disappear was a touch of your hand. Did you never notice that I never panicked when I was with you?That it was being apart from you that made me scared?
My heart was supposed to flutter in pure joy when Heard your voice, or saw your face, or kissed the soft lips I already spent all day thinking about. Panic was supposed to stop encroaching on our most beautiful, intimate moments. Because as much as I loved to feel your lips on my breasts and your fingers buried deep within me, I hadn't had a chance to enjoy it without a part of my mind wondering what it all meant, what it made me, how scared I was to be doing this with you. I'm sure - I was sure - it would make all the difference. We were taking it slow again, making it the way it was supposed to be. We were finally being scared together. Or I thought we were. Apparently, you were more scared than I could see.
Sometimes when I'm barely awake, I can almost imagine you're still here. I can smell your intoxicating scent on my pillows. I can taste you on my lips, I can feel the heat of your body on my skin. It's frighteningly real for me, Erica. Every night in my dreams, we're in each others' arms, loving each other so tenderly it makes me wake up in tears. I kiss you the way I always wanted to kiss you. I kiss you with all the love I feel for you, our tongues dancing the most erotic rumba imaginable. I trace your curves with my hands, I touch every inch of you with my tongue. I taste your pleasure as it flows only for me. Only me. Forever. I feel your love through every kiss, every sigh, every moan. Your hands and lips and tongue bring me to heights that I'd never imagined before. I fall asleep every night to the beat of your heart, to the rhythm of your breathing. I wake up every morning to the brush of your glorious skin.
I push your boundaries, little by little. First a possessive hand on your waist in the grocery store, a threat to a guy in a bar who's looking at you with a little too much interest, a kiss in the elevator at work. Eventually, I entice you into the on-call room, and you pretend to protest while your incomparable blue eyes dilate and darken with desire, while you pull me closer, while you kiss me senseless. I strip you naked and bare you my soul. I promise with every molecule of my body that I will always want you this way, that I will always need your love, that I will always be regretful of the perfect time together I made us miss. I love you twice as much each day as I did the day before.
I play out a hundred different scenarios in my head for when I take you to Florida and introduce you to my parents. Sometimes they just look at us and know how happy you make me. They accept that I love you, because they can feel how much you love me. Sometimes it takes them a while to come round, and you're the anchor that steadies me in the midst of the storm. Your love in the darkest times makes me remember what I'm fighting for. What we're fighting for. Sometimes, my father cuts all ties with me, tears the foundation on which my life was built out from underneath me. Even then, you're all I need. My parents sustained me, but they never fulfilled me the way you do. In those daydreams, you kiss away the tears, and love away the hurt. You make it okay that you're all I have, because I know you're all I need.
On the days that I can function well enough to work, the slightest thing makes me break down. This is the place where we first had coffee, this is our lunch table, this is the surgical board where your name should be. It never is and it kills me knowing that, though the ethical issues brought you down, I am the one that destroyed you and made it impossible for you to stay. You poured your heart out to me, trusted me to take care of it, and I broke it to pieces without stopping to think. It was amazing that morning, that last morning, and I can't believe how badly I tainted everything we had. I knew, even then, that being with you was different. It was scary, the depth of emotion I felt for you. It's still scary, because I can feel you, even though you're not here.
I can go there, to the last time we made love, that final, perfect, heart-rending, bittersweet, hurtful morning. I can replay it all in my mind in stunning technicolor. It's like I'm right back in that morning, that moment. Your body warms me as I awaken, your arms wrap around me, keeping me safe. Your lips just barely brush my shoulder, and I turn lazily into your embrace, our lips brushing in gentle butterfly kisses. My eyes flutter open slowly, needing to see you, to know that it's you I'm waking up to. I need to reassure myself that it's not just a dream. Your breath whispers across my lips, "Morning, Cal," before you're kissing me again, and you're tracing my lips with your tongue, a deep moan escaping as I open my mouth to you. I lose myself in your kisses:your perfect, loving, beautiful kisses. I once heard someone talk about "two-to-one" kisses, but your kisses were always guaranteed winners. Every one had me sobbing for release, needing you to bring me the high that only you could. Your hands draw feather light patterns on my back and I whimper as I pull you closer, needing to feel you everywhere. You chuckle, your laugh laced with sex, finally bringing your palms to cup my aching breasts beneath my nightgown. Your hands on my skin have me writhing, wanton in a way that a part of me knows I have never been before. I sob with frustration as you break our kiss, but seconds later I'm moaning a symphony as your lips suckle my hardened nipple through the fabric and your hands slide lower and around, caressing my ass and pulling my center firmly against your thigh. I force my eyes open and see nothing but deep ocean blue as you watch the pleasure settle on my face, your tongue flickering teasingly across the sensitive nub held captive by your lips.
I slowly rock my hips, knowing that you can feel how wet I am for you against your leg, echoing your moan as it vibrates through my body. You roll me onto my back, your legs scissoring mine as your weight settles above me, warm and welcome in the pale rays of sunshine that peek through the blinds, illuminating your hair like a curly golden halo. You kiss me again, and slide your hand through the slick heat between my legs. I see your lips moving as you pull away, but I can't hear the words, the arousal fogging my head and every nerve ending zeroing in on the point where we become one. Two fingers slide inside of me, and I buck up into your touch, raising my knee so you can grind against me. You make me feel things I had only dreamed and you glide against me, around me, inside me. You're the only thing in the world that matters as you push me to the precipice, and, finally, achingly, over the edge and into infinity. Your fingers continue pumping as I explode around you, easing me back down, making my landing as soft as possible. Your hips thrust against me more frantically as I try to catch my breath, to regain control of my body, and then I flip us over, reveling in the guttural, longing moan that escapes from deep within you as I exchange our positions.
I show you how much I love you, how much I need you, how I couldn't live without you. I can't live without you, Erica. I don't know how anymore. I'm not even sure I did live before you. Not really. I existed. From the moment you strode into my life, you made me live. Sunrise Yoga began because of you. You made me want to be the person I'd been pretending I was. I went out dancing and had the time of my life for the first time ever because it was with you. Even the familiar pleasures - talking, drinking, darts - were intensified because they were with you. How am I supposed to live without you when you're so much a part of me. How am I supposed to live without the one person I will always need; the person I was meant to be with. I was so stupid. I'd give up the world for just one chance to tell you that I'm sorry. I'd give my life to hold you one last time and tell you how sorry I am, and that I miss you more with each passing second, and that I will always be yours.
I was supposed to fall in love with you again, not stay in love with you alone.
We were supposed to be forever.
We were supposed to get to start.
The End