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He doesn’t have to ask; she doesn’t have to say it. He knows her husband is the one who took them.
He also knows it’d be goddamn foolish to act as if he doesn’t know why.
Even after all of the pain they’ve endured in consequence of their past involvement with each other; after the months of distance and barely repressed urges during their rare, succinct meetings, he’s still managed to drag her back down with him.
He doesn’t fight the remorse that floods through him as he observes Elizabeth now, sitting shotgun in his car with a broken expression and battered conscience. She doesn’t want to be consoled, he knows, because she wouldn’t have come to him if that were the case; she has numerous other options if that were the desired reaction.
She doesn’t show any signs of wanting to share more, her posture rigid and guarded yet still so exhausted, and maybe she doesn’t know why she’s here, either.
And that, he thinks, he can do. He can help her figure it out.
“Buckle up, mama.”
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The car ride is silent. She doesn’t so much as sniffle, refusing to allow the dam to break as she observes the environment blur in the window. It won’t be long until nightfall, and somewhere in the back of Rio’s mind he realizes he’ll have to drive her back to that sketchy lot so she can drive herself home. If she’s thinking about it, though, she doesn’t mention it.
As the docks come into view, she sits up a little straighter, using one hand to push her hair back from her face. He steals a glance at her, something he’s been doing every five minutes or so for the entirety of the half-hour car ride, and he’s once again struck by how gorgeous she is even after a day like this.
When he shifts the car into park, Elizabeth releases a weighted sigh, her gaze anywhere but on Rio when she croaks, “What are we doing here?”
The edge of the water has always been his go-to location when he feels the need to disconnect from the realities of his world for a few hours. The rhythmic sound of the water lapping up against the wooden shore, the pattern of lights hitting the water like an aquatic constellation; it’s just enough of a distraction to drown his senses in something other than the cycle of obsessive, stress-induced thoughts.
But, true to form, he keeps these small details close to his chest, as he does with most things that hold even a shred of importance to him.
Out loud, he merely says, “C’mon,” his voice low and soft like velvet as he pops his own door open and steps onto the pavement.
When Elizabeth makes no move to do the same, he rounds the car, pulling her door open and lingering behind it. The urge to reach out his arm and enclose his hand around hers is overwhelming, but he senses that it’s his turn to tread cautiously and allow her boundaries to make themselves more evident before he attempts to breech them.
She unbuckles her seatbelt with unsteady hands, taking a few composing breaths before rising up out of her seat. She meets his eyes then, when she reaches her full height, and they just— they just sort of look. They observe each other, neither uttering a word, as the heat in his gaze reduces her to embers and the pleading in her own takes the breath straight from his lungs. It pleads for him to take away the pain gripping at her chest, to ease the aching in a way she only knows him to be capable of.
He reaches out, slowly and methodically, giving her an opening to shy away from the contact, but she doesn’t utilize it. If anything, she sways toward him the slightest fraction, her chest separated from his only by the car door as he brushes her bangs back from where they nearly reach her eyes. Her eyes flutter closed, if only for a moment, as his fingers reach the curvature of her jaw before falling away altogether. He jerks his head in the general direction of the waterfront before taking a step back from her, and she gives the slightest nod of comprehension before closing her own door between them.
He burrows his hands into the pockets of his jacket as he saunters down the boardwalk, the gate that may have once kept adventurous kids— and, evidently, overwhelmed adults— out now wide open and barely hanging by its rusted hinges. He doesn’t check behind him to see if she’s following, doesn’t need to; he’d have known she was even without the rhythmic pattern of her heeled footsteps.
The tread to the dock’s edge is a short one, no more than minute from their parking space. Rio immediately sinks down onto the wooden paneling, swinging both legs over the edge so that they dangle above the murky waters and leaning back on the palms of his hands. Elizabeth hesitates only a moment, her eyes slowly dragging across his disarmingly youthful stance before lowering herself down next to him. She opts for crossing her legs Indian-style rather than hooking them over the edge, her hands resting in the ring she’s created with her legs.
He tries his damndest to play it off like the inch of space where their shoulders would brush together doesn’t drive him up a mental wall.
He doesn’t prod her for any elaboration, doesn’t pry for information that isn’t his to possess. When she’s ready, he knows, she’ll decide which shards of her carefully constructed shield she’s willing to offer up and part with.
For once, the tension between them is indistinct. It’s still there, he’s sure of that much; is fairly confident it’s never been completely absent. This time, though, it seem to take the backseat to the matter at hand; the gaping hole carved out by the brash actions of her husband and Rio’s unabashed urge to soothe it within whatever extent he’s capable of.
And for the first ten minutes or so (neither of them having a very good concept of time, given the circumstances), they don’t utter a word. Not dissimilar to the last time they met in her backyard, Rio finds himself interminably content to just be near her. And if her diminishing frequency of sniffling and eye-rubbing is anything to go by, he’d say Elizabeth’s been gathering her own variety of comfort from their position.
And then, “It’s so messed up.”
Her voice is strained and cracks from lack of use, but she says it steadily enough that he believes she’s finally prepared to talk about her grievances.
He tilts his head to the side, gazing at her, and even in the dim lighting of the lone street lamp, her beauty is bare and genuine and absolutely breathtaking.
“What’s that?” He asks softly, returning his gaze to the vast expanse of water in front of them.
“It’s always been about them. Why I came back when you gave us an out; why I robbed multiple establishments and felt proud when it was over. At the root of it all, it’s always been my kids, even if my intentions got muddled in how good it felt to succeed at something other than raising them.”
She pauses, absentmindedly plays with the chain around her neck as she collects the rest of her thoughts.
“Some of it I was doing for myself, yes, but most of it, I did for us as a family. I didn’t want my kids worrying that they were going to have a roof over their heads one day and not the next. I saved our house and our bank account multiple times, and Dean’s entitlement is the same it was the day before I told him I knew he had cheated.”
Rio’s jaw works at the mention of her husband’s name, and in that moment, he wants nothing more than to go back to the night he was let out on bail and finish the job he left unvarnished at her dining room table.
“How is it that the minute I step out of line from the perfect wife and mom, he has the right to act as if I’m a deadbeat who’s left him a single dad? I fixed every one of his mistakes, damnit, and the minute I make one, he uses my children as leverage?” Her tone exacerbates as her frustration leaks through the external layers of defeat and exhaustion.
He clenches his jaw, hard, biting back every remark regarding Dean entering his stream of consciousness to avoid interrupting Elizabeth after she’s made herself so vulnerable. He doesn’t know if she’s ever divulged this much information about her marriage to him, and he holds it against his chest like fine china, stowing it in a glass case in his mind for safe keeping.
“I’m just so tired,” and her voice breaks, taking a piece of Rio’s sanity along with it. “I’m so tired of having everyone that I care about and everything that’s important to me be so fallible. Of having it used against me over and over. For once, I just want to feel safe.”
Rio doesn’t speak; doesn’t believe words possess even half of the power actions do. So where he fears words will fail him, he pulls his legs back over the edge of the dock and tucks them in front of him in an identical fashion to Elizabeth’s before shifting his body ninety degrees so that he’s facing her. She doesn’t shift to accommodate him, doesn’t even spare him a glance as she maintains her gaze on the transversal depths of the lake.
He thinks she holds her breath, as well, when he lifts his arm so that his hand can clasp the back of her neck, flattening her strawberry blonde waves beneath it.
His grip isn’t harsh at all— in fact, it isn’t even firm. She could shake him off with a shoulder shrug if she so desired, but she remains motionless as he drags his thumb across the patch of skin right below her left ear. He tilts his head to the side as goosebumps erupt along her flesh, but there’s no trace of amusement in his expression when she finally directs her gaze towards his.
Her lips part ever-so-slightly before her eyes drift closed, and Rio loses himself in her tranquil expression as he continues to caress the side of her throat. It isn’t carnal, the tension between them, and he thinks that it might be a first for that as well. His only incentive is to soothe the aching he knows has burrowed itself deep within her bones.
“Elizabeth?” His voice is a deep rumble that settles in her chest, inadvertently lighting her nerve endings on fire.
Her eyes flutter open to meet his deep brown irises, pupils wide and daunting in the dim lighting.
“I got you,” he whispers, his full lips wrapping around the syllables in a manner that shouldn’t be as alleviating as it is.
She doesn’t know when the silent stream of tears starts or when it ends, but as she curls a hand over the one Rio still has resting on her neck, she can’t find it in herself to care. She pushes down the intrusive thoughts screaming she doesn’t deserve him and allows herself to completely unravel in his grasp, if only for tonight.