Work Text:
When Jubal had suggested they orchestrate Vargas’s death via prison brawl, Isobel hated to admit that part of her had wanted to go along with it. He’d taken so much from them already, even behind bars, and she knew full well that he wouldn’t stop trying to take more, until they were all dead and buried. Having him gone would be a weight lifted from everybody, although perhaps no-one more than her, but as much as Vargas was overdue a date with death, it was too merciful an end for him -- too quick.
She didn’t want to lower herself to his level, manipulating the system for her own gain, killing someone just because they threatened her well-being, the same thing he'd done. She had to be better than that. She was better. At least that’s what she tried to tell herself, because while she would’ve been content seeing Vargas laying on a slab in the morgue, she preferred the thought of him rotting alone like a rat in a cage for the rest of his life, however long or short. It was the least he deserved, but how different was it, really, to him making people suffer to get his own way? How different, really, then, was she?
Isobel sighed, resting her head in her arms, laid across each other on her desk. It was late, but she couldn’t bring herself to go home. Even though they’d recovered all of the sleekly boxed mechanical killers hidden around the city, she still felt like she had work to do -- to find a way to stop this sort of tragedy and turmoil from happening again. She knew Vargas was cunning, but even he would struggle to plot their demises so methodically again in total solitary. She just had to convince the right people, and he’d be moved within a week; given all that he’d done, it wouldn’t be a hard sell, and-
She lifted her head at a knock on her office door, and when it opened before she could say anything, she already knew who it was. Only one person ever entered without waiting for an answer, and Maggie stepped into view a moment later, just as she’d expected.
Isobel forced herself to smile, sitting upright. “Everything okay?” she asked, faintly surprised Maggie was still there; almost everyone else had gone home at that point. Save for a few people still in the JOC, she’d thought it had only been her left.
“I just wanted to come and check on you,” Maggie said, gently closing the door. “Make sure you’re alright.” She folded her arms as she walked further into the room, eyeing her with a touch of concern, wondering if anyone else had already bothered to do the same, but in the shadow of what had happened to Rina, she was right to believe she was the first.
“I’m fine,” Isobel claimed, getting to her feet. It wasn’t quite the truth, but she wouldn’t call it a lie either. None of them were fine after what had happened, but she thought she was as much so as she could be under the circumstances. Maggie’s eyebrows dipped slightly in a frown, evidently not quite believing her.
“Are you sure?” she reiterated uncertainly. Isobel hid her emotions too well for her own good, as though she thought people expected her to feel nothing at all or was worried what they would think if they realized she could, but Maggie knew that not even a woman as tough as her could endure the vicious whirlwind they just had and emerge completely untouched.
Isobel nodded, keeping up the charade. “If anything, I should be asking you that,” she said before Maggie could challenge her answer again, leaning back slightly on the front of her desk. “I heard about what happened at the warehouse.” She would’ve preferred to find out from Maggie herself, but Isobel could understand why she’d kept quiet; she hadn’t wanted to detract from the case, to risk being benched when they'd all still been in very real danger.
“It was nothing,” Maggie told her, shrugging dismissively. “Just a couple bruised ribs.” She’d gotten lucky, and her vest had done its job. She didn’t need or expect people to be worried about her when Rina was laying comatose in a hospital, her survival hanging in the balance. Isobel tilted her head slightly, eyes narrowing as she studied her with the same doubt she’d been given. Despite their shared trust, it didn’t stop them from lying when it arguably mattered the most, each trying to save the other from the weight of concern, like they didn’t know one another enough to realize when they weren't being answered honestly. Maggie sighed quietly. “You aren’t convinced.”
Isobel offered her a wry smile. “Don’t take it personally,” she said, as if it wasn’t technically just that, as if she would’ve felt the same level of concern if anyone else had been stood in Maggie’s place. Isobel hated knowing she, of all people, had been hurt in all of this; it was only a small comfort that the gun hadn’t been aiming for her head when it had fired.
“Then why don’t you look for yourself?” Maggie suggested, already beginning to unbutton the top of her shirt. She did it with the nonchalance of someone who undressed in front of Isobel everyday, but while that was far from the case, this also wasn’t the first time either. Any embarrassment she should’ve felt had already been used up back when she’d been caught by a suspect’s knife swing and Isobel had quietly helped her change the dressing after it had bled through. Compared to the unspoken intimacy of that, and the tension it had suffocated them with, showing off a bruise was insouciant, especially when the price to pay was easing Isobel’s concern.
“You don’t have to... do that,” Isobel protested weakly, pushing away from the desk and hesitantly crossing the space between them as if she was going to stop her but failing to even try. She knew it would’ve been a lost cause, that Maggie would’ve playfully snarked into getting her own way, and she was already deftly at her midsection when Isobel came to an apprehensive standstill in front of her.
“See?” she said, shamelessly pulling back the left side of her shirt to uncover the harmless bruise of a bullet. It was larger than its cause and dark-red, almost wine-like, in color, a surprisingly near perfect circle that disappeared slightly under the band of her bra. Isobel’s eyebrows furrowed in worry, her bottom lip between her teeth, and while she automatically lifted her hand, she stopped just shy of making contact, not wanting to hurt Maggie with her touch.
“I’m so sorry,” Isobel breathed, forcing herself to step back. She turned away, threading her fingers into her hair and leaning her head into her hand. First Rina, now Maggie, and it wasn’t much more than dumb luck that the latter hadn’t met the former’s fate. She’d been wondering why it hadn’t been her, when she was arguably the catalyst for it all, but now she had to know. If anyone had to fall victim here, she should've been the only one.
Maggie frowned, absently drawing the two sides of her shirt across her chest but ignoring the buttons. “Why? You have nothing to be sorry for,” she said, closing the little space Isobel had put between them. It wasn’t as if she’d picked up a gun and shot her, or fed her face into the one that had.
“Don’t I?” Isobel asked, reluctantly looking over at her. “This is all my fault.” If she had never used Vargas’s family as leverage against him, they never would’ve been killed, and then maybe none of this would have happened. Oh, she had no doubt that he still would’ve tried to exact his revenge, but at least it might have only been aimed at her for putting him behind the bars he loathed so much and not the people she cared about; not Maggie.
“Who the hell told you that?” Maggie asked, an angry fire already beginning to burn as she reached out to rest her hand on Isobel’s arm. She immediately lowered it at her touch, folding it across her chest with the other, and the guilt in her eyes gave Maggie her answer: Isobel had told herself.
“If I hadn’t sent you to Mexico to find Vargas’s wife and child, do you think we’d still be here?” Isobel said, shoulders falling. It was late, and after the day they’d had, she was tired even if her mind didn’t feel quite the same, more interested in beating her up. She didn’t really have it in her to argue with Maggie about whether or not she was to blame, especially when it wasn’t likely to change her opinion.
“I don’t know,” Maggie admitted, eyeing her softly. “But neither do you.” It was true that things might have been different if they’d let Vargas go again the second time instead of blackmailing him, but they’d have beaten him at his own game eventually, and regardless of how they did it, who was to say he wouldn’t have pulled the same stunt under those circumstances too? Isobel sighed quietly, knowing she was right, but it didn’t make her feel any better. “Look, you did what you had to, okay? But you didn’t kill his family, Isobel. And you didn’t shoot Rina, or me, or hide those stupid machines all over the city.”
“I didn’t need to,” Isobel muttered, digging her nails into her sleeves. She’d always known sending Vargas down would make her an enemy for life, that there would inevitably be consequences sooner or later because a man like him didn’t just give up, but while she’d accepted that risk to her own safety, she’d neglected to consider the one to the people she cared about. If she hadn’t already been trying to keep Maggie at arm’s length before, just to save her from the mistake of getting close to her, Isobel certainly would’ve decided to after this. Now, she’d just have to try harder, as if Maggie wasn’t stood right beside her, late into an evening where everyone else was gone.
“Hey, listen to me,” Maggie said firmly, tucking her hand under Isobel’s folded upper arm and gently pulling her closer, making her turn slightly. She blinked in surprise, almost stumbling over herself, and while she wasn’t much taller then Maggie, she certainly felt it when their heads were angled towards each other like this, a light warmth creeping across her face at their proximity. “That son of a bitch is going to rot alone in jail for the rest of his life, and you’re not going to spend yours blaming yourself for all the shit he’s done.”
“Why does it matter to you?” Isobel asked, brown eyes reflecting her confusion under a faint frown. She didn’t understand the difference it made to Maggie; it didn’t affect her, and as long as she kept her distance, she might avoid getting hurt again like everyone else within five feet of Isobel.
“Because I want you to be happy, idiot,” Maggie said, as though the answer should’ve been obvious; it certainly was to her. “What, do you think I enjoy standing around watching you blame yourself for everything?” She saw the taken aback flash across Isobel’s face, there and gone in a second. “Yeah. You might be frustratingly good at hiding it, but we’ve worked together for almost three years now, so I know that's what you do.”
“No.” Isobel shook her head slightly. “I don’t think that," she clarified, "it’s just... That’s what people always say, isn’t it? And maybe they mean it, maybe they don’t, but none of them ever actively want it.” She had to wonder how genuine Maggie could really be when everyone else before had ultimately meant it so emptily -- her father, her myriad of exes, old colleagues she hadn’t so much as spoken to in years. She liked to think that Maggie was different, but different enough for that heart of gold to truly care about the likes of her?
“Well I do, got it?” Maggie insisted, her hazel eyes ablaze with a veracity that Isobel couldn’t refute. She faltered, a kaleidoscope of butterflies wrecking havoc on her insides as her heart tried to beat itself into oblivion, and she didn’t realize she was leaning in, drawn to Maggie like a moth to a blinding flame, until their noses brushed. The soft touch immediately flipped a switch in her head, reminding her of the dangerous game she was playing, that she’d lost time and time again, but when she tried to move away, Maggie’s grip on her arm didn’t hesitate to pull her back. Her free hand pressed against the curve of Isobel’s neck, thumb resting along the edge of her jaw, and when she brought their lips together a moment later, Isobel instantly forgot all about incarcerated drug lords and blaming herself.
All the tension in her body evanesced, chased away by Maggie’s kiss, the miracle cure for everything that ailed her, and for the first time in so long that it had to be forever, Isobel felt free, every yearning press of Maggie’s lips drawing her higher and higher into a bliss that had spent a lifetime evading her. She barely registered the edge of her desk when Maggie pushed her against it, her hands inside the other woman’s unbuttoned shirt, mapping the concave of her hips and her waist, a warm body flush with hers that made her feel more alive than her own mortality. For a moment, Maggie’s fervor lulled, her kiss slowing, deepening, drawing the breath right out of Isobel as though she wouldn’t have surrendered it gladly, until they parted ways and she laid her lips elsewhere, under the cutting edge of Isobel’s jaw and down her neck, bruising her claim.
Isobel angled her head back, neglecting to consider all the marks she’d have to cover tomorrow, but through the haze of desire that had settled in her brain, a different realization managed to filter its way through. “Maggie...” she breathed, only to inhale sharply when Maggie hummed in acknowledgement against her pulse, almost making her forget what she wanted to say next. “We... You have a concussion...” Maggie laughed into the hollow of Isobel’s throat.
“And?” she started, pulling back. “You don’t think-?” She stopped at the look in Isobel’s eyes, the guilt intermingling with the lust, as if she thought she was taking advantage of a woman who wouldn’t even consider doing this if she was in her ‘right’ mind, and Maggie regarded her with an adoring, sympathetic smile for daring to believe it. “You are so stupid.” She watched Isobel frown slightly in confusion, silently questioning why rather than trying to challenge her, and Maggie briefly had to consider how often she did the same with others, blindly believing whatever they said about her instead of disputing its validity. She paused, looking her over, wondering if she’d given herself the same care that she had everyone else. “When did you last eat?”
“Uh... I don’t- This morning?” Isobel said uncertainly, struggling to remember. It had been one hell of a hectic day, and there had never been time. She hadn’t even stopped to drink until dehydration had dizzied her slightly in reminder.
“Come on,” Maggie instructed, reluctantly stepping away, her skin prickling with pins and needles where Isobel’s hands fell away from it. “We’ll go grab something.” It was cute, the way Isobel looked a little lost, as though she didn’t know what to do with herself, head tilted slightly to one side. She almost seemed put out, rejected, but as much as Maggie would’ve loved to continue what they’d started, she didn’t want Isobel convincing herself a head injury was behind whatever they did.
“Isn’t it a little late?” she asked, slowly standing up, pushing away from her desk, attentive eyes watching as Maggie did her shirt back up. It was gone eleven, and most of the places she knew were already closed or would be by the time they ever got there.
Maggie shook her head. “There’s always somewhere open at every hour,” she said, knowing just where to go. In this city, there was no shortage of places, even in the middle of the night. Isobel averted her gaze, pulling her lower lip between her teeth in thought, and Maggie knew she was overthinking, that beautiful brain of hers playing tricks as she tried to work out what she’d said or done wrong, or if it was just her. She was distracted from the dilemma when Maggie moved, looking up and turning slightly to follow her movements as she walked past her to the stand in the corner. She pulled Isobel’s trench coat from its hook, holding it open as she returned to her.
“I know you think the concussion’s impacting my judgement,” Maggie started gently, helping Isobel into the garment when she draped it over her shoulders. Personally, she didn’t really even believe she had one -- she felt fine -- but Isobel would always take a trained professional’s word on the matter over hers. “And while it isn’t, I also know you’re going to worry about it no matter what I say. So.” She reached up to brush Isobel’s short hair behind her ear, lowering her voice as she leaned closer over her shoulder. “Give it a few days, and then we’ll revisit this.” Isobel shuddered slightly as Maggie’s breath ghosted the edge of her neck, still tender from being at the mercy of the other woman’s lips and teeth.
She nodded in agreement, anticipation already itching in her veins. “If you end up still wanting to,” she said quietly, half-expecting the opposite to be the case; that after those few days, their little office rendezvous would be forgotten -- at least by Maggie.
“Oh, believe me, I will,” Maggie assured her, hands in her pockets as she brushed past Isobel. If kissing her, hearing her breathy gasps and burning under her touch had all felt like heaven on earth, then Maggie had to know what going all the way would do to her. She stopped halfway across the office, pivoting on her heel to face Isobel, and nodded towards the desk. “Get your things. I’m going to make sure you eat and talk some sense into you.” Her expression softened. “No more holding yourself responsible for other people’s screw-ups and misfortune, at least not if I can help it.”
She turned away again, and Isobel wordlessly watched her leave before scavenging the wherewithal to retrieve her bag. Her heart was still hammering, never having stopped, and her lips burned missing something that didn’t even belong to her, the memory of Maggie’s touch seared into them like constellations on a star-chart. Isobel sighed, cursing her self-control for deserting her when she’d needed it most; what had happened to keeping Maggie at bay? To preventing exactly this? An echo of her earlier words, earnest, full of conviction, gave Isobel the answer.
Because I want you to be happy.
Something fluttered in her stomach, more pleasant than the discomfort that came with nerves and dread, something reminiscent of joy or hope, and while Maggie wasn’t even in the room, Isobel could still feel herself blushing faintly, as though she’d been thrown back thirty years to highschool. She shook her head, trying to ignore the warmth in her face as she knocked her phone into her bag and grabbed the folder she'd been stuck in the middle of. She’d given up on being genuinely happy a long time ago, after too many failed relationships; after finding herself so familiar with being alone; after a cavalcade of things going wrong that never seemed to stop, but if Maggie believed she could make it happen, when it seemed they both coveted the same thing, then maybe the least Isobel could do was let her try. If it didn't work, it wouldn't exactly be something she hadn't dealt with before, and if it did...
Isobel took a deep breath, heading for the door. If it did, she wouldn't be the same, and while the thought was terrifying, she knew a her that felt loved and happy could only be a good thing.
