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Never in a million years would Tara Lewis consider herself Elle Greenaway’s therapist.
Firstly, because she wasn’t. She was just a friend who tried to give halfway decent advice and get a beneficial conversation going at least once a week per Emily’s request. “It’ll be good for her,” Emily had stated, already seeing the rocky waters that surrounded Elle’s sudden return to the team like a premonition.
And secondly, because most therapists had a general understanding of their clients.
Yet Elle was the definition of a wildcard, commencing their ‘sessions’ by sauntering in thirty minutes late juggling two large coffees, or, sinking defeatedly into the couch an hour early, stacks of files still pushed aside on her desk.
Their conversations were about as fluid as the waves Emily had known would personify Elle’s temperament, always teetering on the edge of truly getting somewhere, but Elle kept herself from getting caught in their current.
“She needs someone to talk to. Someone new,” Emily had continued, knowing just how effective putting Elle into actual therapy would be given Hotch’s disastrous previous attempts and her general track record.
They were nothing more than friends with the condition of a conversation a week, and that was something Tara never stopped feeling grateful for.
Because therapists could not fall in love with their clients.
But friends fell in love all the time.
-
“A vacation,” Tara declared, as though it were obvious.
“We could all use one of those.” Elle mumbled, resting her chin on her hand as her eyes flickered over the menu.
The last thing Tara had expected on a day off was a text from Elle. It was four little words, I need to talk, small words that had Tara trapped between kicking her feet and immense worry.
She settled for replying back.
And now, here they were, Elle in bell bottom jeans and wearing those big beaded earrings she sometimes got away with wearing on cases, Tara’s heart beating just a little faster.
The last case had worn Elle out, the unsub too similar to Randall Garner for anyone's liking. Tara had not even worked his case, yet the ghost of his name filled her with feelings she didn’t bother sorting out.
“I’m serious,” Tara paused as she took another sip of her water. “I can talk to Emily about getting you a couple days off.”
“I haven’t even been back for a year.”
“Nearly, though. Besides, I’d argue you had a rather difficult transition, going from a local unit to the BAU again. You deserve a vacation.”
“So what does that mean?” Elle peeked over the top of her raised menu.
It meant Tara would get her anything she wanted, and even if she hadn’t consciously realized it yet, Elle knew that too.
She liked Tara a lot. More than she should. She liked her humor and how soft her voice was and the fact she took her coffee with four sugars and the way she was wearing a simple t-shirt yet could have walked out of a magazine photoshoot.
“It means, say the words and it’s yours.”
-
“I think a vacation would be great for her, but does she even have somewhere in mind?” Emily questioned, leaning back in her chair.
Elle brought a balance to the team that Emily had never realized was missing, a wholeness she imagined had only existed before the years tore their team apart.
Elle, of course, being the first piece ripped away.
“I’ll talk to her about it, I’m sure we can come up with something.”
Emily nodded in response.
“You do whatever it is you need to do to keep her here.”
Tara was certain Emily noticed the way she looked at Elle. But it was about more than that.
JJ, while happily married to Kate, had started smiling even more than she had before. Tara had been fortunate to have never seen the shattered side of JJ that emerged in Elle’s absence, but she knew it wasn’t pretty. It took Kate months to even get her out on a date.
As far as Kate went, she was always dragging Elle along shopping with her and her daughter Meg, going on about how Meg had always wanted a cool aunt. Elle accepted the role nervously, more for JJ than anyone else.
She was entwined with more than Tara’s heart. There were too many threads at risk of snapping if she ran again.
“I will,” Tara agreed, “I’ll make sure she knows she can get away without having to run.”
-
“How about here?” Elle leaned over the map spread across Tara’s dining room table.
It had been a gift from a professor in college, Tara’s teachers endlessly impressed by her intelligence and thus endlessly generous.
Tara was a visual person, and found difficulty remembering all the places she could go without seeing them spread in front of her. She could tell from the hungry way Elle’s eyes searched the map that she was much the same.
“I’ve always liked Greece.”
“Greece sounds great,” Tara agreed, her arm brushing against Elle’s as her fingers followed Elle’s to the point on the map. “Really great.”
“You could come with me,” Elle replied nervously, casting Tara a quick sideways glance before looking away again. She fought back a shudder, remembering the last time she had traveled with a member of her team.
But this could be different. Tara made it so.
It would be different.
“I wish I could.” Tara replied, “But don’t worry. I’m next in line for a vacation, and I’ll bet I can talk Emily into letting you come with me.”
“You can talk Emily into anything.”
Tara grinned, it was true.
“One of my many talents. Now, tell me you’ve got a good swimsuit.”
-
Elle had been in Greece for forty eight hours when she donned a wedding ring on her hand.
What started as just a few of the drinks she swore to stop having turned into meeting the charming man with dark hair. His name was Andreas.
He didn’t look at her like she was a problem he needed to fix. Elle liked Tara, much more than she should, but she could see that constant problem solving in her eyes.
It was not Tara’s fault, it was simply what her career had always demanded of her. Still, it was difficult to picture Tara loving her back when Tara was too busy planning what to do the next time Elle came crashing into her office.
So she had a few drinks with the dark haired man, and drinks turned to dancing - how she loved dancing, how she missed it - and when she kissed him, it felt like Jamaica with Derek. It felt like before the bullet pierced her skin and everything went wrong.
It was comfortable with him. Elle wasn’t used to it, this comfortability, shedding her swimsuit, running into the ocean hand in hand with him all while not batting an eye.
It felt like she was running towards the woman she used to be; a woman who danced, who didn’t care about the scars she had. A woman who didn’t run from every touch extended her way.
The waves were hardly even cold.
She tilted her head back, treading water, and marveled at how beautiful the stars were. How good the water felt with nothing to keep it away from her. How there was, in this moment of delusion, nothing bad in Greece.
“I wanna stay.” She exclaimed, drunker than she should be, surprised by the way it felt to say something and be so sure. “I’ve got nothing to go back to.”
Tara. But Tara had so many problems already, she didn’t need another.
When they laid next to each other across crumpled towels, somehow finding their way back into swimsuits as sand began to cling, Andreas grabbed her hand.
“Marry me.” The words were light in delivery. They were words Elle had stopped dreaming of hearing years ago, before she even knew what love truly was.
Elle's mother had had a longstanding habit of getting drunk, and when she did she told her how no one would love her, how much of a handful she was. Elle was still not sure whether her mother was a liar in those moments, or if she had always been brutally honest.
Either way, she was tired of taking chances. And here was someone who would love her.
Even if he was a stranger.
“Marry me, and stay.”
“Okay,” She laughed, rolling onto her side.
Really, what did she have to lose?
-
They found the ring the next day, wandering market stalls.
He slid diamonds the size of pennies onto her finger, yet Elle preferred the subtle ones. Luxury like this was a foreign thing to her. To anyone, really.
They settled on a silver band, not gold as she had hoped, with a glinting stone just a bit too large for Elle’s tastes but noticeably smaller than Andreas’ preference.
“Are you sure you don’t want one a little bigger?” He questioned under the shopkeeper's watchful gaze.
“It’s perfect.” Elle flexed her fingers beneath the odd weight, resting her hand on his arm.
“Really, Everything is perfect.”
-
The ceremony was on the same beach, twenty four hours after they had met.
Elle had no family to worry about upsetting by rushing along a wedding. The team would tease her endlessly, probably want photos, but that was all. The thought of Tara in attendance was nauseating, and Elle pushed all the reasons for that to the back of her mind.
Andreas scraped together a few friends, equally handsome and seemingly wealthy. No family to worry about either, it seemed.
They made a good match that way.
“What a catch!” a blonde with springing curls threw her arms around Elle. “I was a bit nervous, knowing you just met, but seeing you…how could he let you get away?”
It was relieving; the only white dress Elle owned was a sundress she had brought by happenstance. Her feet were bare, hair left down and arms glittering with golden bracelets.
She felt too plain to be a bride. Yet no one was looking at her that way, not hardly.
“Shall we get this moving?” Andreas slipped an arm around Elle, a newly opened bottle of champagne in his other hand. “For your nerves,” He replied as he tilted the bottle towards her mouth.
It was sweet, surely the most expensive champagne she had ever drank. After the ceremony, they tossed bottles around like they were worth nothing and danced under the moonlight. She was lifted into the air and spun by hands she didn’t recognize, but there was never a moment of fear.
The sand was light on her feet. The salty air was warm. Everything was as perfect as she had hoped for.
-
“You can’t go back.” Andreas balked at Elle and her open suitcase. The sleeve of the green dress he had just bought slipped down one of her shoulders, his hand closing around the bare skin, another arm winding haphazardly around her.
“Just for a day or two, to tell my friends what happened. And to make sure they can cover for me at work.”
“Who cares if they can cover for you or not?” The arm tightened, and for a moment warning echoed in Elle’s mind. She knew well how men built prisons. “We’re honeymooning in Italy.”
“Nevermind work. My friends will be worried.” She didn’t mention that her friends and work were one in the same, not wanting to scare him off with FBI talk.
“Who cares if they are? You’re safe, that’s all that really matters.” He paused, weighed what he was about to say, but said it anyway. “It’s not like they cared last time you left without saying goodbye.”
Elle couldn’t stop the tension that came over her. The champagne had made her too comfortable, and the wounds from leaving unnoticed had resurfaced. She hadn’t told him why she left them, just that she had.
“You’re right,” she sighed, pulling herself from his arms to grab her phone.
She shoved it into a nightstand drawer before she could regret it. Elle had checked out of her room early and came to stay in his suite, coincidentally in the same hotel. He was here on business, and while she wanted to know more, she wasn’t one to talk about withholding details.
She pulled her suitcase from the bed, and as soon as it was gone, her back replaced it.
“I knew you’d be reasonable,” Andreas grinned, before he leaned down to kiss her. Elle found it was rather easy to ignore all the warning signs when she was kissed.
When she was, by basic definition, being loved.
-
“Have you heard from Elle?” Tara asked, leaning into the doorway of Emily’s office.
Elle’s flight home was supposed to be leaving within the hour, but all her messages were unopened and her calls went unanswered. She had taken Elle’s silence over the past few days to be a good sign. Now it was unsettling.
“Nope,” Emily glanced up from the file she was filling out. “She’s leaving soon, yeah?”
“I hope so,” Tara once again pulled her phone out of her pocket. “Haven’t heard from her in a few days…I’m supposed to be picking her up around midnight, so I wanted to make sure I still had the time right.”
Emily set her pen down.
“You’re sure she didn’t decide to stay for a few more days? She’s not exactly the best planner.” Elle had been known for her occasional impulsivity even before she returned to the team. Now, though, it was no longer something so occasional.
She was scatterbrained as of late, and it wouldn’t exactly be out of character for her to get caught up in something and decide to change her flight back on a whim. Hell, she might not even be in Greece anymore, having found a cheap flight somewhere else.
Still, Tara couldn’t set aside the growing dread in her stomach. A part of her had wondered how Elle would fair being so far away.
As normal as a change in her plans may be, the silence was anything but.
-
“Do you think she’s been kidnapped or something?” Tara asked Emily over the phone.
Midnight had come and gone, Elle’s silence enduring, and Tara had sat with her worry until four. An acceptable time to call her boss considering their normal schedule, though Emily seemed less than happy to be awake.
A heavy sigh came through on Emily’s end. “Let me call her.”
Elle picked up after a few rings, having just returned from the beach, her hair still dripping with water. It was a rare moment alone in the suite, making the soft buzzing of her phone which was miraculously still alive in the drawer a lot harder to ignore.
“Hello?”
“Elle.” Emily’s voice was tight, exasperated, and Elle could already picture how she was rubbing at her temples. She had seen a lot more of Emily’s stress and worry than anything else in her short time on the team. “What the hell is going on with you?”
“Oh, it’s been great Emily.” She fell back onto the bed, watching how the sunlight crawled across the ceiling. “It’s so pretty-”
“Your flight home was yesterday?”
“Was it?” Elle questioned. She hadn’t noticed, spending her night drunk and falling into bed just before sunrise, treating herself with wine as soon as she woke up.
Wine, wine sounded good. She stood up from the bed, making her way into the kitchen and putting Emily on speaker.
“I’m all mixed up.”
“Are you drunk?”
“No!” Elle exclaimed, casting her still present hangover and the margarita she had just drank to the back of her mind. “You know I have a terrible sense of keeping track of time.”
“Really? You always show up for work on time, early even.” Emily’s voice was softer now, worry replacing the everpresent stress.
“Consider it a few extra days for my honeymoon. That’s allowed, right?”
Emily’s grip tightened on her phone. She wasn’t sure how she avoided breaking it.
“Elle, I think you’re confused-”
“My husband and I are leaving in five days for Milan, I don’t know what you think I'm confused about.”
“Husband?”
“We met on the beach,” she paused, lifting her freshly poured glass of Pinot Grigio to her lips, “isn’t that romantic?”
“You need to come home, Elle. Now.” Emily’s voice was harder than Elle had ever heard it. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say Emily was scared.
“I was going to, really. You see, his heart is so set on Italy. Can’t I just have another week? I won’t take another day off for a year or more.”
“This isn’t a request.” Emily swung her legs over the edge of her bed, hopeful demeanor diminishing. There was no way she’d be going back to bed, not with this mess to clean up. “He could be anyone.”
“You can meet him.” Elle replied, “you can even run a background check.”
“What’s his name?”
“Andreas.”
“Last name, Elle.”
Elle paused. She had heard it once, in passing during the ceremony, but not since.
“Um…I forgot it.”
“What’s his favorite color?”
“I don’t see how this is relevant to his identity,” Elle shot back, soothing her nerves with more wine. How could he be her husband when she didn’t know his last name or his favorite color?
“How about his favorite animal?”
“I don’t know, okay! That’s trivial stuff, anyways.” She knew her mother might be right that no one would ever love her; but he clearly loved the idea of her, even if it was only an idea, and that was enough.
“I gotta go, Emily. He’ll be back soon.”
“Is he taking you out?”
“To lunch,” Elle replied, leaning against the counter. “Somewhere nice.”
A charming man with money, Emily knew the type all too well. She gulped, the thought of Doyle never far from her mind either.
“You better tell him you’re coming back here. You can go to Milan after.” The nonchalance was an act; she just needed Elle back to talk some sense into her. She and Tara could do it together. And, of course, she could run a real background check on whatever man it was that had taken advantage of Elle so quickly.
Emily knew from that alone that he wasn’t a good one.
“I’ll try,” Elle made her way over to the dresser. “Should I wear green or black? He likes the black but…”
“But what?”
“Well, it’s just Tara always thinks I look good in green.”
“Do the green.” Emily replied, met too quickly with the sound of Elle hanging up.
-
“I should have known she wasn’t ready to be on her own like that. She’s impulsive when it comes to a night out, and that doesn’t even come close to the field!” Tara groaned, putting her head in her hands. This whole sordid vacation had been her idea.
“She’s a grown woman, Tara.”
“Who's still never processed a significant trauma,” she shook her head; it didn’t matter that Elle was capable of making her own decisions. It mattered that Tara had pushed for her to leave in the first place, even though she wanted nothing more than to keep her around.
She was a coward, scared of her own feelings, and now Elle was off and married and half refusing to come home.
“I’m going to get her,” She stood up from her chair, striding across Emily’s office, “I don’t know if she’ll come back on her own.”
“Tara, I’ve already told her she needs to come back.”
“She left without telling anyone goodbye before. She can find it in herself to do it again.”
-
Tara had grown up on beaches just like this one.
She had never forgotten the feeling of sand between her toes - or on the kitchen floor, the car's passenger seat, anywhere really. Like a lot of things, sand was inescapable.
She dreamed of grains of sand when she was sick for the home she had never quite had.
Her fathers stations frequently revolved around water - even Germany, as terrible as it was, had been made better in the moments she escaped to the water.
It was on a beach just like this where she learned to surf for the first time, still wearing her shorts because she was that confident she wouldn’t fall into the water, the board borrowed from a boy she only pretended to like.
She was, after all, more interested in his surfboard than in him.
It was beaches like this that gave way to sprawling boardwalks, where she and the short lived friends she collected through her youth felt like nothing could touch them.
It was odd, the invincibility a bit of salt in the air gave a person. The forgetfulness.
Her peers were still mean and her brother was still angry and her mother was still getting sicker; but it hadn’t felt like it.
Tara had grown up on beaches just like this one, and knew that as wonderful of a distraction as they were, they didn’t fix anything. Waves swallowed people, not their problems.
And no matter how far Elle ran, no matter how deeply she pretended the waves would rinse her clean of her guilt and the sun would release the weight of memories, Tara knew it’d all come back for her twice as violently when she returned to reality.
Even if she could still hear the waves from her bedroom, they would not save her.
Her eyes scoped the sand as she pulled herself from memories. It had been foolish to hope she would magically walk onto the beach as Elle was there, but the waves had called her the moment she stepped off the plane.
Tara was sure Greece had born its similar effects on Elle, had to have, because somehow she was married and didn’t seem to have a care in the world about it.
Twilight was beginning to settle, and Tara turned her gaze away from the ocean to the address on her phone screen. Luckily, Penelope had figured out how to access Elle’s card history, and therefore, her hotel address.
Her exact room number posed a larger issue, but Tara quickly found that wouldn’t be necessary as she walked the path that led to the hotel, sand giving way to stone. Beach front. Elle was a smart girl.
She could hear the music from outside, distant hums of a rooftop party. That, she was more than willing to bet, was where she would find Elle.
She did little more than throw her suitcase onto the bed of her newly rented room and change into something that didn’t scream ‘panicked FBI agent who just got off a ten hour flight’ before going to look for her.
It felt irrationally time sensitive, the whole matter. It had taken her three days to get here, booking a flight and getting a reasonable layover proving itself impossible.
It was Elle who saw Tara first, a fond look crossing her face at the sight of Tara in a plum slip of a dress, but she forced her gaze to harden. She debated momentarily on retreating back to her room, but cared too much to leave Tara wandering, looking radiant but entirely out of place.
“What are you doing here?” She called, keeping just enough distance between them.
Tara turned, taking her in, expecting the worst but finding some confusing middle ground.
Elle was clutching one of the martinis she promised to stop drinking in her right hand, a cigarette in the other. Still in her swimsuit, a silk pareo tied haphazardly around her waist. Her feet were bare, though her ankles and arms were covered in golden jewelry. She was practically dripping gold.
Then there was the awful silver, too large and swallowing her ring finger, clashing against every part of her.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Elle?” Tara tried to keep it kind; but faltered, her unbearable exhaustion coming to a head.
“I could say the same to you. The whole point of eloping is no one you know is supposed to be around!”
Liquor sloshed over the edge of the glass which Tara plucked from Elle’s fingers as she led her away from the rooftop, party still in full swing.
The hallway felt much smaller.
“I’m trying to have a good honeymoon!” Elle huffed, throwing her cigarette down, Tara hurriedly stopping her from putting it out with her bare feet and sighing at the burn left in the carpet.
“Did you know him before you left?” Tara questioned, unable to stop the tightening of her throat. She didn’t want to lose Elle, but she equally didn’t want her to be teetering this far over the edge of rationality. At least, had she known him, she might be happy.
That’s all Tara wanted, when it came down to it.
“We met a few nights ago, but I’m happy! So what does it matter?”
She wasn’t. Tara had seen it in the martini glasses reflection, saw it in the faint pink marks still lingering on Elle’s neck, no matter how tan she’d gotten.
“What do you even know about this guy?”
“I know that Andreas is kind, and-”
“Does he have any siblings?” Tara cut her off, frankly uninterested in Elle’s approximations.
“How am I supposed to know?” Elle’s voice raised, but her face grew soft with a recognition of her own statement, visible in the way she pressed her lips together. “He loves me, Tara. That’s what matters.”
“You're so desperate for someone to love you that you'll take anything you think could be love.” They were harsh words, but Tara couldn’t lie to her. “Elle... This isn't love.”
“Then what is it?!” Elle’s voice was high, wavering. Uncertain.
“This is him seeing a girl who he can take advantage of.”
Elle rolled her eyes, stubborn as ever, and Tara dared to rest a hand against her arm. “I know you want love but this isn't it, Elle. He knows as much about you as you know about him. Maybe there is a future for you guys, but already getting married-”
"Are you done yet?" It was far from the first time Elle had shut her out, “because I want to get back to my drink.” She turned, hotheaded as ever, and made it halfway down the hallway before Tara cleared her throat.
“Does it mean nothing to you that I flew halfway across the world to find you?”
It meant everything.
“It means you’re a good friend,” Elle said instead, chancing a glance over her shoulder.
“Is that what you want me to be? A friend?”
“What kind of question is that?” Elle’s reply bordered on venomous. She couldn’t do this, have what she truly wanted dangled in front of her as a tool to get her home. She wouldn’t.
Her eyes flickered up from the ground, body humming with the same adrenaline she felt when an unsub was just behind her, when her fingers closed around her gun and she hoped this time it was enough to save her.
Tara’s eyes were not calculating, instead they were soft with what Elle knew to be worry and something else. Something she had seen many times before but excused as a million different things.
“It’s an honest one,” Tara replied, “because I don’t want to just be your friend.”
Elle scoffed, held the words with all the weight of her cigarette smoke. “Emily sure has gotten creative in tactics to get me to come home.”
“I’d do a lot of things for Emily, but I wouldn’t lie about something like this.”
“You had months to tell me!” Elle started walking towards her, fighting the urge to stomp her feet. It wasn’t right of her, nor would it be fair, but anger was never fair. She wanted to grab Tara up and squeeze hard enough to keep hold of something for once in her life.
Instead, her hands settled gently on Tara’s arms. Maybe it was the alcohol that was making her tired, or all her unfairly sleepless nights - Andreas was not a big fan of breaks - but all she could do was slump against her.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t think you’d run off and get married if I didn’t,” Tara tried to laugh, to spark something back into Elle, but Elle only sank further like an anchor in the ocean's depth.
“I thought no one would love me.” Elle said it plainly, turning her cheek to Tara’s shoulder. “A girl like me is too much for anyone.” Her mothers words clipped around the edge of the bottle. Saying them herself felt like blasphemy and truth all at once.
Tara sighed, wrapped her arms around Elle, tangled fingers in her hair that was still slightly damp. “That’s not true.”
“He said he did,” Elle continued, “and look where that love landed me.”
“I’m sure he was infatuated.” Tara replied, “but you know that’s not the same thing.”
“Everyone's always infatuated. That’s as far as they get. You know, I’m not the only person who’s good at leaving.” Elle concluded, words messy and haphazard in her lips.
Feelings were foreign bodies her tongue had never known how to grapple with; and the truth, well, that was something else entirely.
“I was infatuated with you for a long time,” Tara admitted. “When I met you of course. But it really started when you sauntered into my office for that first time. You couldn’t have made it more clear you didn’t want to talk, but you still brought me a coffee to try and make up for it.”
Tara smiled fondly at the memory of Elle slumping into one of her chairs, little more than a stranger as she propped her feet up on the coffee table and ran fingers through her hair.
“Is Emily gonna pay you more for this?” She had asked, drawing her iced coffee to her lips. Tara had wrinkled her nose; coffee had no business being iced. Like the one Elle bought for her.
“Call it a favor for a friend,” Tara had replied, leaning back in her chair. It was important they stayed at the same level, that Elle didn’t feel imbalanced. “A friend, and whatever you’re gonna be.”
Elle had laughed, a true thing as she shook her head almost fondly, an action she mirrored a few more times as they traversed the tricky ground of getting to know each other. Tara, meanwhile, had drunk every drop of her coffee.
“And?” Elle questioned, bringing Tara back to the awkwardly long hotel hallway, the thrum of music reassuring her they had a bit more time without interruption.
“And then I got to know you, and I didn’t want to just spend my time looking at you anymore.” She ran her fingers up and down Elle’s arms gently, “though I still did that quite a lot.”
“I thought I was imagining it.” Elle straightened herself up a bit, her defensive streak gone. Now, she was just tired and hazed, clinging to words.
“I should have shown you that you weren’t.” She continued to drag her fingers upwards, across Elle’s shoulders that were far too tense; Tara missed the relaxed slope of them whenever they were together.
Tara had, once, been able to pride herself on her ability to soothe.
Elle sighed, knowing her time here was drawing short. Andreas would soon come back from wherever he had spent his day, if he hadn’t already.
“What are we gonna do about it?”
“You let me show you,” Tara’s finger drew across her cheek, slow, smooth circles that were nothing like the frantic hands she had been living with. “You give me one more chance.”
“I never gave you a chance,” Elle gulped. She hadn’t looked at Tara’s actions truly, too caught up in her own doubts to see.
“Then you give me one.”
Elle tilted her head, the sigh she gave brushing against Tara’s neck. The insinuation was clear, and Tara would have been thrilled if they were anywhere else.
She placed a gentle finger to Elle’s lips, shaking her head. “When you’re sober, and single.”
“Will you come tomorrow, once he’s left the room? He leaves early now.” Elle changed the subject. Tara's response wasn’t rejection, not entirely, but still it stung.
Tara noticed, reading her like a book.
“I’ll kiss you all you want when we’ve got this sorted out,” She traced her finger across Elle’s cheek once more, before stepping back from her. “I promise I will.”
-
Elle had collapsed into bed just before Andreas returned. She feigned a heavy, drunken sleep when she heard him enter the bedroom and felt heavy hands trying to rouse her. Never one for much patience, he had eventually given up and fallen asleep himself.
She woke up late, unsure when she had truly fallen asleep as she stretched herself across their thankfully empty bed. Andreas was out again, whatever business he was here on suddenly important.
Elle knew it was more than that. Her decision to go back to Emily before they left for Milan had left him unhappy, thus he largely ignored her through the day and crawled his way back to her at night.
She didn’t know where he went, like usual, but suddenly she didn’t care. It wouldn’t work, whatever he was trying, hadn’t even before Tara got here. She had had the beach for company.
The beach, she decided, sounded delightful.
She threw off the covers and shed her slip in exchange for her swimsuit, throwing a sundress overtop and placing her sunglasses on her head.
She had to turn around halfway to Tara’s room to go back and grab her shoes, which she was growing more and more forgetful of these days, but then she was back on her way.
“Hi,” She greeted as Tara opened the door.
Tara liked this version of Elle a bit better than the Elle she had seen the night before. Her hair clearly hadn’t been brushed, and she hadn’t taken off any of her jewelry as obvious by its crooked state, but she looked a bit more like herself.
“I figured you’d text me?”
“I don't know where my phone is,” Elle admitted as she made her way inside, while Tara grabbed a hairbrush off her nightstand and waved Elle over.
“We can go find it, then.”
Tara was breathtaking, Elle fumbling over all the ways to tell her how well the orange of her tank top suited her, how well her shorts fit.
“Can’t we go out for breakfast first?” Elle tipped her head back as Tara ran the brush through her hair, deciding to save her compliments for a moment where she wouldn't stumble over them.
“Did you just wake up?” Tara questioned, already knowing the answer. She set the brush down, satisfied with her work, and turned Elle to face her. Adjusting the tangled necklace she wore was slow work, but Tara enjoyed the closeness.
She still wore the too large silver ring, and Tara's fingers itched to pull it off, but she let it lie for the time being.
“Lunch,” Elle amended, “and then a swim.”
“Can we go now?”
“Please, I’m starving.”
Elle sounded more like herself, too.
-
Tara’s mother used to call her a waterchild on their rare trips to the ocean, days where her sickness could become background.
They were some of the happiest Tara remembered, as she was always generous with her splashing and her mother gave it right back while she still could.
On the nights following those special days, Tara had prayed - begged really - for the ocean to save her.
“You’re a waterchild.” Tara grinned now, watching the water practically part for Elle as she dove in.
If there was anyone who deserved to be saved by the ocean, it was Elle.
“What was that?” Elle called, her head reappearing above the waves.
“Nothing,” Tara replied, moving to stand at the edge where the water lapped at her feet. “How is it?”
“Don’t make me come get you,” Elle complained, a mermaid's silhouette as she tossed back her head and the water greedily caught the ends of her hair.
“Just for that, I should.” Despite herself, Tara waded in slowly, shielding her eyes against the sun and noticing Elle was gone when she lowered her hand.
“Waterchildren,” She sighed, complaint affirmed as moments later Elle surfaced just in front of her, leaving them inches apart.
“I’m sober now.”
“Are you single?” Tara arched a brow and Elle sighed dramatically, grabbing her by her wrist and dragging her deeper in.
“I will be by tonight.”
“So soon?” It was something that couldn't be dragged out, yet some part of her had feared Elle might decide to try and make the marriage work. Might settle.
“That’s the hope. We’re supposed to be leaving for DC tomorrow night.” Elle said, though she knew Andreas still had not bought their plane tickets.
Water skimmed Tara’s waist as Elle settled her head against her shoulder. “We’ll figure something out won’t we?”
“We always do.”
Then, finding the moment too heavy, Tara lifted Elle into her arms before dunking her under the water. They swam around each other until clouds covered the settling sun, and then some.
-
“I mean, I just don’t know if he’ll agree to an annulment.” Elle smoothed her hands over her face to ease her nerves, sprawled dramatically across the king size bed while Tara sat at the edge of the bed and stared.
She felt odd enough sitting in the middle of the mysterious husband's suite while he was away, made worse by the fact Elle was wearing nothing but a chemise of Italian silk and her underwear. It should not have been a big deal, Tara had spent all day with Elle in her swimsuit.
But that had been without white sheets that did wonders to highlight that her legs were a mile long and perfectly tanned.
Elle had never much cared for modesty, her operations undercover in the bureau leaving no room for it even if she had. There was no time to worry about skin being seen when someone was fixing a mic under your bra.
“What do I even say to him? That I’m not the type of girl to get married on a whim? I’m really not.”
Tara shrugged. Elle was, in fact, exactly that type of person. The important part was that, normally, she had people who were there to talk her out of things.
“Maybe you just tell him the truth.”
“That I’m leaving him for a woman?”
“That you rushed into it,” Tara said, trying to wipe the grin off her face but failing miserably. “Or, make sure he knows that you’re leaving him for the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen.”
“True as it is, that may actually make him angry.” Elle tossed her head back into the pillows, weighing the cleanest exit.
It was all such a headache.
“Maybe I can pull the FBI agent card?”
“It can’t hurt to let him know you’ve got friends in very high places.”
They both laughed, the image of Emily crashing through the suite door armed with her vest and a pointed glock all too easily conjured.
“I’ll just tell him it’s over. He can’t be too upset when he’s not even here.” Elle propped herself up on her side. “He’s been weird ever since I brought up going back.”
“Sounds like there’s something he doesn’t want you, or anyone you work with knowing about.”
“I didn’t tell him I’m FBI,” Elle paused, “Just that I worked for a very big, very American corporation, and my boss would absolutely not let me honeymoon in Italy without serious consequences unless she met the guy first.”
“Does he know anything true about you?”
“He hasn’t asked.” Elle replied, relieving any of Tara's worries about their potential longevity. “You should probably go,” She stood suddenly from the bed, walking to the window with a grace that still left Tara amazed.
“The suns going down.”
“Is he a werewolf or something?”
“Well, at least then there would be something exciting about him.” Elle grinned, “but I think he’s just pouting about not getting his way.”
Tara wrapped her arms around Elle from behind, feeling just a bit less flustered, settling her chin on the shorter woman's shoulder.
“He definitely spends his days doing something his agent wife should not know about.” Tara kept her tone light, but it was a serious possibility.
“Be that as it may, he always comes crawling back at night.”
“Who wouldn’t, when it’s you they’re crawling back to?”
-
“I don’t understand!” Angry might have been an understatement, if the shattered glass on the counter behind Elle was anything to go by.
Her fingers itched to call Tara, but she wanted to keep her out of this.
Besides, she handled psychopathic killers for a living. She could handle a thing or two being thrown at her.
“It was impulsive, we didn’t know anything about each other.”
“What exactly did I need to know?” Andreas stomped across the floor, half pressing his chest against hers. He stared her down, anger in his eyes morphing to something incredulous when he noticed she didn’t seem afraid.
He had no idea she could take him down in seconds, if she wanted to. His body language, while attempting to be intimidating, left all his blind spots open.
“That I need a husband who will support my job, long hours and all.”
“You’re some corporate bitch,” he groaned. “You can quit and they’ll replace you within the day.”
“Do you know how long it takes to train FBI agents?” The sentence made him take a good three steps back from her. “It’ll take them more than a day to find a new me.”
“Miss…” He paused, searching for the last name he didn’t know.
“Greenaway.”
“Miss Greenaway, it seems we’ve got a bit of a misunderstanding going on.” He was cowering, like some dog backed into a corner. Not the head of whatever operation he was involved in then; he’d be more calculating, not to mention half decent at acting unbothered.
He must have been just involved enough to have something on the line.
She knew Tara had said it as a joke, but once she had thought about it, his mysterious job and plentiful money certainly called for a bit of looking into.
“Indeed we do, Andreas Alarie.” She turned, gently running her hands across the counter, pausing at the shattered glass. A shame, that one had been her favorite for her wine.
She and Tara had stopped to pick up the official marriage certificate on the way back from the beach that afternoon, allowing her to finally remember her borrowed last name.
Thank God Tara had talked some sense into her; Elle Alarie had a terrible ring to it.
“Are you French on your fathers side?”
“He met my mother not far from here. They weren’t so unlike what we are.”
“We’re a funny story, friends who get dinner a few times a year,” Elle picked up a shard of glass, smoothing it between her fingers. “If I get my annulment, that’s all we have to be.”
“And if you don’t?”
“Well,” She turned to face him again. “You become my boss's next big investigation…I mean, a man who marries a woman the first night they meet, only to start spending most of his days away from her on mysterious business, it could warrant some looking into.”
Her eyes cut to the glass shard, “not to mention his violent tendencies.”
He opened his mouth; said nothing.
“Trust me, my boss is a very talented woman, Mister Alarie.”
“I think this annulment sounds like a fine idea,” he walked closer to her, though this time his steps were soft. He plucked the glass from her fingers with all the care of a true husband, and set it back on the counter.
He lifted her hand, placing a kiss to the back of it.
“In the future, you’ll tell me where you’d like to meet me for dinner then, Miss Greenaway? Wherever you’d like.”
Her smile was birthed from holding back laughter, but she needed it to sell the part she was playing.
“Of course,” she tilted her head, “perhaps we can split the cost of my plane tickets?”
“I’ll pay them in full.”
“Wonderful,” she walked to grab the suitcase she had hurriedly packed in the minutes between Tara’s departure and his arrival. There hadn’t been many. “If I forgot anything, you’ll call me?”
She winked, he grinned.
“Of course,” He walked behind her, hand against her back as he followed her out the door.
“It’s a shame, we could have made something great, Miss Greenaway.”
Maybe he was trying to distance himself from her suspicions, or maybe this was his way of tucking tale. Perhaps, it was even genuine. She didn’t know for sure, but she did know he was giving her what she wanted without much headache. That made her response painfully easy.
“Perhaps we still could be, once my career becomes more lenient.” She shrugged her shoulders with ease, easing his worries, too. “That’s why I’m asking for an annulment instead of a divorce.”
“To get back to work faster?”
“To wipe the record clean.”
-
“You seriously told him you’d go out to dinner with him?” Tara had been laughing about it for the past ten minutes, her food growing cold.
“I did what I needed to get what I wanted.”
The judge, more than accustomed to annulling vacation marriages, had been quick to sign off on everything.
Elle didn’t mention the glass aimed at her head or the mean spirit Andreas had donned before he knew about her job, it was easier to paint him as a coward, and only that.
Andreas, equally accustomed to getting what he wanted, had handed her his number as they parted ways. The seemingly random taxi Elle loaded her luggage into was Tara's rental car.
“Do you think he’s involved with something illegal?”
Elle nodded, “involved, but not the head of it. I don’t think he’s an evil mastermind, just someone cocky who doesn’t understand what he’s gotten himself into.”
“I know the type,” Tara agreed, “hard not to considering our work. Speaking of, I should call Emily, let her know we got it annulled. She’s been worried sick.”
Elle deflated at the suggestion.
“What’s wrong?”
“I was thinking we could call her tomorrow night? Spend another day here together..”
“I’m going to call her tonight,” Tara read the disappointment in Elle’s face just as easily as anything else, “I’ll just let her know we can’t find a flight out tomorrow.”
Elle smiled, taking a long drink of her champagne. Tara had indulged her after Elle reminded her that she had successfully annulled a marriage, finding herself deserving of something for the hassle.
“It's a deal.”
They drove for two hours, finding a comfortable distance from Andreas and a new hotel not stained with the suite Elle shuddered to remember.
King sized beds might prove a sore for a long time, as hard as she tried not to let on about it.
“So what now?” she asked, falling into bed. Queen sized, a much better fit.
“Well, if I remember correctly, you’re single, and mostly sober.” Tara laughed, crawling into bed next to her. “Though maybe I should wait a few more minutes…”
“It was one glass!”
“I know,” Tara grinned, leaning closer as she cupped Elle’s face, “that’s why I let you have it.”
Their kiss was gentle, not like any of the others Elle had recently received. She welcomed it.
She had made a lot of mistakes in the past week, more than she could count; but at least she was finally getting something right.
-
“Do you ever think about staying when you travel?” Elle asked, feet dangling over the edge of the dock and skimming the water's surface.
A sleepless night led them to the closest beach, far from difficult to find as they had stuck to the coastline while they drove.
The moon shone overhead. Tara had always found herself admiring how beautiful Elle looked in the sunlight, but she had never considered the moonlight. She thought she liked it more, this almost hidden side of her.
It was just as beautiful.
“What do you mean?”
“Staying somewhere like this, far away from all the bad we see.”
“Of course,” Tara wrapped an arm around her. “But we’d come to see the bad here too.”
“I guess I already have.”
“There’s some good here too,” Elle continued as she entwined their fingers together. “Enough to stay a little bit longer for.”
Tara nodded. They had another day before their flight departed, and while part of her wanted to do nothing but spend it in the hotel, she knew Elle would drag her all around and she’d love every second of it.
Elle deserved to make some good memories here, and Tara could help with that.
“I’m sorry I pushed so hard for you to leave,” Tara stated as she started playing with Elle’s hair. “I thought you needed it.”
“I did,” Elle agreed, “I just needed someone to come with me.”
“I was scared,” Tara admitted.
“Me too,” Elle squeezed her hand, “If I wasn’t scared, I would have stayed until I was leaving and you were coming with me.”
This wasn’t the path to their relationship Tara had dreamed of in the moments she let herself consider it, before she brushed the thoughts away like dust on her mantle. But it was a path, and that was something.
Garcia had started looking into Andreas Alarie, after convincing Emily she couldn’t just arrest him for marrying someone. Emily was still angry, not at Elle but for her, and Elle wasn’t looking forward to any of the conversations that entailed.
But right now, she was in Tara’s arms, and that made it possible to ignore everything else.
Tara placed a soft kiss against Elle’s forehead, content to take things slower than she had imagined. Love was a race she had yet to win; but maybe that was just it. It wasn’t a race at all.
“Elle?” She questioned, ever the dreamer, ever thinking ahead.
“Hm?” Elle hummed, the reflection of the moon swelling in her eyes as she looked up.
“If we ever get married someday, we should elope.”
Elle laughed, throwing her head back, taking in the stars and all their glory. It was an action that may have sent her falling from the dock if Tara wasn’t holding her so steady.
“I like the way you think.”