Work Text:
It happens on a Tuesday morning at exactly 10:27am, as Elise is taking two steps a time down some stairs to a train platform to follow up a lead with the stationmaster at Gare du Nord about a gruesome double homicide in the station's toilets, two years after being discharged from hospital.
Elise sees her.
The back of a woman standing on the platform waiting for a Eurostar train bound for St. Pancras Station, London, with brunette tresses falling just across her shoulders in the same way Eryka's hair does and a sharpness in her jawline not unlike Eryka's jawline. The similarity between the woman and Eryka is a more than a little unsettling and Elise almost misses a step and trips down the entire flight of stairs, just from trying to get a better look at the woman.
It can't be.
Non, c'est complètement et absolument impossible.
Because the Eryka Elise knows is much more careful than this and travelling on a very open and very public Eurostar train would be akin to Eryka signing her own death warrant after everything that has happened with Artem Baturin.
Still, everything about the woman from her navy trench coat to the way she carries herself just reminds Elise so much of Eryka that Elise has to approach her. Elise needs to know, even if it is just to satisfy her curiosity and nothing else. So, Elise pushes through the bustling crowds of tourists and idling businessmen, excursions of schoolchildren and even, the sound of her own name being called by Philippe in the distance just to get to the woman. There's a moment, where Elise considers turning around to answer Philippe, but the sight of the woman being so close to her - the truth being so close to her - doesn't allow her to turn away.
"Excusez-moi, mademoiselle,"
The woman doesn't respond and Elise has to reach out to touch the woman's shoulder to get her attention - but all she catches instead is the fabric of the woman's coat, because the woman is crossing the platform to board the Eurostar train that has just arrived.
S'il vous plait tenez-vous à l'écart de la fermeture des portes. Please stand clear of the closing doors.
Elise runs to catch her.
Excusez-moi. Excusez-moi s'il vous plait. Sorry. Excuse me.
But she can't get to the woman fast enough - Sorry. Sorry. Excusez-moi s'il vous plait. Excusez-moi. - not with the currents of people pushing against her to get to the stairs out of the station. It's close to impossible now with the masses and masses of people surrounding her, but Elise manages to find a small opening in the crowd and she runs for it until she's there; there at the very edge of the platform, just as the train doors have closed.
Elise slams her hand against the side of the train carriage, knowing it's too late, but she is in time to see one thing:
The woman turning her face towards the direction of the platform, as she tries to get a firm hold of a seat handle while waiting for other passengers to seat themselves on the train.
Elise sees it all - the distinctive beauty mark above her left eyebrow and the unmistakable dark sea of her eyes - and finds herself assaulted with the sudden realisation that there has never been another time in her life, in which she has wanted to be more wrong than in this very second. But she's right, like she almost always is, and the name - the name catches in her throat.
Eryka.
Eryka lifts her head to meet Elise's eyes and then there it is, the flicker of her name on Eryka's surprised lips -
just before the train flashes by, leaving Elise alone in the middle of the platform, her whole body trembling with a sensation not significantly different to that of drowning.
* * *
Philippe drives them back to the police station afterwards and talks Elise's ear off about the asshole of a stationmaster at Gare du Nord, but all Elise can think about the whole way back is a verse from a Neruda poem she once read in "100 Love Sonnets", the book Eryka gave to her as a gift:
I do not love you except because I love you;
I go from loving to not loving you,
From waiting to not waiting for you
My heart moves from cold to fire.
- Pablo Neruda, Sonnet LXVI from "100 Love Sonnets".
* * *
The second time Elise sees Eryka happens two weeks later, as Elise is stepping into her apartment after a long, gruelling day of work tying up the loose ends of the same double homicide case that occurred at Gare du Nord.
"Elise?" A bodiless voice interjects from the middle of Elise's dimly lit apartment.
It startles Elise and she reaches for her gun on instinct, but stops short of pulling it out when she realises that she knows the owner of the voice. Elise flicks a light switch on and a warm yellow glow pours across the living room of her apartment to bring Eryka's face into view.
"Hi,"
It sounds small and timid coming out of Eryka's mouth and Elise is suddenly reminded of how familiar and yet unfamiliar this all feels. It's almost as if they're still in that bar in Calais Elise first invited Eryka out to, with the way Eryka is sitting there on Elise's lounge with her hands clasped across her lap and how uncharacteristically nervous Elise is feeling right now.
"I see you still have a penchant for breaking into other people's homes," Elise musters up nonchalantly, tossing the set of apartment keys in her hand onto the kitchen counter. It skids across and lands between a half-eaten packet of corn flakes and an empty dish she neglected to put into the sink this morning.
"No, only yours," Eryka counters with a small smile.
Elise turns around and lets out a quiet exhale, before reaching for a glass from the kitchen cabinet to pour herself some water. She tries not to let the comment burrow under her skin and build a home in her body. She tries to focus instead on the facts. Like the fact that not once did Eryka try to contact her in the last two years. Like the fact that she spent 18 excruciating months trying to get over Eryka and it's only been in the last six months that she's stopped thinking about her everyday. Like the fact that Eryka doesn't have the right to saunter into her life again like this, even if she did save Elise's life. Like the fact that Eryka will always be responsible for the 110 bodies she watched float and bob like buoys in the English Channel.
Eryka stands up from the lounge and walks over to where Elise is standing against the kitchen counter with her arms folded defensively across her chest. She tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear, before asking:
"How have you been?"
The question is meant to be a simple one, but both Elise and Eryka know that it's loaded and Elise tears herself in half trying to think about whether she should just give a terse answer to keep up the pretence of small talk or give the true answer to that question. About how she's tried and tried to go back to being the Elise she was before Eryka came into her life, but she just can't. About how nothing has really made sense in her life since Eryka left and how she doesn't even know who she is anymore.
The words stick to the back of Elise's throat and Eryka watches it all, before deciding to take a step closer to touch Elise's face and pull Elise out of her thoughts. She traces a thumb right over the scar just below Elise's left eye - the same scar left behind from Elise's ordeal with Branco the Chemist. The touch is gentle, but Elise winces a little at the contact anyway, because even though the wound has healed, there are some days where it still stings as fresh as the day she got it.
Eryka quickly draws her hand away after that and then, there's this heavy, unreadable expression on her face. Elise, however, is all too familiar with the expression herself, she's been living with it after all for the past 15 years ever since Manon passed away - the expression is one of guilt.
"I know I didn't call you once in the last two years, but I never stopped thinking about you." Eryka starts.
"I can't remember how many times I drove to your apartment during those two years. I stopped counting after the first month." There's a hollow laugh from Eryka. "I would park my car a few streets away and just sit there thinking about all the things I would say, if I saw you again. And then, I would remember that we were on two different sides, star-crossed, or that it was too dangerous after everything that happened with Artem Baturin and how I couldn't put you in that position again."
"But then, I saw you that day at Gare du Nord calling my name and I couldn't believe my eyes and I knew - " Eryka pauses, trying to find the right words. "I knew that I couldn't keep myself away from you any longer."
Elise knows that she shouldn't be thinking about kissing Eryka right now, not when so much has happened in the last two years that they wouldn't know where to start. But she decides to press her lips against Eryka's anyway, partly because she hasn't been able to stop thinking about kissing Eryka since the second she saw her sitting there and partly because she's spent the last two years feeling empty and she just wants to feel something for a change.
Eryka kisses her back just as hard and every emotion, every sound, texture and taste - the way Eryka's lips are soft and yielding against hers, the sound of Eryka's breath hitching every time Elise drags fingers down the nape of her neck and the undeniable and disquietening realisation of just how much Eryka tastes like coming home - it floods every part of the house in Elise's head. It spills all the way from the attic, down the stairs, into her father's study room, carrying with it every childhood memory and detail Elise has ever taken from a crime scene, until there is no place left in the house which it hasn't touched.
It keeps spreading and suddenly, there's no space left and windows and walls and foundations are about to break and Elise has to desperately pull away from Eryka just for a moment to catch her breath. She stands there for a while, gasping for air with Eryka's forehead against her own, and just listens to the breaths coming from Eryka, almost as sharp and shallow as hers. Everything in the house is slowly subsiding, memories and details are filing back into the rooms she first carefully placed them in, and it's only then as Elise is collecting the fragments of her mind again, that she realises that her cheeks are wet. Wet with tears, which are not her own but which are Eryka's.
There's an apology already on Eryka's lips and then, impossibly soft hands are brushing at Elise's cheeks. With the house finally quiet once more, Elise allows herself a moment to briefly wonder whether those two simple words, I'm sorry, are just Eryka apologising for the tears or for everything that has transpired between them.
But she quickly realises it doesn't really matter either way, when Eryka drags her mouth back over to hers and pulls her hand towards the bedroom.
* * *
Eryka is resting her head on Elise's chest and tracing a finger down her arm, when she whispers into Elise's collarbone "I noticed as I was sitting in your apartment before that you read the Neruda book I gave you."
Elise hums in reply to the remark.
"My favourite is the same poem on the page you creased a thousand times," Eryka says it with a laugh and Elise can tell it's meant to be a joke, but it sounds exquisite coming from Eryka's mouth. Like a declaration of love or something.
So Elise shuts her eyes and recites her favourite part of the poem from memory for Eryka:
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way than this:
where "I" does not exist, nor "you",
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
- Pablo Neruda, Sonnet XVII from "100 Love Sonnets".
And maybe, that's a declaration of love too.
* * *
The third time Elise sees Eryka is during a shoot-out at a warehouse, when a gun is slid across the floor in her direction. Elise half-expects it to be Philippe, when she peers up to see the person who has given her the gun, but is taken aback when she sees Eryka's doe eyes looking right back at her.
"Qu'est-ce-que tu fais là?" Elise hisses at Eryka across the cardboard boxes, assuming that the guy on the other side of the room, who has been shooting at her for the past five minutes, doesn't possess the intelligence to speak a word of French.
"Durand est un atout pour le gouvernement Russe."
Elise throws her head back into the boxes behind her and tries not to roll her eyes. God, of course the French second in command to the kingpin of the Argentinian drug trade would be an "asset" to the Russian government. Everyone and their grandma is an "atout pour le gouvernement Russe".
Elise looks at Eryka expectantly.
"Alors, tu es de quel côté?"
Eryka looks back at Elise and pauses to think about her answer, before peering up above the boxes to kill the guy that has been shooting at Elise with a single shot to the chest. The sound of a body dropping to the floor echoes through the room and Eryka whispers "le tien," to Elise, before reloading another bullet into her gun.
Elise doesn't have time to process Eryka's answer though, because she feels the barrel of a gun dig into her back.
Merde.
"Drop your gun."
"Move away Tomas, you're not needed here. I was just about to kill her myself." The words roll effortlessly right off of Eryka's tongue and it becomes vivid in Elise's mind; the time Eryka described herself once as a soldier engaging in maskirovka.
"Shut the fuck up, Eryka. I saw you shoot Juan right in the chest. So both of you drop your guns and kick them away."
Elise and Eryka's guns clatter to the floor and Tomas secures a firm hold over Elise's mouth, before placing his gun on her temple. Eryka doesn't react and just unnervingly looks at Tomas, daring him to question her.
"I knew you couldn't be trusted. Who are you working for?"
Eryka doesn't answer and Tomas shouts the question again, digging the gun deeper into Elise's temple:
"I said, who the fuck are you working for?"
"You working with the French police, huh?" Tomas proffers, pulling Elise's head back to get a better look at her.
"Durand knows I am."
Tomas narrows his eyes in disbelief. "Durand doesn't know shit about you working with the DCPJ. Actually, why don't you call him?"
Eryka hesistates. "Juan was disposable, even you know that. We were going to need to kill him anyway after this - "
"Call Durand. Or I will put a motherfucking bullet through her brain and then, take the same bullet and put it through yours." Tomas threatens, motioning Eryka to make the call quickly with the gun in his hand.
Eryka gives it up and pulls a phone out of the pocket of her coat to dial a number, before walking over to Tomas to hand over the phone. Tomas takes a second to grab the phone with his free hand though and then, it happens all at once - Eryka pushing Elise away from Tomas's hold; Eryka driving her right hand into the wrist of Tomas' hand still holding the gun and using her left hand at the same time to twist the barrel of the gun into Tomas' direction.
It's all too fast and Tomas is forced to yield. It's easy from there and Eryka gets ahold of the gun from his hands, taking the chance to also deliver a push kick into his chest to send him backwards. Tomas hits the ground with Eryka still pointing a gun at him and Elise is not sure what she feels - a sense of relief, impressed or insecurity over her own disarming skills. Probably a mixture of all of the above. Eryka looks over at Elise to check up on her and manages a small smile in between catching breaths.
Elise is only managing to catch her own breath herself, when she sees Tomas diving for the gun she dropped earlier -
But he's just too far away and Elise can't reach him nearly fast enough to stop him, so she dives in front of Eryka instead to push her out of the way and shield her. There's a gunshot and Elise feels the bullet enter into her leg and ignite a fire across all the flesh it meets. It must have nicked a vein or artery, Elise thinks, because there is all this blood surfacing to her skin and just flooding everywhere.
Elise hears a scattering of steps behind her, police sirens off in the distance, and the sound of Eryka's voice calling her name over and over again, just before everything turns quiet.
* * *
When Elise wakes up, the first thing she notices is how blindingly white everything is around her. It's so bright that she has to close her eyes again almost immediately to give herself a second to adjust to all the light in the room. It's only as she's closing her eyes though that Elise also notices the staling smell of hospital-grade disinfectant and the squeaking of hospital bed wheels just outside the room and realises just exactly where she is.
Unbelievable. Another hospital. Again. Twice in two years - that must be a record or something in her department.
Elise peers open her eyes again only slightly this time, having learnt her lesson from the first time round and makes out the figure of -
Eryka -
sleeping in a chair to the right of her bed. It's almost strange really to see Eryka asleep right there beside her, mostly because Elise has never really seen Eryka sleep before - she's always been the first out of the two of them to sleep, whenever Eryka has stayed the night, and Eryka has always woken up before she has, when it's the morning after. But Eryka just looks so serene and almost ethereal and maybe the strangest thing is that Elise is only now realising that she has never once been bothered by the sound of Eryka's breathing beside her - at least not in the way she used to notice and get bothered whenever Gaël or some other one night stand inhaled and exhaled, as they slept next to her.
Elise stills and tries not to stir in the sheets around her, hoping to savour this moment of quiet euphoria just a little longer.
Eryka must hear Elise shifting in her bed though, because she wakes up to see Elise looking intensely at her and Elise has to quickly turn away.
"Elise? You're awake," Eryka rubs the sleep from her eyes and turns in the chair to face Elise a little bit better.
"I only just woke up a few minutes ago, I wasn't - wasn't watching you or anything, I promise" Elise stumbles all over her words and Eryka fights the urge to smile.
Elise tries to change the subject. "Um, how long have I been out?"
"About three days now, you were admitted on Thursday and today's Saturday. You were hurt pretty badly. The bullet nicked your femoral artery and you lost a lot of blood. I tried to hold it all in, but it was just spilling everywhere. We were lucky that an ambulance arrived only a few minutes later."
Eryka looks sincerely at Elise. "I - I never got the chance to properly thank you for saving my life because you lost consciousness so quickly, so I just want to say thank you Elise,"
Elise clears her throat. "You're welcome - we're even now, anyway. You saved my life before with Branco the Chemist and I just returned the favour,"
"Not really," Eryka pauses, "You've ended up in hospital twice because of me and I still haven't been in one."
Eryka is right and Elise almost wants to say that she wouldn't have wanted it any other way, but she doesn't want Eryka to feel like she's at fault anymore than she already does. So, Elise just swallows thickly instead and asks, "So, how long have you been waiting here?"
"I was with you for the first few hours, before Karl and Philippe came to give me some time to get cleaned up at home, and then I came back again yesterday afternoon and - ", Eryka gestures to the mess of blankets around her, "slept here".
Elise nods, before taking in the rest of the room. She spots a vase of bluebells to the left on her bedside table, as well as a bullet-proof vest and a few get well messages from Karl and Laura, her family and some co-workers from her department.
"The bullet-proof vest?" Elise interjects, her eyebrows knitted together in curiousity.
"Oh, I think Karl said Ol - " Eryka stops to try and recall the name.
"Olivier?"
"Yes, that's the name. Olivier got you that. Karl also said that Olivier would appreciate it if you wore it on a more permanent basis - it would save him some hospital trips, I think he said." Elise rolls her eyes and Eryka lets out a warm laugh.
"And the flowers?"
"Oh, I got you those. I know that you don't like flowers, but the room was just so white and there was no colour - so I got some bluebells just to add some colour to the room."
"Bluebells," Elise quietly muses.
"Yes, bluebells. I'm quite fond of the colour blue, so they're my favourite type of flower." Eryka tilts her head, looking a little puzzled, "Why do you ask?".
"Nothing, it's just - " Elise shakes her head and feels a rare smile spread across her face. Eryka looks back at her strangely, until she can't help but mirror Elise's smile.
"You should get some more rest. I'll be here when you get up next," Eryka takes a hand out to place it on top of Elise's and brushes a thumb softly across Elise's wrist.
Elise nods, her eyes feeling thick with sleep again, but she swears that just before she shuts her eyes, she hears Eryka's voice read out:
A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body.
Until I even believe that you own the universe.
I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells, dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses.
I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.
- Pablo Neruda, Poem XIV: "Every Day You Play" from "Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair".
* * *
Elise sees Eryka almost every day after that, because Eryka never really leaves.