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She's been in Sacramento for just over a year and a half, and it's just starting to get easier to sleep through the night. A short night, but it's an improvement. She's just starting to feel slightly less like the disgraced former head of the Alternative Religions Unit and slightly more like the person she used to be, back before the remaining Joe Carroll followers officially became Someone Else's Problem, before she ended up buried six feet under.
He couldn't have just tied her to the railroad tracks?
She's working a desk job now; no one's life depends on her. When they brought up the idea of the transfer, she barely had to stop and think about it. For one, it was a slap on the wrist compared to the penance she would have demanded. She'd also thought she would welcome the anonymity, but all it took was a couple of people to connect the dots and spread the word. Everyone still looks at her with a combination of pity and smug superiority: If they'd been running the show, they would have done x instead of y, kept everyone alive and sane, stayed out of the coffin--but it sure is a shame what happened.
She's getting pretty good at pretending not to notice.
When she gets the call she's been dreading, everything comes flooding back, like she knew it would. Take small breaths.
“I'll be in town,” Mike says. She already knows he's giving a talk about the Carroll mess, this is just a stop on the tour; he doesn't bother to mention it. “Want to grab a bite?”
She hesitates. The last thing she wants to do is reminisce about the bad old days, and she can just imagine hours of sympathetic glances and probing questions about how she's really doing. Once someone witnesses you at your lowest point (literally), shouldn't that person have the decency to disappear?
So she can't really explain why she says yeah, why not instead of no, can't tonight, maybe next time. She just knows it's too late to take it back.
“Great,” he says.
“Great,” she echoes, not quite convinced.
*
“You know,” she suggests later, “why don't you just come over? I don't feel like going out.”
“Are you going to cook?” He has the nerve (or the courtesy) to sound surprised.
“No,” she admits. “I'll order in.”
“Just like old times,” he says.
“Yeah, well,” she says. “Let's hope not.”
*
He's still alarmingly punctual. She tosses the last stray sock in the hamper and runs a hand through her hair before throwing open the door with an enthusiasm that belies the dread seizing her stomach.
“Deb,” he says, greeting her with a warm smile and only a trace of the dreaded sympathy behind his eyes. The night is young.
“As I live and breathe,” she cracks. His smile falters, just slightly. After everything, he's still an open book.
She locks the door behind him.
“I was going to bring a bottle of wine,” he says sheepishly. “But I remembered that you don't drink. So I was going to bring something else, but everything I could think of just seemed kind of ridiculous.”
She pauses, lets him glance around, size up the surroundings. It's small and open; you can see the whole apartment from the front door. Seemed safer that way. Sparsely furnished, too. Nowhere to hide.
“You didn't need to bring anything,” she says, leading him into the dining room, where an assortment of Chinese food containers litter the table; she'd anticipated his punctuality, ordered early. “It's just nice to see a friendly face.”
She heads into the kitchen. Behind her, he sinks into a chair, and she can practically hear his hopes for the evening, whatever they might have been, deflating. She makes a note to be nicer. She was never great at this stuff anyway, but her remaining social skills seem to have atrophied from lack of use.
“I know what you mean,” he says. “It's been a while.”
She returns with two bottles of beer and an apologetic smile.
“You were right,” she says, sitting across from him. “I didn't drink. Now I do.” She opens a bottle and hands it to him. “Sometimes,” she amends.
“Like when a walking, talking reminder of everything you've been trying to forget suddenly lands on your doorstep?”
Maybe she's an open book, too. “I invited you here,” she points out.
“You did.” He smiles, takes a long drink. “That's a big change, though. You said it clouded your judgment,” he recalls.
“Apparently my judgment could use a little clouding. Why not?” It's not like I fill my water bottles with vodka or anything, she doesn't say.
He must have made the same connection, because he says: “Have you heard from Ryan?”
She takes a deep breath. “Not for a while. Have you?”
“I've been on the road,” he says, opening a container.
“Right, the tour,” she mutters, a little sharper than she'd intended. He looks up, surprised, and she feels another surge of remorse. “Last I heard, he had a live-in nurse.”
“I saw him a couple months ago,” he says. “It was weird. I mean, you know how he was before, but now...”
“Claire,” she says, wincing.
He nods.
They eat in silence for a while.
“So how are you?” she asks.
“Good,” he says. “I'm good.”
“That's it?”
He shrugs. “There's not much else to tell. I do a lot of traveling, a lot of talking to college students.”
“Not exactly how you thought your life was going to turn out,” she says.
“Not exactly,” he says. “Could be worse, though.”
She can't help it; she just starts laughing. Sure, it could be worse. Let me count the ways. Eventually he joins in.
“It's hard to be around people, isn't it?” he asks. “How can you talk to anyone about what happened to us?”
“I don't,” she says.
“That's right.” He grins. “You don't bond.”
“Not anymore,” she says.
Back then, she'd spent countless late nights and car rides dodging his questions, letting him talk about his own life at length, taking it all in and giving him just enough to allow him to put a few of the pieces of her history together, if he ever wanted to, someday. Where'd you grow up? Where'd you go to school? Big family? She figured he'd eventually give up, but he never did.
“You're more like him than you'd think,” he told her once. “He doesn't bond, either.”
“What? We're bonding right now.”
“I'm doing all the work,” he pointed out.
“And I appreciate it,” she said. “Saves me the effort. Keep talking.”
So he did.
“Did you ever call your parents?” he asks. “Or your sister?”
And there it is.
“Mike,” she says.
“You said that was your only regret. You got a second chance. Why not take advantage?”
“Look, as regrets go, it's minor,” she says. “Besides, I have a whole new list of regrets now. Like ordering this sweet and sour chicken.” She frowns at the open container in front of her. “I told you my judgment was questionable.”
“Come on,” he says, but he doesn't push it, and they sit in silence.
“You have to pretend that whole conversation didn't happen,” she says quietly. “It's the only way we're ever going to get back to normal.”
“Normal.” He picks at his food, then gives up the pretense. “I didn't know that was an option.”
“It is,” she says. She reaches across the table, squeezes his hand. “You have to believe that.”
“Do you?”
She's startled by the question, but she decides to avoid the easy answer. “Not really. I mean, not for me. But you weren't calling the shots.”
“We made the best choices we could with the information we had at the time,” he says. The new party line.
“Look where it got us,” she says. “We're--”
“Kind of fucked up,” he supplies. “There's no other word for it, is there?”
“No,” she says. “Not yet.”
*
After a couple of hours, she starts cleaning up and sort of hopes he'll take the hint. Instead, he helps her. She figures she probably should have seen that coming.
They work side by side in companionable silence until there's no sign that he was ever there. He even straightens the placemats.
But he still doesn't make a move to leave. She's put away the last of the leftovers and is about to offer him coffee or something, just to have something to do with her hands, when he says, “You're not a failure.”
“Mike,” she repeats.
He presses on: “So what are you still doing here?”
“It's temporary,” she says defensively.
“You told me you got into this to help people. Don't you want to get back to that?”
She leans back against the kitchen counter, gripping the edge. “Are you helping people by rehashing the worst couple of months of your life every other night?” She congratulates herself for saying rehashing instead of exploiting.
“Actually, I am,” he says. “If I can convince at least one college girl to check her backseat before she starts the car or to be a little more careful when someone asks to use her phone, I feel like I'm doing a service.”
“It's not the service you signed up for.”
“It's good enough for now.”
“While you get back on your feet,” she points out. “That's all I'm doing. It's just taking a while.”
“You can't talk to anyone else,” he says. “Why not tell me the truth?”
“Okay,” she says. Fine. “Joe Carroll's gone. Great. But it's never going to be over. Claire Matthews is dead, Ryan's done, you're literally scarred for life, and I didn't want to go out tonight because every time I leave this apartment, I'm on my guard, and it's exhausting. It's actually humiliating. And I keep thinking it's going to get better, but it hasn't happened yet.”
He blinks.
“So?”
“I think that might be the most you've ever said to me that didn't include an order of some kind.” He pauses, then: “Thank you.”
And then he's closer, too close. Close enough to touch, if she'd let him.
Kind of presumptious, she wants to say. Instead she asks, “Why did you call?” The words catch in her throat; she doesn't want to hear the answer. She identifies the feeling that spreads across her chest as a familiar apprehension, as everything clicks into place: the evening has been like watching a car crash in slow motion, an inexorable march toward an inevitable conclusion. She's been bracing for impact all night, but she's still not prepared.
“I was in town.”
“It's a big town,” she says. “Might even call it a city.”
He hesitates. “I wanted to see you.”
“Why?” She's just stalling now; she can see the reason he called in the way he's looking at her, and it might actually be worse than the sympathy she'd anticipated. That, she could have ignored. It's also just as much of a bad idea as it was the first time the subject came up, way back when, but for a whole new set of reasons now.
He starts to say, “After what happened,” and she doesn't want to hear the rest of that sentence, ever, so she kisses him. Like accelerating into the collision instead of hitting the brakes. Why not? Impulsive is not a word she would use to describe herself, but this impulse seems to pan out, twice over; it's nice, and it shuts him up. Maybe it's not such a bad idea. It's not like he's sticking around.
After a while, he says, “You know, you can't avoid the subject forever.”
“You know, we don't have to talk.”
This time, he takes the hint.
*
Afterward, the apartment is quiet, except for his breathing. The lights are still on. Idly, she thinks that she should get up and turn them off; it's the middle of the night. Just as she's about to extract herself from the tangled sheets, he wraps an arm around her and presses a kiss between her shoulder blades. It's natural, familiar, and she's annoyed by how much she could like it, how comfortable this could be, if she let it.
“This is the last stop for a while,” he murmurs against her skin.
She bristles, instinctively, but he doesn't move. “So, what, you thought you'd stay?” Like it was a foregone conclusion? Her pulse quickens.
He sits up. “I just meant that I don't have any plans.” He almost sounds offended; she almost feels guilty.
She's quiet for a long time, then, so low she can barely hear herself: “I guess that might be OK. For a while.”
“Until we get back on our feet,” he suggests, returning to his position beside her. “So to speak.”
She wants to say, You think we're connected now, but you'll be disappointed. I'll see it on your face the second it happens.
But when she turns to face him, he just says, “You know, we don't have to talk.”
She decides to take the hint.