They are hours away from home, sitting on a blanket that he dug out of his trunk on beach on the Eastern Shore. He'd picked her up, kidnapped she had argued over dinner, after her session with Dr. Hepburn. Her eyes had been red, puffy, and glazed with a dazed, tired expression. He should have taken her home, tucked her into bed, and stayed with her until she fell asleep. He should have asked her about her session. He should have, but he didn't. Instead, he turned his car north and headed into Maryland.
The sky had painted itself in colors different from its ordinary black and white. It had been Mac who had spotted them. The ruby red aurora borealis with a thin band of silver weaving itself into the red. It was rare to see them this far south, but the storm on the sun had a greater influence on the night sky than the effects of smog and pollution. They sat for hours beneath the colored sky, watching the lights until they vanished, ebbing back into space like the tide shrinking back from the shore.
The lights were gone now and the sky was filled with tiny stars. He watched as she created new stellar maps seen only in her head. Her finger traced patterns in the sky. He could see the looping lines, circling around tiny clusters of stars, but didn't know which stars fell into which groups. There were tiny curlicues, giant rambling lines, angles and hard lines, all etched invisibly in the spaces between the stars.
But the sky remained a jumbled mess, tiny dots piled on top of each other, the blinking lights of an airplane, the smooth arc of a satellite, and she couldn't organize them all. Her hand dropped to her leg and she took her gaze away from the sky to steal a glance at him. "Harm?" she asked, her voice hushed in the dark.
"Hmm?" His voice also low and quiet. The deserted beach commanded the subdued tones. Under the night sky, the sand and water had formed the mortar for a kind of cathedral. An homage to the spectacular, more daunting and impressive in its vastness than those created by man.
"Is this what it feels like when you fly?" Her hand swept towards the sky. "Does it feel like you're sitting in the stars?"
He shifted and sat up. "Most of the time, you don't really get a chance to look around."
"But in Sarah?" she persisted.
"Sometimes." He rested his elbows on his knees. "It's a pretty amazing sight."
"Do you think anyone else saw the Northern lights?"
"I guess."
"It's odd, isn't it?" She tilted her head back to study the sky again.
"What's that?" The starlight and the sliver of the moon combined to wash the beach in a weak, white light, leaving the scenery painted in shades of black and white. He watched the column of her throat stretch, the pale lines of it curved as she dipped farther back. He wanted to reach out, to touch the fan of black hair that shifted as she scanned the sky.
"So many people probably missed the lights and all because they didn't bother to look up." She angled her face slightly and glanced at him from the corner of her eye. "They miss so much." She pointed. "There's a shooting star. You know, in Japan, they're considered bad luck." She frowned. "At least, I think they were."
"I think I prefer to think of them as good luck. Did you make a wish?"
"No," she sighed. "It might have been a satellite."
"I remember watching them as a kid. I used to lay out on the front yard and watch them at night."
"Yeah," she agreed. "God, that seems like so long ago." Her lips quirked at the corners, pushing her cheeks into a smile. "My mom used to have this ugly purple velvet skirt that I wore around the house as a ball gown."
He stretched himself out on the blanket, hands laced together beneath his head, ankles crossed. "Somehow I can't picture you doing that."
She glanced down at him. "I wasn't born an adult, you do realize."
"I know," he defended himself. "I just always pictured you as a solemn little girl."
She reached out and pinched his forearm lightly. Brushing off his indignant cry, she said, "I did manage to have some fun, thank you very much," she said haughtily. She sniffed lightly and turned her face to the sky, more for the pose of affected indignation than studying the sky.
He snaked an arm around her waiste and pulled her back against the blanket. She slapped his chest lightly but didn't struggle away from him. "Thank you for doing this tonight," she said quietly. "I really needed it."
"You looked like it." He brushed a strand of hair from her face. "Did everything go okay today?"
She bit her lip and rolled over to her side to push herself into a sitting position. Resting her cheek against her shoulder, she studied him before saying, "Dr. Hepburn said we needed to learn how to fight fairly."
"When did she say this?"
"Earlier today," she answered slowly. "She's not wrong you know."
"Probably not," he agreed. He propped himself up on his elbows before sitting up completely. He was entering into this conversation reluctantly. He could already tell it was going to be unpleasant. He could feel the tension ooze across them, a sick slime that appeared whenever he started to feel comfortable around her. Her spine was straight and rigid, an unyielding line of hurt and nerves. "What else did you talk about?" He asked the question that would snowball itself into an avalanche of he said, she said, filled with the detritus of past hurts and accusations.
"Lots of things," she evaded. "Fairy tales," she told the water.
"Fairy tales?" he repeated. "My mom used to read me some of them when I was a kid. She called them folk stories. I was five before I realized I'd been had." He sighed in fake disgust at the memories. He didn't add that she also took him to see "Snow White." Or that he had once wanted to be Prince Charming.
"Poor boy." She stared at him for a minute before adding, "You know, I used to think that they just messed up little girls' lives. I guess that's not true."
"How do they mess up little girls?"
"And boys, apparently," she amended. "Well, okay, maybe not children's lives, but adults' lives. We just become so accustomed to happily ever after and the idea of someone swooping down on a white horse that we abandon realistic love in favor of something that ends before you see Cinderella throwing a fit because the Prince forgot their anniversary and attended a State dinner."
He snorted. "And the boys?"
"You do the same thing. You base your ideas of a perfect woman a character who is so beautiful that woodland creatures sit at her feet." She sighed. "We ignore the fact that we might fall in love with someone who can't sing well enough to charm the birds or who has never seen a white horse outside of the movies. We hope for the unrealistic fairy tale love and then, in the end, everyone is disappointed."
"This is what you talked about today?"
"Sort of. Not just this anyway," she clarified. "But it, disappointment, not fairy tales, seems to be a running theme in my life."
He leaned forward a bit to see her face, but she kept watching the waves.
"You know I love you, right?" she asked softly. "You don't have to say it back or even feel it. I just wanted you to know that I do." She smiled slightly.
He didn't know how to answer. She had a spectacular gift for startling him into silence. Luckily, she continued without leaving room for his response. "I'm telling you this now, because I finally think I really mean it." She paused and drew a deep breath, holding the way a child does before jumping into cold water. "You need to go back home."
"What?" He wanted to shout and nearly gave into the urge.
"You have to move back to your apartment," she explained patiently.
"No." He shook his head. "You need the company."
"I'll get a dog."
"Damn it, Mac." He stood up and paced away from her, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Weren't you the one who said you were sick of this dance?"
He wasn't surprised to find that she'd followed him. She touched his shoulder gently and the pulled her hand away quickly. "I'm sorry." She tugged at the bottom of her sweater. "I didn't mean to make such a mess."
He turned to face her, arms crossed over his chest. Her body was curled over, huddled against the wind and some weight only she could feel. He wanted to shake her. Did she think she was the only who got hurt by these conversations? "What did you mean?"
"I wanted." She stopped. "I need." She turned slightly into the wind and sucked at the salt air in big, greedy gulps. "God, Harm," she said at last. "I have no idea who I am anymore. I'm just gone. There's nothing left and soon it's going to suck you in, too."
She pinched the fabric of his shirt between her fingers, anchoring herself to his arm. "You need to leave. You can't honestly say that this time hasn't taken its toll on you. You can't do it anymore."
"What if I want to stay?"
"You can't," she said emphatically. "I need you too much right now." She tugged lightly at the fabric in her hand. "I need to learn how to stand on my own two feet again." It was contradictory and she knew it. But she didn't know how to explain it to him. She was depending on him too much. One of them would get hurt and she didn't know how she would be handle it.
"Are you leaving?"
"No." She shook her head in denial. "I'm staying."
"Mac," he began.
Her hand dropped away. "We talked about Paraguay."
"What?"
"Dr. Hepburn and I. We talked about Paraguay, sort of." She shrugged. "I told her why I tried to kill myself. Rather, she helped me understand my reasons. Didn't you ever wonder why there wasn't a note?"
He did. Now that she was getting better, or at least pretending to for his sake, he had allowed himself to relax a little, to let his concentration slip occasionally. He no longer wanted to follow her into the bathroom to make sure she'd come out. He didn't worry about whether she'd be there when he returns from work. He can suppress the urge to check to see if she was breathing late at night.
When he stopped focusing on all those worries, though, he began to wonder about other things. Like, why she tried to kill herself? Or, why didn't anyone notice she'd deteriorated to a point where suicide seemed like a reasonable alternative to everything else? Why didn't anyone notice that she needed to be rescued again?
She shrugged again, bunching the material of her sweater between her shoulders and her ears. "I don't think I really knew at the time. I was just so empty, so tired of feeling that way."
"Pretty odd, considering you were the one who blew me off in Paraguay." His voice was bitter; he just managed to keep a mocking tone out of his voice.
"I know," she replied. "Harm, I know I hurt you. I'm sorry. I really am, but I can't," she broke off and wandered closer to the water. "I don't need your guilt on top of mine. You know that thing you said about me and my exes?"
He felt sick. He was certain he was going to throw up. Please, he prayed, please let it have been something else that started this. "That was a cruel thing for me to have said once, let alone twice."
"Yes," she agreed. "It was … careless. But I understand why you said it. I wasn't exactly being sweet and innocent at the time."
"Please, Mac, tell me that wasn't the reason for this."
"Harm," she placed a hand on his cheek, "it wasn't the reason. Honest. It just sort of came at a bad time and confirmed a lot of things I'd already been thinking."
He ran a hand down her wrist, circling her forearm like a handcuff.
"Please," she pleaded, "don't look like that. I swear, it wasn't that comment. It wasn't you. I did all of this. Not you."
"Obviously," he ground out between his teeth, "that's not true."
She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly but didn't answer him. They stood still, frozen at the edge of the water. His fingers cuffed her wrist; their arms were trapped between their bodies. Her gaze was fixed on the water. "It is true," she insisted quietly. She brushed at a strand of hair that was flirting with her lips. "You hurt me, yes, but I could survive that. I don't know how to make you believe that. Maybe I did it because I thought my last chance at the fairy tale I've always secretly wanted had disappeared. Somewhere along the way, my last dream died and it took me with it."
She stomped her foot in the sand and looked at him. His lips were pressed into a tight line, hardening the features of his face. She would have given anything to start this conversation over. To not have it at all and let fate direct the rest of their lives.
"Why did you say that it would never work in Paraguay?" he asked after a minute of silence.
"Did you hear us?" she asked him. "The things we said to each other?"
He nodded. "Did you believe it when you said it?"
Her knees weakened and she sat down without freeing her arm from his grasp. He followed her down, lowering himself on to the sand. "I don't know," she admitted. "Maybe."
"I went down there because." Her fingers on his mouth prevented him from finishing his sentence.
"Don't say it yet." She shook her head. "I'm not ready to hear it. I won't believe it now."
"When will you?" he questioned.
"I don't know," she said. "I'm no good to anyone like this. I just need time to get back on my feet."
They sat in silence. Her left arm was stretched across his body, his fingers rubbing the inside of her wrist. She wondered if he knew he was doing that. She wondered who he was trying to soothe. "I'm sorry I hurt you in Paraguay," she apologized softly again. "When I heard you say you resigned - Clay was hurt, you lost your job, and once again, I was to blame. I couldn't - Harm." She trailed off.
"What?" he asked.
"I - living has never been easy for me. It's been more like surviving. I got tired of just trying to take it one day at a time." She shrugged. "And then everything sort of fell apart from the inside out. I can't explain it any better. Paraguay or why I tried to kill myself. I really can't."
His fingers tightened around her wrist and loosened slightly. He transferred her wrist to his right hand and bent his knees, never losing contact with her skin. "Mac, I hate talking about this kind of thing," he said. "I think I prefer the big gestures."
"Like resigning or flying your mom across the country?" she asked with a smile. "It's okay. You don't have to. I think I'm all talked out for the day."
He pinned her hand to the sand. "Okay, then you sit and I'll talk." He stared at the water and listened to the waves, trying to gather his thoughts. This was their last appeal. Tonight, the judges would render their final decision in Rabb v. Mackenzie. He needed his argument to be flawless. "We haven't been close for a while," he said.
She shook her head and swallowed. "No, we haven't."
"This past year, I don't think I recognize us anymore. However you choose to define 'us,' I don't think we fit the description. Paraguay, I guess as you said, confirmed everything I'd thought, too."
"You too, huh?" she sniffled quietly.
"I went down there to rescue you," he said. "And to tell you I loved you, and then I saw you kiss Webb. Maybe we just weren't meant to have anything other than friendship."
"Okay." She tried to stand up, but he kept her hand trapped beneath his. "Please let go."
"Not going to happen," he told her. "The thing is, I don't think we are meant to be just friends. None of my friends have ever hurt me the way you have. I've never hurt them either."
"Would you just tell me what you're trying to say?" Her voice was growing impatient.
"I never cared about my friends the way I care about you. So, you need time, you got it. But I'm not going anywhere."
"Oh." Her mouth dropped open. "Oh. I thought - I thought you were angry with me."
He paused before answering. "Furious, actually. First, because of Paraguay and then because of Clay. And then this."
"This?" she asked.
"Did you honestly thing that I'd be happy that you tried to kill yourself?" he demanded. Sometimes, he marveled at the sheer stupidity of this woman. He gave up everything to bring her back from Paraguay. And with a few thoughtless words and one careless gesture, she nearly took it all away again.
"No," she said in a small voice.
"God, Mac," he pulled her closer to him, "you scared me."
"I'm sorry." She pushed herself far enough away to see his face. "For everything."
"Me too," he echoed. "I'm not going anywhere. You want me to move back to my apartment, fine. But I'm not leaving you."
"It might be better for you if you did."
"No. It wouldn't." He tugged lightly on her wrist and she moved back into his arms. "You need to learn to stand on your own. Good for you. I'll stand next to you."
"Okay."