Work Text:
December 23, 2014
The truck came to a stop. Pivoting, Tom addressed the kids. "I'll be back in a minute—lock it." Ashley almost rolled her eyes but climbed over the center console into the passenger seat and complied.
Damn it was cold.
He sniffed against the way his nose instantly ran, its tip numbing by the second while he walked the few steps up the driveway to the porch, vision obscured by condensed breath, and then hesitated before knocking. From inside, Tom heard shuffling, then footsteps, and then the door opened. The gush of warm air was welcomed.
"I'll be damned," Mike muttered after a moment of pure, unfiltered shock.
With the kids sufficiently occupied by an old gaming console Mike planned to gift Frankie when he was older, Tom stood somewhat awkwardly in his kitchen, declining with a head shake Mike's offer of a stiff whiskey. Mike was still wearing his dress blues, though his jacket had been removed and the tie loosened.
"So, Greece, huh?" he said before sipping.
"Seemed like a solid idea at the time," Tom offered, hands still buried in his parka.
"Oh yeah?" Mike's brows had drawn into something bemused.
Tom tipped his head. "Not so much after a while. Kids weren't really into it."
For another moment, Mike seemed to debate before placing his drink on the granite counter island. It had been eight months since Tom had last been in this townhouse, located several blocks east of the White House—and back then, Mike hadn't seen it yet. Instead, he'd given Tom authority to pick him something 'within fifteen minutes, and not too big' after their teams cleared several subdivisions and moved out of the hotels functioning as barracks. There were a few personal items. Pictures of Christine and the kids. Dinnerware that Tom recognized from the Slattery's home in Norfolk… nothing festive, though, and Tom didn't blame Mike for that.
Earlier, he'd taken the kids by the house they'd previously claimed and found it re-occupied. Then, with nothing to do until Mike returned, he stopped at one of the few functioning restaurants and tried to ignore the pull of his ship moored beside Gateway Arch…
"You know, I was startin' to think we'd never hear from you again." Mike's comment, though well-natured, held a current of reprimand.
Though his sigh remained internal, Tom lowered his chin in concession. "For a while—I didn't know whether you would."
Mike only grunted in response, taking his glass once more for a lingering sip. "Anyone else know you're back?"
Reticent, Tom lifted his gaze from the scuffed laminate tiling and suppressed the twisting in his gut. Ever since he'd committed to the idea of re-surfacing, the gnawing question had plagued him. Long before that, if he were honest. In part, the same reason he'd finally caved to the kids' demands to spend Christmas in the States with people they knew…
"Not yet."
If Sasha was anywhere, assuming—desperately hoping—she hadn't gone dark after he left, it would be here. Now, in St. Louis for the James' ceremonial return. And apparently, judging by the way Mike's eyes narrowed, he wasn't about to make this easy.
Casually, Mike leaned against the counter. "You plannin' on stayin'?"
Tom's lip quirked. "I'm staying."
Mike's head bobbed, and he gulped more whiskey.
Waiting.
For the rest.
Accepting that he needed to be direct, Tom dropped the act. "Is she here?"
"No"—a hollow dread at once encapsulated Tom's insides—"but when I left, she was still at the bar. Keeps an apartment at seven-twenty on Olive Street. It's three blocks north of the courthouse. Unit twenty-nine-sixteen," Mike listed off.
Tom side-eyed while the hollow transformed into nerves. A kind of anticipation he hadn't felt in… well, he couldn't recall, but it was another welcomed reminder that he wasn't as dead inside as he'd previously believed. Still—there was something about the way Mike held repose; like he was divested by competing loyalties, which gave Tom pause.
"She doing alright?" he hedged.
Mike glanced into the living space, where the kids remained distracted, before answering, "Like I said. Woulda been nice to know you were alive, at least." Tom swallowed. "Whatever it is you're plannin', I'd suggest you start with an apology."
Tom's lips bunched into something remorseful, and he moved on the balls of his feet, posture somewhat hunched. "Can you watch the kids for me?" His brows scrunched upward. "Just for tonight?"
Pushing away from the counter, Mike made to refill his glass. "Sure—but if she kicks your sorry ass out, you're sleepin' on the couch. Only got one extra bed." He re-secured the cap. "Oh, and you might wanna shave. They won't be done for a couple hours—you've got time."
Parked across the street from Sasha's apartment, Tom considered that this was probably what a stalker would do, then second-guessed himself to the point of returning to Mike's. Only the emergence of two figures walking from the direction of the courthouse prevented him, and he took a deep breath. Sasha, he would recognize anywhere, and the way his stomach dropped only solidified the conclusions he'd reached in Greece. The man escorting her? Never seen him before, and Tom cursed himself a fool for assuming he could simply show up, apologize, and spend the next year groveling his way into Sasha's grace again.
Against a gust of wind, Sasha drew her coat tighter and tried not to wince with every step. Two hours prior, her bones had begun protesting the heels… now? They were excruciating, and perhaps the only reason she hadn't ditched them was because the cold numbed them just enough to continue. Really, she didn't need Commander Fletcher's escort—but he'd insisted—or rather, he was hoping she'd invite him to do more.
She'd thought about it. They'd met only hours before, and she'd have the luxury of never seeing him again once this glorified state visit was concluded. But the kind of itch she had couldn't be scratched by this man, for it wasn't an itch at all. It was an absence of meaning. A void of the kind of intimacy where a home didn't matter because there was someone who personified it for you.
No.
Adding another notch to her empty bed didn't interest Sasha tonight. Her sole priority remained reaching the apartment, freeing her feet from the torture of her shoes, and ignoring the sullen arrival of Christmas Eve; the second consecutive year of barren displacement she faced. It wasn't that she disliked the crew, the opposite, in fact. And the Greens had graciously extended an invitation, as well as to Mike, to join them, yet the thought of being surrounded by constant reminders of everything she'd lost—almost had—sliced deeper than the latent ache of such loneliness.
"This is me," she announced, the thirty-story building towering in the dark empty streets.
Commander Fletcher, one of the few surviving members of the British Royal Navy invited to hold audience with President Oliver, along with several other allies, peered up at the building. "Impressive," he commented, offering a smile. "Most of London was decimated by the virus and immune wars."
Sasha made a small sound to acknowledge, and then her silence lingered. Uncomfortably. Until Fletcher nodded and twisted in the direction they'd come. "I suppose I best head back then."
Affixing a polite grin, Sasha lifted her brows. "Still plenty of people at the bar. Real party's just getting started—watch out for Wolf, though. He can drink a whole fleet under the table."
Fletcher chuckled.
"Thank you. For walking me," she added, arms winding tighter against her chest.
Again, he lingered, toying with the cover tucked beneath his arm, and something about that reminded her so vividly of the man she wouldn't think about that her vision almost blurred. "Goodnight, Commander."
The smile this time from Fletcher was melancholy. "Good evening, Ms. Cooper."
For a moment, Sasha waited, watching the way her breath floated and Fletcher's figure grew smaller until he was no longer visible, just to dull the barb.
A vehicle's door pierced the daunting silence, and she scanned, landing on another man's frame, and though shrouded in silhouette—most of the streetlamps were out—she knew.
Air was snatched from her lungs.
Her lips parted in soft shock while she blinked and questioned just how inebriated she was until he was standing before her, equally breathless and devastatingly earnest.
"Sasha."
She closed her mouth, chewing on the inside of her cheek to prevent the moisture.
How many nights had she dedicated in futile attempt to preserve the memory of his voice?
"Tom," she echoed, more constricted than she'd desire.
He searched her features in a way that drew goosebumps to her skin, the ghost of a moment on Nathan James where she'd thought that Tom might still love her, blanketing them again.
"I'm sorry," he breathed, eyes glassy from the cold. "I never should have—" he hesitated. "You were right. When you told me that whatever was broken, we could fix," he murmured. "You were right."
Stunned, she could only rapidly blink, sniffing where she felt her nose tingle. "Do you want to come up?"
Though not audible, she saw the breath he let out plume into the air. "Yeah."
Nodding, she fished the key fob from her coat and tried to hide the tremor. In her ears rang a mild tinnitus, or perhaps it was just the sound of her own blood, and she found that she was no longer shivering but burning hot, flushed with adrenaline and the fear that this was another of those torturous dreams.
An exceptionally real one.
She could smell him.
Standard issue soap mixed with Tom, wrapping so inexorably with memories that she almost started to cry. Instead, she stared from the opposite side of the elevator like he'd vanish if she dared to blink.
His head canted left, and he reached out, skimming a thumb to her cheek.
Saha frowned as it dawned. All the pieces that didn't fit: Tom didn't know where she lived—and his kids were absent, yet that truck, she realized, which hadn't been parked there before, was his own from Norfolk. But Tom wasn't in Norfolk. He wasn't at the cabin. He wasn't in Missouri. Not a single soul had seen him in six months, and Sasha knew this because they'd searched, and if he was in America—hell, if he was anywhere near civilization—someone would know because Tom was the most recognizable face on the planet, and he bore no discernable outward difference to the last time she'd seen him, save his attire, and fractionally longer hair.
And he wouldn't smell like standard issue soap when he hadn't set foot on the James, or a naval base, in six months.
It was a dream.
Sasha took a deep steadying breath to control the hurtful scorn and ducked her chin so that his hand fell away. "Where are your kids?" she asked.
Marginally, his expression changed. Crestfallen perhaps over the subtle rejection. "With Mike. He told me where to find you."
At that, she peered up. Sharp. Inscrutable. Only to be interrupted by the ding.
Mike.
That made… a lot of sense. And it also satisfied three of the major discrepancies. Sweeping his form a final time, Sasha exited the elevator and progressed down the dimly lit corridor to her unit on the southeastern corner.
The first thing Tom noted upon entering—aside from the lack of personal artifacts—were the windows. A view of the arch and distinctive oxidized copper dome, but beyond that, the tip of his ship moored proudly at the edge of Gateway Park.
The tug was inexplicable. Powerful.
So, too, the way his world narrowed when she removed her coat, first unfastening the waist tie before slipping it from her shoulders to gracefully drape across the back of a cream-toned sectional. He thought he'd been floundering when he'd noticed the similarity of how the gown pooled out behind her in the corridor, but now, Tom was speechless.
Next, she lifted the hem, unfastening her shoes with audible relief, before reaching over the side table to toggle a lamp. The action spilled golden light across her bare skin, and he failed to stop himself from following the lithe lines of her bare back—shoulder blades, then down her spine to the hollow of its small, accentuated oh so perfectly by green fabric.
She glanced over her shoulder. "Do you want something to drink?"
And then moved effortlessly across the space to the kitchen, where she busied herself in a cabinet, and yet still, Tom heard the gentle quiver in her voice.
No. Yes.
"I don't have much, but there's—"
He didn't register how, but he'd moved. Hand stilling hers on the handle, standing mere inches behind her but careful not to step on the dress. Her shoulders came up, and she inhaled, the ghost of his name on her lips when she sighed.
"I'm sorry, Sasha," he murmured again, hand curling more tightly around hers. Enough to detect the slight tremor. "I should have reached out to you… or stayed."
Her chin lowered; the hand not covered by his bracing itself upon the counter. "Where were you, Tom?"
"Greece."
"Greece," she repeated, with an inflection of disbelief. "Why Greece?"
His eyes closed for a moment. "It was Darien's favorite…" he whispered.
Her chin lifted again, and in the circle of his almost embrace, she turned, fingers slipping through his until his palm was empty once more. They ached.
No longer guarded but soft, Sasha peered at him. "So why come back?" she breathed. "Why now?"
Tom thought that he'd remembered her features painstakingly, in detail, just before he'd kissed her goodbye. Now, he realized, a lifetime wouldn't suffice.
"For you."
Demure, she prevented any reaction, and his fingers once again skirted her cheek.
"It was always you," he breathed. "And it always will be… if you'll give me another chance—"
Her lips crushed against his, and his hands came around her body, pulling her in. Her own tugged at his parka, and he let her discard it, his sweater next as they stumbled haphazard and clumsy toward the bedroom, and when the feel of that thin satin—or perhaps it was silk—separating her bare torso from his in a deep tantalizing V registered, Tom used his last practical thought to ensure this was real.
"How much did you drink?" he rasped between kisses.
Breathless, she pulled away enough to make eye contact, stilling the progress she'd made on his belt buckle and the top button of his jeans.
"I know what I'm doing," she softly reassured. "And I want this."
"I thought about you, you know?" Sasha murmured, pensive, where she sat upright in the sheets facing the window. Behind her, the bed dipped, and Tom crawled closer, having disposed of the third condom in as many hours. Her eyelids felt gritty, a dull headache in the back of her skull blooming now the buzz had worn off, and her thighs ached in a deeply satisfying way, yet still, she refused to fall asleep.
To risk waking.
He gathered her hair, its weight swooshing against skin where he draped it over her right shoulder and then pressed lingering kisses to the base of her neck. Gently he guided her head to turn away from that window and the quietly pattering sleet to capture her swollen lips.
"So did I," he confirmed. "Every day."
She let him draw her back against the pillows, re-arranging the disheveled duvet and top sheet to cover them both and savored the warmth emanating around her. For a moment, she'd lost track of time. The world condensed into the sound of rain, Tom's breathing, and the feel of his fingers trailing random patterns to her flesh.
"Go to sleep, Sash," he whispered when he saw her fight to keep her eyes open. "I promise I'll still be here when you wake up."
If only he knew that he'd said that before.
Lump tight in her throat, Sasha drifted, the last thing she registered the feel of Tom's lips before blackened fatigue claimed her.
The day brought with it a lingering gloom; the skies beyond her twelve hundred square feet at twenty-nine stories high, gray and heavy. She didn't need to open her eyes to tell. She could feel it, along with the emptiness of the space beside her. The burn this time was forceful. It crushed. Fresh as the day he'd refused to look back, and her eyes squeezed despite never opening. A shaky breath escaped that would quickly descend into sobs.
But then she heard a flush.
Those eyes flew open, and moments later, the en-suite door creaked, and footsteps came muffled by the carpet. She rolled, peering at Tom who was still half asleep, hair mused, and squinting at her. "Please don't tell me you've changed your mind," he mumbled, an attempt made to find humor in the perplexingly emotive way Sasha was regarding him.
Softly, she breathed out a laugh and shook her head, a hand outstretched that he took, beckoning him back into her sheets. He followed, until her legs were tangled between his, and her hair spread like the silk of her gown around the pillow and tickling his face.
"For a minute I thought I was dreaming," she admitted.
A deep pang of regret fired up his sternum, and Tom drew his arms more securely around her body. "No," he kissed her temple, "but I do have to relieve Mike at some point today."
Her hand traced the length of his forearm before intertwining with his just below her chin, where she then placed her own kiss.
"If you want to… you could come with me," he began. "I'd love for you to meet them."
He felt her still. The lack of breathing evident, and then she shifted, rolling so they were face to face. She hesitated. "But what am I—"
"I already told them about you," he blurted.
Sasha's brows rose, and her lip quirked. "Well that's presumptive."
He semi-rolled his eyes. "I'll explain how it came up another time. The point is they know we were together before... and that I need to move on. With the right person."
The slight trace of mischief twisted within her expression settled into understanding, and then she smiled at him, her own fingers this time toying with the dimple of his cheek. "Sounds like you've made a plan."
It felt like the sun when she looked at him like that.
Facially, Tom shrugged. "I've been known to make plans."