trouble in paradise
Characters: Dominic and Meg Setting: room 13, wee hours
Dominic got back after talking to Carmel, then hitting the kitchen to find something for Meg. He'd wound up getting a glass of milk and some cookies, and bringing that back to the room, the process of the conversation, a walk and raiding the kitchen taking slightly longer than he'd anticipated, but he at least felt slightly less devastated by the time he got back.
Opening the door, he came inside and looked around, seeing that at least she was still here. "Got you cookies." he said, holding up the bag.
Still there and still awake though both were a close call; the temptation to go and hide herself in a corner somewhere had been a strong one and the crying had left her exhausted. Above all else though, she needed to see Dominic again and it was that unshaking need that had kept her in the room and awake. She had logged onto her journal and made a post, which had done precious little to make her feel better then set some cartoons playing when the silence in the room started to get to her. Really it felt like he had been gone a lot longer than he had so when he did come through the door, the relief that coursed through her was palpable. Scrambling off the bed, she basically threw herself at him, arms wrapping around his waist and face pressed to his chest, fresh tears sliding down her cheeks.
When Meg came at him, Dominic wasn't entirely positive if it was going to be the hug he got or another swing thrown in his direction. He spilled a little of the milk he had for her, and set it down on the nearest surface, along with the cookies before he put his arms around her in return. He might have asked if she was alright, but figured that was the world's dumbest question in light of her crying and the clinging. So he skipped that part. Instead, he stayed quiet, and rubbed the back of her shoulder lightly.
While she had fully expected him to come back, it had done little to quiet the small voice in the back of head saying that he might not, what if he didn’t, what if she had chased away? so for a few moments, she let herself luxuriate in having him there with her, forcing the voice back into silence. “Where did you go?” she asked, voice muffled by his shirt.
"For a walk. And I got a drink, then got cookies." Dominic told her. "Talked to Carmel a little." he added. He knew he really needed to put things out there, but at the moment, he wasn't even sure if now was the time. He would react depending on how she seemed. If she wanted to talk more about it, they would, if she didn't, then...he didn't know. He'd lie awake for a long time, he guessed.
Meg nodded as he went over the small list, letting the information take some of the sting of him leaving away. As much as it had hurt to see him walk away from her, deep down she knew he wouldn't have done it unless he really needed to.
"Did it help?" she said, pulling back so she could look up at him and wishing she hadn't when she saw the livid mark on his cheek from where she had slapped him. Frowning, she reached up to touch it, regret clear on her face. "Shit, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that..." The anger that had driven her to do it had been washed away by the tears that had followed it but she felt it bubbling up again, this time directed at herself.
He wasn't sure how to answer that question. Because the real answer was 'not really'. He felt calmer, the anger he felt had died, but that didn't fix the other emotional wounds. "Hey, I'm fine." he told her lightly, taking her hand and giving it a very gentle squeeze. "I mean, Carmel wasn't impressed, but I'm okay." he promised. "Have a cookie." he suggested, moving away from her, though it was only to sit on the bed as he kicked his shoes off.
"To answer your first question, I figure we need to ask a better one first--are we discussing this right now?" he asked, looking back at her.
She didn't look totally convinced by his claim to be fine but, as always with him, accepted it as the truth even if guilt had her chewing on her bottom lip. The mention of Carmel she took less gracefully, letting out an unimpressed sound. "So much for making a good impression," she said, taking a cookie as suggested.
She didn't bite into though, her stomach still too much in knots for her to have any kind of appetite. Instead she took it with her as she turned off the computer screen and sat down in the chair in front of it, pulling her legs up under the t-shirt she'd put on. "Not talking 'bout it now won't make it go away or fix nothin'," she said, trying to sound more convinced that she felt, unsure she'd be brave enough to broach the topic again if they didn't talk about it then.
"Last time I checked, you didn't usually give a shit if you made a good impression on people or not." Dominic said, a little half smile on his lips. He laid back against his pillow, eyes on her as she moved around the room. He accepted her answer, though still didn't know where to start. So, he started with the most simple way to go. "I'm hurt." he told her. "And I feel like you were intensely selfish with what you did. I wonder how you could do that to me, or if you thought about what it would do to me at all. And I know you said you wrote a letter, but...it wouldn't have got to me til after. I wouldn't even have been able to say goodbye or even try to talk to you about it. I know we can't change what happened. I'm staring down needing to forgive you for what feels a whole lot like being betrayed--something I never ever thought I'd feel when it came to you." he told her, voice light. Quiet.
That got a small smile out of her in return. "Usually I don't but this really smart guy I know reckons I should be making an effort in here so..." She gave a little shrug. The smile was quick to disappear however as he went on, drawing in on herself with each passing sentence, the truth of them harder to deny when said so calmly and regardless of how gently he said it, the word 'betrayed' hurt worst of all, cutting her right to the core.
A few moments passed in silence then when she tried to say something, her mouth just wouldn’t co-operate, opening and closing but with no sound coming out. More than anything she wanted to say sorry, to keep saying sorry, but the word seemed hopelessly inadequate. Looking down at her hands, she began twisting her wedding ring, the skin around it already pink and slightly tender from where she'd been doing the same thing pretty much constantly from the moment he left the room, not even aware she was doing it.
"I didn't mean to betray you," she said when she finally found her voice, albeit one that was quiet and wobbled on every word. "I didn't think..." She closed her eyes. "I just wanted to stop hurting so bad."
"And I get that." Dominic said, genuinely. "I do. I get the pain, I get not wanting to feel it anymore, I get all of that. I just...I know I wouldn't have done it to you. I wouldn't have made you ride out the last of your days knowing I'd already checked out. And, now I know you would do that to me. That your pain blotted out everything else, including me." he said, sighing as he pulled his fingers through his hair.
He was silent for another heartbeat or so, then moved forward. "I don't want anything from you on it. I don't want apologies, I don't want promises you'll do anything different." he said. Though mostly he didn't want those because sorry didn't help, and he didn't know if he would trust her word. After all, as far as he could tell, she'd proven to him with this that she came first, at the end of the day. And certainly, that didn't diminish everything else they'd been through. He knew she'd still be willing to die for him, that life without him wasn't going to be acceptable to her, that he still occupied a position in her world that was of the highest order. Just...not quite where it counted in that one, specific area.
"I'm probably just going to need some time." he continued. "And I don't mean time like, I don't want you here with me, or I'm taking a break, or any stupid bullshit like that." he clarified, because he wanted to be very clear on that particular score. "Just...I'll need to kind of..." he made a vague gesture. "Figure out what this means to me."
Meg wasn’t sure that he did get, the way he spoke like one day she had just decided ‘fuck it and fuck everyone’ and decided to end it, it hadn’t been like that. The last she had seen of him before coming to the facility, he had bleeding out from a gunshot wound to the chest and she’d convinced he was dying and her whole world had shattered. Then she’d woken up in handcuffs, her shoulder a mess from a gunshot she barely remembered receiving and they told her he was alive. For the longest time she hadn’t believed them, demanding she get to see him if it was true which of course never happened. Eventually she was convinced of the truth but without getting to see him, be with him, she couldn’t pull all the broken pieces of herself back together - she’d lost her compass, her linchpin and without him she was like a boat lost in a storm. ‘Crazy bitch’ they’d called her in prison during the lead-up to her trial, a moniker that had stuck when the wild mood swings that had characterised her life got worse with nothing to keep her in check and the black periods between them got longer. Apparently she’d been pegged a suicide risk from very early on in her incarceration so how she even managed to get as far as she did the first time was a mystery to her - perhaps if they’d done their job better she wouldn’t have found herself in the situation she was now, reunited with Dominic but with something broken between them.
He saw her as selfish and there was nothing she could say or do to change that, her father’s voice in her head rang out with the slurs that had dogged her life and she couldn’t help but wonder if there was some truth to them after all, a thought that brought more tears to her eyes, trapped as they were behind the lids. Perhaps Dominic’s mother had been right, that she didn’t deserve him - the fear that she didn’t love him as much as he did her despite the fact she didn’t know how she could love him more seeming more founded than ever.
She said none of this though, silently taking in what he was saying instead, her expression oddly blank if it weren’t for the tear tracks both old and new that streaked her cheeks.
He had expected her to say something. What, he didn’t know. He had no suggestions to offer on what she might vocalize, but total silence was never a good sign. Especially from Meg. He watched her, and in the end he didn’t say anything either. It wasn’t like he had more to add, or if he did, he wasn’t sure he should. So, he held his tongue. Instead, he got up, got the milk he’d gotten for her, since she didn’t seem to want it, and he went to dump it out, not figuring leaving it there on the desk all night was a good plan. He needed to do something. Even a small, menial task was better than sitting there dealing with the alien feeling that blanketed everything. He didn’t know the first thing about trying to deal with it, either.
She might not have known what to say but unsure as she was, there were somethings that came as second-nature to her and catching hold of Dominic as he passed within reach of her was one of them. She felt a split-second of doubt as she did it, a feeling she hated because until now she wasn’t sure if she’d ever second guessed herself when it came to him, which she violently forced aside. From day one, they had seemed to fit together, physically as much as anything despite the verging on ridiculous difference in height and she felt a pressing need to see if that was still the same - to take solace in the fact that while everything else might be up in the air between them, that hadn’t changed.
He stopped when she got hold of him, and he looked down at her. He still didn’t know what to say, what to do. He absolutely detested the feeling, and everything about it. He didn’t want to be in this position. If he could erase knowing what he knew now? For the first time ever, he’d take that. It’d be so much easier to just...not know that had happened at all. But that wasn’t the way things worked. He did know, and now he had to live with it.
An uncomfortable silence filled the room, something Meg had never imagined could happen between them, let alone would and that possibly more than anything, was proof of just how much things had changed.
Not letting go of his hand, she unfolded herself from beneath the tee-shirt and stood up then, in an unconscious echo of something that had happened in the early days of their relationship, pressed his hand over her chest. "I know it dont fix nothin', not really, but none of it stuck did it? My head might have been off somewhere but this kept beating." She pulled his hand even closer for emphasis. "And I reckon if any thing could keep it doing that, it's how much I love you."
Why it struck him in that moment, he wasn’t sure. But he realized what it was he was going through. He was mourning, really. The loss of the idea of them. He’d had a very specific, very solid, unshakeable idea of who they were, and how they related to each other, and that had been shattered. She was right, it hadn’t happened. She hadn’t died, she’d kept on going, but that didn’t change her attempt. Dumb luck didn’t count. It almost hurt to hear her say it like that. God, there was a lot of damage done here. More than he wanted to think about, more than he wanted to have to heal up from, even if he knew he’d have to. He wound up being unable to respond verbally. Instead, he set the glass down again, and put his arms around her to hug her. resting his chin on the top of her head. He needed to get through the next five minutes. Then he’d work on the next five after that.