Everything else with Matt was so difficult, but this had always been easy. Coming together like this, even after all that time spent apart, everything was still familiar like it had only been yesterday since they'd touched each other this way. In truth, it'd only been a handful of months since the closet incident, but even that had been wildly different from what was happening between them right now. Then it had been confusing and frantic, desperate touches and frenzied kisses that ended abruptly with a slap and Lydia all but bolting for the door.
But this? Lydia wasn't even sure what this was. Still confusing, but neither desperate nor frenzied. And unlike before, the urge to bolt still hadn't hit her. With a small shock, Lydia realized she might not even want to.
Usually a thought like that would have been enough to get her to snap out of it and detangle herself from him as fast as she could, if nothing else but to save face. Now, the thought was gone as quickly as it'd come, too preoccupied by the way he was gently cradling her neck and the heat of his palm pressed firmly against the small of her back. She’d forgotten just how good it felt to be touched by him like this. How good it felt to touch him, with no other motive than just to be close to him again. To remember the smallest things like how he smelled, and the way his body still somehow fit perfectly with hers.
She could allow herself this one moment of weakness, couldn’t she? After the years they’d spent apart, all of the fighting, all of that pain. For one moment, it all almost felt worth it, to be reminded of what it felt like to be held by him again.
Maybe to the casual observer Matt and Lydia weren’t known for their more tender moments, but Lydia recalled them more clearly now than she’d ever allowed herself to in more recent months. The way he used to kiss her on the forehead when she needed to get out of her own thoughts. Her long-forgotten habit of running fingers through his hair as they drifted off to sleep. She missed that. Missed him, missed the way they used to be. It was easy to pretend the good times never existed, until it wasn’t.
Letting herself fall back with him as he leaned into the booth, her smaller frame fit against his with an ease that spoke of years of practice. He felt so solid to her. For someone who spent half his time with his head in the clouds, Lydia had never met anyone more grounding to her. He had kept her anchored as much as she had him, and in her angrier moments, she’d forgotten that too. How much she actually needed that.
She smoothed one hand idly down his chest with the knowledge of someone who knew intimately every groove and dip in a person's body and Lydia inhaled deeply, allowing the unthinkable and letting herself sink into the kiss. Her head began to swim the way it always did with him, surrendering herself to the warmth of Matt's body against hers and the pleasant slide of his lips filling every one of her senses. Even as her heart ached with the knowledge that they could never go back to the way things were, a part of her suddenly didn't care.
The wounds from the bullets she'd taken all those years ago had long since healed, but the scars they'd left behind were often acute reminders of everything she'd lost, and gained afterward. She'd lost Charlotte, and then gotten her back. She'd found Matt, and then she'd lost him. The skin surrounding the scars was still sensitive as if they had only healed yesterday, phantom reminders of the life she'd almost lost herself, and even though Matt's touch didn't quite reach them, she felt it everywhere. Leaving her feeling even more vulnerable and raw, but for once Lydia found herself pressing closer to him to remember instead of pushing him away to forget.
In the midst of the kiss, a far away noise still managed to eventually penetrate through the fog of their kiss, dully alerting Lydia's senses to something in some other part of the ship. A voice, one that sounded suspiciously like Gabe's.
"Anybody home? Yo if there's a dead body in here I'm not cleaning it up!"
The voice was calling out from the entrance of the ship, and it was coming closer. Eyes flying open, Lydia pulled back an inch with a breathless start. "Is that-"