SkySmoke wrote:To anyone still reading about these 2....SkySmoke wrote:
Victoria (Tori) (♀)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Nikki(♀)
Its funny how, when looking back, the moments that change your life seem so…well…normal.
Part One Here
Part Two Here
Part Three Here
Part Four Here
Part Five Here
Part Six Here
Part Seven Here
Part Eight Here“Excuse me. Do you mind if I sit here?”
My breath caught in my chest and everything around me ceased to exist. The question was asked so softly, the voice so familiar that I hesitated before looking up, positive I had imagined it. It was a voice I was sure I would never hear again. It was her voice. I looked up slowly to find tear filled gray eyes looking down at me. I literally stopped breathing and I don’t remember how I got up; only wrapping myself around her. I only let myself believe it was real when I felt her arms wrap around me too. I did nothing to stop my tears or the ragged breathing against the side of her neck. I couldn’t speak, it was enough of an effort just to keep breathing. After a few minutes I was able to force one word out,
“T-Tori?” I gasped, not willing to let go long enough to look at her. My whole body was shaking.
“Yea babe, its me.” Her voice was hoarse and I could hear the tears in it. We stood there holding each other and I could feel her shaking too. My fists were wrapped in her shirt and I could feel her fingers digging into my shoulders where she held me. I didn’t care.
“But you were…I don’t understand..”
“It’s a long story…one I can’t tell here.”
“But…you’re here, this isn’t a dream…”
“No, I’m here. I promise this is real.”
It was only after hearing her say it was real that I was able to peel far enough back from her to look at her. Her hair was short and she looked… not older, but less carefree. She put her hand on my cheek and smiled as my eyes met hers.
“God I’ve missed you Nik…”
She leaned forward and kissed me. I wrapped my arms around her neck and kissed her back until neither one of us could breathe. She pulled back and rested her forehead against mine, neither one of us willing to move any farther away from each other.
“Nikki…I’m so sorry…”
“Shh, no. Whatever it is I don’t care. You’re here now, and if I can help it, I’m never letting you go again.”
“What you went through…I’m surprised you want me back…I was worried that-“
“Want you back? Of course I want you back…Tori…I haven’t even known how to be me without you.”
She smiled slowly and kissed me again, softer this time, then rested her forehead against mine again.
“I have so much to tell you…but I can’t tell you here. There is a car waiting around the corner to take us somewhere that we can talk.”
“Then lets go.”
She looped her arm around my waist and I leaned against her as we walked. It was like walking through a daydream. Part of me refused to acknowledge it as real. After so long without her, thinking that she was honestly gone and I would never see her again, I just couldn’t comprehend the fact that she was walking next to me. Once around the corner we climbed into the back of a silver SUV with dark tinted windows. Tori didn’t say anything to the driver, but once we were inside the car started moving.
I curled myself against her side and draped my arm around her waist, getting as close to her as possible. She ran her fingers through my hair as she wrapped her other arm around me, pulling me closer. I took deep, shaky breathes as I tried to control the new stream of tears running down my face. I finally gave up the control and just let them come as she rested her head against the top of mine.
“Shh, I’m okay. I’m here, I promise you, this is real.”
“I know, I mean, I think I know, its just…”
“I love you Nik, so much.”
“I love you too, I never stopped loving you.”
“I know babe, I know.”
“Do you mind if we sit here…alone?”
Tori glared at the agent who had accompanied us to the room we were sitting in. Tori had led me over to the couch where I now sat. She was still standing, though her fingers were weaved through mine because I simply refused to let go.
“Right, sorry. I’ll be right outside the door.” He muttered and her gray eyes followed him as he left the room. She didn’t sit down until she heard the lock click. I tried to lean against her, the way I had been on the ride over, but she wouldn’t let me. Instead she sat down facing me, her face serious. I felt my heart speed up, afraid she was going to tell me something horrible, like she had to leave or I could never see her again. She picked up on my panic and ran her thumb over the back of my hand.
“Relax…I just…want you to know everything before…you just need to know.”
“Before what?”
“Before you…let yourself be so happy with me. I just…you need to know the whole story before you decide you’re going to take me back.”
“Take you back?! Its not like you cheated on me Tori. Its not like you left me for someone else…I thought you were dead…of course I’m going to tak-”
“No. Just…please Nik, hear me out. If you feel the same way when I’m done, then we can talk.”
I glared at her, feeling anger for the first time since I had flung myself into her arms.
“Fine.”
“God…I don’t even know where…or how to start. Do you remember the drug bust that killed Reynolds?”
“Of course, it was the same guy who…killed you.”
“Right. After Reynolds died I made it a point to find him. It ended up that he came to me. He wanted out, he was tired of running and hiding and worrying about his life every day. The only way out of that circle is basically to die, especially with as high up as he was. There is no way they would have just let him walk away. So he asked for my help. I would find a way to get him out and in return he would give me the head of their whole operation. The guy running the international ring. It was…a huge opportunity and that morning when I left…knowing what was going to happen…Nik I almost couldn’t do it.”
“Wait? You knew that morning?”
She sighed heavily and looked down at her hands. I saw a few tears hit her pant legs before she started speaking again. Her voice was low and thick with emotion.
“I knew…I had known for about six months. The plan was to go into the building, it had already been rigged, everything was planned out. I would chase him, the room would explode, but everyone could get out in time. We didn’t go into the room, there was a door in the floor that we jumped in, it led under the building. What I didn’t count on was Duncan being so close behind me. He almost saw, I’m sure of it. But that isn’t what this is about. I knew we had to fake my death, I knew we had to fake his death. It was the only way to get him out, and the only way to bring this guy down. But I knew…I knew what I was doing to you that morning and god Nikki…I tried to think of a thousand ways to tell you, to let you know somehow, but everything I could think of just put you in danger.”
As she spoke a feeling built up inside my chest and I wasn’t quiet sure what it was. Part of me was furious with her for not telling me. Part of me understood why she had done it. Part of me was damn proud of her. But the biggest part of me was hurt. Losing her was the hardest thing I had ever gone though and to find out that she had known about it all along, for a moment, was almost too much for me to handle. I stood up and paced back and forth in front of the couch.
“You…knew. Your funeral, the memorial star, were you….did you know?”
“I wasn’t there, if that’s what you’re asking. I…as soon as it happened we were flown out of the country. I didn’t have contact with anyone aside from a few agents at the FBI for months. I had no idea what was going on with you other than that you were safe. I let them know that I was to be notified immediately if anything happened concerning you.”
“Well…isn’t that comforting. I think you’re dead and you know that I’m fine.”
“Nik…I know…”
“No, Tori, you don’t! You don’t know anything. You don’t know what it was like when Duncan came to the door. You don’t have any idea how much it killed me to sit through your funeral. What it was like to come home later and be alone, knowing I would never see you again. You don’t have any idea how many nights I curled in a ball and just cried because I didn’t know what else to do. You don’t know what its like to lose the one person who made your world make sense. You don’t know, you don’t have any idea, so don’t say that you do!”
For the first time in all the time I had known her I was screaming at her. My hands were balled into fists at my sides and tears were streaming down my face as I yelled. When I stopped, she looked up at me and it felt like someone had ripped my heart out of my chest. The hurt in her eyes was vivid and tears ran slowly down her face. We stared at each other for a few minutes and time seemed to stop. Neither one of us moved and the only sound that filled the room was our breathing. When she finally spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper.
“I’m sorry. I can’t take it back. I can’t fix it, I can’t change it. I can’t…take away the hurt that you went though. Knowing that it was because of me…makes it that much harder but Nikki…I had to. Please believe me when I tell you I thought for months of another way, but there wasn’t one. The only way he was going to help me was if I got him out. The only way to get him out was to fake his death. He wouldn’t go to anyone but me. We had to fake my death too. If he had to come to me alive, as an FBI agent, that would have been way to traceable. I had to go into hiding with him.”
“Did you at least catch him?”
“We did…a few months ago. We finally took him out and the international ring with him. We had been slowly taking down the smaller rings, weakening the big operation until we finally got to him.”
“So its over.”
“Its over…and so many lives were saved. He was into human trafficking along with the drugs. Some of the things this man did Nik…I can’t even imagine how he slept at night. But its over…he’s gone.”
“Behind bars gone or dead gone?”
“Dead gone. It came down to a standoff and a sniper took him out.”
“I thought…the FBI only did domestic stuff.”
“It was…complicated. He was a US citizen who lived in other countries. Everything was technically based here, but he moved his guys around a lot, always ending up back here. He never stayed in one longer than three months, neither did any of his guys. He was killed here.”
I ran my hand over my face as I slowly sat back down on the couch. My head was spinning and I couldn’t seem to make anything stop, even just for a second, to get my bearings. She reached out and put her hand on my knee.
“Nik, look at me.”
I looked up at her and a smile played at the edge of her lips.
“I love you. Please believe me when I say that. I…” Her sentence drifted into silence and I could see her struggling to find the right words. “I…part of me wanted to just leave you alone. Its been so long, I just wanted to let you heal and get on with your life. What I did…hurt you. In ways I can’t being to imagine. But I had the chance to save so many lives…I had to do it. And I hope, now that you know, that someday part of you can understand. I read both of the books…and I was stunned. I knew you would be good, but writing about me was not something I expected…I’m honored, I really am.”
“It was the only thing that made sense.”
“When I finally asked for an update on you, you were with Kent, and part of me was heartbroken and part of me was happy for you. Part of me hoped that you would heal and move on and find someone who loved you and could make you happy.”
“You made me happy. You make me happy Tori.”
“I wanted you to be happy, so I left it alone. I checked on you again a few weeks later and you had broken up with Kent. Honestly, had you not done that, I probably wouldn’t be here.”
“You would have just let me think you were still dead?”
“I was already dead to you. I had been for two and half years. I wouldn’t walk into your life and uproot everything if you were happily with someone else.”
“I would have wanted you to.”
“What? Why?”
“Because…no one will ever be you. Even if I had been with someone else…it wouldn’t have mattered. I would always chose you.”
“I couldn’t have asked you to choose.”
“You wouldn’t have had to.”
She smiled softly as she reached forward and pushed my hair back behind my ear. I reached up and caught her wrist as she did it. I wrapped both of my hands around hers and just held it in my lap.
“Now you know. Everything. And I’m so sorry for what I caused you. I understand if you want to walk out of this room and never speak to me again, but I had to try.”
I smiled at her and said something I had said to her years before, when she first joined the FBI and told me I could walk away.
“I’m not going anywhere. I want this and I’m in it for the long haul. You’re worth it, all of it. The sleepless nights, the waiting up on the couch, the worry when I know you’re working on a tough case. Sitting by your hospital bed after you’ve been shot waiting for you to wake up. All of it, and then some. So don’t even tell me that it would be okay to walk away.”
She smiled as she recognized the speech.
“Even thinking I’m dead for two and a half years only to find out it wasn’t true?”
“Even that, though, I’m not gonna lie, that is pushing it. I just have one question.”
“Anything.”
“Is it over? Like really over. Are you going back to the FBI?”
“I am, but in a different position. Nothing that will involve me getting shot at or otherwise injured. The department feels I’ve earned it after the past two and a half years and uprooting my entire life.”
“So you’ll come home every night?”
“I will. You’re serious…you’ll stay with me?”
I laughed softly as I pulled her towards me, wrapping my arms around her.
“There is no where else I would rather be.”
“Good, me either.” She breathed the words against my neck. We laid on the couch, tangled in each other, not speaking, we didn’t need to. Everything had been said. I knew in that moment that as long as I was with her, everything else would end up okay and for the first time in two and half years, as I felt her drift off to sleep in my arms, I finally felt like me again.
/walloftext. Anyhow, that is the end. If you're interested in reading the whole thing in one place its on my writing thread (pokes signature)
*waves hand around* I am! I am! It's so amazing, i've read all of what you've done so far 5 times<3
