It Takes Two and They Must Match

[Hieronymous Banks-Walker]

Takes place 01/15/2013

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[/i] As he swiped in the passcode for his phone he sighed dialing in the number he’d obtained.

The chances of her answering were somewhere between nil and impossible. Yet he couldn’t let this chance slip pass him. He had to try what would come of things he wasn’t sure. It wasn’t like he could throw all that he’d built in the city fade away. He knew now what he hadn’t known then. Not only the Pride but the city needed him. He could sneak away but he could not stay. He would never be able to stay with her, he could hear her voice again. He cleared his throat and dialed the number to her hotel room.

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[rayvanwolfbaen]

She had ran as far and as fast as she had been able to at the time. She had run even though the tears had fallen, even though her heart had broken, regardless of the fact that it felt like her soul was being torn in two. There were just some decisions that had to be followed through, and the brain had to make the body do what it didn't want. It had been a matter of putting one foot in front of the other no matter how much it had hurt, or how hard it was to do. She hadn't told him goodbye, she had known if she tried he would have either talked her out of leaving, or he would have left with her. She knew that Chicago had needed him, even as she had needed him, but the cities need was far more important than her own.

The good of the many outweigh the needs of the one. She had heard that once in a movie, she thought it was one of those Sci-fi Star Track movies but she wasn't sure. She just knew that when she left Chicago that rang in her head with every step, it had been her mantra. She had wanted to go to Hiero, beg him to go with her but if she had taken him he would have eventually come to hate her. She knew that, just as surely as she had known if she didn't leave they would use her against him. And she couldn't let him fail because of her.

When she ended up in Miami she thought that maybe she would be able to build her life anew, forget the past, and the ghosts that haunted it. She had started making new friends, had even had a lover or two, no one to write home about to be sure. Even if she had someone to write to, she found though that she ended up attracting those that were as wounded and tormented as she was. Whether just as friends or more, she drew those with gaping wounds of the heart to her like moths to a flame. In reflex she began to work more, socialize less, and tried to find a place where she could have some peace. Then while out on the boardwalk of Miami she had been witness to a murder, the culprit getting away before she could gain ground on him. With that death came a chain of events that would eventually lead her to face the ghosts of the past, and hope against hope that she could find forgiveness.

She had investigated the shooting, put in her report, then forgotten about the man who had gotten away. All too soon she would be reminded of him when word came down that he had not only crossed state lines but that he had killed another innocent in the process and was being held in Memphis. She had been called in because of her initial investigation. There had been the issues over who had jurisdiction over the perpetrator in question, that Ray had eventually won of course, but it hadn't been an easy case to roll up and put away. There had ended being several months that Ray had been stuck in Memphis. Little did she knew or realize that during one of the press conferences about the case, she had been caught on tape in the background. It had been a fleeting image, she had just crossed the screen as she left the police department, but it had been enough that someone had seen her.

Ray fell onto the bed in her motel room, her eyes gazing sightlessly up at the ceiling. It had been a rough day, hell it had been a rough couple of months. She was tired of living out of a suitcase, she was tired of fast food, and she was tired of being alone. That was the worst part of it all, it left her too much time to think, too much time to remember, to question her previous actions and ask herself again if she had done the right thing. Should she have done things differently? His face flashed across her vision, and a tear rolled down her cheek. She still missed him, there wasn't a day that went by when she didn't want to go back. She knew that she couldn't though, too much time had passed, he had gone on with his life she was sure. She wouldn't disrupt his existence any more than she had already, or couldn't see him with someone else and know that he had once been hers before she turned her back on him. Even though it had been done for the good of all, it still tore at her.

She was so lost in thought that at first she didn't hear the phone ringing, then after she did comprehend where that noise was coming from she still hesitated to answer it. Very few people knew where she was, and even fewer knew how to reach her, but most would have used her cell number. With a sigh she reached for the phone, chastising herself for being too paranoid. Perhaps it had been the memories and the pain they inflicted on her heart, and the faces of those that she had left behind that made her more jumpy than usual. She took a deep breath and picked up the receiver on the bedside phone. “Hello?" Why she phrased her greeting as a question she couldn't be sure, but it just seemed like that is what was called for.

[Hieronymous Banks-Walker]

Takes place 01/15/2013

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[rayvanwolfbaen]

 “I’ve missed you.” She went completely still, not moving a muscle, three words, that's all it was, three simple words. They ripped the heart right out of her, tore a hole the size of the grand canyon through the middle of her and just kept going. She thought she had forgotten, she thought she had buried the heartbreak deep enough that she could go on, but with three words it all came tumbling down. The last four years disappeared in the blink of an eye, she was back in Chicago, in his bed, and he whispered words against her skin. She didn't have to ask who was on the other end of the line she held to her ear, she knew his voice as well as she knew her own. She heard it in her dreams, whispered upon the wind, and in the darkest hours of the night it came to her to torment her. She had thought that she could get over him, she had been wrong. So very wrong.

She tried to speak but her vocal chords felt frozen, as if they had seized up and would never work again. They say that times of trauma or a great shock can cause a person to lose the ability to speak, sometimes for only minutes, sometimes it lasted for years. Ray thought that perhaps hers would last for a lifetime. It was what she deserved after all. The penalty had to be paid, she had dared to love, then fled instead of standing her ground. No matter the reason, no matter the justification, there was always a price to pay. She stood there in the silence of her room, staring at nothing, aware of nothing, except for the sounds coming from the other end of the phone line. She could hear him breathing, hear him moving about, the background noises were too faint to make out, and could only be distinguished as white noise.

Tears gathered in her eyes, she choked on the beginnings of them as they built in her chest. She could feel her face crumble, her shoulders sagged, and her legs collapsed under her weight. She sank to the floor next to her bed, still holding the phone to her ear. Her chest hurt, that's when she realized she was holding her breath and it came out in a long jagged exhalation. And with it she finally found her voice, but she could only manage one word. “Hiero.....” His name came out on a sob, she blinked back the tears that threatened to overwhelm her. Everything that had come before fell away, everything that came after would fall where it would. But for that instant she had a tenuous link to everything she had ever wanted.

“So how’ve you been?” Awful, dreadful, lonely, afraid, so many words jumped to her tongue at his question, but she couldn't voice any of them. Instead she stood mute, her mind racing, her heart thudding heavily in her chest. How could she explain? Would he ever forgive her? Should he? Was she worth forgiveness? So many questions, questions that had not been answered in four years and were not likely to get answered any time soon. That was when she felt it, on the edges of her shields, something stirred. Ray tilted her head and 'listened' to the strands of emotion that danced in the air, even as she tried to formulate an answer to his question. “I've been....incredibly sad. I've missed you, so much.” She couldn't stop the tears that began to roll down her cheeks, in silent misery. So close, she felt so very close to him, and yet she knew she was so very far away. That broke her heart more than she could ever explain to anyone.

[Hieronymous Banks-Walker]

Takes place 01/15/2013

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[/color] He sighed using his free hand to push himself off the wall which had pulled him into its gravitational field. He moved towards her door. With each step his feet sought to talk him out of the folly that knocking on her door would be. What if she won’t answer. What if she will. What if this is too much for her . The doubts wouldn’t stop haranguing. He however had come for closure. For that to happen he needed to look her in her eyes. He needed to see her face. He had come all this way he couldn’t stop now. Five hundred plus miles he’d come. He would see this through. There would be a reckoning later but now he needed to see her.

Raising his hand to knock he hesitated. He paused. He spoke into the phone hearing static through the door as he did. “I haven’t eaten dinner join me…” He’d come for closure and now here he was asking her to eat with him. He was a fool he would never learn. He wouldn’t face it but he quietly secretly admitted that though he was a fool he would be her fool if she but let him.
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[rayvanwolfbaen]

Long, lonely nights had been the norm for her for more time then she could count, silent bitter tears had been shed upon her pillows, and memories had haunted her to the point she thought she might lose her sanity. She saw his face in crowds, and would have to take a double take to make sure. She would see a flash of dreadlocks and her heart would flutter, a flash of milk chocolate colored skin had her holding her breath. No, she had been anything but fine since she had left him. Even the few lovers she had taken since him had not filled the place inside her that mourned his loss. There just weren't words enough to explain the anguish she had endured because of her decision. She sat in the floor with the phone to her ear, her forehead resting against the bed waiting to hear him rail against her, to accuse her, to bring her to heel for her abandonment of him and their city.

There was so much to answer for, so much to atone for, and she knew that she would never be able to fully do so in her life time. No matter if she wanted to, or if he allowed her to, there was just too much that couldn't be forgiven. And if she couldn't forgive herself, then how was he ever to forgive her. Tears fell into a pool on the leg of her jeans, leaving an ever growing dark spot as the flood gates were opened and all her pain and loss came rushing out. “Wh...Ray that makes two of us.” She had never expected to hear from him, she had never thought she would have to open the old wounds in order to purge the infection that had begun to fester inside her. She had hoped he would have found happiness and forgotten her but his words told her that he too was trapped in that place where he couldn't move forward, and they couldn't go back. What was there for them? Had he come to say goodbye? To purge her from his system, to finish what she had started so long ago by leaving without a word? The thought had a sob escaping from her clenched lips. She didn't want him to know how very broken she was, it would only make things worse, for them both.

She felt that faint tug on her shields again, the brush of emotion so strong that it would not be ignored. She wondered if perhaps another patron of the motel in one of the nearby rooms was also deep within the dregs of misery and that was what she was reading. It wouldn't have been the first time, but it didn't feel like misery, not entirely. There was something else mixed in with the pain, something that she was afraid to examine, afraid to look at too closely for fear of what she would see. She started to say something when his next words made her pause. “I haven't eaten dinner, come join me....” Was she dreaming? Was it one of those vivid, and heart rending dreams that sometimes afflicted her, made her remember what she had walked away from? She reached up and pinched her arm, and flinched at the sting. No, not a dream. So then what did he mean? Was he here? Now? That didn't make sense either, how did he know where she was? Was she finally losing it? But no, she heard something, like an echo, a crackle of static. “Come...eat with you?” She knew that her voice shook, that she was on the edge of something very important, she just wasn't sure what it was.

Ray felt her shields slipping, even after all her practice and training, in times of great stress she still lost the tenuous hold she had on them. The gunshot to her head would be something that forever plagued her in that, it had made her weaker than she once had been. But as the shields fell away, she felt it. The confusion, the uncertainty, and a myriad of other emotions. The one that rang out the loudest, the truest was the love. And some might say that one person's emotions were the same as anyone elses. But Ray didn't agree, everyone's feelings had their own flavor, just like peoples personalities, and their looks. And as the feelings brushed against her psyche, she knew. Hiero. She stood, slowly, looking at the door to her room. The phone hanging loosely in her hand now, no longer held to her ear. And she hoped, hoped she was right, hoped she was wrong. Hoped he had come for her, hoped he was still in Chicago, far away from her.

She laid the receiver on the bed and walked toward the door, she reached out to turn the knob and hesitated. Did she want to take that step, did she really want to fool herself into believing that he was there? Did she have the strength to deal with it if he wasn't standing on the other side of her door? Instead of opening it, she pressed her head against the barrier and whispered. “Heiro..” One hand came up to brace herself against the cool wood, her eyes closed, and she waited a heartbeat, if he was there he would have heard her. If he didn't respond she knew that all her dreams were for naught.

[Hieronymous Banks-Walker]

Takes place 01/15/2013

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[/color] he answered to both questions. He heard her stirring just the other side of the door. A journey of four years separated by two inches of prefabricated treated wood. He could feel her on the other side her warmth those green eyes that haunted him just there. He rested his hand against the door where he knew her face was. “Yes I am asking you to dinner. I would like to see you…” Saying it aloud was as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He missed her especially as he was in fact so lonely these days. The work being done by he and Sabin was tiring. It was draining and there was no succor in his life to assuage the darkness. Even the idea of a break a moment of light with her could possibly be enough to get him through. It wouldn’t be long before the walls came crashing down on him. He knew the pace being kept wouldn’t hold. That however was a matter for another time right now however was all about the next few moments.

He gave himself for not screaming, yelling, or roaring. He wanted to do all those things he couldn’t put into words quite what was going through his mind only that he wanted to see her now more than ever. Part of him knew he was wading into deep waters without a life vest a paddle or even a way to get back to shore. He knew it was a folly greater than anything Seward had attempted yet he willingly boarded his own Hindenburg. He did so with no care as to what he would end up. She was right there so close he could hear her breathing. He could smell her and wanted nothing more than to touch her. He wanted the feel of her against him in the worst way. It was an ache that had gone so long he couldn’t actively remember a time where it wasn’t the biggest part of him. He only knew that the idea of her smile pushed the ache to a dull roar granting him a chance to breathe.

“I know this is unexpected,”Hiero began swallowing back the pleading that threatened to leap from him. He wouldn’t beg he wouldn’t ask what had kept her away from him. He wouldn’t do anything so cliché as that. No he would look into her face and merely appreciate what time there was. It may’ve been a one-sided feeling but it was succor long denied him. He would savor the respite knowing that all too soon he would be back to the hell that had become his life. He would gladly take the small respite. In fact he would wager all the days to come for the chance. “Come on Ray my Belle open the door. Eat with me.” The Belle comment was unfair of him. It was jarring even to him. It was a reminder that he was the beast to her beauty. Those days were gone the only way to get out of the hell one was going through was to keep going. “Sorry…Just open the door, eat with me.”
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[rayvanwolfbaen]

Ray stood with her head pressed to the door, her eyes closed, and let the tears fall. He was there, he was really there. After all that time, all that distance, and now he was right outside of her door. So close she didn't need the phone to hear him anymore. His simple yes did so much more than just answer her questions. He had come for her, after all that time. Why now? How had he found her? Still those same questions rolled around her head, and she simply didn't have the answers. The only one that did was on the other side of sandwiched plywood and veneer. And the only way she would ever know was to gain her courage and let him inside. It was all so overwhelming, so unexpected that she shook with the stress of it all. Her entire body felt like a too tight bowstring. All the love she had for him bubbled to the surface and filled up the empty spaces in her heart until it was brimming over.

“Yes I am asking you to dinner. I would like to see you…” She wanted to see him as well, more than she had ever wanted to see anyone. Still she hesitated, not for long, but long enough for him to continue speaking. “Come on Ray my Belle open the door.” As soon as she heard him call her my Belle she broke inside. Something that she had thought long healed burst open and began to ooze out all the poison that had been building and filling her with it's contamination. She hadn't blamed him for her attack by the Skulk, at least she hadn't realized she had. But there had been some part of her deep down inside that held him responsible, only she had been too blind to see it. Now she was ashamed of that fact. Ashamed that she had blamed him when it hadn't been his fault, used it as an excuse to run, and pretend it was the best thing for the both of them. At the end of the day it all came down to she had been afraid, so very afraid. Afraid for herself, and for him. Afraid to be used against him, afraid to be abandoned by him. She was the worst kind of coward. The kind that didn't realize they were a coward until the damage had already been done. She had justified her actions, when in fact there had been no justification to be had.

She reached for the door knob slowly, as if her body fought against her heart and her brain couldn't quite get the signals to reach the parts of her body that it needed to. She knew she looked a mess, her hair hung around her face in a mass of tangled curls and her face by then had smeared mascara and eyeliner from her tears. She sniffled and finally got her hand to close around the knob and turn it when his last words reached her. “Sorry…Just open the door, eat with me.” Ray jerked open the door and fairly flew into his arms, she wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him with all her strength. She buried her face in his neck and inhaled his all too familiar scent, a scent that she had missed as much as the rock hard body that she now pressed herself against. “Hiero... my Beast, I'm so sorry.....”

[Hieronymous Banks-Walker]

Takes place 01/15/2013

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[/color]He rumbled soaking in the moment. This moment he was burning into the memory of his limbs. The memory he was burning into the very structure of his cells. He wanted this he needed this. He wouldn’t be able to leave her but he knew he had to. He knew that she had to get back to her life. He also knew where that life was. They could take timeouts from their lives and meet. They could… He gave the thought up as soon as it began forming. No that wouldn’t do he had to get back to Chicago and She had to get back to her life. It wouldn’t be fair to her to place demands on her time. He had no right. He had no claim to her. She would always be there in his heart but she’d done the right thing in making a clean break. This would become a mutual hell for them eventually. Hiero knew that he was selfish for hoping. He knew that he was dreaming. He also knew it was wrong of him. But he did anyway. He kissed her head. He placed his lips on her knowing that the spell she weaved over him would be harder to break but he carried on all the same. He kissed her making his way to her lips. Slowly softly creeping towards what he knew was the point of no return. He kissed the corner of her lips slowly softly sure that she would vanish from his arms. She would disappear into a puff of smoke. He kissed her all the same…

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[rayvanwolfbaen]

Four years gone in a heart beat. Four years of running, of trying to forget, trying to move on and she had come full circle. She was right back in his arms, where she wanted so badly to be, though she knew it wouldn't last, it couldn't. He had a city to protect, she had a job to do, and no matter what the heart wanted sometimes it was just impossible. The Fates were cruel and heartless creatures, to have put her once more in the situation where there was no happy ending. She had begun to believe over the years that she was cursed, jinxed, or just plain bad luck. Then she had come to the conclusion that no, that wasn't the case, it was simply that the Fates liked to throw situations at her just to see which way she would jump next. Ray believed that the Fates thought it was all horribly funny, they had taken her family from her, her mother and father were both long dead, her brother god only knew where, if he was still alive at all. Her husband gunned down, and the one man that could make her forget all the bad that had happened was unattainable.

When the Fates had thrown them together they had been two separate people that had melded into one single entity, so that when they had been once more torn apart each had remained as one entity only now in two bodies, so that they would never again be whole unless they were together, and that the Fate wouldn't allow. Even though the Fates kept crossing their destiny strings and standing back to watch the fireworks that ensued. Circumstance had brought them together and it had torn them apart, but they still belonged to one another and that was the hardest part. Ray loved him more than the air she breathed, she had loved him enough that she had left and made the choice that needed to be made. She had suffered for it, and she knew now that he had to, but if she had to go back she couldn't say that she would have chosen any differently. She knew now that she had taken the coward's way out, but it was still a choice. A choice to run and protect herself, a choice to leave him to do his duty. And it had been a choice that if it hadn't been made might have caused more harm then good.

The feel of his arms was like paradise, his scent like the finest perfume, the heart that beat in his chest like the drum that motivated her rhythm. Everything about him complimented and coalesced with everything in her. She felt her own heart trip and restart, as if trying to find the right rhythm to match his, like a couple that automatically matched their steps when they walked arm in arm. He was the moon to her sun, the chocolate to her cream, together they were perfect, apart they were merely mediocre. Two halves of the same whole forever torn asunder, never to be repaired. They were Beauty and the Beast, only their tale didn't end with the Happy Ever After. It ended with heartbreak and tragedy.

She was helpless, she couldn't avoid his gravitational pull, she was unable to break free of his orbit, nor did she want to. She would have been happy to hold onto that single moment in time and stand there in his arms for eternity if they would but let her. She knew though that the Fates had other plans, much more devious ones. She felt him as well as heard him as he tried to calm her, the rumble had come from deep in his chest and vibrated against her own. She felt the press of his lips against her head, felt the heat of the kiss even through her tangled mass of hair. It set her toes to tingling, and every kiss that landed only intensified the effect until she was nothing more than a quivering mass in his arms. When his lips grazed the edges of hers she turned her head the last fraction of an inch until their mouths met fully in a kiss, but not the timid kisses of first love, but a kiss of remembered promises, regrets, and heartache. She poured everything she had into that single melding of their bodies. All the words she couldn't say, all the feelings she couldn't ignore but didn't know how to express, all the love she had for him she gave in that kiss. If she died right then she would have died happy, for she had finally gotten the one thing she never thought she would receive, one more kiss from him. Even if it was a kiss that meant goodbye, it would be enough for her to hold on to in the dark days that would follow.