Wonderful
AUTHOR: Lucky.
DISCLAIMER: Except for the creations of the author, all characters, characterizations, situations, and locations described in this unsolicited and not-for-profit work of fiction are the property of ABC Television, Capitol Cities, Inc., Steven Bochco Productions, the many talented people who created the world of NYPD Blue, and the actors who have made that world such a lively place. The author would also like to extend her personal gratitude to Mr. Scott Cohen for his light, his vitality, his inspiration, and for being such a compelling muse. Thank you, sir.
FEEDBACK: To Lucky
She still felt like she was floating, disconnected and not real, as he slid her keys from her hand and unlocked the door to her apartment.
A tiny bubble of laughter forced itself to the surface of her consciousness. I don't even remember telling him which one was mine. She allowed herself to be ushered inside, standing limply as she heard the door click shut and lock behind her.
Their conversation was muted by the blanket of uneasy truce that had thrown itself over them.
"Diane?"
"What?"
"Why am I here?"
"Why are you still here?"
"Because you brought me here."
She let out a loose chuckle. "Really? Is that all it takes?"
The warmth of his body came close at her back, but he didn't touch her as he spoke. "Is it what you want?"
She turned around, hearing the note of carefully guarded apprehension in his voice. Slowly, feeling the words pass directly from her soul to her mouth, barely thinking at all, she answered with a slow shake of her head.
"No."
The mantle of his brow lifted, pulling the light around his eyes. "Why not?"
"Because it's not about me anymore."
His brow dropped and furrowed again. "I don't understand."
She shook her head again, harder this time, as if she could physically force her thoughts to fall into place. "No... no. That's what it meant, isn't it? That's why you gave me checkers." She turned away, moving through the afternoon dim of her living room slowly, making little circles in the air with her hands as she spoke. "I remember now. You said if I killed you, you'd give me your checkers."
"Diane..."
She ignored him, unflagged. "You said that you couldn't be saved in this life. You said it would have to wait for the next time around." Diane turned on him with a suspicious eye. "Didn't you?"
"You've traded your marbles for my checkers," he replied with a quiet smile.
"Answer me."
Harry looked out the window over her shoulder and sighed. "It wasn't supposed to be like this. I wasn't supposed to forget."
"Forget what?"
"Forget any of it," he said, tossing his arms out to his sides. "I wasn't supposed to forget why I wanted to die. This wasn't supposed to happen."
Now it was Diane's turn to be confused. "I don't understand. When they called me at the station..."
His eyes sharpened instantly. "Who called?"
"The hospital. Dr. Clarence called me before..."
"That's all I needed to know," Harry clipped brusquely, straightening the bag on his shoulder and turning to the door. "Thank you for the ride uptown, Detective Russell. I think I can manage from here."
As his hand fell on the doorknob, he heard a heavy thump and glanced over his shoulder, then turned in a full double-take. Diane had fallen in a heap on her knees in the middle of the floor and simply sat, unblinking, unmoving.
"What?"
"No," she flopped a lazy hand at him. "Go. It's what you do."
Harry turned back to the door, letting his hand rest on the knob for a silent moment.
The bag fell from his shoulder.
"Why did the hospital call you?" he asked the wooden door in front of him.
"Because you asked for me when you woke up," the living room floor replied. "They wanted to make sure they knew who you were."
"That's not possible. I didn't even know who I was. How could I have asked for you?"
"I don't know, Harry."
He turned himself around again, looking down at the top of Diane's head as she sat, staring at her hands in her lap.
"Why did you come to the hospital?"
She looked up, fielding Harry's suspicions, his hopes, his fears, feeling her eyes fill and her lungs empty. She could work her mouth, but her voice was broken and all she could push out was a whisper.
"Because that's where you were."
His body started forward, but his feet refused to move, planted firmly in the mud of his own disbelief. Slowly, Diane dragged herself to her feet and faced him on an even level.
She repeated her earlier question in the same weakened whisper. "Why are you still here?"
"Because this is where you are," he replied in a rush, taking the room in long strides, suddenly burned. "I want to be where you are."
Diane lolled raggedly in his arms, and they were the only reason she didn't simply slide down his body and pool at his feet. "Why?" she begged, just beginning to cry. "Why did you leave me like that? Why did you stay?"
He tipped her upright, forcing her to meet his eyes, repeating his own question for her. "Is this what you want?"
"No!" She pitched herself up against him, placing her hand over the breast of his shirt, feeling the patchwork of bandages beneath it. "I never wanted this."
"Neither did I," he replied quietly, lowering his chin a little to intercept her gaze.
"But..." she stammered. "But you didn't leave me a choice, Harry. I... I had to."
He shook his head. "That's not what I mean."
"What do you mean?"
He lifted his hand, brushing beneath her eye with his thumb, catching tears she hadn't known were falling. "I mean you. I wanted you. When I knew I'd lost that... I didn't want anything anymore."
"So why were you wearing the vest?"
His eyes slammed shut beneath his shattered expression. "I was better off dead." Then, with a hard shake of his head, he corrected himself. "No... everyone else was better off with me dead." He opened his eyes into hers again. "I didn't think anyone would notice."
"I noticed," she replied quietly, sliding her hand up from his chest to his shoulder. "I noticed when everything else died, too." Laying her head down carefully beneath his chin, she let her eyes fall shut, listening to the sound of his living body. "I noticed when I died."
His breath stopped for a moment, then started in a pant. "Diane..." He tightened his arms around her. "Oh, god, Diane... Why did you come back? Why do you keep coming back?"
She rode out his movements, burying her hand in his hair and holding on. "It's not me. It was never me." As she spoke, she felt it rack his body, heard it tear at his breath, felt it in the kiss he pressed to her forehead.
He asked anyway. "Then what is it?"
She lifted her head to look him in the eye.
"You." The panic in his face, that same racing helplessness that she'd erased with her gun before ripped into her soul. Not this time, she thought. This time is this time. "I never came back, Harry. Not once. Not ever.
You came back."
He kissed her, taking her breath by force, shaping his hands to her face and holding her, making her feel the emotion on his face, imprinting her with...
Fear, she realized in a rush. He's afraid.
She touched him, tentatively, as if he were made of glass and not flesh, running her fingertips over his throat and up to his jaw.
At her touch, he broke away, moving as if he were willing himself not to kiss her again as he whispered. "Diane... Diane, please... Please..."
"What, Harry?" she asked, moving with him to catch his warmth on her mouth.
His tiny breath of a response clutched at her soul, brought everything back, pulled her into his presence, and turned the slow swirl of her consciousness into a skittering pyrotechnic spin... only for a moment. Only for just long enough.
"Please let us be."
To be continued.
