Notes: The title belongs to the Goo Goo Dolls.
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Her tears had dried, somewhere between the theater and the hotel, and he doesn�t know how to deal with this numb silence.
She had been crying when he found her, and he had stood there in the rain watching her because it wasn�t his place to intrude. But then she had seen him there, standing in the pooling shadows under a flickering streetlamp, and the mask had gone back on. It was the mask that said I�ll Be Fine, Don�t Worry About Me, and he had seen it too many times to believe it. But she still thought she could fool him, even after all these years. It saddened him to realize that even now she felt that she had to be strong around him.
God knew he had been weak around her enough times for both of them.
The gulf between them was wider than the street that separated them, and he doubted that just crossing the barrier of rushing cars was going to fix anything, but he did it anyways, because he couldn�t just stand there on a street corner looking at her forever. Her eyes followed him as he made his way towards her, and there was a dull expressionless quality to them that scared him in a way he couldn�t define.
Her hair hung limply in her face, dripping into her eyes, but she didn�t seem to notice the rain, didn�t seem to see anything at all except for him as he perched uneasily on the bench beside her. There were no words he could say that would make anything better, so he wrapped his jacket around her shoulders because it was all he had to offer her.
There was no gratitude in her eyes when she raised her head to look at him. There was barely even recognition.
A chill ran through him that had nothing to do with the rain, and he stood to hail a cab because he couldn�t think of anything better to do. He turned back to look at her, and there was something in her eyes that made him think that maybe she wanted him to just leave and let her grieve in peace. There was a part of him that wanted to do it too, but sometime in their years together they had gotten used to taking care of each other, and a bigger part of him knew that he couldn�t just leave her sitting here crying on a bench in the rain.
So now he sits beside her in the stifled silence of the cab, and she doesn�t cry. He wishes that she would, because this emotionless calm is unnerving, but he knows that there is something inside her that won�t let her cry in front of him, not for a man she had loved.
He wonders briefly if she even had loved him, and then he feels vaguely ashamed, because the man is dead and he is here beside her, and he knows for sure that she never loved him, not really, so what does it matter?
The cab pulls up in front of the hotel and she is jostled against him. She doesn�t even seem to notice. He forks over a handful of money blindly, and wonders as he helps her out of the car if he should be taking her to a hospital. Her weak unresponsiveness is starting to look more and more like shock, but he�s no doctor, and he hopes that a good cry will knock it out of her. So they make their way towards her room, and he realizes going through the lobby that, looking at her, there seems to be nothing wrong. Maybe she looks a little dazed, but to anyone on the outside she probably just looks like she had a little too much to drink. He wonders briefly about the lack of press, but then decides not to worry about it and punches the button in the elevator. He takes her purse from her to rummage through for her room key, and her eyes follow it as it leaves her arm, but she doesn�t stop him.
The room is cold, and it almost makes him smile, because he knows that she can�t sleep unless it�s cold enough to wear all the blankets. Her clothes from the trip are scattered across the extra bed, and he can see the remnants of her preparation for the night littering the room�an open lipstick on the bedside table, a brush beneath the mirror, a discarded jacket draped hastily over the chair.
She sinks down onto the bed and he sees the utter exhaustion in her eyes as she watches him pace around the room. Again he is at a loss, because he knows that she doesn�t want him to stay, but he can�t seem to bring himself to leave her here, alone with her grief in a stark hotel room.
He reaches out to the other bed and picks up her neatly folded pajamas. �You should�� he gestures at her uncomfortable clothes. �You�re wet,� he amends. They are the first words he�s spoken, and they hang awkwardly in the heavy silence of the room. But she nods in agreement, or maybe just numb compliance, and she rises wearily from the bed to take the pajamas from him and disappear into the bathroom.
He wanders to the window as he waits for her to emerge, and he studies the skyline. There is an untouchable beauty to the city as its lights sparkle in the falling rain, and somehow the horrors of the night seem to have happened in some other place, someplace distant and unconnected to this moment.
The bathroom door opens behind him and she pads out barefoot in her pajamas, suddenly looking younger than he has ever seen her. Even from across the room, he can see the tears that are just beginning to well up in her eyes, and he feels a tiny bit of relief, because they are her eyes again, and not nameless frozen eyes full of unreachable pain. She glances in his direction, but she doesn�t really look at him as she curls into the bed facing the door, tugging the blankets up around her without a word.
He hesitates, but then his concern gets the better of him and he perches on the other edge of the bed. He reaches towards her but pulls his hand away at the last second, instead asking, �do you need anything?� She shakes her head. �Okay, I�m going to go,� he says, even though there is still a part of him that is breaking at the thought of leaving her alone here with her tears. �Did you want me to leave the light on?� She shakes her head again, so as he stands to go he flicks off the light above the bed. He stands there a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness, and then he makes his way around the bed to the dimly outlined shadow of the door.
As he reaches for the handle, he hears her say his name, the word muffled against the pillow. He returns to the bed, this time sitting on her side, and he reaches out to lay a hand on her shoulder. �What is it?� he asks, and surprises himself with the gentleness in his voice.
�Stay?� she whispers, and it breaks his heart that it�s a question.
He doesn�t answer, just kicks off his shoes and slides under the covers, wrapping himself around her. He hears her breath catch, and then feels her body begin to shake with the force of her sobs. He discovers that he can still find no words for her, but it doesn�t seem to matter because she seems to find comfort in the warmth of him beside her and the slow brushing of his fingers through her hair.
She slowly drifts off to sleep, and he lies awake holding her, trying not to realize that in her dreams she feels another man�s arms around her.