Ugly Good Bad

Status
Not open for further replies.
The feeling of his lips on hers was everything she needed in that moment.

She had tried her best that day to forget the topic of mortality. She’d received word from Diaz’s father that his calling hours were to be held later that week and Eliza had to help pack up his desk. It was strange. Even when Eliza and Rhett had first started dating, there was no animosity. Diaz had always been happy for her, one of the few people who wanted nothing more than to see her genuinely happy, and he had sat content at arm’s length for so long. It felt like her fault that he was gone and it only ignited her worry over Rhett. They had no idea what was going to happen, but she knew the moment she found that watch that no matter what, whether she lost him or not – she needed him to know how she felt.

It was a morbid thought, but she believed with all of her heart that it was better to have loved and lost, and for the first time in her life she had a chance to spend every moment the way she wanted to spend it. And she wanted to spend every moment she could with him. So it only felt natural to give him her father’s watch. She would not let Rhett go a moment without knowing what he meant to her.

Fake marriage or not, spending the rest of her life beside him was a privilege she was thankful for every single moment of every single day.

“You’re welcome,” she breathed out, a smile brightening her tired features. What she did not anticipate was him reciprocating the movement to pull out a small box. Eliza could remember every gift she had ever been given. She remembered the most expensive gift too – a beat up old thing for a first car. She remembered looking at it wide eyed and believing that it was the most incredible thing she had ever seen. Linda had worked to help her grab it from some junkyard and her friends had helped her work on it for hours and hours on end, but when it was finished – she remembered the way her face lit up as she thanked Linda.

Beyond that, Eliza had only gotten a few pieces of jewelry in her life. A necklace from an ex-boyfriend, a bracelet or two for her birthday, but nothing extravagant. When she saw that ring in the box, Eliza felt like a deer in headlights. Not frightened, but just wide-eyed at the sight before her and her hands moved excruciatingly slow. She was never one to wear rings, but it was the most gorgeous ring she had ever seen. Just a simple little thing, White gold with a single diamond, but it glittered and gleamed in the light like nothing she had ever seen before. Sometimes it unnerved her to wear pretty things, knowing the unbecoming scars on her body, but she wanted nothing more in that moment than to put that ring on.

Well, maybe there was one other thing she wanted to do.

Eliza looked up at him with her catastrophically blue eyes and reached to pull him down to her in a warm, deep kiss. She had no idea how to process any of the emotions she was feeling, but a kiss seemed like a good breaking point. When they finally pulled away, she laughed gently and glanced up at him. “Well?” she raised an eyebrow expectantly in a tease, “Are you going to put it on my finger or what? It has to be bad luck for me to put it on myself.”
 
  • Love
Reactions: Nav
Buying jewelry, being given jewelry, it had never really happened to Rhett before. He had dated plenty, but even when he was with Sylvia, she would buy her own jewelry and just tell everyone Rhett had gotten it for her. You don’t know my tastes, she would explain, it’s just easier this way. Rhett had never complained because he never really had any interest in shopping for glitz and glam. It was just stuff that meant remarkably little to him, as he was always a man of simple means. The watch Eliza had just given him was by far the nicest thing he ever owned. The kiss she gave him seared his heart entirely, his free hand moving to the small of her back and splaying out so nudge her closer to himself.

“Alight, alright,” he chuckled gently, pulling the ring from the little velvet box and sliding it over her ring finger and letting it settle against her first knuckle. It was charmingly understated, something that probably wouldn’t be fawned over and gawked at by other women, but it would do the trick. “There you are,” he said with the tail-end of a smile, “You are… officially… an engaged woman. Now all we have to do is pray that Robinson and Sylvia take notice.”

That would be the hardest and scariest part… just waiting. They couldn’t do anything else; they just had to go about their daily lives, ignoring Robinson and Sylvia, like the only things left on their mind were their whirlwind romance and their future. It wasn’t as easy to ignore what was going on as he had first believed. The emergency responders had all been recalled, the rubble had been mostly cleared, and the investigation into the attacks had been ongoing but… but there was no official statement on who had done it, or why. American flags decorated every bannister, railing, and flagpole in the city like red, white, and blue threw-up. A surge in patriotism gripped the nation, especially New York City, and they had to ignore it.

Rhett smiled, relishing in the moment until he heard water sizzle and he squeaked, slipping out of Eliza’s embrace just in time to catch the boiling pot of noodles before it catastrophically boiled over. “Uhh, I made dinner!” he declared, temporarily setting the watch down so he could pull off the pot, turn off the burner, and begin to drain the liquid off.

“I hope pasta is OK. It’s all we have left really. I can go grocery shopping after—after my uh… my appointment tomorrow.”
 
  • Love
Reactions: Meraki
Eliza was about as low maintenance as they came. She knew how to dress herself to the nines and curl her hair, she could walk in heels and manage a smoky eye, but nothing about her was ever considered flashy. She was unmistakably beautiful with her icy blue eyes and dark features, but she was more apt to have her long waved locks tied up into a messy bun or ponytail and her eyes were often make-up-less for function at work. She never got her nails done and she didn’t mind cold showers after Rhett had managed to use all the hot water up, and she certainly did not mind pasta for dinner a few nights in a row. But looking down at that ring, she knew she wouldn’t have a problem keeping it on.

Ploy or not, she loved the way it looked on her finger.

“An engaged woman,” she laughed, “hell must have really frozen over, huh?”

If she knew anything about the boys at work, the reaction would be immediate. There was no way Robinson didn’t find out and through him, she was sure that Sylvia, too, would realize what was happening. It wouldn’t be hard to avoid Robinson, as she’d been doing it for months now, but she was sure that after a few days, he wouldn’t be able to resist approaching her. If she knew him, and she did, he would feel obligated to speak with her. The sizzling water jolted them both out of their thoughts and Eliza moved to pull out the colander for him to drain the pasta and laughed. “You did, you certainly made dinner,” she smiled and pressed a kiss to his cheek as she moved for the bottle of wine, “Thank you.”

When he mentioned the appointment, she almost dropped her glass. She remembered but it was the first time they’d spoken of it since the last time they were at the doctor’s office and she settled her wine glass down to pour a healthy glass. “What time is it at?” Eliza asked, “I can go in late, or I’ve got an hour for lunch that I can use whenever – just say the word and I’m there.”
 
  • Love
Reactions: Nav
“Yea, maybe-“ if hell had already frozen over, he couldn’t imagine what it would look like if and when Sylvia became president. He decided not to think about it and instead reached over to pluck the colander from Eliza’s hand so he could drain off the pasta. He mixed in the store-bought sauce, sprinkled on some cheese, and called it good. It wasn’t special, but it was a cheap meal he had managed to wrangle up with what little they had left in the house… admittedly, that wasn’t much. He had already taken the next day off from work and with only a doctor’s appointment to attend, he knew he could do some shopping.

He felt like he would need it, anyways. Nothing was soothing quite like pushing a cart up and down a dozen aisles, looking at an endless bounty of pre-packaged food items. Filling up two bowls and shoving a fork in them both, he handed one off to Eliza before taking up a glass of wine himself and going to settle in on the couch. He probably should have eaten at the dining room table, but life was short and he wanted to sit on the couch because it was warmer and cozier. So, he sat on the couch.

“Hm? Oh…” he had attempted not to bring up his appointments because it was something he didn’t want to talk about. At work, he had been more fidgety than normal, but he had managed to stay calm at home for Eliza by self-medicating with a glass or two of wine. He couldn’t keep on ignoring his looming appointment though, and he didn’t want to. He hadn’t discussed it for Eliza’s sake, but more than anything, he just wanted to know. Know if he had to make further arrangements, know if he had to be admitted to a hospital, know, know, know. He had been so preoccupied with his health, even math seemed hard. For once, his brain wasn’t calculating everything is could… probably because it was too preoccupied with worry.

“Yea, my appointment is at one,” he said, stabbing some of the pasta noodles and shoving them into his mouth. He was hungier than he thought he was, but he couldn’t decide if he was actually hungry or just needed an excuse to keep himself busy. “It’ll just be nice to finally know, I guess.” Though if he came back with a positive test result, he wasn’t even sure what he’d do. How did one begin to even cope with something like that? Of course, if the scan came back clean, that didn’t mean he was healthy. He still had his migraines to figure out and more importantly—what was causing them.

“If you want to take lunch, you can meet me there. It’s not far from the station. I don’t know how long it’ll take, but you can stay as long as you are able to.”
 
  • Love
Reactions: Meraki
“I’ll definitely be there.”

It was really all she could do at this point. Eliza wasn’t a doctor or a miracle worker, but she was fiercely loyal and reliable. Even if it hadn’t been around her lunch break, she would have found a way to be there. How long it took didn’t matter because tomorrow when she dropped the engagement bomb on the precinct, she was sure that Dawson would be more than accommodating to her request. He was the one, after all, to tell her time and time again that she spent too much damn time working. She had accumulated an insane amount of PTO anyway and did not mind using it when she needed to now. Especially if it was for Rhett.

Hey,” she said finally after a moment. She moved to sit next o him and put a hand on his knee. Eliza was not always the best at knowing when and how to console people, but she knew in that moment the stress Rhett had to be feeling. “At least once we know, we can figure out what to do,” she offered, “and how to help you. Whatever it is, Rhett, you don’t deserve to feel that kind of pain from a migraine. You know, ever since I met you? Every time you talk about your brain you mention your parents and all the people who didn’t understand and how hard it’s been trying to figure out how to deal with it.”

“But maybe it just deserves a little love and affection,” she spoke gently, her words genuine as she knew what she was saying was entirely true. He had done it for her and her scars – for so long they hurt and haunted her, but all it took was stepping back and really taking a good look at them for Eliza to realize what she actually needed wasn’t to deal with her scars, it was to figure out how they fit into her existence. They were a show of survival not a sign of weakness. It took her a long time to figure that out, but it was Rhett who pushed her to take a deeper look at herself even when it was terrifying. “Stepping back and taking a look at what’s causing all this is terrifying, but it’s good, Rhett.”

“There’s a lot of awful things running through your mind, I know,” she reassured him, “but think about what happens if those tests come back and it’s something entirely treatable. Could you imagine that? A life where you can manage everything and not have to feel that kind of crippling pain?”
 
  • Love
Reactions: Nav
“I’m trying to not get my hopes too far up, as well as trying not to be too worried.” The scenario she presented—it being something and easily treatable—was an alluring idea, but he didn’t want his imagination to get the better of him. All the while, he had tried to remain completely neutral about what was happening. He could not predict what the doctors would or would not find at his appointment, so he wasn’t allowing himself to sway too far one direction or the other as it would make the news all the harder to bear if it ended up being bad.

He had no answers so all he could do was try not to think about the outcomes and cross bridges as he… as they arrived to them. Whatever the diagnosis the next day, he couldn’t control the fates. As frustrating as it was, Rhett had never felt so useless. Since ending his dependency on medication, he had always treated life as something that was meant to be worked for… that, so long as he kept working hard, doing whatever he could, something good would come of it. A cancer diagnosis… even one that hadn’t been confirmed… had changed all that. There was nothing he could do about it. No amount of hard work would prevent it. No amount of hard work would treat it. He had lived his entire life under the notion that persistence was everything but, suddenly, it meant nothing.

That was the hardest pill of all to swallow.

With a small smile, he tried to assure her that he was fine. “Thank you.” He knew consoling wasn’t her best skill, and certainly not her favorite thing to do, but he appreciated her efforts all the same. It meant a great deal to him to hear her trying to cheer him on, to be the optimism for them both. It helped improve his mood, but it didn’t really help improve his worry. Despite trying to remain neutral, he could feel the discomfort bubbling away deep in his guts. He was nervous; he was very nervous. No part of Rhett was ready to die; no part of Rhett was ready to fight for his life against his own body.

“I guess we’ll both find out for sure tomorrow, right? For now, all I can do is wait.” He wanted time to hurry up so he could get it over and done with. If he only knew… but he couldn’t. Time didn’t operate based on his demands and whims. “You are very supportive, Eliza, and I appreciate it immensely.”
 
  • Love
Reactions: Meraki
“Yeah, tomorrow,” Eliza hummed, moving to take a sip of her wine to help ease the tension in her shoulders. It did not seem fair that in the midst of all this the world had to throw this at Rhett, but she also knew that it was not in her right to be upset. Rhett was the one who had to hear the diagnosis, he was the one who had to live with it, and she would be supportive the whole way – no matter what was wrong. She just wished she could be more or do more for him and it endlessly frustrated her. All she could be was another body, someone who didn’t know what to stay, but knew how to stay through hell.

No matter what that diagnosis brought, Eliza would stay with him, because he was the only person she had ever loved like this. No one would ever compare.

“I wish I could do more,” she admitted, “help make it easier.”

She sat on the couch and sunk down next to him, her head on his shoulder. Ring or not, engagement or not, she would be there for Rhett through sickness and in health, no matter what, but she wished it didn’t have to be that way. She wished that they could just have a simple life – but she knew that wasn’t in the cards for them. Even at their core – they were an attorney and a detective – those lifestyles were filled with events and stress. They both endured quite a bit at the hand of their respective jobs and they were both people who needed to help people, so their lives would never really be easy. But they didn’t deserve this.

Rhett didn’t deserve to worry about whether he had brain cancer.

“Well, at least we have tonight, this bottle of wine and each other.”
 
  • Love
Reactions: Nav
“And who can complain about that? I have wine and good company.”

He gave a pleasant smile, kicking his feet up on the coffee table as he looked down at his glass of wine that had been nearly half-way diminished. He hadn’t realize how much he had drank, but he supposed it was easier to become a little inebriate than keep stewing over the next day. There was nothing more he could do about it but wait and hope for good news but prepare for the bad. Whatever came, they’d deal with it because he knew in his heart of hearts that even though their engagement was a little bit of a sham, Eliza wouldn’t leave his side. That just wasn’t the type of woman she was.

“Plus, you do plenty,” he said, squishing deeper into his seat, “More than you can know or understand. Mmm,” he rolled his head to the side and glanced over in her direction, giving a tired and lame smile. “Did you know you have about two-hundred and seventeen eyelashes on your upper eyelid? You have a higher density of eyelashes than most women do.” How he knew such a factoid was anyone’s guess, but he paid attention to those little things.

He didn’t have the charisma or the money to win Eliza’s love through grand gestures of affection—flowers, rings, jewelry, cruises, fine dinners… and for a while, he had felt bad about it and himself over it. More than anything, he wanted to give her everything and anything, but after a while, he realized that she didn’t need those things. Sometimes, he wondered if she would even want them if he could give them to her, but what he did realize was that he could give her something much better than things money could buy… he could give her consistency.

He could greet her in the morning before checking his phone. He could remember not only to pick up wine when he went to the grocery store, but to pick up brands he remembered she enjoyed. He could do a lot of things money couldn’t buy, like counting eyelashes without having to ever focus on it. Sipping his wine again, Rhett just shrugged. “Maybe that’s weird, sorry,” he said with a small laugh, “I can’t help it. I just look and see numbers everywhere.”
 
“Two-hundred and seventeen, huh?”


She hummed in contentment when he made mention of the mathematical composition of her face. Sometimes she wondered if he saw her like that, too. Just a big jumble of numbers that all combined to uniquely make up Eliza. It was something that she found endlessly fascinating about him, and it was equally satisfying to understand the number behind things she had heard her whole life. “Linda used to tell me that I had really thick eyelashes, that’s why she always yelled at me for wearing too much make-up,” Eliza smiled lazily, “she said that girls would kill to have natural lashes like mine. All two-hundred and seventeen of them.”


It was the most comforting thing about Rhett, he was always there. She never had to deduce his intentions or try to figure out his motives, instead he was just there for her. He made observations and remembered the little things, never once pushing her or making her believe she was on her own. She had come to love the little moments he shared with her what was going on in his mind. It felt like a privilege to have that little window into his mind and she was endlessly thankful for it.


“I like it. You see the world so much differently than I do,” she admitted tenderly, “I like the privilege of seeing into your mind, even for a second.”


He was the one person she was never really able to crack. Her detective skills helped her read people immediately but Rhett was so much more difficult. It was always a new experience with him, a new perspective, and she knew that being beside him made her better in every way possible.
 
  • Love
Reactions: Nav
“Hm,” he chuckled, “Linda seems to have been all over your case growing up, huh? Good, you probably needed it.” He playfully nudged her thigh with his toe, brimming with a silly grin before he swallowed it all down with the last of his wine. His glass was returned to the coffee table and he sunk back comfortably into the plush surface. The inebriation, barely noticeable, but just enough to make him feel delightfully pleasant. It took away a corner of the stress, allowing him to finally relax just a smidge.

He wondered how many times he had heard that exact phrase ‘you see the world differently’ and how few times he had hear it in any positive light. Yet, hearing it come from Eliza immediately filled his chest with beaming pride. “I do,” he agreed, knowing that Eliza admired it, not condemned it, “But so do you. Maybe it’s not the same way I do, but you see the world differently, too. You are an interesting woman, Eliza Madison. If you ever want to know something, all you have to do is ask. I don’t usually talk about things much because by the time it would occur to me to say something, my thoughts are already on five different topics.”

Sitting up, Rhett leaned over the couch, pressing a kiss to her cheek and letting his lips linger against the soft temptation that was her skin. For one moment since he had gone to the doctor’s office nearly a week ago, he finally wasn’t thinking about his next appointment. He was thinking about his lips, her skin, and their soft touches.

“So, you’re going to drop the engagement bombshell tomorrow, are you?” he asked, glancing down at the soft glimmer of a ring that encased her finger before trailing his glance up to the watch she had given him sitting readily on the counter, just waiting to be worn. “I kind of wish I could be a fly on the wall, just to see what everyone would say about it.”
 
  • Love
Reactions: Meraki
“Linda was plenty on my case, don’t you worry,” Eliza laughed as he nudged her, “but I definitely needed it. Someone had to put up with my bullshit eventually.”

Between the boys she snuck in, the late nights out in the worst parts of the city, and Eliza’s early-age desire to start drinking, Linda had plenty to deal with. It was funny because Eliza had been molded and shaped by the broken system she was in, but Linda never saw it as a challenge. She just saw Eliza as a child who needed love and guidance. While she couldn’t protect Eliza from everything, she did her damnedest to make her happy when she had her. Even when she didn’t, she managed small gifts and little letters to remind her that she had a home somewhere if she ever needed it. Eliza appreciated it immensely, especially as she got older, but she came to find that the type of “home” she wanted wasn’t one that Linda could just give her.

It was one she wanted to make for herself. With someone else.

“I’ve been called many things in my life,” she admitted with a smile as he pressed a lingering kiss against her cheek. She almost lost her train of thought at the touch, but she managed to grab the tail end of it. “But I’m not sure interesting has ever been one of them.” It was intended to be a joke, but she also knew that when Rhett called her interesting, he meant it. While she could and probably would never see it, she trusted him enough to know that he saw it there. He didn’t just make it up to appease her, that wasn’t who he was. He genuinely thought she was interesting. “But I’ll keep that in mind, I just never want to be invasive, y’know? I know what its like for someone to push when the last thing you want is for them to push.”

She was mesmerized by the feeling of him beside her, close enough that she could begin to trace her fingers over his hand, trailing up his arm and shoulders until she could run her fingers through his tousled hair. There was just something entirely mesmerizing about him, especially now in the low light of early evening, with a few glasses of wine between them and nothing to do but enjoy one another. She let her lips broaden into a wide smile as she let out an amused laugh, “Oh yeah, it’ll be something all right. I’ll never live it down so long as I walk this earth, that’s for sure.”

“I may have said something once upon a time on top of a bar about living out my days as a fierce bachelorette, but I swear their was tequila involved after a long shift,” she laughed, “It’s strange to think how much has changed since then. Every time I think I know everything, the world throws me for a loop. I would’ve never thought back then that I would have found you – fake engagement or not. I’d all but given up on trying to be happy in this lifetime, until you walked into my office.”
 
  • Love
Reactions: Nav
“We’ve both been called a lot of things in life, Eliza,” he reminded her gently, “But that’s just because we hadn’t met the right person yet to appreciate our collective weirdness.” He chuckled as she continued on, commenting on his engagement conversation. His cheek tucked in against her hand, his eyes opening as he looked back at her gaze. Their eyes were both so blue, but differently so. It amazed him because, while smart, he had never been particularly artistic—he never knew that such different tones of the same colour could exist. Completely different, yet entirely the same.

“You’ll never live down being engaged? Or you’ll never live down being engaged to a guy like me?” Rhett wasn’t an idiot, everyone knew that. He had seen Diaz—the guy Eliza had sort of, kind of been with before him. Rhett was nothing like the chiseled, god-like physique that had been Diaz. Diaz oozed handsome masculinity with his shiny badge and perfectly straight teeth… Rhett had always wondered if, whenever he smiled, there was a small sparkle that lit up the side of his mouth like those Disney princes.

Not one to compare himself to others, Rhett knew his worth, especially to Eliza… but he also was aware that not all police officers, especially male officers, thought the same way he did. Leaning forward even further, he shifted his weight on to his hands so he could meet Eliza and press a kiss lovingly to her lips. There was just something about kissing her that was so unreal. It burned all the way through him in the warmest of ways. If his life were to end with a cancer diagnosis, he knew he could regret nothing, not when he had been blessed in a million other ways with Eliza in his life.

“You were pretty unhappy when I walked into your office the first time,” he reminded her with a sly smirk, their lips still brushing against one another as they spoke. “You were extremely upset. Truthfully, I thought you were trying to have me sued, disbarred, or investigated.” Things had changed so quickly after their first meeting—his apartment being robbed, his apartment being started on fire, getting kidnapped, the explosion. Now, Eliza was moved in with him… hell, she was engaged to him, real or not.

“You are just too good to me,” he concluded finally, pressing one more kiss to her lips, letting his inhibitions slip away with the wine buzz he had ongoing. “Too, too good.”
 
  • Love
Reactions: Meraki
“Maybe a bit of both,” Eliza laughed gently as he leaned in and pressed another kiss to her lips, every part of them moving together slowly as if they were magnetized. “But to hell with them.”

She had dated really masculine, powerful men in the past. It seemed that she had always wanted someone to challenge her and all she found was man after man who was intimidated by her strength. Eliza had to grow up with her fists at the ready, scrappy and bruised, and it made her tough. But at the same time, she had been so incredibly damaged for so long that the right touch to the right place shattered her. There were so many time as a teenager or young adult that she was with a boy and he would touch the wrong scar or ask the wrong question and she would freeze like a deer in headlights. She was a complicated person to navigate, but Rhett was brilliant beyond measure and with careful, compassionate attention he had managed to unwind all the tension from her shoulders and bring her back to life.

To be honest, she saw so much more strength in that than any muscle head could have. It also helped that he was handsome and those blue eyes always managed to coax the world out of her without a single word.

“To be fair, I was pretty unhappy overall,” she added, his lips still only mere centimeters from hers as they spoke, “but I’ve found that nothing worth having in life ever starts off particularly easy. I—“

He pressed another kiss to her lips and she knew she didn’t need to explain how she felt. He knew with every single curve of her body, every slow kiss, every stolen touch or longing glance how much she cared for him, so she set her wine glass down and let them do the talking. She entangled both of her hands in his hair and pulled him to her, not desperately, but almost agonizingly slow as she kept his lips captured in a deep kiss. She only pulled away long enough to breathe, “What was it we were talking about again?” she smirked.
 
  • Love
Reactions: Nav
“Eliza Madison not caring what her police officer buddies think? I never thought I’d see the day,” his words were soft, tender, and lightly teasing, his eyes open just a crack and glimmering with slight amusement.

She was a proud woman, and rightfully so. She spent a lot of time trying to prove herself in the boy’s club and had done so very well, but he hadn’t been expecting her to not be even the slightest bit bothered by her new marital status. He supposed that compared to everything that was happening with the city, Sylvia, and Robinson—being teased for being a woman by a few male police officers paled in comparison. Though she might have just explained it away as something that had always been inside of her, Rhett wasn’t so sure. A great deal of Eliza had evolved in the past few months and not by Rhett doing. She had matured from an itchy-fingered, fist-curled young cop in to a thoughtful, long-range thinker who was insightful and less rash.

Seeing all these changes in his mate, Rhett wondered if he, too, had changed. He supposed he had. He wasn’t on medication anymore and while he still lost the reins on his mind from time to time, he was surprised how well he had kept himself in check. It had gotten easier, too. He didn’t feel like he was on the brink of some abyss all the time anymore. He didn’t fear losing control of his mind. The numbers would always be there, but his internal calculations were more leisurely than a painstaking way to try and grip rheostat of his thoughts.

And his thoughts finally turned off, sometimes. They turned off when he felt her lips against his. His hands work their way around her body, feeling each crevasse, each line along her perfect physique. He lied back, bringing her with him as he went, letting every thought be obliterated. If he was diagnosed tomorrow, he wouldn’t care, not when he was so abruptly locked in the present.

Their kisses stole the words neither of them needed to say. In that silence, all of their secrets were laid bare, all of their passions and the spark of love existed between them. In that moment, in her love, he was strong. One kiss and he had the courage to face whatever the doctor would bring.
 
  • Love
Reactions: Meraki
Rhett and Eliza fell together in a tangle on the couch that night. It amazed her every time the strength of their love and how it radiated through her like a salve. Nothing in her could possibly ache with Rhett beside her, the feeling of him against her skin the greatest medication to ease her tired soul. The next morning they woke in a tangle and she pressed loving kisses along his collarbone and hairline, until she stole a few from his lips. They were sleepy, exhausted kisses, but it was hard for her to be filled with the same worry that she had been. Every time she worried about the future, Rhett reminded her how they were strong enough to take on anything together.

The world wasn’t so dark when they were together.

“I’ll see you later, okay?” Eliza kissed him against, ensuring the ring was still on her finger and she was dressed for work, “I love you so much, Rhett.”

She was off to work at near sunrise, pulling her jacket a little less close than usual as the winter started to let up. Soon enough, spring would be upon them and with the change of seasons would come a chance in the world around them. She was worried, sure, but today marked the first day of the only plan her and Rhett had ever felt confident in. Eliza walked into the precinct and peeled her jacket off, making her way through the bullpen to toss her jacket off in her office before heading for coffee outside of Dawson’s office.

That’s when she heard it for the first time.

“Fucking hell,” Jackson said from beside her, “Madison, is that a ring I see?!”

She glanced up at him, but before she could even respond, all the other men in the bullpen hooted and hollered, each coming over to circle around her and get a closer look. “Damn Madison! What happened to bachelorette forever?”

“Same thing that happened to your bachelor plan,” Eliza shot back with a smile, “How are Tiffany and the baby?” Jackson rolled his eyes and clapped her on the back. “Congrats, Madison. Wolfhart’s a lucky guy. It is Wolfhart isn’t it?”

“Of course it’s him, you idiot,” Eliza shoved him playfully.

It wasn’t long before Dawson came out of his office and eyed her carefully. “Madison!” he called out and she peeked up over the crowd, “My office, now.”

“Yes, sir.”

Once the door was shut, he leaned against his desk and looked up at her. “Engaged, huh? Seems like you did quite a bit with your medical leave.”

“Yeah took me a bit by surprise,” Eliza admitted, “but with everything that’s happening, it just – life’s too short, right? If something were to ever happen –“

“I get it. In this line of work, the hardest thing in the world is to know there’s someone back at home worrying, but you need it. You can’t see death every day and let yourself forget to live a little. I’m happy for you both. I’m a little surprised Wolfhart popped the question. Kid’s got more balls than I thought. But any man who loves you enough to propose even though you could break his arm is a good guy in my book. He’s got my approval.”

“I’ll, uh, pass that on, sir,” Eliza chuckled.

“You set a date yet?”

“Uh, no,” Eliza raised an eyebrow, “Was I supposed to?”

Dawson shrugged, “My wife’s a micromanager and had the date set before we got engaged. I’m not the best person to ask. I’ll shoot her your way, though, if you need any help.”

“Thanks, I really appreciate it, Captain.”

“Good,” he smiled tenderly, “Now get out of my office.”

At lunch, Dawson was more than willing to let newly engaged Eliza out for a break with Rhett. He was right, the doctor’s office wasn’t far from her precinct and she made it there quickly and right on time. Once she stepped into the lobby, and smiled at the sight of him. She knew it wasn’t the best circumstance, but all that talk about their love and their engagement had made her physically miss him all day. It was strange. She wasn’t used to discussing her relationship in public, but when she did she found herself wishing he was by her side to share in it. “Hi there, fiancé,” Eliza pressed a kiss to his lips, “Did I miss anything?”
 
  • Love
Reactions: Nav
The future was always something he had worried about. He wasn’t sure if it was because of his young mind and lack of maturity, but he had never really given thought to all the time that enclosed his life into a small speck in a grander timeline. He had believed once he had so much time. So much time that he let it slide through his fingers like worthless pennies, like water down the drain in a tub. And when he was finally sitting in the lobby of the specialty clinic, waiting for his name to be called, he realized how much of it he had spent wasting. Rhett finally realized that for many, today would be their last tomorrow.

Exhaling softly, he kept his fingers laced in his lap, looking formal and straight-ahead. He wasn’t really looking at anything except the cream colored wall adjacent from him, but he was thinking quite deeply. So deeply he didn’t even glance over when the bell above the door jingled and Eliza stepped in. It wasn’t until she came up and smacked a kiss against his lips, greeting him warmly, did he blink and stir. He straightened his posture, looking over to her and smiling stiffly. “Hey,” he replied, “No, not really—just waiting for now. How was work?”

Rhett had taken the day off from the office but wish he hadn’t. He had spent the entirety of his morning squirreling uncomfortably around the apartment. He tried to clean, but he couldn’t focus on one task long enough to do much of anything. The rest of the morning had been separated equally between pacing the living room, checking his outfit in the mirror (what did one wear to such a life-changing event?), and sitting down before standing quickly back up from the couch. It had been an agonizing morning—the longest one he had ever experienced, funny, considering he had spent his waiting time contemplating how much of his life up to that point he had wasted on people who didn’t appreciate him… drugs… trying to find answers to problems that didn’t have answers.

“How did the engagement announcement go?” he switched his eyes to her left hand, noting the ring was still on her finger. It always surprised him to see it—perhaps because he had never anticipated asking her to marry him in the first place, at least not at the given moment.

Before she would have even had time to answer, a nurse poked her head out from the back offices and exam rooms. “Rhett Wolfhart?” she called.

“Well, tell me afterwards, I guess.”
 
  • Love
Reactions: Meraki
“It was—“

Just as Eliza opened her mouth to speak, the nurse came out and suddenly all desire to talk about her day slipped from her mind. She tried to remind herself that no matter what happened, knowing was better than not knowing. So long as they knew what was going on, they could do something to help him. She would spend the next eternity talking to doctors and seeking out specialists and holding his hand through each step if she had to. Whatever Rhett needed from her, she would do. He knew that, though. He knew the length to which she would go to protect him, to care for him and love him. Hell, she had never had anyone in her life like Rhett and she would not lose him.

Maybe she was skittish and overthought relationships, but if there was one thing she could say with confidence, it was that Rhett knew how much she loved him. In the same way that she knew he loved her with everything he had.

“Later,” she agreed and kept her hand in his, the one now adorned with a simple diamond. She squeezed it gently and followed into the office behind him.

They were led back to the same little room and she took a seat in the same little chair she had. The entire place was starting to become eerily familiar with the odd art on the wall and the disinfected smell. It burned her nostrils. Eliza hated hospitals, but doctor’s offices were still bad too. They definitely were not places she wanted be. She hated being in the hospital all those weeks. She had begged Rhett over and over to take her home, or anywhere, to ease the discomfort she felt. Of course, he delivered, and having him there made this easier for her.

She would not leave his side, unless they asked him to go, but she would remain and wait because that’s all she could do now. Stay and wait.
 
  • Love
Reactions: Nav
Was there anything worse than waiting? Rhett seriously doubted it. A million numbers, a million what-ifs. They sat alone, just the two of them, in the doctor’s office… waiting. The room felt hot, even though it probably wasn’t. Rhett curled his fingers around his knees, sitting on the seat next to Eliza and just staring off at the opposite wall as his brain continued to rip through a million different possibilities: cancer, not cancer, a tumor, not a tumor. He had been so lost in constructing scenarios for the news that he was surprised to hear the knock on the door and to watch the slim, white-coat woman slid in.

“Hello, Rhett,” she greeted him in a feigned friendly manner, trying to sound more welcoming and personable by using his first name. She took a seat and Rhett’s eyes, a darker shade of blue than they had ever been before, followed. His brain felt full of static like an old television set that had lost its signal. He stopped breathing for a moment. Part of him was screaming to turn around and run out of the office, pretending none of this had ever happened, but he knew the answer to his future was with the woman in the white coat… his future, Eliza’s future, their future together. Desperately, Rhett darted his hand over and grabbed Eliza’s. It wasn’t a sweet, caressing touch, but almost abrasive in a way and completely desperate.

“How are you today?” the doctor asked, logging into her computer and pulling up what he could only imagine was his file. He wanted to snort at her: How do you think I’m feeling? but he didn’t. He smiled politely with his court-room face.

“Fine, thanks. Eager to get this over with.”

“I’m sure you are, I’m just going to take a few vitals and we’ll take you down for the scan, alright?”

The woman took his blood pressure, his pulse, his heart rate. She looked in his ears and his eyes, all while asking him trivial, meaningless small-talk questions: See the game? How about the weather huh? Have a nice holiday? No. It’s fine. I guess. Fifty-seven. Seventy-two. One-hundred-fifteen. It took about fifteen minutes until the doctor had reached for the door. “I’ll lead you down and we’ll get the scan done. You can wait here, Mrs. Wolfhart,” she said, not missing a beat. She must have seen the ring on Eliza’s finger. “We can’t have too many people in the x-ray room or it can cause malfunctions or poor readings. It’s also dangerous to a woman’s health if they’re… pregnant, or thinking to become.”

His chart must have said he was single—it had been true last time he had seen the doctor, so Rhett understood why she had assumed they were pregnant or going to be trying, likely being newly married in her eyes. Rhett didn’t correct her.

“Thanks,” he replied and stood, turning around and pressing a quick peck to Eliza’s lips, “I’ll be back in a few minutes, I guess.” Life was made up of that, recently: I'll be back soon.
 
  • Love
Reactions: Meraki
“See you in a couple minutes.”

Eliza smiled as warmly as she could manage though her heart beat painfully in her chest. The feeling of his hand clutched in hers was still hot on her skin and she rubbed her palm against her jeans to try and ebb the discomfort. There was a lot running through her head, even more to process, and she couldn’t imagine how Rhett did it all the time – calculated every single damn unknown in the universe. The doctor left with him and she just watched the door handle. There wasn’t anything else to take her attention. All she could do was wait for him to get back and for them to read his results.

She wished she had told the doctor to fuck off and that she wasn’t any kind of pregnant and wasn’t leaving him, but she had ushered him off so fast that she couldn’t find it in herself to call out. It wasn’t enough for her to just be there, she wanted to help, to offer him some comfort, but instead she just said there alone in the little room that made her skin crawl and fiddled with her engagement ring. It was funny how quickly habits changed. Only a few days ago, Eliza would run her hands though her hair when flustered, but her ring was so much closer and it just slipped around her skin in a fluid motion that was somewhat soothing.

Everything in her tried to stay away from the dark thoughts of what would happen if she were to lose Rhett, but she couldn’t help it. She knew what would happen. Without Rhett, Eliza was alone and once she was alone, she would be fighting this battle against Sylvia and Robinson alone. She couldn’t let it go, not when there were so many people at risk, but she wanted him by her side. She wanted to figure out what a future could be with another person. She wasn’t done growing yet, changing, and she wanted to change. She wanted to be better for him – a better cop, a better woman, a better human, a better wife. Hell, she already basically was one.

As much as she didn’t want to do things solely because of a diagnosis, she wondered if Rhett would, in fact, marry her. Just at the courthouse, a little ceremony between the two of them, and they would let her into his hospital room. She would have real, legal right to stay with him through all of it, and that’s what she wanted. No matter what the outcome, she wanted him to know she would always be there. No matter what it took.

Even if that meant staring at a doorknob, waiting for it to turn.
 
  • Love
Reactions: Nav
Rhett had gotten head scans before. After his motorcycle accident, he had gone through several in a short amount of time because his doctors and surgeons had been afraid he was going to have internal bleeding. His brain had betrayed him in a great number of ways, but that had turned out to not be one of them. Several years later, he had gotten another scan after taking a baseball bat to the head playing intermural sports in law school (he always hated sports). Then, there was the most recent time. He knew exactly what to do… lie perfectly still, close your eyes, and don’t move. Don’t even breathe. He was pretty sure he couldn’t breathe even if he wanted to. Though there was no weight on his chest as the giant, circular magnets of the machine whirred around him, it felt as though an immense pressure weighed on him.

“We’re done.” The doctor concluded and the machine around him turned off. He was helped out and back on to his feet. He quietly slipped his shoes on again and reached for his coat, tossed aside on the nearby coat hanger.

“It will take a few moments for the images to develop,” she explained, all the while leading him out of the small scan room and back towards the doctor’s office where Eliza was waiting. “Once we get the images back, we’ll discuss them… discuss options,” she paused a moment, “If we need to.”

Rhett could only nod and give a soft smile that was entirely hollow. “Thanks,” he said as they reached the door and the doctor continued on down the hall, leaving him to greet Eliza on his own. Swinging into the room, he shut the door quietly behind him and smiled with a bit more earnest this time. “Hi,” he said, coming back towards Eliza and sitting down on his seat next to her, “It’ll be a few minutes for the doctor to develop the images,” he explained, “Then we’ll know.” He just needed to know. He needed to figure out what in life was going to important, because when it came down to a diagnosis like that, he couldn’t imagine anything else in life being important except making sure he left something good behind.

He wouldn’t be able to fight against Sylvia or Robinson. He just wouldn’t be in the state of mind. Shakily, he exhaled and waited. He didn’t say a thing as they waited; there wasn’t anything to say.

Finally, the door jingled and in stepped the doctor. She was emptyhanded. “So, the scanning procedure we just did gives us a 3D model of what’s going on inside your head,” she explained, sitting down and pulling up the files on her computer. The black and grey images were still rendering, but the shapes of Rhett’s brain were there.

“Everything here is actually looking pretty good,” the doctor explained, fiddling with the image and swinging it around to look at all layers and angles, “The abnormalities we picked up here look like a tightly woven cluster of blood vessels. Unusual, but mostly harmless.”

It didn’t solve his migraine dilemma, but Rhett collapsed back into the chair as a wave of sweet relief washed through him entirely.

He was going to be just fine.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.