disclaimer: no, they're not mine

disclaimer: no, they're not mine. too bad. the title is from edgar allan poe's "Annabel Lee." the lyric snippet is from billy joel's song "This Is the Time."

rating: T

spoilers: none so far as i can see.

summary: "I'm not over you," she says.

pairing: Mac/Stella

note: i haven't written in a long time, so i'm rather insecure about this one. the italic parts are obviously flashbacks. feedback would be nice.

in this kingdom by the sea

We lived through a lifetime and the aftermath...

It's years and years later, after a period of being lost and found and lost again, and they're here. It's a chilly mid-March morning, and they walk side by side along the Jersey shore.

She kicks sand at him with intent, then stops behind him. He turns back slightly, but they don't quite look at each other.

Suddenly: "I'm not over you," she says. "I wish I were, but I just – you know. I'm really, really not. Over you."

He doesn't answer for a long time. She waits.

He chews his bottom lip – a nervous gesture of his – then says rather uncomfortably, "I – I don't really know what you want from me."

She laughs – loudly, to compensate for the silence, and the whole thing just sounds so desperate and so sad in her ears, but she's gotten used to that already.

"Yeah, I'm sorry," she offers, but she's not very apologetic about it at all. When he doesn't reply, she continues, her voice uncommonly frail, "I always wondered, you know."

"What?" he prods gently. "Always wondered what?"

She sighs very unlady-like: "Just things. Things that could have happened if we weren't so goddamn stubborn about, you know –" she pauses, searching for the right word, but shrugs lamely instead, and she has a feeling that he understands what she means all too well anyway. "I think what I always wondered most about was," and she doesn't finish the thought out loud.

"You were saying something." He takes a half-step toward her. "What were you about to say?"

She shrugs again. "I always wondered what it'd be like to see your stupid face again."

"And?"

Their gazes meet for the first time in years, and she smiles, but there is nothing except this quiet, chaotic ache. She looks away first, and the ocean swallows their awkward silence in its waves.

After a moment, she continues walking, and he follows a few steps behind her.

Then, she stops again, whirls around abruptly. Her mouth parts slightly, but no words form. He squints at her curiously and chews his lip again.

"I shouldn't have tried," she says.

"Tried. Tried what?"

"I don't know. Never mind." She laughs at herself. "I'm not making sense. Seriously. Don't listen to me. And don't try to read between the lines or anything because you always do that and it's annoying and seriously, there's nothing."

(She is a good five feet ahead of him by the time he realizes she's started walking again.)

They sit down on a bench, and she watches him brush sand from his pants.

I'm sorry, she thinks over and over again. I'm sorry I left. I'm sorry I never called you. I'm sorry I came back.

"I'm sorry – really, I am. I'm sorry I made you drive all the way down here. You're not a fan of beaches. I forgot."

"Yeah. You forgot." There's a faint twinkle in his eyes. "You just wanted to watch me flail."

She smiles, if only for a moment. "Guilty." A pause. "You don't remember, do you?"

(He studies her briefly, sizes her up.)

"I remember."

"Do you? 'Cause I don't think you do."

The Jersey Shore, Fourth of July, a Wednesday, and they were the only two sober.

He was her ex-boyfriend's roommate's brother's friend from Chicago. "Mac Taylor," he said, shaking her hand.

Fourth of July, a Wednesday, the Jersey Shore, and there was bland eighties music playing and love and lust and this silly thing called independence, and there was this gross inevitability about the whole thing; they drank warm beer to celebrate.

A Wednesday on the Jersey Shore, the Fourth of July, and they were alone, talking and not talking, drinking and not drinking, and it was loud and noisy, and everything was very red, white, and blue and so new in that very old way.

"Happy Saint Patrick's Day," she told him after the fireworks faded from the night. He raised an eyebrow at her, his beer bottle half-way to his lips.

The Jersey Shore on a Fourth of July that fell on an awkward Wednesday, and she was wishing him a Happy Saint Patrick's Day.

She shrugged. "I feel bad for the other holidays."

She knew he didn't know what the hell she was talking about, but he smiled like he had anyway, and that was all she ever needed to know about him.

"I remember," he reassures her. "It wasn't here though. It was farther down."

He waves an arm at an obscure spot down the length of the beach.

"Color me impressed. That was a long time ago."

She watches two seagulls fight over a candy wrapper in the sky and tries not to notice the steady gaze that's fixed on her. She closes her eyes, and her voice wavers just slightly as she says, "You're staring at me."

He doesn't look away until he feels the right words on his tongue.

"Why did you leave?" he asks, and she is more surprised than she wants to be when she hears the question. "One day, you just dropped everything and left. Why?"

"There were a lot of reasons."

"Well, I'm only asking about the truthful one."

She shakes her head: "I don't know what to tell you, Mac. I don't really know why I left."

He chuckles, and it sounds like bitterness and betrayal. "You're not a very good liar. Has anyone ever told you that?" A deliberate, calculated pause. "Because the Stella I know – or knew – doesn't do things without knowing why."

She glances over at him.

"Yeah? What makes you think you know me?"

(It's a slap in the face, and he takes it as such. It takes him a moment and a half to recover.)

"You're right," he says. "Maybe you've changed over the years. Maybe I don't know you at all. Maybe I never did."

She detects the hurt in his voice and swallows down the shame that chokes her. She doesn't answer.

"I think I deserve to know though – why you left," he continues. "After all this time, I think I deserve that much."

She gives in – a little: "I can't."

He squints, not understanding.

"You can't what?"

"I can't tell you." She sighs. "It just – I – It's just too painful, and I don't want to go back there. I can't. I just – I can't – I've spent too many nights crying and thinking and crying, and now, I've accepted that some things can't be changed."

They stood together in front of her apartment building a week after they met, and there was this:

He leaned in to kiss her.

And for a moment, she imagined what it would be like, imagined the dark taste of alcohol on his tongue, the solid touch of his hands, and – she turned her head away instead, just slightly, and she saw the raw hurt behind his eyes almost immediately.

"I'm sorry," she said softly, not looking at him.

He didn't answer.

"You're leaving tomorrow." She said it like an explanation. "I just – I can't. Not when – when you're leaving, going back to Chicago tomorrow morning." Her eyes were bright with uncried tears.

He bowed his head, his mouth close to her ear, and she felt his breath hot against her skin.

"I have no right to ask you to wait for me."

"You know I would," she whispered, and there was a subtle promise in her voice.

He half-smirked, but it was ironic and sad. "Yes. I do. Which is why I can't ask it of you."

He leans into her slightly.

"Can you tell me why you came back?"

"Because I was foolish enough to think I could. I don't know what I was thinking."

He smiles (because he doesn't believe her).

"Clever girl," he chides gently and uncharacteristically, "who are you fooling?"

She wishes she were able to answer that sufficiently, but she stands up instead and takes a few steps forward before letting the tears fall. She has never allowed herself to cry in front of him.

But he's there. He follows her.

"You're crying," he says.

"God, you really are detail-oriented, aren't you?" She laughs and shakes her head, trying to hide her face.

Next to her, he fumbles through his pockets, searching for tissues. He has none, and she laughs even harder at that because she knows how incredibly bad he is at this kind of thing. She wipes the tears away with her fingers.

"Are – are you –" he struggles. He chews his lip.

"Mac, it's okay. I'm fine."

She looks at him, and her make-up is smeared and her hair is in her eyes (and it doesn't occur to him for a second that she's anything less than beautiful).

"I'm sorry," he manages softly.

"For what?"

"I made you cry."

She sends him her best pointed look.

"Yeah, you wish, Mac Taylor."

He says nothing.

It's a long time before she speaks again, and when she does, her voice cracks.

"I left because – because I was tired of waiting."

"Waiting."

"Yeah. I was tired of waiting." A pregnant pause and more tears fall despite her effort (and he holds his breath). "For you. I was tired of waiting for you. And I was – I was tired of – of being around you all the time and – and not being with you. I was tired of you not seeing me."

"Not seeing you?"

She shrugs.

"Not being noticed. Girls like to be paid attention to, you know."

He nods a little.

"I was tired. I was tired of waiting, so I left. Because you gave your heart away a long time ago. And it wasn't to me."

"Stella –"

"And there was nothing I could do to change that. And it was wrong of me to want to. So I left."

He steps closer to her.

"But you came back. You're here now," he says.

She attempts a smile, but it doesn't reach her eyes.

He touches her hand lightly, and she almost jumps because it's the last thing she expects, and this – this person standing next to her isn't who she knows – isn't the Mac her logic has come to accept. His fingers curve around hers, but still, it's nothing more solid than a feathered caress.

"I used to think, too," he says.

Claire's ghost still haunts him. She knows this because Claire's ghost haunts her, too.

"And then, you left," he continues. "One day, something happened, and you just left."

(And maybe, he thinks, at the time, he was more afraid of loving her than he was afraid of losing her. Maybe it was less painful.)

There are words they say to each other, and there are words they should have said to each other, and still, there are words that are better left unsaid. Their lives are grounded upon such things, but here, standing on the edge of their world, she sighs.

"I've really missed you, Stel."

She looks at him quickly, surprised, and he leans in, his hands almost reaching up to touch her hair, and his lips brush against hers, but it's not quite a kiss.

Her eyes close, and the moment tastes like this thing, this thing that exists between them, this thing that is only a few words shy of something that could be worth a lifetime of waiting.

She steps back, and for the first time, she realizes that words have no place in this at all.

the end.
December 2005