Fic: Came Back To Me
Nov. 5th, 2014 08:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
s2309Title: Came Back To Me
Characters (Pairings): Diana Berrigan, Christie (Diana/Christie)
Rating: PG
Word Count: 761
Spoilers: Through to 4x05 - Honour Among Thieves
Disclaimer: White Collar is Jeff Eastin's brainchild. Not mine.
Summary: Diana can't help but feel like she needs to close a chapter and move on.
Author's Note: Panel One of the This Love triptych. An expansion of part of this commentfic, written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
percygranger. For the 'moving' square on my ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
hc_bingo card. Title from Taylor Swift's This Love.
Deciding to move was difficult.
Diana's lived in her little flat ever since she finally settled in New York. It was her first constant, the first thing in her life that stayed still and didn't get left behind because it wasn't portable.
She has a lot of memories there. At first it was just her, but then Theo left his mark too, damaging a few things that meant she had to fix things up before she left, and then realized that she'd left permanent marks of her own that needed to be erased. Marks on the walls, scrapes in the kitchen, a splash of wine on the ceiling (don't ask).
But, despite the fact that there is a school that's close enough to her place, she can't help but feel like she needs to close a chapter and move on. What chapter, she can't even begin to guess. But she wants to move, no, needs to, and maybe she empathizes with Neal just a little (she won't admit it), because she can't rest till she finds a new house and signs papers that give it to her.
Even so, this is going to be a hard place to leave behind.
She's shoving furniture around and wondering why she ever wanted to move (and how the hell Mozzie managed to snake his way into the decision-making) when there's a knock at the door, which happens to be standing wide open.
It's Christie.
"Hey," Diana says softly, not willing to believe it.
Christie makes her awkward way around boxes and hanging bubble wrap. They look at each other for a few minutes, testing the air.
Finally, she goes with, "I called Jones, he told me you moved. I dropped by the old house, but it's mostly ghost impressions on the walls."
"Yeah," Diana says. "It's a little scary. I keep expecting to see all my things around the place. And they're here instead."
Christie nods, looks around, bites words back.
"Hey," Diana says again, but it's not a greeting, more of a call, a sound of sympathy.
Christie shakes her head. "Nothing, it's... nothing."
They're interrupted by a sharp cry from the bedroom. Diana turns away, distracted. Christie looks more curious than anything.
"That'll be Theo..." Diana mutters, half-inaudible, then runs from the room.
She walks out with Theo in her arms, who's already done crying, and looks guiltily at Christie, who, for her part, is wearing a reasonably cheerful expression.
"You're not angry?"
Christie shakes her head. "Marriage and children are two very different things."
Diana cracks a smile.
Once Theo's asleep again, they sit on empty, surprisingly sturdy boxes, just talking for the longest time.
"You've moved on," Christie observes, not dispassionate, but not accusing either.
"Yeah."
Then they're quiet for a while, looking not quite at each other, till Christie leans over and touches Diana's lips with her own.
It's the briefest of kisses, barely there, but even so, they feel the love coming back, slowly, like luminous drips from a ball of solid light.
They don't rush it.
Christie doesn't quite know what she was thinking when she decided to get in touch with Diana again. She could have called before, but she and Diana rarely, if ever, discussed important things over the phone (except towards the end, they fought passive-aggressively over the phone, that was important).
She just wanted to talk.
Towards the end of their relationship, words had stopped meaning anything. I'm okay, I miss you, I love you, they said all the everyday platitudes, she analyzed them to death, did she mean it when she said come home soon? Did Diana mean it when she said we're all right? Words were messy, unpredictable, floating somewhere in space between them, in little impermeable bubbles, their meaning locked away forever.
Words had been their downfall.
And, for some strange reason, she'd wanted to talk. No, not talk. See her. Maybe, where words had failed them, simple, raw emotions would do.
They did, maybe, because now they're talking again, and their words are hitting the mark, drawing smiles and laughs and a touch of love and lots of kisses. Words are making sense again. They aren't writhing in midair, turning themselves into something they weren't, just to tell them both, This isn't working. Hi is as soft and welcoming as it should be, home isn't that place where they come together to fight like gladiators, no is a full stop, not a challenge.
Words are coming back to their meanings.
Maybe they're coming back together too.
Characters (Pairings): Diana Berrigan, Christie (Diana/Christie)
Rating: PG
Word Count: 761
Spoilers: Through to 4x05 - Honour Among Thieves
Disclaimer: White Collar is Jeff Eastin's brainchild. Not mine.
Summary: Diana can't help but feel like she needs to close a chapter and move on.
Author's Note: Panel One of the This Love triptych. An expansion of part of this commentfic, written for
percygranger. For the 'moving' square on my hc_bingo card. Title from Taylor Swift's This Love.Deciding to move was difficult.
Diana's lived in her little flat ever since she finally settled in New York. It was her first constant, the first thing in her life that stayed still and didn't get left behind because it wasn't portable.
She has a lot of memories there. At first it was just her, but then Theo left his mark too, damaging a few things that meant she had to fix things up before she left, and then realized that she'd left permanent marks of her own that needed to be erased. Marks on the walls, scrapes in the kitchen, a splash of wine on the ceiling (don't ask).
But, despite the fact that there is a school that's close enough to her place, she can't help but feel like she needs to close a chapter and move on. What chapter, she can't even begin to guess. But she wants to move, no, needs to, and maybe she empathizes with Neal just a little (she won't admit it), because she can't rest till she finds a new house and signs papers that give it to her.
Even so, this is going to be a hard place to leave behind.
-:-
She's shoving furniture around and wondering why she ever wanted to move (and how the hell Mozzie managed to snake his way into the decision-making) when there's a knock at the door, which happens to be standing wide open.
It's Christie.
"Hey," Diana says softly, not willing to believe it.
Christie makes her awkward way around boxes and hanging bubble wrap. They look at each other for a few minutes, testing the air.
Finally, she goes with, "I called Jones, he told me you moved. I dropped by the old house, but it's mostly ghost impressions on the walls."
"Yeah," Diana says. "It's a little scary. I keep expecting to see all my things around the place. And they're here instead."
Christie nods, looks around, bites words back.
"Hey," Diana says again, but it's not a greeting, more of a call, a sound of sympathy.
Christie shakes her head. "Nothing, it's... nothing."
They're interrupted by a sharp cry from the bedroom. Diana turns away, distracted. Christie looks more curious than anything.
"That'll be Theo..." Diana mutters, half-inaudible, then runs from the room.
She walks out with Theo in her arms, who's already done crying, and looks guiltily at Christie, who, for her part, is wearing a reasonably cheerful expression.
"You're not angry?"
Christie shakes her head. "Marriage and children are two very different things."
Diana cracks a smile.
-:-
Once Theo's asleep again, they sit on empty, surprisingly sturdy boxes, just talking for the longest time.
"You've moved on," Christie observes, not dispassionate, but not accusing either.
"Yeah."
Then they're quiet for a while, looking not quite at each other, till Christie leans over and touches Diana's lips with her own.
It's the briefest of kisses, barely there, but even so, they feel the love coming back, slowly, like luminous drips from a ball of solid light.
They don't rush it.
-:-
Christie doesn't quite know what she was thinking when she decided to get in touch with Diana again. She could have called before, but she and Diana rarely, if ever, discussed important things over the phone (except towards the end, they fought passive-aggressively over the phone, that was important).
She just wanted to talk.
Towards the end of their relationship, words had stopped meaning anything. I'm okay, I miss you, I love you, they said all the everyday platitudes, she analyzed them to death, did she mean it when she said come home soon? Did Diana mean it when she said we're all right? Words were messy, unpredictable, floating somewhere in space between them, in little impermeable bubbles, their meaning locked away forever.
Words had been their downfall.
And, for some strange reason, she'd wanted to talk. No, not talk. See her. Maybe, where words had failed them, simple, raw emotions would do.
They did, maybe, because now they're talking again, and their words are hitting the mark, drawing smiles and laughs and a touch of love and lots of kisses. Words are making sense again. They aren't writhing in midair, turning themselves into something they weren't, just to tell them both, This isn't working. Hi is as soft and welcoming as it should be, home isn't that place where they come together to fight like gladiators, no is a full stop, not a challenge.
Words are coming back to their meanings.
Maybe they're coming back together too.
