Lost and Found - HIATUS

22

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Bingo. Serkan felt an overflowing feeling of joy. He could finally understand where that feeling of deja-vu comes from. After Eda told him the story of Emre bey and Aslı hanim, it wasn't hard to connect the dots. The roof that collapsed on the family's house was a result of the wrong calculations for the structural base, that according to Eda was changed by Efe without Serkan's knowledge. "You blamed yourself so much for that mistake, because the circumstances were similar to my parents' accident," she says, distracted and upset, "but it wasn't even your fault." When she looks up, Serkan is thoughtful. She waits for him to say something, but he doesn't. She leans closer calling his name again, and that's when he snaps back of his thoughts. "What were you thinking?", she asks a little worried with his behavior. He sips from the bourbon and hesitates for a moment. "Your parents' accident was sabotaged," he is staring at his bottle as he says that. He, then, raises his look to face her before continuing. "I received a file from the detective, he doesn't know who's responsible for it but the accident was a sabotage that is pretty similar to this one made by Efe through your grandmother." She doesn't understand what he's trying to say, or maybe she doesn't wanna understand. Her eyes are focused in her hands, but she seems restless as her mind tries to find a valid connection for all this to be a simple coincidence. "Ne?", she snorts, raising her look to him. He looks at her with a worried, and rather pitiful semblance. She is trying too hard to not think of what's practically in front of her face, but she knows now, from experience, the lengths that woman would go to have things her way. But would she kill her own son? That was twisted. Not possible, she wouldn't kill her own son. "Hayır", Eda made up her mind, that was a very unfortunate coincidence. Maybe it wasn't even an official source, maybe the detective got the wrong case. Since he doesn't say anything, she starts shooting questions and assumptions at him. "Why are you even telling me this? Do you understand what you could be possibly implying?", she gets up and starts walking back and forth again, gesticulating frenetically, desperately trying to hold onto something and make sense of her thoughts, that were all over the place. "And how do you know the source is reliable? How do you know this detective is doing his job right? What if he got the wrong case?", she looks back to him, anger in her eyes. He shouldn't be throwing these implicit accusations like that, it was serious. He gets up and tries to calm her down, but she repels his touch. "This couldn't have happened, because I've never read anything about it. When you digged for the first time, there was nothing about this on the documents. And your father is involved in this, he's the guilty one on this. His guilt was negligence, there was no sabotage or set up." She finished her monologue practically yelling, expecting him to clapback and say something to her. But he didn't, he stayed quiet alternating his looks between her and the bottle of bourbon. "Say something, Serkan!", she marches to him, shaking his shoulders. Her eyes had desperation in it. "You can't tell me this and be quiet!" she slaps his chest, tears threating to start rolling down her cheeks again. He puts the bottle on the table and in a quick reflexe restrain both her arms by her wrists, making her stop and look at him. She looked. Deep in his eyes, trying to look for answers. Answers for everything. She felt tired. So tired about everything. She was restless ever since that day. Her wedding day. She never had a second of peace and happiness after that day, she felt herself collapsing. He held her and instinctively pulled her to his embrace. Serkan Bolat was not a hugger, he knew that clear as he knew 1+1 was 2. But then, why on Earth he felt a sense of comfortability, feeling he was finally home, when he wrapped his arms around her? Why did he feel he was at peace when he leaned his chin on the top of her head? An instinct that he didn't know where it came from made him kiss the top of her head, and then inhale to smell the floral aroma of her shampoo. It felt so familiar. It's like she belonged there. In his arms. It felt so cozy that he didn't wanna think of not having her on his arms again. When he felt she was calmer, he touched his face to make her look at him. She was still on his embrace when he wiped a couple of shy tears off her cheeks. "I'll bring you the files tomorrow and if you want, you can talk to the detective too", that's all he said. She nodded and stared at his eyes, almost recognizing her Serkan, but then realized the whole situation they were in at the moment and quickly freed herself from his arms. He didn't know why he felt incredibly upset when she did that. He grabbed the bottle of bourbon from the table, hoping the burning sensation of the liquid going down his throat would replace the warmth of her embrace. He, then, cleared his throat, trying to brush off this awkward silence that was now hovering on the room. "So... if you wanna go.... mm... I can handle myself," he says, a little abashed. But he remembers she came on his car. Dammit, Serkan. "I mean, I can take you home, since you came on my car", he corrects himself quicker, quickly putting the bottle of bourbon aside and gesturing her to the door. She quickly gestures, interrupting him. "Hayır, are you crazy? You're drunk, I'm not letting you near a car while you have alcohol on your system!" she says in a rigorous tone, pointing her finger at him. He shrugs. "I didn't even drink too much, come on I can take you," he walks to grab his car keys but Eda gets it first. "Hayır, Serkan", she perceives him walking a little dizzy, wondering how he didn't realize he's in no condition of sitting behind a wheel right now. "I'll call a taxi, or one of the girls. Don't worry!" Eda quickly goes to her purse and searches for her phone, but Serkan interrupts her. "Don't be silly, look at the time! They're all sleeping," he says, pointing at her phone that marked 2:15am, "and there's no way I'll let you get a taxi at this hour, yok!" She sighes, annoyed, and he runs his hand through his already messy hair. "Tamam, take my car," but before he says anything else she refuses. "Hayır, ya. How are you going to work tomorrow?" He blinks once, twice. The dizziness is starting to bother him, he looks at the almost empty bottle of bourbon and realizes maybe he shouldn't have drunk it all. "Serkan?", Eda takes steps closer perceiving the alcohol has taken all the control of his body. "I'm fine, Eda, bak.." he trips and she grabs his arms, keeping him from falling. "Bak, take my car. Engin comes get me tomorrow and then you give back to me at work," he tries to reach for the keys on the kitchen counter, unsuccessfully. He trips on a stool and he curses that damn seat. He didn't drink that much, maybe he lost his touch and ability to drink. He realizes he should've taken it lightly on the first time ingesting alcohol after he got back. "Come, Serkan," Eda puts his arm around her shoulders, making herself a support to a very wasted Serkan. She didn't know how she would do this, cause the man was twice her size and heavy. She remembered she actually did this once, and a shy smile appears on her face. Serkan sees that. "Why are you smiling?", he asks, smiling. "It's not the first time I have to take care of your drunk ass," she says and she motions for them to walk to the stairs. "But I didn't ask you to take care of me," he stops in front of the staircase and puts a smug smile on his face. "Not this time", she winks. He points at her with a smug face, but she simply rolls her eyes and gets back to helping him go upstairs. When they get to his bedroom, she hears him babbling something about how "he has it all under control", right before almost bumpimg against his bathroom door. She laughs. "Öyle mi?" she has both her hands on her hips, having fun with this situation. "Evet," he grabs the doorknob and opens it, making too much force he almost falls down. She nods and walks behind him, helping him with the clothes. He tries to stop her, telling her he's grown and that it was embarrassing that he needed to be taken care of at that age, but she doesn't listen and tells him to 'sus'. "Serkan, sus!" Eda says for the millionth time in the past five minutes. Yes, five minutes trying to take his clothes off, unsuccessfully. He was worse than a child. She eventually gave up and pushes him to the cold shower in his work clothes. She was babbling orders about how he should wsh his face that was full of grime and take his shirt off so she could try washing the dirt off it, when his mind flicked. On that same shower, they were there before. Both of them. Was that on the other night she mentioned he was drunk? He came back when she snapped her fingers in front of his face, her semblance angry that he wasn't listening to whatever foolishness she was saying. His most primitive instinct made him push her arm, and then her waist closer to him, making her get in the shower as well. She was gonna exclaim something to him, but he didn't seem to mind. Like he didn't mind her grumpy semblance. Something inside of him was yelling him to do this. He glued their lips together, in a soft and intense kiss as the water fell over their heads like a waterfall. It was a calm, slow kiss, just to taste her, just to get to know her again. Her heart was pounding, but she didn't wanna think about the what's or why's now. She entangled her hands on his hair and gave her all to him. Cause she missed him. She missed his kiss. She missed his touch. And although he was still not him, she was aware, she just wanted to taste his lips again. After a moment, they part the kiss to get some air. She opens her mouth, about to let out one of her why's, but he seems to read her mind. "Don't ask," he says, right before holding her face and glueing their lips back together.