The Moments I Play in the Dark

III - I forgive and I forget

THREE

'I forgive and I fight'

He must be cursed or just plain unlucky to find himself in this situation: in a foreign city with his ex fiancée he had never really gotten over from, and she's so drunk that he's had to carry her over to the car. She's deadweight in his arms, her breathing even and slow. He places her gingerly inside the car and carefully he drives back to Verona. It's difficult to keep his eyes on the road and not on her, as she sleeps peacefully beside him, but he manages, and he drives them back home in as full a piece as they'd left.

It has been a while since he last saw her like this. The last days of their relationship had been so tumultuous and filled with anxiety and undercurrents of pain and doubts, that, even though he tries not to remember, he knows she'd slept with an ache in her heart. An ache that he should have been able to know and ease, but did not.

He sighs as he finally gets to the hotel and slows to a stop when he reaches it. He parks the car and tries to help Ela out, but she's still asleep, much like a log, and so he carries her up to his room. He'd have brought her to her own, but she's slumbering deeply, and he couldn't wake her.

Inside, he lays her on the bed and takes off her shoes and her jacket, leaves her with clothes she'd be at least a little comfortable sleeping in. He's tired too, and though he knows he really should think of his actions, think of what this means and how she would react, he really couldn't, and would rather face all of it in the morning.

Dragging himself to the couch, he toes off his shoes and sheds his jacket as well, before he plops down on it and immediately falls asleep. It's not the most comfortable, but it will have to do for now.

.::.

Carmela starts to stir as she feels something warm against the skin of her neck and feels the warmth of an embrace. Groaning, she screws her eyes shut tighter and burrows further into the warmth behind her. She isn't quite sure what time it is, but she's not sure she's ready to get up anytime soon anyway.

"Hey," she hears someone whisper against her ear and she hums, pulling the arm strewn around her waist tighter around her. She tries to recapture sleep but finds that she's too distracted by the feeling of bare chest against her back.

She licks her lips and tries to turn blindly. She can almost hear the waves crashing against the shore, can smell the saltiness in the air, can almost taste his lips and his tongue, and she reaches up, puckers her lips for a kiss.

"Carmela," she hears him whisper again and she keeps her eyes closed as she feels him lean closer to her. He's about to kiss her, she's sure of it, and she murmurs his name with reverence as she anticipates the moment their lips would touch. "Carmela!"

This time it is louder and her eyes finally open, and she jerks forward, only to find herself alone in bed, and there are no waves, or ocean outside, just the cobbled steps of Verona and the sun shining above in the clouds, its light and heat kissing the ground.

She had been dreaming. And god, what an odd dream, too. She groans as she feels a little disoriented. Her head is pounding and she's quite disconcerted, unsure of her surroundings.

She finds a pair of brown eyes staring at her and she swallows, before her mind starts and she gasps in surprise. She then starts looking around and finds the room to be familiar, but not quite. She stares back at the person to whom the brown eyes belong.