When it rains in the desert

Kidnapping

I walked in and dropped, face first onto the bed next to Celia. I felt the bed dip towards me followed by a kiss pressed to the side of my temple.

When she pulled away I groaned disapprovingly. It was fascinating what such a small gesture did to my heart. I heard her chuckle and reattach her lips.

"You okay?" I could hear the smile in her words. I shook my head into the pillow and immediately was attacked by her kisses all over the side of my face.

God, this woman made me absolutely crazy. I couldn't help flipping over and pulling her on top of me.

She was laughing when my finger lingered over a spot just above her stomach. Realization struck and I did it again. She was ticklish and from what I could tell most of her bruises had healed. She erupted into a fit of uncontrollable giggles. Giggles.

"OH MY GOD- JAC-STOOOPPPP" she said between breaths. I flipped us over so I was straddling her waist and she was still trying to catch her breath when I planted a kiss on her neck, then another one on her jaw. My lips finally found their place at her lips and her hands traveled up my chest and around my neck.

As the kiss grew deeper her hands reached over the buttons of my shirt and began unbuttoning them. Soon my shirt had been discarded on to the floor.

I was feeling too many emotions in this moment. Exhaustion, love, desire, complete happiness.

But I knew how she felt about this. I wasn't expecting her to feel different with me. I know trauma isn't resolved by the right person coming along. So when my hand grazed the waistband of the pants she was wearing, I understood when she froze.

"I'm sorry jaco- I can't" she turned her head away from me, slowly folding into herself. I moved towards her and took her chin.

At first she flinched under my hand and I wanted to punch someone. Whoever had done this deserved to go to hell. Deserved to go to a place worse than hell.

"Celia, I'm not going to hurt you sweetheart, you don't ever have to be sorry. Especially not to me." She looked at me, eyes wide, as though this was new information.

"Whenever your ready." I said nodding at her.

"And if I'm never ready?" I smiled at her. "Then I'll never know." She seemed to relax a little. I sat back down on the bed and began to put my arm around her until I thought better of it.

"Is it okay if I hug you?" I asked. I wasn't sure if she wanted me to touch her. I didn't want it to trigger something in her. If she needed space, that's what I would give her.

She rested her head on my chest and said "yes, it's okay." I put my arms around her and felt her take a deep breath in. I brought my hand up and down her back and felt her breathing slow down. Within a matter of seconds she'd fallen asleep and as though irony wanted to ruin my moment, my stomach grumbled and I remembered that I hadn't eaten dinner yet.

I tried to move and felt Celia stir on top of me. I guess eating would have to wait until the morning.

When I woke up in the morning, it was to the smell of pancakes. I chuckled to myself as I stretched the sleep out of my body. I hadn't eaten pancakes in years.

I walked out into the kitchen and found Celia staring at something at the counter. I walked up to her from behind and wrapped my hands around her waist. I was about to say good morning when I realized what she was holding in her hands.

It was the picture of Mary from my case file. When I turned her around to ask her why she had it, I stepped back a little. The look in her eyes was unnerving. It was the same look that flashed in and out of her eyes when she saw the family photo at my parents house.

"Ceils whats wrong?" I said, cupping her face so she would look at me. But she completely disregarded me.

"Oh shit" She moved forward to flip the pancake that was now burning on the stove but screw the pancake. What the hell was she doing with the picture?

She dismissed the whole situation and began to tell me how she needed to drop by her old apartment today. I stood there confused at the whole situation.

"Celia, why did you have the picture?" I asked

"I'll only be gone a few hours, okay?"

"Celia, Why did you look like you'd seen a ghost?" I asked

"I could pick up some pizza on my way back if you get home early." She said walking into the bedroom.

"Celia." I said, trying hard not to lose it.

"I love you" She said, re emerging from the bedroom, fully dressed and ready to go. She kissed me on the cheek and left.

I mean I wasn't going crazy right? That whole situation was so weird. It took me a good ten minutes to move and get ready for work. When I finally did, I spent the whole day trying to make sense of the whole situation.

I had a meeting with Mary's father this morning and when Henry came in to alert me that he hadn't shown, I went home, I had nothing else scheduled for the day and honestly couldn't be bothered staying to catch up on other work.

It's a funny thing, routine. We get so used to expecting the same things every day. We wake up every day, have the same breakfast, get ready for work, proceed to go to work. Then we come home and eat dinner and go to bed.

So when I opened my front door I expected to see Celia on the couch, or Celia in the kitchen or Celia coming out of the bathroom or even just coming home to an empty apartment. What I didn't expect was to see Celia lying on the floor.

Celia lying on the floor with a child who was also laying on the floor. A child that looked remarkably, a lot like Mary Coreker. I blinked. Once. Twice. Hoping that this 5 year old child would disappear if I blinked enough, hoping that my girlfriend had not in fact kidnapped a child and hoping, desperately hoping that I was hallucinating.

"Hey, hey it's okay don't worry." I heard Celia but she sounded to be too far away. It took me a moment to realize that she wasn't speaking to me. It seemed that my abrupt entrance had scared the child. Mary was hiding her face in Celia's shirt.

She put Mary on the couch and and pulled me into the bedroom.