The Conversation
      Chapter 16
 

Shhhhshhh… it's ok."

"You said… oh my god… you said that you had done things… that was it, wasn't it?"

"Yeah."

She forces herself to remember the details of that night. His unkept shirt, his ruffled hair… she thought nothing of them at the time, but now, she remembers every detail…

The determination in his eyes… unwavering.
The tone of his voice… unaffected.
The feel of the knife in her hand… unsure.

"I was so scared… I had no idea what was happening. I…I… the knock on the door, it woke me up…"

The tears that had one time blanketed every delicate facial feature had run off, afraid to face the anger that was slowly building in her as she realized that the man she loved had come to her, in his holier-than-thou best, preaching about his devotion to her. Her head faces her lap as she rubs her fingers together, a nervous tick she picked up in high school, and one he's often trying to get her to stop when she's upset. Unable to see anything beyond her carefully manicured fingertips, she begins to rub so hard that the skin turns a beautiful shade of magenta. He sits in silence and closes his eyes. For a moment he can almost hear her coarse fingertips scrape against each other.

"Wait a minute, you were saying… so many things that I didn't understand…"

I was so mad earlier, that I did stuff that I didn't want to do…I did something that I'm not proud of… I lost control, and I don't want to do that anymore…

She breaks the trance she's in and lifts her head at a snail's pace. His eyes now open, he's already looking at her, his curiosity getting the better of him.

"Oh my god… Danny… I wanted to understand, I just wanted to understand what you were saying! I didn't get it! And you couldn't say it!! You didn't have the guts! You coward! You were such a coward! You came to me and all I wanted to do was make it up to you… and the whole time you knew what you had done…and you made me feel so bad when…"

It hits her. She gets up as fast as she can, slithers between him and the chair and walks behind it. She roams behind the very chair she sat in, turning her back to him… thinking… remembering more of what he said.

I have never betrayed you…

She turns around at lightning speed. She grasps the high backing hoping to hide her trembling knees, biting her bottom lip as she remembers his face as said those words. He's now standing in front of the chair, scared to death of what she remembers, of what she's feeling towards him. When will the hurting end? She points her finger at him with a look in her eye that would strike the fear of God into anyone else… anyone but her husband.

"You said! You said that you had never betrayed me! You said that! You said `I have never betrayed you'! You, you came crawling from her bed and had the nerve to say that to me!? How could you!? Ohhhhh… and the next day, oh god! I sat on that bed, Danny!"

The most disgusting feeling washes through her… visions of her sitting on the very bed that he lay with another woman no more than 12 hours before race through her mind so fast that she can't stop them. She hugged one pillow. She leaned back on another. Drew looked like hell. His wallet on the floor. Drew's lame excuse. Feigning interest in Jesse. Running into Danny outside.

"I found your wallet at her apartment. You were there to pick it up, weren't you? You weren't there to fine me. Oh god, oh god… you never betrayed me, huh? What do you call that? How could you do it!?!?"

Still devoid of tears, she starts to breath heavily and her grip is forced to tighten and catch herself as her knees finally give way to her grief. He rushes to her side.

"Ssshhshh, Michelle, calm down, just calm down and I'll answer you, ok? Shh, sit down."

He grabs for her arms to guide her back to the chair. She flinches at his touch and steps back a few inches.

"Don't… I'm fine. Just answer the question. Answer me!"

"Michelle, I’m worried about you… I don't want this to hurt you."

"It's a little late about that, don't you think?"

Somehow, finding strength hidden in her revulsion, she strides past him, grazing his shoulder with hers before whisking around daring him to do the same.

"Danny, you made me feel like a piece of dirt for what I did to you. You made me feel like I wasn't worthy to lick your shoes, and yet you seem to think that your betrayal and mine…"

He answers her dare with one of his own. As he turns, his look of defeat challenges her to find more faults in the actions that he's apologized for repeatedly.

"We've been through this, Michelle."

"I know, I know… but you said it, you said it…"

"What did you expect me to do!?!?"

"Oh, I don't know, tell the truth??"

"Yeah, and that really would've helped the situation…"

"We'll never know, will we?"

"Are you telling me you would've forgiven me if I had just come clean right there in your kitchen?"

"No! Maybe… I don't know… but you took that choice away from me… away from us. So, what, the whole `betrayal' thing, it all comes back down to you not thinking that sleeping with Drew was betraying me?"

He tries to get closer again, but she doesn't let him. Instead, she moves a few feet further away, closer to the door. This pattern of playing catch-up is wearing thin, on both of them.

"No, I didn't say that… I just… I was trying to re-gain control over something again, anything."

"Over me?"

"Maybe."

"By hurting me?"

"Maybe."

"A yes or no would be really good right about now."

"I'm sorry, Michelle, I don't have any answers for you. I was really screwed up that night, ok? I left Drew's place and I had to see you."

His touch, again, yields a newly familiar flinch. It's become a game, he tries to reach out to her, but she doesn't let him. This game goes round and round the room… the window… the bed… the fireplace… the chair… and back around again.

"Don't say that."

"I am gonna say that, because I wanted nothing more than to go to you, to be with you… I knew what I had to do, though. I didn't want to hurt you anymore."

The sadness that devours his words causes her to turn back to him.

"But you did. You said those things… you let me go."

"I let you go because I loved you too much to keep you with me."

"What's that supposed to mean? You were divorcing me because…"

"Because it wasn't right anymore, baby, because I didn't deserve you…I hated what I did, and seeing you… god, it killed me to look at you and know what I did…"

Always spunky with a sarcastic reply, she doesn't disappoint.

"Not enough, apparently."

He gives in. She won't listen. Maybe she can't. Maybe the pain is shielding her heart from him. Maybe she can't let herself be vulnerable to the aching that only he delivers. And maybe he needs to feel as though he can win, for once in his life. Maybe he needs to feel that all of the talks, all of the yelling, that it's all for a purpose. Maybe he just needs her to give him an inch.

"No, not enough. You're right, my own stubborn streak got the best of me, you're right, and am I sorry for that? Yes! A million times yes! What the hell do you want from me!? What the hell was I supposed to do!? Take you back and watch you cringe every time I touched you? Take you back to the house only to wonder if you're talking to the FBI every time I turn around? Take you back with the smallest glimmer of hope that you would see that humanity in me, the humanity that made me willing to risk my life for yours? Take you back… only to realize that that very piece of humanity died that night with Drew? Tell me, what else should I have done?"

She reaches out her hand to caress his quaking lips.

She wants so badly to forgive him, and she even thought she had.
She wants so badly to answer him, and she even thought she could.
She wants so badly to believe him, and she even though she did.

Can she? Can she forgive him? Can she answer him? Can she believe him? In her mind it was so clear… her words were honest that night. She told him what she wanted.

"But I was willing to go back with you…"

"I couldn't let you do that… you deserved more than that, you deserved a real life, the life you wanted…"

"I wanted you…"

"…and if by some chance, you ever came to me, it had to be because you wanted to, not because I was forcing you."

"But I did want to."

"You said that I was giving you a death sentence. You said that I was the only thing keeping you alive. That didn't tell me that you wanted me, that told me that you didn't want to die."

Her mind transports her back in time to the Bauer kitchen, old make-up mingled with tears that had formed during her dreams, during her nightmares. She remembers feeling her chest collapse as he gave her his ring, the feeling of hopelessness in his kiss, that it would be the last time his lips would grace hers. She remembers wanting that moment to last forever. The ring. By the next morning it had been so tightly grasped in her hand that it had left a semi-permanent impression in her palm. An impression that reminded her, over the next few days, of everything she had lost.

She walks about the room, finally settling back on the bed. She looks up at him as he joins her. She takes hold of his hand as she gazes into the loving face staring back at her. His love is never-ending… his capacity for forgiveness is boundless. How she wishes she could give him the same in return. They're close again… the way they always should be.

"I missed you… the moment you walked out that door… I remembered everything about you that night. The way you walked into a room with so much confidence… the way you let your keys dangle from your finger as you played with them… the way you always talked with your mouth full of toothpaste… everything… I didn't sleep, I just wanted to remember everything about you, every little detail."

"I did that every day with you. I was like a sponge, soaking you in, because I knew it couldn't last. But I didn't sleep that night either…I was working on getting my mother's ledger to make sure you stayed safe."

"That's right… I still can't believe you did that."

"You can't?"

"Well, I can now… but then… when Ray told me, I was so amazed that you would do that for me. Risk yourself like that, just for me."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course, anything."

"Why did you have to run back to Jesse so soon after we split up?"