Page 12 of So Insane

“Have I ever told you you look absolutely stunning?” he said.

She laughed lightly. "Didn't you get enough this morning already?"

"I always have room for a second helping," he said.

"Well, we're already having breakfast at eleven o'clock because of all the helpings you've already had this morning." He loved how she blushed slightly as she said the words. He loved all of the back and forth, the innocent but not so innocent teasing that people in new relationships enjoyed. In a way, their relationship was new.

He looked down at the ring, and his smile broadened. Her blush deepened, and she lifted her hand and turned it over. "Oh, this old thing? Why, it’s nothing. Just a trinket from some detective who’s hopelessly in love with me.”

“Hopelessly,” he said, grinning.

She giggled and held the ring up to the light, beaming. After a moment, though, her smile faded.

Michael’s smile followed suit. No doubt, she was remembering the first man who had given her a ring. He pushed his plate away and asked, "How are you doing?"

She smiled brightly and rolled her eyes. "The same as when you asked me an hour ago and when we first woke up. By the way, asking that in the middle of afterglow was kind of strange."

"Come on, be serious," he pressed.

She smiled a little more sedately now and stood. "I am being serious," she said as she laid a hand on his and kissed his cheek. "Now how about that second helping?"

"I don't want to hide from the subject," he said.

"I'm not hiding from it," she said. He couldn't hear irritation in her voice, but a lot of the flirtatiousness was gone. "I don't want to dwell on it, though. I mean, what more can we do? I gave the agents everything I could remember, and then they asked me questions over and over, and I remembered more. There's nothing more I can do."

"I'm not talking about what you can do," he said.

"I know," she said and put a hand on his shoulder, using it as leverage to slide into his lap. She cupped his cheek and kissed him. "And I'm fine. I really am, baby. I left him a long time ago, long before I understood what he was. I don’t think about him anymore. I mean, I hope they catch him, and I hope he goes to prison, but I don’t think of myself as associated with him.”

“How do you feel?”

“Like I want my life to stop revolving around him,” she said sharply. He lowered his eyes, and she sighed and said, “Look, I appreciate it. I’m glad you’re concerned for me. It means a lot, but the best thing we can both do right now is move on. There are over sixty people looking for him between the Bureau and the Marshals, and that’s not including all of the local authorities that are looking for him between here and Ontario.”

The most recent sighting of West had been in Niagara Falls when Faith had gone once more on her own to capture him. On her own because Michael hadn't answered his phone when she called. He hadn't answered his phone because he was fed up with her and wanted to go a day where…

Where his life could stop revolving around her.

He and Faith had been romantically involved for barely a year, but he had loved her in some form for all ten of the years he’d known her. Most of that time, his love was no more than the brotherly love that all long-term partners in law enforcement held for each other, but lately, his love felt more like the love he felt for his father during his last, cancer-ridden months of life: a combination of achingly wistful memories of when things were good sprinkled among the endless oppressive reality of the grief that loomed over every passing moment until the disease finally freed them both.

“I know what you mean,” he said.

They sat in silence for a long moment. Finally, Ellie broke the silence, reaching for Michael’s hand and squeezing it. “Hey,” she said, “Look at me.”

He lifted his eyes, and the strength and love in hers was a beam of light in the darkness of his mind.

“I’m wearing your ring,” she said. “I’m here with you. And you’re here with me. Not with… anyone else.”

He smiled and squeezed her hand back. “Yes, I am,” he said, “and there’s no place I’d rather be.”

His phone rang then, because of course it did. Ellie’s smile faded softly, and when Michael reluctantly looked at the number, he wasn’t at all surprised to find that the caller was Faith because of course it was.

He considered just letting the call go to voicemail, but considering what happened the last time he did, he didn’t think that would be a good idea.

“Go ahead,” Ellie said, “It’s okay.”

She smiled, and in her smile, he could see clearly how not okay it was, but he didn’t have a choice. He was trapped. Until the cancer in Faith’s mind finally killed her, Michael was a slave as surely as he had been when his father took ill nine years ago.

He managed a smile of his own, then stood and walked outside.

---