Chapter Text
There’s an old theory — a rather famous one at that — that claims there’s infinite versions of you in a variety of infinite universes. Maybe some living a life polar opposite to the one you know; maybe one living the exact same one you’ll live, word for word, thought for thought, emotion for emotion, but changing the flavor of the ice cream you chose that one summer when you were six years old.
And so this story's universe was so intimately merged with the main, known and loved one for the longest time. Like a single formed zygote, destined to be one, before splitting and turning into two human beings, alas. So similar, yet, ultimately, simply different.
In this case, the sundering took place a fateful April second at 12:02am. They’d hurried, all right; tried to wage a war against time and LA traffic — which already are worthy opponents on their own and even more tedious and seemingly invincible when paired together against you. They also might have parked a little carelessly, too focused on getting to their destination. And, in the end, they did. Although he’d been too much of a coward to look at the clock. It had taken a bit longer than usual to get to his house, which meant they most likely had less than fifteen minutes left of April first and whatever April fool’s shenanigans that’d been included in the package.
He hurried out of his truck, feeling like he was about to open Schrödinger's box. Was the damn cat alive or dead? Would she call it quits or indulge like she’d done last night? She was hurrying out of her own car just as much, so he figured that was all the answer he’d need for the moment. He opened his door and quickly punched the code to his home security system. The screen a victim of his anticipation, receiving brusque pokes instead of the actual gentle tapping it required.
“Hi Kojo!” He heard her say, using her puppy voice, which was the exact same one she used to talk to Angela’s and Harper’s babies up until a certain point; something that amused him to say the least. “Gosh, you’re so cute! You’re so handsome! You giving me kisses? That’s so nice!” She half whispered excitedly.
“Oh my goodness! She’s so cute!” She’d said to Angela the first time they’d actually gotten to see baby Emmy in person.
“She takes after her mom.” Had been Angela’s response. “Besides, looking cute is the least they could do after wrecking our bodies for nine months. It’s a trap so you keep popping them out.”
“She’s adorable.” She’d kept staring affectionately at the child after their friend’s joking, very sound words. Then she’d raised her hand to caress the baby’s belly, and that’s when it happened. “You’re adorable.” She’d said through a smile, voice an octave higher than usual.
“You talked to her like a dog.” He’d teased her later, once they’d been by themselves.
“I did not.” She denied, kind of offended.
“You talked to her like you talk to Kojo. You scratched her belly.” He’d emphasized. She had opened her mouth to answer, closed it, then opened it again; eyebrows raised and finger pointed at him.
“That’s cause he is my baby.” She’d answered at long, matter of fact, and looking at him like she was daring him to argue.
“Sure.”
He could have stood there staring at her talk to their dog for as little time as they’d left and still, he would have called it a win. He missed her, way beyond the pleasures of sex or physical touch. He missed her voice filling the space around him —talking about her day, singing somewhere in the house, teasing him— he missed her company, the way everything she did seemed to be so radiantly golden-touched.
In the end, she’d looked up at him through her lashes, the certain tension that usually ended up with their clothes scattered all over the floor as apparent as ever.
“It’s still April fool’s.” She announced, getting up and closer to him. Although she hadn’t looked at her watch in a long while. She was also avoiding knowing how much time they had left exactly. She knew that wasn’t going to magically make time shift backwards. It was merely a way of avoiding the situation until avoiding wasn’t an option anymore. Kind of like the same logic she used after binge-watching a show's last season: as long as she didn’t know which one was the last episode, there was always an episode left.
“It is.” He confirmed. And then they were kissing, hands roaming around compulsively, aimlessly. There was quite an added desperation in comparison to the prior night. A countdown about to clock out and an urge to do everything they didn’t have time for.
He gently tugged her hair, tilting her head so he had a better access to her jaw, her neck, her collarbone. The more they touched the bolder they became. As if they were somehow winning the race against the clock. She was just starting to take his shirt off when a phone alarm went off, startling them both.
“Crap.” She whispered, eyes closed, head thrown back in frustration. He saw it on her screen when she was turning off the alarm. April second. “It’s 12:01.” She announced this time, much less cheerful than the night before, almost regretfully.
“So…” He said, not planning on adding anything else. It was a prompt for her to say what was going to happen next. He knew what he wanted, he’d known as soon as he’d gotten his head out of his ass and stopped self-destruction mode; barely into the break up. But he didn't get to backtrack after the havoc he’d wrecked in both their lives, the pain he’d caused. He got to show her in any way he could that he’d changed, that he was working towards being better. And any amount of leash he was given, he’d appreciate; but she was still the one putting the boundaries, ultimately.
“So our cheat day is over.” She completed, her eyes dancing between his eyes and his lips, which were a bit red, a bit swollen. She’d done that. And, gosh, she wanted to keep going. She’d planned for the cheat day to have a finishing act. She had been too shaken after the break-up to realize how touch-starved she'd been. Then, after the whole Valentine’s day debacle, the ideas started simmering in the back of her mind until she allowed herself that one cheat day. It’d been a long discussion among the different Lucy head-voices and, in the end, the accord had been free range for twenty-four hours and no more. No matter what happened.
Still, she'd always been supposed to spend the last few hours of the day with him, not doing a bunch of unexpected crazy OT due to people’s stupidity and eagerness to participate in a freaking purge. The ‘no-matter-what’ clause was supposed to prevent her from spending a second night over, not from actually getting the last half of her day with him.
“We could get a little extension. You know, after the purge.” He selfishly pushed. God, he wanted her for a little longer at least. But that was all the pushing he was going to do. The ball was in her court completely. She could kick it or turn around and leave.
“We shouldn’t.” She answered, conflicted.
Here’s where the divergence came to be, where the path split and kept going left instead of right. Otherwise she would have taken a step backwards and said “No. No. I promised myself it’d only be April fool’s day. I need to stick to the decision I made when I wasn’t just making out with you in your house. She’s more clear-sighted. And Celina is going to wonder where I am.” And he would have understood. But in this story, she stayed silent for a little longer as the mental debate went on. And he smiled at her: a sad, comprehensive smile. They shouldn’t. But they had: that day in the hotel. And, at last, they were going to do it again.
She got on her tippy toes and pulled his face in, kissing him hard and long until they were panting, half of their clothing now added decoration to the living room floor; until he took control of the situation, placing kisses along her back, her shoulder, her neck, her chest once he’d taken her bra out of the way.
There was no timeline anymore; it had been blurred. The new timeline was sometime after they were done; so he planned to make it as painstakingly long as possible. Something they could both look back to until the next time she gave him the opportunity — whenever that may be. Hopefully without a deadline.
And so they rode the roller-coaster. They kissed in every single, possible way known to man — quick pecks, sweet lazy kisses, dirty sloppier ones. He made her come undone time again, with his fingers, his mouth. Every noise she made, the way she dug her nails lightly into his back, her little kisses all over his chest and shoulder once they’d both finished — he tried to commit all to memory — the peace he’d felt for all of five minutes post-orgasm before he remembered she was about to get up and leave any second now.
“I should go.” She finally muttered, looking up at him from where she’d been using his arm as a pillow. “Gosh, I’d forgotten how comfortable this mattress is.” She added kind of dropping back down on her side of the bed.
“You can stay.” He proposed, earning himself a side-eye. She sighed. She couldn’t stay. That’s what her rule had been for. That was her boundary. She’d stretched it a bit already merely by accepting the extension. Maybe the whole cheat day thing had been a bad idea, because she knew it was messing with their minds even if they kept admitting to it being a ruse out loud. But she’d already given in to that, so there was no going back in time to change it. And it wasn’t like she didn’t want him back. She did. Of course she did. What else would have possessed her otherwise to throw everything out the window the day before and go to him? She just needed to check a few boxes first.
She needed to know in her bones that she was ready to trust him again like that; it wouldn’t be fair nor healthy to either of them to start back a relationship when their trust was still kind of shattered. She needed to really focus solely on the Sergeant’s exam. Her career was a priority, now more than ever. A piece of her world had shattered after the detective’s exam fiasco; her confidence had taken a very hard hit. She needed to pass the Sergeant’s exam. No, more than that, she needed to ace it. She needed to prove the station — and mostly herself— that she could do it; that she had it in her to succeed. And after those two very big mountains, she still had to get promoted so he wasn’t in her chain of command.
“No. No, I can’t. Extension's over. Besides, I can gaslight Celina into thinking I got home a little later than she did. But explaining why I wasn’t home in the morning? I don’t know that I can pull that off.” She explained as she started gathering whatever pieces of her clothes she could find in her proximity. He nodded solemnly.
“Okay.”
“Goodnight.” She said, a bit awkwardly, being in the midst of leaving his room still half naked, shoes in hand. And then she hurried down the hallway before it could become a repetition of the ‘see you at the station’ situation. God knew the awkwardness of that moment haunted her.
So she gathered her stuff, said bye to Kojo, and left; back to her apartment.
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