Axiom Ch. 05

She smiled sadly to herself. Movie night sounded like the perfect remedy for the day. She answered the door with a smile that vanished as soon as she saw the smartly-dressed lawyer standing there. Aidan, the persona non grata of the evening, was holding up an expensive-looking bouquet of roses, looking more morose than she'd ever seen him. She hadn't expected him to actually show up at her door, and looking into his eyes only triggered a pang of fresh hurt.

"What are you doing here?"

"I came to apologize, Gwyneth. I know that my behavior was way out of line and totally uncalled for. I'm sorry I was so callous with you - whether as a senior, or as a friend, that was no way to talk to you. The way I treated you lacked any respect whatsoever, and I deeply regret it Please, please forgive me."

She rubbed her nose and looked at her feet to avoid his gaze for a few silent moments. When she looked up, she caught his rueful gaze and she realized that he sounded so genuine that she almost forgave him right there and then. The remnants of anger were ebbing away, although the wound still felt so raw.

"You don't owe me an apology," she said quietly. "Like you said - work is work, and I should've have questioned your decision to drop me from the Ceres case -"

"Gwyneth, please, don't." He sounded so bleak that she stopped talking altogether. There was a look of tired resignation on his face which took her by surprise. She'd never seen him so frank, so vulnerable, so open. "I'd like to think we're friends," he offered. "In fact, I'd like to think we're a lot more than friends. And friends or no, I hurt you today. You, of all people. And I'd like to try and make up for it, if you'll let me."

The corners of her mouth were twitching. "So you brought me flowers," she remarked dryly. "Flowers."

Aidan looked so sheepish, it was almost adorable. "The flowers are a preamble. The real star of the Sorry Show is this." He whipped out a DVD in a jewel case from his jacket and offered it to her.

She turned it around in her hands and frowned at it. "What's in there?" She searched his face for clues, but all he did was wink at her in mischief.

"You'll see." He thrust out the enormous bouquet again. "So, will you forgive me? I really am sorry, Gwyneth. Please don't hate me."

She pouted a little, but her eyes were dancing. "Alright, you're in the clear," she took the flowers from him and dipped her head in to catch a whiff of the luxurious scent. Jesus, there must have been at least a hundred roses in there, each one the size of a thimble, peppered with baby's breath, freesias, and some blue flowers she couldn't recognize. "Besides, yelling at me is kind of what you do every day."

Okay, so that wasn't such a good joke. He looked just as miserable as before, guilt written all over his face.

"Would you like to come in? I'm making pasta for dinner. It's not much, but you're welcome to stay."

"I'm not sure I should. I wouldn't want to intrude on your evening in..."

"Oh no, not at all. Come on..." she cajoled, holding up the DVD. "We could watch this together."

Aidan face creased into a small smile. "Thanks, love. I really don't deserve this."

"Well, you can help me cook," she moved aside to let him in and walked towards the kitchen. "And thanks for offering to do the dishes."

"Your wish is my command, master." He bowed theatrically. As he sat his briefcase down on the floor, his eyes swept around for a quick scan of his surroundings.

Gwyneth's place wasn't big, per se. It was a modestly-sized apartment that came with a matching price tag, which suited her fine. The furniture, which was almost entirely white - sofa, shelves, tables and chairs - matched the equally white walls, opening up the compact space and making it look bigger. Splashes of color kept the apartment from looking dull. A teal linen throw on the fabric sofa and a retro-print rug in the kitchen helped liven up the place. Aidan smiled at the collection of curios that decorated the house. A Batman figurine stood guard beside some paperbacks on a bookshelf, and there was a black skull-shaped candle atop a pile of magazines on her coffee table.

The most unmissable feature of her house, however, was the wall that faced the main door. On it hung the most incredible collection of photos and art he'd ever seen, with their mismatched frames and varying sizes. He could see a handful family photos here and there, but most of them were professional shots of the most amazing scenes one could imagine. Well, no time to sit and admire - he took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves and headed towards the kitchen.

"I'd ask if you were any good with a knife, but you're probably Cordon Bleu-trained."

"Just got my first Michelin yesterday, actually. But yes, I can be trusted with something sharp."

"Fair enough. Alright, so here's what's happening - fettucine boiled in clam broth instead of water, then sauteed with garlic, spicy italian sausage, broccoli and clams." She pointed at the respective ingredients as she went along. "Easy-peasy after work pasta. Okay with you?"

"Sounds delicious." He leaned over a bubbling pot of clam broth and took a sniff. "Didn't know you could boil pasta in broth. Where'd you learn to cook?"

"My mom brought me up right. Here, add some salt to it, and the fettucine should go in right about now."

They worked side by side, laughing and talking in the warm kitchen. Gwyneth's hands deftly peeled and minced the garlic with practiced speed while Aidan moved at a slower but steady pace. His attempts to match her speed enticed laughter first, and later, a warning.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa - watch it! You don't want to tell your kids about the time you lost a finger trying to cook dinner."

"Not unless in the story, dinner is a great grizzly I killed with my bare hands after being lost in the woods for a week."

"Imaginative. Now seriously, stop messing about. Get started on the broccoli - I'll wash the clams. The fettucine sho- hey! Be careful where you're pointing that thing!"

"You were walking around with a knife just now, brandishing it like a bloody weapon, and I didn't nag at you."

"Sweetheart, I'm half Japanese." She gave him a peck on the cheek and a quick spank on the ass. "I could cut off one of your eyelashes with a machete, no sweat."

"With one eye closed?"

"With one eye closed."

"Just my kind of woman. I don't know whether to be turned on or terrified."

"Be both." She hugged him from the back and bit into his neck playfully. "I suppose now's a good time to tell you this, even if you don't want to hear it." She pulled away and turned to look him, very seriously, in the eye.

"You might find this hard to believe, Aidan, but I'm one of those slobs who eat my dinner in front of the telly."

"No!" he pretended to be aghast. "Every day?"

She pulled a sad face and nodded. "Every day. I'm disgusting."

He burst out in laughter and planted a quick kiss on her lips. "Oh, Alfred hates it when I do that. I rarely have dinner at home, so it's usually weekend breakfasts with Bloomberg. Every time he catches me there he shoos me back to the dining table."

"Ugh, Saturday morning and you're watching Bloomberg? No wonder you're uptight."

"Aww, that's cute. You don't understand what they're talking about do you? It's okay, honey, it's an adult thing."

"Big talk from a man who can't chop garlic." They grinned at each other, basking in each other's presence while their hands busied in tandem. The fight was already forgotten, the hurt subsiding with every passing second. This felt good. This was right.

----------------------

"Mmm," Aidan made encouraging sounds of approval around his mouthful of pasta. "This is delicious. I love that it's so simple, yet the flavors really stand out. Love it."

Gwyneth smiled behind the glass of wine she was currently drinking from. They were sitting cross-legged on the floor, side by side at the coffee table, leaning their backs against the sofa behind them.

"Tell me about the photos on the wall. Did you take all these?"

"Only a few. The rest were taken by my dad. See that right there?" She pointed at a framed cover of a backdated National Geographic magazine. In it a black haired woman wearing a silver protective suit was studying the clipboard in her hands, her thick black hair billowing in the wind while a majestic wall of red magma exploded behind her. It made for a powerful shot - her small, diminutive frame contrasted starkly against the fiery mass of death in the background. Yet she stood oblivious, unflappable, unfazed. "That's my mom."

She beamed with pride, obviously delighting in the story. "My dad took that picture when they were on Etna in Sicily. He was a photojournalist for Nat Geo, and she, a geochemist. That's how they met. They didn't talk much during the time the photo was taken, but after this issue was published my mom tried to track him down. She did manage to find him and they got to know each other better. After that, the rest is history."

Aidan smiled warmly. "That's one hell of a love story."

"I know. I swear, they lived the most incredible life ever. Just look at the pictures he took of the places they went to. The North Pole for the Aurora Borealis, the Mayan temples in Yucatan, living with the Kadazan in Borneo...oh, and right there, look - they even got a chance to see the lions of the Serengeti." She sighed wistfully and took another sip of wine.

He pointed at a old group photo with all of them in kooky Egyptian poses. "Oh, now that is absolutely delightful. You guys look like you're having so much fun."

She giggled at the comment. "Yeah well, that's the family. Dad, Jake, Andrew, me, Mom and Gerard." Her finger bounced from left to right.

"Let's see, what else? Mmm...I did take a few of these, like the one...there." She pointed at a photo of kites fluttering in the wind, shaped and painted to look like koi carp. "That was in Japan at the Shichi-Go-San festival. It's nothing compared to what my dad used to do, but that's okay. He really was something else altogether."

"It's a great picture, love. You should be proud."

Gwyneth blushed in return. "Thanks."

"Is your father still with Nat Geo? I'm a big fan of the magazine."

"My dad passed away when I was in college, I'm afraid. Never stopped taking photographs till the day he died, though."

Aidan's face fell instantly. "Oh, God," he looked genuinely torn, "I'm so sorry -"

"It's okay, you couldn't have known. Anyway, we lost him to cancer. Pancreatic. By the time we found it, it'd become very aggressive. There wasn't much time after that, which was a blessing in disguise, I suppose. No point in dragging it out if his days were going to be filled with pain."

He covered her hand with his and squeezed hard. "I'm so sorry to hear that."

"Nah, it's fine." She smiled sadly and shrugged her shoulders. "So...yeah. That's the Kenners for you. What about you? How's your family like?"

Aidan grimaced and his mood dropped several shades darker. "You don't want to hear about it."

The change in his tone made her chest constrict. What could be so bad that he couldn't even bring himself to talk about it? His face had closed up suddenly, snapping back into its usual taut mask, but he caught her looking and his face relaxed again, plastering on an easy smile as if to try convince her that everything was alright.

"Here," he held up the unmarked DVD in his hands, jiggling it as he spoke. "You almost forgot this."

Sensing that he wanted to change the subject, she went with the flow. "Ooh, I wonder what it is...can we watch it now?"

"If you want to."

She grinned and leapt up in excitement, bounding over to the DVD player to feed it in. Gwyneth grabbed the remote and subsided back into her seat beside him, rubbing her hands in glee. She wiggled her eyebrows at Aidan who just look backed at her, straight-faced save for the tiny curve on his lips.

The screen burst into life with a grainy video of a familiar stage with the curtains still closed. Music from an orchestra began to play, and the curtains slowly rose to reveal a lone ballerina. In time with the music, she launched into a series of graceful leaps and spins, holding her arms elegantly above her head. Gwyneth frowned at the TV, thoroughly confused by now.

"Umm, what are we watching exactly?"

"You'll see. Patience, my dear...patience."

As soon as he said those words it all clicked in her head. A slow smile spread across her face as she grabbed his arm and turned to face him.

"No." Half teasing, half disbelief.

"You'll see," he insisted.

"I'm fast forwarding to the good parts-"

He tried to grapple the remote from her. "The least you could do is watch the damn thing. Let it build up, you know..."

"Noo!" She squinted at the telly. The video was obviously taken ages ago, far too blurry by today's HD standards. "Let me guess...Swan Lake, Bolshoi?"

He threw up his hands in exasperation. "Trust you to know that..."

She erupted into a fit of giggles. Clearly this was a lot more unpleasant that he expected it to be. The video flicked by at an accelerated speed, until - oh! There it was. She pressed play again just in time for the male danseur to prance in, dressed in white tights and a matching jacket. Because the video wasn't too clear, she could only make out that he had dark hair and was well-built, but the dancer's face remained featureless. Not that she needed to see his face to recognize him.

"Nice legs, handsome."

"Mature, Gwyneth. Mature."

She bit her lip to stop herself from laughing again. He could get so cranky with a little bit of teasing sometimes. They watched in silence as he danced with the prima, the White Swan, moving together in perfect choreography. She rather enjoyed it, actually. It was nice to see a small snatch of his younger years, to know the teenage Aidan. He couldn't have been more than 15 or 16 when the video was taken. Needless to say couldn't have been easy to be a ballet-dancing teenage boy, and for that reason it made the video all the more special.

"I have to say, you're really good. Honest, you're a natural."

"Thanks." He didn't sound too pleased.

She decided that he was punished enough. As much as he pretended not to be embarrassed by it, he obviously was. That's why people keep insisting there's no shame in being a ballerino - because the truth is it never really is something you're eager to show off. She switched off the telly and leaned into him, slinging an arm across his shoulders.

"Happy now?" He looked tired, but there was a definite smile on his lips. "I hope it made up for what I did today."

"Oh, it definitely did. Thanks for showing me that. I know you didn't enjoy it one bit." She cocked her head and grinned at him, expecting him to smile back.

Except he didn't. He looked as sullen as ever, staring into the empty space in front of him. She sighed a little and slipped one hand into his, giving it a reassuring squeeze. "Look, it wasn't so bad, was it? I mean, there really is no reason to feel -"

Aidan cut her off by shaking his head and reaching for her other hand. She stopped talking when she sensed that something was amiss. His eyes were closed and a slight grimace furrowed his forehead, giving the appearance that he had mild migraine. "Aidan, is everything alright? Are you in pain?"

"Gwyneth." He turned to face her, but his eyes were still shut. Alarmed, she studied his face carefully, trying to decipher his unusual behavior. What had gotten into him? He'd been fine all night, looking like he'd enjoyed every minute, being his normal confident, ebullient self. And then, as if someone had flipped a switch, he'd gone from delighted to depressed, with no warning whatsoever.

But it wasn't until she took a good look at him that it hit her like a train. Although she'd looked into his eyes countless times now, gotten lost in the deep, enigmatic pools of his irises and let herself go weak in the knees under the intensity of his gaze - suddenly it was as if she was seeing him again for the first time, with a new clarity she'd never possessed before. Tired. He looked so very tired, the collective fatigue etched into his face in fine lines around his eyes and his lips. It was almost as if he aged ten years in ten seconds, right there in that spot where he sat. If she had been blind all this while - finally, finally she could see.

"Gwyneth," he called her again, looking at her without opening his eyes. Even his voice had changed. She could see that he was struggling to get out the words he was trying to say, so she waited patiently, allowing him some time to compose himself.

"What we have...is this real?"

She was so scared now, her heart beating painfully loud and clear in her chest. His question hung in the air like an ominous fog. This was it. There was no running from this now, no more avoiding the inevitable. They'd played too close to the fire, gotten careless with the boundary between real and make believe, and now it was time to face the reality. Aidan looked as terrified as she was, but at least he'd worked up the courage to confront the facts. All she'd done was pretend that the problem never existed in the first place.

His eyes flashed open, boring into hers, but they were the eyes of a stranger. Gone was the self-assured gaze of the Aidan she knew. The eyes that stared back at her looked almost deranged. Lost. Despairing. He reached up to cradle her face in his hands, gently stroking her cheek with his thumbs. She shivered at the touch, fighting back the tears that were springing to her eyes now.

"Gwyneth," he asked again, pressing his face so close to hers, she could feel his breath on her lips. "I need to know if what we have here is real."

Her entire body went cold, her limbs turning into ice. Scared. She didn't even know why, but she was trembling with fear, her mind wracked with nerves. That question, that one question she'd spent so much time avoiding was now waiting for her answer.

"I don't know." She could barely eke out a whisper. The moment felt so fragile, as if speaking out loud would break it. Her answer disappointed him. She could see it on his face.

"What are we doing, Gwyneth?" His voice was beginning to crack, the hidden misery seeping into his words. "What are we doing?"

"I don't know."

"We shouldn't have done this, should we?"

"I don't know." She couldn't say anything else other than those three words. The dam within her was reaching its breaking point. If he continued down this road, she was going to break down and cry. She didn't want to offer any answers because she didn't have any. Because she herself was afraid of the answer. "I don't know anything anymore, Aidan. I don't know."

Aidan let out a tired sigh and shook his head, tightening his grip on her delicate jaw. He sounded so resigned, like he'd just given up completely. Stripped of his defenses, he was totally naked, vulnerable as the day he was born. He didn't want to fight it anymore, couldn't go against it any longer.

"I think I'm falling in love with you."

Hearing him say that out loud was all it took. The tears began to pour, starting as a single crystal drop that rolled down her cheek, burning a hot, sticky trail all the way to her chin. She couldn't find the right words to say in return, suffocated by the maelstrom of emotions that was crashing turbulently inside her right now. What she did do was fling her arms around his neck and pull him in for a deep, honest kiss, crushing her lips into his with everything she had. This was their first kiss, their first real kiss, one without pretense or lie. And oh, how he kissed back, parting her lips with his hot, wet tongue, desperate and hungry for her.

No words were exchanged. There was no need to. Why did she need to say those three special words when she could bite it into the curve of his neck while he pulled off her sweater? Did he really need to tell her out loud how he loved her when he was tucking her hair behind her ear? Instead they spoke with their bodies - he told her how much he needed her when pulled down her panties and fucked her with his tongue, gripping her hips as she moaned his name over and over, covering his face in her juices.