Give Me Love Pt. 02

*Give me love like never before/'Cause lately I've been craving more*

There's sunlight in his hair.

For a moment, she can't think of anything else. The noises of the little cafe melt away and she's simply standing there with a fresh cup of coffee in hand, watching Ivar, who's looking down at something laid out on the table in front of him. And there's sunlight in his hair. Sunlight that makes the dark blonde strands look like they're lit with burnished gold, and she feels her heart shift almost painfully inside her chest.

She hates that she still feels this way about him, that she still sees sunlight in his hair, or that she still catches the scent of his cologne when she's least expecting it - warm and cloying and sticking to her fingertips as if seven years haven't passed since the last time she touched him or held the taste of him on her tongue.

Seeing him a week ago had been unexpected. Painful. Exhilarating. Exhausting. Everything she knew it'd be if she'd ever run into him again.

Even more unexpected was the warmth which had bloomed in her chest when their eyes had connected, when the surprise of some stranger grabbing her wrist in the middle of a restaurant had worn off. No stranger. A ghost, yes. But definitely not a stranger.

She wants to be angry, wants to hang on to the harsh words and the staticky silence which had marked their last encounter, the darkness of his bedroom no longer a comfort to her but, rather, a suffocating wall of discontent. And, anger is far from her now, really. Too much life has been lived since then and anger is a useless emotion.

She's moving before she's really made the decision to do so, stopping when she's standing behind the chair opposite him as if pulled by an invisible string, fingers curled around her flimsy cardboard coffee cup.

He doesn't look up at her, though the tension in his shoulders beneath the navy sweater he's wearing tells her he's aware of her presence. His focus is on the large, leather bound book open in front of him, a book she knows well, with it's perfect shapes and spirals. Plans and diagrams done in pale, thin pencil.

Always crafting. Always creating. Structures that will no doubt be brought to life, lifted straight from his pages and constructed artfully using wood and stone and glass.

"Sit."

He doesn't look up from what he's doing. His voice is low, rough at the edges, and there's less command in that single word than what she knows him capable.

She smiles because this is normal. She smiles because the sound of his voice still feels like... home. She smiles because he's still the same asshole who draws graphs and blueprints, diagrams and figures, and the oddest shapes and forms with such a delicate hand.

She sits.

Sips her coffee and glances at the crutches he's got leaned up against the window to his left.

Waits. Forgets what she was supposed to have been doing before she walked in to find Ivar seated in the corner with sunlight shining in his hair like some twisted halo.

"How long have you been back?"

The tone of his voice sounds a bit too much like accusation.

"A few months."

His eyes snap up to her and there is accusation in his deep blue gaze. She narrows her own eyes at him, silently challenging. Equally accusing.

Ivar shifts in his seat. Closes his leather bound book with a bit too much care.

"For good?"

"For... now."

He glances away. Licks his lips and she notes their fullness. Remembers how they'd felt pressed to the base of her spine. Soft, whispered kisses, tangled up in bed sheets and shadow.

"It didn't work out," she blurts out suddenly. Isn't exactly sure why she's said it, but the look on his face doesn't change and, for the first time in a long time, a sliver of anger winds its way through her. It flares hot behind the bars of her ribcage and coils loosely around her heart. "You were right. I was one among millions. Unimportant. Unnoticed." She taps the side of her cup with a thin finger. "Background noise."

Ivar's face does change then. Something softens in his eyes. It's small and quick and looks a bit like regret. It's gone as quickly as it had appeared and she smiles wryly at him. Shakes her head a little.

"Water under the bridge, yeah? I've gotta go."

She remembers now, the thing she was supposed to be doing. That thing which didn't include Ivar and the hint of regret in his eyes. It didn't include memories of shimmering sunsets reflected in glass and the warmth of his breath on the back of her neck. And it most certainly didn't include that single stilted and broken 'I love you' aimed at her back as she turned away, pretending not to hear.

She shakes her head and she pushes out of her chair. There's a warm feeling inside her, a feeling that's not twined in anger or regret. It's soft and fluttering and shifts when Ivar looks at her. Fills her with an aching sort of longing that reminds her of those nights and his fingers on her cheek when he'd thought she was asleep. Gentle and reverent. Just a secret in the dark, and as hard and arrogant and stubborn as Ivar has always been, those touches were the sweetest she'd ever known.

She stands now and her heart somehow swells and settles at the same time. There's a moment where she considers bending down and kissing his cheek, her lips catching the corner of his mouth as she'd done so many times before. And the smell of his cologne is overpowering. Overwhelming. She licks her lips and can taste it there, dark and sweet and delicious.

"It was..." she starts to say, searching for something polite and easy, but it's a lie. Her heart is pounding and she's squeezing her cup of coffee far too hard.

"Goodbye, Ivar," she chooses instead, and there's sadness in her, sharp-edged and heavy and clinging to all the spaces she thought had been free of this man, because there were things that came before this moment. There was more than just the sunlight in his hair and the memory of his calloused fingertips on her cheek.

She leaves, leaves him there to draw and create and build. Feels the empty space inside her more deeply. Tastes his skin when she sips her coffee, though it never occurs to her to throw it out.