TITLE: Between the Shadow and the Soul (2/?)
PAIRING: A veritable clusterfuck… but there is only one way it can end up.
DISCLAIMER: Women’s Murder Club does not belong to me. The characters do not belong to me. They are the property of James Patterson, 20th Century Fox Television and ABC. (Well, not anymore. Jackasses.) I have no problems with that as long as I can borrow them for short bursts and use them in pursuit of my own enjoyment. I am not trying to infringe. Though, I don’t know why anyone has a problem with fan fic. After all, it really is a compliment. If anyone wants to write fan fiction about my book, feel free.

(Jill’s POV)

“Does it hurt?” Jill posed with all due tenderness given the delicate condition of her interogee. “I know you’re amply drugged, but can you feel anything?”

Hand timidly sliding forward to meet the abnormally cold one inches from her own, she tried not to frown at Cindy’s weak grasp as she returned the affectionate squeeze. Of course she was weak. She’d been shot. But she would heal. It was just going to take time.

“There’s kind of a dull ache,” Cindy struggled to breathe normally. “Like a weight pressing down on my chest.”

“I guess that’s preferable to a piercing pain,” Jill countered, receiving a soft smile for her efforts.

“Way to alliterate,” Cindy softly returned.

Jill giggled at the unexpected response. Even given her current circumstances, it was so completely Cindy to hone in on her accidental alliteration. It was a stark reminder that Cindy was still with them, and still the same Cindy. It hit Jill abruptly, like a punch to the stomach, and it was only Cindy’s eyes drifting toward the consuming blackness outside the window that prevented her from seeing the tears that sprung without warning to Jill’s eyes. With a discrete turn of the head, she blinked away the evidence that they had been there and turned back to Cindy, silently observing as the mild smile faded from her pale features.

“I can’t believe that she left like that,” Cindy whispered toward the window.

Into the night.

It was possible Jill wasn’t even supposed to hear the hushed statement, but she did, and it made her wonder how much Cindy’s aching chest had to do with the stray bullet that tore through it and how much it had to do with the emotional impact of Lindsay deserting her the way that she had.

“Neither can I,” Jill responded honestly. Even for Lindsay, who could be rather off-putting and unsympathetic, it seemed uncharacteristically cold.

Though Cindy had uttered the words with a trace of anger, Jill knew that it was a cover to hide something far more sincere. Lindsay left her there. To be with Pete. And it hurt Cindy. Lindsay did a lot of things that hurt Cindy without realizing it.

But Jill saw.

She was always aware of the amused facade falling from Cindy’s face the moment Lindsay turned her back when she had been short or unsympathetic or infuriated with her. Good humor to Lindsay’s face. Pain behind her back. It was Cindy’s way of coping with her hot and cold friend and it was painful to watch.

“He must really be as amazing as she says.”

More than me. More than our friendship. It went unspoken, but was somehow still clearly communicated.

And Jill hated it. She hated that Cindy thought that. She hated Lindsay for making Cindy think it. She hated everything about this, from the fact that Cindy was lying so feebly in a hospital bed to the fact that the apology she had given Cindy, no matter how sincerely it was intended, came across less passionately than she meant it to. She should have waited until she didn’t have an audience.

“Or she’s just stupid,” Jill retorted.

Cindy’s eyes swung back toward her, openly taken aback by the venom in the response. Truth be told, the bitterness in her tone surprised Jill.

But what kind of choice was that? What kind of friend would leave a friend who had just been shot? What kind of person would abandon Cindy for anything?

Jill stared into the soft brown eyes, pained and exhausted, and now rather bewildered, and found herself undeniably enthralled.

She didn’t want to think that she was taking advantage of Cindy’s weakened state, either the physical or the emotional one. She just really wanted Cindy to understand that there was someone who would stay, who had every intention of doing so before she had been asked for the sole purpose of having some alone time with her.

For once.

It seemed like Lindsay was the one who always got time alone with Cindy.

Clearly she didn’t deserve it.

Fingers holding to Cindy’s like a lifeline, and terrified of rejection in a way that she couldn’t ever recall being in her life, Jill’s free hand floated over Cindy’s wounded chest to a firm jaw line. When Cindy’s lips parted instantly at the contact, it was all the encouragement Jill needed. With a deep breath, she lowered her head, lips meeting still soft, if slightly dry, lips.

Despite her elation that Cindy kissed back, and despite her desire for the kiss to go on forever, she was well too aware that Cindy was seriously injured and not entirely lucid. Claire said Cindy wouldn’t remember anything, and Jill wasn’t quite sure whether or not she wanted Cindy’s memory to hold up as she pulled away.

She could feel the presence in the room, though she desperately wanted to ignore it. Expecting to find a nurse waiting to interrupt, Jill turned her head, startled to find Lindsay hovering in the doorway.

Lindsay looked completely lost and confounded, almost as if she’d walked into the wrong room, and all anger directed toward her dissipated on sight.

“Linds.”

Cindy followed the direction of her gaze, eyes clouding with something Jill didn’t try to discern.

“Lindsay,” she breathed.

The sound of Cindy’s voice seemed to lure Lindsay back to herself, reminding her where she was and why she was there.

“I’m sorry. I…” she broke off, so uncomfortable, she started to fidget. It was strikingly unnatural on her. “I just realized I should have asked if you needed anything before I left.”

The statement was met with silence, Cindy apparently as surprised by Lindsay’s offer, and her unexpected return, as Jill.

“Yeah,” Cindy recovered. “My laptop and my notes.”

Eyes locked on Cindy alone, a smile eked through Lindsay’s tight expression.

“No,” she murmured. “You can’t have that.”

“She already tried that on me,” Jill backed her best friend.

When Lindsay’s eyes turned to her though, they lacked the same traces of humor, the warmth, they’d aimed at Cindy.

“Jill already volunteered to get me some things tomorrow,” Cindy answered for real. “And my mom and Jim should be staying at my place.”

“Jim?” Lindsay asked lightly.

“Her stepdad.”

Jill thought that she was being helpful, but this time Lindsay didn’t even glance her way. If not for the subtle tensing of Lindsay’s jaw, Jill would have thought she hadn’t actually spoken aloud.

The small movements of Cindy’s head as she looked from side-to-side across the room drew Jill from her contemplation of what exactly she had done to draw Lindsay’s ire. She watched Cindy shrug as much as her debilitated body would allow and turn her eyes back to Lindsay in the doorway.

“I think I have everything that I need for tonight.”

“Right,” Lindsay replied tersely.

Her eyes shot over, and Jill briefly became the subject of Lindsay’s aggravated stare, before it returned to Cindy just as hurriedly, softening considerably in the process.

Is that what this was about? Lindsay was mad at her for the kiss?

Jill should have known. Of course she was. Lindsay made it her life’s mission to see the worst in everybody. And Jill knew her worst in this regard very well. She didn’t need it pointed out for her. Undoubtedly, Lindsay thought the kiss a fluke, some spur of the moment hormone-based nothing, or that she was going to hurt Cindy somehow.

Because they had never talked about it. In all of their discussions about relationships, this was the one attraction that Jill had never admitted to, because she knew exactly what Lindsay would say… and probably Claire too.

Stay away from her. She’s too naïve to understand that you can’t change who you are.

And maybe they were right. Maybe she couldn’t. Maybe she was destined to screw this up just like she had screwed up with everyone else in her life that had ever been good to her.

But she couldn’t deny herself the giddiness that hit her like a high schooler when Cindy didn’t pull away immediately and ask her what in the hell she was doing. Drugged or not, Cindy’s accepting reaction… returning her kiss… felt so incredibly right. If Lindsay had a problem with it, well, they could worry about that later.

“I’ll just go then,” Lindsay said, backing slowly out the door.

“Don’t want to leave Pete waiting,” Cindy smiled.

It was completely counterfeit. How was Lindsay so blind to Cindy’s lies on her behalf?

Lindsay simply nodded and attempted to escape.

“Linds?” Cindy called softly after her.

“Yeah?” Lindsay husked, stopping instantly in her tracks to look back. Jill got a distinct impression Lindsay was trying very hard to block her out of her line of vision.

“Thanks for checking on me.”

“I’m really glad you’re okay.”

There was a brutal candor to the declaration, at least for Lindsay.

Without another look at Jill, or a goodbye to either of them, Lindsay left so quickly, it almost seemed as if she was fleeing.

Cindy stared after Lindsay’s departed form far too long for Jill’s liking before finally remembering her. But when she did, and Cindy’s eyes returned to her, Jill felt like the center of the universe. Cindy’s lips turned up in a sleepy smile.

“You kissed me,” she sighed.

“I guess I did,” Jill acknowledged, head dipping to obscure her eyes with long bangs, feeling uncharacteristically bashful.

“It was nice.”

The welcomed announcement drew Jill’s head up just enough for her eyes to meet Cindy’s, and a corresponding grin spread gradually across her own face.

“Maybe when you’re feeling better, I’ll do it again,” she offered hopefully.

“Maybe I’ll be better able to return the favor.”

Jill’s stomach lurched into her throat and all she could do was swallow past it.

“Do you mind if I sleep now?” Cindy queried, followed by the cutest yawn ever yawned.

“No,” Jill squeezed the hand she still held. “Go ahead.”

Cindy’s eyes slowly fluttered closed, Jill watching over her as she drifted off like a guardian angel.