TITLE: Between the Shadow and the Soul (8/?)
PAIRING: A veritable clusterfuck… but there is only one way it can end up.
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. Never was. Never will be. No profit. Just love.

(Lindsay’s POV)

She couldn’t do this.

Not him. Not now.

As she had been reminded far too regularly in recent months, there was never going to be a good time for Kiss-Me-Not to return to her life. But to have him return with such vehemence, to have this time be THE time, the ever-imminent showdown, it would have been difficult for the timing to be worse.

Was he sitting in wait? Just holding off for a moment like this one? Watching until she was buried beneath an avalanche? Because it certainly felt that way.

And how exactly was she supposed to dig out when the three people who had sworn to be there for her were the three people she felt the most alienated from?

Not only had her world crashed down around her, it was a world that she didn’t know she inhabited, or that she even wanted to live in, until it was bluntly pointed out to her in the parking lot of Mission Cross North. Just in time for it to be annihilated with a kiss by someone who was supposed to be one of her best friends.

Of course, Jill had no idea what she had done. How could she? As far as Jill knew, when Lindsay left the hospital that night she was on her way to Pete. Which was the exact opposite of making claim to Cindy. Not that Cindy was available to make claim to. Lindsay could have cuffed Cindy, taken her from the hospital and fled the country with her, but it wouldn’t change the fact that Cindy had deep enough feelings for Jill that it had turned into kissing.

And that was hardly Jill’s fault. But whether or not the blame was justified, it didn’t stop Lindsay from piling it on. Even if, deep down, she knew that it was just wishful thinking. Labeling Jill the perpetrator exonerated Cindy of responsibility. If it was a transgression on Jill’s part, Cindy could just be an innocent victim who didn’t see it coming and would have fled the scene if she could have.

But as much as she wanted to convict Jill of some make-believe crime, she could have pretended. She should have pretended. Just for one moment, she could have acted like Jill had been one of her best friends for years. If Jill were on death row for murder, she would have stopped in for a ‘just-in-case’ goodbye. But with Jill standing right in front of her, it was hard to acknowledge her presence. Apparently some offenses were far harder to forgive.

How much her inability to be gracious with Jill had to do with walking into Jill’s office earlier to find her standing with her hand on Cindy’s cheek, looking like she was two beats from kissing her again, Lindsay couldn’t accurately quantify. But she couldn’t deny that it was part of it. Any good intentions she’d had in going up to Jill’s office, any effort she was planning to make on behalf of their friendship, had turned to resentment in the one second it took for Jill to notice her in the doorway and invite her in.

And the resentment lingered. At a time when she really should have been letting go of any grudges that she held.

Just in case.

She was distant with Jill, though, because she felt distant with Jill. That wasn’t something that would change anytime soon. Throughout their friendship, Lindsay had never once envied Jill anything. But now she coveted what was, more than likely, the best thing Jill had ever had.

And then there was Claire. Wonderful, supportive, turncoat Claire. Just days ago, she was trying to convince Lindsay to tell Jill the truth, to give Jill a chance to walk away, as if walking away was the right thing for Jill to do.

Now, Claire was talking Pete up. It was like Claire was trying to convince her that Pete was everything anyone could want. She had even used the word love. He loves you.

And he probably did.

As much as she wanted to believe that Claire trusted her when she lied and said that she was content with Pete, that she was fine with Jill and Cindy, Lindsay knew that Claire didn’t. So, when Claire said that Pete loved her, it was less like a gentle prod and more like she was being forcibly turned in Pete’s direction. Away from Cindy and Jill. It didn’t feel like best wishes. It felt like warning. It felt like Claire was now telling her to walk away, as if walking away was the right thing for her to do.

Which meant something had happened. Claire had come upon further intelligence and, whatever it was, it had changed her position. If there were sides to be on, Claire had chosen one. Jill’s. Or maybe Jill’s and Cindy’s. And if a line had been drawn, and Jill, Cindy and Claire were all on one side of it, who exactly did that leave for her?

Except for Pete. Pete, who didn’t deserve any of this. Pete, whom she had bombarded with all of it. Maybe she had taken him up to the attic to scare him away. Maybe it would work. And then what? Pete would be gone, Cindy would be with Jill, and Claire would still be standing on their side of the line.

Pete was what was left for her. And Pete wanted to be. But the more that Lindsay wished she could just take Cindy away from Jill, the more she let the bitterness at Jill linger, and the more anger she harbored toward Claire for abandoning her, the less she deserved him. Maybe she wasn’t the person she’d always thought she was. Maybe she wasn’t the person she wanted to be. Or maybe she just needed some time to adjust to all of the raw and unforeseen revelations of the past few days.

And maybe this wasn’t the time to be thinking about any of this, with a man who murdered his own daughter riding shotgun beside her on the way to meet the serial killer who had stolen so much of her life.

But Billy Harris was hardly the monster she was expecting. She didn’t know what she was expecting. Some kind of inhuman creature, she guessed. But Billy Harris was human. Kiss-Me-Not was human. Every bit as flesh and blood as his victims. He could die and he could kill.

Lindsay could do both of those things too. Today. Within the hour. She could kill. Or she could die. She wasn’t naïve enough not to know that. A million things could go wrong.

Most of the time, even in her life, facing death was a given human condition thing, an ever-present possibility. Right now, death wasn’t abstract. It was tangible. It was a place, a person, a time. It was one of those rare moments when the odds for became far greater than the odds against.

What she really didn’t need were straying thoughts.

What she needed was a singular thought, one glimmer to light her way through the incredible darkness.

This one thought.

Back at the hall, while she was trying to make her escape with as little fanfare as possible, the way that Cindy looked at her was the same way that Cindy had always looked at her. It was that look brimming with concern and affection and a million things Cindy never said aloud. The ‘just let me be here for you’ look that Cindy only had to give name to once for Lindsay to know that’s what it meant every time.

In the past few days, Lindsay had changed. Jill and Cindy had changed. Claire had changed. Everything had changed.

Everything -

…except for the way that Cindy looked at her.

It looked as if, barring all recent changes, Cindy would have rushed into her arms. It looked as if she still wanted to.

The only difference was that she didn’t.