Disclaimer: For fun, not profit.

SequelTo: A to Z: In Sickness and Health Part 2

Yeah, it's sick to take pleasure in someone else's discomfort but he's my husband so I can. His hands are clasped so tightly on top of his desk blotter that they're completely bloodless. I know he's trying to keep from rubbing his eyebrow. His most obvious tell.

Since he's been on this detail he's worked to sort of do the eyebrow rub less. He knows it gives away more than he would like in certain situations. And although this job doesn't really require that he do undercover per se, it does require him to play some things very close to the vest.

He seems mesmerized by his clasped hands and he doesn't look at me when he murmurs,

"So you have elected to make an entirely fresh start."

Ah, I'm dealing with the obtuse Benny. "Baby, I'm so sorry."

His head snaps up instantly. Yeah, I apologized the way I did that night. The night he asked me not to ever leave him. I sure as hell have his full attention now.

"It's been a long time since we've been these two people." I say quietly

"Who are we but ourselves Ray?"

And he is right about that, except these selves, the people that have created this specific situation were buried five years ago. At least that's what I thought.

"I'm sorry that I didn't understand what was going on sooner," I tell him as I lean forward in the chair and lock him down with my eyes.

My hand covers his hands. It's the first skin to skin contact in a week and I work not to let it distract me. If this goes the way I hope it does, there will more, much more skin to skin. I have to be patient. "I'm sorry that I haven't been who you needed me to be these last few months."

I can feel the tightening clasp of his hands.

"If not yourself, then who should you have been," he manages to get out. And it seems like it's snarky but really it's just the shadow of snark.

"I should have been the guy that bitches and moans. I should have been the guy that says no when you pull and A to Z stunt baby. And this has all the markings of a classic. The drill baby - we start at 'A' with the basic facts of a situation, then the next thing I know we're at 'Z' either jumping off a roof or going through the plate glass because you say so. When your brain starts working like that I know you can't help it. And I was right there beside you, because I had your back, because I loved you. But sometimes Benny maybe I shoulda made you take the stairs, maybe gone through the door instead. You got us up here on the fuckin' edge of a roof and I'm not jumping off with you. Not this time. This time you need me to say no. "

I give him a smile that he doesn't return. Instead he drops those blues to my hand over his.

I reach for his chin and lift his face so that I can see his eyes. Pain and confusion stare back at me.

"What the fuck are we doing on this roof Benny?"

I rarely swear, husbandly influence and all that. 'Cept when I'm really angry or really hurting. I wanted to play this cool but maybe it's not so bad if he sees a little of my hurt, a little of what he's done to me, to us.

"I have been corresponding with Stan Kowalkski."

I figured that there would be a coupla tangents wrapped around an Inuit story while we hashed this through. I didn't expect any of them to start with Stan Kowalski. Kowalski's a good guy, good cop. I respect the hell out of him. He kept every single person that I love safe. I even talked to him about being a part of the undercover unit. I thought he'd be a good addition, because with the two of us you get the ying and yang of selling an undercover, of selling an identity. And two definitely different approaches. He said he'd think it over but then he got shot. And it was bad. Instead of a golden bullet it was more like a silver bullet. Took him down hard, coupla two or three surgeries on his leg, bad time with physical therapy. That's one of the reasons he moved with his parent back to Arizona. The Chicago winters started to really kick his ass.

I got no beef with Kowalski.... I don't think he'd be trying to trash our marriage. He stood up for Benny at the wedding. From what I understand he's one of those nutso romantic types, stayed hung up on his ex-wife long after she kicked him to the curb. Yeah, Benny and I have some problems, but ...

I try to get my mind settled so that I can concentrate on what Kowalski has to do with my marriage. I guess Benny's waiting for me to get it together too cause he's just staring at me. I nod for him to go on. "Stan and I have written to each other regularly since he moved to Arizona. For the most part, I receive a letter from him every two weeks. As you are aware, lately, my duties have not allowed for such regular correspondence."

I guess he reads the question in my eyes cause then he adds. "Stan would send his letters to me care of the Consulate. And I would usually compose my letters to him here where it is easier to gather my thoughts and post them from here as well. I had not received a letter from him in eight weeks, then I received a telephone call from his mother. In those same eight weeks, he quit going to physical therapy and began to spend more time in his apartment then apparently was his habit. I have made repeated attempts to contact him by phone to no avail. It seems quite obvious that he is in some kind of trouble and I need to go to Arizona to ascertain the nature of that trouble."

"You're divorcing me because you're going to Arizona to check on Kowalski?"

"Ray - "

"No wait Benny. You're going to Arizona. And this made you think that you had to file for divorce?"

"Yes, Ray."

It flickers in my mind that my husband has gone insane.

"Why?"

"I do not know how long I will be gone."

He's insane and scared. "When are you leaving?"

"Tomorrow night."

I open my mouth to say many things. From "you crazy son of a bitch" to " goddammit Benny" to "Baby this makes no sense", but like the night I proposed to him something completely unplanned pops out. Maybe I should have asked him to button his collar and roll down his sleeves.

"I'll go with you."

His clasped hands come apart under mine. "I beg your pardon."

"I'm going with you."

"Ray, I couldn't ask you to - "

"Benny if you really want to break our marriage vows, if you really want to make me the worst Catholic on the planet, then I'll go back to the house and move out my things and I'll sign the papers. Or you can give me your itinerary so that I can book myself on your flight and unbook us out of whatever dive hotel you've chosen. What's it gonna be Benny?"

******************

He lays naked beside me, on his stomach and I lean over and press a kiss to the small of his back just above the cleft of his ass. He doesn't move. And that's good cause I need the quiet, the stillness to walk through this.

There was so much going on in the office earlier, that I let some of the hinkier things go, but I'm not stupid. Doing what I do for all these years you listen to what people don't say. Yeah, the divorce is tabled but something is still wrong, maybe really wrong.

We're cops. I can't believe that he thought I wouldn't understand about partners. Understand that he'd wanna get Kowalski's back. Maybe it was the timing that made him think I'd take it wrong. Before he presented me with papers, we'd been like ships passing in the night. I'd get home in the small hours of the morning, stumbling into bed just as he was getting up or when I got up he'd already be sleeping or vice versa. Things had been going that way long enough for us to have a brief conversation about having to talk. I love him, I love what I do. He loves me, he loves what he does. The love of work has been the greatest love for these last months.

And I guess maybe if he'd said to me he was going off to Arizona to see Kowalski when he couldn't spare two hours to have dinner with me, I admit I might have gone ballistic. I might have considered it a de facto separation, a divorce. I'll never be able to say.

He reached into his desk and handed me two pieces of paper stapled together. The itinerary. When I reached for it, my hand trembled so badly that Benny just dropped the travel plans on the desk grabbed my hand. We sat like that for maybe twenty minutes. Then I picked up the pages, shoved them inside my suit jacket and growled at him. "Let's go."

We rode home in silence. I was on him before we got out of the garage. Sex on the hood of the car isn't my thing. It's not his either. But I needed .... I guess that's it. I needed. Needed to get some of my own back, needed to reclaim him. Needed to feel that soft warm skin under the palms of my hand, needed to be inside him to make the talk in the office real. With only saliva to ease the way I took Benny with his silent assent.

Afterwards, while he warmed up some food that Ma left for us in the freezer, I got on the phone and spent the next hour or so making arrangements for our travel and my personal days. Benny's leave request had been approved the same day he presented me with divorce papers.

We held hands while we ate. Something we haven't done since the first year we were married. And afterwards instead of loading the dishwasher like we were supposed to be doing we just stood in the center of the kitchen holding each other. And he kept whispering in my ear, like a mantra, "I didn't mean to hurt you Ray." Finally after being like that for I don't know how long, I took his hand and led him into our bedroom so that I could make love to him the right way. One of my favorite things to do is undress the Mountie, and my hands itched with anticipation. And I took my time with it while he shivered in front of me.

I stretched my naked body out over his and pinned his arms above his head. His eyes held just the tiniest trace of fear. Had I not known him so well, I might have missed it. Might not have understood where it was coming from "It's okay, caro," I said as I pressed my lips against his forehead. "I'm not mad. I'm not mad. I'm okay." I pressed my lips to his and he tried to move his arm so that he could touch me but I held it firmly in place above his head. "No, baby, lemme do this." And he did. And I turned him out. No wonder he's sleeping so soundly. Maybe that'll give him a little something extra to think about the next time he wants to divorce me. Oh God. The next time. Oh shit. And my brain immediately locks down on those thought immediately.

Maybe we'll get out there and find that Stan's just sowing some wild oats. His injury notwithstanding, he's a fairly healthy man. I think all the important parts still work and he's attractive in a kind of down and dirty way . Some women really go for that kinda thing. So maybe he's found some babe to hit the sheets with. That would go a long way to explaining his incommunicado status.

And then, once Benny's satisfied that Kowalski's fine, maybe he and I can turn these days away from our regular lives into a second honeymoon.

End of Part 3 of 5