Author: ballynihinch
Rating: PG-13
Feedback: Like wearing your man’s shirt to bed when you miss him – wonderful! ballynihinch@hotmail.com
Disclaimers: Theirs. Not mine.
Spoilers: Tiny reference to Noel
Author’s Note: Many amazing thanks to my beta, Christine, for her work throughout the entire series. It makes such a difference! :)
AN II: Okay, so the timeline would suggest it’s been a while since the last chapter…maybe a few weeks? A month or two? Let’s just say that time has passed.
AN III: Thanks to everyone who has been sending feedback. I love to hear from you! And now for the final chapter in the series…remember, they do say that smell is the strongest sense of all.
SMELL
It felt as though she hadn’t been in that room for ages.
Her hands landed first on the heavy closet doors where he kept his suits. The way he hung them was pretty much a disaster, but he had always made himself look presentable at work. Professional and passionate and not a man to be trifled with.
Swinging the doors open, she tilted her head back and breathed in.
It was him. It was just…him.
She licked her lips and leaned into the dark space, resting her hands against the metal bar where all the hangers were. She almost lost herself in all the memories that suddenly assailed her. It was his signature. It was his scent.
She had loved it.
She had loved him.
But now? Was it still possible? She didn’t know. Or maybe she did.
Taking one of his suit jackets off the hanger, she pulled it on over her clothes, enveloping herself in his smell. She brought one cuff up against the soft skin of her cheek. It was a good suit. Not his Joey Lucas suit, but a good one, nonetheless.
The night he’d first made love to her, he had been wearing jeans and a sweater rather than one of his many power suits. With that thought in mind, she raced to the bureau and started rifling through it, looking for that dark, charcoal sweater.
She needed to breathe it in, too. She wanted to carry the scent of him with her wherever she went.
The sweater was nowhere to be found. Maybe he’d gotten rid of it after all hell had broken loose between them. Maybe he didn’t want the reminder anymore. He wasn’t exactly sentimental, and yet he was a man for anniversaries. Go figure.
At the back of the middle drawer, her fingers traced over something unexpected. Pulling it out, she stared at it, totally confused. It was a near-empty bottle of her peppermint-aloe hand cream. How long had that been there?
She’d first brought it over the night they took care of his hand. It had been in her purse during the cold winter months to protect her own hands from getting chapped. Once they’d gotten his bandages properly seen to at the hospital, they had come back here and when she’d started rubbing it into her fingers, he’d told her to ‘keep it the hell away’ from him. She’d been so frazzled by his harsh tone, she’d dropped the open bottle on the carpet. A lot of the lotion had spilled out. Cleaning up the mess had given her something to concentrate on while he settled down in bed.
As she sponged his carpet with a wet cloth, he’d told her he wanted her in the bed with him. They were the right words, but at the wrong time, and with too much anger behind them. So then she got angry. It hadn’t been pretty, but a lot had been said. A lot. Most of it painful and scarring.
They’d screamed about everything they wanted and couldn’t have, beginning and ending with each other; then, they had slipped back into their old roles and the night had been forgotten.
Or she thought it had.
Thinking back, she couldn’t remember what the hell she’d done with the bottle after that. Now it seems he had kept it.
Picking it up, she sniffed it cautiously. Could hand cream go bad? Maybe it just went extra runny or something. Sweet waves of peppermint floated up to tickle her nose. She bit her lip and then tucked it back in the drawer where she’d found it.
For a moment she thought about searching through his sock drawer for little treasures he might have stashed away there, too; then she remembered the state of some of his socks. Maybe she would skip that drawer.
The realisation came to her suddenly: one night here might not be long enough. Maybe she needed more time. She certainly needed more of him.
Shucking off the suit jacket, she let it puddle on the floor and then took off the rest of her clothes. She went back to the closet and picked out of one his white dress shirts. It didn’t look like it had gone to the dry-cleaner’s after the last time he had worn it.
Perfect.
Slipping it on, she stood still in his bedroom for a few seconds more, not moving, not breathing. This was going to work. He’d figure it out eventually. Nodding to herself, she made her way over to the king-size bed that dominated the room and slipped between the sheets that still smelled like him.
His shirt’s scent was even more powerful. She sniffed at the collar as she lay back and felt even more memories rise to the fore: the hundreds of times he’d changed in his office with her standing guard after she’d thrown fresh shirts at his head, demanding he change his clothes or risk insulting all of Congress with his stench; the Tony Bennett nights where his tie would need to be loosened, but she’d also spend time playing with his collar; the look he’d get early in the morning as she watched him getting dressed; the better look he’d get late at night when she’d wear one of his shirts to bed and he’d undo the buttons with his teeth.
He really was quite talented.
And he’d find her here.
Things may have been shot to shit for a while now, but he’d find his way back here. He was in DC, so he’d have to go to his apartment at some point. He’d wanted to talk. Really, he’d wanted to grovel. She’d let him do that and then let him do it some more and then they probably wouldn’t need to talk anymore.
For two people who relied on political rhetoric and sexual banter as much as they did, it was amazing how well they could communicate when their mouths were otherwise occupied.
They would find their way back to each other. It was inevitable.
She was so taken with sniffing at his collar and smiling to herself, she didn’t hear the approaching footsteps.
“I knew I’d find you here.”
She turned her head quickly, and then settled back down among the pillows once she saw his face.
“You’re a very smart man.”
“You used to also say ‘handsome and powerful’.”
“I did.”
“Still believe it?”
She smiled and the nervousness she’d been carrying with her up until now reached a peak and then melted away.
“I might. Care to prove it?”
“You’re wearing my shirt.”
“You’re an incredibly smart man.”
He sat down on the bed and leaned in, peering beneath the sheets. “You’re *only* wearing my shirt.”
“How about that?”
“So, I’m forgiven?”
“I still haven’t made up my mind.”
“Well, that’s – what is that?”
“It’s me sitting here in your bed knowing that you’d find me.”
“I like that.” He smiled and leaned in even closer. “You smell good.”
“I smell like you. I’m wearing your shirt.”
“No,” he whispered, “it’s you.”
FIN