Promise

Disclaimer: TNT and Tess Gerritsen own them despite me trying really hard to get them.

Rating: K

Category: Romance, and a new category I am coining "Bucket List" :)

Summary: ONE-SHOT - Bucket lists.

Author's Note : Reposted from tumblr, inspired by MissMaclay.

Promise

The wind whips at your hair – and you tilt your head towards it. It is an odd sensation; being neither cold, nor unpleasant, carrying with it a complex mix of mountain air, forest floor, and the unmistakeable hint of jasmine from nearby coffee trees.

You close your eyes, tilting your head further upward to catch the sounds of wild birds and the whistling of the breeze through the canopy leaves below. Your hands drop to your sides, clutching tightly around the top of the harness, secured to your fitted jeans. Fingertips run absently over the carabiner, pausing to wind then unwind the screw lock that will ensure you remains fastened to… goodness knows what, heading goodness knows where.

"Not so bad, is it?"

A smile touches your lips at the sound of the familiar voice at your right ear. Close enough to drown out the sounds of the birds, the caress of breath a reminder that despite the tropical climate, there are even still warmer things.

"It hasn't even started, Jane." You say. "Say that again when I'm at the bottom."

But the truth is - and you know she knows it - you have already been as close to the bottom as you ever thought you would be...closer than the steps of the BPD… closer than a bullet through a bullet proof vest… closer even than the bottom of any river….

Because this time you had been the only one there. The only one to see the entire thing. Been party to all the variables… and this time, it had been up to you, completely you, above all others.

And failure had not been an option.

A second hand wraps around your waist, and you feel her chin rest gently onto your shoulder.

"I'll be right behind you."

Your eyes flash open, and your hand drops to the one at your hip. "No." You say. And you hate the insistence in your voice; the layers of fear that colour the word… all of them shades of red – so many different shades; more than you thought you would ever seen on her... yet did. "No…"

You trail off, imagining your voice carried from your lips outward over the platform, over and into the undulating green canopy below.

Wishing the very same memory could be taken with it.

You feel the soft press of lips to the side of your head and your fingers slide into the gaps left by the ones at your side.

"Okay." She says, squeezing lightly. Lips lower to rest against your temple, and she speaks against your skin as softly as the light that filters through the trees above you both. "It's okay. I'll go first."

It is all you would ask her for, now.

The guide attaches rope to harness to cable to gloves, to harness again. With a carefree wink- that both warms your heart and constricts it in pain, her canvassed shoes disappear off the edge of the artificially-grassed platform.

So engrossed are you in the image of her leaving your sight, desperately trying not to associate it to the day she disappeared from you, but this time over metal and glass and wheels and a piercing screech… you barely notice that a moment later you are airborne, your gloved hands gripping at the rope and you are flying.

And as quickly as your mind begins to compile the vector analysis of your acceleration both outward and downward, your heart zeroes in on the figure ahead – arms spread, head back, laughing…. So light, so free, so painless.

How you could have denied her?

She is smiling – she is fixated and smiling, as you follow and treetops fly by and your stomach winds over itself at the increasing speed, until the line bursts into a clearing and your eyes are immediately trapped by the sight of a perfect waterfall to your left, cascading over the ridge of forest like a giant ribbon of power carved through the mountainside.

You can taste the forest, and realise only a moment later it is because your mouth has dropped open in awe of the sight. Adrenaline diffuses along your body, leaving you with a tingling sensation that warms you against the cooler breeze fluttering against your skin.

You remember to breathe.

Your eyes fall again on the figure in front, and you remember the moment she breathed, for the first time in days… days that had crawled by like weeks. You can hear the sound of wire fibres passing under the pulley. If you close your eyes, it echoes like the mechanical whir of her respirator.

You know you are picking up speed, your mind processing weights and angles and moments of inertia and angles of motion, yet totally silent against your heart, because she has turned in her own speeding harness and is now simply looking directly at you. The waterfall slips past you both, the crystal pools gathered at is base, the treetop walkway, the ravine…. All pass, because she is smiling – no, beaming - at you.

And you are as transfixed as the moment she woke, and told you, she remembered the promise you had made. How many bargains you had tried to make – with her, with the world, with God, to ensure she would still be with you, the next day.

Just one more day…

You realise your eyes are closed the moment you jolt to a stop and arms wrap around you, holding you as tightly as your eyelids are pressed against the memory of her bleeding out in front of you. Music reaches your ears and you realise only after a moment it is not a song, but simply her laughter, open and beautiful andalive.

"C'mon, Maur, you can look now…" She says, the natural mirth in her voice contradicting the terrible lingering memory of her broken body under your hands. But you are afraid, and you fall further into her arms as larger, firmer hands unhook you from your harness.

"Felicidades…, bien hecho." Comes a rumbling voice from behind you.

"Muchas Gracias…" You manage, your stomach regaining its equilibrium as your nose finds the edge of familiar dark curls, so smooth and velvety thanks to the papaya shampoo at the hotel, the very same hair that had been so terribly matted by blood…. The moment you had promised… this….

'Jane please… please… you stay with me and I promise, I promise we will do your bucket list. Everything on it. I will go ziplining in costa rica with you… I will- run with the bulls.. I'll even… so help me I'll become a navy seal please… please Jane…please…Just… keep breathing. Stay. Pleasestay.'

And as you slide your hands all the way around her, up between her shoulder blades, over the newest set of scars you know lie underneath the garish 'Amo Costa Rica' t-shirt she insisted you let her buy…

'Jane please…'

She chuckles lightly into your ear, kissing your temple… before pulling back to trail delicate fingertips along your cheek, to your lips, replacing them only a moment later with her own and causing your breath to hitch as strongly as the moment you stepped off that platform into mid-air over the Costa Rican forest.

And you wonder...

...how not even jumping off a bridge had been enough –

'…please don't leave me…'

That she had to have been hit by a car, crossing a road behind you…

…I love you..'

For the two of you to cross your own.