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Author's Chapter Notes:

Alright, this is one of my favorite songs people. I am the type of person who fees that film, be it television shows or movies, are extricably linked with the music assigned to it. And really when I write my stories it's usually based on a song that has put me in the mood to create characters or a story for familiar characters. I love brigning my two great loves together and I hop you enjoy this next chapter inspired by Sheryl Crow's I Shall Believe. I had owned this CD since it had come out. And being ten at the time, I had only really listened to the hits. Then years later a show named Roswell came out and the lead characters Max and Liz danced to this song. It was so romantic and sad and you totally should buy the DVDs or watch a few episdoes online, because it was a great show. And listen to the song while you're at tit. You will not be disappointed. 




Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.


 

Come to me now
Lay your hands over me
Even if it's a lie 
Say it will be alright
I shall believe


A heavy knock on Evangeline's door brought her out of her slumber. Her heart pounded in her chest at the startling sound and she tried to open her eyes in the dark to focus. 

"What the...?" she started groggily as she tried to find the clock in the dark. The red numbers told her it was three twenty-two in the morning. 

All Evangeline knew was that whoever was knocking on her door had better had a real emergency at this time to be waking her up. 

The knocking persisted and she sighed. Pulling the covers from off of her, she got up and made her way to the living room. "I'm coming already!" she shouted. "Hold you horses," she mumbled under her breath. 

As she began pulling the locks off the door, she put one eye to the peep hole to see what idiot actually had the nerve to bang on her door so early in the morning. "What?" she asked herself softly as she recognized the figure in the hallway.

She opened the door fully and stood there silently. John McBain looked like a mess. Something that was unusual for him. He looked like he hadn't slept well and he was paler than usual. His hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail. Evangeline had never seen her boyfriend, well ex-boyfriend, like that before. Something had to be wrong. She waited for him to say something but just stood there looking at her. 

On the other side of the door, John was thinking that Evangeline never looked more beautiful and fresh than when she was just waking up. She was void of any make up and her skin still looked flawless. She looked so young and vulnerable in that moment, still defenseless in her drowsy state. And he knew she was the kind of woman that could go out like that too. She could go without the make-up and the fancy clothes because she was confident in what she was and who she was. She understood her self-worth. She was a woman.

No longer being able to keep the silence, he said, "I was in the neighborhood."

Evangeline raised a brow. "So you were in my neighborhood at three in the morning and you just decided that you should stop by on your way from...bowling and brooding?"

He could have said something sarcastic in return or he could have made up a lie, but she would have called him on it and they both knew it would be pointless. He let out a short laugh and said, "Something like that."

Evangeline wasn't falling for it so she folded her arms ready to assume her suspicious stance and tossed her hair back. "You're going to have to give me a little more than that John."

John looked into Evangeline's eyes and he saw the hurt that she tried to mask so diligently beneath the surface. He could always read her like that even though she thought otherwise. He always knew what she was feeling. Maybe because she was always upfront about her thoughts, but even beyond her frankness John saw the secrets and hurts she tried to keep hidden from the rest of the world. It was his fault that she thought he didn't know her. One of the many things the detective would rectify on this night. If she would let him. He shifted his weight to the other foot and leaned into her space.

Broken in two
And I know you're on to me
That I only come home 
When I'm so all alone
I do believe


"Can I at least come in?"

Evangeline wasn't going to budge. She knew she was safe as long as he stayed outside of her cocoon. "I don't see the point in that McBain. We've both said, I think, everything we had to say to each other today. I got the point loud and clear. I don't need a further demonstration."

Evangeline watched a nervous John turn immediately into the detective she both loved and hated. His eyes narrowed in on hers and the blue orbs of fire flickered with anger. "Don't you dare act like I don't care. That this," he motioned between them, "isn't anything special to me. You never let me explain. You didn‘t wait for-"

The detective never got to finish his statement because Evangeline, with brute strength she must have borrowed from her ancestors in the moment, yanked him inside of her condo and shut the door.

"Wait?! I'm so sick and tired of that word. Of doing that action!" she shouted as she pushed his back to the door. "That's all I do all day, every day is wait! And I don't want to wait anymore. I'm young, successful and...and...black, damn it!" John raised an eyebrow at that comment and Evangeline could feel her cheeks burning. "And okay, I couldn't think of something better to say because it's three in the freaking morning so don't look at me like that," she warned him. 

"The point is, I'm a good person, I care about people. I don't deserve to wait. I've never waited before and I am disappointed that I let myself become that kind of woman who would, especially for a man."

If John hadn't been in love with Evangeline all the way before, he had certainly just fell the rest of the way right then. He touched her face with his back still pinned to the door and he saw the conflict that lay in those chocolate eyes of hers. He saw her filled with desire for him and him alone but, also deep anger. Anger at him and maybe at herself for still wanting him. And even worse, hurt. He could deal with people hating him, being angry with him. But he couldn't deal with knowing he caused another person pain. 

John didn't try to touch her, but he nodded. "You're right. You don't deserve to wait. Not for me or not for anyone. Now, let me tell you what I don't deserve."

Evangeline backed up, her face still firmly set with anger and resentment. John slowly began to walk toward her as he talked. This time Evangeline was being backed into a corner. "I don't deserve you. I don't deserve your love or your patience or you putting up with my walls. I don't deserve your heart or your body and definitely not your soul. Your time and your energy would be better spent with a Harvard grad who was on his way to becoming the next president. Someone who will cloak you in love, jewels, wealth and everything that your heart desires."

That not everything is gonna
Be the way you think it oughta be
It seems like every time I try to make it right
It all comes down on me
Please say honestly 
You won't give up on me
I shall believe
I shall believe


Evangeline's eye twitched at his speech. Her back hit the wall softly on the other side of the room. She didn't dare interrupt him while he was on a roll. "Because I can't give you all of that. You'll never live in a mansion with me and I'm never going to be able to quote Socrates or fly on Air Force One. You won't get tiaras every week and new fancy designer clothes. All you'll get is me. Me that comes with a past and baggage that I haven't really claimed yet. Me that has trouble opening up and who doesn't really do birthdays or flowers. So if that's what you're looking for you've got the wrong man. And you'd be right. I don't deserve you. But guess what?"

"What?" Evangeline whispered so softly he almost didn't catch it.

He grabbed her face gently and took her mouth with immediate urgency. He felt her body tense and her heart pound against his own speeding heart. Their tongues began to mesh into a rhythm that was now as familiar to him as his own breathing. She wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him as close as she possibly could and it still wasn't enough for him. He realized how much he depended on her to make him whole-to make him happy. He loved her so much he wished he could leave the world behind and crawl inside of her. Because Evangeline Williamson was his saving grace. His protector. In her arms he was the one that felt safe.

He reluctantly pulled apart to finish what he had to say. Evangeline waited, breathing heavy, wanting so badly for it all to be over. She just wanted to know so she could move on. So she could have a chance to be happy.

Open the door
Show me your face tonight
I know it's true
No one heals me like you
You hold the key
Never again
Will I turn away from you
I'm so heavy tonight 
But your love is alright
And I do believe


John, still holding her face in his hands, made her look at him. "You're stuck with me. I told you before we were worth fighting for. And that hasn't changed. So with all of my flaws and issues you're stuck with me because I'm too selfish a bastard to let you go. I love you Evangeline Williamson. And I'm telling you now that I'm not always going to get it right, but I'm sure as hell going to try because you deserve that. You make me want to be a better person. You were the first person since Caitlin to make me want a future. To make me see how much it is better to love and be loved than to sit in the dark brooding, as you say, in guilt over things I can't control and never could. Dying a little as each day went by. I didn't realize it until it was almost too late. I didn't realize it until it was almost too late. Until I saw you walk out that door and thought it was forever that the only time I ever feel like I'm home, is when I'm with you. I messed up Van, and I want to spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you. Yesterday, today and tomorrow. Give me a chance to deserve your love Van and I won't let you down."

That not everything is gonna
Be the way you think it oughta be
It seems like every time I try to make it right
It all comes down on me
Please say honestly 
You won't give up on me
I shall believe
I shall believe...


Evangeline could no longer hold back the tears. She bit her lip and brought her hands to brush the loose strands of hair away from his face. "Lieutenant, I think that's the longest I've ever heard you talk."

John chuckled. "I told you I was working on it with you." He suddenly became serious again. "But the question is was it enough?"

Wrapping her arms around his waist she tilted her head back and smiled. "I'll tell you in a minute. But now, I have to ask the questions. What made you come to this revelation?'

John brought Evangeline over to her couch. As he sat down he pulled on top of his lap. "I went to bed tonight alone. I'm so used to you being there now. Your presence. Everything in my apartment you in there. I just stood there for a while thinking about us, about why I was so afraid to say what I was already feeling. Then I went to sleep. And I dreamed of Caitlin."

"Your fiancée," Evangeline said as a statement rather than as a question. 

John nodded. He loved how there was no insecurity there when she said Caitlin's name. No guarded jealousy. She accepted that part of his past with sincerity. Not just on the surface. "Yeah. It seemed so real. We were in a park back in D.C. It was our favorite spot. And she told me things."

Evangeline wanted to know what those things were, but she wasn't going to ask. She was curious but she wasn't tactless. John saw the question still in her eyes but she held her hand up in protest. "I don't wanna know. It's private. And I don't need to hear about it."

"But I want to tell you," John interjected. "If I'm going to start breaking down these walls and fully give you my heart and my trust, I'm going to have to be upfront with you. I don't want to hide my feelings from you anymore. I need to tell you everything."

"Only if you want to John; I don't want you to feel like you have to. Like I'm forcing you," Evangeline said sincerely.

"You're not," he promised. "Anyway, we just talked about old times a little and about my guilt over her death. Pretty much all of things I hate to talk about like feelings and me deserving happiness. But we mostly talked about my destiny and where you fit in it. The gist of it was that you're the love of my life as she put it. You're the one. The only one for me. . I already knew it, but I was fighting it."

"Why?"

"Because I thought loving you meant that I was putting your life in danger. My job sometimes makes the ones I love a target for that kind of thing. I was afraid to love you, to have you in my life because it would mean I could lose you for good. It feels like everything I touch sometimes turns to dust. Maybe it's not just my job. Maybe it's who I am that gets people hurt."

Evangeline rolled her eyes and smiled in spite of herself. No matter how hard she tried to tell John that she wasn't china he wouldn't listen. "Oh, John you're not going to lose me. And yes, when you shut people out and close up your heart that is when people get hurt. That's the only time they get hurt. Not because you're this evil person you think you are. And as far as your job is concerned, John, I knew what you did before we became involved and trust me, I'm not going to crack under pressure. Tough girls don't do that. And they don't pick people to be in their lives who they know will let them down. When it's my time, it's my time and there is really nothing you or anyone can do to stop it from happening."

He smiled because Caitlin had said those very words to him. "I know. I know that now. But uh, it's not easy sitting back and doing nothing when you're so used to having to be the protector all the time. It's hard to let that role go, you know?"

"Well," Evangeline began, "I don't know about the protector role, but I know what it's like to hold on to something because it's all you know. It's familiar."

"Yeah, exactly. But Caitlin...she helped me to realize that my life wouldn't be good without you in it. I would never be happy. And she seems to think that I deserve that happiness."

"She would be right. It seems to me that Caitlin was one very intelligent woman."

"She really was," John agreed.

Evangeline hesitated for a moment and cocked her head to the side to study John's face. "But I don't want you to be with me because someone told you to. Real, imagined, or ghost from the past, you have to want it. Need it for yourself."

Alarms went off in John's head and he shook his head in protest. "Don't be crazy Van. Caitlin's voice, for a long time, has been my subconscious. My moral compass always trying to steer me in the right direction. When I dreamed of her, it was really just me trying to work out the demons inside of me. I got Caitlin's voice-I think-because it was easier to hear form someone good like her than from myself. All I do is beat myself up over every lost moment and every victim that has come my way. That I couldn't save. Caitlin was a safeguard she could be the outsider to reiterate everything I felt. I think I do that a lot to people, you know, use them to hide from my reality."

John smoothed a wisp of Evangeline's silky mane from her face. "I stopped dreaming of Caitlin for a long time. Probably around the time when we put the strings on. You became my everything even though I didn't see it. Didn't want to see it. And now, when I look at you, I see the person I want to stand beside-not behind. You make me feel alive and loved. Complete. You made me grow up and realize that I've been stuck in this emotional tug of war with where I was as a kid who lost people he loved and the man trying to overcome all of it. You and you alone are responsible and no one else. So don't ever think that anyone could tell me what to do where you're concerned. I know you have a good reason to believe just that, but I telling you now that I'm going to work hard to absolve that fear and doubt in your eyes."

She simply nodded and brushed her lips against his in acceptance of his decree. "I guess maybe your dreams were a way to say goodbye to the past and accepting the future."

"Our future," John corrected her.

"Our future," she repeated. "I like the sound of that. And I like the way you say it McBain. I think you're a keeper."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Excellent," he said going in for another kiss, but Evangeline laughed unexpectedly before he could commit to target area-her luscious, kissable lips.

"Ah, I see the McBain I-only-speak-in-sentences-of-three is back." 

John smiled and shrugged. Still, there was one thing that Evangeline wanted to know despite her better judgment. Even as he professed his love to her the thought niggled in the back of her mind. "I do have one more question."

John sighed suspecting what the question was. A compliment to how well he knew his lover. "I have the feeling I'm not going to like it."

"Probably not, but when has that ever stopped me? Are you sure that you can really move on? That you'll stop using your past or anything else for that matter as a way to keep me out? Because I really need to know now John. I'm not going into round two with a chip on my shoulder. But if you tell me that you're willing to let me inside of you then I'll believe. I will believe you because I know you don't lie. " 

Evangeline waited with a look of total serenity as she stared into her lover's eyes searching for an early answer. But inside, her stomach twisted in knots. 

"I knew you were going to ask that," was all John said.

 

 






Chapter End Notes:

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Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.