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Snow fell and left blue specks across the landscape of moonlit darkness as time stretched around them. Instead of a break in the case, there were only cracks in the ice sheet that covered the waters surrounding town. They had nothing but questions as they waited for Anchorage to process and perform formal autopsies on the Tsalal men, and all they had was time.
In the days after taking Otis Heiss to the station and then the Lighthouse, Navarro had taken a step back to make arrangements for Jules, who she had decided would have wanted to go back to where she was found. Danvers came home to a empty house, save for boxes of case files and a drab Christmas tree whose lights still weren’t set up, and today was no different.
She looks over all of the case photos on the coffee table, white noise playing and filling the silence. In the corner of her eye, she spots the box of hidden memories and remembers Holden’s polar bear, whom she’d rescued after coming back from the dredge. In the heat of the moment with Navarro, she’d tossed him to the snow to be buried once more.
The knocks at the door tear her from her thoughts, and she finds Navarro standing before her.
“Hey, what— is there something with the case?” she asks.
“No. Is anybody else here?” Navarro asks, looking past the shorter woman’s shoulders, seeing nothing but case files strewn everywhere, as expected.
“Leah’s been staying at Prior’s. It’s just me,” Danvers says, stepping aside.
This time, Navarro remembers to wipe her boots and take them off in the foyer, shooting a playful glare at Danvers. “How long has she been staying at Prior’s?”
“Since… well, a few days. Did you get that ear checked out?” Danvers starts, an intro for the real question she wants to ask. She ruffles her hair with her left hand before putting her hands in her pockets.
“All clear.” Navarro looks towards the living room and imagines the two of them standing there days before, talking about Holden and Jules.
Danvers follows her line of sight and decides to test the waters. “Are you… are you alright?”
“I don’t really want to talk about it.” She walks and sits in the same seat she was the last time, eyes drifting over the photos that have the answers to the questions they haven’t yet asked. They’re at a standstill, floating in the same place, going nowhere. She turns off the white noise machine. “I’m tired, Liz.”
Danvers walks and stands in front of her, arms crossed. “Tired of what?”
“Of carrying cases, of waiting for answers that never come, of feeling…” she trails off. She looks up at Danvers, mindful that what she herself needs might not be what Danvers wants. She carefully continues, “I need to feel something different.”
Danvers swallows and breaks eye contact. Even if she doesn’t want to admit it, the weight of the two cases compounded with her haunted memories of Holden and Leah’s leaving the house was all weighing her down, and she’d needed to feel something different too. She’d been needing to feel anything else for a long time.
Met with silence, Navarro slowly stands up and walks closer to the older woman, who uncrosses her arms and releases a shaky exhale.
“Are you sure?” Danvers asks.
Navarro brings a hand to Danvers’ neck and kisses her, softer than either expected. They both look at each other again with understanding in their eyes, and the softness turns to something more.
In Danvers’ room, they’re in a flurry of undressing each other, and Danvers notices the bulge in Navarro’s pants as she unbuckles her belt. She raises her eyebrow and laughs. “And what if I wasn’t actually alone?”
“I would’ve left my pride on your doorstep,” Navarro deadpans, getting rid of the pants herself. She conveniently also brought a bottle of lube, which she produces from the pocket of her jacket she had shed earlier. Before Danvers can say anything, Navarro cups her hand on Danvers’ cunt over her underwear, eliciting a moan from her. She grins, feeling the wetness gathering there. “Stop talking.”
Danvers needs no more direction, and she pushes Navarro to sit down on the bed. Her hand moves to the strap protruding from Navarro’s hips, and Navarro groans at the sight. Danvers grins, and she stops to take off her underwear, eyes concentrated on Navarro. She bites her lip as she watches Navarro stroke the strap, covering it with lube. Navarro reaches for Danvers again and feels the damp curls between her hips and moves her fingers lower.
“Fuck,” Danvers says under her breath. It always feels different with Navarro— a welcome change of tide against everything else that she always finds herself drawn to, she finds. She brings a hand to Navarro’s face and kisses her, hard, before nudging her to move further up the bed.
Navarro leans back and rests her weight on her forearms as the other woman moves to straddle her.
When she’s settled on Navarro’s thighs, Danvers grabs the cock and inches closer until it rests against her stomach, and she grinds her cunt up and down the length, groaning when the head catches her entrance.
Navarro resists moving her hips or changing the pace, taking in the sight of Danvers, who is gleaming in the moonlight. She’s wearing a fancy bra again, and Navarro smirks, only because Danvers has her eyes closed. She reaches up to palm her breasts, and the change in position brings the cock against her own stomach as Danvers continues to grind against it. Navarro moves one hand to unhook her bra, and Danvers tosses it to the side.
Looking at the pendant that rests in the dip of Danvers’ neck and moves slightly with each gasp, Navarro decides that they’ve both waited enough. She places her hand on Danvers’ back and swiftly moves their position.
Danvers moans and her hands wander down Navarro’s abdomen. “Inside,” she says, breathlessly.
Navarro guides the strap to her entrance, gathering wetness for good measure, before she pushes in slowly. She’s torn between watching the cock slip inside her and reveling in the look on Danvers’ face. She opts to watch Danvers as she closes her eyes, getting used to the feeling of Navarro inside her, and once Navarro bottoms out, she fucks her without pause.
It comes back to her like muscle memory, and with each thrust, Danvers’ moans get louder, and it’s all Navarro wants to concentrate on. It’s a language she missed between her and Danvers, something that came to them by surprise yet somewhat naturally all those years ago.
In the building heat, Danvers opens her eyes and wraps her legs around Navarro, bringing her closer. She beckons Navarro to look at her, and the younger woman nods, her pace never faltering. One hand reaches for Navarro’s arm, grasping hard, and her other snakes between them to rub her clit.
When she comes, Navarro continues her thrusts, riding the wave with her until her own orgasm builds to its peak. They lay still, skin to skin, until both of their breathing slow to a normal rate.
Navarro pulls out and takes off the harness, throwing it to join the discarded clothes on the floor, and Danvers glares at her, but she doesn’t move to clean anything up.
Instead, she moves closer to Navarro, resting her head on her shoulder and a hand on her chest. Danvers chances a look at Navarro, who is staring at the ceiling and circling patterns on Danvers’ shoulder.
“Your thoughts are louder than mine,” Danvers says. “Stop thinking.”
Navarro tries, but she thinks about the both of them— how they have both lost so much and were alone in their own ways. Except tonight, neither of them are alone. She closes her eyes, and she sleeps.