The Seven Day Target - Pivotal Moment

Nick clenched his teeth and peeled the T-shirt off his chest, revealing an expanse of drying blood and a jagged gash on his left side. Libby's knees weakened. "You really should go to the hospital," she said.

“And leave you unsupervised after that little stunt you pulled in town? Not likely.” Nick removed the shirt and lowered himself onto the edge of the bathtub.

She knelt beside him on the floor and tentatively stroked his side with wet gauze. He jumped at the contact. “Try to hold still.” Just the sight of the knife wound, deep and still weeping fluids, was enough to make her head reel. “You need stitches.”

“I said no,” Nick replied, his entire body gripped with tension. “Clean and dress the wound. Pretend your life depends on it.”

Libby took a breath and continued, trying to distance herself from the task. Each of Nick’s gasps was a reminder that this was her fault. Her stomach rolled.

She taped dry gauze over the ugly wound and sat back on her haunches. “Okay,” she said.

Nick released a deep breath but didn’t move. Libby bit her lower lip. “I shouldn’t have run off,” she said. Nick didn’t move. “I saw the man in the black jacket, and I thought I’d follow him. It was stupid.” Nick remained still. Libby swallowed. “Please, say something.”

His jaw was clenched shut, his eyes set firmly ahead, staring at nothing. “I realize that my presence is nothing but an inconvenience to you, Elizabeth.” Libby winced to hear him use her full name. “You have your plans. Career, marriage, kids, right? No room for the unexpected.” Libby’s breath caught as he turned to her, his eyes steeped in a stormy, foreign anger. “Give me another forty-eight hours or so, and I promise I’ll never inconvenience you again.”

She looked away. He had every right to hate her. He could have been killed. They both could have. “I’m sorry.”

Nick grunted in response. He touched the gauze bandage on his side gingerly.
Libby’s eyes began to sting. “No kids,” she whispered.

Nick continued to examine his bandage. “What?”

Libby sniffed. “You said career, marriage, kids.” She wiped under her nose with the back of her hand. “No kids.”

“I didn’t realize there’d been a change in plans.” Nick rose. “Although, I hear kids make it hard to work seventy hours a week.”

As if his words had turned on a faucet, Libby hunched over and began to sob. She pressed her hands against her face, shaking against her own emotion. Nick froze. “Libby, what did I say?” She shuddered, unable to catch her breath. He eased himself down to kneel in front of her and placed his hands on her heaving shoulders. “Libby please don't cry. I didn’t mean it.”

“No,” she gasped, lifting her head. “No, you’re right. You’re right to be angry with me.” She inhaled, her breath ragged. “But I won’t have children. I…can’t.”

Nick placed a finger beneath her chin, tilting her face to meet his. "What are you saying?"

“I wanted to tell you.” Her voice was tight with emotion. “But how do you tell your fiancé that you’re infertile?” She pulled back from his embrace. “I don’t think it gets more awkward than that.”

Nick's dark eyes were fixed on her. “Tell me now, Libby.”

She sniffed again. “I went off the Pill when you went to Quantico.” She gave a small shrug. “I figured we were going to get married. But nothing…happened. For months. I obviously wasn’t pregnant, so I went to the doctor, who referred me to a specialist.” Libby ran a finger under her eye. “They said it was from the cancer treatment. That I didn’t…develop.” Her chin trembled. “I always knew it was a possibility. The doctor said I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Nick swallowed and tucked a loose strand of black hair behind her ear. Libby's pulse quickened at the pain in his gaze. Every time she'd imagined this moment, she'd anticipated several reactions. Nick would be angry, or disappointed, or withdrawn. But he was none of those things. He was hurt. “Of course you didn’t do anything wrong,” he whispered.

Libby shook her head. “There must be a reason. I must have done something –“

“Stop it right there.” Nick cupped her jaw in his hands and looked into her eyes. “I won’t hear self-pity, Libby. Not from you.” He tightened his hold on her slightly, and Libby became aware of his bare chest, and the way he was on his knees, his strong legs bracketing her own.

The pads of his thumbs moved in slow, lazy lines against her cheeks. Libby reached up to place her hands over his. She’d almost forgotten how well their bodies fit together, each piece of her interlocking with its counterpart of him. She’d almost forgotten how it felt to melt against him, to unload her physical and emotional weight.

“You should have told me,” he whispered. “I could have…” he paused. “You just should have told me.”

Libby’s heart pounded as the breath from his words bounced against her cheeks. He was breathing harder now, both of them were. He held her captive, his fingers easing to the back of her neck to thread themselves together, his arms holding her still. She opened her lips to say something, anything, in response. "Would it have changed anything?" Her voice was raw. "Nick, you left me. You left and you never called.”

His forehead creased. "I didn't know, Libby."

As if that made it better, she thought. As if closing himself off and walking away was forgivable, so long as he didn’t know. He really was impossible.

He was looking at her with an intensity she’d never seen. He would have died for her today. Libby’s chest tightened. And if he had?

Tell me you’re sorry, she thought. Tell me your life has been empty without me the way mine has been empty without you. She stared into his deep, brown eyes, willing him to tell her the words she needed to hear. For God’s sake, tell me you’ll never leave me again.

Instead, he pressed his lips against hers, silencing her thoughts. She was only aware of the heat of his body and the pressure of his lips and the soft moan from the back of his throat as they kissed.

Then he pulled away.

***

“What is it?” Libby's eyes were wide.

“You’re upset,” he said. He was breathing heavily, his body shaking as he fought to get control of himself.

Libby blinked. Her nose was pink and her blue eyes were bloodshot, and she was doing that thing with her hands, wringing her fingers. He'd almost forgotten how she did that.

Not like this, he thought. Not with her crying and emotional. Not with her scared, hurting and looking for anything to fill that void.

Nick took a deep breath. “We’ve both been through a lot.” His side burned as he eased himself from the floor, leaning on the bathtub. “You need to rest.”

Infertility. Nick tried without success to swallow the lump in his throat. Libby had been lonely as a child, growing up with only her father and her much older brother. Having children meant everything to her -- how could she have kept something like that from him?

He started to walk toward the door when he heard her say, "Wait." He turned.
She was still on the floor, her arms wrapped around herself. She was looking at him as if she'd never seen him before.

“Nick,” she said, her voice cracking slightly. “You saved my life today. I made a stupid mistake, and I could have died.” Her eyes began to pool again. “And it’s not even over, because I could die tomorrow.”

“Libby,” Nick whispered, “you’ll live to be one hundred.”

“No,” she shook her head. “I have this minute, and that’s all.”

His face tightened. “And what do you want, then?” He searched her eyes. “What do you want if this is it?”

The sight of her in that alley, held a knifepoint, had flooded his body with blind energy. He didn't think about the knife, or the man holding it. He didn't think about his own life. At that moment, all he thought about was Libby walking to school at twelve years old and all the years they'd had together since then, and he realized that it wasn't enough. He would never have enough time with Libby.

She was still looking at him, and her mouth was still twisted in that way she twisted it while she thought.

His heart pounded in his ears. It's not a hard question, he wanted to say. Say you want me the way I've always wanted you. Say you would die happy tomorrow if I was all you had tonight.

But what she said was, “I don’t want to be alone.”

Nick paused. He gave her a stiff smile. “You’re not alone, Libby,” he said. “I’ll be on the couch.”

He turned and walked out of the bathroom, leaving Libby still sitting on the floor, her mouth slightly open.

As he walked down the hall, the house echoed with his footsteps and the unspoken words hanging between them. Step, step. "I wouldn't have cared about not having children." Step, step. "You were all I ever wanted, anyway."

Nick looked down. The bandage was already red. Libby was right. He should go to the hospital. He just didn’t have time.