Title: Misery Loves Company 4/4
Pairing: DeWitt/Dominic
Rating: PG (little bit of language)
Author: lalenapeike 
Summary: The pulse bomb goes off and starts resetting everyone. What if everyone didn't want to be reset? And where has Dominic been?
Spoilers: Season 1 and 2. Set after Epitaph 2.
Disclaimers: This is all Joss Whedon’s. Just the ideas are mine.
A/N: It's finished yay!

Part One

Part Two

Part Three
 

Adelle cries for a long time. Dominic is pretty sure that this isn’t just about him anymore. In all likelihood she hadn’t let herself cry much over Topher.  There had been too much going on. So he lets cry, even though his shirt is getting wet and he still doesn’t know why he’s in here. But he switches that part of his brain off. He’s here because he has to be. He’s not sure why, but it’s right and she needs him right now. So he holds her until his arm starts to go numb. They’ve sat back down on the bed and Adelle has stopped crying, though his arm is still around her. It’s still quite early in the morning and he doesn’t hear any noise from outside. He glances at the woman resting her head on his shoulder. Her eyes are closed and her breathing has slowed.  He lays her down gently and creeps out of the room. Taking a deep breath, Dominic leans against the wall tiredly.

He really hadn’t expected that reaction. It seemed like they both had a reason to be angry, although stealing 10 years from someone definitely wins out over walking out on them in his opinion. He glances down the hall to check that no one else was awakened by the noise and sees Alpha looking out from his doorway. “Guess you heard that?”

“Yeah. Told you, didn’t I. You fell asleep in there?” Alpha looks amused.

“Not on purpose! I was just trying to help.” Dominic shakes his head in annoyance. Alpha just grins. “I didn’t want to wake her up.”

“And you succeeded brilliantly Dom,” Alpha smirked.

“Just shut up, okay. It’s been a long morning,” Dominic growls. He stands there with is arms crossed, glaring at the blonde man.  “Did I. Did I really just walk out on her?” Alpha nods in response. “Did I say goodbye?”

Alpha shakes his head slowly. “I think you thought it would be easier if you didn’t. It wasn’t a surprise though. We knew you didn’t just want to sit around keeping house. Or go off to war with Echo and Ballard.” Dominic rolls his eyes at this. “You weren’t made for the country Dom. You had to be out there, doing something to help,” finishes Alpha.  Dominic doesn’t respond, just looks back at Adelle’s closed door. “Do you want to see the note?”

Dominic’s eyes go wide at the question. “Why the hell do you have it?”

Alpha shrugs. “Why not?” At another glare from Dominic he finally says “She gave it to me to get rid of. She couldn’t look at it anymore.” His eyes look sad. He goes into his room and comes back with a folded piece of paper. The note is very short. He checks it over carefully before reading it. It looks like it has been folded and refolded many times. It is his handwriting though; there is no doubt of that. It’s written messily, and not in a straight line, as if the man who wrote it was rushing or writing in the dark. But he was that man. All it says is:

Adelle,

I can’t stay here. I need to be useful and here I’m not. They need you here. Topher needs you. If we were enough I’d stay. But I can’t hide behind closed doors while the world falls apart. I have to keep fighting to get people out, to fix it. I’ll come back, but don’t wait for me..

I’m sorry.

I love you.

Laurence

His hand drops to his side, shaking. He almost drops the note. It’s a lot to take in for one morning. This is the only substantial clue to who he was before that blast, the only proof of his past. He can’t run from it. He can’t deny it any longer. It’s there in black and white. He loved her. He still loves her. The memories are gone, but the familiarity is still there all hazy around the edges. People and places and only so much as déjà vu, but he’s not the same man he was 10 years ago. It’s why he keeps bringing himself back to her, keeps putting himself next to her even when he can’t stand her. He may never forgive her for the 10 years, but he needs her too.  

Unfortunately, Adelle won’t even stay in the same room as him. She’s the one avoiding him now and although he knows that she’s doing it out of self-preservation, it stings. She gets up from the table when he sits down, citing the garden she has to check on or the children she has to see to. She goes into her room after dinner and stays there for hours. He isn’t sure how to get through to her when she won’t even look at him.

***

She’d completely fallen apart in front of him, which she still can’t believe. Adelle can’t look him in the eye. She still can’t believe she’d lost control like that. She’d cried in front of him. She'd cried on him practically. But far worse, she'd shown how weak she was. She'd shown him how much she missed him, needed him and how guilty she felt for what he'd become. Upon waking up later that day Adelle had felt so ashamed she wanted to crawl back into bed and stay there forever. No one could want to be around such weakness. She can barely stand herself. So she runs. It’s the only thing Adelle can do. She buries herself in self-preservation. She’s pushing everyone away as hard as she can until they’re gone and she’s safe again. She needs to be safe from the pity in their eyes, from the anger and confusion in his. It was a one time thing, he'd felt sorry for her. Laurence may have comforted her and held her, but he was gone again when she woke. It was meant as nothing more than comfort. Besides which, she belongs alone. It’s not self-pity, merely fact. People leave and they die and she can’t control it. She'd let them all in and now they were gone. It can't happen again, she isn't strong enough to do this all over again. So alone is best. Alone is safe.

She’s almost convinced herself of that when Laurence comes up behind her one day and grabs her arm, leading her into the next storeroom before she can think to stop him.

“Damn you. Let go of me Laurence.” She yanks her arm away and moves to leave. He blocks the doorway. 

 “Adelle, just hear me out for a second.”  Adelle glares at him and crosses her arms, but makes no further move to get out. “Alpha showed me the note.”

 
Her face pales. “He had no right.” She shakes her head in disgust. “I told him to throw it away. Nobody bloody listens to me,” she mutters heatedly. “So now you read it, you know what happened. So just leave me alone Mr. Dominic. I…”

He puts a finger to her mouth, silencing her. Then he pushes her against the wall, cupping her face with his hands and kissing her hard. She is so stunned that she doesn’t reciprocate for several seconds. Then, gripping his head, she kisses him back. The kiss is frenzied, all tongues and lips crashing together violently. Her fingers tangled in his hair and his hands roaming up and down her body gripping her tightly. Adelle gets lost in it; there's just so much feeling and then something like hope creeping back into her body after being gone for so long. God, she has missed this so much. The way they fit together so completely and the heat rising in her body as he presses her to the wall steal her breath. He pulls back from her then, both of them gasping for breath, pupils dilated. They're both on the verge of losing control right there in the stock room, but Dominic needs her to hear this first. He breathes in deeply, steadying himself. It’s his eyes that get to her then. They’re a softer blue and gone is the sharp iciness that’s filled them lately. He’s looking at her like he used to, like she mattered more than anything. Her resolve is starting to shatter and the dull ache in her chest is melting away.

He sighs and rocks back on his heels. “I’m sorry Adelle. I’m sorry for the way I’ve been treating you,” he said. “I know this is hard for both of us. I don’t know if I can forgive you for the Attic, for all of this,” he gestures at himself. Her face falls slightly and he lifts a hand to stroke her cheek. “But I still love you. I still want this. Even if it’s hard.” The sudden smile that flashes across her face then is brilliant. He's always thought she was beautiful, but this is different. This is real. He drinks it in.

She looks at him and the minutes tick by. “Alright Mr. Dominic,” she says at last. He rolls his eyes at the use of his last name. “Laurence then,” she laughs. “I still love you too.” He takes her hand and squeezes it tightly. The world is a mess, there are countless things to be fixed, and the technology still out there needs to be destroyed for good. In this moment, however, standing in between canned goods and the flour, Adelle DeWitt feels the shadows retreat.

End