words I won't say | {cody/imogen} | blitz

I M O G E N

"Cody Bowers-Fox!"

Oh, for fuck's sake. she thought. Fate, it seemed, was the magnifying glass between the sun and little, squirming Imogen Tarver, and this was simply the last straw. Her lfe was already a mess and now the one person she could--

No, no Imogen Tarver was not supposed to give a shit. She didn't give a shit. But she still found it hard to breathe when they escorted him inside the Justice Building, and when the doors slammed shut, the sort of finalization they had, as if they said "And there is nothing you, Imogen Tarver, can do about it," her eyes stung with tears. Real, stupid, pathetic tears.

And she found herself waiting, among others, to say goodbye. Erastus sobbed but since his return, it wasn't a big difference in his usual behavior. "Do you have a piece of paper?" she asked, fishing a pen from her pocket and scribbling one tiny sentence she had never had the bravery to say out loud as Erastus handed over a clean napkin. Lucky napkin, she thought, since any longer and it would have dripped with tears and dribble and mucus and whatever else decided to leak from Erastus Fox.

For reasons she could not fathom, she patted him on the back to calm him down until the workers in white came up with a clipboard. "Imogen Tarver, you're up first. Three minutes." She thought about giving him an earful but then she remembered what they had done to Duncan and Cody and Erastus and they hadn't ever done anything. So she bit her cheek and pushed past him into the room.

"You've got some nerve," she said, her voice completely lacking the ferocity she wanted it to have. "Making me-- No. We really screwed the pooch this time, didn't they?" She stepped forward and shoved the folded napkin into his palm. "Don't read this until you are alone. As in after I'm gone." Tears stung her eyes and she growled. "It's so fucking dry in here, damn it!" There was no fooling him, though. She knew why she cried and so did he, so she let her walls down for a second and crashed into him. "Please come back, Cody. Please." That was a word she did not use very often, but she realized she would have said it a hundred times if it meant he would come back to her.

She glanced at the napkin and she hoped he knew she meant what she had written because, in truth, she did.

Four silly words: "Hey, I love you."