paper airplanes

”We’re sure that he’s fled the state, but we can keep the patrols on your apartment….”

Giorgia’s gaze shot up from her hands. They’d slowly been knotting tighter in her lap as the sheriff had rolled through her apology for not managing to take the murderer who’d been threatening her into custody yet. They’d broken into his apartment when he’d failed to turn up for court and had found the photos of her. Shots of the outside of her building, her at the grocery store, on the steps of the court house as a reporter had stopped her. Forbes had looked apologetic as she had slid the pile across the desk towards her, calling for water as the colour had drained from her face. Not because it was obvious he had planned for weeks before he had broken into her apartment, but because he was in them.

Blinking tears away now, Giorgia shook her head, her lips pinching to hide a reaction the sheriff couldn’t understand. Her hands unknotted, one settling over the photo on top – her palm covering Nemo as he disappeared into the alleyway beside her apartment building. As though she could hide him from the sheriff, protecting him even as the part of her where he had been (tattoo or no tattoo) continued to bleed.

Every officer in the state was looking for him. It would just be a matter of time. She shouldn’t be alone though. The patrol cars would guarantee her safety.

Her ribs had ached with the effort at holding back the hysterical bark of laughter at that. If only they had been doing that when the man had broken into her apartment. He had died and some part of her had as well, all because the job had caught up to her. Giorgia pulled herself together long enough to force the sheriff to back down on sending the cars around anymore, but as the office door clicked shut behind her, she was folding around that would through her heart. She was sure there were eyes on her as she walked through the station. Any part of her that would’ve cared was still numb though.

The shattered pieces of her heart hadn’t healed in over a decade. What made her think that it might happen in a week?

Work littered her desk top, only small measures of it gone by the time the station started to go quiet around her. Nobody had bothered her. They had probably gathered around their desks in the bullpen instead, whispering about her the same way her coworkers in the DA’s office in Charlottesville would have done if she’d driven there instead of retreating to the sheriff’s station in Mystic Falls. She didn’t want to be gone … in case.

Giorgia finally shut her laptop down at close to eight o’clock. It was better to grieve here than it was to go back to her apartment and skirt the spot where the rug had lain on her floor. Better to return exhausted and curl up on the couch as she had done every night for that week, praying that was the night he would find it in his shredded heart to forgive her. Each small sound yanking her awake, bare feet slapping on the floor as she rushed to the window only to find the fire escape empty again. How long would it be before she accepted that she had destroyed what was between them? There was no way she could entirely blame it on Emiliano before. She had been the one to burn him from her skin, the one who hadn’t even thought about it when he’d finally returned to her and that future she had so desperately wanted had been right there in her heart along with his love.

And Nemo wanted to go to the police station, but he wasn’t fucking crazy━or ballsy━enough for that, and he didn’t know if she’d still leave the window open for him. Instead, he waited across the street until he saw her leave the station. He didn’t want to be weird, or scare her, but he had to see her as soon as possible. Unfortunately, Giorgia seemed to work late that day, and she didn’t come out until the sun was down. Maybe that was better, though ━less likely to be recognized.

Unable to avoid it anymore, she gathered up her bag and left the office. Only the desk sergeant was there, glancing up at her and murmuring a good night as she drifted out the door. He was probably watching her on the security monitors – just in case – but she didn’t even have the energy to hunch her shoulders against it as she started towards her car.

Giorgia. Her eyes closed against the fresh wave of tears as she dug her hand into her bag for her car keys. His voice had invaded her dreams every night, a desperate longing to hear it riding out of them with her. Now she was hearing it on the breeze. Dio, how broken was she?

Very. The grip on her arm had her whirling around, eyes wide, her heart tearing its way up into her throat as though it would burst out. Fabric tore, her claws ripping through her Birkin bag as she went to strike out. She could barely hear him over the thunder of her heartbeat in her ears, but the panic bled away like the tide from the beach. Not just sorry. It wasn’t the same as those two little words, there was something so much deeper to it, like the wounds carved in her heart as surely as though Nemo had been the one sprouting claws. Italian, for her, for what it would mean.

She had to blink the tears from her eyes to see anything more than the pink streaks of scars below the tumble of dark hair as she allowed him to turn her. He shouldn’t have. The sobs were coming on fast, filling in the places where adrenalin had sizzled only minutes before. ”I should have known you wouldn’t go forever,” she croaked. Both times. The girl who had waited every night for years not months hadn’t been strong enough to believe though. ”It’s always been there, underneath. The ink maybe … but the love. I should have told you, b-but I was so happy to have you back. Ti amo - durante tutte le lune piene. Per sempre.” Roxxi’s voice tried to boil through her brain, telling her that she was a fool for doing so, Nemo would only ever be a slave to Emiliano. She hadn’t seen this though.

One apology fixed nothing – if it did, he wouldn’t have left her apartment as she had shattered like glass – but they spilled out of her, the I’m sorry, I’m sorry, forgive me starting to babble out of her. Giorgia blinked rapidly, staring up at him as though he would accept it and they could finally let those wounds in their hearts vanish. Dio, let him believe, let the agony be over.

Tagged: NEMO AGNELLI * Word Count: 1182
Translate: I love you - through all the full moons. Forever.

He should have been the one haunting her dreams. The man who had put his hands on her with the intent to kill, pressing bruises into her skin that would heal in a moment, incising wounds into her soul that would take far longer to heal. Waking up sure that he was in her apartment again, trembling at the thought that someone had followed her home, found where she lived. Instead it had been the one person she desperately wanted there who had woken her again and again. Giorgia had never thought she could be afraid of him. No matter what Nemo had done to the man who’d broken into her apartment, or how he’d pushed her away from him, she knew he wouldn’t hurt her. Not physically at least.

The scars on her soul, incised deep into her heart, flared bright as the fear bled away. Later she’d regret not knowing in that moment that she was safer than she’d ever be with anybody else – even more than she regretted the Birkin that she’d destroyed. Nemo’s grip on her arm wasn’t threatening. It was a comfort, the touch she’d spent a week desperate for. Roxana wouldn’t be entirely happy he had come back, but her sister had been right. He’d come back to her. Emiliano hadn’t been able to destroy the love between them, the flame that had destroyed the only reminder she’d had of him hadn’t either.

Her lips trembled as she pressed them together, joy, love breaking through the sadness, the apologies. He loved her too. Forever. Giorgia felt the burn in her eyes start to ease, the dam of tears breaking with the words that spilled out of her in that uncontrollable rush. It was over. There were no more truths hidden between them, there was nothing to stop them from being together now.

She clung to him now, the whisper of her name a blanket wrapping around her quivering heart. No. ”No,” Giorgia whispered fiercely. ”I hurt you. You had ever right in the world to go.” To lash out. The slap of his accusations had rocked her, but now his arms were around her, helping her find her balance again. "I never did.” Her fingers curled into his shirt, anchoring herself as his hand stopped rubbing her back and settled on her cheek. The love had just been pushed down inside – hidden, like the ink. Seeing him again that first time had sent it gushing it back up, a torrent she didn’t want to fight. ”Ti amo, ti amo,” Giorgia breathed the words a heartbeat before he kissed her. Then she was trying to show him that love in every brush of her lips, the clutch of her hands as she slipped up to the back of his neck.

Her fingers slipped into his hair. Giorgia steadied herself there as Nemo drew back. Tears still damp on her cheeks, feeling light headed with the relief. She would find some other way to imprint his love for her on her skin, another tattoo, some way that he would never forget what she’d always felt for him. Eyes that still gleamed like the moonlit surface of a lake lifted to his face again, the dark brows above furrowing as he whispered to her. ”See what?” Giorgia asked, her voice immediately going tight, like the grip she still had on his shirt. Tension flooded through her again, leaving her stiff legged as Nemo grabbed her hand and pulled her into a run.

Panic rippled through her chest. Her gaze skittered around the street, trying to find some sign of something wrong. If he thought there was something there then there had to be. Nemo was paranoid, but for good reason. Power, his power shivered over her skin as they ducked between buildings. ”You think it was him? Emiliano?” It wasn’t the first time she’d thought her step-father had followed the two of them here to deal with his Buckley problem himself.

The whimper that slipped from him had her cupping his face now, catching it in both hands as she shook her here. "You're not crazy, amore mio. I didn’t see, but I believe you. We should go home. I can call the sheriff, have her send people to watch the apartment. She offered … they don’t know what happened to that man. They think he’s still after me.” Maybe he was in a way, he wouldn’t have been the first murderer to have an accomplice – one who’d known where he was going that night. ”Where? What did he look like?” Giorgia whispered, looking back down the alley. Her power welled up, her eyes flickering yellow as she stared back down the alleyway. This time she wasn’t unprepared. She would fight to keep him safe.

Tagged: NEMO AGNELLI * Word Count: 798
Translate: I love you / my love