Califonria's
Lonely
by natushka
Summary: She
never expected to feel like this
Pairing: Bill/Karen
Ratings: PG
Spoilers: General Start of season 6 spoilers
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
A/N: All mistakes are mine, is totally un-beta-ed.
She still hasn’t
gotten used to the weather in DC, it’s surprisingly
cool, like a chill that works its way into your system
until you feel frozen inside and out, or maybe it’s
just because she doesn’t have that other warm body
in bed with her anymore to ward the cold away.
Politics, she’s decided, isn’t all it’s
cracked up to be.
She dreams of LA, and heat waves and Bill.
She misses the way his fingers tangle with hers, the way
he tugs her closer, pulling her in with that shy boyish
smile of his. The way his blue eyes sparkle, a tell tale
sign that she’s going to end up naked and breathless.
She doesn’t know how much longer she can do this.
---
He surprises her on her birthday by showing up in DC
after knowing she couldn’t get home to celebrate
with him.
She finds him waiting for her in her office when she
comes from a tedious meeting, with a tad of homicide in
her eyes and god… He was the answer before she even
knew the question and he looked so good sitting on the
edge of her desk, hands in his pockets. Tie missing, his
white dress shirt was open at the collar and all the
frustrations of the day just melted away when she closed
the door.
Bill smiles at her softly and leans down to kiss her
check (ever the gentleman), but she has different ideas
and meets him halfway, their lips colliding. She moves in
fast and greedily as her tongue slides against his.
She forgets everything then, and just feels, her body
humming.
The Shrill buzz of the intercom in her office drags her
from the sexual haze in her head and that’s when she
realises that now she’s the one sitting on her desk
and Bill is standing between her legs, his hands pushing
her skirt up past mid thigh while his tongue swirls
around her earlobe then nips with a hint of teeth.
Her assistant’s voice flows over the intercom
informing her about a call on line four, so she leans
back hitting the intercom button telling her assistant to
take a message.
When she looks back at Bill, he has this guilty look on
his face, like they’re 16 again and have just been
caught making out by someone’s parents.
She presses her forehead against his and breathes deep.
He is going to get her into so much trouble.
---
Usually they don’t speak during the day unless its
work related, so when she steps out of a cabinet meeting
and she has three missed calls from him, fear grips her
slightly because she knows there are no scheduled
briefings or check ins with CTU today.
So either there is some kind of situation going on they
don’t know about or it’s something personal.
She doesn’t know which it is, that makes her grip
her cell phone tighter.
She hates this feeling, knowing that if there is
something wrong that she isn’t there, and can’t
be for a matter of hours, knowing she’s miles away
and can’t do anything for him.
“Buchanan”
“Bill” she breathes, he answered his cell so
that’s a start.
---
She doesn’t know how she ever slept alone.
They haven’t even been together for more than a year
and prior to that she’d been sleeping alone, at
first the additional body heat drove her nuts, and the
arms and legs invading her personal space, pulling her in
tightly and keeping her close left her feeling
claustrophobic and sleepless for weeks.
God and now she can’t sleep without his leg between
hers, or his hand wrapped around her, lips pressed
against the base of her neck.
Its scares her sometimes how hard and fast she became
dependant on him.
For the first week she’s in DC, she sleeps on the
couch in her apartment Homeland gave her and Bill talks
her to sleep.
---
The day she hears it’s finally official, the Chinese
have Jack Bauer, she pulls all kinds of strings to get
home to Bill.
Strings she’s pretty sure she shouldn’t be
pulling or even have the power to pull, but she makes it
home on dusk after calling CTU after she landed, to see
where he was (“I’m sorry Miss Hayes, Mr
Buchanan has already left for the afternoon”).
The house is dark when she walks in and deathly silent.
She drops her keys next to Bills on the small table in
the entryway and her heels click on the tiles and echo
throughout the house as she moves.
She finds him in their bedroom, sitting on the end of the
bed, his face in his hands. They all knew that it was the
Chinese who was responsible for Jack’s disappearance,
but hearing it officially, made it solid, made it real,
made the possibility of getting him back near to
impossible.
He looks up at her when she covers his hands with hers,
if he’s surprised that she’s here, he doesn’t
show it, all she can see in his eyes is guilt and that
makes her heart break for him. He pulls her in between
his legs, wrapping his arms around her, his face buried
against her stomach.
She doesn’t know what to do to make this better, so
she just holds him tight all night as he rides out the
guilt raging inside of him.
---
Four weeks.
She hasn’t seen him in four weeks, between all kinds
of chaos and disaster that has kept her in DC, she can’t
wait to leave and return to LA for a long weekend of
recuperation and rest, god she can’t get on a plane
fast enough.
Bill already has a hot bubble bath ready for her when she
walks in the door and joins her in the bathroom a few
minutes later with a glass of red wine.
He sits on the steps leading up to the bath and tells her
the latest tales from the ongoing love triangle that is
Milo/Chloe/Morris and she loves the easy placed smile
that’s on his lips as he retells their latest office
antics.
His hand ends up dipping into the water, resting on her
knee, his fingertips tracing lazy patterns on her bare
skin, and god, she hasn’t felt his hands on her skin
in weeks and it’s enough to send her heart beat sky
high and make her breath catch in her throat.
When his hand slides higher on the inside of her thigh
she drags him into the tub and they make a mess of the
bathroom.
---
She doesn’t want to go.
She thought she could do this, but not now, not with the
reality of thousands of miles of nothing between them, it
makes her tighten her grip on Bill’s hand just a
little more.
God, and he’s not making this any easier.
He looks so good beside her, business suit gone and
replaced by jeans and a t-shirt, her carry-on luggage
slung over his shoulder. He looks younger, more boyish
and it makes her heart flutter in her chest, even though
they’ve been together for just over a year.
Looking at him like this, it makes her want to change her
mind, to be completely content with her position with
Homeland Security and to tell herself she doesn’t
need the added stress of what being the National Security
Advisor to the President will bring.
Makes her wish they both just worked some average 9-5 job.
But they don’t and she knows this, they both do and
they both agreed they’d always put their work first
and they were ok with that. Sometimes she hates that he’s
so understanding about all of this, about only seeing her
every other weekend, about the late night phone calls
that are bound to happen, about the frequent flyer miles
they’re going to rack up.
Deep down she wishes he’d just turn to her and tell
her not to go.
But he won’t, because he’s not that guy,
because he loves her and supports her and because he’s
proud of her (even though it’s tearing them apart).
And that… that makes this so much harder for her,
because he is that guy.
When her boarding announcement is called she doesn’t
know what to say, god and she can’t even look him in
the eye in fear of changing her mind completely. But Bill’s
finger under her chin lifts her eyes to meet his and his
gaze is steady and strong and it makes her believe they
can survive this.
“I love you”
And it’s the only words she can manage.
“I love you more”
He kisses her then, and it’s soft and warm and makes
her want to cry, she can feel the tears stinging her eyes
and before Bill can see, she breaks away grapping her bag,
then turning and making her way towards the gate.
She never expected to feel like this.
fin
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