Water Lilies: Chapter Twenty

Disclaimer:Song lyrics for "You Get Me" belong to Teitur Lassen. 

Chapter Twenty: You Get Me

Ami stared and Makoto stared back, neither knowing where to start or how to break the silence. The innocuous smell of toast and eggs lingered in the air. Ami had in fact arrived home with the intention of immediately having breakfast before settling in to work. With Makoto's unexpected presence, appetite had been rudely shoved over to make way for shock. Ami suddenly realized how much smaller the kitchen felt when Makoto was there. Or maybe it only seemed that way because she was so aware of the other woman.

Ami was the first to speak. "I never expected I would find you here."

Makoto looked down at her feet, shame evident in the action. Immediately she looked back up, directly into Ami's eyes. "I wanted to see you...I wanted to apologize."

Those words served as a catalyst. Ami felt the dam holding every emotion she had felt regarding Makoto break within her. "How could you?" she beseeched, the buried pain of years finally exposed to the light of day. To the person she loved. "How could you just leave like that...I did not demand anything of you, I just wanted to spend time with you." She dropped down into the seat Hana vacated, unable to stand and face Makoto after the outburst.

"I'm sorry..." The brunette's words were filled with remorse but Ami in her current state could not figure out exactly why. Was Makoto apologizing because she left? Or was it in response to Ami's words of pain?

Ami raised her head wearily. She looked imploringly at Makoto. "Why now? What made you come back?"

The brunette did not speak for a moment, her face turned away. Her profile was unreadable, her head tilted down as if observing a very interesting spectacle happening on the floor.

"Well?" the doctor asked. Her tone was sharp, unapologetic, and demanding.

Makoto's lips moved soundlessly; she seemed to taste the words in her mouth before finally letting them spill from her lips, "Because...I love you."

If all was silent when she first spotted the tall woman standing in the kitchen, then now the world stood still for Ami. The earth stopped turning on its axis; the planet's rotation around the sun paused. Her lungs ceased to function and she waited for her next heartbeat. She had waited so long to hear those words spoken in Makoto's husky tremor, Ami thought perhaps she imagined them. Her confused blue gaze met unwavering green. Did Makoto really mean it?

"How can I trust those words?" Ami's voice trembled.

Makoto did not answer; instead she chose to ask a question of her own. "How long have you loved me, Ami?"

Ami's face drained of color.

"Please, answer. How long have you loved me?"

"Forever," was Ami's whisper. "From the moment I met you."

During the entire conversation the brunette had been standing next to the counter, close to Ami's seat. With the doctor's revelation she sagged back against the surface, her hands grabbing and holding on to the edges of the counter near her hips. She glanced down at Ami in wonder, "Why didn't you say anything?"

"Would you have accepted me?" Ami struck back lightning-quick, pain evident in her voice.

Makoto flinched, the rapid words striking her to the core. She licked her lips, "I..."

"You couldn't, Makoto. For a long time I hoped and dreamed you would stop seeing me as a child to be protected. Eventually I accepted that was how you would always see me. And then when you finally told me about your childhood, I understood why you pushed everyone away. I just...when I saw you finally showing some interest in me, it made me so happy. I was willing to take as much as you could offer."

Makoto gulped, "I was wrong...I see that now. I was wrong for having that mindset. And I was wrong for leaving. I just couldn't trust myself around you."

"I want to believe you! I really do. With some help I even went to your apartment to finally tell you how I felt. It was so devastating when you weren't there." Ami's gaze was direct, her voice miraculously even as she spoke.

Makoto dropped to her knees beside the doctor's seat, and Ami was was now the one looking down into the brunette's face. She took Ami's hands in her own, laying their embraced palms in the smaller woman's lap. The tactile sensation of the brunette's skin touching Ami's own evoked the memories of their time in Otari Village, of the time they spent in bed with nothing between them. Nothing, except Makoto's stubborness.

"Please believe me! I want to be with you."

Makoto relinquished the hold on Ami's hands and reached for the sides of the doctor's face instead. Face suffused with sudden color, Ami was reduced to a statue. One that could think, breathe and feel while frozen in place. At Makoto's touch her heart banged against its ribcage confines: a bird of fluttering frenzied motion. Her breath grew ragged. This was all it ever took. A touch from Makoto. A look. A certain word. Combined they all left her feeling as if the ground had crumbled away from under her feet and she would fall at any moment.

Except Makoto was here to catch her. She was suddenly swept up in the brunette's arms, her body crushed to Makoto's own as the tall woman stood. Underneath her feet the world still felt uncertain and her fears coalesced into a whisper absconding past her quivering lips, "Mako...don't let me fall."

The entreaty did not fall on deaf ears. Makoto tightened her grip around Ami, pulling the smaller woman closer, ensuring there was no space left between their bodies. "I won't! I promise. Please, give me a chance to let me love you the way you deserve."

Ami's arms rose from her sides to embrace Makoto, allowing herself to clutch fistfuls of the back of the brunette's shirt. She could feel the heat of Makoto's flesh beneath the cotton. She could feel it through the clothing and the apron. Her head sagged against the taller woman's chest and she hoped that was enough of an answer. She felt too exhausted to speak.

Makoto simply held her, seeming to understand that was all she needed.

If I say no, if I resist
If I don't give in to this
Would it be a lesson or a loss?

Suddenly I know what it's about
Thoughts come in, and words come out
Suddenly I'm not killing time
It's all over now

You get me
You get me

Like a beautiful song
You heard a million times
Like the rainbow's end
You can never find

You get me
You get me

If I say yes, if I let go
And face the consequence I'll know
Will it lead to living with regret?

Suddenly the walls are coming down
I won't be the same when I come around
Suddenly I am understood
It's all over now

You get me
You get me

Like a crimson sunset
Where the sky meets sea
Like no one alive
But lives in my dreams

You get me
You get me
You get me
 You get me

Like a beautiful song
You heard a million times
Like the rainbow's end
You can never find

It's hard to ignore
And undeniable, too
This feeling inside
When I look at you

You get me
You get me

-x-x-x-

They sat in the courtyard enraptured by the sights and sounds of a day winding down. A leisurely breeze brought the scents of flowers-phlox, lilies, lavender; hints and whiffs of fragrances that heightened the sensation of being wrapped in sunlight and warmth. With Ami's face washed in the colors of sunset, Makoto thought she had never looked more beautiful. Ami wore a dreamy smile on her lips, in her eyes a faraway look lingered.

Makoto bent low, her mouth next to the smaller woman's ear. The scent of Ami's hair enveloped her: a crisp cool scent that reminded her of rain. It was a smell that left her feeling refreshed while setting her at ease. Her lips curved upwards into a smile. "What are you thinking of?" she whispered the question, intentionally teasing the skin of Ami's neck and ear with her breath.

Ami smiled in delight, a hand reaching up to touch the places where Makoto's warm breath tickled her. The brunette caught Ami's thumb gently between her teeth as she awaited the doctor's answer. "You love me."

"Mmmhmm," Makoto hummed, nodding with Ami's thumb still in her mouth. Throughout the day she made sure to convey those three words to the doctor. She had not known how good it would feel to say those words, or to see how much joy it brought the other woman. Seeing Ami that happy made her own chest swell in pleasure. It was a heady, euphoric feeling. And she wanted to experience it with no one other than Ami. She swiped her tongue alongside the smaller woman's finger and received a gasp in return.

The taste of Ami's skin coupled with the exhalation caused Makoto to crave the smaller woman's lips. She released Ami's thumb and aimed for the doctor's mouth instead, closing the gap between their lips quickly. Ami welcomed her kiss, lips parting readily to permit her entrance. Makoto lost herself in the taste of Ami; a familiar sensation yet it excited and electrified her all at once. She belonged with Ami. To Ami. Her body had known even while her brain fought it.

"You love her." Haruka stated without preamble.

Makoto could not have been more surprised if she had been walking and ran out of ground. "What?"

Haruka rolled her eyes. "I know you're not deaf. You're in love with Ami." She sat upright and reached for one of the beer bottles.

"But...How?"

The blonde shrugged. "Who knows why or how we fall in love. What I do know is sometimes there are people who come into our lives and change them irrevocably. Sometimes they move on and it's okay. And sometimes you can't help but need that person to stick around, to stay with you for the rest of your life. For me that person is Michiru. I've known it since the first day I met her...Just don't tell her I said that."

Makoto sputtered in unexpected amusement at her cousin's last sentence and Haruka smiled as well.

"Joking aside, I think Ami is the one for you. Could you imagine not having her in your life?" Haruka continued after a moment.

The brunette contemplated the idea. No visits to Yukikura, no time spent with Ami. The thought left her feeling oddly empty. For the past couple of years the visits to the doctor were what she looked forward to the most. She shook her head, "I can't imagine it. But how does that equate to me being in love with her? Couldn't it just mean I would miss my friend?"

"God, I love you but you're dense, Mako."

The conversation with Haruka certainly made more sense now. She had left her cousin's house pondering the blonde's words. If they were really meant to be just friends then Makoto would not be experiencing a great need to be with the doctor. She would not crave Ami's touch or kisses. She would not feel reassured that all was right with the world if Ami was not there to keep her centered. She would not receive the simple satisfaction of being happy because Ami was happy. She understood all of it now. She needed Ami. She also finally understood that her fear of turning into someone like her mother was groundless; she was not like her mother. And Ami was not like her father.

Their lips parted and Makoto smiled. Ami's head tilted to the side, her pthalo eyes questioning although her lips curved upwards into a smile. Makoto shook her head chuckling in a self-deprecating manner.

"Haruka called me dense," she answered to Ami's unspoken question. Makoto's hands gently grasped the sides of Ami's head, her fingers threading through the short blue strands at the woman's temple. Her self-deprecating smile dimmed, morphing into a gentle smile as she stared at Ami, absorbing the large blue eyes, pert little nose, and pink lips that smiled back at her sweetly.

"I get it now though. I don't want to be with anyone else but you for the rest of my life."

Ami's eyes watered; she had waited a very long time to hear those words, after all.

-x-x-x-

Hana sat with her legs folded under her. The watercolor sunset splashed on the floor not far from where she sat forming perfectly slanted bars of light. Commingled laughter from Ami and Makoto drifted in on a breeze from the inner courtyard; bells and chimes of happiness. Hana's eyes lit with warmth, her lips forming a smile of her own. Her glance fell on the letter she was currently composing.

'Dearest Keiko,
I am very well. There is no need for me to worry so much lately, in fact I believe there may be cause for celebration...'

Her azure eyes, not quite the same as Ami's but quite blue nonetheless, continued to scan the page covered in a neat script. Her pen gracefully crawled over the paper when she resumed writing. The smile did not leave her face.