Otalia - Facing the Truth, 2/?

Title: Facing the Truth, (2/?)

Fandom: Otalia

Rating: PG-13, for now

Spoilers: Yep, for recent and upcoming episodes.

A/N: I really appreciated the encouragement on continuing this.  I meant to have this part up sooner, but RL and my not-so-minor obsession with the BPD site and Otalia got in the way. :)

Summary: Natalia runs away from her feelings, but Olivia can’t deny how she feels. Will she stop Natalia from making a mistake with Frank?

PART 1

PART 2

 

Reva gave Olivia a long look before motioning her head for everyone to leave. Olivia closed the door behind them and turned around. Natalia hadn’t moved, but she could tell she was following her in the mirror. She stepped over a little until she caught sight of her reflection and she had to physically struggle to keep air coming into her lungs.

 

Olivia swallowed around the lump in her throat, “You look beautiful.” 

 

And she did, the dress was simple and white, with thin spagetti straps showing off the warm brown skin of her shoulders, but it was the front that left Olivia gasping. A low dip in the front went well below the bra line giving teasing glimpses of cleavage underneath.

 

Natalia still hadn’t turned around, “Thanks. I’m glad you came.”

 

“I can’t stay. I was dropping Emma off and thought I’d,” Olivia couldn’t bring herself to sound enthusiastic, “wish you well.”

 

Natalia let out a sigh, “Can you do something before you go?”

 

Olivia breathed out, almost in a sigh, “Anything.”

 

The brunette lifted a simple pearl necklace in her hand, “Help me put it on?”

 

Olivia closed her eyes for a moment, kicking herself for walking through these doors. Her heart knew better than to do this to herself, but she was drawn to Natalia like a moth to a flame and nearly as deadly a consequences resulted. It was all she could do to hold back the tears as she reached for the necklace with shaking hands.

 

Natalia watched her move, almost mechanically through the process. Natalia helped her by lifting her hair off her neck, but when warm fingers barely caressed her skin, she gasped instantly. It had been months since they had so much as touched hands in a friendly gesture that Natalia had forgotten what the fire ripping through her body felt like when Olivia touched her. She closed her eyes tight against the images flooding her mind, rushing back from a past that felt like a lifetime ago.

 

She stood pinned to the spot, processing Olivia’s words “I’m in love with you.” It was too much to take in, but so many things – touches, looks, the kiss after Emma’s presentation – started to click into place. 

 

“What do you want me to say to that, Olivia?”

 

The older woman’s shoulders sagged, defeated, “Obviously, something you’re not ready to say.”

 

“But, how? When?”

 

Olivia wasn’t ready to have her feelings dissected under a microscope, especially if they weren’t going to be returned, “Look, don’t worry about it. You, go on, marry Frank. This is on me, it’s not about you. I’ll deal with it. I just…don’t ask me to watch happily from the sidelines. I can’t.”

 

Natalia reached for her hand and she felt something shift between them, almost electrical and pulsating. She noticed little things about Olivia for the first time – how her eyes dropped to watch Natalia’s lips as she came closer, the slightly faster breathing, and the darkening of her green eyes. It was in that moment that Natalia felt the pull. It drew her in closer and threatened to suffocate her under the weight of its pressure. Desire, dark and heady, wrapped around her like a cocoon, tightened on her with a python’s grip, and she jerked away as if burned.

 

For ten minutes, or for all she knew it could have been ten hours, she sat in her car outside the farmhouse still feeling the imprint of Olivia’s fingers entwined with her own. Frank had called and left a message on her cell that he was coming over with a wedding consultant to discuss their plans. So many times she had tried to find the courage to call off the wedding and she had spent nearly every waking hour sorry that she had ever accepted his proposal.

 

She didn’t know what made her do it. No, she knew. Fear, plain and simple. Frank was a known entity, a fact in her life that she could trust. What shook her to her core was the unknown that Olivia stirred in her. All she had ever known was Gus and Rafe, and when Gus died she shut out all of her chances. She left his ring on not as a homage to their love, but as a defense mechanism, a constant reminder that she had belonged to someone else and that she couldn’t belong to anyone else. It helped keep her life structured, much like her faith did, a clear tenant to place and belief that didn’t change.

 

But then came Olivia and everything changed. 

 

Natalia shuttered at the touch of Olivia’s fingers sliding down her neck to rest warm and assuring on her shoulders. She reached up and grasped one of Olivia’s hands before it could retreat again and she remembered the last time she had felt this rush. It was a need, like time was running out for her and she couldn’t let another moment pass her by. Outside the doors, another world awaited her and the moments left in this life were ticking by.

 

Natalia walked into the cold, sterile room, her hand automatically coming to her mouth to stop the flood of emotions the scene sent through her. So unlike herself, Olivia laid on the bed still and quiet. The beep of machines the only sound in the impersonal space.

 

She couldn’t stand so she sat in a chair and pulled it close to the bed. Like so many times before, she took Olivia’s hand in her own and traced the veins on the back of her hand, sliding slowly past the wrist to caress the inside of her arm. Without warning, Natalia burst into tears feeling months of pain and loss swell up in her and break through.

 

“Oh, Liv,” she laid her head on the unmoving hand, “You can’t leave me. You can’t leave Emma. We need you too much. I…I need you. God, I need you so much and I had no idea…no idea.”

 

She kissed the back of Olivia’s hand, letting her lips linger over the skin, “I love you. I’ve loved you for so long. Please don’t go.”

 

Tomorrow this could all be gone, a dream vaporizing on the ether, but right now, all Natalia knew and heard were the words it seemed like Olivia had spoken ages ago, “I’m in love with you, Natalia Rivera.”

 

She sat up and looked down on the face of the woman she loved. She ran a finger along the full lips and brushed the back of her fingers along a cool cheek. She leaned closer and a small voice in the back of her mind told her she shouldn’t do this when Olivia was unconscious. It was a little like taking advantage of her, but she doubted she’d have the nerve any other time.  She got close enough to feel Olivia’s breath on her face, when green eyes flew open in surprise.

 

They held for a moment before a voice came booming through the door, “Oh, you’re awake!”

 

Frank came up and put an arm around Natalia’s shoulders, “So, did you tell Liv the good news?”

 

“Frank…” Natalia almost couldn’t form words, her throat was raw from the tears she had cried.

 

“Tell me what?”

 

“We set a date, and Nat already checked your calendar and you’re free. Great, huh?” Natalia closed her eyes, unable to look at Olivia.

 

Natalia pushed away from Frank and left without looking back.

 

Fear. It’s what made her run from Olivia in the hospital, without a glance back. She had only been strong with Olivia by her side, but now Olivia wasn’t even in the house anymore. Day by day she felt herself falling deeper into a mess she couldn’t escape from. All she had to do was speak up, but it was the hardest thing to do without Olivia there to push her. 

 

Olivia looked up at Natalia in the mirror, her eyes dark with desire from their brief touch, “Penny for your thoughts?”

 

“I miss you.” There, it was out.

 

“I can tell.” Olivia’s sarcastic tone cut Natalia.

 

“Everything’s a joke. Even us.”

 

“There’s no ‘us’ anymore Natalia. You’re getting married, or did you forget?”

 

Natalia turned on her with brown eyes blazing, “I wouldn’t be getting married if you’d step up.”

 

“Step up? How can I step up for someone who keeps running away?”

 

Natalia shook her head at Olivia and pointed a finger, “You were always the one egging me on to fight and stand up. Why aren’t you taking your advice or is the great Olivia Spencer too good to live and die by her own rules?”

 

Natalia stepped into her space, pushing for the fight, something they’d always been good at, “You tell me you’re in love with me then run away. Since when have you ever run away from anything you wanted?”

 

Olivia stood there stunned, feeling the rush of the fight in her veins, “Since I met you, Natalia. You. You were the difference. If you had been anyone else in any other time of my life, I would have just seduced you and been done with it. But you’re not just anyone else to me. Don’t you see? I loved you enough to let you go so you could be happy.”

 

“Happy? Maybe I was happy with you and with Emma in our farmhouse, but you left and you took it away. What was I supposed to think?”

 

Olivia took one of her hands, threading their fingers together, “You weren’t supposed to think, just believe, in me and in us. In what we had built together. Have some faith in us. And you know, I couldn’t stay there if you and Frank were getting married. That would just be too weird.”

 

Natalia looked down at their entwined hands, “In all this time, you never asked me the most obvious question.”

 

Olivia bit back her need for a sarcastic comment, “And what’s that?”

 

“You never asked me if I loved Frank.” Natalia looked up, fixing Olivia with that determined stare she gets when she’s honing in for the kill. “So, ask me.”

 

“Do you love him?”

 

“I love the idea of him and the ideal he represents, but no, I’m not in love with him. Now ask me the second most important question.”

 

Olivia took a cleansing breath, terrified and exhiliarated by where this was going, “And what’s the second most important question?”

 

Natalia smirked at her, “Am I in love with someone else?”

 

The moment was almost surreal and Olivia swallowed her nervousness down, “Are you?”

 

Olivia gave her a big dimply smile, the kind that always melted her heart, “Yes.”

 

“Does this person know how you feel?”

 

Natalia stepped closer, never breaking eye contact with Olivia, her hands slipping effortlessly behind the taller woman’s neck and pulling her down, “She does now.”

 

Olivia was taken back for a moment, but when she got her bearings, she wrapped her arms around Natalia’s waist and deepened the kiss. They pulled away out the necessity for air. Olivia was a bit stunned at the feral look in Natalia’s eyes. She hadn’t had anyone look at her like that in a long time, and she had only dreamed about Natalia delivering it. Natalia stepped back a little to re-focus but she didn’t take her hands off of Olivia. Instead she kept a hand on her hip and Olivia noticed how Natalia played with the hem of her jeans. It was pleasantly distracting to say the least.

 

“So, what now?”