Losing Her Wings

Chapter 37

Devin couldn’t have been more surprised by the change in Pepper over the past week. She didn’t suffer any bouts of sadness as she had before, she didn’t sit and ponder the events of her life or turn away or change the channel when programmes on the TV depicted snippets of the life she had led with Quinn. It was so surprising that when he asked her about it that night, curious as to why she hadn’t once mentioned how well Skylar was coping with her own blackouts or her new ‘relationship’ with Ryan, as he had expected, he became even more surprised by her answer. They were lying in bed reading, deciding to make an early night of it once Pepper had finished reading her lecture notes and he had finished running through a new case he wanted to present to Angelo in the morning. “Why should I worry about it? It’s in the past and that’s where it’s going to stay.” Pepper insisted with a cheery smile, placing her book on the bedside table when she realised he was far from finished talking about the subject. He asked how it had happened when she had always said it was something she could never get over and that would always be in the back of her mind. But she didn’t know how else to answer him, it was a logical question after all. All she could do was turn to him with a smile and discard his case notes entirely, pushing them off the bed to scatter on the floor. “I have you Devin, what do I need horrible old memories for when I have you…wonderful, smart…gorgeous old you.” The fact that she treated him to short and sweet kisses during her compliments of the rather more private side of his personality was a definite bonus, but he wasn’t going to let her avoid the subject entirely.

“I’m not exactly old.” He protested softly, loving the way she crinkled her nose at him and sat back against the headboard, annoyed that he had refused her ‘romantic advances’. But he was going to go right on refusing them until she started to make sense.

“You know what I mean. I love you. Why should I feel bad that a piece of garbage is out of my life?” She pouted softly, pleading with him to end the conversation and sweep her off her feet. The look he gave her said that that wasn’t about to happen but she help out hope regardless. He guessed, rightly so, that she had been talking it over with Skylar, somehow knowing she had something to do with it but not sure where exactly it fitted into his theory. “Yeah I have. I guess that was all I needed…just someone who felt the same and knew what it was really truly like to say, ‘look he was a moron, why not forget about him?’” She shrugged it off as being non important but if Devin was right, he had a very big thank you for Skylar. She had somehow managed to do what he never could, and that was confront her fears about Quinn and how it had made her feel as a physical being, the strength he had sapped out of her, the anger he had made her feel at herself for letting it all happen. If she had managed to confront all of that without upsetting her, or doing it in such a way that Pepper could cry knowing she wasn’t being judged or pitied, which he would never do to her, then he owed her his life.

“And that’s what you’ve done? You’re just going to move on and leave him behind?” He asked hopefully, glad to see that his smile provoked Pepper into one of her own, letting out a sigh before she shifted across to sit over him on her knees. He knew what she wanted but she wasn’t going to get it until she answered him and it took her a few minutes to get round to speaking, preferring just to sit there and look at him for a while first.

“I can think of a hundred better ways for us to spend out time than arguing about how I’ve got over something that was getting in our way…can’t you? And if it’s only because you don’t get to be my hero anymore, then I’m sure we can find some other way of accommodating that, can’t we?” She tormented him gently, making him smile and agree that for once she was right about saying they didn’t need to talk about it. He could see it in her eyes, she really was cured of all those awful thoughts that had been festering in her head and he couldn’t have been happier. So, he decided, just for that one night, like every other since he met her, he would cater to her wishes and give her exactly what she wanted, kissing her first, before agreeing to her plans for the night.