At gone 10pm, Maggie was debating whether or not to take an early night, lounging back against the arm of her couch, absently completing word-searches on her phone because she’d never quite managed to get into the whole reading thing. The house was quiet, her tv softly playing the news across the room, just loudly enough for her to hear as she listened along half-heartedly, and she almost dropped her phone when it went off without warning, fingers slipping slightly against the sudden vibration. She frowned faintly at the notification that appeared on her screen, momentarily thinking she was needed at work, but while the message was from Isobel, it wasn’t a call to arms.
Maggie sat up, eyes flickering to the time. It was a little late for a house call, but she knew Isobel wouldn’t ask without good reason, and even if she didn’t have one, Maggie would’ve still been hard-pressed to turn her away. She was quick to tell her sure, of course, any time, but no matter how much she stared at their message log afterwards, waiting, a reply never came.
That was until almost half an hour later, when her phone went off a second time.
Maggie looked out into the hall, eyebrows turned downward, getting to her feet. Whatever the reason, Isobel hadn’t knocked, and Maggie's phone went dark again as she pocketed it, wandering out of the lounge. She drew her boots out from under the stairs with her feet, slipping them on, pulling them over her heels with her forefinger, and briefly considered grabbing a coat before going to the door as she was. She already had a jacket on, and they were in the middle of summer, where even the nights were somewhat warm. Maggie turned the handle, wondering if Isobel planned on taking them somewhere, but when she stepped outside, she found her sat two steps up from the sidewalk, swaying her knees ever so slightly from side to side as she waited.
“Hey,” Maggie greeted gently, wandering down to join her.
“Hey,” Isobel echoed, glancing over as she took a seat directly beside her. “I brought you a coffee.” She offered her a light smile and one of the two to-go cups she was holding.
“Thanks,” Maggie said, watching as Isobel immediately looked away again once she took it. Half of her hair, at least where it was long enough, had been pulled back into a short ponytail, her figure enveloped in a long cardigan, dark gray with thick, black stripes, and she cradled her own drink in her hands now that they were both free. “So, you okay?”
“I don’t know,” Isobel admitted quietly, absently tapping her forefinger against the side of her coffee. She sighed, leaning forward, resting her elbows on her thighs. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that murder victim from last week.”
“Leah Sullivan?” Maggie questioned, vaguely recalling the case, frowning slightly as she started on her drink, unsurprised that Isobel had gotten her order exactly right.
Isobel nodded slightly. “Yeah...” she confirmed, her expression thoughtful but melancholic in the corner of Maggie’s eye. It had been one of the easier cases they’d solved but difficult, in a way, for her. “No friends, no family, no partner. It all felt a little too familiar...” Almost akin to looking in a mirror, albeit cracked across the surface. It had made her think, and then she hadn’t been able to stop thinking, even now. Every time she’d thought it was out of her system, the similarities to her own life had come back, when the nights were quiet, or the bustle of the office fell into a lull. Isobel smiled wryly, gripping her cup a little tighter. “Made me wonder who would grieve for me when I’m gone.”
“I would,” Maggie assured her softly, the answer automatic. She didn’t need to consider it. If she never mourned Isobel, it would only be in a world where she’d never met her to begin with, and she pitied the version of herself that lived there. It made her heart ache to know Isobel thought nobody, not even she, would miss her when the time to lose her came, inevitable as death was for them all, sometimes sooner than they would've liked.
With the glance she stole at her, Maggie was sure Isobel’s smile, for a moment, was a touch less hard-bitten, as though mollified by her words. Then she blinked, and it was gone. “Do you think some people are just destined to be alone?” Isobel asked, tipping her head back slightly, staring up at the starless sky, bleached empty by the city’s lights. The older she got, the lower the success rate of her relationships fell, the more she’d started to wonder if that was all the future had left to offer her -- loneliness.
Maggie gently shook her head. “Not unless they want to be.”
“And if they don’t?” Isobel countered, looking over at her, dark eyes soft with a pleading hint, as though she thought Maggie had all the answers in the world to reassure her with. Maggie only wished she did.
“Do you?” she said, tilting her head slightly, regarding Isobel sympathetically. For a few seconds, Isobel only stared wordlessly back at her, aware that they both already knew how she’d respond, before her gaze fell and she turned away again altogether.
“No,” she revealed quietly.
“Then you won’t be,” Maggie all but promised, drinking her coffee where Isobel let hers go cold, using it more for comfort than anything else. She didn’t quite understand how Maggie could see it so simply, but, then, maybe it was easier for her. Everyone she interacted with seemed to like her, had only good things to say, and if they didn’t, well, that was their folly. They were few and far between, after all.
Isobel sighed. “Well, I have been for a long time now,” she lamented, discounting the failed relationships she’d had in the periods between, that had tried to fill the void but never quite managed it for one obvious reason with the benefit of hindsight. Her lips curved sardonically upward. “So... I suspect I will.”
“Not while I’m around,” Maggie said, watching her openly instead of relegating herself to only chancing looks. If Isobel didn’t want to be alone, then it was as straightforward to her as making sure that wouldn’t be the case. Maggie would spend every free moment she had with her if that’s what it would take to make her feel she wasn’t.
Isobel’s smile shifted into more of a grimace, thinly laced with guilt. “You don’t need to waste your time like that,” she told her, knees pressing together. Regardless of how much she might have yearned for their time to be shared, she was confident that Maggie had better things to spend hers on, least of all because, as far as Isobel was concerned, just about anything else was more important than she was.
“It’s not a waste,” Maggie insisted gently. It could never be. “Nothing is when it comes to you.” She smiled fondly, transfixed by the way the streetlight's glow caught Isobel’s messy hair, glanced off the sharp cut of her cheekbones, paled in comparison to her... well, everything, even when she looked this casual, beautiful without effort. Maggie’s voice dropped slightly. “Not to me, anyway.”
Isobel sat upright as she looked over at her, eyes widening almost imperceptibly in surprise. She had to wonder if she’d heard right as the words sank in, quickly telling her that she had, and in the silence that hung in the small amount of space between them, her expression softened until it turned borderline adoring. In the midst of the moment, her lips parted uncertainly, just ahead of her sensibility. “Maggie, I...” she started quietly before immediately trailing off, a frown forming as she realized what she’d been about to say. She shook her head, dismissing what would’ve been, looking away. “It’s nothing.” Isobel cleared her throat. “I should go.” She got to her feet without warning, almost spooked by how close she’d come to saying what she considered too much. “I’ve taken up enough of your night.”
She was beginning to think coming here had been a bad idea, wondering why she'd ever thought it was a good one, as if Maggie didn't make her feel a way that terrified her just as much as it breathed life into her, and moved to leave, but she only made it a step lower before Maggie suddenly grabbed her hand, preventing her from going any further. For a moment, Isobel froze, her heart jumping like the contact had violently shocked it, breath catching in her throat, and then she turned on her heel, to face the woman holding her in place.
“Stay,” Maggie commanded, but without demand, when their eyes met again, looking earnestly up at her. She couldn’t even pretend that she would be content in letting her go. “We can watch a movie or... whatever you want.” She didn’t care what, so long as this wasn’t where the night came to its end, and her motives ran both selfish and selfless, because while she didn’t want Isobel to be alone, especially not after what they’d discussed, she also simply didn’t want to be without her.
Isobel faltered, caught off-guard by the request, but as much as she wanted to agree, bad habits and self-denigrating thoughts weren’t so easy to shake, no matter how genuine Maggie sounded. “It’s late,” she weakly tried to argue in vain, shaking her head. “You shouldn’t-”
“I want to,” Maggie said firmly, cutting her off before she could protest further with the same argument from before about wasting her time. She sighed under her breath, half-drunken coffee in her free hand as she got to her feet, the taller of the two for once, and Isobel felt unworthy of the way she looked at her, head to one side, smiling gently. “You don’t have to be alone, Izzy.” It was the first time she’d dared to use the nickname, worried that Isobel didn’t consider them close enough for it to be appropriate, but the way Maggie spoke Isobel’s name had always sounded too right in a way it didn’t coming from anyone else’s mouth, and this was no different.
Isobel could feel her face flushing, but she was helpless to stop it, a fuzzy warmth building deep behind her ribs and spreading out as her heart rushed its every beat, as though trying to break a record she wished it wouldn't. She wet her lips, dredging up her voice. “Alright,” she relented, Maggie’s hand still hanging steadfast onto hers, coaxing a small smile onto her face as she relaxed her fingers and held it gingerly in return. “Just... don’t be offended if I fall asleep on you.”
Maggie breathed a laugh at the idea. “I’ll take it as a compliment,” she assured her, at a loss for how she could ever find it to be a bad thing. Isobel didn’t let her guard down easily, and Maggie considered herself lucky that she’d seen it lowered before, including tonight, so if she felt comfortable enough, safe enough, to fall asleep around her, when she would arguably be at her most vulnerable, Maggie would feel all but honored by the trust it would take. “Come on.”
She tugged gently on Isobel’s hand, guiding her up the steps, opening the door with her wrist, and then inside, where there were more comfortable places to sit than concrete. Isobel followed her without objection, eyeing their joined hands as she pushed the door shut behind them, wondering when Maggie was going to let go, even as they stopped to remove their shoes, not that she was complaining.
Come midnight, it turned out to be a precursor for the closeness that followed, both of them fast asleep at one end of the couch, Isobel’s head on Maggie’s shoulder, and Maggie’s resting against hers as the movie they’d chosen played quietly on without them.