[For Arthur] Operation: Empty Nest

[lysistrategic]

The walk back from the new aquarium is long and filled mostly with restless silence, the kind they've not shared since Arthur's arrival on the island, but long familiar to both of them. It's not, ultimately, an uncomfortable silence, not with Joan's fingers laced with his - far more unfamiliar to both of them than the silence itself, simply one where words and emotions won't align and brush up against each other looking for the way out.

It persists until they're home, and thankfully Emily and Matt seem still to be out. Joan inclines her head to the bedroom, and when Arthur nods, she finally breaks the silence to say, "I'll pour us a drink." That will, also out of long habit, tell her husband she means to retreat to the bedroom for private conversation rather than sex, although that, too, is very much on her mind.

Never more so than lately, after her conversation with Emily on the night of Matt's arrival. She supposes - as Arthur smiles his fond approval and she retrieves glasses from the bar to pour two glasses of fume blanc and decides to bring the bottle - she has been very fortunate in that regard. Their sex life has always been passion-filled and mutually satisfactory.

Retreating to the bedroom herself, Joan hooks the door on her heel and pulls it shut. She hands Arthur his glass as she perches her hip on the chair they've brought in. It's not like the study at home, but it functions the same way. An intermediate place between their public lives and their intimate one, where they can talk and ease their way back to lovers from coworkers. Here, though, it's different, isn't it? Since she brought up the most intimate of topics in a public place and now they've still got so much to say to each other.

It takes her several minutes to find the thread of her thoughts from earlier and her free hand trails to play idly with the buttons of the dress shirt he insists upon wearing even here (and she rarely argues, since he's a handsome man and she's more than a little vain about how they look together) while she thinks. "You must think I'm a harpy and that I don't trust you at all," she says finally, somewhat reluctantly.

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[carriesabigstick]

Arthur picks up Joan's hand and brings it to his lips to kiss the palm. "Harpy isn't a word that remotely comes to mind when I think of you." He could admit that he didn't make it easy to trust him. Not that he'd done anything to break their vows, but he was good at playing things close to the vest. "I think we both aren't quite sure what paths our lives will take on the island. I feel like a fish out of water at times."

He was perfectly happy to step down from his position to make room for Joan if that was what she wanted, but that was no longer an option. There were times when Arthur felt like Ahab. What did you do once the fight was no longer a part of your life?

[lysistrategic]

Joan nods mutely but the tightness in her chest won't subside even though her fingers curl against Arthur's jaw. Her thoughts race, so she lifts her wine with her other hand, sipping it slowly in hope of quieting them to find a single thread, or at least one to begin unraveling the mess this afternoon or the island has wrought.

"It--" The Agency, obviously. "Has always been there. It's always been a part of this." Them, equally obviously. "Even when we let the job come between us, we were both working for the same thing. And protecting the DSC and DPD gave us reasons to fight for our marriage even when it would've been easier to let it go."

Her eyes are a softer, deeper blue than usual, like the ocean on a grey day, wistful, when she meets his gaze. "I don't mean I wouldn't have fought anyway, and you know that. But without the work, I suppose I worry that just Joan won't be enough to hold your attention."

[carriesabigstick]

Those fears were echoed for Arthur as well. His life had been tied up in his career since he went to the Naval Academy. He had a goal of Naval officer that had changed in Special Forces and moved on to a more covert career. Essentially, he'd been a career man since he was eighteen and now, he was a ship without a rudder.Would Joan like the man that he would become? Or would be be like Henry Wilcox always wishing for the glory days back? He liked to hope not.

"Just Joan will always captivate my attention." He assured her solemnly, looking into her beautiful eyes. "You're not alone in your worries." Arthur starts, "I wonder if you'll like the man I'll become without the influence of DC or our careers." Being retired in the DC area was very different than being retired on some 'mystical' island. Here he would still support Joan in whatever endeavor she wanted but would that be enough to hold Joan's interest?

[lysistrategic]

"I suppose I fell in love with your drive and the way you made me feel invincible in the field, that because you believed in me, I would always succeed and I would always come home, no matter the threat," Joan begins and then pauses to sip at her wine. She also supposes another wife would rush to reassure her husband she would always love him no matter what, but that woman isn't the one he married and she hopes, very much, it's not the one he wishes he had.

Besides--her voice softens and her eyes with them--"You still make me feel that way, as if there's nothing I can't do with you beside me. I had a taste of life without you, the prospect of endless boring, warm years punctuated by the island's cruel reminders of you. I can survive without you, but I can't..." Her gaze lifts to his, honesty shining in it. "I can't live. The island may dull the drive, although I doubt it, but it can never change the things I fell in love with." Things she needed, truthfully, and would permit no one else to give.

[carriesabigstick]

It was one of the many things that he loved about Joan. When she gave a compliment it was truly given, not just lip service, unless it was for a job. The same could be said for reassurances. You didn't do anyone favors if you didn't give them the truth.

"We both could survive without the other." Arthur acknowledges. It's a truth in their lives that they possibly would have to at any given moment. "But living without the other," his voice drops in timber, "that is something very different. I fell in love with your intelligence and wit, that won't change no matter where we find ourselves."

[lysistrategic]

That, Joan feels, is more than enough to ease her from the arm of the chair into his lap and so she relocates, still straight-backed, but with her shoulder against his chest. Her free fingers slip between the buttons of his shirt and she's quiet again for awhile, pleased with the conversation, but not satisfied with it. Necessary, but not sufficient.

"It's foolish for me to be jealous of younger women, I know." Not because none might take an interest in her husband, but because it isn't how his tastes run. "You didn't trade Geena in on a younger model, just one that suited where you were in life." That thought chills her again and her sip of wine is faster and larger than it ought to be. "That's what worries me. That I won't be the model that suits the island Arthur. I know I'm not an easy woman to be with, and the island's filled with lovely, brilliant women who wouldn't push so hard and demand so much from you."

[carriesabigstick]

Like Joan, Arthur doesn't answer straight away. She deserves honesty just as much as he did. His free arm goes around her waist, loosely holding her easily in his lap.

"I did trade Geena in for someone that suited me better." He chose his words carefully. "But not for someone that suited me for where I was at the time. You suited me and still do far better than Geena ever did. You understand me in ways that she will never get and you make me become a better man, something that she never could do. Yes, there are amazing, beautiful, intelligent women on the island, just as there are a plethora of them in DC, but none would ever think to get me Manning for an anniversary gift. That comes from someone that knows me and loves me anyway."

[lysistrategic]

Oh, Arthur. Joan sighs, a soft sound with an even softer look attached. Somewhere along the way, him telling the truth had turned into her Kryptonite. "I like you better when you're honest than when you're charming," she informs him, fingers sneaking up to unbutton the top button of his shirt. "When you're both, you're almost irresistible."

Almost, because it would do them a disservice to turn away from conversation for bed when they're communicating effectively. "There is no 'anyway', Arthur. I love you for the stubborn, overbearing, overprotective, damned if you do and if you don't patriot that you are. Nothing has ever made me angrier than the thought that you'd been sleeping with someone else. Nothing has ever made me more willing to shed every last bit of reserve and fight. This island isn't big enough for me and you in love with someone who isn't me." It's all said with a deceptive mildness, Joan's self-perfected mask of civility and restraint, that only Arthur and Meg truly knew to look behind for the ferocity there. She tips her head, lashes dropping in a calculating sort of look. "I won't ever go quietly. That's why I need to know, for sure, that you don't want a child, because if I'm going to give you one, we need to do that now before it becomes impossible."

[carriesabigstick]

Arthur is a possessive man. Not in the way that some people assume. He certainly believes that Joan is her own woman and can take care of herself. Arthur is possessive in the same way that Joan is possessive of him. She is his and he will fight dirty to keep her, if she still wanted him. Arthur would let her go if that had been what she honestly wanted but until that time when Joan looks him in the eye and tells him that she doesn't love him anymore, God help anyone that tries to take her away.

It also is sexy as hell, hearing her say that she wouldn't go quietly.

His fingertips lightly caress her arm where his fingers rest and he slowly shakes his head. "If we were to have an unplanned child, I would be very happy with him or her in our lives." Arthur caveats that with, "but I made my choice long ago to not have a family, not putting them in danger because of my job. If we could guarantee that we'd stay here on the island, I'd like nothing more than to have a blend of you and me here. But, we can't and a child of ours back in DC would be used as leverage against us, both by our enemies and colleagues."

[lysistrategic]

Her heart flips and stutters in her chest at Arthur's words, the idea that he'd want a child with her rather than just to father a child, she supposes, hadn't quite penetrated a skull that's as thick as his can be. It takes her rather longer than she'd like to compose herself to reply, "It won't surprise you that I never considered it an option, even after I came in from the field."

But there is something new now, not a desire, but a soft wistfulness that she would never have expected. She unbuttons the second button of his shirt and leans into him to kiss the small triangle of his chest that she's revealed. "I don't think it's practical, even if we could guarantee that we'd be here and never leave a child behind. We're both far too set in our ways to handle a baby. But--" Her voice softens and her eyes with it when she meets his gaze again. "I can't deny there's a simple--" Not simple, terribly complex and inexplicable, but still simple in its effect. "Pleasure in knowing that you'd want that with me. I love you very much, Arthur." And that is simple.

[carriesabigstick]

There is a side to Joan that is reserved only for him, just as there is a side of him that only she sees. It’s a softness around their eyes and in their expression that is reserved just for the other one. Seeing it now, in regard to the content of the conversation, has his own heart stuttering in his chest.

He reaches up and cups the side of her cheek and strokes the skin with his thumb. “And I love you very much, Joan.” Arthur isn’t just parroting it back to her because it’s expected. Neither would do that, but it’s heartfelt and meant. “I never indulge in foolish what ifs or might have beens, but I honestly would have wanted to have a child with you if our paths had gone that way.”

[lysistrategic]

Hearing him say it so specifically pricks wistfulness into a keener emotion, one that brings a sharp sting of tears to her eyes. Joan is not given to crying and she doesn't now, either, but the sheen over her eyes is real. She tips her head to kiss his hand and finally sets aside her wine. "Not for any man but you," she says softly and means it.

Not long after, possibly to rescue them from the sentiment of the moment as she often will, Joan's eyes sparkle with something more interesting than tears. "My birth control's still effective, but there's nothing to stop us from indulging in a little roleplay..."

[carriesabigstick]

Arthur chuckles and pulls Joan down onto his lap from the side of the chair and holds her loosely. "It would be someone far less intelligent than I am that would turn down an offer like that." That was yet another thing that Arthur loved about Joan, this playful side.

[lysistrategic]

"Arthur, my love," Joan manages around a half-peel of laughter, then she has to kiss him, a greedy meshing of mouths that she's been denying herself for what seems like hours now. It goes on, far longer than she'd originally intended it to, but it always does with Arthur. If his honesty is her Kryptonite, his kisses are her Turkish delight. She finally pulls back, laughing again and cocks her head ostentatiously toward the other side of the room. "The bed is over there."