Archive of Our Own

The rain hit the windows in sheets, and Pam watched it streak down the glass between re-stocking the beer fridge and wiping down the bar top. Friday. Nearly nine o'clock.

She'd had four customers in the last two hours, the storm keeping most people away.

"Another?" She lifted a bottle of Jack Daniels toward the old guy at the end of the bar without really looking at him.

"Sure, why not."

She poured it and went back to watching the door.

It didn't open.

Pam re-stacked the glasses she'd already stacked twice and told herself to knock it off. She wasn't the kind of girl who waited around. She'd never been that girl. She'd had plenty of beautiful girls come through her life and she'd enjoyed spending time with every single one of them without losing a single night's sleep when they left.

This was different and she both loved and hated that it was different. She wasn't naive. Ellen was about as unavailable as it came. Not the kind of girl Pam should fall for, really fall for, for the first time. 

That didn't stop Pam's heart from skipping a beat every time their eyes met.

She picked up a rag and wiped down the stretch of bar top nearest the door. Definitely not because it gave her a clear sightline to whoever walked in. Just because it needed wiping.

(It didn't need wiping.)

The old guy downed his drink and left a five on the bar. The door swung shut behind him and Pam was alone.

She put something on the jukebox mostly to fill the quiet. Something slow. The rain was loud enough on the roof that it almost didn't matter.

She'd just about made her peace with the fact that Ellen wasn't coming and she just should close the empty bar and go home when the door opened.

She was drenched. Hair stuck to her forehead, mascara running, coat soaked through.

Ellen stood in the doorway and looked around the empty bar like she wasn't sure she had the right place.

"You still open?"

Pam felt the grin spread across her face. She came around the bar, crossed the room,  flipped the sign in the window and turned the lock.

"Was just thinking about closing up, actually."

"Oh." Ellen shifted her weight. Water dripped off her coat onto the floor. "I can—"

Pam rolled her eyes. "Sit down, El."

She went back behind the bar to grab two glasses off the rack and the good bourbon from the shelf below the register. Ellen was still standing near the door, looking unsure and a little nervous.

"I said sit."

Ellen took off her coat and sat.

Pam set both glasses on the bar and poured two fingers into each. She pushed one across to Ellen and leaned on her elbows, close enough that she could see the rainwater still beaded on Ellen's cheekbones.

"You're a mess," Pam said, not unkindly.

Ellen made a face and pushed her wet hair back from her forehead. "I know. And this was just the walk from the car. I should have brought an umbrella… it doesn't rain like this in Connecticut."

Pam looked at her for a moment. Mascara smudged, hair flattened, rainwater still tracking down the side of her neck. She opened her mouth to say something simple, lighthearted... but then she closed it. In that moment, she made a decision. She was done. They were completely alone, they'd been dancing around this for two  months, and she was done with pretending.

"You're also incredibly beautiful," she said instead. "For what it's worth."

Ellen laughed. A small, slightly helpless sound.

"You can't just say things like that."

"Why not?"

"Because." Ellen looked up, and her eyes were bright and colour was high in her cheeks. "Because it's not fair."

Pam tilted her head. "What's not fair about it?"

Ellen opened her mouth and closed it again. She shook her head, looking almost frustrated with herself, like she'd walked into something she should have seen coming and couldn't figure out how to walk back out.

Pam set her glass down.

She'd been careful with Ellen. Patient, moving slow, keeping things easy and light, giving her room. Two months of that. Two months of loaded looks across the bar and hands that touched a half-second too long passing a drink. Flirtatious comments that barely left room for plausible deniability but could still be explained away. 

She was absolutely done.

She came around the bar.

Ellen watched her do it. Watched her the whole way, and didn't move except to swivel on the bar stool to keep facing her, didn't pull back, didn't say anything. Just followed Pam with dark eyes and gripped her bourbon glass a little tighter.

Pam stopped in front of her. Close. Not touching, but close enough that she could feel the tension radiating off of the other woman.

"Ellen..." Pam started. "What are we doing here?"

Ellen opened her mouth. Closed it yet again. She swallowed hard and her eyes flicked down to Pam's lips, just for a fraction of a second, and back up.

Pam caught it.

"I--" Ellen started, blushing hard. Words clearly caught in her throat.

"Two months," Pam said. Not unkindly, just stating a fact. "You've been coming in here for two months. Staying late. Helping me close up." She tilted her head a little. "And I haven't exactly been subtle about why I like having you here."

Ellen's throat moved. Her eyes dropped again, just briefly, and came back up to Pam's.

"I know," she said, barely above a whisper.

"So what are we doing?"

The colour in her face was extraordinary. She looked like she was having some kind of internal argument at high speed and losing badly. Her knuckles were white around the glass. But she hadn't moved. Hadn't leaned back a single inch.

"I don't--" Ellen stopped, swallowed. "I'm not sure I know how to answer that."

Pam took one more step.

Ellen's knees were grazing her thighs. She was close enough that Pam could see Ellen's pulse hammering in her throat.

"Ellen."

Just a whisper.

She kept her hands at her sides. Didn't touch Ellen. Didn't cage her in. There was still room on Ellen's left, still room to stand up, to step back, to put distance between them if she wanted it. Pam made sure of that.

"If you want me to stop—" she held Ellen's gaze, eyes wide and a little stunned but still not moving away "—you're going to have to tell me."

Ellen said nothing.

Pam moved in.

Slow. Deliberately slow, tilting her head just a little bit more, watching Ellen's face the whole time. Watching for the flinch, the pull-back, the hand coming up between them.

None of it came.

Ellen's lips parted. Her chin tipped up the smallest fraction of an inch, barely a movement at all, almost involuntary, like her body had answered a question her voice couldn't.

The last inch disappeared.

When Pam kissed her, it was soft. Just a press of lips, barely anything. She felt Ellen go completely still.

Pam didn't push. Just stayed there.

And then Ellen kissed her back.

The moment Ellen's hand found the back of her neck, Pam lost her footing.

Not literally, but close.

She'd expected hesitation. Trembling lips and a sharp inhale. She'd braced for it, had already mapped out the gentle patience she'd need to bring Ellen along slowly, carefully, like something wild that might bolt.

Ellen didn't bolt.

She grabbed a fistful of Pam's shirt with one hand and cradled the back of her neck with the other and kissed her like she'd been waiting her entire life for the moment.

Oh, Pam thought distantly. Oh, it's like that.

Then she stopped thinking entirely.

She kissed Ellen back, and the bourbon was forgotten and the rain on the roof was forgotten and the empty bar with its quietly playing jukebox was forgotten, and there was just Ellen's hand at the back of her neck and Ellen's mouth and the way she kissed like she meant it more than anything she'd ever meant in her life.

Pam had kissed a lot of women.

She was not ashamed of that. She'd kissed beautiful women in bar parking lots and at parties and in narrow hallways outside apartments with keys still in her hand. She knew what a good kiss felt like. She knew what a great one felt like.

This was something else entirely.

She didn't know how long it lasted.

Long enough that when they finally broke apart, Pam had one hand in Ellen's hair and the other braced on the bar behind her, and Ellen had both legs wrapped around Pam's waist, but Pam couldn't quite remember how they'd gotten there.

They were both breathing hard.

Ellen's cheeks were flushed deep pink. Her lipstick was gone. Her eyes were half-lidded, heavy, and she was looking at Pam with an expression that Pam couldn't read.

Pam waited for the panic. She'd seen it before—that split second where reality crashed back in and a woman's eyes went wide and she started reaching for her coat and her excuses at the same time. She braced for it. Kept her hands loose, her expression easy.

Ellen's fingers were still curled in her shirt.

"How far is it," Ellen asked, low and a little rough, "to your place?"

Pam blinked. She had not been expecting that.

Ellen held her gaze. No hesitation in her eyes, just pure desire.

"Six blocks," Pam said.

Ellen unwound her legs from around Pam's waist and sat up straight. She straightened her shirt, smoothed her hair back, and picked up her abandoned bourbon glass like nothing had happened.

She took a sip and looked at Pam over the rim of the glass.

"How long to close up?"

"Ten minutes," Pam answered, swallowing hard.

She did it in five.

She'd never moved that fast in her life. Bottles racked, glasses wiped, register counted and locked, lights killed in the back. She grabbed her jacket and purse off the hook by the office door without breaking stride.

Ellen was already at the door, one hand on the push bar.

"Where's your car?" she asked, eyes scanning the parking lot.

Pam pulled her jacket on and winced. "About that."

Ellen turned.

"I walked." Pam shrugged. "Which, in my defense, was a completely reasonable decision at four o'clock this afternoon when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky."

Ellen looked back out the windows. The rain was coming sideways now, heavy and mean, rain that soaked through everything in seconds.

She looked back at Pam.

"I'll drive.”

Pam looked at her standing there with her hair still damp at the temples and thought about kissing her again. It would be easy. Two steps and she'd be right there, and she already knew exactly how Ellen kissed, which was the kind of information that was hard to have and do nothing with.

She let the thought go.

Ellen's car. Six blocks. Her apartment. Then kiss her again. In that order.

"Okay," Pam said, and Ellen pushed open the door.

Pam gave Ellen directions, watching the wipers work furiously against the downpour and losing badly. Two rights and a left. Past the gas station on the corner. The brick building with the green awning.

"Left here," Pam said.

Ellen turned.

There were two empty spots left on the street. One right in front of her building between a pickup and a beat-up Civic, maybe two feet longer than the car they were sitting in—the other half a block further but much bigger.

"That's my building," Pam said, pointing, expecting Ellen to head for the larger spot.

Ellen stopped just past the Civic, then reversed. Clean, smooth, a single continuous movement—back at an angle, then forward, then back again, and then she was perfectly between the two cars with about eight inches of clearance on either end. She killed the engine and pulled the keys.

The whole thing had taken maybe twelve seconds.

Pam realized she was staring. That was way more attractive than it had any right to be.

Ellen turned to look at her, one brow slightly raised.

"What?"

"Nothing," Pam said. She looked out the windshield at her building across the street and told herself to get it together.

The front door of her building was twenty feet away, maybe.

Twenty feet of rain so thick it looked almost solid under the streetlights.

They sat there for a second, both looking at it.

"On three?" Ellen said.

"On three."

They ran.

It didn't help. Nothing short of a roof would have helped. They hit the far curb already soaked, Pam's jacket plastered to her shoulders, and she shoved the front door open and yanked Ellen through it.

The lobby was warm and quiet and lit a little too brightly, and they stood there in a spreading puddle on the tile floor, both of them completely drenched and breathing hard. 

Pam swiped her hair back from her face with both hands and looked at Ellen.

Ellen looked down at herself. Her coat was dark with water. A rivulet ran down the side of her neck, curved along her collarbone, and disappeared into the neck of her shirt. Pam had a hard time tearing her eyes away.

"Third floor," she managed.

"Lead the way."

Pam's keys were in the bottom of her purse, naturally. She dug for them with one hand while water dripped off her elbow onto the hallway carpet, and Ellen stood close behind her, close enough to be distracting.

She got the key turned in the lock on the second try—the deadbolt always stuck a little—and the door swung open.

She reached in and hit the light.

The apartment was small and warm. Books everywhere, stacked on the coffee table and the windowsill and in two floor-to-ceiling shelves that flanked the far wall. A loveseat. A kitchen barely big enough for one person. A lamp in the corner.

Pam stepped in and turned around.

Ellen stood in the doorway with a look on her face that she was clearly working very hard to keep neutral.

Pam knew that look.

She'd been watching Ellen's face for two months. She knew the difference between Ellen relaxed and Ellen performing relaxed. The set of her jaw. The way she held her shoulders.

Pam stepped back and gave her room.

"Come on in," she said. Tone light. No pressure in it.

Ellen came in. Pam closed the door behind her and went to the bathroom for towels, came back with two and held one out.

Ellen took it, pressing it to her face, her hair, the back of her neck.

Pam rubbed her own hair somewhat dry with the other towel and watched her.

The energy in the room was different from the bar. At the bar Ellen had been flushed and certain and very definite about what she wanted. That woman felt very far away right now.

Pam draped her towel over the back of the loveseat.

"Hey," she said.

Ellen looked up from the towel.

"Hey," Pam said again, softer. She kept her hands loose at her sides. "Nothing has to happen tonight. You know that, right?"

Ellen's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.

"I can make tea." Pam gestured vaguely toward the kitchen. "We can just talk. Or I can walk you back down to your car right now and we don't say another word about it." She held Ellen's gaze. "Whatever you want. I mean that."

Ellen shook her head. Fast. Almost before Pam had finished the sentence.

"No." Her voice was quiet but there was nothing uncertain in it. "I want this." She stopped. Her fingers tightened around the towel in her hands. "It's just that I've never—"

Pam watched her. The way her eyes dropped. The way she pressed her lips together, searching for the words, or maybe searching for the nerve to say it.

Pam found it for her.

"Never done this before?"

Ellen looked back up.

"...not with a woman."

Pam closed the distance between them slowly, watching Ellen's face the whole time. She saw the hitch—just a small one, a tiny catch in Ellen's breath—as Pam stepped into her space.

She lifted her arms and looped them gently around Ellen's neck.

Ellen's hands found her waist. Not hesitant. Not exploratory. Just—there, like they'd always belonged there, fingers curling into the fabric of Pam's jacket like something instinctive.

"Hey." Pam kept her voice low. "That's okay."

Ellen's eyes searched hers.

"I have." Something pulled at Pam's expression. "Enough for both of us, one might argue."

Ellen laughed. A real one, surprised out of her, and her whole face changed with it.

God, she was beautiful when she laughed.

"We go as slow as you want," Pam said. She held Ellen's gaze and meant every word of it. "And the second you want to stop, you say so and we stop. No questions, no weirdness. I promise."

Ellen's hands tightened slightly at her waist.

She didn't say anything. She just looked at Pam for a long moment, steady and serious, like she was weighing something.

Then she nodded.

Pam kissed her.

Soft at first. Giving Ellen the chance to breathe, to settle into it, to find her footing. She felt the moment Ellen did—the small exhale through her nose, the way her hands slid from Pam's waist up her back.

The spark caught quickly. 

Not like the bar. The bar had been a match struck in a dry field. This was slower, deeper, like something taking root. Pam felt it move through her chest and immediately told herself not to think about it. She'd kissed a lot of women, and it was always good, always warm, and this was just more of that. Same thing.

She told herself that.

She wasn’t sure she believed it. 

But then Ellen wrapped her arms fully around Pam's shoulders like she was trying to close whatever fraction of an inch still separated them, and Pam once again stopped thinking about anything at all.

She walked backwards.

She knew her apartment by touch, by the muscle memory of two years of navigating it in the dark, which was useful because she couldn't see a single thing right now. She kept her arms around Ellen, kept the kiss unhurried, and stepped back toward the bedroom doorway. Her heel found the edge of the living room rug. Three more steps. Two. One.

She found the doorframe with her elbow and turned them through it without breaking the kiss.

The bedroom was dark, the window throwing pale wet light from the street across the floor. She'd made her small, inexpensive, thrifted sofa bed that morning—she sent up a small, private thank-you to her past self for that—and the room was clean enough, the books stacked relatively neatly, her small desk in the corner clear except for a notebook and a half empty mug.

Pam slowed them to a stop.

She broke the kiss just far enough to breathe, her forehead tipping against Ellen's. She felt Ellen's breath, warm and uneven, against her lips.

Pam shrugged her own jacket off first, letting it drop somewhere behind her without looking. Then she slid her hands up Ellen's arms to her shoulders and pushed the wet coat back and off.

Ellen's arms came free and she kissed Pam before the coat even hit the floor—hands at her jaw, tilting her head, kissing her with a focused, urgent intensity that almost made Pam's knees do something embarrassing.

She kissed her back and thought: okay. Okay, then.

She'd expected to lead. That was fine, that was good, she was happy to—and then Ellen's thumb traced along her jaw and Ellen angled into her like she'd done this a hundred times, and Pam lost the thread entirely.

She got it back. Barely.

She walked Ellen the last two steps to the bed and felt the backs of Ellen's knees hit the mattress. Ellen let herself fall back onto the mattress, pulling Pam down with her..

Pam pulled back an inch, just to look at her. Ellen's hair was still damp, fanned out against the comforter. Her eyes were half-lidded and her lips were parted and she was looking up at Pam with an expression that had absolutely no hesitation in it.

"You're sure you've never done this before?" Pam asked.

Ellen's mouth curved. Just a little. 

"Shut up," she said, and pulled her back down.

Pam smiled into the kiss and let herself have it. Just that. Just the warmth of Ellen's mouth and the sound of rain still hammering the window and the weight of her own heartbeat, which had gotten entirely out of hand.

She kept her hands slow, unhurried. Up the ridge of Ellen's ribs over the thin fabric of her shirt, over the curve of her shoulder, back down. Learning the shape of her without pushing past any borders. Ellen made a small sound against her mouth and Pam felt it everywhere.

Easy, she told herself. Easy.

She moved her mouth along Ellen's jaw, just below the ear, and Ellen's head tipped back against the comforter. Pam felt the exhale move through Ellen's whole body. The hands in her hair tightened, then relaxed, then tightened again like Ellen couldn't decide what to do with herself.

Pam pressed her lips to the side of her neck and tried to get a grip on what was happening here.

She knew exactly how to do this. She'd done it before—not with Ellen, never with anyone like Ellen—but the mechanics of patience, of making it slow and good for someone's first time, those she knew. What she hadn't anticipated was how much focus it would take to not get distracted. How much she'd need to keep a lid on. Ellen shifted underneath her, pressing her hips up, and Pam held very still for a second and cast around for something else to think about.

The periodic table. The first twelve elements, distantly remembered from high school chemistry.

Hydrogen. Helium. Lithium.

She ran her tongue along Ellen's collarbone and heard Ellen's breath catch.

Beryllium. Boron.

Ellen's hand slid down from her hair to the back of her neck, pressing lightly. Pam closed her eyes.

Carbon, she thought, couldn't think of what came next, and gave up on the periodic table.

She lifted her head and looked down at Ellen.

The streetlight from the window caught the curve of her cheekbone, the dark of her gaze. Ellen was watching her with an expression Pam couldn't fully categorize—something open in it, something she suspected Ellen didn't let people see often.

Pam brushed a strand of damp hair back from Ellen's forehead. Just the tips of her fingers. Barely anything.

Ellen's breath was quick and unsteady.

"You okay?" Pam asked. Checking in.

"Yes," Ellen nodded. "Don't stop."

Pam kissed her jaw. Then her cheekbone. Then the bridge of her nose, which made Ellen blink, startled, the tension breaking just enough that she almost laughed.

"What are you doing?" Ellen asked.

"Taking my time," Pam said against her cheek. "Problem?"

Ellen turned her head and caught Pam's mouth with hers instead of answering.

Pam slid her fingers under the hem of Ellen's shirt. The skin there was warm, still damp from the rain.

"Can I take this off?"

Ellen nodded before Pam had fully finished the question. Not a hesitant nod. An eager one, chin dipping fast, and the quickness of it sent heat straight through Pam's chest and downward.

She gathered the fabric and pulled it up and over, and Ellen lifted her arms to help, and then it was gone somewhere off the side of the bed and Pam sat back on her heels and looked.

She tried to be good about it. Tried to keep her expression easy and warm and measured.

She was not entirely successful.

Pam grabbed the back of her own shirt and pulled it off in one motion.

Ellen's eyes tracked down and back up, and the look on her face did absolutely nothing to help Pam's composure.

She lowered herself back down slowly, and the moment their skin touched Ellen made a sound low in her throat—not quite a groan, something deeper than that, something involuntary—and her arms came up around Pam's back and pulled her in close.

Pam pressed her face into the curve of Ellen's neck and breathed.

Okay, she thought. Okay. You're fine. You've done this before.

She had. Many times. With women who knew exactly what they wanted and weren't shy about it, and those who didn't but trusted Pam to show them. She knew how to be present in a moment like this without losing herself in it, knew how to stay in her own body and keep her focus outward, on the other person, where it belonged.

That knowledge was currently useless.

She had no idea what was happening to her. Ellen shifted beneath her again—just adjusting her grip, just the natural movement of two bodies finding their arrangement—and Pam had to close her eyes and breathe deeply for a full three seconds.

She'd never been this turned on in her life.

That was not hyperbole. She ran a quick, involuntary tally in her head and came to the same conclusion twice. Not even close.

Ellen's hips pressed up into her own, and Pam exhaled against her neck and thought seriously about reciting something aloud. State capitals. The starting lineup of the '69 Mets. Anything.

Then Ellen turned her head and pressed her lips to Pam's temple, and the gesture was so quiet and so tender that it hit Pam somewhere entirely different than the rest of it.

She lifted her head.

Ellen looked up at  her. That open expression again. The one she definitely didn't let people see.

Pam held her gaze for a moment and felt something tilt in her chest at a very inconvenient angle.

She kissed Ellen to distract herself, not ready to think about that at all. Slower than before. Deeper. She kept her hands steady and her focus outward through sheer force of will, on the warmth of Ellen's skin under her palms, on the way Ellen's breath changed when Pam's mouth moved to her jaw, her throat, the curve of her shoulder.

There, she thought. There you go. Focus.

Ellen arched beneath her.

Pam's focus did not especially improve.

She pulled back.

Just enough to breathe, to get a half-inch of cool air between them before she lost her mind entirely. She pressed her forehead to Ellen's shoulder for a moment and focused on the rain outside the window and the ragged rhythm of Ellen's breathing against her hair.

Then her fingers found the button of Ellen's jeans.

She looked up.

Ellen was already nodding, like the question didn't need asking.

Pam didn't ask it.

She worked the button loose and drew the zipper down and Ellen lifted her hips off the mattress to help, and Pam peeled the denim down her legs and dropped it somewhere off the side of the bed. Then she sat back on her heels to unfasten her own jeans, shucked them off, and  sent them the same direction.

Ellen watched her do it.

Pam caught the look on her face. Ellen taking her in like she was committing something to memory.

Pam held still and let her look.

"Hi," Pam said.

A silence.

"Hi," Ellen said back, voice barely audible.

Pam swung her knee over Ellen's waist and settled her weight down, and the sound Ellen made was very soft and very immediate and did absolutely nothing to help Pam's situation.

Ellen's hands found her hips before Pam had even fully settled. Palms warm and certain, fingers pressing in like they'd already decided they had a right to be there.

Pam held her gaze.

She reached behind herself with both hands. She found the clasp easily, pure muscle memory, and unhooked it in one clean motion. She drew the straps down her arms and let it fall somewhere to the left and didn't look away from Ellen's face for a single second of it.

She watched Ellen's throat move, watched the colour climb her cheeks.

She watched Ellen's eyes travel down and come back up, slow and dark and completely undisguised, and felt the hands on her hips tighten, and twitch. Like Ellen had started something and then caught herself halfway through.

She was looking at Pam with an expression that was not remotely ambiguous about what she wanted.

But her hands stayed where they were.

Pam reached down. She covered Ellen's right hand with her own, gently, and peeled it slowly off her hip. She felt Ellen tense beneath her—not pulling away, just bracing—and Pam held her gaze the whole time, making sure Ellen could see her face, could read it clearly.

She guided Ellen's hand upward.

Slow. Steady. Watching Ellen's eyes the entire time.

She pressed Ellen's palm flat against her ribs, just below her breast, and held it there.

"You can touch me," Pam said, huskily. "I want you to touch me."

Ellen's breath left her in a short, unsteady rush.

Pam regretted it almost immediately.

Not really. Not even close to really. But the moment Ellen's hand moved—the moment that careful, contained woman let herself reach—Pam's breath left her body completely.

Ellen touched her like she'd been thinking about it. There was nothing fumbling in it, nothing tentative or exploratory. Ellen's hands moved with the same precision she seemed to bring to everything, like she'd already mapped the territory in her head and was simply confirming her calculations.

Pam's eyes closed.

Open, she told herself. Keep your eyes open.

She opened them, but it was a struggle.

Ellen was watching her face. Not her body—her face, her eyes tracking every microexpression with a focus that felt almost scientific, and the combination of that gaze and those hands was doing something catastrophic to Pam's nervous system.

She felt the shiver move through her before she could stop it.

Ellen felt it too. Pam saw it register—a small, almost startled shift in her expression, like she hadn't expected that kind of feedback, hadn't realized the effect she was having, and now that she did—

Ellen's mouth curved.

Pam thought: oh no.

She'd been so careful. Steady hands, easy pace, always one step ahead, always the one choosing when and how and how much. That was how this was supposed to go. That was the only way to keep her own head above water.

Ellen's thumb moved across Pam's nipple.

Pam lost the thread again.

She fell forward, just enough that she had to catch herself on her palm beside Ellen's head, and the small sound that came out of her was not dignified.

Ellen's smile widened.

And that was what did it. That small, quiet smile, warm and knowing and just a little bit smug, worn on the face of a woman who twenty minutes ago had been standing in her doorway with her wet coat and her nerves and telling Pam she'd never done this before.

Pam surged down and kissed her.

Hard. Not rough, not careless, but with intent—tilting Ellen's chin up with one hand and kissing her in a way that left no question about who was running this particular situation. She felt Ellen make a sound against her mouth, felt the hands on her pause for half a second, startled, before Ellen kissed her back just as fiercely.

Pam gave herself a few seconds of kissing Ellen like the world was ending.

Then she slowed it down. Drew the kiss back from fierce to deep, from deep to soft, changing the register by degrees, feeling Ellen follow her down into it. She felt Ellen's hands relax. Felt the focus drain out of her, the precision dissolving into something less tactical and more helpless.

There. Better.

She broke the kiss. Pressed her lips to Ellen's jaw, her cheek, the hinge of her jaw.

She took a breath.

Her heart was hammering. She was absolutely not going to let Ellen know that.

She lifted her head and looked down at her.

Ellen's hair was wrecked. Her lips were parted, her cheeks flushed deep and dark.. She was staring up at Pam with her chest heaving and her hands resting loose at Pam's waist, and she looked—

She looked undone.

Pam's heart stuttered in her chest, but she recovered.

"Still with me?" she asked.

Ellen's chest rose and fell.

"Yes," she breathed.

Pam reached beneath her and unclasped Ellen's bra between finger and thumb.

Ellen let her. Lifted slightly off the mattress to let the straps slide free, and Pam drew it away and tossed it aside. Then she hooked her thumbs into the sides of Ellen's underwear and looked up, waiting. 

Ellen lifted her hips.

Pam drew the cotton down her legs and over her heels and let it go somewhere off the side of the bed, quickly removed her own, and then there was nothing left between them and the room was quiet except for the rain and their heavy breathing and Pam's own heart pounding in her ears.

She held herself up on one arm and looked at Ellen.

Ellen looked back.

"Okay?" Pam asked, one last time.

"Yes." No hesitation. Absolutely certain. "Yes."

Pam held her gaze one beat longer, reading her face, making sure.

Ellen's face said the same thing her voice said. No gap between them.

Pam kissed her neck, her collarbone. For a second, she wavered. She wanted to keep going, to kiss her way all the way down Ellen's body.

But then Pam made a decision and kissed her way back up Ellen's throat.

She wanted to. God, she wanted to. It was her favourite thing in the world—going down on a beautiful woman. Under any other circumstances it would've been the obvious next move.

But she'd already lost her footing more than once tonight, and she didn't know what to do with that. She was trying to hold onto some semblance of control and she'd lose that if she couldn't watch Ellen's face.

Besides, watching Ellen tonight had been...

It was something she wasn't ready to give up yet.

She settled her weight, shifting until she found the arrangement she wanted, and felt Ellen's breath change the moment she did. That was useful information. She filed it.

She slid her hand down Ellen's stomach. Slow. Watching.

Ellen's jaw tightened. Pam watched the small muscle jump just below Ellen's cheekbone, watched her chin tip up a fraction, watched her eyes close and then—she clearly made herself open them again, which was interesting. Ellen wanted to watch too.

Pam's fingers slid along the inside of Ellen's knee.

Ellen made a sound. Barely anything. More breath than voice.

Pam moved her hand upward in a long, slow stroke and watched Ellen's lips part. She read the small catches in Ellen's breathing the way she read a line of verse—where the stress fell, where the pause came, what happened in the white space between.

She could do this for a long time.

She stopped just short of where Ellen needed her.

"Pam." Low. Strained. Ellen's fingers gripped Pam's back, nails digging in.

"I've got you, baby," Pam whispered.

She watched Ellen's face and moved her hand.

The sound Ellen made was short and sharp and completely unguarded, the kind of sound a person makes when their body answers before their brain has time to intervene, and Pam felt it move through her own chest like a struck chord.

She kept her eyes on Ellen's face and read every line of it—the way her head pressed back against the comforter, the way she kept forcing her eyes open and back to Pam's face like she needed the anchor.

Pam gave her the anchor.

She didn't look away. Not once. She watched Ellen the way she watched a poem come together—line by line, the meaning building in the accumulation of small things, each breath and flinch and bitten-off sound telling her where to stay and where to move and when to slow down and when not to.

She was very good at this.

She'd always known she was good at this.

She hadn't known it could feel like this.

Ellen's hands tightened on her shoulders. Her breathing was ragged, her composure in pieces, and she was looking at Pam with an expression so stripped down and unguarded that Pam felt the bottom drop out of her own chest again. 

She held the rhythm. Steady. Patient. She didn't look away.

Ellen's hips rose off the mattress.

There.

Pam kept her hand moving through it. Not more—not harder, not faster—just with her, reading every signal, easing back the moment she felt the crest break, drawing the last of it out in long, slow strokes until Ellen's hips stopped moving and her grip on Pam's shoulders went slack.

Then she lifted her hand away.

She pressed her lips to Ellen's throat. Her collarbone. The curve of her shoulder, warm and salty. She felt Ellen's chest heaving under her mouth, felt the stuttered inhale, the long exhale, the gradual slowing of everything. She kept her kisses soft and unhurried. No destination. Just warmth.

Ellen's breathing slowly evened out.

Then she laughed.

A short, helpless sound that Ellen clearly hadn't planned for, and it was the most unguarded thing Pam had heard from her all night, which was saying something.

Pam lifted her head.

Ellen was staring at the ceiling. Her hair was a wreck against the comforter, her cheeks still flushed, her chest still rising and falling a little faster than normal. Then she looked at Pam.

She opened her mouth.

Closed it.

Tried again, and nothing came out, and she pressed her lips together and shook her head slightly, like she'd checked every available shelf and come up empty.

Nothing.

She just looked at Pam.

Pam had been looked at before. She'd been looked at plenty, after moments like this one and otherwise. She knew the difference between a woman who was satisfied and a woman who was grateful and a woman who was already composing her exit.

This was none of those things.

Ellen was looking at her like she'd just experienced something that she didn't have a category for. Like the filing system she'd built for her entire life had hit something it couldn't process and simply stopped.

Pam had done that. She'd put that look on that face.

She reached out and pushed a strand of dark hair back from Ellen's forehead, and then kissed her instead of saying anything.

Softly—not pushing, not building toward anything, just answering the unspoken thing in a language that didn't require words. She felt Ellen's breath release against her lips. Felt the last of the tension leave her shoulders.

She pulled back slowly. Let it end the way it had begun. 

Then she felt Ellen's hands move.

Not loose and resting the way they'd been a moment ago. Purposeful. One at Pam's hip, one pressing flat against her shoulder, and then Ellen was—

She was turning her.

Pam blinked.

The movement was decisive. Not fumbling, not tentative. Ellen was attempting to roll them over, and she had enough leverage and enough certainty about it that Pam actually felt herself start to go before her brain caught up with what was happening.

Then she pressed her palm against Ellen's sternum and stopped them both.

Ellen looked up at her. Hair framing her face, cheeks still flushed, expression resolute like she was waiting to see if Pam was going to make something of it.

Pam stared at her.

Two months of watching this woman across a bar top. Two months of careful, patient, slow, and now Ellen was—

She'd been with women who'd never done this before. She'd thought she knew what tonight would be.

Ellen had been surprising her all evening.

Pam heard herself laugh.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

Ellen's expression didn't change.

"My turn," she said, with a shrug.

The two words landed flat and simple, like they were obvious. Like this was just the logical next step and she couldn't understand why Pam needed it explained.

"Is that so?" Pam asked, trying not to sound so breathless.

Ellen nodded.

"You said you've never done this before."

"This might surprise you," Ellen said, wryly, "but I'm a very quick study."

Pam laughed again.

She couldn't help it.

Looked down at Ellen—flushed and wrecked and completely certain about what she wanted—and felt something that was half laughter and half something else entirely move through her. 

"I knew you were brilliant the second you sat down at my bar."

Ellen's brow lifted a fraction.

"I just didn't expect it to be a problem."

She pressed her palm a little more firmly against the centre of Ellen's chest.

She needed a second.

Because the truth was that something had been happening to her all night that she didn't have clean language for. This was different in a way that sat right underneath her sternum and stayed there. Every time Ellen looked at her. Every time Ellen's guard cracked open just far enough to let something real through. Every time that careful, composed, beautiful woman let Pam see underneath all that control.

Pam had the dizzying, inconvenient sense that she was in serious trouble.

She needed something to hold onto. Some thread of control she could actually keep her grip on, or this night was going to take her somewhere she wasn't sure she could find her way back from.

Pam didn't want to say no.

She absolutely did not want to say no.

She wanted Ellen's hands on her, had wanted it since about forty minutes into the first night Ellen had stayed till closing, sitting at the far end of the bar with a glass of bourbon she nursed for two hours while they talked. That wanting had been building at a steady, low simmer ever since, and the idea of finally—

She put the brakes on that line of thought.

Okay. She needed a middle ground. Something that gave Ellen what she wanted, gave Pam what she wanted, and kept Pam somewhere she could breathe.

She reached down and found Ellen's hand.

Ellen let her take it. Watched Pam's face without asking, without pushing for explanation.

Pam lifted Ellen's hand slowly and held it for a moment. She rubbed her thumb across Ellen's knuckles once. Then she moved—settling her weight, shifting her own knee between Ellen's legs, keeping herself on top, keeping the angle where she could control the situation.

She brought Ellen's hand down between them. Guided it with her palm over the back of Ellen's hand, watching Ellen's face change as she understood where they were going, watching the colour rise in her cheeks again and the slight part of her lips and the way her breath changed register entirely.

"There," Pam said. "Like that."

Pam made herself hold eye contact. That was the whole point. That was the compromise she'd struck with herself—Ellen could take her apart, fine, but Pam was keeping the angle. Keeping Ellen's face where she could see it. Keeping something solid between herself and the drop.

Ellen's fingers moved.

Pam's jaw tightened.

She felt it move through her in a wave, and she inhaled a sharp intake of air and breathed through it, and above all she kept her eyes open and on Ellen's face.

Ellen was watching her.

Of course she was. Her eyes intent, reading everything, and she'd been paying attention all night, Pam realized. She was a very good student. She knew exactly what she was looking for.

Ellen's fingers moved again. Adjusted. With purpose.

"Oh—" Pam's breath came out on a short, unsteady syllable. She hadn't meant to make that sound. It had gotten completely past her.

Pam's plan for control dissolved somewhere around the second or third adjustment, when Ellen found something that made Pam nearly collapse, and she had to plant her palm beside Ellen's head to stay upright. She was still on top, technically, but she was absolutely not steering this ship anymore.

Her eyes closed. She didn't remember closing them.

"Look at me," Ellen whispered.

Pam forced her eyes open.

Ellen was looking up at her.

That same expression. The open one.

Pam looked at her and felt the bottom tilt out of her chest again and keep right on tilting, and she thought: oh. Oh, this is it. This is the thing I was trying to avoid.

Ellen moved two fingers down and pushed inside like she'd done this a thousand times before.

Pam's breath left her in a rush.

Pam felt the wave crest and she dropped her forehead to Ellen's shoulder and closed her eyes and let go.

She wasn't loud about it. She pressed her lips to Ellen’s collarbone and breathed and felt it move through her in long, heavy pulses, Ellen's hand working her through it with that same precise, attentive focus she apparently brought to everything.

When it finally broke she collapsed and went still.

She was aware of her own breathing. Too fast. Ellen's shoulder under her forehead, warm. Ellen's other hand moving up and down her back—not demanding, just there. Just contact.

Pam didn't move.

She stayed right there, face hidden, and waited for her heart to come back to something resembling its normal rhythm. It took longer than she would've liked. It took embarrassingly long, actually, and she was aware of that, but she did not quite yet have it in her to care.

Ellen's hand kept moving on her back. Slow. Patient.

Pam moved slowly, rolling off Ellen's shoulder and settling onto her back beside her, staring up at the ceiling. The rain had softened while they'd been otherwise occupied—still steady, but quieter now, more patient. She could hear it against the glass.

She was aware of how she looked. Flushed. Hair wrecked beyond saving without a shower. 

She turned her head.

Ellen looked exactly the same.

Beautiful. God, she was beautiful.

Pam looked back at the ceiling before the thought could go anywhere else.

They lay there a while without talking. It wasn't uncomfortable. That surprised Pam a little—she'd half expected Ellen to fill the silence the way nervous people did, to reach for her clothes or some practical reason to move. But Ellen just lay there, breathing, close enough that their arms nearly touched on top of the comforter.

Then Ellen spoke.

"Is it always like that?"

Careful. Like she'd been turning the question over for a while before deciding to ask it.

Pam kept her eyes on the ceiling, running through the answers she could give.

Yes was a lie. An obvious one that Ellen was too sharp to believe.

No was the truth, but it was dangerous. Because no meant this was different, and different meant you matter, and the moment Pam said something that meant you matter to Ellen Waverly, Ellen was going to start calculating the cost of that. Start building walls. Start figuring out how far she'd let herself wander from the trajectory she was on.

Pam knew she was letting the silence stretch on for too long, and that every second she didn't answer was an answer on its own. She turned to look at Ellen, buying herself another couple of seconds.

Ellen was still looking at the ceiling, waiting. Patient.

"Not always," Pam finally said.

She didn't dress it up. Didn't walk it back. Didn't explain what ‘not always’ meant or how far from ‘always’ they'd landed tonight, which was a distance she didn't have language for and wasn't going to try.

Ellen's eyes moved to hers.

Pam held her gaze for exactly two seconds and then looked back at the ceiling.

The ceiling had a crack in it that ran from the light fixture almost to the window. Pam had looked at it a thousand times from this exact position and never really seen it until now.

She was very aware of Ellen beside her. The warmth of her, the slight rise and fall of her breathing. The silence had been going on long enough that Pam had started a quiet, involuntary countdown in her head.

She's going to sit up, Pam thought. She's going to sit up and reach for her shirt and say something practical. Something about it being late. Something about an early morning.

Pam waited.

Ellen didn't move.

She just lay there, and the rain kept going, and Pam kept tracking the crack in the ceiling with her eyes and telling herself to relax. To stop anticipating.

Still nothing.

Pam's heartbeat gradually slowed to something reasonable. She let out a long, quiet breath through her nose.

And then she felt the mattress shift.

She followed the movement without turning her head. Felt Ellen's weight redistribute, heard the quiet sound of the comforter moving, felt the dip and sway of the mattress as Ellen—

Ellen swung a leg over her waist and planted both hands on either side of Pam's shoulders.

Pam looked up.

Ellen was grinning.

Not the small, controlled almost-smile she was so good at. Not the surprised laugh. A full, real, unguarded grin, eyes bright, cheeks still flushed, hair completely wild, and she was looking down at Pam like she'd just solved something she'd been working on for a very long time.

Pam stared at her.

"Again?" Ellen asked.

"Already?"

Ellen's grin didn't move an inch.

Pam looked up at her—at the brightness in her eyes, at the colour still living in her cheeks, at the absolute absence of any of the careful, composed reserve Ellen Waverly wore around herself like a second skin every other hour of every other day.

She'd been bracing for Ellen to bolt.

Ellen had rolled on top of her.

Pam laughed. Surprised and completely genuine, and something in her chest unclenched all at once.

She put her hands on Ellen's hips, and Ellen was already leaning down, and Pam pulled her the rest of the way.

* * *

Pam surfaced from sleep slowly, the warm weight of Ellen's body beside her pulling her back under even as her eyes opened. She lay still for a moment, eyes drifting closed again, listening to the rain still tapping at the window.

Then she heard it.

Short, ragged breaths. Too fast. Wrong.

She rolled over.

Ellen sat upright against the sofa bed, her knees drawn to her chest, both hands pressed flat against her sternum like she was trying to hold something in. Her dark hair was loose and tangled and her face had gone the color of chalk. Her eyes were open but they weren't seeing the room.

"Hey." Pam pushed herself up. "Ellen."

Nothing. Just that breathing, shallow and rapid, like she'd forgotten how lungs worked.

Pam had seen this before. Her college roommate sophomore year, twice. She knew what it looked like from the outside and she knew how terrifying it must feel from the inside and she knew the worst thing she could do was panic herself.

She didn't let herself think about what it meant that this was the morning after and Ellen was full-on panicking. She filed that away somewhere dark and shut the drawer.

"Ellen." She kept her voice calm and even. She didn't touch her yet. "Look at me."

Ellen's eyes cut to her. Wild. Glassy.

Pam shifted to face her fully, sitting cross-legged on the sheets. "You're okay. I need you to listen to me—you're okay."

Ellen's mouth opened. Closed.

"I can't—" Her voice came out thin and strange, like it belonged to someone much younger. "Something's wrong, I can't—I can't breathe—"

"You can. You are." Pam reached out and set one hand over Ellen's where it pressed against her chest. Just pressure. Steady. "Feel that? Your heart's beating. Your lungs are working. Nothing's wrong with your body."

Ellen stared at their hands.

"I want you to breathe with me." Pam drew a slow breath in through her nose, held it, let it out through her mouth. "Just watch me. You don't have to do anything else."

Ellen watched her. Didn't breathe with her. Not yet.

Pam did it again. And again.

On the fourth one, Ellen's chest hitched and stuttered and she pulled in a breath that was too fast and too short but it was deeper than the ones before it.

"Good." Pam didn't smile, didn't make it a big thing. "Again."

They sat like that for what felt like a long time. The rain tapped at the glass. Pam breathed and Ellen chased her, breath by breath, until the gray color started bleeding out of Ellen's face and the frantic quality behind her eyes dimmed down to something closer to human.

Ellen dropped her gaze to the sheets.

"I'm sorry. I don't know what that was… I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize."

"I just—" Ellen pressed her lips together. Shook her head.

Pam watched her and felt the sinking start somewhere behind her ribs. Slow. Heavy. Like something dropped into deep water.

She knew exactly what that was. She'd known since the moment Ellen walked into The Outpost eight weeks ago with that serious mouth and those careful eyes that never quite landed where they meant to. She'd known since the second week, when Ellen had laughed—really laughed—at something Pam said and then looked immediately guilty about it, like joy was something she'd stolen.

Ellen wasn't ashamed of Pam. That wasn't it. Pam was sure of that much.

Ellen was ashamed of herself.

And there was a whole other thing Pam hadn't let herself look at directly yet. The enormity of what Ellen was trying to do, the boundaries she was trying to break, and who was waiting for her to slip.

She reached out and tucked two fingers under Ellen's chin, tipped her face up. Ellen let her, but her eyes stayed down for a second before they finally met Pam's.

"Hey. It was a panic attack." Pam kept her voice easy, kept her face relaxed. "It doesn't mean anything."

Ellen looked at her. Really looked at her, for the first time since she'd surfaced from wherever she'd gone. Like she was trying to figure out if Pam was angry, or hurt, or building toward something.

Pam wasn't going to give her anything to read.

"Nobody has to know about this," Pam said. "About us. Whatever this is." She lifted one shoulder. "It stays here. Between us."

Ellen was very still.

"I mean it." Pam dropped her hand from Ellen's chin. "I'm not asking you for anything you can't give. Okay?"

The rain picked up against the window. Outside, a car rolled through a puddle and the sound of it swelled and faded.

"Pam—"

"I'm going to make coffee." She swung her legs off the bed. "You take it black, right?"

A pause. Long enough that Pam had her feet on the floor and was reaching for an oversized sweater off the back of her desk chair.

"Yeah." Ellen's voice was quiet. "Black."

"Good." Pam pulled the shirt over her head. "'Cause I don't have any cream."

She walked to the kitchen and didn't look back.