Knots

Standard Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. They belong to Top Cow. Sometimes I just like to play in their sandbox…

"When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on." Thomas Jefferson

Chapter 1: Prelude

Two knots. Oh what that sight does to my poor head.

Gabriel couldn’t get his mind back on what she was saying, not with those two knots the only thing keeping him from the reality of one of his recurring fantasies. Sara. Naked.

Shit.

“... keep half catching sight of things, half hearing things, its driving me more than a little nuts. Can’t you find anything relating to the history of the other wielders and how they dealt with it?”

Right, she needed help from him. She often needed his help. He wished she needed it for more than just esoteric research. Like untying those knots... Damnit, stop letting your mind run, Bowman. She still thinks you’re some scrawny geek-boy. Remember?

She hitched her leg up onto the corner of the industrial steel desk, the leather of her short skirt caressing lean muscle as her weight settled. He saw her shiver as the bare back of her thigh encountered the surface, goose bumps flashing momentarily across skin.

Shit.

His lungs tightened numbly as his brain produced an image of Sara, dressed exactly as she was right now with a black leather skirt wrapped low across her hips and bright red leather halter, her hair loosely spread across his desk while he drove into her, fucking hard and reckless. What the hell was she doing, dressed like that anyways? She never dressed provocatively or showed off so much skin. Why did it have to be leather?

“Gabriel?”

Right.

“It’ll take me a little while to find something, you can head out if you want,” he added casually. Or, he prayed, you could stay.

He didn’t see her features shift; disappointment, withdrawal, stoicism. The wind drove hard for a moment, rattling a couple dead leaves against the basement window along with a crumpled brown bag and an empty pack of cigarettes. She shivered again.

She chewed her bottom lip for a moment. “Hey, you mind if I borrow your bathroom for a sec to get out of these clothes? I feel a bit, um, exposed, dressed up like this.” She cursed inwardly. Of all the poor timing in the world! Why did the damned blade decide to play head games with me while I'm working undercover?

Gabriel stopped himself short of licking his lips...out of these clothes? God how he wished that had been an invitation! Sara, out of her clothes, was something that kept him sleepless more often than he cared to admit. At 27, Gabriel Bowman's life so far had by no means been lacking in rich imagination or enjoyable recreational experiences. He'd been resisting his attraction to Detective Sara Pezzini since the day she'd walked through the door of his basement office 3 years ago. Sure, he fantasized about her, but the ancient stone hanging gracelessly around her wrist marked her not only as a force to be reckoned with but also untouchable to any ordinary mortal man’s heart or hands.

Like his.

“Why don’t you use my bedroom instead? The bathroom’s barely big enough to turn around in.”

Her uneven quirk of the lips and brightening of the eyes made him gulp then sputter, choking on the breath he’d swallowed.

“Hey!” she slapped his back vigorously, “you okay there chief? Swallow something?”

My tongue, he thought. Or how’s about you? Gabriel's hands tensed as his imagination provided an almost-real sensation of her lips smooth and gentle brushing delicately across his own. Sara yelped like she’d been shocked
and he broke violently away from the though. Her hands clamped to her head as her knees buckled.

Gabriel reached out to grab her elbow. She flinched for a moment, and then steadied as her head came out of her hands. “You okay?” he dropped to one knee, fingers clutching her chin as he raised her eyes to meet his.

“I swear it wasn’t that bad before,” her voice was hoarse as she gulped for air.

“How long did you say this has been happening?”

“A week...” her voice drifted.

He wasn’t used to hearing uncertainty in her voice. “Just a week?” he coaxed.

“I’m not sure. It wasn’t like this before. I don’t remember.”

Gabriel had a split second to notice the view of bikini underwear exposed by her spread knees. Not now, damnit.

“What triggered it?” he asked efficiently.

“I don’t know,” Sara shook her head free of his grip and broke eye contact as her hair cascaded across the side of her face. His hand fell to rest on her knee. So soft, a small part of his brain noted as he brushed his thumb soothingly across her leg. Sara's face suddenly twisted tight, her entire body curling inward around her ribs. Gabriel backed away quickly. What the hell- She rocked herself, fingers stiff and white as they dug into her forearms. He dragged his gaze from her stiff body and scrambled off the cold cement floor. Gabriel stumbled as he rounded the desk reaching for one of the books on the shelf to his left. His fingers flew across the pages seeking a specific phrase. Pinning the book open on the corner of the desk, he scanned across the paragraph.

Shit.

Gabriel propped another book across the open spine to keep him from losing the page. He returned to kneel in front of her as close as he dared without touching.

“Sara?” he queried softly. She stopped rocking but her stiff fingers stayed wrapped bruisingly around her arms. “I need you to tell me when the pain stops.”

Her head nodded just a fraction of an assent. He took a deep breath, shut his eyes, and conjured the last bright spring day he could remember, with the smell of newly cut grass and the feel of it's wet blades clinging to his bare feet. His hands drifted down to lightly crown her head like a benediction. Her shoulders released, her chin dropped to her chest and her hands fell in an untidy pile in her lap. His eyes traveled down the waterfall flow of chestnut hair to her hands crumpled just below the hem of that temptingly short skirt. Sara's spine bowed tight again and her head pulled out of his reach as tears flowed from her unseeing eyes.

Shit!

Gabriel pulled away from her again, stumbling across the room to snatch the blanket off the back of the couch. Think damnit, he commanded himself. Concentrate! He ruthlessly shut out everything except for the comforting softness of the blanket’s well-worn texture. He filled his lungs as he stepped up behind her and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders. Nothing mattered but the comforting softness of the blanket beneath his fingers as he rubbed steady circles into the tension of Sara’s back.

Five slow minutes passed before her breathing deepened again and her muscles relaxed. Gabriel noticed the dampness of the hair at the nape of her neck and saw the goose bumps ripple across her neck in response to his thought. Stop thinking, idiot. Just do one thing at a time here. Let her breathe, damnit, let her breathe. He intentionally pulled in a lungful of air and watched her unconsciously mimic his movement. His senses expanded to encompass the chill of the cement under his bare feet. That's a safe sensation. He tried to catalogue the details of feeling the cement’s texture under his heel, the small pressure of the callous in the center of the ball of his foot, the pull of his instep as he shifted his weight in preparation to stand.

“Better?” his voice was soft.

Sara nodded.

“Good.” He stood, moving out of touch range.

Her voice sounded like a 3 pack a day habit when she finally spoke. “What the hell was that? What’s happening to me, Gabriel?”

“Some of the oldest texts dealing with the witchblade refer to a period of heightened awareness taking place as the blade tries to deepen its connection to the wielder in preparation for a major event.”

“This thing is trying to take me over?” there was a low, dangerous challenge to her voice.

“No, not take over. It's just trying a little harder than usual to look out for you. Something big is coming. The blade can’t afford to lose you. It’s trying to tighten its grip so it can control the outcome of something that hasn’t happened yet.” He hated himself for making it sound so uncomplicated.

Oh dear god, Sara. If the blade is right, I want to tighten my grip too. I’m not ready to let this thing take over and fail you the way it has every other woman who’s ever worn it. I refuse to lose you to some goddamned piece of metal.

The stone flared to brilliance and the bracelet writhed, covering Sara’s lower arm with the protective metal plates of the gauntlet. Her eyes snapped to her arm, holding it straight away from her body.

“Sorry,” Gabriel muttered furiously. “It doesn’t like what I just thought.”

“Which was-” Sara asked.

“No,” he cut her off viciously, “I'm not going to explain right now.” I’m not going to trigger another one of those seizures or get myself killed because the blade sees me as a threat to its power. “Why don’t you grab your clothes and get changed,” his voice held

Yup, she definitely needs to change out of those clothes if I'm going to be able to think straight.

Sara picked herself up off the floor with the blanket still hanging around her shoulders. Gabriel wordlessly offered her the saddlebag from her motorcycle that she’d dumped on the floor beside his desk when she came in.

“Could I grab a quick shower? I’m freezing.”

“Yeah, let me get a towel for you, everything else is in the shower. Use whatever you need.”

Sara nodded gratefully. Gabriel extracted a towel from the closet as he led her down the hall. She smiled, one of those gentle, appreciative smiles, as she shut the door. He wandered back down the hall to re-read the portion of the book he’d gotten out and start his computer searching some of the other esoteric references that might give them a better idea of what the blade was up to this time.