Sparkling Diamonds

He made me tea in the morning. And I continued to sit by the window looking out at the city beyond.

Benedict bought over the tea, two cups -- one for me and one for himself. He sat down beside me and handed me a cup. I accepted it gratefully, hoping it would send away the wooziness of what had happened over the last twenty four hours. All the alcohol that I had consumed, all the events that occurred, which also included the fact that Benedict had proposed. Proposed. It sounded strange, that I would be engaged again so soon. I wasn't even sure if it would be legal. Was I still married to my last husband? Probably, but that didn't mean that I couldn't be with Benedict.

He was different, as any new person would be, to any other relationship that I had encountered -- friendly or intimate. I wasn't in love with his money. Or his looks. Well, his looks were a contributing factor, but that was besides the point. We could sit in silence, forever, not having to say another word to each other and be totally comfortable around each other. I didn't have to explain myself to him, because I knew he would understand. The only thing that I had to show him was that I cared, and I did. I do. He was the only thing that I cared about because he made me feel like I was happier then I should have been, could have been.

I needed him as much as he needed me. I knew that now. He was more vulnerable than I would have expected, and I respected him for that. He feared himself, sometimes. It was starting to become clear, now. Fear was something that we both had and we both needed each other to heal this fear. What I didn't know was what he feared in himself that I could help him with. I didn't want to ask him now. It was too heavy of a topic for a time such as this. We were to be married...married to a man such as Benedict was such a strange thought. And I couldn't shake it from my mind.

I held out my hand in front of me, watching how the light caught in the silver of the ring. It was beautiful, yes, but no more beautiful than the thought of the fact that he considered me fit to be his wife. It sounded old fashioned in my mind. To me, anyway. I was getting married again, and I should have been happy about that. It just sounded strange. Maybe it's just because I didn't feel like I deserved it. I didn't feel like I deserved anything. Anything that happened to me up until this point. I guess I just didn't feel like I deserved to be with him at all, or to have met him.

I dropped my hand down and looked down into the dark depths of my tea. I swirled it around and let the warmth hit my face.

"Is something wrong?" I heard Benedict say from beside me.

I didn't look to him and took a sip of my drink. I closed my eyes, breathing in deeply. I felt Benedict's hands over mine and pulling the cup away from my lips. He took the cup away from me and set it down on the floor in front of us. He set his down beside my own. When I didn't react, my eyes still closed, he let my hands go and continued to watch me, trying to figure me out.

"Nothing is wrong," I breathed. "You are everything."

I could feel his smile radiating off him.

"That's something that I don't hear everyday," he mentioned.

"You should."

"Well, I have you at least to tell me now."

I opened my eyes and turned to Benedict, shaking some of the hair off my face. I was still dressed in his t-shirt from last night and Benedict in a t-shirt and his boxers. I studied the way that the light caressed his face, highlighting the lightness of his eyes and the light speckling of a beard, which was his natural ginger and barely noticeable against his skin. I blinked a few times, trying to make sure that what I saw in front of me was the real thing.

I stretched out my fingers to his features and let them explore without really controlling where they went. I felt every bump, erosion, and speckle of his cheeks. The curves of his lips, and the way that they responded to my touch. They were soft against my touch, inflamed and beautiful. I let out a sigh I could barely control. I pushed myself forward, not wanting for myself to get lost in something simple as his lips.

I ran my fingers over his elongated face, over the creases in the corners of his eyes and the flowing movements of his nose to his forehead and into his hair. His hair had curled since we had awoken and was dark against my skin. I threaded my fingers through his curls, feeling each of the curls in between my fingers. They were a soft as he was on the inside. I rested my hand upon his cheek and he leaned into it, closing his eyes. He shifted his face into my hand and kissed his lips into my palm.

"Come on, we have to go," I said. "Set is calling us."

"Don't ruin the moment," he said against the palm of my hand.

"I'm not," I said as he opened his eyes but still holding his face against my hand.

"You are," he replied. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking about you," I said, shifting so that I was closer to him. "And how I don't deserve you." He looked at me, about to protest, but I continued before he could say a word. "But how we're good for each other. And why you fear yourself."

"I don't fear myself."

"Don't lie to me, Ben," I said, touching my head against his and pressing myself as close to him as I could. "I don't like liars."

I wrapped my hands around his neck, letting my thumb stroke the curve between his neck and his shoulders. My nose pushed beside his as my lips bared my teeth. I felt his large, rough hands grip me around my waist and lift me up as he stood. I felt my feet lift off the ground and wrapped my legs around his waist, gripping him tight. I held on to him for dear life, feeling him move underneath me as his fingers dug deeper into my hips.

"Fuck you," I said, feeling my breath get caught in my throat. "Just, fuck you. How..."

I legitimately couldn't think of anything more to say to him. Even if I expressed it in the crudest way I never thought I could, there were no other words that I could have thought of using. I closed my eyes and tried to calm my breathing, but I knew that it would never work. I made a pained noise as I felt the butterflies bursting through my body. I started to shake, shifting my position around him and gripped onto him tighter. He accepted my shifts in movements, holding me as tight as he could.

I felt him moving and pressing me against the window. His body shifted underneath me, pulling the t-shirt I wore and casting to the side so I only wore my underwear. I thought I remembered muttering something like, "this isn't fair" underneath my breath because the next thing that I knew was that I had cast his t-shirt across the room and was in the middle of pulling his boxers off. I was about to stop myself but he helped me remove them.

He wanted this too. But did I also?

I don't know. Only my body could tell me. And I knew that I would have my answer in the next few moments.

I made another pained noise, but he took it as a sign of pleasure. His nose was buried into my neck, his lips firmly pressed against my skin. I couldn't handle him being this intimate and tried to push him away but it didn't work. He had me there and was going to have me for himself. I thrust my pelvis into his, feeling him on the other side of my underwear. I felt him unclasping my bra, struggling to do so. I laughed to myself and I had to help him cast away the bra so that we were chest to chest.

His hand was on my breasts, feeling him press my flesh underneath his fingers. I pushed against him, feeding his desire and my own. He was the warm heat from the cold that I had been experiencing up until this point. I pressed my lips against his ear, trying to find the words to say to him but the words came out in noises of pleasure as he kneaded at my breast. I colud only mutter another "fuck you" in the end.

"If you say so," he whispered so softly.

"You're so unfair," I whispered back as I shimmied out of my underwear. I pulled one of my hands from around his neck and helped him feel his pleasure in mine. I bit down on his ear, hard, as he pushed himself into me. "I hate you."

"You have a very strange way of showing affection," he muttered into my chest.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I could barely look at Benedict over the next few days of filming. It was the last days that we would be spending in London before flying over to Cardiff, Wales, to finish the rest of the episode. We would then be on a few week break so that Benedict and Martin could fly to New Zealand for the filming of the Hobbit. We hadn't really wanted to talk about New Zealand, although I had hoped that I would be going with him but I knew I couldn't afford it.

I had to stay here. I had too many things to look after here. I didn't want to rely on him for anything and it was already possible that it was too late for me to try to find some sort of work on the Hobbit while he was there. I was stranded here, in London, while he trekked the world. I was proud of him, but was saddened inside. I didn't want to burden him with any of my issues so I remained quiet. He was my life, now, and I would support him wherever he went. Even if it was from afar.

I smiled at him whenever I could, from across set. I dressed him in the morning and checked on the production design throughout the shooting day. Everything became professional, but I knew that neither of us could forget that morning after his birthday. The engagement and the intimacy. We thrived, together, in that moment. He was hot against me and if I continued to think about that moment, I would become flustered and unable to concentrate.

Eliza noticed this in the days leading up to the trip to the week long trip in Cardiff. She questioned me on it once or twice but I brushed it off, avoiding it as much as I could but I knew that I would have to face the music one day and I was just hoping that it wouldn't be any time soon. I was stacking the costumes into Eliza's car as she passed me what we needed to put into her car from the pathway.

"What happened between you guys," she asked. "And you're not allowed to brush me off this time. You can't keep on avoiding me, Di."

"Nothing happened between us," I said, accepting another box from Eliza. "I thought it was clear that we were in a relationship."

"But I didn't think it was that serious," Eliza said. "How long has it been since you guys started dating?"

"A week, but you know," I said, playing tetris with the box and the boot of the car. "Things move fast."

"Too fast, for some people's liking," she muttered as she helped me close the boot of the car.

I turned to her in annoyance, saying, "Our relationship, not yours."

"Di, are you okay?" she said, resting her hand upon my shoulder.

I rolled her hand off my shoulder, eyeing her as I walked off down the street. She was meant to give me a lift back to Benedict's that night, since he was caught up with a whole list of interviews for Star Trek and the new season of Sherlock that we were filming. I heard Eliza call out after me but I ignored her. She soon gave up her attempts and got into her car, driving it up to where I was walking and followed me down the street. She wound down her window and managed to keep up with my slow pace.

"What's wrong with answering a simple question about your love life," Eliza said to me.

"I don't feel comfortable answering anything about it," I said, continuing down the street but not doing a very good job in ignoring her.

"You're dating a rising star int he film world," she said. "You're dating Sherlock fucking Holmes, don't think you can escape the media on this one."

I stop mid step and turn to her. She mimicked my movements and put the car into park. The car behind her that was approaching fast braked suddenly and almost crashed into her. She stuck her head out further from the window and shouted an apology, raising her hand and motioning for the car to go around her. She was busy inquiring after a love life I was determined to tell her little to nothing about. Scratch that, nothing about. She would only hear what the tabloids would report, which would be filled with lies anyway.

It was a shame because I considered her my best and only friend now, especially with Bianca out of the picture. I would have considered Benedict someone to confide in, and maybe Martin, but it's not like their schedules, especially Martin's, could fit around the loneliness that I might feel when Benedict disappeared off to New Zealand. I would be here with only Eliza by my side. Even with that though floating around my mind, I didn't want to say anything to Eliza because of that fear it might get out into the public. I wanted to keep my personal life as personal as possible and not include anyone who didn't need to be involved.

"So, do you have anything to say to me?" Eliza said when she turned back to me.

"Not particularly," I said, moving towards the car and ducking down so that I was level with her. "But I could really use some ice cream right now. That's if you're up for it."

A smile spread across her face as she said, "Get in the car. We'll drop of the costumes and props to be transported over to Cardiff in the morning and we'll go to the ice cream store down the road."

I slipped around to the other side of the car and got in. That's when I saw a photographer coming around the corner with a long lensed camera that he was pulling up to his eye. He quickly snapped a few pictures of Eliza and I before he disappeared back around the corner. I was right, I guess, in the fact that it was a bad idea in saying anything to Eliza...especially in such a public forum as going from the sidewalk to her car. All we would be seen doing is being together, as friends. Hopefully.