Title: What Matters
Author: knightshade
Rating: PG
Summary: Yves's thoughts about Jimmy at the end of Tango de los Pistoleros.
Disclaimer: I don't own the Lone Gunmen or any of the characters.

Author's Notes: Thank you to Tomy for the beta read and to Julie Horwitz for permission to post this since the idea is similar to her story.

What Matters

Did it really matter that he'd never understand the complexities of her life? Or any complexities at all really. Did it matter that she'd rolled her eyes at him a hundred times already? Did it matter that he had no idea how to tango?

Not really. What mattered was that he was there, and he was offering.

Yves took the hand that Jimmy held out to her -- a hand that had a lot of strength but was guided by a gentle, if simple, soul. She followed him onto the floor and then led him through a series of slow steps, her heels and his hiking boots cutting an awkward path together.

Leonardo told her that the tango was about loneliness and isolation. She hadn't understood, not until that moment when he'd looked into her eyes before he died. Two people moving together but not entwined. Two people following the same path but kept at a distance - like everyone in her life, especially Leonardo.

She'd fallen for him. She knew it was foolish and dangerous. He was a murderer, but she'd been completely spellbound by him anyway. Maybe she'd gotten too wrapped up in her own cover story. Maybe she'd been reacting to the fact that it was obvious he was enthralled with her. Or maybe she'd just made the mistake of finding a man who was a little too much like her father.

But it didn't matter why or how. She'd fallen for Leonardo despite the danger. And in that one moment, when Leonardo had taken a knife for her, it was clear that he cared for her too, despite her obvious betrayal.

She pushed the thought away, and tried to focus on the present. Jimmy held up his arm and she did a half turn underneath it, to face away from him. She wondered what he saw when he looked at her. While the others assumed that she was too tough or too selfish to really be hurt, here he was worried about her feelings, treating her like a fragile flower.

Yves slowly twirled back around to face Jimmy again. The tango was about isolation and loneliness, and she was tired of both of them. Right now she just wanted closeness. She wanted to be held.

Yves rested her head on Jimmy's shoulder. He was strong and solid and real. He cared enough about her to notice that she was hurting. Yves felt guilty for all the times she'd dismissed him, called him an idiot, or lost patience with him. What he lacked in intellectual prowess, he made up for in empathy. He was completely genuine -- there was nothing devious or deceptive about him. In her world that was a rare virtue.

The mystery woman with a thousand lies finding comfort in the arms of the homespun man with a big heart. What a strange pair they made.

But in the end, what did that really matter?

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-knightshade
August 7, 2005