Author's Note: For ilovetvalot. It's a little angsty, and I might come back and offer a nice happy ending, but probably not.
If only he knew.
She sighed as she ran her hand through her long blonde hair, faced once more with the familiar frustration that she never seemed to be able to get away from.
She should be happy.
She should be content.
And yet…
If only he could know how she felt, maybe then things could be different.
Maybe she could have it all. The job. The spouse. The family. The passionate love that made every day pass better than the last.
But this…this longing her heart had for him…how was she supposed to voice that when she had a loving boyfriend waiting for her at home?
She shouldn't feel like this.
She should love Will.
She had a child with Will.
She should be happy.
"JJ?" Her heart surged as his deep baritone preceded him before he stepped into her office. "I need you to come with me to interview Shane Davis."
Pulling herself out of her own head, she smiled. "Sure Dave, meet you at the car?" She asked, pretending to busy herself with something on her desk.
"Sure." He smiled easily, picking up his jacket and leaving her alone.
Her smile faded as she watched him leave, her soul shattering familiarly with each step he took.
He didn't feel the same way, she should stop with the childish fantasies.
She shouldn't force him to wade through the uncomfortable waters of rejecting her. He couldn't possibly feel the same way, and she could not live with herself if he had to come back and let her down gently.
It was one thing to love him from afar.
It was a separate thing to realize he could never love her in return.
She should be better than the girlish fans who swooned over his every word. The charisma behind his pen and equally supported behind his smile should have no effect on her. She should be better than this.
But she wasn't.
She should be happy.
If only she could tell him.
If only things were different.
He sat in the car next to her, wishing he was a different person.
Maybe if he was bolder, or twenty years younger, things would be different.
Back then, he wouldn't have cared about his actions.
Now, he was crippled by the knowledge that the words he longed to say could only disrupt her very world.
What was it about her that made the world stop spinning whenever he was near her?
Just being around her made him want to be a better man, yet the one true love of his life sat just inches away from him.
Inches that might as well be miles.
"Well you're sure quiet today." She observed, breaking the quiet chasm that seemed to separate them. "Penny for your thoughts?"
"Sorry." He felt himself grin at her nervous chuckle, "I was just thinking about-" Suddenly, his words were cut off as her phone interrupted them, blaring loudly in the quiet car that seemed thick with the air of one-sided adoration.
Her own smile faltered before she offered an apologetic smile. "Sorry, it is Will."
Will.
The one word that reminded him that she could never be his.
No matter how much he wished this attraction was not so one-sided, William La Montagne Jr.'s presence reminded him that JJ could never love him.
She was with someone else.
And while he had no qualms about shouting his attraction from the rooftops, he held his peace.
Because it wasn't fair to her to put her in that position.
Nor could he bear to hear her attempt to let him down gently.
Sometimes, life just was not fair.
It was only when her phone rang again that he snapped back to reality, realizing she was waiting for him to make some reassurance that she should take the call.
He cleared his throat, hoping she didn't notice his discomfort. "You should get that." He encouraged, pasting on a smile with the hope that she wouldn't see right through him.
"Yeah." She smiled softly, staring at the phone as she seemed to debate whether or not to answer.
Eventually, she pushed the button, accepting the call.
He sighed, if only things were different.
Will sighed as he hung up the phone, JJ's revelation that she was with David Rossi weighing heavily on his mind.
It was just a matter of time, really.
He wasn't blind.
Or deaf.
Or stupid.
He saw the burning attraction between the two. At the outset of his relationship with JJ, he thought maybe that she would one day look at him with the same unfiltered love in her eyes.
But after five years, he was fairly certain that would never happen.
And sometimes, it kept him up at night, the knowledge that he was trapping the love of his life in a relationship that wouldn't make her happy.
But he just couldn't let her go.
JJ was too loyal to ever act on her feelings while she was still dating Will, and as long as he could hold onto her, he could pretend that things were different.
That they were happy.
That she wasn't eventually going to grow tired of the pretense.
That she wasn't one day going to finally decide to put her own happiness before everyone else.
But until then, he could still pretend.
If only…