It had taken over thirty hours after returning from Chicago for him to finally break.
The four roommates had arrived back at the loft on Sunday, sometime in the early evening. They had all lamely attempted to converse with Nick as a means of distraction from the thoughts of his father and the funeral, some better than others, unconsciously treating him as if he were made of glass and all too easily shattered.
At the end of the night it had become quite obvious to them that essentially all they had succeeded in doing was watch him down beer after beer as he conducted an ever increasingly obnoxious play-by-play of the football game streaming on the local sports network.
It had been incredulous, really, Nick's ability to ignore them.
At a certain point in the evening, Schmidt had painstakingly offered to use Nick's newly acquired port-o-potty, labeling it as a one-time offer that simply could not be refused. He had also mentioned that if Nick played his cards right, he would find a way to have the thing buffed and polished so that it would be as beautiful and shimmering as a dazzling Greek goddess. Nick hadn't even blinked an eye and his gaze had remained focused solely on the TV.
Winston had followed that enormous proposition from Schmidt with a promise to Nick that at the next opportunity, when they were both off work, he would take Nick hat shopping, because it was due time for another magnificent day out searching through thrift stores for hats of epic and momentous proportions. He had also generously told Nick that he would pay all the expenses. Nick had given no indication that he had even acknowledged Winston's existence, let alone offer.
Jess had simply tried to talk to Nick about life matters, for instance, asking if he had come up with any more ideas for work that were as interesting as his guys' night plan had been. But he had shut her down every single time, either with a loud, frustrated exclamation about a wrong call made by the ref or to yell encouragement to the football players as they executed what he dubbed brilliant or not-so-brilliant plans.
Schmidt, Winston, and eventually Jess all abandoned their attempts of distraction around ten PM, leaving Nick to his own devices. The three had retreated to their separate corners of the loft, jumping every so often when a loud shout reverberated throughout their apartment, the source of said noise being a most certainly hammered Nicholas Miller who remained hunkered down in the living room.
About an hour later, as Jess had been getting ready for bed, she noted deafening silence permeating the loft and quickly wondered what had become of her favourite drunk. When she left the bathroom, she noticed Nick passed out on the couch, head tilted back haphazardly on the sofa, drink still in hand. So she pried the bottle from his grip and awkwardly maneuvered him into a more comfortable sleeping position. He had been knocked out cold, so she hadn't disturbed him in the least bit. She then ran to her room and found the warmest and coziest of the fuzzy and funny patterned quilts she owned, returning quickly to drape it over him. She also made sure to clear the area of any empty glasses, bottles and excess junk that he was sure to knock over if he got up in the night.
"Jessss."
She had frozen at the unexpected and soft utterance of her name, before spinning promptly towards Nick. He was still asleep, but she reveled at the sight of a small smile-like expression displayed across his features and the fact that maybe she was to blame for its appearance. Jess gave him one last lingering look before turning to leave and then hurriedly tip-toed off to her room.
As she had lain in bed, she plotted the many ways in which she could get Nick to talk about his feelings. While doing this, she realized that she would do anything to get him to really smile again, to hear him laugh with complete joy once more. She found herself wishing that she could take his pain from him and carry it herself. She hated to see him suffer. The mocking voice inside her head told her she was crazy, because that's what people who were in love did. They cared enough for the other person that they would rather hurt than see their loved one in pain.
She tried to laugh those thoughts off, brush them aside as if they hadn't bothered her in the least.
But the truth was undeniably transparent.
She cared for him, as more than a roommate, as more than a friend. And it scared her. She hadn't been this emotionally attached to someone since Spencer. And those wounds still haunted her. They were better, but she didn't know if they would ever fully heal. She didn't know if she could ever fully give herself to someone again. But she was beginning to sway.
Her last thought before she drifted off was that Nick had been the one to slowly lead her away from the dark place she had been in. Nick had managed to peel back the bubbly layer she so often hid behind to see her as she really was. A scared, young woman who had had her heart cruelly crushed. But he had begun repairing it, without her knowledge, and maybe even without his own. That was, until now.
This morning Winston and Schmidt headed back to work. They acted as if they regretted leaving Nick in his condition – whatever that meant – but Jess knew that they didn't have the patience or desire to deal with him right now. She knew that Nick was stewing; she knew he was bottling up all of his emotions inside and drinking away his pain. And she wanted to care for him.
So she called in to the school informing her boss that she needed to take a few more days off work. She had expected to have to fight for it, defend her case, but her boss was surprisingly understanding and sympathetic towards the situation and told Jess she could have the entire week off if need be.
When Nick woke up it was fairly obvious to Jess that he was nursing a pretty bad hangover, so she grabbed some ibuprofen and a large glass of water and forced him to consume both. He made his famous turtle face at her, but proceeded to down them anyway. When she sent him straight to bed, he almost snapped at her but thought better of it. For one, he didn't think he had any energy in him to argue, and two, sleep sounded pretty damn good. His head was still throbbing and he had his garbage can at the ready in case he felt the need to empty his continuously rolling stomach.
Nick slept most of the day. Jess knew he was exhausted. He had slaved away at the preparations for his father's funeral and had also spent the majority of his time comforting the entirety of his family, taking little time for himself in between. She doubted he had slept more than a few hours a night in the past week, if that. So she let him sleep, hoping that when he finally awoke he would be in brighter spirits and perhaps willing to talk.
The rest of the day went by in a blur. After realizing that Nick wasn't going to be waking anytime soon, Jess cleaned her room, tidied up the common areas of the house that Schmidt and his OCD tendencies hadn't already gotten to, and came up with a list of errands she needed to attend to. But first, she baked. She needed a little stress relief and, to her, baking had always done just that. When two dozen cupcakes lay cooling on the countertop, Jess gathered her purse and coat and grabbed her list, making sure to quietly exit the apartment so as not to disrupt Nick's slumber.
Groceries, dry cleaning pick-ups, and a little bit of window shopping led to Jess being out later than she had intended. So she decided to grab some fast food, berating herself for stooping so unhealthily throughout the entire line. Although, in the end, she had gotten a salad - along with her fries - so she didn't feel too badly.
When she got back to the loft, she found a note on the counter from Winston stating that he had agreed to take the night shift for one of his coworkers and so he wouldn't be home until morning. Schmidt wandered into the kitchen long enough to inform her that he had fed Nick some soup. Chicken noodle soup - to be precise - because it was warm enough to be soothing, like an infant at its mother's breast, and noodly enough to have somewhat of a fun personality, thereby evoking joy in the consumer.
While Jess was deducing his logic, he blurted out that he needed to leave the melancholy that was 4D and so he was spending the night elsewhere. He was very evasive about the where, but Jess didn't feel the need or the want to actively question Schmidt at this point in time. He hastily made his escape and left, leaving Jess once again surrounded by absolute silence. She contemplated knocking on Nick's door to see if Schmidt had in fact gotten him to eat something, but thought better of it. It probably wouldn't end well. She should just leave him be. When he was ready to socialize he would approach her.
Her earlier baking lay in wait, ready to be decorated with loads of sugary goodness, and so she took on that familiar task all the while trying to quench the overwhelming need to go to Nick. After icing and embellishing her cupcakes, Jess was too exhausted to do anything else and so she went to bed early, slipping into a light sleep after re-thinking all of the ways in which she could possibly stop Nick from brooding without angering him in the process.
She caught him in the kitchen around 3 AM.
Jess had woken up, only to find she couldn't fall back asleep. She padded out of her room in search of some herbal tea to calm down her over-burdened mind. And that's when she saw him.
Nick was sitting on one of the stools at the island, facing the sink and the cabinets where they kept their mugs with his back turned away from her. It was dim, but as her eyes adjusted she could see his shoulders moving up and down ever so slightly. His head was cradled in his hands and he kept minutely shaking his head as if he was actively ridding himself of thoughts.
Jess didn't want to disturb his mourning, she didn't want to overstep any boundaries, but she also didn't want him to be alone. It broke her heart to see him this way. She stood, rooted to the spot, for a few moments, internally debating about what she should do.
In the end, she decided to approach him. Her footsteps were quiet; therefore it was only when her hand tentatively reached out to stroke his back softly that he noticed her. He was quick to jump up, hands wiping desperately at his cheeks, his eyes, and his nose.
"What are you doing up?" he tried to rein his emotions in, but his voice betrayed him. He sounded stuffy and weak and he quickly searched his mind for excuses to blame his current condition on.
"It's okay to just let go, Nick," Jess gently informed him. But her remark didn't register; he was still in denial that he had been caught. He was still trying to shake it off, pass it off as something else.
"I'm fine, Jess," he lied through clenched teeth, "Just cuttin' up some onions, ya know, the usual. You got any gum? I hear it helps…," he trailed off, knowing full well how stupid his excuse was.
"Mhmm," was her only response.
Then he got angry and began to shout. His voice was rough, hoarse as he told her he had every reason not to cry. That his dad and he had practically switched roles since his birth, that his dad was horrible and everyone just put up with him because they had to, that his dad was nothing in his eyes if not a reminder of who he never wanted to become.
But then he grew silent for a few moments. His vision grew blurry and tears threatened to spill over. That's when Jess slowly approached him. At first her hands laid tentatively on the planes of his chest. Nick took a deep breath in, but it wasn't enough to hold off the inevitable.
He uttered a few strangled whimpers, before dropping his head and giving into his sorrow. At first he tried to mask his sobs, but as the tears began to flow he felt himself becoming freer in his emotional release. Jess wrapped her arms around his midsection and pulled him in close. He obliged and rested his tear stained cheek in the crook of her neck. One of her hands rubbed his back soothingly as she felt the shudders rack his body. His hands desperately clung to her back. She felt the cool of his tears on her neck, the flutter of his eyelashes blinking as he tried to slow, if not halt, their journey.
They stayed like this for a good ten minutes. All the while Jess whispered words of comfort to him. "Ssh, I'm here for you" or "It's going to be okay" and many variations in between resonated in the air.
When finally Nick pulled back, his eyes still glistening, he managed the smallest of smiles. Jess smiled encouragingly back. One of her hands snaked away from his back and up to rest on one of his cheeks. Her thumb lightly stroked his face, as if she were trying to erase all of the tears, bad memories and pain from his life. He raised a hand and covered hers, smoothing it flat over his skin. He continued holding it in place as he pressed his cheek further into the softness of her palm. His eyes closed and he took a deep breath in and couldn't help but think that Chicago didn't feel like his home anymore. She did.
As a silent thank-you for standing by him, not only throughout the entire funeral situation, but for all the times since he had met her and especially for tonight, in this moment, he turned his face just slightly in order for his lips to meet her palm. He gave the inside of her hand a lingering kiss before dropping their now entwined hands to their sides.
"Thank you – Jess," her name came out in barely a whisper, almost reverent. He didn't recognize his voice. It was gravelly from not only the tears, but from the depth of emotion that was currently surfacing in regards to this kind, compassionate and loving woman standing before him.
Jess didn't know what exactly he was thanking her for, but she knew that he was wrestling with something in his mind. She decided to wait it out. When he was ready to explain himself he would. Nick's head was bent, and he was purposely staring at the floor, because God knows what he might do if he looked up and saw the sweetly sympathetic gaze in those big, blue eyes pinning him with careful scrutiny.
A few minutes went by wherein the silence grew palpable. Nick Miller had never been one to analyze every single thing he did in regards to another person. But with her it was different. Nick Miller was not one to share his deepest, most secretive feelings with just anyone. But she had broken down his defenses. Nick Miller didn't try because trying meant opening up, it meant vulnerability, it meant taking a chance. Trying meant risking everything and definitively stating I'm all in.
But Jessica Day was worth it. Of this he was irrevocably convinced.
Uno bitches, he was all in.
He didn't want to live with regrets anymore. He didn't want to be haunted by the sad memories of moments long since passed. He didn't want to drown in his loneliness and get really, really weird. He didn't want to become the grumpy, old man who yelled at kids to get off his yard. He wanted to take what he had learned from his past and move on from all of the bad things that had befallen him. He wanted to fully embrace his future, leave the grudges and baggage behind in the dust. He wanted to love again.
Nick slowly brought their still entwined hands up and rested them on his heart. He lifted his gaze from the floor and was met with two smoldering, cerulean eyes. The look she gave was almost teasing, it held a challenge. Show me how you feel, it seemed to mock him. It drove Nick near mad and he couldn't help but detangle his hand from hers and cup her face tenderly. He backed her towards the fridge until she was pressed right up against it. Then his lips hungrily descended upon hers, only to be met with equal frenzy.
Jess felt like the world was spinning. One minute she had been comforting him and the next she had been noting how strong his hands were, how tantalizing his mouth was, how close she felt to him when he allowed himself to break down in front of her, how ridiculously hot he was when he actually let her into his head by showing her his deepest feelings. And so when he had gently grasped her face and pushed her up against the refrigerator it was as if something had snapped inside of her. Usually she was so in control, but when it came to Nick Miller, control was the last thing on her mind.
Jess feverishly attacked Nick's lips with her own. Her arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him closer. He groaned at the contact, one of his hands sliding around to her back, securing her in his embrace, the other tracing up her spine to her neck until it found purchase in the soft waves of her dark hair. He sought permission to deepen the kiss, running his tongue along her bottom lip. She acquiesced and whimpered into it, because, goddamn, he was a good kisser. He ran his hands to her upper back and then down along her sides until he reached her hips, pulling her even closer to him, causing a ripple of excitement to rush through her. She could feel every inch of him pressed against her and she savoured it, indulged in it. But it ended all too soon.
Nick painstakingly pulled away, panting. She was going to be the death of him. He couldn't get enough of her, couldn't keep his hands off of her, but there was something holding him back, something he still needed to say.
"Jessica -" he began, her name a breathy plea on his lips. She patiently waited, her heartbeat quickening at the tone of his voice.
He began again, this time with more success.
"Jess - I want you, but not like this, Jess. The thing is - is I don't wanna screw this up, ya know? You're - you're too important to me. And I want to do this right," he inwardly cringed at how unintelligible he probably sounded. Meanwhile she was taken aback by his honesty.
"So what are you saying?" Jess asked, feeling breathless. The closeness of him mingled with the underlying meaning of his words plus the already heady atmosphere was almost too much to bear. But she wouldn't have had it any other way.
"What I'm saying is that as much as I love how intense this…," he pointed between the two of them, a slight smirk appearing on his face, "…is, I don't want it to just be physical, ya know? You mean more to me than that, Jess. I - I want to be more than just two friends who are sometimes attracted to each other."
"Like my emotional fluffer, with the rewards?" it was her turn to smirk given the expression that quickly flashed across his face. It was a mixture of amusement and lust and something else entirely.
When he had recovered his composure he spoke once more.
"Yes, exactly. I want to be able to take ya out, maybe show ya off a little. Oh, and definitely more of this," as he said this he pressed another searing kiss to her lips. It was a quick but passionate lip-lock, as Nick was trying everything in his power not to get too carried away.
"What do ya say to goin' out to dinner with me?" his forehead was resting against hers, eyes closed, hoping and praying that she would agree, a small part of him still unconvinced that he had somehow won his way into this woman's heart.
"Like on a date?" her grin was ever widening, eyes alight in the darkness of the kitchen.
"Yes, like on a date, Jess," he leaned back ever so slightly only to open his eyes and roll them in fake exasperation at her need for clarification.
"Why Nicholas Miller, I thought you'd never ask," she stated in a moderately terrible British accent.
"Me either," he mumbled quietly, nuzzling her and placing a chaste kiss to her cheek, "So, is that a yes?"
"Why of course, absolutely, yes," she spoke rapidly, flustered and feeling positively dizzy with delight.
Nick smiled at her words, and one of his hands came up to rest on her jaw line, his thumb sweeping leisurely over her lower lip. Jess quivered at his touch, leaning into it unconsciously. This time, when their lips met, it was a gentle caress, slow and meaningful, conveying everything they felt for one another that had long lain hidden but was now freely overflowing.
"You got me all shook up, Jess," Nick murmured as he pulled away, a loving smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as her eyes captivated his once more. Jess felt the blush creep up her neck until she knew her cheeks were a solid crimson.
"Mmm, mhmm, mmm, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm all shook up," she eventually managed, throwing in a few hip thrusts and arm movements for good measure.
This Elvis impersonation floored Nick just as much as the first had and he threw his head back, a small laugh escaping his throat.
It had taken over thirty hours after returning from Chicago for him to finally break.
But now that he had, it was clear to him that he was going to be alright.
"You okay, mama?" Jess asked him softly, as if reading his mind, and he remembered back to when she had asked him this very question at the funeral.
This time, Nick was absolutely sure of his answer.
"Yeah, I'm going to be okay, mama."