This love is gone

Just like that

No hope anymore

No light

It's gone with the wind

Somehow

Do you know

It's just a life

That's all

~ The End of Love Story, Anna Cellmer

CHAPTER 1 - THE CRAZY LADY

Somewhere between New York City and Boston

"Wait, wait, you're telling me that you, Mr Ivy League, did not attend your five-year Harvard Law school reunion?"

Whilst Jamie nodded in response, he didn't feel he needed to offer Eddie an explanation. The date of that reunion, had fallen exactly a year after Vinny had bled to death in his arms. He hadn't wanted to celebrate then, he hadn't wanted to be incessantly questioned about the job by lawyers who thought they understood and he especially didn't want to be told that his job was dangerous and he should quit.

What's more, in the light of Vinny's death, and Joe's, he hadn't wanted to come face to face with either Sydney or Dana and have them him 'I told you so.' No, he hadn't been in the mood for that. He still wasn't.

Now though, another five years had passed. It was now ten years since he'd graduated from Harvard, ten years since Joe had been killed and he was edging ever closer to being on the job for a decade.

Eddie didn't speak up instantly when Jamie nodded, usually she would have pushed him to give her a straight answer. She didn't this time, though she could see on his face that he was bothered and more-so than usually. Which was saying something, given he was already a NYPD Sergeant, a newlywed and a father-to-be.

They'd been married for just over a month when Eddie had found out she was pregnant. Don't get her wrong, she wanted to be a Mom and the more time she spent around Jamie, the more that desire grew. Though neither herself, or Jamie, had expected parenthood to coming knocking for them so quickly. Nonetheless, they'd embraced it.

As for the rest of the Reagan family, their faces had said it all when they found out that Uncle Jamie was finally becoming a Dad, it was as if all their Christmases had come at once.

Initially Jamie had hidden his invitation from Harvard, to attend his ten-year reunion. It hadn't been because he didn't want to go, it was that they'd asked him to give a lecture regarding how being a lawyer influenced his choices as a police officer. He'd just wanted to go, with his wife and enjoy himself. He didn't want to go and have to be in the public eye, giving a lecture. Mostly he didn't want to give either Sydney or Dana a chance to confront him.

The letter had come when Eddie was nearing two months pregnant and by then her hormonal imbalance was already in full swing. The result of her finding it hidden in his old textbooks, lead to Jamie receiving a full-blown dressing down, from Eddie, in the middle of the precinct bullpen. To stay the least, he ended up being the butt of a lot of jokes at family dinner that week. Then again, the NYPD was renowned for its ability to get the scuttlebutt around and evidently that included the DA offices, because it was Erin who had started the wise cracks at his expense.

So, here they were driving to Boston for Jamie's ten-year Harvard Reunion, where he was set to do a lecture, because his wife had blown-up at him at work. Not their finest moment as husband and wife.

They had been driving for about an hour, when Jamie had confessed to not attending his five-year reunion and it took another hour before Eddie felt she had found the right words to ask him why. As it turned out, they'd been simpler to find than she'd thought.

"I'm not going to berate your or make fun of you for choosing not to go. I'm not into that sort of thing. However, I am your wife and I'd like to know."

"I didn't go because it fell on the first anniversary of Vinny's death," the words slipped from Jamie's lips quicker and more easily than he'd expected. Not once in five years had he said them out loud, not even to Erin who had voiced them herself. When Jamie decided he didn't want to go, he'd told her, told her because she was the one who had sat up with him the night, of the day, of Vinny's death. Holding her baby brother then, just like she had through the tears of his childhood.

Jamie flicked his eyes across to Eddie, for a moment, before continuing, she looked solemn and understanding, "ironically before we started chasing the perp, that got us caught in the firefight, Vinny'd been cracking jokes about how my reunion must be coming up. He was convinced I was going to come back and walk into the precinct thinking I was a defence attorney and not a beat cop."

"He may as well have died making those jokes. My memories of that day are so jumbled even now and because of that, I couldn't go. It didn't feel right. It wouldn't have felt right to come back and not having him waiting, when I got back, to make the same jokes."

Eddie was pretty sure where the story would go after that, she knew the rest. She knew that after the shooting he took his annual leave, she knew that when he came back to work, after only two shifts behind a desk, he was made her Training Officer. What she hadn't known at the time, so overwhelmed by the events of her first shift and not knowing Jamie at all, was how hard that shift had been on him personally. Collins died on the operating table that night, but as far as Jamie was concerned, she might as well have died in his arms. The fact that his five-year reunion was coming up, just months later, the memory of losing Vinny would have been violently raw indeed.

"And as for the rest you know what happened after," he said softly. "You were there the night Lori died, and every death after," the last in barely a whisper, like he didn't want her to hear.

His right hand dropped from the steering wheel, Eddie reached out and took hold of it and brought it to rest on her growing belly. It had become her way of bringing them both to earth, when everything started to feel too much.

"Sydney and Dana were the other big reason I didn't go. I didn't want to them to think they had the right to tell me, that this job that we do, is dangerous. I got that before I signed on. I got that before Joe was killed. I got that as a child, when my Dad was shot."

"Eddie," Jamie began. "They were the other reason I hid the letter. I didn't want a giant spotlight put on me with this lecture, that would mean they could find me. I don't want to have to interact with them," Jamie squeezed Eddie's hand. "I know the thought of them has made you insecure in the past, that I can't even begin to think of what it must be doing to you now."

Eddie started laughing, "Let them come and flirt. Or, at least, let them try. I am overly hormonal and am more than prepared to bring it down on them if need be."

"Well, I'd love to see that, but tone it down I don't need to be known as the one who married the crazy lady.

Eddie looked at Jamie questioningly, and with one of her infamous rebellious smirks quipped, "Oh honey, you are the one who married the crazy lady."

A/N - There are no dates for a reason (hiatuses screw with everything), but realistically Jamie's Reunion would be April next year.

A/N - Please review, this my first foray into fan-fiction in a very long time.