Title: Because

Summary: Janet tells Eddie that she loves him and his response changes their relationship forever.

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: The characters belong to the folks at ABC and October Road.

She realized that she loved him during an episode of Grey's Anatomy. They were sitting on the couch at her place and he had just made his fiftieth sarcastic remark, complete with groan and eye roll, about what a wuss McDreamy was. She had been getting annoyed at why he even agreed to watch the show with her in the first place if he was going to be such a grouch about it. She was perilously close to strangling him when it hit her. He was barely tolerating this show for her, to spend time with her. It touched her, snarky comments and all. She couldn't help but smile at him and he noticed.

He turned to her, with a suspicious and lop-sided smile. "I thought you wanted to watch this. What are you smilin' about?"

"You."

"Why?"

She shook her head, "No reason."

"So you're just grinning at me for no reason."

"Yes."

He laughed. "You're a strange girl, Janet."

"This I know." She leaned closer to him, placing her arm over his knee and giving it a squeeze. "Thank you for watching Grey's with me, Eddie. I know it caused you great pain."

"Yeah, well." He grumbled, then he smiled at her, that mischievous smile the lights up his eyes and makes her all giddy inside. "Can we go to bed now?"

That was three months ago. She's been wanting to tell him every day since then, but her heart can't seem to get the words out before her brain interferes and tells her that it's not a good idea. They've been together officially for over ten months now. She hopes that maybe Eddie might love her, too. She thinks the declaration might freak him out, have him running for the hills. Her desire to tell him how she feels about him can be overwhelming at times. Like when he goes out of his way to come by and see her at Sully's during her long shifts to make sure that she's okay. Like when she catches him looking at her like she's the most beautiful woman in the world when he thinks she's not paying attention. He just makes her happy, and she doesn't remember being that way before he came into her life.

She's tired of thinking about this love thing, so she instead tries to focus on the other major thing that's been occupying her mind recently. She wants to take psychology classes at Dufresne College and maybe get a degree.

They manage to have dinner together most nights, despite their busy schedules. Tonight they were at her place, sitting facing each other at the small table in her kitchen eating something that she'd prepared. She was off work tonight, but Eddie had been busy, so he didn't show up at her door until after 9pm. He's been quiet, less chatty than usual and she can tell that something's bothering him. She has already long since talked herself out of the whole love conversation for the day.

"How was work? You look exhausted."

"We finally finished the Morrison place and miraculously it was ahead of schedule. Morrison was happy and he told us he would recommend us to a couple of his friends."

"That's great…What's wrong?"

"What?"

"You should be happy about the job, but your not. I can tell."

He sighs, leaning back. "I don't know, Janet. I'm just tired of the grind, you know. I spend so much time in the office now. I miss landscaping. I liked being outdoors. Today just reminded me of that. Now that this job is done, I'll be back in the office first thing tomorrow."

"Then you should do landscaping."

"And leave Nick high and dry?"

"No. Found the landscaping department of Best Friend Windows, formerly known as Latekka Landscaping." She smiled at him. "Nick can manage the office when your out on landscaping jobs and you won't feel so trapped."

"Landscaping department?"

She nods, "Landscaping department."

She can see he's thinking it over, working it out in his head. He's quiet for the few minutes after. And then for the first time that evening, he smiles at her and it's genuine. She believes that he can achieve anything, and she makes him believe it, too. It's a mutual thing, really.

Later, as they sit on the couch and finally attempt to watch the evening news, in between spells of making out, she tells him that she's decided to take a psychology class at the Duf. He smiles and tells her not to start to quoting Freud. Then it's forgotten in another spell of making out.

She worried that she maybe she wouldn't fit in. Attending classes with a bunch of fresh-faced eighteen year-olds made her feel like Grandma Moses at the ripe old age of twenty-eight. Six weeks into the semester, and she's happy that she decided to do it. The class size is relatively small and she finds the class discussions incredibly interesting. Plus, she's made some new friends in the process, who come into Sully's from time to time to eat and chat after she told them where she worked. She even got an eighty-six on the midterm exam. She was so excited that she made a bee-line for Best Friend Windows after class to show Eddie. He stuck it on the bulletin board like a proud parent and kissed her thoroughly. That day was the best day ever and she decided she would tell him that night.
It rained that night. She showed up on Hannah's doorstep, disheveled and soaking wet.

"Janet, what are you doing here?" She said as she ushered Janet into the house and pulled her robe tighter.

"I'm sorry to bother you but I just didn't want to go home and I needed someone to talk to…I told Eddie that I loved him."

"That's great." The look that Janet gave her told her it was anything but, "That's not great?"

"Hannah, he didn't say anything. He looked at me like I was crazy and tried to laugh it off."

"Wow."

"Yeah. So I just left, and then I drove around a bit. Then, here I am." She sighed leaning back on the couch.

"I'm so sorry, Janet."

"I didn't think I would care if he said it back, you know, but I did. And he didn't and then the look on his face. It hurt so much. I'm such an idiot."

Hannah does her best to make her feel better and convince her that it's not the end of the world, but it doesn't help. Janet spends the night on Hannah's couch, cursing herself for being so stupid and Eddie Latekka for not loving her, before she finally succumbed to sleep.

He didn't expect for her to tell him she loved him. She came over his place and they had dinner with Physical Phil and Pizza Girl. They spent the rest of the evening in the living room watching TV until around 10pm when Janet starting gathering the assorted dishes and cups and headed for the kitchen. He knew that usually meant that she was going to leave soon and decided to try and convince her to spend the night there. He grabbed whatever remained and followed her. She was washing dishes and he decided to dry them. She was quiet, but when she finished she turned to him and waited for him to look at her. And she told him.

"I love you, Eddie. I just want you to know that."

And that was it. He knew how serious this was the moment she said the words. She never said them before and she didn't say anything else. No nervous babbling. No quick escape to the living room. She waited for him to respond, looking him in the eyes, hopeful.

He'd never let himself be with anyone long enough for love to happen, never had a woman tell him that she loved him. He liked Janet a lot but love was something different. And he didn't know if he could handle it. He wasn't prepared for this, and his brain didn't seem to be cooperating. So he smiled and made a joke about her just saying that to get him to agree to go with her to Hannah's wedding. She went along with it. Smiled softly, through the pained look in her eyes, and then retreated to the living room. They said nothing more about it. Pizza Girl and Physical Phil remained oblivious. And ten minutes later, she left and he knew without a doubt that he had hurt her.

He thought about going after her, but he didn't know what he'd say when he found her. So he didn't. And he spent the night staring up at the cracked paint on the ceiling of his bedroom, unable to sleep and thinking of her.

She refuses to answer her phone. Over the next few days, he calls her repeatedly, but she won't answer. He leaves her voicemails, but she refuses to call him back. He's apologized for what seems like a thousand times but it doesn't change the fact that he doesn't love her. She sleepwalks through her classes and then her shifts at Sully's. He comes by and tries to talk to her, but she won't talk about what happened and always says that she's too busy to talk about anything else. She's been picking up extra shifts and spending the nights when she isn't working at the Duf Library, which doesn't close until 11pm, avoiding him. It's a week of torture and despite all her attempts to block him from her mind, she can't help but miss him. Because she loves him and he means the world to her.

A week later, while Nick and Ronnie are there, she comes into Best Friend Windows in the middle of the afternoon. He can tell she hasn't been sleeping. She stops in front of his desk, and he gets up to approach her.

"Hey." She won't look him in the eye.

"Janet, I'm sorry about last week."

"Don't apologize. You can't help what you feel. I should know, right?"

"You know I like you a lot…" He reaches out to touch her and he can feel her tense.

"..but you don't love me."

"Honestly, I don't know. I never thought about it. I like being with you and spending time with you. I really like you."

She nods, steeling herself. "We've been together for almost eleven months. And you like me, but you don't love me."

"Janet…." But she doesn't let him finish.

"I think we need to break up, Eddie."

"What? Why? No. Janet, no. You mean the world to me and I'm sorry for being an idiot, but we don't need to break up."

"I don't know much about relationships, but I think that people generally know if they love the person they're with after eleven months. You don't love me, Eddie, and that means that we have no future."

She leaves him standing dumbfounded in the middle of Best Friend Windows.

It's been four months since she broke up with him. He waited maybe two weeks before he went on his first date with some other girl. She found out about it a few days later, courtesy of the Knight's Ridge rumor mill. She shrugged it off like she didn't care when she and Rooster overheard it at the bar one night, then she went home and cried. She'd been doing a lot of that recently. Because she loves him, and that didn't stop just because her brain told her that she shouldn't and that he was a huge jerk.

It hurt her that he could get over her so quickly. The date was the first of many. Karen, and even Rooster generally avoided telling to her what they knew of Eddie's exploits and the rumors about their break-up, but it was hard to ignore the conversations and the grumblings of the bar patrons. Part of her didn't want to ignore them. She wanted to know how he was, hoped that maybe a little part of him missed her as much as she missed him. But he didn't. He was back to his old pattern—a new girl every few days, like was trying to set a new record for how many different women he could sleep with in the shortest amount of time.

She tried to focus on school. She was taking another psychology class this semester, an intermediate course which was more demanding. It provided an escape from thinking about Eddie all the time. Plus, the students there were outside of the rumor mill. There she was just another student, not the sad fat girl who couldn't hang on to Eddie Latekka.

Owen, Nick, and Phil have been watching Eddie since Janet broke up with him. They can see the changes in him every day, see what he refuses to see in himself. He's angry and drinks too much, too frequently. He stumbles down the stairs one Saturday afternoon to find himself in the middle of a tribunal. Owen, Phil, Ronnie, and Nick are sitting in the living room looking concerned.

Nick is the first to speak. "Okay, Eddie, you really have to get yourself together."

"What are you talking about?"

"You're a mess, you're drinking too much, you come in to work hung over almost every day, and you've been acting like a real tool. Go fix this thing with Janet."

Eddie gets up in his face. "Nick, I would advise you to mind your own damn business."

Phil interjects. "I really hate to break this to you, but you're an idiot."

"What? Are you really trying to start something too?"

"You deliberately sabotage your relationship with Janet. Then you immediately start parading around town with other girls in front of her."

"Listen, Janet broke up with me."

"Because you'd been dating her for almost a year, and refused to tell her that you love her."

"So I should have lied to her and told her that I loved her when I didn't?"

"No, you should have told her the truth, because you do love her. You're just too afraid to admit it. Isn't that what all this is about?"

He storms back upstairs to his bedroom and the tribunal is over. He wants to believe that they're wrong. He wants to believe that he'll get over her. But it's been six months and he still hasn't. And he's tried; he's probably been out with all the girls he didn't get to date before Janet, and he still can't stop thinking about her. Because he loves her. And he feels her absence more and more each day.

She's working the overnight shift, so he waits for her outside Sully's sitting in his truck, trying to figure out what he wants to say. He wants her to forgive him for being an idiot. To tell her that he's been miserable since they broke up. That they should be together because they make each other happy. That he loves her. But he doesn't know how to say it, doesn't think he'll be able to say the words. And maybe she doesn't want to hear them anymore. Maybe Janet has finally realized that she's too good for him.

He catches sight of her; she's in her own world. She looks tired and sad. Not like she used to, when she made his world brighter.

He quickly gets out of his truck to meet her, "Janet…"

She's startled and stops moving, until she realizes that it's him, "Leave me alone, Eddie."

"I need to talk to you."

"We don't have anything to talk about."

"I miss you."

"You have a funny way of showing it. You didn't waste any time sleeping with every girl within a five miles radius."

"I went out with them; I didn't sleep with any of them."

"You want a medal for that."

"No. I just wanted you to know that. I couldn't sleep with any them because they weren't you."

She gets in her car and drives away. He stands there for a long time looking after her.

She needs to stay angry at him because it would be too easy to forgive him if she weren't. She doesn't love him any less. And the days without him seem so empty. Because he became a part of her. It hurts to think about that now, and she has to swallow the compulsion to call him, and tell him she loves him and wants them to be together again.

She met Liam at the library during one of her late nights at the Duf. He's a graduate student in anthropology. He's funny and smart, and makes her smile. So when he asks her if she'd like to go out sometime, she accepts. On their third date, Eddie sees them together on Main Street, sitting close together and laughing at the Ridge Café. He asks Phil about it, who tells him what he's learned about the guy from Pizza Girl.

Eddie's been going to Sully's ever since. Staying as far away from the bar as possible, but always watching Janet whenever she happens to be working when he's there. Owen, Nick, and Aubrey happen to be with him the night he spots Liam enter that bar with a couple of friends. He has every intention of rearranging the guy's face. He can't handle the idea of her with someone else. He watches Janet talk and laugh with the guy. As soon as she leaves to return the bar, Eddie downs the rest of his beer and heads over to the table.

It became a brawl and they're all nursing wounds of various degrees. Eddie's happy that he landed several punches before being pulled apart. Liam got a few punches in, but still ended up with the worst of it, so Eddie feels like he's accomplished his goal. Owen only shakes his head, as he drives him home.

"You're lucky you weren't arrested, you know."

"It still would have been worth it."

"It's been six months. Did you think she wouldn't move on? That she would never date any other guy?"

He doesn't answer and he doesn't stay home after Owen drops him off.

It's his pounding on her front door in the middle of the night that wakes her up. A quick glance at the clock tells her that it's almost 3am. She gets out of bed and hears him calling her name. She's greeted to the sight of a very drunk Eddie Latekka leaning heavily on her doorframe. She can smell the alcohol on his breath and thinks he might fall over at any moment.

"You're drunk. What are you doing?"

"I need to talk to you." He attempts to stand up straighter, but he sways and she instinctively reaches out to steady him. He grabs her hand, but won't let go when she tries to pull away.

"How did you get here? You didn't drive did you?"

"No. I walked."

"By yourself?"

"Yes. I'm capable of walking by myself. Can I come in?"

"I don't think that's a good idea."

"Please, I need to talk to you." She knows she should say no and slam the door in his face, but she can't. Not when he looks so sad and lost. She steps back, and he follows her, never letting go of her hand.

But he doesn't talk, he gets really quiet, which is what normally happens when he drinks, and she decides to let him sleep it off on her couch. She has to peel him out of his jacket without his cooperation. He just watches her and says nothing, until she finally frees him from it. When she's done, he touches her arm, encircling his fingers around it, to stop her from moving away again, "Are you serious with that guy?"

"Is that why you started that fight with him?"

He shrugs, not looking at her, and she knows the answer.

"We went out on a few dates, Eddie. That's all. We're just friends. Now go to sleep."

He wakes up to the blinding light of early morning that floods the space of her living room. His head is killing him. It takes him a moment to remember what happened and where he ended up. He finds her still sleeping in her bedroom.

When she wakes a few hours later, she finds herself enveloped in his arms. And for a moment, she forgets all that has happened between them in the past few months. Then it hits her and she tries to move away. He doesn't let her go, holding her tighter. She can't see his face. She only hears his voice and warmth of his breath on her skin, when he whispers in her ear, "I want us to be together again, Janet, because I love you. I loved you then, too. I just couldn't admit it to myself. I'm sorry I've been so stupid, that I hurt you. I've been miserable without you…"

He tells her everything that he feels, everything that he's wanted to say over the six months they've spent apart. And when he finishes, she's crying, and she tells him that she's loves him and missed him too. And for the first time in months, Janet and Eddie aren't sad anymore.

Because they're together and they love each other.