Author's Note: This fic was written for dear friend, Stephanie, who purchased my scribbling skills at the Sweet Charity auction held in March of 2008, with all proceeds going to RAINN.
Disclaimer: I don't own or buy/sell/process this mindcrack - I just abuse the hell out of it.
Ellie Bartowski slowly slipped the protective mitts onto her hands, hesitating before she retrieved her entrée from the oven.
Something was off.
She couldn't put her finger on it, but a vague feeling of disquiet and unease had been bouncing around inside her skull for the past ten minutes, distracting her from the task at hand.
Purse…?
Check – on the table by the door.
Keys…?
Check – in the dish on the table by the door, right next to my purse.
Kids…?
Yep, Chuck and Devon, present and accounted for…whoa, where did that snark come from?
Possible side effects of missing the prom…?
Nope – elected as one of the princesses, still have the tiara packed away in storage for future pathetic "glory days" nostalgia.
O-kaaay…then what's missing?!
Ellie cracked open the oven door and peeked under the aluminum foil of the casserole dish, satisfied to find that the skins of her chicken breasts, nestled all snug in their bed of wild rice and cream of mushroom soup, were a pleasant shade of well-cooked tan. She replaced the cover and closed the door. Everything all ship-shape in there.
She lifted the lid on the skillet and checked on her sautéing squash and zucchini. They were sizzling cheerfully in their broth of butter and garlic salt, as if they were singing a merry little tune while they cooked: "Yummy-yum-yummy, I will soon be in your tummy…!"
She then made sure that the dessert components were all present and accounted for in the refrigerator, and yes, they were: sliced berries and homemade pound cake waiting to be stacked atop each other and smothered in the crème fraîche she'd made from scratch earlier. Mmm-hmmm…plenty for everyone, no need to send Chuck out for emergency supplies.
She slipped a finger into the foamy white material of the last item's container and licked it into her mouth. It had taken a lot of time and focus to make it, but she had a commitment to having as much homemade food on the table as possible…not that her regular patrons noticed, much less appreciated, her efforts.
Devon liked his Lite Cool Whip. He put it in his coffee, on his cereal, on his "lite" ice cream. There was at any one time at least one open container of it in her refrigerator and a second tucked somewhere deep in recesses of her freezer. "Back up, babe," he would explain, kissing her cheek as she tried to rationalize his brand loyalty to the odd, chemically-engineered substance.
Chuck and Morgan were hardcore fans of Redi-Whip. She'd come home from a shift once to the bizarre sight of the two of them slouched low on the couch, slack-jawed and wide-eyed, passing one of the red and white cans back and forth as they watched Hayden Panettiere cavorting across the screen in her matching red and white cheerleader outfit.
Just the memory of the harsh, flatulent sound of the pressurized synthetic dairy material squirting into their gaping mouths was enough to give her the creeps.
There was only one person who shared her table that also shared her opinion on whipped topping.
"Appreciating the real stuff separates the men from the boys," John had murmured to her last Sunday while drying a dessert plate she'd just handed to him –
John…
She glanced at the clock on the microwave and arched an eyebrow.
From the first time he'd taken her up on her offer of Sunday night meal, John Casey had always been at least fifteen minutes early for family dinner.
They had developed a weekly ritual of sorts. He would knock on the front door, she would call out for him to come in. He would enter with a bottle of wine or some kind of dessert in hand, she would thank him profusely for being so sweet and so thoughtful. Together, they would set the table and then begin the process of "rounding up the troops" – him pulling Chuck (and usually Morgan) away from the videogame of the month and her coaxing Devon off of the treadmill and into something a little more concealing than what she privately referred to as his "porno-boy exercise shorts".
But tonight was different: it was three minutes until serving time and John still hadn't arrived.
Maybe he's running late…?
She arranged the glasses and plates, placed the cutlery on the napkins, hedging her bets on who would want what dish as she chose the best spots for the cooling pads.
Devon usually sat at the head, she at the foot, Chuck to her right, Morgan (he was incessantly popping by for what he called "the best home-cooked meal in California") to her left. Ellie had opted to shake things up a little when John had joined them five weeks ago – she put him on her right and made Morgan sit next to Chuck on Devon's right.
As she suspected from earlier interactions with him, John immediately took it upon himself to make sure she actually got to eat what she cooked.
Before him, there were some nights that the side dishes were gone before she'd finished helping herself to the entrée. If Chuck and Morgan had their druthers, they would simply put their heads over the nearest dish, place a finger over a nostril, and use the other to inhale every last bit of the food she'd spent hours slaving over. Devon had a little more restraint, but he also had a massive appetite when it came to her "awesome grub" and often took no less than two large servings of everything.
All of them had at least one hollow leg a piece, and there had been occasions when she found herself scraping the spoon along the bottom of the starch dishes – all of it had "migrated" onto the boys' plates. Dessert was even worse. She'd come back from packing up the leftovers in the refrigerator to find most and sometimes all of the dessert gone and she had no recourse because it was already in the stomachs of her menfolk.
John earned a permanent spot on her guest list the first night he sat at her table.
Morgan had shown up unexpectedly ("Anna's with her girlfriends, getting waxed– no cash on hand for take out – do I smell salmon?"), leaving Ellie about to panic before she realized that she had made more than enough to feed four hungry men.
She had no idea how much John ate and she was taking no chances her first time having him as a guest at her table, cooking up a massive amount of her failsafe meal – poached salmon with lemon slices, garlic-cheddar mashed potatoes, roast green beans with almonds – as well as the apple pie she'd promised him that first night she invited him into their home.
As Ellie had suspected, John proved to be very good company, complimenting her cooking and entertaining her with surreal stories of his time at the Buy More while Devon tried his best to persuade Chuck and Morgan to come along on his latest "Dudes Vs. The Elements" trip.
She liked John, really and truly liked him. Chuck had precious few friends over the years (Morgan ever since grade school and of course, "He Who Shall Not Be Named", a.k.a. Bryce Larkin, in college), but this tall, polite man was one of the best Chuck had ever made friends with.
He said "please".
He said "thank you".
He slid her chair out for her when she sat down.
And he was perceptive – John was the only one who noticed the longing in her eyes as she watched Morgan poised to attack the sole remaining slice of dessert with his fork.
"Haven't you had enough, Grimes?" John had said in a perfectly calm tone as he moved the pie dish out of the way.
"Enough of Ellie B.'s spectacular, all-American apple pie à la mode?" Morgan snorted as changed tactics and tried to reach for the slice with the stainless steel server. "Surely you jest!"
"No, I don't, and don't call me 'Shirley,'" John said as he smoothly plucked the utensil from Morgan's hands and made an admonishing motion with it. He turned to her and gave her a charming, dimpled grin. "Would you like your first slice of the pie you spent all afternoon baking, Miss Bartowski?"
"Yes, thank you, John," she said, beaming as she held up her plate. "And please, call me 'Ellie'."
He nodded at her as he served her the tiny sliver, his dimples deepening before he turned his attention to Chuck, who was piling most of the remnants of the carton of vanilla ice cream onto his plate.
She stifled a gurgle of laughter as John then lowered his eyebrows at Chuck and made what sounded like a faint growling noise before cocking his head in her direction.
"Oh…I'm guessing you want some ice cream to go with your pie…right, sis?" Chuck said, keeping a wary eye on John as he gave her the very last scoop.
"Thank you, Chuck," she said graciously, biting her lips to keep from laughing as John gave her brother a terse, approving nod.
"You're a good man, Casey," Devon said as he clapped John on the shoulder. "Not many are able to stand up to this dessert demolition duo."
"Three!" Chuck put in quickly as he gestured to the highly-polished condition of Devon's plate and gave him a nervous grin. "We couldn't have done it without you, Brother Woodcomb."
"Amen," Morgan said solemnly, clasping his hands together and bowing his head for a moment in agreement.
"What can I say, guys?" Devon leaned back, patted his ridiculously flat belly and gazed at Ellie. "I love my woman's cooking almost as much as I love her."
She grinned at him, but her smile faltered as she caught sight of the expression on John's face.
Neither Chuck not Morgan nor Devon saw it (they had swung back to the subject of white water rafting) but she did. Soft as a shadow of a cloud passing over the sun on a summer's day, it was a pensive, thoughtful look that brought the corners of his mouth down, and seemed to be directed at his empty dessert plate.
"Hey," she whispered, offering her slice of pie and its accompanying ice cream, "do you want it?"
He looked up at her and shook his head. "No, thanks. It was just as good as you said it would be, but I'm afraid I've had my fill."
She wanted to ask him what was on his mind, but she suspected that he would be even more resistant to one of her pep talks than Chuck was, so she left it alone and finished her dessert.
Ellie was pleasantly surprised when John offered to help her with the dishes a little later in the evening. The rest of the men had already parked themselves in front of the television and John and Ellie were left to their own devices as she washed and he dried.
She was the mistress of chit-chat and managed to generate a steady stream of conversation which John kept up with splendidly, but in the back of her mind she kept seeing that look on his face – wistful, reflective, quiet, hungry for something that wasn't on the table.
It intrigued her and it made her a little sad.
Weekends came and went and most Sunday afternoons Devon and Chuck and sometimes Morgan would be drawn to the wonderful smells coming from the kitchen, where they found Ellie cooking her brains out as the clock tick-tocked its way to the seven-twelve position.
"Wow, babe, you're making enough to feed an army," Devon commented as he watched her perform the complex boogie of mixing, prepping and glazing that produced tangerine pork tenderloin, roasted potato wedges, sugar snap peas and caramel brownies the next Sunday.
She kissed his cheek, kept on going and later tucked the memory of how John relished the meal deep in the recesses of her tender little heart.
"Gee, sis, we having someone special over for dinner?" Chuck asked as he angled to get a taste of the four-cheese meat lasagna and sautéed Swiss chard with Parmesan cheese before she served it up on the table.
"Hands off," John had said, grabbing Chuck's wrist before he could filch one of the Parmesan crisps she'd prepped earlier in the afternoon for the Caesar salad. "In fact, why don't you go wash them before you sit down, okay, slick?"
She managed to keep a straight face as Chuck ran for the bathroom, but she lost it and burst into giggles when John caught her eyes and rolled his.
"Thank you!" she said, inclining her head towards his as she laughed. "I only made enough for everyone to have one."
"My pleasure," John replied, stashing the tiramisu he made in the fridge and getting the plates down from the cupboard.
"Ellie Bartowski, apple of my eye, light of my life, cream in my coffee, is that steak I smell?" Morgan crooned, his nose leading the way as he staggered into the kitchen on the fourth Sunday.
"Yeah," she replied, her attention focused on her skillet. "New York strip steak, fried onions and cherry tomatoes, black truffle macaroni and cheese. Lady Baltimore cake for dessert."
"Lady Baltimore cake?" Morgan dropped to his knees in front of her and gripped her jean-clad calf. "Marry me!"
"Get up, Grimes," John ordered, grabbing him by the back of the shirt, hauling him to his feet and pushing him in the direction of her brother's room. "Go play with Chuck and leave the chef alone."
Ellie gave John a grateful grin as she pushed the onions and tomatoes around in their melted butter.
He shrugged gallantly, applied the bottle opener to the Shafer Cabernet he'd brought with him and didn't say another word. He just let her cook.
She liked that so much about John, how he let her be and didn't require any kind of verbal upkeep.
From the beginning they seemed to have some kind of magical…she supposed "flow" was the best word to describe it, as if they always knew where one was in relation to the other.
There were no "honey, behind you!" moments like she had with Devon while he was digging for PowerAde in the fridge as she attempted to make pancakes.
No "Chuck! I was saving that for dessert tonight!" freak-outs when she discovered her baby brother had once again devoured an entire carton of ice cream in one sitting.
No "Morgan, if you're going to keep on storing your leftover sizzling shrimp in my fridge, I expect you to pay rent" scoldings.
It was completely easy and effortless with him and she found herself looking forward to Sundays like she had before her mother left.
She supposed he did, too, because the man was never late.
So it stood to wonder why he wasn't in her kitchen right now, choosing the wine glasses and giving her a little spin or two under his arm as they navigated around each other like a pair of lifelong dance partners who happened to moonlight as chefs on weekends.
Maybe he had other plans? she thought as she selected placemats, then shook her head. No. If he had a conflict, he would call. This is so not like him…especially since I'm making his favorite dessert.
Tonight's menu was classic Ellie Bartowski fare (Morgan claimed was his third favorite meal of all time), but she'd decided to try something new by substituting the usual dessert – chocolate soufflé – with strawberry shortcake.
She'd bought the strawberries from an organic farmer yesterday, made the pound cake late this morning and spent most of the post-lunch period whipping up the crème fraiche, hoping she could surprise him before he arrived.
No question that was going to happen, especially since it's now officially seven o'clock and John is not here.
"Honey, have you seen John at all today?" she asked Devon as he sauntered into the kitchen, hot and sweaty from his workout.
"Nope," Devon said, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge.
"He usually washes his car on Sundays before he comes over, right?"
"You'd know better me, babe," Devon said, pressing a quick kiss to her temple before he headed to their bedroom. "You got the sightline."
Ellie glanced out the window and noticed that John's Crown Victoria was not its usual shiny self.
Has something happened to him? she wondered as she got the napkins from the drawer and began folding them.
Never thought it would end like this…
John Casey clenched his teeth as he gripped the handle, swaying as he struggled to maintain his balance. His vision blurred so suddenly that he had to lean his forehead against the door to keep from collapsing on the floor.
He tried blinking a couple of times to clear the haze from his eyes, but it was no use. He was dead on his feet and he knew it. It was just a matter of time before someone found his lifeless body decomposing on the Mexican-tiled kitchen floor of his apartment.
It was a commonly accepted trope that one's life swam before one's eyes before they died, but in his case, it was all the things he hadn't done that began drifting in and out of his mind as he sank to his knees and fell forward onto his stomach.
He'd never gone fishing with his father.
Dear old John Hancock "Ben" Casey, a.ka. "Sir, yes, sir!" had no interest in pursing such useless father-son bonding crap.
Ben Casey's goals in life related to his firstborn were simple: make sure little Johnny kept up his grades, played his sports, and was capable of squaring away the head until it was clean enough for the Virgin Mary herself to conduct her business in it.
Four years at Canoe U, an officer's commission in the United States Marine Corps and countless missions later, all that Lt. Col. Casey's eldest boy could think about was how the tile against his cheek was just as cool and soothing as the tile in that plain white bathroom that he'd scrubbed over and over and over again…
And just as clean. Hoo-yah!
He'd spent a good thirty minutes on the floor yesterday with Comet and a scrub brush. Now that he was was once again up close and personal with his efforts, he was satisfied to see that he'd done an adequate job.
Old habits die hard, don't they, sir…?
He'd never gotten married.
John Casey had dodged that figurative bullet more than once. His high school sweetheart, Mary Jo Underwood, thought she was pregnant for all of two seconds, but that turned out to be a false alarm.
He'd dated here and there since then, but more often than not, the women he attracted wanted to nest, while he wanted to keep on adventuring.
What's with you, John Casey? Don't you want a family some day? they'd ask again and again each time he told them their "arrangement" was only going to be temporary.
He bore their resentment as best he could by keeping the image of his mother weeping over the dishes each time his father left for active duty front and center in his mind.
All of the "I love you, Mommy"s and hugs and flowers pulled out of neighbors' gardens (roots and all) couldn't make her stop.
John didn't think he could bear to see another Mrs. Casey cry.
Now, as he lay there on the floor, unable to summon the strength to move, he found himself wondering when Woodcomb was finally going to successfully locate his balls and put a ring on Ellie Bartowski's finger.
That woman's a keeper and he would be a fool to let her get away…
He'd never made love to a woman.
Oh, there had been plenty of sex with plenty of girls over the years, make no mistake about that.
And let's not forget "fornicating" (good, naughty fun!), "banging" (excellent for relieving tension), "screwing" (satisfying and pleasurable) and plain old "fucking" ("Because that's what you do best, isn't it, Marine?").
But there was never, ever an instant where he let his heart get in on the action.
Afterwards, as he lay on his back on the bed with the current lady of the evening trying to cuddle up next to him, John would feel something empty and cold manifest itself between his spine and his sternum, like a part of him had gotten lost along the way and didn't know how get back.
One can imagine his surprise when that lonesome, icy hollow started to thaw as he filled himself with Ellie Bartowski's cooking and conversation every Sunday night…
Ellie Bartowski.
What a woman. Beautiful, kind, gentle. Strong.
Her mother left the family when she was young and Ellie then became a mother herself, holding it together for her baby brother and her mostly absentee father.
She's Mary Ann from Gilligan's Island, Mary Poppins and Julia Child, and I'm…I'm… – John glanced at the face of his watch – officially late for dinner!
He would have gasped in distress, but his throat was too torn up to make a sound.
He had the flu, had it since Saturday evening. It had started as a tickle in the back of his throat that he'd attributed to fumes from the cleanser he'd used to clean the kitchen floor and the bathroom in the morning. Then it became a headache that wouldn't let up after he finished a 5-mile run later that afternoon. The dry cough and muscle pain slammed into him right after dinner.
He spent the rest of the night, the following morning and most of the afternoon telling himself that he did not have any goddamn time to be sick. That he had a dinner to go to and the germs better damn well bug out before he had to hit the shower and get dressed because being late was not an option. That he had a mission and he was going to complete it, goddamnit!
But here he was, still clad in his pajamas, faceplanted against the cool expanse of his spotless floor, hallucinating the sounds of knuckles rapping on wood and a barely audible "John, are you in there?"
The noises registered somewhere in the recesses of his brain and he recognized the knocking pattern and the voice as belonging to Bartowski's sister.
God, I'm so out of it I'm now imagining her coming to save me...another shot of that day-glow NyQuil and maybe I'll start seeing the Green Fairy! He needed to clear his head, get himself cleaned up and bring her the wine he'd been chilling in his refrigerator. On your feet, soldier.
He flattened his palms on the floor and tried to push himself up, disoriented and delirious with pain. He managed to lever himself up a few inches before his muscles seized and gave out on him.
The last thing he heard before he passed out was a woman's muffled voice, calling his name.