On the plane, she cried
By Badgergater
Season: 1, Episode Mission Creep
Summary: Seeing him again brought it all back- he had broken her heart in a way that would never heal.
Author's Note: Thanks to Scully for the beta
POI * POI * POI * POI * POI
Dodging through the crowded hallway on the way to her departure gate, she kept it under control. Maybe it was the anger that held her together, overriding the other emotions raging through her.
She handed over her boarding pass, stood impatiently in line in the jetway, and found her seat through the crush of people. She stowed her carry-on in the overhead compartment with the friendly help of a pudgy middle-aged man in a sweater that smelled of moth-balls and old age.
She sat down, buckled her seat belt, and found herself in the midst of that mindless eternity of waiting for takeoff, jammed into the cramped seat surrounded by strangers.
Waiting, with nothing to think about except the impossible thing that had just happened.
What were the odds of them meeting like that? "Of all the gin joints in all the world…" she mused, disbelieving. Needle in a haystack that encompassed the whole world, between her work and his.
She hadn't even known if he was still alive or a casualty on some faraway battlefield.
At the sight of him, she'd felt a leap of the heart she couldn't deny. Sitting on the plane, suddenly it overwhelmed her.
Tears flowed.
The man in the odorous sweater handed her a Kleenex and she took it, knowing she was smearing her makeup. Knowing she was making a spectacle of herself in this public place. Knowing she was an adult who ought to hold her emotions in check, but she was totally unable to hold back the tears.
Tears because she remembered how good they'd been together, their passionate affair as intense as it had been brief. No, not affair, because there was nothing permanent in that word. They'd had a connection, a real connection. He'd left the Army for her, ready to make a new life. With her.
Tears flowed now because she remembered other tears- tears shed over how he'd broken her heart, over how he'd left her wondering what was wrong with her that she wasn't enough for him. Tears over wondering what was wrong with him that he couldn't commit, which left her questioning her judgment in men.
Remembering the neediness he tried so hard to conceal but she could glimpse, lurking deep in his eyes. Remembering the feeling of failure because she hadn't been enough to fill that emptiness.
She'd been left bewildered by his rejection- angry, sad, empty. Left blaming herself for not making him understand that he was enough- no, more than enough for her. That he didn't have to be perfect, that she would gladly take him as he was. That she didn't want or need to be placed on some pedestal- she wasn't too good for him nor he not good enough for her. They were just right for each other.
How could she have misjudged him- them- what they had- so badly?
A second wave of fresh sobs washed over her. She cried for what she didn't have with Peter. She loved him. She did. She really did. She told herself that over and over, every day. But that brief moment with John reminded her that her love for him had been so much more than she'd ever been able to feel for Peter. Peter, who was always there for her, always so good to her, always so solicitous, and always full of promises of a life most women could only dream about living. Peter, who promised he would take care of her, provide for her, and leave her wanting for nothing.
Wanting nothing except for the man she couldn't have.
Peter was so many wonderful things. He made her the envy of her girlfriends, but he wasn't John.
She cried then for what she knew she had lost- for all the good things that would never be. For the emptiness that was still there in his eyes. For her shattered dreams. For the way she knew he would always be there, the broken place inside her forever, the jagged shard piercing her heart because today she had proven to herself that, obviously, her heart hadn't healed. It had simply scarred over, ready to break open and tear her apart at the slightest whispery touch of a memory.
She would look for him now- always- in every crowd, in every newspaper photo, on every busy sidewalk. In the grocery store, in the park, in her dreams. He would hover over her life because he was a part of her in a way that words- no matter how hurtful, no matter how angry- could never dissolve.
She should hate him- she knew she should, because he had left her as broken as he was himself.
And for that, alone on the crowded plane, Jessica cried.
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