"No, no, no. Jamie don't stop," she complains.
Her ragged panting subsides to whimpers and she turns her head, sending long brown hair across her back. "Are you stopping? What are you doing?"
Jamie adjusts behind her and his forehead drops to the back of her neck where he lets out a hot, defeated breath. "Sorry," he whispers. "I can't, Jen. I'm sorry."
Jennifer manages this loud groan, tipping her head back as if she needs new air. Her mess of dark hair clings to her skin and she shifts from her awkward position on her side as the two of them separate.
The room's too hot. The way the sheets had pulled off one corner of her bed makes him feel weirdly uneasy. Too many other racing thoughts and sensations buzz through him to the point where he wasn't even concentrating on Jen just then, despite the fact that he'd been inside her.
But he couldn't sustain it and finishing was apparently out of the question. Maybe if he had forced his thoughts to clear completely, these events with Jen - the doctor he'd had a few boring dates with years ago - would have concluded a little more successfully.
Those dates didn't turn out to be anything worth continuing. She never had time for him, she was generally hostile and tired, albeit aggressive and the combination somehow lured him into a sporadic fuck buddy situation.
Jamie doesn't really get why. It's not like the sex was ever that great. It had only happened a few times over the course of the last three years or so. With late nights and weird schedules, their everyday stress occasionally coordinated in this mutual need to get off. He tried not to think about it.
Dropping onto his back, he heaves a deep breath and runs a hand up his face and into his hair. He doesn't even know what to say.
"It's fine," Jen tells him, leaning over the edge of the bed. Then she slips her underwear back on, lifting her hips from the mattress before she sits up. "I wasn't close anyway."
Jamie's gaze cuts to the side and he blinks hard to keep from rolling his eyes.
Pushing himself out of bed, he makes his way to her bathroom to get rid of the condom, splash some water on his face, and fight not to be disgusted with himself at this new low he's reached.
He had left Eddie's apartment earlier that night, after being dismissed in the lobby because she had other plans. Then, to avoid running into her new boyfriend Barry who was apparently on his way over, he had to turn the wrong way down her block.
He found himself a pub, and in a moment of tipsy weakness, hastily reached out to Doctor Jen. And it wasn't long before Jamie was offering a vaguely familiar nod to her doorman on his way to her elevator.
When he emerges from the bathroom, Jennifer's there in bed, propped up against the headboard where she studies her phone. She had pulled on a long-sleeved t-shirt from some 10k race, her hair up in a messy ponytail.
As Jamie moves around the room to find his clothes, she speaks up, murmuring down to her phone screen. "So what was that about?"
He clears his throat as he bends to gather his jeans from the floor. "I'm sorry. I guess… I don't know. I have a lot on my mind."
She glances up at him, offering a slight nod, and her brow twitches in confusion. "It's just that you called me-"
"I know." He lets out a heavy sigh and finds his sweater. "I know. I thought seeing you would-" Then he makes a face at his own explanation as he tugs on his shirt. "Help me-"
"Help you forget?"
Running a hand through his hair, his chest deflates with a hard breath. "Yeah." It wouldn't be the first time that had been his intention with her.
A smirk curves along her face and she sets her phone on the nightstand. "What's up? Is everything alright?"
Jamie rests hands low in his hips and considers the question. Jen isn't someone he typically confides in when it comes to things like this. Their time together usually has a single purpose, and heart-to-heart chats are not it.
He chews his lip for a moment and starts in anyway. "Two officers were shot on a call we got the other day. One was my partner. And she's fine," he explains. "And the other was killed right next to her."
"Oh wow. I'm really sorry," she offers, her voice quiet and sober. "Where was Eddie shot?"
"Her vest caught it in the stomach." He answers automatically even though his focus is off somewhere far away.
"Are you okay?"
"I don't know." He blinks while he ponders it, realizing he's not the one entitled to any consideration. "I mean, it's part of the job. You know that life. Still sucks though."
She nods, letting a quiet moment linger. "How long before you knew Eddie was okay?"
He looks over at Jennifer, his head tilting with her question as she assumes it's Eddie who's on his mind, over the other officer who died. A fact that further twists his guilt deep inside him.
"I bet that really got to you," she adds. "I know how you feel about her."
Confusion pulls between Jamie's eyebrows. "What do you mean?"
Jennifer rolls her eyes. "Come on, Jamie."
Swallowing hard, he glances to the floor. Eddie probably came up in conversation more than he realized, but that's just his reality. "It definitely felt like forever before I discovered the bullet didn't go through."
"I'm sure that was scary."
Finally he manages a deep inhale and redirects his gaze. "She's fine, you know? The situation sucks, but she's… okay and yet…" He trails off.
"It could have easily been her and not the other guy," Jen concludes.
It's all he can think about. It refuses to leave him.
He felt like shit. Guilt and regret. Missed chances. And frustration with himself that he could have lost the most important person in his life and he's never told her.
Inside, he pushes it all down. He's not about to let Jennifer engage him in some heavy handed conversation and he backs away from the bed. "But it wasn't," he clips, scratching the back of his head. "Just a close call."
"Well hey, take care of her. She'll be pretty sore."
He exhales a soft laugh and nods. "Will do, Doc. I should head out."
"Yeah, I need to sleep, so-" She throws the covers off herself and gets out of bed.
"Thank you," he tells her. "For letting me come over. I'm sorry it was-"
"Don't worry about it." She laughs.
"Alright." He manages an amused breath himself. "Take care, Jen."
She turns toward her bathroom and calls out "Bye Jamie," leaving him to show himself out.
"Ow!" Eddie winces, blowing out a harsh whisper. "Dammit." She hitches her plastic laundry basket on her hip, carefully adjusting it to avoid her bruised abdomen as she hikes the final flight of stairs.
When she gets to her floor, a sharp inhale catches in her chest. Even though she was expecting him, the feeling still sneaks up on her, that warmth that envelops her heart.
Jamie sits in the hallway beside her apartment door. His head tips back against the wall, he hangs his arms over his bent knees.
Turning his head when he sees her, he shifts a little and greets her with that quiet voice he seems to only have for her. "Hey."
It was just a few hours ago that she saw him last, at Officer Dunleevy's memorial. He still wears a disheveled version of his uniform, his white dress shirt untucked from dark slacks, his black tie loose at his throat.
"Sorry," she offers as she makes her way toward him. "I knew you were on your way but I had to get this last load out of the dryer."
He gathers his jacket and hat that lay beside him and stands up off the floor. "No problem. Let me take that. Here." Reaching out, he grasps the laundry basket, freeing her hands.
"Thanks." Eddie sighs, stepping up to the door to unlock it. "So you gonna wear that all day?"
He sniffs a soft laugh as he glances down at himself. "I haven't been home."
"Ah yes. How was Reagan family dinner?" She leads him inside, tempted to feel self conscious about the disorganized state of her apartment, but too exhausted to truly care. "Probably pretty somber, huh?"
He shrugs, laying his jacket and hat across her table, then slides the basket there. "Yeah. Leaving work at work isn't really a concept for us, huh?"
She hums an amused note. "Imagine that life."
He stands there just looking at her, notably more contemplative than he was when he popped by the hospital the other day in a friendly attempt to drive her home. He blinks with a deep inhale and glances around. "Where should I put this?"
"Um, just- my bed is fine." She points toward her bedroom.
Carrying the basket, he follows her across the apartment to her room. "So how's that battle wound, partner?"
"Rough." She moves a stack of folded t-shirts from her stripped bed before Jamie slides the basket there. Then she angles away to put them away in a dresser drawer. "But I'm alive."
"Come here," he murmurs, and before Eddie knows it, he turns and pulls her into a hug. His arms hold her gently at her upper back and she feels him rest his chin on top of her head.
The move makes her release a breath and she wraps her arms around his middle. She'd hardly had any interaction with him since she was rushed away from that 911 call in an ambulance, scared half to death even though she knew she was fine.
Amid everything that happened, there was never an opportunity to just be with him. Just to have someone she could lean on who knew the gravity of it all. Being without him made her feel broken.
The simple act of holding her like this, it's like he's already starting to piece her back together.
Her forehead pressed to his chest, she draws in a deep inhale. He smells good. Familiar and pure in a way that calms her immediately. Her fingertips press into his back and she just lets herself settle, as if she could burrow inside his chest and make herself at home.
She feels him tip his chin down, brushing his nose into her hair, then rest his forehead right there at her temple.
"I feel horrible," she finally murmurs as she begins to ease away. "Jamie, I was right there. Why wasn't it me?"
"You can't think like that."
"Well I am," she tells him, reaching up to scratch fingers across her forehead. "It's hard not to. I think about Dunleevy's wife. Having to get that call. Your dad sitting with her today." Then she glances down to the floor as she bites the inside of her cheek then lifts her gaze to him. "If that had been me- y'know? Who would your dad be sitting there with?"
The green shine in Jamie's eyes dims. He hesitates with a hard swallow. "Eddie-"
"I know." Quickly she shakes her head as if she didn't mean to raise that question. "Don't go looking for something bigger. Right?" Then she steps back with another cleansing inhale, turning toward the chair in the corner of her bedroom where she gathers some stray clothes piled there. "Anyway. I'm sorry I couldn't go out for that drink the other night."
When she glances his way as she heads to her closet, she sees him blink down. His hand goes to the knot in his tie where he tugs it even looser until eventually, he unthreads it altogether. "Yeah, me too," he mutters. "I just… you know-" And then he pauses as he starts to pace the room. "-Want you to feel like you can get back to normal."
"Well." She situates a few tops back on some hangers and sets them in her closet before she returns. "Once it stops hurting to laugh, count me in."
Looking over at her, he laughs softly before he comes closer. "Speaking of hurting," he starts, setting his grip on her upper arms as he backs her toward the chair she just cleared off. "You shouldn't be up this much-"
"Stop," she groans, amusement bubbling in her chest when he plunks her down there.
"I assume these go here?" He points to the basket, then to the bed.
Eddie smirks. "Yes, Reagan, the sheets go on the bed."
"I'm on it." He pushes the sleeves of his white shirt past his elbows and sets the basket on the floor before he finds the fitted sheet.
"You don't have to make my bed."
"Hey, I just want to help."
Appreciating the view of him stretched across her mattress to fit the sheets on, she settles one elbow on the back of the chair. "Well this is probably a once in a lifetime offer, you making my bed, so I'll accept."
He cuts her a look out of the corner of his eye, the kind that makes his cheek twitch, before he heads to the other side of the bed.
"And I'm also sorry…" She tells him. "That I didn't really say anything about Barry making his reappearance."
"You don't have to say you're sorry."
"No, I know. It's just- there isn't really much to tell. So-"
Jamie looks up as he rounds the bed for the flat sheet from the basket. "Seems like a nice guy."
She watches him while she considers it, then answers absently, "Yeah." Briefly, she licks her bottom lip and shifts to change the subject. "Um. So when your dad came to see me, he told me I could have my pick of assignments once I come back."
"Oh." He lifts the sheet, shaking it out across the bed. "Damn. New boyfriend, new partner."
"I don't want to hear it." A smile twists her lips and she catches his eye one more time.
"What am I gonna do without you, Janko?"
"Did I say I was abandoning you?"
After he tucks the bottom of the sheet beneath the mattress, he stands up straight to rest his hands low on his hips. "I hope you're not."
"I told him I'm happy where I am."
He manages a faint nod, then grazes his bottom lip with his teeth. "Are you?"
"Are you?"
With a slight shake of his head, he answers, "Doesn't matter what I think."
Her lips press together in a hard line and she exhales noisily through her nose. What he thinks is exactly what matters and he insists on keeping it locked away, off-limits to her.
At this point she's used to it. What was once infuriating now merely dims the light she keeps on for him. She can only hold onto it for so long before it burns her.
"Well if there's anything you do think," she says. "When it comes to what's ahead of us in this partnership, I wish you'd tell me."
He backs away to work on pillowcases. "I can tell you I don't want you going anywhere, but… who I am to tell you you can't make a change? If that's what you want."
She pushes herself up from her chair and makes her way closer to the bed. "Jamie-" Catching a pillow that he tosses to her stops her for a second. "I would hope if that ever happened, that it'd be a mutual decision." She sets the pillow near the headboard, then another one. "You say it like I'm the only one who's ever been considered for a new assignment. I mean, you could go anywhere you wanted in the department."
He piles the last pillow on the bed and glances over at her as he goes for the down comforter folded on a nearby bench. "I'm where I want to be," he affirms.
Her voice is soft when she agrees. "Me too."
They both nod, as if convincing themselves of their version of the truth. If this is how Jamie fits into her life, even if they have to hold themselves back behind this line, she'll take it.
The light will go out eventually. She'll convince herself that Barry or someone else will strike a match, brightening a new path.
The delusion makes her ache.
There's feelings Jamie's not telling her. She knows him well enough that she doesn't have to guess. But if he won't acknowledge them, then neither can she. He's the bravest person she knows. And it's like the only thing he's afraid of is admitting what she means to him.
With the promise of a freshly made bed, Eddie's ready to call it a night. They make their way out of the bedroom and Jamie stops to collect his hat and jacket.
"Thanks for the help," she tells him. "And for stopping by."
He follows her and they linger near the door. "Anytime, alright? Do you need anything?" He wonders. "I can stop by with lunch some time this week."
"Yeah maybe."
He nods and stalls a quiet moment in her entryway.
The flicker in his eyes, withholding and sad leaves this hollow feeling in her chest. It's about to make her crumple so she speaks up again with a smiling exhale. "Don't miss me too much."
The corner of his lips twitches with a half smile and he glances down at the floor. "I'll see you soon."
Her heart compels her to reach up onto her toes and gently wrap her arms around his neck.
He holds her again, a soft grip at her waist. Then he slides his palm along her ribcage, and she feels him dip his face into the curve if her neck, just for a moment.
She lets herself breathe deep before she releases him and steps back.
A murmured "Goodnight, Eddie," is all he can manage before he slips through the doorway.
Eddie's eyes fall shut as she closes the door. But even though the burn flares inside her, screaming at her heart to let go of him, she won't let herself turn out the light.