Filling Holes

Head down, Nolan nearly runs into Jessica as he leaves the Mid-Wilshire Station. "John, I came back as soon as I could." Her cool fingers cup his cheek. "How are you doing?"

John shrugs the broad shoulders beneath his plaid shirt. "I don't know what to tell you, Jess. One minute, I'm just going through the motions, the way I was taught, and it seems like everything is working. Then the next, I'm back on my knees at that pool, desperately trying to get Captain Andersen's heart to pump blood that's already poured out of her veins. It's like I'm out of my body, watching it happen, over and over and there's nothing I can do to stop it."

"Have you talked to Psych?"

"Yeah. Sure. Dr. Swindoll said what I'm experiencing is normal after what I went through, that we can keep talking and it will get better with time. But I'm not sure I can believe him. I doubt he's ever seen someone die trying to save his ass."

"Probably not," Jessica agrees, "but I have."

"When? How?"

"It was when I was with the FBI, a long time ago. Look, John, let's get out of here, go to the beach or some little hole in the wall where we can sit in a corner and take an hour to finish one beer."

John shakes his head. "I'm staying away from beer for now. I can't drink on duty anyway and after, um, the captain… My uncle was an alcoholic. He'd be sober for a while, years sometimes, but then something would happen that would push him over the edge. I don't know if I have those genes or not. My father is fine. But nothing's ever been like this for me before, not when I had to kill someone, not when Sarah and I decided to get a divorce. It's like I have a hole inside, sucking the life out of me. And if I try to fill it that way I may never stop trying."

"Then how about a root beer, in a glass mug with frost on the outside, and a hot dog made from ingredients you don't want to know about? My treat."

John envelopes her thin fingers in a hand calloused from 20 years of physical labor. "Yeah, sure. Sounds good."

John watches with admiration as the car hop glides smoothly up to Jessica's car window with a tray. "Henry tried to learn to roller skate for about two seconds when he was eight before he decided skateboarding was more his thing. Now he loves to snowboard. I guess out here you could do all three in a day if you drove up to the mountains."

Jessica hands the server a 20-dollar bill. "I did skating and skiing in one day - 15 years ago. I still like to ski. Do you?"

"Love it! Ben, my friend in the mansion, his parents had a chalet up in the Poconos, and we'd go there when we were in school. After he inherited the place, he invited me and my family a few times. Sarah, my ex-wife, didn't want to go, but I brought Henry. We had some good times there. I was remembering that not long before…"

"Before you were greenlit?"

"Yeah. It's been hard to think about happy times since then, but talking with you brought one back."

"And there will be more, John. "You know, I knew Zoe Andersen - not as well as I know Wade Grey - but we worked together a few times. I met that bastard ex-husband of hers too. She believed in living life, in moving ahead and staying in the thick of things."

"Staying in the thick of things was what got her killed - that and me."

"John, you didn't get her killed. She chose to partner with you. More than that, she chose to finish out the shift with you after Wade told her the green light had been lifted. You know what they say about a leader in the army vs. a Marine?"

"What?"

"In the army, the commander yells charge. In the Marines, it's 'Follow me.' For Zoe, it was always 'Follow me.' That's what made her such a great captain, but it's also what put her by your side that day. You honor her by respecting that."

"Bishop said something like that too."

"As I told you before, you have a smart T.O." Leaning across the console between the seats, she kisses him gently. "When we're finished here, let's go to your place. There's another California activity I want to show you."

"Sandcastles?" John asks as Jessica plants herself on the beach.

She gazes up, squinting as the sun shines in her eyes. "Come on, John, after all of your years of experience as a builder, you should be good at this. It would be easier if we had a pail and shovel, but someone threw a couple of giant slushy cups over there. We can improvise."

"After 20 years of missed delivery dates and back orders, improvisation is my middle name."

"Yeah, I thought it might be."

Jessica surveys the towers and parapets on John's masterpiece. "Wow! You must have made a lot of your clients happy."

"I wasn't bad." He frowns as the edge of a wave sweeps up, two feet away. "We should have built further back. When the tide comes in our castles will be gone."

Jessica gets up, brushing the sand off her tanned legs. "We can always build more, and with more experience, maybe even better ones."

"Why do I get the feeling you're not just talking about sand castles?"

"Because you're right. You know better than most people that things change, things end, and you have to use what you have left to start over."

John holds out his hand. "Come up to the house with me to clean up?"

"I'd love to."

John can't remember feeling this apprehensive about taking his next steps with a woman since high school. He and Jessica have slept together, but that was before… He'd never thought about sleeping with Zoe Andersen - well almost never - but he knew it was impossible from the start. Cops bedding each other, career busting as it could have been for Lucy, is not technically against the rules. Superior-subordinate relationships are a whole separate matter, one the department takes very seriously. But Nolan knew Captain Andersen was in his corner, even before Grey told him she'd requested that he be assigned to Mid-Wilshire. She looked out for all the cops under her command, or she would never have been riding with him that day. She had encouraged him to be on the job, but it could have stopped there. She could have stayed safe and sound in her office, but instead of putting anyone else's life on the line, she chose to risk her own.

And now, there's another strong, brilliant, woman next to him. The green light is supposed to be gone, but he and the captain both thought that before Cole snapped his trap shut on them. There is no time when a woman is less on guard than during sex - at least good sex. If something happened to Jessica, he's not sure he could forgive himself. He hasn't forgiven himself for Captain Andersen.

Jessica looks up at him as they walk the last few steps to his guest house together. She is fearless. Maybe it will be contagious. He hopes so. If nothing else, they'll both be clean - at least on the outside.

When he was growing up, John had always thought of water as a renewal. That was what he'd been taught in church, but there were also the showers of spring and the first swim of the summer.

When rain delayed his jobs and threatened his livelihood, he'd drifted away from his earlier perceptions. And for the captain, the depths of Cole's pool had been deadly. But now as he steps beneath the warm spray with Jessica, it's as if the clouds that have surrounded him since Captain Andersen died beneath his helpless hands, are beginning to lift.

All five foot two of Jessica is before him, brave and unguarded. She exudes life, and he is bathing in that as much as in the streams of warm liquid flowing over them. Life is going on and so will he, doing the work he's called to in a way that would have made his captain proud. His hands begin their voyage over Jessica's smooth skin.

"Whoo," Jessica blurts out as John wraps a towel around her, "I've never had anyone wash the sand off me quite that way before. Got any more tricks in your toolbelt?"

John smiles for the first time in days. "I just might."