Something Missing

Chapter One

It had been uglier than she'd intended and much harder than anticipated, and as Jaime set her suitcases on the floor in front of the generic-looking hotel dresser, she breathed a sigh of relief. She was glad she'd found the strength to do what needed to be done, and a little surprised that she wasn't crying. Jaime had left Chris, and realized as she sank wearily onto the bed that she had absolutely no idea what to do next.

Jaime's thoughts were interrupted by the ringing telephone. Her stomach sank – Chris, already? But of course, it wasn't; there was only one person who knew where to find her. Helen. "Hi, Mom," she said after picking up the receiver.

"How are you, Dear?" Helen's kind voice asked, very gently.

"I'm...ok, I guess," Jaime told her. "It's over."

Helen hadn't expected Jaime to be turning cartwheels, but she was alarmed by the quiet, unspoken sadness in her voice. "Jaime -?" she prompted, knowing her surrogate daughter had a lot more to say.

"I hurt him so badly, Mom," Jaime reflected. She knew Chris had been very close to proposing, and the look in his eyes as she walked away told her she'd broken his heart. "I just hope I did the right thing..."

"You listened to your heart – that's never wrong." Helen listened closely, but Jaime's only response was a grief-filled sigh. She wished she and Jim were in California and not halfway around the world, but Helen had an idea she thought might help. "Jaime, my heart is hugging you close right now, but you need more than that. Steve is close by, over at the Air Force base. I could give him a call, and -"

"This...isn't his problem. I don't wanna bother Steve with this..."

"You know he won't see it as a bother; he'd want to be there for you, Dear. I'm not trying to set you up on a date, either – you two were best friends long before you were anything else, and -"

"Yeah," Jaime conceded. "A friend would be good, if you're sure he's not too busy..."

"Too busy for you? Never. Why don't you lie down, rest a little while, and I'll call him."

"Mom, thank you." Jaime hung up the phone and as she laid back onto the pillow, she finally allowed herself to cry.

- - - - - -

Less than an hour later, Jaime heard a special knock on the door that she hadn't heard since childhood. "Our special knock," she said softly as she opened the door. "Hi, Steve."

Steve's eyes were sympathetic, kind and – yes – loving, as he took in every detail about the woman he still cared for so deeply. In one hand, he carried a tray with two large cups of coffee and a bag of donuts, and in the other he held a bottle of wine and two glasses. "Take your pick," he told Jaime, setting everything down on the dresser while she closed the door.

Jaime managed a slight smile. As always, Steve's instincts were spot-on. "Right now, I could really use the drink." She sat down at the little table by the window, and Steve joined her, bringing the bottle and pouring a glass for each of them.

"Talk to me?" he said soothingly.

"What did Helen tell you?"

"Just that you were having a rough time and might need someone to talk to."

"Oh." Jaime had no idea where to start.

Steve did. "You're been crying."

"Yeah."

"And I can see you're feeling extremely verbal today."

"Sorry..." Hearing herself give yet another one-syllable answer, Jaime laughed, just a little.

"Jaime, whatever it is, whatever has you hurting like this, I'll help you any way I can; you know that. Even if you just need someone to listen, I'm here."

"I left Chris," she blurted out, forcing back another flood of tears.

"Did he hurt you?"

"No. I...I hurt him. He didn't do anything wrong – he was never anything but good to me. I just...left him."

Steve reached over to the bedside table, grabbed the box of Kleenex and handed it to Jaime. She wasn't crying, but he sensed that soon, she would be. "Well," he began slowly, "I've known you for pretty much your whole life. You wouldn't do that without a damn good reason and a whole lot of thought." He took a stab in the dark that wasn't really dark at all. "It tore you apart inside, to even think about it. And it's still tearing at you, right now."

Jaime looked up, startled. It was as though Steve had just peered directly into her soul. From anyone else, such deep insight would've been frightening, but from Steve, it just felt so...comforting, and right.

"It wasn't anything Chris did wrong," Jaime repeated. "It wasn't another man, either," she added quickly.

"I know you well enough to know that. Cheating just isn't in you."

"Something wasn't right, Steve. I don't know what it was, but something that should've been there, just...wasn't."

Steve nodded his complete understanding. He'd felt exactly the same way when he'd forced himself to go on a few of the blind dates his friends had been urging him to try. This wasn't the time to tell Jaime about that, though, because in Steve's case, he knew what had been missing, and she was sitting mere feet away from him, sharing a bottle of wine. He didn't even dare to hope, but he had to wonder: was Jaime missing him, too?

"You and Chris were together a long time..." he observed in a gentle voice.

"Almost a year."

"You seemed happy together." He'd run into them as a couple a few times: at an OSI conference, Thanksgiving with Jim and Helen and at Jaime's last check-up in DC. He'd seen, to his relief, that Chris was good to her – gentle, loving – and although it pained Steve deeply to see the only woman he'd ever loved in the arms of another man, his primary concern had always been her happiness. "Did you love him, Jaime?" the friend in him asked, trying to draw her out and get her talking so he could begin to help her.

"Yes...no...I – I don't know anymore," she whispered. "I thought I did, and I never meant to hurt him. Once I knew it wasn't right – that my heart wasn't in it the way it should've been – I didn't wanna draw it out and make it worse, and I thought a fast, clean break would be a lot less painful in the long run than stringing him along."

"And you'd be 100 percent right about that," Steve confirmed.

Tears filled Jaime's eyes. "Steve...the look on his face...the pain I caused him...he didn't deserve that..."

"Chris deserved the truth, though," he told her. "If you didn't feel it was working, you did the right thing by being honest with him." Steve longed to reach out and hold the grieving woman close in a comforting hug, but touching her didn't seem appropriate yet. "Do you have someplace to stay, other than this charming little hovel?"

"I'll be ok here..."

Steve knew that being alone in this ugly little room was the absolute worst way to start healing a broken heart. "Jaime, please don't think I'm trying to make a move on you; I'd never do that while you're hurting like this. You shouldn't be alone now, though, and I have a spare bedroom you could use, for as long as you needed to. Plus, two waterproof shoulders and an empathetic ear from your best friend." Jaime didn't answer, her tears and her overwhelming need for the support of this friend making words impossible. Steve, like he usually did, read the answer in her eyes. "C'mon – let's get you outta here."

- - - - - -