The idea for this story came from the dinner scene in The Uniform (2x11). I focus a lot on how I imagine that Jamie's relationships with certain people would have been if we'd had a chance to really see them. No Eddie in this one...that sort of feels wrong but this takes place in season 2.
A million thanks to Blueblood82 for all of her suggestions on this one. This story sat around untouched and unfinished for a long time until she took a peek. :)
Chapter 1
Renzulli brushed one last stroke of white paint across the top of the door trim before he stepped off the small ladder he was perched on to admire his work with a satisfied sigh. He then checked his watch and saw that it was coming up on twelve-thirty and grinned to himself as he looked up at the clear blue sky, thankful again for the extra work and the sunny, but cool weather that had allowed them to squeeze it in that Wednesday morning. He and his partner had been on a paint job near Prospect Park in Brooklyn for the last several hours. And depending on how much of the window trim Jamie had left to go on the north side of the house, it appeared that they were nearly done with this phase of the job.
Renzulli closed the lid on his paint can and laid the brush across the top. He quickly descended the four steps from the porch to the paved walkway and strolled over to the right side of the house to check on his partner all the while wiping a few smears of the 'Alpine White' latex paint from his hands. As soon as he rounded the corner, he found Jamie halfway up his own ladder working on the first window. Renzulli smiled again - when he'd last checked on him, he was painting the window at the rear of the house and was going to work his way to the front which meant that they should in fact be done for the day. "That's looking real good, kid. I knew that Harvard brain of yours would catch on eventually," he teased, happy to see most of the paint on the wood trim and not all over the kid.
Jamie let out a short laugh, remaining focused on his brush as he ran it along the edge of the wood frame. "Yeah, thanks, Sarge," he responded. When he was done with the stroke, he hid his face in the crook of his arm to mask a large yawn that had been threatening to escape.
"Hey! No yawning on the job, college boy," Renzulli admonished lightly.
Jamie smirked at his boss. "It was a long night," he argued. They'd worked a full midnight tour and had fought the morning traffic after work to get to Prospect Park for their side job.
"Ha! Tell me about it; I was right there with ya, kid," Renzulli said as he walked alongside the house, examining the rest of Jamie's work. "I think we can call it a day," he said. Happy with the end result, he stepped over to the painting supplies they had laid out on the driveway next to the house. "Time to go home and get some shut eye," he added.
"Great. I just got this bottom piece to finish up," Jamie advised as he went back to finishing up his task.
Renzulli was crouched down low, collecting various items when he looked over at Jamie. "So, kid, when you're hanging out here with me moonlighting to make an extra buck, ever wish you would have stuck with law?" he asked, revisiting a conversation they had the first time Jamie made up the other half of his little painting crew.
"Nah," Jamie answered confidently as his eyes stayed focused on his work.
Renzulli stopped what he was doing and gave his partner a doubtful look. "You sure about that? You ever consider what life would be like if you weren't a cop?" he asked, thinking that the kid must be tempted from time to time to go back to making the big bucks in the legal field. For a brainiac like him, he figured it would easily beat painting houses after long tours.
Jamie carefully inspected the trim he'd just painted. Satisfied with the job, he clutched the handles of the can and brush in one hand as he carefully lowered himself down each rung of the ladder. "One hundred percent," he assured his sergeant when he was back on solid ground. "We kind of had a similar conversation on Sunday over dinner," he shrugged.
Renzulli knew exactly who he meant by 'we'; he knew all about the Reagan Sunday dinners. "How so?" he inquired, standing with an arm full of supplies in his arms.
Jamie approached their makeshift workspace and was closing the lid on his can as he answered. "Well, it's hard to imagine any of us not being involved with the department, but we went through what we would all be doing for a living if none of us had become cops. And we all agreed in the end that nothing beats the job," he explained.
Renzulli's eyebrows shot up, curious about the answers a question like that would have garnered from the Reagans. "Oh yeah? You're right, I can't imagine any of the men in your family as anything but cops. What did they say?" he asked eagerly.
Jamie snorted as he thought of his grandfather first. "Gramps said something about 'ladies better shoes'...whatever that means."
Renzulli's expression became pinched, confused by that choice of occupation. "What's that about?" Renzulli asked. "I can't picture your grandfather as a shoe salesman."
Jamie nodded in agreement. "Neither can I," he stated. He couldn't picture his grandfather in retail, of all things.
"What about your dad?" the older man prompted while the pair work together to store everything into the back of Renzulli's old station wagon which sat parked in the homeowner's driveway.
"He said he would have stayed in the Marines," Jamie replied from where he was hunched forward, halfway into the rear of the old wagon organizing the supplies.
"That I can see," Renzulli said as he handed the younger man a large, sealed bucket of paint.
Jamie grunted as he took hold of the heavy item. "Me too," he agreed.
Renzulli leaned up against the edge of the station wagon and crossed his arms in front of him. "He'd be some big time military officer, I'm sure - way at the top of the food chain just like he is now," he imagined before looking over at Jamie. "Now, your brother, Danny? I don't think I could even begin to guess at what he would be doing with his life if he weren't a cop; that boy's as blue as they come," he declared.
Jamie turned around and took a seat along the bumper of the car, running a hand across his damp brow. "Linda had a few ideas on what he'd be doing," he chuckled as he went through his sister-in-law's list of fallback career choices in his head.
"Like?"
Jamie smiled and shook his head. "She guessed that he'd either be laying bricks, doing construction, installing car radios or selling aluminum siding in Jersey somewhere," he listed.
Renzulli's forehead creased as he tried to picture Danny Reagan doing any of those things for a living, but couldn't really see any of them making the older Reagan brother truly happy. "Thank god for the job, then. Although, I could picture your brother as a construction worker for some reason - maybe it's the gruff, tough-guy attitude. That's not such a crazy image," he said with a shrug, he just didn't think it would be a fulfilling career for Danny. "So that leaves you, Harvard. Now you? You, I know, would be in a fancy suit in a courtroom somewhere spewing out a bunch of baloney to get some creep off the hook for a crime he probably committed."
"Hey! What happened to 'innocent until proven guilty?'" Jamie snickered.
Renzulli let out a belly laugh. "Yeah, right," he fired back.
Jamie couldn't help but smile at his partner, but his face turned serious as another realization came to mind which was hard to ignore. "Well, that's most likely what I would be doing. But chances are that I'd be married too," he said with a shrug as he continued on with his task. If he hadn't taken a detour from the career plans he and Sydney had made together when they were graduating from law school, he couldn't imagine that they wouldn't have made it to the altar. His decision to become a cop had been the downfall of their relationship and the reason she had left, right? That and the shock of Joe's murder which he stupidly investigated on his own, letting it consume him. Sometimes he still wondered about that - whether there had been other issues that were easily masked by his choice between the two jobs.
Renzulli grimaced sympathetically. "Yeah, I forgot about that," he responded, hesitating only for a moment before curiosity got the best of him. "You ever hear from your ex after she flew off to England?" he wondered.
Jamie stiffened a little at the question because of its answer. "No, but I hear things through the grapevine. She seems to be doing well," he said quickly.
Renzulli had never met the ex-fiancé, but thought it was a lousy thing she did - up and leaving a good kid like Jamie because she couldn't handle the idea of being married to a cop. He knew it was no cake walk, what with the worrying about the dangers that existed every time your spouse put on the uniform, but if she loved him, that should have been enough. It was that simple for him. But glancing at Jamie as he collected the drop cloths they'd laid out, he wondered if money was the only thing that could cause him to doubt his decision to become a cop. He didn't discuss his ex much, if ever, but he knew that Jamie had been bummed, to say the least, about her leaving. "So?" he asked as he took hold of one of the drop cloths from Jamie's arms and began to fold it up. "No regrets?"
Jamie gave Renzulli a tight smile. It wasn't the first time he'd been asked that question and while his mind would sometimes wonder about the what ifs, he still knew becoming a cop was the best decision he'd ever made. "No. No regrets," he said adamantly.
Renzulli was about to give him an 'atta boy' when he was interrupted by a piercing female scream and some angry male voices coming from the street.
Jamie was the first to react, letting the tarps fall from his arms as he ran around the open rear door of the station wagon and onto the front lawn of the house. Jamie felt Renzulli follow closely behind as he moved toward the voices, finding the source of the cries: a couple of teenagers were accosting a woman two doors down, right in her own driveway. The woman was struggling to get into her car and away from her assailants, clutching onto the steering wheel as one of the males fought to drag her out of the vehicle, surely looking to take it for himself. The other was standing guard, his eyes widening as he spotted Jamie and Renzulli several houses down. He reached over to warn his buddy just as the other kid managed to throw the woman roughly to the ground. The first male was approaching the woman again when a shout caught him off guard.
"Hey! Police!" Jamie identified himself and took off in a dead run.
The teens looked at each other quickly, both sharing the same thought: Run! But one of boys wasn't going to leave empty handed, crouching to snag the woman's purse from the ground before sprinting after his buddy and heading towards a much busier Church Avenue.
Jamie followed, barely slowing to check on the dazed woman. But feeling that Renzulli was coming up right behind him, he took off after the fleeing perps. "Sarge, call for back up!" he yelled without so much as a glance back at his partner who was already assisting the victim.
"Reagan! Wait up!" Renzulli shouted after his partner as he pulled his phone from his pocket to dial 911. He kneeled down next to the frightened woman and groaned in frustration. "Damn kid!"
Jamie ran, taking a sharp right at Church Avenue. His legs pounded against the sidewalk, easily spotting the two boys as startled pedestrians scattered out of their way.
"Stop! Police!" Jamie yelled in between breaths, knowing that his orders would be ignored. All it earned him in return were glances over the perps' shoulders to check how close they were to being caught.
Jamie was grateful for the path that remained open for him on the sidewalk as he drew closer to the two little punks - right up until an unknowing middle-aged man stepped out of a deli and into Jamie's path. Jamie easily took him to ground in the collision, tumbling on top of the surprised man. "Jesus. Sorry," he gasped as he looked from the fallen man to his prey, cursing at the distance growing between them.
Jamie jumped to his feet and continued on his chase. The two were at least twenty yards ahead of him and pulling away when they rounded a corner and disappeared out of sight. Jamie upped his pace until he came to the edge of the last building he'd seen them pass, coming to a sudden halt so he could peak around the corner and scan what appeared to be an abandoned alley.
Jamie reached for his waist, cursing again when he realized he'd been on a job that didn't require a firearm to be clipped on to his belt. Instead, he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, panting as he fought to slow his breathing. With the device in his hand, he took a few tentative steps around the corner, passing an empty doorway along the way. There was nothing but a pile of trash next to a rolling dumpster occupying the narrow alleyway. Jamie took in a deep breath and looked down at his phone, pulling up Renzulli's number. He hit the call button and was bringing the phone up to his ear when everything turned blissfully dark. Jamie was unconscious before he even hit the ground, oblivious to his partner's tiny voice calling out to him from the cell phone laying near his head...a cell phone which was soon picked up by a pair of grabby hands, leaving its owner behind bleeding in the filthy alley.
