Everything You Need is Right Here
At the request of a friend, a one-shot of a missing scene at the end of Season 8's premiere "Cutting Losses" to somehow make sense out of what felt like a disappointing spliced and splintered returning storyline for our Jamko pair.
"Well, that went better than I thought it would… maybe," Erin sounded entirely unconvinced while Henry and Frank continued their extended twilight goodbyes at the door under the porch light as she joined her younger brother outside at the curb in front of the newly rented three-story house in Staten Island that was set to serve as a jumping off point for Danny and the boys in the next chapter of their post-fire, post-Linda lives together.
"Yeah, maybe," Jamie agreed with an equally heavy heart as he leaned against the hood of his black Saleen Mustang and flashed back on everything that had brought them to this point… another awful series of calls from his father late at night: the first to inform him that his brother's family home had been targeted by a Mexican drug cartel firebomb, and the next not so many weeks later just as that shock was beginning to wear down—another accident—another Reagan life snuffed out too soon when his sister-in-law had been lost amid a tragic medical helicopter crash over the Hudson. The months since those two events had been a blur, for the most part, filled with feelings dredged up from the past—the disappearance of another mother-figure and sibling from his life, abject worry over his older brother who was apparently more fractured by the loss of his soulmate than any of them could fathom—well, maybe not his dad and grandfather who had faced the same sort of grief in their lives. Just look at that table in there tonight, Jamie thought as he tried to understand Frank's comment about everything Danny needed being right here—they weren't right? Not with so many missing: Mom, Joe, Grandma Betty and now Linda too—all the empty chairs meant to be occupied for such a short time according to his father—three widowed Reagan men, a dead brother, a divorcee for a sister and, well, he wasn't sure how to term himself, what had Erin called him, the spinster uncle? Hardly the big, happy Irish Catholic family they once had the potential to be before so many headstones were added to that row in the Bay Ridge cemetery.
"I think he's better," Erin nodded as she was having similar thoughts and instead continued to try to convince herself that they had done the right thing by booting her older brother out of the comforts of the family nest. "He's working again and stopped talking about putting in his papers… he'll have to come home for the boys instead of relying on Dad and Grandpa to do everything for him. It's a fresh start. This will give him a reason to move forward. He just has to stop blaming himself for everything."
"Hope so," Jamie replied blankly with no other input since despite the good, light-hearted front he had tried to put up tonight, he felt drained as though he was running out of things to say and do for Danny that would make a difference at this point. There were only so many times he could try to fill a little of the quiet void Linda left with invitations out for a beer or a game somewhere. Sooner or later his brother was going to have to face the fact that his life and home––this new home–– would never feel the soft touch of his wife's hand again.
"You need a ride?" he offered instead and looked for a reason to leave and get some space given the fact that it seemed like Frank and Henry were wrapping things up now and he couldn't in good conscience just ditch her since Erin had accompanied him here on the touchy task of ambushing Danny with this grand reveal in the first place.
"No, I was going to go back to Dad's… aren't you? You know to help them pack up the rest of their stuff, so the boys and Danny have more than a change of clothes and their toothbrushes here for tomorrow. Wanna come?" she brightened at the thought of not being alone herself that night given the feelings Jack's recent stabbing had stirred up. "It'll only take a half hour or so between the two of us, and you could have your old room back once we move Sean's stuff out. He found your copy of that movie Legally Blonde in the back of your closet the other day. We could eat popcorn and make fun of Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Davis. Remember? He couldn't propose to her because she was too blonde, so she got into Harvard to win him back? 'You got into Harvard Law'" she quoted Davis' voice with a laugh. "'What, like it's hard?'" she shifted to mock Witherspoon. "C'mon, Jamie! You loved that movie! You always said he was so right about blondes and that's why brunettes were your type."
"Erin, that's a chick flick, and it was your copy. I hid it back there because I was sick of watching it," Jamie sighed with the thought that maybe his tastes had changed over the years and that one girl, in particular, had blurred dividing line between fair and darker-haired interests. "Raincheck… okay? I gotta go, early shift tomorrow," he begged off instead with a false excuse offering a "love you, sis," and a peck on her cheek before climbing behind the wheel, the satisfying rumble of the heavy engine coming to life and drowning everything else out to serve as a needed oasis of solitude after the stress of the day. He pulled away from the curb with a quick wave to his patriarchs as they were coming down the front steps.
"Jamie's heading home already?" Frank assumed from the direction as he walked up alongside his daughter on the sidewalk. "I thought he might come back with us for a scotch. We all could use a good stiff belt after a day like this," he acknowledged with a sad nod back to the house.
"He never does that anymore, does he? I mean just hang around at home with the rest of us?" Erin questioned with a frown as Henry joined them and the trio watched the Mustang's taillights disappear down the road. "Danny, sure... he makes a point to go out with him at least once a week since it happened, but otherwise he's always busy, and on Sundays, he's been leaving pretty much right after dinner. I feel like I don't even know what's going on in his life," she worried.
"Other than when he comes to pick his brother up, he has been a little quiet and keeping his distance too much since Danny and the boys were living with us, Francis," Henry agreed as their focus turned while he thought back over Jamie's actions the past few months. "He doesn't even talk about the job anymore after that CO of his split him and his partner up over that silly pranking thing. I haven't heard him so much as mention Eddie's name once since then, and I don't think he even requested to be reassigned to her when their month probation was up… those two were joined at the hip before, going out after work all the time. Maybe they had a falling out, or she found a boyfriend or something. You need to talk to him. Linda's death has been hard on him too, and he probably doesn't want to saddle us with his problems right now, but the boy doesn't have anyone else. You know how he shuts down sometimes," he added with his concern growing as the spotlight shifted from older to younger grandson.
"That's right, Dad! Jamie needs someone to be there for him too!" Erin insisted.
"Now hold on... he's not twelve years old, and I've interfered enough in one son's life for the day," Frank admitted out loud while keeping patently silent about the fact that he had indeed noticed the same about his youngest weeks ago, and had already meddled by covertly arranging through channels for Jamie and Eddie to ride together again that week in hopes that would knock him out of the funk he had fallen into. "We'll just keep an eye on him for now, and hope for the best," he added as he pulled out his cell to send out a quick text while his detail pulled up to the curb and he ushered his daughter and father inside the SUV for the ride back to Bay Ridge.
Jamie's phone had buzzed multiple times in his pocket during the drive home to alert him to the fact that not one or two, but three family members had tried to touch base with him immediately after his abrupt departure. Now that progress had been made on the Danny front, he knew it would only be a matter of time before their focus would shift towards him and his recent subdued change in behavior, although given the fact it had happened in a matter of mere minutes was a testament that the jig was closer to being up than he had anticipated. Determined to ignore them at the very least until he had put enough distance between to warrant a complete escape for the night, he purposely waited until he arrived in Brooklyn Heights and pulled the car up in front of his apartment building before lifting the device out of his pocket to scroll through the missed notification screen.
Monday night beers? came the first inquiry, obviously a thinly veiled direct order to appear at the family home the following day for a debriefing from his father who had likely already put a hand in to stir the pot given that sudden about-face their CO had presented when announcing during roll call two nights ago that 12-David would be riding together again. What was that Frank Reagan saying? 'Nobody comes out here for just a beer. Sunday dinner, sure, but, uh, not Monday night beers'... No one was invited for just that either. Had the Commissioner fathomed that his and Eddie's first night back in the car as partners would wind up with them arriving at the nightclub scene of six OD's from fentanyl-laced heroin and morph into a subsequent rapidly formed undercover stint with narcotics to nail the dealer, he might have had serious second thoughts with his plan.
Alston's this week? was the next brief invitation delivered from a now-suspicious sister who dangled a favored restaurant meeting place under his nose and had apparently not taken kindly to being stood up for her cherished teenaged movie and popcorn night. Any further ducking and diving out of her reach were likely to turn her attention to him like a dog on a steak bone to figure out why he was suddenly evasive. Jamie sighed and wondered just how long he could reasonably put her off before she called in the cavalry or showed up unannounced at his door.
Thanks, kid. I owe you one - on me next time... was the last message to appear and the straw that finally broke the dam on Jamie's heart. He had spent months winding his emotions over Linda's death into a tightly held ball in the pit of his stomach, absorbing what he could take off his brother's anger and grief and carrying that away from his older sibling in an effort to provide a target to vent, a shoulder to cry on and an ear to confide in to help lessen the load... afraid to let any of that go in front of his family who was likewise grieving in their own ways. With everyone understandably more worried over Danny's shocked state and the way the boys were coping with the loss of their mother than anything else, he owed it to them not to take a bit of the spotlight from their needs by revealing the truth about what had been going on in his own life, but here… here was the first sign he had been praying for that his brother was looking ahead so perhaps it was time to bring the rest into the open.
Suddenly feeling the exhaustive effects of shouldering such a weight for so long, Jamie was thankful to turn the keys on the door to his apartment a few minutes later and walk into the darkened space with hardly a glance around or bothering to turn on a lamp before collapsing full-length on the couch and wishing for nothing more than to melt away into the leather and forget everything the past few months had brought with them… well, almost everything…
"Jamie?" came the soft inquiry from the hallway as the switch clicked on, flooding the room in a narrow tunnel of light and revealing the feminine, silhouette outline of someone who had come to be his own personal rock through this storm… one that had knowingly arrived banging at his door demanding entry late that terrible night after news of the helicopter crash had spread across the department and who had not left his proverbial side since, content to remain anonymous until the Reagan family had healed enough to draw another presence in its midst and someone else to occupy a missing chair at Sunday dinners. Edit Marie Janko had already moved to fill that space in his heart, and this time there were no walls between them to keep those long-held feelings apart.
"How'd it go tonight?" came her worried inquiry.
"Good," he replied with no other details required and sat up a little to make room for her warmth next to him, a soft oversized t-shirt and shorts suddenly more sexy and comforting to him than anything else he could imagine. "They, um… they're home now," he reported as his voice broke and suddenly so did everything else as it was her turn to once again mop up the raw emotions that had been hidden from everyone else. "Danny… I think he's gonna be okay," he finally managed to let go of that fear that his sole surviving brother's world had been rocked beyond repair.
"That's good," she soothed with a satisfied kiss on his cheek and snuggled in closer to his chest as his arm tightened around her shoulders. "I know you've been so worried about him and wanting to keep this to ourselves because of that… and I've been worried about you holding all this in, but now this week with us getting thrown back together as partners, especially going undercover… we can't let that happen again if this is gonna work, right? Not that I didn't enjoy having the chance to be your arm candy on that bust," she smirked.
"I know, it just caught me off guard… I never expected the CO would put us back together at the last minute without asking. We'll talk to him tomorrow… pretty sure Dad had something to do with it, anyway. Now that he's handled Danny I don't think we'll be able to keep this under the radar anymore," he admitted before leaning over to seek her lips as his hands traced down the soft curves under the t-shirt, slowly lifting it over her head to reveal everything that he had been waiting for all of these years. "And I don't think I want to, lambchop; it's time to tell them."
"At Sunday dinner?" she cringed at the thought of announcing this previously forbidden relationship to the Commissioner and the rest of the Reagan family that way.
"No, not somewhere so in their face or stressful... how about Monday night beers and dinner at Alston's on Tuesday after work?" he compromised instead as his bright eyes locked on hers while a new chapter in their lives opened.
"And what exactly are you going to say to them after we walk in?"
"That everything I need is right here," he replied as they fell together.
Okay, a girl can hope, can't she? I just needed a little Jamko fluff to carry me on through this season until (if) we ever get to see it on screen. That's all for this one. :)