My Christmas gift to nicdvidmaker! Hope you enjoy it!
Warning: This has not been betaed, so it's probably filled with mistakes. Read at your own risk! :)
Prompt: John & Joss meet at a bar on Christmas for drinks. They discuss the Xmas Eve's they were on duty and how it's hard for them to celebrate the holiday
John was sitting in a dive bar just down the street from his apartment. He was a semi regular here because it was quiet and dark, the perfect place to brood over his life choices. Tonight's topic: why he was all alone on Christmas Eve, even though he was doing his best to pretend it didn't bother him.
If it doesn't bother you, why are you drinking alone? The little voice inside his head asked. He had no answer.
Truth was, it did bother him. This time of year everywhere he turned there were reminders that he was all alone. All the advertisements on the busses, in the shop windows and on the billboards showed smiling families and happy couples giving each other perfectly wrapped gifts while sipping hot cocoa in their pajamas. Christmas was a time for family and loved ones, and he was constantly reminded that he had no one to call his own.
Oh, he knew he had no one to blame but himself. He was the one who walked away from Jessica and his shot at a normal life. But that didn't stop him from indulging in a whole heaping pile of "what ifs" this time of year. Would he and Jessica have gotten married? Would they have a house, two kids, a dog, and a minivan? Would they be happy?
John stared down in his drink. He knew the answer to that last question. He knew he wasn't cut out for "normal." He was too restless, too anxious to protect people. Jessica wanted Normal with a capital N. No, they would not have been happy. He had to be honest with himself, the marriage would not have lasted. They would have made each other absolutely miserable.
No, he had made the right decision. Those four days in Mexico had made for a lovely, warm memory, but Jessica belonged in the past.
But that didn't mean he couldn't be lonely on nights like this. Nights when everyone else was snug in their warm homes with their families…
"This seat taken?"
John blinked in surprised to see none other than Detective Jocelyn Carter standing next to him. What the…? "Um, no."
Joss smiled and took her seat while John tried not to stare. The bartender hustled over and she ordered a glass of Merlo. Neither one of them spoke while the she waited for her wine, but Joss didn't seem to mind the silence. Her drink arrived and John watched out of the corner of his eye as she took a sip. It must have met with her approval since she nodded and took another.
They sat in compatible silence sipping their drinks for several minutes, but finally John had to ask. "What are you doing here, Carter?"
"A little birdie told me where to find you," she replied taking another sip.
"Would that little birdie happen to be a Finch?" John asked with a trace of a smirk on his face.
Joss giggled. "Sometimes a Finch, or a Wren, or a Crane, or a Crow."
John smirked back at her. "You forgot Swift, Swan and Starling."
"My mistake," Joss smiled. She took another sip. "What are you doing here all alone?"
"I'm not alone, you're here."
"So I am." There was tinge of melancholy in her voice.
"I would have thought you would be spending time with your family," John pressed.
Joss shrugged. "I just dropped Taylor off with his dad and my ex-in-laws. I don't get him back until tomorrow night. My mom is off at her sister's in Connecticut and I didn't feel like going."
John raised his eyebrows. "You didn't feel like being with your family?"
Another shrug. "Don't have much Christmas spirit, haven't since Iraq."
John waved the bartender over to refresh his drink. "What happened in Iraq?"
"This." Joss touched her side where the landmine had left the huge scar she had shown John that night in the morgue. "Happened in early December, I was still in the hospital in Germany when Christmas rolled around. Paul couldn't get leave to bring Taylor over, so I was all alone, in pain, having nightmares about watching that jarhead dying in front of me."
Joss shifted in her seat. "Once I recovered and was discharged, I joined the police force and I had to work the holiday. You know Christmas is a busy time for the police. Right?"
John nodded.
"One Christmas, a couple years after I had joined the force, there was a mass murder in some low rent dump in the Bronx. Some guy snapped and murdered his whole family. Wife, three kids, mother-in-law and a cousin. Then turned the gun on himself. He'd lost his job, they were on verge of being evicted. Safety net totally failed them. Guess he saw no other way out." She paused for a few seconds staring off into space. "I always think of them this time of year. Pus a damper on the Christmas spirit, ya know?"
John nodded. He did know.
Joss took another sip. "It was several years before I had enough seniority to have the day off and spend it with my family. But by then I felt like a stranger in a strange land. They had inside jokes I didn't know. I couldn't talk about Christmases past because I wasn't there. Everyone had changed, but they had changed together. I was an outlier."
"In a room full of people, you were alone," John commented.
Joss nodded sadly. "You've been there I see."
John stared down into his drink.
Joss continued with her story. "I faked it for Taylor's sake and I think I did a pretty good job. To be honest, I was glad to send him to his dad's this year so I don't have to fake it.
"So what's your story? Where's your Christmas spirit?"
John swirled his drink in his glass. "My dad died when I was young. My mom was left with two kids and zero job skills. She wound up bartending in place pretty much like this." He waved his hand indicating the bar. "It provided the basics, but not a lot left over for special occasions."
"Christmas was pretty lean in your house, huh?"
John nodded. "It…it hurt my mom. She often had to work the holidays and she couldn't afford very many presents. We had a few relatives who helped out, but they weren't exactly rich either. Christmas was just a reminder what we didn't have.
"Then my mom and sister were killed by a drunk driver while I was in basic and what little I did have was gone. I always volunteered for duty over Christmas so someone who did have a place to go, could go."
"You have a good heart John," Joss said softly.
John just shrugged and took another drink. "Most of the time it was just boring, doing guard duty, manning checkpoints, that type of thing. Except one year, in Afghanistan we were on patrol and stumbled into an ambush." John paused and Joss waited, knowing what was coming next. "We lost Andy West that night." Another pause. "I often wonder if Christmas was ruined for his whole family after that."
"I'm guessing things weren't much better in the CIA."
"Death doesn't take a holiday," John replied. "Kara and I once killed an entire Christmas Party at the home of arms dealer." He took a long drink. "Christmas is a busy season for monsters, everyone has their guard down."
"You're not a monster, John," Joss said firmly.
John just looked away, unconvinced. "Do you miss your family?" he asked to change the subject.
Joss looked down into her drink. "Yeah. I have good memories with them from when I was kid. They're good people. It's not their fault I don't belong. Pretty sure they would be upset if they knew how I felt." She swirled her glass watching the deep red liquid. "Except Auntie Lolita. She was your typical 60's radical back in the day. She hates cops. And the military. And me."
John felt himself bristling at the thought someone could hate on Joss. Joss glanced over at him. "Chill, she's under strict orders from Grandma to behave when I'm around. No one messes with Grandma."
They sat quietly like that for a few minutes before John spoke again. "I'm glad you're here."
"I'm glad I'm here too," Joss said. "I knew you would understand."
"You've understood me from the first minute you saw me," John replied.
"I was in the war too. It wasn't hard."
"Why did you come looking for me?"
Joss smiled. "I just wanted to be around someone who 'got' me for a change."
John did understand. Most people could read about a woman who was beaten to death by her husband, or a child gunned down in a drive by, think "Oh that's terrible!'" then hit the scroll bar to read the next story without a second thought. They might even contribute to a GoFundMe for the victim's family, but that would be the end of it. But for the two of them that was the beginning. Their passion, their very lives, were dedicated to making sure something terrible didn't befall the next person. They would do everything in their power to prevent it. They had to.
But that drive came with a cost. People like them were often outsiders; no matter how much their friends and families loved them, they could not truly understand what drove them. As much as he and Jessica had loved each other, she didn't accept who he was at his core. He had tried to walk away from his calling for her, but ultimately had been unable to. Consequently, letting her go had been the right thing to do.
He knew Joss had the same problem with the people in her life He had seen firsthand that Joss's mother and son loved her, but there was a very important part of her they could not share. It wasn't their fault, it just wasn't who they were. It wasn't their calling.
"Crusader for Justice and Defender of the Weak" was certainly a job title that limited your options to socialize.
Unless you could find someone just like you.
John studied Joss out of the corner of his eye while pretending to stare down on his drink. The connection had been strong and instantaneous. They had known each other immediately. They accepted each other. They trusted each other.
They were prefect for each other. And he loved her for it.
Yes, he loved her.
John blinked in surprise at his flash of insight. His jaw moved back and forth once and he blinked rapidly a few times as he quickly came to terms with his new found knowledge. He saw Joss looking at him curiously.
"You alright?"
He smiled and almost laughed. Of course the trained interrogator would pick up on his small tells. "I'm fine," he replied and he was further surprised to hear just how cheerful he sounded. Joss was now staring at him openly, completely puzzled by her normally stoic companion's sudden change of demeanor.
"Do you like Italian food?" he asked.
Joss quickly regained her composure. "I do."
John threw some money down on the bar to cover their drinks and took her hand to help off her stool. He kept ahold of her hand once she was standing next to him. "There's a little family run place down the street that makes really good pasta."
Joss had been staring at their clasped hands in disbelief. Slowly a smile spread across her face and she looked up at him with her eyes sparkling. "I love pasta."
John led her out of the bar into the night where a light dusting of snow was falling from the sky. Joss held out her hand and caught a few snowflakes in her hand. "Beautiful," she said.
"Yes it is," John said, never taking his eyes off her as they walked down the street.