TONIGHT
A Jack & Allison Story (Allison's POV)

1. Arrival

It was easily after nine o-clock when I got home that night. I had known that Jack would be there, barring any unforeseen emergencies, but neither of us were expecting my work to run so late. Since the time switch I'd become used to the more regular hours of the new job. Director of Medical didn't have the same power as the Director of Global Dynamics by a long shot, but the upshot was that I actually had time for my family.

When I pulled into my driveway, I was momentarily surprised to see Jack's jeep sitting there alone. I have a standing arrangement with Brian, my nanny, to remain there on evenings that I am kept late. I'm sure it plays merry hell with his personal schedule, but he is exceedingly well paid for the inconvenience. I'd been surprised to find that a small perk of my job, somehow the prior me had browbeat the prior Fargo into approving the added expense as a condition to keeping me on.

However, tonight Brian's car was nowhere to be seen.

While I didn't mind Jack taking the initiative to send him home, I reflected that it might have been nice if one of them had seen fit to call and let ME know...

It was easy to get mad just then. The project was taking on a life of it's own, we were scared that it literally was. While that was exciting and had implications on the origins of life, it wasn't what we were studying! While my own faith wouldn't have been challenged overmuch by that, I knew Idha was having a hard time dealing with a few of our more excitable co-workers. As a devout Sikh, I knew she wasn't fully on board a few of her atheist peers.

I parked and grabbed my stuff from the car, walking slowly to the door. I let my anger build a little, but that all melted away as soon as I opened the door and walked inside.

There, lying sacked out on the sectional couch, lodged in the corner, was Jack Carter, Sheriff of Eureka, and my lover. He lay slouched down a bit with his chin resting on his chest, almost, but not quite, snoring. His sandy brown hair was slightly tousled, his uniform over shirt open, and his eyes were closed.

Cuddled up and lying across his chest, mouth open in a tiny baby snore was my youngest, Jenna. She was dressed in a pink flannel one piece, her cap was not fully on her head, probably dislodged during one shift or another. Her small form lying just as sacked out in boneless bliss. His right arm lay resting protectively around her, ensuring that she wouldn't slip.

I think my heart melted on the spot! I quietly shut the door and stood there in the entryway, just watching them sleep. If I had doubted his rightness or his fitness to be my lover, that chased away almost every one. The fear didn't leave me entirely, I'd lost loves too many times to be entirely comfortable with his chosen career, but I resolved then to take what I could for as long as I was allowed, and give in return if able.

His brown uniform undershirt was going to need some laundry time, I noted. They were both drooling just slightly. It was so cute.

I took what was offered and just enjoyed the view. Life could throw you from the most wonderful to the most awful events in the space of a few heartbeats. Believe me, I know first hand. When life, or maybe God, or maybe fate, offers you a chance to be part of something beautiful, take it and live it for all you're worth. You never know when the next heartbreak will land at your doorstep.

Life, of course, moved onward. I heard soft footsteps from up the stairs and turned slightly to see my eldest son Kevin, staring at the same scene, a bemused smile on his face. This time I choked up a little as I looked at him.

My little man, he'd be turning fourteen this year. His intelligent eyes flicked in my direction and he softly said "Hi, Mom."

I smiled back at him and whispered, "Hi, Honey."

"You missed Jack attempting to cook," he said with a grin.

I had to nearly kick myself to keep functioning. Sometimes it was hard to reconcile the differences in him with the past I'd known.

I'd spent almost the entirety of my son's life with a different Kevin. That sounds horrible, like some bad movie plot. It felt like it sometimes, like being a stranger in my own life. Jack and I, and a few others, were time travelers. Entirely by accident, but not without repercussion, we had traveled to the past, to the founding of Erureka in it's original incarnation as Camp Eureka, and made changes. It wasn't an intentional thing, the events were chaotic enough as it was, but when faced with a dying man I wasn't going to freeze and wait to see if time would repair itself. I had taken my oaths and I lived by them.

When we got back though, we'd brought another traveler along for the ride, and his absence created many changes in Eureka's past. Somehow in the middle of all of that one of those changes was my son. Shortly after he was born, Kevin was diagnosed with autism. It had been a crushing blow to me, and it had changed my life. Don, my husband, had died very shortly after that, and that changed my life yet again. I was left on my own to cope with this wonderful and challenging little boy, and to rear him in a world that had seemingly taken away his and my future in one cold uncaring moment.

Beyond his burden of autism, Kevin had been gifted with savantism, perhaps in exchange. As a doctor I know the two aren't linked fully, but they often seem to go together, enough so that the layperson would have labeled him an "idiot savant". As he had grown he had been reclusive and hyper-focused, but so intelligent it was frightening. His penchant for assigning things to dates and using math by age eight that was beyond some of the smartest people I knew was frightening at times.

It had been one of my first insights into Jack's character, how he had almost immediately bonded to Kevin. It had been Jack's insight and earnest cunning in the ways of people that had enabled Kevin to use that innate knowledge of his to actually save the town when Walter Perkins had almost doomed us all.

God, I hadn't thought about him or Susan in years...

But when we got back? The autism was gone. Kevin was, for lack of a better description, normal! He talked, he ran, he played! He even joked, and, according to Jack, filched his bacon quite often.

He was still brilliant though, his brain able to absorb data at a rate that was frightening. I honestly expected him to graduate high school next year without challenge, though he seemed quite willing to stick things out for the sake of friends. I hadn't reached the point yet that I was going to challenge that, not yet anyway.

"Oh great," he muttered, rolling his eyes. Teenagers; too cool to experience emotions! He smiled at me though and continued, "You're going all misty eyed again."

I laughed softly and nodded.

"Right," he said, "I'm just grabbing a water from the fridge. Dre's on a bio-break. We're trying to down the Lich Queen tonight. Want me to put Jenna to bed?"

I smiled at him and shook my head in the negative. "No, I'll take care of her. Thank you, Honey." I held out my arms for a hug and he grudgingly obliged with a muttered "love you" and then went to the kitchen. I felt like a part of me was going with him, he was growing up so fast and I jealously hoarded all the time I had left to me.

"Don't stay up too late, Kevin. You've got school tomorrow," I reminded him. He rolled his eyes again and grinned, grabbed his water, and disappeared back up stairs to his room.

I went over to the couch and sidled in next to Jack, careful not to jostle either him or Jenna too much. The soft rasp of his not-snore shifted and he moved a little. It seemed to be almost reflexive when he lifted his free arm and let me slide in underneath while immediately steadying Jenna with the other arm.

As his arm tightened over me I reveled in the sensations. He's a strong man, but almost not cognizant of it. It's as though it never occurs to him that he exudes so much raw power. I sunk into his warmth as he murmured "Hey", and I inhaled his scents. A raw and jumbled mix of them, from the polyester of the uniform to his natural smell, some of his deodorant and the vague memories of leftover sweat.

I never intended to fall asleep, but once there I just automatically gave in to the tiredness while sheltered in his arms and close to my daughter.

It felt too wonderful.

Disclaimer: I don't own Eureka, it's characters, or its concepts, I'm just playing for fun and an educational experience.

Author's Notes: This takes place sometime before "Way of the Gun", my own story, and episode 4x09 "I'll Be Seeing You."

This marks the first time I've tried to write first person from a female perspective. It was... well lets put it at "challenging" because I would notice different things or think differently. In many ways 1st person is a greater challenge when the narrative viewpoint isn't that close to you. I hope that I both convey Allison's character and her composure in a suitable fashion, but ultimately that will be up to the rest of you to tell me.

Please review and give me some feedback, especially if I didn't pull it off!