A/N: It's a little non-canonical – I've ignored some things from the later seasons or twisted them around for my purposes.
Happy reading!
Disclaimer: Don't own the characters, not making money, etc. etc.
Home.
Jane hasn't spent more than a few nights there during the last two weeks. A double homicide on the heels of a case that was only growing colder left little room to dabble in casual amenities like hot meals, long showers, and sleep. Only now, as those cases have finally come to a close and all that's left is paperwork, she pulls into the parking lot of her building for more than just a change of clothes and a five-minute shower.
She shifts into park but stays seated. Her whole body aches – from the steady pulsating pain behind her eyes, to the tension in her shoulders and lower back, all the way down to her feet. She knows she shouldn't push herself so hard, knows she can't keep doing this to her body forever. But, being aware of her short comings, and overcoming them are two very different things. She's never been good with limits, especially not her own. And since Frost…everything is just that much harder.
She rests her forehead against the steering wheel.
It's been years now, working cases without Frost's steady presence, but it still feels new. There are some days where his absence catches her so off guard it leaves her breathless. She'll turn in the middle of a sentence, finger half-raised towards the murder board, ready to ask him to work his magic – and her voice dies in the back of her throat and her heart sinks because oh.
These last few weeks have been filled with moments exactly like that, and her heart feels heavier than usual.
The car door swings wide as she opens it. She nearly sways on her feet as she stands and has to brace herself against the hood of the car for a moment before she can walk inside the building.
Darkness and silence are the only things that greet her as she opens the door to her apartment. Her blazer lands on the back of the couch. She kicks off her boots, untucks her shirt, and gently tosses her gear one piece at a time onto the coffee table. Her stomach growls, reminding her of the meals she's skipped. She shuffles towards the kitchen pulling a bowl from one of the cabinets. She fills it with cereal and makes sure to sniff the milk before pouring it on top. Grabbing a beer, she settles onto the couch with a sigh. The cushions feel like heaven against her aching back. She scoops her spoon into her cereal as her mind drifts.
This…is life.
She rests her head against the back of the couch, eyeing the ceiling wearily. She doesn't know where this melancholy mood is coming from. She only knows she doesn't have the energy tonight to stop the sadness from creeping up her spine. It settles, and burrows down deep inside her veins.
She swallows thickly as she stirs her cereal.
She should consider herself lucky.
These moments when her natural solitude and fierce independence collide with the demands of her job to create a disquiet so loud in her bones that it's overwhelming – are rare.
During the last few weeks she has spent more time with the dead than the living. She's forgotten what it feels like to come home to nothing but quiet. It makes a part of her ache for something else – something like companionship, a ready to eat meal, and a warm smile. It's a daydream she doesn't allow herself to divulge in very often. It feels overly sentimental, overly emotional – something she knows she wants, but refuses to acknowledge that she does. Because she's tried and failed in that arena too many times for her liking.
She's not naïve enough to think that her personality has nothing to do with it. She's brash. She's reckless. She has too many sharp parts, is too rough around the edges, and has none of the will to polish, she knows.
But the job.
It always comes back to the job.
Being a cop is all Jane has wanted from life. Ever since career day in elementary school and seeing that officer in full regalia – something about the uniform, the presence, snagged her heart, much to the horror of her mother.
It's been just over twenty years and she knows, despite the ache in her bones, she's got another twenty left in her at the very least.
Sometimes, that thought is incredibly exciting. It's amazing knowing she gets to wake up and live her childhood dreams.
But there are other times – like this moment where she sits alone in her dark living room after a taxing month – where the mere thought of just one more year is terrifyingly crushing. When gruesome case after gruesome case lands across her desk. When she has to explain to children and parents and brothers and sisters and best friends and spouses and so on and so on that something nefarious happened to their loved one. When the unit is on a losing streak. When they have more open cases than closed ones, and leads are few and far between.
The days can be hard, and the job wholly unforgiving.
There are not a whole lot of people that understand her position. They don't know the details – the horror, and the absolute rightness that comes once justice is served.
She had thought Casey understood. They were cut from the same cloth, she thought. Both of them, built to serve, but that doesn't quite translate to built for relationships. The seemingly never ending list of coworkers going through divorces and separations is proof enough.
It should've worked with Casey. But it didn't. And she plays the years she wasted on him over and over in her mind, trying to pinpoint just where it was that things began to unravel, where she went wrong.
He was everything she was supposed to want. But didn't.
He was tall, handsome, brave – the epitome of the prince in all of the stories her mother told her as a child. They spoke of nothing but handsome princes and beautiful princesses. The two always found each other, always fell madly in love in the blink of an eye.
But life – real life – is not a fairy tale.
A fact she knew at a tender age when she could hear glass shattering in the kitchen and the raised voices of her parents arguing with each other night after night.
And maybe it was the missing authenticity in the words, but Jane has always been more interested in the thrilling heroics rather than the love story. She can remember sitting in her pink canopy bed, wide eyed and hopeful, as she asked question after question. She wanted to know everything – what his sword looked like, how heavy it was, how fast his noble steed galloped, if the dragon breathed fire, if the prince had help.
The questions were endless.
Action was something tangible, something she could easily understand. Whereas, even now, well into adulthood, the world of romance is one she doesn't grasp so easily. It involves too many hidden messages, too many games, and she's always felt as if she's playing with a different rule book than everyone else.
The last time she dipped her toe into the dating world still burns in the back of her mind. She knows now, that what she felt for Casey was not love. At least, it wasn't the kind of love her mother told her about.
The marriage proposal, the pregnancy, the miscarriage – it was nothing of a life she wanted, and yet one she found herself living. And here, at the end of it all, she's still alone. With nothing to show for her trouble except even more trauma the department shrink had her unpacking for months before he finally cleared her. Again.
The whole thing nearly derailed her life and her career, and she wants – needs – to get everything back on track. She's still reeling from the experience.
Jane heaves a great sigh as she shakes her head. She doesn't want to think about any of this. She doesn't need to be digging up ghosts on top of all of the other thoughts going through her head tonight.
She pours her half-eaten bowl of cereal down the drain. She looks into her empty living room with a sigh. She shakes her head and heads toward her bedroom.
After her nightly routine, she pulls the covers down and slides under the cool sheets. She stares at her ceiling. Sometime in the middle of the night she falls into a restless slumber.
She wakes up an hour before her alarm in a cold sweat, her heart racing. The sheets are twisted around her body like a strait jacket. The last dredges of her nightmare spread at the forefront of her mind – she's pinned down by something she can't see and there's a man with sandy hair, blue eyes, and a smirk leaning over her prone form. The image fades before she can fully grasp a face, but she's had this nightmare enough to know it's either Hoyt or Casey or some weird hybrid of the two. She pinches the bridge of her nose, as she tries to get her breathing under control.
A/N: I'm planning for this thing to be five chapters. I have the first three fully written and edited, the last two are drafted - they need a bit of polishing though. I'm aiming to update once a week until it's finished.
This story makes me incredibly nervous to post. I've been working on it forever and I really I hope I got it right. I am asexual so if you have any questions or comments about asexuality you can always ask me here or over on tumblr under the name socks-lost thank you!