The air in the Hudson house smelled distinctly of Christmas — cinnamon rolls, holly, spruce, and just a hint of pumpkin. Jack stared up at the ceiling in his childhood bedroom, and thought how it was odd that the scent could be both achingly familiarly and yet strangely foreign.
There was something about lying in the bed from his adolescence — his sister and her husband in the room next door, his parents down the hall — that made him feel like a teenager dealing with his first crush on a girl, and not the experienced man of 34 and accomplished FBI agent that he actually was. How many nights had he lain awake in this very spot, imagining constellations in the popcorn ceiling, thinking about Allie? Or some other girl he'd had a passing interest in? Too many to count, probably.
What was it about being a teenager — that rush of feelings that overwhelms your every thought when the girl you like simply glances in your direction — that makes who-likes-who seem like the most supremely important thing in the world?
He blinked in the darkness, trying and failing to not think about one Susan Thomas, and the smile that lit up her face when he'd last seen her just a few short hours ago — beaming up at him, shining light into the dark corners of his soul.
She was too kind, too sweet, too good for this world.
All he'd done was sign two simple words — HAPPY CHRISTMAS — but the joy that had shone out of her radiant face in response and you'd have thought he'd given her the moon.
Since the very moment he first laid eyes on her — charging into the Domestic Terrorism bullpen with Levi in tow, demanding a transfer and to be taken seriously — only to leave awkwardly, a deep blush staining her cheeks, when she realized she was in the wrong office — he'd been completely and utterly captivated. Entranced.
He'd sought her out at lunch that first day — it was as good a guess as any that as a newbie she'd eat in the cafeteria — he used Levi as an excuse, saying something lame about dogs that he couldn't even remember now; but the truth was that there was something about her, something that he couldn't quite put his finger on, but something... something inside of him that insisted he had to meet her. Had to know her.
Jack considered himself to be a fairly practical guy — he'd never been overly sentimental or romantic — certainly he'd never believed in love at first sight. (He supposed that somewhere in the back of his mind he always assumed that someday, eventually, he would settle down with Allie, when both of their careers slowed down enough that they actually had the time to devote to a serious relationship.)
But now — faced with a barrage of emotions he was uncertain he'd ever felt before — Jack was forced to admit that he wasn't sure of anything at all.
In fact, the only thing he could be certain of was that in the six months since he'd met Sue Thomas, Jack felt his life changing focus — turning upside down; his path shifting into something new and unfamiliar. For the first time in his life the plan was unclear, and he wasn't sure where he was going, what he was doing, or even, really, what he wanted.
He tossed and turned for most of the night, sleeping fitfully when he managed to sleep at all.
When he did sleep, he dreamed he was on a gravel path, walking through a forest — when he suddenly reached a point where a second path jutted off to the side from the first. The way had been mostly straight and easy until then — safe — and he could see so far ahead that he thought he knew where it was going; but the path that diverged from the first had been hidden by a copse of trees, so that he he couldn't see it until he was nearly right on top of it. The new path was denser than the first — a littler darker — but with the most beautiful golden rays of sunshine he'd ever seen filtering down through the leaves high above. The flowers that way seemed wilder and more colorful, the grass greener, the bird songs louder — but it was also curved, and dipped down into a low hill, so that he couldn't see much beyond the start of it into the valley beyond.
He stood at the intersection — frozen and uncertain — paralyzed with indecision, until eventually he woke up.
Jack blinked up at his ceiling in the darkness — 4:15am and he was wide awake. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes as the last vestiges of the strange, bright dream slipped into the ether of his mind. He sighed, rolling out of bed and slipping silently into the hall outside his room, knowing there was no way he was going to be able to find unconsciousness again this night.