Drabble #007:
Partnership
Her partnership with Jake is nothing like the one she had with Danny. It's in those first few days the differences are most glaringly apparent to her.
Danny was always wise-craking, but supportive; Jake flirted his way through conversations and did as he was told.
There were no secrets between Danny and herself--no real ones, anyway. She knew all the troubles that plagued his marriage, his career; he knew her sore spots, about her father and her relationship with Maria.
Jake knew only what he'd heard in the squad room and what he could dig up in the personnel files. He asked questions that made her angry and posed theories that pissed her off.
And while she and Danny always checked in with each other, making sure to keep in touch, she and Jake could go for twelve or fifteen hours at a time without word.
It was obvious that Jake was never going to be Danny. The messy desk and the nice apartment; the sunshine smile and the too-blunt offers.
Not like Danny with his organized clutter and dingy, love-filled apartment; his crooked, secret smile and the innuendos that never became more.
No, Jake would never replace Danny. One cannot become what one was never meant to be on one's own. It sounded so much like one of Danny's fortune-cookie proverbs that Sara felt tears burn behind her eyes.
Above all those things, though, it was the early morning banter and their shared cup of life-saving coffee that she missed most.
And his smile when he said, "You need it more than I do."