DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the Chicago PD, Fire or Med characters, only my OCs!
Jay had found himself struggling time and time again with what happened to Marcus West in the following week. His personal guilty conscience was eating him alive, no matter how hard he tried to bury it.
His sleeping disorder was flaring up again, of course it was. Because he didn't want to resort to taking sleeping pills, cause they were usually making him drowsy and tired the next day too, he kept exhausting himself with work and physical exercise after work and mostly took more than one nightcap of bourbon to take the edge off. He was extremely thankful for the Intelligence workload once again and that there wasn't a day going by he got to leave at a reasonable hour. Even though she got a full plate at work as well, Rianne had been checking in with him regularly, shooting him a text, popping by the station for a quick coffee-break or meeting him on his running route one morning. That had been a one-time experiment though because she claimed there was not a single competitive bone inside of her that would aid her to even try to keep up with him fitness-level wise. He appreciated that she tried to be there for him and didn't give him the impression she now thought he was a mental case. Still Jay managed to feel guilty about her maybe feeling obligated to keep him from falling over the edge, after having witnessed his breakdown last week, as well. They never saw each other at night though. Part of him would have wanted Rianne to sleep over at his place or crash at hers every night to just have someone to hold on to. But he felt this was still a barrier between them he didn't want to push for that reason alone. And in addition to the time frame problem he didn't fully trust himself at the moment.
Instead when he went to sleep Jay kept hearing Marcus scream at him:
"It ain't me man, I told you it ain't me!" It was hard to forget the look on that man's face when Jay had left him at county. It was haunting him.
On an impulse he visited his graveside, one week after his death. Jay wanted to pay his respects, promising to himself that he would not ever forget what he had caused. How quickly one false move could change not only one, but several lives forever.
He didn't even have to fake the tears. They were falling the second he took in Marcus' name on the simple cross placed on his freshly heaped up grave. It was like the reality of this, of his actions, hit him square in the face once more. Hoping no one was watching him Jay knelt down at the graveside and ran his fingers along the inscription, silently apologizing that he got it all so wrong.
"Hey, you! What do you think you're doing here?"
Jay turned around nervously. A black woman in her 30s stood behind him, a thin little boy next to her, staring at him like the invader he was. He knew from Marcus' file that this were his wife and kid.
Trying to reign in his sudden rapid heartbeat and control the urge to fall down on his knees and beg for their forgiveness, Jay looked Angela Nelson in the eyes for a minute. Then he stood up from the ground and walked over to them. Before he could really stop himself he said:
"I'm sorry, but I knew him. He was a good man. I'm Jim by the way, nice to meet you!"
She tentatively reached for his outstretched hand and shook it, a thousand questions written all over her face.
Rianne climbed out of the water soaking wet and was hurrying up to her camper and get changed into something dry, when she noticed a familiar truck parked a few feet away from it in the lot. Jay was leaning against the hood, denim legs crossed cooly and holding two cups of steaming coffee. He walked up to her when she got near, smiling cheekily:
"I just needed to see for myself if this is really what you are doing every Friday morning!"
"So, you thought you'd swing by and spy on me?"
"Just a stop for coffee and a quick peak… Got you one as well. Seems like you could use something hot. That water must be freezing cold this early in the morning!" He motioned to her wet figure.
"Oh, how thoughtful of you! It's actually not that bad, makes for a fresh start into the day!"
She shook out her wet hair in his direction, before she put her board and paddle into one hand and arm and reached for the offered coffee:
"I feel maybe Mr. Mistrust was on a roll again and now you feel bad because you erroneously thought I was lying to get out of your bed last Friday!"
"You're crazy! That would have been a pretty complex lie. And you said you're not good at that anyway…"
She shrugged her shoulders and greedily took a sip of the hot beverage, smiling appreciatively after: "Oh wow, this is really good."
"Cappuccino, extra espresso shot, tiny bit of sugar, full fat milk."
"You remembered. I am impressed with your skills Detective Halstead."
"You're welcome! I am afraid I have an agenda though…"
"Yeah… and which one would that be?"
Rianne was a bit surprised when he just smiled, reached out to touch her cheek, for the whole wide world to see and leaned in to kiss her softly on the lips. Afterwards he lingered a little bit longer, just looking at her face which made her kind of nervous. That show of public affection sure had been a first. Her usually witty tongue failed her for a moment.
"I was hoping you would forgive me that I had to cancel on lunch yesterday and that we generally haven't had any real 'alone' time together…"
He still held her close to him, even though she was getting his clothes all wet too.
"Jay, we agreed we would keep seeing each other, but I was not expecting you to call and see me everyday. So, we're all good! But you can keep bringing me coffee if it somehow eases your conscience. I will not complain!"
"Yeah, I know. And I know you can just as well get by without any of this as you keep hinting but I feel after what happened I…"
"Stop it, please! We've been over this. I am not the poor little girl that's going to get broken by this and I will decide for myself how much I can handle! I can relate to how you felt that night and I really hope you're doing better now! You don't have to keep making amends. By the way you'll know when I am mad at you for neglecting me!"
"I get the feeling I will…" Rianne was glad he cracked a genuine smile and didn't look quite so contrite anymore.
"I should get myself dried off…" she hinted at her wet clothes, because she was beginning to shiver slightly in the fresh breeze of this morning.
"Yeah, of course. And I should go pick up Kim."
"Thanks for the coffee Officer and have a good day!"
"You too!" He didn't kiss her goodbye like she had expected he would, he just squeezed her waist softly. Sometimes he was difficult to get.
Annoyed because she got the feeling he was testing the grounds with her to see how she would react and beat her at her own game, she groaned a bit in his back. Mostly because she just could not let him go like that. Rianne let her board and paddle fall to the ground, put down her precious cup of coffee next to it and ran up to Jay who had already put a few long strides between them. Rianne reached for his hand from behind him, tugged at it and made him turn around again. He wore a broad smile on his lips. Bastard! So he was really doing this on purpose!
"You forgot something?" He even had the audacity to wink at her.
Pulling him closer with her arms around his lean waist, getting him even wetter, she leaned up to him and got on her toes to give his lips a proper goodbye. If only kissing this man wasn't so much fun!
"You did that on purpose to smoke me out!" She bit his lip a little before she let him go.
It was good to see a bit of the usual sexy sparkle in his green eyes when he answered her:
"Mission accomplished then, wouldn't you say?"
He kissed her again, still a bit tamer than he normally did, but nonetheless knee-buckling enough for her taste.
"My work schedule is a nightmare at the moment and I have picked up a few shifts at Molly's next week too. But if you want you could swing by and stay until closing? And don't get wasted before last call this time… if you get the hint…"
Pushing her hands under his jacket and shirt she was able to reach a little bit of naked skin on his back, making him shiver at the sudden skin-on-skin contact and because of her cold hands.
"Sounds perfect…" he answered hoarsely and with one last peck on her lips Jay made his way to his truck.
"Hm… If this is what: 'this is just sex' looks like, then I definitely had the wrong understanding of that term until now…"
Stella mused when she approached Rianne after Jay had left, smiling and waving at them both before he got into his car.
Rianne had been staring after him dreamily before her friend addressed her and put her arm around her shoulder. Just hearing about it was different from actually seeing these two together. Everything about them screamed: Major crush! Even if Rianne had claimed that this was not a relationship! Right…
"Yeah… He came to apologize because he has had so little time this week…" Rianne said incredulously.
"Good on him - I wish Kelly would apologize more for being so crazy busy at the moment…"
Kelly had just started his new job at the Office of Fire Investigation. Although he wasn't really the white collar and tie kind of guy, this was a great opportunity for him and he was really good at it too. But it also meant he and Stella wouldn't get to see each other at work quite as much as they were used to.
"Yeah…this is… getting a bit more complicated than I thought…"
Rianne was obviously not sure if she did handle this well.
"Why complicated? Go with the flow… and let go! You heard what our instructor just taught and told us! Be a true yogi!"
"Yeah, and going with the flow got me falling into the Lake today!"
She motioned at her wet self. Stella giggled before she saw Rianne's mocking expression directed at her.
Both women enjoyed their yoga and did believe it brought them often much needed peace of mind. But neither of them would call themselves hardcore, fully relaxed and fully committed yogis. They wouldn't even consider themselves real pros at the different asanas. Sometimes they felt a bit out of place with the die-hard participants of the class. At least they were always able to have a good laugh about it afterwards though.
Because they both had the whole morning off until noon and this had probably been their last water session of the year, as temperatures were falling and Rianne would be out of town most of the time in the following weeks, they decided to go for breakfast at one of their favorite joints, "Beatrix" in Rianne's neighborhood.
They settled for the full breakfast menu to divide between the two of them. Stella could take all the energy sources she could get at the moment and claimed that Rianne had lost several pounds over the last weeks. Their topics circulated around men and work and men. Stella enjoyed the fact that this was actually possible again. She wanted to give something back. Even in her darkest hours Rianne had always been there for first Stella's Grant drama (her ex-husband) and then her Kelly drama, Kelly's and her breakup drama and then her Kelly relationship drama again. Being able to discuss a new guy in Rianne's life was a whole new world she was already loving to bits.
At first Stella vented about her lasting exhaustion because of her new second job as an instructor at the Chicago Fire Academy. She was working double shifts right now. Especially as the instructor's job was a very physical one, Stella had been extremely tired lately and even gotten told off by Matt, because she was not fully focussed on her main job, almost causing two calls to go wrong. Thankfully they had been able to work it out for the moment, but Stella felt she was in a tough spot. Living and working together wasn't always such a stressless thing and she didn't want to disappoint anyone as she felt this was a great chance to prove her worth to her Chief and her Captain.
So this morning's distraction and downtime was very welcome. Finally they moved on to the things on Rianne's mind, still wolfing their way through the breakfast menu.
"I just wish we could have stayed in that: 'just sex bubble' longer," Rianne sighed at one point, when they had covered her work stress too.
"I don't think you can be in a 'just sex' arrangement with anyone baby."
"Why the fuck not?" Rianne exclaimed, mouth full of her omelette.
"Because you're wired through the heart! You cannot not care about people. It's just not in your nature."
"But I thought I had it under control."
"Bullshit! You were lost the moment he kissed you and got you hooked on that lop-sided smile and those dreamy eyes and that sculpted body…maybe even before when he was always arguing with you in that heated and sexy way…" Stella was already thinking of more embarrassing things to put on her list.
"Stop it! You make it sound like I only wanted him for his looks…"
Rianne laughed, kicking her under the table.
"Are you blushing? Oh my god - I thought I wouldn't live to see the day…"
"Come on now, I am not…"
Rianne's hands went to her face to check her cheeks, which indeed were a little flushed, Stella wasn't completely kidding her.
"Yes, you are… I think you really got it bad for him. And even if it was just for his looks: I would not be judging, in fact I would always support you. So what's the hold-up?" Stella was really wondering when that woman would get it into her thick head that she didn't have to pretend anymore with her and just go be with Jay, fully committed and not wait on some kind of insurance policy.
"I might have just wanted a nice guy, no baggage…or even stayed single for the rest of my life…"
"No, you wouldn't have wanted that! What a waste would that be for crying out loud? And there's not a single person without baggage. Believe me: You wouldn't have lasted a second with a man that's somehow just carefree and simple. You'd be bored out of your mind."
"Are you saying I am a sucker for drama just like you?"
"I guess it's time you face the ugly truth Torres: That's exactly what I am saying!"
For a minute they were quiet, drinking their lattes and Rianne had that special look on her face when she tried to decide if she wanted to cough up to something serious or keep it to herself. So Stella went out on a limp by making a little speech:
"Look, I know he's your first one after Andrea, but your hubby was not the saint everybody made him out to be and you of all people very well knew that before. So you don't have to be a saint either. You've placed him on that pedestal way up high so that no one could compare to him after he died. And of course in some way no one can, but I feel you've begun to move on from that vision and in my humble opinion it feels like you're beginning to be okay with it and that's fine. You know better than anyone that here have been ups and downs for Andrea and you and there certainly would have been some heavy bumps in the road in the future. Especially with the responsibility that comes with parenthood and marriage long term. You were the organized and reliable one, he was the chaotic, eccentric artist, you had the save job, he was jumping from one opportunity to the next. Yes, he was full of life and absolutely fun to have around, loyal to a pin, but he also tended to get overwhelmed by his every day tasks and went through more than one existential crisis. You always had to get him back up and while he showed you how to let loose, you had to get his feet back on the ground every now and then. I don't know Jay that well but I'm sure you can be something for each other, I even think you already are. It's just a whole different story than it was with Andrea, I guess."
Stella knew in a way Andrea had been Rianne's late revolution against her parents to a great extent, even though they mostly weren't close enough to have an opinion and a say in the matter. But Rianne had known from the beginning they would not approve of him because of oh so many things. In the end they hadn't even attended their wedding.
All those years back Jay wouldn't have really been Rianne's type. Where Jay was clean cut and settled, Andrea had been unruly and wild and she had searched for that in her twenties, thrived from someone who was so different from her own family.
Deep inside her heart Stella knew that there was more of an equilibrium between Jay and Rianne than there ever had been between her and Andrea, because he hadn't grown-up in the same time she had.
Her friend didn't say anything after she'd put this on the table, but the silence and the tears threatening to fall from her eyes told Stella that she had hit a nerve.
AN: So I guess I felt like it was good to have a general girl-talk now and tell things from another perspective. Thanks for all the kind reviews you left last time and I hope you keep on reading. Happy Chicago Wednesday :-*