Favourite Person
Punk walked into the kitchen later on one night during their vacation, smiling as he leaned against the door and watched as AJ dished out their dinner, noticing her hips swaying a little with the music in the background from the radio. To see her have that sort of peacefulness in her life somehow after all she'd been through was a blessing to him, and he could have watched it all night.
"I like your dress." Punk smiled as AJ jumped a little, not noticing he was there.
"Oh." AJ turned to him with a smile.
"I remember you wearing it on our honeymoon." He nodded as she smiled.
"Do you want to eat outside?" She asked him as he nodded.
"Sure." He smiled, walking over to her, kissing her cheek before grabbing their dinner whilst she got some cutlery and other things to take out with them.
"We've been here a week and I'm still in awe of that lake, honestly." AJ shook her head. Every time she walked out of their vacation home, she just had to pause and look at the view in front of her for a few seconds. She couldn't get enough of it.
"It's not terrible to look at, huh?" Punk nodded.
"Not at all." AJ said, sitting down at the table on the porch where some lights were surrounding.
They'd spent their first week just relaxing. Sitting outside with each other. Taking strolls around the lake. Having dinner outside every night. Chatting and hearing their own thoughts. It was bliss.
"I wonder if you can buy these little houses." Punk said.
"No, they're strictly vacation homes I think." AJ nodded to him, "And if you could buy them, they'd be worth so much money with a view like this." She shook her head.
"Not in our price range?" Punk smiled.
"Don't think so." AJ shook her head, "Let's face it, I think you and I are done with moving house." She nodded.
"We only moved once. I think we did ok." Punk shrugged.
"We did." AJ smiled, "Anything was gonna be better than the apartment."
"Ahh yes, the old faithful ten beef." Punk nodded, "Why did Thea even call it that?"
"Cause she was three." AJ laughed as Punk nodded, "Bless her, she never knew any different."
"Yeah she hated the new house when we moved in, remember? She didn't like sleeping in her own room." Punk nodded.
"Well she was used to us sleeping in the same room as her." AJ nodded, "I think those apartments are probably gonna get knocked down soon. I don't even know if anyone lives there anymore." She admitted.
"Probably not." Punk shook his head, "You know it makes me smile to see you relaxing here." He nodded to her, "Waking up and finding you out here with coffee and your book. Or watching you whilst we're walking around the lake." He said as she smiled.
"Well it's not a bad set up we have here." AJ nodded to him, "It's just nice to be away from everything. Just be the two of us again. Without all the noise." She said as Punk nodded.
"It is." He smiled.
"And I promise you, I'm gonna get into the lake tonight." AJ nodded to him as he chuckled.
"You've said that every night." Punk shook his head.
"Well I really mean it this time." AJ smiled.
"Hey, you don't normally go for a run this late." Sean said, watching as Jude came into the house late on one night in her gym clothes after going for a run.
"I never went this morning." Jude told him, "Did the girls go down ok?" She asked, walking into the kitchen as Sean followed her.
"Yeah, they were fine." Sean said, "I thought you didn't like running at night." He said, watching her fill her water bottle.
"I don't, but… I didn't go this morning because I woke up late and I know if I didn't go at all today I'd be lying in bed tonight thinking about it." She nodded to him.
"You're allowed to have a break, you know." Sean nodded.
"I know." She smiled, "But it's good for me. You know I don't do it for fitness purposes." She said.
"I know that." Sean understood.
"After a house or a bedroom, the most common place a woman is assaulted is whilst commuting to somewhere, going to work, coming home from the bar, going for a run…" She nodded, "That's why I try not do it at night time." She said as Sean nodded.
"Well I made dinner. Make sure you eat." Sean nodded, "Can't be doing all that running on the iced coffee and bagel diet." He looked at her unhappily as Jude rolled her eyes.
"You're worse than my mom." She scoffed as he smiled.
"You heard from them?" Sean asked her.
"No. And I don't need to. We all don't need to. I agreed with Thea and Cassie that we should just let them be on this vacation. God knows they need it." Jude nodded.
"Yeah, they do." Sean agreed.
"How was your day?" Jude asked him.
"It was… fine." Sean shrugged.
"Just fine?" She asked, taking out a breakfast snack bar from the pantry as Sean scoffed.
"It's not breakfast time." Sean said.
"I'm aware." She nodded, "Why the lack of enthusiasm?" She asked him.
"It was just a slow day." Sean nodded to her, "And… I found out something and I don't know what to do about it."
"What'd you find out?" Jude asked him.
"Well, you hear me speaking about Pete sometimes, right? I think you met him once at the station." Sean said.
"Yeah… Yeah, I can picture his face." Jude nodded.
"Yeah, he's cheating on his wife." Sean said as Jude raised her eyebrows.
"How'd you find that out?" Jude asked him.
"He told me." Sean shook his head, "It just came about, he mentioned having a rocky relationship with his wife, all this stuff I didn't need to know." He groaned.
"Well did you say something to him? Like hey, Pete you're a piece of shit?" Jude suggested.
"Well yeah, more or less." Sean said, "Once he saw how mad I was and how serious I was taking it, he was trying to then tell me that his wife knew, and that they were in an open relationship." He rolled his eyes.
"Oh, yeah. I was in one of them." Jude nodded.
"What?" Sean raised his eyebrows.
"Yeah, just… the guy I was dating forgot to tell me about it." Jude said as Sean nodded.
"Right." He laughed a little.
"It's fine, though. My dad and uncle beat him up." She shrugged as he laughed a little, "So what are you gonna do?" She asked him.
"Nothing. It's none of my business. I just felt so uncomfortable. He kept saying it to me like… like he wanted me to relate to him." He said, "As soon as I started saying how much I value you and love you, and couldn't think of doing anything to ever hurt you, he started getting flustered and talking about his wife probably knowing anyway."
"Oh, what a piece of shit." Jude nodded, "Yeah, you probably shouldn't associate with him anymore."
"Definitely not." Sean shook his head.
"I mean, it's bad enough cheating but to talk about it out loud." Jude shook her head.
"Probably the one thing I miss about working with the Chicago PD. Everyone was just a little bit nicer. Little bit." Sean nodded.
"Oh, but I thought you didn't wanna move back to Chicago." She teased.
"I don't." He laughed a little, "Where do you stand on that matter?"
"I think I was just missing my family and wanted to be there for them more. Now it's sort of passed, and they're all doing ok again, I don't have the desire to move at all." She laughed a little.
"And you think I don't know you better than you know you." Sean scoffed.
"Oh, I will not lower myself to say you were right. Absolutely not." She teased as he smiled, wrapping his arms around her waist as she giggled, feeling him kiss her neck as they messed around in the kitchen.
"My little brother wants to know if we want to go to his for dinner tomorrow night?" Dominic asked Thea who was sat at the kitchen table reading a book with some coffee, enjoying the quiet time she got after the kids went to bed.
"He's not normally that social." Thea laughed a little.
"Well he's trying, I guess." Dominic nodded.
"Of course we can go." Thea nodded, "I love annoying him." She chuckled to herself as Dominic smiled.
"How's the book?" Dominic asked her, sitting down and filling in some paper work for clients.
"Juicy." Thea said, "I'm glad Jude got me to start reading again. I forgot how much I enjoyed it." She realised. Through the course of her stay in rehab, she'd managed to pick up reading novels again, and was doing her best to keep it up.
"When did you read before?" Dominic asked her.
"When I was young. Thirteen, fourteen." She nodded, "Jackson would make fun of me for it and then I… I slowly stopped it." She said as Dominic looked over at her.
"He probably wasn't capable of reading two sentences." Dominic shook his head.
"I forgot how much I loved it. I make sure I do it a little every night. Even if I just manage a few pages." She said.
"Well if you enjoy it, I think it's good." Dominic smiled.
"I'm actually thinking about possibly going back to full-time work." She told him as he looked over at her.
"Are you ready for that?" Dominic asked her.
"I think so." Thea nodded, "I've spoken to my therapist about it and she thinks I'm ready. I think I'm ready." She said positively.
"As long as you don't think it'll be too much." Dominic said, "I trust your judgement, and I… I think you're ready too. I know you hate it when people say to you that you're doing good, but you are. And I know it's not been easy. I know you've had your moments. I've been there." He nodded, "But I think you're stronger for it." He nodded as she smiled.
"I do too." She nodded truthfully.
"I mean… you're making friends and everything." He nodded as she chuckled a little.
"It's like I'm starting school all over again." Thea chuckled a little, "It's just been weird to live with this illness now. I mean… it's always been there, clearly. But to acknowledge now and realise that it's there and at times it's trying to get the best of me… sometimes I just feel like an entirely different person." She nodded, "And I can't tell if it's good or bad."
"You're the same Thea you've always been." Dominic assured her, "I think… I think you just got the proper help that you should have gotten years ago." He nodded.
"Yeah, probably." Thea nodded, "I'm actually meeting Lucia again next week for lunch."
"That's good." Dominic smiled, "What do you talk about? Girl stuff?" He teased as she rolled her eyes.
"You're such a guy." She nodded as he laughed a little, "We talk about everything. She's so easy to talk to. So nice." She nodded.
"Well she came thinking she was gonna get a father and instead she's gotten a good friend." Dominic shrugged, "Not a bad deal."
"We kinda grew up with similar lives, actually." Thea said, "Good relationship with our moms. Absent father. Shady people, shady business." She nodded, "And somehow we… we turned out ok. Well… I turned out ok eventually." She scoffed.
"You turned out ok." Dominic nodded, "Something pretty cool about that, don't you think?" He asked her, "The way your mom and dad were brought up, what they did to make a living at times… and what came from that was three girls, three smart girls. Doctor, Artist, Cop. Know their right from wrong."
"Well… the cycle's gotta break eventually." Thea nodded, "My mom and dad broke it. Not me and my sisters." She shook her head, "I mean I could have been stuck in that rotten apartment with them for longer but they got me out of there, got themselves out of there, cause they wanted better." She said, "I mean… my mom would go to college and then she'd go to work every night. My dad would do the most insane shifts at the docks. They got their priorities straight. It's just a shame that things had to come back and bite them." She shook her head.
"You think it was you?" Dominic asked, "Was it you that made them change?"
"I don't think so. I think they grew up." Thea said, "I think I was just a catalyst for them." She nodded.
"It's a wonder how they're such good parents when they… they didn't have anyone to look up to." Dominic said.
"Your parents died when you were young and you're an amazing father." Thea pointed.
"I stayed with my aunt and uncle, though. I got that sort of… parental guidance from them." Dominic said as she nodded, "I mean your parents really had nothing."
"Maybe that's why they're so good. Maybe they're just being what they wished they had. Cause they know the feeling of being disappointed, being let down, being abandoned and hurt. And I think they've done everything they could to make sure me and my sisters never feel that." She nodded.
"Yeah, I think you're right." Dominic nodded.
"It's just sad because… Sam without all the drugs and the alcohol and the men… I think she would have been a great mom." Thea nodded, "She was giving such a shitty hand in life. She could have been an amazing mother."
"Maybe you think that just because you were close with her." Dominic said.
"Exactly. I was close to her and she had the ability to care about people. I know she did. And I know she loved my dad and Dean. She just… she never got the chance to be a mom so she didn't know how to act around them." She shook her head.
"You miss her?" Dominic nodded.
"Yeah." Thea said, "Every day." She shook her head.
"She'd be proud of you." Dominic said.
"She would have had a field day with the borderline personality disorder." Thea laughed to herself, "She'd be telling me it's a hoax."
"Of course she would." Dominic shook his head as Thea smiled.
"You're distracting me from my book." She scolded.
"Sorry." He chuckled, watching as she smiled, looking back at her book. She was his biggest inspiration.
"We've walked down here every night and I still can't get enough of it." AJ shook her head, walking around the lake with Punk, holding his hand as she looked out at the lake.
"It's not bad thing to look at." Punk nodded.
"Do you think the girls would be mad if we just moved here?" AJ asked.
"And didn't tell them?" Punk laughed a little, "Probably, yeah."
"It's just better than waking up and looking at concrete." She said, "When we retire, I say we come here for like… six months out of the year."
"Ok, we got money but we don't got that kind of money." Punk reminded her as she chuckled, "When we retire… there's a scary sentence."
"Doesn't sound scary to me. Sounds lovely to me." AJ nodded.
"Would be kinda weird waking up every day and not having anywhere to be." Punk said.
"Yeah but we'd be waking up together and we'd have time to do whatever we want." She smiled, hugging into his arm, "Spend time with the grandbabies, go travelling somewhere different, decorate the house."
"Sounds like you've been thinking about this." Punk said.
"Not much, actually." AJ said.
"How are you feeling about going back to work when we got home in a couple weeks?" He asked her.
"Not thrilled about it. I'm sure everyone will be tiptoeing around me." AJ nodded, "And going back into my office… where he pulled a gun out on me… it's gonna be tough."
"I know, you just gotta ease yourself into it. Be kind to yourself and take it slowly." Punk said as she nodded.
"I can't promise I won't call you from the bathroom crying." AJ said as he nodded.
"That's ok. You know I'll answer." He said as she nodded.
"Let's go down to the water." She told him, going off track from the walkway, walking onto the pebbles and stones over to the water.
"I dare you to go in." Punk nodded to her, not thinking she would do it, feeling her drop his hand and head for the water, "That's gonna be cold." Punk hummed, still not believing she would go in.
AJ ran towards the water, feeling the freezing cold water hit her legs, slowly going above her torso, the ends of her hair getting soaked as she turned to him.
"You should know better than to dare me, Phil Brooks." She nodded as he smiled.
"I should." He chuckled to himself, heading into the water to get to her, "It's no hot tub, is it?" Punk groaned at how cold the water was.
"Am I weird for liking it?" AJ asked him, leaning her head back, getting all of her hair wet.
"A little." Punk nodded as she smiled, making her way over to him, wrapping her legs around him under the water, her arms around his neck above as he smiled, "It's like the scene in Jaws. Something is gonna tug on my leg in a minute." Punk nodded to her as she rolled her eyes.
"You and your weird movies." AJ scoffed, "Why is it always a horror film? Why… Why can't we be like the scene with the couple in The Notebook?" She questioned.
"Jaws isn't a horror movie." Punk rolled his eyes, "You're just a baby."
"It's about killer shark eating people. It's a horror." AJ concluded, "You're so weird." She smiled as he nodded.
"I know." Punk said.
"So glad it's you I get to grow old with, though." She nodded, "My favourite person, you know."
"I know." He smiled, his face close to hers, the water at chest level as he held her in his arms, "I'd probably be dead without you." He admitted, leaning his forehead against hers.
"Don't say that." She whispered.
"It's true." He said quietly, "You deserve an award for putting up with my ass for as long as you have."
"I love your ass." She nodded, "And you're gonna have me until you die. Rejoice." She said as he chuckled.
"I love you." He whispered, tilting her chin up as she looked at him.
"I love you." She nodded, pressing her lips against his as he kissed back passionately.
A/N: Hey guys! So as far as the big drama goes, that's wrapping up now! Just tying up some loose ends before officially wrapping the story up. I just want to know if there's anything specific you guys want me to explore within this series before it concludes? Let me know. Thanks for the reviews as always!
