Chapter 2.

Where The Hell Have You Been

Janet was staring out the window, not focusing on anything in particular, when she heard someone calling her name. For a brief moment she assumed it must've been Phillip; but she knew that voice. She peeked over her left shoulder, doing a double take when she realized that it was, in fact, Jack Tripper.

"Jack!" Her voice was both tremulous and exultant. She felt a mixture of emotions upon seeing his face, but the sheer joy in seeing him for the first time in a year overshadowed them all. In a rush of excitement, she hopped down the stairs faster than her heels could manage, causing her to stumble and fall into Jack's waiting arms.

"Careful!" Jack joked. "That's my entrance move."

They both laughed it off as he pulled her up and enveloped her in the biggest bear hug he could muster.

"Oh it's so good to see you," Janet murmured into his neck. She lifted her head from his shoulder to get a good look at him. "What are you doing here?"

"Sight seeing," Jack joked as a woman with a ridiculously flamboyant peacock themed hat strolled by them. They both chuckled. "No," he clarified. "I'm here with Vicky and her father…although I'd give anything not to be."

Janet sighed and rolled her eyes. "You're telling me. I'm at these sorts of things all the time with Phillip. I feel so…"

"…out of place?" Jack finished for her.

"Yeah," she breathed with a smirk.

"Me, too," he replied. "Besides, the food is always subpar. You'd think they could afford to do better than this."

Janet laughed. "I'm surprised we haven't run into each other before," she spoke before she realized what she was saying.

Neither of them had spoken to each other in the past year, save the few times they'd run into each other here and there. Janet had done her best to start some sort of dialogue, but Jack was always in an uncomfortable rush to leave. It wasn't like him, Janet had thought, and she knew there had to be a reason for it, but that didn't stop her from growing increasingly irritated with him.

The smile was still on Jack's face, but it had disappeared from his eyes as he responded. "Yeah."

Janet tried to clarify that she hadn't meant to reference the fact that neither of them had been in contact for the past year. "…because of, you know, both of us running in the same circles and all."

"Right, no, yeah. I know," he replied casually. "…I know."

"And I said, 'Maxwell, why are you stressing over whether to get the jet or the vacation home in Miami? You only live once, why not have both?'" Jack and Janet heard a crowd laugh as they made their way into the foyer.

Jack searched Janet's eyes. "Do you…wanna go outside and get some fresh air? It's kind of stuffy in here." She nodded in reply.

They made their way onto a moonlit stone veranda surrounded by a multitude of ivies and azaleas.

"It's a nice night," Jack remarked, attempting small talk to avoid what he knew they were both thinking.

"Yeah, it is," Janet replied.

Silence.

"Smells good," Jack added, referencing the flowers.

Janet was growing impatient. She pursed her lips as she looked out over the vast acreage on the other side of the short, stone wall surrounding the porch.

"What kind of flowers are those, anyway? Aren't they - "

Janet smacked Jack on the arm before he could finish.

"Ow!" he whined. "What was that for?"

"Where the hell have you been?" she turned to him, the entirety of her small frame suddenly bubbling with resentment.

"Where have I been?" he asked defensively. "Where have you been?"

"Don't you put this on me, Jack Tripper! I must've called you a thousand times. I even wrote a letter!"

"Look, I've been...wait, a letter?"

"It was written on the back of a Chinese food menu and read, 'I'm going to kill you.'"

"That was you?! You're J?"

"Who'd you think it was, dummy? You're ignoring my question!"

"Janet, I almost called the cops! I was looking over my shoulder for weeks!"

She just looked up at him with sad eyes, not at all concerned about any emotional turmoil she may have put him through. He'd put her through more.

His face softened as he gazed back at her. He didn't know how to answer her question. He didn't even know all the answers himself. A simple, genuine, "I'm sorry" was all he could muster. Lucky for him, Janet seemed to accept his apology, finally smiling in return after momentarily glaring at him. She really was too happy to see him to try and argue any further.

They were silent for another brief moment, searching for something to change the subject. "So," Janet finally began, startling Jack out of their stillness. "How's Vicky?"

Jack huffed and rolled his eyes. "Who?"

"Oh, no." Janet looked concerned. "What happened?"

"It's not her, it's her father…and her. It's her and her father."

"Is he still giving you trouble all the time?"

"Janet, the man is insane. He purposely sets ridiculously high standards that are impossible to reach just to make sure that I'll fail."

"But you haven't, have you? I mean, you've still got your restaurant."

"That's the thing. He wants me to get rid of it."

"What?!"

"He said that if I'm going to marry Vicky, I have to work for him."

"How could he do that? What did Vicky say?"

"She agreed with him."

Jack walked over to the wall and sat down with his head in his hands, followed shortly after by Janet, who took a seat by his side.

"I mean, sure, business isn't great right now and money may be tight but…this restaurant is who I am, you know? They can't just make me choose like that."

Jack stared off, his mind still trying to wrap around the evening's events. Janet stroked his arm in an effort to comfort him, her face full of concern as she looked into his downcast eyes.

"Jack, do you love her?"

He broke out of his trance. "Huh?"

"Someone once told me that…if you love someone, the important thing is that you're together," she said, recalling the words Jack had said to her only a year before, right before she'd married Phillip.

His brow furrowed. "So what you're saying is that I should give up the restaurant so I can be with Vicky?"

"No," she shook her head. "I'm saying you should break up with Vicky so you can keep your restaurant." She chuckled at her own joke, causing Jack to crack a slight one of his own. "But," she began in a more serious tone, "I think that if she loves you, if you really love each other, then where you work shouldn't matter. Haven't we been through this before?"

Jack laughed out loud this time. "Tell her that."

"Maybe you just need to talk to her, Jack. Vicky never struck me as the controlling type. She's probably just as intimidated by her father as you are."

Jack looked at Janet and smiled. He missed how she always knew just the right thing to say when he was down and silently cursed himself for haphazardly avoiding her this past year simply because he was afraid of change. He'd feared that Janet Dawson wouldn't be the same person as Janet Wood, but most of all he feared that Janet Dawson wouldn't care about him as much. He was starting to see, now, that he'd been wrong.

"Sometimes I think she'll never love me as much as she loves her father," he said.

Janet sighed and shrugged. "I suppose it's better that it's another person she loves most. Meanwhile Phillip is married to his job and I've become nothing but an afterthought."

"Oh, Jan," Jack said quietly, wrapping his arm around her. "Hey, I told you he was trouble."

Janet smirked and playfully hit him. "He's my husband, Jack. I love him, I just…"

"You just wish you could be treated with more respect?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah, same here."

They sat there in the stillness of the night for some time, but it was no longer an uncomfortable silence. It was simply one of those moments when you're with somebody you know so well, and have known for so long, that the pressure to partake in idle small talk vanishes. It was a sensation that neither of them had experienced in some time, and it felt good to simply enjoy the other's presence again, knowing that the other understood them completely. Both of them had missed their best friend.

"Janet, are you out here?"

It was Phillip's voice this time, breaking the other two out of their reverie. Janet reluctantly stood up, but did not turn to face him. "What do you want?"

"I thought maybe we should leave early, since you're upset with me." He noticed the person next to her. "Who's this?"

"Hiya, Phil," Jack got up and turned around, extending his hand.

"Oh, Jack! Jack's here! Janet, you didn't tell me that Jack was here!"

Janet shook her head and rolled her eyes as the two shook hands. They briefly exchanged pleasantries as she stood off to the side, her arms crossed firmly as they rested on her abdomen.

"Did you…want to stay longer?" Phillip asked, now that he knew Janet's friend was here.

Janet looked at Jack as if to ask him what to do, but he tipped his head toward Phillip to nonverbally suggest she should try and work things out with her husband. Reluctantly, she turned toward him.

"You and I need to discuss New York."

Phillip sighed. "I know…"

Smiling awkwardly, Jack glanced back and forth between the two of them. "You guys going on a trip?"

Janet continued to glare at her husband as she responded to Jack. "Ideally a trip lasts two weeks or less – not the rest of my life."

"I didn't say that it would be for the rest of our lives."

"How long then, Phillip, huh? Til we're in our sixties? Retirement?"

Phillip uneasily glanced at Jack, then back at Janet. "Look, could we discuss this somewhere else?"

Jack was beginning to pick up on what they were talking about, and his face grew concerned. "Are you guys…wait, Janet, are you two – are you moving to New York?"

Janet turned to Jack and looked at him with apologetic eyes. "I meant to mention that."

Jack's eyes fell as he tried to contemplate this development. He may not have seen Janet In a long time, but he took comfort in knowing that she was always nearby, just in case. Sometimes just knowing this much was enough. But now…now she'd be thousands of miles away. If he couldn't push himself to stay in touch with her while they were in the very same city, how could he hope to ever see her again if she were on the other side of the country?

"Jack?"

"Hmm?" He looked up, breaking out of his trance.

"You okay?"

He saw that Phillip had slipped back inside to talk to someone, and he and Janet were alone again. He looked at her and forced a smile, even though his eyes indicated dejection.

"Wow," he said finally. "New York."

"Yeah. Tell me about it." A pause. "But nothing's…official."

He nodded, ignoring her attempts to downplay the news. "I can't imagine you being so far away."

She knew what he was getting at, although it slightly irritated her that he would suggest discomfort at the idea of her being gone, after avoiding her for so long. At the same time, she was beginning to wonder if his avoiding her had been caused by more than just laziness.

Glancing toward the entrance, she saw Phillip waving her toward him, indicating that he'd like to leave. Instead of acknowledging him, she turned back toward Jack. "It looks like the gatekeeper of decision making would like to leave," she said deadpan.

Soon they were both enveloped in a hug, lingering longer than either of them intended. Pulling away, Janet searched his eyes. "I'll see you around then?"

"Yeah." He smiled, even if he wasn't sure how much he believed it.

She turned to walk away, not unclasping her hand from his until they were too far apart to reach. Before she got to the door, he called out to her.

"Janet?"

"Yeah?"

"…call me, okay?"

She smiled, even though she wanted to smack him at the same time. 'Call him,' she scoffed internally. That's exactly what she'd been doing for months, to no avail.

"No," she said sincerely, still smiling. "You call me."

He smiled back, understanding what she was getting at. "Okay. I'll call you."

And he meant it.