Title: Bad Penny
Pairing: John/Janice
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Brown Appetit, Guns n'Rosaries, Trials and Tribulations
Summary: The night before she testifies, Janice goes to see John
Notes: Written for the LiveJournal Writer's Choice "Homecoming" challenge. This comes after I teased Beth for writing Horatio-fic… what is it they say about mockery being catching?
***
Tomorrow is one of, if not the most important days of her life, and she is terrified. Not, she reflects, that there's anything strange in that. Over the last year, it seems that she's spent most of it scared out of her mind.
Scared that Marino would turn in her dad.
Scared that she was going to have to kill John.
Scared that Marino was going to kill her.
Scared that she'd be found out for killing him and his driver.
Scared that John would hate her.
Scared that he did.
The first good night's sleep she had in months, and the last, was the night that she confessed to Fancy, even though she spent the night sleeping in a hard jailhouse cot. She knew John wasn't happy with her, that in point of fact, he was furious with her, but she knew that there were more important things than how he looked at her.
Like how she looked at herself in the mirror.
But she'd be lying if she said she hadn't been scared when she'd walked out of the station house that day, flashbulbs blinding her, reporters calling her name, and in front of her, protective as any lion, his jacket hiding her handcuffs from view, was the man who'd tried to protect her from this, the man she loved.
The man she couldn't be with.
She still can't be with him, she knows that. He's seeing Robin now, and tomorrow, she's testifying in her own murder trial, and she could go to jail for a long time. She could go to jail for the rest of her life, and if the Rat Squad knew that he was in any way still involved with her, they'd go after her even more than they are already.
She knows all this, but she is still scared out of her mind, and though she doesn't remember making the decision, she still ends up here, just like she had another night that she was scared and upset, the night her father killed himself. Both times, he wasn't in; last time, she sat outside on his step and waited for him. Fearing the Rat Squad though, this time, she sinks down on the stairs beside his door and she waits.
She doesn't know how long she's been sitting there before she hears his footsteps, but it's long enough for her to begin to fear that he's not coming home tonight, that he's staying somewhere else, with someone else. But then he's there and he's looking down at her and she's very afraid she's going to burst into tears. He looks surprised to see her there, surprised but not angry, and she tries to smile at him, not able to take her eyes off him as she murmurs softly, "I'm like a bad penny."
It's more appropriate than she wants to admit, because she keeps turning up in his life, keeps getting him into trouble; why in the world would he want her?
She'd ask him, but her throat closes up on her; perhaps because of her emotions, perhaps because of the ones she sees in his eyes when he reaches out, brushes back a lock of hair from her face. It's a light caress, but the weight of it is enough to bow her head until she feels the cool wood of the banister against her forehead, a perfect counterpoint to the heat of his lips against the crown of her head.
"No way," he whispers, his low voice echoing off the walls. "You're right where you belong."
The words settle around her shoulders and into her heart, warming her both inside and out, and she accepts his hand gladly when he comes around in front of her, telling her to come inside. She stands beside him as he unlocks the door, repeating, just in case she had any doubts, "Right where you belong" before they steps inside, closing the door behind them.
Once there, there is no talking, not until she lies in his bed, in his arms, and she tells him she loves him. He says that he loves her too, and with those words, for the first time in months, she is able to sleep without dreaming of mob bosses and bullets and a ringing in her ears matched only by the pounding in her heart.
Because for the first time in months, she knows she's home.