Title: Future
Author: Katerina
Pairing: J/S, finally!
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I think you've got it by now, right?
Summary: Now, she just has to be patient.
Author's Note: This is the third and final piece in the Time series, the others being Past and Present. You don't have to read those to understand this, but it would really help. This is the shortest of the three, but hopefully it will tie everything together nicely.
Again, thanks to DianeM and Grav for the beta, and thanks to those who reviewed. And to Mariel and ladylampetia, who have followed my work faithfully: your words mean so much to a starving author!
XXXXX
Her alarm is going to go off any minute now, and then she'll have to face the day, face getting ready for work, and face Martin.
It's hard for her, but she doesn't really mind; she deserves it.
It's also hard for Martin, and she would give anything and everything she has for it not to be. It's not his fault.
Someday, she knows, it will be all right between them again.
Maybe, if she's lucky, things will be all right between Jack and her again, because it's certainly been sticky since he returned a week ago.
Which would make it two weeks since Martin told her that he could learn to love her, and she came to her senses and screwed everything up so she could fix it.
XXXXX
What she doesn't know is that for the first time in ten years, Jack will leave off his wedding ring before coming to work, and that he'll spend the whole day noticing the lightness and the painful nakedness of his finger.
She also doesn't know that in a month's time, Jack will be signing the papers Marie has sent from Chicago, and that Samantha will come across him in his office, the pen still clutched in his hand, a look of unbelievable loss and shock on his face.
But she will know how to react, right there in that moment.
She will leave him alone. She's not the person to comfort him then.
XXXXX
She will find out that it will take two months after that before he begins to smile again. But she will smile back, talk to him, begin to rediscover their friendship.
And she will be inexplicably pleased to regain something she thought she'd trained herself not to miss.
XXXXX
It will be another month after that, after coffees and impromptu dinners over work, before he touches her. It will be simple; brushing his shoulder with hers, bumping legs when squashed around a too-small table.
But it will make her shiver, sending sparks through her body that she thought she would never feel again, especially not from him.
For the first time in too many years, her stomach won't clench at the sight of Christmas decorations going up.
XXXXX
Things will move quickly after that. Two days later, he will take her hand. The Monday after that, he will smooth his hand down the line of her face. And the day after that, he will kiss her again.
And she will respond, but she will not push. It is still too soon for that.
XXXXX
Others will soon begin to notice Jack's acid tongue is back on form, and that Samantha is smiling, and that things are noticeably lighter around the office.
Martin will see, for the first time, why it would never have worked, and he will begin to understand.
Maybe, just maybe, she will begin to lose her guilt.
XXXXX
After a month of kisses, furtive glances and soft whispers, she will invite him in.
He will accept.
And for the first time in the five years they have known each other, he will stay for the whole night.
XXXXX
In the morning, there will be no guilt, no awkwardness or unspoken concerns. There will only be truth, and remembered love, and the beginning of understanding.
For the first time since she was sixteen years and three months old, she will begin to heal.
XXXXX
But she will begin, right now, by starting her day and waiting for the future.
She can be patient.
After all, he was the one who came back.