Vaughn:
I pulled my car into the garage, shut the engine off, and went inside through the garage door. After turning on the hall light and depositing my keys and overnight bag on the table next to the door, I made my way into the kitchen. Once there I leaned up against the counter to try to decide what to do next. I did feel dead tired, maybe I should just go to sleep. I glanced at the microwave clock.
7:30 PM. A little bit early for that.
A familiar cramping in my stomach reminded me that it had been sixteen hours at least since I'd last eaten. I sighed and set my self to finding something too eat. I knew there was coffee in the cabinet and in the fridge there was some milk, a few eggs, a tomato and maybe some cheese.
I went back to the car, opened the garage door again, and backed out leaving my house empty again. I bought it about six months ago. Living in the one Lauren and I bought was out of the question, and, at thirty-seven, I was too damn old to be living in an apartment.
I traveled for a few blocks before turning into a parking space in front of Charlie's. Informal restaurant type place, reasonably priced, and didn't insist on giving you a whole song and dance with your food.
Inside, I scanned the room for an empty table but stopped when I noticed Jack was there that night. I walked over to the corner he was seated in and slid into the seat across from him.
"Hey"
"Welcome back," He said looking up at me, "I hear the operation didn't go so well?"
"Not quite as planned, no," I responded, "apparently Dixon plans to fill everyone in tomorrow."
He nodded and turned his attention back to his newspaper without another word. I relaxed into the seat and waited for a waiter to swing by so that I could order. I didn't expect Jack would say anything else. As a matter of fact we rarely spoke at all when we were there.
It started three weeks into my mandatory leave. I hadn't left the house the entire time, which, at the time, was still the one I had lived in with Lauren, and figured that I would have to come out sometime because I was well on my way to becoming a shut in.
I couldn't bring myself to call Eric. For may reasons, I couldn't face seeing him. He was involved, for one, because he was on the team, he would have been sympathetic and tired to get me to talk about it, which was the last thing I wanted, and he had become really close to Sydney since her return. At the time I would have rather shot myself in the foot than see her.
Charlie's was the first place I came to so I stopped there. Immediately I began to think it was a mistake. There was a long wait that night so the front area was packed with people. The hostess eventually came out and started asking people who were alone if they would share tables. I was just turning around to leave as Jack walked in. It was incredibly awkward but he ignored it by telling the hostess that we would share a table. Visions of bullets through my shoe were dancing in my head at the time but it actually worked surprisingly smoothly.
When I went back a couple days later for lunch, Jack came in the door and sat down at my table without even a word. It worked that way since then. I went there often and whenever both of us were there at the same time we shared a table. It was weird, I suppose. Two people sitting together in a restaurant without saying a word to each other, but it worked fine enough for me. I rarely felt like making casual chit-chat and Jack Bristow was one of the few people who didn't offer or insist on it.
Though, still, I suppose it was somewhat of an unpredicted outcome.
