Chapter XIV – Men Like Us
Leaving the hospital in a complete daze, CJ forced a hold on herself. Starting the engine of her Mustang, she felt for the first time in a long while that she had actually done the right thing. Her smile soon faded though: it was hard to push the sight of his fragile body out of her mind. The contrast of how he had once felt against her: so firm, so vital... it made her feel ridiculously vulnerable. He had been her protector – he had made talking about her Dad alright, and now she had barely dared to touch his darkened skin, for fear of breaking him – for fear of losing him. So much had changed, the reality of the months counting past a year was finally sinking in.
The thing that bothered her most, though, was his apology: he was sorry. Sorry for what though, her mind asked? Sorry for leaving her, for trying to shut her out now – or was it something more? Was he trying to let her down slowly as he came back for a new life? Her thoughts began to run away with her: would he even stay? With the engine running idle, she just sat there. Swallowing hard, she managed to choke out the breath she had been unconsciously holding. His eyes had been heavy with grief, and with a sadness that ran deeper than she allowed herself to venture. CJ admitted, she might be in love with a man she hardly knew – yet her mind asked if it was really that, or just the promise of what he could be?
The Press Secretary in her overrode her emotions and pushed the thoughts away to the back of her mind. She had to go to work. Staff at 7. Her hand put the car in drive and muscle memory took over. For now, he'd just have to watch her tail-lights.
The first sensation he felt was that his throat was dry. Not painful; nothing was painful, just dry. It was hard to focus. The ceiling was white. Simon let his eyelids collapse over his tired eyes once more. There was a familiar voice not so long after, but he chose to stay in his dark world, the longest sleep he recalls having – yet not the most peaceful. In sleeping, Simon returned to a place far away.
Leaning against the chain-link fence that ran the perimeter of the camp, he had sighed. Nothing but desert lay out to the east. Moonlight splashed across the cold plain, illuminating it in the dark of night. It could have easily been the sea. The wind made waves of the sand, their fine crest caught in the milky wash of light. His fingers gripped the metal wire tight, his eyes began to grow dry. Simon did not want to blink, for his mirage might fade. CJ was dancing: a swirl of sand mimicked the movement of a fine material that moved with her; the wind took the lead and his heart did the rest. She smiles and laughs, her body moving majestically in the blues and greys of the night. Simon strains to get closer to this creature that he loves. He hears the sound of the blues that bound them together in the 'Blue Lagoon'. His heart melts and he feels moisture on his cheeks as she beckons to him. The metal fence cruelly holds him back. Her silky smooth hand gestures to him again, before disappearing as a mere wisp in the lightness of the breeze. Just an illusion. Just a dream.
The soft feeling of a cotton swab on his cheek brings him out of his sleep. Moist eyes open slowly to the kind face of an ITU nurse. She smiles down at him.
"Hello, there Mr Orson." Orson? The nightmare goes on, he looks past her for someone else. "Are you in any pain, sir?" She asks, mopping up the last of his tears. As he brings his attention back to her.
"No." Is the raspy reply. "Water?" She obliges, placing a straw between his lips and instructing him to try not to move or speak. Sipping the water, his tongue is finally freed of the sides of his teeth. The nurse's touch is always soft.
"You'll be moved back to your own room in an hour, we need to see how you do, then put you in plaster." He grunts his acceptance of the information before letting himself fall back into the abyss.
Something hard was weighing him down. There was pressure on his torso. In the darkness, he sees white begin to fill with red. He hears more gunshots, feels more weight; panic has long since passed, but the heat of the pain is rife. The bodies of the men he had commanded form a human shield over him. So was the Ephari way. The leader was to be protected at all costs. He knew their families would be proud, for they died in honour. They died to save the American, who had been endorsed by Jeremiah ben-Kurah as their leader. For over a year he had trained these men. He had been with them everyday. They were all bound by their love for the man that was held high above them, Jeremiah, the one who lived. Despite their love, it was through the American that they found true belief in the one thing that made the future President different – he was bound to them by traditional honour, something that many had forgotten the value of. Honour. It was what they had fought for, yet as the weight of all their lives lay over his body, it seemed a pitiful dream. It was then that he thought of her. He would never see CJ Cregg again. For everything that he had achieved in this foreign land, he would never be able to say he was sorry. He would die with the guilt of forsaking his love. As darkness pooled into his vision, Simon Donovan realised he was disappointed. Life could have been more. Death should have been sweeter.
"Is he alright?" Ron asked the Professor as they watched the patient murmuring under the plaster cast.
"Yes. He will be. We've got the cast on to restrict his movement in order to let the shoulder set, usually we'd just use a splint, but he's got four plates holding his scapula together, which is quite above average." Ron nods thoughtfully.
"He seems pretty agitated."
"Yeah, sometimes the anaesthetic leads to a level of unconsciousness similar to when we dream. I don't want to sedate him any further for the moment though. Best to get him awake."
"Sure." The surgeon made his last check of Eric Orson's notes and promised to be back later. Ron sighed and slumped into the chair at Simon's bedside as the man left. His shift had ended a half hour back. It was 10 PM.
"Go home." The familiar words hardly registered with CJ as she sat reading from a file. "CJ?"
"Yeah?" She snapped out of her report. Leo leant against her door jamb. He looked as tired as she felt.
"Go home, CJ. You and I both know that report can stay on your desk till morning." She sighed. He was right.
"Yeah, I know, Leo."
"You gonna go then?"
"Sure..." She looked down, closing the file with a half smile. "I'm just not sure I want to." The honesty shook Leo. He knew the root cause immediately:
"Reading a report won't change anything."
"I know."
"So go home, CJ... get some sleep. Rest. Go see him tomorrow."
"He doesn't want to see me."
"What?" Leo entered the office, quietly closing the door, not that there was anyone around to hear. He paced softly over to her desk.
"Not like he is." She sighed, waving a hand, trying to control herself, then resigning to tell Leo the whole truth. "But I went in anyway, you know me... and his eyes – Leo, you were a soldier – men like that..." The words ceased to come to her.
"Men like us, CJ..." Leo sucked in a deep breath, crossing his arms over his chest. "...get used to the idea we're stronger than the rest..." He perched on the edge of her desk, releasing his arms and wringing his hands together. "I visited a friend in a field hospital once. He'd lost his legs... and CJ, he didn't look at me, not once. I went back everyday for a week, I mean the guy was my wingman when we trained. Anyway, after a while, I managed to find out what happened to him. He'd just gone off home to his young wife and brought up three kids while she worked. He wouldn't look at me because it changed who he was. He was a soldier then he couldn't do that any more."
"Will Simon ever be able to protect people again?" Her voice was timid, her mind considering a part of the future she hadn't considered.
"I can't answer that CJ, but you know... he's lucky. His profession doesn't require him to be employed." He let it hang in the air for a second, CJ looked questioningly at him: "Every brother, CJ, every father, everyone that ever loves..." she softly cut him off:
"I don't know what I want, but I know that if Ron had phoned with different news about the operation..." she shook her head slowly, biting her lip, "I'd have been lost." Leo had ceased being her boss when he initiated this conversation, and now seeing her so raw, he got up off the desk and went to her; he did what only a Father knows to do, protect her. Taking CJ in is arms, he hushed her like he had Mallory when she was a kid. There were no tears, the anguish ran deeper than that.
But, Leo thought: Men like us, we still have heart.
"You're still here?" Simon questioned his best friend as he woke; Miles, by rights should have been back on duty in New York by now.
"Yeah, I am. Took a week of my holiday. Jodie was pissed at first, y'know how she likes to go to Italy, but when I told her the whole story, what happened, she near got on a plane right that second." Simon was touched; even though he considered them family, to have their love even after taking off like that for a year was a real blessing.
"She's a good woman." Talking was getting so much easier now he could breath without such an effort.
"Yeah, she is. But I don't care how old they are – someone responsible gotta keep their eye on them kids of mine. Speakin' of the rabble, they might all come the weekend though, see their Uncle... 'course, only if you're up for it?"
"Yeah." His eyes filled with tears. "Yeah..." He reiterated. The men stayed silent for a moment; Simon composed himself. Ferdinand was reminded in that instant how much he'd missed his friend, not just the past year, but since they had parted in Chicago. Something inside him wished one day Simon would leave Washington and the Secret Service – perhaps selfishly, he hoped he would come to the NYPD and maybe even live in the same neighbourhood again.
"Pete misses you." Simon's heart swelled. Ferdinand's eldest would be eighteen now, his little sister Tori, twelve. Riding on Uncle Simon's shoulders had one of Pete's favourite treats as he was a good foot taller than the boy's father. Every year, Simon had taken Pete and Ferdinand to watch the Chicago Bears – the team the friends had been to see every week, working as stadium security during their police days. While Jodie had taken Tori to ballet lessons, the men had always slipped tiny Pete in with them to sit with the players who had loved their little mascot. Tori was a sucker for her Uncle too, but she was a Daddy's girl at heart. If Ferdinand and Simon had been lesser friends, maybe the fact that Pete was perhaps closer to his Uncle, who he saw only periodically, than his father would have been a real issue, but somehow, it was one of the many things that just made their bond stronger.
"He still play?" Simon was, of course, talking about Football – Pete had been a promising young quarterback for his local youth team the last time Simon saw him play. Seeing the kid flourish at the game had made everyone proud; Miles had clapped his best friend on the shoulder in joy as the boys crowded round their star player at full time. It had come from Simon; when Pete was first born, he didn't have a clue what to do with a child – he only knew that his chance at a family had probably passed him by. A Chicago "Staley Bear" was the first gift to the baby Pete. Simon bought him his first football, teaching him to throw and playing with him in the yard a couple of evenings a week before the family split for New York.
"Sure he still plays, Simon! Damn, 'course he does." There was almost offence in Miles' voice – he knew how close to both their hearts this was. "Never misses a practice, never misses the Bears on the TV neither, just bought the new kit with his savings last week." The patient sighs, before chuckling lightly to himself. The throaty laugh of his friend soon fills his ears. In that moment, he felt the weight of the years he'd been away. Yeah, he decided: it was good to be home.
The days somehow passed into a week. The West Wing was a hub of anxiety, stress and hard work, the second term brought with it new problems and higher standards with loftier goals. CJ hadn't been back to the hospital. Ron called her daily, but the words she yearned for never left his lips. She had come to terms with the fact that no matter what she felt, this was on Simon's terms. She could love him from a distance for a few more days, despite them feeling longer than the months since the morning after New York.
"CJ?"
"Carol!" CJ looked up at her assistant from her desk with a large smile.
"There's a Detective Miles here from New York, no appointment..." that was as far as CJ let Carol get, before flying out of the office past her stunned aide. "CJ?"
"Yeah, take my calls, I'll be back in an hour – I'm taking lunch!" A long coat was pulled on, the tails flapping in her wake.
"It's only eleven CJ!" Carol called after her, only to get a wave of her boss' hand.
Miles kicked his heels together; he was nervous for the first time since being reunited with his best friend at Andrew's Airbase. A scruffy army issue kit bag was slung over his shoulder, in vast contrast to the character sharp suit and smartly polished boots. CJ swept past him, tapping him on the arm:
"Coffee. Let's go Colombo." Miles was about to break into the long speech he'd been going over in his mind, but 'Colombo', he had to admit, had really thrown him off. Recovering his thoughts, he strode after her, trying to keep step. He practically chased her through the street; they didn't say anything more until they were seated in the local Starbucks. Ferdinand bought two Cappuccinos to go and CJ followed obediently to a table.
"I'm going back to New York this afternoon." Miles' voice was flat, there was nothing to be read into the statement.
"O...K?" The Press Secretary raises her eyebrows in question.
"You haven't been back to the hospital." This time, his comment is curt: he knows time is short and dispenses with the pleasantries; there will be plenty of time for those conversations if – rather when, he hoped, she became a permanent part of his friend's life. Ferdinand's question caught CJ off balance, even though she saw it coming, there was nothing she could do to block the shot – and she took it right in the face.
"No. No I haven't." Miles raises his eyebrows, unsatisfied with her response. "Detective..."
"Call me Ferdinand, Freddie, Miles, jerk, whatever... this" he tapped the table between them, "ain't business." His eyes softened, they were anxious yet kind, willing her to be honest, somehow offering advice and support in their hazel warmth.
"Ferdinand, I... I..." She took a deep breath. "I want to, but I need to know he wants me there – I need to know he's ready."
"But you're OK just standing back and doing nothing for now?" He own words thrown back at her, she nodded slowly, a sardonic grin appearing on her lips.
"He told you then?"
"No, but it was hard not to hear that part."
"Ah."
"Yeah, he was pretty tight lipped about that conversation actually."
"Well, he let me go."
"I'm sorry, he what?"
"He said he was sorry and he looked at me like...
"Like what?"
"I mean, all he has to do is ask Ron, or you – and I'd come!"
"Yeah. Ask." Miles laughed to himself for a moment, when he looked up at her over the table, his eyes were darker than they had been, his face wore it's creases deeper than usual. "You honestly think he knows in his head when he's ready to see you?"
"I know he didn't want to." The man opposite her seemed to be going greyer by the minute – he leant over the table, his hands open.
"But you went in anyway." She nodded, averting her eyes from Miles' intense stare. "You think it's at all possible he wants you to do that again?" CJ shrugs, keeping her head bowed, hiding the fact that a corner of her mouth tipped up slightly. "You think maybe he's too scared to ask since you ain't gone back?" She shrugs again, it's like being coaxed round to a parent's train of thought. "You think he knows any better than you about this?" Her head flicks up:
"That's not the..."
"Sure it is!" Miles' hands fly up off the table top. "Geees! You're like a pair of kids who don't know head from tail! If y'all'd had some huge brawl I'd understand, but this..." Sigh, he ran his hand through his hair. "Look, I'm bringin' Jodie and the kids down the next weekend, he'll need a hand getting home. Doc said he'd be out on the Sunday. He's gonna be by himself till then, Ron's gotta work."
"You think I should see him?" The little man's eyebrows peaked over his wide eyes at her quiet words, he pushed back from the table:
"Hell... if you don't... gees, please just put him out of his misery, take him some grapes or something." With a click of his boots on the wood flooring, the detective was on his feet, her eyes followed him up. "He likes the juicy black ones, y'know, the ones with seeds still in them." CJ nodded slowly in bewilderment, and with that he snapped up his coffee and took off. CJ was left gasping air as she tried to think of something to say. "See ya next Saturday Ms Cregg!" He called over his shoulder. Nothing could suppress the nervous smile that was breaking over her face. It was Friday.
Saturday morning. Five AM and CJ Cregg is anxiously scanning through the papers, having already dressed for work in a regular ivory suit and red shirt, her white camisole casually makes an appearance under the last button she has fastened. Her hair wouldn't sit right today, and she's already laddered two pairs of sheer tights and given up on that one.
The sunlight rushes away, the eternal torch in the sky flicks off as night falls. Carol knocks enthusiastically on her boss' door. CJ looks up, her eyes sparkle for the first time in months and her assistant beams at her, holding out a bag of red grapes.
"They're dark, they have seeds, and they're really juicy!" CJ rises from her desk,
"You sure – they're not sour or anything?"
"No... best be safe though," Carol offers CJ a grape, they grin wildly as she tries one. They are perfect, the balance of sweet and slightly bitter, and they definitely have seeds.
"Thank you Carol."
"No problem boss." The younger woman gives a sly and curious look...
"You can go home now – we're done."
"Sure?"
"Yeah, scram!"
The hospital is quiet. Visiting hours are over. Exceptions are made. Approaching the nurses' station, CJ catches the eye of the duty nurse. Recognition flits across the face of the woman, she's in her later thirties and meets CJ with a smile.
"You must be Ms Cregg?" She comes round the station and extends a hand.
"CJ, pleased to meet you."
"Debbie... security told me you were on your way up. He's awake, insisted on watching the football despite my suggestion of sleep." CJ laughs,
"Is it OK if I go in?"
"Sure, go ahead. He's not expecting anyone though."
"I know. Is it alright to take these in?" She asks, holding up the transparent bag of grapes. Debbie laughs and waves her on with a light gesture of her hand:
"Go!"
Nerves suddenly hit CJ as her hand rests on the door. The man on the other side of the glass is propped up in the cot. His left arm and shoulder are strapped up in a system of splints and a sling. She can see the bruising from his chest receding from his collar, the green tint still visible under the tan of his skin. His eyes focus intently on a flickering screen; his right hand clenches and relaxes as his face provides a commentary on the game.
The door opening goes unnoticed. Simon slams his head back into the pillows as the Detroit Lions score against the Chicago Bears. His head lolls from side to side in disgust; it's then he notices her slight figure standing by the closed door. His breath catches in his throat and he tries to sit up, but the restrictive tug of the supportive splinting reminds him not to move that far.
Deep breath:
"I brought you grapes." She was bolt upright, still standing by the door, trying not to shift from foot to foot – her face was in shadow. Simon gasped as he recognised her. CJ took a step out of the shadow, her head tilted slightly to one side. "They're the dark red ones, with seeds... and they're really juicy." She cannot believe the speed with which she retreated into her protective professional shell; she was briefing him in the variety of grape she had in her hands. Let it go, CJ - relax.
Miles! There wasn't a single other person in the world who knew what kind of grapes he liked. Well, there were two now he reasoned. The game was almost instantly forgotten, his caged sport rage dissipated with the exhalation of that breath he was holding.
"I... how..." No. He paused, looking at her soft features that had morphed into a gentle yet tentative smile. "Thank you." Simon's face lit up, and at that she slowly came over to him, resting the grapes on the bed-table that extended over his legs.
Silence.
CJ looked down, and Simon's eyes flicked back to the game... then they both laughed. They laughed at each other, mocking the awkward teenagers they had been reduced to.
"Hi." He offered, and still giggling, she managed to look at him. He didn't look nearly as fragile any more. His eyes were more balanced, beside the pain, he carried that life she had fallen for the day he breezed into her life.
"Can I see you now?"
"No, I don't think so." Although his eyes betrayed his nerves at the blatant cheekiness of the comment, the grin on his face would have put Barbie to shame. CJ tried her best to look shocked and outraged, pouting and stating simply:
"In that case, I'll be taking these..." she reached out for the grapes, but before she got a decent hold, her hand was enveloped in a warmth she had longed to feel. Their smiles didn't fade as their eyes were drawn to their physical connection. Slowly, his thumb swept over her knuckles, and in a moment, their fingers were interlaced.
"He didn't tell you then?"
"What?" CJ was on the verge of panic.
"That I'm really protective... over grapes." She was lost for a clever comeback, they were joined by their right hands and it was unbelievable. He drew her toward him, she willingly shuffled closer. Standing right next to the cot now, CJ let their hands rest on the mattress. Plucking a grape from the bunch, she popped the fruit into her mouth. Simon squeezed her hand.
"Hey!" CJ laughed mockingly at his squeal, squeezing his hand back playfully...
"Mmmm, they're good!"
"CJ!"
"Really juicy!"
"CJ please!"
"Yeah, you
should definitely try one!" She goaded, reaching for another one,
keeping a firm grip on his hand. Glancing down at the splinting, she
was glad there was something holding him together, before he hurt
himself.
"Cee-" The grape in his mouth silenced his protests and his body relaxed. Simon hadn't tasted a grape since his fiftieth birthday celebration with Miles. They had been a surprise part of the evening – while Simon knew that he loved grapes, it never really occurred to him to buy them. His best friend knew him just too well. The juice burst out into his mouth, and his eyelids squeezed together, concentrating all his senses on the taste. The soft flesh slid smoothly down his throat; he savoured the skin, grinding it between his teeth, revelling in the feeling of the rich tannins on his tongue.
TBC-