Too Good To Be True
By: Mariel

Chapter 8

When Jack arrived at his apartment, he found Janice already comfortably ensconced on his sofa. He glanced around. It had only been a few hours since she'd left his office, and heaven knows what else she'd had to do, but she had already stamped her presence on the place he'd once called home but which, since his family's departure, had become merely the place he slept. Fresh flowers in a vase he didn't recognise stood on a table near the window, and she'd cleared away the takeout boxes he'd left on the coffee table and straightened the magazines and books that had lain hidden beneath them. A glance towards the door leading to the kitchen told him she'd cleared off his kitchen counter, and he could smell the warm fragrance of tomato sauce coming from a pot simmering on the stove. He felt his shoulders relax as tension he'd been holding all day began to seep away. Setting down the groceries he'd picked up at the market, he slipped off his shoes and then hung up the suit jacket he'd carried slung over his arm. Turning, he walked into the livingroom, smiling wearily.

"I don't know how you do it."

"Do what?" she asked, one graceful eyebrow raised.

"Walk in and transform a place. This almost seems like home."

She smiled. She'd been worried about what she'd find when she opened the door to his apartment. When giving her the apartment key, Jack had warned her that Maria had taken almost every piece of furniture they'd owned, and she'd wondered if Jack had bothered to replace it. It had been reassuring to enter the door and discover that he had at least begun an attempt to. She liked the obviously new sofa and chairs he'd chosen for the livingroom, thought he could have spent a little more time choosing his dining table and chairs, and had been unsurprised by his sturdy, unadorned bedroom furniture. Still, in spite of some clutter from everyday living, he was right - the place had felt empty and held none of the touches that made a place a home.

Reaching over towards a wine bottle and glass set on the coffee table, she poured him a glass of red liquid and held it out to him. "You miss that, don't you?"

He took the proffered glass and nodded, unsurprised she was getting to the heart of his existence so quickly. He did feel surprised when he discovered he felt ready for it, however. She was right. He hated coming home to an empty space and longed to feel another's presence when he opened his door.

"Yeah. I miss it a lot," he said honestly.

He sat down beside her with a groan.

"You had a long day," she commented, backing off from her inquiry to allow him time to gather his thoughts.

"Not as long as I expected."

"It didn't end well?"

"No, they found the woman's body."

It was something they would talk about later, this search for a woman found by others. Now, however, she had other priorities.

"The bag you brought in. Is that the shopping?"

"That would be it."

She rose. "Lovely. I've got everything started, so dinner should be ready in about 30 minutes. If you need to do anything first, now's your opportunity, love."

This, Jack knew, was her quaint way of telling him to go get changed for dinner. They were slipping into an old, familiar routine as quickly as they had become friends thirty years ago.

Wanting to slough off the day's sweat and grime, he asked, "Do I have time for a quick shower?" When she nodded yes, he rose, glass in hand. "I'll just be a few minutes," he told her.

-XXX-

Hair still damp and feeling much cleaner, Jack returned to find dinner ready to be served. Steaming hot pasta and veal cutlets in a fragrant tomato sauce sat on the dinner table next to a large wooden bowl of salad. He looked at Janice in surprise. "You did all this?"

She smiled back. "No, actually, a delicatessan about three blocks away did. I merely used my impeccable heating and presentation skills. I've tried it, and it tastes as good as it looks." Her smile broadened as she added, " I had you pick up bread and fresh parsley to make you feel useful."

Jack grinned. "You're too good to me." Glancing at the table again, he questioned, "So you haven't become domestic in the last few years?"

Janice laughed. "Not likely. I'm far too old to change now. Besides, why cook when there are people hired who can do it better than you? It wouldn't make sense, would it?"

"There are no cooks here," Jack noted, wondering what it was like to have always lived a life where there were people to do so many of life's unrewarding chores for you. For some reason Janice had never struck him as one of those people, and it always surprised him a little when something reminded him that she was.

"Nonsense. You think I've forgotten your knack for stir fying? You've always been a good cook. So be warned: I have every intention of giving you the opportunity to prove it!" She chuckled. "It's that, or the delicatessan is going to get a lot of business over the next few months!"

Gesturing for her to sit, Jack said, "I think I can handle cooking sometimes - if work doesn't get in the way."

They settled down to their meal, chatting about lots of things, but never quite touching what was closest to either of their thoughts. Finally, Janice put her napkin to the side of her plate. She reached over for the partially finished bottle of wine and stood up.

"Let's go sit. We've lots to talk about. Bring your glass with you, so we can get snozzled while we do."

Jack looked up in surprise, but rose and followed her. When they were comfortably settled on the sofa, she asked him, "Where do you want to start?"

Jack shrugged. "I don't know that there's any one place. Things have been a little crazy." He looked at her with dark eyes. "What about you?"

"About the same, I guess," she replied. Not ready to talk about herself, she looked at him closely. "Samantha is a lovely woman," she said. She saw his features tighten.

"Yeah. But she's out of the picture now."

"But not out of your heart," she observed bluntly.

He stiffened. "Still not pulling your punches, I see."

She shrugged. "You need honesty right now, Jack. You look miserable." Holding his gaze, she asked sadly, "What the bloody hell have you done to yourself?"

He shrugged and looked at the glass of red liquid he held cupped in both hands. After a moment's silence, he finally said, "Had an affair I shouldn't have had; tried to make my marriage work and failed; let my wife - my ex-wife - scam me into losing my daughters; watched the woman I had an affair with take up with someone else...and on top of all that, I've taken a job away from someone I like and respect. I dunno...where would you like me to begin?"

She felt satisfaction that he hadn't felt the need to explain he'd fallen in love with the woman he'd had the affair with. For the Jack Malone she knew, it could have been no other way. She took a sip of her drink and sat back to regard him calmly. "I'd say what you just said was an admirable start." She placed a slender arm along the back of the sofa and touched his shoulder. "So what are you going to do now?"

"What I've been doing for a while... going to work, coming home. Talking to my kids when Maria lets me; visiting them when she says it's okay and my work allows it."

She felt anger stir at the women who had put him in this position, but carefully kept it from her expression. He had been no uninvolved bystander during the creation of the mess his life had become, and there were two sides to every story. Or, in this case, three. She'd hear Jack's side of things when he was ready, but she didn't know Maria's or Samantha's version of events. She thought she could guess some of Maria's reasoning for doing what she had done, could imagine the hurt and anger and need for revenge... but whether Samantha had loved Jack or not, and whether or not there was hope of something being salvaged of their relationship, she had no way of knowing.

That Jack was more than aware of his mistakes was evident.

"Wondering why and how the hell this happened to you?"

He smiled grimly. "Yeah. Sometimes."

Silence fell between them. Jack broke it by asking, "And what about you? You promised to tell me why you were really here."

"Did I?"

"You know you did. I've told you mine; you tell me yours."

She looked down at her glass, then reached over to fill it up again. Placing the bottle back on the coffee table, she settled herself more deeply into the sofa cushions. Leaning one elbow on the back of the sofa she raised her glass. "Cheers," she said, before taking a large sip.

Jack nodded, took a long swallow of his wine, and waited.

"I don't know if I'm snookered enough," she finally said.

"You don't need to be drunk. What happened?"

She gazed at the wine in her glass and said in a low voice, "I did the same thing you did, only worse."

Jack again waited wordlessly.

Finally looking up at him, she said, "I fell in love with the wrong person at the wrong time and made a mess of it." She smiled. "Terrible, isn't it? Two old codgers like us, acting like love-sick teenagers..."

He looked at her silently, wondering the odds of their doing the same stupid thing at the same time in their lives. There was something else that he found even more surprising.

"I can't believe you had an affair," he said.

"I didn't, actually," she replied. With a quirk of her lips she added, "You know me, 'One at a Time' has always been my motto - in spite of the number of 'ones' I've had."

"Then I don't understand," he said. "You've fallen in love with someone you're not having an affair with?"

She turned soft eyes to meet his. "Actually, you can forget the affair. I've fallen in love with the foolish man I married. Really fallen in love, I think. I didn't realise it until it occurred to me he was seeing someone else on the side. I don't know what to do about it."

"You're sure?"

"About my loving him or about his seeing someone else?"

"His seeing someone else. I credit you with some sense in knowing how you feel," he said. He remembered she'd ended her second marriage because her husband had been unfaithful. She had been hurt, but had moved on quickly and apparently effortlessly. The number of times she'd married had told him she had a bad habit of falling madly in 'like' and thinking it was love. He'd always hoped she'd find the real thing, and had known that when she did, she'd settle and never look back.

"Then yes, I'm sure of it. He's seeing someone."

"So you left, leaving him with whoever it is."

She waved the hand not clutching a wine glass. "Yes, I know it doesn't seem all that wise now, but at the time, it seemed a brilliant idea."

"You thought he'd either come to his senses and realise that once you were gone he couldn't live without you, or that at the very least you wouldn't have to watch what was happening."

She nodded.

"You never considered the idea of confronting him?"

She shook her head.

He paused. Slowly, he turned to look at her, his face serious.

"That has got to be the stupidest thing I've ever heard. What the hell were you thinking?" he asked, his voice filled with disbelief.

Janice's stiffened, then saw the gleam of humour in his eyes. Relaxing, she smiled. "I don't know," she said, smoothly adjusting to his honesty. "As I said, it seemed-"

"Like a good idea at the time," Jack finished for her. His lips curved in an affectionate smile. "And we all know where your good ideas usually land you." His smile fading, he asked, "Didn't you talk to anyone about this before packing your bags and heading this way?"

"I thought about calling you when I first became suspicious. I did want to talk to someone. But then Terry wrote about what had happened between you and Maria. I figured you had enough on your plate."

Jack stilled. "Terry? Terry Baldwin told you about Maria?" he asked, surprised that the two still kept in contact. His mind raced backkwards in time, trying to remember the times Terry or she had mentioned each other. Terry had been around the whole time Jack had been in Quantico, and Janice had been in New York on assignment for six months during the same period. It had been before Jack had met Maria, and although they had all been busy, the three of them had seen a fair amount of each other. Had even, for a time, laid claim to the same small apartment. Jack grimaced. Terry probably hadn't seen Janice since then, but he would have kept in contact because Terry was Terry and he did things like that. He would also have had no problem with letting Janice know what was happening in Jack's personal life. Hell, he would have felt it his God-given duty to do so.

Seeing Jack's reaction and knowing she had better calm the waters, Janice told him quickly, "He didn't tell me everything. We only e-mail each other every now and again. He wrote right after he spent some time working on a serial murder case for you - with the profiling, or something, I think he said." She raised an expressive eyebrow at him. "He told me a lot more about Samantha than you did. He said he thought it was pretty serious, even though you claimed it was over. When Maria left, he e-mailed to let me know. He's much better at keeping me posted than you," she finished, her tone slightly accusing.

"I wanted to wait until things were settled," he said, wondering how talking about her problems had suddenly turned back into talking about his. Feeling overwhelmed that Terry had somehow got his ten cents worth involved, he tried to take back control of the conversation. "We'll talk about that later. Right now, we're supposed to be talking about you." Reaching over to pour himself another glass of wine, he discovered it empty. Rising, he told her he'd be right back and walked with a slightly unsteady gait into the kitchen. When he returned, he carried another, freshly opened bottle.

Pouring her a glass before he sat down, he said, "So you're here, he's there - and probably with whoever it is he's seeing on the side. What's his name, anyway?" The wine was beginning to go to his head, and his thoughts were a little fuzzy. "And just how do you think running away from the problem helps you keep him?"

Janice took a moment to reply.

"His name's Charles, and I was hoping he'd miss me," she finally said. She looked at her hands, then lifted them in a gesture of helplessness. "But unlike you and Maria, we have no children to tie us together. There's just us, and I'm not enough. If he's sought someone else out, I have nothing to draw him back." She looked at him with dark eyes. "Maria was a very lucky woman. She had something to encourage you to keep trying."

Jack grunted. "Until she decided she didn't want me to try any more." He looked at her. "A marriage has to be based on more than just its offspring," he told her. "You know that as well as I do."

She shook her head. "No, I don't. And neither do you. Without children, there's nothing to make him stop and think about giving me up."

"Well, there certainly isn't if you insist on not giving him the opportunity to think."

"So you're saying I blew it by leaving?"

"Janice, I'm saying that maybe it would be better if you gave this Charles person a chance. Perhaps he's not having an affair. Remember the things Maria thought about us? She probably never got over the suspicions, but at least she and I talked about it and got it out into the open. It gave me the opportunity to explain our friendship and to reassure her."

Janice nodded. He'd told her about Maria's concerns and had said that everything was okay once they'd talked about it. Janice had taken a more cynical view of matters, and strongly suspected there being an ocean between them had helped reassure the wife far more than the talk had. She'd also always felt strong suspicions that their rare contact during the past ten years had been largely due to Jack trying to keep Maria's jealous streak soothed.

She'd never quite got over her dislike of Jack's wife because of it.

"Did you and Maria talk about Samantha?"

Jack paused. "She had no idea who I'd been seeing at first, but yes, she knew something was wrong, confronted me, and I admitted I had been seeing someone. It wasn't until later I told her who I was seeing."

"And all the confrontation and talking helped things work out in what way?" Janice asked.

Jack knew the point she was making, but refused to be drawn. "We separated, gave ourselves time to think, and then consciously tried to make things work. You should give Charles the same opportunity." As he spoke the words, he marvelled that he was actually using his and Maria's actions as a good example of anything. He mulled the thought of that over in his mind, and something clicked into place. As it did, a tension within him eased, ever so slightly. He had done something right. He had tried.

Silence slid into place between them. When both had finished yet another glass of wine, Jack finally offered, "Think about what I've said. Give him a chance, Janice. He may or may not deserve it, but at least you'll know you tried."

The loneliness in his voice struck the chord of loneliness in her and she nodded. Reaching over, she softly touched his cheek with her fingers. "We'll see, shall we? We're both rather a mess at the moment. I'm ever so glad I'm here, though. I think having each other to talk to about our depressing love lives will help us both."

Jack smiled at the hint of hope in her voice. Sure that her high spirits would reassert themselves relatively soon, he could only hope that she would see sense when they did. It wasn't like her to give up, and he figured if she needed a push in that area, it was good that he'd be there to give it.

He might not have smiled so comfortably had he known that she sat next to him thinking similar thoughts, not about herself, but about him.

End
Chapter 8