The Blue Bloods timeline is notoriously inconsistent, so for clarity purposes I've made a list of the years I think the Reagans were born in. It's my own interpretation of the different things we've heard on the show, mixed with what fits best with what I write.

Frank Reagan (b. 1951)

Mary Reagan (b. 1951)

Danny Reagan (b. 1973)

Linda Reagan (b. 1974)

Erin Reagan (b. 1974)

Joe Reagan (b. 1977)

Jamie Reagan (b. 1985)

Nicky Reagan-Boyle (b. 1996)

For this story my headcanon is that Mary died in 2000 instead of 2005. I might use the canonical date in future stories, but for this story Jamie is 15 when she dies.


"But grief makes a monster out of us sometimes...and sometimes you say and do things to the people you love that you can't forgive yourself for." - Melina Marchetta, On the Jellicoe Road


That afternoon, Jamie Reagan was studying for a science test.

He sat at the dining room table, textbook and notes spread around him, pen in hand, listening to the deathly quiet of the house around him. The silence was the worst, really. To come home after school, let himself in at the kitchen door, and immediately be enveloped in the utter stillness of the empty house. No bubbling of a pot on the stove, no soft hum of the oven, no rustling of the curtains through the open sitting-room windows, no creaking of somebody else moving around in the house. No "Hi, Jamie-hun, how was school". He had come in with Joe once, and even though Joe was supposed to be in Chicago at the time and nobody had known he was due back that day, they had heard Mom greeting them both from the top floor. His mom always knew which one of them it was when they came through the kitchen door, even if she'd had no way of knowing who'd arrived. Another one of the mysteries Jamie would never be able to solve now.

It was nearing six o'clock according to the antique clock on the mantelpiece, which meant that Dad would be home soon. He was working long hours these days, putting in extra shifts like it was going out of style, according to Danny, but he'd said this morning that he'd be home for supper.

Jamie had stuck one of Linda's casseroles in the oven, about an hour ago. He wasn't looking forward to dinner. The food was delicious of course, although he missed the way his mom browned the mince before she put it in the casserole, but Jamie it was Dad being there that Jamie wasn't looking forward to.

They didn't talk anymore, him and Dad. Sure, they said 'good morning' and 'slept well?' and 'have a good day at work/school' to each other, but they didn't talk like they used to. About history and God and a weird book about the universe not existing at all that Jamie had accidently read in the library during lunch. About Billy Carlotti, who had been trying to bully Jamie into trying weed at school, and a thousand other things nobody knew to explain as well as Dad did. Dad also knew when Jamie didn't want an explanation, but just wanted to muddle about in some idea on his own.

Dad didn't eat either, which made meals doubly awkward. Nor sleep, as far as Jamie was able to tell, because he'd always still be awake when Jamie finally went to bed, and already be halfway through a pot of coffee and a stack of files at the kitchen table when Jamie got up in the morning. Dad seemed to live on coffee and no sleep, these days, and Jamie often went cold and clammy when he thought about the fact that coffee and no sleep really weren't good enough to keep a man his dad's size alive.

The kitchen door clicked open, and Jamie hastily looked down at his work. He had been studying for the past God knows how many hours. Must have been, since there were books open, and he remembered reading and there were actual notes made on the lined paper under his pen. He had no idea what was going on, really, and he didn't care much because his attention was wholly focused on the sounds of his dad entering the kitchen.

"Hi, Dad," Jamie called, his throat tight.

Dad appeared in the doorway, with the pale, frozen expression Jamie was beginning to grow used to. He rested his hand on Jamie's shoulder for a moment, but he didn't say anything. The hand was heavy, but not warm, and Jamie wondered if this was what the phrase 'a dead weight' meant.

"There's casserole in the oven, and I cut up some tomatoes."

"You go ahead and eat," Dad said, already turning away to the leather armchair in front of the fire. And the files in his briefcase and the bottle of scotch on the mantelpiece, no doubt.

"You said you'd be home for dinner." It came out with a lot more whine than what Jamie intended, but he was feeling the familiar cold pit in the centre of his stomach, seeing how Dad was almost noticeably filling up less of his coat than he used to. "Aren't you going to eat?"

"I'll get something later."

Dad put down his briefcase, loosened the scarf from around his neck and shrugged out of his coat.

"So you are going to eat, just not with me?"

Dad didn't answer.

He sat down, heavily as though he was exhausted, and opened a yellow file. He started leafing through it, apparently unaware of his son glaring at him from the table. Because Jamie found himself, inexplicably, going from dreading another silent meal to coldly furious at the dismissal. He glowered down at the table, afraid to open his mouth in case he said something he really didn't mean. No matter how weird Dad was acting, Jamie was pretty sure he'd still take exception to being told to 'fuck off'.

He packed up his books, stuffing them into his backpack, leaving Dad and the scotch and the silent sitting room to their own devices. On his way upstairs he stopped in the kitchen to ladle some casserole into a bowl and turn off the oven.

But once he was in his room, he couldn't bring himself to actually eat. He ate more than dad, at least, since he'd had a bowl of cereal this morning. The bowl of casserole having been abandoned on the window sill, he went back into the hallway to the phone.

He didn't look at the little notepad lying on beside the phone on the table, or at the list of numbers stuck on the wall next to it. Mom's handwriting was distinctive in their house – elegant and neat in a way that even Erin's wasn't. He couldn't bear to look at it and remember her long, fair-skinned fingers, her dark hair brushing over the page as she bent to write.

He dialled Joe's apartment, but the line just rang and rang. Joe didn't usually work evenings, but maybe he was following Dad's example in taking on extra shifts. So, Jamie called the precinct. The desk sergeant knew his voice apparently, because he greeted him by name. But Joe wasn't there either.

After trying his apartment one more time, Jamie put down the phone.

Joe was avoiding him. Sure, it might be that he was just down at the bodega getting bread. But Jamie hadn't managed to reach him in, well, all the weeks since the funeral. He didn't randomly pick him up after school, like he normally did at least once a week. Didn't even show up for Sunday dinner anymore. But he had been at Danny and Linda's for dinner just last week, and when Jamie had offered to watch Nicky the previous weekend Erin had said that Joe would be coming over to watch her. And Dad and Joe worked at the same precinct, so it wasn't as if he could avoid seeing Dad just by not coming home.

It was Jamie he was avoiding.

A headache was forming between Jamie's eyes, and he pressed his fingers onto the bridge of his nose.

Not for the first time, since that dark Tuesday three weeks ago when his mother breathed her last, he wished that everything could just be normal, just for a second. And if it couldn't be normal, if it could just be okay.

He went back to his room and got under the covers, trying to convince himself that it was late at night and that the house had every right to be this silent if it liked.