Third Wheels and Second Choices
An alternate take on what could have happened the week that Eddie comes back to work after she's shot in 8x18.
The last thing Jamie wants on Thursday night the week that Eddie comes back to active duty is to be the third wheel at dinner with her and Barry after tour ends. Unfortunately, it's been a long day and his tired brain hadn't been able scramble quickly enough to come up with an excuse when Eddie had suggested it. She already knows he doesn't have plans, so she would have shot down anything he came up with anyway.
That's how it ends up that there are three of them sliding into a booth in the back of a familiar pub down the block from the precinct half an hour after their tour ends. Barry watches quizzically as Eddie and Jamie automatically shuffle the condiments on the end of the table: Jamie slides the barbecue sauce and ketchup over to her side; vinegar, salt, and pepper are nudged closer to Jamie, who sits across from her.
Awkward silence settles as soon as they are seated. In the quiet, Eddie starts running her fingers over the edge of the table, eyes carefully following her fingers as Jamie and Barry watch her.
"What are you doing?" Barry asks, grinning at her odd behavior, glad for something to break the ice.
"I can't find it," she mutters.
"Can't find what?" Barry asks, amused.
"Eddie vandalized the furniture." Jamie tells him flatly while aiming reproachful eyes at his partner.
"It's not vandalism!" Eddie rejoins, "I was just… leaving my mark. I'm not the only one, there are tons of them here."
"Maybe it was a different table?" Barry offers.
"No. We always sit at this one. It has to be this one." Barry feels a little stab of malcontent at this. This is the first time he's set foot in this particular pub, so clearly he is no part of the we his girlfriend is referring to, and that doesn't sit well.
"Found it!" She exclaims, tapping a finger on the table between them. Just as she promised, there are numerous sets of faint initials scratched into the edge of the wooden table, and amongst them is a tiny EJ.
After he has dutifully observed her handiwork, silence falls. And stretches. And yawns.
Barry watches as Eddie shoots her partner a quick series of raised brows, narrowed eyes, and pursed lips and he responds in kind, an entire conversation without a sound. It ends in Jamie rolling his eyes and Eddie huffing and turning to ask him about his day. More jabs of dissatisfaction poke at Barry as he watches them and responds.
All three breathe sighs of relief when the waitress arrives, though it's barely been five minutes since they sat down. She already has two beers on her tray, which she deposits in front of Jamie and Eddie without any preamble.
"The regulars for you two?" She asks, looking at Jamie and Eddie.
"Please," says Eddie.
"Yeah, thanks Wendy," echoes Jamie.
"And for you?" Wendy asks, turning to Barry expectantly.
"I'm… going to need a few minutes," Barry has to respond, those stabs of discontent growing sharper. He already feels like he's the third wheel, interrupting some intimate ritual between the two of them, and they haven't even ordered yet. Well, he hasn't.
They do eventually find a kind of almost-comfortable rhythm of conversation, though it's dominated by Eddie, who seems almost afraid to let any silence back in, as if she has to prove that this is not the most awkward situation they can currently imagine.
When their food arrives, what seems like an eternity but is actually only about fifteen minutes later, there's a burger and onion rings for Eddie, a chicken club and salad for Jamie, and an extra side of fries that Wendy sets between them. The condiment mystery is finally solved; the barbecue sauce and ketchup make their way onto Eddie's burger, while the Jamie douses a handful of fries with the vinegar, salt, and pepper that she'd slid his way.
Looking up from his own food, Barry watches as the tomatoes from Eddie's burger are unceremoniously, even unconsciously, he thinks, delivered to Jamie's salad. Moments later, the bacon from Jamie's sandwich finds its way to the edge of Eddie's plate, from whence it is quickly snatched up and added to her burger.
Eddie starts a story about one of their more colorful collars of the week while Jamie pours half the ranch dressing from the plastic condiment cup onto his salad and then slides the cup over next to Eddie's plate.
Ten minutes later, a handful of Eddie's onion rings land on Jamie's plate and the empty spot on her plate is filled by the second pickle that had lain untouched next to his sandwich.
Barry watches them the rest of the meal with a somewhat morbid fascination. If he brings it up, he's not sure either of them would even realize what they've been doing. He's not sure which is worse –if they know they're doing it and do it in his presence anyway, or if they're just so comfortable in each other's space, so entrenched in each other's minds and routines that they don't even realize what they're doing.
He'd never admit it out loud, but he's imagined this scenario before, having Jamie join them on a night out. It always goes a little differently in his head. In the imagined version, he's the one exchanging intimate looks and comfortable routines with Eddie, showing her partner just how good he is for her. He's the one Eddie's looking at with secret smiles, realizing that he comes out on top when she compares him to her partner, side-by-side. By the end of their meal, that fantasy has all come crashing down.
He waits until they've paid the bill and Jamie excuses himself to the restroom before he finally tells Eddie, "I don't think this is working, Eddie."
She looks up, startled.
"Look, I know it was kind of awkward, but—"
"Eddie," he cuts her off. "You spent nine hours with him today. Twelve the day before that. Who knows how many altogether this week? You should be wanting some space. You should be wanting some alone time with me. Instead, you practically begged him to come out with us."
She scoffs and tries to speak, but he doesn't give her the chance. "Tell me the truth, Eddie," he asks her quietly, "Would you have been the least bit disappointed if I had backed out tonight?"
She opens her mouth to respond, but the response takes a second too long to come. He sighs.
"Don't answer that, please." He retracts. "But what if it was him you had plans with and he cancelled? How disappointed would you have been then?"
She clamps her mouth shut, but he hadn't really expected an answer. He knows it already.
"I just spent an hour watching you two do this elaborate dance around each other that I don't think you were even aware of. You're so much in each other's heads that you don't even know you're there anymore."
"He's my partner," she tries weakly but he shakes his head.
"I like you a lot, Eddie. I think you're great. And I thought maybe you just needed a chance to get over your partner because he wasn't interested or wasn't available. But I don't think that's the case and I'm not sure why you two aren't acting on that, but I'm not interested in being your consolation prize."
Eddie's mind automatically flashes back to a long-ago conversation in the women's locker room, and then guilt smacks her in the gut because a good guy is breaking up with her because of Jamie and she can't even keep Jamie out of her mind long enough for him to do it.
He interrupts her mental reprimand by reaching over to squeeze her hand while he moves to stand.
"Bye, Eddie."
"Well, I just got dumped. Can we get dessert?"
Her abrupt statement when Jamie returns to the table makes him stop and blink.
"What? Why?"
She purses her lips and levels a wry look at him. "Why do you think?"
Jamie has the grace to look away even as he slides into the booth, next to her now.
"Me?"
"Yep."
"You okay?"
"Fine. Just… I need ice cream."
"C'mon," he says, nodding toward the door, "I'll buy you the biggest cone you can find."
Moving to slide out of the booth, he suddenly halts himself and lays a hand on hers to stop her movement. He reaches out to grab the fork laying on the table and, after a moment of searching, uses it to carefully scratch something into the edge of the table.
"Jamie Reagan!" she gasps in mock horror, "are you vandalizing the furniture?"
He just lays the fork down and stands to usher her out of the booth, green eyes a little nervous.
Before she moves, her eyes search across the edge of the table to where he was working and what she sees makes her breath catch and her heart flip. There's an addition to her initials on the table edge. There in tiny letters, it now reads:
EJ + JR
AN: I'm not super happy with this. I loved it when I started it, but the finishing bits were a lot harder than the initial ideas. I figure it's about as good as it's going to get, though, so here it is. Please leave a review if you have constructive criticism or suggestions. I'm still figuring out how to get the voices right for these two.
Also, just in case you haven't gathered this yet, this collection is probably going to be fluffier than the two feet of snow we're supposed to get this weekend. If you've read any of my stuff in other fandoms, you may know that I'm no stranger to a little bit of angst here and there, but I'm warning you now that my Jamko muse seems to be all fluff all the time.