So, here's the next chapter. I hope you'll all enjoy it! I enjoyed your reviews!
Warmest thanks again to jbird who is swamped with my next couple of chapters. I hope she gets to chapter 13 of her own story, soon...
Tomorrow
by Serataja
-Chapter 2-
Soul Mates, Part 1
January/Now
Jack dumps his coat on the sofa in his office, not caring that the melting snow clinging to it might ruin the leather. It is time to hunt down other avenues. NYPD will take care of Central Park. Sam puts her coat on top of his and Danny, seeing that they are finally back, hurries over from the bullpen.
"Have there been other sightings?" Jack asks.
Danny shrugs.
"Lots of them as usual, but so far no real leads. We're still checking it out."
Vivian comes in, still wearing her coat.
"Martin called. They're starting an organized search, now. He's going to stay there."
"Fine. You all know what to do?"
"Yeah, Danny's on the phone, I'm going to check out that sighting we had on West 89th and Sam is staying with you. All right?"
"All right."
Jack sits down at his desk, grabbing the list with possible leads that Danny gave him and hands a couple of sheets over to Sam. She takes them but continues standing, looking down at him with a nervous expression, her lips twitching as if she is about to say something.
He pretends not to notice.
"Why should anyone want to hide in Central Park in this weather?" she asks.
Jack doesn't look up.
"I don't know, Sam," he says. "I guess not everybody hates the snow like you do."
His voice sounds cold to her ears and she feels a dull pain spread through her chest. It's not as if they've had anything other than a work-relationship over the past years. Her feelings for him have faded away long ago. She thinks it has been the same for him. It is strange to think that something that strong can just go away. If love means so little, what faith can you have in the fabric that holds the universe together? If love means nothing, does anything mean anything anymore?
Vivian pops her head around the door once more.
"Oh, Jack, I forgot to tell you, Jessica called. She watched something about the case on the morning news and wanted to know if you'll be able to make it tonight?"
"Damn," Jack says. "I forgot all about it. I don't think there's a chance of me attending the way things are going. Thanks, Viv, I'll call her."
Sam sees a small smile of anticipation linger on his lips. He is obviously looking forward to talking to his fiancée.
Things have turned out all right for all of them.
"Jack," she says when Vivian has closed the door, "I don't know if you've been notified already. My transfer has been approved."
His eyes are scanning the papers in his hands.
"Great" he says, "Good. I'm happy for you. Now you can finally get out of the cold. When are you leaving?"
"Well, that's it. They want me yesterday at the latest. I talked to Olczyk and he approved it. Today is my last day."
Now he finally lifts his head. He looks at the wall straight ahead, closes his eyes, opens them again and then looks at her. His expression is blank.
"You should have talked to me first."
"I went through the proper channels."
"I should have known. You should have talked to me first. I'm going to be stuck in this case one agent short. Why the hell didn't you call me?"
Anger is creeping into his voice. Only later she thinks it might not have been anger at all. It could have been despair. But there is no reason to despair over being one agent short, is there?
"It was late," she answers, trying to stay calm. "I didn't want to wake you."
"But waking Olczyk was all right?"
"Jack, please…"
He dismisses her with a wave of his hand.
"Go and do your work. If this is your last day you don't have time to spare."
He has seldom been that unkind before.
"I won't be able to attend your wedding either," she tries to patch things up.
"Jessica and I will be wed with or without you," he snaps. "Now excuse me. I have work to do."
Sam leaves his office. She walks to the ladies room, trying to keep her dignity until she is out of sight. Turning on the tap she starts to cry. She tries to keep it low so no one can hear the sound over the rushing water.
The door opens and Vivien enters. She stops at the sight and raises her eyebrows.
"Moving on?" she says.
But her voice is gentle
December 2000
Sunday, 8.29 a.m.
Jack looked out into the falling snow. It was early December and he dreaded the following weeks, he dreaded Christmas. It was never a time he had enjoyed, not even when his mother was still alive. Her depression usually got worse around times when other people were happy and she had never been able to pull together the strength to celebrate it the way it should be. Jack could remember his father putting up decorations, muttering to himself because at Christmas time he usually had two or three major fights a day with his wife. His father had a heavy hand and no real sense of beauty and Christmas had been a lifeless, barren thing in the Malone household. Jack had wanted to make it different for his children, and Maria with her strong sense of tradition and opinions of how things were supposed to be, had been a good partner in that. But these days the relationship between them was so strained, they could hardly talk to each other, let alone celebrate Christmas with happy faces.
Jack could not really pinpoint what the problem between them was. True, they were basically leading two separate lives. On one side were Maria and his daughters; on the other, himself and his job. Maria was working full-time, too, but somehow she seemed to take it all in her stride, whereas he was tired and worn out when he got home, unable to let go of the cases he was working on. True also that they rarely touched each other these days. But that was not what they fought about. It was about the milk he had forgotten to buy. About getting a call from the office early in the morning preventing him from bringing Hanna and Kate to school. About the tube of toothpaste that he had thrown away although it was still a quarter full. It was about him not paying attention. It was about Jack Malone being insufficient as a husband, as a father and, he thought, ultimately as a human being. That is, if they were fighting at all and not just trying to avoid each other.
Worst of all was that Hanna and Kate were beginning to feel the strain between their parents. They could sense that this time things were really bad, worse than they had ever been before. Hanna's reaction was to draw away from him. Sometimes he could see her giving him a look that reminded him of the contempt he saw in his wife's eyes. Kate on the other side was clinging to him whenever he was home; maybe afraid that someday he would leave, never to come back. It wasn't like he hadn't had thoughts like that. Life sometimes felt pretty unbearable to him these days. But he would never leave home. He could not bear the thought to leave his daughters. It was not an option.
Jack folded the New York Times he had been reading and left it on the kitchen table for Maria. He put on his coat, getting ready for the short walk to work and felt his mood lighten. Life was not all totally unbearable. There were things to look forward to.
He remembered just in time that he had forgotten some papers on the desk in the bedroom and he went back, stepping lightly across the carpet in the living room. It was 8.30 a.m. on a Sunday and he didn't want to wake Maria. Hanna and Kate had spent the night at a friend's place and he was supposed to pick them up later so Maria could have a day off.
She was still asleep when he entered the bedroom and he looked at her. There was a deep frown on her face. She never really looked relaxed when sleeping and he felt a surge of guilt wash through him. She had changed over the years. She had become harder, more demanding, impatient. Jack knew that it was because of him. She needed him to be a different kind of husband, a different man. He had tried, but he had not been able to do it.
Jack picked up the papers, putting them back in their folder, closing it on the picture of a small, dark-skinned boy. The case had come in three years ago and they had never found a single lead that could have told them what happened to the toddler that vanished while camping in the mountains with his family. Their initial assumption had been that the father had hurt the kid but Jack soon became convinced that Chet Collins was innocent.He felt very strongly that Chet would never have laid a hand on his son.
With a sigh his gaze traveled out of the window, across the roofs of the city he loved. The sun was rising in the east and her golden light was reflected in the tall towers of the World Trade Center. Jack took a deep breath. The view was magnificent. He suddenly felt at peace.
8.50 a.m.
Jack stepped out of the elevator. The office was quiet. None of the team was supposed to be in today. It was their day off. It was his day off, too.
Guessing it might be hopeless he stretched his neck, glancing through the glass panes separating him from the bullpen. A bright, warm spark lit up inside him. Her blonde head was sticking up over one of the partitions. Jack relaxed. Everything was right with the world after all.
He went to his office. One pile of files had cascaded down to the floor in the course of the night and he picked it up grumbling to himself. He would have to take care of that pile before doing anything else. He left his door open.
After a while he heard her voice:
"Good morning, Jack."
He hid his delight well.
"Morning, Samantha," he mumbled, not lifting his head.
"Isn't this your day off?" she asked.
"I believe it's yours, too," he answered, still not looking up.
"Chet Collins called. He said he would be half an hour late for your meeting. Do you want a cup of coffee?"
"That would be great."
He couldn't help himself, he had to look up and meet her eyes. And there they were, smiling into his with their mixture of warmth and trust that he had noticed she reserved for him and him only. A rare smile appeared on his face and he couldn't believe that not even an hour ago he had thought that life was unbearable.
She walked away to fetch the coffee and he knew that she would bring a cup for herself, too, sit down in his visitor's chair and they would talk for a while.
After a minute she came back, closing the door and offering him a cup, black, the way he liked it.
"So, in what kind of coffee mood are you today?" he asked, taking a look at the golden liquid in her cup, guessing how much sugar she had put in it. She laughed at the face he made.
"Lots of milk lots of sugar, the way you detest it," she answered, tenderness in her voice and something else, a basic acceptance of who he was, something that went far beyond coffee drinking habits.
"Gosh," he said, "how can you drink that?"
"Take your cup and stop complaining,"
He took his cup and she settled comfortably down in the chair across from him, stretching her legs.
"That Kellar guy has been asking about you again," he said lightly. "He does so every time I'm down at the station. He says you two used to work together?"
"Only a short time. Right before I went to the FBI."
"He sure has got his eye on you."
"Yeah, he's a great-looking guy. Maybe I'll do something about it one of these days."
"Suit yourself," Jack said, "but I don't like him."
She gave him a teasing grin.
"Oh, how come? I think he's very attractive."
"Well, maybe if you like the type."
"So? What sort of type is that?"
The opposite of me he wanted to say, but he kept quiet. They were walking a fine line and he didn't want to flirt with her too openly, he didn't want to take it too far.
Samantha knew what his sudden silence meant and she didn't ask further. There was no use in taking this too far and regretting it afterwards. So she changed the subject.
TBC