The Pleasure of Your Company (Final Chapter)
I can't stand the Jamie-Eddie stand-off anymore. There is no solution to it without separating them. But if that happens what are the shippers gonna do? So that's why we write fics.
They said after two weeks he should be as good as new. But Jamie Reagan discovered otherwise as he sprinted along the hall to catch up with his partner Eddie Janko whom he saw emerging from a corner and walking briskly towards Renzulli's office with a long brown envelope in her hand. The stabbing pain came back, burning his core. The stitches had come off but the previously parted flesh and muscles pulled as he ran but he just gritted his teeth. Not to mention that he hadn't been out for a run for two weeks and the little baby marathon he was in felt like it was going to kill him.
Just five more yards, he gushed in between short puffs of breath.
Gotcha! With one swift movement of his wrist, Eddie's letter was in his grip.
"Hey!" Eddie Janko spun, only to see Jamie tearing the envelope open, scanning the letter and then proceeded to tearing up the piece of paper into little pieces. He let everything drop to the floor in unrecoverable bits.
"Reagan! You destroyed my letter!" Eddie yelled, catching the attention of officers in the proximity.
"What letter?" Jamie Reagan huffed and swayed dangerously in front of his partner. His head was spinning. He felt as if he couldn't breathe. Seeing his pale and sweaty face, Eddie quickly grabbed hold of him from under his arms and let him lean on her.
"What on earth is going on?"Renzulli said, sticking his bespectacled face out of his office.
"Nothing, Sarge," Jamie answered, still in Eddie's arms. Renzulli emerged fully now, exasperation written all over his face.
"I assigned you to desk duty so you don't run around. You got your stitches pulled or something, Reagan?"
"No, sir. I just feel faint. It will pass. The fault is my own," Jamie Reagan explained.
"Janko, take him out of here," Renzulli ordered his partner.
"Yes, sir."
The two limped out of the main office, out of the building and got a seat in the enclosed compound of the 12th.
"Don't you scare me like that again, Reagan," Eddie scolded.
"Sorry. I had to do it," Jamie said, feeling better now.
"Nuts?" Eddie said, offering him a handful of steaming chestnuts wrapped in brown paper. Jamie couldn't help being amazed how Eddie had always managed to get food at any available opportunity and still maintain her figure.
"I could use some nuts," Jamie said taking one. Eddie gave a small laugh and shook her head.
"How did you figure out what was in that letter?" Eddie asked, annoyed and perplexed.
"Took me some cunning detective work," Jamie replied nonchalantly, shrugging, chestnut in his mouth.
"I've never told anyone. No one," Eddie continued, fuming. At the end of the sentence, Eddie's eyes widened and her mouth opened and shut soundlessly.
"You …" Eddie let her word hung in the air, her eyes narrowed in icy vengeance.
"Played possum, played drugged possum," Jamie explained.
Eddie's face reddened.
"Eddie, if you want to start laying blame for everything that happened to any one of us, there is plenty to go around. I asked you to collar the son-of-a-bitch, I asked you to press charges. If there was someone to be blamed, that person was me. You can't take that blame alone and that misguided guilt is not a reason for you to ask to be reassigned to a new partner," Jamie offered his two cents and was surprised that Eddie was even listening. He knew this because Eddie scoffed at the word 'misguided'.
"I don't know, Jamie. I can't lose you. Not like that."
"You won't."
Eddie's eyes widened at that. She stood up; the pack of chestnut just slid from her lap and fell to the grass. Jamie had never seen Eddie disregard her food. He knew he had crossed the line now and calling her 'misguided' was not it.
"You're f*cking lying, Jamie Reagan! You know you can't f*cking promise anyone that!" Eddie yelled. She really lost it this time. Her hands were flying all over her face in wild gestures. Jamie could only imagine that someone had promised her the same thing and had bailed out on her. Someone she had given her trust, loyalty and love completely to.
"I'm sorry, Eddie. God knows how much I want to say that to you and how much I wish it is true."
"You and I had lost too many loved ones to know that that kind of promise is just a f*ucking lie. Don't you dare say that to me again," Eddie said, tears flowing freely from her eyes.
"You're right," Jamie stood up too. Eddie gestured wildly with her hands as if to show that she had every right to be mad at him.
"We've both lost people we love but that doesn't give you the excuse to push people away. Especially people who care about you."
Eddie went silent, her gesturing had stopped. She was sucking in her tears.
Jamie stepped closer towards his partner and without preamble cocooned her in his arms. Eddie gasped. She put her arms against the planes of his chest as if wanting to shield herself from him, but Jamie felt no push coming from her. She was just taking him slowly, because he remembered that she said she had wanted to wean herself off him, separating herself from him in the duration of over two weeks and she had been successful. And he had proven to her that he was not so easy to be rid off and she had to ease his re-entry into her orbit by shielding herself. Jamie felt Eddie slowly lowered her arms and let them travel along his ribs. They stopped at the flank of his back and her fingers gripped his uniform in the ridge of his backbone. She buried her face in the valley of his chest and Jamie let her mess up his uniform with her tears and her running make up, if she had any on because if she hadn't she'd still look beautiful.
Jamie Reagan gave thanks for an uncharacteristically uneventful day on the job such as this one.
The End. (Thanks for reading everyone!)