DR: Jack and Beckett, Post-"Knockout"

[trigger_man]

It always starts out as an ordinary day.

Jack's got his bag slung over his shoulder, ready to head out to his world for a while.  Only when he opens the door, it's not the tiny apartment he's rented in Lexington that he sees.  Instead, it's sidewalk and tall apartment buildings.  Turning his head, he sees yellow cabs and New York licence plates, behind him apparently an ordinary phone booth.

Something cold settles in his stomach; there are only a few reasons for the bar to have dropped him off somewhere other than the place where he'd walked in, and none of them are good.

Following a hunch, he covers the sidewalk between him and the nearest apartment building in a couple strides, eyes searching the nameplates by the door, until he finds the one he's looking for.

K. Beckett.

The bar dropped him off at her home, not the precinct, not a hospital.

(not a morgue, a church or a cemetery)

Telling himself that it can't be that bad if he's been kicked out of the bar at her apartment building, he presses the button to buzz her apartment.

If only the butterflies in his stomach were listening.

Comments

[needthepractice]

"Stop that," she whispers, shaking her head slowly and pulling back enough to look at him, a small sidelong expression.

"I'm fine, I promise. Maybe a little more dinged on the outside, but I'm still in one piece, alright?"

[trigger_man]

He pulls back, but keeps his hands on her uppper arms. There's still a little furrow of concern on his brow.

"Yeah, you are. Your doctors said you'd make a full recovery?"

[needthepractice]

"More or less," Beckett murmurs, looking up at him with a smile that she hopes is reassuring enough.

"I - I'm sorry," she adds. "I didn't mean to interrupt your - leaving."

[trigger_man]

It's not the unqualified "yes" that he would have preferred to hear, but he'll take the answer she can give him.

"You didn't interrupt. Not like I was going to my world for anything particularly important, and I haven't seen you in a while. You're a good friend of mine, Beckett; you're more important than anything I have waiting for me in my world."

[needthepractice]

The sincerity of his words throws her for a loop; there's no question that he's someone she cares for a great deal, but they don't often have a reason to say the words to each other - and probably fortunately so.

"Thank you," she quietly replies, glancing down at the floor, tucking a piece of hair behind one ear.