- Text Size +
Story Notes:

Author’s Note: This is a companion piece to Five Times Passing. It is Heather’s point of view of the month following the kiss, and what leads to her statements to Jake in Black Jack. This story references events in Rogue River, Crossroads, Red Flag, Vox Populi  and the opening of Black Jack.

Useless Disclaimer: I have not inherited Jericho from the relative I’ve never known. I have no rights to it or to CBS. I play with the characters for my own amusement. Believe me, no one is going to pay to watch me manuever my Jake and Heather dolls. (Speaking of which, action figures, CBS, action figures...)

The View From The Bench by dponice


1.
Both the Green boys looked like crap. She didn't think she wanted to know whatever it was they had seen. She needed to, she just didn't want to know. But there would be time for that. She was just happy to have them, him home.

The doctor they brought with them had started the Mayor on Levaquin. Now it was just a matter of wait and see. The only thing in the kitchen with caffeine she could find was tea. So she took some up to the people gathered in Johnston Green's room. It was the one thing she could think of doing to stick around a little longer. But it was time to leave and on the way down she nearly ran into Emily who was watching Jake. He was almost slumped into the stairs, head in hands.

She steps around Emily. "Jake, I'm going to take off. If your mom or your family need anything, just ask."

He thanks them for staying with his mom. Emily starts telling Jake about the ice and claiming that it saved Johnston's life. It might have helped, but if anything is saving the Mayor's life, it is the drug and the doctor Jake and Eric had gone through hell to bring home.

He tries to rouse himself enough to say goodbye. She ignores that but hopes that her brief touch of hand to shoulder lets him know that she is there for him.

She is heading out the door when she turns and sees Jake take Emily's hand. Maybe the old friend can do what the new friend can't right now. She hopes so.  She wishes it were different but she isn't needed here right now.



2.
She still had a headache. Not much of one, but Bill's lecture was making it worse. Yes, she had parked in front of Rickell's plumbing and electrical supply store. Yes, it was possible that she blocked the drive to the loading dock. It takes everything she has ever learned from teaching not to look at him and ask him who was going to be delivering anything to Rickell's.

Jimmy steps into the fray. "Heather, we had to move your truck. We needed equipment to wire the bridge to explode. Ex-government mercenaries were threatening to come into Jericho." Bill finally realizes that she had no idea about the explosives, and together they fill her in on the desperate plan to turn back the mercenaries. After a few oh, my and thank goodness no one was hurts, Jimmy tells her where to find her truck.

Leaving the Sheriff's office she just sits on the stairs in the City Hall rotunda. She had merely dozed the night before. Worried about a drunk and restless Emily, she had kept an eye on her best friend. The best friend who had spent the night talking in her sleep. Talking in her sleep about Roger and Jake, the fiancé and the ex. Only the fiancé was missing and the ex apparently wasn't so ex. You know the same guy she was head over heels crazy about, the one that Emily had never told her she still had feelings for. And he had apparently spent most of yesterday threatening to blow himself up along with the bridge.

She hears Emily shouting outside of the door, so she gets up and hurries out. Only to see both objects of her reverie staring at each other. Emily telling him that she needs him in one piece and Jake in a comforting tone reminding Emily he isn't dead. Great, could the day get any better.

Emily sees her and asks her about the truck. Jake turns to her, and suddenly the last thing she can face is being patronized by Jake Green. She can see that she is the third wheel  here. She is tired. Her head is throbbing. And there is no way she is going to cry.

As cheerfully as she can she calls out, "I got it, Em. We should get you back to the Pines." She continues down the stairs, careful not to look at Jake and give it all away.  Emily turns to go down the stairs with her, so she takes her arm. "See ya, Jake."

She and Emily move quickly to the truck.

"Do you know what Jake was doing yesterday?"

"Bill and Jimmy filled me in." She looked at Emily. She had never seen her so unraveled. "Emily, he was doing what he thought he had to do to keep the town safe, to keep people he loves safe. "

"My father was the one to stop it. To end the showdown. If he hadn't shown up, the bridge would have been blown, Jake would be dead, and Raven...whatever would have come at the town from another direction. He would be dead for nothing."

"I don't think it would have been for nothing."

"Heather, I know you really like him, but he doesn't think. He watches, and when he finally decides to act he comes straight at things. Sometimes that is good, but a lot of times it isn't. "

"So you're saying you were the one to come up with multiple halloween costumes."

"Yes, and that I knew that the one who would get caught wouldn't be the one carrying the extra costumes."

What had begun as an attempt to be comforting had been turned into a warning, and she wouldn't or couldn't decide if it was to protect her or scare her. It was time to change the tone. She laughs as she says  "Mastermind."

Emily takes the cue.  "At twelve even. Do you want to come in, we could..."

She interrupts, "Em, do you mind if I just drop you off. I think I had more yesterday then I realized. A long nap would do my head and my stomach good."

"I like the sound of that myself.  Thanks for everything, Heather."

"That's what friends are for. Later."




3.
Since her parents had moved to Nebraska right after she went to college, her aunt in New Bern was her closest relative. Last year and the year before she had gone there for Thanksgiving.  During college she had arranged dinner for whichever roommates hadn't gone home. That usually meant Emily, Lees and herself. This was the first time that Heather Lisinski had ever spent Thanksgiving alone. And there wasn't even enough in her cupboard to pretend that there was a dinner.

She had gone into town earlier to check out the air drops, but the tension was too much especially when she heard that they weren't going to give out the food.  She was going to write off the day when her neighbor told her they were going to hook up the new generator.

The Chinese had air dropped a generator. How cool was that. She needed to go check this out.

So she found herself in the center of town with others waiting for the light. She hangs off to the side, watching everyone gather. Soon the Greens arrive. Emily is with them. 

"Hiya, Heather."

"Hi, Jimmy. It's calmer then this afternoon."

"You were around for that, huh. Not as exciting as getting the generator back from Jonah though."

"Jonah Prowse had the generator?"

"Yeah. We were all gathered out there to take it back, by force if necessary. Mayor Green  was at the gate of the compound, when the truck with the generator starts up. He barely got out of the way before it ran the gate. I'm surprised none of us shot her."

"Shot who?"

"Emily. Emily snuck onto the compound to get the truck so there wouldn't be a fight."

"Wow." And the lights go on.

Jimmy pats her on back, and goes to find his family.  All around her people are hugging and kissing.

She looks to her right again, and there are Emily and Jake hugging. She turns to her left and there are Eric and Mary kissing. Time to get it together. Move on. At least she can get a look at the generator. She starts down the street, and realizes she doesn't know where the generator is. 

"Hey, Jimmy where is this famous generator?"

"Back the direction you came on the other side of Main. I'm surprised you aren't there already."

"I would be if I had any sense of direction."

She heads back to the generator, and gets most of the way there before she sees it. And Jake and April Green are right in front of it.

"Hey, Miss Lisinski, did you see what my dad today?"

Samuel Hawkins runs up to her followed by his father.

"Hi, Samuel. So this is your doing, Mr. Hawkins?"

"Not entirely, Miss Lisinski. I just helped."

He looks uncomfortable, while Samuel just looks proud.

"Well thank you. And thank your partners for me as well."

"Will do."

She shakes Mr. Hawkins hand and reaches out and ruffles Samuel's hair.

"See you Monday, Samuel." 

 "She yer Mund A." It is hard to understand him, muffled as he was by the hug he gave her. She can't help but smile at him.

She starts to turn to the generator when she realizes that the Greens are still in front of it. The generator Emily rescued, Emily who was at dinner with them, with Jake.

She turns away. And sees Samuel waving back at her. She waves at Samuel and smiles again. Some of her other students wave at her as well. As she walks back to her apartment, she is greeted by more students and parents. Mrs. Ennis, the fourth grade teacher,  greets her and then stops dead.

"Oh, Heather, I didn't think."

"About what?"

"Uh, Oh, Damnit. It didn't occur to me that you couldn't go to your aunt's for Thanksgiving. I'm so sorry. Right here and now, you are invited for Christmas. And not just because I want help with the boys."

"Sarah, your boys are in their late twenties."

"You haven't seen them mess up the house on Christmas morning. That hasn't changed since they were twelve. And besides their daughters take after them."

"Oh, sure I can see those toddlers tearing up your house.  And somehow I think their mothers will help."


Sarah reaches out and hugs Heather. "Wait till those toddlers are in your class. And If I can forgive you for showing up a year too late to be the mother of one of them, you can stop giving me a hard time and come to Christmas."

"Fine, Christmas it is." She waves at Mr. Ennis as Sarah joins him and they walk home.

The generator will still be here tomorrow. Her students will still be here tomorrow. As much as she hates Gone With the Wind Scarlett does have one thing right. Tomorrow is another day.



4.
What a couple of days. First Gracie was murdered, and then there was a manhunt for Emily's father, Jonah. From the grapevine she heard that Emily and Jake were right in the middle of it. Then the town does something stupid like electing Gray Anderson to be mayor. She can only hope that doesn't lead to big problems.

It does cause a girl to crave a drink, and she hadn't really seen Mary in a while. So she was on her way to Bailey's when she spotted them. Shuffling down the street, were dozens of people, dirty, tired and haunted people. She can't tell how many. It is too dark to see how many rows there are. She races up to the first and finds out they have been walking for weeks, and didn't know where they were. She points them toward the center of town. And races to get help.

Bailey's is closest, so she heads there first. The first thing she sees as she walks in is Jake. She is going to call out to him when she sees him hold out his hand to the person next to him and she realizes that he is asking Emily to dance.

She is saved from the embarrassment of interrupting them when she realizes that Eric is right beside her. She grabs him.

"Eric, you have to come with me."

She drags him out into the street and up to the refugees.

"I'm going to go get April and your father. You'll help them?"

"I've got it. Go."

One young woman at the front of the line takes her hand briefly. She can barely hear the words. "Thank you."

And with that she was going down the side street, heading for the Green home. She hoped April was there, but if not she would circle around and knock on the Med Center door. Some small part of her was glad she didn't have time to think about what she had seen back at Bailey's.



5.
The meeting had gone well. Not.

Gray continued to succeed in his campaign to make her believe he was a jerk. It wasn't enough to let people know how bad the fuel situation was,  if you are a leader you might want to have thought about possible solutions to the problems. He didn't race around the room saying the sky was falling, but he didn't do much better.

So it ended up with the town volunteering Jake to go try to get the governor.  Roger was briefing Gray and Jake about the Black Jack Fair Grounds when she had come into the room with Emily. No one expected her to volunteer to go. After some pointless arguing they realized she was right.


Okay, everyone but Jake realized she was right. She had a pretty good idea what his biggest reservation was, and it wasn't the girl thing. Oh, she was sure that if her gender was male he would be easier about her coming along. Everything she had seen indicated that Mr. Green had a protective streak a mile wide, so it was more about what could go wrong, not that he would be better off with a 200 pound linebacker riding shotgun. Which he would, if that linebacker had any engineering knowledge. No, she had more baggage with him then the average female.

She was going to have face this. In the weeks since she kissed him, she had realized that she had walked into a quagmire. She knew she would have been crazy about him no matter what. She knew that he would probably have known that. But it is far easier to dance around that kind of thing if no words have been spoken or action taken. The minute she lost her head and kissed Jake Green, the ability to ignore the fact that Heather  was head over heels about him was a lost cause, for both of them. So Jake had avoided her for the last month.

She wasn't entirely inexperienced. He had enjoyed that kiss. And he had been flirting with her up to then. But Jake Green had probably been flirting with women since he got out of the womb. And he was smart. Smart enough to know when more would be expected of him then an enjoyable way to the pass the time. How much time would be determined by the woman. Some would even spend the night with the charming bad boy and think nothing of it. But she wasn't one of those women. And he knew it. She would want more and that would never work  because Jake Green was still involved with Emily.  And no matter how much she wished otherwise, Emily wasn't over Jake. What would come of this had only been put on hold with Roger's return.

Thanksgiving she had realized that she never had a chance. Sure, if Emily hadn't been around Jake might have given it a try. But one of the first things that had drawn her to him was part and parcel of why they would never have worked. Jake  lived life on the edge. And as much as he really wanted someone who would be out on that edge with him, she was never going to be that. He didn't need a Penelope, and frankly she didn't want to be that either.

She knew she could be a warrior if her kids were threatened. But she is more of a puzzle solver then a strategist. More background then front and center.  Present her with a problem and she would look for a way to solve it. And then she will actively attempt to do so. That didn't include sneaking into an armed camp and stealing a truck. It was a solution that would never occur to her. Strategic, hell yes, but it was a big time warrior woman  move. And Emily had been doing that in Jake's life since they were kids. He didn't want support, he wanted a comrade in arms, a partner in crime. 

That realization had made it clear to her that no matter how good she would be for Jake Green, he would never be able to see it. She might always be a little in love with him, but she would never again act on that. Because she deserved someone who was head over heels about her.  The fantasy was over and the tears were done. The one  person who didn't know this was the one who was still fuming to himself about having to spend several hours in a car with her.

She was the one who messed up when she kissed him. She was the one who had to settle this. This trip was going to be hard enough without both of them walking on eggs. So she marched herself over to Gracie's Market where Jake and his father were loading salt into his car. She took a deep breath. And she faced it head on.

"Jake, I need to talk to you."



You must login (register) to review.