Title: You Do What You Have To Do, 1/1
Date: March 25, 2001
Author: Heather-chan, the Goddess of Evil
Category/Rating: JQ-nivers/G
Disclaimer: As much as I wish I did, I don't own anything JQ related (except
merchandise of
course) and am not making any money off of this. I'm a poor college student
supporting herself
and don't have any money to give you so LAY OFF WITH THE LAWSUITS! *grin*
Arvhiers: You've my permission, have at it.
You Do What You Have To Do
She sat in her brown canvas tent at the small portable desk covered with papers
and books and
artifacts and small excavation tools, all of which were unseen by her. With her
head in her hands
and her elbows resting on a small spot she had cleared, she looked down right
depressed. And she
was. She fought to control the barrage of tears that threatened to spill down
her cheeks, and she
couldn’t help but glance at a lonely looking manila folder that sat neatly on
the corner of the
otherwise messy desk.
Sitting up and tilting her head back, she pushed her hands through her short red
hair and blinked
her green eyes in an effort to put a dam on the flood her tears were turning out
to be. Outside
her tent she could hear her workers talking back and forth as they labored to
uncover the secrets
the earth held. She knew she should be out there with them, slaving away in the
hot South
American sun, but she had more important things to do.
Namely picking up the manila folder and filling out the divorce papers inside so
that they would
be ready when her husband returned home…whenever that would be. But they
continued to sit,
untouched, on the corner of the desk, taunting her by just being there.
“Why does this hurt so much?” she asked the silence.
*Because you love him,* the silence retorted.
Estella sighed at her own conscience coming into play. Why did it have to be so
right and at the
same time, so wrong?
“I can’t live like this anymore,” she reminded it. “I can’t live with the fear,
the worry that
this will be the time that he won’t come home. That I’ll get a letter from the
government telling
me he’s dead, or missing in action.”
*So fill out the papers,* her conscience was so two faced, and so calm.
“It’s not that easy.”
*It never is.*
She felt like she had an angel sitting on one shoulder, and a devil on the
other.
“It’ll break Jessie’s heart…”
She squeezed her eyes shut, thinking about her daughter, only six years old.
She was so happy, so
carefree.
*Especially when daddy’s home.*
“Shut up.”
*Not that he ever is…she rarely sees him now, what’s a little less
father-daughter time going to
hurt? Jessie probably won’t even notice…*
“My daughter isn’t stupid!” Estella vehemently reminded her conscious.
*Of course not…you hear her yourself, crying every night because she misses her
daddy. And don’t
forget the nightmares…*
Estella squeezed her eyes shut. She wished those hadn’t been brought up.
Jessie had terrible
dreams about her father while he was away on the job; nightmares in which she
saw her father’s
death over and over. Although she was only six, Jessie knew what the dreams
meant, and she often
woke up screaming after having one.
And those weren’t even the worst ones. Sometimes Jessie depicted scenes of her
father walking
away and never coming back. She didn’t understand what that meant, but Estella
did. She did what
she could to comfort her daughter, but she knew Jessie would eventually need
professional help if
the dreams didn’t end.
*And a divorce is going to reassure her that daddy is safe?*
“Would you stop it? You’re not making this easy for me!”
*We went over that already…*
Estella refused to answer, fuming to herself.
*You wouldn’t have to cry yourself to sleep every night…* her conscious offered.
*You wouldn’t
worry yourself sick over whether or not he’d be home that day…*
“Didn’t I already suggest that?”
*And what about never knowing how long he’ll stay, how much time you have with
him before he’s off
on another assignment…*
“And how much it hurts when he does leave…” Estella added with a sigh.
*And the anger…don’t forget the anger…*
That was enough for her to steel herself and reach for the folder, the other
hand taking a tight
grip around a pen. She remembered how she’d been so angry when she’d called her
lawyer and asked
for them, so determined. He’d had been called away at a moment’s notice. She’d
begged him to
stay, pleaded for him to stay, and even fought with him over it. But in the end
he had left, with
the only the excuse of, “It’s my job, Stella.”
It had been that way for a while now. They had started having their arguments
sometime last fall
when he’d promised that he’d be there for Jessie’s birthday. And for once it
had looked like he
would keep that promise when he showed up two days before the event. And then
the night before
the big party, after Jessie had fallen into an excited slumber, the call had
come. He had to go,
right then. He couldn’t put it off. They needed him.
*His daughter needed him too…*
“You’re job is more important to you than Jessie,” she whispered the words she
had yelled at him
that night when he’d walked out the door. It had hurt to say them, and she knew
it had hurt him
to hear them.
The time spent waiting for the papers to arrive had been disastrous to her
cause. She had come up
with reasons not to go through with it, arguments against actually filling the
papers out. She
had gone through, for the past few weeks, exactly the same thing that she was
going through right
now, warring back and forth with her conscious.
Today, finally, they had arrived.
As she opened the folder she found that her lawyer had already done a neat job
of filling out most
of the forms. It would just take a little penning in here and there and two
signatures to finish
it.
“He always was complete,” she sighed as she looked over the crisp sheets of
white paper to make
sure everything was accurate.
“Mommy?” Jessie’s tiny voice cut into her concentration.
Distracted, the woman looked away from her work to see her daughter’s head
sticking in between the
opening to her tent.
“What is it, honey?” mother answered daughter.
“Daddy’s coming home today,” Jessie grinned.
It was more of a statement than a question. That had been one odd thing she had
noticed about the
little girl. She never asked when “daddy” was coming home, she told.
“I don’t know, honey, maybe,” she smiled, treating the little girl’s statement
like a question and
smiling genuinely at her daughter.
“Today,” Jessie repeated with a sense of finality and then was gone.
She sighed and placed the papers into the folder, returning them to the spot on
her desk. She
really had nothing to do now but once again wait.
“And go out and help my men with all that digging,” she reminded herself,
pushing herself up from
the table.
The chair legs scraped against the wooden base the tents were set up on as she
pushed it out and
then back in, the sound seeming louder than it was in the silence of the tent
and the far off
sounds of her team working in the soil. She paused, looking around the tent
that she used as her
office as if she really didn’t recognize it. Somehow it all seemed so new to
her, like she was
seeing it for the first time.
*Today,* her conscience echoed in her head.
Pulling herself together, she marched out of the tent and toward the site to
check on the progress
of her team and join them in their task.
She was at the pump, trying to scrub the dirt from her skin and out from under
her finger nails.
She was the last one tonight, as usual. When all her workers called it quits
for the day, she was
still going strong, as passionate about her career as she always had been. It
was already dusky,
almost night. Many of the tents were lit up from the inside, and the nightly
fire was burning
strong with some of her workers laughing, talking and relaxing around it.
So concentrated was she on getting clean that she was startled when strong arms
slipped around her
from behind and picked her up in a massive bear hug. Her first instinct was to
fight back, and
fight back she did, arms and legs swinging, head shaking back and forth, body
squirming like a
worm, trying to strike her attacker however she could reach him.
Until she heard the familiar base voice that caused her to go slack in his arms.
“Whoa, Stella, it’s just me!” the voice of her husband boomed in laughter.
Jessie’s prophecy had come true.
She relaxed back against him as he set her back on her feet. His strong arms
wrapped loosely
around her felt so good that she could have died happy right there. She felt
his searching
nuzzles through her hair and around ears and neck. Turning toward him they were
allowed one
lingering kiss before the happy shrieks of their daughter interrupted them.
“DADDY!” Jessie’s enthusiasm could not be quelled and she launched herself at
her father with as
much force as a submarine launched a torpedo.
But with his quick reflexes daddy was ready and waiting for her, catching her in
mid air and
swinging her up and onto his shoulder.
“Did’ja miss me, Ponchita?” he asked, smiling up at her.
Stella smiled at the pet name father had coined for daughter as they all began
to walk back toward
the tents.
“Course I did!” Jessie assured her father. “But did you miss me?”
“You know I did! Thought about you all the time. You and your mom,” his broad
smile at his
daughter helped to guarantee to her that he had and she giggled at him, hugging
him as best she
could from her high up position.
“It’s a little late, Jessie, aren’t you supposed to be in bed?” he asked his
daughter.
“But daddy…” Jessie objected with a whine.
“No buts, I’ll still be here tomorrow,” he told her.
“Promise?” she pouted at him as only little girls can.
“Cross my heart,” his finger drew an X over his chest.
“Alright,” Jessie reluctantly agreed.
Stella watched as the two exchanged “G’nights” and kisses, receiving one herself
from her
daughter. Then her husband sent her scuttling off to bed with a light swat on
the bottom.
Silently they watched her go, Stella with her arms folded across her chest, and
her mate with his
hands settled lightly on his hips.
“She’s growing up so fast,” he commented softly.
“You could watch her doing it if you were around more often,” Stella responded.
“You know I can’t, Stel,” he reminded her.
She pursed her lips, biting back the retort that burned on her tongue. She had
bad enough news to
drop on him as it was without getting into an argument with him as well.
Without knowing he had moved she suddenly found herself encircled in his arms
again, looking up
into his gorgeous smile and gazing into his steel blue eyes. It was so
intoxicating, especially
the look of his eyes, so full of love, yet hinting at the threat this man
possessed. He was
dangerous, working for one of the American government’s secret agencies, one of
the most dangerous
men alive. But he was still a man. He still fell in love, still had emotions,
weaknesses.
And she was about to crush his world.
“Roger,” she protested, pulling away from his seductive kisses.
“What?” he asked, a little bit of hurt showing in his eyes, confusion playing
across his face.
“I…”
She stumbled, couldn’t get the words out.
“You…what?” Roger prodded her.
She turned away and began to stalk toward her office tent. He would follow, she
knew he would.
He would already have figured out something was wrong. She wondered if the
night was too dark for
him to see her tears, though he was trained to work during the latest and
earliest hours of the
day. So as far as she knew, he could very well have seen them.
“Estella, stop,” he called to her.
But she refused to listen. She had to control herself, force herself to do this
and not to
chicken out just because he was standing so near.
God this hurts and I haven’t even told him yet.
He continued to call to her, to try and get her to stop. She half expected him
to catch up and
try to stop her physically. She had a feeling that if he did she wouldn’t be
able to go through
with it.
Finally she reached the tent and she thrust herself into it. Someone had been
kind enough to
light a lamp in there, figuring she would probably stay up late working like she
was known to do.
Still not allowing herself to relax she grabbed the manila folder from the desk
and turned,
thrusting it at him as the tears escaped from her eyes.
“What’s this?” Roger eyed the folder.
“They’re divorce papers, Roger,” she told him in a shaky voice.
His mouth opened and closed, his strong jaw moving with the effort of trying to
say something, but
no sounds emerged. She thought she wouldn’t be able to look at him, but somehow
she found herself
staring right into his eyes. He was just staring back at her, looking as calm
as can be.
For some reason she noticed the color of his shirt, red as it had always been.
She didn’t
understand why, with the line of work he was in, he would wear such vivid
colors. She remembered
him explaining to her once that in his job everything was black and white, no
grey area and no
colors at all. You did what you were told and there was no deviating from
orders. Sometimes you
didn’t know if you were still alive from one day to the next. So when he was
away from it, away
from the starkness of “the Agency,” he liked to have as much color as possible.
It reminded him
that he was alive, he said.
“Why?” the question was so simple. She wished the answer could be just as so.
“Because I’m sick of all the pain, all the worry, all the aching and longing…”
she let her reply
trail off, allowing him to interpret it as he would. She surely wasn’t going to
try and explain
anymore.
Slowly he took the folder from her hands, opening it with what seemed to be
great care. He
flipped through the pages, Estella watching him silently and holding her breath
without knowing
it. Finally he closed the folder.
“Looks like everything’s in order,” he commented.
He kept his eyes on the cream colored folder. It was he, who had always been so
strong, who could
not look her in the eye.
“You understand why I’m doing this,” it came out sounding like a question.
Roger slowly nodded. “I can’t believe it, but I know that the demands of my job
must be hard on
you.”
“I love you, Roger,” she suddenly admitted, “but it’s just not working.”
“No, I suppose it’s not,” he still hadn’t lifted his eyes from the folder in his
hands. “I
suppose I haven’t been around to make it work.”
“Relationships are supposed to make you happy-“ Estella began.
“And ours doesn’t?” he wanted to know.
“Not if you’re never around…”
After that they both just stood there, neither really knowing what to say. They
could hear the
night sounds of the surrounding jungle, and the ruckus coming from the worker’s
enjoying
themselves that evening. They could even hear their own daughter fighting with
her nanny over
going to bed.
Suddenly Roger moved, setting the folder on the desk, opening it again, his hand
searching out a
pen. He bent over the desk as the nib scratched across the paper, then he
straightened up, closed
the folder and threw the pen down on it with an air of finality.
“I’m really sorry, Roger,” Estella apologized, her voice soft.
“You do what you have to do,” Roger replied.
She flinched at how nonchalant he sounded.
His back was to her, and she could just imagine the look on his face. But she
made no move to
comfort him, or even touch him, as much as she wanted to.
“You’ll stay ‘til morning?”
“I promised Jessie I would.”
Estella nodded though he couldn’t see it.
“It’s pretty late, think I’ll turn in,” Roger commented.
“Goodnight…”
“Goodnight, Stella.”
He left the next afternoon. Estella knew he wouldn’t stay long. Of course
Jessie was sad, but he
promised he’d write, and he did, though his first letter was a long time in
coming. Still, he
kept his promise, for once.
Roger told of how he’d started getting stupid in the field, pulling risky stunts
and maneuvers
that could get men killed, and finally did. After that, they decided to ground
him, and now he
was working as a body guard for some rich family in the Florida Keys, placed
there by the
government. He didn’t say much more than that, but that’s the way things were
in top secret
government agencies. Everything’s confidential…black and white.
“You do what you have to do,” Estella whispered to herself as she folded the
letter and gave it
back to her daughter.
That phrase rang in her mind for a long time after Jessie slipped out of her lap
and ran off to
tuck the precious piece of paper safely away. Somehow it tore her heart away
and gave her comfort
all at the same time.
She didn’t cry this time though, like she had so many times before in the past
six months. She
wouldn’t say she was getting over it, but she was definitely getting better at
it.
She shook her head, clearing her thoughts and remembering that she had work to
do today. No more
time to sit around dallying her time away. Rising, she left the tent to join
her workers, pushing
any other thoughts behind her.
But one still lingered, whispering across her mind in *his* voice.
You do what you have to do.
Author's Note: This was written for a creative writing class, which I actually
read it in got
some feed back on, edited turned in for my final portfolio, haven't gotten that
back yet. Still,
here it is for your guys' enjoyment. Send me comments, suggestions, praise,
hate, whatever makes
you happy. Also, I need a beta-reader. Usually I just use Michelle/Bryne, but
I know she's busy
so I don't want to bother her with this. So, if anyone else is willing to beta
some fics for me,
that would be just awesome. Contact me at this e-mail addy and I'll start
sending you stuff!
Thanks! ^_^
=====
Heather,
the Goddess of Evil, Jonny's Lover, Mrs. Jonathon Quest,
Fire Fairy Princess, Angel, Random Rambler, Master of J/J
HR, #1 Fan of Quinque
