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The True Measure

Chapter 12

When Bo returns John knows that it is his time to see Evangeline. He has no idea what she will say to him or what he will say to her.  ‘Well let’s get it over with’ John thinks as he opens the door.  When he walks in he sees Evangeline on the bed but her eyes are closed so he thinks that she’s asleep.  As he turns to walk out he hears, 

“Come on in and sit down John, I’m not asleep.”

John turns around and sits in the chair next to her bed. Everyone has probably asked her how she’s feeling so he doesn’t want to ask the same thing so he says, 

“It’s good to see you.”  

Evangeline looks at him with sadness in her eyes.  Now she second-guesses her decision to talk with him today.  Maybe she should wait until later but it won’t get any better later.  What she has to say to him she wants to say it today while she’s feeling it.  When she looks up at him again she is stunned.  Tears are streaming down his cheeks and he’s not even trying to wipe them away.  She watches him and then she stops.  She thinks to herself, ‘how dare he’.  With an anger building up in her she sits up higher, reaches her hand over and slaps him.  She slaps him so hard that his head snaps back and to the side. Evangeline uses his flustered state to also blast him with her words,

“Don’t you dare!  Don’t you dare make this about you!  If you open your mouth to blame yourself for what Barber and Messina did I swear that I will slap you again!  Dry those tears!  Yes, indirectly your actions or inactions, however you want to view it, may have given them an idea to torture you by what they did but the blame lies solely and squarely at their feet only. Now sit up straight and listen to what I have to say!”

Evangeline doesn’t mention Natalie’s idiotic attempts at provoking the kidnappers in an effort to gain John’s attention.  She doesn’t want this conversation to be about Natalie.

John doesn’t know how to react.  Evangeline has never spoken to him like this nor has she ever slapped him.  He stands and goes to the bathroom to splash water on his face and dry it with a paper towel. When he returns to sit down Evangeline hands him a sheet of paper from the note pad next to her bed.  On the paper is a list of names and items indicated next to each name.  John looks at the list then looks at Evangeline and asks, 

“What am I to do with this?”  

Evangeline shakes her head and grumbles, 

“That’s the list of the officers who volunteered to protect me including Sgt. Moore.  I want you to buy the gifts indicated on the list.  Have them wrapped at the store.  Get me some thank you cards so that I can write personal notes for each of them and you will deliver the cards and gifts to the appropriate persons.”  

John is still puzzled but he doesn’t want to aggravate her by asking any more questions so he folds the paper and puts it in his inside jacket pocket.  Evangeline takes a deep breath to calm her nerves.  What she plans to say to John will not be kind but there’s no delayingit now.  Resolving to get this over with she opens her mouth to speak. John interrupts and says,

“When I was ten (10) years old my father was killed.  My mother would cry every night for him.  In a way she died a little that day too.  I became the ‘man of the house’.  Through the years I developed a control mechanism so as not to let my pain of that loss overwhelm me.  When my fiancée Caitlin was killed it left me reeling. Once again I lost someone that I loved very deeply.  In an effort to not feel that kind of pain again I closed myself off from love. I had brief encounters but nothing sustainable.  

When that FBI sting involving the Vegas went wrong and Cristian died Natalie and I tried to have a relationship but it didn’t work.  Yes we had a connection.  A connection based upon grief.  We both grieved for lost loved ones.  That’s why it didn’t work.  

And then you entered my life with your offer of ‘this is the place we go when the outside world weighs us down’, ‘with no strings attached’ but it quickly morphed into something that neither of us expected.  You confessed your love and I held back.  I never told you this but the night of my birthday I told you that I was falling in love with you but you didn’t hear me because you had fallen asleep.  Wait before you interrupt just let me finish. We broke up because I didn’t give you what you needed, ‘to be loved in return’.  I can’t change the past Evangeline.  In this present I can say that I was not crying because I was blaming myself for what happened to you.  I was crying because I am happy that you survived.  I don’t want to tire you out so I will take the list and do the shopping as you requested.  I will return with the cards for you to complete.  

You are an amazing woman Evangeline Williamson and I was an idiot to lose you.  It may not mean anything now but I love you.  I love your strength, I love your smile, I love your courage, I love the way that you feel in my arms, I love your compassion, I love the way you smell, and I love you.  Even if we can’t be friends, meeting you and loving you has been one of the best things that has ever happened to me.”

John doesn’t give Evangeline time to recover from what he just said because he immediately leaves.  She sits in her bed totally dumbfounded by what just happened.

A/N: See I told you that conversation works better in its own space.  That was quite a surprise!