Un-betaed

All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

The Next Day

Chapter 4

John goes to his office and packs up a few things and leaves. He stops by Rodi’s to pick up dinner and heads to his apartment for the evening.  In the apartment building lobby he quickly moves to the stairs to avoid talking with Roxie and Rex Balsam who are at the front desk. Fortunately for him they are so engrossed in their conversation that they don’t even notice him.  John’s glad to avoid them because they’re always trying to get him involved is something regarding Natalie.  He understands their devotion to her and knows that she will need them even more now that Cristian is alive but they totally disregard that he’s involved with someone else.

Once in his room John takes a shower and sits to eat his meal. Drinking his beer at the end of his meal he remembers the letter that he put in his jacket pocket.  But before he retrieves it he calls Evangeline again.  He’s starting to get a bit worried that she has not returned his calls and he’s left several messages. She’s probably working on a big case he thinks.  She does sometimes seclude herself from interruptions when she’s working a big case.  He’ll try tomorrow. He has a lot to tell her. He has no idea how she will react to the DNA test results but he knows he has to tell her before everyone else finds out.  It’s bad enough that Colson, Bo and Nora know before Evangeline does but now the defense attorney and the trial judge will know too.

Meanwhile in another city, Evangeline is working through the night preparing for an early morning meeting with her client.  It’s not unusual for this client to call and request her appearance with not much notice.  He pays her handsomely for that availability and since she has no pressing legal matters to which to attend she is more than willing to rearrange her schedule to accommodate him.  Plus, it works out to her benefit in that she’s not in Llanview to deal with the aftermath of John reading the letter that she left for him in his office.  She reflects on her actions of earlier in the day.

Leaving the letter in John’s office allows her to avoid him and it helps her when she calls the Desk Sergeant to inquire as to John’s whereabouts and is told that he is out of the office for several hours.  That actually saves her from having to drop it off at his apartment and risk encountering Roxie Balsam and her incessant questions as to why she is there, what is the letter about and any other questions her inebriated brain can muster as if any of it is any of her business.  With the internal turmoil Evangeline is already feeling she cringes at the thought of having to deal with Roxie.

So with the letter delivered and now she is out of town she can finally take a cleansing breath.  She knows that she won’t quickly get over her feelings for John but she hopes that with time the hurt will lessen and the love will fade.  Although she wants to believe that she did love her ex-boyfriend Dennis, and she must have felt something for RJ otherwise she would not have stayed so long with him but somehow this time it hurts a lot more.  John is an exciting new landscape and with his air of mystery it intrigues her to peel back his many layers but it is not to be.  Her heart betrayed her and ventured into forbidden territory and now she must recuperate and recover her equilibrium.

Setting aside those thoughts she returns to the matter at hand but not before checking her phone once again and seeing the many missed calls and messages from John.  She refuses to respond for she assumes that he’s read the letter and wants an explanation.  She explained everything in the letter and she has no more words to add to that.  This work now gives her another outlet to divert her attention to something other than her disastrous love life.  This time away will serve her well.

Returning to her research on the pressing case she works for a few more hours then calls it a night.  Selecting her outfit for the early morning meeting she showers and goes to bed hoping that tomorrow proves more successful than yesterday was for her.

But thoughts of John do not leave Evangeline even in her dreams. 

[In her dream the office scene where she tells him that she’s falling in love with him changes and he pointedly responds this time to her that he does notlove her. He enjoyed her body but his heart belongs to another.  Feeling outrage Evangeline wants to slap him but she doesn’t.  This was her doing.  She offered her body to him without any declaration of love. In fact she herself avoided adding such description to what they were doing.  She thinks that it’s interesting how we can describe the physical act as ‘making love’ when love is not involved.  Perhaps we think that saying ‘having sex’ is crass but that’s exactly what the physical act is without the heart involved.  So how can she blame him for taking what she offered?  But Evangeline will not be defeated.  With her head held high she tries to maintain her dignity and leave his office with some level of self-respect.  She reaches out her hand to shake his hand and says, 

“See you around Lieutenant.  It’s been interesting. Although I may have been falling in love with you I can also stop falling and oddly enough it won’t take long.  Thank you for your honesty, though brutal as it might be, but hey we’re both adults here. We’ll leave this with what we started with, nothing.”

She exits his office just as he opens his mouth to rebut her but by then she’s in the hallway with the door closed behind her.  As she walks out of the building she feels the sting of his rejection but she refuses to cry.  She will not cry for some man who doesn’t value her.]

Evangeline does not wake from her dream but merely drifts into a dreamless sleep for the rest of the night.

While Evangeline is sleeping John finally reads the letter.  At first he’s happy to see that it’s from Evangeline.  He’s hoping that it will explain why he hasn’t heard from her.  As he reads her words he grows more and more concerned. When he last spoke with her she agreed to be patient with him and to give their relationship a try but now in this letter she writes that she’s breaking up with him because he doesn’t love her now as she loves him.  His eyes look around his living room as if trying to find a clue as to what changed her mind.  If he’s honest with himself he knows that he was asking a lot of her to be patient with him. They’ve been together for several months now and it’s understandable that things would change between them. Already they went from ‘no strings attached’ to ‘strings attached’ but exactly what that means they did not define.  John’s not sure how to feel about her words or how to respond.  He soon realizes that maybe this is why he has not heard from her at all today.  With the lateness of the hour he can’t just go to her apartment now to confront her so he resolves to wait until tomorrow.  One thing he knows for certain is that Evangeline will have to explain to him just why she changed her mind so quickly.  It has to be more than what she writes in her letter and he deserves an explanation.