Work Text:
She clocked it as she walked past, his name plate on the door was gone. The room identical to so many on the floor; to her own even, was now empty of any personal possessions that once identified it as his. She swallowed back the thoughts and kept walking four doors down to her own office. She shut the door behind her, dropped her backpack on a chair, put her water bottle on her desk, rummaged for her laptop, and sunk into her office chair. An hour later when she couldn’t stand the mundane silence or circulating thoughts, she invited herself to his office.
She walked in while he was on a phone call, shut the door quietly behind her not saying anything and headed straight for the window.
Her presence wasn’t ever unwelcome and his call was certainly not private, but even if it had been the amount of grace he always made available to her superseded any and all else. When the call ended he looked at her softly.
“You ok?” He asks looking up from his desk.
She’s staring out of his office window on to the campus grounds below. She doesn’t turn to him.
“It’s just different now,” she muses.
“You miss Jeremy a lot huh?” He offers sympathetically.
“They took his name off the door. I’m sad. I’m… I’m also happy he gets to go home. I am. And I know we get Jess back next week…”
“I can’t wait to witness the space twin reunion at Ellington Monday afternoon,” he grins, an attempt to lighten her mood.
“I’m trying to look forward to that… I really am, and I do. I do look forward to that,” she reasons.
She turns to him; finally, leaning her frame against the sill, “Are you going to capcom it? I know they asked.”
“Jenni’s going to; the ISS side at least, Orbit 1 team, makes sense, Josh is up there, but I think Jasmin or Zena ended up on the Dragon comms side.”
A smile breaks across her face, “They wouldn’t even consider me. Meir and I on the loop at the same time is their absolute worst nightmare.”
“You two do get one another going,” he grins.
“Hey, we can be consummate professionals,” she refutes.
“Of course.” He agrees, a small smile betraying him.
“Am I distracting you, do you have actual work? I forgot why I even came in here in the first place.” She muses self consciously.
“You’re always a happy distraction, I am just making a powerpoint for a university guest lecture at Rensselaer, new school year, figured I’d freshen up my copy and paste standard talk, it needed updating, I’ve been around the moon now,”
She’s making no effort to leave.
“You sure you’re ok?” He asks again.
“Reid how much longer do you think you’ll stay in active status?”
“I think I’m assessing year by year at this point. I still think I have something to offer the program…”
“You absolutely do,” she supports.
“Why?” He asks.
“I was just thinking about Nick and Drew and now Jeremy and what after this looks like,” she sighs.
She sits down in the chair across from him still sullen.
He sighs he knows how unteathered she is because he’s felt this way before too.
“Wanna help me with this? I’m shit at power point, you know that, you can add in some cool transitions, keep the kids interested?”his lopsided grin draws her in.
She’s staring before she nods, getting up to drag her chair to his side of the desk.
On the screen are a bunch of childhood photos of him, she hides a private smile as she clicks keys, his face is close to hers, his eyes focused on her not the monitor as she adds an effect stopping to scroll through more of his photographs. Her pulse quickens when she spots a photograph of just the two of them together, his arm slung around her shoulder, both gazing at one another, furtive smiles. “How did the camera capture that?” She thinks to herself. There are feelings here she thought no one could ever possibly perceive but here they are, immortalized. Photographic evidence. That was another problem she was avoiding. Another thing making her sad.
The next two days she forgoes her office entirely, just sets up her stuff in his, in the chair across from him. She doesn’t want to have to walk past Jeremy’s empty office door to get to hers, doesn’t want to be alone, doesn’t want to be near anyone else. Reid isn’t anyone else. Reid is Reid. He doesn’t press her or try to solve anything. He’ll let her exist in this state at least until Jessica is back on solid ground and see how it goes from there.
She’s getting into her car in the JSC parking lot Friday night, trying to contemplate two days in Galveston without Reid in her orbit when her phone rings. Jeremy.
Hey Nana,” his beaming face came through the iPhone screen
“Hi,” she sighed happily.
“How are you doing?”
“I miss you,”
“I miss you too. Reid says you’ve been haunting his office.”
Her voice catches in her throat.
“Did he really say that? I’m not, I’ve just…”
“He implied it, you’re having a rough go,”
“It’s just it was such a focus for so long, something to work towards and then something to promote and share and now it’s quiet. It’s just about reconciling what tomorrow and the day after and the day after look like. You’re gone, Victor is... well who knows what Victor’s next move is...”
“Jess is home soon,” he brightens trying to lift her spirts.
“Yes, I know.” She smiles slightly, “I’m looking forward to that, of course.”
“Reid doing ok with the empty nest?” He asks.
“I think so, you know I’ve been in such a mood I haven’t really asked, I should have extended the same care and courtesy back to him. But you know him, he’s Mr. Congeniality on campus, he's hard to crack, I’ll get him alone and really psychoanalyze him next week. Make sure he isn’t struggling.”
“Good, you should. You two look out for one another.”
“How’s home?”
“Honestly Nana, really nice, it feels normal. Right.”
“Good.” She breathes.
“One step at a time ok? And you call me. Anytime.” he makes her promise.
She nods.
“Have a good weekend Jer. My love to Catherine.”
“You too. Hellos to Bob,”
“Sure.” She nonchalantly replies.
Her face betrays her, Jeremy clocks it and catalogues it but does not pursue it.
“Give Reid a hug for me?” he adds.
Her eyes light up a little and she almost blushes, “I will. Goodnight Jer.”
“Night Nana.”
She sighs heavily putting her phone on the handsfree holder on her dash. Knowing she’ll spend the drive back to Galveston calculating the number of hours until she can be back in his office sitting across from him.