[#001] Maybe (St. Elsewhere)

[catdetective]

Theme Prompt: [#001] Second Chances
Title: Maybe
Fandom: St Elsewhere
Rating/Warnings: G/very slight mentions of death?
Bonus: Yes
Word Count: 774
Summary: (because my second shot is going to be just as obscure...) End of s2, a scene that's never going to happen in the series I'm writing, but that came to mind when I saw the challenge-- just some ruminations on what it means-- or might mean-- to move on after loss.

    She’s… nice.

    She’s nice, and she’s interested, and she’s smart. She’s outgoing. She cares about things. She isn’t put off by the fact he comes with a kid. She’s the kind of girl he thinks he could imagine Nina approving of, when he imagines she would tell him to move on. He does, sometimes, and he always imagines himself telling her he’s not interested in somebody new, but he never imagines she would want him to be alone. She’d want him to find someone, she’d want Pete to have a mom… he knows that. She’d want things for him that he can’t want for himself. And Clancy reminds him of her-- fun and friendly, caring and committed. A woman with her own passions and plans, who might be willing to saddle herself to him anyway, if everything went well between them.

    It isn’t, at the moment, but that’s not her fault.

    Maybe it’s too soon. He’s been married close to six years and alone close to six months, maybe he’s not ready.

    It’s not that he doesn’t like her, he does. He can see things about her he admires. Things he respects. Talking to her just a short while he sees things in her that he thinks another Jack would love. One who had a little more time, or one who lived just a slightly different life. In all the ways the world could have unfolded, there are ways this could have gone that would have left him achingly in love with her, he believes that. And she’s lovely, he sees that, he’s a red-blooded man, he’s not… he’s not blind to it, but...

    But this? Isn’t working. Whether it’s nerves or timing or just the persistent nagging thought at the back of his head of a pair of blue eyes that aren’t hers and won’t ever be his.

    Maybe the answer is to give the date another try another time. Maybe the answer is that he ought to be with someone else, someone who isn’t like Nina, who doesn’t make him think of her, someone she wouldn’t have hand-picked for him as her replacement, when he tries to imagine what she’d say.

    He’d called her not just because he’d felt lonely, but because she was everything Nina would pick for him… she’s just about everything Nina was-- her own person, but… with all those qualities. All the things Nina was, the things she’d look at and say Jack needed. If he’d needed her, why wouldn’t he?

    There are things he thinks he needs now, not because he’s forgotten how to be without them, the way he’s forgotten how to be without Nina. Things he needs because they’re not like her. Someone who needs him to be those things. He loves people, but he’s not good at it, outside of his patients he never knows what to do with people, and he let himself coast and not get better. Maybe he needs someone who’d push him to do for himself. To be all the things he hasn’t been, and she didn’t need him to be. But maybe what he needs isn’t a woman who will fill all the gaps Nina left. Maybe what he needs is somebody he’ll navigate new balances with. Maybe he needs to fill his own gaps and maybe he needs to discover what someone else has to offer that isn’t just what he’s known.

    Maybe what he’s thought about lately… hasn’t been another woman. And maybe that’s foolish. Maybe there are things he can’t have and maybe he’s getting ahead of himself saying this won’t work, but… there were things he knew about himself that he never really explored. Got married right out of college, never experimented-- not with… not with some things. And it’s not that he wants to experiment, he wants to settle down, and he knows what his options are and what they aren’t, if he wants to be married, if he wants to be able to balance marriage and career and to give Pete the home life he wants for him, to not worry and look over his shoulder, but…

    But he thinks about someone sometimes, and he’s not sure Clancy’s the blond he’d picture, in his heart of hearts. When he thinks about a cool hand grasping his and that pair of wide blue eyes, when he imagines tracing the bow of someone’s lips and he knows who he’s thinking about isn’t someone he’s got a shot at a future with, but he can’t help thinking maybe...

    Maybe the important thing is that he’s done this for himself and now he knows he can try.

Comments

[sarajayechan]

Oh, WOW, St. Elsewhere. I never followed the show, admittedly, but I saw the pilot on a TV Land promo. As a Nick at Nite nerd, I like seeing people write fic for these shows.

This was beautifully done, too.

[catdetective]

Thank you!

I have some very vague memories of it being something my grandmother would watch, and then recently I started watching it on Hulu and I just got... immediately hooked and started writing fanfic.

[etoile_noire]

Very nicely done!
Thank you for sharing it.

[catdetective]

Thank you!

[alobear]

This is a fantastic internal monologue - I love the way it tracks through all the changes in emotions.

[catdetective]

Thank you so much!

[dray]

Same as alobear said, I like the internal struggle. I hope he's not dead-eye staring at his date while he's going through all that inner turmoil, it sounds a bit like it's being sliced out from the middle of the action.

Nice work on getting two entries in for a week! Start the year off with a bang!

[catdetective]

I hope I can keep up doing two a week. It was a lot of fun!

And the canon date was... pretty awkward and then he left midway through, though they did get together for a while after that, at least. So honestly, his zoning out would not have made things any worse?

[samuraiter]

*thumbs up*

Unexpected delight to see a vintage fandom here, as well as a deep character moment, to boot.

[catdetective]

Thanks! I love my 80s media... I've been pushing St. Elsewhere in particular at everyone lately.

[badly_knitted]

It's a long time since I've seen St Elsewhere, I don't remember anything, but this works well on its own anyway, as a man who's lost his wife and is taking tentative steps towards dating again but isn't sure of anything, not even if he's ready to consider having someone new in his life.

[catdetective]

Thank you! The show holds up remarkably well in terms of the stories they were telling and the viewpoints they had, though other things about it are incredibly 80s, so I would absolutely encourage giving it another watch, but then, I've been trying to make everyone watch it lately.

[badly_knitted]

Depends entirely on whether it comes to a freeview station here in England, but if it did, I would. I've watched re-runs of Airwolf, Knight Rider, Street Hawk, ER, and the A-Team, so you never know!

[catdetective]

Oh, fun! I remember watching the A-Team and occasionally Knight Rider at my grandmother's... I started out watching what someone had uploaded of St Elsewhere to youtube, since it's not in syndication anywhere here at the moment.

(I should try rewatching Knight Rider now, honestly-- if nothing else, for KITT's voice...)

[badly_knitted]

KITT's voice is almost the best part =D

[catdetective]

Apparently when they asked William Daniels to record some lines as part of the pitch, they asked him to do a robot voice and he flat out refused, like... he was right to, really. There's so much CHARM in KITT just sounding like a person!

[badly_knitted]

I know, and he uses such a dry tone a lot of the time, makes me laugh. There are times he's just SO had it with Michael.

[catdetective]

How could you not love a car that's forever on the verge of sighing and rolling its non-existent eyes at some human foolishness?

[badly_knitted]

KITT was one of the great characters of the 80s. Long may he live in reruns.

I know there was a later series, but I never saw that. Nothing could compete with the original and best.

[catdetective]

Yeah, the whole feel was off. Plus, I could never handle KITT with a different voice!

[badly_knitted]

It would just feel so wrong, like an impostor!

[m_findlow]

Oh, I just love how messy and complicated and tangled up life can be. This encapsulated all that and more.

[catdetective]

Thank you! I'm really glad to have harnessed that while staying under the word count-- it felt like less of a struggle this time than it did on my first.