El Paso, Texas, Tuesday Night

[weldedtomyspine]

"Have I mentioned how much I like that dress?" Jaime asked with a grin as he held the door open for Momoko. Because he did. Not that he didn't like Momoko in lots of things, but some dresses just... really worked for her.

"Also, I hope this place is good. I mean, the reviews say it is, but I haven't been here before."

He took a moment to exchange a few words with the hostess about their reservation.

"But if they aren't the best Italian place you've been to this year, don't blame me, okay?"

Comments

[weldedtomyspine]

"A little like?" Jaime prompted, watching Momoko's face intently, even as a gentle smile tugged at his lips at the use of the word 'wonderful'.

[heromaniac]

"I don't know how to say it." She mused a moment over both her feelings and her inability to explain them. "Saying 'like she never existed' doesn't sound right. Saying 'like she's died' isn't right either, though."

Yes. She went there. He had to have been expecting that, right?

"Something that had been filled inside me, something I'd been looking forward to... No. Someone I was expecting to meet... she's not going to be there. Because of me and my decisions. But she's not hurt and she's happy, I know that. Just... I won't be able to see her."

A happy sad empty wanting feeling, Jaime.

[weldedtomyspine]

Jaime felt like he understood that. Mostly. He started to nod, a sudden thought caused him to still.

"What if she visits again?" he asked, not sure what he'd do if that happened.

[heromaniac]

Momoko... hadn't thought of that.

"I... hadn't thought of that."

See?

"It would be different, I think. I mean, I would love her just as much; I still do. I love all of my kids." She totally did. Even Boaz, who'd come from Umbridge!world and meant she'd somewhere lived that horrible painful existence for real. And JJ, who meant she would someday lose both Jaime and a daughter somehow. "But I think that this, this makes it clear that she... isn't ours."

[weldedtomyspine]

Jaime nodded. "Yeah."

He looked thoughtful for a moment. "Would you be mad at me if I told you I never thought she was? I mean... even if we had a girl named Elena, she wouldn't be that one, you know?"

[heromaniac]

"You never seemed to connect with any of them. I know I totally over-did, but you always stayed so detached. I thought it was just because of how you see all the alternate time lines stuff."

"Why would you think I'd be mad?" She frowned at that. "And... you wouldn't mind naming daughter Elena?"

[weldedtomyspine]

Jaime blinked. "Why would I mind?" Elena was a family name, after all.

"And, I don't know... I mean, I guess because it makes it seem like I didn't care about her? About any of them?"

[heromaniac]

"I guess I thought maybe you'd think I was trying to have that Elena? Like I wasn't being realistic."

"I knew you cared about them, even if it was just because they were kids. I've seen you with your family, remember?" She picked up her fork; she felt like she could taste again. "I'll admit it though... I did feel a little upset that you didn't seem to prefer the kids that were yours and mine - that you treated them all equally. It totally made my jealousy worse."

[weldedtomyspine]

"Oh."

"I guess that thought never occurred to me?"

Jaime sighed. "Maybe that's why I thought you might get mad. That, I mean, I never really did think of them as yours and mine."

[heromaniac]

"Well," Momoko chuckled a little, despite what she was about to admit. "You probably didn't want them to be as much as I did. If they were ours, that meant somewhere there was a chance we would be together. I was in love with you all that time, remember."

[weldedtomyspine]

Jaime's fingers squeezed at Momoko's. "I was in love with you, too, you know."

The whole time.

[heromaniac]

"But I didn't know it," she tugged gently on his hand in return. "So I was jealous of the me that had you and kids for somehow making it work out. And the fact that you didn't seem to prefer our kids made it even worse."

"I even tried to get Berto to give me spoilers... That was a hard weekend to get through."

[weldedtomyspine]

His fingers squeezed again, and he tugged her hand across the table, lifting her fingers to his lips.

"I never knew that."

[heromaniac]

"Which?" She melted at that gesture, as she always did. "I always tried really hard to make sure you didn't know I wanted you; are you saying it worked? I must have powered up without realizing."

[weldedtomyspine]

"The jealousy."

He grinned.

"Though you know I didn't know you wanted me. I thought you'd be too mad at me forever."

[heromaniac]

"Jealous like crazy! It hurt enough to think of you dating someone else, but then to think that somewhere some other me had done something right and not lost you?" Momoko pressed her hand gently against him where he still held it. "I couldn't even get hugs and she had a whole family. I was burning to know what I had done wrong that she had done different. And to take her place!"

"But with my you, not hers." In case you worried she would run off with an alternate you, Jaime.

"And I wasn't mad at you, you know. Well, immediately after we broke up I was, yes. After that I was just..." She shrugged. "Totally sure that your feelings had changed. That somehow I'd done something or you'd gotten tired of me, us. Or, if my day was really bad, that your feelings had never really been there to start with. I didn't get mad again until you confessed everything in the hospital."

[weldedtomyspine]

Jaime shook his head.

"I know you know this, but you totally didn't do anything wrong." And he did know it, but he still had to say it again.

[heromaniac]

She totally knew it now, yes.

"It took a while for me to learn that I didn't mess up. A little longer for you to figure out that you wouldn't. Maybe I should have moved here instead of going back to Tokyo City. Pounded some sense into you?"

"Oh." She blinked, realizing what she'd just said, and sat up. "Huh. I wonder if that's what she did?"

[weldedtomyspine]

"Huh." Now Jaime was blinking, too.

"But... why wouldn't she have gone home?" Even now that Momoko had moved to Texas, which wasn't something he'd thought was possible at all a few years ago, he still had a hard time imagining her doing it straight out of high school.

[heromaniac]

"Probably she went to college?" Momoko let the waiter set the steak in front of her, taking a moment to inhale the wonderful aroma it was giving off. "Mmmm. I mean, straight to college. Instead of the Police Academy first? I almost did."

[weldedtomyspine]

Jaime nodded absently, his attention split between Momoko and dinner.

"Sure, but you would have gone to college back home with your family, right?" That was the part that he sort of didn't get.

[heromaniac]

"Not necessarily. Why would I? Ah. Did I get your steak..." She looked at the piece on her fork. "Or did I forget to ask to it to be done well?"

[weldedtomyspine]

"I thought you'd just finally learned how to eat steak properly," Jaime smirked.

He cocked his head. "Want to ask them to cook it more?" It was Valentine's Day, so he didn't say "ruin it".

[heromaniac]

She totally heard that, Jaime Reyes.

"No thank you," she made a face and stuck her tongue out at him. "I just worried you may be eating yours at an actually safe temperature for human consumption," she teased and then daintily ate the meat.

"It's just a little more rare than I usually ask for; it's fine," she assured him a moment later.

[weldedtomyspine]

"So you are coming around," Jaime grinned, taking a bite of his own food.