Part One
His first overwhelming instinct was to rush over and swoop her up into his arms and just hold her, she was back, finally she was back. And she had come to the station straight away. To see him? 'Wishful thinking Jim' he thought to himself. In the shadows of the darken office, he watched as she opened the door and glided in, his stomach flipped like he was a school boy seeing his first crush. He resisted his overwhelming urge to run to her and so, just watched her, that body, that had brought him so much pleasure, those lips, that he had kissed, and those eyes, those eyes that he had made cry.
June hadn't noticed him at first, she had wondered through the doors of CSU, and looked around, familiarising herself with the place again, she noted how untidy the office was. She walked slowly over to her desk, which was covered with work and that's when she saw him. She had jumped slightly, unsure of who it was, but then as her eyes focused, she realised it was Jim sitting on his chair over by the window, and he had been watching her every move.
"Jim, you gave me a start" June said as she regained composure and broke into a smile.
"What are you doing here?" Jim asked smiling
"I could ask you the same question, I thought everyone would have gone home hours ago," she said walking closer to him, "Me, I guess I just wanted to see if the place was still standing"
"We just about survived without you, I had some work to catch up on, so I thought I'd better get it up to date before the boss gets back, but" he said still smiling as he got up and walked towards her.
He scanned her body from bottom to top, again, she was glowing, she was beautiful shade of golden brown, still in her holiday clothes, he noted she was wearing a shorter skirt that usual, but it showed off her legs, which he found hard to keep his eyes away from till he moved his view higher and caught sight of her cleavage in a very low cut top. 'Oh boy did she look good'.
"You look really well, a holiday was obviously what you needed" Jim said as he swallowed hard and his vision finally reached her face, he stood so close to her now, he could smell her perfume.
"Well I definitely feel better for it" she said sighing happily
"It must be a pain for you to come back," he said locking eyes with hers
"No, not really, I was actually surprised by how much I missed this place" June replied never taking her eyes from him.
"Yeah, well, as you can see, it's missed you, the place is a bit worst for wear, it's been pretty hectic over the past few weeks what with one thing and another, we were gonna tidy it in the morning before you came in, but you've sprung us" he said breaking eye contact and looking around the room.
"Yeah I was devastated to hear about Matt, I read it in a paper, somewhere near Rome, I think" June said solemnly looking down.
"Yeah it was a shock to all of us, and his little granddaughter, she's been put into care" Jim said
"God love her, I was sorry not to get back in time for the funeral, did it go okay, I mean, as well as it could?"
"Yeah it was okay, you know, that type of thing doesn't get any easier, when you bury a colleague" Jim looked to the floor.
"No, I know, so how have you been?" she said changing the subject.
"You mean have I been drinking?" Jim looked at her, and looked down and shook his head, immediately regretting what he'd said.
"No that's not what I meant" she looked so serious and slightly hurt at his question, as she answered nodding her head.
"I'm sorry, that was uncalled for, me, I've been good, keeping busy," he said nodding
"Good, glad to here it" June nodded back.
The two of them stood locked in a gaze, in an awkward silence for what felt like and eternity.
"I should get going" June said finally breaking away.
"Yeah of course" he shifted his eyes, realising he was staring, "Well, I'll see you tomorrow then?"
"See you then" she said softly as she started out of the room.
"June" Jim suddenly called out.
She turned to him
"What?"
"I...I'm glad your back" he fell over his words.
In a flash she was gone, 'What an idiot' he thought to himself. All this time that she had been gone he had realised just exactly how much he loved her. His reasons for ending things with her had been so powerful at the time, but then Joanna Sharpe had been found and Matt's sudden death had really made him take stock of his life and really made him see that you have to live every moment to the full. He had made up his mind he wanted her back; he just needed to know if she felt the same.
June sat in the cab all the way back to her house with a mixture of feelings circulating around her head. She had seen the way he was looking at her, but she didn't know if she should read anything into it because he had seemed really ill at ease with her, but then ex's usually are. Doubts plagued her mind, the break had done her the world of good, it had given her the chance to think, maybe it gave her too much time to think. Had she been too hasty in letting him go? Or had tonight's little interchange finally made her realise it was well and truly over?
The taxi had taken a surprisingly long time to reach it's destination, she thought perhaps the driver had taken the long road on purpose to get more money out of her, but as she had not been paying attention, she paid him non the less and got out of the cab at her house and he drove away. She fumbled in her bag for her keys as she walked to the front door not really paying much attention to the path ahead, when she heard someone move in front of her, and she froze.
"You took your time getting here" came Jim's voice as he stepped out of the darkness of her doorway.
She was visible stunned and stood there, gob smacked staring at him
"But then" he began as he started towards her "It's taken me a long time to get here too, and when I say here, I mean to you"
He stopped directly in front of her, and looked deep into her eyes.
"What I should have said before is that, I love you and I have missed you more than I thought it was possible to miss anyone. And I know I hurt you, and please believe me, I'm not proud of how I treated you, but everything just clouded over me and I couldn't think straight. I thought I was doing you a favour, saving you pain, instead I caused you so much more and I thought that it would be easy for us to get back the friendship that we had before and forget about the last year, but I.....I couldn't, I can't and I don't want to". He shifted on his feet and put his hands on the sides of her arms.
"June, I will probably never be able to make it all up to you, but if you give me a chance, I'll spend the rest of our lives trying"
Jim studied June's face, her gaze still fixed on him, her eyes now glazed over with tears.
"What'd you say, will you give me another chance? Will you give us another chance?" Jim looked at her with questining eyes.
TO BE CONTINUED