120 - Master of Negotiations

Jon carefully turned the knob of the master suite, not wanting to awake Sheridan.  It was two in the morning, so he knew she would be sound asleep, but he needed a shower in the worst way.  He planned to duck quietly in and out, then go downstairs and have at least one glass of wine – maybe six.  However much it took to get him sleepy anyway, and then he’d join her in bed. 

It was a big surprising to him, but he’d missed sleeping with her.  He’d gotten oddly accustomed to the way she rolled over and took all the covers with her or plastered herself to his back or over his chest while he slept.  There was nothing wrong with the Four Seasons bed, other than it didn’t have his wife in it.

When he eased the door open, it was to find the lamp on her side of the bed still shining brightly.  Sheridan was propped up on the pillows, her iPad on her belly, fast asleep.  The angle with which she held her neck looked blatantly uncomfortable as her chin dug into her chest and he smiled. 

“Kitten,” he whispered, taking the iPad and placing a light hand on her belly.  “Baby... wake up and change position so you don’t get a crick.”

She snuffled sleepily, unfocused eyes blinking blindly at him for a moment before the corners of her mouth tipped up in a muzzy smile.  “You’re home.”

“I am,” he chuckled, ducking in to buss his lips over her forehead.  “Just gonna grab a shower and I’ll be to bed.”

He could forego the wine tonight.  Her softness could relax him in place of alcohol.

“Mm-kay.”  She rubbed at her right eye as she folded the covers back.  “Babies are doing flip flops on my bladder.  Let me sneak in the bathroom first.”

So he waited for her to do her thing, stripping his clothes away and tossing them somewhere in the general vicinity of the closet hamper. 

Ten minutes later, he was free of dried sweat and hair product, rubbing an open palm over his damp, shaggy locks as he returned to the bed.  Rather than being snuggled down in the bed, however, Sheridan was sitting up and wide awake. 

“How was your flight?” 

“Uneventful.  Why aren’t you asleep?”

Lifting the comforter, he slid his naked body in beside hers, draping a forearm over her waist as he nuzzled into her neck.

“I wanted to talk to you.”  She patted his arm and pulled away so that he didn’t get too comfortable. 

Talk? That could be considered the nastiest of four-letter words when a man and woman were in bed.  In his experience, nothing good had ever come from it and, considering she had stayed up until two in the morning to have this little talk. 

Fuck.  I should’ve gone downstairs for my wine.

“Can this wait until tomorrow?  I’m kind of wiped out.”

“It won’t take long,” she persisted, skating soft fingers down his left bicep.  “Please.”

Like he’d ever had a choice.

“Alright,” he grunted, scooting up to rest his back on the headboard.  “What’s up?”

She lifted his hand, bringing it to settle over the babies.  One or both of them were stirring around, doing gymnastics.  Instinctively he trailed after the phantom movement when it rippled to the other side of her abdomen.  He was momentarily so engaged in ‘playing’ with his children, that her next sentence hit him like a bombshell.

“I want us to drop the civil charges against Beth Miller.”

His eyes snapped up even as his hand continued to seek out the gentle fluttering in her tummy.  “Why the hell would we do that?”

“Because I think the criminal charges are enough.”

“Oh?”  He lifted his left eyebrow curiously as one of the twins rolled under his fingertips.  “Since when?”

 Her hand came from its resting spot on the mattress to cover his, the perpetually red-tipped fingers burrowing between his and folding under his palm.  “Since I went to see her today.  She’s just a-“

“Whoa.  You did what?”  He tried to pull his hand away, but she latched on like a piranha, refusing to let him go.

Wine would’ve definitely been the better choice.

“I know you didn’t want me to –“

“And yet you did anyway.”  The words sounded harsh and cold to his own ears.  “You went into a fucking prison, by yourself, to confront a criminal.”

“Oh for Heaven’s sake, Jon.  She’s a snitch, not a murderer, and Riley went with me.  Just not in the visiting room.”

Her flippant attitude did nothing to appease his growing anger.  “Oh that makes it better!  Jesus Christ, Sheridan!  Prisons are full of every kind of criminal you can imagine.  Drug dealers, killers, abusers…  You have no idea what kind of trouble you could’ve gotten yourself into!”

“If you were so worried about it, you should have gone with me one of the dozen times I asked you to.”

As his temper grew, hers remained annoyingly blasé.  He was typically a little wired after a show, anyway, and this was just ramping up the leftover adrenaline.

“I didn’t want you going there at all!”

“And I wanted to go.  You refused to compromise, so I made alternate arrangements,” she countered stubbornly, her forehead creased with the first signs of peevishness.  His hand was released at last, pushed away with a soft snort of derision.  “Newsflash, sweetie…  Your wants don’t automatically trump mine.  I’m not one of your band members and this marriage isn’t a dictatorship.”

The fuck it isn’t.

He folded his arms over his chest and gave her a modified version of his patented stink eye.  “You’d damn well better believe it’s a dictatorship when it comes to your safety and the safety of my kids.  End of discussion.”

The snort of derision was anything but soft this time.  “Oh please!  The place was crawling with armed guards.  One of them stayed in the room with us the entire time!  Safety was never an issue!”

“If you didn’t think safety was an issue, then why did you take Riley?!”

She spun on her bottom as well as her rounded form would allow, turning to face him head-on instead of being hip-to-hip.  “To SUPPORT me!  I needed answers and she RESPECTED that need instead of ignoring it!”

Jon clamped his jaw shut, his molars automatically grinding with the tension he was repressing.  He wanted to scream at her that she was the world’s biggest dumbass for going into a prison at seven months pregnant – with twins.  His twins.  God only knew what could have happened.  There could’ve been some kind of prisoner revolt, or jailbreak or any other goddamn thing in the world that would put them in danger. 

But he held his tongue. 

Only because there was the tiniest bit of truth in what she said.  He’d known all those times that he brushed off her desire to go see this woman that she hadn’t been appeased.  Whatever justification and argument he came up with to veto the idea, right down to “because I said so”, hadn’t mollified her or changed her mind. 

He’d known that yet ignored it, simply choosing to believe she was going to meekly fall in line with his wishes.  That wasn’t the way his wife rolled and it was part of what he loved about her. 

Even so, he wasn’t going to tolerate her sneaking around. 

“Don’t ever go behind my back and willfully defy me again.”

“Don’t ever declare my wishes completely irrelevant again.”

She matched his terse, no-nonsense tone word-for-clipped-word.   He thought his teeth were sure to have compression cracks from the tight clench of his jaw. 

Do not scream.  Do.  Not.  Scream.

“I mean it, Sheridan.”

“So do I, Jon.”

And there it was.  A Bongiovi standoff, with dogged green eyes never wavering their fix on equally determined blue ones.  She simply wasn’t going to take full responsibility for this any more than he was, but… technically, they didn’t have to. 

“Fine,” he huffed.  “We both screwed up.  I’ll do my best not to let it happen again.  Fair enough?”

Shoulders that had tensed up somewhere in the neighborhood of her ears relaxed a bit and her mouth twisted into a rueful smirk.  “You still started it, but yes, that’s fair.  And I won’t willfully defy you without telling you I’m going to do it.  That’s my compromise.”

He twisted his neck, grateful for the quiet ‘snap’ that relieved a bit of the tension that had mounted there.  Mouth twisting into a similar smirk, he shook his head and dragged her around so that she was pinned against his side, the weight of his arm keeping her tucked into his shoulder.

“What the fuck ever.  Now tell me about the tattle-tale bitch.”

She jabbed him once in the stomach.  “Be nice.  She’s got… problems.”

As Jon settled in to listen with a cynical ear, his wife proceeded to tell him about the woes that prompted Elizabeth Miller to hijack their medical records and sell the information to the highest bidder.   Sure, the woman had some tough waters to navigate, but that didn’t mean she was forced to engage in illegal activity. 

“And I don’t know what she’s going to do with her son when those two years are up,” Sheridan concluded thoughtfully at the end of her tale.  “That really bothers me.”

“You’d better not be fuckin’ suggestin’ that WE pay for it.”

She paused for a moment and he was afraid that’s exactly what she was going to suggestion.  If that were the case, there would be no biting his tongue this time.  They could wake up the neighbors down the road with the screaming for all he cared.  Hell would freeze over – twice – before he’d do anything to benefit that deceitful broad.

“No, of course not,” she finally sighed.  “But I still don’t think any additional good is going to come from our pressing civil charges.  She’s already looking at mandatory criminal charges that are much steeper.  That’s enough.”

 “She did the crime; she deserves to do the time.”

“And she will,” Sheridan insisted.  “Without our help.”

“No.”

“Jon,” she cajoled, running her hand over his stomach.  “Do you remember what Zelda said?  About showing mercy?”

“Oh gawd.  Now we’re bringing the fortune teller into this?” 

She gave one quick tug to the hair on his stomach and he smacked her away as she gave him a scornful look.  “You know that girl saw things that she shouldn’t know, and I think this is what she meant.  The time has come to show mercy, Jon.  Show it.”

It was late.  He was finally getting sleepy, and Jon didn’t want to debate with her tonight.

“Maybe.  I’ll think about it.”

“Mm.  Karma has been very much involved in our life together, don’t you think?”

Now where was she going? 

“Yeah, you know I do.  What’s your point?”

Her chin lifted so she could stare pointedly into his eyes.  “Don’t force Karma to atone for your lack of compassion.  What if one of our babies isn’t picture perfect because you’re intent upon carrying out a pointless vendetta?  Did you think of that?”

Jesus Christ, enough already!

He peered down into her face, trying to read her thoughts.   “If I don’t cave on this, can I expect you to announce your willful defiance?”

Her expression was perfectly still.  She didn’t flinch a muscle when quietly avowing, “Yes.” 

And he knew she would be as good as her word.  She would contact the lawyer directly to dismiss the case if she had to.  There wasn’t a doubt in his mind, because she was that determined.

So maybe he didn’t want to screw with Karma.  So maybe the collegiate conjurer did know things.  So maybe he was just fucking tired and didn’t feel like disagreeing about it anymore.  Whatever the reason, he went against every fiber of his moral being and succumbed to his wife’s wishes.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” he sighed.  “This chick isn’t worth it.  Fine, you win.  If that’s what you want, I’ll call my lawyer tomorrow.”