Title: Forget All Your Technicolor Dreams
Author: cantbesilent
Pairing: JayDee
Category: Pre-series-ish/Drama-lite
Rating: G
Disclaimer: This isn't fic city, fics-r-us, or thousands of fics in one place.
Notes: 756 words written between 2:02 and 2:21am about a little line
in a little episode from season two. Best served cold, with a glass of
milk.

Comments please? Its Christmas after all, and Christmas is the time to
tell people how you feel...

When the radio plays a song that's a little too soft and a little too
lyrical and a little too slow you quickly change the station, because
you hate I-told-you-sos.

"You're making too big a deal out of this," he had said to you as he
threw an aluminum can into the trash. Recycle, you Earth-hating
egomaniac you half said/half thought as you grabbed your purse and
walked away at an achingly slow pace.

He said something else to you but you didn't hear it over the slamming
of the door and the blood that was rushing to your ears.

Your car is currently blinking at you that it needs more gas, and
there's a dry scratching in your throat and the only thing around to
quell it with is the remnants of seven hour-old coffee.

You gulp it down with a grimace.

An idiot, that's what you are. Pick up a thesaurus and look up the
word 'stupid.' Every word that's listed there, every single one,
that's you. Don't try to deny it.

You bite your lip as a pain shoots up your leg. Your ankle hurts a
little more during periods of self-loathing, a phenomenon you've
noticed over this past week.

You drive across a bridge that is perpetually under construction, and
crossing it brings home the frightening realization that soon you'll
be there, and will see him, and have to say something.

Honestly, you're not quite sure that your mind has gotten to this
point yet. Past the slammed door and the clenched jaw and the stinging
tears and the need to get the hell away from The Ridiculous Dumb
Thing. Adrenaline and years of pent up anger have a way of causing
tunnel vision and hasty decisions.

When you left a little while back, when you drove away and went  to
where you shouldn't have been, that was a hasty decision brought on by
something else entirely. Too many movies or perhaps too many long
conversations with your mother, you'll never really know and it
doesn't matter.

You haven't talked to him since you left, and now you're crawling
back, wounded. Literally.

The weather is a convenient excuse, ice and such. Black ice.
Treacherous. So you'll go with that.

The radio has become a nuisance and this certainly doesn't need a
soundtrack. You flip it off.

When you get there you sit in the parking lot for a few minutes,
because there's no rush and no need and maybe he won't even remember
you.

Except maybe he will, cause you seemed to get along, when you got along.

Your hair is too flat, your jacket is too thin, your desperation is
too obvious and he's going to say things. Lots of things. Jokes and
wisecracks and other little tiny movements of muscles and darting of
eyes and pseudo-smiles to help passively convey his devious pleasure
over the entire situation.

You know him enough to know that.

Painful. You hate him. Except that you like him, when you like him.

Its chaos, the very definition of it, when you walk through the halls
towards where he should be or will be at some point today.

Your heart picks up speed by the smallest fraction. You've missed
this. Someone nearly runs you over carrying a stack of charts. You
love this.

He sees you, your eyes catch and you approach him. You can see the
slightest bit of shock in his face, but perhaps there isn't quite
enough shock, like maybe he's been expecting it and you feel a bit
nauseous at the clich‚ of it all.

He's got a piece of paper in one hand, the phone pressed precariously
between his ear and his shoulder. You give him a faint smile.

"Hi," you say, mustering up a confidence that comes with only thinking
about now and not then.

He mumbles something into the receiver and places it harshly back into
the cradle. He rounds the desk and passes you, out the door.

"Thank God," he says, patting you on the shoulder as he makes his way
out of the room. He points to a desk several feet from where they
stood. "That desk, there's a ton of stuff I need you to take care of."

And then he's gone, and you're left with a bag on your shoulder and a
bandage around your ankle and an 'okay then, alright' on your face
because the director just threw out the entire script. And none of it
matters at all.

You go to work.