WRIST JEWELRY

A/N: So I received a PM from SYuuri,while on my blackberry while I was in the hella long bookstore line that asked if I was a Sam/Jules shipper and if so would I be convinced to do a few stories (oneshots). The answer was of course yes to both and once the ideas came I sat down to write them. Got this mofo done in a day. Basically the background behind this was (Good Cop) Jules shows random girl her wrist scar in police van and (A Day In The Life) Jules talks down Jumpy McJumperton by using lame 'my friend' analogy that we all saw through.

WARNING: Themes and mentions of suicide

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Wrist Jewelry

It's the middle of the night and Sam is dead asleep beside her. His breathing is calm, his snoring is loud and his body is taking up at least eighty percent of the bed. She doesn't mind, she's glad that he can find solace. The busiest night of the year didn't tire her out, so she lies on her side facing away from him.

Her left arm props up her pillow and her right arm sprawls out in what very little space she has. She's gotten used to sleeping in an area the size of a coffin. Part of her thinks Sam does it because he's never really had a serious relationship before her and no one's ever taught him the proper etiquette to sharing a bed. Part of her thinks that he does it so she'll have to move closer to him. Sometimes she does. Tonight, Valentine's Day, is not one of those nights.

Through the slivers in the blinds she sees snowflakes lazily tumbling from a dull gray sky. The slant of the blinds mutes the city lights, but still allows for a glowing backdrop due to the moonlight. The light falls over the room covering her fraction of the bed and overexposes her arm until it matches the color of Sam's sheets. Her whole arm is a virtuous white except for what looks like a smudge by her wrist, but she knows better.

She doesn't move, doesn't twitch an arm muscle or a fingertip. She stares at the scar. It also doesn't move or twitch. It won't go away. The scar, the memories, the pain. People say that when they lose a limb they get phantom pains where that limb should be. She get's phantom pains. Sometimes the scar itches. Sometimes when no one is around, she scratches it. She doesn't do that often. It leads her to thinking about how she got the scar. About how she found her mom.

She still doesn't know why her mom did it. There were really no triggers leading up to it. Her mom had always been a little depressed. Had always been withdrawn. She was a cop's wife and then a farmer's wife, neither were very glamorous roles. Factor in living in the prairies and the depression makes sense. Things go on for miles, there's nothing to see. There's nothing in the future, it's all just flat.

Her mom had a part-time job as a payroll clerk at a law firm and worked only three days a week. Her mom was supposed to be at work that day, but had other plans. Jules was supposed to be at school that day, but had other plans. Like mother like daughter.

Jules cut class after lunch; she was in her final year of high school. She could do whatever she wanted. Her birthday was less than a month away, then she would be an adult and not have to put up with her overbearing dad and her somber mom. She'd graduate, take a year off and travel. Maybe go to college for something, she didn't know yet. There was time for that later.

When she pulled into the driveway she didn't see her mom's car, but as soon as she got out of the junker that four brothers demolished before passing on to her, she heard the puttering of an engine and smelt gas. She thought maybe it was her dad bringing in that stupid tractor from the field. He managed to do that every time she had friends over and they made fun of her for it at school.

But when she opened the old barn that they were using as a garage, a whoosh of gas and carbon monoxide escaped from inside and wafted up into the atmosphere. She coughed and cleared away the exhaust from her face. It must have taken her stupid teenage mind a full thirty seconds to realize that it was her mom's Sedan idling in the barn and her mom idling in the car.

She ran to the vehicle and clawed through the haze at the door, but her mom had the audacity to lock it from the inside and left only mere slits open at the top of the window. Jules knocked at the window, and kicked at the door until she started heaving in carbon monoxide. She ended up breaking the window and turning off the car. By then her mom was pale. Not snowflakes dancing in the streetlights pale. Funeral parlor pale.

There was a montage of no pulse, dragging her mom, who was thankfully a petit woman, from the car, performing CPR, calling 911, more CPR, feeling light headed, not hearing sirens, even more CPR and then crying. Just crying on the dirt road driveway on her knees beside her mom who bothered to put on knee high stockings in them and high heels that day. Her stockings had runs in them from Jules dragging her. Her one shoe was in the car, the other was at the entrance to the barn.

The funeral was just two days after that. There was still a shoe at the barn entrance. Three out of four brothers lived in town and the fourth no one really wanted to know about. She still wonders today if Aaron knows their mom is dead.

It was a delightfully white collared affair, the reception was held at their house, which was a mess because, well, her mom had died and no one else tidied. Her dad got drunk on the back porch and it took all three brothers to get him into the bedroom.

She sat on the stairs and didn't move as nieces and nephews giggled unknowingly and ran up and down the orange shag-carpeted steps. One person asked her where the bathroom was. Aunts and uncles and neighbors and people she's never even met offered their condolences and chomped on food that she didn't touch. She hadn't eaten or showered in two days. Her hair still smelled like exhaust and a little like her mom's perfume.

Slowly people filtered out and the house grew quiet. Her eldest brother Robert collected his wife and kids and left without uttering a word to her. Her brother Brian collected his girlfriend and kids and said something generic and pleasant. He wrote his number on a piece of paper and when he handed it to her, it slipped through her fingers and fluttered to the ground.

Her brother Donny, who stood after Aaron but before her on the Callaghan family timeline, sat beside her on the step. He always had problems with the law, she had been caught shoplifting a couple of times, but all the other Callaghan's treated him like the plague. He told her she looked terrible and that she should talk to someone. She didn't answer and he kissed her on the cheek and said he'd be in town for two more days before he moved away.

She doesn't remember if her dad was in the house the next day. If he was, he didn't check on her. She didn't sleep, didn't eat, didn't shower, didn't move from her bed. She just kept thinking of the last thing she said to her mom.

"You're such a drag. You ruin my life."

They were arguing over a field party that all the other kids were going to. Last time the party got raided and Jules got caught drinking underage. She got brought home by a cop and her mom flipped. This time when she wanted to go, her mom said no and Jules broke out into teenage drama.

In a trance, she walked to her parent's bedroom. Her dad must've recovered from his hangover, because the door was ajar and she moved inside to the ensuite. Her mom's toiletries were all in place, still in the country style bathroom. Plaid hand towels, plaid bathmats, rooster pictures. She dug through the wicker basket kept by the clawfoot tub, not really aware of what she was doing but unconsciously she knew. There was a shower brush, a cap, some perfumes and then at the bottom a razor.

Donny found her. He came back to take a few things from the house to pawn for money. Something he told her when she woke up in a hospital bed. He sat with his hands clasped before him, head shaking and eyes red. She thought he was coming down from something. In the other corner was a nurse. An omnipresent nurse, who for Jules' entire recovery, would never give her a moment alone.

Her arm was triple bandaged and tight when she moved it. They had to give her a blood transfusion, something that freaked her out a bit. Sixteen years later she'd have a second one when she got shot. She had to go through some basic physiotherapy for her arm, but since she didn't cut into the tendons, her muscles weren't damaged that bad.

Some of her friends from school came to visit. Some of them were too scared off by what she'd done. Donny visited everyday for at least an hour. He brought magazines or books; they had to be checked first. She also had a therapy appointment two or three times a day. They would waste her time asking her things like 'what color do you like more' or 'which number looks happier'? She had to do ink blot tests and grew to have a strong hatred for psychologists. Her dad didn't visit once.

"Hey," Sam groans beside her. The sheets wrinkle together as he turns towards her. His breath is warm against the skin on her bare shoulder and it gives her goosebumps. "You're still awake?"

"Yeah." She doesn't shift. She just keeps watching the black line maiming her skin in the Valentine moonlight.

Sam wraps a warm arm around her stomach. "Jesus, you're freezing." His hand crinkles the cotton fabric on her tank top and he shuffles over in the bed to rest flush against her. It's a move that allows him to keep the majority of the mattress surface and still cuddle with her.

She doesn't respond verbally, but smiles and holds his arm to her with her left hand. His chin rests on her shoulder and he places a gentle kiss on her skin as they lie in silence. She's still watching her wrist. Bothered, ashamed and assumes that Sam's watching the snow falling outside the window and drifting back to sleep.

But he questions, in a very soft voice, "Are you thinking of her?"

Biting her lower lip, her fingers find their way between his and she nods against the pillow. Her voice is shaky and breaks, "Yeah."

"Hey." He places a hand on her shoulder which gets her to shift towards him. By then she's already crying. His arms envelop her shoulders and she's sobbing into his chest. Full out sobbing, fingers curled, body trembling. She hasn't cried about this, let alone much else in years. She hasn't cried since Lew died.

"I miss her, Sam."

"I know." His fingertips gather the hair away from her face probably so she doesn't suffocate. It's a soothing action that starts to calm her hiccupping sobs. "It's okay to miss her."

She takes deep shaky breathes, she can smell Sam, his cologne, his body and she concentrates on him. "I don't know why I feel like this now."

"Jules, you talked about it today."

"No, I talked about 'my friend'." Sam gives her a half-lidded expression that tells her she should know better. Rule number one is you never lie to a subject. It's not lying; it's just not giving the full truth.

She doesn't want anyone else to know about it in all honestly. No one else on the team knows the truth about the scar or about her mother's death. If Sarge has figured it out, he's kept it to himself. She doesn't talk about her family as much as possible and she's a big fan of long-sleeved shirts. It becomes harder in the summer, but the uniform always covers the scar.

Sam found the scar when they first started dating. They were fooling around in Santorini paint and on old sheets she put down to protect her hardwood floors. He held her wrist and for a moment she thought he was going to cuff her.

"What's this?" She still wonders how people don't know what it is.

"A scar." She recaptured his lips and used nimble fingers to make quick work of his belt buckle.

From the side of his mouth he questioned, "What's it from?"

"Don't want to talk about it." She flung his belt across the room and kissed him harder, hoping that he would drop the subject.

"Why not?" Seriously? Was knowing about the scar more important than getting some?

She ended up getting his attention back and he dropped the subject that day. Then he regurgitated it on several other occasions. Always asking. Always pestering. Always guessing. It ranged from her being in a car accident, to a bank robbery, to a bear attack. He said he wanted to know the surprise ending. Finally he started betting things to see if he could win the opportunity to be told the story. She told him to back off at that point.

Then she got shot. He was there when she got up. He was there throwing out the flowers that reminded her of her mom's funeral. He was there granny-walking with her around the hospital while she wore panda slippers that still turn him on for some odd reason. He was there to purposely pick up the gossip magazines that Sophie brought by and read them aloud to her until she laughed and then he said that's all he wanted.

He was there to move her back into her place and semi-move in with her because she couldn't really take care of herself yet. At that point she wanted out of that hospital so bad she was ready to tie bed sheets together and go out the window. She sat between Sam's knees as he combed through her hair after helping her shower.

"Don't look down."

She straightened her head and sighed, "I feel useless."

"You're not useless. On the bright side; at least you're not at the hospital."

"That's true."

He chuckled, "Why do you hate them so much."

She lifted her arm and showed him the scar, "Because of this."

"Oh." He continued to brush out her hair, which was overly knotty because he'd washed it wrong and she yelled at him the entire time.

She yelled at him the last time he asked about her scar too. Suddenly she felt remorse and guilt, because he was still there picking through her hair after she went all army drill sergeant on him. Her chin almost touched her chest as she contemplated what she was about to do.

"Jules, don't look down."

"I tried to kill myself, Sam."

The brush stopped halfway through the back of her hair and she felt his hands as they hovered over her shoulders and then dropped to his knees. He wasn't saying anything and it was making her feel useless again. "When I was eighteen I found my mom in the garage with her car running. I don't think I ate or slept or did anything for three days. And then I was on my feet and in her bathroom touching the things she was touching while she was thinking about—"

Sam's arms ensconced her lightly around her hips to not upset her wound. He brushed her hair away from the back of her neck and leaned forward and rested his forehead against her back. "Jules," his voice sounded drained.

She glanced over her shoulder as much as she could without feeling pain. "How's that for a surprise ending?"

He ripped his face away from her and shook his head. His eyebrows were furrowed and set. "Jules."

"I'm fine now, Sam." She slipped her hand into his. "I just don't like to talk about it, okay?"

There was a long pause and she could only hear the buzz of her environmentally unfriendly fridge. "Okay." He nodded and placed a kiss on her shoulder. His hands tightened around her hips, and he nuzzled the side of his face against her neck in contemplation. "We'll talk about it when you want to."

When they broke up. He never said a word. She trusted that he wouldn't. Sam was one of those people that even if they weren't seeing eye-to-eye, she would still trust him with her life. When they got back together he'd never mentioned it before this moment. But he did buy her a classy bracelet for Christmas and suggested she wear it on her right wrist. Maybe he thinks she shouldn't be ashamed. It's hard not to harbor regret. It's so obvious what she's done, and what people can tell from one scar.

She's starting to fall asleep, safe and warm in Sam's arms. Thoughts and memories are undulating through her brain like wind through the fields back in The Hat and she's in that place between being awake and unconscious. Sam's still playing with her hair. "I always wondered how she could do that me. How she could put me through all that pain, and grief, and turmoil."

"I know how you feel." He mumbles into her hair.

She snorts and rolls her forehead against his chest as she shakes her head. "Sam, you have no idea what it's like."

"You think I haven't wondered what it would be like if you weren't here? You don't think the idea hasn't kept me awake or from eating?" His voice is a serious whisper and she pictures his blue eyes wide and piercing through the moonlight.

"It was the only choice I thought I had, Sam."

One of his hands unhooks from her back and retrieves her right hand. She won't let it budge at first, but he keeps his hold until she give in and lets him drag the scar back into the light. He places his lips to the marred skin that looks like someone drew on her arm with permanent marker and he kisses the area she cut. "I'm not upset. I'm just sorry you felt that lost."

She touches his cheek, her fingertips slide over stubble already growing back though he shaved just before they went out earlier that night. He holds her hand and kisses her wrist again. Soft lips, hot breath and she feels safe and loved with him probably for the first time since her mom died. He leans down and gives her a short kiss on the lips before they settle back into bed.

"Maybe I'll start wearing the bracelet."

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