Retirement Party
Chapter Eight - Interlude A
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Contains: No Y/N (2nd POV but Reader is an OC), Kidnapping, Forcible relocation, Plus-sized Reader/OC, female Reader/OC, John goes to mandated therapy, Manipulation, domestic daydreams, abuse of CIA connections, hey Kate's here!
~3.3k - MDNI - Less of a darkfic at this point, but just be mindful
It’s strange to be back in London.
John still comes here once a week— A staunch refusal to switch to a new therapist, even if it would save him the short flight from Aberdeen Airport every Friday, his whole day eaten away by travel and the hour appointment with Dr. Clara.
He doesn’t like her. She thinks he’s stubborn and resistant.
She’s probably right.
For the first time, he thinks it might be a good idea to switch. Or stop coming in personally, conduct therapy online. Being away from Dalisay bothers him. He doesn’t like that she’s alone in the house. If something happened, he’d be so far away. She’d seen him off, kissed him at the door, said she’d make dinner for when he got back. She wasn’t going anywhere. She didn’t want to. He had to trust her, even if it was a difficult thing to do.
It would probably kill him if he came home to an empty house.
“How have you been, John?” Kate’s voice on the phone sounds worried. He must have been in bad shape when he saw her last week. He hardly remembers. He feels like his old self again, centred, steady.
“Good. Better. Soap introduced me to someone.” Introduced being a generous term for what happened. “She’s been stayin’ with me.”
“You’re seeing someone?” The surprise in her voice is palpable. “John—”
“She’s somethin’ special, Kate. You’d like her.”
Kate hums in a way that implies that she doesn’t believe him. “What’s her name?” she asks, faux-casual. She wants to look Doll up.
“Dalisay Valmorida.” In truth, he wants to know more too. Without any resources, he couldn’t find much. Doll kept her social media private, and snooping through her email hadn’t revealed much of anything either, except lead him to a totally anonymized profile on a kink website that told him that she was interested in submission and ropes (could she be any more perfect?), and had a few pictures of the prettiest tits he’d ever seen. She has a tattoo on her ribs, apparently, floral and intricate, and he wants to drag his teeth over it. Hopes he gets a chance to. “But I’m not worried. She’s a sweetheart, Kate.”
“She’s staying with you?”
“Yeah.” He wracked his brain for something that wouldn’t sound both criminal and insane. "She was living in a bad neighbourhood, and lost her nanny job. Soap—”
Kate makes an amused sound. “Thought you needed looking after, huh?”
“Somethin’ like that. We were in a position to help each other, I s’pose.”
“How long has she been there? You didn’t mention her when I saw you last week.”
“She’s only been there since Friday night. Her place got broken into, we moved up the timeline.”
“There’s something you’re not telling me.”
“Kate, there’s lots of things I’m not telling you.
“John, when you say you’re seeing her…”
“It’s new. It’s nice. I have a good feeling about Doll. I’m trying not to rush things, but you know me.”
“Well. Let’s grab lunch after your session. I’ll see what I can dig up before then. Usual place?”
“Sounds perfect.”
“Alright. See you then.” She hangs up, brusque as ever.
He gets off the tube at the next stop and walks to the low-rise office building his therapist works out of. Greets Brenda that works the front desk, sits in the waiting room. He’s fifteen minutes early, just like always.
He sends Doll a text while he’s waiting, just asking how her morning’s going, and gets a response almost right away, a picture of the puppy they’d gone to see last week. The picture’s blurry, the pup too excited to hold still.
Doll: Mel came by after she dropped the kids off at school. We’re having tea at hers (:
John: Have fun, sweetheart.
His chest loosens a bit. She wasn’t planning on leaving him. She’s making friends with his friends, putting down tentative roots. He didn’t have to worry. He didn’t have to worry. He thinks about talking to Melissa about adopting the little thing. Seeing Doll coo and fuss over a puppy would probably make him act like a fool, but she’s been forgiving about the more honest things he’s said so far.
"John?" Dr. Clara calls him in. "Nice to see you. How was your trip down?"
"Fine. Same as always." John sits in the usual chair, and looks around the room like usual, clocking everything in it's usual space, except the tissue box on the table and a trashcan sitting closer to the chair than it’s usual position. Every other week the appointment just before his is a watery sort of woman, but he had been looking at his phone rather than at the door, letting himself relax enough to not notice the woman leave the room. "How are you?" Its a perfunctory question, going through the motions of politeness.
"Good." Dr. Clara settles into her own chair, notebook out. She's close to his age, beautiful in a cold, precise sort of way. Thin, a perfectly straight razor sharp bob framing her face. "Who were you texting?" she asks.
This throws off their rhythm. Usually she starts by asking if he'd done any of the journaling she asked him to do (he never did), and then if he'd gone down to the local legion to connect with other veterans (he hadn't).
"I— She's a friend. Of Soap's. Stayin' with me for a bit. String of bad luck, poor thing, lost her job and her apartment got broken into in the same week." The half truth comes more easily the second time. "She was really shook up."
"And you don't find the introduction of a new person into your routine disruptive?"
John frowns. "I think her comin’ along was disruptive in a good way. I needed to change some things around."
Dr. Clara raises her eyebrows. "Oh?"
"Eatin' better. Couldn't be arsed to cook just for me, but I'm gettin' three squares a day now. Haven't had a drink since Saturday. She likes a cuppa around the same time I'd usually have a night cap. Sleepin' a bit better." He bites back a smile. "The other day, I was workin' outside while she painted-- She's an artist, and a bloody good one— and she reminded me to rest my ankle. Still gets sore when I push too hard."
"Tell me more about her."
"We're still getting to know each other, but she's sweet. Patient. Not afraid to tell me what she thinks."
"Why would she be afraid?"
"I can be… well, you know how I can be. And she's just a soft little thing. Wouldn't blame her if she was nervous." John shrugged. "She's beautiful too.. Brightens up the whole room when she smiles. And funny. Makes clever comments. And has this way of celebrating moments for no reason at all. Had me spinnin' around in the rain the other day. Thinkin' about gettin' her a puppy."
Dr. Clara taps the end of her pencil on her notepad, clearly conflicted. This is the most John's spoken in a session without her having to pull it out of him word by word, but… "A puppy? John don't you think that might not be an appropriate gift for a woman you've known for, um…" she looks at him expectantly, waiting for him to fill in the gap.
"Well. A week," John admits. "But we've got a real connection. Something special."
"Is she planning on staying with you long term?"
"She might. I'd like her to."
"So you have intense feelings for a woman you don't know, and all your short-lived progress is based on her presence, is that what you're saying?"
John's eyes narrow. Of course it sounds crazy to her. She doesn't know Dalisay. "I know her."
"Do you? You met her just a week ago, John." Dr. Clara sighs. "Do you think maybe you see winning her over as a mission? That you're returning to that rigid military mindset that brought you to me in the first place?"
John shakes his head. "It wasn't the military mindset that brought me here. It was those damn pills."
"John—"
"No, I know what you're going to say. Don't bother."
“John. If you know what I’m about to say, I’d like to hear you say it.”
He huffs, and looks away, drumming his fingers against the arm of the chair. It’s hard to meet her steely gaze for long. He doesn’t like being scrutinized, and that’s all these sessions are. "You'd usually say something like, almost losing Soap led me to take risks I shouldn't've, that I blame myself for his injury, that the stress of trying to make sure my team never got hurt in a field where getting hurt is inevitable put me under tremendous stress, and that my own injury left me with nothing but time to contemplate my guilt. The pain killers were a way to turn the feelings off."
Dr. Clara nods, a wry smile tugging at her lips. "So you do listen."
"I don't see what this has to do with Dalisay."
She gives him a pitying look over her reading glasses. "You don't give yourself room to make mistakes, John. That inflexibility is the problem. If you build good habits on someone else's foundations, what happens if they leave? You'll be right back where you started."
“You’re so sure she’ll leave?”
Dr. Clara sets her notebook down in her lap and leans forward, hands clasped together. “It’s not about her, John. It’s about you. You are worth doing this work for. You have to be able to stand on your own two feet. People are fallible. Things happen, we lose people we care about. It’s part of living. The only person you can’t live without is John Price.”
He crosses his arms. “You told me I needed to make connections with other people.”
“I did. And you still should. But this is not what I meant and you damn well know it. Jumping into a relationship when you’re still struggling like this is not going to be healthy. You’re headed for codependency at best. If you really care about this woman, you need to consider what she needs too. If she told you she was seeing a veteran that struggles with substance abuse, that turns any negative feelings into anger, that can’t compromise or be flexible, that needs to be in control—”
“I get it. I’d tell her she deserves better.”
“So be better, John. Start with the journal. Actually buy one before you go home. There’s a stationary shop down around the corner.”
He snorts. “You get a commission for sending your patients there?”
“Yes, John, you’ve unearthed my diabolical plot. I’m in cahoots with the stationary store,” she says dryly. “It doesn’t matter where you buy the damn journal from. Write your feelings on the back of a receipt for all I care. Just try. If all you write down every day is that you hate that I’m making you do it, that’s still progress.”
“Alright, alright.” He supposes he can cede a little ground. Dr. Clara has been going on about that since their first session, so maybe there’s something to it.
He finds himself walking into the stationary store and breathing in the scent of paper and ink and glue. It reminds him of Doll’s art store. He wonders if she’d like a place like this. Probably. She’d probably tell him to listen to Dr. Clara too.
Running his fingers over the spines of the shelf of journals, he stops at one with a soft leather cover. He pulls it down and thumbs through the pages. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for exactly, but it has lines and a spot for the date at the top of each page, so that’s probably good enough. The man at the counter asks if he needs a pen too, and he glances at the one the man’s holding, a fountain pen with a shiny wood-grain finish, and swallows the no that nearly leaves his tongue.
“Sure. Yeah.”
He meets Kate at a pub not far from the London base. She’s still working, of course, just like he should be, but unlike him, she didn’t have a breakdown that cost him everything. When things happen that Kate can’t handle, she can beak down privately, and her wife puts her back together, better than new. He’s been envious of that for a long time, of that stability that Kate gets to come home to.
She’s working on something, tapping away at her phone when he settles across from her, but she glances up and gives him an apologetic smile. “Hey, John. Just give me a second, I have to finish replying to this email.”
He just nods, used to this. Kate’s always in the middle of something. He waits patiently while she works, and quietly orders a tea when the server comes around to ask.
He doesn't miss the questioning look from Kate. She sets her phone down and really studies him, eyes narrowed.
"What?" He asked.
"We've gotten together for lunch almost every week for the past year, and this is the first time you haven't ordered a beer."
"Don't feel like having one."
"You're sleeping better too. You look good, John."
He couldn't deny that he felt better. More like himself. Settled in his skin, engines rumbling, ready for anything. "I guess Doll's been a good influence. You looked her up?"
"I did. Not much of a presence online. Found an old art blog that she hasn't updated for years, has a couple of very sparse social media accounts. Was two years into a fine arts degree from Manchester university when she switched to english lit. Worked part time as an educational assistant in an elementary school, and then started working for Kevin and Isla Kinsey five years ago."
"That's it?" He's not sure if that's a relief or a disappointment. He knows most of that already.
"No. She's had some involvement in anti-war groups, nothing major, but I pulled that thread all the way to the terrorist attack on Piccadilly Circus back in 2019. Her parents were both killed."
"Huh." That explained a lot.
"Michelle actually knows her. She curated a show that Angela— her mother— was featured in. That's why they were in London in the first place."
"Christ. No wonder she dropped painting for so long."
"Has she picked it back up? She should call Michelle once she's put a few things together. She has what Michelle calls a compelling story."
"I'll let her know." He sighs. "Anything else?"
"She's an only child, but there’s lots of family in the Philippines, a grandmother in Aberdeen. A few cousins in Canada and the states. Pretty much all clean, keep out of trouble types. There's not much more I can tell you from my end, unless you want me digging through the filing cabinet at her old therapist's office. Old school, offline records." Kate shrugs. "I could. But I think you'd be better off just talking to her."
"Probably. Thanks, Kate. Kinda had it in my head that she was too good to be true." John flashes a smile at the server when she brings him his tea, and orders a salad, which really has Kate looking at him like he's mad.
"You keep this up, you could come back to work," she says. "You just need Clara to sign off on you. Which means consistency."
"Yeah. I'm tryin' her journal idea. Not sure that I'd go back anyway. Maybe it was just time." A few weeks ago, he would be chomping at the bit to go back. But now that there’s something else to give him some purpose, he’s not sure he wants to.
"Up to you. You're not there yet anyway. Now, I want to hear about this girl from your side." Kate picks up her soda (always diet, always something caffeinated) and gives him a pointed look.
He talks about Doll for a bit, gets a bit more work talk out of Kate, and when they part ways, they tentatively talk about Kate and Michelle coming up to meet her before long. It’s a nice thought. He'd like to get the lads back up too, but Kate’s a safer bet to start. Doll might forgive the boys if they grovel enough, and if things are looking promising between her and John. It's always easier to justify an overstep if the results are ultimately positive, so he has to make sure that Dalisay is happy and settled before he considers it.
It'll be a tough road if she doesn't want to reconcile with them. Not impossible, but he wants all of his people to get along. He wants his kids to know the men that have stood by him for all these years.
He sends a few texts to Dalisay, but there’s no response. He spends the short flight rationalizing why she might not have noticed her phone. Maybe she’d left it in her purse when she got back from Mel’s, or let the battery run out. She wouldn’t leave without telling him. She wouldn’t.
By the time he gets to his truck, he’s convinced that something’s happened.
He makes the hour drive back in forty minutes, parks erratically, and runs for the house, gravel sliding under his feet, his ankle twinging.
He tumbles through the door, half expecting a disaster, a crime scene, and instead sees something out of his most revisited domestic daydreams, set to some bouncy sort of pop music.
Dalisay is leaning over the stove, hips moving to the music, wearing a pretty floral skirt, socks pulled up over her thick calves to the knee, her feet sliding on the tiles as she moves. Her soft dark hair is up in a messy bun, a pencil and a paintbrush stuck through it. The whole house smells amazing, whatever she has cooking sure to be well worth the light lunch. There's a painting started on a canvas set up in the living room, just a soft gradient of blue and gold. And best of all, when she does a little spin and notices him at last, she beams at him. "John! You're home!"
"I am," he agrees, grinning back when she throws herself into his arms, squeezing him tight around the middle. He wraps his own arms around her shoulders, relishing the press of her soft little body against his. "How was your day, Doll?"
"It was really nice! I had a good time chatting with Mel, and I made dinner. And dessert even." She doesn't make any move to pull away, just looks up at him, pretty dark eyes fixed on his face. There’s an echo of relief in her eyes too, like she had been as worried about him, as he had been about her. "I'm glad you're home safe. You really go all the way down to London every week?"
He nodded. "I could change doctors, but I get lunch with a friend while I'm there— Kate. You'd like her. Maybe, once you're settled in a bit more, we could invite her and her wife up for dinner."
"Oh, that would be nice. So long as she's more sane than the friends I've met so far."
"Considerably. Can I kiss you hello?"
She hummed, as though she were considering it, although the laughing look in her eye said yes long before she gave a verbal affirmation.
He's the luckiest man in the world, he thinks as he leans down to kiss her soft lips.
Things are looking up. Things are good. And it's all thanks to to her.
He's going to make her the happiest woman in the entire world. She deserves nothing less. She deserves his best too, and he’s determined to be a better man than he has been in a long while.
She breaks the kiss by dropping her heels back to the floor. “Are you hungry? Dinner’s almost ready. We have time for a cup of tea first, if you’d like.”
“Sounds perfect.”
Image Credits: Banner - Banner Background - Dividers by @/cafekitsune
