Work Text:
The Ex
by Scribe
Everyone looked up in surprise as Jim Ellison and Blair Sandburg entered the Bullpen. "Jim," said Simon, "I told you that you could take as much time off as you needed."
Jim was shrugging out of his coat. "I did. She's buried. Life goes on. Are there donuts in the break room."
"I think so."
"I skipped breakfast, so I'll be in to get cracking on those reports as soon as I'm sure my belly isn't going to rumble." He left the room.
"Blair," said Simon. "I know that Ellison and Carolyn had been separated for some time, but they WERE married, and they DID work together. Should he be here?"
"You know Jim," said Blair, sitting at his desk. "Work is therapy for him. I guess finding out why Carolyn really died helped hasten the recovery."
"How she died?" said Joel. "She was run down by an eighteen wheeler."
Rafe nodded. "We thought at first it might have been some sort of thing against Jim--you know how often that happens."
"Tell me about it," sighed Blair, who had intimate knowledge of the 'loved one used for revenge'.
"But then we found out that it was an accident. Carolyn stepped right out into the road and tried to flag him down. The poor bastard didn't have a chance of stopping in time, and pancaked her. He'd have run over her even if she'd allowed another forty or fifty yards."
"Carolyn never tried to understand anything about trucks," Blair agreed. "No, it's WHY she was out on the road at that time of night that helped him get over it so fast."
Megan was looking thoughtful. "But wasn't that because she had a fight with her current boyfriend, and he told her to get out and walk home? I remember there was some talk about the possibility of a negligent homicide charge, but the DA laughed in the face of whoever it was who suggested it."
"The DA knew Carolyn. He knew how vicious she could be with the men in her life, and that when she got angry her voice was sort of a cross between a harpy's shriek and a police siren. He said that he could only consider the guy putting her out as self defense. Anyway, it was the fighting tactic she was using, the thing that was the final straw for her date, that helped Jim heal so quick. You know how she was with Jim? Nothing about him ever pleased her. He dressed wrong, he wasn't ambitious enough, he was too protective, on and on, ad infinitum, ad nauseum..."
"Yeah, I remember," said Henri. "She used the kind of tactics that would make Gahndi lean toward domestic abuse, but Ellison never lost his cool. Was she doing the same thing to that guy?"
"Nope." Blair smirked. "Jim found out that his ex was giving the guy the 'I should have stayed with my ex because he was better looking, better in bed, better at everything', routine..."
The End