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“How’d it go with your sister?” Eddie asked when Jamie entered their apartment that evening, shrugging out of his jacket and hanging it up on the hook by the door. “You and Danny clear the air with her?”
Jamie nodded, removing his shoes and lining them up neatly by the door. “I think so. We promised not to embarrass her in front of her boss anymore.”
Eddie smirked up at him as he approached the sofa, turning to meet his gaze as he sank down next to her with a heavy sigh. She drew her legs up onto the cushion, then shifted so that she could rest her head against her husband’s chest. She exhaled contently when he immediately wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “And how long do you think that promise will last?” she murmured, voice muffled by the fabric of his shirt.
“For me? Probably the rest of the month. For Danny? Maybe until the end of the week. If that.”
“I think you’re putting too much faith in your brother,” Eddie mumbled, smiling against his shirt when she was jostled by his quiet laughter. “Everything’s okay in the family now, right? We’re not going to dissolve into a screaming match next Sunday?”
“It’s all fine,” Jamie promised, pressing a kiss to the top of her head as his arm tightened around her. “I don’t always agree with my sister…”
“I’ve picked up on that,” Eddie informed him wryly, her eyes drifting shut before she could see him roll his.
“But I know she’s got a job to do, same as us,” Jamie finished pointedly, shaking his head with a wry grin as he glanced down at his wife. “And I know she’s not entirely wrong. We can’t go around stripping the public of their First Amendment rights whenever we want to. It’ll only add to the issues that already exist between the public and the police.”
“Some of those problems are legitimate,” Eddie pointed out quietly, shifting in his embrace. “There are people who’re abusing their power out there; you know that as well as I do. What I also know, though, is that you are not one of them.” She inhaled deeply. “We shouldn’t be above criticism, not when people’s lives are on the line. Not when people’s lives are in our hands. We both know that there are things that need to change.” Jamie nodded, his chin resting atop her head. “But there’s a huge difference between criticism and condemnation, and more than that – Diane Butler condemns the NYPD for not protecting people’s rights, but she didn’t care much about protecting that man’s right to live when she filmed him being shot and then posted it to the internet instead of sharing it with someone capable of getting the shooter off the street. She was only thinking about her story.”
“And she’s going to be allowed to care about her story above all else again and again,” Jamie murmured defeatedly. “Who knows how many more lives she’s going to risk in the process? Who’s to say she’s not going to keep doing this until someone’s eventually killed?”
“Jamie,” Eddie said, shifting so that she could stare up at him. “You got your guy. You got an attempted murderer off the street. You did it the right way, using the law the way it was meant to be used. Today, you won.” She smiled slightly. “I think maybe we should leave the rest of our problems for tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, arm tightening around her shoulders as he buried his face in her hair. “Tomorrow.”