Chapter Text
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For her third birthday, Ros Snow had gotten a dentist kit playset and a year later, it was still one of her favorite toys. Her parents and two dogs were more than used to getting their teeth checked a few times a month and tonight, it was Ghost’s turn. He was lying splayed out on his side on the floor in the family room and Ros was kneeling next to him with her dental examination mirror. His eyes were closed but he was very aware of what she was doing. Ros made sure she was gentle as she lifted one of his gums and checked his white canine tooth and the others she could see.
“You have beautiful teeth, Ghost!” She happily let the dog know and he thumped his tail against the floor.
On the couch, Sansa sat with her feet propped up on the coffee table, a paperback book open against her thighs and a large mug of steaming tea in her hand. Next to her, Lady slept, having already had her teeth checkup yesterday. Sansa normally preferred to read nonfiction, always wanting to be current on new anthropological discoveries and theories. But other times, she just wanted to read a mindless romance novel with a guaranteed happy ending. That’s what it was tonight. It was a cold and cloudy night outside. The Snow family had had chicken pot pie for dinner. The kitchen was cleaned up. Ros was in her pajamas. And it was the perfect night for a romance novel she didn’t have to think too hard about.
Sansa turned her head to look over the back of the couch when she heard Jon leave their bedroom and come through the kitchen. She smiled at him. He hadn’t been too sure what to wear. Homicide detectives were more “formal” than other departments and he wore suits and ties every day and starting tonight and for the next week, he was on the night shift. He had just recently transferred from their town’s police station to the county’s Sheriff’s Department and Sansa knew that he was a little nervous. He had absolutely nothing to prove. He had already helped the Sheriff’s Department solve two murders – hence why Sheriff Tormund Giantsbane offered Jon the position of a county-wide detective. It was a large county but outside of the city, it was rural, dotted with small towns and unincorporated villages. When one of those police departments had an incident that was larger or past their expertise of what they could handle, they would ask the Sheriff’s Department for help. And since most of these places very rarely dealt with murders, Jon would come in and take the investigation over. A homicide detective in the city for a few years, Jon was “murder police”, as they called themselves, and he was damn good at it. Tonight was his first official night with the department. He knew he didn’t have to be nervous but it was how anyone would feel going into a new situation.
“Very handsome,” Sansa smiled now at her husband and Jon grinned. She had ironed everything he was wearing – black pants, a blue button-down shirt, a black tie, and black jacket. He had his contacts in and he had his hair pulled back as he usually did when working.
He came around the couch and sat down on the edge of the rocking armchair. “Ros, can you come here?”
“Yep!” The girl left her dental toys on the floor and came hurrying to him. With a smile, she scrambled up to his lap.
“Alright. Now you remember what your mama and I talked with you about?” Jon made sure.
She nodded quickly. “You’re on night shift this week,” Ros informed him.
“That’s right. I’ll be gone tonight while you’re sleeping but I’ll be home tomorrow morning and will get to eat breakfast with you before your mama takes you to preschool. And this will happen all week,” Jon told her.
There were so many reasons as to why he and Sansa came to the final decision to move from the city to live out here and Ros was one of those big reasons. The girl had been too young but she had already showed signs of accepting her daddy never being around. Jon couldn’t have that. He refused to be the kind of parent who missed his child growing up. Moving here and still doing what he did but with a much less demanding schedule had to be done. And even though things were different out here and not a single day went by when he didn’t see his daughter, Jon was still worried that Ros would have some kind of reaction to this week’s different schedule.
“And daddy will be able to eat dinner with us like he did tonight before he has to go to work,” Sansa added, also watching their daughter closely to see how she was understanding this. “You’ll be asleep while he’s gone.”
“Yep!” Ros chirped again with another quick nod. Mama and daddy had already gone over this with her. She looked at Jon and smiled. “Will you catch the bad people?” She then asked him. Ros didn’t completely understand what her daddy did. Jon and Sansa were saving that conversation for when she was just a little bit older but what she did know was that there were bad people who did wrong things and her daddy was the one who caught them so they couldn’t do it again. Sometimes, that took him a long time. When Ros did something bad and she wasn’t supposed to do it, mama or daddy made her stand in a corner, facing the wall. Ros knew her daddy did that but much more serious.
“If there are any to catch, I’m going to try my hardest to get them,” Jon answered.
“You will!” Ros exclaimed with complete confidence like she always did when talking with daddy about bad people. She wrapped her arms around his neck in a hug and squeezed tightly.
Jon hugged her close and kissed her head. “I love you. Go on and finish Ghost’s exam.”
“I love you, too!” Ros slid off his lap and hurried back to Ghost, practically throwing herself down on the floor next to him. The dog was still lying on this side and his eyes were open but he didn’t even lift his head. Both Ghost and Lady were more than used to Ros running, jumping, leaping and falling down around them.
Sansa set her book and cup of tea on the coffee table and stood up from the couch to follow Jon into the mudroom. She watched with a faint smile as he tugged on his coat. She hoped she handled Jon’s night shift this week as well as their daughter was apparently handling it. Sansa had definitely gotten spoiled since they moved out here. She had gotten used to going to bed with Jon and waking up in the morning with Jon. While living in the city, she had very much felt like she was, more times than not, a single mom with Ros because Jon was just always working that much. Out here, it was slower and safer and while Jon loved being able to eat breakfast and dinner with his family and help with Ros’s bath-times and preschool worksheets, soon enough, he was bored out of his mind in terms of his professional career. This was a good move for him. While there weren’t almost a hundred-plus murders yearly out here like in the city and there were, instead, about two dozen per year, if that, solving murders was what Jon did. He needed it and Sansa was happy that he had this opportunity. It wouldn’t be like it used to be for their family. It wouldn’t be and she firmly believed that.
Jon finished bundling up and then looked at his wife. He smiled and Sansa closed the space between them. Her arms wound around his shoulders and his arms circled her middle. He held her close and hugged her tight.
“Lock everything up as soon as I’m gone,” he reminded her. It wasn’t necessary for him to do so but he did it anyway.
“I will,” and Sansa promised. No matter how long they would live out here – the rest of their lives, they both knew – they would never be the sort to keep their doors unlocked at night like so many others who lived out here. Jon and Sansa didn’t care how safe it seemed. They were city born and bred and not locking their doors at night just seemed wacky to them.
They pulled their heads backs and shared a soft kiss.
“I love you,” Jon said as he slowly broke away. He opened the door that led into the garage.
“I love you, too,” Sansa smiled. “And, just in case something happens tonight, book ‘em, Danno.”
Jon grinned at that. “See you tomorrow morning.”
“I’ll make bacon and eggs for breakfast when you get home,” she promised.
And from the family room, Ros was still chattering and examining Ghost’s teeth but even with her parents talking in the mud room, the girl was able to hear one of her favorite words. “BACON!” She shouted out in celebration.
…
The call came a few minutes after one o’clock. Jon had spent the first few hours of his night shift getting his office together and drinking coffee from the breakroom. The Sherriff’s Department had a couple of other detectives who dealt more with robberies. Jon was the only one who had years of experience with homicides. And the three detectives had their own little offices. The front of Jon’s overlooked the department’s bullpen while his one window overlooked the dumpsters in the back of the building but Jon wasn’t going to complain about the view. A window was a window.
He had two framed photographs for his desk next to his computer. One was of him and his mom at one of his basketball games when he was in junior high. Both of Lyanna’s arms were around his shoulders and she was hugging him tight. Her smile was so happy and she looked so proud of him. Jon had a photo album of him with his mom but this one had always been his favorite. After all of these years, he could still feel his mom's happiness. The other picture was of Jon, Sansa, Ros, Ghost and Lady – taken professionally on the front steps of their new house a few months after moving in. Once the frames were in the perfect spots, Jon busied himself on the computer. He honestly has nothing to do until he caught a call. It was truly a fresh start. There were no outstanding cases. Nothing hanging out there that he had to see to. He just had to wait. It was terrible but true. He wouldn’t have anything to do until someone was murdered.
He answered his desk phone on the first ring. “Detective Snow.”
“Sergeant Moore. I’m over in Logan on Covington Court and I have one body for you, Detective.”
“What do we have?”
“We have the suspect in custody already. Apparently, one neighbor shot the other because he kept parking in front of his house instead of in front of his own.”
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the dumbest reason Jon had ever heard for someone killing another. “Alright. I’ll be right there.” He gave the Sergeant his cell number. “Text me the address.”
His first official murder with the Sheriff’s Department and from the sounds of it, it had already been solved.
…
Sansa admitted that when Jon left for work, she spent much of the remaining evening, watching Ros and waiting for her to have a meltdown over Jon leaving. Like Sansa, Ros had gotten used to Jon always being around. Every evening after dinner, Jon was there with them and when Ros was tucked into bed and Sansa read to her, Jon was right there to kiss her good-night. She seemed to understand that Jon was working nights all this week but just because she understood it didn’t mean that she would actually be okay with it.
But Sansa read her book and sipped her tea while Ros finished Ghost’s dental exam. After that, Ros then ran into her bedroom. She ran out a few seconds later with one of her books hugged to her chest and Sansa smiled as she scrambled up onto the couch to sit with her. Together, they read through The Three Bears and after, Sansa told her that it was time for bed.
“Do you want to sleep in my bed tonight?” She asked.
Ros instantly gasped. “Can I?!”
“Of course you can.” Truth be told, Sansa didn’t know if she would be able to sleep alone. She had gotten spoiled with Jon being home at night and both of them going to bed at the same time.
When Sansa woke up the next morning, Ros was still sleeping deeply next to her and Lady was sprawled across the foot of the bed. Ghost wasn’t in the bedroom with them but she wasn’t worried and after Sansa went to the bathroom and then into the kitchen to start brewing coffee, she poked her head into the mud room. Sure enough, Ghost was sleeping on the floor, waiting for Jon to return. Sansa smiled and crouched down next to him. His tail thumped against the floor as she rubbed him behind his ear.
“I know. Night shift is hard on all of us,” she said to the dog, gently and quietly.
Ghost suddenly lifted his head and a moment later, Sansa heard it, too. A car was coming up their driveway and then the garage door was opening. She broke into a smile and exhaled a deep breath. Jon was home again. One night shift down. Four more to go.
…