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Leonard holds her close while she sleeps, savoring the sound of her even breathing and steady heartbeat. When she’s like this, quiet and so utterly vulnerable, Leonard finds himself falling in love again. Awake, Jocelyn is loud, demanding, and in control. He fell in love with her personality more than her looks.
The way she walked into the bar with her friends, clearly supposed to be the “ugly” one, but certainly far from. She wore those white shorts with the tan, leather belt like they were made specifically for her and her thick thighs. Her teal tube top teased Leonard with a few glimpses of that tan skin underneath, and upon seeing there were words on that skin, Leonard decided he needed to find out what they said.
He approached her friends, preparing something slick and clever to get her to fall in love with him, but mentally kicked himself when he realized the best he could come up with was, “I like your ink.”
She gave him a surprised, but curious smile. “Oh yeah? Which part? The one on my hip,” she lifted her shirt for him to get a better look at the phrase (“And the angel spread his wings on the blast and breathed in the face of the foe as he passed”). “Or the one on my back?” She turned and pulled her thick, wavy, black hair to the side to expose another phrase (“In faith there is light enough to see and darkness enough to blind”).
“I like the one that says you should let me buy you a drink,” Leonard tried.
Jocelyn rolled her eyes and scoffed. “Unless you paid for that tattoo, you’re not buying me a drink. Go back to your sleazy friends and try again.”
Leonard was too shocked to be offended, and in a stunned silence, he did as she ordered him, returning to his friends to talk about that black chick that just turned him down. Leonard ignored his friends as they tried to comfort him (“She’s ugly anyways man,” “She’s a bitch,” “She’s a fucking whale, and besides, you know black chicks are all stuck up anyways”).
Leonard finished his drink and tried not to punch all of his friends in their faces. She was not ugly by a longshot, she was not a bitch for rightfully turning him down, and she was not a whale because whales live in the sea and this goddess traversed the earth. And that comment about black chicks?
Leonard rolled his eyes. He knew he was living in the south, but he had expected that kind of thinking to have burned down with the Jimmy Carter Library back in 2188.
He was undiscouraged, so Leonard tried a second approach later in the night when he saw she was alone, watching her friends’ belongings.
“I was admittedly not on my best game earlier,” he said as he sat on the bar stool next to her.
Jocelyn smirked and shook her head. “Well, at least you’re self-aware.”
“I’m also very aware of how you’re not up on the floor dancing.”
“I’m not a dancer, big boy.”
“Darts?”
“Not without a few more shots in me.”
“Pool?”
Jocelyn didn’t take her eyes off the group of girls having fun without her. “I might dabble.”
Leonard leaned close, not enough to be overbearing, but just so that she could hear him better. “Let’s make it interesting.”
Jocelyn’s lip twitched as she raised an eyebrow. “What’s your offer?”
“You win, I do whatever you ask of me. I win, you give me your name and number and let me take you out on a proper date.”
Jocelyn accepted, and to Leonard’s shame, beat him, badly.
Leonard felt all his hopes come crashing down on him as he watched her hook the final ball into a corner pocket with a gleeful giggle. His friends had resorted to taunting him and high-fiving Jocelyn, praising her for beating an unofficial champ at his own game.
Traitors.
“Well, Leonard,” Jocelyn said in a teasing tone. “I guess this means you’ll do whatever I ask of you.”
Leonard bit his lip, but straightened his shoulders and nodded. “At your beck and call, ma’m.”
“Take me on a proper date.”
It took Leonard a moment to realize what she had said, and when he did, he couldn’t resist the smile that swept over his face.
“You got it.”
Jocelyn turns in his arms, slowly waking, and smacks him in the face.
“Stop watching me sleep, you weirdo.”
“Stop being beautiful,” Leonard replies quietly, and kisses her forehead.
Jocelyn chuckles sleepily and smacks him again. “You’re not smooth.”
“You’re right. I’m rough and gruff and tough with stuff,” Leonard growls. He rubs his weeks’ worth of stubble against her neck, pinning her as she laughs and tries to move away from his chin.
“You’re so full of dumb jokes and it’s not even ten!” Jocelyn laughs. “Why did I marry you?”
Leonard presses a kiss to her neck and is silent for a moment.
“Because you wanted to.”
Leonard watches her sleep, but he doesn’t move to touch her. If he touched her, she’d have the police there in under five seconds and his license to practice revoked forever.
There’s a tenseness in her body that Leonard wants to rub out of her, like he used to do. He used to give her massages when she had hard days at work, and now she only gets full body aches when she’s been around him too long.
He grabs the last of his bags and starts to walk out the door.
“Leonard?” Jocelyn’s voice is soft, and Leonard almost swears he didn’t hear it at first.
“Yes?” he asks softly.
She opens her eyes and regards him cautiously, trying to discern if he’s been drinking recently or not (he hasn’t). When she decides to trust her instinct, she gets out of bed and approaches him, slowly. Inside, Leonard wants to sweep her up in a hug and never stop hugging her. He wants to savor every roll of fat on her body, kiss every wrinkles and scar around her face. He wants to play in her hair, now beginning to gray so early.
He stands there instead.
Jocelyn reaches up to hold his face, and there’s something in her eyes that he can’t really understand.
“When you get yourself together and stable, we can talk, okay?”
“Okay,” Leonard breathes through his nose, leaning into her touch.
“I didn’t want it to have to come to this. I really respected you, Leonard.”
“I know.”
“You made your bed, and I know you will lie in it, so do that. And when you wake up, I want you to wash your sheets, get a new mattress, and make it again, okay?”
Leonard feels the tears in his eyes, and he sees Jocelyn’s not far from crying herself.
“I’m not going to apologize for what I’ve said and done, because quite frankly, you deserve every bad thing that has happened so far.”
She’s right. He’s the one who started drinking in excess, he’s the one who began emotionally abusing Jocelyn and Joanna. He’s the one who cheated, he’s the one who lied. He’s the one who punched a hole in the wall in the den because Jocelyn stood up for herself and refused to let him hit her.
“This isn’t you,” Jocelyn says through tears, “And what I need is someone who is going to help me raise my daughter and support me.”
Leonard flinches at how she says my so definitively, as if he has no right to Joanna anymore.
Well, legally speaking, he doesn’t. He doesn’t have legal right to much right now.
“You go to Starfleet, you go get some experience under your belt, and maybe we don’t get back together, but even then, Joanna needs a father, and she needs one who won’t be yelling and drunk all the time. I’ll give you joint custody when I see you’re doing better on your own. You’ve always needed someone else to support you, Leonard, for you to be your best, and I can’t be that. I need you to be able to be amazing on your own, for Joanna’s sake. Your health can’t depend on whether I’m in a bad mood or not.”
Leonard doesn’t say anything, because she’s right. She’s absolutely right, smart, and brilliant. This kind of strong, defined behavior is what he loves about her, what made him love her from the start.
He loves her so much that he’ll leave. She won this game, and he’s agreed to do whatever she asks.
“Yes ma’m,” Leonard says quietly, and gives her hands a squeeze as he pulls away.
There’s anger in his heart, and there’s shock and hurt, and not enough liquor, but Leonard knows he’s got to stop feeling sorry for himself and get it together – if not for Jocelyn, then for Joanna.
Not for anyone else, but for himself.