Rating: PG
Pairing: CJ/Simon
Spoilers: Everything up to Posse Comitatus
Feedback: Makes my day
Disclaimer: If it was in the show, it's not mine.
Archive: At my site The Band Gazebo (helsinkibaby.ahkay.net) Anywhere else please ask first.
Summary: Simon's thoughts in New York.
Author's Note: Fluffy piece of fluff that came out from somewhere…I know not where, except it had something to do with trying to fit the final line into a fic…thanks to everyone who's sent feedback on my other CJ/Simon stories…Elliott, any time you want to come over and teach my class, my blackboard is now free for you! <g>

You always would have considered yourself a black and white kind of guy. It's something that you're proud of; after all, you're your father's son; that's the way he was, that's the way he raised you. The world was very simple growing up in the Donovan household, the patriarch being a beat cop in Chicago from the age of eighteen until he retired at sixty-five. There were good people in the world and there were bad people in the world, Pop used to say, and his job was to help the good people and stop the bad people, and he was good at his job. It was a job worth doing.

Thus it was that the night before your first day of school, he sat you down on his knee and he told you that there were two kinds of kids in the classroom. Kids who were good and well behaved and listened to the teacher and did as they were told, and kids who didn't. You listened to him with wide eyes, and you nodded your head and you knew from the look on his face that you were expected to be one of the good kids. He told you as much, and you never let him down, not ever. Not for you the cheekiness exhibited by some of your peers, that's not how you were raised. You were a good boy. You acted like it. Even in high school, you never did the whole teenage rebellion thing; never ran wild. You weren't that kind, and you never thought that you were missing out on anything. You were just the kind of person who always followed the rules, didn't colour outside the lines, kept your nose clean and white, didn't scuff your shoes.

When you got older, you realised that Pop might have been exaggerating a little; that the world wasn't quite that black and white, but somewhere deep down, you held on to that little nugget of wisdom. It might not always have been true, but you just couldn't shake that belief.

It's a belief that served you well at West Point, where Pop's philosophy was echoed. There were two kinds of people at West Point, you were all told on your first day, those who would endure, and those who wouldn't. Those who would graduate, and those who wouldn't.

One Sergeant that you met took it further; telling you that there were two ways of doing things, the army way, and the wrong way, and you were strangely reminded of Pop talking to you about starting school.

You did endure, and you did graduate, and you always did things the army way, because that's the kind of guy that you are.

Black and white, no shades of grey.

You didn't prevaricate, you didn't compromise. You did your job, and when you followed in your Pop's footsteps, into the halls of Chicago's finest, where you were forever known as Harry Donovan's boy, they quickly got to know that about you. Some people, mostly supervisors, admired that about you. Other people, mostly beat cops like yourself, didn't as much. They weren't adverse to colouring outside the lines; and if it closed a case quicker, then they were all for it.

But not you. That's not the kind of guy you are.

It got to the point that you weren't sure if your black and white view of things was a personal failing. Maybe you should be more flexible, less stiff about rules and regulations. You tried, but you couldn't keep it up for any length of time. It just wasn't you.

It was when you joined the Secret Service that you realised that the very qualities that had made life as a uniform cop so hard for you were assets when working with the Treasury Department. No asking questions, just following the orders that you were given. Protecting the protectee was all. Nothing else mattered.

Other men might have hesitated before drawing their weapons at Rosslyn, might have panicked, wondered who they were shooting at, who they might have hit. Then, when they found out the identities of the shooters, that they'd taken down a fifteen-year-old kid, they might have felt guilty about it.

Not you though.

You never lost sight of the fact that that fifteen year old kid, some mother's son, bought a gun, drove to Rosslyn with two accomplices, and opened fire on the President of the United States, his entourage, and a crowd of innocent bystanders.

You never lost sight of your job, which was to protect the protectee by taking down the assailant.

You did your job, and you know you killed him.

He may have been fifteen years old, but he was a criminal, and you a Secret Service Agent.

Black and white, with no room for shades of grey.

Then you met her.

You stood in her office and she breezed by you, all anger and attitude, making it clear that she didn't want you there. She thought that she was fine on her own, but you knew better, and attitude or not, there was no way that you were going to let her stop you doing your job. Come hell or high water, you were going to protect her.

That's why you followed her to Helsinki, disregarding her threats to drop kick you out of an escape hatch on Air Force One.

It's why you robbed the spark plug of her car, because you knew she'd insist on driving it.

It's why you were shopping with her, and struck up a conversation with her niece.

But a funny thing happened while you were doing your job.

You got to know her.

And the more you got to know her, the more you got to like her.

Far more than you should.

You know the rules about protector/protectee relationships. You know that you can't date her, or kiss her, or even call her by her first name. But there's something about her, something that draws you to her like a moth to a flame, and for the first time in your life, this black and white guy is thinking in shades of grey, and it's making you crazy.

Because all you've been thinking of for the last couple of days is how she looked in those grey sweats at the shooting range, the look in her eyes when she paid you the compliment you insisted on. The grey of your gun burned your skin that night, shocking you, but the physical shock was nothing compared to the shock that went through your heart when you realised that you could very easily spend the rest of your life trying to get her to compliment you.

Despite what she told you earlier on today, standing in her office, you know, like you know your own name, that she did try to kiss you on the path near her apartment. She was relaxed, smiling, laughing, a night out with her friends having done her the world of good. You stood close enough to her to smell her perfume, your lips were close enough to touch hers, and as the moonlight cast grey leaf-shaped shadows across her face, there was nothing you wanted more than to kiss her. Then you realised who you were, and who she was and you pulled away; the grey shadow of hurt and anger falling across her eyes burning you more than the barrel of the gun that night in the gym.

Ron Butterfield interrupts your thoughts, calls you over and tells you that he might have some news for you soon, and that's when you turn to see her walking out of the theatre, without guards, standing, smiling, talking to the press where any maniac could take a pop at her. She's ignoring your advice for what must be the hundredth time, and so you go up to her, taking her by the arm and steering her down a side street.

She talks to you as if you're amusing her hugely, and all the shades of grey of the last three weeks rise up in your throat, and before you know it, you're shouting at her in frustration. "I have spent my adult life protecting people. You're the first person who's got me seriously thinking about switching sides." Not to mention the first one, the only one, who's ever had you forgetting every rule of thumb you've ever lived with. The only one who makes you see the grey, rather than just the black and white.

Your ire is amusing her too; no doubt she thinks it odd to see you this hot under the collar. She won't have seen you like this before, and you don't think that you've ever felt quite like this before.

When she tells you that she does like you, that she did try to kiss you, you tell her that you're switching sides now, and you don't just mean away from protecting people. Because you're coming to the conclusion that if she does like you, the way that you like her, then you don't care about your job, and you don't care about what's black and what's white.

If she cares about you, you're not walking away.

Except you have to walk away momentarily, because the phone rings, and you have to answer it. She follows you, talking all the while, and you have to ask her to stop, because the voice on the other end of the phone is answering your prayers, and you have to be sure that you're not just imagining this, hearing what you want to hear.

But you're not, and then you get to say the words you've wanted to say for three long weeks.

"They've got him."

Shadows cast grey over her face as she leans in towards you, her lips landing on your cheek, a butterfly landing on a blade of grass. She doesn't move, nor do you, except to move your lips ever so slightly, so that they settle over hers.

Once that happens, there's no longer any black or white, or even grey. Instead, it's as if the world explodes in a sea of technicolour, neon fireworks going off behind your eyes. When you open them again, you're looking right into hers, and you realise then that the fireworks are in her eyes, in her smile, and you like this new world of colour that she's opened up for you.

You want to see more of that world.

You want to see more of her.

So you agree to meet her after the play for a drink, and you watch her walk back down the street to the Presidential entourage that's just arriving, and you can't wait for the play to be over so that your new life can begin. You can't wait to see her again, to hold her again, to kiss her again. You can't wait to tell her how fantastic she looks in that black Vera Wang.

You begin to head back to the field office, because you've got paperwork to do before all this is over, but a thought has taken root in your head, and you can't dismiss it, nor do you want to.

Because fantastic and all as she looks in that black Vera Wang, all you really want to know is how she'd look in a white one.