Rating: PG, SIA fluff
Pairing: CJ/Simon
Spoilers: Vague to the end of season three
Feedback: Makes my day
Disclaimer: If it was in the show, it's not mine, and I'm denying Posse Comitatus completely
Archive: At my site The Band Gazebo (helsinkibaby.ahkay.net) Anywhere else please ask first.
Summary: Simon has a heart to heart with his best friend about his relationship with CJ.
Author's Note: Response to Dee's challenge on the CJ/Simon list - SIA, of course. Simon and CJ have been dating for a few months. Simon has a heart to heart with his best friend about his relationship with CJ.

"Hey."

It was a simple greeting, but then, it was all that was really needed. What, after all, could you possibly say to someone who'd known you your whole life, who knew you inside and out, knew all the good bad and embarrassing moments in your life? Someone who knew you as well as, if not better than you knew yourself. Someone who meant the world to you, but someone you hadn't talked to in a while.

"Hey yourself," came the response. "Haven't seen you around here in a while."

"Well, you know how it is," Simon shrugged, choosing to allow the mild reproach, if that's indeed what it was, to roll off his back. "Things have been busy in DC"

"Yeah." A chuckle accompanied the word, and he knew from that that he'd been forgiven. "Making the streets safe for our political leaders keeps you real busy."

There was an undercurrent, a subtext to the statement that Simon didn't miss. "That's not all that's been keeping me busy," he admitted, shifting on his feet awkwardly.

The chuckle became a full-blown laugh. "Oh, I gathered that much."

Simon looked up to the sky, wondering how he'd got himself into this situation. He really should have known better after all these years. "I wanted to tell you all about her-" he began, but got cut off.

"Is this the part where you tell me that I'm your best friend and you need my advice? Because it doesn't sound any less corny now that you're a grown man you know."

Simon jammed his hands into his pockets and rolled his eyes. "Pop..." he began, but once again got cut off.

"Well, are you gonna tell me about her or not?"

Simon took a deep breath, sending up as he did a quick prayer for tolerance. "Her name is CJ Cregg." He fought back a small smile as he always did when he said her name, because he knew that his father would give him hell over it, but Donovan Senior had other things on his mind.

"CJ? What the hell kind of name is that for a nice girl?"

Some things never changed Simon reflected. No matter what he did with his life, no matter how old he got, to his father he'd always be the little boy who had done a somersault over the handlebars of his bike when he was six years old and almost broke his neck, and did break his two front teeth. "It's a nickname Pop," he explained patiently. "Her name is Claudia Jean but she prefers-."

"Claudia," the older man nodded. "Now that's a nice name. I'm going to call her Claudia."

"She doesn't like it when people call her Claudia-" Simon began, but a loud harrumph stopped him.

"Well, she'll have to get to like it, because I'm not using that ridiculous nickname."

"You're a grumpy old man, you know that?"

"Matter of fact, I do. You gonna tell me some more about your lady friend, or you gonna insult your old man all day?"

Simon pretended to ponder for a moment. "I can do both," he finally announced, dodging a slap deftly.

"Cheeky."

"Yes Sir." Father and son shared a smile. "She works in the White House. She's the Press Secretary."

"What's she like?" His father's voice was quieter now, more serious.

"She's incredible Pop," was Simon's heartfelt response. "She's beautiful...and she's smart...and she's stubborn as a bag of rocks..." He couldn't help but laugh as he remembered the first few days that he'd known CJ, back when she'd been so sure that she didn't need protection, and surer still that she didn't want it. He could still see her in her office when they got back from Helsinki, insisting that she was going to drive herself home. The look on her face when he'd held up her spark plug had been a picture.

"So, she's got a temper then?" Pop knew him well enough to read between the lines.

"Oh, she's got some fire in her all right," Simon acknowledged. "And a heart as big as Texas." He knew that from conversations he'd had with Hogan, where the teenager had told him stories about CJ, ending with a stern warning not to break her aunt's heart. He knew it from the first day that she'd met Anthony, when she'd given him a keychain with the seal of the President on it. Anthony still talked about his mom's face when he'd given it to her.

"She's got eyes that dance when she's teasing me...which is often by the way, she likes to tease me..."

"Sounds like Mom."

"A smile that could melt ice..." And which had melted his heart in a matter of days, but he wasn't going to say that to his father; he'd never be let live it down.

"She's tall...almost six feet..."

"That's not too tall for you?" His father looked him over from top to toe, and Simon shook his head.

"No Pop...she's just right."

Just tall enough that he only had to look down a little to look into her eyes. Just tall enough that he hardly had to bend at all to kiss her. Just tall enough that they could lie side by side in bed, bodies intertwined, fitting together perfectly.

"How long have you been seeing her?"

"Since May." And now it was November; that made it five months. Five months since their first kiss on a street off Broadway; five months since they'd apprehended her stalker. Five months since his craving for a candy bar had been denied by Ron Butterfield's insistence that he finish his paperwork, that he had to have all the loose ends tied up before he even thought about going for that drink with CJ. There had been a smile on Ron's face when he said it, and Simon had laughed and shaken his head, but he'd got the paperwork done, and CJ's laughter over drinks that night had been sweeter than any candy bar could ever hope to be.

"May?" His father's voice was part amused, part serious. "How come we haven't met her before now?"

"She's the White House Press Secretary Pop," Simon reminded him. "They've been a bit busy with the election you know."

"Ah," he nodded. "Well, better late than never I guess."

"Pop, I brought her home for Thanksgiving. You don't think that says something?"

"Oh, I think it says plenty." From the sounds of things, the elder Donovan was enjoying the exasperation creeping into his son's voice. "You serious about her?"

Simon looked at the ground, his shoes, the sky above him, anything but his father's face. "Yes," he finally whispered. "I am very serious about her."

A booming laugh from his father had him looking up in surprise. "Well it's about damn time!" came the response.

Simon blinked in confusion. "Excuse me?"

"I said it's about damn time you settled down with a nice girl. I want grandchildren you know."

"You've got grandkids Pop."

"I want more," came the immediate response. "A man can never have too many grandchildren. Besides, if they're yours, they at least have a chance of growing up polite…not like those little hellions your sister is intent on bringing into the world…" His father's lips were pursed in disgust, and he shook his head. "Don't know where we got her from… her and that no-account husband of hers…" This was familiar territory to Simon, and he knew from experience that the only thing he could do was wait it out. Thankfully, his father saw fit to truncate his usual spiel about the shortcomings of his daughter's mothering skills. "You make sure those kids of your are brought up right, you hear? You and Claudia, you make sure of that."

"Yes Sir."

"Don't you 'Yes Sir' me, you make sure you do it. And tell them to always show-"

"Their mom an expression of love every day." Simon said the words right along with his father, chuckling lightly at the end. "Yes Sir."

"Speaking of, you bring Mom something for Thanksgiving?"

"We have flowers," Simon nodded. "And chocolates. Also some pie from CJ." He left out the story of how Toby had begrudged letting her take the pie.

"Thoughtful of her. I like that."

Father and son were quiet for a long moment then, both of them no doubt thinking of the prospective children, imagining them in their minds eye. Predictably enough, it was the elder man who broke the silence. "She make you happy Simon?"

Once again, Simon had trouble looking his father in the eye. "Yes Sir," he finally managed, finding it hard to speak past the sudden lump in his throat. His father was nodding, hands in his pocket, looking down at the ground, but Simon could just about make out the smile on his face. "I've never met anyone like her," he continued. "She's not just anyone Pop…she's special." He shrugged. "She's my best friend."

"Well, how 'bout that?" his father said, after a second where it looked like he was struggling to master his emotions. "A few minutes ago, I was your best friend."

The lump in his throat grew bigger, and Simon could hardly speak around it. Nonetheless, he got the words out. "You are Pop," he said. "You are."

"I'm sorry to interrupt…"

The words caused Simon to start slightly, and he turned, not having heard her come up behind him. She gave him a small smile, not the full-wattage one that stopped his heart every time, nor anything like it. Instead, it was uncertain, almost tentative. He gave her one the exact same in return and she took a step closer, sliding one arm through his, laying her other hand on top of his arm.

"It's ok," he told her, turning his head towards hers, brushing a kiss across her temple before resting his head against hers. "It's time to go, huh?"

She nodded, making a small noise of assent, and he followed her gaze down, to the slab of black marble, the gold letters winking in the hazy November sunshine, seeing the words as if through her eyes.

Harold Simon Donovan.

1927-1996.

Beloved husband and father.

It didn't seem to be much, not for a life's work. And yet, it was more than enough. From when he was a child, his father had always been the most important person in Simon's life. Even as a teenager, he'd never had that rebellious phase that his friends seemed to have gone through; the phase where both parents, but especially the father, are the enemy. When he'd joined the army, when he'd been with the Chicago P.D. he'd called his family every week, Sunday at 6pm on the dot, and if he hadn't made the call, he had a damn good reason. He'd still made the same call every week since his father had died, but it just wasn't the same.

He missed his father, and now especially, now that he'd found the woman, the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, he missed him more than ever.

He sighed at the thought and felt her hand tighten on his arm. "I wish he could have met you," he breathed. "He would have loved you."

She pulled away from him slightly, smiling up at him. He was struck by the memory of the first time that he'd seen her look at him like that. It had been on a street in New York, just after their first kiss. Then, as now, her smile was shaky, tinged with tears, and one hand reached up to play with the lapel of his coat, smoothing it down. "He was a wonderful man," she told him firmly, patting the lapel twice to emphasise her point.

He tilted his head to the side curiously. "You sound sure of that," he observed, wondering how she could be so confident.

She smiled brighter then, and this time, he could see the tears in her eyes, hear them in her voice when she spoke. "Of course I'm sure you idiot," she told him, and there was no unkindness in her tone. "Look at his son."

It took a moment for her words to register, and when they did, they settled themselves not in his mind, but in his heart, spreading outwards, warming him, bringing a genuine smile to his face. "Thank you," he whispered, leaning forward slightly to meet his lips with hers briefly, then letting his forehead touch hers.

He straightened up after a moment, knowing that she wouldn't have come here, wouldn't have interrupted him, were they not running late. "We'd better go," he said, and she bit her lip, looking from him to the stone and back.

"You told me that if it went later than…I wouldn't have…"

"I know." He laid his hand on top of hers. "Mom's going to be wondering where we are."

"And we can't have me making a bad first impression." She laughed as she said it, but he caught the nerves hiding underneath, and he patted her hand again.

"They're going to love you," he said confidently as they began to move away.

"How do you know?" It was something that he'd said to her often, something that he knew she'd never quite believed.

This time though, he had the answer, and he smiled as he said it, imagining another, older, face smiling too. "Because my Pop told me."

end