Caught Unawares
Part Three
By Cimerene
cimerene@gci.net

A special thanks you to Cathy for the title, and her wonderful editing job, for without it this story would be chock full of grammar errors and inconsistencies,!! (ok, there are still a few.. but if I left my hands out of it, there wouldn’t be!!)

Spoilers – If you’ve watched everything up to the season finale (1999-2000 season) then you’re covered.!

Review:
John and Kerry were ditched by their respective dates, but for some reason, they don’t seem too terribly unhappy about it.

Smiling at each other, John and Kerry headed towards the door. "Where to now?" John asked. "Do you want to go home, or would you like to go somewhere and talk?"

“How about O’Malley’s?” Kerry asked, mentioning a pub that was just down the street from Kerry’s house.

“You seemed to like it the last time we went there,” She continued.

“Darts?” John exclaimed. “I believe you owe me a rematch!” John said, alluding to the one and only game they played several years earlier.

“Rematch?” Kerry asked lightly, “I think that’s a possibility, unless you’re afraid I’ll beat you?” she grinned slightly at the look on John’s face. For once John truly had no idea what he was in for.

“Dr. Weaver, the last time we played darts was over two years ago, and you had no clue where the board was, much less what to aim for….. I think it’s safe to say I’ve got this game in the bag.” John smirked. If there was one thing he knew he could do, it was playing darts, and judging by their one and only dart game there was no way he was going to loose this one.

“It’s Kerry; we’re not at work you know, and John…” Kerry paused dramatically for several moments before going on, “Never count your chickens before they are hatched.”

With that she opened the door to the pub and entered the smoke filled environment.

O’Malley’s


Kerry squinted, her entire concentration on the board in front of her; ignoring John’s attempts to sidetrack her. So far he’d done everything from making loud and obnoxious noises to accidentally clapping his hands behind her back. Giving him a dirty look, she closed her eyes and threw. Another bullseye.

Smiling slightly, she glanced over to see John watching her instead of the board; hastily, he glanced over at the dart board, then squinted, turned his gaze to Kerry and gave her a hard stare.

“Are you scamming me? Two years ago, you’d never played before. Now, there's no way anyone can get a bullseye six times in a row.” Carter’s exasperation at Kerry’s expertise in darts amused her greatly.

“John, you know the downstairs room you rented from me?” She began, and waited for his nod. “After you moved out, I decided not to rent it any more.” John waited, hoping there was a point to her story.

“Anyway, I moved the furniture out and realized how much empty space was down there...” She paused dramatically, waiting for John’s impatient answer.

“Go on.” He said, slightly exasperated at her story and his inability to figure out what it had to do with Kerry’s excellence in the game of darts.

“Last Christmas Jeannie gave me a present, one I wasn’t expecting. You do know that Jeannie and I still exchange gifts, right?” She raised her eyebrows slightly at him, enjoying the look of impatience on his handsome face.

“Yes….go on,” by now John’s was starting to sound a bit irritated with her so she decided to hurry up and get to the point.

“She gave me a dart board. So, I put it up in the basement…and when I have nothing better to do, I practice. You probably don’t want to play pool with me, either.” She laughed suddenly at the look on his face. It was a mixture of irritation and awe.

“Jeannie gave you a pool table too?”

“No, that I bought myself. I decided that if I was going to be playing darts, I might as well get some use out of that room, and make it into a “real” play room.” Kerry added sheepishly.

John just shook his head before walking over to the dart board and retrieving the darts. As he walked back he told Kerry, in a clear tone of voice, one that half the bar could hear, “Next time we go out, we’re not playing darts!”

A few hours later


“Carter, listen to me carefully, the only way I’m going to get my hands on a Goldstein bond is if I marry someone who has them, and since that’s not a possibility, give it up!” Kerry tapped her beer bottle with her fingernail.

John smiled slightly, then took the empty bottle from Kerry, subconsciously noting the slight electrical current that went through their fingers. He looked up as a young woman walked past their table, hawking roses for a few bucks. Kerry looked up in amusement as John bought one, then stuck it nonchalantly in her empty beer bottle.

“It’s pretty,” Kerry told him softly. “Do you think it will live long out of its environment?”

“I think it will be just fine,” John told her just as quietly, “it should last quite a while.

Kerry looked up from the napkin she had been contemplating. “It might die early you know, it's already past its prime.” The rose, being in full bloom, had the look of a flower that would fade and wither soon.

“If we take good care of it, it might last forever.” John replied quietly, his meaning obvious to her. He watched the blush that came over Kerry’s face.

“I think it’s getting late,” she said nervously, suddenly gathering up her purse and coat. Suddenly scared at the implications that had been laid out before her.

She waited as John’s fingers helped her position the coat correctly, his hands softly moving the hair off the nape of her neck, and then adjusting the collar of her coat. His fingers lingering longer than necessary. For a moment, neither person moved, and the silence seemed to stretch out before them as they gazed into the other's eyes. John finally reached into his pocket and placed some money on the table for a tip.

“We’d better get going,” he softly said.



John leaned against the doorframe of Kerry’s house, watching as Kerry rooted around in her purse for her house keys. He found that his eyes had a tendency to roam more than was socially correct, so he hastily turned his attention back to her face as Kerry found her keys and opened the front door.

The silence that hung between them seemed somehow fragile to Kerry. Almost as if their entire world hung on a delicate balance that depended on the next action said or done. Staring into John’s expressive face, it almost seemed as if his eyes were burning into her soul. Finally, almost hesitatingly, Kerry spoke.

“Thank you for the rose.” She indicated the flower she still held in her small hand. John smiled slightly. He said nothing for several moments, then seemingly almost to make up his mind, he leaned forward and kissed her.

His lips explored hers, tentatively at first, then instinctively deepening their kiss, trying to draw it out as long as possible. He let their kiss come to an end, then attempted to draw away slightly, as if afraid of her reaction. He watched Kerry’s flushed face, her attempts to gain control of her breathing, as if she had just finished running a long race. He could still feel the exact spot on his chest where her small hand was lightly placed.

Kerry said nothing, just stared deeply into his face. She felt his warm skin underneath her fingertips, separated only by the silky material of his shirt. She breathed in the night air, and the crisp freshness of it combined with his cologne was almost too intoxicating.

She could think of a million reasons why they should stop now and go no further. Their age difference briefly flitted through her mind, even their work status, but standing there, with the door wide open and the light spilling outside and the neighbors by now probably gawking, she could think of a million more reasons why they should continue.

John let the silence overcome them, his emotions tonight seemed like a roller coaster ride, first down then surprisingly up. Kerry wasn’t his type. Of this he was overwhelmingly positive. The last thing he should be doing was getting involved with his boss. If he really put some effort into it, he knew he could come up with plenty of reasons for not continuing. But one look at Kerry’s face, seeing the way her dress contoured her body, the feel of her in his arms, and the electrifying way she made him feel, he was positive that this was right.

John leaned forward, tentatively touching Kerry’s cheek, almost as if he was asking permission. He moved closer to her and found that Kerry was meeting him half way. This kiss was different, it was not as tentative as the first, and it enveloped both of them fully. Kerry’s hands instinctively dropped both the rose and her crutch as she embraced John fully. She let her hands roam over his back, in the way she had so wanted to do earlier in the evening. She let the kiss envelop her senses, to flow over her and through her, touching her to her very core.

She found herself using techniques on John that she was sure she had forgotten years ago, her fingertips digging into his shoulders instinctively. As their kiss deepened, and their hands began to take on a life of their own, the simultaneous beeping of pagers could be heard sounding off annoyingly in the distance.