"Alright are there any questions?" Jo asks happily after the talk she just held at the yearly medical innovations conference about her cancer studies. She had been quite surprised as she received the invite to lecture about her research, but more than happy about the opportunity. She had been really stressed about her presentation and had quite some doubts but now as she looks into hundreds of interested and impressed eyes, she feels really good.
"Yeah I have a question. Can I buy you a coffee, Dr. Wilson?" A voice she knows way to well breaks through the silent audience and Jo's thoughts. She tries to stay as calm as she can right now, trying not to show a hundred people what this voice does to her right now. Her mouth immediately goes dry and her hands begin to sweat as she stares into the audience; she tries to find him but quickly turnes back to her laptop.
"Ahm- thank you all for coming and have a nice remaining conference." She quickly ends her presentation without answering any other questions. She really can't do this right now. She thought that this conference would be a good distraction from everything but now he was here.
The room fills with clapping as the light turns back on and everyone starts to leave.
A few minutes later it's just Jo in the big room, packing her stuff together while she tries to comprehend what just happened.
He's here. And she doesn't really know how to feel about it. As much hurt as his voice roused, it also rouse happiness. Happiness; she hadn't felt it in quite a while. To be exact since the day the stupid letter arrived. On this day something broke inside of her. Something that is still broken, but hearing his stupid voice again after this much time, put a few pieces of this broken thing inside of her back in place.
"I always knew you were a freaking genius."
She shivers a little as soon as she hears his voice again. Turning around she watches him slowly coming down the few stairs of the audience. He didn't change at all. The grey in his beard became a little more, but other than that he's still the man she once fell so deeply in love with. Wearing his signature smirk and a little sparkle in his eyes, which she can't quite pinpoint. He's also wearing this stupid old black jacked she was never able to make him get rid of. With his hands in his pockets he's finally reaching her on the stage.
Even thought she tries to fight against it, her heart immediately starts to beat a little faster as soon as she smells his typical scent and his burning eyes on her do the rest. She never imagined what their first meeting would be like after everything that happened; she wasn't even sure if they would ever meet again but she didn't think that it would be like this. But she for sure had expected to hate him more, she had expected the need to punch him in the face; to hurt him just as much as he hurt her. She would really like to hate him but her body has a completely different plan. And before she even knows it her arms are wrapped around his neck and her face buries itself into his jacket, inhaling his scent, quietly enjoying his presence again after so long.
She feels his arms carefully finding their way on her hips, pulling her a little closer, before he buries his face in her hair.
They stand like this for a few minutes, neither of them speaking, enjoying each other's company, like their did so many times throughout their relationship.
Before she starts unwrapping her arms from around his neck she quietly answers his question.
"Yes. Yes you can buy me a coffee."
-
It's been almost five month now since their reunion at the medical innovations conference. Five month in which a lot of things happened. Most important, Alex kept his promise and took her out for coffee. And they talked; for hours. Alex talked about his twins, his job, Kansas, even a little about Izzie.
Jo talked about her reactivated research, her newfound love Gus, her puppy and even a little bit about her feelings.
They talked a lot about their feelings, their hurt, the things that they regret and are sorry about; something they never did through out their relationship. Because they were two stubborn human beings that were way to scared that the other one would leave as soon as they had a bigger fight.
But now they are a little bit older and both frequently seeing a therapist, which let them experience their communication on totally different levels. Not that talking had never came easy between the two, because it did, but now they were able to talk differently with each other; without the fear of losing the other one. Not because they didn't have each other anymore, but because they reconnected on more and deeper levels again.
And they started talking more often. They started calling each other on their lunch breaks, which lead to talking every night before they went to sleep.
After another month it turned into facetiming before bed. Jo met the twins over Facetime and they met Jo's puppy Gus. Which lead to Alex and the twins visiting Jo and Gus in Seattle. They spend a whole week together; went to the zoo, the museum, the cinema, did a lot of fun things together and it actually felt really nice.
After their week together the twins were really sad that they had to leave their new bestfriend Jo again, but Alex assured them that they would see her more often from how on.
-
A few months and a lot of conversations later, Alex started visiting Seattle, with and without kids, more frequently. He stayed with Jo every time he was there. He slept on the couch, they drove to the hospital together and did fun things together just like they used to do when they had been just friends back then. The couch quickly turned into the bed they once shared, and if you know those two at least a little you can imagine that as soon as Alex was sleeping in the bed again there has not been one morning where they didn't wake up in each other's arms. Something both of them secretly missed the most when they weren't with each other. At first they, of course, tried to ignore it but in the end they knew they had to talk about it and what that means for them, so they did. They talked; at first because their talking quickly changed into staring deeply in each other's eyes and then eventually ended with kissing.
Alex had to leave again but the next time he visited they started right where they left off. The kissing became more frequent and soon came as normal as it always has been. And one night kissing wasn't enough anymore and turned into sex. This time they didn't ignore it and immediately talked about what this means for their slowly reforming relationship. They agreed that neither of them could deny it any longer and agreed on trying to make a long distance relationship work.
And they did but soon both of them realized that it was not what they really wanted.
"I miss you."
"I miss you too, Princess. I promise I try to make it this weekend, ok? I know I said that last week too but I promise I'll be there this time." Alex tries to sound as convincing as he could.
"Mmhh. I hope so, I really miss you and I have something to tell you that I don't wanna do over the phone." Jo answers, as she sits on the couch in the loft holding her phone to her ear while she pets Gus, who is contently sleeping on her lap.
"Geez, thanks. Now I really have to keep my promise." Alex jokes sarcastically, which makes Jo laugh.
"That was my intention, jerk." Jo grinnes, knowing that he's wearing a smirk right now too.
Before he can answer their call gets interrupt by a knock against the metall door of the loft.
"Ahm- hang on one second. I think my pizza is here." Jo shares, while she carefully picks Gus up from her lap, which wakes the poor little puppy.
Putting her phone on the coffe table, she quickly takes the change she already laid out and walks to the door, unlocking the locks before she opens it with one strong sweep.
She needs a few seconds to realize who the man in front of her is, but then her shocked face turnes into the biggest grin.
She can't quite believe the sign in front of her. It's Alex with an open pizza carton in his hands, on the top inside of the box you can read 'Homecoming?' in obviously Alex's awfully scrawly handwriting.
As Jo looks from the pizza carton to Alex's face she can see the excitement in his eyes. So he really means what he scribbled on the box.
"Oh my God." Jo gasps, before her already big smile turns even bigger. Without thinking twice and obviously not caring about the open pizza box in Alex hand she gets the one step closer before she jumps into his arms.
They stay like that for a few minutes. As Jo posens her grip around Alex she notices the two big suitcases behind him.
They quickly bring his luggage inside and Alex sits down on the couch. Gus immediately takes up his lap and continues his nap.
"So what's the thing you have to tell me?" Alex asks as Jo puts down plates and something to drink on the coffee table.
Without a word she graps something from her nightstand and places it in Alex's hand as she finally sits down beside him. It's a little grey package with a neatly tied bow on top. Alex carefully undoes the bow, opening the box. A black and white picture with Jo's neatly handwriting on the bottom comes to sign. Alex eyes immediately grow big as he reads the caption under the picture, saying 'Hi daddy.'.
